Chapter XXIV: A Flight and a Resting-Place

Mr. Theodore Shelf had arranged for an exodus _de luxe_, and flattered himself that he would have no difficulty in carrying it out. He had got to know exactly when the police were going to come for him at the house in Park Lane, and had slipped away from there in his own brougham, so as to leave himself a comfortable margin of start. He had stepped out of a railway-carriage at Newport, whilst all the authorities fondly imagined he was still on his way to Liverpool; and, with George and a small russia-leather handbag, had taken a cab down to the docks.

He pulled out his large gold watch, looked at it, and smiled. Punctual to the minute! He paid his cabman, and, with the dog at his heels, stepped daintily amongst the litter on the wharf to where a single gang-plank joined it to the _Gazelle_, one of his own steamers. He went on board and shook hands with the captain.

“All your portmanteaux have come, sir,” said that officer. “I saw them put into your room myself last night.”

“And the wine?”

“Nine cases of it, sir, stowed in the cabin store-room. My steward got in all the other things you ordered exactly as they were written out on the list, and for a cook I have managed to secure a man off a big Cunarder—by paying for him, of course. But, then, you told me, sir, I was not to spare cost.”

“Quite right, Captain Colson; quite right. Money must be no object when we have health to consider; and my advisers tell me that it is absolutely dangerous for me to remain in England any longer. A change is imperative for me. You are ready to get under weigh?”

“We finished coaling an hour ago. We are only waiting for you, sir.”

“Then,” said Mr. Shelf, with a pleasant smile, “do not rob me of another minute of my hardly-earned holiday, captain. Use your magician’s wand and waft me from the cares of business and the coal-dust of Newport—as quickly as ever you may. I will go below now and snatch a wink of sleep; and when I wake, let it be to breathe the pure sea air as it comes in sweet and clear and salt from the mouth of the Bristol Channel.”

The captain was a practical man, who did not appreciate rhapsodies. He said, “Very well, sir; I’ll get her under weigh at once,” and left for the upper bridge.

Mr. Theodore Shelf, with George at his heels, went below, undressed, and turned in. He slept placidly, and meanwhile the steamer worked out of dock and began to make her way down the reddened waters of the great estuary. He dreamed of conquering another financial kingdom for himself in a South American Republic. It was a very pleasant dream, full of rich and voluptuous detail.

When he woke, he began at once the process of cutting himself adrift from his old life. His clothes of every-day wear—the prim black broadcloth that he preached in, addressed the House of Commons in, wore for business purposes in the City—lay in a ruffled heap on the cabin floor. He unscrewed the port-hole, and dropped the garments one by one on to the sunny waves which raced by outside. And then he drew from his portmanteau tweeds of a daring pattern and yellow boots and a smart straw hat; and in ten minutes he was another man. The smug, hypocritical smile was gone from his face, and his lips pouted lovingly round an excellent cigar.

Except by stealth he had not smoked for fifteen years, and as the fumes went up he felt that he was burning a pleasant incense to his new-bought liberty. He would have smoked in bed had he thought of it; but as it was, smoking before breakfast made the next best thing, since both seemed eminently rakish.

A deferential steward knocked at his door, and announced breakfast. Mr. Shelf strolled out into the main cabin, threw his cigar into the alley-way, and sat up to the table. The captain and the second mate were mealing with him, and, by the faces of them, they felt out of their element before the epicurean _menu_ which the Cunarder’s cook had sent up in place of the usual hash and tea. But Shelf took the lead, and called for champagne to drink _bon voyage_, and unwrapped himself into a glittering host, and had them at their entire ease in less time than it takes to eat a curried egg. There was no holding the man. He was free with his speech as a bookmaker at Monte Carlo; he was witty, scurrilous, irreverent; he brought out tales which made even the captain grin dubiously. In fact, he showed such a fine vein of breezy sinfulness that the captain (who had been in his service for many a weary year) marveled at his strength in ever keeping it under.

George was the only person who understood it all. George sat on a cushioned locker and grinned and appreciated Mr. Shelf’s changed manner to the full. If he could have shown derision for the gulls they had left behind in England, he would have done it cheerfully. Mr. Shelf was all George’s world. He was a most immoral dog.

* * * * *

Now it came to pass that a sudden change swept over the scene. Whilst Mr. Shelf was initiating his new friends into the beauties of an after-breakfast liqueur, the steamer’s helm was put hard a-port to avoid a fishing-boat which had got in her way; and whilst he chose a cigarette from his elaborate silver case, the steam steering-gear chose to break down, and before he had lit the dainty roll of tobacco and blown out his match and inhaled four puffs of smoke, the steamer was hard-and-fast ashore on one of the outlying reefs of Lundy Island.

The mate in charge on the bridge had done his best with reversed engines, but the steamer’s way was too great, and the ported helm gave her a steer which no one could govern; and so she took the shore on a falling tide.

Mr. Shelf’s vocabulary lengthened still more surprisingly. The scheme of easy escape had of a sudden been snatched away. The fear of worse than death was upon him, and he cursed the mate, the steamer, and all within her by all the gods he had ever served. The captain suggested that the blame would fall upon the pilot in charge, and Mr. Shelf cursed the pilot with fluent rage. The man was in a perfect hysteria of passion and rage.

But by degrees he calmed down, and, when the shipboard flurry was at an end, drew the captain aside and addressed him confidentially.

“When can you get her off?” he asked.

