Drowned Gold/Chapter 16

by Roy Norton

 

CHAPTER XVI

IT is rather odd, but true, that a sailor in port without a ship invariably turns toward the water-front for a stroll. So it was that on the following morning Jimmy and I wandered toward the dock from which we had taken the last cargo that the Esperanza was ever to carry. The first man to greet us was the one who had been the night watchman when we were last there, and who had assisted us in a most friendly way.

"Got promoted to day work, have you?" I said, for want of better conversation.

"No, sir," he said. "There are two of us, and we take month in and month out. It was my turn to come on day work on the day after you sailed. Would you mind waiting until I go into the office? There is a letter there for you, sir."

Wondering who could have written me to such an address, I stood talking to Jimmy in the rather grateful shade of the overhanging eaves of the building, until the watchman returned and handed me a very grimy missive. It bore the appearance of having been carried in a not overly clean pocket for some time.

"That letter should have been given you before you left, sir," said the watchman. "It was the fault of that nigger who sweeps up the place at night. He is about a hundred and fifty years old, and has almost forgotten that he is alive. He found this letter two days before you sailed. Whoever delivered it shoved it under the door of the harbor-master's office. When the nigger came to sweep up, about four o'clock in the morning, he put it in his pocket and forgot it for two whole days. In the afternoon after the day you sailed he came to me, scratching his wooly head, and in trouble for fear it might be important and he would lose his job. Wanted to know if it was better for him to tear it up and throw it in the harbor, or to go to the harbor-master and confess. I was afraid they would fire the old fellow, so I took it from him, and kept it in the hope of being able to send it to you if I could learn your address."

Thinking that it could be of no importance, I shoved it into my pocket, and after thanking the watchman and giving him a tip for his trouble, Jimmy and I continued our walk. I didn't think of it again until we were seated on a bench under the shade trees in the deserted Plaza, and then, idly, I tore it open. It is a foolish custom of mine to look at the signature of a letter first of all, and I was rather astonished to discover that my correspondent in this case had signed himself—for it was plainly in a man's handwriting—"A friend." The chirography was cramped and distorted, as if written by one who wished to conceal his identity, which is, of course, not unusual in anonymous letters. My carelessness disappeared before I had deciphered the first half-dozen lines; for it read:

Dear Sir,

I accidentally stumbled on to something to-day that I think maybe you ought to know. You bought some stuff from the arsenal. The carter who hauled some ammunition for you in the last load was stopped just as he was coming into the town by a man with a clipped mustache, about five feet ten inches high, and with three scars on the side of his face. He told the carter that you had sent him to examine the stuff before it was hauled to the dock, but that he had lost his way and had not got to the arsenal in time. He told the carter you would not pay him for hauling it down there until it had been examined. The carter hated to pull it back up the hill, because it was heavy for his horse, and the man with the scars said maybe they could find some other place where he could look at it. The carter's stable was not far away, and he drove it there and unloaded it. The man told the carter that it would take him an hour or two, and that if he had anything else to haul he could go and do it and then come back. The man stopped in the stable and opened all the boxes, and there were shells in them. The carter's wife saw him at the job, and says he took nearly every one apart, whatever that means. Then he packed them all up again, the way they had been, and after the carter came back told him they were all right, and that he could go ahead, and told him that he mustn't say anything about him, the man with the scars, because you would be sore at him for not getting to the arsenal in time. Said he might lose his job, and gave the carter two dollars for himself, to keep his mouth shut' You are welcome to this information.

A Friend.

I had read the letter aloud, and the last words were not out of my mouth when Jimmy exploded: "Klein! That scoundrel deserved to lose his life."

"Klein, of course," I asserted. "The description fits him perfectly. See: 'a man with a close-clipped mustache, and three scars on the side of his face.' That shows how he did the job."

"And if that fool nigger hadn't forgotten the letter and shoved it into his pocket, we should have found out the shells were no good, and the chances are that the Esperanza would have reached the other side before this," growled Jimmy.

There was no disputing the truth of his statement, and I sat somewhat moodily trying not to cry over spilt milk. That blundering black had made the most expensive mistake of his life. We fell to discussing the author of the anonymous letter, but of course could arrive at no conclusion; for it was one of those indefinite things which nothing but time and patience could ever solve. And now it was too late. We were still conjecturing, and were convinced of but one feature, which was that our informant did not know Klein's name, or would have stated it, when we left the Plaza bench and went to our hotel for luncheon.

As we passed through the office the clerk called to Jimmy, and when the latter stopped he said, "There was a man here to see you this morning, sir—a man with his arm in a bandage."

"Must have been Cochrane," said Jimmy, looking at me.

"He left a card for you," added the hotel clerk, and took a scrap of paper from a pigeon-hole behind him and handed it to Jimmy.

The latter read it, and vented a low whistle of surprise. I had already started up the stairs to my room, and he followed after me.

