Chapter 1: A New Beginning

The Royal Marine Sergeant Major bellowed, "My Lords, Ladies and gentlemen: the Governor-General of the Dominion of New England!"

Governor-General William Clinton entered, and stepped up to the podium. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Third Estate, we are gathered here today so that I may report to you..."

I had been summoned to the White House that Monday morning after solving the case of the disappearance of Sir Oliver Plumb. There had been rumors that the Establishment had had a hand in his disappearance. Those rumors had been wrong. The meeting to which I was going was to scotch those rumors and to show the Establishment in a good light. Sir Oliver and his step-sister, Sarah Bullock, had received invitations to the meeting as well.

Sarah and I had met when I was following a clue that I thought would lead me to Sir Oliver. During the case Sarah had shown that she had the Talent of Magic. Because of this I hoped to be able to get Sarah enrolled into the New England Bureau of Investigation

The meeting was a gathering in the Governor-General's Press-Conference Room at the White House. When we arrived there were some of the Governor-General's aides and Secret Service agents, together with a crowd of Members of the Third Estate, as the reporters liked to be called, Acting as Majordomo was a Sergeant Major of the Royal Marines. Shortly after us, my superiors at the New England Bureau of Investigation arrived together with some bigwigs from the Institute of Thaumaturgy, and members of their staffs;

While we were waiting, I asked Sir Oliver. "How did you get involved with the Lavender Club, Oliver?"

"It all goes back to my step-father, Major Bullock. After father died, the new commanding officer had his own adjutant, so the Major was promoted to command a battalion. He had known my mother from when he worked for father. They fell in love and were married, giving me a step-sister to plague my boyhood. When I reached my teens he was promoted again to command a regiment of artillery. At that time there was no reliable way to set the elevation of a gun before the first shot was fired, nor to calculate the amount of powder required. So, he set out to gather data to determine if the process was consistent. As I had the mathematical skills he lacked, I got roped in to make sense of the data.

"You should have seen the mess he made," said Sarah. "There were pages and pages of numbers all over the place!"

"Well, it paid off! They made an artillery handbook out of my results, and they paid me enough to take me through college."

A Lieutenant of the Royal Marines joined us briefly, giving me some whispered instructions. Just then we were joined by my Director, J. Edward Hoover and the Chairman of the Institute of Thaumaturgy. I introduced Sir Oliver and Sarah to them, explaining that I was hoping to recruit Sarah. At that moment, the Royal Marine Sergeant Major announced the Governor-General of the Dominion of New England.

After the introduction, Governor-General Clinton stepped up to the podium and addressed us:

"Ladies, and gentlemen of the Third Estate, we are gathered here today so that I may report to you, the rescue of Sir Oliver Plumb, President of the Lavender Club, from the clutches of a secret agent of the King of Poland. This agent's intention was to drive a wedge between the Establishment, and the prestigious Lavender Club." There was a quiet snigger from one of the reporters.