Most Secret (34 page)

“Do you further recall, lad? On the table in the king’s private cabinet? Sheets of writing paper, fine and strong but so thin you could almost see through ’em? You observed those, did you not?”

“I observed ’em, yes; I thought they were for some kind of chymical experiment, though it’s hard to say why I should have thought so.”

“And the fine-quill pens on his desk; you marked those too?”

“I did.”

“Now open your own ring! Make haste and open it! Quick!”

Kinsmere did so. A duplicate of the much-folded paper lay inside.

“Oh, ecod,” gabbled Bygones, “don’t you see that with those heavily sealed half-sheets in the oilskin packets we were
both
carrying blank pieces of paper? Pem Harker said a true word: ‘Charles Stuart trusts nobody.’ But, whoever carried a dummy dispatch with the true dispatch concealed inside, he would guard his ring above all things because he believed it was useful only as a passport. And furthermore—”

Bygones stopped for want of breath. Kinsmere took a long, refreshed look round the deck of the
Saucy Ann.

“Let me understand this,” he begged. “You would inform me, then, that the imposing document which Roger Stainley holds above the head of the king is as virginally white as the one they took from me?”

“That’s it! Oh, body o’ Pilate, what an ingeniousness of tricks! And—”

“And,” supplied Kinsmere, “the terms of the Goddamned treaty have been safely carried to Madame after all?”

“They have.”

“I see,” my grandfather said musingly. “Well, well well.”

After a time, while Bygones was still chortling and chuckling and dancing with high glee, Kinsmere continued in the same musing way.

“‘Profound moral lesson,’” says he. “‘Perspicacity of Providence.’ ‘Triumph of truth and jus—’”

“We didn’t know it, true; but were just as successful as if we
had
known. Eh?”

“‘Old Rowley outwitted.’ ‘Twin glowing beacons.’ H’m.”

They fell silent for a moment. The voices aft had become silent too. Presently the grin of the Kinsmeres crept across my grandfather’s face, and he swung round.

“Ahoy there,” he shouted along the deck to the sailor-men aft. “Ahoy there, hearts of oak and such-like! Accept my compliments on your noise. And, should you know it, will you sing the catch I shall name for you?”

An enthusiastic affirmative was bellowed back by the flattered sailors.

“It is only proper and fitting, hearts of oak,” said Kinsmere, “that on approaching a foreign port we should make some demonstration of true British feeling and honesty. Let us have ‘Here’s a Health unto His Majesty,’ all the verses. And see that it is good and loud, hearts of oak. It will have cost somebody near to a hundred thousand pounds!”

A
T THIS POINT, FORTUNATELY
or unfortunately, breaks off the narrative which was taken down in shorthand by Anne Kinsmere (Darlington) between the 1st and 18th June, 1815. The circumstance of its breaking off is explained in that excellent lady’s journal, and forms an escapade worthy of Roderick Kinsmere himself.

Mrs. Darlington having been addicted to moralizing, her statement is of considerable length; I must beg leave to set down only essential facts. It will be observed that the foregoing story has eighteen parts, each one of which was told by Colonel Richard Kinsmere in the library at Blackthorn (called the New Library) on successive nights. It was a trying time for the whole family, as already explained. Of three young relatives in Flanders with Wellington’s army, one would appear to have been Colonel Kinsmere’s favourite grandson—Captain Barry Kinsmere-West, 40th Regiment of Foot (Somerset).

From the beginning of June it had become evident that the Allies would shortly face the terrible Bonaparte. Colonel Kinsmere was doing his best to keep the minds of his listeners (and also, no doubt, his own) off the coming encounter.

For eighteen nights, then, he detailed these adventures of his grandfather. He must have been recounting the last chapter when in a distant country darkness fell across grainfields beyond the village of Waterloo, with the Grand Army shattered and in wild retreat.

