Thrice Armed Part 40

"How did you come to be where you were when we fell in with you?" he asked.

"That is very much the same thing as I meant to ask you."

"Well," said Jimmy dryly, "I can account for it; but I'll hear what happened to you first."

His companion told him, and Jimmy, who watched him closely, made up his mind as to the course he should adopt. "Has it struck you that your engines couldn't well have given out at a more inconvenient time?" he asked.

"It naturally has;" and the skipper's disgust and bitterness against his engineer were stronger than his prudence. "Still, what could you expect with a whisky-tank of the kind I've got in charge below? The thing has happened before."

"When there was a reef or a shoal close to lee?"

The sudden change in his companion's expression had its significance, and Jimmy smiled suggestively. "Now you were a little astonished to see me turn up just when I was wanted, and you have probably noticed that I have been on your trail lately? Well, supposing we put the two together, what do you make of it?"

It had been little more than a chance shot, for Jimmy had clearly recognized that there was a certain probability of Merril's skipper having acted in collusion with him; but it reached its mark. His companion's face flushed darkly, and he laid a clenched hand on the table.

"Now," he said sharply, "you have got to talk quite straight."

"I think I have done so. Do you suppose I should have lost a day or two every now and then and gone to sea before I was quite ready to keep close on your track, without a reason?"

Jimmy's last uncertainty vanished as he watched his companion, and he saw that the course he had taken was fully warranted. Merril, it was evident, had considered it safer not to tamper with his skipper, perhaps because he shrank from giving two men a hold on him when the thing could be done by one who was in all probability to some extent already in his hands. In any case, the skipper's face was hard with vindictiveness, and a very unpleasant look crept into his eyes. He was young and opinionated, and he saw the pitfall that had been dug for him.

"I guess you're right," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "It's not the first time my engineer has tried it. He and the other--hog would have broken me."

"It's scarcely likely they could have blamed--you--at the inquiry. In fact, I fancy Merril would have liked you held clear. It would have made the thing look straighter."

The skipper's laugh was very grim. "It wouldn't have counted if they hadn't. One thing would have been certain--I was in command, and that would have been quite enough to stop my getting another steamer. It's always somebody else's fault when you get a boat ash.o.r.e."

Jimmy knew that his companion had reached the point to which he had been leading him. "Well," he said quietly, "the question is, what do you purpose to do now?"

"I mean to get even with the man who meant to break me, back you up in all you say when you send in your salvage claim, and in the meanwhile wring the whole thing out of that--whisky-tank below."

He stopped a moment. "First of all, I want to say I'm sorry I went by that day without answering your whistle. Merril had worked me up against you, and since I get a bonus on results, every dollar's worth of freight you picked up was so much out of my pocket. Still, you're not going to remember that against me now. We both earn our bread at sea, and you have to stand by me."

Jimmy nodded. "I'm willing," he said. "Hadn't you better send for your engineer?"

The skipper rose and opening the door called to a man outside. "I want Mr. Robertson here," he said. "If he isn't willing or fit to come, you can drag him."

The engineer arrived on his own feet, and stood still, leaning somewhat heavily on the table with one hand, when the skipper closed the door behind him. A curious furtive look of apprehension crept into his eyes when he heard the snap, and Jimmy glanced at him with a sense of disgust. There was a dirty bandage around his head, and his face showed baggy and pallid under it, while his loosely-hung figure draped in greasy serge seemed disproportionately large and clumsy in the little trim room. There was also something in his att.i.tude that vaguely suggested the viciousness of a rat in a trap, and it was evident that he had been drinking hard of late.

"Well," he asked harshly, "what do you want?"

The _Adelaide_'s skipper turned to Jimmy. "This is Captain Wheelock of the _Shasta_. He and I have been comparing notes, and the game you have been playing is quite clear to me. If you're wise you'll own up to it before we go any further. In the first place, what were you to get for casting this ship away?"

The man showed more courage than Jimmy had expected from his appearance, though it was clearly the courage of desperation. He braced himself stiffly, and his laugh was contemptuous. "I guess you're going to be sorry for this. You've said it before a third party."

"I'll say it before a magistrate in Vancouver," broke in the skipper; but Jimmy stopped him with a sign.

"I don't think what you asked him is very material," he said reflectively. "In any case, he wouldn't get very much. Mr. Merril is not the man to hand over money when it isn't necessary."

He watched the man closely, and it became evident to him that Jordan had been warranted in the construction he had put on certain sc.r.a.ps of information picked up on the wharf and in the saloons of Vancouver.

