If the girls of St. Mary"s could only have seen Mister Harry drying dishes, my reputation would have shattered into a thousand pieces.
She let us into the shop the back way, through a tiny enclosed yard which was almost filled with unusual objects, all of them a.s.sociated with diving and the under-water world - discarded air bottles and a portable compressor, bra.s.s portholes and other salvage from wrecked ships, even the jawbone of a killer whale with all its teeth intact.
"I haven"t been in for a long time," Sherry apologized as she unlocked the back door of the shop. "Without Jimmy-" she shrugged and then went on, " - I must really get down to selling up all this junk and closing the shop down. I could re-sell the lease, I suppose."
"I"m going to look round, okay?"
"Fine, I"ll get the kettle going."
I started in the yard, searching quickly but thoroughly through the piles of junk. There was nothing that had significance as far as I could see. I went into the shop and poked around amongst the seash.e.l.ls and sharks" teeth on the shelves and in the display case. Finally I saw a desk in the corner and began going through the drawers.
Sherry brought me a cup of tea and perched on the corner of the desk while I piled old invoices, rubber bands and paper clips on the top. I read every sc.r.a.p of paper and even rifled through the ready reckoner.
Nothing?" Sherry asked.
Nothing," I agreed and glanced at my watch. "Lunchtime," I told her.
She locked up the shop and by good fortune we stumbled on English"s restaurant. They gave us a secluded table in the back room and I ordered a bottle of Pouilly Fuisse to go with the lobster. Once I recovered from the shock of the price, we laughed a lot during the meal, and it wasn"t just the wine. The feeling between us was good and growing stronger.
After lunch we drove back to Seaview and we went up to Jimmy"s room.
"This is our best bet," I guessed. "If he was keeping secrets, this is where they would be." But I knew I had a long job ahead of me. There were hundreds of books and piles of magazines - mostly American Argosy, Trident, The Diver and other diving publications. There was also a complete shelf of springback files at the foot of the bed.
"I"ll leave you to it," Sherry said, and went.
I took down the contents of a shelf, sat at the reading table and began to skim through the publications. immediately I saw it was an even bigger task than I had thought. Jimmy had been one of those people who read with a pencil in one hand. There were notes pencilled in the margin, comments, queries and exclamation marks, and anything that interested him was underlined.
I read doggedly, looking for something that could remotely be linked to St. Mary"s.
Around eight o"clock I began on the shelf that held the springback files. The first two were filled with newspaper clippings on shipwrecks or other marine phenomena. The third of them had an un-labelled, black imitation leather cover. It held a thin sheaf of papers, and I saw immediately that they were out of the ordinary.
They were a series of letters filed with their envelopes and stamps still attached. There were sixteen of them in all, addressed to Messrs Parker and Wilton in Fenchurch Street.
Every letter was in a different hand, but all were executed in the elegant penmanship of the last century.
The envelopes were sent from different parts of the old Empire - Canada, South Africa, India - and the nineteenth century postage stamps alone must have been of considerable value.
After I had read the first two letters, it was clear that Messrs Parker and Wilton were agents and factors, and they had acted for a number of distinguished clients in the service of Queen Victoria. The letters were instructions to deal with estates, moneys and securities.
All the letters were dated during the period from August 1857 to July 1858 and must have been offered by a dealer or an antique auctioneer as a lot.
I glanced through them quickly, but the contents were really very dull. However, something on the single page of the tenth letter caught my eye and I felt my nerves jump.
Two words had been underlined in pencil and in the margin was a notation in Jimmy North"s handwriting.
B. Muse.6914(8)."
However, it was the words themselves that held me. "Dawn Light."
I had heard those words before. I wasn"t sure when, but they were significant.
Quickly I began at the top of the page. The sender"s address was Ia laconic "Bombay", and it was dated 16th Sept.
1857.
My Dear Wilton, I charge you most strictly with the proper care and safe storage of five pieces of luggage consigned in my name to your London address aboard the Han. Company"s ship Daurn Light. Due out of this port before the 25th instant and bound for the Company"s wharf in the Port of London.
Please acknowledge safe receipt of same with all despatch.
I remain yours faithfully, Colonel Sir Roger Goodchild. Officer Commanding 101st Regiment Queens Own India Rifles.
Delivery by kind favour of Captain commanding Her Majesty"s Frigate Pandier.
The paper rustled and I realized that my hand was shaking with excitement. I knew I was on to it now. This was the key. I laid the letter carefully on the reading table and Placed a silver paper-knife upon it to weight it down.
I began to read it again slowly, but there was a distraction. I heard the engine noise of an automobile coming down the lane from the gate. Headlights flashed across the window and then rounded the corner of the house.
I sat up straight, listening. The engine noise died, and car doors slammed shut.
There was a long silence then before I heard the murmur and growl of voices - men"s voices. I began to stand up from the table.
Then sherry screamed. it rang clearly through the old house, and cut into my brain like a lance. It aroused in me a protective instinct so fierce that I was down the stairs and into the hall before I realized I had moved.
