Drowned Gold/Chapter 12

ORTUNATELY for us, we were but a short distance from a good-sized village, where it was possible to get cable connection. I found there also, by another strike of good fortune, a shipping agent who knew me and could identify me at the local bank, so that within a few hours our needs, so far as finances were concerned, were supplied. It was a discouraging prospect at the best, for the war had so disrupted all services that we might be there, practically marooned on the island, for a period covering any time between one and six weeks. Personally, I continued to be as bitterly chagrined over the loss of Monsieur Périgord's gold as I was over the loss of my own ship. The Esperanza had paid for herself several times over, and I was far from being a poor man, as I knew by my own bank balances in New York; but the sentimental side of the mission I had undertaken and lost weighed heavily upon me.

I decided to lose no time in notifying Monsieur Périgord of our misfortune, and so, as soon as I had given all those dependent upon me ample money to provide for their needs, I went to the cable office. I found it in charge of a French cable officer, evidently a man from the reserve list or one who had been in retirement at the outbreak of the war, and was now serving his country in quasi-military capacity. I got a form and wrote my message, announcing the loss of the Esperanza, and stating that she had been submarined. I passed it through the little wicket to the girl clerk, who took it to the desk where the officer stood grimly erect, with his glasses perched down on the end of his nose, and he, after glancing at it, pursed his lips, readjusted his glasses, and then came over to the wicket.

"You are Captain Hale?" he asked in French; and when I said "Yes," he added: "I have heard of your misfortune, and am very sorry for you. I understand you were en route to my country?"

"To Bordeaux," I replied; "laden with cocoa and coffee."

"Then the misfortune is my country's as well as yours," he said, with a shake of his head.

He had been holding my cablegram in his hand as he talked in his kindly way, and now thrust it through the wicket to me.

"I am very sorry, Captain Hale, that I cannot permit this to be sent for you. We have been given rigid orders that the loss of any ship by German submarine attack can be reported to the French Government only, which, if it deems it expedient, privately notifies the shipowners. In this case, you, being the owner of the vessel, require no notification."

"But, monsieur," I protested, "the Esperanza had a very valuable cargo on board, and it is of the utmost importance that I should immediately notify the shipper. He has private reasons for being particularly anxious concerning its delivery. Can you not urge upon your Admiralty the request that the news be given him?"

He shook his head doubtfully, and pointed to the address on the form.

"I fear, Captain Hale," he said, "that you, not being a Frenchman, will not understand quite what that name means to the French Government. You are not aware, perhaps, that at one time it was as well known as any name in France. Many have forgotten it; but probably not the Government. Under some circumstances it might notify an owner, but not, I am sure, where that owner is persona non grata in France."

I felt a hot impulse to defend Monsieur Périgord, and resolved to break the seals of silence imposed upon me in his behalf.

"Monsieur," I said, "is it possible for you to give me a little of your time in some place where we may talk privately? I have much to say to you concerning Monsieur Périgord that I feel it a duty to say."

"Certainly," he answered; "come this way." And he opened a door in the wire partition, and conducted me through into a small private office, where he gave me chair.

"Monsieur Périgord is as loyal a Frenchman as lives," I said. "He is, himself, broken-hearted by his exile. The loss of the Esperanza is nothing; the loss of her cargo of cocoa and coffee is nothing, compared with what her real cargo consisted of."

He opened his eyes widely and looked at me inquiringly.

"The real cargo of the Esperanza consisted of three million dollars in gold, that Monsieur Hector de la Périgord, that aged, lonely old exile, had collected together and was sending across as a voluntary contribution to France. I myself was to take it from Bordeaux and deliver it to the Ministry of the Treasury."

The officer leaned back so suddenly that his glasses dropped from the top of his nose, and he fairly exploded a most expressive "Mon Dieu—fifteen million francs in gold, voluntarily, you said! And asking nothing in return!"