"Well, Tom," he said, with a grin, "I was right, and you were wrong, about Cochrane. It was Cochrane who wrote that anonymous letter. You mistrusted him and thought he lied; but I didn't."

He held the card toward me. It was a mere scrawl, saying:

Called to see you this morning, but found you away. Will be here at eight o'clock to-night. M. Cochrane.

I took the anonymous letter from my pocket, spread it out on the window ledge, and laid the latest missive beside it. A single glance afforded irrefutable proof that the handwriting was the same. The cramped and distorted letters were such as a man would write with his left hand by painful effort. In the face of such evidence, my suspicions of the oiler were perforce swept away; but I wondered, nevertheless, why he had been standing there on the dock that night when the gold was shipped. Twisted Jimmy was rather exultant over his judgment of character, and throughout the meal delivered me a lecture on "going slow before condemning a man unheard," as if he himself didn't have the reputation of suspecting everything and everybody in the world without either rhyme or reason. I was rather glad to get away from him and consideration of Cochrane when, obedient to my promise, I left him to visit Monsieur Périgord.

I found the house strangely rejuvenated, as if its owner had taken a new lease of life. The fine doors of the main entrance were flung wide, as were also all the front windows, as if letting in light and air after a long period of gloom. The gnarled old footman was at the door to receive me before I rang the bell, and now came with a satisfied grin on his face, and bowed before me more deferentially than ever.

"Señor," he said, "it is unbecoming in an old servant to thank you, but I trust you understand. My master, praise be to the Virgin! is a new man. He slept all this forenoon, had a hearty breakfast, and is now sitting out in the shade of the patio, waiting to receive you. You have the gratitude, sir, of my master's household staff, for there is no other such man."

He was actually voluble, and chattered perpetually while ushering me through the long hallway and out into the cool shade of the patio, where the first thing I observed was that the fountain had again been started, and played as if it, too, had been resurrected from the dead.

It was a very smiling Monsieur Périgord who received me, and I could scarcely credit the change in his face. It was not only more animated than I had ever seen it, but a strange, indefinable quality of peace had come over it, softening the rugged features and giving a new light to the eyes. I complimented him upon the change.

"Monsieur Périgord," I said, "you have found the fountain of youth which the illustrious Ponce de Leon failed to discover. You are five years younger."

He actually laughed, as he held up his hand and replied:

"You are mistaken, Captain Hale, in your reckoning. To be exact, I am forty-two years younger, inasmuch as forty-two years of my life have been canceled out; and I am starting again, and taking up the threads at just where I left them off. And I owe this to you, my friend."

I was embarrassed by his gratitude, but felt a very great happiness for what I had accomplished. I could not divert him from the subject, try as I did, and finally had to let him exhaust himself of speech before I had the opportunity of giving him the details of the sinking of the Esperanza with his gold aboard. He was intensely interested by my account of our efforts to give battle to the submarine that had destroyed us, and agreed with me that the traitor Klein had come to a merited end.

But one must not forget," he said meditatively, that, after all, the man is entitled to some forgiveness, and to some admiration for the courage with which he tried to serve his country. It must have required much bravery. Captain Hale, to fight such men as you and your crew, single-handed, and at the same time take a chance on his own life, all for—what did you say? Some plans? What plans? That is the part I don't understand. You have not made it clear."

I bit my lip, realizing that I must have said more than I intended.

"I thought," said I, "that I made it understood that it was probably the gold he was after."

But Monsieur Périgord shook his head, and declared:

"No, for him to have any knowledge of that gold would have been utterly impossible. I saw to that. There was not a man connected with that enterprise who was not a confidential and trusted employee of mine. However, you evidently have some secret which you don't care to confide in me, and therefore we will let the matter drop, because I have other and more important things to discuss with you."

I saw that he took my silence as a just privilege of my own, and waited for him to proceed.

"I thought the entire matter over last night," he said, evenly, as if he had also measured the words he would use, "and came to the conclusion that you have earned as much, certainly, as was agreed upon by us, provided you delivered the gold and accomplished your mission. That portion of your enterprise which failed was not through your fault, and that part which you accomplished meant more to me than anything else possible could have. I therefore intend to pay you the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars agreed upon."

It was a very big temptation, but I still flatter myself that I had the strength to resist it. It is not every man who has the opportunity in his life to turn down such a fortune solely on the grounds that he has not earned it. It may have been quixotic on my part to take this stand, and for a moment I was perplexed as to whether I was doing justice to the men of the crew, who would have shared with me, had we succeeded in delivering that in France; but a moment's reflection convinced me that they neither expected nor were entitled to it from the moment the Esperanza sank beneath the waves.

