Run Afoul (36 page)

When Wiki struggled to his feet he saw the man who had impersonated Patrick Palgrave kneeling on the floor, staring in horror at the snake that reared over him. It was just a glimpse. The fer-de-lance struck—once, twice, and raised its head to strike again.

Another shot rang out, this time from the doorway. Wiki was watching the snake, mesmerized, and saw the snake's head disappear.

It was impossible to believe that even Forsythe could shoot so accurately in this deceptive light. Wiki was trembling so much it took a violent effort to turn and check. The lieutenant was standing in the archway, holding his gun in the crook of his arm, and grinning loosely. Even from this distance Wiki could smell the fumes of
aguardiente.

“Reckon that snake got him,” the southerner observed with detached interest, and jerked his chin at William Olliver, whose convulsions were growing weaker. “They say that the fer-de-lance got the quickest-acting poison of 'em all.”

Wiki heard shouts—Captain Wilkes, and the officers who had been with him. He looked at the pendulum, still oscillating wildly, and thought with a remote part of his mind that there was going to be hell to pay. “I thought I heard you following me,” he said to Forsythe.

“I was advised by a certain lady to do just that, and damn lucky for you that I did,” the lieutenant said smugly. “You'd be dead and done, if I didn't.”

Wiki wondered about that, since William Olliver had actually been killed by the snake, but wasn't disposed to argue. He listened to the steps come closer as Captain Wilkes hurried down the winding stairs, and braced himself.

“How much did you overhear?” he hopefully asked.

“Not a bloody thing,” said Forsythe, and grinned.

Epilogue

The shipyard foreman called out, “Easy now, easy!” Four carpenters turned a capstan on the wharf, and the cable running from the heaving post to the head of the
Osprey
's mainmast gradually slacked away, releasing the brigantine from the hold that had kept her hove down on her side. Slowly, she groaned and shuddered. Then, all at once, she shook herself like a dog, and came upright, floating in the water as triumphantly as if she hadn't been lying down in ignominy just a handful of minutes ago.

“One—two—three,” recited Captain Coffin, holding his conductor's baton at the ready, and his ship's band, composed of six cadets with assorted instruments and a boatswain with a pipe, struck up “Yankee Doodle.” The strains rose boldly in the warm summer air. When the music finished all the carpenters cheered, and Wiki, perched on his favorite bollard, clapped.

“Reminds me of the first time I dropped anchor in Whampoa, when the
Osprey
was on her maiden voyage,” his father said with great satisfaction, as his band trailed on board the brigantine, and then disappeared below to get reacquainted with their seagoing home. “The Chinese
hoppo
was accustomed to big American ships by then, and jumped to the conclusion I was the tender to something more magnificent. ‘Where is the big ship?' he inquired, so I informed him that
this
was the big ship, and my band played ‘Yankee Doodle' to prove it.”

“Wonderful,” commented Wiki, who didn't believe the story for an instant, and followed his father on board. Down in the cabin, which served as the saloon as well as his father's sleeping quarters, the brigantine looked much more familiar than she had from the outside, especially when hove down. However, he had almost forgotten his father's eccentric choice of red cushions on the port side of the horseshoe-shaped settee in the stern, and green cushions at the starboard end.

Wiki perched on the green end, and looked about as his father yelled for coffee. In the middle of the racket, a man walked into the saloon, and said, “Give the chap a chance to get his pantry shipshape, for God's sake, Captain. We ain't even taken on provisions yet, let alone settled the ballast! Can't you feel the poor ship bobbing about like a drunkard's empty bottle?”

This, Wiki gathered, was the mate, the paragon who kept the cadets safely occupied both at sea and on shore, and, apparently, kept his father organized, as well. He was lean, but very athletic, wearing a loose shirt with rolled-up sleeves that displayed his trimly muscled arms. “This is Alf,” said Captain Coffin, and then the two of them had a conference where the mate informed Captain Coffin exactly how the ship was going to be reloaded, and which ended with Alf stamping off up the stairs to take charge of the arrangements.

“Sour as a crabapple, but the lads revere him,” Captain Coffin said in an apologetic sort of way.

