Lord John And The Hand Of Devils

Page 32

The man would be toothless before he was forty, Grey thought.
“We will find Mr. Gormley,” he said firmly. “But wherever he is, I doubt that we can discover him before daylight. Compose yourself, Captain, if you please—and then tell me the goddamn truth about what’s going on at the Arsenal.”
The truth, once extracted and divested of its encrustations of laborious speculation and deductive dead ends, was relatively simple: Gormley and Jones had concluded, on the basis of close examination, that someone at the foundry was abstracting a good part of the copper meant to be used in the alloy for casting. Result being that while new cannon cast with this alloy looked quite as usual, the metal was more brittle than it should be, thus liable to sudden failure under sustained fire.
“Those marks you noticed on Tom Pilchard,” Jones said, describing a series of semicircles in the air with a blunt forefinger. “Those are the marks where holes left in the casting have been plugged later, then sanded flat and burnished over. You might get a hole or two in any casting—completely normal—but if the alloy’s wanting, you’ll get a lot more.”
“And a much higher chance of the metal’s fracturing where you have several holes together, such as those I saw. Quite.”
He did. He saw himself and four other men, standing no more than a foot away from a cannon riddled like a cheese with invisible holes, each charge rammed down its smoking barrel one more throw of crooked dice. Grey was beginning to have a metallic taste in the back of his mouth. Rather than lift the cup and saucer again, he simply picked up the decanter and drank from it, holding it round the neck.
“Whoever is taking the copper—they’re selling it, of course?” Copper was largely imported, and valuable.
“Yes, but I haven’t been able to trace any of it,” Jones admitted, moodily. “The damn stuff hasn’t any identifying marks. And with the Dockyards so handy … might be going anywhere. To the Dutch, the French—maybe to someone private, the East India Company perhaps—wouldn’t put it past the bastards.” He glanced at the window, where a slice of night still showed black between the heavy curtains, and sighed.
“We will find him,” Grey repeated, more gently, though he was himself by no means so sure of it. He coughed, and drank again.
“If you are correct—if copper has been abstracted—then surely whoever is responsible for the casting would know of it?”
“Howard Stoughton,” Jones said bleakly. “The Master Founder. Yes, most likely. I’ve been watching him for weeks, though, and he’s not put a foot wrong. No hint of any secret meetings with foreign agents; he scarcely leaves the foundry, and when he does, he goes home and stays there. But if it is the copper, and it is him, and Gormley’s found some proof …”
Another thought occurred to Grey, and he felt obliged to put it, despite the risk to Jones’s tooth enamel.
“We have two assumptions here, Captain, do we not? Firstly, that you and Mr. Gormley are correct in your assessment of the cause of the cannons’ failure. And secondly, that Mr. Gormley is missing because he has discovered who is responsible for the abstraction of copper from the Arsenal and been removed in consequence. But these are assumptions only, for the moment.
“Have you considered the alternative possibility,” he said, taking a firmer hold of the brandy bottle in case he should require a weapon, “that Mr. Gormley might himself have been involved in the matter?”
Jones’s inflamed eyes swiveled slowly in Grey’s direction, bulging slightly, and the muscles of his neck bunched. Before he could speak, though, a discreet cough came from the vicinity of the hearth.
“Me lord?” Tom Byrd, who had been listening raptly, poker in hand, now set it down and stepped diffidently forward.
“Yes, Tom?”
“Beg pardon, me lord. Only as I was in the Lark’s Nest Wednesday—having stopped for a bite on my way back from the Arsenal, see—and the place was a-buzz, riled like it was a hornets’ nest, rather than a lark’s. Was a press gang going through the neighborhood, they said; took up two men was regulars, and there was talk about would they maybe go and try to get them back—but you could see there wasn’t nothing in it but talk. They warned me to go careful when I left, though.”
The young valet hesitated, looking from one gentleman to another.
“I think they maybe got him, this Gormley.”
“A press gang?” Jones said, his scowl diminishing only slightly. “Well, it’s a thought, but—”
“Begging your pardon, sir, it’s maybe summat more than a thought. I saw them.”
