MILLER IS STILL IMPERTURBABLE
As the imperturbable Mr. Miller reached the deck of the _Santa
Margarita_, he took stock, for the second time within a few minutes, of
his immediate surroundings.
He saw an exceedingly dirty deck on which the smuts from the galley
chimney appeared to have become embedded through long years of neglect.
He smelt the very rich, nourishing odor of spaghetti fried with garlic,
and sniffed unappreciatively, in spite of his hunger. He heard a couple
of nasal voices chanting cheerfully, but with an exceedingly labored
accent, the Bersaglieri quickstep, and made a tiny grimace of protest.
Around him the panorama of sea was empty of all shipping. Land was out
of sight.
Muhammed leaned lazily against the tiller and eyed his late employer
with the stolid apathy which an Oriental alone can make convincing.
Lounging against the panel of the companion hatch, from which Landon and
his companion had just emerged, sat the skipper, Signor Luigi, idly
whittling a stick, and looking up at his passenger with an amiable
indifference.
Miller, it must be remembered, had just passed a night of great
discomfort and mental agitation following a most unanticipated shock.
His nerves--is it wonderful?--were at tension. In spite of his own
imperturbability, on which he set some store, the _insouciant_ aspect of
his surroundings jarred on him. Was kidnapping, then, such an everyday
affair that men cooked, and sang, and whittled under his very nose while
the pirate's gallows very possibly stood awaiting them? He had probably
never approached petulance more nearly in the course of his well-ordered
existence.
He turned to Landon with a little shrug.
The other was holding out the half of a yard-long roll of bread, with a
lump of doubtful-looking cheese.
"I would have suggested a plateful of that spaghetti, my dear Miller,"
he smiled, "but my watchful eye understood the curl of your nostril.
This is at least clean."
Miller drew an edge of tarpaulin over a heaped rope, and, after a
regretful glance at his no longer immaculately gray trousers, sat down.
He took the bread and cheese and began to eat slowly.
There was something bovine in the manner in which he carefully champed
each mouthful, something ruminative about the way in which he looked
around him. But behind this stolid mask of indifference his brain was
working rapidly. He was putting facts as they appeared to him to the
test of logic and experience. His mental summing up was rapid. A
felucca, of Italian register: crew, three men and a boy. Engaged in the
contraband trade more or less continuously, for the ingeniously
contrived lazaret between the cabin and the galley showed an attention
to detail made necessary by continual service. The real mast passed
through the centre of his prison of the previous night. Yet the half of
a mast, a sham half, of course, passed through the partition and showed
in the cabin. Doubtless another half was to be seen likewise in the
galley. It was a neat idea; there was nothing to indicate to the casual
glance of a custom's officer that the partition between the two was not
what it appeared to be. Nothing but actual measurements would discover
the space which hid the intervening lazaret.
With the tonic of food, his self-reliance was entirely his again. He
turned to confront Landon after half a dozen mouthfuls, alert to probe
for the limits of his position. Landon had greatly dared. Did he
understand how greatly? Miller felt himself restored to a state of
energy and resolution which would very quickly find out.
"This," he enunciated slowly, "is of the nature of piracy. Do you and
your underlings realize it?"
Landon was lighting a cigarette. He sucked in a full mouthful of smoke
and shot it out again before he replied. The act was artificial--far too
artificial, Miller told himself--in its indifference.
"My underlings," he answered, "realize that they are well on the way
to--what shall we say--a modest competency. Beyond that, their very
finite understandings have not advanced. _Domani_ or _manana_ are words
frequent in their vocabularies, but not in relation to results.
Comfortable procrastination--that is the whole sense which they
appreciate in them."
"Your own outlook is sufficiently intelligent to pierce beyond
to-morrow," said the other, drily.
"Certainly!" agreed Landon. "I dwell upon to-morrow, and the day after
to-morrow, and the day after that! I engage in prescient revels in their
rosy-tinted hours!"
Miller made a little inarticulate sound which expressed a restrained but
unequivocal irritation.
"Shall we be business-like?" he proposed. "You have entrapped on board
this boat three people, including myself. What advantage do you expect
to get out of the situation and, bluntly, how?"
"You are such a rigid man of affairs," complained Landon. "You refuse
even to eat your breakfast without distractions."
"I find myself in an extraordinary and unfamiliar situation," said
Miller. "It is obvious that I wish to disentangle myself from it as soon
as possible. Let me hear and accept or reject your terms. Is there any
need to be mysterious?"
"None," said Landon, amiably. "But I have not been a man of successful
_coups_, so far, my dear friend, and you must not grudge me the
unaccustomed zests I draw from this one. To clear the situation, I
purpose holding you all three to ransom."
"Where?"
Landon laughed.
