The Devil's Own Luck (12 page)

“The judge who tries you will have something to say. And so will the hangman. I pray that I am available to see it and hear it.”

“Carter.” Harry’s face was as white as the bandage round his head. He looked as though he was going to faint. Carter just stared at him.

“Master-at-Arms. Clap this man in irons and put him in the cable tier.”

Harry paced the moonlit deck, one thought chasing another as he tried to comprehend what had happened. He had left James apparently calm. Had he been only calm on the surface, and really still seething underneath? Harry had always thought of his brother as a totally rational man, seeing himself as the impetuous one. Yet recently James had thrown both caution and good sense to the winds for a woman, and when the whole affair came crashing about his head, the pain that it caused him was not hidden. He’d known then there was more emotion in James than he had realized. Perhaps that unpredictability was a family trait, shared by both. If so, it looked as though, this time, it would prove fatal.

He then damned himself for thinking like that. How could he condemn a man he loved so readily! His mind swung violently from one opinion to the other. James could not have killed Bent-ley. He simply did not have it in him to do so in that manner. And James would have admitted it straight away if he had. It was all a terrible mistake. Harry ran the scene through his head. Had James, hearing the same sounds that he had heard, reacted more quickly? Had he pulled the knife from the body just as Harry had emerged from the sick bay?

“But why didn’t he say something?” Harry realized that he had spoken out loud. Again that vision of James’s anger at the dinner. Harry loved his sister, but Anne was more than that to James, having practically raised him after their mother died. He would brook no comments on a woman he held to be as near a saint as it was possible to be. Even Harry had to tread carefully on that score. That partly explained his dislike of Arthur, Anne’s husband. To James, no one was good enough for his older sister.

But that was nothing compared to the way he thought about Caroline Farrar, and Harry realized that James, by displaying the possibility of being discomfited by references to Anne, had merely encouraged Bentley, who was still smarting from the treatment that James had meted out to him earlier.

If Bentley had set out to upset James, then he could have chosen no better barb. Harry had never seen his brother react like that, always assuming that his demeanour was one of studied indifference in the face of praise or criticism. He could not recollect a time when he had seen him strike anyone. James was a man who relied on carefully delivered insults. Again Harry had to remind himself that he was not the only impetuous member of the family. There had been real power and venom in the blow he had given the drunken premier. And he had publicly threatened him. Now the man was dead.

Yet any number of people would have wanted to kill Bentley. That was plain by the attitude of all the officers aboard the ship in their reaction to the man’s behaviour. Even Carter could have done it, after the way Bentley embarrassed him at dinner. For a moment Harry brightened at the thought, before dismissing it. You don’t kill your premier for that. You relieve him and call a court martial. And what about that sailor who had called him “murderous bugger.” A name had been mentioned, but Harry could not recall it. Perhaps someone had died at the grating, under Bent-ley’s relentless flogging.

How well did he really know James? They had spent so much time apart. While that had made it possible for them to be friends, it had in some way clouded their opinion of each other. Harry knew that James saw him as a devil-may-care character, a man who loved a risk and revelled in a fight. A man who would be sadly bored in a domestic setting. Out of place in a well-furnished drawing-room.

That was a persona that Harry cultivated. Yet he, like other men, had deep longings which remained unspoken. He would never admit, even to James, how much he missed being a King’s officer, how much he longed to follow in their father’s footsteps and rise to surpass his vice-admiral’s rank. To be sure, there was excitement in privateering. But there was no glory in it. In the same way he could not articulate his desire to have sons of his own. To take to sea, to teach, to watch, to chastise and praise, and turn into men that he could be proud of. And that would require a woman. She could not merely be a vehicle for him to sire children. She too must be special, an individual, spirited and independent. All these things were hidden. Private.

Was James the same, hiding his violent nature under a veneer of sophistication? Was he really a mass of seething passion barely kept in control? The look he had given his brother had tried to convey something, but Harry could not deduce what. But the evidence of his eyes kept coming up before him. Of his brother kneeling over the body with the knife in his hands. Of the violence of the blow he had struck Bentley earlier, and the look of hate and contempt in his eyes as he did so.

