by Avi
“This way.”
They inched along. Every time Patrick put his foot down, the pain seemed to explode.
“Here it is,” Laurence finally announced.
Patrick reached out and touched a ladder. It was considerably smaller than the central one.
“Where do you think it goes?” Patrick asked.
“I don’t know. Will you be able to climb?” Laurence asked.
“Faith, I’d better. I’m not staying here,” Patrick replied. He was breathing hard, trying to keep from crying.
Laurence said, “Let me go first.”
“You?”
“I think I’d better.” Without waiting for a response, Laurence reached up and began to climb. Patrick, following, put his good foot on the bottom rung and hauled himself up. Then he tried the hurt foot. The pain had not eased. “Don’t go too fast,” he called.
Gradually, the two boys worked their way up, now and again pausing for the ship to desist in its wild tossing.
Laurence knew he’d reached the ceiling only when he banged his head against it. “I’m at the top,” he yelled down.
“Faith now, see if you can find a hatchway,” Patrick told him.
Laurence stretched up and felt about until his fingers touched what he thought was a trapdoor. “I found it!” He gave it a shove. Though very heavy, the trap rose slightly. “It moves!” he cried.
“Get it open!”
Moving higher on the ladder, Laurence bent his head forward so that his back came up against the hatchway. Then he pressed down on both legs even as he pushed his back up. The hatchway lifted. Twisting awkwardly, almost falling, he shoved the door with all his strength.
“I’ve got it upright,” he hollered to Patrick. “I’m going to see where it leads.”
Toby Grout lay stretched upon his stateroom bed in awful misery. One large hand gripped the bed frame; the other covered his good eye. Now and again he groaned.
In contrast, Mr. Clemspool sat on his bed, his round, rosy face completely relaxed as he observed his roommate with detached amusement. “I trust you’ve heard what Mr. Murdock said?” he asked.
“I couldn’t eat,” Mr. Grout returned. As far as he was concerned, the only valid question to be asked was, Would death come by the sinking of the ship, or by the sinking of his stomach?
Mr. Clemspool went on. “He insisted this was just an ordinary storm, that it will last a few days, but it will make the voyage go faster. May I therefore suggest, sir, that you pull yourself together.”
“Yer do wants to plague me, don’t yer?” Mr. Grout groaned.
His companion laughed.
“Ain’t no shame in sayin’ I’m sick!” Mr. Grout cried. “I’m frightened too,” he added as the ship heaved in such a particularly wrenching way that the ceiling lamp swung over his head like a decapitating ax. “I don’t like it. Yer don’t ’ave to keep tryin’ to make me worse.”
“Mr. Grout, you should save your fears for something worthy, like the ghost of a sailor rising from the sea. Mr. Murdock informed me it happens during storms.”
Mr. Grout pushed himself up on an elbow. “Did ’e?”
“To make my point precisely, sir — you are an ignorant man. I should think you are rich enough to get that tutor of yours to teach you some proper religion.”
“I just knows wot to be fearful of!”
“You could be worse off,” Mr. Clemspool taunted. “You could be with all those ignorant Irish down below. You’d be at home with them.”
Mr. Grout, feeling yet another wave of nausea rise within him, fell back on his bed.
“My only complaint about this storm,” Mr. Clemspool went on, “is that it keeps me cooped up with you.”
The ship took a sudden drop, as if into a crevasse. Mr. Grout leaped up in terror.
“You need to be as calm as I am, sir,” Mr. Clemspool suggested scornfully. “Like a gentleman.”
“I needs to get away from yer, that’s wot I need,” Mr. Grout declared. “I’m goin’ into the galley. Anywhere would be better than ’ere.” When Mr. Clemspool only laughed again, Mr. Grout, feeling both wretchedly sick to his stomach and furious, hurried out of the stateroom, slamming the door behind him.
The gallery way was deserted. Overhead, on the quarterdeck, beat the unceasing rain. From below, as though from a great distance, rose the frightened cries from steerage.
