“And he never went back at all?”
“No. I think Uncle John was rather upset. There were only the two of them, and they were in business together.”
“Did your Uncle John ever speak about this?”
“To me? Only once, that I can remember. It was just after he arrived at Haven House. ‘Your father deserted me,’ he said, ‘but, you see, I’m not deserting him, and bear him no ill-will.’”
“I don’t see why he should,” commented Kendall dryly, “since he was coming into the property! You’ve got the words pretty pat.”
“Yes. They were among his first words, and I think one would remember those. Besides—they seemed so—stilted.”
Kendall nodded. “And your mother?”
“She died a year after I was born.”
“I see. Yes… Well, to return to the cricket ball, I’ve told you all I know; and now here are some presumptions. Your uncle had seen that cricket ball before, and he interpreted it correctly as a warning. He sent you off, in consequence, to Boulogne. Then, in the evening, he received seven visitors, disguised as his own butler. Then he went to fetch himself, but fetched something else instead—his gas—which he sent through the keyhole… I’ve identified some of those seven visitors.”
“You have?” cried Hazeldean.
“Yes. From the list of passengers and crew who were on the Good Friday, the ship he sailed on, from some descriptions, and from a group photograph. Fenner lied when he said he was the only one saved. The photograph, taken just before the ship sailed, shows the third officer, Harold Brown. He is one of the seven. It also shows a rather mannish-looking woman walking along a gangway. If it had been taken a couple of seconds later, we should have lost her, for she’s only just on the picture. Look.”
Now he drew the photograph from his pocket and laid it on the narrow cabin table. Hazeldean and Dora peered over it, and Hazeldean gave an exclamation.
“You recognise her?” asked Kendall quietly.
“In—the chair,” murmured Hazeldean.
“That was my impression. In spite of the usual theory, photos sometimes lie, but these features seem too distinctive to mistake. I haven’t got her name—just the picture. Do you recognise any more?”
Hazeldean studied the photograph.
“One more, I think,” he said at last. “The fellow on the couch?”
“Arthur Lawson,” nodded Kendall. “And looking—if I may say so—more vapid in life than he looked in death. That the lot?”
“No!”
It was Dora’s voice this time. She was peering over Hazeldean’s shoulder. She touched a small figure leaning idly over a rail, without betraying any interest in the photographer.
“Well?”
“Uncle John!”
“Yes, there’s not much doubt about it. That proves that the whole of his story was not fiction—he was on that ship—and, in addition, we find three of the seven victims accounted for. I’m particularly disappointed not to find the old gentleman who fired the shot, but though he’s not in the picture, I am concluding he was on the ship. I am also concluding that the two seamen were on the ship. That brings the number up to six. And the seventh I have identified by a description. This, Hazeldean, is the tall brown-haired man who was lying nearest the door. The man with the scar on the back of his head. I found out something rather interesting about him—including how he got that scar. He was cricket mad. Played regularly for his club in Port Elizabeth—William Miles, I’ve looked up some of his scores—and he kept up his enthusiasm even after receiving a crack on the head through looking the wrong way. As a matter of fact, that crack on the head seems to have made him madder about the game than ever, because afterwards he carried the ball about with him wherever he went—as a mascot! Queer that, eh? And mighty interesting… Let’s have your thought, Hazeldean. You’re wondering about something?”
“I’m wondering whether William Miles had his mascot in his pocket when the Good Friday went down,” replied Hazeldean.
“I’m not—I’m damn sure he did!” answered Kendall, with a grim smile. “But now I want to talk about another ship—the Ferndale. You remember, the name Ferndale was on the abandoned boat our seven victims arrived at the creek in.”
“Have you proved that?”
“Sufficiently. You haven’t forgotten that little photograph of Miss Fenner I found in it.”
“Yes, but how do you explain that?” asked Dora.
“We’ll find the explanation presently,” returned Kendall, “and meanwhile it serves as a connecting link. It belonged, obviously, to one of those seven people. Two separate mysteries relating to your family would be too much of a coincidence! Now, then, about the Ferndale. We had no difficulty in tracing the origin of that little boat. Eleven months ago a cargo steamer named Ferndale, bound for Buenos Aires from Cape Town, met a storm and was driven off her course. The storm was a terror, and she went farther south than she had ever been. The only ultimate damage, however, was a lost boat—in addition to lost time. Yes? You’re wondering about something else?”
“Pretty obvious what I’m wondering, isn’t it?” responded Hazeldean. “That lost boat seems to have travelled the hell of a distance!”
“South?”
“And north!”
“Yes. But is that all you’re wondering about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t it strike you that there’s a surprising amount of South Atlantic about this business?”
“Well, of course. The Good Friday went down there, the William George picked Fenner up there, and now—the Ferndale. But if they’re all part of the same story, you’d expect to find ’em in a bunch.”
“Can’t you add something else to the bunch?”
Hazeldean thought, then shook his head.
