CHAPTER XICAPTAIN WELFARE EXPLAINS
I HAD finished a late breakfast and sat trying to forget my trouble and take an intelligent interest inThe Egyptian Gazetteand an eloquent indictment in its columns of the “Ministry of Wakfs.”
I was still at a loss as to the nature and functions of this institution when Edmund came in, very debonair in his white linen suit.
“By Jove!” he cried. “I’m glad to see you here safe. We were terribly worried about you when we saw the sand blowing—what is it? What’s the matter?”
I had tried to keep all signals out of my face and aspect, but I could not command myself. I knew I looked a crushed and guilty man.
I saw the youthful joyousness fade out of Edmund’s eyes as he turned and saw the pile of boxes on the floor, and more than ever then I knew how dear to me he was; how much dearer than I suppose most sons are to their fathers.
He had wronged me deeply. How would it be possible for him to forgive me? We pray to be forgiven as we forgive them that trespass against us. We dare not profess to forgive those against whom we have trespassed.
He faced me again, but now with a grave, stern face.
“Why have you brought all that up here?”
“I could not trust it anywhere else.”
“I see. You know what it is?”
I nodded.
“You understand, of course, that I knew all along?”
“Yes, now. From what I have learned I am bound to suppose that. I want you to tell me all about it, to explain——”
“Explain? There’s nothing to explain. I did want to keep you out of it. I tried, faintly. I loathed the idea of your being humbugged—oh! yes, that’s what it comes to. But I was too feeble to prevent it. But I won’t insult you further with my regrets. The other things are bad enough, but I wish to God you could know how I mind about you. Good-bye!”
He went to the door, and it was no mere melodramatic movement. I knew well that if he went it would be the end between us.
Very quietly I said, “Wait a moment. You have no right to leave me in the lurch now. You have got me into this hole. Even at the cost of a few days’ unpleasantness for yourself, you must get me out of it. Then you can go on with your own plans for yourself.”
It stopped him like an expanding bullet.
“I beg your pardon. If there is anything I can do ‘at the cost of a few days’ unpleasantness’ I shall certainly not grudge them.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “There’s a devil of a lot to be done. You’d better sit while we discuss it.”
“Well?” he asked as he took the chair in which Jakoub had last faced me.
I felt I had a much harder, much more importantcontest before me now, one in which I should have no aid from revolvers or other mechanical weapons.
“Under the circumstances,” I said, “I cannot consent to your calmly clearing out and leaving me with all this very incriminating stuff on my hands.”
“You’ll have no difficulty in getting rid of it. That was all arranged. If you had left it to Jakoub and Van Ermengen——”
“I know that. It would have been distributed by sneaks in spite of all we English are doing to prevent it.”
“We English are fools to try to prevent it. If you knew the people that take it!”
This remark depressed me almost more than anything that had yet occurred. It gave me the measure of Edmund’s deterioration. I was again reminded of the bishop’s remark about becomingdéclassé. But I had not thought the process could have led to this.
“We may be fools, as you say,” I replied, “but it is our habit to be decent fools. That is cricket. You and I cannot start playing pitch-and-toss like street boys and obstructing the field.”
Edmund flushed a deeper red. “Why bracket yourself and me?” he asked.
“Because we are brothers. We are both Davorens.”
“I’m not. I gave it up ages ago. I’ve kept the name out of it all right. Welfare won’t give it away, and he learned my name before we—before we both——”
“I know. I’m very glad you have kept our name out. But that’s not the point at present. I called you back to know how we are to get rid of this stuff, to destroy it? I quite understand therewould be all sorts of unpleasantness if I called in the police. What are we to do?”
“I don’t know. Unless you burn the hotel down.”
“I can’t afford that.”
“There are so many people interested. They would all be out to stop you.”
“You must find a way. You and Welfare. It’s the only way you can get clean again.”
