CHAPTER VII
IN WHICH A RISKY COUP IS DESCRIBED
I DID think that when, leaving a balance of a few hundreds in the hands of my long-suffering bank-manager, I went for a tour in the Royal Mail boat Dorsetshire to China and Japan I should be free of matters medical, and also clear of financial difficulties necessitating risky coups. But no. "Adventures to the adventurous."
Indeed, when I arrived home I had paid my somewhat extravagant expenses and was an extra fifteen hundred in hand.
I was very happy on board for the first six weeks. The ship, although not large, was comfortable, the majority of the officers were good fellows, and passengers were few.
Nothing is so delightful to the busy man, if he is a decent sailor and not in search of constant and varied excitement, as a long sea voyage. The absence of the postman is, perhaps, the most delightful point of all—no daily worries, nothing to answer, no bills to make you shudder and rush to the tantalus. If you are also a keen chess and card player, then the life, for a few months, is ideal.
The skipper of the Dorsetshire was a most able man, but an amusing study. He was obsessed with the idea that he was a lady-killer of the most accomplished type, and I believe he really considered himself handsome, but he held a "lone hand" in that belief. I mention this because, later on, this curious, almost ludicrous, fancy of his was of great value to me—and another.
As the voyage progressed and we got into warmer climes, our passenger-list increased, and before Shanghai, outward bound, the first-class saloon was nearly full.
The ship's doctor was an Irishman named Currie; tall and thin, with a delightful brogue, a maximum of assurance and a minimum of professional ability. What small amount of medical knowledge he originally possessed had been gradually dissipated into thin sea-air or dissolved in whisky-and-soda, and it was with great joy that he informed me at this latter port that another professional brother was coming aboard, with his wife.
"Sure, and we'll be a happy family now," said he. "And I'll be relying on the two of ye to help me."
The new arrival was a good-featured, clean-shaven man who, however, showed traces of dissipation in his loose-lipped mouth and fluid bright eyes, and this conjecture of mine was soon confirmed when I saw him drink a tumbler of champagne, which he was compelled to hold with both hands, before breakfast on the first morning after we left port.
His wife was a brilliant little woman with very golden hair and a slim, yet almost perfect figure, which was shown to the best advantage in the thin China silk frocks worn so much in the tropics. In a day or two Dr. and Mrs. Toillet were a most popular couple among the company on board.
The majority of the other ladies adopted the role of being somewhat strait-laced. This was undoubtedly because they were afraid of each other, for gossip in the Far East travels very fast, and before long they appeared to be of one opinion about Mrs. Toillet and gave her, to a certain degree, the cold shoulder. This drove her to the smoking-room—she was an inveterate smoker—and the company of men, of whhom the chief officer—a lengthy and cadaverous individual called Verte—and myself were the most favoured.
It was not long before she confided to me the trouble about her husband—he drank too much, and he took morphia, the result being that half his time was spent in the smoking and card rooms, and the other half in a state of semi-stupefaction in his cabin.
I was out for a holiday, however. I certainly didn't want to be bothered with women, and I am afraid I turned a deaf ear to her pretty sayings, and refused to enter into any flirtation.
"I believe you are made of wood. Dr. d'Escombe," she said one day to me. "Will nothing move you? Are you quite emotionless?"
"No, my dear child," I said, smiling at her, "but everything of that kind in the East is too easy and simple—and it's far too hot."
"Then I'm not going to waste my time on you," she laughed. "I'm going to conquer that dear, ugly captain—or else his immaculate chief."
"Both much too easy," I answered. "But count on me to help you."
On the following day Dr. Currie came to me. I was playing chess on deck.
"Can you spare me a minute in my cabin, Docther?" he inquired. And when I got there he told me that Toillet was very bad; he feared delirium tremens. Would I see him in consultation?
Toillet was certainly rather ill; twisting and turning in his bunk, with bright expressionless eyes and busy fingers and a face flushed and unshaved.
"Jolly glad to see you, d'Er—d'Er—what is it?" he said. "Have a drink; ring for the steward."
"Too hot, old man; wait a bit," I said quietly. "You're not looking quite fit."
"Fit!" he shouted, starting up. "Fit! How can I be fit with that she-devil about? Where is she now?" He looked vacantly round the cabin. "Mamie, you little devil, where are you?" he continued in a loud voice. And then, whispering confidentially: "She's always spying about somewhere—perhaps she's under the bunk?"