“Your mind’s been off this case lately—mine hasn’t,” said Kendall. “What about a piece of paper? A piece of paper on one side of which a murderer had written in printing letters: ‘With apologies from the Suicide Club,’ in a cumbrous attempt to shift the blame—”
“By God—yes!” exclaimed Hazeldean. “And on the other side of the paper—”
“One of his victims managed to scribble, in his last moments of consciousness: ‘Particulars at address 59·16s 4·6e G.’ Suppose ‘G’ was the first letter of a sentence intended to start with the word ‘Go,’ and suppose 59·16s and 4·6e represent latitude and longitude. By the way, did you mention this piece of paper to Fenner? I suppose you did?”
“Yes, I mentioned it,” nodded Hazeldean.
“Then I’ve a hunch that’s where Spray I has gone,” said Kendall, “and where Spray II is going to follow!”
Dora had suddenly left the table. Now she returned breathlessly with a map. She spread it out before them on the flat surface.
“Just blue water,” murmured Hazeldean.
“Call that a map?” retorted Kendall, and produced another.
Kendall’s map was a large scale chart of a small portion of South Atlantic. Hazeldean knew the charts well, for he used them himself, though he did not possess one as far south as this.
“See that tiny dot?” said Kendall.
“By Jove!” murmured Hazeldean.
“Well,” asked Kendall, “what about paying the tiny dot a surprise visit?”
Chapter XXV
Back to the Source
The tiny dot materialised from a mark on a map to a point on blue water.
At first, when Hazeldean directed Dora’s straining eyes towards it, she could see nothing. The horizon looked as deserted and unbroken as it had looked for many days—ever since, in fact, they had finally left the African coast and a continent had dissolved into an endless sea; but soon the dot grew into her vision, and as it expanded, gaining breadth and height while Spray II rode forward on a fresh north-easterly breeze
, she discovered that not until now had she really and truly believed in it. That dot had been a thing to talk about, a horribly fascinating magnet for theories. It could never become solid ground over which they would one day walk towards the secret in its heart. But here was the day, and here was the solid ground—no longer theories, but realities. The dot became a bleak, grey thing, puffing itself out slowly like a jagged, evil monster.
The eyes of her male companions were alive with eager elation, but Dora herself endured some moments of secret panic. Wouldn’t it have been better to let the monster sleep on, instead of permitting it to raise its head from the sea and notice them?
“You stay on board, eh, while Kendall and I investigate,” came Hazeldean’s voice in her ear.
She turned to him with a smile.
“What made you suggest that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I thought it might be a good idea.”
“In case there’s any danger?”
“Of course there’ll be no danger!”
“Then why should I stay on board?” She shook her head. “Thanks, I’m going with you.”
“And thus she forced the truth out of him!” said Hazeldean. “The reason I suggested it was because you looked worried—I mightn’t have known if you hadn’t made such a grim effort to look happy! Now, then, it’s your turn for frankness. Am I talking through my hat?”
She laughed and answered, “No, you’re not. I was going through some funny moments; but one doesn’t pay any attention to them, so that’s that!”
Before long, however, she went through another funny moment. Her eyes opened wide with astonishment. They had altered their course, and were beginning to run round the isle to find some accessible spot, and now the formidable masses of rock, often dropping sheerly into angry, noisy water, gave way to a sudden stretch of beach that appeared to be densely populated.
“Look!” she gasped.
“Yes, and I keep on looking,” retorted Hazeldean. “You don’t really suppose those are cousins and aunts, do you, who’ve come along to give us a welcome?”
The reception committee turned out to be a large group of penguins, watching their approach from the shore with vaguely indignant apathy. As the boat drew closer inshore, the indignation became less vague, and agitation set in.
“Don’t disturb ’em yet,” said Kendall. “I’d like to go all round before we land.”
Hazeldean glanced at him, then nodded, and once more altered the course. He realised Kendall’s object. It was to find out whether Spray I had preceded them. But there was no sign of the ship, or of any life at all on the island apart from the penguin colony and the sea birds that swooped or floated above them.
“O.K.?” queried Hazeldean, when they had completed the circle.
“O.K.,” replied Kendall; but his rather puzzled expression added mutely: “Let’s hope so!”
A few minutes later, Spray II lay at anchor in the shelter of a rock-formed harbour, and the little landing boat, an Indian cayuca, had slid across to the strip of beach where the agitated penguins were already in retreat. By the time Kendall, Hazeldean, and Dora had landed and the boat had been pulled ashore, the last of the displaced population were waddling over a ledge to join an invisible indignation meeting.
“Well, here we are!” exclaimed Hazeldean.
“And I can’t say I’d choose the spot for a summer holiday.”
“Nor would I,” agreed Dora.
“Probably the last people who stayed here weren’t choosers,” observed Kendall.
“True,” murmured Hazeldean. “Any sign of them?”
Kendall did not answer, but stood still, gazing about him. Hazeldean was reminded of the moment when the detective had originally arrived at Haven House, and had delayed investigation till he had registered and fixed his first impressions. The moment returned to his memory so vividly that the horrible sound made by the “buzzer” seemed to echo once more in his ears…
“Ha!”
The exclamation came swiftly and sharply, and an instant later Kendall was running towards a rock. His abrupt movement was like a continuation of the memory, under strangely different circumstances, for he had also run suddenly into Haven House to bawl to the telephone operator to stop the buzzer.
