A Watery Grave (17 page)

“Captain Wilkes has removed me from the command of the
Swallow.
”

“What?”

“He's given the brig to Forsythe.”

Fourteen

“For God's sake,
why?
” said Wiki, but knew the answer before he heard it. Rochester had publicly countermanded the order of a superior officer—and worse still, an officer who had been in charge of the deck of another ship. It made no difference that by calling out he had saved a man's life. It was a crime—a court-martial offence. He could count himself lucky he'd been let off with just the loss of his command. Without a doubt, Captain Wilkes's tirade had been awful.

They were back on the
Swallow
—for the last time, Wiki thought unhappily. The two marines were waiting on deck, standing sentry at the gangway, to make sure that Rochester handed over the command in due and proper fashion, he supposed, though maybe Wilkes was crazy enough to believe that George might turn pirate and try to run away with the brig before Lieutenant Forsythe arrived. George Rochester sat slumped at the chart desk in the captain's cabin, staring into space with an awful, blank, shocked look. Wiki was busying himself packing George's clothes in his sea chest. It was the least he could do.

“What's going to happen to you?”

Rochester said numbly, “Wilkes reassigned me to the
Vincennes.
”

“What about Erskine?”

“He's going onto the
Porpoise.
Forsythe is bringing Passed Midshipman Zachary Kingman with him.”

Wiki knew Kingman vaguely—a tall, gaunt man with a face like a skull. Older than most men of his rank, he had wasted so much time at the gambling tables that it had taken more years than usual for him to pass his examinations. Wiki mused with sad irony that the after quarters of the brig were going to be a lot less refined.

“So we're shifting onto the
Vin,
” he said, thinking that it would give him a chance to question Jim Powell again—alone in the sick bay, once the surgeon had taken himself off and the attendants were busy about other work. And now that questions about Astronomer Burroughs's death had been raised, a priority would be to talk to Grimes as well.

Rochester's hand shot out and gripped his arm. “Not you!” he said fiercely. “You have to stay with the brig.”

“What!”
Wiki exclaimed, horrified. “I'm not staying
here!
”

“You must!” Rochester spoke through stiff lips, so that his voice was flat and queer. “I can't—I don't—trust Forsythe. He's a tyrant and a bad seaman besides.”

And maybe a murderer as well, Wiki grimly mused. “But what the devil can
I
do?”

“Look after the brig for me—please.”

“But
how,
for God's sake?”

“You're the most resourceful man I know—I know you can do it.” Rochester said again, his voice shaking just a little, “Please.”

Wiki took a deep breath. Then he said steadily, “When you get on board the
Vincennes,
you must see Jim Powell again—go to the sick bay, get him alone, and make him talk.”

“Powell? Why?”

“Didn't you hear what he said?” Wiki paused, looked at George's face again, and decided that his friend had been too shocked to take in a single word. Carefully, he said, “When I saw him on the
Porpoise
he said he'd dropped the letter in the mud, and then thrown it away. I thought he was lying, but he told me a convincing story about once being cruelly beaten because he'd delivered a muddy letter and how he'd made a vow that he'd never let it happen again. Today he confessed that it was indeed a lie. He told me that he'd read it, and delivered it, too—but not to Mrs. Stanton. He said he gave it to Forsythe!”

Rochester blinked. Then he said slowly, “D'you reckon he really read it?”

“I don't believe he can read much of anything. It's probably yet another lie—but you have to try to get him to tell the truth.”

“How will I know it's the truth when I hear it?”

“Keep up the questioning—try to trip him up. What's important is what he read—or what he says he read. As soon as you find out, you have to let me know.”

“Don't you think he was simply drunk and blathering?”

Wiki grimaced. As the loblolly boys had carried him away, Jim Powell had been back to his silly singing, crooning and mumbling a little verse that seemed mostly composed of the two words,
“All's well.”
The tune was “Nancy Dawson,” traditionally piped to inform the crew that the grog was ready to be given out.
Damned rum,
Wiki thought. Without the grog, Jim would not have revealed as much as he did—but he certainly hadn't expected him to sink the mug so fast. After the joltingly close brush with death, Wiki supposed it was little wonder it had gone straight to Jim's head.

