Chapter 10

"God Almighty," Lieutenant Ballard sighed wearily, as he and Lewrie pored over the lists they'd made. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and peered about the dimly lit dining coach of Lewrie's cabins to see if the coffeepot was still, simmering atop a lamp-base warmer on the sideboard. "Cony, is there any of that left?"

"Aye, Mister Ballard, sir. Polish yer brass with it by now, ya could, though, sir. I could roust cook out an' fetch fresh."

"Trot that lot out, Cony," Ballard yawned. "The blacker the better. May it be strong enough to melt a pewter spoon, then it may also dissolve the dam in my poor wits."

"Don't see as how we're getting anywhere," Lewrie carped, deep in a brown study. He had looked forward to harpooning John Finney in a court of law, even though paper-work drudgery was never his strong suit. Had the records they'd seized, the inventories of booty they'd recorded shown any promise, he might still have felt enthusiastic to continue delving. But so far, they could find nothing truly damning, and Alan envied Commander Rodgers, who was being all nautical and tar-handed at salving Guineaman.

"We shall, sir," Arthur Ballard assured him.

"It's all circumstantial, Arthur," Alan muttered. "Half of the goods are bulk cargoes. Rice, flour, dried beans and such in sacks or barrels. We know it comes from the Americas, but that's all. No sign or markings of seller, shipper or buyer! Same for the iron tools and farm implements, cloth and all. It could be his, legally."

"Yet none marked as consigned or bought by John Finney, sir," Ballard pointed out hopefully. "There's fancy goods from Spain, France and Portugal, with the producers' names for proof. There's sign they cleared foreign customs, there's sign export duties were paid."

"But no marks of who bought it or shipped it," Lewrie protested. "Could be construed as looted goods from a dago merchant. Or could be Finney's, after all."

"Aye, sir, but no proof positive of his ownership. Ergo, 'tis not his, and prima facie evidence it could be booty."

"I take no joy in mat argument," Alan complained. "He could claim ownership, and produce all the sham records he wished. Or, he could say he purchased the fancy goods in Havana or Santo Domingo or a dozen other ports, from others, and brought 'em here."

"And been skinned by the original importers, sir?" Ballard said with a grin. "No one on a court would ever believe that tale, not if they were any sort of merchant or shopkeeper! No one would pay that dearly. No profit in it."

"What we need is some sign that part of the trove ashore belongs to other Bay Street merchants."

"We'll never get that, sir," Ballard sighed. "If they imported wares in foreign bottoms, they violate our Navigation Acts. Naturally, they would not wish their cargoes marked for a customs official to see."

"Finney could say the same."

"The other merchants do not possess a fleet of trading ships to do their carrying, sir."

"And if all goods in one of his ships are his, then who's to gainsay him when he claims they needed no markings?" Alan countered.

"Granted," Ballard shrugged as Cony set a pewter mug before him. "Then, there're the odds and ends the pirates left behind, sir. No written records of their gatherings, though."

"With three out of five sailors in the Fleet illiterate, 'tis only tobe expected," Lewrie frowned. "Uhm ... Arthur, excuse me ... but, you're really going to drink that?"

"Sir..." Ballard whispered back with a tiny grin. "Alan, do you allow me to be prodigal with your personal stores, I shall take it with four sugars. And all evident avidity!"

"Yoosh!" Alan commented with a sour-mouthed shudder. "Ditto that opinion," Ballard said once he'd tasted it and set it aside. "There're weapons, watches, navigational instruments, clocks and such that bear the inscriptions of unknown men. And some unknown vessels, sir. Far too valuable, the most of it, for common seamen."

"But we didn't capture a single pirate, they all escaped us," Lewrie sighed. "And to track down the goods' original owners, to find the ships mentioned ... even if we had captured a few, they could say they bought them half a world away as used. Got 'em as gifts! How does one track down 'Cock Robin' off the good ship Barnacle outa New York? All that's left of her is anonymous bosun's stores, nails and a pocket watch, if she was pirated. Probably sunk, and seaman 'Cock Robin' murdered and gone down with her! Now were we to find goodies from old Barnacle aboard the pirate schooner, and ashore, and aboard Guineaman, we have your prima facie case to lay."

Lewrie leaned back in his chair and gazed through half-shut eyelids at the overhead beams as Ballard could be heard shuffling his stacks of papers over again, between sips of his vile coffee.

"That might not do it, even then," Lewrie muttered. "Say someone aboard Guineaman, one of the mates, had a packet of used goods in his sea chest. The pirates could have rifled the chest when they took Guineaman ... if they ever did ... and it could have ended up ashore or in a pirate's sea-bag when they went shares of their spoils, so..."

