Hoare had stressed the word might with all the power he could put behind his pitiful whisper, thereby losing all the ground he had made with the wine's help. He had to gesture for more. He must, he thought, find some way of carrying a mild anodyne about so that he could better endure extended talk. Perhaps Mrs. Graves's physician spouse would help. Perhaps he would see her redoubtable little person again.
"Whom d'ye have in mind?" the Admiral demanded. "I don't care to have ciphered messages swanning about my command, out of control. And the thing would be lost to mankind within seconds of arriving in Whitehall."
"One, sir, is Watt, captain's clerk in Vantage. The other is Mrs. Simon Graves, wife of a physician in Weymouth. Both are talented in matters of handwriting."
"I can hardly issue orders to a doctor's wife in Portsmouth," the Admiral said. "Perhaps you yourself can find a way of consulting the good woman. Take whatever steps you deem necessary-within reason, of course. As to Watt, I shall second him to you out of Vantage, if you'd like, until you've used him up or until she sails, whichever is sooner."
"I would find that most helpful, sir." Kent, Vantage's new captain, would damn Hoare blue if he knew him responsible for stealing his clerk just as his frigate was making ready for sea. Well, Hoare thought, damn him blue, right back.
"See to it, Patterson," Sir George said. "Have the man Watt report himself to Hoare at his lodgings, prepared to remain there at the Navy's expense until Hoare's through with him or until Vantage's anchor is aweigh. When will you have that cipher sorted out, then, Hoare?"
"I can't say yet, sir," Hoare whispered, and regretted his words instantly.
"'Can't say,' sir? What kind of an answer is that to give your superior officer, sir? I've had mids kiss the gunner's daughter for less. Someone should have beaten that sort of insolence out of you, sir, before you were handed your commission.
"You've been on the beach too long, sir. You've got fat and lazy, sir, fat and lazy. You've waxed fat and kicked against the pricks. It's past time you were sent to sea."
Hoare's heart leaped. If he could only take Sir George at his word …
"I would be overjoyed, sir," he ventured.
Mr. Patterson gasped. For ten heartbeats that seemed to Hoare like as many minutes, Sir George Hardcastle glowered at Hoare from under his heavy brow. The paneled room was silent.
At last, the Admiral's expression became almost sympathetic. Evidently, Sir George shared Hoare's longing to be at sea again.
"I take your meaning, Mr. Hoare," he said. "Perhaps I shall be your Eurystheus and you my Heracles." He paused again as if to assure himself that Hoare understood the allusion.
Hoare did. The gods had sentenced Heracles to undertake certain labors given him by King Eurystheus of Mycenae as penance for killing his own children by the king's daughter, Megara.
"And Patterson here can be my Talthybius," the Admiral added.
The secretary looked sour. Talthybius had been Eurystheus s herald, by whom the king had sent his orders to Heracles. The hero had dubbed him "the Dung Man."
"If you seek your own Argo, Mr. Hoare, make sure your good works are such as to magnify you before Their Lordships. Return Watt to Vantage when you have used him, if he has not already rejoined her under sailing orders. That will be all, sir."
"Aye aye, sir," Hoare whispered. He made his bow and removed himself.
Mr. Watt reported to Hoare's quarters in the Swallowed Anchor as instructed.
"Captain Kent was not in the least pleased to learn that I was to be taken away from Vantage at such a crucial time, sir," the man said. "I do not think it wise to repeat his very words. Even he, however, must obey Sir George's explicit instructions."
"I understand, Mr. Watt. Let us do our best to return you to his care as soon as possible," Hoare whispered. "Now, sir, as I recall from our discussion aboard Vantage, you are a student of handwriting. Is that really so?"
"I have come to believe, sir," Watt said, "that a person's handwriting reveals not only his gender-or hers, of course- and position in life, but also his character and personality. In fact, I occasionally entertain my friends by describing a person's nature, based on inspecting samples of his handwriting."
"Interesting," Hoare commented. He handed the clerk the folder. "Tell me what you think of these, then."
"This, as you must know already, sir," Watt said, "is the folder that went adrift from Captain Hay's desk. Certain official correspondence was missing and still is-"
"Sir George has sent it back aboard Vantage," Hoare said, "where I am sure you will find it when you return. Go on."
"The remaining correspondence is as I remember it. A letter from the late captain's lady, several from tradesmen, one written-as I think I remember telling you-by a lower-class woman. She is literate but has had little practice in the calligraphic art. It might be the prelude to a demand for money."
"I agree. Thank you. Now, these," Hoare said, handing Watt the other documents found on Kingsley.
"Oh, dear me," Watt replied upon casting his eyes over Mrs. Hay's steaming letters to her husband's lieutenant. "Oh," he said again as he read. "Oh, my. Oh, dear." He set the letters on Hoare's desk, his lips pressed firmly together and his sallow face pink. "The letters of a lewd woman and a hot one, indeed, sir. One can only be happy that Captain Hay never saw them." He picked up the letter from J. Jaggery. "This is a piece of outright blackmail, of course," he said. "Again, the writer- a man, this time, probably a seaman, sir, or at least a man of the sea-is barely literate. He places a low value indeed on his silence, does he not? And in mentioning the law, does he perhaps advert to some untoward action on the late lieutenant's part, other than the plowing of his master's field?" He looked at Hoare inquiringly.
"One could indeed draw that inference," Hoare whispered.
When he took up the thin pieces of tissue, Watt's eyes brightened. He drew a glass from his bosom and bent over the papers, his pointed nose almost scraping along their surfaces as he studied them.
"Hmm. Not the Caesar cipher," he muttered to himself. "No vowels at all. Probably substituted numerals. Wonder why? A substitution cipher, indeed. Must count frequencies…"
He reached out blindly for a piece of blank paper, found a silver pencil in his coat, and began taking notes to his own dictation. For now, he had moved to another world. Hoare did not want to bring him back from it. He scribbled a message that told Watt that he was to sleep at the Swallowed Anchor that night and tiptoed out of the room.
On his way to Jaggery's lair, he decided to make a detour, view the body of Peregrine Kingsley, late second lieutenant in Vantage, and question the newly widowed Katerina Hay.
Hoare was pleased to find that the corpse had yet to be released to the man's relatives-whoever they were. The attendant made no trouble but promptly pointed Kingsley out from among Portsmouth's other recent naval casualties.
"Ball went into the head, like you can see, sir," the man said. "Stopped there, though. Surgeon took 'er out."
Gladden had been mistaken in this detail, then. This was evident to Hoare from the coarse trephining work that had completed the destruction of the late licentious lieutenant's beauty.
"Where's the bullet?" Hoare asked.
In answer, the attendant rummaged about in a drawer underneath the cadaver. " 'Ere," he said at last, handing it to Hoare.
"I'll want this," Hoare whispered.
The bullet, he saw, bore small slightly canted ridges. It was a rifle bullet, then. If so, it could have been fired from a considerable distance. Furthermore, the killing had been done at night. Thus, he thought, the murderer had to have been no mean marksman.