TELLS OF A STAIN UPON A WHITE FROCK, AND
A LOST KEY
Helen drew a chair to the table and waited with her hands folded
before her.
"Dick," said I, turning to the lad, who stood just within the door,
"that oath of yours."
"I have broken it already," said he.
"There was never priest in the world who would refuse to absolve you.
The virtue of it lies in the forswearing. Now!" and I turned to Helen.
"But I must speak frankly," I premised.
She nodded her assent.
"Very well. I can make a consecutive sort of story, but I may well be
at fault, for my knowledge is scanty, and if I am in error over the
facts, I beg you, Miss Mayle, to correct me. Old Mr. Mayle's talk ran
continually about his wild doings on the Guinea coast, in Africa.
There can be no doubt that he spent some considerable portion of his
life there, and that he managed to scrape together a sufficient
fortune. It is likely, therefore, that he was engaged in the slave
trade, and, to be quite frank, Miss Helen, from what I have gathered
of his manner and style, I am not indisposed to think that he found an
occasional diversion from that pursuit in a little opportune piracy."
I made the suggestion with some diffidence, for the old man, whatever
his sins, had saved her life, and shown her much affection, of which,
moreover, at his death he had given her very tangible proofs. It was
necessary for me, however, to say it, for I had nothing but suspicion
to go upon, and I looked to her in some way, either by words or
manner, to confirm or confute my suspicions. And it seemed to me that
she confirmed it, for she simply pressed the palms of her hands to her
forehead, and said quietly,
"You are very frank."
"There is no other way but frankness, believe me," I returned. "Now
let us come to that Sunday, four years ago, when Cullen Mayle sat in
the stocks and George Glen came to Tresco. It was you who took George
Glen to St. Mary's Church," I turned to Dick Parmiter.
"Yes," said he. "I was kicking my heels in the sand, close to our
cottage, when he came ashore in a boat. He was most anxious to speak
with Mr. Mayle."
"So you carried him across to St. Mary's, and he told you, I think,
that he had been quartermaster with Adam Mayle at Whydah, on the
Guinea coast?"
"Yes."
"Did he name the ship by any chance?"
"No."
"He did once, whilst we were at supper," interrupted Helen, "and I
remember the name very well, for my father turned upon him fiercely
when he spoke it, and Mr. Glen immediately said that he was mistaken
and substituted another name, which I have forgotten. The first name
was the _Royal Fortune_."
"The _Royal Fortune_," said I, thoughtfully. The name in a measure was
familiar to me; it seemed familiar too in precisely this connection
with the Guinea coast. But I could not be sure. I was anxious to
discover George Glen's business with Adam Mayle, and very likely my
anxiety misled me into imagining clues where there were none. I put
the name away in my mind and went on with my conjecture.
"Now on that Sunday George Glen met Adam Mayle in the churchyard, you,
Miss Mayle, and Lieutenant Clutterbuck were of the party. Together you
sailed across to Tresco. So that George Glen could have had no private
word with Mr. Mayle."
"No," Helen Mayle agreed. "There was no opportunity."
"Nor was there an opportunity all that afternoon and evening, until
Cullen left the house."
"But after Cullen had gone," said she, "they had their opportunity and
made use of it. I left them together in my father's room.
"The room fitted up as a cabin, where every word they spoke could be
heard though the door was shut and the eavesdropper need not even
trouble to lay his ear to the keyhole."
"Yes, that is true," said Helen. "But the servants were in bed, and
there was no one to hear."
At that Dick gave a start and a jump, and I cried:
"But there was some one to hear. Tell your story, Dick!" and Dick told
how Cullen Mayle had climbed through the window, and how some hours
after he had waked him up and sworn him to secrecy.
"Now, do you see?" I continued. "Why should Cullen Mayle have sworn
Dick here to silence unless he had discovered some sort of secret
which might prove of value to himself, unless he had overhead George
Glen talking to Adam Mayle? And there's this besides. Where has Cullen
Mayle been these last two years? I can tell you that."
"You can?" said Helen. She was leaning across the table, her face all
lighted up with excitement.
"Yes. There's the negro above stairs for one thing, Cullen's servant.
For another I met Cullen Mayle on the road as I was travelling here.
He counterfeited an ague, which he told me he had caught on the Guinea
coast. The ague was counterfeit, but very likely he has been on the
Guinea coast."
"Of course," cried Dick.
"Not a doubt of it," said Helen.
