THE ARREST OF CAPTAIN SHANNON
Six o’clock next morning saw the red jersey, which was to recall
Hughes, slung over the ship’s side, and the preconcerted reply
signalled from the upper window of the cottage.
From then until nightfall I had to possess my soul in patience, and
never in my life has time hung so heavily on my hands as on that
eventful day.
Mullen, who had been up since daybreak, was watching the shipping with
the liveliest interest. By standing on the steps of the cockpit he
could, without being seen himself, get a distant view of every vessel
that passed up or down the great waterway of the Thames.
He was inclined to be friendly, even talkative, and only once was there
a recurrence of the irritability he had manifested on the previous
evening. It happened in this wise.
Some fishing lines were in the cabin, and being badly in want of
something to make the time pass, I baited them with shreds of raw
herring, and threw them over the ship’s side. I got a “bite” directly,
but, on hauling up, found it came from a crab about as big as a
five-shilling piece, whom I tenderly detached from the inhospitable
hook and restored to his native element. I rebaited, sent the lead
whizzing overboard, and again brought up a crab.
“Come to look for the other one, I suppose,” I said to myself. “His
wife, perhaps. I’ll treat her kindly,” and crab number two rejoined its
dear ones.
Again I rebaited, again there was a bite, and again a crab clawing
wildly at the air appeared at the end of the line.
“H’m--a sister this time, or perhaps a daughter. Back she goes,
however,” and crab number three popped safely overboard, only to be
succeeded by crab number four.
“These are Scotch crabs, I should think,” I grumbled, “they’re so
clannish;” but him too I sent on his way rejoicing. Then a fifth
appeared on the scene.
“Oh, hang it all!” I growled. “I shall never get any fish if the crabs
eat up my bait as fast as I put it on. I hoped that last was an orphan,
but it seems as if I had struck another family gathering.”
Crab number six added insult to injury by refusing to let go the bait,
though I turned him over on his back and shook him till he rattled.
“Oh, I can’t stand this,” I said, raising a menacing heel. But more
humane feeling prevailed, and once more I stooped to assist the
pertinacious crustacean to his native deep. A nip from his foreclaws
was all I got for my pains.
“Very well,” I said, “if you _will_ have it, you will.”
Down came the heel, there was a sickening scrunch, and what had been a
crab was a noisome mess.
Then I heard an exclamation of disgust behind me, and, looking guiltily
round, saw that Mullen, who had hitherto been too absorbed in watching
the shipping to interest himself in my fishing, had heard the scrunch
of the crab’s shell under my heel, and had turned to ascertain the
cause.
“You brute!” he said. “Why couldn’t you throw the wretched thing back
into the water?”
“It ain’t none of your business,” I answered sulkily.
“It is my business, and every decent person’s business. The thing never
did you any harm. Besides, look at the ghastly mess you’ve made.”
“Ain’t you never killed nothin’ wot done you no ’arm?” I asked, perhaps
indiscreetly.
“Yes, if I had any reason to do so; just as I’d gladly put my heel on
your ugly brute’s head and crush the life out of you as you’ve crushed
it out of that wretched crab,--but not from wanton destructiveness.”
I did not think it wise to prolong an argument which touched upon such
delicate and personal ground, so I continued my fishing in silence,
and after another exclamation of disgust Mullen turned away to devote
himself once more to the shipping.
Not a vessel went by that he did not scrutinise carefully, and
I noticed that when any small steamer hove in sight he fidgeted
restlessly until she was near enough to allow inspection. That he was
on the look-out either for a ship or for a signal from a ship I felt
sure; and I was inclined to think that the irritability he had just
displayed was due more to nerve tension, and to his disappointment at
not seeing the vessel for which he was watching, than to any other
cause.
One thing seemed certain, however,--Mullen was breaking down under the
strain, and was no longer the man he had been. This was very manifest
later on in the day when a large steam yacht made her appearance at
the mouth of the Thames. All his attention was at once riveted upon
her, and as she crept up the river towards us I could see that he was
becoming feverishly anxious.
