I am come about the yacht _Siren_ which you have advertised for sale."
She seemed more than ever inclined to run. Her voice scarcely rose above a whisper.
"My agents at F-- have full instructions about the sale."
"Yes, but they tell me you have the papers. I may say that I have seen the yacht and gear and am ready to pay the price you ask for immediate possession. I said as much to Mr. Dewy. But the papers, of course--"
"Are they necessary?"
"Certainly they are. At least the certificate of registry or, failing that, some reference to the port of registry, if the transfer is to be made. I should also like to see her warrant if she has one, and her sailmaker"s certificate. Messrs. Dewy and Moss could draw up the inventory."
She still hesitated. At length she said, "I have the certificate; I will fetch it. The other papers, if she had any, have been lost or destroyed. She never had a warrant. I believe my husband belonged to no Yacht Club. I understand very little of these matters."
She left the room, and returned in five minutes or so with the open doc.u.ment in her hand.
"But," said I, looking over it, "this is a certificate of a vessel called the _Wasp_."
"Ah, I must explain that. I wished the boat to change her name with the new owner. Her old name--it has a.s.sociations--painful ones--I should not like anyone else to know her as the _Wasp_."
"Well," I admitted, "I can understand that. But, see here, she is entered as having one mast and carrying a cutter rig."
"She was a cutter originally. My husband had her lengthened, in 1886, I think by five feet, and turned her into a yawl. It was abroad, at Malaga--"
"A curious port to choose."
"She was built, you see, as long ago as 1875. My husband used to say she was a broad boat for those days, and could be lengthened successfully and turned into quite a new-looking vessel. He gave her an entirely new sheathing, too, and all her spars are new. She was not insured, and, being in a foreign port, it was understood he would have her newly registered when he returned, which he fully intended.
So no alterations were made in the certificate here, and, I believe, her old tonnage is still carved up somewhere inside her."
This was true enough. The figures on the certificate, 29.56, were those I had seen on the beam in the forecastle.
"My husband never lived to reach England, and when she came back to F--, though she was visited, of course, by the Custom House officer and coastguard, n.o.body asked for her certificate, and so the alterations in her were never explained. She was laid up at once in the F-- River, and there she has remained."
Certain structural peculiarities in the main cabin--scarcely noted at the time, but now remembered--served to confirm Mrs. Carlingford"s plainly told story. On my return to London that night I hunted up some back volumes of Hunt, and satisfied myself on the matter of the _Wasp_ and her owner, William Carlingford. And, to be short, the transfer was made on a fresh survey, the cheque sent to Mrs. Carlingford, and the yawl _Siren_ pa.s.sed into my hands.
All being settled, I wrote to my old acquaintance, Mr. Dewy, asking him to fit the vessel out, and find me a steady skipper and crew--not without some apprehension of hearing by return of post that Dewy and Moss were ready and willing to sign articles with me to steer and sail the yacht in their spare moments. Perhaps the idea did not occur to them. At any rate they found me a crew, and a good one; and I spent a very comfortable three months, cruising along the south-western coast, across to Scilly, from Scilly to Cork and back to Southampton, where on September 29, 1891, I laid the yacht up for the winter.
Thrice since have I applied to Messrs. Dewy and Moss for a crew, and always with satisfactory results. But I must pa.s.s over 1892 and 1893 and come to the summer of 1894; or, to be precise, to Wednesday, the 11th of July. We had left Plymouth that morning for a run westward; but, the wind falling light towards noon, we found ourselves drifting, or doing little more, off the entrance of the small fishing haven of Penleven. Though I had never visited Penleven I knew, on the evidence of many picture-shows, that the place was well worth seeing.
Besides, had I not the a.s.surances of the Visitors" Book in my cabin?
It occurred to me that I would anchor for an hour or two in the entrance of the haven, and eat my lunch ash.o.r.e at Mr. Job"s hotel. Mr. Job would doubtless be pleased to recover his long-lost volume, and I had no more wish than right to retain it.
Job"s hotel was unpretending. Mrs. Job offered me ham and eggs and, as an alternative, a cut off a boiled silver-side of beef, if I did not mind waiting for ten minutes or so, when her husband would be back to dinner. I said that I would wait, and added that I should be pleased to make Mr. Job"s acquaintance on his return, as I had a trifling message for him.
About ten minutes later, while studying a series of German lithographs in the coffee-room, I heard a heavy footstep in the pa.s.sage and a knock at the door; and Mr. Job appeared, a giant of a man, with a giant"s girth and red cheeks, which he sufflated as a preliminary of speech.
"Good day, Mr. Job," said I. "I won"t keep you from your dinner, but the fact is, I am the unwilling guardian of a trifle belonging to you."