"Voluntarily, and asking nothing in return," I declared. "There was no proviso whatever connected with his gift. The one thing he did ask me to do for him, if I might, was, after his gift had been made and accepted, to gain for him the removal of that ban which exiles him. He is very old, monsieur, and his one inordinate love is for the land of his birth. He asked nothing more than the privilege of returning there that he might die on French soil. There are but few men, monsieur, who do not make grave mistakes and blunders in early youth; but when the fires of life grow old and dim and cold, there comes repentance, and it seems very godlike for their fellow men to forgive. I assure you that could I obtain that forgiveness from his country for poor old Hector Périgord I would devote but small grief to the loss of the Esperanza, although she was mine, was uninsured, and was my only ship. I beg you to accept my assurance that I am telling the truth concerning your exiled countryman, because he favored me with his confidence and trusted in me his hope. If you could see and talk to him, as I have, you would have pity. If those at the head of the French Government could know, as I do, the price he has paid for his one great mistake, his unfaltering loyalty to France, his recognition that she is far better off as a great republic than she could ever have been under the royalism of his youthful dreams, they, too, would forgive. He is very old and infirm. He could no longer lead were his old desire still alive. Surely it could not hurt France, in all her greatness and nobility, to spare him grace for the little time that he has left, and the little room to hold him after he goes. Is it not possible for you, monsieur, to notify your Government of his attempted munificence, and then, aside from your official capacity, and as a gentleman of France who can sympathize with the love and craving that every true Frenchman has for his country, to make an appeal for the removal of that ban which prevents the old man from returning to his country? It is a very little thing to do, monsieur, but a very noble one. You would personally feel that you had been humane. I ask you as a favor to myself to give it your consideration."

Thinking that I had already taken too much of his time, and yet believing that I had stated sufficient to interest him in Monsieur Périgord, I got to my feet and bade him "Good-Day." But with an impulsiveness I had not expected of him, he too arose, stepped forward and clasped my hand almost violently, and declared:

"Captain Hale, it is not possible for me to put across the unfeeling cables the eloquence of your advocacy; but I tell you this, that I am touched and grieved! I, too, know the longing for France. I, too, have been homesick for her when on foreign service. I, too, am old. I shall break all official rules if necessary, and take the risk of incurring the displeasure of my superiors by doing my utmost in behalf of your friend. I shall do even more than that: I shall enlist the services and personal advocacy of one who is a friend of mine, and not without influence in our native land. That friend will, in person, reach and appeal to the President of France, himself. If I fail, it shall be through no lack of honest effort on my part. Furthermore, I should like to say to you, sir, that I admire you for the quality of your friendship."

I was almost embarrassed by the deferential manner in which he bowed me through the door, and went away with a somewhat lighter heart in the hope that at least a portion of my mission to France, and that by far the most important to Monsieur Périgord, should not fail.

I was now come to another very sorrowful duty, that of finding poor Jimmy Martin, and doing what I could to encourage him and make him stop brooding over his great loss. I went back to the little hotel where we had taken rooms, and on inquiry was told that he was out in a little arbor overlooking the sea. I found him there, with his elbows on his knees, and his head resting in the palms of his hands, looking for all the world like a man hopelessly defeated. He seemed actually to have become old and shrunken in a few hours, and when, upon hearing my footsteps upon the gravel path, he lifted his head, I saw that his eyes were sunken and his face haggard and lined. I threw myself on the little rustic bench beside him with the feeling that anything I might say would be awkward and futile, but resolved, notwithstanding, to brace him up if possible.

"Jimmy," I said, "it is pretty hard luck. There is no use in trying to gloss that over in the least; but to me it doesn't look so absolutely hopeless as you seem to think. The plans, of course, are gone, but surely you can make others?"

"Yes," he said wearily, "I can. But you don't understand what it means. Why, Tom, it might mean years of work. There were formulas so exact, and so fine, as to be utterly beyond the capacity of one's memory, and some of which cost me probably ten thousand experiments. Those plans and papers you saw contained every detail, and there are details which I could no more recall than I could the figures in a book of logarithms."

"Just the same," I replied, "you don't propose to give up, do you?"

He shook his head as if in doubt, with an air of the utmost despondency and discouragement.

"Come," I said, "you are no quitter! Besides, as you know, I am fairly well off. I will back you with all the money you want, if it isn't too much, and you can have all of the time you want."

