PASSENGERS FOR HOLLAND
The channel boat Flushing was waiting the boat train that left London
Bridge Station at eight P.M. The grizzled skipper leaned from the bridge
and watched the queue of travelers wind slowly along the quay, disappear
into a little house and emerge somewhat ruffled in feelings.
A few of these travelers were turned back. One, at least, was bundled
into a closed van, which climbed the hill and was swallowed by the night
mist. This van bore the magic legend “H.M.S.” on its barred sides.
Fay had some misgivings concerning the inspection he expected at the
small house on the quay. He had not yet learned the value of the little
silver greyhound which he wore in his left lapel. The protesting
commercial traveler, who had shared the first-class compartment on the
train coming down, had some difficulty in convincing three sage-faced
men in the small house that he was merely bound to Holland in the
interests of a Brixton firm that manufactured electrical goods.
The traveler was passed finally. He went through the door and hurried up
the gangplank to the waiting Flushing. The three serious men turned and
glanced at Fay, who stood with the corner of his coat turned down and
the silver greyhound showing slightly.
Each inspector stared keenly, first at Fay and then at the black bag he
carried. Each lifted a hand and covered a chin. Each bowed as the hands
dropped and motioned toward the door through which the electrical
salesman had fled precipitately.
“A King’s courier!” Fay heard one say. “I wonder who’ll be next.”
The next to enter the dingy house on the quay was the Scot who had
sprung aboard the boat train after being signaled by MacKeenon. He was
passed after he had opened his overcoat, his coat, and had thrust a
wrinkled thumb under a suspender strap, pinned upon which was a gold
insignia that was graven with two letters, “M.P.”
“Gold follows silver, tonight,” said one of the inspectors. “There is
something going to happen in Holland.”
The boat cast off from the quay and, clearing the buoys, struck through
the murk on the long leg to the Continent. A winding shroud came down
the sea and blotted out every light. A moaning lifted from the waves.
Above this moaning sounded the steady clanking of the Clyde-built
engines which were of four-expansions and balanced.
Knot by knot, league over league, the fast boat cut through the night.
The grizzled skipper placed his trust in providence and held his North
Sea course, edging as the hours went on toward the Lowland Country.
Fay had secured a mid-ship cabin, locked the door behind the black bag,
and emerged to the rail which was lined with passengers suffering from
choppy seas and lunging gyrations calculated to upset the staunchest
stomach.
He fished in his vest pocket, drew forth a black cigar which the
electrical salesman had given to him on the train, and lighted it by a
scratch of a match on the sole of his shoe.
It glowed, and cast his face in a ruddy prominence. A little old man,
with a bundle, shrank against a ventilator and tried to merge with its
shadow. Fay noticed this motion but saw no relation between it and his
mission.
A touch on his arm denoted the commercial traveler who had been
searching the ship for a companion.
“Muddy night,” he said, glancing at his own cigar. “Beastly wet for my
samples, which I hope are below.”
Fay nodded. He drew down his cap, removed the cigar from his mouth,
flecked off the gray ash, and studied the glowing end.
“Holland,” he asked, “is over there?” The cigar pointed like a pistol
toward the starboard bow. It swung a point and steadied. It recoiled
back into Fay’s mouth.
“Over there, yes,” said the commercial traveler. “We’ll dock at sun-up,
if there is going to be a sun on this murky morning.”
Fay glanced at the man. A question revolved and took form as he waited
for the boat to resume an even keel. “This new war?” he asked, “this
commercial thing which has come up? They say it’s going to be a whale of
a task, for England.”
The salesman, whose samples consisted of a line of motors and rheostats,
had been led straight upon his pet hobby. He was the forerunner of the
horde who were to bring about the final triumph of the Allies over the
Mittel nations. His companions swarmed in Mesopotamia, in Palestine, in
Siberia, in the Balkans, and in the old markets of Holland and the North
Countries.
He started upon a well-memorized line of sales talk, which, to Fay, was
enlightening but hardly to the point he was after.
“A moment,” Fay said. “It has just come to me, sir, that I heard a chap
in the West End say something about the dye industry. Is it so fearfully
important? Has Germany the monopoly? I rather thought they were making
the stuff in England and the States.”
