The Secret City

Chapter 4 Bound for Panama

The steady rhythm of the Dayrell’s engines lulled me to sleep for many hours. From time to time, I would drift from the arms of Orpheus to an almost waking state, only to reassure myself that I was far at sea, safe and quite distant from the deadly affair Prestwicke had embroiled me in. From somewhere on the ship, a crewman was singing. The lilting notes of “Shenandoah” played on a harmonica, seeming to urge me back to the depths of my rest.

I sat up suddenly in the bunk. Something had changed, the harmonica music had stopped in mid-note, and the engines were thundering with a more urgent beat. Something was wrong. I dressed quickly and made my way back to the stern of the ship. Dane, Swinburne and Berry were there, engrossed by something on the horizon, behind us.

Dane looked askance at my dishevelled appearance. “Pleased to see that you survived your uncle’s ‘late night business’ affair, McCoy. Thanks to you, it looks as if we are being chased. The Yankees searched the ship, and were convinced you were not aboard when we departed Charleston. Now, it seems they have changed their minds.”

Berry was staring through a long glass.

“What do make of her Captain?” I asked. “Steam Frigate, might be the Adirondack from the rake of her stacks. From the smoke she’s putting out, she must be bearing down on us at full speed. Must be confident we cannot outrun her.”

“Can we?” asked Dane

“Perhaps we should not. I mean, just thinking out loud, of course, it might be an idea to see what they want. Hand McCoy over if need be?” Swinburne spoke hesitantly. He must have seen my unorthodox arrival on board that morning, but I had no idea how much he actually knew.

“No, sir, we’ll not heave to for a Yankee, not even in what they call peacetime.” Berry looked at Swinburne with undisguised annoyance. Swinburne’s face reddened. He obviously expected his ‘out loud thoughts’ to be taken as orders.

“Have I not paid for this vessel, Captain Berry?” he said, his colour deepening. Berry looked through the glass again, then turned to Swinburne and stared him directly in the face.

“You, sir, have paid for passage to Panama. That is all.”

He turned back to his glass. Swinburne held his breath and stared at his feet. My friend of the early morning mist, Cap’n Luther, appeared in a hatchway combing, leading down to the engine room.

He and Berry grinned broadly at each other. Then Berry issued an order. “Mister Mate, let’s pace ourselves long enough for them to get close enough to be sure of who we are. Then, I want to burn crude coal and oily rags with the coke, so there’s plenty of smoke for them to see. Then, we’ll slowly increase speed and pull away from them. When we’re hull down over the horizon, we’ll drop the stacks and change course. Then, when I give the signal from the wheelhouse, I want nothing but coke and anthracite on the fires, and all the pressure you can give me.”

“Yessir, Cap’n Berry,” Luther yelled, his eyes wide and his grin even larger. He turned to those below him. “C’mon boys, we runnin’ from the Yankees one last time!”

There was a bloodcurdling yell from below decks. “Yeeeee-Haaaaa!” hardly describes the sound.

I looked down past Luther, surprised to see a black sailor in mid yell. Luther went back down the companionway. Berry called after him. “Mister Mate, when we start our run, be sure we have a Confederate naval flag to run up the aft mast head.” He trained his glass on the distant ship. It was visibly closer now, and was raising a great white bow wave. “She’s the Adirondack all right. She’s fast and armed with what looks like a rifled Brooke in the bow, with a gun crew standing by. We will soon see how serious her Captain is.”

The chase continued for some thirty minutes, the frigate being allowed to gradually close the gap between the two ships.

As I watched, a cloud of blue white smoke exploded in the bow of the frigate. Moments later, the sound of the cannon fire rattled the stern cabin. “A blank shot, signal to heave to or else.” said Berry.

Swinburne spoke up again. ”Really, Captain Berry, this is a Federal Navy vessel Perhaps we should slow down and find out what they want.” Dane answered him. “We know what they want Mister Swinburne, my friend here, McCoy, and certain drawings they think he might be carrying. Since we both need McCoy in Peru, we’ll see to it that the Federal Government does not get him.”

