Elliott had expected to find an Oriental city; he had looked for a
sort of maze of black alleys, ivory lattices, temples, minarets, and a
medley of splendour and squalor; but in his surprise at the reality he
said that Bombay was almost like an American city. There was squalor
and splendour enough, but they were not as he had imagined them; and
at the first sight of the wide, straight, busy streets he felt a great
relief, realizing that his detective work would not have to be pursued
under such “Arabian Night” conditions as he had anticipated.
At the landing-stage he surrendered himself to a white-robed and
barefoot native runner, who claimed to represent Ward’s Anglo-Indian
Hotel, and this functionary at once bundled him into a ricksha which
started off at a trot. So unfamiliar a mode of locomotion revived some
of Elliott’s primal expectations of the East, and the crowds that
filled the street from house-front to house-front helped to strengthen
them. The populace, as Elliott observed with surprise, were nearly as
black as the negroes at home, clad in every variety and colour of
costume, brilliant as a garden of tulips, and through the dense mass
his ricksha man forced a passage by screaming unintelligible abuse at
the top of his voice. Occasionally a black victoria clove its slow way
past him, bearing a white-clad Englishman, who gazed unseeingly over
the swarming mass; and Elliott for the first time breathed the smell
of the East, that compound of heat and dust and rancid butter and
perspiring humanity that somehow strangely suggests the yellow
marigold flowers that hang in limp clusters in the marketplaces of all
Bengal.
At the hotel, a gigantic and imposing structure, he was received by a
Eurasian in a frock coat and no shoes, who assigned him to a vast
bedroom, cool and darkened and almost large enough to play tennis in.
Elliott examined the unfamiliar appurtenances with some curiosity, and
then took a delicious dip in the bathroom that opened from his
chamber. He then changed his clothes and went down-stairs, determined
to lose no time in visiting the United States Consulate.
The mate of the _Clara McClay_, as the only surviving officer, was
required to report the circumstances of the loss of his ship to the
American consul; and self-interest, as much as law, should equally
have impelled him to do so. For by reporting the foundering of the
steamer in deep water he would clear himself of responsibility, and at
the same time close the case and check any possible investigation into
the whereabouts of the wreck.
But Elliott learned at once that the white man in India is not
supposed to exert himself. The manager of the house, to whom he
applied for information, placed him in a long cane chair while a
ricksha was being called, and then installed him in the baby-carriage
conveyance, giving elaborate instructions in the vernacular to the
native motor. And again the vivid panorama of the streets unrolled
before Elliott’s eyes under the blinding sun-blaze,—the closely packed
crowd of white head-dresses, the nude torsos, bronze and black, the
gorgeous silks, and violent-hued cottons rolling slowly over the
earthen pavement that was packed hard by millions of bare feet.
The gridiron shield with the eagle looked home-like to Elliott when he
set eyes on it, but he found the official representative of the United
States to be a brass-coloured Eurasian, who seemed to have some
recollection of the _Clara McClay_ or her mate, but was either unable
or unwilling to impart any information. He was the consular secretary;
the consul was out at the moment, but he returned just as Elliot was
turning away in disappointment. He was a rubicund gentleman of middle
age, from Ohio, as Elliott presently learned, and proud of the fact.
He wore a broad straw hat of American design—Heaven knows how he had
procured it in that land—and, to Elliott’s unbounded amazement, he was
accompanied by his own steamer acquaintance, the Alabaman Sevier.
Elliott nodded to Sevier, trying to conceal his consternation, and was
for going away immediately, but the secretary was, after all, only too
anxious to give assistance.
“Be pleased to wait a moment, sir. This is the consul. Mr. Guiger,
this gentleman is asking if we know anything of the position of the
mate of the wrecked American steamer, called the _Clara McClay_.”
“His position? By Jupiter, I wish I knew it!” ejaculated the consul,
mopping his face, but showing a more than physical warmth. “This other
gentleman here has just been asking me the same thing, and I’ve had a
dozen wires from the owners in Philadelphia.”
Elliott was thunderstruck at this revelation of Sevier’s interest in
the matter, but it was too late to draw back.
“I was asked to make inquiries by relatives of one of the crew,” he
said, mendaciously. “Has the mate showed up here at all?”
“Showed up? Of course he did. He had to, by Jupiter! But it was his
business to keep in touch with me till the case was gone into and
settled. He gave me an address on Malabar Hill,—too swell a locality
for a sailorman, thinks I,—and, sure enough, when I sent there for
him, they had never heard of him. I’ve not set eyes on him since.