“Cost too much!” declared the commercial traveler. “You see, an old dog
still has his tricks. There’s danger that the old dog, and I mean
Germany, will come into her own again in the dye industry. She had the
monopoly once, and she is liable to get it again.”
Fay studied the cold end of his cigar. He waited for the man to warm to
the subject.
The commercial traveler drew his cravenette coat-collar up to his eyes
and pointed astern and over the rocking taffrail of the Channel boat.
“The Island, there,” he said in the voice of pounds, shillings and
pence, “is recovering from one struggle and plunging into another. The
cheap labor of Germany and Russia must have an outlet. This outlet, in
dye-stuffs particularly, is threatening to flood the market. You say
that the tariff protects England and the States. I say that the tariff
does not! There are the foreign markets, open to Germany, without which
no industry can flourish. What of South America and Africa and the
velvet of the trade? Open to the Germans as well as to us!”
Fay watched the man’s face as he asked quickly:
“This dye monopoly! Is it because of secret formulae which England has
not been able to work out?”
“The nail on the head! The Germans have had five thousand chemists
working on coal tar products for twenty years. They redoubled their
efforts over the years of the war. They are ready to flood the dye
markets and put out of business every dye maker in the world, save
German. You see what that means.”
Fay turned and stared aft. “So the poor crawlers on that Island are face
to face with the problem of finding the secrets of the dye industry?” he
inquired.
“Oh, if they had all the formulae they could bankrupt the German game! I
heard that secrets were brought through Switzerland. I never learned of
anything coming of them. Sort of stalemated there! I suppose the Foreign
Office was hoaxed.”
“Most likely,” said Fay, fearing to go further in the matter. “I did
hear something to that effect. Too bad!”
The traveler clutched the rail and waited for the boat to finish
twisting on a downward lunge which followed the general outlines of a
corkscrew. Fay glided off and forward. He stood in a shadow beneath the
damp ladder that led upward to the wheel-house and chart-room. He
grasped a stay and peered beyond the green glow which was thrown outward
from a faint starboard light.
The wall of yellowish fog toward which they were ever steaming rested
upon long oily rollers which were crossed by smaller waves. The North
Sea gave forth a hollow sound as from some vast space. The hiss of their
swift passage was like yeast in process of fermenting.
Clutched in the onward surge of the passage, he reviewed the words of
the commercial traveler. There was food for thought in them. The great
game to play concerned the destiny of a vast industry. Briefly, Germany
was about ready to ruin the dye enterprises of the States and England.
The matter hung on the thin thread of the cipher which Sir Richard had
shown to him in that dingy house near the Embankment.
That, solved, would place the entire world on an equality. The little
dye works could compete with the larger. The formulae would be open to
any man. The galling monopoly, to come, would be removed. It all lay in
that safe in Holland toward which the “fast” boat was steaming.
Fay stared at the yellow curtain and dug deep within his brain. It was
possible to double back on his trail, soon after landing, and make for
Scotland. From there he could take steamer to the States. It was also
possible to work by little-known lines through Stavanger and the
northern cities. The Yard had no call upon him save a personal appeal.
Freedom of action had broadened his thoughts. He no longer was the
numbered thing in the stony coffin at Dartmoor. He breathed, and lived
and had some right to the good things of this life.
Unclasping his hand from the stay, he turned and glanced along the deck.
It was lined with passengers who huddled against the rail—shapeless
masses of brown and gray and glistening waterproof.
The commercial traveler had met with a kindred soul in the person of the
little Scot with a bundle. Their voices sounded above the roar of the
swift passage. The Scot was, in his cunning way, pumping the traveler
dry as to what he had said to Fay.
Fay turned a shoulder to them and started forward beyond the break of
the pilot and chart house. He heard voices raised in the smoking-room.
Pressing his face to the forward midship port-hole, he wiped the mist
from the glass and peered in.
Three men sat about a table upon which was a scattering of silver and
gold. At their elbows glasses perched. In their hands were cards. They
swung with the ship, lunged toward each other, and straightened like
dummies in a pantomime. They played their hands, and redealt. Fay
realized that a game of American stud was going on. He wiped the
port-glass and studied the three faces.
