room; and besides, it was tucked away in the shadows of a corner. Mr.
Jones had been too tired to observe anything on his first coming ashore;
but Ricardo had very soon spotted the characteristic form. He only
wished he could believe that the plunder of treachery, duplicity, and
all the moral abominations of Heyst had been there. But no; the blamed
thing was open.
“It might have been there at one time or another,” he commented
gloomily, “but it isn't there now.”
“The man did not elect to live in this house,” remarked Mr. Jones. “And
by the by, what could he have meant by speaking of circumstances which
prevented him lodging us in the other bungalow? You remember what he
said, Martin? Sounded cryptic.”
Martin, who remembered and understood the phrase as directly motived by
the existence of the girl, waited a little before saying:
“Some of his artfulness, sir; and not the worst of it either. That
manner of his to us, this asking no questions, is some more of his
artfulness. A man's bound to be curious, and he is; yet he goes on as if
he didn't care. He does care--or else what was he doing up with a cigar
in the middle of the night, doing a think? I don't like it.”
“He may be outside, observing the light here, and saying the very same
thing to himself of our own wakefulness,” gravely suggested Ricardo's
governor.
“He may be, sir; but this is too important to be talked over in the
dark. And the light is all right, it can be accounted for. There's a
light in this bungalow in the middle of the night because--why, because
you are not well. Not well, sir--that's what's the matter, and you will
have to act up to it.”
The consideration had suddenly occurred to the faithful henchman, in the
light of a felicitous expedient to keep his governor and the girl apart
as long as possible. Mr. Jones received the suggestion without the
slightest stir, even in the deep sockets of his eyes, where a steady,
faint gleam was the only thing telling of life and attention in his
attenuated body. But Ricardo, as soon as he had enunciated his happy
thought, perceived in it other possibilities more to the point and of
greater practical advantage.
“With your looks, sir, it will be easy enough,” he went on evenly, as
if no silence had intervened, always respectful, but frank, with
perfect simplicity of purpose. “All you've got to do is just to lie down
quietly. I noticed him looking sort of surprised at you on the wharf,
sir.”
At these words, a naive tribute to the aspect of his physique, even more
suggestive of the grave than of the sick-bed, a fold appeared on that
side of the governor's face which was exposed to the dim light--a deep,
shadowy, semicircular fold from the side of the nose to bottom of the
chin--a silent smile. By a side-glance Ricardo had noted this play of
features. He smiled, too, appreciative, encouraged.
“And you as hard as nails all the time,” he went on. “Hang me if anybody
would believe you aren't sick, if I were to swear myself black in
the face! Give us a day or two to look into matters and size up that
'yporcrit.”
Ricardo's eyes remained fixed on his crossed shins. The chief, in his
lifeless accents, approved.
“Perhaps it would be a good idea.”
“The Chink, he's nothing. He can be made quiet any time.”
One of Ricardo's hands, reposing palm upwards on his folded legs, made
a swift thrusting gesture, repeated by the enormous darting shadow of an
arm very low on the wall. It broke the spell of perfect stillness in
the room. The secretary eyed moodily the wall from which the shadow had
gone. Anybody could be made quiet, he pointed out. It was not anything
that the Chink could do; no, it was the effect that his company must
have produced on the conduct of the doomed man. A man! What was a man? A
Swedish baron could be ripped up, or else holed by a shot, as easily as
any other creature; but that was exactly what was to be avoided, till
one knew where he had hidden his plunder.
“I shouldn't think it would be some sort of hole in his bungalow,”
argued Ricardo with real anxiety.
No. A house can be burnt--set on fire accidentally, or on purpose, while
a man's asleep. Under the house--or in some crack, cranny, or crevice?
Something told him it wasn't that. The anguish of mental effort
contracted Ricardo's brow. The skin of his head seemed to move in this
travail of vain and tormenting suppositions.
“What did you think a fellow is, sir--a baby?” he said, in answer to Mr.
Jones's objections. “I am trying to find out what I would do myself. He
wouldn't be likely to be cleverer than I am.”
“And what do you know about yourself?”
Mr. Jones seemed to watch his follower's perplexities with amusement
concealed in a death-like composure.
