JERRY TELLS SOMETHING
As in a daze, Tom Dennis listened while Pontifex went on to explain
that Miles Hathaway alone knew where the _Simpson_ lay; that thus far
they had been unable to find a way to extract that knowledge from
Hathaway--just here the skipper's voice was very silky--and that they
counted upon Florence to hit upon some method of communication.
But, the skipper hastened on, this was not the real reason for
Florence's having been fetched in person. She was the legal heir of
Hathaway, and also his guardian, under the present conditions.
"Of course," said Pontifex blandly, "we might have gone ahead and you
would never have known about it; but we don't do business that way,
Mrs. Dennis. We want to be aboveboard and honourable in the matter.
We dared not thresh the thing out there in the harbour, for you've no
idea how curious shipping people are! A breath of suspicion as to
our real business, and we'd have been lost. So we simply ran away
with you--not a bad joke, eh? Ran away with you to make your fortune!
"Well, to business. Our proposition is that you sign articles with
us--Mr. Dennis also, since he is your husband and we want everything
shipshape--and we'll land you at Unalaska, there to wait until we've
turned the trick. Of course, you realize that we're giving our time,
the wages of the men, the ship, and all the rest, to the venture.
We've talked over what's fair, and we think that the right thing to
do is to offer you twenty per centum of the gross proceeds of the
salvage. Is that agreeable?"
Florence, her wide brown eyes fastened upon Tom Dennis, seemed to
await his decision in breathless eagerness. He nodded, without
speaking.
Captain Pontifex produced a paper which must have been long prepared,
for it was typed, and handed it to Dennis. The latter glanced it
over. The writing was no more than an agreement to the terms as
Pontifex had outlined them: Dennis passed the paper to Florence.
"Pontifex," he said slowly, "you're white in this thing! I tell you
we appreciate it. Yes, I can understand a good many things now that
weren't clear to me before. Your offer is generous. It's eminently
square. We're not rich, and if this thing goes through it'll mean a
great deal to us--and to the future comfort of Captain Hathaway."
Florence hastily signing the paper with the fountain pen which the
skipper had handed her, shoved pen and paper at Dennis, then leaped
to her feet. An excited smile upon her lips, her great brown eyes
glowing with life and eagerness, she insisted on shaking hands with
everyone at the table. Her slender frame seemed filled with a sudden
flame of vitality.
"You've made me so happy!" she cried, speaking then to Pontifex.
"Not the money, not alone what it will mean to us all--but your
goodness! All of you! Oh, if father could only tell you how he must
feel about it----"
She flung her arms around Mrs. Pontifex and kissed that lady heartily.
Up the craggy countenance of the Missus welled a slow tide of
crimson, which swiftly waned again. Corny looked at Boatswain Joe
and grinned. The deep-set, cavernous eyes of Captain Pontifex sought
the impassively watching face of Miles Hathaway--sought it with a
satiric gleam in their dark depths. Then they returned to the girl.
"Duty is duty," he said unctuously. "We've tried to do what's right,
madam. The consciousness of having done right is a great stay in
time of trouble. We----"
The words were cut short by an appalling scream which seemed to wail
out of the air overhead, At that scream a silence like death fell
upon the cabin.
Corny furtively crossed himself. Mr. Leman's flat ugly face turned
quite white. Ericksen flung back his chair and was gone with a rush.
Captain Pontifex leaped to his feet and followed Boatswain Joe to the
companion. As he set foot on the ladder, the others crowding at his
heels, the brig heeled over amid a confused trampling and shouting
from above. Florence cried out in fear.
Manuel Mendez was helping a Kanaka at the wheel, jamming it hard
down, bringing the brig slowly about; he was bawling orders, while
all hands were trimming sail.
"One o' dem lubbers fell off de royal yard!" bellowed Mendez at the
skipper. He did not think it necessary to explain that, as a good
joke, he had sent one of the drink-dazed white hands up to the royal,
grinning delightedly as the poor devil shivered and clung in fright
above the swimming waste of water. But another of the white men
forward had seen.
"It was him done it!" yelled the man angrily, pointing at Mendez.
"He shifted the helm to----"
Boatswain Joe's fist stopped the utterance, sent the man rolling into
the scuppers.
