In Strange Company Part 23

"And the woman, what was she like? Was she tall and dark, foreign in appearance, with a suspicion of a moustache, and a little mole on the lobe of her left ear?"

I nodded, wonderstruck. He smiled a pitying sort of smile.

"Perhaps her name was Juanita?"

Again I nodded.

"She hailed from South America?"

I said I believed so.

"Well, all things considered, I reckon this bit of business fairly licks creation."

This he said more to himself than to me.

"Anybody would think you knew these people," I remarked, chock-full of astonishment.

"Know them? Well, if I haven't cause enough to know them, there's not a man knocking round this old universe who has! But their cheek beats c.o.c.k-fighting. Mark my words, it'll be diamond cut diamond between them now."

"You're getting out of my depth. What the deuce do you mean?"

"Never you mind just now. Tell me one thing more. When the Albino found the money for you to purchase the schooner, did he say that he knew Juanita?"

"I should think not. On the other hand, he sternly forbade my even letting her know of his existence."

"Ah! that throws another light upon affairs. They were playing lone hands after all. He's just 'Old Nick' himself, is John Macklin, and she's pretty near as bad. Now, when you left Thursday Island, am I right in surmising that you steered a straight course for the Banks Group?"

"I don't know how you guessed it, but we did."

"And you brought up off Vanua Lava, maybe?"

"That's so. You've hit it again."

"You went ash.o.r.e to a grave about a hundred yards inland, under a tope of trees, and alongside a high bank, to look for a locket round a dead man's neck?"

The excitement was growing intense. Hardly able to trust myself to speak, I fell back on nodding.

"Then you opened the grave and discovered a coffin?"

"Yes."

"And you found in it?"

"Nothing more nor less than a sheet of lead."

"Ho, ho! I can imagine their disappointment. And then the Albino put in an appearance?"

"He did."

"At his suggestion you set sail for Batavia?"

"Yes; but why Batavia? Only tell me that, and I'll say you've got the tow-rope of the whole mystery."

"Why, to me it's the simplest part of it. Look here, can't you see this?

The woman, for some reason, had staked all she'd got on finding that locket buried with the dead man. That's it, isn't it? Well, the Albino was a stranger on Thursday, and was not known to do any work. That being so, why was he there? People don't live on Thursday for pleasure, or the good of their healths, I reckon?"

I made a negative sign, and he continued--

"Why, you chuckle-head, can't you see he was there because he was watching some one? I leave it to you to figure out who that some one was."

"Juanita, I suppose."

"You suppose! Of course it was. Well, she tells you she wants money to reach a certain island for a certain purpose. You carry the news on to him. That's his dart exactly. That's just what he wanted to know. He wants that locket too. But he can only get it through her. So, under a cloak of friends.h.i.+p he lends you the amount to get the boat, and then clears for his natural life to the island to be ready for you."

"Yes, your theory's very pretty, but here's the corker. How did he find out the island's name? He didn't get it from me, because I didn't know it till we sailed. Somehow, that don't seem to tally."

"Why, you galoot, don't you think, long before that, he had found out where the schooner that brought the woman and her husband from Tahiti touched before reaching Thursday--where, in fact, they buried the man he wanted to catch. You bet he did."

"I never thought of that."

"Perhaps not; but I did. He sets off, as I say, reaches the island, watches to see where the grave is, and what success she meets with when she opens it; and then, when he finds out how he's been tricked, saddles himself upon you in order to watch the woman further. She faints directly she sees him, proving as clear as daylight that not only has she met him before, but that she has good cause to be frightened of him.

By Jove! I can imagine the shock to their systems when they discovered that the man whom they both believed to be dead was in reality alive--that he'd hoodwinked them after all."

He threw back his head and laughed.

"And what then?" I asked.

"Why, don't you see, the treasure they're after is slipping through their fingers. The man has six months start of them. Directly they arrive in Batavia, the Albino sends a cablegram to England. He receives a reply. What was it?"

"'Still unclaimed. Come at once. Don't delay,'" I answered, reciting the words on the form I had picked up in the verandah of the Hotel des Indes.

"And what significance has that for you?"

"I can't say, unless it affects the treasure."

"You've drawn your bead on the bull's-eye this time, sure enough. That's exactly what it does affect. It affects it like grim death. Don't you see--the other man hasn't got home yet. So they've still a chance for the money. Now they know they've just got to get up and clear for all they're worth to London. What then?"

"It's no use; I'm done for, clean stumped! After that, I can't make head or tail of it."

"Why, they argue in this way. They can't take the woman's lover with them, can they? He'd not only be in the way, but he'd probably want to go shares in the boodle. The woman is too suspicious to let the Albino go alone, so, as the man has served his purpose, he must be got rid of.

But how? 'Ah!' says the Albino, 'I've got it! The murder of the Kanaka; that'll fit him like a glove!' Therefore this charge was trumped up to detain you here. D'you know. I should be more than a little surprised if they are not already gone."

"In that case, what will become of me?"

"That remains to be seen. I fancy to-morrow will set it right. But I suppose you understand now how you've been bilked?"

"Worse luck! But there's one thing puzzles me more than all the rest, and that is, how the deuce you come to know all this so accurately."

"My boy, if I gave you a hundred guesses you'd never hit it."