SHERLOCK HOLMES,
DETECTIVE.
Ferreting Done Here.
Plots for Sale.
“I think he made a mistake in not taking the £200 for the watch. Such carelessness destroys my confidence in him,” said Shylock, who was the first to recover from the surprise of the revelation.
“THE STRANGER DREW FORTH A BUNDLE OF BUSINESS CARDS”
III
The Search-Party is Organized
“Well, Mr. Holmes,” said Sir Walter Raleigh, after three rousing cheers, led by Hamlet, had been given with a will by the assembled spirits, “after this demonstration in your honor I think it is hardly necessary for me to assure you of our hearty co-operation in anything you may venture to suggest. There is still manifest, however, some desire on the part of the ever-wise King Solomon and my friend Confucius to know how you deduce that Kidd has sailed for London, from the cigar end which you hold in your hand.”
“THREE ROUSING CHEERS, LED BY HAMLET, WERE GIVEN”
“I can easily satisfy their curiosity,” said Sherlock Holmes, genially. “I believe I have already proven that it is the end of Kidd’s cigar. The marks of the teeth have shown that. Now observe how closely it is smoked—there is barely enough of it left for one to insert between his teeth. Now Captain Kidd would hardly have risked the edges of his mustache and the comfort of his lips by smoking a cigar down to the very light if he had had another; nor would he under any circumstances have smoked it that far unless he were passionately addicted to this particular brand of the weed. Therefore I say to you, first, this was his cigar; second, it was the last one he had; third, he is a confirmed smoker. The result, he has gone to the one place in the world where these Connecticut hand-rolled Havana cigars—for I recognize this as one of them—have a real popularity, and are therefore more certainly obtainable, and that is at London. You cannot get so vile a cigar as that outside of a London hotel. If I could have seen a quarter-inch more of it, I should have been able definitely to locate the hotel itself. The wrappers unroll to a degree that varies perceptibly as between the different hotels. The Metropole cigar can be smoked a quarter through before its wrapper gives way; the Grand wrapper goes as soon as you light the cigar; whereas the Savoy, fronting on the Thames, is surrounded by a moister atmosphere than the others, and, as a consequence, the wrapper will hold really until most people are willing to throw the whole thing away.”
“It is really a wonderful art!” said Solomon.
“The making of a Connecticut Havana cigar?” laughed Holmes. “Not at all. Give me a head of lettuce and a straw, and I’ll make you a box.”
“I referred to your art—that of detection,” said Solomon. “Your logic is perfect; step by step we have been led to the irresistible conclusion that Kidd has made for London, and can be found at one of these hotels.”
“And only until next Tuesday, when he will take a house in the neighborhood of Scotland Yard,” put in Holmes, quickly, observing a sneer on Hawkshaw’s lips, and hastening to overwhelm him by further evidence of his ingenuity. “When he gets his bill he will open his piratical eyes so wide that he will be seized with jealousy to think of how much more refined his profession has become since he left it, and out of mere pique he will leave the hotel, and, to show himself still cleverer than his modern prototypes, he will leave his account unpaid, with the result that the affair will be put in the hands of the police, under which circumstances a house in the immediate vicinity of the famous police headquarters will be the safest hiding-place he can find, as was instanced by the remarkable case of the famous Penstock bond robbery. A certain church-warden named Hinkley, having been appointed cashier thereof, robbed the Penstock Imperial Bank of £1,000,000 in bonds, and, fleeing to London, actually joined the detective force at Scotland Yard, and was detailed to find himself, which of course he never did, nor would he ever have been found had he not crossed my path.”
Hawkshaw gazed mournfully off into space, and Le Coq muttered profane words under his breath.
“We’re not in the same class with this fellow, Hawkshaw,” said Le Coq. “You could tap your forehead knowingly eight hours a day through all eternity with a sledge-hammer without loosening an idea like that.”
“Nevertheless I’ll confound him yet,” growled the jealous detective. “I shall myself go to London, and, disguised as Captain Kidd, will lead this visionary on until he comes there to arrest me, and when these club members discover that it is Hawkshaw and not Kidd he has run to earth, we’ll have a great laugh on Sherlock Holmes.”
“I am anxious to hear how you solved the bond-robbery mystery,” said Socrates, wrapping his toga closely about him and settling back against one of the spiles of the wharf.
“So are we all,” said Sir Walter. “But meantime the House-boat is getting farther away.”
“Not unless she’s sailing backwards,” sneered Noah, who was still nursing his resentment against Sir Christopher Wren for his reflections upon the speed of the Ark.
“What’s the hurry?” asked Socrates. “I believe in making haste slowly; and on the admission of our two eminent naval architects, Sir Christopher and Noah, neither of their vessels can travel more than a mile a week, and if we charter the Flying Dutchman to go in pursuit of her we can catch her before she gets out of the Styx into the Atlantic.”