“There’s a pair of field-glasses in the hold where I am sleeping,” he
said. “Would you mind getting them for me, like a good fellow? Some
one might see me if I went myself. I want to have a look at yonder big
liner going down the river. I fancy I sailed in her once.”
I did as he requested, and he made a pretence of examining the liner.
“Yes, it is she; I can read her name quite easily,” he said, turning
the glasses from the big ship to the steam yacht. His hand trembled so
that he seemed unable at first to get the focus, and I distinctly saw
the quick fluttering of his pulse in the veins of his wrist.
“What _is_ her name?” I asked.
“‘Fiona,’” he said absently, and then pulling himself up sharp,--“what
am I thinking about? I mean the ‘Walmer Castle,’ of course. I sailed in
her when I went to Peru.”
I had all along expected that it was for his sister’s boat “Fiona” that
Mullen was watching, but hardly that he would tell me so himself; and
that such a man--a man who had carried out his devilish plots as if his
heart had been of cold stone and his nerves of iron--should so give
himself away, as the phrase goes, was proof positive of his complete
breakdown.
He watched the steam yacht until she was in front of us, though, of
course, a considerable distance off,--and then, having apparently
satisfied himself of her identity, he laid the glasses down with a
sigh of relief and went below. As soon as he was out of sight I picked
them up, levelled them at the now receding vessel, and saw, as I had
expected, the word “Fiona” on her bow.
The plot was thickening, indeed, for it was no doubt by Mullen’s
directions that she had come to England (he had probably given
instructions that she was to enter the Thames by daylight so that he
might not miss her), and he would scarcely have sent for her until the
fitting moment to make his escape had arrived. I had scarcely time
to satisfy myself of the steam yacht’s identity and to lay down the
glasses before Mullen reappeared with a plentiful supply of bread and
cheese,--of which he must have been sorely in need, for he had had no
food since early morning. Every shadow of his nervousness was now gone,
and he was in the best of spirits.
“Hughes, my boy,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder boisterously,
for I was sitting with my feet in the cockpit, “how are you getting on?
And what are you going to do with all the fish you have caught, eh?”
I was in no humour to enter into conversation, and as I had caught no
fish--as he very well knew--I pretended to take the last remark in high
dudgeon, and gave him a sulky answer.
But the reaction from his former anxiety was so great, and so set was
he upon drawing me into conversation, that in order to escape him I
made an excuse about getting some tea and went below.
“That’s right; make yourself jolly, my good man. You’re going to do
well out of this job, I can tell you,” he said; “and as it’s beginning
to get a bit dark, and I don’t see any one about, I’ll go on deck to
stretch my legs and get an airing.”
He remained there until night had set in, and then he came into the
cabin.
“I say,” he said, “there’s a boat coming out to us. Who can it be, and
at this time of the day?”
“Most likely it’s Jim come back,” I answered gruffly. “’E said ’e’d
come soon as the missus was better.”
“Of course,” Mullen said pleasantly. “How foolish of me not to think
of it. I’m glad the poor fellow’s wife’s better. But I shall be sorry
to lose your entertaining companionship, my genial friend. _Can’t_ I
persuade you to stay on and favour us with the pleasure of your company
for a day or two longer, as my guest?”
“Guest be blowed!” I replied in my surliest tone. “If that’s Jim
Hughes, the sooner I ’as my money and gets ashore agen the better I’ll
like it.”
“I should be hurt if I thought you meant that,” he said banteringly;
“but I know you don’t. We’ve hit it off together charmingly, I’m sure,
notwithstanding the fact that I’m so ‘difficult’ socially. And I’d make
such delightful plans for your comfort and amusement. It seems hard
that we should have to part.”
At that moment, and not a little to my relief, we heard a voice which
was unmistakably Hughes’, for he was expressing, by means of a liberal
use of his favourite adjective, the unwillingness with which he set
eyes on “the old tub again.”
“Well,” said Mullen, when Hughes entered the cabin, “and how’s your
wife?”
“Better,” was the answer.
