“Might he have spoken to William Swann?”

“He might. Though he did not say so. Nor do I believe he would have done in a fine house in Bristol what he felt safe doing with me. I don’t think he would have risked it.”

“And with you?”

“Eh?”

“With you . . . what?”

The master nodded. His eye, the living eye, turned its light inwards. “Well, we stood in the parlour together. It’s a damned odd thing to be in a place you know like your own face and have a man, a stranger, aim a gun at your belly. He wanted me to tell him where you’d gone when you left the Jenny. I told him Glasgow, for I remembered you had not intended to stay in the city long so there could be no harm in his knowing. But he was ahead of me. He spoke of the islands. I said you had not mentioned any islands to me. Well, that was my first lie and he did not like it. He struck me with the gun and put me down as easily as I might throw Wee Davey down, had I a mind to it. He stood over me and asked again. I said you had not known yourself what island you might visit, that we had spoken of the islands only in a general way and you had not mentioned any in particular. But he had caught me out once and now I suppose everything I said had for him the savour of a deceit. He did not warn me, did not offer me the chance to change my story. He was, I imagine, in a hurry to be gone. He caught me with the barrel of the gun, a most careful and deliberate blow, and I knew immediately the damage it had done. There was a minute after that I don’t much care to recall. Once I was able to speak again I told him everything about you I could bring to mind. Every conversation, our last in particular, word for word or near enough. Had I known where you were, had you been hiding in my cellar, I would have given you up to him then. Men will sail with a one-eyed captain. They will not sail with a blind one.”

“He is insane,” said Lacroix. “Some lunatic got into your house.”

“A lunatic? He may have been. But a purposeful one and in perfect command of himself. He told me he was the war. He said the law could not touch him. And something else, something I did not consider much at the time, I had not the leisure to, but have thought of a great deal since. He told me he had been sent by one whose word could not be gainsaid. I don’t know what you make of that. One whose word could not be gainsaid. It was strange language for such a man.”