Kitabı oku: «Clutterbuck's Treasure», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XXXI
THE ELDER MAKES A GOOD BARGAIN, AND
MICHAIL A POOR ONE

"What does he mean?" I growled. "Where's the portrait?"

Jack looked in the boxes, and turned the letter round; there was no sign of a drawing or of anything connected with portraiture.

I walked up to the elder's cupboard and looked in. Besides the teacups and other domestic treasures there was a tin case, in size about one foot by nine inches. I took this without permission from the elder, who had disappeared after Michail. I opened it.

Sure enough, it was a portrait of old Clutterbuck—the vilest that could be conceived, but still recognisable. The old man could never, I should say, have laid claim to good looks; but the "pavement artist" had scarcely done him justice; he had, in fact, represented his client as so repulsively hideous that the lowest criminal would probably have reconsidered his position and turned over a new leaf if informed that he possessed a face like this of poor maligned Clutterbuck.

"By George!" said Jack, "the old chap couldn't have been very vain to bequeath such a thing as that to his heirs. What a terrible specimen he must have been! Was he like this thing?"

"He wasn't as bad as that," I replied. I felt that I had a grievance against the man, and I was not inclined to give him more than the barest justice; but I was bound to admit this much.

"I'm glad to hear it," said Jack; "for if he had been, I think I should have lost my faith in the bonâ fides of his letters and of the whole thing. That pavement artist ought to have been hanged, and his body danced on. What, in Heavens name, did the old man want to leave you a thing like that for? Why couldn't he get himself photographed if he was sentimentally anxious that his heirs should possess his portrait?"

Jack laughed; I could not help joining in. It was really rather funny; and the more one looked at the picture the more one felt inclined to laugh. The artist was evidently not ashamed of his work, for he had painted his name in full at the foot of it, "Thomas Abraham Tibbett," bless him! I know his name well—I read it every day of my life, for his masterpiece hangs over my washstand, and I look at it whenever I feel low in spirits and think that a little T. A. Tibbett will do me good.

"What a merciful dispensation that one can't see his eyes, or, rather, that they are looking downwards and don't follow you about as they do in some portraits that are not by pavement artists," said Jack. "Look at them; there'd be a lifetime of nightmares in a pair of eyes like those, if they happened to be looking up."

I have often thought how true this was, and have rejoiced that the artist of the pavement mistrusted his skill and made the eyes as he did; but for my joy there are more reasons than now appear.

Michail and the elder were outside when we left the house. I think they were conspiring against us; no violence, or anything of that sort—a mere conspiracy of roubles. Michail desired a solatium for the kicks he had received from me; the elder grieved because he had delivered up his tin box, under the influence of fear, without pecuniary equivalent.

Both were sulky and uncommunicative, or perhaps assumed sulkiness for their own ends. The only information that we could obtain from Michail, in reply to our requests that he would inquire of the elder where and how he found the tin boxes, was that Kuzmá was going to sail across to Narva to give evidence against the Swede who had shot him.

"What has that to do with it?" said Jack.

Michail grinned and scratched his head, and said something in Russian to the elder, who did likewise and cleaned up his mouth with the back of his hand besides.

"Well?" said Jack; "go on!"

"The other great lord kicked me in a painful manner!" continued Michail, placing his hand near the afflicted part.

"He will kick you again in a still more painful manner," said Jack, "if you don't explain yourself."

"There is plenty of good vodka at Narva," said Michail, "forty, fifty, or sixty copeks the bottle, or two-forty for a vedro." (A vedro contains, approximately, a gallon.)

"Oh, I see," said Jack. "All right, sonny, you shall be healed, don't fear; and the other fellow too, but ask him about the boxes first!"

"Tea-money first!" said Michail. "Alexander says the little box is worth five roubles and the big one ten. At Narva, if I complained against the merciful gentleman for kicking me, he would be detained and fined. A gallon of vodka and twenty roubles is my price for being kicked by the honourable lord."

