The Island Mystery Part 10

"Do you happen to know, Smith"--Phillips asked his question abruptly--"whether any one has been living in the palace lately? Last year, for instance, or at any time since the last king was murdered there?"

"Murdered, sir, how horrible! Was it long ago, sir?"

The a.s.sa.s.sination of King Otto had been mentioned, even discussed, a dozen times while Smith was waiting at table. Very good servants--and Smith was one of the best--are able, it is believed, to abstract their minds from the conversation of their masters, will actually hear nothing of what is said in their presence. Yet it seemed to Phillips as if Smith were overdoing his pose of ignorance.

"It was years ago, I believe. What I want to know is whether any one has been living in the palace since."

"Don't know, sir, I'm sure. Never been here before till I arrived with you, sir. Would you care for me to make inquiries? Some of the natives would be sure to know."

"Ask that patriarch," said Phillips, "Stephanos or whatever he's called. Ask him next time you take him out for a row at six o'clock in the morning."

He knew that he had startled Smith once when he referred to the seagulls' eggs. He hoped to take him off his guard this time by showing that he had watched the whole of the morning row. But this time Smith was not to be caught. He made no sign whatever that anything unexpected had been said. He was not looking at Phillips. His eyes were fixed on the palace.

"I beg pardon, sir," he said after a slight pause, "but perhaps we ought to leave the deck, to go below. Seems to me, sir, that the Queen is going to bathe. She mightn't like it, sir, if she thought we were here watching her."

The Queen was descending steps clad in a scarlet bathing dress. It is not likely that she would have resented the presence of spectators on the deck of a steamer nearly half a mile distant. Nor, indeed, is it likely that Kalliope would have been seriously embarra.s.sed, though she saw no sense in wearing clothes of any kind when she intended to bathe. But Mr. Phillips was a young man and modest. One fleeting glimpse of Kalliope poised ready for her plunge was sufficient for him. He turned and left the deck. Smith was already busy with his cooking.

CHAPTER X

The peculiarity of Smith's proceedings highly stimulated the curiosity of Mr. Phillips. The envelope in his pocket helped him to the belief that he held the clue of an exciting mystery. He pondered the matter while he shaved. He was dull company at breakfast because he could not get it out of his head. He made up his mind at last to confide his vague suspicions to Mr. Donovan. This was a difficult decision to arrive at. He would have much preferred to unravel his mystery himself, to go to the Queen with evidence completely sufficient to condemn a whole band of conspirators. But he saw no chance of getting any further in his investigations. Smith's morning expedition remained obstinately unconnected with the torn envelope. A sense of loyalty to his employers combined with devotion to the Queen decided him to tell Mr. Donovan all he knew.

The work of unloading the _Ida_ went on briskly all the morning. Mr.

Donovan sat, remote from the turmoil, on his balcony. Mr. Phillips, seeking a moment when Smith was busy elsewhere, climbed to the balcony. Mr. Donovan welcomed him.

"Sit right down," he said. "There's another chair knocking about somewhere. Take a cigar."

Mr. Phillips hauled a deck chair from the suns.h.i.+ne into the shade and stood leaning over the back of it.

"This island," said Mr. Donovan, "seems likely to be restful. Once we're through with the job of landing our trunks we shall be able to settle down and just stay put. I don't say but it's pleasant for a man like me who's worked some in his time to sit here and watch other people sweating----"

He waved his hand towards the islanders, who staggered up the steps under their loads. He included with a sweeping gesture two boats which had just left the s.h.i.+p's side. The day was exceedingly hot. All these men were certainly sweating. The clanking and rattling of the donkey engines were plainly audible across the water. The engineman was probably sweating too. Captain Wilson, standing erect in the full blaze of the sun on the steamer's fore-deck, cannot possibly have been cool. Mr. Donovan sighed with satisfaction.

"I don't deny that it's pleasant," he said, "kind of aggravates the sense of restfulness; but for real calm give me a country where n.o.body works at all. That's what I am looking forward to. That's why I reckon this island is going to suit me."

"Mr. Donovan," said Phillips, "there's a matter I want to speak to you about. I daresay there's nothing in it; but I can't help feeling----"

Mr. Phillips' hand went to his breast pocket. He clutched the torn envelope.

"Here's something I picked up the day before yesterday," he said.

Smith stepped suddenly between him and Mr. Donovan. Smith was a hard worker, and a loud shouter when shouting was desirable. He was also, as Phillips knew, a quiet mover when he chose. He held a tray in his hand with two gla.s.ses on it. He handed one to Mr. Donovan and the other to Phillips.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but there's some cases of books come ash.o.r.e, sir. I thought you'd like to arrange about them yourself, sir, seeing as how I don't understand libraries."

He spoke to Phillips. He did not expect Mr. Donovan to arrange anything.

"You're young, Phillips," said Mr. Donovan. "According to the prophets and other wise men it's a good thing to be young. I'm getting on for sixty, but there are compensations. I don't feel called on to see after things. I don't have to toil any. Smith!"

"Yes, sir."

"There exist in the U. S. A. more than two hundred formulae for the compounding of c.o.c.ktails. They vary from the simple dry Martini to the more poetic Angel's Smile. How many of them do you know, Smith?"

