Читать книгу The Three Blue Anchors - Ottwell Binns - Страница 6

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Mr. Donne hurried from the window and began to dress. Whilst he did so his mind worked at express rate. The cry he had heard last night had almost certainly been the death cry of the mulatto, checked by the knife-stroke or by a headlong plunge into the harbour. Immediately following that cry two men had come running to the inn—one a little after the other; and the second man had been Ben Bonito, who had been in such stress of emotion that he had gone to the brandy bottle for succour. The other man, almost certainly the ear-ringed Michael, had been under the unfriendly observation of the dead man in the taproom last night. Apparently he had been oblivious of that fact, but possibly after all he had not been so ignorant of the other’s inimical watchfulness—and he had carried a sheath-knife in his belt. But the innkeeper had watched the mulatto, and his distaste for coloured men was known; also, he had been the one who, hurrying from the quay whence that death cry had sounded, had required a stimulant. One of those two men—Michael or Ben Bonito—was responsible for the death of the mulatto.

“Which?”

He asked his question aloud, and as he continued his hasty toilet, considered the problem judicially, and reflected aloud.

“Might be either ... or both.... But why? There’s a motive for all murder unless the killer is a sheer maniac.... I should say the betting was on Bonito.”

For a moment after reaching that conclusion he stood quite still as if action were a hindrance to thought. Then he shook his head.

“Not so sure, after all.... Bonito’s cry just now was sincere.... Didn’t guess till he saw him that the mulatto was the corpse!”

He resumed his toilet, aware of a gathering crowd on the quay. Voices raised in argument reached him.

“Inn be the proper place to lay him.... Coroner’s sure to hold his court in the bar-parlour as he always do.... ’Tis only fitting to save the jury trouble by having the corpse handy——”

“Won’t have him in my house at any price!” interrupted the voice of Ben Bonito. “I don’t like niggers alive or dead, an’ old Trezise’s fish warehouse’ll serve better than the inn.... Take the corpse along there. Won’t interrupt no business these days, an’ ’tisn’t seemly that a dead man should lie in a house for public refreshment. Men can’t take their drink in comfort with a corpse within a hand’s reach of ’em, as you might say.”

“An’, by St. Petroc,” broke in another voice, “that be true.... Bonito’s right. It ’ud spoil the taste of good liquor to know that. Besides, no man could be merry without offence to the corpse. House where a man lies dead should be solemn an’ quiet, with blinds down and folk treading softly. Trezise’s fish house is the proper place, say I.”

Someone else had an opinion to offer and before he had finished delivering it, Mr. Donne was in the street and on the outskirts of the little throng. A man almost at his elbow asked a question.

“Where do the man belong to? He’s a stranger to these parts.”

“Came off that yacht that put in yesterday an’——”

“Well, where’s the yacht to, then?”

A dozen heads lifted sharply at the question, and as many pair of eyes turned in the direction of the harbour. Mr. Donne’s was among them, and as he stared towards the point where the rusty yacht had been anchored he whistled in sheer surprise.

“Gone!” ejaculated one of the men.

“Leaving behind this clay-cold corpse, drowned, and likewise stuck with a knife,” commented another quickly. “Damned fishy, I call it. An’ so’ll the constable when he hears it.”

“Won’t hear for a bit,” said another man. “Paul’s off to Truro this morning——”

“Somebody’ll have to let en know.”

Mr. Donne stared at the place where the yacht had been anchored. The fact that she had departed, leaving behind her the dead mulatto, had a sinister look. He wondered if he could have been mistaken in thinking the cry he had heard last night had come from the upper end of the quay. If it had come from the yacht——

“Fishy!” he mentally echoed, and looked at Bonito, who was standing by the dead man.

There was an odd reflective look in the innkeeper’s eyes, but nothing that betokened guilt. Yet, thought Donne, something had shaken him after closing-time last night. If that disturbing thing had not to do with the death of the mulatto what on earth could it have been?

He was still considering this question when the bearers of the dead man moved on towards Trezise’s warehouse, followed by practically all the crowd which had gathered. Indeed, only Bonito and himself remained in front of the inn; and as the landlord became aware of him he made a gesture of puzzlement.

“Queer goings-on!” he remarked. “My sign has gone, and that craft has gone, and only that dead nigger be left.”

Donne looked round. They were alone in front of the Three Blue Anchors. He looked at the windows, first at those below and then at the higher ones. There was no one to be seen there, which, in view of the considerable commotion, struck him as being a little curious; and with the thought there came to him a quick remembrance of the footsteps which he had heard in the night. An odd suspicion assailed him.

