Читать книгу Short Stories Volume 3 - John Arthur Barry - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The murder at Bezil and Carat's came to light exactly twenty-four hours after the Alaska left the wharf. And it made a sensation. But the police were puzzled in spite of the clue of the new knife found in the bag of tools. They could not believe that the renowned "Toff Bird " would "give himself away" in such fashion. Nor was the job at all like one of his. Thus a fortnight went by before it was suspected that the murderer must really have got off in the Alaska, and the cable began to talk to the 'Frisco authorities. Then the arrival of the steamer was reported, and word flashed under the ocean that no person in the slightest degree resembling the criminal had been found amongst her passengers.

"Couldn't expect anything else," remarked Detective Barnes. "He was there, though, all the same. Good Lord! the beggar's a reg'lar genius! It ain't to be expected that those chaps yonder could twig him when he's done us times and again. Why, I saw the boat start, and I wouldn't like to swear that he didn't ask me for a light for his pipe. The only thing that might lag him is the ring. But I never knew the 'Toff to collar set stones before. And the chances are that he's chucked the gold over the side long ago."

Great was the surprise, then, of those interested to receive word, a month or two afterwards, that the San Francisco police had actually arrested the man with the ring in his possession. And about the latter there could be no possible mistake as, besides its high value and striking appearance, it had not been the property of the firm—simply held by them for initial lettering around the inside of the circlet. This was just finished when the burglar slipped it on his finger. Now it seemed likely enough to be the means of slipping a rope around his neck.

Barnes, armed with full powers, was dispatched viâ London, where he was to procure extradition papers, the Australian Colonies not being considered able as yet to stand alone in that respect.

"I'm blessed if I think I'll be able to swear to him, sir," remarked the officer to the Inspector-General of Police as he started. "I don't know whether I ever saw his natural features. Once, I remember, he shaved himself bald; another time his hair'd be thick and woolly as a nigger's. His features and person he fakes, too, in such a way as to completely and permanently alter his appearance."

"Pooh, nonsense, Barnes," replied the I.-G.P., testily, "I'd pick the fellow out myself anywhere. Didn't we all see him for days together whilst his case against the Advertiser was going on?"

"We did, sir," answered Barnes, triumphantly, "and a week after he swindled a bushman out of £500 by the confidence dodge. I knew at once by the cut of the trick that it was the 'Toff's' doing. Still, the countryman swore hard and fast he'd been robbed by a very stout man with fat cheeks and thick lips, who walked lame and had a cast in the right eye. Can you conceive, sir, of anybody more unlike the plaintiff in Hunter versus the Advertiser? And, doubtless, whilst we were taking notes for future use, he was all made up."

"Well, well, Barnes," replied his superior, "you must bring somebody. These confounded newspapers keep on nagging me about the case at every opportunity. Bring the man who had the ring, and you can't go very far wrong. Remember that, Barnes—bring the man who had the ring!"

"I will, sir," replied the detective, rejoiced at finding his instructions compressed into a single explicit sentence, and happily ignorant of all that sentence held for him in the future.

Barnes's first introduction to his prisoner at San Francisco somewhat staggered him. He found him in a comfortable room, surrounded by flowers, boxes of cigars, and sweatmeats—a dark-complexioned, clean-shaven, rather handsome, middle-aged man, who seemed in the best of spirits, to be heartily enjoying himself, and who, despite a resemblance to the accepted official description, might or might not be the "Toff Bird" for all the detective could say.

"Well," remarked the prisoner, as he puffed a cloud of fragrant smoke into Barnes's amazed face, "I suppose the fun's all over now, eh? And I can tell you I've had a good time of it. Now you'd better set to work and find the real Simon Pure."

"Oh," said Barnes, "what do you call yourself, then? And what does all this funny business mean? Gad, it looks like a scene in a bloomin' burlesque!"

"It is—exactly—my friend," replied the other, as he lit a fresh cigar, "but you don't mean to say that you're going to carry it any farther?"

"You bet, Mr. James Hunter, that I am," replied the detective; "or, rather, I'm going to carry you on to Sydney, there to stand your trial for murder and robbery."

For a minute or two the other looked grave. Then, leaning back in his chair, he burst into shout after shout of laughter.

"Well," said he at last, growing calmer, "I've had some curious things happen to me in my time! But this bangs 'em all! Jove! What will Jack D'Arcy say? Yes, I'll see it through —dashed if I don't! I wonder if there's any damages hanging to the business?"

"It's no use gagging, 'Toff Bird,'" replied the detective, grimly. "We're pretty well up to your moves by this time. And I'm blest if I think much of this one—mistaken identity, of course. Why don't you say you're a bloomin' lord at once, and ha' done with it?"

But at this the prisoner nearly choked in an excess of merriment.

"So I am, you fool," he gasped at length. "I've told 'em so here over and over again. And now I tell you. I only took my family name of Brown so as to have a little peace amongst these democrats. I bought the ring you're making so much fuss about from a chap up yonder in Seattle. Go and find him. He might be your murderer."

"Too thin," replied Barnes, shaking his head. "You're the 'Toff Bird' right enough; and you're cornered at last. Still, I'd have expected you to strike out a better line than this. You were found with the ring in your possession, weren't you?"

