Kitabı oku: «Hurricane Island», sayfa 3

"Oh, nothing much," said I, and glanced at my watch. "I'm sorry, I must see my patient safe for the night. I'll look in again."

I left them and went upstairs, knocking on the boudoir door. Miss Morland opened it.

"Mlle. Châteray is still sleeping," she said formally.

"I will leave a dose with her maid," I replied, "so that if it be necessary it may be given in the night."

"You will, of course, be in attendance if required," she said coldly.

I bowed.

"I am paid for it, madam," I answered, though I must confess to a hostile feeling within my heart.

"I think, then, that is all," she said, and I took my dismissal at the hands of the arrogant beauty with an internal conflict of anger and admiration.

I did not return to Pye, but went to my own cabin in an irritable condition. It ought not to have mattered to me that the sister of a millionaire, my employer, should treat me more or less as a lackey; but it did. I threw myself on my bunk and took down a book at random from my little shelf. Out of its pages tumbled an evening news-sheet which I now remembered to have bought of a screaming boy as I hurried into the dock gates on the previous afternoon. I had not had time to look at it in my various preoccupations, but, after all, it was the last news of my native land I should have for some time, and so I opened it and began the perusal.

It was one of those half-penny journals which seem to combine the maximum of vulgarity with a minimum of news. But I passed over the blatant racing items and murder trials with less than my customary distaste, and was rambling leisurely through the columns when I was arrested by a paragraph and sat up briskly. It was the tail that interested me.

"… It is stated that Prince Frederic is in London. The name of the lady who has so infatuated him is Mlle. Yvonne Trebizond, the well-known prima donna."

I had recalled the name Trebizond during Holgate's talk, and it seemed strange now that this second discovery should fall so coincidently. The face of Mlle. Châteray had taken me back, by a sudden gust of memory, to certain pleasant days in Paris before I was banished to the East End. I had frequented the theatres and the concert-rooms, and I remembered the vivacious singer, a true comédienne, with her pack of tricks and her remarkable individuality. Mlle. Châteray, then, was no other than Yvonne Trebizond, and–

I looked down at the paper and read another sentence, which, ere that illumination, had had no significance, but now was pregnant with it.

"The prince has the full support and sympathy of his sister, Princess Alix."

I rose abruptly. I can keep my own counsel as well as a lawyer's clerk, but I saw no reason in the world for it now. I had left my glass untouched and my cigar unlit in Pye's cabin. I went back forthwith to finish both.

The pair were still seated as if expecting me.

"Patient all right, doctor?" inquired Holgate.

I nodded. "Mr. Pye," I said, "I find my discovery has amplified itself. When I was here it was of small dimensions. Now it has grown to the proportions of a—well, a balloon," I ended.

Both men gazed at me steadily.

"Out with it, man," urged the third officer.

"I have your permission?" I asked the lawyer's clerk, smiling.

"When you have told me what it is, I will tell you," said he, gravely jocose.

I put the paper in Holgate's hands, and pointed to the paragraph. He read it slowly aloud and then looked up.

"Well?" he asked.

"I am going to tell you something which you know," I said, addressing Pye. "The lady in the deck cabin is Mlle. Trebizond."

Holgate started. "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, but Pye was quite silent, only keeping his eyes on me.

"I recognized her, but couldn't name her," I went on. "Now it has come back to me."

"Which means, of course," said Pye unemotionally, "that Mr. Morland is–"

"The Prince," said Holgate with a heavy breath.

Pye resumed his cigarette. "With all these sensations, my dear Holgate," he remarked, "I have forgotten my duty. Perhaps you will help yourself."

Holgate did so. "Good Heavens!" he said again, and then, "I suppose, if you're right, that we carry Cæsar and his fortunes. He has got off with the lady and the plunder."

"The plunder!" I echoed.

He indicated the paragraph, and I read now another sentence which I had overlooked.

"The prince has expressed his intention, according to rumour, of marrying as he chooses, and as he inherits more than a million pounds from his mother, he is in a position to snap his fingers at the Empress. In that case, no doubt, he would follow precedent, and take rank as an ordinary subject."

I looked up at Holgate.

"We carry Cæsar and his fortune," he said with a smiling emphasis on the singular, and then he waved his arm melodramatically. "And to think we are all paupers!" and grinned at me.

"It is inequitable," said I lightly; "it's an unjust distribution of this world's goods," echoing therein his own remark earlier in the evening.

