Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  I reached quickly, and caught the head searcher’s elbow.

  “For the Lord’s sake, sing out to your man to quit mauling the lady,” I said, “or there’s going to be a lot of unnecessary trouble.”

  “Svenson,” sung out the chief searcher. “Come out of that!”

  At his voice, the semi-circle of passengers glanced round quickly; and I took charge.

  “Come, ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “This is a matter between Mrs. Ernley and the United States Customs. I am sure you do not want to embarrass her more than need be; so please allow matters to arrange themselves. You can trust me to see that the lady will get courteous treatment, while she’s aboard my ship.”

  “That’s the tune, Captain!” called out one of the men passengers. “If this sort of thing is necessary, let it be done properly, I say.”

  “You may be sure that the head officer and I will show all consideration for the lady,” I answered. “He must carry out his duty; but he has no wish to make it more unpleasant than need be. Now do, please, all of you go away from the doorway. There is no need for any scene.”

  They melted like snow, now that their instinctive desire for fair and courteous treatment for a woman in trouble had been assured, and I stepped right in through the doorway, and touched the woman-searcher on the shoulder.

  “Allow me one moment,” I said. “Perhaps I can get Mrs. Ernley to listen to me without continuing this painful situation.”

  The woman-searcher glanced over my shoulder at her chief, who must have nodded his assent to my intervention; for she loosed hold of Mrs. Ernley immediately.

  “Mrs. Ernley!” I said. “Mrs. Ernley! Please listen to me. You must give the necklace up. You will have to pay the duty; but the chief searcher has kindly assured me that he will not press any charge against you, if you will consent now to let matters go forward, without further trouble.” I looked over my shoulder at the head officer.

  “I am right in making the lady this promise?” I asked, under my breath. “I have your promise?”

  He nodded. I could see that the man was geniunely sorry for her; but he had to do his duty, which was to see that Uncle Sam got his full and necessary pound of meat.

  “Now, Mrs. Ernley, please give me the necklace, and end this distressing scene. It is distressing us all. We are all genuinely sorry for you; but you must realise that luxuries must be paid for; and the Customs can favour no one. Come, now.” And, very gently, I eased her hands open, and took from her the tightly rolled up glittering string of stones. She stood then, looking not at me, but fixedly at the stones, as I held them out to the head officer. She was trembling from head to foot, and I beckoned suddenly to the woman-searcher to hold her; for I thought she was going to faint.

  The head officer let the glimmering string of light swing a time or two in his hands, as if he were, himself, fascinated by the flashes they sent out. Then he turned, and put his head out of the cabin doorway.

  “Jim,” he called, “slip up and fetch Mr. Malch.”

  “The official appraiser,” he explained, turning back to me. “I’ll have him on this job; then there sure can’t be any error!”

  In about two minutes the man, Jim, returned with Mr. Malch — a long, thin, hard-bitten looking man.

  “Hand it across, Soutar,” he said, “I’ll soon put you wise to the quality of the goods!”

  He took it over to the port-hole, and laid it out in the bunk — Mrs. Ernley’s own bunk. Then he pulled a case out of his pocket, and bent over the necklace.

  I was standing by Mrs. Ernley, talking to her quietly, to try to ease the tension a bit. The woman-searcher, who was evidently the Miss Synks who had found the necklace, had moved behind Mrs. Ernley, ready to support her, if need be. I must say they were downright considerate to her, taking things all round.

  Suddenly, the appraiser burst out into a contemptuous laugh.

  “For all sakes, Soutar, aren’t you wise to know glass from the real thing!” he said, turning round. He held the necklace out to us all. “There’s not a diamond there!” he went on. “It’s one of those Carn Prism fakes. If the lady bought this for the real goods, she’s been done as brown as a coffee bean!”

  Mrs. Ernely let out a shrill scream —

  “It’s real! It’s real! I know it’s real! I paid a million dollars for it!” She sprang at the man and snatched it from his hand.