"About eight, sir, eight or ten."

"Few men, except professional bar-tenders, know more," said Mr.

Donovan. "But you can learn. I see before you, Smith, years of artistic endeavour. Eight from two hundred leave a hundred and ninety-two. I think I have a book containing the formulae. It was compiled by one of our leading citizens after a term of residence in a dry State. I shall give you the book, Smith. My digestion remains unimpaired up to date. I shall sample the results of your labours."

Mr. Phillips swallowed his c.o.c.ktail and went away without saying any more about the torn envelope. He had no intention of telling his story in the presence of Smith.

He tried again an hour later. He calculated on not being interrupted this time. Smith had gone off to the steamer. From time to time he had to go to the steamer to act as interpreter there. Captain Wilson seemed curiously incapable of making himself understood by the islanders.

"That you again, Mr. Phillips," said Donovan. "Sit down. Take a cigar and sit down."

"There's something I want to speak to you about, sir," said Phillips.

"If you must speak," said Donovan, "I hope you'll sort of murmur. That engine has stopped clanking for a moment and Smith isn't shouting any at those poor devils of islanders. 'Silence,' says the poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'like a poultice came to heal the wound of sound.'

It's a kind of advanced sample of what this island's going to be."

This was not encouraging to Mr. Phillips. He hesitated. Far away, under the shadow of the cliffs, a small boat moved slowly. In it was the Queen, seated in the stern with a huge box of chocolates in her lap. Kalliope rowed, her mouth full of chocolates. Phillips could not see the box or Kalliope's mouth. The boat was too far away for that.

But he knew the chocolates were there. Early in the day the Queen had come to him and demanded candies. She had come at a fortunate moment.

He was in the act of opening a large case, sent out, so the label declared, by Fuller, and Kalliope had carried down to the boat a huge box of chocolates. It was the sight of that boat--perhaps, too, the thought of the chocolates--which spurred Mr. Phillips to tell his tale in spite of all discouragement. Is there anything which is more eloquent of innocent helplessness, anything which makes a stronger appeal to the protective instinct of a man, than the vision of two girls eating chocolates?

"The day I first landed, sir," he said, "I found this."

He handed the torn envelope to Mr. Donovan.

"The postmark, sir," he said, "is London, December 15, 1913. Now how do you think it got here?"

Donovan looked at the envelope curiously. He turned it over, felt the texture of it with his fingers. At last he spoke.

"Mr. Phillips," he said, "I may be wrong in my interpretation of facts. I don't know that any recognized minister of religion would support me; but it's my belief that if Eve hadn't stirred that serpent up, kind of annoyed him by poking round, the creature would have lain quiet enough and there'd have been no trouble about the apple. That's the nature of snakes. I've seen quite a few and I know. Now this island is about the nearest thing to a real restful paradise that I've b.u.mped into since I first started my pilgrimage through this vale of tears. I don't say there's no snakes in it. There may be. But my notion is to let those snakes lie unless they start in molesting me."

"But," said Mr. Phillips, "there must have been somebody in the house here, somebody who had no right to be in it. Otherwise how would that envelope with the London postmark----"

"The British nation," said Donovan, "is at the present moment exciting itself quite a bit about the effect of the Movies--what you call cinemas your side--on the minds of the young. What your leading reformers say is that it upsets the budding intellect of the rising generation to present life to it as life is not. As a general rule I'm not much taken up with eminent reformers. They're a cla.s.s of citizens I don't admire, though I admit they have their uses in supplying loftiness of view and generally keeping up the more serious kinds of charm practised by the female s.e.x. But in the matter of the effect of movies on the young mind those reformers may be right. It seems to me you've gathered in some foolish notions about life, Mr. Phillips.

Desperate villains dropping envelopes and generally scattering clues along their tracks would be interesting things, a darned sight more interesting than eminent reformers. Only there aren't any. They don't exist outside of novels and picture houses."

Mr. Donovan held out the torn envelope. Phillips took it and stuffed it into his pocket again. He was unconvinced. Cinema exhibitions are responsible for many vain imaginings, no doubt; but his envelope was a fact. He had found it. The postmark was plain and clear. He moved over to the edge of the balcony and gazed out across the sunlit bay. It seemed impossible then and there to tell the story of Smith's morning expedition. Mr. Donovan's logical rationalism was invincible.

"If you happen to come on that book about c.o.c.ktails," said Donovan, "just give it to Smith. It's somewhere. In giving the order for the library for this island, I specially mentioned that book along with complete ill.u.s.trated editions of all standard American and European authors."

Phillips turned and left the balcony. It was, after all, absurd to worry and puzzle over his envelope. It could have no meaning. Some stray tourist perhaps, sight-seeing far from all beaten tracks, had made his way into the house. Tourists are notorious for leaving paper behind them. As for Smith and his boating at dawn--could Smith possibly have gone to search for breakfast eggs in a sea cave?

He glanced once more at the bay before he returned to his work. The Queen's boat was no longer in sight. The girls had landed perhaps in some quiet creek, or the Queen had taken a fancy to cross the bay and explore the village where her subjects lived.