CHAPTER XXIITHE ARTFULNESS OF JAMES MULLEN
“What method has Mullen adopted for covering up his traces?” I asked myself, and as I did so a passage from the letter which had been sent to him by Mrs. Burgoyne—the letter which I had fortunately intercepted—flashed into my mind.
“I do not see any necessity,” she had written, “for doing as you say in regard to sending the present crew back to England under the pretence that we are not likely to be using the yacht for some time, and then, after getting the ship’s appearance altered by repainting and rechristening her the name you mention, engaging another crew of Norwegians.”
If Mullen had considered it necessary to take such precautions in regard to the steam yacht, he would beyond all question consider it even more necessary to his safety that a similar course should be adopted in regard to the boat which,until opportunity came for him to leave the country, was to carry “Cæsar and his fortunes.” That boat had been described to me by Gunnell as a five-ton yawl, painted white, picked out with gold. She had by now, no doubt, been entirely metamorphosed, and before I set out to continue my search for Mullen it was of vital importance that I should know something of the appearance of the boat for which I was to look. According to the waterman Gunnell, Mullen had gone down the river when he left Gravesend that evening, and indeed it was in the highest degree unlikely that he had gone up the river towards London in a small sailing vessel. Every mile traversed in that direction would render his movements more cramped and more likely to come under observation, whereas down the river meant the open sea, with access to the entire sea-board of the country and, if necessary, of the Continent.
But should the authorities by any chance discover Mullen’s connection with the Burgoynes and learn in the course of their subsequent inquiries that he had gone down the river in a five-ton yawl, painted white, belonging to Mr. Burgoyne, it would in all probability be downthe river that they would go in search of a boat answering to that description. Mullen was not the man to omit this view of the case from his calculations, and knowing as I did the methodical way in which he always set to work to cover up his traces after every move, I felt absolutely sure that he had taken some precaution for setting possible pursuers upon the wrong tack.
The very fact that he had told Gunnell he was to call for a friend at Sheerness and had started off in that direction made me suspicious. What was to hinder him, I asked, from running back past Gravesend under cover of darkness and going up the river in search of a place where he could get the boat repainted or otherwise disguised? The more I thought of it the more certain I felt that to go in search of the “Odd Trick” before I had satisfied myself that nothing of the sort had occurred, would be to start on a fool’s errand, and I decided at last to hire a small sailing-boat from a waterman and to sail down the river as Mullen had done and then to beat back past Gravesend and towards London.
This I did, working the river thoroughly andsystematically, and missing no boatyard or other likely place for effecting such a purpose as that with which I credited Mullen. It was a wearisome task, for the inquiries had to be made with tact and caution, and it was not until I had reached Erith that I learned anything which promised to repay me for my pains. There I was told that a small yacht had recently put into a certain boat-builder’s yard for repairs, but what these repairs had been my informant could not tell me. The yard in question was higher up the river, and thither I betook myself to pursue my inquiries. The man in charge was not a promising subject, and doggedly denied having executed any such job as that indicated. Mullen—if it were he—had no doubt paid him, and paid him well, to hold his tongue, and I thought none the worse of the fellow for being faithful to his promise, especially as I was able to obtain elsewhere the information I needed. The boat which had put into the yard for repairs had come by night and had left by night; but every waterside place has its loungers, and the less legitimate work your habitual lounger does himself, the more incumbent upon him does he feel it to superintend in person the work whichis being done by other people. From some of the loungers who had witnessed the arrival of the boat which had been put in for repairs I had no difficulty in ascertaining that her hulk was painted white when she entered the yard and chocolate brown when she left, and that the time of her arrival coincided exactly with the date upon which the “Odd Trick” had left Gravesend. Nor was this all, for two different men who had seen her come in, and afterwards had watched her go out, were absolutely sure that, though she went out a cutter, she came in a yawl. This was an important difference, and would so alter the appearance of the boat that the very skipper who had been sailing her might well have been pardoned for not knowing his own craft.
I had played my cards sometimes wisely, but more often foolishly, while conducting my search for Captain Shannon, but the wisest and the luckiest deal I made throughout the business was my determination to spare no pains in ascertaining what step the fugitive had taken to cover up his tracks, before I set out to look for a five-ton yawl, painted white, picked out with gold, and bearing the name of the “Odd Trick.”
But for that determination and the discoveries which resulted from it I should in all probability have passed unnoticed the little brown cutter that I saw lying at anchor to the west of Southend as I passed by in the small steam launch which I hired for the purpose of carrying on my investigation. And had I passed that cutter unnoticed Captain Shannon would in all probability have reached America or Australia in safety, and it is more than likely that this narrative would never have been written.
To the comment “And small loss too!” which may rise—and not unreasonably—to the lips of some critics, I can only reply that I undertook my search for Captain Shannon to please myself, and in search of excitement. It is the plain story of the adventures which befell me, and not a literary study, which is here set forth, and I am quite content to have it written down as such, and nothing more. The one thing I can safely assert about it is that it is not a story dealing with the New Woman. If it has any peculiarity at all, it is that it tells of one of the few pieces of mischief which have happened in this world since the days of Eve, concerning which it may, without fear of contradiction, beaffirmed that no woman had a hand in it; for, with the exception of the mere mention of Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne—who never once comes upon the scene in person—this is a story without a woman in it.