“Jonah might lend us his whale, if the beast is in commission,” suggested Munchausen, dryly. “I for one would rather take a state-room in Jonah’s whale than go aboard the Flying Dutchman again. I made one trip on the Dutchman, and she’s worse than a dory for comfort; furthermore, I don’t see what good it would do us to charter a boat that can’t land oftener than once in seven years, and spends most of her time trying to double the Cape of Good Hope.”
“My whale is in commission,” said Jonah, with dignity. “But Baron Munchausen need not consider the question of taking a state-room aboard of her. She doesn’t carry second-class passengers. And if I took any stock in the idea of a trip on the Flying Dutchman amounting to a seven years’ exile, I would cheerfully pay the Baron’s expenses for a round trip.”
“We are losing time, gentlemen,” suggested Sherlock Holmes. “This is a moment, I think, when you should lay aside personal differences and personal preferences for immediate action. I have examined the wake of the House-boat, and I judge from the condition of what, for want of a better term, I may call the suds, when she left us the House-boat was making ten knots a day. Almost any craft we can find suitably manned ought to be able to do better than that; and if you could summon Charon and ascertain what boats he has at hand, it would be for the good of all concerned.”
“That’s a good plan,” said Johnson. “Boswell, see if you can find Charon.”
“I am here already, sir,” returned the ferryman, rising. “Most of my boats have gone into winter quarters, your Honor. The Mayflower went into dry dock last week to be calked up; the Pinta and the Santa Maria are slow and cranky; the Monitor and the Merrimac I haven’t really had time to patch up; and the Valkyrie is two months overdue. I cannot make up my mind whether she is lost or kept back by excursion steamers. Hence I really don’t know what I can lend you. Any of these boats I have named you could have had for nothing; but my others are actively employed, and I couldn’t let them go without a serious interference with my business.”
The old man blinked sorrowfully across the waters at the opposite shore. It was quite evident that he realized what a dreadful expense the club was about to be put to, and while of course there would be profit in it for him, he was sincerely sorry for them.
“I repeat,” he added, “those boats you could have had for nothing, but the others I’d have to charge you for, though of course I’ll give you a discount.”
And he blinked again, as he meditated upon whether that discount should be an eighth or one-quarter of one per cent.
“The Flying Dutchman,” he pursued, “ain’t no good for your purposes. She’s too fast. She’s built to fly by, not to stop. You’d catch up with the House-boat in a minute with her, but you’d go right on and disappear like a visionary; and as for the Ark, she’d never do—with all respect to Mr. Noah. She’s just about as suitable as any other waterlogged cattle-steamer’d be, and no more—first-rate for elephants and kangaroos, but no good for cruiser-work, and so slow she wouldn’t make a ripple high enough to drown a gnat going at the top of her speed. Furthermore, she’s got a great big hole in her bottom, where she was stove in by running afoul of—Mount Arrus-root, I believe it was called when Captain Noah went cruising with that menagerie of his.”
“That’s an unmitigated falsehood!” cried Noah, angrily. “This man talks like a professional amateur yachtsman. He has no regard for facts, but simply goes ahead and makes statements with an utter disregard of the truth. The Ark was not stove in. We beached her very successfully. I say this in defence of my seamanship, which was top-notch for my day.”
“Couldn’t sail six weeks without fouling a mountain-peak!” sneered Wren, perceiving a chance to get even.
“The hole’s there, just the same,” said Charon. “Maybe she was a centreboard, and that’s where you kept the board.”
“The hole is there because it was worn there by one of the elephants,” retorted Noah. “You get a beast like the elephant shuffling one of his fore-feet up and down, up and down, a plank for twenty-four hours a day for forty days in one of your boats, and see where your boat would be.”
“Thanks,” said Charon, calmly. “But the elephants don’t patronize my line. All the elephants I’ve ever seen in Hades waded over, except Jumbo, and he reached his trunk across, fastened on to a tree limb with it, and swung himself over. However, the Ark isn’t at all what you want, unless you are going to man her with a lot of centaurs. If that’s your intention, I’d charter her; the accommodations are just the thing for a crew of that kind.”
“Well, what do you suggest?” asked Raleigh, somewhat impatiently. “You’ve told us what we can’t do. Now tell us what we can do.”
“I’d stay right here,” said Charon, “and let the ladies rescue themselves. That’s what I’d do. I’ve had the honor of bringing ‘em over here, and I think I know ‘em pretty well. I’ve watched ‘em close, and it’s my private opinion that before many days you’ll see your club-house sailing back here, with Queen Elizabeth at the hellum, and the other ladies on the for’ard deck knittin’ and crochetin’, and tearin’ each other to pieces in a conversational way, as happy as if there never had been any Captain Kidd and his pirate crew.”
“That suggestion is impossible,” said Blackstone, rising. “Whether the relief expedition amounts to anything or not, it’s good to be set going. The ladies would never forgive us if we sat here inactive, even if they were capable of rescuing themselves. It is an accepted principle of law that this climate hath no fury like a woman left to herself, and we’ve got enough professional furies hereabouts without our aiding in augmenting the ranks. We must have a boat.”
