Читать книгу The World Masters - George Chetwynd Griffith - Страница 7

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It was a lovely May morning on the English Channel, and the steam yacht Nadine was travelling under easy steam at about eight knots an hour midway between Guernsey and Southampton. Her owner, Ernest Shafto Hardress, Viscount Branston, eldest son of the Earl of Orrel, was taking his early coffee on the bridge with his college chum and guest, Frank Lamson, M.A. of Cambridge, and Doctor of Science of London, the youngest man save one who had won the gold medal in the examination for that distinguished degree. In fact, he was only thirty-two, and the medal had already been in his possession nearly a year.

The morning was so exquisitely mild, that sea and sky looked rather as though they were in the Mediterranean instead of the Channel. They were sitting in their pyjamas, with their bare feet in grass slippers.

"Well, I suppose it's time to go below and shave and dress; Miss Chrysie and Lady Olive will be up soon, and we'll have to make ourselves presentable," said Lamson, getting out of his deck-chair and throwing the end of his cigarette overboard. "Hello, what's that? Here, Hardress, get up! There's a body there in the water, horribly mangled."

"What!" exclaimed Hardress, springing from his seat and going to the end of the bridge where Lamson was standing. "So it is! Poor chap, what can have made such a mess of him as that?"

"Fallen overboard from a steamer, I should say, and got mopped by the screw," said Lamson, in his cold, bloodless voice. "It's a way screws have, you know, especially twin screws."

"That's just like you, Lamson," said Hardress; "you talk about the poor chap just as if he was an empty barrel. Still, he's been a man once, and it's only fair that he should have Christian burial, anyhow."

As he said this he caught the handle of the engine telegraph and pulled it over. "Stop." The yacht slowed down immediately, and he went on:

"Lamson, you might go and send the stewardess to tell the ladies not to get up for half-an-hour or so. This isn't exactly the sort of job a woman wants to see. Mr Jackson, will you kindly lower away the quarter-boat?"

The young Viscount was right—for the object that was hauled in from the sea could hardly even be called a human corpse, so frightfully was it mangled out of all mortal shape. When it was brought on board, a careful search was made through the tattered remnants of clothing that were still attached to it for some marks of identification; but nothing was found. A couple of pockets, one in the waistcoat and one in the trousers which were left intact, contained nothing. There was no mark on what was left of the linen. The upper half of the head was gone, and so there was no use in photographing the remains. In short, the ghastly spectacle was the only revelation of a secret of the sea which might never be further revealed.

"I'm afraid it's no good," said Lamson; "there's nothing that anybody could recognise the poor chap by. In fact, it looks to me like a case of deliberate suicide by someone who didn't want to be identified. He's evidently fallen overboard from a steamer, and people don't do that by accident with empty pockets. For instance, that inside coat pocket was made to button, and would probably have had a pocket-book and tickets in it. From what's left of them I should say the clothes were French, and, judging by the locality, I should say he might have been a French passenger from le Havre—perhaps to Southampton on one of the South-Western boats. Hello, what's this? Perhaps this is a clue to the mystery."

As he spoke he put his hand on the back of the body, where the sodden clothes outlined an oblong shape, a few moments after it had been turned over.

"It feels like a box, or something of that sort. At any rate, we'd better see what it is," he went on, taking a sheath-knife from one of the sailors and ripping the cloth open. "Tied to the body. By Jove! Why, this is mystery on mystery! Nothing in his pockets, no mark on his linen or clothes, and this thing tied to his body! Well, I suppose we may as well see what there is in it; and as you're the owner of the yacht and Deputy-Lieutenant of your county, I suppose I'd better hand it over to you."

As he said this he cut the cords and handed the tin box to Viscount Branston, who said as he took it:

"Of course, we shall have to open it, and we'll do it together after breakfast. Now, Mr Jackson, oblige me by having the body sewn up in a bit of canvas. I don't want the ladies to see it in that horrible state. And you may as well put on full speed; we don't want it on board any longer than we can help. Now, Lamson, come along and dress."

When they came out of their state-rooms they found the ladies already on deck, taking an ante-prandial stroll arm-in-arm. Lady Olive was a tall, perfectly-proportioned young woman of about twenty-five, not exactly pretty, but with a dark, strong, aristocratic face, which showed breeding in every line, and which was lighted up and relieved most pleasantly by a pair of soft, and yet brilliant, Irish eyes. When her features were in repose, some people would have called her handsome; when she smiled, others would have called her, not pretty, but charming—and they would have been about right.