"Kicked how many times?" said Jack. "For that sum we shall certainly kick you round the island, my friend. The police at Narva will fine as much for one kick as for thirty. We shall take all our kicks, remember!"

Michail decided not to go to Narva, and to charge me for the original kicking only—the price of which was fixed at a vedro of vodka, to be brought back from Narva by Kuzmá, and one rouble.

As for the elder, we paid him for the tin boxes, for, after all, they were treasure-trove, and might prove to be very much more valuable to us than the price asked.

This little matter being satisfactorily settled, Alexander the elder deigned to inform us how he came by the property.

This, he said, was a very simple matter. He had had the things five years, keeping them because he felt sure someone would arrive one day to find them. Five years ago an old Englishman had come on the island, all alone, to seek rare flowers and plants, as he informed everyone through a pilot at the lighthouse, since departed, who spoke English.

The elder had watched the old man's botanical researches, and saw him collect a number of roots of "brusnika and other rubbish," and saw him also plant four posts in the wood, digging holes for each and putting them in and piling earth to keep them steady. Then he had dug a fifth hole, somewhere near, and buried these boxes in it, laughing and jabbering to himself, said the elder, like a madman. The rest was very simple. Old Clutterbuck sailed away in the English steamer that stopped to pick him up, and the elder quickly went and dug up the boxes, hoping to find cash, but discovering nothing more valuable than a letter he could not read. He had thought of destroying both this and "the picture of the devil," as he called old Clutterbuck's portrait, but had taken the wiser course of preserving both in case someone to whom they were not valueless should come to find them.

When Strong arrived and commenced his digging operations, the elder hoped that his opportunity had dawned; but Strong proved to be a madman with whom it was impossible to enter into negotiations.

The rest, of course, we knew.

Were we really on the road to success at last? At all events, Jack and I had the grace to admit that we had enjoyed fairly good luck after all, supposing that the letter was actually the passport to wealth which it purported to be. If the elder had destroyed it we should never have got any farther than Hogland in our researches! As for the picture, he might have done what he liked with that, we thought; though, since it seemed to be the desire of the testator that we should keep it, we piously determined to do so.

So that here we were with our object attained, or attained so far as it was possible to attain it, and with another week or so on our hands to be spent on this island before the steamer could be expected to return and fetch us away. What was to be done, and how should the time be spent?

There was fishing, and there was wandering about with our shot guns, in hopes of picking up a few grouse or other game which might be met with in the moorland and woods which covered the island. But the elder made a tempting suggestion which we caught at, though we did not anticipate much result from his idea.

There were three wolves on the island, he said, half-starved and rather savage. They lived here because they could not return to the mainland, whence they had come in the days of ice, last February or March. If we liked to pay for a sheep, he would kill one and lay it down as a decoy. On the third night, if we passed the hours of darkness in a tree over the spot, we should probably have an opportunity of shooting the brutes, and a good thing too; and it was in consideration of this fact that the elder would let us have a sheep for a merely nominal sum—fifteen roubles.

We agreed to pay this sum, so the sheep fell a victim, and was laid to rest not in but upon the earth beneath a tree.

Meanwhile the wounded Kuzmá was about to sail for the mainland in order to bring up his bandaged arm in testimony against James Strong, and the question arose whether Jack and I were not bound to accompany him in order to do what we could to ensure a fair trial to a fellow-countryman in distress.

He had done his best to murder us more than once, true. He had also foully done to death his own cousin, the younger Clutterbuck; and he had only failed to shoot down three innocent Russian peasants because one of the three had had the cleverness to knock him on the head before his purpose was half accomplished.

Yet, for all his crimes, we felt compunction about allowing him to pass, friendless and helpless, into the hands of those who are ever ready, as Englishmen (who know nothing about it) invariably believe, to draft their victims away to Siberia whether guilty or innocent. He deserved "Siberia," whatever that name may imply, as thoroughly as any rascal; but, somehow, though neither of us would have moved a finger to save his neck had it been in danger at the hands of an English hangman, yet we felt inexplicably averse to permitting Russians to have the twisting of it.

