Brian Freemantle: The Mary Celeste

‘The court notes your request,’ said Cochrane, rising gratefully. ‘The court will be adjourned until tomorrow.’

The moment the judge left the chamber, Winchester hurried towards his counsel, gesturing as he did so for the American Consul to accompany him.

Flood smiled, well satisfied with his first day. He took time collecting his scattered documents and then walked from the room, aware that they would have seen his expression and found it as unsettling as they had his cross-examination. He had just disrobed when Baumgartner appeared at the door.

‘Sir James would like to see you,’ he said.

‘Went well today,’ said the registrar, as they walked towards the judge’s chambers. It was more of a question than an observation.

‘It will get better as the days progress,’ predicted Flood confidently.

Cochrane was at the window, as he had been during their encounter before the enquiry had begun, when the Attorney-General entered.

‘Thank you for your support,’ he said immediately, to Cochrane.

‘Gave you the undertaking before the proceedings began,’ the other man replied. ‘You raised a lot of questions in there today.’

‘And I intend getting the answers,’ said Flood.

‘You think Winchester is involved in whatever happened?’

‘He was too composed… unworried. Should have been far more outraged by the obvious inferences I was making.’

‘He could just be a dour man,’ pointed out the judge.

‘More likely a guilty one.’

‘I’ll need more than innuendo and suspicion.’

‘You’ll have your evidence,’ said Flood. ‘I’m determined you’ll have your evidence.’

He glanced at the carriage clock upon the mantelpiece of the judge’s chambers. By now, he decided, Dr Patron would be well into his analyses. Of all the evidence, that which Dr Patron was going to produce would be the most damning.

Because it was the nearest place available, they went to the house of the American Consul, Horatio Sprague. Cornwell sat at the desk, jotting pad before him, with Pisani opposite, but Captain Winchester, engulfed by anger, was unable to sit. Instead he strode about the room, jerking his arms out for emphasis, a vein pumping in his forehead. Sprague lapsed into his customary role of listener.

‘Railroaded,’ protested Winchester. ‘The damned man has got a conviction about murder and is determined to railroad me into some position of guilt, the instigator of a crime with God knows who.’

‘I’ve rarely been present at judicial proceedings like it,’ said Cornwell, more controlled.

‘I’m not for a moment suggesting that you are in any way involved,’ Sprague said to the ship-owner, ‘but broached cargo and bloodstained swords sound very suspicious.’

‘He never said how the cargo had been broached,’ said Winchester. ‘I still say I’m right about evaporation.’

‘The Attorney-General didn’t say a great many things,’ said Pisani reflectively. ‘In fact, he was far more damaging in what he left unsaid.’

‘What can we do?’ demanded Winchester.

‘About what?’ asked Cornwell and the owner realised that both the lawyers and the consul were regarding him curiously.

‘In the name of God, surely you don’t believe I’m in any way involved in the disappearance of the captain and crew of one of my own vessels!’

‘Sorry,’ apologised Cornwell. ‘It was the phrasing of the question.’

‘I meant,’ said Winchester, the clarity of his pronunciation and explanation indicating his annoyance at the other’s doubts, ‘what can be done to prevent this from turning into a kangaroo court?’

Cornwell looked enquiringly at Sprague, who moved his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness.

‘Very little,’ admitted the Consul. ‘Frederick Solly Flood is a man of some established standing in this colony and is the duly appointed Attorney-General. By many he’s regarded as a worthy advocate. Personally I regard him as a man with far too vivid an imagination, but Sir James Cochrane seems intent on giving him his head. And he’s the duly appointed judge.’

‘So I have to sit there, day after day, while the damned man fabricates evidence to suit his convictions.’

‘Come now,’ protested Cornwell. ‘It can’t get quite as desperate as that.’

‘Can’t it!’ said the owner. ‘I don’t recall your attempts to set things right being favourably received today.’

‘No,’ conceded the lawyer. ‘The court feeling is certainly against us.’

‘What about this bloodstained sword?’ said Winchester.

‘I knew of the existence of the sword, from the inventory prepared by the court marshal,’ said Cornwell. ‘The suggestions of bloodstains came as a complete surprise to me.’

‘And not just on the sword. On the decking as well,’ Sprague reminded them. He’d been so sure of finding some logical reason for his friends’ disappearance; even hoped a ship would arrive somewhere with them aboard and then the whole episode could have been explained. Now he was unsure.

‘Do you know Captain Morehouse?’ Cornwell asked his client.

‘One encounter,’ said the ship-owner. ‘His reputation is that of being an excellent captain. Why?’

‘So you’ve no reason to doubt his affidavit of how he came upon the vessel and took her into charge?’

The room was completely quiet as Sprague and Winchester considered the implications of the lawyer’s question.

‘Preposterous!’ said Winchester, at last. ‘You surely can’t propose that a respected captain and crew would slaughter fellow countrymen… and a baby as well… in the doubtful expectation of getting $25,000 salvage?’

‘They wouldn’t have known the value of the cargo,’ argued Cornwell. ‘They could have imagined it would be something far more valuable and that an award might be higher.’

Captain Winchester smiled for the first time, shaking his head in anticipation of being able to destroy a conjecture.

‘But they would have known,’ he said. ‘At the last meeting I had with Captain Briggs before he sailed, he told me he was dining that evening with Captain Morehouse. The men were friends.’

Studying his friend, Captain Morehouse pushed his chair back from the tiny cabin table, to enable the steward to clear the meal more easily. Benjamin Briggs was a square-bodied, compact man of whom the initial impression was one of prudent neatness. Although worn comparatively long, as if to compensate for his high forehead, the man’s hair was freshly bartered and the moustache and goatee were trimmed shorter than the usual fashion. The suiting was conservatively cut from durable cloth, chosen more for its length of wear than its comfort, and his nails, short-dipped, were still chipped and his hands hardened with the evidence that he worked his ship as readily as any crew he commanded.

He was a man without mannerisms or need for unnecessary conversation or movement. Captain Morehouse knew there were some who would have regarded Briggs’s company as dull, but that was not the reaction the man drew from him.

What then? Morehouse concentrated, seeking a word for his feelings and becoming unhappy with the only one which came to mind. Reassurance seemed illogical. Yet that was how he thought of the other man. Benjamin Briggs was a man in whose presence one felt reassurance, whether on the pitching deck of a ship or in the quiet surroundings of a social evening.

Briggs had minutes before raised his head from the prayer of thanks at the end of the meal. There had been similar gratitude before it began and Morehouse thought that in many people, particularly seamen, the piety would have appeared peculiar or an affectation, maybe even something at which to smirk. But with Briggs it had appeared completely natural. He continued the reflection. Many other people, even of sincere conviction, would have passed up the custom at another’s table, to avoid embarrassment or perhaps ridicule. But that would never have occurred to Briggs. He was as uncompromising in his attitude to religion as he was in everything else. Morehouse found him an easy man to admire and like.