I READ MY OWN OBITUARY
It was my turn to stare again--and stare I did, from one to the other in
silence, and being far too much amazed to find ready speech. And before I
could get my tongue once more, my mother, who was always remarkably sharp
of eye, got her word in.
"What're you doing in that new suit of clothes?" she demanded. "And
where's your own good clothes that you went away in yesterday noon? I
misdoubt this stewardship's leading you into some strange ways!"
"My own good clothes, mother, are somewhere in the North Sea," retorted
I. "Top or bottom, sunk or afloat, it's there you'll find them, if you're
more anxious about them than me! Do you tell me that Carstairs has never
been home?" I went on, turning to Mr. Lindsey, "Then I don't know where
he is, nor his yacht either. All I know is that he left me to drown last
night, a good twenty miles from land, and that it's only by a special
mercy of Providence that I'm here. Wherever he is, yon man's a
murderer--I've settled that, Mr. Lindsey!"
The women began to tremble and to exclaim at this news, and to ask one
question after another, and Mr. Lindsey shook his head impatiently.
"We can't stand talking our affairs in the station all night," said he.
"Let's get to an hotel, my lad--we're all wanting our suppers. You don't
seem as if you were in very bad spirits, yourself."
"I'm all right, Mr. Lindsey," I answered cheerfully. "I've been down to
Jericho, it's true, and to worse, but I chanced across a good Samaritan
or two. And I've looked out a clean and comfortable hotel for you, and
we'll go there now."
I led them away to a good hotel that I had noticed in my walks, and while
they took their suppers I sat by and told them all my adventure, to the
accompaniment of many exclamations from my mother and Maisie. But Mr.
Lindsey made none, and I was quick to notice that what most interested
him was that I had been to see Mr. Gavin Smeaton.
"But what for did you not come straight home when you were safely on
shore again?" asked my mother, who was thinking of the expense I was
putting her to. "What's the reason of fetching us all this way when
you're alive and well?"
I looked at Mr. Lindsey--knowingly, I suppose.
"Because, mother," I answered her, "I believed yon Carstairs would go
back to Berwick and tell that there'd been a sad accident, and I was
dead--drowned--and I wanted to let him go on thinking that I was
dead--and so I decided to keep away. And if he is alive, it'll be the
best thing to let the man still go on thinking I was drowned--as I'll
prove to Mr. Lindsey there. If Carstairs is alive, I say, it's the right
policy for me to keep out of his sight and our neighbourhood."
"Aye!" agreed Mr. Lindsey, who was a quick hand at taking up things.
"There's something in that, Hugh."
"Well, it's beyond me, all this," observed my mother, "and it all comes
of me taking yon Gilverthwaite into the house! But me and Maisie'll away
to our beds, and maybe you and Mr. Lindsey'll get more light out of the
matter than I can, and glad I'll be when all this mystery's cleared up
and we'll be able to live as honest folk should, without all this flying
about the country and spending good money."
I contrived to get a few minutes with Maisie, however, before she and my
mother retired, and I found then that, had I known it, I need not have
been so anxious and disturbed. For they had attached no particular
importance to the fact that I had not returned the night before; they had
thought that Sir Gilbert had sailed his yacht in elsewhere, and that I
would be turning up later, and there had been no great to-do after me
until my own telegram had arrived, when, of course, there was
consternation and alarm, and nothing but hurry to catch the next train
north. But Mr. Lindsey had contrived to find out that nothing had been
seen of Sir Gilbert Carstairs and his yacht at Berwick; and to that point
he and I at once turned when the women had gone to bed and I went with
him into the smoking-room while he had his pipe and his drop of whisky.
By that time I had told him of the secret about the meeting at the
cross-roads, and about my interview with Crone at his shop, and Sir
Gilbert Carstairs at Hathercleugh, when he offered me the stewardship;
and I was greatly relieved when Mr. Lindsey let me down lightly and said
no more than that if I'd told him these things, at first, there might
have been a great difference.
"But we're on the beginning of something," he concluded. "That Sir
Gilbert Carstairs has some connection with these murders, I'm now
convinced--but what it is, I'm not yet certain. What I am certain about
is that he took fright yesterday morning in our court, when I produced
that ice-ax and asked the doctor those questions about it."
"And I'm sure of that, too, Mr. Lindsey," said I. "And I've been
wondering what there was about yon ice-ax that frightened him. You'll
know that yourself, of course?"
"Aye, but I'm not going to tell you!" he answered. "You'll have to await
developments on that point, my man. And now we'll be getting to bed, and
in the morning we'll see this Mr. Gavin Smeaton. It would be a queer
thing now, wouldn't it, if we got some clue to all this through him? But
I'm keenly interested in hearing that he comes from the other side of the
Atlantic, Hugh, for I've been of opinion that it's across there that the
secret of the whole thing will be found."
