A Rogue by Compulsion, Victor Bridges [best books to read for knowledge TXT] 📗

was still hanging around, looking rather thirsty and exhausted after his strenuous day's work of watching over the dinghy. I gave him half a crown for his trouble, and followed by his benediction pulled off for the Betty.

The wind had gone round a bit to the south, and as the tide was still coming in I decided to sail up to the creek in preference to using the engine. The confounded throb of the latter always got on my nerves, and apart from that I felt that the mere fact of having to handle the sails would keep my mind lightly but healthily occupied. Unless I was mistaken, a little light healthy occupation was exactly what my mind needed.

As occasionally happens on exceptionally fine days in late spring, the perfect clearness of the afternoon was gradually beginning to give place to a sort of fine haze. It was not thick enough, however, to bother me in any way, and under a jib and mainsail the Betty swished along at such a satisfactory pace that I was in sight of Gravesend Reach before either the light or the tide had time to fail me.

I thought I knew the entrance to the creek well enough by now to run her in under sail, though it was a job that required a certain amount of cautious handling. Anyhow I decided to risk it, and, heading for the shore, steered her up the narrow channel, which I had been careful to take the bearings of at low water.

I was so engrossed in this feat of navigation that I took no notice of anything else, until a voice from the bank abruptly attracted my attention. I looked up with a start, nearly running myself aground, and there on the bank I saw a gesticulating figure, which I immediately recognized as that of Tommy. I shouted a greeting back, and swinging the Betty round, brought up in almost the identical place where we had anchored on the previous night.

Tommy, who had hurried down to the edge of the water, gave me a second hail.

"Buck up, old son!" he called out. "There's something doing."

A suggestion of haste from Tommy argued a crisis of such urgency that I didn't waste any time asking questions. I just threw over the anchor, and tumbling into the dinghy sculled ashore as quickly as I could.

"Sorry I kept you waiting, Tommy," I said, as he jumped into the boat.
"Been here long?"

"About three hours," he returned. "I was beginning to wonder if you were dead."

I shook my head. "I'm not fit to die yet," I replied. "What's the matter?"

He looked at his watch. "Well, the chief matter is the time. Do you think I can get to Sheppey by half-past nine?"

I paused in my rowing. "Sheppey!" I repeated. "Why damn it, Tommy,
I've just come back from Sheppey."

It was Tommy's turn to look surprised. "The devil you have!" he exclaimed. "What took you there?"

"To be exact," I said, "it was the Betty"; and then in as few words as possible I proceeded to acquaint him with the morning's doings. I was just finishing as we came alongside.

"Well, that's fine about the powder," he said, scrambling on board.
"Where's Gow?"

"Joyce sent him off for a holiday," I answered, "and he hasn't come back yet." Then hitching up the dinghy I added curiously: "What's up, Tommy? Let's have it."

"It's Latimer," he said. "I told you I was expecting to hear from him.
He sent me a message round early this morning, and I've promised him
I'll be in the creek under the German's bungalow by half-past nine. I
must get there somehow."

"Oh, we'll get there all right," I returned cheerfully, "What's the game?"

"I think he's having a squint round," said Tommy. "Anyhow I know he's there on his own and depending on me to pick him up."

"But what made him ask you?" I demanded.

"He knew I had a boat, and I fancy he's working this particular racket without any official help. As far as I can make out, he wants to be quite certain what these fellows are up to before he strikes. You don't get much sympathy in the Secret Service if you happen to make a mistake."

"Well, it's no good wasting time talking," I said. "If we want to be there by half-past nine we must push off at once."

"But what about you?" exclaimed Tommy. "You can't come! He's seen you, you know, at the hut."

"What does it matter?" I objected. "If he didn't recognize me as the chap who sent him the note at Parelli's, we can easily fake up some explanation. Tell him I'm a new member of the Athenians, and that you happened to run across me and brought me down to help work the boat. There's no reason one shouldn't be a yachtsman and a photographer too."

I spoke lightly, but as a matter of fact I was some way from trusting Tommy's judgment implicitly with regard to Latimer's straightforwardness about the restaurant incident, and also about his visit to the hut. All the same, I was quite determined to go to Sheppey. Things had come to a point now when there was nothing to be gained by over-caution. Either Latimer had recognized me or else he hadn't. In the first event, he knew already that Tommy had been trying to deceive him, and that the mythical artist person was none other than myself. If that were so, I felt it was best to take the bull by the horns, and try to find out exactly what part he suspected me of playing. I had at least saved his life, and although we live in an ungrateful world, he seemed bound to be more or less prejudiced in my favour.

Apart from these considerations, Tommy would certainly want some help in working the Betty. He knew his job well enough, but with a haze on the river and the twilight drawing in rapidly, the mouth of the Thames is no place for single-handed sailing—especially when you're in a hurry.

Tommy evidently recognized this, for he raised no further objections.

"Very well," he said, with a rather reckless laugh. "We're gambling a bit, but that's the fault of the cards. Up with the anchor, Neil, and let's get a move on her."