Swinburne looked at me, his face reddening again. I returned the stare evenly. He sniffed and turned away. I was glad, in a way, to find myself making an enemy of this effeminate dolt. I think I much preferred it to any of the alternatives.

Berry rapped on the glass on the forward side of the wheelhouse. Miss Pinkney was standing there at the rail, one hand raised to shade her eyes, as she looked back at the pursuing frigate. She was now dressed in a simple white dress beneath a long greatcoat, her hair loose and flying in the wind. Berry motioned to her to enter the wheelhouse. This was the first time I had fully seen her face, and it was beautiful. Her cheekbones were high, the face finely boned, a long delicately chiselled nose, above a full red mouth and dimpled chin. Her eyes were remarkable, large and black, and they appeared to harbour some deep inner darkness. They were eyes that had seen terrible things. She turned from me, as she entered, and laid a hand on Berry’s shoulder. She was tall, with a neck extraordinarily long and a full, windswept mane of black hair tumbling down over her shoulders. She looked down into Berry’s face, smiling. Her free arm swung casually around Dane’s own broad shoulders, and she looked from one man to the other.

“Well, old friends, once more we race the ocean beneath the threat of Yankee guns.” I realized that there was some history between these three. I found myself resenting Dane’s familiarity with this beautiful and dangerous woman.

“Yes, Belle, now the next cannon shot will not be a blank. It is time we showed them our colours.” Berry motioned to me. “Signal full speed ahead on the telegraph, Mister McCoy. Then find a good handhold.”

I did as he said, then asked for his glass and trained it on the bow of the frigate. I could make out the gun crew clearly. Several uniformed officers stood nearby. One, I felt sure, was Denning. As I watched through the glass, there was another burst of blue white smoke. “This one should overshoot our stern, if they are good enough marksmen.” It was Boyd, standing close to my shoulder and speaking into my ear. Sure enough, a high-pitched scream, louder than I ever imagined it would be, descended from the heavens, passed over us and impacted the sea just off our starboard stern quarter. We felt the cabin shudder, as the shell hit the water and exploded. Boyd never flinched. Black smoke poured from the stacks of the Wild Dayrell and the engines slowly built up speed and intensity. The entire ship felt as if it were coming alive beneath my feet. The distance between the two ships began to slowly widen. There was another shot fired. The screaming of the shell ending abruptly above us, as it burst, peppering the deck and cabin with a deadly rattle of shrapnel. It was the only shot to reach near us.

The engines of the Wild Dayrell increased in pitch and power to a point where I expected them to burst at any minute. Still they beat even faster, sparks of flame and billows of black smoke streaming from the stacks, as if all the fires of Hell were beneath them. The Adirondack fired a few more futile rounds, then abandoned the attack. The ship gradually fell away, and, shortly before sunset, its distant shape began to drop below the horizon. We had passed the rest of the chase down in the day cabin. Berry sent word for us to come back to the wheelhouse, as the sky began to darken.

“I doubt if anyone will ever see a scene such as this again. I wanted you to see why we never lost a cargo to the Yankees throughout the blockade.” Once the Adirondack had barely dropped below the horizon, Berry gave the order to switch the fires over to smokeless fuel. Within a matter of minutes, the twin stacks amidships ceased belching sparks and smoke. Instead, twin blasts of shimmering, heated air, with a faint bluish tinge, began to shoot skyward.

We then watched in amazement as Berry ordered the stacks to be dropped, and for the helmsman to turn hard to port. A new sound was added to the pounding of the engines and the side wheels. The stacks began to collapse, one upper section telescoping into the one below, until nothing of them remained, but short smokestacks barely five feet above the level of the deck.

