Chapter 3
Gareth was awakened by a cold nose pushing on his arm. Although Jerome seldom spent the night in a house, he was too well trained not to say when he needed to go out.
Gareth dressed quickly and stepped outside with Jerome. The morning had a slight chill but it helped him come awake. Dawn was just breaking and Gareth was finally able to look over the estate at his leisure. It was a beautiful view and Gareth hoped that he might have an estate this nice one day.
It was Jerome that made Gareth aware of the man coming out of the woods. Jerome sensed no menace, he merely stared at the man until he was sure. The limp identified the man as the butler but why the man was up so early. Could it be related to Martin’s current problems?
Gareth knew it would be out of character for him to chase the man down but he would report it to Tobias and Martin. Thinking about how he had left the two men last night, Gareth went through a few boxes in the wagon and pocketed two vials of hangover remedy.
As he entered the library, he saw both men where he had left them. At the sound of his entry, both men came instantly awake ready for trouble. Gareth couldn’t help but smile as he saw both men realize there was no trouble, relax, and then feel the full impact of their hangovers. He handed each man a vial without needing to say a word.
Tobias looked at his, grimaced and swallowed it. Martin followed suit with his. Tobias, trying to act perfectly normal, said “It works faster with coffee and the coffee makes the aftertaste go away.” Gareth thought Martin was going to pull the bell cord out of the wall.
The cook had thoughtfully included some fruity rolls with the coffee. The next ten minutes were spent in silence while the hangover remedy coursed through their system. Having been the victim of that same cure a few times himself, Gareth wisely stayed quiet until Tobias was ready to talk.
Tobias finally took a deep breath and looked up. Feeling no pain, he smiled and said, “I distinctly feel like you were the smart one last night. Did you come up with any ideas?”
Reluctantly, Gareth shook his head no. “I fell asleep shortly after Jerome came into my room. I spent some time thinking about this morning but I keep coming back to one thing, Martin has an information leak but it’s not one person acting against him. This is a big organization with the ability to coerce people. I don’t know if it’s money, blackmail, or violence but if they have one informant they may have more. I think we have to solve the why first. Martin’s making money but not enough to attract this kind of attention.”
Martin, still looking a little unfocused, said, “What do you mean? This is the work of my competition trying to drive me out of business. Nothing more.”
Tobias shook his head. “No, my associate is right.”
Gareth’s head snapped up. Did Tobias just refer to him as an associate? He hadn’t thought his theory was that good.
Tobias continued, “Your losses are caused by theft, willful damage and even some cases where the cargo was never loaded. It’s happening on different ships, in different ports and with different cargo. This is bigger than one man, this is an organization.”
Gareth hadn’t followed his line of thought to that conclusion but Tobias was right. “That still doesn’t answer the why,” came out before Gareth realized he was speaking out loud. “Whoever is doing this is spending almost as much money as you’re losing. Unless you’ve made some very powerful enemies, this makes no sense.”
Martin shrugged, “I’ve made lots of enemies but most of them are dead. I can’t imagine any enemy still alive with this kind of resources caring enough to destroy me like this.
“If we solve the why, we solve the who,” Tobias said. “If Gareth can get their attention, it’s even more likely that they will approach Gareth if they think he’s in a position of power. We’re still looking for a leak in your organization but they probably have multiple agents. Worse, the agents are expendable. Finding all of them does not stop this.”
Tobias paused in thought and an evil smile crossed his face. Looking at Gareth, he held up the vial of hangover cure and said, “I hope we have plenty of these left because Gareth is about to develop a drinking problem.”
Gareth groaned.
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