By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories Part 15

He turned away, and went below with burning cheeks. Before the storm he had tried his best, late on several nights, to make Lacy drunk, and to keep him drunk; but Lacy could stand as much or more grog than he could himself; and when he heard that pa.s.sionate, sobbing appeal, "Oh, Will, Will, how could you?" his better nature was stirred, and his fierce sensual desire for her changed into a sentimental affection and respect.

He knew her secret, and now, instead of wis.h.i.+ng to take advantage of it, felt he was too much of a man to abuse his knowledge.

Supper was over, and as the skipper, Burr, and Otway paced the quarter-deck before going ash.o.r.e to play a game or two of billiards and meet some friends, a boat came alongside, and a man stepped on deck and inquired for the captain. As he followed Robertson down the companion, Otway saw that he was a well-dressed, rather gentlemanly-looking young man of about five and twenty.

"Who's that joker, I wonder?" he said to Burr; "not any one living in Samoa, unless he's a new-comer. Hope he won't stay long--it's eight o'clock now."

Ten minutes later the steward came to him.

"The captain wishes to see you, sir."

Otway entered the cabin. Robertson, with frowning face, motioned him to a seat. The strange gentleman sat near the captain smoking a cigar, and with some papers in his hands.

"Mr. Otway, I have sent for you. This gentleman has a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Lacy, issued by the New Zealand Government and initialled by the British Consul here."

Otway rose to the occasion. He nodded to the stranger and sat down quietly.

"Yes, sir?" he asked inquiringly of Robertson.

"You will please tell my supercargo your business, mister," said the captain gruffly to the stranger; "he can tell you all you wish to know--that is, if he cares to do so. I don't see that your warrant holds any force here in Samoa. You can't execute it. There's no government here, no police, no anything, and the British Consul can't act on a warrant issued from New Zealand. It is of no more use in Samoa than it would be at Cape Horn."

"Now, sir, make haste," said Otway with a mingled and studied insolence and politeness. He already began to detest the stranger.

"I am a detective of the police force of New Zealand, and I have come from Auckland to arrest William Barton, alias the Rev. Wilfrid Lacy, on a charge of stealing twenty thousand, five hundred pounds from the National Bank of Christchurch, of which he was manager. I believe that twenty thousand pounds of the money he has stolen is on board this vessel at this moment, and I now demand access to his cabin."

"Do you? How are you going to enforce your demand, my c.o.c.ksure friend?"

Otway rose, and placing his two hands on the table, looked insultingly at the detective. "What rot you are talking, man!"

The detective drew back, alarmed and startled.

"The British Consul has endorsed my warrant to arrest this man," he said, "and it will go hard with any one who attempts to interfere with me in the performance of my duty."

Otway shot a quick, triumphant glance at the captain.

"The Consul is, and always was, a silly old a.s.s. You have come on a fool's errand; and are going on the wrong tack by making threats. That idiotic warrant of yours is of no more use to you than a sheet of fly paper--Samoa is outside British jurisdiction. The High Commissioner for the Western Pacific would not have endorsed such a fool of a doc.u.ment, and I'll report the matter to him.... Now, sit down and tell me what you _do_ want, and I'll try and help you all I can. But don't try to bluff us--it's only wasting your time. Steward, bring us something to drink."

As soon as the steward brought them "something to drink" Otway became deeply sympathetic with the detective, and Robertson, who knew his supercargo well, smiled inwardly at the manner he adopted.

"Now, just tell us, Mr.--O'Donovan, I think you said is your name--what is all the trouble? I need hardly tell you that whilst both the captain and myself felt annoyed at your dictatorial manner, we are both sensible men, and will do all in our power to a.s.sist you. Our firm's reputation has to be studied--has it not, captain? We don't want it to be insinuated that we helped an embezzler to escape, do we?"

"Certainly not," replied Robertson, puffing slowly at his cigar, watching Otway keenly through his half-closed eyelids, and wondering what that astute young gentleman was driving at. "I guess that you, Mr.

Otway, will do all that is right and cor-rect."

