"Her father and I were old trading partners, snapped the Count. Which is the kind of information you can find in any salon in the city. This is most impertinent, and I will answer nothing more. Neither will you, my dear."

  "I think we should go, Harry. said James.

  Harry spoke without taking his eyes off the Count. You promised, James. I came into port today ready to accuse you of murder, Count Toraglia. The murder of Thomas Broadbridge."

  Toraglia mouthed the word and the name as Harry continued, Not personally, but by using these mute servants that came to you as part of your wife's dowry, at least one of whom also died aboard the Principessa. In fact, I killed him. That is where I first came across that brand mark. The second place I saw it was on the backs of a trio of eunuchs at an abandoned leper colony off Southern Dalmatia."

  The Countess tried to stop him from going any further. Who do you think you are, Signor, to come into our house and bandy about such accusations?"

  Harry ignored her. I came to accuse your husband of murder. Madame. Indeed I have spent the last three weeks thinking of little else. I also intended to kill Gideon Bartholomew."

  Toraglia lifted his nose again, in that canine way, but he didn't follow the movement with a question.

  "Bartholomew tried to kill me. Indeed, we had just struck a bargain and signed the papers transferring the Principessa to me, and a large sum of money to you. He abducted me outside this house the minute I left."

  Harry paused for a moment to let these words have their effect. I came to kill Bartholomew but when I got to his rooms he was already dead."

  The Countess gasped, looked at her husband, put her hand to her mouth, and sat down suddenly on the divan behind her.

  "Bartholomew was poisoned. I regret not being the agent of his death myself, though I had something less devious in mind. But his death confused me. At the very least it eroded my certainties. I had to look at things afresh, only to discover that I had been wrong. Yet the real solution to it all lay with him, even though he was a corpse.

  Again Harry paused, this time to see if his words would provoke a reaction. No one spoke. His glass of wine was poisoned. There was another glass, the one he poured for the person who killed him. That didn't contain poison."

  Harry reached into his pocket. I have in my hand a key, Count

  Toraglia. It fits your postern gate. It was stolen some time ago from the pocket of a visitor to your house. That visitor was Bartholomew."

  Toraglia's face remained a mask. Harry gave him a chance to speak, but he declined to use it. But all eyes were on him, even the sightless ones of Count Toraglia.

  Mr.. Fairhairn. Could a physician identify the poison that killed Bartholomew?"

  "It may be possible, given time."

  "And tell me. Is it possible to survive a dose of a fatal poison?"

  "Yes. Fairhairn replied doubtfully. It depends on the poison itself, the quantity administered, and the constitution of the person taking it."

  "And what would be the effects of that?"

  "I don't know, Ludlow. It could be anything. It would depend on what was used."

  "Could it blind you?"

  The courtyard seemed suddenly to have an echo. Or was it the silence that followed that question. Fairhairn spoke hesitantly. Yes, it could."

  "And what would then happen if you administered small quantities on a daily basis?"

  "There would be a general deterioration in the person's health, leading eventually to death."

  Toraglia was stiff as a board, his face set, and his eyes for once shut tight. No one else in the room seemed able to breath.

  "When I discovered Bartholomew's body, Count Toraglia, I thought you'd killed him out of jealousy. I surmised that you had arranged the death of Broadbridge because he threatened your association with the privateers. But that left Captain Howlett's death unexplained. Yet the motive for his death was jealousy too, but not yours. With this key in his pocket, I fear Bartholomew was a more regular visitor to your house than you knew. It is your blindness that has saved you from a false accusation. One glass containing poison, the other a harmless glass of wine. I had to ask myself how a blind man could do that. And, of course, the answer is that he can't, for he doesn't know when the potential victim isn't looking.

  "You may wonder where I heard the words you spoke about Captain

  Howlett, labelling him barbaric. You uttered them the night I

  came here. I was in your wife's bedroom, sir, and you were standing in the doorway having just woken from a deep sleep."

  Toraglia looked as if he'd been slapped. Harry continued without mercy. Captain Howlett was going back to his ship from this house the night he was killed, though I doubt you were aware that he had called."

  "Leila, he croaked, sitting down.

  "Jealousy is a terrible thing. It soured Bartholomew. He killed Captain Howlett because of it. He also tried to kill me for the same reason. I dare say that it's the primary cause of the fact that you are blind."

  Harry turned to face her. And you played it to the end, Madame. You would happily have let my accusation against your husband stand. Tell me, Countess, how much was it worth, supplying the brothels of Turkey with that which they valued most? Did you have some arrangement with the French, or were you just visiting another lover when you went on board that sloop in the harbour?"

  Harry leant forward and laid the key on the table. I return your key. I cannot say that I envy you your wife, Count Toraglia, though there was a time I did. Nor do I envy your situation, for all this begs the question of how long you will survive. There must come a point when your wife no longer requires the cover of a husband to cloak her activities, a time when she will have sufficient of your family wealth to dispense with you altogether."

  "Signor, I beg you to allow me some time with my wife, he croaked.

  "I must act upon this matter, sir, for I have no choice. Yet my esteem for you as a man, and as a fellow sailor, is such that I cannot deny you the right to put the affairs of your own family in some order. To that end I will lock up your servants and leave my crew to protect your person."

