The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  THE ECHO OF A MUTINY (1912)

  PART I

  DEATH ON THE GIRDLER

  Popular belief ascribes to infants and the lower animals certain occult powers of divining character denied to the reasoning faculties of the human adult; and is apt to accept their judgment as finally overriding the pronouncements of mere experience.

  Whether this belief rests upon any foundation other than the universal love of paradox it is unnecessary to inquire. It is very generally entertained, especially by ladies of a certain social status; and by Mrs. Thomas Solly it was loyally maintained as an article of faith.

  “Yes,” she moralized, “it’s surprisin’ how they know, the little children and the dumb animals. But they do. There’s no deceivin’ them. They can tell the gold from the dross in a moment, they can, and they reads the human heart like a book. Wonderful, I call it. I suppose it’s instinct.”

  Having delivered herself of this priceless gem of philosophic thought, she thrust her arms elbow-deep into the foaming wash-tub and glanced admiringly at her lodger as he sat in the doorway, supporting on one knee an obese infant of eighteen months and on the other a fine tabby cat.

  James Brown was an elderly seafaring man, small and slight in build and in manner suave, insinuating and perhaps a trifle sly. But he had all the sailor’s love of children and animals, and the sailor’s knack of making himself acceptable to them, for, as he sat with an empty pipe wobbling in the grasp of his toothless gums, the baby beamed with humid smiles, and the cat, rolled into a fluffy ball and purring like a stocking-loom, worked its fingers ecstatically as if it were trying on a new pair of gloves.

  “It must be mortal lonely out at the lighthouse,” Mrs. Solly resumed. “Only three men and never a neighbour to speak to; and, Lord! what a muddle they must be in with no woman to look after them and keep ’em tidy. But you won’t be overworked, Mr. Brown, in these long days; daylight till past nine o’clock. I don’t know what you’ll do to pass the time.”

  “Oh, I shall find plenty to do, I expect,” said Brown, “what with cleanin’ the lamps and glasses and paintin’ up the ironwork. And that reminds me,” he added, looking round at the clock, “that time’s getting on. High water at half-past ten, and here it’s gone eight o’clock.”

  Mrs. Solly, acting on the hint, began rapidly to fish out the washed garments and wring them out into the form of short ropes. Then, having dried her hands on her apron, she relieved Brown of the protesting baby.

  “Your room will be ready for you, Mr. Brown,” said she, “when your turn comes for a spell ashore; and main glad me and Tom will be to see you back.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Solly, ma’am,” answered Brown, tenderly placing the cat on the floor; “you won’t be more glad than what I will.” He shook hands warmly with his landlady, kissed the baby, chucked the cat under the chin, and, picking up his little chest by its becket, swung it onto his shoulder and strode out of the cottage.

  His way lay across the marshes, and, like the ships in the offing, he shaped his course by the twin towers of Reculver that stood up grotesquely on the rim of the land; and as he trod the springy turf, Tom Solly’s fleecy charges looked up at him with vacant stares and valedictory bleatings. Once, at a dyke-gate, he paused to look back at the fair Kentish landscape: at the grey tower of St. Nicholas-at-Wade peeping above the trees and the faraway mill at Sarre, whirling slowly in the summer breeze; and, above all, at the solitary cottage where, for a brief spell in his stormy life, he had known the homely joys of domesticity and peace. Well, that was over for the present, and the lighthouse loomed ahead. With a half-sigh he passed through the gate and walked on towards Reculver.

  Outside the whitewashed cottages with their official black chimneys a petty-officer of the coast-guard was adjusting the halyards of the flagstaff. He looked round as Brown approached, and hailed him cheerily.

  “Here you are, then,” said he, “all figged out in your new togs, too. But we’re in a bit of a difficulty, d’ye see. We’ve got to pull up to Whitstable this morning, so I can’t send a man out with you and I can’t spare a boat.”

  “Have I got to swim out, then?” asked Brown.