He turned toward me almost angrily, and exclaimed: "Money—time! Don't you understand that both of these would be useless if the Germans succeeded in getting those plans? Humph! I should be robbed of my invention. It would be in public use before I could have gone halfway through with the work necessary to perfect the apparatus again, and it would be almost impossible for me even to prove that it was my invention. The probabilities are that my name would never appear on it as the inventor. For war use alone it is the most valuable find that has ever been made by man. With that invention a submarine would not need to come to the surface to find its prey and discharge its torpedoes. Or, on the other hand, a cruiser equipped with that apparatus could discover a submarine at any depth to which the latter could go, and by following it constantly and observing it, could ultimately destroy it. You are not fool enough to suppose that any country at war would hesitate to make use of such an invention as that without very many qualms of nicety as to the poor devil of an inventor."

"But," I insisted, "we are not even positive that the plans were ever delivered aboard the submarine. I think not."

"Well, then, what became of them? I believe you are just as certain as I am that it was those plans they were after rather than the mere sinking of the ship. They couldn't have known about the gold. We both of us know that somebody aboard the Esperanza, whom we never suspected, was a spy, and that this spy, by some devilish means that we have no idea of, learnt the secret of my bench and took the plans out. We rushed in there together and saw it open and empty. We know absolutely that the German commander stripped us to our hides and examined us, and the search they made of our boat was so thorough that nothing the size of a pea could have escaped discovery. The only reason I escaped at all was because of your cleverness in telling them the engineer was lost. They thought I was the second. I think they were really after me. You believed they were badly disappointed. I did not. I believe that was all bluff to make us think they had failed, but that, in the meantime, whoever stole those plans had turned them over. I believe those plans are right at this moment being carried as fast as that submarine can travel toward Germany. The first thing that will be heard of my invention by anybody will be that German submarines are known to have put in use a new method for sinking ships without ever appearing on the surface. It is a tragic loss, that's what it is! And what is more, it goes double with me, because my sympathies are all with the Allies, and to hell with Germany, say I! And here I have gone to work and spent my life perfecting something for those murderous cusses to use, not only against my friends, but possibly against my own countrymen. Humph! I would rather have died than perfected that thing and then let it fall into their hands."

He jumped to his feet and began pacing savagely to and fro in front of the arbor, kicking the gravel as if by physical action to vent his anger on something. I waited for him to cool down a bit, and also because I found it difficult to say anything reassuring. After a time he paused and dropped back into his dejected attitude, leaning grimly against the doorpost of the arbor with both hands thrust into his pockets, and his head bent forward.

Whom do you suspect?" I asked, looking up at him. "You think somebody delivered those plans. Well, if so, we can at least have the satisfaction of trying to find out who it was, and we can certainly make it hot for that gentleman; don't you doubt it."

"Yes, and mighty small satisfaction that would be," he grunted derisively. "That would not bring the plans back and would not prevent the Germans from using them. And they have got them. I am absolutely sure of it from the way that slick, oily, greasy commander grinned at us when he bade us 'Good-bye.' The man was exultant. What in the devil could he be exultant over if it was not that he had got the best of us? Answer me that, will you?"

He stopped and glared at me, and I, finding it rather impossible to offer any sane response, stood silent. He seemed almost to gloat over my inability to answer, and resumed his argument almost as if sneering at my being worsted.

"Besides, how are you going to find out who the thief was? It could not have been poor old Klein, because he is dead."

"But regardless of the thief," I insisted, "it looks to me as if you would be a fool not to start work again at the earliest moment."

He threw up his hands with a gesture of disdain, and exclaimed: "Good Lord, listen to the boy talking! 'Start to work'—as if he had any idea of the work involved. Haven't I made you understand yet that it took me more than thirty years of experiments to make that apparatus perfect? Do you think I shall live to be as old as Methusalem [sic]?"

It seemed rather hopeless to continue the debate. I was not quite certain that in his exasperation he might not fall upon me, as the nearest living object, and relieve his pent-up feelings by battering me to a pulp with his fists. He certainly looked angry enough, and capable enough, to perform such a task, which would have been highly unpleasant for myself. I thought perhaps it might be wise to divert his thoughts.

