THE LAST CHANCE FAILS
The daughter of the millionaire and the draper's assistant stood eyeing
each other for twenty seconds in growing mutual approval, and then the
hearty ring of Miss Nettle Jimpson's rather powerful voice prevailed.
Their hands met in a grasp that at once testified to true comradeship
and to sympathy for the other's plight. Violet would have drawn the
other down on to the couch beside her, but Miss Jimpson, with a glance
at the door, resisted the friendly invitation.
"Better not," she said in her matter-of-fact way. "One of those beasts
might take it into his head to come in at any minute, and it won't do
for them to think that we're going to be thick together. I've just given
one of them a smack in the face that will last him quite a while, but it
wasn't exactly judicious. They know I'm not fond of them, but my cue
isn't open rebellion till I'm driven to it."
So Miss Jimpson remained standing while at Violet's request she
recounted the story of her enforced enlistment, and of all that had
happened on the _Cobra_ since. She waxed humorous at her own expense
over the inducement held out by Brant to pacify her--that she was to act
as companion to a lady passenger; and she described her subsequent
surmise that she was to assist at an elopement. Again she went on to
relate how Leslie Chermside had shattered that latest theory, first in
words and secondly by wild dismay on hearing Violet's voice in the
launch alongside.
"I knew then that he might be your sweetheart, but that he certainly
wasn't on board the _Cobra_ to run away with you," said Nettle simply.
"He was like a crazy creature in his wish to stop you from coming
aboard. He expected to be killed in the attempt, and he begged me to
stand by you if he failed to get the better of the men in the launch."
Violet's eyes were moist with unshed tears. "You have been frank with
me, and I will be frank with you," she said. "Mr. Chermside is my lover,
and the people who are employing Brant in this cruel business induced
him by a series of lying tricks to fly on the steamer from a charge of
murder. They hoped, as has happened, that I should follow to dissuade
him."
"The charge is trumped up, of course?" said Nettle, and it was rather an
assertion than a question.
"He might have some difficulty in disproving it, the train was laid with
such fiendish ingenuity," answered Violet gravely.
"That is rough luck. Then if he escaped from the ship to land he would
be arrested and have to stand his trial?" And there was that in Miss
Jimpson's voice that suggested that she was weighing chances with some
definite idea at the back of her active brain.
"I am afraid so, but his arrest would be infinitely preferable to the
fate destined for him if he does not escape," replied Violet. There was
a little eager note of inquiry in her voice, for she had been quick to
grasp the hesitation in her new friend's tone.
But, ignoring the challenge, Miss Jimpson refused to be drawn at
present. "Tell me," she said--"that is if you care to--why Brant has
been bribed to do this dirty work, and where the ship is bound for."
Wisely abstaining from forcing her ally's hand, Violet disclosed in such
halting sentences as her pride would permit the object of the cunning
intrigue that had centred round her. Nettle Jimpson's fearless eyes grew
rounder and rounder as she listened to the crop of mischief sown by the
Maharajah of Sindkhote 5,000 miles away to ripen in a quiet English
village. And not being the direct object of the villainous outrage, she
appreciated more fully than Violet was yet able to the ghastly tragedy
looming ahead at the end of the _Cobra's_ voyage.
"There's one chance," she said when the story of the Eastern Prince's
passion, aided by a western rascal's guile, came to an end. "Only a
little one, but still a chance. On condition that I didn't play the
giddy goat over being kidnapped Brant promised to put into Plymouth on
the way down channel, so that I could send a letter ashore for my young
man. He's a petty officer on the destroyer _Snipe_."
"The _Snipe_!" repeated Violet. The name struck her at once as familiar,
and a moment later she remembered why. It had been ever on the
impertinent lips of Enid Mallory as that of the diminutive warship
commanded by her own particular naval hero, Reggie Beauchamp.
"Yes," said Nettle, "the _Snipe_ is attached to the torpedo flotilla
there. If I could communicate your position to Ned he'd tell his
commander, and something would surely be done to stop this steamer
before she reaches her destination. It's a far cry to India, and the
authorities would set the cables to work. It would go hard with us if
the _Cobra_ wasn't snapped up by a man-of-war somewhere betwixt this and
there."
