thing sailing against the lightening sky. He saw its outline moving
steadily, perfectly poised, with outstretched wings, beating up against
the cold breeze that heralded dawn. It swung close to him, its little
beak open, its feet dangling, ready to alight. He lost it in the gloom.
The waves breaking on the shingle surged far up the beach, then swept
back, and the stones rattled down after the receding water with a noise
like thick hail.
"Who are you, anyway?"
Vining shouted to make himself heard above the clatter of the shingle,
but he was conscious that his voice was drowned in the noise. He
shouted a third time. There was no reply. Only the swish of the spent
waves and the rattle of the rolling pebbles came to him.
"There's someone down there," he muttered uneasily. "Someone was
calling."
Fear came to him in renewed force. Had he been trailed? Had someone,
some night prowler, seen him descend to the cave? Or was it his fancy?
Was it possible that no one had called, no one at all? Were his ears
deceiving him? Was his nerve gone?
He put his hands to his head, which was aching and throbbing, and
held his temples. His hands trembled. He was shaking all over. As he
crouched there, a wretched figure, afraid, scared, shivering with cold,
and with the thrill of his breaking spirit racing within him, he heard
it again.
"_Get away! Get away!_"
There was no mistaking it, though the call was much fainter. It came to
him borne on the wind, a cry from far up the beach.
"_Get away!_"
He bounded to his feet, every shred of his former self abandoned, every
sinew urging him to action.
"All right," he cried. "I'll get away! I'll get away!"
He had been seen. Someone had observed him. He had stumbled on to a
forbidden piece of the cliff. Was it a watchman who had seen him and
had warned him to go away? It could not be the police. They would
not have warned him to go away! They would have come and taken him.
He dared not wait there. The observer would give information of his
presence. The police would come to investigate. He would be found, and
then--the scaffold!
The land was his enemy. His soul clamoured for the sea and the things
of the sea. He knew the sea. He had sailed on it for years--deep-water
sailing, out of the sight of land and human beings. The sea would cover
him, and his pursuers would be baffled.
The land was for landsmen. The police worked on land. The land had
betrayed him thrice already--first by the dust of the road, next by
the corn in the meadow, then by the scent of his clothes. The land had
tried to hinder his escape; it had tried to maim him. How he cursed the
rabbit-hole that had sprained his ankle!
Dawn was coming up in the east. He must move at once, before his
pursuers came after him. He would go down and take a boat at once and
be off before daylight--off to Gris Nez! He would outwit the unseen
observer, and be halfway across the Channel before the boat was missed.
Crawling out of his cave, he toiled slowly and painfully up the cliff,
stopping every now and then to listen. Once he heard the call, but it
sounded far away, almost like an echo.
"_Get away! Get away!_"
He smiled grimly to himself. The observer was on the wrong tack,
evidently moving towards the town, while he moved in the opposite
direction. The dawn was present by this time--a grey dawn--but daylight
was coming fast. Every minute brought more light. Now was his time to
get to the beach and choose his boat from those he could see lying
about the shingle.
He reached the crest of the hill, intending to descend on the other
side; but, as he peered over the ridge, he heard cries and shouts and
saw a strange sight. Coming along the top of the cliff was a pack
of hounds--brown and white hounds, like the one he had slain in the
meadow. They were coming straight for him; and behind them were men on
horseback. He had no time to think, no time to do anything except rise
to his feet and strike at the foremost dog as he had struck before.
This time he did not kill, but he sent the animal howling to the rear;
and, as he saw the pack breasting the hill, he took to his heels.
Oblivious of the pain in his ankle, he ran towards the sloping cliff.
He had no time to select his place of descent, but he found one. He
slid, rolled, bumped, towards the shore, landing in a heap on the
shingle. He was up again, and ran towards the boats. They were after
him. He saw some men on horseback shaking their whips at him and
shouting. He did not care. His hands were on a boat, but he could not
move it alone. He looked out to the sea. A small fishing-boat bobbed to
the swell less than a hundred yards from the beach. He ran into the sea
and struck out for it.
"Gris Nez! Gris Nez!" he called. He would show them some sailing! Was
he not a seaman? He swam fast and reached the fishing-boat, hauling
himself aboard by a fender. He did not trouble to look at his enemies.
