Susanna Gregory - The Sacred stone

‘I don’t think so. I staunched the cut on my hand with this kerchief and withdrew to my little nook.’

In the ensuing pause, Colin Case said that when we were out on deck he had ordered some breakfast — bread and ale — brought in for us. We must be hungry. He was certainly hungry, he said. The shipmaster seemed not only dispassionate about Jonathan’s death but unaffected by it.

I was curious about something and thought the shipmaster could enlighten me. The answer might even have a bearing on the death of Jonathan Case.

‘Where does the other door lead to?’

Case glanced over his shoulder at the second door alongside the one giving on to the small cabin.

‘It leads to a platform and a ladder that descends to the bowels of the ship and ascends to the poop deck. The whipstaff passes through there.’

Seeing our bafflement, he explained that the helmsman on the afterdeck controlled the direction of the boat by means of the whipstaff, a stout piece of timber which passed through a hole in the deck and shifted the tiller through a narrow arc by means of a pivot. Once out in the open sea, the shipmaster would consult the compass and then issue instructions to the helmsman by opening the second door and climbing the ladder or, more likely, ordering someone else to do it.

‘We have grown soft and easy of late, we mariners,’ said Case. ‘In the old days the sole compass would have been housed on the poop alongside the helmsman so that the shipmaster had to brave the elements to give direction. But now I may do it from the comfort of the great cabin. Nevertheless, the helmsman still steers most of the time by using his own compass and the log. The method is called dead reckoning.’

Henry Tallman looked increasingly impatient with all this maritime chat. In the meantime he had been lighting his pipe. Now he felt confident enough to make a joke. ‘Well, that is why we are here. A dead reckoning. Or a reckoning with the dead.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Colin Case. The absorbed expression which had settled on his face as he outlined the function of the whipstaff was replaced by a more dogged look. ‘Gentlemen, we should alert the watch or the headborough in Gravesend to what we have discovered. But I do not expect great things from the constable in such a place. It is true that I am on good terms with one of the justices in north Kent but, even so, we might be detained for days. Meanwhile, I have a ship to take across the British Sea to France, where there is a cargo of wine to collect-’

‘-as well as a sky-stone to deliver to Maitre Renard of St-Malo?’ said Tallman.

‘Perhaps,’ said Case. For the first time he seemed slightly unsure of himself.

‘What do you intend to do?’ said Jack. ‘Sail on and ignore your brother’s murder?’

‘Murder, eh?’

‘What would you call it?’

‘Let’s say murder, then. You think the best course would be if we handed over the responsible person to the local justice, his guilt signed and sealed.’

‘To do that, one of us has to confess or be detected in his guilt,’ said Tallman.

‘It would be as well if we were clear about our movements last night,’ said the shipmaster. ‘Once they are established we can turn our attention elsewhere.’

‘That is easily answered for Nick and me,’ said Jack. ‘After we’d eaten last night we went to get some fresh air on deck. There we… took a turn or two before coming back here.’

I noticed the way Jack had glided over our meeting with Nicholas the priest (or whatever he was) in the dark. My namesake was presumably lurking in the hold at this very moment. Fearing persecution and fleeing to France, he would not be likely to disembark at Gravesend. Did the shipmaster know of his presence? Surely he must do. Was it Nicholas who had disposed of Dr Case? He could have had access to the great cabin by climbing up from the hold and entering through the second door. Possibly that’s what had happened. But, if so, why?

‘There was no one here when we got back from our walk on deck,’ I said. ‘You two had gone. The three of you had gone if you include Dr Case.’

‘I was tucked up in there, as I said,’ said Henry Tallman, indicating the curtained alcove with his pipe-stem. ‘Jonathan had already retreated to his cabin after the business with the sky-stone, as I also said.’

‘I left the cabin by that other door,’ said the shipmaster. ‘I went up to the afterdeck to take a final look around before turning in. It is my custom even when we are moored up.’

‘You didn’t sleep in here?’ I said, even though I already knew the answer.

‘My brother had rented this space just as he had chartered this boat. I preferred to leave him to it. I slept up in the fo’c’s’le. I had no wish to be near him.’

‘You did not like your brother?’ said Jack.

‘I never troubled to hide that when he was alive, and I see no reason to hide it even if he has just been the victim of — what should I call it? — a fatal attack. He was an arrogant, self-important fellow. Dishonest, too, for all his airs.’

‘So are plenty of others,’ I said.

‘You do not know the half of it. Ask Henry Tallman here.’

‘I am a doctor of physic, too, although my interest spreads to many other areas. Because of old rivalries and his jealous nature, Dr Case made many aspersions about me. He spoiled my business and damaged my reputation. He put it abroad that I was not qualified to practise astrological physic.’

I was amazed that Tallman would speak this frankly before strangers and within a few yards of the dead man. It was as if he wanted to talk himself into a noose. Unless he believed that, by making a play of being so blunt, he was diverting suspicion from himself. We were interrupted for a moment as our breakfast was brought in by the same lad who had served us at supper last night. He was carrying tankards of ale and had a loaf tucked under one arm, yet he managed to place it all on the table without dropping or spilling anything.

He glanced towards the closed door of the small cabin behind which lay the dead body. Something about his manner showed that he knew who — or what — was in there. This impression was confirmed by a nod from Colin Case in the direction of the potboy. It was hardly surprising that news of Dr Jonathan’s death should be spreading around the ship. If so, the lad seemed to be taking the information with the same equanimity as everyone else. More than equanimity, if one considered that no one had yet attempted to arrange the body more decently or reverently. I wondered what would be the reaction to the death on the part of Thomasina, the brothers’ cousin — except that she was more likely the mistress of one than cousin to both.

As I had this thought, the potboy placed a tankard at my elbow. Something about this individual’s manner and, more specifically, about his hand nudged my memory.

‘Thank you, Thomas,’ said Colin Case.

After he had gone I took a long draught of ale to fortify myself for what I was about to say. I jerked my head in the direction of the steps.

‘I wondered what had happened to Dr Case’s young cousin. She never left the boat, did she? Or he never left the boat, I should say.’

‘Cards on the table, eh?’ said the shipmaster.

‘Yes, cards on the table,’ I said. ‘We must be near the end of the game.’

‘It is not so difficult to guess, I suppose,’ said Colin Case, not even attempting a denial. ‘There is the coincidence of names, Thomas and Thomasina, which is not a coincidence at all, of course. Then there is the fact that both have the same height and build.’

‘And a mole just here,’ I said, indicating a point at the base of the thumb on my right hand.

‘I feel as though I have wandered into a real-life play,’ said Jack Wilson. ‘Young men dressing up as women, identification by means of a mole. What in God’s name is going on?’