The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  I sat down on the locker as near to the fire as I could, and rested my elbows on the little triangular table. Chilled to the marrow and utterly exhausted, I was sensible of a growing desire to sleep; a desire which I repressed, as I believed, with noble resolution. But apparently my efforts in this respect were not so successful as I had supposed, for the next incident opened with suspicious suddenness.

  A vigorous shake, which dislodged one of my elbows, introduced the episode.

  I looked up, blinking sulkily, at a bright and most objectionably dazzling light, which further inspection showed to proceed from a hurricane lamp held by a rather dirty hand. “Here, wake up, mister,” said a hoarse voice, “this here ain’t the Hotel Cecil, you know.”

  I sat up and stared vaguely at the speaker, or at least, the holder of the lamp, but could not think of anything appropriate to say. Then another voice emerged from nowhere in particular. “’E’s been overboard, that’s what ’e’s been.”

  “Any fool can see that,” said the first man;” but the question is, who is he and what’s he a-doin’ in my cabin? Who are yer, mister?”

  Now, that would seem to be a perfectly simple and straightforward question. But it is not so simple as it seems. To a complete stranger, the bare mention of a name is unilluminating. Further explanations are needed. And at that moment I did not feel equal to explanations. Besides, I was not so very clear on the subject myself. Consequently, I preserved a silence which, perhaps, was wooden rather than golden. “D’ye ’ear?” persisted the first man. “I’m a-arskin’ you a question.”

  “What’a the good of arskin’ questions of a man what’s been a-rammin’ ’is crumpet aginst the bottom of the river?” protested the other man.

  “What d’ye mean?” demanded the first mariner.

  “Can’t you see?” retorted the other,” as ’e’s took the ground ’ard? Look at ’is ’ed.”

  Here the first mariner—Lucifer, or lamp-bearer—wiped his hand over the top of my head and then examined the tip of his forefinger critically as though it were the arming of a deep-sea lead. “You’re right, Abel,” said he. “That’s mud off the bottom, that is. He must have took a regular header. Sooicide perhaps, and altered his mind. Found it a bit damper’n what he expected. Put the kittle on, Abe.”

  From this moment, the two mariners treated me as if I had been a lay-figure. Silently, they peeled off my wet clothes, and dried my skin with vigorous friction as if it had been a wet deck. They not only asked no further questions, but when I would have spoken they urged me to economize my wind. They inducted me into stiff and hairy garments of uncouth aspect, and finally, Abe set before me on the table a large earthenware mug, the contents of which steamed and diffused through the cabin a strong odour of Dutch gin. “You git outside that, mister,” said the luminiferous mariner (who turned out subsequently to be the skipper), “and then you’d best turn in.”

  The treatment was not strictly orthodox, but I obeyed without demur. Most people would have done the same under the circumstances. But the process of “getting outside” it took time, for the grog was boiling hot and had been brewed with a flexible wrist. By the time that I had emptied the mug I was not only revived, but (so far as my memory serves) rather disposed to be garrulously explanatory and facetious. I even felt a slight inclination to sing. But my friends would stand no nonsense. As soon as the mug was fairly empty, they bundled me, neck and crop, into a sort of elongated cupboard and proceeded to pile on me untold quantities of textile fabrics, including a complete suit of oilskins. Then they commanded me to go to sleep; which I believe I must have done almost instantly.

  CHAPTER XI

  A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS

  Awakening in a strange place is always a memorable experience; especially to the young, in whom the capacity for novel sensations has not yet been exhausted by repetition. When I emerged, somewhat gradually, from the unconsciousness of sleep, my first impressions concerned themselves with the unusual appearance of the bedroom wall and its remarkable proximity to my nose. I further noticed that the bedstead had become inexplicably tilted and that the house appeared to be swaying; and as I mused on these phenomena with the vagueness of the half-awake, a loud voice, proceeding apparently from the floor above, roared out the mystic words, “Lee-o!” whereupon there ensued a sound like the shaking of colossal table cloths and the loud clanking of chains, and my bedstead took a sharp tilt to the opposite side. This roused me pretty completely, and turning over in the bunk, I looked out into the barge’s cabin.

