It will excite no wonder that Mr. Sturge found the Major somewhat irresponsive to his own jubilant mood.
"I should soon get used to this life," he repeated. "There's a spirit in it—a breeziness, I may call it—which is positively infectious. You don't find it so?"
"I do not," the Major confessed.
Mr. Sturge pointed his toe and seemed about to execute the first steps of a hornpipe, but checked himself.
"Rough tongue, the Captain's?" he queried.
The Major swallowed a lump in his throat but did not answer.
"Hasty temper. Under the circumstances, we may make some little excuse, perhaps."
"I prefer not to discuss it. The man has insulted me."
"His bark is worse than his bite, I find," said Mr. Sturge complacently. "And, after all, the moment you chose was not precisely opportune—was it, now?"
"I am not used, sir, to have my word doubted by any man."
"Well, but—appearances considered—you pitched it pretty strong, eh? Local magnate, and that sort of thing… itdidseem like taking advantage of his condition."
"Advantage? Appearances? What do you mean, sir?" The Major turned resentfully, and at the same instant recollected that he wore no wig. He blushed, His hand went up to his scalp.
"Makes a difference," said Mr. Sturge. "Allow me." He drew from the breast of his shirt a small pocket mirror. "I carry it always. Useful—tittivate myself—in the wings."
"The wings?" echoed the Major dully, taking the glass. He gazed into it and started back with a cry.
What an image was there confronting him! Was this the face of Troy's Chief Magistrate? (forgive the blank verse). Were these the features—was this the aspect—from which virtue had so often derived its encouragement and wrongdoing its reproof? Was this the figure the ladies of Troy had been wont to follow with all but idolatrous gaze? Nay, who was this man—unshaven, unkempt, unbewigged, smeared with mud from head to foot, and from scalp to jaw with commingling bloodstains? The Major groaned incredulous, horrified; gazed, shuddered, and groaned again.
"Mind you," said Mr. Sturge reassuringly, "I'm not calling the truth of your story into question for a moment. But under the circumstances you'll allow it was a trifle stiff."
"It is true to the last particular," insisted the Major, recovering his dignity.
"But come, now! Without a penny in your pocket, or so much as a scrap of paper to identify you, you'll admit it was stiff? Look here," he went on with a change of tone, slipping his arm amicably within the Major's, "I've an idea. Comrades in adversity, you know, and all that sort of thing. I've taken a liking to you, and can do you a good turn. Drop that yarn of yours—'yarn,' seafaring expression; odd how one catches thecolour, so to speak. Drop that yarn of yours. You're one ofus, understand? The Captain'll believe that; indeed, he believes it already—called you a damned low-comedy man in my hearing. Very well; soon as we anchor off Spithead, he outs with a boat and lands us ashore. I have his solemn promise. Leave me to square that bos'n fellow—Jope, or whatever he calls himself—and the job's as good as done."
"And do you seriously propose," interrupted the Major, folding his arms, "that I should pass myself off for a play-actor? Never, sir; never!"
"Why not?" asked Mr. Sturge easily.
"I forbear, sir, to wound your feelings by explaining why your suggestion is repugnant to me. Let it suffice that I detest deceit, subterfuge, equivocation; or, if that suffice not, let me ask if you do not propose, on reaching shore, to institute legal proceedings against this petty tyrant?"
"Probably."
"Why, then, and how much more reparation does he not oweme, a Justice of the Peace? Nay, sir, he shall pay me damages for this kidnapping; but he has not stopped short there. He has used language to me which can only be wiped out in blood. My first business on stepping ashore will be to seek someone through whom I can convey my demand for satisfaction. With what face, think you, could I present this cartel if my own behaviour had been other than correct?"
"You're not telling me you mean to fight him?" asked Mr. Sturge, convinced by this time that he had to deal with a lunatic.
"Pardon me." The Major bowed with grave irony. "This conversation, sir, was of your seeking. I have paid you, it appears, too high a compliment in assuming that you would understand what follows when a gentleman is called the son of a—!"
Mr. Sturge shrugged his shoulders and walked forward to seek Ben Jope, whom he found by the forecastle hatchway engaged in slicing a quid of black tobacco.
"You'll excuse me," he asked, "but that rum little man who calls himself Hymen—where did he escape from?"
"Escape!" Ben Jope sprang to his feet, but catching sight of the Major, who had resumed his pensive attitude by the bulwarks, sat down again heavily. "Lord, but you frightened me! That Hymen don't escape; not if I know it. He's the apple of my eye, or becoming so. Now I tell you," said Mr. Jope, beginning to slice again at his tobacco, then pausing to look up with engaging frankness; "you took my fancy terrible for a few minutes; but, come to see you by daylight, you're too pink."
Mr. Sturge might have pressed for an explanation; but at this juncture the first lieutenant of H.M.S.Poseidoncame forward, still with his painted scowl, and demanded to know, since theVesuviuscould not reach Portsmouth for many hours, when supper would be served, and what bedroom accommodation she provided.