“Yes,” he said, “the sign has gone, and the yacht. Wonder if they’re the only things that have slipped their moorings in the night?”

“What do ’ee mean?” asked the innkeeper sharply.

“Well, you had another guest last night unless I am mistaken——”

He broke off as he saw Bonito’s face grow livid. Before he could resume, the landlord hurried to answer.

“So I had! ... what about him?”

“Well, you’ll own there’s been row enough here to awaken the seven Ephesians.... Where is the gentleman?”

“Bobs-a-dying!” cried Mr. Bonito, considering a bedroom window next to the one from which Donne had looked forth. “The gent is sound for sure.”

“And your daughter? But perhaps she’s at the stove cooking the pilchards or——”

He broke off at the sight of Bonito’s face. Again it had the livid look; and in his eyes there was a gleam of apprehension.

“St. Piran!” the man cried. “What strange thoughts are in your mind, sir?”

“As I said, just a wonder if your sign and Mammy Venus’s yacht are the only things that have vanished in the darkness.”

“But you’ve got reasons for the wonder?” demanded the innkeeper harshly.

“Well, nothing very definite. But in the dead of night I chanced to waken. Someone in the house was moving. Then I heard a bolt click and a bit later footsteps sounded from the quay——”

The other did not wait to hear more. He turned swiftly and ran for the open door. As he reached it he bawled loudly:

“Pheeny! Pheeny!”

He was still calling the girl’s pet name as he vanished, and Donne waited with his eyes fixed on the doorway, wondering if his guess would prove to be right or wrong. A clatter of feet on the stairs reached him, then the din of someone rapping a door noisily. He lifted his eyes to the window next to his own, and a moment later glimpsed Bonito with a distracted look upon his face.

“Ear-rings has gone, at any rate!” thought Mr. Donne aloud, in the tone of a prophet who sees his predictions fulfilled. “Wonder if I’m right about the girl?”

Three minutes later he knew. Ben Bonito came out of the inn at a run. There was a wild look in his eyes, and his wizened face had a flush of angry excitement.

“You’re right,” he shouted. “They’ve both gone. Never put head to pillow las’n night, an’ the maid’s things are scattered topsy-turvy everywhere.... An’ they’ve carried something away with ’em. That’s the ear-ringed bandit, I guess, who’ve——”

“What have they taken? The inn-sign, you think?”

“No need for them to lug that about. There was a drawing in the kitchen——”

“Ah! They have taken that?”

“Surely. The thing is gone. Cut out of the frame, an’ who could take it, or who’d want to if they didn’t know the truth of it?”

“But what about the sign?”

“The devil knows. Maybe that black woman who was here yesterday knows something about that.”

“Or perhaps that man they are carrying along to Trezise’s warehouse. He was one of the crew of the yacht.”

“One or t’other,” cried the innkeeper distraughtly, “an’ it don’t matter a pin which. ’Tis all one. The sign has gone an’ the little picture has gone too, an’ the maid—God help her! An’ back of it all is that ear-ringed rascal, I’ll swear. The Almighty set a thief’s curse on him. He——”

“What makes you so sure, Bonito?”

“The niggers and he were here for the same end. I might have guessed it before if I’d had the wit of a mole. Last night, that man they’ve carried up to Trezise’s was watching the other as cat watches a bird. I saw him——”

“So did I,” broke in Mr. Donne.

“The devil, you did?” Bonito’s face was twisted and ugly with suspicion as he stared darkly at his guest, then he cried again in a voice harshly accusing: “Maybe you came after the same thing?”

Donne shook his head and spoke truthfully.

“I haven’t a notion of what you are talking about, my man. I just happened to notice the mulatto was watching the other fellow. That’s all.”

Bonito’s face still betrayed suspicion, and he cried distrustfully, “You’d say that, of course! But how am I to know——”

“Wait!” intervened Donne, sharply. “I’m not used to being named for a liar; and if you weren’t too wrought up to be reasonable I’d knock you down. As it is——” he checked suddenly. He wanted the landlord’s whole confidence and his explanation of the mystery, and softer methods were desirable. “Tell me something,” he continued in mollifying tones. “The thing after which those others came had to do with the sign or the picture, or both, in some way?”

“Everything! ... If you don’t know without axin’.”

Mr. Donne kept his temper.

“Well, I don’t.... You can believe me or not, I don’t care a button shank, but I prefer that you should accept my word, so I’ll just point something out to you that may convince you.”

“What’s that?”

“Last night I supped in the kitchen, didn’t I?”