They had brought me a supply of clothes and money with them, and first
thing in the morning I went off to the docks and found my Samaritan
skipper, and gave him back his sovereign and his blue serge suit, with
my heartiest thanks and a promise to keep him fully posted up in the
development of what he called the case. And then I went back to
breakfast with the rest of them, and at once there was the question of
what was to be done. My mother was all for going homeward as quickly as
possible, and it ended up in our seeing her and Maisie away by the next
train; Mr. Lindsey having made both swear solemnly that they would not
divulge one word of what had happened, nor reveal the fact that I was
alive, to any living soul but Andrew Dunlop, who, of course, could be
trusted. And my mother agreed, though the proposal was anything but
pleasant or proper to her.
"You're putting on me more than any woman ought to be asked to bear, Mr.
Lindsey," said she, as we saw them into the train. "You're asking me to
go home and behave as if we didn't know whether the lad was alive or
dead. I'm not good at the playacting, and I'm far from sure that it's
either truthful or honest to be professing things that isn't so. And I'll
be much obliged to you if you'll get all this cleared up, and let Hugh
there settle down to his work in the proper way, instead of wandering
about on business that's no concern of his."
We shook our heads at each other as the train went off, Maisie waving
good-bye to us, and my mother sitting very stiff and stern and
disapproving in her corner of the compartment.
"No concern of yours, d'ye hear, my lad?" laughed Mr. Lindsey. "Aye, but
your mother forgets that in affairs of this sort a lot of people are
drawn in where they aren't concerned! It's like being on the edge of a
whirlpool--you're dragged into it before you're aware. And now we'll go
and see this Mr. Smeaton; but first, where's the telegraph office in this
station? I want to wire to Murray, to ask him to keep me posted up during
today if any news comes in about the yacht."
When Mr. Lindsey was in the telegraph office, I bought that morning's
_Dundee Advertiser_, more to fill up a few spare moments than from any
particular desire to get the news, for I was not a great newspaper
reader. I had scarcely opened it when I saw my own name. And there I
stood, in the middle of the bustling railway station, enjoying the
sensation of reading my own obituary notice.
"Our Berwick-on-Tweed correspondent, telegraphing late last night,
says:--Considerable anxiety is being felt in the town respecting the fate
of Sir Gilbert Carstairs, Bart., of Hathercleugh House, and Mr. Hugh
Moneylaws, who are feared to have suffered a disaster at sea. At noon
yesterday, Sir Gilbert, accompanied by Mr. Moneylaws, went out in the
former's yacht (a small vessel of light weight) for a sail which,
according to certain fishermen who were about when the yacht left, was to
be one of a few hours only. The yacht had not returned last night, nor
has it been seen or heard of since its departure. Various Berwick
fishing craft have been out well off the coast during today, but no
tidings of the missing gentlemen have come to hand. Nothing has been
heard of, or from, Sir Gilbert at Hathercleugh up to nine o'clock this
evening, and the only ray of hope lies in the fact that Mr. Moneylaws'
mother left the town hurriedly this afternoon--possibly having received
some news of her son. It is believed here, however, that the light vessel
was capsized in a sudden squall, and that both occupants have lost their
lives. Sir Gilbert Carstairs, who was the seventh baronet, had only
recently come to the neighbourhood on succeeding to the title and
estates. Mr. Moneylaws, who was senior clerk to Mr. Lindsey, solicitor,
of Berwick, was a very promising young man of great ability, and had
recently been much before the public eye as a witness in connection with
the mysterious murders of John Phillips and Abel Crone, which are still
attracting so much attention."
I shoved the newspaper into Mr. Lindsey's hand as he came out of the
telegraph office. He read the paragraph in silence, smiling as he read.
"Aye!" he said at last, "you have to leave home to get the home news.
Well--they're welcome to be thinking that for the present. I've just
wired Murray that I'll be here till at any rate this evening, and that
he's to telegraph at once if there's tidings of that yacht or of
Carstairs. Meanwhile, well go and see this Mr. Smeaton."
Mr. Smeaton was expecting us--he, too, was reading about me in the
_Advertiser_ when we entered, and he made some joking remark about it
only being great men that were sometimes treated to death-notices before
they were dead. And then he turned to Mr. Lindsey, who I noticed had been
taking close stock of him.
"I've been thinking out things since Mr. Moneylaws was in here last
night," he remarked. "Bringing my mind to bear, do you see, on certain
points that I hadn't thought of before. And maybe there's something more
than appears at first sight in yon man John Phillips having my name and
address on him."
"Aye?" asked Mr. Lindsey, quietly. "How, now?"
"Well," replied Mr. Smeaton, "there may be something in it, and there may
be nothing--just nothing at all. But it's the fact that my father hailed
from Tweedside--and from some place not so far from Berwick."