The Barrister and the Letter of Marque Read online

  “I want to go in.”

  “No one’s given entry to these cells.”

  “You’ll let me in or I’ll see the warden.”

  “He’s a very busy man,” the clerk said. “Fifteen minutes with the prisoner.”

  Not awaiting a response, the clerk ascended the steps, leaving William stunned and alone in a silence broken only by the skittering of rats.

  There was movement in a shadowed corner of the cell William faced. A figure shuffled forward into the torchlight.

  It was a man, his clothes torn, his face bruised, cuts healing over each eye. He looked an ancient thirty-five, though he held himself proudly erect.

  “Captain Tuttle?” William asked.

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  The smell of the corridor was revolting. “A barrister. William Snopes. I’ve been sent by Lady Jameson.”

  The captain stared as though the words sank in slowly. “My cousin? I’d begun to think she’d no word of my arrival. Or that she’d given up on me.”

  “She hasn’t, I can assure you. Neither she nor we were informed you were in this prison until today. Captain, your face. You’ve been beaten. The jailors?”

  “No. Other prisoners. Several were in this cell when I was first locked up. Some tried to steal my clothes. I assure you, I gave as well as I got.”

  “This place is barbaric,” William muttered.

  The man looked weak, laboring even to talk. “Your experience, Mr. Snopes?”

  “Fifteen years past the bar. Though this is my first case defending an assertion of piracy.” William reached into a deep pocket on his bulky coat and pulled out a flagon of wine, a half loaf of bread, and a handful of carrots. “Enough experience to know the meager rations in this place. It’s not much, Captain. Still, I suggest you eat slowly.”

  “God bless you,” the captain said, reaching for the food. “I fear I’ll get scurvy with the food they provide.”

  Gratified at the captain’s appetite, William gave a half smile. “I’ll arrange for more and regular food. Captain, I must tell you that I haven’t accepted your representation—at least not for trial of your case. Nor that of Lady Jameson and her father. I need more information to make my decision.”

  The captain nodded. He took several bites of the bread and a long drink of the wine. William waited patiently until the captain slowed.

  “What do you need to know?” the captain asked at last.

  “First, are you aware of the specific charges against you?”

  “Only that I was arrested as a pirate. It’s absurd. I’m not a pirate, nor is my crew.”

  “I was told by Lady Jameson that you seized cargo from a French ship in the Indies. Is that true?”

  “We did. The Charlemagne. Smuggling tea out of China.”

  “Before we discuss that, tell me about yourself and how you came to captain the Padget.”

  Captain Tuttle took another bite of the bread before looking up.

  “After England sent Napoleon to his retirement, many British sailors and officers were retired from England’s service as well, including myself. I’d walked the docks for months looking for a decent berth. Jobs were scarcer than saints, for ex-sailors at least. I was desperate. There is a young woman, you see. One I’d hoped to betroth. Then I learned the Padget was for sale, an old brig out of service after the war. They wanted nineteen thousand pounds for her. I decided to buy her for trade in the Americas but had nothing like that kind of money. I told my cousin Madeleine about my need. I knew the Jameson estate had suffered hard times for many years, even before things worsened in England since the peace. My strongest hope was that Madeleine might know someone with capital to invest. A week later she surprised me, saying she and her father could find the money to buy the brig. We agreed I was to receive twenty percent of the profit on the first voyage and fifty percent on future voyages, once the ship was paid for.”

  “And what of money to pay for a crew? Provisions? To acquire cargo for trade?”

  “We agreed we’d advertise in the papers for investors to cover those expenses.”

  “This voyage was a risky affair financially then?”

  “Yes. But risks must be taken if a man wishes to better his position.”

  “And there is the young lady.”

  “Yes. I’m not ashamed of my ambition, Mr. Snopes, nor the reasons for it. Rebekah will forever be the love of my life. But her family won’t sanction a match with a former naval officer without prospects. I don’t blame them.”

