The Devil's Own Luck (37 page)

No one spoke. Carter seemed to have retreated into a private world. Crevitt stared fixedly ahead, his face blank. But it was obvious that he had drawn the right conclusion. Carter’s face conveyed nothing. Turning, Harry saw that Craddock was looking confused, still trying to work out the implications of what he had heard.

“So we are left with the conclusion that Meehan and Porter are lying. That they did not witness the act of murder. It then follows, that the person who alerted the quarterdeck to the presence of Bentley’s body is in fact the killer.”

“We,” said Carter, coming out of his reverie. “You have drawn this conclusion, and drawn it on the grounds that Meehan and Porter are lying.”

“Surely after last night there can be no doubt.”

“Just because I have put my barge crew under restraint, does not mean that I have accused them of anything. If you want to know, they have denied your allegations to a man. And you claim that sodomitical practices were taking place in the hold, but there is not a shred of evidence to support that either.”

Denying it was one thing, but to accuse Harry of lying was too much. Harry longed to accuse Carter, but he checked himself. Why nail the man for one crime, when, with a little patience, he could get him for two.

“Again I draw your attention to the bloodstains in that room. We are not merely dealing in sodomy here, but in a much more terrible vice. I maintain that someone died in that room, or was so seriously hurt that it makes no odds. And I think that everyone aboard ship knows who that is likely to be.”

“Larkin,” said Craddock, surprised. Carter looked at him angrily.

“You may wish to say that is another matter. I say that the two deaths may well be connected. I cannot yet prove that, but you must agree, with the things that have been allowed to go on here, there is enough doubt to require the presence of your officers and crew at a trial, if my brother is to stand accused.”

Carter said nothing for a moment, then nodded.

“I would like to hear you say it out loud, Captain, so that others present can be in no doubt.”

“Yes.” The word was spat out.

“Thank you. And now I must ask for your permission to pursue the other matters I have just mentioned. Those, too, require a thorough investigation.”

“The other matters do not concern you.”

“They do, Carter, and they bear directly, I think, on the murder of Mr Bentley.” Harry smiled. “You may wish to continue this conversation in private.”

Harry was excited. His moment had come. He was determined to accuse Carter to his face. He didn’t want anyone else there, either interrupting him, or seeking to persuade him he was incorrect. And Carter would guess what was coming, because he must know that Harry had found the solution. Here was the explanation for Bentley’s behaviour, plus the motive for his murder. He had discovered Carter’s secret, and was thus in a position to break him, any time he chose. Carter could twist and turn, he could try all his tricks, but he would eventually stand trial for the murder of his first lieutenant.

“Private? With you? I would want no private conversation with you, sir. I would want everything said between us attested to. In fact, Mr Ludlow, you may now consider this meeting to be official. You have taken some advantage of my good offices to speculate wildly. Mr Crevitt, oblige me by taking notes of everything that is said.”

Harry was thrown for a moment. This was not what he had expected.

“Harry. Consider carefully before you speak.” James, who had sat silent throughout, spoke for the first time.

“James.” Harry turned to his brother, feeling slightly betrayed. “Surely you do not believe him?” He pointed to Carter.

“Believe me? Damn you, sir, what do you mean!” he demanded.

“Are you going to pretend that you knew nothing of the presence of that room, nor the purposes it was put to?”

Carter looked as though he had been slapped. He sat back in his chair, for the moment unable to respond to Harry’s accusation.

“Mr Ludlow. That remark is unwarranted,” said Crevitt, half standing.

“Unwarranted,” croaked Carter.

“Mr Crevitt. You are not a sailor. You have little experience of the sea. But if you ask any of the officers, they will tell you that a tin-lined room, stuck in the bowels of the ship, occupying space that should be preserved for the shot the ship needs to fight, could not be created, and maintained, without the knowledge of the captain of the ship.” Harry stood up, his finger pointing. “The paintings that hung on the walls may have disappeared, and the men who used that room may have denied both being there and indulging themselves. But I saw it all with my own eyes. If a captain allows that sort of practice to proceed, without interference, it can only be for one reason.”