  Toraglia fought hard to attain the aristocratic mask that he saw as essential to his position.

  "I am obliged, Captain Ludlow, he croaked.

  His wife sat still, looking neither right nor left, staring at a point between, for all the world as though it was she who was blind. After a pause James leant forward and laid another key on the table. It was the exact match of the one that Harry had placed there a moment before.

  POSTSCRIPT

  "I believe Bartholomew came upon us the night I stayed at the villa. I saw a shadow on the wall, thinking with the long hair that it was the silhouette of a woman."

  Harry gave his brother a wry smile, then looked wistfully out of the open window. James poured another glass of wine, but stayed silent, content to let Harry air his thoughts. They stared silently at the distant harbour, the ship's lanterns twinkling against the blue-black sea and the great light of the Lanterna casting enough of a glow to challenge the streak of moon on the water. The parlour overlooked the harbour, though as part of a villa in the hills it remained aloof from the odours of the port. Painting and sculptures lay about, for James had not spent all his time in Genoa fretting about his brother.

  Harry swirled the wine in his goblet. I would dearly love to know if she would have finally killed Toraglia. She had most of his money and I dare say Bartholomew was pressing her to finish him off. Yet the poor man, once disabled, provided her with a shield for her promiscuity. Having discovered freedom, I doubt she was afire to be chained to another husband, especially one as jealous as Gideon Bartholomew.

  He gave an impatient shrug. He was a man who loved certainty. ~Impossib1e to know, of course. But I feel that their relationship was stormy and getting worse. Perhaps Fairhairn was right; there may well have been a decent man inside. He was surprised when I told him of Broadbridge's death. I half sensed that he was upset. Did she do that on her own? Perhaps as a response to his murder of Howlett? Or even, God forbid, as a threat to him?"

  "She's the only one alive with the answer."

  Harry shoved his goblet forward for a refill, even though he'd hardly touched the contents. Then we are likely to remain fog-bound, brother."

  "Perhaps she'll confess, said James.

  Harry smiled and shook his head. I rather fancy she inclines towards the Koran, not the Bible."

  "Pender mentioned those unfortunates who died with Broadbridge, the men you found aboard the Principessa."

  That cracked the veneer, for Harry Ludlow was more on edge than he cared to admit. He was drawing breath sharply and unevenly, and his

  free hand moved in a gesture full of frustration. Not a word, not a frown, brother. I told Doria, particularly."

  The hand was making a tight fist. What was his response? Dockyard idlers, work shy layabouts."

  "No one cares?"

  "Dammit, James. Someone, somewhere cares! "

  The ruddy face was lined with exhaustion. Harry's movements seemed uncoordinated, shocking in such a competent man.

  "I think you need rest, Harry. Badly."

  Harry shook himself visibly, drained his goblet, and put it out to be refilled. I need another drink, brother."

  When Harry spoke again, James, in the act of obliging his brother, could tell that he wished to change the subject. One thing I must particularly thank you for-' James raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  "You sent Pender back. I'm not sure I'd be here if you hadn't. James now had both eyebrows raised, and an uncharacteristic look of surprise on his face. I didn't send him back. He insisted on returning ashore himself, though I own I agreed with the sentiments he expressed."

  "What sentiments? asked Harry.

  "He alluded, in his way, to your pig-headedness, brother, to your desire to poke your nose into affairs that don't concern you, as well as to the devious streak in your nature which was a threat to all and sundry, not just yourself. I have, of course, precied his remarks, and removed the cursing, for the sake of clarity."

  He watched Harry's face cloud with anger. Mind, I was under the influence of laudanum, so I may have imagined the swearing."

  Harry and James Ludlow sat on the harbour wall, Pender behind them. They watched as the French sloop slipped her mooring and headed out of the harbour. It was the conclusion of a hectic few days during which Leila di Toraglia had been confined to a nunnery for her life's duration. With Count Toraglia's grateful assistance, Tilly, the French charge d'affaires, had been deemed persona non grala. Toraglia himself, freed from his daily dose of poison, was beginning to gain weight, though his sight was lost for ever.

  "I should feel elated, James, but I don't."

  "You'll have your exemptions, that is if Admiral Hood keeps his word."

  Harry smiled ruefully. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if I really want them."

  "What about the hands? asked Pender, who'd picked up the drift of Harry's thoughts days ago and was ever mindful of the fate of those less fortunate.

  "They will be safe enough, if not Feted, in Leghorn. Harry turned round to look his servant in the eye. And I shall of course provide for them in the mean time. There is the matter of Sutton, I know."

  "Don't you go frettin about Carey Sutton, your honour. Mr. Fair-hairn's set to take him on as a servant."

  "Is he, by God? said James.

  "Ay. And he says that Sutton don't need to worry about only having one arm, for in the medical lark, you only need a smile to rob folks."

  "If we're not going privateering in the Mediterranean, Harry, where are we going?"

  "I wondered how you felt about going home, brother?"

  James smiled and put his arm round his brother's shoulders. Home holds fewer terrors for me now. For all her criminality, Harry, that damned woman had some uses after all."

 

 

  Unknown, The Dying Trade by David Donachie

 

 

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