Pye sat still, with an inexpressive face. His admirable silence, however, now ceased.

"So we shall have this gossip all over the ship to-morrow."

"No," said I curtly, for the suggestion annoyed me. "It is nothing to me. I told you because you knew. And I told Mr. Holgate–" I paused.

"Because I'm your chum," said the third officer.

I did not contradict him. I had spoken really out of the excitement of my discovery. Certainly I had not spoken because Holgate was my chum.

CHAPTER IV
An Amazing Proposition

As I had said, it was no business of mine, and, having divulged my news, I was in no haste to go about with it like a common gossip. That Prince Frederic of Hochburg was Mr. Morland, and that Miss Morland was Princess Alix, I was as assured as that I had identified in my patient the well-known Parisian singer Yvonne Trebizond. But, having made the discovery, I promised myself some interest in watching the course of the rumour. It would spread about the ship like fire and would be whispered over taffrails, in galleys, and in stokehole. But, to my surprise, I could observe no signs of this flight of gossip. No one certainly offered me any communication on the subject, and I observed no curiosity and no surprise. The mess conducted itself with equanimity, and nothing was hinted of princes or of emperors, or of mysterious secrets. No facts ever hid themselves so cunningly as these obviously somewhat startling facts, and I wondered at the silence, but still held my tongue.

Mademoiselle continued to give me trouble during the next day, but that was more in the way of unreasonable demands and petulance than through hysteric exhibitions. She did not repeat her request to be landed, which was now quite impracticable, as we were well out in the Atlantic, but she referred to it.

"Where are we, doctor?" she inquired languidly, and I told her; at which she considered. "Well, perhaps it is worth it," she said and smiled at me confidingly.

Of Mr. Morland I saw little, for he was shut in his cabin a great part of the day, reading or writing, and smoking without cessation. And he walked regularly on the hurricane deck with his sister. Once I encountered him in mademoiselle's room, and he nodded.

"She is getting well, doctor; is it not so?" he asked in a pleasant way, and exhibited a tenderness in his words and manner to mademoiselle which I should not have associated with him.

Of his sister I saw even less, except in the distance, but her, too, I met in her friend's room. Mademoiselle was talkative that day, the second of my attendance on her, and spoke of things with a terrifying frankness, sometimes in bad English, but oftener in her own tongue. She rehearsed her sensations during sea-sickness, criticised Miss Morland, and asked me about Barraclough, whom she had seen passing by her window once or twice.

"Sir John," she said, speaking pretty broken English. "Then he is noble. Oh, comme il est gentil, comme il est beau!" and as quickly fell to cross-questioning me on my parentage and history.

It was in the thick of this that Miss Morland made her entrance. I do not know if it be a confession of weak-mindedness, or even of snobbishness (I hope not), but the fact was that since I had discovered Miss Morland's identity I did not judge her coldness and aloofness so hardly. I am disposed to think it was merely a reasonable attitude on my part produced by the knowledge of her circumstances, and what I set down as her trials. She bowed to me, and addressed some words to mademoiselle which, sympathetic in their import, were yet somewhat frigid in tone. Mademoiselle replied laughing:

"You are very good, my dear, but I am progressing. We are sailing into the land of romance and will find what we shall find there."

I lingered beyond what was necessary, and thus it happened that Miss Morland and I left the cabin together. Outside she spoke: "Is there any likelihood of a recurrence of the attack?"

"I don't think so," I answered. "But Mlle. Trebizond is a nervous subject."

It was the look in her eyes that made me suddenly realise my indiscretion. A light flashed in them, almost as if she would have struck me.

"Mlle. Châteray is almost well enough to dispense with a doctor's services," she said with an accent on the name.

"You must allow me to be the judge of that," I replied flushing. She was silent.

"Naturally," she said at last, and turned away.

The newspaper had stated that Princess Alix was sympathetic to her brother's attachment, but was she altogether so? I could not but attribute her coolness and her reticence to some scruple. She walked daily with her brother, and it was evident that she was fond of him, or why was she here? But how much of personal prejudice and of private conviction had she sacrificed on that pious altar?

I was sure that if the news of our passengers were bruited about at all I should hear of it from Lane, who was a gossip at heart; and as he said nothing I knew that Holgate had been silent—why, I could not conceive, unless Pye had gagged him. But in any case it appeared that Holgate also could keep his own counsel and hold his tongue. That he could speak I had yet to realise, as the astonishing narrative I am now approaching demonstrates.

