"Ah!" he sighed as the song died away and silence fell on us once more; "when the hour strikes for me, Okewood, there'll be no one, except, maybe, old Mammie Luisa there, to lay a pretty thought like that in my coffin!"
He held out his hand.
"Now go!" he bade me. "And good luck go with you!"
I took his proffered hand.
"I will come again and see you, Adams," said I. "I expect you'll want to hear what I've made of the message!"
He was looking at me whimsically.
"No, Okewood," he said, shaking his head, "I'm thinking we shan't meet again!"
I was thinking the same; for, in truth, the man looked at death's door.
The unseen singer had attacked another verse.
"Mir a si seria bella...."
The opening words came resonantly to me as I quietly stole from the room. At the door I turned for a last look at the beachcomber. The candle was guttering away and its trembling light illuminated only the pinched, worn features and the sombre, suffering eyes. The grossness of that broken body was mercifully swallowed up in the shadows. To and fro across the candle's feeble gleam the hands moved in cadence with the song....
I was loth to leave him. What he had told me of the fate of his friend, the man called Dutchey, made me feel a trifle apprehensive of his own safety. And I had had a kind of feeling that, for all his apparent calm, he was frightened. On looking back at my interview that night with the beach-comber in his wretched shack, I realise there must have been something unusually sweet about his personality. Its flavour seemed to linger; for I left him, as I have said, reluctantly, and I have thought of him many times since.
The back door led straight into a kind of open shed which, from the stove and stacked-up wood pile, I judged to be Doña Luisa's cooking-place. The shed gave on a dusty yard, small and narrow, smelling horribly of poultry, with a high mud wall. In this wall I saw—for the moonlight made everything as bright as day—a wooden door. On reaching it I found that it was locked.
For a moment I had a mind to go back to the front and home by the way I had come. But I felt doubtful as to whether I should be able to follow in the opposite direction the intricate route by which Doña Luisa had brought me, and I had no desire to be lost in the negro quarter at night. So without more ado I scaled the mud wall and, dropping to earth on the other side, found myself in the plantation of which the beach-comber had spoken.
Here I was alone with the noises of the tropical night. Of human being there was neither sound nor sign. However, I had Adams's directions firmly in my head; and by following them to the letter came back at last without incident, but very hot and sticky, to John Bard's bungalow.
The verandah was empty, the house very quiet. I looked at my watch. It was half past eleven. Bard had gone down to the club for his usual evening rubber of bridge but I had excused myself for I had meant to write letters. I knew it would be at least an hour before Bard returned; for he was a late bird. So I went through to my room, had a sponge down and changed into pyjamas and made my way to the living-room.
It was a delightfully airy apartment, one side, glazed, opening on to the verandah, the other walls distempered a pale green. There were native mats on the floor and comfortable chairs stood about the room. I went over to the writing desk in the corner, switched on the reading-lamp and lit a cigar. Then I pulled out of my pocket the package which I had received from the beach-comber.
The outer covering was a piece of greasy flannel which looked as if it had been torn off an old shirt. With my knife I slit up the stitches—it had been lightly tacked across with thread—and pulled out a narrow pad of oilskin folded once across. Spread out it made a piece roughly about nine inches long by six wide. Across it stood written some lines hastily scribbled in indelible pencil. The hand was crabbed and irregular, the writing indistinct and, in some places, almost completely effaced. But I could distinguish enough to recognise that both the hand and the words were German.
At this I felt my pulse quicken. A faint instinct of the chase began to stir in my blood. For three long months I had dawdled deliriously; for, in turning my face towards the sunshine of the New World, I had deliberately turned my back on the thrills and disappointments, the dangers and theennuisof the Secret Service. This almost undecipherable scrawl, with here and there a German word clearly protruding itself (I could read "Kiel" and "siehst Du") and, above all, the indelible pencil, in whose pale mauve character gallant young men wrote the real history of the war, brought back to me with vivid clearness, memorable moments of those half-forgotten campaigning days. I fumbled in a drawer of the desk for Bard's big magnifying glass, drew up my chair and set myself stolidly—as I had so often done in the past!—to the deciphering of what is in all circumstances, easily the most illegible handwriting in the world.
In truth, no writing is harder to read than the German. In his intercourse with the foreigner, the brother Boche, it is true, not infrequently employs the Latin character. But, for communications among themselves, the Germans continue to use their own damnable hieroglyphics. I have often wondered to see how the most unintelligent German will read off with ease a closely written scrawl of German handwriting looking as though a spider, after taking an ink-bath, had jazzed up and down the page.
This particular specimen of the Hun fist was a proper Chinese puzzle. Where in places it was beginning to be decipherable, the heavy indelible ink had run (under the influence of damp, I suppose) and where the writing was not a mass of smears it was illegible in a degree to make one despair.
Well, I got down to it properly. My knowledge of German (which I know about as well as English) was a great help. Finally, with the assistance of Bard's magnifying-glass, a deduction here and a guess there, after nearly an hour's hard work, I produced what was, as nearly as I could make it, an accurate version of the original. My greatest triumph lay, I think, in establishing the fact that an unusually baffling row of cryptic signs at the bottom of the thing was, in reality, four bars of music.
But when I had set it all down (on a sheet of John Bard's expensive glazed note-paper), I scratched my head and, despite my aching eyes, took another good look at the original. For I could make no sense of the writing at all.