He shook his head, ignoring the pain. He must assume James innocent. Any other view was disloyal. And if he assumed him innocent, then it was axiomatic that someone else was guilty. If James had wanted to kill Bentley he would have done so in the open, issuing a proper challenge. So James was not guilty. That was what he was trying to convey in that look. So he must take steps to prove him so.

Harry’s mind was racing, examining and discarding theories until there were only two left. One, that Bentley had attacked James and had been accidentally killed in the struggle. Or James had discovered the body, and pulled out the knife as the first step to aiding the victim. He would need to talk to his brother. That would require permission from Carter. He disliked the thought of asking Carter for anything, but it would have to be. He could hardly refuse. Not even a man as spiteful as he could deny Harry access. But that would not be possible until morning. His brain raced as he thought of the things he could do in the mean time. Sleep was out of the question. They would raise the Rock of Gibraltar in a few days. There was little time. One fact stood out amongst the mass of thoughts chasing each other round his brain. The second possibility put someone else in that gangway less than a minute before he himself looked out. Again the thought pressed on his brain. If James was innocent, then someone else was guilty. And the best way to clear his brother was to find that person, and either force a confession or accumulate enough evidence to establish his guilt.

Harry set himself the task of clearing his mind and ordering his thoughts. He could go into action against an enemy with a clear head, making a thousand rapid calculations and issuing instructions without hesitation. He wanted to apply that same attitude of mind to this problem. He knew that success would attend his efforts only if he did that.

Outhwaite, woken for the second time, was not pleased.

“Bentley’s body. I need to look at it.”

“God give me some peace to sleep.”

“There’s no time for that. I need to look at the body, and I want you to look at it with me.”

“He’s laid out in his quarters. And if you think I’m going to rouse myself to look at him, you’ve got another think coming. A corpse might interest you, Mr Ludlow, but I for one have seen too many. I might consider it in the mornin’.”

Outhwaite made to turn over. Harry grabbed him roughly and hauled him up by his dirty stock.

“Now, Surgeon. Or someone will be examining you.”

“Unhand me, Mr Ludlow!” There was fear in his eyes, and his chins quivered. After all, one brother had just knifed the premier. Who knew what madness ran in this family?

“Get up, fetch your bag, and come with me.”

“I’m not sure this is proper, sir.”

“Proper be damned. Just get a move on.”

They came out of the dispensary. It was twenty feet away from the spot where Bentley’s body had been found. A party had gathered with buckets, ready to swab the bloodstained planking. Harry stopped suddenly, causing the shuffling Outhwaite to bump into him.

“Belay there,” he said to the petty officer in charge of the party.

Harry took the lantern off the surgeon, and placed it, and his own lantern, so that the area where the body had fallen was well lit. This would be the best that could ever be achieved, since daylight never penetrated these parts of the ship. The blood had soaked into the planking, leaving a dark and copious bloodstain. Casting around, Harry noticed another stain some way from the main one. It was small and quite round. In the centre of the stain there was an indentation in the deck planking, a cut; even, and about a quarter of an inch long. Harry ran his finger over it. He fetched his lantern for a closer look. Outhwaite watched him fascinated. The hands pretended indifference, but they too were dying to know what he was about.

“I don’t suppose you have a knife in that bag, Mr Outhwaite?” he asked.

“There are any number of knives, sir. Help yourself.” Outh-waite put the bag down beside him.

Harry opened it and sorted through the rusty instruments. He did not have much hope that the surgeon would be carrying the kind of knife he was looking for. Yet there it was, an officer’s dirk. The knife was long and thin, but the blade was flat. Harry looked at Outhwaite questioningly.

“Very handy for removing musket balls,” said Outhwaite.

Harry put the tip of the knife into the cut in the floor. It didn’t quite fit, seeming to reach the base of the cut without filling the sides. He then stood up, checked the point of the knife to see if it was sharp, then raised his arm. He let the knife drop. It stuck in the planking with a thud, swinging to and fro. He pulled it out of the wood and looked down at the mark. It was nowhere near as deep as the other.