"That," I declared, "is impossible. I shall not accept it. I did not return to you as a beggar, nor did I come with the hope of reward. I came simply and solely as the bearer of news which I knew would bring you at least some recompense for your loss—a loss that had taken place under me, while I was, in a sense, your trustee. You had faith enough in my honesty to take a chance that not one man in ten million ever takes with another fellow being. Therefore, I should feel it a smirch in my memory if I accepted one penny of payment for something I didn't fully and unqualifiedly earn."

He started up in his chair, and for a long time looked at me. His remarkable sense of delicacy undoubtedly caused him to speak as he did, for he made no insistence, but bent toward me, and said, almost humbly:

"You are right; I was wrong. I beg your pardon, Captain Hale. The courtesies prevalent between gentlemen should have prevented my making such an offer, because obligations between gentlemen are not paid in coin. I must find some other way; but I honour you for your refusal."

I never warmed to this fine old gentleman more than I did in that moment. I was strangely tongue-tied. He spoke again, with his eyes fixed absently away from me, as if further reviewing the case, and almost indeed as if I were not present, and he but soliloquizing audibly:

"Considered from a business point, you chartered your ship for a certain purpose, knowing that you could not get insurance upon her in such a dangerous mission. And again, from your viewpoint, you took all the risks of losing her. You stipulated to deliver a cargo of gold in France for payment. The cargo was not delivered."

"That is quite right," I asserted, "for although the mission was a double one, the commercial side of the transaction was entirely separate from the purely friendly and sympathetic issue. I took the latter on without hope of reward, and through friendliness for you. I failed in the commercial venture—"

"But very nobly won the other," he interrupted softly. Therefore, the commercial side of the transaction is finished. The other portion—that friendly mission, as you call it, a mere hope existing between two gentlemen friends—still stands. I can offer you nothing further, save the immense gratitude of one to whom you have done an absolutely inestimable service. You will at least accept my thanks."

He put his hand over, caught mine, gripped it hard, and stared at me with very warm eyes, and then, with that remarkable shift of demeanor that characterized him, became suddenly again an executive and a man of affairs accustomed to big financial enterprises.

"As I understand it, Captain Hale, you are still at liberty?"

I nodded my head, wondering what was coming next.

"Good," he said. "I now have another commission for you. The duration of this war is uncertain. It would be practically impossible for me to obtain a passage from Maracaibo direct to France. I have no inclination to wait for perhaps a year or two, until peace is declared. I am abundantly able to sail on my own ship. Ships can be had here by neither charter nor purchase. I trust you and your judgment completely. I therefore propose to commission you to buy for me a ship suitable for my purpose, and such a ship as could be utilized during the progress of the war at a profit, and disposed of thereafter without too great a loss. What would you suggest should be her tonnage?"

Thus consulted as a seafaring man who had owned vessels, I could but come back to the purely business side of the question, and give him my judgment.

"I should say, monsieur, that it would depend entirely on what is available for purchase," I replied. "Personally, I should prefer a ship neither too large nor too small. The boats which are making most profit at present are those of between three and five thousand tonnage. It is preferable that they should have high engine power and be smart. If possible, they should be armed, for the time has now come when none but armed merchantmen are safe at sea. Yours should, if possible, be of neutral registration, although at present that seems to add but little to her chance for safety. That much for the business side of it. But here again enters the friendly advice in what you propose. And mine is that in times like these you take no risks whatever by trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean. It is dangerous."

"We are not discussing that side of the venture," he asserted, somewhat stubbornly. "That is for me to decide. And I may warn you also that I am dealing with you purely from the financial basis, for if you don't accept this commission I shall straightway go to your fellow countryman, Farnes, the broker here, and employ him as a purchasing agent, and with instructions to sign on a crew."

For a moment he looked his challenge at me, and I saw a surprising and defiant determination written large upon him. I knew that no words of mine could dissuade him from his purpose.

"As far as you are concerned," he said at last, "I shall treat you merely as a confidential agent. You shall have the regular commission on the purchase of such ship as you deem suitable, and if you will become the master of her I shall pay you a very liberal salary and a bonus for yourself and crew, the same as I should pay any stranger were he to carry out my wishes. I am going to France on a ship of my own, and with the most trustworthy men that I can find. That part is positive. The sole difference that I shall make between you and any other broker is that I shall give you carte blanche to buy and outfit on your own judgment."

I realized at once that he was so resolute, and a blade of such fine steel, that he would have sailed for France on a raft if nothing else had been forthcoming. There was not the slightest use in combating such obstinacy. Entirely aside from reasons of friendship, there was no sense in my declining such a profitable offer. I was without a ship, and without a commission. He had put it upon a business basis, but so liberal that I could not afford to let such an opportunity pass by. And then, as if to offer me a further inducement, he advanced something more.

I should not expect any man as competent as you to take charge of a ship I owned on any other than a profit-sharing basis. It would not be fair to ask a man to venture so much unless he were on a profit-sharing basis. I will give you one half of the profit you can make with any ship you buy."