The message (for such it seemed to be) was signed with the single letter "U." And this is what I got:—
Mittag. 18/11/18."Primmer', Simmer' viel"Die Garnison von Kiel"Mit Kompass dann am besten"Denk' an den Ordensfesten"Am Zuckerhut vorbei"Siehst Du die Lorelei"Und magst Du Schätzchen gern.
music fragment
music fragment
Blankly I stared at this doggerel. Then I took down from the rack another sheet of paper and jotted down a rough English translation:—
Noon. 18/11/18."Flash, flash much"The garrison of Kiel"Then with the compass is best"Think of the Feast of Orders"Past the Sugar-Loaf"You'll see the Lorelei"And if you desire the sweetheart.U."
Leaning back in my chair, I cast my mind over the strange tale I had heard that night from Adams, the story, whispered in the fierce noonday heat of the calaboose of San Salvador, of the ship which had brought the solitary white man and his gold out of the Unknown to Cock Island, of the Unknown's death and of the message he had left so oddly behind him. And, lest anyone should think that I was paying too much heed to a rambling yarn told me at second-hand by a drunken outcast, a yarn, moreover, based on a statement by a Kanaka deck-hand, let me say that my whole training in the Intelligence had taught me never to reject any statement, however improbable it sounded, until it had failed to withstand an elaborate series of tests. Indeed, the major satisfaction of this poorly paid and sometimes dangerous profession of ours is the rare delight of seeing emerge out of some seemingly impossible tale a solid basis of fact.
And, behind the beach-comber's rambling story, therewerecertain solid facts which, from the moment of discovering that the message was in German, I could not afford to neglect. When William the Second launched the world war like a big stone dropped in a pond, the ripples reached to the uttermost ends of the earth. In many a lonely island of the Seven Seas there had been, I knew, mysterious comings and goings, connected with gun-running, submarine work and dark conspiracies of all kinds. Did this scrap of stained oilsilk, picked off a lonely grave in the Southern Seas, lead back to a secret adventure of this kind? I decided that it might.
I turned to the message again. It was obviously writtenbya German andfora German, it was fair to presume.... for some specific German, furthermore, who would hold the key to the conventional code in which this message was almost certainly written. Consequently, the solitary stranger of Cock Island had expected to meet a German on the island,ergo, the island was a meeting-place, some secret rendezvous of the busy German conspirators in the war. This was borne out by the remarkable evidence laid before Adams by Dutchey on their visit to Cock Island to prove that some gang of desperadoes from San Salvador had previously been there. The names mentioned by Dutchey were undoubtedly Spanish—Black Pablo and Neque, for instance—but there might have been Germans with them. El Cojo was also Spanish, to judge by the name; but apparently he had put in an appearance later and had not visited the island.
To what did the message refer? What would the solitary German, with the hand of Death at his throat, wish to tell the man whom he was to have met? Might it not be, as Adams had said, the whereabouts of the gold, brought to the island by the Unknown, which, from the observation of Adams' fellow prisoners at the calaboose, was apparently still on the island? Various geographical indications in the message—the Sugar-Loaf, the Lorelei (the latter the well-known crag on the Rhine) seemed to confirm this.
But the message had remained in its bottle on the grave until, months later, Adams and Dutchey had found it. It was, therefore, to be presumed that the unknown German's friend, probably someone in El Cojo's gang, had not kept the appointment. Why?
I stared in perplexity at the dead man's scrawl. Every one of my deductions, I perceived all too clearly, led to a question to which I was unable to supply an answer. I began to regret that I had not read the message at Adams' hut and cross-examined him on it before I left. But I realised I should never have been able to decipher the scrawl by the flickering light of the oil-lamp in the shack. I resolved to go down to the negro quarter and see Adams again in the morning.
I suddenly began to feel restless and rather unhappy. I knew the symptoms. In me they always presage a burst of activity after a spell of idleness. This infernal riddle had altogether upset me. I had no desire to go to bed; the very idea of sleep was repugnant to me.
I measured myself out a "peg" of whisky and splashed the soda into it. My eyes, roaming round the room, fell on the upright piano in the corner. I crossed to the instrument and opening the lid, put on the music rest the little square of oilskin. Then, summoning back to my mind with an effort the hazy musical knowledge of my early school days, with considerable deliberation I picked out on the piano the notes indicated in the four bars of music appended to the end of the message.
I got the melody at once, or rather one movement of a melody which was dimly familiar to me. It fitted itself to no words or voice in my mind; but as I hummed it over, a silly little jingle, I suddenly had a mental picture of a cheap German dance-hall such as you find in the northern part of Berlin, with a blaring orchestra and jostling couples redolent of perspiration and beer. Iknewthe tune; but it was, I thought, the words that were wanted to complete the dead man's message. And they came not.
I was laboriously pounding the piano with one finger when I heard Bard's heavy step on the verandah. The next moment he came into the room, a big figure of a man in a tussore silk suit with a panama hat. Somehow the sight of him made me feel easier in my mind. That sublime sense of superiority, which we British suck in with our mother milk, is a heartening thing when you find it in your fellow Britisher abroad, thousands of miles from home. And John Bard, though, with his small pointed beard and rather pallid face, he looked like a Spaniard, was through and through British. Trader, merchant, financier and, on occasion, statesman, his massive body bore scars which told of thrilling years spent among the cannibals and head-hunters of the Pacific islands.
But long years of exile had only served to make John Bard more resolutely British. An uncompromising bachelor, abstemious in his habits and puritanical in his outlook, his mental attitude towards his fellow-man in this tiny republic of the Spanish Main was exactly what it would have been had he been a London suburbanite suddenly translated from his native Brixton to these distant shores. He was an eminently common-sensible person who was generally reputed to run the miniature republic of Rodriguez in which he had elected to settle down after his adventurous life.
His unshakable phlegm lent him a reposeful air which I believe was the first thing that drew me to him when, a few months before, for the first time for many years, I had met him again in a New York hotel. Six months' leave, unexpectedly offered, found me at a loose end and I gladly accepted his invitation to travel down by one of his ships and visit him in his Central American home. His cheery self-possession, as he stepped through the open doors of the verandah, seemed to put to flight the unpleasant shape which my mind's eye had seen rising from the little piece of oilsilk.