One was cockney with a great arching nose and a loose catfish mouth. He
wore a green cravat and a horsey pin. The second player was stout and
triple chinned. He might have been a Yorkshire horseman going across for
Holland mares. The third player, whose face was almost hidden by the
back of his head, interested Fay. There was that in the poise of the man
which brought back deep-sea memories when certain cliques haunted the
smoking-rooms of five-day boats.
This man wore a pair of smoked glasses.
Fay watched the tide of fortune through the port-hole. It was evident
that between the striking of the ship’s bell for three A.M. and
three-thirty A.M.—six strokes and seven—the man with the glasses had
increased his pile of gold at the expense of the Yorkshire squire.
Keen-brained and trained to note appearances, Fay realized that the man
with the glasses had some percentage upon the game. He searched his
memory for the man’s name. That head and the narrow sloping shoulders
were more than familiar. He decided to enter the smoking-room.
Rounding the bay of the break of the pilot-house and chart-room, and
passing under the dripping staunchions of the bridge, he clasped the
handle of a sliding door and pressed firmly.
A gust of mist and briny air drove through the welcome opening. Fay
entered and closed the door. He moved, not too swiftly, toward a lounge
where he could overlook the players, pressed a button on the cabin
furnishing, and threw open his coat with a relieved motion as he sat
down.
An under-steward came from aft and stared about the room. Fay leaned
over a little table, whispered “hot Scotch” and rubbed his hands from
which the oakum stains had almost been effaced.
He turned then, and stared point-blankly at the players. The man with
the glasses faced him. There was a scar on the chin. There was a firm
set to the mouth. There was that which told of a young man who had the
oldest face in the world. It was Broadway-trained and set to the wise
leer of an international swindler.
“Um,” thought Fay, crossing his leg and intensifying his stare. “Ump!”
he added under his breath. “That’s an old friend—Ace-in-the-hole Harry.
No wonder the poor squire is being trimmed.”
Fay shot a final glance and turned toward the under-steward, who held
the Scotch on a silver tray.
Taking the drink, he passed over a shilling and a sixpence, set the
glass down, and started making tiny circles on the table with his finger
nail.
“Last time I saw him,” he reflected, “was at ‘Jimmy’s.’ Time before
that, was in Cairo—at Shepherd’s. And the time before Shepherd’s was on
a Cape boat—the Kenilworth Castle—where he was trimming gulls by the
ancient and honorable game of dealing seconds.”
Fay divined with professional intuition that the fish-mouthed cockney
was Harry’s partner, although their voices were raised in angry
recriminations.
He sipped at the Scotch, then rose and watched the game from a leaning
position at the end of the lounge. The sharper dealt without apparent
manipulation. His hands spread over the card, lifted a corner, then
reached for the deck as the Yorkshire squire tossed a sovereign upon the
table.
Fay watched the deal. The light was glaring. The eyes behind the smoked
glasses flashed, then centered on the gold piece. The game went on with
more gold entering the pot. The show-down, where the sharper won,
revealed the fact that the Yorkshire squire had a queen in the hole and
the dealer had a king. It was that close!
Fay felt inclined to whistle. He was interested enough to watch other
deals which all seemed set and regular. Ace-in-the-hole Harry had solved
mind-reading, concluded the cracksman, as he sat down on the lounge and
revolved the problem in his mind.
The game closed suddenly. The Yorkshire squire rose, glared at the two
players, then stamped out through the door and went aft with a string of
oaths falling behind him, like chips from a whittler.
“May gol blyme!” said the cockney. “’E’s a rum cove. We cawn’t always
win, y’know.”
Harry with the long pseudonym removed his smoked glasses and stared at
Fay.
“A bit o’ deck would help us out,” he said coldly. “I’m wondering if we
make the connecting boat at Stavanger?”
Fay glanced at his hot Scotch and lifted it as the two men strode toward
the door, through which they passed to the deck.
