"Please, gentlemen, please!" Patterson cried as Hoare entered the anteroom. "I'm sure Captain Hoare-or somebody-will have news for us all momentarily! If you'll just… If… Oh, dear."
On sighting Hoare, Patterson interrupted himself long enough to turn and tell the redcoat at the door behind him to let the Commander past, then returned to his litany. The lobster came to attention, then opened the door for Hoare to enter.
The office might have been struck by a hurricane. A sea of papers lay strewn upon the floor and upon every other flat surface. In two places they were charred, where candles had fallen on them. Every chair, it seemed, had been overturned, half the pictures flung from the wall, the wall itself blood-boltered.
Hoare expected to find Sir George prone on a pallet, pallid, bleeding, dying, or dead. Bleeding he was, indeed, for a flabby medical person in a scratch wig was bent over his outstretched arm, relieving into a basin still more of the blood the Admiral must have already lost.
But, though pallid enough, the patient himself was quite alive, slumped behind his desk and roaring faintly. His uniform coat, heavy with bullion, had been cut away, and his fine lawn shirt as well. His white silk breeches, blood-spattered, were torn at the knees, as well as the skin beneath them. A bandage, already encarnadined, had been bound about the Admiral's white-furred chest and shoulder and another about his head. His mouth was swollen and bloody.
A second smaller, ragged mouth gaped in the muscle of his neck, but Hoare saw with relief that it had not reached through to the great blood vessels. If it had, of course, Hoare would have been reporting to a corpse. The knuckles of both Sir George's hands were bruised. Obviously, the Admiral had not been shot but assaulted, and he had gone down fighting.
So, too, had Francis Delancey, Flag Lieutenant. Delancey crouched over himself on a chair in a corner of the room, holding a reddened handkerchief against his nose and bleeding onto one of his Admiral's upholstered mahogany side chairs. Like his Admiral's, his knuckles bore signs of action.
The Admiral pointed to the full bleeding basin. "That will be enough, man! Avast, d'ye hear? Look lively there!" He mumbled a bit but was quite understandable.
"Now finish tying me up and be off with you! Report to Mrs… to Lady Hardcastle. Now!"
The medical man pursed his lips disapprovingly but secured one pad over the cut he had made and put another over the little extra mouth in the Admiral's neck. He picked up his fleam, inserted its keen blade into its little sheath, and was about to leave the room, basin of blood and all, when the Admiral forestalled him with another weak roar.
"Where d'ye think you're going with my blood, you thieving ghoul? Up to your Satanic tricks are ye, you slippery son of a bitch, you scoundrel, you squirming bum worm?"
Astounded, the surgeon gaped at him.
"Throw it out, man. Throw it out, where I can see you do it. Dispose of it. No, no," he added as the surgeon went to the window, "you worse than thoughtless thing, you; you'll dose someone with it. Into the grate with it."
Obviously stunned by his patient's commands, the surgeon tossed both blood and container into the fire, where it gave off the hiss of the Great Serpent and a vile sulfurous stink. Then he vanished, muttering about damned superstitious sailors-merciless Bedlamites-"call the savage out…
Only the slam of the Admiral's door shut off the surgeon's lament.
"Have to watch those slimy bastards, Hoare," the Admiral said on catching sight of him. "They'll take a man's blood and then misuse it in the most ungodly ways, you know. Drink it, and probably worse."
"I am sorry to see you in such a state, sir," Hoare said. Only less than the surgeon was he astonished by Sir George's outburst. Had the event just past affected him in brain as well as in body?
"Well…" The Admiral had gotten rid of his temper now. "As you can see, some crew of murderous swabs tried to dispose of me, and of poor Delancey, too, while they were about it, which was more than he deserves. They'll have to try harder next time, what what… Damn, I seem to have caught that damned Duke's habit.
"Your damned green marines dealt with 'em at last; I'll give 'em credit for that. You know what you're to do, Hoare; get the bastards, and get 'em now. There's not a moment to be lost.
"First, get me brandy. That nincompoop surgeon took my decanter away. Delancey!"
Delancey sat up and began to struggle to his feet, but Hoare gestured to him to remain where he was.
"Mr. Delancey is unable to respond just now, sir," Hoare whispered. "No brandy. Port, to rebuild your blood, and to calm you down. Here."
"Damn you, man, I'm perfectly calm!"
"Port, sir. Here."
"Didn't you hear me the first time, Hoare, you dilatory dog? Brandy! And then be off about your duty!"
"I am about my duty now, sir," Hoare whispered. "Tell me, for a start, what happened."
At this, Sir George's rage dissipated like a summer tempest. As he recounted the affray, he became what he truly was: a white-haired man of sedentary habits who had just missed death by violence and who, while brave, was long unused to standing into harm's way.
"I worked late over these papers," he began. He pointed to some documents; the top layer was lightly spotted with crimson stains as if sealing wax had been spilled over it.
"I'd sent Delancey, here, off to his quarters. He's still young and needs his rest more than I do. Besides, I was dealing with some matters that are none of his business. Apparently, he chose to disobey my orders and stayed out in the anteroom… Delancey?"
"Sir?" Again Delancey began to struggle erect.
"Thankee, Mr. Delancey… thankee. But never again disobey an order of your Admiral, d'ye understand?"
"Sir."
"I'm cold, Hoare. Bring my cape. There it is, in the hanging locker over there. Yes. Drape it over my shoulders. Uh! Handsomely, man! There; that's better. Now, a chamber pot, if you please. I don't choose to leave my chair just now.
"Ahhhh. Here."
He returned the pot to Hoare.
"Well, as I was saying… What was I saying?"
"You were working on some secret papers, sir," Hoare reminded him. "Are they still here?"
Supporting himself on both bruised arms, Sir George leaned forward to examine his desk. "How can I tell? Papers all over the place. Someone must… must…"
Sir George's upper body collapsed on the paper-strewn desk. Fresh scarlet began to spread out from the darkening stain on the bandage around his neck. Coming feebly to his feet, Delancey bent over his Admiral, while Hoare put his fingers to his mouth and uttered the piercing whistle that never failed to bring anyone in earshot. They came with a stretcher, this time, and took their Admiral away. Delancey followed, staggering slightly and still holding the kerchief to his nose. Hoare saw now that both the Lieutenant's eyes were blackened and his breeches torn. He, too, had put up a stubborn fight. Popinjay he might be, Hoare thought, but no poltroon.
Before following the cortege out of the sanctum, Hoare leaned over his Admiral's desk to see what he could see. At once, his eyes fixed on a small document covered with gibberish, five letters to the "word," in tidy lines identical to those on the papers that had featured so prominently in his last adventure. He pocketed it. He took a last look around the room, snuffed the candles behind him, took the key from inside the door, locked the door behind him, sighed, and quietly departed to take up this new burden.
Back in the anteroom, Hoare turned first to the Marine sentry.
"You will admit no one to this room, do you understand? No one, unless I order you to do so, whether in person or in writing. You can read, can't you?"