Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  “And suppose,” said I, “suppose the opium is so securely hidden that I can’t get hands on it?”

  “Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-wood, and stay and split that kindling-wood with your penknife,” cried Pinkerton. “The stuff is there; we know that; and it must be found. But all this is only the one string to our bow — though I tell you I’ve gone into it head-first, as if it was our bottom dollar. Why, the first thing I did before I’d raised a cent, and with this other notion in my head already — the first thing I did was to secure the schooner. The Nora Creina, she is, sixty-four tons, quite big enough for our purpose since the rice is spoiled, and the fastest thing of her tonnage out of San Francisco. For a bonus of two hundred, and a monthly charter of three, I have her for my own time; wages and provisions, say four hundred more: a drop in the bucket. They began firing the cargo out of her (she was part loaded) near two hours ago; and about the same time John Smith got the order for the stores. That’s what I call business.”

  “No doubt of that,” said I. “But the other notion?”

  “Well, here it is,” said Jim. “You agree with me that Bellairs was ready to go higher?”

  I saw where he was coming. “Yes — and why shouldn’t he?” said I. “Is that the line?”

  “That’s the line, Loudon Dodd,” assented Jim. “If Bellairs and his principal have any desire to go me better, I’m their man.”

  A sudden thought, a sudden fear, shot into my mind. What if I had been right? What if my childish pleasantry had frightened the principal away, and thus destroyed our chance? Shame closed my mouth; I began instinctively a long course of reticence; and it was without a word of my meeting with Bellairs, or my discovery of the address in Mission Street, that I continued the discussion.

  “Doubtless fifty thousand was originally mentioned as a round sum,” said I, “or at least, so Bellairs supposed. But at the same time it may be an outside sum; and to cover the expenses we have already incurred for the money and the schooner — I am far from blaming you; I see how needful it was to be ready for either event — but to cover them we shall want a rather large advance.”

  “Bellairs will go to sixty thousand; it’s my belief, if he were properly handled, he would take the hundred,” replied Pinkerton. “Look back on the way the sale ran at the end.”

  “That is my own impression as regards Bellairs,” I admitted. “The point I am trying to make is that Bellairs himself may be mistaken; that what he supposed to be a round sum was really an outside figure.”

  “Well, Loudon, if that is so,” said Jim, with extraordinary gravity of face and voice, “if that is so, let him take the Flying Scud at fifty thousand, and joy go with her! I prefer the loss.”

  “Is that so, Jim? Are we dipped as bad as that?” I cried.

  “We’ve put our hand farther out than we can pull it in again, Loudon,” he replied. “Why, man, that fifty thousand dollars, before we get clear again, will cost us nearer seventy. Yes, it figures up overhead to more than ten per cent a month; and I could do no better, and there isn’t the man breathing could have done as well. It was a miracle, Loudon. I couldn’t but admire myself. O, if we had just the four months! And you know, Loudon, it may still be done. With your energy and charm, if the worst comes to the worst, you can run that schooner as you ran one of your picnics; and we may have luck. And, O, man! if we do pull it through, what a dashing operation it will be! What an advertisement! what a thing to talk of, and remember all our lives! However,” he broke off suddenly, “we must try the safe thing first. Here’s for the shyster!”

  There was another struggle in my mind, whether I should even now admit my knowledge of the Mission Street address. But I had let the favourable moment slip. I had now, which made it the more awkward, not merely the original discovery, but my late suppression to confess. I could not help reasoning, besides, that the more natural course was to approach the principal by the road of his agent’s office; and there weighed upon my spirits a conviction that we were already too late, and that the man was gone two hours ago. Once more, then, I held my peace; and after an exchange of words at the telephone to assure ourselves he was at home, we set out for the attorney’s office.

