Most Secret

by John Dickson Carr

  “Captain Souter, what is the meaning of this?”

  “You!” roared Félix. “You! He sheathed the cutlass. He reached out and took Gaines by the throat. “You are one damn’ fine t’inker, ain’t it? You get us into all dis. Listen, Goddam Gaines. Don’ you ’ear not’ing?”

  “Hear?”

  In a sudden gust of fury Félix lifted Gaines by the neck. The knife spun into the air, flew against a curtain, and dropped. Screeching like a strangled parrot—a sound he had made once before—Gaines was borne across the cabin with his toes just bumping the deck. His face was thrust out of one shattered window, and his neck twisted round to starboard.

  “If you don’ ’ear not’ing,” shouted Félix, “maybe you ’ave got eyes and can see. Look!”

  But they all heard another noise now. Distantly a deep crash echoed out across water; a kind of wail grew into a scream overhead, and not far away there was a heavy splash.

  “Dat be de second shot across our bows,” said Félix, “as a sign we mus’ ’eave to. De Saucy Ann ’ave come up. And two warships wit’ her.”

  He yanked Gaines back and hurled him away. Gaines, evidently only half comprehending, staggered back against the table. He clutched at its surface, scrabbled at The Consolation of Philosophy, and finally regained his balance as the book was knocked to the deck.

  “Warships?” repeated Kinsmere; he shouted in his turn. “Warships?”

  It was all over. He would live; he would see Dolly again. And he was free of ropes. At the same time, when he essayed to stand upright his legs proved momentarily so unsteady that he sat down again.

  “Two warships, I tell you,” yelled Félix, “which I ’ave seen before. Royal Standard, fifty-eight gun. Rupert, fifty gun. Each one mount more metal dan we do; toget’er dey blow us up like a powder keg wit one broadside. Is wonderful, eh?”

  This time Kinsmere did stand up. His legs remained shaky, but he contrived it. And then, to his own surprise, he found himself speaking genially.

  “Well, Félix,” he said, “how does it feel to be a pirate? Hoist de bones! Blood in de scuppers! Have you no mind to make a stand for it? Where is the fighting blood of the buccaneer?”

  Félix lifted one fist in a mighty gesture that suggested the beginning of a dying speech. But he checked himself, scowled, dropped his arm, deflated his chest, and ended by scratching his nose.

  “No,” he said, “no! I tell you before: I am one philosopher. Now I suppose dey are goin’ to ’ang me. Well! It ’appen to everbody, and it ’appen to old Félix. But all I care about—’im,” Félix roared, and pointed a massive finger at Gaines. “De wet-nosed salaud dat carry himself like de Emperor of China, and cause all de trouble for everybody. Should I jump on his face and kill him now, do you t’ink, or should I wait for dem to ’ang ’im wit’ me? Regard! Dey will ’ang ’im, won’t dey?” he asked anxiously. “I don’t want to make no mistake about dat. Dey will ’ang ’im?”

  “Yes, you may feel sure of that now or later they’ll hang him. Most probably sooner than later, though. A drumhead court-martial, and up he goes to the yardarm.”

  “Ah, dass good. I t’ink, yoong man, we ’ad better go up on deck and talk to your friends when dey send de longboat. I could try to argue wit’ dem and swear you are not ’ere, but I t’ink dey know already. Besides,” a chuckle rumbled up in Félix’s throat, and he nodded, “besides, I tell you, I like your ways!”

  “If I were you, Félix,” said Kinsmere, “I should not be inclined to worry or brood too much about your position. You are a thorough-going damned scoundrel, let’s allow; but I find your ways tolerable enough. Permit me to explain your behaviour, perhaps not with the strictest truth; there is no reason to suppose they’ll hang you. With any luck, you will yet live to hoist the bones and sail on the Account.”

  “Eh? What you say?”

  Kinsmere repeated it. Felix blew like an exhausted horse.

  “Dere is justice,” he roared at last. “Dere is justice, and Boethius have protect me. Come! We go on deck! You too, de damn one dat cause all the trouble! You!”

  Salvation Gaines, drawn up and rigid, looked at them loftily from under reddish eyelids.

  “If I am to hang, Captain Souter, be sure you will hang too. I will contrive that, if I contrive nothing else. But this may not be! It cannot be! The Lord shall lead His anointed out of the sorest of their tribulations. I prophesy—”

  “Come!” said Félix. “Come! Or do I take you by de seat of de breeches? Come!”

