Читать книгу The Riddle of the Rail - Fred M. White - Страница 11

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Marchmont made his dramatic statement quietly enough, and even with the semblance of a smile on his face. But all the same, his listeners deduced the fact that there was drama behind it. Not that it mattered much so far as Norcliff and his companion were concerned, because they were more or less wasting time. But still an hour or so could not make all that difference, and it was not an easy matter to turn their backs upon a blind man, especially when Norcliff was wise to the knowledge that his comrade took more than a passing interest in Marchmont's sister.

"How do you mean?" Trumble asked. "Do you imply that the incident was deliberate?"

"I am afraid so. But, If you have an hour or so to spare, perhaps we had better get back to the origin of things. You see, when I was fighting in France, I made the acquaintance of a man whose name I need not mention, because he is dead, and, curiously enough, if he were still alive I don't suppose I should be here to-day, and I am quite sure that I should be in possession of my eyesight. It is very strange how one thing leads to another, and, what appears at one moment to be a trivial incident, resolves itself, later on, into a tragedy. At any rate, that was my case.

"My friend—let us call him Brown—was a queer sort of chap. A real good sort, and one of the kindest-hearted men I have ever met, though he did hide his generosity under a mask of cynical indifference. He always struck me as a man who has had a great disappointment in life and yet one who was never likely to talk about it, even to his most intimate friends. He was in my own regiment, and, gradually, we drifted together. I liked him and he liked me, without any effusive sentiment on either side. If he had any relations he never mentioned them, and when, eventually, he was killed, I didn't know in the least where to write the usual letter of condolence. I took a lot of trouble in the way of inquiries, but even the War Office could tell me nothing. I knew the poor chap was a gentleman, and, of course, being one myself, I recognised at once the free-masonry of the public schools. You can't mistake that sort of thing."

"That is true enough," Trumble admitted.

"Well, I never even knew which school. And the War Office could tell me nothing. The man called Brown had joined up at the beginning of the war, when they were glad enough to have athletes of his type, and it wasn't very long before he found himself in the commissioned ranks. He was some years older than myself, and he had travelled all over the world. There seemed to be no place where he had not been, and, from what he told me, he knew the Pacific like an open book. Of course, all that sort of thing is interesting to a man like myself, who always had an itch for travelling, but it didn't lead me much further until Brown was fatally wounded. We went over the top one night to cut some German wire, but, unfortunately, the foe had hit upon exactly the same idea as regards ours. They were a bit stronger than we were and we had to retire, leaving a handful of dead and carrying our wounded as best we could. Amongst the casualties was Brown—in fact, I hauled him into safety myself—but I could see, at once, that the poor chap was done for.

"We get him into the hospital and there they made him as comfortable as possible, but it was quite evident that he was finished. He realised that, and, early the next morning, an hour or so before he died, he sent for me. And of course I went.

"He was in no pain and perfectly conscious. And then, when we had both looked the facts in the face, he began to tell me a secret. He didn't mention his family or who he was, or where he came from, and I didn't ask. Evidently he had no desire to talk about that side of his past, so I humored him. And now I am coming to the point.

"What he wanted to talk about was this. He had spent some years in the Pacific, hunting for pearls, more especially amongst those islands where the fisheries were absolutely played out. Islands where nobody went because it was felt that to do so would be a mere waste of time. But Brown was not of that opinion. He knew a need deal about this subject, and his theory was that near a good many of those islands, especially those that had been left alone for twenty years or so, the pearls would be back again. And, as events turned out, he was right. He found an island and there were the pearls, right enough. Any amount of them. His scheme was to gather them himself and, when he had procured enough to make him rich, come home and settle down. With this intention, he landed on the island in question with enough provisions to last him six months and set to work quite alone, and doing his own diving.

