name—not that it is of the slightest importance—is, as you know, Beauchamp. One of my ancestors came over with the Conqueror and ever since we like to think that we serve our sovereign as faithfully as he did.’
He waved a hand at the portrait so that Cobie wasn’t sure whether he meant Prince Rupert, the loyal supporter of two Stuart Kings, or his own distant progenitor.
Since something seemed expected of him, he offered, again with all the naïve charm he could muster, ‘I cannot repay you by offering a similar remarkable ancestry—my own being remarkable only in that, like many Americans, I have none. I am newly invented.’
The grey man laughed. ‘Well said, and I should have expected such an answer. Come, Mr Jacobus Grant, who possesses the face of the Hattons, but denies any connection with them, what moves a man like yourself to action? The philosophers whom I read tell me that newly invented men make their own laws since those which already exist mean nothing to them, being the work of men invented long ago. Do you make your own laws, Mr Grant, and in consequence carry out trial and sentence according to them—even in London?’
Cobie lifted his guitar. San Miguel and its outlaws would have recognised his expression. He began to play the song from The Mikado again. He let the words run out softly, keeping his guitar at the ready.
‘Like that?’ he queried sweetly. ‘What a romantic notion, Mr Beauchamp, sir. You should write novels.’
The grey man smiled. ‘Instead of living them,’ he said. ‘I must inform you that the Prince likes you, Mr Grant, genuinely likes you. Not just because you’re an American—he likes them all, you know. They do things. He was formed to do things, but was never allowed to. He will be an old man before he reaches the throne, which is a pity. The old woman who sits on it now has had her day but will not acknowledge it. Since he is a man who likes action, and is denied it, he becomes bored, and bored people make mistakes… It would be a pity if because of one of them he were to be passed over, reviled by a too-powerful Press.’
Cobie said nothing, played a few soft chords on the guitar. The tune was one he thought Mr Beauchamp might not know. It sang of passion and death—but in a frontier society, not this civilised one.
The grey man said, ‘As I am sure you are aware, His Royal Highness is quite unlike Sir Ratcliffe and his kind. His pleasures hurt no one. He takes them where he knows they will not offend. For him to have been indiscreet for once, does not mean that he deserves to be pilloried—only pitied because he may not act as other men do.’
Cobie’s hands were busy on the guitar. His brain was busier. Where was all this double-talk leading? What did this faceless man want with Cobie Grant? How much did the man know of Sir Ratcliffe and himself? He could not believe that the mention of Sir Ratcliffe’s name was innocent, after Beauchamp’s earlier hints of his possible lawless acts in London.
‘Come to the point,’ he said negligently. ‘I’m sure there is a point. Americans like to get to it quickly. We are blunt, sir, blunt.’
‘I have never seen anyone less blunt than your good self,’ answered the grey man, his voice dry.
‘That is because you don’t know me,’ and Cobie played a few bars of a Negro spiritual.
‘Oh, I know you, Mr Grant, and of your doings—both here and in the States. No matter, I will be plain. The Prince wrote some letters to a lady, whose husband suddenly became jealous, and took her from London, and into the country. Being a fool, he thought that might keep her chaste. She, also being a fool, kept the Prince’s letters, and took another lover—and showed him the Prince’s letters for him to laugh at.
‘He did more than laugh at them. He stole them, and now he blackmails the Prince with them, to keep himself in society, save himself from ruin. His Royal Highness has been generous…you understand me? But the thief grows careless, and behaves after a fashion which would have caused the Prince to—banish him, as it were. But he may not, because of the letters…
‘Now the man has become so indiscreet that he grows dangerous. Were his secret activities known he, being a friend of the Prince, would prove dangerous to the Prince, might even shake the throne. Cornered, he might try to use the letters to save himself—or even publish them, out of spite.’ He paused.
Cobie played a few slow bars of ‘God Save the Queen’, and said, as drily and anonymously as the man before him, ‘What has all this to do with me, sir?’
But he knew, he knew.
‘Why, I think you know the thief very well, Mr Grant. You have already dealt with one of his minions—and have plans for him, too.’ He began to hum the song from The Mikado which Cobie had treated him to earlier.
‘Need I say,’ he continued smoothly when he had finished humming, ‘that not only would you be satisfying yourself, and saving yourself from trouble, but you would also be doing the state some service if the Prince’s letters were…somehow…to be recovered…’
Cobie thought rapidly again. No one had disturbed them. He swung his head and looked down the corridor. Since the grey man had appeared the double doors at the far end had been closed—were probably locked, he thought. He had been tracked as carefully as though he were in the desert in Arizona, being followed by the law. He was, in effect, a kind of prisoner.
He laughed.
He murmured, his voice reproving, ‘The more things change, the more they remain the same. That’s the most delicate attempt to blackmail me into doing something that I have ever suffered. Tell me, does your master know of this—or of Sir Ratcliffe’s vicious life?’
The grey man smiled ironically. ‘It all depends which master you mean. If you are referring to the Prince, then my answer is, No.’
‘I thought not.’ Cobie shook his head. ‘You have read Francis Bacon, sir? I am sure you have. He said a number of things worthy of remembrance. He is particularly good on revenge, Mr Beauchamp, sir…’ The last phrase came out in his most insolent Western drawl.
‘He said that revenge is a kind of wild justice, and also that it is a dish best eaten cold. When I was very young, I agreed with him… When I was a little older—I was not so sure. Sometimes the best revenge is no revenge at all. What we do, Mr Beauchamp, sir, has consequences for us, as well as those to whom we do it. I will think your proposition over.’
The grey man hesitated. ‘That is your considered answer?’
‘I have no master but myself,’ replied Cobie negligently, ‘and therefore the only duty I owe is to myself, and to none other. No fear of demotion, no hope of promotion can move me, you understand, no threat to blast my reputation, either. I think that what you have found out about me is hearsay.
‘If I do what you want me to do, it will be because I want to do it, not because you are trying to blackmail me into stealing back the Prince of Wales’s letters—as Sir Ratcliffe is blackmailing the Prince. I don’t like blackmailers, Mr Beauchamp, sir, not even in a just cause. You must live in hope.
‘Now had you asked me, pat, as the Bard says, you might have gained a different answer.’
His smile was as provoking as he could make it.
The grey man said slowly. ‘I see that I have underestimated you.’ He paused, before asking, ‘Tell me one thing—out of curiosity, you understand, not to use against you.
