A Traitor's Wooing Part 18

"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded in a ringing voice that reached the bridge--the voice of a woman too angry to use many words.

"Skipper's orders," replied Cheeseman curtly. He had exhausted his limited stock of spurious politeness in distracting her attention, and now that the end was gained was not inclined to exert himself further.

Before he could guard himself his cheeks were tingling under two resounding smacks, his cap was knocked into the scruppers and his lank hair was in the clutch of lithe fingers. But the man who had earned the nickname of "Bully" was no respecter of s.e.x, and, recovering himself, he seized the girl by the throat and shook her viciously. In his rage he might have gone to any lengths if Captain Brant had not run down the bridge stairs and flung him aside.

"Get to your duty," commanded the little atomy in his quavering treble.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for handling a lady so. A little more velvet glove, and not quite so much iron hand till it's wanted, on this s.h.i.+p, if you please, my son."

Catching the wicked wink at the tail of his chief's eye, the mate sheered off in seeming self-abas.e.m.e.nt, and left the involuntary "stewardess" face to face with Brant. Somehow the courage which had stood her in good stead with the st.u.r.dy "Bully" failed her when confronted by this five-foot skeleton who looked as if he had been buried and dug up again. Her firm mouth quivered a little, and there was a suspicion of moisture in the sullen, wrathful eyes.

"Now that you've had your lark perhaps you'll turn your beastly s.h.i.+p round again and put me ash.o.r.e," she strove to speak bravely. "I shall be fined as it is, for not being back on time."

Brant wheezed and cackled. "You've done with fines, my dear," he said, running an approving glance over the imposing female figure in the shabby black dress. "I'm going to be a father to you and make your fortune. Fact is there's a lady pa.s.senger coming aboard presently who'll want different company from us rough sailor-men, and I was bound to find it for her. The moment you stepped out of that cab I spotted you for the job, and there's not a bit of use in making a fuss. It'll be a gold mine for you before you've done with it. You'll never need to stand behind a counter again and be cheeked by rude old women--no, not in your natural."

The tall draper's a.s.sistant measured the captain with a calculating eye, and saw that in him that was not to be reckoned in inches. She was already mastering her indignation at the outrage. "You don't mean to put me ash.o.r.e?" she said firmly.

"I'm d----d if I do," was Brant's energetic rejoinder.

She appeared to reflect. "If there's really money in it I don't so much mind," she said at length. "But if you want a quiet time you'll have to meet me on one thing. You must run into Plymouth on your way down Channel and give me a chance to let my young man know where I am. He's in the Navy--a petty officer on the destroyer _Snipe_."

Captain Brant rubbed his chin as if weighing the feasibility of the proposition. "Well," he said, "it won't be at all convenient, but I'll stretch a point to oblige you. You don't want to see the gentleman?"

"No, so long as I can send word to him, or get a letter posted, it will be all right."

"Then I'll do that much for the sake of a quiet life."

"You'll have to, or there'll be trouble," replied the matter-of-fact young amazon, little guessing that the villainous skipper had not the slightest intention of fulfilling his promise. A naval port, bristling with wars.h.i.+ps, was the very last place the _Cobra_ would be likely to visit after her contemplated doings at Ottermouth that night.

However, having for the time pacified his stewardess, he became civil enough and allotted her a comfortable cabin near the saloon and next to a large, luxuriously furnished state-room which he pointed out as destined for the lady pa.s.senger whom they were to call for on their way down the coast.

"By the way," he wheezed with one of his monkey-like grins as he prepared to return to the bridge, "I haven't had the honour of an introduction. It might save awkwardness if you'd kindly put a name to yourself, miss."

"Jimpson," was the reply, "Miss Nettle Jimpson, and you'll find I'm a stinging-nettle, if you don't treat me fair."

Brant bowed with a mock solemnity, the hollowness of which he scarcely troubled to conceal. "Simon Brant has tamed vixens worse than you, my la.s.s," he muttered behind his yellow teeth as he swung himself back to his perch.

And all that lovely summer afternoon the _Cobra's_ powerful turbine engines drove the graceful vessel through the calm waters of the sunlit sea nearer to its prey. At sundown speed was reduced in order to conform with the instructions not to arrive off Ottermouth till after dark. But when the last rose tint had faded from the western sky Brant gave orders to steam slowly round the point at the river's mouth and heave to about three miles from the sh.o.r.e.

"Now the fun begins," he said to Cheeseman, who was with him on the bridge. "Keep your eyes skinned for a blue light followed by a green due north of us. When we see it you'll take the electric launch and drive her to the point where the light is shown. There you'll find a pa.s.senger waiting for you. Make the launch travel like h.e.l.l, for you'll have another trip later. Rat Mullins and Sn.o.bby Wilson will go with you.

They're about the toughest of the crowd, but I don't figure on trouble for you. The chap that's bossing things ash.o.r.e will have seen to that."

So "the sleeping snake" lay on the gently heaving swell amid the gloom of the moonless night, and waited.

CHAPTER XX

BLUE LIGHT AND GREEN

Leslie Chermside stood at the window of the library at The Hut eating his heart out in black despair. Travers Nugent had finally convinced him that the police held a warrant for his arrest and that his only road to safety--not, perhaps, though that was doubtful, from conviction of the murder of Levison, but from exposure of his connivance at Violet Maynard's abduction--lay in flight. He had consented to go on board the _Cobra_ after dark, and escape to South America or anywhere else.

