Chapter 21: Secrets and Liars

It was a sombre party that left Walton Grange the following morning.
I gave an edited version of the previous day’s events before we left the Grange, and Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent was moved to tears when learning of the death of Captain Hutton, or perhaps it was learning of the death of the man she knew as Captain Wilhelm Erzählenmann.

“I shall inform the King of Captain Hutton’s sacrifice, Sir Elijah.” She said.

“Perhaps you could present the Petition from the Artisans of Birmingham at the same time, Your Royal Highness? Captain Hutton was always a supporter of fair play, and of the views of the Petitioners.”
I knew both statements were true.
The Duchess looked at me with narrowed eyes. “I acceded to the demand, –request, of those unter – artisans, and I am a woman of her word, Sir Elijah.”

“I have never doubted that for one moment, Madam.” I bowed, took her hand, kissed it, and then took my leave.

I was about to hand Mimi up into the coach she shared with Claudette, the Duchess of Kent’s ladies maid Gerda, and Baroness Louise Lehzen, when she stopped and turned to face me.

“Caroline said she saw you talking to Uncle Callum yesterday when the Royal Party was leaving Tewkesbury Abbey.”
Caroline-Domina was always the more observant of the twins.

“Yes, he was on his way to Bristol, but did not have time to stay the night at Walton Grange. We shall meet up with him in Bristol later.”

“What is he doing in Bristol?”
A fair question, to which I only gave a half answer.
Mimi then fixed me with a look I can only describe as lewd.

“Did he bring you any of Professor Potter’s Potent Prowess Providing Potion, my love?”
“Why would I need Professor...”
This time her look was a combination of love, lust, and lechery.

“Trust me, Jacques, you will have need. I know you have had much on your mind during this Royal Progress, which is why I have been quite gentle with you when making The Beast. But now, with the assassin dead, you can relax, and I can be more inventive, passionate, and feral. You best be in good fettle, as I am going to take you to the very brink of depravity, and of your strength, my love.”
Her lips descended on mine, and her tongue invaded my mouth.
She literally took my breath away. Eventually, after devouring my mouth and damn near swallowing my tongue, she unfastened her sucking lips from mine.

“Consider that un aperitif, sweetheart.” She climbed into the coach, and then blew me a kiss from the window as the vehicle started off.

I mounted my horse and made my way along the Gloucester Road, my mind filled with the delight of being married to a woman like Mimi Renoir.
Of the three ‘Blanchard Girls’ – as I referred to Mimi, Chloe, and Matilde – she was the one I had thought to be the most restrained and ‘sensible’. Chloe, Matilde, and Annette Blanchard, had all been my lovers, and each had an underlying sensuality that bordered on the dissolute, at times delving into debauchery. I had thought Mimi above that type of conduct, possibly because of her having a child, but more likely because she always appeared to be in control of her emotions. That she had acted like a whore after learning of the death of my first wife, Caroline, came as a complete surprise, but her aberrant behaviour could be blamed on the mental distress she was suffering at the time.
However, after our marriage, I discovered Mimi possessed a similarly voracious appetite for fornication as did her sister Chloe, her cousin Matilde, and her aunt Annette, but had not as yet shown their predisposition for debauchery. From her conversation earlier it seemed that Mimi was about to demonstrate she too shared the family’s enthusiasm for unbridled lasciviousness.

Inwardly I smiled. How fortunate I had included several bottles of Professor Potter’s potion in my knapsack. After The Progress Mimi and I would be spending several months in Grantham. Mimi was more adventurous when making love at ‘Coromandel’ than at Blanchards, and still more so than at Monmouth House, and I thought it prudent to have a cache of the potion at hand in case I was unable to satisfy her more extreme demands.
To date I had manged to keep up with her appetite for copulation without the need of stimulants, but Mimi was at least ten years my junior, and if her wantonness became excessive I would be hard put to keep up with her wishes.

