I ENGAGE A SECOND MATE.
We caught the first train to London; and were at the Hotel Columbia by
Charing Cross in time for dinner. Mary had insisted on her right to
accompany us, and, as we could find no valid reason why she should not,
we brought her to the hotel with us. Then by way of calming that
trouble, excitement, and expectation which crowded on us both, we went
to Covent Garden, where the autumn season of opera was then on, and
listened to the glorious music of _Orfeo_ and the _Cavalleria_. Nor did
either of us speak again that night of Hall or of his death; but I
confess that the vision of it haunted my eyes, standing out upon all
the scenes that were set, so that I saw it upon the canvas, and often
before me the wind-worn struggle of a burning ship; while that awful
"Ahoy!" of my own men yet rang in my ears.
When I returned to the hotel I wrote two letters, the beginning of my
task. One was to the Admiralty, the other to the office of the Black
Anchor Line of American Steamships. I told Roderick what I had done,
but he laughed at the idea; so that I troubled him no more with it,
awaiting its proof. On the next morning, in a few moments of privacy
between us, he agreed to let me work alone for two days, and then to
venture on suggestion himself. So it came to be that on the next day I
found myself standing in a meagrely furnished anteroom at the
Admiralty, and there waiting the pleasure of one of the clerks, who had
been deputed to talk with me. He was a fine fellow, I doubt not: had
much merit of his faultless bow, and great worth in the nicety of his
spotless waistcoat, but God never made one so dull or so preposterous a
blockhead. I see him now, rolling up the starved hairs which struggled
for existence upon his chin, and letting his cuffs lie well upon his
bony wrists as he asked me, with a floating drawl--
"And what service can I do for you?"
For me! What service could _he_ do for me? I smiled at him, and did not
disguise my contempt.
"If there is any responsible person here," I said, with emphasis upon
the word responsible, "I should be glad to impart to him some very
curious, and, as it seems to me, very remarkable, information
concerning a war-ship which has just left Spezia, and is supposed to be
the property of the Brazilian Government."
"It's very good of you, don't you know," he replied, as he bent down to
arrange his ample trousers; "but I fancy we heard something about her
last week, so we won't trouble you, don't you know"; and he felt to see
if his bow were straight.
"You may have heard something of the ship," I answered with warmth,
"but that which I have to communicate is not of descriptive, but of
national, importance. You cannot by any means have learnt my story, for
there is only one man living who knows it."
He looked up at the clock a moment as though seeking inspiration, but
his mind was quite vacant when he replied--
"It's awfully good of you, don't you know; we're so frightfully busy
this month; if you could come up in a month's time----"
"In a month's time," I said, rising with scorn, "in a month's time, if
you and yours don't stand condemned before Europe for a parcel of fools
and incompetents, then you'll send for me, but I'll see you at blazes
first--good-morning!"
I was outside the office before his exclamation of surprise had passed
away; and within half an hour I sat in the private room of the
secretary to the Black Anchor Steamship Company. He was a sharp man of
business, keen-visaged as a ferret, and restless as a nervous horse
long reined in. I told him shortly that I had reason to doubt the truth
of the statement that a warship recently built at Spezia was intended
for the purposes set down to her; that I believed she was the property
of an American adventurer whose motives I scarce dared to realise; that
I had proof, amounting to conviction, that this man possessed jewels
which were commonly accounted as lost in his firm's steamer, _Catalania_;
and that if his company would agree to bear the expense, and to give me
suitable recompense if I succeeded in supporting my conjectures, I
would undertake to bring him the whole history of the nameless ship
within twelve months; and also to give him such knowledge as would
enable him to lay hands on the man called "Captain Black," should this
man prove the criminal I believed him to be. To all which tale he
listened, his searching eye fixing its stare plump upon me, from time
to time; but when I had done, he rang the bell for his clerk, and I
could see that he felt himself in the company of a maniac. So I left
him, and breathed the breath of liberty again as I went back to the
hotel, and told Roderick of the utter and crushing failure waiting upon
the very beginning of the task which Martin Hall had left to me.
Roderick was not at all surprised--it seemed to me rather that he was
glad.
"What did I tell you?" he said, as he sat up on the couch, and took the
tube of his hookah from his mouth; "who will believe such a tale as we
are hawking in the market-place--selling, in fact, to the highest
bidder? If a man came to you with the same account, and with no more
authority to support him than the story of a dead detective--who may
have lost his wits, or may never have had any to lose--would you put
down a shilling to see him through with the business? Pshaw! my dear
old Mark, you, with your long head and that horribly critical eyes of
yours, you wouldn't give him a groat."
"Exactly, I should consider him a dupe or a stark-staring madman; but
the case is different as it stands. I know--I would stake my life on
it--that every word Martin Hall wrote is true, true as my life itself.
I am not so sure that you are convinced, though."
