CHAPTER XLVII
THE DUMB CAN SPEAK
The Secret Service men spread round the house, moving off silently rightand left, in accordance with the nods of their chief in answer to theirlooks of query. As they moved, keeping instinctively in shelter from anypossible view from the house so far as the ground afforded opportunity,I could see that each felt that his gun was in its place. They all knewthe gang they had to deal with, and they were not going to take anychances. MacRae said to me:
"I'll go and get the key! I know this country better than any of you;I can run over to the cross roads in a few minutes and it will be lessmarked than driving there." As he went out at the gate he told thedriver to pull down the road, till the curve shut him out of sight.Whilst he was gone, the men surrounded the house, keeping guard at suchpoints that nothing coming from it could escape our notice. The chieftried the back door but it was shut; from its rigidity it was manifestlybolted top and bottom.
In less than a quarter of an hour MacRae returned and told us that Mrs.MacFie was coming with the key as quickly as she could. He offered totake it, telling her who he was; but she said she would come herself andmake her service, as it would not be respectful to him and the othergentlemen to let them go alone. In a few minutes she was with us; thechief detective, Cathcart, and I stayed with MacRae, the rest of themen remaining on watch and hidden. There was a little difficulty withthe lock, but we shortly got in, Mrs. MacFie leading the way. Whilst shewas opening the shutters of the back room, which was evidently theMinister's study, Cathcart and the chief left the room, and made ahurried, though thorough, search of the house. They came back before theold lady was well through her task, and shook their heads.
When the light was let in, the room presented a scene of considerabledisorder. It was evident that it had been lately inhabited, for therewere scattered about, a good many things which did not belong to it.These included a washing jug, and a bowl full of dirty water; a rug andpillows on the sofa; and a soiled cup and plate on the table. On themantlepiece was a guttered out candle. When the old woman saw the stateof the room, she lifted her hands in horrified amazement as she spoke:
"Keep's 'a! The tramps must ha' been here. In the Meenester's own study,too! An' turnin' the whole place topsal-teerie. Even his bukes alljumm'lt up thegither. Ma certes! but won't he be upset by yon!"
Whilst she had been speaking, my eyes had been taking in everything. Allalong one side of the room was a bookcase, rough shelves graduated up inheight to suit the various sizes of books. There were in the room morethan enough books to fill them; but still some of the shelves towardsthe right hand end were vacant and a great quantity of books lay on thefloor. These were not tumbled about as if thrown down recklessly, butwere laid upon the floor in even rows. It looked as if they had beentaken down in masses and laid out in the same order as though ready toput back. But the books on the shelves! It was no wonder that the oldwoman, who did not understand the full meaning, was shocked; for neverwas seen such seeming disorder in any library. Seldom did a volume of aseries seem to be alongside its fellow; even when several were groupedtogether, the rest of the selection would be missing, or seen in anotherpart of the shelf. Some of the volumes were upside down; others hadthe fronts turned out instead of the back. Altogether there was suchdisorder as I had never seen. And yet!...
And yet the whole was planned by a clever and resolute woman, fightingfor her life--her honour. Marjory, evidently deprived of any means ofwriting--there was neither pen nor ink nor pencil in the room--andprobably forbidden under hideous threats to leave any message, had yetunder the very eyes of her captors left a veritable writing on the wall,full and open for all to read, did they but know how. The arrangement ofthe books was but another variant of our biliteral cipher. Books as theyshould be, represented A; all others B. I signed to the man with thenotebook, who took down the words wrought in the cipher as I read themoff. Oh, how my heart beat with fear and love and pride as I realised inthe message of my dear girl the inner purpose of her words:
"To-morrow off north east of Banff _Seagull_ to meet whaler_Wilhelmina_. To be Shanghaied--whatever that means. Frightful threatsto give me to the negro if any trouble, or letters to friends. Don'tfear, dear, shall die first. Have sure means. God with us. Rememberthe cave. Just heard Gardent--" Here the message ended. The shelf wasempty; and the heap of books, from which she had selected so manyitems, remained as they had been placed ready to her hand. She had beencoerced; or else she feared interruption in her task, and did not wantto cause suspicion.
