Spanish Gold/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
MELDON'S stratagem was entirely successful. Not only did Higginbotham and old O'Flaherty keep their engagement punctually, and Mary Kate go to act as interpreter, but almost all the rest of the inhabitants of the island went to listen to the discussion. The pier and the fields through which it was necessary to pass in order to reach the path down the cliff were entirely deserted. Meldon carried a bathing towel slung round his neck. The Major had a basket with some luncheon in it. After landing they took a look at the Aureole. The two strangers were busy on deck.
"What on earth are they doing?" said the Major.
"It looks to me uncommonly like as if they were trying to pull the halyard clear of the block at the throat," said Meldon. "If they do they may reeve it again themselves. I'm not going over to help them."
"But what can they want to do that for?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Maybe they've got a new one on board. The old one's pretty bad. I shouldn't wonder if they wanted to get rid of it. But anyhow it's no business of ours. Come along."
"I wish very much," said the Major an hour later, when they were scrambling among the rocks below the cliff, "that there was some nearer way to this beastly treasure-hole of yours."
"Well, there isn't; not unless you like to let yourself down off the top of the cliff where the old boy was sitting yesterday, or off the other one on the north side of the bay. I think it dropped more sheer. By the way, that mightn't be a bad idea for getting the treasure up. You could stand on the top and let down a bag to me. I'd fill it with doubloons and then you'd haul up. See? It would be a great deal easier than carrying the stuff all round here and up the path. We'd run it down the hill to the pier in half an hour."
"It would be easier," said the Major. "But it will be time enough to arrange about that when you've got the gold."
They reached the shelf of rock outside the cave at last.
"It's a pity you can't swim," said Meldon. "You look hot enough to enjoy the cold water this minute."
Meldon himself stripped, stood for a minute on the edge of the rock stretching himself in the warm air. Then he plunged into the water. He lay on his back, rolled over, splashed his feet and hands, dived as a porpoise does. Then, after a farewell to the Major, he struck out along the channel. In a few minutes he felt bottom with his feet and stood upright. He heard the Major shout something, but the echo of the cliffs around him prevented his catching the words. He swam again towards the shore. The Major continued to shout. Meldon stopped swimming, stood waist-deep in the water, and looked round. The Major pointed with his hand to the cliff at the end of the channel. Meldon looked up. A man with a rope round him was rapidly descending. Meldon gazed at him in astonishment. He was not one of the islanders. He was dressed in well-fitting, dark-blue clothes, wore rubber-soled canvas shoes and a neat yachting cap. He reached the beach safely and faced Meldon. For a short time both men stood without speaking. The Major's shouts ceased. Then the stranger said—
"Who the devil are you?"
"I am the Rev. Joseph John Meldon, B.A., T.C.D., Curate of Ballymoy. Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"Damn it!" said the stranger.
"I wish," said Meldon, "that you wouldn't swear. It's bad form."
"Damn it!" said the stranger again with considerable emphasis.
"I've mentioned to you that I'm a parson. You must recognise that it's particularly bad form to swear when you're talking to me. You ought to remember my cloth."
The stranger grinned.
"There's devilish little cloth about you to remember this minute," he said. "I never saw a man with less. But any way, I don't care a tinker's curse for your cloth or your religion either. I'll swear if I like."
"You don't quite catch my point," said Meldon. "I don't mind if you swear yourself blue in the face on ordinary occasions. But if you're a gentleman—and you look as if you wanted to be taken for one—you'll recognise that it's bad form to swear when you're talking to me. Being a parson, I can't swear back at you, and so you get an unfair advantage in any conversation there may be between us—the kind of advantage no gentleman would care to take."
"Well, I'm hanged!"
"Think over what I've said. I'm sure you'll come to see that there's something in it. By the way, I seem to recognise the rope you've got round you. If I'm not greatly mistaken, it's the throat halyard of my boat. I know it by the splice I put in where I cut away a bit that was badly worn. It's a remarkably neat splice. Now, if you don't mind my saying so, you're a fool to go swinging over a cliff at the end of that rope. It's rotten."
