GENOA AGAIN
The sea was dashing high on the breakwater as they came in, passing
through the outer harbour and taking up their old anchorage near the
Silos Wharf.
The grey dawn that had threatened rain had passed, the clouds had
dispersed, and the sun was lighting the hills and the harbour, more
densely packed with shipping than ever.
The Customs officials and port doctor came off--the very same men they
had parted with only a little time back--came on deck, did not even
trouble to go below, smoked cigarettes, talked to Martia in broken
English, and went away smiling.
"Now," said Sam as they sat at breakfast twenty minutes later, "if
I hadn't thought of putting in before and getting known to those
greasers, they'd have been all over the shop, poking about. As it is,
we are all right now. The greatest difficulty is over, unless we fall
in with bad luck in the way of weather and have to run into some port
to refit. That's not likely, though. The spars are sound, and you
couldn't break the hull, not with a pick-axe."
"How long are we going to stay here?" asked Martia.
"We ought to clear out the day after to-morrow," replied the other.
"We'll get the water on board to-night and the stores, and I want to
have a thorough overhaul of the rigging."
"I've got a list of the stores we want," said Martia. "I suppose you'll
get the water from the same people on the quay over there who filled
the tanks before?"
"Yes; and the stores from the ship-chandlers. Their boat will be along
for orders this morning, sure."
"There it is," said Bobby.
The sound of a boat coming alongside could be heard through the open
skylight, and Bowler's voice. Next moment the seaman was standing in
the doorway of the saloon.
"A tellygrum for you, sir," said Bowler, handing Sam an envelope.
Sam snatched the envelope and read the message.
"Come to Chiavari to luncheon Hotel d'Italie to-day--important
business.--VANJOUR."
The envelope was addressed to: "Hackett. Yacht _Lorna Doone_, Genoa
Harbour."
"What the devil is the meaning of this?" asked Sam, handing the paper
to the others.
"The chandler's boat is alongside, sir," said Bowler. "They brought the
message, and the chap's waiting to see you about orders."
"Tell him to wait and I'll see him in a minute," replied the skipper of
the _Lorna_. Then, when Bowler had vanished: "What is the _meaning_ of
it?"
"I don't know," said Bobby. "Who on earth is Vanjour? How does he know
we're here? And where's Chiavari?"
"It's on the railway line a bit down the coast," said Martia, who had
taken the map of Genoa and its environs from the map rack, and spread
it on the table. "I remember the name. It's somewhere near here----Oh,
there it is!" She pointed with her finger to the spot. "It's quite
close, and on the railway line."
"Maybe it's someone to do with Behrens," suggested Bobby.
"Behrens?" said Sam. "But how could he know we had put in here this
morning?"
"He may have told someone to be on the look-out for us."
"And look," said Martia. "This telegram hasn't come from Chiavari, but
from Genoa. It's a telegram letter. Someone has been waiting for us to
come in, and then sent this off. They evidently did not want to meet
you in Genoa, for some reason or other. I think it must have to do
with Mr. Behrens. You remember I wrote him from here, telling him we'd
arrived safely and would put in here on our way back."
"I'd forgotten that," said Sam. "That's what it is, as sure as eggs."
"It's very likely himself under an assumed name," put in Bobby.
"Anyhow, it can't be anyone else. You'll go, of course?"
"Of course I'll go," replied Sam. "It looks to be quite close. Will you
two see to the stores whilst I'm gone, and the filling of the tanks?"
He looked around him.
If ever you have seen a true-blue small-yacht owner or skipper leaving
his vessel in charge of others, even for a day, you will have seen Sam
at this moment giving directions like a house-keeper off for a holiday.
He suggested that certain ports should be shut, to keep out the coaling
dust that a vast brute of a Brazilian liner, with derricks out and
barges alongside, would be making in a moment if the wind strengthened.
He ordered this and that to be done, retired, reappeared presently in
a more presentable rig and a bowler hat, got into the ship-chandlers'
boat, issuing directions every step of the way, and was rowed off.
"Thank heaven," said Bobby. "Now we'll be able to think."
"Are you sure he'll be all right?" asked the girl nervously.
He knew what she meant. He had no fear at all of Sam making an
alcoholic fool of himself to-day. He had got to understand the skipper.
Sam with real business on hand was to be trusted.
"You needn't be a bit afraid," said Bob. "Hackett, though he might
fly off the handle once in a way, isn't that sort. He's as steady
as anyone, and a jolly sight better than a lot of people who call
themselves saints."
"I'm so glad to hear you say that," she rejoined, with a sigh of
relief. "I'm not bothering about to-day so much as about things in
general, and his future. I feel just as you do about him. He's a
splendid character, if only--if only he had some real interest in life,
someone to care for him and take care of him."
