Pirate

Chapter Twenty

Hawkesmoor

“GOOD MORNING, YOUNG PELHAM!” AMBROSE CRIED, STORMING into the kitchen, the bright yellow scarf wound round his neck fluttering behind him like a cricket pennant on opening day. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“He’s in the butler’s pantry, Chief Inspector,” said a pretty young woman in a toque blanche who was sitting at a counter sorting Brussels sprouts. A beam of pure sunlight was streaming down on her white bowl of green vegetables and it looked like the kind of scene that would have sent Vermeer or his like rushing madly for his brushes.

“You’ll find me back here, sir,” Pelham’s distinctive and fluty voice floated from the pantry.

“A-ha!” Ambrose said, and headed in that direction, nodding and smiling at all and sundry. “Good morning, all! Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Congreve had awoken in a splendid humor. He wasn’t sure what was behind it. Still alive, for one thing. His marvelous new car, perhaps, or, chasing murderers in the moonlight across the grounds at Brixden House. Or the kiss Diana had planted on his cheek when he’d said goodnight. Whatever it was, life seemed full of sunshine and bursting with promise.

“Good morning, sir!” the kitchen staff replied as one, their voices hale and full of good cheer. This unbridled enthusiasm for the day at hand was one of the reasons Ambrose so enjoyed these early morning surprise visits to Hawkesmoor. The house was always a bustle of happy activity on a clear, sunny summer morning like this one. In the kitchens, in the gardens, in the stables, and throughout the house itself. Everywhere one went, someone was polishing something, dusting books, plumping pillows, making acres of glass sparkle in the sun.

It had become, Ambrose reflected as he passed through the bustling kitchen, a happy house once more. Vicky’s untimely death had cast a pall over Hawkesmoor. Alex Hawke’s doomed bride had been a great favorite in this house. Everyone was keenly anticipating the arrival of Lady Hawke, the new mistress of Hawkesmoor and the first woman to lay claim to that title since the death of Alex’s mother, tortured and killed at the hands of pirates in the Caribbean in the seventies.

When you thought about it, as Ambrose did at that moment, Alex Hawke’s entire life was just one long pirate story.

Victoria Sweet’s horrific murder on the steps of St. John’s Church had shocked and saddened everyone under this roof. And, indeed, many people throughout England still spoke of her loss with great sorrow. They had been a beautiful, popular couple. An aura of permanence and glamor seemed to surround them. It all vanished in an instant. After Hawke returned from Vicky’s funeral in Louisiana, this house, once so full of youth and promise, had gone dark once more.

Alex left Hawkesmoor for good after weeks of grieving, vowing never to return to the scene of so much sorrow. But now, on this fine June morning, it seemed as if the very sun itself had once more come from behind the clouds. And, perhaps it had.

“Ah, there you are, young Pelham!” Ambrose said, and sailed his straw boater into the pantry, causing the aged retainer to duck his head.

“Morning, Mr. Congreve,” the octogenarian said, giving the chief inspector a decidedly narrow look. In Pelham’s personal view, the man sometimes bordered on the overly boisterous.

Pelham said, “I’m just on my way up to his lordship with the morning tray. Follow along, if you’d like.”

“Having breakfast in bed, is he?” Congreve frowned.

“Hardly. His lordship was down for his breakfast at six, sir. Had it out there on the lawn with his papers, joined by a gentleman from the CIA, a houseguest who has since departed via helicopter. A helo, I believe he called it.”

“Ah, what’s this, then?” Ambrose asked, looking at the silver tray Pelham was preparing.

“A lemon, sir,” the butler sniffed. He was long accustomed to Congreve snooping about the kitchen, lifting pot lids and sampling soups. The two men had joined forces to raise the child Hawke after the loss of his parents and, finally, his grandfather when the boy was not yet twelve. Theirs was a long-simmering rivalry over the care and feeding of Alex Hawke.

“I can see that, Pelham, but what’s it for?”

“He’s going to eat it, sir. It’s become his daily midmorning pick-me-up, as it were.”

“Eat a whole lemon? Good lord. Why?”

“Some kind of new diet, sir. He is attempting to purge his body. I believe the word for his new regimen is ‘holistic.’ You’ll have to ask his lordship, I’m afraid. I don’t go there, as they say these days.”

“Well, let’s have it, then. Save your knees, my dear Pelham. I’ll carry this noble feast up to him.”

“You’ll find him in the armory, Chief Inspector. He’s been up there all morning long since his American friend Mr. Kelly departed.”

“Really? What on earth is he doing up there?”

“Cleaning his guns, sir. He says we’re going to war.”

“War? With whom?”

“I believe he mentioned France, sir.”

“France?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ye gods.”