Shortly after noon next day, the wind still holding from the N.N.W., though gradually falling light, theVesuviusdropped anchor off Spithead, and Captain Crang at once ordered a boat's crew to convey the captives ashore.
The Major waved farewell to them from the deck. Though once again approached by Mr. Sturge, he had repelled all persuasions. In his breast there welled up an increasing bitterness against his fate, but on the point of dignity he could not be shaken. He would, on the first fit occasion, have Captain Crang's blood; but he was obdurate, though it cost him liberty for a while and compelled him to disgusting hardship, to stand on the strictest terms of quarrel.
He turned to find the boatswain at his elbow, eyeing him with sympathy and even a touch of respect.
"You done well," said Mr. Jope. "You don't look it, but you done well, and I'll see you don't get put upon."
TheVesuvius'sdestination, as the Major learnt, was to join a squadron watching the Gallo-Batavian flotilla off the ports of Boulogne, Ambleteuse and Calais; and the occasion of her dropping anchor off Portsmouth on the way was a special and somewhat singular one; yet no more singular than the crisis with which Great Britain had then to cope.
Behind the sandhills from Ostend around to Etaples lay a French army of 130,000 men, ready to invade us if for a few hours it could catch our fleets napping. To transport them Napoleon had collected in the ports of Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, Ambleteuse, Vimereux, Boulogne and Etaples, 954 transports and 1339 armed vessels—gun-brigs, schooners, luggers, schuyts and prames; and all these light vessels lay snug in their harbours, protected by shoals and sandbanks which our heavier ships of war, by reason of their draught, could not approach.
In particular, a double tier of vessels—one hundred and fifty in all—which were moored outside the pier of Boulogne, and protected by heavy shore batteries, excited while it baulked the rage of our gallant seamen manoeuvring in the deep waters of the Channel.
Strange diseases suggest strange remedies. Our Admiralty, in the spring of the year, had been approached by an ingenious gentleman with the model of an invention by which he professed himself able to reach these hundred and fifty ships in Boulogne and blow them in air without loss or even danger to our fleet. This machine consisted of a box, about twenty feet long by three feet wide, lined with lead, caulked, tarred, ballasted and laden almost to the water's edge with barrels of powder and other combustibles. In the midst of the inflammable matter was placed a clockwork mechanism which, on the withdrawal of a peg, would in a fixed time (within some ten minutes or thereabouts) ignite and explode the vessel.
A dozen of these engines, claimed the inventor, if towed within range and released, to be swept down upon Boulogne pier by the tide, would within a few minutes shatter and dispel the nightmare of invasion.
The Admiralty sanctioned the experiment, news of which had awakened some interest not unmixed with derision throughout the British Fleet; and the business which called theVesuviusto Portsmouth was to take in tow the first of these catamarans (as our sailors called them) and convey it across to the squadron watching Boulogne.
On the morning after theVesuvius'sarrival, two dockyard boats arrived with the hull of the machine in tow—it resembled nothing so much as a mahogany coffin—and attached her to theVesuvius'sstern by a kind of shoreline. This done, the officer in charge presented himself on board with the clockwork under his arm, and in his hand a letter for Captain Crang, the first result of which was an order to dress ship. Within half an hour theVesuvius'screw had adorned her from bowsprit to trucks and from trucks to stern with bunting, as if for a Birthday; though, as Mr. Jope observed, with a glance at the catamaran astern, the preparations pointed rather to a funeral. Mr. Jope, as third officer of the ship, betrayed some soreness that his two superiors had not taken him into their confidence.
At eleven o'clock Captain Crang and Mr. Wapshott appeared on the poop in full uniform, and a further order was issued to load the guns blank for a salute.
Hitherto the Major had been but an idler about deck; but finding the crew of a gun short-handed, he volunteered his services, and was immersed in the business of loading when a hand clapped him on the shoulder. Turning, he confronted the boatswain.
"And you go for to pretend for to tell me," said Mr. Jope reproachfully, "that you're a amachoor!"
The Major was about to explain that as an officer of artillery he understood the working of a gun, when a loud banging from the town drew all eyes shoreward; and presently Captain Crang, who had been gazing in that direction through his glass, called to Mr. Wapshott, who in turn shouted an order to man the yards.
As this was an order which the Major neither understood nor, had he understood it, could comply with, he remained on deck while the sailors swarmed aloft and disposed themselves in attitudes the mere sight of which turned him giddy, so wantonly precarious they seemed.
The strains of the National Anthem from a distant key-bugle drew his eyes shoreward again, and between the moored ships he descried a white-painted gig approaching, manned by twenty oars and carrying an enormous flag on a staff astern—the Royal Standard of England.