“Yes! What of it?”

“With that framed picture staring me in the face across the table, hey?”

“It has hung there more than a hundred years.”

“Yes. But just suppose I’d known all about it and had wanted to steal it, what should I have done? After my supper was served no one came in the kitchen. You and Seraphina were busy in the taproom. If I’d had any interest in that drawing and had wanted to collar it, what was there to prevent me from taking it from its hook, or cutting the drawing from the frame and walking out of the house? ... I’ve a launch here, and I might have been miles away with the picture before ever you had discovered its loss.... That’s so, isn’t it?”

The suspicion faded from Mr. Bonito’s face.

“Sounds reasonable, for sure,” he owned, then he broke out despairingly. “But, in heaven’s name, what’s to be done?”

“If you were to give me an inkling of what it is all about, maybe I could tell you that,” answered Donne, taking the chance offered. “Is it the loss of the girl, the sign or the picture that is worrying you most?”

“All three,” answered Bonito. “They’re joined together like links in a cable chain!”

“So. And that man down there”—the speaker nodded in the direction of Trezise’s fish stores—“he doesn’t trouble you at all?”

“Not a button.”

“You didn’t stick that knife into him, by any chance?”

“Me! ... God above! You don’t know what you’re saying, mister!”

“You’re mistaken, I do! And last night I heard a cry—from up there.” Donne indicated the head of the quay. “A few minutes after someone came running down the quay and, flinging himself in the inn, shut the door and bolting it violently——” He broke off and stared shrewdly at Mr. Bonito. The man’s face was ashen, his eyes were round with fear and his skinny hands were shaking. “No need to say who it was, I suppose?”

“N-n-o!”

“You were put out. You had need of a stimulant, and the first glass of brandy you swallowed like water, and——”

“How the blazes do you know, man?”

“I was watching from the stairs and I saw you. You were badly shaken. You needed the brandy—a blind man could have told that.... And you’d just gone out to take the air according to custom! You will remember you told me that? Bit queer, wasn’t it?”

“ ’Tis my heart. It takes me at times——”

“So does mine. It’s a way hearts have.” Mr. Donne broke off and laughed lightly. “Fudge, Mr. Bonito! Scrap the eyewash and get down to the facts. What happened last night up the quay to throw you in such a twitter? Tell me that and one or two other things, and I’ll tell you what is to be done! A man who is wise won’t give advice when the facts are dark to him, you know.”

Bonito visibly hesitated. Donne watched him with a flicker of amusement in his eyes. Then he helped the man to make up his mind.

“It is known that you don’t like coloured men, Mr. Bonito,” he remarked in a casual way.

“What’s that to do with it?” flashed the other, an uneasy look in his eyes.

“Nothing, I suppose,” laughed Donne. “But, you know, if it leaked out that you were taking the air when that murder happened, and that you came running to the inn as if the devil were after you, as like as not you’d be called as a witness. And when the coroner started his questions——”

“Perdition, you don’t mean to inform on me? I swear before God I’d no hand in that dark business.”

Mr. Donne looked doubtful, and spoke like a man a little uncertain of the course to be followed.

“I don’t know what I ought to do.... But I’m open to conviction. If you can prove to me that you——”

“Come inside!” interrupted the innkeeper. “I’ll tell you the facts, an’ maybe other things you want to hear. God knows I need a friend, just now.”

Mr. Bonito turned on his heels and made for the inn door. Donne followed him cheerfully, a little grin of triumph on his face. When he was in the passage, the inn-keeper shut and barred the door then led the way to the kitchen, and waved him to a chair. Donne took the one which he had occupied the previous night and thoughtfully considered the empty frame which had held the sketch of the Three Blue Anchors, wondering what possible value it could be to the man who had stolen it. Then he lighted a cigarette and looked at the man whose confidence he was forcing.

“Well?” he asked.

Mr. Bonito coughed, and in a voice of extreme unhappiness related his story.

“You saw me go out last night, an’ by your own account you saw me come in——”

“Heard you!” corrected Mr. Donne. “Only saw you after—here in the kitchen. It’s what happened between your going forth and returning that I want to hear about, y’know.”

“Well, ’twasn’t so much as you might think, though to be sure ’twas evil enough.... When I went out I walked straight up the quay, as my custom is, to get the fumes of drink blown out of me before going to bed.... Top end of the quay there’s a bollard where sometimes a’nights I sit in the dark to smoke a quiet pipe. I made for it last night, an’ when I got to it I was a bit surprised to find a man already squatted there. ’Twas middling dark, an’ I never recognised the fellow till we were nose to nose, so to speak. Then I made out it was the mulatto. He recognised me in a twinkling and laughed.