Ricardo disregarded the question. The material vision of the spoil
absorbed all his faculties. A great vision! He seemed to see it. A few
small canvas bags tied up with thin cord, their distended rotundity
showing the inside pressure of the disk-like forms of coins--gold,
solid, heavy, eminently portable. Perhaps steel cash-boxes with a chased
design, on the covers; or perhaps a black and brass box with a handle
on the top, and full of goodness knows what. Bank notes? Why not? The
fellow had been going home; so it was surely something worth going home
with.
“And he may have put it anywhere outside--anywhere!” cried Ricardo in a
deadened voice, “in the forest--”
That was it! A temporary darkness replaced the dim light of the room.
The darkness of the forest at night and in it the gleam of a lantern, by
which a figure is digging at the foot of a tree-trunk. As likely as not,
another figure holding that lantern--ha, feminine! The girl!
The prudent Ricardo stifled a picturesque and profane exclamation,
partly joy, partly dismay. Had the girl been trusted or mistrusted by
that man? Whatever it was, it was bound to be wholly! With women there
could be no half-measures. He could not imagine a fellow half-trusting
a woman in that intimate relation to himself, and in those particular
circumstances of conquest and loneliness where no confidences could
appear dangerous since, apparently, there could be no one she could
give him away to. Moreover, in nine cases out of ten the woman would be
trusted. But, trusted or mistrusted, was her presence a favourable or
unfavourable condition of the problem? That was the question!
The temptation to consult his chief, to talk over the weighty fact, and
get his opinion on it, was great indeed. Ricardo resisted it; but the
agony of his solitary mental conflict was extremely sharp. A woman in
a problem is an incalculable quantity, even if you have something to go
upon in forming your guess. How much more so when you haven't even once
caught sight of her.
Swift as were his mental processes, he felt that a longer silence was
inadvisable. He hastened to speak:
“And do you see us, sir, you and I, with a couple of spades having to
tackle this whole confounded island?”
He allowed himself a slight movement of the arm. The shadow enlarged it
into a sweeping gesture.
“This seems rather discouraging, Martin,” murmured the unmoved governor.
“We mustn't be discouraged--that's all!” retorted his henchman. “And
after what we had to go through in that boat too! Why it would be--”
He couldn't find the qualifying words. Very calm, faithful, and yet
astute, he expressed his new-born hopes darkly.
“Something's sure to turn up to give us a hint; only this job can't be
rushed. You may depend on me to pick up the least little bit of a hint;
but you, sir--you've got to play him very gently. For the rest you can
trust me.”
“Yes; but I ask myself what YOU are trusting to.”
“Our luck,” said the faithful Ricardo. “Don't say a word against that.
It might spoil the run of it.”
“You are a superstitious beggar. No, I won't say anything against it.”
“That's right, sir. Don't you even think lightly of it. Luck's not to be
played with.”
“Yes, luck's a delicate thing,” assented Mr. Jones in a dreamy whisper.
A short silence ensued, which Ricardo ended in a discreet and tentative
voice.
“Talking of luck, I suppose he could be made to take a hand with
you, sir--two-handed picket or ekkarty, you being seedy and keeping
indoors--just to pass the time. For all we know, he may be one of them
hot ones once they start--”
“Is it likely?” came coldly from the principal. “Considering what we
know of his history--say with his partner.”
“True, sir. He's a cold-blooded beast; a cold-blooded, inhuman--”
“And I'll tell you another thing that isn't likely. He would not be
likely to let himself be stripped bare. We haven't to do with a young
fool that can be led on by chaff or flattery, and in the end simply
overawed. This is a calculating man.”
Ricardo recognized that clearly. What he had in his mind was something
on a small scale, just to keep the enemy busy while he, Ricardo, had
time to nose around a bit.
“You could even lose a little money to him, sir,” he suggested.
“I could.”
Ricardo was thoughtful for a moment.
“He strikes me, too, as the sort of man to start prancing when one
didn't expect it. What do you think, sir? Is he a man that would prance?
That is, if something startled him. More likely to prance than to
run--what?”
The answer came at once, because Mr. Jones understood the peculiar idiom
of his faithful follower.
“Oh, without doubt! Without doubt!”
“It does me good to hear that you think so. He's a prancing beast,
and so we mustn't startle him--not till I have located the stuff.
