The Ruby in the Smoke (15 page)

"Could be," said Jim. "Then there's fraud. Sinking ships, and claiming on the insurance."

"No," said Sally. "The firm only had the one ship. They're not shipowners, they're shipping agents. And that sort of thing's too easy to spot, surely.^"

"It happens all the time," said Jim.

"You think it was sunk on purpose.^" said Frederick.

"Course it was."

"What for?"

"I can tell you," said the voice of Matthew Bedwell.

He stood in the kitchen doorway, pale and trembling. Adelaide gasped, and Frederick jumped up at once and helped him to a chair by the fire.

"Where am I?" he said. "How long have I been under?"

"You're in Bloomsbury," said Frederick. "Your brother brought you here three days ago. We're all friends— you're quite safe."

Bedwell looked at Adelaide, who said nothing.

"Adelaide ran away," said Sally. "Mr. Garland is letting us stay here because we've got nowhere else to go. Apart from Jim, that is."

The sailor's eyes moved painfully from one to another of them.

"You were saying something about the Lavinia^''' he said. "That's right, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Sally. "What can you tell us about it?"

He focused on her. "Are you Mr. Lockhart's girl?"

She nodded.

"He asked—he asked me to bring you a message. I'm afraid he's . .. I'm afraid they . . . What I mean to say is,

he's dead, miss. I'm sorry. I guess you knew."

She nodded again, and found herself unable to speak.

Bed well looked at Frederick. "Is my brother here.^"

"He's in Oxford. He's waiting for you to get better. He'll be coming here on Wednesday, but perhaps you'll be able to go there before then."

Bedwell leaned back and closed his eyes. "Maybe," he said.

"Are you hungry?" said Sally. "You haven't eaten for days."

"If you've such a thing as a tot of brandy in the house, I'll be mighty obliged to you. But I couldn't eat at the moment. Not even your soup, Adelaide."

"It ain't mine,'' said the child vehemently.

Frederick poured a small glass of brandy.

"Your good health," said Bedwell, and swallowed half. "Yes," he said, "the Lavinia. . .. I'll tell you what I know about her."

"What about the message?" said Sally.

"That's part of it. I'll start at Singapore, where your father joined the ship."

"I WAS THE second mate of the Lavinia,'' he began. "Not much of a berth, since she was only a shabby little tramp—all kinds of goods between Yokohama and Calcutta, and pretty well anywhere else on the way. But I'd had a bit of bad luck; and there was the Lavinia in need of a second mate, and myself in need of a job. ... I was with her for two months before she sank.

"Now, she had a bit of a reputation, the Lavinia. Not so much her as the owners, perhaps. There's rogues enough in the China Sea, God knows, from smugglers to

pirates to every kind of cutthroat—but Lx)ckhart and Selby were a stranger kind of crook than that. Worse, maybe."

"Not my father," said Sally fiercely.

'*No," said Bedwell, "I grant you that. Your father was a good man—I learned that within two days of his coming aboard. It was other men using his name and the firm's that brought it the reputation it had."

"But what was this reputation?" said Frederick.

Bedwell looked at his glass, and Sally filled it.

"I don't know what you know about the Chinese in the East Indies," he said. "There's all kinds of networks of influence and pressure—political, commercial, criminal.... And there are the secret societies. They started, so they say, as a way of organizing resistance to the Manchu dynasty that rules China. And I daresay some of 'em are innocent enough—just a way of looking after your own people or your relatives, with a bit of ritual thrown in. But there's others far more sinister than that. The Triads, they're called—"

"I know 'em!" said Jim suddenly. "The Black Dragon Society! And the Brothers of the Scarlet Hand! There was a story about them in Stirring Tales for British Lads.''

"Oh, hush, Jim," said Sally. "This is serious. Go on, Mr. Bedwell."

"I don't suppose your penny magazine knows the half of it, my lad. Murder—^torture—I'd sooner fall into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition than cross the Triad Societies."

"But what's the connection with Lockhart and Selby?" Sally asked.

"Well, the word was that the firm—its agents and its

directors—was bound up with one of these societies. Under the orders of its leaders."

"What!" said Frederick.

"All of them.^" said Sally. "Even a man called Hendrik Van Eeden? My father said he could be trusted."

