“No, I would not,” Julian said. “For if I did, who would there be for me to victimize?”

That hung in the air like a foul-weather flag for a few seconds, until the rear admiral swung upon Windom so suddenly Matthew feared an attack of violence. “How dare you let this creature into my house!” Garrett seethed. “You’ll be docked a week’s pay for this affront!”

All Windom could do was take a backward step, slump his shoulders in deference and stare at the floor.

“Well,” said Julian, “we didn’t come all this way just to destroy the lock on your gate, Father.”

“My lock? Yes, I heard that shot! Are you carrying a cannon around with you now, the better to rob old women and infants?” His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘come all this way’? Come from where?”

“Up the coast a distance. I have some questions to ask you, and—”

“The nerve of you! The audacity! Breaking in here at this hour to demand of me!”

Matthew thought the man was going to start foaming at the mouth, fall down and begin gnawing at the carpet, but before that could happen Julian said firmly, “I want to know, first of all, if a mortar vessel and a ship-of-the-line have been stolen recently from any of the navy’s dockyards.”

That made Garrett’s jaw drop. “Are you now insane, to boot?” His left arm came up and pointed into Matthew’s face. “Does this ‘associate’ of yours not know to remove his tricorn in the house of a gentleman? Sir!” The fearsome face faced Matthew, striking him with fear. “Were you born amid swine?”

“As a matter of fact,” Matthew replied, “yes sir, I was.” He removed the tricorn and then the woolen cap that had so warmed his head on the cold voyage across the bay.

“God save us from such as these,” said Garrett, speaking to Windom, who in response took another backward step toward the door. Then, to his son again: “A mortar vessel and ship-of-the-line stolen from a Royal Navy yard? You’re jabbering an idiocy!”

“I would remind the rear admiral,” Julian said, “that in the year 1667 the Dutch sailed a fleet into the Sheerness naval yard, captured the place and used it as a base to attack the English fleet anchored on the Medway river, so such an event might not be as idiotic as—”

“And I would present that of course all you could take away from your wasted naval education is a British failure, irrespective of the year or of the unfortified conditions of Sheerness at the time. So don’t brandish that dulled sword at me, and again I say—”

His speech of indignation was interrupted by the high-pitched ringing of a bell … once … then once more, coming from further back in the manse.

“Now you’ve awakened Paul,” said the rear admiral, with what Matthew thought was a wisp of a smirk upon his thin-lipped mouth. “Good for you. Of course Paul will want to come see his fine loyal brother. Windom, go fetch my son, please.”