CHAPTER IX
TELLS OF A STAIN UPON A WHITE FROCK, AND A LOST KEY
Helen drew a chair to the table and waited with her hands foldedbefore her.
"Dick," said I, turning to the lad, who stood just within the door,"that oath of yours."
"I have broken it already," said he.
"There was never priest in the world who would refuse to absolve you.The virtue of it lies in the forswearing. Now!" and I turned to Helen."But I must speak frankly," I premised.
She nodded her assent.
"Very well. I can make a consecutive sort of story, but I may well beat fault, for my knowledge is scanty, and if I am in error over thefacts, I beg you, Miss Mayle, to correct me. Old Mr. Mayle's talk rancontinually about his wild doings on the Guinea coast, in Africa.There can be no doubt that he spent some considerable portion of hislife there, and that he managed to scrape together a sufficientfortune. It is likely, therefore, that he was engaged in the slavetrade, and, to be quite frank, Miss Helen, from what I have gatheredof his manner and style, I am not indisposed to think that he found anoccasional diversion from that pursuit in a little opportune piracy."
I made the suggestion with some diffidence, for the old man, whateverhis sins, had saved her life, and shown her much affection, of which,moreover, at his death he had given her very tangible proofs. It wasnecessary for me, however, to say it, for I had nothing but suspicionto go upon, and I looked to her in some way, either by words ormanner, to confirm or confute my suspicions. And it seemed to me thatshe confirmed it, for she simply pressed the palms of her hands to herforehead, and said quietly,
"You are very frank."
"There is no other way but frankness, believe me," I returned. "Nowlet us come to that Sunday, four years ago, when Cullen Mayle sat inthe stocks and George Glen came to Tresco. It was you who took GeorgeGlen to St. Mary's Church," I turned to Dick Parmiter.
"Yes," said he. "I was kicking my heels in the sand, close to ourcottage, when he came ashore in a boat. He was most anxious to speakwith Mr. Mayle."
"So you carried him across to St. Mary's, and he told you, I think,that he had been quartermaster with Adam Mayle at Whydah, on theGuinea coast?"
"Yes."
"Did he name the ship by any chance?"
"No."
"He did once, whilst we were at supper," interrupted Helen, "and Iremember the name very well, for my father turned upon him fiercelywhen he spoke it, and Mr. Glen immediately said that he was mistakenand substituted another name, which I have forgotten. The first namewas the _Royal Fortune_."
"The _Royal Fortune_," said I, thoughtfully. The name in a measure wasfamiliar to me; it seemed familiar too in precisely this connectionwith the Guinea coast. But I could not be sure. I was anxious todiscover George Glen's business with Adam Mayle, and very likely myanxiety misled me into imagining clues where there were none. I putthe name away in my mind and went on with my conjecture.
"Now on that Sunday George Glen met Adam Mayle in the churchyard, you,Miss Mayle, and Lieutenant Clutterbuck were of the party. Together yousailed across to Tresco. So that George Glen could have had no privateword with Mr. Mayle."
"No," Helen Mayle agreed. "There was no opportunity."
"Nor was there an opportunity all that afternoon and evening, untilCullen left the house."
"But after Cullen had gone," said she, "they had their opportunity andmade use of it. I left them together in my father's room.
"The room fitted up as a cabin, where every word they spoke could beheard though the door was shut and the eavesdropper need not eventrouble to lay his ear to the keyhole."
"Yes, that is true," said Helen. "But the servants were in bed, andthere was no one to hear."
At that Dick gave a start and a jump, and I cried:
"But there was some one to hear. Tell your story, Dick!" and Dick toldhow Cullen Mayle had climbed through the window, and how some hoursafter he had waked him up and sworn him to secrecy.
"Now, do you see?" I continued. "Why should Cullen Mayle have swornDick here to silence unless he had discovered some sort of secretwhich might prove of value to himself, unless he had overhead GeorgeGlen talking to Adam Mayle? And there's this besides. Where has CullenMayle been these last two years? I can tell you that."
"You can?" said Helen. She was leaning across the table, her face alllighted up with excitement.
"Yes. There's the negro above stairs for one thing, Cullen's servant.For another I met Cullen Mayle on the road as I was travelling here.He counterfeited an ague, which he told me he had caught on the Guineacoast. The ague was counterfeit, but very likely he has been on theGuinea coast."
"Of course," cried Dick.
"Not a doubt of it," said Helen.
