The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
here, if you have any, I shall be obliged. You are delaying Mr. Cooke."
The chief was seized with a nervous tremor. I think we were a pair in that, only I managed to keep mine, under. When it came to the point, and any bribing was to be done, I had hit upon a course. Self-respect demanded a dignity on my part. With a painful indecision McCann pulled a paper from his pocket which I saw was a warrant. And he dropped his cigar. Mr. Cooke was quick to give him another.
"Ye come from Bear Island, Mr. Crocker?" he inquired.
I replied in the affirmative.
"I hope it's news I'm telling you," he said soberly; "I'm hoping it's news when I say that I'm here for Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen,--that's the gentleman's name. He's after taking a hundred thousand dollars away from Boston." Then he turned to Mr. Cooke. "The gentleman was aboard your boat, sir, when you left that country place of yours,--what d'ye call it?--Mohair? Thank you, sir." And he wiped the water from his brow. "And they're telling me he was on Bear Island with ye? Sure, sir, and I can't see why a gentleman of your standing would be wanting to get him over the border. But I must do my duty. Begging your pardon, Mr. Crocker," he added, with a bow to me.
"Certainly, McCann," I said.
For a space there was only the bumping and straining of the yacht and the swish of the water against her sides. Then the chief spoke again.
"It will be saving you both trouble and inconvenience, Mr. Crocker, if you give him up, sir."
What did the man mean? Why in the name of the law didn't he make a move? I was conscious that my client was fumbling in his clothes for the wallet; that he had muttered an invitation for the chief to go inside. McCann smoked uneasily.
"I don't want to search the boat, sir."
At these words we all turned with one accord towards the cabin. I felt Farrar gripping my arm tightly from behind.
The Celebrity had disappeared!
It was Mr. Cooke who spoke.
"Search the boat!" he said, something between a laugh and a cry.
"Yes, sir," the chief repeated firmly. "It's sorry I am to do it, with Mr. Crocker here, too."
I have always maintained that nature had endowed my client with rare gifts; and the ease with which he now assumed a part thus unexpectedly thrust upon him, as well as the assurance with which he carried it out, goes far to prove it.
"If there's anything in your line aboard, chief," he said blandly, "help yourself!"
Some of us laughed. I thought things a little too close to be funny. Since the Celebrity had lost his nerve and betaken himself to the place of concealment Mr. Cooke had prepared for him, the whole composition of the affair was changed. Before, if McCann had arrested the ostensible Mr. Allen, my word, added to fifty dollars from my client, would probably have been sufficient. Should he be found now, no district attorney on the face of the earth could induce the chief to believe that he was any other than the real criminal; nor would any bribe be large enough to compensate McCann for the consequences of losing so important a prisoner. There was nothing now but to carry it off with a high hand. McCann got up.
"Be your lave, Mr. Crocker," he said.
"Never you mind me, McCann," I replied, "but you do what is right."
With that he began his search. It might have been ludicrous if I had had any desire to laugh, for the chief wore the gingerly air of a man looking for a rattlesnake which has to be got somehow. And my client assisted at the inspection with all the graces of a dancing-master. McCann poked into the forward lockers where we kept the stores,--dropping the iron lid within an inch of his toe,--and the clothing-lockers and the sail-lockers. He reached under the bunks, and drew out his hand again quickly, as though he expected to be bitten. And at last he stood by the trap with the hole in it, under which the Celebrity lay prostrate. I could hear my own breathing. But Mr. Cooke had his wits about him still, and at this critical juncture he gave McCann a thump on the back which nearly carried him off his feet.
"They say the mast is hollow, old man," he suggested.
"Be jabers, Mr. Cooke," said McCann, "and I'm beginning to think it is!
"He took off his cap and scratched his head.
"Well, McCann, I hope you're contented," I said.
"Mr. Crocker," said he, "and it's that thankful I am for you that the gent ain't here. But with him cutting high finks up at Mr. Cooke's house with a valet, and him coming on the yacht with yese, and the whole country in that state about him, begorra," said McCann, "and it's domned strange! Maybe it's swimmin' in the water he is!"
The whole party had followed the search, and at this speech of the chief's our nervous tension became suddenly relaxed. Most of us sat down to laugh.
"I'm asking no questions, Mr. Crocker, yell take notice," he remarked, his voice full of reproachful meaning.
"McCann," said I, "you come outside. I want to speak to you."
He followed me out.
"Now," I went on, "you know me pretty well" (he nodded doubtfully), "and if I give you my word that Charles Wrexell Allen is not on this yacht, and never has been, is that sufficient?"
"Is it the truth you're saying, sir?"
I assured him that it was.
"Then where is he, Mr. Crocker?"
"God only knows!" I replied, with fervor. "I don't, McCann."
The chief was satisfied. He went back into the cabin, and Mr. Cooke, in the exuberance of his joy, produced champagne. McCann had heard of my client and of his luxurious country place, and moreover it was the first time he had ever been on a yellow-plush yacht. He tarried. He drank Mr. Cooke's health and looked around him in wonder and awe, and his remarks were worthy of record. These sayings and the thought of the author of The Sybarites stifling below with his mouth to an auger-hole kept us in a continual state of merriment. And at last our visitor rose to go.
As he was stepping over the side, Mr. Cooke laid hold of a brass button and pressed a handful of the black cigars upon him.
"My regards to the detective, old man," said he.
McCann stared.
"My regards to Drew," my client insisted.
"Oh!" said McCann, his face lighting up, "him with the whiskers, what came from Bear Island in a cat-boat. Sure, he wasn't no detective, sir."
"What was he? A police commissioner?"
"Mr. Cooke," said McCann, disdainfully, as he got into his boat, "he wasn't nothing but a prospector doing the lake for one of them summer hotel companies."
CHAPTER XIX
When the biography of the Celebrity is written, and I have no doubt it will be some day, may his biographer kindly draw a veil over that instant in his life when he was tenderly and obsequiously raised by Mr. Cooke from the trap in the floor of the Maria's cabin.
It is sometimes the case that a good fright will heal a feud. And whereas, before the arrival of the H. Sinclair, there had been much dissension and many quarrels concerning the disposal of the quasi Charles Wrexell Allen, when the tug steamed away to the southwards but one opinion remained,--that, like Jonah, he must be got rid of. And no one concurred more heartily in