“ ’Evenin’, Mistah Bonito,’ he said in an impudent way. ’Yuh sure ain’t goin’ treasure-huntin’ at this hour of duh night.’ ”

“Odd sort of greeting!” broke in Mr. Donne, his curiosity enormously quickened. “What in thunder did he mean?”

“One thing at a time,” answered Bonito. “Maybe I’ll tell you the meaning of the greeting later. But now I’ll say that knowing what I know I found the mulatto’s words a revelation. I knew then why that black woman and he had come to the Blue Anchors.”

“Why had they?”

“That comes later—if I make up my mind to unfold the secret.... Just now I’m explaining what happened. ‘Treasure-hunting!’ said I, answering the fellow. ‘That’s a damn poor game in Cornwall.’

“ ‘But not in Cocos, boss,’ said the nigger with a meaning laugh.

“ ‘Don’t know what you mean, you crazy nigger,’ answered I, and, as Heaven’s my witness, marched on, leaving the fellow there perched on the bollard.”

The innkeeper paused, and his eyes sought Donne’s face as if to assure himself that he was believed. The other, however, was as inscrutable as the sphinx, and after a moment or two Bonito resumed.

“I went half-way up the hill where there’s a seat, and had just planked myself down to have the smoke I’d promised myself on the bollard, when somebody on the yacht began to sing and twang a banjo. I was trying to catch the words, when up from the quay came a sound of angry voices. What they were saying I didn’t catch, till one of them cried out in a scared kind of way. ‘Holy Kerist! Yuh——’ I heard no more but a sort of strangled cry, an’ then a splash.

“I was sure there was something wrong. I didn’t stop to light my pipe, but raced downhill to the quay. I reckon for a man running well in the sixties I made a record; but when I got to the quay there was nothing to be seen. I made for the bollard where I’d left that mulatto fellow, being sure that his was the voice I’d heard. He wasn’t there, but whilst I was wondering what had befallen him, I heard a gurgling sound over the quayside. I stepped to the edge an’ looked over, an’ got a shock. There was a man there, clutching with one hand a rope by which a dinghy was moored, whilst t’other hand pawed the wall as feebly an’ aimlessly as a dying man might grope for the next world.

“ ‘Hallo there!’ I whispered sharply, an’ the fellow lifted his head, and I was sure then that it was the mulatto.

“He saw me, but I guess he didn’t know me. He groaned up at me, and cursed whisperingly.

“ ‘Hell!’ he said. ‘Yuh sure have finished me, yuh debbil. May yuh rot——’

“His voice stopped as suddenly as if you had slit his gullet with a knife. His head dropped on to his chest with the mouth below the water level, then his hand slid from the rope and he went down like a stone, an’ never came up.... I didn’t wait long. Them words of his and his going down like that gave me a bad turn. That he’d mistook me for another was plain as a pikestaff, but his words, if anybody had chanced to overhear ’em, were enough to hang any man to whom they’d been uttered. An’ I didn’t want to stand my trial for murder, so I just ran for the old inn as fast as I could. When I got here I was mortal shook up——”

“You certainly were——” Donne’s voice was almost sympathetic. Then he asked abruptly. “Who d’you suppose did it?”

The innkeeper looked thoughtful. “I might make a guess.”

“I’ll wager on the man!” said the other with a hard laugh.

“You’re thinking of that chap with the ear-rings?”

“Who else? That black woman who came here yesterday and he were old acquaintances. The mulatto was with her, and as like as not he and the other had met before, and the mulatto, as we both noticed, was watching him in the taproom, not in a friendly way, if I know anything.”

“But there’s a snag about that,” said Bonito in a puzzled way. “I don’t know that the man ever crossed the threshold to walk on the quay after dark.”

Mr. Donne chuckled. “But I do. He left the taproom before the mulatto and he went out to the quay. The half-breed nigger followed him. And three minutes later Seraphina went out——”

“Perdition. You don’t say she went out to meet that man?”

“I haven’t a doubt of it. And it wasn’t the first meeting. They forgathered in the gorse at the top of the hill yester afternoon as I happen to know.”

“Then the devil’s in the business!” cried Bonito passionately.

“Likely enough.... And I can tell you this—Seraphina came back here alone last night——”

“That means Ear-rings was outside?”

“Yes! He came back just before you did—running. And went straight to his room. I heard him. Later he crept out and stood on the stairs watching you, whilst you sat in this chair holding the picture that has been stolen.”

