_The Judge States His Third Case_
The waiter rose to his feet and pointed to the fire, which had died
down during his recital.
"Perhaps you would be good enough to put some coal on," he said.
"You will find plenty in the coal box."
The judge, whose chin was resting on the back of his hand, seemed
deep in reflection; but he stirred at the suggestion.
"Are you forgetting yourself? You are the servant here, are you not?"
"Please do not let me insist. If I turned my back to you it is
possible that you would have a temptation to do what Connolly was
tempted to do to the man called George. It would have regrettable
results. But if you do not feel cold----"
The judge put plenty of coal on the fire and returned to his chair.
His manner was austere and distant. The waiter had pushed the
minute-book in front of the judge's chair and was still standing.
Not until the judge resumed his seat did the waiter sit down.
A silence fell on the room, broken only by the crackle of the coal on
the fire. The other members of the Clue Club gave no sign of life.
They sat or reclined in strange attitudes, heaped in their chairs as
dead men.
From the street outside came the sound of singing and music.
Christmas waits were heralding the approach of the new day.
"I promised you," said the waiter, "that I should answer your query
about Abe Lammie's case when I had related the climax of Jeff S.
Connolly's career. I propose to do so right away. First of all, I
take it from what you have said that you belong to that school of
crime students who believe there is such a thing as a 'born
criminal': that, because of certain characteristics, some men and
women are natural lawbreakers."
"I certainly believe that there is a criminal class," declared the
judge, somberly.
"Precisely. You follow the teachings of Lombroso, who compiled
charts to show that these characteristics presented physical traits
such as receding foreheads, heavy jaws, and so on. But you may not
be aware that at a meeting of students of criminal anthropology at
Geneva it was successfully proved that most of the students
themselves were not free from such traits. In a word, one has only
to observe some of our most respected and most blameless leaders in
the Church, in the legal or other professions, to see similar traits.
This proves that charts and tables are unreliable guides. You cannot
hang a man for his facial expression. Come, do not you see in me
some of the facial traits that you yourself possess?"
The judge cast a melancholy look on the waiter but did not answer.
He regarded the comparison as excessively impudent.
"If you will not admit what I suggest, then I must be content with my
own belief. And you are a judge of the Criminal Court, while I am
one who has stood in the dock. Luckily for you, our positions are
not reversed!"
The waiter was becoming positively insulting. The judge remained
silent. But he was thinking of how he would deal with this man when
he came up for judgment!
"Opposed to the theory of Lombroso," went on the waiter, "is the
classical school of thought founded, I think, by Beccaria, who held
that, though every man had free will, the same punishment would not
be just if applied to every case. This meant that while the crimes
might be the same, the responsibility was not. These conflicting
theories, I fancy, were the cause of the founding of the American
Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology. The city of Chicago,
perhaps appropriately, was the cradle of this organization.
"One result of this classification of crime and its causes has been
the inevitable classification of offenses. This has led to confusion
indeed. A man may be executed for being accessory to killing another
person, but he cannot be hanged for attempting to commit suicide.
Cornering the food supplies of a nation so that people die is not
illegal; but if a clergyman defies the rubric and substitutes his own
form of service, he may be haled before a judge and jury, and
severely punished. At one time it was a grave offense to refuse to
listen to a sermon on Sunday. At the present time emigration is
encouraged by governments where formerly it was illegal. Even now
there is no clear distinction between a felony and a misdemeanor,
except the vague understanding that the one is a more serious offense
than the other."
"Are you reading _me_ a lesson on law?" interposed the judge,
sarcastically.
"I am merely pointing to the confusion that exists in the penal code.
This confusion exists to a fearful extent in the matter of judgment
of death. You know as well as anybody that cases of depravity from
the East End of cities are dealt with much more harshly than
depravity that comes from the West End. Please do not deny it.
There is plenty of proof. But to return to the cases of Lammie and
Connolly. The root fact of these two murders, committed by these two
men, is that they had their origin in conditions that punishment can
never cure."
"You mean that the law can never cure such criminals?" demanded the
judge.
"Judgment of death can only obliterate the offenders."
