The truth was, the intelligence reports processed by the two of them contained little of significance now that the naval war on the coast of Europe was reduced to the tedious matter of blockade. There were the lists of Yankee ships slipping in and out of French ports, but as many were doing the same in Spain and the British were purchasing the supplies they brought to keep Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese army in the field. As for the matter of their own funds, Drinkwater had learned that Dungarth had himself under­written most of the department's expenses, squandering his modest inheritance to the distress of his Irish tenants. His own finances would not extend so far.

In so far as the Secret Department had achieved anything recently, Drinkwater could recollect only his pressing the Board to increase the strength of the blockade on the eastern coast of the United States. He had written an appreciation of the matter born out of his own experience of Yankee privateers rather than the coded missives of spies.

'We appear to be redundant, Mr Templeton,' he said with an air of finality.

'I fear that may well be the case, Captain Drinkwater,' Templeton said, sipping his wine unhappily.

You will retain a position within the Admiralty, surely.'

'Oh, I daresay, sir, but not one of such gravity, sir, not one with such, er, such opportunities.'

The emphasis on the last word reminded Drinkwater of the vital perquisites of office among these black-garbed jobbers. There were expenses to be written off, bribes to be paid and spies to be funded. Everything was reduced to money and everyone had their price, women as well as men.

He thought of Moira's 'Madame de Santon, or some such'. Drinkwater knew her better as Hortense Santhonax, née Montholon. Dungarth's key had revealed his secret dossier on Hortense and the small pension she received to keep open communications with the Emperor Napoleon's former Foreign Minister, Talleyrand. He concentrated on the present. There was Liepmann in Hamburg, Van Ouden in Flushing and Vlieghere at Antwerp.