"Like everything else in your damned—I mean to say your infernal old boat. You may be a parson, but I call you a common swindler if you're the man who hired that boat to my friend Langton."
"Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?" asked Meldon in a cheerful, conversational tone.
"What the devil—I mean, what on earth has that got to do with you?"
"Oh, nothing, of course. Only as you're a Member of Parliament I naturally thought you'd like to talk politics, and it would be easier for me if I knew to start with which side you were on."
"I'm not a Member of Parliament."
"Well, I suppose Mr. Langton is. It's all the same thing. I might have guessed he was something of the sort when I saw him in that fur coat. Is he a Liberal or a Conservative?"
"Are you an escaped lunatic?"
"Don't lose your temper," said Meldon. "If he isn't a Member of Parliament, say so, calmly and quietly. There's nothing, so far as I know, insulting about the suggestion that you and he are Members of Parliament. Lots of fellows are quite keen on getting into Parliament and spend piles of money on it. I think myself that it's rather a futile line of life. But then I'm not naturally fond of listening to other fellows' speeches. It's all a question of taste. Some people like that kind of thing well enough. I don't blame them. There's nothing to be ashamed of in writing M.P. after your name. There's certainly nothing to get angry about in my supposing that you do. But if you like, we'll drop the subject. What did you say your name is. Mine, I think I told you. It's Meldon—Joseph John Meldon, B.A."
"And what are you doing here, Mr. Joseph John Meldon?"
"Bathing. What are you doing?"
"I'm bird's-nesting."
"Ah!" said Meldon. "Now I was very keen on bird's-nesting myself when I was a boy. I remember one time going off to an island in the lake near my old home, swimming, you know, and coming back with four waterhen's eggs in my mouth. One broke on the way and it happened to be a bit—you know what I mean—a bit high. I sometimes think I can taste it still. I couldn't spit it out on account of the other three"
"How long do you mean to stand there talking?"
"I'm in no hurry," said Meldon. "It's early yet, and it isn't every day I get the chance of talking to a Member of Parliament."
"I've told you once already that I'm not a Member of Parliament."
"Come now, I can understand modesty, and I can understand a man's adopting a disguise. I've done that myself before now. But it's a bit too thick when it comes to trying to persuade me that you're not a Member of Parliament. Is there any kind of man except an inquiring English M.P. who'd come off to Inishgowlan in a five-tonner and swing off the face of a cliff on a rotten rope? What would anybody else do it for? Tell me that. Where would be the sense in it? You tell Higginbotham you're not a Member of Parliament if you like, and he'll maybe believe you, though I doubt if even Higginbotham would. Or try it on with Major Kent. He's an innocent sort of man. But there's no good talking that way to me. If you're not a Member of Parliament, what are you?"
"Perhaps you'll believe me and clear out of this if I tell you that my name's Buckley, Sir Giles Buckley, and that I haven't been in this cursed country, or England either, for the last ten years until a week ago."
A sudden light flashed on Meldon's mind. Old Sir Giles Buckley, the grandfather of the man in front of him, had known about the Spanish treasure. He had heard the story, just as Captain Kent had, from Lady Buckley. No doubt he, too, had written it down in some diary, or had left notes of his expedition in search of the treasure. This man—this disreputable, disinherited son of the last Sir Giles—had of necessity been heir to Ballymoy House and the papers it contained. The situation became clear to Meldon. Here was a rival treasure-seeker, a man evidently possessed of information superior to that of Major Kent's grandfather, for he came straight to the very spot which Meldon had taken much pains to discover.
"I'm delighted to meet you," said Meldon. "Your father was always a liberal subscriber to the funds of the church in our parish. I hope you mean to keep up his subscription. The rector has been worried a lot over the loss of what your father used to give. It's most fortunate my meeting you in this way. I'll explain the situation to you in a moment. When the Church of Ireland ceased to be established by law—Gladstone, you know, I think it was in 1869"
"I'm not going to subscribe one penny to your church," said Sir Giles. "I haven't any money, and if I had I wouldn't give a solitary shilling towards paying a fellow like you."