"Thank you, sir," replied Otway humbly, and with great seriousness, "I know my duty to my employers, and I know that this gentleman may be led into very serious trouble through the dense stupidity of the British Consul here."

He turned to Mr. O'Donovan--"Are you aware, Mr. O'Donikin--I beg your pardon, O'Donovan--that the British Consul here is not, officially, the British Consul. He is merely a commercial agent, like the United States Consul. Neither are accredited by their Governments to act officially on behalf of their respective countries, and even if they were, there is no extradition treaty with the Samoan Islands, which is a country without a recognised government. Of course, Mr. O'Donovan, you are acting in good faith; but you have no more legal right nor the power to arrest a man in Samoa, than you have to arrest one in Manchuria or Patagonia. Of course, old Johns (the British Consul) doesn't know this, or he would not have made such a fool of himself by endorsing a warrant from an irresponsible judge of a New Zealand court. But as I told you, I shall aid you in every possible way."

O'Donovan was no fool. He knew that all that Otway had said was absolutely correct, but he braced himself up.

"I daresay what you say may be right, Mr. Supercargo. But I've come from New Zealand to get this joker, and by blazes I mean to get him, and take him back with me to New Zealand. And I mean to have those twenty thousand sovereigns to take back as well."

"Well, then, why the devil don't you go and get your man? He's at Joe D'Acosta's hotel with his wife."

"I don't want to be bothered with him just yet. I have no place to put him into. The Californian mail boat from San Francisco is not due here for another ten days. But I know that he hasn't taken his stolen money ash.o.r.e yet, and you had better hand it over to me at once. I can get _him_ at any time."

Otway leant back in his chair and laughed.

"I don't doubt that, Mr. O'Donovan. If you have enough money to do it, you can do as you say--get this man at any time. But you want to have some guns behind you to enforce it; and then his capture won't affect our custody of the money. If the Consul instigates you to make an attack on the s.h.i.+p, you will do so at your peril, for we shall resist any piratical attempt."

O'Donovan's face fell. "You said you would a.s.sist me?"

"So I will," replied Otway, lying genially, "But you must point out a way. The High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, in Fiji, is the only man who could give you power to arrest the man and convey him to New Zealand, and the moment you show me the High or the Deputy High Commissioner's order to hand over the money, and Lacy's other effects, I'll do so."

The detective made his last stroke.

"I can take the law into my own hands and chance the consequences. The Consul will supply me with a force--"

Robertson smiled grimly, and pointed to the rack of Snider rifles around the mizen-mast at the head of the table.

"You and your force will have a bad time of it then, and be shot down before you can put foot on my deck. I've never seen a shark eat a policeman, but there seems a chance of it now."

O'Donovan laughed uneasily, then he changed his tactics.

"Now look here, gentlemen," he said confidentially, leaning across the table, "I can see I'm in a bit of a hole, but I'm a business man, and you are business men, and I think we understand one another, eh? As you say, my warrant doesn't hold good here in Samoa. But the Consul will back me up, and if I can take this chap back to New Zealand it means a big thing for me. Now, what's your figure?"

"Two hundred each for the skipper and myself," answered Otway promptly.

"Done. You shall have it."

"When?"

"Give me till to-morrow afternoon. I've only a hundred and fifty pounds with me, and I'll have to raise the rest."

"Very well, it's a deal. But mind, you'll have to take care to be here before the parson. He's coming off at eleven o'clock."

"Trust me for that, gentlemen."

"I'm sorry for his wife," said Otway meditatively.

O'Donovan grinned. "Ah, I haven't told you the yarn--she's not his wife!

She bolted from her husband, who is a big swell in Auckland, a Mr.----."

"How did you get on their tracks?"

"Sydney police found out that two people answering their description had sailed for the Islands in the _Tucopia_, and cabled over to us. We thought they had lit out for America. I only got here the day before yesterday in the _Ryno_, from Auckland."

Otway paid him some very florid compliments on his smartness, and then after another drink or two, the detective went on sh.o.r.e, highly pleased.