"There is a fine box of Manton pistols, with an inscription on the case as belonging to a Captain Henry Beard, sir, that were found aboard the schooner, in her master's cabins," Ballard informed him. "The inscription tells us Beard was master of the Matilda. Then, we have several hundred pounds of chain and ankle bands and wrist locks ashore. The sort of restraints used to arrange slaves into coffies, sir. Rusty, abandoned for some time I'd say. But they bear Liverpool markings, with the name Matilda scratched into them on the bands. There was something ..." He urgently riffled through his papers.

"A Liverpool ship?" Lewrie asked, tipping his chair forward to take more interest. "Damme, a British vessel?"

"Ah!" Ballard said. "An especially fine spyglass with a brass plaque bearing the name Nathaniel Marriyat. Presented to him by his family upon becoming first mate of ... the Matilda! And, damme!"

It was rare for Ballard to swear.

"That was found aboard Guineaman, in the ready-use rack by the compass binnacle and the traverse board, sir!" Ballard almost shouted with joy. "Three items from the same vessel, linking together. This Matilda must, from this scant evidence, be a Liverpool slaver. Rusty as the chains and fetters are, she must have been taken at least one year ago. The pistols, and the chains, that proves the pirates were here at Walker's Cay before this incident. The spyglass proves that Guineaman had met them before yesterday. Wait! Wait, I...! Yes!" Ballard giggled, losing all his soberness as he sorted more papers. "Boxed set of navigational instruments. Brass ruler, dividers, compass ... and a sextant! Guineaman's second mate had them! But they were engraved originally as the missing Captain Beard's, sir! When we questioned Guineaman's crew, he claimed he'd bought 'em in Liverpool, a year or more past!"

"Matilda," Lewrie pondered. "Matilda. Now where have I heard that name? Seems I have... damme, I'm sure I have."

"A Liverpool 'black-birder' could sell a cargo of slaves here in the Bahamas, sir. Do the Middle Passage, Dahomey to Nassau, with the demand for slaves increasing here, now that..."

"Wait, Arthur! Ssshh!" Alan demanded, raising a hand. "Let me think."

It was recent; he was certain of that much. Since arriving in the Bahamas? He tried to remember ships which might have lain nearby Alacrity at anchor. Portsmouth—no. On the voyage out? Again, no. Slavers stank to high heaven. They crammed three or four hundred men and women into hard wooden racks, forced them to lie back-to-belly as tight as cordwood and fettered for months. Fed them in those racks, half the time, if the weather was bad. Puking sick, incontinent from rotten hog-swill victuals, they fouled their own sleeping spaces and had to lie in excrement like beasts. One remembered slavers close by!

Slavers were fast ships, frigate-built, or like a "razeed" 3rd Rate, cut down to two decks from three. Were they slow, the rates of mortality cut their profits to nothing. The faster the ship, the more slaves arrived alive for sale, though twenty-five percent attrition was the norm for even the most considerate and "gentle" captains.

Where had he seen such a fine, frigate-built ship, a vessel aseaman would envy, foul as that line of work was? In the Caicos, in some harbour... Nassau Harbour... Cat Island...

"Christ!" Lewrie gasped. He got to his feet and crossed over to the chart-space to grope through his bookshelves. "Cony, fetch a light!"

William Pitt hissed at him from the dark. He had been sleeping like a tawny, orange-colored plum-duff on the high outboard shelf by the chart table between the chronometer and the sextant case. And did not like his naps interrupted.

"Oh, bugger y'rself!" Lewrie griped. "Ah, thankee, Cony!"

He found the gold-lettered spine of the book he was seeking, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and flipped through it to see if his memory was correct.

"Eureka, Arthur! Bloody hell! Read that dedication!"

"My God," Arthur Ballard said with a bemused expression when he had completed it. "How the devil did you come by this, sir?"

"Bought it used for six shillings," Lewrie crowed. "Look at the date. March of 1785. It's accounted so bawdy there was an Order In Council to ban its publication in England, but some printer... a Liverpool printer, note... ran up a few hundred on speculation, 'stead of the usual subscription. Matilda was at short-stays, ready for a new slaving voyage, with Nathaniel Marriyat just promoted first mate into her. Time enough for your chains to rust?"

"But where did you get it, sir?"

"At Finney's on Bay Street, Arthur!"

"Aha!"

"At bloody 'Calico Jack' Finney's, not two months' past, damn his eyes! Arthur, they pissed in the font! They did the unspeakable! They took a British ship! A ship we can ask about among the slaver captains who frequent Nassau, among the slave dealers who dealt with her in the past. We can document one of the victims, show that goods off her were aboard Guineaman, the schooner, and piled with other loot ashore long enough ago to confirm when they took her. There'll be a brace or two of 'black-birders' in port soon with the first slaves of the summer. They'll have seen Matilda in Africa, they'll know of her people, and whether she went missing. And this book proves that Jack Finney has bought pirated goods. We've got the bastard! Even if he doesn't do a hemp hornpipe on the gallows, he's finished in these islands... or I'm a Turk in a turban!"