Falconer's Quest Read Free

difficult son, impetuous and rather a snob. Very much like his late father, so Lillian tells me. The boy ran through his inheritance in a few short years. Also Lillian had left him quite a nice London town house, which he mortgaged. Without telling his mother, I hasten to add. And he spent all that as well.”
    “Gambling?” Falconer wondered. Another wayward son of wealthy parents.
    Reginald clearly was reluctant to speak ill of the lad. “Does it matter?”
    “I really cannot say until I know the problem.”
    “Then, yes. Gambling and vile women, by all accounts. He loved the trappings of power and accepted none of the responsibilities. He went before the magistrates once too often. A duel over a married woman, though married to neither of the men dueling, as it happened. Lillian begged for my help, which of course I gave. Our London partner, as you know, is Samuel Aldridge, a former diplomatic agent and a man of considerable influence. And of course you know Gareth and Erica Powers. Through their intervention, we managed to have the lad released. On one condition. Byron was to leave his past, his ways, and his London life behind. Samuel arranged for him to take a position of assistant manager at a new trading outpost.”
    Falconer realized he was already caught in the hunt. Not by the story. But by Reginald’s need. For this was what Falconer knew he could never refuse. He could not say no to a friend. Falconer asked, “Where?”
    “Marseilles. Do you know it?”
    “The harbor. The port. I’ve not been further inland than the seaman’s market fronting the quayside.” He could smell the place now.
    “Never been there myself. But our office is on the main avenue leading up from the port.” Reginald had not stopped his pacing before Falconer’s bench. “Byron arrived as scheduled. He worked there for six months. That is, he came in occasionally, mostly to collect his wages.”
    “He kept to his past ways,” Falconer surmised. When Reginald continued to pace in silence, Falconer picked up the story for him. “He did no work. He lived for the night and dark deeds. He again got into debt.”
    Reginald stopped pacing and stared at the nearest gravestone.
    Falconer said quietly, “He owed money to the wrong man.”
    “So we have been informed,” Reginald agreed, his voice low.
    “Is Byron alive?”
    “We were desperately afraid that he was not. We heard conflicting rumors. He had taken up with vile merchants, he had been found in an alley—nothing that could be confirmed even by our own agents.”
    Falconer waited for a time, then asked more softly still, “What have you learned?”
    “A letter arrived from Samuel. He was approached by a missionary’s wife, that is, his widow. She appeared in London. Traveling from Algiers. She claims to have seen Byron. Not merely seen him. Been shown him, like…like a prize heifer.”
    “Or a slave.”
    Reginald stared at him, his gaze hollow. “According to this woman, he had been sold to a North African brigand by the name of Ali Saleem.” Though Falconer’s intake of breath was very soft, Reginald caught it nonetheless. “You know him?”
    “The name. Every seaman who traverses the southern Mediterranean has heard of Ali Saleem. He is the last of the Barbary pirates.”
    “So I have been informed. This Ali Saleem let the poor woman go, even arranged transport back to civilization, upon receipt of her oath to pass on this information. The brigand has offered to release Byron for gold. Quite a large amount of gold.”
    Falconer rose to his feet. “I must speak with my son.”
    Reginald’s face was grim with old woes. “I will not have you doing this out of any sense of indebtedness. You owe me nothing. No matter what we might have said in the past. We are friends. I release you from any promise you might have made to me. Do you hear what I am saying?”
    Falconer gripped the other man’s arm. He turned Reginald around and guided him through the cemetery