Treason's Harbour (31 page)

While they waited for the Admiral Pocock spoke about the complexities of the relationship between Turkey and Egypt, and when he came back he said 'I think you will agree, Sir Francis, that from our last Cairo report it seems certain that Mehemet Ali would never have left the new sheikh in Mubara for more than a month or so, even if he had been installed.'

'Oh, quite so,' said the Admiral wearily. 'Well now, the first question must remain in suspense until Hairabedian's letters are deciphered: let us pass on to the next. Mr Wray?'

Mr Wray very much regretted that at this juncture he was unable to report as much progress as he could have wished. At one moment, thanks to a precise, detailed description given him by Mr Pocock's predecessor, he had thought he was on the point of seizing an important French agent together with his colleagues; but either Professor Graham was mistaken or the man in question was aware that he had been seen - it came to nothing. 'Still, I have laid a couple of clerks by the heels, unimportant fellows who may nevertheless lead us further; and in the course of my investigations into dockyard corruption I have discovered some very curious facts. I scarcely like to say so yet, but in spite of a certain lack of really cordial cooperation on the civil and military sides, I may possibly be on the verge of uncovering the prime source of the trouble; yet since it is not inconceivable that some very highly-placed -astonishingly highly-placed - officials may be concerned, it would be improper to mention any names at this stage.'

'Quite right,' said the Admiral. 'But the matter must be dealt with before I go back to the blockade, if it is at all possible. There is no sort of doubt that information is passing to the French as quick or even quicker than the post. Yarrow, read the account of our last three Adriatic convoys.'

'Yes,' said Wray, when the reading was done, 'I am fully alive to the necessity of dispatch; but as I say, I am hampered by the lack of cooperation from the soldiers and civilians. I am also hampered by the lack of expert colleagues: as you know, sir, the Mediterranean command has always been very poor in the matter of intelligence -far poorer than the French, as far as organized intelligence handed down from one Commander-in-Chief to the next is concerned. I obviously cannot open myself entirely to my local subordinates nor wholly rely upon what they say; and as this is the first affair of the kind that I have been called upon to deal with, I am obliged to improvise, and to advance step by step, feeling my way. If any gentleman,' he said; dividing a smile between Stephen and Pocock, 'has any observations to make, I should be happy to hear them.'

'Dr Maturin?' said the Admiral.

'It appears to me, sir,' said Stephen, 'that there is some misapprehension as to my qualifications. In the nature of things I have a certain knowledge of the political situation in Spain and Catalonia, and I have been able to provide your predecessors and the Admiralty with informed comment, together with appreciations of reports sent to them. My competence does not extend farther. And perhaps I may be allowed to observe that this counsel, recommendation or advice has invariably been given-on a purely voluntary basis and not in any way as part of my official duties.'

'So I have always understood,' said the Admiral.

'But, however,' Stephen went on after a pause, 'I was at one time intimate with the former Commander-in-Chief's adviser on intelligence, the late Mr Waterhouse, and we often discussed the theory and practice of obtaining information and of denying it to the enemy. He was a man of vast experience, and since the maxims of counterespionage are rarely committed to paper, perhaps it might be acceptable if I were to summarize his remarks."

'Pray do, by all means,' said Sir Francis. 'I know that Admiral Thornton thought the world of him.' But Stephen had not spoken five minutes before the Admiral sprang up again and hurried away. This time he did not return. After a long wait his Marine servant came in and spoke to Mr Yarrow, who sent for the flagship's surgeon and declared the meeting at an end.

'I believe we are both to dine at the Governor's,' said Wray to Stephen as they stood upon the Caledonia's, quarterdeck. 'May I give you a lift to the shore? But perhaps it would be too early: perhaps you had rather go back to your ship. Sir Hildebrand will not be sitting down for a great while yet.'

'Not at all. I should be very happy to go ashore. The monks of St. Simon's sing sext and nones together today, and I long to hear them.'

'Do they, indeed? It would give me great pleasure to come with you, if I may. I have been so taken up with these squalid investigations that I have scarcely been able to go this last fortnight.'

