The marble top had been lifted off the washstand, and the carpet had been pulled up in several places, and was ripped across, as if with a pair of shears.
In his dining-room, the Louis XVI sofa had met bad trouble, and yielded up its springs, much tapestry and the ghost, all at once. The writing-table had its top lifted off, and another table had evidently seen trouble. The heavy pile carpet here was divorced both from itself and the floor, and lay in heaps, literally cut to pieces.
In the bathroom, some of the tiles had been forced out, as if the human cyclone had meant to make sure of what lay below; and in the dressing-room things had equally not been neglected.
I sat down on the wreckage of Mr. Black’s bed and roared. He just stood and stared.
“You sure see the funny side of a thing, Cap’n!” he said at last.
“This’ll pay you for cutting me out with my lady friends!” I told him, when I could breathe again. “I suppose you’ve been up spooning on the boat-deck, instead of coming down and turning in at a reasonable hour like a Christian.”
He looked sheepish enough to please me.
“Providence, Mr. Black,” I told him, “is always careful to leave the dustpan on the stairs, when it sees we’re getting too ’aughty.” Then I got serious. “Missed anything?” I asked him.
“Not a thing yet,” he said, “but it’ll take a bit of straightening up.”
I rang for his servant, and sent a message to the Chief Steward.
Fortunately the next suite was empty, and we moved Mr. Black’s gear into it. Just the three of us; for I wanted no talk among the passengers, until the trip is finished. That sort of thing is better kept quiet.
The Chief Steward locked up the whole suite, and we knew then there could be no talk; for Black’s servant had not been allowed in to see the place since the trouble.
“Now, Mr. Black,” I said, “come along up to my place for a talk.”
When we reached my cabin, Mr. Black had a whisky to pick him up, and we talked the thing over; though I saw he didn’t see as far into it as I had done already.
“Anyway,” I told him, “you’ve lost nothing; and now they’ll leave you alone. They’ve proved the thing isn’t in your possession. If it had been, they’d sure have had it—eh?”
“Sure!” he said soberly. “Are you mighty certain it’s safe where you’ve put it?”
“Safe till the old ship falls to pieces!” I told him. “All the same, they must be a pretty determined lot, whoever they are; and I ex-pect they’ll be paying my quarters a visit if they get the half of a show. By Heaven, I’d like ’em to try it on!”
April 11th. Afternoon.
Mr. Black and Miss Lanny spent the morning up with me in my chart-room. The talk turned on a water-colour I was making of the distant wind-on-spray effects, and I hit out once or twice at Miss Lanny’s critical remarks.
“That’s pretty good, Captain Gault,” she said, looking over my shoulder; “but I like your copy of the ‘Gioconda’ better; though you haven’t got the da Vinci ability to peep underneath, and see the abysmal deeps of human nature.”
“Dear lady,” I said, “may I light a cigarette in your presence, and likewise offer you one?”
She accepted, and Mr. Black also.
“Da Vinci was a great painter,” I said.
“I’m sure,” she answered.
“But he wasn’t a great artist. Understand, I’m judging him just on the ‘Mona,’ which is the only thing of his I’ve seen, but which is supposed to be his greatest work.”
“What do you mean?”
That was a plain question, and I answered it plainly:
“The da Vinci Johnny was too busy looking out for his abysmal deeps of human nature to remember the heights,” I told her. “He was like a painter with his eye glued into a sewer, painting and sweating himself into eternal fame—that is for other perverts like himself; and for the big blind, uncaring crowd that follows the shouting of the perverts, because they don’t know enough to shout tosh frankly.
“Now the value of the ‘Mona’ must be put at a high figure, maybe ten million dollars in the open market.” (I grinned cheerfully in the back of my mind.) “But if it’s worth that, it’s worth it as a painting—not as a complete work of art! It is the product of a twisted art and a very great handicraft.”
“It is a perfect work of great and wondrous art!” said Miss Lanny. “I like to see how piffly little amateurs try to teach the master!”
I laughed at her bad temper.
