“Mystified,” LeMaire corrected him.

“Well, don’t feel so bad,” said Dallington. “None of us—”

But as he took it back from Pointilleux, Lenox, looking at it with fresh eyes, suddenly saw something new on the claim ticket. “Wait,” he said. “I think I’ve got it.”

The four other men in the room looked at him. “What?” said McConnell.

It had perhaps been the mention of sailcloth, or the phrase all hands on deck, or perhaps just the ceaseless invisible mechanics of his brain, but it seemed so obvious now. “SRKCLC,” he said, repeating the letters on the ticket. “Southwark to Calcutta. AFT119. A ship has berths fore, starboard, port, and aft.”

“It’s a ticket for passage on a ship,” said LeMaire.

Dallington whistled. “To India. My God.”

Lenox nodded. “I don’t know whether it’s a ticket for a person or for cargo.”

Dallington had already stood and was putting on his jacket. “It’s for Wakefield, it must be.”

“Damn it, you may be right,” said Lenox. “He’s probably leaving the country even as we speak.”

LeMaire looked impassive, but his nephew seemed impressed. “It is done very handsome,” said Pointilleux, in a grave voice. “Southwark to Calcutta. I see it now, of course.”

“It took long enough,” Lenox said, and then to Dallington, “Let’s get along to the docks. Thank you, LeMaire.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

As the cab drove to Southwark, Lenox stared out at the wet streets of the city and brooded upon the death of Jenkins, of his friend Thomas Jenkins of Scotland Yard. There were more points of oddity in this murder than most: the twenty pounds, the missing papers, the claim ticket, the unlaced boot, the wound on Jenkins’s left hand, and above all the proximity of the body to the house of William Travers-George, Lord Wakefield.

Where had Wakefield fled? And why?

The Southwark docks were immensely busy. Eighty or ninety large ships were crowded along the banks of the Thames there, some of them with barely room to turn, their complex riggings latticing the sky with shifting shapes. Lenox could smell a strong odor of fish, wood, and especially tobacco—the Tobacco Dock, lined with immense warehouses where merchants with ships that went to America could store the stuff, was nearby.

They alighted at one of the docklands’ many entrances. “There’s a half-crown if you hold the cab,” said Lenox.

The cabman touched his cap.

As they came nearer the water, Lenox and Dallington could feel its sharp breeze. Down in the water, though it was so cold still at this time of year, were the mudlarks, as everyone called them—very poor young boys, some only six or seven years old, who waded near the banks of the river, searching for coal, iron, rope, even bones, anything whatsoever that might be sold. Slightly more prosperous were the wherries that floated between the ships, tiny boats that offered quick passage to the docks for a coin or two, or ran errands for harried ships’ stewards trying to put to sea on time.

This was also the location of the Dreadnought, instantly recognizable because it loomed higher on the horizon than any other ship. She was ancient by now: In 1805, she had been one of twenty-seven ships commanded by Horatio Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar, part of a fleet that was outgunned by French and Spanish ships, of which there were thirty-three. But Nelson had been a genius. When the day was over the French and Spanish had lost twenty-two ships—the British, none. It was the greatest naval victory in the history of the world, as all English schoolboys learned. Dreadnought had been there.

Now she served a humbler purpose. She was a floating seaman’s hospital, a place where any current or former seaman could find medical care for free, if he didn’t mind close quarters and irregular doctor’s visits. It was one of the most popular charities in London.

In sight of Dreadnought, Lenox and Dallington found a small stall with a sign that said CARGO AND SHIPPING. It looked as promising as anything else. They went in.

Behind the counter was an old white-haired man with scruffy white stubble on his face, dressed in a pea coat and poring over a ledger. He looked up. “Help you?”

Lenox held up the ticket. “We were hoping to claim some luggage. For the ship to Calcutta.”

“You’ve gone three dockyards too far west, in that case,” said the man, smirking. “Not regulars in these parts, are you, chaps?”

“Lenox here sailed with the Lucy,” said Dallington indignantly. “All the way to Egypt and back.”

“Oh, begging your pardon,” said the man, with wildly exaggerated deference. “To Egypt and back you say? Has he written his memoirs? Has he visited with the Queen?”

Dallington frowned. “Yes, you’re very funny.”

“The world must know his story! Egypt and back!”

They left this derision behind with as much self-possession as they could muster and hopped in the cab again, which they directed to drive west as they counted off the docks. In the first yard had been more passenger ships, and while this looked to be full of cargo ships, there was another small stall with a similar sign. This one had a bit more enterprise; it said HELMER’S CARGO, SHIPPING, WOODWORKING.

As soon as they went in it was apparent that Mr. Helmer was also engaged in a different kind of business—five women, very plainly prostitutes, were sitting at a table playing cards. They were genial in their greetings. Helmer, apparently, was at the moment aboard a ship called the Amelia. No, it wasn’t bound for Calcutta; that was the Gunner, in slip eleven. But they wouldn’t be permitted on board either ship without Helmer. Even the ticket, which Lenox held up to show them, wouldn’t allow them that.

“Cheap buggers on the Gunner, if you were hoping to make any money on your backs,” one of them added, by way of good-bye, and for the second time in the docklands Lenox and Dallington left with gales of laughter in their wake.

The information had been good, however. Helmer was just leaving the Amelia when they arrived at it, dashing down the taut diagonal rigging between the ship and the dock, though he must have been sixty and was certainly overweight. He looked up to answer to his name.

“Yes?” he said.

Lenox held up his ticket, and for the first time there was recognition in someone’s eyes. “I’d like to claim my property.” He had decided that it was more likely the ticket was for a piece of cargo than for a berth upon a ship. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“That ship is leaving in ninety minutes,” said Helmer, his eyes hooded and suspicious. “Why on earth would you take something out of it when you’d paid handsomely to ship it, a hold in the aft?”

“Do I need to provide my reasons?”

“Well—no,” said Helmer. “But it’s unusual, you know.”

“Then you’ll have a story for the pub,” said Dallington. “Here, you can buy everyone a drink to tell it.”

Helmer cheered up considerably when he saw the half-crown Dallington was offering, and led them to slip eleven. “Captain won’t be happy, you know. But I suppose it’s within your rights.”

“What kind of ship is it?” asked Dallington.

Helmer stopped and turned toward him with frank astonishment as they walked side by side. “Isn’t it your cargo?”

“No—my friend’s. I just happened to see him and come along.”

“Which it’s a cargo ship, mostly.” He started walking again. There was a thick plug of tobacco in this entrepreneur’s cheek and a tattoo upon his forearm. Obviously he had once been a seaman, and perhaps after his ship had taken a prize he had used his portion of it to open his business. He seemed successful enough, to gauge by the prostitutes he employed. There must have been immense demand for them, ships full of men isolated for months at a time. “The Gunner takes mail, parcels, and of course goods from England. A great deal of sugar and flour and cloth. For the lads in India, you know. A few passengers, if need be. Sometimes the navy lets a few berths for its men, or the marines, if they’re chasing their ships, is what it is.”