There was an echoing click as a boat arrived at the side of the
Swallow,
a hail from the deck, and a sharp thump of boots as the marines stamped to attention. Rochester compressed his lips, visibly braced himself, and looked about for his cocked hat. “This is it, I guess,” he said tightly. Instead of shaking hands, each gripped the other's right forearm, the way they had often done, but more forcefully than ever before. Then, just as George reached the bottom of the companionway, he turned, his expression concerned. “I've been meaning to ask you something,” he said.

“Yes?”

“When I told you that Burroughs was with the expedition, you were suddenly anxious to catch up with the fleet. I've never understood the urgency.”

Wiki managed a careless flip of his hand. “It was when I realized that it was possible that Burroughs was involved in the murder—though to what extent I couldn't possibly guess. And murderers seldom stop at one killing, I believe.”

Rochester's frown lifted. “But Burroughs put an end to himself—and so the danger is over.”

Wiki thought about what the midshipmen had told him. He remembered how he'd had to keep his head ducked down to miss low beams as he'd followed Dicken to the stateroom where Burroughs's dangling body had been discovered. And because of Powell's revelation, it seemed that the man who was taking over the brig could have been involved in the murder of Tristram Stanton's wife. Wiki remembered Forsythe's frozen expression while Powell dangled by the neck from the buntline; he thought about Forsythe's order to let go the line, which would have killed Powell if Rochester had not swiftly contradicted it; and he remembered, too, the impression of mortal fear that Powell had emanated as the crowd arrived in the stateroom doorway, and the way the seaman had hissed Forsythe's name.

However, he kept his tone casual. “I'm sure you're right,” he agreed.

Shouting echoed down from the deck as some ruckus developed about the unloading of the boat. Rochester stood indecisively, and then with a sudden movement gripped Wiki's shoulder briefly before turning for the companionway stairs. He ran up them two treads at a time. Wiki watched his comrade go and then slowly opened the door of his stateroom.

*   *   *

Though he had moved back into the cabin when Stanton left for the
Vincennes,
up until now, Wiki had spent very little time in here. The room was small enough to start with, and its space had been reduced still farther by a locker that had been built into the break of the quarterdeck, the back of which intruded on the wooden berth so that it was six inches too short. When he lay on his side he had to keep his knees bent, and when he lay on his back he had to prop his feet up on the locker back, and lie with his abdomen hollowed. There was not even a chair. Because he had spent his waking hours on deck, or in Rochester's room, or at the mess table in the saloon, he had not needed one. His sea chest was poked underneath the berth, alongside some astronomical equipment that had been left behind by Stanton. A few books were stacked under the small sidelight, but otherwise there was very little sign of his occupation.

After a long moment Wiki roused himself, changed his good broadcloth for dungarees, and put the formal clothes away in his chest, scattering camphor into the folds to keep away the moth. Then, after pushing his sea chest back out of sight, he sat down on the edge of the berth and slumped forward, his forearms propped along his thighs, his fingers lightly entwined, contemplating the dusty planks between his feet. It was reminiscent of the hours when he had been imprisoned in the old sugar house at Portsmouth because, just as then, he was trying to recall every element of the scene on the bank of the Elizabeth River. This time, though, he was concentrating on Forsythe.

When he'd spied the derelict boat drifting down the stream and stepped out from under the tree, Wiki had assumed without hesitation that the shot that rang out had been aimed at him—by Forsythe. Now he wondered why he'd jumped so swiftly to that conclusion. Was it because he had been waiting for Forsythe, along with Jim Powell and whomever Forsythe had chosen to be his second? Or was it because, in that blur of motion when he'd caught a glimpse of the rifleman, he'd instinctively, without consciously realizing it, recognized the man?