Grey’s heart began to beat faster.
“The press gang?”
Tom turned a freckled, earnest face in his employer’s direction.
“Yes, sir. ’Twas a heavy fog comin’ in from the river, and so I heard them coming down the street afore they saw me, and ducked rabbity into an alleyway and hid behind a pile of rubbish. But they passed me by close, sir, and I did see ’em; six sailors and four men they’d seized, all roped together.”
He hesitated, frowning.
“It was foggy, sir. And I ain’t—haven’t—seen him before. But it was right near the Arsenal, and that what you called him—Gormless. It’s only—would he maybe be a dark, small, clever-looking cove, with a pretty face like a girl’s and dressed like a clerk?”
“He would,” Grey said, ignoring Jones, who had made a sound like a stuck pig. “Could you see anything to tell which ship they came from?”
Tom Byrd shook his head.
“No, sir. They was real sailors, though, the way they talked.”
Jones stared at him.
“Why wouldn’t they be real sailors? What do you mean, boy?”
“Mr. Byrd has a somewhat suspicious mind,” Grey intervened tactfully, seeing Tom flush with indignation. “A most valuable attribute, on occasion. On the present occasion, I presume that he means only that your initial supposition was that Mr. Gormley had been abducted by the person or persons responsible for the removal of copper from the foundry, but apparently that is not the case. By the way,” he added, struck by a thought, “have you any indication that copper is missing from the foundry? That would be evidence in support of your theory.”
“Yes,” Jones said, a small measure of satisfaction lightening the anxiety in his face. “We have got that, by God. When I reported our suspicions about the copper, Mr. Bowles undertook to introduce another of his subordinates, a man named Stapleton, into the foundry in the capacity of clerk and set him to inspect the accounts and inventory on the quiet. A good man, Stapleton,” he added with approval. “Got the information in less than a week.”
“Splendid,” Grey said, and took a searingly large swallow of brandy. The hairs rose on his body at the mention of Neil Stapleton. Neil of the hot blue eyes … and even more incendiary attributes. Known to his intimates—if not necessarily his friends—as Neil the Cunt.
He’d met Stapleton twice: initially, at a very private club called Lavender House, in such circumstances as to leave no doubt of either’s private inclinations. And again when Grey had ruthlessly threatened to expose those inclinations to Hubert Bowles, in order to force Stapleton to obtain urgent information for him. Christ, how close had he come to meeting the man again? He shoved that thought hastily away and took another drink.
Jones was showing signs of impatience, tapping his feet back and forth in a soundless tattoo upon the carpet.
“It’s got to be a ship anchored by the Dockyards. Soon as it’s light, I’m going through them like a dose of salts, and then we’ll be to the bottom of this!”
“I wish you the best of luck,” Grey said politely. “And I do hope that the gentleman Tom saw in the custody of the press gang was Mr. Gormley. However—if he was, does this not rather obviate your conclusion that he was in possession of incriminating information regarding the perpetrator?”
Jones gave him a glassy look, and Tom Byrd looked reproving.
“Now, me lord, you know you oughtn’t talk like that at this hour of the morning. You got to pardon his lordship, sir,” he said apologetically to Jones. “His father—the duke, you know—had him schooled in logic. He can’t really help it, like.”
Jones shook his head like a swimmer emerging from heavy surf, and reached wordlessly for the brandy, which Grey surrendered with a brief gesture of apology.
“I mean,” he amended, “if Gormley’s been taken by a press gang, it might be simple misfortune. It needn’t have anything to do with your inquiries.”
Jones pressed his lips together, looking displeased.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the first thing is to get Gormley back. Agreed?”
“Certainly,” Grey said, wondering privately just how complex a matter it might prove to pry a new seaman—no matter how unwillingly recruited—from the rapacious grasp of the navy.
Jones nodded, satisfied, and glanced at the clock. A few minutes until three; the sun would not be up for several hours yet. Tom Byrd yawned suddenly, and Grey felt his own jaw muscles creak in sympathy.
