Samuel turned an unreadable face to Hale – who, when no further explanation was forthcoming, tried to recall what he’d been about to say.
The news that their pay would be available at the hotel the following morning cheered the men, but they left the gardens with more haste than they would have had that final incident not taken place. The last one away was Samuel. Hale stood and watched the big man go.
“What do you suppose Jack was about to say?” he asked Pessoa.
He hadn’t really expected an answer, which was a good thing, since Pessoa had no suggestions.
This man, Samuel. He was an exceedingly odd bird, for the friend of an unemployed fisherman.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FREDERIC: The Major-General comes, so quickly hide!
FRIDAY DEGENERATED INTO chaos, as Hale stood, alone and assistant-less, to receive the barrage of last-minute necessities, undone tasks, and everyday emergencies. He went out to Randolph’s damned boat every few hours, holding firm to his threat that if every surface was not spotless and fragrant, no actress would set foot on Harlequin. He dragooned Artie, whose hands had begun to shake again, to distribute the pay envelopes, trying to sound soothing as he ordered the young man to give each envelope to its destined owner and to him alone, then to write down when he had done so. And he made a list for Miss Russell, praying that she would be back from Cintra in time to take over a few of the tasks.
He managed neither lunch nor dinner – but then, at this stage of a production, he was well accustomed to surviving on cold coffee and stale rolls.
The sail-makers weren’t going to finish in time: Hale arranged to have two and all their equipment go along and finish the job while at sea.
Maurice, the kitchen’s prima donna (and that was definitely the correct gender) came wringing his hands, having seen the conditions under which he would be forced to labour. Since every kitchen Maurice encountered was inadequate for his purposes, beginning with that borrowed from a famous Parisian restaurant for Gay Paris fifteen years ago, Hale had anticipated the visit. He handed Maurice a note to the city’s top restaurant supplier in the Bairro Alta, instructing them to bill Fflytte Films for anything the chef might require. Maurice seized Hale’s face and kissed both his cheeks, as he always did, and went away singing “Va, pensiero” in an eerie falsetto.
Then one of the hotel’s staff – Harold Scott’s unofficial valet – came in with a piece of paper in one hand, and Hale’s heart sank. The actor playing the Major-General had spent the last week with his foot on a cushion, partly due to the gout but also because he required little rehearsing with the others. But it had been a mistake to leave him alone, and here was the result. “In hospital? For God’s sake, it’s only gout!” The cowering non-valet tried to reassure Hale that Scott would be fine in a few days. “I don’t need him in a few days, I need him now!”
“Mr Scott feels terrible about it, but truly, he is in miserable condition. And he’s found you a replacement, a most adequate replacement.”
“Oh yes, some scruffy drinking companion who doesn’t speak any English. I can’t believe-”
“No, honestly, the gentleman is a very presentable Englishman. He lacks the, er, physical attributes of Mr Scott, but he’s worn padding before, and is an accomplished actor. He even knows the lines, although I realise that won’t be nec-”
“Hell. Where is this paragon? I should at least see him before I go out to the hospital and skin Mr Scott alive.”
“He’s just downstairs, shall I-?”
“God, can anything else go wrong? Yes, bring him along and we’ll see how deep the hole is.”
But in the event, the hole proved a shallow one, and although the substitute Major-General was entirely the wrong build, being very tall and thin and about a decade older than Hale would have wished, there was a certain air about him, and he clearly knew the part.
Hale listened to the man’s precise, if spoken, rendition of the words, grudgingly admiring the combination of speed and clarity: He might be saying “IamtheverymodelofthemodernMajor-General,” but one heard each word clearly. He even shaped a decent cadence around the impossible bits, and when he produced “I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabulus In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous”em› without pausing for breath, Hale waved him to a halt.
“I don’t know if you’re running from the law or selling cocaine to the convent girls, but I’d appreciate it if you try not to get yourself arrested before we leave tomorrow. If you do, I’ll have to play the damn Major-General myself.”
As he shook the thin hand of this newly minted father-of-thirteen, Hale reflected uneasily that the fellow looked far too intelligent and sensible for an actor. But that was all the time he had for reflection: At that moment Artie appeared in the doorway, tears running down his face while two irate pirates glared over his narrow shoulders.
The new Major-General excused himself, saying that he would see if he could locate portions of a uniform suitable for his frame.
Artie sidled into the room. “Mr Hale, I’m so sorry, but these two fellows tell me they didn’t get their pay, although I could have sworn-”
And after Artie, Fflytte came with news of how the swarms of workmen they’d hired had done wonders on the Harlequin, rendering it not only sea-worthy, but actress-worthy. And then the charabanc-load of girls made it back at last and he had to hear how that went, and somehow fit in a review of the film Will Currie had shot. After which Bibi came to demand that her feather bed be installed on the ship, if she wasn’t to look haggard from lack of sleep when the camera was on her. Then Graziella Mazzo slithered in, batting her dark eyelashes at him and saying that surely she had misunderstood the arrangements, that she could not possibly be expected to sleep with all the girls in one room, and when Hale patiently explained that there were few actual cabins available on the ship, and that it was only for two or three nights, she pouted; when that did not soften his heart, she looked daggers at him; and when he still would not give way, she flounced out in her Isadora-inspired draperies to find Fflytte. Then Maurice came back and needed Hale to approve of the menus he had devised. And Randolph put his head in to say Graziella had decided to go visit her family in Naples. And … And … And …
* * *
And eventually, they had the last boxes, last actors, last crew crammed on board – except for Artie, who (Hale was not surprised to hear) had arranged to place himself in a sanatorium rather than risk the Harlequin. There was another unsettling incident shortly after they’d cast off, this time with La Rocha rather than Samuel, but the belaying pin missed, and the temper-tantrums of actors was a thing Hale was used to. He made a mental note not to push La Rocha too far, then let Fflytte’s near-concussion slide into the category of Life’s Lessons for Randolph Fflytte.