It was a struggle to recollect small details exactly. Wiki remembered the dark figure outlined against the brush and the sky, but it had been just a blurred glimpse as he had rolled over, tossed the heavy pistols away, and dived in a flat arc into the river. Had the man been wearing black—or was it a trick of contrast with the paling sky? Wiki's impression was that he had been tall and big—but it could just as easily have been a goblin on a horse, he now thought ironically.

But if Powell had indeed named Forsythe as the man who had received the message from Stanton, the southerner's involvement in the murder was a distinct possibility—and Forsythe was a large man, large enough to pass as Tristram Stanton, if the light was poor and he was dressed in the right kind of clothes. Wiki had twice been fooled by a trick of the light into thinking Forsythe was Tristram Stanton. He was also a crack shot, according to the midshipmen, and the aim of the man who had been shooting at the sinking boat had been unerring.

So was it at all feasible that Lieutenant Forsythe had been the man who had posed as Tristram Stanton, gone to the Stanton house, murdered his wife, and placed the body in the derelict boat? It was indeed possible, Wiki decided—but was it likely? There had to be a motive, and to all appearances Forsythe didn't have one. Where Burroughs could well have been bribed with the promise of a place with the expedition, Forsythe didn't need a word put in on his behalf because he was with the expedition already. Being a gambler like his crony, Kingman, Forsythe could have been bribed with money, perhaps—but Tristram Stanton did not have that kind of money available, not until his wife was dead and he'd inherited her estate.

Wiki remembered leaving the tavern with his fair-haired girl after issuing that crazy challenge. When he'd invited Jim Powell to be his second, Jim had agreed, though with a condescending grin. Janey had been shaking with shock after Forsythe's vicious verbal attack and weeping stormily. Most of his attention had been on her; but he did remember Forsythe and Powell standing together as they watched him go. At the time he had assumed that they had been discussing the duel, but instead it seemed that Forsythe had been giving orders to Powell to take a boat to Newport News and collect a message from Tristram Stanton.
If,
for once, Powell was telling the truth.

The timing was right. The banquet had started at five, Wiki remembered—the party had met at four, and drunk grog and talked until five, when the feast had begun. The meats had probably been served about eight, Wiki calculated, and George Rochester had said that Powell had come “between the mutton and the ham.” Then Powell had left with the note and had taken it to Forsythe—but where had they met? If it had been Portsmouth, not Norfolk, it would have been possible for Forsythe to ride to the plantation house after learning whatever the message had to tell him and get there between eleven and twelve, when the old manservant had been roused by someone coming up the stairs. That was another of the questions he should ask Powell—where had he gone to deliver the note?

Wiki felt restless and impatient. He needed to see Jim Powell again—and quickly, too—because he did not believe that George knew enough to ask the right questions. He particularly wanted to ask Powell if he thought it at all possible that Lieutenant Forsythe had had murder in mind when he called out to the men to let go the rope. While no one could have predicted that the buntline would loop about Jim Powell's neck and snatch him off the yard, Forsythe could have seen it as a first-rate opportunity to get rid of an inconvenient witness.

Then, just as he was wondering how to get back on board the
Vincennes,
he heard a tap on his stateroom door. To Wiki's surprise, it was dusk. Rochester had been gone about a couple of hours. The sounds of the boat leaving, and Forsythe and Kingman taking over the cabins, had been nothing more than a background to his thoughts.

The knock, he belatedly realized, was a reminder from the steward that supper was ready. Wiki stood up, flicked his long hair away from his face, opened the door, and stepped into the saloon. It was time to ask Forsythe some probing questions—even though it could easily prove to be an interview with a murderer.

Fifteen

The brig's messroom was square, its scant space mostly taken up with a table built aft of the mainmast. When Wiki walked in, closing his stateroom door behind him with a small but loud click, the two men who were already at the table turned their heads to stare challengingly. Lieutenant Forsythe sat in the chair at the sternward end of the table where Wiki had been accustomed to seeing George Rochester presiding, and Passed Midshipman Zachary Kingman sat on one of the benches that were screwed to the floor on either side.