Read Online The Black Hand by Will Thomas - Free Book Online

sort of mood is he in?”
    “He’s a bit grim tonight. It’s like he’s playing a game of chess, only with your lives.”
    I shrugged. “That’s nothing new. I find it hard to believe we’re actually abandoning London. I suppose I have time at least for a soak.”
    “Mr. Barker told me not to heat the water. He says it is too dangerous to go out in the garden at night.”
    Shakespeare says discretion is the better part of valor.Smart fellow, the noble bard. Rather than beard the lion in his den when he was in a mood, I went upstairs, and seeing that my few possessions had been packed, I decided to read for an hour or two before going to bed. At the same time, however, I made certain there was a loaded pistol on the bedside table within easy reach.

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18

    C YRUS BARKER HAD RETURNED FROM HIS MEETING and was waiting in the hall, a trifle impatiently.
    “How was your tea?” he asked.
    I searched for an appropriate adjective. “Informative.”
    The Guv gave me an appraising look, then led me out the door with a wave of his cane. Outside, a man was waiting for us. He had an air of authority about him, in an easygoing, bluff sort of way. He was about forty, tall and thin but muscular, with hair blown by the wind and bleached by the sun. His skin was deeply tanned like leather, and he was without a jacket in the heat, making me itch to remove my own. He wore braces over a white shirt with no collar, and a handkerchief was tied loosely about his neck. By now, I knew the sort of fellow Cyrus Barker would trust and favor, and this was one of them.
    “Lad, this is Peter Beauchamp, a former shipmate of mine. Peter, Thomas Llewelyn, my assistant.” The man didn’t speak, but nodded and turned, heading off toward the Channel. We followed him. Every bird in Sussex was infull throat, and rabbits nibbled on the beds of thyme. The sky overhead was nearly cloudless and so deeply blue that a painting of it might have looked unnatural. The only way I’d find out where we were going, I reasoned, was to get there.
    The three of us walked into the town of Seaford and through it. Beauchamp was greeted by some of the villagers and murmured a response. When we reached the water’s edge we had a perfect view of the Seven Sisters rising from the town clear up to Beachy Head, the highest point along the entire south coast. The white cliffs were so dazzling they hurt the eyes.
    Beauchamp led us to a multicolored group of small dwellings by the Channel’s edge. They were coast guard cottages, or at least they once were. Someone must have purchased them all and knocked out walls higgledy-piggledy, turning the entire place into a single dwelling. I almost wanted to call it a warren, for the yard and beach were full of children running and playing and none of them looked over five years of age.
    We were met at the door by a cheery, sturdy girl with loose brown hair and a face full of freckles. This, it turned out, was Mrs. Beauchamp, and the brood disporting on the pebble beach was theirs, all seven of them.
    “Brought company,” Beauchamp said offhandedly. His wife, far from seeming offended, welcomed us warmly.
    “Are you gents hungry? I could do a good fry up in a few minutes.”
    “Thank you, ma’am,” Barker said, removing his hat. “We’ve eaten.”
    “Ah, yes,” came the reply. “Up at the big house. Quite a to-do up there, Peter tells me.”
    “I’m checking on the fleet,” Beauchamp murmured and passed out the back door. He was a man of few words, most of them cryptic. Of what fleet was he speaking, precisely?
    The answer was out on the shore. Twenty boats with numbers painted on their sides were drawn up on the shingle with the children running about them. They were sturdy fishing vessels. A larger boat lay out in the water, moored at the end of a long dock. Her deck was of stained teak with whitewashed quarters, and she had both masts and a smokestack. She must have been