The Old Vengeful

and not just dummy3

as the sad history of Number Seven.

'So that leaves us with another thirteen survivors to account for—the very last of the Vengefuls—right?'

'Yes. The crew of the jolly-boat,' Elizabeth nodded.

'The jolly-boat—'a hack-boat for small work', the OED

says . . . which was presumably the only undamaged boat to get away from the wreck . . . and not a very jolly voyage, because two of them died soon after they came ashore, from injuries or exposure, or both. . . and they were all in a bad way, more or less.' He nodded back, and then his eyes shifted to the Vengeful box. 'And that came ashore off the Fortune—the ship's doctor's box of tricks . . . presumably?'

She noticed that he was watching her intently. 'Father thought so. It was rather surprising that Dr Pike left the Vengeful, but maybe the French ship didn't have a surgeon.

But that's the only way it could have been washed up on the English coast. And the carpenter's mate remembers him being on board the Fortune.'

'But he wasn't one of the survivors.'

'I'm sorry?' Elizabeth's attention had strayed back to the box, with its inscription plates which it had been her duty to keep brightly polished, but which were sadly tarnished now.

'I said, he wasn't one of the survivors from the Fortune. . .

And from the Vengeful there was the third lieutenant, Chipperfield, and the little midshipman, Paget . . . and the Gunner's Mate, Chard, and the Quartermaster's Mate, Timms dummy3

—'

' What?' exclaimed Elizabeth in astonishment.

'Timms. And the six seamen—eight originally—'

' But . . . but, Paul—' She was forced to curb her astonishment by the appearance of her hostess on the terrace.

Paul stood up, clasping the chapter to his chest. 'Mrs Audley

—are you going to join us?'

'Of course not—not when you're talking business—and do make it 'Faith', Paul, please . . . Elizabeth, are you all right?

Are you absolutely famished?'

Faith Audley at the best of times, on neutral ground, would have demoralised Elizabeth. Maybe she was all Paul Mitchell had said— and, to be hatefully fair, from the gentle and sympathetic putting-at-ease with which she'd greeted her dishevelled guest, she probably was a nice woman. But that slender, elegant blondeness, and the equally stylish cut of the working-clothes, jeans-and-shirt, not to mention the expert make-up and hint of very expensive scent, was positively debilitating.

'No, I'm fine, Faith.' She was, to be accurate, absolutely famished. But there was also another hunger inside her now, which required more urgent satisfaction. 'Really I am.'

'I'm sure you're not . . . I've had to feed Cathy to stop her falling apart . . . But it won't be long—' she switched her attention back to Paul '—the office phoned again, Paul, to say dummy3

they're en route . . . But meanwhile you are instructed to spill the beans to Elizabeth, David says—whatever the beans are . . . But I'm sure that means more to you than me—

entendu?'

' Entendu, madame—Faith,' Paul Mitchell bowed. ' Bien entendu.'

'Ye-ess.' She gave him a slightly jaundiced look. 'You and my David are two of a kind, I've always suspected. Which means . . . for Miss Loftus—for you, Elizabeth, beanz meanz troublez.'

'Not at all!' Paul protested. 'It means that your David reposes confidence in Elizabeth's superlative loyalty and common sense— beanz meanz secretz.'

'Hmmm ...' Faith had the height to look down her nose at the world, and the right shape of nose for looking down. 'It sounds very much like the same thing to me. As long as you don't repose the same confidence in them, Elizabeth, that's all.'

Paul watched her depart, frowning slightly at that final, left-handed, half-affectionate insult.

None of that mattered, though—it was those names which mattered.

'One of them lived to tell the tale, Paul—you said that just as we arrived.' And a very curious tale, too; and it was irritating also—it was more than that, it was infuriating—how the effect of arriving at the manor house, and being met by dummy3

Faith Audley immediately, had abated her curiosity until now.

'The tale?' His mind seemed to be elsewhere.

She pointed at the type-script. 'In Father's chapter—except for Lieutenant Chipperfield he never had the names of any of the survivors. He only had what that one sailor who reached Verdun told the senior naval officer there— that Chipperfield's party had escaped the fortress at Lautenbourg, in Alsace—and the conflicting stories the French put out . . .

it's all in there, darn it, Paul—' the abstracted expression on his face irritated her further '—but he had nothing on the midshipman, and the gunner's mate or anyone else.'