Bard crossed the room without speaking and filled himself a glass of soda-water from a syphon on the side-table. He tossed his soft panama hat on a chair and brushed back his closely cut crop of iron-grey hair from his temples. With his glass in his hand he dropped into a seat at my side.
"There's a yacht in the harbour," he said. "That's what made me late. She's called for some stuff they've got waiting for her at the Consulate. Fordwich—that's the Consul, you know—is down with a go of fever so I went round with his clerk to see about this consignment. Whew! But it's warm walking!"
"What's the yacht?" I asked.
"Name ofNaomi. She's come through the Canal".... "the Canal" in these parts is, of course, the Panama Canal.... "and is going across to Hawaii, I believe!"
He yawned and stretched his big frame. He drained his glass and stood up.
"Heigho," he said, "it's after two. I'm for bed!"
Now between John Bard and me exists that sort of uncommunicative friendship which is often found between two men who have knocked about the world a good deal. Though I could tell by Bard's elaborate affection of nonchalance that he noticed I was preoccupied, I knew he would never demand the cause of this. If I wanted his advice I should have to ask for it.
"John," said I, "just a minute. Who's El Cojo?"
I pronounced it in the English fashion but Bard gave the word its rasping Spanish aspirate as he repeated it.
"El Cojo?" he queried. "That's a nickname, isn't it? What is he? A bull-fighter, or a cigar?"
"I gather," I remarked, "that he's a gentleman of fortune!"
Bard laughed.
"The production of that type is an old industry in these parts, my boy," he riposted. "And evenIdon't know 'em all. I never heard of your pal. Is he a citizen of this illustrious republic?"
I shook my head.
"I haven't an idea," I answered. "I only know that a man called Black Pablo is mixed up with him...."
John Bard whistled softly.
"'Dime con quien andas, decirte de quien eres,'" he quoted. "That is to say, tell me whom you go with and I'll tell you who you are. If your pal is a friend of Black Pablo then he's 'no freend o' mine'!"
"Why?"
"Because," said John Bard slowly, and I noticed that his mocking air had altogether disappeared, "because Black Pablo is the greatest scoundrel on this coast.... and that's going some! During the war, when, after a good deal of pressure, our most illustrious President ultimately kicked out Schwanz, the German Consul, Black Pablo became Germany's unofficial agent. He was mixed up with running guns for the Mexicans to annoy the Yanks, and supplies for the Hun commerce raiders to worry the British and every other kind of dirty work. As long as he was merely a smuggler, a cut-throat and a hired assassin, as he was before the war.... Bien! I had nothing to say to him. But when the fellow had the blasted impudence to come butting into our war on the wrong side, by George! one had to do something. The Americans were devilish decent about it, I must say, and, with their support, we ran the skunk out of here P.D.Q. That was around January, 1918, and I have never heard of our friend since. But I'll give you a word of advice, young fellow my lad. If you come across Black Pablo, give him a wide berth. And mind his left! He keeps his knife in that sleeve!"
I pointed at the open cigar-box.
"Light up, John Bard," said I, "for I want to tell you a story and get your advice!"
So, while, in the garden, trees and bushes stirred lazily to a little breeze before dawn, I told him, as briefly as might be, the story I had heard from Adams. My host never once interrupted me but sat and smoked in silence till my tale was done. Even after I had finished he remained silent for a spell.
At length he said musingly:—
"Cock Island, eh? Yes, it surely would be a good spot for a quiet rendezvous."
"You know it then?" I asked eagerly.
"Aye," he averred. "I know it by name. But I was never there. It lies off the beaten trade routes, you see. But I remember hearing once that it had been a port of call for some of the old buccaneers like Kidd and Roberts who plied their trade in these parts. And so you think there's German gold hidden there, eh?"
"This"—I held up the fragment of oilsilk—"looks as if it might answer that question. If only one could read it," I said. And I spread it out before him. We put our heads together, under the lamp, while I read out my rough translation. Then Bard, shrugging his shoulders, leaned back in his chair and blew out a cloud of smoke.
"What are you going to do about it, Desmond?"
"Well," I said slowly, "if there were any sort of certainty about it not being absolutely a wild goose chase...."
"You'd go after it, eh?"
"It'd be a devilish amusing way of finishing up my leave."
John Bard smiled indulgently.
"It might be more exciting than amusing," he said, "if Black Pablo has anything to do with this affair."
"Do you think there is anything in it?" I asked.
"In the latter stages of the war," my host replied, "I heard vague rumours about some island off the coast where German commerce-raiders used to rendezvous for supplies. But I never heard this island named. It seems to me that the first thing to be done is to see your friend, Adams, again. After all, he's been to the island. He might be able to tell us more about it. Besides...."
He broke off and flicked the ash from his cigar. His manner had suddenly become rather grave.
"Besides what?" I demanded.
"If Black Pablo and his friends are after that plan or whatever it is, Adams is in pretty considerable danger."
"He knows it himself, I believe," I replied. "I didn't like leaving him to-night, and that's a fact. He seemed to be frightened about something. There was a man in the lane outside the hut who was singing and...."
"A man singing?" Bard queried sharply.
"Yes, to a guitar," I answered, surprised by his tone. "He sang very well, too!"
John Bard rose to his feet suddenly. He stepped to the verandah and held up his hand for silence.
"Were you followed when you came back from Adams's?" he asked me.
"No, not as far as I know."
Bard was listening intently. All was quiet in the gardens below, save for the murmurings of the sea breeze in the palms.