"I don't know him, Miss Lockhart. But there are dozens of agents, and this was only a rumor. Very likely your father was right."

"What happened when he joined the ship?"

"Well, the first thing that happened was that we lost a cargo. Mr. Lockhart came aboard unexpectedly. He had a servant with him—a Malayan fellow called Perak. Never used to leave his side. Anyway, we were due to take on a cargo of cloth, and it was suddenly canceled. We were given orders to sail out in ballast, and then that was canceled, too. Finally we shifted to another berth and took a load of manganese on board. We were in harbor for a week."

"Who gave these orders?" said Frederick. "Mr. Lockhart?"

"No. The local agent. Mr. Lockhart was angry, and went back and forth I don't know how many times between the harbor and the office. I didn't blame him; I didn't like that way of running things—it was unbusinesslike and careless. Nor did he, and I guess he saw my feelings. It was during that week that we got talking. Perak the servant used to make notes—he'd been a clerk, Mr. Lockhart said.

"Anyway, we finally set sail from Singapore on June the twenty-eighth, intending to sail to Shanghai with this load of manganese. And on the first afternoon out, we saw the black junk.

"Now, those seas are mighty busy, of course, and a junk is only what you expect in that part of the world; but I didn't like the look of this one. High in the water, with a dark hull and sails, and an air of watching us. She stayed abeam for two days and nights, and we could have outsailed her easily—^that high hull means they catch all the wind, and they can't tack like a schooner. We should have left her behind and made good speed to the northeast, but we didn't.

"The fact was, the captain seemed to be dawdling on purpose. Mr. Lockhart was no sailor, else he'd have seen at once that we weren't making anything like the speed we could—and the captain, a man called Cartwright, did what he could to keep me out of Mr. Lxx:khart's way. Anyway, he spent most of the time in his cabin, writing up his notes.

"That was a strange time. Drifting, almost, farther and farther away from the shipping lanes, while little by little all the work on board came to an end. ... I kept on at the captain, but he brushed me aside. The men just lay about in the shade, while that ugly black hull was never off the horizon. Just crawling, creeping, dawdling across the water ... It was beginning to drive me mad.

"Then on the second night it happened.

"I was standing the middle watch. It was about one in the morning; a sailor called Harding was at the wheel, and that cursed black junk was still hulking in the darkness off to port. Except that it wasn't dark. There was no moon, but the stars—you've never seen stars, if you've only seen 'em from England. They don't twinkle faintly in the tropics, they blaze; and the sea ... it was alive with phosphorescence. Our wake and our bow-wave were great

swirling tracks made up of billions of spots of white light, and all the sea on both sides was full of deep glowing movements—fishes darting through the depths, great shimmering clouds and veils of shadowy color, little surges and whirlpools of light far below—once or twice in your life you get a night like that, and it's a sight to leave you breathless. And the junk was the only thing in the whole glowing panorama that was dark. They had one reedy little yellow lantern swinging at the masthead—the rest was solid blackness, like a paper cutout; like a puppet in one of the shadow plays they have out there.

"And then Harding, the helmsman, says to me: 'Mr. Bedwell, there's a man moving about amidships.'

"I went to the rail, careful not to make a sound, and sure enough I saw a figure by the portside rail—in the act of climbing over, and down into a boat bobbing by the side. I was about to call out—but in all that great wash of light, I recognized his face. It was the captain.

"I told Harding to stay where he was and raced down the companionway to Mr. Lockhart's cabin. It was locked—^there was no answer when I banged on it, so I kicked the door down. And then—"

He stopped and looked at Sally.

"I'm sorry, miss. He'd been stabbed."

Sally felt a rush of anguish sweep up her chest, and tears flooded her eyes and blurred the little room. She shook her head angrily.

"Go on," she said. "Don't stop."

"The cabin was overturned. All his papers were scattered on the floor, the bunk was torn open, his trunk was upside down—it was in chaos. And with the captain leaving the ship, and the junk nearby ... I was about to turn

and run out to waken the crew, when I heard a groan from the bunk.

"He was alive. Only just, but he stirred, and I tried to lift him up, but he shook his head.

" 'Who did this, Mr. Lockhart?' I said.