Why this was so I do not attempt to explain—it is a psychological problem which I leave to other heads to solve; all I know, is that it was only the sturdy good sense of Jack Henderson that prevented me from stepping on board his fishing-lugger with Kuzmá, and another peasant, and sailing away to Narva to make a quixotic fool of myself in defence of the indefensible James Strong.

CHAPTER XXXII
WE RECEIVE A TERRIBLE SHOCK

As it was, we contented ourselves with sending a letter to the British Consul there (supposing that there existed such a functionary), exhorting him to use his influence to obtain a fair trial for the rogue called James Strong, and to see that he was not sent to Siberia without good and sufficient cause shown.

"Great Jupiter!" said Jack, when he had read over my letter. "Why, man, we have evidence enough to send the fellow to Siberia, or to the next world for that matter, half a dozen times over!"

So we had, of course.

"And I'll tell you what, Peter!" continued Jack, "it will serve us well right, when we've got the rascal out of his scrape by our confounded meddling, if he turns up just in time to snatch the treasure out of your fingers at the very last minute. What'll you do if he shows up at Streatham and claims the right to dig with you, neck and neck for the last lap?"

"Oh, come," I said, "that's quite a different thing! I should let him hang in England, fast enough, but it's unpleasant to think of Russians stringing the poor beggar up far away from friends and country!"

Doubtless Jack agreed with me, for he took no steps to prevent the despatch of my letter. But it has since struck me that it is, after all, very doubtful whether the proximity of "friends and country" would have comforted Strong much if he had had the rope round his neck, even an English rope.

What with fishing all day and sitting shivering in pine trees all night (like a couple of frozen-out sedge-warblers, as Jack picturesquely expressed it), we contrived to pass away the time for the best part of a week, and then Kuzmá arrived, having prepared for us a surprise which for absolute breathless unexpectedness undoubtedly broke the record in so far as my own limited experience went, or Henderson's either!

Michail came running up to the moor where Jack and I were busily engaged in trying to induce a covey of grouse to allow us within range of our guns, and imparted the exciting information that Kuzmá's boat was in sight.

At the news Jack and I gladly conceded the honours of war to our covey of grouse and hastened down to the shore to see Kuzmá's boat, for it had come to this, that we were so very hard up for excitement on this island that we would have gone miles to see anything or nothing.

"There are three men on board," said Jack, as the boat came nearer, running straight for the shore before a fresh breeze. "I suppose they've brought a police officer along to make inquiries on the spot."

"I hope he won't ask us to go to Narva as witnesses!" I laughed. "That would be a bad look-out for poor Strong, Jack, eh?"

Jack was gazing at the boat as it neared the land; I gazed too, watching the jolly little craft cut the water into an endless V as it flew scudding towards us, as though rejoiced at the prospect of getting home.

"Peter," said Jack presently, "look at the fellow in the bows; he's got his head round this way. If I were not absolutely certain that such a thing were impossible, I should say it was James Strong."

"What?" I shrieked, "which? where?" I stared at the man; it was Strong, there could not be a doubt of it—there was no mistaking his face, even at this distance.

"Good gracious! Jack, what are we to do?" I said, trembling at the knees like any coward. "Heaven help us, what will happen now?" I added. My nerve seemed to have taken to itself wings at the sight of James Strong!

"Why, what's the matter, man?" said Jack. "It's a mystery to me how the fellow happens to be in that boat, but you may take your oath that he's pretty harmless as far as we are concerned; he won't catch us napping again, if we have to watch him all day and night till the steamer comes!"

I recovered presently, and called myself many evil names for yielding to a craven instinct at sight of this ill-omened person. I was not really afraid of the fellow; it was the unexpected that upset me—it always does.

As a matter of fact, there was little to be afraid of in the wretched man. It was not the James Strong whom we had known in Africa that landed among us that afternoon in Hogland. It was a poor, broken-spirited, hopeless creature that raised his arms with a cry of despair at seeing us, and hid his face and trembled and refused to leave the boat when Kuzmá and others beached it and ran it, with him still seated in the bows, up the shore. I felt quite sorry for the terrified wretch.

