‘Shall I be paid for my services, miss?’ Cribb asked, in a strictly professional manner.
She smiled for the first time. ‘You will get what is due to you, Mr Sargent.’
Cribb decided he preferred Rossanna without the smile.
CHAPTER 7
The sound of a church bell travelled across the water of Gravesend Reach. One o’clock. The last of a mass of cloud passed inland, uncovering the moon. The slate roofs and spires of Gravesend were picked out sharply in the swiftly-moving luminosity, as if the gauze was being drawn away in some transformation effect at Drury Lane. Certainly the night had a theatrical feel about it for Sergeant Cribb, leaning on the taffrail of a small steam launch chugging past the monstrous shapes of the merchant fleet, moored in readiness for the last few miles upriver on the morning tide. Whatever he had expected from the dynamite conspirators, it had not included a substantial supper, followed by a midnight outing on the Thames. After his ordeal in front of McGee, everyone-even Devlin-had made a point of being disconcertingly civil to him. As he had sipped claret and eaten cold chicken, he had been reminded of the cosseting of condemned men on their last night on earth. From there his thoughts had fastened morbidly on the late Constable Bottle being drawn from the Thames with grappling irons, an image that had been disturbingly revived after supper, when Rossanna had led the party out to a boat-house.
‘Sargent!’ a voice called from the direction of the cabin. ‘Come below. Miss McGee wishes to speak to you.’
He answered the summons, careful as he descended the steps that no one was concealed on either side, waiting to crack him over the skull again with a blunt instrument. The twinges from the last battering were particularly acute in movements up and down stairs.
Rossanna was seated at a small table lit by an oil lamp. Facing her, more sinister than ever in this light, was Malone, who had joined the party after supper. Devlin stood at the wheel with his back to them. McGee had been left in the house, in the care of the functionary Cribb had taken for a cab-driver, but whose duties he now knew to include serving at table and ministering to the needs of the invalid.
‘Please sit down, Mr Sargent,’ said Rossanna, and added firmly, ‘Here will do,’ when Cribb was faced with the choice of sharing a bench with herself or Malone.
It was quite impossible to position himself on the narrow strip of bench without physical proximity of the sort one usually encountered in crowded third class railway compartments- and then with nameless strangers. To accommodate her bustle, she was seated obliquely, and Cribb was obliged to adopt a similar position to avoid embarrassing contact with her knees under the table. In consequence, his legs were so restricted that he was sure his right thigh would touch her left if he leaned even slightly forward.
‘Observe the map, Mr Sargent,’ Rossanna ordered, as if divining his thoughts and indicating that she, at any rate, was too taken up with the night’s business to be troubled by them. It was a chart of the river from Purfleet to the Estuary, and it was spread out across the table. ‘We have just passed the Ovens buoy, marking Coalhouse Point, and this is the stretch of the river known as The Lower Hope. The place we are bound for is here.’ She touched the map.
‘Canvey Island?’ said Cribb.
‘Not quite, Mr Sargent. Look more closely.’
He was practically sure he felt the warmth of contact on his leg before he moved. ‘A creek,’ he said. ‘Hole Haven. I can’t say I’ve heard of it before.’
‘Then you should read The Times more thoroughly. Hole Haven has more than once been referred to in the Parliamentary Report. Eight hulks are moored there. It is a desolate spot, accessible only by water when the tide is flowing, or across marshland from Canvey Island. Probably not more than a few of the islanders knew of the existence of the hulks until two of them were found unguarded three years ago. The owners were fined a total of over a thousand pounds for negligence.’
‘Seems unaccountably excessive,’ said Cribb.
‘So one would have thought until 1882, when one of them, the George and Valentine, sank in Hole Haven. It was then revealed that it contained two thousand cases of dynamite, the property of Nobel’s Explosives Company. Each of those hulks is a magazine, containing over fifty tons of dynamite.’
‘Jesus!’ said Malone, pulling excitedly at his whiskers.
‘But where’s the sense in it?’ asked Cribb. ‘Nobel’s manufactory is in Scotland. What is the stuff doing in the Thames Estuary?’
‘Waiting to be loaded on to outward bound vessels,’ said Rossanna. ‘They stop there regularly to collect consignments. It would be most unsafe, you understand, to have explosives stored in warehouses in the Port of London. Instead, they use the hulks in Hole Haven. Two of them belong to a German firm, the rest to the mayor of Gravesend, who receives the dynamite from Scotland and sees to the discharging, reloading and storage. An eminently sensible arrangement, and inexpensive, too. Each magazine, I understand, is guarded overnight by a single caretaker.’
‘Holy Mother of God!’ said Malone.
Rossanna was giving her attention to Cribb. ‘So the purpose of the evening is to collect a modest consignment of dynamite from Hole Haven. It will be so much more convenient than making importations from America. In approximately three-quarters of an hour, Patrick will draw alongside the Moravia, the hulk least easily observed by coastguards, because it is partially obscured by two of the other vessels. You, Mr Sargent, and Mr Malone here will then board the Moravia, disincline the caretaker from interfering, and make a careful examination of the cargo. We shall not be able to take much away with us on this small craft, so we shall need to ensure that what we have is of the most powerful grade. You will unload six half-hundredweight cases on to our deck and we shall gently cruise away with enough dynamite to bring down every bridge along the river if we feel inclined.’
‘Now there’s a grand conception!’ said Devlin.
‘Beautiful!’ agreed Malone, half-closing his eyes to appreciate it fully.
‘An illustration, merely,’ said Rossanna. ‘My father is planning something infinitely more dramatic and effective- provided that we obtain the means tonight.’ She turned to Cribb again. ‘We want no hitch in this little enterprise. You will follow Mr Malone’s orders implicitly. In the circumstances, I have prevailed upon him not to carry a firearm, but he has no need of one when he can incapacitate a man just as quickly and more painfully with his bare hands.’
‘There’ll be no cause for that, miss,’ Cribb promised her.
When he went on deck again, the winking buoy was well astern and the Estuary had broadened to more than a mile across. Devlin was steering close to the Essex shore, a desolate tract of marshland unbroken by any sign of habitation.
Rossanna’s conference, disturbing as it was to anyone responsible for law and order, had rather fortified Cribb. His immediate future, at least, was less in doubt. The expedition was not planned with the sole intention of sending him the way of Bottle. Or so it seemed. If he were mistaken, it was the most diabolical charade-game he had ever taken part in. No, all the signs were that if he behaved convincingly as Malone’s assistant that night, he would win the confidence of the dynamiters. Put it down to forethought, intuition or uncommon luck, he had offered McGee what the conspiracy lacked at this stage in its campaign: the professional touch. He might shortly be expected to demonstrate it. Lord, he was thankful for those weeks at Woolwich!
He was conscious of a movement at his elbow: Rossanna, holding something in her arms. ‘Tall hats and morning suits look most distinguished, Mr Sargent, but they really will not do for climbing up the sides of dynamite-ships. Put on these things.’