It was the surgeon who finally spoke. “Why did you write that note? Or roll the shot?”
A look of disdain came into Billings’s eyes. “This charlatan’s story is true, as far as it goes. The
“Once you’ve admitted that, haven’t you admitted everything?” said Carrow. His eyes were pained, but no longer incredulous.
“No. I never would have raised a hand in violence to either of them. Why would I have killed Mr. Martin?”
“The captain?” said Lenox. “You went back and asked him specifically, after Halifax had died, whether your prospects had changed. A few glasses more of whisky gone from the bottle. When he denied you again, you had to kill him.”
“I didn’t do it.”
Carrow interjected. “But the penknife, your opportunity, my medallion, your surgical training—surely there can be no other answer?”
“I never thought you would betray me.”
“I wish you had never betrayed us.”
Billings smirked. “Prove it, then. You cannot, because it’s not true. The mutiny, yes. But not the murders.”
“So this is to be your stratagem?” Lenox said. “Save yourself the gallows?”
“There’s no proof that I murdered Halifax or Martin, damn you.”
“It was a deuced awkward thing of you to do, Billings, even if it was only the mutiny,” said Lee.
“Oh, shut up, Lee, and stow your asinine home county accent.”
“Oh, I say!” cried Lee, moved more than he had been at any point heretofore in the proceedings. “I say, you go too far!”
Lenox nearly laughed. “You speak of proof. I wonder, Mr. Tradescant, about your patient.”
“Which one?”
“Your long-term patient. What was his name?”
“Costigan.”
“You told me several days ago that he was awake?”
“Yes. But fractious, and anxious.”
“And muttering all manner of things, you told me? About what?”
“It’s nigh on impossible to understand him.”
“How long will it be before he could speak, should you stop giving him his sedative now.”
“A matter of an hour or two. But why?”
“What was his initial injury?”
“A blunt trauma across the back of the head, from a beam, we presumed.”
“I think he may have witnessed our murder, this unfortunate Costigan, or known of Billings’s plans. Billings, is that true?”
It was this that finally did Billings in. He sat there insolently, grinning, a dazed look in his eyes. He said nothing.
“When was he brought to your surgery?”
“Not half an hour before we discovered Halifax,” said Tradescant wonderingly.
“And Mr. Carrow,” said Lenox, “where did Costigan work?”
“He was a flier, a topman.”
“Then he might have had cause to go up the—”
“Mizzenmast, yes. Oh, Billings.”
They all turned to him, and the same distant grin was fixed on his face.
“We shall have to speak to him,” said the surgeon gravely.
“There’s only one thing left,” said Lenox. “Admit that you killed them, Billings. You, and you alone.”
Their eyes were all focused on Billings, and so none of them saw the man who had slipped in. He spoke, and they turned together with a cry of surprise.
“In fact we killed them together,” the voice said. “Both of them.”
It was Butterworth, Billings’s steward. He was carrying a gun.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“Known Mr. Billings since he were a boy in trousers, I have,” said Butterworth. “And it won’t be any of you sees to him. Uncuff him now, Lennots, do it.”
Hands raised, Lenox walked over to Billings and uncuffed him.
Billings stood and looked down the wardroom table, a warm, polished red, full of flickering light from the windows, and spat. “None of you is worth a damn. I killed ’em; I’d do it again.”
“You helped, Butterworth?” said Lenox quietly.
“Shut up.”
“How long have you been helping him?” Lenox asked. “Has he always been … this way?”
A pained look appeared on Butterworth’s face, but he only said, “Shut up,” again, and poked his gun into Lenox’s stomach. He looked at Carrow. “Get us up to a jolly boat, hey. We’ll take the
Billings’s face was demonic. “Or I could get my penknife, Mr. Lenox. Can we make time for that anyhow, Butterworth?”
“Not now, young master. Now we must go. You come with us, Lennots. You’re to be our hostage. The rest of you sit on your bottoms and don’t breathe a word, or I’ll shoot this great toff.”
The walk to the deck seemed to take forever. Butterworth had the gun shoved into Lenox’s back, and the detective prayed that the man knew how to use it properly. An accidental shot would mean the end of his life.
“Cut the rudder,” whispered Butterworth to Billings. “Order the men away and do it.”
“I will. You have the provisions?”
“They’re with the
Billings raced ahead.
“You planned for this?” Lenox muttered, as all around them men went on with their work, oblivious.
“Ever since Master Billings rushed in, sleeves covered in blood,” whispered Butterworth. “Old Mr. Billings gave me a responsibility. Knew the boy wasn’t right.”
They were on the quarterdeck, only the two of them, seemingly in conversation, though a few men who passed by, seeing Butterworth in this unaccustomed place, gave him quizzical glances.
“You don’t have to protect him. You didn’t kill anyone.”
“Might as well have. Knew what he was capable of,” said Butterworth. He paused, then went on again, as if he felt a compulsion to explain. “The old Mr. Billings was like a father to me, you see.” He turned and looked Lenox in the eyes. “You may as well know, in fact. He was my father. I was a bastard born on the local whore. Dovie is my brother.”
Lenox’s eyes widened. “That’s why you were protecting him, then? Is that why you told me Martin was in all the cabins? And wrote on the picture Evers sent? You wanted me to come see you—so that you could mislead me!”
First Tradescant, and now Butterworth; it was the navy, he supposed, a convenient manner of disposition for unwanted children. Friends of his with bastards often put them into the guards, too.
Butterworth didn’t say anything. Suddenly the ship gave a great lurch.
“We’ve lost the rudder!” a voice shouted. “Captain!”
“Captain?” another said.
Billings was hacking off the ropes that lashed the
“We’re leaving now!” he said. “The three of us, aren’t we? The
