Collected works of j s f.., p.536
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 536
“Mr. Baxter!” she said, colouring a little at her own temerity. “Why don’t you follow Mr. Middlebrook’s advice — give up the old silver and the rest of it to the authorities and help them to track down those murderers? Wouldn’t that be better than — whatever it is that you’re doing?”
But Baxter laughed, flung away his cigar, and rose to his feet.
“A deal better — from many standpoints, my dear young lady!” he exclaimed. “But too late for Netherfield Baxter. He’s an Ishmael! — a pirate — a highwayman — and it’s too late for him to do anything but gang his own gait. No! — I’m not going to help the police — not I! I’ve enough to do to keep out of their way.”
“You’ll get caught, you know,” I said, as good-humouredly as possible. “You’ll never get this stuff that’s upstairs across the Atlantic and into New York or Boston or any Yankee port without detection. As you are treating us well, your secret’s safe enough with us — but think, man, of the difficulties of taking your loot across an ocean! — to say nothing of Customs officers on the other side.”
“I never said we were going to take it across the Atlantic,” he answered coolly and with another of his cynical laughs. “I said we were going to sail this bit of a craft across there — so we are. But when we strike New York or New Orleans or Pernambuco or Buenos Ayres, Middlebrook, the stuff won’t be there — the stuff, my lad, won’t leave British waters! Deep, deep, is your queer acquaintance, Netherfield Baxter, and if he does run risks now and then, he always provides for ’em.”
“Evidently you intend to tranship your precious cargo?” I suggested.
“The door of its market is yawning for it, Middlebrook, and not far away,” he answered. “If this craft drops in at Aberdeen, or at Thurso, or at Moville, and the Customs folks or any other such-like hawks and kites come aboard, they’ll find nothing but three innocent gentlemen and their servants a-yachting it across the free seas. Verbum sapienti, Middlebrook, as we said in my Latin days — far off, now! But — wouldn’t Miss Raven like to retire? — it’s late. I’ll send Chuh with hot water — if you want anything, Middlebrook, command him. As for me, I shan’t see you again tonight — I must keep a watch for my pal coming aboard from his little mission ashore.”
Then, with curt politeness, he bade us both good night, and went off on deck, and we two captives looked at each other.
“Strange man!” murmured Miss Raven. She gave me a direct glance that had a lot of meaning in it. “Mr. Middlebrook,” she went on in a still lower voice, “let me tell you that I’m not afraid. I’m sure that man means no personal harm to us. But — is there anything you want to say to me before I go?”
“Only this,” I answered. “Do you sleep very soundly?”
“Not so soundly that I shouldn’t hear if you called me,” she replied.
“I’m going to mount guard here,” I said. “I, too, believe in what Baxter says. But — if I should, for any reason, have occasion to call you during the night, do at once precisely what I tell you to do.”
“Of course,” she said.
The Chinaman who had been in evidence at intervals since our arrival came into the little saloon with a can of hot water and disappeared into the inner cabin which had been given up to Miss Raven. She softly said good-night to me, with a reassurance of her confidence that all would be well, and followed him. I heard her talking to this strange makeshift for a maid for a moment or two; then the man came out, grinning as if well-pleased with himself, and she closed and fastened the door on him. The Chinaman turned to me, asking in a soft voice if there was anything I pleased to need.
“Nothing but the rugs and pillows that your master spoke of,” I answered.
He opened a locker on the floor of the place and producing a number of cushions and blankets from it made me up a very tolerable couch. Then, with a polite bow, he, too, departed, and I was left alone.
Of one thing I was firmly determined — I was not going to allow myself to sleep. I firmly believed in Baxter’s good intentions — in spite of his record, strange and shady by his own admission, there was something in him that won confidence; he was unprincipled, without doubt, and the sort of man who would be all the worse if resisted, being evidently naturally wayward, headstrong, and foolishly obstinate, but like all bad men, he had good points, and one of his seemed to be a certain pride in showing people like ourselves that he could behave himself like a gentleman. That pride — a species of vanity, of course — would, I felt sure, make him keep his word to us and especially to Miss Raven. But he was only one amongst a crowd. For anything I knew, his French friend might be as consummate a villain as ever walked, and the Chinese in the galley cut-throats of the best quality. And there, behind a mere partition, was a helpless girl — and I was unarmed. It was a highly serious and unpleasant situation, at the best of it, and the only thing I could do was to keep awake and remain on the alert until morning came.
