The Kang-He Vase/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
THE BROWN HAND
That was a summer morning of great beauty, by land and sea, and under any circumstances, I should have rejoiced in my surroundings. The sun was already well up in a cloudless sky, the deep blue of which was reflected in the lightly dancing waves all round me—dancing under the gentle stirrings of a soft wind that blew shoreward from the south and drove the surface waters to a long ripple of white against the dark outline of the mainland, three miles away. The atmosphere was peculiarly clear, and I could see all the places along the coast, and pick out the bolder features of the island hills: as I stood there, gazing shoreward, I could have named a dozen such features, from the grey tower of our own parish church at Middlebourne to the great grove of beech on Belconbury Beacon, fifteen miles away to the eastward, and to the high buildings and tall ships’ masts in the docks at Kingshaven, half that distance to the West. But close as all these things looked in that pellucid morning air, I felt that for all practical purposes Pepita and I—for the time being, at any rate—were as far off them as if we had been in some island of the Pacific. There were reasons for that feeling, and good ones, due to the peculiar nature of the coast in our neighbourhood. For some distance from the shore line the sea thereabouts was very shallow; the shallow waters extended for many miles into the Channel. And Kingshaven itself could only be entered by a passage running far away from Melsie Island, while our own light craft at Middlebourne and Wreddlesham, coming out from thence to the fishing grounds, could only get in or out by another equally remote on the other side. Melsie Island, in short, was out of the way of craft of any sort: from any of the big ships going into Kingshaven, or coming out of it, it would look like a speck on the water; to the fishing boats, passing it at some considerable distance on its eastern side, it had no significance. If it had not been for its absolute remoteness from any sea-route it would certainly have had a warning light, if not a permanent light-house on it; it had neither, for the reason that there was no likelihood whatever of any ship, big or little, getting so much out of its course as to come anywhere near it. And so I knew that there was small chance of anybody coming to rescue Pepita and myself from this strangely-brought-about imprisonment. As far as I knew, nobody knew that Getch had brought us here, though it might be that our departure from the Shooting Star, in company with Uncle Joseph, had been witnessed by Mandhu Khan. But on that we could not count—and there was always the possibility that the Hindu man-servant was in league with Uncle Joseph and Getch, and had come spying at our prison-window on their behalf, just to see what we were doing. We could count on nothing. No doubt Captain Marigold was actively on the search for his daughter, and I was sure that Keziah would not let her tongue rest in demanding me—I felt, too, that Cherry would bestir himself in seeking for both. But who would dream of our having been carried off to this place? There we were—straight in front of their noses!—and, as I have said, we might as well have been in Samoa.
But why had we been brought there at all?—that was the question which had been forcing itself upon me from the moment in which Getch bundled me, unceremoniously, into his boat. On the mere surface of things, it did not seem very difficult to get an answer to this question. Whether he had actually stolen it or not, there was no doubt whatever—in my mind, anyway—that my precious kinsman, Uncle Joseph Krevin, was in possession of the Kang-he vase, nor that the rascally landlord of the Shooting Star was his accomplice. It seemed to me, putting together the various things of which I was aware, that the whole business worked itself out something like this—Uncle Joseph, the murdered man, Cousins, and Getch were accomplices in the plot to rob Miss Ellingham of her exceedingly valuable piece of Chinese vase, for their own profit. Probably Cousins effected the actual theft, and handed over the vase to Uncle Joseph in the fish-bag found by Keziah under our best bedroom dressing-table: Uncle Joseph, in the privacy of that sacred chamber, transferred the loot to his own venerable brown bag. Meanwhile, down there at Gallowstree Point, Cousins was murdered—why and by whom Heaven only knew! But Keziah and I told Uncle Joseph that Cousins was murdered—and Uncle Joseph cleared out, bag and all. I thought—piecing the bits together in my mental review—that he went away to Fliman’s End, and was there, in the grey morning, taken off in a boat by Getch, and carried across the creek, past the scene of the murder and Middlebourne Grange, to the Shooting Star at Wreddlesham. No doubt he thought he could get away from Wreddlesham during that day, or on the succeeding night—no doubt, too, he and his host found that he couldn’t, every neighbouring railway station and bus route being watched. So at the Shooting Star he remained, snug and safe—until Pepita and I walked in. He was safe no longer, then—and so Getch had conveyed him here, to Melsie Island, and us with him. But … how did he expect to escape from the island, and when?
I was not re-assured about our prospects of escape when, presently, I went back to the tower. Pepita, who seemed to have a genius for sound slumber under any conditions, was still fast asleep in her corner. But Uncle Joseph was wide awake, and when I entered, was looking about him, regarding the various packages with a speculative eye. He nodded at me, in quite friendly fashion.