The gloominess of the galley, the distant shouts, the tumultuous, incessant rocking of the ship, all convinced Toby Grout that his death from drowning was foredoomed.
Desperate for peace of mind, the one-eyed man staggered along on wobbly legs, bracing himself against the walls each time the ship heaved abruptly. The more he thought of the fact that he was caught in a raging storm in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the greater became his dread.
Why am I ’ere? he kept asking himself. Then the frightening thought occurred to him that perhaps the storm was aimed at him! Was not that how God dealt with Jonah when the man had sinned?
Just to contemplate his criminal past made Mr. Grout quake. Images of his criminal life on London streets careened through his mind. A fit of remorse gripped him, shook him. In particular, he fastened on the way he had come by the money in his cabin now, the money that had brought him to this point of suffering. That thought in turn reminded Mr. Grout of the London boy he had robbed in the street. He began to wonder — with a deepening sense of guilt — what had happened to him. Perhaps he was dead. The idea of it made Mr. Grout tremble.
Laurence poked his head up through the hatchway opening. A small oval window on the far wall shed a feeble light into a small room. Some two dozen seamen’s chests as well as traveling trunks shifted about on the floor as the ship rolled. One large chest had already tipped and broken and now lay open. It contents, gentlemen’s fine shirts, lay strewn about in disorder.
Seeing in a glance that no one was there, Laurence scrambled into the room. “It’s all right!” he called back down the opening.
Slowly, painfully, Patrick dragged himself up. As he did, his left foot caught on the latch door. It banged shut with a thump that made the boys flinch.
“We’d best keep it open,” Patrick advised. “There’s no telling when we might have to get back down fast.”
Laurence dug his fingers around the hatch. “It’s stuck,” he said, then sat back against one of the trunks. “Where are we?” he asked after a moment.
“I’m thinking it’s a storage place for rich people’s things.” Patrick examined his foot. When he moved it, the pain was severe.
“Does it hurt a lot?” Laurence asked, holding off a trunk that had slid up against him.
With a shake of his head, Patrick ignored the question. Instead, he listened to the sounds of the raging storm. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he whispered as he crossed himself. “Isn’t that wind something fierce?”
In a far corner he spied yet another ladder leading up. There was also a door in the forward wall. “Do you think that door opens?” he asked.
Laurence tried. It would not give.
Patrick said, “I suppose you’d best try the ladder.”
Laurence stood at the foot of it and gazed up. “There’s a door in the ceiling. I’ll go up.”
“Be wary,” Patrick warned.
Laurence climbed. At the top of the ladder he pressed his hand against a small square in the ceiling. It was a door indeed, and it lifted. Moving higher, he stuck his head up and looked down a dim hallway.
Upon reaching the forward end of the galley, Mr. Grout pushed against the door, opening it some two inches. Small as the gap was, a blast of wet wind momentarily blinded him, though not before he glimpsed a deck awash with wild water. In haste, he pulled the door back shut.
Attempting to wipe his face dry, Mr. Grout turned and stumbled back toward his stateroom. All he wanted to do was to curl up on his bed and hide from everything — his past included.
As he tottered toward the stern of the ship, Mr. Grout stop
ped short. At the far end of the shadowy galley way something was moving. Low and indistinct, it was difficult to make out exactly, except that the thing seemed to be rising out of the floor.
Hardly believing what he was seeing, Mr. Grout, heart pounding, took a few hesitant steps forward, straining to see more clearly through the dim light.
What he observed was a rising head, shoulders, then hands. Here were his most fearful superstitions coming true! Here was a ghost. Mr. Grout could barely breathe. His heart nearly burst from hammering. Oh! Here was the boy from London — the same dirty face, the same look of fear, the same severely marked right cheek — the boy from whom he had stolen the money!
Staggered by the force of the vision, Mr. Grout stumbled in the direction of the ghost only to see it vanish through the floor. At that moment, the ship lurched. His legs weak and shaky, Mr. Grout slipped, saving himself from a fall by clawing at the wall. Feeling as though he were suffocating, he tried to cry for help, but his throat was too constricted.
