‘Some kind people have left their chairs here,’ he said. ‘Let us take advantage of their kindness, shall we?’
The name on both the chairs was Armitage, and with a little sigh of content she sank into one. He sat in the other. For ten minutes neither spoke, and inwardly Joan began to reproach herself for being unkind to her companion.
‘Isn’t this glorious?’ she said at last.
‘Glorious isn’t the word,’ he replied. ‘On such a night as this one feels how wonderful the world is, and how we puny mortals, time after time, by our silly little acts, sully the magnificent creation of God.’
She looked at him in surprise.
‘Oh, Mr Hudson,’ she said, ‘I had no idea that beauty influenced you so.’
‘Beauty always influences me, Miss Shannon,’ he said, and there was a note full of deep meaning in his voice.
She laughed a little nervously.
‘I think we had better go down now,’ she said.
And then, in a moment, his arms were round her, and she felt his hot breath on her cheek. With a little cry she struggled to free herself, but he held her so tightly that she could hardly move.
‘I love you, Joan,’ he said. ‘I have loved you ever since I first saw you, and I want you as I have never wanted a woman before.’
‘Let me go! Let me go!’ she panted.
‘Not until you have come into my arms and kissed me,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I must have you. You madden me by your aloofness – I will have you!’
He drew her, struggling fiercely, towards him. She fought like a little tigress, but he was a powerful man, and her efforts made no impression on him.
‘I’ll scream until everybody on the ship hears,’ she gasped, ‘if you don’t let me go at once.’
‘You won’t!’ he ground out, and put a hand over her mouth. ‘Listen to me!’ he went on. ‘I know very well your brother is not altogether what he seems. He plays the professor every well, but he is also – something else. My silence depends upon you. If you say a word about what has happened here tonight, or if you refuse to do what I desire you to do, I will ruin him. Don’t make a mistake! I mean what I say – I love you and I want you, and I am going to have you!’
He released her, and she fell back into her seat a frightened, sobbing, pale-faced little figure.
‘And now,’ said a gentle voice behind them, ‘perhaps you have finished your threats, and will permit Miss Shannon to depart!’
Hudson swung round with an oath, and Joan looked up with a cry of thankfulness. Cousins, his face in the moonlight appearing to be more grotesquely creased than ever, was standing calmly between the two boats.
‘I am sorry I let this go so far, Miss Shannon,’ he went on apologetically, ‘but I wanted to know what threat this fellow was going to hold over you. Get down below as quickly as you can, and send your brother to me!’
Joan rose, and departed instantly. Hudson made an attempt to stop her, but he caught the gleam of a wicked-looking little revolver in Cousins’ hand, and drew back.
‘Who the devil are you?’ he demanded in a voice in which fright and rage were equally blended.
‘Shakespeare had a very apt reply to that question, and I might also quote a certain passage of Zola’s,’ said the little man, ‘but I won’t – it’s too long! Let me merely state that I am a gentleman’s gentleman!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
An Encounter with Hudson
Hugh spent a very unpleasant evening. His butterfly lady never let him out of her sight, and when other men came to her and asked for a dance, which was not very often, she always told them that Professor Shannon was her partner, and that she had no dances to spare. Hugh put the best face possible on the situation. The courtesy with which he always treated the opposite sex prevented him from divulging what was in his mind, and so, a martyr to his own chivalry, he struggled along somehow. She made several attempts to get him to sit out dances with her, but he managed to avoid that until sometime after midnight, when she declared that she could dance no more, and asked him to take her to the upper deck.
‘Wouldn’t it be better if we sat here and watched the others dancing?’ he suggested rather lamely.
‘It’s much too hot,’ she replied; ‘besides we should be horribly in the way.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll find it very cold up there,’ he said, ‘especially after getting so hot dancing.’
‘Cold on a lovely night like this!’ she exclaimed. ‘What nonsense! Besides I have my shawl with me.’
‘But you might get a chill!’
‘Never! Anyway I’ll risk it!’
So Hugh gave up the unequal struggle, and escorted her to the promenade deck above. There he found two chairs, and she sank into hers with a little sigh. With great reluctance he followed suit, and for some minutes there was silence.
‘How quiet you are,’ she murmured at last; ‘and what a long way your chair is from mine! Won’t you bring it a little closer?’
He had no option, but to obey her wish. As he rose she pulled the chair up to hers until the two were touching.
‘That’s better!’ she said. ‘Now we can talk without being overheard.’
‘We are not likely to say anything which we don’t want others to hear,’ he said, rather bluntly, as he once more sat down.
‘Of course not! Still it is not always nice to know that someone else can hear everything one says.’
There was another pause, broken by a sigh from the girl. ‘Isn’t it perfectly delightful up here?’ she murmured.
‘It is a tophole night,’ he said grudgingly.
‘I have enjoyed myself, thanks to you,’ she said, ‘and this is an ideal termination to a splendid evening, don’t you think so?’
