The Reverse of the Medal (34 page)

'I have arranged your passage to Halifax in the Eurydice,' said Stephen. 'You will have to be aboard before Monday, and you will travel as the captain's guest.

He is a close friend of Captain Aubrey's. I have let it be understood that you are or have been to some degree attached to Hartwell, but I do most earnestly advise you to stay in your cabin on the plea of sea-sickness and to speak very little. Here is a note that will introduce you to the ship. You will see that I have retained the name of Duhamel.'

'Upon the whole I prefer it: one complication the less,' said Duhamel, taking the note. 'I am very grateful to you, Maturin; I believe you will not regret it.' He looked round the room. At the far end an aged member was poring over the Parliamentary Debates with a reading-glass.

'You may speak quite freely,' said Stephen. 'The gentleman is a bishop, an Anglican bishop; and he is deaf.'

'Ah, an Anglican bishop,' said Duhamel. 'Quite so. I am glad we are in this particular room' he added, looking out into the street. He collected himself and said 'How shall I begin my account? Names, names- that is one of the difficulties. I am not sure of the names of the three men I mean to tell you about. My correspondent here in London used the name of Palmer, but it was not his own and although he was a remarkably gifted agent in many ways he betrayed himself in this; he did not always respond at once or naturally to his nom de guerre. The name of the second man will be familiar to you: it is Wray, Andrew. For a considerable time I knew him as Mr Grey, but he is not a good agent and after a while, getting drunk, he gave himself away. He is not a good agent at all, and really, Maturin, I wonder you did not detect him in Malta.'

Stephen bowed his head as the light came flooding in, blinding humiliatingly obvious. 'I could hardly expect you to employ such a flashy, unreliable fellow,' he muttered.

'He is not without real abilities,' said Duhamel, 'but it is true, he is emotional and timid; he has no bottom and he would not only crack at the first severe interrogation but he is liable to betray himself without any interrogation at all. We should never have gone any distance with him if it had not been for his friend, the third man, whom I know only as Mr Smith, a very highly-placed man indeed-his reports were fairly worshipped in the rue Villars.'

'More highly-placed than Wray?'

'Oh yes. And of much greater force of mind: when you see them together it is like master and pupil. A hard man, too.' Duhamel looked at his watch. 'I must be brief,' he said. 'However, although Smith has great abilities and Wray enough to get himself a name, they are both poor, expensive, and given to very high play; and although they are both nominally and I believe genuinely volunteers they arc both constantly asking for money. After the reorganization in the rue Villars, supplies were very much reduced. They sent appeal after appeal, each more pressing, but they were told that their recent information had been insufficient in quantity and quality, which was true. They replied that in another few weeks Sir Joseph Blaine would be finally disposed of, that they would then have full access to the Committee and that their information would be of the greatest possible value.' Duhamel looked at his watch once more and held it to his ear. 'In the meantime they mounted the Stock Exchange fraud.'

Although he felt Duhamel's piercing eye upon him, Stephen could not entirely conceal his emotion; his heart was beating so that he felt its pulsation strong in his throat, and then again he was most deeply shocked at his dull stupidity - the whole thing was so evident. He said, 'You seem preoccupied by the time.'

'Yes,' said Duhamel, shifting his chair nearer to the window. 'Of course, I am sorry that your friend was put to such distress, but apart from that, the objective observer must confess that the affair was neatly handled. You may say that given the exact knowledge of Captain Aubrey's movements and of his father's connexions, together with the possession of an agent as capable as Palmer, the thing was simple; but that would be shallow reasoning .Maturin, you will not be offended if perhaps I run out in a few minutes and return somewhat later?'

'Never in life,' said Stephen.

'At one time I thought they had succeeded entirely, and although of course they could not make much money without betraying themselves, they did clear enough for their most pressing debts.'

'That was when Wray paid what he owed me,' reflected Stephen, his shame renewed.

'But that did not suffice,' said Duhamel, 'and they made two other proposals: the first, that some surprisingly large bills should be negotiated on the northern market, and the second, that you should be handed over at Lorient. The proposal about the bills was either declined or withdrawn. I am not sure which; and you were not delivered. Lucan was extremely angry - he had gone down to Brittany himself - and he cut off even the monthly grant. They are now in a very bad way and they have prepared what they assert is an unusually valuable report.' Once again Duhamel looked at his watch. He went on, 'Palmer told me about the Stock Exchange business in great detail when we were fishing in a stream not far from Hartwell. He was a man you would have liked, Maturin: he could make a kingfisher perch on his hand. He had all sorts of qualities. But that was the last time I ever saw him. A very large reward was offered - the chase became too hot- and so they killed him, in case he should be discovered or betrayed. They did not ship him away; they killed him or had him killed. That I could not possibly forgive. It was merely criminal.'

'Duhamel,' said Stephen in a low voice, moving his chair closer, so that it almost touched the glass of the window, 'can you give me any tangible, concrete proof?'

'No,' said Duhamel. 'Not at present. But I hope I shall be able to do so in five minutes' time.' He went on talking about Palmer, a man he had evidently loved dearly; but his words came somewhat at random. They stopped in mid-sentence: he caught up his packet, said 'Forgive me, Maturin. Watch, watch at the window,' and hurried from the room.

Stephen saw him appear on the pavement below, turn left, walk fast up towards Piccadilly, cross at great hazard among the carriages, and stroll down on the other side of the street towards St James's Park. Almost opposite Stephen's window, at the height of Button's club, he paused and looked at his watch again, as though he were waiting for someone. Stephen's eye ran down the street, and among the people walking up from the park and Whitehall he saw Wray and his taller, older friend Ledward, arm in arm. They disengaged themselves to take off their hats as Duhamel approached and all three stood there talking for a few moments: then Ledward gave Duhamel an envelope in exchange for the packet and they parted, the two going into Button's and Duhamel, not without a slight glance at Stephen's window, back towards Piccadilly.

Stephen ran downstairs, seized pen and paper at the porter's desk, wrote fast, and cried 'Charles, Charles, pray send a lad with this to Sir Joseph Blaine's in Shepherd Market haste post-haste - there is not a moment to be lost.'

'Why, sir,' said the hall-porter, smiling at him, 'never fret yourself about haste post-haste: here is Sir Joseph himself, coming up the Steps, a-leaning on Colonel Warren's arm.'

The End

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