I hauled in the chain, and then jumped up to attend to the sails, which I had just let down loosely on deck, in my hurry to put off in the dinghy. After a couple of unsuccessful efforts and two or three very successful oaths, Tommy persuaded the engine to start, and we throbbed off slowly down the creek—now quite a respectable estuary of tidal water.

I sat back in the well with a laugh. "I never expected a second trip tonight," I said. "I'm beginning to feel rather like the captain of a penny steamer."

Tommy, who was combining the important duties of steering and lighting a pipe, looked up from his labours.

"The Lyndon-Morrison Line!" he observed. "Tilbury to Sheppey twice daily. Passengers are requested not to speak to the man at the wheel."

"I think, Tommy," I said, "that we must make an exception in the case of Mr. Latimer."

CHAPTER XX APPROACHING A SOLUTION

A Chinese proverb informs us that "there are three hundred and forty-six subjects for elegant conversation," but during the trip down I think that Tommy and I confined ourselves almost exclusively to two. One was Mr. Bruce Latimer, and the other was Joyce's amazing discovery about McMurtrie and Marks.

Concerning the latter Tommy was just as astonished and baffled as I was.

"I'm blessed if I know what to think about it, Neil," he admitted. "If it was any one else but Joyce, I should say she'd made a mistake. What on earth could McMurtrie have had to do with that Jew beast?"

"Joyce seems to think he had quite a lot to do with him," I said.

Tommy nodded. "I know. She's made up her mind he did the job all right; but, hang it all, one doesn't go and murder people without any conceivable reason."

"I can conceive plenty of excellent reasons for murdering Marks," I said impartially. "I should hardly think they would have appealed to McMurtrie, though. The chief thing that makes me suspicious about him is the fact of his knowing George and hiding it from me all this time. I suppose that was how he got hold of his information about the powder. George was almost the only person who knew of it."

"I always thought the whole business was a devilish odd one," growled Tommy; "but the more one finds out about it the queerer it seems to get. These people of yours—McMurtrie and Savaroff—are weird enough customers on their own, but when it comes to their being mixed up with both George and Marks …" he paused. "It will turn out next that Latimer's in it too," he added half-mockingly.

"I shouldn't wonder," I said. "I can't swallow everything he told you, Tommy. It leaves too much unexplained. You see, I'm pretty certain that the chap who tried to do him in is one of McMurtrie's crowd, and in that case—"

"In that case," interrupted Tommy, with a short laugh, "we ought to have rather an interesting evening. Seems to me, Neil, we're what you might call burning our boats this journey."

The old compunction I had felt at first against dragging Tommy and
Joyce into my affairs suddenly came back to me with renewed force.

"I'm a selfish brute, Thomas," I said ruefully. "I think the best thing I could do really would be to drop overboard. The Lord knows what trouble I shall land you in before I've finished."

"You'll land me into the trouble of telling you not to talk rot in a minute," he returned. Then, standing up and peering out ahead over the long dim expanse of water, dotted here and there with patches of blurred light, he added cheerfully: "You take her over now, Neil, We're right at the end of the Yantlet, and after this morning you ought to know the rest of the way better than I do."

He resigned the tiller to me, and pulling out his watch, held it up to the binnacle lamp.

"Close on a quarter to nine," he said. "We shall just do it nicely if the engine doesn't stop."

"I hope so," I said. "I should hate to keep a Government official waiting."

We crossed the broad entrance into Queenborough Harbour, where the dim bulk of a couple of battleships loomed up vaguely through the haze. It was a strange, exhilarating sensation, throbbing along in the semi-darkness, with all sorts of unknown possibilities waiting for us ahead. More than ever I felt what Joyce had described in the morning—a sort of curious inward conviction that we were at last on the point of finding out the truth.

"We'd better slacken down a bit when we get near," said Tommy.
"Latimer specially told me to bring her in as quietly as I could."

I nodded. "Right you are," I said. "I wasn't going to hurry, anyhow.
It's a tricky place, and I don't want to smash up any more islands.
One a day is quite enough."

I slowed down the engine to about four knots an hour, and at this dignified pace we proceeded along the coast, keeping a watchful eye for the entrance to the creek. At last a vague outline of rising ground showed us that we were in the right neighbourhood, and bringing the Betty round, I headed her in very delicately towards the shore. It was distressingly dark, from a helmsman's point of view, but Tommy, who had gone up into the bows, handed me back instructions, and by dint of infinite care we succeeded in making the opening with surprising accuracy.

The creek was quite small, with a steep bank one side perhaps fifteen feet high, and what looked like a stretch of mud or saltings on the other. Its natural beauties, however, if it had any, were rather obscured by the darkness.

"What shall we do now, Tommy?" I asked in a subdued voice. "Turn her round?"

He came back to the well. "Yes," he said, "turn her round, and then I'll cut out the engine and throttle her down. She'll make a certain amount of row, but we can't help that. I daren't stop her; or she might never start again."

We carried out our manoeuvre successfully, and then dropped over the anchor to keep us in position. I seated myself on the roof of the cabin, and