“The Yankees will have taken bearings on our heading for as long as they could see us. With luck, they’ll assume we have headed down the Straits directly for Havana or Panama. What we have done instead is to become as near invisible as a 230-foot ship can. No smoke, no stacks, very little to see above the horizon. By nightfall, they will pass us to the west, as we bear southeast into the Atlantic. We’ll maintain as much speed as we can and pass down the outside to The Bahamas, cut into the Old Providence Channel by The Hole in Wall, and on to Nassau, New Providence. We’ll take on coal, and then on to Panama. Hopefully, we will not encounter another Yankee vessel before I get you to your destination.”

“Why not run directly for Panama,” asked Swinburne. “Surely, we can outrun any other ship we meet? We will lose time going into the Bahamas.” “Running at this speed consumes huge amounts of fuel. We must fill the bunkers soon, and The Bahamas offers us an opportunity to do so in British waters. We’ll be safer there than anywhere else.”

Berry cast a glance at Belle Boyd and Dane as he spoke to Swinburne. I said nothing, realizing that some unfinished business awaited us in the town once called home by pirates such as Blackbeard, Avery and Rackham. We were a few hours out of Nassau, having traversed a wide arc around the northern Bahamas. The Wild Dayrell steered south around the Abaco Islands, then west again between Abaco and Eleuthera into the Old Bahama Channel. I was in the small forward hold of the Wild Dayrell, making sure the shattering high speed run from the Adirondack had not damaged any of our scientific instruments.

As I was preparing to leave the hold, Belle descended the narrow companionway that led to the upper decks. She was carrying her black parasol, a small flat case of some kind, and my swordstick. I had left it in the small day cabin, beneath the wheelhouse.

She smiled at me, laid the case on a barrel top, and threw my swordstick across the hold to me. “There are many unanswered questions between us, my dear Mr. McCoy. I propose to seek the answers to some of them.”

I caught the stick, puzzled, but not unpleased to have these moments alone with her. “Miss Boyd, or should I call you Miss Pinckney?”

She looked at me, the dark eyes suddenly cold and hard.

“Mister McCoy, my experiences at the start of the late Yankee aggression were traumatic. They made me serve the South simply to seek revenge. The things I was forced to endure, and the thing I did to avenge them, would diminish the great Pinckney name were they to be known. That is why I use the name Belle Boyd, as it better suits the woman that the war created.”

She spoke with a gently seductive drawl. When she finished speaking, she snapped a catch on the shaft of the parasol, the black lace canopy falling to the deck, and in her hand was a short sword, much like my own. She raised the sword and came towards me, her face changing, forming into a pale mask with those deep black eyes, and the mouth frozen in a slight mocking smile. It made no sense that she would harm me, yet she clearly wanted to duel here in the hold. Both our weapons were deadly in the right hands, and she clearly knew how to use hers.

I fended off her first few parries with the sheathed swordstick. They were nought but tests anyway.

“Will you not fight me, McCoy?”

“I cannot believe you intend to harm me, Madam, and I never play with weapons designed for maiming or killing.” I kept my blade sheathed in the cane. She lunged at me, the expression in her face sending chills to my stomach. I countered her blade in a number of lightning, fast parries with my stick. Countering all but one, that is. Her last flourish raked the point of her sword across my cheekbone below the right eye, opening up a gash an inch or so long. She was very, very good.

“Aha! I draw first blood, McCoy. Perhaps, now you will unsheathe your blade for me.”

I tasted blood in the corner of my mouth. I sprung the casing off my blade and immediately lunged. Despite her attempts to counter my advance, my last glide slid down the inside of her blade. I had decided to try and wound her hand, hoping a minimal injury would force her to drop her blade and end this strange attack. She avoided the blade, the point catching the lace cuff of her dress and slicing it away. She responded with another furious advance of her own, forcing me to back up against the barrel, on which she had left the small flat case.