"Get out that for'ard boat, Bo'sun!" shouted Captain Pontifex, his
voice piercing the wind as steel pierces paper. "Lively,
now--lively!"
Tom Dennis stood at the top of the companionway, his arm about
Florence. Beside him stood the Missus, rocklike and silent. Dennis
had caught those words from forward, and seen Ericksen's blow; he
stood grimly watching, his lips compressed.
Mr. Leman, with uncanny swiftness, joined Boatswain Joe at the
forward whaleboat. It was quickly swung out and lowered, the Kanakas
tumbling into it, Leman and Ericksen following. Behind, somewhere in
the tossing sea crests, was the black dot of a man's head. Before
the boat was half-way to it, the head had vanished. The man was gone.
"Be a little more careful with those men, Mr. Mendez," said Pontifex,
watching the whaleboat put about and return. "We'll need 'em."
That was all. No anger, no inquiry, no more concern over the death
of a man--the needless brutal murder of a man--than if that man had
been a wandering sea-gull. Tom Dennis drew Florence below, hoping
that she had not understood. But when he looked into her eyes, he
knew that she _had_ understood.
"Tom, I--can't believe it!" she said faintly, horror in her wide
brown eyes. "He spoke as though--it didn't matter."
Dennis made light of the affair. "Never mind, dear. We don't know
all the circumstances, and of course the skipper can't blame his mate
in public. It would hurt discipline. Just try and forget it, and
not refer to it."
The girl shivered. "I can't forget that awful scream!"
No further reference was made to the affair, beyond the skipper's
explaining, later, that an unavoidable lurch of the ship had caused
the accident. But it was long before Florence could look upon Manuel
Mendez, when he joined them at mess, without changing countenance.
There was something dreadful in the grinning calm of the black
Portuguese. His eternal good humour was ominous.
"We mustn't let little outside matters affect us," said Tom Dennis
that same night. "The main point, Florence, so far as we're
concerned, is your father, and the way Pontifex and his company are
acting."
"I know, Tom, dear," she said. "They've been very good."
He sensed a constraint in her air, but put it down to the accident.
Two days later, however, the inquietude within him, which had been
lulled to sleep by that meeting of the company, was awakened with
terrible swiftness. He had been discussing with Pontifex how to get
into communication with Miles Hathaway, and the skipper professed
himself quite helpless in the matter, leaving it entirely to
Florence's ingenuity.
The lack of concern which Pontifex expressed struck Tom Dennis as
being unnatural, under the circumstances. But a little later, as
Dennis stood in talk with Mr. Leman, who was discussing whaling
voyages, he squinted up at the sails.
"Better trim your yards a bit, hadn't you?" said Dennis
thoughtlessly. "Looks as if you were losing a good bit of that wind,
Mr. Leman."
The mate started slightly.
"Where'd you learn so much about sails, Mr. Dennis?"
"Oh, I just picked it up," Dennis laughed. "But if you're in a hurry
to reach Unalaska, I should think you'd trim sail a bit."
"Orders were to keep her as she is," said Leman curtly, and turned
away.
Dennis shrugged his shoulders. It was none of his business how the
ship was run, and if Pontifex had reasons for not hurrying, well and
good.
Meantime, the silent and motionless Miles Hathaway sat in the cabin,
puffing sometimes at the pipe Florence filled for him, watching her
as she worked, with unmoving terrible eyes. Tom helped her take care
of him, and always it seemed to Dennis that Hathaway was mutely
struggling to express something. Once Dennis got out a chart and
attempted to locate the wreck.
"Watch my finger, Captain Hathaway," he directed. "If I get 'warm',
as the kids used to say, open your mouth."
The effort was fruitless, for although Dennis traced his fingers over
the entire line of the Aleuts, Miles Hathaway remained unmoving. In
the end, Dennis began to think that the man either did not
understand, or possessed a brain as dead as his body. At times, too,
the paralytic was almost unable to open his mouth or to swallow. His
lips had no independent motion. To communicate with him seemed
impossible.
It was the third evening following the meeting in the cabin. Tom and
Florence had put Hathaway to bed, and after bidding the skipper and
his wife good night, went on deck for a breath of air. Mendez had
the deck. Wishing to avoid the black mate, Florence led the way
forward to the lee of the brick try-works. There Tom Dennis lighted
his pipe, and for a little they sat together in silence, under the
strangely soothing yet invigorating influence of the slapping sails
and the rushing foam-crested rollers that roared under the lee-rail.