An unpleasant thought then entered my head. Mimi, Chloe, Matilde, and Annette, were all descended from the same sire as was Eloise de La Zouche.
All thoughts of galloping my desirable and enthusiastic wife vanished.
In my mind I was transported back to the room in the tower of Tewkesbury Abbey, with Erzählenmann holding a loaded crossbow, and my family on a platform within range of a crossbow bolt.
Every year I received a birthday ‘greeting’ from Eloise de La Zouche containing veiled threats to my family. Last November the note had promised me ‘unimagined delights when you are free of your encumbrances.‘.

I was convinced Eloise de La Zouche had paid Erzählenmann to kill my wife and daughters. Her intent was obvious. The destruction of my family would herald the beginning of a relationship betwixt her and I, and that destruction had been planned for yesterday. However, my death was not part of the plan; Eloise wanted me alive, to suffer the loss of my family for a second time.
Erzählenmann must have been in two minds how to deal with me when I burst into the room in Tewkesbury Abbey. If he had killed me then Eloise would not have gained her revenge, and might have withheld the major part of his fee. He must have planned to wound me, and then carry out the devilish work of murdering my family. His indecision had led to his death.

I was wondering if my family were still in danger from Eloise de La Zouche when Humphrey Appleby rode up alongside me. I was glad of his company as it drove out the unpleasant thoughts from my mind.

“You made a strong argument for Captain Hutton’s widow to have a pension comparable to the hero he undoubtedly was,” he said.

“Only right and proper, Humph. The man died saving the life of our future Queen.”

“I shall ensure a grant of pension or gratuity is swiftly passed through the Treasury. Missus Hutton shall have no need to scrimp and scrape for the rest of her life, and Hutton’s son will be able to return to his Public School. Do you know which one?”

“Oundle, I think.”

“Oundle! We certainly can do better for the lad than that. I would suppose the boy will follow his father into the army, and his Mama would prefer he attend Eton, Rugby or Harrow, the army being where most graduates from those three, greatly over- rated, centres of Academia, end up. Nonetheless, the boy should be given a choice of careers, and I shall have a word with the Master of Winchester. Wykehamists are more suited to a career in the Civil Service rather than in the army. The former puts a premium on brain rather than on brawn.”

“I take it you are a Wykehamist, Humph?”
“Indeed I am. Something for which I am eternally grateful, as I am for being born English.” He glanced at me with a smile on his face. “You have a keen intellect, Jack, what centre of learning did you attend?”

“The local grammar school in Grantham. The King’s School is not quite in the same league as Winchester and its ilk.”

“Nonetheless, it has as an alumnus the great Sir Isaac Newton.”

“I am surprised you know where Sir Isaac went to school.” I said, but then recalled that even Madam Juliana Hainaut, teaching rustic youths in a small village in Flanders, was aware of Sir Isaac Newton’s school.

He pursed his lips in thought. “It was a great moment in the history of the world when the apple fell on Sir Isaac’s head, and he then pondered on the force which had caused it to fall. I would imagine he shouted out in a similar manner as did Archimedes, ‘Eureka’.”
I leaned from my saddle and whispered in Humphrey Appleby’s ear what Isaac Newton had actually said when struck by the apple.
Humph damn near fell off his horse with mirth. He let out a tremendous roar of laughter that so startled his horse it reared, bucked, and twisted, all in one continuous movement. The majority of riders would have been thrown by such a manoeuvre, I certainly would have been, but Humphrey effortlessly kept his seat, and gentled the horse.
I congratulated him on his superb horsemanship. He actually blushed at my praise.

“I was riding before I could walk. My Pa was Master of Foxhounds of The Quorn, and I was riding to hounds at twelve years of age – got bloodied on my fourteenth birthday, and also lost my virginity to one of the parlour maids – quite a day.”
The Quorn Hunt is the oldest established pack of fox hounds in England, and hunts in Leicestrshire and parts of Nottinghamshire, which would explain the trace of an East Midland accent I could detect in Appleby’s speech.
He had paused in remembrance of the day of his fourteenth birhday, whether in memory of the blooding or the loss of his virginity was made clear by his next statement.
“Pretty little Polly Perkins from Paddington Green taught me more that day, and night, than all the years I spent at Winchester.”

