"It looked bad for me a while back, Mr. Trenholm," said Thirkle, sitting beside me and offering a cigar, which I took. "I wasn"t quite sure that I could get myself out of that tangle."
"You had a pretty good argument," I commented, lighting the cigar, although my head throbbed so painfully that I knew I would not enjoy the smoke. "I"m afraid I won"t be able to have any plan to help you get away with the gold and so earn my own life."
"My dear Mr. Trenholm, I"m sorry you didn"t go down in the _Kut Sang_.
Really I am, for you know I took quite a fancy to you in Manila. You are of such an unsuspicious nature."
"Oh, I had my suspicions well enough, but they were on the wrong track; in fact, I could not have done you justice--my imagination is not equal to it. The best I could do for you was to mistake you for a spy--an inadequate estimate, after what I have seen and heard of you."
"You flatter me, my dear Mr. Trenholm. But it is entirely your own fault that you are where you are. I tried to warn you, but you couldn"t expect me to tell you my plans regarding the _Kut Sang_. I didn"t want you in her, and I did my best to keep you out. Really remarkable, in a way."
"What do you mean?"
"That you should happen to be a pa.s.senger--such an insistent pa.s.senger--and as if you knew nothing about what was going in the ship.
Really, you and Trego did well."
"I think Trego made rather a mess of it," I said. "If I had been in his boots I would have told the captain what it was all about."
"Why didn"t you tell him? You could have told him about the gold as well as Mr. Trego."
"Indeed! Then, you believe I knew about the _Kut Sang"s_ cargo."
"I don"t believe it, my dear Mr. Trenholm. I never accept a theory as a fact. There was a time when I thought your connection with the affair ended when you brought the orders from Saigon, but your persistence in pretending to buy a ticket in the _Kut Sang_ rather puzzled me for a time, and then I was afraid that you suspected me, and that I had gone too far in trying to keep you out of the vessel."
"You are talking enigmas now."
"But what surprised me most," he resumed, disregarding my remark, "was that I purchased a ticket in the _Kut Sang_ at all. I looked for a trap there, and if the game hadn"t been so big I might have quit at the last minute."
"I am sure I don"t know what you are talking about."
"My dear Mr. Trenholm! Really, your att.i.tude offends me. I cannot see what you expect to gain by pretending you knew nothing about the gold in the _Kut Sang_. That is absurd. You brought the order for it from Saigon, and helped get the thing fixed, and yet you pretend that it is all a mystery to you. When I am willing to be so frank I cannot see why you should a.s.sume this manner."
"Then, I knew all about the gold from the first, did I?"
"Certainly. What do you think Mr. Petrak and I kept so close at your heels for in Manila?"
"Well, it did rather puzzle me for a while. Everywhere I turned you or the little red-headed rascal seemed to be near."
"And never seemed to remember having seen us in Saigon?"
"In Saigon? Were you in Saigon when I was there?"
"Left before you did, when we knew you had the order for the gold from Commander Kousmitch."
"Never met the gentleman."
"Of course not. He got the cable-operator to have you deliver the order in Manila for him. But I heard him and the cable-operator talk it over, and that was all I wanted, and left. So you didn"t see us in Saigon? I told Petrak you didn"t, but he thought you did. That"s one reason we got so bold in Manila."
"But the cable-operator told me the message didn"t amount to much, and that he would send duplicates by mail, anyway."
"Of course he did. It didn"t amount to much, except to give a code order about shipping this gold. And you dropped it in the bus, and I picked it up, and you were rather rude to me, which proved that you either had no suspicions about me, or knew it all and wanted to throw me off my guard. I believe you were actually laughing at me the last few hours in Manila. I couldn"t understand, unless you had things rigged to trip me the minute we sailed.
"I was looking for it at dinner the minute we cast off; and what a scrimmage there would have been at that table if you had drawn one of those pistols! Why, Petrak and Buckrow and Long Jim were in the pa.s.sage with pistols ready to come in, and I would have shot you first, and then Trego, for I knew Captain Riggs had no arms on his person. If I made away with you and Trego the next would have been Rajah, for the lad could have given a nasty cut with that kris. And I had to keep a close eye on Mr.
Trego"s malacca cane."
"Oh, you did! I never suspected for a minute that you regarded Mr. Trego as a dangerous character."
"He never told you?"
"Never told me anything. I was introduced to him in a most casual way in the bank, and was surprised to find him a pa.s.senger in the _Kut Sang_"
"He never told you about his cane? Most beautiful rapier you ever saw in it. Always had it by him, but he overlooked it when he got up from the table in the saloon last evening. Undoubtedly he was going for a pistol, but we had to get him when the time offered; and, besides, he was getting ready to tell Riggs all about me and my crew. There wasn"t a second to lose. I met him as he was coming back and held him for Petrak, and we did the job quietly."
"It was something to be proud of," I remarked. "I never would have given the Rev. Luther Meeker credit for it."
"That"s what made the character so valuable," he grinned, feeling the bandage about his head tenderly. I saw that he was weaker than he had led us to believe, and that he was suffering from his wound.
"But you puzzled me when they found the body. I expected you to denounce me; but you foolishly kept in front of me, and I was ready to blow your back out if you said a word, and we were all ready for the finest kind of a fight, although I did not want to precipitate matters so soon. Really, you had me guessing for a time, and I couldn"t understand your att.i.tude, knowing what you did about me and the gold. Then I saw that you had plans of your own, and wanted it yourself."
"It is you who flatter me now," I told him, surprised at his revelations.
"But you did want it, although I couldn"t see how you figured to take it away from me, or why you didn"t tell Captain Riggs what you knew."
"But I didn"t know anything. I thought you were a spy, who mistook me for one, and I was letting you have your little joke out."
"You didn"t know about the gold, or Trego, or me?" he demanded.
"I regret exceedingly that I didn"t. If I had I would have blocked your game at the first opportunity. I suspected you were not a missionary, but I had never even heard of the Devil"s Admiral."
"Most extraordinary."
"I agree with you."
"I mean that you didn"t know about the gold, when I thought you did. I must confess that I made a tremendous mistake there. Really, it came near being a failure--it would have been if Captain Riggs had not been led to suspect you. I advised him to put you in irons after you were sent to your room--it seemed to be the easiest way to get you out of the fight. I was really afraid of you, Mr. Trenholm."
"You seem to have gotten over it. This seems to be getting more of a tangle all the time, and a sort of mutual-admiration society. I have no objection to keeping up the conversation, but you pique my curiosity as to how it is all going to come out. As I have already remarked, I can"t see any argument that would lead you to let me walk away from here unless I tell you, as you told Petrak and Buckrow, that you"ll hang."
"Now, tut, tut! You can"t play my game. I thought you had more originality than that. You know too much now, and it would be premature to tell the story of the _Kut Sang_ for several years. I"m afraid that I"ll have to write my own memoirs, but for posthumous publication, of course."
"I"m sure I would like to read them. You have turned murder into a fine art--you should have been a contemporary of the Borgias."
"Do you know, Mr. Trenholm, I have thought of something like that myself.
I am quite proud of my success. I would like if my career could be written down by a good hand at such things; but of course that is impossible, for no man ever knew the Devil"s Admiral and lived. I regret to say that you will be no exception in that respect, Mr. Trenholm. I"m sorry you didn"t go down in the _Kut Sang_ and save me what is bound to be a disagreeable job."
"In that case I would have missed the little drama between you and Mr.
Buckrow. I rather enjoyed it. You seem to be an artist at other things besides slaying men."
"I am glad you liked it, but Bucky is rather hard to handle at times.
There will be another act or two, and I"ll give you a chance to see the climax."