THE BLUE BOTTLE
What did he mean? The mystery of his disappearance was more
intensified than ever.
His first act was to carry the note to the captain’s cabin. That
officer was awake and was standing at the door of his handsome
quarters in pyjamas and slippers, a big pipe clenched between his
teeth. He took the letter from Bill’s hand and read it.
“I’m very much relieved,” he said, “but I wish your Scotland Yard men
would choose some other place for their disappearing tricks than my
ship!”
“Not _my_ Scotland Yard men,” corrected Bill.
When he took the news to Betty, which he did as soon as she was up on
deck, she was undisguisedly delighted.
“I only now realise how much I’ve worried about poor Mr. Bullott,”
she said. “But where is he, Billy?”
Now, if there was one word in the language which Bill Holbrook hated
worse than any other, it was Billy. To him it meant goats and tin cans
and French railway tickets, but now there flashed upon him the
realisation that that despised word was one of the sweetest in the
English language, and, but for the girl’s obvious embarrassment, he
would have mentioned his conversion.
Looking past her, he saw Clive Lowbridge reclining in a deck chair,
his hands clasped together under his chin, his grave eyes fixed upon
them, and his conscience smote him--but not very hard.
Later, Bill thought it was typical of the young man that he should
come so straight to a question which others might have gone about with
greater circumspection. It happened after lunch (how definitely are
shipboard days divided by the meal hours!) and he was in the library,
changing a book for Betty, when Clive lounged lazily across to him,
dropped his hand on his shoulder.
“Come and have a drink,” he said, “a soft drink,” he added
unnecessarily, and when they were seated and the steward had taken the
order: “Holbrook, you are very keen on Miss Stone, aren’t you?”
Bill flushed. Even then he did not know whether it was not sacrilege
to admit his affection.
“I like her very much,” he said awkwardly. “I don’t know
whether----”
“You’re keen on her, and she’s keen on you. I hope so, at any rate.
I’ll tell you something--” he bit off the end of a cigar and lit it
before he continued--“you are going to get a prize which I should
consider the highest any man could take from the hands of fortune.”
“_I’m_ going to get a prize! Why, Lord Lowbridge, I think you’re going
rather fast, aren’t you? There is no question about Miss
Carew--Stone--being fond of me. She likes me, I hope, but that is
all.”
The grave eyes were surveying him steadily.
“It is a hateful thing to say, but I hope you’re right. She’s
wonderful--you don’t know how wonderful! I’ve known her so many years
longer than you. I knew her when she was a little girl, so high! And
if things are as I--am afraid, then indeed you are a lucky man.”
Bill looked round guiltily, as though expecting to find the girl at
his elbow, ready to deny with every manifestation of anger that she
could have so far forgotten what was due to her beauty, her grace and
all the holy femininity of her (femininity being particularly holy to
Bill at that moment) that she had any thought of him except as she
perhaps might think of the steward or some other insignificant person.
“I guess I can’t even listen to a provisional congratulation,” he
said, laughing. “Has this discovery about Laffin made any difference
to your position, Lord Lowbridge? I mean, the transference of
properties which he effected by his forgeries?”
Lowbridge shook his head.
“I knew I hadn’t got them,” he said tersely. “That they were stolen
from me by friend Laffin doesn’t make the case any worse than if they
had been gambled from me by my poor uncle. Even now I cannot believe
that he was poisoned. Bullott must have made a colossal blunder.”
“I hardly think so,” said Bill quietly; “Bullott isn’t that kind.”
Clive Lowbridge shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know what kind he is,” he said shortly. “I confess I’m not
very much impressed by this theatrical disappearance of his.”
For the life of him Bill could not defend his friend, for Bullott’s
action had struck him in very much the same way as Clive Lowbridge was
now describing.
“Have you handed in your gun?” asked Lowbridge with a smile. “I have
an antiquated revolver, which is now in the purser’s care. It is
surprising the number of pistols that were on board; almost everybody
seems to have come on the ship prepared to repel invaders!”
Bill explained that he had not been troubled by the order. The purser
had shown him his new armoury in glee that morning. Row after row of
automatics, revolvers and strange German pistols which had come to
him. Each had a label with the owner’s name and contemplated address
in the United States.
He slept that Monday afternoon, and awoke to find that the weather had
changed. Heavy rain was falling, and a moderate sea was running,
without greatly affecting the comfort of the _Escorial’s_ passengers.
He went down to dinner with a lighter heart than he had gone on the
previous night. If, somewhere on the ship, was Dr. Laffin, somewhere
else was the mysterious Bullott, watching and waiting.
When he went below that night to change, his steward waylaid him.
“I’m not much of a detective myself,” said the man, a little
self-consciously, “but I’m what you might describe as an observer,
sir; and I want to ask you whether you took out the stopper of your
water-bottle before you went down to dinner?”
The water-bottles in the cabins were held in a bracket and protected
from dust by a small wooden stopper attached to a chain which was
fastened to the washstand.
“No, I’m sure I didn’t,” said Bill.
“And _I’m_ sure you didn’t,” said the steward. “Before I left your
cabin to-night and put everything tidy, I distinctly remember putting
in the stopper. When I came back late to-night, the stopper was out.”
“I haven’t been to the cabin between dinner and now,” Bill assured
him, and went back with him to view the mysterious carafe.
Undoubtedly the cork was out. Bill lifted the bottle to the light. He
had a quality, which is well known to oculists, the gift of colour
distinction. To most people, white and something which is nearly white
are indistinguishable. To Bill the difference was very distinct. As he
held the bottle to the light, he saw that it was no longer colourless.
There was the faintest blue tint to it--so faint that the steward
failed to see it, and practically suggested that Bill was imagining
things.
“Take that to the doctor as it is. I don’t suppose you’ve got a rat on
board, but if there is anything living that you can try this dope on,
do so.”
It was the colour he had seen in the glass of water from which the cat
had drunk.