Afterwards--”
Ricardo paused, sinister in the stillness of his pose. Suddenly he
got up with a swift movement and gazed down at his chief in moody
abstraction. Mr. Jones did not stir.
“There's one thing that's worrying me,” began Ricardo in a subdued
voice.
“Only one?” was the faint comment from the motionless body on the
bedstead.
“I mean more than all the others put together.”
“That's grave news.”
“Ay, grave enough. It's this--how do you feel in yourself, sir? Are you
likely to get bored? I know them fits come on you suddenly; but surely
you can tell--”
“Martin, you are an ass.”
The moody face of the secretary brightened up.
“Really, sir? Well, I am quite content to be on these terms--I mean as
long as you don't get bored. It wouldn't do, sir.”
For coolness, Ricardo had thrown open his shirt and rolled up his
sleeves. He moved stealthily across the room, bare-footed, towards the
candle, the shadow of his head and shoulders growing bigger behind him
on the opposite wall, to which the face of plain Mr. Jones was turned.
With a feline movement, Ricardo glanced over his shoulder at the thin
back of the spectre reposing on the bed, and then blew out the candle.
“In fact, I am rather amused, Martin,” Mr. Jones said in the dark.
He heard the sound of a slapped thigh and the jubilant exclamation of
his henchman:
“Good! That's the way to talk, sir!”
PART FOUR
CHAPTER ONE
Ricardo advanced prudently by short darts from one tree-trunk to
another, more in the manner of a squirrel than a cat. The sun had
risen some time before. Already the sparkle of open sea was encroaching
rapidly on the dark, cool, early-morning blue of Diamond Bay; but the
deep dusk lingered yet under the mighty pillars of the forest, between
which the secretary dodged.
He was watching Number One's bungalow with an animal-like patience, if
with a very human complexity of purpose. This was the second morning
of such watching. The first one had not been rewarded by success. Well,
strictly speaking, there was no hurry.
The sun, swinging above the ridge all at once, inundated with light the
space of burnt grass in front of Ricardo and the face of the bungalow,
on which his eyes were fixed, leaving only the one dark spot of the
doorway. To his right, to his left, and behind him, splashes of gold
appeared in the deep shade of the forest, thinning the gloom under the
ragged roof of leaves.
This was not a very favourable circumstance for Ricardo's purpose. He
did not wish to be detected in his patient occupation. For what he was
watching for was a sight of the girl--that girl! just a glimpse across
the burnt patch to see what she was like. He had excellent eyes, and
the distance was not so great. He would be able to distinguish her face
quite easily if she only came out on the veranda; and she was bound
to do that sooner or later. He was confident that he could form some
opinion about her--which, he felt, was very necessary, before venturing
on some steps to get in touch with her behind that Swedish baron's back.
His theoretical view of the girl was such that he was quite prepared,
on the strength of that distant examination, to show himself
discreetly--perhaps even make a sign. It all depended on his reading of
the face. She couldn't be much. He knew that sort!
By protruding his head a little he commanded, through the foliage of a
festooning creeper, a view of the three bungalows. Irregularly disposed
along a flat curve, over the veranda rail of the farthermost one hung a
dark rug of a tartan pattern, amazingly conspicuous. Ricardo could see
the very checks. A brisk fire of sticks was burning on the ground in
front of the steps, and in the sunlight the thin, fluttering flame had
paled almost to invisibility--a mere rosy stir under a faint wreath of
smoke. He could see the white bandage on the head of Pedro bending over
it, and the wisps of black hair standing up weirdly. He had wound that
bandage himself, after breaking that shaggy and enormous head. The
creature balanced it like a load, staggering towards the steps. Ricardo
could see a small, long-handled saucepan at the end of a great hairy
paw.
Yes, he could see all that there was to be seen, far and near. Excellent
eyes! The only thing they could not penetrate was the dark oblong of the
doorway on the veranda under the low eaves of the bungalow's roof. And
that was vexing. It was an outrage. Ricardo was easily outraged. Surely
she would come out presently! Why didn't she? Surely the fellow did not
tie her up to the bedpost before leaving the house!
Nothing appeared. Ricardo was as still as the leafy cables of creepers
depending in a convenient curtain from the mighty limb sixty feet above
his head. His very eyelids were still, and this unblinking watchfulness
gave him the dreamy air of a cat posed on a hearth-rug contemplating the
fire. Was he dreaming? There, in plain sight, he had before him a white,
blouse-like jacket, short blue trousers, a pair of bare yellow calves, a
pigtail, long and slender--
“The confounded Chink!” he muttered, astounded.
