The Queen's Cup, G. A. Henty [best fantasy books to read .TXT] 📗

In half an hour the shore boat came alongside with Rawlins and a sailor with a Phantom jersey on.

"So you have all been paid off, my lad?" Frank said to the sailor as he stepped on deck.

"Yes sir. It all came sudden like. We had expected that she would be out for another month, at least. However, as each man got a month's pay, we had nothing to grumble about; although it did seem strange that even the skipper should not have had a hint of what Mr. Carthew intended, till he called him into his cabin and paid him his money."

"And where is she laid up?"

"Well, sir, she is at Ostend. I don't know whether she is going to be hauled up there, or only dismantled and left to float in the dock. The governor told the skipper that he thought he might go to the Mediterranean in December, but that till then he should not be able to use her. It seemed a rum thing leaving her out there instead of having her hauled up at Southampton or Gosport, and specially that he should not have kept two or three of us on board in charge. But, of course, that was his affair. Mr. Carthew is rather a difficult gentleman to please, and very changeable-like. We had all made sure that we were going to race here after winning the Cup at Ryde; and, indeed, after the race he said as much to the skipper."

"Has he anyone with him?" Frank asked.

"Only one gentleman, sir. I don't know what his name was."

"What was he like?"

"He was a smallish man, and thin, and didn't wear no hair on his face."

"Thank you. Here is a sovereign for your trouble.

"That is something, at any rate, George," he went on, as the man was rowed away. "The whole proceeding is a very strange one, and you see the description of the man with Carthew exactly answers to that of the man who found out from the boat's crew that Dr. Maddison was attending Lady Greendale; and now you see that it is quite possible that the Phantom is somewhere near, or was somewhere near yesterday afternoon. Carthew may have hired a foreign crew, and sailed in her a couple of days after her own crew came over; or he may have hired another craft either abroad or here. At any rate, there is something to do. I will go up to town by the midday train, and then down to Dover, and cross to Ostend tonight."

"Begging your pardon, Major, could not you telegraph to the harbour master at Ostend, asking if the Phantom is there?"

"I might do that, George, but if I go over there I may pick up some clue. I may find out what hotel he stopped at after the crew had left, and if so, whether he crossed to England or left by a train for France. There is no saying what information I may light on. You stay on board here. You can be of no use to me on the journey, and may be of use here. I will telegraph to you from Ostend. Possibly I may want the yacht to sail at once to Dover to meet me there, or you may have to go up to town to do something for me.

"Now I must go down and tell Lady Greendale as much as is necessary. It will, of course, be the best thing for her to go up to town with me, but if she is not well enough for that, of course she must stay on board."

Lady Greendale had just come into the saloon when he went down.

"I think I have got a clue—a very faint one," he said. "I am going up to town at once to follow it up. How are you feeling, Lady Greendale?"

"I have a terrible headache, but that is nothing. Of course, I will go up with you."

"But do you feel equal to it?"

"Oh, yes, quite," she said, feverishly. "What is your clue, Frank?"

"Well, it concerns the yacht in which I believe Bertha has been carried off. At any rate, I feel so certain as to who had a hand in it, that I have no hesitation in telling you that it was Carthew."

"Mr. Carthew! Impossible, Frank. He always seemed to me a particularly pleasant and gentlemanly man."

"He might seem that, but I happen to know other things about him. He is an unmitigated scoundrel. Of course, not a word must be said about it, Lady Greendale. You see that for Bertha's sake we must work quietly. It would never do for the matter to get into the papers."

"It would be too dreadful, Frank. I do think that it would kill me. I will trust it in your hands altogether. I have only one comfort in this dreadful affair, and that is that Bertha has Anna with her."

"That is certainly a great comfort; and it is something in the man's favour that when he enticed her from the yacht with that forged letter he suggested that she should bring her maid."

Frank Mallet and Lady Greendale crossed to Southampton by the twelve o'clock boat, and arrived in London at three.

"I have been thinking," she said, as they went up, "that it will be better for me to stop in town. I shall have less difficulty in answering questions there than I should have at home. Everyone is leaving now, and in another week there will be scarcely a soul in London I know; and I shall keep down the front blinds, and no one will dream of my being there. I shall only have to mention to Bertha's own maid that my daughter has remained at Cowes, that I have left Anna with her, and that she can wait upon me until she returns. There will be another advantage in it—you can see me whenever you are in town. I shall get your letters a post quicker when you are away, and you can telegraph to me freely; whereas, if you telegraphed to Chippenham, whoever received the message there might mention its contents as curious to someone or other, and then, of course, it would become a matter of common gossip."