Violet shook her head. "That promise was made to be broken," she smiled
sadly. "I fear Brant would never incur such a risk as that."
"If he doesn't this is going to be a hot ship," rejoined Nettle with
spirit. "But you are very likely right," she added after a pause. "When
I asked the mate Cheeseman when we should be off Plymouth he tried to
box my ears--by the captain's orders, he said. That was why I smacked
his face."
Suddenly Violet rose and began pacing the saloon. "Oh, but I have been
selfishly thinking of myself!" she cried. "I heard that brute say that
Leslie--Mr. Chermside--was only stunned and that he was coming to, but
for all that he may be badly injured and in pain. Can you find out for
me, you dear kind girl? Not if it will entail insult or ill-treatment
for you, though."
"I'll chance that," replied Nettle firmly. "They carried him down on to
the lower deck somewhere, and I'll go and see. But I am forgetting my
duties. I was to show you your sleeping cabin. It's next door to this."
Violet waved her away. "As if I could sleep," she protested with a
petulance which she instantly regretted.
Nettle, with a large-hearted tolerance for her companion's over-wrought
condition, nodded and went out on to the upper deck. The steamer was
gliding through the calm water at half-speed, having reached the fishing
grounds of the Brixham trawlers off Berry Head. The sturdy little craft
were clustered thick as ants on either beam. It was necessary to thread
a cautious track through them if an untimely collision was not to
furnish a clue to Violet's disappearance as soon as it was discovered in
the morning. Nugent's "sealed orders" had been explicit on this head,
and Simon Brant was not the man to risk punishment and the loss of his
huge reward for lack of attention to detail.
"The inference at Ottermouth when Miss Maynard is missed will be that
she has voluntarily accompanied Chermside on his flight," these
instructions run. "On the whole it will serve our purpose as well as
another, but it is imperative that the direction of this flight be
unknown. I have Mr. Maynard's confidence, and I shall do my best to
foster the idea that Chermside, whom he will of course regard as a free
agent, will be likely to make for America, blinding pursuit by taking
an eastern course up channel, and then a northerly one round the
Scottish coast into the Atlantic. In reality you will run down channel
to the westward, and in doing so you must therefore avoid undue speed or
anything that may draw attention to your vessel as the one in which the
'elopement' has been carried out."
Nettle Jimpson, knowing nothing about the reason, was nevertheless
annoyed at the slow speed, because it would delay the "one chance" at
Plymouth to which she had pinned her faith. But realizing that the delay
was beyond her control, she devoted herself to the matter in hand.
Casting an upward glance at the bridge, where the quartermaster at the
wheel and several other figures were dimly visible against the starlit
sky, she skulked along in the shadows of the deck superstructure till
she came to the companion stairs leading down to the main deck. It was
but a short distance from the door of the saloon and she met no one,
though both from the stern and the forecastle gruff whisperings told her
that it was a wakeful ship. Stealing down the stairs, she reached the
main deck unmolested, and looked about her. Evidently it was here that
the officers and the engineers were berthed. Open cabin doors yielded
glimpses of oilskin coats and tarpaulin hats, while a well-scrubbed
table in the centre of the open space was spread with the remains of a
meal that had been partaken of by half a dozen people.
But of the prisoner, or of any closed door behind which he could be
confined, there was no sign. She continued to explore, and at the
forward end of the deck found an open hatchway with a flight of almost
perpendicular wooden steps running down into the pitch darkness of the
lower deck. Undaunted by the steepness of the ladder and the absence of
light, she descended into the abyss, where the smell of paint and
cordage told her that she was near the ship's storeroom. Realizing at
once that down here her eyes were useless for the quest, she raised her
voice and called----
"Where are you, Mr. Chermside?"
Nothing but silence followed, and emboldened by the fact that none of
the _Cobra's_ ruffian crew seemed to be on the lower deck, she called
louder still, and this time she got an answer--an inarticulate
utterance, half-sigh and half-groan, from out of the inky blackness.