“It’ll cost you a thousand dollars a week,” said Charon.
“I’ll subscribe fifty,” cried Hamlet.
“I’ll consult my secretary,” said Solomon, “and find out how many of my wives have been abducted, and I’ll pay ten dollars apiece for their recovery.”
“That’s liberal,” said Hawkshaw. “There are sixty-three of ‘em on board, together with eighty of his fiancées. What’s the quotation on fiancées, King Solomon?”
“Nothing,” said Solomon. “They’re not mine yet, and it’s their fathers’ business to get ‘em back. Not mine.”
Other subscriptions came pouring in, and it was not long before everybody save Shylock had put his name down for something. This some one of the more quick-witted of the spirits soon observed, and, with reckless disregard of the feelings of the Merchant of Venice, began to call: “Shylock! Shylock! How much?”
The Merchant tried to leave the pier, but his path was blocked.
“Subscribe, subscribe!” was the cry. “How much?”
“Order, gentlemen, order!” said Sir Walter, rising and holding a bottle aloft. “A black person by the name of Friday, a valet of our friend Mr. Crusoe, has just handed me this bottle, which he picked up ten minutes ago on the bank of the river a few miles distant. It contains a bit of paper, and may perhaps give us a clew based upon something more substantial than even the wonderful theories of our new brother Holmes.”
A BLACK PERSON BY THE NAME OF FRIDAY FINDS A BOTTLE
A deathly silence followed the chairman’s words, as Sir Walter drew a cork-screw from his pocket and opened the bottle. He extracted the paper, and, as he had surmised, it proved to be a message from the missing vessel. His face brightening with a smile of relief, Sir Walter read, aloud:
“Have just emerged into the Atlantic. Club in hands of Kidd and forty ruffians. One hundred and eighty-three ladies on board. Headed for the Azores. Send aid at once. All well except Xanthippe, who is seasick in the billiard-room. (Signed) Portia.”
“Aha!” cried Hawkshaw. “That shows how valuable the Holmes theory is.”
“Precisely,” said Holmes. “No woman knows anything about seafaring, but Portia is right. The ship is headed for the Azores, which is the first tack needed in a windward sail for London under the present conditions.”
The reply was greeted with cheers, and when they subsided the cry for Shylock’s subscription began again, but he declined.
“I had intended to put up a thousand ducats,” he said, defiantly, “but with that woman Portia on board I won’t give a red obolus!” and with that he wrapped his cloak about him and stalked off into the gathering shadows of the wood.
And so the funds were raised without the aid of Shylock, and the shapely twin-screw steamer the Gehenna was chartered of Charon, and put under the command of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who, after he had thanked the company for their confidence, walked abstractedly away, observing in strictest confidence to himself that he had done well to prepare that bottle beforehand and bribe Crusoe’s man to find it.
“For now,” he said, with a chuckle, “I can get back to earth again free of cost on my own hook, whether my eminent inventor wants me there or not. I never approved of his killing me off as he did at the very height of my popularity.”
IV
On Board the House-Boat
Meanwhile the ladies were not having such a bad time, after all. Once having gained possession of the House-boat, they were loath to think of ever having to give it up again, and it is an open question in my mind if they would not have made off with it themselves had Captain Kidd and his men not done it for them.
“I’ll never forgive these men for their selfishness in monopolizing all this,” said Elizabeth, with a vicious stroke of a billiard-cue, which missed the cue-ball and tore a right angle in the cloth. “It is not right.”
“No,” said Portia. “It is all wrong; and when we get back home I’m going to give my beloved Bassanio a piece of my mind; and if he doesn’t give in to me, I’ll reverse my decision in the famous case of Shylock versus Antonio.”
“Then I sincerely hope he doesn’t give in,” retorted Cleopatra, “for I swear by all my auburn locks that that was the very worst bit of injustice ever perpetrated. Mr. Shakespeare confided to me one night, at one of Mrs. Cæsar’s card-parties, that he regarded that as the biggest joke he ever wrote, and Judge Blackstone observed to Antony that the decision wouldn’t have held in any court of equity outside of Venice. If you owe a man a thousand ducats, and it costs you three thousand to get them, that’s your affair, not his. If it cost Antonio every drop of his bluest blood to pay the pound of flesh, it was Antonio’s affair, not Shylock’s. However, the world applauds you as a great jurist, when you have nothing more than a woman’s keen instinct for sentimental technicalities.”
“It would have made a horrid play, though, if it had gone on,” shuddered Elizabeth.
“That may be, but, carried out realistically, it would have done away with a raft of bad actors,” said Cleopatra. “I’m half sorry it didn’t go on, and I’m sure it wouldn’t have been any worse than compelling Brutus to fall on his sword until he resembles a chicken liver en brochette, as is done in that Julius Cæsar play.”
“Well, I’m very glad I did it,” snapped Portia.
