30 Suspense and Thriller Masterpieces. Гилберт Кит Честертон

When he has got it he'll disappear, he and his gang, into the outer darkness, as he has done before. I daresay he'll play fair with us—I don't know—but we'll have to disappear with him. Do any of you fancy spending the rest of your lives being hunted up and down the globe, even if your pockets are full? D'Ingraville won't mind it, for it's his profession, but what about you, Barralty? What about you, with your big ideas about public life? What about you, Lydia? You like your little comforts. What about you, Erick? No more race-meetings for you, my lad, and flutters at Monte?'

      'My God!' Barralty groaned. 'Can't we bring the man to reason?'

      'We can't, for all the reason, as he sees it, is on his side. He knows what he wants a little more clearly than we ever have, and he has the power behind him. We're only passengers—he's the fighting force. What can we do to stop him? He has his two infernal trusties from South America, Carreras and Martel—the very sight of them gives me the creeps. He has his crew of gunmen. He's going to implicate us all in his gangster business, so that we'll all hang together.'

      'But he can't compel us if we object,' Albinus groaned.

      'Can't he? I haven't got him fully taped, but he's the biggest size in desperado I've ever struck. I know what's in your mind, Erick. You think that we might make terms on our own account with the people on the Island. I've had the same idea myself, but I tell you it won't do. The Skipper knows that game too well. If we try to double-cross him he'll shoot.'

      I can picture those four scared conspirators sitting for a moment dismally silent, till Troth's vigour woke them.

      'But now things look better,' he said. 'We have got the materials for a civilized deal. Thank heaven for these blessed children! I don't much like using kids in this business—if you remember, I always stuck out against it before—but needs must when the devil drives. The Skipper can't be fool enough to neglect such a chance. It gives us a sitter, when the other way is an ugly gamble.'

      'But do we want the same things?' Barralty asked. 'We want a good deal, but the Skipper may want everything. And remember that Haraldsen isn't alone. He has Hannay with him, and Hannay by all accounts is a tough customer.'

      'That will be the moment for the double-crossing if the Skipper plays the fool,' said Troth grimly. 'Once we get to bargaining we put the lid on his bloody piracy, and that's what we most want.'

      Then the Skipper arrived.

      I picture his coming into the stuffy cabin, his face shining with fog crystals, and his pale eyes dazed by the sudden light.

      'An hour till dinner,' he said, with a glance at the chronometer. 'There's time for a hot rum-and-milk, for it has been perishingly cold in the dory. But I've done my job. The reconnaissance is complete, gentlemen. To-morrow is The Day.'

      Troth told him about Anna and Peter John. He listened with head lifted, rather like a stag at gaze, a smile wrinkling his lean cheeks.

      'Fortune is kind to us,' he said. 'Now we can add point to our first cartel. For one kind of possession we can offer another—and a dearer.'

      But there was that in his voice which made Barralty look up anxiously.

      'Surely that alters our whole plan,' he said. 'Now we can treat, where before we could only coerce.'

      'I do not think so, my friend.' D'Ingraville spoke lightly, as if the matter were not of great importance. 'They will not treat—not on our terms. You want much, no doubt, but I want all, you see, and men will fight for their all.'

      'But—but—' Barralty stammered. 'Haraldsen cares for his daughter above everything, and Hannay for his son.'

      'Maybe,' was the answer. 'But Haraldsen and Hannay are not all.'

      'Lombard does not count.'

      'I do not think of Lombard. I think of Lord Clanroyden.'

      'But Clanroyden isn't there.'

      'Not yet. But he will be there to-morrow.'

      'How do you know? Have you any news?'

      'I have no news. I have heard nothing of Clanroyden since we left London. But I know that he will be there, for I have an assignation with him, and he will not fail me. And Clanroyden will never yield.'

      'But what do you mean to do, man?' Troth asked.

      'I mean to follow the old way, the way of my Norman kinsfolk. Fate has been marvellously good to us. There is no man on the Island except those three—to-morrow they will be four—only dotards and old women. The telephone is cut and they have no boat. The fog will lift, I think, by the morning, but the Island will be in a deeper fog which cuts it off from the world. We shall have peace and leisure to do our will. If they listen to us, so much the pleasanter for everybody. If they fight we shall fight too, and beyond doubt we shall win.'

      'Win!' Barralty muttered. 'What do you mean by win?'

      'Everything,' was the answer. 'I shall get my will, though I leave a house in ashes and an island of dead men.'

      'And then?' It was Lydia's strained voice that spoke.

      'Then we disappear, leaving a riddle in the Norlands which no man will ever expound. Trust me, I have made my plans—for you, my friends, and for you, my fair lady. You may have to face some little adjustments in your lives, but what of that? Le mouvement c'est la vie.'

      He lifted his glass and looked towards Lydia, drinking the last mouthful as if it were a toast.

      'And now,' he said, 'let me have a look at our hostages. Martel,' he cried to some one outside the door, 'fetch the babes.'

      Peter John takes up the tale again… . The children had sat in a stupor of misery and fright, unable to think, deaf to all sounds except the thumping of their hearts. 'We must get away,' the boy had repeated at intervals, and the girl had replied, 'We must,'; but the words were only a kind of groan, so destitute were they of any hope. What Anna thought I do not know, but Peter John's mind was fuller of mortification than of fear. He had failed in his trust, and by his folly had given the enemy a crushing vantage.

      They lost count of time, and it may have been an hour or two hours before the sliding panel in the alley opened and a face showed in the cabin door. A hand switched on the light. They saw a man slightly over the middle height, wearing sea-boots and a seaman's jersey—a man who did not look like a sailor, for he had a thin, shaven, pallid face, a scar on his forehead, and eyebrows that made a curious arch over weak, blinking eyes. When he spoke it was with a foreign accent in a hoarse, soft voice. 'You will come with me, please,' he said. 'M. le Capitaine would speak with you.'

      The sight of the man sent a spasm of sharp fear through Peter John's dull misery. For he knew him—knew him at least by hearsay. Sandy at Laverlaw had taken some pains to describe to us the two members of the old Bodyguard of Olifa whom D'Ingraville had with him. This was the Belgian Martel—there could be no mistake about the scar and the horseshoe brows. At the door of the deck-house stood another man, a tall stooping fellow whose hatchet face and black beady eyes were plain in the glow from the cabin. This was beyond doubt the Spaniard Carreras. The wolf pack was complete.

      'Don't answer anything,' the boy whispered to Anna. A stubborn silence was the one course left to them.

      But there was no inquisition. Peter John had the impression of a company mighty ill at ease. The smooth geniality of tea-time had gone, and the four who had then entertained them seemed to have lost interest in their visitors and to be much concerned with their own thoughts. The pretty lady had become haggard and rather old, while Troth had lost his robustness and sucked his pipe nervously. Barralty had become a wisp of a man, and Albinus a furtive shadow. Only the newcomer radiated confidence and vitality. For a moment Peter John forgot his fear, and looked curiously at the tall man whom at Fosse he had assisted to put into the stream. He was so taut and straight that he had the look of an unsheathed sword. His pale eyes glittered like ice, and his smile had as much warmth in it as an Arctic sun. Magnificent, wonderful, terrible, inhuman, like some devastating force of nature. Yet, strangely enough, the boy feared the reality less than the picture he had made in his head. This was a wild