Czytaj książkę: «A Crime of the Under-seas»

CHAPTER I

There is an old saying that "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives," but how true this is very few of us really understand. In the East, indeed, it amounts almost to the marvellous. There are men engaged in trades there, some of them highly lucrative, of which the world in general has never heard, and which the ordinary stay-at-home Englishman would in all probability refuse to believe, even if the most trustworthy evidence were placed before him. For instance, on the evening from which I date the story I am now about to tell you, three of us were seated chatting together in the verandah of the Grand Oriental Hotel at Colombo. We were all old friends, and we had each of us arrived but recently in Ceylon. McDougall, the big red-haired Scotchman, who was sitting on my right, had put in an appearance from Tuticorin by a British India boat only that morning, and was due to leave again for Burmah the following night. As far as I could gather he earned his living mainly by smuggling dutiable articles into other countries, where the penalty, if one is caught, is a fine of at least one thousand pounds, or the chance of receiving upwards of five years' imprisonment. The man in the big chair next to him was Callingway, a Londoner, who had hailed the day before from South America, travelling in a P. and O. steamer from Australia. He was tracking an absconding Argentine Bank Manager, and, as it afterwards transpired, was, when we came in contact with him, on the point of getting possession of the money with which the other had left the country. Needless to say he was not a Government servant, nor were the Banking Company in question aware of his endeavours. Lastly there was myself, Christopher Collon, aged thirty-six, whose walk in life was even stranger, if such a thing were possible, than those of the two men I have just described. One thing at any rate is certain, and that is that if I had been called upon to give an accurate description of myself and my profession at that time, I should have found it extremely difficult to do so. Had I been the possessor of a smart London office, a private secretary, and half a dozen corresponding clerks, I should probably have called myself a private detective on a large scale, or, as they put it in the advertisement columns of our daily papers, a Private Enquiry Agent. Yet that description would scarcely have suited me; I was that and something more. At any rate it was a pretty hard life, and by the same token a fairly hazardous one. This will be the better understood when I say that one day I might receive a commission by cablegram from some London firm, who, we will suppose, had advanced goods to an Indian Rajah, and were unable to obtain payment for them. It was my business to make my way to his headquarters as soon as possible, and to get the money out of him by the best means in my power, eating nothing but what was cooked for me by my own servant meanwhile. As soon as I had done with him I might be sent on very much the same sort of errand to a Chinese Mandarin in Hankow or Canton, or possibly to worry a gold mining concession, or something of the sort, out of one of the innumerable Sultans of the protected Malayan States, those charming places where the head of the State asks you to dinner at six and you are found at midnight with six inches of cold krise in your abdomen. On one occasion I remember being sent from Singapore to Kimberley at three hours' notice to meet and escort a Parsee diamond merchant from that town to Calcutta. And what was funnier still, though we travelled to Cape Town together, and even shared the same cabin on board the steamer afterwards, he never for an instant suspected that I was spying upon him. Oftentimes I used to wonder what he would have thought, had he only guessed that I knew he was carrying upwards of a million pounds worth of diamonds in the simple leather belt he wore next to his skin, and that every night I used, when he was asleep, to convince myself that everything was right and that the stones were still there. His was a precious life that voyage, at least so his friends in Calcutta thought, and if I could only tell you all that happened during our intercourse, you would not wonder that I was glad when we reached India, and I had handed him over to the chief partners of his firm. But there, if I were to go on telling you my adventures, I should be talking from now to Christmas. Rather let me get to the matter in hand, beside which everything I had ever attempted hitherto ranks as nothing. When I have done I think you will admit that the familiar saying, embodied in my first sentence, should be altered from "one half the world does not know how the other half lives" to "one half the world does not know how the other half gets its living." There is a distinction with a good deal of difference.

I have often thought that there is no pleasanter spot in this strange old world of ours than the Grand Oriental Hotel, Colombo. Certainly there is not a more interesting place. There the student of character will have sufficient examples before him to keep him continually at work. Day and night vessels of all sorts and descriptions are entering the harbour, hailing from at least three of the four known quarters of the globe. At all hours men and women from Europe, from India, from Malaysia, from the further East, from Australia, and also from the Southern Seas and America viâ Australia, troop in and out of that hospitable caravanserai.

