"Do you know who the English agent was?" Hoare asked.
"No, Simon kept that information to himself, and I never spied on him."
"Of course not." Hoare's heart sank. "Thank you for telling me. I shall treat the information in the confidence it deserves."
At his request, Mrs. Graves now assembled the other witnesses at hand-the small staff of household servants-and withdrew to the drawing room so he could question them without her possibly disturbing presence. He quickly found that the maid, Agnes, and Mrs. Betts, the cook, had nothing to contribute save tearful words of woe.
Tom, the Graveses' manservant, had more interesting things to tell him.
"I thought I heard a shot like in the night, sir, but I was that tired, I rolls over and goes back to sleep till the mistress woke us by callin' up back stairs.
"Well, then I gets me breeches and shoes on, sir, and goes downstairs to Master's rooms. There Mistress is a-settin' on the floor in the middle of the room, a-holdin' of Master's head.
" 'Go quick, Tom,' she says, 'an' knock up Mr. Morrow an' Sir Thomas.' So I goes to Sir Thomas, who was abed, and then I goes uphill to Mr. Morrow, and then I comes home."
"Had Mr. Morrow also been in bed?"
"'E were in shirt and breeches, sir, so I dunno."
"Thank you, Tom. You did quite right," Hoare whispered.
He followed Tom out of the doctor's workplace and made his way into the drawing room.
"I think I have finished my business here, ma'am," he said. "It only remains for me to call briefly upon Mr. Morrow and Sir Thomas, and to question the examiner… Dr. Olney, is it not?"
"Mr. Olney, sir," she said. "He is a surgeon, you will remember, and not a physician. As to the two gentlemen, may I speak a word of caution?"
"Please."
"Mr. Morrow is a very deep man, and proud. He built the competence left him into a fortune. He was not the first to discover the distaste our English gentry have for money earned in trade, as he earned his, instead of inheriting his wealth. 'He is therefore proud of having made his way into acceptance in our modest country society, and he is likely to resist anything that puts his hard-bought standing at risk.
"I have known Sir Thomas longer than I have Mr. Morrow. He is as proud of his ancestry as Mr. Morrow is of his accomplishments. He believes, I think, his blood to be a brighter blue than that of some of the nation's governors at Windsor and Whitehall, and is convinced that he is being refused the higher rank which he therefore deserves. He will brook no interferences in his reign over Weymouth and its environs. But there. You will laugh at my presumption."
"It is no presumption, ma'am. It sounds very much like keen perception."
"Thank you, Mr. Hoare," she said. "Be frank with me, then. You are prepared to help me in my pursuit of my husband's killer?"
"As far as my service duties permit, ma'am. The matter of the ciphers leads me to believe that there is, in fact, some connection between your late husband and the work of some less savory characters in Portsmouth."
At once, Hoare regretted these words, for Mrs. Graves's eyes grew cold. "Surely not, sir. Not only was he a cripple; despite his education in France, he was the most honest of Englishmen. Will you not explain yourself?"
"I had not known Dr. Graves was educated in France."
Mrs. Graves's voice was now far less cordial. She showed no dimples at all. "At Lyon, Toulouse, and the Sorbonne. He studied with both Dupuytren and La+Фnnec, as you already know. That is general knowledge.
"But I fear I keep you here under a misapprehension. I had hoped to enlist your help in tracking down my husband's killer, not in blackening his name as a loyal British subject. You know your way out, I believe. I bid you a good day, sir."
Hoare would not leave matters like this. He would not slink away. "I understand your concern, ma'am," he whispered. "I cannot believe him to have been a conscious party to any un-English action. But the cipher which you saw on his work-table, bearing the signature 'Jehu,' clearly ties him in some way to the late Lieutenant Kingsley, and Kingsley was less than an honorable man."
He cleared his throat painfully.
"In fact, it now appears that Kingsley, whom I knew as a debauchee and nothing more, may have been far more than that. He may have been involved in a plot of some nature. Possibly someone made use of him, and also of Dr. Graves' talents under some pretext. It is my duty to find out if that is, indeed, the case. If it is, I will see the culprit or culprits brought to justice."
By now, Mrs. Graves was also on her feet. This was no partridge; it was a kestrel that looked so fiercely up into Hoare's eyes.
"If you succeed in this mission of yours without sullying Simon's good name, well and good, sir. I shall be your debtor. But if you drag that name in the mud, you will have his widow to deal with. I shall be your enemy. Do not let me detain you. Good morning."
Her voice broke. She collapsed onto her tuffet and buried her face in her hands.
"You have no right," she sobbed. "No right. Kindly go away, Mr. Hoare, and leave me to my lonely grief."
"Go away now, zur," echoed Tom the manservant from the door. He watched with a stony face as Hoare sadly let himself out.
Chapter XI
Shamefaced, Hoare trudged a long mile north out of town, past Gloster Row and Royal Crescent. He paid his penny at the turnpike and plodded on up the steep slope to Mr. Morrow's comfortable house on the hill crest. At the doorway a saddled horse stood waiting, hip-shot, in the spring sun. He wished the beast had been in his charge, for the walk, nearly an hour long and all uphill, had left him sweating heavily, though not out of breath. He named himself to the manservant and was admitted. Mr. Morrow appeared after a short delay, booted and spurred. To him, Hoare stated his errand.
"Frankly, sir," Morrow said, "I am at a stand as to your purpose here in Weymouth in the first place, let alone your curiosity about my affairs. Forgive my bluntness, but have you nothing better to do with your time than bother peaceable men who would prefer to be about their own business?"
"I am not troubling you out of idle curiosity, Mr. Morrow,"
Hoare replied in the mildest whisper he could summon, "but on a matter of serious concern to the Navy."
He sat expectant.
Morrow waited in vain for him to amplify what he had said. At last he said, "Well, then, Mr. Hoare, I see no harm in telling you I had asked Dr. Graves to determine whether the listening device with which he entertained us when first we met could be put to use in my quarry. It has long been known that stone with flaws or faults gives off a different sound when struck than clear, workable marble. It was my notion that with the doctor's device my men could make better selection of workplaces."
"Then you are familiar with Dr. Graves' own workplace, sir?" Hoare asked.
"Moderately, sir."
"Mrs. Graves tells me she saw some documents on her husband's worktable when she first came into the room… documents which she says were not present when she returned there the next morning."
"Aha. So that is where the land lies, eh?" Mr. Morrow said in a bleak voice. "The widow accuses me of abstracting one of the good doctor's discoveries for purposes of my own. At least, I trust that to be the explanation, sir, and that the accusation does not originate with you. For I hope I may be sure, sir, that, as an officer and a gentleman, you do not insinuate…" He paused significantly.
"I doubt neither your word nor your honesty, Mr. Morrow." At present, you prickly bastard, Hoare added to himself.
Morrow looked at him severely, as if to stare him down. "This interview is continuing longer than I had expected, sir," he said. "If you will excuse me for a few seconds, I have an urgent message I must send to the quarry. Please to make yourself comfortable."