I BOARD THE “CUBAN QUEEN”
The opportunity to pay a surprise visit to the “Cuban Queen” in the
absence of “Mrs. Hughes” had come at last, and as I had already hit
upon a plan by which I might carry out my purpose, without giving
Hughes cause to suspect that my happening upon him was other than
accidental, I proceeded at once to put it into effect.
Telling Muir that I would rejoin him at the inn before long, I slipped
off my clothes, tossed them together in a heap on the beach with a big
stone atop to keep them from being blown away, and plunged into the
water. I am a strong swimmer, and the tide was running out so swiftly
that when I reached the “Cuban Queen,” which was moored about a mile
from shore, I was not in the least “winded,” and indeed felt more
than fit to fight my way back against the current. But, in order that
the game should work out as I had planned, it was necessary for me to
assume the appearance of being extremely exhausted. Hence when I found
myself approaching the hulk I began to make a pretence of swimming
feebly, panting noisily meanwhile, and sending up the most pitiful
cries for help.
As I had expected and intended, Hughes came on deck, and looking over
the ship’s side inquired loudly, “Wot’s the ---- row?”
Hughes, I may here remark, was, as I soon discovered (you could not be
in his company for half a minute without doing so), a man of painfully
limited vocabulary. Perhaps I should say that his colour sense had
been developed at the expense of his vocabulary, for if he did not
see everything in a rose-coloured light, he certainly applied one
adjective, vividly suggestive of crimson, to every object which he
found it necessary to particularise.
“Wot’s the ---- row?” he repeated, when there was no immediate reply to
his question.
“Help!” I gasped faintly, pretending to make frantic clutches at a
mooring chain, and clinging to it as if half dead with exhaustion and
fear.
“Who are yer?” he inquired suspiciously, “an’ how’d yer get ’ere?”
I was anxious to play my part so as not to arouse his suspicion, hence
I did not reply for at least a minute, but continued to pant, gasp, and
cough, until my breath might reasonably be supposed to have returned,
and then I said faintly, “Help me to get on board and I’ll tell you.”
“You can’t coom aboord,” he answered surlily. “No one ain’t allowed
aboord these ships.”
“I _must_,” I said, with as much appearance of resolution as was
consistent with the half-drowned condition which I had assumed.
“Must yer?” he said. “We’ll ---- soon see about that,” and then for the
second time he put the question, “Who are yer, and ’ow’d yer get out
’ere?”
I replied, in sentences suitably abbreviated to telegraphic terseness,
that my name was Max Rissler. Was a friend of Mr. Hardy Muir. Was
staying at Canvey for shooting. Had thought would like a swim. Had got
on all right till I had tried to turn, and then had found current too
strong. Had become exhausted, and must have been drowned if had not
fortunately been carried past hulk.
Hughes evidently considered the explanation satisfactory, for his next
question was not about myself but about my intentions.
“And what are you going to do now?”
“Come on board,” I answered promptly.
“Yer can’t do that,” he said. “No one ain’t allowed aboord these ----
boats.”
“I must,” I replied. “This is a case where you’d get into trouble for
keeping the rules, not for breaking them. You can’t talk about rules
to a half-drowned man. It would be manslaughter. Help me on board and
get me some brandy--I suppose you’ve some by you--and I’ll pay you well
and not say a word to any one. And be quick about it for I can’t hold
on here much longer. You’ll be half-a-sovereign the richer for this
night’s job, and if you’re quick I’ll make it a sovereign.”
Grumbling audibly about it being “a ---- fine lay this--making a poor
man run the risk of getting the sack because ---- fools choose to play
the ---- monkey,” he unlashed the dinghy, and having brought her round
to where I was clinging, he assisted me in, and with a few dexterous
strokes took us to the side of the hulk over which a rope ladder was
hanging. “Afore you go aboord,” he growled, putting a detaining hand
upon my arm, “’ave yer got any hiron concealed about yer person?”
“Iron?” I said. “What do you mean? And where could I conceal anything?
Every stitch of my clothes is lying over there on the beach.”
“My instructions is,” he replied doggedly, “that I hask hevery one wot
comes aboord this boat whether they’ve got any hiron concealed about
’em. That’s my dooty an’ I does it. ’Ave you or ’ave you not got hiron
on your person?”