I took off coat and waistcoat, folded a blanket shawl-wise around my shoulders, wrapped another round my legs, and made myself fairly comfortable in the cushions which the Chinaman had deftly arranged in an angle of the cabin. I had directed him to settle my night’s quarters in a corner close to Miss Raven’s door, and immediately facing the half-dozen steps which led upwards to the deck. At the head of those steps was a door; I had bade him leave it open, so that I might have plenty of air; when he had gone I had extinguished the lamp which swung from the roof. And now, half-sitting, half-lying amongst my cushions and rugs, I faced the patch of sky framed in that open doorway and saw that the night was a clear one and that the heavens were full of glittering stars.
I had just refilled and lighted my pipe before settling down to my vigils, and for a long time I lay there smoking and thinking. My thoughts were somewhat confused — confused, at any rate, to the extent that they ranged over a variety of subjects — our apprehension that afternoon; the queer, almost, if not wholly, eccentric character of Netherfield Baxter; his strange story of the events in the Yellow Sea; his frank avowal of his share in the theft of the monastic spoils; his theory about Noah and Salter Quick, and other matters arising out of these things. The whirl of it all in my anxious brain made me more than once feel disposed to sleep; I realized that in spite of everything, I should sleep unless I kept up a stern determination to remain awake. Everything on board that strange craft was as still as the skies above her decks; I heard no sound whatever save a very gentle lapping of the water against the vessel’s timbers, and, occasionally, the far-off hooting of owls in the woods that overhung the cove; these sounds, of course, were provocative of slumber; I had to keep smoking to prevent myself from dropping into a doze. And perhaps two hours may have gone in this fashion, and it was, I should think, a little after midnight, when I heard, at first far away towards the land, then gradually coming nearer, the light, slow plashing of oars that gently and leisurely rose and fell.
This, of course, was the Frenchman, coming back from his mission to Berwick — he would, I knew, have gone there from the little wayside station that lay beyond the woods at the back of the cove and have returned by a late train to the same place. Somehow — I could not well account for it — the mere fact of his coming back made me nervous and uneasy. I was not so certain about his innocence in the matter of Salter Quick’s murder. On Baxter’s own showing the Frenchman had been hanging about that coast for some little time, just when Salter Quick descended upon it. He, like Baxter, if Baxter’s story were true, was aware that one or other of the Quicks carried those valuable rubies; even if, the York episode being taken for granted, he had not killed Salter Quick himself he might be privy to the doings of some accomplice who had. Anyway, he was a doubtful quantity, and the mere fact that he was back again on that yawl made me more resolved than ever to keep awake and preserve a sharp look-out.
I heard the boat come alongside; I heard steps on the deck just outside my open door; then, Baxter’s voice. Presently, too, I heard other voices — one that of the Frenchman, which I recognised from having heard him speak in the afternoon; the other a soft, gentle, laughing voice — without doubt that of an Eastern. This, of course, would be the Chinese gentleman of whom I had heard — the man who had been seen in company with Baxter and the Frenchman at Hull. So now the three principal actors in this affair were all gathered together, separated from me and Miss Raven by a few planks, and close by were three Chinese of whose qualities I knew nothing. Safe we might be — but we were certainly on the very edge of a hornet’s nest.
I heard the three men talking together in low, subdued tones for a few minutes; then they went along the deck above me and the sound of their steps ceased. But as I lay there in the darkness, two round discs of light suddenly appeared on a mirror which hung on the boarding of the cabin, immediately facing me, and turning my head sharply, I saw that in the bulkhead behind me there were two similar holes, pierced in what was probably a door, which would, no doubt, be sunk flush with the boarding and was possibly the entrance to some other cabin that could be entered from a further part of the deck. Behind that, under a newly-lighted lamp, the three men were now certainly gathered.
