A Desperate Voyage Part 23

"I will call myself John Rudge," said the stranger.

In spite of these precautions, the ever-watchful Baptiste soon came to suspect that there was mischief brewing. One day that he accompanied Carew to the Consulate he at once observed that the consul's manner had undergone a change. There was a reserve and a lack of his usual heartiness in his greeting of Carew. It was but a slight and involuntary change, and it escaped Carew's notice.

A few days after this, Baptiste was sent to the Consulate with a letter.

As he came to the door John Rudge was going out. The stranger seemed startled at finding himself thus suddenly face to face with the Frenchman, and walked hastily away.

"A trifling circ.u.mstance," said Baptiste to himself; "but the lightest trifles show best the direction of the wind. Why did that man start at seeing me? Who is he?"

A week pa.s.sed, and Baptiste saw no more of the stranger; but at last he came full upon him in front of the post-office. Again Rudge seemed as if he wished to avoid being seen by the Frenchman, and turned his head aside as he pa.s.sed.

But Baptiste was quick in resource. "Stay a moment, if you please, sir,"

he called out in French; "I wish to speak to you."

The Englishman stood still.

"Pardon me for detaining you," continued Baptiste, "but you understand French?"

"I do."

"Ah, sir, what chance! I know not a word of this horrid Portuguese tongue, and I wish to inquire at the post-office if there is a letter for me. Would you oblige me by interpreting for me?"

"I don't know Portuguese myself; but the clerk in the post-office understands French."

"Thank you, sir. I am a stranger here, you see. I am one of the crew of _La Bonne Esperance_, the derelict. No doubt you have heard our story?"

"Oh yes, I know all about it. You were very fortunate. But excuse me, my friend; I am in great haste," and he hurried off.

Baptiste returned to the hotel and found Carew. "Captain," he asked, "have you committed some peccadillo in England on account of which they are likely to be hunting after you here?"

"It is almost impossible that any enemies I may have can have traced me here."

"All dead, I suppose," remarked Baptiste coolly. Then he proceeded to explain the reasons that had prompted his questions.

"You are full of foolish fears, Baptiste. I see nothing in all this."

"Ah, sir, I have lived for so many years in the midst of alarms that I perceive the first indications of danger. When I told this Englishman that I was one of your crew, he exhibited no interest. He did not question me about our adventures, and make much of me, and take me into a cafe to give me drinks, as all the other Englishmen in Pernambuco do when they meet one of us heroes of the hour."

"I do not see anything very alarming in his neglect to make a fuss over you."

"I do, because I understand human nature. I see dangers ahead, and I intend to secure my retreat in case of disaster. I shall arrange how to slip away if necessary. I advise you to do the same, captain."

"I have done so, Baptiste."

CHAPTER XVIII

Carew had been nearly six weeks in Pernambuco, when a British mail steamer happened to land an English pa.s.senger, who at once called on the consul, and introduced himself to that functionary as Mr. Norton. He had that to say which considerably astonished the consul, and the result was that on the following morning a letter was brought to Carew as he was sitting down to his breakfast at the hotel with Baptiste. It was from the consul's clerk, and ran thus:--"_Sir, will you kindly call here to-day? Your business is practically settled._"

"Practically settled?" repeated Baptiste, when he heard the contents.

"Those words have an unpleasant ring somehow. I know not why, but I cannot help fearing that something is wrong."

"I too have my presentiments," said Carew, "but I am prepared."

At the appointed hour Carew called at the Consulate. He found the consul and Lloyd's agent awaiting him in a room adjoining the princ.i.p.al office.

There was a constraint in their manner, which he, watchful for the slightest suspicious indication, detected at once. They were as men who antic.i.p.ated some momentous event, but who endeavoured to conceal their anxiety.

The consul produced a doc.u.ment, and laid it on the desk. "Read this over, please, Mr. Allen, and see that it is correct."

Carew glanced down it quickly with an eye trained to legal forms. "It is perfectly correct," he said.

"I have a gentleman in the next room who will witness your signature to this statement," proceeded the consul. He opened the door, and Mr.

Norton entered the room.

The consciousness of impending peril came over Carew's guilty soul, but he seized the pen, and in a firm hand wrote the signature, "Arthur Allen, Barrister-at-law."