“I should think you would be,” said Cleopatra. “If you hadn’t done it, you’d never have been known. What was that?”
The boat had given a slight lurch.
“Didn’t you hear a shuffling noise up on deck, Portia?” asked the Egyptian Queen.
“I thought I did, and it seemed as if the vessel had moved a bit,” returned Portia, nervously; for, like most women in an advanced state of development, she had become a martyr to her nerves.
“It was merely the wash from one of Charon’s new ferry-boats, I fancy,” said Elizabeth, calmly. “It’s disgusting, the way that old fellow allows these modern innovations to be brought in here! As if the old paddle-boats he used to carry shades in weren’t good enough for the immigrants of this age! Really this Styx River is losing a great deal of its charm. Sir Walter and I were upset, while out rowing one day last summer, by the waves kicked up by one of Charon’s excursion steamers going up the river with a party of picnickers from the city—the Greater Gehenna Chowder Club, I believe it was—on board of her. One might just as well live in the midst of the turmoil of a great city as try to get uninterrupted quiet here in the suburbs in these days. Charon isn’t content to get rich slowly; he must make money by the barrelful, if he has to sacrifice all the comfort of everybody living on this river. Anybody’d think he was an American, the way he goes on; and everybody else here is the same way. The Erebeans are getting to be a race of shopkeepers.”
“I think myself,” sighed Cleopatra, “that Hades is being spoiled by the introduction of American ideas—it is getting by far too democratic for my tastes; and if it isn’t stopped, it’s my belief that the best people will stop coming here. Take Madame Récamier’s salon as it is now and compare it with what it used to be! In the early days, after her arrival here, everybody went because it was the swell thing, and you’d be sure of meeting the intellectually elect. On the one hand you’d find Sophocles; on the other, Cicero; across the room would be Horace chatting gayly with some such person as myself. Great warriors, from Alexander to Bonaparte, were there, and glad of the opportunity to be there, too; statesmen like Macchiavelli; artists like Cellini or Tintoretto. You couldn’t move without stepping on the toes of genius. But now all is different. The money-getting instinct has been aroused within them all, with the result that when I invited Mozart to meet a few friends at dinner at my place last autumn, he sent me a card stating his terms for dinners. Let me see, I think I have it with me; I’ve kept it by me for fear of losing it, it is such a complete revelation of the actual condition of affairs in this locality. Ah! this is it,” she added, taking a small bit of paste-board from her card-case. “Read that.”
The card was passed about, and all the ladies were much astonished—and naturally so, for it ran this wise:
NOTICE TO HOSTESSES.
Owing to the very great, constantly growing, and at times vexatious demands upon his time socially,
HERR WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
takes this method of announcing to his friends that on and after January 1, 1897, his terms for functions will be as follows:
| Marks. | |
| Dinners with conversation on the Theory of Music | 500 |
| Dinners with conversation on the Theory of Music, illustrated | 750 |
| Dinners without any conversation | 300 |
| Receptions, public, with music | 1000 |
| Receptions, private, with music | 750 |
| Encores (single) | 100 |
| Three encores for | 150 |
| Autographs | 10 |
Positively no Invitations for Five-o’Clock Teas or Morning Musicales considered.
“Well, I declare!” tittered Elizabeth, as she read. “Isn’t that extraordinary? He’s got the three-name craze, too!”
“It’s perfectly ridiculous,” said Cleopatra. “But it’s fairer than Artemus Ward’s plan. Mozart gives notice of his intentions to charge you; but with Ward it’s different. He comes, and afterwards sends a bill for his fun. Why, only last week I got a ‘quarterly statement’ from him showing a charge against me of thirty-eight dollars for humorous remarks made to my guests at a little chafing-dish party I gave in honor of Balzac, and, worst of all, he had marked it ‘Please remit.’ Even Antony, when he wrote a sonnet to my eyebrow, wouldn’t let me have it until he had heard whether or not Boswell wanted it for publication in the Gossip. With Rubens giving chalk-talks for pay, Phidias doing ‘Five-minute Masterpieces in Putty’ for suburban lyceums, and all the illustrious in other lines turning their genius to account through the entertainment bureaus, it’s impossible to have a salon now.”
“You are indeed right,” said Madame Récamier, sadly. “Those were palmy days when genius was satisfied with chicken salad and lemonade. I shall never forget those nights when the wit and wisdom of all time were—ah—were on tap at my house, if I may so speak, at a cost to me of lights and supper. Now the only people who will come for nothing are those we used to think of paying to stay away. Boswell is always ready, but you can’t run a salon on Boswell.”
“Well,” said Portia, “I sincerely hope that you won’t give up the functions altogether, because I have always found them most delightful. It is still possible to have lights and supper.”