'Squalid investigations,' he said again as they came blinking out of St. Simon's into the powerful sun. 'I had meant to tell you about some of the suspicions that have occurred to me - some most surprising people - there is really no one to trust - munera navium saevos inlaqueant duces, you know - but after that pure bath of music I have not the heart. Shall we step into our arbour, until is it time for dinner?'

'That would be delightful,' said Stephen; and very pleasant he found it, sitting there in the green shade, a small breeze taking the bite out of the fierce heat of the day, and they drinking iced coffee. It was not so much that Wray laid himself out to charm, but a man speaking with disinterested love on a subject he knew well - and Wray had a surprising knowledge of music, ancient and modern - could hardly fail to be an agreeable companion to one with the same tastes. Not all their tastes were the same, however: from behind his green spectacles Stephen watched Wray when the young man of the house, a beautiful youth with caressing ways, brought them their drinks, their cigars, their lights, and then unnecessary lights again, and it occurred to him that the Second Secretary was probably a paederast, or at least one who, like Horace, might burn for either sex. This aroused no virtuous indignation in Stephen; no indignation of any kind. He loved Horace, and, having the usual tolerant Mediterranean attitude, he had loved many another man with the same eclectic inclinations. Yet Wray was not entirely at his ease: as soon as they left music he showed a certain nervous restlessness, calling for more coffee, more cigars before the first were half finished - he was not in form.

'I believe I must abandon you,' said Stephen at last. 'I have to pass by the hotel to put some money in my pocket.'

'Perhaps we should both be moving,' said Wray. 'But as for money, I have plenty on me - five pounds at least."

'You are very good,' said Stephen. 'But I meant an even greater sum. I am told that they play very high at the palace, and since my man of business states that Croesus is nothing to me, at least as far as this quarter is concerned, I mean to indulge my favourite vice for an hour or so.'

Wray looked at him, but could not make out whether he was speaking in earnest: Stephen Maturin had nothing of the look of a gambler, yet what he said was quite true - from time to time he loved to play, and that to the very uttermost limit of his resources. It was a great weakness, he knew; but he kept it severely in check; and since he had spent a long time in a Spanish prison in the same cell as a wealthy card-sharper (a man not condemned to the garotte for cheating, since he never was discovered, but for rape) it was at least unlikely that he should be grossly imposed upon.

They walked a little way in silence and then Wray said 'You and Aubrey are at Carlotta's, are you not?'

'At Searle's, to be quite exact.'

'Then I will say farewell, since here I turn to the right, and you carry straight on.'

They ways parted, but not for long. They were seated fairly near to one another at dinner, and as Stephen's right-hand neighbour, Mr Summerhays, had so weak a head that he drowned in his second glass of claret, while the German officer on his left had no English, French or Latin, he had plenty of time to look about him. Wray got along well with men at this kind of gathering; he was clever and amusing. He might lack weight and substance, and politics might suit his undoubted abilities better than government service, certainly better than intelligence, but there was no doubt that he could make himself agreeable to men as different as the very well-read financial secretary and the brutish provost-marshal.

When dinner was over most of the guests - they were all men, and they included most of the important soldiers and civilians of Valletta - moved into the card-room, and here Stephen, having seen his botanist on his way, joined them. Several grave gentlemen were already set to scientific whist, but most were gathered round the hazard table, where Sir Hildebrand himself held the bank. Stephen watched for a while, and although he had heard of the high stakes these people played for, he was surprised to see the quantity of money that was actually changing hands.

'Will you not call a main?' asked Wray behind him.

'I will not,' said Stephen. 'I promised my godfather never to touch dice again when he rescued me from a sad scrape in my youth, so now I am confined to cards.'

'What do you say to a hand of piquet?'

'With all my heart.'

Maturin, when playing cards, was not the most amiable of mortals. When he was playing seriously he played to win, as though he were conducting an operation against the enemy; and although he scrupulously observed the letter of the rules he always, and in the most civil way, seized upon any advantage that might present itself. He was playing seriously now, as well he might in view of the stakes they had agreed upon, and he had chosen a table near the window, sitting so that the light fell full upon Wray's face and not at all upon his own.