"That is all the law desires to do, for the plain reason that society
must be protected. These executions act as deterrents."
"Have you stopped murder since the days of Cain? And yet----"
"You have the wrong end of the argument, my friend. The judgment of
death is not only a deterrent; it is necessary for the reason that
the law considers the lives of its citizens to be sacred----"
The judge could not continue, owing to the guffaw of derisive
laughter with which the waiter interrupted his speech.
"What a legal mind you have, to be sure!" cried the waiter,
scornfully. "Why, your law of judgment of death, while it pretends
to regard life as sacred, violates its pretense by destroying life!"
The judge made a gesture of dissent, but the Waiter pursued his
attack.
"In the case of Abe Lammie, The Mole," he shouted in his earnestness,
"society was as much to blame as he. It started him off with every
encouragement to develop the very traits in his mental make-up that
you declare are criminal traits. _Yet you have the audacity to take
his life for being what you expected him to be!_ Is that logical, I
ask you?"
"Every man has free will----"
"For a judge you do not show any marked clarity of thought, my lord.
You apparently want to stand with a foot in the camp of Lombroso and
a foot in the camp of Beccaria. It will not do. I cannot allow such
loose thinking. And I am the judge in this room. What is your
defense? Do you found it on Lombroso's teachings or on the school of
Beccaria? I am waiting."
The judge shifted his position and bit his lip. It was all
intolerable; but what could he do? He became irritable.
"I am not here to be cross-examined, or even examined, sir. I am
here----"
The waiter's long fingers gripped the handle of the bludgeon used by
the barbarian Kartarus.
The judge faltered, coughed, and resumed.
"I am here to conduct my own case as I think fit. We are engaged on
a discussion, each giving proof and support to his words by
quotations from this minute-book. I say that every man has free will
and must abide the result and consequence of his actions."
"Then I take it that you agree with Beccaria. But he argued for
grades in responsibility?"
"Never mind what he argued. There is one law and one consequence for
those who take life. I do not admit that I subscribe to the
conclusions of any theorist. I insist that man has free will."
"Alas! one may insist too much. You must know that there are two
forces that govern conduct. A low mentality, urged forward by low
hereditary instincts and inclinations, will break into crime sooner
than a high mentality influenced by higher considerations. At the
same time it is true that temptation plays a powerful hand in all of
us. There is a point in everyone that marks the limit of our
resistance to external and internal urgings. Society, the social
system, made The Mole what he was externally. His heredity largely
made him what he was internally. He knew the effect of the
contributory causes of his criminal inclinations without being able
to diagnose them--gambling, ill-health, drink, unemployment, poverty,
and so on. He laid the blame for these conditions on society. The
mistake of which the penal code is so often guilty is that it is
retaliatory when it ought to be reformatory. Force proves nothing.
So long as you continue to believe in the existence of a criminal
class you will make criminals; and so long as you make them you will
be compelled to kill them. Therefore the penal code had no moral or
logical right to make Abe Lammie and to take his life for being what
he was. In not a few cases society ought to stand in the dock
instead of the prisoner. Therefore I claim and take another point."
The waiter put out his hand and added a third glass to his collection.
"With regard to Jeff S. Connolly," he continued with a kind of bland
impertinence, "there was the unreasoning, terrible motive of jealousy
at work. When this is allied, or applied, to the sex impulse it
becomes irresistible. Is love a species of madness? The divine
passion! Even Jehovah, the Jewish tribal God, declared that he had
pangs of jealousy. Is not all deep emotion a sort of madness? It is
an excess; and excess means lack of balance. In several European
countries there never would have been any judgment of death on
Connolly. Has not the unwritten law been successfully advocated?
That is not to say that Connolly would have been allowed to go free.
But tell me, has your lordship's life been so blameless that unruly
passion has never overthrown all else?"
The judge started; his hand fell on the table and remained there. He
was about to cry out in protest, but the other's voice restrained him.
"What profound truth," cried the waiter, "was in the exclamation of
Richard Baxter, the preacher, when he saw a criminal led to his
doom--'There, but for the grace of God, go I!'"
The waiter paused impressively.
