Graves looked at Halfhyde, raising his eyebrows. Halfhyde said, “This has the ring of mystery. It needs investigating more closely, sir.”
“You think it may be McRafferty’s passenger?”
Halfhyde shrugged. “We can but ask.”
Graves lifted his megaphone again. “What is the man’s name?” he called across the water.
“He refused to give a name, Captain.”
“I’ll be damned,” Halfhyde said. “I believe we must take this nameless gentleman over ourselves. Since we’re also bound for Sydney, the castaway might as well avail himself of the opportunity to rejoin his ship!”
FLOAT WAS lucky to be alive, for sharks had been around as the weather moderated. He had kept them off by making as much noise as he could, and the tangle of rigging that had gone over the side with the yard had helped to deflect their attacks. As he sank into delirium sheer luck had come to his rescue: a fight had broken out between a cruising whale and the sharks, and they had left him, and then he had been sighted from the Werribee. Recovering in due course, he had panicked, refusing to answer the questions of the Master, asking repeatedly for passage home as a distressed British seaman. If pressed further, he would eventually give a false name; and he was beginning to feel some emerging sense of security when the ship was spoken by the Tacoma. The resulting sight of Halfhyde, who was pulled across to the Werribee, was a shock. Float did his best to persuade the Werribee’s Master that Halfhyde was up to no good and that he, Float, should remain untransferred. Halfhyde found little difficulty in persuading the Master otherwise. As a man facing a charge of murder aboard a ship at sea, Float was required in Sydney; the Master was indeed only too anxious to get rid of him once Halfhyde had put the facts before him.
Back aboard the Tacoma, Halfhyde asked questions, and it all came out. Bullock had tried to murder Float, had tried to knock him from the yard, though in fact it had been the parted hemp that had finally done the knocking. Why had Bullock wanted to kill Float? Because, Float said, he knew too much.
“Tell me,” Halfhyde said.
Float did, vengefully. “Diamonds,” he said. “Bloody millions of them. That Jesson. The passenger.”
“I see. And you tried a little blackmail?”
Float said it wasn’t blackmail, just that he’d said he’d talk if he didn’t get assistance over a clandestine landing.
“Where does Captain McRafferty intend landing the passenger?” Halfhyde asked.
A look came into Float’s eyes, and he seemed to check what he had been about to say. After a pause he said, “I dunno. Sydney, I reckon.”
“No, you don’t, Float. You knew very well Captain McRafferty wouldn’t land the passenger in Sydney—or rather, that the passenger would see to it that it wasn’t Sydney. That was why you took the trouble to get a hold over him.”
“Well, maybe. But I don’t know where he was to be put ashore.”
“Think again, Float.”
“I said, I don’t know.”
“I think you do, Float. And I also know why you’re not admitting to it. You still have hopes of cheating the hangman, haven’t you? Forlorn hopes as it happens—but still hopes. You should cast them from your mind, Float, and help me to nail the passenger.”
Float scowled: the last thing he wanted was for Jesson to be apprehended. Jesson knew that it was him, Float, who had killed Goss. Maybe Bullock had been told, but that would be simply hearsay and would remain so for as long as Jesson remained at liberty; and Float had it in mind that if the worst came to the worst and he was handed over in Sydney, he just might get away with manslaughter on the charge connected with the fire in the fo’c’sle. There had been a fight; tempers had been high—and the knife hadn’t been aimed at the man who had died. Whilst shut up in the sail locker night after night, Float had had plenty of time for thought; many a murder charge had been reduced to one of manslaughter. Whilst in gaol himself, Float had come across more than one such case. It just depended on what sort of story you could concoct, how much of the gift of the gab you had, and how soft the judge was. But no amount of verbiage could ever get him off the hook of Goss—and Jesson had his tacit admission. Even if Float denied having made the admission, they would get there by taking all the known circumstances into account…once Jesson had talked.
He said, “I don’t bloody know. No one told me. Jesson didn’t know himself up to the time I talked to him. Or if ’e did, ’e didn’t say.”
Halfhyde grunted, then turned away to stare from the port; the interview was being conducted in a spare cabin, with two hefty seamen outside the door. When Halfhyde had finished with him Float would be locked away below; but not yet. Halfhyde was convinced Float knew Jesson’s landing place; that sudden flicker in the eyes had covered knowledge. It was vital that it should be dug out.
Halfhyde swung round. He said crisply, “You no doubt learned aboard the Aysgarth Falls that I had served in Her Majesty’s ships as a lieutenant. I still hold that rank, and the Master of this ship is a senior lieutenant of the Royal Naval Reserve. Also, you’ll have seen the White Ensign.”
Float nodded, eyes alert and cautious.
“Very well, then. You’ll understand that the Tacoma is now in effect commissioned as a warship. What do you know of the Navy, Float?”
“Little enough and don’t want to learn more. Stuffed shirts, full o’ bloody bull.”
“And dangerous to murderers, Float. Bear in mind that I was present when that man was knifed—”
“I