And I showed him the Visitors" Book.
I thought the man would have had an apoplectic fit there on the spot.
He rolled his eyes, dropped heavily upon a chair, and began to breathe hard and short.
"Where--where--?" he gasped, and began to struggle again for breath.
I said, "For some reason or other the sight of this book distresses you, and I think you had better not try to speak for a bit. I will tell you exactly how the book came into my possession, and afterwards you can let me have your side of the story, if you choose." And I told him just what I have told the reader.
At the conclusion, Mr. Job loosed his neckcloth and spoke--
"That book, sir, ought to be lyin" at the bottom of the sea. It was lost on the evening of September the 3rd, 1886, on board a yacht that went down with all hands. Now I"ll tell you all about it. There was a gentleman called Blake staying over at Port William that summer--that"s four miles up the coast, you know."
I nodded.
". . . staying with his wife and one son, a tall young fellow, aged about twenty-one, maybe. They came from Liverpool--and they had a yacht with them, that they kept in Port William harbour, anch.o.r.ed just below the bridge. She would be about thirty tons--a very pretty boat.
They had only one hired hand for crew; used to work her themselves for the most part; the lady was extraordinary clever at the helm, or at the sheets either. Very quiet people they were. You might see them most days that summer, anch.o.r.ed out on the whiting grounds. What was she called? The _Queen of Sheba_--cutter-rigged-quite a new boat.
It was said afterwards that the owner, Mr. Blake, designed her himself.
She used often to drop anchor off Penleven. Know her? Why of course I"d know her; "specially considerin" what happened.
""What was that?" A very sad case; it made a lot of talk at the time.
One day--it was the third of September, "86--Mr. and Mrs. Blake and the son, they anch.o.r.ed off the haven and came up here to tea. I supposed at the time they"d left their paid hand, Robertson, on board; but it turned out he was left home at Port William that day, barkin" a small mainsail that Mr. Blake had bought o" purpose for the fishin". Well, Mrs. Blake she ordered tea, and while my missus was layin" the cloth young Mr.
Blake he picks up that very book, sir, that was lyin" on the sideboard, and begins readin" it and laffin". My wife, she goes out of the room for to cut the bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and when she comes back there was the two gentlemen by the window studyin" the book with their backs to the room, and Mrs. Blake lyin" back in the chair I"m now sittin" on, an" her face turned to the wall--so. The young Mr. Blake he turns round and says, "This here"s a very amusin" book, Mrs. Job. Would you mind my borrowing it for a day or two to copy out some of the poetry?
I"ll bring it back next time we put into Penleven." Of course my wife says, "No, she didn"t mind." Then the elder Mr. Blake he says, "I see you had a visitor here yesterday--a Mr. MacGuire. Is he in the house?" My wife said, "No; the gentleman had left his traps, but he"d started that morning to walk to Port William to spend the day."
Nothing more pa.s.sed. They had their tea, and paid for it, and went off to their yacht. I saw that book in the young man"s hand as he went down the pa.s.sage.
"Well, sir, it was just dusking in as they weighed and stood up towards Port William, the wind blowing pretty steady from the south"ard.
At about ten minutes to seven o"clock it blew up in a sudden little squall--nothing to mention; the fishing-boats just noticed it, and that was all. But it was reckoned that squall capsized the _Queen of Sheba_.
She never reached Port William, and no man ever clapped eyes on her after twenty minutes past six, when d.i.c.k Crego declares he saw her off the Blowth, half-way towards home, and going steady under all canvas.
The affair caused a lot of stir, here and at Port William, and in the newspapers. Short-handed as they were, of course they"d no business to carry on as they did--"specially as my wife declares from her looks that Mrs. Blake was feelin" faint afore they started. She always seemed to me a weak, timmersome woman at the best; small and ailin" to look at."
"And Mr. Blake?"
"Oh, he was a strong-made gentleman: tall, with a big red beard."
"The son?"
"Took after his father, only he hadn"t any beard; a fine upstanding pair."
"And no trace was ever found of them?"
"Not a stick nor a shred."
"But about this Visitors" Book? You"ll swear they took it with them?
See, there"s not a stain of salt-water upon it."
"No, there isn"t; but I"ll swear young Mr. Blake had it in his hand as he went from my door."
I said, "Mr. Job, I"ve kept you already too long from your dinner.
Go and eat, and ask them to send in something for me. Afterwards, I want you to come with me and take a look at my yacht, that is lying just outside the haven."
As we started from the sh.o.r.e Mr. Job, casting his eyes over the _Siren_, remarked, "That"s a very pretty yawl of yours, sir." As we drew nearer, he began to eye her uneasily.
"She has been lengthened some five or six feet," I said; "she was a cutter to begin with."