A FOOTSTEP IN THE LANE
The moon had paled and a greyness in the sky, as we hurried down the
hill, betokened the approach of day. At length the city had sunk to
rest; the port slumbered and in the red light quarter behind the docks
the laughter and the guitars were stilled. How through that maze of
mean streets and lanes I found the way back to Doña Luisa's cabin I
don't know; but I expect that a kind of instinct for marking a route
once traversed, which, with me, is inborn, stood me in good stead.
The negro quarter was wrapped in silence. The swift rustling of a rat,
a distant cock-crow from the sleeping city, were the only sounds to
break the stillness of the night. At length we reached the narrow lane
in which the shanty stood. It was almost dark; for the moon had gone
in behind a bank of clouds and the day was not yet come.
The big wooden door stood wide. Across the little yard dimly we saw
the dark outline of the shack. The mud surface of the court was wet
and sticky and my rubber-soled shoes slipped on it as we crossed the
threshold of the enclosure. John Bard touched my arm.
"Man alive," he whispered, "look at your shoes!"
I did as I was bid and recoiled in horror. The white buckskin was
deeply smeared with crimson.
We dashed across the yard. The shanty door stood open.
Within, amid a scene of hideous confusion, the body of the beach-comber
hung head downwards from the rough couch, the throat cut from ear to
ear. And behind the door in another welter of blood lay the corpse of
Doña Luisa.
The place was a shambles. The hut had been turned upside-down and the
few poor belongings of the outcast were scattered all over the floor.
The very maize cane on which his dead body lay had been tossed about.
And the blood was smeared everywhere as though the murderer or
murderers had brought it in on their boots.
John Bard's face was anxious.
"We'll do well to clear out of here," he said, "before it gets light.
They mustn't find us here. Let's go out by the back and return by the
way you came...."
I gladly acquiesced in his suggestion. To tell the truth, I was
feeling a little sick. The fetid odours of the negro quarter reeked to
heaven in the freshening morning air, and mingled with them was a
suspicion of some unutterably horrid taint arising from the two corpses
which had lain there all through the warm night.
We had reached the threshold of the back door when suddenly a heavy
footstep sounded from the front. In the absolute stillness all round
the sound rang out clearly. It was as though a heavy man were stumping
slowly across the hard pounded earth of the front yard. He came with a
step and a stump, a step and a stump, like a lame man walking with a
stick or crutches.
John Bard made as though to bolt. But I restrained him. I felt I must
see this mysterious visitant. And John Bard, loyal friend as he is,
though he had nothing to gain by my rashness, stopped dead in his
tracks and with me drew behind the cover of the back door. Through the
chink between the door and jamb we surveyed the entrance to the shack.
A huge black shape stood on the threshold. It was too dark within the
hut to note the newcomer's features or his dress. One had only the
sensation of a great form that bulked largely, immensely, in the
doorway.
I turned noiselessly to Bard. He divined the unspoken proposal on my
lips for he shook his head curtly and his grip on my sleeve tightened.
At the same moment the great form in the doorway moved and the next
instant was swallowed up in the shadows of the courtyard. We heard the
clip-clop of his limping step as he crossed the enclosure and, little
by little, die away as he stumped up the lane.
"Smear some earth over your shoes!"
John Bard was speaking to me. Blindly I did as he bade me and rubbed
dust over the damp, dark stains on the white buckskin. Then gripping
me by the arm my friend ran me through the backyard and out by the door
which now stood open.
In the freshness of the plantation, away from the stenches of the
village and the nameless taint of that house of slaughter, my senses
came back to me and I felt ashamed of he rashness which might have had
disastrous consequences for both of us. But, when at length we stood
once more in the bungalow and Bard poured me out a stiff dose of
brandy, I noticed that, contrary to his invariable rule, he had one
himself as well.
"And now," said he, and in his voice was a note of decision, "the
sooner you leave Rodriguez, Desmond, the better for you. I don't want
to appear inhospitable or I might add, the better for me too. That
poor devil, Adams, is dead and you can do nothing for him by staying.
You are sufficiently acquainted, I take it, with the mentality of my
distinguished fellow-citizens to realise that very little fuss will be
made over the untimely demise of Adams and his coloured lady. In the
meantime you are in the greatest danger here.
"I don't see why I should worry," I argued. "If they had known of my
visit to Adams they would have raided the hut and butchered the three
of us to get hold of the document. But they didn't; and they don't
even know me by sight...."
"They evidently didn't know of your visit _at the time_," remarked John
Bard gravely. "But obviously something happened after your departure
to put them wise. Hence the attack on the house. You were either seen
going to the house or Doña Luisa gave you away. It looks to me as
though they had only just traced the document to Adams. Black Pablo
was set to watch but, after the happy-go-lucky fashion of Latin
America, he whiled away the time by serenading some of the dusky belles
in the vicinity and failed to observe your arrival."
I recalled the soft laughter I had heard, mingling with the strains of
the guitar in the lane, and nodded.
"You think that this fellow Black Pablo was put on guard to see that
Adams did not leave the house?...."
"Precisely," agreed my friend, "while El Cojo was sent for.
"El Cojo, the head of the gang?"
