by Van Reid
“I had no idea that I was going to see a dog,” he admitted.
“That is all you need to say, thank you, sir.”
Sundry was introduced to the Covingtons then, but it was clear that he was interested in their dog.
“And this,” said Frederick Covington, “is Moxie.”
Moxie was a large collie like creature with a beautiful white face and expressive black-lined eyes. She had regular markings of tan and black, though she was predominantly white from her spotless breast to her shining pantaloons. She sat and offered a polite paw to her new acquaintances. Sundry, whose family was famous for its numerous dogs, realized how much he had missed these animals, and he made a great deal of her.
Frederick meanwhile embraced Mr. Seacost and declared how pleased he was to be there.
“Let us help you with your bags,” said Sundry when these arrived at the end of the plank.
“A rough passage?” Mr. Seacost inquired.
“We had our troubles,” said the younger clergyman. “A squall off Cape Ann, the day before yesterday, carried away the mizzenmast at the masthead. Then, as soon as they had the rigging cut away, the rest of the mast between the masthead and the deck went. Captain Matthews put her before the wind, and we thought we were done with the damage till the foresail was carried off later in the day.”
“Frederick thought a poor cook was the worst of it,” said the woman.
“I will warn you, Toby,” said Mr. Seacost, “that Frederick’s prime hobbyhorse rides on a dining table.”
“Hobbyhorses are we talking?” said Mrs. Covington. She pretended to pinch Mr. Seacost’s shoulder.
“Man does not live by sermons alone,” said the husband with an attempt to look serious.
“Then we are in accordance as regards our needs, sir,” said Mister Walton, “since Sundry and myself are meeting friends at the Shipswood Restaurant within the hour.”
“We wouldn’t want to interrupt your club’s arrangements, Toby,” said the older man.
“Nonsense!” said Mister Walton. “I can’t overstate what a pleasure it would be to have you as our guests!”
Mr. Seacost turned to his friends and apprehended, in the husband, a hesitant expression. “You had other plans perhaps.”
“Not a plan of my own, actually, but a task I promised to fulfill, and perhaps I can further put upon Mister Walton to help me with it.”
“Why, certainly,” said Mister Walton, with only a brief glance toward Sundry. “I would be more than happy, whatever it is you need.”
“I hadn’t thought to get this done the moment I stepped from the wharf,” said Mr. Covington, “but it seems a shame to lose the opportunity. There is another passenger on the Caleb Brown just now, quite an elderly man by the name of Mr. Tempest. His original destination was Portland, but for reasons he prefers to keep mysterious, he has decided to stay aboard and return with the ship to Rhode Island. That is all that I know of his story, but he has charged me with finding someone who would write a short letter for him, which he will dictate in his cabin.”
“Why, certainly,” said Mister Walton again, though he was a little confused that Mr. Covington himself could not carry out this duty, and the thought was as clear as if he had spoken.
“Frederick offered to help the man in this capacity,” explained the wife with some delight, “but it seems Mr. Tempest’s tolerant nature could not forbear the disrepute of my husband’s vocation.”
“Oh, my!” said Mister Walton.
“So it is no use your volunteering, Lawrence,” said Mr. Covington to Mr. Seacost. “He’ll have absolutely no truck with the clergy.”
“Good heavens!” said Mister Walton.
“Bad habits will catch up with you,” said Sundry. He maintained a bland expression as he reached back to adjust his own collar. “My mother used to tell me that.”
“She is a wise lady,” said Isabelle.
“He doesn’t like the captain either,” said Frederick.
“Every man with his own hobby,” said Sundry.
“He sounds a challenge,” said Mister Walton with more humor than trepidation.
3. The Man Who Would Not Come Ashore
The first mate of the Caleb Brown paused before a low door at the bottom of the companionway and knocked softly.
“Yes!” came a craggy voice.
“Mr. Tempest?” said the first mate.
“I haven’t changed my name.”
The sailor glanced at Mister Walton to see if he appreciated the seriousness of his endeavor. “There is a Mister Walton here to see you.”