He had too much to do to escape. The anchor-rope refused to come; he
cut the line in desperation and began to haul the sail up as he drifted.
"_Get away! Get away!_"
The command startled him, so clear was it, so sharp. His fingers let go
the rope, the sail dropped, crumpling up in a tangled mass. He looked
aloft, and saw a little white gull, with grey wings, perched on the
masthead, and above it another gull wheeled and circled.
Vining was still staring at the gulls when a motor-boat ran alongside
his drifting craft. Over the gun-wale men clambered and faced him. One
was a policeman, but a man in the garb of a huntsman thrust his way
forward and pointed to Vining.
"That is the man, constable. We had a dog killed yesterday, and that
broke the chase, and we routed out a cub this morning, and chased it
along the cliff, when this man----"
"I killed the dog in the meadow yesterday. I am Samuel Vining."
"The murderer!" cried the constable. "We have been watching for you."
Samuel Vining did not move, though the others shrank from him. He was
staring insanely at the gulls overhead.
The wild things of the sea had joined forces with the wild things of
the land to betray him. There had just penetrated his tossing brain the
knowledge that it was no human voice that bade him run from the cave
where he might have lain unobserved and safe.
What he had imagined, in his anxiety, to be a watcher's warning was
merely the call of the little, grey-backed bird, the Jenny gull, the
kittiwake, that gets its name because of its chatter, so imitative of a
plaintive human call.
_Kittiwake! Kittiwake!_
_Get away! Get away!_
THE STORY OF THE OCCUPANT OF THE FOURTH CELL
Before his visitor had time to raise any plea of weakness in the story
he had just been told, the Governor lifted his hand, coughed, and
continued apologetically:
"You are about to say that the capture of Vining was inevitable from
the start? That was true so long as he remained on land. But had he
been a stronger man mentally he might have succeeded in calming his
nerves. Alas, there is always the one 'if' that makes what seems the
perfect, clueless crime a failure in the end! Now, it so happens that
in the cell next to that occupied by Vining there is a man who has been
found guilty of a similar crime, but he committed it in what is perhaps
the nearest approach to perfection--if one can use the word in this
connection--I have ever heard of."
"Just a moment," said the visitor, as he sipped from a glass of
soda-water. "May I ask why you have other condemned men in cells next
to crooks and thieves?"
"It is a delicate explanation I am forced to give," responded the
Governor. "You see, when an execution takes place, all the prisoners
are kept in their cells until it is over. Even this precaution, this
consideration for their feelings, however, does not prevent them
knowing that the ceremony has taken place. When the executioner pulls
his lever the sides of the trap fall with a resounding bang against
the sides of the pit. Every man in the prison hears that bang. Now,
to-morrow morning I intend to place these fourteen prisoners in their
respective and proper grades and cells----"
"And I am here to see that they will not be offended by hearing the
bang," interrupted the visitor firmly, as his fingers toyed with his
revolver.
"Just so," agreed the Governor. "That is why you have favoured me with
your company, which I find very exhilarating, in spite of its menace to
my self. But to proceed with my explanation to your question. Whether
I am alive or dead the fourteen prisoners will, before their midday
meal, be transferred to the cells which will be theirs so long as they
remain. Their present abode is merely, let us say, expedient."
"You excite my curiosity by the mention of the man who almost succeeded
in making a clueless trail," commented the visitor. "I presume you will
place him among the Intellectuals?"
"I am not prepared to say so. His crime was one of murder. That is a
class by itself. But let us proceed to compare his methods with that of
cruder persons."
With that the Governor leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands
as he took up the story of the occupant of the fourth cell.
When a fox sets out to kill [said the Governor] he uses craft. Harvey
Wilkins was a fox.
He had pondered long on his crime; so long that it had ceased to be
hideous to him. It was merely a means to an end. He had made up his
mind to kill Gilbert Hoey and he had got him into the best position for
the purpose. He had balanced his chances so cleverly that he knew that,
even if the result of his action was discovered, ordinary investigation
could not lay the blame at his door. Third degree methods are not
resorted to in England.
A few yards beneath where he and Hoey stood was the white-hot, moving
surface of molten metal in one of the factory's cauldrons. They were
standing on a narrow platform that ran a few yards above the edge of
the huge fire-clay crucible from which the liquid metal would be poured
by machinery. The furnaces were roaring. Wilkins had planned it well.
