more apt solution, Frank? What did you learn from Seagrave this morning, in Gaoler's Alley?”
“Nothing to the purpose. Tom refused, without quarter, to discuss his activity Wednesday night; and he very nearly took off my head when I mentioned Phoebe Carruthers. All of Southampton was disposed to invade the lady's privacy, he said, because of her extreme beauty; she was an angel, she had suffered greatly, she deserved to be free of the wretched noose of gossip—et cetera, et cetera.”
“So he is in love with her.”
“Naturally. He managed, in every form of his refusal to discuss Mrs. Carruthers, to expose himself abominably. I only hope he does not behave thus before the magistrate.”
“Did you enquire about Tom's orders?”
“I did. In this, I am happy to report, he was more forthcoming.”
“Ah.” I turned away from the hearth with alacrity and regained my seat. “Excellent fellow! You have disdained all niceties and forms, you have abandoned constraint, and thrown yourself into the chase! Pray tell: Whither was Captain Seagrave bound on the fateful day he fell in with the Manon?”
Frank's grey eyes glinted. “It is most intriguing, I will confess—the stuff of novels, as I declared before! Seagrave did not wish to disclose the whole; but when I impressed upon him the gravity of his condition, he relented. It is plain he considers the orders as having nothing to do with his fate; but I cannot be so sanguine.”
“I am all agog.”
“The Stella Maris was ordered to stand off the coast of Lisbon, between Corunna and Ferrol—a treacherous bit of coastline, which the men all call the Groyne— and signal with a lantern every half-hour of the watch. between two and eight bells for three nights in succession.2 If he received a lantern beam in return—the signal was prearranged, of course—he was to land a boat and collect a stranger, for passage to Portsmouth in the Stella. Seagrave was given no hint of the man's identity, but suspected he must be a foreign agent of the Crown; your fast frigates are often employed in such jiggery-pokery schemes.”
“And did he collect his supercargo?”
“He did not. After the affair of the Manon—the battle done, the French ship repaired and despatched to port under Chessyre's management—Seagrave proceeded to the position specified in his sailing orders.
He opened the sealed packet, and commenced to wait for the proper day and hour. Three successive nights he stood off the Groyne, signalling to no avail. Not an answering beam did he discover, and no stranger was hauled from the rocks. The duty done, Tom returned to port—and found himself accused of murder.”
“Corunna might have been a subterfuge, I suppose.”
“Designed to lure Tom within striking distance of the Manon?” Frank enquired. “I thought the same. The idea is fantastic, however—particularly when one considers the possibility of the two ships missing each other in all that sea, the vagaries of wind and weather. No, Jane, it will not do.”
“By whom were the orders issued?”
“Admiral Hastings. And he can have no reason to wish Tom Seagrave ill—he and the Stella Marts have won Hastings a fortune! The Admiral should be a fool to hang the goose that laid all his golden eggs!”3
“And were the orders written by the Admiral?”
Frank hesitated. “They were certainly transcribed by Hastings's hand. Seagrave wondered whether Hastings had noted the position in error—whether the Stella had missed the agent's signal, from standing off the wrong part of the Lisbon coast. Such a mistake is possible, I suppose.”
“I do not understand you. You said that Hastings issued the orders!”
“He put them in Seagrave's hand, assuredly, and
issued them with all his authority as flag officer in command of the Channel squadron. But the orders themselves were sent by the Admiralty telegraph. There is nothing unusual in this. Frank was attempting to marshal patience; but at his words my mind and spirit were animated as if by a shaft of lightning.
“The telegraph! Of course! A convention of the Navy bent to peculiar purpose! Why did we not see it before?”
Frank looked bewildered, but I lacked sufficient time to explain. For at that very moment Phoebe Carruthers was announced.
1“The chains” refers to the chain-wale or dead-eyes, the hardware used to secure the lower shrouds of a mast to the hull of the ship. We may suppose that Charles and Edward Seagrave climbed up the bow of the ship and entered at the spot in the chain-wale where a sailor usually stood to take soundings of water depth. —Editor's note.