“I don’t know a Mister Walton.”
“Mr. Covington asked me to come,” said the portly fellow, his voice clear and untroubled.
After some moments, during which the first mate and Mister Walton exchanged shrugs, the voice called out again. “Are you waiting for an invitation?”
The mate shot daggers at the door, but Mister Walton lifted a hand to indicate that he was up to the test. The bespectacled man’s expression was mild as he opened the cabin door and stepped inside. “I was, actually,” he replied, and seeing the mate’s hesitation, he said, “I’m fine,” before he pulled the door shut.
The room was small and dark; a lantern swung from the low ceiling. In a berth against the outer bulkhead sat an old man who glowered fiercely. “So what did the preacher send? Not one of his cronies?”
“I met Mr. Covington only ten minutes ago,” said Mister Walton.
“You are not a preacher then?”
“I have not answered that calling, no.”
“I couldn’t bear people thinking I had some sort of conversion,” said the old man testily.
“I will be pleased to inform anyone who is interested that that is not the case,” said Mister Walton with a sort of steely humor. a his eyes grew accustomed to the dark quarters, he became aware of some tn beneath the bunk, a writing table hinged to the wall to his left, a small mirror and personal tackle hanging in a net on the right. The lantern swayed and shadows shifted with the ship at anchor; there was the sound of movement on the deck above and the occasional rub of the hull against the wharf.
Mr. Tempest too was revealed in the lamplight. He was a large-boned man with outsized hands and feet. His features had been roughened by time and cast by temperament into perpetual night. He was well dressed; a tailored coat hung at a bunkpost. “You needn’t fear me,” he said. “I may be dying, but I’m not diseased, if that’s what you want to know. It’s just that my hand won’t remain still.” He raised his right hand, and Mister Walton saw it agitate the air.
“I don’t fear you at all, Mr. Tempest.”
“You will take a letter that I dictate,” said Mr. Tempest, his tone only slightly less combative.
“That is why I came,” said Mister Walton with a small nod.
“And you will deliver it.”
“Here in Portland?” Mister Walton was wise enough to know the details before he made a promise to deliver personally some letter to Shanghai.
“The City Hotel,”said Tempest.
Again Mister Walton nodded, his curiosity up. He went to the table, which was designed to accommodate a person sitting at the bunk; there was a hard-cased trunk beneath the berth, however, and for a seat he upended this, then lowered the hinged tabletop from the wall. Tempest had a small case of writing things at the foot of his berth, and soon Mister Walton was poised with pen and ink above a sheaf of paper.
“To Ezra Burnbrake, City Hotel, Portland,” said the old man. Mixed with the creaking of the ship and the comings and goings of the crew above, there came the sound of a pen nib scratching its way through Tempest’s words.
You were surprised when I searched you out for the purposes of securing certain holdings, and in fact I have been less than candid with you as to why those holdings are of interest to me. Suffice it to say that in the intervening days my interest has waned, and I should ask your pardon for causing you an unnecessary trip; you do have my a
ssurance that this transaction was the makings of a queer deal.
There are others unnamed who will take up my intended mission and press you, when you might have needed no pressing before this letter, but from one whom you have never knowingly met, save by post and telegram, to one who has no reason to think of the sender as anything but a weak-minded old man, I suggest that you resist all overtures on the subject. There are many, unknown to you and me, who would benefit from your firm stance, and likewise lose if these other people acquire what they want.
If you find my motives elusive, I shall simply say that I tire of those unnamed and that your niece once did me a kindness that she will not remember. I am not interested in hearing from you and shall consider all business between us to be terminated. For all intents, and to all your purposes, I am dead.
What trepidation Mister Walton had not felt when he entered Tempest’s cabin descended upon him now, and he wrote the last sentence hesitantly, as if it would only come out of the pen by way of gross labor. The words I am dead in particular fought his intentions, and the final letters shivered as they reached the paper.
He raised his face, feeling beads of sweat on his brow; his hand had cramped.