He was not conscious of having looked away; and yet right there, in the
middle of the picture, without having come round the right-hand corner
or the left-hand corner of the house, without falling from the sky or
surging up from the ground, Wang had become visible, large as life,
and engaged in the young-ladyish occupation of picking flowers. Step
by step, stooping repeatedly over the flower-beds at the foot of the
veranda, the startlingly materialized Chinaman passed off the scene in
a very commonplace manner, by going up the steps and disappearing in the
darkness of the doorway.
Only then the yellow eyes of Martin Ricardo lost their intent fixity. He
understood that it was time for him to be moving. That bunch of
flowers going into the house in the hand of a Chinaman was for the
breakfast-table. What else could it be for?
“I'll give you flowers!” he muttered threateningly. “You wait!”
Another moment, just for a glance towards the Jones bungalow, whence
he expected Heyst to issue on his way to that breakfast so offensively
decorated, and Ricardo began his retreat. His impulse, his desire, was
for a rush into the open, face to face with the appointed victim, for
what he called a “ripping up,” visualized greedily, and always with
the swift preliminary stooping movement on his part--the forerunner of
certain death to his adversary. This was his impulse; and as it was, so
to speak, constitutional, it was extremely difficult to resist when his
blood was up. What could be more trying than to have to skulk and dodge
and restrain oneself, mentally and physically, when one's blood was up?
Mr. Secretary Ricardo began his retreat from his post of observation
behind a tree opposite Heyst's bungalow, using great care to remain
unseen. His proceedings were made easier by the declivity of the ground,
which sloped sharply down to the water's edge. There, his feet feeling
the warmth of the island's rocky foundation already heated by the sun,
through the thin soles of his straw slippers he was, as it were, sunk
out of sight of the houses. A short scramble of some twenty feet brought
him up again to the upper level, at the place where the jetty had its
root in the shore. He leaned his back against one of the lofty uprights
which still held up the company's signboard above the mound of derelict
coal. Nobody could have guessed how much his blood was up. To contain
himself he folded his arms tightly on his breast.
Ricardo was not used to a prolonged effort of self-control. His craft,
his artfulness, felt themselves always at the mercy of his nature, which
was truly feral and only held in subjection by the influence of the
“governor,” the prestige of a gentleman. It had its cunning too, but it
was being almost too severely tried since the feral solution of a growl
and a spring was forbidden by the problem. Ricardo dared not venture out
on the cleared ground. He dared not.
“If I meet the beggar,” he thought, “I don't know what I mayn't do. I
daren't trust myself.”
What exasperated him just now was his inability to understand
Heyst. Ricardo was human enough to suffer from the discovery of his
limitations. No, he couldn't size Heyst up. He could kill him with
extreme ease--a growl and a spring--but that was forbidden! However, he
could not remain indefinitely under the funereal blackboard.
“I must make a move,” he thought.
He moved on, his head swimming a little with the repressed desire of
violence, and came out openly in front of the bungalows, as if he had
just been down to the jetty to look at the boat. The sunshine enveloped
him, very brilliant, very still, very hot. The three buildings faced
him. The one with the rug on the balustrade was the most distant; next
to it was the empty bungalow; the nearest, with the flower-beds at the
foot of its veranda, contained that bothersome girl, who had managed
so provokingly to keep herself invisible. That was why Ricardo's eyes
lingered on that building. The girl would surely be easier to “size up”
than Heyst. A sight of her, a mere glimpse, would have been something to
go by, a step nearer to the goal--the first real move, in fact. Ricardo
saw no other move. And any time she might appear on that veranda!
She did not appear; but, like a concealed magnet, she exercised her
attraction. As he went on, he deviated towards the bungalow. Though his
movements were deliberate, his feral instincts had such sway that if he
had met Heyst walking towards him, he would have had to satisfy his
need of violence. But he saw nobody. Wang was at the back of the house,
keeping the coffee hot against Number One's return for breakfast. Even
the simian Pedro was out of sight, no doubt crouching on the door-step,
his red little eyes fastened with animal-like devotion on Mr. Jones, who
was in discourse with Heyst in the other bungalow--the conversation of
an evil spectre with a disarmed man, watched by an ape.
