Roderick was not at all surprised—it seemed to me rather that he was glad.
“What did I tell you?” he said, as he sat up on the couch, and took the tube of his hookah from his mouth; “who will believe such a tale as we are hawking in the market-place—selling, in fact, to the highest bidder? If a man came to you with the same account, and with no more authority to support him than the story of a dead detective—who may have lost his wits, or may never have had any to lose—would you put down a shilling to see him through with the business? Pshaw! my dear old Mark, you, with your long head and that horribly critical eyes of yours, you wouldn’t give him a groat.”
“Exactly, I should consider him a dupe or a stark-staring madman; but the case is different as it stands. I know—I would stake my life on it—that every word Martin Hall wrote is true, true as my life itself. I am not so sure that you are convinced, though.”
I awaited his answer, but it did not come for many minutes. He had passed through his momentary enthusiasm and lay at full length upon the couch, making circles, parabolas, and ellipses of fine white smoke, while he fixed his gaze upon the frieze of the wall, as if he were counting the architraves.
“Mark,” he said at last, “when we were at Harrow together an aged sage impressed upon us the meaning of Seneca’s line, ‘Veritas odit moras.’ I regard myself at the moment in a position of truth; but whether on calm reflection I believe the whole of your dead friend’s story, I’m hanged if I know, and therefore”—here he made a long pause and smoked violently—”and therefore I have bought a steamer.”
“You have done what?”
“At two o’clock today, in your absence, I bought the steam-yacht Rocket, lately the property of Lord Wilmer, now the property of Roderick Stewart, of the Hotel Columbia, London.”
I think I must have laughed sorrowfully at him, as a man laughs at a drawing-room humorist, for he continued quickly—
“Before we go on board her, the yacht will be re-christened by Mary—who will stay with her dear maiden aunt in our absence—and will be named after your vessel Celsis. Her crew will consist of our silent friend, Captain York, of his brother as chief mate, and of your men now at Portsmouth, with half a dozen more. We shall need eight firemen, whom the agents will engage, and three engineers, already found, for I have taken on Lord Wilmer’s men. Your cook, old ‘Cuss-a-lot,’ will serve us very well during the fourteen or fifteen days we shall need to go across the Atlantic, and we want now only a second and third officer. As these men will be mixed up with us on the quarter-deck, I have told the agents to send them up to see you here—so you’ll run your eye over them and tell me if they’ll do. I hate seeing people; they bore me, and I mean you to take the charge of this enterprise from the very beginning—you quite understand?”
“Roderick, my old friend, I’m as blank as a drawing-board—would you mind giving me that yarn from the beginning again—and tell me first, why are we going; then, where are we going; and after that, what has your steamer to do with the business of Martin Hall—and, well, and what we know?”
He spoke quickly in answer, and seemed disappointed.
“I hate palaver,” he said, “and didn’t think to find you dense, but you’re growing silly at this business anyway. Now, look here; until you read me that paper in your cabin, I don’t know that I ever felt anger against any man, but, before God, I’ll bring the man who murdered Martin Hall, and Heaven knows how many others, to justice or I’ll never know another hour’s rest. You have been talking of Governments and ship-owners for twenty-four hours; but what have Governments and ship-owners to do with us? Is it money you want? Well, what’s mine is yours; and I’m worth two hundred and fifty thousand pounds if I’m worth a shilling. Is it profit of a dead man’s work you’re after? Well then, mark your man, learn all about him, run him to his hole; and then, when other people besides yourself know his story, as it must be known in a few months’ time, put your price on what is your own, and don’t fear to recompense yourself. What I want you to see is this:—For some months, at any rate, we shall get no outside help in this matter from any living creature; what we’re going to do must be done at our cost, which is my cost. And what we’re going to do isn’t to be done at this hotel, or on this couch, or in the City: it’s going to be done on the high seas, and after that in America on the Hudson River, where, if Hall be right, is the home of Captain Black. It is to the Hudson River that I mean to go now—at once, as soon as money and the devil’s own number of men can get the steam-yacht Celsis ready for sea. And at my cost, don’t forget that; though I’m a fool in the game, which is yours to make and yours to play, as it has been from the beginning, when the dead man chose you to finish it and to reckon with the scoundrels now afloat somewhere between here and the Banks. In his name I ask you now to close your hand with me on this bargain, to ask no question, to make no protests, and to remember that we sail in three days, if possible, and if not in three, then, in as small a number as will serve to get the steamer ready.”