"Really, it was not much of a triumph for the law to hang Jeff S.
Connolly. Hunted and harried, there was no place for him in this
world. In a moment of frenzy he had reverted to the primitive and
had visited unfaithfulness with death. The penal code retaliated by
setting all its machinery in motion that it might inflict a second
death. Did the execution of Jeff S. Connolly protect society in the
very slightest? Protect? Did his decease alleviate in any degree
the anguish of the first death?"
The waiter seemed to be carried away by his own vehemence. His long
forefinger pointed accusingly at the judge.
"Fool! Don't you see that here is an answer to those who say, like
you, that imprisonment would be no punishment to a murderer?
Tortured to extremity, Jeff S. Connolly asked for execution. He
desired death as a release. You gave it him as a punishment!
Futility of finality!"
Again the waiter's mood changed. He assumed an air of judicial
gravity, an air that reminded the judge of his own manner on the
Bench.
"I give a verdict against the plea for judgment of death in this case
also," he said as he lifted a fourth glass. "Will your lordship
please open the next case for the defense?"
The waiter leaned back in his chair.
The judge stroked his chin, a trifle nervously, but thoughtfully.
He was not afraid of this man who seemed to have lost his senses; but
he did not wish to arouse any hostility. The truth was that the
judge did not know whether to take the waiter seriously or as a
preposterous lunatic. A little of the self-assurance of the judge
was departing from him, however, and he was smarting under the
reproofs he had received. His legal mind, trained to argument, was
strongly opposed to surrender. His life was one of domination, in
his court he was supreme. Even if this was a crazy man who was
baiting him, he was a crazy man with whom the judge was beginning to
get really angry.
The judge had been insulted. He had been called a fool. Moreover,
the judge felt the advantage of the discussion--the mere logical
advantage--slipping from him. He regretted having accepted the
challenge of this waiter, but, having accepted it, his self-respect
cried aloud to him to smash his opponent by argument.
"May I remind your lordship that time is passing? Have you any other
case to offer? You made a remark a moment ago about the judgment of
death being a deterrent----"
"As a matter of fact," interrupted the judge, harshly, "I was
thinking of that very statement. If I recollect clearly, it was that
very declaration that brought forth your contemptuous laughter. You
must know the old proverb about he who laughs last. The murder which
Nathaniel Gore committed will prove my point that execution is a
deterrent. I sentenced Nathaniel Gore to death in spite of a plea of
insanity that was ill-advisedly put forward. It was the last time I
put on the black cap before going for my long vacation the following
morning. Gore was hanged in due course, a man whose vanity brought
him to the scaffold."
The judge turned over the leaves of the minute-book, read a few
words, and threw back his head as if to sum up to a jury.
THE VAIN MURDERER
One point that I have repeatedly observed about criminals brought
before me for sentence [said the judge, ponderously] is not their
cleverness in covering up their tracks, but the amazing carelessness
they exhibit in providing clues for the police to work on. This
subject has on more than one occasion been discussed by the members
of this club. To put the matter quite frankly, a great many
criminals--indeed, practically all--might just as well leave their
names and addresses so that the authorities could call and arrest
them at home. This lack of precaution is well known to the police
both here and in America.
What is the reason for this seeming indifference to consequences? We
have talked it over many times in this very room and we have come to
a definite decision. It is that in all these lawbreakers there is an
inordinate amount of vanity.
In every class of crime this vanity may be observed, and not least in
the crime of murder. Some people are so ill-balanced that they
actually invest the murderer with a kind of romanticism that is as
false as it is misplaced. As for the murderers themselves, they
often exhibit a conceit, even in the dock, that is truly amazing and
truly ostentatious folly. The most vain man who ever received
sentence at my hand was Nathaniel Gore.
To begin with, Gore was brought into court on a stretcher. He had
sustained certain injuries at the time of his capture, and he had the
questionable distinction of being the only criminal who was saved
from death by drowning and brought to police headquarters by
airplane. The whole circumstances of his crime and arrest had a
certain amount of pictorial sensationalism that caused the court
during his trial to be crowded to overflowing. All this added to his
vanity. But the law was not to be moved from its pursuit of justice,
and Nathaniel Gore was hanged.