“I have a plan for next winter,” said Madame Récamier, “but I suppose I shall be accused of going into the commercial side of it if I adopt it. The plan is, briefly, to incorporate my salon. That’s an idea worthy of an American, I admit; but if I don’t do it I’ll have to give it up entirely, which, as you intimate, would be too bad. An incorporated salon, however, would be a grand thing, if only because it would perpetuate the salon. ‘The Récamier Salon (Limited)’ would be a most excellent title, and, suitably capitalized, would enable us to pay our lions sufficiently. Private enterprise is powerless under modern conditions. It’s as much as I can afford to pay for a dinner, without running up an expense account for guests; and unless we get up a salon trust, as it were, the whole affair must go to the wall.”
MADAME RÉCAMIER HAS A PLAN
“How would you make it pay?” asked Portia. “I can’t see where your dividends would come from.”
“That is simple enough,” said Madame Récamier. “We could put up a large reception-hall with a portion of our capital, and advertise a series of nights—say one a week throughout the season. These would be Warriors’ Night, Story-tellers’ Night, Poets’ Night, Chafing-dish Night under the charge of Brillat-Savarin, and so on. It would be understood that on these particular evenings the most interesting people in certain lines would be present, and would mix with outsiders, who should be admitted only on payment of a certain sum of money. The commonplace inhabitants of this country could thus meet the truly great; and if I know them well, as I think I do, they’ll pay readily for the privilege. The obscure love to rub up against the famous here as well as they do on earth.”
“You’d run a sort of Social Zoo?” suggested Elizabeth.
“Precisely; and provide entertainment for private residences too. An advertisement in Boswell’s paper, which everybody buys—”
“And which nobody reads,” said Portia.
“They read the advertisements,” retorted Madame Récamier. “As I was saying, an advertisement could be placed in Boswell’s paper as follows: ‘Are you giving a Function? Do you want Talent? Get your Genius at the Récamier Salon (Limited).’ It would be simply magnificent as a business enterprise. The common herd would be tickled to death if they could get great people at their homes, even if they had to pay roundly for them.”
“It would look well in the society notes, wouldn’t it, if Mr. John Boggs gave a reception, and at the close of the account it said, ‘The supper was furnished by Calizetti, and the genius by the Récamier Salon (Limited)’?” suggested Elizabeth, scornfully.
“I must admit,” replied the French lady, “that you call up an unpleasant possibility, but I don’t really see what else we can do if we want to preserve the salon idea. Somebody has told these talented people that they have a commercial value, and they are availing themselves of the demand.”
“It is a sad age!” sighed Elizabeth.
“Well, all I’ve got to say is just this,” put in Xanthippe: “You people who get up functions have brought this condition of affairs on yourselves. You were not satisfied to go ahead and indulge your passion for lions in a moderate fashion. Take the case of Demosthenes last winter, for instance. His wife told me that he dined at home three times during the winter. The rest of the time he was out, here, there, and everywhere, making after-dinner speeches. The saving on his dinner bills didn’t pay his pebble account, much less remunerate him for his time, and the fearful expense of nervous energy to which he was subjected. It was as much as she could do, she said, to keep him from shaving one side of his head, so that he couldn’t go out, the way he used to do in Athens when he was afraid he would be invited out and couldn’t scare up a decent excuse for refusing.”
“Did he do that?” cried Elizabeth, with a roar of laughter.
“So the cyclopædias say. It’s a good plan, too,” said Xanthippe. “Though Socrates never had to do it. When I got the notion Socrates was going out too much, I used to hide his dress clothes. Then there was the case of Rubens. He gave a Carbon Talk at the Sforza’s Thursday Night Club, merely to oblige Madame Sforza, and three weeks later discovered that she had sold his pictures to pay for her gown! You people simply run it into the ground. You kill the goose that when taken at the flood leads on to fortune. It advertises you, does the lion no good, and he is expected to be satisfied with confectionery, material and theoretical. If they are getting tired of candy and compliments, it’s because you have forced too much of it upon them.”
“They like it, just the same,” retorted Récamier. “A genius likes nothing better than the sound of his own voice, when he feels that it is falling on aristocratic ears. The social laurel rests pleasantly on many a noble brow.”
“True,” said Xanthippe. “But when a man gets a pile of Christmas wreaths a mile high on his head, he begins to wonder what they will bring on the market. An occasional wreath is very nice, but by the ton they are apt to weigh on his mind. Up to a certain point notoriety is like a woman, and a man is apt to love it; but when it becomes exacting, demanding instead of permitting itself to be courted, it loses its charm.”
“That is Socratic in its wisdom,” smiled Portia.
“But Xanthippic in its origin,” returned Xanthippe. “No man ever gave me my ideas.”
As Xanthippe spoke, Lucretia Borgia burst into the room.
“Hurry and save yourselves!” she cried. “The boat has broken loose from her moorings, and is floating down the stream. If we don’t hurry up and do something, we’ll drift out to sea!”
“What!” cried Cleopatra, dropping her cue in terror, and rushing for the stairs. “I was certain I felt a slight motion. You said it was the wash from one of Charon’s barges, Elizabeth.”
“I thought it was,” said Elizabeth, following closely after.