Not until the gig, fetching a long sweep, had made a half-circuit of theVesuviusand fallen alongside her accommodation-ladder did the Major comprehend. Captain Crang, with Mr. Wapshott behind him, had stepped down the ladder and stood at the foot of it reverently lifting his cocked hat.
That rotund, star-bedecked figure in the stern sheet, beside the Port Admiral—that classic but full-blooded face crowned with a chestnut wig.… Who could it be if not his Royal Highness the Prince Regent?
Yes, it was he. Had not our Major scanned those features often enough—in his own mirror?
The Port Admiral was inviting Captain Crang to step into the gig. The Prince nodded a careless, haughty assent, shrinking a little, however, as Mr. Wapshott passed down the clockwork of the catamaran for his royal inspection. Recovering himself, he glanced at it perfunctorily and nodded to the sailors to give way and pull towards the hull of the infernal machine.
The curiosity which had brought him down to Portsmouth to inspect it seemed, however, to have evaporated. The gig fell alongside the coffin-like log, and the Port Admiral, having taken the clockwork out of Captain Crang's hand, had launched into an explanation of its working when the Prince signified hurriedly that he had seen as much as he desired. Back to the ship the gig drifted on the tide, and Captain Crang, dismissed with a curt nod, stepped on to the ladder again, turned, and saluted profoundly.
As he did so, the Major, erect above the bulwarks, found speech.
"Your Royal Highness!" he cried. "Nay, but pardon me, your Royal Highness! If I may crave the favour—explanation—a prisoner, unjustly detained—"
The Prince Regent lifted his eyes lazily as the bowman thrust off.
"What a dam funny-looking little man!" commented he aloud, nudging the Port Admiral, who had risen and was calling out the order to give way for shore.
"But, your Royal Highness!—"
The Major raised himself on tiptoe with arms outstretched after the receding boat. On the instant the ship shook under him as with an earthquake, and drowned his voice in the thunders of a royal salute.
"The Emperor Jovinian, Mr. Jope—"
"Who was 'e?" Mr. Jope interrupted.
Two days had passed, and the better part of a third. They seemed as many years to our hero as, seated on the carriage of one of theVesuvius'sstarboard guns in company with the boatswain and Bill Adams, he watched through its open port the many-twinkling smiles of the sea, and, scarce two leagues away, the coast of France golden against the sunset.
"I am not precisely aware when he flourished," said the Major, "but will make a point of inquiring when I return home. To tell you the truth, I heard the story in church, in a sermon of our worthy Vicar's, little dreaming under what circumstances I should recall it as applicable to my own lot."
"If it's out of a sermon," said Mr. Jope, "you may fire ahead. But if, as you say, the man was taken for someone else, I thought it would be clearer to start by knowing who hewas."
"It happened in this way. The Emperor Jovinian one sultry afternoon in summer was hunting—"
"What—foxes?"
"Keep quiet," put in Mr. Adams. "When he's telling you it happened in a sermon!"
"In the ardour of the chase he had left his retinue far behind; and finding himself by the shore of a lake, he alighted and refreshed himself with a swim in its cool waters. While he thus disported himself, a beggar stole his horse and his clothes."
Mr. Jope smote his leg. "Now I call that a thundering good yarn! Short, sharp, and to the point."
"But you haven't heard the end."
"Eh? Is there any more of it?"
"Certainly. The Emperor, discovering the theft, was forced to creep naked and ashamed to the nearest castle."
"What was he ashamed of?"
"Why, of being naked."
"I see. Damme, it fits in like a puzzle!"
"But at the castle, sad to say, no one recognised the proud Jovinian. 'Avaunt!' said the porter, and threatened to have him whipped for his impudence. This distressing experience caused the Emperor to reflect on the vanity of human pretensions, seeing that he, of whom the world stood in awe, had, with the loss of a few clothes, forfeited the respect of a slave."
"I see," repeated Mr. Jope, as the narrator paused. "What became of the beggar?"
"I knew a worse case than that, even," said Bill Adams, turning his quid meditatively. "It happened to a Bristol man, once a shipmate of mine; by name Zekiel Philips, and not at all inclined to stoutness when I knew him."
"Whyshouldhe be?"
"You wait. His wife kept a slop-shop at Bristol, near the foot of Christmas Stairs—if you know where that is?"
The Major, thus challenged, shook his head.