Shaken to his soul, Mr. Grout propped himself against the wall and stared at the place where he had seen the ghost — as he believed it to be. Then the boy was dead! Such a visitation could mean only one thing. He — Toby Grout — bore the appalling responsibility.
Whatever was left of the one-eyed man’s courage evaporated. He floundered back to his cabin, snatched the door open, stepped inside, slammed it, and leaned his full weight upon it so nothing could follow.
What’s the matter?” Patrick asked when Laurence dropped down to the floor of the luggage room.
For one brief, terrible second Laurence was certain he’d seen the man with the eye patch, the man who’d robbed him in London. “Patrick,” he bleated hoarsely, “there’s someone in the hallway.”
“Who?”
“A … a man,” Laurence stammered, hardly knowing how to explain. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t know. He ran away.”
“Where?”
Laurence shook his head.
Patrick pulled himself up. His foot throbbed. “We have to find a way out of here,” he said. He pointed to the forward wall. “Try that door again.” When Laurence, lost in thought, simply stood there, Patrick repeated, “What’s the matter with you?”
“It’s nothing,” Laurence said, trying to shake off his fright. He pulled at the door again. It still would not move. He looked around at Patrick for advice.
“Faith then,” said Patrick, “the only way to get out is up the ladder. Go on. Best check to see if there’s anyone there now.”
Instead, Laurence closed his eyes, intent upon the man he had seen in the galley. Surely he was the one-eyed man who took his money. Hadn’t he seen the thief’s face — albeit falsely bearded — that night in London? Hadn’t he seen it again at the Liverpool railroad station and still again through the keyhole when Mr. Clemspool had locked him in the hotel room? He couldn’t confuse that face with any other. It had to be the same person! But how could that be?
Recollecting closely was a skill that Laurence had practiced and developed to pass away long, lonely hours in the dark hold. So it was that when he cast his mind back to the hotel room in which Mr. Clemspool had kept him prisoner, trying to recall what he had seen and heard, he was able to envision much: the hotel room’s size, the color of its walls, the soft luxury of the bed, the room’s two windows, the curtain he’d used for his escape. He saw the room’s door and the keyhole through which he had seen the thief and heard his voice.
Slowly but surely the scene unfolded in his memory: The thief was speaking to Mr. Clemspool, telling the villain that he was going to America. Would Mr. Clemspool come with him? No, Mr. Clemspool refused. Laurence was not sure what the one-eyed man’s name was, Gout or Grout or Clout. But he said he would go to America anyway and would, moreover, “deal” with Laurence there.
That was why the thief was on the ship.
Then a new thought tumbled upon him: Did the man know Laurence was on board? Only Fred, Patrick and Maura, and that Mr. Drabble knew he’d stowed away, and he didn’t think any of them would have told the one-eyed man. No, unless the man had just recognized him during their brief meeting in the galley, he could have no idea that Laurence was on the ship too.
Then another notion came, one so extraordinary, it took the boy’s breath away. Could the thief still have the money he’d stolen? To think that the money he’d taken from his father might not be far from him at this moment! Oh, if he could only get it back!
He understood now that he’d taken a great sum, enough to live on for a long time. It could buy his passage home to England, and still he might be able to return most of it to his father.
Or should he stay in America once he got there and do — what? Laurence pushed aside all such speculations. Instead, he concentrated on how he would get the money back.
His thoughts were interrupted by a poke from Patrick. “Laurence,” the Irish boy warned, “stop your dallying and get on with it. There’s no choice. If we stay here, we’ll be found, certain. The more so if that man you saw reports us. Go on now.”
As Mr. Grout retreated into the stateroom, Mr. Clemspool glanced up and laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone look so sick in all my life,” he said.
“I’m not ill,” Mr. Grout barely managed to whisper.
“I assure you, sir, you look like death itself.”
“It’s possible. I did see death.”
“Did you now?” Mr. Clemspool mocked.
“A ghost,” Mr. Grout said.