The door to the kitchen was open and I paused in the doorway.
There were two men with Sherry. The heavier and elder of the two wore a beige camelliair topcoat and a tweed cap. He had a greyish, heavy lined face and deepsunk eyes. His lips were thin and colourless.
He had Sherry"s left hand twisted up between her shoulder-blades, and was holding her jammed against the wall beside the gas stove.
The other man was Younger, and he was slim and pale, bare-headed with long straw-yellow hair falling to the shoulders of his leather jacket. He was grinning gleefully as he held Sherry"s other hand over the blue flames of the gas ring, bringing it down slowly.
She was struggling desperately, but they held her and her hair had come loose as she fought.
"Slowly, lad," the man in the cap spoke in a thick strangled voice. "Give her time to think about it."
Sherry screamed again as her fingers were forced down remorselessly towards the hissing blue flames.
"Go ahead, luv, shout your head off," laughed the blond. "There isn"t anybody to hear you." "Only me," I said, and they spun to face me, with expressions of comical amazement.
"Who," asked the blond, releasing Sherry"s arm and reaching quickly for his back pocket.
I hit him twice, left in the body and right in the head, and although neither shot pleased me particularly - there was not the right solidness at impact - the man went down, falling heavily over a chair and crashing into the cupboard. I had no more time for him, and I went for the one in the cloth cap.
He was still holding Sherry in front of him, and as I started forward he hurled her at me. It took me off-balance and I was forced to grab her, to save both of us from falling.
The man turned and darted out of the door behind him. It took me a few seconds to disentangle myself from Sherry and cross the kitchen. As I barged out into the yard he was halfway to an elderly Triumph sports car, and he glanced over his shoulder.
I could almost see him make the calculation. He wasn"t going to be able to get into the car and turn it to face the lane before I caught him. He swerved to the - left and sprinted into the dark mouth of the lane with the skirts of the camel-hair coat billowing behind him. I raced after him.
The surface was greasy with wet clay, and he was making heavy going of it. He slid and almost fell, and I was right behind him, coming up swiftly when he turned and I heard the snap of the knife and saw the flash of the blade as it jumped out. He dropped into a crouch with the knife extended and I ran straight in without a check.
He didn"t expect that, the glint of steel will stop most men dead.
He went for my belly, a low underhand stroke, but he was shaky and breathless and it lacked fire. I blocked on the wrist and at the same time hit the pressure point in his forearm. The knife dropped out of his hand and I threw him over my hip. He fell heavily on his back, and although the mud softened the impact I dropped on one knee into his belly. it had two hundred and ten pounds of body weight behind it and it drove the air out of his lungs in a loud whoosh. He doubled up like a foetus in the womb, wheezing for breath, and I flipped him over on to his face. The cloth cap fell off his head and I found that he had a thick shock of dark hair shot through with strands of silver. I took a good handful of it sat on his shoulders and pushed his face deep into the Yellow mud.
"I don"t like little boys who bully girls I told him conversationally, and behind me the engine of the Triumph roared into life. The headlights blazed out and then swung in a wide arc until they burned directly up the narrow lane.
I knew I hadn"t taken the blond out properly, it had been a hurried botchy job. I left the man in the mud and ran back down the lane. The wheels of the Triumph spun On "the Paving of the barnyard and, with its headlights blazing dazzlingly into my eyes, it jumped forward, slewing and skidding as it left the Paving and entered the muddy lane. The driver met the skid and came straight at me.
I fell flat and rolled into the cold ooze of a narrow open drain that carried run-off water through the tall hedge.
The Triumph hit the side a glancing blow and the hedge pushed it slightly off its line. The "nearside wheels spun viciously on the edge of the stone coping of the drain inches from my face, and mud and a shower of twigs fell on me. Then it was past.
it checked as it came level with the man in the muddy camel-hair coat. He was kneeling on the verge of the road and now he dragged himself into the Pa.s.senger seat of the Triumph. Just as I crawled out of the drain and ran up behind the sports car it pulled away again, mud spraying from the spinning rear wheels. In vain I raced after it, but it gathered speed and tore away up the slope. I gave up, turned and ran back down the lane, groping for the keys of the Chrysler in my sodden trouser pockets, and realized I had left them on the table in Jimmy"s room.
Sherry was leaning in the open doorway of the kitchen. She held her burned hand to her chest and her hair was in tangled disarray. The sleeve of her jersey was torn loose from the shoulder.
"I couldn"t stop him, Harry,"she gasped. "I tried." "How bad -is it?" I asked her, abandoning all thought of chasing the sports car when I saw her distress.
"Slightly singed."
"I"ll take you to a doctor."
"No. It doesn"t need it," but her smile was lopsided with pain.
I went up to Jimmy"s room and from my travelling medicine kit I took a Doloxene for the pain and Mogadon to let her sleep.
"I don"t need it, she protested.
"Do I have to hold your now and force them down?" I asked, and she grinned, shook her head and swallowed them. "You"d better take a bath," she said, "you are soaked," and suddenly I realized I was sodden and cold. When I came back to the kitchen, glowing from the bath, she was already whoozy with the pills, but she had made coffee for us and strengthened it with a tot of whisky. We drank it sitting opposite each other.