On this particular occasion, having talked of many things and half a hundred times as many places, we had come back to the consideration of our lives and the lack of home comforts they contained.

"If I could only see my way clear I'd throw it up, marry, and settle down," said Callingway; "not in England, or Scotland, or America, for that matter; but, to my thinking, in the loveliest island in the world."

"And where may that be?" I inquired, for I had my own ideas on the subject.

"Tasmania," he answered promptly. "The land of the red-faced apple. I know a little place on the Derwent that would suit me down to the ground."

"I'd na gae ye a pinch of snuff for it," said McDougall, with conviction. "What's life worth to a man in them hole-and-corner places? When I've done wi' roamin' it's in my mind that I'll set myself down at a little place I ken the name of, fifty miles north of the Clyde, where there's a bit of fishing, and shootin', and, if ye want it, well, just a drappie of the finest whuskey that was ever brewed in old Scotie. It's ma thinkin' I've ruined ma digestion wi' all these outlandish liquors that I've been swallowin' these twenty years gone. Don't talk o' your Tasmanias to me. I'm nae fond o' them. What have you to say, Mr. Collon?"

"You needn't be afraid. I'll not settle down as long as I can get about," I answered. "If you fellows are tired of your lives I'm not, and I'm certain of this much, Callingway, by the time you've been installed in your Tasmanian home twelve months, and you, McDougall, have been on your Scotch estate the same length of time, you'll both be heartily sick of them and wishing yourselves back once more in the old life out here."

"Try me, that's all," replied Callingway fervently. "Think what our present life is. We are here to-day and gone to-morrow. We've not a foot of earth in the whole wide world that we can call our own. The only home we know is a numbered room in a hotel or a cabin aboard a ship. We never know when we get up in the morning whether by nightfall we shall not be lying stark and cold shot through the heart, or with six inches of cold steel through our lungs. Our nerves from year's end to year's end are strained to breaking pitch, and there's not a single decent woman to be found amongst the whole circle of our acquaintances. After all, a wife's – "

"The lasses, the lasses, I agree with ye," interrupted McDougall without ceremony. "After all 'tis the lasses who make the joy o' livin'. Hear what Robbie says: —

 
"'Health to the sex! ilk guid chiel says,
Wi' merry dance in winter days,
An' we to share in common:
The gust o' joy, the balm o' woe,
The soul o' life, the Heav'n below,
Is rapture-giving woman.'"
 

"If you're going to get on that strain you're hopeless," I said. "When Callingway begins to think it is time for him to settle down, and you, McDougall, start quoting Burns, then I come to the conclusion that I'd better bid you good-night."

As I spoke a "ricksha" drew up at the steps, and, when the coolie had set down his shafts, an elderly gentleman alighted. Having paid the man his fare he entered the verandah, and so made his way into the house. I had got so accustomed to new arrivals by this time that, beyond thinking what a good picture of the substantial old English merchant this one would have made, I did not pay much attention to him.

"Well," said Callingway, after the few minutes' pause which followed up my last remark, "I think I will ask you gentlemen to drink another whiskey and soda to my success, and then I will leave you and retire to my virtuous couch. My confounded boat sails at six o'clock to-morrow morning, and if I don't sail in her I shall lose the society of a most estimable gentleman whom I am accompanying as far as Hong Kong. As it looks like being a profitable transaction I've no desire he should give me the slip."

He touched the bell on the table at his side, and when the boy arrived to answer it, ordered the refreshment in question. We drank to his success in the business he was about to undertake, and then both he and McDougall bade me good-night and retired, leaving me alone in the verandah. It was a lovely evening, and as I was not at all in the humour for sleep I lit another cheroot and remained on where I was, watching the glimmering lights in the harbour beyond, and listening to the jabbering of the "ricksha" boys on the stand across the road.