He was not surprised to find that Wray was obviously an inveterate card-player; the pack fairly flowed from his hands as he dealt and he shuffled like a conjuror. Nor was he surprised to find that in spite of all this practice Wray was quite ignorant of the disadvantage of his position, for indeed it was very little known, even among professional gamblers. Although Stephen was a medical man, keenly interested in physiology, he had had no idea of it himself until he was in the gaol of Teruel, when Jaime, his cellmate, showed him the effect of emotion upon the pupil of the eye. 'It is as good as a mirror behind your opponent's back, showing his hand,' said Jaime; and he explained that the pupil would contract or expand quite involuntarily, quite uncontrollably, according to its owner's perception of the value of his cards and the likelihood of his bringing off a brilliant stroke or the reverse. The more emotional the player and the higher the stakes the greater the effect; but it worked in any circumstances, so long as there was something to win or lose. The only trouble was that you had to have excellent eyes to see the change; you had to have a good deal of practice to interpret it; and your opponent had to be well lit.

Stephen had excellent eyes, and he had had a great deal of practice, having used the method with remarkable effect in his interrogations; and Wray sat with a serene north light full on his face. Furthermore, although Wray had long since learnt to keep his face from showing anything but the urbane complaisance expected in good company, he was an emotional man (unusually so today, thought Stephen) and they were playing for high stakes. And since almost everything in this game depended on discarding and taking up, his changing fortunes could be read in rapid sequence. Yet even without this Stephen could not have failed to win; luck was with him from the first hand to the last, when he picked up the seven top hearts, discarded three little diamonds, the knave and ten of spades, and took in the three remaining aces, a king and the seven of spades, thus spoiling Wray's splendid point of seven and septieme to the king by one pip, repiquing him, and, since Wray misjudged the last card, taking all the tricks and so capoting him into the bargain.

'There is no satisfaction in winning with such outrageous good fortune,' said Stephen.

'I believe I could bear it,' said Wray with a good imitation of a cheerful laugh, as he brought out his pocket-book. 'Perhaps you will give me my revenge some day when you are at leisure.'

Stephen said he should be happy, took leave of the Governor, and walked off, his bosom rustling with crisp new bank-notes. Laura Fielding was to come to him late that evening, and on the way back to the hotel he bought flowers, pastries, some fresh eggs, a cold roast loin of pork, a small spirit-stove, and a mandoline. These he arranged in the sitting-room he had taken for decency's sake, and then called for the hotel's bath to be prepared. Having soaked in hot water for a while, he changed his linen and beautified his person as far as its very meagre possibilities would allow, shaving his face (which he had not done either for the Admiral or the Governor), putting more powder on his wig, brushing his coat, looking in the glass from time to time in the vain hope that some prodigy might transform the reflection; for although he knew intellectually that his relationship with Mrs Fielding must remain perfectly chaste, much of his being longed for it to be otherwise and his breath came short at the idea of seeing her so soon.

Soon however was a relative term and it embraced enough space of time for him to rearrange the flowers twice, to drop the cold roast loin of pork, and to become convinced that there had been a misunderstanding about the day, the hour, the place. He was quite morose by the time a waiter knocked on the door and said that there was a lady to see him.

'Show her up,' said Stephen in a dissatisfied tone; but when she was there - when she had thrown back the hood of her tent-like faldetta and taken off her domino -he felt his resentment melt away like frost in the full sun. She was not unaware of its momentary presence however nor of the fact that she was disgracefully late, and she did her best to be particularly agreeable, exclaiming at the flowers, the mandoline, the noble array of little cakes. Alas, it was the unkindest thing she could have done; the stifled fires burnt up with a still fiercer flame. After a while he walked into his bedroom, quickly repeated three Aves, and came back with a paper that purported to be the discarded rough draft of a coded message, one that came to an abrupt half because of a fault in the ciphering. 'There,' he said, 'that will convince the man that you are making progress.'