ore, yes. I must allow I had not thought of that, harumph.'
Well, damme! Lewrie chortled in silence.
'All good reasons to squash this pestiferous League of the North as soon as possible,' Twigg added, after another sip of his brandy.
'West to east, sir,' Lewrie said, smiling, and crossing his legs with ankle upon knee. 'The ice melts at Copenhagen first, and Karlskrona in Sweden, second. The Russian ports of Reval and Kronstadt thaw last, so… we should engage them in like order, as I'm sure that Admiral Nelson has already considered.'
'You impress me, Lewrie,' Twigg said in genuine wonder (or what passed for it, at least). 'It would seem that you have not squandered your free time ashore in idle pleasures… not completely, hmm? You are, quite implausibly, still alive, despite running into the lovely Durschenko mort… her well-armed and tetchy father, more to the point.'
'She seems t'be as well informed of my daily whereabouts as you seem t'be, Mister Twigg,' Lewrie answered, shifting uneasily, changing one leg to cross for another. 'She knows I'm married, since Cape Town, and went nose- high and disdainful of me for it, yet…' He shrugged.
'And the equally entrancing Widow Theoni Kavares Connor, she of the currant trade fortune,' Twigg drawled with a simper. 'Oh, yayss.'
He took a deep sip of brandy, smiling, and, for such an imperious fellow, almost mellowing to a soft chuckle of amusement. 'I'm told that she, rather uncannily, is present wherever you go, as well, Lewrie.'
'As good an intelligence service as yours, I expect,' Lewrie said, rather morosely, and took time to sip his drink.
'And, upon that head, I have news which shall astound you,' Mr. Twigg mysteriously imparted in a harsh whisper, leaning closer. 'Ah! Hudgins, my dear fellow… is our table ready?'
'It is, Mister Twigg,' the dignified major-domo assured Twigg. 'The one you requested, in the alcoves, for privacy. You gentlemen are ready to dine?'
'Yes, let us repair to our dinner,' Twigg decided, rising with the sudden, leggy spring a very large and lean grasshopper might flex. 'I would have requested you dine me in at the Madeira Club, Lewrie… though I doubt you would wish my discovery revealed on your home ground. Good as the kitchen is at the Madeira, as excellent as are its wine cellars, still… it has become a rather dull establishment.'
A-bloody-men! Lewrie thought.
'Oh, good enough when first started,' Twigg allowed, 'when the squirearchy down to London were its principal lodgers-but Good God!-now it is all Trade and all these 'new-men,' those self-made fellows in God knows what enterprises… and rigourously humourless, to boot! Such a commercial and grasping yet suddenly respectable lot.'
'Good for cleanin' up my father's odour in London Society, his partnering with Sir Malcolm Shockley, in it,' Lewrie commented.
'And yours, for lodging there,' Twigg could not help remarking.
Ouch, and ow, Lewrie could only complain in silence.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Twigg, like all know-it-alls who held information that one must know, or dearly wished to know, maddeningly kept his secrets through their repast; though Lewrie thought it a hellish-good repast, and well worth the wait. The sliding doors to their private alcove room swept open to reveal yet another splendid course; a chicken soup laced with tangy tarragon, followed by roast squabs with green beans in lieu of a springtime asparagus, though dressed with a cheesy Hollandaise sauce. A bottle of pinot gris came with the first two courses, and remained just long enough to accompany the mid-meal salad of hot-house brussel sprouts and lettuce with a drippy-bacon dressing. Then came the main entrйe, the sliced prime rib of beef with peas and frittered potatoes, all sloshed down with a fresh bottle (or two) of claret, and thickly sliced slabs of bread, buttered and toasted with garlic. White bread, and the recent law bedamned.
Apple pie, a sauterne in counterpoint, then port, cheese, and sweet biscuits followed all that, and a silver pot of coffee was put upon the small sideboard to await their pleasure.
'Now, to the matter at hand,' Mr. Twigg said at last, as those doors were swept shut at his gestured command, making Lewrie thank a Merciful God that the trivial chattering, entertaining as it had been, was over. 'Your anonymous tormentor, Captain Lewrie… your wife's tormentor, rather… my 'Irregulars' have smoaked out the identity of the author of those scurrilous letters.'
'Who is it?' Lewrie demanded, perking up.
'When you delivered to me two letters at your ward's marriage in Portsmouth last year, or was it at my town home here in London? No matter the exact location, recall I did remark that the author of them was obviously a person of some means, possessed of a good, copper-plate hand, and the purse with which to purchase very fine, heavy bond paper.'
Oh God, but he will prose on! Lewrie thought; Preen, rather!
'Unfortunately, such fine writing paper is available throughout London, and many of the larger cities and towns,' Twigg said, frowning, 'so until the unknown author sent a letter to your wife, insinuating your further adulterous doings, and was caught in the act, we had very little to go on, other than the clues unknowingly included in each of them… to wit, the proximity of certain suspected persons to you at the moment when you indulged your proclivity for the fairer sex, ahem.'
Coming, so is bloody Christmas! Lewrie silently fumed, wishing he could lay hands on Twigg, take him by the lapels, and shake it out of him… assuming Lewrie lived after doing it, it went without saying, for, as he could attest, Zachariah Twigg, one of the Foreign Office's master spies and cut-throats, was a thoroughly dangerous man.
'I could, however, reduce the number of suspects to those who could have witnessed, or heard of, your doings,' Twigg archly related, 'and, through the employment of my 'Irregulars,' discreetly surveill those in England.'
Twigg employed upwards of an hundred of his so-called Baker Street Irregulars, for his town-house upon that thoroughfare was the very centre of his spider's web, the lair from which he directed minor spies to keep an eye on foreign embassies, even the friendly ones, and foreign individuals who kept too lively a correspondence with people on the Continent. Chamber-maids and street vendors, messenger lads, cooks, sweeps, and beggars, as well as an host of 'Sharps' from London's criminal element who could pick the right pocket, crack the right window or door in the dead of night or the light of day; copyists who could forge false information or duplicate hidden documents quickly, so the house-breakers could put the originals back where they'd found them with no one, any foreign spy, the wiser 'til some other of Twigg's minions, recruited from the military (who could safeguard the innocent, or corner the guilty) either leave them bleeding in some dark alley, or simply spirit them away as if they'd never been, never to be seen again.
'Sir Malcolm Shockley's wife, Lucy, who was once one of those Jamaican Beaumans, came to mind,' Twigg simpered on, 'for the first of these letters appeared soon after you ran into her in Venice in '96, whilst she was on her honeymoon tour of the Continent with Sir Malcolm… and sporting with that Commander William Fillebrowne, who took your former mistress on. Tsk-tsk,' Twigg said with a twitch of his mouth. 'A rather disreputable baggage, for all her beauty. As for Fillebrowne, well… he's the spiteful sort. He proved that by throwing his possession of Phoebe Aretino in your face so tauntingly, yet… he's been at sea since, and nowhere near any of your recent slips, so we could eliminate him.'
'All this, and the King's business, too?' Lewrie sourly asked. 'Two jobs for the price o' one, or something like that?'
'If you do not wish to know, Lewrie…,' Twigg warned.
'Say on, then,' Lewrie surrendered with a long sigh.
'I was able to place a maidservant in the Shockley residence, to keep an eye on her correspondence,' Twigg proudly explained, 'with an assistant coachman, as well, able to report quickly, and, the most likely to be given the task of carrying any such letters. Lady Lucy, I have determined, is not your tormentor.'
'Well, that's a relief, I s'pose,' Lewrie said, going for the coffee, cream, and sugar on the sideboard.
