‘Why should the worst come to the worst?’ I whispered. ‘We aren’t found out, are we?’
‘No.’
‘Then why speak as though we were?’
‘We may be; an old enemy of ours is on board.’
‘An old enemy?’
‘Mackenzie.’
‘Never!’
‘The man with the beard who came aboard last.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure! I was only sorry to see you didn’t recognise him too.’
I took my handkerchief to my face; now that I thought of it, there had been something familiar in the old man’s gait, as well as something rather youthful for his apparent years; his very beard seemed unconvincing, now that I recalled it in the light of this horrible revelation. I looked up and down the deck, but the old man was nowhere to be seen.
‘That’s the worst of it,’ said Raffles. ‘I saw him go into the captain’s cabin twenty minutes ago.’
‘But what can have brought him?’ I cried miserably. ‘Can it be a coincidence—is it somebody else he’s after?’
Raffles shook his head.
‘Hardly this time.’
‘Then you think he’s after you?’
‘I’ve been afraid of it for some weeks.’
‘Yet there you stand!’
‘What am I to do? I don’t want to swim for it before I must. I begin to wish I’d taken your advice, Bunny, and left the ship at Genoa. But I’ve not the smallest doubt that Mac was watching both ship and station till the last moment. That’s why he ran it so fine.’
He took a cigarette and handed me the case, but I shook my head impatiently.
‘I still don’t understand,’ said I. ‘Why should he be after you? He couldn’t come all this way about a jewel which was perfectly safe for all he knew. What’s your own theory?’
‘Simply that he’s been on my track for some time, probably ever since friend Crawshay slipped clean through his fingers last November. There have been other indications. I am really not unprepared for this. But it can only be pure suspicion. I’ll defy him to bring anything home, and I’ll defy him to find the pearl! Theory, my dear Bunny! I know how he’s got here as well as though I’d been inside that Scotchman’s skin, and I know what he’ll do next. He found out I’d gone abroad, and looked for a motive; he found out about von Heumann and his mission, and here was his motive cut and dried. Great chance—to nab me on a new job altogether. But he won’t do it, Bunny; mark my words, he’ll search the ship and search us all, when the loss is known; but he’ll search in vain. And there’s the skipper beckoning the whipper snapper to his cabin: the fat will be in the fire in five minutes!’
Yet there was no conflagration, no fuss, no searching of the passengers, no whisper of what had happened in the air; instead of a stir there was portentous peace; and it was clear to me that Raffles was not a little disturbed at the falsification of all his predictions. There was something sinister in silence under such a loss, and the silence was sustained for hours, during which Mackenzie never reappeared. But he was abroad during the luncheon-hour—he was in our cabin! I had left my book in Raffles’s berth, and in taking it after lunch I touched the quilt. It was warm from the recent pressure of flesh and blood, and on an instinct I sprang to the ventilator; as I opened it the ventilator opposite was closed with a snap.
I waylaid Raffles. ‘All right. Let him find the pearl.’
‘Have you dumped it overboard?’
‘That’s a question I shan’t condescend to answer.’
He turned on his heel, and at subsequent intervals I saw him making the most of his last afternoon with the inevitable Miss Werner. I remember that she looked both cool and smart in quite a simple affair of brown holland, which toned well with her complexion, and was cleverly relieved with touches of scarlet. I quite admired her that afternoon, for her eyes were really very good, and so were her teeth, yet I had never admired her more directly in my own despite. For I passed them again and again in order to get a word with Raffles, to tell him I knew there was danger in the wind; but he would not so much as catch my eye. So at last I gave it up. And I saw him next in the captain’s cabin.
They had summoned him first; he had gone in smiling; and smiling I found him when they summoned me. The state-room was spacious, as befitted that of a commander. Mackenzie sat on the settee, his beard in front of him on the polished table; but a revolver lay in front of the captain; and when I had entered, the chief officer, who had summoned me, shut the door and put his back to it. Von Heumann completed the party, his fingers busy with his moustache.
Raffles greeted me.
