destroy those poor men by consigning them to that hulk. They should all of them be tucked up in warm bedchambers, while instead they lie piteously below decks.”
“Recollect, Jane, that most of those poor men, as you call them, have spent a lifetime in the hold of a ship,” observed my brother mildly. “They may feel more at home in a slung hammock than they should in the best featherbed you could provide!”
“I doubt they have often benefitted from the choice,” I retorted.
“And I must agree with Sir Francis,” Frank went on, “that our convalescent British sailors should not be exposed to gaol-fever. We are too often in want of good men, to lose them in saving the French. Though I am sorry for our friend the surgeon—who seemed a good enough sort of chap—I must say that Sir Francis shows excellent sense.”
“A prison hulk, Fly! Should you like to lie in one yourself, off Boulogne or Calais?”
“I might do a good deal worse,” he rejoined. “I know Captain Smallwood, who has command of that hulk, and I should vouch for his goodwill and integrity without hesitation. He shall not like his duty, but by God, he shall do it!”
“Hurrah for Captain Smallwood.” I sighed.
With a grunt, Frank pulled off his damp boots and tossed them against the fender. A faint frown was lodged above his eyes. “You do not suspect Sir Francis Farnham of having tainted the French surgeon's food, while inspecting Wool House? Surely that is carrying your grudge too far.”
“I do not harbour any grudge,” I said coldly. “I merely observed that the Marines were over-hasty in stating that no one but ourselves had entered the gaol. Plainly, others have. Sir Francis was certainly walking among the prisoners Thursday evening; and I saw him there again this morning. Any man with ill intent, and the good luck to know exactly which meat pasty LaForge would consume, might have done it.”
“Or any woman?—One who drives a coach emblazoned with the arms of a baronet?”
I thrust back my chair, ignoring his satiric look, and crossed to the fire.
“We ought to go to Percival Pethering with your intelligence,” Frank persisted. “Think what it may do for poor Tom! We know, in this, that Chessyre met with others before the end!”
“Nell Rivers's account, though provocative in the extreme, fails to prove Seagrave's innocence. The woman in the baronet's carriage might have dropped Eustace Chessyre anywhere, and left him prey to Seagrave's or another's violence,” I replied thoughtfully. “It should not be unusual for a man to employ a woman as his lure.”
Many ladies were but too willing to serve as the tool of a powerful man, and concerned themselves little with the purpose of their activity. Consider Phoebe Carruthers, for example, with her golden head bent to the words of her companion….
“Fly … Sir Francis Farnham is a baronet, is he not?”
My brother threw up his hands. “And I suppose he veiled himself as a woman, and spoke in a voice firm and low! Next you shall be suspecting Lady Templeton of having been in both Kent and Southampton at once.”
“That is hardly necessary,” I retorted. “Chessyre was killed on Wednesday night, and I observed Lady Templeton in Portsmouth on Thursday. She spoke a great deal of her decision to quit the place the following morning—but no one thought to inform me when she had arrived.9
“I should like a glimpse of Lady Templeton,” Frank said drily. “She must be a formidable person, and much used to arduous travel. After strangling Chessyre with a garrote Wednesday night, we must suppose she poisoned Monsieur LaForge on Thursday. That is quite a piece of road between Portsmouth and Southampton, to traverse three times in twenty-four hours! And what motive could she have for despatching either man?”
“We should have to assume that she wished Tom Seagrave to hang; that she formed a plot with his disgrace as her object; and that she was unwilling either for Chessyre to recant, or LaForge to destroy, the delicate subterfuge she had constructed.”
“But why?” Frank argued. “Because Tom married her niece against all opposition, fifteen years ago? It does not make sense, Jane.”
“Not yet,” I murmured, “but perhaps with time …”
“With time, you expect to learn that LaForge is a French nobleman in disguise, and Lady Templeton an agent of Buonaparte sworn to effect his ruin. Really, Jane! At times I must believe with my mother that you indulge too much in novels!”