All eyes are directed towards the secretary, and his attempt to
prolong the enquiry is greeted with no very good humour. In fact, he
has made himself suddenly very unpopular with his "one moment, sir,
if you please"--which of course means a good many moments and a
corresponding postponement of lunch.
Nor is this general feeling the only ground of resentment against
him. The poor man is once more made to feel the lash of Mrs. Shaw's
tongue.
"Oh, it is you again, Mr. Dimsdale?" she upbraids him--"are you not
tired yet of bullying these poor creatures? It was your fault from
the start, I remember, that they were ever brought here. A nice,
manly action, is it not, to subject two poor sick girls to such
treatment."
"I--I am very sorry, Mrs. Shaw, very sorry indeed," stammers the poor
man. And indeed he speaks sincerely, since he has conceived
something more than a liking for one of these two girls, both of whom
he considers as victims rather than organisers of the diabolical
plot; for he is thoroughly convinced--he is the only member amongst
the whole court who is convinced--of the reality of the plot, and he
not only knows it to be his duty to expose it, but feels that this is
his only chance of so doing.
So he says, "I am very sorry, Mrs. Shaw. But I do not wish to
question these ladies at all. It is Mr. Sheridan to whom I would
like to address a few brief questions, with the permission of the
President."
"Go on then, Dimsdale," grudgingly assents the admiral; "but be as
quick as you can."
"I will, sir. In fact, if Mr. Sheridan can satisfy me on the very
few points I wish to put to him, I shall not delay the court more
than a very few minutes."
The man thus referred to looks darkly at the secretary, and a shade
of perplexity creeps over his face. He was beginning to feel quite
cheerful and almost to look so, at the happy turn which events were
taking for him. But now the affair is apparently going to be
re-opened--and Sheridan does not like it at all!
What fresh questions are going to be put to him? What details are
there that he has not already supplied? _What new trap is now being
laid to ensnare him?_
Yes, that last doubt really accounts for the sudden spasm of fear
that clutches at his heart; there is a trap, he knows it, and it is
going to be one which will take him all his wits to avoid.
How he hates the smooth-faced secretary with the piercing eyes! How
he hates him, and--fears him!
Really, this will not do--this cold dread is making him feel quite
unnerved; he must pull himself together, or else he will never be
able to reply convincingly, and his hopeless condition will become
evident to the whole court--almost sufficient of itself to condemn
him in their eyes!
In the midst of his bewilderment the secretary's first question
breaks in upon his ears through the buzzing, humming noise like the
sound of many waters which has quite unaccountably been filling them
these last few moments.
"Will you please tell me, Mr. Sheridan--what colour was the _Botopi_
painted?"
The blow has fallen!--oh, fool that he was, not to have thought of a
thing like this before! How _could_ he have omitted to make certain
of such a simple detail?
There is only one thing to do--to hazard a guess and hope that it may
chance to be a lucky one.
Foolishly, he discounts his credibility by not answering boldly at
once. Instead, he hesitates, and speaks only after a pause; this
would be almost enough to make him appear to be guessing, even if he
were really speaking from knowledge; but he is off his balance
altogether.
"Black," he replies.
"Are you quite certain?"
The question is evidently intended to nail him down to his statement;
but it suggests to him an opportunity for hedging a little.
"Yes," he replies, feeling his way as he speaks; "but it was an
indistinct sort of black--it might have appeared a kind of grey in
some lights; or even a very dark green."
"Thank you."
Dimsdale gives no indication whether he is satisfied with the reply
or not. But at least it is something to the good that he does not
deny its correctness. Perhaps it is correct, then! Sheridan begins
to feel a little hope.
"And how many funnels had she?"
This second question comes without any comment on the former one.
Sheridan feels himself on firmer ground here. Of all the passenger
ships he has ever seen, and he has seen a good many in his time, the
vast majority have had two funnels. Cargo tramps, of course,
generally have one funnel only, and some of the gigantic liners have
three or four; but the _Botopi_ was neither cargo-tramp nor
first-class liner, and so he has much less hesitation than before in
making his reply:
"Two."
"Quite sure?" says the persuasive voice of the secretary--"are you
certain they didn't look as if they might be three, or even four, in
some lights?"
This man is mocking him! With his smooth sarcastic tongue and his
calm emotionless face he is simply playing with him!
"There were two, I'm after tellin' ye," suddenly growls the baited
man.
"Thank you." Again the quiet and unquestioning acceptance of his
reply. This time, however, Sheridan does not feel quite so happy
about it; the absence of comment on Dimsdale's part has now become
ominous rather than assuring.
A tense silence settles upon the room; everyone from the President of
the court downwards looks expectantly towards the two men fencing
with question and answer; it is somewhat brought home quite clearly
to everyone that these two are fighting a duel to the death.
Netta looks on with grave anxiety and seems to have given away to
utter despair, as if she knows that the catastrophe hanging over them
cannot be warded off for long now. As for Norah, more than once she
opens her lips to speak, and half rises from her chair; but Mrs. Shaw
checks her by a motion of the hand--as though she too feels that the
ring should be kept clear for the two antagonists.
