Page 73

“The letters in question were written to his daughter,” Frederick announced.

Now, finally, Joshua thought he saw a reaction. Cassio’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“I have no idea what you are talking about. I take the captain’s dictation, including letters addressed to his daughter, Miss Tyron. That is all.”

“You take the dictation and alter it,” Frederick challenged.

“You are incorrect, my lord.” His voice took on a faint edge.

Oates-Plagitt leaned toward him. “You do understand the danger you are in, Mr. Cassio? We are doing you a great service by visiting you at home rather than simply bringing you into custody.”

“A service?” Cassio inquired. “What service is that? I would remind you that the captain authored those letters. I am merely the scribe. If his words contained a coded message, then they were dictated as such unbeknownst to me. I could not change his wording to … to create a code.”

“Why couldn’t you?” Joshua asked.

“Because the captain looks over every letter I transcribe before he signs his name to them,” Cassio said flatly. He rose to his feet. “I must ask you to leave, gentlemen. I have an appointment at Beaumont Tower to aid the captain.”

Frederick deliberately stretched out his legs and crossed them. “Yet letters sent to Miss Tyron do include a code. Who did it, if not you?”

After a moment of silence, Cassio replied, “It is not for me to say.”

“Oh?” Joshua said, standing up. It was hardly evidence of treachery to characterize Cassio as too calm, almost uninterested. “Say it anyway.”

“I have come to terms with my master’s traitorous activity,” the man said. “I wish it weren’t the case, for the sake of my country as well as my own career. I came to shore that fateful night and saw with my own eyes the captain engaged in fighting against his own men. Thankfully none were killed.”

“It was dark,” Oates-Plagitt said, rising as well. “The captain maintains that it was too murky to identify one man from another.”

“He is my captain,” Cassio said. “I had an eye on him from the moment the ship ran aground. At the time, I thought he had been confused by darkness. But in retrospect, after I learned of the witnesses who had confessed to treason, I understood the truth.”

“Yet you have continued to visit the captain in the Tower and transcribe his letters,” Frederick said, squinting up at him.

“Until Captain Sir Tyron is convicted of treason, he is my lord and master,” Cassio said. A tired note crept into his voice. “If you have discovered the means by which he organized this plot, perhaps the Admiralty will reassign me to a different ship and captain.”

“Or promote you to captain of the Royal Oak?” Joshua asked.

Cassio glanced at him indifferently. “I doubt that very much. Captains in the Royal Navy have wealth and birth to match their power and influence. I have neither.”

Joshua had to admit that Cassio’s points were sound. His heart sank.

Frederick got up, steadying himself on the couch, just as Oates-Plagitt walked over to Cassio, caught one of his wrists, twisted it behind his back and caught the other.

“What in the hell are you doing?” Cassio barked. He began to struggle, but Oates-Plagitt deftly pulled his arms higher, and the prisoner subsided.

“If you please, Lord Frederick FitzRoy-Paget,” the butler said.

Frederick pulled a pair of handcuffs from one of the pockets Joshua had assumed contained a flask of brandy. “Right,” he said cheerfully, without the faintest slur in his voice. He clicked them shut around Cassio’s wrists.

Cassio glowered. “As a British citizen, I have rights. You have no authority to arrest me. I have done nothing wrong in transcribing the letters of a traitor. I had no way of knowing what he was writing.”

“It’s not that,” Oates-Plagitt said cheerfully.

“Then what?”

The butler pulled a small brass seal from his pocket. “Perhaps you would like to explain why Captain Sir Tyron gave you a sextant that was clearly made for him alone, with his personal seal incorporated in its design?”

Cassio gaped. “I didn’t—I’ve never seen that before!”

“The seal slots into the index arm,” Oates-Plagitt said informatively. “I could demonstrate but I think it’s best we simply turn you over to the judiciary. I expect the sextant is stolen. Certainly this seal was used to convince French traitors that an English lord backed their plot.”