He’ll lose his ticket, that’s all.”
“What sort of a report did he make?”
“Why, nothing. Said the ship was rotten, and her cargo shifted in a
gale and some of her rivets must have drawn, and she foundered. Every
one went down but himself,—all drunk, I suppose. But he didn’t even
make a sworn statement. Said he’d come back next day, and I was in a
hurry myself, and I let him go, like a fool.”
“You don’t know whether he’s still in the city?”
“I don’t know anything. I’ve set the police to look for him, but these
black-and-tan cops don’t amount to anything. He may be half-way to
Australia by this time. Like as not he is.”
“Where did he say his ship foundered?” asked Sevier, speaking for the
first time.
“Somewhere in the Mozambique Channel, in deep water. He didn’t know
exactly. Along about latitude twelve, south, he said. Went down like a
lump of lead.”
Elliott thought of her weighty cargo, and, glancing up, he met
Sevier’s eye fixed keenly on him.
“Well, if the man can’t be found, I suppose that’s the end of it,” he
said, carelessly, and turned away again.
“Sorry I can’t help you, gentlemen,” responded the consul. “If I get
any news, I’ll let you know. You don’t happen to have brought out any
American newspapers, do you—Chicago ones, for choice?”
Elliott was devoid of these luxuries, and Sevier followed him out to
the street, where the ricksha was still waiting.
“Is that your perambulator?” inquired the Alabaman. “Let’s walk a
little. The streets aren’t so crowded here.”
“It’s undignified for a white man to walk in this country, but I’ll
make my ricksha man follow me,” said Elliott. “Besides, I couldn’t
find my way back to the hotel without him.”
They walked for several minutes in silence down the side of the street
that was shaded by tall buildings of European architecture.
“Were you ever at a New Orleans Mardi Gras? Hanged if this town
doesn’t remind me of it!” Sevier suddenly broke silence. “By the way,
I didn’t know that you were interested in the _Clara McClay_.”
“I’m not,” said Elliott, on the defensive. “I was simply making
inquiries on behalf of other people, to get some details about her
loss. You seem to have more interest than that in her yourself.”
“Oh, my interest is a purely business one,” replied Sevier, lightly.
“I know her owners pretty well, and they wired me from Philadelphia to
find out something about her. I found the cablegram waiting for me
when I got here. Funny thing that the mate should disappear that way.
Something crooked, eh?”
“Possibly. Queer things happen on the high seas. It looks as if he
were afraid of something.”
“Or after something. I’ve heard of ships being run ashore for
insurance.”
“But the _Clara McClay_ didn’t run ashore,” Elliott reminded him. “She
foundered in deep water, you know.”
“Oh, yes, she foundered in deep water,” drawled Sevier. “Have you got
the spot marked on your map?”
This attack was so sudden and so unexpected that Elliott floundered.
“That map you have in your pocket, with her course marked in red,”
Sevier pursued, relentlessly.
“That map you saw on the steamer? That wasn’t a chart of the _Clara
McClay’s_ course. Or, at least,” Elliott went on, recovering his wind,
“I don’t suppose it is, accurately. I drew it to see if I could make
out where she must have sunk, by a sort of dead reckoning. You see, I
felt a certain interest in her on account of the inquiries I was
commissioned to make. Nobody knows exactly what her course was.”
“Nobody but the mate, and he’s skipped the country. Well, I hope you
find him, for the sake of the bereaved kinfolk.”
He turned a humourous and incredulous glance at Elliott, and its
invitation to frankness was unmistakable. Had Elliott been alone in
the affair he might have responded, and taken his companion as a
partner. But he had not the right to do that; there were men enough to
share the plunder already; but he was possessed with curiosity to
learn what Sevier knew, and, above all, what he wanted. Sevier had
learned nothing from Bennett; he could have learned nothing from the
mate, else he would not be in pursuit of him. How then could he know
what cargo the _Clara McClay_ had carried?
They walked a little further, talking of the features of interest like
a pair of Cook’s tourists, while the ricksha man marched stolidly
behind.
“Queer that Burke didn’t know where she went down!” said Sevier, as if
to himself.
“Who’s Burke?” asked Elliott, on the alert this time.
