“‘Holy Mike,’ he says. ‘Jinny Slade—what made him do it?’
“I told him I didn’t know unless it was the devil, and then I asked
what he knew about the party.
“‘Well,’ says Newall, ‘I’m a cautious man and I’m not going to lay
myself open to no law court actions for deffination of character. I’m
not going to say nothing about the woman except that she oughta been
flung into the bay two years ago with a sinker tied to her middle, and
then you wouldn’t have saved her first husband which she poisoned as
sure as my name’s Dan Newall, no, nor the men she ruined in that
gambling joint she run in Caird Street with a loaded r’lette wheel
that’d stay put wherever you wanted by the pressin’ of a button under
the table, run by a Chink it was with her money.
“‘In with the crimps she was, and if I had a dollar for every
sailor-man she’s helped to shanghai I’d buy a fishin’ boat and make my
fortune out of catchin’ the crabs that are feedin’ on the corpses of
the men that’s drowned themselves because of her.
“‘Laundry,’ he says, ‘a laundry s’big as from here to Porte Costa,
with every Chink in California workin’ overtime for a month wouldn’t
wash the edges of her repitation—and Buck’s married her; strewth, but
he’s got himself up to the eyes. What sort of blinkers were you
wearin’ to let him do it?’
“‘I don’t know,’ I says, ‘alligator hide I should think was the sort
he was wearing, anyhow. Question is what am I to do now?’
“‘Take a gun and shoot him,’ says Newall, ‘if you want to be kind to
him.—Has she got any money out of him?’
“‘I don’t know,’ I says.
“‘Been married to him a month,’ he goes on. ‘She’ll have every jitney
by this—well, if you’re set on trying to do somethin’ for him, get
the last of his money from him if he’s got any and hide it in a hole
for him before she kicks him out plucked naked.’”
Off he rowed, and pulling up my line I left the _Greyhound_ to the
Kanaka watchman and took the ferry over to ’Frisco.
The laundry was banging away, the Chinks all hard at work, Mrs. Slade
wasn’t home, over at St. Jo for the day, so the forewoman said, but
Buck was in and upstairs, and up I went.
They’d got a fine sitting-room on the first floor with plush-covered
chairs and brand new old-fashioned looking furniture and a bowl of
goldfish in the window and pictures in big gold frames on the walls.
Buck was sitting in an easy chair reading a paper and smoking a cigar.
“Hullo,” he says, “here’s a coincidence, for I was just coming over to
Tiburon to see you.”
“Oh, were you?” says I. “Wits jump sometimes and here I am on the same
job. How’s the world using you, Buck?”
I tried to be as light-hearted as I could, but it was hard work. Buck
had gone off in looks, and it was plain to see things weren’t going
easy with him, you can always tell when a chap has something on his
mind, and whilst he was getting out drinks I sat putting my thoughts
together and only waiting to begin. I’d fixed to do a big grab, and
get ten thousand dollars out of him as a loan to hide away for him
against the time he got the kick out, plucked naked, as Newall had
said.
He pours the whisky.
“Buck,” I says, taking the glass. “I’ve come to ask a favour of you. I
want a loan.”
“How much?” asks Buck.
“Well,” I said, “I’ve ten thousand dollars of my own, as you know, and
I’ve been offered a big opportunity of making a hundred thousand. Safe
as houses. I want ten thousand to put with mine, I wouldn’t ask you to
risk yours if I wasn’t risking mine.”
“What’s the spec.?” he asks.
“Can’t tell you that,” I said—“I’m under promise, but you know me and
I give you my word of honour your money is as safe as if it was in
your pocket—safer.”
“Well, I’d do it if I could,” he says, “you know me and that I’m not
lying when I speak, but I can’t, haven’t got it.”
“But, Buck,” I says, “why, only a month ago you had thirty thousand
dollars in the bank.”
Buck nods and goes on. “I haven’t got it to put my hand on,” he says.
“My wife is keeping it for me. She says what with those New York banks
going bust last spring and one thing and another, banks aren’t safe
and she wants to invest it, she’s over at St. Jo to-day looking at
some property.”
“Where’s she got the money?” I asks.
“In that safe,” says he.
Sure enough there was a big iron safe in the corner of the room half
hid by a screen.
Seeing how the land lay, I said no more, and he changed the subject,
going back to what he was saying when I first came in, how that he had
been coming to see me that afternoon about a matter of business.
He wouldn’t say what the business was, but he wanted my help and he
wanted it that night. He also wanted the boat of the _Greyhound_
brought over to Long Wharf.
“Just bring her over yourself,” said he. “No, we don’t want help, just
you and me will manage it, and bring the mast and sail and some grub,
never mind what I want her for, I’ll tell you later, it’s a paying
business, as you’ll find.”
With that I took my leave of him and hiked off back to Tiburon, for
the day was getting on and I had none too much time to get things
together.