"Wearing it at the 'Astor,'" said the other, promptly.

"Then back you come with me to Sydney," said Barnes, stolidly.

"All right," laughed the other. "I should probably have gone there in any case. Got a cousin over yonder I'd like to see. Ever hear of him—Captain D'Arcy, aide-de-camp, or something of the sort, to the Governor?"

But Barnes only smiled knowingly and winked at the chief gaoler, who just then entered to ask if the prisoner wished for anything in the shape of refreshments.

"Let me see," replied the latter, consulting a diary, "I have to receive a deputation of the Daughters of Zion at 3.15. At 3.30 Maroni, the photographer, is due; at 4 I'm to sit for my bust to Jenkins; at 5 I promised the sub-editor of the Hawk an interview. Then, till after dinner, I shall be busy writing autographs—the demand is increasing, and I've risen the price to a dollar each. So I'm sure, Mr.—ah—yes—Barnes, now you know how fully my time is occupied, that you'll excuse me, will you not? May I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again to-morrow?"

"Well, I'm blowed!" was all the reply the flabbergasted detective could make as the chief led the way out of the room.

"Yes," remarked the latter, admiringly, "he's real grit, ain't he? And good as gold. Not a darned mite of trouble does he give either. Fourteen offers of marriage sence he's been here to my own knowledge. Guess you ain't got many o' the sort at the Antip-podes?"

"No," replied Barnes, sourly, "nor, apparently, by the fuss you're making over the fellow, are they too plentiful on this side."

"That's so every time," said the other, good-humouredly. "I can't call to mind just at the pree-cise moment anyone that's been as sandy and chipper as 'His Lordship' yonder."

"But his luggage?" asked the detective. "Any clues in it? Of course, you overhauled everything?"

"I should smile!" replied the other. "However, as a matter of fact, a big old gripsack about filled the bill. And there wasn't no clues worth betting on. Say, you're sure you ain't barkin' up the wrong tree?"

"He had the ring?" asked Barnes.

"You can gamble your bottom dollar right through on that," replied the chief. "I'm takin' you to see it and the rest o' the outfit."

"Then back he goes," replied Barnes, doggedly. "It's him right enough; and this is only one of his deep games. But I'll let him know that he can't act the goat with Bill Barnes the same as he seems to be doing here."

"You haven't got him yet," replied the chief, with a grin. "I reckon there's formalities to eventuate fust."

These took exactly a week of hard worry on Barnes's part to put through, working sixteen hours a day. And all the time the prisoner enjoyed himself mightily, and was made much of by crowds of visitors who flocked full-handed to view "The Great Australian Murderer," concerning whom the "snappy" papers manufactured columns of matter, whilst their stenographers hung eagerly on every word the prisoner uttered, ready to work up a few sentences into a "story."

But at last poor Barnes had the satisfaction of seeing "John Brown" safely lodged in the cabin specially prepared for him on the Humboldt. It not being "the season," there were few people travelling by the Humboldt, and most of these, even, left at Honolulu; so that, practically, Barnes and his prisoner had the ship to themselves after she left the Sandwich Islands and commenced to thread her way through Micronesia.

The Humboldt was a good sea-boat, and so far, from a weather point of view, the trip had been enjoyable. But on getting fairly amongst islet-dotted Micronesia the humours of the hurricane season began to make themselves felt in earnest, and gale after gale howled and tore at the big mail-cargo carrier as if trying to lift her clean out of the water. She was rigged as a barquentine, and the main and mizzen masts were each in one piece of steel. But for'ard everything above the foreyard was wood. Thus, in case of accident, she carried some spare spars lashed to ringbolts along the main deck. Naturally the blows, short-lived in their tropical intensity though they were, had by their quick succession raised a heavy sea, in which the Humboldt floundered at quarter-speed, and with her engines, as often as not, wildly racing. The last three or four squalls had caught her dead on end, sending tons of water over her fo'c's'le-head until the main deck was afloat. And one evening Brown and the detective, coming up for a breath of fresh air, perched themselves on the spare spars so as to be out of the way of the swirling seas that rolled along the deck.

"What's the matter with the chief?" asked Brown, suddenly pointing towards the bridge where the first officer was waving his arms towards them, and apparently trying to make his voice heard through the deafening turmoil.

"Wants us to get out o' this, I fancy," replied Barnes, as the steamer's stern sunk down till it seemed as if she was trying to sit upright on it, whilst the great, sharp bows towered up and quivered in the dusky light like some huge fan clutched and shaken by giant hands below. Then, almost as he spoke, with a thundering roar they crashed in their turn down, down, until bridges and funnels and boats appeared about to topple over on the pair. Then, as they turned in dismay to run, a tremendous sea, high as the shearpole of the fore-rigging, came rushing irresistibly aft, and tore them away like feathers and whirled them overboard.

As he struck out blindly amidst the smother Brown, choking and exhausted, presently felt his hands strike something, to which he clung with all the tenacity of a drowning man. Exerting his strength, he dragged himself astride of what he at once knew for one of the big spars on which he and Barnes had been standing. And as it was tossed hither and thither like a chip amongst the boiling, foaming seas he caught a glimpse of a grey mass far ahead, now seen for a second, then hidden altogether, that he knew must be the Humboldt.