'Hear him; hear him!' one of the juniors was heard to say.
'Go on with your tale, Mr. Hoare, eh?' Royalty said.
'It was clear from the start, sir, that Mr. Arthur Gladden is no man to kill his fellowman. Captain Hay's killer had to be someone else. The captain's servant? Mr. Watt, his clerk? What motive could they have had? Only the Marine guard could have told us, and he was mysteriously missing.
'That was when I reasoned that the Marine himself was the most likely culprit. He had the means-his bayonet-and the opportunity. He could enter the captain's cabin at any time on the pretext of announcing a visitor or bringing a message. Sergeant Doyle admits he was as yet unacquainted with his men.'
Hoare paused to take a long draft of a mild lemonade.
'Yes? Yes?' A small, lean man with a weary face leaned forward impatiently, and Hoare continued.
'This would have made it easy for a Marine, or another man posing as a Marine, to insinuate himself into the post of guardian at the sacred portal. No one would really see him as he stood at his post. As poor Arthur Gladden said to me, 'I don't think anyone can tell one Lobster from another-except perhaps another Lobster. They're all statues in red coats and heavy boots.'
'The only thing missing now was motive. Why would a Marine, a stranger to his captain like all the rest of the ship's company, want to kill the man?
'Then Watt mentioned a missing file. He appears to be a meticulous man and braver than he credits himself for being, and I could not see him as being mistaken in a matter of his profession. Someone had taken the file, then. Why not the captain's murderer? The Marine-or, rather, the pretended Marine?'
He took another draft of lemonade.
'It was then that I launched a search for a Marine uniform coat. I reasoned the murderer would throw it overboard- weighted, perhaps, though I prayed not-rather than hiding it somewhere in the bilges of the ship. Sooner or later some prying member of the crew would find it.
'Now I had a stroke of luck. As I was musing about the killer's description-if not a Marine himself, he had to be able to impersonate one convincingly, and he had, of course, to be a naval man-I happened to see the playbill posted outside my lodgings. And there I saw the name of Vantage's second, Peregrine Kingsley, in the part of 'Charles Surface,' the dashing young blade. There was my man, I was certain.'
Hoare's voice now gave out entirely He fell back upon breathing his words into Mr. Prickett's ear so the midshipman could relay them to the audience, a clear, proud treble stentor.
'This might have explained Mr. Watt's missing file as well. Conceivably, Kingsley could have got wind that someone had sent his captain something so incriminating that he felt he had to filch it, even killing Captain Hay if need be, while doing so.
'He easily abstracted from the Marine detachment the coat which was later found in the harbor. Before donning it, he disguised his face with maquillage, leaving unavoidable traces of the stuff on the coat as he did so, and slipped into ranks when Sergeant Doyle mounted the guard. Again, it was easy for him to include himself.
'If I was right, the altercation between Arthur Gladden and his captain gave Kingsley his chance to create a red herring in the form of the hapless young officer. After Arthur fled, Kingsley entered the cabin on some pretext and bayoneted the captain. He switched his bayonet and the one the captain had in his possession, dropped the bloody uniform coat over the side, and disappeared into the anonymity of nighttime aboard a newly manned vessel.'
'But all this is speculation, Mr. Hoare,' Captain Wright said.
'Precisely so, sir. That is why I had to lay a trap for Kingsley by means of a piece of theater of our own. We continued the court-martial, but in camera so that Kingsley was excluded. Thus it appeared to him to be the court's secret that it was now in search of a naval person with acting experience.
'But even secret proceedings will out, as we all know, all too well. I made sure they would, by instructing young Mr. Prickett here to be a trifle loose-mouthed.'
Mr. Prickett grew pink, either with embarrassment or with pride.
'Sure enough, the word spread, as the word will, and Kingsley was deceived into believing the law was on his trail. He panicked, as we all know, and fled. That's all, gentlemen.'
The room broke into applause and cries of, 'Hear him; hear him!'
'Present him, Weatherby.'
From where Hoare stood, across the room and surrounded by admirers, he could hear His Royal Highness's quarterdeck command. He saw Weatherby working his way through the crowd.
'This way, if you please, Mr. Hoare. You know the drill, I suppose?'
'Go to one knee and kiss his ring, isn't it, sir?'
'Gad, no. He's a prince, not the pope, and he's incognito besides. Just hat under the arm-like that, yes-and bow in salute. A bit deeper than usual wouldn't do any harm.'
Clarence's circle of courtier-officers opened to admit Captain Weatherby and his prize. Hoare made what he hoped was the proper bow. His Royal Highness put out an affable hand.
'Well done, Mr… er… Hoare, by Jove. Clever chap, what what? Amazin'. Should you ever be in need of a friendly word, sir, you may call on me. Short of a ship, of course… can't have an officer on the quarterdeck who can't make his orders heard, eh what?'
All too true, Hoare thought for the thousandth time, as the nodding circle of sycophants regathered itself around their duke. The small, lean, weary-looking man drew him aside, named himself as John Goldthwait, and asked that he call the next time he was near 11 Chancery Lane in London.
'Present him.' With those two magic words from royalty, Hoare's credit account with the hypothetical Bank of Advancement had doubled. His interest had grown by a cubit tonight. But, even so, it could never give him back his voice, put him aboard a fighting ship, and return him to the ladder of promotion.
The court-martial reconvened on the morning of 1 July, another sparkling day, to acquit Arthur Gladden of the charges against him. When Peter bent to buckle his sword belt about his brother's waist, Arthur seized the weapon and flung it out the open window of Defiant's cabin, scabbard and all.
'Bugger your bloody sword, and bugger the Navy, too!' he shouted. 'I resign your bloody service, and be damned to you!'
He pushed his brother and Hoare aside, stormed out through the paralyzed crowd, summoned a wherry, and was off before anyone of the court or the ship's company could summon the wit to stop him. They let him go.
Hoare took his place in the line of officers and dignitaries waiting for passage ashore but caught a lift from the friendly Commander Weatherby. He went straight out to Insupportable and took her out into the light morning breeze.
As the sun was setting two days later, Hoare sat at Insupportable's cabin table, looking down at several trail boards and wondering what he would rename the pinnace today. They had just tied up after forty-eight hours of personal leave, granted by his master of the moment so he could recoup his exhausted whisper.
'Ahoy, the pinnace!' came a hail from the pier overhead. Hoare stuck his head out the companionway.
Peter Gladden was looking down at him. 'Glad you're back, Mr. Hoare,' he said. 'I've been waiting for you since yesterday. I've news.'
Hoare climbed out of the cuddy to greet the other officer. 'Come aboard,' he said. Hoare thought Gladden looked ready to burst.
'Kingsley's dead,' Gladden reported as soon as he stood on Insupportable's narrow clean deck.
'What?'
'Kingsley's dead. Taken and killed.'
'Come below and tell me about it.'
Over a mug of neat rum at Insupportable's table, her alternate names brushed to one side, Gladden recounted the details.
As Gladden told Hoare, Kingsley had apparently laid no plan for strategic withdrawal in the event of need, so had simply followed his high-bridged nose into the hills behind Southampton Water. He might have been intending to hide in Sherwood Forest, adopting the carefree life of that green-wood's most famous inhabitant. One of the press took him at a poor inn in Bishops Waltham during the night. He had disguised himself as a drover and, as his Maid Marian, was accompanied by Maud, Mrs. Hay's former abigail. He had in his possession the clerk Watt's