Bobby agreed, but he felt rather flattened out. Why was she bothering
about Sam's future? For a moment an almost overwhelming impulse came
upon him to take her aside, and, throwing everything else to the winds,
tell her the truth, which she must have guessed by this; that he loved
her.
Common-sense stopped him.
They had to think of stores, of the water-supply, of the overhaul of
the ship. They were in Genoa Harbour with perhaps a hundred thousand
pounds worth of cargo on board that the Genoa port authorities would
certainly seize if they knew of it. A turn of the wheel and the whole
lot of them might be seized with the cargo and the ship and put in
prison. They knew absolutely nothing of the complicated Italian law of
contraband as applied to articles theoretically belonging to a friendly
Power, Greece, and if they had met with a lawyer versed in the business
they would have been afraid to ask.
No, it was not a time for love declarations or philandering of any sort.
Amongst the other directions left by Hackett, was one for the overhaul
of the engine. Bobby went below with Bowler to attend to this messy
job, leaving the girl on deck. It took hours, and when it was done,
and a luncheon of sardines and biscuits consumed, the chandler's boat
arrived alongside with stores that had to be stowed, and after the
chandler's boat, came the water supply for the tanks.
Now, the people who attend to this business in Genoa Harbour do not
consider themselves slaves, as far as Time is concerned. Sam had
ordered the supply for that evening, expecting that it would come on
board by next morning at the earliest. But by some chance--perhaps
fortunately for the crew of the _Lorna Doone_--the foreman, being slack
of work for the moment, sent it off by two o'clock.
By four everything was finished, the decks cleared up and afternoon tea
served in the cabin.
At half-past four they came on deck. The awning that had been
raised after breakfast was taken down, and Bobby had just brought a
basket-chair up from below for the girl, when Church, who was forward,
gave them word that a boat was putting off to them.
"It's the captain," said Church.
It was.
He was being rowed off in a shore-boat, and when he got alongside he
paid off his men without regard to change.
Martia saw at once that something had occurred, but she said nothing,
following whilst Sam led the way below, where the first thing he did
was to fill a pipe.
"Well," asked Bobby impatiently, "what's up?"
"Everything, maybe," said Sam, taking his seat. "And maybe nothing.
Any tea in that tea-pot? Well, give us a cup, and chuck us those
matches. Well, I'll begin at the beginning. Soon's I landed, I made
a bee-line for the station and got a ticket for Chiavari and found
a train just on the point of going. I got there hours too soon, but
it's one of those beastly places that the trains run crooked to, and
if you don't take the first train you can get, it's heaven knows how
long you'll be getting there. I'd left my pipe behind, and for two
hours I had to sit about in gardens and places with nothing to smoke
but Italian cigarettes. I'd called at the hotel, but no M. Vanjour
was staying there. However, I didn't expect him to be waiting for
me. I reckoned he'd turn up about one o'clock. And he did. The hotel
_déjeuner_ was served at half-past twelve, and I was sitting in the
smoking-room listening to the clatter of knives and forks, when the
manager came to me and said that the friend I had been asking for had
arrived. I went into the lounge and there he was. A little dried-up
old chap, like a Spaniard. He was well dressed, but he wasn't quite
a gentleman. 'You are Mr. Hackett?' said he. 'Who has done me the
pleasure of accepting my invitation to luncheon?'
"'I'm him,' said I. 'And I must say your invitation came as a surprise
to me, for, if I'm not mistaken, we've never met before in our lives.'
I was on the point of saying to him at first: 'I suppose you are a
friend of Mr. Behrens?' but something stopped me; something told me to
keep off the grass. This bird didn't please me a bit, and I determined
to lay low. Funny things instincts are.
"'No,' said he. 'We have never met before. But I don't doubt that this
meeting will be to our profit. However, we will discuss that matter
after luncheon. I have asked the manager of the hotel to give us a
private room.'
"I was in a fix. I was beastly hungry, but I didn't at all like the
idea of having to sit and eat with this man. However, I was into the
thing up to the neck, and we had luncheon and he talked of the weather
and all sorts of rot till the coffee was in and the waiter had cleared
off. Then he lit a cigar and leaning across the table, he said: 'I
didn't ask you to Chiavari, Mr. Hackett, to share this bad luncheon,
but to speak to you about your cargo.'
"You could have knocked me off my chair with a feather, and he saw it.
Then I recovered myself, for it came to me that he might, after all,
have something to do with Behrens.
"'Well,' I said, 'what about my cargo?'
"'Ah, what about it?' said he with a wink.
"Then I knew at once that he was working on his own, and that, even if
he was in the know through Behrens, he was playing his own game.
