19000 Pound Part 8

Then it occurred to him that perhaps, after all, the man had locked the money in one of his portmanteaus. Loide was thankful that he had time before him, in which to make search. He had been wise not to leave things till the last moment.

He felt in the dead man's coat, vest, and ultimately in a trousers pocket found two keys, tied together with a piece of twine. These he presently found fitted the portmanteaus.

He inserted a key in one, turned the lock, and unbuckled the straps. The bag contained but one thing--a huge parcel wrapped in newspapers.

He would try the other bag--did so. Found it contained five smaller parcels, four long shaped and one something like a large football.

He picked up one of the long parcels and felt it. It had a curious half hard feeling.

He sat on his berth again and opened it on his knees. There was no string round the parcel.

As he held the end of the paper it unwound itself, and the contents dropped on to the floor--a human arm and hand!

He clapped his own hand to his mouth and so stifled a scream.

It is all very well to be cool over your own murderous work, but when you come across another man's, it is apt to startle you. Loide was the most startled individual on the Atlantic at that particular moment.

He sat there in stony amazement and horror. He feared to open the other parcels. Still he had to.

Qualms had to be kept down. The possession of nineteen thousand pounds depended on his search.

He imagined that Depew had murdered some one in England, and was taking the body out, perhaps to hide traces of his crime in the sea.

So curiously fashioned was the lawyer's intellect that he was rather glad that he had killed Depew--looked upon himself as a kind of weapon in the hand of justice.

There is no accounting for the kinks into which a man's intellect will twist.

The avenger idea gave him the necessary courage to go on examining the rest of the parcels. Not a solitary thing save of the awful kind the first was.

The big parcel in the other portmanteau made him shudder in horror. He was glad when he was able to shut the bags and get rid of the sight of those horrible bundles.

Then another bag--a little hand bag--caught his attention. He felt mad with himself that he had not examined that first.

It needed no key. A pressure of the lock opened it, and he turned the contents on the floor; collars, handkerchiefs, shirts, and socks--nothing else.

Once more he sat on his bunk--sat there with his chin in the palms of his hands, thinking.

How long he sat there he never knew. He was awakened by the steamer's gongs; the engine room was being signaled.

He clambered to the port-hole, and in the gray of the early morning he could see they were off Queenstown, and the tender was nearly alongside.

He had no time to lose. What should he do?

Then it occurred to him that, as a measure of precaution, the man had given his belt to the captain, to be locked up in the ship's strong-room. That was the solution of the mystery, then.

He cursed his luck, himself, and the dead man. For absolutely nothing he had run all this risk, and killed a man, and had yet to escape.

It was--from his point of view--perfectly monstrous. If the dead man could have wanted revenge, surely he was having it then.

There was a screech from the tender's siren; she was coming alongside.

He put on his boots, and as he did so there was a sound of rapping at the door. He hurriedly pulled the head curtains of his victim's berth, and, shooting back the bolt, opened the door.

"Any letters or telegrams for sh.o.r.e, sir?"

"Is there time to go ash.o.r.e?"

"Can if you like, sir; the tender will bring you back. You will get about an hour ash.o.r.e."

"Very well, I will go, then."

"At once, sir. The tender will leave in less than five minutes."

And the officer went on his round collecting letters and telegrams.

Loide put on his hat, flung the blood stained knife out of the port-hole, turned the b.u.t.ton of the electric light, and stepped outside, closing the door after him.

Then he suddenly remembered that the most likely place of all he had overlooked. A sleeping man would place valuables beneath his pillow.

He entered the cabin again, turned the electric light b.u.t.ton, and slid his hand under the dead man's pillow--nothing.

To make a.s.surance doubly sure--much as he dreaded looking on the face of the man he had murdered--he pulled aside the towel.

Then for a second time he was paralyzed with astonishment and horror, and thrust his fingers in his mouth to prevent the escape of a cry. He had never before seen the face of his victim. It was not his client Depew.

He had killed the wrong man!

CHAPTER VII

THE NUMBERS OF THE MISSING NOTES

Loide got off the boat safely. On the wharf at Queenstown he secured a position where, concealed himself, he could watch the liner.

Hours seemed to drag by which were in reality minutes. At last the tender put off with the mails and reached the steamer's side.

With his gla.s.ses he could see everything that was going on. There was no excitement.

The bags were handed on board, and presently he made out a wake of foam from the blades of the steamer's screw. The tender had turned and was coming back; the steamer was going on.

Loide breathed a deep sigh of relief. So far nothing had been discovered.

Ultimately he reached London, and let himself into his office after dark--as he had left it.

He made shirt, clothing, and wig, and all the coal he had in his office scuttle into a parcel, and a short while after that parcel was making a hole for itself in the soft mud under London Bridge.