“I—I wonder what he’s seen?” gulped Dora, moving a little closer to Hazeldean.
“We’ll know in a second,” he replied, resisting the temptation to follow. “My sight’s good, but his is better!”
They watched him reach the rock, bend, and study its flattish face. Then they watched him turn and begin pacing his way back. He paced with the methodical regularity of measurement, and Hazeldean found himself counting the paces while wondering what on earth it was all about. Seventeen—eighteen—nineteen—twenty—twenty-one—twenty-two.
He stopped and beckoned to them. When they reached him he took something from his pocket with a very odd expression. It was the old cricket ball.
“Cracked William Miles stood here and bowled this ball at that rock,” he said, with a solemnity that was almost reverent. “That rock has three rough wickets carved upon it.”
“Whew!” murmured Hazeldean, while Dora’s heart raced.
“Yes, they’ve all been here,” said Kendall. “All seven of them. No, eight of them. Fenner, too. They’ve all been here. And what happened? What happened?”
Ghosts peopled the lonely beach. A sense of stifling unreality pervaded the place, providing the atmosphere of a dream under gas… gas…
“What’s that over there?” said Kendall.
He was off again, and this time they followed him. They caught him up at the back of the beach as he paused under a rocky cliff and bent over a circular object. It was a broken, blackened hoop.
“This was once round a barrel,” he said.
“And there’s a bit of the barrel,” answered Hazeldean, pointing.
Along a rough path leading inland and upwards between the rocks they found other things: a split plank, two empty rusty tins, the indecipherable cover of a book, a fragment of rock wedged in a grotesquely-shaped wooden handle. The theory that this was used as a hammer gained colour from a long bent nail lying near it. A game of “Noughts and Crosses,” scratched on a large stone; some filthy, sodden material that had once been part of a sail; a broken oar.
Each object had some story; each formed a part of the hidden history of eight ghosts who flitted formlessly along the trail.
Presently the trail widened into a scarred, uneven plateau. To continue meant steeper climbing, for the plateau was half-enclosed by precipitous heights. On the beach side, however, the ground dropped, and beyond untidy slopes of tangled vegetation, through which ran a stream, were glimpses of the sea. One glimpse revealed Spray II looking like a toy.
“I expect this was their camp,” said Kendall.
“Yes, there’s more debris here,” replied Hazeldean.
Dora slipped on something loose. As she looked down to see what she had stepped on, she felt a queer little tug at her heart.
“What is it?” asked Hazeldean.
She picked up the object. It was a home-made cricket bat.
“I feel like crying,” she said.
“Perhaps I do, too,” he answered, “only, you know, we mustn’t.” He turned to Kendall. “What do you make of all this? Are you developing any theory?”
“Are you?” returned Kendall.
He moved towards a mound of stones. A stake had been firmly planted in the centre, and across the top of the stake was an oblong of wood, resembling a notice-board.
“Keep off the grass?” inquired Hazeldean.
He was joking purposely, but the joke fell flat. Kendall did not respond. He was reading four other words carved deep into the wood:
FIAT JUSTICIA RUAT CÆLUM
Dora asked their meaning. Haze
ldean translated soberly: “Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.”
“It shall be done,” promised Kendall.
Hazeldean looked at him curiously.
“You feel this pretty much, don’t you?” he asked.
“It’s just another case,” replied the detective.
“Only it’s got you?”
“Somehow.” He glanced again at the cricket bat, then suddenly exclaimed, “Yes, but we weren’t brought all this way just to see relics!”
“This monument is a pretty good one,” commented Hazeldean. “Still, I agree there must be something else.”
“Of course there’s something else,” answered Kendall, “and we’ve got to find it! What do we know so far? Eight people were washed up here—”
“Do we know that?”
“I know it, and you know it, and—”
“I know it,” interposed Dora.
“Well, that’s enough to go on with. The jury can wait. They were washed up here, and they played cricket. One got home first, and gave out that he was the only one. The other seven followed him—after erecting this monument. Fiat justicia ruat cælum. They must have felt those words pretty deeply to have cut them so deeply! Fiat justicia ruat cælum. I suppose a few stores got washed up with them, and they had birds, fish and berries. There’s some vegetation here. Fiat—where did they sleep? In the open? You’d look for caves, wouldn’t you? Let’s look for caves. I don’t see any. What about round that jut? Come on!”
He started off again. They clambered over the rough ground towards a rocky projection that screened a portion of the plateau from their view. Beyond, they found what they sought: three holes in the cliff, two large, one small.
They entered a large one. It led to dark, cold space. As Kendall struck a match, and the light flickered on the walls, he remarked, “Bedroom for three.” They found a few pathetic evidences of occupation.
The second large hole took them into a second cave of similar size. “Bedroom for three,” repeated Kendall as he struck another match. “That’s six.”
The smaller hole led to a space of different shape. It was long and narrow, and the end twisted through rocky walls. “Bedroom for two,” said Kendall when they reached the end. “Which two?”
Seven Dead Page 18