"No, no; she's on deck," answered Currie. "I'll go and bring her back in a minute," turning to me.
As he left the sick man leaned over to me. "Come here, close, Doctor, I want to tell you something." He looked quite sensible for a moment. "Sister Mamie and I aren't—well, you understand?—but it's a secret—only you know." And then suddenly he shouted: "Je-rusalem! see those green beetles on the wall. Get me some morphia, quick, man—they're after me!" And he started into the incoherent rambling of alcoholism.
I wondered if his statement were true—and for the first time the idea of making something out of the trip occurred to me. Toillet was evidently a sick man—his possessions and expenditure showed money, and I promptly decided to cultivate his wife more carefully.
Currie returned alone. "She is sitting on the boat-deck with the 'Old Man,'" he reported, "who's making very hot running, and the Chief on the bridge is lookin' mighty sick."
We decided to give our patient a dose of morphia to get him some sleep if possible, and then we had a chat about him in the dispensary.
"They haven't been on board long," he said. "but there's only one bottle of brandy left. The chief steward's holdin' that up for 'medical comforts.'"
"Why do you say they?" I queried.
"They're both tarred with the same brush," said he, "only she can 'carry on' and he can't."
I had something to think about that evening. It still seemed plain to me that there was the strong possibility of money-making in this situation. He rich, she evidently unscrupulous and, I imagined, innately vicious; moreover the two of them possessed a weakness which can nearly always be turned to account by the wise man. Truly said the ancient: "In vino Veritas."
I managed to get a tête-à-tête with Mrs. Toillet after dinner, and told her that I had been to see her husband in consultation.
"We didn't like to interrupt you, seeing that you were so occupied on the boat-deck," I said.
"What nonsense!" she laughed. "I was only amusing myself with that conceited old idiot, and because I wanted to make the old 'cats' on board jealous; they all hate me, you know." She laughed as she turned and looked me straight in the face with an expression I know very well and which means much to the man of the world.
"Let's go down to my cabin and have something with ice," I suggested promptly.
"Rather!" said she. And before long we were chatting most confidentially, and I had been told the history of her husband's weaknesses. I did not tell her what I knew; I thought it would possibly be of use later on; but two days after—acquaintances develop very rapidly in the tropics on board ship—I had the whole story from her.
"I am sick and tired of him," she confided, "and if I were only certain about his money I shouldn't care a hang how much he drank, or how many doses of morphia he had. He is always jealous," she continued, "and he only wants me just to feel that I am his property and must stay near him while he is maudlin and half helpless."
"I am very sorry for you, poor child," I told her. "I wish I could help you."
"So you can," she answered, sitting up close to me on my settee. "You're a doctor; you can do anything. I'd make it worth your while." And suddenly she leant over and kissed me. "Now you will help me, won't you? I'm so sick of it all," she added with a wicked little smile.
"You run away and let me think matters over," I said, and in a half joking way pushed her out of my cabin. Women are very difficult in those parts of the world, Laurence. You've been East, and you know.
I did think things over, and a difficult problem I had to face. It was not so hard to dispose of Toillet—I had an idea for that—but I had to make sure of my money from her if I did so.
"You must keep clear of me," I told her the next time I had an opportunity. "Make up to the Old Man. He's ready enough. Don't give folks aboard any opening to couple our names together. I hate to tell you so," I added mendaciously, knowing how easily her amour propre might be offended. "But I have a plan"
"Dear old chap, I thought you were the one to help me," she answered. "But you must explain to me."
"All right, walk with me on deck before dinner to-night," I suggested. "There's safety in a crowd."
We walked, and she told me point-blank that if her reputed husband died she would get twenty thousand pounds, as he had made a will in her favour about eighteen months before, at which time his mental balance could not be questioned.
We talked around the subject for half an hour, and then she suddenly said: "Well, Doc, I'm going to dress." And as she turned to go, whispered: "Two thousand for you, if you manage it."
"Yes," I thought. "but should I get it?" However, there was no certain way of making quite sure, and I decided to trust my luck.
Dr. Toillet was, in the meantime, picking up somewhat, but as he got better of the alcoholic poisoning so the depression which it left caused him to increase his doses of morphia, and on two occasions I found him in a heavy stertorous sleep when I dropped into his cabin to look at him.