“Certainly not,” I said, “unless the iron in my blood’s going to be an
objection. And now stop this fooling and get me some spirit as fast as
you can for I’m half dead.”
As a matter of fact, I was beginning to feel chilled to the bone,
besides which it was very necessary I should keep up the _rôle_ I had
assumed.
Hughes disappeared below, but soon returned with half a tumbler of rum
and water and a dirty, evil-smelling blanket. The rum I tossed off
gratefully, but the blanket I declined.
“Very well,” said Hughes. “But you look as white as a ---- sheet
already, and you’ll find it none too warm going back in the dinghy
with nothing on.”
“I’m not going back in the dinghy with nothing on, my good fellow,”
I replied calmly. “You’ve got a fire or a stove of some sort below,
I suppose, and I’m going down to sit by it while you row back and
get my clothes for me. Then you can put me ashore, and I shall have
much pleasure in handing you over the sovereign I’ve promised you, on
condition you give me your word not to speak of this fool’s game of
mine. I don’t want to be made the laughing-stock of the island. I told
them I was a good swimmer, and if they heard that I had to sing out for
help and had to be taken back to shore like a drowned kitten I should
never hear the last of it, especially from that big brute of a Muir
who’s always bragging about his own swimming.”
Something like a grin stole over the fellow’s forbidding face.
“Muster Muir’e don’t like no soft-plucked uns, ’e don’t; and you did
sing out ---- loud, and no mistake. You told un you could swim, did ye?
Why, Muster Muir, I seen him swim out two mile and more, and then--”
“Confound Mr. Muir,” I interrupted angrily. “Do you think I’m going to
stay here all night while you stand there jawing and grinning. Be off
with you and get my clothes for me or you won’t see a halfpenny of the
pound I promised you.”
“It was two poun’ as you promised me,” said the fellow, lying
insolently, now that he had--as he thought he had--me in his power.
“And ---- little too for a man wot’s running the risk of getting the
billet by lettin’ strangers on boord, dead against the rools. But I
don’t leave my ship for no ---- two pounds, I don’t You’ll ’ave to come
along wi’ me in the dinghy; an’ mind I ’as the money afore you ’as the
clothes. None of your monkey tricks with me, I tell yer. Come, wot’s it
to be? Are you going back wi’ me, or will you wait for Mr. Muir to come
and fetch yer? I can let ’im know in the morning (this with an impudent
grin) as you’ve been rescooed.”
“I don’t go ashore without my clothes if I stop here all night,” I
said firmly; “it’s inhuman to ask me. What harm could I do to the
confounded ship for the few minutes you’re away? I don’t want to stay
here any longer than I can help, I assure you. It was a sovereign I
promised you; but if you’ll row ashore as fast as you can and get
my clothes, and promise to keep your mouth shut, you shall have two
pounds. Will that please you?”
“Make it three,” said he, “and I’ll say done.”
“Very well,” I answered, “only be as quick as you can, for the sooner
I’m out of this thieves’ den and have seen the last of your hangman
face the better. And now I’ll go down out of the cold; and perhaps you
won’t grudge me another dram of that rum of yours, considering how
you’ve bled me to-night.”
Motioning me to follow, he led the way to the stern of the ship,
where, as I knew, the hulk-keeper’s quarters were situated, the
dynamite being stored, as I have already said, in the hold.
A cockpit, from which there shot up into the night an inverted pyramid
of yellow light, marked the entrance to the cabin, and into this
Hughes, disdainful of stairs, shuffled feet foremost, swinging a
moment with his palm resting on either ledge and his body pillared by
rigid arms before he dropped out of sight, like a stage Mephistopheles
returning to his native hell. Not being familiar with the place, I
decided to content myself with a less dramatic entrance, and picked my
way accordingly down the steep stairs and into the little cabin which
served as kitchen, sitting-room, and dormitory. A lighted oil-stove
stood in the centre, beside which Hughes placed a wooden chair.
“You’ve got very comfortable quarters here,” I said, looking round
approvingly after I had seated myself. “If one doesn’t mind a lonely
life (it _is_ lonely I suppose?), one might do worse than turn
hulk-keeper.”
