certainly. Would let us say six o'clock be convenient?'
'Certainly,' said Stephen. 'Until six o'clock tomorrow, then.'
They parted on coming to the road, where Duhamel bore away westwards to regain his carriage and Stephen walked slowly south, keeping his eye lifted for a hackneycoach. He found one at last in a new-building crescent, scarcely visible for the masons' carts and flying dust, and drove to Durrant's hotel.
Here he asked for Captain Dundas and learnt without much surprise that he had gone out.
'Then I shall wait for him,' he said, and settled down for what might be a matter of hours, since notes miscarried and messages were forgotten, and even if they were not, the recipient rarely saw their urgency as clearly as the sender. It was indeed a matter of hours, but they did not drag excessively, because as usual there were many naval officers staying at the hotel and several who wished to show their kindness for Jack Aubrey came and sat with him for a while. The last of them, a fat, affable, spectacled post-captain called Hervey, was saying what a damned thing it was that the service should be deprived of such a fine seaman, with the heavy American frigates doing so well, when he broke off and said 'There is Heneage Dundas: he feels even more strongly than I do.'
'Come and eat your mutton with me, both of you,' said Dundas, coming over to them.
'Alas, I cannot,' said Hervey. 'I am engaged.' He peered at the clock in his poring way and sprang up, crying 'I am late, I am late already.'
'For my part, I should be happy,' said Stephen, which was true: he liked Dundas, he had missed his breakfast with that infernal sea-chest, and in spite of his anxious mind he was extremely hungry.
'You sail for the North American station quite soon, I believe?' he said, when they had reached their apple pie.
'On Monday, wind and weather permitting,' said Dundas. 'Tomorrow I must make my adieux.'
'Will you indulge me by walking into the smoking room?' asked Stephen. But when they came to it he saw that there were too many people by far and he said 'The truth of the matter is that I wish to speak to you privately. May we go upstairs, do you think?'
Dundas led the way, gave him a chair and said 'I thought you had something on your mind.'
'I believe we may do Aubrey an essential service,' said Stephen. 'I have been talking to a man in whom I have great confidence. He wishes to go to Canada. In return for being taken there he will give me information of great value concerning Jack.' Replying to the doubt and dissatisfaction in Dundas's face he went on, 'In these blank bald words it sounds intolerably naive, even simple-minded, but I am bound by the confidential nature of so many aspects - I am unable to relate a whole host of details that would compel conviction. Yet at least I can show you this.' He brought out the Blue Peter from his pocket, unwrapped it and held it out in a beam of sunlight.
'What an astonishing great stone,' cried Dundas. 'Can it be a sapphire?'
'It is Diana's blue diamond,' said Stephen. 'She was in Paris, you remember, when Jack and I were imprisoned there, and her leaving it behind was connected with our escape. Its eventual return was promised however and the man I am speaking of brought it to me this morning, on his way to Hartwell. I tell you this so that you will understand at least one of the reasons that I rely on his word and that I take what he says very seriously. There was nothing to prevent him from keeping the stone, yet he handed it over straight away, without any conditions whatsoever.'
'It is an extraordinary great diamond,' said Dundas. 'I do not believe I have seen a finer outside the Tower. It must be worth a fortune.'
'That is what is so impressive: a man that means to go to the New World and start a new life and that hands over an eminently portable fortune is not one to speak lightly.'
'Do you know the reason for his wanting to go to Canada?'
'I would not ask you to take him if he were a common criminal escaping from the law. No, he is sick of his colleagues' bad faith, their dissensions and their dissimulation, and wishes to make a clean and sudden break.'
'He is a Frenchman, I collect, since he is going to Hartwell.'
'I am not sure. He may come from the Rhine provinces. But at all events he is not a Buonapartist, that I can absolutely guarantee.'
'Do you think a promise to take him on condition that his information proves useful to Jack would answer?'
'I do not.'
'No. I suppose not. Though proper flats we should look if...' Dundas walked up and down, considering for a while, and then said 'Well, I suppose we shall have to take him. I will write Butcher a note to receive him as my guest. Fortunately we have room and to spare - no master until we reach Halifax. Does he speak English?'
'Oh, very well. That is to say, very fluently. But he learnt it from a Scotch nursemaid and then a Scotch tutor, and it is the North British dialect that he speaks; it is neither very offensive nor incomprehensible - indeed, it has a certain wild archaic charm - and to any but the nicest ear it disguises the foreign accent entirely. He is a quiet, inoffensive gentleman, and is likely to keep his bed throughout the passage, being a most indifferent sailor.'
'So much the better. It is quite against the regulations, you know, he being a foreigner.'
'It is quite against the regulations to take young ladies to sea, foreign or home-bred, yet I believe I have known it done.'
'Well,' said Dundas, 'let us go downstairs and find pen and ink.'
Dr Maturin had all the next day to reflect upon what he had done and what he was doing. By all professional standards it was extraordinarily imprudent; and it was exceedingly unwise from a personal point of view, since he was compromising himself as deeply as possible and opening himself to very ugly accusations - his actions could be interpreted as criminal and they might in fact constitute crimes, capital crimes. He was relying solely on his instinct, and his instinct was by no means infallible. Sometimes it was affected by his wishes and before now it had deceived him very painfully. He reassured himself from time to time by looking at the splendid diamond in his pocket, like a talisman, and he spent the afternoon in the Covent Garden hummums, his sparse frame sweating in
