A Burial at Sea

by Charles Finch

  He broadened his search, moving in concentric circles around the entire quarterdeck and looking for anything out of place or unusual. But his efforts went unrewarded: besides the crack in the wood of the deck and the coin-shaped object, nothing out of the ordinary presented itself to his (keen, he hoped) eye.

  He went downstairs, following the surgeon and the officers by some fifteen minutes.

  They were all stood around Halifax’s body, which was on a table roughly waist-high. In a dim corner of the long, low-ceilinged room Tradescant’s sole patient slumbered on. There was plenty of light around the cadaver, however.

  Tradescant had a bucket of water and a sponge and was very carefully sluicing Halifax’s wounds, then drying them with a cloth. When he saw Lenox he plucked something from the table and held it up: several blue threads.

  “From the wounds around his heart. No doubt from his nightshirt.”

  “Have you found anything else?”

  “Not yet. We were correct in our surmise that the … surgery on Lieutenant Halifax’s body came after his death, whose cause was this flurry of stabs to the heart.” Tradescant pointed to an area cleansed now of blood but still brutal-looking. “At the moment I’m only trying to wash him.”

  Lenox approached the table. Martin and Billings were some feet off, staring impassively on; Billings had a handkerchief over his nose.

  “I wonder if all of his organs are intact,” the detective said.

  “Sir?”

  “Or if an organ might be missing altogether—liver, spleen, stomach.”

  Tradescant peered into the body. “That will take a moment or two. Why do you ask?”

  “The peculiar nature of these cuts to his torso—that they’re not random or angry, like the initial stab wounds, but surgical. It makes me wonder if the murderer had some specific aim.”

  “I see.”

  “Such a method isn’t unknown. Burke and Hare were surgeons in Edinburgh, though they preferred smothering, which is why we call it burking now. Then there was the American killer Ranet in 1851, working around Chicago. He extracted the livers of his victims.”

  “Why?”

  “He was a cannibal, I’m afraid.”

  Billings, already looking pale, rushed out of the room.

  Tradescant nodded. “I’ll do a thorough examination of the abdominal region, then,” he said.

  “The heart is still there?”

  “Yes—that I can say with certainty. For the rest, give me a moment.”

  Lenox found that he liked Tradescant; the man was admirably calm despite his advancing age, steady-handed, and frank.

  “In that case, Captain, perhaps we might have a word?” said Lenox.

  “I was just about to suggest the same. First I must attend to the ship, however, since Halifax cannot. Come on deck with me if you like.”

  It was past five in the morning now, and the vast black sky had begun to show the pale blue light, at first almost like lavender against the black of night, that comes at dawn. Martin, with creditable energy, ran briskly up to the poop deck, gave several orders there, and then dismissed Carrow, ordering him to send up the next watch before he went to sleep.

  “And get this quarterdeck swabbed and holystoned,” he added, then disappeared below deck, holding up a finger to Lenox to tell him to wait.

  New men arrived on deck as the exhausted men of the middle watch strung up their hammocks in between the cannons on the gun deck and fell asleep. Soon these awakened sailors were cleaning: the broad slap of the swabs, mixed with hot water, diluting and then vanishing Halifax’s blood. Groggy at first, they exchanged quiet words about what might have happened, and then, rumor quickening, spurred on by the strange state of the sails, the level of the chatter rose. A midshipman Lenox hadn’t seen, quite old, told them to keep it down, but still it was only five minutes before everyone on deck understood, somehow, that it was Halifax who had been wounded. Leaning against the rail of the quarterdeck Lenox listened to theories fly; it was a duel, it was a fistfight, it was a pistol shot from a French ship. He was pleased in a glum way to hear the men speak affectionately of the dead lieutenant.

  At last Martin came back on deck.

  “Apologies,” he said. “I was having a word with Billings. We’re going to have all the men on deck in the forenoon and identify whatever fiend did this to Halifax. Unless you object?”