"Ah, well; you'll have heard of O-why-hee, anyway—where they barbecued Captain Cook? And likewise of Captain Bligh of theBounty—Breadfruit Bligh, as they call him to this day? Well, Bligh, as you know, took theBountyout to the Islands under Government orders to collect breadfruit, the notion being that it could be planted in the West Indies and grown at a profit. When he came to grief and Government lookedlike dropping the job, a party of Bristol merchants took the matter up, having interests of their own in the West Indies, and fitted out a vessel—a brig she was, as I remember—called thePerseverance. Whereby this here friend o' mine, Zekiel Philips by name, shipped aboard of her. Whereby they made a good passage and anchored off one of the islands—Otaheety or not, I won't say—and took aboard a cargo, being, as they supposed, ord'nary breadfruit; and stood away east-by-south for the Horn, meaning to work up to Kingston, Jamaica. But this particular breadfruit was of a fattening natur', whether eaten or, as you may say, ab-sorbed into the system through a part of it getting down to the bilge and fermenting, and the gas of it working up through the vessel. Whereby, the breeze holding steady and no sail to trim for some days, the crew took it easy below, with naught to warn 'em, unless, maybe, 'twas a tight'ning o' the buttons. Whereby on the fifth day they ran a-foul of a cyclone; and the cry being for all hands on deck, half a dozen stuck in the hatchway and had to be sawed loose. Whereby, in the meantime, she carried away her mainm'st, and the wreckage knocked a hole in her starboard quarter. Likewise, her stern-post being rotten, she lost a pintle, and the helm began to look fifty ways for Sunday. All o' which caused the skipper to lay to, fix up a jury rudder and run up for the nearest island to caulk and repair. But meantime, and before he sighted land, this unfortunate crew kept puttin' on flesh—and the cause of it hid from them all the time—till there wasn't on the ship a pair of smallclothes but had refused duty. Whereby, coming to the island in question, they went ashore, every man Jack in loin-cloths cut out o' the stun-s'le, and the rest of 'em as bare as the back of my hand. Whereby their appearance excited the natives to such a degree, being superstitious, they was set upon and eaten to a man. The moral bein'," concluded Mr. Adams, "that a man lay be brought low by bein' puffed up."
"Ay," said Mr. Jope after a pause. "I never had no great acquaintance with poetry, but I bought a pocket-handkercher once for tuppence with a verse on it:"
"'Ri fal de ral diddle, ri fal de ral dee,What ups and downs in the world there be!'
"'Ri fal de ral diddle, ri fal de ral dee,What ups and downs in the world there be!'
"'Ri fal de ral diddle, ri fal de ral dee,What ups and downs in the world there be!'
"And I don't believe you could use a truer text for the purpose, no matter what you paid."
The Major sighed. He was a high-spirited man, as the reader knows, and I believe that, but for one cruel memory, he might have learnt even to taste some humour in his situation. Thanks to Mr. Jope and Mr. Adams, who had taken a genuine fancy to him, he found life on board theVesuviuscheerful if not comfortable. The fare was Spartan, indeed, but, for a short holiday, tolerable. The prospect of seeing some real fighting excited him pleasurably, for he was no coward. Here, before his eyes, lay the coast of France; the actual forts and guns with which his imagination had so often played. What a tale he would have to tell on his return! And, by the way, how his poor Trojans must be suffering in his absence, without news of him! He pictured that return.… Yes, indeed, it was at the expense of Troy that Fortune had conceived this practical joke. He could even smile, as yet, at the thought of the Baskets' dismay as they searched the house for him. He wondered if Mr. Basket had forwarded his letter to Miss Marty, at the same time announcing his disappearance. Well, well, he would dry her tears.…
But upon this came the recollection of those cruel words:
"What a dam funny-looking little man!"
He might—he assuredly would—keep them a secret in his own breast. But they echoed there.
His vanity was robust. Again and again it asserted its health in his day-dreams, expelling, or all but expelling, that poisonous memory. Only at night, in his hammock, it awoke again—sinister, premonitory. But as yet the man continued cheerfully incredulous. Fate was playing, less on him than through him, a rare practical joke—no more.
On the eighth of June, at about nine o'clock in the evening, it occurred to Admiral Lord Keith that the wind and weather afforded an excellent opportunity of testing theVesuvius'sfar-famed catamaran against the shipping moored off Boulogne pier. He signalled accordingly; and at nine-thirty, under the eyes of the squadron, a boat from the bomb-ship started to tow the infernal machine towards the harbour. By leave of Bill Adams, commanding, our Major made one of the crew of twelve.
In less than a quarter of an hour their approach was signalled by the enemy's vedettes to the forts ashore, which promptly opened fire. Mr. Adams, having towed the catamaran within its proper range, with his own hand pulled the plug releasing the clockwork, and gave the order to cast off, leaving wind and tide to do the rest; which they doubtless would have done had not a gun from one of the French batteries plumped a shot accurately into the catamaran.
The catamaran exploded with a terrific report, and the wave of the explosion caught the retreating boat, lifted her seven feet, capsized her, and brought her accurately down, bottom upwards.
A score of boats put out to the rescue, picked up the exhausted swimmers, and attempted to right and recover the boat, but abandoned this attempt on the approach of an overwhelming force of French.
These, coming up, seized on the boat and gallantly, under a short-dropping fire from our squadron, proceeded to right their prize; and, righting her, discovered Major Hymen, clinging to a thwart, trapped as an earwig is trapped beneath an inverted flower-pot.