It was the evening of our fifth day out, and the long swell of the Atlantic was washing on our port side, so that the Sea Queen heeled over and dipped her snout as she ran. I had misgivings for my late patient, whom I had not seen for the last thirty-six hours, although she had made an appearance on the hurricane deck in a chair.

Holgate asked me to his cabin with his customary urbanity, saying that he wanted a few words with me. Once the door was shut he settled down on his bunk and lit a cigar.

"Help yourself, doctor," he said.

I declined and remained standing, for I was anxious to get away. He looked at me steadily out of his dark eyes.

"Do you know where we're going, doctor?" he asked.

"No," said I, "but I should be glad to."

"I've just discovered," he replied; "Buenos Ayres."

I told him that I was glad to hear it, as we should run into better weather.

"I couldn't just make up my mind," he went on, "till to-day. But it's pretty plain now, though the old man has not said so. Any fool can see it with the way we're shaping." He puffed for a moment or two and then resumed: "I've been thinking over things a bit, and, if your theory is correct, Mr. Morland is to marry the lady at Buenos Ayres and probably make his home there, or, it may be, in some other part of America. A capital place for losing identity is the States."

I said that it was quite probable.

"But as the yacht's chartered for a year," pursued Holgate evenly, "the odds are that there's to be cruising off and on, may be up the west coast of America, may be the South Seas, or may be Japan. There's a goodly cruise before us, doctor."

"Well, it will be tolerable for us," I answered.

"Just so," he replied, "only tolerable—not eighteen carat, which seems a pity."

"Shall we strike for higher wages?" I asked drily.

"I've been thinking over what you said, doctor," said the third officer, taking no heed of this, "and it's gone home pretty deep. Prince Frederic has cut himself adrift from his past—there's no getting behind that. The Emperor has thrown him up, and there's no one outside a penny-a-liner cares two pinches for him or what becomes of him. He's done with. The Chancelleries of Europe won't waste their time on him. He's negligible."

"Well?" said I, for I was not in the mood for a political discussion.

"Well, suppose he never turned up?" said Holgate, and leaned back and stared at me.

"I don't understand," said I. "I don't suppose he will turn up. As you say, he's done for."

"I mean that the ship might founder," said Holgate, still holding me with his eye.

I was perplexed, and seeing it, he laughed.

"Let us make no bones about it," he said, laying down his cigar. "Here's a discarded prince whom no one wants, sailing for no one knows where, with his fortune on board and no one responsible for him. Do you take me now?"

"I'm hanged if I do," I replied testily, for indeed I had no thought of what the man was driving at. But here it came out with a burst.

"Doctor, all this is in our hands. We can do what we will. We're masters of the situation."

I opened my mouth and stared at him. The broad swarthy face loomed like a menace in the uncertain light before us. It was dark; it was inscrutable; a heavy resolution was marked in that thick neck, low brow, and salient chin. We eyed each other in silence.

"But this is monstrous," I said with a little laugh. "You have not brought me here for a silly jest?"

"It's God's truth I haven't, doctor," he replied earnestly. "I mean what I say. See, the prince carries away a million, and if the prince disappears the million belongs to those who can find it. Now, we don't want any truck with dismounted princes. We're playing for our own hand. I know you take sensible views on these matters. I admit it makes one blink a bit at first, but stick on to the idea, turn it round, and you'll get used to it. It spells a good deal to poor devils like you and me."

"You must be mad," I said angrily, "or–" He interrupted me.

"That's not my line. I'm in dead sober earnest. You hold on to the notion, and you'll come round to it. It's a bit steep at first to the eye. But you hang on to it like a sensible man."

"Good Heavens, man," said I, "are you plotting murder?"

"I never mentioned that," he said in another voice. "There are several ways. It don't do to take more risks than you want. A ship can be cast away, and parties can be separated, and one party can make sure of the boodle. See?"

"I only see that you're an infernal ruffian," I replied hotly.

His countenance did not change. "Hang on to it," he said, and I could have laughed in his face at the preposterous suggestion. "You'll warm to it by degrees."

"You are asking me to join in wholesale robbery at the least?" I said, still angrily struggling with my stupor.

