CHAPTER XXXI

BEHRENS

If the body had not the power to accommodate itself to injuries, and the mind to disasters and the tricks of Fate, the world would be depopulated in a hundred years or inhabited only by cripples.

Bobby awoke next morning feeling as a man might feel who has suddenly lost a limb, but determined all the same to carry on, keep a stiff upper lip, and say nothing.

All the same he avoided the others, going without breakfast and turning up only when the work began, at ten o'clock.

Sam and Martia found him waiting on the quay by the boat slip.

Sam looked at him curiously.

"Where on earth have you been?" he asked. "We waited breakfast nearly a quarter of an hour for you."

"I had a beastly headache," said Bobby, "and went for a walk. Have you seen anything of Visconti?"

"Not a sign," replied the other. "But he's in the hotel. I asked the maid, and she told me he came back late last night from Bournemouth and was breakfasting in his own room. Then half an hour later, just as we were coming down here, I got this from him. Read it."

He handed a sheet of letter-paper to Bobby, who read:

"Mr. Visconti would be glad of an interview with Captain Hackett and his companions. Would twelve o'clock--here, in Mr. Visconti's sitting-room--suit Captain Hackett? A verbal reply will suffice."

"What did you say?" asked Bobby.

"I said 'yes.'"

"You were right. It's better to see the bounder and have it out with him. Anyhow, we've forced him to make the first move. There's been no letter or wire from Behrens yet?"

"None," said Sam. "I think it highly probable Old Man Behrens will bundle into the train and come down himself instead of writing. I wish he were here now, that we might consult him."

Martia, who had taken her seat on a bollard, looked up.

"I wonder would it be any use sending a telegram to Mr. Behrens to come at once," said she, "and putting off the interview with Visconti till the evening?"

"No," said Sam, after a moment's thought, "I don't like putting him off. I've a feeling we ought to get to grips with him at once. Besides, it would be a sign of weakness. What could Behrens do, anyway? No, we've got to fight this thing ourselves. Anyhow, there's a chance that Behrens may turn up before twelve. He got our wire yesterday and he hasn't answered it." He looked at his watch. "Confound Bowler! Why hasn't he turned up? It's gone ten."

"Let's go and fetch him," said Bobby.

They left the quay and came by the side lane on to the Bournemouth Road, where they found Bowler, who had just left his cottage. As they met him a taxi-cab coming from Bournemouth drew up, the door flung open, and out bundled a little old man with a brown bag in his hand. It was Behrens.

* * * * *

His keen eyes had spotted the group in the road and recognised Bobby and the girl.

"It's Mr. Behrens!" cried Martia, moving towards him. "Oh, how fortunate!"

"I got the early train. It didn't come farther than Bournemouth, so I had to take a cab," said the old fellow, giving his bag to Bobby and feeling in his pocket for the money to pay the taxi man. "There's your fare and sixpence over. No, I'll walk to the inn, wherever it is. And now let's look at you," said he, holding Martia a bit away from him. "Knew I was right. You're a different person. Nothing like a sea voyage after all. Different person. Brought any things?"

"Heaps," cut in Bobby. "We've got some of the stuff ashore, vases mostly, but the best of them are still on board the ship."

"Then let's go to the ship and look at them," said Behrens.

"But don't you want some breakfast?" asked the girl.

"Breakfasted on the train," replied the art dealer. "And what do you call the best of them?"

"Marbles," said Bobby. "I think you'll be pleased when you see them. I couldn't say much in my letter from Genoa, but you'll see."

They reached the quay, where the boat was tied up to the steps, and, rowed by Bowler, they put off for the _Lorna_.

Behrens said nothing on the way across. The consuming passion of his life had him in its grip. Marbles! What might not that word, so capable of magic interpretation, mean now? Marbles from the mystic city of Hyalos. Marbles perhaps from the chisel of Praxiteles. He scrambled on board, nearly losing his hat as he did so but still dumb. Still voiceless, he followed them below, and mute as a fish he stood while in the after-cabin Martia gently removed the bunk coverlet from the smiling Aphrodite, the far-gazing, beautiful figure on the face of which seemed to lie like a veil the sunlight of the Golden Age.

