Читать книгу Sinister Island - Cecil Bernard Rutley - Страница 4

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Little more was said about Dawn’s protégé that evening, but immediately after breakfast the next morning, the girl got out her car and drove to Fenham. She was shown straight into the matron’s room, and a few minutes later Miss Maitland entered.

“Good morning, matron. How——” Something in the elder woman’s face checked the inquiry on Dawn’s lips, and she took a sharp step forward. “He’s—he’s gone?” she asked.

The matron nodded.

“Yes. He passed away early this morning. I’m sorry, Miss Cheverill. We did all we could, but it was an almost hopeless case from the start.”

“I suppose so.” Dawn was conscious of tears in her eyes and brushed them away. “Poor old man. Did he regain consciousness?”

“Yes, and he was very surprised to find himself in bed. So I told him how you had brought him in, and then he wanted to know all about you.” The matron smiled. “I told him all I knew, and he was very grateful. He said you were a very good young lady, and almost his last request to me was that I would give you this.” The speaker went to her desk, and picked up a thin, oblong packet wrapped in stained oilskin which she handed to Dawn. “He seemed to prize it very greatly, and he asked me to say that it was all he had to give you in return for your kindness to him.”

“But you said yesterday evening that there was nothing of value in his pockets,” said Dawn, turning the packet over in her hands and blinking back the tears which persisted in filling her eyes.

“I know. That packet was sewn into the lining of his coat, and I only found it by following his instructions.” Again Miss Maitland smiled. “Your old friend was something of a mystery, Miss Cheverill. He refused to tell me his name, but I think he must have been a sailor. There was a mermaid tattooed on one arm, and that packet is wrapped in a piece of sailor’s oilskin.”

A sailor! So matron thought that, too. Dawn looked up sharply. All the strange thoughts of the previous evening, which had vanished with the new day, now returned with renewed strength at this additional proof of their veracity. A sailor and a mysterious packet! The feeling she had had that something was about to happen was coming true in a most startling manner. She caught the matron’s eyes upon her and nodded her head.

“Yes, it is queer,” she agreed. “Almost like a story.” She turned the packet over again, examining the neat stitches with which it was sewn, then slipped it into her bag. “I’ll take it home and look at it,” she went on. “I wonder what it is.” Dawn smiled at the elder woman. “Thank you so much for all you have done, matron. I’ll tell my guardian to communicate with you. I—we should like the old man to be buried nicely.”

“Certainly, Miss Cheverill, and I hope you won’t be disappointed in your legacy.”

Dawn laughed.

“I hope I shan’t, matron. Anyway, I promise to tell you all about it.”

“Don’t make too many promises, my dear. For all you know, there may be a great secret hidden in that packet, and the fewer who know about it the better. There, you see I haven’t outgrown my childhood. Well, good-bye and good luck.”

Dawn had intended doing some shopping in Fenham, but with the mysterious packet waiting to be opened, she decided that her purchases could wait to another day, and drove home at top speed, bursting in upon her guardian while he was still reading the morning paper.

“Hullo, Dawn, you’re back quickly, aren’t you?” he said, looking up. “How’s your old friend?”

“He’s gone.”

“Gone!”

Dawn nodded her head, and sat down on a pouf facing her companion.

“Yes, he died early this morning.”

“Poor old chap. I was afraid he might. Cheer up, my dear, you did your best, but he must have been an almost hopeless case from the first.”

“So matron said. Uncle Stan, I told her you would pay for his funeral. I would like to bury him nicely. You will, won’t you?”

“Of course, Dawn. I’ll ring up the hospital and tell the matron. Did the old man regain consciousness?”

The girl’s eyes began to twinkle.

“Yes, towards the end. He was surprised to find himself in bed and wanted to know how he got there, and matron told him all about me. Matron thinks he must have been a sailor, Uncle Stan.”

“A sailor.” The man looked up and saw the smile in his companion’s eyes. “Ho, ho! So you’re still harping on your womanly intuition, are you, miss? But a sailor. Surely that was not a difficult guess? A mermaid rather points that way, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, Uncle Stan,” replied Dawn demurely, “but he also left me this packet as a legacy. It was all he possessed, and he asked matron to give it to me because I had been good to him.”

Dawn’s guardian took the packet and turned it this way and that just as she had done. Presently he looked up with a boyish grin.

“Buck up, my dear, say it. I can see ‘I told you so,’ hovering on your lips. This, I suppose, is the cause of those strange feelings you had last night. Well, I admit that so far you have had the best of the argument. An oilskin packet and an old sailor. This is most intriguing. Go on, Dawn, open it and let’s see what is inside. Here, have my penknife to cut the stitches.”

The oilskin was sewn together with thin catgut, but the sharp knife soon cut the fastenings, and with fingers made clumsy by excitement, Dawn drew forth a still thinner package wrapped in a piece of silk. What was she going to find? For some moments she hesitated, almost afraid to unwind the silk lest something commonplace and cheap should be revealed, then she caught sight of her guardian’s face and laughed.

“Why, Uncle Stan, I believe you’re as excited as I am,” she declared. “Won’t it be a sell if it’s something silly? Well, here goes, for better or for worse.”

She unwound the silk and disclosed a small square of folded canvas yellow and stained with age. Dawn’s eyes sparkled.