“A ghost!” Mr. Clemspool hooted. “Was it the ghost of a fish?”
“I seen the ghost of the person I took the money from.”
“What money?”
“The fortune as I got in London.”
“I never asked you where you got your money, Mr. Grout.” Mr. Clemspool sneered. “I don’t want to hear about it now.”
“But I seen ’im. Right out there. I could describe ’is every particular.”
“Spare me your remorse, sir.”
“It was a warnin’,” Mr. Grout cried with anguish. “A warnin’ to change me ways from the sinner I am.”
Mr. Clemspool waved his hands about in annoyance. “You are absurd!”
“And I will change!” Mr. Grout shouted. “For one thing I’ll ’ave nothing more of yer schemin’, connivin’, and swindlin’!”
“All this for a mere ghost,” Mr. Clemspool returned with contempt.
“That ghost was a boy no bigger than I once was. A scrawny pale-faced tyke. Filthy like ’e just came out a London sewer. With a long welt right ’ere.” Mr. Grout pointed to his right cheek.
Mr. Clemspool sat bolt upright. “A welt!” he cried. “Did you say welt? On the right side of the face?”
“I seen it.”
“What kind of clothing was he wearing?”
“Then? When I cleaned him out in London? All fine, like ’e was going to some swell’s bash. But all the same muddy, like ’e’d slept in a ditch.”
“Not then, you fool! Now! When you just saw him.”
“I didn’t see ’im,” Mr. Grout replied. “I saw ’is ghost. In tattered rags.”
“Good God!” Mr. Clemspool fairly screamed. “Show me where he is!”
Mr. Grout blocked the door. “Don’t go messin’ with me ghost, Clemspool. Leave it alone.”
Too excited to take heed, Mr. Clemspool shoved Mr. Grout aside and yanked the door open. Once in the dim galley he looked up and down. It was deserted. Annoyed, he returned to the room. “Nothing,” he announced.
“Because it was meant for me one good eye and no one else’s!” Mr. Grout shouted.
“It was your imagination, sir,” Mr. Clemspool said with a derision that disguised his relief. “Your guilty imagination.”
“I am guilty!” Mr. Grout cried.
“But that face you described,” Mr. Clemspool said evenly, “is the face of the boy I had with me in Liverpool, Sir Laurence K
irkle.”
“Not true!” cried the one-eyed man with terror.
“If your description is accurate, it’s so.”
“Then ’e’s dead,” Mr. Grout said with quaking remorse. “And ’e’s come to ’aunt me. To get back ’is money.”
Mr. Clemspool lowered himself onto his bed. “And I say if the lad is dead, so much the better. But frankly, sir, I am pleased to discover you have as much to do with this business as do I.” He shook a plump finger at Mr. Grout. “To make my point precisely, sir, if you ever try to pretend you do not, it shall be my pleasure to tell the world where you got your money.”
“I don’t deny it,” Mr. Grout returned bitterly. “I repent it!”
“How much did you take?”
“A thousand pounds.”
“One thousand!” cried Mr. Clemspool.
“If I could give it back to ’im, I would.”
“See here, Mr. Grout,” the man said with exasperation, “if you feel so bad about it, give me the money!”
“Not a chance,” Mr. Grout said. “I knows wot I’m going to do with it.”
“What?”
“As soon as we gets to America, I intends to send it back.”
Incredulous, Mr. Clemspool shook his head. As for Mr. Grout’s intentions, they were one thing. His own — for the money and for himself — were quite another.
Once again Laurence lifted the hatchway just enough to peek out. Half of him wanted to see the one-eyed man. The other half shrank from the idea. But the galley was empty. “No one’s there now,” he called down to Patrick, not sure how he felt.
“Then we’ll go that way,” Patrick said. “You crawl out first.”
Laurence shoved the hatch door completely open, then pulled himself onto the galley floor.
“Give a hand here, will you?” Patrick whispered.
With Laurence’s help, Patrick struggled out of the luggage room. Once on the galley floor, he studied the area. There were seven doors. It was difficult to know which way to go.