“Well, ’e talked about cats and dogs and gold and caves and the Rockaway push.”
Further to this Joe would not add, and the purple-faced constable could question no further because Smale was returning from the landing-ground. He emitted a long-drawn sigh of exasperation.
“You two fellers quit for the time being,” he said, addressing Wilton. “And keep your mouths shut tight.”
He followed the launchmen as far as the door from which position he gazed along the road to Wapengo at the oncoming car. Blade joined him, saying:
“I think that what Joe said about the conversation with Mr Bonaparte is substantially correct. Joe wants to make a mystery of the entire visit.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Telfer conceded. “Ah—thought so! Here’s D-S Allen.”
The man who stepped from the car halted opposite the office was big and lean and efficient in action and appearance. He strode smartly towards Telfer, who had stepped down from the club office to meet him. And he said, as though words were time wasted:
“Day, Telfer!”
“Good day, Sergeant. You on the job again?”
“Yes. Mr Bonaparte out today?”
“Yes.”
“All right! I’ll go on to the hotel and fix a room. See you later.”
The two men watched him being driven to the hotel, and the constable said, gravely:
“I’m liking it less and less. He’ll be expecting Bonaparte back on the Marlin this evening, and when he learns that Bonaparte didn’t go fishing today, and that he left some time during the night, I’m going to get it well and truly in the neck. Darned if I know what best to do. Anyway, I’m going home for dinner.”
An hour later, when he returned, he found Blade studying a large scale map of the district.
“I been thinking,” he told Blade. “Perhaps one of the fellers at Cobargo saw or heard a car pass through there from here. Mind me using your phone?”
“Go ahead. Then we’ll test an idea of my own,” Blade said, using a pair of compasses with which to measure distances on the map.
Telfer was engaged four minutes, and, looking up, Blade saw him staring at the ceiling.
“Mounted Constable Earle lives near the Cobargo bridge,” he said slowly. “Earle says he heard a car enter Cobargo from the Bermagui road, pass over the bridge, and take the road to Bega. Bonaparte might have been in that car. Time—two-twenty a.m.”
“That’s quite likely, Telfer. Now listen to my idea. Bonaparte visited Joe last night and they talked about Wapengo Inlet. Supposing that after he went to bed he decided to prospect the Rockaways’ place, and so packed up and got himself driven, say, to Lacy’s or Milton’s at the back of the Inlet, and from there do his prospecting?”
“Then why go all the way round through Cobargo and Bega, and then across Dr George Mountain? Why didn’t he take the direct coast road?”
“Because the night being dead quiet, he knew someone here would hear the car departing.”
“Where did he get the car, and when did he order it?” Telfer demanded, triumphantly. “And why didn’t he take the brief-case?”
“Oh, search me!” Blade answered despairingly.
“No, that won’t work out, old man. What I think is this. Assuming that Bonaparte was right on the track of them that killed Ericson—and he was suspecting the Rockaway crowd, wasn’t he—and assuming they are the guilty parties, they’d have knowledge who and what Bonaparte was late yesterday afternoon when Tatter came with the mail. He reads a newspaper, and he telephones old Rockaway about it. He was in town till late last night. I saw him in the pub. Then the car comes in and parks outside the town, and Tatter and the rest pounce on Bonaparte when he’s in bed and take him for a ride, as they say on the pictures. I’ll check up on that car Earle heard early this morning.”
Again he applied himself to the telephone, and when he had done he was smiling a grim and broad smile.
“Gellibrand, down at Tanja, says he heard a car coming along the Dr George Mountain road at half-past three this morning. It was so unusual that he got up and looked out of his window. He saw the car pass his house, and he recognized it as Rockaway’s Southern Star. Says he’ll swear to it.”
After this neither spoke for a full minute; when the silence was broken it was done by Telfer, with positive reluctance in his voice.
“I’ll have to make a full report to D-S Allen. If I don’t I’ll be put on tramp. Blast! What did he want to come butting in for? The Cobargo crowd and us could have cleaned up this business.”