“I hope you’ve passed a comfortable night, Benjamin?” he remarked. “The young lady, I see, is still in the land of Nod, as they call it. As for me, I’ve slept in a many better places, and in a many worse. I think, if I were you, Benjamin, my lad, I should see about getting ready a bit o’ something to eat.”
He nodded at the boxes and cases we had carried ashore, and it was when I began to investigate their contents that I felt doubts about the term, long or short, of our detention on the island. We were certainly provisioned for some time; there was enough stuff, eatable and drinkable, to last the three of us for at any rate several days: indeed, it appeared to me that somebody, Uncle Joseph, or Getch, or the two of them combined, or the iron-faced housekeeper-woman at the Shooting Star, had exercised a good deal of care and forethought in furnishing our commissariat department. And there was not only the stuff to eat, but the materials wherewith to cook it—spirit-stoves, kettles, frying-pans, and the like: Uncle Joseph seemed to take a deep interest in all of them.
“I think I should advise one o’ them cold tongues this morning, Benjamin,” he said, thoughtfully. “They’re toothsome and tender, ready for table, and easy opened: we can try something more ambitious another time, as we get accustomed to fending for ourselves. You’re no doubt of a domesticated turn, Benjamin?”
I gave that question the go-by, though I proceeded, being hungry, to get breakfast ready.
“How long do you suppose, or am I to understand, that we’re going to have to fend for ourselves?” I asked. “I should like to know.”
“I couldn’t say, Benjamin,” he answered meekly. “I’ve no idea! It depends on circumstances, you see, and you’re no doubt well aware, youthful though you are, that circumstances is queer things—we can’t always control ’em.”
“I certainly can’t control mine!” I retorted, as I lighted the spirit-stove, and filled the kettle from a keg of water which had come with the other goods. “Or I shouldn’t have been here!”
“Well, well, and I shouldn’t either, if I could control mine, Benjamin!” he said. “Leastways, my present unfort’nate ones. But a deal of experience of life, Benjamin, has taught me that similar experience’ll doubtless teach you—that circumstances was made to make the best of. There’s excellent coffee in that tin, Benjamin, and milk and sugar somewheres, and we shan’t have to eat with our fingers, neither. I’ll sniff the morning air outside a bit while you make the repast ready.”
He got up from his improvised but quite comfortable couch, and moved off to the open doorway. And I saw then that he had made a pillow of his old brown bag—the bag which had been deposited in our porch at midnight, at the very beginning of all these happenings. He had slept on it; no doubt to keep it close to him, and he kept it close to him now, for he carried it under his left arm. Through the open doorway I saw him standing with it, there closely held, as he stood on the platform of rocky land outside the tower, looking from one point of the compass to another; he continued to hold it there all the time he stood or strolled about there, and he had it still folded in his arm when he came back. And I said to myself on seeing this that I was quite willing to lay any odds, however extravagant in figure, that packed within that beastly old bag was the Kang-he vase!
I got breakfast ready, taking care that it was a good one, and awoke Pepita. Once fairly awake and realising the situation, she seemed disposed to take the whole thing as not a bad joke and the breakfast as a picnic, and her light-heartedness was uncommonly welcome. She began to help me in laying things out—but presently she seemed to remember something, and looked round with another expression in her face.
“Ben!” she whispered. “I see your fat old uncle out there—but where’s the man from the inn—the bad man?”
I was cynically amused at her differentiation between Uncle Joseph and Getch; my own opinion was that if it came to a question of essence and quality there was precious little of choice.
“He’s hopped it, Pepita!” said I. “Gone in the night, I think; anyway, he’d gone when I woke. We’re alone with my respected uncle.”
“I don’t mind him, Ben,” she remarked. “I don’t think he’s such a bad sort. But that other man frightened me. Have you found out what they brought us here for, Ben?”
“No!” said I. “But I know what I think, and I’ll tell you after. Look here!—you take a tip from me, Pepita. Just behave as if you were taking all this as a sort of picnic, and don’t show any fear of the old chap outside there—I shan’t! We’ve got to stick it out in his company, and we may as well fall in with his idea that we should be friendly. After all, we’re not going to starve, and Uncle Joseph won’t cut our throats—at least, I think not—and we’re bound to be rescued, so we may as well make the best of it.”
“Oh, I’m all right, Ben!” she agreed, cheerfully. “And I’m not afraid of Uncle Joseph—not I! I could get round him, Ben—if I wanted!”