"'What about it?' said he. 'Just this,' he says. 'I propose a deal. It
is not often a valuable cargo like that comes into Genoa Harbour--Greek
tobacco from a crop that grows under the sea. I propose a deal,' he
says again. 'We go shares and I say nothing.'
"There it was, out.
"'I'll see you go to the devil first,' I said to him. 'And for two
pins I'd ring the bell and send for the police.'
"You see, I knew I was dealing with a crook. He'd plainly threatened to
go to the police and tell on us if I didn't split with him; but I knew
that these sort of men don't do that sort of thing. They are too shy of
the police and Customs.
"He threw up his hands. 'Well,' he said, 'if that is how you take my
offer we will say no more.'
"I rang the bell and paid my bill, for I would not allow him to pay
for me. Then I went off and left him smoking his cigar. There was a
car waiting in front of the hotel. I expect it was his. I went to the
station and got a train back. Got to Genoa a little after four. That's
all."
"You did perfectly right," said Martia. "It would be fatal to show any
weakness before a man like that."
"I'm not sure," said Bobby. "Remember we are in Italy, not England. An
English crook wouldn't go to the police, maybe, but the English and
Italian police differ. The Italians might give him a big reward for
splitting on us."
"But who can he _be_?" asked the girl. "How does he know about us?
Behrens is the only person who knows. Unless that man Visconti--but
even he knows nothing of what we have on board."
"Unless he guessed," said Bobby. "Even so, he was on the same job
himself and wouldn't be likely to split. And he didn't know we were
coming to Genoa. But there's no use in talking. I don't like this
development a bit, and I think we ought to clear out right away. The
stores and the water are on board. There's nothing to hold us."
"Oh, the water's on board, is it?" asked Sam.
"Yes; it came just after the stores."
"Then out we'll get," said Sam, "directly it's dark."
"Why wait for dark?" asked Martia, her mind filled with the nightmare
feeling that disaster was only to be avoided by immediate escape. "Why
not now--at once?"
"Because," said Sam, "if this chap is part of a gang, he's back in
Genoa by now. They'd see us clearing and they might have the means to
follow us, see? They may be Camorra men, and they'd think nothing of
boarding us and scooping us; maybe sinking the boat with us when they'd
done. It's the big sum of money involved that would make that possible.
No, I'd prefer to meet and risk the Customs and police rather than put
out with that hornet's nest at our heels. After dark we can steal out
with the lights dowsed and the auxiliary going. After dark? What am I
talking about? No, a couple of hours before sun up. That's the time a
port is really asleep."
"But suppose they boarded us here and scooped us?" asked Bobby.
"Nonsense! Things like that aren't done. A shout would raise the
harbour. No, the only thing we have to fear here is the police, and I'm
perfectly sure we're safe from them. At least, it's a hundred to one
these chaps won't meddle with the law."
"There's one good thing, the engine is over-hauled and cleaned," said
Bobby. "I got to work on it directly you'd gone. Seems like Providence,
too, the water coming off so soon."
"Yes, that was a good thing," replied Sam.
He seemed preoccupied and as though he were turning over something in
his mind.
They came on deck.
The evening had grown warmer with the sinking of the sun, whose rays
came almost level through the forest of shipping occupying the west of
the harbour.
Tugs passed here and there and lighters heavy with grain-sacks. A
yellow-funnelled Nederland Line boat moored to the Silos Wharf was
letting off her siren. She was due out, and the fellows were already
standing by the shore-fasts whilst the last trucks of luggage were
coming along the quay.
Sam contemplated this picture for a moment, then setting Bobby,
Atherfield, and Glastonbury to some work on the rigging, he ordered
Church and Bowler into the boat.
"I'm just going to nose round the harbour for a moment," said Sam.
He steered first for the outer harbour. One might have fancied that he
was examining the fairway and its possibilities of danger to a craft
making out at night. But the harbour of Genoa has no dangers in the
way of sand or mudbanks; it is all clear water. Sam was inspecting the
shipping.
Moored to the wharves out here were big boats from Singapore and the
East, a foxy-looking collier from the Levant, a Clan turret boat, and
several smaller fry; nothing to interest Sam.
He turned the boat and made for the middle and west of the inner
harbour. Here to the west the ships were packed, sailing ships;
schooners from the Italian shore; nondescript steamboats, some of which
seemed to have been rotting at their moorings for years. Amongst them
the eagle-eye of Sam picked out a craft lying astern on to the fairway,
a boat that had been repainted recently.
He had started out to see if amongst the shipping the _Santa
Margharita_ might be hidden, to see if by any chance Visconti might be
here and at the bottom of the Vanjour business. This repainted craft
was not at all unlike her. She had a similar funnel and about the same
tonnage. But the name on the bow was invisible, and he dared not draw
closer to inspect.
He turned the boat and made back for the _Lorna Doone_.