Scarhaven Keep

"He's coming out of that hatchway!" whispered Copplestone. "If he comes ashore he'll see us, and then—"

"No matter, guv'nor," said Spurge reassuringly. "They can't get out o' Scarvell's Cut into the river till the tide serves. Yes, that's Cap'n Andrius right enough—and he's coming ashore."

Andrius had by that time drawn himself out of the hatchway and now revealed himself in the jersey, the thick leg-wear, and short sea-boots of an oceangoing man. Copplestone's recollection of him as he showed himself on board the Pike was of a very smartly attired, rather dandified person—only some deep scheme, he knew, would have caused him to assume this disguise, and he watched him with interest as he rolled ashore and disappeared within the lower story of the sail-loft. Spurge, too, watched with all his eyes, and he turned to Copplestone with a gleam of excitement.

"Guv'nor!" he said. "We've trapped 'em beautiful! I know that place—I've worked in there in my time. I know a way into it, from the back—we'll get in that way and see what's being done. 'Tain't worked no longer, that sail-loft—it's all falling to pieces. But first—help!"

"How are we to get that?" asked Copplestone, eagerly.

"I'll go it," replied Spurge. "I know a man just aback of here that'll run up to the town with a message—chap that can be trusted, sure and faithful. 'Bide here five minutes, sir—I'll send a message to Mr. Vickers—this chap'll know him and'll find him. He can come down with the rest—and the police, too, if he likes. Keep your eyes skinned, guv'nor."

He twisted away like an eel into the crowd of workers and idlers, and left Copplestone at the entrance to the alley, watching. And he had not been so left more than a couple of minutes when a woman slipped past the mouth of the alley, swiftly, quietly, looking neither to right nor left, of whose veiled head and face he caught one glance. And in that glance he recognized her—Addie Chatfield!

But in the moment of that glance Copplestone also recognized something vastly more important. Here was the explanation of the mystery of the early-morning doings at the old tower. The footprints of a woman who wore fashionable and elegant boots? Addie Chatfield, of course! Was she not old Peter's daughter, a chip of the old block, even though a feminine chip? And did not he and Gilling know that she had been mixed up with Peter at the Bristol affair? Great Scott!—why, of course. Addie was an accomplice in all these things!

If Copplestone had the least shadow of doubt remaining in his mind as to this conclusion, it was utterly dissipated when, peering cautiously round the corner of his hiding-place, he saw Addie disappear within the old sail-loft into which Andrius had betaken himself. Of course, she had gone to join her fellow-conspirators. He began to fume and fret, cursing himself for allowing Spurge to bring him down there alone—if only they had had Gilling and Vickers with them, armed as they were—

"All right, guv'nor!" Spurge suddenly whispered at his shoulder. "They'll be here in a quarter of an hour—I telephoned to 'em."

"Do you know what?" exclaimed Copplestone, excitedly. "Old Chatfield's daughter's gone in there, where Andrius went. Just now!"

"What—the play-actress!" said Spurge. "You don't say, guv'nor? Ha!—that explains everything—that's the missing link! Ha! But we'll soon know what they're after, Mr. Copplestone. Follow me—quiet as a mouse."

Once more submitting to be led, Copplestone followed his queer guide along the alley.

CHAPTER XXX

THE GREENGROCER'S CART

Spurge led Copplestone a little way up the narrow alley from the mouth of which they had observed the recent proceedings, suddenly turned off into a still narrower passage, and emerged at the rear of an ancient building of wood and stones which looked as if a stout shove or a strong wind would bring it down in dust and ruin.

"Back o' that old sail-loft what looks out on this cut," he whispered, glancing over his shoulder at Copplestone. "Now, guv'nor, we're going in here. As I said before, I've worked in this place—did a spell here when I was once lying low for a month or two. I know every inch of it, and if that lot are under this roof I know where they'll be."

"They'll show fight, you know," remarked Copplestone.

"Well, but ain't we got something to show fight with, too?" answered Spurge, with a knowing wink. "I've got my revolver handy, what Mr. Vickers give me, and I reckon you can handle yours. However, it ain't come to no revolver yet. What I want is to see and hear, guv'nor—follow me."

He had opened a ramshackle door in the rear of the premises as he spoke and he now beckoned his companion to follow him down a passage which evidently led to the front. There was no more than a dim light within, but Copplestone could see that the whole place was falling to pieces. And it was all wrapped in a dead silence. Away out on the quay was the rattle of chains, the creaking of a windlass, the voices of men and shrill laughter of women, but in there no sound existed. And Spurge suddenly stopped his stealthy creeping forward and looked at Copplestone suspiciously.

"Queer, ain't it?" he whispered. "I don't hear a voice, nor yet the ghost of one! You'd think that if they was in here they'd be talking. But we'll soon see."

Clambering up a pile of fallen timber which lay in the passage and beckoning Copplestone to follow his example, Spurge looked through a broken slat in the wooden partition into an open shed which fronted the Cut. The shed was empty. Folk were passing to and fro in front of it; the North Sea tug still lay at the wharf beyond; a man who was evidently its skipper sat on a tub on its deck placidly smoking his short pipe—but of Addie Chatfield or of Andrius there was no sign. And the silence in that crumbling, rat-haunted house was deeper than ever.

"Guv'nor!" muttered Spurge, "How long is it since you see—her?"

"Almost as soon as you'd gone," answered Copplestone.

"Ten minutes ago!" sighed Spurge. "Guv'nor—they've done us! They're off! I see it—she must ha' caught sight o' me, nosing round, and she came here and gave the others the office, and they bucked out at the back. The back, Guv'nor! and Lord bless you, at the back o' this shanty there's a perfect rabbit-warren o' places—more by token, they call it the Warren. If they've got in there, why, all the police in Norcaster'll never find 'em—leastways, I mean, to speak truthful, not without a deal o' trouble."