"Well, James Strong," said Jack, "this is an unexpected meeting, after all that has passed! How come you here, pray?"

"I didn't expect to find you on the island," said Strong. "Oh, curse my luck!" he added, in a wailing tone which changed into one of sudden ferocity as his eye fell upon Jack, who was laughing at him.

"Yes, it is poor luck for you, I admit," said the latter, "but, if it is any comfort for you to know it, you would have been too late in any case, for we have got all there was to find."

"I don't believe a word of it," said Strong.

"And what's more," continued Jack, ignoring Strong's remark, "the elder had it all the while, and would have given it to you if you hadn't shot at him. So you see what comes of evil temper, James Strong. Now, if you had not shot poor Clutterbuck, and tried to murder my friend and me, you might have followed us to England, and perhaps, even yet, have robbed us of our possessions. As it is, you see, if you come to England you will certainly hang!"

James Strong swore one of his vile oaths and spluttered there was no proof. Who was going to believe our lies? It was much more probable that we had shot Clutterbuck than he, and any jury of Englishmen would see that the whole yarn was a foul conspiracy. Then he changed his tone and whimpered, and said he had passed a miserable fortnight in the Russian prison in Narva, and beseeched us, if we were men and Englishmen, to help him escape to England and thence anywhere we pleased. The Narva police would be after him by to-morrow for a certainty, even if these Russian fiends did not carry him back and deliver him up.

"Tell us your story, with as few lies as you can put into it," said Jack, "and we'll think what's best to be done with you."

CHAPTER XXXIII
HOW STRONG ESCAPED FROM PRISON

"You're such an infernal blackguard, you see, Strong," continued Jack, with engaging candour, "that one must be very careful in dealing with a man like yourself. It seems to me that it's Siberia or the gibbet, my friend; and upon my word, I don't quite know which to advise in your best interests. Tell us what happened at Narva."

James Strong was considerably cowed by his experiences, and obeyed without further demur. Undoubtedly, his tale was full of untruth, but as he gave it to us I will pass it on to the reader. We were able to learn a truer version subsequently.

Strong declared that he had been taken to Narva by the fishermen, having been bound by them while still unconscious from the effects of a blow on the head from Gavril's staff. At Narva he was thrust into a miserable prison or police cell, where he was interrogated by persons who could not understand him, nor he them. A Swedish interpreter was brought, and Strong was knocked about and bullied because he protested that he could understand Swedish no better than Russian. He repeated the word "English" in hopes that an English interpreter would be produced, but none appeared. He was half starved and atrociously bullied by Russian policemen, and so the time passed until the witness Kuzmá came to give evidence against him. At the trial the English Consul came and spoke for him (this was in consequence of our letter, no doubt), but he was taken back to his cell, the Consul informing him that he could do nothing to save him from the consequences of his violence. He would probably be convicted of attempted murder and deported to Siberia.

That night was celebrated, Strong explained, some Russian church holiday, and everyone was drunk or half drunk. He succeeded in escaping from the wooden building in which he was confined, and in finding his way down by the river to the port, securing a small boat, which proved to be rotten and to leak vilely, in which he put out to sea; he hoped to get away and finally return somehow to Hogland, where he might even yet find the treasure before we arrived, and escape with it on the first steamer that passed.

"You can't blame me for that," interposed Strong at this point. "I had as much right to the treasure as you, if I could find it first."

"Oh, quite so, Strong," said Jack. "We don't always approve of some of your methods—as, for instance, of your attempts to remove us out of the way, us and poor Clutterbuck—but we never denied your right to compete. Proceed. Whom did you murder, and how, in order to escape from your cell?"

"You never give me a chance, curse you!" said Strong, looking livid with rage. "I have never killed a human creature. Clutterbuck fell down a nullah and broke his neck. I shot wide of you on purpose—it was necessary to frighten you off—and these fellows too. Did I murder one of them or one of you?"

