Major Vigoureux Part 34

"I really cannot tell." Without lifting his gaze from the fire he shook his head dubiously. "But at the worst, the girls are grown into women now. They have been excellently well educated--their mother saw to that and made a great point of it from the first--and by this time they should be able to help, if not support her entirely."

"Man! Man! Will you drive me mad?"

Vashti sprang from the chair.

"I have been unjust. I have been worse than a fool!" She flung back her cloak, and, clasping her hands behind her, man-fas.h.i.+on, fell to pacing the room to and fro. The Commandant stood and stared. Something in her voice puzzled him completely. In its tone, though she accused herself, there vibrated a low note of triumph. She was genuinely remorseful--why, he could not guess. Yet, when she halted before him, he saw that her eyes were glad as well as dim. She held out a hand.

"Forgive me, my friend!"

"Do you know," stammered the Commandant, as he took it, "I should esteem it a favour to be told whether I am standing on my head or my heels!"

How long he held her hand he was never afterwards able to tell; for at its electric touch the room began to swim around him. But this could not have lasted for long; because, as he looked into her eyes, still seeking an explanation, she broke off the half-hysterical laugh that answered him, and pulled her hand away sharply at a sound behind them.

Someone was throwing gravel against the window.

"Commandant!" a voice hailed from the darkness without.

For an instant the two stood as if petrified. Then with a second glance at the window, to make sure that the curtain was drawn, Vashti tip-toed swiftly to the door, catching up the guitar on her way.

"Hi! Commandant! Are you waking or sleeping in there?"

The Commandant stepped to the curtain. Vashti opened the door and slipped out into the pa.s.sage. The door closed upon her as he pulled the curtain aside for a second time that night and opened the cas.e.m.e.nt.

"Who's there?"

"So you _are_ awake?" answered the voice of Mr. Rogers. "May I come in?" And, silence being apparently taken for consent, a foot and leg followed the voice across the window-sill.

CHAPTER XXI

SUSPICIONS

The foot and leg were followed by Mr. Rogers' entire person, and Mr.

Rogers, having thus made good his entrance, stood blinking, with an apologetic laugh. "You'll excuse me--but I took it for granted the door was barred, and seeing a glimmer of light in the window here----"

"Anything wrong?" asked the Commandant.

"Nothing's wrong, I hope"--Mr. Rogers stepped over to the warm fire.

"But something's queer." He fished out a pipe from the pocket of his thick pilot coat, filled it, lit up, and sank puffing into the arm-chair from which, a minute ago, Vashti had s.n.a.t.c.hed up her guitar.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon the empty packing-case.

"You don't mean to tell me that you've been smuggling?"

The Commandant shook his head and laughed, albeit with some confusion.

"The steamer brought it this morning. I a.s.sure you it held nothing contraband.... But I hope that little game is not starting afresh in the Islands? It gave us a deal of trouble in the old days; and there was quite an outbreak of it, as I remember, some three or four years before you came to us. Old Penkivel"--this was Mr. Rogers'

predecessor--"used to declare that it turned his hair gray."

"He told me something beside, on the morning he sailed for the mainland; which was that but for the help you gave him as Governor he could never have grappled with it. Maybe this was sticking in my head just now when I started to walk up here and consult you."

"Well, and what is the matter?"

"Oh, a trifle.... Do you happen to know Tregarthen, the fellow that farms Saaron Island?"

The Commandant started.

"Eli Tregarthen? Yes, certainly ... that is to say, as I know pretty well everybody in the Islands."

"What sort of a fellow?"

"Quiet; steady; works on his farm like a horse, week in and week out; never speaks out of his turn, and says little enough when his turn comes."

"That sort is often the deepest," observed Mr. Rogers sententiously, and puffed. "And Saaron Island there, close by the Roads, lies very handy for a little illicit work."

