“No, it’s true. I said to myself, ‘Remus, now there’s two men who’ve marched a mile or three in their time.’ And that got me thinkin’. If you were military, whose military might you be? If you were ours, there’d be no need for you to be sneakin’ passage aboard the Snake, would there? Hell, Burlington’s not more than a skip and a jump away. You could’ve taken a coach there and hopped aboard a transport. Question was: why didn’t you? And then it came to me. It was on account of you ain’t on our side.” Stagg’s smile broadened. “You’re on theirs. Which makes you Limeys. And seein’ as you ain’t in uniform, that makes you Limey spies!”

“The hell you say!” Lawrence snapped. “We’re no such thing!”

Stagg held up a hand in a gesture of appeasement. “Well, I figured that out for myself, didn’t I? But it’s what I thought at the time.”

Lawrence stared at him. “So what do you think we are now?”

Stagg retrieved the pistol from his belt. “Oh, I don’t think. I know.” With his left hand he reached inside his coat. “Known all along, on account of information received.”

“Christ’s sake, Stagg,” Hawkwood said. “Cut to the bloody chase. Even patient men can die of boredom.”

The crinkles around Stagg’s eyes disappeared as he laid the folded square of paper he’d taken from his pocket on the table by Hawkwood’s elbow. Then, standing back, he waited.

Hawkwood unfolded the paper.

Both likenesses looked as though they’d been undertaken in a hurry, which, Hawkwood supposed, they probably had. As a result, they were not of a high quality, accuracy having been sacrificed in the interests of speed and urgent dispatch. Though anyone with the illustrations to hand and with Hawkwood and Lawrence seated in front of them would probably have no difficulty adding two and two and coming up with maybe three out of four. In other words, close enough for a positive identification.

It was the written physical descriptions that left less room for doubt. Everything was there, from their respective heights, hair and eye colouring to their builds and complexions. In Hawkwood’s case, prominence had also been given to the faint powder-burn on his right cheek and the two scars above his left one. He had Sergeant Dunbar to thank for that, he guessed.

Highlighted in bold lettering above each of the drawings was the proclamation: $100 REWARD! Below it, in equally bold font, were the words: WANTED FOR MURDER. There then followed a brief but florid description of the brutal acts that had been committed during the escape of an English officer and his accomplice from the Greenbush military encampment. The reward was offered for the capture and apprehension of each man.