"What about my leg, Strong? you infernal lying blackguard!" I said.

"I was bound to keep you back how I could," he cried hotly; "I am sorry I hurt you, but that's not murder, and you know it."

"I know it was meant to be," I said.

"It was not," he cried; "I fired wide on purpose. One doesn't hit a man in the leg if one means killing."

"Oh, come, Strong; you are a poor shot, you know, at the best!" said Jack. "We don't forget Graciosa! Go on with your story."

"Oh, curse Graciosa, and you too!" said Strong surlily, and not another word could we get out of him at this time.

But Kuzmá told us the rest of it—that is to say, from the point at which Strong left off—though we only heard the true version of his escape from Narva at a later date, and from another source.

Kuzmá returning to Hogland in his fishing-boat, had seen in the distance, when about an hour out from Narva, a small craft occupied by one man, who seemed to be in difficulties, since he shouted and gesticulated.

As Kuzmá and his companion consulted whether to head for the small boat in order to offer assistance, they suddenly observed that the vessel had disappeared. Sailing up to the place where it had sunk they had come upon a man swimming, whom they did not recognise for Strong until they had pulled him on board.

When they did recognise him, said Kuzmá, they were for pitching him back into the sea; but Strong had a knife, and looked so dangerous, that they thought it wiser to bring him along, which they did. They knew nothing of his escape or anything else, excepting that they fully intended to make a little money out of the job, presently, by restoring him to the authorities, and claiming a gratuity.

Had they known more, they would probably have smashed in his head with an oar, and pitched him back into the gulf. Cash rewards are very, very pleasant things; but under some circumstances Kuzmá would have felt even greater satisfaction in smashing a head than in earning money by preserving it whole for others to smash!

On the following day we might fairly begin to look out for the return of our good steamship the Thomas Wilcox, and it became necessary to settle something as to James Strong and his fate.

The Russians, Kuzmá and his friends, being aggrieved parties, and also interested in a pecuniary way in returning the prisoner to his bonds, were naturally all for conveying him back to Narva under strong escort; but this James Strong besought us with tears and piteous entreaties at all hazards to disallow. He would assuredly be sent to Siberia or starved or flogged to death, he protested; nothing could save him. "For the love of Heaven," he begged us, "let me sail with you from this accursed place."

"But I can't, we can't do it, as honest men!" said Jack, in some perplexity for the wretched fellow. "Don't you see, man, that if you set foot in England we are bound to denounce you?"

"Then land me at Copenhagen," said Strong, "or anywhere."

"But you'll take the first steamer on to Hull, and the difficulties will all begin again," said I.

"I won't—I swear it!" he cried. "I'll sign anything you like."

Jack and I held a consultation over this knotty question. No doubt it will be said that our duty was obviously either to abandon the miscreant to these poor fellows, whom he had deeply aggrieved, and who would restore him into the hands of those who would try him; or else to take him to England ourselves, and arraign him there.

And yet, stern and judicial reader of these lines, we felt that either course would be equally repugnant to us. We could not allow these Russians to have their will of the fellow; how did we know that they would not knock him on the head, without trial, so soon as we were afloat? As for taking him to England and accusing him of murder, fully as we believed him guilty, we were without absolute proof, and the work of establishing a case against him was not an enterprise we cared to undertake.

In the end we decided to buy the man off from these islanders for the sum of one hundred roubles, which they gladly accepted, and to allow him to accompany us as far as Copenhagen, where he should land. In consideration, therefore, of a signed statement from him that he was guiltless of the murder of Clutterbuck, who, he solemnly declared, had fallen in fair fight during a struggle for the revolver, which had exploded and killed Clutterbuck on the spot; in consideration, I say, of a declaration to this effect, Jack and I both undertook to leave Strong unmolested so long as he did not cross our path in England. So sure as he ever came near us again, for good or ill, he should be denounced by us without further compunction.