  It was broad daylight and evidently not early, for a square patch of sunlight crept to and fro on the little table, whence presently it slipped down to the floor and slithered about unsteadily, as if Phoebus had overdone his morning dram and could not drive his chariot straight. I watched it lazily for some time and then, becoming conscious of a vacancy within, crept out from under the mountain of bedclothes and made my way to the ladder.

  As I put my head through the companion hatch, a man who stood at the wheel regarded me stolidly. “So you’ve woke up, have yer?” said he. “Thought you was going right round the clock. Abel! He’s woke up. Tell young Ted to stand by with them heggs and that there ’addick.”

  Here Abel looked round from behind the luff of the mainsail, and having verified the statement, conveyed the order to some invisible person in the fore-peak. Then he came aft with an obvious air of business. The time for explanations had arrived.

  Accordingly I proceeded to “pitch them my yarn,” as they expressed it; to which they listened with polite attention and manifest disappointment, clearly regarding the story as a fabrication from beginning to end. And no wonder. The whole affair was utterly incredible even to me; to them it must have seemed sheer nonsense. Their own verdict of “sooicide” during very temporary insanity with sudden mental recovery, under the influence of cold water, was so much more rational. Not that they obtruded their views. They listened patiently and said nothing; and nothing that they could have said could have been more expressive.

  Meanwhile I looked about me with no little surprise. Some miles away to the south lay a stretch of low land, faint and grey, with a single salient object, apparently a church with two spires. In every other direction was the unbroken sea horizon. “You seem to have made a pretty good passage,” I remarked.

  “We’ve had sixteen hours to do it in,” replied the skipper,” and spring tides and a nice bit of breeze. If it ’ud only hold—which I’m afraid it won’t—we’d be in Folkestone Harbour this time tomorrow, or even sooner. Folkestone be much out of your way?”

  I smiled at the artlessness of the question. It was undeniable that the route from Charing Cross to Hampstead by way of Folkestone was slightly indirect. But there was no need to insist on the fact. My hospitable friends had acted for the best and their prudence was justified by the result; for here I was, not a whit the worse for my ducking save that I badly wanted a bath. “Folkestone will suit me quite well,” I replied, “if there is enough money left in my pockets to pay my fare home.”

  “That’s all right,” said the skipper. “I cleared out your pockets myself. You’ll find the things in a mug in the starboard locker. Better overhaul ’em when you go below and see if you’ve dropped anything. Here comes young Ted with your grub.”

  As he spoke the apprentice rose through the fore-hatch like a stage apparition—if one can imagine an apparition burdened with a tin tea-pot, two “heggs” and an “’addick”—and came grinning along the weather side-deck, to vanish through the cabin hatchway. I followed gleefully, and, almost before young Ted had finished the somewhat informal table arrangements, fell to on the food with voracious joy. “If you want any more eggs or anythink,” said the apprentice, “all you’ve got to do is just to touch the electric bell and the waiter’ll come and take your orders,” and having delivered this delicate shaft of irony he presented me with an excellent back view of a pair of brown dreadnoughts as he retired up the ladder.

  As I consumed th
e rough but excellent breakfast I reflected on the strange events that had placed me in my present odd situation. For the first time, I began fairly to realize that I was in some way involved in a nexus of circumstances that I did not in the least understand. I had an enemy; a vindictive enemy, too, in whose eyes mere human life was a thing of no account. But who could he be? I knew of no one on whom I had ever inflicted the smallest injury. I bore no man any grudge and had never to my knowledge had unfriendly dealings with any human creature. Was this inveterate enemy of mine anyone whom I knew? Or was he some stranger whose path I had crossed without knowing it, and whom I should not recognize even if I saw him?

  This last supposition was highly disquieting, especially as it seemed rather probable; for if my enemy was unknown to me, what precautions could I take?

