Dangerous Cargo (8 page)

“Oh, do you know the place,” said Sophie.

Mme. Storey let it go at that. “Where’s Horace?” she asked.

“Somewhere out on deck,” said Adrian carelessly. There was an awkward
silence. It was broken by young Celia, who blurted out: “He’s in an awful
temper. We’re all afraid to speak to him.”

“Celia!” said her mother reprovingly.

“I’m not afraid of him,” said Mme. Storey. “I’ll go find him.”

As we turned towards the door Adele came in, fragile and lovely as a dream
creature in a cloud of pink organdie. My jaw must have dropped a full inch.
Fortunately my back was turned to the others in the room. Adele, whom I had
seen sailing away on the
Orizaba
, as I supposed! I had the impulse to
pass my hand weakly over my face.

She was not surprised to see us, though it put her out of countenance.
“Hello!” she said to Mme. Storey. “I was wondering where you were!…Come out
on deck a moment,” she added swiftly in a whisper, “and I’ll explain.”

Mme. Storey hid whatever surprise she may have felt—after all, she
had said that Adele would never go. Her smile was rather grim. “What a lovely
dress!” she said. “And oh! my dear, that marvellous jewel!”

I saw then that Adele was wearing, partly hidden under an organdie ruffle,
a superb, pear-shaped diamond almost as big as a pigeon’s egg. Half-veiled by
the thin stuff, the enormous gem shone with a wicked gleam that would have
seduced the most virtuous of women. The Emeretinsky diamond!

“Horace gave it to me a long time ago,” she said, fingering it. (How
convincingly the woman could lie!) “To-night he asked me to wear it!”

“We nearly dropped dead when we saw it!” gushed Sophie in the background.
“It is lovelier than the Kohinoor!”

Mme. Storey, Adele and I sauntered out on deck in a natural manner. “What
a shock you must have got when you saw me!” said Adele nervously. “I was
hoping that I could see you alone first and explain.”

“What is the explanation?” asked Mme. Storey.

“Well, Harry and I talked things over after we got aboard the
Orizaba
,” said Adele glibly, “and we decided that it would be better
for everybody if I came back to the yacht instead of breaking things off with
a lot of fuss and scandal. So Harry’s gone back to New York, and here I am. I
came off early and had dinner with Horace on the yacht.”

“I see,” said Mme. Storey.

“Don’t you believe me?” said Adele hotly. “Well, what do I care whether
you believe me or not? I’m not accountable to you for my actions, and don’t
you think it! If my husband is satisfied that’s enough for me!”

“Oh, quite!” said Mme. Storey, blowing a ring of cigarette smoke and
following it with her eyes.

Adele stood trembling with rage, trying to think of a rejoinder that would
crush her. But nothing came. With a stamp of her foot and a defiant flirt of
pink organdie, she turned back into the winter-garden.

“Undoubtedly lying,” I murmured. “What do you suppose really
happened?”

“Time will tell,” said Mme. Storey calmly. “Come on, let’s look for
Horace.”

We found him below on the promenade deck, moodily chewing an unlighted
cigar. To Horace, anyhow, our appearance was sensational. When he saw us
coming along the deck his eyes almost started from his head. One might have
thought we were a pair of ghosts that had materialised out of nothing before
him. Without knowing what he was doing, he tossed the unsmoked cigar
overboard. He took a step forward, and seizing Mme. Storey by the elbows,
gave her a shake, half-overjoyed, half-exasperated.

“Rosika! Rosika!” he cried. “How did you come aboard?”

“In a row-boat,” she said, smiling.

I had never seen the man so moved. I understood then that Adele’s star was
rapidly declining in his affections while my employer’s rose. But I don’t
think he realised it as yet.

“Then you changed your mind!” he cried. “Or perhaps you were only fooling
me!”

“You’re talking in riddles,” she said. “Why did you set sail without even
inquiring what had become of us?”

“Without inquiring?” he said indignantly. “What do you make of this!”

He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
She carried it under a light and read out:

“DEAR HORACE:

“The situation is impossible and it is useless to go on with it. Bella and
I will not return to the yacht. It will do you no good to try to find us, as
I mean to keep safely out of the way until you have sailed. I am doing this
in order to avoid an unpleasant quarrel. You may ship our things back to New
York from any port where you touch.

