A Burial at Sea

from his view, you see. When he went to look he found the body.”

“And so it was Carrow who came to fetch you, Captain?”

“He came to me first,” said Tradescant. “I ran up on deck. The captain followed shortly thereafter.”

Martin nodded his confirmation of this sequence of events. “I called for Billings, then. We agreed to find you.”

“Mr. Tradescant, how long had Halifax been dead when you saw him? You said a dunce in medical college could have spotted that he was?”

“Five minutes, I would say, just to hazard a guess. Not more than ten or twelve. His skin was still as warm as yours or mine. And his heart was still hot to the touch.”

There was a moment of quiet at this news.

“But how on earth could you know that, about his heart?” said Lenox. “Did you perform an autopsy so soon?”

The three men—Martin, Billings, and Tradescant—exchanged looks.

“No,” said the captain at last. “We found him on his back, cut open straight down the middle from his throat to his stomach, and the skin pulled back so that you could see his entrails.”

CHAPTER NINE

To have a preference among types of murder was absurd, of course—grotesque even—but Lenox had always had a particular distaste for death by the knife. Gunshot, strangulation, poisoning: for reasons hidden even to him, none of these seemed quite as grim as a stabbing or a cutting. Somehow the image of Halifax meeting such an end made everything worse.

He stood. “Good Christ. Let me see him then. Is his body alone? We must go at once if it is, before anyone can interfere with it.”

“No, no, Carrow is standing over him,” said Billings. “Nobody else has been permitted close to the body— Halifax’s body—or indeed the quarterdeck, besides the three of us and Carrow. Though I’m afraid several seamen saw the body.”

Martin stood. “You’ll do it then, Mr. Lenox? If nobody comes forward, you’ll find the man who did this?”

“I could scarcely do anything else.”

They climbed up to the main deck. A cool breeze there just ruffled the otherwise slack sails.

“Why aren’t we sailing?” he asked.

“We need to beat to windward,” said Martin, “but that takes men, and I wanted to keep the deck as clear of people as possible. We’re simply drifting at the moment.”

“I see. Out of curiosity, what’s the nearest port?”

“London, I would imagine, perhaps Whistable. Why?”

“In case we need to seek help on land.”

The captain shook his head. “No. We have our own ways in the navy, sir, and we may try and convict a man of a crime as legitimately here as they might in the assizes.”

“Hm.”

“We’re not putting into port, with all due respect. I won’t go back there tail-tucked, a man who can’t control his own ship.”

“Very well. Let’s see poor Halifax, then.”

The quarterdeck of the Lucy (domain solely of officers) was one level up from the main deck and the poop deck was one level up from that, but each had a separate set of stairs leading to it from the main deck. This left the quarterdeck invisible in parts from the others, just as Martin had said, particularly where the poop deck’s rail blocked off from sight the back half of the quarterdeck. It would be just possible, then, to do something out of sight of both the main deck and the poop deck at once. Still, it seemed improbable somehow that a man could be murdered within ten feet of a half-dozen other men without attracting attention.

“When was Halifax’s watch?” said Lenox as they walked single file up the quarterdeck.

“First watch,” said Billings.

“Eight in the evening until midnight, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s past four now,” Martin added, “but we’re letting the next watch stay down. The fewer people see this the better.”

Lenox nodded. “What I was asking, though—Halifax wouldn’t have had any reason to be outside of his cabin at the hour he was killed?”

Billings and Martin both shook their heads. No.

They came to the body; it was under a smallish piece of spare white sailcloth, presumably out of respect, though Lenox would have preferred the scene to rest untouched. Uneven splotches of red had started to seep into the canvas. Worse still, Halifax’s shins and knees protruded from the covering. It seemed somehow undignified.

“Carrow,” said Martin, “any activity?”

“Nobody has been on deck, sir, but I’ve heard the men speaking. They know Halifax is dead.”

“Inevitably,” said Martin. “Mr. Lenox, what shall we do?”

“Perhaps you and I, Mr. Tradescant, could take a look.”

They stepped up toward the body, Lenox treading carefully so that neither man put his foot on any piece of evidence, and removed the sailcloth. There he was. The moon was just waning, but it was still full enough to cast in a brilliant white light every gory detail of Halifax’s death.

“Unfortunate sod,” murmured Martin.

Billings took off his cap and soon all four men besides Lenox had done the same. He was bareheaded.

Halifax’s face was unmarked, but his torso was mangled out of all recognition, soaked in blood. Still, it was evident what the murderer had done; Halifax was indeed sliced open from his throat to his navel, and the skin had been pulled neatly back into flaps, revealing an exposed rectangle of his insides.

“Jesus,” said Carrow, and both Martin and Billings looked as if they might be ill. Only Tradescant, a medical man, remained phlegmatic. And of course Lenox, who had seen this kind of thing before.

“Well, Mr. Lenox?”

The detective didn’t answer. He was stooped down by the body. Very gingerly he turned Halifax’s head one way and then the other, looking for any signs of violence upon it.

“He’s bare-chested,” said Lenox.

“Yes,” said Billings.

“Well, and that’s your most important detail. Would he have come onto deck bare-chested?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then where is his shirt? You see?” Lenox thought for a moment. “Mr. Tradescant, you observed the repeated stab wounds around Mr. Halifax’s heart?”

“Yes.”

“The stabbing and the subsequent—well, dissection—were different acts.”

“Yes, I thought the same.”

“If he was stabbed with his shirt on, there will be fibers of cloth in the wounds. I suspect that’s what we’ll find.” Kneeling still, he turned to Martin. “Captain, if you find that shirt you’ll find your murderer. Unless it’s gone overboard.”

Martin whirled around and looked down at the main deck, where a few sailors leaned against the gunwales. “We can still check every damned inch of this ship. You, Harding—yes, you—spread word among each mess that nothing is to be shipped out through the portholes or over the sides of the ship, hey?”

“Yes, sir,” said Harding, a strong man of middle age, and went below deck.

“There are a million places aboard a ship to hide such a thing,” said Lenox. “It’s a shame.”

“You would be surprised,” said Martin. “If it’s here we’ll find it.”

“What color would it be?”

“His light blue shirt, I imagine,” said Billings. “A rough old thing—he wore it when he was off duty.”