  Gaines paused only long enough to snatch up his knife. Then, with Félix holding one of his arms in an iron grip, they went up on deck.

  The Thunderer was lying to, her helm hard down and her upper canvas furled. And she was very quiet. The crew, though with a restive and sullen air, had lined up in orderly fashion. No arms could be seen anywhere; no gun match had been lighted.

  Kinsmere drank in cool air as he emerged on the quarter-deck and descended to the main deck. The sun was declining towards midafternoon (how much time had elapsed!); lengthening shadows wavered across the boards.

  Off the starboard quarter, on a quiet sea flecked with whitecaps, there were other shadows. A shabby sloop, her fore-and-aft rig seeming very lean in contrast to the square-riggers that accompanied her, was also hove to and lowering a longboat. Well out beyond, spaced as though at either side, towered the spars of the two men-o’-war. Even viewing them across the bows, Kinsmere could see the gun muzzles that twinkled along the line of great curved hulls; and from each mainmasthead flew the Cross of St George.

  Kinsmere’s heart rose up when he saw it. How these ships had come here he had no idea. He was only grateful for their presence; for the clean air again, and the day. All things had turned pleasant—the luminous sky, the grey sparkling water that turned blue in the distance—all things save one. He glanced at Salvation Gaines, and averted his eyes. It would be no pleasant business to see even Gaines hanged, on a day like this.

  The Saucy Ann’s longboat, full of armed men, came dipping across the swell. He could see Bygones Abraham’s burly figure in the bow, scanning the side; and he walked to the rail to answer the hail from the longboat Felix bellowed an order; two men moved out to throw down a Jacob’s-ladder.

  The crew were muttering now; an uneasy movement ran through them. Across the waist to the forecastle straggled a crooked trail of blood where their wounded had been carried from the battle in the cabin. One of their dead must only just have died. They had not thrown him overboard; he lay on straw, his head lolling.

  The longboat scraped the Thunderer’s side. Somebody screamed out an insult from the forecastlehead; the mutter rose and swelled, and there was a rattle as though of an unseen cutlass unsheathed. Faintly across water rang a sharp command from the Royal Standard. She began to come round with deadly slowness, her musketeers in the crosstrees and her gunners at battle station with lighted matches in their hands. The mutter instantly died.

  Up over the rail clambered Bygones Abraham. His mottled face wore lines of grimness, and his hat was pulled down to hide a bandage round the head. After him climbed a wiry, middle-aged man in a frowsy jerkin, red breeches, and sea boots.

  Bygones lumbered forward to shake hands; then he stood back and surveyed Kinsmere.

  “They made a tack at it, then, did they? Body o’ Pilate, lad, what befell?”

  My grandfather presented Captain Félix Alexandre Charlemagne Souter.

  “For the honesty of this gentleman, Bygones, I can answer on my honour. He would cut nobody’s throat—nobody’s!—unless few other courses were open to him …”

  “Hah!” proclaimed Félix, throwing out his chest and beaming with pleasure. “Yoong sir, dat is most ’andsome. I t’ank you.”

  “Yet there has been something of a confusion—”

  “Already,” said Bygones, “I would ha’ laid sixpence on it. Ecod, lad, have you had a look at yourself? There’s blood splashed all over you, though most of it don’t seem to be yours �
��”

  “No!” roared Felix, lifting a heavy arm. “Thees is not’ing, I tell you, not’ing to speak of whatever! De yoong man has been playing a little, dass all.”

  Bygones paid no attention to this.

  “Well?” he demanded, looking narrowly at my grandfather. “You have still got it, I hope? There has been no confusion about that, has there? You’ve still got it?”

  “Got it? Got what?”

  “Your half of … Oh, ecod!”

  “My half of it?” Once more Kinsmere’s wits were whirling. “Why, man, you are carrying it all!”

  Bygones stared at him, jaw slackening, and then recovered himself.

  “Come! No losing our heads now; or being put off by a misadventure! Surely, lad, there’s a place where we can go for discourse in private?”

  While Félix with much ceremony offered the use of his beautiful cabin, Bygones presented the wiry middle-aged man as Captain Nicholas Murch, master of the Saucy Ann. Then Bygones saw Gaines; such a look crossed the newcomer’s face that for the first time Gaines shied back. But the pious one did not get far. Bygones followed Kinsmere below-decks, leaving Captain Murch in command on deck; Félix laid hold of Gaines’s collar and brought him along.