Tempest sat unmoving in his berth. His hand shivered before him. Mister Walton considered that he was observing some atavistic force, self-perpetuating and self-sustaining, yet barren.
“I have acquired an imagination in my age,” said Tempest quietly, “and that has been punishment enough for anything I have done.”
After a silence Mister Walton leaned toward the man slightly and said, “A I to write that?”
“What?” said the man, as if he had not heard himself. “Let me sign it.” He shifted his feet, which thumped upon the deck, and bent over the table. His shivering hand took the pen from Mister Walton, and with some effort he scrawled an unreadable signature. “He will know who it is.”
Mister Walton had never written anything so extraordinary, and though they were not his words, they had physically come from his hand, and they troubled him. Mr. Tempest troubled him as he leaned back in his bunk with a dark sigh. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Tempest?” he asked. He felt as if he had one brief moment to offer Tantalus a drink of cool water.
“Sympathy for a crazy old man?” said Tempest. “I can imagine that too.”
Mister Walton took off his spectacles and peered at Tempest with great dignity.
“I can imagine it,” said Tempest, “but I can’t feel it.”
“It is a beginning.”
“Is it? One without the other is simply confusion. There is an envelope in the writing case there. You don’t need to address it if you give it to Burn brake personally.”
“I understand.”
“I was going to offer you recompense for your trouble.”
“I wouldn’t take it.”
“That occurred to me. I trust Covington wasn’t too offended.”
“More amused than offended perhaps.”
“Then I did him an injustice.”
Mister Walton replaced his spectacles, then took an envelope from the little box and folded the note into it. His curiosity was not entirely assuaged; the note, though plain in its unhappiness, was yet cryptic in its details. But if the unhappiness of the man before him might linger, the letter of his words were all but forgotten before he reached the door.
“Didn’t you have a hat?” asked Tempest.
“It was the loss of my hat that brought me here, sir,” said Mister Walton.
Tempest’s eyebrows raised. Curiosity, as Mister Walton could have told him, is not a low sensation. “I can’t imagine that, but you look cold without it.”
“I am Tobias Walton, Mr. Tempest,” said the portly fellow with a cautious bow. “I live on Spruce Street, here in Portland, and I am at your service.”
“Good-bye, Mister Walton. I trust we shall not see each other again.”
Mister Walton was almost surprised that it was night outside. Then he remembered that Sundry, and Mr. Seacost, and the Covingtons were awaiting him in a carriage just off the wharf. The cold air above decks was welcome, even on his bare head. The stars were out.
4. The Assembled League
Mr. Pliny, owner of the Shipswood Restaurant on Commercial Street, was always happy to see Mister Walton and the members of the Moosepath League, for a single jolly customer is like the bit of sand around which the oyster grows the pearl. Most who knew him thought Mister Walton was himself a pearl, and good things did seem to surround him.
The members of the Moosepath League were unaware of the interest they had caused in the public at large. The papers had outlined their exploits, both in the “Aff air of the Underwood Treasure” and in the mysterious “Gunfight on the Sheepscott River,” and the small size of their club (which was imagined by many to indicate a sort of exclusivity) only increased the notoriety of each of its constituents.
Neither were they aware of bringing fame to the Shipswood Restaurant by making it their meeting place every Thursday evening at seven. Mister Walton, who was perhaps more cognizant than the three charter members, would not have presumed to imagine, and perhaps only Sundry Moss wondered at the increasing crowds and the moments of silent eavesdropping from nearby tables.
The unannounced purposes of the Moosepath League served only to heighten the mystery, and truth to tell, this lack of an express mission continued to be an issue of some trouble for the membership. Theirs was not particularly a sporting fellowship, though years ago one of their number had gone fishing in the Presumpscot River and very fortunately was pulled out of the stream just above the falls below Pleasant Hill. They did not share political persuasions, nor did they attend the same churches. They were not tradesmen or merchants. What they did share was a great goodwill, an admiration of Mister Walton, and unbounded curiosity.
This, as it happens, was enough.
