Part 2 (1/2)
Unhappily, the corridors of the Pavonia provide many choices of direction at their intersections, and I had neglected to make myself master of their maze. It was only after several wrong turnings and some delay that I regained the main deck and hurried to where I had left Holmes-to see, as I approached the spot, a silent struggle between two shadowy figures!
Both were visible only in outline, a stocky shape of medium height contending with an unmistakably tall and lean form. And, as I watched, the taller shadow suddenly lurched violently over the railing and disappeared from sight.
”Holmes!” I cried out, in shock and sudden grief, and raced toward the spot. The other shape ran off into the darkness and was lost to sight.
I reached the railing and leaned over it, scanning the s.h.i.+mmering water in the vain hope of spying a floating form.
”There is no need to cry 'Man overboard!' just yet, Watson, and if you will lend me the strength of your arm for a moment, we may be able to avoid the necessity entirely.”
Stunned, I looked down, and saw the glimmer of an upturned face below the edge of the deck. Then I made out two hands firmly clutching the bottom of the railing posts.
I made haste to draw Holmes up and a.s.sist him in his rather undignified scramble over the railing and on to the deck.
”What-what happened, Holmes?”
”I was taken by surprise and as nearly as anything pitched into the sea,” he answered. ”That much is clear. The motive is not, and I find it is a subject on which I should be glad to inform myself.”
I recounted to him the fragmentary conversation I had heard, or half heard, in the corridor, and my apprehension-amply justified, in the event-that it portended danger to him.
”Holmes, do you suppose some of Moriarty's men-?”
”No, no, Watson. This has the earmarks of an attack made in panic or on impulse, and the Professor's men do not allow themselves such failings. What you overheard, unfathomable as it was to you, makes it all clear to me now. As my a.s.sailant-whose name, address, and degraded habits I could easily give you if they would mean anything to you-undoubtedly supposes me dead, I think I shall allow myself to stage a resurrection for his benefit.”
I followed in his steps as he strode off toward the nearest of the s.h.i.+p's many public rooms, dubious. What Holmes said was usually true, yet, with one murderous attack on him before the Pavonia was fairly at sea, it seemed imprudent to ignore the possibility that, by a means I could not grasp, one or more agents of the Professor had made their way on to the s.h.i.+p and meant to pursue their designs on him.
He peered briefly into one room and withdrew; then, another. In the doorway of the third, he stiffened and drew me quietly inside.
”That empty table over there will do us nicely, Watson. Do you stay to my left just a bit as we approach. Our quarry is at the next table, and it would be best for me to screen you.”
I wondered that my friend could think me more recognizable than himself. Then I saw that, without the aid of the devices which made him a master of disguise, he altered, without in any way seeming unnatural about it, his general appearance with a slouching stride, a slump which took inches from his height, and one hand, raised as if to adjust his tie, which contrived to conceal the greater part of his face.
”The point, Watson,” he murmured, ”is to introduce enough unexpected and discordant elements into your walk, stance, and manner so that a possible watcher who has formed his image of you from the sum of those things will register a different impression entirely. A second glance would bring about recognition, but the great thing is not to occasion that second glance.”
We reached the table, partly screened from its neighbor by a spiky kind of fern in a pot, and seated ourselves so that we might observe without being observed.
The nature of the activity at the next table was clear: a party of four men were preparing for a game of cards. One was a sleekly dressed and carefully combed man with a saturnine, predatory countenance. Another was an open-faced, burly young chap who seemed unused to the gaiety and luxury of the s.h.i.+p. The remaining pair appeared to be solid, unremarkable men of business, though evidently prosperous.
”I'm powerfully obliged to you gentlemen for asking me to join you in a little diversion,” observed the young man in accents which I had no difficulty in recognizing as those of rural America. ”A sea trip can be lonely without something to pa.s.s the time. And, say! I don't mind telling you I've enough in my poke to back up my play.”
I saw the predatory-faced man dart a glance at him as he began to shuffle the cards.
I could follow the play easily enough, but soon grew restive and stirred in my chair. Holmes motioned me to silence with an impatient gesture.
”There will be drama enough in this in a moment or so, Watson,” he whispered.
And so it proved. As the sharp-faced man drew in his winnings from the second hand played, the young American, at that point the major loser, sprang to his feet.
”See here!” he complained. ”That jack wasn't in your hand when it was dealt-for here's the same one in mine!”
”Do you accuse me of cheating, sir?” said the winner in a bl.u.s.tering tone.
”Make of it what you will!” the American said, his face flushed. ”I see what I see, and I'll not back down!”
The saturnine man's eyes s.h.i.+fted uneasily to the other two players, who returned his gaze sternly.