  If strict privacy was not to be, Bygones hardly seemed to mind now. He inspected the cabin, eyes protuberant against a mottled face, and sat down in Félix’s chair.

  “Now, lad! Whatever may ha’ took place here, and there are all the signs of a past fight royal, ’tis also a fact that you’re safe. Safe, hale, and hearty enough, if a little knocked about and a little white. Then where’s your half of the dispatch? Half of it will be no good to the enemy; and my half—”

  “Hell alive, man, are you telling me somebody took what you were carrying?”

  “Ay, somebody did. I was hoaxed most neatly and elegantly, rot me! If I had not put two and two together, out of all the bits that were shooting round the firmament, and followed you as soon as might be …”

  “I tell you, Bygones, you had the whole dispatch! The king (God bless him!) included me only as a decoy. You were the trusted messenger aboard the safe ship. He gave me a blank piece of paper. There it is on the table, with the broken seals. You see?”

  Bygones picked up the paper, inspected it on both sides, and dropped it.

  “Done,” he said. “Done crisp! Scuttled and sunk without a trace!”

  “But what befell you? You were safe, surely? You said you couldn’t have been safer. You said—”

  “Gently, now! Ayagh, lad! D’ye recall last night? The wherry from the Saucy Ann, d’ye recall, was thought to be waiting for me at Whitehall Stairs from a quarter hour to midnight onwards?”

  “Was ‘thought’ to be waiting? Yet surely …?”

  “Gently, I say! It had called there, true enough. But we were very late. ’Twas past midnight, well past, when we left the palace. I remarked, if an old hulk’s memory will serve, that the lads might be a trifle impatient. Oh, body o’ Pilate! But it never occurred to me …

  “There was a wherry at the foot of the stairs. There were four or five men, muffled up; I could make no recognition of any. They said nothing; I said nothing. I stepped into the wherry; they pushed off. We were a quarter mile down the river, and well out in midstream, when—”

  Salvation Gaines, disengaging Félix’s hand from his collar, uttered a shrill burst of laughter before he drew himself up like a man inspired.

  “Did I not prophesy this?” he inquired. “Stand back, Captain Souter!

  “And let there be an end,” Gaines added, “to presumptuous talk of detaining me or executing vengeance against me. For the Lord hath saved his own from the fiery furnace and from all tribulation!

  “Do you not guess what occurred? I have told these people, man Abraham, that my patron—the head of our band of noble patriots—was in waiting and had a wherry at his disposal. I sent him word you would proceed to Calais according to plan; he must act as he saw fit. Oh, how wondrous and inscrutable are the ways of Providence! For it is evident in what fashion he acted. My patron …”

  “Patron?” snarled Bygones, right hand flying to sword hilt.

  “Ecod, what a name to give him! Lad, lad! Has any told you that the plotter-in-chief of all this business is none other than—”

  “Yes, I know,” interrupted Kinsmere. “The Lord’s Anointed has chosen to reveal all. But did you guess it was Roger Stainley?”

  “Nay, how could I? I thought ’twas some moneybags desiring a hold over the king; and then His Majesty must dance to their piping. The name, no; not until—”

  “If you stepped into a false wherry, what became of the real wherry? At all events, what happened in the false wherry?”

  Bygones, still gripping the sword hilt, for a moment let his murderous gaze stray from Gaines. A reminiscent, almost sentimental light appeared in his eyes.

  “What happened,” he replied, “was a fight. ‘Fight,’ lad, is a mild and modest word for it. A-floating down the Thames by moonlight, when one muffled-up rogue says, ‘Stand and deliver,’ we re-enacted the part of o’ Paradise Lost where the heavenly hosts fire cannon balls at each other and knock chips off the starry firmament. ’Twas close quarters for such eruptions; I shot one of ’em with a pistol and ran another through the body; but they were too many for me. One cut the thongs of my pouch and says, ‘Jump overboard’; he says to another, ‘jump overboard and take this to old Stainley.’ ‘Nay,’ says the other, we are not paid for that; throw him overboard.’

  “And just at the second—

  “Nick Murch, d’ye see, had given command of the real wherry to a young first officer who was too almighty impatient and fond o’ himself. When I failed to appear at the quarter to midnight or at midnight either, the young ’un said my mission must ha’ been cancelled. Back they went to the Saucy Ann, giving opening to a false wherry full of hired knaves on a different kind o’ mission.