Picking her way towards it, her groping hands encountered the blank
space of an open door.
"Mr. Chermside, are you in there?" she asked, excitement rather than
fear of being overheard causing her to drop her voice to a whisper.
Again that curious sound but no informing reply, and Nettle crept into
the cabin. She had penetrated but a few feet when she stumbled over
something, and, stooping down, she felt a soft substance which her sense
of touch informed her was the body of a man. The next instant she gave
vent to a cry of horror when her searching hands came into contact with
a steel chain which her busy fingers quickly traced to a metal circlet
grasping a man's leg.
"Mr. Chermside!" she scarcely breathed. "Give me water," came the faint
response from the unseen.
Nettle Jimpson's presence of mind, which had never really left her,
reasserted itself in full force. "Shan't be a moment," she said, and
whisking out of the cabin, retraced her steps as best she could to the
ladder, climbed to the main-deck, and seized a jug of water from the
table where the ship's officers had supped. She looked around for a
portable lamp or candle, but this deck, like the rest of the vessel, was
electrically lit, and she had abandoned the hope of providing herself
with a light, when she espied a box of wax matches among a heap of
tobacco ashes on a plate.
A minute later she was down on the lower deck again, holding the jug to
Leslie's parched lips, and by the tiny flare of one of the matches
examining the dungeon which Brant's malevolent spite had devised for his
prisoner. Leslie was lying on a plank bench, securely chained from the
ankles to an iron ring firmly set in the stanchion over his head. His
face was covered with blood, and he was white with the loss of it,
though he revived fast when he had drained the water. By the time Nettle
had lit her third match she had assured herself that his injuries were
not dangerous, though she was equally convinced that to release him from
his cruel durance was beyond her powers.
"Miss Maynard--they have not harmed her?" gasped Leslie, as soon as he
could speak.
His ministering angel hastened to reassure him, exaggerating sturdily in
a good cause. "She's treated like a queen, with every deference and
respect," said the girl, as she eased his cramped position. "Of course,
she's worried about you. But see here, Mr. Chermside, we've no time for
talking. I must get back to the saloon without being caught if I'm to be
of any use. There are only us two women to stand between you and these
fiends, and there's only God Almighty to stand between us and--the end
of the voyage. There's a bare chance that we may be able to send word
into Plymouth, if I can fool or browbeat the captain, and I must be on
hand to run that chance for all it's worth. You understand that I can't
stay here with you?"
"Yes, go at once," murmured the injured man. "Never mind me, but for
heaven's sake do what you can for her. Above all, let me beg of you not
to harrow her with a description of all this."
The clank of the chain was eloquent of what he meant, and, promising to
observe his wishes, Nettle withdrew. She regained the saloon after her
adventure without meeting any one, and to Violet's eager questions she
gave the evasively truthful answer that Leslie was recovering from his
injuries, but that he was kept a close prisoner on the lower deck, and
that she had had to converse with him without seeing him, leaving it to
be inferred that she had not entered his cabin. By this means she
avoided imparting the gruesome details of the _Cobra's_ "black hole."
Violet steadily refused to retire to the sleeping cabin prepared for
her, and the two girls spent what remained of the hours of darkness in
the saloon together. In the grey of dawn Nettle went out on to the upper
deck, self-possessed as usual, but despondent of success in the task
before her. Brant was on the bridge, stumping to and fro to keep himself
warm, for there was a chilly nip in the breeze that had sprung up during
the night. The little atomy of a skipper seemed in an ominously genial
mood, for at sight of Miss Jimpson's fluttering garments he leaned over
the bridge-rail and hailed her.
"Hullo, my Weymouth linen-tearer!" he called down. "Shaking into your
job nicely, eh? How's her Royal Highness the Maharanee of Sindkhote this
morning? I've no doubt that she's confided in you about her brilliant
destiny. The day will come when she will look on Simon Brant as a sort
of fairy godfather."
