Bruce Alexander - Smuggler's Moon

There was an awkward lull thereafter. Sir John saved the moment, however, by putting to Mr. Sarton a question, one which had troubled me as well.

“Sir,” said he, ”I’ve noted that you and your wife are very careful to whom you open your front door. Understand me, I believe you both act prudently in this. Nevertheless, is it not difficult to manage such a degree of security when your court is in session?”

“Ah, well,” said Mr. Sarton, ”there you’ve put your finger upon it, sir. Our house must be more or less open to the public during court hours. If it were left to us, we would keep the door locked and bolted during those hours, as well. As you may have heard, Sir John, our town jail burned down some months past-with no loss of life, I hasten to add. So far, they have not yet found the money to build another. When they do, I requested that they build it large enough so that the court may be convened there next to the cells with perhaps no more than a wall between.”

“We have a similar arrangement on the ground floor at Number 4 Bow Street.”

“The problem will be solved then,” said Mr. Sarton. ”We can keep our place in Middle Street locked up just as tight as a drum.”

“Why do you feel it necessary to do so?”

“I should think that would be obvious. It’s because of what happened to my predecessor.”

”Oh? What was that?”

“You were never told?”

“Not a word. I assumed he had died of natural causes. He was of an advanced age, was he not?”

“Sixty-four. Since you were not told of any of this, you may not even know his name. It was Herbert Kemp. He held the post here for many years, married, had children, brought them up in this very house. His wife had died a few years before, and he lived alone here. A woman from town came in each day to do the cooking and cleaning. Aside from a peculiar tendency to be more stringent in his application of the law in his rulings, he seemed not to have changed in any way from the man who had been magistrate for so many years before.

“Nevertheless, on a certain night, long after the hour when there were possible witnesses roaming about the streets, a knock came upon his door and he opened it, and he was promptly shot dead by him who had knocked. That, in any case, was what was later supposed to have happened, for there were none about to see what had happened, and naught left by the murderer but a body in the open doorway, which was not found until the morning. Strange, is it not, that these houses be so close together, yet none heard the shot fired. Or, having heard, came down to investigate.”

Sir John shook his head in a manner which seemed to indicate his bewilderment. ”And despite all that, you accepted this post?”

“Despite all that,” said he.

“Were I you, I do not believe I would have done.”

“And that’s just what I told him, as well,” said Molly Sarton. ”Yet if he had not come, we wouldn’t’ve met, and my life would have been much poorer for it.” And she smiled solemnly at her husband across the length of the table.

Following Mr. Sarton’s story, it became rather difficult to recapture our former mood at table. All the lightness had leaked out. It was not long before Sir John shuffled his feet politely and said that perhaps we had better be getting on.

“I’ve provided for your trip back,” said Mr. Sarton.

“Oh? And in what way?”

“We’ve a most dependable hackney coachman here in Deal, perhaps the only dependable one among them. I asked him to come by when things slowed down in the evening, and I do believe I heard him draw up at our door but a few minutes past.”

And so we organized ourselves for our return. Molly Sarton firmly declined our offer to help her clear the table and do the washing up. Mr. Sarton then led the way outside and introduced us to Mick Crawly, an easy sort of fellow, yet at the same time, he seemed good and responsible.

“How did you know when we’d be finishing up?” Sir John challenged the driver.

“Ah, how did I now?” Crawly asked himself. ”Knowing Mrs. Sarton’s reputation as a cook, I was sure that it would take two hours of eating to do justice to any dinner of hers, and to that I added another half of an hour, for you’ve quite a reputation as a talker, sir.”

“Even here in Deal?”

“We’re not so distant from London as you might suppose, though it may seem we are.”

“Indeed it often does.”

Happy was I to note that Mr. Crawly’s hackney was of a size and shape comparable to those in London. I would not, in other words, have to ride atop the coach and hang on in fear as we rounded those tight corners which led up to great Mongeham. I climbed in last of all and found the interior quite spacious. All three of us were thus able to sit huddled together against the cold night air upon the same padded bench. It took but a moment to get us settled, and in a moment after that we were underway. Mick Crawly did not drive his team with the same merciless abandon as Lord Mansfield’s man, nor even Will Fowler’s lack of proper concern. He kept his horses moving at a reasonable rate up the narrow roads-no faster than was necessary. As we went, the gentle rocking of the coach soon put Clarissa to sleep.

Unexpectedly, Sir John turned to me and said, ”I met your Dick Dickens today, or perhaps Dickens belongs more properly to Mr. Perkins. In any case, I met him, and I was quite impressed by him.”

“Favorably?”

He chuckled at that. ”Ah yes, you plainly had doubts as to his conversion to the side of right.”

“In fairness,” said I, ”Mr. Perkins seems to have no such doubts. At least he voiced none after I was introduced to his Mr. Dickens.”

“Perhaps that is because the constable successfully underwent a similar conversion-or have you any reason to doubt its sincerity?”

“None at all.”

“Well, there you are.” He hesitated, then went on. ”I’m inclined to accept Dickens as he presents himself because he is in possession of a great deal of information and has been quite generous with it. He is most resentful that he and his troop of customs men have been kept inactive by that dreadful fellow, Eccles, whom we met at Lord Mansfield’s. By the bye, have you any idea why he has stopped all efforts on the Kent coast and blamed Mr. Sarton so unjustly?”

“None whatever,” said I, ”and I have sought some such reason without success.”

“Well, he hopes that by presenting the efforts of the customs and excisemen as fruitless and painting the darkest picture possible, he will get the Army to loan him a detachment of soldiers, cavalry preferred. He is a fool if he believes he will command them. Rather, some fool of a lieutenant will be commanding him .

”But that is all in the nature of a digression,” continued Sir John. ”What I wished to say is this: Mr. Dickens has not sat idle as his chief would have him. No, indeed. He has assembled a most excellent network of spies and informants in the smuggling trade or at the periphery of it. He told me more in a morning than I would have thought possible. He has promised to return tomorrow and tell me even more. Then shall we begin our planning. I do believe that with Mr. Perkins’s help and yours, we shall be able to make it work.”

I had no exact idea of the time, though I was sure that it was quite late at night. The moon had gained its apex and had started its downward transit. Yet it shone down upon the beach, seemingly as bright as it had only an hour before. Mr. Perkins and I were halfway up the bluff and well concealed behind a grassy hummock. We had successfully evaded detection half an hour earlier when a party of four men with two horses had passed no more than thirty yards away. They were now waiting, down on the beach, just as we were above. Unknown to them, two of Mr. Sarton’s constables also waited quite nearby; yet on that stretch of open beach, the constables were as near invisible as could be, for they had taken shelter beneath one of a number of fisher boats that lay up-ended upon the sand. We were all well armed. Two pistols and a cutlass had been issued by Mr. Sarton to each. And though there were but four of us, we would at least have the advantage of surprise.