“The mate of the _Clara McClay_. Didn’t you know his name? I got it
from the owners. They’re wild about him; swear they’ll have his
certificate taken from him. It seems he hasn’t reported a word to
them, and all they know is a newspaper item saying that he was picked
up from the wreck.”
“Was all that in your cablegram?” demanded Elliott, with malice.
“They told me that in Philadelphia, before I left,” Sevier replied,
imperturbably.
This was just possible, but, after a rapid mental calculation of
dates, Elliott decided that it was unlikely. Besides, why should the
owners have cabled, if they had seen their messenger just before he
sailed? But he had already arrived at the conviction that Sevier’s
explanation of his interest in the treasure-ship was as fictitious as
his own.
“Isn’t it likely,” he said, easily, “that the mate was drunk and
navigated her out of her course, and ran her ashore? He knows that
he’s responsible for her loss, and he’s afraid to face a court of
inquiry.”
“He’ll sure lose his certificate anyway, if he doesn’t show up.
Besides, he didn’t run her ashore. She went down in deep water.”
“Sure enough, she went down in deep water,” Elliott acquiesced. A
strong sense of the futility of this fencing stole over him, and he
turned abruptly and beckoned to his ricksha.
“It’s too hot to walk. I’m going back to my hotel—the Anglo-Indian.
Come around and look me up. Are you going to search for your lost
mate?”
“Oh, dear, no! I’m not paid for doing that. Besides, I’m going up the
country in a day or so to get stuff for my articles.”
He watched Elliott into his ricksha, and walked off, Elliott wondered
vainly where.
He wondered also whether he ought not to keep close to this
smooth-spoken pseudo-journalist, who, he felt sure, was also on the
track of the treasure-ship. But this would hamper him fatally in his
quest for the elusive mate Burke, and this quest was to be Elliott’s
next affair.
But he had next to no idea just where or how he would look. He was an
inlander; he knew little of the ways of seafaring men ashore, and
nothing at all of this particular city. He plunged boldly into the
search, however, and, as a preliminary, he spent a day in roaming
about the waterfront of Mazagon Bay, entering into conversation with
such white seamen as he came across. But he was acutely conscious that
he made a bungle of this. These men were too far outside his
experience for him to enter into easy relations with them. His
immaculate white flannels were also against him; he received either
too much deference or too little, and he suspected that he was taken
for a detective or a customs officer. He decided that he would have to
assume a less respectable appearance.
But every one he met professed total ignorance of the _Clara McClay_
and her mate. Most of the men were transient; they had been in Bombay
for only a few days or weeks, and the arrival of a single man, even
the survivor of a wreck, is too slight an episode to leave any mark
upon such a port as Bombay, where the shipping of a whole world is
gathered. But a vessel is a different thing, and Elliott learned—it
was the whole result of his day’s work—that the Italian steamer
_Andrea Sforzia_, which had picked up Burke’s boat, had sailed a month
ago for Cape Town.
Had Burke gone with her? No one knew. Elliott thought it most
probable; and in that case the rich grave of the gold-ship must be
rifled already. A feeling of sick failure spread through Elliott’s
system as he realized that the whole quest might have been in vain,
even before they left America. But he cabled to Henninger at Zanzibar:
“Steamer _Andrea Sforzia_ sailed Cape Town about April 10th, likely
with Burke.”
Still it might be that the mate had not sailed with the Italian
steamer, after all, and, while awaiting a reply from Zanzibar, Elliott
resumed his detective work. It was good to pass the anxious time, if
it led to no other result. He hired a room in a cheap sailors’ hotel
in Mazagon, where he went every morning to change his white clothes
for a dirty, bluish dungaree slop-suit, which he bought at a low
clothing store, and, thus suitably attired, he was able to pursue his
explorations among the tortuous ways of the old Portuguese settlement
and attract no attention so long as he kept his mouth shut. These
wanderings he often carried far into the night, returning finally to
his dirty room to resume the garb of respectability.
He saw many strange things in these explorations among the groggeries,
dives, and sailors’ boarding-houses, where the seamen of every
maritime race on earth herded together in their stifling quarter. He
sat in earthen-floored drinking-shops, where Lascars, Norse, Yankees,
Englishmen, and Italians gulped down poisonous native liquors like
water, and quarrelled in a babel of tongues; he leaned over fan-tan
tables in huge, filthy rooms that had been the palaces of merchant
princes; and nightly he saw the tired dancing-girls from the Hills
posture obscenely before an audience of white, yellow, and brown sea
scum, ferociously drunk or stupid with opium. More than once he saw
knives drawn and used, and the blood spurt dark in the candle-light;
and once he had to run for it to avoid being gathered in by the police
along with his companions. But nowhere could he hear anything of what
he sought, and he could find no one who would admit having seen the
mate of the _Clara McClay_.