"That you must allow me to consider a trade secret. I intend to retain
your company and that of my cousin and my sister-in-law till I am richer
by some forty thousand pounds. There you have the situation in a
nutshell. I am willing to take the advice of such a finished man of the
world as yourself on business methods. The end in view I cannot consent
to vary."
The gray man shrugged his shoulders.
"You are of opinion that money will be paid for me? By whom?"
"I can conceive two sources of supply. The German Government--pray don't
allow yourself to be startled--or, in the last resort, yourself. You are
not a poor man, unless you have grossly misused your opportunities."
"The German Government has no interests of any kind in my well-being or
otherwise."
"I must take your word for it," said Landon, politely. "The alternative
remains by us, literally."
"Meanwhile, what about the laws of--whatever country you purpose using
the shore of? We do not, I take it, remain afloat--a sort of modern
Vanderdecken?"
"Let me assure you that no laws or lawgivers will be of the slightest
assistance. My friend Luigi and I propose being a law unto ourselves and
you."
"Ah."
Miller's tone was reflective and impassive. He had found out one of the
things he wanted to know. As he suspected, they were being taken to some
remoteness, probably an island. He digested the information silently.
"You must pardon the want of--of finish in our arrangements," said
Landon. "Your capture was entirely unpremeditated; you were a gift from
the hand of fate. Your suggestion about my child undid you. The boy has
become the pivot of Muhammed's existence. Queer, don't you think? I have
never professed to plumb the depths of the Oriental mind."
"And Miss Van Arlen and Aylmer?" questioned Miller. "That was a matter
of premeditation?"
"Nothing less than an inspiration, a stroke of genius conceived in a
moment in Muhammed's brain. Premeditate? How could we premeditate? We
expected you and you only, or your messenger, by the next day's boat."
Miller nodded.
"Miss Van Arlen and her companion are officially drowned," he said. "My
own disappearance--how is that accounted for?"
"The matter is now probably engaging the interest of the Melilla
police. They need distraction; theirs is a gray life," said Landon,
pleasantly.
Again Miller nodded, perhaps unconsciously, and in assent to some
deduction of his own mind. He kept his meditative air for a second or
two, shrugged his shoulders again pessimistically, and then made a brisk
gesture of acquiescence.
"And your terms--to myself--are what?" he asked.
"Ten thousand golden sovereigns," said Landon. "Do I hurt your
self-esteem by my moderation?"
Miller smiled again sombrely.
"That is, of course, preposterous," he said. "I do not possess half the
sum. I should not pay it, if I did. If the alternative is that you
support me for the remaining number of my days, I must accept it."
"That would not be the alternative," answered Landon. "In fact, I hope
to be able to prove to you that an alternative is lacking. But, at the
same time, I am willing to hear proposals."
"My proposal remains what it was yesterday. Make your peace with your
wife's family, give up the child. I shall then be able, I have little
doubt, to put you in the way of earning more than the sum you suggest.
But that you become a person tolerated in ordinary English society is
essential."
"I am, in fact, to work laboriously for what is already in my grasp. You
underrate my business capacity, my dear sir, you really do."
The gray shoulders were shrugged.
"I might possibly allow a payment of a thousand--let us say--on account.
That would suffice to establish you in a decent and plausible position.
The work, as you call it, would not be difficult. I rather fancy you
would find it amusing."
"I think you want me badly," said Landon. "I think I must be unique for
your purposes."
"Don't assume that it is your intelligence which my employers wish to
buy," said Miller, coolly. "It is your social standing, still something
of an asset in your caste-ridden land."
"But I refuse to have my intelligence underrated," protested Landon,
gaily. "I hug it; it tells me many things which you may not suspect.
One of them is that there is a lever which will displace your
self-confidence. You are a very bad bearer of--physical pain."
Very faint was the pulse of the emotion which throbbed through Miller's
eyes as he turned them towards his companion, but distinct enough for
Landon to discover and greet with another amiable little laugh.
"It's where blood tells," he said. "I discovered it accidentally; we
spoke of what D'Amade's men had to undergo as prisoners at the hands of
the Moors, did we not? I mentioned the eyes gouged out, the fettered
wounded flung on slow fires, the impaled. You flinched, my dear sir, you
flinched badly and--I tried you again. I harked back to like subjects
more than once; the result satisfied me. And then I began to dwell upon
your complexion. Is that olive tint from Spain, or was there a near
forefather in the gorgeous East? Are you of Hindoo blood, my friend--are
you?"
Miller's impassive eyes met his, looked deeply within them, and wandered
vaguely towards the empty spaces of the sea. Landon chuckled.