“Well, it wasn’t,” moaned Lucretia Borgia. “Calpurnia just looked out of the window and discovered that we were in mid-stream.”
The ladies crowded anxiously about the stair and attempted to ascend, Cleopatra in the van; but as the Egyptian Queen reached the doorway to the upper deck, the door opened, and the hard features of Captain Kidd were thrust roughly through, and his strident voice rang out through the gathering gloom. “Pipe my eye for a sardine if we haven’t captured a female seminary!” he cried.
“THE HARD FEATURES OF KIDD WERE THRUST THROUGH”
And one by one the ladies, in terror, shrank back into the billiard-room, while Kidd, overcome by surprise, slammed the door to, and retreated into the darkness of the forward deck to consult with his followers as to “what next.”
V
A Conference on Deck
“Here’s a kettle of fish!” said Kidd, pulling his chin whisker in perplexity as he and his fellow-pirates gathered about the capstan to discuss the situation. “I’m blessed if in all my experience I ever sailed athwart anything like it afore! Pirating with a lot of low-down ruffians like you gentlemen is bad enough, but on a craft loaded to the water’s edge with advanced women—I’ve half a mind to turn back.”
“‘HERE’S A KETTLE OF FISH,’ SAID KIDD”
“If you do, you swim—we’ll not turn back with you,” retorted Abeuchapeta, whom, in honor of his prowess, Kidd had appointed executive officer of the House-boat. “I have no desire to be mutinous, Captain Kidd, but I have not embarked upon this enterprise for a pleasure sail down the Styx. I am out for business. If you had thirty thousand women on board, still should I not turn back.”
“But what shall we do with ‘em?” pleaded Kidd. “Where can we go without attracting attention? Who’s going to feed ‘em? Who’s going to dress ‘em? Who’s going to keep ‘em in bonnets? You don’t know anything about these creatures, my dear Abeuchapeta; and, by-the-way, can’t we arbitrate that name of yours? It would be fearful to remember in the excitement of a fight.”
“Call him Ab,” suggested Sir Henry Morgan, with an ill-concealed sneer, for he was deeply jealous of Abeuchapeta’s preferral.
“If you do I’ll call you Morgue, and change your appearance to fit,” retorted Abeuchapeta, angrily.
“By the beards of all my sainted Buccaneers,” began Morgan, springing angrily to his feet, “I’ll have your life!”
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen—my noble ruffians!” expostulated Kidd. “Come, come; this will never do! I must have no quarrelling among my aides. This is no time for divisions in our councils. An entirely unexpected element has entered into our affairs, and it behooveth us to act in concert. It is no light matter—”
“Excuse me, captain,” said Abeuchapeta, “but that is where you and I do not agree. We’ve got our ship and we’ve got our crew, and in addition we find that the Fates have thrown in a hundred or more women to act as ballast. Now I, for one, do not fear a woman. We can set them to work. There is plenty for them to do keeping things tidy; and if we get into a very hard fight, and come out of the mêlée somewhat the worse for wear, it will be a blessing to have ‘em along to mend our togas, sew buttons on our uniforms, and darn our hosiery.”
Morgan laughed sarcastically. “When did you flourish, if ever, colonel?” he asked.
“Do you refer to me?” queried Abeuchapeta, with a frown.
“You have guessed correctly,” replied Morgan, icily. “I have quite forgotten your date; were you a success in the year one, or when?”
“Admiral Abeuchapeta, Sir Henry,” interposed Kidd, fearing a further outbreak of hostilities—“Admiral Abeuchapeta was the terror of the seas in the seventh century, and what he undertook to do he did, and his piratical enterprises were carried on on a scale of magnificence which is without parallel off the comic-opera stage. He never went forth without at least seventy galleys and a hundred other vessels.”
Abeuchapeta drew himself up proudly.
“Six-ninety-eight was my great year,” he said.
“That’s what I thought,” said Morgan. “That is to say, you got your ideas of women twelve hundred years ago, and the ladies have changed somewhat since that time. I have great respect for you, sir, as a ruffian. I have no doubt that as a ruffian you are a complete success, but when it comes to ‘feminology’ you are sailing in unknown waters. The study of women, my dear Abeuchadnezzar—”
“Peta,” retorted Abeuchapeta, irritably.
“I stand corrected. The study of women, my dear Peter,” said Morgan, with a wink at Conrad, which fortunately the seventh-century pirate did not see, else there would have been an open break—“the study of women is more difficult than that of astronomy; there may be two stars alike, but all women are unique. Because she was this, that, or the other thing in your day does not prove that she is any one of those things in our day—in fact, it proves the contrary. Why, I venture even to say that no individual woman is alike.”
“That’s rather a hazy thought,” said Kidd, scratching his head in a puzzled sort of way.
“I mean that she’s different from herself at different times,” said Morgan. “What is it the poet called her?—‘an infinite variety show,’ or something of that sort; a perpetual vaudeville—a continuous performance, as it were, from twelve to twelve.”