"Well, anyhow it can do you no harm to understand how we're situated. Under the Act of Disestablishment the existing clergy"
"Damn it!" said Sir Giles.
Then he pulled vigorously at the rope which was still round his armpits and shouted, "Langton, Langton, haul up, will you? Have you gone to sleep? Haul up, I tell you. Not too quick. Do you want to knock my brains out?"
He swung slowly up, clinging with both hands to the rope above his head and pushing himself off the face of the cliff with his feet. Meldon, with a broad grin on his face, watched him reach the top and then turned and swam back to the rock where the Major waited.
"I say, Major," he gasped, "those fellows aren't Members of Parliament after all, and the treasure is certainly in that hole."
"I could see you standing up to your middle in water talking to a man. I couldn't hear a word you said, of course. Who is he?"
"He's Sir Giles Buckley, and that's why I say the treasure is certainly in that hole."
"I don't," said the Major, "precisely see how the one thing follows from the other."
Meldon climbed out of the water and began to rub himself briskly with his towel.
"You wouldn't," he said, "but it does follow. Nothing could follow more plainly. It's like a beastly syllogism. Here's a man—two men, in fact—who have no earthly business in Inishgowlan. It's impossible even to invent a motive for their coming here now that we know that they're not Members of Parliament. Very well. They're here all the same, and one of them risks his life on a rotten rope to get down the face of a cliff to a certain hole at the bottom of it. What would he do that for?"
Meldon paused.
"I don't quite see yet," said the Major, "how you prove that there is treasure in that hole."
"Very well, I'll start at the thing from the other direction. Hitherto I've been proceeding on what's called the inductive method of reasoning. Bacon, you know, was the man who invented that. Now I'll try deduction. Who else besides ourselves knows about that treasure?"
"We don't know. At least I don't. You're trying to prove the treasure to me at present by some method or other."
"Major, at times you'd make a saint go near swearing. Have I got to go through the whole story of the wreck of that Spanish galleon again? If you don't trust me you might at least believe your own grandfather. He said the treasure was here. Now, who else knew about it? Old Sir Giles Buckley did. Now, assume that he wrote down what he knew, just as your grandfather did. There's nothing more likely. His son never reads the paper any more than your father did. But you read your grandfather's diary after the death of the late Sir Giles. You follow me so far?"
"I follow you all right, but why don't you put on your clothes? I'd have thought you'd have had enough of standing about in your skin for one day."
"I'm not going to dress yet," said Meldon. "I may have to swim down the channel again at any moment. Suppose Sir Giles takes it into his head to drop over the cliff the minute he thinks that my back is turned. I can't afford to let him nip into the hole by himself."
"Do you mean to stand there stark naked day and night until Sir Giles chooses to leave the island?"
"No, I don't. In another hour the tide will have risen, so that nobody can get into the hole. The mouth of it will be covered and the whole thing full of water inside. Hullo! There's Sir Giles and Langton with him sitting on the cliff opposite us just where old T. O. P. sat yesterday. They're watching us. Very well, let them watch. I'll dress."
"You may as well for all the good you're likely to get out of that hole."
"Just you wait," said Meldon, "till I get into my shirt and trousers and I'll explain to you."
"Now, where was I? Oh, yes! Sir Giles Buckley dies. His son, that playboy sitting on the cliff opposite, gets next to nothing out of the property, but he collars some family papers. He reads them. He sees, just as I saw, just as any man with a glimmer of intelligence would see, that he's got a soft thing in this treasure. He doesn't care about being recognised in Ballymoy, where he very likely owes money, so he sends a friend to hire a boat for him. He gets my boat and off he comes."
"I don't see that you've proved anything," said the Major, "except that there's one other ass in the world as giddy as yourself."
