The Angry Tide (41 page)

In his own twisted way Adderley had played the game with his opponent until the very end, so that George Warleggan did not even hear of his wound until the Wednesday. He went round to Adderley's lodgings on the Thursday morning, to find the curtains already drawn and a landlady going on with her work while she waited for the boy to come back with Dr Corcoran to pronounce life extinct. Even then it took time to elicit the facts. He went along to
the
inquest, still not sure of them, but suspecting what might have happened. Whispered gossip confirmed his suspicions during the next few days, and he
was furious to feel that Adderle
y's adversary might escape the law.

On the Monday following he called on Mr Henry Bull, KC, at his office in Westminster. Nine years ago Mr Bull had been concerned as leader for the Crown in a case in Cornwall where a man had been on trial for his life on a charge of riot, inciting others to riot and to wreck, and for assault on a customs officer. At that time George had got to know Mr Bull, and since then had kept in touch with him as he watched his rise to a position of influence. He was now King's Advocate, which meant he was the principal law officer of the Crown in the admiralty and ecclesiastical courts.

He seemed to George the most suitable person to approach - the most suitable whom he knew, that was - and Mr Bull, aware of Mr Warleggan's growing power and influence, was careful to welcome him with a due display of courtesy and attention. With courtesy and attention he heard Mr Warleggan state his complaint.

'Well, yes,' he said. 'Of course I remember Poldark well. Stiff-necked fellow. He should have hanged then if justice had been done, but your Cornish juries
are
too sentimental to their own. But this case, sir, this case - even if everything that's whispered be true, wherc's your evidence? Eh? Eh? T
he inquest's been held, the ver
dict's Dcadi by Misadventure. To overset that we should need some fresh evidence to corroborate all this talk.'

'Poldark has been wounded and is confined to his apartment. That is common knowledge.'

'Yes. True enough. But it's only an inference that there is a connection. People may be jumping to conclusions.'

'At least he should be interrogated.'

'He could be. But I'm not certain on what grounds, eh? No one has actually
accused
him of anything. Addcrley's dead. No one saw Poldark in Hyde Park that morning. Or if they did they've lied to save his skin. Looks to me there must have been some sort of pact. All very irregular, but y'know Addcrlcy's been in more trouble than Poldark - at least so far as duelling is concerned - I would suppose they agreed to fight it out between themselves without seconds, nobody there at all, devil take the one who fell. Most irregular, I must say: not the way gentlemen should behave. But they're two army men; infantry at that; both mad as Ajax; what can you expect?'

'To mc,' said George, 'it is outrageous to suppose that his great friend Craven should "just have been passing" at the time of the shot. Also that Dr Enys should be out in that area so early in the morning. No attempt - virtually no attempt - has been made to trace the chairmen who bore Addcrley home. Nor any attempt to find any other witnesses to the scene. The whole thing stinks of contrivance, sir!'

'Maybe. Maybe.' Mr Bull pursed his thick lips and stared at the papers in front of him. 'Well, Mr
Warleggan
, happy as I should be to help - though it's not really my territory - there's little
official
action I can suggest at this stage. If unofficial inquiries should uncover some promising information I shall be glad to hear it and to forward it to the correct quarters.'

With that George had to be content for the time being, but on his regular attendances at White's, where he had been careful to go three times a week since his election, he had noticed that Sir John Mitford, the Attorney General, was a member. George knew him by sight but no more; but he had already spotted a member who knew everyone and who was short of money and keen to befriend those who had much of it, so one evening he lay in wait, and after seeing Sir John go into the smoking-room after dinner, he called on his new friend to contrive an introduction.

Prcscndy it was done. Mitford accepted the introduction with a good grace, and after a few moments of casual talk
the
th
ird man faded out.

So George was able to turn the conversation tactfully in the dircction he wanted, and remarked how much the club must be feeling the loss of one of its most popular members. Who was that? asked Mitford; ah, yes, and his eyebrows ca
me together, ah, yes, young Adde
rley, something of a pity, though the fellow could never play a fair hand of whist without turning it into an outrageous gamble. George said he particularly regr
etted the loss because Monk Adde
rley in fact had been his proposer in the club, and was an old and valued friend. After a few more such remarks the word murder got itself inserted into the conversation. Murder? said Sir John, who says so? The verdict was Misadventure. George smiled and said, oh, yes, sir, but nobody believes that.

'Ah,' said Mitford, 'you mean this story of a duel? It's current, I know. What is the name of the fellow whose name is
linked with all this? Pol-somedth
ing. Don't know that I've ever met him or know anything about him.'

George gave a brief, loaded summary of Ross's career, widi some detail of the charges brought against him in Bodmin and the general agreement that he was guilty of the indictment but had been freed by a prejudiced jury.

'Ah,' said Mitford. 'He sounds a bit of a rak
e-helly. But then so was Adderle
y. Little to choose between 'cm, I should say. Pity they didn't kill each other.'

'Well, Sir John, but they did
not,'
said George. 'If I may venture to say so, should Poldark now go free, without even being
charged,
it would be a grave miscarriage of justice'

Mitford looked at the other man from under
his eyebrows. 'My dear Mr Warle
sson, I am not, as you will appreciate, able to keep an eye on all the day-to-day mishaps that occur in this metropolis. Nor is anyone else. The city is gravely under-policed, as you must know. In the whole district of Kensington, for instance, there are only three constables and three head boroughs to police an area of fifteen square miles. What can you expect from
that
?' Sir John cleared his throat noisily. 'But then, looking at it all t
he way round, who is to say Adde
rley did not take his own life deliberate? We know how hard drove he was for money. There's some in this club will never see the colour of their gold again. But even if it was as you say
...'

'Yes
...?