"So this is my theory. George Glen came to enlist Adam Mayle's help
and Adam Mayle's money, in some voyage to Africa. Cullen Mayle
overheard it, and got the start of George Glen. So here's George Glen
back again upon Tresco, and watching for Cullen Mayle."
"See!" cried Helen suddenly. "Did I not tell you you were sent here to
a good end?"
"But we are not out of the wood yet," I protested. "We have to
discover what it was that Glen proposed to Mr. Mayle. How shall we do
that?"
"How?" repeated Helen, and she looked to me confidently for the
answer.
"I can think of but one way," said I, "to go boldly to George Glen and
make terms with him."
"Would he speak, do you think?"
"Most likely not," I answered, and so in spite of my fine conjecture,
we did not seem to have come any nearer to an issue. We were both of
us silent for some while. The very confidence which Helen displayed
stung me into an activity of thought. Helen herself was sunk in an
abstraction, and in that abstraction she spoke.
"You are hurt," she said.
My right hand was resting upon the table. It was cut in one or two
places, and covered with scratches.
"It is nothing," said I, "I slipped on the hill yesterday night and
cut it with the gorse;" and again we fell to silence.
"What I am thinking is this," she said, at length. "You overtook
Cullen upon the road, and you reached the islands last night. At any
moment then we may expect his coming."
"Why, that's true," said I, springing up to my feet. "And if Dick will
sail me across to St. Mary's, we'll make a shift to stop him."
Helen Mayle rose at that moment from her seat. She was wearing a white
frock, and upon one side of it I noticed for the first time a red
smear or two, as though she had brushed against paint--or blood. I
looked at my hand scratched and torn by the gorse bush. It would have
been bleeding at the time when a woman, coming swiftly past us in the
fog, brushed against it. The woman was certainly hurrying in the
direction of this house.
"You have told me everything, I suppose," I said--"everything at all
events that it concerns me to know."
"Everything," she replied.
We crossed that afternoon to St. Mary's. There was no sign of Cullen
Mayle at Hugh Town. No one had seen him or heard of his coming. He had
not landed upon St. Mary's. I thought it possible that he might not
have touched St. Mary's at all, but rowed ashore to Tresco even as I
had done. But no ship had put into the Road that day but one which
brought Castile soap from Marseilles. We sailed back to Tresco, and
ran the boat's nose into the sand not twenty yards from the door of
the house on Merchant's Point. A man, an oldish, white-haired man,
loitering upon the beach very civilly helped us to run the boat up out
of the water. We thanked him, and he touched his hat and answered with
something of a French accent, which surprised me. But as we walked up
to the house,
"That's one of the five," Dick explained. "He came on the boat with
the negro to Penzance. Peter Tortue he is called, and he was loitering
there on purpose to get a straight look at you."
"Well," said I, "it is at all events known that I am here," and going
into the house I found Helen Mayle eagerly waiting for our return. I
told her that Cullen Mayle could not by any means have yet reached the
Scillies, and that we had left word with the harbour master upon St.
Mary's to detain him if he landed; at which she expressed great
relief.
"And since it is known I am here," I added, "it will be more suitable
if I carry my valise over to New Grimsby and seek a bed at the
'Palace' Inn. I shall besides make the acquaintance of Mr. George
Glen. It is evident that he and his fellows intend no hurt to you, so
that you may sleep in peace."
"No," said she, bravely enough. "I am not afraid for myself."
"And you will do that?"
"What?" she asked.
"Sleep in peace," said I; and putting my hand into my pocket as if by
accident, I let her see again the corner of her white scarf. Her face
flushed a little as she saw it.
"Oh, yes," she answered, and to my surprise with the easiest laugh
imaginable. "I shall sleep in peace. You need have no fear."
I could not understand her. What a passion of despair it must have
needed to string her to that act of death last night! Yet to-day--she
could even allude to it with a laugh. I was lost in perplexity, but I
had this one sure thing to comfort me. She was to-day hopeful, however
much she despaired yesterday. She relied upon me to rescue Cullen from
his peril. I was not sure that I should be doing her the service she
imagined it to be, even if I succeeded. But she loved him, and looked
to me to help her. So that I, too, could sleep in peace without fear
that to-night another scarf would be fetched out to do the office this
one I kept had failed to do.