There was one instant in which I could have thrust my blade into her throat. I hesitated, and, in that split second, she was able to bind my blade and, with surprising strength, she forced it aside, stepping inside my open arm, corps-a-corps. I was now leaning over the barrel backwards, her face inches above mine. Her cheeks were flaming, nostrils flared, but the same small, sardonic smile was fixed upon her lips.

“I declare, Mister McCoy, your gentlemanly upbringing is your Achilles Heel.”

I was silent. Like everything about Belle Boyd, this encounter was unusual, to say the least. I was amazed, and more disturbing still, I was aroused, and she knew it. The smiled broadened, and she bent down and kissed me fully on the mouth. I must confess I kissed her back. She suddenly drew back with a soft chuckle.

“Some other time, my young friend.”

She picked up the parasol, sheathed her blade, and walked to the companionway. She paused on the steps, bending back to look at me.

“I hope my mark upon your handsome face scars over, McCoy. I simply adore men with duelling scars. The picture case is not for you, by the way. It is important that you keep it with you.”

I waited there after Belle had left, my heart pounding, and hardly from the exertion of the brief ‘duel.’ After some moments, I picked up the sheath of my swordstick, the picture case on the barrel top, and made my way back to the small cabin that I shared with Dane. Alone there, I opened the case. The contents were more astonishing by far than the encounter in the hold. The case held a heavy metal plate, approximately one foot square. Its surface was brilliantly polished silver. As I moved the plate to reflect the glare of the sun from the cabin porthole, a black and white photographic image became clear. The picture featured a large French divan. Sprawled across it, completely naked, but for two lace-gloved hands and high button shoes, was the lissom form of Belle Boyd. Some hastily plastered paper formed a crude backdrop for the picture on the studio wall behind the divan.

The strange experience of countering Belle’s sword in the hold was nothing compared to the shock I now felt. She was posing for a photographer, like a dance hall harlot. I had to admit to a growing attraction for this fascinating woman. Now, the picture caused another rush of arousal. She was indeed beautiful, well proportioned, her broad shoulders and full breasts accentuating a slim waist and flat muscled stomach. I could not imagine why she had posed for such a picture.

I snapped the cover of the picture case shut, my heart pounding. The gash on my cheek was throbbing. I looked at it in a pocket mirror. The wound had stopped bleeding, but the collar of my shirt was still wet and stained with blood. I washed the wound mechanically, my mind engaged only by the picture.

The duel in the hold had been both a test and a conquest of sorts. She wished to know if I would indeed have harmed her if pushed far enough, and if her own skills were better than mine. The kiss was a taunt, a taste of the as yet unattainable. The photograph was beyond explanation.

Dane entered the cabin, after tapping on the door. He looked in alarm at my face, and then at the picture case lying on my bunk. He shook his head, his blue eyes bright and amused. He poked around under his own bunk, and withdrew a small portmanteau and opened it.

“You’d better let me clean that wound, and then close it, young McCoy. I have just seen Belle, not a mark on her, so I gather she won the engagement.”

I recounted the events of the meeting in the hold, as Dane gathered bottles and bandage from the portmanteau. I explained how, at the end, I could have marked her neck or face with my blade, but chose not to.

“I doubt that you would have succeeded in any event. She learned much about you in the process, McCoy. Close your eyes now, this will sting. He sprayed a weak solution of carbolic acid on the wound. I grimaced. “This will hurt even more, but I’m afraid we have to close it.”

Dane was brandishing a surgical needle close to my eye. He pinched the gash closed, and expertly sutured it shut. I gritted my teeth against the pain.

“I rather imagined I was going to be doctoring you, Dane, not the other way around.”

“Well, my friend, I am glad to make some small use of the medical skills I acquired as a young student. I might well have ended up a doctor, had not exploring the past appealed to me more far more attractive than exploring the body.”

