Poison Island Part 20

That was all, except two short entries. The first scribbled aslant under No. 1, and in Captain Coffin's own handwriting--so Captain Branscome, who knew it, a.s.sured us.

N.B.--Took out 5 cases Ap. 5, 1806, besides the boddies.

Avging 3/4 cwt. 1 case jewels. We left the clothes, wh.

were many.

The second entry appeared to have been penned by the same hand as the original, but more neatly and some while later. The ink, at any rate, was blacker and fresher. It ran:

S.W. ann. aetat. 37. R.I.P.

The handwriting, though rugged--and the indifferent ink may have been to blame for this--was well formed, and, but for the spelling, might have belonged to an educated man.

The reader, if he choose, may follow our example and discuss the above directions for half an hour--I will warrant with as little result. Miss Belcher ended by harking back to the summer-house and to the latest crime--if we might guess, the latest of many--for which this doc.u.ment had been responsible.

"What puzzles me is this: Since the Major had pockets in his coat, why should he have hidden the parcel as he did? So small a parcel, too!"

"Captain Coffin," I suggested, "may have known that he was being followed."

"Well?"

"And in handing it over he may have warned my father that there was danger."

"I believe the boy is right," said Captain Branscome. "Now I recall the Major's face at the moment when I rattled the latch, I feel sure he was on his guard. Yes--yes, he had been warned against carrying this on his person--he was wrapping it away for the time--"

"Why, what ails the man?" demanded Miss Belcher, as Captain Branscome stopped short with a groan.

"I was thinking, ma'am, that but for my visit he might never have relaxed his guard--that it was I who helped the murderer to take him at unawares. Nay--worse, ma'am, worse--his last thought may have been that I was the traitor--that the blow he took was from the hand he had filled with gold--that I had returned to kill him in his blindness!"

Captain Branscome bowed his head upon his hands. I saw Plinny--who all this while had sat silent, content to listen--rise, her face twitching, and put out a hand to touch the captain's shoulder.

I saw her hand hesitate as her sense of decorum overtook her pity and seemed to reason with it. And with that I heard the noise of wheels on the road.

"Hallo!"--Miss Belcher p.r.i.c.ked up her ears. "Here's that nuisance Jack Rogers turning up again!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CONTENTS OF THE CORNER CUPBOARD.

Mr. Jack Rogers, as he pulled up by the porch and directed me to stand by the young mare's head, wore a look of extreme self-satisfaction. Beside him, also beaming, sat Mr. Goodfellow, with the corner cupboard nursed between his knees.

"Capital news, lad!" announced Mr. Rogers, climbing down from the tilbury. "The filly's pretty near dead-beat, though--must see to her and cool her down before telling it. Now, then, Mr. Goodfellow, if you'll hand out the cupboard. By the way, sonny, I hope Miss Plinlimmon can give us breakfast. I'm as hungry as a hunter, for my part, and deserve it, too, after a good night's work. With my fol-de-rol, diddledy--" He started to hum, but checked himself shamefacedly. "There I go again, and I beg your pardon! 'Tis the most difficult thing in the world to me to behave myself in a house of mourning."

Mr. Goodfellow by this time had clambered down, and was embracing the corner cupboard as though he had parted from it for an age, instead of for fifty seconds at the farthest.

"Carry it indoors, but don't open it till I'm ready," commanded Mr.

Rogers, stooping under the filly to loosen her belly-band.

"I'm a magistrate, remember, and these things must be done in order.

You come along with me, Harry; that is, if you have the key in your pocket."

"I have, sir."

"Right! Then come along with me, and you'll be out of harm's way."

So, while Mr. Goodfellow carried the cupboard into the house, Mr.

Rogers and I attended to the filly.

This took, maybe, twenty minutes; but Mr. Rogers was a sportsman, and thought of his horse before himself. Not till all was done, and well done, did he announce again that he was devilish peckish; nor did I take the measure of his meaning until, returning to the breakfast-room where Mr. Goodfellow sat before a plate of bread and cream, he helped himself to a ma.s.s of veal pie fit for a giant, and before attacking it drained a tankard of cider at a single pull, while he nodded over the rim to Captain Branscome, to whom Plinny introduced him.

"Jack," said Miss Belcher, with a jerk of her thumb towards the Captain, "I'll lay you two to one in guineas, that our news is more important than yours!"

"I take you," said Mr. Rogers.

"It will save time if we tell it while you're eating, and will save you the trouble of talking with your mouth full."