"I believe," I declared, "that dirty pup, Mike Cochrane, the oiler, must have had a finger in it. I know he was there on the end of the dock in Maracaibo the night we sailed. Do you suppose that, having himself failed to steal the plans, he succeeded in bribing some of the other men of the crew to make a try for them?"

"Why not?" he answered. "That's just about the way most men show their gratitude. I kept you from murdering him and didn't chuck him overboard myself. I kept you from putting him off at Samaña. I got you to carry him on to Maracaibo and turn him loose. I gave him money aboard the Esperanza, and one day when I met him with his crippled wing, there in the Plaza at Maracaibo, feeling sorry for him, I gave him a hundred dollars more. Good Lord! Haven't I done enough for him to make him an enemy? The surest way in the world to make a man hate you is to do something for him."

I saw that he had reverted to his old cynicism and distrust of humanity at large, but could not resist a parting shot at him.

"I suppose, then, that because I have tried to be decent to you, you hate me?"

It rather took the wind out of his sails, and he turned and gaped at me for a moment as if speechless.

"Good Heavens! No, Tom," he exclaimed, "I am talking like a fool, but hang it all, I am hard hit. I am done. I am whipped. I am clean knocked out. I will take back everything I have said."

Thinking that this was a pretty good point at which to drop the conversation, I got up and joined him in the doorway of the arbor.

"One thing is sure," I said, "that we are not going to gain anything by brooding over something that is done and can't be altered. Come on; let's walk down toward the beach."

We did so, and it was not the first walk that we were to take along the more or less deserted reaches of that shore; for on that day, and the day following, and the day after that, having nothing better to do, we trudged aimlessly backward and forward. Despite the physical beauty of the island it was a most deadly place in which to contemplate passing six weeks of waiting. The town itself afforded nothing in the way of amusement, and I could offer but little in the way of conversation to brighten up the spirits of Twisted Jimmy, who threatened to develop melancholia. He grew more taciturn even as he drooped physically, and the worst of it was that it seemed impossible to offer him any substantial encouragement.

It was on the third day, in the afternoon, that we had taken a longer walk than usual toward the northernmost point of the island, and the tide was running in, when we discovered here and there on the white sands evidences of the ill-fated Esperanza. A life-belt with her name shining grimly, a broken stool, a section of deck plank, and some other little pieces, were scattered about on the white sands. A native beach-comber, who had been collecting salvage, dashed into the surf to recover some prize as we passed. Supposing that he was salving a mere piece of wreckage, we did not pause to watch his efforts, but continued our way. Jimmy, steadily walking, was staring absently ahead into the distance; but I, cherishing an affection for the faithful old Esperanza, looked back over my shoulder, idly speculating meanwhile as to what remnants had been spewed up by the sea. It was then I saw something which made me stop abruptly.

"What do you suppose he has got?" I said, turning fully around, and Jimmy whirled to look back, and exclaimed, "Dirty swine; come on, let's get him," and began running down the beach. There was no mistaking what the beach-comber had pulled ashore, nor what he had been doing; for he instantly raised himself and took to his heels with a speed which could easily outdistance the efforts of either Jimmy or myself. He had been rifling the pockets of a corpse, and that corpse was Klein, the engineer. Being somewhat more fleet of foot than Jimmy, I was the first to arrive. On the sand beside the body lay the articles which the ghoulish beach-comber had taken from the engineer's pockets, and discarded as useless to him. There was a bunch of keys, a toothbrush, a pocket handkerchief, a ball of twine, a sodden packet of letters, and a big flat packet of white papers. Upon these Jimmy fell with a shout, and carefully spread them open on the beach, regardless of the proximity of the dead man. There, clearly defined and unblurred by the water, being done in waterproof ink—were the missing plans. It was Klein, after all, for whom we had mourned, who was the thief. Germany had not secured that for which she had struggled so persistently, and Twisted Jimmy, on his hands and knees over the plans, suddenly lifted his head and laughed in a high, hysterical key.