Dead water - Barbara Hambly [110]
He returned to the upstream edge of the dueling-ground, and for nearly half an hour searched the straggling willows and cottonwoods without finding a lodged pistol-ball that would have borne out his theory of what had actually taken place on the shore. By the time Thu called out to him that Mr. Souter wanted to get under way—that Simon in the engine-room had threatened to cut his own throat before he drew out the fires one more time—January had still found nothing.
One of the deck-hands rowed across in the skiff, and brought him back.
“What were you looking for?” asked Rose, waiting for him on the promenade.
“Hannibal's pistol-ball,” said January. “Did you see Molloy when they brought him aboard?”
She shook her head.
“He was shot through the left temple, just in back of the zygomatic bone—the outer rim of the eye socket.”
“How could Hannibal have shot him there?” asked Rose immediately. “If he was looking straight at Hannibal to fire . . .”
“Exactly. The hole is huge, and the path of the bullet—as far as I could see, and I'll probe it when I see the body again to make sure—seems to go diagonally through the head, cracking the right occipital bone in the back. When Davis dropped the handkerchief as a signal to fire, did you see anything strange? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Other than two grown men shooting at one another because one of them didn't like the fact that the other had spoken to a woman he claimed was ‘his own'? I was watching Hannibal,” she added in a gentler voice. “Hoping against hope he'd be all right.”
“Is he all right?”
Rose sighed. “He's probably unconscious with laudanum by this time, and who can blame him? He looked deathly sick when he came aboard, and went straight to his stateroom. That Skippen hussy came tearing down the stair and tried to throw herself into his arms and he thrust her aside, but he couldn't speak. She's knocked at the door of his stateroom three times since, and tried to open it—I was keeping watch at the end of the promenade—but it's locked from the inside. What did you see?”
“Two grown men shooting at one another,” replied January with a wry grin. Then he sobered. “I was watching Hannibal, too. But when I saw the wound in Molloy's head I remembered how that raven flew up, just before the signal to fire, and it came to me that the whole thing might have been set up. That the intended victim wasn't Hannibal and myself, but Molloy. I think Molloy was shot with a rifle from that little oak grove at the head of the chute.”
“By whom?” asked Rose, startled. “Mrs. Fischer was on the promenade with Mrs. Tredgold and Mrs. Roberson—I saw her. And Mr. Cain was on the deck below.”
“Levi Christmas, maybe? Or one of his men?”
“But that would imply communication between him and someone on board—either Theodora or one of those awful deck-passengers. Since we've been stopped, there hasn't been a moment when there wasn't a guard of some kind on the hurricane deck. I don't think they could even have signaled without being seen.”
“I know,” said January. “I didn't say this was something I could prove, or even explain. But one thing I can and will do is have a look at the bullet lodged in Molloy's skull. And if it's a ball from a Manton dueling pistol, I'll eat it.”
While they'd been speaking, the great stern paddle had begun to turn, slowly driving the Silver Moon out into the channel of the river from the dead water behind the point. The river had fallen to its former low level, and the boat was surrounded by a veritable forest of snags that scraped at the hull and caught in the paddle, forcing the vessel to stop repeatedly while the deck-hands clambered here and there with poles to thrust off. January could hear Mr. Souter's voice yelling down from the hurricane deck, and unbidden to his mind rose the thought of what it must be like to be hidden in the damp, smelly darkness of the hold, listening to the grate of