He inspected his handiwork. I thanked him, and he left the cabin, with one sidelong glance at the picture case. I picked it up, and opened it once more, the image softening the pain of Dane’s repairs. The making of photographic images on silver plates, called Daguerreotypes, was an old fashioned technique invented with the art of photography itself, well before the American Civil War. Yet this image must have been created quite recently.

I recalled her parting remark, that it was important that I should keep the picture with me. Perhaps, there was more to it than met the eye, though what, I could not imagine. Again, I felt like a young dolt being used as a blind pawn by players of some great intricate game. I put the picture case away, collapsed on the bunk, and slept soundly.

***

The pounding feet above my head, plus the raised and cursing voices, brought me to the edge of my bunk. The cabin door burst open, and was filled with the dark blue of a US Navy Marine’s uniform. The barrel of a pistol prodded the wound on my face, forcing me back down on the bunk. “Keep still, or you will give me no excuse but to put a ball through your head.”

I looked beyond the barrel into the hard-bitten face of a Yankee Sergeant. His other hand held a set of wrist irons. Satisfied I was not armed, he stepped back.

“Get up, place your hands behind you.”

I rolled over onto my stomach and slid my leg off the bunk, slipping the picture case inside my woollen shirt as I did so. Using his one hand, he fastened one wrist, then the other.

“Now, on deck.” He backed out the cabin door, as did several other marines behind him. I followed them up onto the deck. I might have made a dash for the rail and into the sea, but not with my hands cuffed.

The Wild Dayrell was anchored in Nassau Harbour. She was but a few paces from the shore, in front of several large, formal, iron-roofed, sandstone buildings. Out in the harbour, next to us, was a twin-turreted Monitor Class Federal Navy vessel.

An armed guard stood at the door to the wheelhouse. Dane, Berry and Belle were inside. Belle looked directly at me, and smiled broadly. I winked back, to let her know that the smile had told me not all was as black as it seemed. A young Navy lieutenant approached me.

“Walker McCoy?” He was my age, arrogant, enjoying his command of the moment. I looked him up and down, as coolly as I could.

“At your service, Lieutenant.”

His expression flickered, as he realized I was unimpressed.

“I have orders to the turn you over to the local Governor, while proceedings are initiated for your extradition back to Charleston for the murder of a Federal Army officer.”

He waived a piece of paper under my nose. I assumed it was some kind of warrant. He nodded to the Sergeant.

“Search him, then take him to the dock.” The picture case was found in moments. The Sergeant handed it over the Lieutenant, who looked at it unopened, a smile on his face. He turned, marched to a group of officers, and handed the case to one of them.

“Perhaps this is what Major Denning is looking for, sir?”

The officer took the case, walked away from the group, and then opened it. He turned visibly red, stared for some moments, then closed the case. He stood quietly, then reached for a belaying pin at the foot of the nearby mast, and smashed the gutta percha back of the picture case. The shattered casing fell to the deck. The officer picked at the back of the case, found nothing, turned and handed it back to the Lieutenant, who looked at it also. He looked at me contemptuously. The officer motioned to the Lieutenant to return my ‘souvenir’ of Charleston. The Lieutenant opened my shirt, and put the picture case back inside.

”You can take your Charleston whore to jail with you.” I was pushed to the gunwale and down into a ship’s boat.

On the small dock ashore, stood a party of ragged black men armed with cutlasses and one Enfield musket. The bearer insisted on aiming it at my head, as soon as I came within ten paces of the dock. An enormously fat white man stood at the head of this motley band, watching without expression, as we drew up. I was marched up the steps of the dock, and the Sergeant saluted the white official and unlocked my wrist cuffs.

“You’ll want to put him in your own irons, Magistrate Bethel. He’s dangerous and likely to run.” Bethel sighed heavily, waved a hand in the air in answer to the salute .

“No need, Sergeant. I, and my good Constables, will take good care of this villain. This is an island after all, how far can he run?” The men around him laughed, the one with the rifle still holding the barrel inches from my head.

