But at Mr Lawrence’s chambers he was confronted by a startled clerk who. said that Mr Lawrence was not in the way
– nobody had looked to see the Doctor for at least two days and Mr Lawrence had gone out of town – would not be back until tomorrow – late tomorrow. He would be so sorry to have missed the Doctor.
‘He will not miss me at all,’ said Stephen. ‘I shall sleep at an inn called the Grapes in the Liberties of the Savoy, and I shall spend the early part of tomorrow buying various things and seeing friends. I shall dine at my club, which Mr Lawrence knows. I shall leave a message at the Grapes and at Black’s to say where I can be found, if by any chance he should come back sooner than he expects. Otherwise I shall come here at the same time in the evening.’
‘Very well, sir. And may I add, sir,’ said the clerk in an undertone, ‘that the goods have been looked after.’
Stephen was too late to find Sarah and Emily still up, but Mrs Broad gave him a most satisfactory account of their happiness, and they breakfasted with him in the morning, grinding the coffee themselves, bringing toast, kippers, marmalade, describing the wonders of London, perpetually interrupting one another, perpetually breaking off to ask whether he remembered Lima and the splendid organ there, the Street lined with silver, the mountains and the snow, the green ice off Cape Horn.
‘Mrs Broad,’ he said on leaving the Grapes, ‘if anyone should call from Mr Lawrence’s chambers, be so good as to say that I shall be at Clementi’s pianoforte warehouse until about three, and after that at my club.’
No message did in fact appear, but the time passed agreeably with Mr Hinksey, whom he met at Clementi’s and who, after they had dined together at Black’s, walked back with Stephen as far as the Temple Bar.
Lawrence was touchingly pleased to see him, obviously feeling very much more concern than his mere duty as Stephen’s legal adviser required. ‘I am so very glad you have taken our
advice,’ he said. ‘Come in, come in. This is as disagreeable and potentially dangerous a situation as ever I have known. In here, if you please – forgive these papers and the cake.
How happy I am that you are here. I had scarcely looked for you until tomorrow. You posted up, I presume?’
‘I came by boat,’ said Stephen. ‘By sea,’ he added, observing that his words had no effect whatsoever.
‘Ah, indeed?’ said Lawrence, for whom this astonishing fact was clearly much the same as a trip from Richmond or Hampton Court. ‘A packet, no doubt?’
‘No, sir. A private tender, belonging to Mr Aubrey, a vessel of astonishing powers of sailing. No other could have brought us to the Pool of London itself in a number of hours that escapes me for the moment but that filled my shipmates with admiration and astonishment.’
‘So you have it yet, this boat. And in the Pool? So much the better. Pray sit down.
How very glad I am to see you: I have been growing anxious. Allow me to cut you a piece of cake.’ They sat at the crumb-covered table, and Lawrence fetched another glass. ‘This is the madeira you sent me a couple of years ago,’ he said.
They settled, drinking their wine and eating their cake, collecting themselves and as it were breathing.
‘Sir Joseph brought me the documents signed,’ said Lawrence. ‘I am most obliged to you for your confidence.’
‘I am infinitely more obliged to you for your advice and your help,’ said Stephen.
Lawrence bowed and went on, ‘I gave the bank formal warning within the hour, and then I sent for Pratt. Physical transfers of treasure call for a certain discretion at all times: even more so now, and in this case. I have been growing more anxious, as I say, and Pratt shared my anxiety: we neither of us have heard anything definite, but we have both heard of fresh consultations on the part of Habachtsthal’s main lawyers, and of violent, indeed murderous disagreements among those criminals he has so imprudently employed as his agents.’ He poured more wine, and said ‘I have taken it upon myself to spend some hundreds of your guineas.’
‘Of course, of course. You could not oblige me more.’
‘Pratt, who understands these things better than any man I know, caused your chests to be repacked in large cases marked Double-Refined Platina and removed to a lead, brass and copper warehouse on the river, by Irongate Stairs, where they can lie until you make arrangements to carry them away elsewhere. Or perhaps to ship them – I do not know your plans, of course. Is the tender of which you speak a ship, or a little pleasure-boat?’
‘It is scarcely what the mariners would describe as a ship, but it is a commodious little vessel capable of a circumnavigation; and the Dear knows, I have carried more in less.’
It was no new thing for Dr Maturin’s shipmates to load singular cargoes aboard the vessels he sailed in: giant squids on occasion, or little iron-bound chests of extraordinary weight. He was and always had been a singular gent; but they were used to his little ways
– it was known that he carried out learned scientific and political tasks for Government –
and although they were a little puzzled by the grim bruisers and former Bow Street
runners who supervised the operation they took no umbrage and stowed the double-refined platina so that it would bring the clipper a trifle by the stern; and they were preparing to cast off in the first light when it was found that Arthur Mould was missing.
‘Ain’t he back yet?’ asked Bonden. The other Sethians shook their heads, looking down. ‘Joe,’ said Bonden to the youngest member of the crew, ‘cut along to Bedmaid Lane, first on the left going downstream, knock on the door of number six – a great big six in red – and ask for Mr Gideon Mould. The barky awaits his pleasure.’
‘His pleasure, ha, ha, ha. That’s right, cock,’ said several of his mates. ‘What a cove he is, that old Mould. He can’t leave it alone.’
Mould, glum now, penniless, and anxious about the possible outcome of his repeated joys, returned: the Ringle hoisted her jib, shoved off from the wharf and stood out into the midstream at half-ebb, with a stiff breeze on her starboard beam, followed by a cry from a black man in a crimson gig ‘What ho, the Baltimore clipper oh!’
When all was settled and the river somewhat broader, less crowded, Reade found Stephen in the cabin and said ‘Please would you look at the log-book, sir? I have wrote it fair.’
‘Very fair it is too, upon my faith,’ said Stephen, looking at the neat column of dates, winds, and remarks.
‘And here, sir, you see the exact minute of our dropping anchor in the Pool. Please would you sign, small and neat in the margin, with all the degrees you can think of, and FRS as well? They will never believe me, else.’
Stephen signed, and Reade, having gloated over the entry for a while, said ‘And don’t we wish we may do the same going back? Oh no, not at all. Still, she is by the stern now, near half a strake, which is some comfort.’
‘In what way is it a comfort, William?’
‘Why, sir, she will beat to windward just that trifle better.’ Seeing the blank stupidity on the Doctor’s face he added ‘Had you not noticed it is still in the west-south-west?’
‘I thought it was on our flank, the wind, our broad side, our starboard beam,’ said Stephen. ‘I particularly noticed it when my hat blew off. But then no doubt it is we that have turned rather than the breeze or indeed I may even say tempest. Do you suppose that we may be windbound like those unhappy convoys in the Downs, the sorrow and woe?’
‘Oh no, sir, I hope not. I dare say the breeze will have changed by then – I have no doubt of it, indeed, from the
tingling in my wound.’
But for all Reade’s tingling – he had been wounded in the arm during an action with Dyaks in the East Indies, and Stephen had had to take it off – it was still blowing strong from the west-south-west as they passed the Nore again in the falling dusk; and all the way along from the North Foreland the whole length and breadth of the Downs glittered with the riding-lights of ships lying there with two or three cables ahead, windbound still, with many new arrivals. The wind grew stronger with the progress of the night, and in the middle watch four ships drove upon the Goodwin Sands.