Page:The Black Cat v06no11 (1901-08).djvu/18

12 About this time came the crowning mystery. Salem then enjoyed a maritime commerce that rivalled that of any New England port, and the captain of a clipper in the Liverpool trade was seen to enter the mysterious chemist’s shop, but, though watched, was not observed to go out again. Higham, the grocer, who knew Captain Simpson and his son very well, saw the captain call upon Hawksley, noticed that they seemed acquainted, and perceived that they had some sort of dispute, though neither the low tones of the chemist nor the captain’s loud and angry epithets gave a clue to the matter under controversy. Hawksley, he noted, wore his wonted calm. While the grocer still watched, the door suddenly closed, and the voices could no longer be heard. An hour later, watching with unrelaxed vigilance, Higham saw Hawksley reopen the door, stand smiling a few moments on the threshold, and then, leaving the door ajar, walk deliberately down the street. But still the captain did not come out.

The tradesman was puzzled, but continued to watch, even after Hawksley returned. Then he called one of his clerks to relieve him, and all through that day and the following night the door of the chemist's shop was under observation; but Captain Simpson did not appear. There was no other means of egress from the building, and Higham, still leaving a watching assistant, and believing that a crime had been committed, went at noon to Captain Simpson's ship and told his story to Burke Simpson, the captain's son and first mate.

What follows of this strange tale is told in the words of Burke Simpson, as he wrote it down afterwards:

I was beginning to think it strange that the old man did not came back to the ship when Mark Higham, the chandler, came and told me that father had gone into Hawksley’s chemist shop the day before and had never come out, so I cleared for the scene at once. A hand was still on watch at Higham’s and reported no sail; the old man had not yet got under way.

I crossed the street alone, for neither Higham nor his clerk would go. I knew that Hawksley and my father had been friendly in their younger days, before something—I know not