“Looks promising, Uncle, doesn’t it?” she cried. “What’ll you bet? I say it’s a map.”

“Nothing doing. It’s either a map, or a will, or something of that kind. Your man was a sailor all right, Dawn. That stuff is sailcloth.”

Dawn nodded, and gently unfolding the piece of canvas spread it out on a table by her side. For the most part it was blank, but in the middle was a faint, irregular outline and the points of the compass roughly put in, while near the bottom of the canvas was a single line of faded and almost indistinguishable writing. Dawn read it out slowly.

“ ‘Lion Island, latitude 18° 20′ N, longitude 179° 9′ E. Lugger with great store of pearls on board sunk at point marked X.’ ” The girl paused and for some seconds the silence of the room remained unbroken save for the cheerful crackling of the fire, then Dawn breathed a deep, ecstatic sigh. “It is a map, Uncle,” she whispered, as though afraid her voice might break a spell and the piece of canvas vanish before her eyes, “a real treasure map. Look, there is the island with a hill marked in the centre, and that line round the island must be a reef, and there, to the north of the island, is the cross showing where the lugger lies. Oh! Uncle Stan, isn’t it wonderful? A treasure island! You do think it’s true, don’t you?”

“I see no reason why it shouldn’t be, but that doesn’t mean that the pearls are still there.”

“But matron said the old man seemed to prize the packet very greatly, those were her actual words.”

“Yes, that’s promising, I admit. Did she tell you his name, by the way?”

“No, he refused to tell her. That was strange, wasn’t it? I wonder why.”

“H’m! a bit of a mystery man. Still that settles your right to the map, Dawn. If we don’t know who he was we can’t advertise for relatives, and no one will be coming forward who might lay claim to his possessions. I wonder why he withheld his name though. He may have thought other things more important, or there may have been some other reason. Probably we shall never know.” The speaker picked up the map and examined it more closely. “I don’t think this is as old as it looks, Dawn,” he went on. “The canvas is still perfectly sound, and the writing may have faded through exposure or from some other cause.”

The girl nodded.

“How do you think he came into possession of the map, Uncle Stan,” she asked, “and why has he never been after the pearls himself?”

“Why do treasures so often remain unrecovered by those who know about them? I’ll give you one reason. Your sailor may have been the sole survivor of the lugger’s crew, and he may have been cast up on that island. Not being a swimmer, and having no diving apparatus, he could not recover the pearls, so he made a map, and when at last he was picked up, he kept the secret to himself, hoping to return some day and recover the booty. But he never did, through lack of funds perhaps, and——” The speaker shrugged his shoulders. “There you are, Dawn, that’s one explanation. The question is, what are we going to do?”

“Do? Why we’re going after the pearls of course, Uncle. They are my legacy. Surely you’re not going to miss such a chance?”

Dawn’s companion grinned.

“No, I suppose not, though your friend’s great store of pearls may actually be of little value; people’s ideas of riches differ you know, Dawn, and——”

Dawn sprang up and catching hold of her guardian, shook him vigorously.

“Wretch!” she cried. “You’re being purposely annoying. I know you. You wouldn’t miss the chance of an adventure like this for anything. That island must be in the Pacific, otherwise why the pearls and the lugger? Can’t you imagine it? We’ll go to Australia and hire a lugger of our own, and in her we’ll go off cruising among the islands searching for our treasure. Oh, it will be marvellous! Where’s a map?” She crossed the room to a bookcase and returned bearing a large atlas which she laid on the table and opened it at a map of the Pacific. “Here we are. Latitude 18° North, longitude 179° East. It’s in the Pacific right enough. Here’s the line going right down through the middle of the ocean. Now 18° North. Why it’s almost empty sea according to this map. An unknown island, that’s what we have to find, Uncle Stan. And don’t grin like that. I’ve made up my mind, we’re going, and the next thing to decide is, how soon we can start.”

“Well, we must first lay your old friend to rest. Then we shall need to pack a few clothes, and there’ll be the house to shut up, but——”

Dawn burst out laughing.

“You dear idiot,” she cried. “I know I’m a bit excited. But you must admit that it isn’t every day a girl gets the map of a real treasure island given to her.” Dawn dragged her companion to the window from which, beyond the terrace and the green lawns, a peep of a creek and the distant sea was visible. “Look, Uncle Stan,” she went on, “the mist has gone and the sun’s coming out, so let’s go for a sail. I haven’t been out in my new cutter yet, and I want to christen her. And we’ll make plans while we’re sailing. Only please ring up matron at the hospital first.”

The man looked up at the sky, then nodded his head.

“Right-o. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready. What about getting cook to pack a luncheon basket? It looks to me as though it’s coming out warm and fine for the time of year.”

“I’ll see to it. You ’phone matron.” Dawn paused by the door. “By the way, Uncle, what price a woman’s intuition now?”

Mr. Stanford Wright raised his hands in mock surrender.

“Don’t rub it in, Dawn,” he groaned with a twinkle in his eye. “Next time you have a hunch I promise I won’t laugh.”

“Hunch indeed! I like that. You read too many thrillers, my man. All right, I’ll forgive you. Only buck up, or I’ll be ready before you.”