‘This is a great joke!’ he cried. ‘You remember the pearl you were so keen about, Bunny, the emperor’s pearl, the pearl money wouldn’t buy? It seems it was entrusted to our little friend here, to take out to Canoodle Dum, and the poor little chap’s gone and lost it; ergo, as we’re Britishers, they think we’ve got it!’
‘But I know ye have,’ put in Mackenzie, nodding to his beard.
‘You will recognise that loyal and patriotic voice,’ said Raffles. ‘Mon, ’tis our auld acquaintance Mackenzie, o’ Scoteland Yarrd an’ Scoteland itsel’!’
‘Dat is enought,’ cried the captain. ‘Have you submid to be searge, or do I vorce you?’
‘What you will?’ said Raffles, ‘but it will do you no harm to give us fair play first. You accuse us of breaking into Captain von Heumann’s state-room during the small hours of this morning, and abstracting from it this confounded pearl. Well, I can prove that I was in my own room all night long, and I have no doubt my friend can prove the same.’
‘Most certainly I can,’ said I indignantly. ‘The ship’s boys can bear witness to that.’
Mackenzie laughed, and shook his head at his reflection in the polished mahogany.
‘That was vera clever,’ said he, ‘and like enough it would ha’ served ye had I not stepped aboard. But I’ve just had a look at they ventilators, and I think I know how ye worrked it.—Anyway, captain, it makes no matter. I’ll just be clappin’ the darbies on these young sparks, an’ then—’
‘By what right?’ roared Raffles in a ringing voice, and I never saw his face in such a blaze. ‘Search us if you like; search every scrap and stitch we possess; but you dare to lay a finger on us without a warrant!’
‘I wouldna’ dare,’ said Mackenzie gravely, as he fumbled in his breast pocket, and Raffles dived his hand into his own. ‘Haud his wrist!’ shouted the Scotchman; and the huge Colt that had been with us many a night, but had never been fired in my hearing, clattered on the table and was raked in by the captain.
‘All right,’ said Raffles savagely to the mate. ‘You can let go now. I won’t try it again.—Now, Mackenzie, let’s see your warrant!’
‘Ye’ll no mishandle it?’
‘What good would that do me? Let me see it,’ said Raffles peremptorily, and the detective obeyed. Raffles raised his eyebrows as he perused the document; his mouth hardened, but suddenly relaxed; and it was with a smile and a shrug that he returned the paper.
‘Wull that do for ye?’ inquired Mackenzie.
‘It may. I congratulate you, Mackenzie; it’s a strong hand, at any rate.—Two burglaries and the Melrose necklace, Bunny!’ And he turned to me with a rueful smile.
‘An’ all easy to prove,’ said the Scotchman, pocketing the warrant.—‘I’ve one o’ these for you,’ he added, nodding to me, ‘only not such a long one.’
‘To thingk,’ said the captain reproachfully, ‘that my shib should be made a den of thiefs! It shall be a very disagreeable madder. I have been obliged to pud you both in irons until we ged to Nables.’
‘Surely not!’ exclaimed Raffles.—‘Mackenzie, intercede with him; don’t give your countrymen away before all hands!—Captain, we can’t escape; surely you could hush it up for the night? Look
here, here’s everything I have in my pockets; you empty yours too, Bunny, and they shall strip us stark if they suspect we’ve weapons up our sleeves. All I ask is that we are allowed to get out of this without gyves upon our wrists.’
‘Webbons you may not have,’ said the captain; ‘but wad about der bearl dat you were sdealing?’
‘You shall have it!’ cried Raffles. ‘You shall have it this minute if you guarantee no public indignity on board!’
‘That I’ll see to,’ said Mackenzie, ‘as long as you behave yourselves. There now, where is’t?’
‘On the table under your nose.’
My eyes fell with the rest, but no pearl was there; only the contents of our pockets—our watches, pocket-books, pencils, penknives, cigarette-cases—lay on the shiny table along with the revolvers already mentioned.
‘Ye’re humbuggin’ us,’ said Mackenzie. ‘What’s the use?’
‘I’m doing nothing of the sort,’ laughed Raffles. ‘I’m testing you. Where’s the harm?’