  The endless streets of any American city pass, from one end to another, through strange degrees and vicissitudes of splendour and distress, running under the same name between monumental warehouses, the dens and taverns of thieves, and the sward and shrubbery of villas. In San Francisco, the sharp inequalities of the ground, and the sea bordering on so many sides, greatly exaggerate these contrasts. The street for which we were now bound took its rise among blowing sands, somewhere in view of the Lone Mountain Cemetery; ran for a term across that rather windy Olympus of Nob Hill, or perhaps just skirted its frontier; passed almost immediately after through a stage of little houses, rather impudently painted, and offering to the eye of the observer this diagnostic peculiarity, that the huge brass plates upon the small and highly coloured doors bore only the first names of ladies — Norah or Lily or Florence; traversed China Town, where it was doubtless undermined with opium cellars, and its blocks pierced, after the similitude of rabbit-warrens, with a hundred doors and passages and galleries; enjoyed a glimpse of high publicity at the corner of Kearney; and proceeded, among dives and warehouses, towards the City Front and the region of the water-rats. In this last stage of its career, where it was both grimy and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to the wheels of drays, we found a certain house of some pretension to neatness, and furnished with a rustic outside stair. On the pillar of the stair a black plate bore in gilded lettering this device: “Harry D. Bellairs, Attorney-at-law. Consultations, 9 to 6.” On ascending the stairs, a door was found to stand open on the balcony, with this further inscription, “Mr. Bellairs In.”

  “I wonder what we do next,” said I.

  “Guess we sail right in,” returned Jim, and suited the action to the word.

  The room in which we found ourselves was clean, but extremely bare. A rather old-fashioned secretaire stood by the wall, with a chair drawn to the desk; in one corner was a shelf with half-a-dozen law books; and I can remember literally not another stick of furniture. One inference imposed itself: Mr. Bellairs was in the habit of sitting down himself and suffering his clients to stand. At the far end, and veiled by a curtain of red baize, a second door communicated with the interior of the house. Hence, after some coughing and stamping, we elicited the shyster, who came timorously forth, for all the world like a man in fear of bodily assault, and then, recognising his guests, suffered from what I can only call a nervous paroxysm of courtesy.

  “Mr. Pinkerton and partner!” said he. “I will go and fetch you seats.”

  “Not the least,” said Jim. “No time. Much rather stand. This is business, Mr. Bellairs. This morning, as you know, I bought the wreck, Flying Scud.”

  The lawyer nodded.

  “And bought her,” pursued my friend, “at a figure out of all proportion to the cargo and the circumstances, as they appeared?”

  “And now you think better of it, and would like to be off with your bargain? I have been figuring upon this,” returned the lawyer. “My client, I will not hide from you, was displeased with me for putting her so high. I think we were both too heated, Mr. Pinkerton: rivalry — the spirit of competition. But I will be quite frank — I know when I am dealing with gentlemen — and I am almost certain, if you leave the matter in my hands, my client would relieve you of the bargain, so as you would lose” — he consulted our faces with gimlet-eyed calculation — ”nothing,” he added shrilly.

  And here Pinkerton amazed me.

  “That’s a little too thin,” said he. “I have the wreck. I know there’s boodle in her, and I mean to keep her. What I want is some points which may save me needless expense, and which I’m prepared to pay for, money down. The thing for you to consider is just this: am I to deal with you or direct with your principal? If you are prepared to give me the facts right off, wh
y, name your figure. Only one thing!” added Jim, holding a finger up, “when I say ‘money down,’ I mean bills payable when the ship returns, and if the information proves reliable. I don’t buy pigs in pokes.”

  I had seen the lawyer’s face light up for a moment, and then, at the sound of Jim’s proviso, miserably fade. “I guess you know more about this wreck than I do, Mr. Pinkerton,” said he. “I only know that I was told to buy the thing, and tried, and couldn’t.”

  “What I like about you, Mr. Bellairs, is that you waste no time,” said Jim. “Now then, your client’s name and address.”

  “On consideration,” replied the lawyer, with indescribable furtivity, “I cannot see that I am entitled to communicate my client’s name. I will sound him for you with pleasure, if you care to instruct me; but I cannot see that I can give you his address.”

  “Very well,” said Jim, and put his hat on. “Rather a strong step, isn’t it?” (Between every sentence was a clear pause.) “Not think better of it? Well, come — call it a dollar?”