“Sincerely yours,

“ROSIKA STOREY.”

“A clumsy forgery,” she said.

“How was I to know that?” growled Horace. “I have never seen your
handwriting!”

“You could have found samples of it in my cabin to compare with this.”

“Well…it sounded like you! It made me sore! I haven’t told anybody about
this note.”

“You mean your conscience was bad. You know very well that you have not
kept the agreement we made before I came aboard.”

He impatiently waved this aside. “What did happen?” he demanded.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Who gave you this note?”

“It was brought off from the town in a motor-boat about seven-thirty. It
was handed me by a young fellow who said he had been instructed not to put it
in any hands but mine.”

“A Chinaman?”

“No. Mulatto. But there were Chinese in the boat that brought him. I
looked over the rail. Why do you ask?”

She gave him a brief and graphic account of what had happened to us.
Horace was furious. He cursed and pounded the rail with his clenched
fist.

“We’ll go right back!” he cried. “We’ll lodge that dirty Chink and his
gang behind the bars for this!”

“Calm yourself,” said Mme. Storey. “Feng Lee is nothing in our lives. He’s
in Curaçao and we’re on the high seas. We have nothing further to fear from
him. What we’ve got to do is to find the man who hired him, and he’s right on
this ship!”

Horace calmed down. “You suspect the Captain?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I have no evidence, but I don’t see who else it could have
been.”

“I’ll find out!” said Horace.

“Better not show your hand until we have more to go on.”

Just then Adele came along the deck with a highly self-conscious air. She
wanted to find out what Mme. Storey was telling Horace.

“Hello, Horace,” she said with dulcet sweetness, “I’ve been looking for
you everywhere!” She slipped her arm through his.

“Oh, hello,” he said with a careless fondness that was little better than
insulting. He freed his arm. “Run along like a good girl. Mme. Storey and I
have a little business to talk over. I’ll be with you directly.”

“Must I be kept out of it?” she said, pouting.

“It hasn’t anything to do with you,” said Horace.

This satisfied her for the moment. “I’ll wait for you in the music-room,”
she said, leaving us.

The music-room was alongside where we were standing. Mme. Storey, as if by
accident, led Horace a little farther away as they resumed their talk.

“All these things going on under my nose and you ask me to do nothing
about it!” cried Horace.

“Has the Captain informed you that two men deserted at Willemstad?”

“No.”

“Then here’s something you can do. When you see the Captain let it fall
casually, that I mentioned I had run into him looking for the deserters, and
see what he says. We may catch him napping.”

“If he’s guilty his face will give him away when I tell him you are safe
aboard.”

“We were seen coming up the ladder,” she said dryly. “You will find his
face prepared for the news.”

“If he knows you got safe away he must know that you have told me the
whole story,” objected Horace. “Why should I make out I know nothing?”

“The more you can keep him guessing the better chance we have of catching
him out,” she said.

Horace moved his shoulders impatiently. He could never take kindly to a
suggestion from without.

“And watch yourself!” added Mme. Storey seriously. “If they imagine that
we have them on the run they’ll become reckless.”

“Sure,” he said, only half-listening.

While Horace went in search of the Captain, Mme. Storey and I ascended to
the wireless cabin on the boat-deck to ask if any messages had come while we
were ashore. The operator was a young lad called Charlie, who, like many a
man before him, had fallen for my employer’s dark eyes. His face lighted up
like a turned-on lamp when we appeared in his doorway.

“No message for you,” he said, “but look what I picked out of the air
while we were lying at anchor. Funny doings aboard the
Orizaba
. As a
criminologist, I thought it would interest you.”

He handed her a form covered with his flowing handwriting. She read it and
passed it to me with an inscrutable face. “Time has told sooner than I
expected,” she murmured. Charlie didn’t hear it. I read:

“CHIEF OF POLICE,

“WILLEMSTAD.