  “Well! The real wherry reaches the Saucy Ann, Nick Murch curses ’em all to a blister; he orders ’em to return to Whitehall Stairs if they must wait all night; in fact, he goes with ’em to be sure there’s no other mistake.

  “Back they went upriver faster than ever a wherry travelled. Then they saw the end of my elegant war, just as I was knocked on the head to be thrown overboard; they joined battle. But the messengers o’ darkness had got what they wanted; they dived overboard and scooned off. You’d already told me your history, lad. There was I, somewhat bloodied but not quite senseless, yelling, ‘Stainley, Stainley,’ like a gibbering madman.

  “‘Stainley?’ says Nick Murch. ‘Why, shiver my timbers,’—or whatever Nick did say—‘Stainley’s the great banker. He owns Captain Souter’s ship Thunderer, plying the Narrow Seas on royal business like us.’

  “And then, lad, I was mighty afeared they’d ha’ laid a trap for you too. They’d take my half of the dispatch; but what use would it be (thinks I) unless they had it all? Near the Saucy Ann lay the two line-of-battle ships the king had told us of. ‘Come!’ says I. ‘In a day or two those ships weigh anchor for Dunkirk in any case. Can’t they anticipate by a little time and escort us to Calais?’ ‘Not without orders,’ says the captain of the Royal Standard. Well, we got orders. But did I dare send word to the king I’d been robbed within sight of Whitehall Palace? I did not. My only hope, to keep us from the worst trouble we are like to see in our lives, was that you might be safe. And now …”

  Breathless, wheezing, he let his voice trail away.

  “Now,” agreed my grandfather, who could hardly be called happy, “Mr. Roger Stainley has the entire dispatch. The king (God bless him) must needs keep the whole affair hushed and dark, save for dealing with us as we deserve. As for what I deserve, listen!”

  Whereupon, while Gaines smirked triumphantly and Félix glowered, he explained everything that had happened.

  “Ay!” agreed Bygones. Finding two goblets and a silver wine jug at his elbow, he poured a bumper of Madeira and drained it. Judicially h
e turned back. “You are right, lad; so is Salvation Gaines. He has thrown the main and won it; we can’t touch him. He would have to stand trial; and even at a drumhead one, he would employ his mouth too much.”

  “If you apprehend that, man Abraham, you are gifted with more understanding than I had given you credit for. Now His ways be praised!”

  “Here’s a man,” said Bygones, ignoring him and addressing the roof lanthorn, “who for combined hypocrisy and viciousness can scarce be matched even among his Lord’s Elect. And yet we can’t touch him; he’s safe.”

  Bygones laid his cheek against his palm, reflecting with half-closed eyes. Then he chuckled, looking up at Félix.

  “Well, moan capeeten, eel fo bid you good day, nest paws? Nome doon peep! Eel fo que we go on to Calais and report to Madame Dorleaon and take our punishment,” proclaimed the old soldier, coming down to earth and letting French go after a short grapple. “You’re a pretty tolerable good fellow, as the lad seems to think. Ayagh, though! It’s cruel hard fate in store for you.”

  “One moment!” Félix said grandly.

  Hurrying across the cabin, pausing only to restore a fallen Consolation of Philosophy to the table, he opened another locker under the windows.

  “Your sword and sword belt, yoong man,” he said to Kinsmere, producing these. “I put dem away, safe and sound for you, in case you are going to play rough again. You permit I restore dem now?”

  “Indeed, I permit it Thanks very much.”

  “But, monsieur,” and in stately fashion Félix addressed Bygones, “I do not understand what is so cruel ’ard. Dey do not ’ang me; dey do not even ’ang dat t’ing dere which would swear ’e ’ad de Pope’s blessing if he kill his own wife. No, no, no! If I could ’ave de deep honour to escort you and my yoong friend to Calais, I should be mos’ ’appy. Command me! All dat old Félix ’ave—”

  “No, captain,” said Bygones. “Also with many thanks, it is only fitting that the lad and I should continue aboard the Saucy Ann. You are free; ay, to be sure. And yet, from what Captain Murch tells me, it is cruel hard notwithstanding. Roger Stainley, d’ye see, sold this ship to the East India Company less than a week ago. Gaines should never have promised her to you.”