  The coast-guard grinned. “Not in them new clothes, mate,” he answered. “No, but there’s old Willett’s boat; he isn’t using her today; he’s going over to Minster to see his daughter, and he’ll let us have the loan of the boat. But there’s no one to go with you, and I’m responsible to Willett.”

  “Well, what about it?” asked Brown, with the deep-sea sailor’s (usually misplaced) confidence in his power to handle a sailing-boat. “D’ye think I can’t manage a tub of a boat? Me what’s used the sea since I was a kid of ten?”

  “Yes,” said the coast-guard; “but who’s to bring her back?”

  “Why, the man that I’m going to relieve,” answered Brown. “He don’t want to swim no more than what I do.”

  The coast-guard reflected with his telescope pointed at a passing barge. “Well, I suppose it’ll be all right,” he concluded; “but it’s a pity they couldn’t send the tender round. However, if you undertake to send the boat back, we’ll get her afloat. It’s time you were off.”

  He strolled away to the back of the cottages, whence he presently returned with two of his mates, and the four men proceeded along the shore to where Willett’s boat lay just above high-water mark.

  The Emily was a beamy craft of the type locally known as a “half-share skiff,” solidly built of oak, with varnished planking and fitted with main and mizzen lugs. She was a good handful for four men, and, as she slid over the soft chalk rocks with a hollow rumble, the coast-guards debated the advisability of lifting out the bags of shingle with which she was ballasted. However, she was at length dragged down, ballast and all, to the water’s edge, and then, while Brown stepped the mainmast, the petty-officer gave him his directions. “What you’ve got to do,” said he, “is to make use of the flood-tide. Keep her nose nor’-east, and with this trickle of nor’-westerly breeze you ought to make the light-house in one board. Anyhow don’t let her get east of the lighthouse, or, when the ebb sets in, you’ll be in a fix.”

  To these admonitions Brown listened with jaunty indifference as he hoisted the sails and watched the incoming tide creep over the level shore. Then the boat lifted on the gentle swell. Putting out an oar, he gave a vigorous shove off that sent the boat, with a final scrape, clear of the beach, and then, having dropped the rudder onto its pintles, he seated himself and calmly belayed the main-sheet.

  “There he goes,” growled the coast-guard; “makin’ fast his sheet. They will do it” (he invariably did it himself), “and that’s how accidents happen. I hope old Willett’ll see his boat back all right.”

  He stood for some time watching the dwindling boat as it sidled across the smooth water; then he turned and followed his mates towards the station.

  Out on the south-western edge of the Girdler Sand, just inside the two-fathom line, the spindle-shanked lighthouse stood a-straddle on its long screw-piles like some uncouth red-bodied wading bird. It was now nearly half flood tide. The highest shoals were long since covered, and the lighthouse rose above the smooth sea as solitary as a slaver becalmed in the “middle passage.”

  On the gallery outside the lantern were two men, the entire staff of the building, of whom one sat huddled in a chair with his left leg propped up with pillows on another, while his companion rested a telescope on the rail and peered at the faint grey line of the distant land and the two tiny points that marked the twin spires of Reculver.

  “I don’t see any signs of the boat, Harry,” said he.

  The other man groaned. “I shall lose the tide,” he complained, “and then there’s another day gone.”

  “They can pull you down to Birchington and put you in the train,” said the first man.

  “I don’t want no trains,” growled the invalid. “The boat’ll be bad enough. I suppose there’s nothing coming our way, Tom?”

  Tom turned his
face eastward and shaded his eyes. “There’s a brig coming across the tide from the north,” he said. “Looks like a collier.” He pointed his telescope at the approaching vessel, and added: “She’s got two new cloths in her upper fore top-sail, one on each leech.”

  The other man sat up eagerly. “What’s her trysail like, Tom?” he asked.

  “Can’t see it,” replied Tom. “Yes, I can, now: it’s tanned. Why, that’ll be the old Utopia, Harry; she’s the only brig I know that’s got a tanned trysail.”

  “Look here, Tom,” exclaimed the other, “If that’s the Utopia, she’s going to my home and I’m going aboard of her. Captain Mockett’ll give me a passage, I know.”