All conversation seemed to have ceased abruptly; there was nothing more to say, and they sat for some moments in silence. There were sounds from the distant barracks and the murmur of the fire, but these were muted, unreal. The night hung over them, heavy with possibilities—most of them threatening.
Grey began to be conscious of his heartbeat, and just behind each beat, a slight, sharp pain in his chest.
“I’m going to bed,” he said abruptly, gathering his feet under him. “Tom, will you find Captain Jones somewhere to sleep?”
Disregarding the captain’s muttered reply that he needn’t bother, wouldn’t sleep anyway, he stood and turned for the door, his brandy-clouded vision smearing light and shadow. Just short of the door, though, one final question occurred to him.
“Captain—you are positive that all the explosions are the result of weakened alloy, are you?” Grey asked, swinging round. “No evidence of deliberate sabotage—as, for instance, by the provision of bombs packed with a higher grade of powder than they should be?”
Jones blinked at him, owl-eyed.
“Why, yes,” he said slowly. “In fact, there is. That’s what began the investigation; the Ordnance Office discovered two grapeshot cartridges packed with a great deal more powder than they should have been, and fine-ground, too—you know that’s unstable, yes? But very explosive. Bombs, they were.”
Grey nodded, his hands curving in unconscious memory of the shape and the weight of the grapeshot cartridges he had handled at Crefeld, tossing them in careless hurry, as though they had been harmless as stones.
“This was just as they began to be aware of the destruction of the cannon,” Jones said, shrugging, “and so they convened the Commission of Inquiry.”
Dry-mouthed, Grey licked his lips.
“How did they discover this?”
“Testing on the proving grounds. Came near to killing one of the proving crew. Gormley was almost sure that it had nothing to do with the cannons’ fracturing, though.”
“Almost?” Grey echoed, with a skeptical intonation.
“He could prove it was the alloy, he said. He could assay the metal from the ruined cannon, and prove that it lacked the proper mix of copper. He couldn’t do it openly, though; he had to wait on an opportunity to use the laboratory’s facilities secretly.”
Jones’s throat worked, whether with anger or grief, Grey couldn’t tell. He swallowed his emotion, though, and went on.
“But they took the cannon before he could make his tests. That’s why I was sure at first that he’d come to you, Major,” he added, fixing Grey with a gimlet eye.
“That bit of shrapnel you took away is the only metal from an exploded cannon that hasn’t been melted down and lost. It’s the only bit of proof that’s left. You will take care of it, won’t you?”
“What do you mean, there are no press gangs operating near the Arsenal?”
Grey thought Jones would explode like a milling shed, walls and roof flying every which way. His heavy face quivered with rage, eyes bulging as he loomed over the diminutive harbormaster of the Royal Dockyards.
The harbormaster, accustomed to dealing with volatile sea captains, was unmoved.
“Putting aside the matter of courtesy—the navy would not normally so intrude upon the operations of another service—” he said mildly, “there are no ships outfitting in the yards just at present. If they are not outfitting, they do not require additional crew. If they do not require seamen, plainly the captains do not send out press gangs to acquire them. Quod erat demonstrandum,” he added, obviously considering this the coup de grâce.
The captain seemed disposed to argue the point—or to assault the harbormaster. Feeling that this would be counter to their best interests, Grey seized him by the arm and propelled him out of the office.
“That whoreson is lying to us!”
“Possibly,” Grey said, urging Jones down the length of the dock by main force. “But possibly not. Come, let us see whether Tom has discovered anything.”
Whether ships were outfitting in the yards or not, ships were most assuredly being built and repaired there. The ribs and keelson of a large ship rose like a whale’s skeleton on one side, while on the other, a newly completed keel lay in the channel, swarms of men covering it like ants, laying deck in a racket of hammers and curses.
The shipyard was littered with timbers, planking, rolls of copper, hogsheads of nails, barrels of tar, coils of rope, heaps of sawdust, mallets, saws, drawknives, planes, and all the other bewildering impedimenta of shipbuilding. Men were everywhere; England was at war, and the dockyards buzzed like a hive.