Nettle looked round warily. Land was visible on the starboard beam, but
so far off that its contour could not be distinguished in the blue haze
that preceded sunrise. The distance between the coastline and the
steamer, which was now running at full speed, was hardly compatible with
an intention to make for an English port. Miss Nettle's Sunday walks and
talks with a sailor sweetheart had given her a smattering of sea-lore,
and she did not like the look of it. But she was there to assert
herself, and did not mean to haul down her colours without striking a
blow.
"Drat you for a fairy godfather--you and your Maharanees!" she
exclaimed, with a well-feigned indifference to the larger issue, "It's
me and my young man I'm thinking about. When do you run into Plymouth,
so that I can send my letter?"
"Is it written?" Brant grinned down at her.
"That won't take five minutes. It will be ready long before you can put
me within reach of a post office."
Brant grinned again as he followed the direction of her gesture towards
the distant land.
"Then don't trouble to write it," he croaked. "I admire your cheek so
that I'd break orders for you if I could. But there's five thousand
pounds to it, my dear, and the _Cobra_ isn't going to call at Plymouth
or any other port till we dump our cargo. If you want a young man, I've
no doubt you can be accommodated on board, or if there's none here to
your fancy, perhaps the lady will fix you up with a blacky husband in
India."
Miss Jimpson's eyes glinted. "Is that your last word?" she said.
"As to calling at Plymouth? Yes, it's my very last word; and now you can
start abusing me. I rather like it," came down the captain's shrill
treble. And he added maliciously, "We passed the opening of Plymouth
Sound an hour ago if it's any use to you to know it."
The girl turned on her heel without further waste of breath. She had
never in her heart relied on the miscreant's promise, but she had clung
to it as the last chance. And now their last chance had failed. CHAPTER
XXVI
ENID IS "MIXED UP"
Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Mallory were too accustomed to their daughter's
erratic habits to be perturbed by her non-appearance at the
dinner-table. It came natural to them to account for her absence by an
invitation, given and accepted on the spur of the moment, to spend an
informal evening at the house of some friend, and they would be quite
satisfied if she turned up any time before midnight.
It was Mr. Mallory's practice on three evenings of the week to go down
to the club after dinner to enjoy a little bridge or whist with some of
his cronies, and this being one of the appointed nights he sallied forth
about nine o'clock without giving Enid a second thought. If he had known
that she was shut up in Travers Nugent's grotto, his opponents at the
card-table would have had reason to rejoice; for, always a sound player,
he was more than usually deadly that evening.
On going downstairs at the conclusion of the play, he came upon the
lantern-jawed Mr. Lazarus Lowch, the foreman of the adjourned inquest.
Mr. Lowch was seldom to be found at the club so late, and he was mooning
about the ante-room with an abstracted air which promptly changed to
purposeful alertness at sight of Mr. Mallory. A less shrewd observer
than the old servant of the Foreign Office would have seen that he was
the object of this unwonted visitation.
"I should be glad if you could spare me a few minutes, Mallory," said
Lowch, in his funereal tones. "It is rather important and in a way
personal to yourself. We are on the eve of some striking developments in
this murder case, I think."
In common with most of his fellow-members, Mr. Mallory had no great
liking for the dismal Lazarus, but, like the old war-horse he was, he
pricked up his ears at the reason for the desired interview.
Glancing into the reading-room, he saw that it was unoccupied. "Come in
here," he said shortly. "There is no one to overhear us."
"Your mention of overhearing brings me at once to what I want to say,"
Mr. Lowch proceeded ponderously. "The other day, in this very club, I
overheard the most astonishing confirmation----"
"I know. I saw you listening on the stairs when Nugent and Chermside
were together in the card-room," Mr. Mallory could not resist the
interruption. "Incidentally, you led me into a bit of eavesdropping too,
for when I was at pains to inform myself who it was who was so engrossed
in that conversation, I couldn't help hearing a few words of what was
interesting you."
The sarcasm fell quite flat on Mr. Lazarus Lowch. His hide was as that
of a rhinoceros to any such delicate irony. He was one of those who
think that the end justifies the means, provided that the end in
question entails the discomfort or disparagement of some unfortunate
fellow-creature.
