Scarhaven Keep Part 21

"It wasn't your fault," she said. "It's n.o.body's fault. Don't blame Mr. Vickers-he couldn't foresee this. Yes, I'm all right-and I slept like a top. What's the use of worrying? Do you know," she went on, lowering her voice and drawing nearer to him, "I believe something's going to come of all this-something that'll clear matters up once and for all."

"Why?" asked Copplestone, wonderingly. "What makes you think that?"

"Don't know-instinct, intuitiveness, perhaps," she answered. "Besides-I'm dead certain we're not the only people-I don't mean crew and Captain-aboard the Pike. I believe there's somebody else. There's some mystery, anyway. Keep that to yourself," she said as Andrius and Vickers appeared from below. "Don't show any sign-wait to see how things turn out."

She turned away from him to greet the other two as unconcernedly as if there were nothing unusual in the situation, and Copplestone marvelled at her coolness. He himself, not so well equipped with patience, was feverishly anxious to know how things would turn out, and when. But the day went by and nothing happened, except that Captain Andrius was very polite to his guests and that the yacht, a particularly fast sailer, continued to make headway through the grey seas, sometimes in bare sight of land and sometimes out of it. To one or two inquiries as to the fulfilment of his promise Andrius made no more answer than a rea.s.suring nod; once when Vickers pressed him, he replied curtly that the day was not yet over. Vickers drew Copplestone aside on hearing that.

"Look here!" he said. "I've been reckoning things up as near as I can. I make out that we've been running due north, or north-east ever since we left Scarhaven last night. I reckon, too, that this vessel makes quite twenty-two or three, knots an hour. We must be off the extreme north-east coast of Scotland. And night's coming on!"

"There are ports there that he can put into," said Copplestone. "The thing is-will he keep his promise? Remember!-he must know very well that if we once land anywhere within reach of a telegraph office, we can wire particulars about him to every port in the world if we like-and he's got to go somewhere, eventually, you know."

Vickers shook his head as if this were a problem he would give up. It was beyond him, he said, to even guess at what Andrius was after, or what was going to happen. And nothing did happen until, as the three prisoners sat at dinner with their polite gaoler, the Pike came to a sudden stop and hung gently on a quiet sea. Andrius looked up and smiled.

"A pleasant night for your landing," he remarked. "Don't hurry-but there will be a boat ready for you as soon as dinner is over."

"And where are we?" asked Vickers.

"That, my dear sir, you will see when you land." replied Andrius. "You will, at any rate, be quite comfortable for the night, and in the morning, I think, you will be able to journey-wherever you wish to go to."

There was something in the smile which accompanied the last words which made Copplestone uneasy. But the prospect of regaining their liberty was too good-he kept his own counsel. And half-an-hour later, he, Audrey and Vickers, stood on deck, looking down on a boat alongside, in which were two or three of the crew and a man holding a lanthorn. In front was the dark sea, and ahead a darker ma.s.s which they took to be land.

"You won't tell us what this place is?" said Vickers as he was about to follow the others into the boat. "It's on the mainland, of course?"

"The morning light, my good sir, will show you everything," replied Andrius. "Be content that I have kept my promise-you have come off luckily," he added with a significant look.

Vickers felt a strange sense of alarm as the boat left the yacht. He noticed two or three suspicious circ.u.mstances. As soon as they got away, he saw that all the yacht's lights had been or were being darkened or entirely obscured; at a dozen boat lengths they could see her no more. Then a boat, swiftly pulled, pa.s.sed them in the darkness, evidently coming from the sh.o.r.e to which they were being taken: it, too, carried no light. Nor were there any lights on the sh.o.r.e itself; all there was in utter blackness. They were on the shingle within a quarter of an hour; within a minute or two the yachtsmen had helped all three on to the beach, had carried up certain boxes and packages which had been placed in the boat, had set down the lighted lanthorn, jumped into the boat again and vanished in the darkness. And in the silence, broken only by the drip of water from the retreating oars, and by the scarcely-noticed ripple of the waves, Audrey voiced exactly what her two companions felt.

"Andrius has kept his word-and cheated us! We're stranded!"

From somewhere out of the darkness came a groan-deep and heartfelt, as if in entire agreement with Audrey's declaration. That it proceeded from a human being was evident enough, and Vickers hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed up the lanthorn and strode in the direction from which it came. And there, seated on the shingle, his whole att.i.tude one of utter dejection and misery, the three castaways found a sharer of their sorrows-Peter Chatfield!

