Details
No character illustrates the mutability of fortune more than Captain Branscome. In 1809, he captained the Londonderry transport craft which in January successfully navigated a stormy Atlantic to deliver Major Brooks and the 4th (King's Own) Regiment to Plymouth. Later he transferred to a packet of His Majesty's Post-Master General, but had the misfortune of suffering a splintered hip-bone following a fight with a French privateer off Guadaloupe. Retiring to Falmouth on a small pension, probably covering no more than the rent of a room, and no longer able to support his sister, he ekes out a living teaching English, maths and navigation at the Copenhagen Academy, with his pay highly irregular. He also gives instruction to Captain Coffin in navigation, knowing that Coffin is unable to benefit from it.
On his retirement from service at sea, probably not long before the commencement of the novel, he was awarded a sword of honour and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. This detail, so easily overlooked, is central to the development of the plot. The glasses were found by Harry Brooks, on May 14, in the garden of Minden Cottage, following the murder of Major Brooks. Branscome had gone to Minden Cottage on a begging mission, receiving ten guineas, which later explains the mysterious presence of Brooks' cashbox in the summerhouse. As his conscience troubled him about accepting the cash, he returns to the garden to restore the guineas, only to find the body of Brooks, after which he panics and returns to Falmouth. It is Harry Brooks' reticence in revealing his discovery of the glasses which prevents the arrest of Branscome as chief suspect. His explanation in Chapters XV and XVI satisfy his listeners.
No doubt it is penury which explains his membership of the expedition to Mortallone, in which he takes charge, to the exasperation of Harry Brooks. His leadership helps secure the success of the mission. Amelia Plinlimmon is certainly won over. The intimacy of Branscome and Plinlimmon balances the failure of Beauregard and Belcher and the suicide of the doctor with the poison he had prepared for the party.