The Mary Celeste

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Predominantly from the north,’ conceded Morehouse, frowning in his awareness of the point of Flood’s questioning.

  ‘So the mystery deepens,’ gloated Flood. ‘Not only does the unmanned Mary Celeste remain on course for ten days, but she does so against the prevailing currents and winds.’

  ‘I made allowances for that in calculating the distance she might have covered,’ said Morehouse. ‘And it is not necessarily surprising that such a thing could have happened.’

  ‘Ah,’ exclaimed the Attorney-General, completely sure of his control, ‘you have an answer to this conundrum!’

  ‘Not an answer,’ conceded Morehouse. ‘A possible explanation.’

  ‘Then let’s have it, Captain Morehouse. Let’s have it.’

  ‘Dismasted, a vessel might expect to be carried in the direction of the tide and the wind,’ said Morehouse. ‘But, as I have already given evidence, some of the Mary Celeste’s sails were still set.’

  ‘So?’ prompted Flood.

  ‘When I came upon her,’ said Morehouse, ‘she was yawing as she came into the wind and then falling off again. It is a recognised fact that whether there is anyone at the helm or not, a sailing ship, under some sail, will hold up into the wind and not drift with the wind or current. The setting of the fore-topmast staysail and jib would have had the effect of preventing her coming into the wind, keeping her more steadily on course.’

  ‘Are you seriously inviting this enquiry to accept that, almost by some divine intervention, the setting of the sails was such that they actually kept the Mary Celeste against prevailing wind and sea conditions!’ said Flood, turning as he asked the question from the judge to the court, as if inviting them to share his amazement.

  ‘It has been known,’ insisted Morehouse doggedly.

  ‘You can give the court an example?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You can quote to Sir James and the rest of this enquiry an actual stated case of an abandoned, rigged vessel completing the manoeuvre you suggest in this part of the Atlantic?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Morehouse, face burning with discomfort. ‘I was speaking in the most general terms about conditions that have been experienced by sailors.’

  ‘This enquiry, Captain Morehouse, is not interested in the most general terms about what might or might not have befallen unnamed ships on unnamed oceans. It is concerned about what befell the Mary Celeste when she was but six miles from the island of Santa Maria on the morning of November 25.’

  ‘I am aware of that, sir,’ said Morehouse, attempting to regain his dignity.

  ‘Then let us apply ourselves a little more diligently to uncovering the truth of the matter,’ said the Attorney-General. He had discredited Morehouse, he decided confidently. He could more or less dictate the responses now, just as the British soldiers trained the apes to perform for the tourists high above on the mist-shrouded Peak.

  ‘Let us cast ourselves back to the meal you enjoyed with Captain Briggs the night before his sailing,’ said Flood. ‘It was a convivial evening between two old friends?’

  ‘That’s how I think of it,’ said Morehouse.

  ‘There was no point for the meeting, apart from that of conviviality?’

  ‘No,’ said Morehouse. ‘We had been friends for many years. Whenever we were in port together, we always attempted a meeting. At that dinner in New York, we arranged a meal here.’

  ‘So you have already informed us. Be more forthcoming, if you would. What else was discussed that night?’

  Morehouse did not immediately respond, head cast down in the effort of recall.

  ‘As I remember,’ he said, ‘a great deal of the talk was of Captain Briggs becoming part-owner of the Mary Celeste.’

  ‘He was rightfully proud?’

  ‘He was. I owned that I envied him his success.’

  ‘Envied him!’ snatched Flood. Here it was, he thought. The first slip.

  Imagining a mistake, Morehouse looked to his counsel, who stared back curiously.

  ‘He asked me if I sought to be in the same position as he was. And I admitted I did.’

  ‘Tell me, Captain Morehouse,’ said the Attorney-General, spacing his words so that they would be recognised as an important part of the evidence, while trying at the same time to remove any indication of the satisfaction he felt, ‘what prevents you from doing what Captain Briggs did and becoming a part-owner?’