CHAPTER XXI

MAROONED

To each of these three young people this was the most surprising moment which life had yet afforded. It was an astonishing thing to find a fellow mortal there at all, but to find that mortal was the Scarhaven estate agent was literally short of marvellous. What was also astounding was to see Chatfield's only too evident distress. Swathed in a heavy, old-fashioned ulster, with a plaid shawl round his shoulders and a deerstalker hat tied over head and ears with a bandanna handkerchief he sat on the beach nursing his knees, slightly rocking his fleshy figure to and fro and moaning softly with the regularity of a minute bell. His eyes were fixed on the dark expanse of waters at his feet; his lips, when he was not moaning, worked incessantly; as he rocked his body he beat his toes on the shingle. Clearly, Chatfield was in a bad way, mentally. That he was not so badly off materially was made evident by the presence of a half-open kit bag which obviously contained food and a bottle of spirits.

For any notice that he took of them, Audrey, Vickers, and Copplestone might have been no more than the pebbles on which they stood. In spite of the fact that Vickers shone the light on his fat face, and that three inquisitive pairs of eyes were trained on it, Chatfield continued to stare moodily and disgustedly out to sea and to take no notice of his gratuitous company. And so utterly extraordinary was his behaviour and att.i.tude that Audrey suddenly and almost involuntarily stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Mr. Chatfield!" she exclaimed. "What 's the matter? Are you ill?"

The emphasis which she gave to the last word roused some quality of Chatfield's subtle intellect. He flashed a swift look at his questioner-a look of mingled contempt and derision, spiced with a dash of sneering humour. And he found his tongue.

"Ill!" he snorted. "Ill! She asks if I'm ill-me, a respectable man what's maltreated and robbed before his own eyes by them as ought to fall in humble grat.i.tude at his feet! I'll!-aye, ill with something that's worse nor any bodily aches and pains-let me tell you that! But not done for, neither!"

"He's all right," said Copplestone. "That's a flash of his old spirit. You're all right, Chatfield, aren't you? And who's robbed and maltreated you-and how and when-especially when-did you come here?"

Chatfield looked up at his old a.s.sailant with a glare of dislike.

"You keep your tongue to yourself, young feller!" he growled. "I shouldn't never ha' been here at all if it hadn't been for the likes of you-a pokin' your nose where it isn't wanted. It's 'cause o' you three comin' aboard o' that there yacht last night as I am here-a castaway!"

"Well, we're castaways, too, Mr. Chatfield," said Audrey. "And we can't help believing that it's all your naughty conduct that's made us so. Why don't you tell the truth?"

Chatfield uttered a few grumpy and inarticulate sounds.

"It'll be a bad day for more than one when I do that-as I will," he muttered presently. "Oh aye, I 'll tell the truth-when it suits me! But I'll be out o' this first."

"You'll never get out of this first or last, until you tell us how you got in," said Vickers, a.s.suming a threatening tone. "You'd better tell us all about it, you know. Come now!-you know me and my firm."

Chatfield laughed grimly and shook his much-swathed head.

"I ought to," he said. "I've given 'em more than one nice job and said naught about their bills o' costs, neither, my lad. You keep a civil tongue in your mouth-I ain't done for yet, noways! You let me get off this here place, wherever it is, and within touch of a telegraph office, and I'll make somebody suffer!"

"Andrius, of course," said Copplestone. "Come now, he put you ash.o.r.e before he sent us off, didn't he? Why don't you own up?"

"Never you mind, young feller," retorted Chat-field. "I was feeling very cast down, but I'm better. I've something that'll keep me going-revenge! I'll show 'em, once I'm off this place-I will so!"

"Look here, Chatfield," said Vickers. "Do you know where this place is?

What is it? Is it on the mainland, or is it an island, or where are we?

It's all very well talking about getting off, but when and how are we to get off? Why don't you be sensible and tell us what you know?"

The estate agent arose slowly and ponderously, drawing his shawl about him. He looked out seawards. In that black waste the steady beat of the yacht's propellers could be clearly heard, but not a gleam of light came from her, and it was impossible to decide in which direction she was going. And Chatfield suddenly shook his fist at the throbbing sound which came in regular pulsations through the night.

"Never mind!" he said sneeringly. "We aren't at the North Pole neither-I ain't a seafaring man, but I've a good idea of where we are! And perhaps there won't be naught to take me off when it's daylight, and perhaps there won't be no telegraphs near at hand, nor within a hundred miles, and perhaps there ain't such a blessed person as that there Marconi and his wireless in the world-oh, no! Just you wait, my fine fellers-that's all!"

