The Deception At Lyme

“I doubt all sugar casks are thus equipped,” Darcy replied.

“Even so, the mere chance of finding such a treasure would sweeten my tea all the more.”

She returned her attention to the journal, while Darcy rose from his chair and crossed their small sitting room to gaze out one of the windows. Though impatient for her to finish, he did not want to distract her reading of the critical last entry by staring at her. As he looked upon the street, however, he barely saw the tourists entering the fossil shop on the corner, the gull poking at some morsel on the ground, the gig trying to maneuver round an opposing coach in a side lane too narrow to accommodate both vehicles. His person might stand in a Lyme cottage in the present, but his mind was in the past, on the quarterdeck of a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

He turned sideways, as if gazing farther up the street, but in truth surreptitiously watching Elizabeth’s expressions as she read. She frowned, eyes narrowed. At last, she finished and looked up at him.

“The approaching vessel, I take it, was the Dangereuse?”

“Yes, as evidenced by the date.”

She squinted at the lines. “I can barely make out the date. The handwriting on these last pages is inferior to the rest. Though still clearly your cousin’s hand, the strokes are not as controlled, and the ink is smeared.”

Darcy, too, had been forced to slow his reading when he reached the final entry. Impressions from facing pages, where the ink had not entirely dried when Gerard closed the volume, had resulted in ghostly characters that further hindered legibility. “Indeed, one can see that he wrote the entry in great haste.”

“I do not expect, however, that it is Lieutenant Fitzwilliam’s penmanship on which you are soliciting my appraisal?”

“No—Lieutenant St. Clair’s character.”

“Well.” She glanced at the page once more before closing the diary. “One must read between the lines for that, and you have had more opportunity than I today. You have been unusually pensive since your appointment. What transpired?”

Darcy came away from the window and sat down across from her. He related the full conversation, from the meeting with Captain Tourner to St. Clair’s repeated references to the contents of Gerard’s sea chest. Though he censored some of St. Clair’s descriptions of the horrors of combat, he included more particulars of the battle and Gerard’s injuries than he would have imparted to any other lady in England. As he had hinted to St. Clair, he and Elizabeth had encountered such unpleasantness before, and he was blessed with a wife who could discuss such matters with sense and penetration. He needed both at present.

“So, your cousin and the cook—Mr. Hart—were two casualties of how many?”

“I did not think to enquire.” His mind had been so occupied by coalescing suspicion that he had not asked all he might have during his conversation with St. Clair, and the battle itself, though of tantamount significance to Gerard’s family, had been of such minor consequence in the overall war that it had received little attention in the Naval Chronicle at the time. “St. Clair made it sound a large number, though obviously this was no Trafalgar.”

“Perhaps the number of other wounded does not signify,” Elizabeth said. “The salient point is that both Lieutenant Fitzwilliam and the cook died shortly after becoming aware of the figurines—objects that somebody else wanted hidden. The question is whether the timing of their deaths resulted from coincidence or malice. As Lady Elliot’s demise has already put me in a murderous frame of mind, it is tempting to read homicide into this history. However, ship-to-ship ca

“But a very convenient cover for one—or two.”

“You suspect your cousin and Mr. Hart were killed by a member of their own ship’s crew?”

“The melee provided a perfect opportunity to silence any questions about the idols.”

“Surely you do not think Lieutenant St. Clair himself—”

“It is possible. Or someone acting with his knowledge and perhaps on his instructions.”

“But why should he want them dead? He had their trust—he is the person who hired Mr. Hart, and he acted as a mentor to your cousin. He also had the idol in his possession by the time the battle occurred.”

“Idols.” Darcy emphasized the s as he pronounced the word. “Recall that there were two—hence, twice the value and twice the motive for keeping their existence secret.”

She perused the final entries again. “Your cousin writes that Hart came to him with two figurines, but the later account of his conversation with Lieutenant St. Clair says he gave up only one: ‘I surrendered the idol I had shewn him, but they remain fixed in my thoughts.’ Lieutenant Fitzwilliam must have held back the other idol.”

“Or in the haste of writing, he accidentally left off the s in that single instance—a reasonable possibility, given the general state of those lines’ urgency and execution.”

“The word is plural everywhere else it appears,” she conceded. “Yet if he did relinquish only one idol, did he retain the other with or without Lieutenant St. Clair’s knowledge? Was St. Clair aware of the second? Perhaps your cousin told St. Clair about only the first. Alternatively, Lieutenant Fitzwilliam might have informed him of both but brought only one with him when he sought out St. Clair.”

“St. Clair could have known about both before Gerard even said a word.”

“Because he himself put them in the sugar cask?”

“Or ordered someone else to.”

“Why would he hide anything of value in a cask to be opened and shared by others, instead of keeping the figurines among his private possessions?”

“Perhaps he did not intend for that cask to be shared, but for it to quietly travel to England with his other personal property.” Darcy gestured toward the diary still in Elizabeth’s hands. “Gerard writes that many of the officers had purchased small quantities of rum, sugar, spices, and other West Indian goods for themselves or gifts for friends at home. When those goods were loaded onto the ship, a cask intended for St. Clair’s stores could have become confused with those designated for his mess.”

“Might that not be true of all the officers’ goods? The cask in question could have belonged to any one of them.”

“Yes, but recall that St. Clair acted as caterer for his mess—he contracted for the group’s sugar and other provisions. If a cask from anyone’s private reserve was likely to be misidentified as communal, it would be his.”

“Again, why would he—or anybody—hide such objects in a cask at all? Why not simply lock them in his sea chest?”

“Perhaps he feared they would be stolen. Perhaps he did not want to be co

“He bought two gold figurines as souvenirs of his time in the West Indies. What is the harm in that? Why go to such lengths and risk to disassociate himself from them?”

“Perhaps the idols were something he was not supposed to possess. Given to him by acquaintances he was not supposed to have.” Darcy rose from his chair. It was difficult to sit still with his mind so restless. He went back to the window, but saw no more of the view than he had before. “I wish Gerard had described the figurines in more detail.”

“Had he known he was leaving behind a mystery for you to solve, no doubt he would have. Unfortunately, he did not expect to die.”

“He had the foresight to leave directions for the disposition of his sea chest in the event of his death.”

“Yes—ironically, into the care of the very person whom you now suspect of precipitating his demise.” She set aside the diary and came to him. “Have you considered that we have only Lieutenant St. Clair’s word that your cousin asked him to separate the sea chest from the rest of his belongings and deliver it in person?”