In Strange Company: A Story of Chili and the Southern Seas

"You suppose! Of course it was. Well, she tells you she wants money to reach a certain island for a certain purpose. You carry the news on to him. That's his dart exactly. That's just what he wanted to know. He wants that locket too. But he can only get it through her. So, under a cloak of friendship he lends you the amount to get the boat, and then clears for his natural life to the island to be ready for you."

"Yes, your theory's very pretty, but here's the corker. How did he find out the island's name? He didn't get it from me, because I didn't know it till we sailed. Somehow, that don't seem to tally."

"Why, you galoot, don't you think, long before that, he had found out where the schooner that brought the woman and her husband from Tahiti touched before reaching Thursday – where, in fact, they buried the man he wanted to catch. You bet he did."

"I never thought of that."

"Perhaps not; but I did. He sets off, as I say, reaches the island, watches to see where the grave is, and what success she meets with when she opens it; and then, when he finds out how he's been tricked, saddles himself upon you in order to watch the woman further. She faints directly she sees him, proving as clear as daylight that not only has she met him before, but that she has good cause to be frightened of him. By Jove! I can imagine the shock to their systems when they discovered that the man whom they both believed to be dead was in reality alive – that he'd hoodwinked them after all."

He threw back his head and laughed.

"And what then?" I asked.

"Why, don't you see, the treasure they're after is slipping through their fingers. The man has six months start of them. Directly they arrive in Batavia, the Albino sends a cablegram to England. He receives a reply. What was it?"

"'Still unclaimed. Come at once. Don't delay,'" I answered, reciting the words on the form I had picked up in the verandah of the Hôtel des Indes.

"And what significance has that for you?"

"I can't say, unless it affects the treasure."

"You've drawn your bead on the bull's-eye this time, sure enough. That's exactly what it does affect. It affects it like grim death. Don't you see – the other man hasn't got home yet. So they've still a chance for the money. Now they know they've just got to get up and clear for all they're worth to London. What then?"

"It's no use; I'm done for, clean stumped! After that, I can't make head or tail of it."

"Why, they argue in this way. They can't take the woman's lover with them, can they? He'd not only be in the way, but he'd probably want to go shares in the boodle. The woman is too suspicious to let the Albino go alone, so, as the man has served his purpose, he must be got rid of. But how? 'Ah!' says the Albino, 'I've got it! The murder of the Kanaka; that'll fit him like a glove!' Therefore this charge was trumped up to detain you here. D'you know. I should be more than a little surprised if they are not already gone."

"In that case, what will become of me?"

"That remains to be seen. I fancy to-morrow will set it right. But I suppose you understand now how you've been bilked?"

"Worse luck! But there's one thing puzzles me more than all the rest, and that is, how the deuce you come to know all this so accurately."

"My boy, if I gave you a hundred guesses you'd never hit it."

"Well then, I give it up, first time."

"And yet, I reckon, it's as clear as daylight. Who should you call the most important person in the whole affair?"

"Why, the chap who caused it all – the man who led them such a dance – the man who died."

"You mean the man who, by rights, ought to have been where the sheet of lead was, in that coffin?"

"I do."

"Well, that's how I came to know about it."

I jumped to my feet, and all the other occupants of the room, hearing my exclamation of surprise, turned round to look at me.

"What the devil do you mean?"

"Why, can't you guess? Because, sonny, I'm that man. I'm the man who led them such a dance. I'm the man who ought to have been dead and buried in that coffin. In fact, I'm Marcos Veneda!"

PART III

CHAPTER I

RAMSAY IS RELEASED FROM CUSTODY

To say that I was only astonished by Veneda's information, and the explanation he gave to my mystery, would be to define it too tamely altogether. To tell the truth, at the time I was so completely overwhelmed by it as to be unable to grasp, in the least degree, what significance it had for me.

Strange though it may appear, while the most galling part of the whole business could not but be Juanita's treachery to myself, this was almost atoned for, in my mind, by the remembrance of her singular behaviour on the evening preceding my arrest. Come what may, with this knowledge before me, I shall always cherish the belief that not only was the affection she pretended to entertain for me perfectly genuine, but also that she was alone driven to such extreme measures by the extraordinary influence the Albino possessed over her.

Poor Juanita! To be unable to feel bitterly towards you may be to show myself a soft-hearted fool, but whenever I think of that night on the King's Plain, and remember your sorrowful cry, "Oh, Jack, Jack, if you only knew; if we could but be our true selves for one little moment!" all reproaches die out of my heart, and in their place springs up a great pity and a great compassion for you.

Another thing that gave me plenty to think about was the strange fact of my meeting Veneda, of all people, and in such a place! Though as yet I knew next to nothing of his history, I could not but see that his connection with the affair we were both so interested in was genuine enough. As for himself, as soon as he had told me his name he left me, and went without another word to his bed, not to speak again till morning.

When I woke it was just daylight, the door was open, and the prisoners were passing in and out. So far as I could see, in the part of the building in which I was confined, no recognized employment was found for them; though in the other wards, I believe, they were taken out under escort, to do the street scavenging, wood-cutting, public gardening, etc.

A little before seven o'clock a coarse meal was served to us, and while I was partaking of it, Veneda came up. I made room for him to sit down on the bench beside me, for I was burning to question him further on the subject that lay nearest to both our hearts.

"Look here," I said, "for goodness' sake let's get this thing properly squared up. I've been puzzling my brain over it till I'm nearly crazy. I must understand two or three things more."

"Go ahead," he replied; "you can't be more anxious to get to the bed rock than I am. What do you want to know?"

"Well, in the first place, how on earth you managed to die and come to life again so cleverly? Juanita told me she saw you lying stiff and stark in your bunk."

"So she did, as far as she knew; but I was only playing 'possum. It was the one way out of my difficulty, you see. I knew I had to get rid of her, and there was no other fashion in which it could be managed."

"Then the captain was in the secret after all, and his dislike to you was all assumed?"

"Every bit! But he was a money-grubbing old dog, was Boulger, and it cost me a cool hundred to bring him up to the scratch. Once that was done, all was plain sailing. After leaving Tahiti, cholera, Yellow Jack, fish-poisoning, or some other disease came aboard, and the crew and mate went down before it like ninepins. There was my chance! I pretended to go under to it too. The skipper acted his part like a little man, and wouldn't let Juanita into the cabin for fear of detection. Then, in the night, I died. Next day, according to her wish, my dummy was taken ashore, and buried on Vanua Lava, while I was safely stowed away in the skipper's cabin, until we reached Thursday Island. There she remained to hunt up a way of getting back to look for that locket."

"While you?"

"Next morning I caught a craft sailing this way, intending to pick up a mail-boat from Batavia, home. But luck was against me; I ran athwart the hawse of a Dutch officer; put a bullet into him, and got locked up. That's how I came here. Want to know any more?"

"One thing. Now you're alive, what is going to become of your wife?"

"My wife? And who may she be? Never heard of the lady."

"But Juanita?"

Veneda whistled a long note of astonishment.

"You don't mean to tell me she's been parading me as her husband?"

"You're not? You're not Juanita's husband?"