Miss Marty had just finished watering her sweet-peas and mignonette; had inspected each of the four standard roses beside the front gate in search of green-fly; had caught a snail sallying forth to dine late upon her larkspurs, and called to Cai Tamblyn to destroy it; had, in short, performed all her ritual for the cool of the day; and was removing her gardening gloves when a vehement knocking agitated the front door, and Scipio hurried to announce that a caller—a Mr. Basket—desired to see her on important business.
"Mr. Basket?" she echoed apprehensively, and made at once for the parlour, where she found her visitor mopping his brow. Despite the heat, he was pale. In his left hand he held a letter.
"You will pardon me," he began in a flutter. "Am I addressing Miss Martha Hymen?"
"You are, sir." Miss Marty clasped her hands in alarm at his demeanour. "Oh, tell me what has happened!"
"All the way from Plymouth on purpose," answered Mr. Basket. "Most mysterious occurrence… ate a good dinner and retired to his room apparently in the best of health and spirits. On our return from the theatre he was gone."
"Gone?"
"Disappeared, vanished! We searched the house. His watch and pocket-book lay on the bed, together with a certain amount of loose change. His wig, too… you were aware?"
"I have gone so far as to suspect it. But what dreadful news is this? Disappeared? Leaving no clue?"
"We are in hopes, my wife and I, that this may afford a clue. A letter, and addressed to you; it lay upon his writing-table. We did not feel ourselves at liberty to break the seal. I trust—I sincerely trust—it may put a period to our suspense."
Miss Marty took the letter, glanced at the address and tore the paper open with trembling hands. She perused the first few sentences with a puckered, puzzled brow; then of a sudden her eyes grew wide and round. Despite herself she uttered a little gasping cry.
"It contains a clue at least?" asked Mr. Basket, who had been watching her face anxiously. "Dear lady, what does he say?"
"Nun—nothing," Miss Marty caught at the back of a Chippendale chair for support.
"Nothing?" echoed Mr. Basket blankly.
"Nothing—That is to say I can't tell you. Oh, this is horrible!"
"But pardon me," Mr. Basket insisted. "After travelling all the way from Plymouth!"
"I can't possibly tell you," she repeated.
"But, madam, consider my responsibility! I must really ask you to consider my responsibility."
"If I could only realise it! Oh, give me time, sir!"
"Certainly, certainly; by all means take your time. Nevertheless, when you consider my distress of mind, I appeal to you, madam, to be merciful and relieve it. After travelling all this distance in the dark—"
"In the dark?" queried Miss Marty, with a glance at the window.
"Tormented by a thousand speculations. In my house, too! In good health, and apparently the best of spirits; and then without a word, like the snuff of a candle!"
"His brain must be affected," Miss Marty murmured, gazing at the letter again. The handwriting swam before her. "Excuse me, sir, I will not detain you a minute."
She ran from the room and upstairs to her room, her knees shaking beneath her. Heaven grant that the Doctor was at home! She agitated her window-blind violently and drew it down to the third pane. "You are wanted—urgent," was the message it conveyed.
Yes, he was at home. "I come, instantly," answered her lover's window; and in less than a minute, to her infinite relief, the Doctor emerged from his front doorway and came bustling up the street almost at a trot.
She ran down and admitted him. In her face he read instantly that something serious had happened; something serious if not catastrophical: but with finger on lip she enjoined silence and led the way to the parlour.
"This gentleman has just arrived from Plymouth, with serious news of the Major."
"Serious? He is not ill, I trust?"
"Worse," said Mr. Basket.
"But first," interposed Miss Marty, "you must read this letter. Yes, yes!"—blushing hotly, she thrust it into the Doctor's unresisting hands—"you have the right. Forgive me if I seem indecorous: but in such a situation you only can help me."
"Eh? Oh, certainly—h'm, h'm!—" The Doctor adjusted his glasses and began to read in a low mumbling voice. By and by he paused, then slowly looked up with pained, incredulous eyes.
"This is some horrible dream!" he groaned and, feeling his way to the Major's armchair, sank into it heavily.
"He swoons!" exclaimed Miss Marty. "One moment—a glassful of the Fra Angelico!"
She ran to the cupboard, found decanter and glasses, poured out a dose and came hurrying back with it. He declined it, waving her off with a feeble motion of the hand.
She appealed to Mr. Basket. "Willyou, sir?"
Mr. Basket confessed afterwards that for the moment, excusably perhaps, he lost his presence of mind. She had motioned to him to administer the dose. He misunderstood. Taking the glass distractedly, he drained it to the dregs, clapped a hand to his windpipe, and collapsed, sputtering, in a chair facing the Doctor.
"Oh, what have I done?" wailed Miss Marty.
"He deserved it!"
The Doctor pulled himself together, stood erect, and, lurching forward, gripped Mr. Basket by the shoulder.
"Sir, this lady is my affianced wife!"