Lord Brougham said once, with his usual acuteness, that the whole
machinery of the state ended simply in bringing twelve good men into
a box. In no case that I remember was this majestic simplicity of
the Law revealed more tersely and directly than in the trial of Gore.
The cheap notoriety in which he bathed was a tawdry advertisement for
him and was, in the end, completely submerged in the stark
unaffectation of the scaffold.
As might be expected, Gore was not a common, petty criminal. He went
after glittering prizes, and when the news of the find of a great
diamond in the South African fields came to be known it attracted him.
The diamond was not so big as the famous Pitt gem, which was over
four hundred carats weight when taken from the ground. It was not so
big as the cut and polished Koh-i-noor, which is now in the British
Crown and turns the scale at one hundred and six carats. But it was
the biggest that had come out of a South African mine for generations.
The illustrated journals printed photographs of the diamond on view
in Johannesburg behind barred windows, guarded by a squad of armed
police. Then came the information that the diamond was being sent to
England. It was this news that made Nathaniel Gore form his resolve.
By diligent and diplomatic inquiry he discovered the name of the ship
on which the diamond was being transported, and also the amount of
the premium the insurance people demanded during transit from the
Cape to Hatton Garden, London's diamond market. When he had found
out from the shipping list that the liner had sailed, he realized
that he had less than three weeks in which to plan and execute the
theft. Once the diamond was landed, it would be so well guarded that
no attempt could be made with much hope of success; the place to
snatch the diamond was on the high seas.
Nathaniel Gore had not the appearance of a burglar. He was small,
and he looked and dressed like a successful man about town. He was
known in the West End of London as well as he was known on Fifth
Avenue, New York. He had at one time actually been a guest in a
house on Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, when he lifted precious stones
from a shop in that city and got away with them. He boasted about
this. There is no doubt that, in spite of his vanity, he certainly
knew gems and their values with uncanny thoroughness. Peculiarly
enough, he never bragged about this expert knowledge, the one thing
that was his real accomplishment. He seemed to "lift" gems without
any more swagger--except in the Chicago case--than an ordinary
business man exhibits about his business capacity. He could tell
offhand the weight of the Orloff, the Regent, the Florentine, the
Hope, and other famous diamonds and could name their owners and their
histories.
He had been a convict, which means that he had been cared for by the
state. He had been housed, fed, clothed, steam-heated, nourished,
and made entirely healthy. But his vanity went everywhere with him.
In prison he regarded himself as superior to his fellow prisoners.
Out of it he posed as if he were superior to the law and general
rules of conduct. He had worked very little in his life, and when
asked to make mail-bags during his period of incarceration he
protested that the labor would injure his hands. He was therefore
sent to the quarry, where his hands suffered considerably more.
But when he returned to freedom he became the same dandy he had been
before he was convicted. He had the appearance of an overgrown
jockey. In his vanity he employed perfume to add to his conceit. He
was a great favorite with women. If they did not love him they
certainly had affection for him; as for him, he loved himself too
well to spare any for anybody else.
One thing his imprisonment had done for him: it had taught him more
than he had ever known about the methods of the police. In court the
prosecuting counsel admitted that this was certainly the cleverest
crime Gore had ever planned. But then, there was a woman in it, and
the probability is that she had a hand in the scheme.
His object, then, after deciding to steal, was to look out for a
means of escape. Attack, then take cover. Strike, then run.
Assuredly it was a woman's plan. Gore never doubted his ability to
take the diamond.
In one way circumstances favored him greatly. The ship was actually
bringing the gem nearer to him every day. The diamond was in charge
of the purser, locked in a safe in his room. There was no need to
search for it. This floating hotel was merely a strong-room, and
Gore was able to break open any strong-room. But this moving
strong-room, unless he could leave it swiftly, might become a prison
wagon.
There was only one port at which the ship called before she arrived
at Southampton. This port was Madeira. Gore decided that the coup
must be brought off between Madeira and Southampton and as near the
latter port as possible. It was at this stage that the necessity for
an accomplice became evident.
