him in that
crowded life-boat. The coxswain stoops over Cloete and
cries: Did you hear what the mate said, sir? . . . Cloete's face
feels as if it were set in
plaster, lips and all. Yes, I did, he
forces himself to answer. The coxswain waits a moment, then says:
I don't like it. . . And he turns to the mate, telling him it was a
pity he did not try to run along the deck and hurry up the captain
when the lull came. Stafford answers at once that he did think of
it, only he was afraid of
missing him on the deck in the dark.
For, says he, the captain might have got over at once, thinking I
was already in the life-boat, and you would have hauled off
perhaps, leaving me behind. . . True enough, says the coxswain. A
minute or so passes. This won't do, mutters the coxswain.
Suddenly Stafford speaks up in a sort of hollow voice: I was by
when he told Mr. Cloete here that he didn't know how he would ever
have the courage to leave the old ship; didn't he, now? . . . And
Cloete feels his arm being gripped quietly in the dark. . . Didn't
he now? We were
standing together just before you went over, Mr.
Cloete? . . .
"Just then the coxswain cries out: I'm going on board to see. . .
Cloete tears his arm away: I am going with you. . .
"When they get
aboard, the coxswain tells Cloete to go aft along
one side of the ship and he would go along the other so as not to
miss the captain. . . And feel about with your hands, too, says he;
he might have fallen and be lying
insensible somewhere on the deck.
. . When Cloete gets at last to the cabin
companion on the poop the
coxswain is already there, peering down and sniffing. I
detect a
smell of smoke down there, says he. And he yells: Are you there,
sir? . . . This is not a case for shouting, says Cloete, feeling
his heart go stony, as it were. . . Down they go. Pitch dark; the
inclination so sharp that the coxswain, groping his way into the
captain's room, slips and goes tumbling down. Cloete hears him cry
out as though he had hurt himself, and asks what's the matter. And
the coxswain answers quietly that he had fallen on the captain,
lying there
insensible. Cloete without a word begins to grope all
over the
shelves for a box of matches, finds one, and strikes a
light. He sees the coxswain in his cork
jacket kneeling over
Captain Harry. . . Blood, says the coxswain, looking up, and the
match goes out. . .
"Wait a bit, says Cloete; I'll make paper spills. . . He had felt
the back of books on the
shelves. And so he stands
lighting one
spill from another while the coxswain turns poor Captain Harry
over. Dead, he says. Shot through the heart. Here's the
revolver. . . He hands it up to Cloete, who looks at it before
putting it in his pocket, and sees a plate on the butt with H.
DUNBAR on it. . . His own, he mutters. . . Whose else
revolver did
you expect to find? snaps the coxswain. And look, he took off his
long oilskin in the cabin before he went in. But what's this lot
of burnt paper? What could he want to burn the ship's papers for?
. . .
Cloete sees all, the little
drawers drawn out, and asks the
coxswain to look well into them. . . There's nothing, says the man.
Cleaned out. Seems to have pulled out all he could lay his hands
on and set fire to the lot. Mad - that's what it is - went mad.
And now he's dead. You'll have to break it to his wife. . .
"I feel as if I were going mad myself, says Cloete, suddenly, and
the coxswain begs him for God's sake to pull himself together, and
drags him away from the cabin. They had to leave the body, and as
it was they were just in time before a
furioussquall came on.
Cloete is dragged into the life-boat and the coxswain tumbles in.
Haul away on the grapnel, he shouts; the captain has shot himself.
. .
"Cloete was like a dead man - didn't care for anything. He let
that Stafford pinch his arm twice without making a sign. Most of
Westport was on the old pier to see the men out of the life-boat,
and at first there was a sort of confused
cheeryuproar when she
came
alongside; but after the coxswain has shouted something the
voices die out, and everybody is very quiet. As soon as Cloete has
set foot on something firm he becomes himself again. The coxswain
shakes hands with him: Poor woman, poor woman, I'd rather you had
the job than I. . .
"Where's the mate?" asks Cloete. He's the last man who spoke to
the master. . . Somebody ran along - the crew were being taken to
the Mission Hall, where there was a fire and shake-downs ready for
them - somebody ran along the pier and caught up with Stafford. . .
Here! The owner's agent wants you. . . Cloete tucks the fellow's
arm under his own and walks away with him to the left, where the
fishing-harbour is. . . I suppose I haven't misunderstood you. You
wish me to look after you a bit, says he. The other hangs on him
rather limp, but gives a nasty little laugh: You had better, he
mumbles; but mind, no tricks; no tricks, Mr. Cloete; we are on land
now.
"There's a police office within fifty yards from here, says Cloete.
He turns into a little public house, pushes Stafford along the
passage. The
landlord runs out of the bar. . . This is the mate of
the ship on the rocks, Cloete explains; I wish you would take care
of him a bit to-night. . . What's the matter with him? asks the
man. Stafford leans against the wall in the passage, looking
ghastly. And Cloete says it's nothing - done up, of course. . . I
will be
responsible for the expense; I am the owner's agent. I'll
be round in an hour or two to see him.
And Cloete gets back to the hotel. The news had travelled there
already, and the first thing he sees is George outside the door as
white as a sheet
waiting for him. Cloete just gives him a nod and
they go in. Mrs. Harry stands at the head of the stairs, and, when
she sees only these two coming up, flings her arms above her head
and runs into her room. Nobody had dared tell her, but not seeing
her husband was enough. Cloete hears an awful
shriek. . . Go to
her, he says to George.