"But even in the South Pacific you cannot do that sort of thing without attracting attention. Things get talked about. The mere fact that an eccentric Englishman had been landed by a certain boat on a desert island began to spread. Then a small, adventurous trader hove in sight one day and Brown knew that his secret was about to be discovered. During the two or three hours that the boat was working into the shore, Brown dumped the whole mass of pearl shell back into the lagoon and hid the treasure he had recovered where it would be safe. Then he told the captain of the schooner the truth, and, because he told the truth, the people on board refused to believe him. They only laughed at him for a fool, and he, falling in with their mood, agreed, telling them, at the same time, that his provisions were nearly exhausted and that, if they had not turned up providentially, he would have been face to face with starvation. It was a case of one bluff against another, with Brown sort of top dog at the finish. You see, he had made up his mind to stay on the schooner until they had been to an island of some size and then disembark and lie quietly until he could get some natives to take him back to the island again.

"Now, I dare say all that would have been quite O.K. if something else had not happened. Directly the schooner reached a certain island that boasted a small white population and a telegraph office, Brown heard something that put the pearl fishing entirely out of his mind. This was, you understand, late in 1914. He heard that England was at war with Germany, and that every man would be needed. Brown did not give the pearls a second thought after that. He got back to England as quickly as he could, and joined up. And, in the course of time, he was killed, as I have been telling you.

"But not before he had told me quietly in the hospital all about his adventures in the Southern Seas. You see, he wanted to do me a good turn. So he gave me a plan of that island, with the latitude and longitude, so that there would be no difficulty in finding it, and he asked me to keep the matter a secret. There was nobody else in the world that he cared about, and he knew that I had not much money of my own.

"'My dear old chap,' he said to me. 'You will want money later on. You have given up some of the best years of your life to this big fight, but in a way, it is nothing in comparison with the big fight that is coming to men like you when the war is over. George, old man, that hope about England being fit for heroes to live in is all very well, but when the war ends, as it will, in a few months, you will find it devilish hard to get a living. In a way you have wasted the years when you ought to be carving a career for yourself. And in the British Army to-day there are thousands like you. But I shouldn't worry about that if I were you. You've got a few hundreds left, I suppose?'

"I told him that I had, because I really have a small income and, during the whole of the war, I had saved the better part of my pay.

"'That's all right,' he said. 'You take my advice and go south and find that island. Take half a dozen natives with you and clear out those beds of all their pearls, before anybody tumbles to what is going on, and then clear out. With any luck you ought to pick up a fortune. It is there all right.'

"Well, half an hour later he was dead, and I had the plan safely in my pocket. As a matter of fact, I have it now. It has never left me since the day it came into my hands, though I know now that somebody was following me and watching me all the time."

"Then you really went?" Trumble asked.

"Went? Of course I did. It was just the sort of expedition that appealed to me. I couldn't settle down to regular work, anyhow. Mind you, I didn't forget what you said about my eyes, but I didn't see how a voyage round the world could hurt them. At any rate, I went, and, in the course of time, I found that island. I did not remain on it alone, because I could not have stood the solitude. But I took very good care to do all my own sorting. And this took place generally at night when my natives were asleep. Of course they knew that pearls were once found in the island and they laughed in their sleeves to see this fool of an Englishman wasting his time. Not that they minded, because they were being well paid and well fed, and the longer the expedition lasted, the better they would be pleased. But they didn't know that what Brown told me was absolutely correct."

"Then you really found the pearls?" Norcliff asked.

"I most certainly did," Marchmont replied. "A great many of them small, and of little value, but more than enough to pay the expense of the trip. But amongst them, after six months' work, I had discovered exactly 12 superfine stones, which were worth a fortune. The rest I hid on the island.

"By this time, I was getting tired of the loneliness, so I decided to break off for a bit. With the 12 pearls carefully hidden I went across to the main island about which I was telling you, and there took passage on a sort of liner for New York. It was on that liner that the trouble began, because, before I reached New York, the 'accident' of which I speak had happened to me and I had lost those 12 wonderful pearls."