  “No. In fact I think it’s wise—such social pressure often brings someone feeling guilt to confess. Though I wonder whether someone capable of this sort of murder feels much compunction.”

  “What are your initial impressions of the matter, Mr. Lenox? I don’t know how long we can sail with this over our heads. The men already know.”

  “I heard.”

  “Well?” said Martin. “Give me some good news, would you?”

  “I haven’t drawn any conclusions, unfortunately. There are clues however.”

  “Yes?”

  “Firstly, let us discuss how the body might have reached the quarterdeck. There are three ways that I can see.”

  “What are they?”

  “First, that the murder was carried out there.”

  “Unlikely,” said Martin.

  “Why?”

  “Noise, for a start. Everyone would have heard an argument or, more likely still, a fight.”

  “True. And even if he had been taken by surprise, Halifax would have shouted before the knife struck him, I imagine—the stabbing came from the front, not from behind. Would the quarterdeck have been empty?”

  “For short periods, but even in the dead of night someone or other is generally there every few minutes, one of the midshipmen or lieutenants on duty who circulates through the ship.”

  “Just as I thought—after all, the body was discovered almost instantly. We’ll count that as possible, but not probable.”

  “Yes,” said Martin. Because of his premature gray hair it was easy to mark him as old or weary, but there had been a steeliness in him all night that showed why he had a ship full of sailors who had chosen to stay on with him. He was responsible, resourceful, energetic: a good captain.

  “The second option is that someone killed him below deck and brought him up. It would have been insanely chancy, of course. And then, where to kill him? I suppose an officer’s cabin—perhaps even Halifax’s cabin, which I would like to inspect soon—but I doubt that too.”

  “What is the third option?”

  Lenox sighed and looked up among the masts. “Was there a crack—a splinter—in one of the boards on the quarterdeck, before we left Plymouth?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Are there men aloft—among the riggings and those platforms I see at intervals going up each mast—during the middle watch?”

  “Rarely. At war or near land perhaps someone in the crow’s nest. But visibility is nil.”

  “And might a man go up there at that time without being seen?”

  “Very easily. But can you mean—”

  “Yes. I think Halifax was lured up this back mast—”

  “That one, Mr. Lenox? From fore to aft the three masts are called the foremast, the mainmast, and the mizzenmast. You are pointing in the direction of the mizzenmast.”

  “That platform halfway up—you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would bet any fellow in Piccadilly that Halifax met his killer there, under some pretense, and died there too.”

  “Their voices would have carried, surely.”

  “Not if the murderer stressed the need for secrecy and quiet. A knife can appear very quickly in someone’s hand, and the stabbing may have been so violent because the murderer wanted to silence Halifax immediately. Hence the contrast with the later cuts…”

  “But you mean to say, then, Mr. Lenox, that in this hypothetical scenario a man carried Halifax, a large gentleman, halfway down the mizzenmast and onto the quarterdeck, without being spied?”

  “No. I think he was murdered there, and then toss
ed down onto the quarterdeck. It would be a straight fall down, and from there the murderer could have done his work deliberately and thrown the body down when he saw, from above, that those on deck weren’t looking. The weight of Halifax’s body falling from such a height cracked a board beneath his body.”

  “Jesus. Like a sack of flour.”

  “That’s the loud thump Carrow reported, I daresay, which compelled him to go down to the quarterdeck in the first place.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  If nothing else, Martin was decisive. He ran straight up to the quarterdeck to look at the crack in the board that had been underneath Halifax’s body.

  “You,” he called out to the midshipman who was sitting on the rail, looking out at the water, “go and fetch me Mr. Carrow and Midshipman Lenox. They were the only two officers on duty during the middle watch, I believe?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then go. I see you hesitating—yes, you have permission to wake Carrow up. Lenox it goes without saying.”

  The boy ran off downstairs.