"What about upstairs?" asked Copplestone.

"Upstairs, now?" said Spurge with a doubtful glance at the ramshackle stairway. "Lord, mister!—I don't believe nobody could get up them stairs! No—they've hooked it through the back here, into the Warren. And once in there—"

He ended with an eloquent gesture, and dismounting from his perch made his way along the passage to a door which opened into the shed. Thence he looked out on the quay, and along the crowded maze of Scarvell's Cut.

"Here's some of 'em, anyway, guv'nor," he announced. "I see Mr. Vickers and t'other London gentleman, and the old Admiral, at all events. There they are—getting out of a motor at the end. But go to meet 'em, Mr. Copplestone, while I keep my eye on this here tug and its skipper."

Copplestone elbowed his way through the crowd until he met Sir Cresswell and his two companions. All three were eager and excited: Copplestone could only respond to their inquiries with a gloomy shake of the head.

"We seem to have the devil's own luck!" he growled dismally. "Spurge and I spotted Andrius by sheer accident. He was on a North Sea tug, or trawler, along the quay here. Then Spurge ran off to summon you. While he was away Miss Chatfield appeared—"

"Addie Chatfield!" exclaimed Vickers.

"Exactly. And that of course," continued Copplestone, glancing at Gilling, "that without doubt—in my opinion, anyway—explains those elegant footprints up at the tower. Addie Chatfield, I tell you! She passed me as I was hiding at the entrance to an alley down the Cut here, and she went into an old sail-loft, outside which the tug I spoke of is moored, and into which Andrius had strolled a minute or two previously. But—neither she nor Andrius are there now. They've gone! And Spurge says that at the back of this quay there's a perfect rabbit-warren of courts and alleys, and if—or, rather as they've escaped into that—eh?"

The detectives who had accompanied Sir Cresswell on the interrupted expedition to the old tower and who had now followed him and his companions in a second car and arrived in time to hear Copplestone's story, looked at each other.

"That's right enough—comparatively speaking," said one. "But if they're in the Warren we shall get 'em out. The first thing to do, gentlemen, is to take a look at that tug."

"Exactly!" exclaimed Sir Cresswell. "Just what I was thinking. Let us find out what its people have to say."

The man who smoked his pipe in placid contentment on the deck of the tug looked up in astonishment as the posse of eight crossed the plank which connected him with the quay. Nevertheless he preserved an undaunted front, kept his pipe in his tightly closed lips, and cocked a defiant eye at everybody.

"Skipper o' this craft?" asked the principal detective laconically. "Right? Where are you from, then, and when did you come in here?"

The skipper removed his pipe and spat over the rail. He put the pipe back, folded his arms and glared.

"And what the dickens may that be to do with you?" he inquired. "And who may you be to walk aboard my vessel without leave?"

"None of that, now!" said the detective. "Come on—we're police officers. There's something wrong round here. We've got warrants for two men that we believe to have been on your tug—one of 'em was seen here not so many minutes ago. You'd far better tell us what you know. If you don't tell now, you'll have to tell later. And—I expect you've been paid already. Come on—out with it!"

The skipper, whose gnarled countenance had undergone several changes during this address, smote one red fist on top of the other.

"Darned if I don't know as there was something on the crook in this here affair!" he said, almost cheerily. "Well, well—but I ain't got nothing to do with it. Warrants?—you say? Ah! And what might be the partiklar' natur' o' them warrants?"

"Murder!" answered the detective. "That's one charge, anyhow—for one of 'em, at any rate. There's others."

"Murder's enough," responded the skipper. "Well, of course, nobody can tell a man to be a murderer by merely looking at his mug. Not at all!—nobody! However, this here is how it is. Last night it were—evening, to be c'rect—dark. I was on the edge o' the fleet, out there off the Dogger. A yacht comes up—smart 'un—very fast sailer—and hails me. Was I going into Norcaster or anywheres about? Being a Northborough tug, this, I wasn't. Would I go for a consideration—then and there? Whereupon I asked what consideration? Then we bargains. Eventual, we struck it at thirty pounds—cash down, which was paid, prompt. I was to take two men straight and slick into Norcaster, to this here very slip, Scarvell's Cut, to wait while they put a bit of a cargo on board, and then to run 'em back to the same spot where I took 'em up. Done! they come aboard—the yacht goes off east—I come careenin' west. That's all! That part of it anyway."

"And the men?" suggested the detective. "What sort were they, and where are they?"

"The men, now!" said the skipper. "Ah! Two on 'em—both done up in what you might call deep-sea-style. But hadn't never done no deep-sea nor yet any other sort o' sea work in their mortial days—hands as white and soft as a lady's. One, an old chap with a dial like a full moon on him—sly old chap, him! T'other a younger man, looked as if he'd something about him—dangerous chap to cross. Where are they? Darned if I know. What I knows, certain, is this—we gets in here about eight o'clock this morning, and makes fast here, and ever since then them two's been as it were on the fret and the fidge, allers lookin' out, so to speak, for summun as ain't come yet. The old chap, he went across into that there sail-maker's loft an hour ago, and t'other, he followed of him, recent. I ain't seen 'em since. Try there. And I say?"

"Well?" asked the detective.

"Shall I be wanted?" asked the skipper. "'Cause if not, I'm off and away as soon as the tide serves. Ain't no good me waitin' here for them chaps if you're goin' to take and hang 'em!"

"Got to catch 'em first," said the detective, with a glance at his two professional companions. "And while we're not doubting your word at all, we'll just take a look round your vessel—they might have slipped on board again, you see, while your back was turned."