‘It’s here, joke apart?’
‘On that table, by all my gods.’
Mackenzie opened the cigarette cases and shook each particular cigarette. Thereupon Raffles prayed to be allowed to smoke one, and, when his prayer was heard, observed that the pearl had been on the table much longer than the cigarettes. Mackenzie promptly caught up the Colt and opened the chamber in the butt.
‘Not there, not there,’ said Raffles; ‘but you’re getting hot. Try the cartridges.’
Mackenzie emptied them into his palm, and shook each one at his ear without result.
‘Oh, give them to me!’
And, in an instant, Raffles had found the right one, had bitten out the bullet, and placed the emperor’s pearl with a flourish in the centre of the table.
‘After that you will perhaps show me such little consideration as is in your power.—Captain, I have been a bit of a villain, as you see, and as such I am ready and willing to lie in irons all night, if you deem it requisite for the safety of the ship. All I ask is that you do me one favour first.’
‘That shall debend on wad der vafour has been.’
‘Captain, I’ve done a worse thing aboard your ship than any of you know. I have become engaged to be married, and I want to say good-bye!’
I suppose we were all equally amazed; but the only one to express his amazement was von Heumann, whose deep-chested German oath was almost his first contribution to the proceedings. He was not slow to follow it, however, with a vigorous protest against the proposed farewell; but he was overruled, and the masterful prisoner had his way. He was to have five minutes with the girl, while the captain and Mackenzie stood within range (but not earshot), with their revolvers behind their backs. As we were moving from the cabin in a body, he stopped and gripped my hand.
‘So I’ve let you in at last, Bunny—at last and after all! If you knew how sorry I am… But you won’t get much—I don’t see why you should get anything at all. Can you forgive me? This may be for years, and it may be for ever, you know! You were a good pal always when it came to the scratch; some day or other you mayn’t be so sorry to remember you were a good pal at the last!’
There was a meaning in his eye that I understood; and my teeth were set, and my nerves strung ready as I wrung that strong and cunning hand for the last time in my life.
How that last scene stays with me, and will stay to my death! How I see every detail, every shadow on the sunlit deck! We were among the islands that dot the course from Genoa to Naples; that was Elba falling back on our starboard quarter, that purple patch with the hot sun setting over it. The captain’s cabin opened to starboard, and the starboard promenade deck, sheeted with sunshine and scored with shadow, was deserted but for the group of which I was one, and for the pale, slim, brown figure further aft with Raffles. Engaged? I could not believe it, cannot to this day. Yet there they stood together, and we did not hear a word; there they stood out against the sunset, and the long, dazzling highway of sunlit sea that sparkled from Elba to the Uhlan’s plates; and their shadows reached almost to our feet.
Suddenly—an instant—and the thing was done—a thing I have never known whether to admire or to detest. He caught her—he kissed her before us all—then flung her from him so that she almost fell. It was that action which foretold the next. The mate sprang after him, and I sprang after the mate.
Raffles was on the rail, but only just.
‘Hold him, Bunny!’ he cried. ‘Hold him tight!’
And as I obeyed that last behest with all my might, without a thought of what I was doing, save that he bade me do it, I saw his hands shoot up and his head bob down, and his lithe, spare body cut the sunset as cleanly and precisely as though he had plunged at his leisure from a diver’s board!
Of what followed on deck I can tell you nothing, for I was not there. Nor can my final punishment, my long imprisonment, my everlasting disgrace, concern or profit you, beyond the interest and advantage to be gleaned from the knowledge that I at least had my deserts. But one thing I must set down, believe it who will—one more thing only and I am done.
It was into a second-class cabin, on the starboard side, that I was promptly thrust in irons, and the door locked upon me as though I were another Raffles. Meanwhile a boat was lowered, and the sea scoured to no purpose, as is doubtless on record elsewhere. But either the setting sun, flashing over the waves, must have blinded all eyes, or else mine were victims of a strange illusion.