"Get into your clothes and come along, Okewood," he said, turning away from the window. "And leave that damned plan behind."
"Why, what...."
"Hurry, man, or we shall be too late."
"But, damn it, John, explain!" I cried in exasperation.
"Black Pablo is renowned all along the coast for his exquisite singing to the guitar. Be quick, be quick, old man, and don't forget your
The moon had paled and a greyness in the sky, as we hurried down the hill, betokened the approach of day. At length the city had sunk to rest; the port slumbered and in the red light quarter behind the docks the laughter and the guitars were stilled. How through that maze of mean streets and lanes I found the way back to Doña Luisa's cabin I don't know; but I expect that a kind of instinct for marking a route once traversed, which, with me, is inborn, stood me in good stead.
The negro quarter was wrapped in silence. The swift rustling of a rat, a distant cock-crow from the sleeping city, were the only sounds to break the stillness of the night. At length we reached the narrow lane in which the shanty stood. It was almost dark; for the moon had gone in behind a bank of clouds and the day was not yet come.
The big wooden door stood wide. Across the little yard dimly we saw the dark outline of the shack. The mud surface of the court was wet and sticky and my rubber-soled shoes slipped on it as we crossed the threshold of the enclosure. John Bard touched my arm.
"Man alive," he whispered, "look at your shoes!"
I did as I was bid and recoiled in horror. The white buckskin was deeply smeared with crimson.
We dashed across the yard. The shanty door stood open.
Within, amid a scene of hideous confusion, the body of the beach-comber hung head downwards from the rough couch, the throat cut from ear to ear. And behind the door in another welter of blood lay the corpse of Doña Luisa.
The place was a shambles. The hut had been turned upside-down and the few poor belongings of the outcast were scattered all over the floor. The very maize cane on which his dead body lay had been tossed about. And the blood was smeared everywhere as though the murderer or murderers had brought it in on their boots.
John Bard's face was anxious.
"We'll do well to clear out of here," he said, "before it gets light. They mustn't find us here. Let's go out by the back and return by the way you came...."
I gladly acquiesced in his suggestion. To tell the truth, I was feeling a little sick. The fetid odours of the negro quarter reeked to heaven in the freshening morning air, and mingled with them was a suspicion of some unutterably horrid taint arising from the two corpses which had lain there all through the warm night.
We had reached the threshold of the back door when suddenly a heavy footstep sounded from the front. In the absolute stillness all round the sound rang out clearly. It was as though a heavy man were stumping slowly across the hard pounded earth of the front yard. He came with a step and a stump, a step and a stump, like a lame man walking with a stick or crutches.
John Bard made as though to bolt. But I restrained him. I felt I must see this mysterious visitant. And John Bard, loyal friend as he is, though he had nothing to gain by my rashness, stopped dead in his tracks and with me drew behind the cover of the back door. Through the chink between the door and jamb we surveyed the entrance to the shack.
A huge black shape stood on the threshold. It was too dark within the hut to note the newcomer's features or his dress. One had only the sensation of a great form that bulked largely, immensely, in the doorway.
I turned noiselessly to Bard. He divined the unspoken proposal on my lips for he shook his head curtly and his grip on my sleeve tightened. At the same moment the great form in the doorway moved and the next instant was swallowed up in the shadows of the courtyard. We heard the clip-clop of his limping step as he crossed the enclosure and, little by little, die away as he stumped up the lane.
"Smear some earth over your shoes!"
John Bard was speaking to me. Blindly I did as he bade me and rubbed dust over the damp, dark stains on the white buckskin. Then gripping me by the arm my friend ran me through the backyard and out by the door which now stood open.
In the freshness of the plantation, away from the stenches of the village and the nameless taint of that house of slaughter, my senses came back to me and I felt ashamed of he rashness which might have had disastrous consequences for both of us. But, when at length we stood once more in the bungalow and Bard poured me out a stiff dose of brandy, I noticed that, contrary to his invariable rule, he had one himself as well.
"And now," said he, and in his voice was a note of decision, "the sooner you leave Rodriguez, Desmond, the better for you. I don't want to appear inhospitable or I might add, the better for me too. That poor devil, Adams, is dead and you can do nothing for him by staying. You are sufficiently acquainted, I take it, with the mentality of my distinguished fellow-citizens to realise that very little fuss will be made over the untimely demise of Adams and his coloured lady. In the meantime you are in the greatest danger here.
"I don't see why I should worry," I argued. "If they had known of my visit to Adams they would have raided the hut and butchered the three of us to get hold of the document. But they didn't; and they don't even know me by sight...."
"They evidently didn't know of your visitat the time," remarked John Bard gravely. "But obviously something happened after your departure to put them wise. Hence the attack on the house. You were either seen going to the house or Doña Luisa gave you away. It looks to me as though they had only just traced the document to Adams. Black Pablo was set to watch but, after the happy-go-lucky fashion of Latin America, he whiled away the time by serenading some of the dusky belles in the vicinity and failed to observe your arrival."
I recalled the soft laughter I had heard, mingling with the strains of the guitar in the lane, and nodded.
"You think that this fellow Black Pablo was put on guard to see that Adams did not leave the house?...."
"Precisely," agreed my friend, "while El Cojo was sent for.
"El Cojo, the head of the gang?"
"Himself and no other.... the lame man who came to the door of the shack after the crime had been committed. In Spanish 'El Cojo' means 'the lame man,' 'he who goes with a limp'...."