He allowed the thin shadow of a smile to cross his lips. He turned and
caught a reflection of himself in a long mirror. He studied this object
with concern. The flight of time, since last he had seen the
cardsharper, had wrought many changes in his appearance. He was
keener-faced and firmer of mouth. The silver-gray hair at his temples
was unnatural and gave him a youthful appearance due to contrast.
“Stavanger,” he said upending the glass and feeling the warmth of the
liquor. “I’ll remember that. Few Greeks go to that port. I wonder why
he’s going there?”
“Greeks,” in the argot of the underworld, were cardsharpers and
sure-thing manipulators. Fay despised their profession. He had an
abiding belief that a man had not lost all honor who would take a
strong-box or a long chance. There had been no chance in the sharper’s
game. The meanest thief in the world, to him, was the professional
gambler.
He rose and closed his tweed coat with a quick motion. The ship’s bell
had struck two times, spaced close together. It was five o’clock. The
Lowland Country must soon appear through the fog.
It came to him, as he stepped to the dark deck, that the one change in
the sharper’s make-up was the smoked glasses. They were incongruous and
beetle-appearing. They struck a false note in a card game. Fay felt
dimly that there was a good reason for wearing them. He sensed a mystery
there. He revolved the matter in his mind and searched the deck for the
two. They had disappeared into a cabin. Most probably they were dividing
the wool shorn from the Yorkshire lamb.
A bo’swain, in sou’wester and oilskins, was heaving the lead from the
starboard chains of the foremast standing-rigging. He called the fathoms
with monotonous regularity. “By the deep, four,” rolled along the ship.
A bell clanged. A jingle sounded. The screw thrashed as the helm was
ported. A stumpy man, in smug pea-jacket, came out of the pilot-house,
and grasping a funnel stay, leaned far forward. He searched the yellow
fog which drifted athwart the bow. He whipped out a pair of
twelve-diameter glasses and focused them with his right thumb.
He turned his head, lowered the glasses and pointed toward a green buoy
which was passed close to starboard. This buoy bore the number “9” on
its side. The wheelman put up the wheel three spokes, then steadied the
ship. She groped on with careful searching until a mud spit ran beneath
the fog curtain and headed their course.
“Up more,” said the man in the pea-jacket. “Hard up!” he snapped with
British vim. “All the way up, you!”
The ship sheered like a frightened sow and lay broadside to the spit.
The screw thrashed. They wore around the point and started clamping down
a fog-shrouded channel which was lined with green buoys and gas flares.
The scent of fish and lowland marshes came over the water. The clank of
a hidden windmill sounded close to port. One gaunt arm pierced through
the veil and then was gone. The way ahead opened and revealed a vista of
smacks and crude wooden schooners. The veil dropped upon a scene that
Rembrandt would have fancied. Fay turned away and started toward his
cabin. They were reaching port. The passage from Dover had been made
without accident. It had been through a sea that had been stained red by
the blood of British seamen.
Sounds of commerce were on every hand as the Flushing bulled the air
with her Mersey-built siren. She glided over oily backwater and came to
a scant headway before the outlines of a high quay which was
half-revealed in the yellow light of lowland dawn.
Fay opened his door, stepped into the midship-cabin and sat down on his
unused bunk. He closed his eyes and reviewed the events of the passage.
He made note of a number of things which might have bearing on the
cipher quest. The commercial traveler had rounded out the importance of
the information Scotland Yard had sent him to obtain. This man from
Brixton was a forerunner in the great commercial war which was girding
the world. He was a scout and an outpost. After him would come a horde
of others. Devastated Belgium, Northern France and depleted Holland and
Germany were open markets. They had been glutted by the Great Struggle.
They were like stores from the shelves of which all staple goods had
been swept.
The second event of the voyage, in meeting with the deep-sea Greek, had
a different bearing on the quest. Fay realized, as he dropped his head
in his hands, that a pull had come which was strong as desire, and sweet
with freedom. Stavanger, where the sharper was going with his cockney
foil, was a port out of which many ships sailed and steamed. From
Stavanger it would be possible to shake the Yard and the runners of New
Victoria Street. Liberty in every action was possible if he would hasten
to the northern port before the Yard was aware of his dereliction. And
liberty was a tempting morsel to hold before a prisoner on parole.
