"Severn, 28, just reported her master, Timothy Tregallen, two days overdue from leave. She's under twenty-four hour orders to weigh for Gibraltar. But why should you care? Has he been pilfering ship's stores, or buggering the mids?"
"As to that, I don't know," Hoare whispered. "Probably both, considering his position. But he's changed his ways now, for certain." He stepped to the door of the admiral's sanctum.
Admiral Hardcastle was a busy man, Hoare knew, and a grim, merciless one to boot. He heard Hoare out, reading and signing papers as he listened. Then he said, "Find out who killed him, have him hanged, and tell me when you've done it. Good day, sir; you know your way out."
"Where does Severn be?" Hoare asked the secretary as he closed the admiral's door behind him.
"Just beyond Vantage. You know; that new frigate just commissioning."
Taking advantage of his authority to use any of the pulling boats assigned to the port admiral's office, Hoare selected one of the four-oared gigs lying at the Sally Port and told its coxswain to take him out to Severn. The breeze was easterly and the course southerly, so he had the cox rig the gig's mast and lugsail and took over the tiller himself. Even after twenty years on the beach, the sea still affected him like some addictive drug.
Hoare swung the gig under Severn's lee and swarmed aboard her starboard side briskly, glad of the chance to prove himself still a proper seaman. He doffed his hat to the quarterdeck and asked to be taken to the first lieutenant.
Hoare bitterly envied any seagoing officer. But with his power over all her other people, a ship's first lieutenant (after a post captain, of course) was the luckiest afloat. This one, a Mr. Barnard, was obviously preoccupied with preparing his frigate for sea. He wasted no time in pleasantries.
"What brings you aboard us, sir?" he asked as soon as Hoare had identified himself.
Since Barnard made none of the usual fatuous comments about his name or his whisper, he must already know of Hoare, his odd position, and the disabilities of voice and name that had made him notorious about Portsmouth.
"I understand your master has gone adrift," Hoare whispered.
"True enough," Barnard said.
"I'm afraid he's lost the number of his mess."
"What?"
Hoare told his sorry story, leaving out the details. He knew he would have to tell it again and again; his whisper tired easily, and he wanted to save it.
"Captain Drysdale will want to hear this. I'll take you to him. Pray come with me, sir."
Hoare trotted obediently after Barnard down to Captain Drysdale's cabin. Like every active naval captain when in port, Drysdale spent his time anchored behind his desk. "Ah. Admiral Hardcastle's Mr. Hoare, isn't it?" The captain set down his pen. "Welcome aboard, sir."
"Mr. Hoare bears ill tidings, sir," Barnard said. 'Tregallen."
"He has been found dead, sir," Hoare whispered.
"Oh my," said Captain Drysdale. "Well, take a pew, gentlemen, and let's hear the story."
Twice Hoare had to interrupt his report to refresh his whisper; twice Captain Drysdale had to interrupt it to demand silence above his quarters so he could hear it. At length Hoare fell silent.
There was a pause.
"Obviously, some body-snatcher did it, or the doctor," said Barnard. "It's none of our affair now."
Barnard rose, stooping instinctively to avoid stunning himself on the low overhead. He glanced at Hoare as if expecting him to follow suit, but Hoare remained seated.
"As Mr. Barnard says, sir, it does appear as though some resurrection man did the deed, or even Dr. Dunworthy," he said. "Nevertheless, it is essential-especially since Severn and her people will soon be out of reach-that I take this opportunity to question Mr. Tregallen's shipmates."
Barnard sat down again with a thump and glared at Hoare. "Do you have the gall, sir, to suggest that one of my men killed him?"
"I must make certain that that cannot be the case, Mr. Barnard."
"By whose authority?"
'The authority of Admiral Sir George Hardcastle, whose immediate subordinate I am. Do you question that? If so, pray send a signal of inquiry ashore." Hoare eyed the other officer coldly.
"Make the necessary arrangements for our visitor, Mr. Barnard, if you would be so kind," Captain Drysdale said. With a sigh he returned to his manifests.
Outside the cabin, Hoare and Barnard eyed each other. "Well, sir?" Hoare asked.
Barnard counted to himself. "There are not that many, I'm glad to say. There's the crew of the leave boat, of course; that would be eight men and Simpkins, cox. Two of the mids, Blenkiron and Fallowes. Gamage the purser, McTavish our lieutenant of marines, Grimes- he's surgeon. And Tregallen, of course, if you want to count him. That makes fourteen-no, fifteen in all."
"I suppose that the purser, the surgeon, and the mids berth in the cockpit, and Mr. McTavish in the wardroom?"
Barnard nodded.
"I'll question them there. But let me talk with the man Simpkins first. If he can convince me his men were under his eye at all times, I should not need to question them."
"That, at least, would be a small kindness, Mr. Hoare. It don't please me at all, you may be sure, to have any of my people taken away from their duties when we're making ready for sea. Kindly be brief with them all."
"Of course," Hoare said.
"Pass the word for Simpkins," Barnard called to the ship at large. The coxswain's name went forward like a moving echo. Soon a regulation barefooted bronzed British tar appeared, knuckled his forehead, and looked apprehensively at his officer.
"Ah, Simpkins," Barnard drawled. "Mr. Hoare here is from the port admiral. He has some questions to ask you. Answer them, and truthfully, mind. Now, sir, I'll be about my own affairs, if you please. We sail tomorrow morning, on the flood."
Before Barnard could turn away, Hoare recalled him. He did not care for the other's attitude toward his visitor-or, for that matter, his top-lofty way towards his shipmates. He would give him a taste of his own medicine.
"Be so kind as to clear the cockpit of its present occupants and have the others you named assemble outside it-outside, mind. If I need to question Simpkins' men, I will have him muster them. Thank you; that will be all for now."
Now it was Hoare who turned away dismissively. He could almost smell Barnard fuming at being ordered about by this whispering admiral's poppet and hugged himself in secret glee. He knew he was being unfair to a harried fellow officer, but he could not help envying the man. With his ship, Barnard was preparing to go in harm's way, and perhaps fame's way with it, while he, Bartholomew Hoare, had to hang about ashore, mutely hauling smelly corpses about. It was not fair.
"Yes, sir?" Simpkins was waiting. He looked much afraid.
"You cox the leave boat, I'm told."
"Aye, sir, I did, but we're disbanded now; preparin' fer sea, ye know. All shore leave stopped, all hands aboard."
"Of course. And you row eight oars?"
"Aye, sir."
"How do you handle them while you're ashore?"
"Handle 'em, sir?" Simpkins asked. "Beggin' yer parding, sir, but I don't handle 'em at all. I don't get yer drift."