What could I say to a story such as this one? I could only wring his hand, and feel how hot it was, knowing that the same haunting wish to be up and off in pursuit was about him as about me. For half-an-hour we sat and smoked together. In three-quarters I was closeted in the room below with Francis Paolo, who had come from the agents to seek the berth of second officer to the new yacht Celsis. When the servant gave me this man’s name, I had some misgiving at its Italian sound, but I remembered that Italy is breeding a nation of sailors; and I put off the prejudice and hurried down to see him. I found him to be a sprightly, dark-faced, black-haired Italian, apparently no more than twenty-five years old; and he greeted me with much smoothness of speech. He had served three years as third officer to the big steam-yacht owned by the noted Frenchman, the Marquis de Cluneville; and, as he was unmistakably a gentleman, and his discharges were in perfect order, I engaged him there and then for the post of second officer to the Celsis, and gave him orders to join her at Plymouth, where she lay, as soon as might be.
But had I known him then as I know him now, I would have paid a thousand pounds never to have seen him!
CHAPTER VII.
THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT PURSUIT.
It was our last day in London. Roderick and I sat down to dinner in the hotel, the touch of depression upon us both. Mary had left us early in the morning to go to Salisbury, where her kinsfolk lived, and I confess that her readiness to quit us without protest somewhat hurt me. I imagine that I was thinking of it, for I blurted out at last, when we had been silent for at least a quarter of an hour—
“I suppose she’s arrived by this.”
“No, I didn’t post her till three,” Roderick replied in equal reflective mood.
“Didn’t post who?” I asked indignantly.
“Why, old Belle, of course. I sent her down with the guard to get her out of the way.”
“Oh,” I replied, “I was thinking of Mary, not of your dog.”
“You always are,” he said; “but, between ourselves, I’m glad she went. I thought there’d be a fuss; and if it comes to a row, as it most probably will, girls are in the way. Don’t you think so? But, of course, you don’t.”
I didn’t, and made no bones of pretence about it. Mary was a child; there was no doubt about that; but as I girded up my courage for this undertaking, I thought how much those pretty eyes would have encouraged me, and how sweet that childish laugh would have been in mid-Atlantic. But there—that’s no part of this story.
We were going down to Plymouth by the nine o’clock mail from Paddington, and there was not a wealth of time to spare. So soon as we had dined, I went up to my room to put the small things of need away, meaning to be no more than five minutes at the work; but, to my amazement, the whole of the place had been turned utterly inside out by one who had been there before me. My trunk lay upside down; my writing-case was unlocked and stripped, my diary was torn and rent, my clothes were scattered; I thought at first that a common che
at of a hotel thief had been busy snapping up trifles; but I got a shock greater than any I had known since Martin Hall’s death when I felt for his writing, which lay secure in its case, and found that, while the main narrative was intact, his letters to the police at New York, his plans, and his sketches had been taken. For the moment the discovery made me reel. I could not realise its import, and almost mechanically I rang for a servant, who sent the manager to me.
His perplexity and dismay were no less than mine.
“No one has any right to enter your rooms,” he said; “and I will guarantee the honesty of my servants unhesitatingly. Let us ring and ask for the porter.”
The porter was emphatic.
“No one has been here after you since yesterday, sir, when the Italian gentleman came,” he pleaded. “Today he sent a man for a parcel he left here, but I know of no one else who has even mentioned your name.”
