Captain Black/Part 2

“Beg pardon, sir,” said a voice, and Farnham started up. It was morning, and the bath-steward was standing in the doorway. “Beg pardon, sir,” said the man again, with a startled look upon his face; “but Captain Black isn’t here, sir, and his berth hasn’t been used.”

“Well, I’m not responsible for his not coming to bed,” said Farnham, testily. “What time is it?”

“Just gone seven bells, sir,” said the steward.

“Very good, I’ll get up,” said Farnham, after a moment’s deliberation. “See if you can get me a bath,” and the man withdrew.

Farnham, reflecting upon the steward’s rather startling announcement, found his irritation giving way to a vague foreboding of evil, with which came a disturbing recollection of Leath’s hurried return to his room the night before. Could the man tell anything? He looked out into the passageway, but the door of the opposite room was closed and Farnham could not bring himself to knock and learn he knew not what; and he dressed with feverish haste, and went on deck with an increasing sense of an agitation which he could not shake off. He made a complete tour of the ship, examined every part of the decks, looked into the smoking-room, and finally went into the dining-saloon, where a vacant chair marked Captain Black’s place at the breakfast-table; and then, coming across his cabin-steward, questioned him, and learned that the man had been off watch the night before and could tell him nothing. The matter began to assume an ugly look, and Farnham went direct to the purser, and in ten minutes the ship was being thoroughly searched from stem to stern. Not a trace of the missing man could be found; Captain Black had vanished as absolutely as if he had been absorbed into the atmosphere.

When Farnham related the events of the preceding night it was determined to question Leath at once; and on the steward’s report that the man was ill and was still in his berth, Farnham and the purser went to his room and knocked for admittance. Leath unlocked the door without parley and was back again in his berth as they entered the room, leaning on one elbow and glaring angrily at them as he demanded their business. The man was evidently ill and looked horrible. His face, apparently tanned by the sea air, had taken on a swarthy hue that made his extraordinary pallor even more ghastly than before, and the scar on his chin blazed with an angry flush as though he had been freshly branded on the face.

He listened to the purser’s statement, manifesting extreme agitation as the story proceeded, and at its conclusion fell back upon his pillow and covered his face with his hands. “I can tell you nothing,” he said, after a brief silence, speaking in a smothered voice that was singularly discordant. “I left him, smoking and leaning on the rail near the turtle-back, and came below at eleven o’clock. You must have heard me,” he added, appealing to Farnham, who nodded assent. “What followed is as dark to me as it is to you. I had been drinking and my recollection is confused; I only remember that the sea was horrible to look at!” and with a shudder he turned his face to the wall, and Farnham and the purser, exchanging a significant glance, left him.

“We must go to the old man with this,” said the purser, with an ominous shake of the head, and requesting Farnham to follow him, led the way to the captain’s room. The news had already spread about the ship, and as they passed along the deck, little groups of passengers were discussing the tragedy with repressed voices, and Farnham observed, with great annoyance, that they glanced curiously at him as he went by, and felt that he was being connected with the affair in a thoroughly unpleasant manner.

The captain heard the grim story through and reflected for a few moments with a disturbed countenance. “There’s nothing to be done,” he said at length; “when we get in I shall ask this gentleman and the other to remain aboard until we can communicate with the authorities. If Leath refuses,” he continued, fixing on the unfortunate man with the same suspicion that possessed both Farnham and the purser, “I shall take the responsibility of detaining him. Meanwhile, take charge of the missing man’s effects and tell the men not to talk.”

And now that the dark premonition had grown into a gruesome fact, Farnham began to experience a depression of spirits that promised to put an end to his enjoyment of the remainder of the voyage. As the day wore on, the gloom fastened upon him like a pall, until he was impelled, just before nightfall, to go to the purser and ask to be given another room, where he could be free from the disquieting associations of his late quarters, and away from the immediate proximity of Leath, for whom he had conceived an unconquerable aversion. The purser fell in with his humor without demur, and Farnham found himself transferred to a stuffy inside cabin on the main deck with a positive sense of benefaction. His former apartment was abandoned to the goods and chattels of Captain Black, and Leath, locked in his room, was left alone with his secret, if he had one.