“I can’t get clean again, except in one way. I’m afraid Welfare won’t see it. He’s used to being soiled. And, apart from the profit he was going to get, nearly the whole of his savings are there. There are plenty of pious Englishmen whose money is just as foul.”
“I don’t doubt it, but I can’t help your savings.”
“Mine? There’s no money of mine in it! I don’t own an ounce of the muck. Practically all that was left of my money went into theAstarte. But of course that makes no difference. It makes me feel all the more a worm. I was in at it, and it’s they who lose.”
I suppose it was in a sense not a very essential point, and yet I rejoiced exceedingly to know that Edmund was not financially interested in this wretched enterprise; not directly, that is, for of course he was privy to it, and it was obviously part of the business of theAstarte. I recollected with a twinge that I owned more of theAstartethan Edmund did. But then I was not privy to the business.
“Who are the other people concerned?”
“There’s Jakoub, of course, and Van Ermengen, and the other scoundrelly native who was coming for the stuff to-day.”
“Well, there’s no use any of these people tryingto prevent our having the stuff removed and destroyed quietly. As a matter of fact, the situation is that I offer to permit its destruction. The alternative is handing it—and them—over to the police. You have got to act for me in the matter. You must see them and explain. Then you must help me to get it destroyed. And I must see it destroyed myself.”
“That can’t be done in Egypt.”
“Then it must be got out of Egypt.”
“If it wasn’t for old Welfare, I’d rather you did tell the police. But it would be terribly hard on him. It was a fearful temptation, and I know he tried to keep out of it. Better men than he is might have given in.”
“I quite agree. It’s just because we’ve got to consider Welfare that I propose this plan. You and he must carry it out.”
“Yes; I see that. I don’t know if it’s possible, but, by God, I’m glad to have the chance of trying!”
“Is Welfare here?”
“He’s in Alexandria, yes.”
“Well, you must see him. Tell him what has happened and explain what he has got to do. And, look here, tell him when it’s done I won’t see him stuck. I suppose there will be some honest money over when all your joint business is wound up and theAstartesold? Tell him that will all be his and he can rely on me to help him in any straight business he may take on. I know he’s an honest man by nature.”
“It’s generous of you to say that.”
“No. It’s simply my belief. Try and explain to him. Could you bring him here this afternoon?”
“I could, of course.”
“Very well. Then we’ll thrash the whole thing out.”
“Do you mind telling me how you got to know about the infernal business?”
“Not a bit. I met the man who is hunting you all down. He is an old Oxford friend of mine.”
“My God! What an extraordinary thing!”
“It is. An almost incredible circumstance. But it’s the way things happen.”
“And you told him nothing?”
“He began telling me things, and I saw it all before I let anything out. Even now I think I could give him all this, and Jakoub, and keep you and Welfare out, but I prefer the other way.”
“You couldn’t muzzle Jakoub once he knew his own game was up. We are compromised utterly. They would bring you in as a witness. They might even arrest you! No, for God’s sake, let’s do it our own way.”
A flash almost of fun came into his eyes.
“Do you know,” he asked, “that we’ll have to steal it from Jakoub and the others?”
“I don’t care a hang about that.”
There was healing in our laugh, and I was filled with a great thankfulness as Edmund went away. I knew that for the time being he was saved from himself. He had at last a clear, clean duty, and an enormously difficult task before him. I could not tell how he would accomplish it; but in the trying there would be reparation. After all he had not sunk so deep as I feared. He had tolerated depravity in order to live the life he desired, but he had not yet actually traded in it.
I was much more hopeful as I dozed through the stifling heat of the afternoon, waiting for Captain Welfare. They came at last about five o’clock. Captain Welfare hesitated, or professed to hesitate, about taking my hand.
“It’s good of you to offer it, sir,” he said. “I hope you’ll believe as I’d never have allowed you to leave us when you did if I’d known such a storm as that were blowing up. It’s the worst I’ve seen, and I’ve seen plenty. When we got sand coming on deck five mile from the land, I knew what it were like ashore. I thought you were lost, sir. I did, indeed. I didn’t think as you would have stood it. Your brother will tell you how I carried on about it.”
