CHAPTER XVII
CAMDEN, blissfully unconscious that he had let the cat out of the bag, landed at the jetty. It was early morning, yet the heat was already excessive and enervating.
"Mr. Camden!"
Camden turned to find Norton Colburton's Japanese valet at his elbow.
"Hello, Saki! Where's your master?"
"He iss at the offissers' club, and wants to see you at once, sar."
"Where's the yacht?"
"Back at ten o'clock, sar."
"All right. Nort is up pretty early for him."
The valet shrugged. His master got up early or he got up late, it was all the same to him.
Camden barked some words to his Arab boatmen—he had a traveler's smattering of half a dozen tongues—and proceeded into town. At seven-thirty he rapped on the door of Colburton's room at the officers' club and was bidden to enter.
Colburton was in pajamas and sandals, and he was sipping tea.
"Glad to see you, Dick." He waved his hand toward a chair. "Haven't been to bed yet. Bridge all night. Well, what's the news from the good ship Ajax?"
Camden lighted a cigarette and inhaled deeply. "Punk, if you want to know. The Irishman turned up at Suez. Not one man in ten thousand would have got out of the hole I put him in. I warned you in Venice."
"You were probably off on your old trick—champagne. Camden, while you're at work for me you cut out that or I'll drop you."
Camden's eyes narrowed. It might have been the smoke of his cigarette. "When you called me up in June and gave me that photograph, I kept away from the stuff. Believe it or not. I combed New York with a fine-tooth comb. Knowing that she went to the movies, I patronized them until my eyes began to fail. Never saw her. I hunted up all the school-teachers who knew her. Not a crumb. I tried the branch post-office, with barren results. Finally I happened to think of the school commissioners. That was the last chance. Here luck was with me. She was not sure that she would teach in the fall term. I told them I was a lawyer and that there was a small legacy. They gave me her new address. When I got there she was gone. She had gone that afternoon. The landlady didn't know where she had gone. Anyhow, she wasn't coming back. I asked to see the room she had vacated. Here I was detective. On the floor of that room I found a crumpled ship's label—the Ajax. I left. Later I learned that the Ajax was making a tour of the world and would sail the following afternoon. I took a chance. Two grips were all I had. I saw her go up the gang-plank. All pretty work, if you want my opinion. Late that night I sent a wireless to you."
"Any detective could have done that for a hundred, and I gave you two thousand as a starter, another thousand in Venice, with the promise of five at the end of the run. And you couldn't even get the best of a red-headed Irishman who ought to have been clay in your hands."
"There are various kinds of clay," replied Camden, moodily. "I tell you, this Gerry Owen is out of the ordinary. He's as strong as a lion. He was born and brought up on the streets, which is to say he's no man's fool. I stole his letter of credit. I set thugs upon him in Rome and Florence; I packed him away with a broken head in Cairo; and he bade me good-by from the starboard rail this morning. To this hour I don't know whether he suspects me or not. I've used every kind of a trap to pump him, and never got a drop. He's watching over that girl. He's in love with her."
Colburton got up and began to pace the room; but this activity proved too much for him, and he sat down abruptly.
"Better call it off," suggested Camden.
"You have never known me to steer off, have you?"
"No, Orestes, I have not; and some day you're going to get bumped hard. Keep your hair on. We grew up together; but you were hard and I was soft. You never let cards and wine get the best of you, nor any woman, for that matter. Devil a bit do I care which way it goes; I'll go on with it. I need money. And the job you offer me is the only kind left for a polecat like myself."
"Moralizing, eh?"
"No, I used to moralize. I do still when I've just got over a bender. Bad as I am, there's a white corner or two sticking around in my soul; and I don't like the looks of this deal. It doesn't look successful."
"Leave that end of it to me. I'll break your Gerry Owen, and then I'll break the girl. Break her like that!" Colburton closed his fists and struck them against his knees.
"Then you only want to break her?" asked the jackal, curiously. "You're not mad about her any more, then?"
"What's that to you?"
"Nothing, m' lord, nothing. But you might lower your tone a little. I don't like it."
Colburton plucked at his mustache. "Has she made any attempt to dispose of it?"
"No. She's a woman. She's probably deathly afraid by now. What 'll I do to Grogan?"
"Leave him to me. The yacht will be off the jetty at ten. You go aboard of her. You'll find your trunks in your old cabin. We go straight to Ceylon. From there to Perak, where I'm going to do a little hunting."
"That's a long time to wait."
Colburton drank his tea. "Want some?"
"Had my breakfast on board." Camden smiled at the other's sudden conciliatory mood. So long as this Pied Piper of Petticoat Lane had use for him, there was no need to worry about the immediate future. Besides, he had an idea. If it worked out he could go on his own for several years to come. "When will you come aboard the Elsa?"
