Captain Calamity Part 38

The latter winced and went on hurriedly:

"The night before I left I was sitting at the window of an unlighted room, thinking--G.o.d knows what I was thinking, it doesn't matter now--when I heard voices in the shrubbery and recognised them as belonging to my brother and his German valet. Hearing my own name, I leant out of the window and listened; I felt no shame about it, for I guessed the part George had played in my affairs. And, anyway, I wasn't caring much about the conventions just then. There's no need to repeat what I heard, but my suspicions were confirmed, and when the pair moved out of the shrubbery I knew for certain that, between them, they had engineered my ruin. To put the matter in a nutsh.e.l.l, my brother had forged the cheque, having previously arranged matters so that suspicion should fall on me.

"My first thought was to rush to the old man at once and tell him what I had discovered. But a moment's reflection convinced me that I hadn't an atom of tangible proof, that the whole thing would rest on my word, which, under the circ.u.mstances, I could hardly expect anyone to accept.

No, there was nothing for it but to acquiesce in the inevitable and go--which I did."

"Yes," said Vayne thoughtfully, "you came up to my office one morning early. There was a look in your face that I shan't forget as long as I live. It has often puzzled me since why you came to me."

"I don't quite know, myself," answered Calamity. "But you had always been pretty decent to me, Vayne, and when I was acting the fool at Oxford, you befriended me more than once. Why a staid and eminently respectable family lawyer like yourself should lend a helping hand to a scatter-brained idiot I don't know; but you did, and there it is."

"As to that, my dear John, your family have been clients of my firm for generations," said the lawyer almost apologetically.

Calamity laughed.

"I'm afraid that's a very weak defence, Vayne, not to say irrelevant.

However, we'll let it pa.s.s. You lent me the money to get out of the country and--well, you know the rest."

"I know as much as you told me in one scanty letter a year," answered the lawyer drily. "I don't believe you would even have written me to that extent had I not extracted the promise from you before you left my office."

"I'm afraid you wouldn't have been very edified had I given you a full and particular account of my adventures. I served three years before the mast, got my mate's ticket, and after that a master's ticket. I've sailed in whalers, colliers, cattle-boats, liners, tramps, blackbirders, and G.o.d knows what sort of craft. I've dug for gold in Alaska, been a transport rider in South Africa, skippered a pearling-ground poacher in j.a.panese waters, run guns in the Persian Gulf, and--well, ended up by becoming a privateer. Also, I nearly pegged out once with malaria, and, as you see, I lost an eye."

The lawyer nodded.

"Your father, as I informed you in one of my yearly letters, died in the belief that you were dead, and so did your brother," he said. "Seeing that they are both gone, I suggest that you do not attempt to reopen the matter of the forged cheque. As you have said, you can prove nothing, and----"

"But I can now," interrupted Calamity, with almost savage energy. "Look at this."

He took a wallet out of his pocket and extracted from it the doc.u.ment that Fritz Siemann had drawn up and signed and which Smith and McPhulach had witnessed.

"There," he said, handing it to the lawyer.

The latter took the doc.u.ment, adjusted his pinc-nez, and carefully read it through twice.

"That clears you once and for all," he remarked as he handed it back.

"It does, and I'm going to use it."

"My dear fellow!" exclaimed the lawyer in a tone almost approaching horror.

"Oh, I don't mean that I propose publishing it in the newspapers. But all those who knew me and believed in my guilt at the time shall see it."

"But whatever wrong your brother may have done you, he is dead now, and it would hardly be--er--good form to dishonour his memory. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum._"

"d.a.m.n his memory!" flashed out Calamity. "I beg your pardon, Vayne," he went on in a quieter tone, noticing the other's shocked expression, "but I don't see why a live man should suffer in order to shield a dead man's reputation. He made me suffer while I was alive, and it is a very poor revenge, albeit the only one at my disposal, to charge him with his crime now he's dead. I for one won't bow down to the shibboleth of honouring the dead just because they are dead; I hate my brother as much now as ever I did, and the mere fact that he's no longer able to enjoy the fruits of his rascality makes no difference to that."

"As you will, John; it's a matter for you to decide, not me."

The lawyer rose from his chair and slowly fastened his little leather bag.

"By the way," he said a little hesitatingly, "have--er--have Letters of Marque been revived since the war started?"

"'Pon my word, Vayne, I don't know," answered Calamity.

"Then you----"

"Oh, as usual, I took risks."

"H'm," grunted the lawyer, and added, after a pause, "when will you be ready to sail?"

"A fortnight or three weeks from now. I want to make sure that all my officers receive their proper share of the profits."

"Very well. I shall see you to-morrow, I suppose?"

"Yes, I shall be here," answered Calamity, shaking hands.

The lawyer had scarcely gone when a native servant entered and stated that a gentleman had called to see Captain Calamity.

"What is his name?"

"Abott, master."

"Then show him up."

The pilot was duly ushered in, and, as soon as the servant had departed, he congratulated Calamity on having been acquitted of the charge which Solomon had brought against him.

"Thanks," answered Calamity. "I told you I had something in store for the old rascal."

"Then it's true he's been arrested?"

"Yes; I don't think you're likely to gaze on his benevolent smile again, Abott."

"Then there's a story going round that you're a lord or a dook or something of that sort."

"Don't take any notice of it," answered Calamity; "you'll hear a good deal worse than that when rumour's got well under way. And now to business."

"The stuff's down at my old shack, and, as it'll be dark in a few minutes, I thought we might as well toddle over there."

Calamity agreed, and, leaving the house, they proceeded at a rapid walk till the outskirts of the village were reached. By this time it was dark, and Abott, taking an electric torch from his pocket, led the way along a narrow foot-track till they reached the sea-sh.o.r.e.

"Here we are," he said, throwing a gleam of light on a tumble-down hut about fifty yards from the water's edge. "I'll go first."

He unlocked the door, a crazy affair that a good push would have brought down completely, and led the way in. With the aid of the torch he found an old lantern with a piece of candle in it, and, after lighting this, set it on an upturned barrel.

"There we are," he remarked; "'tain't much of a light, but it'll do to talk by."

In the yellow glimmer it was just possible to make out a number of cases and sacks piled in a corner with lumber of various sorts, such as empty water-beakers, odd spars, rusty anchors, and so forth.

"Looks as if it were worth about half a dollar the lot, doesn't it, instead of somewheres around two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"