“He is here,” said Champe impressively. “But to take things as they come: Major Lee’s first care, of course, was to send a warning to us. By good fortune, Mr. Baldwin chanced to be in Tappan, so the major had his letter carrier at hand. So down comes our warning, with a peremptory order at the tail of it. If the letter finds us still alive and at large, we are to throw down the tools and quit the job, evacuate the works, burn the baggage wagons—in other words, we are to save our necks if we can.”
“Humph!” said I. “If I’m guessing straight at the hinder end of your tale, Major Lee’s very excellent advice comes a good few hours too late, doesn’t it?”
“Right you are, Captain Dick,” asserted my news-bringer. “The spy is here in New York, and he has enough powder in his noddle to blow us both safely to Heaven if we had as many lives as the cat. Mr. Baldwin, who knows him, saw the man at his trial, and happily Mr. Baldwin is a good enough friend of ours to want to save our bacon. So, from the time when he crossed the river last night, he kept a sharp eye out for this Mr. James Askew, which is the name our man goes by.”
“Good! And he found him?”
“Found him early this morning, and followed him to his dodging-hole, which was the tavern of the Three Larks on the east shore road. His next care was to deliver the major’s letter to me, and, having done that, he put himself at our disposal in any helpful way that offered.”
I nodded. “Mr. Baldwin is trying fair to earn his fee of two hundred guineas, five hundred acres of land and three negroes, which, as Mr. Hamilton told me, was to be his reward for the letter carrying,” I said. “Did you retain him?”
“On the spot,” said Champe. “First I had him tell me all he knew about Askew. The man is not a Britisher; he is a free-lance, picking up information where he can and selling it in the best market. This gave me my lead. Such a man would be carrying his life in his hands in either camp, and he could never go boldly to either headquarters with his wares. With half a chance, I thought I might scare him off for a day or two, at any rate; and here Mr. Baldwin helped me again. We went to the Three Larks together, found our man, and Mr. Baldwin introduced me as a gentleman in the same line of business.”
“Excellent! You are a man in a thousand, Sergeant Champe.”
“We got on well enough after Mr. Baldwin left us. With my knowledge of things on our side of the Neutral Ground, I soon convinced Askew that I was an honest spy, like himself, and then, with a pot of ale or so to moisten the ropes, I began to pull gently on the dragnet. Askew’s a shy fish, and no gudgeon, but he finally let out that he had a piece of news he hoped would bring a good price. The sticking point was the risk he ran in delivering it, he said, by which I knew that he had been playing two games at the same time.”
“And you helped his fears to grow?” I put in.