"Unpack the luncheon," said Meldon. "Your temper will improve while you eat. There's just one thing left which puzzles me."
"I shouldn't have supposed that there was anything in the world that could puzzle you."
"Well, there aren't many things," said Meldon frankly. "In fact, I've not yet come across anything which regularly defeated me when I gave my mind to it, but I don't mind owning up that just for the moment I'm bothered over one point in this business. How did Buckley know about the hole in the cliff? How did he locate the exact spot where the treasure lies? He does know, for he walked straight up to it without hesitation. The minute he landed yesterday he went up to the top of that cliff. I thought that he was just a simple Member of Parliament looking for a view, but I was wrong. He was prospecting about for the best way of getting at that hole. Now, how did he know? We only arrived at it by a process of exhaustive reasoning based on a careful examination of the locality. He walks straight up to it as if he'd known all along exactly where to go."
"Perhaps he reasoned it out before he started."
"He couldn't. No man on earth could. I couldn't have done it by myself. It wasn't till I got to the spot that I was able to reconstruct the shipwreck and track the working of the Spanish captain's mind. That disposes of your first suggestion. Got another?"
"Perhaps his grandfather knew the spot and made a note of it."
"Won't wash either. We know that his grandfather couldn't find the treasure any more than yours could. If he'd known about that hole in the cliff he would have found the treasure."
"Always supposing it's there," said the Major.
Meldon glared at him.
"If it's there! Major, you're the Apostle Thomas and the Jew Apella and the modern scientific man rolled into one for invincible scepticism. Is it possible to convince you of anything? Tell me that."
For a time they ate in silence. Now and then Meldon glanced at the cliff opposite to assure himself that Sir Giles and Langton were still there. At last he said—
"It appears to me that Langton must be mixed up in the business somehow. Why did Sir Giles bring him? He isn't any good at sailing the boat. He doesn't look as if he'd be much good for anything. Depend upon it, he must have given the tip about the hole, but how he comes to be in the know I don't precisely see. However, one thing is pretty clear. We've got to keep a very sharp eye on those two gentlemen opposite."
"Unless you mean to sit here day and night," said the Major, "I don't see how you're going to do it."
"I told you before that you can only get into that hole from about three-quarters low water to a quarter flood. Buckley knows that too, for he's seen the place. He won't come here at high tide nor yet at half tide. What we've got to do is to watch him at the other times. That gives us a chance to eat and sleep."
"I expect he'll watch you, too. That is to say, if he's really after the treasure."
"Let him. I'll back myself to get the better of any man living at a game of hide-and-seek. Don't you worry yourself about his watching us, Major. I'll arrange a plan for circumventing him. Look at the way I've diddled Higginbotham and old Thomas O'Flaherty Pat and Mary Kate. What's to stop me dealing with Buckley on similar lines?"
Half an hour later, having finished their luncheon and smoked their pipes, Major Kent and Meldon started to scramble back. The tide had risen sufficiently to prevent any one not an experienced diver from getting into the hole. As they neared the pier they saw Sir Giles Buckley and his friend Langton rowing off to the Aureole in their punt.
"That's all right," said Meldon. "Now we can take it easy and think things over till to-morrow morning. They won't attempt to get down that cliff in the dark. Hullo! Here's Higginbotham coming out of his tin wigwam to meet us. Do you know, I think Higginbotham is becoming rather a nuisance. I'm beginning to feel that I could get on nicely without Higginbotham. I wonder if we could get rid of him off the island anyhow?"
"Unless you cut his throat and sink the body," said the Major, "I don't see how you can."
"I'd be sorry to do that. I've rather a liking for Higginbotham, though he is a bit of an ass. He used to come out with me sometimes of a Sunday afternoon when I was going to see my little girl in Rathmines. He used to talk to the mother on those occasions and I've always had a feeling of gratitude to him ever since. No; Higginbotham's a nuisance, but I wouldn't wish him any bodily harm. I won't agree to your cutting his throat, Major, so drop the idea. Besides, you never can tell but he might come in useful to us in some way. He's done us no harm so far, thanks to the way I've managed him. Hullo, Higginbotham! How did you get on with the old boy about the house this morning?"