He paused, appealing with a look to Edmund, who grunted as he generally did when Welfare became eloquent.
“That’s all right. We had a rough time, but now that it’s over I’m glad to have had the experience.”
“I wouldn’t have had you come to harm, not for a million.”
It was evident that Captain Welfare was perfectly sincere in his solicitude. I had no reason to doubt it, for in spite of the deception he had put on me, I believed him to have a regard and respect for me that was none the less real because of his very English pleasure in knowing one whom he persisted in regarding as a “swell.”
Unfortunately he had the failing, so common in his class, of believing it to be necessary to put all the fine shades of his feelings into words. He would leave nothing to the imagination if he could help it. I feared he would drive Edmund quite mad.
“We had better have some tea,” I said, and rang the bell.
“If you’ll excuse me, sir, I think I could say what I have to say better if I had a glass of brandy.”
“Then for God’s sake don’t give him any,” said Edmund.
“Bring some tea and a bottle of brandy and some sodas,” I said to the Arab. I was determined to be just to Welfare.
“Now, Captain Welfare, I have asked you to come here simply to discuss how we are to get rid of all this poisonous cargo. I take it that my brother has explained my views on the matter, and what I have decided must be done.”
“I don’t know how to tell you what I feel about it, sir. I’m a broken-down man. I’ve run straight, or pretty nearly straight, till I let myself go into this here. If you’ll believe me, sir, it’s not just the money, though I reckoned there would be pretty near enough for me to retire on. But I was never easy about that. I wouldn’t have been if I’d had it in the bank at home. I’d have known the Lord’s blessing wasn’t on it.”
Edmund got up and went to the window. He remained there, looking out across the sea. But there was not a tinge of hypocrisy in Captain Welfare. His God was horribly unjust in most things, so unjust that, as I already knew, he thought it necessary to fear him in the literal sense of the word. But he would adjust his rewards and punishments with a nice sense of commercial probity.
“No,” he continued; “what gets me is the way I’ve treated you, sir, after all you’d done for us. I can do no less than take it all on myself. Your brother was against it from the start. I only wish I hadn’t overbore him. But I never planned it out beforehand. It came on bit by bit. I honestly thought, sir, as we’d go to Guernsey and back as arranged. Then when we got warned off there was nothing for it but to carry on. You’ll understand now it wasn’t only Jakoub was indanger. Well, there’s times a mancan’ttell the truth, and we couldn’t then. I think you’ll see that yourself?”
“Quite,” I said.
“Well, we deceived you then. It wasn’t the first time, I admit. I suppose we’d been deceiving you all the time. I was nervous at first, but if you’ll excuse me, sir, it seemed to come natural to you to be took in.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it did. I assure you I blame myself very much.”
“Don’t do that, sir. For God’s sake, don’t do that! All the blame there is is wanted. Don’t you waste it where it ain’t wanted. Well, we had this job on, though we didn’t mean to do it so soon. But it come over me that if we could work you in, it would make all plain-sailing. There didn’t seem any harm in it. I didn’t see what harm could come to you. But what I can’t forgive myself is them books. Them books I showed you was false.”
This seemed to me a curiously minor point to rankle so in his queer crooked conscience.
“I do wish now I hadn’t done that,” he added.
“It seems unnecessary to me,” I said. “It’s almost the only inartistic thing in the whole process.”
It was an unkind remark, but it only brought a puzzled look into his pathetic green eyes. It made Edmund writhe, however, but then Edmund deserved it.
“Between you and I, sir, I thought I was giving you a fair chance to find us out. I thought youmustsee through them books. You would have if you’d have looked through them. But you never did.”
“Captain Welfare, I might just as well give you a Greek testament to read. I told you so.”
