Part 12 (1/2)

”You can?” said Helen. She was leaning across the table, her face all lighted up with excitement.

”Yes. There's the negro above stairs for one thing, Cullen's servant.

For another I met Cullen Mayle on the road as I was travelling here.

He counterfeited an ague, which he told me he had caught on the Guinea coast. The ague was counterfeit, but very likely he has been on the Guinea coast.”

”Of course,” cried d.i.c.k.

”Not a doubt of it,” said Helen.

”So this is my theory. George Glen came to enlist Adam Mayle's help and Adam Mayle's money, in some voyage to Africa. Cullen Mayle overheard it, and got the start of George Glen. So here's George Glen back again upon Tresco, and watching for Cullen Mayle.”

”See!” cried Helen suddenly. ”Did I not tell you you were sent here to a good end?”

”But we are not out of the wood yet,” I protested. ”We have to discover what it was that Glen proposed to Mr. Mayle. How shall we do that?”

”How?” repeated Helen, and she looked to me confidently for the answer.

”I can think of but one way,” said I, ”to go boldly to George Glen and make terms with him.”

”Would he speak, do you think?”

”Most likely not,” I answered, and so in spite of my fine conjecture, we did not seem to have come any nearer to an issue. We were both of us silent for some while. The very confidence which Helen displayed stung me into an activity of thought. Helen herself was sunk in an abstraction, and in that abstraction she spoke.

”You are hurt,” she said.

My right hand was resting upon the table. It was cut in one or two places, and covered with scratches.

”It is nothing,” said I, ”I slipped on the hill yesterday night and cut it with the gorse;” and again we fell to silence.

”What I am thinking is this,” she said, at length. ”You overtook Cullen upon the road, and you reached the islands last night. At any moment then we may expect his coming.”

”Why, that's true,” said I, springing up to my feet. ”And if d.i.c.k will sail me across to St. Mary's, we'll make a s.h.i.+ft to stop him.”

Helen Mayle rose at that moment from her seat. She was wearing a white frock, and upon one side of it I noticed for the first time a red smear or two, as though she had brushed against paint--or blood. I looked at my hand scratched and torn by the gorse bush. It would have been bleeding at the time when a woman, coming swiftly past us in the fog, brushed against it. The woman was certainly hurrying in the direction of this house.

”You have told me everything, I suppose,” I said--”everything at all events that it concerns me to know.”

”Everything,” she replied.

We crossed that afternoon to St. Mary's. There was no sign of Cullen Mayle at Hugh Town. No one had seen him or heard of his coming. He had not landed upon St. Mary's. I thought it possible that he might not have touched St. Mary's at all, but rowed ash.o.r.e to Tresco even as I had done. But no s.h.i.+p had put into the Road that day but one which brought Castile soap from Ma.r.s.eilles. We sailed back to Tresco, and ran the boat's nose into the sand not twenty yards from the door of the house on Merchant's Point. A man, an oldish, white-haired man, loitering upon the beach very civilly helped us to run the boat up out of the water. We thanked him, and he touched his hat and answered with something of a French accent, which surprised me. But as we walked up to the house,

”That's one of the five,” d.i.c.k explained. ”He came on the boat with the negro to Penzance. Peter Tortue he is called, and he was loitering there on purpose to get a straight look at you.”

”Well,” said I, ”it is at all events known that I am here,” and going into the house I found Helen Mayle eagerly waiting for our return. I told her that Cullen Mayle could not by any means have yet reached the Scillies, and that we had left word with the harbour master upon St.

Mary's to detain him if he landed; at which she expressed great relief.

”And since it is known I am here,” I added, ”it will be more suitable if I carry my valise over to New Grimsby and seek a bed at the 'Palace' Inn. I shall besides make the acquaintance of Mr. George Glen. It is evident that he and his fellows intend no hurt to you, so that you may sleep in peace.”