“Ah, that’s capital; I congratulate you, I’m sure. So glad to see you
back again. Except, of course, for the fact that we shall be deprived
of your brother’s company. He _is_ your brother you said, didn’t
you? Though really one need hardly ask; the likeness, I’m sure, is
wonderful. But what a man it is, Hughes! Such geniality, such urbanity,
such a flow of spirits, such a fund of information, and, above all,
such manners!”
Hughes, who had probably never seen Mullen in this vein before, looked
first at him and then at me in astonishment.
“Stow your jaw!” I said shortly. “If you’re going to pay me for the
job, pay me and let me go!”
“Certainly, certainly, my dear fellow,” replied Mullen, smiling. “Yes,
you and I _have_ a little account to settle, haven’t we? I’ll pay you,
by all means. I always do pay my debts, and with interest. First, about
the hulk.”
He had been standing by the door all the time, but he now stepped
forward and counted out ten sovereigns upon the table.
“Will that satisfy you and keep your mouth shut?” he said, stepping
back again.
I nodded.
“Put them in your pocket, then, and that matter’s settled.”
I stooped to pick up the coins, but as I did so Mullen suddenly pushed
me with all his strength against Hughes, knocking the two of us
backward upon the bunk.
In another second he had stepped out of the cabin, pulling the door to
with a bang, and then we heard the rattle of the outside bolt in the
socket.
Hughes hurled me off and sprang up with blazing eyes.
“Did you take the bolt off and put it outside?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then ’_e_’s done it, and ’e means mischief for both of us! The ----’s
bad enough for anything. I know ’im; and ’ere we are caught like rats
in a trap.”
“That’s all right,” I said, and hunching my shoulder to the door and
making a pivot of my right foot, I burst the thing open with a crash,
the screws starting from their sockets and pattering upon a locker
opposite like spent bullets.
As I did so, Hughes rushed past me and upon the deck, I after him.
Nor were we too soon, for Mullen was making, as Hughes had evidently
feared, for the dynamite hold. When he heard our footsteps he turned,
and whipping out a revolver, raised it and shot Hughes right through
the heart. The unhappy man flung up his arms and toppled over the
ship’s side into the sea; but before Mullen could turn the weapon upon
me I got in a blow straight from the shoulder, which took him well
under the chin, and tumbled him backward to the bottom of the hold. I
hit hard enough to have knocked him “silly,” and I was not surprised
that he lay for a minute or two like one dead. Then he tried to rise,
but fell back with a groan, apparently quite helpless.
“Are you hurt?” I inquired, kneeling on one knee, the better to look
down into the hold.
He glanced up with a feeble attempt at a smile upon features cruelly
contorted by pain.
“So you’ve won the rubber after all, although I’d arranged everything
so cleverly, as I thought. You and Hughes, once locked securely in the
cabin, and a fuse put to the dynamite, I ought by now to have been half
a mile off in the dinghy, and on my way to join my sister at Gravesend.
We should have slipped off quietly in the confusion of the explosion,
for no one would know that it didn’t occur, as explosions have occurred
before, through the carelessness of the man in charge. And you and
Hughes, the only two people who could set matters right, would have
gone to join the dead men, who tell no tales. Confess, now, wasn’t it a
pretty plan, and worthy of an artist, friend Rissler?”
I started at the mention of my name, seeing which he burst into a
mocking laugh.
“Is it possible? No, it can’t be!” he said. “Don’t, _don’t_ tell me
that you didn’t know I knew who you were. Why, you refreshing person,
it was only because I did know that I pretended to fall into your booby
trap. I only let you take Hughes’ place on board the hulk that I might
get you into my power and rid myself of the pair of you at a sweep. And
to think that you didn’t know that I knew! Why, man alive, I’ve known
all about you from the first, and I could have sent you to join Quickly
and Green long ago if I had minded. But they were mere bunglers, fit
only to put out of the way, just as one would tread upon a spider or
beetle,--whereas you’re really clever, and ingenious, and all that
sort of thing, don’t you know, and you interested me. I don’t say that
if you had had any one you were very fond of,--a wife, sweetheart,
sister,--something might not have happened to _them_, just to let you
know that I was keeping you in mind.