Mr. Pliny, then, was pleased to see Mister Walton arrive some minutes before seven with Sundry Moss, two new gentlemen, and a lady, all of them as cheerful as they could be. a pretty air was singing from a pair of violins in the back of the main room as their coats and hats (discounting Mister Walton’s, of course) were taken and they were escorted to the club’s usual table. “I’ll be back with more chairs and your menus,” said Mr. Pliny with a bow.
Frederick Covington pulled out a chair for his wife, then sat down with a satisfied noise. The restaurant’s atmosphere was redolent of good food as well as sweet music, and he had made no pretense regarding the state of his stomach.
“Then you are Portland’s answer to the great detective himself!” Isabelle was saying. Mr. Seacost had been describing to her what was public knowledge of Mister Walton’s recent adventures.
“Good heavens, no!” said Mister Walton, blushing. “We were very much accidental in our involvements, believe me.”
“How do you like to snowshoe?” asked Frederick ofhandedly as they received menus from Mr. Pliny, but the question remained in the air unanswered as other conversation was forwarded.
“I trust the remaining members will be here,” the owner was saying hopefully.
“It is their plan, I believe, yes,” said Mister Walton.
“I am anxious to meet these gentlemen,” said Isabelle.
“They will be agog to have such a lovely addition at our gathering tonight,” said Mister Walton.
Mrs. Covington did not blush, but she raised her menu before her, looking as if she had thought better of Mister Walton.
He laughed because she had no idea how accurately he had spoken.
It was Matthew Ephram who arrived first, and he was agog. a single male guest would have warranted great enthusiasm on his part, but to meet three new people and one of them a female raised the night’s gathering to the level of the historic.
If the Covingtons and Mr. Sea cost had expected a man of heroic aspect, then they were not disappointed in Matthew Ephram, who was tall and well-proportioned. He had dark hair and fine
black mustaches, and he wore an impeccably tailored suit of gray herringbone. He held the day’s edition of Portland’s Eastern Argus beneath his arm. He carried three or four watches on his person at all times, and he consulted one of these, even as he shook Isabelle Covington’s hand, which she had offered. “Three minutes past the hour of seven,” he announced, as if to mark the very instant.
“Izzy’s very interested to meet you and your colleagues, Mr. Ephram,” said Frederick.
“Is he?” said Ephram. “I am sorry, I wouldn’t know.”
The clergyman hesitated. He and Ephram considered each other for a moment: Frederick with a look of near laughter, Ephram with honest wonder. “I’m sorry, I don’t know either,” said Frederick.
“Oh, please, don’t apologize,” said Ephram.
Smiling, Mister Walton had cleared his throat as preamble to sorting this out when there came another voice. “Good heavens!” it said, and the men stood again and Mrs. Covington watched with amusement as Christopher Eagleton was introduced. He shook hands with everyone, including Ephram, at least once, and Ephram was inspired also to shake Mr. Covington’s and Mr. Seacost’s hands again.
Though the oldest of the three Moosepathians (he had already celebrated his fortieth birthday), Eagleton looked the youngest, owing perhaps to his full blond hair and lack of beard or mustache. a was usual he wore a tan suit, and he held his customary copy of the Portland Advertiser in one hand as he shook with the other. He himself was agog at the sight of a woman at their table and expressed to her how unprecedented and how welcome was this circumstance. “Continued clear tonight,” said Eagleton. “Overcast tomorrow, with possible flurries. Moderate temperatures foreseen.” He was something of an amateur meteorographer, and it was not unusual for him to inform others of expected weather patterns.
“Five minutes past seven,” said Ephram.
There was a sudden crash nearby, and all tables halted to see Joseph Thump (of the Exeter Thumps) pick himself up from the floor. There did not appear anything in his immediate vicinity that might have tripped him, so he may simply have been upended by the sight of Mrs. Covington. He was not a tall man, but very broad of shoulder, and his expression was difficult to read, since it was hidden behind a remarkable profusion of brown beard and mustaches. Wearing his habitual black suit, he carried with him the latest issue of the Portland Courier Clearly he too was agog.