Smuggler's Moon by Bruce Alexander Page B

treasurer on this expedition. Give Mr. Perkins a few pounds. How much would you be needing, constable?”
    “Oh, a pound or two. Two pounds should be more than enough.”
    “Then give him three.”
    I counted out the amount and handed it over.
    “Mr. Perkins will be going out alone to do some listening for us. It will be to you that he reports if indeed he has anything to report. Where might you two best meet?”
    “There is an inn on High Street, name of the Good King George,” said Mr. Perkins. ”Suppose we get together there about noon each day and have us an ale, and I’ll tell you what I know. How does that strike you?”
    “Why, I’m thirsty already.”
    “Enough of that, you two. We’ll—”
    Sir John, interrupted by the sudden halt of the coach, gave a firm nod. ”God bless you, sir,” said he to the constable. ”And remember well what I told you.”
    “Goodbye, all.” And so saying, Mr. Perkins threw open the door and jumped from the coach. I pulled the door shut behind him, took his wave through the window and returned it.
    The magistrate said nothing during the rest of the trip. That left it to me to puzzle out what he had discussed with Mr. Perkins there in the road. It seemed likely that Sir Johnhad asked him to serve as his spy. After all, Mr. Perkins was, if not well known in Deal, at least remembered. He had known his way round the owling trade and been forcibly enlisted into the Army. The last any of the townsmen had seen of him, he was no doubt being led away in chains by the recruiting sergeant and his party. Those who did recall him would quite naturally assume that he had lost his arm in military service. They would be willing to answer any of the questions he might put to them. He would be perfect in such a role.
    Yet having formed that notion, I dismissed it immediately. There was something in it which rang false for both men, yet I could not determine what it was for either. Ah well, perhaps Perkins would be more forthcoming than Sir John when I met him next midday.
    But for now, here was Deal before me. As I stared out the window at the shops along Broad Street and at those we passed by, I realized how much more prosperous-looking was the picture before me than would have been a tableau from any comparable section of London. The people were better dressed; they walked with a more confident step. The shop windows were filled with goods of a quality that only the grandest shops in lower St. James Street might carry. The smuggling trade may have been illegal, but it had certainly brought good times to Deal.
    Looking away from the coach window for a moment, I happened to catch Clarissa’s eye. She was obviously most impressed by what she saw all round us. Her eyes were wide with excitement.
    “Why, Deal is near as grand as Bath!” said she. ”Had you ever imagined it so?”
    I admitted I had not. But then, as we came to the bottom of Broad Street, the driver turned the team right. And there, through the window, off to our left, was a great body of water.
    ”Oh, there it is,” said Clarissa,”—the sea, the ocean, the English Channel.”
    “And there beyond it,” said I, ”is France. Can you see it?”
    She studied the horizon carefully. ”I … I don’t know. I think I can. How far is it?”
    Before I could respond, Sir John spoke up: ‘Thirty-five miles, give or take a mile or two.”
    “So close?” Clarissa exclaimed. ”Why, we’re nearer to France than we are to London.”
    “Indeed we are,” said he.
    The driver reined the horses to a halt. I heard him call out, asking another for directions to the residence of Sir Simon Grenville. The response I heard not quite so clearly, but in a moment more we were off. We drove up a street, and in less than a mile the street became a road, and so on until we were back into the country. Ever upward we went by easy degrees, so that when at last we turned off the road and into a driveway, we must have been a few hundred feet above