Ambrose mounted the smooth worn stone of the curving back staircase leading to the upper floors. Gaining the third floor, he paused at a door of carved oak to catch his breath. The design incorporated two animals locked in combat—the Scottish unicorn and the English lion. The door was slightly ajar and he pushed inside, using the tray. He saw Hawke at the far end of the room with his back to the door, standing beside a sunny window, burnishing an ancient pistol barrel to gleaming perfection. His beloved parrot, Sniper, was on his shoulder.

The walls of the great room were decorated floor to ceiling with spiral arrangements of antique arms. Just below the crown moldings were long ranks of stag antlers. And below that, a profusion of every kind of armament: swords, pikes, pistols, and long rifles. Perhaps a thousand weapons, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, lined the walls.

Other than the library, Congreve knew this was Alex’s favorite room in the entire house. The heavy velvet draperies had all been tied back away from the tall leaded windows and sunlight flooded the room. On the far wall hung a collection of eighteenth-century pirate flags, including the grim Jolly Roger flown by Hawke’s ancestor, Blackhawke himself.

“Morning, Alex,” Congreve said upon entering the room with the tray. “I saw your personal black standard fluttering from the ramparts and assumed you were in residence. ‘Fortune favors the fast.’ Blackhawke’s noble sentiment.”

Alex turned toward him and smiled. “And, so true, Ambrose! A fast ship and a star to sail her by, that’s the winning ticket. How else do you think I came to sit atop this pile of ill-gotten lucre? Piracy, of course! Give no quarter, lads!”

“Am I interrupting some sort of…private ritual?”

“No, no, by all means, come in, do come in!”

“Where’ve you been hiding yourself, Alex?”

“I just returned from la belle France yesterday morning. I haven’t rung you up because I’ve had Brick Kelly here, you see, and—what’s that?”

“Your lemon.”

“Right. Put it over there, if you don’t mind. I seem to have lost my bottle for it this morning.”

“One wonders why lemon, of all fruits,” Ambrose said, putting the tray down amidst an array of partially disassembled sixteenth-century rifles and flintlock pistols.

Hawke ignored the question and picked up a rifle.

“You see this gun, Ambrose? Bloody marvelous, isn’t it?”

“Stunning. What is it?”

“Wheellock rifle with breech-loader system, manufactured in Augsburg or Nuremberg in 1540. Belonged to some Prussian colonel named Andreas Teuffel von Gundersdorf. Glorious piece, I must say.”

“Alex, speak to me of war. And the dreaded French. But first, speak to me of lemons.”

“Ah. The latest thing,” Hawke said, plucking it from the tray and dipping it in a bowl of white powder. “Plenty of bioflavonoids in lemons, not to mention Vitamin C. Especially good for you if you dip them in this stuff. Natural sweetener the Japanese have been using for centuries. Called Stevia rebaudiana. Produces a blood-sugar-lowering effect on normal nondiabetics. Give it a whirl.”

“I’m trying to quit lemons, thanks very much, but don’t let me stop you.” Bioflavonoids? Japanese sweeteners? What on earth had the world come to?

Alex took a bite out of the thing and made an awful face. “I may give this up. Step closer to the window, Constable,” he said. “I must show you something before we conspire to save the world from the Red Menace.”

“What is it?”

“Look down there, in the courtyard,” Hawke said, feeding the lemon to Sniper, a bird who would eat red-hot plutonium if offered the stuff. “I’ve just noticed something odd. See it, old thing?” He was pointing directly at the Yellow Peril, as Ambrose had privately named his new iron steed.

“Why, yes, I do.”

“It’s a Morgan, you know,” Hawke explained. “A fairly old one, I think. The Plus Four. Wooden chassis. An absolute stunner, I must say. Brilliant paint scheme. I wonder what lucky fellow it belongs to. Pelham hasn’t announced anyone.”

“It’s mine, actually,” Congreve said, desperately trying to avoid looking smug.

“Yours? Don’t be silly, Ambrose! You don’t even know how to drive. You loathe any form of powered conveyance. You’ve not the least interest in—”

Congreve withdrew the keys from his trousers. They caught the light as he dangled them in front of Hawke’s eyes. “Let’s take her for a spin, shall we?”

“That machine actually belongs to you?”

“It does. I drove it here just minutes ago.”

“Good lord, he’s serious.”

“Any interest in a high-speed run over to the Cock & Cork for a bevvy to celebrate? A midmorning eye-opener?”

“We will indeed, but for now we have to talk of more serious matters, Constable. Let’s sit over there by the fire.”

When they were comfortable, Hawke said, “Brick Kelly was singing your praises last night at supper. He gave me something for you; it’s on my desk down in the library. A cold case file. A bizarre murder that occurred in Paris thirty-five years ago. Should you crack it, we could save the whole bloody world a lot of trouble.”

“I should be happy to put this affair on my docket, Alex. However, there’s another murder I’m bashing away at at the moment. My own.”

“Don’t tell me there’s been a second attempt? This is serious.”