"I am," he answered, and he leaned forward. "D'you think I'm entering on this game wildly? Not I. I mean to carry it out. Do you suppose I haven't laid my plans? Why, more than half the men are mine. I saw to that. It was I got 'em." He placed a large hand on my shoulder and his eyes gleamed diabolically in his set face. "They'll do my bidding. I command here, sir, and damn your Captain Day. I'll take 'em to Hell if I want to." I shook off his hand roughly.

"I may tell you," I said in as cool a tone as I could assume, "that I am going straight on deck to the captain to retail this conversation. You have, therefore, probably about ten minutes left you for reflection, which I hope will bring you consolation."

Holgate got up, and without undue haste threw open the large port, through which streamed the clamour of the water.

"I guess I've misunderstood you," said he quietly, "and it isn't often I make a mistake." He lifted his lip in a grin, and I could see a horrid tier of teeth, which seemed to have grown together like concrete in one huge fang. "It is in my power, Dr. Phillimore, to blow your brains out here and now. The noise of the sea would cover the report," and he fingered a pistol that now I perceived in his hand. "Outside yonder is a grave that tells no tales. The dead rise up never from the sea, by thunder! And the port's open. I'm half in the mind–" He threw the weapon carelessly upon the bunk and laughed. "Look you, that's how I value you. You are mighty conscientious, doctor, but you have no value. You're just the ordinary, respectable, out-of-elbows crock that peoples that island over yonder. You are good neither for good nor ill. A crew of you wouldn't put a knot on a boat. So that's how I value you. If you won't do my work one way you shall another. I'll have my value out of you some way, if only to pay back my self-respect. You're safe from pistol and shark. Go, and do what you will. I'll wait for you and lay for you, chummie."

I stood listening to this remarkable tirade, which was offered in a voice by no means angry, but even something contemptuous, and without a word I left him. I went, as I had promised, at once to the captain, whom I found in his cabin with a volume of De Quincey.

"Well, doctor," said he, laying down the book, "anything amiss? Your face is portentous."

"Yes, sir," I answered. He motioned me to a chair, and waited. "I suppose you're aware, sir, that you have on board Prince Frederic of Hochburg and his sister," I began.

"Indeed, I'm nothing of the sort," said he sharply. "What on earth is this nonsense?"

If I had not had such important information to lay before him I might have been abashed. As it was, I proceeded.

"Well, sir, it's a fact. Mr. Morland is the prince. I have known it some days, and would have held my tongue but for imperative necessity. Mr. Pye knows it, and Mr. Holgate."

"This is most astounding," he began, and paced nervously about the cabin.

"I say Mr. Holgate because I come about him," I pursued. "He has just made the most shameless and barefaced proposal, which amounts to a plot to wreck the ship and make off with the prince's property, which is supposed to amount to a great deal."

Captain Day sat down heavily. "Upon my soul, Dr. Phillimore," he said, "I shall begin to ask myself whether it is you or I who is mad."

"That is exactly the sort of question I asked myself a few minutes ago," I replied. "And I've been able to answer it only on the supposition that your third officer is an amazing scoundrel."

There was the pause of some moments, during which he studied my face, and at last he went to the bell.

"Very well," he said more calmly, "we can settle it one way, I suppose." And when the steward appeared, "Ask Mr. Holgate to come to me at once."

He sat down again, fidgeted with his book, opened it, endeavoured to read, and glanced at me in a perplexed fashion, as if he distrusted his eyesight; and so we remained without a word until a knock announced some one at the door, and the next moment Holgate, large, placid and respectful, was in the cabin.

"Mr. Holgate," said Captain Day in his most particular voice, "I have just heard the most remarkable statement by Dr. Phillimore. Perhaps you will be good enough to repeat it, Dr. Phillimore," and he glanced askew at me.

I did so bluntly. "This man," I said, "has proposed to me within the last ten minutes that I should join a plot to cast away the ship and seize the property of—of Mr. Morland."

Day looked at his third officer. "You hear, Mr. Holgate?" he said. "What have you to say?"

A broad smile passed over Holgate's fat face. "Yes, sir," he said coolly, "it is just as Dr. Phillimore says, but the whole thing was a mere spoof."

"I should be glad if you would explain," said Day icily.

"Well, the doctor's not exactly correct," said Holgate, still smiling, and he had the vast impudence to smile at me. "For what I proposed was to seize the property of Prince Frederic of Hochburg, I think it is."