“Shortly after weighing anchor this evening the attention of a steward
aboard my ship was attracted by a pounding on one of the state-room doors. A
passenger from Willemstad to Panama, one John Matthews, was discovered to be
locked in and the key missing. Upon being released, he claimed that after
coming aboard with his wife an hour before, she had contrived to drug him
with a drink in the state-room, and had then locked him in and had returned
ashore. He demanded to be taken back to Willemstad. I refused to bring my
ship about, whereupon, seeing a motor-boat passing, he leaped overboard. I
hove to, and played searchlights on the spot. I saw him picked up by the
small boat and continued my voyage. This for your information.

“B. CARSTAIRS, MASTER, R.M.S.
Orizaba
.”

“What do you make of it?” said Charlie, grinning.

“Oh, the lady wanted to get rid of her husband painlessly,” said Mme.
Storey. “Not an uncommon situation.”

The boy laughed. Horace, hearing our voices, appeared in the doorway of
the wireless-room, and young Charlie froze up, as Horace’s employees did in
his presence. We strolled along the deck with Horace. He said:

“The Captain said it was true that two sailors had deserted in Willemstad;
Wanzer and Johnson. He said he hadn’t troubled me about the matter because
the ship was amply manned, anyhow.”

“He is lying,” said Mme. Storey crisply. “It is the first positive bit of
evidence we have got against him. I saw Wanzer on deck just before we weighed
anchor. And I have reason to believe the other man is aboard also.”

“Johnson?” asked Horace carelessly. “What’s he got to do with the
situation?”

“He’s the sailor with whom you had a run-in on deck the first day.”

“Ha!” cried Horace. “We’d be well rid of that mutineer.”

“I’ve got to tell you the whole story now,” my employer continued, “so
that you can take measures to protect yourself. Johnson’s real name is Harry
Holder.”

Horace stopped short, staring. “What are you saying?” he cried.
“Holder?”

“No other,” she said dryly. “Adele’s lawful husband, it appears.”

His face flamed with rage. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want you to kill the man while we looked on. I persuaded him and
Adele to sail for home on the
Orizaba
as the easiest way of avoiding
trouble. But Adele backed out, as you know, and now it appears that Holder
hasn’t gone either.”

“By God! Do you mean that woman had the face to bring…”

“Wait! Let’s be fair to her. It was somebody else who smuggled Holder
aboard, and tried to heat him up to the point of shooting you. Adele was
terrified when she found him here.”

“But after having left him she came off from the town this evening all
smiles and sweetness! Said she’d come back early because she couldn’t bear to
let me dine alone! God, I thought I knew women! But they can always go you
one worse!”

“Well, you see, she hadn’t yet got the diamond you promised her.”

“Damnation!” cried Horace.

“How do you know Holder didn’t go either?”

She handed over the wireless message. “Charlie got this out of the air
just as an amusing case.”

When he had read it Horace was beside himself with rage. He walked away
from us cursing under his breath and unconsciously shaking his clenched
fists. He came back growling:

“I’ll have the ship searched. I’ll find him! I’ll find them both! We’ll
have a show-down now!”

“Just as you will,” said Mme. Storey mildly. “But if the search is carried
out by the same men who have an interest in hiding the sailors, your chances
of finding them are not very good, are they?”

“I’ll head the search myself,” he growled.

Adele appeared on the stairway from the deck below. She came towards us
pouting like a child who is sure of getting what it wants. “Horace, how long
are you going to keep me waiting?” she said.

He turned on her with blazing eyes. I thought he was going to strike her,
but he held himself in. He didn’t say anything. It wasn’t necessary. The heat
of his rage shrivelled her. She drew back, terrified, and her hand
instinctively closed over the diamond on her breast.

Observing the action, Horace laughed harshly and walked away up
forward.

THE swimming-pool gave me more pleasure than anything else
aboard the
Buccaneer
. It was constructed deep in the hold of the
yacht, forward of the engine space, the bottom of the pool resting on the
keel, so that the water in it served as ballast.

It had been Horace’s notion to have the whole place furnished in dull
black marble, with a row of slender pillars all around. Overhead there was a
dome of coloured glass with lights behind it to give the illusion of sunlight
shining through. There was a row of dressing-boxes along the far end with
curtains hanging in front, but these were never used. We dressed in our
cabins.