They were alone. The workers of the factory had just gone for the
night, the staff of night workers were coming in at the gates.
They had halted above the glowing pit, watching the tiny bubbles that
shot up to the surface as the gases escaped and the scum arose. Harvey
Wilkins glanced at Gilbert Hoey. He noted Hoey's eager features, his
intent air. He hated Hoey with all the force of his jealous nature.
They were both engineers, both employed by the firm, both ambitious.
They had worked side by side, both in charge of their own gangs of
workers. But Hoey was beating Wilkins in the prizes of their calling.
It was Hoey who had discovered a recipe for purifying steel, a swifter
method for puddling pig-iron. It was Wilkins who kept to the old ways.
The two men were a contrast in almost everything. Hoey was brilliant
and erratic; careless in many things, such as keeping his own set of
books. He left details to others. Wilkins was deliberate and watchful
of details; a plodder who lacked vision.
As he saw Hoey gazing down at the bubbling metal, Wilkins noted that he
was resting his arms on the steel rail that guarded the platform. This
rail was a sliding one, fitted in a similar manner to the deck rails of
a ship. It could be slipped from its socket by the removal of a long
steel pin, so that part of the machinery above the casting could be
cleaned and oiled when the furnaces were not in blast. Wilkins glanced
at the steel pin. His fingers fumbled with it. His eyes travelled to
Hoey, who was leaning on the rail intent on the examination of the
metal below. The heat came up to both men in waves. Wilkins closed his
hand over the pin. Just one tiny pull and he would be free to carry out
the schemes he had long contemplated but had been unable to achieve
because of his rival Hoey. He pulled at the pin. It came away in his
hand.
Down fell the rail, borne adrift by the weight of Hoey's elbows. Down
went Hoey, his arms flung wide, his hands grabbing at space and failing
to find a hold. His body plunged into the boiling metal. A flame shot
up, a blue flame with a white fringe. And that was all.
There had been no cry, no shout of alarm. The whole thing had been
so quick that even Wilkins was amazed. It had been so simple that it
seemed impossible to believe.
The steel rail dangled idly from the stanchion. The metal bubbled and
stirred in the cauldron. There was no more Gilbert Hoey. Not a vestige
of him could ever be traced henceforth. He had been obliterated more
efficiently than a man blown to atoms. He had been engulfed in a liquid
that had made of him nothing more than a shooting flame.
Harvey Wilkins picked up the hanging rail and put it back into its
socket. He pushed the steel pin home. He looked about the works. No one
was there, the place was deserted. The last of the nightshift men were
beginning to come through the timekeeper's wicket on the other side of
the yard. Wilkins walked back to his office.
He sat down and drew his handkerchief over his perspiring forehead.
He was pulling himself together. As he sat in his chair he heard the
hooter sounding, telling him that another casting was about to be made,
that another furnace had finished its job. In a few more minutes the
molten metal would run like seething silver into the moulds and cool
off in time in the shape of rails, ships' propeller-shafts, and other
necessaries for the world beyond.
Harvey Wilkins felt perfectly safe, if a little nervous. His love of
detail had stood him in good stead for this, the greatest risk he had
ever taken, the foulest act he had ever committed. There was no one to
say that his hand had withdrawn the steel pin that dropped the guarding
bar. There was no one to say that Gilbert Hoey had been examining the
job. The entrance to the office was on the other side of the building
from the men's entrance. Hoey did not come down at night usually.
It had been at the suggestion of Wilkins that he had come down this
evening. No one had seen Hoey fall to his death. The murder had been
complete, clueless, without a trail leading to its author.
"He couldn't have felt it," Wilkins murmured. "The temperature is the
highest a furnace can reach. He couldn't have felt a thing."
He kept repeating the last sentence to himself for some time; perhaps
as a sort of a salve to his screaming conscience. But now and then he
shuddered as he thought of the scene.
The thudding and crashing of the steam hammers, the dull roar of the
moving machinery, came to him suddenly, though the noise had been going
on since the sounding of the hooter. He stirred himself, took a glass
of spirits from a bottle in a cupboard, and began to set about the
minor part of his crime. He intended to prove that the man who had thus
been blotted out of life had gone from the factory in quite another way
and of his own accord. One thing was certain, he told himself, getting
great comfort from the reflection: Hoey would never be able to disprove
what Wilkins was going to say about him!
