The Riddle of the Sands Part 30

Such were the princ.i.p.al features of the scene; for details I had to make another inspection. Stooping low, I crept back, quiet as a cat, till I was beneath the window, and, as I calculated, directly behind Dollmann's chair. Then with great caution I raised my head. There was only one pair of eyes in the room that I feared in the least, and that was Grimm's, who sat in profile to me, farthest away. I instantly put Dollmann's back between Grimm and me, and then made my scrutiny. As I made it, I could feel a cold sweat distilling on my forehead and tickling my spine; not from fear or excitement, but from pure ignominy. For beyond all doubt I was present at the meeting of a _bona-fide_ salvage company. It was pay-day, and the directors appeared to be taking stock of work done; that was all.

Over the door was an old engraving of a two-decker under full sail; pinned on the wall a chart and the plan of a s.h.i.+p. Relics of the wrecked frigate abounded. On a shelf above the stove was a small pyramid of encrusted cannon-b.a.l.l.s, and supported on nails at odd places on the walls were corroded old pistols, and what I took to be the remains of a s.e.xtant. In a corner of the floor sat a h.o.a.ry little carronade, carriage and all. None of these things affected me so much as a pile of lumber on the floor, not firewood but unmistakable wreck-wood, black as bog-oak, still caked in places with the mud of ages. Nor was it the mere sight of this lumber that dumbfounded me.

It was the fact that a fragment of it, a balk of curved timber garnished with some ma.s.sive bolts, lay on the table, and was evidently an object of earnest interest. The diver had turned and was arguing with gestures over it; von Bruning and Grimm were pressing another view. The diver shook his head frequently, finally shrugged his shoulders, made a salutation, and left the room. Their movements had kept me ducking my head pretty frequently, but I now grew almost reckless as to whether I was seen or not. All the weaknesses of my theory crowded on me--the arguments Davies had used at Bensersiel; Fraulein Dollmann's thoughtless talk; the ease (comparatively) with which I had reached this spot, not a barrier to cross or a lock to force; the publicity of their pa.s.sage to Memmert by Dollmann, his friend, and Grimm; and now this glimpse of business-like routine. In a few moments I sank from depth to depth of scepticism. Where were my mines, torpedoes, and submarine boats, and where my imperial conspirators? Was gold after all at the bottom of this sordid mystery? Dollmann after all a commonplace criminal? The ladder of proof I had mounted tottered and shook beneath me. 'Don't be a fool,'

said the faint voice of reason. 'There are your four men. Wait.'

Two more _employes_ came into the room in quick succession and received wages; one looking like a fireman, the other of a superior type, the skipper of a tug, say. There was another discussion with this latter over the balk of wreck-wood, and this man, too, shrugged his shoulders. His departure appeared to end the meeting. Grimm shut up a ledger, and I shrank down on my knees, for a general s.h.i.+fting of chairs began. At the same time, from the other side of the building, I heard my knot of men retreating beachwards, spitting and chatting as they went. Presently someone walked across the room towards my window. I sidled away on all fours, rose and flattened myself erect against the wall, a sickening despondency on me; my intention to slink away south-east as soon as the coast was clear. But the sound that came next p.r.i.c.ked me like an electric shock; it was the tinkle and sc.r.a.pe of curtain-rings.

Quick as thought I was back in my old position, to find my view barred by a cretonne curtain. It was in one piece, with no c.h.i.n.k for my benefit, but it did not hang straight, bulging towards me under the pressure of something--human shoulders by the shape. Dollmann, I concluded, was still in his old place. I now was exasperated to find that I could scarcely hear a word that was said, not even by pressing my ear against the gla.s.s. It was not that the speakers were of set purpose hus.h.i.+ng their voices--they used an ordinary tone for intimate discussion--but the gla.s.s and curtain deadened the actual words.

Still, I was soon able to distinguish general characteristics. Von Bruning's voice--the only one I had ever heard before--I recognized at once: he was on the left of the table, and Dollmann's I knew from his position. The third was a harsh croak, belonging to the old gentleman whom, for convenience, I shall prematurely begin to call Herr Bohme. It was too old a voice to be Grimm's; besides, it had the ring of authority, and was dealing at the moment in sharp interrogations. Three of its sentences I caught in their entirety.