  Then, again, there was the question! What was the occasion of this extraordinary vendetta? What had I done to this man that he should pursue me with such deadly purpose? As to Jervis’s suggestion, that I had seen something at the Samways’ house that I was not wanted to see, there was nothing in it; for, as a matter of fact, I had seen nothing. There was nothing to see. The man Maddock was certainly dead. As to what he died of, that was Batson’s affair; but even in that there was no sign of anything suspicious. The man himself had consulted Batson, and had thought so badly of himself that he had made his will in Batson’s presence. The patient himself was fully aware of his serious condition; it was only Batson, with his eternal hurry and bustle and his defective eyesight, who had missed observing it. The only circumstance that supported Jervis’s view was that the acts of violence seemed to be connected with the locality of Batson’s house.

  Of course there remained the mystery of the dead priest or lay-brother. But with that these attempts seemed to have no connection. Nor was there any reason why the murderer should pursue me. I had seen the body, it is true; but nobody believed me and no proceedings were being taken. Nor could I have identified the murderer if I had been confronted with him. Clearly, he had nothing to fear from me.

  From the causes of my present predicament I passed to the immediate future. I should have to get back from Folkestone, and I ought to send a telegram to my landlady, Mrs. Blunt, who would probably be in a deuce of a twitter about me. I raised the lid of the locker, and, reaching out the big earthenware mug, emptied its contents on the table. All my portable property seemed to be there, including the little gold reliquary, which I had carelessly carried in my pocket ever since I had shown it to Thorndyke. My available funds were some four or five pounds; amply sufficient to get me home and to discharge my liability to the skipper as well. I swept the things back into the mug, which I returned to the locker, and having cut myself another thick slice of bread, proceeded with the largest breakfast that I have ever eaten.

  The skipper’s forebodings were justified by the course of events. When I came on deck the breeze had died down to a mere faint breath, hardly sufficient to keep the big red main-sail asleep—as the pretty old nautical phrase has it. The skipper was still at the wheel and Abel was anxiously taking soundings with a hand-lead. “You won’t do it, Bill,” said the latter, coiling up the lead-line with an air of finality, “this ’ere breeze is a-petering right out.”

  The skipper said nothing, but stared gloomily at the land which was now right ahead and much nearer than when I had last looked; and from the land his eye travelled to a sandbank from which rose a tall post at the top of which was an inverted cone. “Ought to a-gone about a bit sooner, Bill,” pursued Abel; whereupon the skipper turned on him fiercely.

  “What’s the good o’ saying that now!” he demanded. “If you’d a-told me the wind was going to drop, I a-gone about sooner. What water is there?”

  “Five fathom here,” replied Abel; “that means one and a quarter on the Woolpack. You’d best shove her nose round now, Bill.”

  “Oh, all right!” retorted the skipper, “Lee-o! This is going to be an all-night job, this is,” and with this gloomy prediction, he spun the wheel round viciously, and once more headed away from the land.

  Prophecy appeared to be the skipper’s speciality and, like most prophets, he tended to view the future with an unfavourable eye. Gradually the breeze died away into a dead calm, so that we had presently to let go the anchor to avoid drifting on to a great sandbank which now lay between us and the land. And here we remained not only for the rest of the day and the succeeding night, as the skipper had promised, but throughout the whole of the next day and following night.

  I have already remarked on the incalculable chances by which the course of a man’s life is determined. Looking back now, I see that the skipper’s little miscalculation and his failure to cross the Woolpack Shoal into the inshore channel, was an antecedent determining the most momentous consequences for me. For had the barge been becalmed in the inshore channel, I could, and should, have landed in the boat and returned home forthwith; and if I had, certain events would not have happened and my life might have run a very different course. As it was miles of sea and the great bank known as the Margate Sand, lay between me and the shore; whence I was committed to the wanderings and dallyings of the barge as irrevocably as if we were crossing the Pacific.

