Читать книгу The Dark Ships - Footner Hulbert - Страница 6

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At 4:45 that afternoon the bus for Absalom’s pulled out of the terminal on Redwood Street and headed South. Neill Tryon sat by a window, looking out with a wooden face. Now that he had an objective, he had steadied; he could wait. After thinking it over he had decided to handle this matter by himself—quietly. He wished to avoid subjecting Janet to any ugly publicity. He had dressed himself in a rough surveyor’s outfit, including khaki breeches and knee boots, in order to be ready for anything.

The bus was a small one for local traffic, and the passengers were all residents of the southern counties who had been to town for a day’s shopping. Neill, as the only “foreigner” aboard, received many curious glances which made him slightly uneasy, because he didn’t want to be too well remembered afterward. He had to adopt a new name and character for this expedition. A Ford car passed at the moment and he noticed a field of wheat darkening for the harvest. So be it; he would call himself Ford Wheatley.

The driver, whom the passengers addressed as “Joey,” appeared to be the main circulating medium of gossip for the counties. He was a well-set-up young fellow with a snappy Fedora on one side of his head, and he thought well of himself. He imparted the local news to his passengers and received what they had in return. Neill paid little attention to the talk back and forth; the principal subjects were crops and fishin’. But he pricked up his ears when he heard a voice ask Joey what was the latest from Absalom’s. Joey said:

“There was a dandy little yacht come into the harbor before dawn. She busted a gear or something out in the bay. I fetched her engineer up to town this morning to have a new one made. He calculated to go back with me this evening, but he ain’t turned up, so I reckon it wasn’t finished in time.”

Good! thought Neill. The yacht is still there.

“What’s the yacht’s name?” somebody asked.

“Nadji.”

“What the hell’s that mean?”

“Dogged if I know, Henry.”

“Who’s her owner?”

“Gent named Barrett from New York.”

New York was too far away to be of any interest to them, and the conversation passed to other matters.

“Joey, did you hear that Rainy Stivers hauled seine at Battle Island yesterday and pulled in three thousand pound of rock?”

“No kidding!”

“Gemmen, it’s a fact! At ten cents a pound that’s three hundred dollars at one haul.”

“That money will burn a hole in Rainy’s pants, certain. Bet he comes out in a new automobile, Sunday.”

As they bowled down the concrete road the afternoon shadows lengthened and the passengers got off one by one. Finally there were only two left for Absalom’s. The driver kept turning his head to cast an inquisitive eye at the stranger. At last he said:

“Are you acquainted in Absalom’s, mister?”

“No. Never been there before.”

“What’s your business there may I ask?”

“No business. Thought I’d like a couple of days’ fishing.”

“You ain’t brought no tackle.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure what I’d need. I’ll get it there.”

“Ain’t often a fellow comes down alone to go fishing.”

“Oh, reckon I can join on to some party.”

“Where you going to stop?”

“There’s a hotel, isn’t there?”

“Sure. There’s Wickes’s Hotel, but you’d do better in one of the boarding-houses.”

“Well, I’ll go to the hotel tonight and look round in the morning.”

“What’s the name, mister?”

“Ford Wheatley.”

“Where from?”

“Baltimore.”

“Who you work for there?”

“I represent a New York firm.”

And so on. And so on.

As they came over the top of a low hill Joey pointed out their destination far off to the left. Neill saw, on a little promontory almost surrounded by blue water, a village of white houses dazzling in the level rays of the sun. The wide mouth of the river lay beyond, and still farther off, the misty expanse of the Chesapeake. Neill hardened as he looked at the pretty scene. There lay his job.

As they turned the next corner in the road four gigantic ships loomed before them moored side by side and making a little forest of masts and funnels. It was a surprising sight to come upon in that simple countryside.

“See them ships?” said Joey. “Them’s what we took from Germany after the war. It’s the Montpelier, the Montmorenci, the Columbia and the Abraham Lincoln. Looks as if they was moored right in the cornfield, don’t it? The river’s there, but you can’t see it from here. Once they was the biggest and the fastest ships on the ocean. I been aboard ’em. Jehu! what grand saloons and cabins with the walls covered with hand-paintings and all! It’s a sight, mister!”

“What are they doing down here?” asked Neill.

“The Shipping Board keeps them down here because there’s good shelter and deep water, and it don’t cost nothing.”

“Are they just rusting away?”

“No indeed. Old Captain Bickel and three men lives aboard, and they hires what painters and oilers they want by the day. They’re kept in A-1 shape all right. Once a month they turn the engines over with compressed air.”

“What good are they?”

“I don’t know,” said Joey. “Some say they’ll be wanted for transports in the next war. Others say it would save the taxpayers money if they was sold for scrap.”

“I dare say,” said Neill.

A minute or two later they were in the village. The river lay on one side, the inlet that constituted the harbor on the other; the mouth of the river and the bay out in front. The simple frame houses of the fishermen and the lack of trees, the all-surrounding water and the boats at anchor, gave the place a sea-going character. There was a tang of salt in the air.

