Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels

CHAPTER VIII

YOU ARE PETER KELLY

Within a few moments Kent was at the phone.

"I want four, four, four, four. Is that four, four, four, four? Mr. Throgton's house? I want Mr. Throgton. Mr. Throgton speaking? Mr. Throgton, Kent speaking. The Riverside mystery is solved."

Kent waited in silence a moment. Then he heard Throgton's voice—not a note in it disturbed:

"Has anybody found Kelly?"

"Mr. Throgton," said Kent, and he spoke with a strange meaning in his tone, "the story is a long one. Suppose I relate it to you"—he paused, and laid a peculiar emphasis on what followed—"over a game of billiards."

"What the devil do you mean?" answered Throgton.

"Let me come round to your house and tell the story. There are points in it that I can best illustrate over a billiard table. Suppose I challenge you to a fifty point game before I tell my story."

It required no little hardihood to challenge Masterman Throgton at billiards. His reputation at his club as a cool, determined player was surpassed by few. Throgton had been known to run nine, ten, and even twelve at a break. It was not unusual for him to drive his ball clear off the table. His keen eye told him infallibly where each of the three balls was; instinctively he knew which to shoot with.

In Kent, however, he had no mean adversary. The young reporter, though he had never played before, had studied his book to some purpose. His strategy was admirable. Keeping his ball well under the shelter of the cushion, he eluded every stroke of his adversary, and in his turn caused his ball to leap or dart across the table with such speed as to bury itself in the pocket at the side.

The score advanced rapidly, both players standing precisely equal. At the end of the first half-hour it stood at ten all. Throgton, a grim look upon his face, had settled down to work, playing with one knee on the table. Kent, calm but alive with excitement, leaned well forward to his stroke, his eye held within an inch of the ball.

At fifteen they were still even. Throgton with a sudden effort forced a break of three; but Kent rallied and in another twenty minutes they were even again at nineteen all.

But it was soon clear that Transome Kent had something else in mind than to win the game. Presently his opportunity came. With a masterly stroke, such as few trained players could use, he had potted his adversary's ball. The red ball was left over the very jaws of the pocket. The white was in the centre.

Kent looked into Throgton's face.

The balls were standing in the very same position on the table as on the night of the murder.

"I did that on purpose," said Kent quietly.

"What do you mean?" asked Throgton.

"The position of those balls," said Kent. "Mr. Throgton, come into the library. I have something to say to you. You know already what it is."

They went into the library. Throgton, his hand unsteady, lighted a cigar.

"Well," he said, "what is it?"

"Mr. Throgton," said Kent, "two weeks ago you gave me a mystery to solve. To-night I can give you the solution. Do you want it?"

Throgton's face never moved.

"Well," he said.

"A man's life," Kent went on, "may be played out on a billiard table. A man's soul, Throgton, may be pocketed."

"What devil's foolery is this?" said Throgton. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that your crime is known—plotter, schemer that you are, you are found out—hypocrite, traitor; yes, Masterman Throgton, or rather—let me give you your true name-Peter Kelly, murderer, I denounce you!"

Throgton never flinched. He walked across to where Kent stood, and with his open palm he slapped him over the mouth.

"Transome Kent," he said, "you're a liar."

Then he walked back to his chair and sat down.

"Kent," he continued, "from the first moment of your mock investigation, I knew who you were. Your every step was shadowed, your every movement dogged. Transome Kent—by your true name, Peter Kelly, murderer, I denounce you."

Kent walked quietly across to Throgton and dealt him a fearful blow behind the ear.

"You're a liar," he said, "I am not Peter Kelly."

They sat looking at one another.

At that moment Throgton's servant appeared at the door.

"A gentleman to see you, sir."

"Who?" said Throgton.

"I don't know, sir, he gave his card."

Masterman Throgton took the card.

On it was printed:

CHAPTER IX

LET ME TELL YOU THE STORY OF MY LIFE

For a moment Throgton and Kent sat looking at one another.

"Show the man up," said Throgton.

A minute later the door opened and a man entered. Kent's keen eye analysed him as he stood. His blue clothes, his tanned face, and the extraordinary dexterity of his fingers left no doubt of his calling. He was a sailor.

"Sit down," said Throgton.

"Thank you," said the sailor, "it rests my wooden leg."

The two men looked again. One of the sailor's legs was made of wood. With a start Kent noticed that it was made of East Indian sandalwood.

"I've just come from Java," said Kelly quietly, as he sat down.

Kent nodded. "I see it all now," he said. "Throgton, I wronged you. We should have known it was a sailor with a wooden leg from Java. There is no other way."