John Bard went on talking but I have no recollection of what he said. For my thoughts had flown back to another "lame man" who had dominated the most thrilling episode in the whole of my life, the giant and ape-like cripple, head of the Kaiser's personal Secret Service in the days of Germany's greatness, who had dogged my brother Francis and myself until he had met his end at our hands in the château on the German-Dutch frontier. Old Clubfoot, as men called him in his heyday, had been in his grave these four years past; yet once again I found the path of adventure barred at its outset by a great lame man. I thought of that huge figure blocking up the narrow doorway of the reeking hut and, as so often in the past, I felt welling up within me admiration for the extraordinary ingenuity of old man Destiny....
"....This gang of El Cojo's," John Bard was saying impressively, leaning across the table at me, hands palms downwards before him, "is a tremendous organisation with a network of spies as widespread and efficient as the Camorra and Mafia in Italy or the Carbonados in Portugal and Brazil. I have long suspected that there was at the head of it a man much bigger and abler than that murdering ruffian, Black Pablo, and now we have the proof of it. I know a bit about men, Desmond and that hulking dot-and-carry-one scoundrel we saw to-night gives me a damned unpleasant feeling. You mark my words; whether you were actually spotted or not they'll trace that plan to you and if you stay here, they'll get you! And Iknow!"
He appeared to reflect for a moment whilst I considered him with attention; for I had never before seen old John so worked up. But there is nothing like the Unknown for getting on a fellow's nerves.
Then he drove his fist into his palm as if a sudden idea had struck him.
"TheNaomi," he said; "the very thing for you!"
"TheNaomi?" I repeated.
"Yes. The yacht that came in last evening. She's going down to Honolulu. We ought to be able to fix it for you so they'll take you with them...."
"What is this yacht?" I asked.
"She belongs to Sir Alexander Garth. By George! She's a beauty, Desmond! White paint and a gold line, green and white deck awnings, everything slap up. He's a millionaire, they say!"
"I don't know the name."
"We looked him up in the 'Who's Who' at the club to-night. He's a baronet, and a big man in cotton. J.P. and D.L. of the county. What brings him here I don't know, except that cruising to the Southern Seas seems to be a fashionable rest-cure for millionaires whose nerves have been jaded by piling up money during the war."
"But, see here, John," I expostulated, "I can't go butting into a private pleasure cruise like this, I really can't. It isn't done, you know! And you can't expect these prosaic English folk to swallow a long yarn about my life being in danger!"
"Desmond," said Bard—and now his voice was very stern. "You can take it from me that if you don't clear out at once, you'll get your throat cut and probably mine into the bargain. There won't be a steamer for Colon for at least a fortnight. This yacht is a heaven-sent opportunity for making you lucky. If you wait for the steamer it's a ten to one chance you'll go up the gangway in your coffin neatly packed in ice! Do you get that? For the Lord's sake, burn that damned rigmarole and beat it!"
We Celts have a broad strain of contrariness in our nature which probably accounts for my strong inclination to disregard Bard's advice. But his manner was so impressive for one of his unemotional disposition that I could not but feel convinced.
"Perhaps you're right, old man," I said. "I won't burn the 'rigmarole' as you call it, but otherwise I will follow your suggestion. But it will be on one condition and one condition only. That is, that we part here and now and that, should by any chance, your plan for my forcing my company upon the excellent cotton-spinner and his party fail, you will not associate with me or in any way acknowledge me as long as I am in the city...."
I held out my hand. But Bard laughed and put his two hands on my shoulders.
"No, no," he protested, "it's not so bad as all that. I'm coming down to the harbour to fix it up with Garth for you. He will probably call at the Consulate this morning any way to fetch the stores we are holding for him."
"John," said I, "I've dragged you far enough into this mess. It's early enough yet for me to go down to the harbour and on to that yacht without attracting much attention. So let's part here and ever so many thanks again for all your kindness...."
"Desmond,"—John Bard's voice trembled a little—"I wouldn't hear of it...."
"My dear old man," I said. "I'm in a proper mess and I've no intention of pulling you into it after me. And I'd like to say one thing more. You might have rubbed it in that the whole of this trouble was brought on us by my initial folly in accompanying an unknown messenger to the purlieus of the city in the middle of the night. You have never alluded to it; but I'd like you to know that your forbearance did not escape me...."
I stretched forth my hand again. This time John Bard took it.
"I'll send your things down to the Consulate," he said; "they can go on board with Garth's stores."
And so, in perfect understanding, we settled it. At the verandah door I turned and said:—
"And do you think now that there's anything in Adams' story?"
"Yes," my host replied, "I do!"
Then he added, with his little indulgent smile:—
"Are you going after it?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I might!" said I.
But already fermenting in my brain was the germ of a great idea. The next moment the iron gate of the gardens clanged behind me and I was off at a good pace down the hill.
The sun was up; but the air was still delightfully fresh and the verdure yet glistened with the heavy night dews. Beyond the fringe of wavy palms which marked the shore the sea glittered and sparkled, its deep blue melting to a paler shade where on the horizon sea mingled with sky. Past the tangle of white and yellow houses where the city stood, a creamy dead-white edging of foam, like ermine laid on an azure mantle, marked the intricate windings of the coast until once more ocean, shore and sky imperceptibly blended in the glorious blue.
It was a morning on which one was glad to be alive. The champagne-like quality of the air sent a zest for action thrilling through my veins. The world seemed very fair and, as I crossed the market-place, I paused an instant to gaze with utter satisfaction on that brilliant mass of colour, the scarlet umbrellas of the stalls, the country-women with their heads enveloped in kerchiefs of flaming hues, the bold reds and greens and yellows of the masses of fruit and vegetables set forth in magnificent profusion for sale.
I felt that I was standing on the threshold of a great adventure. The strain of romance which Celtic blood bestows leaped to answer its appeal. In my head ran the mysterious jingle in which, as I was now convinced, a treasure lay concealed. So engrossed was I with my thoughts that, on mounting the broad flight of steps which led to the long, cool verandah of the British Consulate, I collided violently with a man who was coming out.
