CHAPTER XXXITHE ARREST OF CAPTAIN SHANNON
Six o’clock next morning saw the red jersey, which was to recall Hughes, slung over the ship’s side, and the preconcerted reply signalled from the upper window of the cottage.
From then until nightfall I had to possess my soul in patience, and never in my life has time hung so heavily on my hands as on that eventful day.
Mullen, who had been up since daybreak, was watching the shipping with the liveliest interest. By standing on the steps of the cockpit he could, without being seen himself, get a distant view of every vessel that passed up or down the great waterway of the Thames.
He was inclined to be friendly, even talkative, and only once was there a recurrence of the irritability he had manifested on the previous evening. It happened in this wise.
Some fishing lines were in the cabin, and being badly in want of something to make thetime pass, I baited them with shreds of raw herring, and threw them over the ship’s side. I got a “bite” directly, but, on hauling up, found it came from a crab about as big as a five-shilling piece, whom I tenderly detached from the inhospitable hook and restored to his native element. I rebaited, sent the lead whizzing overboard, and again brought up a crab.
“Come to look for the other one, I suppose,” I said to myself. “His wife, perhaps. I’ll treat her kindly,” and crab number two rejoined its dear ones.
Again I rebaited, again there was a bite, and again a crab clawing wildly at the air appeared at the end of the line.
“H’m—a sister this time, or perhaps a daughter. Back she goes, however,” and crab number three popped safely overboard, only to be succeeded by crab number four.
“These are Scotch crabs, I should think,” I grumbled, “they’re so clannish;” but him too I sent on his way rejoicing. Then a fifth appeared on the scene.
“Oh, hang it all!” I growled. “I shall never get any fish if the crabs eat up my bait as fast as I put it on. I hoped that last was anorphan, but it seems as if I had struck another family gathering.”
Crab number six added insult to injury by refusing to let go the bait, though I turned him over on his back and shook him till he rattled.
“Oh, I can’t stand this,” I said, raising a menacing heel. But more humane feeling prevailed, and once more I stooped to assist the pertinacious crustacean to his native deep. A nip from his foreclaws was all I got for my pains.
“Very well,” I said, “if youwillhave it, you will.”
Down came the heel, there was a sickening scrunch, and what had been a crab was a noisome mess.
Then I heard an exclamation of disgust behind me, and, looking guiltily round, saw that Mullen, who had hitherto been too absorbed in watching the shipping to interest himself in my fishing, had heard the scrunch of the crab’s shell under my heel, and had turned to ascertain the cause.
“You brute!” he said. “Why couldn’t you throw the wretched thing back into the water?”
“It ain’t none of your business,” I answered sulkily.
“It is my business, and every decent person’s business. The thing never did you any harm. Besides, look at the ghastly mess you’ve made.”
“Ain’t you never killed nothin’ wot done you no ’arm?” I asked, perhaps indiscreetly.
“Yes, if I had any reason to do so; just as I’d gladly put my heel on your ugly brute’s head and crush the life out of you as you’ve crushed it out of that wretched crab,—but not from wanton destructiveness.”
I did not think it wise to prolong an argument which touched upon such delicate and personal ground, so I continued my fishing in silence, and after another exclamation of disgust Mullen turned away to devote himself once more to the shipping.
Not a vessel went by that he did not scrutinise carefully, and I noticed that when any small steamer hove in sight he fidgeted restlessly until she was near enough to allow inspection. That he was on the look-out either for a ship or for a signal from a ship I felt sure; and I was inclined to think that the irritability he hadjust displayed was due more to nerve tension, and to his disappointment at not seeing the vessel for which he was watching, than to any other cause.
One thing seemed certain, however,—Mullen was breaking down under the strain, and was no longer the man he had been. This was very manifest later on in the day when a large steam yacht made her appearance at the mouth of the Thames. All his attention was at once riveted upon her, and as she crept up the river towards us I could see that he was becoming feverishly anxious.
“There’s a pair of field-glasses in the hold where I am sleeping,” he said. “Would you mind getting them for me, like a good fellow? Some one might see me if I went myself. I want to have a look at yonder big liner going down the river. I fancy I sailed in her once.”
I did as he requested, and he made a pretence of examining the liner. “Yes, it is she; I can read her name quite easily,” he said, turning the glasses from the big ship to the steam yacht. His hand trembled so that he seemed unable at first to get the focus, and I distinctlysaw the quick fluttering of his pulse in the veins of his wrist.
“Whatisher name?” I asked.
“‘Fiona,’” he said absently, and then pulling himself up sharp,—“what am I thinking about? I mean the ‘Walmer Castle,’ of course. I sailed in her when I went to Peru.”