"Ah!" said Day, letting the exclamation escape softly through his lips, and he cast his nervous glance at me.

"You see, sir, the doctor has got some cock-and-bull tale into his head," went on Holgate easily, "about Mr. Morland being Prince Frederic, and the ladies I don't know whom, and so I suggested that, that being so, we should take care of the prince's millions for him, and get a tidy sum all round. I daresay it wasn't a very funny joke; indeed, I thought he would have seen through it all along. But I suppose he didn't. The doctor's rather serious."

I started up. "Captain Day," said I, "this man lies. The proposal was serious enough, and he knows it. Mr. Morland is Prince Frederic. I should advise you to ask Mr. Pye."

"So be it," said Day, with a gesture of helplessness, and thus Pye was summoned to the strange conclave. Day took up his book again. "Pray sit down, Mr. Holgate," he said politely; "this is not the criminal dock yet," which seemed to augur badly for my case.

The little clerk, on entering, fixed his glasses on his nose more firmly with two fingers and cast an inquisitive look at us.

"Mr. Pye," said the captain, in his impeccable distant voice, "I am informed that Mr. Morland is not Mr. Morland, but some one else, and I have been referred to you. Is this so?"

Pye glanced at me. "Mr. Morland is the name of the gentleman for whom my firm is acting," he said suavely.

"And not any one else?" said Day.

"Not according to my knowledge," said the clerk.

"Not according to his instructions, sir," I burst out indignantly. "He knows the facts, I'm certain. And if not, I can prove my point readily enough."

"The point is," said Day drily, "whether Mr. Holgate is guilty of the extraordinary charge you have preferred."

"Well, sir, it is material that I acquainted him with the identity of Mr. Morland in Mr. Pye's presence," I replied hotly, feeling my ground moving from under me.

Day looked at Pye. "That is true, sir," said the clerk. "Dr. Phillimore stated in my presence that he had discovered that Mr. Morland was—I think he said Prince Frederic of Hochburg."

Day was silent. "I think this is pretty much a mare's nest," said he presently, "and I really don't know why I should have been bothered with it."

I was furious with Pye and his idea (as I conceived it) of legal discretion.

"Very well, sir," said I somewhat sullenly, and turned to go, when the door of the cabin opened and there entered Sir John Barraclough with his customary insouciance.

"It seems, Sir John," said Day, in his ironic tones, "that not only have I the honour of a distinguished baronet as first officer, but also a prince as cargo."

There was, as I had gathered, little love between the captain and his first officer. Barraclough laughed.

"Oh, you've just tumbled to it," he said. "I wonder how. But it was bound to leak out some time."

I never saw a man more astonished than Day. He leapt to his feet.

"Good God!" he said. "I seem to be the only one who doesn't know what's going on in my ship. Is this part of the jest?"

Barraclough in his turn showed surprise, but it was Holgate spoke.

"Is it true, Sir John? It can't be true," he cried, opening his mouth so that the horrid tooth demonstrated itself.

Barraclough looked at Pye, who was mum. "I suppose this gentleman is responsible for the news," he said.

"No, sir, I have said nothing," retorted Pye.

"I can't pretend to judge other professions than my own," said the captain stormily, "but I'm inclined to think I might have been taken into the confidence. Think where it places me. Heavens, man, what am I in my ship?"

"I think the—Mr. Morland perhaps had better answer that question," suggested Barraclough with a little sneer. Day moved some papers with a hand that trembled.

"That will do then," he said shortly. "Good evening, gentlemen. I've no desire to detain you any longer."

"But–" said I.

"Silence, Dr. Phillimore. I command this ship," he cried angrily, "or at least I'm supposed to. You can settle your differences with Mr. Holgate elsewhere."

I shrugged my shoulders and left the cabin, a very angry man. In his vanity the fool had refused to consider my charge. And, yet, when I looked at this business more deliberately and from a little distance, I could not deny that Day had some excuse. Holgate's story was remarkably natural. The captain would judge of the third officer's incredulity by his own, and would be therefore willing to accept the story of the "spoof." But then he had not seen Holgate's face, and he had not heard Holgate.

Even I was staggered by the turn things had taken, though infuriated by my treatment. And it did me no good to see Holgate's face smiling at me as I went down the gangway.

"Oh, doctor, doctor, are you a Scotchman?" he whispered; at which I would have turned on him savagely, but held myself in and passed on and was silent. I have always found the value of caution.