CHAPTER XXII

WORTHING ASKS QUESTIONS

My memory is too blurred for me to write in any kind of consistent sequence of what followed. I know it was Worthing who found me lying stunned by the jetty and brought me back to some faint consciousness of reality as he had done that night at Sunset Towers. But it was as though the physical blow had numbed my very reason, for everything was stupidly confused in my mind. Mercifully so, I think; for I hadn't the sense to realize the desolating calamity that had befallen me. Even when I stood beside my dead father and gazed at the pallid face with that dreadful red gash yawning at the throat, I couldn't understand what had really happened. I think I even laughed as though some one were playing a clumsy joke, too extravagant to deceive me. And the sight of the black hollow in the woods where they laid him, tumbling the earth in upon him, didn't shake me from my leaden lethargy. Yet at my heart was a dull pain as though a wound were rankling deep within.

I remember too that certain officers appeared, very officious and inquisitive, and bullied me from my torpor into answering their stupid questions. Sometimes I replied sulkily, and sometimes as they questioned me forgot their very presence, wrapped as I was in a cloud of weary gloom. Then they caught me by the shoulders and shook me, till I cursed them and answered I knew not what. At length they must have abandoned the attempt to pump information from such a dry well, for I was left in peace. But at times I was aware of Worthing's voice clear and decided speaking up for me when I sat dully pondering some enquiry which had been demanded of me, utterly failing to understand its significance or applicability to myself.

Indeed it was Worthing who saved me from insanity. For with that incomprehensible slow gloom that had settled upon me, the constant fretting of the officers would have galled me into a savage madness. What I needed was rest and peace, so that the evil black vapour might gradually disperse itself from my spirit, and the light of reality grow clear about me by easy degrees. But the constant questioning puzzled me, and set me searching in the confusion of my mind for clues and traces of the inexplicable enigma which seemed to be dodging me through the dark complexities of my bemused memory. When it baffled me and I sank into a gloomy stupor, all was well; but sometimes I caught a glimpse of the evil thing, and that was like a wrench to a broken limb, an agony that pierced through the vitals like a sword of white fire. I gasped as though my very soul had been split apart with a wedge of lightning. But the pain was too terrible to endure, and foolishly I dropped back into my moping.

Yet I know that all the while I was saying to myself, "He is dead, dead, dead!" But the knowledge didn't take root in my mind. It was like a knocking from outside, but I wouldn't open the door. I felt there was something evil there; and, though within all was dark and dreadful, yet I wouldn't open to that unknown thing. I only knew it would stand there and knock till I relented, but stubbornly I refused, and shrank deeper into the darkness that closed me round.

All this is but a foolish picture of what I suffered. For everything about me was a kind of weighing chaos where I couldn't reason or distinguish. Only, as I say, at times a vivid light broke through, crueller than the shadows that clung about me; for the light was the light of reality, and reality was more terrible than the spiritual coma that had stupefied my understanding.

However, the light was bound to triumph in the end. The knocking became insistent, and I knew I must open the door. And then with the rush of bitter knowledge upon my naked heart I learnt what it was to have a friend. Not that Worthing wept over me. Rather it was his severe strength and calm recognition of actuality that supported me. For in his presence I accepted the inevitable as a thing not to be questioned, merely to be endured. It was the contagion of example rather than of precept, for he never that I remember spoke harshly to me as one must to the hysterical; it was merely that he faced up to the reality of the situation, and I caught something of his straight and uncompromising attitude of soul.

Dirk too nursed me back to sanity in his rough way. Not that I learnt much philosophy from him; rather it would seem that he tended to undo the good that Worthing did me. For if Worthing stimulated me to strength of endurance, Dirk stimulated me to violent rebellion. He took me with him for long marches across the country, and sometimes for a tossing at sea; and always the burden of his talk was one of cursing and vengeance, till in the blackness of my heart I vowed again and again to track down my father's murderer and kill him without mercy. And at such times Dirk would encourage me with, "That's the gab, kiddy. This an't no world for milk-and-water livers. It's red blood that runs in the heart, my dear, an' that's a stuff that takes some cooling." But unaccountable as it may seem, the medicine of philosophy and the medicine of revenge, which might appear to be antidotes, didn't nullify each other. I felt a stimulation from them both. I suppose it was that the one taught me to bear and the other taught me to act. But, however that may be, with the passing of the days I found myself facing the world again, with a bitter sense of loneliness at my heart, but with no craven yielding to circumstance.