As I sat there I could not help thinking of the curious life I was leading, of the many strange adventures I had had, and also of my miraculous escapes from what had seemed at the time to be almost certain death. Only that very day I had received an offer by telegram from a well-known and highly respected firm in Bombay inviting me to undertake a somewhat delicate piece of business in the Philippine Islands. The price offered me was, in every sense of the word, a good one; but I detested Spanish countries so much that if anything better turned up I was prepared to let the other fall through without a second thought. But one has to live, even in the East, and for this reason I did not feel justified in throwing dirty water away before I had got clean.

As these thoughts were passing through my mind I distinctly heard some one step into the verandah from the door on my right, and a moment later, to my surprise, the stout old gentleman who, half an hour or so before, I had thought so typical of an English merchant, came round the chairs towards me. Having reached the place where I was sitting he stopped, and, taking a cheroot from his pocket, proceeded to light it. During the operation I noticed that he took careful stock of me, and, when he had finished, said quietly, —

"Mr. Collon, I believe?"

"That is my name," I answered, looking up at him through the cloud of smoke. "Pray how do you come to be acquainted with it?"

"I have heard of you repeatedly," he replied.

"Indeed," I said. "And pray is there any way in which I can be of service to you?"

"I think so," he replied, with a smile. "As a matter of fact, I have just arrived from Madras, where, hearing in an indirect way that you were supposed to be in Ceylon, I undertook this journey on purpose to see you."

"Indeed!" I answered, with considerable surprise. "And pray what is it you desire me to do for you?"

"I want you to take charge of what I think promises to be one of the most extraordinary and complicated cases even in your extensive repertoire," he said.

"If it is as you say, it must indeed be a singular one," I answered. "Perhaps it would not give you too much trouble to furnish me with the details."

"I will do so with the greatest pleasure," he replied. "If you will permit me to take my seat beside you, you shall hear the story from beginning to end. I think, then, that you will agree with me that, provided you undertake it, it will, as I insinuated just now, in all probability prove the most sensational, as well as the most lucrative, case in which even you have hitherto been engaged."

Thereupon he seated himself beside me, and told the following remarkable story.

CHAPTER II

"In the first place, Mr. Collon," said the old gentleman, who had shown himself so anxious to obtain my services, "I must introduce myself to you. My name is Leversidge, John Leversidge, and I am the junior partner of the firm of Wilson, Burke & Leversidge, of Hatton Garden, Paris, Calcutta, and Melbourne. We are, as you will have gathered from our first address, diamond and precious stone merchants, and we do a very large business in the East generally; also among the Pacific Islands and in Australia. With the two last named our trade is confined principally to pearls and gold, neither of them having very much in the way of gems to offer. Still their connection is worth so much to us as to warrant us in keeping two buyers almost continuously employed; a fact, I think, which speaks for itself. Now it so turned out that some six months or so ago we received a cablegram in London announcing the fact that an enormous black pearl, in all probability the finest yet brought to light, had been discovered near one of the islands to the southward of New Guinea. It had been conveyed first to Thursday Island, which, as perhaps you are aware, is the head and centre of this particular industry in Australian waters, and later on, with a considerable amount of secrecy, to Sydney, where our agent, a man in whom we had the greatest trust, made it his business to see it on our behalf. The result was a cypher cablegram to our firm in London, to say that the jewel was, as far as his knowledge went, absolutely unique, and that in his opinion it behoved us to purchase it, even at the exorbitant price asked for it by the rascally individual into whose hands it had now fallen. This was a person by the name of Bollinson, a half-bred Swede I should say by the description we received of him; though, for my part, from the way he treated us, I should think Jew would be somewhat nearer the mark. Whatever his nationality may have been, however, the fact remains that he knew his business so well, that when we obtained possession of the pearl, which we were determined to have at any price, we had paid a sum for it nearly double what we had originally intended to give. But that mattered little to us, for we had the most perfect confidence in our servant, who had had to do with pearls all his life, and who since he had been in our employ had been fortunate enough to secure several splendid bargains for us. So, to make a long story short, when he cabled the price – though I must confess we whistled a little at the figure – we wired back: 'Buy, and bring it home yourself by next boat,' feeling convinced that we had done the right thing and should not regret it. Now, as you know, there is to be an Imperial wedding in Europe in six months' time, and as we had received instructions to submit for his inspection anything we might have worthy of the honour, we felt morally certain that the sovereign in question would take the jewel off our hands, and thus enable us to get our money back and a fair percentage of interest, besides repaying us for our outlay and our trouble. Sure enough next day a message came in to us to say that our agent had completed the sale and was leaving for England that day, not viâ Melbourne and Adelaide, as we had supposed, or viâ Vancouver, which would have been the next best route; but by way of Queensland, the Barrier Reef, and the Arifura Sea, which was longer, and, as we very well knew, by no means so safe. Then he added the very significant information that since he had had the pearl in his keeping no less than three separate and distinct attempts had been made by other people to obtain possession of it. All that, you must understand, happened eight weeks ago. I was in London at the time, and can therefore give you the information first hand."

