“You will of course attend the council on the 6th, both in the interest of the building society and of myself. I am delayed by the necessity of seeing after the consignment I had made on board the unfortunate Lucca, which consignment is too valuable to be left to agents. I am in the greatest anxiety, because it is uncertain yet in what light the rescue of the Lucca will be regarded.
“There can be no doubt that if the owner of the yacht—Mr Marese Baskette—likes, he can put in a heavy claim for salvage. The question is—whether in his position as the ostensible heir, and as a gentleman, he will insist upon his right, or, at all events, moderate his demands?
“I have met and conversed with him, and I gather from him that personally he is averse to making any claim at all. He considers that his yacht simply performed a duly, and a duly that was imperative upon her captain. To take money from those unfortunate persons who had consigned goods, or bullion in the Lucca he thought would be contrary to every sentiment of honour and humanity.
“But, unfortunately, he is not altogether a free agent. It appears that at the time when the salvage of the Lucca was effected, there was on board the yacht a certain Mr Theodore Marese—a cousin of Mr Baskette’s, who is only in moderate circumstances, and naturally looks upon the event as a windfall which may never occur again—as I hope and pray it never will.
“Mr Theodore Marese, it seems, performed some personal service in rescuing the Lucca, and was considered to have run considerable risk to his life.
“A certain sum will have no doubt to be paid to Mr Theodore, and I cannot blame him if he insists upon his right. He was practically the master of the yacht at the time, and it seems was on his way—with Mr Baskette’s permission—to London, to attend to some very urgent business there, which the catastrophe of the Lucca has delayed and greatly injured, causing him pecuniary loss.
“Then there is the captain of the yacht, and the crew. It is a fine vessel—some 300 tons or more, I should think—a screw steamer, and very fast. She carries a rather numerous crew, and all these are ravenous for plunder, and it is hard to see how these claims are to be avoided. Still further, it seems that Mr Baskette himself is not altogether a free agent. He freely admitted to me that he was not without his debts—as is probable enough to a man of fashion, with a certain position to maintain.
“These creditors may take advantage of the Lucca business to push him, and say that he must take the salvage in order to meet their demands. Of this he is greatly afraid.
“Baskette is a most pleasant man, easy to converse with, very open and straightforward—quite a different person to what I should have expected. He has been particularly agreeable to me, promising his best efforts to curtail my loss, and has given me a cabin in his now famous yacht, the Gloire de Dijon.
“I cannot drive the subject of the salvage from my mind. The saloons, bars, hotels—everywhere people talk of nothing else. It has quite eclipsed the tragedy, as well it might, from the magnitude of the sums involved.