Gore did not usually work with anyone else, but the circumstances
were stronger than his conceit. He might meet the liner at Madeira
and take the diamond there; but Madeira was an island from which
escape would be difficult. On the other hand, Southampton was well
situated for his design. The Solent was not such a broad arm of the
sea that it could not be negotiated; and from the Isle of Wight to
France was less than a day's, or a night's, journey.
The woman whom we believed aided him was one named Chicago Anne. She
was from that city, a blonde of great attraction, one of a fast set
not above crime of this kind. But she was wary. She made the plan
to a large extent, and then introduced him to an international crook
named Archer. Archer was promised a certain portion of the proceeds.
The three of them traveled down to Southampton, surveyed the coast,
and decided details. Then Archer left with his part of the scheme to
carry out. Chicago Anne returned to London with him.
Gore remained in Southampton, where, through a local agent, he booked
a passage to Madeira on a sister ship of the incoming liner. She was
due to sail the next day and would reach Madeira several days before
the other ship arrived there on her homeward run. Under an assumed
name a passage was booked homeward by Gore on the ship bearing the
diamond.
His luggage consisted of one handbag, and from the moment he stepped
on the outgoing liner he concentrated on his job. He kept to the
deck during the passage down the Solent. He noted the lights on the
shore and the position of the sea beacons. When the Needles were
passed and the open sea made the vessel roll he turned to a study of
the ship.
There was a large plan of the vessel in the saloon and he examined
this carefully. He noted that his cabin--that is, the cabin on his
return journey--was situated within easy distance of the purser's
room. He became friendly with the stewards, from whom he gained
valuable information. He asked for, and obtained, a seat at the
purser's table in the dining-room. To this official he made himself
affable, and often he visited the purser's room on pretense of
getting information about general matters. But he watched and noted.
He took care to acquire a knowledge of the movements of the staff,
the routine of the daily work, a detailed outline of the life on
board. By the time he reached Madeira he could have told fairly
accurately what was being done by the various officers at any hour.
He spent the waiting days on the island; and when the incoming liner
arrived he went on board as soon as possible. In twelve hours the
voyage to England was resumed and the second stage in the plan to
steal the diamond had opened.
The liner had a full complement of passengers. In the smoke-room no
secret was made of the fact that the celebrated gem was on board.
Some of the passengers had seen it when it was on view in
Johannesburg. They described how it had been discovered by a colored
worker in the mine and how it had been guarded from that moment. It
was being brought to London to be shown to experts before being sent
to the cutters in Amsterdam. Its value was put at varying figures,
none of which was less than fifty thousand pounds.
"What is its ultimate destination?" asked one of the passengers.
"Nobody knows," was the reply.
Nathaniel Gore smiled. He was the only man who knew!
Off St. Vincent the weather thickened and a stormy crossing of the
Bay of Biscay was predicted. The prediction was accurate. By the
time they were over the forty-fifth latitude most of the passengers
were in their cabins, many in their bunks. There were empty saddles
at every table in the dining-saloon.
Gore kept his feet by strength of will, and vanity. He had not been
able to get into close touch with the purser of this vessel, owing to
the number of people on board; but the bad weather gave him his
opportunity. He waited until the ship's bar was closed and then he
went to the purser to ask for a dose of brandy. But the purser was
not a talkative man. He was civil, but uncommunicative. He did not
invite Gore to sit down; but Gore did not retreat. He stood in the
cabin, sipping the brandy and watching. He saw the small safe built
into the paneling of the wall. That was enough for him.
The Bay was crossed and gradually the passengers returned to the
deck. The English Channel was smooth. The liner picked up speed.
She passed the Wolf Rock. Land's End loomed up mistily through the
haze. The Lizard came into view. The Eddystone Light stood in the
sea like a white pillar. Gore rubbed his hands in anticipation. The
crisis was approaching.
He was not nervous about it. He never was nervous. He stayed mostly
in his cabin until the ship drew well up the Channel. Then her speed
slackened. Night came. Gore went down to dinner that evening as
usual, and immediately it was over he strolled on deck. He looked
ahead, muttering the names of the lights that glittered in the soft,
mellow darkness.