”You are mistaken, sir,” he announced with a marked lack of conviction. ”But be that as it may, I do not care to play further with you. Good evening to you!”
He pushed back his chair, rose and strode off.
”It seems as though you have saved us from an expensive lesson at the hands of a card sharp,” ventured one of the businessmen. ”He seemed unusually lucky, but I doubt if I or my friend would have spotted what was taking place.”
”Where I come from, you have to keep an eye out for crooked play,” said the American. ”I've no use for such fellows, hate 'em like poison. In some of the places I've been, a man like that would be shot like a dog. Honest cards, honest dealing, honest play-that's my motto, and Uncle Sam's, too.”
The game resumed, with the young man and his two companions now on the friendliest of terms.
Holmes watched keenly for a moment, then said loudly, though appearing not to address anyone in particular, ”Wot price the briny, eh, Napper? Sweeter nor a cell in Wormwood Scrubs, cor strike me if it ain't.”
His voice was a precise imitation of the hoa.r.s.e croak of a seasoned convict, used to speaking from the corner of his mouth to elude the warders' notice.
The young American sprang from his seat, his ruddy face suddenly ashen. Without a word to his astonished companions, he left the table and made as if to dash for the outer door. As he pa.s.sed our table, Holmes reached out an arm and drew him to a halt.
”On your way to a swim, Napper, like the one you tried to give me not an hour ago? I doubt you'd like it. Now, I don't propose to take steps about that trifling matter; a man's likely enough to see red when he runs into the man who got him four years' hard labor-was it four or five, Napper?-and give way to a touch of pique. But you've got that out of your system now, and have also exhausted your pa.s.sion for card-playing and traveling-company melodrama for the remainder of this voyage, I trust. In any case, I don't wish or expect to hear further from you. Do you take my meaning?”
The stocky young man, in whom I could now perceive a resemblance to the shadowy form I had observed in near-mortal struggle with my friend, let fall a stream of foulness from his twisted lips, in accents more redolent of an East End slum than of the American plains.
”I see you do. Be off with you, then-and I suggest that you and Nice Ned keep to your cabin for the remainder of your voyage, or my patience may not prove to be all-enduring.”
The ”American” stumbled off, as unsteady in his steps as a blind man. The two businessmen, alarmed and confused, made their way to another part of the saloon.
”What on earth was all that, Holmes?” said I. ”I was sure that that frank-faced young chap had exposed a card cheat, whom I supposed to be the man you were observing. But that seems not to be the case.”
”That, Watson, was the Nottingham Napper, who used to make quite a good thing out of appearing a b.u.mpkin among the flasher London crowds; and his a.s.sociate, Nice Ned, whose sinister appearance made him one of the less successful of confidence-men in town. It was the Napper's genius that suggested this be turned to their advantage, and that they play a drama in which Ned would be cast as the villain, and the Napper as the honest hero. He has now worked up an atrocious stage-American manner, which I am surprised to think would fool a child” (I bridled at this, but then subsided; after all, I had not committed myself to Holmes on the matter) ”and uses it to great advantage. Had the game continued, those two mercantile gentlemen would certainly have found themselves a great deal poorer by morning, and yet completely unsuspicious of the honest-dealing young fellow they had enriched. For had he not, after all, detected the blatant cheat in their midst? Well, well, they have shot their bolt now, and I do not expect to be troubled with them again.”
Chapter Four.
Two days at sea is enough to give one the feeling that he has lived that kind of life for a very long time, and will continue to do so for an indefinite period. Hour by hour, one becomes more attuned to the ways of the sea and more removed from those of the land. Relaxation is one important element of this feeling, and so is, I must confess, boredom. It was with a certain amount of pleasurable excitement, then, that both Holmes and I became aware of the smoking-concert being organized by the purser for the third night out. A Cunard purser must be qualified to fill most of the diplomatic or intelligence posts any government offers, for the Pavonia's seemed to be aware of the interests and capabilities of every First Cla.s.s pa.s.senger. On that afternoon, he approached Sherlock Holmes and invited him to partic.i.p.ate.
”After all, sir,” he said, ”your virtuosity on the violin is well-known, and I venture to say that you have your instrument with you.”
Holmes admitted both to his ability and to the presence of his fiddle, and made only the feeblest of attempts to beg off performing.
”I shall be glad of the chance to give it a proper tuning,” he told me, his manner a good bit less than convincing. ”Without a little exercise, it will doubtless be woefully slack from the sea air by the time we reach New York.”
”I dare say. The plain fact is, Holmes, that you are idle and restless, and want the chance to show off.”