said, holding the paper toward Sharpe, „but it wasn’t sealed and so I took the liberty of reading it.”
Sharpe unfolded the paper. „He is going with the French,” Sharpe read, „and forcing me to accompany him and I do not want to.” It was signed Kate and had plainly been written in a tearing hurry.
„The ‘him,’ I assume,” Hogan asked, „is Christopher?”
„Yes, sir.”
„So the reason that Miss Savage absented herself in March,” Hogan went on, „was Colonel Christopher?”
„Yes, sir.”
„She is sweet on him?”
„She’s married to him,” Sharpe said and was puzzled because Lord Pumphrey looked startled.
„A few weeks earlier”-Hogan was talking to Wellesley now-”Colonel Christopher was courting Miss Savage’s mother.”
„Does any of this ridiculous talk of romance help us determine what Christopher is doing?” Sir Arthur asked with considerable asperity.
„It’s amusing, if nothing else,” Pumphrey said. He stood up, flicked a speck of dust from a cuff, and smiled at Sharpe. „Did you really say Christopher married this girl?”
„He did, sir.”
„Then he is a bad boy,” Lord Pumphrey said happily, „because he’s already married.” His lordship plainly enjoyed that revelation. „He married Pearce Courtnell’s daughter ten years ago in the happy belief that she was worth eight thousand a year, then discovered she was hardly worth sixpence. It is not, I hear, a contented marriage, and might I observe, Sir Arthur, that Lieutenant Sharpe’s news answers our questions about Colonel Christopher’s true allegiance?”
„It does?” Wellesley asked, puzzled.
„Christopher cannot hope to survive a bigamous marriage if he intends to make his future in Britain or in a free Portugal,” Lord Pumphrey observed, „but in France? Or in a Portugal ruled by France? (
The French won’t care how many wives he left in London.”
„But you said he wants to return.”
„I tendered a surmise that he would wish to do so,” Pumphrey corrected the General. „He has, after all, been playing both sides of the table and if he thinks we’re winning then he will doubtless want to return and equally doubtless he will then deny ever marrying Miss Savage.”
„She might have another opinion,” Wellesley observed dryly.
„If she’s alive to utter it, which I doubt,” Pumphrey said. „No, sir, he cannot be trusted and dare I say that my masters in London would be immensely grateful if you were to remove him from their employment?”
„That’s what you want?”
„It is not what I want,” Pumphrey contradicted Wellesley and, for a man of such delicate and frail appearance, he did it with considerable force. „It is what London would want.”
„You can be certain of that?” Wellesley asked, plainly disliking Pumphrey’s insinuations.
„He has knowledge that would embarrass us,” Pumphrey admitted, „including the Foreign Office codes.”
Wellesley gave his great horse neigh of a laugh. „He’s probably given those to the French already.”
„I doubt it, sir,” Pumphrey said, examining his fingernails with a slight frown, „a man usually holds his best cards till last. And in the end Christopher will want to bargain, either with us or with the French, and I must say that His Majesty’s government does not wish either eventuality.”
„Then I leave his fate to you, my lord,” Wellesley said with obvious distaste, „and as it doubtless means filthy work then I’d better lend you the services of Captain Hogan and Lieutenant Sharpe. As for me? I’m going to bed.” He nodded curtly and left the room, followed by his aides clutching sheaves of paper.
Lord Pumphrey took a decanter of
Sharpe said nothing and Hogan answered for him. „That’s why he treats Sharpe so badly,” the Irishman said. „Nosey can’t stand being beholden, and especially can’t stand being beholden to a misbegotten rogue like Sharpe.”
Pumphrey shivered. „Do you know what we in the Foreign Office dislike doing most of all? Going to foreign places. They are so uncomfortable. But here I am and I suppose we must attend to our duties.”
Sharpe had crossed to one of the tall windows where he was staring out into the wet darkness. „What are my duties?” he asked.
Lord Pumphrey poured himself a liberal glass of wine. „Not to put too fine a point on it, Richard,” he said, „your duty is to find Mister Christopher and then… „He did not finish the sentence, but instead drew a finger across his throat, a gesture Sharpe saw mirrored in the dark window.
„Who is Christopher, anyway?” Sharpe wanted to know.
„He was a thruster, Richard,” Pumphrey said, his voice acid with disapproval, „a rather clever thruster in the Foreign Office.” A thruster was a man who would bully and whip his way to the head of the field while riding to hounds and in doing so upset dozens of other hunters. „Yet he was thought to have a very fine future,” Pumphrey continued, „if he could just curb his compulsion to complicate affairs. He likes intrigue, does Christopher. The Foreign Office, of necessity, deals in secret matters and he rather indulges in such things. Still, despite that, he was reckoned to have the makings of an excellent diplomat, and last year he was sent out here to determine the temper of the Portuguese. There were rumors, happily ill-founded, that a large number of folk, especially in the north, were more than a little sympathetic to the French, and Christopher was merely supposed to be determining the extent of that sympathy.”
„Couldn’t the embassy do that?” Hogan demanded.
„Not without being noticed,” Pumphrey said, „and not without occasioning some offense to a nation which is, after all, our most ancient ally. And I rather suspect that if you despatch someone from the embassy to ask questions then you will merely fetch the answers people think you want to hear. No, Christopher was supposed to be an English gentleman traveling in north Portugal, but, as you observe, the opportunity went to his head. Cradock was then halfwitted enough to give him brevet rank and so Christopher began hatching his plots.” Lord Pumphrey gazed up at the ceiling which was painted with reveling deities and dancing nymphs. „My own suspicion is that Mister Christopher has been laying bets on every horse in the race. We know he was encouraging a mutiny, but I strongly suspect he betrayed the mutineers. The encouragement was to reassure us that he worked for our interests and the betrayal endeared him to the French. He is determined, is he not, to be on the winning side? But the main intrigue, of course, was to enrich himself at the expense of the Savage ladies.” Pumphrey paused, then offered a seraphic smile. „I’ve always rather admired bigamists. One wife would be altogether too much for me, but for a man to take two!”
„Did I hear you say he wants to come back?” Sharpe asked.
„I surmise as much. James Christopher is not a man to burn his bridges unless he has no alternative. Oh yes, I’m sure he’ll be designing some way to return to London if he finds a lack of opportunity with the French.”
„Now I’m supposed to shoot the shit-faced bastard,” Sharpe said.
„Not precisely how we in the Foreign Office would express the matter,” Lord Pumphrey said severely, „but you are, I see, seized of the essence. Go and shoot him, Richard, and God bless your little rifle.”
„And what are you doing here?” Sharpe thought to ask.
„Other than being exquisitely uncomfortable?” Pumphrey asked. „I was sent to supervise Christopher. He approached General Cradock with news of a proposed mutiny. Cradock, quite properly, reported the affair to London and London became excited at the thought of suborning Bonaparte’s army in Portugal and Spain, but felt that someone of wisdom and good judgment was needed to propel the scheme and so, quite naturally, they asked me to come.”
„And we can forget the scheme now,” Hogan observed.
„Indeed we can,” Pumphrey replied tartly. „Christopher brought a Captain Argenton to talk with General Cradock,” he explained to Sharpe, „and when Cradock was replaced, Argenton made his own way across the lines