"Gentlemen," said Peter Kelly, "I've come to make my confession. It is the usual and right thing to do, gentlemen, and I want to go through with it while I can."

"One moment," said Kent, "do you mind interrupting yourself with a hacking cough?"

"Thank you, sir," said Kelly, "I'll get to that a little later. Let me begin by telling you the story of my life."

"No, no," urged Throgton and Kent, "don't do that!"

Kelly frowned. "I think I have a right to," he said. "You've got to hear it. As a boy I had a wild, impulsive nature. Had it been curbed–"

"But it wasn't," said Throgton. "What next?"

"I was the sole relative of my uncle, and heir to great wealth. Pampered with every luxury, I was on a footing of–"

"One minute," interrupted Kent, rapidly analysing as he listened. "How many legs had you then?"

"Two—on a footing of ease and indolence. I soon lost–"

"Your leg," said Throgton. "Mr. Kelly, pray come to the essential things."

"I will," said the sailor. "Gentlemen, bad as I was, I was not altogether bad."

"Of course not," said Kent and Throgton soothingly. "Probably not more than ninety per cent."

"Even into my life, gentlemen, love entered. If you had seen her you would have known that she is as innocent as the driven snow. Three years ago she came to my uncle's house. I loved her. One day, hardly knowing what I was doing, I took her–" he paused.

"Yes, yes," said Throgton and Kent, "you took her?"

"To the Aquarium. My uncle heard of it. There was a violent quarrel. He disinherited me and drove me from the house. I had a liking for the sea from a boy."

"Excuse me," said Kent, "from what boy?"

Kelly went right on. "I ran away as a sailor before the mast."

"Pardon me," interrupted Kent, "I am not used to sea terms. Why didn't you run behind the mast?"

"Hear me out," said Kelly, "I am nearly done. We sailed for the East Indies—for Java. There a Malay pirate bit off my leg. I returned home, bitter, disillusioned, the mere wreck that you see. I had but one thought. I meant to kill my uncle."

For a moment a hacking cough interrupted Kelly. Kent and Throgton nodded quietly to one another.

"I came to his house at night. With the aid of my wooden leg I scaled the wall, lifted the window and entered the billiard-room. There was murder in my heart. Thank God I was spared from that. At the very moment when I got in, a light was turned on in the room and I saw before me—but no, I will not name her—my better angel. 'Peter!' she cried, then with a woman's intuition she exclaimed, 'You have come to murder your uncle. Don't do it.' My whole mood changed. I broke down and cried like a—like a–"

Kelly paused a moment.

"Like a boob," said Kent softly. "Go on."

"When I had done crying, we heard voices. 'Quick,' she exclaimed, 'flee, hide, he must not see you.' She rushed into the adjoining room, closing the door. My eye had noticed already the trap above. I climbed up to it. Shall I explain how?"

"Don't," said Kent, "I can analyse it afterwards."

"There I saw what passed. I saw Mr. Throgton and Kivas Kelly come in. I watched their game. They were greatly excited and quarrelled over it. Throgton lost."

The big man nodded with a scowl. "By his potting the white," he said.

"Precisely," said Kelly, "he missed the red. Your analysis was wrong, Mr. Kent. The game ended. You started your reasoning from a false diæresis. In billiards people never mark the last point. The board still showed ninety-nine all. Throgton left and my uncle, as often happens, kept trying over the last shot—a half-ball shot, sir, with the red over the pocket. He tried again and again. He couldn't make it. He tried various ways. His rest was too unsteady. Finally he made his tie into a long loop round his neck and put his cue through it. 'Now, by gad!' he said, 'I can do it.'"

"Ha!" said Kent. "Fool that I was."

"Exactly," continued Kelly. "In the excitement of watching my uncle I forgot where I was, I leaned too far over and fell out of the trap. I landed on uncle, just as he was sitting on the table to shoot. He fell."

"I see it all!" said Kent. "He hit his head, the loop tightened, the cue spun round and he was dead."

"That's it," said Kelly. "I saw that he was dead, and I did not dare to remain. I straightened the knot in his tie, laid his hands reverently across his chest, and departed as I had come."

"Mr. Kelly," said Throgton thoughtfully, "the logic of your story is wonderful. It exceeds anything in its line that I have seen published for months. But there is just one point that I fail to grasp. The two bullet holes?"

"They were old ones," answered the sailor quietly. "My uncle in his youth had led a wild life in the west; he was full of them."

There was silence for a moment. Then Kelly spoke again:

"My time, gentlemen, is short." (A hacking cough interrupted him.) "I feel that I am withering. It rests with you, gentlemen, whether or not I walk out of this room a free man."

Transome Kent rose and walked over to the sailor.

