COUNCIL OF WAR—CAPTAIN EVANS’S DECISION—I GO TO THE ROOMS AND
CONFIDE IN MY SISTER
WHEN the band of brothers in the saloon on board the _Amaranth_ heard
all, or rather so much as we thought fit delicately to tell them, they
turned—collectively and individually—pale.
“Then there’s an end of it,” chattered Teddy. “It was a fool’s journey
from the beginning, and the sooner we all go home again the better.”
“The sooner you go, sir,” retorted Brentin, “the easier we shall all
breathe. Is there any other palpitating gentleman desires to climb
down?”
“One moment, first,” said Hines; “before we decide to break up, can’t we
consider whether there may not be a way of either stopping your friend
Bailey Thompson _en route_, or at least rendering him powerless when he
arrives? The fact is,” he diffidently continued, “I have lost a good
deal of money here, and don’t altogether care about leaving it without
an effort of some kind to get it back, to say nothing of the lark of the
thing, which I take it has been one of its chief recommendations from
the first.”
To say nothing, too, of the fact—as I knew—that before leaving
Folkestone he had sent out a circular to the parents of his boys to
announce the addition of a swimming-bath and a gymnasium to his
establishment, the non-erection of which would surely cause him to look
more foolish than a schoolmaster cares about. And what would the boys
say who had cheered him loudly at the end of last term, when, in a neat
speech, he had announced his generous intention?
“Spoken like ay white man!” cried Brentin. “Why, whoever supposed that
in an enterprise of this magnitude there would not arise danger and
difficulties? They are only just beginning, gentlemen; if any of you,
therefore, still desire to shirk, he has only to say the word.
Conveyance to the shore is immediately at his service; he can this
moment go and pack his grip and be way off home. We shall be well rid of
him.”
There was a pause, and then Forsyth said:
“Aren’t you going, Parsons?”
Teddy lighted a cigarette nervously and replied:
“Well, dash it all, let’s hear what’s proposed first.”
“No, sir!” shouted Brentin, thumping the table. “You go or you stay, one
or the other; we will have no ha-alf measures. The time for them has
elapsed.”
“Very well,” stammered the unhappy Parsons, “if you are all going to
stay, of course I must stay too. I thought the affair was all over,
that’s why I spoke. I wasn’t thinking, you know, of deserting my pals.”
“Bravo!” cried Hines, sardonically. “You ain’t exactly a hero, Parsons,
but I dare say you’ll do very well.”
“There is just one thing I should like to point out,” Arthur Masters
observed, “before we go any further. The affair is assuming a somewhat
grave aspect, and it is of course possible that, in spite of all
precautions, we may, after all, be captured, either on shore or, later,
on board the yacht.”
“Hear! Hear!” Teddy murmured.
“Now, is it fair to get Captain Evans and the crew into difficulties
without letting them know what we are going to do, and giving them the
chance of refusing to join us first?”
“Well, sir,” objected Brentin, “we always meant to tell him, but not
until the last moment, when we should have claimed their assistance, if
only in removing the boodle. You see, gentlemen, the British sailor is a
fine fellow, but he is apt to tank-up and get full—full as ay goat,
gentlemen—and in that condition he is confiding. Now we have
unfortunately been confiding when dry, but the British sailor—”
“We must risk that,” Masters replied. “And, after all, once they are
told and have consented, they can be refused permission to go on shore
again before we start.”
“Well,” said Forsyth, “why not have Captain Evans in and tell him now;
then he can use his discretion as to telling the crew at all till the
last moment, or selecting the most trustworthy and sober of them for his
confidence at once.”
So we decided to send for Captain Evans before going any further.
When he stepped into the saloon, smart and sailor-like, peaked cap in
hand, Brentin begged him to be seated, and gave him one of his longest
and blackest cigars.
Then, “Captain Evans,” he said, “we have sent for you so that in case of
this affair of ours going wrong you may not have any cause of complaint
against us.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” said the captain, “and what affair may that be?”
He listened with the deepest attention and in complete silence while our
scheme was unfolded.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, when Brentin had finished, “I will be
perfectly frank with you. Your scheme is your own, and you know best how
far it is likely to fail or to succeed. But if it fails and we are all
caught, I shall never be able to persuade the authorities I was an
innocent party, and there will be an end to any future employment. I
have a wife and a fine little boy to think of, gentlemen; how am I going
to support them?”
“Your objection is perfectly fair, captain,” said Brentin. “My answer to
it is, that if you get into trouble, I will personally undertake to make
you an allowance of £150 per annum for the period dooring which you
remain out of a berth. In the case of success, and the boodle being
considerable, you must trust us to make you such a present or _solatium_
as shall in my opinion repay you for any risks you may have run. How
will that do?”
“That will do, gentlemen, thank you,” the captain replied. “And what
about the crew?”
“We shall be glad if you will select six of the most elegant of your
men, whose assistance will be needed in the rooms on the night. Clothes
will be provided for them, and their duties will be explained in good
time. As for the others, if they are to be told, they must not be
allowed on shore. To-day is Wednesday; we propose to start Friday. Till
Friday they must be confined on board.”
“With the exception of the cook, gentlemen,” urged the captain. “He has
to go on shore marketing.”