Suddenly a figure appeared coming from aft, preceded by a whimpering
sniffle. It was Jerry, the moon-faced cabin boy and he was
blubbering away with the subdued racking sobs of a boy.
"Hello, Jerry!" said Dennis. "What's the trouble?"
Jerry peered at them and rubbed his eyes,
"The Missus whaled me; then he chipped in and kicked the back off'm
me, drat him!"
"What'd you do, Jerry?"
"Nothin' at all!" responded the boy defiantly. "The mate sent me
down to clean his cabin, an' they didn't know I was there, an' the
door was open. He says it's a hell of a note about Frenchy not
bringin' that phonygraft, and it was the best idea ever was, and she
says yes, maybe we'd better give the old son of a gun another taste
of hot iron. He says no, there ain't no need of that, because we got
the bulge on him now and he'll talk in a hurry, knowin' she's aboard,
and it's all Bo'sun's fault for slippin' up and lettin' Frenchy slip
up that way. Just then they heard me, and she whaled me and he
kicked me up the ladder. Drat him! I wisht I was off'm this old
ship!"
Jerry passed on forward, sniffling.
Tom Dennis stood very still. He felt Florence draw herself up; he
caught a startled gasp from her lips; but he was thinking with a wild
sickening surety, of what the skipper had said. Frenchy--and the
phonograph!
There was the missing link. No use disguising the facts any longer;
no use trying to cover up what was only too obvious! Frenchy--that
was the assassin; and Ericksen _had_ been in partnership with him,
there in Chicago! And Hathaway would talk now that Florence was
aboard----
Tom Dennis shivered suddenly. "Come, dear!" he said in a strange
voice. "Come below. I have something to tell you."
He felt that she was sobbing softly, and halted. "What's the matter,
Florence?"
She only shook her head, and taking his arm accompanied him to the
companionway. Dennis was alarmed by her attitude; upon reaching
their own cabin she threw her arms about him, a sudden paroxysm of
sobs shaking her whole body. Dennis could obtain no response to his
queries for a moment, until the girl suddenly looked up into his eyes.
"I--I couldn't tell you before, Tom! I thought perhaps it had been
the wreck, and all that," she said, brokenly. "But poor father--his
feet were burned, and his arms--at least, I know now that the scars
were of burns! You heard what Jerry said. And father's eyes are
giving him a lot of trouble; sometimes he can't use them at all, and
it seems to hurt him when they're open. I--I can't dare to think
that anyone would have deliberately hurt him----"
"Good Lord!" broke from Dennis. "It's not credible! Yet, if Frenchy
was my Chicago visitor--here, old girl, sit down! I've something to
tell you. I can't quite face the meaning of it--yet it's bound to
mean but one thing----"
He drew the wondering sobbing girl to a chair beside him, and for the
first time told her of his strange assailant in Chicago on the night
of their departure. He connected up the links--finding Ericksen in
the man's compartment; the square suitcase and its contents--and now
the remarks of Pontifex about that phonograph, as reported by the
innocent Jerry.
As she listened, the apprehension and grief of Florence for the
helpless and seemingly tortured father began to be absorbed in the
deep significance of the entire affair. She sat in frowning thought,
while Dennis drew from his memory the little things which at the time
he had scarce noted, but which now seemed so laden with
significance--even the strange unconcern of Pontifex over
communicating with Miles Hathaway. At this last, Florence lifted her
head.
"I know--the same thing struck me, Tom. I was talking about it with
Mrs. Pontifex to-day; she had the air of discouraging me in the
attempt. Why? Why don't they want us to communicate with poor
father? It will be hard at best, because of his eyes; I'm going to
make up an eyewash for him until we can reach a doctor. But why
their attitude? Everything seemed so honest and so kindly at that
meeting the other day! And when I kissed Mrs. Pontifex----"
"She blushed, by George!" snapped Dennis suddenly. "And anything
that could make that woman blush--here, let me think! Jerry gave the
whole game away to us. The clue lies in what the skipper said about
your father talking now that you were aboard----"
He broke off abruptly, filled and lighted his pipe, and sat staring
before him. Not for nothing had he followed the newspaper game. Not
for nothing had he been one of the best rewrite men in Chicago! He
had been trained in the business of making a whole cloth from
scattered scraps.