Crevitt was now fully out of his chair, scattering papers on the floor, his face suffused with anger.

“How dare you?” he yelled in a voice that could be heard at the crosstrees. “How dare you, sir, accuse my friend so.”

“Damn you, Ludlow,” said Carter, in a quiet, hurt voice. Such an accusation, even half-believed, at a Court of Inquiry, and he was finished in the service.

“Harry!” said James, touching his brother’s arm.

His brother could not respond. He was looking at the cabin floor, at the papers which had dropped off the desk. There was still a mark in the planking where he had stuck his knife. And that clearly did not make sense. The events of the past days raced through his mind. Yes, Carter hated him, and would take whatever chance he got, fair or foul, to damage him. But he had become the same. Getting even with this man sitting opposite him had become an obsession. He had become just like his adversary. Yet he had given the man ample warning. If Carter had killed Bentley, he would have understood immediately why Harry stuck his knife in the deck. He would have known, in that instant, the danger that he was in. Harry’s life would not have been worth a bent farthing. A man who had contrived to kill Bentley, who knew of, and had used, that room, and with the barge crew at his beck and call, and such a secret as the death of Larkin to protect, would have rid himself of both Ludlow brothers in a trice.

“Mr Ludlow,” said Craddock, stepping forward, his bulk coming between Harry and the table. “If I may speak. You are quite right that it would take a degree of authority to create that room. But if I may venture to suggest another possibility . . .”

“Bentley,” said Harry, not looking at anyone.

“Harry. I think an apology is in order.” James’s quiet request merely produced a nod. He stood up and walked out of the cabin. James followed him. No one sought to restrain him.

“Well, I made a proper ass of myself there, brother.”

“It does however beg the question. If I didn’t kill Bentley, and Carter didn’t kill Bentley, then who did? What I am saying, Harry, is that we are really no further forward.”

“Bentley must have been of that persuasion himself.”

“One would think so, if he was indeed responsible. But from what you say, it was the flagellation more than anything else that so excited him. I can hardly see him going to all the trouble of providing such a facility, if he was not going to indulge.”

“It is incredible. How did they manage to keep it so secret? Pender swears that the rest of the crew didn’t know.”

“That aspect of it is academic to me. I shan’t feel entirely safe until we have found the real culprit.”

“One of the barge crew I’ll bet. But we would have the devil of a job to prove it. I can’t even prove that they were in that room when I found it. And it may well be someone else. You are right, James. We are back where we started.”

“Come in,” Harry said, in response to a knock on the door.

Craddock did just that, his hat under his arm. He had obviously just come from the great cabin.

“Mr Ludlow.”

“Please, Mr Craddock. If you have come to berate me, then I am here to tell you
mea culpa.
I confess to being more than a touch myopic.”

“Hardly your fault, sir. Only being part of the ship’s company, part of the wardroom, I had hold of certain facts that you didn’t.”

“Such as?”

“Like the fact that Captain Carter did not choose the crew for his barge.” Harry did not let on that he had been told. “He left that to Mr Bentley, as he did most things. I include the stowing of the hold when we took on stores. Mr Bentley was always sober for that, come to think of it, and he took pains to supervise it personally. Not that we need take on much powder and shot. He was dead against what he called ‘the useless expenditure of powder and shot,’ never mind the mess it made of the decks. Add all that up, and it is plain to see who’s at the bottom of it. As I say, you weren’t to know.”

“It would have been wiser to find out before speaking.”

“I can’t tell you enough of how Mr Bentley ran the ship. At first with the captain’s blessing, seeing how close they were. I think Mr Carter even wrote to their lordships recommending him for promotion.”

“Anything to get rid of him, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“No, sir. This goes back a’ways, to when they were like two peas in a pod. It ain’t common for captains and premiers to see eye to eye, but they did, in all manner of things.”

“But it didn’t last.” Harry had a vision of his own dealings with Carter.

