Hoare and the headless Captains cbh-2

by Wilder Perkins

  In a single series of smooth, practiced-looking motions, Selene Prettyman cut the fastenings of Spurrier's cope, pulled it from his shoulders, and modestly draped it over her own.

  "That's better," she said. Her palm was bleeding where it had clutched Spurrier's blade. She ripped a length from the hem of the cope, looked at it, gave an ach! of disgust, wrapped the silk around her hand, and knotted it with the other hand and her even white teeth.

  Two of the landing party made to seize her.

  "Let the lady go," Hoare said. "She's a friend of the Crown."

  "Good for you, Captain Hoare," she said. "This affair has gone quite far enough, I think." She drew the cope more closely about her.

  Rabbett had collapsed to the ground but now propped himself against the altar. His eyes, strangely small without their accustomed spectacles, looked up at Hoare in entreaty. Hoare bent down and cut away Rabbett's gag and his bonds. He turned away from the clerk's stuttering thanks to do the same for Thoday.

  "Your arrival was timely, sir," Thoday said. "This is evidently the place to which one should take recourse if one wishes to lose one's head."

  Leese came up to the group. "Sorry, sir," he said. "Two of the wretches got clear away. I'll 'ave summat to say to my people when we're back aboard, that I will. Eight smart sailormen an' all that preparation, just for four no-good rascals. Not to speak of losin' them antic folk what opened the show. I'll 'ave their 'eads."

  Shaking his own head, Leese took the three extinguished torches, lit them from the one Spurrier had rekindled, and jabbed them into the ground. In the light they cast, Leese inspected them with mingled disgust and respect.

  "Looks like great big pricks," he said. "Beg pardon, ma'am."

  "We got the only man we needed, Leese," Hoare said. "Perhaps it's for the better that the others got away."

  "You speak no less than the truth," Selene Prettyman said. Her voice was low but heartfelt.

  "Well, sir!" came Abel Dunaway's voice from the dark outside the Stones Circle. "I think my lads 'ave bagged ye some pretty little coneys! Come along, lads, and show the Captain what ye found!"

  "Oh, my God," Hoare whispered. They had managed to see Cumberland off unscathed. Had the smuggler, thinking to help, brought him back?

  One at a time, hustled along by Dunaway's men, fugitive celebrants began to appear. The smugglers' bag numbered five of the women, three of the men. The captives' ecstasy had worn off; the women clutched themselves from modesty or cold, or both, while the men simply looked hangdog. The two Frobishers, the rest of the men, and the four faun-urchins had evidently eluded the new arrivals.

  So, Hoare saw with relief, had Ernest, Duke of Cumberland.

  "If your men will take over our bag now, sir," Mr. Dunaway said, "we'll be. off. It's as well your men don't get too good a look at mine."

  "Of course, Captain," Hoare replied. "Where the Navy failed, your people succeeded. Well done, and my thanks to you all."

  He swept his eyes over as many of Dunaway's men as would meet his glance before they all drifted away into the night. Dunaway waved cheerfully as he disappeared.

  "It's just as well, Hoare," said Selene Prettyman, "that the Frobishers got away and took our noble friend with them. They were off before the real mischief started, after all. And while Sir Thomas may be objectionable and more than a little mad, he is still a power in the region and in parliament. He is better disarmed than destroyed.

  "And in case of need, both you and I-and your crew, of course-saw his son and daughter taking part in that silly performance. No, with a tale like that hanging over his head, we have no more need to disturb ourselves with Sir Thomas.

  "Mr. Spurrier's other master now, whoever he is… that's another thing. We must interrogate the good Captain-intensively, if need be. For that, best we take him to Dorchester."

  Hoare felt an unaccountable reluctance, first, to do Selene Prettyman's bidding and, second, to relinquish Spurrier to her.

  "To Royal Duke, I think, ma'am," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Because you were among this evening's celebrants. I do not trust you with our captives."

  "You forget, sir, I am 'friend of the Crown.' You yourself have said it, and it's greatly to your credit. It was I who gave you the warning and I who was responsible for his capture, Captain Hoare," she said.

  Hoare preferred to divert her from that issue.

