“I doubt they have often benefitted from the choice,” I retorted.

“And I must agree with Sir Francis,” Frank went on, “that our convalescent British sailors should not be exposed to gaol-fever. We are too often in want of good men, to lose them in saving the French. Though I am sorry for our friend the surgeon — who seemed a good enough sort of chap — I must say that Sir Francis shows excellent sense.”

“A prison hulk, Fly! Should you like to lie in one yourself, off Boulogne or Calais?”

“I might do a good deal worse,” he rejoined. “I know Captain Smallwood, who has command of that hulk, and I should vouch for his goodwill and integrity without hesitation. He shall not like his duty, but by God, he shall do it!”

“Hurrah for Captain Smallwood.” I sighed.

With a grunt, Frank pulled off his damp boots and tossed them against the fender. A faint frown was lodged above his eyes. “You do not suspect Sir Francis Farnham of having tainted the French surgeon's food, while inspecting Wool House? Surely that is carrying your grudge too far.”

“I do not harbour any grudge,” I said coldly. “I merely observed that the Marines were over-hasty in stating that no one but ourselves had entered the gaol. Plainly, others have. Sir Francis was certainly walking among the prisoners Thursday evening; and I saw him there again this morning. Any man with ill intent, and the good luck to know exactly which meat pasty LaForge would consume, might have done it.”

“Or any woman? — One who drives a coach emblazoned with the arms of a baronet?”

I thrust back my chair, ignoring his satiric look, and crossed to the fire.

“We ought to go to Percival Pethering with your intelligence,” Frank persisted. “Think what it may do for poor Tom! We know, in this, that Chessyre met with others before the end!”

“Nell Rivers's account, though provocative in the extreme, fails to prove Seagrave's innocence. The woman in the baronet's carriage might have dropped Eustace Chessyre anywhere, and left him prey to Seagrave's or another's violence,” I replied thoughtfully. “It should not be unusual for a man to employ a woman as his lure.”

Many ladies were but too willing to serve as the tool of a powerful man, and concerned themselves little with the purpose of their activity. Consider Phoebe Carruthers, for example, with her golden head bent to the words of her companion….

“Fly … Sir Francis Farnham is a baronet, is he not?”

My brother threw up his hands. “And I suppose he veiled himself as a woman, and spoke in a voice firm and low! Next you shall be suspecting Lady Templeton of having been in both Kent and Southampton at once.”

“That is hardly necessary,” I retorted. “Chessyre was killed on Wednesday night, and I observed Lady Templeton in Portsmouth on Thursday. She spoke a great deal of her decision to quit the place the following morning — but no one thought to inform me when she had arrived.9

“I should like a glimpse of Lady Templeton,” Frank said drily. “She must be a formidable person, and much used to arduous travel. After strangling Chessyre with a garrote Wednesday night, we must suppose she poisoned Monsieur LaForge on Thursday. That is quite a piece of road between Portsmouth and Southampton, to traverse three times in twenty-four hours! And what motive could she have for despatching either man?”

“We should have to assume that she wished Tom Seagrave to hang; that she formed a plot with his disgrace as her object; and that she was unwilling either for Chessyre to recant, or LaForge to destroy, the delicate subterfuge she had constructed.”

“But why?” Frank argued. “Because Tom married her niece against all opposition, fifteen years ago? It does not make sense, Jane.”

“Not yet,” I murmured, “but perhaps with time …”

“With time, you expect to learn that LaForge is a French nobleman in disguise, and Lady Templeton an agent of Buonaparte sworn to effect his ruin. Really, Jane! At times I must believe with my mother that you indulge too much in novels!”

I glared at him. “Have you a more apt solution, Frank? What did you learn from Seagrave this morning, in Gaoler's Alley?”

“Nothing to the purpose. Tom refused, without quarter, to discuss his activity Wednesday night; and he very nearly took off my head when I mentioned Phoebe Carruthers. All of Southampton was disposed to invade the lady's privacy, he said, because of her extreme beauty; she was an angel, she had suffered greatly, she deserved to be free of the wretched noose of gossip — et cetera, et cetera.”

“So he is in love with her.”

“Naturally. He managed, in every form of his refusal to discuss Mrs. Carruthers, to expose himself abominably. I only hope he does not behave thus before the magistrate.”

“Did you enquire about Tom's orders?”

“I did. In this, I am happy to report, he was more forthcoming.”

“Ah.” I turned away from the hearth with alacrity and regained my seat. “Excellent fellow! You have disdained all niceties and forms, you have abandoned constraint, and thrown yourself into the chase! Pray tell: Whither was Captain Seagrave bound on the fateful day he fell in with the Manon?”

Frank's grey eyes glinted. “It is most intriguing, I will confess — the stuff of novels, as I declared before! Seagrave did not wish to disclose the whole; but when I impressed upon him the gravity of his condition, he relented. It is plain he considers the orders as having nothing to do with his fate; but I cannot be so sanguine.”

“I am all agog.”

“The Stella Maris was ordered to stand off the coast of Lisbon, between Corunna and Ferrol — a treacherous bit of coastline, which the men all call the Groyne— and signal with a lantern every half-hour of the watch. between two and eight bells for three nights in succession.[22] If he received a lantern beam in return — the signal was prearranged, of course — he was to land a boat and collect a stranger, for passage to Portsmouth in the Stella. Seagrave was given no hint of the man's identity, but suspected he must be a foreign agent of the Crown; your fast frigates are often employed in such jiggery-pokery schemes.”

“And did he collect his supercargo?”

“He did not. After the affair of the Manon—the battle done, the French ship repaired and despatched to port under Chessyre's management — Seagrave proceeded to the position specified in his sailing orders.

He opened the sealed packet, and commenced to wait for the proper day and hour. Three successive nights he stood off the Groyne, signalling to no avail. Not an answering beam did he discover, and no stranger was hauled from the rocks. The duty done, Tom returned to port — and found himself accused of murder.”

“Corunna might have been a subterfuge, I suppose.”

“Designed to lure Tom within striking distance of the Manon?” Frank enquired. “I thought the same. The idea is fantastic, however — particularly when one considers the possibility of the two ships missing each other in all that sea, the vagaries of wind and weather. No, Jane, it will not do.”

“By whom were the orders issued?”

“Admiral Hastings. And he can have no reason to wish Tom Seagrave ill — he and the Stella Marts have won Hastings a fortune! The Admiral should be a fool to hang the goose that laid all his golden eggs!”[23]

“And were the orders written by the Admiral?”

Frank hesitated. “They were certainly transcribed by Hastings's hand. Seagrave wondered whether Hastings had noted the position in error — whether the Stella had missed the agent's signal, from standing off the wrong part of the Lisbon coast. Such a mistake is possible, I suppose.”

“I do not understand you. You said that Hastings issued the orders!”