Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery. Freeman Crofts Wills
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this was a victory for Price was evident, but the young man showed no elation. He carefully avoided anything in the nature of a taunt, and spoke in a quiet, businesslike way.
‘We might be able to arrange that. Where is the letter?’
‘At my bank in Dartmouth.’
‘Then the matter is quite simple. All you have to do is to write to the manager to send the letter to an address I shall give you. Directly you do so you shall have the best food and drink on the launch, and directly the letter is in our hands you will be put ashore close to your home.’
Cheyne still hesitated.
‘I’ll do it provided you can prove to me your statements. How am I to know that you will keep your word? How am I to know that you won’t get the letter and then murder me?’
‘I’m afraid you can’t know that. I would gladly prove it to you, but you must see that it’s just not possible. I give you my solemn word of honour and you’ll have to accept it because there is nothing else you can do.’
Cheyne demurred further, but as Price showed signs of retreating and leaving him to think it over until the evening, he hastily agreed to write the letter. Immediately the electric light came on in his cabin and Price passed in a couple of sheets of notepaper and envelopes. Cheyne gazed at them in surprise. They were of a familiar silurian gray and the sheets bore in tiny blue embossed letters the words ‘Warren Lodge, Dartmouth, S. Devon.’
‘Why, it’s my own paper,’ he exclaimed, and Price with a smile admitted that in view of some development like the present, his agents had taken the precaution to annex a few sheets when paying their call to Cheyne’s
‘If you will ask your manager to send the letter to Herbert Taverner, Esq., Royal Hotel, Weymouth, it will meet the case. Taverner is my agent, and as soon as it is in his hands I will set you ashore at Johnson’s wharf.’
Seeing there was no help for it, Cheyne wrote the letter. Price read it carefully, then sealed it in its envelope. Immediately after he handed through the panel a tumbler of whisky and water, then hurried off, saying he was going to despatch the letter and bring Cheyne his breakfast.
Oh, the unspeakable delight of that drink! Cheyne thought he had never before experienced any sensation approaching it in satisfaction. He swallowed it in great gulps, and when in a few moments Price returned, he demanded more, and again more.
His thirst assuaged, hunger asserted itself, and for the next half-hour Cheyne had the time of his life as Price handed in through the panel a plate of smoking ham and eggs, fragrant coffee, toast, butter, marmalade and the like. At last with a sigh of relief Cheyne lit his pipe, while Price passed in blankets and rugs to make up a bed in one of the bunks. Some books and magazines followed and a hand-bell, which Price told him to ring if he wanted anything.
Comfortable in body and fairly easy in mind, Cheyne made up his bed and promptly fell asleep. It was afternoon when he awoke, and on ringing the bell, Price appeared with a well-cooked lunch. The evening passed comfortably if tediously and that night Cheyne slept well.
Next day and next night dragged slowly away. Cheyne was well looked after and supplied with everything he required, but the confinement grew more and more irksome. However, he could not help himself and he had to admit he might have fared worse, as he lay smoking in his bunk and brooding over schemes to get even with the men who had tricked him.
About half-past ten on the second morning he suddenly heard oars approaching, followed by the sounds of a boat coming alongside and someone climbing on board. A few moments later Price appeared at the panel.
‘You will be pleased to hear, Mr Cheyne, that we have received the letter safely. We are getting under way at once and you will be home in less than three hours.’
Presently the motor started, and soon the slow, easy roll showed they were out in the open breasting the Channel ground swell. After a couple of hours Price appeared with his customary tray.
‘We are just coming into the estuary of the Dart.’ he said. ‘I thought perhaps you would have a bit of lunch before going ashore.’
The meal, like its fellows, was surprisingly well cooked and served, and Cheyne did full justice to it. By the time he had finished the motion of the boat had subsided and it was evident they were in sheltered waters. Some minutes later the motor stopped, the anchor was dropped and someone got into a boat and rowed off. A quarter of an hour passed and then the boat returned, and to Cheyne’s misgivings and growing concern, the motor started again. But after a very few minutes it once more stopped and Price appeared at the panel.
‘Now, Mr Cheyne, the time has come for us to say good-bye. For obvious reasons I am afraid we shall have to ask you to row yourself ashore, but the tide is flowing and you will have no difficulty in that. But before parting I wish to warn you very earnestly for your own sake and your own safety not to attempt to follow us or to set the police on our track. Believe me, I am not speaking idly when I assure you that we cannot brook interference with our plans. We wish to avoid “removals,”’ he lingered over the word and a sinister gleam came into his eyes, ‘but please understand we shall not hesitate if there is no other way. And if you try to give trouble there will be in your case no other way. Take my advice and be wise enough to forget this little episode.’ He took a small automatic pistol from his pocket and balanced it before the panel. ‘I warn you most earnestly that if you attempt to make trouble it will mean your death. And with regard to trying to follow us, please remember that this launch has the heels of any craft in the district and that we have a safe hiding-place not far away.’
As Price finished speaking he unlocked and threw open the cabin door, motioning his prisoner to follow him on deck. There Cheyne saw that they were far down the estuary, in fact, nearly opposite Warren Lodge and a mile or more from the town.
‘I thought you were going to take me to Johnson’s jetty,’ he remarked.
‘An obvious precaution,’ the other returned smoothly. ‘I trust you won’t mind.’
The freshness and the freedom of the deck were inexpressibly delightful to Cheyne after his long confinement in the stuffy cabin. He stood drawing deep draughts of the keen invigorating air into his lungs, as he gazed at the familiar shores of the estuary, lighted up in the brilliant April sunlight. Nature seemed in an optimistic mood and Cheyne, in spite of his experiences and Price’s gruesome remarks, felt optimistic also. He still felt he would devote all his energies to getting even with the scoundrels who had robbed him, but he no longer regarded them with a sullen hatred. Rather the view of the affair as a game in which he was pitting his wits against theirs gained force in his mind, and he looked forward with zest to turning the tables upon them in the not too distant future.
In the launch’s dinghy, which was made fast astern, was Lewisham, engaged in untying the painter of a second dinghy which bore on its stern board the words ‘S. Johnson, Dartmouth.’ The explanation of the starting and stopping of the motor now became clear. The conspirators had evidently gone in to pick up this boat and had towed it down the estuary so as to ensure their escape before Cheyne could reach the shore to lodge any information against them.
The painter untied, Lewisham passed it aboard the launch and Price, drawing the boat up to the gunwale, motioned Cheyne into it.
‘As I said, I’m sorry we shall have to ask you to row yourself ashore, but the run of the tide will help you. Good-bye, Mr Cheyne. I deeply regret all the inconvenience you have suffered, and most earnestly I urge you to regard the warning which I have given you.’
As he spoke he threw the end of the painter into the dinghy and the launch’s motor starting, she drew quickly ahead, leaving Cheyne seated in the small boat.
Full of an idea which had just flashed into his mind, the latter seized the oars and began pulling with all his might not for Johnson’s jetty, but for the shore immediately opposite. But try as he would, he did not reach it before the launch Enid had become a mere dot on the seaward horizon.