  "Nonetheless, I must not habituate myself to having a lady preventing the escape of my adversary, leaving him for me to capture," Hoare said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Mrs. Graves crippled the skiff in which my last villain was rowing to safety…Just now, you enabled me to catch Spurrier when you tripped him."

  Hearing his name, Spurrier sat up and groaned. The side of his head was bleeding slightly where Selene Prettyman had swatted it.

  "Ah, yes, Mrs. Graves," Selene Prettyman said. "And how, pray, did she 'cripple' the skiff?"

  "She slung a stone. It broke one of its thole pins. He capsized in the surf. I went on from there."

  "I must remember to keep out of slinging range of Eleanor Graves, then, must I not?"

  Mrs. Prettyman put a slim, strong hand on Hoare's arm.

  "But surely, Captain Hoare, you can do better for yourself than a globular widow. Why, she…"

  Upon seeing Hoare's expression, Selene Prettyman stopped in midsentence.

  "That was inexcusable of me, Captain Hoare," she said.

  "Yes, madam, it was. I thank you for your intervention with Mr. Spurrier, and I wish you a good evening."

  With that, Hoare left Selene Prettyman standing. He summoned the landing party, and departed for Dorchester with the captives. Mrs. Selene Prettyman could find her own damned way.

  On the way to Dorchester, Hoare instructed Leese to let all the participants in the ceremony escape, except Spurrier and the hard henchmen who had brought Rabbett and Thoday to the altar in the Nine Stones Circle. In the first place, Hoare reasoned, the folk who had been present at the pagan rite could at the most be no more than Spurrier's deluded devotees-harmless, eccentric perhaps, and now very frightened. In the second place, Royal Duke, while a brig herself, had no accommodations for prisoners-no brig, so to speak, he told himself half-hysterically. He put the horrid jest in that mental commonplace book of his, against possible future need.

  So he merely had Rabbett take down their particulars before releasing them in the town. As Hoare had expected, the clerk already knew most of them. One, for example, was the wife of the town grocer, another a ne'er-do-well ditcher.

  "Remind me, Rabbett," Hoare said, "to give their names to the vicar at the Church of All Angels. They committed their sins in his parish, I think. He can do as he will with them."

  "Yes, sir," Rabbett said. "If you wish, I'll give 'em to Vicar myself as soon as possible."

  "I think not, Rabbett. Tomorrow, you must be aboard Royal Duke. I need you there."

  He heard the clerk's gasp. Was it with pleasure or fear?

  "If I may, then, sir, I would like to bid my old mam and da farewell. And pick up my other shoes. For 'tis a long walk to Weymouth."

  "Do you ride, Rabbett?"

  Rabbett could not, nor, as Hoare found when he inquired, did the otherwise omnicompetent Thoday. So Hoare silenced his conscience and ordered Rabbett to roust out a chaise for himself, Hoare, Thoday, and their prisoner and a wagon to carry Leese, the landing party, and the other prisoners. Spurrier he would keep to himself and interrogate him in the chaise as they rolled south to Weymouth.

  While weary, Thoday could still summon up advice for his Commander.

  "We might, sir, visit Mr. Spurrier's place of business while en route to Weymouth," he said. "A more leisurely inspection than I had time to conduct during my clandestine intrusion could produce interesting results."

  Spurrier must have overheard, for he started. "You will find nothing of interest, Hoare, I assure you," he said.

  "Pipe down, you," Leese said
.

  Hoare followed Thoday's advice. Joined eventually by the weary Rabbett, they searched Spurrier's quarters by candlelight, from stem to gudgeon, not neglecting his bedroom. Thoday set out to test every panel and every floorboard for secret hiding places.

  He found one at last and crawled into it, carrying a dark lantern. On emerging, he shook his head.

  "Nothing except this old missal," he said disgustedly, holding out the dusty book. "The place is merely an old priest's hole."

  It was past dawn when they were through with the turning out of Spurrier's quarters. Thoday sighed.

  "I think we have it all here, sir," he said, displaying a small heap of papers. "I fear there is nothing of interest beyond what I found on my last visit, but we can put our discoveries before the-your crew and see what they make of them."

  "A very good performance, Thoday," Hoare said.

