"C Q", or, In the Wireless House/Chapter 11
XI
Micky’s mind is momentarily relieved
“WYKE up, hangel face!”
The Captain’s steward grabbed Micky by the feet and yanked him violently up and down in his bunk. Then as the angel face slowly resumed its normal appearance of freckle’ good nature Mr. Binks proceeded to throw at its accompanying head with great velocity and accuracy of aim one pink and one orange newspaper, which opened like parachutes and descended like Navajo blankets upon his red hair.
“Bl’ime me! Wot a chi-ros-kooro o’ color!” remarked Binks admiringly. “You livin’ solar spectrum—see wot old Ponsonby’s give yer! He ’s that tickled with the news and ’is special message that ’e ’s sent yer ’is copies o’ The Pink ’Un and The Winnin’ Post,”
“Last year’s copies?” asked Micky, yawning.
“Nanty! The latest—wot come on board at Gib.,” answered Binks. “Great doin’s this mornin’! Escaped criminal discovered on board the ’’Pavonia’’ owin’ to perspicosity o’ the line’s most trusted hofficer! Wot d ’ye s ’y ? Somethin’ ’ot, eh?”
Micky suddenly sat bolt upright.
“Eh?” he stammered. “Who? What?”
“Sure!” replied Binks, sitting down on the bench and lighting a pipe. “One o’ your own particilar pets.”
Micky sank back and drew the bed clothes up around his face. So it had come as soon as this!
“Yep!” continued Binks, enjoying the sensation he was creating. “Hidentified by your ’ighfalutin’ friend Mrs. ’Ubert Trevelyan!”
“Mrs. Trevelyan!” repeated Micky aghast. Could it be possible after their conversation of yesterday at the stern?
“Nailed ’im solid on the main deck!” rattled on Binks. “She and the Capting covered the ship first thing this mornin’. Caught ’im aft. Reg’lar female Sherlock ’Olmes. O’ course she knew ’im. Robbed her husband’s bloomin’ bank!”
“Wha-at?” cried Micky, throwing hack the clothes. “What bank?”
“Royal Bank o’ Edinburgh,” answered Binks. “Swiped five thousand golden soverings! Bennet’s ’is nyme. Feller with the girl as s’ys she ’s ’is sister. I s’y she ain’t ’is sister! You see now!”
A moment more and Mickv was throwing on his wardrobe and cross-questioning the acquiescent Binks.
“Sure, didn’t you take it off Poldhu yerself last night? Description an’ all? You must be batty! And you took the service message for the Capting to search the ship. Wyke hup, you sleepin’ beauty, you!”
Theo, like a flash of light into a dark cavern, intelligence dawned on Micky’s drowsy brain. And he had never even thought of it. Cosmo Graeme’s shocking and dramatic narrative had driven all else from his mind, or he would have realized that since he had transmitted no information concerning Lord Roakby’s murder to the Captain the latter could never for a moment have connected the message to search his ship for an escaped criminal with anything except the defalcation from the bank. And by a fortunate coincidence—fortunate for Graeme, if not for Bennett—the description had fitted both of them and Fate had sacrificed the one to the other! So Bennett was a criminal! He did n’t look it,—and yet there was no room for doubt.
“Is Bennett his real name?” he asked.
“No—Chilvers—James Chilvers,” answered Binks rapturously. “A bloomin’ clerk. Mrs. Trevelyan knowed ’im at onct. Some doin’s, I calls hit, for this old tub! Well, I must be goin’ or Ponsonby ’ll tyke my hair off. Lemme see The Pink ’Un, when you ’re done with it.”
He made his departure lingeringly while Micky completed his toilet and glanced at the front page of The Winning Post, that edifying sheet edited by the celebrated Bob Sievier, and “having the largest circulation in the world of any paper costing more than a penny.”
Graeme seemed to have more lives than a cat! He couldn’t drown—must have been born to be hung. But evidently not just yet. Micky descended to the second cabin and bolted a bowl of coffee with some toast and marmalade.
“Great hrxcitement, sir!” said Dobson, jauntily. “Our table’s drawn the grand prize in the lottery!”
“So I hear!” answered Micky. “What have they done with him?”
“Locked ’im hup in ’is state-room,” replied the steward. “The girl ’s gone clean off her ’ead. Poor little thing!”
“Too bad! Too bad!” acquiesced Micky, who hated to see anybody in misfortune. “Be sure and take her a nice lunch, Dobson. She ’ll need it—and Bennett too.”
He left the table and glanced up and down the deck for any sight of Graeme, but the latter was not to be discerned, and he ascended again to the wireless house to smoke an after-breakfast pipe and ponder on the new complications in his little floating world. The Post and The Pink ’Un still lay where Binks had thrown them on the bunk. Outside the sun was radiating a fierce glare from the white paint. The wireless house was cool and shady. He put his feet on the operating desk and took up his favorite weekly. With interest he read.
Mr. Bettinson was busy last week. Whilst at Cardiff he there made a match between Jim Driscoll and the Frenchman Jean Poesy, who lately defeated Digger Stanley at headquarters. The men are to box the best of twenty rounds at the National on Monday in Derby week, October 3.