  “Real glass, Madam!” he said, grimly. “I guess you can take that kind of stuff ashore by the cartload, duty free. We ain’t going to object! Of course, the setting’s fine. It’s real platinum; but I guess we’re looking for more than settings!”

  Mrs. Ernley let the necklace fall with a sharp little clatter of sound, to the floor. And Miss Synks was just in time to catch her, as she fainted.

  I helped her lift her on to the settee; then I picked up the condemned necklace, coiled it up and tossed it on to the table.

  “Poor little woman!” said the chief of the searchers. “She’s sure been put through a quick-change scene of high-voltage troubles. I guess she’s got a sure police-case against that Paris jeweller! That’s if they ever put hands on him again, which ain’t a likely thing, after clearing up a million as easy as all that!”

  Abruptly, a sudden idea came to him; and I saw suspicion flash into his eyes.

  “I’ll take another look, Captain Gault, at that necklace you’ve got in charge for the little lady!” he said, with a little curt note in his voice. “Maybe I made a mistake somewhere. We’ll have Mr. Malch on the job. He’s the man that know the real goods.”

  “Certainly!” I said. “Come up to the chart-room.”

  He beckoned to the appraiser, and we all went up to the chart-room. I stepped across to the drawer, and fetched out the first necklace. I handed it to the appraiser without a word. I was getting a heap weary of it all.

  “Same sort of prism muck!” said Mr. Malch, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, after a series of tests. “I guess it’s the guy over in Paris that’s made the dollars this trip! Come on, Sourtar. Sorry to have bothered you, Cap’n; but I guess it’s all in a day’s work.”

  “Just so,” I said, as dryly as I could.

  After they had gone I went down to see how Mrs. Ernley was. She had come round when I called, and was helping her maid to pack. She looked up at me, very white-faced, and very red-eyed.

  “Please go away, Captain Gault,” she said. “Thank you for all you’ve done. I want to get right away and never see anyone again. I’ve been a very silly, weak woman. Please go away.”

  And, of course, I had to go.

  But this evening, when all my business was done, I dressed, and had a taxi sent down to the ship. I was going up to see Mrs. Ernley, at her big house up Madison Square way. I meant to make the returning of the sham necklace an excuse to call; though I wondered whether she might not still refuse to see me.

  However, when I sent my name in to her, I found I was to be received, and I went in, wondering how I should find her. She was sitting in a pretty boudoir sort of room; and when I entered, she was playing idly and rather sadly with the other necklace; but as I came into the room she threw it on to a chair, and came across to meet me.

  “A million dollars is a lot to lose in one lump,” I told her, as she sat down again; “even for a rich woman like you.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “But I guess that’s not what I’m feeling worst about now I’ve got steadied a bit. I showed that I was poor stuff, didn’t I, Captain Gault? I guess I’ve never been so ashamed of myself in my life as I feel right now.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “I fancy you’ve won more than you’ve lost, if you feel that way, dear lady.”

  “Perhaps I have,” she answered, rather doubtfully, as she reached out for the necklace she had been playing with. “The police here have cabled across, and I guess they’ll do their best to nab that crook, Monsieur Jervoyn, who sold me this rubbish; though I’m not surprised I
was taken in. Even the Customs expert couldn’t tell they weren’t real, first go off, could he?”

  I nodded again.

  “Mrs. Ernley,” I said, “you’ve come well out of this affair, in many ways, and I think you’ve taken it as a bit of a lesson, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I don’t think I shall ever forget what I’ve gone through today; and all the voyage, for that matter. I suppose, Captain Gault, you feel just simple contempt for me? You feel I’ve proved I was weak. You said I should.”

  She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “I suppose being rather well-off does make one inclined to grow soft, morally,” she murmured at last.

  “I guess Life is either Training or Degeneration,” I told her. “But smuggling diamonds isn’t necessarily degeneration. It consists largely of using Circumstances. But it’s a man’s job. A woman’s too much given to expecting heads I win, tails you lose. And that’s just dodging Circumstances. And dodging Circumstances is plain Degeneration.”

  She nodded.