Wilkins rose from his chair and went into the small office which Hoey
had used. They had separate rooms, but the girl who typed their letters
and acted as their joint secretary was always gone for the night before
her two superiors. Wilkins sat down at the typewriter and typed a short
note on a sheet of paper. He left the paper in the machine.
Next he took down a cash-book and a ledger and did some figuring on
the last pages on which entries had been made. He left the books open.
He opened Hoey's desk with his keys and searched among the contents.
He found what he sought without much trouble. It was a small enamelled
cash-box. Using a key on Hoey's key-ring, he opened the box. It
contained a bundle of treasury notes and a handful of silver. Wilkins
emptied the contents into his own pockets. He put the cash-box back in
the drawer, left Hoey's keys dangling in a lock of the desk, switched
out the light, and returned to his own room.
From his own desk he took a shipping company's brochure and put it in
the pocket of Hoey's overcoat, which hung from a peg in the passage
outside. The brochure was an illustrated one giving the fares and
passenger services to and from South American ports. When he had
finished these arrangements, Harvey Wilkins put on his own hat and coat
and hurried from the office.
He went straight to the house of his employer, the head of the firm. He
was admitted on his application to see his employer urgently. In a few
minutes he was faced with the man he had come to see.
"Mr. Mynes," he began, acting the part well, "I have come up at once
because I have reason to think that you ought to know what has been
going on. I am afraid that the news I bring is rather terrible."
"What is it, Wilkins?" asked Mr. Mynes, settling himself in his chair.
"Nothing gone wrong at the works, is it?"
"I'm afraid, sir, it has something to do with the works. Do you realise
that you have been swindled by Gilbert Hoey, and that he has absconded
with the money he drew to pay his men's wages?"
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the factory owner, jumping to his feet.
"It is impossible!"
"I could hardly believe it myself, sir, when I saw what was going on.
But it is true. I came to you to-night because the crisis has been
reached."
He stopped as the door of the study opened, and on the threshold stood
a girl dressed in white. She had dark chestnut hair which, exquisitely
shingled, made a fitting frame for her attractive features.
"I'm sorry," she began, seeing Wilkins, "I thought you were alone,
father."
Wilkins knew that this was not strictly true. She had come to the study
because she thought Gilbert Hoey had arrived. She and Hoey had been on
very friendly terms for some time; more friendly than Wilkins liked,
for he had hoped to marry his employer's daughter.
"Come in, Ada," cried her father. "Come in and hear what Mr. Wilkins
has come to tell me. What do you think? Hoey, the man I trusted
implicitly--the man who was carrying out one of the biggest jobs for
me--the man----Words fail me when I think how I trusted him."
"What has he done?" asked the girl.
"Listen to Mr. Wilkins. Go on, Wilkins, and let me have this in detail.
I want proof, not suspicions. You say Hoey has run off with the wages
money of his men."
"That is what I say, sir. You may remember that a few months ago I
took over the books of Hoey at your suggestion, so that they might be
brought up to date?"
"I told you to do so. Hoey said he couldn't do book-keeping. He hated
book work unless it was connected with engineering specifications."
"That is what you told me, sir. I took over his books. I found finally
that it was impossible to make them balance. He had used sums of money
for which he could not account. You allowed him to pay the workers on
his contracts himself. A week ago I spoke to him about it. He promised
to make reparation."
"Why didn't you come to me at once?"
"Because I wanted to give him a chance. I thought he might have been
negligent."
"Go on."
"To-day I knew that he had drawn a large sum for wages. The big
contract for steel rails and forgings was in his hands to a great
extent. He has been managing the laying of the new railroad. I asked
him to come down to the office to-day and talk things over. He came
into his office late in the afternoon, but did not come near me. I
waited, doing overtime on my own books. His typist stopped work and
went home. I called out to him, saying I was ready to go over the books
with him. He replied that he would come to me later. Some time passed.
I heard him go out. I went into his office. A sheet of paper was in the
typewriter. It contained a short message to you, sir. I have left it
just as I found it."
"Well, what was the message?"
"It was to the effect that, as he saw no hope of getting a partnership
with you, he was taking matters into his own hands, and was going away
with the wages. He says that it is useless for you to seek him, as he
will never be found."