"You are right, so far," the Commandant admitted; "and history bears you out. In the old kelp-making days, when half-a-dozen families lived on it, Saaron gave more trouble than any two islands of its size."

"It's none the less handy for being deserted." Mr. Rogers drew out a penknife and meditatively loosened the tobacco in his pipe.

"Handier. But you are wrong in suspecting Tregarthen; that is, unless you have good tangible evidence."

"I don't say that it amounts to much, but it's tangible. In fact, his boat is lying here, just now, close under the Keg of b.u.t.ter."

The Commandant turned on his heel and took a pace or two towards the window, to hide his perturbation and give himself time to consider....

Vashti's boat! And Vashti on the premises at this moment! What was to be done? How on earth could he get her away?

"You discovered this yourself?" he found himself asking.

"No; I happened to be in the Watch House with the chief boatman checking the store-sheets, when Beesley, whose watch it is, came in and reported. I see what you're driving at. Your own boat is lying under the Keg of b.u.t.ter, as everybody knows, and you suggest that I am duffer enough to mistake her in the darkness for a boat at least two-foot longer."

Mr. Rogers laughed good-naturedly.

"But the answer is," he went on, "that Beesley found two boats lying there; and Beesley, who knows every craft in the Islands, swears that the one belongs to you no more certainly than the other to Farmer Tregarthen. Moreover, she was moored on a sh.o.r.e line, and we pulled her in and examined her. Sure enough we found name and owner's name cut on her transom--'Two Sisters: E. Tregarthen.' Now, what d'you make of it?"

"Very little," answered the Commandant, recovering himself; "and that little in all likelihood quite innocent. Someone, we'll say, wishes to cross over from Saaron to St. Lide's this evening--on any simple errand, say to fetch a parcel from the steamer. Why shouldn't that someone, knowing the Keg of b.u.t.ter to be good shelter with plenty of water at all tides, have landed and left the boat there?"

Mr. Rogers shook his head. "Why there, and not at the pier? The pier lies almost a mile nearer, and there's a fair wind--or almost a fair one--for returning; while from the Keg of b.u.t.ter no one can fetch Saaron under a couple of tacks. That's my first point. Secondly, if Eli Tregarthen has honest business here, whether with the steamer to fetch a parcel (parcels must be running in your head to-night), or in the town to fetch a doctor, the pier is obviously his landing-place. Why, there isn't a house in the Island, barring these Barracks, that doesn't stand half-a-mile nearer the pier; not to mention that landing at the Keg of b.u.t.ter involves a perfectly unnecessary climb up one side of Garrison Hill and down the other. Lastly, my dear sir, look at the time! Close on eleven o'clock, and all Garland Town in their beds.

Again, I ask what honest business can Eli Tregarthen have here at such an hour?"

The Commandant felt himself cornered. An insane hope crossed his mind that, while the Lieutenant sat talking, Vashti had contrived to slip out of the house and down to the sh.o.r.e. It was followed by a saner one, that she had done nothing of the sort; for, to a certainty, the boat would be guarded.

"You have taken precautions?" he asked, and felt himself flus.h.i.+ng at the dishonesty of the question.

"I have posted Beesley in charge, and sent the chief boatman off to the pier-head to keep a close watch on the steamer. She sails at seven-thirty to-morrow, and though I never heard a hint against her skipper, it's only right to be careful. I've amused myself before now, planning imaginary frauds on the revenue; and if anyone cares to risk opening up that game afresh, the Islands still give him a-plenty of openings."

"Yes, yes," agreed the Commandant, and checked a groan. He had thought of warning Vashti to slip down to the quay and borrow a boat there without asking leave. Some explanation might be trumped up on the morrow--as that the wind was foul for returning from the Keg of b.u.t.ter.

No one would accuse Eli Tregarthen of borrowing a boat with intent to steal: his taking it would be no more than a neighbourly liberty.

But, with the chief boatman watching the pier-head, she would be discovered to a certainty.