The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales Part 22

I was no believer in ghosts, but I had to hit on some theory there and then. My nerves had been out of order for a month or two, and the long railway journey must have played havoc with them. The whole thing was a hallucination. So I told myself while pulling the coverings off the skylights, but somehow got mighty little comfort out of it; and I will not deny that I fumbled a bit with the padlock on the main hatchway, or that I looked down a second time before setting foot on the companion ladder.

She was a sweet s.h.i.+p; and the air below, though stuffy, had no taste of bilge in it. I explored main cabin, sleeping cabins, forecastle.

The movable furniture had been taken ash.o.r.e, as I had been told; but the fixtures were in good order, the decorations in good taste. Not a panel had shrunk or warped, nor could I find any leakage. At the same time I could find no evidence that she had been visited lately by man or ghost.

The only thing that seemed queer was the inscription "29.56" on the beam in the forecastle. It certainly struck me that the surveyor must have under-registered her, but for the moment I thought little about it.

Pa.s.sing back through the main cabin I paused to examine one or two of the fittings--particularly a neat gla.s.s-fronted bookcase, with a small sideboard below it, containing three drawers and a cellaret.

The bookcase was empty and clean swept; so also were the drawers.

At the bottom of the cellaret I found a couple of flags stowed--a tattered yellow quarantine-signal tightly rolled into a bundle, and a red ensign neatly folded. As I lifted out the latter, there dropped from its folds and fell upon the cabin floor--a book.

I picked it up--a thin quarto bound in black morocco, and rather the worse for wear. On its top side it bore the following inscription in dingy gilt letters:--

JOB'S HOTEL, PENLEVEN,

VISITORS' BOOK.

J. JOB, _Proprietor_.

Standing there beneath the skylight I turned its pages over, wondering vaguely how the visitors' book of a small provincial hotel had found its way into that drawer. It contained the usual a.s.sortment of conventional praise and vulgar jocosity:--

_Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Smith of Huddersfield, cannot speak too highly of Mrs. Job's ham and eggs.--September 15, 1881_.

_Arrived wet through after a 15-mile tramp along the coast; but thanks to Mr. and Mrs.

Job were soon steaming over a comfortable fire.--John and Annie Watson, March, 1882._

Note appended by a humorist:

_Then you sat on the hob, I suppose._

There was the politely patronising entry:

_Being accustomed to Wolverhampton, I am greatly pleased with this coast.--F. B. W._

The poetical effusion:

_Majestic spot! Say, doth the sun in heaven Behold aught to equal thee, wave-washed Penleven?_ etc.

Lighter verse:

_Here I came to take my ease, Agreeably disappointed to find no fl-- Mrs. Job, your bread and b.u.t.ter Is quite too utterly, utterly utter!_

_J. Harper, June 3rd, 1883._

The contemplative man's e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n:

_It is impossible, on viewing these Cyclopean cliffs, to repress the thought, How great is Nature, how little Man!_ (A note: _So it is, old chap!_ and a reproof in another hand: _Shut up! can't you see he's suffering?)_

The last entry was a brief one:

_J. MacGuire, Liverpool. September 2nd, 1886._

Twilight forced me to close the book and put it back in its place.

As I did so, I glanced up involuntarily towards the skylight, as if I half expected to find a pair of eyes staring down on me. Yet the book contained nothing but these mere trivialities. Whatever my apprehension, I was (as "J. Harper" would have said) "agreeably disappointed." I climbed on deck again, relocked the hatch, replaced the tarpaulins, jumped into the boat and rowed homewards. Though the tide favoured me, it was dark before I reached Mr. Dewy's quay-door.

Having, with some difficulty, found the frape, I made the boat fast.

I groped my way across his back premises and out into the gaslit street; and so to the s.h.i.+p Inn, a fair dinner, and a sound night's sleep.

At ten o'clock next morning I called on Messrs. Dewy and Moss.

Again Mr. Dewy received me, and again he apologised for the absence of his partner, who had caught an early train to attend a wrestling match at the far end of the county. Mr. Dewy showed me the sails, gear, cus.h.i.+ons, etc., of the _Siren_--everything in surprising condition.

I told him that I meant business, and added--

"I suppose you have all the yacht's papers?"

He stroked his chin, bent his head to one side, and asked, "Shall you require them?"

"Of course," I said; "the transfer must be regular. We must have her certificate of registry, at the very least."

"In that case I had better write and get them from my client."

"Is she not a resident here?"

"I don't know," he said, "that I ought to tell you. But I see no harm-- you are evidently, sir, a _bona fide_ purchaser. The lady's name is Carlingford--a widow--residing at present in Bristol."

"This is annoying," said I; "but if she lives anywhere near the Temple Mead Station, I might skip a train there and call on her. She herself desired no delay, and I desire it just as little. But the papers are necessary."

After some little demur, he gave me the address, and we parted.

At the door I turned and asked, "By the way, who was the fellow on board the _Siren_ last night as I rowed up to her?"

He gave me a stare of genuine surprise. "A man on board? Whoever he was, he had no business there. I make a point of looking after the yacht myself."

I hurried to the railway station. Soon after six that evening I knocked at Mrs. Carlingford's lodgings in an unattractive street of Bedminster, that unattractive suburb. A small maid opened the door, took my card, and showed me into a small sitting-room on the ground floor. I looked about me--a round table, a horsehair couch, a walnut sideboard with gla.s.s panels, a lithograph of John Wesley being rescued from the flames of his father's rectory, a coloured photograph--

As the door opened behind me and a woman entered, I jumped back almost into her arms. The coloured photograph, staring at me from the opposite wall above the mantelshelf, was a portrait--a portrait of the man I had seen on board the _Siren!_

"Who is that?" I demanded, wheeling round without ceremony.

But if I was startled, Mrs. Carlingford seemed ready to drop with fright. The little woman--she was a very small, shrinking creature, with a pallid face and large nervous eyes--put out a hand against the jamb of the door, and gasped out--

"Why do you ask? What do you want?"

"I beg your pardon," I said; "it was merely curiosity. I thought I had seen the face somewhere."

"He was my husband."

"He is dead, then?"

"Oh, why do you ask? Yes; he died abroad." She touched her widow's cap with a shaking finger, and then covered her face with her hands.

"I was there--I saw it. Why do you ask?" she repeated.

"I beg your pardon sincerely," I said; "it was only that the portrait reminded me of somebody--But my business here is quite different.