"But that," I said, "would be too generous."

"That again is for me to decide," he retorted, with the same obstinacy. "And I tell you that if you do not accept this, it is the offer which I shall make to any other man who carries out my wishes."

I knew he meant it, and would fulfill his assertion. I left his house that afternoon, having agreed to become his confidential broker and also to become the master of hist ship; but I carried with me a mental reservation, which was that I should make but one trip across the Atlantic Ocean and that to humor this old man's desire. I could foresee in my commissions and one voyage a profit larger than could be made in any other way, for the time being, and it had the advantage of enabling me to hold together the crew of the old Esperanza, that I had so carefully selected. I had entered through sentiment in the first instance into an attempt to assist one for whom I had a very great pity, and saw no reason why I should not have the personal satisfaction of seeing it through to the end.

Although in an amicable mood, I was not at all eager to meet Cochrane that evening, and so made an excuse to leave Jimmy alone for his appointment; but I was not to escape meeting the oiler after all, for when I returned to the hotel after a long and lazy stroll which embraced not only the water-front but the Plaza, almost the first two men I saw were the engineer and Cochrane. They were seated at one of the little marble-topped tables on the pavement, and talking earnestly, when I started to pass them with the intention of going directly to my room; but Twisted Jimmy saw me. He called and asked me to come to the table and join them, with the remark that there were certain things I should know. Cochrane rose to his feet as I approached, and did not seat himself until I had found a chair and ordered a light refreshment, that being the custom of one occupying space in the busy hours of the evening. The oiler was painfully embarrassed, while Jimmy seemed secretly pleased over something. The latter broke the strain by turning to me, and saying:

"Captain, I thought perhaps you might have a question or two you would like to ask Mike?"

"I have," I asserted; and then, facing the oiler, asked, "I should like to know what you were doing on the dock at that hour of the morning when my boat pulled off? I saw you there."

Cochrane looked shame-facedly at the table for a moment before he answered. "For two reasons, sir. One that I hoped that I could be of some use to you, and the other because I was homesick to see the old ship that had all my friends aboard, and was pulling out and leaving me alone."

"And you had no idea what we were loading, I suppose?" I interrogated dryly.

"Yes, sir, I knew it was the ammunition for the guns."

He had lifted his eyes to mine, and studying them, I was driven to the conclusion that he was telling what he believed to be the truth.

"Another thing I should like to know," I said. "When you learned we were being buncoed with the ammunition, why was it that you did not come to me and tel| me of it, instead of doing such a fool thing as to write an anonymous letter?"

He flared up at this, with all the heat of the savage, fearless Irishman.

"You want to know the truth, sir, don't you? Well, then, I will give it you. You are a fine man, Captain Hale, to have for a friend, but you are a mighty unforgiving one when you become an enemy. After my one dirty trick aboard the Esperanza, I told you the truth of it all. You didn't believe me. I knew that if I went to you personally, you might not believe me again, and in addition to that might treat me like a dog, and tell me to get away and out of your sight. I liked you, sir, but you didn't like me. I admired you, but you thought I was a Judas. That's why I didn't come to you, since you have asked."

It was like a blow in the face to my self-esteem. It shocked me that any man should believe me vindictive and unforgiving, when I have prided myself throughout my life on trying to be fair, just, and decent. Somehow, the words of that fine old poet, Bobbie Burns, suddenly flashed through my mind, and I knew that the power had been given me through the lips of the oiler whom I had despised to see myself as not only he, but perhaps some others, had seen me. I felt that I had failed in more ways than one; that my aloofness had been mistaken for arrogance, and my terseness of speech for mental ugliness. Well, it had cost me my ship; for had I been friendly, forgiving, or merely just, to this man whom I had crippled, his desire to make amends would have impelled him to come to me direct and give personal knowledge of the danger which threatened me. A strange and almost ridiculous impulse made me wish to square myself in his estimation.

"Cochrane," I said, "I am going to thank you for saying what you did. You've taught me a lesson. It doesn't matter how, and I am not going to explain. You've proven to be a broader man than I, because you did your best, in spite of my treatment of you, to do me a service. There are two things I would like to have you do. The first is still to consider yourself my man; for I expect to have another ship, and the second is to take this!"

I stretched my hand across the table toward him, and his hand promptly came to mine, while we stared into each other's eyes with a very fine understanding, I hope. Indeed, it must be so, because we are still very good friends, Mike Cochrane and I. The Irish do have wit and diplomacy after all, for he relieved that very embarrassing situation with a droll grin and an apology, reverting, as he was apt to do in certain moments, to his native brogue: "It's sorry I am, sir, to have to give ye me left hand; but by a very unfortunate accident me right one has so gone out of business that I can't lift it as high as the breadth of the back of my finger-nail."