'When was that?' 'They went no farther?' and 'Too long; out of the question.' Dollmann's voice, though nearest to me, was the least audible of all. It was a dogged monotone, and what was that odd movement of the curtain at his back? Yes, his hands were behind him clutching and kneading a fold of the cretonne. 'You are feeling uncomfortable, my friend,' was my comment. Suddenly he threw back his head--I saw the dent of it--and spoke up so that I could not miss a word. 'Very well, sir, you shall see them at supper to-night; I will ask them both.'

(You will not be surprised to learn that I instantly looked at my watch--though it takes long to write what I have described--but the time was only a quarter to four.) He added something about the fog, and his chair creaked. Ducking promptly I heard the curtain-rings jar, and: 'Thick as ever.'

'Your report, Herr Dollmann,' said Bohme, curtly. Dollmann left the window and moved his chair up to the table; the other two drew in theirs and settled themselves.

'_Chatham,'_ said Dollmann, as if announcing a heading. It was an easy word to catch, rapped out sharp, and you can imagine how it startled me. 'That's where you've been for the last month!' I said to myself.

A map crackled and I knew they were bending over it, while Dollmann explained something. But now my exasperation became acute, for not a syllable more reached me. Squatting back on my heels, I cast about for expedients. Should I steal round and try the door? Too dangerous.

Climb to the roof and listen down the stove-pipe? Too noisy, and generally hopeless. I tried for a downward purchase on the upper half of the window, which was of the simple sort in two sections, working vertically. No use; it resisted gentle pressure, would start with a sudden jar if I forced it. I pulled out Davies's knife and worked the point of the blade between sash and frame to give it play--no result; but the knife was a nautical one, with a marlin-spike as well as a big blade.

Just now the door within opened and shut again, and I heard steps approaching round the corner to my right. I had the presence of mind not to lose a moment, but moved silently away (blessing the deep Frisian sand) round the corner of the big parallel building. Someone whom I could not see walked past till his boots clattered on tiles, next resounded on boards. 'Grimm in his living-room,' I inferred. The precious minutes ebbed away--five, ten, fifteen. Had he gone for good? I dared not return otherwise. Eighteen--he was coming out! This time I stole forward boldly when the man had just pa.s.sed, dimly saw a figure, and clearly enough the glint of a white paper he was holding.

He made his circuit and re-entered the room.

Here I felt and conquered a relapse to scepticism. 'If this is an important conclave why don't they set guards?' Answer, the only possible one, 'Because they stand alone. Their _employes,_ like _everyone_ we had met hitherto, know nothing. The real object of this salvage company (a poor speculation, I opined) is solely to afford a pretext for the conclave.' 'Why the curtain, even?' 'Because there are maps, stupid!'

I was back again at the window, but as impotent as ever against that even stream of low confidential talk. But I would not give up. Fate and the fog had brought me here, the one solitary soul perhaps who by the chain of circ.u.mstances had both the will and the opportunity to wrest their secret from these four men.

The marlin-spike! Where the lower half of the window met the sill it sank into a shallow groove. I thrust the point of the spike down into the interstice between sash and frame and heaved with a slowly increasing force, which I could regulate to the fraction of an ounce, on this powerful lever. The sash gave, with the faintest possible protest, and by imperceptible degrees I lifted it to the top of the groove, and the least bit above it, say half an inch in all; but it made an appreciable difference to the sounds within, as when you remove your foot from a piano's soft pedal. I could do no more, for there was no further fulcrum for the spike, and I dared not gamble away what I had won by using my hands.

Hope sank again when I placed my cheek on the damp sill, and my ear to the c.h.i.n.k. My men were close round the table referring to papers which I heard rustle. Dollmann's 'report' was evidently over, and I rarely heard his voice; Grimm's occasionally, von Bruning's and Bohme's frequently; but, as before, it was the latter only that I could ever count on for an intelligible word. For, unfortunately, the villains of the piece plotted without any regard to dramatic fitness or to my interests. Immersed in a subject with which they were all familiar, they were allusive, elliptic, and persistently technical.

Many of the words I did catch were unknown to me. The rest were, for the most part, either letters of the alphabet or statistical figures, of depth, distance, and, once or twice, of time. The letters of the alphabet recurred often, and seemed, as far as I could make out, to represent the key to the cipher. The numbers cl.u.s.tering round them were mostly very small, with decimals. What maddened me most was the scarcity of plain nouns.