"Would you—mind—tapping me in the back?" pleaded Mr. Basket, between the catches of his breath.
"Not at all, sir." The Doctor complied. "As I was saying, this lady is my affianced wife. Though Major Hymen were ten thousand times my friend—by placing both hands on your stomach and bending forward a little you will find yourself relieved—though Major Hymen were ten thousand times my friend, it should be over my prostrate body, sir; and so you may go back and tell him!"
"But I can't find him!" almost screamed Mr. Basket.
"He has disappeared!" quavered Miss Marty.
"It's the best thing he could do!" Dr. Hansombody folded his arms and looked at Mr. Basket with fierce decision. "Disappeared? Where?"
They answered him in agitated duetto. "Where indeed?" The Major had vanished, dissolved out of mortal ken, melted (one might say) into thin air. "If one may quote the Bard, sir, in this connection"—Mr. Basket wound up his recital—"like an insubstantial pageant faded he has left not a rack behind; that is to say, unless the letter in your hands may be considered as answering that description."
"There's only one explanation," the Doctor declared. "The man must be mad."
Mr. Basket considered this for a moment and shook his head. "We left him, sir, in the completest possession of his faculties. In all my long acquaintance with him I never detected the smallest symptom of mental aberration; and last night—good God! to think that this happened no longer ago than last night!"—Mr. Basket passed a hand over his brow—"Last night, sir, I recognised with delight the same shrewd judgment, the same masculine intellect, the same large outlook on men and affairs, the same self-confidence and self-respect—in short, sir, all the qualities for which I ever admired my old friend."
"Nevertheless," the Doctor insisted, "he must have been mad when he penned this letter."
"Of the contents of which, let me remind you, I am still ignorant."
The Doctor glanced at Miss Marty, then handed the letter to Mr. Basket with a bow. "You have a right to peruse it, sir. You will see, however, that its contents are of a strictly private nature, and will respect this lady's confidence."
"Certainly, certainly." Mr. Basket drew out his spectacles, and, receiving Miss Marty's permission, seated himself at the table, spread out the letter and slowly read it through. "Most extraordinary!Mostextraordinary! But you'll excuse my saying that while, unfortunately, it affords no clue, this seems to me as far as possible removed from the composition of a madman." He gazed almost gallantly over his spectacles at Miss Marty, who coloured. "In any case," he went on, folding up the letter and returning it, "the man must be found. I understand, madam, that you are a relative of his? Has he any others with whom we can communicate?"
"So far as I know, sir, none."
"I have a chaise awaiting me on the other side of the ferry. With all respect, dear madam, I suggest it; I am sorry indeed to put you to inconvenience—"
"You propose that Miss Marty, here, should accompany you back to Plymouth?"
"That was the suggestion in my mind. And you, too, sir—that is, if you can make it square with your engagements. Mrs. Basket will be happy to extend her hospitality.… Two heads are better than one, sir. We will prosecute our investigations together… with the help of the constabulary, of course. We should communicate with the constabulary, or our position may eventually prove an awkward one."
"Yes, yes; the man having disappeared from your house."
"Quite so. Apart from that, I see no immediate necessity for making the matter public; but am willing to defer to your judgment."
"That is a question we had better leave until we have seen the Chief Constable at Plymouth. To publish the news here and now in Troy would cause an infinite alarm, possibly an idle one. By the time we reach Plymouth our friend may have reappeared, or at least disclosed his whereabouts."
Alas! at Plymouth, where they arrived late that night, no news of the missing one awaited them. Mrs. Basket, her face white as a sheet, her ample body swathed in a red flannel dressing-gown, herself opened the door to the travellers as soon as the chaise drew up. For hours she had been expecting it, listening for the sounds of wheels. Almost before the introductions were over she announced with tears that she had nothing to tell.
For a while she turned her thoughts perforce from the disaster to the business of making ready the bedrooms for her guests and preparing a light supper. But the meal had not been in progress five minutes, before, in the act of loading Miss Marty's plate, she sat back with a gasp.
"Oh, and I was forgetting! Misfortunes, they say, never come singly, and—would you believe it, my dear?—as I was walking in the garden this afternoon, thinking to calm my poor brain, I happened to look at the fish-pond and what do I see there but two of the gold-fish floating with their chests uppermost!"
"Chests, madam?" queried Dr. Hansombody.
But sharp as his query was came a cry from Mr. Basket. "The fish-pond?" He thrust back his chair, a terrible surmise dawning in his eyes. "And the fish, you say, floating—"
"Chest uppermost," repeated Mrs. Basket, "and dead as dead."
"Shemeans, on their backs," her husband explained parenthetically; "a fashion de parlour, as the French would say. Did you examine the pond? Heavens, Maria! did you examine the pond?"
"Elihu, you make my flesh creep! Why should I examine the pond? You don't mean to tell me—"
"My shrimping-net! Don't sit shivering there, Maria, but bring me my shrimping-net! And a lantern!" Mr. Basket caught up a Sheffield-plated candle-sconce from the table, motioned the Doctor to fetch along its fellow, and led the way out to the front garden.