Harry then dipped the knife into one of the water butts that the sailors had for swabbing the deck. He stuck it, with some force, into the planking. Water ran off the blade and formed a small pool around it. They were all watching him closely now. They looked at his face, but that gave nothing away. Harry took the lantern and began to search the area. Outhwaite stood looking aggrieved.

“Perhaps you would be better employed in assisting me, Mr Outhwaite.”

“I might. If I had the foggiest notion of what you were about.”

“I am looking for something, Mr Outhwaite.”

“What, pray?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d be pushed to know how you’ll recognize it when you see it.”

“It will be something that should not be here. There was quite a struggle. I heard the sound and I would guess that Bentley did not die easily. He fought his attacker.” Harry looked at the surgeon, almost daring him to speak the words which were plainly on his lips:
Your brother.

“Look here. Now this is strange.”

“What’s that?” Outhwaite edged forward, his curiosity overcoming his fear. So did the hands.

“Powder. White powder.” Harry rubbed some of the powder which was spread on the deck between his finger and thumb. “Dusting powder. I don’t recall Mr Bentley wearing a wig?”

“He rarely did of late, in fact he rarely dressed up at all.”

“The other officers are more correct in that matter, I noticed.”

“Only when they are bein’ formal, sir. I myself dust my wig when I’m dressed up.” Harry could imagine where most of the dust went.

“As you were for the captain’s dinner?”

“As everyone was for the captain’s dinner.”

“Quite. Everyone except Bentley, my brother, and I. James says it’s no longer fashionable.”

“I’ve heard Mr Turnbull use that reason. He was bareheaded tonight, as he usually is these days.” Outhwaite leaned over to look at the planking. “I don’t see that a bit of dust signifies anything.”

“You may be right. But I would like you to record the fact that it is here.”

“Whatever for?”

“So that you may swear it to a jury, Surgeon. I would also bring your attention to this small stain. See the cut in the middle of it? I would say that is a mite deep if it was made by a knife being dropped. Look at where I stuck your knife in the planking. A bit nearer the depth, wouldn’t you say?”

“Aye.” Outhwaite, kneeling now and examining the three marks, could not keep the wonder out of his voice. “That stain is blood!”

“Which means that the knife that killed the premier was not dropped by whoever used it, but was deliberately stuck in the deck.” Again Outhwaite looked at Harry with that mute statement on his lips. “Would you agree?”

“It seems likely.”

“See the other cut I made by dropping your knife. It’s not the same size at all.”

“I don’t see what you are drivin’ at, Mr Ludlow.”

“My brother had the knife in his hand when he was put under restraint. That means that he picked it out of the floor, where it had been long enough for a quantity of blood to run off and make this stain. And not dropped either. Does he stab Bentley, stick the knife in the floor, then pull it out again in order to be discovered holding it? A strange thing to do if you have just killed a man.”

“I’m not sure I would know what was the proper thing to do.” There was a slight tone of irony in the surgeon’s voice.

“The proper thing to do, Outhwaite, is to get away as quickly as possible. Unless you are determined to hang.” Harry stood up, and, dropping the dirk into the surgeon’s bag, he picked it up and handed it to him.

“Now for a look at the body,” he said.

Harry made for the stairwell that led up to the gundeck. Outh-waite followed, his slippers slapping noisily on the steps. Harry, shading his lantern and bidding the surgeon to do likewise, motioned him to be quiet as they came on to the gundeck. In the glim light from the tallow wads burning in the sconces, they could see the outline of the hammocks swinging with the ship’s roll.

The hands were tight-packed and seemed noisily asleep as they made their way down the alley between the hammocks and the guns. Harry knew that not all the hammocks would be occupied. Some would have slung something into theirs, to make it look as though they were full. These men would be off in the darker recesses of the ship, doing all those things expressly forbidden in the Articles of War. Those articles were so comprehensive that no ship could ever sail without breaching them. So it was not surprising how often they were quietly ignored.