“That’s your best course,” Blade urged. “I’ve been looking at this letter addressed to Mrs Steele, and it makes me almost sure that it’s been dictated.”
“How?”
“Well, look at the word ‘bilk’. Compare it with the other words. It’s written raggedly, as though the writer hesitated to write it. I can’t fancy myself hearing Bonaparte speaking such a word. But, Telfer, old man, I’ve heard Malone use the word more often than once. Then look at the signature here on this contract for fishing tackle. It’s in full—Napoleon Bonaparte. On the letter it’s just Nap Bonaparte. He was a proud man, Telfer, and secretly proud of his name. I don’t think he’d sign Nap at any time. In this case he might have done so to lead us to believe he wrote at dictation. Yes, Allen will have to know all about it. But you can present to him a good case, can’t you?”
Telfer grinned. He was standing by the seated secretary, and he patted Blade on the back, saying:
“Thanks to you. I’ll hop along to Allen right away.”
Blade saw nothing more of Telfer until the constable saluted him from Smale’s car. Beside him sat D-S Allen. The car took the road to Cobargo. It was then four o’clock.
After that Blade found work impossible, for a ‘why’ insistently knocked on the door of his mind. Why were those two going to Cobargo? He watched the car round the bend back of the jetty, saw it disappear behind the bank of the higher land, saw it reappear speeding in front of a dust cloud, saw it crossing the bridge over the Bermaguee River, watched it until it again disappeared just before reaching the road junction where Rockaway’s car had waited for Bony and his abductors.
The sun shone full upon the seated secretary, who absently greeted, or returned the greetings of, passers-by. With the same degree of absent-mindedness he saw the homing launches, and for the first time was thankful that not one of them flew a capture flag. He should have gone home for dinner at six, but he continued to sit on his doorstep.
It was a launch that brought him to his feet as though jerked to them by a rope.
The Marlin was passing across the inner bay towards the headland and the open sea. It was almost seven o’clock, and quite loudly Edward Blade said to the world in general:
“Where the hell are those two fellows going at this time of day?” Then he hurried into the office, strode to his table, glared at the map almost covering his table. “Damn it all!” he cried aloud. “Why didn’t I concentrate on that brief-case? Either Bonaparte made up his mind to leave the pub before he went to bed, and decided to plant his brief-case in the hotel safe, or he expected a move from the Rockaway crowd and had it locked up for safety. And then they got him. That’s it, then they got him. I’m left here like a dolt while Allen and Telfer and the rest scoop the pool. And I’ll bet Wilton and old Joe Peace are headed for Wapengo Inlet, too.”
Mr Parkins looked in through the doorway.
“You going dippy—talking to yourself like that?” he inquired.
“Going dippy! I am dippy,” Blade shouted.
Chapter Twenty
Men In Chains
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE returned to consciousness of life by a series of steps. Between each step must have been a long period of unconsciousness, because he remembered a world that appeared to whirl at dizzy speed by a mechanism that ticked, then a surrounding void which pulsated, and then dark sea on which he softly floated whilst a fire of pain slowly consumed him.
Finally
he awoke to reality to discover himself lying in a large cavern dimly illuminated by shafts of sunlight joining the sandy floor with the shadowy roof. The ticking noise was made by dripping water, the pulsating sound was produced by a man snoring, and the soft sea was but a narrow mattress on which he was lying. Pain within his head was so severe that the snoring of the man and the dripping of the water combined to aggravate an agony that could not be borne silently.
Anguish wrenched from him a loud groan. The sound of it evidently disturbed the sleeper, for his snoring ceased. Then a voice called:
“Hi, Bill, the bloke’s coming round. Hi, Bill, wake up.”
“Wha’s that?” another man sleepily asked.
“The new bloke’s coming round, Bill,” the first voice replied. “By the sound of ’im he’s crook.”
Bony, lying upon his chest and left side of his face, heard movements and then saw a shadowy figure moving towards him from a dark corner of the cavern. It approached on its hands and knees, and when it entered one of the shafts of sunlight gleaming like pillars supporting the roof, pain was temporarily beaten back by wonder the apparition engendered. Its face was dead white. The large eyes were blue-black, the hair which fell to the naked shoulders was black, and the black and ragged beard fell down in front of the chest. As it moved the links of a chain clinked.