"Mr. Kelly," he said, "here is my hand."

CHAPTER X

SO DO I

A few days after the events last narrated, Transome Kent called at the boarding-house of Miss Alice Delary. The young Investigator wore a light grey tweed suit, with a salmon-coloured geranium in his buttonhole. There was something exultant yet at the same time grave in his expression, as of one who has taken a momentous decision, affecting his future life.

"I wonder," he murmured, "whether I am acting for my happiness."

He sat down for a moment on the stone steps and analysed himself.

Then he rose.

"I am," he said, and rang the bell.

"Miss Delary?" said a maid, "she left here two days ago. If you are Mr. Kent, the note on the mantelpiece is for you."

Without a word (Kent never wasted them) the Investigator opened the note and read:

"Dear Mr. Kent,

"Peter and I were married yesterday morning, and have taken an apartment in Java, New Jersey. You will be glad to hear that Peter's cough is ever so much better. The lawyers have given Peter his money without the least demur.

"We both feel that your analysis was simply wonderful. Peter says he doesn't know where he would be without it.

"Very sincerely,

"P.S.—I forgot to mention to you that I saw Peter in the billiard-room. But your analysis was marvellous just the same."

That evening Kent sat with Throgton talking over the details of the tragedy.

"Throgton," he said, "it has occurred to me that there were points about that solution that we didn't get exactly straight somehow."

"So do I," said Throgton.

V

BROKEN BARRIERS OR, RED LOVE ON A BLUE ISLAND

It was on a bright August afternoon that I stepped on board the steamer Patagonia at Southampton outward bound for the West Indies and the Port of New Orleans.

I had at the time no presentiment of disaster. I remember remarking to the ship's purser, as my things were being carried to my state-room, that I had never in all my travels entered upon any voyage with so little premonition of accident. "Very good, Mr. Borus," he answered. "You will find your state-room in the starboard aisle on the right." I distinctly recall remarking to the Captain that I had never, in any of my numerous seafarings, seen the sea of a more limpid blue. He agreed with me so entirely, as I recollect it, that he did not even trouble to answer.

Had anyone told me on that bright summer afternoon that our ship would within a week be wrecked among the Dry Tortugas, I should have laughed. Had anyone informed me that I should find myself alone on a raft in the Caribbean Sea, I should have gone into hysterics.

We had hardly entered the waters of the Caribbean when a storm of unprecedented violence broke upon us. Even the Captain had never, so he said, seen anything to compare with it. For two days and nights we encountered and endured the full fury of the sea. Our soup plates were secured with racks and covered with lids. In the smoking-room our glasses had to be set in brackets, and as our steward came and went, we were from moment to moment in imminent danger of seeing him washed overboard.

On the third morning just after daybreak the ship collided with something, probably either a floating rock or one of the dry Tortugas. She blew out her four funnels, the bowsprit dropped out of its place, and the propeller came right off. The Captain, after a brief consultation, decided to abandon her. The boats were lowered, and, the sea being now quite calm, the passengers were emptied into them.

By what accident I was left behind I cannot tell. I had been talking to the second mate and telling him of a rather similar experience of mine in the China Sea, and holding him by the coat as I did so, when quite suddenly he took me by the shoulders, and rushing me into the deserted smoking-room said, "Sit there, Mr. Borus, till I come back for you." The fellow spoke in such a menacing way that I thought it wiser to comply.

When I came out they were all gone. By good fortune I found one of the ship's rafts still lying on the deck. I gathered together such articles as might be of use and contrived, though how I do not know, to launch it into the sea.

On my second morning on my raft I was sitting quietly polishing my boots and talking to myself when I became aware of an object floating in the sea close beside the raft. Judge of my feelings when I realized it to be the inanimate body of a girl. Hastily finishing my boots and stopping talking to myself, I made shift as best I could to draw the unhappy girl towards me with a hook.

After several ineffectual attempts I at last managed to obtain a hold of the girl's clothing and drew her on to the raft.

She was still unconscious. The heavy lifebelt round her person must (so I divined) have kept her afloat after the wreck. Her clothes were sodden, so I reasoned, with the sea-water.

On a handkerchief which was still sticking into the belt of her dress, I could see letters embroidered. Realizing that this was no time for hesitation, and that the girl's life might depend on my reading her name, I plucked it forth. It was Edith Croyden.

As vigorously as I could I now set to work to rub her hands. My idea was (partly) to restore her circulation. I next removed her boots, which were now rendered useless, as I argued, by the sea-water, and began to rub her feet.

I was just considering what to remove next, when the girl opened her eyes. "Stop rubbing my feet," she said.

"Miss Croyden," I said, "you mistake me."

