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Allison; Taking Control Chapter 39
“Ah, pardon me,” Allison said, thinking quickly, “we seem to have gotten ourselves quite lost. Could you kindly tell us where we might find the kitchen?”After several seconds during which the men and women looked quizzically at one another, a young man, who was sitting closest to the door, piped up.“Other end of the corridor and down the stairs... but...”“Thank you, my good man,” Allison said, cutting him off before he could ask anything that might prove troublesome. He and James retreated back down the corridor with haste leaving the servants in the room puzzled.Sure enough, at the other end of the corridor, a bit further than the distance they had walked from the swinging door to the servants’ room, was a flight of heavy stone steps that wound around to the right, obscuring their destination. With a look at James , Allison put his index finger to his lips to indicate quiet and the two of them deftly went down, taking the steps one by one, careful not to let so much as a sing
Allison; Taking Control Chapter 40
At length, Peele did in fact arrive, but through a back passage leading out of the kitchen to the outside which neither Allison nor James had managed to notice. This was due in part to the fact that the door was made to look like a wooden wall panel with small shelves on its inside. It had also been partially blocked by fallen sacks, baskets and kitchen implements which had been strewn about during the fight. The Councilor strode through the door behind a half dozen soldiers who pushed aside the debris, ran and grabbed the two assailants under their arms, and pulled them back outside, both still unconscious and with their feet dragging.“Take those men to the fort for questioning!” he commanded the redcoats as they dragged their quarry outside. “Have them locked up until they can be seen to!”When the soldiers left, Peele looked around the room, aghast.“My God! What in blazes happened down here?”“Suffice it to say, sir, that when we cornered the suspected poisoners in this kitchen
Allison; Taking Control Chapter 41
James handed him the glass tube with the strange white clump inside.“William, if you’ll attend me once we set foot on deck, I believe I have another job for you as well,” Allison said to the marine lieutenant.The carriage rumbled on down Mount Fitzwilliam and out into the dim lights of George Street toward the waterfront.Allison sat glumly in the sternsheets of the pinnace as it was being rowed back across the harbor to Philadelphia. He was not happy. Though he had done his best to steel himself against the sheer and utter vexation he knew the meeting with Semple aboard Gallant would invariably cause, it did nothing to assuage the searing resentment which continued to torment him after he departed. He reflected, half-dejectedly, half-angrily, upon what had taken place in the Captain’s cabin.The whole affair had been little more than a tiresome and needlessly degrading rehash of what Sir Roger had told him the previous evening at Government House. Whether it was done for Suggs’
Allison; Taking Control Chapter 42
Allison stopped and thought of all the smiling faces and good cheer he had seen at the reception the preceding evening.“To think, behind many of those pleasant smiles and polished good manners, some people were not only filled with fear and loathing over the events of the past weeks, but also with suspicion regarding their friends and peers!”“Do you really think it’s quite that bad?” Caldwell asked. “His Excellency could simply be acting on a personal feeling or information that only he was privy to.”“Making a statement like this, encoded or otherwise, is deadly serious. I don’t believe anyone would simply say something like this on intuition alone. Besides, from what we’ve learned of local politics during our short stay here, it’s very easy to envision corrupt officials and landowners secretly implicating or even falsely accusing others while nearly all of them are wallowing in some measure of illicit activity that they want or even need to protect. The mysterious disappearance o
Allison; Taking Control Chapter 43
“Look,” the tavern keeper blurted out almost defensively, “I don’t know whatcha think happens on this island that would keep ya from comin’ back, but it’s nothin’ that concerns me and what I do.”The sailor gave a slight shrug, puffing away on the pipe as he still held it with his right hand. His left, which up to that point had been engaged in pouring and drinking rum, was now flat on the counter. The tavern keeper heard a slight chink of metal and looked with some surprise as the rum-drinker slowly withdrew the hand just enough to reveal four silver pieces of eight beneath it. The host stood still for a few seconds looking at the coins. Then, after glancing around the room, he leaned in and spoke in a lower voice.“I did tell ya I don’t know anything, didn’t I? The thought’s appreciated m’ friend, but I’m afraid I’ve nothing to offer ya for yer money.”The proprietor heard another chink and this time looked down to see two gold escudos topping the silver coins beneath the sailor’s h
Allison; Taking Control Chapter 44
A few last words out of context were all the sailor at the counter could hear as Scott’s voice was drowned out. The fiddler near the hearth had decided to strike up a rather loud and sprightly tune to which a couple of spirited locals decided to dance. A man was cutting a lively jig with his hands folded behind his back while a woman circled around with him, swirling her skirts as she spun. They were quickly joined by more people while other tavern patrons clapped and whooped in time with the fiddler’s music.Undaunted, the sailor slipped his pipe back into his pocket and slid deliberately off of his stool. He grabbed the rum bottle and slowly walked toward the blithesome commotion. Stopping at a small table, he took a generous swallow of rum from the bottle before setting it down. He then began clapping along with the others, stamping his foot in time with the rhythm of the buoyant strain. His attention, however, was still firmly fixed on the gentlemen in the corner who went on with
Allison; Taking Control Chapter 45
Four men were grouped together, apparently looking over a collection of documents when a slave laborer, lifting a large sack onto his shoulder to take it off of a cart near the foot of a pier, dropped the object, causing it to burst wide open with a sharp pop. Almost instantly two of the men who were involved in the deal began yelling at the poor fellow at the top of their lungs. One pulled out what looked like a riding crop and began to beat the slave, ushering him quickly away from the scene. Allison , disgusted, did his best to look disinterested as he was slowly walking past, but his eyes were drawn to one thing in particular.As the remaining three men resumed their discussion in a much louder and more animated fashion, Allison noticed that the cloth sack contained a white powder, which had spilled out in a heap on the surface of the pier after it burst open. Small reflective glints could actually be seen within the big clumps, as they lay in the sunlight. This could only be sal
Allison; Taking Control Chapter 46
Later, after the sun had gone below the horizon, Allison sat in his cabin with his two naval lieutenants and Master Washburn going over the direction they had received from Semple as well as the signals he and Suggs had devised. Bosun Tallow already had men hard at work cutting, sewing and painting their new signal pennants which he had been assured would be ready for use by the time they weighed anchor. Allison was just going through the list of basic messages they would generate with those pennants when a hurried knock came at the door.“Come!”Midshipman Hardin walked in to deliver a message.“S-sir, Mr. Bannon sent me to let you know... there’s a dinghy approaching from Allison . There’s... there’s one man aboard. He said you wanted to know immediately, sir.”“Indeed I did. Tell Mr. Bannon to call the men to deck and prepare to receive one person onboard amidships and then recover the dinghy. I will be there presently.”“Yessir!” Hardin answered in the nervous, overly-quick fash
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