"Then if you heard it too, it will simplify my task," he went on
serenely. "Mr. Mallory, it will be my duty at the adjourned inquiry to
let daylight into the coroner about that fellow Chermside. He is the
murderer, as sure as we stand here, and Nugent is shielding him because
he wishes to avoid incurring the odium of having introduced a scoundrel
into this peaceful spot."
Mr. Mallory could not entirely control the disgust which crept into his
face at this open avowal of petty spite. But he was old diplomatist
enough to control his voice. "That is not my view of the case," he said,
with frigid politeness. And then, as if stung by a scorpion, he for an
instant lost the grip in which he was holding himself, and added
quickly, "But why am I the recipient of your--what shall I call
it--confession? What have your spyings and deductions to do with me more
than another?"
Mr. Lowch essayed to impart to his saturnine features an expression of
sympathetic concern, and made a failure of the job. Indeed, the facial
antics in which he indulged rather suggested the anticipation of
malevolent triumph. "You surely, my dear sir, have not forgotten the
first sitting of the inquest, and the evidence given thereat by
Lieutenant Beauchamp?" he said, trying to adopt an ingratiating tone,
but only succeeding in croaking like a raven.
Mr. Mallory guessed what he was making for, but declined to provide the
opening. "Well?" was all he said.
"Mr. Beauchamp admitted that on the night of the murder he was on the
marsh, close to where the body of Levison was found--at least, I
elicited as much from him," said Lowch, warming to his work.
"Yes?" snapped Mr. Mallory, still refusing to be helpful.
"And that he heard a strange cry?"
"So I understood."
"Leaving an impression on the mind of the jury that he knew more of the
occurrence than he chose to tell?"
"Not having been on the jury, it is impossible for me to answer that,"
Mr. Mallory rejoined drily.
Lazarus Lowch bowed slightly as though willing to make the concession,
but conscious of his magnanimity in doing so. "Now Mr. Mallory," he went
on, clearing his throat as a prelude to the real issue, "I do not mean
any offence, but I am more or less in an official position in this
inquiry. Mr. Beauchamp had a companion on that evening, and though the
name did not transpire in court, it is common knowledge who that
companion was. Gossip may be pernicious, but in a place like this it
does not err. It will not be denied, I think, that it was your daughter,
Miss Enid Mallory, who accompanied Lieutenant Beauchamp on that evening
walk?"
Mr. Mallory contrived to keep the curb on himself. He was very angry,
but he wanted to know what was coming. Evidently this fatuous busybody
had not yet sprung the full force of the tremendous battery with which
he believed himself armed.
"There is no need for any mystery," Mr. Mallory replied suavely. "Enid
and Reggie Beauchamp are engaged to be married. I am aware that they
were together that evening, and with my entire sanction--if that is what
you are driving at."
Mr. Lazarus shook his head, as one who is misjudged. "Really, no," came
his protesting croak. "I should be the last to impute that kind of
secrecy to Miss Mallory. On the contrary, I am sure that she would be
quite open about anything of that sort. Nor would it be my business if
she wasn't."
"Well, look here, Lowch. What the devil is it that she hasn't been open
about that is your business?" exclaimed Enid's father, losing patience
at last. "You have got something up your sleeve, I can see. Would it not
be better to pull it down and have done with it? But I warn you first
that you must be careful how you handle my daughter's good name."
The chronic scowl that made little children run when the local kill-joy
approached lifted at the prospect of striking a blow beneath the belt.
Lowch even smiled in sickly fashion as he struck it.
"I was on the golf links this afternoon," he began his indictment, "and
I happened to see Miss Enid leave at the end of her round, as I thought,
for home. Instead of accompanying her friends, however, she parted from
them outside the pavilion, and went away alone in the opposite
direction. In fact, entirely in the interests of justice, I watched
her----"
"Where from?" came the knife-like interruption.
"From behind a gorse-bush," was the unblushing rejoinder. "She went into
Mr. Travers Nugent's garden door, which, as you know, abuts on the moor.
In a little while she was followed by a disreputable-looking man, who
also disappeared into Nugent's garden. He, too, had been taking
advantage of a convenient gorse-bush. The deduction is obvious. Nugent
and his friend Chermside are deeply implicated in the murder which I am
officially investigating, and--er--it looks very much as if Miss Enid,
innocently perhaps, is mixed up in it too."
