There was blood spattered across the low railing and a great slick swath of it, drying into a darker color, at their feet.
“This is our spot, then,” said Martin. He didn’t speak for a moment. “Look at this blood. Halifax—he was the most placid of men. Of officers in this service. I can’t conceive of anyone wanting to kill him.”
“My question is how it was done.”
“Isn’t that plain enough?”
“I suppose—only this area is barely big enough for the two of us to stand. Wouldn’t a fight spill one or the other over?”
“Maybe it spilled Halifax over.”
“No, because he had been very precisely prepared before he fell to the quarterdeck, I believe. The real question is whether the man who killed Halifax has any marks on him.”
“We shall see when all the men are piped up to the main deck for inspection.”
Lenox shook his head. “I still wonder whether he would have gotten out of bed for a common sailor … met them here … I suppose there are circumstances under which it might have been possible.”
“A false name, for instance—saying that I or one of the lieutenants wanted to see him there, perhaps a midshipman,” said Martin, “but I think it exceedingly doubtful.”
“Or perhaps one of the sailors provoked him into coming there, with a threat or a piece of gossip. Mutiny, say.”
Martin’s face went deadly serious. “No, sir,” he said.
“I don’t mean that it would have been true. A ruse.”
Still, the captain didn’t seem to like it. “Well.”
“Listen—while we have a moment to ourselves—do you know what this might be?”
Lenox pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it, stained red but dry. The object he had found, coin-shaped and -sized, lay in the middle.
“A large coin, I would have said. A crown?”
“No, look closer.” He rubbed some more blood off of it, though it was still hard to make out the writing on it. “I’ll need to wash it, but for the moment…”
“It’s a medal, isn’t it?”
“I thought so too. Can you identify it?”
Martin picked it up and turned it over twice, looking much more painstakingly now. “Maybe, once you soak it and the lettering comes clean. It’s naval, I can say that much. Silver. An officer’s medal.”
“Possibly Halifax’s?”
“Possibly.”
“But he wouldn’t have carried a medal with him to such an assignation, would he have?”
“No, I highly doubt it. It would have been in a box, the sort you keep for cuff links, and worn with his best uniform.”
“Ceremonial occasions, then. Not pinned to his nightshirt.”
“Never.”
Lenox thought for a moment and then sighed. “I suppose we had better go look at his cabin. If I weren’t out of practice I would have done it before. Now someone may have been in it already. Stupid.”
“Let’s hurry, then.”
Going down the rigging was considerably easier than going up, so easy that Lenox was fooled into false confidence and nearly slipped a quarter of the way down before he caught himself. On deck Martin barked an order at someone to clean the perch straightaway.
Carrow and Teddy Lenox were waiting for them on the main deck.
“Sir?” said Carrow.
“Mr. Lenox,” said Martin, “would you go to Halifax’s cabin or hear their story?”
Lenox sighed. “We must hear their story while it is fresh in their minds,” he said. “Perhaps a sentry could be posted—”
“Very well, it shall be done. Come down to the wardroom,” said the captain to Carrow and Teddy. “We’ll speak there.”
In the wardroom Carrow told their story. Teddy Lenox, looking in uniform perhaps more suited to his new role, stood by silently. They had both been on the poop deck when they heard a thump. After a moment or two Carrow, curious to see if perhaps a bird had smacked into the ship or some piece of equipment had fallen, went down and discovered Halifax’s body.
“Did you see it?” Martin asked Teddy.
“Yes, sir.”
“You went down after Carrow?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then he dismissed you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lenox badly wanted a word with his nephew, but knew this wasn’t the moment to have it.
“Did you see anyone in the rigging of the mizzenmast at around the same time?” he asked.
“No, sir,” said Carrow. “It was dark, of course, and beyond that you wouldn’t expect anyone to be up skylarking in the middle watch, barring, I don’t know, a squall or some enemy action.”
“Quite right,” said Martin.
“How many men would have been on deck during your watch, Lieutenant?” asked Lenox.
“A few more than twenty.”
“Where would they have congregated?”
“Sir?”
“Are they at work the whole while?”
“Oh—no, sir. Unless they have orders they would be on the main deck, or perhaps up at the fore of the ship, sitting along the bowsprit.”
“At the other end of the ship from the quarterdeck, in other words.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see. Another question, if you don’t mind—which of the men on this ship are capable of violence, in your opinion?” he asked both the young lieutenant and Martin.
“Difficult to say,” Martin answered. “In the right circumstance, all of them.”
McEwan chose this moment to lumber through the door with a biscuit in his hand. He retreated to his hallway, bowing as he left, when he saw that the room was occupied.
“Except him, perhaps,” said Martin. “But of course the men will all fight. Carrow? You deal with the sailors more from day to day.”
“There are a few bad tempers, sir.”
Lenox shook his head. “No—a planned meeting, the surgical nature of Halifax’s wounds—I don’t think this was a moment of bad temper, but rather one of planned and executed malice. Still, Mr. Carrow, if you would put a list together of men you don’t trust, it would be useful.”
Carrow looked unhappy, but nodded when he saw in Martin’s face a stern confirmation of this request. “They’re good men, sir,” he added, as if to formally express his unhappiness with the request.
“One of them is not,” Lenox said. “Now, would one of you show me Lieutenant Halifax’s cabin? Then we shall see how Mr. Tradescant has progressed. With your permission, of course, Captain.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Halifax’s cabin was a good deal smaller than Lenox’s. The detective—for the last few hours had made him such a creature again, which he knew because he felt that peculiar vibrant alertness in his mind that this work had always galvanized in him—visited it alone.
“I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got to start us sailing again,” Martin had said. He looked tired but showed no signs of slacking energy. “You can find me on deck if you like. Tell me, first, what you think happened.”
“I don’t know,” said Lenox, and Martin, perhaps used to his directives being followed and his questions answered frankly and fully, looked unhappy with the answer.
“We can’t have a murderer roaming freely aboard the ship.”
“At the very least—if we cannot rout out this murderer—everyone will be far more aware and cautious now. This is not a large place for hiding.”
“Nothing could be worse for the mood of the men, though,” said Martin. “Suspicion everywhere—rumors, arguments, accusations. Still, it’s a short voyage, bless the Lord.”
Halifax’s cabin (also off of the wardroom) felt personal in a way Lenox’s didn’t yet, the result of many months’ habitation. It was tidy but crammed: notes and sketches pinned on the wall over his tiny desk, clothes hung up on the back of his chair and the bed’s short posts, fishing tackle in the corner. Lenox searched through this assortment of items methodically, but ultimately without recompense. There was no note lying about—or indeed in any pocket or drawer Lenox could find—inviting Halifax to a rendezvous during the middle watch. Nor was there any object that didn’t seem natural in its place. On the contrary, the cabin looked as if the lieutenant might walk into it at any moment and carry on living his life there.