Farther back from this man was another, also on his hands and knees, a younger man whose hair and beard were red, and when he, too, passed through a light bar, his eyes were revealed as pale blue and his face the colour of chalk.
They arrived, these two wild creatures, at Bony’s side, to gaze silently down at him, pity in their eyes, forgetful of their own conditions.
“I want a drink,” besought Bony.
“Fetch the dipper, Bob,” ordered Blackbeard, and Redbeard turned and crawled away. Again Bony’s pain was weakened by the sight of the chain round Redbeard’s waist from which other chains were passed back to secure his ankles, forcing his feet up off the ground, permitting him to proceed on his hands and knees, but preventing him from standing.
“Think you could turn over?” asked Blackbeard. “Try!”
Bony wanted only to lie still, but Blackbeard insisted and gently turned him over. Then, slipping an arm under the mattress, he raised Bony upward the better to drink from the dipper of water brought by Redbeard.
“You got a devil of a wallop on the head,” Blackbeard said, softly and sympathetically. “They let you down here last night, and as we have no light at night we didn’t know if you was alive or dead, and we couldn’t do nothing but roll you on to this mattress. Come aside a bit so’s not to wet the mattress, and I’ll bathe the wound on your scalp.”
“You are—”
“Better not talk now. There’s plenty of time to talk. We been here a long time, and you may be here a long time, too.”
Bony closed his eyes, gratefully relaxing. The cold water was a salve, and, whilst Blackbeard was sponging his head with a rag, Redbeard kept up a monologue.
“Funny sorta bloke, ain’t he? Indian he looks like. Never seen ’im before. Musta run foul of that Bluenose, Malone. Cripes! I’d like to get me teeth inter ’is throat like old Parkins’s bull-terrier. What a ’ell of a bash ’e got on ’is head. Someone must ’ave swiped ’im with a anvil or something. Any’ow, we’ve someone to talk to. I’m tired of playing five-stones and making irrigation channels on the floor to run water on to the spuds and things. That’s last year’s. More water? All right!”
Gradually the pain within Bony’s head was subdued, and the lesser smart of the scalp wound proved an anodyne to the greater. Gently Blackbeard laid him down, and Bony said to him:
“Thanks. The pain’s easier. Who are you?”
Blackbeard’s eyes widened and he answered:
“I’m Bill Spinks, and this is my mate, Bob Garroway. Who are you? How did you come to get thrown in here?”
Bony essayed a smile and it hurt.
“I’m only a fool fly caught in a web I should have seen ten miles away,” he replied, “I am supposed to be a detective.”
“A d., eh!” exclaimed Garroway.
“Yes. And so you two are Spinks and Garroway! After all your sister and mother, Spinks, were right in refusing to believe you were dead.”
“Are they all right? When did you see them last?” Spinks eagerly demanded to know.
“I saw and talked with them only yesterday, or maybe the day before. After the Do-me vanished Jack Wilton and Joe began a subscription, and a Mr Emery came in very handsomely, so that your sister was able to take over Nott’s Tea Rooms. Mr Blade is helping, too, with the books and advice. See if I’ve any tobacco and papers and matches in my pockets, will you?”
Mention of tobacco produced an animal-like cry from Garroway, who came rapidly forward like a huge spider and would have mauled Bony’s person had not Spinks struck him away.
“Keep your distance, Bob,” roared Spinks, and young Garroway crouched and began to whimper. To Bony, Spinks explained apologetically: “We been here a long time, Bob and me. It ’asn’t been too interesting with nothing to do and nothing to occupy ourselves bar thinking and thinking what was going to happen to us and what was happening to them at ’ome. The place has got on Bob’s nerves, and sometimes he isn’t himself. … Here’s a tin nearly full of fine-cut, and matches and papers, too.”
