you call a witness; and I cannot find that Chessyre is in Hampshire.”
“Perhaps he has taken passage on an Indiaman,” I said idly, “and hopes to make his fortune without recourse to hanging.”
“Should you like some coffee?”
“Tea, I think, against the morning. You disturbed Mary last night, Frank, with your prolonged absence; I hope she is well?”
“Sleeping yet.” He consumed a bit of bacon. “I confess I had no intention of being gone so long. I went round to the Dolphin directly I quitted this house, but was told that Chessyre was out. When I had cooled my heels a full half-hour, the Dolphin's proprietor—a man by the name of Fortescue, Jane, you must recall him, with a stooped back and a balding pate—suggested I might discover my man in a particular establishment near the Quay, one apparently more to his liking.”
Frank glanced at me over the rim of his cup; his grey eyes were dancing with devilry. “I have visited any number of sinkholes in my time, Jane—in Malta and Santo Domingo and Calcutta and Oporto; and I shall not hesitate to declare the Mermaid's Tail the very worst of its kind in Southampton. It is no secret where it sits— anyone may approach, provided he possess a strong stomach and an air of insouciance—and so I doffed my hat to the immense woman who sat inside the door— all red satin and moustaches—paid my five shillings' admittance, and prepared for delight.”
“Chessyre was not within?” I concluded patiently.
“He was not. I lifted several sodden heads from stinking tables, the better to scrutinise their features; consoled one poor midshipman crying piteously into his beer; lent a pound to another who had just sold his last shirt—and upon further interrogation of the Moustached Proprietress, learned that Mr. Chessyre had not been seen at the Mermaid's Tail in at least three days.”
“Perhaps his taste in sinkholes has changed. I find nothing in this to silence alarm. Frank, how can you be so certain that Chessyre has fled?”
“Ah—but I am coming to that bit,” he assured me.
At that moment, Jenny appeared in the doorway; she had brought me tea and a quantity of soft rolls fresh from the oven. I sighed with contentment and prepared to endure the remainder of my brother's story.
“I managed to secure a guide to our lieutenant's haunts—a fellow of perhaps eleven, who works as potboy in the Mermaid's Tail. He was a likely lad, with the sharp chin and quivering nose of a weasel; he pocketed my money and led me through a warren of alleyways and foetid corners that I should never have believed existed outside of London. I poked my head into gin rooms and gambling hells and the offices of moneylenders; I visited cockfights and nunneries, and went so far as to interrogate a member of the Watch.1 By this
time, you may well believe, I had felt the loss of my dinner, and sought a poor sort of meal in the company of my young guide; the taverns were beginning to close, and I thought the boy should be sent home to bed. It was a quarter past one o'clock when I returned to the Dolphin—”
“—and was told that Lieutenant Chessyre never sought his room last night,” I concluded.
Frank's visage turned pink. “At this point I must confess that I engaged in an unpardonable subterfuge. I intimated to Fortescue that I was Chessyre's captain— that he was due to sail—that he was wanted at Spithead before the turn of the tide, or should be left aground— and in general, I made so much of a public fuss, that Fortescue agreed to unlock the Lieutenant's door.”
“Well done,” I murmured. “You examined the premises?”
“And determined that he had flown. The room was neat as a pin. It looked as though the man had been absent some hours already. The bed had not been slept in. There was not so much as a change of clothes, Jane, in the wardrobe. I rounded upon poor Fortescue and demanded to know whether he had mistaken the room! The fellow was quite put out. He had begun to suspect that he had been bilked of gold; for Chessyre had not settled the tenth part of his account, I understand.”
“—And has left any number of enemies behind him, but no direction for future enquiries!”
“He did, however, leave this” My brother flourished a crumpled sheet of paper as though it might have been his sword. The sheet had been torn in eighths, and