“You don’t say?” For a moment Mr. Bonito was plainly on his beam ends.

“Flabbergasted!” commented Donne mentally. Then the other recovered a little. At any rate he found his tongue, and broke out heatedly.

“Then we’re right. The scoundrel killed the mulatto. As like as not he’s the thief who stole the little picture, and ’tis a pound to a farthing that he’s took off Seraphina.”

“I wouldn’t take the bet,” commented Donne with a hard laugh. “No thrifty man throws farthings away so recklessly.”

“But, by the saints, something’s got to be done!”

“There are the police——”

“Police be shot! Paul’s a fool, anyhow. An’ t’wont help the main business to bring the constable—an’ the coroner into it. The coroner’s a lawyer an’ an inquisitive sort of body, who’s given to questioning a man to his undoing. If he got a hint of what’s behind he’d grab it by the forelock an’ just drag it into the public view, which wouldn’t suit me one little bit.”

“Um!” Mr. Donne looked grave. “There’s more behind than meets the eye?”

“There sure is!” cried the other impulsively. “A whole shipload of treasure——”

The man broke off with the abruptness of a man betraying something that he would keep secret; and turned and stared out of the window plainly in a cold fit. Mr. Donne, his eyes gleaming with excitement, watched him, waiting for him to continue. But the innkeeper was manifestly indisposed to further confidences, and kept a stubborn face to the window.

His guest smiled a little sardonically, wondering what spur he might use to quicken the other to revealing speech, and at the same time reviewed what he had heard. Then suddenly he laughed.

“In Cocos!” he ejaculated triumphantly.

Bonito swung round as if he had been pricked with a knife. His eyes flashed angrily, and he fairly roared.

“What the blazes do you mean by that?”

“ ‘A whole shipload of treasure,’ you said,” replied Donne chortling. “And the mulatto named the place—Cocos, which for a guess is Cocos Island, hey?” The speaker chuckled again, and as his mind began to connect what before had been uncorrelated things, he proclaimed his conclusions aloud. “Your missing sign and that stolen drawing—three blue anchors with lettering—had to do with the secret.... Mammy Venus knew that.... The mulatto, too.... Also that fellow with the ear-rings who has run off with Seraphina. Secret goes back to Benito Bonito, who vanished from his old piratical haunts and built this inn. It was because of his hoard, hidden somewhere on Cocos, that he was hanged from the stanchion of his signboard.... The four Bonitos lost at sea were lost looking for this treasure; and the fifth—the one who came back, blinded, with a white scar on his forehead, forty-six years ago come Candlemas, had also gone forth to search for it.... And you——”

“Stop!” cried the innkeeper. “In God’s name how did you learn these things?”

“A man who keeps his ears wide and eyes open, and uses his tongue judiciously can learn much,” answered Mr. Donne. “Question is are you going to let me into the full secret or not?”

“I’ll see you damned first!” shouted Bonito. “It’s nought to do with you.”

“Think so?” The other swung out of the armchair as he spoke. “Treasure-trove belongs to the man who finds it. In any case I’m joining the scramble.” He thrust a hand in his pocket, produced a wallet, and drawing forth a treasury note tossed it on the table. “That will meet the score—and leave you owing me a breakfast.... Good morning, Bonito.”

“W-where are you for?” stammered the innkeeper.

“Where d’you think, Ben?” His guest laughed gaily as he answered. “ ‘Where the carcase is the eagles gather.’ I’m for Cocos Island to meet Mammy Venus and Ear-rings and your Seraphina.” He moved to the door and there waved a hand to the now dumb innkeeper, and spoke rallyingly. “God be with you, Ben, till we meet again.”

He marched down the passage to the quay; the other following him with stricken eyes. For five minutes the innkeeper remained quite still, in deep cogitation, then he muttered aloud.

“If I were to tell him everything an’ take him into partnership——”

The chug-chug of an engine in the harbour broke on his mutterings.

“My God!” he cried. “He’s off!”

That fact precipitated his decision. His hesitation vanished in a twinkling. He ran from the room and down the passage, and fairly raced for the quayside. His late guest, in his motor-boat, was already half-way across the harbour, Mr. Bonito cupped his hands.

“Stop,” he shouted. “Stop! ... Come back.”

That his voice reached the other was certain, but whether clearly enough to be understood he was not sure. The man in the launch looked round. No doubt he saw Ben Bonito on the quay, for lifting one hand from the wheel he raised his hat and waved it ironically. Then without looking round again he raced for the harbour mouth, leaving the innkeeper staring after him with chagrined eyes.