Frank agreed that it would certainly be better, and more bearable than having to answer questions about Bertha to every visitor who called on her. He crossed that evening to Ostend, and at ten o'clock next morning George Lechmere received the following message:

"Make inquiries as to small brigantine that looked like converted yacht: had very large yards on foremast. I saw her pass Cowes on Tuesday afternoon. Let Hawkins go to Portsmouth and Southampton. Find out yourself whether she anchored between Osborne and Ryde. If not, inquire at Seaview whether she passed there going east. Telegraph result tomorrow morning to my chambers. Shall cross again tonight."

Lechmere had the gig at once lowered, and started, with four hands at the oars, eastward, while the captain went ashore in the dinghy to leave for Southampton by the next boat. The tide was against Lechmere, who, keeping close in round the point, steered the boat along at the foot of the slopes of Osborne, and kept eastward until he reached the coast-guard station at the mouth of Wootton creek.

"Oh, yes, we noticed her," the boatswain in charge replied in answer to his question. "We saw her, as you say, on Tuesday afternoon, going east. We could not help noticing her, for she was something out of the way. We should not have thought so much of it, if she had not come back again just before dusk the next day, and anchored a mile to the west. We kept a sharp lookout that night, thinking that she might be trying to smuggle some contraband ashore; but everything was quiet, and next morning she was gone. The man who was on the watch said he thought that he made her out with his night glass going east at about eleven o'clock; but it was a dark night, and it might have been a schooner yacht or a brig."

"You don't happen to know whether she stopped at Ryde the first time she passed?"

"Yes; having been all talking about her, we watched to see if she was going to anchor there or keep on to the east. She lowered a boat as she passed, and two men landed. They threw her up into the wind and waited until the boat came off again. The men did not come back in her. They hoisted the boat up again and went east. She stopped off Seaview; then she came back and sent the boat ashore, and two men went off in her. Of course, I can't say whether they were the same. It was as much as I could do to make out that there were two of them, though our glass is a pretty good one. Is there anything wrong about the craft?"

"Not that I know of; but there was a good deal of curiosity about her among the yachts, she being an out-of-the-way sort of craft; and I fancy there were some bets about her. There was an idea that she was seen going west two days later, and the governor asked me to take the boat and find out whether she had been noticed here or at Ryde. Thank you very much for your information. I have no doubt that it will be sufficient to decide any bets there may be about her."

So saying, he took his seat in the gig again, and rowed back to the Osprey. The skipper returned in the evening.

"No such craft has gone into Southampton or Portsmouth," he said; "so I have had my journey for nothing."

"No, I don't think you have," George replied. "It is something to know that she is not in either of the ports now, and has been to neither of them."

George returned in time to send off a full account of what he had learned from the coast-guardsman by the mail that would be delivered in London that night. On his return to town the next morning, Frank found the letter awaiting him; and at ten o'clock, after wiring to Hawkins and the steward to stock the yacht at once with provisions of all kinds for a long voyage, he went into the city and called upon the secretary at Lloyd's.

After giving his name, he told him that he believed that a young lady had been carried off forcibly in the craft, which he minutely described, and that he was desirous of having a telegram sent to every signal station between Hull and the Land's End, asking if such a craft had passed.

"Of course," he added, "I am ready to defray the expense of the telegrams and replies. She left the Solent late on Wednesday evening, and on Thursday would have been between Beachy Head and Dover, if she had gone that way, and yesterday up the Thames or somewhere between Harwich and Yarmouth."

"Well, Major Mallett, if you will sit down and write the telegram with the description that you have given, I will send it off at once. Then, if you will call again in an hour's time, I have no doubt all the answers will have come in."

"Your craft has gone west," he said when Frank returned. "All the answers the other way are negative. Saint Catherine says: 'Craft answering description was seen well out at sea on Thursday morning.' Portland noticed her in the afternoon, and she was off the Start yesterday morning; the wind was light then; and the Lizard reports seeing her this morning. When abreast of them, she headed south, apparently making a departure, as she could be made out keeping that course as long as seen. These are the four telegrams, so I think that there can be little doubt that she has made for the Mediterranean."

"Thank you very much indeed," Frank said. "Can you tell me if I have any chance of getting similar information from the south?"

"You could get it from Finisterre if she passed within sight, but by her holding on as far west as the Lizard, instead of taking a departure from the Start, it is likely that she will take a more westerly course, and then Cape St. Vincent is the first point where she is likely to be noticed. If not there, she would probably be observed at Tarifa, although, if she kept on the southern side of the Straits, she might not be noticed. I should think that she would do so; she would not be likely to put into Gibraltar, although, from what you tell me, the owner would believe that no suspicion whatever of being concerned in this affair would be likely to rest upon him. But you must bear in mind that it is probable that, as a measure of