  Part-owner, remembered Morehouse. Benjamin’s constant qualification, determined as the man had always been against self-aggrandisement. Why was it, wondered Morehouse, that an innocent gathering between friends was capable of the sinister interpretations upon which this tiny, hurried little man seemed intent?

  ‘Capital,’ he said, aware before he spoke of how his questioner would turn the answer. ‘One has to buy one’s way into ownership.’

  ‘And you had no money?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What was Captain Briggs’s response to that?’

  ‘He provided me with a letter of introduction to Captain Winchester.’

  The Attorney-General slowly twisted, encompassing first the witness and then the New York owner who had given evidence the previous day and who sat today leaning forward in his seat, note pad upon his knee. The Attorney-General thought Captain Winchester looked worried. With every reason, he decided: he had uncovered the link between the two men.

  ‘So he brought you and Captain Winchester together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To what purpose?’

  Morehouse shrugged. ‘Little more than establishing contact between us. Captain Briggs said Captain Winchester was always ready to meet reliable masters and that he might know of a way that I could raise capital sufficient for my needs.’

  ‘… “capital sufficient for my needs”,’ quoted Flood. He stopped, letting the inference settle. Then he said, ‘Tell me, Captain Morehouse, what do you consider would be capital sufficient for your needs?’

  ‘That’s a hypothetical question’ said the captain, in vain protest.

  ‘Just as a rigged fore-topmast staysail and jib keeping an unmanned vessel against tide and wind is a hypothetical solution to this mystery,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘What do you consider would be capital sufficient for your needs?’

  ‘No figure was ever discussed at my meeting with Captain Winchester,’ said Morehouse. He was shifting from foot to foot, like a child seeking a teacher’s permission to leave the classroom.

  ‘What do you consider would be capital sufficient for your needs?’ persisted Flood.

  ‘Perhaps $5,000. Perhaps more …’

  ‘Perhaps $5,000. Perhaps more,’ echoed Flood. ‘Are you an ambitious man?’

  As on the previous day, the man’s counsel finally intervened, rising hurriedly from his seat.

  ‘Sir!’ protested Pisani to Cochrane. ‘The direction in which my friend is seeking to lead this examination must be clear to everyone at this enquiry, a direction for which no evidence whatsoever has so far been produced for your consideration. Surely it is wrong during the hearing of a civil matter, which this is, to permit behaviour more in keeping with a Star Chamber.’

  Just as Pisani’s objection had been so similar to that of his fellow lawyers, so the judge’s response was comparable. His head came up from his bench, face suffused and red.

  ‘Star Chamber!’ he said.

  Pisani appeared less in awe of the man than the lawyer representing the owner.

  ‘A term invoked after some consideration,’ he said.

  ‘You, sir, are impudent,’ said Cochrane.

  ‘And I fear, sir, that you endanger the reputation of your court if you permit the conduct of this case to proceed in its present manner,’ said Pisani.

  ‘I have already made it clear how I intend this enquiry to proceed,’ said Cochrane. ‘I will allow no interference in the search for the truth.’

  ‘None of us here would object to the pursuit of the truth,’ said the lawyer. ‘My objec
tion is in the pursuit of preconceptions and innuendo.’

  ‘I have listened with the utmost consideration to everything said since the beginning of this enquiry,’ said the judge, with obviously enforced evenness. ‘And so far I have detected nothing which has caused me even to consider questioning the behaviour of the Attorney-General …’ He hesitated. ‘And I would remind you, Mr Pisani, that my jurisdiction here is absolute and that I am answerable to no court of appeal but to their Lords of the Admiralty.’

  ‘A fact which has not escaped my attention. Nor my concern,’ said the lawyer. He looked towards the registrar.

  ‘I trust my observations have been noted and entered into the court record,’ he said.

  Baumgartner twisted nervously towards Cochrane, who said curtly, ‘As I have already mentioned, sir, everything at this hearing is being noted …’ He turned his head, to Flood: ‘Pray continue, Mr Attorney-General.’

  ‘At what age did you attain the rank of captain?’ Flood asked Morehouse, rising from the bench at which he had sat during the exchange between the judge and the man’s lawyer.

