Two were college boys, and two were practicals, including Pimples, who had been afloat for nearly a decade. Cresswell had a bit of both in him.
“My father was a vicar in Oxshott,” he said, “in Surrey. I doubt anyone in his entire family tree set foot on one of Her Majesty’s ships. On my mother’s side, however, there was a great naval tradition, and after a tremendous row it was decided that I should be a naval man rather than a vicar. Thank God,” he added without apparent irony.
“I went to the college at Portsmouth for a year. I would have gone back, too, but when I was eleven one of my mother’s brothers heard of a berth in the Warrior, which has been sold out of the service now, but which was at that time a highly reckoned ship.”
“Our first ironclad, was she?”
“Just so, Mr. Lenox. At any rate I went into London to see the captain there, he and his first lieutenant. They made me write out the Lord’s Prayer, jump over a chair naked, tie a Turk’s head knot, and then the first lieutenant gave me a glass of sherry on being in the navy!”
There were titters from the other midshipmen at this tale, and then when Lenox laughed they all did. “A strange examination,” he said.
“It was, just—the captain was of the old school, I can promise you. But do you know who the first lieutenant was?”
“Who?”
“Captain Martin! I’ve sailed with him ever since.”
Teddy interjected. “Alice will be a lieutenant on his next ship.”
Cresswell frowned. “Well, that’s as may be. One can only do one’s best.”
One of the other smallish boys piped up. “Is it true you were a murder solver?” he said in a high-pitched voice.
Pimples shot the boy a dirty look and, before Lenox could answer, apologized. “Excuse him, sir.”
“Not at all. It’s true, once upon a time I did that. Now my work is much less exciting, I’m afraid. I sit in an office and read papers all day. But here—did I spy you boys smoking cigars last night?”
“Oh, no, sir,” said Pimples. “They’re not allowed.”
“What a shame that these must go to waste, then,” said Lenox, unrolling a soft leather case that held half-a-dozen cigars. “For myself I don’t smoke them that often, and I have a dozen more in my cabin.”
“Sorry,” said Pimples.
All of the boys looked at them longingly, but nobody spoke. Lenox smiled inwardly, trying not to let it show. “Well,” he said at last, “what if you had to smoke them—orders of a member of Parliament? Who would tell the captain as much?”
They were still silent but Lenox could feel their willpower sapping. At last Teddy said, “Might I hold one?”
He took one, paused, and then, apprehensively, took a candle from the table and lit the cigar.
There was a moment of stillness and then the other four boys nearly leaped at Lenox, their voices bursting out of them at last—“Oh, thank you,” “If you insist,” “Shame to let them go to waste”—and took the remaining cigars.
After this the formality of the earlier part of the evening vanished, and the boys’ formality was replaced by a definite bonhomie born of the late hour, the champagne, and Lenox’s cigars. Pimples did an extensive and deadly accurate impression of the chaplain teaching them Scripture every morning, which Lenox laughed at despite himself. Then there were a round of toasts, remarkably similar to the wardroom’s, in fact, the Queen, various sweethearts from home, the admiralty—but also, rather touchingly, the boys collectively toasted their mothers. Lenox raised his own glass and thought of his mother, dead now, and felt a stir of emotion within.
When the wine gave out nobody wanted to go to bed, but of course the midshipmen had lessons in the morning. Lenox, thinking perhaps he ought to leave Teddy to bask in the glory of having indirectly provided them cigars and food, thanked them for their hospitality. Each boy in turn shook his hand and clapped him on the shoulder and said with great ardor that he ought to come back any time.
“Why not tomorrow?” one of the younger boys even said, thinking perhaps of further hams and loaves of bread, an invitation that drew a look of disapproval from Cresswell.
“We oughtn’t to tax Mr. Lenox with our company, but I hope he will return later in the trip.”
“With great pleasure,” said Lenox.
He walked through to his cabin somewhat tipsily. It was the end of the first watch, nearly midnight, and he heard the increasingly familiar creaking of the ship as one watch turned into another, a wave of men going downstairs to their rest and another wave rising to the deck to assume their duties.
As he sat at his desk, drinking a glass of cold water to sober himself, he started another letter. This one was to Edmund, a report on Teddy’s high spirits and seeming good cheer. He fell asleep over his pen, and so missed the cry that went up on deck some minutes later.
Only the next morning did he hear that the first breath of that most dreaded movement had been whispered on board: mutiny.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was midday before he would hear of it. Indeed, he woke up thinking that despite the murder, the ship felt exceedingly affable to him, after his supper in the gun room, and when he went on deck following his eggs and tea the only thing on his mind was the ship’s rigging, and a possible ascent of it.
Lenox’s trip with Martin to that perch of the mizzenmast where Halifax had died had piqued his interest. The climb had been precarious, but now he felt determined that he would go higher. He wanted to conquer the ship in all of her dimensions. Nobody would be able to lord over him Old Joe Coffey, the seventy-year-old sailor who had his grog in the crow’s nest, if he climbed there himself.
The morning was placid, thankfully, the wind nearly still. Carrow was the officer on duty. Lenox was torn between the desire to go up the rigging and the desire to ask him about the medallion. In the end the detective in him won out. The crow’s nest would have to wait.
“Is it a bad time to have a word?” he asked Carrow.
“Not an ideal one—but if it’s about Halifax?”
“It is, in fact. I understand you served on the Chesapeake?”
Carrow turned to him, his somber face filled with surprise. “I did. Who told you?”
“Nobody. I saw a medallion of yours, actually, thanking you for your service. A parting present from the captain, I thought.”
“How on earth did you see that?”
“You know the object to which I’m referring?”
“I do, and I wish I knew how you did.”
“Do you have the medallion?”
“Yes, I do—I keep it in a box with my watch and my cuff links. As far as I know it hasn’t gone missing. I hope you haven’t been among my things.”
“I haven’t. Would you mind if I saw the medallion with my own eyes?”
“You must explain to me, Mr. Lenox—”
“Would you indulge me by showing me the box, before I do?”
Carrow flung an angry word or two at the bosun, who was at the ship’s wheel, that he would be available below deck in the event that he was needed. “I’ll be gone five minutes.”
They went to Carrow’s cabin, though when they actually arrived at the door the lieutenant held a hand up. Lenox waited in the wardroom and Carrow came out with the box a moment later.
More than enough time to hide the medallion, if he had been the one to steal it back. Though it was just as likely to be a gesture of resentment at Lenox prying into his life.
“Here is the box,” Carrow said.
Lenox watched him open it. “I see your cuff links.”
“Yes, they were from my father. My watch, as I said. A personal memento”—this when he hastily palmed a dried rose in his hand—“and here!” he said triumphantly. “My medallion! Now, before another question from you, please tell me how you knew of it!”