Fay lifted his eyes and stared at the sheathing of his narrow cabin. The
ship had reached the quay. The passengers were crowded forward where
they expected the gangway to be thrust aboard. Their voices,
cosmopolitan mingled, broke through the silence of the mid-ship
stateroom.
A grating sounded along the boat’s planks. A shudder passed from fore to
aft. The siren blared three short signals. A call came across the water.
Light, from a mist-hidden sun, illumined the port-hole over Fay’s bunk.
He glanced at this evidence of day.
Bending suddenly, he reached and lifted the little black bag. The tools
clinked slightly. He inserted a key and glanced at them. They were such
as any doctor of surgery might have carried. There was not a particle of
incriminating evidence in the bag. Fay rose, lifted a towel from a rack,
glanced at its corners to assure himself that there was no marking to
show from whence it came, then swiftly bound and wrapped the instruments
so that they gave forth no sound as he dropped the bag to the
stateroom’s deck.
He searched through his pockets. The money in his right-hand pocket, the
cigarette case, the automatic revolver on his hip, all were inspected.
Replacing these, he drew out the two envelopes MacKeenon had passed to
him at London Bridge Station.
The first contained one hundred pounds in Bank of England notes. These
were folded lengthwise. They were crinkling new and sweet to the touch.
He pocketed them and tore the edge of the second envelope. Its contents
caused him to furrow his brow.
The note it contained was from Sir Richard. It read:
“S. I. informs me, via phone, that D. G. tailed you from her house,
going south. She saw him pass from upper window. Govern yourself
accordingly. Get wise, F., and don’t overlook the trifles.
Your Masked Friend.”
Fay read the note twice before he laid it in the wash-bowl and touched a
match to its edge. He breathed tensely as he waited for the smoke to
clear from the stateroom. It was all too evident that Sir Richard and
the girl were hand in glove in the cipher matter.
There was that in the note which spoke for itself. Fay felt that it had
been written more for the effect it would have on his loyalty than for
the information it contained. Besides, after all, Dutch Gus had given up
tailing him and had waited until Saidee left the house in her black
motor.
Fay lifted his cap, brushed back his hair, turned on the water and
washed the ashes of the note down through the drain, then seized the
black bag and hurried through the stateroom door. His trail was a clean
one. There was no evidence of his intentions, one way or the other, upon
the North Sea boat.
He worked forward between protesting lines of waiting passengers. He
reached the ladder which led up to the wheel-house and chart-room.
There, grouped against the bay of the smoking-room, he saw the
cardsharper—sans glasses and sans his wooden stare. Beyond the “Greek,”
as a man apart, stood the racy-looking cockney in a great tan coat,
trimmed with coster buttons. Their luggage was also separated. This
final touch was for the benefit of the gulls and pigeons they had
trimmed on the passage over.
Fay swung and stared over the low housetops of the city. Smoke drifted
across the quay and wreathed the deck-staunchions. Heavy guttural voices
echoed from the pile-strewn shore. A curious crowd of Lowlanders stood
on the edge of the dock and stared toward the ship. Among them were dogs
and well-matured children.
“All ashore!” called the skipper from a ledge before the wheel-house.
“Line this way and pass the inspectors. All bags and luggage will be
opened.”
Fay pressed back the lapel of his tweed coat and exposed the little
silver greyhound as he stepped upon the gangplank. He felt a pressure on
his back as he worked slowly up the crowded incline. He reached the
funnel of the outlet—a roped-in bay where stood two Dutch custom
inspectors, their broad faces gleaming with good humor and badinage.
Behind them leaned a man with an old pipe. This pipe turned and dropped
its ashes as Fay pressed forward the insignia by holding out the lapel
of his coat with a steady thumb.
The custom inspectors turned to the man with the pipe. They asked a
question in Dutch.
The man tilted his pipe upward with a sudden twist of his wrist and said
very distinctly:
“By all means pass him! Never mind the bag!”
Fay stepped ashore. He turned to see who had been pressing against his
back. He overlooked the trifle! A little old Scot, with a bundle, had
already scurried behind a shed from which he peered with ferret-like
intentness.