For the boat was back, the screw throbbing, and the prisoner peering through his porthole across the sunlit waters that he believed had closed for ever over his comrade’s head. Suddenly the sun sank behind the Island of Elba, the lane of dancing sunlight was instantaneously quenched and swallowed in the trackless waste, and in the middle distance, already miles astern, either my sight deceived me or a black speck bobbed amid the grey. The bugle had blown for dinner; it may well be that all save myself had ceased to strain an eye. And now I lost what I had found, now it rose, now sank, and now I gave it up utterly. Yet anon it would rise again, a mere mote dancing in the dim grey distance, drifting towards a purple island, beneath a fading western sky, streaked with dead gold and cerise. And night fell before I knew whether it was a human head or not.
Bullion!
William Hope Hodgson
William Hope Hodgson (1877–1918), the son of an Anglican priest, ran away to sea at the age of thirteen. He was duly returned to his family, but obtained his father’s permission to fulfil his ambition by becoming a cabin boy. Whilst on board the ship, he experienced bullying, and the need to be able to defend himself prompted a keen interest in physical fitness. In 1898 he received the Royal Humane Society’s medal for heroism after rescuing a fellow sailor from shark-infested waters off the coast of New Zealand. Returning to England, he opened a school of physical culture in Blackburn, and wrote a number of articles about physical fitness before turning his attention to fiction. He became an accomplished and influential author of horror, supernatural, and crime stories before being killed by an artillery shell while serving at Ypres in 1918.
Hodgson’s understanding of ships and sailing and his keen awareness of the dangers and mysteries of the sea are evident in much of his best work, notably the chilling and brilliant horror story, ‘The Voices in the Night’. His novel The Ghost Pirates (1909) was admired by H. P. Lovecraft. ‘Bullion!’ first appeared in Everybody’s Weekly in 1911. It’s a lively example of the ‘impossible crime’ or ‘sealed room’ story with a nicely evoked maritime setting.
This is a most peculiar yarn. It was a pitchy night in the South Pacific. I was the second mate of one of the fast clipper-ships running between London and Melbourne at the time of the big gold finds up at Bendigo. There was a fresh breeze blowing, and I was walking hard up and down the weather side of the poop-deck, to keep myself warm, when the captain came out of the companionway and joined me.
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‘Mr James, do you believe in ghosts?’ he asked suddenly, after several minutes of silence.
‘Well, sir,’ I replied, ‘I always keep an open mind; so I can’t say I’m a proper disbeliever, though I think most ghost yarns can be explained.’
‘Well,’ he said in a queer voice, ‘someone keeps whispering in my cabin at nights. It’s making me feel funny to be there.’
‘How do you mean whispering, sir?’ I asked.
‘Just that,’ he said. ‘Someone whispering about my cabin. Sometimes it’s quite close to my head, other times it’s here and there and everywhere—in the air.’
Then, abruptly, he stopped in his walk and faced me, as if determined to say the thing that was on his mind.
‘What did Captain Avery die of on the passage out?’ he asked quick and blunt.
‘None of us knew, sir,’ I told him. ‘He just seemed to sicken and go off.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to sleep in his cabin any longer. I’ve no special fancy for just sickening and going off. If you like I’ll change places with you.’
‘Certainly, sir,’ I answered, half pleased and half sorry. For whilst I had a feeling that there was nothing really to bother about in the captain’s fancies yet—though he had only taken command in Melbourne to bring the ship home—I had found already that he was not one of the soft kind by any means. And, so, as you will understand, I had vague feelings of uneasiness to set against my curiosity to find out what it was that had given Captain Reynolds a fit of the nerves.
‘Would you like me to sleep in your place tonight, sir?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ he said with a little laugh ‘when you get below you’ll find me in your bunk, so it’ll be a case of my cabin or the saloon table.’ And with that it was settled.
‘I shall lock the door,’ I added. ‘I’m not going to have anyone fooling me. I suppose I may search?’
‘Do what you like,’ was all he replied.
About an hour later the captain left me, and went below. When the mate came up to relieve me at eight bells I told him I was promoted to the captain’s cabin and the reason why. To my surprise, he said that he wouldn’t sleep there for all the gold that was in the ship; so that I finished by telling him he was a superstitious old shellback.
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