Wilder Perkins: Hoare and the headless Captains

Thoday did not choose to be more specific, but Hoare must agree with his observation about Rabbett, so he changed his order to Thoday accordingly. Moreover, Hoare knew that word of his return to Weymouth would reach Sir Thomas Frobisher's ears within minutes, if it had not already done so. The Knight-Baronet would have instructed every one of the town's functionaries to cast every possible impediment in Hoare's way. So he withdrew to prepare himself, by sluicing his head and combing his coarse hair, for his next piece of business: paying a call upon the woman who held his heart.

Eleanor Graves still wore the dull black of mourning for her murdered husband, Simon. It did not suit her sallow complexion, but then, Hoare admitted to himself, he had yet to see her becomingly clad. She received him in the drawing room of the house she had shared with her late husband, sitting on her customary round, resilient tuffet. As usual, she looked rather round and resilient herself Once again, Hoare was amazed at how dearly he had come to love her.

She was accompanied by a family of three ill-assorted cats. A strange rumble filled the room, as if the tumbrels of the Terror were passing in the cobbled street outside. The kitten, a glossy, tidy little black beast, was attacking the tuft at the end of its mother's tail. It resembled its mother not at all; the latter was large, awkward, and flustered and bore random growths of whitish fluff on her body and limbs. An enormous gray animal crouched beside Mrs. Graves, watching his family and giving off a benign thunderous purr. This, then, was the source of the tumbrel sound.

Hoare reached down a hand as he passed the gray beast. It stretched up its head to meet the hand; the tumbrels seemed to draw nigh as they bore pinioned royalty to a ghostly guillotine.

Mrs. Graves pointed at the kitten after allowing her hand to be kissed. "Order," she said. "Out of Chaos." She pointed at the mother. "By Jove," she said, indicating the monster.

"Jupiter tonans, as I can hear," Hoare whispered.

"What happened to the rest of the litter?" he inquired.

"I cannot say," she said. "The dam, Chaos, would have no faintest idea. You might inquire of Order.

"But I must ask you how you do, Mr. Hoare, or, I should have said, Captain Hoare," she added. "And what brings you to Weymouth?"

"I do well enough, thank you," he said. "Once again, it is a crime that brings me."

"Leaving your little yacht behind?"

"I came by land this time and left Alecto behind."

"Now you have named the poor inoffensive thing after a Fury," she said. "Why, pray?"

"She has towed behind Royal Duke since I took command of the brig, dogging her trail as if she were one of the three dire sisters pursuing Orestes."

"An unkindness to both vessels, it would seem to me. My felicitations on your advancement, just the same. My friend Miss Austen apprised me of it, though you did not condescend to do so. But there… How does little Jenny do?" she asked.

"The landlord's Susan is caring for her well enough, teaching her her manners and watching her diet," Hoare said, "but I am not in the child's good books just now… for I must now sleep aboard my command, as is required of all Masters and Commanders in the Service, and may no longer lodge at the Swallowed Anchor. So I am rarely there to see her to her bed and give her her nightly blessing. She is not amused.

"Also, I have placed her in a dame school, for it seems she has never been taught her letters. She objected very strongly, until I promised her a kitten if she learned to write… her alphabet. So just now, I imagine, she is sitting at the inn kitchen table, her little tongue stuck out, struggling bravely. I am told that she has now reached K; it may be so."

"K stands for 'kitten,' I suppose. Hmmm," Mrs. Graves said. "I have sealed Order's fate, then."

"Which one of the Fates deals with kittens?" Hoare asked.

Eleanor Graves put her head on one side thoughtfully. "All three of them, I should say. But surely not Atropos in this matter, Mr. Hoare-"

"Bartholomew, please… Eleanor."

"Very well. Bartholomew, then. For Atropos decides the time of one's death. And I cannot be Clotho, who spins the thread. Clotho must be Chaos, the creature's dam. I must then, must I not, be Lachesis, who measures the kitten's life? Well, I shall assume the role. Order is yours, then, to take to Miss Jenny when you believe your fosterling is ready."

"I hope Order and her new mistress will come back to you soon afterward," Hoare said.

"Not yet, Bartholomew, not yet," she murmured.

"Er, no. I agree. First, Jenny must earn her kitten," Hoare whispered.

"That is not precisely what I meant, Bartholomew."

Eleanor Graves offered Hoare tea, which was brought by an old acquaintance, Eleanor's abigail, Agnes. The widow seemed pleased rather than otherwise to know he would be remaining in the area for some days but did not probe into the nature of the crime he had mentioned. She did not invite him to dine.

Perhaps, Hoare thought, as he proceeded on his next errand, he had made some progress in his campaign for Eleanor Graves's hand. She had not objected to his using her Christian name and had willingly adopted the use of his own. She had quietly accepted his offer to accompany her to church tomorrow, it being a Sunday. She could hardly know he was no churchgoer.

Captain Israel Popham of the revenue cutter Walpole, a lieutenant in the Customs Service-his "Captaincy," like Hoare's own, being the mere courtesy due his command- received him like the old friend he was. After toasting Hoare's new swab in his own fine contraband Bordeaux, he sat back to hear what his guest might have to say. At Hoare's mention of the Nine Stones Circle, he whistled softly and thoughtfully.

"That's a very interesting spot, sir, on several counts. You've been there, I take it?"

Hoare nodded.

"Then you know it has an unearthly air about it, as though the spirits of the old… but I wax poetic. It's an odd place, to be sure, and the folk thereabouts steer clear of it, especially of nights. Especially of a moonlight night. Ghosts walk there, they believe.

"Now, I know for certain that there are those of the Upright Men who make use of that superstition as a cover for their work. My predecessor in Walpole told me of catching a gang of 'em sorting out a cargo in the Circle itself.

"I'll tell you who would have more to tell you about the place. He's an acquaintance of yours, in fact."

Popham paused for a sip and watched his guest, evidently waiting for his curiosity to get the better of him.

"Very well, Mr. Popham, who?" Hoare whispered at last.

"Dunaway, that's who. Abel Dunaway," Popham said. "You may remember fishing him and a friend out of the Channels t'other day."

"I'll be damned," Hoare whispered.

"Yes. The old rascal and I are ancient adversaries. He wins some, I win some, and nobody's hurt-so far, at least. He's probably won more than I know of. As long as Sir Thomas Fat-Arse is the law hereabouts, Dunaway's safe enough in the courts. Just the same, a bad little bird chirped in my ear not so long ago, and my men took up a nice parcel of his brandy. Have a drop?"

Hoare demurred.

"Speaking of birds," he said, "one of them told me that Dunaway's passenger-Jamie, he called himself-had an odd accent… As though he were French, perhaps, trying to talk cant. And the lugger bore a cargo of pigeons. I saw them escape."

"Oho!" Popham said. "Was Dunaway outward bound, d'you think, or homeward?"

"Homeward would be my guess, though I cannot be sure. I never thought to ask. He and his man, or his passenger, would still have been clean-shaven, wouldn't they, if they were fresh from home?"

"I'd imagine so. In that case, old Dunaway is getting into deeper waters than he should, wouldn't you say? Perhaps your waters rather than mine?"