“Morgan is right, admiral!” put in Conrad the corsair, acting temporarily as bo’sun. “The times are sadly changed, and woman is no longer what she was. She is hardly what she is, much less what she was. The Roman Gynæceum would be an impossibility to-day. You might as well expect Delilah to open a barbershop on board this boat as ask any of these advanced females below-stairs to sew buttons on a pirate’s uniform after a fray, or to keep the fringe on his epaulets curled. They’re no longer sewing-machines—they are Keeley motors for mystery and perpetual motion. Women have views now—they are no longer content to be looked at merely; they must see for themselves; and the more they see, the more they wish to domesticate man and emancipate woman. It’s my private opinion that if we are to get along with them at all the best thing to do is to let ‘em alone. I have always found I was better off in the abstract, and if this question is going to be settled in a purely democratic fashion by submitting it to a vote, I’ll vote for any measure which involves leaving them strictly to themselves. They’re nothing but a lot of ghosts anyhow, like ourselves, and we can pretend we don’t see them.”
“If that could be, it would be excellent,” said Morgan; “but it is impossible. For a pirate of the Byronic order, my dear Conrad, you are strangely unversed in the ways of the sex which cheers but not inebriates. We can no more ignore their presence upon this boat than we can expect whales to spout kerosene. In the first place, it would be excessively impolite of us to cut them—to decline to speak to them if they should address us. We may be pirates, ruffians, cutthroats, but I hope we shall never forget that we are gentlemen.”
“The whole situation is rather contrary to etiquette, don’t you think?” suggested Conrad. “There’s nobody to introduce us, and I can’t really see how we can do otherwise than ignore them. I certainly am not going to stand on deck and make eyes at them, to try and pick up an acquaintance with them, even if I am of a Byronic strain.”
“You forget,” said Kidd, “two essential features of the situation. These women are at present—or shortly will be, when they realize their situation—in distress, and a true gentleman may always fly to the rescue of a distressed female; and, the second point, we shall soon be on the seas, and I understand that on the fashionable transatlantic lines it is now considered de rigueur to speak to anybody you choose to. The introduction business isn’t going to stand in my way.”
“Well, may I ask,” put in Abeuchapeta, “just what it is that is worrying you? You said something about feeding them, and dressing them, and keeping them in bonnets. I fancy there’s fish enough in the sea to feed ‘em; and as for their gowns and hats, they can make ‘em themselves. Every woman is a milliner at heart.”
“Exactly, and we’ll have to pay the milliners. That is what bothers me. I was going to lead this expedition to London, Paris, and New York, admiral. That is where the money is, and to get it you’ve got to go ashore, to headquarters. You cannot nowadays find it on the high seas. Modern civilization,” said Kidd, “has ruined the pirate’s business. The latest news from the other world has really opened my eyes to certain facts that I never dreamed of. The conditions of the day of which I speak are interestingly shown in the experience of our friend Hawkins here. Captain Hawkins, would you have any objection to stating to these gentlemen the condition of affairs which led you to give up piracy on the high seas?”
“Not the slightest, Captain Kidd,” returned Captain Hawkins, who was a recent arrival in Hades. “It is a sad little story, and it gives me a pain for to think on it, but none the less I’ll tell it, since you ask me. When I were a mere boy, fellow-pirates, I had but one ambition, due to my readin’, which was confined to stories of a Sunday-school nater—to become somethin’ different from the little Willies an’ the clever Tommies what I read about therein. They was all good, an’ they went to their reward too soon in life for me, who even in them days regarded death as a stuffy an’ unpleasant diversion. Learnin’ at an early period that virtue was its only reward, an’ a-wish-in’ others, I says to myself: ‘Jim,’ says I, ‘if you wishes to become a magnet in this village, be sinful. If so be as you are a good boy, an’ kind to your sister an’ all other animals, you’ll end up as a prosperous father with fifteen hundred a year sure, with never no hope for no public preferment beyond bein’ made the superintendent of the Sunday-school; but if so be as how you’re bad, you may become famous, an’ go to Congress, an’ have your picture in the Sunday noospapers.’ So I looks around for books tellin’ how to get ‘Famous in Fifty Ways,’ an’ after due reflection I settles in my mind that to be a pirate’s just the thing for me, seein’ as how it’s both profitable an’ healthy. Passin’ over details, let me tell you that I became a pirate. I ran away to sea, an’ by dint of perseverance, as the Sunday-school books useter say, in my badness I soon became the centre of a evil lot; an’ when I says to ‘em, ‘Boys, I wants to be a pirate chief,’ they hollers back, loud like, ‘Jim, we’re with you,’ an’ they was. For years I was the terror of the Venezuelan Gulf, the Spanish Main, an’ the Pacific seas, but there was precious little money into it. The best pay I got was from a Sunday noospaper, which paid me well to sign an article on ‘Modern Piracy’ which I didn’t write. Finally business got so bad the crew began to murmur, an’ I was at my wits’ ends to please ‘em; when one mornin’, havin’ passed a restless night, I picks up a noospaper and sees in it that ‘Next Saturday’s steamer is a weritable treasure-ship, takin’ out twelve million dollars, and the jewels of a certain prima donna valued at five hundred thousand.’ ‘Here’s my chance,’ says I, an’ I goes to sea and lies in wait for the steamer. I captures her easy, my crew bein’ hungry, an’ fightin’ according like. We steals the box a-hold-in’ the jewels an’ the bag containin’ the millions, hustles back to our own ship, an’ makes for our rondyvoo, me with two bullets in my leg, four o’ my crew killed, and one engin’ of my ship disabled by a shot—but happy. Twelve an’ a half millions at one break is enough to make anybody happy.”