"So this is my theory. George Glen came to enlist Adam Mayle's helpand Adam Mayle's money, in some voyage to Africa. Cullen Mayleoverheard it, and got the start of George Glen. So here's George Glenback again upon Tresco, and watching for Cullen Mayle."
"See!" cried Helen suddenly. "Did I not tell you you were sent here toa good end?"
"But we are not out of the wood yet," I protested. "We have todiscover what it was that Glen proposed to Mr. Mayle. How shall we dothat?"
"How?" repeated Helen, and she looked to me confidently for theanswer.
"I can think of but one way," said I, "to go boldly to George Glen andmake terms with him."
"Would he speak, do you think?"
"Most likely not," I answered, and so in spite of my fine conjecture,we did not seem to have come any nearer to an issue. We were both ofus silent for some while. The very confidence which Helen displayedstung me into an activity of thought. Helen herself was sunk in anabstraction, and in that abstraction she spoke.
"You are hurt," she said.
My right hand was resting upon the table. It was cut in one or twoplaces, and covered with scratches.
"It is nothing," said I, "I slipped on the hill yesterday night andcut it with the gorse;" and again we fell to silence.
"What I am thinking is this," she said, at length. "You overtookCullen upon the road, and you reached the islands last night. At anymoment then we may expect his coming."
"Why, that's true," said I, springing up to my feet. "And if Dick willsail me across to St. Mary's, we'll make a shift to stop him."
Helen Mayle rose at that moment from her seat. She was wearing a whitefrock, and upon one side of it I noticed for the first time a redsmear or two, as though she had brushed against paint--or blood. Ilooked at my hand scratched and torn by the gorse bush. It would havebeen bleeding at the time when a woman, coming swiftly past us in thefog, brushed against it. The woman was certainly hurrying in thedirection of this house.
"You have told me everything, I suppose," I said--"everything at allevents that it concerns me to know."
"Everything," she replied.
We crossed that afternoon to St. Mary's. There was no sign of CullenMayle at Hugh Town. No one had seen him or heard of his coming. He hadnot landed upon St. Mary's. I thought it possible that he might nothave touched St. Mary's at all, but rowed ashore to Tresco even as Ihad done. But no ship had put into the Road that day but one whichbrought Castile soap from Marseilles. We sailed back to Tresco, andran the boat's nose into the sand not twenty yards from the door ofthe house on Merchant's Point. A man, an oldish, white-haired man,loitering upon the beach very civilly helped us to run the boat up outof the water. We thanked him, and he touched his hat and answered withsomething of a French accent, which surprised me. But as we walked upto the house,
"That's one of the five," Dick explained. "He came on the boat withthe negro to Penzance. Peter Tortue he is called, and he was loiteringthere on purpose to get a straight look at you."
"Well," said I, "it is at all events known that I am here," and goinginto the house I found Helen Mayle eagerly waiting for our return. Itold her that Cullen Mayle could not by any means have yet reache
d theScillies, and that we had left word with the harbour master upon St.Mary's to detain him if he landed; at which she expressed greatrelief.
"And since it is known I am here," I added, "it will be more suitableif I carry my valise over to New Grimsby and seek a bed at the'Palace' Inn. I shall besides make the acquaintance of Mr. GeorgeGlen. It is evident that he and his fellows intend no hurt to you, sothat you may sleep in peace."
"No," said she, bravely enough. "I am not afraid for myself."
"And you will do that?"
"What?" she asked.
"Sleep in peace," said I; and putting my hand into my pocket as if byaccident, I let her see again the corner of her white scarf. Her faceflushed a little as she saw it.
"Oh, yes," she answered, and to my surprise with the easiest laughimaginable. "I shall sleep in peace. You need have no fear."
I could not understand her. What a passion of despair it must haveneeded to string her to that act of death last night! Yet to-day--shecould even allude to it with a laugh. I was lost in perplexity, but Ihad this one sure thing to comfort me. She was to-day hopeful, howevermuch she despaired yesterday. She relied upon me to rescue Cullen fromhis peril. I was not sure that I should be doing her the service sheimagined it to be, even if I succeeded. But she loved him, and lookedto me to help her. So that I, too, could sleep in peace without fearthat to-night another scarf would be fetched out to do the office thisone I kept had failed to do.