“Once or twice you played your cards quite prettily; but oh! how you
bungled them at others! Still, I might have expected that from your
books. What could be worse of their sort than they? I’ve read them all,
though how I endured it I don’t know. There is _one_ thing _I couldn’t_
endure, however, and that is that you should write about _me_. Spare
me that last indignity and I’ll forgive you the brutal, blackguardly,
costermonger blows you struck me behind the Post Office.”
His eyes shone wickedly as he spoke, and then, for the first time, it
occurred to me (I had been too fascinated by the man to think of it
before) that he must have some motive for thus putting himself to the
trouble of holding me in conversation at a time when he was, as I could
see, suffering the keenest physical pain. What could his motive be?
For answer there came from the space where the dynamite was stored, a
tiny splutter, not unlike the splutter which is given occasionally by a
badly-trimmed lamp.
We had _not_ been in time to prevent him carrying out his devilish
purpose after all! And I--blind fool that I was--had been listening
idly to his chatter, not knowing that every word which fell from his
lips was bringing nearer the certainty of a dreadful fate.
This was why he had forced himself to smile and wear a mask, was it?
But the mask was off now, for catching sight of the horror in my face
as I leapt to my feet, he raised himself on his arm, and glared at me
with a countenance contorted out of all human likeness by devilish hate
and exultation.
“You’re too late, you ----! You’re too late. We’re going to hell
together, and if there’s a deeper hell still, I’ll seize you with a
grip you can’t shake off, and leap with you into the eternal fire. You
sha’n’t escape me there any more than you have here, for we’ll burn
together! You’re too late! you’re too----”
His voice died away in the distance, for I was by this time in the
dinghy, and rowing as man never rowed before. Thank God, I was already
ten yards away--twenty, fifty, a hundred!
Suddenly the sea behind me seemed to open up in one sheet of purple
flame, and I was knocked backward out of the boat as if by a blow from
a clenched fist. Then it seemed as if the sea had picked me up in its
arms--as I had once seen a drink-maddened man pick up a child, whom he
afterwards dashed headforemost against a brick wall--and had flung me
away and away over the very world’s edge.
* * * * *
When I came to myself I was lying high and dry upon the Kentish coast,
carried there, no doubt, by the huge wave that had followed the
explosion.
Captain Shannon had been arrested at last, and by an officer who,
for your crimes and mine, reader,--be they few or many, trivial or
great,--is now hunting each of us down to bring us to justice.
That detective--Detective Death--there is no eluding; and one day he
will lay his hand upon your shoulder and upon mine and say, “Come.”
And we shall have to go.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Small capitals are changed to all capitals.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected
after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and
consultation of external sources. Except for those changes noted below,
all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have
been retained.
The following corrections have been applied to the text (before/after):
(p. 19)
Captain Shannon.”
“Captain Shannon.”
(p. 63)
... play “Rule Britannia” on ...
... play ‘Rule Britannia’ on ...
(p. 78)
... upon the “Cuban Queen;” the ...
... upon the ‘Cuban Queen;’ the ...
(p. 102)
... and instal myself ...
... and install myself ...
(p. 107)
... boy. “It’s rather ...
... boy. It’s rather ...
(p. 107)
... return the “exs.” as ...
... return the ‘exs.’ as ...
(p. 107)
... on the “Cuban Queen.” As Green ...
... on the ‘Cuban Queen.’ As Green ...
(p. 134)
... in the haircutting rooms. ...
... in the hair-cutting rooms. ...
(p. 146)
... whose caligraphy I ...
... whose calligraphy I ...
(p. 156)
... just off the boatbuilder’s yard ...
... just off the boat-builder’s yard ...
(p. 167)
... lying on the mantelshelf. ...
... lying on the mantel-shelf. ...
(p. 177)
... one there, by the-bye?”
... one there, by-the-bye?”
(p. 226)
AFTER THE EXPLOSION.
AFTER THE EXPLOSION
(p. 249)
... And so ’d you, ...
... And so ’ud you, ...
(p. 253)
... The “Cuban Queen” is being ...
... The ‘Cuban Queen’ is being ...
(p. 254)
... FOR THE SECOND TIME.
... FOR THE SECOND TIME