He misjudged Edgar, of course, and badly. Edgar saw the tragedy of Sir Peregrine's career with great clarity, and it was often painful for Edgar to watch. There was almost a Shakespearian quality about the way in which this hollow-looking man dragged himself down all the years of his life, hideously burdened by his huge sense of pomp, and by an heroic vision of himself which few of his friends or his subordinates shared.
Edgar said, "I'm told that you ordered Mr Philips to confine himself to his quarters." He stood with one hand thrust into his trouser pocket and the other hand pressed against his neck, as if he had a boil or a wasp sting.
"I have ordered Mr Philips to consider himself under close arrest, if that's what you're getting at," replied Sir Peregrine.
"Would it be too impertinent of me to ask why?"
Sir Peregrine cleared his throat again. "I am the master of this vessel, Mr Deacon. As such, I have both a right and a duty to do whatever may be legally necessary to protect the ship herself, her crew, her cargo, and her passengers."
"And you considered it legally necessary to confine Mr Philips to his quarters?"
"You're questioning my authority?" asked Sir Peregrine, with a sudden burst of fierceness. "Is that it?" He continued to squint at Edgar with his one moist eye, his lips tightly drawn together like the sewn-together lips of a shrunken head from the Upper Amazon, his neck stringy and red. But despite this gizzardly show of outrage, Edgar wasn't at all sure how angry the commodore truly was. Sir Peregrine didn't really seem to be concentrating on what they were talking about at all. His attention seemed to be stealing off somewhere else, to some remembered time and place where Edgar and Percy Fearson were unable to follow.
"We simply want to know what's up," put in Percy Fearson. "Mr. Philips rang me this morning and gave me his side of the story. Now I think we ought to hear yours. Fair does, after all."
"Well," said Sir Peregrine, remotely, "and what does Mr Philips say about me?"
"He says he's still completely loyal to you, if that's any consolation," said Percy Fearson.
"I don't think it is a consolation, thank you," said Sir Peregrine.
"Well, whether it is or whether it isn't, locking a man up is a serious matter. He's a captain in his own right, you know. A respected officer of the line. So that's why we need to know what's going on, and urgently. We don't want no scandals on this voyage. None of your Sunday paper headlines, "Mutiny on the Arcadia", or whatever."
"You won't get any scandal," said Sir Peregrine, with a wonky smile. "And I can assure you that whatever Mr. Philips says, he has only been confined to his quarters for a small misunderstanding over the chain of command. An example to his brother officers, that's all. It's unpleasant, I'll grant you. But, occasionally, one is obliged to take certain disciplinary steps."
Edgar was twirling the model gyroscope on Sir Peregrine's sitting-room table. Quite calmly, without looking up, he said, "Mr. Philips seems to feel that his arrest has something to do with our running down a fishing smack called the Drogheda."
"What?" snapped Sir Peregrine. His manner reminded Edgar of a retired lieutenant-general he had once known, in Murree, who had fought out the Battle of the Somme again and again on his croquet lawn, requisitioning his guests" tea-cakes to form the German lines, and clambering breathlessly out of his ha-ha in a tweed deerstalker to represent going "over the top'.
"According to Mr Philips, we ran down a fishing-smack," Edgar repeated. "He says that we were running out of Irish waters at full speed ahead, in poor visibility, and we sank it without anyone on board knowing that we'd hit it. A man is missing, feared drowned."
"Well," said Sir Peregrine, "that's quite correct."
"How long have you known?" asked Edgar.
"The message reached us just a few hours ago."
"A few hours ago? And you didn't think to inform me?"
"I was awaiting confirmation. You know what the Irish are like. Full of—you know, wild stories."
"We receive a message telling us that we've run down a fishing-smack and drowned one of its occupants and you can seriously dismiss that as a wild story?"
Sir Peregrine pronounced each word of his reply with exaggerated care, but he still managed to invest it with a certain shabby dignity. "I have commanded the bridges of some of the greatest ocean liners of my day, Mr Deacon. When you were still a boy in knee-britches, I was crossing the North Atlantic as the master of the Aurora, the Eximious, and the Lustrous; through storm, accident, and blizzard. The message from Ireland was unconfirmed, and therefore I sought confirmation. The last thing I wanted to do, especially when there was no immediate danger to the safety of the Arcadia, was to spread exactly the kind of alarm and hysteria to which you are now demonstrating yourself to be prone."
He rose from his armchair, knocking his book on to the floor. "Mr. Philips was on the bridge at the time of the incident. I shall expect him to make a full report. It appears to me that the reason for the collision was that Mr Philips was disobeying my specific instruction to make way with such expediency as may be safe. Perhaps it went to his head, taking command of such a powerful vessel for the very first time. Perhaps he thought to prove that I was too old and cautious for such a commission. But the outcome was that the Arcadia was sailing far too fast for the prevailing visibility, and for the waters she was in, and there was a tragic accident."
"Mr. Philips says just the opposite," put in Percy Fearson. "Mr. Philips claims it were you who told him to make full ahead, against the warnings of the Irish authorities, and against his own better advice."
"Mr. Philips was on the bridge," replied Sir Peregrine. "Although I must always take ultimate responsibility for anything that happens aboard this ship, Mr. Philips was on the bridge. That means that the piloting of the Arcadia at the time of the incident was his responsibility. If visibility was poor, he should have slowed down. Can you really imagine any captain, even the most reckless, ordering full speed without having any regard to the weather, or the surrounding seas? No, gentlemen. If you are looking for a culprit, I'm afraid you will have to look to Mr. Philips. Regrettable, but there you are. A fine young captain gone to the dogs, I'm afraid."
Percy Fearson breathed to Edgar, "I do hear that Mr. Philips has been having a little trouble at home. You know, domestic problems. Wife went off with somebody else."
Edgar gave the gyroscope one final spin. It hummed around like a top, tilting from one side to the other in its gimbals, as the Arcadia rolled from port to starboard, hesitated, and then rolled back again.
"All right, Sir Peregrine," he said at last. "But remember this: in future I want to hear every message of any importance that reaches us by wireless. I should have known about this incident the minute you received the news yourself. You may be a legendary sea captain, but you're not a businessman, and you're not a banker, and you have very little expertise in public relations."
Sir Peregrine said, "I shall judge the suitability of passing on any wireless messages to you strictly according to the contents of each message, as and when it arrives."
"Just make sure that your definition of suitability concurs with mine," said Edgar. Then, "Come on, Percy, I think it's time we found ourselves some breakfast."
They left Sir Peregrine's quarters and closed the door behind them. Percy Fearson said, "Is that it? Is that all you're going to do?"
"Do you really think that I'd let that old goat speak to me like that without taking it further?" said Edgar. "If we received a warning from the Irish authorities, then the wireless officer took it down at the time, and the helmsman must have been aware of it, too. Who was on the helm when we left Dun Laoghaire?"