It was about eight o’clock and still light when they pulled up in front of Longcope’s general store which faced the harbor. Neill’s eyes instantly fastened on the trim little yacht lying there. A crowd had gathered on the porch of the store to greet the bus and he decided to wait a little until dark before going out to the yacht. It would attract less attention.

“Hey, Wickesy!” shouted Joey. “Here’s a lodger for you.”

The hotel was next door to the store. It was a staring clap-boarded building of several stories out of keeping with the old village. The proprietor, a slack-looking fat man came forward and Neill submitted to being shown a room, but declined dinner. It was impossible to think of eating until he had done what he had come for.

Returning to the porch of the sprawling store, he sat down at the end of the line of men taking their ease and enjoying their after-supper pipes. Sunburnt fishermen, mostly, in gum boots and faded drill shirts. Neill learned that fishing was good and that pound nets were being set out in the bay. The trout had come earlier than was customary.

None of this was to his purpose, and he studied the yacht. Very smart and modern, with her high sides and stubby funnel. Something under a hundred feet over all. She carried two boats on davits amidships, and he noted that one of them was gone. As darkness gathered it seemed odd to him that no lights showed in the cabins. The riding-lights were up.

The man next to Neill was a tall fisherman with white hair and a complexion the color of beet juice. “That’s a tidy little yacht yonder,” Neill remarked to him.

“So you might say,” was the answer. “She’s the latest caper all right. But ugly as hell if you’re asking me.”

“Is she owned hereabouts?” Neill asked, to draw him.

“Nah! We got no toys like that down here. We’re working-people. New York man.” He told Neill the story of the accident to the yacht’s engine.

“Is the owner aboard?” asked Neill.

“Sure he’s aboard.”

“I notice their dinghy is ashore.”

“The crew just come in to go to the movies.”

Neill grinned in hard satisfaction. Owner aboard; crew ashore; the situation was working out to his advantage.

Another man, hearing them talking about the yacht, took up the tale. “The owner was in the store telephoning awhile ago. Fine-looking, big slicker; fresh-complected. But surly. Didn’t have a word to throw to a dog.”

Neill took heart from this. If things were going badly with Fanning, so much the better for himself.

“You’re right he’s a surly brute,” said another. This was a lanky fellow with an innocent blue eye. Neill noticed that the others were inclined to make a butt of him. “I rowed out there with a mess of trout, thinking they’d be glad to buy some fresh fish,” he said. “Just out of the water they was, the prettiest trout I caught this year. But when I come alongside the owner, he ordered me off. ‘Get the hell away from here!’ he says. ‘I don’t want any damned fish! ... Get the hell away from here!’ Just like that!”

“That was manners,” said another voice. “What did you say, Jake?”

“I says ‘Go to hell yourself you long-legged so-and-so! I’m as good a man as you if you do own a yacht. And if you’ll come ashore I’ll prove it!’ ”

There was a general laugh.

“All right,” the speaker went on, “I told you before and I tell you again there is some funny business aboard that yacht, and we ought to investigate it!”

More laughter.

“What do you mean, funny business?” asked Neill, carelessly.

“I’ll tell you, stranger. When I come alongside the yacht I was standing up in my skiff and I could look right into one of the portholes. All closed they was, warm as it is. And on the other side of the glass I seen a beautiful young girl with bare arms and neck. Only seen her for a second, but she nodded her head to me, and beckoned pitiful as if she wanted help real bad.”

Neill’s breast was suddenly lightened. Janet was aboard the yacht, then; he had come to the right place. And she was not a willing passenger, either. That relieved his worst fear. He felt a gush of friendliness towards the speaker.

But he, it seemed, enjoyed no reputation for veracity among his mates. They laughed him down. “You’re seeing things, Jake. You’re wasted fishing. You ought to be one of these here, now, story-writers in the papers.”

“All right! All right!” said Jake. “Some day you men will learn that I’m not as big a fool as you like to make out!”

When it became really dark and the vessels in the harbor were no longer sharply silhouetted against the water, Neill got up and strolled away. Each house along the harbor front had its little pier sticking out from the shore with one or more small boats moored to it, and he had it in mind to borrow one of these without saying anything to anybody.

He turned to the right because in that direction the shore road rose somewhat. Here the little piers were under the bank, and screened from observation. Climbing down the bank, he walked out on a pier and found a skiff with oars in her. He got in and, untying the rope, rowed quietly out in the direction of the yacht.

The water was as smooth as a mirror, and voices came off from the shore with startling distinctness. On the porch of Longcope’s they were still talking about fish. Every star in heaven was shining. No moon. This moon was near its end, Neill remembered. Wouldn’t rise until near dawn.