He was a short, stocky fellow, enormously strongly built, so massive in bulk, indeed, that one might almost say of him that he was as broad as he was long. His clean-shaven face, big and smooth and freckled, was tanned a deep brick-red and, especially about the good-natured, firm mouth, was lined with innumerable creases. The hair visible beneath his rather battered yachting-cap was close-cropped and a flaming red tint and his tufted eyebrows were of the same shade. A pair of brave and honest eyes shone very bluely out of his sunburnt face. He was wearing a clean but somewhat creased suit of white drill and in his hand he carried a sheaf of papers.
The mere sight of him carried me straight away back to Southsea or Plymouth or one of those queer steep little towns of the Isle of Wight where so many masters of our merchant marine have their homes. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he was British, a type that, I imagine, has scarcely changed through the ages.
"Sorry!" he said, as though realising that in the impact it could only be my less substantial frame which could suffer, and, taking a step back, scrutinised me.
"My fault!" said I, rubbing my head, for I felt as if I had butted it against a stone wall.
"If you're going to see the Consul," said the big man—and in his speech was a pleasant touch of the Hampshire burr—"you'll not find him. And the Vice-Consul's not in, either! He don't come to the office before 9 o'clock; leastwise that's what I figured out the Dago within was tryin' to tell me! They don't overwork in the Government offices!"
With the perfect complacency of the Britisher he addressed me in English, probably assuming, were I a foreigner, that I would understand him.
He stood on the steps and mopped his brow.
"I wonder whether you could tell me," I said, "where the steam yachtNaomiis lying?"
The big man smiled and crinkled his face into a thousand fresh creases.
"Aye," he replied. "That I can! She's lying about a hundred yards off the Customs House jetty—a white craft flying the Thames Yacht Club burgee. You can't mistake her! Do you know anybody aboard?"
"Not exactly," said I. "But I wanted to call on Sir Alexander Garth, the owner."
"Then you come right along with me," placidly observed the big man. "I'm captain of theNaomi—I sail her for Sir Alexander. I've got our mail here and I'm going straight back on board. I left the launch at the steps! And, by the way, my name is Lawless—Harvey Lawless...."
"I should be delighted to come with you," I replied. "My name is Okewood!"
We turned our backs on the Consulate and crossing the Cathedral Square, followed a shabby, grass-grown street which rejoiced in the grandiose name of the Avenida de la Liberacion. As we strolled along in the shade Captain Lawless entertained me to some of his ideas on the shortcomings of the Central American republics and, in particular, of the State whose hospitality we were then enjoying. But with becoming reticence he did not question me as to the object of my desire to call upon his employer nor, on the other hand, did he volunteer any information about that gentleman or his friends.
Presently we emerged into a great white square on the sea, a place of blinding glare and whirling dust. Here at the foot of some white stone steps a trim motor launch was heaving to and fro in the bright green swell under the silent gaze of a knot of loafers. Two men were in the launch, one wearing a white jersey with "S.Y.Naomi" embroidered in blue and a round sailor's cap with the yacht's name on the ribbon. The other was in a blue suit and wore a yachting cap.
"You'll want to bring the launch back in a couple of hours' time, Parsons," said the captain, addressing the man in the yachting cap. "The Vice-Consul won't be there till then. You'll have to get a move on him about those fittings. Mr. Mackay will not be very pleased, I'm thinking! He expected me to bring 'em back with me."
I stood a little to one side during the brief dialogue which ensued and feasted my eyes on the picturesque scene. Viewed from the water the city presented a beautiful spectacle. The houses rose in tiers amid masses of greenery which rested the eye from the pitiless glare of the sea. In the distance I noted the pleasant green hill where the long low line of John Bard's bungalow was just discernible among the trees. The square in which we stood was in itself a wonderful picture with its great white warehouses, public buildings and the like built over deep high arcades where with shrill cries newspaper boys and boot-blacks plied their trade and lemonade sellers and beggars drowsed in the cool shadows.
The little knot of spectators fringing the quayside were as picturesque a bunch of picaroons as I have ever set eyes on. Their complexions ran through the whole series of shades from light coffee to Brunswick black. Their attire was as varied as their colour; but for the most part it consisted in a ragged panama hat, a dirty vest and a pair of thin striped cotton trousers.
I noticed one unusually striking figure, a stunted negro with a pock-marked face who wore a gaudy yellow handkerchief bound about his head and heavy gold rings in his ears. I observed this sportsman looking hard at me, and was a little nonplussed to see him ostensibly draw the attention of the man at his side to my appearance. The negro's companion was a swarthy lissom young fellow with handsome features and a pair of bold black eyes. The negro nudged him and broke into a torrent of words. I was not near enough to make out what was said (and, if I had been, I doubt if I should have understood their rapidly-spoken lingo). But I felt tolerably certain that the black man was speaking about me; for twice he nodded his head in my direction. The upshot of it was that the swarthy young man turned and—a remarkable thing in this indolent population—sprinted hard away in the direction of the city.
I must say I felt disquietened. Since I had left John Bard's house that morning, I had kept a careful watch to see if I were followed. But no one had appeared to take any notice of me whatsoever and I felt reasonably sure that I was not shadowed. But now it distinctly looked as though I had been recognised. And in that moment, I believe, there hardened into determination in my mind the great resolve which had come into my head as I was taking leave of John Bard.
But the captain was summoning me to step into the launch. I dropped in, he followed, and in a moment we were "teuf-teufing" through the rolling green swell of the harbour towards the long and graceful shape of theNaomias she tugged at her moorings over against the battered white bulk of the Customs House. It was with feelings of profound satisfaction that I saw the square with its fringe of loafers, the white houses and the tufted palms recede as the natty little boat cleaved a foaming path through the green water. I had got clear away. It was up to me to secure for myself an invitation to join the party on Sir Alexander Garth's yacht.
