“I deemed the rank appropriate,” Delaney answered grandly. “No one else seems to have the power to promote or demote me, so I assumed the rank as one more fitting for my dignity. In time, just like a gas balloon, I shall rise to the dizziest of heights. Dear Nate, you look dreadful! Scarred, dirty, used up. Is this what soldiering does to one?”

“Yes,” Starbuck said, then introduced the barechested Lieutenant Potter, who seemed rather frightened by Delaney. Martha nervously shook the lawyer’s hand, then fell back to cling to her disreputable husband.

“Here,” Sally said to Starbuck as they began to walk eastward along Main, “you need this,” and she held out one of Patrick Lassan’s sabers.

Starbuck buckled the sword belt round his waist. “Did you find anything?” he asked Delaney.

“Of course I didn’t find anything,” the lawyer said testily. “I am not a detective bureau, I am merely an attorney.” Delaney paused to raise his peaked cap to a passing acquaintance. “But it’s quite obvious,” he went on, “what Holborrow is doing. He is using the Special Battalion as a milch cow. He feeds it scraps and it yields him money. He doesn’t want it to go to war, because that would mean he loses the income.”

“What does that mean?” Starbuck asked.

Delaney sighed. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? The government issues the Special Battalion boots, so Holborrow sells the boots to another regiment, then complains to the government that the boots were faulty. In time he will receive more boots that will also be sold. The same for rifles, canteens, coats, and anything else he can gouge out of the system. He’s doing it quite cleverly, for the system hasn’t discovered him, but I’m sure that’s his game. Are you really going to fight a duel?”

“Son of a bitch challenged me,” Starbuck said belligerently, then, unable to hide his disappointment, glanced back at the lawyer. “So you can’t help me?” he asked. Starbuck, in the careful letter he had written to Delaney that morning, had described his suspicions that Holborrow had purloined the rifles meant for the Special Battalion and then sold them. He had hoped that somehow Delaney might discover some evidence in the War Department, but his hopes had been dashed.

“I can help you,” Delaney said, “by being a lawyer.”

“You mean you’ll threaten Holborrow?”

Delaney sighed. “You are so blunt, Nate, so hopelessly blunt. How can I threaten him? I know nothing. I can, however, drop broad hints. I can insinuate. I can pretend to know what I do not know. I can suggest a formal investigation might be undertaken, and it is possible, just possible, that he’ll come to an arrangement rather than call my bluff. How many men in the battalion?”

“A hundred and eighty nine.”

“Ah, that’s something. He’s drawing rations and pay for two hundred and sixty.” Delaney smiled, seeing an advantage. “I can tell you one other thing. Holborrow was never wounded by a Yankee bullet. That bad leg came from a fall off his horse and the damage isn’t half so bad as he pretends. He doesn’t want to go to war, you see? So he’s playing up the wound. What he wants is a nice, safe, profitable war in plump Richmond, and I guess he’ll do quite a lot to make sure he gets it. But what do you want, Nate?”