“I doubt Pythagoras’ Theorem was part of her syllabus,” I said.

“No, but something I have used more often than that theorem: how to gain the confidences, and madges, of females.”
I stared at him. Humphrey Appleby did not strike me as a ladies’ man.
He was the epitome of nondescript. Everything about him was indeterminate; height, build, age, hair colour, eye colour, voice, manner – there was nothing about him that struck you at first glance. He was the sort of cove you could be alone in a room with and not notice him, although I must admit when he spoke he commanded both attention and respect.

He saw my look of amazement and smiled. “I know you think me a dried up old scribe with only ink in my veins. I might have developed into such a figure had not Polly told me the sure way to be a success with female. It is quite simple. Regard females as sentient human beings and not as a something to be pursued, possessed, owned, and disregarded. And always listen to what they have to say.”

We rode in silence for some time as I digested this information.

“I am about to divulge something that I ask you keep to yourself, Sir Elijah.”
Humphrey Appleby’s formal mode of address made me sit up and take notice.

“I know how to keep a secret, Mister Appleby,” I said, responding in a like manner.
He grinned. “Well that’s good to know, Jack.” He paused before posing a question. “Why do you imagine I am with the Royal Progress?”
I shrugged. “Something to do with the Home Office I warrant, although for the life of me I cannot see what role you play.” I then remembered something he had said the day before on the road to Tewkesbury.
“But you are temporarily attached to the Home Office from the Treasury, so I expect you are ensuring government money is not being squandered during The Progress.”
“Yes, that is my cover, but I am really gathering information from those Great Houses where the Royal Party stays more than a night – particularly Mount Bank Hall, Rougemont Manor, and Blandon Hall.”

“Information gathering? Are you a member of MI6?”
He shook his head. “No, but I often liaise with that department, as well with MI5, and the Metropolitan Police, but my department is separate from them...”

“How many damned information gathering departments are there? There should only be one instead of several, who sometimes fail to pass vital information between themselves.”

“My sentiments exactly, Jack, but we have to deal with the system in place. Each Government department fights its corner when it comes to information gathering. I work in the financial investigation office of the Treasury...”

“Why does The Treasury need an intelligence gathering office?” I said.
Then something Sir Boris Crossley had said some time ago stirred my memory.

He had proposed a method where a resurrected Relocation Bureau could be maintained without funding from a Government department, by the simple expedient of a clandestine office in the Treasury diverting a percentage of revenue gathered from negligent taxpayers.
Boris had titled this unit the ‘Reclamation Office’, and suggested that coercion of those who were remiss in paying their full tax would bring in much needed revenue, keep the Chancellor of the Exchequer happy, and unaware, or care, how the money was raised.
Was Appleby part of this undercover department? Should I reveal to him what Boris had divulged?
I decided to keep my thoughts to myself, and instead paid attention to what Humphrey was saying.
“A country’s strength is measured by its wealth, Jack. Remember that the Prime Minister is also designated The First Lord of the Treasury. Taxes are the life blood of a government’s finances, and when Income Tax was introduced by William Pitt the Younger a department was set up to ensure people were paying the amount of tax proportional to their income.”

“So you are checking to see if the owners of those Great Houses are stumping up their correct tax revenue? How do you go about discovering that information?”

“I shall answer the second question first, Jack.”

He paused, marshalling his thoughts. “I use the skills developed from Polly Perkin’s advice on how to ingratiate myself with females. My targets are carefully chosen. Not the grand ladies of the house, nor the young housemaids, but the more senior members of a household; housekeepers, cooks, governesses. Mature ladies, usually widows, who are still active in the galloping stakes but are not taken over the fences as often as they would like. Once I have their confidence I probe them – that is after probing their honey pots – for tittle-tattle concerning the master of the house. What guests he has entertained, what was said, and what sort of entertainment was enjoyed. Bits and bobs, straws in the wind, random scraps of information, that can be fitted together and a pattern identified.”