I awaited his answer, but it did not come for many minutes. He had
passed through his momentary enthusiasm and lay at full length upon the
couch, making circles, parabolas, and ellipses of fine white smoke,
while he fixed his gaze upon the frieze of the wall, as if he were
counting the architraves.
"Mark," he said at last, "when we were at Harrow together an aged sage
impressed upon us the meaning of Seneca's line, '_Veritas odit moras_.'
I regard myself at the moment in a position of truth; but whether on
calm reflection I believe the whole of your dead friend's story, I'm
hanged if I know, and therefore"--here he made a long pause and smoked
violently--"and therefore I have bought a steamer."
"You have done what?"
"At two o'clock to-day, in your absence, I bought the steam-yacht
_Rocket_, lately the property of Lord Wilmer, now the property of
Roderick Stewart, of the Hotel Columbia, London."
I think I must have laughed sorrowfully at him, as a man laughs at a
drawing-room humorist, for he continued quickly--
"Before we go on board her, the yacht will be re-christened by
Mary--who will stay with her dear maiden aunt in our absence--and will
be named after your vessel _Celsis_. Her crew will consist of our
silent friend, Captain York, of his brother as chief mate, and of your
men now at Portsmouth, with half a dozen more. We shall need eight
firemen, whom the agents will engage, and three engineers, already
found, for I have taken on Lord Wilmer's men. Your cook, old
'Cuss-a-lot,' will serve us very well during the fourteen or fifteen
days we shall need to go across the Atlantic, and we want now only a
second and third officer. As these men will be mixed up with us on the
quarter-deck, I have told the agents to send them up to see you
here--so you'll run your eye over them and tell me if they'll do. I
hate seeing people; they bore me, and I mean you to take the charge of
this enterprise from the very beginning--you quite understand?"
"Roderick, my old friend, I'm as blank as a drawing-board--would you
mind giving me that yarn from the beginning again--and tell me first,
why are we going; then, where are we going; and after that, what has
your steamer to do with the business of Martin Hall--and, well, and
what we know?"
He spoke quickly in answer, and seemed disappointed.
"I hate palaver," he said, "and didn't think to find you dense, but
you're growing silly at this business anyway. Now, look here; until you
read me that paper in your cabin, I don't know that I ever felt anger
against any man, but, before God, I'll bring the man who murdered
Martin Hall, and Heaven knows how many others, to justice or I'll never
know another hour's rest. You have been talking of Governments and
ship-owners for twenty-four hours; but what have Governments and
ship-owners to do with us? Is it money you want? Well, what's mine is
yours; and I'm worth two hundred and fifty thousand pounds if I'm worth
a shilling. Is it profit of a dead man's work you're after? Well then,
mark your man, learn all about him, run him to his hole; and then, when
other people besides yourself know his story, as it must be known in a
few months' time, put your price on what is your own, and don't fear to
recompense yourself. What I want you to see is this:--For some months,
at any rate, we shall get no outside help in this matter from any
living creature; what we're going to do must be done at our cost, which
is my cost. And what we're going to do isn't to be done at this hotel,
or on this couch, or in the City: it's going to be done on the high
seas, and after that in America on the Hudson River, where, if Hall be
right, is the home of Captain Black. It is to the Hudson River that I
mean to go now--at once, as soon as money and the devil's own number of
men can get the steam-yacht _Celsis_ ready for sea. And at my cost,
don't forget that; though I'm a fool in the game, which is yours to
make and yours to play, as it has been from the beginning, when the
dead man chose you to finish it and to reckon with the scoundrels now
afloat somewhere between here and the Banks. In his name I ask you now
to close your hand with me on this bargain, to ask no question, to make
no protests, and to remember that we sail in three days, if possible,
and if not in three, then, in as small a number as will serve to get
the steamer ready."
What could I say to a story such as this one? I could only wring his
hand, and feel how hot it was, knowing that the same haunting wish to
be up and off in pursuit was about him as about me. For half-an-hour we
sat and smoked together. In three-quarters I was closeted in the room
below with Francis Paolo, who had come from the agents to seek the
berth of second officer to the new yacht _Celsis_. When the servant
gave me this man's name, I had some misgiving at its Italian sound, but
I remembered that Italy is breeding a nation of sailors; and I put off
the prejudice and hurried down to see him. I found him to be a
sprightly, dark-faced, black-haired Italian, apparently no more than
twenty-five years old; and he greeted me with much smoothness of
speech. He had served three years as third officer to the big
steam-yacht owned by the noted Frenchman, the Marquis de Cluneville;
and, as he was unmistakably a gentleman, and his discharges were in
perfect order, I engaged him there and then for the post of second
officer to the _Celsis_, and gave him orders to join her at Plymouth,
where she lay, as soon as might be.
But had I known him then as I know him now, I would have paid a
thousand pounds never to have seen him!