  Martin went over to the plank—the whole deck was now innocent of blood, though Halifax’s body had lain there scarcely an hour before—and looked at the crack.

  “New?” Lenox asked.

  “Unquestionably. You need only look at the wood.”

  “Quite so.”

  Martin stood up. “Where is that blasted Carrow?” he said, though there had barely been time for the midshipman to get below deck. “Well—no matter—up we go, Mr. Lenox.”

  “Both of us?”

  “It’s no climb at all—thirty feet—children do it. Old Joe Coffey goes to the crow’s nest for his cup of grog every evening, and he must be seventy.”

  Lenox was in fair physical condition—he often took his scull out on the Thames to row—but suddenly doubted whether he could make it up the taut, unyielding rigging without falling and smacking his head. On land it would have been a simple task, but the pitch and roll of the ship made everything unsteady.

  Still, the tale of Old Joe Coffey (whom Lenox suddenly rather despised as a show-off) goaded him on. “You first, then,” he said.

  “Remember you’re on my ship, Mr. Lenox.” A hint of a smile came into Martin’s face. “You mustn’t give me orders.”

  “Of course. Shall I go first?”

  “No, no.” He paused. “I’ve just thought—it’s a damn good sight I’ve left the sails slack—otherwise the platform would have been trampled on no end as the men set sail, and the whole area might have been contaminated.”

  Martin leaped onto the rigging, shouting a man out of the way, and began to climb like a monkey. Lenox followed—much more slowly, not at all like a monkey, in fact, unless it was some tremulous old monkey who had never been much for climbing anyway. At first the rigging felt solid enough, but as he got higher the small waves that smacked the ship began to vibrate in the ropes. Halfway up he made the mistake of looking down and concluded the fall would probably kill him, not least because of the uneven surfaces below.

  (Was it possible the fall had killed Halifax, and that the wounds—some of them, all of them—were postmortem? But why? No, it was a silly thought.)

  Eventually, with much deliberation and care, he reached the perch where Martin had now been for some time. The captain’s face made clear what he had found. After Lenox had pulled himself through the hole he steadied himself, then looked down.

  There was blood spattered across the low railing and a great slick swath of it, drying into a darker color, at their feet.

  “This is our spot, then,” said Martin. He didn’t speak for a moment. “Look at this blood. Halifax—he was the most placid of men. Of officers in this service. I can’t conceive of anyone wanting to kill him.”

  “My question is how it was done.”

  “Isn’t that plain enough?”

  “I suppose—only this area is barely big enough for the two of us to stand. Wouldn’t a fight spill one or the other over?”

  “Maybe it spilled Halifax over.”

  “No, because he had been very precisely prepared before he fell to the quarterdeck, I believe. The real question is whether the man who killed Halifax has any marks on him.”

  “We shall see when all the men are piped up to the main deck for inspection.”

  Lenox shook his head. “I still wonder whether he would have gotten out of bed for a common sailor … met them here … I suppose there are circumstances under which it might have been possible.”

  “A false name, for instance—saying that I or one of the lieutenants wanted to see him there, perhaps a midshipman,” said Martin, “but I think it exceedingly doubtful.”

  “Or perhaps one of the sailors provoked him into coming there, with a threat or a piece of gossip. Mutiny, say.”

  Martin’s face went deadly serious. “No, sir,” he said.

  “I don’t mean that it would have been true. A ruse.”

  Still, the captain didn’t seem to like it. “Well.”

  “Listen—while we have a moment to ourselves—do you know what this might be?”

  Lenox pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it, stained red but dry. The object he had found, coin-shaped and -sized, lay in the middle.

  “A large coin, I would have said. A crown?”

  “No, look closer.” He rubbed some more blood off of it, though it was still hard to make out the writing on it. “I’ll need to wash it, but for the moment…”

  “It’s a medal, isn’t it?”

  “I thought so too. Can you identify it?”