'Adderley was not shot in the back, was he? No o
ne's saying this fellow Pol-some
thing didn't shoot him in fair fight?'

'Duelling is illegal in the eye of
the
law, Sir John. All
the
great authorities - Coke, Bacon and the rest - have stated that it differs nothing from ordinary murder. And this is worse, being a secretive assignation.'

Sir John got up. 'I have a business appointment, so I trust you'll excuse mc, sir. As to the law of the land, it so happens that I am acquainted with it. If a man is killed in a duel, his opponent shall be indicted for murder. The law of the land, however, I would remind you, demands evidence as to fact. Gossip and suspicion
are
noticeably unreliable witnesses when they go into the box. When you have something more concrete to go on dian the tittle-tattle of the drawing-room, pray let me know.'

On the way out to the gaming-rooms Sir John looked at the list of new members posted in the hall to ascertain that Mr Warlesson was on it.

So George paid two men to make further inquiries, and Ross continued to nurse his wound while
Demelza
waited.

They had a fair number of visitors. The fiction that he had shot himself while priming his pistol was elaborately maintained, and talk was of the failure, after all the high hopes, of the campaign in Holland, of the bitterness and suspicion between the Russians and the English as an outcome, of the fact that the Russians who had landed at Yarmouth were drinking the oil out of the
street lamps, of the acclaim w
ith which General Buonaparte was being greeted in France, of the hopes of peace and of the weariness of the eight-year war. Or they talked of the latest play, the latest scandal, or the latest rumours as to the King's health. Nothing more personal at all.

And through it all, in the back of
Demelza
's mind, jingling now with a peculiar malevolence, ran the ditty whose tunc she could not forget:

Shepherd, I have lost my waist, Have you seen my body? Sacrificed to modern taste Fm quite a Hoddy-Doddy
...

There was one surprise visitor. When Mrs Parkins gave in his name
Demelza
went to the door to make sure she had heard aright. It was Geoffrey Charles Poldark.

'Well, well, Aunt
Demelza
- looking so anxious! Do you suppose I am a ghost? May I be permitted to
see
my respected uncle?'

Pale and thin, he came in. Ross was sitting in a chair in a morning gown, his arm still throbbing, but feeling better in health. He smiled at the young man, and offered his left hand, but Geoffrey Charles bent and kissed him on the cheek. Then he kissed Demelza. He was dressed in a blue and brown striped silk cloth coat and breeches with a white silk waistcoat.

'Blister my tripes!' he said. 'Uncle Ross, what is this I hear, that you have been shooting off your own hand? As God's my life I should never have guessed you could be anything so careless! And how is it? Part mended, I hope? Near as good as new? Are you going to try your foot next, because I should advise against it. Feet are more painful.'

Ross said: 'I'd warn you it is hazardous to jest with an invalid. My temper is very short. But what are you doing here - playing truant from your studies to become a fop?'

'What am I doing here? There's gratitude for you! I'm visiting a sick relative, that is what. Excuse enough to absent myself from any studies, ain't it?

'We'll pass it this time,' said Ross. 'Demelza, could you pull the bell. The boy will be hungry.'

'I find it very diverting,' Geoffrey Charles said, 'at my age, that everyone assumes, as it were takes for granted, that I am always hungry.'

'And aren't you?'

'Yes.'

They all laughed.

'Serious, though,' said Ross, when tea and crumpets and buttered scones had been ordered.

'Serious, now that Ma-ma and Uncle George are living in King Street, it is really no distance for me to come down, so I often take an afternoon off and spend it with them - or at least with Ma-ma and Valentine, Uncle George being frequently out and about his businesses. So I thought, learning of your
mishap, I would take the oppor
tunity of calling upon you instead.'

They chatted for a while, agreeably, a sudden lightness in the air for the first time since the duel.

Ross said: 'I had intended bringing your aunt to see you, or inviting you, as now, to come and
see
us; but you'll appreciate that as your Uncle George and I
...
well, I hesitate to make any move that might upset - your mother.'

'All,' said Geoffrey Charles.
'Dicenda tacenda locutu
s.
Do you know, Aunt Demelza, one spends hours learning stupid languages solely to enable one to appear superior to those who have never been able to afford the time. I would much rather be with Drake learning to make a wheel.'

Demelza gave him one of her brilliant smiles.

'They do not know you
are
here, then?' Ross said.

'No. Nor shall they. Though in a short time I shall not give a tinker's curse what Uncle George thinks. In less than two years I shall be at Magdalen College, and then I shall feel pretty much my own master.'

Ross moved his arm to ease the throbbing. 'Geof
frey, you cannot come in for Tre
nwith for at least another three years. Then there is only property, no money. Without your Uncle George to finance you the place would go to ruin - as it was going before your mother married him. So on all counts I'd advise you to exercise some discretion - not merely for your mother's sake but for your own. If when you are older - say in four or five years - you find it necessary for your own good health to break with Mr Warleggan and to claim your inheritance absolutely, I shall have - by then I shall hope to have - enough money from the mine, and from other sources, to see you come into your inheritance not entirely penniless. But that is in the future. At present
...'

Geoffrey Charles leaned back in his chair and frowned. 'Thank you, Uncle. That's very handsomely said. I hope I shall not need your help. Though God knows, my tastes already outrun my allowance. What a degrading subject money is! And how disagreeable that Step-Father George has so much of it! Can we not change the subject to something more savoury? Would you care, indeed - if it's not too delicate a subject - to tell mc a litde more of how you came to be shot in the hand?'

'No,' said Ross.

'Ah. So that is not more savoury neither
...
Aunt, you look nice enough to eat. On the whole London girls are prettier than Cornish girls. But just once in a while, you see one in our county that really takes the biscuit.'

'Talking of biscuits,' said Demelza, smiling at him again, 'I think this is tea.'