"Eight weeks exactly?" I asked, for I always like to be certain of my dates. Many a good case that I have taken in hand has collapsed for the simple reason that the parties instructing me had been a little slipshod in the matter of their dates.

"Eight weeks to-morrow," he answered. "Or rather, since it is now past midnight, I think I might say eight weeks to-day. However, in this particular instance the date does not happen to be of much importance."

"In that case I must beg your pardon for interrupting you," I said. "You were saying, I think, that your agent reported that, before he left Sydney, no less than three attempts were made by certain parties to obtain possession of the pearl in question."

"That was so. But it is evident that he managed to elude them, otherwise he would have cabled again to us on the subject."

"Did you then receive no further message from him?"

"Only one from Brisbane to say that he had joined the mail-boat, Monarch of Macedonia, at that port, and would sail for England in her that day."

On hearing the name of the vessel I gave a start of surprise, and I might almost say of horror. "Good heavens!" I cried; "do you mean to say he was on board the Monarch of Macedonia? Why, as all the world knows by this time, she struck a rock somewhere off the New Guinea Coast and went to the bottom with all hands but two."

The old gentleman nodded his head. "Your information is quite correct, my dear sir," he said. "In a fog one night between eleven and twelve o'clock, she got in closer to the New Guinea Coast than she ought to have done, and struck on what was evidently an uncharted rock, and sank in between fifteen and twenty fathoms of water. Of her ship's company only two were saved, a foremast hand and a first saloon passenger, the Rev. W. Colway-Brown, a clergyman from Sydney. These two managed, by some extraordinary means, to secure a boat, and in her they made their way to the shore, which was between thirty and forty miles distant. Here they dwelt for a few days in peril of their lives from the natives, and were ultimately picked up by a trading schooner called The Kissing Cup, whose skipper carried them on to Thursday Island, where they were taken in and most kindly cared for."

"And your agent? Did you learn anything of his fate?"

"Nothing that was likely to be of any comfort to us," said the old fellow sadly. "We telegraphed as soon as we heard the news, of course, first to the agents in Brisbane, who, to prove that he sailed on board the vessel, wired us the number of his cabin, and then to the Rev. Colway-Brown, who was still in Thursday Island. The latter replied immediately to the effect that he remembered quite well seeing the gentleman in question on deck earlier in the evening, but that he saw nothing of him after the vessel struck, and could only suppose he must have been in bed when the accident happened. It was a most unhappy affair altogether, and, as you may suppose, we were not a little cut up at the loss of our old servant and trusted friend."

"I can quite believe that," I answered. "And now what is it you want me to do to help you?"

Mr. Leversidge was silent for a few seconds, and thinking he might be wondering how he should put the matter to me I did not interrupt him.

"Well, Mr. Collon," he said, after a few moments' thought, "what we want you to do for us, is to proceed with me to the scene of the wreck as soon as possible, and to endeavour to obtain from her the pearl which our agent was bringing home to us. Your reputation as a diver is well known to us, and I might tell you that directly the news of the wreck reached us we said to each other, 'That pearl must be recovered at any cost, and Christopher Collon is the man for the work.' We will, of course, pay all expenses connected with the expedition. Will you therefore be good enough to tell me if you will undertake the work, and if so, what your charge will be?"