“Then don’t tell the cook. Now, do we understand each other?”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“One question, captain,” said Brentin, as he rose. “The French corvette
has left the harbor, I understand?”
“Yes, sir, she sailed to Villefranche yesterday.”
“And the _Saratoga_, what of her?”
“She’s away over at San Remo, sir, and returns some time to-night or
to-morrow.”
“Thank you, Captain Evans; that will do. Good-evening.”
“My friends,” he said, as the captain closed the door, “this is going to
cost a lot of money; let us hope we shall all come out right side up.”
“And now, what about Bailey Thompson?” Bob Hines asked.
“Our plan is obvious,” Brentin replied. “I must board the _Saratoga_
first thing in the morning, reintrodooce myself to Van Ginkel, confide
in him and beg him to take Thompson on board for us, and be off with him
kindly down the coast. East or west, he can dump him where he pleases,
so long as he does dump him somewhere and leave him there like dirt. How
does that strike you, gentlemen?”
“If only he can be got to go!” I answered; “and Mrs. Wingham? You must
remember it was he who advised us to go to the Monopôle, no doubt giving
the old lady instructions to keep an eye on us and report.”
“Well,” said Brentin, “Mr. Parsons here is her friend. He must manage to
let her know we don’t start operations till Saturday. That will put her
off the scent. And now, gentlemen, let us discuss details and
positions.”
I left them to their discussion and went on shore to find my sister and
Miss Rybot, who were at the rooms. My sister knew nothing whatever about
Lucy—still less of her being at Monte Carlo. I had to make a clean
breast of it all, and get her to take Lucy on board the yacht in the
morning, so as to be out of Bailey Thompson’s way.
I found them without much difficulty, full as the rooms were. Miss Rybot
was seated, playing roulette, rather unsuccessfully, if I might judge
from her ill-humored expression. Facing her, standing staring at her
pathetically, with a soft hat crushed under his arm, was a tall, blond,
sentimental-looking young German.
“Tell that man to go away, please,” she said to me, crossly. “He’s been
standing there staring at me the last half-hour, and he brings me bad
luck. Tell him I hate the sight of him. Tell him to go away at once.”
I explained that I was scarcely sufficient master of German for all
that.
“Keep my place, please,” she said, imperiously, and went round to the
young man, who received her with a fascinating smile.
“_Vous comprenez le Français?_” I heard her say to him, folding her arms
and looking him resolutely full in the face.
“_Oui, mademoiselle._”
“_Alors, allez-vous-en, sivooplay_,” she went on; “_je n’aime pas qu’un
homme me regarde comme ça. Vous me portez de la guigne. Allez-vous-en,
ou j’appelle les valets. C’est inouï! Allez-vous-en! Vous avez une de
ces figures qui porte de la guigne toujours. Entendez-vous? toujours!_”
With that, entirely unconcerned, she resumed her seat, while the young
German, who had hitherto been under the impression he had made a
conquest, strolled off somewhat alarmed to another table.
My sister I found in the farther rooms watching the
_trente-et-quarante_. “Hullo, Vincent!” she said. “Council over? Dear
me, I wish I hadn’t promised Frank not to play; my fingers are simply
tingling. However, I’ve been playing in imagination and lost 40,000
francs, so perhaps it’s just as well.”
I drew her to a side seat and soon told her all about Lucy and her
arrival, softening down the Bailey Thompson part for fear of alarming
her unduly; giving other reasons for the dear girl’s sudden descent on
us, all more or less true.
My good sister was as sympathetic as usual, only she entreated me to be
sure I was really serious and in earnest this time.
“You know, Vincent,” she said, “you have so often come moaning to me
about young ladies, and I have so often asked them to tea and taken them
to dances for you, and nothing whatever has come of it.”
“But that hasn’t been my fault,” I answered. “I have simply got tired of
them, that’s all. This time I am really in earnest.”
“So you always were!” she laughed, “up to a certain point. Why, you’re a
sort of a young lady-taster.”
“Well,” I replied, “how are you to know what sort of cheese you like
unless you taste several?”
“Rather hard on the cheese, isn’t it? The process of tasting is apt to
leave a mark.”
“Oh, not in the hands of an adroit and respectable cheesemonger’s
assistant.”
“Vincent,” said my sister, severely, “don’t be cynical, or I’ll do
nothing.”
All the same, she knew what I said was true. Men would, I believe,
always be faithful if only they could feel there was anything really to
be faithful to. But they meet an angel at an evening party, and then,
when they go to call, they find the angel fled and the most ordinary
young person in her place; one scarcely capable of inspiring a
school-boy in the fifth form to the mediocre height of the most ordinary
verse-power.
But with Lucy! Sympathetic readers don’t, I am sure, look for
protestations from me where she’s concerned. At least, not now.
The end of our talk was, it was arranged between us Lucy should go on
board the _Amaranth_ in the morning and there remain.
And the next morning there she was comfortably installed, and already
looking forward to the Friday evening, when she was told we were going
to make a move out of harbor, and probably go home by way of the Italian
coast, and possibly by rail from Venice.
Everything else was kept from her carefully, which is, I think, the
worst of an adventure of this kind; one is driven to subterfuge even
with those one loves best.