  “You oughtn’t to go until you’re relieved, you know, Barnett,” said Tom doubtfully; “it’s against regulations to leave your station.”

  “Regulations be blowed!” exclaimed Barnett. “My leg’s more to me than the regulations. I don’t want to be a cripple all my life. Besides, I’m no good here, and this new chap, Brown, will be coming out presently. You run up the signal, Tom, like a good comrade, and hail the brig.”

  “Well, it’s your lookout,” said Tom, “and I don’t mind saying that if I was in your place I should cut off home and see a doctor, if I got the chance.” He sauntered off to the flag-locker, and, selecting the two code-flags, deliberately toggled them onto the halyards. Then, as the brig swept up within range, he hoisted the little balls of bunting to the flagstaff-head and jerked the halyards, when the two flags blew out making the signal “Need assistance.”

  Promptly a coal-soiled answering pennant soared to the brig’s main-truck; less promptly the collier went about, and, turning her nose down stream, slowly drifted stern-forwards towards the lighthouse. Then a boat slid out through her gangway, and a couple of men plied the oars vigorously.

  “Lighthouse ahoy!” roared one of them, as the boat came within hail. “What’s amiss?”

  “Harry Barnett has broke his leg,” shouted the lighthouse keeper, “and he wants to know if Captain Mockett will give him a passage to Whitstable.”

  The boat turned back to the brig, and after a brief and bellowed consultation, once more pulled towards the lighthouse.

  “Skipper says yus,” roared the sailor, when he was within ear-shot, “and he says look alive, ‘cause he don’t want to miss his tide.”

  The injured man heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s good news,” said he, “though, how the blazes I’m going to get down the ladder is more than I can tell. What do you say, Jeffreys?”

  “I say you’d better let me lower you with the tackle,” replied Jeffreys. “You can sit in the bight of a rope and I’ll give you a line to steady yourself with.”

  “Ah, that’ll do, Tom,” said Barnett; “but, for the Lord’s sake, pay out the fall-rope gently.”

  The arrangements were made so quickly that by the time the boat was fast alongside everything was in readiness, and a minute later the injured man, dangling like a gigantic spider from the end of the tackle, slowly descended, cursing volubly to the accompaniment of the creaking of the blocks. His chest and kit-bag followed, and, as soon as these were unhooked from the tackle, the boat pulled off to the brig, which was now slowly creeping stern-foremost past the lighthouse. The sick man was hoisted up the side, his chest handed up after him, and then the brig was put on her course due south across the Kentish Flats.

  Jeffreys stood on the gallery watching the receding vessel and listening to the voices of her crew as they grew small and weak in the increasing distance. Now that his gruff companion was gone, a strange loneliness had fallen on the lighthouse. The last of the homeward-bound ships had long since passed up the Princes Channel and left the calm sea desolate and blank. The distant buoys, showing as tiny black dots on the glassy surface, and the spindly shapes of the beacons which stood up from invisible shoals, but emphasized the solitude of the empty sea, and the tolling of the bell buoy on the Shivering Sand, stealing faintly down the wind, sounded weird and mournful. The day’s work was already done. The lenses were polished, the lamps had been trimmed, and the little motor that worked the foghorn had been cleaned and oiled. There were several odd jobs, it is true, waiting to be done, as there always are in a lighthouse; but, just now, Jeffreys was not in a working humour. A new comrade was coming into his life today, a stranger with whom he was to be shut up alone, night and day, for a month on end, and whose temper and tastes and habits might mean for him pleasant companionship or jangling and discord without end. Who was this man Brown? What had he been? And what was he like? These were the questions that passed, naturally enough, through the lighthouse keeper’s mind and distracted him from his usual thoughts and occupations.

  Presently a speck on the landward horizon caught his eye. He snatched up the telescope eagerly to inspect it. Yes, it was a boat; but not the coast-guard’s cutter, for which he was looking. Evidently a fisherman’s boat and with only one man in it. He laid down the telescope with a sigh of disappointment, and, filling his pipe, leaned on the rail with a dreamy eye bent on the faint grey line of the land.