Many and strange as my adventures had hitherto been, and curious (for that is the most charitable term, I think) as were some of the applications I had had made to me in my time, I don't think I had ever been made such an extraordinary offer as that brought under my notice by the old gentleman who had so unexpectedly come in search of me. He had not been far from the mark when he had said that this was likely to be one of the strangest cases that had ever come under my observation. Of one thing I was firmly convinced, and that was that I was not going to give him a decided answer at once. I did not know how my ground lay, and nothing was to be gained by giving my promise and being compelled to withdraw it afterwards. Besides, before I pledged myself, I wanted to find out how I stood with the law in the matter of the ship herself. I had no sort of desire to board her and bring off the jewel, and then find it advertised in all the papers of the world and myself called into court on a charge of wrecking or piracy, or whatever the particular term might be that covers that sort of crime.

"You must give me time to think it over," I said, turning to the old gentleman beside me. "I want to discover my position. For all I know to the contrary I may be lending myself to a felony, and that would never do at all. Everybody is aware that the more adventures a jewel goes through the more valuable it becomes. On the other hand the arm of the law reaches a long way, and I am not going to be the cat that pulls your chestnuts out of the fire and burns her paws in so doing. That would scarcely suit Christopher Collon, however nice it might be for other people."

"My dear sir," replied Mr. Leversidge, "you need have no fear at all on that score. We have no desire to incriminate you or to hurt your interests in any possible way. I shall take charge of the affair myself, and that should be sufficient guarantee that we are not going to run any undue risk. I have both my public and my private reputation at stake, and for my own sake you may be sure I shall take very good care that we do not come into collision with the law. The good name of my firm is also in the balance, and that should count for something. No, my dear sir, the most rigid and absolute secrecy will be maintained, and the arrangements will be as follows: If you are agreeable, and we can come to terms, we shall charter a vessel, if possible, in Batavia, fit her out with the necessary appliances, and sail in her with all speed to the spot where the catastrophe happened. Then you will descend to the vessel, discover our agent's luggage, which is certain to be in his cabin, we shall draw it up to the surface, examine it, obtain the pearl, and having done so sail again for Batavia, where the amount upon which we shall have agreed will be paid to you. After that we must separate; you will go your way, I shall go mine, and not a living soul will be the wiser."

"That's all very well, but what about the officers and crew of the vessel we charter? Do you think they will not suspect; and how do you propose to square them?"

"We will do that, never fear. They will be certain to believe, from the confident way in which we act, that we have the right to visit the vessel. Besides, when we have once parted from them, we shall never see them again. No, I do not think you need be afraid of them. Come, what do you say?"

"I don't know what to say," I answered. "I'm not sure whether it would be worth my while to touch it. The risk is so great, and I've got another offer on hand just now that looks as if it might turn out well. All these things have to be considered before I can give you an answer."

"Naturally," he replied. "But still I trust you will see your way to helping us. Your skill as a diver is well known, and I pay you the compliment of believing that you have one of the rarest of all gifts, the knowledge of how to hold your tongue when it is necessary. Just think it over and acquaint me with your decision in the morning."

"Very good," I answered. "I will do so. You shall have my answer after breakfast, without fail."

"I am glad to hear it, and I thank you. Now, good-night."

"Good-night," I answered, and after that we separated to go to our respective rooms.

By five o'clock next morning, after a troubled night, I had made up my mind. If the old gentleman would give the terms I wanted, I would do what he asked. Half of the amount was to be paid before we left Colombo, and the balance on our return to Batavia, or on the completion of our work, provided it did not last more than six months. All expenses were to be defrayed by his firm, and a document was to be given me, exonerating me from all blame should the law think fit to come down upon us for what we were doing. All this I embodied in a letter which I copied and sent to Mr. Leversidge's room while he was dressing.

After breakfast he found me in the verandah.

"Many thanks for your note," he said promptly. "I shall be most happy to agree to your terms. We will settle them at once, if you have no objection."

"That is very kind of you," I answered; "but why this great hurry?"

"Because we must leave in the mail-boat this afternoon for Batavia, viâ Singapore," he replied. "As you will see for yourself, there is no time to be lost."