Hughes grunted by way of reply, but whether this was to be taken as
signifying acquiescence or dissent I was unable to say, his face being
at the moment hidden in a corner locker, whence he presently emerged
with a bottle of Old Tom and a glass.
“There’s the ---- rum, and there’s the ---- glass; and now don’t you
stir out of that ---- chair,” he said, with a liberal use of his
favourite adjective. Then, much to my relief, he betook himself up
the stairs and on to the deck, where I could hear him muttering and
swearing to himself as he unlashed the dinghy.
That I was excited and eager, the reader may believe; but though,
the moment Hughes’ back was turned, my eyes were swivelling in their
sockets and sweeping the sides of the cabin with the intentness of a
search-light, I did not think it advisable to leave my seat and set
about the search in earnest until he had actually left the hulk. But
no sooner was he well out of the way than I was at work, with every
sense as poised and ready to pounce as a hovering hawk.
Not often in my life have I experienced so bitter a disappointment. I
had hoped great things of this visit to the “Cuban Queen;” but though
I searched every part of the hulk, including the hold, which, as there
happened at that moment to be no dynamite on board, was not secured,
I found no evidence as to the sex of Hughes’ visitor. To describe
the fruitless search in detail is unnecessary. Whoever “Mrs. Hughes”
might be, she had evidently taken pains to insure that every trace
of her presence should be removed. I could not even tell whether she
had shared the sleeping bunk with Hughes, for the coverings had been
stripped off, leaving the bare boards without so much as a pillow, and
the entire cabin had apparently been turned out and scrubbed from end
to end immediately before or after her departure.
The visit from which I hoped so much had proved a lamentable failure. I
was not one penny the wiser and three pounds poorer for my trouble, not
to speak of having got a chill, of which I should think myself cheaply
rid if it ended in nothing worse than a cold.
“The scheming rascal,” I said to myself. “I might have known he
wouldn’t have let me down here if he hadn’t been aware that every sign
of his having a companion on board had been cleared away. I suppose the
secret of it all is that he has got word that the inspector’s coming to
pay the hulks a visit shortly, and he’s packed off Mrs. Hughes until
it’s all over. Very likely she set things straight herself before she
went. All his pretended reluctance to go for my clothes and to leave me
here was put on that he might bleed me to the tune of another pound. I
should only be serving him out in his own coin if I gave information
that he’s had a woman on board.
“If it _was_ a woman? It’s very odd, though, that she hasn’t left
some little sign of her sex behind her--a hairpin, a button, or a
bonnet-pin. There are only short hairs (Hughes’ evidently) on the brush
and comb, but she may have had her own and have taken them with her.
But anyhow I might have expected to find, if not some hair-combings, at
least a stray hair or two which would have let me into the secret, and
the neighbourhood of the mirror’s the most likely place to find them.”
But, search as I would, not a single hair could I find, and in another
half-minute the near dip of oars announced Hughes’ return. As I heard
him jerk the sculls from the rowlocks, and the grinding of the dinghy
against the ship’s side, I took another despairing look around in the
hopes of lighting on something that had hitherto escaped my notice. One
object after another was hastily lifted, investigated, and as hastily
put down, but always with the same result. As I heard Hughes’ step upon
the deck my eyes fell upon a little square of soap which had fallen to
the floor and had escaped the notice--probably of Hughes as well as
of myself--on account of its being hidden by the corner of an oilskin
which was hanging from the wall. This oilskin I had taken down to
overhaul, and it was when replacing it that I found the soap, which
I saw, when I lifted it, was of better quality than one would expect
to find in such a place. It was still damp from recent usage, and as
I turned it over two or three hairs came off from the under side and
adhered to my hand. As I looked at them I gave a low, long, but almost
silent, whistle. They were beyond question the bristles of a shaving
brush which was fast going to pieces from long service. And that I was
not mistaken in so thinking was proved by the fact that the under side
of the soap still bore the marks made by the sweep of the brush over
the surface, and that the lather upon it was damp.
Some one had been shaving, and that quite recently, on the “Cuban
Queen.” It could not be Hughes, for he wore a thick, full beard. If
the person who passed as “Mrs. Hughes” really was a woman she was not
likely to have recourse to a razor to enhance her charms. If, on the
other hand, that person was a man, who was personating a woman for
purposes of disguise, a razor would be an absolute necessity among his
toilet requisites.