  “Mr. Pinkerton, sir!” exclaimed the offended attorney; and, indeed, I myself was almost afraid that Jim had mistaken his man and gone too far.

  “No present use for a dollar?” says Jim. “Well, look here, Mr. Bellairs: we’re both busy men, and I’ll go to my outside figure with you right away — ”

  “Stop this, Pinkerton,” I broke in. “I know the address: 924 Mission Street.”

  I do not know whether Pinkerton or Bellairs was the more taken aback.

  “Why in snakes didn’t you say so, Loudon?” cried my friend.

  “You didn’t ask for it before,” said I, colouring to my temples under his troubled eyes.

  It was Bellairs who broke silence, kindly supplying me with all that I had yet to learn. “Since you know Mr. Dickson’s address,” said he, plainly burning to be rid of us, “I suppose I need detain you no longer.”

  I do not know how Pinkerton felt, but I had death in my soul as we came down the outside stair, from the den of this blotched spider. My whole being was strung, waiting for Jim’s first question, and prepared to blurt out, I believe, almost with tears, a full avowal. But my friend asked nothing.

  “We must hack it,” said he, tearing off in the direction of the nearest stand. “No time to be lost. You saw how I changed ground. No use in paying the shyster’s commission.”

  Again I expected a reference to my suppression; again I was disappointed. It was plain Jim feared the subject, and I felt I almost hated him for that fear. At last, when we were already in the hack and driving towards Mission Street, I could bear my suspense no longer.

  “You do not ask me about that address,” said I.

  “No,” said he, quickly and timidly. “What was it? I would like to know.”

  The note of timidity offended me like a buffet; my temper rose as hot as mustard. “I must request you do not ask me,” said I. “It is a matter I cannot explain.”

  The moment the foolish words were said, that moment I would have given worlds to recall them: how much more, when Pinkerton, patting my hand, replied: “All right, dear boy; not another word; that’s all done. I’m convinced it’s perfectly right.” To return upon the subject was beyond my courage; but I vowed inwardly that I should do my utmost in the future for this mad speculation, and that I would cut myself in pieces before Jim should lose one dollar.

  We had no sooner arrived at the address than I had other things to think of.

  “Mr. Dickson? He’s gone,” said the landlady.

  Where had he gone?

  “I’m sure I can’t tell you,” she answered. “He was quite a stranger to me.”

  “Did he express his baggage, ma’am?” asked Pinkerton.

  “Hadn’t any,” was the reply. “He came last night and left again to-day with a satchel.”

  “When did he leave?” I inquired.

  “It was about noon,” replied the landlady. “Some one rang up the telephone, and asked for him; and I reckon he got some news, for he left right away, although his rooms were taken by the week. He seemed considerable put out: I reckon it was a death.”

  My heart sank; perhaps my idiotic jest had indeed driven him away; and again I asked myself, Why? and whirled for a moment in a vortex of untenable hypotheses.

  “What was he like, ma’am?” Pinkerton was asking, when I returned to consciousness of my surroundings.

  “A clean shaved man,” said the woman, and could be led or driven into no more significant description.

  “Pull up at the nearest drug-store,” said Pinkerton to the driver; and when there, the telephone was put in operation, and the message sped to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s office — this was in the days before Spreckels had arisen — ”When does the next China steamer touch at Honolulu?”

  “The City of Pekin; she cast off the dock to-day, at half-past one,” came the reply.

  “It’s a clear case of bolt,” said Jim. “He’s skipped, or my name’s not Pinkerton. He’s gone to head us off at Midway Island.”

  Somehow I was not so sure; there were elements in the case, not known to Pinkerton — the fears of the captain, for example — that inclined me otherwise; and the idea that I had terrified Mr. Dickson into flight, though resting on so slender a foundation, clung obstinately in my mind. “Shouldn’t we see the list of passengers?” I asked.

  “Dickson is such a blamed common name,” returned Jim; “and then, as like as not, he would change it.”