Mr. Mallory's clean-shaven, ascetic face had gone as white as snow. The
absence from dinner took on a new complexion by the light of this
misbegotten information that she had ventured into the danger zone, and
had been shadowed into it by one of its dangerous master's creatures.
But the old man's sudden pallor was due as much to the contemptuous rage
that overmastered him as to fear for his only child.
"You amazing idiot!" he cried. "Why couldn't you have told me the bare
fact of my daughter having been to The Hut at first, without your string
of silly insinuations? The delay may mean--but there, words are wasted
on such as you----"
He turned to hurry from the room, and there in the doorway, where she
had stood for the last half-minute, in defiance of the most stringent
rule of the club, was the pretty subject of his anxiety, her
sun-browned cheeks all seamed with bramble scratches, her corona of
golden hair tumbling over her shoulders, her golf skirt in tatters.
"Don't look so scared, father," she said. "I'm all right. But that
person has hit the correct nail about my being very mixed up in it, and
you must come away at once, please. I have a lot to tell you."
Ignoring the incoherences of the inquisitive Lazarus, whom they left
babbling his willingness to overlook the infraction of the rule against
the admission of ladies if they would only have their say out there,
father and daughter passed out of the club into the quiet and deserted
street. Alive to the value of every second, Enid condensed the narrative
of her experience in the grotto into a few words, but she missed no
vital point, from her imprisonment by "The Bootlace Man" to her escape
twenty minutes ago by the aid of her fellow-prisoner, the French
onion-seller. Nor did she omit to repeat the fantastic notions held by
Pierre Legros, and the final mystery of Violet Maynard's voice being
heard in the garden so late at night.
In his absorption in the momentous tale, Mr. Mallory came to a halt
under a street lamp, for they had intuitively turned their steps up the
hill homewards. Enid saw the dawn of a great fear in the well-chiselled
features she knew so well. But she would not have abstained from slang
on the Judgment Day.
"What is it, dad," she said, laying a grimy paw on the sleeve of her
father's dinner jacket. "Have I enabled you to spot the winner?" "This
is what I make of it on a rough calculation," Mr. Mallory replied. "The
Frenchman's suspicions as to Nugent taking Louise Aubin away on a
steamer are, of course, all moonshine. It is Violet Maynard who is being
decoyed on to the steamer, with Chermside and the murder of that
miserable Jew as items in a nice little plot of Nugent's. I have had
inquiries made in London lately, and I find that he was thick with that
Indian prince whose name was coupled with Violet's in the society rags.
I know Bhagwan Singh for an arrogant and pitiless libertine, Enid. That
steamer is bound for India."
The old man and the girl stared at each other, comprehending the tragedy
in all its naked horror.
"How long ago was it that you heard Miss Maynard passing through the
grounds of The Hut on her way to the beach?" Mr. Mallory asked, breaking
the strained silence.
"It must have been more than half an hour. I got out through the roof of
the grotto almost immediately afterwards; then I went home, and, finding
you out, ran down to the club as hard as I could," Enid replied. Then,
glancing up at her father's stern, set face, she said abruptly----
"What time does the telephone exchange close?"
"Hours ago--at eight o'clock, and it's now nearly midnight," replied Mr.
Mallory, looking at her as if she had gone daft.
"But if we made it all right with the exchange people we could get the
wire, I suppose?"
"If you could persuade or bribe them--certainly," said Mr. Mallory, with
a touch of impatience. "But what good would it do? You cannot telephone
to any one who can prevent Miss Maynard from going on board a steamer
which, by your own showing, must have been reached by her long ago."
Enid linked her arm in her father's and began dragging him to the shop
where the exchange was worked. "Come along and see," she exclaimed
excitedly. "The worst of you clever people is that you never give any
one else credit for a gleam of intelligence."
A couple of minutes later they had rung the bell at the private door of
the shop, and were parleying with a sleepy individual at an upper
window, who was at last induced to come down and open to them.