"By God, I wouldn't stop anywhere, with you, you renegade!" he swore
with sudden, hot, irrational rancor. "I'd deal with you. Will any one
stop me? Ask those men--Mafiaists, every one. Stop me! They'd give me
tips; they'd mutilate you as they'd mutilate their own domestic animals,
for fun!"
Miller drew back a couple of paces, not with any show of disgust or
fear, but with the air of an artist who wishes to regard a finished work
from a more distant aspect. And he surveyed Landon keenly.
"So I am being threatened?" he said quietly.
Landon grinned wickedly.
"So you're being threatened," he agreed. "Deliberate the matter; give it
your best attention; and all the while remember that there is nothing
which will stop me, not a single solitary thing."
"I think you are wrong," said Miller, slowly, and then--the sound of it
was bizarre to the last degree between his lips--he whistled a quaint
little run, which thrilled and quavered up and down half a dozen bars to
end upon a long-drawn note.
There was a queer silence. Landon looked at him with a frown which
implied scarcely apprehension, but what is nearly akin to
it--bewilderment. For there was no mistaking the intention with which
the thing was done. Miller had whistled the tripping little air
deliberately.
There was a stirring from below. The two hands appeared, and appeared
with a suddenness which left no room for doubt that they had been
summoned. The savor of burning spaghetti followed them; the summons had
been one exacting instant obedience. They had left the frying-pan upon
the fire. Together with their appearance came the sound from the
companion of Captain Luigi stumbling to his feet.
"Fling this man overboard!" said Miller, in level, indifferent tones. He
pointed to Landon.
Landon gave a shout which brimmed with incredulity as much as fear. His
hand flew to his breast pocket fumblingly, but too late. Miller's grip
was on his wrist; Miller's thrust flung him into the skipper's waiting
arms. As Muhammed relinquished the helm and sprang forward, one of the
deck hands ducked, tripped him, and rose between his legs--that deadly
Mafiaist trick which never fails of its results. The other had closed in
upon Landon as he struggled in the captain's grip. He assisted to drag
him relentlessly towards the gunwale.
Landon yelled again. His eyes glared out of the struggle at Miller in a
very fury of amazement. He bellowed oaths, blasphemies, obscenities
even, the fruits of instinctive passions and automatic to his wrath. And
there was something almost devilish in the silence which his two
assailants kept. They panted a little, by stress of effort, but they
uttered no other sound. They merely edged their victim nearer and yet
nearer to the side, forced him against the gunwale, stooped with
concerted action for one last heave, and then--fell away from him with a
little obsequious shrug. For Miller's voice had been heard again.
"_Basta_--enough!" he had said, his voice still unraised.
Landon lay where their relinquished efforts had left him, huddled
against the gunwale, and staring up at his surroundings with fierce,
incredulous eyes. Muhammed was stretched prone beneath his assailant
who, as he tripped him, had deftly caught the Moor's right wrist and
twisted it behind his back. He sat on his prisoner now, still holding
the other's hand, but carelessly and without open concern, perfectly
aware that the slightest movement from his human pedestal would break
the delicate bone as pipe-clay breaks--in one clean snap.
"Have I made myself plain?" asked Miller, equably.
Landon used a moment of complete silence to stare round the deck,
poising his glance on each of his companions in turn. It rested, at
last, on Miller's entirely emotionless countenance.
"Yes--and damn you!" said Landon, rising sullenly to his feet.
Miller nodded.
"An amateur cannot break into my particular class of business, my dear
Landon," he said. "There are pitfalls for him at every turn. Membership
of a dozen organizations is necessary, and they are close corporations;
even their humbler servants, as you see, find them rigidly exacting."
Landon shrugged his shoulders, produced his cigarette case and
match-box, stuck a match in his mouth, and drew the cigarette across the
roughened edge of the box. Miller suffered himself to smile.
"Your nerves are not altogether at their best," he allowed, "but there
is no need to emphasize the fact. I have no wish to deal harshly with
you. In fact, half of the scheme you have just outlined to me has my
approval. I shall not interfere with your desire to receive compensation
from your father-in-law, but whatever you receive you will regard, if
you please, as from me, provided by my efforts and to be accounted for
in full! Is that understood?"
Landon shrugged his shoulders again.
"I welcome your assistance," he said quietly, and put the cigarette to
its appointed use.
"But _my_ scheme has, in the final event, to be carried out in all its
details," Miller added. "In your bargain with your relations, complete
social regeneration and recognition is included."
"But not--the boy?" said Landon, slowly.
"But not the boy," repeated Miller. "The first, I have satisfied myself,
cannot be obtained without the surrender of the second. You follow me?"
Landon looked at Muhammed, looked at the deck hand who still sat
impassive on the Moor's shoulders, looked at Luigi, looked, lastly, at
Miller.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"We are in your hands--literally," he said, and made an amiable gesture
of assent.