“And muttering all manner of things, you told me? About what?”
“It’s nigh on impossible to understand him.”
“How long will it be before he could speak, should you stop giving him his sedative now.”
“A matter of an hour or two. But why?”
“What was his initial injury?”
“A blunt trauma across the back of the head, from a beam, we presumed.”
“I think he may have witnessed our murder, this unfortunate Costigan, or known of Billings’s plans. Billings, is that true?”
It was this that finally did Billings in. He sat there insolently, grinning, a dazed look in his eyes. He said nothing.
“When was he brought to your surgery?”
“Not half an hour before we discovered Halifax,” said Tradescant wonderingly.
“And Mr. Carrow,” said Lenox, “where did Costigan work?”
“He was a flier, a topman.”
“Then he might have had cause to go up the—”
“Mizzenmast, yes. Oh, Billings.”
They all turned to him, and the same distant grin was fixed on his face.
“We shall have to speak to him,” said the surgeon gravely.
“There’s only one thing left,” said Lenox. “Admit that you killed them, Billings. You, and you alone.”
Their eyes were all focused on Billings, and so none of them saw the man who had slipped in. He spoke, and they turned together with a cry of surprise.
“In fact we killed them together,” the voice said. “Both of them.”
It was Butterworth, Billings’s steward. He was carrying a gun.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“Known Mr. Billings since he were a boy in trousers, I have,” said Butterworth. “And it won’t be any of you sees to him. Uncuff him now, Lennots, do it.”
Hands raised, Lenox walked over to Billings and uncuffed him.
Billings stood and looked down the wardroom table, a warm, polished red, full of flickering light from the windows, and spat. “None of you is worth a damn. I killed ’em; I’d do it again.”
“You helped, Butterworth?” said Lenox quietly.
“Shut up.”
“How long have you been helping him?” Lenox asked. “Has he always been … this way?”
A pained look appeared on Butterworth’s face, but he only said, “Shut up,” again, and poked his gun into Lenox’s stomach. He looked at Carrow. “Get us up to a jolly boat, hey. We’ll take the Bumblebee. Else this one gets a bullet through him.”
Billings’s face was demonic. “Or I could get my penknife, Mr. Lenox. Can we make time for that anyhow, Butterworth?”
“Not now, young master. Now we must go. You come with us, Lennots. You’re to be our hostage. The rest of you sit on your bottoms and don’t breathe a word, or I’ll shoot this great toff.”
The walk to the deck seemed to take forever. Butterworth had the gun shoved into Lenox’s back, and the detective prayed that the man knew how to use it properly. An accidental shot would mean the end of his life.
“Cut the rudder,” whispered Butterworth to Billings. “Order the men away and do it.”
“I will. You have the provisions?”
“They’re with the Bumblebee.”
Billings raced ahead.
“You planned for this?” Lenox muttered, as all around them men went on with their work, oblivious.
“Ever since Master Billings rushed in, sleeves covered in blood,” whispered Butterworth. “Old Mr. Billings gave me a responsibility. Knew the boy wasn’t right.”
They were on the quarterdeck, only the two of them, seemingly in conversation, though a few men who passed by, seeing Butterworth in this unaccustomed place, gave him quizzical glances.
“You don’t have to protect him. You didn’t kill anyone.”
“Might as well have. Knew what he was capable of,” said Butterworth. He paused, then went on again, as if he felt a compulsion to explain. “The old Mr. Billings was like a father to me, you see.” He turned and looked Lenox in the eyes. “You may as well know, in fact. He was my father. I was a bastard born on the local whore. Dovie is my brother.”
Lenox’s eyes widened. “That’s why you were protecting him, then? Is that why you told me Martin was in all the cabins? And wrote on the picture Evers sent? You wanted me to come see you—so that you could mislead me!”
First Tradescant, and now Butterworth; it was the navy, he supposed, a convenient manner of disposition for unwanted children. Friends of his with bastards often put them into the guards, too.
Butterworth didn’t say anything. Suddenly the ship gave a great lurch.
“We’ve lost the rudder!” a voice shouted. “Captain!”
“Captain?” another said.
Billings was hacking off the ropes that lashed the Bumblebee to her gunwale, impatient to be off the ship. He turned toward the men on the decks, his eyes wild, breathless from exertion.
“We’re leaving now!” he said. “The three of us, aren’t we? The Lucy won’t move, and if any of you follow us in the boats we’ll shoot old Lenox here!”
There were gasps all over the deck, and then the Bumblebee fell heavily into the water. Lenox saw Carrow edging onto deck, gathering men around him.
“You first, your honourable,” said Billings, and shoved Lenox toward the gunwale. “Hope you like to row.”
They followed him down the outside of the Lucy. He had a terrible, alert feeling in his stomach, a knowledge that he might soon be dead regardless of whether he followed their directions.
They got into the Bumblebee and Billings thrust the oars at Lenox, who began to row slowly toward the direction of Africa.
Billings had a manic, wild energy now. His gentle, quiet manner had vanished. He kept looking back at the Lucy, whose rail was lined with bluejackets and officers.
It was Carrow who cried out, “Let him go! Bring him back! You can go!”
“Not likely!” Billings shouted back. He laughed. “They’ll be hours on that rudder, the fools.”
Butterworth, less delighted, merely nodded.
“You’ve been with the family a long time?” Lenox asked as he rowed, trying to keep his voice composed.
“Yes,” said Butterworth shortly.
“Why did you cut them open, Mr. Billings?” said Lenox.
“Can I put my penknife in him, Butterworth?”
“No, Master Billings,” said the steward quietly.
“Let me.”
“No. Your father wouldn’t like it.”
“Did it start early?” Lenox asked. “Small animals? Then bigger ones?”
Butterworth was silent, but Billings, whose personality had received a kind of electric jolt from his exposure, was happy to speak. “You think you know my history, Mr. Lenox?”
“I cannot think why you cut Martin and Halifax open as you did, unless deliberate cruelty gives you pleasure.”
Billings shrugged. “There were animals. I remember when I was five, and my father was trying to make a proper gentleman of me, I saw the fox torn apart. The excitement of it—the thrill of it—there were animals, you could say there were animals. Little buggers. Got them with my penknife, didn’t I?” He was jabbering. “Cut them tidily, made them neat. Got them right. My father knew. Tried to beat me for wickedness, oh, ever so hard, when he drank. Sent me to sea, hoping to fix me. I’m still the same, though. You never change.”
“Are these the first humans you’ve killed, Billings?” said Lenox, slowing the pace at which he rowed. The Lucy was getting smaller. His heart was hammering in his chest.
“Except in battle. Wasn’t any different than the cats and dogs and squirrels,” said Billings with another shrug.