Stunned at the news, Hoare still noted that Lestrade had left elsewhere his habit of mishandling his aspirates in a futile attempt at gentility.
'Dead, sir. Stabbed, over an' over again. I tried to 'elp 'im, 'deed I did, but they was too many of 'em. Wen I saw the admiral was down, I cut an' run. You was the first I thoughta, so I come down 'ere.'
'When did this happen?' Hoare asked.
' 'Baht two this mornin, sir.'
'And here it is four bells-ten o'clock. What kept you?'
'Tide, sir. 'Twas against me. An' besides, Hit ain't-Hisn't- that Heasy to find a wherry at two in the morning.'
Lestrade was recovering himself, as Hoare could hear, and no longer needed to make excuses. With this returned his usual veneer of genteel accent.
'Sit down, man. Out, Hancock. Talk to me later.' Sullen, the man departed.
Before Hoare could whistle up Whitelaw and have him bring the messenger some refreshment, the silent servant appeared. On one palm he balanced a carafe of brandy on a tray with a pair of small glasses. In the other hand he carried a basin. A moistened cloth hung over his arm. He spoke not a word, but set right to work and began to repair his master's guest.
'Thank you, sir,' Lestrade said over his glass. 'Your good Health-and my apologies for breaking in on you with such dreadful tidings.'
'Tell me what happened, Lestrade,' Hoare whispered.
'Well, sir, you know, of course, that Sir Hugh lodges- lodged, I should say-with Mrs. Pettibone behind Downing Street. No more than a ten-minute walk, even for Him.'
Hoare had not known this, but remained silent.
'For some years past, she has kept House for Him, on her ground floor, naturally. Since Sir Hugh took me into His confidence some years ago, Hi have made it a Habit to accompany Him Home in the Hevenings, if it should be dark. Has it often His, Sir Hugh being the man of duty He His. Was.
'Hi did so last night, it being foggy as well as late. About two o'clock, Has Hi think Hi said. Just Has we were turning the corner past Downing Street, we were assaulted, Hoverwhelmed by at least three Hassassins. Poor Sir Hugh drew His sword and attempted to defend Himself, but He was knocked over, and Hi was wrestled to the pavement. My assailant simply sat on me, Holding me by the Hair and bashing my Head against the stones. Hi fear that Hi lost my senses for a moment. When Hi recovered them and sat up, the Hattackers Had disappeared, and Sir Hugh was lying on His back. His sword lay at his side. It had been broken. He was quite dead.'
Lestrade seemed to choke, then went on.
'Has soon as Hi could, I shouted for the watch. Some marines came running. I told them what had occurred, and they put together a party large enough to carry Him off. To the Admiralty, Hi suppose, but Hi do not know, for Hi betook myself to the Thames and roused up a wherry to be brought Here.'
Lestrade took another sip of brandy. Having patched up his patient, Whitelaw took his departure, leaving the two men alone. He returned, however, bearing Hoare's hat, sword, and boat cloak, and helped his master into them. Hoare nodded at him and led Lestrade on deck.
'Is Thoday about?' he asked Mr. Clay.
'In Whitechapel, sir, I believe.'
Hoare remembered now. He had sent Thoday there himself, at the man's own suggestion-one did not order Titus Thoday about arbitrarily, he had learned. There had been word from Collis that he had seen a man in close conversation with Floppin' Poll. He had seemed a gent, out of place in that particular shebeen, and Collis was set to drop the woman and follow the man.
Bold had already brought Hoare's gig to the yacht's starboard entry port. He held it close while his captain and Lestrade boarded.
'Give way, boys,' Bold told his four oarsmen. Then, turning to Hoare, he said, 'If we comes along like extra, sir, we can keep the tide all the way up to Westminster Steps. Which you'll be wantin', I suppose, sir?' At Hoare's nod, he relapsed into silence, except occasionally to correct the others' stroke.
Sir Hugh's immense corpse had already been hauled away to his apartments and laid on a long black table, where candles burned at its head and foot. At the foot, too, a tiny woman stood. She was silent now, but it seemed to Hoare as if the echo of her wailing still resounded through the room.
'His wife?' he breathed to Lestrade beside him.
'His Housekeeper, sir,' Lestrade whispered in reply. 'He was a widower, sir.'
'Next of kin?'
'Only a brother, so far as Hi know, sir, somewhere in Scotland. Or thereabouts, Hi believe. There'll be a record somewhere, of course.'
In death, the admiral was sadly diminished. With the departure of his stubborn, clever spirit, Hoare thought, he looked somehow deflated, like a huge pig's bladder that had been over-kicked in some cruel game. Face and limbs as well as body had been badly chopped. An edged weapon had peeled the scalp back from the forehead, so that the pale pink bulge of the skull lay exposed over the staring blue eyes and under the sparse clotted white hair. Another blow had hacked into his cheek, so that two rows of gleaming false teeth lay exposed to view. Some of these blows, it seemed, had been inflicted after death, for they had not bled significantly. The two first fingers were missing from the admiral's left hand, suggesting that he might have raised it in self-defense. His white breeches, soaked in red, suggested that here was where he had received his death wound. His sword, more decorative than practical, remained gripped in his right hand. It, too, had been bloodied. So, then, Hoare thought, Sir Hugh Abercrombie, KB, Vice-Admiral of the White, had not gone gently to his death.
'Some'un 'uz drug away, zur,' one of the sentries told Hoare in confirmation. 'I zaw blood trail meself, I did. Went toward river, it did. There-see?'
Like a jinni, Thoday appeared at Hoare's side. How the man always seemed to know when there was a need for him, Hoare could never understand. It was as though he controlled an invisible semaphore system, or perhaps a private flock of ghostly pigeons.
'There were three attackers, sir,' he said. 'The admiral killed one of them. From the amount of blood, Sir Hugh struck him in the aorta or one of his carotids. A creditable blow, I must say. The two others fled, dragging their dead confederate with them. The body will be in the Thames by now, of course.
'One of them dropped a bollock-knife, sir.'
'Bollock-knife, Thoday? What's a bollock-knife?'
'An old-fashioned knife with a guard shaped like a pair of calf's bollocks, sir. Here, as you can see.'
He extended this weapon to Hoare, hilt first. A good ten inches long, the blade, Hoare saw, was bloody over the rust of neglect-presumably the blood had been the admiral's. The pommel did indeed resemble the neat spheres that juvenile males of most species carried about so proudly beneath their tails.
'I never saw a knife like it before,' Hoare whispered. 'What can you tell me about it?'
'A very good question, sir,' Thoday said. 'You might have seen one like it being carried by that shepherd we met at the Nine Stones Circle. They are an ancient model, used latterly mostly by animal herders to geld the young creatures.'
'So its owner would be a countryman.'
'Perhaps. But I cannot help but wonder, sir, how it happened to be dropped in the first place, and abandoned in the second. The admiral's assailants were apparently in no hurry to escape after completing their assassination; they had time to cut the body up a bit more, and then drag their dead comrade off with them. Why, then, did this knife's owner not pause to retrieve his weapon? They are generally heirlooms, and this one would be a valued possession.'
'You think we are intended to believe the assassin was a countryman.'
'I think it a possibility, sir.'
Having been the bearer of the bad tidings to their Lordships of the Admiralty that they stood in need of a new chief of intelligence, Hoare was left to sit and observe the result of his having done so. He sat humbly there, in a corner of the great room with its globes and its charts of the world's oceans, well away from the glowing fire. To his astonishment, besides the usual factotums-secretaries, flunkies like Hoare himself, and the like- the only other