And so Mr Geoffrey Hale took to his bunk at last, exhausted to the edge of collapse, but content: He had done as much as any man could to bring Pirate King closer to completion.
He slept peacefully, until the screams began.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Enter the MAJOR-GENERAL’s daughters led by MABEL, all in white peignoirs and night-caps, and carrying lighted candles.
AT LEAST I had the sense not to scream out my husband’s name as I saw him floundering behind us in the dark waters. “Hol-” turned into “Help! Man overboard!” as I ran down the deck, flinging into the night anything that might function as a life-ring.
Sailing ships have no brakes. Thus the rescue of a man overboard becomes a somewhat leisurely event (unless, of course, a shark happens by) that degenerates into a cinematic farce, as if scenes of a man falling out of an aeroplane were interspersed with the calm arrangement of his means of rescue by those on the ground: discussion; the fetching of mattresses; further discussion; many lookers-on; the arrangement of pillows; the substitution of one pillow for another; and all the while the individual is tumbling closer and closer towards solid ground. Or in this case, farther and farther away from
solid ship.
Adam immediately began to shout and crank the wheel around, while Jack ran forward along the rapidly tilting deck to throw himself at various bits of rigging. I clung to the rails to keep from following Holmes overboard; before I regained my balance, sailors were pouring onto the deck in a fury of activity, directed first by Adam (who seemed to have tied off the wheel before joining the others) and then by Samuel. Men hauled at ropes; sails beat angrily on their beams; other sails made an abrupt collapse down their lines. In less than two minutes, I could feel our forward drive die away.
In the sudden silence, the first of Harlequin’s passengers ventured out, tugging at dressing gown belts, patting at rumpled hair, picking their way through the unbelievable quantities of rope that now littered the decks. Soon, the ship’s entire population was at the rails, all of them with suggestions as to engines, reversing, coming about, and diving in to get our lost Major-General. Edith suggested that we could shoot an arrow with a rope upon it; fortunately for Holmes, no one had a bow.
The experts – that is, Samuel and La Rocha – were in agreement that were we to circle back for him (at least, I believe that is what they were saying) we would do little more than move farther out of his range.
“What about the motor?” Mrs Hartley asked.
“I heard one of them say that they’d broken it altogether,” Annie said. Inevitably, it was Underfoot-Annie who had overheard a conversation.
“What about the oars?” I suggested. They might slow our drift, if not actually reverse it.
Samuel had the same idea, and began shouting orders at the men, who leapt to do his bidding, tripping over the girls, puzzling over how to fit the lengths of wood into the brackets, dropping them overboard, cracking each other’s skulls …
I hauled Annie down the deck to where one of the ship’s boats hung in its davits. I jerked loose the front tie, thrust the rope into her hand, then jumped to loose the other end. “Let it out at the same speed I do,” I ordered.
The men were too occupied to notice what we were doing. In a minute, the boat’s hull kissed the water, and I – knowing enough about small vessels to have a clear image of what would happen if my weight hit in off-centre – scrambled out over the tackles above it. I paused a moment, to be certain the thing had not immediately sunk, then dropped gently into it.
Samuel’s voice rang out, commanding me to stop. But I had the tackles and painter free and managed to shove away from the hull before he could interfere. “I won the school rowing championship when I was fifteen,” I called. “It’ll only take me a few minutes to reach him, you’ll just weigh us down.” I lit the small lamp that dangled from the skiff’s prow, then dropped myself onto the seat and the oars into their rowlocks.
There was a pang I cannot deny as the lights of the only firm place in many miles grew farther and farther away. On the other hand, the man I had nearly killed grew ever closer, letting fly with the occasional splash to keep me on the right path.
Nine minutes later, I shipped the oars and looked over the side at Holmes. “You look like a drowned rat,” I said, and put down a hand to help haul him up.
“I’m grateful that your aim was off, or I’d have gone over the side unconscious.”
“My aim wasn’t off, I changed my mind at the last moment. Here, this blanket should be warmer than the coat.” We peeled away some layers of sodden wool, and I wrapped him in the thick blanket that I had been keeping warm with my backside.
I looked over my shoulder at Harlequin. She was alarmingly small and indistinct. I grabbed the oars and got to work.
“All right, Holmes, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m your new Major-General. I thought it best to stay out of sight until we’d had a chance to talk.”