"Got it! Listen here, Florence," he said suddenly. "Pontifex found
your father, and either took him to a house, where those snapshots
were made, or to this ship--no matter which. Face facts, now! All
this goody-goody talk is bluff. Pontifex was busy trying to extort
the secret of the _Simpson's_ position from your father, so he sent
Boatswain Joe to get you; and he sent that clever little assassin,
Frenchy, to get this phonograph that's in my grip--why, we don't
know. But for some reason he wanted it, and wanted it badly!
"Ericksen did not want me to accompany you. He called in Frenchy at
the last minute to put me out of the way--and Frenchy meant murder.
There's a salient fact! How did Boatswain Joe slip up, as Pontifex
termed it? In not bringing you alone. They wanted you--alone! A
second salient fact. Why? Pontifex has said it: in order to force
your father to talk!"
"But Tom!" broke in Florence quickly. "Father can't talk!"
"All bluff. Pontifex can communicate with him, somehow. They simply
didn't want us to do so."
"But that's why they wanted _me_! And then, my signature on that
paper----"
"More bluff!" flung out Dennis. "They tortured your father--don't
shrink from it--and he would not tell the secret. They got you
aboard and sailed, knowing that for your sake, to get you out of
their power, your father would give up anything. I'm a mere
incident, an incumbrance. They're not hurrying. They want Frenchy
to reach Unalaska first and come aboard there. I'd recognize him
again, which would spoil their game at this juncture."
"They don't mean to land us there?" She spoke steadily, but her face
was pale.
"I doubt it. They'll try to get rid of me there. They may take you
and your father along, to be sure that they get the right position
from him. The ultimate outcome would be probably of no danger to
you--they'd sell the salvaged stuff to Japan or Canada or China, and
would land you wherever they went. They might even keep the signed
agreement--in part. They'd give you enough money to make it
inadvisable for you to start any legal proceedings, as they have your
agreement to the terms, and you'll never know how much they get for
the salvage. You understand? If your father gives them the correct
position of the wreck, you are possibly in no danger."
"And you, Tom?"
Dennis grinned. "They want me out of the way. They think I'll make
trouble. Well, I _know_ I will! Don't you worry about me. They'll
do nothing until Unalaska and the revenue cutter are left behind,
see? And by that time, little Tommy will have spoiled their game."
"How?" demanded Florence, her eyes anxious.
"Don't know yet," said Dennis cheerfully. "If I----"
"Tom! What was it that Pontifex said to you about reading Dumas?
Why, I I know just what they got that phonograph for--oh, I wish I'd
known about it!"
"You do? What?"
"Don't you remember in one of the Dumas novels there was a paralytic,
and they made him blink his eyelids twice for 'No' and once for
'Yes'? I was thinking about it only this afternoon, and meant to try
it with father! And those phonograph records, with the alphabet and
numerals on them--don't you see? Play a record and father would wink
at the right letter of figure until he spelled out a word----"
"By George!" Dennis stared at the flushed and excited girl. "By
George! You've hit it square on the head--and I never thought of it!
We'll try it to-morrow----"
Florence leaned forward, colour glowing in her pale face, her eyes
dilated by swift excitement and resolution, yet dominated by their
strangely poised radiance. All her spirit shone in her eyes--all her
heritage of soul, her heritage of iron nature, tempered and alloyed
and refined to an almost dangerous degree by her womanhood. Tom
Dennis gazed into her eyes and wondered, as he had wondered on that
memorable afternoon when she had said: "We'll only win by daring; so
we shall dare everything!"
"No, Tom!" she said firmly. "Not the phonograph! They must not know
that we have it, or they'll know that we suspect their whole game!
In the morning I'll corroborate your theory from father's lips--the
way that Dumas' story did. We have two or three more days until we
reach Unalaska. In that time don't dare give them any suspicion!
Watch everything; but say nothing.
"Before we reach Unalaska we'll formulate a plan of action between
us. They have bitterly wronged us; they have lied to us; they've
tried to murder us. And we'll fight them! Do you agree?"
Tom Dennis laughed suddenly and kissed her on the lips.
"You bet!" he said deeply. "We'll fight!"