"While he's alone in the private parlour Cloete drinks a glass of
brandy and thinks it all out. Then George comes in. . . The
landlady's with her, he says. And he begins to walk up and down
the room, flinging his arms about and talking, disconnected like,
his face set hard as Cloete has never seen it before. . . What must
be, must be. Dead - only brother. Well, dead - his troubles over.
But we are living, he says to Cloete; and I suppose, says he,
glaring at him with hot, dry eyes, that you won't forget to wire in
the morning to your friend that we are coming in for certain. . .
"Meaning the patent-medicine fellow. . . Death is death and
business is business, George goes on; and look - my hands are
clean, he says, showing them to Cloete. Cloete thinks: He's going
crazy. He catches hold of him by the shoulders and begins to shake
him: Damn you - if you had had the sense to know what to say to
your brother, if you had had the spunk to speak to him at all, you
moral creature you, he would be alive now, he shouts.
"At this George stares, then bursts out
weeping with a great
bellow. He throws himself on the couch, buries his face in a
cushion, and howls like a kid. . . That's better, thinks Cloete,
and he leaves him, telling the
landlord that he must go out, as he
has some little business to attend to that night. The
landlord's
wife,
weeping herself, catches him on the stairs: Oh, sir, that
poor lady will go out of her mind. . .
"Cloete shakes her off, thinking to himself: Oh no! She won't.
She will get over it. Nobody will go mad about this affair unless
I do. It isn't sorrow that makes people go mad, but worry.
"There Cloete was wrong. What
affected Mrs. Harry was that her
husband should take his own life, with her, as it were, looking on.
She brooded over it so that in less than a year they had to put her
into a Home. She was very, very quiet; just gentle melancholy.
She lived for quite a long time.
"Well, Cloete splashes along in the wind and rain. Nobody in the
streets - all the
excitement over. The publican runs out to meet
him in the passage and says to him: Not this way. He isn't in his
room. We couldn't get him to go to bed nohow. He's in the little
parlour there. We've lighted him a fire. . . You have been giving
him drinks too, says Cloete; I never said I would be
responsiblefor drinks. How many? . . . Two, says the other. It's all right.
I don't mind doing that much for a shipwrecked sailor. . . Cloete
smiles his funny smile: Eh? Come. He paid for them. . . The
publican just blinks. . . Gave you gold, didn't he? Speak up! . .
. What of that! cries the man. What are you after, anyway? He had
the right change for his sovereign.
"Just so, says Cloete. He walks into the parlour, and there he
sees our Stafford; hair all up on end,
landlord's shirt and pants
on, bare feet in slippers, sitting by the fire. When he sees
Cloete he casts his eyes down.
"You didn't mean us ever to meet again, Mr. Cloete, Stafford says,
demurely. . . That fellow, when he had the drink he wanted - he
wasn't a
drunkard - would put on this sort of sly,
modest air. . .
But since the captain committed
suicide, he says, I have been
sitting here thinking it out. All sorts of things happen.
Conspiracy to lose the ship - attempted murder - and this
suicide.
For if it was not
suicide, Mr. Cloete, then I know of a
victim of
the most cruel, cold-blooded attempt at murder; somebody who has
suffered a thousand deaths. And that makes the thousand pounds of
which we spoke once a quite
insignificant sum. Look how very
convenient this
suicide is. . .
"He looks up at Cloete then, who smiles at him and comes quite
close to the table.
"You killed Harry Dunbar, he whispers. . . The fellow glares at him
and shows his teeth: Of course I did! I had been in that cabin
for an hour and a half like a rat in a trap. . . Shut up and left
to drown in that wreck. Let flesh and blood judge. Of course I
shot him! I thought it was you, you murdering
scoundrel, come back
to settle me. He opens the door flying and tumbles right down upon
me; I had a
revolver in my hand, and I shot him. I was crazy. Men
have gone crazy for less.
"Cloete looks at him without flinching. Aha! That's your story,
is it? . . . And he shakes the table a little in his
passion as he
speaks. . . Now listen to mine. What's this
conspiracy? Who's
going to prove it? You were there to rob. You were rifling his
cabin; he came upon you unawares with your hands in the
drawer; and
you shot him with his own
revolver. You killed to steal - to
steal! His brother and the clerks in the office know that he took
sixty pounds with him to sea. Sixty pounds in gold in a canvas
bag. He told me where they were. The coxswain of the life-boat
can swear to it that the
drawers were all empty. And you are such
a fool that before you're half an hour
ashore you change a
sovereign to pay for a drink. Listen to me. If you don't turn up
day after to-morrow at George Dunbar's solicitors, to make the
proper deposition as to the loss of the ship, I shall set the
police on your track. Day after to-morrow. . .
"And then what do you think? That Stafford begins to tear his
hair. Just so. Tugs at it with both hands without saying
anything. Cloete gives a push to the table which nearly sends the
fellow off his chair, tumbling inside the fender; so that he has
got to catch hold of it to save himself. . .
"You know the sort of man I am, Cloete says,
fiercely. I've got to
a point that I don't care what happens to me. I would shoot you
now for tuppence.
"At this the cur dodges under the table. Then Cloete goes out, and
as he turns in the street - you know, little fishermen's cottages,
all dark; raining in torrents, too - the other opens the window of
the parlour and speaks in a sort of crying voice -
"You low Yankee fiend - I'll pay you off some day.
"Cloete passes by with a damn bitter laugh, because he thinks that
the fellow in a way has paid him off already, if he only knew it."
My
impressiveruffian drank what remained of his beer, while his
black,
sunken eyes looked at me over the rim.
"I don't quite understand this," I said. "In what way?"
He unbent a little and explained without too much scorn that
Captain Harry being dead, his half of the insurance money went to