  “I guess you’re right, Captain Gault,” she said quietly. “A woman’s awfully apt to think she ought to be able to eat her macaroons and have them still in her hand. And that’s impossible, it seems!”

  I stood up, smiling at the pretty, earnest way she mixed her words.

  “In this case, dear lady,” I said, “the ‘plumb impossible’ has happened, or something like it. I’ll run along now; but you’ll like to know that the necklace you’ve got in your hands is worth just about one million dollars cash, so I’d put it away safe tonight before you turn in.”

  She had stood up, as I was speaking, and she held the necklace out now in her right hand, and stared first at me, and then back at it, as if she were half dazed with what I had just said to her.

  “What?” she asked at last, in a voice that was low and deep, like a man’s, with the nerve shock that had half paralysed her and relaxed her vocal chords. “What?”

  “Please sit down,” I said, and guided her back gently into her chair.... “Now you’re all right.... Sure?”

  She nodded speechlessly at me.

  “Listen to me, then,” I told her. “That’s your million-dollar necklace. The actual thing you bought in Paris. It’s genuine and quite all right. I saved it for you. Probably you’d like to know, so I’ll tell you how.

  “When the Customs man came up into my chart-room, I showed him the sham necklace, and he tested it and found that it was sham. Then one of his men came up to say that they had found the real one in your cabin ventilator. I had pretended to put the false one back into one of my chart-room drawers, but really I had coiled it up tight in my hand.

  “I followed the chief searcher down, and I coaxed you to hand over the real one, which you had rolled up into a ball in your hands, after you must have snatched it from the woman-searcher.

  “Then I handed the Customs man the false necklace, which had been ready in my hand, and kept the real one in its place.

  “Of course, they simply found out, for the second time of asking, that the false necklace, was as false as it was! Pretty obvious sort of thing to find. Afterwards, you remember, you snatched it back, when the expert told you it was only Carn glass, and then you fainted and dropped it on the floor. I helped lift you to the settee; then I picked up the false necklace; wrapped it up, and threw it on to your cabin table; but what I actually threw was the real one, and kept the false one again held tight in my hand.

  “Now, don’t you admire my nerve, chucking down on to the table right in front of the expert, a million-dollar necklace, as if it were just common so-much-a-ton-stuff — eh? Wasn’t that a great bluff, dear lady?”

  “Sure! Sure! Sure!” she gasped out, her eyes dancing. “And then?”

  “And then I guess I sealed the trick. The Customs man got a sudden notion that he would like to have another look at the necklace I had shown him in my chart-room.

  “Well, I took him up there, along with the expert, and I went over to the drawer, dipped in my hand, that held the sham necklace, and then pulled the thing out, in a sort of ad lib fashion, for them to examine for the third time of asking. They certainly showed some interest in that length of prism sparklers! By the way, I’ve brought it back for you,” and I drew it out of my pocket and laid it on the table.

  Mrs. Ernley rose now and went across to a small writing desk. I saw a minute later, that she had started to fill in a cheque; and I guessed it was my commission.

  I walked over to her, and put my hand across the cheque-book.

  “Dear lady,” I said, “I can take no commission for what I did. Our business transaction ended when you changed the necklaces.... But, out of curiosity, I should like to know just how much the cheque was going to be?”

  “Look!” she said, and I drew away my hand, and looked. It was for a hundred thousand dollars.

  “I’m glad!” I told her. “I guess you’ve stamped pretty solid on the poor streak in you. You’re sure going to be one of the few women I can think well of. But I can’t take that cheque, dear lady. If you want to go on the way you’ve begun, send it to the Sailors’ Home. They need the cash pretty bad, I know.”

  Then I shook hands and left; though she begged me to stay; and showed the nicest and best possible side that a woman has to show.

  “What a strange man you are, Captain Gault,” she said, as I turned and smiled at her in the doorway.

  “Maybe,” I said. “All humans are a bit strange to others, when you get the lid off some of their soul pots!”

  But when I got out into the street I couldn’t help thinking how true my notions of woman often are. Her actions are prompted either by insane meanness, or else by an equally insane generosity!

