Chapter 8
Agent William Moore, long of the British Secret Service and lately of the Prussian Intelligence Service headed upstairs quietly. He had left his soaked oilskin and over boots in the common room along with his hat. He had to be careful in this. Rebecca Fogg was no fool and had proven it by removing the papers from the satchel. Phileas Fogg of course was no novice either. Moore had never worked with Sir Boniface's son but knew him by reputation. There was every likelihood that he was walking into a trap. The veteran of thirty-four years doused the lamp before he was halfway up the stairs and waited for his eyes to adjust. They are good, but I will be better. One didn't get long in the tooth as a spy without learning all the tricks.
Yes, they are waiting for me up there. I know it. Moore could feel it, like pin pricks on the back of his neck. He pulled out his pistol, a colt revolver. He had already reloaded the one bullet he had expended on Brighting. Reaching the upper floor, he found four doors to choose from when a flash of lightning lit up the hallway: two on the right and two on the left.
He silently opened the first door on the left and peeked in. It appeared clean and empty with no signs of present occupation. The bed was made and the whole room smelled of a recent fresh cleaning. Leaving that one unlatched, he checked the one opposite it. That room had a rumpled bed but was equally empty looking. There were no coat closets to hide in and the captain's beds gave neither man nor woman a way to hide underneath. No, this room is clear, too. That leaves me two.
Moore opened the next door on the right. The bed was turned down. There was a rumpled blanket lying across it. In the light of the next lightning strike, a lady's hairpin glittered on the floor by the dresser. Rebecca Fogg's room. The room behind me across the hall will be Phileas Fogg's. They would have separated rather than stay together. Yes, they are armed and waiting for me.
Moore slowly stepped one silent footfall into the room, scanning the furniture that was nearly identical to those in the other rooms. There is only one good place to conceal a person here. The moment either person hears anything, they will pop out to help the other.
A flash of lightning lit up the little room.
Moore took the door handle firmly in hand and counted. One, one thousand… two one thousand… At the same time the thunder boomed Moore pushed the door back against the wall with all the force he could. A slight cry and thumping came from behind the heavy door sounded. Moore swung the door around to a half-closed position and found Rebecca, dazed and in pain slipping down the wall. He caught her by the arm that held the little derringer before she fell completely. Stripping the weapon from her, he pulled the dazed woman out of her hiding place and tossed her onto the small bed on her stomach. Moore placed her own gun against Rebecca's ear to ensure cooperation before issuing his first whispered order. "Call your cousin in here now!"
Rebecca hesitated in obeying a little too long for his tastes. He caught a hand full of red hair and yanked her head up off the mattress. "Now," he hissed. "Call his name, nothing else."
"Phileas." Rebecca said, still dazed. Again, in a stronger voice she called, "Phileas!"
Phileas heard Rebecca call to him after the sounds of shuffling feet quieted. The thunder had masked whatever had happened before that. Her voice sounded a bit strained, but that could be due to a struggle. In fact, she might have been hurt. Fogg left his hiding place and crossed the hall to assist her. He had a lot to ask of William Moore.
In Rebecca's room, the door on the other side of the hall opened. A tall form separated from the darkness of the hallway as it entered the room. Phileas stepped in with his pistol at the ready to aid Rebecca. Instead of finding his cousin with a subdued prisoner, the barrel of Moore's weapon, which was trained on his chest, gleamed a silvery blue in the flash of light from the window. Phileas stiffened. Rebecca had not come out on top. She was on the bed with the man's knee in her back and her own derringer pointed at her head.
"Good of you to be so accommodating," Moore sneered. "Toss the weapon under the bed here and move over there against the wall. He waved the revolver to the right wall.
Phileas had no choice. He obeyed slowly, moving to where he was bid.
"Sit on the floor, now!"
Phileas did as directed, putting himself in a very bad position. He was going to be too far away to act offensively and in bare open ground. This was going to be bad, very bad.
Once Phileas was no danger to him, Moore pocketed Rebecca's derringer and pulled her up off the bed by the hair. Once standing, Moore gave her a good hard push. She sprawled onto the floor into Phileas's arms. She landed on top of him, skirts covering them both like a blanket. In that awkward position, there was no way either one could do anything.
"Now, you are going to answer a question for me," Moore said, standing over them. "I do not care which of you answers. But if you do not answer quickly…" He held up his revolver, "one of you is going to get splattered with the blood of the other. Where are the papers?"