“Dear lady,” I said, “you admit my copy of the ‘Gioconda’ is not so bad,” and I beckoned to where I had hung it on the bulkhead, under the skylight.
“By the side of the original,” she smiled at me, “it is as a ginger-pop bottle beside a Venetian glass wonder. You’ve sure got a hearty, healthy conceit of yourself, Captain! Why, Captain, you’ve painted your copy with eyebrows!” she added suddenly.
“Yes,” I said. “I like the effect better. I’ve no use for those ab-normal effects. Besides, it’s more decent!”
“Goodness!” muttered Mr. Black, “you sure are cracked today, Cap’n.”
“‘The Mona,’” I asserted once more, “is a twisted fragment of a woman—the produce of a twisted nature. I understand, I guess, because I’m a bit twisted myself; it’s only in odd moments that I can fight down the twist in me, which makes me see every woman worse even than she is.
“There, you see! I can’t stop slamming at ’em; not even when I’m out to explain.”
I had to laugh at myself; and the tension eased out of the two of them. I had watched the softer look of capable feminine interest supersede the incapable critical light in Miss Lanny’s eyes, as I had explained my own shortcomings.
“Cap’n Gault’s sure running amuck, every time a woman’s on the carpet!” said Mr. Black. “I guess, Miss Lanny, he’s like a number of men, he’s gone and got fond of a bad ’un; some time or other she’s scorched the youngness out of his soul. I know!”
He wagged his head at me.
“The only reason he’ll talk about the ‘Mona’ is because she’s a woman, bless her,” he said. “But, you know, Cap’n, you’ll sure have to quit going on the rampage like that, or it’ll be getting a habit.”
Miss Lanny reached out her hand for another cigarette, and then bent towards me for a light.
“Was she a very bad woman, Captain Gault?” she said, under her breath. “She must have been!” She looked up into my eyes, through the smoke of her cigarette. “I’m sorry you’ve had that sort of experience of women,” she went on, still in an undertone, and still looking into my eyes. “You ought sure to know a really nice woman; she would heal you up.”
“Why?” I asked. And then: “Do you reckon you’re qualified to act the part of a kind healer, dear lady?”
“I’d not mind trying,” she said, still in a low tone.
“Why,” I said out loud, so that Mr. Black could hear where he sat, over by the open doorway, “in your way, you’re just as bad! You say a thing like that, in a tone to make me think you’re a stainless angel of pity and compassionate womanhood, and at bottom you’re just another of them! You may be virtuous—I don’t say you aren’t; I believe you are—but you’re up to all the eternal meanness and everlasting deceit of the woman! You come here, posing as my friend, as the friend of Mr. Black, chummy and friendly with us, even to the point of losing your temper, and all the time you’re one of a gang of thieves aboard this ship, trying to diddle Mr. Black or me out of a picture you and your pals think is aboard.”
As I spoke, she had whitened slowly, until I thought she must surely faint. And she sat there, without saying a word, the smoke curling up from her cigarette between her fingertips, and her eyes looking at me dumbly and big and dark through the thin smoke.
Mr. Black had stood up and taken a quick step towards me, an incredulous anger on his face, as I had proceeded to formulate my charge against Miss Lanny; but he had checked at my mention of the
picture, and now he was staring in a stunned sort of way at the girl. We were both looking at her, but she never moved, and she never ceased to look at me in that speechless fashion.
“You allowed Mr. Black to make love to you last night, late, so that you could keep him up on the boat-deck while your friends ransacked his suite. And now, as you realise that Mr. Black has not got the picture, you and your friends suppose that I must have it, and you have been directed to divert your valuable attentions to me. If necessary, I don’t doubt that you meant to encourage a little love-making on my part up on the boat-deck or elsewhere tonight while an attempt was made on my cabin.
“But I assure you, dear Madam, that where a lady is concerned, it has been my rule in life to avoid making one of a crowd. Also, as Captain of this vessel, I have facilities for keeping an eye on things which might surprise you and your friends.