I rose, with a sense of pique which I did not trouble to conceal, and walked to the other end of the raft. I turned my back upon the girl and stood looking out upon the leaden waters of the Caribbean Sea. The ocean was now calm. There was nothing in sight.

I was still searching the horizon when I heard a soft footstep on the raft behind me, and a light hand was laid upon my shoulder. "Forgive me," said the girl's voice.

I turned about. Miss Croyden was standing behind me. She had, so I argued, removed her stockings and was standing in her bare feet. There is something, I am free to confess, about a woman in her bare feet which hits me where I live. With instinctive feminine taste the girl had twined a piece of seaweed in her hair. Seaweed, as a rule, gets me every time. But I checked myself.

"Miss Croyden," I said, "there is nothing to forgive."

At the mention of her name the girl blushed for a moment and seemed about to say something, but stopped.

"Where are we?" she queried presently.

"I don't know," I answered, as cheerily as I could, "but I am going to find out."

"How brave you are!" Miss Croyden exclaimed.

"Not at all," I said, putting as much heartiness into my voice as I was able to.

The girl watched my preparations with interest.

With the aid of a bent pin hoisted on a long pole I had no difficulty in ascertaining our latitude.

"Miss Croydon," I said, "I am now about to ascertain our longitude. To do this I must lower myself down into the sea. Pray do not be alarmed or anxious. I shall soon be back."

With the help of a long line I lowered myself deep down into the sea until I was enabled to ascertain, approximately at any rate, our longitude. A fierce thrill went through me at the thought that this longitude was our longitude, hers and mine. On the way up, hand over hand, I observed a long shark looking at me. Realizing that the fellow if voracious might prove dangerous, I lost but little time—indeed, I may say I lost absolutely no time—in coming up the rope.

The girl was waiting for me.

"Oh, I am so glad you have come back," she exclaimed, clasping her hands.

"It was nothing," I said, wiping the water from my ears, and speaking as melodiously as I could.

"Have you found our whereabouts?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered. "Our latitude is normal, but our longitude is, I fear, at least three degrees out of the plumb. I am afraid, Miss Croyden," I added, speaking as mournfully as I knew how, "that you must reconcile your mind to spending a few days with me on this raft."

"Is it as bad as that?" she murmured, her eyes upon the sea.

In the long day that followed, I busied myself as much as I could with my work upon the raft, so as to leave the girl as far as possible to herself. It was, so I argued, absolutely necessary to let her feel that she was safe in my keeping. Otherwise she might jump off the raft and I should lose her.

I sorted out my various cans and tins, tested the oil in my chronometer, arranged in neat order my various ropes and apparatus, and got my frying-pan into readiness for any emergency. Of food we had for the present no lack.

With the approach of night I realized that it was necessary to make arrangements for the girl's comfort. With the aid of a couple of upright poles I stretched a grey blanket across the raft so as to make a complete partition.

"Miss Croyden," I said, "this end of the raft is yours. Here you may sleep in peace."

"How kind you are," the girl murmured.

"You will be quite safe from interference," I added. "I give you my word that I will not obtrude upon you in any way."

"How chivalrous you are," she said.

"Not at all," I answered, as musically as I could. "Understand me, I am now putting my head over this partition for the last time. If there is anything you want, say so now."

"Nothing," she answered.

"There is a candle and matches beside you. If there is anything that you want in the night, call me instantly. Remember, at any hour I shall be here. I promise it."

"Good night," she murmured. In a few minutes her soft regular breathing told me that she was asleep.

I went forward and seated myself in a tar-bucket, with my head against the mast, to get what sleep I could.

But for some time—why, I do not know—sleep would not come.

The image of Edith Croyden filled my mind. In vain I told myself that she was a stranger to me: that—beyond her longitude—I knew nothing of her. In some strange way this girl had seized hold of me and dominated my senses.

The night was very calm and still, with great stars in a velvet sky. In the darkness I could hear the water lapping the edge of the raft.

I remained thus in deep thought, sinking further and further into the tar-bucket. By the time I reached the bottom of it I realized that I was in love with Edith Croyden.

Then the thought of my wife occurred to me and perplexed me. Our unhappy marriage had taken place three years before. We brought to one another youth, wealth and position. Yet our marriage was a failure. My wife—for what reason I cannot guess—seemed to find my society irksome. In vain I tried to interest her with narratives of my travels. They seemed—in some way that I could not divine—to fatigue her. "Leave me for a little, Harold," she would say (I forgot to mention that my name is Harold Borus), "I have a pain in my neck." At her own suggestion I had taken a trip around the world. On my return she urged me to go round again. I was going round for the third time when the wrecking of the steamer had interrupted my trip.