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  HONOR’S KINGDOM

  Owen Parry

  [Ralph Peters]

  STACKPOLE

  BOOKS

  Books by Ralph Peters

  Nonfiction

  Lines of Fire

  Endless War

  Looking for Trouble

  Wars of Blood and Faith

  New Glory

  Never Quit the Fight

  Beyond Baghdad

  Beyond Terror

  Fighting for the Future

  Fiction

  Cain at Gettysburg

  The Officer’s Club

  The War After Armageddon

  Traitor

  The Devil’s Garden

  Twilight of Heroes

  The Perfect Soldier

  Flames of Heaven

  The War in 2020

  Red Army

  Bravo Romeo

  Writing as Owen Parry

  Faded Coat of Blue

  Shadows of Glory

  Call Each River Jordan

  Bold Sons of Erin

  Rebels of Babylon

  Our Simple Gifts

  Strike the Harp

  Copyright © 2002 by Owen Parry

  Published by

  STACKPOLE BOOKS

  5067 Ritter Road

  Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

  www.stackpolebooks.com

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 17055.

  Printed in the United States

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover photo of Thomas Annan’s “High St from College Open” courtesy of the Mitchell Library

  Cover design by Tessa Sweigert

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Parry, Owen.

  Honor’s kingdom / Owen Parry.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8117-1132-6 (pbk.)

  ISBN-10: 0-8117-1132-3 (pbk.)

  1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Fiction. 2. Jones, Abel (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Undercover operations—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3566.A7637H66 2012

  813'.54—dc23

  2012003813

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-8117-4876-6

  To that blessed young man from the blacking factory,

  and to all his inky confederates.

  There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.

  —Shakespeare, Henry V

  ONE

  THEY FOUND THE DEAD FELLOW IN LONDON, BALLED up in a basket of eels. Chewed upon he was, and most unsightly. The Good Lord knows I have seen worse. In war and, once, in a church. But bad enough that one looked. Now, eels are nibblers and burrowers, so he did not lack great bits of himself as a corpse will that has been got at by vultures or pigs. To say nothing of dogs or jackals. No, he still had the proper shape of a man, if a bit whittled down and perforated. He would go in the ground almost complete. As for his soul, that is a separate matter. But he was not handsome on the butcher’s table, even though the blood was long since out of him.

  The body reeked of fish. A great stink filled the cellar room where the coroner’s folk had laid him out, overpowering the smell of the lamps and lye soap. Twas mid-day, with the great city rumbling and grumbling beyond the damp walls, but within the morgue the hour might have been midnight. Young Mr. Adams looked as though his last meal had begun a revolution in his stomach and his pallor come near the typhoid.

  “That,” the elder Mr. Adams began, in a voice as calm as a Welsh Sunday, “is the Reverend Mr. Campbell, of Cleveland, Ohio. He called upon me at the legation some months ago. I believe he had come here to proselytize.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir?” the police inspector, a black-whiskered fellow named Wilkie, asked.

  “To preach,” Mr. Adams explained. “And to convert. It was a private undertaking, as I recall, conducted among the poor. He asked for a donation.”

  The United States Minister to Britain was not a tall man—though larger than myself—but he carried his shoulders like a grenadier and his face possessed the self-control of a veteran sergeant regulating a pack of young officers. A laurel wreath of hair wrapped round his baldness and a neat beard grew back of his chin. His collar was white and high, and cutting stiff. You would have thought him a high-born Englishman himself, for all the wintry dignity he wore. His eyes were hard as jewels. I had barely presented myself to him when the young swell from the Foreign Office appeared, police inspector in tow, to ask Mr. Adams to visit the morgue in his company.

  And now we stood over the body, in the quiet the dead compel.

  “Lord Russell will be dismayed,” the Foreign Office lad intoned, in a voice one degree too haughty. Unwilling to steady his eyes upon the corpse, he was. His name was Pomeroy and he had feathery brown hair and a bare wish of whiskers. He was not the sort of Englishman who is permanently ruddy from sport and scented with hounds. More the club-room champion, Pomeroy seemed all narrowness, with eyes that lacked resolve, but his speech betrayed the impatience and expectations of a man who has never had to labor for his wages.