“In proof of this, let me mention the names of your gang. They are Messrs. Tillosson, Vrager, Bentley, and finally, Mr. Alross, your husband.
“I had the names of three of them before we had been at sea for twenty-four hours, and now I think I may say I can put my finger on the whole lot of you.
“It is quite within my power to cause the arrest of you and your party, but there is no need.
“Neither Mr. Black nor I have any fear of what your friends can do, for, let me tell you, the only ‘Mona Lisa’ aboard this ship is my own copy, which you see hanging up there on the bulkhead.
“Surely you did not suppose that if Mr. Black has, or had, a valu-able picture to transmit to New York, he would advertise the fact to people of your sort by traveling in the same vessel with it!
“That is almost all I have to say. You had better go now. Provided I receive from your party before tonight the sum of one hundred and two pounds, fifteen shillings (which is the Chief Steward’s estimate of the damage done to Mr. Black’s suite last night), I shall allow affairs to pass, and your party may land free in New York.
“But, if the money is not delivered before six o’clock tonight, and if afterwards I have any further trouble with Messrs. Tillosson, Vrager, Bentley, Alross or yourself, I shall order the arrest of the en-tire party, and shall hand you all over to the police when we enter New York.”
She had spoken not a single word. Only once had she shown any sign of feeling, and that was when I announced my knowledge of her relationship to Mr. Alross, a tall, thin, blonde man, of quiet manners and an unhappy skill at cards. Then the hand which held the cigarette had begun to shake a little; but, beyond this, never a sign of the shock, except the absolutely ghastly whiteness of her face. She certainly is a woman of nerve, and good pluck, too, I grant her.
Then she stood up suddenly, and what do you think she said?
“Captain, your cigarettes are as treacherous as you seem to imagine all women to be. See how it’s burnt me while I was listening to your scolding. I must run away now.”
And she turned and walked out of the chart-house as calmly as if she had just been if for one of her usual chats.
“How’s that for some?” I said to Mr. Black. “Let me tell you, man, I admire that woman. She’s got the real female brand of pluck, and full strength at that. She’s stunned half dead at the present moment, yet she carried it off.”
Mr. Black was all questions, and he wanted to know why I told them the picture wasn’t aboard.
“I told them what I told them,” I said, “in the gentle hope that they may try to believe it, and so not consider it worthwhile to lay information with the Customs, which is a thing they’d do in a moment, as you know yourself, just to make things ugly for us, and to ease their own petty spite.”
“Why not arrest them?” he asked.
“Don’t want any unnecessary ‘Mona Lisa’ talk in New York, do you?”
“My oath; no!” he said.
“And now they know I’m onto the crowd of them, bound to walk a bit like Agag, eh?” I said. “No, I guess we’ll have no more trouble with ’em this side of New York. And I bet they pay up within the hour.”
April 12th. Night.
I was wrong in one respect and right in the other. The money was sent up to me by a steward inside of half an hour, and I sent back a formal receipt.
But we have not seen the end of our troubles about the picture, for the gang approached Mr. Black quite openly last night, and told him that if he’d let them come in on a quarter share of the profits, they’d hold their tongues and give him all the assistance they could. If he said no, then the New York Customs were going to get the tip as soon as ever the search officers came aboard.
They told him quite plainly that they knew the picture was aboard, and that they were satisfied I was the one who had it hidden away. But, as they put it to him, it was one thing to hide contraband jewels, like small packets of pearls, of which a hundred thousand dollars’ worth could go into one cigar, but that I could never hope to hide from the Customs, if they were put on the scent, a thing the size of the ‘Mona,’ which, being painted on a panel of wood, could not be rolled up small like a picture on canvas, etc.
They quite worked on poor old Mr. Black’s feelings. I guess he may be some expert at picture stealing, like any other dealer, but he’s out of it when it comes to real nerve—the kind that’s wanted for running stuff through the Customs.
However, I’ve got him pacified, and I guess he’ll manage now to keep a stiff upper-lip. I pointed out to him that a twenty-thousand-ton ship is a biggish affair, and there are quite some hiding places aboard of her, and that I know them all.