  At this I had another intuition. A negative of a street scene, taken unconsciously when I was absorbed in other thought, rose in my memory with not a feature blurred: a view, from Bellairs’s door as we were coming down, of muddy roadway, passing drays, matted telegraph wires, a Chinaboy with a basket on his head, and (almost opposite) a corner grocery with the name of Dickson in great gilt letters.

  “Yes,” said I, “you are right; he would change it. And anyway, I don’t believe it was his name at all; I believe he took it from a corner grocery beside Bellairs’s.”

  “As like as not,” said Jim, still standing on the sidewalk with contracted brows.

  “Well, what shall we do next?” I asked.

  “The natural thing would be to rush the schooner,” he replied. “But I don’t know. I telephoned the captain to go at it head down and heels in air; he answered like a little man; and I guess he’s getting around. I believe, Loudon, we’ll give Trent a chance. Trent was in it; he was in it up to the neck; even if he couldn’t buy, he could give us the straight tip.”

  “I think so, too,” said I. “Where shall we find him?”

  “British consulate, of course,” said Jim. “And that’s another reason for taking him first. We can hustle that schooner up all evening; but when the consulate’s shut, it’s shut.”

  At the consulate, we learned that Captain Trent had alighted (such is I believe the classic phrase) at the What Cheer House. To that large and unaristocratic hostelry we drove, and addressed ourselves to a large clerk, who was chewing a toothpick and looking straight before him.

  “Captain Jacob Trent?”

  “Gone,” said the clerk.

  “Where has he gone?” asked Pinkerton.

  “Cain’t say,” said the clerk.

  “When did he go?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” said the clerk, and with the simplicity of a monarch offered us the spectacle of his broad back.

  What might have happened next I dread to picture, for Pinkerton’s excitement had been growing steadily, and now burned dangerously high; but we were spared extremities by the intervention of a second clerk.

  “Why! Mr. Dodd!” he exclaimed, running forward to the counter. “Glad to see you, sir! Can I do anything in your way?”

  How virtuous actions blossom! Here was a young man to whose pleased ears I had rehearsed Just before the battle, mother, at some weekly picnic; and now, in that tense moment of my life, he came (from the machine) to be my helper.

  “Captain Trent, of the wre
ck? O yes, Mr. Dodd; he left about twelve; he and another of the men. The Kanaka went earlier by the City of Pekin; I know that; I remember expressing his chest. Captain Trent? I’ll inquire, Mr. Dodd. Yes, they were all here. Here are the names on the register; perhaps you would care to look at them while I go and see about the baggage?”

  I drew the book toward me, and stood looking at the four names all written in the same hand, rather a big and rather a bad one: Trent, Brown, Hardy, and (instead of Ah Sing) Jos. Amalu.

  “Pinkerton,” said I, suddenly, “have you that Occidental in your pocket?”

  “Never left me,” said Pinkerton, producing the paper.

  I turned to the account of the wreck. “Here,” said I; “here’s the name. ‘Elias Goddedaal, mate.’ Why do we never come across Elias Goddedaal?”

  “That’s so,” said Jim. “Was he with the rest in that saloon when you saw them?”

  “I don’t believe it,” said I. “They were only four, and there was none that behaved like a mate.”

  At this moment the clerk returned with his report.

  “The captain,” it appeared, “came with some kind of an express waggon, and he and the man took off three chests and a big satchel. Our porter helped to put them on, but they drove the cart themselves. The porter thinks they went down town. It was about one.”

  “Still in time for the City of Pekin,” observed Jim.

  “How many of them were here?” I inquired.

  “Three, sir, and the Kanaka,” replied the clerk. “I can’t somehow fin out about the third, but he’s gone too.”

  “Mr. Goddedaal, the mate, wasn’t here then?” I asked.

  “No, Mr. Dodd, none but what you see,” says the clerk.

  “Nor you never heard where he was?”

  “No. Any particular reason for finding these men, Mr. Dodd?” inquired the clerk.

  “This gentleman and I have bought the wreck,” I explained; “we wished to get some information, and it is very annoying to find the men all gone.”