Dr. Currie was very pleased to have any work taken off his hands, and consequently I had no difficulty in another two days' time in giving the invalid a hypodermic injection of apomorphine and a preparation of calabar-bean mixed together. I might have done this earlier, but I waited until the wind had freshened up somewhat—enough to give us a bit of a lop, anyway. You ask why, Laurence? For this reason. I had decided that Dr. Toillet should die of sea-sickness, induced, of course, by his previous illness, as in health he was a good sailor, and the injection I gave was certain to cause obstinate vomiting, and would also seriously affect his heart. But it all had to appear very natural; life on ship-board being so narrow and confined that every soul knows practically every detail of the life and doings of everybody else.
My arrangement worked well, however, and that evening as we steamed merrily along with a fresh breeze on our starboard quarter, Currie came to me, and said: "Toillet's ver-ry bad. This weather's made him sick—mortal sick."
"That's serious," I answered. "Where's his wife?"
"Oh, she's down, lookin' afther him," answered the well-meaning old chap. "She's a real good one after all, if it's a bonâ fide illness."
"So she is," I said. "Let's go and see her."
The patient looked bad, very bad indeed. His face had become dusky and drawn, and he was constantly sick; I hardly thought the one dose would have had such an effect.
Mrs. Toillet looked at me—just one glance, but sufficient. She guessed, and she gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, as though to say: "All right, the two thousand holds good."
She nursed the patient assiduously for the next couple of days, and I had to seize the opportunity of a boat and fire-station drill, which I sent her up to watch and which took away all stewards and undesirables from the cabins and alleyways, to give another injection.
"This should be sufficient," I told myself as I threw the light cover over the collapsed patient. I wondered if I should get the money after all. I had a strong idea in my mind that I should.
She appeared on deck late that night, and, finding me alone, came to my side, and said: "I suppose I have to thank you for this?"
"Very possibly," I answered. And then suddenly I added: "Do you think that, as a friend, you could lend me a couple of hundred pounds in a day or two? I have a great necessity for it just now."
"I'll write you a cheque for a hundred and fifty to-night. Doctor, if you want it," was her answer. And then in a whisper: "How long?"
"I hope to see a change in about thirty-six hours," I replied.
"You're a real good pal," was her rejoinder. "I thought I knew a real man when I saw him."
"A very pretty eye for a blackguard," I thought to myself. "You're a clever woman."
I got my cheque in an envelope half an hour later, with a polite little note thanking me for my kindness to her husband and herself. And three hours after I received it Currie came to my cabin and waked me out of a sleep on my settee.
"I think Toillet's finished," he said somewhat excitedly. "Poor-r devil—he's done for-r himself. Will you come and see him?"
I went, and, sure enough, Toillet was at his last gasp; the cold sweat of death was upon his face, which had become blue and pinched.
"It's all over, Currie," I whispered. "Keep quiet." And I pointed to the figure of the almost-widow as she sat half huddled up on a chair, apparently crying bitterly. She was a magnificent actress, Brown. I defy any man to say she wasn't overcome with grief at that moment.
"The sickness stopped about two hours ago," Currie told me. "But his heart was so shaky that he couldn't rally. D'ye know he took morphia?" he asked in an undertone. "That finished him."
"No, I knew nothing," said I. "I only feel that a good chap has gone."
We buried him the day before we arrived at Nagasaki, and his widow—who obtained a perfect rig-out of mourning from a Chinese tailor—seemed overcome with grief but said she must go home with us.
And so we carried her the round trip, always a poor pathetic little figure, inviting the sympathy of everybody, and only getting her few moments of recreation in my cabin. She looked forward to her brandy-and-soda there as the only saving clause in her life.
To cut it all short, we got home: she proved his will. It was made out to her in her maiden name, and his relations at first were inclined to contest it. But they gave up the idea. The evidence was too strong against them, and they could not stultify his name, anyway.
I got my money, but I had to make three or four journeys to see the lady, and talk pretty straight to her before I really did put it in my pocket. And all the time I knew it was just a toss-up whether I gained or not.
However, I was very pleased ultimately, that I had honoured the Dorsetshire with my company, and I often wonder when next I shall meet the widow, and what devil's game she has been up to in the meantime.
She was one of those women who could not help but get into mischief and what the world calls wickedness.