Chapter LIII: Bill Has a Plan

There was nobody on deck when, putting on all the thick clothes he could requisition, he went up and viewed the amazing scene.

The _Escorial_ had a maximum speed of thirty knots, and she had steamed considerably over seven hundred miles northward. He guessed that they were somewhere in the region of sixty degrees north. Every seat, every rope was coated with ice; the snow lay upon the rails, and gathered in little drifts in the well-deck forward. Far away, on the port bow, he thought he detected a small iceberg. The weather was clear, entirely free from fog; the sea remained smooth, and except for the intensity of the cold, there was nothing to indicate that the ship was on an unusual course. Icebergs are seen in July down as far as latitude 50. They have been met with, in rare instances, as far south as 40 in midsummer.

He had intended maintaining his disguise until something definite happened, but there was no longer any necessity for keeping his secret from Stone.

Apparently the men in control of the ship had also realised that their presence had now become public property. Bill heard the rattle of winches, and, going forward, saw that the muffled hands were bringing up passengers’ heavy baggage. Soon after, the purser sent for him, and ordered him to pass on the information that passengers might open their heavy baggage and take out what clothing they required.

He had paid several visits to Bullott. The detective told him that so far he had not been molested, though the two men whom Bill had seen searching his own cabin had also made as thorough a search of Bullott’s belongings.

“This move certainly puzzles me,” said Bullott. “I knew, of course, they were steering north last night.”

“There is a good reason,” said Bill. “We shall be running into the fog belt later in the day, and whether we do or not, we are well off the regular track of shipping. Unless we happen to be seen by a chance whaler or one of the Greenland trading ships, we shall have disappeared from human knowledge.”

“But you can’t steal a ship and hide it in the Arctic,” protested Bullott.

“They’re doing it,” was the laconic reply. “Here’s another point, Inspector: the farther north we go the less danger there is to the gang. The only possibility of recovering this ship is by a surprise attack in the night--there will be no night from now onward!”

“You mean it will be light all night, of course?”

This contingency had not occurred to the detective.

Bill’s plan was already made. The key position was the wireless house. Once he was in possession, ten minutes at the keyboard, and all the well-laid plans of the Twenty-Third Degree would come to naught. But he had already noted that the wireless house was guarded; he had seen a man sitting in a deck chair near the door, and the operator was presumably armed. His only chance would come in one of those dense white fogs which are common in these seas.

He hurried away to find Betty’s baggage, and had singular good fortune, for the Stones’ boxes were almost the first to come out of the hold. With the help of a steward, he got these down to D. deck and into the sitting-room, to Betty’s joy, for she was shivering in her fur coat before the electric radiator, and Mr. Stone, with a blanket over his thin suit, was walking up and down the little stateroom, trying to get warm.

“What is this, steward?” he asked in surprise, as Bill came in, dragging the first of the big trunks, and he could have fallen on his neck when he explained.

The steward had something else to tell, and after he had finished, Betty took him by the shoulder and brought his face toward the light of the porthole, more interested in the change that the ingenious barber had brought about than in her own deadly peril.

“It isn’t you, Billy?” she said. “Your hair----”

“It will take me years to get out the henna!” groaned Bill. “No man has ever made such a sacrifice for a girl as I have made for you.”

She dropped her hand from his shoulder, and for a moment was convulsed with silent laughter. Mr. Stone, however, was less amused.

“Where do we finish--at the North Pole?” he asked. “Why, this is criminal! Half the wretched passengers will die of cold and starvation.”

“They will be all right so long as the oil lasts,” said Bill, “but what will happen if we get frozen in, and the oil supply goes west, I shudder to think about.”

“But the food?”

“I don’t think there’s any immediate danger there. Did I ever tell you about Toby Marsh’s mystery? He said that food and firearms were being shipped to New York. Well, that was part of the scheme. Somewhere in the hold is a big supply of canned food and flour. The arms, I presume, are rifles and munitions for the gang--it would have been pretty difficult for them to have brought these on board in any other way.”