“Then, if you don’t mind, sir, we’ll see you put him safely in jail.” “By all means, Sergeant. As you know, Her Majesty’s Colonial Government is delighted to be of service to our great neighbour, the newly United Again States of America. As soon as the Governor signs an extradition order, you can take him back to America.

” As he spoke, Magistrate Bethel took me by the arm, and walked me down the dock, with the band of ‘Constables’ surrounding us both. He drew me close, as if we were old friends meeting after a long absence.

“They tell me, Mister McCoy, that you shot Federal officers down in cold blood and ran two of their manservant’s through the belly with a sword. All for the purse of some lady of the evening you intended to rob in a Charleston alleyway?” There were gasps of astonishment from the Constables. “I must confess, Magistrate Bethel, that I would have shot the manservant as well, but I was out of ammunition. It was four fille de joie, not one. I was simply trying to recover the cost of a night’s entertainment, which I felt that all four ladies had not adequately earned.” I lied freely, sensing that not all was lost here. Bethel smiled, and the Constables broke into lively commentary.

“Did he say four ladies?”

“Four ladies! That’s right.” The conversation went on, as we approached an ancient and weather battered octagonal brick building. Bethel drew me even closer, and whispered loudly in my ear. “Damn Yankees, I made more money in a year investing in running finery and sundries into Charleston than I could make in ten from my compensation as Magistrate.”

He winked at me, as he turned to the Sergeant. “Sergeant, since Mister McCoy is a British subject, and since he has just confessed, I would be delighted to give him a fair trial and hang him for you.”

The Constables clapped and laughed, but for the one holding the rifle to my head. “Let me shoot him Judge. Let me do it right now.”

Another of the Constables guffawed at this, and slapped the rifleman on the shoulder. “Yeah, I can see the Judge trusting you with ammunition for that thing.”

The rifleman scowled, the barrel still held inches from my head, as we all walked along, before squeezing into the jail doorway. One of the constables produced a massive iron key. Bethel guided me into the one cell, closed the iron-barred door, and the constable turned the key with a flourish.

Bethel turned to the Sergeant. “Neither Calico Jack Rackham, nor Captain Avery could break or buy their way out of that cell two hundred years ago, Sergeant. No one else has since then, so I do believe our young murderer will be safe for the night. You should have him in the morning.” A body rolled off one of the two cots in the cell.

“A murderer you say? A murderer. God Almighty, all I did was drink a little too much rum.”

“Shut up Ben, or you’ll stay another two weeks,” yelled Bethel. The Sergeant and the two other marines looked doubtfully at the Magistrates, the constables and the jail cell door.

“We’ll be back for him as soon as the Governor signs the orders.” He turned and stomped out the door obviously unhappy with the arrangements. The Constables and Bethel followed them.

“Got any rum?”

I turned to look at my jail companion. He looked like a seaman, in dirty bell-bottom trousers and a voluminous indigo coloured shirt. His face was round and ruddy, and sported the single, largest, rumpled red nose I had ever seen on one face before. His eyebrows were bushy and black, and matched a black, heavily waxed mustache, that sported numerous untidy spikes poking this way and that.

“Got any food?” He was looking at me directly, with a curious expression on his comical face.

“No.”

I turned away, as he produced a small knife, and began scratching along the lines of finely etched three-masted schooner sailing across the cell wall.

He stopped, looked over his shoulder and said, “Got any pictures of Belle Boyd?”

I spun around and stared at the man in disbelief. He smiled, reached under the cot, drew out a tin box and flipped open the lid. Then, he reached up and began to pull on his nose. As he did so, it came free of his face. He dropped it into the box. I could see it was full of an assortment of noses and patches of hair. He removed two wads of cotton from within his mouth, pulled away the mop of black unkempt hair, and tweaked the waxed moustache back into two impeccably trimmed points. I was staring into the face of Justin Prestwicke.