To report what I heard to the reader would be impossible; so chaotic was most of it that it left no impression on my own memory. All I can do is to tell him what fragments stuck, and what nebulous cla.s.sification I involved. The letters ran from A to G, and my best continuous chance came when Bohme, reading rapidly from a paper, I think, went through the letters, backwards, from G, adding remarks to each; thus: 'G. . . completed.' 'F. . . bad. . . 1.3 (metres?). . .2.5 (kilometres?).' 'E . . . thirty-two. . . 1.2.' 'D. . . 3 weeks. . .

thirty.' 'C. . .' and soon.

Another time he went through this list again, only naming each letter himself, and receiving laconic answers from Grimm--answers which seemed to be numbers, but I could not be sure. For minutes together I caught nothing but the scratching of pens and inarticulate mutterings. But out of the muck-heap I picked five pearls--four sibilant nouns and a name that I knew before. The nouns were 'Schleppboote' (tugs); 'Wa.s.sertiefe'

(depth of water); 'Eisenbahn' (railway); 'Lotsen' (pilots). The name, also sibilant and thus easier to hear, was 'Esens'.

Two or three times I had to stand back and ease my cramped neck, and on each occasion I looked at my watch, for I was listening against time, just as we had rowed against time. We were going to be asked to supper, and must be back aboard the yacht in time to receive the invitation. The fog still brooded heavily and the light, always bad, was growing worse. How would _they_ get back? How had they come from Juist? Could we forestall them? Questions of time, tide, distance--just the odious sort of sums I was unfit to cope with--were distracting my attention when it should have been wholly elsewhere.

4.20--4.25--now it was past 4.30 when Davies said the bank would cover. I should have to make for the beacon; but it was fatally near that steamboat path, etc., and I still at intervals heard voices from there. It must have been about 4.35 when there was another s.h.i.+fting of chairs within. Then someone rose, collected papers, and went out; someone else, _without_ rising (therefore Grimm), followed him.

There was silence in the room for a minute, and after that, for the first time, I heard some plain colloquial German, with no accompaniment of scratching or rustling. 'I must wait for this,' I thought, and waited.

'He insists on coming,' said Bohme.

'Ach!' (an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of surprise and protest from von Bruning).

'I said the _25th_.'

'Why?'

'The tide serves well. The night-train, of course. Tell Grimm to be ready--' (An inaudible question from von Bruning.) 'No, any weather.'

A laugh from von Bruning and some words I could not catch.

'Only one, with half a load.'

'. . .meet?'

'At the station.'

'So--how's the fog?'

This appeared to be really the end. Both men rose and steps came towards the window. I leapt aside as I heard it thrown up, and covered by the noise backed into safety. Von Bruning called 'Grimm!'

and that, and the open window, decided me that my line of advance was now too dangerous to retreat by. The only alternative was to make a circuit round the bigger of the two buildings--and an interminable circuit it seemed--and all the while I knew my compa.s.s-course 'south-east' was growing nugatory. I pa.s.sed a padlocked door, two corners, and faced the void of fog. Out came the compa.s.s, and I steadied myself for the sum. 'South-east before--I'm farther to the eastward now--east will about do'; and off I went, with an error of four whole points, over tussocks and deep sand. The beach seemed much farther off than I had thought, and I began to get alarmed, puzzled over the compa.s.s several times, and finally realized that I had lost my way. I had the sense not to make matters worse by trying to find it again, and, as the lesser of two evils, blew my whistle, softly at first, then louder. The bray of a foghorn sounded right _behind_ me.

I whistled again and then ran for my life, the horn sounding at intervals. In three or four minutes I was on the beach and in the dinghy.

XXIII. A Change of Tactics

WE pushed off without a word, and paddled out of sight of the beach.

A voice was approaching, hailing us. 'Hail back,' whispered Davies; 'pretend we're a galliot.'

'Ho-a,' I shouted, 'where am I?'

'Off Memmert,' came back. 'Where are you bound?'

'Delfzyl,' whispered Davies.

'Delf-zyl,' I bawled.

A sentence ending with 'anchor' was returned.

'The flood's tearing east,' whispered Davies; 'sit still.'

We heard no more, and, after a few minutes' drifting 'What luck?'

said Davies.

'One or two clues, and an invitation to supper.'

The clues I left till later; the invitation was the thing, and I explained its urgency.

'How will _they_ get back?' said Davies; 'if the fog lasts the steamer's sure to be late.'

'We can count for nothing,' I answered. 'There was some little steamboat off the depot, and the fog may lift. Which is our quickest way?'

'At this tide, a bee-line to Norderney by compa.s.s; we shall have water over all the banks.'