Part 36 (1/2)
”Twenty-five hundred francs for the boat and outfit--the same sum for the gang, cash down. Two weeks, with the privilege of renewal for two more-at the same rate,” doggedly said Blunt. ”Now, you've got to make up your mind soon, Hawke,” said Jack Blunt roughly. ”I've told you the whole lay, and so far, have given you the worth of your money. If you can't 'come up,' then I'm going to run a lugger load of brandy and 'baccy over to the Irish coast. She's a sixty tonner and by G.o.d! fit to cross the Atlantic! Old Garcin, too, is getting impatient. Our being here, stops his 'regular business,'” gloomily said Blunt.
Hawke's impa.s.sive face angered Jack Blunt as he continued: ”And you say that I can trust Garcin's brother Andre down at Isle Dial.”
”Yes. Even if we had to stow one or both of these fools away down there.”
”I am sure that Angelique and I could hide them away for a year or else safely forever there,” cried Jack Blunt, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. ”It's only a matter of money and damme if I believe you've got any! If you fool us, you'll never get out of here alive!” Major Hawke only smiled, and dropped his hands lightly on the b.u.t.ts of two heavy bull-dog revolvers ready there in his velveteen trousers' pockets.
”Jack! Don't be an a.s.s!” he said. ”I play this game to win. Do you think that I would bring my ready money into this murder pen? Now, tell me what you will take in cash, to tell me where the old miser has hidden the stuff I want? And how much will you take to do the job? I want to know when they return, and I want your help and the aid of the gang. You are to crack the crib--alone--while they are away, and then we, perhaps, may meet them, on their way home. The lugger lying off in that cove to the north of Rozel Head, below the old martello tower.”
”Have you been over there?” amazedly cried Blunt.
”Oh! I know every inch of the place of old,” laughed Hawke, still with his hands on his revolvers.
”Well, Major,” said Jack, pouring out a cognac, ”I'll take, first, five hundred pounds cash for the information. Another five hundred for the job, with a quarter of what we get. And this second sum you can put up with Etienne Garcin. You can pay him now the two hundred for the men and the boat, out of that, and give me the rest of the odd change later.
We'll never lose sight of each other after we start. For the Hirondelle will not leave me in the lurch. I've sworn never to wear the widow's jewelry again.” Jack Blunt's eyes were devilish in their glare.
”So, it's five hundred pounds down now, and I can order the expedition on, after the payment. You'll give me on the instant all the news from Mattie Jones of the intended return, for I propose to have some fun with the Professor.”
”Honor bright,” said Jack forcibly. ”For we will all hang or 'go to quod' together, if there's a break once that we begin. We had better start when I get her next letter, for Mattie is to write me to the Jersey Arms and then telegraph there, too, from Southampton. I'll have one of the crew pipe them off from the pier home to the Tolly, and a half dozen of the boys will be in hiding, ready for work. So you can work your scheme as you will.”
”It's a go, then. Come on, now, and get your money,” said Hawke, as he led the way to the nearest fiacre. In ten minutes, Alan Hawke disappeared into the railway waiting-room, and returned after a visit to the luggage store-room. Jack Blunt was astonished at his pal's evident distrust. ”Here you are, Jack,” the Major cordially cried, as they sought the rear room of the neat cafe opposite the gare. ”Now, count over your five hundred pounds. I'll give Garcin the other sum in your presence. Then, I suppose that I am safe,” he coldly smiled. ”Tell me now where has old Fraser hidden the stuff.”
”In his study on the first floor, in a secret hiding place. The girl Mattie has watched the old fellow through the keyhole. I know just where to easily break in on the ground floor. These d.a.m.ned Hindus are far away in the other wing, so there's only Simpson to hinder. Now, I'll have a couple of the boys pipe him off at the Jersey Arms. Old Janet Fairbarn's strait-laced ways make him sneak out late at night for his toddy. When he is 'well loaded' and tired with climbing up the cliff, they will follow him and fix him, for good. One of the boys will come along with me, to my hiding place, and be 'outside fence' while the two others will watch the road and the gardener's quarters. The three men are two hundred yards away, in the porter's lodge. The old Scotch woman sleeps like a post. Then I make my way when I've done, at once to the Hirondelle, alone and hide my plant. The men relieved can rally on your party at the old martello tower, and so we will be ready to sail when your part of the job is done. Two on board, three with me, nine with you, will be plenty! My work is a quiet job! I can do the whole trick in five minutes! Yours, I leave for yourself. I know just where to lay my hand.”
”But, should any trouble occur?” said Alan Ha wke, ”any outcry, any pursuit?”
