The Night of the Absentee Agent
Chapter 14
The Arrival of The Ulysses
To those of you who have stuck with me this far – Thanks. Not long to go now. If you have not reviewed this story yet then please do, even if it's only to bitch about it.
When Artie arrived back at Mayberry's house, he was met with a scene of chaos. The hallway was littered with luggage and servants were running to and fro. There were loud voices and laughter coming form the sitting room and a maid was heading in that direction with a tea tray.
Artie took the tray from the maid and entered the sitting room to be met with the gaze of six people, two of whom he didn't recognise.
"Artemus, there you are." Marsh approached him, took the tray and placed it on a table. "Come and meet my fiancée, Clara." Artie was dragged behind him until they reached a petite blonde woman, who smiled prettily at him.
"Good day, Miss...er," Artie said.
"Please call me Clara and I shall call you Artemus. Marsh has told me how you saved his life aboard that terrible ship."
"Actually, the ship was quite comfortable," Artie corrected her. "It was being trapped in a barrel that was the terrible part."
"Anything that separates me from my darling Marsh is terrible in my eyes," she replied. "Let me introduce you to my brother, Joshua," she continued, and Artie was dragged away again to be deposited in front of an obvious cowboy, six feet tall and dark-haired. He had a friendly smile and didn't look a bit like his sister.
"This is Joshua," Clara said. "Joshua, this is Artemus Gordon. He's the one who saved Marsh's life when he was kidnapped and put on board that terrible ship."
Artie looked at her but didn't bother to correct her a second time.
Joshua did a double take. It was obvious that he was surprised at the likeness between Artie and his twin brother. "Hi, Mr Gordon," he finally said, "pleased to meet you."
"Likewise," Artie responded, shaking hands.
"Isn't he the spitting image of Sam?" Clara said.
"He sure is," Joshua said. "We travelled here with your brother and his wife," Joshua explained. "That's how I came to know your story. It must be great to have met up with Sam after all these years."
"Yes," Artie said. "And as he's my twin, I wasn't surprised to hear that he escaped from his confinement in Washington, but you must tell me how he managed to avoid the authorities in New York, in order to board a ship."
"Oh that was easy," Clara interrupted. "We didn't come by ship."
"What my sister means is that we came on a steam yacht called The Ulysses," Joshua said. "The owner, an Englishman, died while in New York. His crew was bringing The Ulysses back here to become part of his estate. They were happy to let the four of us hitch a ride, in exchange for a small remuneration."
"An ideal solution," Artie commented. "Excuse me for a moment. I'd like a word with my brother."
Sam was sitting in an armchair, a cup of tea in his hand, telling Mr Mayberry about his adventures on board The Ulysses.
Artie heard Mr Mayberry say, "You and your companions must consider yourselves my guests until you decide what you're going to do. I'll have my staff prepare rooms for you. Ah, there you are Artemus, I've just been speaking to Mr Treadwell. You two are devilishly alike. I expect you have a lot to say to each other, so I'll leave you alone. Excuse me, gentlemen."
"He's a kind old man," Sam said. "I suppose you're going to try and arrest me."
"If you thought that, why did you come here?"
"I didn't say you would succeed. I came here because we have unfinished business."
"You're right, we do; first of all, I owe you an apology. I misjudged you, when we first met, because I'd been told you were involved in counterfeiting, a crime I can't stomach. Since then, I've learned a lot about you from Marsh, and I feel more akin with you than I thought possible at the beginning. I'm glad I got to find you after all these years and I'd like to say we should keep in touch but I don't know if that's possible given that you're a wanted man."
"I'd like that too and I don't see why anyone should find out about it. I could use a pseudonym, how about Great Aunt Maude?"
"Great Aunt Maude?"
"Yes, she's an imaginary relative of mine I made up, for when circumstances require it. I'm always quoting her."
"But she's my imaginary great aunt," Artie said. "I can't believe we came up with the same name."
"Seems we really are alike," Sam concluded. "What are you going to tell your boss when you get back to the U.S.?"
"That's a good question. I'll keep quiet about Marsh; they seem quite happy that his brother Morgan is the real Magpie and I have no intention of trying to persuade them otherwise."
"Good for you, Marsh is the best friend a man could have and his brother is out and out evil all the way through. He deserves everything he gets."
"Yes, I've been meaning to ask why you didn't warn me that I would be going up against a killer like Morgan North."
"Sorry about that, Artie. I didn't want to give Marshall away and then you suddenly revealed what you were about to do and there wasn't time for me to explain. I did warn you what you were going to do would be dangerous, though, if you remember."
"I suppose I did rather rush into that. Thankfully, we managed to survive."
"Yes, I meant to thank you for looking after Marsh the way you did. I'm very grateful to you."
"He's a very likeable person," Artie replied. "That's another reason I've decided to leave you here, so you can work together on this horse breeding venture he told me about. He's going to need all the help he can get."
"Oh, he told you about that, did he? We're hoping to purchase some land near here. Kate arranged for the money to be available to us by the time we arrived. She's a very clever lady."
"I have the greatest respect for her," Artie said pointedly.
"It's alright. Kate already told me how you acted like a gentleman toward her."
"Yes, and Marsh took me to task for it. It was very embarrassing."
"I can imagine that," Sam said. "He never can mind his own business where the happiness of his friends is concerned. Talk of the devil." He added, as Marsh came over to join them.
"Talking about me?" he said. "How flattering. I came over here to have a word with Artemus."
Sam looked at him in expectation.
"In private," Marsh said, dragging Artie away.
They ended up in the library, where Marsh rounded on the other man. "I'm sorry I walked in on you this morning. It was Mr Oakley's suggestion that I go and wake you when I came to see why you didn't return last night. I hope the lady was not embarrassed. I think she was still asleep."
"Yes, but it wasn't what it looked like, at least I'm almost sure it wasn't."
"What do you mean, you're 'almost sure'? You weren't drunk were you?" Artie could hear the horrified surprise in his voice. As if his Artie had let him down.
"No," he quickly denied. "But neither of us knows how we ended up in bed together." He felt foolish but knew he needn't keep anything from Marsh. Much the same as he knew he could tell Jim anything.
"Do you think Cat set you up?"
"No, I spoke to her at the time, and since. I'm sure she had nothing to do with it."
"You've talked to her since this morning? I'm surprised Oakley allowed that. Or did she sneak way?"
"It was Oakley's idea," Artie said. "Cat and I are engaged to be married."
The admission fell into the silence, while Marsh just stared at him. "This has to be some plot of Oakley's," he said, when he found his voice. "He's got you all tied up."
"But what does he get out of it? No, there's got to be some other explanation."
"The only explanation is that he drugged you both and then put Cat in your bed. How he could do it to his own daughter I don't know. I guess I don't understand the English. Did he give you anything that tasted funny?"
Artie was about to deny it when he remembered the sugar Oakley had put in his coffee. "He must have put something in the sugar," he said. "Oakley was the only one who didn't have any, and he put some in my coffee even though he knows I don't like it. What an idiot I've been."
"You need to talk to Cat about this," Marsh said.
"I'm meeting her for a ride in the morning. I'll talk to her then."
He didn't realise what was going to happen before then.
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