“But, Billy, you’re wonderful!” She was gazing spell-bound into his face. “Where are your other eyebrows. And to think that you’ve been coming in and out of the cabin since yesterday morning, and I haven’t recognised you!”

He helped them to unpack, and Stone went off to find Lowbridge, whose one trunk the new steward had retrieved. All Clive’s radiators were on; he was wearing a heavy, fur-lined coat.

“Benson is providence!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been roasting him ever since we left town for bringing this incubus, but he had an idea that the nights in America were cold, and insisted upon taking it along. I didn’t know I had it until I saw it hanging in the wardrobe.”

“One would almost think that Benson expected a visit to the Arctic Circle,” said Stone drily.

Clive scratched his chin thoughtfully.

“That didn’t occur to me, but it certainly is a remarkable coincidence. I should never suspect anything of--by Jove, I wonder!”

He looked at Stone, and Stone’s eyes surveyed the providential fur-lined coat with a reflective eye. As he was going out he met Benson. The valet wore two heavy sweaters under his coat, and gave him, in his customary respectful way, a sedate good-morning.

“You seem to have been prepared for this cold spell, Benson?”

“Yes, sir, it is rather remarkable that the weather should change. When do we reach New York, sir?”

“I’d like to be able to tell you,” said Stone.

He went back to Bill, and behind the bolted door there was a council of war, the third member of which was the girl. Stone told the story of the fur coat.

“Clive ought to know,” she said, but here Bill was firm.

“In ordinary circumstances I should say yes,” he replied, “but Lord Lowbridge has a servant, whose foresight is a little disturbing. I don’t think that he should know who I am. Why should Benson imagine that it would be cold in America? He has been there before.”

“That certainly looks fishy,” said Stone thoughtfully. “Benson is a queer bird--those quiet, suave men are usually deep. What are we to do, Holbrook?”

“I’ll agree to another man being brought into our confidence. If you don’t mind, I would like you to go along and see the ship’s doctor, whose help will be necessary if my scheme is to be successful.”

When Stone had gone and he was alone with the girl.…

“Betty--I’m going to call you Betty--you don’t mind?”

She shook her head.

“You have that pistol which Bullott gave you?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“And if necessary you will use it--on anybody who attempts to harm you… yes, there is that possibility. Laffin is aboard, and is in control of the ship. He hasn’t interfered with you or your uncle yet because he has his hands full with other matters. You told me the other day that you were to be an heiress after all; what did you mean by that?”

“I mean uncle told me that I was his only living relative, and his money must come to me eventually--he made a will in my favour before we left England.”

Bill nodded slowly.

“That accounts for the attack made on him. Laffin knows!”

“But that is impossible--how could he?”

“Laffin knows,” he insisted. “He has sources of information of which we do not dream. You’re Laffin’s wife--if you are an heiress, he is the husband of an heiress. Betty, if anything happens to me----”

The look that came to her face hurt and pleased him.

“To you?” she said, in a frightened voice. “Oh, Billy, nothing will happen to you?”

“Anything is possible. I’m not trying to scare you--and I don’t think, anyway, that you’re easily scared. I wish--you don’t know how badly I wish--to give you courage. But you have to face every possibility, Betty, my dear.”

He took her face in his hands and looked hungrily into her eyes.

“I never dreamt--I never hoped--” he said huskily, and then, before he realised what he was doing, he had kissed her.

The sound of a handle turning checked the torrent of words that came to his lips, and Mr. Stone came in, to find a very breathless, rather pale young man, standing awkwardly and guiltily before his niece.

“Here is the doctor. I’ve told him a little,” said Stone as he bolted the door. “He probably thinks I am mad--maybe you will be able to convince him.”

The ship’s doctor, a man of middle age, was not as sceptical as Bill had expected.