His will having very little to do with it, Ricardo, darting swift
glances in all directions, found himself at the steps of the Heyst
bungalow. Once there, falling under an uncontrollable force of
attraction, he mounted them with a savage and stealthy action of his
limbs, and paused for a moment under the eaves to listen to the silence.
Presently he advanced over the threshold one leg--it seemed to stretch
itself, like a limb of india-rubber--planted his foot within, brought up
the other swiftly, and stood inside the room, turning his head from side
to side. To his eyes, brought in there from the dazzling sunshine, all
was gloom for a moment. His pupils, like a cat's, dilating swiftly, he
distinguished an enormous quantity of books. He was amazed; and he was
put off too. He was vexed in his astonishment. He had meant to note the
aspect and nature of things, and hoped to draw some useful inference,
some hint as to the man. But what guess could one make out of a
multitude of books? He didn't know what to think; and he formulated his
bewilderment in the mental exclamation:
“What the devil has this fellow been trying to set up here--a school?”
He gave a prolonged stare to the portrait of Heyst's father, that severe
profile ignoring the vanities of this earth. His eyes gleamed sideways
at the heavy silver candlesticks--signs of opulence. He prowled as a
stray cat entering a strange place might have done, for if Ricardo had
not Wang's miraculous gift of materializing and vanishing, rather than
coming and going, he could be nearly as noiseless in his less elusive
movements. He noted the back door standing just ajar; and all the time
his slightly pointed ears, at the utmost stretch of watchfulness, kept
in touch with the profound silence outside enveloping the absolute
stillness of the house.
He had not been in the room two minutes when it occurred to him that he
must be alone in the bungalow. The woman, most likely, had sneaked out
and was walking about somewhere in the grounds at the back. She had
been probably ordered to keep out of sight. Why? Because the fellow
mistrusted his guests; or was it because he mistrusted her?
Ricardo reflected that from a certain point of view it amounted nearly
to the same thing. He remembered Schomberg's story. He felt that
running away with somebody only to get clear of that beastly, tame,
hotel-keeper's attention was no proof of hopeless infatuation. She could
be got in touch with.
His moustaches stirred. For some time he had been looking at a closed
door. He would peep into that other room, and perhaps see something more
informing than a confounded lot of books. As he crossed over, he thought
recklessly:
“If the beggar comes in suddenly, and starts to prance, I'll rip him up
and be done with it!”
He laid his hand on the handle, and felt the door come unlatched. Before
he pulled it open, he listened again to the silence. He felt it all
about him, complete, without a flaw.
The necessity of prudence had exasperated his self-restraint. A mood
of ferocity woke up in him, and, as always at such times, he became
physically aware of the sheeted knife strapped to his leg. He pulled at
the door with fierce curiosity. It came open without a squeak of hinge,
without a rustle, with no sound at all; and he found himself glaring at
the opaque surface of some rough blue stuff, like serge. A curtain was
fitted inside, heavy enough and long enough not to stir.
A curtain! This unforeseen veil, baffling his curiosity checked his
brusqueness. He did not fling it aside with an impatient movement; he
only looked at it closely, as if its texture had to be examined before
his hand could touch such stuff. In this interval of hesitation, he
seemed to detect a flaw in the perfection of the silence, the faintest
possible rustle, which his ears caught and instantly, in the effort of
conscious listening, lost again. No! Everything was still inside and
outside the house, only he had no longer the sense of being alone there.
When he put out his hand towards the motionless folds it was with
extreme caution, and merely to push the stuff aside a little, advancing
his head at the same time to peep within. A moment of complete
immobility ensued. Then, without anything else of him stirring,
Ricardo's head shrank back on his shoulders, his arm descended slowly to
his side. There was a woman in there. The very woman! Lighted dimly
by the reflection of the outer glare, she loomed up strangely big and
shadowy at the other end of the long, narrow room. With her back to
the door, she was doing her hair with bare arms uplifted. One of them
gleamed pearly white; the other detached its perfect form in black
against the unshuttered, uncurtained square window-hole. She was there,
her fingers busy with her dark hair, utterly unconscious, exposed and
defenceless--and tempting.