The night outside was windless, but dark as the inside of a hat.
Their candles drew a dewy glimmer from the congregated statuary: apparitions so ghostly that the Doctor scarcely repressed a cry of terror. Mr. Basket advanced to the pond and set down his light on the brink.
"A foot deep… only a foot deep," he murmured. "It could not possibly cover him."
The two goldfish floated as Mrs. Basket had described them. Mr. Basket, taking the shrimping-net from his wife, who shrank back at once into darkness, plunged it beneath the water, deep into the mud. Dr. Hansombody held a sconce aloft to guide him.
The two ladies cowered behind a pedestal supporting the Farnese Hercules.
For a while nothing was heard in the garden but the splash of water as Mr. Basket plunged his net again and again and drew it forth dripping. Each time as he drew it to shore, he emptied the mud on the brink and bent over it, the Doctor holding a candle close to assist the inspection.
As he emptied his net for maybe the twentieth time, something jingled on the pebbles. Mr. Basket stooped swiftly, plunged his hand in the slime, and held it up to the light.
"Eh?" said the Doctor, peering close. "What? A latchkey?"
"My duplicate latchkey!" In spite of the heat engendered by his efforts, Mr. Basket's teeth chattered. "My wife gave it to him the last thing."
He turned and drove his net beneath the dark water with redoubled energy. The very next haul brought to shore an even more convincing piece of evidence—a silver snuff-box.
It was the Major's. Mr. Basket had seen his friend use it a thousand times; and called Miss Marty forward to identify it. Yes, undeniably it was the Major's snuff-box, engraved with "S.H.," his initials, in entwined italics.
The two male searchers, regardless of their small-clothes, now plunged knee-deep into the pond. For an hour they searched it; searched it from end to end; searched it twice over.
No further discovery rewarded them.
Here was evidence—tangible evidence. Yet of what? The Major had visited the pond during his hosts' absence at the theatre, and had dropped these two articles into it. How, if accidentally? If purposely, why? The mystery had become a deeper mystery.
A little after midnight the search was abandoned. Mrs. Basket administered hot brandy-and-water to the two gentlemen, and the household retired to rest—but not to sleep.
At breakfast next morning, before seeking the Chief Constable, Mr. Basket and the Doctor compared notes. Each owned himself more puzzled than ever.
As it turned out, their discoveries led them straight away from the true explanation. The Chief Constable, when they interviewed him, was disposed for a brief while to suspect the press-gang. There had, in fact, on the night before last, been a "hot press," as it was called. At least a score of bodies of the Royal Marines, in parties of twelve and fourteen, each accompanied by a marine and a naval officer, had boarded the colliers off the new quay, the ships in Cattewater and the Pool, and had swept the streets and gin-shops. A gang of seamen, too, had entered the theatre and cleared the whole gallery except the women; had even descended upon the stage and carried off practically the whole company of actors, including the famous Mr. Sturge. (This Mr. Basket could confirm.) The whole town was in a ferment. He had already received at least seventy visits from inquirers after missing relatives.
But the discoveries in the fish-pond led him clean off the scent. No press-gang would enter a private house or a private garden such as Mr. Basket's. Even supposing that their friend had fallen a victim to the press while walking the streets, they must admit it to be inconceivable that he should return and cast a latchkey and a snuff-box into Mr. Basket's fish-pond.
"Cui bono?" asked the Chief Constable.
"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Basket.
"Well, in other words, what do you suggest he did it for? It's an expression we use in these cases."
The Doctor granted the force of the Chief Constable's reasoning, but suggested that there could be no harm in rowing round the Fleet and making inquiries.
The Chief Constable answered again that the squadron—it was no more than a squadron—had taken precious good care to time the press for the eve of sailing; had in fact weighed anchor in the small hours of the morning, and by this time had probably joined Admiral Cornwallis's fleet off Brest.
What was to be done?
"In my belief," said the Chief Constable, "it's a case of foul play. Mind, I'm not accusing anyone," he went on; "but this person disappeared from your house, Mr. Basket, and in your place I'd put myself right with the public by getting out a handbill at once."
This dreadful possibility of coming under public suspicion had never occurred to Mr. Basket. He begged to be supplied at once with pen, ink and paper.
"'Lost, stolen or strayed'—is that how you begin?"
"If you ask me," said the Chief Constable, "I'd put him down as 'Missing.' It's more usual."
"'Missing,' then. 'On the night of May 2nd—'"
"From your house."
"Must that go in?" Mr. Basket pleaded.
"If you want to put yourself right with the public."
"Yes, yes—'from The Retreat, East Hoe, the residence of E. Basket, Esq., on the night of May 2nd, between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m., a Gentleman—'"
Mr. Basket paused.
