“From whom?”
“My father.”
“I dinna ken your name or your father and I’ve a long memory for names, by God!”
“My name’s not Roger Blore, sir. That’s just a pseudonym—for safety. My father’s in Parliament. I’m almost sure you’re the Tai-Pan. But before I pass the information, I have to be absolutely sure.”
Struan pulled the dirk out of his right boot and lifted the left boot. “Take it off,” he said dangerously. “And if the information’s na ’of the greatest importance, I’ll carve my initials on your forehead.”
“Then I suppose I stake my life. A life for a life.”
He pulled the boot off, sighed with relief, and sat weakly. “My name’s Richard Crosse. My father’s Sir Charles Crosse, member of Parliament for Chalfont St. Giles.”
Struan had met Sir Charles twice, some years ago. At that time Sir Charles was a small country squire with no means, a vehement supporter of free trade and of the importance of Asian trade, and well liked in Parliament. Over the years Struan had supported him financially and had never regretted the investment. It must be about the ratification, he thought eagerly. “Why did you na say so in the first place?”
Crosse rubbed his eyes tiredly. “May I have a drink, please?”
“Grog, brandy, sherry—help yoursel’.”
“Thank you, sir.” Crosse poured himself some brandy. “Thanks. Sorry, but I’m—well, a little tired. Father told me to be very careful—to use a pseudonym. To speak only to you—or if you were dead, to Robb Struan.” He undid his shirt and worked open a pouch that was strapped around his waist. “He sent you this.” He handed Struan a soiled, heavily sealed envelope and sat down.
Struan took the envelope. It was addressed to him, dated London, April 29th. Abruptly he looked up and his voice grated. “You’re a liar! It’s impossible for you to have got here so quickly. That’s only sixty days ago.”
“Yes it is, sir,” Crosse said breezily. “I’ve done the impossible.” He laughed nervously. “Father will almost never forgive me.”
“No one’s ever made the journey in sixty days. What’s your game?”
“I left on Tuesday the 29th of April. Stagecoach London to Dover. I caught the mail ship to Calais by a nose. Stage to Paris and another to Marseilles. The French mail to Alexandria, by a hair. Overland to Suez through the good offices of Mehemet AM—whom Father met once—and then the Bombay mail by a whisker. I rotted in Bombay for three days and then had a fabulous stroke of luck. I bought passage on an opium clipper for Calcutta. Then—”
“What clipper?”
“Flying Witch, belonging to Brock and Sons.”
“Go on,” Struan said, his eyebrows soaring.
“Then an East Indiaman to Singapore. The
Bombay Prince. Then bad luck, no ship scheduled for Hong Kong for weeks. Then huge luck. I talked myself onto a Russian ship—that one,” Crosse said, pointing out the stern windows. “She was the most dangerous gamble of all, but it was my last chance. I gave the captain every last guinea I had. In advance. I thought they’d be sure to cut my throat and throw me overboard once out to sea, but it was my last chance. Fifty-nine days, sir, actually—London to Hong Kong.”
Struan got up and poured another drink for Crosse and took a large one for himself. Aye, it’s possible, he thought. Na probable but possible. “Do you know what’s in the letter?”
“No, sir. At least I know only the part that refers to me.”
“And what’s that?”
“Father says that I’m a wastrel, a ne’er-do-well, gambler and horse-mad,” Crosse said with disarming frankness. “That there’s a debtor’s warrant out for my arrest from Newgate Prison. That he commends me to your generosity and hopes you’ll be able to find a use for my ‘talents’—anything to keep me out of England and away from him for the rest of his life. And he sets forth the stakes of the wager.”
“What wager?”
“I arrived yesterday, sir. June 28th. Your son and many others are witnesses. Perhaps you should read the letter, sir. I can assure you my father’d never wager with me unless it was news of the ‘utmost importance.’ ”
Struan re-examined the seals and broke them. The letter read: “Westminister, 11 o’clock the evening of April 28th, ‘41. My dear Mr. Struan: I have just become secretly privy to a dispatch the Foreign Secretary, Lord Cunnington, sent yesterday to the Hon. William Longstaff, Her Majesty’s plenipotentiary in Asia. The dispatch read in part: ‘You have disobeyed and neglected my directives and appear to consider them so much flatulence. You obviously seem determined to settle the affairs of Her Majesty’s Government at your whim. You impertinently disregard instructions that five or six mainland Chinese ports are to be made accessible to British trading interests, and that full and diplomatic channels be permanently established therein; that this be done expeditiously, preferably by negotiation, but if negotiation be impossible, by use of the Force sent for this explicit purpose and at considerable cost. Instead you settle for a miserable rock with hardly a house on it, for an entirely unacceptable treaty, and at the same time—if naval and army dispatches are to be believed—continually misuse Her Majesty’s Forces under your command. In no way can Hong Kong ever become the market emporium for Asia—any more than Macao has become one. The Treaty of Chuenpi is totally repudiated. Your successor, Sir Clyde Whalen, will be arriving imminently, my dear Sir. Perhaps you would be kind enough to hand over your duties to your deputy, Mr. C. Monsey, on receipt of this dispatch, and leave Asia forthwith on a frigate which is hereby detached for this duty. Report to my office at your earliest convenience.’
“I am at my wits’ end . . .”
Impossible! Impossible that they could make such a god-rotting-fornicating-stupid-Christforsaken-unbelievable mistake! Struan thought. He read on: “I’m at my wits’ end. There’s nothing I can do until the information is presented officially in the House. I daren’t use this secret information openly. Cunnington would have my head and I’d be damned out of politics. Even putting it on paper to you in this fashion is giving my enemies—and who in politics has only a few?—an opportunity to destroy me and, with me, all those who support free trade and the position you’ve so zealously fought for all these years. I pray God my son puts it into your hands alone. (He knows nothing of the private contents of this letter, by the way.)
“As you know, the Foreign Secretary is an imperious man, a law unto himself, the bulwark of our Whig party. His attitude in the dispatch is perfectly clear. I’m afraid that Hong Kong is a dead issue. And unless the Government is defeated and Sir Robert Peel’s Conservatives come into power—an impossibility, I would say, in the foreseeable future—Hong Kong is likely to remain a dead issue.
“The news of the failure of your bank spread through the inner circles in the City—greatly assisted by your rivals, headed by young Morgan Brock. ‘In great confidence’ Morgan Brock judiciously dropped seeds of distrust, along with the information that the Brocks now own most, if not all, of your outstanding paper, and this has immeasurably hurt your influence here. And, too, a letter from Mr. Tyler Brock and certain other traders arrived, almost simultaneously with Longstaff’s ‘Treaty of Chuenpi’ dispatch, in violent opposition to the Hong Kong settlement and to Longstaff’s conduct of hostilities. The letter was addressed to the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, with copies to their enemies—of which, as you know, there are many.