"Over there is Bournemouth, then Hengistbury Head, the Needles, St.
Catherine's Point---- Ah, there is Anne--and Archer!"
Some distance ahead a light on a masthead swayed against the sky.
Chicago Anne and Archer were waiting, as had been planned. Nathaniel
Gore calculated the distance quickly. He had received a wireless
from Anne and Archer. The moment had arrived. He went down the
stairs from the deck.
It was late by this time and practically all the passengers had
turned in for the night. But Gore did not go to his berth. He
walked along the passage to the purser's room.
The door was closed. He tried the handle. It turned. He pushed the
door open and stepped inside, closing it behind him. The purser was
sitting at his table, writing. He looked up.
"Good evening, purser."
"What do you want?"
"Oh, I knew you were writing up your accounts. I dropped in----"
"What do you want?"
The official's hand dropped toward a drawer under his desk.
"I have come to take the diamond," said Nathaniel Gore. "Lift your
hand out of that drawer!"
In his own right hand he held a small revolver, the barrel of which
was pointed straight at the purser.
The purser did as he was bid.
"I have come to take the diamond," repeated Gore, smiling.
That was all. There was no melodramatic flourish to his speech. He
might have been asking for a match to light his cigar.
The purser was an old seaman, cool, quiet, not given to excitability.
Most people would have leaped up and been shot. The purser did not
show any sign of fear or surprise. He put his hands openly on the
desk in front of him and shook his head.
"I did not expect you to come for it with a gun," he said.
"Come, you did not expect me at all!"
"You bet I did. There are two men on this ship after the diamond.
One came aboard at Capetown. We know his plans as well as he knows
them himself. But you came aboard at Madeira and your real name is
Nathaniel Gore. You are a gem-lifter, and until now you have never
carried a gun."
It was Gore's turn to be surprised, but he kept his eyes on the
purser. "How did you know my name?"
"We have wireless, you know. The liner on which you went out to
Madeira had it from Scotland Yard that you probably were aboard.
They knew, I expect, that this diamond would tempt you. I don't know
any more than that. But we got it from our sister ship as she passed
us that you had disembarked at Madeira."
"And the other man?"
"He is on this ship still. He hasn't tried to steal the diamond, for
his plans are to get it--if he can--at the docks--and we have taken
precautions. He won't take it."
"No," agreed Gore, "he won't. The diamond is in that safe."
"It is."
"So _I'll_ take it."
"I may object."
"You can count yourself out."
"I don't know about that. But in any case there is another factor."
"What is it?"
"The fact that we are at sea."
"Meaning?"
"Even if you took it you could not keep it. You could not land with
it."
"You think not?"
"There is also another matter."
"What is it?"
"Listen!"
The sound of hurrying feet on the passage outside burst on their
ears. Gore stepped back and slid the heavy bolt home just as
somebody shook the handle and demanded entrance.
"That is the skipper and one or two others," explained the purser,
shrugging his shoulders.
"You signaled to them?"
"I did with a push-button under the table here. We had the alarm
fixed up for daytime. At night a regular burglar alarm is fastened
to the door."
"That was very clever."
"I thought you would admit it. You are caught."
"Are you sure?"
"Don't you agree?"
The voices outside grew louder in their demands for entrance. Gore
was still smiling.
"No," he said, "I don't agree. Look out of the port."
The purser turned his head and saw lights twinkling straight ahead.
About a thousand yards up the Channel a masthead lantern bobbed.
"You see, I have no time to waste," said Gore. "I want the key of
the safe."
"The key? Why, man, you are caught like a rat in a trap!"
"Very well, I shall shoot if you don't hand it over."
The purser was about to leap to his feet and resist the threat when
Gore shot him squarely between the eyes.
It was deliberate murder, prompted and dictated by vanity.
Nathaniel Gore had never previously carried a gun on a job. He had
been, up to this crime, free from violence in his methods. But one
of the points in the defense which his counsel put forward at his
trial was that the woman, Chicago Anne, had so worked on his natural
conceit that he had promised her he would kill rather than fail.