Coerced! I felt as though choking!
There was nothing further to be gained here; so we told the old ladythat we should write regarding the rental if we decided to take thehouse. When we went back to our wagonette, we picked up our twotrackers--there was no use for them now--and went back to Crom as fastas the horses could gallop. It was necessary that we should arrange fromheadquarters our future plans; such maps and papers as we had were atCrom, where also any telegrams might await us. In the carriage I askedthe detective chief what was meant by 'Shanghaied' for it was evidentlya criminal class word.
"Don't you know the word," he said surprised. "Why I thought every oneknew that. It isn't altogether a criminal class word, for it belongspartly to a class that call themselves traders. The whalers and othersdo it when they find it hard to get men; as a rule men nowadays don'tlike shipping on long whaling voyages. They get such men delivered onboard by the crimps, drunk or, more generally, hocussed. Then when theyget near a port they make them drunk again, which isn't much of a jobafter all, and they don't make no kick; or if things are serious theyhocus them a bit again. So they keep them one way or another out ofsight for months or perhaps years. Sometimes, when those that are nottoo particular want to get rid of an inconvenient relative--or mayhapa witness, or a creditor, or an inconvenient husband--they just squaresome crimp. When he gets his hooks on the proper party, there ain't nomore jamboree for him, except between the bulwarks, till the time is up,or the money spent, or whatever he is put away for is fixed as they wantit."
This was a new and enlightening horror to me. It opened up freshpossibilities of distress for both Marjory and myself. As I thought ofthis, I could not but be grateful to Montgomery for his message to theman-of-war's men. If once they succeeded in getting Marjory on boardthe _Seagull_ we should, in the blindness of our ignorance as to herwhereabouts, be powerless to help her. The last word of her messagethrough the books might be a clue. It was some place, and was east ofBanff. I got the big map out at once and began to search. Surely enough,there it was. Some seven or eight miles east of Banff was a little portin a land-locked bay called Gardentown. At once I sent off a wire toAdams at Aberdeen, and another to Montgomery to Peterhead on chance thatit might reach him even before that which Adams, whom he kept posted asto his every movement, would be sure to send to him! It was above allthings necessary that we should locate first the _Seagull_ and then the_Wilhelmina_. If we could get hold of either vessel we might frustratethe plans of the miscreants. I asked Adams to have the touching of the_Wilhelmina_ at any port telegraphed to him at once from Lloyds.
He was quite awake at his end of the wire; I got back an answer in anincredibly short time:
"_Wilhelmina_ left Lerwick for Arctic seas yesterday."
Very shortly afterwards another telegram came from him:
"Montgomery reports _Seagull_ fishing this summer at Fraserburgh. Wentout with fleet two days ago." Almost immediately after this came a thirdtelegram from him:
"_Keystone_ notified. Am coming to join you."
After a consultation we agreed that it was better that some of usshould wait at Crom for the arrival of Adams, who had manifestly someadditional knowledge. In the meantime we despatched two of the SecretService men up to the north of Buchan. One was to go to Fraserburgh, andthe other to Banff. Both were to follow the cliffs or the shore toGardentown. On their way they would get a personal survey of the coastand might pick up some information. MacRae went off hi
mself to send atelegram ordering his yacht, which was at Inverness, to be taken toPeterhead, where he would join her. "It may be handy to have her at themouth of the Firth," he said. "She's a clipper, and if we should want tooverhaul the _Seagull_ or the _Wilhelmina_, she can easily do it."
It was a long, long wait till Adams arrived. I did not think that a mancould endure such misery as I suffered, and live. Every minute, everysecond, was filled with some vague terror. _Omne ignotum pro mirifico._When Fear and Fancy join hands, there is surely woe and pain to somepoor human soul.