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," said Higginbotham. "There was some sort of misunderstanding."
"Do you tell me that? Well now, I'm greatly surprised. I thought I'd left everything coiled down clear for running so that there couldn't have been a hitch. Tell me now, Higginbotham, you didn't try to revenge yourself in any way on Mary Kate, did you?"
"Mary Kate! Oh, is she the little girl who came about the sugar candy?"
"Don't hark back to that sugar candy. I've told you before, Higginbotham, that the Major and I aren't going into that sugar-candy row either on one side or the other. We're dead-sick of the whole subject. You've gone and botched a perfectly simple business with dear old Thomas O'Flaherty Pat. I don't know what you've done exactly, but I strongly suspect that you've made yourself offensive in some way about Mary Kate. Why can't you leave that child alone?"
"I didn't do anything to her," said Higginbotham. "I didn't even remember that she was the same child. But what between nobody except the old man being able to speak Irish and him not being able to speak anything else"
"Now, that's all nonsense," said Meldon, "and you know it. Mary Kate speaks both languages fluently. I'm here acting for the National Board of Education, as I told you before, and I've made it my business to find out what Mary Kate knows and what she doesn't. You can't have taken the child the right way. I expect you've been trying to come the Government official over her, and it won't do. No child would stand it, especially a high-spirited little creature like Mary Kate. You ought to cultivate a more ingratiating manner. You mean well, I know; but good intentions aren't everything."
"The fact is" said Higginbotham.
"Look here. I had a long talk this morning with Sir Giles Buckley. You know Sir Giles?"
"No, I don't. Who is he?"
"He's something in the Castle. I forget this moment what his particular tack is, but I know he's an important man. Major, do you recollect what Sir Giles is? Does he run the Crimes' Acts, or is he the man who bosses the Royal Commissions?"
"I don't know. I never"
"Oh, well, never mind. I think he specialises, so to speak, in Royal Commissions; but it doesn't really matter much. If you read the newspapers you'll be familiar with his name. He happens to be going round Ireland at present with Langton, his private secretary"
"Not Euseby Langton?" said Higginbotham.
"Euseby Langton! I don't know. I didn't ask his Christian name. By the way, who is Euseby Langton? I seem to recognise the name, but somehow I can't quite fix the man."
"I don't think you knew him; but I did very well. He was in the library in College in our time—some sort of an assistant there. He got sacked. They always said it was drink, but I don't know. He went abroad somewhere afterwards."
"I remember," said Meldon, "but this is a different man—couldn't possibly be the same, you know."
"Well," said Higginbotham, for Meldon had relapsed into silence, "go on."
"Go on with what?"
"With what you were telling me about Sir Giles Buckley."
"Oh! Ah! yes, Sir Giles, of course. Well, I put in a good word for you. I explained that you were doing the best you could with Thomas O'Flaherty Pat. He seemed rather anxious about that business. I said I expected it would pan out right enough in the end if he gave you a free hand. He evidently had some notion of stepping in to settle it himself. Now, what I want to know is this: Would you like him to try his hand at it, or would you rather he left you alone to work it in your own way?"
"Of course if Sir Giles it would be very kind of him"
"Very well. I'll arrange that. You leave it to me, Higginbotham, And for goodness' sake don't go talking to Sir Giles about it yourself. You've no tact. You know you haven't. You'd just put your foot into it again the way you did with Mary Kate."
"I won't go near him till you tell me."
"That's right. Stick to that. I'll see him as soon as I can and I'll let you know. Goodbye for the present, old chap."
"Thanks awfully, Meldon. I'm really more obliged to you than I can say. If ever I can do you a good turn of any sort"
"Don't mention it. I'm only delighted to do what I can to help you. Goodbye."