It was with a sense of infinite relief that Farnham, coming on deck one morning, saw the Skelligs rising like mammoth teeth from the sea, and soon afterward the green cliffs of the Irish mainland. His spirits rose as the steamer ran along the coast, passed inside the Fastnet Rock, and finally turned into the mouth of Queenstown Harbor; and he watched with lively interest the arrival alongside of the rakish little tender and the transfer of an interminable number of mail-bags to her ample deck. The procession of bag-bearing stewards having finished their labors, he crossed to the opposite side of the ship, and was engaged in serene contemplation of the whitewashed glories of the Roche’s Point light, when he was touched on the shoulder, and turning, saw the purser at his side with two strangers.

“We are beginning to get a little light on our affair, Mr. Farnham,” said the purser. “These gentlemen are officers from Scotland Yard with a requisition and a warrant for the arrest of Captain Black on a charge of forgery. Mr. Lethbridge and Mr. Darke—Mr. Farnham,” and the two detectives touched their hats and regarded Farnham with a professional air, as if longing to take him into custody in the absence of their legitimate prey.

“No statement to make, I suppose,” said Mr. Lethbridge, a sharp-featured, fresh-faced man with light hair.

“None,” said Farnham. “Mr. Neal knows all I can tell you.”

“Very good, sir,” said Lethbridge, affably. “Now, then, Mr. Neal,” he added, turning to the purser, “if you’ll be good enough to show us below, we’ll take a look at the effects;” and touching their hats again, the two officers followed the purser, leaving Farnham to resume his interrupted observation of the lighthouse. Meanwhile, with a prodigious ringing of bells, the tender cast off and paddled up the harbor, the great pulse began to throb again, and the steamer, turning her prow seaward, went on her way up the Channel.

Farnham, slowly pacing the deck, presently saw the purser and Lethbridge emerge from the companionway and come toward him. “Mr. Farnham,” said the former, “I’m afraid you and I, without saying much about the matter, have been doing that poor devil Leath a great injustice. Read this,” and he handed Farnham an unsealed envelope. It was addressed “To whom it may concern,” and opening it, Farnham found enclosed the following letter:

In the almost absolute certainty of being apprehended upon my arrival, I have chosen the only means open to me of avoiding the disgrace and punishment that would inevitably follow. I had hoped to escape, with the firm intention of never resting until I had made restitution for the only crime that has ever stained my life; but it was not to be. The appearance, at the moment of departure, of a man upon whose blind confidence and dull apprehension I had relied, for such a tardy discovery of my betrayal of trust as would give me ample time for escape, has told me that the cable would assuredly carry the intelligence abroad long before I could reach English soil.

I had at first no intention of leaving New York. I expected, with incredible fatuity, to delay exposure until some lucky chance should permit me to cover, for all time, the traces of my wrong-doing; but the mental strain consequent upon continued and complicated falsifying of accounts, became unendurable, and in an evil moment I appropriated certain funds from a quarter where immediate examination and discovery were improbable, and ventured all upon that mirage of defaulters—faro. I lost. There was no time for resort to the expedients of disguise and concealed identity which might have saved me. I attempted to deceive my associate by the desperate subterfuge of a forged cable message calling me abroad on family affairs; made up my luggage and boarded the steamer almost at the hour of sailing, only to find myself unmasked at the last moment.

I feel no longing for the life I am about to end, nor do I leave a single soul who will mourn my death. I regret, alone, that restitution is beyond my power. The sea is merciful to me in all else.

. “Poor fellow!” said Farnham. “How bad a matter was it?”

“Extensive forgeries and about sixteen thousand pounds in hard cash, supposed to be with him,” replied Lethbridge. “That’s all we know. Particulars by mail.”

“I am glad Leath is out of it, at all events,” said Farnham, heartily enough.

“So am I, sir,” echoed the purser; “but I’m blessed if it didn’t look ugly for a while.” With which reminiscence he and Mr. Lethbridge went below again to resume their examination of Captain Black’s effects.