It wasn't till I had emerged from the shadow that Worthing seriously set himself to question me on the dark business. And then he was a hundredfold more exacting than the officers had been. First he made me go over again and again the ground of the murder and the pursuit, explaining at every turn just what I had seen and done. And strangely enough each time I seemed to remember some point which had escaped my memory before. Though of what use all this exactitude of detail was to be I couldn't guess. But Worthing was relentless, saying that nothing however trifling must be passed over as the clue might lie in the most unexpected place. However, at last he seemed satisfied that nothing more was to be learnt from the process. But he had reconstructed the murder with convincing probability of detail. The murderer must have known of my father's intended visit. Perhaps he had even heard the song which had warned me of the meeting; or perhaps he had merely followed him, waiting for a chance to strike. Worthing favoured the first theory. Then he pointed out the spot where the murderer had remained concealed till my father should arrive. My father for his part had sailed down on the schooner we had seen, having arranged before to be set ashore. He hadn't rowed up the Smuggler's Tunnel as he didn't know whether the passage was still clear to the woods; the rope ladder might no longer be there. So not seeing me he had started to climb the cliffs, intending to make for the _Dolphin_. Then came the puzzling cry for help. I eagerly explained to Worthing the affair of the _Snow Man_, and how my father had rushed back into the burning inn to save me. His enemy must have been on his track even then, and the incident had given him the idea of a ruse which he hadn't yet tried. Well, it had succeeded. He had imitated my voice, and my father had turned, thinking I was below there and in danger. And that was easily explicable, as I might have been exploring in Drift-Wood Cavern. He had turned, unarmed of all suspicion in his sudden belief that I was in peril. And his enemy had caught him off his guard at last, and had killed him.

The murderer had fled, and I had followed. But the smack towards which I thought he had been making was still at anchor when Worthing found me. So then he had had some other retreat in mind. Evidently he knew the coast well. Actually where he had hidden didn't much matter for he must have fled the district long before my wits were clear enough to tell anything of the story. But there was one piece of evidence which set Worthing questioning me. Across my right hand were two ragged gashes. How had they come? I laughed at the question for in my blind pursuit of the murderer I had taken so little heed that it was a wonder I wasn't gashed and bruised from head to heel. But Worthing wouldn't leave it at that. I must think where I was most likely to have hurt my hand. And then it came to me.

"Why," I said, "it was vaulting the jetty."

"Vaulting?" he cried sharply. "You said you jumped it."

I suppose I had done. "Well," I said, "I vaulted over. I saw him vault, and I followed suit."

Worthing looked at me as though astounded, and then said, "Good God, Tommy, and you've only just told me that! Come along," he cried, and raced me off to the spot for a further investigation.

And there on the stump where I had rested my hand were two great rusty nails sticking out wickedly from the rotten timber. Indeed it looked as though the gash they had made in the wood had first set it splitting.

Worthing gazed at them, then turned to me and looked at my hand. "Yes," he said, "that's it. And yet in your confounded stupidity you wouldn't have said anything about it!"

To tell the truth I was still rather in a maze at the importance of the find.

"Can't you see?" cried Worthing, reading my dullness in my vacant stare. "Don't you realize that he's probably marked in the same way?"

"Ah, of course," I said. "He put his hand there too."

"How wise of you to think of that!" was all he answered. But I believe I would have thought of it long since had it not been for the cloud which hadn't yet quite lifted from my spirit.

But Worthing hadn't done with me. For days we strolled the country round, or sat out on the cliffs, or lay in bed with the candle burning to the socket, while I told him everything I could remember of my past life; a hundred times as much as I have written in this book, for I couldn't distinguish then between the relevant and the irrelevant, and indeed he didn't wish me to distinguish. If I seemed to be keeping back some trifling detail he would wrest it relentlessly out of me, declaring that he must know everything I could possibly remember, to the very clothes I had ever worn and the very meals I had ever eaten.

At times he listened with his eyes half closed, as though waiting for some hint which would set him on a clue, or throw light on other parts of the story which seemed shadowy and inexplicable. And at times he would start up alertly and tell me to repeat something again, spurring on my memory with hints and suggestions.

He brushed aside my question as to how the old hag, Bite-in-the-Dark, had changed into a man; for I had recognized the face of the evil old woman as the blow caught me between the eyes. "Merely a matter of clothes," said Worthing. But the mention of the manuscript, when I came to that part of the narrative, excited him immensely as though he had hit upon the main trail at last; and my father's poring over the plans, his explorations of the creeks and pools about the _Dolphin_, and his story of the accursed treasure that night at Sunset Towers, became the nucleus of Worthing's enquiries. And indeed I wasn't so lacking in insight as to be unaware of the significance of all this; it was the unifying element which should explain the mystery that baffled me. For in my superstitious way I was inclined to believe it was the working out of the old curse upon yet another victim. The murderer, be he man or woman, I regarded as merely an instrument in the hand of that darker impalpable horror which my father had named Shadow-of-Fear.

But Worthing laughed all such stuff to scorn. He set about hunting for the manuscript among my father's papers, but it was missing. The discovery of its loss set him darkly thinking; and one night when we had been lying silently in bed for a while he suddenly sat up and said: "It's all so ridiculously simple, Tommy, that I'm afraid there's a catch in it somewhere."

"Simple?" I exclaimed.

"Look here," he replied, "just let's put together what we actually know. Firstly, it's obvious your father was after that 'unhallowed gold' as you call it. Secondly, the manuscript with the plan is missing. There's evidence enough to piece out the whole story, except the actual identity of the murderer. It's just that somebody else was after that gold as well. He wanted the plan, and he's got it. If we hang about here long enough we shall either be put out of the way or, if we're clever enough to preserve our skins, we shall see the fellow come back and in turn start hunting for the treasure."