  "Elementary," Thoday replied.

  "Did you check the dovecote, Thoday?" Rabbett asked.

  "What dovecote? Where?"

  "In back of the house, of course. I thought you knew about it."

  Thoday vanished downstairs; the other two followed him. Shortly he returned, feathers sticking to his shoulders, holding a pigeon awkwardly away from his face to avoid the bird's bill. The bird looked disconcerted, as well it might. A tiny silvery cartridge was attached to one of its ruby red legs.

  "Here, Rabbett. Hold the bird while I take off the message tube," Thoday said.

  "I'll take care of it, Thoday," Rabbett said. "When it comes to pigeons, you obviously don't know what you're doing. We Rabbetts have lived among pigeons all our days."

  Holding the pigeon gently, Rabbett slipped off the cartridge and handed it to Hoare.

  "Here, sir," Rabbett said. "I'll just go and give the creature its reward."

  The message was en clair.

  " 'Levi,' " Hoare read, " 'Stop. Stop. Stop. Saul.' "

  Saul?

  "You were very clever, Spurrier," Hoare whispered to the bound man facing him as they jolted toward Weymouth in the chaise. Thoday sat beside Spurrier, Rabbett beside Hoare.

  "You juggled two balls at once, very neatly-killing officers of the Royal Navy on the one hand, and disguising the work with Black Masses to beguile-"

  "Not Black Masses, man," Spurrier said with a grin of contempt. "What you chanced upon was to be no more than a rite of initiation. If I had been celebrating a genuine mass, as I should have done, it seems, His Royal Highness would not have been so disappointed. And neither you nor your helots would have survived your spying. There I was fatally foolish."

  "That is as may be," Thoday said in a flat voice. "What intrigued me is that you built further on the edifice of superstition you first designed. But you made another mistake. I became aware of it just as I saw you about to sacrifice my little friend here. There you and your bullies went, crushing under your feet the fruits and flowers that the neighborhood's innocent nature worshipers had brought to the harvest festival with which you opened that obscene rite of yours."

  "That was a dreadful waste, of course," Spurrier replied with a cynical smile. "But what was mistaken about it?"

  "It made it obvious that on the first occasion, when you chose the Nine Stones Circle as the place to put the two Captains to death, you had no idea of involving the paganism, or Satanism, or whatever you choose to call the creed that you follow. That notion came to you only when you returned to your quarters after your double murder. It was then that you took garlands of flowers and produce back to the Nine Stones Circle and scattered them about, as if they were left by a cult."

  "I don't follow you, Mr. Thoday," Rabbett said. "The whole thing was bad, but what was the mistake?"

  "He forgot to tread them down the first time. That was when I all but knew he had revisited the Stones Circle after killing the two late Captains."

  Spurrier's lips thinned. Then he shrugged and looked carelessly out the window of the chaise.

  "You wrote a two-act play, Spurrier," Hoare said. "One in which you cast the Duke of Cumberland as the protagonist… and, I suppose, those poor deluded folk in your congregation as the chorus. In Act I, you tried to show off to the Duke with your silly pagan ritual. Perhaps… you knew beforehand that it wouldn't be enough to take him in."

  For a fleeting instant, Hoare thought of suggesting that, for some peculiar reason of his own, Spurrier had planned from the beginning to drive him off. That would have made no sense at all.

  "In any case," he went on instead, "it was only after he marched off that you commenced Act II, which was to be the climax of the play-the murder of my two… Naval investigators.

  "What gave you the idea of using that means of covering up your part in the killings?" Hoare went on. "It cannot have been the Duke of Cumberland. Unpleasant… he may be, but he was obviously a mere observer of your performance and not an informed participant."

  "You'll have to ask someone else that, Hoare," Spurrier drawled. "You are insolent, just as Sir Thomas said you were, as well as stupid."

  That he was still naked to the waist and no longer even had the blasphemous cope to keep him warm in the November dawn had evidently not dampened his superb self-confidence.

  "Your master, Sir Thomas, has much to answer for," Hoare replied, "and answer for it he will. It's a pity for you that you did not receive his last message before you, er, raised the curtain on your two-act melodrama."