He had received no reply from Henninger, and this, perhaps,
illogically reassured him. After a week he had ceased to expect any,
but by this time he had well ceased to believe that Burke was still in
Bombay. If he were there, Elliott did not believe that he could be
found, and he regretted anew that he had not obtained a detailed
description of the man from Bennett. He visited the American consul
again, but that official had no further news, and was able to describe
the mate only as “a big fellow, with a big beard turning gray,” which
was indefinite enough.
After all, Elliott reflected, the man would be likely to change his
name and to keep apart from other seamen. Surely, if he had been going
to fit out a wrecking expedition, he would have done it long since,
but such an enterprise would certainly have left memories upon the
waterfront. Elliott could not learn that anything of the sort had been
done. Possibly Burke had gone elsewhere to launch his expedition; very
likely he had no money, and had gone elsewhere to obtain it.
Elliott grew very weary with turning over all these possibilities, and
almost disheartened, but he persisted in his perambulations about the
sailors’ quarter. He was beginning to feel the deadly lassitude which
stealthily grows upon the unacclimated white man in the tropics, and
he would probably have given up the quest in another week, but for a
lucky chance.
The crush of the crowd had elbowed him into a corner beside a tiny
second-hand clothes-stall near the landing-place of the coasting
steamers, and he gazed idly at the foul-looking seamen’s
clothing—caps, oilskins, sea boots, cotton trousers—that almost filled
the recess in the wall that served for a shop. In the centre lounged
the shopman, apparently half Eurasian and half English Jew, who looked
as if he clothed himself from his own stock in trade.
As Elliott was trying to disengage himself from the crowd, he knocked
down a suit of oilskins, and stooped to pick it up. It was an
excellent suit, though considerably worn, and as he rescued the heavy
sou’wester hat, his eye was caught by rude black lettering on the
under side of the peak. It had been done in India ink, and read “J.
Burke, S. S. _Clara McClay_.”
Elliott stared at the initials, dazzled by his good luck. They must be
the oilskins of the missing mate, who had sold them there. Who else
could have brought clothing from the wreck to Bombay? The shopman,
scenting trade, had crept forward, and was sidling and fawning at
Elliott’s shoulder.
“Want nice oilskins, Sahib? Ver’ scheap. You shall haf dem for ten
rupee.”
“I’ll give you five,” said Elliott, carelessly, hanging up the cap.
“Fif rupee? Blood of Buddha! I pay eight, s’help me Gawd!”
“Look here,” said Elliott. “I don’t want the oilskins, but I think
they used to belong to a friend of mine, and I’ll give you eight
rupees if you’ll tell me where you got them.”
The merchant wrinkled his brows, undoubtedly pondering whether he was
in danger of compromising any thief of his acquaintance.
“I remember,” he presently announced. “You gif me ten rupee?”
“Ten it is.”
“I buy dem more than two weeks ago from your friend’s kitmatgar,
Hurris Chunder.”
Elliott’s heart sank again. “My friend’s a sailorman, and wouldn’t
have a servant.”
“Hurris Chunder say his master gif dem to him,” insisted the Jew.
“Can you find Hurris Chunder?”
“Maybe,” with an avid grin.
“Here’s your ten rupees,” said Elliott. “I’ll give you ten more if
you’ll manage to have Hurris Chunder here to-night, and he shall have
another ten for telling me what he knows. Does it go?”
“Yes,” responded the trader, with lightning comprehension of Western
slang. “The Sahib will find Hurris Chunder here to-night. At ten
o’clock.”
Elliott had already learned the indefinite notions of the East
regarding time, and he did not care to show the impatience he felt, so
he did not arrive at his appointment till nearly eleven o’clock. The
yellow Jew led him to the rear of the tiny shop and introduced him
through an unsuspected door into a small chamber littered with rags,
old clothes, rubbish of copper and brass, and dirty-looking apparatus.
It was here that the merchant ate and slept, and in the middle of the
floor a white-clad figure was squatting, smoking a brass pipe.
“This is Hurris Chunder, Sahib,” said the Jew, eagerly.