“What is the amount of your loss?” asked the manager, as he began to assist me to make things straight, and the question gave me inspiration. I made a hurried search, and I must have shown feeling, for I was conscious of pallor of face and momentary giddiness.
“You have lost something of great value, then?” he continued, as he watched. And I replied—
“Yes, but to myself only. Nothing has been taken from the room but papers, which may be worth ten thousand pounds to me. They are not worth a penny to anyone else.”
“Oh! papers only—that is fortunate; it is, perhaps, a case for your own private detective.”
“Quite so; I shouldn’t have troubled you had I made a search before. I will see to it myself—many thanks.”
He withdrew with profuse apologies, but I remained standing, with all the heart out of me. What, in Heaven’s name, did it mean? Who had interest to rifle my portfolio and take the papers? Who could have interest? Who but the man I meant to hunt down? And what did he know of me—what? I asked, repeating the words over again, and so loudly that those in the neighbouring rooms must have heard them.
Was I watched from the very beginning? Had I to cope, at the very outset, with a man worth a million, the captain of a band of cutthroats, who stood at no devil’s deed, no foul work, no crime, as Martin Hall’s death clearly proved? My heart ached at the thought; I felt the sweat dropping off me; I stood without thought of any man; the one word “watched” singing in my ears like the surging of a great sea. And I had forgotten Roderick until he burst into my room, a great laugh on his lips, and a telegram in his hand; but he stood back as he saw me, and went pale, as I must have been.
“Great Scott!” he said; “what’s the matter?—what are you doing? We leave in ten minutes; why aren’t you ready?”
The excuse gurgled in my throat. I stammered out something, and began to pack as though pursued by Furies. Then I put him off by asking what his humour was about. He laughed again at the question—
“What do you think?” he said; “Mary’s arrived all right.”
“Oh, that’s good; I hope she’ll like Salisbury,” I replied, bundling shirts, collars, and coats into my trunk with indiscriminate vigour.
“Yes, but you don’t wait to hear the end,” he continued, with a great roar of laughter; “she isn’t at Salisbury at all; she’s at Plymouth, on board the Celsis. She went straight down there, and devil a bit as much as sent her aunt a telegram!”
I rose up at his word, and looked him in the face.
“Well,” he said, “what do you think?—you don’t seemed pleased.”
“I’m not pleased,” I said, going on with my packing. “I don’t think she ought to be there.”
“I know that; we’ve talked it all over, but when I think of it, I don’t see where the harm comes in; we can’t meet mischief crossing the Atlantic, and when the danger does begin in New York I’ll see she’s well on the lee-side of it.”
I did not answer him, for I knew that which he did not know. Perhaps he began to think that he did not do well to treat the matter so lightly, for he was mute when we entered the cab, and he did not open his lips until we were seated in the night mail for Plymouth. The compartment we rode in was reserved for us as he had wished; and, truth to tell, we neither of us had much liking for talk as the train rolled smoothly westward. We had entered upon this undertaking, so vast, so shadowy, so momentous, with such haste, and moved by such powerful motives, that I know not if some thought of sorrow did not then touch us both. Who could say if we should live to tell the tale, if our fate would not be the fate of Martin Hall, if we should ever so much as see the nameless ship, if chance would ever bring us face to face with Captain Black? And whither did we go? When should we set foot again in that England we loved? God alone could tell; and, with one great hope in a guiding and all-seeing Providence, I covered myself up in my rug, and slept until dawn came, and the fresh breezes from the Channel waves brought new strength and men’s hearts to us again.
It was full day when we went on board the yacht, and I did not fail to cast a quick glance of admiration on her beautiful lines and perfect shape as I clambered up the ladder, at the top of which stood Captain York.
“Welcome aboard,” he said, giving us hearty hand-shakes; and without further inspection at that hour we followed him to the cabin, where steaming coffee brought the blood to our hands and feet, and put us in better mood.
“So my sister’s here,” said Roderick, as he filled his cup for the third time.
“Yes, last night, no orders,” jerked the skipper with his usual brevity.