  We lay, then, in the Queen’s Channel, outside Margate Sand, for two whole days and nights; during which time the skipper and Abel slept much and smoked more, and young Ted, having cleaned and dried my clothes, inducted me into the art of bottom-fishing. On the third day, a faint breath of breeze enabled us to crawl round the North Foreland, and the skipper having elected to pass outside the Goodwin, managed to get becalmed again in the neighbourhood of the East Goodwin Lightship. A little breeze at night enabled us to move on a few miles farther; and so we continued to crawl along at intervals, mainly on the tide, until nine o’clock in the morning of the fifth day, when we finally crawled into Folkestone Harbour.

  As soon as the barge was brought up to a buoy, young Ted was detailed to put me ashore in the boat. The skipper and Abel had insisted on treating me as a guest, and I had perforce to accept the position. But young Ted had no such pride; and when I ran up the wooden steps by the old fish-market, I left him on the stage below, staring with an incredulous grin at a gold coin in his none-too-delicate palm.

  I was not sorry to be landed in this unfashionable quarter of the town, for in spite of young Ted’s efforts, my turn-out left much to be desired, especially in the matter of shirt-cuffs and collar, and I was, moreover, hatless and somewhat imperfectly shaved. Accordingly, I slunk inconspicuously past the market and the groups of lounging fishermen, and when I saw a well-dressed, ladylike woman preceding me into the little narrow street, known as the Stade, I slackened my pace so as not to overtake her. She sauntered along with a leisurely air as if she were waiting for something or somebody, and this and the fact that she carried a light canvas portmanteau and a rug, suggested to me that she was probably travelling by the cross-channel boat which was due to start presently.

  Suddenly my attention was diverted from her by a loud chattering and a series of shouts. A small crowd of men and women ran excitedly past the end of the little street. The clattering rapidly drew nearer; and then a horse, with a light van, swept round the corner and passing under an archway, advanced at a furious gallop. Evidently the horse had bolted and now, mad with terror, dashed forward with trailing reins, zigzagging erratically and making the van sway to and fro, so that it took up the whole of the narrow street. The few wayfarers darted into doorways and sheltered corners, and I was about to secure my own safety in a similar manner, when I noticed that the woman in front of me had apparently become petrified with terror, for she stood stock still, gazing helplessly at the approaching horse. It was no time for ceremony. The infuriated animal and the swaying van were thundering up the street like an insane Juggernaut, With a hasty apology, I seized the woman from behind and half-dragged, half-carried her to the opening of a little yard beside a sail-loft. And even then, I was hardly quick enough, for as the van roared
past,some projecting object struck me between the shoulders and sent me flying, face downwards, on to a pile of tarred drift-net.

  I had had the presence of mind to let go, as I was struck, so that my fair protegee was not involved in my downfall; but in a moment, she was stooping over me, and with many expressions of concern, endeavouring to help me to rise. Beyond a thump in the back, however, I was not hurt in the least, but picked myself up, grinning and turned to reassure her. And then I really did get a shock; for as I turned, the woman gave a shriek and fell back on the steps of the sail-loft, gasping, and staring at me with an expression of the utmost astonishment and terror. I supposed the accident had upset her nerves; but to be sure, my own received, as I have said, a pretty severe shock. For the woman was Mrs. Samway.

  We remained for a moment or two gazing at one another in mute astonishment. Then I recollected myself, and advanced to shake hands; but to my discomfiture, she shrank away from me and began to sob and laugh in an unmistakably hysterical fashion. I must confess that I was somewhat surprised at these manifestations in so robust a woman as Mrs. Samway. Unreasonably so, indeed, for all women-kind are more or less prone to hysteria; but whereas the normal woman tends to laugh and cry, the weaker vessels develop inexplicable diseases, with a tendency to social reform and emancipation.

  I put on my best bedside manner, at once matter-of-fact and persuasive. “You seem quite upset,” I said, “and all about nothing, for the poor beggar of a horse must be half a mile away by now.”

  “Yes,” she answered shakily, “it’s ridiculous of me, but it was so sudden and so—” here she laughed noisily, and as the laugh ended in a portentous sniff, I hastened to continue the conversation. “Yes, it was a bit of a facer to see that beast coming up the street as if it was Tottenham Corner. Why on earth didn’t you get out of the way?”