"And the money?"
"I looked into the cash-box. It was empty. He must have been gone an
hour before I went into his office."
"The fool!"
Mynes sat back in his chair and gritted his teeth. Suddenly he rose to
his feet.
"He was a fool," he said bitterly. "I trusted him, and I intended to
make him a partner. I had not told him so, because I wanted it to be a
surprise after he had put the present contract through. Hoey a thief!
Hoey a common swindler! Wilkins, you and he were my right-hand men!
Well, I'll make an example of him!"
He strode towards the door, then turned and beckoned to Wilkins.
"Come down to the factory at once. I want to go into this matter. I can
hardly believe it, but if it is as you say, I'll have a warrant out for
his arrest to-night----"
"You will have to be swift, sir. I searched his overcoat which he left
in the office. In the pocket I found a shipping list dealing with
sailings for South America. I fancy he has laid his plans----"
"He won't get there. I'll have every ship watched; I'll bring him back
and send him to prison. Ada, you and Hoey were fairly friendly. Don't
let this upset you. I'll deal with him."
He rushed out to get his hat and coat. Wilkins raised his eyes to the
face of the girl, who had stood still during his recital.
"I'm sorry to be the bearer of such news, Miss Ada, but it was my duty."
The girl sat down suddenly, clasping her hands in her lap. Her eyes
were fixed on Harvey Wilkins's face.
"I don't believe a word of it," she said quietly.
Wilkins merely bowed. He knew that Hoey had been friendly with Ada
Mynes, and her disbelief in his story let him see how deep that
friendship had been; but he held the whip handle. Time would change
her. Circumstances would make her alter her ideas. One thing at a time,
he told himself. Hoey had disappeared. That was enough for a day.
He went down to the office with Mr. Mynes. He showed him the evidence
he had arranged. He repeated his statements. He advised caution,
suggesting that the news need not be published broadcast as it would
damage the firm. He went with the factory owner to the police station
and laid the information. On the sworn evidence of Wilkins and Mynes a
warrant for the arrest of Gilbert Hoey was made out, and the network
of police resources began to operate. By telephone and telegraph every
port was notified of the disappearance of Hoey. Harvey Wilkins was
congratulated by his employer and went home to bed.
That he was a murderer did not disturb him. Who was there to say it had
been murder? Who could find the body of a man who had been consumed in
a flash of fireworks? The crucibles would be emptied by the morning,
the metal would be turned into moulds, into rails, ships' propellers,
pig iron--a hundred different matters. Giant rollers would soon be
pressing out this particular cauldron's contents into long sheets.
These would be rolled up again and pounded by great steam-hammers into
the form desired. Gilbert Hoey had disappeared like a puff of smoke.
The boiling metal had not only killed him--it had also wiped out every
trace of the incident.
The following morning Wilkins went down to the works as usual. On his
way he called at the police station to see how far they had gone. The
inspector who had seen him the previous night was not at the desk, but
his substitute told Wilkins all the news they had. Hoey's description
would be telegraphed up and down the country. His rooms had been
searched, and his belongings were intact. He had not been traced.
"I expect he fled when I challenged him," said Wilkins. "He didn't even
take time to pack a suitcase. He must have been scared badly."
"I expect so," said the officer drily. "I can't give you any more
information, as I'm not in charge of the case."
Wilkins went to his office feeling surer than ever. He had put dust
into the eyes of the law. He smiled to think of the police watching
ports, railway stations, roads, hotels--looking for a man who would
never be found.
Mr. Mynes did not come to the office at his usual time, and Wilkins
continued his work leisurely. He was at his desk just before lunch
time, when the door of his office opened. Miss Ada Mynes walked in and
took a seat. She left the door ajar. Wilkins rose to find a chair for
her near his desk, but she waved him back to his seat. There was a
strangeness about her he had never seen before. She was all strung up,
but she was holding herself in check.
"I came to you because the police can't say what I want to say," she
said. "I came to hear about the disappearance of Gilbert Hoey."
"If I can be of any help, Miss Mynes, I shall be glad; but the police
have the matter in hand, and your father----"
"My father knows I am here. I told him I was coming."
"If he gave you permission that is all right, Miss Ada. What is it you
want to know?"
"Everything."
"I can tell only what I myself know."
"That may be enough."