But Micky’s Interest in the “fancy” was secondary to his love of horses, and he turned his eye to the racing columns. He wondered what would become of Roakby’s racing stable now?
Races to Close
Nottingham and Newark Hunts Steeplechase meeting will take place on Monday and Tuesday, October 15th and 16th, 1912
Handicapper—Mr. T. K. Dawkins.
First Day
The Nottinghampshire Selling Handicap Steeplechase of 150 sovs. for four-year-olds and upwards; winners extra; the winner to be sold by auction for 50 sovs.; the second to receive 10 sovs. out of the plate; entrance 2 sovs. and 3 sovs. extra for starters. Two miles.
The Consolation Handicap Hurdle Race Plate of 80 sovs., for four-year-olds and upwards; winners extra; the second to receive 5 sovs. out of the plate; entrance 2 sovs., and i sov. extra for starters. About two miles and three-quarters, over hurdles.
He ’d give his ears to be there! He had n’t seen a race for three years except a joke of a one at Buenos Ayres,—niggers up. It was good to see the old Pink ’Un again! And to think of Ponsoby, taking it! He began to think better of Ponsonby. He glanced on:
Cruelty to Oysters
Dear Sir: I see it reported in to-day’s papers that President John Craft of the Alabama State Oyster Commission is trying to pass a law “making it a criminal offense to eat an oyster unless it has been humanely killed.” This is right!
Just because an oyster cannot yell and wriggle when its shells are torn violently asunder and it is cut from its base and speared with a fork, and sprinkled with salt, pepper and vinegar, is no reason for concluding the mollusc has no feelings.
As a matter of fact, it does feel pain, and it suffers dreadfully. All this could be avoided if the oyster were killed before being served. It could be slaughtered quickly and mercifully, and it would come to a peaceful end.
W. H. Smith.
Smith was all to the good, grinned Micky. What a relief it was to have the strain of that Graeme business eased momentarily!
He drew contentedly on his pipe.
Notes to Queries
C. F. M.—Bottomley is pronounced as spelt; not Bholmon'eley, articulated as Bumley.
J. H. M.—It was Oscar Wilde who spoke about Mrs. Langtry, when in America, having an outdoor photograph taken “with the Falls of Niagara as a kind of unpretentious background.” Nor do we want the very long spun out lines dealing with “the rather primrose.”
SERPENTINE.—H. wins the bet; the last favorite to win the Lincolnshire Handicap was uninsured.
W. A.—Have handed it over to Mr. Pitcher, who is pondering a volume on “Good Tunes and Old Fiddles,” opening with Mrs. Werry (at the age of fifty-six) blubbering over Byron at Smyrna and depriving him of a lock of his hair.
D. D. R.—Too lurid for cultured readers.
A. F. A.—Selina Young, “the Female Blondin,” crossed the Thames on a rope stretched from the Battersea shore to Cremorne Gardens in 1861. We have never heard of the other lady.
CARRIE UPSCHER.—It may have been accounted a good story hundreds and hundreds of years ago, when there was a land connection between Europe and America, and Hull and Leith were on the coast of Norway, but it reads a bit old-fashioned now.
T. S. M.—The race was won by Mr. Solly Joel with Bendy Tree; Billy the Verger could only get seventh.
A. W. A.—Was very popular four reigns ago, or about the time when Lady Dorothy Nevill tells us she remembers Lady Cardigan as a girl dancing the Cachuca with great verve."
BARMY.—Because both papers are practically owned by Cadbury, the cocoa man.
OLAF.—Quite good for private circulation, but not to put into print.
How it took him back home! Back to crowded London—back to the green turf—to the smell of stables, to the Crystal Palace, to the cliffs of Dover,—to dear old England. He let the paper fall and his mind turned to the Bennetts and their trouble. How the poor little devil of a girl must feel! Why, it was only a couple of days ago that they had been up in the wireless house and he had explained everything to her. Was she his sister, he wondered! No wonder the fellow looked sick, if he 'd stolen five thousand pounds! But, if he had, why did they travel second cabin? Then came a sound of steps on the roof of the deck-house and Binks reappeared waving a sheet of paper.
“Marconigram from the Capting tellin’ wot a bloomin’ ’ero ’e is!” announced the latter.
“Thanks,” said Micky, bringing down his feet. “Here's The Pink ’Un,— I 'm done with it.”
Binks grabbed up the sheet and hurriedly left the office for his own quarters, there to devour greedily its engrossing contents.
“Cunard, Liverpool," ran the Captain’s message. “Criminal wanted discovered today on Pavonia. Placed under immediate arrest. Await instructions New York
Micky laughed. Just at the present juncture things seemed to be going Graeme’s way. The poor old Captain had worded his radio so that it applied to either of the two,—Chilvers or the other. There was luck for you! If he had said “Chilvers discovered to-day,” Scotland Yard would have radioed him to look for Roakby’s murderer as well, and all would have been over—again. Heaven must be looking out for this unfortunate son of a Mar-quis, even if it had turned a cold and neglectful shoulder upon the more humble clerk. He threw on his mains and relayed the message on to New York via the Berlin for transmission through Wellfleet and Crookhaven to Liverpool.