Peters snorted and took hold of my wrist.
"Come along," he said. "We'll be about that business right now."
"Just what sort of vessel is this?" I asked then.
Captain Guy paused in the process of replacing his pipe and said, "Why, this is Mr. Ellison's yacht."
"Come along," Peters repeated, and we left the captain puffing in the fog.
He led me below, and had I not already been informed I should have guessed from the fine woods and the high level of craftsmanship employed in facings and moldings that the ship must be a pleasure craft devoted to private use rather than a commercial vessel. And as we made our way, I wondered that Dirk Peters rather than Captain Guy was conducting me to my visit with the owner. Might he be somewhat more than the common seaman I had taken him for?
He halted before a door carved with swimming dragons and rapped sharply upon it.
"Who is it?" someone called from the other side.
"Peters," he replied. "An' Perry's with me."
"A moment."
Shortly, I heard a chain fall and the door was opened. I beheld a large man—over six feet in height and of great girth. He had on a dark green and black dressing gown over an unfastened white shirt and trousers. A white fringe was all that remained of his hair, and his eyes were bright blue.
"Mr. Perry!" he greeted. "I cannot say how delighted I am to see you in good health!"
"It appears that I have you to thank for it, sir," I told him.
"And you are most heartily welcome. Come in, come in!"
I did that. Peters—at my side—gave a small salute, which Ellison returned, and departed.
"Pray be seated," the big man said. "Are you hungry?"
I thought back over the supper of marsh-hens which Legrand's slave Jupiter had fed me only a few hours ago.
"Thanks, but I've eaten," I told him.
"Something to drink, then?"
"Can't say as I'd have any objection to that," I answered.
He went off to a cabinet from which he returned with a squat decanter of ruby fluid and a pair of shot glasses. He filled the tiny things, raised one and said, "Your health." I nodded and watched as he took a small sip. I sniffed it. It smelled like wine. I took a sip. It seemed a Burgundy. I took the rest in a single swallow, wondering at the eccentricity which prompted the man to drink in this fashion. His eyes widened slightly, but he refilled my glass immediately.
"Good man, that Peters," I said. "He timed his intervention perfectly, moved strongly, efficiently. Got me away against strong opposition. I confess I still haven't the least idea why those men attacked me, though. Or why—"
"Yes?"
"There is someone aboard their ship—the Evening Star—someone with whom I have an intimate connection. I'd be grateful if you could tell me anything of their purposes. Or simply who they are." I drank my other tiny portion of wine in a quick swallow, and went on, "How did you know I was going to be where I was? And that I'd need rescuing?"
He sighed and took another sip of his own drink, then refilled my own again.
"Before going into that, Mr. Perry," he said, "there are a few details about your background concerning which I'd like to be certain. I must be sure—absolutely sure—that you are the gentleman I think you are.
Have you any objection to answering a few questions?"
I chuckled.
"You saved my life and you're buying the drinks. Ask away."
"All right. Is it or is it not a fact that your mother was an actress," he began, "and that she died in poverty."
"Damn it, sir!" I responded, then got hold of myself. "Those are the facts," I said more softly, "as I understand them. I was not quite three years old when her death occurred."
His expression did not change, and his gaze fell upon my wineglass for the barest instant. Almost as a cue, I felt obliged to raise it and drain it. I did so, and he refilled it immediately, following this with but the smallest sip from his own.
"She died of consumption?" he went on. "In the city of Richmond?"
"That is correct."
"Satisfactory," he replied. "And what of your father?"
" 'Satisfactory,' sir?" I inquired.
"Come, come, young man," he said, touching my arm. "Sensitivity must wait. Matters of great moment hang in the balance here. I meant only that it was the answer I hoped to hear from you. Now, your father?"
I nodded.
"He was an actor, also, by all reports. He vanished from my mother's life and from mine, a year or two before she died."
"Indeed," he muttered, as if that, too, were satisfactory. "And you had the good fortune, upon your mother's death, to be adopted by a prosperous Richmond merchant," he continued, "John Allan, and his wife?"
"I would say rather that Mrs. Allan took pity on an orphan, and took me in. I was never formally adopted."
Seabright Ellison shrugged.
"Still, as a member of the Allan household, you enjoyed advantages denied to many," he observed. "For example, your four years in a private school in England—Manor House School, in the north of London, was it not?"
"It was," I admitted. "Your knowledge of my life astonishes me."
"And I suppose," he said, "it might have been at about that time when, in some—shall we say dream, or vision—you first encountered Annie?"
I stared at him. No one in waking life could know of her. I had never spoken of her.
"What do you know about Annie?" I whispered hoarsely. "What could you know about her?"
"Not a great deal, I assure you," he answered. "Certainly not all that I should like to know. Still— more than you do, I dare say."
"I have seen her," I said. "Two days ago, in Charleston—and again, within the hour. At this moment she is aboard—"
He raised his hand.
"I know where she is," he told me. "And while there is some danger involved, nothing threatens her at the moment. I can quite probably help you to reach her—eventually. But things will really proceed more swiftly if you will permit me to take things in my own order, at my own pace."
I nodded.
"Very well," I said, and I drained my minuscule wineglass once again. He refilled it, shook his head and muttered something that sounded like "Amazing."
Then, "Are you familiar, Mr. Perry, with the name of 'Poe'?" he asked.
"There is an Italian river, I believe," I stated.
"Really!" he hissed. "P-O-E. A man's name. Edgar Poe. Edgar Allan Poe."
"Sorry ..." I said, then, "Ah. A confusion of identity. Is that it? Those men on the beach— They really wanted to kill this Edgar Poe."
"No." Ellison raised his hand. "I beg of you, be of no illusions on that score. I've no doubt those men knew exactly whom they were to kill. It was you, Sergeant Edgar A. Perry. I will not say that Edgar Poe is in no danger. Far from it. But his fate will be more subtle, I suppose ... and it need not directly concern us."
He sighed, regarded his drink, then raised it, and finished it.
"There is," he began slowly, "a confusion of identity, certainly. Yes, you are confused with Edgar Poe, in such a way as two human beings have rarely been confused in all the history of the word. But—I repeat—there is no confusion in the minds of those from whom I saved you tonight, and who will certainly seek your death again. No. It is certainly Edgar Perry they want dead."
"Why?" I asked. "I don't even know them."
He drew a deep breath, sighed again, refilled his own tiny glass.
"Do you know, sir, where you are?" he asked, after a time. "The question is not rhetorical—and I do not mean it in the sense that you are in my cabin or aboard my ship. Pray, think in larger terms than that."