Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  “Look here, Gault,” he said, as he lit one of my cigars, “you’re going pretty strong with the young lady in Number 4 cabin.”

  “You don’t say, old man,” I replied. “Well?”

  “It’s just this,” he told me. “Don’t trust her too much. I’ve a notion she’s playing a game with you, that’s got more than an odd kiss or so at the bottom of it. Look at this, before you start to cuss me for butting in!”

  He handed me across a folded newspaper clipping, headed —

  “America Opens a New Profession for Women.

  “The Treasury Recruits Twelve Pretty Women to Play I-spy-I on the Trans-Atlantic Jewel-Runners.”

  “Well!” I said, “what of it? You’re not going to suggest to me that Miss Malbrey’s one of them—”

  “Open the thing, man!” he interrupted. “Unfold it!”

  I was doing so, as he spoke, and now I saw what he meant. There, on the cutting, was a photo of a pretty girl, looking at me, and the girl was most extraordinarily like Miss Malbrey (Alicia Malbrey, she’s told me is her name).

  “It’s not her, Jarvis, man,” I said. “I’ll not believe it. I just won’t believe that sort of thing of her. Why, man, look at the face; the eyes are too close for her, and this is a younger woman altogether. And, besides, it’s impossible. Why, she’s just the opposite to anything of this kind. Why, she’s a—”

  I pulled up short, for I had nearly told Jarvis that she was as much a smuggler, in a small way, as either he or I.

  I pondered a moment, whether I might not tell him; but before I could decide, he chipped in again —

  “Poor old chap!” he said. “You sure got it bad!” And that shut me up.

  “Have it your own way,” I told him. “But I happen to have a special reason for knowing that the little lady’s all right.”

  “Ah!” he said, getting up, “I know the special reason well enough, Gault. We all feel that way, when we’re a bit gone on some woman. The worst of it is, they’ve generally too much brutal sense, not to use our little feelings to their own advantage! Ha! Ha! old man! I love to quote your own vinegar sayings against yourself!”

  And with that, he left me, taking his beastly cutting with him. All the same, I’ve had some pretty fierce thinks; but I’ve decided the evidence is quite insufficent to condemn my dainty lady of the laughing eyes. Oh, Lord, haven’t I gone and got it properly!

  January 19.

  “Don’t you just love my doggie, Captain Gault?” said Miss Alicia Malbrey, to me this afternoon.

  “Well,” I answered, “I suppose, Miss Malbrey, there’s all sorts of ways of looking at things.”

  “Now you’re just dodging me, Captain, and I won’t have it!” she told me. “You do love my Toby boykins, don’t you? Tell me honest true.”

  “No, Miss Malbrey,” I replied. “If you want an honest answer, I do not like Toby or any other kind of lap-dog. To my mind, a dog is an unsuitable object for a woman’s arms; and a woman who kisses and nurses a dog, cannot, it seems to me, prize herself as highly as she should, or she would shrink from such physical intimacies with what is, after all, simply a stunted little animal, less useful than a cow, and less courageous than a common rat!”

  “Captain Gault,” she rapped back at me, “you’re sure forgetting yourself. Let me tell you, a dog’s as good as a man, any day!”

  “There’s no accounting for tastes, Miss Malbrey,” I said, smiling a bit. “We men do not hug and kiss our dogs. We consider a woman pleasanter and more suitable.”

  “I should think so!” she interrupted. “Do you mean to say you’d compare a woman with a dog, Captain Gault?”

  “That’s just what I refused to do,” I said. “You see, dear lady, you began by asking me, did I like lap-dogs — or something to that effect; and now, because I like to think they are inferior to women, you’re belabouring me and pretending that I’ve been saying just the opposite! Oh, woman! Woman! In our hours of ease — ! Now, if, instead of asking me what I thought of your lap-dog, you’d asked me what I thought of you — why, then, lady of the winsome face, methinks I would have never ended the nice things I could have said. Why, of all the dainty-faced—”

  I paused, to hunt round for words to describe further.

  “Yes, Captain Gault?” she prompted.

  I looked at her. There was not a sign of anger now in her face; only a sort of waiting — I could almost have thought it was a kind of triumphant expectancy.

