Brian Freemantle - The Mary Celeste

‘Capital,’ he said, aware before he spoke of how his questioner would turn the answer. ‘One has to buy one’s way into ownership.’

‘And you had no money?’

‘No.’

‘What was Captain Briggs’s response to that?’

‘He provided me with a letter of introduction to Captain Winchester.’

The Attorney-General slowly twisted, encompassing first the witness and then the New York owner who had given evidence the previous day and who sat today leaning forward in his seat, note pad upon his knee. The Attorney-General thought Captain Winchester looked worried. With every reason, he decided: he had uncovered the link between the two men.

‘So he brought you and Captain Winchester together?’

‘Yes.’

‘To what purpose?’

Morehouse shrugged. ‘Little more than establishing contact between us. Captain Briggs said Captain Winchester was always ready to meet reliable masters and that he might know of a way that I could raise capital sufficient for my needs.’

‘… “capital sufficient for my needs”,’ quoted Flood. He stopped, letting the inference settle. Then he said, ‘Tell me, Captain Morehouse, what do you consider would be capital sufficient for your needs?’

‘That’s a hypothetical question’ said the captain, in vain protest.

‘Just as a rigged fore-topmast staysail and jib keeping an unmanned vessel against tide and wind is a hypothetical solution to this mystery,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘What do you consider would be capital sufficient for your needs?’

‘No figure was ever discussed at my meeting with Captain Winchester,’ said Morehouse. He was shifting from foot to foot, like a child seeking a teacher’s permission to leave the classroom.

‘What do you consider would be capital sufficient for your needs?’ persisted Flood.

‘Perhaps $5,000. Perhaps more…’

‘Perhaps $5,000. Perhaps more,’ echoed Flood. ‘Are you an ambitious man?’

As on the previous day, the man’s counsel finally intervened, rising hurriedly from his seat.

‘Sir!’ protested Pisani to Cochrane. ‘The direction in which my friend is seeking to lead this examination must be clear to everyone at this enquiry, a direction for which no evidence whatsoever has so far been produced for your consideration. Surely it is wrong during the hearing of a civil matter, which this is, to permit behaviour more in keeping with a Star Chamber.’

Just as Pisani’s objection had been so similar to that of his fellow lawyers, so the judge’s response was comparable. His head came up from his bench, face suffused and red.

‘Star Chamber!’ he said.

Pisani appeared less in awe of the man than the lawyer representing the owner.

‘A term invoked after some consideration,’ he said.

‘You, sir, are impudent,’ said Cochrane.

‘And I fear, sir, that you endanger the reputation of your court if you permit the conduct of this case to proceed in its present manner,’ said Pisani.

‘I have already made it clear how I intend this enquiry to proceed,’ said Cochrane. ‘I will allow no interference in the search for the truth.’

‘None of us here would object to the pursuit of the truth,’ said the lawyer. ‘My objection is in the pursuit of preconceptions and innuendo.’

‘I have listened with the utmost consideration to everything said since the beginning of this enquiry,’ said the judge, with obviously enforced evenness. ‘And so far I have detected nothing which has caused me even to consider questioning the behaviour of the Attorney-General…’ He hesitated. ‘And I would remind you, Mr Pisani, that my jurisdiction here is absolute and that I am answerable to no court of appeal but to their Lords of the Admiralty.’

‘A fact which has not escaped my attention. Nor my concern,’ said the lawyer. He looked towards the registrar.

‘I trust my observations have been noted and entered into the court record,’ he said.

Baumgartner twisted nervously towards Cochrane, who said curtly, ‘As I have already mentioned, sir, everything at this hearing is being noted…’ He turned his head, to Flood: ‘Pray continue, Mr Attorney-General.’

‘At what age did you attain the rank of captain?’ Flood asked Morehouse, rising from the bench at which he had sat during the exchange between the judge and the man’s lawyer.

‘Twenty-one,’ said Morehouse.

‘A young man?’

‘Yes.’

‘A very young man?’

‘Comparatively so.’

‘Would you describe yourself as an ambitious man?’ he asked again.

‘It is not a question I have considered, sir.’

‘Then put your mind to it now. Are you an ambitious man?’

‘I do not consider myself to be any more ambitious than most.’

‘Tell the enquiry, Captain Morehouse, what is your age now?’ said Flood. With every prevarication, the man worsened his credibility.

‘Thirty-four.’

‘A captain at twenty-one, still just a captain thirteen years later.’

‘An achievement with which I am content enough,’ said Morehouse.

‘Really, sir!’ said Flood. ‘Not thirty minutes ago, the word you used was envy.’

Morehouse lifted his arm, a motion of confusion.

‘A loose use of words. I did not intend to convey that I coveted anything that Benjamin Briggs had achieved. Rather, that I admired the man for having attained so much.’

‘An attainment you did not seek to emulate?’

Morehouse sighed, resigned. ‘Of course I would welcome advancement,’ he said. ‘But not in the manner that you are suggesting.’

‘What manner am I suggesting?’

‘You seek to turn innocent talk into incriminating discussion… to find suspicion in anything for which there is not a ready solution…’

‘I seek only the truth,’ insisted the Attorney-General. ‘Unpalatable though it may be…’

‘I have assisted you in every way I can,’ protested Morehouse desperately.

‘A little more, I beg you,’ said Flood, in mock humility. ‘Before the recent discussion between My Lord and Mr Pisani, we were talking of capital. We had agreed, I believe, that $5,000 would have been sufficient for you to purchase yourself at least part-ownership of a vessel in Captain Winchester’s company?’

‘No!’ said the witness, gazing for help first to Cochrane and then to his lawyer. ‘I was repeating the vaguest of conversations… giving little more than my own estimate of what I might need to come to any agreement. There was no talk between Captain Winchester and myself about any such agreement.’

‘Were this salvage claim to succeed, would you anticipate that your proportion of any money awarded would be in excess of $5,000?’

‘I’ve not considered an amount,’ said Morehouse thoughtlessly.

Flood did not take up the remark immediately, allowing them all to recognise the man’s mistake for themselves.

‘I, for one, do not believe the truth of that answer,’ the Attorney-General said finally. ‘Any more than I expect the majority of people present at this enquiry believe it. To give you the advantage of correcting an impression of falsehood, I shall repeat the question. Were this salvage claim to succeed, would you anticipate that your share of any award would be in excess of $5,000?’

‘Yes,’ said Morehouse, his voice little more than a whisper.

‘Sufficient for a partnership?’

Morehouse looked up, staring intently at the Attorney-General with his prominent eyes.

‘I regarded Captain Briggs as one of my closest friends,’ he said pleadingly. ‘I would have done nothing to hurt him.’

‘I never said that you had, Captain Morehouse.’

‘You suggested it.’

‘No, sir, it was not I who suggested it. It is your evidence this enquiry has been considering this day.’