"What did they want? I asked. "What did they say? "They thought I knew why Jimmy had gone to St. Mary"s. They wanted to know." I thought about that. Something didn"t make sense, it worried me.
"I think-" Sherry"s voice was unsteady and she staggered slightly as she tried to stand. "Wow! What did you give me?" I picked her up and she protested weakly, but I carried her up to her room. It was chintzy and girlish, with rosepatterned wallpaper. I laid her on the bed, pulled off her shoes and covered her with the quilt.
She sighed and closed her eyes. "I think I"ll keep you around,"she whispered. "You"re very useful. Thus encouraged, I sat on the edge of the bed and gentled her to sleep, smoothing her hair off her temples and Stroking the broad forehead; her skin felt like warm velvet. She was asleep within a minute. I switched off the light, and was about to leave when I thought better of it.
I slipped Off MY own shoes and crept in under the quilt. In her sleep she rolled quite naturally into my arms, and I held her close.
It was a good feeling and soon I slept also. I woke in the "
dawn. Her face was pressed into my neck, one leg and arm thrown over me and her hair was soft arid tickling against my cheek.
Without waking her, I gently disengaged myself, kissed , her forehead, Picked up my shoes and went back to my own , room. It was the first time I had spent an entire night with a beautiful woman in my arms, and done nothing but sleep. I Puffed up with virtue.
The letter lay upon the reading table in Jimmy"s room where I had left it and I read it through again before I went to the bathroom. The pencilled note in the margin B Muse. 6914(8)" puzzled me and I fretted over it while I shaved.
The rain had stopped and the clouds were breaking up when I went down into the yard to examine the scene of the previous night"s encounter. The knife lay in the mud and I picked it up and tossed it over the hedge. I went into the kitchen, stamping my feet and rubbing my hands in the cold.
Sherry had started breakfast. "How"s the hand?" "Sore," she admitted.
"We"ll find a doctor on the way up to London."
"What makes you think I"m going to London?"she asked carefully, as she b.u.t.tered toast.
"Two things. You can"t stay here. The wolf pack will be back."
She looked up at me quickly but was silent. "The other is that you promised to help me - and the trail leads to London."
She was unconvinced, so while we ate I showed her the letter I had found in Jimmy"s file.
"I don"t see the connection," she said at last, and I admitted frankly, "It"s not clear to me even." I lit my first cheroot of the day as I spoke, and the effect was almost magical. "But as soon as I saw the words Dawn light something went click-" I stopped. "My G.o.d!" I breathed. "That"s it. The Dawn light" I remembered the sc.r.a.ps of conversation carried to the bridge of Wave Dancer through the ventilator from the cabin below.
"To get the dawn light then we will have to--2 Jimmy"s voice, clear and tight with antic.i.p.ation. "If the dawn light is where- Again the words repeated had puzzled me at the time. They had stuck like burrs in my memory.
I began to explain to Sherry, but I was so excited that it came tumbling out in a rush of words. She laughed, catching my excitement but not understanding the explanations.
"Hey!" she protested. "You are not making sense I began again, but halfway through I stopped and stared at her silently.
"Now what is it?" She was half amused, half exasperated. "This is driving me crazy, also."
I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my fork. "The bell. You remember the bell I told you about. The one Jimmy pulled up at Gunfire Reev."
"Yes, of course."
"I told you it had lettering on it, half eaten away by sand.
"Yes, go on."
With the fork I scratched on the b.u.t.ter, using it as a slate.
"- w N L-." I drew in - the lettering that had been chased into the bronze.
"That was it," I said. "It didn"t mean anything then - but now-"Quickly I completed the letters, "DAwn LIGHT", And she stared at it, nodding slowly as it fitted together. "We have to find out about this ship, the Dawn Light "How?"
"It should be easy. We know she was an East Indiaman there must be records - Lloyd"s - the Board of Trade? She took the letter from my hand and read it again. "The gallant colonel"s luggage probably contained dirty socks and old shirts-"She pulled a face and handed it back to me.
"I"m short of socks," I said, Cherry packed a case, and I was relieved to see that she had the rare virtue of being able to travel light. She went down to speak to the tenant farmer while I packed the bags into the Chrysler. He would keep an eye on the cottage during her absence, and when she came back she merely locked the kitchen door and climbed into the Chrysler beside me.
"Funny," she said. "This feels like the beginning of a long journey."
"I have my plans," I warned and leered at her.
"Once I thought you looked wholesome," she said sorrowfully, "but when you do that--2 "s.e.xy, isn"t it?" I agreed, and took the Chrysler up the lane.
I found a doctor in Haywards Heath. Sherry"s hand had now blistered badly, fat white bags of fluid hung from her fingers like sickly grapes. He drained them, and rebandaged the hand.
"Feels worse now," she murmured as we drove on northwards, and she was pale and silent with the pain of it. I respected her silence, until we were into the suburbs of the city.