"I don't quite understand," said the skipper.

"I think Mr. Robertson does. Of course, he couldn't well drop his name without invalidating his papers, and after all it was probably safe to keep it, since there are a good many Robertsons, and everybody would expect him to change it. Still, I scarcely fancy he is aware that there are two men in Vancouver who would swear to him with pleasure. They're firing sawmill boilers."

The engineer's jaw dropped and there was craven fear in his face, but he seemed to pull himself together, though Jimmy noticed his glance toward the door.

"I dare say you can recall the _Oleander_ case," he said. "She was a British ship, and I don't know how Mr. Robertson was able to slip out of Portland quietly; though since the fireman who was done to death on board her belonged to that city, the boys along the wharves would have drowned him if they had got their hands on him."

"Good Lord!" said the skipper, with a little gasp; "the man was slowly roasted." Then he swung around toward the engineer. "This is the--brute who did it?"

"If you're not sure, you can look at him."

A glance was sufficient, and the skipper had no time for another.

Robertson turned swiftly in a frenzy of drink-begotten rage and crazing fear, and flung open the door. Then he stooped, and before they quite realized his purpose whipped up the poker from the little stove and struck furiously at Jimmy's head. Jimmy, throwing himself backward, flung up his forearm and broke the full weight of the blow; but it left him dazed and sick for a second or two, and before the skipper could get around the little table Robertson had swung out of the door. A clamor broke out, and men ran aft along the deck as he headed for the rail; but as he laid his hands on it Jimmy reeled out of the room beneath the bridge with the blood trickling down his face. The engineer swung himself over, and Jimmy, who shook off the skipper's grasp, sped aft with uneven strides and leaped from the taffrail.

The cold of that icy water steadied him when he came up again, and he saw that the stream of tide was carrying the other man down toward the _Shasta_ and strained every muscle to come up with him. It was, however, five or six minutes before he did it, and when Robertson grappled with him they both went under. Jimmy waited, knowing that they must come up again, and when that happened there was a splash of oars close by. Then he struck with all his strength at a livid face, and just as he felt himself being drawn down once more an oar grazed his head and a hand grabbed his shoulder.

"Lay hold of him!" he gasped, and the boat swayed down level with the water while he and Robertson were dragged on board.

"Keep still!" said somebody, who struck the latter hard with the pommel of an oar.

Then Jimmy scrambled to his feet with the water draining from him. "Back to the _Adelaide_," he said, "as fast as you can."

It was, however, half an hour later when Robertson was once more thrust into the skipper's room, and collapsed, with all the fight gone out of him, on a settee. He seemed to have fallen to pieces physically, but it was evident that his mind was clear, though there was now only abject fear in his eyes.

"Well," he said, "what do you want from me?"

Jimmy still felt a trifle dazed, and his head was throbbing painfully, but he roused himself with an effort.

"I'll tell you in a minute; but first of all I should like you to realize how you stand," he said. "The _Oleander_ is a British ship, Vancouver is a Canadian town, and if I put the police on to the two men I mentioned they will have a tolerably clear case against you. You needn't expect anything from Merril; he will certainly go back on you."

Robertson's face grew vindictive. "He held the thing over me, but we never meant to kill the man. He tried to knife one of us, and, anyway, it was his heart that made an end of him. We didn't know until afterward that it was wrong. But go on."

"Well," said Jimmy dryly, "I'm not going to make a bargain with you, but at the same time I'm not quite sure how far it's my duty to work the case up for the police. In the meanwhile, I want a plain written statement as to your connection with Merril."

The man made a sign of acquiescence, though there was malice in his eyes. "I can get even with him, anyway, and it's a sure thing he'd have sent me up out of the way if he could. Get me some paper."

Jimmy turned to the skipper. "Call one of the prospectors. We want an outsider to hear the thing."

A miner was led in, and Robertson, who had been handed pen and paper, commenced to write. The skipper read aloud what he had written, and all of them signed it. Then Jimmy put the doc.u.ment into his pocket, and two seamen led the engineer to his room. Early next morning, when the breeze had fallen, a steward roused the skipper.

"I took in Mr. Robertson's coffee, but his room was empty," he said.

The skipper was on deck in a few minutes, but there was nothing to show what had become of the engineer. The _Adelaide_ had, however, now swung with her stern somewhat near the sh.o.r.e, and a man who had kept anchor watch remembered having seen a big Siwash canoe slipping out to sea a few hours earlier.

"There was a man in her who didn't look quite like an Indian," he said.

"Well," said the skipper dryly, "if he's drowned it won't matter.