‘Of course!’ he assented, with the voice of a mourner at a funeral.
‘I am so glad you agree.’ Again she sighed.
Presently her hand strayed carelessly over the arm of his chair, and he looked at it in apprehension. At that moment he almost wished that the ship would strike a rock, in order that he might be released from the embarrassment of her company. Never in all his life had he been in such a predicament, and he had not the vaguest idea how to escape. Hugh Shannon had had less to do with the opposite sex than most young men; he had always been more or less content with the society of his sister, and two short and uninspiring love affairs were the sum total of his essays into the realms of Cupid. He felt quite unable, therefore, to cope with this altogether unexpected contretemps, and he had a dreadful feeling that this ultra-modern young woman might end by forcing him to marry her by some means or other.
‘Your name is Hugh, is it not?’ she inquired.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I rather like it. We are such – friends’ – He shivered at the pause – ‘that it seems absurd to call you Professor Shannon every time I speak to you. Professor, too, sounds terribly formal, so I am going to call you “Hugh”, may I?’
‘Of course!’ he gulped.
‘And you must call me “Olive”. Do you like my name?’
‘I think it’s splendid,’ he said heroically.
‘Do you really? I’m so glad, because I never did like it very much myself. Now I shall like it!’ she added softly.
Her hand touched his, and somehow he found her fingers resting in his grasp. He held them as though they were some particularly dangerous explosives.
She looked at him and smiled.
‘You are a naughty boy!’ she said playfully. ‘Why are you holding my hand?’
The coolness of the question took his breath away. Hastily he withdrew his hand.
‘I am sorry,’ he stammered.
‘Don’t be silly!’ she said. ‘I was only teasing. You can hold it just as tightly as you like!’
This time she put her hand right into his, and stretched the other one across, apparently to keep it company.
‘Do you know I never let young men do this,’ she declared, ‘but you are so differen
t, aren’t you? I feel so thoroughly safe with you, and though we have been together for such a short time, it is as though we have always known each other.’
‘Er – yes!’ muttered Hugh.
‘What a man of few words you are! But I like you to be like that. It proves that you are so genuine, Hugh!’
A moment later she had snuggled up to him, and Hugh found her head resting on his shoulder. He moved uneasily, and beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. For a few minutes she did not speak, then:
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she said. ‘When two people feel as we do, there is no necessity for words at all, is there? I suppose it is because heart speaks to heart! I am so happy – dear!’
‘What the devil am I to do?’ muttered Hugh to himself. ‘This is going a little too far!’
‘Hugh!’ she said suddenly. ‘You are quite happy too, aren’t you?’
‘Oh – er – of course!’ he said with an inward shudder.
‘Then, if you are a very good boy, you may – kiss me, just once!’
And then there came an interruption.
Joan appeared behind them. For a moment she stared in surprise, but her mind was too full of other things to be very concerned with the sight of her brother and a girl in apparently such intimate juxtaposition.
‘Hugh,’ she said, ‘I want you! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Please come!’
Hugh sprang to his feet with alacrity, and his companion looked round with annoyance, then smiled.
‘I am afraid you have found us out, Joan dear,’ she said.
Joan regarded her coldly. She had not spoken more than two or three times to the other, and she resented the familiarity. She took Hugh by the arm and led him away, the other girl calling out that she would wait for him. As soon as they were out of hearing, Shannon stopped and mopped his brow with a handkerchief.
‘Thank God you came, Joan!’ he said. ‘Goodness knows what would have happened, if you hadn’t.’
He looked so full of distress that for a moment Joan forgot her own troubles.
‘Weren’t you – weren’t you making love to her?’ she asked.
‘Of course not,’ he said indignantly. ‘I can’t bear the sight of the woman!’ And he proceeded to explain how she had taken possession of him all the evening and ended by behaving as though she had made up her mind to marry him.
‘The creature!’ exclaimed Joan, when his recital had come to an end. ‘I’ll teach her that she can’t play about with my brother like that. But what a fool you were to allow her to do it!’
‘What could I do?’ asked Hugh helplessly.
‘Poor old boy,’ she smiled. ‘You are too good-natured. I can see that I shall have to watch over you.’
And then her own trouble returned to her, and she gasped out the story of her treatment by Hudson, his threat and Cousins’ urgent request to her to send Hugh up to him. Hugh stiffened with horror and rage.
‘Where is he?’ he asked in an ominously quiet voice.
‘On the boat deck! I think Mr Cousins is keeping him there with a revolver.’
‘Good old Cousins!’ exclaimed Hugh, and he started towards the gangway. She caught hold of his arm.
‘Be careful!’ he said. ‘He knows all about you, and if you are very severe, he’ll probably give you away.’
‘I don’t care if he does,’ declared Hugh. ‘He is not going to insult my sister, and get off scot free.’
‘But remember, Hugh, you are not your own master, and a lot may depend upon your behaviour in this affair.’