“Well, I don’t know!”
“I know you don’t,” I snapped, for this meaningless exclamation always irritated me.
Captain Welfare looked so pained that I was sorry I had snapped. There was a real innocence about the man that made it almost impossible to keep him focussed in the mind as the old schemer he undoubtedly was. I was able to believe that in showing me his abominable faked accounts, he had actually been offering me a sporting opportunity of finding him out!
“Well, sir, I’ve told you the story now. I’ve acted bad and mean. I’ve not had the chance to know many real gentlemen in my life until I come to know your brother, and afterwards yourself. When I was a younger man, and come to understand what a gentleman was, and that I wasn’t one, and never could be, it was a distress to me. I always wanted to be with gentlemen, to work with them and for them. Well, I got my chance, and this is what I’ve made of it. I’ve brought your brother into all this here. I’ve brought him down, and I’ve treated you—well, the way I’ve told you. I know now I’m not fit to have dealings with gentlemen. I don’t mind admitting, sir, it’s a disappointment.”
There was a depth of sincerity in his crude confession that I think touched even Edmund. He continued to stare moodily out to sea. But it was evident he had been listening, and he made no gesture or sound of impatience.
“Captain Welfare,” I said, “I told my brother this morning I believed you were an honest man.”
“Sir, I thank you for it, though if you’ll pardon my saying so, I think you’d believe any mortal thing, as long as it wasn’t in the line of ordinaryreligion. Well, you know now I’m not an honest man, leastways I haven’t been, but since you have said that, sir, by God, I am! and will be, if I end my days in the fo’c’sle.”
“Have you thought how we can get rid of all this?” I asked.
Captain Welfare’s theories were rather embarrassing.
“I haven’t, sir. Not yet.”
“It’s got to be done.”
“Van Ermengen and Jakoub won’t let it go without a struggle.”
“There are the police if they try to prevent it,” I said grimly.
“They can easy square the police, sir. Backshish!”
“They cannot square my friend,” I replied sternly.
“No; they couldn’t square him,” he agreed. “But we’re not too well fixed for going to him either.”
“I would much rather do it without him.”
“Even if we got it away from here I don’t know where we’d put it. If we had it on board, I could manage. But theAstartewill be watched every minute she’s in harbour. They searched us for Jakoub, sir, and for this little lot. Your friend will have heard of it by now.”
Captain Welfare smiled, a regrettably unrepentant smile. But many a man who has changed sides has a temporary hankering for the old colours.
“You say you could manage if you had it on theAstarte?” Edmund asked suddenly.
“Yes, if she were clear of the harbour.”
“Well, I see how it can be done.”
We both waited for his plan. He turned and came back to the table.
“This street is perfectly quiet from three o’clock in the morning until after sunrise. If there are any police about, a little backshish will keep them away. There’s deep water right up to the sea-wall. I’ve often seen feluccas tie up there. All we’ve to do is to bring up a big fishing felucca, lower the beastly stuff out of this window, load the felucca and send her out of the way till theAstartepicks her up at sea.”
It was a daring scheme, and its risks were abominable.
Captain Welfare pointed them out.
“You’ve got to take the risks because there’s no other way,” Edmund said. “I’ve been thinking while you’ve been talking. When you mentioned theAstarte, I saw the whole thing in a flash. We cheat Van Ermengen & Co. instead of buying them off, we hoodwink the police and get away, and we can sink the stuff in as many fathoms as we like.”
“For that matter we could drop it overboard from the felucca without bothering about theAstarteat all.”
“No,” Edmund argued, “some of the crew would talk. Jakoub will know what we’ve done within forty-eight hours of their coming back. He would get it up again if he had any clue to its position.”
“Besides,” I said, “I stipulated that I was to see it destroyed.”
“So you did, sir,” Captain Welfare admitted, “and that will be done as per agreement. So we’ll have to get it on theAstarte.”