After dinner Major Kent and Meldon sat on the deck of the Spindrift and smoked. On the deck of the Aureole sat Sir Giles Buckley and Langton, who also smoked. Neither party made any attempt to go on shore. The Major tried two or three times to start a conversation and was severely snubbed. Meldon declared that he wanted time to think things over quietly. The situation was obviously a difficult one, and frivolous talk on such subjects as a slight fall of the barometer or the possibility of getting some fresh milk was quite out of place. After finishing his pipe, the Major dropped off to sleep in an uncomfortable position. At about half-past five Meldon woke him up.
"I think I've fixed that fellow Langton," he said.
The Major yawned.
"Have you?" he said. "What have you done to him?"
"I haven't done anything to him yet. What I mean is that I've discovered where he comes in, how he happened to be in a position to gives Sir Giles the tip about the hole under the cliff. You heard what Higginbotham said about Euseby Langton. Well, I recollect that this fellow signed the agreement I drew up about the Aureole 'E. Langton.' He's evidently Higginbotham's man."
"He might not be," said the Major. "'E. Langton' might stand for Edward Langton or Edgar Langton or Ethelbert Langton."
"It might stand for Ebenezer Ledbeater, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. It stands for Euseby Langton. Euseby Langton got the sack for drink, and this fellow looks as if he drank a lot, which also goes to show that he's the same man."
"Well, suppose he is?"
"The next point is where did Euseby Langton get sacked from?"
"I forget. I wasn't listening to Higginbotham."
"Well, luckily enough I was. Euseby Langton got sacked from Trinity College Library. He had some sort of job there poking about among catalogues and things. Now you may not be aware, Major, of the fact that Trinity College Library is the biggest in the world. There are books in it that no man has ever read. Nobody could. I couldn't myself, even if I gave my whole time to nothing else. What's to hinder our friend Langton from picking up the tip about the place where the treasure is from some book in the library?"
"There's no such book."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that. There are some extraordinary books in that library—books that aren't in the college course anywhere—that even the men who go in for honours know nothing about. Besides, it mightn't be a book exactly. It might be a manuscript—not a large illuminated missal of a thing stuck in a glass case for every fool to stare at, but some quiet, unobtrusive, rather tattered manuscript which had lain for years, perhaps centuries, under a pile of other manuscripts. That's the sort of place the information would be."
"I don't see how it could."
"It might, in fact, be the log of the Spanish captain himself. You know there's an organ in the big examination hall that was taken out of a Spanish Armada ship. Well, if they fetched a thing like an organ all the way to the college, you may be pretty sure that they fetched lots of manuscripts too. Once Euseby Langton got a taste for hunting up old manuscripts he'd be just as likely as not to hit upon the log of our captain."
"But you said he drank. Is it likely he had a taste for manuscripts?"
"He's almost sure to have had. Most probably it was the manuscripts that drove him to drink. They would, you know, unless he was exceptionally strong minded, and Langton clearly wasn't that. Now suppose"
"You can suppose any rigmarole you like."
"I explained to you before, Major, the nature of a scientific supposition or hypothesis. It always strikes the outsider at first as a rigmarole. I needn't go into that again. What we have to deal with is fact—hard fact—and to get some sort of reasonable explanation of things as they are. It's quite evident that Sir Giles and Langton know that the treasure is in the hole under that cliff. It's also evident that Langton gave Sir Giles the tip. It follows that Langton must have found the thing out somewhere. I don't say for certain that he found it in a manuscript in the college library. I only say that, considering all the circumstances of the case, he's more likely to have found it there than anywhere else. That may not strike you as a very good hypothesis; but unless you have a better one to propose, it seems to me quite good enough to go on with."
"All right, go on with it. But I don't see where you expect to arrive."
"I'll arrive, if you want to know, at a nice comfortable income and a good, well-furnished house, a place I can take my little girl to with some sort of satisfaction. That's where I'll arrive and I'm putting the treasure at the lowest possible figure."