“Ah, we must see to that—and the second officer——”
“Still ashore; he left a bit of writing; he’ll be aboard midday!”
He had the writing in his hand, and was about to crumple it, but I caught sight of it, and snatched it from him. It was in the same handwriting as the letter which Captain Black had sent to me at the Hôtel Scribe in Paris.
“What’s the matter?” said Roderick, as he heard me exclaim; but the skipper looked hard at me, and was much mystified.
“Do you know anything of the man?” he asked very slowly, as he leant back in his chair, but I had already seen the folly of my ejaculation, and I replied—
“Nothing at all, although I have seen that handwriting before somewhere; I could tell you where, perhaps, if I thought.”
Roderick nodded his head meaningly, and deftly turned the subject. I yawned with a great yawn, and the episode passed as we both rose to go to our cabins. It is not well to greet the waking day with eyes that are half-closed in sleep; and, although the skipper seemed to desire some fuller knowledge as to the ends of our cruise and the course of it, we put him off, and left him to the coffee and the busy work of the final preparation. But Roderick followed me to my berth and had the matter of the handwriting out. I told him at once of the robbery of some of the papers, and the coincidence of the letter which the second mate had left with the skipper. He was quick-witted enough to see the danger; but he was quite reckless in the methods he proposed to meet it.
“There’s no two thoughts about this matter at all,” he said; “we’ve evidently run right into a trap, but luckily there’s time to get out again—of course, we shall sail without a second mate?”
“That’s one way out of the hole, no doubt, but it’s very serious to find that our very first move in the matter is known to others. Hall said well that his diamond-buyer could command and be obeyed in ten cities: and there isn’t much question that we’ve got one of his men aboard this ship—but I don’t know that we shouldn’t keep him.”
“Keep him! What for?—to watch everything we do, and hear everything we say, and arrange for the cutting of our throats when we land at New York? You’ve a fine notion of diplomacy, Mark!”
“Perhaps so; but we won’t quarrel about that. There’s one thing you forget in this little calculation of yours—our men are as true as steel; this rogue couldn’t turn one of them if he staked his life on it. Suppose he has come here to use his eyes, and hang about keyholes; well, we know him, fo
rtunately; and what can he learn unless he learns it from you or me? There’s not another soul aboard knows anything. You will tell the skipper that we cross to America for a pleasure trip; you will help me to keep so close an eye on Master Francis Paolo, second mate, that if he lose a hair of his head we shall know it. In that way it may turn out that we shall get from him the link which is lost in the chain; and when he would draw us, we shall pump him as dry as a sand-pit. At least, that’s my way of thinking, and I don’t think it’s such a poor notion, after all.”
“It’s not poor at all—it never came to me like that. Of course, you’re right; let’s take the man aboard, but I wish we could have left Mary behind—don’t you?”
That I did, but what could I tell him? It was bad enough to be hugging all those fears and thoughts of danger to my own heart, without setting him all a-ferment with apprehension and unrest; so I laughed off his question, and after a six hours’ sleep I went aft to the quarter-deck, to take stock of the yacht and get some better acquaintance with her.
She was a finely-built ship of some seven hundred tons, and was schooner-rigged, so that she could either sail or steam. Her engines were unusually large for so small a vessel, being triple-compound; while the main saloon, aft, and the small library attached to it, showed in the luxurious fitting that her late owner had been a man of fine taste. In the very centre of her there was a deck-house for the chart-room, the skipper’s and engineers’ quarters, and a couple of spare cabins; but generally the accommodation was below, there being three small cabins with two berths apiece each side the saloon, and room for the steward and his men amidships. The fo’castle was large, and airy, giving ample berthing for the stokers and seamen; while the whole ornament of the deck was bright-looking with brass, and smart rails, and pots of flowers, these last showing clearly that Mary had been at work. Indeed, I had scarce made my inspection of our new ship when she burst up from below, and began her explanation, standing with flushed cheeks, while the wind played in her hair, and her eyes danced with the merriment of it.
The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales Page 222