  Martin picked it up and turned it over twice, looking much more painstakingly now. “Maybe, once you soak it and the lettering comes clean. It’s naval, I can say that much. Silver. An officer’s medal.”

  “Possibly Halifax’s?”

  “Possibly.”

  “But he wouldn’t have carried a medal with him to such an assignation, would he have?”

  “No, I highly doubt it. It would have been in a box, the sort you keep for cuff links, and worn with his best uniform.”

  “Ceremonial occasions, then. Not pinned to his nightshirt.”

  “Never.”

  Lenox thought for a moment and then sighed. “I suppose we had better go look at his cabin. If I weren’t out of practice I would have done it before. Now someone may have been in it already. Stupid.”

  “Let’s hurry, then.”

  Going down the rigging was considerably easier than going up, so easy that Lenox was fooled into false confidence and nearly slipped a quarter of the way down before he caught himself. On deck Martin barked an order at someone to clean the perch straightaway.

  Carrow and Teddy Lenox were waiting for them on the main deck.

  “Sir?” said Carrow.

  “Mr. Lenox,” said Martin, “would you go to Halifax’s cabin or hear their story?”

  Lenox sighed. “We must hear their story while it is fresh in their minds,” he said. “Perhaps a sentry could be posted—”

  “Very well, it shall be done. Come down to the wardroom,” said the captain to Carrow and Teddy. “We’ll speak there.”

  In the wardroom Carrow told their story. Teddy Lenox, looking in uniform perhaps more suited to his new role, stood by silently. They had both been on the poop deck when they heard a thump. After a moment or two Carrow, curious to see if perhaps a bird had smacked into the ship or some piece of equipment had fallen, went down and discovered Halifax’s body.

  “Did you see it?” Martin asked Teddy.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You went down after Carrow?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then he dismissed you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lenox badly wanted a word with his nephew, but knew this wasn’t the moment to have it.

  “Did you see anyone in the rigging of the mizzenmast at around the same time?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” said Carrow. “It was dark, of course, and beyond that you woul
dn’t expect anyone to be up skylarking in the middle watch, barring, I don’t know, a squall or some enemy action.”

  “Quite right,” said Martin.

  “How many men would have been on deck during your watch, Lieutenant?” asked Lenox.

  “A few more than twenty.”

  “Where would they have congregated?”

  “Sir?”

  “Are they at work the whole while?”

  “Oh—no, sir. Unless they have orders they would be on the main deck, or perhaps up at the fore of the ship, sitting along the bowsprit.”

  “At the other end of the ship from the quarterdeck, in other words.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I see. Another question, if you don’t mind—which of the men on this ship are capable of violence, in your opinion?” he asked both the young lieutenant and Martin.

  “Difficult to say,” Martin answered. “In the right circumstance, all of them.”

  McEwan chose this moment to lumber through the door with a biscuit in his hand. He retreated to his hallway, bowing as he left, when he saw that the room was occupied.

  “Except him, perhaps,” said Martin. “But of course the men will all fight. Carrow? You deal with the sailors more from day to day.”

  “There are a few bad tempers, sir.”

  Lenox shook his head. “No—a planned meeting, the surgical nature of Halifax’s wounds—I don’t think this was a moment of bad temper, but rather one of planned and executed malice. Still, Mr. Carrow, if you would put a list together of men you don’t trust, it would be useful.”

  Carrow looked unhappy, but nodded when he saw in Martin’s face a stern confirmation of this request. “They’re good men, sir,” he added, as if to formally express his unhappiness with the request.

  “One of them is not,” Lenox said. “Now, would one of you show me Lieutenant Halifax’s cabin? Then we shall see how Mr. Tradescant has progressed. With your permission, of course, Captain.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Halifax’s cabin was a good deal smaller than Lenox’s. The detective—for the last few hours had made him such a creature again, which he knew because he felt that peculiar vibrant alertness in his mind that this work had always galvanized in him—visited it alone.