“Next tide, if I wanted to; but I don’t. My mate’s been below, and he says there are half a dozen plates started. I’m sorry, Mr. Shelf, but this is going to be a job for the salvage people. I hope, sir, you’ll take into consideration that it’s through no fault of mine the old boat’s got herself piled up. I know you don’t give berths to any officer who’s once been unlucky, even though he has kept his ticket clean; but, seeing that I’m a shareholder——”

“Man!” broke in Shelf, passionately, “you must get her off with the next tide, and try and push on across the Atlantic. I can’t afford to waste the time. Good heavens, Captain Colson, you have pumps! What are pumps for if they can’t counterbalance a bit of a leak? Besides, the weather’s fine enough.”

The captain stared. “You don’t seem to understand, sir,” he said. “This isn’t a new ship, and she’s stove in three compartments, at least. She’d go down like a broken salmon-can if she put into deep water. Of course, we should get off right enough in the boats; but, seeing that you were on board, I fancy the insurance people’d think there was something hanky-panky about it and refuse to pay. And, any way, if we tried anything half so mad I should lose my ticket for good.”

“Man,” said Shelf, putting ten shaking fingers on the captain’s arm, “we must go on at any risk, if it’s only to Spain—if it’s only to France.”

The captain looked at him queerly. “What’s this mean?” he asked.

“I dare not go back.”

“And why not, please?”

“I’ve been unfortunate in business, captain, and it is absolutely essential that I should remain abroad a month or so till matters are settled up again.”

“Ho!” said Captain Colson, “I’m beginning to see. And which business, please, have you been unfortunate in?”

“What does it matter? Several. Captain, you are wasting time.”

“There is no immediate hurry, sir,” said the captain, stolidly. “May I ask if the ‘Brothers S. S. Association’ is down on its luck amongst the other concerns?”

“I’m—er—I’m afraid it isn’t very prosperous,” said Shelf.

“Bust?” inquired the captain.

“Confound you, yes!” roared Shelf. “What do you mean by questioning me like this?”

“I’ve got £300 in that blessed company.”

“Ah!” said Shelf, changing his tone. “Well, that is unfortunate. But,” he continued, with a significant nod of the head, “I’ve managed to save a little something for myself out of the general wreck, and if you will see me safe out of the country, captain, I’ll underwrite those few shares of yours for five hundred per cent.”

“No,” said Captain Colson, “I’m damned if I do! That three hundred’s about all my pile; but I got it clean, and I’m not going to keep it dirty.”

“Do you mean,” said Shelf, with growing terror, “you’re not going to help me out of the country?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Good heavens, man, the police will take me, and there will be a trial, and everything I have done will be distorted and misunderstood! I shall be eternally disgraced! They will give me penal servitude!”

“Your fault for earning it,” said the captain.

“You fool!” broke out Shelf with a fresh snarl; “don’t you see you are robbing yourself? If you give me up you lose your own miserable £300. If you get me off you’ll pocket £1500. Hang it, man, I’ll give you three thousand!”

“You said,” retorted the captain, “you’d got some pickings out of this wreck with you! Well, I guess the proper owners’ll have that when the time comes, and I shall have my sixty-fourth, or whatever it is, along with the rest. I know twenty decent men who’ve got about all they own in your rotten concerns, and I wouldn’t think it a fair thing to feather my own nest whilst they got skinned to the bone.—I’ll trouble you, Mr. Theodore Shelf, to take your hand off my arm, or you’ll get your bally teeth knocked down your throat. Don’t you come near me any more—you ain’t wholesome!”

“I will take one of the boats,” said Shelf, desperately, “and get out into the Channel, and try and get picked up by some outward-bound steamer.”

“You will do,” retorted the captain, “nothing of the sort. There’s a tug coming up now to our assistance, and I shall send you off to Bideford in her in charge of my mate. If you’re awkward, you shall travel with a pair of rusty handcuffs on your heels. I’m going,” said the captain, with an acid grin, “to make a bid for popularity in the newspapers. I’m going to be known as the man who nabbed you when you tried to bolt, and I hope I shall get some sympathy for it; and I hope some one will be kind enough to give me another berth in consequence.”

“Just hear me one minute more,” Shelf pleaded.

“I’ve got no use for any of your talk,” said the captain, sturdily; “and there’s the boat in the water. Down you get into her, or else you’ll be put by a pair of quartermasters. You’ll board the tug, and my mate’ll see you safe ashore in Bideford. After that, you can go to the devil for me; but I expect the police’ll be waiting ready for you.”

Mr. Theodore Shelf stepped on shore at the Devonshire seaport a free man, and free he remained for that night and the succeeding morning, as there was no warrant in the town on which to arrest him. The whole place knew his name, and crowded round the hotel where he stayed with open-mouthed interest. The local police bit their fingers, and betted odds that he would commit suicide; and on suicide the wretched man’s thoughts continually turned. But he could not screw himself up to the pitch. He read with morbid carefulness the newspaper accounts of the crash, and he dulled his soul with brandy. Save for one other thing, that was all he did till the police came and fetched him away. His remaining action was a typical one. He ordered in a local tailor, and once more attired himself in somber black broadcloth. The bright-colored tweeds he burnt. If he had to go back to London, it should be as the ghost of his old self, and not as the caricature of his new.

Of the man’s journey to London, and the peering crowds at every stop, there shall be no further word here; nor of the frenzied attempt to lynch him, which a crowd of his victims made in Paddington Station; nor of the sensational trial; nor of the awful details of destitution which spread all over the face of the land. These things were written of at length in the daily Press, and the memory of them is new and raw. Therefore they need not be repeated.

One other short look at him must suffice for the present time.