Read Becket's Last Stand for Free Online

in a picturesque cottage near Bath? Even if that lover of such longstanding is one's own nephew— a young man also in the employ of the so-discreet Edmund Beales?
     
     
Knowledge. Power. Knowledge was power. And Edmund Beales did so appreciate both.
     
     
"Very well," Beales said after the silence in the room had grown, at least for his two visitors, decidedly tense. "First, for reasons my own, I am, for the nonce, no longer Nathanial Beatty. Erase, if you please, that name from your memories. In fact, erase me from your memories. Both for only a small space of time, but until I give you permission, you do not know me, have never met me. Understood?"
     
     
Francis Roberts actually began to smile, as if just given a gift from above, but quickly covered his mouth and coughed into his fist. Obviously not quite as stupid as he looked, Beales thought. He might keep him.
     
     
"Then what will we call you?"
     
     
Beales looked at Sir Horatio from beneath heavy eyelids. Him he most definitely would not keep. The man was a stepping stone into the rarefied society of Mayfair, as were all the others, but his usefulness would end soon.
     
     
"You will not call me anything, Horatio, for you will not know me," Beales explained as he would to a child. "You will see me on the street and nod your head in passing as you would to any gentleman you encounter, but that is all. Are we understanding each other now, or shall I write it down for you, have you memorize it and then recite to me tomorrow, so I can be certain you have taken such complex information into your brainbox, hmm?"
     
     
"No, sir," Sir Horatio said, looking into his empty wineglass as if wishing it full again.
     
     
"Very well. Now, if we may proceed with my crisis of conscience?" Beales picked up a piece of paper from his desk, turned it about and slid it across the surface toward Roberts, the smarter of the two men, if it was possible to differentiate between Dumb and Obtuse.
     
     
Roberts picked up the paper, read aloud, "'Geoffrey Baskin, captain, the Black Ghost, now known by the name Becket and residing somewhere in Romney Marsh, most probably near the Channel. Jacko, no surname known, captain, the Silver Ghost, probably also somewhere in Romney Marsh— '"
     
     
"Yes, yes, I know what's written on the page, thank you, Francis," Beales said, waving away the man's words. "Now, let me tell you their crimes, shall I? Because these men must be located, gentlemen, and brought to justice for the crimes of piracy and murder against the Crown. Found, tried, convicted and hanged…within the month, if possible. Can you do this?"
     
     
"Piracy? Where?" Sir Horatio asked, frowning. "Smuggling, God knows, and even some ship wreckers still operating in Cornwall. But piracy? Not in these waters."
     
     
"Indeed, no. Francis holds the paper containing all of the pertinent information. We're speaking of a time before the turn of the century, gentlemen, in the waters somewhere off Haiti, and a convoy of several ships from three nations, joined together to protect each other in dangerous waters. The French and Spanish ships are of no account to us, of course, but the English ship that was, sadly, sent to the bottom carried not only property of the Crown and its captain and crew, but also the Sixth Earl of Chelfham— yes, gentlemen, the older brother of our dear departed friend Rowley— along with his lady wife and young daughter. Monstrous, just monstrous, wouldn't you agree?"
     
     
"Rowley's older brother?" Sir Horatio looked to Francis Roberts. "That's how Rowley came into his title, remember? His brother was lost at sea? Damn and blast, murdered by pirates? Did you know that?"
     
     
Roberts shook his head, his gaze still concentrated on the paper in his shaking hand. "This was all so long ago. There's…there's proof?"
     
     
"All you might ever need," Beales said, steepling his fingers in front of his chin. "A letter, dictated on his deathbed by one of