She was a beautiful craft, with a good turn of speed, to judge by her design. As we drew nearer, I could see, by the many evidences of comfort displayed, that her owner must be a man of wealth. The snowy decks, the burnished brass and copper fittings, the clean, well turned-out sailors who were busy on the deck beneath the striped sun-awnings, the neat gangway let down over the side with its clean white hand-rope—the whole impression given was one of luxury regardless of cost. As we turned to run alongside, I found myself wondering what manner of man this Sir Alexander Garth was. Was he a wealthy industrialist of pre-war England or merely one of the new rich? If the latter he would be less easy to handle than the former, I reflected; besides, I reckoned, a war profiteer would not wear well on a long cruise to the South Seas! The next moment I stood on the deck of theNaomiin the modulated light which penetrated through the green-and-white awning.
The captain bade the man he had addressed as Parsons, whom I found to be the head steward, take me to the smoke-room while he asked "Sir Alexander" if he would receive me. Treading almost noiselessly on his rubber soles the steward led me along the deck to the back of the bridge where a door hooked back revealed a glimpse of a long low-ceilinged saloon set about with comfortable settees and club chairs in soft green Morocco leather, the portholes screened against the blinding light from without.
Even below the awning the light outside was so much stronger than the comparative obscurity within the smoke-room that at first I could not distinguish much. Parsons left me at the door and I was about to sit down when I discovered to my surprise that I was not alone. At a desk set in one of the two recesses which flanked the doorway a girl was sitting. She was dressed in a plain white silk tennis shirt and white piqué skirt and her panama hat lay on a chair by her side. She was writing letters. In the stillness of the room I could hear her pen scratching across the paper. So engrossed was she in her writing that she did not turn round.
I felt a little embarrassed. I felt it would be too farcical to cough mildly, in the manner of a stage comedian, in order to announce my presence; while, on the other hand, to make some violent noise like dropping on the floor one of the books which were lying around might, I conceived, unduly frighten the young lady. So I sat where I was, enjoying the pleasant half-light of the room after the heat and glitter outside, and amused myself by guessing at the appearance of the stranger from her back.
She had beautiful hair of a glossy golden brown, "bobbed" after the modern fashion, but so exquisitely brushed and tended that I decided she must have a good maid. Her figure was admirable, her neck very white and slender and matchless in the grace of its poise as she inclined her head to the paper. Her clothes, simple as they were, were faultless both in their cut and the way she wore them. I suppose there are fashions in a tennis blouse and skirt the same as there are in other kinds of women's clothes. At any rate, there was a flawlesschicabout this girl's appearance which told me that she was Paris-clad.
Presently the scratching of the pen stopped. A white hand stole up and patted the golden brown hair.
Then some intuitive sense told me that the girl knew there was someone in the room. It was as though our two minds communed in that still, cool place. At the same moment she swung round on her chair and, seeing me, rose abruptly to her feet.
As she confronted me I realised that I must have divined her beauty; for it came as no surprise to me to find her extremely good-looking. I have met many women in my time and, as is not uncommon in my profession, many were of the "charmer" order.
But the girl who stood facing me, a little perturbed, somewhat nonplussed by the unexpected apparition, had an indefinite quality of beauty which would have made her remarkable in any society. A beautifully shaped head, an oval face, delicately pencilled eyebrows throwing into relief the large grey eyes, a fine white skin and unusually good teeth—all these attributes of beauty she possessed. But with them went a curiously strong attraction, some quality of magnetism, which, to speak quite personally, made me want to see her radiantly happy, to conjure up a smile which I felt must be unusually sweet.
"Oh," she exclaimed and blushed very prettily, "I didn't hear you come in. How do you do? I am Marjorie Garth. Does Daddy know you're here?"
With theempressementof the exiled Briton, to whom the vision of a fresh young English girl is as the first violets of spring or the fragrance of the forest after summer rain, I took the slim, cool hand she offered me.
"The steward," I said, "has gone to tell him!"
"I'm afraid," she went on, scrutinising me dispassionately after the manner of the modern young girl, "that you're in for a very slow time. There's nobody but just Daddy and me. Of course, that was the idea of this cruise. Daddy overworked terribly in the war and the doctors told him he'd never get his nerves right unless he dropped business absolutely for a whole year."
I wondered how she had divined the nature of my mission to her father. Perhaps the captain had jumped to conclusions and had imparted them to her. But her next remark puzzled me horribly.
"Of course, I'm perfectly fit," she observed, and smiled with a glint of white teeth. "But Daddy is very difficult to handle. He has cables sent to him at every port, and when we're in harbour his cabin looks like his office at the Manchester Cotton Exchange. You'll have to be very severe with him about it...."
"I don't know really," I replied, very puzzled, "whether I should feel justified...."
"Oh," laughed the girl, "that's no way to handle Daddy. He's from the North, remember! He made his money by knowing when to say 'No'; at least, that's what he says. Andyou'llhave to say 'No' to him. And to me, as well. I'm like Daddy. I adore having my own way. And I usually get it...."
"That I'm fully prepared to believe!" I answered, and we both laughed. It was as though we were old friends. Then, growing serious on a sudden, the girl very deliberately started rolling up the left sleeve of her blouse. I gazed at her in bewilderment. What was coming now? I asked myself. With the utmost composure she unbared to the shoulder a firm, round and very white arm.
"Don't give me away to Daddy," she observed confidentially. "But my idiotic French maid burnt my arm the day before yesterday with the electric tongs and it's rather sore. I wish you would just have a look at it. I haven't said a word to Daddy, for, if he knew, he would insist on dismissing Yvonne. Would you mind....?"