“I knew, of course, that the ship’s course had been altered,” he said, “and, in common with the purser, I learnt that these blackguards were in control. Mr. Stone says that you want my assistance. What is your plan?”

Holbrook’s scheme had taken shape that morning.

“I must get into the wireless house. I understand radio fairly well, and I used to be an expert telegraphist,” said Bill. “That was part of my early training when I was working in America. But to get into that caboose means that we must overcome the guard, and the only way we can do that and escape a fuss is to dope him.”

Dr. Speer shook his head.

“If you gave them a slow dope it would take too long to work--” he began.

“I don’t want a slow dope, I suggest something swift and sudden,” interrupted Bill. “I expect they will allow me to go on the bridge to take refreshments. At any rate, I have asked Hale for the job. They have no regular steward except the men who are looking after their cabins on the boat deck. Even if Hale doesn’t agree, I can go up without being questioned--and that I intend doing the moment we strike a fog bank--I don’t care what they discover after I’ve sent the message.”

Speer pursed his lips; it was a new experience for a respectable medical practitioner.

“Butyl is the stuff you want,” he said, “and I have a quantity of that in store--I’ll make certain. You will be taking a big risk, young man.”

“We are taking risks as it is,” said Bill impatiently. “You do not know the men we are dealing with.”

The doctor went away, and returned almost immediately with a fluted green flask, the stopper of which was sealed.

“Here is the stuff,” he said, and gave Holbrook a brief lecture on the dose and method of administration. “I have not used it for a nefarious purpose, but I believe it is a drug commonly used by thugs who wish to bring their victims to a state of immediate insensibility.”

Bill slipped the bottle in his pocket and went out. It was not advisable that he should be seen too much in the Stones’ cabin; they, of all passengers, would be most closely watched, and he more than suspected that one of the stewards on this deck was associated with the pirates. The man had made a sudden appearance on this part of the ship, and, when ordered to return to the steerage, where he belonged, had flatly refused. Later, the purser received an intimation that the man was not to be disturbed.

In one sense his strangeness to the saloon portion of the _Escorial_ worked to the advantage of Holbrook, for the steerage stewards had special quarters, and he was not able to judge whether Bill was a stranger or one of the ship’s company.

In the course of the day he made two visits to the forbidden deck, once in company with another steward, when they took up and opened a case of whisky for the use of the new officers, and once he carried tea to the quartermaster of the watch.

He could not but admire the perfect organisation which had made this coup possible. Duties were being carried out without a hitch. A new set of quartermasters had appeared, and though the man at the wheel was no longer a neatly uniformed sailor, but a nondescript figure dressed in a soiled leather jacket such as is used by motorists, and smoking a short clay pipe, the man was apparently as efficient as the sailor he had relieved.

It was on his second visit that he was the witness of a spectacle which would remain with him to the end of his days. He had not seen Laffin since the night when the apparition had appeared in his cabin. For some reason the doctor was keeping out of sight. But that he was on board and in command, he knew, and the position he occupied was revealed when Hale, watching the opening of the whisky case, had ordered one of the men to take a bottle to “the Commodore’s state-room.” Bill grinned inwardly at this description of his enemy. But how seriously Laffin took his duties, he was to learn.

On his second visit he had put down the tray and had filled the teacups with steaming liquid, when Hale’s voice called him into the chart-house. The big man was leaning over an Admiralty chart on the table, a pair of compasses in his hand, and an open book by his side.

“Steward, go down to the purser and tell him I want a full list of the provisions on board to the last ounce,” he said. “And ask him to break Number Four hold and get out all cases consigned to the Westbury Corporation of New York.”

Bill touched his cap and, going down, passed the instructions to the purser. He had guessed right about the provisions. How curious it was that Toby Marsh, knowing so much of Laffin’s plans, had not revealed a little more, he thought, until he remembered that scene of reconciliation which had been witnessed on the Bath Road.