I was desperately anxious to know what they were doing — anxious, to the point of nervousness, to know what they looked like, taken in bulk. I could hear them talking in there, still in very low tones, and I would have given much to hear even a few words of their conversation. And after a time of miserable indecision — for I was afraid of doing anything that would lead to suspicion or resentment on their part, and I was by no means sure that I might not be under observation of one of those silky-footed Chinese from the galley — I determined to look through the holes in the door and see whatever was to be seen.
I got out of my wrappings and my corner so noiselessly that I don’t believe anyone actually present in my cabin would have heard even a rustle, and tip-toeing in my stockinged feet across to the bulkhead which separated me from the three men, put an eye to one of the holes. To my great joy, I then found that I could see into the place to which Baxter and his companions had retreated. It was a sort of cabin, rougher in accommodation than that in which I stood, fitted with bunks on three sides and furnished with a table in the center over which swung a lamp. The three men stood round this table, examining some papers — the lamp-light fell full on all three. Baxter stood there in his shirt and trousers; the Frenchman also was half-dressed, as if preparing for rest. But the third man was still as he had come aboard — a little, yellow-faced, dapper, sleek Chinaman, whose smart, velvet-collared overcoat, thrown open, revealed an equally smart dark tweed suit beneath it, and an elegant gold watch-chain festooned across the waistcoat. He was smoking a cigar, just lighted; that it was of a fine brand I could tell by the aroma that floated to me. And on the table before the three stood a whisky bottle, a syphon of mineral water, and glasses, which had evidently just been filled.
Baxter and the Frenchman stood elbow to elbow; the Frenchman held in his hands a number of sheets of paper, foolscap size, to the contents of which he was obviously drawing Baxter’s attention. Presently they turned to a desk which stood in one corner of the place, and Baxter, lifting its lid, produced a big ledger-like book, over which they bent, evidently comparing certain entries in it with the papers in the Frenchman’s hand. What book or papers might be, I of course, knew nothing, for all this was done in silence. But had I known anything, or heard anything, it would have seemed of no significance compared with what I just then saw — a thing that suddenly turned me almost sick with a nameless fear and set me trembling from toe to finger.
The dapper and smug Chinaman, statuesque on one side of the table, immovable save for an occasional puff of his cigar, suddenly shot into silent activity as the two men turned their backs on him and bent, apparently absorbed, over the desk in the corner. Like a flash (it reminded me of the lightning-like movement of a viper) his long, thin fingers went into a waistcoat pocket; like a flash emerged, shot to the glasses on the table and into two of them dropped something small and white — some tabloid or pellet — that sank and dissolved as rapidly as it was put in. It was all over, all done, within, literally, the fraction of a second; when, a moment or two later, Baxter and the Frenchman turned round again, after throwing the ledger-like book and the papers into the desk, their companion was placidly smoking his cigar and sipping the contents of his glass between the whiffs.
I was by that time desperately careless as to whether I might or might not be under observation from the open door and stairway of my own cabin. I remained where I was, my eye glued to that ventilation-hole, watching. For it seemed to me that the Chinaman was purposely drugging his companions, for some insidious purpose of his own — in that case, what of the personal safety of Miss Raven and myself? For one moment I was half-minded to rush round to the other cabin and tell Baxter of what I had just seen — but I reflected that I might possibly bring about there and then an affair of bloodshed and perhaps murder in which there would be four Chinese against three others, one of whom — my miserable self — was not only unarmed, but like enough to be useless in a scene of violence. No — the only thing was to wait, and wait I did, with a thumping heart and tingling nerves, watching.