Once or twice, while she abridged Captain Branscome's narrative, Mr. Rogers set down knife and fork, and stared at her with round eyes, his jaws slowly chewing.

"And I reckon," concluded Miss Belcher, "that you won't dispute your owing me a guinea."

"Wait a bit!" Mr. Rogers pushed his empty plate away, selected a clean one, and helped himself to six slices of ham. "To begin with, I've found scent and laid on the hounds."

"Where?"

"At St. Mawes. Captain Coffin, the murdered man, landed there from the ferry on the night of the 11th, at a few minutes before nine, and walked straight to the Lugger Inn, above the quay. There he borrowed fifteen s.h.i.+llings off the landlord, who knew him well; ordered two gla.s.ses of hot gin-and-water, drank them, paid down sixpence, and took the road that leads east through Gerrans village. His tale was that he had a relative to visit at Plymouth Dock, and meant to push on that night so far as Probus, and there sleep and wait for Russell's waggon."

"But his road," I objected, "wouldn't lie through Gerrans village, unless he went by the short cut through the field beyond St. Mawes, and took the ferry at Percuil."

"Right, lad; and that is precisely what he did; for--to push ahead a bit--we overran his track on the main road, and, learning of that same short cut, drove back along the other side of the creek to Percuil, and had a talk with the ferryman. The ferryman told us that at ten o'clock, or thereabouts, he was going to bed having closed the ferry, when a voice on the other sh.o.r.e began bawling 'Over!'

He slipped on his boots again, rowed across, and took over a man who was certainly Captain Coffin."

"He was alone?" I asked.

"He came across the ferry alone," said Mr. Rogers, "and I dare say he had no idea of being followed. But back at St. Mawes, while he was drinking gin-and-water in the taproom, another man came to the door of the Lugger. This man sent for the landlord--Bogue by name--and asked to be shown into a private room. He was dressed in odds-and-ends of garments, including a soiled regimental coat and dirty linen trousers."

"The French prisoner!" said I.

"That's the man. He told Bogue, fair and straight, he was an ex-prisoner, and off the _Wellinboro'_ transport, arrived that day in harbour. He had money in his pocket--in Bogue's presence he pulled out a fistful of gold--and he pitched a tale that he was bound for his home, a little this side of Saltash, but couldn't face the road in the clothes he wore. You'll admit that this was reasonable when you've seen 'em, for I brought the suit along in the tail of the tilbury. For a pound, Bogue fitted him up with an old suit of his own--coat and waistcoat of blue sea-cloth, not much the worse for wear, duck trousers, a tarpaulin hat, and a flannel s.h.i.+rt marked J. B. (Bogue's Christian name is Jeremiah). The fellow had no s.h.i.+rt when he presented himself--nothing between the bare buff and the uniform coat that he wore b.u.t.toned across his chest. And here our luck comes in. He was shy of stripping in Bogue's presence, and, on pretence of feeling chilly, sent him out of the room for a gla.s.s of hot grog. As it happened, Bogue met the waiting-maid in the pa.s.sage, coming out of the bar with a tray and half a dozen hot grogs that had been ordered by customers in the tap-room. He picked up one, and, sending the maid back to fetch another to fill up her order, returned at once to the private room. My gentleman there was standing with his back to the door, stripped to the waist, with the s.h.i.+rt in his hand, ready to slip it on. He wasn't expecting Bogue so soon, and he turned about with a jump, but not before Bogue had sight of his back and a great picture tattooed across it--Adam and Eve, with the tree between 'em, and the serpent coiled around it complete."

"The man Bogue must have quick sight," commented Miss Belcher.

"So I told him, but his answer was that it didn't need more than a glance, because this picture is a favourite with seamen. Bogue has been a seaman himself."

"That is so," Captain Branscome corroborated. "The man must have been a seaman, and at one time or another in the Navy. There's a superst.i.tion about that particular picture: tattooed across the back and loins it's supposed to protect them, in a moderate degree, against flogging."

"Well," said Miss Belcher, "his belonging to the Navy seems likely enough. It accounts, in one way, for his finding himself in a French war-prison. Go on, Jack."

"The man (said Bogue) faced about with a start, catching his hands-- with the s.h.i.+rt in 'em--towards his chest, and half covering it, but not so as to hide from Bogue that his chest, too, was marked.

Bogue hadn't time to make out the design, but his recollection is there were several small ones--s.h.i.+ps, foul-anchors, and the like-- besides a large one that seemed to be some sort of a map."