My knees buckled under me. I sat down hard on the cot behind me. “Good God Prestwicke. You scoundrel!”

He smiled and held out one hand. “Yes, I am everything you might accuse me of. The picture?”

I opened my shirt, and handed him the shattered case. He opened it to confirm the presence of the picture, shut it, and slid it inside his own shirt.

Bethel returned a few minutes later. “They have gone back aboard that big iron monitor. Constable Simmons says they searched McCoy’s boat from end to end for some drawings and found nothing.”

“Well, let’s hope that’s an end to the matter. Now, if you’ll be kind enough to call the carriage, I’ll take our friend here up to the Royal Victoria to freshen up and get a well- earned meal.”

I was still sitting on the cot in the jail cell. Bethel mopped his face with a silk handkerchief, and waved his arm at the open cell doorway.

“It’s open, McCoy. Never could lock it, someone lost the real key a hundred years ago.”

I was beginning to feel very relieved. “What happens when they return for me?”

“They will not be back, you may rest assured. The Governor will not sign any papers for them. We’ll tell their Captain that you escaped our impregnable jail. What else can they do, but return home empty handed?” The three of us laughed, and walked out of the jail. On the hill behind the jail stood an elegant old hotel amidst formal gardens, peppered with silk cotton trees lit with kerosene torches in the now fading daylight.

“Welcome to the Royal Victoria Hotel, Mister McCoy. As the owner, it is my privilege to offer you a complimentary room for the night.” Bethel shook my hand, and asked if he might hear the story of the Charleston ladies before I departed the island. “I made up the story about the six officers and two servants, but I though your riposte most interesting.”

Prestwicke refused on my behalf, joking that it would not be a gentlemanly thing to do. We bade the voluminous magistrate and hotelier good night, and retired to a room reserved for Prestwicke.

Once alone, I insisted on being told what Prestwicke knew about the tumultuous events of the past few days.

“The Adirondack put into Savannah after you evaded them in Berry’s ship. Denning telegraphed authorities in Jacksonville, and a fast ship was dispatched to alert the big monitor, near Nassau. They expected you to turn up here or in Havana; they were prepared to watch several ports.

“When the Dayrell came into port here, they held the ship with the murder story they concocted, in order to get their hands on you, and to search the ship for the drawings they assumed you must have smuggled aboard.”

“And how did you come to be here?”

“I left for Nassau, not long after you left for Baltimore. I’m afraid we neglected to tell you that Dane, and many others, were part of this elaborate plan. It was intended all along that you would hire Berry and the Wild Dayrell, and that you would be brought to Nassau with that rather provocative picture of Miss Boyd.”

I shook my head in amazement.

“The picture, how on earth can that picture be important?”

“Wait a moment, and all will be revealed, McCoy.” He tugged on a nearby bell pull and, moments later, a hotel servant tapped on the apartment door and entered. Prestwicke sent him for a Doctor Bostrum, and then retired to a separate room to remove his seaman’s disguise. Bostrum was a small nervous man, with bright red hair, bushy beard and moustache to match. I introduced myself, and he nodded nervously at me, squinting through two thick spectacle lenses held in mangled wire frames.

“I really shouldn’t be here you know. I am a scientist and an engineer. I am not cut out for secret affairs like this. I am simply a harmless technician really, just producing theoretical data that others turn to practical use. I really don’t know why it is so important for me to be here in person. You know the oceanic mail service is very reliable.”

Prestwicke returned, properly attired in a linen suit.

“My good Doctor Bostrum, there is really no need to be concerned. A few moments to verify the contents of a collection of documents, and we can put you on a steamer back home to gentle Albion.” Prestwicke turned to me. “Bostrum is a scientist with the Government at Waltham Abbey. Our nation’s foremost authority on explosives and the various means needed to deliver them into the presence of the enemies of Her Majesty. Guns, McCoy. Very big guns.”I recognized Waltham Abbey as England’s secret research centre for development and production of explosives and weapons.