I gave Dick my valise to carry across the island, and waited until he
was out of sight before I started. Then I walked to the palisade at
the end of the house. I found a spot where the palisade was broken;
the splintered wood was fresh and clean; it was I who had broken the
palisade last night. From that point I marched straight up the hill
through the gorse, and when I had walked for about twenty minutes I
stopped and looked about me. I struck away to my left, and after a
little I stopped again. I marched up and down that hill, to the right,
to the left, for perhaps the space of an hour, and at last I came upon
that for which I searched--a steep slope where the grass was crushed,
and underneath that slope a sheer descent. On the brink of the
precipice--for that I judged it to be--I saw a broken gorse-bush. I
lay down on my face and carefully crawled down the slope. The roots of
the gorse-bush still held firmly in the ground. I clutched it in my
left hand, dug the nails of my right through the grass into the soil
and leaned over. My precipice was no more than a hollow some twenty
feet deep, and had I slipped yesterday night, I should not have fallen
even those twenty feet; for a sort of low barn was built in the
hollow, with its back leaning against the perpendicular wall. I should
have dropped perhaps ten feet on to the roof of this barn.
I drew myself up the hill again and sat down. The evening was very
quiet and still. I was near to the summit of the island. Over my left
shoulder I could see the sun setting far away in the Atlantic, and the
waves rippling gold. Beneath me was the house, a long one-storied
building of granite, on the horn of a tiny bay. The windows looked
across the bay; behind the house stretched that tangled garden, and at
the end of the garden rose the Merchant's Rock. As it stood thus in
the evening light, with the smoke curling from its chimneys, and the
sea murmuring at its door, it seemed quite impossible to believe that
any story of turmoil and strife and tragedy could have locality there.
That old buccaneer Adam Mayle, and his soft-voiced son Cullen, whom he
had turned adrift, seemed the figures of a dream and my adventure in
Cullen's room--a hideous nightmare.
And yet even as I looked footsteps brushed through the grass behind
me, and turning I saw a sailor with a brass telescope under one arm
and a black patch over one eye; who politely passed me the time of day
and went by. He was a big man, with a great beard and hair sprouting
from his ears and nostrils. He was another of the five no doubt, and
though he went by he did not pass out of sight. I waited, hoping that
he would go, for I had a great desire to examine the barn beneath me
more closely. It was from the barn that the unearthly screeching had
risen which had so terrified Dick Parmiter. It was between the barn
and the house that a girl had brushed against my wounded hand and
taken a stain of blood upon her dress.
The hollow was only a break in the steep slope of the hill. The barn
could easily be approached by descending the hill to the right or the
left, and then turning in. I was anxious to do it, to try the door, to
enter the barn, but I dared not, for the sailor was within sight, and
I had no wish to arouse any suspicions. Helen had told me everything,
she had said--everything which it concerned me to know. But had she? I
found myself asking, as I got to my feet and crossed the hill down
towards New Grimsby.
The sun had set by this time, a cool twilight took the colour from the
gorse, and numberless small winged things flew and sung about one's
face; all round a grey sea went down to a grey sky, and sea and sky
were merged; and at my feet the lights began to twinkle in the little
fishing village by the sea. I hired a bed at the "Palace" Inn, bade
them prepare me supper and then walked on to Parmiter's cottage for my
valise.
There was a great hubbub going on within; Dick's voice was explaining,
and a woman's shrill voice overtopped his explanation. The cause of
his offence was twofold. He had not been near the cottage all day, so
that it was thought he had run away again, and the key of the cottage
was gone. It had not been seen since yesterday, and Dick had been
accused of purloining it. I explained to Mrs. Parmiter that it was my
fault Dick had kept away all day, and I made a bargain with her that I
should have the lad as my servant while I stayed upon the island. Dick
shouldered my valise in a state of considerable indignation.
"What should I steal the key for?" said he. "It only stands in the
door for show. No one locks his door in Tresco. What should I steal
the key for?" and he was within an ace of whimpering.
"Come, Dick," said I, "you mustn't mind a trifle of a scolding. Why,
you are a hero to everybody in these parts, and to one man at all
events outside them."
"That doesn't hinder mother from chasing me about with an oar," he
answered.
"It is the fate of all heroes," said I, "to be barbarously used by
their womenfolk."
"Then I am damned if I want to be a hero," said Dick, violently. "And
as for the key--of what consequence is it at all if you never lock
your door?"
"Of no more consequence than your bruises, Dick," said I.
But I was wrong. You may do many things with a key besides locking a
door. You can slip it down your back to stop your nose bleeding, for
instance; if it's a big key you can weigh a line with it, and perhaps
catch a mackerel for your breakfast. And there's another use for a key
of which I did not at this time know, or I should have been saved from
considerable perplexity and not a little danger.