I was bothered and that’s the truth; Buck had gone off, wasn’t the
same chap, and by his manner when he asked me to meet him with the
boat, I knew it wasn’t pleasure sailing he was after. I near scratched
the top off my head thinking what he could be wanting with that boat,
but it was beyond me and I gave it up. Taute was the name of the
Kanaka, same chap we had with us when we did that gun-running job down
at Taleka, and when I got back to the _Greyhound_ I set Taute to work,
getting some grub together and a new spar for a mast as the old one
was sprung. Then, getting along for evening, I rowed over to Long
Wharf. Long Wharf was pretty busy just then, what with wheat ships
cleaning up before towing to Berkley for cargo and Oregon timber ships
and such. There was a schooner lying there belonging to a chap I knew,
so I just tied up to her channel-plates and crossed over on to the
wharf where I sits on a bollard kicking my heels and waiting for Buck.
Along he comes just on dark, and without a word he follows me across
the deck of the schooner into the boat.
Tell you I felt queer. We’d sailed pretty close to the wind together
me and him, gun-running and what not, but this job seemed different,
sort of back-door business with the harbour police or the Fish Patrol
waiting to lay for us if we hitched up on it anywhere. I’d been used
to blue water doings and big things and it got my goat to feel we were
after something small and shady. It wasn’t small by any means, but,
anyhow, that’s how I felt. But I said nothing, taking the oars and
Buck taking his place in the stern sheets. Then we pushed off, Buck
steering and making as if he was layin’ a course for Oakland. A few
cable lengths out we took the wind and put up the mast, and, Buck
taking the sheet, off we set still laying as if we were bound for
Oakland. I’d sooner be out anywhere than in the lower bay after dark,
what between them dam screeching ferry boats and the motor launches
and such. Every monkey in ’Frisco with brass enough seems to have some
sort or another of a launch or yacht and to spend his natural trying
to run folks down. We were near cut into twice, seeing we had no
light, but after a while, getting off the main track and Buck shifting
his helm, we got along better.
He was steering now laying straight for Angel Island. We passed Racoon
Straits and kept on, the breeze freshening hard and the boat laying
over to it. The sky was clear and a big moon was coming over the
hills. Wonderful fine the bay is a night like that, with all the
lights round showing yellow against the moon and ’Frisco showing up
against Oakland.
However, we weren’t out to admire the view and we held on, at least
Buck did, till we were near level, as far as I could make out, with
Reeds and aiming for Red Rock, the wind holding well. We passed a
Stockton boat and an old brig coming down from Benicia or somewhere up
there. Then away ahead and coming along square as a haystack I sighted
a Chinese junk. Buck let go the sheet and, lighting a lantern he’d
brought with us, ran it up.
“What are you doing that for?” I asked him.
“Show you in a minute,” says Buck. “Give us the boat-hook.”
I handed it along and he told me to have the oars handy and then we
sat whilst the junk came along at a six-knot clip, boosting the water
and the great eyes in the bow of her showing in the moonlight as if
they were staring at us, but not a soul to be seen or a light on deck.
She snored along to starboard of us not more than ten yards away,
black as thunder against the moon, and she was showing us her stern
when something went splash over her side, followed by something else
as if two chaps had gone a dive, one after the other.
On top of that and almost at once a Holmes light was thrown over and
went floating along, blazing and smoking and showing a man’s head
squatting beside it.
“Man overboard,” I says.
“Row,” says Buck.
I turned my head as I rowed and saw the junk going along as if nothing
had happened, and then I saw the thing in the water wasn’t a man’s
head but a buoy. We closed with the buoy and Buck grabs it with the
boat-hook and brings it on board. It had a rope tied to it and he
hauls it in, hand over hand, till up came a bundle done round with
sacking. He hooks it over the gunnel and into the boat.
“That’s done,” said he.
“It is,” said I.
I didn’t say a word more. We got the sail on her and put her on the
starboard tack, heading straight for Angel Island.
Then we shoved through Racoon Straits. It was getting along for
morning now and I felt stiff and beat, with no heart in me or tongue
to tell Buck what I was thinking of him for dragging me into a
business like this, only praying we might get out of it without being
overhauled.
We had Tiburon lights to starboard now and a bit to port the riding
light of the old _Greyhound_, when, all of a sudden, we see a light
running along towards us and heard the noise of a propeller like a
sewing machine in a hurry.
“Police boat,” says Buck.
My heart rose up and got jammed in my throat, and I hadn’t more than
swallowed it down when they were alongside of us, and there was Buck
sitting in the stern sheets with the bundle under his legs, and a chap
in the police boat playing a lantern on him.
Then the chap laughed.
“Oh, it’s only you, Buck,” says he. “What are you out for this time of
night?”
“Smuggling opium,” says Buck.
The chap laughed. He was Dennis, well known to us both, and he shut
his lantern and gave us the news that he was after some Chink
smugglers who had their quarters at Valego and, fearing their shop was
to be raided, were due to run some stuff into Tiburon that night
according to his information.
“Well, we’ve just come down from San Quenton,” says Buck, “and I
didn’t sight anything, only a big junk that passed us, making as if
she was going to Oakland—Good luck to you.”
Off they went and five minutes after we were tying up to the
_Greyhound_.