  We were seven down in the morgue, not counting the dead man: the elder Mr. Adams and his son, Mr. Henry Adams, who looked the parlor sort himself and was suffocating a gag with a handkerchief pressed to his mustache; the young diplomatic fellow, Pomeroy; Inspector Wilkie, whose burst of whiskers rounded canine features; a brass-buttoned constable fingering his truncheon as if the dead man might rise up and attack us; a crooked-over coroner’s assistant, happy in his work; and my Christian self.

  When his utterance failed to draw a response, young Pomeroy added, “There will be questions, sir. Indeed, Lord Russell may be extremely dismayed.”

  Mr. Adams glanced at the boy, just for a twinkle, and said without emotion, “I appreciate Earl Russell’s interest.”

  “In fact, sir,” the Foreign Office boy pushed on, with more than a hint of petulance, “Lord Russell may be extraordinarily dismayed.”

  “Earl Russell’s concern never disappoints,” Mr. Adams said. “Please extend my cordial regards to the Foreign Secretary.” A gas lamp flared. By a table of tools, the coroner’s assistant gnawed furtively at a bun, for the hour had arrived for the midday meal and some men cannot regiment their appetites.

  “Sir,” Pomeroy insisted, “I mean to say that Lord Russell will expect me to carry back an explanation. A letter addressed to you was found upon the person of this . . . this—”

  “Upon the Reverend Mr. Campbell,” Mr. Adams said helpfully.

  “A letter, sir! Addressed to you, to the American Minister credentialed to Her Majesty’s Government! Alluding to the gravest matters. Insinuating violations of . . . of diplomatic protocol!”

  “I find that curious,” Mr. Adams replied.

  I almost began to suspect our representative of enjoying the exchange, for the young fellow was not his match, twas clear at once. Mr. Charles Francis Adams was the son and grandson of American presidents, see. America’s answer to high breeding, that one. Formed out of New England’s bitter winters, and firm as a block of ice.

  “Her Majesty’s Government will expect clarification,” Pomeroy sulked.

  Mr. Adams hinted a smile, as if the young fellow had been complimenting him steadily. “We shall all expect clarification of this particular matter, Mr. Pomeroy.” He turned to the coroner’s man. “When may the body be released for burial, sir?”

  The crooked-over fellow lowered his bu
n and looked across the body to the police inspector.

  Inspector Wilkie drew himself up in that rooster’s posture that will pass for authority. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he began, “seeing as it’s murder clear enough, what with the back of ’is ’ead all crushed in for the eels to go in and out, and the poor parson a most evident victim of the criminal class amongst us, we shall ’ave to partake of the benefits of science a bit longer. To do up the inquest all proper, sir.”

  The inspector wiped a hand down the left side of his face, then repeated the gesture on the right. As his fingers smoothed over his whiskers, the fur bristled right back up as an animal’s will. “My, my, sir, weren’t it a sight, though? With them eels going in and out of ’im like worms through a cheese. Just dripping off ’im, they was, sir. Til a body would think ’e was a great eel pie, all baked up alive. But I doesn’t wish to be morbid, sir, and I think we’s got the last of the devils out of ’im now. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Archibald?”

  The coroner’s man nodded briskly.

  “Couldn’t tell the eels from ’is brains at first, sir,” the inspector continued. “The way they was all squirmed up together. But, speaking officially, sir, I doesn’t expects as ’ow you couldn’t ’ave the good reverend all to yourselves in the morning. Would that be in order, then, Mr. Archibald?”

  “Oh, I should think so, I should, Inspector Wilkie,” the coroner’s fellow told him. “Yes, indeed. Tomorrow’s all right. There ain’t so much science to a feller once the back of ’is noggin’s been bashed away. It’ll be a disappointment to the medical college, though, for we’ve a shortage of paupers come in this week. The poor are fed up fat these days, and spoilt til they dies all reluctant.”