“I should say so,” said Abeuchapeta, with an ecstatic shake of his head. “I didn’t get that in all my career.”
“Nor I,” sighed Kidd. “But go on, Hawkins.”
“Well, as I says,” continued Captain Hawkins, “we goes to the rondyvoo to look over our booty. ‘Captain ‘Awkins,’ says my valet—for I was a swell pirate, gents, an’ never travelled nowhere without a man to keep my clothes brushed and the proper wrinkles in my trousers—‘this ‘ere twelve millions,’ says he, ‘is werry light,’ says he, carryin’ the bag ashore. ‘I don’t care how light it is, so long as it’s twelve millions, Henderson,’ says I; but my heart sinks inside o’ me at his words, an’ the minute we lands I sits down to investigate right there on the beach. I opens the bag, an’ it’s the one I was after—but the twelve millions!”
“Weren’t there?” cried Conrad.
“Yes, they was there,” sighed Hawkins, “but every bloomin’ million was represented by a certified check, an’ payable in London!”
“‘EVERY BLOOMIN’ MILLION WAS REPRESENTED BY A CERTIFIED CHECK, AN’ PAYABLE IN LONDON’”
“By Jingo!” cried Morgan. “What fearful luck! But you had the prima donna’s jewels.”
“Yes,” said Hawkins, with a moan. “But they was like all other prima donna’s jewels—for advertisin’ purposes only, an’ made o’ gum-arabic!”
“Horrible!” said Abeuchapeta. “And the crew, what did they say?”
“They was a crew of a few words,” sighed Hawkins. “Werry few words, an’ not a civil word in the lot—mostly adjectives of a profane kind. When I told ‘em what had happened, they got mad at Fortune for a-jiltin’ of ‘em, an’—well, I came here. I was ’sas’inated that werry night!”
“They killed you?” cried Morgan.
“A dozen times,” nodded Hawkins. “They always was a lavish lot. I met death in all its most horrid forms. First they stabbed me, then they shot me, then they clubbed me, and so on, endin’ up with a lynchin’—but I didn’t mind much after the first, which hurt a bit. But now that I’m here I’m glad it happened. This life is sort of less responsible than that other. You can’t hurt a ghost by shooting him, because there ain’t nothing to hurt, an’ I must say I like bein’ a mere vision what everybody can see through.”
“All of which interesting tale proves what?” queried Abeuchapeta.
“That piracy on the sea is not profitable in these days of the check banking system,” said Kidd. “If you can get a chance at real gold it’s all right, but it’s of no earthly use to steal checks that people can stop payment on. Therefore it was my plan to visit the cities and do a little freebooting there, where solid material wealth is to be found.”
“Well? Can’t we do it now?” asked Abeuchapeta.
“Not with these women tagging after us,” returned Kidd. “If we went to London and lifted the whole Bank of England, these women would have it spent on Regent Street inside of twenty-four hours.”
“Then leave them on board,” said Abeuchapeta.
“And have them steal the ship!” retorted Kidd. “No. There are but two things to do. Take ‘em back, or land them in Paris. Tell them to spend a week on shore while we are provisioning. Tell ‘em to shop to their hearts’ content, and while they are doing it we can sneak off and leave them stranded.”
“Splendid!” cried Morgan.
“But will they consent?” asked Abeuchapeta.
“Consent! To shop? In Paris? For a week?” cried Morgan.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Hawkins. “Will they consent! Will a duck swim?”
And so it was decided, which was the first incident in the career of the House-boat upon which the astute Mr. Sherlock Holmes had failed to count.
VI
A Conference Below-Stairs
When, with a resounding slam, the door to the upper deck of the House-boat was shut in the faces of queens Elizabeth and Cleopatra by the unmannerly Kidd, these ladies turned and gazed at those who thronged the stairs behind them in blank amazement, and the heart of Xanthippe, had one chosen to gaze through that diaphanous person’s ribs, could have been seen to beat angrily.
Queen Elizabeth was so excited at this wholly novel attitude towards her regal self that, having turned, she sat down plump upon the floor in the most unroyal fashion.
“Well!” she ejaculated. “If this does not surpass everything! The idea of it! Oh for one hour of my olden power, one hour of the axe, one hour of the block!”