An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 48

He needed to find out what was already known about Percy Beauchamp in more official circles, before he started his own hounds in pursuit of that rabbit. And before he saw Hal.

It was too late in the day to make official calls. He’d send a note, though, making an appointment—and in the morning, would visit the Black Chamber.

THE BLACK CHAMBER

GREY WONDERED what romantic soul had originally christened the Black Chamber—or whether it was in fact a romantic designation. Perhaps the spies of an earlier day had been consigned to a windowless hole under the stairs at Whitehall, and the name was purely descriptive. These days, the Black Chamber designated a class of employment rather than a specific location.

All the capitals of Europe—and not a few lesser cities—had Black Chambers, these being the centers wherein mail intercepted en route or by spies or simply removed from diplomatic pouches was inspected, decoded with varying degrees of success, and then sent to whichever person or agency had need of the information thus derived. England’s Black Chamber had employed four gentlemen—not counting clerks and office boys—when Grey had labored there. There were more of them now, distributed in random holes and corners in the buildings down Pall Mall, but the main center of such operations was still in Buckingham Palace.

Not in any of the beautifully equipped areas that served the Royal Family or their secretaries, ladies’ maids, housekeepers, butlers, or other upper servants—but still, within the palace precincts.

Grey passed the guard at the back gate with a nod—he’d worn his uniform, with the lieutenant-colonel’s insignia, to facilitate entry—and made his way down a shabby, ill-lit corridor whose scent of ancient floor polish and ghosts of boiled cabbage and burnt tea cake gave him a pleasant frisson of nostalgia. The third door on the left stood ajar, and he entered without knocking.

He was expected. Arthur Norrington greeted him without rising, and motioned him to a chair.

He’d known Norrington for years, though they were not particular friends, and found it comforting that the man seemed not to have changed at all in the years since their last meeting. Arthur was a large, soft man, whose large, slightly protruding eyes and thick lips gave him the mien of a turbot on ice: dignified and faintly reproachful.

“I appreciate your help, Arthur,” Grey said, and as he sat, deposited on the corner of the desk a small wrapped parcel. “A small token of that appreciation,” he added, waving a hand at it.

Norrington raised one thin brow and took the package, which he unwrapped with greedy fingers.

“Oh!” he said, with unfeigned delight. He turned the tiny ivory carving over gently in his large, soft hands, bringing it close to his face to see the details, entranced. “Tsuji?”

Grey shrugged, pleased with the effect of his gift. He knew nothing of netsuke himself, but knew a man who dealt in ivory miniatures from China and Japan. He had been surprised at the delicacy and artistry of the tiny thing, which showed a half-clothed woman engaged in a very athletic form of sexual congress with a naked obese gentleman with his hair in a topknot.

“I’m afraid it has no provenance,” he said apologetically, but Norrington waved that aside, eyes still fixed on the new treasure. After a moment, he sighed happily, then tucked the thing away in the inner pocket of his coat.

“Thank you, my lord,” he said. “As for the subject of your own inquiry, I am afraid that we have relatively little material available regarding your mysterious Mr. Beauchamp.” He nodded at the desk, where a battered, anonymous leather folder reposed. Grey could see that there was something bulky inside—something not paper; the folder was pierced, and a small piece of twine ran through it, fastening the object in place.

“You surprise me, Mr. Norrington,” he said politely, and reached for the folder. “Still, let me see what you do have, and perhaps—”

Norrington pressed his fingers flat against the file and frowned for a moment, trying to convey the impression that official secrets could not be imparted to just anyone. Grey smiled at him.

“Come off it, Arthur,” he said. “If you want to know what I know about our mysterious Mr. Beauchamp—and I assure you, you do—you’ll show me every word you have about him.”

Norrington relaxed a little, letting his fingers slide back—though still with a show of reluctance. Cocking one eyebrow, Grey picked up the leather folder and opened it. The bulky object was revealed to be a small cloth bag; beyond that, there were only a few sheets of paper. Grey sighed.

“Poor protocol, Arthur,” he said reprovingly. “There are snowdrifts of paper involving Beauchamp—cross-referenced to that name, too. Granted, he hasn’t been active in years, but someone ought to have looked.”

“We did,” Norrington said, an odd note in his voice that made Grey look sharply up. “Old Crabbot remembered the name, and we looked. The files are gone.”

The skin across Grey’s shoulders tightened, as though he’d been struck with a lash.

“That is odd,” he said calmly. “Well, then …” He bent his head over the folder, though it took a moment to subdue his racing thoughts enough to see what he was looking at. No sooner had his eyes focused on the page than the name “Fraser” leapt out of it, nearly stopping his heart.

Not Jamie Fraser, though. He breathed slowly, turned the page, read the next, turned back. There were four letters in all, only one completely decoded, though another had been started; it bore someone’s tentative notes in the margin. His lips tightened; he had been a good decoder in his day, but had been absent from the field of battle far too long to have any notion of the current common idioms in use by the French, let alone the idiosyncratic terms an individual spy might use—and these letters were the work of at least two different hands; so much was clear.

“I’ve looked them over,” Norrington said, and Grey looked up to find Arthur’s protruding hazel eyes fixed on him like a toad eyeing a juicy fly. “I haven’t officially decoded them yet, but I’ve a good general idea what they say.”

Well, he’d already decided that it had to be done, and he’d come prepared to tell Arthur, who was the most discreet of his old Black Chamber contacts.

“Beauchamp is one Percival Wainwright,” he said bluntly, wondering even as he said it, why he kept the secret of Percival’s real name. “He’s a British subject—was an army officer, arrested for the crime of sodomy but never tried. It was thought that he’d died in Newgate awaiting trial, but”—he smoothed the letters and closed the folder over them—“evidently not.”

Arthur’s plump lips rounded in a soundless “O.”

Grey wondered for an instant if he could leave it there—but no. Arthur was persistent as a dachshund digging into a badger sett, and if he discovered the rest of it on his own, he would at once suspect Grey of withholding much more.

“He’s also my stepbrother,” Grey said, as casually as possible, and laid the folder on Arthur’s desk. “I saw him in North Carolina.”

Arthur’s mouth sagged for an instant. He firmed it up at once, blinking.

“I see,” he said. “Well, then … I see.”

“Yes, you do,” Grey said dryly. “You see exactly why I must know the contents of these letters”—he nodded at the folder—“as soon as possible.”

Arthur nodded, compressing his lips, and settled himself, taking the letters into his hands. Once determined to be serious, there was no nonsense about him.

“Most of what I could decode seems to deal with matters of shipping,” he said. “Contacts in the West Indies, cargoes to be delivered—simple smuggling, though on a fairly large scale. One reference to a banker in Edinburgh; I couldn’t make out his connection exactly. But three of the letters mentioned the same name en clair—you will have seen that, of course.”