“I cannot like the character of such a friend.”

“But can you put a name to him, Frank? Some old shipmate of Seagrave's, perhaps?”

My brother shook his head in the negative.

“Excepting, naturally — yourself,” I said.

OUR RETURN TO MRS. DAVIES'S LODGING HOUSE WAS attended with unexpected ceremony.

As the hoy dropped anchor in Southampton Water, and the skiff set out from the Quay to meet us, I observed a singular figure clutching the gunwales amidships. He was tall and spare — so spare that his narrow back curved like a fishhook over his protruding knees, and his thin wrists sprang from his coat sleeves like stalks of spring rhubarb. The master of the hoy, in observing this apparition's approach, muttered under his breath.

“I'll not be taking that delicate article anywhere on the Water, Cap'n, and I'll thank'ee to tell him so.”

His eyes narrowed against the wind, Frank clapped the master on the shoulder. “I doubt that gentleman has a voyage in view.”

The skiff came alongside; the oarswomen shipped their blades; and the reedy fellow glanced at us beseechingly from under his broad-brimmed hat.

“Captain Austen, I assume? Miss Austen?” He evinced no interest in Mr. Hill or Etienne LaForge, who were waiting patiently for a seat in the skiff.

“You have the advantage of me, sir,” Frank replied.

The gentleman ducked his head in acknowledgement. “Forgive me — I feel most unwell — that is, a trifle indisposed — the motion of the seas—” He swallowed convulsively and clutched once more at the skiff's sides. “I am Mr. Percival Pethering, Magistrate of Southampton, and I wish to speak with you, Captain, on a matter of utmost urgency.”

“Am I to suppose,” said Frank with undisguised amusement, “that you have braved the seas in order to apprehend me? Then shift your position, sir, that I might hand my sister into the skiff.”

“Naturally!” cried Pethering in an agony of consciousness. His hands remained fixed at the skiffs sides, his skeletal form immovable. “Only too happy to oblige! Provided, of course, that this cockle does not overturn….”

“And you do not attempt to stand upright, all will be well.” Frank avoided the satiric looks of the oarswomen, and placed his hand under my elbow. “Lightly, Jane, lest Mr. Pethering be indisposed.”

I cast him a chiding look. Fly is merciless in his abuse of the lubbers everywhere about him; he cannot resist this natural tendency towards superiority in matters naval; but Pethering held a temporal power that warranted respect.

At the moment, however, the magistrate was incapable of taking offence. He was recumbent over the skiff's far side, being sick into the sea.

We managed to achieve the Water Gate Quay without further incident. My brother assisted Mr. Pethering — who was most unsteady on his feet — from the skiff before even myself. The magistrate stood upon the stone pier drawing great gusts of salutary air, as though life, in all its miseries and joys, was newly granted him.

Frank stepped easily to shore and bowed to the magistrate. “You are come upon the matter of Mr. Chessyre, I think?”

“I am, sir. You have learned of his brutal end already. But we shall defer our speech until the lady” — this, with a nod for me — “is safely returned to your lodgings.”

“My sister is entirely in my confidence, sir,” Frank told him stiffly.

“Pray do not regard me in the slightest, Mr. Pethering,” I said.

The magistrate hesitated. His small eyes shifted from Frank to myself, as though in the most acute indecision. Viewed in full, his countenance appeared drawn, his features sharp, his teeth very bad. I guessed him to be no older than myself, but the wispy tendrils of hair escaping from his hat suggested a man approaching his dotage. There was about Percival Pethering a pitiful air of ill-health, of seclusion within doors, of embarrassments nursed in the most painful solitude. He was not the sort for decisive action or lightning-swift thought.

“Very well,” he conceded abruptly. “We shall talk as we go, and save your wife the trouble of accommodating an interview.”

“You know of my wife?” Frank returned, with the first suggestion of unease.

“It was she who told me where you might be found. I have been waiting for the hoy's return this last hour at least. You may judge from that how serious is the case.”

“As murder must always be,” Frank observed.

I was in danger of being led away from our companions of the morning without so much as a farewell; I turned, and found the two surgeons preparing to cross from the Quay to the far paving-stones where Wool House loomed.

“Adieu, monsieur,” I told LaForge

He looked very ill; but nonetheless he carried my gloved hand to his lips with an excess of courtier's gallantry. In this, as in everything, his manners belied the humbleness of his professed station; and I wondered again at his being in such a place and among such company.

“Mr. Hill,” I murmured to the surgeon, “we must contrive between us to improve Monsieur LaForge's circumstances. He ought to be exchanged at the earliest opportunity; but he is most pressing, my brother tells me, in his desire to remain in England. Cannot we secure a more salubrious lodging? He ought not to be allowed to sleep another night on those chill stone floors.”

“I quite agree,” Mr. Hill returned wryly, “but I fear in the case of a prisoner of war, comfort is the very last consideration. I shall write to Admiral Bertie tonight, and plead LaForge's case; your brother has requested that I should refer the Frenchman's desire to remain in this Kingdom to Bertie as well.”

“I shall urge Frank to write to the Admiralty. He is not without acquaintance among the Great. We shall see what determined activity may do.”

“Improvement, of whatever nature, cannot come too soon,” Mr. Hill observed. The shrewd narrow eyes flicked from my countenance to LaForge's. “Our colleague injustice has grown quite despondent since his appearance before the panel. Lowness of spirits cannot help a case of dubious health. I shall prescribe brandy as soon as I am within Wool House's doors.”

“You are very good,” I said with deep sincerity.

“Jane!” cried my brother. “We try Mr. Pethering's patience.”

Mr. Hill bowed; I curtseyed, and without another word turned to my brother and the magistrate.

Frank all but raced up the steep pitch of Southampton's High. He was considering, I knew, of Mary's anxiety — of her fears for himself, and of the magistrate's intent. Mr. Pethering proved unexpectedly equal to a sailor's brisk stride. I followed along in the wake of the two men, and bent all my effort at attending to the questions of one, and the replies of the other.

“May I enquire, Captain Austen, as to your conduct last night?” the magistrate began.

“My conduct? I was engrossed by the performance of Mrs. Jordan, in the French Street playhouse, as my sister and wife shall attest.”

“That play should have ended by half-past eleven, and all of you been returned to East Street by midnight at the latest. Did you stir from your home afterwards? Put the ladies down at the door and proceed alone to some haunt only you are aware of?”

“I did not, sir.”

“Do you generally display so domestic a devotion?”

“In general — yes. I am in the habit of rising at an early hour, Mr. Pethering, and such habits require a settled and tranquil life.” Frank's tone was easy enough; but I knew my brother, and found his words were watchful.

“I understand you sent an express messenger to Captain Seagrave's house in Portsmouth on Tuesday evening.”

“Seagrave is a very old acquaintance. I am often in communication with him — when we are both aground on dry land.”

“But an express — an express would argue a certain urgency, Captain Austen.”