She extended her left arm to me whilst I, like an idiot, blushed furiously in my embarrassment and vainly cudgelled my brains to discover who this charming girl thought I was. And why the devil should I look at the burn on her arm?
A calm voice at the doorway delivered me from my dilemma.
"Sir Alexander will see you, sir!"
The steward, Parsons, was there. Marjorie Garth pulled her sleeve down.
"Don't keep Daddy waiting!" she warned, and added: "You shall dress my arm afterwards!"
I said "Oh,rather!" or something equally idiotic and followed the steward out. As I passed the girl, she leant forward and whispered;
"Mind you stand up to him!"
As we crossed the blinding sunshine of the deck and went down a companion-way Parsons confided to me that the owner was at breakfast. My heart sank rather. It is poor tactics to ask a man for favours before noon.
The saloon, which was panelled in some light-coloured wood, maple or birch, resembled, with its little domed sky-light, the restaurant of a liner in miniature. It was a small, snug little place with rose-coloured silk curtains and carpet and a profusion of silver and flowers. At the far end was a door which, I imagined, led to the cabins.
At the sound of my entrance Sir Alexander Garth looked up from his egg. As he stood up to greet me, I saw he was a tall, heavily-built man in the fifties with a heavy iron-grey moustache. He had about him an air I have noticed in other prosperous business people—a sort of "moneyed manner" which reveals itself in a great deal of self-confidence with just a touch of parade. The hard grey eyes and the firm chin denoted the man of action; but the physiognomist in me (which my work has considerably developed) took mental stock of the arched nostril and the downward dip to the corners of the mouth which are the unmistakable signals of a violent temper.
These and other little details I noticed about him as we shook hands and he asked me if I had breakfasted. And because I was really pretty peckish and because I believe one can always do business best over a meal, I accepted his invitation and started in on a luscious grape-fruit. When he had poured out my coffee, pushed the toast-rack at me and generally put me at my ease, Sir Alexander Garth, who had been scrutinising me rather closely, remarked:
"I should never have taken you for a doctor!"
"I'm not a doctor, sir!" I answered.
"I see—not taken your degree, eh? Well, well, I told our New York office in my cable to do the best they could; indeed, I wasn't at all sure that our manager could manage it in the time. But Lowry's a spry chap—he don't come from Bolton for nothing—and he knows that when th'oud man gives an order he expects it to be carried out. Did you meet Lowry, doctor?"
Now I understood Miss Garth's inexplicable and embarrassing desire to show me her burnt arm.
"I'm afraid you've made a mistake, Sir Alexander," I said. "I'm not a doctor...."
"Eh?" ejaculated the baronet, sitting back in his chair and looking at me. "Then who the devil are you?"
"My name is Okewood, Major Desmond Okewood," I replied as boldly as might be, though my host's countenance was hoisting all manner of storm signals in the shape of a reddening of the cheeks and a twitching of the nostrils, "and I have rather a strange request to make...."
But I got no farther for Garth exploded.
"Damn it!" he exclaimed, pounding the table with his big, sun-burnt hand, "I knew it. You're from Allan's. My Manchester office turned their proposition down without reference to me, and as soon as I heard about it, I wrote and confirmed the decision. And they've done nothing but badger me about it ever since. At every port there's been a cable. And now you have the brass to come interfering with my holiday, asking yourself to breakfast under false pretences.... Parsons!"
He yelled for the steward, at the same time putting forth his hand to pound a bell that stood on the table at his side.
"Stop!" I said.
"Will you stop me from ringing for my own servants?" he demanded truculently.
"I'll stop you from making yourself look a fool before your own steward," I retorted, "if you'll quit shouting and listen to me for a minute. I have nothing to do with Allan's or any other business concern...."
At the first glimpse of this resolute-looking cotton-spinner I knew that, to achieve my end, I should have to take him more fully into my confidence than either my inclination allowed or my instructions warranted. I took my letter-case from my pocket and extracting a folded blue paper, laid it before Sir Alexander on the white damask table-cloth. These were my credentials which we are only supposed to show in moments of direst necessity.
"Will you read that?" I said.
The baronet looked questioningly at me, then slowly put on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles which he took from a case in his pocket. He carefully perused my blue paper and then handed it back to me.
"Eh," he remarked without a trace of apology in his manner, "and we all thought you were the doctor I ordered our New York office to send to join the yacht at Rodriguez. Well, young man, and what can I do for you?"
With the utmost candour I told him. Thereafter, for ten minutes or more, our heads were close together. Then he rang the bell.
"My compliments to Captain Lawless," he said to the steward, "and I should be obliged if he could spare me a few minutes! We will come to him in the chart-house!"
He gave the steward the start of us by lingering to offer me a cigar and to light one for himself. Then we made our way up on deck and presently entered the chart-house, a room abaft the bridge and above the smoke-room. Here the captain, looking very red and shaggy without his cap, awaited us.
"Ah, captain!" said our host, "let me make you acquainted with Major Okewood, who is coming on a cruise with us. I want you to show me on the chart Cock Island in the Eastern Pacific. And let's hear, too, what the 'Sailing Directions' have to say about it!"
Thus I learnt that my pleading had prevailed with him and that, behind a hard and business-like exterior, there flickered a little spark of romance that had burst into flame at the magic tale of treasure trove I had poured into his ears. As the skipper spread out upon the mahogany top of the chart-locker the section in which, amid weird whorls and lines signifying tides and depths, Cock Island figured, I felt once more the strong tug at my heart from that secluded islet whence at the foot of volcanic peaks an enigmatic grave seemed to beckon....