“Then roll me a cigarette, and you two help yourselves. Tell me about the Do-me. You can call me Bony. All my friends call me Bony. Afterwards, perhaps, I’ll feel a little better and try to get out. They haven’t chained me, have they?”
“No. They put chains on us because—”
“Let that wait. Tell me about the Do-me from the beginning.”
All right!” agreed Spinks, busy with cigarette making. “Keep back, Bob. You’ll get your smoke, don’t worry. The dirty swine could have given us a bit of tobacco and a paper to read now and then, ’stead of keeping us here as if we was a couple of lions. About the poor old Do-me! Well, the yarn begins this way.
“We went out to Swordfish Reef to try for sharks—me and Bob, here, and Mr Ericson. He was a very decent kind of chap was Mr Ericson, down here for the tunny fishing. When he asked if sharks could be captured with rod and line, we told him they could, and we got Mr Blade to fix up a line and reel and rod like for swordfishing.
“The sea was as flat as a board that day, and there was a haze lying low over it. We lost sight of the Edith and Snowy early in the piece, and after a time we lost sight of the Gladious, too. When we got out to the reef we seen it was just on the boil. You could follow its position running up to Montague by the water just boiling on top of it, making a kind of sea track.
“We couldn’t see the coast, only the top of Dromedary Mountain, and we began to follow the reef towards Montague Island. Perhaps you know the coast and the Island?”
“Yes,” replied Bony. “And I’ve been out to Swordfish Reef and seen the water boiling above it just as you describe.”
“Oh! That’ll make it easier for me to tell you. I suppose Marion and Jack Wilton got spliced?”
“No. Jack told me that he thought your sister couldn’t make up her mind to marry him. It’s a pity. Jack is a fine fellow and he has loved your sister for years.”
“Yes, that’s so. And if ever we get out of here she’s going to make up her mind and quick, too. You can leave that part of it to me.”
“Too right, ’e can, Bill,” supported young Garroway.
“Shut up, Bob, while I tell Bony about the Do-me. As I was saying, we were trolling for sharks northward along Swordfish Reef when there came out of the haze to the east a steam launch painted a dark grey. She was a bit ahead of us, and me and Bob couldn’t make her out. She was a stranger to us. Any’ow, she still kept on her course to east’ard, and I seen that if we kept on our course to nor’ard there’d likely enough be a collision.
“When the two craft got to about fifty yards from each other, Bob, here s
ings out that the grey launch’s funnel looks kind of funny. There’s a feller standing against it, and presently he jumps around and down comes the funnel to be chucked overboard. Then Bob sings out that the feller what threw the funnel overboard is Dave Marshall, one of Rockaway’s men, and I knew he was right when I made out Dan Malone at the wheel. Then I recognized the Dolfin under the grey paint. It gets me beat. I can’t make it out why the Dolfin’s been painted grey and why she was showing a dummy funnel.
“She still comes along on her east’ard course, and I seen that if I didn’t push the Do-me hard to port there’d be a collision for sure. And just then Mr Ericson shouts out ‘fish-oh’. I looks astern and there’s one mako shark coming on fast after the bait-fish, and two more farther astern and a bit wide. That’s all I can see of them, because I had to go hard to port to miss the Dolfin who didn’t change her course by so much as a hair.
“I shouts at Malone, asking him what the devil he thinks he’s doing, but he doesn’t answer. Our speed was the usual trolling speed of three miles an hour, and the Dolfin’s speed is about eight until she draws level with us when Malone cuts her down to our speed. So we gets to running side by side, about a yard separating us, and Marshall goes down and takes the wheel and Malone comes to stand on the low cabin roof staring down at us.
“I can hear Mr Ericson reeling in the bait-fish before the mako could strike and probably take the line under the Dolfin and foul it in her propeller. He’s swearing a bit, and I don’t blame him. I says to Malone:
“ ‘What’s your ruddy game?’
“ ‘Stop your engine,’ he shouts at me, and with that he pulls out an automatic pistol and aims it at me. The sea was so calm and the craft were keeping such even pace that I could understand that Malone could shoot me without much chance of missing.
Bony - 07 - The Mystery of Swordfish Reef Page 20