  “You’ll want to be careful of the eels, sir,” the inspector said, turning back to Mr. Adams. “In the event as there’s one or two left in ’im. Sharp little teeth they ’as, sir, the bigger ones.”

  The elder Mr. Adams turned to the younger, who had lost his high green color and now looked blue as fresh milk in the pail.

  “Henry, have Moran make arrangements for a proper burial. Something appropriate to the dignity of a religious office.” He spoke again to the inspector, but somehow included the Foreign Office boy in his remarks. “We shall undertake to notify the family. In the meantime, the legation will assume the responsibility and costs for Mr. Campbell’s interment.” And then he looked at me. For he alone knew of my purpose in London at that hour.

  “Major Jones? Have you any questions?”

  Oh, didn’t I plunge into the foolishness, the moment I had the chance? Vanity it was that turned my head. I was all puffed up with my recent successes in the field of confidential matters, see. But pride comes before a fall, as my Mary Myfanwy would tell you.

  Had I held my peace that day, lives might have been spared, and torments avoided. But I was sick with pride and wanted humbling.

  “If I might, sir?” I said, leaning on my cane to spare my bad leg.

  Mr. Adams glanced at the inspector, then settled his marble gaze on Pomeroy. “Major Jones has just arrived from Southampton. He’s been despatched by Washington to assist with legation matters.”

  “This is extremely irregular,” young Pomeroy said. “He hasn’t presented his credentials. He dare not act in any official—”

  Mr. Adams nodded slightly, as if each nod were an expense to be tallied. “I shall present his papers to Lord Russell myself. Upon the next suitable occasion.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Inspector Wilkie put in. “But is the major some sort of a detective gentleman, then?”

  “Major Jones is a military officer and a representative of the United States Government.”

  “If I might, gentlemen?” I asked, all too anxiously. Nor was it pride alone that made me hasty. The stink was on the fierce side, as if it had been gathering reinforcements, and young Mr. Adams appeared on the verge of losing his battle with the contents of his belly. Even I longed for daylight and better air, though, as a Methodist, I should find it elevating to ponder the mortality of the flesh.

  They all looked at me.

  “You said,” I began, addressing Inspector Wilkie’s indigo quills, “that the body was found here in London. In a basket of eels. And where, exactly, was the discovery made, sir?”

  The inspector gave me a look as if I had gone silly as a drunken Frenchman. “And where in London’s a fellow going to find ’im a basket of eels entire but in Billingsgate, Major? Oh, a gent might find ’imself a nice eel pie most anywheres, or a nice ’ot cup of eels to swally down. But a whole basket won’t like to be seen nowheres but the Billingsgate fish market.”

  “And when, exactly, was he found?”

  “Why, this morning and most early, sir, as it’s Friday and the ’igh day of the fishmarket. Friday’s a great day for eels, and not only amongst the Papists.”

  I shifted my attention to the coroner’s fellow. “Now I will tell you, sir, and most respectfully, I do not pretend to a scholar’s learning in these doings. Or to your evident skill, Mr. Archibald.” You must use a fellow’s name and praise him, see, if you want to soften him to you. “But I have been a soldier for more of my life than is sensible, and bodies I have seen aplenty. Now, I will ask your views, since you have knowledge of such matters. Hasn’t this poor fellow been dead for a number of days?”

  The coroner’s fellow scuttled up close to the table and stuck a finger in one of the openings left by the eels. He wriggled the digit about most vigorously, testing the decay of the flesh.

  Young Mr. Adams swept his head away.

  “Right you are, sir, right you are,” the coroner’s fellow agreed. “I said it meself to Inspector Wilkie ’ere, soon as they brung ’im in. ‘That one’s ripe,’ I says to ’im, ‘ripe as a busting plum.’ ” He pushed his finger in deeper, added a second digit, and shook his wrist. “If it weren’t for the eels opening ’im up, ’e’d be swelled up twicet over with gas.”

