'Lieutenant… ah… Hoare? Has Mr… a gentleman by that name presented himself?'
Hoare overlooked the expected titters and wove his way through the thinning crowd to the rabbit. 'I gave you my name over two hours ago,' he said.
'Oh, dear. And now Sir George is most displeased. Oh, dear.' The rabbit's ears seemed to droop. It hastened to open the door and squeak out Hoare's name.
It might have been early July, but Sir George was frosty. He was wearing his own hair, almost as frosty as the half-wig he had sported at his reception. As was natural, the three others in the room had caught their Admiral's chill. They were a post captain with the single epaulet carried to starboard that signified less than three years' seniority, a languid elegant in a uniform coat like Hoare's own, and a slim, pallid civilian. These must be Captain Kent of Vantage and Sir George's flag lieutenant and his secretary, respectively. Hoare felt himself under four pairs of icy eyes.
'If you will excuse me for a moment, gentlemen…,' Sir George began, and then, as his companions began to rise, added, 'No, no. Please, simply bear with me for a trice, while I deal with this officer.
'Now, sir, you have damned well taken your time in obeying orders. You have kept me waiting, not only for one morning, but for two entire days. This is hardly the behavior of a dedicated officer of the Navy. What do you mean by it, sir?'
'I was afloat until this morning, sir,' Hoare whispered, 'on personal leave, to recover my voice.'
'You evidently require additional leave, then,' the captain began, and drew to himself some of the Admiral's chill.
'Mr. Hoare's affairs are none of yours, sir,' said Sir George.
The captain reddened and subsided.
'And this morning's delay?'
'I presented myself in your anteroom more than two hours ago, sir, within an hour of tieing up.'
'Hmmph. Then we'll set your dilatory behavior to one side for the time being. Now, as to the purpose for which I requested your immediate presence two days ago…' Sir George's qualified absolution notwithstanding, he was not going to forget whatever inconvenience Hoare's absence had caused him.
The Admiral began to leaf through the papers lying before him, but the secretary was quicker off the mark. 'The papers you were looking for, Sir George,' he announced smugly.
'Damme, Patterson, you're bold indeed to decide for me what I am looking for. D'ye think me a wittol?' Sir George took the packet sharply from his aide's hand.
'Here, Mr. Hoare,' Sir George said. 'You will have been told that the man Kingsley was found shot this morning.'
Hoare nodded.
'It is obvious that Kingsley's murder was intended to stop his tongue. Since the story of his adultery with his own captain's wife was already out and the cuckolded man is dead in any case, that can hardly have been the motive for his murder. He must have been privy to some other, greater secret… something which justified silencing him so effectively.'
'The question, Mr. Hoare, is: what? And whose secret was it? Perhaps these papers offer the answer. I know of nothing else that can. They were aboard him when he was taken. Some of 'em belonged to Hay himself. Some, which I have turned over to his successor, relate to Vantage's business. Here are the rest of them.'
The Admiral interrupted himself. 'I don't believe I have yet made you gentlemen known to each other,' he said as Hoare tucked the packet under his arm.
'This officer, Kent, is Mr. Bartholomew Hoare of my staff-more or less, when he is pleased to feel like appearing. Hoare, John Kent, now captain of Vantage.'
'Servant, sir,' Hoare said.
Captain Kent acknowledged Hoare's stiff bow with a curt nod. He would be unwise indeed to seek a berth in Vantage, Hoare decided.
'As I said, Hoare, Kingsley was obviously shot by no accident, but by someone who feared what he might say at his court-martial. I want you to find out who, and what he wanted hushed up.
'To begin with, you are to read, learn, and inwardly digest these papers and give me your opinion of them. Patterson here says some of them look personal to the dead man-and damning. He says that others are in some kind of cipher.
'Take as much time as you need with this, Hoare, but take it somewhere else. Report to me here, at eight bells of the afternoon watch.'
In the dim, stuffy match-boarding cranny at the Victualling Office, which he used as an occasional workplace, Hoare had installed a splintered table to serve him as a desk. The place was awkward and uncomfortable, but it was nearby. Here, instead of in the outer of his own two sunny rooms at the Swallowed Anchor, he spread out the papers Admiral Hardcastle had given him.
Some of them would have been part of the missing file that he remembered Captain Hay's clerk, Watt, describing to him some days ago. Mr. Watt had said of this one, for example, that 'the writing appeared to be that of a young woman, self-taught, perhaps.' Reading it, Hoare could imagine her bent over the paper, tongue pressed between her teeth in concentration as she wrote. The letter hinted to the captain that his wife was not only betraying him but doing so with his own second officer. It could have been written by Mrs. Hay's maid Maud, since the woman had been found in Kingsley's company.
A week ago, Hoare mused, he would have regarded this letter as priceless evidence of Kingsley s motive for murdering someone-Maud, if not Captain Hay. But now, with Kings-ley lying murdered himself, it was of historical interest only. Hoare could see no reason for handing it to Captain Hay's widow. Her past sins were no business of his.
The letter that had caused Mr. Watt's crise de conscience lay among the others, with its enclosure pinned to it. As Mr. Watt had remembered, it read: 'I found this in his uniform pocket that night. I know the sort of thing it is, and I do not believe he should be in possession of such a thing. But perhaps you gave it to him in connection with Vantage.'
Mr. Watt had not recited the rest of the letter to Hoare and Gladden. On reading it, Hoare placed a note at the head of his mental memorandum file: Question Mrs. Hay.
The enclosure was written in minute block letters on the thinnest of tissue. It had apparently been tightly rolled for sending, instead of being folded. There was no trace of a seal. It was addressed to 'Ahab' and signed 'Jehu.' Its text comprised several score five-letter words of gibberish.
It was obvious to Hoare, as it had been to Watt, that this was an enciphered message. Knowing nothing of codes and ciphers, he had to set it aside.
Hoare leafed quickly through the other letters in the file Kingsley had stolen from Vantages cabin. They were, as Watt had implied, irrelevant and trivial. Most were from tradesmen, although two solicited places for their sons as midshipmen in Vantage and one was a plea for funds from an imprisoned debtor signing himself 'your devoted cousin, Jeremiah Hay.' He turned now to Kingsley's other papers.
Here were three heated, tousled missives in Mrs. Hay's careless script. Why had Kingsley been such a fool as to keep them? Had he, too, had blackmail in mind?
Kingsley s most interesting documents were four messages. Their appearance was identical to the enclosure that had caught Mr. Watt's eye.
The fourth letter was also in a semiliterate hand:
Estem'd Sir: if you dont wan er usbin [husband] an the LAW to no about them things you bin doin wat no ENGLISH Genelman shd be doin youl bring 20 pouns to the ol plaic [place] sadiday at for bels. COM ALON!!!! I stil got frens an you dont no mor yr umbl obt servt
J-Jaggery
In this letter, at least, the threat of blackmail was specific. But since Kingsley was no longer alive to be blackmailed, Hoare felt he could as well set it aside-except that the name Jaggery tickled his memory in connection with something unsavory.
He remembered now. Some years ago, a gunner of that name had suffered two broken legs and a mangled