Breathing deeply and swallowing hard, Behrens helped the others to raise her and rest her standing against the bunk edge, and then, and only then, drawing back and folding his hands, he found voice, murmuring to himself, talking in his beard, lost to everything but the vision before him.

"You are pleased?" asked Martia.

"There is none other like her," said Behrens, speaking like a man in a dream. "Beside her the Milo is a woman."

Then, with one long last look, he turned and went into the main cabin, followed by the others, who led him to where the rest of the marbles waited inspection.

A quarter of an hour later, a business man again and seated at the cabin table, Behrens, a cigarette between his lips, was being introduced to the skeleton in the cupboard of the expedition--that is to say, the subject of Visconti.

It was Sam who did the talking, hiding nothing, and the art dealer, whose life had been spent in a struggle with rogues and scoundrels, sat listening to the recital, apparently unmoved, with scarcely a question. But Martia noticed something in his face that she had never seen before, something grim, almost repellent; something that seemed to alter the colour of his eyes, maybe by broadening the pupils. This was a new Behrens, different from the kindly and almost fatherly individual she had known from childhood.

She had never seen Behrens in one of his great auction fights, fronting the hounds of the art-dealing world; she had never seen him up a tree with an old missal or a Benvenuto Cellini vase under his arm, and the wolves of the trade leaping for him with their bids, he always climbing higher; she had never seen him, in fact, with his teeth bared for fight and the ugly part of his nature in command.

"And this gentleman," said Behrens, "is now at the inn waiting to receive you and blackmail you at twelve o'clock?"

"That's about the size of it," said Sam.

"And he offered, through this man Pirelli, to say nothing if you would hand him over the Aphrodite?"

"Yes."

"H'm," said Behrens, and relapsed into thought.

"All the same," put in Bobby, "I don't believe he can do anything."

"I beg your pardon?" said Behrens. "How do you mean?"

"I don't believe he can hurt us if we tell him frankly to go to the devil."

"He has gone there long ago," said Behrens. "And you are mistaken. He can cause trouble. Now this is how we are placed. It is not a question of money for me. You have recovered these things for me, and on the information given to you by me, and I have financed the expedition. I intend to pay you, Mr. Lestrange, one-half of what I consider to be their value. I had intended selling these things at a profit, but, now that I have seen them, all that is gone. I will never sell these things. They are so lovely that they are part of my life. At my death they will go to the world with the story of how they were obtained, giving none of your names, just saying where and how I got them.

"It will be the fitting postscript to the life of an art-dealer who loved art more than money. There will be much talk, much fighting over these things when I am dead. The Greek Government will have its say, the English Government, too. But they, the lovely things, will remain, whatever Government gets them, with my name attached to them for ever. That will be my little monument erected not to me so much as to the fact that I salved these things from the sea and gave them to the world.

"Now, if you had brought home inconsiderable things, even though valuable, I would say to Mr. Visconti, 'Dog, take your bone and be silent.' But the case is different. I must deal differently with Mr. Visconti. He asked you to be with him at twelve o'clock. Well, you must send your man now to the inn and ask him to be with you at twelve o'clock. Tell him to come here to this ship, interview him in this cabin, and I will be in that little cabin with the door half-shut. I will hear what he has to say, and--leave the rest to me. I believe I will be able to say a word after I hear what line he is talking. I was not born yesterday, Mr. Lestrange, and my life has been spent very much in a continual struggle with rogues."

"Will he come?" said Sam.

"You must send and tell him to come," replied Behrens. "I would not write. Just send your man with the word."

"He'll come all right," said Bobby. "He's cool enough to do anything. Tell Bowler to say you are sorry you can't go to the inn, as you are busy, but that you will be glad if he'll come to the ship. He knows most of our men are on shore, so he'll not fear us kidnapping him or anything like that. He'll come right enough."

Sam went on deck and gave the message to Bowler, who took it ashore. Then, between them, they lifted the Aphrodite back into the bunk and covered her with the quilt.

Ten minutes later Martia, who had gone on deck to prospect, came down with the news that Visconti had evidently accepted the invitation, as he was coming down the quay to the boat.

"And now," said Behrens, "not a word as to me. I will just listen to this gentleman who is coming off so boldly, thinking that the trump cards are his. Well, well, we shall see."

He went into the after cabin and half closed the door.