Page:The Fate of the Artemis.pdf/8

Rh "You see, the letters had given me the clue. Clearly Markham, on receiving the message in the morning of December 2nd, was frightened, and when we analyse the fragments of that message and try to reconstruct the missing fragments, do we not get something like this:

If you lend a hand in allowing the Artemis to reach Port Arthur safely, and to land her cargo there, I will no longer hold my tongue about the events which occurred on board the Ridstow.'

"Clearly the mysterious stranger had a great hold over Captain Markham, for every scrap of evidence, if you think it over, points to his having been frightened. Did he not beg the clerk to find someone else to meet Captain Jutland in Portsmouth? He did not wish to lend a hand in allowing the Artemis to reach Port Arthur safely.

"We must, therefore, take it that on board the Ridstow some such tragedy was enacted as, alas! is not of unfrequent occurrence. The tragedy of a mutiny, a wholesale murder, the robbery of the rich financier, the burning of the yacht. Markham, then barely twenty, was no doubt an unwilling, perhaps passive accomplice; one can trace the hand of a cunning, daring Russian in the whole of this mysterious tragedy.

"Since then, Markham, through twenty years' faithful service of his country, had tried to redeem the passive crime of his early years. But then came the crisis: The cunning leader of that bygone tragedy no doubt kept a strong hand over his weaker accomplices.

"What happened to the other three we do not know, but we have seen how terrified Markham is of him, how he dare not resist him, and when the mysterious Russian—some Nihilist, no doubt, at war with his own Government—wishes to deal his country a terrible blow by possessing himself of the plan of her most important harbour, so that he might sell it to her enemies, Markham dare not say him nay.

"But mark what happens. Captain Markham terrorised, confronted with a past crime, threatened with exposure, is as wax in the hands of his unscrupulous tormentor. But beside him there is the saving presence of his wife."

"His wife?" I gasped.

"Yes, the woman! Did you think this was a crime without the inevitable woman! I sought her, and found her in Captain Markham's wife. To save her husband both from falling a victim to his implacable accomplice, and from committing another even more heinous crime, she suggests the comedy which was so cleverly enacted in the morning of December 3rd.

"When the landlady and her daughter saw the jewel-case open on the table the evening before, Markham was playing the first act of the comedy invented by his wife. She had the plan safely in her own keeping by then. He pretended to agree to the Russian's demands, but showed him that he had not then the plan in his possession, promising, however, to deliver it up on the morrow.

"Then in the morning, Mrs. Markham helps to gag and strap her husband down; he pretends to lie unconscious, and she goes out, carrying the jewel-case. Her brother, Mr. Paulton, of course, helps them both; without him it would have been more difficult; as it is, he takes charge of the jewel-case, abstracts the plan and papers, and finally meets Captain Jutland at the Hard and hands him over the plan of Port Arthur.

"Thus through the wits of a clever and devoted woman, not only are the Artemis and her British crew saved, but Captain Markham is effectually rid of the blackmailer, who otherwise would have poisoned his life, and probably out of revenge at being foiled, have ruined his victim altogether.

"To my mind, that was the neatest thing in the whole plan. The general public believed that Captain Markham (who obviously at the instigation of his wife had confided in Messrs. Mills and Co.) held his tongue as to the safety of the Artemis, merely out of heroism, in order not to run her into any further danger. Now I maintain that this was the masterstroke of that clever woman's plan.

"By holding his tongue, by letting the public fear for the safety of the British crew and British ship, public feeling was stirred to such a pitch of excitement that the Russian now would never dare show himself. Not only—by denouncing Captain Markham now—would he never be even listened to for a moment. but, if he came forward at all, if he even showed himself, he would stand before the British public self-convicted as the man who had tried through the criminal process of blackmail to terrorise an Englishman into sending a British ship and thirty British sailors to certain annihilation.

"No; I think we may take it for granted that the Russian will not dare to show his face in England again."

And the funny creature was gone before I could say another word.