  ‘Twenty-one,’ said Morehouse.

  ‘A young man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A very young man?’

  ‘Comparatively so.’

  ‘Would you describe yourself as an ambitious man?’ he asked again.

  ‘It is not a question I have considered, sir.’

  ‘Then put your mind to it now. Are you an ambitious man?’

  ‘I do not consider myself to be any more ambitious than most.’

  ‘Tell the enquiry, Captain Morehouse, what is your age now?’ said Flood. With every prevarication, the man worsened his credibility.

  ‘Thirty-four.’

  ‘A captain at twenty-one, still just a captain thirteen years later.’

  ‘An achievement with which I am content enough,’ said Morehouse.

  ‘Really, sir!’ said Flood. ‘Not thirty minutes ago, the word you used was envy.’

  Morehouse lifted his arm, a motion of confusion.

  ‘A loose use of words. I did not intend to convey that I coveted anything that Benjamin Briggs had achieved. Rather, that I admired the man for having attained so much.’

  ‘An attainment you did not seek to emulate?’

  Morehouse sighed, resigned. ‘Of course I would welcome advancement,’ he said. ‘But not in the manner that you are suggesting.’

  ‘What manner am I suggesting?’

  ‘You seek to turn innocent talk into incriminating discussion … to find suspicion in anything for which there is not a ready solution …’

  ‘I seek only the truth,’ insisted the Attorney-General. ‘Unpalatable though it may be …’

  ‘I have assisted you in every way I can,’ protested Morehouse desperately.

  ‘A little more, I beg you,’ said Flood, in mock humility. ‘Before the recent discussion between My Lord and Mr Pisani, we were talking of capital. We had agreed, I believe, that $5,000 would have been sufficient for you to purchase yourself at least part-ownership of a vessel in Captain Winchester’s company?’

  ‘No!’ said the witness, gazing for help first to Cochrane and then to his lawyer. ‘I was repeating the vaguest of conversations … giving little more than my own estimate of what I might need to come to any agreement. There was no talk between Captain Winchester and myself about any such agreement.’

  ‘Were this salvage claim to succeed, would you anticipate that your proportion of any money awarded would be in excess of $5,000?’

  ‘I’ve not considered an amount,’ said Morehouse thoughtlessly.

  Flood did not take up the remark immediately, allowing them all to recognise the man’s mistake for themselves.

  ‘I, for one, do not believe the truth of that answer,’ the Attorney-General said finally. ‘Any more than I expect the majority of people present at this enquiry believe it. To give you the advantage of correcting an impression of falsehood, I shall repeat the question. Were this salvage claim to succeed, would you anticipate that your share of any award would be in excess of $5,000?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Morehouse, his voice little more than a whisper.

  ‘Sufficient for a partnership?’

  Morehouse looked up, staring intently at the Attorney-General with his prominent eyes.

  ‘I regarded Captain Briggs as one of my closest friends,’ he said pleadingly. ‘I would have done nothing to hurt him.’

  ‘I never said that you had, Captain Morehouse.’

  ‘You suggested it.’

  ‘No, sir, it was not I who suggested it. It is your evidence this enquiry has been considering this day.’

  Morehouse said nothing. He was having difficulty in controlling himself, Flood realised.

  ‘Isn’t the proper explanation for your finding of the Mary Celeste that she remained crewed after November 25, the date of the last official log entry?’

  ‘Who knows …?’ Morehouse began, generalising, but Flood intervened:

  ‘That’s what I’m endeavouring to discover,’ he pressed. ‘And having remained manned, was on course for a rendezvous?’

  ‘But –’ tried Morehouse again.

  ‘A rendezvous with a vessel that would put the crew who had mutinied and foully murdered the captain and his family safely ashore somewhere, later to share in any salvage claim?’

  ‘But we salvaged the Mary Celeste,’ said Morehouse, not fully comprehending.

  ‘Indeed you did,’ said Flood.

  ‘No!’ shouted the man, understanding at last. ‘That’s a monstrous suggestion.’