  “A solicitor responded to your advertisements, correct?”

  “Aye. That devil Mandy Bristol. He met me at the Padget one afternoon and told me he represented a corporation with two investors behind it. The investors insisted on staying anonymous. They offered little money, but Bristol claimed they had something better: a Letter of Marque from the Crown to hunt down French tea smugglers violating the East India Company’s contracts with Chinese tea merchants, signed by the regent himself. Tea is gold these days, as you know, Mr. Snopes, and I couldn’t have asked for a more hopeful prospect. Bristol said that the regent wanted to help the East India Company chase tea smugglers crossing the Indian Sea and end their theft, which was cutting into company and Crown revenue. Bristol made a point, though, of saying that the taking of smugglers was to be done without public fanfare. We were to teach the French a quiet lesson.”

  “And you never met Bristol’s investors?”

  “No. The solicitor presented the proposal and handled the details. It was all worked out between Bristol and myself.”

  “And you believed him? About the Letter?”

  “To be honest, we had no other choice. Even so, I insisted to Bristol that I wouldn’t sail without the Letter in my hand. I pressed to meet with the regent’s counselors who prepare such documents, or better still the regent himself. Bristol refused, saying the political sensitivity of the matter prevented it, that he and his investors must act as go-betweens with the authorities. Weeks passed while Bristol failed to produce the Letter. At last, already bleeding wages to my assembled crew and with launch of the voyage at risk—in fact, the day before our intended sailing date—Bristol finally brought the Letter to me. I never told Bristol, but I’d already secretly retained a solicitor in Chelsea, a man who used to work at the Exchequer and at Carlton House and knew the King’s Seals. It cost me nearly my last shilling, but the man examined the Letter and seal and said they were genuine.”

  “Who was that solicitor?”

  “Ryan Mortimer. On Hampstead Road.”

  “All right. Now tell me about taking the French merchantman.”

  “It was good fortune, really. We’d all manner of problems getting to the Indian Sea, from doldrums to storms to a raider shadowing us around the Cape. We made it to India but had no luck once there. At anchor in Calcutta, we were down to the last provisions we needed to get back to England. Then we finally got word from an East India Company man I’d befriended about a French merchantman rumored to be anchored at Ceylon with smuggled tea, bound for the Americas. Sure enough, we’d only trolled the sea lanes a few days when a schooner sailed out of the eastern sea, her masts tall, rolling low and fat in heavy waters, a French tricolor snapping from her jack staff. The Charlemagne was settled so deep I knew she had a full hold. Near to five hundred tons of tea, as it turned out. Better still, the schooner had only ten guns against our twenty.”

  “So you attacked?”

  “I did. Turned out she had enough men and arms to put up a fight. We had but a skeleton crew ourselves, barely enough to man our own guns, and most every man serving at least two jobs. Regardless, at a thousand yards we put two shells across her bow, and she heaved to. Didn’t lose a man on either ship.”

  “You say a full cargo?”

  The captain nodded. “Yes. Their papers made clear they’d acquired the tea illegally from the East India Company’s vendors. The taking represented triple the profit we’d have known from my plan to trade in the Americas
.”

  “Then you sailed for home?”

  “Yes, with a couple of stops along the way. The last was two weeks in Gibraltar for water and repairs we’d tried to hold off until we returned to England. While there, I sent a mail packet ahead to Madeleine with a departing ship, letting my cousin know of our planned arrival date—and the good news about the cargo. Then, once repairs were done, it was back up the coast, into the Thames, and home.”

  There were no hesitations by the captain, no sensitivity even about the unusual elements of his story.

  “Tell me about the seizure of your vessel here in London,” William requested.

  The captain was growing weary, but after another drink of wine he described the midnight arrival of the soldiers and constables, followed by the disappearance of the Letter of Marque he’d held only minutes before the boarding. At the last, the captain described the killing of a cabin boy named Simon Ladner.

