Wilder Perkins: Hoare and the Passed Master

"And this sentence, sir, from the casualty report?"

"'The corpus of our only casualty, Dimmick, foretopman, was committed… ' Corpus. The same word, by Jove, and in the same hand. How the devil did you know, Hoare?"

"I think we shall find that Tregallen was blackmailing three different shipmates-Gamage the purser, McTavish the lobster, Grimes the surgeon," Hoare whispered. "We know that all three were ashore when he was killed. The first two as much as admitted to me that they were being blackmailed, a thing they would never have done had either been the one who disposed of his blackmailer. Grimes made no such admission."

Hoare paused again for breath and another mad guess. "I am certain Dr. Dunworthy of Durley Street will recognize your surgeon as having attended his lecture the other night. The rest, sir, you just observed yourself."

Captain Drysdale shifted his gaze from the papers to his surgeon.

"What have you to say for yourself, Mr. Grimes?" he said.

The surgeon mopped the blood from his forehead. "Mr. Hoare has me to rights, sir," he said. "The master had turned the tables on me; he was bleeding me white. He was buggering me. I had no choice."

Despite all questioning he refused to state the event or events that the late Mr. Tregallen had threatened to reveal.

"It would do no one any good, sir, and could wreak great harm," he said at last.

His captain directed the others to follow him onto the quarterdeck, where he summoned Blenkiron.

"Make to Admiralty House: 'Surgeon murdered master. Submit convene court-martial forthwith, this ship.' And to the port surgeon: 'Request replacement surgeon forthwith.'"

Mr. Blenkiron stared at Hoare. Behind the midshipman's astonishment, Hoare sensed, lay a profound relief.

Septimus Grimes's court-martial took place in Severn's cabin with Dr. Dunworthy the principal witness. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. As a mere warrant officer, the surgeon was not to be accorded the courtesy generally granted to commissioned officers, of being shot; instead, he was sentenced to dangle and strangle at Severn's yardarm.

"You knew Dr. Dunworthy, then," Hoare said as he kept Grimes company during the surgeon's last hours.

"I did not precisely know him, sir. I learned of the medical meeting in Bishops Waltham and attended his absurd lecture on the interrelationship of various glands in the human body. I had no difficulty in concluding that he was an active anatomizer, and his sponsor had announced his domicile upon introducing him.

"As you can imagine, my mind was already attuned to the question of silencing my persecutor. How to do it presented no problem; I am deft enough and strong enough, and of course the weapon-one of my scalpels-was ready to hand.

"The principal problem was how to dispose of the body. I had to do the deed now; I could not wait until we were at sea and simply put the man overboard one night after cutting his throat. He was far too experienced a seaman for that.

"So when at last I put anatomization together with my crying need, it became obvious. What better way of disposing of my blackmailer than handing him over to be dissected by a respected if eccentric physician? It would be he who must bury the inconvenient evidence with a prayer-after, mind you, having cut it into pieces in the course of his research so that, if found, it could not be identified. A far better solution than simply heaving Tregallen into the harbor, just to float ashore in a day or so.

"It was easy enough to entice the man into the inn's chaise the next night with promises of gold. Then all I need do was slit his throat, drive the corpus to Bishops Waltham, strip it for Dunworthy, drag it under the bridge, and leave a message under the doctor's door as I returned.

"Had you not boarded us," Grimes concluded, "Severn would have been at sea within minutes, and I would have been out of your reach. I planned to leave the ship at Gibraltar and go to ground in Spain."

"And the subject of the blackmail?"

"I shall go to my grave, sir-a watery one, I fear-without revealing that. Bearing a suggestive name like yours, you must know the burden the slightest open sign of sexual impropriety imposes on any officer, or warrant officer. I will not burden others in that way; there is enough on my conscience already. Now sir: How did you come to lay the deed at my door?"

"You must blame an errant kitten, Mr. Grimes."

An hour later, Hoare stood on Severn's quarterdeck to see her crew run her surgeon aloft, long legs kicking wildly, to her main yardarm.

"We are still shy our master, sir," Mr. Barnard reminded his captain when the legs had ceased their hopeless reach for the ground and the officers resumed their hats.

"Well, we shall have to make shift without, you and I. Or perhaps Mr. Hoare himself would stoop…"

Hoare's heart leapt. Step down though it would be, he would gladly accept the post and sacrifice his belongings ashore to boot if it would get him to sea again.

"He can't talk, sir." Barnard spoke across Hoare as if he were deaf as well as mute.

"Of course. Pity."

The captain turned away and joined his lieutenant in the ritual of putting to sea. Left unceremoniously alone, Hoare once again damned the Frenchman who had killed his voice and his career at sea.

As he turned to clamber down into the waiting gig, he espied Dr. Dunworthy standing at the rail and offered him a lift ashore. The physician looked at him strangely, then followed him down the boarding ladder.

"I am happy to have had a part in clearing you, sir," Hoare said.

"And equally happy, I doubt not, sir," Dunworthy said bitterly, "to leave me bereft of my reputation in my community and in my profession.

"Do you imagine that the medical society will listen to a paper given by a suspected murderer? Do you imagine that word of my disgrace will not have already filled the neighborhood? Henceforth, thanks to your meddling, I shall see nothing of my former patients except their backs. I shall have to beg for my breakfast in the streets. Or go to sea as a surgeon. At my age and in my condition. Thanks to you. A dirty road to you, sir, and a slow journey. And take your damned happiness with you."

For the rest of the row across the harbor, the two passengers ignored each other.

Hoare turned to see Severn slowly gather way.

"'Come cheer up, my lads,'" he recited to himself, "''tis to glory we steer!'"

To glory, indeed. But he, Bartholomew Hoare, must remain behind and watch them go.