  ‘What is monstrous is what happened to Captain Briggs, his wife and baby daughter,’ said the Attorney-General.

  Because of the restrictions upon land available, there were few imposing residences in Gibraltar, but Flood’s was one of the grandest that conditions would permit. It was a low, two-storey building with a view of the linking peninsula and the mainland beyond, arranged Spanish-style around a tree-shaded courtyard the centrepiece of which was a fountain-filled pool.

  From shareholding in ships’ chandlery, freight and import business, the conduct of which was scrupulously watched and open to public examination, so that he could never be accused of conflict of interest, Flood was a rich man and he enjoyed his wealth. Since the death of his wife, the house was too large and there were more servants than he needed either to maintain it or to take care of his needs, but he retained both, knowing his public position required it.

  Having already taken a glass with Sir James Cochrane, the Attorney-General restricted himself to one tot of sherry while he awaited the man whose evidence would create a sensation. It had been difficult for him to restrain himself from advising in advance the journalists who were treating him so kindly in their publications.

  Flood sipped his wine, savouring the flavour, thinking of the enquiry. The invitations to the judge’s chambers after each session appeared to be becoming established as a regular routine. And tonight’s encounter had been easier than the first. ‘Undoubtedly suspicious,’ Cochrane had said. Which Flood considered a mild judgment. He’d established a motive for the murder of Captain Briggs and his family; Morehouse to get sufficient funds from a salvage claim to set himself up in ownership and Captain Winchester to share the award while at the same time retaining ship and cargo, thus showing an extra profit and losing nothing. And it hadn’t stopped there. As well as a motive, he’d obtained from their own mouths the admission that the two men had known each other and had met after Captain Briggs had sailed from New York. It was fitting together very nicely.

  He put his glass down upon a verandah table, his satisfaction marred by the recollection of another remark from Cochrane. Suspicious, the judge had agreed. But had then warned of the continued absence of any positive evidence. Immediately, Flood brightened. That wouldn’t be long arriving.

  As if prompted by his thoughts, there was movement behind and a maid ushered Dr Patron on to the verandah.


  Flood rose to meet the analyst, hand extended.

  ‘Some refreshment here, or shall we get to work straight away in the study?’ the Attorney-General invited him.

  ‘Much as I should like to admire this superb view,’ said the chemist, ‘I do have appointments to fulfil. So I’m afraid it must be work.’

  Glad of the man’s refusal to waste time, Flood led the way from the verandah to a room at the back of the house. Dr Patron followed, briefcase held protectively in front of him, as if it contained something very valuable.

  ‘You’ve prepared the report?’ demanded Flood eagerly, as soon as the other man was seated.

  Patron reached into the briefcase and took out two bound, closely written folios, pushing one across the desk.

  ‘Encapsulate it for me,’ insisted the Attorney-General.

  The doctor fitted half-lens glasses into place and then took from the briefcase his original copy of the report, for reference.

  ‘At your request,’ he began formally, ‘I boarded the Mary Celeste in the forenoon of the 30th. The express purpose was to ascertain whether any marks or stains could be discovered on or in her hulk –’

  ‘And …?’ prompted Flood impatiently.

  The analyst frowned, irritated at the attempt to hurry him.

  ‘I made a careful study and minute inspection of the vessel,’ he said. ‘On the deck in the forepart of the vessel I found some brown spots about a millimetre thick and half an inch in diameter. These I separated from the deck with a chisel. In all I found spotting sufficient to make up four exhibit envelopes. There was a further, similar spot on the top-gallant rail. I made an exhibit from that, as I did from that piece of timber provided by you …’

  Flood smiled. It had been he who had first seen the marked timber and insisted upon Thomas Vecchio, the marshal, cutting it out during their first visit to the Mary Celeste.

  ‘Apart from these spots, I could find nothing within the vessel to suggest any bloodstaining,’ continued Dr Patron. ‘Later during my examination I received from Mr Vecchio the sword and scabbard, which he informed me had been found beneath the bunk in the captain’s cabin.’