I had all along expected that it was for his sister’s boat “Fiona” that Mullen was watching, but hardly that he would tell me so himself; and that such a man—a man who had carried out his devilish plots as if his heart had been of cold stone and his nerves of iron—should so give himself away, as the phrase goes, was proof positive of his complete breakdown.
He watched the steam yacht until she was in front of us, though, of course, a considerable distance off,—and then, having apparently satisfied himself of her identity, he laid the glasses down with a sigh of relief and went below. As soon as he was out of sight I picked them up, levelled them at the now receding vessel, and saw, as I had expected, the word “Fiona” on her bow.
The plot was thickening, indeed, for it wasno doubt by Mullen’s directions that she had come to England (he had probably given instructions that she was to enter the Thames by daylight so that he might not miss her), and he would scarcely have sent for her until the fitting moment to make his escape had arrived. I had scarcely time to satisfy myself of the steam yacht’s identity and to lay down the glasses before Mullen reappeared with a plentiful supply of bread and cheese,—of which he must have been sorely in need, for he had had no food since early morning. Every shadow of his nervousness was now gone, and he was in the best of spirits.
“Hughes, my boy,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder boisterously, for I was sitting with my feet in the cockpit, “how are you getting on? And what are you going to do with all the fish you have caught, eh?”
I was in no humour to enter into conversation, and as I had caught no fish—as he very well knew—I pretended to take the last remark in high dudgeon, and gave him a sulky answer.
But the reaction from his former anxiety was so great, and so set was he upon drawing me into conversation, that in order to escape himI made an excuse about getting some tea and went below.
“That’s right; make yourself jolly, my good man. You’re going to do well out of this job, I can tell you,” he said; “and as it’s beginning to get a bit dark, and I don’t see any one about, I’ll go on deck to stretch my legs and get an airing.”
He remained there until night had set in, and then he came into the cabin.
“I say,” he said, “there’s a boat coming out to us. Who can it be, and at this time of the day?”
“Most likely it’s Jim come back,” I answered gruffly. “’E said ’e’d come soon as the missus was better.”
“Of course,” Mullen said pleasantly. “How foolish of me not to think of it. I’m glad the poor fellow’s wife’s better. But I shall be sorry to lose your entertaining companionship, my genial friend.Can’tI persuade you to stay on and favour us with the pleasure of your company for a day or two longer, as my guest?”
“Guest be blowed!” I replied in my surliest tone. “If that’s Jim Hughes, the sooner I’as my money and gets ashore agen the better I’ll like it.”
“I should be hurt if I thought you meant that,” he said banteringly; “but I know you don’t. We’ve hit it off together charmingly, I’m sure, notwithstanding the fact that I’m so ‘difficult’ socially. And I’d make such delightful plans for your comfort and amusement. It seems hard that we should have to part.”
At that moment, and not a little to my relief, we heard a voice which was unmistakably Hughes’, for he was expressing, by means of a liberal use of his favourite adjective, the unwillingness with which he set eyes on “the old tub again.”
“Well,” said Mullen, when Hughes entered the cabin, “and how’s your wife?”
“Better,” was the answer.
“Ah, that’s capital; I congratulate you, I’m sure. So glad to see you back again. Except, of course, for the fact that we shall be deprived of your brother’s company. Heisyour brother you said, didn’t you? Though really one need hardly ask; the likeness, I’m sure, is wonderful. But what a man it is, Hughes! Such geniality, such urbanity, such a flow of spirits,such a fund of information, and, above all, such manners!”
Hughes, who had probably never seen Mullen in this vein before, looked first at him and then at me in astonishment.
“Stow your jaw!” I said shortly. “If you’re going to pay me for the job, pay me and let me go!”
“Certainly, certainly, my dear fellow,” replied Mullen, smiling. “Yes, you and Ihavea little account to settle, haven’t we? I’ll pay you, by all means. I always do pay my debts, and with interest. First, about the hulk.”
He had been standing by the door all the time, but he now stepped forward and counted out ten sovereigns upon the table.
“Will that satisfy you and keep your mouth shut?” he said, stepping back again.
I nodded.
“Put them in your pocket, then, and that matter’s settled.”
I stooped to pick up the coins, but as I did so Mullen suddenly pushed me with all his strength against Hughes, knocking the two of us backward upon the bunk.
In another second he had stepped out of thecabin, pulling the door to with a bang, and then we heard the rattle of the outside bolt in the socket.
Hughes hurled me off and sprang up with blazing eyes.
“Did you take the bolt off and put it outside?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then ’e’s done it, and ’e means mischief for both of us! The ——’s bad enough for anything. I know ’im; and ’ere we are caught like rats in a trap.”
“That’s all right,” I said, and hunching my shoulder to the door and making a pivot of my right foot, I burst the thing open with a crash, the screws starting from their sockets and pattering upon a locker opposite like spent bullets.