It seemed absurdly clear as Worthing expounded it, but it didn't satisfy me. Yet I couldn't explain to Worthing why it didn't satisfy me, for it was merely that in my heart I felt there was something darker and more mysterious than mere greed of gold that had laid my father low. The story of the curse had got into my blood. Indeed it had become a familiar strand woven into all my dreams and colouring my very outlook on life. And this was but natural considering the fear and mystery which had shadowed my short but eventful career, till the unseen world had become as real to me as the seen.

Worthing continued, "How we are to find the murderer is another matter."

"Need we find him?" I asked, forgetting the fine vows I was used to make when in Dirk's company. For my mind was brooding on the horror and inexplicability of it all, and I thought it might be as well to wash my hands of the unholy affair.

"The law demands it," was Worthing's characteristic reply. And he explained what evidence we had and what clues we might follow. There was the probable mark on the man's hand. Then too he must have been in the neighbourhood of the _Snow Man_ when my father rushed back into the fire. Probably he had been the cause of the fire itself. Again, he had very likely been at Rancey Bridge when my father had sung the verse bidding me to the tryst on the first of May. Then there was the affair of the King's Man. My father himself had suggested that that was a trick of his enemy's to put false blame upon him, and so bring down the vengeance of the smugglers on his head. So Worthing went on; and if the strange fear at my heart hadn't cried halt to the enquiry I should have delighted in tracing the mystery and connecting it link by link. But I couldn't throw off the feeling of awe which paralyzed my wits and dulled my enthusiasm for revenge. In spite of the crying wound in my heart I couldn't whip myself up into the mood for retaliation.

Meanwhile Dirk had been hanging idly round the _Dolphin_, his brig lying out to sea, for he had taken it into his head to father me now that I was left a homeless waif to face the world alone. He kept urging me to join him on his vessel and learn the sailor's craft, and to tell the truth I was only too anxious to go, for the call of the sea set my blood dancing. But I couldn't leave Worthing, not at any rate until I had satisfied his curiosity. And even when I thought he must know my story by heart, with all my wanderings from as far back as I could remember, and all the secrets I had discovered around the coast and even at Sunset Towers, when I thought he knew all this yet I couldn't bring myself to part from him unless he wished me to. For I knew I owed him a debt I could never hope to repay. So I was torn between two desires: on the one hand Dirk and the romance of the sea called me to be away on the wonderful summer waters, and on the other hand Worthing and a sense of gratitude held me back on land.

I wondered how it would all end, for I was still too stupid from the effects of the shock I had sustained to be master of my will. But the knot untied itself. For one morning Worthing came to me and said he was off to London. He had learnt all he could at this end of the trail; now he must go and establish himself in his uncle's graces, and didn't doubt but that he would have leisure and opportunity to work at the mystery and eventually unravel it. His uncle, he knew, would lend him every help, for the case promised to be one of intense interest in the annals of crime.

This method of regarding the tragedy made me wince, but I answered cheerily that I was ready to accompany him.

"But you're going to sea," he said.

"To sea?" I repeated.

"Look here, Tommy," he answered, "what you need is a thorough change. You haven't got over the shock yet. You'll have a bad time of it before you can face your life steadily. Well, you go off with Dirk while the summer lasts, and then meet me in London. You see," he added, "I shall be able to put your affairs straight in the meantime."

I didn't understand him. "My affairs?" I queried.

"Tommy," he said, taking me by the arm, "I've pumped you dry during the last few weeks, but you haven't asked me a question; so I must speak without being asked, that's all. You remember I was following you down the cliff when you set off in chase of your father's murderer. Well, when I came up your dad was still living."

I felt a gush of tears at my eyes, but I dashed them away and said, "Yes?"

"His last thought was for you, Tommy. He gave me a packet which he had in his coat, and I found another in his knapsack in the boat; he didn't intend that you should miss it. He gave it to me and asked me to see the matter straight. I think he had some sort of confidence in my knowledge of this kind of thing. Of course I promised."

"But what is it?" I asked, trying to control my shaky voice. For the picture of my murdered father was vividly before me, and I began to realize as I hadn't yet done how bitter was my loss.

"There seems to be a fortune," Worthing continued. "There's a London firm has charge of the gold, for it isn't banked. A bank, you see, is a clue for anyone hunting you. Your dad didn't mean to leave more traces than he could help."

I thought bitterly that all his caution had been of no avail at the end.

I grasped Worthing's hand and said, "I don't know what it all means. You'll see to it, won't you?"

He said he had already pledged his word to do so.

So we spent that day together, and the next morning Worthing set off for London, first writing out for me exact instructions where I was to meet him. Then we tramped to the nearest stage; and I saw him mount the coach and drive away on his mission.

I walked back slowly to the _Dolphin_, my mind growing clearer. Worthing had said I should have a bad time before I learnt to face life steadily; and already with my clearing vision I began to see how desolate the world had become.

PART III

DIRK STORMAWAY