Mr. Norton now approached the table. He took up the pen as if to sign his name, glanced at the doc.u.ment, and then, raising his head, looked Carew full in the face. "I cannot witness this signature," he said. "It is a forgery!"

There was a complete silence for a few moments; then Carew, whose face was pale, but who betrayed no other signs of emotion, said quietly, "Explain your strange words, sir."

"It is no good; the game is up, Mr. Carew," replied Norton. "I have a warrant for your arrest, and the police are at the door."

"A trap has been laid for me, I see," said Carew, as quietly as before.

"This is one of the absurd mistakes you detectives so often make; but I will soon clear it up. Of what am I accused?" Carew was astonished at his own courage in the presence of this extreme disaster, or rather--for it can scarcely be called courage--at his indifference to his fate. He felt as if he were the spectator of a tragedy which was being played by other men, and in which he was not himself an actor--a common state of mind with men in utmost peril.

"The charge with which I am immediately concerned," replied the detective, "and on account of which an extradition warrant has been issued, is the forgery of a client's name by the solicitor Henry Carew.

In the meanwhile, look at these," and he threw on the table two photographs. Carew took them up. One, he saw, was a portrait of Arthur Allen, his friend whom he left to drown in the North Sea; the other was a photograph of himself which had been taken eight years back, when he was another man, when his conscience was still clear, and before his gambling losses had driven him from crime to crime; sin and suffering had yet drawn no lines on the face, the brow was free from care. He gazed gloomily at this presentment of what he had been and could never be again, and his mind wandered back with despairing regret to memories of guiltless days.

"On the 15th of August last," continued the detective, "a solicitor, Henry Carew, absconded, disappeared, leaving no trace. For some time I, who was entrusted with the case, was altogether at fault; but at last, as often happens, a coincidence threw me on the scent. I came across an advertis.e.m.e.nt inserted in the papers by the relatives of a missing man, Arthur Allen. He had left his chambers on the 15th of August, and had not since been heard of. Carew and Allen thus disappeared from London on the same day, mark you; but there was no very remarkable coincidence in that fact. However, I happened to remember that, while searching the papers of Carew to discover what were his habits, who were his acquaintances, and so forth, I had come across the name of this Arthur Allen, apparently a friend of Carew's. The clue was worth following up.

I soon ascertained that Allen had that day sailed from the Thames in his yacht; that his last known port of call was Rotterdam. I went to Rotterdam, and there, from a Mr. Hoogendyk and others, learnt that the man who called himself Arthur Allen had conducted himself in a somewhat curious manner for an English yachtsman, and had suddenly sailed from that port, bound no one knew whither, with a crew of Spanish desperadoes."

The detective now took the two photographs from the hand of Carew, who was still gazing at them in a dazed way, apparently not listening to the words of his accuser.

"I procured these," Norton went on. "I brought them to Mr. Hoogendyk.

First I showed him the portrait of Arthur Allen; he did not recognise it. Then I gave him the portrait of Henry Carew. 'This, of course,' he at once said, 'is the photograph of Mr. Allen, the Englishman who came here with the little yacht.' Then I knew that I was on the right track.

Shortly afterwards, a paragraph which appeared in a London evening paper brought me promptly here, armed with an extradition warrant. I have the paragraph here. It is headed '_A Strange Story of the Sea._' I will read it to you. '_A telegram from Pernambuco states that a French barque, the_ La Bonne Esperance, _has been brought into that port a derelict.

She was picked up by the crew of an English yacht, the_ Petrel. _The_ Petrel _had foundered in the South Atlantic. Mr. Allen, the owner, and his three men took to the dinghy, and, after drifting for several days, encountered the deserted barque, which they sailed into Pernambuco. The salvage is likely to far more than compensate Mr. Allen for the loss of his yacht._' That is all I need say at present."

The consul spoke next. "There is a Mr. Rudge here, who has been in Pernambuco for some weeks, who can also throw a light on this matter."

The consul touched the bell, and the man who had a.s.sumed the name of Rudge was shown into the room. He closed the door behind him, and stood with his back against it.

"This gentleman," said the consul deliberately, "affirms that _he_ is Arthur Allen, the barrister, the owner of the lost yacht."

All in the room now turned their eyes upon Carew, to watch the effect upon him of this sudden presence.