  I guess it’s right that old Adam left the governor out!

  THE DIAMOND SPY

  S.S. Montrose,

  June 18.

  I am having enough bother with one or two of the passengers this trip, to make me wish I was running a cargo boat again.

  When I went up on the upper bridge this morning, Mr. Wilmet, my First Officer, had allowed one of the passengers, a Mr. Brown, to come up on to the bridge and loose off some prize pigeons. Not only that; but the Third Officer was taking the time for him, by one of the chronometers.

  I’m afraid what I said looked a bit as if I had lost my temper.

  “Mr. Wilmet,” I said, “will you explain to Mr. Brown that this bridge is quite off his beat? And I should like him to remove himself, and ask him please to remember the fact for future reference. If Mr. Brown wants to indulge his taste in pigeon-flying, I’ve no objections to offer at all; but he’ll kindly keep off my bridge!”

  I certainly made no effort to spare Mr. Brown; and this is not the first time I have had to pull him up; for he took several of his birds down into the dinner-saloon yesterday, and was showing them off to a lot of his friends — actually letting them fly all about the place; and you know what dirty brutes the birds are! I gave him a smart word or two before all the saloon-full; and I fancy they agreed with me. The man’s a bit mad on his pigeon-flying.

  Then there’s a bore of a travelling colonel, who’s always trying to invade my bridge, to smoke and yarn with me. I’ve had to tell him plainly to keep off the bridge, same as Mr. Brown, only, perhaps, not quite in the same manner. And there are two ladies, an old and a young one, who are always on the bridge-steps, as you might say. I took the opportunity to talk to the oldest about my eighth boy, today. I thought it might cool her off; but it didn’t; she’s started talking to me now about the dear children; and as I’m not even married, I’ve lied myself nearly stupid, confound her! And the old lady has let the young one know, of course! And the young one has left me now entirely to the old one’s mercies. Goodness me!

  But the passenger who really bothers me is a Mr. Aglae, a sallow, fat, darkish man, short, and most infernally inquisitive. He seems always to be hanging about; and I’ve more than a notion he’s cultivating a confidential friendship wi
th my servant-lad.

  Of course, I’ve guessed all along he’s a diamond spy; and I don’t doubt but there’s little need for the breed in these boats; for there’s a pile to be made in running stones and pearls through the Customs.

  I nearly broke loose on him today, and told him, slam out, I knew he was a spy, and that he had better keep his nose out of my cabin and my affairs; and pay a bit more attention to people who had the necessary thousands to deal successfully in his line of goods.

  The man was actually peeping into my cabin when I came up behind him; but he was plausible enough. He said he had knocked, and thought I said, “Come in.” He had come to ask me to take care of a very valuable diamond, which he brought out of his vest pocket, in a wash-leather bag. He told me he had begun to feel it might be safer if properly locked up. Of course, I explained that his diamond would be taken care of in the usual way; and when he asked my opinion of it, I became astonishingly affable; for it was plainly his desire to get me to talk on the subject.

  “A magnificent stone!” I said. “Why, I should think it must be worth thousands. It must be twenty or thirty carats.”

  I knew perfectly well that the thing was merely a well-cut piece of glass; for I tried it slyly on the tester I carry on the inner edge of my ring; and as for the size, I purposely “out”; for I knew that if it had been a diamond, it would have been well over a hundred carats.

  The little fat spy frowned slightly, and I wondered whether I’d shown him that he was getting up the wrong tree; and then, in a moment, I saw by the look in his eyes that he suspected me as much as ever, and was putting me down as being simply ostentatiously ignorant of diamonds. After he had gone, I thought him over for a bit, and I got wishing I could give the little toad a lesson.

  June 19.

  I got a splendid idea during the night. We should dock this evening, and I’ve just time to work it. The diamond-running talk came up at dinner last night, as is but natural in these boats; and different passengers told some good yarns, some of them old and some new, and a lot of them, very clever dodges that have been worked on the Customs.