Ramage and the Freebooters

'But there must be others: what happens when they find he's missing?'

'The only one that mattered was a gardener: he took the butler's messages to the drummer.'

'What about him, then?'

'He won't trouble anyone,' Ramage said shortly.

'And the drummer?'

'We still have to find him. I know his name but not where he lives. He never goes near Government House, though, and won't be expecting to hear from the gardener until the next signal's to be passed.'

'Sir Jason seemed mightily upset,' Wilson said, not troubling to disguise the satisfaction in his voice.

'Hardly surprising, sir; imagine how it'll look in a despatch to London: the Governor's butler a spy who was blackmailing me Governor's wife's secretary into betraying secrets.'

'Well, I'm not going to gloss over it in my report to the Secretary at War,' Wilson said crossly. 'Ever since the Insurrection I've been convinced mere's been a leakage of information from Government House. When Sir Jason arrived I begged him to change all the servants—that damned butler particularly; I couldn't stand him. But Sir Jason wouldn't hear of it In fact he thought the world of the butler.'

'I wonder what else he discovered over the years and passed on to the French.'

'Beggars the imagination to think of it. Must have been a rich man by now—they'll have been paying him well.'

Ramage shook his head. 'He didn't get a penny.'

'What?' Wilson almost shouted. 'Did he—dammit, you mean to say he played traitor for nothing?'

'No,' Ramage said wearily, for the heat and excitement were taking their toll, 'he wasn't a traitor. No'—he held up a hand hastily to stop Wilson, who seemed likely to explode —'he was a French national. French father, British mother. Spoke bom languages fluently.'

'How d'you know all this?'

'From his daughter.'

Ramage had optimistically hoped that in the excitement no one would ask the question, but mere was no avoiding it.

'Daughter? Who'...' Wilson paused as he saw the misery in Ramage's face. 'Oh, hmm, deuced sorry about that, m'dear fellow. I... How much does old Fishpot know about this?'

'Nothing, sir. I had a long talk with Miss de Giraud while I was waiting for you to arrive. You know as much as Sir Jason because you were there when I told him. And a little more, now.'

'So you and I—and the lady—are the only ones that know?'

Ramage nodded. 'And now you have a duty to do, sir, so...'

'Lookee young Ramage. I've my duty to do, yes. But answer me this honestly—as far as I can make out she was answering your questions openly when you realized that fellow had come into the room with a pistol?'

'Yes—she was anxious to. She'd spent the morning trying to pluck up courage to do away with herself.'

'She told you that?' Wilson exclaimed.

'Yes—you see, I'd asked her to tell me the whole story but she couldn't bring herself to; not starting at the beginning, as it were. She wanted me to ask questions.'

'Right—now you answer two questions for me. Forget any feelings you have for her—don't get embarrassed; I envy you—and tell me if you, as a King's officer, are certain she was telling you the truth all the time.'

'Yes, and apart from that, her answers tally precisely with what we already knew.'

'Very well, Second question—if she hadn't answered your questions, could you have found out about the butler and all that business?'

Ramage shook his head.

'Definitely not After all, we only discovered about her by eliminating everyone else. But the trail would have stopped mere.'

'So in effect she's turned King's evidence: she's helped us trap a spy?'

Suddenly Ramage realized what the old Colonel was driving at.

'Yes, and willingly.' Then, after a moment's thought, he added, 'But from your point of view, sir, since you're responsible for the internal security of the island, you mustn't forget that if she'd committed suicide this morning ...'

'I'm only concerned with what she did; not what she might have done,' Wilson said crisply. 'By the way, what's the Governor proposing to do?'

'His last words to me, while you were seeing the trunk loaded on to the carriage,' Ramage said dryly, 'were that he was going to write a strongly-worded protest to Admiral Robinson and the Admiralty about me.'

'Protesting about what?'

'I don't dunk he was too sure. Probably because I deprived him of his butler...'

Wilson laughed.

'A serious offence. But just one more question about Miss de Giraud: what made her—well, obey her father and give away secrets?'

'Sheer terror. He was a fanatical revolutionary—one of Fedon's right-hand men. During the Insurrection he took her to see some voodoo nonsense—the ritual murder of a negro accused of helping the British, and the negro's wife. It was five hours before they were dead. The drummer who beats the tom-tom was one of the murderers. She was eighteen years old when she saw that. When she went to Government House, her father simply told her if she didn't do what he told her, she'd be handed over to this man. She believed he'd do it—and so do L'

'Did the Governor know she was the butler's daughter?'

'No, nor was the man really a butler. Came from an old French family. Some row at Court and he was exiled. It embittered him, so he was ripe to become a revolutionary. When the war began, he was sent to the West Indies as a spy because of his perfect English, and his daughter, too.'

'Why, isn't the daughter a Jacobin, then?'

'Her mother—she was English, remember—left him years ago in France and took the girl to England. After the Revolution but before the war began the father forced her to go back to France, though she regarded herself as English.'

'And the Governor knows none of this?'

'Not a thing Just that I had to kill his butler because he was a spy, and that the whole thing must be kept secret.'

'Very well, that doses the affair. What do you intend doing now?"

'About the privateers? Frankly sir, my head's still in a whirclass="underline" knifing a man accidentally like that leaves a nasty feeling...'

'You'd have an even nastier feeling if he'd shot you, which he obviously intended doing. Don't become one of those people who cheerfully toll a man with a cannon at a mile range but baulk at killing the same man with a sword at one yard.'

'Just as lethal, but less personal. No, I really meant killing him in front of his daughter. Although I think he intended shooting her as well.'

'Upsetting,' Wilson admitted, but without much conviction. 'Now, what else is to be done about the butler?'

'Well sir, to be honest I don't think I've the patience to try to deal with Sir Jason. We'd be unwise to tell him any more than he knows already. If he knew the whole truth he'd probably talk. Or his wife would.'

'Leave that to me,' Wilson said flatly. 'I'll go up and see him. Now for Miss de Giraud—I don't Like leaving her there. A shot through her window... There are plenty of French sympathizers on the island. We don't know how many knew what the butler was doing. Now he's vanished, as far as they're concerned they might get frightened.'

Ramage nodded. 'That's crossed my mind, but------'

'She can stay at my house. My wife likes her and the place is always guarded. I can get her there this evening without anyone knowing. All the servants are soldiers' wives and been with us years.'

'Thank you, sir. Now if you'll excuse me I'd like to get back on board.'

'Fine—leave Sir Fishpot to me. And let's hope we think of a way of smoking out those privateers. Pity the Triton's not a Trojan horse 1'

*

Ramage was drafting a brief report for Admiral Robinson when Jackson knocked on the door and came into the cabin, handing him the throwing knife.

'All cleaned up and re-sharpened, sir. Nasty nick just to one side of the point; must have caught the bone.'