  “Yes?” she said again, scarcely breathing the word.

  I looked at her in the eyes, and suddenly I realised that I was being allowed to look right down into them; and a woman only does that when she is either luring or loving.

  Was she flirting with me, or did she really care? I put it to the test, so I caught her up in my arms and kissed her full on the lips.

  “Oh!” she said, with a gasp.

  A minute later, she laughed, breathlessly.

  “I knew you’d not be able to hold out against me much longer!” she said.

  She laughed again, in her quaint, pretty way.

  “Now, shut your eyes a moment, Captain, dear, and see what love will bring you!” she said; and brushed my eyes gently shut with her small hands.

  There was a rustle of skirts; the rattle of the bells on Toby’s collar; a faint creaking, and than a dainty, mocking laugh —

  “That’s as much as is good for you for one day, Captain Gault,” came her voice; and I opened my eyes just in time to see her closing the door.

  New York,

  January 20.

  My Chief Officer came along to my cabin this morning, after I had interviewed the officer of the Customs. My cabin had just been searched; and I had declared all that I meant to declare!

  “I don’t know if this concerns you, Sir,” he said; “but it seems as if it might. The breeze blew it out of one of the Customs men’s hands, and I put my foot on it before they saw where it had got to. I thought you’d better see it at once.”

  “It does concern me, very much indeed, Mr. Graham,” I said grimly, as I read the crumpled note he had handed me.

  “Treacherous little devil!” I heard him mutter under his breath; and I knew that he also guessed who had written the note. It was fairly brief and brutal, and quite comprehensive —

  “Look in the Captain’s chart-room. Middle beam. Turn seventh bolt, from starboard side, to left; and second bolt from port side, to right. Then catch hold of the twenty-forth bolt, from starboard side, and twenty-ninth, from port side, near the middle of the beam, and pull out sideways. A part of the flange will slide out; and there is a recess cut in the deck flanks above. The diamonds are there in a ‘garter.’ Remember, I am not to be mentioned in the case at all. He’s a slippery customer; but I guess I’ve got him nailed down solid this time. — No. 7. F.”

  “Perhaps there’s time yet, Sir, to go one better than her,” said my Chief Officer aloud. “They’ll have to go back to her for fresh instructions, now they’ve lost this paper. Can’t you get up to the chart-room and nobble the stuff, before they get there? You may be in time, yet. Heave the blessed stuff over the side, rather than let them do you in, Sir. That’s what I’d do!”

  I looked at him. I daresay he thought I was a little dazed. I fancy I shook my head; for this was as bad as my worst suspicions could have suggested it. In that moment, I was thinking far less of the “trap” the Customs had prepared so carefully for me, than of the completeness of the ruin of my faith in women in general.

  “Mr. Graham,” I said, “a man’s a preposterous ass if he hasn’t learnt to mistrust any woman, by the time he’s thirty!”

  “Yes, Sir,” he answered, seriously enough. “Unless she’s his mother.”

  “Ah, just so!” I said. “Unless she’s his mother. But they can’t all be our mothers; confound it! I’ll get up to my chart-room. No, don’t come, Mr. Graham. It’s too late now to undo what’s been done.... The treachery of it! My God! The cold, brutish treachery of it!”


  I reached the chart-room, and peeped in through the after window. The Customs were already in the place; four men were in there. And suddenly I heard Miss Malbrey’s voice. I could see her now, over by the starboard side, with her back to me. She was directing operations, as cold-bloodedly as you please. Evidently, they had sent for her, now they had lost her note, to explain how to work the secret catches in the steel beam.

  “No,” I heard her say. “The seventh bolt from the starboard side. Twist it to the left. That’s right. Yes. The second from the port side — To the right. Now, Mace, the twenty-fourth from the starboard and twenty-ninth from the port. Do get a move on you. I don’t want the Captain to catch me here. Pull—”

  I opened the door and stepped inside.

  “Sorry if I’m a little premature, Miss Malbrey,” I said, “May I ask what you are doing in my chart-room?”

