Part 7 (2/2)
”No,” said I; ”but I have come on Cullen Mayle's business.”
The boy leaned out of the window and peered into my face. But voices were raised in the room beyond this cupboard, and a woman's voice cried out, ”d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k!”
”That's mother,” said d.i.c.k to me. ”Wait! I will come out to you.”
He closed the window, and I lay down again in the gra.s.s, and waited there for perhaps an hour. A mist was coming up from the sea and thickening about the island; the starlight was obscured; wreaths of smoke, it seemed, came in puffs between myself and the house, and at last I heard the rustling of feet in the gra.s.s.
”d.i.c.k,” said I in a whisper, and the lad came to me.
”I remember you,” he said. ”You were at Lieutenant Clutterbuck's. Why have you come?”
”Upon my word,” said I, ”I should find it difficult to tell you.”
Indeed, it would have taken me half the night to explain the motives which had conjoined to this end.
”And now that you are come, what is it you mean to do?”
”d.i.c.k,” I returned, ”you ask the most disconcerting questions. You tramp up to London with a wild story of a house watched----”
”You come as a friend, then,” he broke in eagerly.
”As your friend, yes.”
d.i.c.k sat silent for a moment.
”I think so,” he said at length.
”And here's a trifle to a.s.sure you,” I said. ”Cullen Mayle is not very far behind me. You may expect him upon Tresco any morning.”
d.i.c.k started to his feet.
”Are you sure of that? You do not know him. How are you sure?”
”Clutterbuck described him to me. I overtook him on the road, and stayed the same night with him at an inn. He robbed me and robbed the landlord. There was a trick at the cards, too. Not a doubt of it, Cullen Mayle is close on my heels. Are those five men still watching the house?”
”Yes. They are still upon Tresco. They lodge here and there with the fishermen, and make a pretence to burn kelp or to fish for their living; but their business is to watch the house, as you will see to-night. There are six of them now, not five.”
He led me as he spoke towards the ”Palace Inn,” where a light still burned in the kitchen. The cottages about the inn, however, were by this time dark, and we could advance without risk of being seen. d.i.c.k stopped me under the shadow of a wall not ten yards from the inn. A red blind covered the lower part of the window, but above it I could see quite clearly into the kitchen.
”Give me a back,” whispered d.i.c.k, who reached no higher than my shoulder. I bent down and d.i.c.k climbed on to my shoulders, whence he too could see the interior of the kitchen.
”That will go,” said he in a little, and slid to the ground. ”Can you see a picture on the wall?”
”Yes.”
”And a man sitting under the picture--a squat, squabby man with white hair and small eyes very bright?”
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