"We must describe him," said the Doctor.
"I am coming to that. 'A Gentleman, answering to the name of Hymen—'"
"Why 'answering'?"
Mr. Basket ran his pen through the word. "The fact is," he explained, "I've only written out a thing of this sort once before in my life; and that was when Mrs. Basket missed a black-and-tan terrier. H'm, let me see.… Between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m., Solomon Hymen, Esquire, and Justice of the Peace, Major of the Troy Volunteer Artillery. The missing gentleman was of imposing exterior—"
"Height five feet, three inches," said the Doctor.
"Eh? Are you sure?"
"As medical officer of the Troy Artillery, I keep account of every man in the corps; height, chest measurement, waist measurement, any peculiarity of structure, any mole, cicatrix, birth-mark and so on. I began to take these notes at the Major's own instance, for purposes of identification on the field of battle. Little did I dream, as I passed the tape around my admired friend, thathisproportions would ever be the subject of this melancholy curiosity!"
"It reminds me," said Mr. Basket, "of a group in my garden entitledFinding the body of Harold. Five feet three, you say? I had better scratch out 'imposing exterior'; or, stay!—we'll alter it to 'carriage.'"
"Chest, thirty-six inches; waist, forty-three inches; complexion— does that come next?" Doctor Hansombody appealed to the Chief Constable, who nodded.
"Complexion, features, colour of hair, of eyes… any order you please."
"We must leave out all allusion to his hair, I think," said Mr. Basket; "and, by the way, I suppose the—er—authorities will desire to take possession of any other little odds-and-ends our friend left behind him? Complexion, clear and sanguine; strongly marked features. His eye, sir, was like Mars, to threaten and command; but I forget the precise colour at this moment. We might, perhaps, content ourselves with 'piercing.' If I allow myself to be betrayed into a description of his moral qualities—"
"Unnecessary," put in the Chief Constable.
"And yet, sir, it was by his moral qualities that my friend ever impressed himself most distinctly on all who met him. Alas! that I should be speaking of him in the past tense! He was a man, sir, as Shakespeare puts it:
"Take him for all in all,We shall not look upon his like again."
"Take him for all in all,We shall not look upon his like again."
"Take him for all in all,We shall not look upon his like again."
"A most happy description, Mr. Basket," the Doctor agreed. "Would you mind saying it over again, that I may commit it to memory?"
Mr. Basket obligingly repeated it.
"Most happy! Shakespeare, you say? Thank you." The Doctor copied it into his pocket-book among the prescriptions.
"One might add, perhaps," Mr. Basket submitted respectfully, "that a mere physical description, however animated, cannot do justice to my friend's moral grandeur, which, indeed, would require the brush of a Michael Angelo."
The Chief Constable inquired what reward they proposed to offer.
"Ah, yes; to be sure!" Taken somewhat unexpectedly, Mr. Basket and the Doctor exchanged glances.
"On behalf of the relatives, now—" began Mr. Basket.
"So far as I know, Miss Martha was the one relative he had in the world," answered the Doctor.
"So much the better, my friend, seeing that you have (as I understand) her entire confidence."
"I was about to suggest that—circumstances having forced you into prominence—to take the lead, so to speak, in this unhappy affair—"
"But why do we talk of price?" interposed Mr. Basket briskly, "seeing that the loss, if loss it be, is nothing short of irreparable? To my mind there is something—er—"
"Desecrating," suggested the Doctor.
"Quite so—desecrating—in this reduction of our poor friend to pounds, shillings, and pence."
"Nevertheless it is usual to name a sum," the Chief Constable assured them. "Shall we say fifty pounds?" Mr. Basket took off his spectacles and wiped them with a trembling hand. Dr. Hansombody stood considering, pulling thoughtfully at his lower lip.
"I think I can undertake," he suggested, "that the Town Council will contribute a moiety of that sum. Something can be done by private subscription."
Mr. Basket brightened visibly. "Put it at fifty pounds, then," he commanded, with a wave of the hand. "Should Providence see fit to restore him to us, our friend, as a reasonable man, will doubtless discharge some part of the expenses."
Accordingly the bill was drafted, and the Chief Constable, after running his blue pencil through some of its more monumental periods, engaged to have it printed and distributed.
"Do you know," confessed Mr. Basket, as he and the Doctor walked homewards, "I felt all the while as if we were composing our friend's epitaph. I have a presentimen—"
"Do not utter it, my dear sir!" the Doctor entreated.
"He was a man—"
"Yes, yes; 'taking one thing with another, it is more than likely we shall never see him again.' The words, sir, struck upon my spirit like the tolling of a bell. But for Heaven's sake let us not despair!"
"Life is precarious, Dr. Hansombody; as your profession, if any, should teach. We are here to-day; we are gone—in the more sudden cases—to-morrow. What do you say, sir, to a glass of wine at the 'Benbow'? To my thinking, we should both be the better for it."