I told him, in good plain American, that the picture would not be found.
“You needn’t fear they’ll start to break the ship up looking for it!” I told him. “Ship-breaking is an expensive job. Don’t you get fretful. They’ll never find her where I’ve put her!”
April 13th. Evening.
We docked this morning, and the gang did their best to do us down.
I reckon they’d guessed I wasn’t keen to arrest them; and they just put the Customs wise to the whole business before they went ashore—that is, as far as they had it sized up.
Well, next thing I knew the chief searcher was in my place demanding ‘Mona Lisas,’ as if they were stock articles; but I disabused him to the best of my ability.
“No, Sir,” I told him. “The only ‘Mona Lisa’ picture we’re carrying is the one there on the bulkhead; and I guess you can have that for fifty dollars right now, and take it home. I reckon that’s a good painting now, don’t you, mister, for an amateur?”
But I couldn’t enthuse him; not up to a sale! He was out for big things, it seemed by his talk; so I let him search.
They’re still at it, and Mr. Black, last I saw of him as he went ashore, was looking about as anxious as a man who’s bet someone else’s last dollar on a horse race.
April 14th.
Still searching.
April 15th.
Still searching.
April 16th.
Mr. Black sent a messenger down aboard this morning to ask when “it” was going to come.
I swore; for if that note had got into the wrong hands the game would have been all up. I’ve warned him to keep away from the ship, and not to communicate with me in any way. I’ll act as soon as it’s safe.
I decided to give him a heart-flutter as a lesson to be patient.
“Look here,” I said to the hotel messenger, and I pulled down the cardboard on which was the copy I’d painted of the ‘Mona,’ and handed it across to him. “Take this ashore,” I told him. “Go to a picture dealer’s, and tell them to frame it in a cheap frame, and then send it up to A. Black, Esq., Room 86, Madison Square Hotel, with the compliments of Captain Gault. Tell them to wrap it up well as if it were something valuable. Here’s a dollar for you, my son. Tell them he’ll pay! When you see Mr. Black, tell him that ‘it’—mind you say ‘it’—is coming! It is!”
When he had gone, I sat down and roared at poor Black’s digestion when he found what �
��it” amounted to. I guess I’ll not be bothered with him now until I’m ready to see him.
April 16th. Night.
I went ashore to see Mr. Black this evening. The Customs nabbed me en route, as usual, and I had a search that would have unmasked and unearthed a postage stamp. But they needn’t fear. I’m not carting ‘Mona Lisas’ ashore in the thick of this hue and cry!
When I saw Mr. Black it was for the first time since he left the ship, and he rushed at me.
“Where is it?” he asked. He looked positively ill.
“Dear man,” I said, “I don’t hawk the ‘Mona’ around with me. Perhaps that’s what you want”—and I pointed to the copy of the ‘Mona’ in its cheap frame which stood on the top of a bookcase.
“Quit it!” he snapped, almost ugly; but I only laughed at him.
Then I took out my hanky, and a bottle of solution. I took the picture down and put it on the table, wet my hanky with the solution, and wiped the picture over gently but firmly.
The eyebrows came away; also one of two other parts where I had laid my fake paint on pretty thick.
“There’s the ‘Mona,’ Mr. Black,” I said; “and I guess you owe me twenty-five thousand dollars.”
He looked; then he yelled; yes, he fairly yelled. First his delight, then his questions. I endured the first, and answered the second.
“You saw me paint a picture, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Sure!” he said.
“Well, that’s in England, for a keepsake,” I said. “Afterwards, I took the ‘Mona,’ soaking her off the board-backing you had glued her to, and remounted her on cardboard. Then I painted her a pair of eyebrows with fake paint. Also I touched up one or two other parts of the picture, and you and Miss Lanny spent most of the voyage criticising the immortal da Vinci.
“Miss Lanny called him even worse things than I did. She told me, if I remember right, that the painting was like a ginger-pop bottle compared with Venetain glass!
Boats of the Glen Carrig and Other Nautical Adventures Page 42