Her companion, Miss Chrysie Vandel, daughter of Clifford K. Vandel, President of the American Electrical Storage Trust of Buffalo, N.Y., was an absolute contrast to her. She was about an inch shorter, exquisitely fair, and yet possessed of a pair of deep blue eyes, which in some lights looked almost black. Her brows were several shades darker than her hair, which was golden in the sun and brown in the shade. She was not what a connoisseur would call beautiful, for her features were just a trifle irregular, and her mouth was just ever so little too large. Still, taken as a whole, her face had that distracting and indescribable piquancy which seems to be the peculiar property of the well-bred American girl at her best.

Both were dressed in grey serge, short-skirted yachting suits, and each had a white duck yachting cap pinned to her hair.

"Well, Shafto," said Lady Olive, as the two men took their caps off, "and what is all this mystery about? Chrysie and I have been speculating all sorts of things."

"Why, yes, Lord Branston," chimed in Miss Chrysie. "I got out of my bath and fixed myself double quick, half expecting to come on deck and find ourselves held up by a French torpedo-boat, after all that talk we heard in Jersey about the trouble between you and France and Russia over China."

"I am happy to say it is not quite so serious as that, Miss Vandel," said Hardress, "and I hope we shall be able to get you safe to Southampton before the war starts. The fact is, about an hour ago, while Lamson and I were having our coffee on the bridge, he saw—well, the body of a man, terribly mangled, floating in the water. So we stopped to pick it up. It was frightfully mutilated, and, of course, it was nothing for eyes like yours to look upon, so we've had it sewn up in canvas, and we're taking it to Southampton to give it a decent burial."

"Now, I call that real good of you, Viscount. I guess you British have finer feelings in that way than we have. I don't believe Poppa would have stopped his yacht if he'd struck a whole burying lot afloat."

"Well," laughed Hardress; "that is what a busy man like your father might be expected to do. In fact, I suppose most Englishmen would have done so; but, as it happens, in this case virtue was rewarded—for we have discovered what may be a mystery."

"A mystery! Oh, do say, Viscount. That's just too lovely for words—a yacht, dead body at sea, and a mystery——"

"Yes," said Lamson; "and in a tin box, attached firmly by cords to corpse aforesaid."

"Don't, Mr Lamson; please don't," interrupted Lady Olive, somewhat severely. Then she went on, with a little shiver, "I hope, Shafto, you will get us to Southampton as quickly as you can. I don't want to be shipmates any longer than I can help with—with—ah—remains. It isn't lucky at sea, you know."

"My dear Olive," replied her brother, "about the first thing I thought of was that very idea; that is why we are now steaming full speed—twenty knots instead of eight—so that you and Miss Vandel may be relieved of this disquieting presence on board as soon as possible. And now, by way of passing the inconvenient hours that our new passenger will be with us, suppose we go to breakfast."

"A nice appetising sort of remark that, I must say, Viscount," said Miss Chrysie; "still I suppose we may as well go. This morning air at sea does make living people feel alive; I guess that's why I'm so hungry."

"And after breakfast, Shafto," said Lady Olive, "I presume that you will tell us all about the mystery of the tin box."

"My dear Olive," replied her brother, "it may be anything or nothing; and, as Lamson found it and gave it to me, instead of having it buried with the unknown deceased, I've agreed with him that we shall go through the contents, whatever they are, together; and, of course, if there's anything really interesting in them, then we shall tell you all about it."

"Now, that's real kind," said Miss Chrysie. "I guess if we don't have quite an interesting conversation over lunch it'll be the fault of our new passenger."

"My dear Chrysie," said Lady Olive, frigidly, "how can you! Really, you remind me rather strongly of what Kipling says about the Americans."

"And what might that be, Lady Olive?" she replied, looking up, with the flicker of a smile round her lips, and the twinkle of a challenge in her eyes.

"I don't think I remember the exact words just now, but I've got the 'Seven Seas' downstairs," replied Lady Olive; "but I think it's something about the cynic devil in his blood that bids him mock his hurrying soul."

"Thanks!" replied Miss Chrysie, with a toss of her shapely head, and an unmistakable sniff; "I think I've read that poem, too. Isn't there a verse in it that runs something this way?—