Black Ship Read Free Page B

before he’d have accosted in the street a lady to whom he had not been introduced, even having observed her departure from his house. Unless the house was going up in flames … But a quick backward glance showed Daisy such was not the case. However, she was not the sort to cut off a possible source of information just because of a certain disregard of etiquette.
    “Afternoon tea,” she explained, and added encouragingly, “Can I help you?”
    “You noticed the fellow who came out just before you? Who dashed off at such a pace?” He stared frowning after the American, now out of sight. “I don’t suppose you know who he was?”
    “I’m afraid not. I didn’t meet him. I imagine Mrs. Jessup—your mother—can tell you.”
    “Mother spoke to him?”
    “I believe so. I did hear his voice, and he sounded as if he came from America.”
    His already-pale face blanched. “Oh Hades!” he groaned. “I knew it was a terrible idea. Thank you, madam, and once more, my apologies.” He raised his hat again and made for the Jessup house at a hasty pace.
    Interesting! Daisy thought, making her way back to the car.
    There seemed to be enough secrets and mysteries at number 5 to furnish a half-ruined Gothic mansion. They ought to have an old crone for a housekeeper, instead of a smart young parlour maid.
    She had liked both the Jessup ladies, though. If they were aware of her aristocratic background, they had showed no signs of toadying. In fact, their unaffected manners were very much at odds with the flamboyance of their interior decorating. Could it be Mr. Jessup’s taste that ruled?
    If anything, the mysteries associated with the Jessups made Daisy keener to get to know them better. Who was the intrusive, aggressive American whose arrival so alarmed Aidan Jessup? What was the “terrible idea” that had apparently led to his arrival? Was the younger brother in trouble with the law?
    Could that explain Mr. Irwin’s reluctance to have a CID detective move in next door to his daughter?
    FIRST SEA INTERLUDE
    There was three men came out of the west,
Their fortunes for to try
,
And those three made a solemn vow,
John Barleycorn should die.
They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in,
Throwed clods upon his head,
And these three men made a solemn vow,
John Barleycorn was dead.
    —OLD ENGLISH BALLAD
    “‘It was a dark and stormy night …’ ”
    Clinging to the rail, sleet streaming down his neck, Patrick muttered the words to himself. He’d have had to shout to be heard above the howl of the wind in the rigging, and in any case, he doubted his present companions would appreciate the literary allusion.
    At the best of times, the seamen had little regard for the supercargo.
    Bulwer-Lytton’s London couldn’t possibly have been as dark and stormy as the North Atlantic in a September gale, at night, on board a ship with all lights extinguished. The best that could be said for the situation was that the U.S. Coast Guard was not likely to find the
Iphigenia.
If they had any sense, they wouldn’t even be afloat tonight.
    On the other hand, nor would
Iffie’s
customers find her.
    Captain Watkins had insisted that the supercargo must be on deck, ready to keep tally of the merchandise handed over when the inshore boats arrived. Teeth chattering, Patrick suspected—to the point of near certainty—that Watkins had been having him on. Surely on a night like this the captain couldn’t even guarantee that the black ship was in the vicinity of Rum Row. If she was, one could only hope that a dozen—or a score or more—unlighted ships were not circling blindly in the area, waiting for the storm to ease.
    At least they were not likely to be blown ashore, Patrick was glad to realise. Last year, in May 1924 to be precise, the old three-mile limit had changed to twelve, so Rum Row was now some fifteen miles from the coast.
    A song ran through his head:
    Oh, ‘twas in the broad Atlantic,
Mid the equinoctial gales,
That a young