  I held the door open for her to pass out. But she took no notice of me; only the cheek and ear that I could see were a burning red. I was grimly pleased that she felt some sort of shame for herself.

  “I must ask you to leave my chart-room, Miss Malbrey,” I said quietly. “This part of the ship is not open to passengers.”

  “Aw! Quit it, Cap’n!” said the man she had called Mace, who was standing on my chart-table, lugging clumsily at the bolt-heads. “We’ve got you at last, I guess, Cap’n; an’ you don’t come any of that tall stuff over us.... Is these two the right ones, Miss?” he finished, looking over his shoulder at Miss Malbrey.

  “Yes,” she said, not much above a whisper. “Pull out parallel with the deck, evenly—”

  “It’s coming,” said the man. “We sha’n’t be long now, Cap’n, before we has you just where we been wantin’ you this two years, an’ more!”

  I said nothing; but walked across to my telephone, and rang up the Chief Stewardess.

  “Please come up to my chart-room at once, Miss Allan,” I said. “Bring a couple of stewardesses with you.”

  I hung up the receiver, just as the man on the table worked the sliding portion of the flange clear of its sockets. He put up his forefinger, and ran it along the recess in the deck-planking above, which he had laid bare. He was obviously disappointed, and made it clear to every one.

  “Aw!” he said. “Watcher givin’ us, Miss! This is sure a bum do! There’s nothin’! Just plain nothin’ at all!”

  “Stop talking foolish!” said Miss Malbrey, in a voice sharp enough to show the kind of metal she was. She made one jump to a chair, and then onto my chart-table. She pushed the man named Mace to one side….

  “It’s gone!” she called out, suddenly, a moment later, in a voice that was half a scream. “It was there! A proper runner’s garter. There were five thousand dollars’ worth of stones!”

  She whirled round on me.

  “You wicked man!” she called out, in a thorough little fury. “You thief! You thief! What have you done with my stones….”

  “‘Ssh!” said one of the other search officers. “There’s someone coming. They’re the Captain’s good we are looking for, Miss. Don’t you worry yourself, and talk rash. You mind how you saw Cap’n Gault hide some di’monds; an’ you done your duty, like a proper citizen, an’ told us.”

  In a way it was almost laughable, if it had not been for the way this pretty little woman was showing the poor, bad stuff she was built of. It was plain enough to me that the man was prompting her, and trying to steady her down to normal control again, before she gave away more completely the plot they had made to trap me.

  But he could not quiet Miss Alicia Malbrey, disgruntled feminine Treasury spy, in that moment of complete failure of all her hours and days of treacherous planning. And then, in the midst of her wild storming at me, as she stood there on the table, the chart-room door opened, and in came the Chief Stewardess, with two strapping looking stewardesses behind her.

  “Ah, Miss Allan,” I said, “perhaps you would kindly see Miss Malbrey to the passengers’ part of the ship. I’ve tried to explain to her that she is intruding here; but I find that she does not quite comprehend.”

  “Aw! Quit the tall talk, Cap’n!” growled the man called Mace, in an ugly sort of way. “An’ you other leddies, let the young leddy be. It’s just more’n you dare do, Cap’n, to shove in between our lot, an’ what we got to do!”

  “Indeed,” I said, as gently as a father. “Am I to understand that Miss Malbrey is a Treasury official?”

  The man, Mace, hesitated and turned red. He had evidently let his tongue off on the gallop, ahead of instructions. While he paused, just that one moment, one of the other search officers chipped in.

  “Go ahead, Cap’n,” he said. “You gotter do what you think proper. Only don’t try interferin’ with us men. I guess the young lady’s not one of ours.”

  He gave Mace a nudge to keep quiet, and I saw that Miss Malbrey was not to “come out into the open” as a full-blown Treasury spy; for then her value, as such, would be enormously lowered. In other vessels, she is evidently to continue her unpleasing profession.

  I smiled, with a good deal of bitterness in my heart. Then I nodded to the Chief Stewardess, who went up to Miss Malbrey.

  “Come now, Madam,” she said quietly. “Let me help you down.” Then in a lower voice, I heard her say: “Don’t make a scene, Miss Malbrey, for your own sake. Come now, be a wise young lady. You shall come to my own cabin, and tell me all about it.”

