"Never heard of 'em." Sir Hugh's rumbled admission was rueful.
Hoare was taken aback. Until now, it had seemed to him that Sir Hugh Abercrombie, like Mr. John Goldthwait, was omniscient.
"Sir Thomas was Spurrier's master, you may recall, sir, at least in county affairs. What if anything he had to do with the atrocities in the South, I cannot say."
"I had forgotten." The admiral broke his churchwarden's stem with a sharp snap, as if to exorcise his rage at having been found wanting in knowledge. "Go on about him, sir."
Hoare obeyed. As he felt he must in order to be fair, he stressed the ill feeling that stood between him and Sir Thomas. He described what he perceived as its initial cause-how he, Bartholomew Hoare, had mocked the baronet on the evening of their first encounter with his description of how, instead of riding to hounds as any gentleman would, the Hoares, father and son, engaged in battery. This, as he had explained to Sir Thomas then and explained to Sir Hugh now, involved training bats to catch large insects and return them to their handlers.
"Like falconry, sir," he explained. "It was a foolish jape, sadly mistimed and fatally misdirected. The misstep did me no good, I am ashamed to say." He paused and awaited his admiral's displeasure.
Instead, Sir Hugh, rearing back in his enormous chair, began to roar with laughter. That laughter was a daunting thing to hear. Deep and cataclysmic, it could have signaled the drowning of ancient Atlantis.
"Well, Hoare, that explains why you pricked up your ears so oddly the other day, when I mentioned falconry in connection with our man Ambler. At least, there's that little question answered for me. I had been wondering.
"But continue about this man Frobisher." Once again, Sir Hugh's bass voice grew grave.
"The important thing about him, sir," Hoare whispered, "in this connection at least, is his absolute conviction… that he, and not our present Majesty, is the proper wearer of the English crown."
"A peculiarity, to be sure," the admiral said, "but hardly a matter of gravity. After all, Bedlam is crawling with men who imagine themselves Jesus Christ. They can't all be; the Savior did not, as far as I know, claim to extend to His own person His miraculous ability to multiply the loaves and fishes. If He had, I should imagine, the matter would have preoccupied all Christian divines for centuries past, with an undoubtedly beneficial effect upon the souls of us all."
"Indeed, sir. In the case of Sir Thomas's delusion, though, the trouble is that he has a certain odd attraction… which has made him, as I said a moment ago, the effective dictator of Dorset. Not only that, he has extended that strange magic… to the House of Parliament in which he sits. I have been told, by Sir George Hardcastle and Mrs. Selene Prettyman, among others-"
"What Prettyman says, I find, is generally to be taken as absolute fact," Sir Hugh observed. Puff, puff.
"— that he has a number of adherents in Parliament who might better be described as devotees, if not worshipers. You would know more about that than I, sir."
"I blush to say that I had overlooked that," Sir Hugh said unblushingly, "probably because his claim is so typical of that sort of madness. Besides all those miraculous Jesuses, I know of a round dozen King Charleses, divided equally between father and son. As I remember now, he is an uncommon good political man, well able, as you observe, to get his own way.
"If I may leap to the conclusion to which I believe you are about to come, you suspect of Sir Thomas Frobisher what I have commenced to suspect of John Goldthwait-that he has entered into a conspiracy with the French."
"Exactly, sir. If Bonaparte should overlook an opportunity to put a spoke in Britain's wheel by fomenting an insurrection against the Crown, it would hardly be the first time. And… if the possibility did not occur to him, there is always Fouche."
"Ah, yes. That son of a bitch, that ugly little bum-worm…"
For some minutes, Admiral Abercrombie continued to string out maledictions about his opposite number on the far side of the Channel, as if he were signal midshipman in a flagship, running up orders to the Fleet. Interrupting himself only with agitated puffs at his pipe, he came to anchor only when he swallowed smoke the wrong way, gagged, and in a whisper no stronger than Hoare's, ordered the latter to pound his back. Hoare obeyed.
"I do not like Goldthwait, Hoare," the admiral gasped at last. "I never have. But you are quite right. Nothing gets past that… never mind. So we have two suspects, of which Frobisher is one and Goldthwait himself the other."
"Against neither of whom, sir, do we have proof sufficient to take action," Hoare whispered.
"We, sir-no, you, sir-must find that proof. Or satisfy us both that each of us has let his imagination run riot. I was becoming anxious enough with only Goldthwait on my hands; now you have doubled my anxiety. Go forth, young man, before I suffer an apoplexy. Do your duty; there is not a moment to be lost. You may count on my support-within reason. As you go out, pray send Lestrade in. Good day."
Chapter VII
I want you to put together a crew of reliable men to row a watch boat across the Thames at night, say half a mile above the brig."
" 'Watch boat,' sir? I don't twig. 'Picket boat,' d'you mean?"
"Damn you, don't pick at me, or I'll pick your nose off and make that mort of yours eat it while you watch, together with its filthy contents."
The listener blew his nose nervously.
"Place yourself where you can keep an eye on any boat that approaches Royal Duke from upstream, day or night. You can be fishing, or lobstering, or whatever you think of. Diving for treasure, if you want. When you clap eyes on an officer passenger, you're to intercept him, apprehend him, drown him, d'ye understand?"
"Aye, yer honor."
"When you have him, strip him, weight his body, drop it over the side, and bring every speck of his possessions to me. Every speck, understand?"
"Aye, yer honor. But what if'e's in a navy boat manned wi' fightin' men? My boys may be wild boys, but they ain't so wild they'll go up against trained soldiers or matlows, no way, unless the odds is two to one or better."
"If that's what you see, then forget it; we'll try something else. But don't think you can fight shy with me, not if you want to keep your head on its shoulders. I'll know, oh yes, I'll know.
"Now, you and your moll, drink up and get out."
Titus Thoday appeared able to navigate the warren of London streets through the suffocating blanket of cold smoky fog, with ease. Hoare suspected that one could bring him anywhere into the city, blindfold, and, within minutes, he would have oriented himself and gone about his business. Now, carrying the Pickering portrait gallery under one arm, rolled up like a rather large umbrella or a small set of regimental colors, he conducted Hoare to the steps below Westminster Bridge. There he negotiated on their behalf with a double-scull wherry to take them down to Greenwich. The wherrymen grumbled, but when the price rose high enough, helped them aboard their little craft and set off downstream on the ebb.
The party approached the riptide under London Bridge without difficulty, despite the fog. Not unskilled in small craft himself, Hoare admired the oarsmen's mastery of this rushing flume. Yet even so, he tensed as they swept under the bridge to the muffled roar of invisible yellow-white waters; less than six hours from now, he knew, those waters would be reversed, and anyone wishing to travel downstream would have to begin below London Bridge, or wait.
Once through the bridge, Hoare leaned back beside Thoday and relaxed with a sigh. The sounds and the smells were the familiar ones of water, though of freshwater instead of salt. The difference was enormous, of course. He was on the water again, and not cramped into filthy alleys by the towering press of buildings. It was his turn to be at home, and Thoday's to be at sea. Fog or no fog, he could sense that Greenwich lay not far ahead, to starboard. Yes, he mused, there was nothing-absolutely nothing-half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing, he thought dreamily, messing about in boats. He liked the phrase, and tucked it sleepily into his mental commonplace book. Messing… messing…