“And you couldn't manage without him,” Wiki guessed with a grin.

“Unfortunately, no.” Captain Coffin sat down on the red end of the settee. Then, with an abrupt change of subject, he said, “So Patrick Palgrave's name was really William.”

“William Olliver,” Wiki agreed.

“And when Dr. Olliver shouted out the name William, it was actually Patrick he was calling—the brother who had bludgeoned him?”

“Exactly,” said Wiki.

“But you testified in a court of law that it was
your
name the dying man was saying.”

“Well…” said Wiki.

“Did you know at that particular moment that Sir Patrick's name was William?” his father demanded.

“No, of course I didn't.”

“You
lied
for me, son.”

“Aye,” said Wiki placidly.

The lizard eye studied him for a long time, its warmth almost lost beneath the half-lowered lid. Then his father remarked in a musing kind of way, “Not long after I carried him into port, someone came into the room and called out my name—and Palgrave automatically turned to see who it was, just the same as I did, but of course I didn't pay any attention at the time.” His tone became cynical as he added, “It was very handy for him that it was my name, too.”

“It's only natural that he made errors,” Wiki said. “It's amazing that he carried it off so well—but then, he was opportunistic by nature.”

His father nodded. “After I rescued him, he might have regained consciousness much sooner than I realized, because when he finally came out of his coma the first thing he asked for was a looking glass. I didn't want to hand it to him, because his face was scarcely human, but instead of recoiling, he studied his reflection for what seemed a very long time. When I think back, it's as if he had considered the idea of impersonating Palgrave already.”

Wiki lifted his brows. “I wonder what the real Palgrave looked like?”

“It probably didn't matter, just as long as they were about the same shape and size. He rose from his sickbed to go to Cambridge and claim the inheritance, as you know, and when I saw him off, his face was bandaged.”

“The scars would have helped, even without the bandage,” Wiki opined. “But if Grimes had met Patrick Palgrave in Rio, he would have known at once that he was an imposter—and it was very likely that he would seek him out, having worked for his father.”

“So Dr. Olliver poisoned Grimes to prevent it?”

“Aye,” said Wiki soberly, yet again hearing Dr. Olliver's gasped confession in his mind:
“I killed for him!”
“He gave Grimes a dose of salts in wine, so he would get the gripes, and then, by exaggerating his symptoms, he made sure that Grimes was put under his medical care, so that he could poison him at leisure—first with the strychnine-coated pills, and then with the bismuth, to which he'd added just enough poison to finish him off. In agony,” Wiki added with a grimace, remembering the instrumentmaker's terrible end.

Captain Coffin shuddered. “We all found Dr. Olliver inconsiderate and arrogant, but I didn't think he was capable of such callousness. He deserved his awful death, really.”

“They were
both
cold-blooded,” Wiki said harshly, remembering penning the official notification of his death to Midshipman Fisher's parents. As Captain Wilkes had dictated the words, tears had run down the long face. “The waste,” he had exclaimed, and had thumped the desk with his fist—“the goddamned waste!”

The desecrated
mere pounamu
had been returned to its hook, because Wiki was still berthed on the
Swallow,
even though he was back to serving as Captain Wilkes's amanuensis. He wondered again if his father had told his friend where the
mere
was stored, but didn't want to ask, so said instead, “What are your plans, now that the
Osprey
is back on her keel?”

The
Swallow,
like all the other expedition ships in port, was preparing for departure. Longitude, latitude, tides, and the radiation of the sun had all been calculated, and, as far as Wiki could tell, this part of the world had been weighed. The
Peacock
had been fixed and repainted, and was fit to double Cape Horn, and maybe even venture into the Antarctic, too. The
Relief
had been restowed and reprovisioned, and had been sent ahead, hopefully to get to Orange Harbor, at the tip of South America, before the rest of the fleet arrived. The
Vincennes
and the
Porpoise
had both been successfully smoked free of rats (though the cockroaches, by some insect-miracle, had survived), Enxados Island had been cleared of vermin and venomous snakes, and now it was time to go.

