"When I went ashore from Vantage after questioning some of the witnesses," said Gladden, "Mr. Hoare asked me to make a request on his behalf of a certain beachcombing party of his acquaintance. In turn, that person made the request known to his own people. The result was this." He reached into the portmanteau beside him and withdrew the vile-smelling Royal Marine uniform coat. Its scarlet dye had bled slightly onto its blue facings.
"This coat was fished out of Portsmouth Harbor on Tuesday night last and brought to me and Mr. Hoare. I know every officer in this cabin will recognize it. Upon examining it, Mr. Hoare found certain substances on its collar and cuffs.
"I would like to ask him to tell the court about what he discovered."
"What I wiped from the collar and cuffs," whispered Hoare, "was paint, gentlemen, removable paint. I could even smell it over the tidewater smell. Removable paint, or maquillage, as the Frogs have it, has a distinctive odor, you know." Hoare paused to fill his chest for his next sentence.
"The man who had worn that coat was wearing maquillage. And I doubt that any member of the ship's Marine contingent would own any of the stuff, let alone know how to use it. No, the man we are looking for has to be an actor-an amateur Thespian, if you will. Now who could that be, I wondered, and why?"
Hoare interrupted himself again, as if preparing for battle.
"It is in the interest of obtaining the answers to those questions that I asked you, Mr. President, to adjourn the court until the time you set for it to reconvene-tomorrow, at eight bells of the morning watch.
"Finally, I suggest that you will find this evening's performance of Mr. Sheridan's› The School for Scandal both interesting and instructive."
Though the attendants had long since lowered the houselights and lit the footlights, the curtain of Portsmouth's sole theater had yet to rise. The audience, officers and their ladies for the most part but including a sprinkling of townsmen as well, had begun a discontented murmur. Overriding the subdued babble came Prince William's masthead growl from the royal box.
A dainty person in black slipped out from between the curtains. "In this evening's performance, the part of'Charles Surface' will be played by Mr. Thomas Billings," he announced. "The part of'Maria' will be played by Miss Oates." He slipped back out of sight.
There was a collective sigh of feminine disappointment, for "Charles," the romantic lead, was to have been played by Lieutenant Peregrine Kingsley, second in Vantage. As a new widow, Mrs. Hay, of course, could not now tread the boards in the role of "Maria."
Hoare snapped his fingers. With a nod to his companions to follow him, he eased himself from his place in the back of the theater and left by the main door. He returned by the stage door, where he sought out the person in black. Tonight's impresario, Mr. DeCourcey, looked as if he should be wringing his hands.
"Where's Kingsley?" Hoare asked.
DeCourcey rolled his eyes and shrugged as eloquently as Mr. Morrow of Weymouth. "Who knows?" he said. "Here the man was, as good a juvenile as you could ask for in Drury Lane itself, superb in the part, and he has gone missing."
"He's bit!" whispered Hoare with a wicked grin. He clapped the distracted DeCourcey on the shoulder so hard as to dislodge the quizzing glass from his left eye. Hoare put his head out the stage door and blew on his silver boatswain's call.
There was a tumult and a shouting in the evening streets of Portsmouth. Some men mounted to take up their mission; others climbed into waiting chaises; still others-these mostly the hard men of the press gang-began their search through the late dusk of June for the missing Kingsley.
Hoare withdrew to his post of command in the Navy Tavern, just off the Hard, to await the outcome. To him, among others, came Mr. Peter Gladden and Mr. Francis Bennett and most of the members of the court-martial, including Captains Wright and Weatherby. Mr. Prickett was already in place, his mouth smeared with somebody's jam.
"Well, Mr. Hoare!" Weatherby cried. "Your trap seems to have been well designed. My congratulations!"
"Premature, Captain, but I thank you nonetheless," whispered Hoare, with more than a trifle of envy. He knew very well indeed that, since he would never make post, the only way he could hoist his swab-his epaulette-and earn the courtesy title of "Captain" was to be made commander.
"How did you do it, sir?" Wright asked.
"I'm afraid it was mostly guesswork, sir," Hoare replied modestly. "Guesswork and speculation."
He and the rest of the company rose at the unannounced entry of H.R.H. Duke of Clarence.
"Be seated, gentlemen, please," said Prince William. "D'ye know, if I were ever to succeed to the Throne, I do believe I'd do away with all this risin' for royalty. I've seen too many promisin' naval officers brain 'emselves on the overhead when risin' to give the Loyal Toast."
"Hear him; hear him!" one of the juniors was heard to say.
"Go on with your tale, Mr. Hoare, eh?" Royalty said.
"It was clear from the start, sir, that Mr. Arthur Gladden is no man to kill his fellowman. Captain Hay's killer had to be someone else. The captain's servant? Mr. Watt, his clerk? What motive could they have had? Only the Marine guard could have told us, and he was mysteriously missing.
"That was when I reasoned that the Marine himself was the most likely culprit. He had the means-his bayonet-and the opportunity. He could enter the captain's cabin at any time on the pretext of announcing a visitor or bringing a message. Sergeant Doyle admits he was as yet unacquainted with his men."
Hoare paused to take a long draft of a mild lemonade.
"Yes? Yes?" A small, lean man with a weary face leaned forward impatiently, and Hoare continued.
"This would have made it easy for a Marine, or another man posing as a Marine, to insinuate himself into the post of guardian at the sacred portal. No one would really see him as he stood at his post. As poor Arthur Gladden said to me, 'I don't think anyone can tell one Lobster from another-except perhaps another Lobster. They're all statues in red coats and heavy boots.'
"The only thing missing now was motive. Why would a Marine, a stranger to his captain like all the rest of the ship's company, want to kill the man?
"Then Watt mentioned a missing file. He appears to be a meticulous man and braver than he credits himself for being, and I could not see him as being mistaken in a matter of his profession. Someone had taken the file, then. Why not the captain's murderer? The Marine-or, rather, the pretended Marine?"
He took another draft of lemonade.
"It was then that I launched a search for a Marine uniform coat. I reasoned the murderer would throw it overboard- weighted, perhaps, though I prayed not-rather than hiding it somewhere in the bilges of the ship. Sooner or later some prying member of the crew would find it.
"Now I had a stroke of luck. As I was musing about the killer's description-if not a Marine himself, he had to be able to impersonate one convincingly, and he had, of course, to be a naval man-I happened to see the playbill posted outside my lodgings. And there I saw the name of Vantage's second, Peregrine Kingsley, in the part of 'Charles Surface,' the dashing young blade. There was my man, I was certain."
Hoare's voice now gave out entirely He fell back upon breathing his words into Mr. Prickett's ear so the midshipman could relay them to the audience, a clear, proud treble stentor.
"This might have explained Mr. Watt's missing file as well. Conceivably, Kingsley could have got wind that someone had sent his captain something so incriminating that he felt he had to filch it, even killing Captain Hay if need be, while doing so.
"He easily abstracted from the Marine detachment the coat which was later found in the harbor. Before donning it, he disguised his face with maquillage, leaving unavoidable traces of the stuff on the coat as he did so, and slipped into ranks when Sergeant Doyle mounted the guard. Again, it was easy for him to include himself.