As I did so, Hughes rushed past me and upon the deck, I after him. Nor were we too soon, for Mullen was making, as Hughes had evidently feared, for the dynamite hold. When he heard our footsteps he turned, and whipping out a revolver, raised it and shot Hughes right through the heart. The unhappy man flung up his arms and toppled over the ship’s side intothe sea; but before Mullen could turn the weapon upon me I got in a blow straight from the shoulder, which took him well under the chin, and tumbled him backward to the bottom of the hold. I hit hard enough to have knocked him “silly,” and I was not surprised that he lay for a minute or two like one dead. Then he tried to rise, but fell back with a groan, apparently quite helpless.
“Are you hurt?” I inquired, kneeling on one knee, the better to look down into the hold.
He glanced up with a feeble attempt at a smile upon features cruelly contorted by pain.
“So you’ve won the rubber after all, although I’d arranged everything so cleverly, as I thought. You and Hughes, once locked securely in the cabin, and a fuse put to the dynamite, I ought by now to have been half a mile off in the dinghy, and on my way to join my sister at Gravesend. We should have slipped off quietly in the confusion of the explosion, for no one would know that it didn’t occur, as explosions have occurred before, through the carelessness of the man in charge. And you and Hughes, the only two people who could set matters right, would have gone to join the dead men, who tell no tales.Confess, now, wasn’t it a pretty plan, and worthy of an artist, friend Rissler?”
I started at the mention of my name, seeing which he burst into a mocking laugh.
“Is it possible? No, it can’t be!” he said. “Don’t,don’ttell me that you didn’t know I knew who you were. Why, you refreshing person, it was only because I did know that I pretended to fall into your booby trap. I only let you take Hughes’ place on board the hulk that I might get you into my power and rid myself of the pair of you at a sweep. And to think that you didn’t know that I knew! Why, man alive, I’ve known all about you from the first, and I could have sent you to join Quickly and Green long ago if I had minded. But they were mere bunglers, fit only to put out of the way, just as one would tread upon a spider or beetle,—whereas you’re really clever, and ingenious, and all that sort of thing, don’t you know, and you interested me. I don’t say that if you had had any one you were very fond of,—a wife, sweetheart, sister,—something might not have happened tothem, just to let you know that I was keeping you in mind.
“Once or twice you played your cards quiteprettily; but oh! how you bungled them at others! Still, I might have expected that from your books. What could be worse of their sort than they? I’ve read them all, though how I endured it I don’t know. There isonethingI couldn’tendure, however, and that is that you should write aboutme. Spare me that last indignity and I’ll forgive you the brutal, blackguardly, costermonger blows you struck me behind the Post Office.”
His eyes shone wickedly as he spoke, and then, for the first time, it occurred to me (I had been too fascinated by the man to think of it before) that he must have some motive for thus putting himself to the trouble of holding me in conversation at a time when he was, as I could see, suffering the keenest physical pain. What could his motive be?
For answer there came from the space where the dynamite was stored, a tiny splutter, not unlike the splutter which is given occasionally by a badly-trimmed lamp.
We hadnotbeen in time to prevent him carrying out his devilish purpose after all! And I—blind fool that I was—had been listening idly to his chatter, not knowing that everyword which fell from his lips was bringing nearer the certainty of a dreadful fate.
This was why he had forced himself to smile and wear a mask, was it?
But the mask was off now, for catching sight of the horror in my face as I leapt to my feet, he raised himself on his arm, and glared at me with a countenance contorted out of all human likeness by devilish hate and exultation.
“You’re too late, you ——! You’re too late. We’re going to hell together, and if there’s a deeper hell still, I’ll seize you with a grip you can’t shake off, and leap with you into the eternal fire. You sha’n’t escape me there any more than you have here, for we’ll burn together! You’re too late! you’re too——”
His voice died away in the distance, for I was by this time in the dinghy, and rowing as man never rowed before. Thank God, I was already ten yards away—twenty, fifty, a hundred!
Suddenly the sea behind me seemed to open up in one sheet of purple flame, and I was knocked backward out of the boat as if by a blow from a clenched fist. Then it seemed as if the sea had picked me up in its arms—as Ihad once seen a drink-maddened man pick up a child, whom he afterwards dashed headforemost against a brick wall—and had flung me away and away over the very world’s edge.
When I came to myself I was lying high and dry upon the Kentish coast, carried there, no doubt, by the huge wave that had followed the explosion.
Captain Shannon had been arrested at last, and by an officer who, for your crimes and mine, reader,—be they few or many, trivial or great,—is now hunting each of us down to bring us to justice.
That detective—Detective Death—there is no eluding; and one day he will lay his hand upon your shoulder and upon mine and say, “Come.”
And we shall have to go.
THE END