‘All right, dear,’ he said. ‘You go to bed! I won’t do anything rash.’
He left her, and ran up the gangway to the boat deck. He found Hudson sitting in one of the deck chairs, while Cousins leant on the back of the other, aimlessly swinging a revolver to and fro. At the sound of his approach the latter turned lazily round.
‘I’m glad you’ve come, sir,’ he remarked. ‘I found this – er – gentleman molesting Miss Shannon.’
‘So I have heard!’ said Hugh through clenched teeth.
He took hold of the vacant chair, and threw it aside. Hudson started to his feet, and for a moment the two men faced each other.
‘What have you to say for yourself, you blackguard!’ cried Hugh, in a voice that shook with rage, despite his efforts to control it.
‘Of course, you want to be very theatrical and all that,’ sneered Hudson, but there was an unmistakable look of fear in his eyes. ‘I warn you, though, that if you molest me in any way, I’ll tell everybody what I know about you, and put a stop to your little game in India, whatever it is.’
For answer Hugh caught him by the throat and threw him across the deck with such force that he crashed into a stanchion and fell.
‘You cur! You contemptible cur!’ he roared.
Cousins caught him by the arm.
‘Be careful!’ he whispered. ‘He might be a dangerous man, and he certainly knows something. Better find out what it is!’
Hugh turned aside with a groan.
‘God help me!’ he said. ‘Fancy having to talk to a skunk like that, when all my instincts are to give him the thrashing he deserves!’
‘It can’t be helped,’ said Cousins.
Hudson rose to his feet, and stood trembling with rage.
‘I’ll get even with you for that, Shannon!’ he said.
‘Come here!’ said Hugh. ‘You and I are going to talk this over, though I might tell you that my inclinations are to knock all the filth out of your dirty body.’
‘I have no desire to talk to you at all,’ replied Hudson, and turned towards the gangway.
‘If you don’t come back, I’ll go to the captain of the ship at once.’
The other hesitated, then came slowly back.
‘Look here!’ he said. ‘I don’t know why you are behaving like this. I admit that I treated your sister rather badly, but I love her, and I am afraid my love got the better of me; but my intentions were perfectly honourable.’
‘Your intentions honourable!’ sneered Hugh with the utmost contempt. ‘Why there isn’t a vestige of honour in you. You’re an out and out cad!’
‘Of course, if you take it like that, it’s no use my defending myself!’ He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Not the slightest bit of good. I’ve guessed what you are for a long time. I blame myself for not looking after my sister better. Why it’s a sacrilege to talk of her to such a thing as you.’
‘I ask her forgiveness and yours, Shannon. I forgot myself and am thoroughly ashamed. I can only plead as an excuse that I honestly love her.’
‘If you mention her again,’ threatened Hugh, ‘I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
Hudson shrugged his shoulders again and if the look of grief on his face was insincere, it was very well done.
‘I want to know,’ continued Hugh, ‘what you meant by saying that I was not what I seemed, and telling my sister that if she didn’t fall in with your foul wishes you would ruin me?’
‘Need we go into that? I tell you I am thoroughly ashamed of all I said and did!’
‘Answer my question!’
‘Well, if you will have it, I happened to be in London one day with a friend of mine who is in the Foreign Office, when you passed. He pointed you out to me as a prominent member of the Intelligence Department. When I saw you on board, and recognised you, I naturally guessed that you were not going to India merely as a professor. I presume also that if your real profession became public property, your mission would be ruined. Of course my threat was only uttered in the heat of the moment – I would naturally never say a word that might do you harm. I am quite candid in saying that I don’t like you personally, but I am an Englishman, and I would not do anything that might prove disastrous, or even awkward, no matter what my private resentment against an individual might be.’
Hugh looked him up and down for a moment, not troubling to hide the contempt with which he still regarded him.
Hudson looked at him searchingly for a moment.
‘I’ve been a fool and a rotter. Will you forgive me, Shannon?’
‘Leave my sister alone, and I’ll say no more. Interfere with her in any way, or attempt to speak to her on this ship, or anywhere else you may see her, and God help you! That’s all I have to say.’
He turned his back, and walked to the other side of the deck. Hudson watched him for a moment, and then looked at Cousins.
‘Your master is very severe,’ he said. ‘I really must congratulate him on having such a faithful watchdog as you. At the same time you might tell him that it would be as well to have me as a friend in Lahore. I am not without influence, and Sheranwala College is a pretty poor place.’
‘It has the merit of novelty about it, sir,’ said Cousins, ‘and novelty has a somewhat magic touch. You know what Keats says – “Magic casements opening on the foam – Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn”.’
Hudson opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind and, turning abruptly, went below.
Cousins strolled across and joined Hugh.
‘Our friend will bear watching,’ he said. ‘Your explanation was very convincing, but – You know what Rousseau said when—’
Devil's Cocktail (Wallace of the Secret Service Series) Page 5