  William started. Had he heard correctly? Lady Jameson hadn’t mentioned it, so she couldn’t have known. But surely Sir Barnabas had been told when he was retained for the prosecution. Why hadn’t he mentioned it?

  “How old was this boy?”

  “By the day of our return, perhaps fourteen.”

  “You’re sure he was killed?”

  The captain’s face collapsed into sadness. “Yes. My first mate was a sailor named Quint Ivars. I’d served with Ivars early in my naval career, aboard the Pelletier, and he’d seemed a good enough seaman. But when he presented himself for a berth aboard the Padget, he said he’d gained experience as a physician’s mate as well. Medical officers are a rare commodity aboard small trading brigs such as ours. I leapt to hire him. It was Ivars who saw to the boy after the shooting. The boy’s death was especially hard on Mr. Ivars. It was he who’d brought the boy aboard in the first place, at the request of his father, a friend and cobbler from Whitechapel who’d lost his wife in childbirth. Young Simon learned very fast and never complained or slacked. Everyone in the crew cared for him very much. The soldiers and constables should never have fired on us, Mr. Snopes. There was no reason to do so and harm the boy.”

  There was a stirring in a cell even deeper in the darkness, followed by a hollow cough and a shuffling of feet.

  “It’s obvious, Captain Tuttle,” William began again, lowering his voice, “that the proof of your innocence lies in establishing the existence of the Letter, which you say was missing when the soldiers took you to your cabin. Where did you keep it, and who knew of it?”

  “It was locked in a cabinet above my cabin desk. I’d shown it only to Mr. Ivars. He knew where it was kept—in case I didn’t survive the voyage. But he couldn’t have taken it; he was on deck with me between the time when I last saw the Letter and when I led the soldiers to my cabin. And I had the only key. As for the rest of the crew, they were told I had the Letter, which was a necessity to ensure they obeyed my orders for taking French ships. But I didn’t advertise where I kept it, any more than where my other valuables were locked.”

  “Why do you believe the Letter was stolen?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? To destroy my defense to the charge of piracy.”

  “Who would have a motive for such action?”

  “I don’t know.”

  William thought a moment more, then continued, “We’re running out of time, Captain, and we’ve something more to speak of today. The prosecutor informed us he offered you a resolution: a guilty plea in exchange for transportation to Tasmania—and your crew not facing charges.”

  “Yes. He’s been here twice, threatening me to accept his offer.”

  “Are you innocent, Captain Tuttle?” William asked. “Did you truly have a genuine Letter of Marque when you took the French ship?”

  The captain looked through the bars with steady eyes. “Yes. I swear on everything holy to me. I swear on my love for Rebekah.”

  “You do know that your innocence doesn’t guarantee our ability to prove it, yes?”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “And that the judge could order your execution if you’re convicted.”

  “Aye.”

  “And you also know, if you refuse the offer, that you put your crew at risk of prosecution?”

  “That’s the hardest part in this, Mr. Snopes. But yes, I realize that.”

  “Then what do you want me to communicate to the prosecutor?”

  The captain took a grip of the bars. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told that smug Sir Barnabas. If they hadn’t killed the boy, I’d take their damnable offer. It’d be a lie and an injustice that would drive me mad, but I’d take it for the sake of the crew. But if I accept their offer, Sir Barnabas said I’d also have to agree there’d be no future prosecution of anyone—including whoever killed Simon. Let them hang me if it comes to it. Do all you must to protect my crew. But I can’t let someone walk away from killing that innocent boy.”

  The captain’s steadfastness was unmistakable. William’s belief in the man and his story intensified. Who would accept the risk of hanging if they were truly guilty and offered this bargain? Still, the weight of risk the man was willing to take dropped onto William’s own back like a sack of flour.

  “Do I understand correctly, then,” William asked, “that if we accept your case, you’d want us to prosecute the boy’s death, as well as defend the case against you and the Padget?”

  “Yes, if that can be done. Though I’ve no idea how I could pay you for it, especially rotting in this pit. Every penny I’ve got is tied up in the Padget.”