It is possible that she had her own reasons for prevailing on him to
take a weapon he had never previously carried. To please a woman a
man may do abnormal acts. To make himself a hero in her eyes he may
risk his own life--and lose it.
From the moment he fired that fatal shot Nathaniel Gore concentrated
with all his skill on the object of his visit. The purser had been
marking time, holding him in conversation so that aid would come,
believing that Gore would surrender when he heard the officers at the
door. But Gore could not now surrender, even if he was willing. He
never intended to let himself be taken.
Paying no attention to the noise in the passage, he rummaged in
drawers and in the dead man's pockets for the key he wanted. He
found it, and opened the safe. There, in a drawer of the safe, was a
packet, square in shape and sealed on all sides. He tore off the
covering and took a hurried glance inside the morocco case to make
sure. The famous African diamond was before his eyes.
It looked like a piece of rough crystal, but Gore had seen uncut
stones many times and knew the value of his loot. He pushed the case
into his pocket as the first stroke of an ax fell on the panel of the
door--an ax wielded by an officer in the passage.
Gore's next movements were rapid. He snapped off the electric light
and put his gun into the hand of the dead purser, closing the
stiffening fingers over it. He grabbed a life-jacket from under a
locker. Without waiting to put it on, he jumped to the porthole just
as the bobbing masthead light was passing astern. Then he climbed
out.
Being a small man, it was not a very difficult matter. He dropped
into the sea, holding the life-jacket; and as he dropped he heard the
cabin door give way before the assaults of the officers. But he had
beaten them by less than a minute. They had not seen him.
Next instant the sea roared in his ears and he was whirled through a
cataract of boiling water.
He was a fair swimmer. As he slid out of the porthole he leaped far
out so that he might keep clear of the propellers. He made a few
powerful strokes outward as he was swung astern, but he was dragged
down into a vortex. When he came to the surface, lungs bursting, he
was considerably shaken by the turmoil; but the life-jacket gave him
buoyancy and as he gasped for air he saw the liner forging ahead.
Beyond the shaking, he was uninjured.
He clung to the life-jacket as he bobbed about on the troubled sea;
then, after recovering his breath, he tied the cork jacket in a rough
fashion around his body and floated easily. He expected the boat
containing Archer and Chicago Anne to bear down in his direction, and
he kept his gaze on the masthead light, watching for a flash message
from the vessel. To his surprise, the light did not move. No flash
came.
He did not doubt that Archer had recognized the ship, for that was
part of Archer's job. He and Anne were to hire a large fishing-boat
at Cowes, a boat with an auxiliary engine, and come down the Solent
and wait for the liner coming up. The spot of contact had been
agreed upon. Only that morning he had received a code message to say
all was well. The rendezvous was well defined.
Gore swam easily toward the light. The sea was fairly calm. He was
not in any danger of sinking, but the water was cold and numbing.
The liner from which he had dropped was now far ahead. It had not
slackened its speed. All this was very satisfactory to Gore. He
chuckled as he pictured the expression of the captain when he entered
the purser's room.
Indeed, the actual facts were even more in favor of Gore than he
dreamed. The captain and his officers had seen the dead purser, in
whose hand was the discharged gun. They had come to the conclusion
that the purser had come to his room, had seen the safe rifled, had
pressed the alarm, and had shot himself in despair. Not knowing that
Gore had gone out of the porthole, they presumed the thief was still
aboard and that they would get him at the landing-stage. They were
already wirelessing to the shore authorities.
As for Gore, he anticipated that he and his confederates would be on
French soil before the police had moved sufficiently to prevent them.
The rest was easy.
It was not until he was near the swaying light that Gore realized
that this was not the boat he expected to reach. This was a big
vessel. She lay high in the water. Not a light showed on her save
the one at her masthead and another he could now see at what was
either her stern or her stem. Was it possible Archer was on this
ship? The single light--that was the signal.
Gore had to get out of the water. He was beginning to feel the drag
of his clothes. He was tiring rapidly. He swam desperately for the
ship, his mind busy with a false story he could present to her people
if Archer were not there. He could leave the getting away to such
opportunity as presented itself. For the time being his tale would
be that he had fallen overboard from a private yacht.