"He said something I couldn't catch, and then he came out with two words that made my blood run cold. 'Ah Ling,' he said. 'The black junk—it's his. The captain . . .'

"He could say no more for the moment. My mind was racing; Ah Ling—if it was his ship, then we were done for. Ah Ling was the most murderous, bloodthirsty savage in the South China Sea. I'd heard his name scores of times, and it was never spoken without a shudder.

"And then Mr. Lockhart spoke again. 'Find my daughter, Bedwell. My daughter Sally. Tell her what happened.' I'm sorry. Miss Lockhart; he said some more things then, and they were all jumbled—or else I couldn't hear him clearly ... I don't know. But he finished up, 'Tell her to keep her powder dry.' That's all I remember clearly. He said that, and then he died."

Sally's face was wet. Those words—"keep your powder dry"—were what he always said to her on leaving; and now he had left her forever.

"It's all right," she said. "I'm listening. You must tell me everything. If I cry, take no notice. Go on."

"I gathered he'd dictated a letter to the servant. But I don't suppose it ever got here."

"It did," said Sally. "That was what started it all."

Bedwell rubbed his brow. Seeing that the sailor's glass was empty and that he was rapidly tiring, Frederick poured out the last of the brandy.

"Thank you. Where was I. . . . Well, the next thing that happened was that a strange pattering noise came from

overhead, like big soft raindrops. Only it wasn't rain—it was bare feet running over the deck, and the next second, a great wild cry came from poor Harding at the wheel. And then a sound of smashing wood . . .

"I ran up the companionway and stopped in the shadow at the top.

"The ship was sinking. There were six or seven Chinese devils smashing in the lifeboats, and two or three of our crew stretched in their own blood on the deck. The ship was listing so much already that I saw one of those corpses start to move, almost as if it were alive, and slide down slowly into the water that was creeping up the deck to meet it. . . .

"If I live a hundred years I'll never forget the sight of that ship. It's with me still, clearer than this room; I have only to close my eyes and it's before me. . . . The sea full of light, blazing with all the colors of the rainbow, like a huge slow fireworks display—with crisp little volleys of brightness wherever anything fell into the water, and a line of trembling white fire around the edge of the ship; the still, black shape of the junk a little way off; and above us the stars—and they were all colors, too, reds and yellows and blue-whites; and the dead men in their blood on the deck, and the pirates chopping swiftly at the boats— and the sensation of sinking, falling slowly into that great bath of light. . . . I'm a slave to a terrible drug, Miss Lx)ck-hart; I've spent more days and nights in strange dreams than I care to think about; but nothing I've seen in the smoke has been stranger or more terrible than those few minutes I spent on the deck of the sinking Lavinia.

"And then I felt a hand tug my sleeve. I turned—and there was the servant Perak, finger to his lips.

" 'Come with me. Bed well tuan^' he whispered, and I

followed, helpless as a baby. God knows how he'd done it, but he'd lowered the captain's gig, and it bobbed in the water over the stern. We got in and rowed away—^just a little distance. Should I have stayed? Should I have tried to fight off the pirates, bare-handed as I was, and them with cutlasses? I don't know, Miss Lockhart; I don't know . . .

"Then the pirates left, and got into their boat and rowed off. The Lavinia was about to sink, and the rest of the crew—those who hadn't been cut to the deck—were struggling to free the lifeboats, and crying out with rage and fear when they saw them stove in. The next minute, the schooner went down—^terribly fast, as if a great hand had thrust it into the water. There was an immense swirl, and cries from the sailors as they fell into the sea. The gig was a small boat—it'd hold seven or eight at a pinch—but we could save some of them. I turned it 'round and rowed toward them.

"But when we were still fifty yards off, the sharks came. The poor devils didn't have a chance. They were a shiftless, lazy lot, but there was no harm in 'em; and they were doomed before the voyage began . . .

"Pretty soon we were alone. The sea was strewn with bits of wreckage—splintered oars and broken spars and the like. We drifted through it all, feeling—nothing. Feeling numb. D'you know, I think I even fell asleep.

"How that night passed I've no idea; nor why my luck held, so that a Malay fishing boat picked us up the next day. We had no food and no water—we wouldn't have lasted twenty-four hours. They put us ashore at their village, and then we found our way to Singapore. And there ..."