  It would be a singular fight, with so much at stake. Not only for Captain Tuttle, but for himself and for Edmund and Obadiah.

  And for Lady Jameson.

  His next words would be disappointing, as they had been for the lady. Still, William leaned close and said the only thing he could. “Captain Tuttle, I will honor your resolve with a decision about trial just as soon as I’m able.”

  William removed his coat and gave it to the captain as they parted. As he started up the stairs leaving the captain behind, he heard it again: the orchestral piece that had plagued him in the morning hours on his ride to Obadiah’s club for breakfast. Louder now. Still torturing him, its identity just beyond reach.

  Why couldn’t he recall the tune?

  15

  SOMERS TOWN

  LONDON

  Ending a long and thoughtful walk, William arrived back at his flat. Ascending the stairs, turning at the final landing, he started and caught his breath.

  A man in a black cassock and white collar was seated on the step before his door.

  “Father Thomas,” William spoke as his heart slowed. “What spiritual failing has God sent you to correct in me today?”

  The bony man stood. “Nothing in particular. Though from your surprise, I take it you’ve a guilty conscience. That’s a good start anyway.”

  William led him into his paper-strewn sitting room. “I’m afraid I’ve no time to debate today. I’ve a new case I’m considering and several errands to run.”

  “As I’ve heard,” the Father said, taking in the typhoon about him. The priest studied William’s face. “Are you really so shocked I’d know your business? While you seldom stray from life among heathens, Obadiah and Suzanne often grace the parish church, as does Edmund.”

  “If you’re aware, then you’ll excuse me for bidding you good-bye.”

  William rooted about in his papers looking for better walking shoes. When he looked up, the Father stood his ground.

  “I’ll be gone in a moment,” he said. “I wanted you to know that someone came to see me yesterday.” There was unmistakable seriousness in the priest’s voice.

  “Who’s that?” William asked reluctantly.

  “Suzanne, actually.”

  “Obadiah’s wife?”

  “The same. She came to speak with me.”

  “Then I’m sure that’s a confidential matter.”

  “Ordinarily. Except that you were th
e topic of our discussion. You should know that Suzanne is afraid.”

  William stopped to face the Father. “Afraid of what?”

  “Of this case you’re thinking of taking.”

  “Thomas, I’m happy to debate the moral failings of the judicial system, but I won’t subject my decisions to your judgment as to which cases to accept or reject.”

  The Father held up his hands. “Hear me out, William. I thought you should know the substance of Suzanne’s concerns.”

  She was a good and level-headed woman and Obadiah was fortunate to have her. William stopped his search among the papers. “Which are?”

  “That you are giving serious consideration to defending a case against the Crown that may have great political ramifications. And that there have already been threats made against you should you take the case.”

  “Suzanne needn’t worry. If I choose to take it, I’ll manage just fine.”

  “Perhaps. But yours aren’t the only legal cases I’ve observed at The Old Bailey. You’ve gained a reputation for clever advocacy, William. That cleverness may prevail with your typical clients—debtors and wronged tenants and the poor, such as that boy Patrin—but high crimes like piracy are far more serious affairs, which could embarrass the Crown. There can be consequences for engaging in such things. Politics has a much broader reach than the courthouse.”

  “I’m not an adolescent, Thomas. I’ve been weighing those considerations already.”

  “Have you? Then have you considered that piracy charges can stir popular discontent as well as professional? You’re not a popular man already among certain classes of businessmen, you know.”

  “If you mean moneylenders, debt handlers, and bankers, that’s true. I’ve tended to represent their accused victims.”

  “Precisely. And the Crown has the means to encourage much unrest against you, foster a popular cause against you, perhaps even enflame the masses and the street mobs against you. Your career could be at risk, not to mention your safety. I frankly don’t understand why you’re still giving consideration to the case at all. You’ve had opportunities with upper society disputes in the past and declined.”