When he drew alongside the yacht he hailed her, not loud. There was no answer. Tying his skiff to the ladder, he climbed on deck and spoke again. No answer. There was something about the stillness of the little craft that chilled his blood. Where was Janet? He walked forward along the deck and aft again, sticking his head in the different doors and speaking. There was no movement, no sound in reply. Everything aboard was neat and shipshape. The silence was not absolute, for somewhere below he could hear the hum of a generator.

There were two deckhouses on the yacht. The forward house contained a luxurious little dining-saloon, while the after house was merely the entrance to a companionway leading to the quarters below. Having satisfied himself that there was nobody forward, Neill switched on lights in the after house and went down the stairs with his heart rising in his throat. His instinct told him there was something very wrong aboard.

He found himself in a miniature saloon with doors forward and aft. The forward door admitted him to a comfortable sleeping-cabin, empty. A man’s belongings were scattered about. Fanning’s? The after door was locked. It was a light door and putting his shoulder against it he heaved and burst it in.

Switching on lights, he saw Prescott Fanning lying on the floor at his feet, dead. There was a bullet hole in his forehead and a dark wet stain was slowly spreading through the rug under his head. Janet in her pretty evening dress was lying limply in an easy-chair near by. There was a crude smear of blood across her cheek. A gun had slipped from her hand to the floor, and a stale smell of gunpowder hung on the air.

Neill’s heart stood still. He ran to the girl and flung his arms around her. Her body was warm; she breathed; there was no wound on her. Upon wiping her face he saw that the blood was not hers. He crushed her to his breast, trembling in the reaction from his first terrible fear.

Leaving her for a moment, he dropped to his knees beside the body on the floor. Fanning was dead, all right, but to Neill’s astonishment there was still warmth in his body. If only he had come a few minutes sooner! He saw that the hole in his forehead was a wound of egress. He had been shot in the back of his head and the gun had been held so close that his hair was singed.

Neill glanced toward the door that he had burst in. Its key was on the inside. All the portholes were closed and fastened. To his mind there was only one possible explanation. Fanning had attacked Janet and she had shot him. Neill had no thought of blame for her; he approved her courage. Lucky that she had the gun. Where had she got it?

He carried her out into the saloon and laid her on a couch. There was a thermos jug on a stand near by. He sprinkled water in her face and bathed her temples.

Meanwhile he had to make the greatest decision of his life. The trained sleuth in him said: She shot this man and we’ll have to face it out together. She’ll be acquitted, of course. But the man in him thought of how she would be dragged through the mud—Janet! whom he had always laughed at and loved for her delicate ways! And how, after acquittal, fingers would forever point her out as a murderess. I don’t care what the evidence is, the man in him said, she couldn’t have done it. And I’m going to keep her under cover until I can prove it!

She opened her eyes and looked around so wildly and senselessly that Neill feared for her reason.

“Janet!” he murmured. “This is Neill. Don’t you know me, dear?”

Recognition came into her eyes, and like a frightened child she flung her arms around his neck. “Neill! Neill!”

“It’s me, all right.”

“You’ve come!” she murmured in a passion of relief. “I knew you’d come!”

He soothed her silently.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Let’s not talk about it now, dear. I have you safe!”

“Oh, take me away from this horrible place!” she moaned. “Take me away! Take me away!”

He set his jaw and considered. He was on the other side now; he was the hunted instead of the hunter. Quite a different thing. No powerful department to back him up now. Strictly on his own. Where could he find Janet a hideout? The obvious thing was to hire a car and drive to town; but a car could be traced and in that case his usefulness as her defender would be over. He must be on the spot in order to discover the truth of this affair. Where could he put her under cover in this unfamiliar neck of the woods? Suddenly he thought of the dark ships up river.

“Take me away! Take me away!” murmured Janet.

“Okay, Jen. We’re getting out of this.”

Running back into the after cabin, he snatched up her velvet wrap where it lay on a chair. It was a flimsy garment. Apparently that and the gauzy evening dress was all she had. Not enough to keep her warm in an open boat. He picked up a traveling-rug that lay folded on a seat locker, and returning to the saloon, wrapped her in it. She clung to him. Carrying her up on deck and down the ladder, he deposited her in the stern seat of the skiff.

He paused to make sure that everything was straight in his mind. Must take food. He started back aboard the yacht.

Janet raised up, instantly wild with terror. “Don’t leave me!”

“Only to get something to eat. Back in a jiff.”

In the pantry adjoining the dining-saloon on deck he found a refrigerator stocked with cooked food of various sorts. He packed everything hastily in a tin bread-box along with the bread and ran out on deck again.

“Hurry! Hurry!” murmured Janet in the skiff alongside.

“Half a moment!”

He gave a hasty glance in the direction of the shore. All quiet there. Remembering a flashlight he had seen on the bookcase in the saloon, he ran down to get it. While below he thought of something else. In the after cabin he dropped to his knees beside the dead man, and went through his pockets. Finding the little photograph of Janet that Fanning had taken from him the night before, he transferred it to his own pocket, and hastened up on deck.

Casting off the painter of his skiff, he ran out the oars and pulled toward the open water.