I gave Dick my valise to carry across the island, and waited until hewas out of sight before I started. Then I walked to the palisade atthe end of the house. I found a spot where the palisade was broken;the splintered wood was fresh and clean; it was I who had broken thepalisade last night. From that point I marched straight up the hillthrough the gorse, and when I had walked for about twenty minutes Istopped and looked about me. I struck away to my left, and after alittle I stopped again. I marched up and down that hill, to the right,to the left, for perhaps the space of an hour, and at last I came uponthat for which I searched--a steep slope where the grass was crushed,and underneath that slope a sheer descent. On the brink of theprecipice--for that I judged it to be--I saw a broken gorse-bush. Ilay down on my face and carefully crawled down the slope. The roots ofthe gorse-bush still held firmly in the ground. I clutched it in myleft hand, dug the nails of my right through the grass into the soiland leaned over. My precipice was no more than a hollow some twentyfeet deep, and had I slipped yesterday night, I should not have falleneven those twenty feet; for a sort of low barn was built in thehollow, with its back leaning against the perpendicular wall. I shouldhave dropped perhaps ten feet on to the roof of this barn.
I drew myself up the hill again and sat down. The evening was veryquiet and still. I was near to the summit of the island. Over my leftshoulder I could see the sun setting far away in the Atlantic, and thewaves rippling gold. Beneath me was the house, a long one-storiedbuilding of granite, on the horn of a tiny bay. The windows lookedacross the bay; behind the house stretched that tangled garden, and atthe end of the garden rose the Merchant's Rock. As it stood thus inthe evening light, with the smoke curling from its chimneys, and thesea murmuring at its door, it seemed quite impossible to believe thatany story of turmoil and strife and tragedy could have locality there.That old buccaneer Adam Mayle, and his soft-voiced son Cullen, whom hehad turned adrift, seemed the figures of a dream and my adventure inCullen's room--a hideous nightmare.
And yet even as I looked footsteps brushed through the grass behindme, and turning I saw a sailor with a brass telescope under one armand a black patch over one eye; who politely passed me the time of dayand went by. He was a big man, with a great beard and hair sproutingfrom his ears and nostrils. He was another of the five no doubt, andthough he went by he did not pass out of sight. I waited, hoping thathe would go, for I had a great desire to examine the barn beneath memore closely. It was from the barn that the unearthly screeching hadrisen which had so terrified Dick Parmiter. It was between the barnand the house that a girl had brushed against my wounded hand andtaken a stain of blood upon her dress.
The hollow was only a break in the steep slope of the hill. The barncould easily be approached by descending the hill to the right or theleft, and then turning in. I was anxious to do it, to try the door, toenter the barn, but I dared not, for the sailor was within sight, andI had no wish to arouse any suspicions. Helen had told me everything,she had said--everything which it concerned me to know. But had she? Ifound myself asking, as I got to my feet and crossed the hill downtowards New Grimsby.
The sun had set by this time, a cool twilight took the colour from thegorse, and numberless small winged things flew and sung about one'sface; all round a grey sea went down to a grey sky, and sea and skywere merged; and at my feet the lights began to twinkle in the littlefishing village by the sea. I hired a bed at the "Palace" Inn, badethem prepare me supper and then walked on to Parmiter's cottage for myvalise.
There was a great hubbub going on within; Dick's voice was explaining,and a woman's shrill voice overtopped his explanation. The cause ofhis offence was twofold. He had not been near the cottage all day, sothat it was thought he had run away again, and the key of the cottagewas gone. It had not been seen since yesterday, and Dick had beenaccused of purloining it. I explained to Mrs. Parmiter that it was myfault Dick had kept away all day, and I made a bargain with her that Ishould have the lad as my servant while I stayed upon the island. Dickshouldered my valise in a state of considerable indignation.
"What should I steal the key for?" said he. "It only stands in thedoor for show. No one locks his door in Tresco. What should I stealthe key for?" and he was within an ace of whimpering.
"Come, Dick," said I, "you mustn't mind a trifle of a scolding. Why,you are a hero to everybody in these parts, and to one man at allevents outside them."
"That doesn't hinder mother from chasing me about with an oar," heanswered.
"It is the fate of all heroes," said I, "to be barbarously used bytheir womenfolk."
"Then I am damned if I want to be a hero," said Dick, violently. "Andas for the key--of what consequence is it at all if you never lockyour door?"
"Of no more consequence than your bruises, Dick," said I.
But I was wrong. You may do many things with a key besides locking adoor. You can slip it down your back to stop your nose bleeding, forinstance; if it's a big key you can weigh a line with it, and perhapscatch a mackerel for your breakfast. And there's another use for a keyof which I did not at this time know, or I should have been saved fromconsiderable perplexity and not a little danger.