When Adams at last arrived he had much to tell; but it was theamplification of what we had heard, rather than fresh news. The U. S.cruiser _Keystone_ had been reached from Hamburgh, and was now on herway to a point outside the three-mile limit off Peterhead; and a privatewatch had been set on every port and harbour between Wick and Aberdeen.The American Embassy was doing its work quietly as befits such an armof the State; but its eyes and ears were open, and I had no doubts itspockets, too. Its hand was open now; but it would close, did there beneed.
When Adams learned our purpose he became elated. He came over to me andlaid his hand tenderly on my shoulder as he said:
"I know how it is with you, old fellow; a man don't want more than twoeyes for that. But there's a many men would give all they have to standin your shoes, for all you suffer. Cheer up! At the worst now it's herdeath! For myself I feared at first there might be worse; but it's plainto me that Miss Drake is up to everything and ready for everything. My!but she's a noble girl! If anything goes wrong with her there's going tobe some scrapping round before the thing's evened up!" He then went onto tell me that Montgomery would be joined at Peterhead by two othernaval fellows who were qualified in all ways to do whatever might berequired. "Those boys won't stop at much, I can tell you," he said."They're full of sand, the lot; and I guess that when this thing isover, it won't harm them at Washington to know that they've done men'swork of one kind or another."
It was comfort to me to hear him talk. Sam Adams knew what he meant,when he wanted to help a friend; thinking it all over I don't see whatbetter he could have said to me--things being as they were. He went backto Aberdeen to look out for news or instructions, but was to join uslater at Banff.
We left two men at Crom; one to be always on the spot, and the other tobe free to move about and send telegrams, etc. Then the rest of us droveover to Fyvie and caught the train to Macduff.
When we arrived we sent one man in the hotel in Banff in case we shouldwant to communicate, and the rest of us drove over in a carriage toGardentown. It is a lovely coast, this between Banff and Gardentown, butwe should have preferred it to be less picturesque and more easy towatch.
When our man met us, which he did with exceeding caution, he at oncebegan:
"They've got off, some of them; but I think the rest of the gang'sashore still. That's why I'm so particular; they may be watchin' us nowfor all I can tell." Then he proceeded to give us all the information hehad gleaned.
"The _Seagull_ was here until yesterday when she went out into theFirth to run down to Fifeshire, as the fish were reported going south.She had more than her complement of men, and her skipper volunteered theinformation that two of them were friends whom they were taking to jointheir own boat which was waiting for them at Burnt Island. From allaccounts I gather," he went on, "that they wasn't anything extrahigh-toned. Most of them were drunk or getting a jag on them; and ittook the two sober ones and the Skipper to keep them in order. TheSkipper was mighty angry; he seemed somehow ashamed of them, and hurriedout of port as quick as he could when he made his mind up. They say heswore at them frightful; though that was not to be wondered at whenhe himself had to help bring the nets on board. One of the men on thequay told me that he said if that was the effect on his men of waitinground for weeks doing nothing, he would see that another time theirdouble-dashed noses were kept to the grindstone. I've been thinkingsince I heard of the trouble they had in carrying on the nets, thatthere was something under them that they meant to hide. The men heretell me that the hand-barrow they carried would have been a job for sixmen, not three, for it was piled shoulder high with nets. That's whythe skipper was so wrathy with them. They say he's a sort of giant,a Dutchman with an evil, cunning face; and that all the time he wascarrying the back handles he never stopped swearing at the two in front,though they was nigh speechless with the effort of carrying, and theirfaces as red as blazes. If I'm right we've missed them this time.They've got the girl on the fishing boat; and they're off for thewhaler. She's the one we'll have to find next!"
As he spoke my heart kept sinking deeper and deeper down. My poorgirl, if alive, was in the hands of her enemies. In all the thoughtswhich filled me with anguish unspeakable there was but one gleam ofconsolation--the negro was not on board, too. I had come to think ofthis miscreant as in some way the active principle of whatever evilmight be.
Here, we were again at a fault in our pursuit. We must wait for thereports of Montgomery who was making local inquiries. We had wired himto join us, or send us word to Gardentown; and he had replied that hewas on the way.