Captain Coffin said, “I've sold my freight of tortoiseshell, and bought a cargo of coffee for the New York market.” Judging by his smug expression, both deals had been good ones. Then, however, his face lengthened, and he asked, “Did you make a call on your stepmother before you joined the expedition?”

“I wouldn't have dared not,” said Wiki dryly. He always paid her a duty visit, carrying a gift from some exotic landfall. After all, she had found him his first berth, on her brother's Nantucket whaleship, and had even provided a sea chest. As usual, they had drunk tea, and eaten cake, and made stilted conversation—always about herself and domestic Salem affairs, as she wasn't at all interested in his travels.

“She's well?”

“Exactly the same as ever.”

Captain Coffin grimaced. “Well, I guess I'll see her myself before long.”

As Wiki stood up to leave, he stood up, too. With an abrupt movement he reached out and gripped Wiki's hand, very hard. Then he cleared his throat with an embarrassed sound, and said, “I never raised you to tell lies, son, but I thank you for your belief in me, and I cherish you for it.”

“It was an honor,” said Wiki gently.

*   *   *

It was January 6, 1839, and the great U.S. Exploring Expedition was about to depart. The weather was bright and clear, with a light breeze from the land, and the atmosphere about the harbor was festive. Boats sailed and tacked over the glittering water, one of them a familiar-looking
fallua,
which was steering straight for the brig
Swallow.
As Wiki watched, it hauled about and then aback, seething to a halt under the sheer of the stern.

He leaned inquiringly over the taffrail, to find himself gazing down into Manuela Josefa Ramalho Vieira de Castro de Roquefeuille's pretty face. She was wearing black, as befitted a woman mourning the loss of a brother-in-law, and the color reminded him of the night he had seen her getting out of the carriage at the Hotel Pharoux—the first time they had made love with their eyes.

“I'll just be a minute,” he said to Captain Rochester, who was firmly in charge of the quarterdeck for the departure from the harbor. Then, without waiting for permission, Wiki vaulted down into the
fallua.

“Hulloa,” she laughed. “Jumping ship?”

“Not this time,” he said with a creased-up grin. “But I am very glad to see you, because I owe you a great big thanks.”

“Thanks for me?”

“When Forsythe finally arrived at the cutter, you were waiting for him.”

“Ah,” she said, and nodded, not needing to ask what he meant. “It is very entertaining to stop by the stairs and watch the drunken sailors while waiting for the
fallua
to go back to the Praia Grande.”

“And—for some reason—you advised him to follow me.” Which Forsythe had done—first to the brig, where Midshipman Keith had told the southerner where he was going, and then to the convent.

Josefa looked meditative, and said, “You know, I have always thought that perhaps Pierre did not die accidentally in that polo match. I noticed afterward that it gave my brother-in-law great pleasure to be the one in charge of our estates. He enjoyed the money that allowed him to build pretty things—it was as if it were a great novelty for him to be rich.”

Unanticipated sadness washed over Wiki. He remembered the beautiful gardens at Praia Grande and at the fazenda; he thought of the romantic pool that William Olliver had designed. At that moment it seemed a tragic failing of society that William Olliver had been forced to descend to deception and murder before he could realize such potential.

He shook his head to clear off the thought, and said, “How is your sister?”

“Desolate, naturally. She will get over it, but one of us will have to remarry. It is difficult for two sisters, you know, particularly rich ones, when there is no man of power and influence in the family.” With an elaborate sigh, Madame Manuela Josefa Ramalho Vieira de Castro de Roquefeuille looked musingly around the harbor, and decided aloud, “I suppose it will have to be me. There are plenty of suitable men,” she mused. “The problem is which one to choose.”

Wiki felt a stab of jealousy, combined with some sympathy for whoever the man might be. Josefa would not be nearly as easy to manage as the family estates, he thought, and he wondered, too, if the new caretaker of the fortune would do as good a job as William Olliver had done.

Then he was distracted—by the sight of a short, square man sliding out from under a tarpaulin canvas in the stern of the
fallua,
and climbing stealthily up the side of the brig.