Colonel Kinsmere did not break off because he was interrupted by news of the victory. News of the victory did not reach England until three days later. He broke off because in the telling of the final part on Sunday, June 18th, he drank so much port that he went upstairs inebriated and singing, and being in his eighty-fourth year, kept to his bed the next day,

He had thoroughly recovered when he heard of Waterloo, together with a citation in the
Gazette
for Captain Barry Kinsmere-West. Then occurred the conduct which so much offended the later Mrs. Darlington. Colonel Kinsmere would appear to have danced a hornpipe before the eyes of his scandalized grandchildren. He then clapped on his hat and sallied down to the village. Hiring a coach at the Hound and Glove, he filled the rear boot with bottles of spirits, invited a number of villagers to ride with him, and himself drove the coach from Bristol to Taunton, crying news of the victory.

We are possessed of thirdhand accounts by old men whose own grandfathers saw him, of that apparition thundering through the countryside. In his youth Colonel Kinsmere was a fine whip, but even as an octogenarian he seems to have outdone himself in the handling of a heavy coach over indifferent roads. He is remembered as sitting up there in a blue coat with brass buttons, his tall hat on the side of his head, singing a song called “I Pass All My Hours in a Shady Old Grove,” and drinking brandy out of the neck of a bottle.

The narrative was never resumed. Or, if it was, I can find no record of it anywhere. Since it is a complete story in itself, however, we have ventured to let it stand in the present form. Those curious may be interested in the following extract, beyond a bare record of births and deaths in the parish register.

For this I am indebted to the scholarly work of the Rev. William R. Eccles,
Reminiscences of a Country Parish
, privately published in 1882. His account of Roderick Kinsmere, as one of the famous figures out of the past, is fairly brief and highly discreet. After detailing “Rowdy” Kinsmere’s ancestry and birth (May 15th, 1649), Mr. Eccles goes on:

“After he had gone to court in the year 1670, his pecuniary resources were embarrassed by the failure of Stainley’s Bank. Although this was only temporary, and Stainley’s Bank is today one of the great financial institutions of the domain, he never recovered the more substantial portion of his inheritance. Fortunately, however, he was awarded a pension by Charles II, doubtless from one of those happy caprices which make us feel a certain kindliness for that king despite his manifold weaknesses, vacillations of character, and the temptations to which even the strongest wills are prone to succumb in a licentious and profligate age,” etc., etc., etc.

“In 1670, moreover, he married Miss Dorothy Jane Landis, a lady of most esteemed birth and happy accomplishments. Though malicious tongues might hint that this lady had been associated professionally with theatrical enterprises in the metropolis, such reports were contradicted by her sweetness of temper, the calm dignity and nobility of her character, which shone about her during her visits to Blackthorn.

“Their union was blessed with four children, viz.: Bygones (1672), Dorothy (1674), Charles (1675), Alan (1680). Due to unhappy eventualities which overtook the two older sons, it fell to the lot of Alan to take into his capable hands the management of the estate. In 1687 Dorothy Kinsmere passed gently from this life, mourned by all who knew her, but leaving behind those tender memories which must cling for ever round the couches of the blest.

“The revolution of 1688 occurring not long afterwards, her husband retired to Blackthorn, passing the rest of his life in the beauty and serenity of pastoral surroundings. He was much given to study and good works, and set an example to his descendants worthy of being followed in these, alas, much different days. He died November 28th, 1748, and lies amid the eternal calmness which in life his lofty spirit loved so well.”

At this discreet summing-up let no irreverent reader commit what the Rev. Mr. Eccles would
not
have called “the vulgar error of a horse-laugh.” For us who grub in diaries and try to puzzle out the characters of Sizzlers long dust it is, rather, a solemn thought. Awesome as it seems, this is what they call the Verdict of History—that jack-o’-lantern which has teased so many students. And, in leaving it for the reader’s consideration, the editor has one consolation. It is probably fully as accurate as most of the estimates made by the gravest Victorian scholars of the life and character of King Charles the Second.

John Dickson Carr (1906–1977) was one of the most popular authors of Golden Age British-style detective novels. Born in Pennsylvania and the son of a US congressman, Carr graduated from Haverford College in 1929. Soon thereafter, he moved to England where he married an Englishwoman and began his mystery-writing career. In 1948, he returned to the US as an internationally known author. Carr received the Mystery Writers of America’s highest honor, the Grand Master Award, and was one of the few Americans ever admitted into the prestigious, but almost exclusively British, Detection Club.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1964 by John Dickson Carr

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