"Himself and no other.... the lame man who came to the door of the
shack after the crime had been committed. In Spanish 'El Cojo' means
'the lame man,' 'he who goes with a limp'...."
John Bard went on talking but I have no recollection of what he said.
For my thoughts had flown back to another "lame man" who had dominated
the most thrilling episode in the whole of my life, the giant and
ape-like cripple, head of the Kaiser's personal Secret Service in the
days of Germany's greatness, who had dogged my brother Francis and
myself until he had met his end at our hands in the château on the
German-Dutch frontier. Old Clubfoot, as men called him in his heyday,
had been in his grave these four years past; yet once again I found the
path of adventure barred at its outset by a great lame man. I thought
of that huge figure blocking up the narrow doorway of the reeking hut
and, as so often in the past, I felt welling up within me admiration
for the extraordinary ingenuity of old man Destiny....
"....This gang of El Cojo's," John Bard was saying impressively,
leaning across the table at me, hands palms downwards before him, "is a
tremendous organisation with a network of spies as widespread and
efficient as the Camorra and Mafia in Italy or the Carbonados in
Portugal and Brazil. I have long suspected that there was at the head
of it a man much bigger and abler than that murdering ruffian, Black
Pablo, and now we have the proof of it. I know a bit about men,
Desmond and that hulking dot-and-carry-one scoundrel we saw to-night
gives me a damned unpleasant feeling. You mark my words; whether you
were actually spotted or not they'll trace that plan to you and if you
stay here, they'll get you! And I _know_!"
He appeared to reflect for a moment whilst I considered him with
attention; for I had never before seen old John so worked up. But
there is nothing like the Unknown for getting on a fellow's nerves.
Then he drove his fist into his palm as if a sudden idea had struck him.
"The _Naomi_," he said; "the very thing for you!"
"The _Naomi_?" I repeated.
"Yes. The yacht that came in last evening. She's going down to
Honolulu. We ought to be able to fix it for you so they'll take you
with them...."
"What is this yacht?" I asked.
"She belongs to Sir Alexander Garth. By George! She's a beauty,
Desmond! White paint and a gold line, green and white deck awnings,
everything slap up. He's a millionaire, they say!"
"I don't know the name."
"We looked him up in the 'Who's Who' at the club to-night. He's a
baronet, and a big man in cotton. J.P. and D.L. of the county. What
brings him here I don't know, except that cruising to the Southern Seas
seems to be a fashionable rest-cure for millionaires whose nerves have
been jaded by piling up money during the war."
"But, see here, John," I expostulated, "I can't go butting into a
private pleasure cruise like this, I really can't. It isn't done, you
know! And you can't expect these prosaic English folk to swallow a
long yarn about my life being in danger!"
"Desmond," said Bard--and now his voice was very stern. "You can take
it from me that if you don't clear out at once, you'll get your throat
cut and probably mine into the bargain. There won't be a steamer for
Colon for at least a fortnight. This yacht is a heaven-sent
opportunity for making you lucky. If you wait for the steamer it's a
ten to one chance you'll go up the gangway in your coffin neatly packed
in ice! Do you get that? For the Lord's sake, burn that damned
rigmarole and beat it!"
We Celts have a broad strain of contrariness in our nature which
probably accounts for my strong inclination to disregard Bard's advice.
But his manner was so impressive for one of his unemotional disposition
that I could not but feel convinced.
"Perhaps you're right, old man," I said. "I won't burn the 'rigmarole'
as you call it, but otherwise I will follow your suggestion. But it
will be on one condition and one condition only. That is, that we part
here and now and that, should by any chance, your plan for my forcing
my company upon the excellent cotton-spinner and his party fail, you
will not associate with me or in any way acknowledge me as long as I am
in the city...."
I held out my hand. But Bard laughed and put his two hands on my
shoulders.
"No, no," he protested, "it's not so bad as all that. I'm coming down
to the harbour to fix it up with Garth for you. He will probably call
at the Consulate this morning any way to fetch the stores we are
holding for him."
"John," said I, "I've dragged you far enough into this mess. It's
early enough yet for me to go down to the harbour and on to that yacht
without attracting much attention. So let's part here and ever so many
thanks again for all your kindness...."
"Desmond,"--John Bard's voice trembled a little--"I wouldn't hear of
it...."
"My dear old man," I said. "I'm in a proper mess and I've no intention
of pulling you into it after me. And I'd like to say one thing more.
You might have rubbed it in that the whole of this trouble was brought
on us by my initial folly in accompanying an unknown messenger to the
purlieus of the city in the middle of the night. You have never
alluded to it; but I'd like you to know that your forbearance did not
escape me...."
I stretched forth my hand again. This time John Bard took it.
"I'll send your things down to the Consulate," he said; "they can go on
board with Garth's stores."
And so, in perfect understanding, we settled it. At the verandah door
I turned and said:--
"And do you think now that there's anything in Adams' story?"
"Yes," my host replied, "I do!"
Then he added, with his little indulgent smile:--
"Are you going after it?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I might!" said I.
But already fermenting in my brain was the germ of a great idea. The
next moment the iron gate of the gardens clanged behind me and I was
off at a good pace down the hill.