There was no need for her to play any tricks of that sort. Uncle Joseph, presently returning, lured, no doubt, by the pleasant aroma of the hot coffee, was as bland and polite to her as if she had been a princess and he a courtier. He congratulated her on her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and treated me to a solemn disquisition on the virtues of early retirement and early rising. At breakfast he gave Pepita the best slices of the tongue and the cream off the milk, and commanded me to open a jar of raspberry jam—young ladies, he observed, were partial to sweet things, and as we had one in our company we must treat her according. Jailer or no jailer, Uncle Joseph was exceedingly complaisant, and reminded me of nothing so much as a Sunday School Superintendent, presiding over a treat to the best boys and girls. And if he had any anxiety about his situation, it certainly had no effect on his appetite, for he ate and drank with gusto.
This strange meal came to an end, and while Uncle Joseph—who said grace devoutly, as if quite accustomed to such ritual, as I have no doubt he was—filled and lighted his pipe, Pepita and I, in our rôle of faithful attendants, began to clear up the things. But there arose a difficulty.
“Where are we going to find water to wash up with?” said I. “We can’t go on using what’s in that keg: it’ll be done in no time. And for that matter, where are we going to get drinking water when this is finished?”
I looked at Uncle Joseph, as if he were an authority, and he nodded in ready response.
“Just so, Benjamin,” he replied. “Water is what we cannot do without. But I made inquiry on that there point. Of Mr. Getch, of course. Mr. Getch is a clever man, Benjamin—a man of ideas! Mr. Getch pointed out that once upon a time this here island was tenanted by monks. This very tower, as we’re a-sitting in, is the tower of their church. Monks, Benjamin, is men. Where men lives, there must be water—that’s how Mr. Getch argued it, and I take it to ha’ been very clever of him. There’ll be water somewheres on this island, Benjamin—must be, ’cause o’ the monks!”
“It’s three hundred and fifty years, at least, since there were any monks here!” I exclaimed, furbishing up my recollections of history. “Nearer four hundred if anything, and I don’t think anybody’s ever lived here since. If they had a well, or a spring, how do you suppose we can find it?”
“I don’t think that’ll be a very difficult job, Benjamin,” he answered calmly. “Them monks would have their dwelling-places close to the church—I suppose they’re represented in the ruins that lies about all round this here tower. And the water’ll not be far off. It might be a little fresh-water stream, a-tinkling down to the sea. Now, I should suggest that you and missie there should go and look for it—it’ll be a nice okkypation for you this fine morning, and if you linger on the way to do a bit o’ love-making, well, there’s no hurry that I know of. The washing-up can wait.”
We were not slow to take his hint, and, armed with a can and a kettle, we set off on our quest. But before we had reached the door of the tower he called us back, hailing me by name, in a somewhat different tone; a note of admonition had come into his voice.
“Of course, Benjamin,” he said, when we turned to him where he sat, solemnly smoking, the old bag at his side, “of course you’ll understand that you aren’t to do nothing to attract attention to this here island? No waving of pocket-handkerchiefs, nor lighting of fires, nor nothing of that sort, Benjamin—such can’t be permitted, and I take your word of honour in advance that it won’t be done. You must bide easy, you and missie there, till the hour of our release comes—we might ha’ been in far worse predicaments than this, Benjamin, I assure you! For we have food and drink, and you’ll no doubt find water for domestic purposes, and what more can anybody desire? I’ve been worse lodged than this, in my time, Benjamin, more than once—oh, yes, I have indeed!”
He waved us away, as if there was no more to be said about it, and we went—reduced, for the time being, to silence by his humbugging unctuousness. We stopped out some time, too, and made a thorough examination of our more immediate surroundings, and found that in one matter Uncle Joseph had been a good prophet—there was a clear stream of good water at the back of the ruins, running from high ground to the sea, through a fern-clad ravine. Eventually we filled our vessels from it and went back to the tower—and the first thing I noticed was that Uncle Joseph was moving about, putting our goods ship-shape, and that the old brown bag had completely disappeared. I knew then that he had sent us out on purpose. He wanted to hide the brown bag. He had doubtless buried it, somewhere in the undergrowth outside the ruins, or amongst the masses of fallen masonry which lay around the tower. Anyway, we saw it no more—and for the rest of the time he went about freely, sometimes climbing the still usable stair to the head of the tower, sometimes strolling in and out of the ruins. The day wore on; we ate and drank, and did everything and nothing. Night came again; at Uncle Joseph’s request I helped him to rig up a sort of door out of planks and logs that lay about. At last we all retired, as on the previous night—to our corners. I was last to sleep, and first to wake, and when I woke it was with a sudden consciousness that something was wrong. The grey light was just beginning to steal into the tower, and by it I saw a brown hand and long, sinewy brown arm thrust through a hole in our rude door, feeling, groping. …