  “And how long would you judge he has been dead?”

  The fellow shoved as much of his fist into the cavity as he could, then, satisfied, drew it out and wiped it on his trousers. “No less than two days that would be, sir, at the very least, and like unto three it’s been since the murderers took an axe or somewhat similar to the back of ’is skull. It’s my professional opinion as to ’ow the eels doesn’t account for the missing eyes, Major. It’s a curious thing how ’ard-enough blows to the back of a fellow’s ’ead can put ’is eyes right out. I’d wager that’s what ’appened. It weren’t the eels what et ’is eyes, though they made a nice enough meal of the rest of the good parson.” He smacked his lips. “Whoever bought them eels for ’is dinner has got ’im some fat ones.”

  Handkerchief balled at his mouth, young Mr. Adams hastened from the room.

  “Inspector?” I began anew, only to be interrupted by young Pomeroy, who had gone more than a bit green himself, what with all the corpse-poking and reawakened stench.

  “This is irregular, unacceptably irregular. The man’s credentials have not—”

  A last eel, disturbed in its slumbers by Mr. Archibald’s prodding, slithered out of the corpse’s side, slipped off the table and slapped the floor, then wriggled toward young Pomeroy’s gleaming town boots. He followed young Mr. Adams from the room and we lost the benefit of his further opinions.

  The constable settled the eel with a smack of his billy.

  “Inspector Wilkie,” I tried again, although my own bowels had grown somewhat mutinous, “if the eels were alive and capable of . . . of the efforts before us . . . then they were fresh-caught themselves, most like?”

  “I’m not terrible knowledgable as to eels, sir, though I likes a nice eel pie. But I’d think as they was fresh caught. There’s none won’t buy eels rancid.”

  I tapped the stone floor lightly with my cane. “Then someone took the trouble to put a corpse that had already been dead for a matter of days into a basket of fresh eels.”

  “That’s ’ow I sees i
t meself, sir. I couldn’t of said it no better.”

  “And you found the accusatory letter sealed in oilcloth and affixed to the Reverend Mr. Campbell’s person?”

  “Sealed up all perfect, it was, and double tight. As if the parson was facing a storm at sea, Major. Next to ’is very skin it was, for safekeeping.”

  “And you found a purse on him, but there was no money in it?”

  “That’s right, sir. Killed ’im and robbed ’im blind, they did. He didn’t ’ave no watch nor chain, neither, though they left ’is shirt studs upon ’im.” At that series of remarks, I noted the slightest flinch from the elder Mr. Adams. “And a gent such as a parson or vicar allus carries ’im a watch,” the inspector continued. “Murdered dead ’e was, and robbed after. And them what ’as done it will be taken up and ’anged.”

  “The murderers took the money, but put his purse back into his pocket?”

  “That’s right, sir. Cool as Dandy Bill, they was. Typical of the more developed members of the criminal class, in my experience.”

  I nodded. “And your certificate, as I recall, lists London as the place of death.”

  “Well, ’e was found ’ere, sir, weren’t ’e?”

  “But the basket of eels did not come from London, I take it?”

  “Not eels of that quality. No, sir. Them wasn’t Thames eels, if I’m to judge. Though I ’aven’t studied eels as I ’ave the criminal class.”

  “So he might have been murdered elsewhere? At any location within, say, two days travel of London? And,” I pushed on, with a grimace at the body of the parson, “it would appear that he was put into the basket of eels some time before it arrived at the fish market, given the extent of the . . . desecration. It must have taken the eels some time to do their work, see.”

  Mr. Adams, who had remained steady as a statue throughout, grew restive of a sudden.

  The inspector’s eyebrows stood to attention, thick as a rank of bayonets on parade. Outposts of his whiskers, they were, detailed to guard his forehead. “And why would anybody, least of all the low, murdering sort, go to all the bother of that, now? That wouldn’t be typical of the criminal class at all. No, sir, I’m afraid not. Why bring a fellow to London when ’e’s already dead elsewheres and better ’id right there, and spare the effort?”