  I smiled again; this time at the genuine humour of the thing. The Chief Stewardess’s tact seemed blended with a more than a possible curiosity; but I certainly admired the tact — the result of years of the tradition that “scenes” and passengers must be kept out of sight of each other.

  Miss Alicia Malbrey went quietly enough. It seemed incredible that I had held her in my arms within the last twenty-four hours, and that she had kissed me freely, and apparently with some pleasure in the process. I began to doubt the sex of Judas!

  As she went past me, I had a strong impression that she would never tell the real facts to the Chief Stewardess, or any one else, for that matter. Even such women as Miss Alicia Malbrey have a way of preferring that people should not credit them in full with the treachery that ripples so naturally and smoothly through their systems.

  And, fortunately for me, it had all led to nothing; for kind Nature has blessed me with a certain caution and foresight, and an ability to abide by some of the teachings of Commonsense and Experience. One of these teachings is: Never use two heads to keep one secret! The hiding-place above the beam is one I have long since given up; and I removed the “garter” of stones within half an hour of putting it there; and later, I placed it in another, and even more cutely conceived hiding-place, where it lies at this present moment.

  January 27.

  By methods of my own, I discovered the address of Miss Alicia Malbrey. And I took a taxi there this morning to have an interview with her, which pride, prejudice, and a number of other things demanded.

  I was shown into a pretty sitting-room, and told that Miss Malbrey (though that was not the name given!) would see me in a few minutes.

  When, at last, she came in, she stopped in the doorway. She was carrying her pet dog; and she looked pale, and, I could almost have imagined, a little frightened.

  “What — what do you want, Captain Gault?” she asked, in a low voice.

  “Won’t you sit down, Miss Malbrey,” I said. “You must not feel worried. I am not here to bully you.”

  “I — I’m not afraid of you, Captain Gault!” she said, with a little nervous hesitation.

  She came across the room, and sank into a small chair.

  “What is it you want of me?” she asked again. She was still white and nervous.

  “I’ve come to return you some property of yours, or the government’s,” I said.

  And, with the word, I stooped forward over her, and unbucked Toby’s collar. Taking it by the end, I tore it open lengthways.

  “Hold your hand,” I sa
id; and I poured a little cascade of diamonds into her palms.

  “Oh!” she cried out; and stared at me with very wide opened eyes.

  “Do you remember that last day aboard, when you missed Toby’s collar?” I said. “Well, I had borrowed it from the little brute. The Chief Steward gave it to you back, later. He told you it had been found on the saloon floor. Well, while I had the collar, I ‘loaded’ it with your stones. I was practically sure, by then, that you were a Treasury spy; but I kept hoping against hope that you would find it impossible to ‘sell’ me, when it came to the point. I felt that your womanhood would make that impossible to you. We men have some queer, silly notions, haven’t we? No, I’m not going to bully you. I promised you that. Besides, it’s not my way.”

  She had gone a deep burning red of shame. Then the red sank out of her face; and she was whiter than ever.

  “But,” she said, in a very low voice, staring at me strangely, “if you knew what I was, Captain, why did you do this? Why didn’t you keep these stones, as — as spoils of war?” she held out her hand, and stared from me to the diamonds.

  “They were not mine,” I said. “And I smuggled them ashore for you, just to keep my promise to you — a sort of joke. You see, as I was practically sure you were a Treasury spy, I knew your dog would not be a likely ‘suspect.’ It is one of my little prides, that I always keep a promise.”

  “What a strange, strange man you are!” she said, almost under her breath.

  I stood up.

  “I’ll say good-bye now,” I said.

  At the door, I heard her cry out something in a low, queer voice; but I never looked back. Faith dies hard with me; but it stays dead, when it does die.

  In the street, I got into my taxi and drove off. In my hand I still held the ripped-up dog’s collar. I rattled the two brass bells and smiled. Then I unscrewed each of the bells, and took out the pea from each. They were big peas, covered with a celluloid skin. I peeled off the skins, and there I held in my hand two magnificent ten-thousand-dollar apiece pearls.