Prestwicke produced the Daguerreotype, and handed it to Dr. Bostrum. He took it across the room directly beneath one of the gaslight sconces on the wall. He fumbled in a vest pocket, and produced a jeweller’s loupe, then angled the silver plate until the image was clear, before examining it under the loupe.

He said nothing for several minutes, tracing a path over the picture several times. He paused to remove his spectacles, clean them with a silk handkerchief, and then returned to his minute examination of the image beneath the loupe.

Finally, he put the plate down, his hands shaking, and turned to Prestwicke. “This is everything Raines said it would be. It is the single most terrible invention to come out of the Confederacy!” The look on his face, and the way in which Prestwicke’s own expression changed, sent a chill through my stomach.

Prestwicke poured three brandies from a decanter. His hand was not entirely steady, as he did so. We sat down and drank quietly for a few moments.

“I do not know how well you are informed about the principles of photography, McCoy. An image is created when light is focused on sensitive chemicals laid down on a flat surface. Other chemicals are used to ‘develop’ the image. This is what creates the black and white image you see. “The clarity of the image is defined by two things, the sharpness or care with which the image is focused through a lens, and the size of the minute grains of light sensitive chemical used on the photographic plate.

“The glass plates, you are doubtless well aware of, make a compromise between the quality of the image and the ease of their production. The grains of the chemical used on them are quite large, which means that under a microscope the image would be extremely fuzzy.

“The Daguerreotype was an early invention and very difficult to produce. It relied on creating a layer of photosensitive chemical on a silver surface, by exposing it to mercurial gas. As a result, the grains of the chemical surface were incredibly small. That is why there is so much fine detail in Daguerreotype portraits.”

Prestwicke handed me the silver plate and Bostrum’s eyeglass. “You have risked your life for this. I think you might learn something from an examination, and you have certainly earned the right.” I angled the light and peered through the glass. I was looking at Belle’s face, less than half an inch long. Under the glass a single, huge, dark eye stared boldly back at me. It was amazing; every single eyelash, every strand of hair in her eyebrow, was clearly visible.

I began to trace the glass down her neck to her breasts. Prestwicke tapped my arm. “You are missing the point, McCoy, so to speak. Look at the wallpaper.”

I coughed to cover my embarrassment. As I traced over the wall, I could see massive details, cross sections of huge metal castings, gears, and complex machinery. There were tables and charts and lengthy texts, the letters and figures minute, but crystal clear.

I looked at Prestwicke in astonishment. “What a brilliant ruse. Who on earth would think to look at the wall paper with Miss Boyd posed so provocatively.”

“It was Dane’s idea. I cannot imagine how he talked Belle Boyd into it. Anyhow, it worked,” said Prestwicke, handing the picture back to Bostrum. “Bostrum will leave for England immediately. If his initial impressions are correct, we have a major problem on our hands. But, as for you, sir, your mission has been accomplished. You may now continue upon your perambulation of Peru with Dane. When you return to England, you will find her Majesty most appreciative of your efforts upon her behalf. “You must spend the night here. We have arranged to smuggle you across the island at dawn. A local vessel will take you down to Castle Island, where you will find Berry bunkering the Dayrell for the run down to Panama.”

I remembered my uncle mentioning the task of arranging a shipment of coal down to Castle Island. I realized that Prestwicke’s web ran far and wide. He shook my hand firmly, then he reached into the umbrella stand by the apartment door. In it was my swordstick. “Luther brought this off the Wild Dayrell for you. I see that, like you, it has acquired a souvenir of action.” He ran his finger over the notches cut in the sheath by Mackey’s sabre and Belle’s swordstick.

He turned and looked at my cheek. “Deuced fine scar, McCoy, adds a touch of character. Must have been a close call in that alleyway, before you killed your man?”

“Something like that Mister Prestwicke. Something like that.”

Next: Chapter 5: To Panama and Peru