Nothing happened. Baxter gulped down his drink at a single draught; the Frenchman took his in two leisurely swallows; each flung himself on his bunk, pulled his blankets about him, and, as far as I could see, seemed to fall asleep instantly. But the Chinaman was more deliberate and punctilious. He took his time over his cigar and his whisky; he pulled out a suit-case from some nook or other and produced from it a truly gorgeous sleeping-suit of gaily-striped silk; it occupied him quite twenty minutes to get undressed and into this grandeur, and even then he lingered, fiddling about in carefully folding and arranging his garment. In the course of this, and in moving about the narrow cabin, he took apparently casual glances at Baxter and the Frenchman, and I saw from his satisfied, quiet smirk that each was sound and fast asleep. And then he thrust his feet into a pair of bedroom slippers, as loud in their colouring as his pyjamas, and suddenly turning down the lamp with a twist of his wicked-looking fingers, he glided out of the door into the darkness above. At that I, too, glided swiftly back to my blankets.
CHAPTER XXII
RED DAWN
I HEARD STEPS, soft as snowflakes, go along the deck above me; for an instant they paused by the open door at the head of my stairway; then they went on again and all was silent as before. But in that silence, above the gentle lapping of the water against the side of the yawl, I heard the furious thumping of my own heart — and I did not wonder at it, nor was I then, nor am I now ashamed of the fear that made it thump. Clearly, whatever else it might mean, if Baxter and the Frenchman were, as I surely believed them to be, soundly drugged, Miss Raven and I were at the positive mercy of a pack of Chinese adventurers who would probably stick at nothing.
But my problem — one sufficient to wrack every fibre of my brain — was, what were they after? The Chinese gentleman in the flamboyant pyjamas had without doubt, repaired to his compatriots in the galley, forward: at that moment they were, of course, holding some unholy conference. Were they going to murder Baxter and the Frenchman for the sake of the swag now safely on board? It was possible: I had heard many a tale far less so. No doubt the supreme spirit was a man of subtlety and craft; so, too, most likely was our friend Lo Chuh Fen; the other two would not be wanting. And if, of these other two, Wing, as Miss Raven had confidently surmised and as I thought it possible, was one, then, indeed, there would be brains enough and to spare for the carrying out of any adventure. It seemed to me as I lay there, quaking and sweating in sheer fright — I, a defenceless, quiet, peace-loving gentleman of bookish tastes, who scarcely knew one end of a revolver from the other — that what was likely was that the Chinese were going to round on their English and French associates, collar the loot for themselves, and sail the yawl — Heaven alone knew where! But — in that case, what was going to become of me and my helpless companion? It was not likely that these Easterns would treat us with the consideration which we had received from the queer, eccentric, somewhat muddle-headed Netherfield Baxter, who — it struck me with odd inconsequence at that inopportune moment — was certainly a combination of Dick Turpin, Gil Blas, and Don Quixote.
I suppose it was nearly an hour that passed: it may have been more; it may have been less; what I know is that it gave me some idea of what an accused man may feel who, waiting in a cell below, wonders what the foreman of a jury is going to say when he is called upstairs once more to the dock which he has vacated pending that jury’s deliberations. Once or twice I thought of daring everything, rousing Miss Raven, and attempting an escape by means of the boat which no doubt lay at the side of the yawl. But reflection suggested that so desperate a deed would only mean getting a bullet through me, and perhaps through her as well. Then I speculated on my chances of making a sinuous way along the deck on my hands and knees, or on my stomach, snake-fashion, with the idea of listening at the hatch of the galley — reflection, again, warned me that such an adventure would as likely as not end up with a few inches of cold steel in my side or through my gullet. So there I lay, sweating with fear, rapidly disintegrating as to nerve-power, becoming a lump of moral rag-and-bone — and suddenly, unheralded by the slightest sound, I saw the figure of a man on my stairway, his outline silhouetted against the sky and the stars.
It was not because of any bravery on my part — I am sure of that — but through sheer fright that, before I had the least idea of what I was doing, I had thrown myself clear of rugs and pillows, sprung to my feet, made one frenzied leap across the bit of intervening space and clutched my intruder by his arms before his softly-padded feet touched the floor of the cabin. My own breath was coming in gasps — but the response to my frenzy was quiet and cool as an autumnal afternoon.