Personally he did not care where he went. Wherever it was it would be out of the life of her who had grown to be to him the very sun of his existence.

Furthermore, Nugent had prevailed on him to come over to The Hut that morning and lie low there till it should be time to start. He had been hoping against hope that he would be able to have one last interview with Violet, but Nugent had been so strongly against it that he had yielded.

"What's the use, my dear fellow?" his plausible mentor had said. "You couldn't take a proper farewell of her if you saw her. If you are to succeed in sparing her the horror of learning of your original offence, neither Miss Maynard nor any one else must know that you are on the wing. That little devil, Louise Aubin, would be sure to get wind of it and inform the police. As it is, I am on tenterhooks lest she should discover what is up. Write Miss Maynard a letter if you like, or, better still, I will explain to her verbally to-morrow--after you have got clear off."

"What should you tell her?" Leslie asked dully.

"I should do my best to whitewash your memory by throwing ridicule on the allegation that causes your flight," was the prompt answer. "In fact, I should go somewhere near the truth, and a.s.sert that it is not the murder charge that you are running away from, but from the revelation of some escapade which it would incidentally bring out. If you like, I will tell her that you will write when you have reached your destination."

Leslie had jumped at the proposition, as it seemed to make his desertion less abrupt and heartless. Also it deferred for a little while the final severance, though he had no hope but that Violet would despise him utterly, hate the very sound of his name, for what she would deem his cowardice, even if she did not believe him guilty of the graver crime of murder.

"Thank you, I shall be obliged if you will take that course," he had said, though he hated to be placed under an obligation to the man whose cunning greed had brought him to this pa.s.s.

"Not at all," Nugent had answered glibly, as if divining his thoughts.

"I regard it as a kind of atonement to smooth matters as best I can, for I have come to see the heinousness of our joint offence, Chermside.

I have been filled with remorse for some time that I did not repent of it as soon as you did, and I can sympathize the more readily with you, who have, I think, a keener pang than that of remorse to bear."

The little touch of right feeling from such an unexpected quarter had broken down Leslie's last guard, and he had placed himself unreservedly in Nugent's hands. Quite early in the day he had left his lodgings, and had sought temporary refuge at The Hut, entering the grounds with due precautions by the secluded garden door from the moor, there to remain till nightfall, when his host would see to it that he was smuggled on board the _Cobra_. Nugent had stayed in and about the house till late in the afternoon, when he had started out in his motor car, informing Chermside, however, that he would not be long away, and enjoining upon him the advisability of not on any account leaving the library.

In the meanwhile Sinnett, the noiseless butler, who alone of the indoor servants was aware of his presence in the house, was to be depended on to preserve the secret; while outside watch and ward would be kept by a trustworthy man who had come down from London to help in the emergency--an old hanger-on, as Nugent described him, by the name of Bill Tuke. Several times during the day Leslie had noticed from the window this individual prowling about the grounds and coming in and out of the door on to the moor. It was not for him to know that Tuke, with whose raffish appearance he was not favourably impressed, had been dubbed by Enid "The Bootlace Man."

And now, at something after seven o'clock, he saw this unprepossessing ally approach the window at which he stood brooding. The coa.r.s.e features wore a look of cunning satisfaction as he came and drummed on the pane, requesting admission. Mastering his repulsion, Leslie undid the catch and opened to him, reflecting that as he was supposed to be benefiting by the man's services, it would be unfair to show antipathy.

"Is the boss, Mr. Nugent, back?" Tuke asked, as he stepped over the threshold of the French window into the comfortable apartment.

Leslie was beginning to reply in the negative, when the whirr of a car was heard on the other side of the house, where the approach from the road led to the front door.

"I expect that will be him," he said, as the sound ceased; and a minute later Nugent entered the room, brus.h.i.+ng the dust from his coat. He was fresh from his interview with Violet Maynard in the rose-garden at the Manor House. He started at sight of his unsavoury henchman.

"Anything wrong?" he demanded of him.

"I ain't seen any cops, if that's what you mean," replied Tuke with a slight wink that called a quick scowl to his employer's face. "But I've got a prisoner in the stone grotto in the shrubbery. The moor her into the garden through the door from. Watched, and nabbed her clean as a whistle as she was hiding from me----"

Nugent stopped the flow of self-complacence with a repressive gesture, and strode to the open window.

"Ah, that spying ferret, Louise Aubin," he said hastily. "Well, come with me and let her out, Tuke. You acted for the best, no doubt, but we cannot shut young women up in stone grottos against their will in the twentieth century. We must chance her having seen Mr. Chermside, and try and induce her to keep quiet about it if she has. You'll have to apologize, and I shall have to square her--if I can."

Tuke, pretending to be abashed, followed into the nearer shrubbery, where, as soon as they were hidden from the window, Nugent stopped short. "You idiot!" he hissed, with suppressed fury. "Why did you blurt that out before Chermside? You ought to have said that you wanted to speak to me in private. It wasn't the Frenchwoman, I know, because she was at the Manor House twenty minutes ago. Who is it that you caught lurking about--that Mallory girl?"

"It's her right enough."

"Hasn't she screamed or made any attempt to attract attention?"

"Not a blessed sound have I heard, and she's been there the best part of twenty minutes now."