"He's not addressing us, Vickers," said Copplestone. "You're decidedly better, Chatfield-you're quite better. The notion of revenge and of circ.u.mvention has come to you like balm. But you'd a lot better tell us who you're referring to, and why you were put ash.o.r.e. Listen, Chatfield!-there's property of your own on that yacht, eh? That it? Come, now?"

Chatfield gave his questioner a look of indignant scorn. He stooped for the kit-bag, picked it up, and turned away.

"I don't want to have naught to do with you," he remarked over his shoulder. "You keep yourselves to yourselves, and I'll keep myself to myself. If it hadn't been for what you blabbed out last night, them ungrateful devils 'ud never have had such ideas put into their heads!"

As if he knew his way, Chatfield plodded heavily up the beach and was lost in the darkness, and the three left behind stood helplessly staring at each other. For a long time there was silence, broken only by the agent's heavy tread on the shingle-at last Vickers spoke.

"I think I can see through all this," he said. "Chatfield's cryptic utterances were somewhat suggestive. 'Robbed'-'maltreated'-'them as ought to have fallen in humble grat.i.tude at his feet'-'vengeance'- 'revenge'-'Marconi telegrams'-'ungrateful devils'-ah, I see it! Chatfield had a.s.sociates on the Pike-probably the impostor himself and Andrius-probably, too, he had property of his own, as you suggested to him, Copplestone. The whole gang was doubtless off with their loot to far quarters of the globe. Very good-the other members have shelved Chatfield. They've done with him. But-not if he knows it! That man will hunt the Pike and her people-whoever they are-relentlessly when he gets off this."

"I wish we knew what it is that we're on!" said Copplestone.

"Impossible till daybreak," replied Vickers. "But I've an idea-this is probably one of the seventy-odd islands of the Orkneys: I've sailed round here before. If I'm right, it's most likely one of the outlying and uninhabited ones. Andrius-or his controlling power-has dropped us-and Chatfield-here, knowing that we may have to spend a few days on this island before we succeed in getting off. Those few days will mean a great deal to the Pike. She can be run into some safe harbourage on this coast, given a new coat of paint and a new name, and be off before we can do anything to stop her. I allow Chatfield to be right in this-that my perhaps too hasty declaration to Andrius revealed to that gentleman how he could make off with other people's property."

"Nothing will make me believe that Andrius is the solely responsible person for this last development," said Copplestone, moodily. "There were other people on board-cleverly concealed. And what are we going to do?"

Audrey had stepped away from the circle of light made by the lanthorn and was gazing steadily in the direction which Chatfield had taken.

"Those are cliffs, surely," she said presently. "Hadn't we better go up the beach and see if we can't find some shelter until morning? Fortunately we're all warmly clad, and Andrius was considerate enough to throw rugs and things into the boat, as well as provisions. Come along!-after all, we're not so badly off. And we have the satisfaction of knowing that we can keep Chatfield under observation. Remember that!"

But in the morning, when the first gleam of light came across the sea, and Vickers, leaving his companions to prepare some breakfast from the store of provisions which had been sent ash.o.r.e with them, set out to make a first examination of their surroundings, the agent was not to be seen. What was to be seen was a breach of rock, sand, shingle, not a mile in length, lying at the foot of high cliffs, and on the grey sea in front not a sign of a sail, nor a wisp of smoke from a pa.s.sing steamer. The apparent solitude and isolation of the place was as profound as the silence which overhung everything.

Vickers made his way up the cliffs to their highest point and from its summit took a leisurely view of his surroundings. He saw at once that they were on an island, and that it was but one of many which lay spread out over the sea towards the north and the west. It was a wedge-shaped island this, and the cliffs on which he stood and the beach beneath formed the widest side of it; from thence its lines drew away to a point in the distance which he judged to be two miles off. Between him and that point lay a sloping expanse of rough land, never cultivated since creation, whereon there were vast ma.s.ses of rock and boulder but no sign of human life. No curling column of smoke went up from hut or cottage; his ears caught neither the bleating of sheep nor the cry of shepherd-all was still as only such places can be still. Nor could he perceive any signs of life on the adjacent islands-which, to be sure, were not very near. From the sea mists which wrapped one of them he saw projecting the cap of a mountainous hill-that hill he recognized as being on one of the princ.i.p.al islands of the group, and he then knew that he and his companions had been set down on one of the outlying islands which, from its position, was not in the immediate way of pa.s.sing vessels nor likely to be visited by fishermen.