“Are you going to bring it all the way home, then?” I asked.
“That is impossible, of course,” Edmund put in impatiently, “we’ll have to get rid of theAstarteat Marseilles, and then disappear ourselves.”
“Get rid of theAstarte?” I repeated. “Is that necessary?”
“I’m afraid it is, sir,” said Captain Welfare. “You see they won’t search us on the way because they will think we are going to pick up a fresh cargo. But we dare not leave the port in her again. This friend of yours knows too much, and he might get Jakoub while we are away.”
“I see,” I said, regretfully, “but I don’t see how you will keep your promise about letting me see this stuff destroyed—not that it really matters. I’m quite willing to trust you.”
“I’ll not ask you to do that again, sir,” said Welfare very solemnly, “you are bound for Marseilles too. We shall have a day or two’s start of you, but you will get there first. I promise you faithfully you will see the last of the cargo.”
“Very well. But, by the way,” I asked, “what was that cargo you landed at home? Was it curios?”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Edmund said, contemptuously.
“I hope it was not more of this wretched stuff?”
“No, sir,” said Welfare, “there would have been no use leaving that in England. That was ordinary old-fashioned smuggling. Brandy and cigars as a matter of fact. It’s done still from the Channel Islands when a chance occurs, and of course theAstartewas a chance. We had meant to get the stuff through the Customs along with our straight cargo somehow, but we had difficulties at Tilbury. Then this tunnel of yours cropped up, sir. It made the whole thing so easy we were going back to Guernsey for more. Only this hashish business got in the way, and we learned there was a warrant out for Jakoub. Well, if they’d got theAstartethen, the whole thing would have come out. That was why our agents sent to warn us. Getting theAstarteback here without arrest was a fair masterpiece! But, by the Lord Harry! it was anxious work. You’ve little idea what I went through, sir. And the course we steered—oh, my Lord!”
“Life was worth living for the time,” said Edmund. “I often felt sorry you were missing all the fun of the gamble!”
“Of course you knew all about this smuggling at home, Edmund?”
“Of course! Don’t make any mistake about that. I was in it for all the money I could put up at the time.”
I sighed. The whole business was so very sordid. But after all, brandy and cigars were not going to poison anybody. The whole thing was stopped now, and in face of the horrible traffic I had circumvented, I was not going to break my heart over his Majesty’s Customs Duties.
“Well, gentlemen,” I said, “our business now is to get this load back on theAstarte. The sooner it’s done the better. I suppose we’re all agreed to get it away as suggested?”
“I agree as there ain’t any other way.”
“How long will it take you to provision the ship?” Edmund asked of Welfare.
“I could do that to-morrow at a pinch.”
“Very well, to-morrow night we’ll shift this lot. Let me see. All we want is a few fathoms of rope. I’ll bring that up in a suit-case. You and I will have to man-handle it out of this when Welfare brings up the felucca. Half a dozen good niggers will have it aboard as quick as we can lower it. Welfare, you’ll have plenty of fishing nets aboard to cover it up with. Then I’ll take theAstarteoutfirst thing in the morning, and pick you up when we’re well out of sight.”
So it was settled, and the scheme began at last to look quite feasible to me.
“I wish,” I said, “we could dine together, but I cannot leave this stuff unguarded, and it would be awkward here if my friend Brogden turned up. But, Edmund, I want you to sleep here to-night. I was disturbed last night, and I’m tired and sleepy. Anyhow, I’m a rotten shot with a revolver.”
I had to tell them of Jakoub’s visit and my vigil with him, though I knew the knowledge of my danger would hurt both of them very sore.
The things they said made me realise that I was not insensible to flattery.
Brogden, to my relief, did not return that evening.
When Edmund came back to my room we talked long together. But what we said I think concerns no one but ourselves.
It left me happy in a new confidence that he would be restored at last to begin an honourable career.
The night was comparatively cool and I slept for twelve hours.