  "You are absurd as well as impudent," Spurrier said. "The frog-the man you call my master-he's no more than a useful puppet, an o ver-the-hill jackanapes with mad pretensions of being the rightful occupant of the throne. It was bad enough that his tadpoles had to be present. D'ye think that if the frog himself had anything to do with it, I could have got…"

  "Got what?"

  Spurrier shook his head.

  "A different frog, then, Spurrier? A Frog from over the water, perhaps?"

  "I have nothing further to tell you," Spurrier declared. "In the first place, you are my enemy. More important, you interrupted a holy sacrifice. So did the Prettyman woman. She will live to regret it, as will you, but not for long. Both of you will regret last night's doings, I promise you on behalf of my masters. My word, yes."

  Rabbett's face went white in the dawning, while Thoday's remained impassive.

  "So you serve two masters, Spurrier," Hoare whispered. "One on earth, I suppose, and one… elsewhere. You will forgive me, I'm sure, if I confess myself a devout skeptic concerning the Deity's existence; that being the case, I must logically doubt the existence of the Enemy as well.

  "It is your earthly master that interests me. His purpose I think we know; it is to throw a spoke in the wheel of the Royal Navy whenever he can. The infernal machines your colleague Kingsley caused to be planted in Vantage and her sister ships out of Portsmouth were one such spoke; your attempt to decapitate the Navy by decapitating its senior officers was another."

  Here Thoday intervened. "I must confess, sir, that the purpose of Mr. Spurrier's essay at gathering in the Duke of Cumberland eludes me. Perhaps he will enlighten me."

  When Spurrier had nothing to say, Hoare decided to put up a possible motive to see if he could bounce the prisoner into telling more.

  "I rather suppose, Thoday," Hoare said, "that the notion stemmed from Sir Thomas… by example, perhaps, or by direction. The bee in Sir Thomas's bonnet, about his being the rightful occupant of the throne now beneath King George-"

  "God bless him!" Rabbett declared.

  "— yes, Rabbett-is well known. And it is also well known that the Prince's younger brothers, Cumberland in particular, have ambitions of their own in that direction.

  "If Spurrier here could stir up the Duke, turn him into a fellow Satanist-if he needed turning, that is-and promise him support from over the Channel, that would be a spoke in the wheel, not only of the Navy… but of the entire kingdom, would it not?"

  Although Thoday made no observation, his look told Hoare that his point had merit. Spurrier's express
ion told Hoare he had struck home.

  But the chaise was approaching Weymouth, and time was running out.

  "Pray tell me about your master," Hoare whispered. "The earthly one, I mean. His name, his whereabouts."

  Spurrier uttered an imprecation from between thinned lips. "I have nothing to say to you," he said. "You and your crew are dead men."

  That might be the case, Hoare admitted to himself, for it was obvious that Spurrier himself was in deadly fear.

  As the chaise drew up to the low scarp overlooking Weymouth, Hoare could see Royal Duke hove to outside the harbor, breasting the easy seas that rolled gently in from the Channel. He also heard the sound of bells. It was a confused cacophony, a compound of merry, even jubilant rounds, underlain by a solemn tolling, as if for a great person's death. The ringing must come from every church in Weymouth town.

  Once down in the town itself, Hoare thrust his head out of the chaise window.

  "What is happening?" he croaked at a passerby, but must needs repeat himself before the other raised his head. His face was beslobbered with tears.

  "It's Nelson," the man said. "Dead, dead. Struck, he was, at the instant of victory."

  The party was silent amid the bells until they had hoisted their prisoner into a wherry and were being rowed out to Royal Duke.

  "I shall never forget this moment," Thoday said in a voice pregnant with feeling. "The morning of November the sixth, 1805. This is the place, and the time, where I was when I learned of Nelson's death."

  Spurrier's two hard men were not so hard after all, Hoare found. Questioned separately, both admitted having been present when Spurrier butchered the two Captains Getchell and to having been among the gang that assaulted Admiral Hardcastle and Delancey in Admiralty House. They denied knowledge of the dead Marine, Baker, and knew nothing of his head's whereabouts. When it came to disclosing the names of the person or persons behind Spurrier, their claims of ignorance were persuasive.