The native, a golden-complexioned young man, with a somewhat sleepy
Buddha-like face, put down his pipe, and bowed without getting up.
“Very good,” said Elliott. “Here’s your ten rupees, Israel. Now, get
out. I want to have a little private talk with our friend.”
The half-caste scuttled into the outer shop and closed the door.
“Now, then, Hurris, tell me the truth. Where did you steal those
oilskins?”
Hurris Chunder made a deprecating gesture. “May the Presence pardon
me,” he said, in soft and excellent English. “I did not steal them. My
master, Baker Sahib, gave them to me.”
“Baker Sahib, indeed!” Elliott murmured. “Where is your master? What
did he look like?”
“He was a tall, lean, strong sahib, and when he first came he had a
great gray beard. He lived for many days at the Planters’ Hotel, and I
was unworthily his kitmatgar.”
This was another surprise, for the Planters’ was an excellent, quiet,
and rather high-priced hotel, and the mate was presumably short of
funds.
“He had money, then?”
“He had much money, English money. He was a very generous Sahib.”
“Well, you’ll find me a generous Sahib, too, if you act on the level.
Here’s your ten rupees. Baker Sahib is at the Planters’, then?”
“No, Sahib, he went away. He gave me the oilskins when he went. He
sailed on a ship, a great black steamer. He went to England.”
“To England? Are you sure it wasn’t Africa?”
“Yes, Sahib, to Africa.”
“What port was she bound for?”
“Sahib, before God, I do not know. I think London.”
“London? You said Africa. Wasn’t it America?”
“The Sahib is right.”
“Or Australia?”
“If the Sahib pleases, it is so,” was the submissive response.
“You old fraud!” said Elliott. “You don’t know where he went. Are you
sure he went away at all?”
“Yes, Sahib. He cut off his great beard, and I took his luggage to the
ship for him,—a great black steamer, full of English. I do not know
the name of the ship.”
“Cut off his beard, eh? And you don’t know what ship it was, or where
she went? Well, never mind, I can find that out myself. Your knowledge
is distinctly limited, Hurris, but you’re a good boy, and I believe
you’ve given me the key to the situation. It’s worth another rupee or
two. Good-bye.”
He tossed the native three more rupees, and went to change his
clothes, bursting with excited impatience. To-morrow he would know the
mate’s destination.
As early as possible the next morning, he sought the Planters’ Hotel,
and found that Baker Sahib had indeed been there since the 18th of
March. This was the day after the arrival of the _Andrea Sforzia_ at
Bombay, and the coincidence of the dates was corroborative evidence.
He had left on the 27th of March, and his destination was unknown at
the hotel.
An examination of the shipping-lists, however, showed that on March
27th three passenger steamers had sailed from Bombay,—the _Punjaub_,
for London; the _Imperadora_, for Southampton, and the _Prince of
Burmah_ for Hongkong. Elliott hastened to the city passenger offices
of these lines, and begged permission to inspect the passenger-lists
of their ships sailing on that day. The sheets of the _Punjaub_ and of
the _Imperadora_ proved devoid of interest, but half-way down the list
of the _Prince of Burmah’s_ saloon passengers he came upon the name of
Henry Baker. He was booked through to Hongkong.
The amazing improbability of this almost staggered Elliott. If the
mate knew the secret of the treasure, why should he fly thus to the
very antipodes; and if he knew no guilty secrets, why should he have
secreted himself in Bombay, and cut off his beard for purposes of
disguise?
Were Baker and Burke identical, after all? But the American consul’s
brief description of the man tallied with that of Hurris Chunder, and
Baker had arrived at the Planters’ Hotel the day after Burke had
arrived in Bombay. Baker had brought with him oilskins from the
wrecked ship, from which he alone had been picked up at that time.
It must be the mate, Elliott thought. In any case, Baker must know
things of importance to the gold hunters, and Elliott cabled again to
Zanzibar:
“Mate sailed Hongkong. Am following.”
Three days later he sailed for Hongkong himself. Up to the very moment
of clearing port he was tormented with apprehensions that Sevier would
appear on board. But, whatever were the researches of the Alabaman,
they were evidently being conducted in a different quarter, and the
weight gradually lifted from Elliott’s mind as the steamer ploughed
slowly down the bay, past the white moored monitors and the little
rocky islets of the peninsula. The treasure hunt had turned out a man
hunt, but he hoped that he was upon the last stage of the long stern
chase.