“They had a row one day over the floggin’. After that boy died, the crew were very sullen and the punishments increased. But that had passed by, and the captain hinted, not said mind, just hinted, that perhaps Mr Bentley was a mite too keen on it. Well, Mr Bentley went white. I had the watch. He reminded the captain in the stiffest way, of the consequences of lax discipline, and in front of everyone.” Craddock sounded and looked suitably shocked at this breach of manners.

“No superior could stand for that, and Captain Carter, quite calmly, alluded to the quantity of drink he was used to consumin’, clouding his otherwise sound judgement. I must say that under the circumstances it was a mild rebuke.”

“But things deteriorated from then on?” There was more than a touch of irony in the question.

“Why yes, sir,” said Craddock, amazed. “You are quick, Mr Ludlow.”

“Let us say that some of my experience pre-dates yours.” He did not add that he had all this from Outhwaite.

“Things went on like that for a bit, but it couldn’t last.” Craddock had the air of a man who’d found betrayed everything in which he believed. “Well, there was an almighty row, behind closed doors, but you could hear it through the skylight. They became cold to each other, quite like normal in fact, except that Bentley still laid on the candidates for the cat. The captain commuted as many of them as he dared, but he didn’t have a great deal of leeway, if the charge was pressed by a first lieutenant. It was a situation that could not go on, an’ we all waited for the captain to formally rebuke the premier. He had words one day, but not with Mr Bentley. It was his nephew who got the blast. The lad is not beyond a touch of insolence with his uncle, and he had been drinking. The captain was angry with him for seeming to side with Bentley against his own flesh and blood. Mr Turnbull refused to plead for one of his men, which made it impossible for the captain to let him off. I’ve often wondered if Mr Turnbull was just trying to bring matters to a head. The captain offered again, with some choice words about the responsibilities an officer had to both his commission and his family. Mr Turnbull took the hint and begged his man off. Bentley was incensed at this. And right there in front of the whole crew, he requested an interview. God only knows what they said to each other, for there was no yelling this time. After that things went to the dogs.”

“Why didn’t Carter relieve him?”

“Why, I guess that it would look mighty odd to go relieving a man you had so recently recommended to their lordships as deserving promotion.”

A point, thought Harry, but barely enough of one.

“The atmosphere in the wardroom was never very pleasant, but it got worse as the captain took to checking him more and more, and his replies became very intemperate.”

“He didn’t seem in any position to check him recently,” said James.

“That’s right,” said Craddock, turning to address James. “Some of us thought that he had just given up the ghost. Bentley drank even more, and upped the punishment as well. Things went from bad to worse for the whole ship, officers and men. I have to say that Mr Bentley was not much loved.”

“Nor sorely missed,” said Harry.

Craddock didn’t reply to that, probably considering it too disloyal.

“Anyway, I wanted you to know some of these things, because the captain is in enough of a stew as it is, with that kind of accusation floating about.”

“Mr Craddock. Did you know that Bentley was a sodomite?”

“Can’t say that I did, sir. But I’ve been a sailor long enough not to pay it much heed. It happens, and where’s the harm I say, as long as it’s held in check. There are worse things that one man can do to another.”

“You show a commendable understanding of your fellow men, Craddock,” said James.

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just accustomed. I find the way he flogged more disturbing. It’s my impression he loved it.”

Harry thought of the blood in that room.

“Can I ask you, Mr Craddock, who do you think killed Mr Bentley?” asked James.

Craddock looked at him. James added quickly, “Always assuming you think I am innocent.”

The older man’s face took on a determined look. “If I may speak freely, I must say I don’t rightly know. But I will say this. There has been the odd time, when the man was full of drink, and a bit free with his insults, that I could have skewered him myself.”

Harry threw up his hands in despair. “Well, if you feel the need to kill him, that means there is no one on the ship we can leave unquestioned. Mr Craddock, I am going to have to talk to all the officers. It is the only way to get to the bottom of this.”

Another knock at the door. Harry opened it. Crevitt stood there with James’s scratch pad under his arm.

“I brought you these, Mr Ludlow,” he said to James. All present knew that was an excuse. He turned to Harry, his gaunt face lined with worry. “And I wonder if I might have a word with you.”