"Ahoy! Ahoy!"
He hailed repeatedly.
No answering hail came to him. He called again and again. No sound
replied to his calls. He toiled laboriously toward her heavy anchor
chains and rested until he felt strong enough to climb. He climbed
like a cat out of the sea.
By the time he reached the deck he was faint with exhaustion. He
stumbled over the bulwarks and shouted once more. Not a soul was to
be seen, not a light on the deck. He picked his painful way among
the planks. There were holes here and there and what seemed broken
gear. The door of the deckhouse was open, swinging on its hinges.
He entered, calling for some one to come to him. There was no
answer. The truth struck him like a blow. He had swum to a deserted
ship, a hulk anchored well out from the shore.
At first he was wild with rage at the mistake, but his anger died
down quickly. What was a better hiding-place until the morning, or
until Archer came? He sat down and wrung the water from his clothes
as best he could, at the same time keeping his eyes on the ocean now
and then to pick out Archer's craft. But Archer did not come, though
a few ships passed at a distance. Once he thought he saw Archer's
boat. It sailed slowly down and turned again. Yes, that was Archer
all right, plying up and down for him. But the boat was too far off
for Archer to hear his voice. Well, Archer would keep plying up and
down until dawn. He had got the message all right. Archer knew him
better than conclude that he would drown. No, Nathaniel Gore was not
the man to drown with a fortune in his pocket! This was his vanity
speaking again.
The small boat passed out of sight and Gore prepared to snatch an
hour's sleep. He was very tired and must have rest. He curled
himself up in a corner of the deck; but he did not sleep well. In
spite of every effort to be warm he remained cold. He went down a
companionway and reached a lower deck. He felt his way along,
hearing rats running from before his advance. He reached what he
thought was the galley. There seemed to be a stove, but he had no
matches. But he found a pile of shavings, and he carried several
armfuls up to the deck and made a sort of rough bed for himself. He
lay down and closed his eyes.
Dawn awoke him with a brightness that cheered him wonderfully. He
sat up and gazed about the ship. It puzzled and amused him. It was
the strangest vessel he had ever seen. Bags of shavings were piled
around the stern. A heap of them lay in the bows. The deck was
cracked and broken. The ironwork was red with rust.
The sun came out from behind a cloud and flooded the sea with warm
rays. Gore sat on the crazy deck and examined the diamond he had
stolen. He was now a rich man, so rich that it intoxicated him to
think of it. If only Archer would come now!
A faint droning sound caused him to look toward the land. A headland
jutted out in the distance from the main line. He jumped to his
feet. That headland! He knew it. There could be no question about
that headland. He knew every line of the coast that stretched into
the morning mist. He was not facing the rendezvous. He was facing
Portland Bill!
How had he come to make such an error in his calculations? He had
the ship's speed down to a mathematical fraction. She was due to
dock at a certain hour. He had worked it out carefully. He had
traced it on a chart; every day so much; every day so much. And then
it occurred to him. He had worked out the speed and the distance,
but had forgotten to look at the log for corroboration. The storm in
the Bay of Biscay had delayed the liner!
His thoughts were interrupted by the droning sound he had heard. It
was louder now, like the hum of an automobile. He looked upward.
Coming up over the headland he saw several airplanes, rising rapidly
against the heavens like wasps. The sun flashed on their wings. He
watched them as they came out to sea swiftly--one, two, three, four,
five, six--forming an arrow-head shape of remarkable evenness.
Now they flew higher still. They were over him now, droning louder
than ever. Battle formation! They hovered for a moment, circled,
shut off their engines and swooped. A sudden spark burst from the
first plane, and Nathaniel Gore's brain cleared. He leaped to the
side of the ship and threw himself over just as a falling bomb hit
the deck and exploded in a thunderous roar that shook the world.
Nathaniel Gore just saved his life by that small fraction of time;
but he was terribly injured. One of the observers of the planes
spotted him as he went overboard. He was picked up and carried
ashore. In the hospital they found the diamond in his pocket.
The ship on board which he had climbed, you see, was an old hulk
which had been towed out and anchored so that the Air Force might
sink her in bombing practice.