'What do you think of Marangoni?' I asked when I next saw Louise.

'Ugh, disgusting,' was her reply. 'Do you know, he tried to seduce me, that dirty little man? I was so ashamed, I have never told a soul. But you I can tell. I know you will not hold it against me. Just don't listen to anything he says about me; I'm sure it would be nasty and cruel.'

'Of course not,' I said. 'Why should I, when I seduced you myself?'

'But with you I wanted to be seduced,' she said. 'I would sacrifice anything for you. I even accept,' she said, her voice trembling, 'that you will sacrifice nothing for me.'

'But you know . . .'

'It doesn't matter,' she said with a sigh, looking away from me. 'I will be your mistress and one day you will leave me. It is enough.'

'Don't say that.'

'But it's true. You know it is. And when you do leave me, I will kill myself.'

She said it seriously, and looked steadily at me as she spoke.

'Why would I want to live without you? To spend the rest of my life with a disgusting husband and a snivelling child, to be tormented day and night by them? If only I could be free of them! All I have that is worthwhile is you.'

'That cannot be true.'

'Oh, believe that, then,' she said, turning away. 'Believe that, then you will be able to leave me with a clear conscience. I do not wish you to suffer as well. You do not love me, I know. Not really.'

'But I do.'

Then prove it. She did not say these words; she did not need to.

CHAPTER 13

Two days after this encounter, Cardano's letter – his first letter, I should say – arrived, and the last piece of my plan took place. His news explained much; after the normal sort of chatter about the markets, he got onto the subject of Mr Macintyre. Here his information was surprising. I had asked whether anything was known about Macintyre's reputation. This was not the sort of thing that a man like Cardano would know, but it was easy enough to discover. I thought I would hear merely that Macintyre was a decent, competent well-respected engineer of skill. Until my interview with Ambrosian I had expected nothing more.

Cardano's letter was very much more informative than that, however.

Fortunately, the annual meeting of Laird's took place yesterday afternoon, and I went to it; I have some shares in the company (so do you, if you recall). Normally these meetings are worse than useless, but it is good to show one's face occasionally. I asked Mr Joseph Benson, the general manager, about your Mr Macintyre and got a most surprising response. He looked rather shocked, and disturbed that I should mention the name. Why was I asking? What had I heard? He was very worried indeed.

I found this perplexing, of course, and kept at him until he was sufficiently reassured to tell me the entire tale – one which you had best keep to yourself.

Macintyre was extraordinarily able, and remarkably pig-headed, it seems. He would never listen to advice, constantly having disputes with anyone who disagreed with him, and was, all in all, well nigh impossible to work with. It seems he was always coming up with novel ideas, and would work on them in the company's time, using the material and resources which should have been used for something else.

That is beside the point, which is that he was a man who could turn his hand to any engineering problem. If there was anything which defeated all others, Macintyre would be called in, and would find the solution. He was, in other words, both impossible and indispensable at the same time. I do not know if you remember the Alabama? It was a Laird's ship which ended up in Confederate hands. As it caused a great deal of damage to Northern shipping, the Yankees were extremely angry about it, and are still trying to blame Laird's and the British Government. Laird's maintain it was nothing to do with them; they sold the ship in good faith, and could hardly have guessed it was going to be fitted out with weapons by the owners, then sold to the Confederates . . .

Except that the man who fitted the ship out was your Mr Macintyre, who was – until he vanished from the face of the earth – living proof of Laird's complicity. Or should I say duplicity? It doesn't matter. In order to avoid recriminations, he was given a large amount of money and told to make himself scarce. When asked, Laird's now say officially that he disappeared a few years ago and stole money before he left. They are as angry at him as anyone else, and in public demand his arrest and return . . .

I found all this fascinating, and at least it explained how the story of dishonesty had come to hang over Macintyre's reputation. The story of the Alabama is little known now, but it had a certain currency in its day; a wooden-hulled, 1,000-ton barque, commissioned by the Confederacy in 1861. The Unionists heard of the purchase and tried to stop it. Laird's was caught between its customer and the wishes – however reluctant – of the British Government to maintain a strict neutrality in the terrible Civil War.

Strict, but in my opinion, foolish, for the refusal of Britain to allow its industry to supply both sides led to the Americans supplying themselves, and thus building up the industries which now challenge our own. A more enlightened policy would have supplied both evenhandedly, thus draining the United States of gold, and shackling their industry; with a little wisdom and ruthlessness Britain could readily have re-established its predominant interest on that continent, and been ready to congratulate whichever side emerged victorious.

But the moralists triumphed, and from that triumph will come, eventually, the eclipse of Britain's industrial might. Be that as it may, Laird's (which was in need of commissions) found a way around the problem by using some other company as a go-between. How could we prevent our client re-equipping the vessel and selling it on? they asked when the matter was raised in Parliament. We build ships, we do not oversee their use as well.

A clever move but one which the victorious Unionists would not accept; they began to pursue Britain for liability for losses caused by the ship, and only settled the matter sometime after I returned to England from Venice. The Government and the insurance companies eventually paid out some four million pounds – for by the time she was caught off France in 1864, the Alabama had sunk a fearsome amount of Unionist shipping. But in 1867 the Americans (a people prone to extravagance in both speech and action) were insisting that anything less than two thousand million pounds' compensation would be an insult to their national pride, and threatening all manner of reprisals if they didn't get it.

I was thrust into Macintyre's company once more a few days after I received this interesting sideline on his past life, when he invited me to come along for the first real test of his torpedo. I was highly honoured; no other English person was even told this great moment in his life was taking place, but I had suggested that he try it out secretly first of all, rather than with the bankers there. What if you try it and there is some small hitch? That could ruin everything, I suggested. Best to have a test run away from prying eyes. If all goes well, then you can repeat the experiment in front of the bankers. It was good advice, and he realised it. The date was set, and I was – rather shyly – invited. I was touched by the gesture.

So, one cold morning a few days later, I found myself on a wooden barge, wrapped up warmly against the mist which hung over the lagoon like a depressing shroud. We were far away from land, to the north of the city, with a couple of his workmen for company. The barge owner had been told he was not wanted, and the previous evening the torpedo had been loaded in secret onto the deck and covered with tarpaulins.