“Very serious. This happened last night, in fact. I shot the bastard through a window. Down at Lady Mars’s Spring Cottage. Only winged him, unfortunately. Scene-of-Crime officers are all over the place now. There was a bit of blood on the roses below the window. They’ve promised a report before day’s end. The culprit escaped through the woods to a waiting car. I heard it start, ran to my own vehicle, and gave pursuit. Tried to catch it, you see, and very nearly succeeded. The Morgan is race-tuned. Something to do with the camshaft.”

“Someone is making a concerted effort to kill you, Ambrose. We must put a stop to this. Any idea who it is?”

“I thought it was my cousin, Bulling. And it might well be. But there’s also a Chinese agent involved, Alex, a woman. This might be an old wound reopened, I’m afraid. In which case, they’re after you, as well.”

“Ah. Last year’s tour up the Yangtze River to the Three Gorges Dam. Lucky to get out of there alive, weren’t we?”

“Possibly that unfortunate incident has come back to haunt us. On it’s simply that this woman, Bianca, has it in for me.”

“What’s her beef with you?”

“Her beef? You sound like some kind of film noir gumshoe, Alex. Well. You no doubt remember my dear cousin, Henry Bulling? Formerly employed in a secretarial position at the French embassy in London.”

“Chap whose chin was always trying to reach up to his mouth and finally gave up?”

“Exactly.”

“Peeved about your aunt’s will, was he not?”

“Hmm. My inheritance of Heart’s Ease. At the beginning of this affair, I thought Henry was perhaps sufficiently peeved about the house to commit murder. Upon further investigation, Sutherland and I have learned that it’s a bit more complicated. A woman named Bianca Moon is intimately involved. ‘Intimately’ is not a word chosen lightly. Bianca, a Chinese agent, is sexually involved, God help us, with my cousin. She discovered that Henry and I were meeting for quiet lunches in the park. The Yard, as you well know, was running Henry. So, we now learn, were the Chinese.”

“So Henry’s a double. The Chinese are trying to warn us off.”

“Henry was a double. Henry may be dead. Our Miss Moon was not at all pleased when Henry sent my new housekeeper, Mrs. Purvis, to hospital instead of me.”

“Mrs. Purvis was shot? I’d no idea. Was she seriously wounded?”

“She’s recovering nicely, thank heaven.”

“Good news. I was thinking it was our Henry hiding in the rosebushes at Spring Cottage. It sounds like his style.”

“I thought about that, too. The only one on earth who knew I was leaving my house in the middle of the night was Mrs. Purvis. Henry could have been parked on the street and followed me, I suppose, but it’s unlikely. I drove at high speed and watched the mirror the whole time. Nothing.”

“There was one other person who knew you’d be at the cottage last night. The person who invited you to come there.”

“Lady Mars.”

“You said it, not me. It’s no secret that Brixden House has been a hotbed of spies at various times in its history.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Diana has nothing at all to do with this. She’s quite lovely, in fact.”

“So was Tokyo Rose, apparently.”

“Please. Don’t be absurd.”

“Listen, Constable, you and Cousin Henry may have stumbled into something far more ominous than either of you anticipated. Something worth killing you both over. I’m talking about that disc you found in Henry’s freezer. The French oil refineries and tankers.”

“Yes. It’s all about oil somehow, Alex. The whole bloody thing.”

“I think the next world war will be about oil. And someone clearly wants you and me as early casualties of that conflict. Tell me what you’ve learned.”

“The few computer discs in Henry’s flat contained photographs of French refineries and pipelines. Supertankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Henry was passing Bianca Moon hard intelligence about current oil production at Leuna and French transport tanker statistics. It’s a subject she has keen knowledge of, having been an employee of the French behemoth Elf Aquitaine.”

“There was a scandal,” Hawke said. “I knew I remembered that name. Bianca. She was the mistress, wasn’t she, of the former French Foreign Trade minister who was disgraced in the matter?”

“Exactly. She was Honfleur’s geisha. She absconded with millions and disappeared. Now, she appears to be back in spades.”

“Likewise, Monsieur Honfleur. He seems to have rehabilitated himself. He’s the new prime minister. That’s a remarkable recovery, even in France.”

“I was listening to the radio on the way here,” Ambrose said. “The BBC is saying that Honfleur’s son Philippe was killed yesterday in a terrorist attack on the latest French Foreign Trade minister, a chap with the old familiar name of Bonaparte.”

“The French are killing each other, Constable,” Hawke said, and turned to face the window. “Another Revolution. Another Bonaparte.”

“It’s worse. It’s the dragon and the frog,” Congreve said, thinking out loud.

“China and France,” said Hawke, shaking his head sadly. “‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.’”

“A lovely sonnet indeed. But, something tells me you are going to be an impediment in this unholy marriage, Alex. You’re going to spoil their bloody honeymoon, at any rate.”