”Then I will bury the stuff on the sh.o.r.e, saunter back openly to the Jersey Arms, and just stay there as friend Joseph Smith, till I can get over to Granville by the steamer. The Hirondelle will not be seen by any one; there are fifty luggers always hovering around. She will first land us all in Bouley Bay in the morning, or drop half the men off at St.
Catherine's Bay in the early afternoon. They all know every inch of the ground.” In half an hour the chums in villainy dined gayly with ”Angelique,” and a running mate, rejoicing in the cognomen of ”Pet.i.te Diable Jaune.” The next day, a secret meeting with a confidential Jewish money-lender, enabled Major Alan Hawke to safely market the half of the jewels which he had extorted from Ram Lal Singh. In a waist belt, he wore a thousand pounds of Banque of France notes neatly concealed. Jack Blunt and Garcia had earned an extra bonus of a hundred pounds each in the jewel sale, and Alan Hawke laughed, as he laid away four thousand pounds in his safely deposited luggage, in the railway office. ”I can trust to the French Republic--one and indivisible,” he said, as he sent a loving letter to Justine Delande, and then mailed her the receipt for his valuable package, with his last wishes, ”in case of accident.”
”These fellows might kill me for this, if they knew of it!” he growled.
Three days later, the stanch Hirondelle was beating up and down Granville Bay, while Alan Hawke awaited the letter of the faithful Mattie Jones. He had furnished the twenty-pound note which made that natty damsel doubly anxious to meet her faithful lover ”Joseph Smith,”
to whom she now dispatched the news of the immediate return of the anxious Professor. Fraser was burning to take up the gathering of Thibetan pearls of hidden knowledge, while the artful and restless Professor Alaric Hobbs was stealthily waiting Prince Djiddin's departure, but kept busied with some personal tidal and magnetic observations on Rozel Head. In the deserted second floor of an old martello tower, he had made a lair for his evening star and planetory researches, and the ingenious Yankee concealed a rope ladder in the clinging ivy which enabled him to cut off all intrusion on his eyrie.
CHAPTER XV. THE FRENCH FISHER BOAT, ”HIRONDELLE.”
It was four o'clock of a wild November afternoon when Major Alan Hawke, cowering in a hooded Irish frieze ulster, crawled deeper into a cave-like recess in the little path leading from the Jersey Arms up to Rozel Head. The blinding rain was thrown in wild gusts by the howling winds, now las.h.i.+ng the green channel to a roughened foam. A sudden and terrific storm was coming on.
Half an hour before the disguised adventurer could see the ominous double storm signals flying in warning on the scattered coast guard stations, a signal of danger sent on from the Corbieres Lighthouse. But now not a single sail was to be seen, and huge banks of heavy blackening mists were rolling over the stormy channel. Not a stray sail was in sight!
”Where in h.e.l.l is Jack?” raged the excited conspirator, swallowing half the contents of his brandy flask. As he returned it, the b.u.t.ts of his two revolvers and the handle of a huge couteau de cha.s.se were plainly visible. ”The fiends seem to be let loose to-day,” he growled. ”It would be the night of all nights! Ha!” The discharged officer noted two men in sou'westers and oilskins now toiling up the path. And his heart leaped up in a wild joy.
In another moment, he half dragged his drenched companions into the weather-worn cave. ”What news?” he hoa.r.s.ely demanded of Blunt, as he extended his flask.
”The best of all news,” cheerily replied the mobs-man. ”Here is Antoine.
He raced down from St. Heliers, in a covered fly, and has brought the very latest news from Fort Regent. The Stella has lost the tide, cannot enter, and has, therefore, turned south, running down the channel.
She can not dare to enter St. Heliers now till between ten and eleven to-night. Of course, she will not put back to Southampton, in the teeth of this southwest gale, the very heaviest known for twenty years. She has signaled the 'Corbieres,' and they have telegraphed over to the office at the pier. There's Mattie Jones's telegram. The three we want are on board, sure enough. And, thank G.o.d! the Hirondelle is riding safe and easy around the point. It's the one night of a million for my job and for yours.”
”What's your final plan? We must get out of here soon,” growled Hawke, shaking off the pouring rain like a burly water dog. ”I have my two men already watching the little gardener's hut in the Tropical Gardens, where I hid my cracksman's outfit. Old Simpson is boozing away down at the Jersey Arms. I heard him tell pretty Ann, the barmaid, that he would have to be home by midnight, for the 'old man' would surely arrive in the morning. Now, will you stay here with this man, and 'do up' old Simpson? Mind you, there must be no stab or bullet wound. The 'life preserver,' and, then over with him! They will only think that rum and the fall did the business.