frigate of 1265 tons, cost $314,212 to build at Baltimore, whereas the Chesapeake, also of thirty-eight guns, cost only $220,677 at Norfolk. 'Sixty-one thousand two hundred and ninety-nine pounds two shillings,' said Mr Herapath, looking at his notebook, 'and a dead waste of public money.' For his part Stephen was perfectly noncommittal: who could tell what private animosities there might be among these merchants, to say nothing of the possible agent provocateur?
As he walked back to the Asclepia his mind ran chiefly upon Mrs Wogan. She intended to present him to Johnson as her new recruit: 'consultant' was the term she used, nothing so coarse or injurious as 'spy' - adviser in the cause of peace. He had expressed nothing but a general interest, but her wishes had outrun her judgment, and she was almost sure of him. Mistakenly, as it happened, since he did not intend to play the double agent. He had seen it done, sometimes with spectacular results. But it was not for him, even if he had the necessary skill, which he doubted. There was the danger of being caught by friendship on the other side or by scruples, and above all there was the obligatory extreme depth of dissimulation and he was sick of it, sick of it all. He was sick even of simple dissimulation, dissimulation at one level, and he longed to be shot of it, to be able to speak openly to any man or woman he happened to like: or to dislike, for that matter. Yet he would have to see Johnson... Again, just as pretty Wogan had now persuaded herself that he would be an adviser, so in the past her partiality for him had blinded her, so that Jack appeared as the villain of the piece. A belief that was apparently shared by her superiors and that would account for many things: their unwillingness to let him go, their retention of his papers, the odd business about the Alice B. Sawyer, which might be a blundering first attempt at a trumped-up charge. He wondered what they might possess in the way of scruples: some intelligence services he had known let their desire for revenge and further information carry them very far indeed: Bonaparte's agents had no limits at all. He twitched his hands, still crooked and twisted from a French interrogation many years ago.
As far as the nations went, he did not think that there was the least parallel between the United States and France. The States had an active and vocal public opinion - he had read their papers, mostly written in a steady shriek of indignation, with astonishment - whereas the extremely efficient tyranny in France had almost entirely gagged it, and in any case the whole concept of government and of public morality was so entirely different. Yet intelligence services were something else again, little worlds of their own, often inhabited by strange, extreme beings: he knew something of the French and Spanish; he had seen the English in the Dublin of 1798, and the riding-school in Stephen's Green, where suspects were put to the question. Infamous creatures, most of the questioners; but even honourable, humane men were capable of almost anything for unselfish motives. On the other hand, the effects of the bomb that Wogan had so proudly carried home would have been felt primarily in France; it was essentially directed at Bonaparte, and only incidentally at the Americans, as his potential allies. The American agents would have suffered in their pride, not in their persons.
He found Jack Aubrey sitting on a chair by the window, surveying the harbour with his telescope. 'You have just missed Mr Andrews,' he cried, on seeing Stephen. 'If you had been a few minutes earlier, you would have caught him: indeed, I wonder you did not run into him on the stairs.'
'Who is Mr Andrews?'
'He is the new agent for prisoners o war, and he came to deliver a protest. He came from Halifax in that slab-sided ketch by the red buoys, and he brought some papers and this note for you: no letters from England yet, at least not for us.'
The note was from Stephen's colleague in Halifax: to all appearance it contained no more than a brief account of the death of a common friend; in fact it told him that
Jean Dubreuil was in Washington. Jean Dubreuil was an important man in Paris and he was one of those Stephen had hoped to kill or disable with his bomb. He put the letter back in his pocket and attended. to Jack, who was telling him about the blockade.
'Africa is laid up,' he was saying, 'and Belvidera sprung her mainmast a little above the partners; so we only have Shannon and Tenedos in Massachusetts Bay. Just those two and a tender, a sloop, to watch their President, Congress, Constitution, and now Chesapeake. To be sure, Constitution is laid up and Chesapeake is alongside the sheer-hulk, getting in a new main and mizen, but President crossed her royal yards this afternoon and Congress is pretty well ready for sea - she has her powder in, as I told Mr Andrews.'
'Did you tell him much?'
'Every single thing I have learnt with all this staring; and since, thank God, I have a very good glass, I have learnt a great deal. For example, Chesapeake landed four carronades and an eighteen-pounder, but she still has her full armament for a thirty-eight: I fancy she must have been over-gunned, and worked heavy in a sea. But there were several things I forgot while I was talking to him; I must note them down in future.'
'Jack, Jack, do nothing of the kind,' cried Stephen, and moving over to sit by him he went on in a low voice, 'Put nothing whatsoever down on paper, and take great care how you talk. For I must tell you this, Jack: the Americans suspect you of being concerned with intelligence. That is why the exchange is delayed. Do not, for God's sake, give them a handle to proceed against you - this is spying. But do not be too concerned, however; do not let it disturb your mind. It will all blow over, I am convinced. Even so, you would be well advised not to show too much blooming health: you must keep to your bed, and you may exaggerate your weakness - you may swing the lead a trifle. You must not see these officials, if it can be avoided; I will have a word with Dr Choate.' He gave some quick,
expert hints on malingering. 'But do not be concerned: as I say, it will soon blow over.'
'Oh,' said Jack, laughing heartily for the first time since their captivity, 'I am concerned. If they suspect me of intelligence, I am sure it will soon blow over, ha, ha, ha!'
'Well,' said Stephen, smiling, 'you are not above playing on words, I find. So good night to you, now: I am going to turn in early, because I too wish to be intelligent tomorrow.'
CHAPTER SIX
It was with a feeling not unlike dread that Stephen followed Mrs Wogan into Franchon's hotel. The people behind the desk were talking French and this, together with the European atmosphere of the place, brought about an odd shift in his sense of time and country; he had not seen Diana Villiers for a great while, yet it was much as though he were returning to the field of yesterday's encounter - an action from which he might have retired intensely happy or with a lacerated heart. She had treated him abominably, at times: he dreaded the meeting, and he had got ready for it two hours before the appointed time. He rarely shaved more than once or twice a week, not did he pay much attention to his linen; but now he was wearing the finest shirt that Boston could afford, and the keen though foggy Boston air had so heightened the colour of his double-shaved face that it was no longer its usual lifeless olive-brown but a glowing pink.
They were shown upstairs into an elegant drawing-room, and there was Mr Johnson. Stephen had not seen him for many years and then only once: the American had ridden up to Diana's house in Alipur on perhaps the most beautiful horse that ever was; he had been denied, and he had ridden away again. A tall, capable-looking man, handsome too, though now there was something of a paunch, something of a jowl, that had been lacking in the young horseman on the chestnut mare: a lively eye, and somewhat lickerous: a jovian temperament, no doubt.