"About four. Some officers are coming. There'll be bridge. I'll drop out after dinner and you can play a few rubbers. They're a reckless lot. Sixpence a point."
"Thanks for the manna. It pleases me to know that you know I'm not a crook with cards, only skilful. Well, I'll see you at four. What are your plans?"
"I'm mulling them over now. I want her to believe I've given up. I'll let her have October and November. She'll grow careless. I'll fix your Irishman."
"I'll do my share, but it's got to be a plausible trick, Orestes, a plausible trick. The way that man Grogan hovers around that girl is an illumination. He knows that something's wrong, that she's in danger, though he doesn't know what it is."
"I ran into him in Venice," said Colburton, coldly. "I'm glad you tell me he's in love with her. If you can twist a man's heart, it's better than twisting his bones."
Camden departed. Poor Grogan! It was not possible that he should slip through every trap. Sooner or later, he would have to pay dearly for his devotion. For Camden could not get away from the fact that he liked the Irishman. Supposing he surrendered to the impulse to clear out? Within six months' time he would be absolutely penniless, living in some cheap boarding-house which would automatically grow cheaper as the days went by. His good clothes and his jewels would be in pawn. … No use. H was no good; it was too late now even if he wanted earnestly to be good. He was too deeply in the web. It was written; he would have to go on to the end. He would probably die alone in some Oriental rat-hole.
Camden laughed suddenly. There was a chance for him, if he played his cards carefully. It was worth trying. It was, in truth, his main reason for accepting this equivocal adventure.
Midnight.
The Elsa tugged at her cables. Somewhere out in the Indian Ocean a great storm was running. Colburton's guests had returned to the town, and he sat alone among the empty bottles and scattered cards. The little silk curtains over the open ports flapped and snapped. Outside, the davits creaked, now to starboard, now to port.
The saloon was richly furnished. It served both as dining-room and lounge during rough weather. Port and starboard ran low book-shelves, and there were several hundred books in exquisite hides. But not one of them appeared thumbed, beloved. On this yacht books had never been a source of amusement, they had never been reckoned as friends; they went with the teak, the gilt, and the Persian rugs. Your real library should be haunted by friendly ghosts; but if there were any ghosts in this one, they were still tight in their tombs. This was a pleasure yacht which the present owner had inherited six years before.
Over the mantel was the portrait of an elderly man. The artist had done what he could to soften the face; but because he was an artist one saw the money-changer in the Temple in the cold, thin lips and repellent eyes. At the other end of the saloon, over the sideboard, was the portrait of a woman. This, too, had been idealized; yet even so one caught the emptiness of the eyes, the vanity and selfishness in the droop of the lips. One was the father and the other was the mother of the young man below.
But he was an old young man. You might have computed his age in eons instead of years. He was thirty-five; and a man should be really young at that age. He was well built, quite graceful when he moved, and undeniably handsome—that is, if you weren't specialized in physiognomy. His eyes were like his father's; but the mother lips of him were hidden under a well-turned mustache.
Norton Colburton was what his parents had made him. We all are, more or less. There is no reason why our immediate progenitors should not be forced to carry some of the burden. A cold-blooded, money-making father on one side and a vain, dissatisfied pleasure-loving mother on the other, it followed naturally that these attributes should combine in the offspring. The old man had roared and cursed at the son, and the mother had pampered him. The boy had afforded the parents a mutual ground for quarreling. They never met that they did not wrangle over him. Not that they cared particularly whether he went wrong or right, but because the elder Colburton hated his wife and was despised by her. A man with the soul of David might have come through this unscathed; but the younger Colburton had the soul of a Jacob, always ready to exchange a mess of pottage for a birthright.
All alone now, free of all manner of leashes, he was proud of his riches and the power they gave him. He was an unfettered king. He had absolute freedom. He had millions which would not fritter away, no matter how deeply he plunged his hands into them. All doors opened at a nod from his head, and a gesture scattered obstacles as the north winds scatter the dead leaves of autumn. To wish was to have, which is not a good thing for any man.
Norton Colburton had never done a kindness without some ulterior purpose, always negative so far as goodness was concerned. Women were a source of pleasure and amusement. That they had been predestined to bring up sons straight and clean was an idea which lay unformative in his mind. He never saw in any of his dreams, as William Grogan saw in his, a home, a garden, a wife, and a couple of kids.
As he smoked his pipe, his eyes half closed, he smiled from time to time. By and by he laughed outright and summoned his valet.
"Cable blanks," he said. He wrote: "Cook, Rangoon. Forward all mail Bombay office at once." He signed this cable—"William Grogan."
Then he went to bed.