I
Quick eye that he had for the promise of adventure, prepared always for
the unexpected to leap out at him from behind the nearest cocoanut
tree, nevertheless David Grief received no warning when he laid eyes on
Aloysius Pankburn. It was on the little steamer _Berthe_. Leaving his
schooner to follow, Grief had taken passage for the short run across
from Raiatea to Papeete. When he first saw Aloysius Pankburn, that
somewhat fuddled gentleman was drinking a lonely cocktail at the tiny
bar between decks next to the barber shop. And when Grief left the
barber's hands half an hour later Aloysius Pankburn was still hanging
over the bar still drinking by himself.
Now it is not good for man to drink alone, and Grief threw sharp
scrutiny into his pass-ing glance. He saw a well-built young man of
thirty, well-featured, well-dressed, and evidently, in the world's
catalogue, a gentleman. But in the faint hint of slovenliness, in
the shaking, eager hand that spilled the liquor, and in the nervous,
vacillating eyes, Grief read the unmistakable marks of the chronic
alcoholic.
After dinner he chanced upon Pankburn again. This time it was on deck,
and the young man, clinging to the rail and peering into the distance
at the dim forms of a man and woman in two steamer chairs drawn closely
together, was crying, drunkenly. Grief noted that the man's arm was
around the woman's waist. Aloysius Pankburn looked on and cried.
“Nothing to weep about,” Grief said genially.
Pankburn looked at him, and gushed tears of profound self-pity.
“It's hard,” he sobbed. “Hard. Hard. That man's my business manager. I
employ him. I pay him a good screw. And that's how he earns it.”
“In that case, why don't you put a stop to it?” Grief advised.
“I can't. She'd shut off my whiskey. She's my trained nurse.”
“Fire _her_, then, and drink your head off.”
“I can't. He's got all my money. If I did, he wouldn't give me sixpence
to buy a drink with.”
This woful possibility brought a fresh wash of tears. Grief was
interested. Of all unique situations he could never have imagined such a
one as this.
“They were engaged to take care of me,” Pankburn was blubbering, “to
keep me away from the drink. And that's the way they do it, lollygagging
all about the ship and letting me drink myself to death. It isn't right,
I tell you. It isn't right. They were sent along with me for the express
purpose of not letting me drink, and they let me drink to swinishness
as long as I leave them alone. If I complain they threaten not to let me
have another drop. What can a poor devil do? My death will be on their
heads, that's all. Come on down and join me.”
He released his clutch on the rail, and would have fallen had Grief
not caught his arm. He seemed to undergo a transformation, to stiffen
physically, to thrust his chin forward aggressively, and to glint
harshly in his eyes.
“I won't let them kill me. And they'll be sorry. I've offered them fifty
thousand--later on, of course. They laughed. They don't know. But I
know.” He fumbled in his coat pocket and drew forth an object that
flashed in the faint light. “They don't know the meaning of that. But I
do.” He looked at Grief with abrupt suspicion. “What do you make out of
it, eh? What do you make out of it?”
David Grief caught a swift vision of an alcoholic degenerate putting
a very loving young couple to death with a copper spike, for a
copper spike was what he held in his hand, an evident old-fashioned
ship-fastening.
“My mother thinks I'm up here to get cured of the booze habit. She
doesn't know. I bribed the doctor to prescribe a voyage. When we get to
Papeete my manager is going to charter a schooner and away we'll sail.
But they don't dream. They think it's the booze. I know. I only know.
Good night, sir. I'm going to bed--unless--er--you'll join me in a night
cap. One last drink, you know.”