  Three long years had he spent in this dreary solitude, so repugnant to his active, restless nature: three blank, interminable years, with nothing to look back on but the endless succession of summer calms, stormy nights and the chilly fogs of winter, when the unseen steamers hooted from the void and the fog-horn bellowed its hoarse warning.

  Why had he come to this God-forsaken spot? And why did he stay, when the wide world called to him? And then memory painted him a picture on which his mind’s eye had often looked before and which once again arose before him, shutting out the vision of the calm sea and the distant land. It was a brightly-coloured picture. It showed a cloudless sky brooding over the deep blue tropic sea: and in the middle of the picture, see-sawing gently on the quiet swell, a white-painted barque.

  Her sails were clewed up untidily, her swinging yards jerked at the slack braces and her untended wheel revolved to and fro to the oscillations of the rudder.

  She was not a derelict, for more than a dozen men were on her deck; but the men were all drunk and mostly asleep, and there was never an officer among them.

  Then he saw the interior of one of her cabins. The chart-rack, the tell-tale compass and the chronometers marked it as the captain’s cabin. In it were four men, and two of them lay dead on the deck. Of the other two, one was a small, cunning-faced man, who was, at the moment, kneeling beside one of the corpses to wipe a knife upon its coat. The fourth man was himself.

  Again, he saw the two murderers stealing off in a quarter-boat, as the barque with her drunken crew drifted towards the spouting surf of a river-bar. He saw the ship melt away in the surf like an icicle in the sunshine; and, later, two shipwrecked mariners, picked up in an open boat and set ashore at an American port.

  That was why he was here. Because he was a murderer. The other scoundrel, Amos Todd, had turned Queen’s Evidence and denounced him, and he had barely managed to escape. Since then he had hidden himself from the great world, and here he must continue to hide, not from the law—for his person was unknown now that his shipmates were dead—but from the partner of his crime. It was the fear of Todd that had changed him from Jeffrey Rorke to Tom Jeffreys and had sent him to the Girdler, a prisoner for life. Todd might die—might even now be dead—but he would never hear of it: would never hear the news of his release.

  He roused himself and once more pointed his telescope at the distant boat. She was considerably nearer now and seemed to be heading out towards the lighthouse. Perhaps the man in her was bringing a message; at any rate, there was no sign of the coast-guard’s cutter.

  He went in, and, betaking himself to the kitchen, busied himself with a few simple preparations for dinner. But there was nothing to cook, for there remained the cold meat from yesterday’s cooking, which he would make sufficient, with some biscuit in place of potatoes. He felt restless and unstrung; the solitude irked him, and the everlasting wash of the water among the pile
s jarred on his nerves.

  When he went out again into the gallery the ebb-tide had set in strongly and the boat was little more than a mile distant; and now, through the glass, he could see that the man in her wore the uniform cap of the Trinity House. Then the man must be his future comrade, Brown; but this was very extraordinary. What were they to do with the boat? There was no one to take her back.

  The breeze was dying away. As he watched the boat, he saw the man lower the sail and take to his oars; and something of hurry in the way the man pulled over the gathering tide, caused Jeffreys to look round the horizon. And then, for the first time, he noticed a bank of fog creeping up from the east and already so near that the beacon on the East Girdler had faded out of sight. He hastened in to start the little motor that compressed the air for the fog-horn and waited awhile to see that the mechanism was running properly. Then, as the deck vibrated to the roar of the horn, he went out once more into the gallery.

  The fog was now all round the lighthouse and the boat was hidden from view. He listened intently. The enclosing wall of vapour seemed to have shut out sound as well as vision. At intervals the horn bellowed its note of warning, and then all was still save the murmur of the water among the piles below, and, infinitely faint and far away, the mournful tolling of the bell on the Shivering Sand.

  At length there came to his ear the muffled sound of oars working in the holes; then, at the very edge of the circle of grey water that was visible, the boat appeared through the fog, pale and spectral, with a shadowy figure pulling furiously. The horn emitted a hoarse growl; the man looked round, perceived the lighthouse and altered his course towards it.