“Good Lord. Hale said that Mr Scott was taken ill, but – why?”
“Mr Scott was taken ill because I paid him – generously – to exchange a sailing ship for a sleeper train bound for the south of France.”
“You know damned well that is not what I was asking. Talk, and be quick about it – once we reach the ship, we may not have a moment to ourselves until we get to Morocco.”
“The letter you wrote on Saturday very fortunately reached me on Wednesday. It was a test of my brother’s machinery to get me to Lisbon in twenty-four hours.”
“But, why?”
“Because I was beginning in Sussex, and as you will recall-”
“Holmes, I’ll tip you back over the side!” I hissed. “Why. Are. You. Here?”
“Because of the scar on your pirate king.”
“La Rocha?”
“A man can have many names, but few men could have that wound.”
“Who is he?”
“A pirate. Among other things.”
I looked over my shoulder at the ship. It was close enough now to see by the swinging lamp-light that most of the others had gone back to their bunks – once they knew who had gone over, and saw the skiff beat the dorsal fins to the swimmer, they’d grown bored and returned to their warm cocoons. Still, we only had a few minutes before our voices would be heard by those remaining.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Holmes. Piracy was squashed two hundred years ago.”
“So long as men sail the seas, there will be pirates. La Rocha comes from a Moroccan family with a history of piracy – the accent is not as strong in his cousin.”
“Cousin? You mean Samuel?”
“His name is Selim, and they may be half-brothers instead of cousins, but yes. Although not all of the men share their linguistic history.”
My hands faltered as the Arabic name trickled down and stirred a memory: Selim. Selim the Grim. Who in 1512 became the Ottoman emperor and promptly set about slaughtering his brothers and nephews, lest they become a threat.…
I bent over the oars again: best to think of something else.
“I thought the men were Portuguese.”
“Oh, Russell, surely you-”
“Holmes!” This was no time to scold me for a mistake in accent identification.
“La Rocha took that scar in the second year of the War, when a small boat laden with gold and valuables escaped Turkey ahead of the Allied Forces. Nothing could be proved, no evidence was found. No doubt he is aware that the eyes of many agencies have been upon him for all this time, but to all appearances, he lives in peaceful retirement in his new home.”
“By ‘agencies,’ you mean Mycroft?” Damn: I knew this had something to do with the man.
“Keep rowing,” he ordered. “We don’t want them to wonder what topic two apparent strangers find so engrossing. Bad enough that it was you who came after me.”
“You’d have drowned, waiting for the others to make up their minds. Mycroft?”
“I’d have made it eventually. Yes, no doubt La Rocha is on Mycroft’s long-term list of interests.”
I thought that Mycroft’s interest was more immediate than “long-term,” but prising an admission out of Holmes – since that admission would also mean that Mycroft was ultimately behind my own presence here – might necessitate rowing in circles around Harlequin until the new day dawned, and I wanted my bed. Hammock. I went on as if Holmes had readily confessed an active focus from his brother’s shadowy agency.
“Is this to do with the missing secretary, Lonnie Johns? Has she been found?”
“A shoe very like hers was found at the top of a cliff near Portsmouth. The other was retrieved from a Jack Russell terrier, well chewed. Police theory being that the woman committed suicide, but that her note had been held down by the shoe the dog removed.”
The shadowy boat before me was replaced by images from a screen: pretty young girl; flowered frock that the wind presses against her lithe form; made-up eyes stretched with sadness; a note, tucked under her shoe; with a last woebegone look around her, her figure is replaced by:
I can live no longer, please forgive me!
And then: empty cliff-top; the approach of a small and business
-like dog, applying its button nose to the shoe atop the fluttering note … I shook the images from my head. “So what is La Rocha up to?”
“I have no idea.”
“Right.”
“On my honour, Russell, I do not.”
“Then why risk life and limb to race down here? A telegram would have sufficed. Oh, don’t tell me you’re going all protective on me, Holmes?” Granted, our last case had been rather trying, scattering us across half of Europe as we strained to communicate, but still.
“I thought you might be glad of reinforcements.”
We had come into the edges of the light from the ship, just enough that, by leaning forward, I could make out his features. I stared at his expression, then resumed my rowing before he could scold me. “You wanted to get away from Mycroft, too!”
“Shh,” he urged. Pulling the edge of the blanket forward so his face was in shadow, he murmured, “Is there any language you are certain is not spoken by any of those on board?”
“I haven’t tried them all, but I’d guess Hindustani.” And before he could scold me about that as well, I added, “Yes, guessing is deplorable, I know.”
The shadowed face seemed to fold into a brief smile, and then he sat upright into the lamp-light and said in normal tones and a Midlands accent, “I have to thank you again, Miss Russell. Quite ridiculous of me to tumble over like that, ought to make the railings tall enough to hold a man instead of tipping him overboard. What if you hadn’t been there to see me go?”
“There was a man on watch,” I loudly reassured our Major-General Stanley. “He tossed you a life-ring, too.”
“Well, I hope you haven’t spoilt your lady-like hands on the oars, you really should have let me take them.”
“I didn’t want to risk having you over again. Catch that line, would you?”
Pirate King: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mr-11 Page 18