"On their way to Whitehall," Phileas said. "My valet left with them at the same time you entered this inn."
Moore decided Fogg spoke at least a half-truth in that. The leaving was likely true if not the destination. Those papers were bound for Sir Jonathan one way or another. "Very well, then it is back to London I go. He should not be difficult to catch up with in this storm."
"To bad about Richard," Moore said. "He was a good fellow overall. Smarter than the average agent. If he had stayed where I put him, he would still be alive. I did not expect him to be able to escape."
"Put him?" Rebecca questioned.
"That bright young fellow figured out that someone was giving the Prussians information on Dutch defenses. He used sources I did not know about even know about, proving it. Lucky for me I am the one who received his message to Holland requesting assistance."
"You are an English agent?" Rebecca said. "A double agent working between Prussia and England?"
"True enough," Moore said in agreement. "Oh, you would not know of me Rebecca. I am well before your time. You might have heard of me," Moore said to Phileas. "I was never a glory hound. I have been serving undercover since the war in Crimea. As such, my very existence will have been shrouded in secrecy for so long, neither of you would remember my name much less anything else.
Over the years, I've lived with them, I have grown to like the Prussians and their ideas. And they pay me handsomely for information an English agent can gain so easily. Once the Netherlands belongs to Prussia, I will be retiring. But I cannot do that until all that evidence Richard gathered up is disposed of. So…" He backed away toward the half-open door. "I must be going now."
He gave the two young people on the floor a slight smile of regret. "Too bad you two decided to get into those papers. I cannot leave you alive to talk about it. Poor Boniface, his last living son and little ward… lost to the service of the Queen. You two are going to make a fine pair winging your way to St. Peter's gate together." His face hardened as he took a more direct aim at Rebecca's heart and…
"No, Will!"
Moore heard a voice to the left of the bed where no one had been a moment ago. He turned quickly to that sound and gaped as Richard's glowing form stood beside the bed in front of him. "No! They said you were dead!" The startled man fired two shots into the apparition backing away towards the door. When Richard advanced on him a step, Moore emptied the gun into the specter's chest.
The Foggs saw and heard Richard's sudden appearance the same time Moore did. They sank flat to the floor as bullets flew about, bouncing off the thick stonewalls. Richard did not move. He just stood there staring at the double agent with stern resolve.
Realizing he was not having any effect, the frightened man turned reaching for the door. The door came fully open fast before he could touch it. It hit Moore hard enough to knock him back across the room and to the floor. Childish giggling rang out in the hallway as he blacked out. Richard watched it all, standing in the same place seemingly without a care. When the giggling rang about the room from the hall, he smiled and made a bow.
"Thank you, ladies."
Rebecca and Phileas sat up again and stared as Richard's ghost knelt beside the double agent. Is a solidity he didn't have a moment ago, he took the man's pistol and Rebecca's derringer away and tossed them against the wall. The disarming done; Richard sat back on his heels and shook his head. "I made a mistake cabling to the Netherlands office instead of sending a message directly to London. This man came to me. He told me he was working undercover in Prussia and would help me find out who was giving the Prussians intelligence on the Dutch. We were arrested on our way to Holland. I was convinced Will was killed under torture. I never told Will where I hid the papers to protect him."
The specter turned his sorrowful gaze to Rebecca. "I am terribly sorry, Rebecca." "I should never have involved you in this. I should have sent word to London, directly. I just did not know who I could trust."
Rebecca came off the floor moving to Richard. She knelt in front of him. His glow intensified with each flash of lightning, but his face was long and dark with grief and guilt. She reached out to him but did not quite have the courage to touch him. She carefully and gently spoke. "Richard, there was no way you could have known that the mole was a double agent. Getting word to Holland was a perfectly logical decision. And you did right to send for me. I sent a message straight away to London. That is how Moore knew where to find us. He must have been waiting for your call for help. If we had not been here, Moore would have taken the papers, and no one would have learned the truth. Rest easy my friend. It is over now."
Richard looked down at the man on the floor, then back up at Rebecca. He nodded, gave a grateful smile back to her, accepting her words. "Thank you. Thank you for being here for me. Give Brenda my love." With those last words his glow faded. Richard closed his eyes and disappeared with a look of peace on his face.