Stapleton, who has sunk back apathetically in a seat on finding his
revelation of a conspiracy dismissed with scant attention, now finds
his interest fully re-awakened, and leans forward breathlessly so
that not a word shall escape him.
The atmosphere is electric. Even the fleet surgeon who came with
Stapleton and has been trying for the last quarter of an hour to
induce his patient to return with him now desists from his
well-intentioned efforts and rivets his gaze on the two antagonists
as keenly as the rest.
Yet the secretary gives no indication of having any startling
surprise in store, or of being in any way dissatisfied with the
replies he has so far received. Each question, as soon as it is
answered, he drops entirely and goes on to another subject.
For the third time he propounds one of his quite commonplace queries:
"During the voyage home, was the _Botopi_ stopped by any British
man-of-war?"
This is rather an awkward poser for Sheridan; yet he must make some
sort of reply. It occurs to him that perhaps his interrogator is
merely bluffing and does not know the correct reply to his own
question. In that case Sheridan need not care greatly what answer he
gives. But suppose Dimsdale does know? Well, then he must hazard a
Yes or No, and try to find some way of explaining his mistake if he
happens by ill-luck to hit upon the wrong answer.
It is pretty certain, the wretched man reflects, that the ship was
stopped. The cordon has been drawn so closely that very few
Transatlantic vessels succeed in escaping the meshes of the net; and
every steamer that is sighted, Sheridan knows, is stopped for
examination.
So, after all, there is not such a very great risk about the reply.
He makes up his mind to chance it.
"Yes," he says, "we were held up by a warship and afterwards allowed
to proceed."
"How many days after you had left Galveston did this happen?"
What can the fellow be driving at? Well, no matter, this question is
easier to evade than the previous one.
"I think it was either on the third or the fourth day out; but I am
not quite certain about it; it took place with so very little delay
and fuss that it made no very distinct impression upon my memory."
"Did this take place in the daytime or during the night?"
It will be much safer to say in the night; for then Sheridan will be
spared from describing things that happened during his sleep.
"It was in the night," he therefore makes answer.
Once more the secretary drops the subject but this time he does not
turn to a fresh one nor renew his questions. Instead he bends over
his pile of documents, searching till he finds what he wants.
Turning them rapidly over he at length picks out a paper from the
heap, and spreads it on the table before him.
Then, turning to the President of the court he begins!
"Sir, it was not to be expected that Mr. Sheridan should be
acquainted with the conditions under which the tenth Cruiser Squadron
does its work, or else he might realise that now and then, very
rarely, it is true, a vessel does succeed in getting through the
patrol without being sighted. Now, this report,"--holding one of his
papers up to view--"is one that was received by wireless on the very
morning when the _Botopi_ was sunk; it reads as follows:
"'_S.S. Botopi, Galveston to Hull, sailed on the eighth instant,
should be brought in for examination if met._'--which proves clearly
enough that the vessel was _not_ met by any of our patrols up to that
date. Yet Mr. Sheridan, who says he was a passenger in the _Botopi_,
tells us that she was met and held up on the third or fourth day out,
and that this happened during the night; he is quite clear about
these facts."
"An' so we _were_ met an' stopped, as I'm tellin' ye," shouts
Sheridan, who sees that his only chance is to brazen it out; "'tis
all a big mistake somewhere--that report ye have in your hand, sir,
is not correct at all!"
"Possibly," says the Secretary drily. "It may be, of course, that
the patrol ship which Mr. Sheridan declares to have met the _Botopi_
had some accident to her wireless and consequently was unable to
signal the report. But let that go----"
"Indeed you may well say that! An' let _me_ go too. Can ye not take
the word of a gentleman but must throw doubts upon me statements?
'Tis time we put an end to this foolishness. Come, Netta, and Norah,
too. We'll not be staying any longer!"
"Not so fast, Mr. Sheridan, please," quietly insists the
secretary--"They say, sir," again addressing himself to the admiral,
"that even the most cunning criminals invariably overlook some
important details. In this present case it would have been as well
for the success of the plot to have found out something about the
general appearance of the _Botopi_."
"What d'ye mean," breaks in Sheridan, trying to shout the other man
down now that he sees the trap closing; "I refuse to submit to this
dirty sneaking cross-questioning! 'Tis a plot to desthroy me. Keep
you silent now, ye low scoundrel!"
The secretary pays not the slightest attention to this outburst, but
goes on in the same calm voice:
"The report I have just been quoting from, calling for the _Botopi_
to be brought in for examination, gives, as is the usual custom, a
description of the general appearance of the vessel. And I may add,
that I have this morning cabled to the agents in order to make
certain that this description is correct.
"Mr. Sheridan has informed us that the steamer had two funnels also,
that her hull was painted black--though he qualifies this statement
to the extent of saying that she might possibly appear green or grey.
But the Company's own account of the vessel states that she is a
one-funnelled ship, and that she is painted in accordance with the
request of Germany _in broad bands of red and white_.
"Now, I think it must now become clear to this court how utterably
unreliable this man Sheridan's statements are; in fact, they are
nothing but a tissue of lies from beginning to end. And it will be
presently seen that he was not shipwrecked--that there was a very
cunning and ingenious plot to blow up the _Marathon_--and that this
fellow is at the bottom of it all!"