Moon of madness
Nanette did most of the dancing. A few others joined for a time and
then retired, presumably to cope with the important job of packing.
I discovered myself to be the victim of a rising excitement. Something
was afoot. I determined to find O’Shea.
It was a longish quest, but I found him at last, He was pacing up and
down the deserted boat-deck. As I came up the ladder he stopped and
stared at me, then:
“Hullo, Decies,” he said. “Forgive my odd behaviour. But it’s a race
against time, and time looks like winning.”
“What do you mean?” I asked blankly. “Have you had no reply?”
“That’s it,” said he, “and I can’t afford to make a mistake. They
expect fog, though. It may save the situation.”
I was not at all clear on this point, but O’Shea immediately resumed
his promenade and I perforce fell into step beside him.
“Zimmermann is in his cabin,” I said.
“Good,” O’Shea murmured. “Where is Nanette?”
The question surprised me. Very rarely indeed did O’Shea speak of
Nanette.
“I left her with Mrs. Porter and Slattery,” I replied.
He nodded, but made no comment. Presently:
“If this dangerously clever devil slips through my fingers,” he
declared, “Whitehall will disown me!”
And suddenly, as he spoke, an explanation of his recent behaviour
presented itself. To the world he remained the aloof O’Shea; something
of a poseur; a man unmoved by the trivial accidents of life. With me
he felt that he could be real. He had treated the matter lightly
enough, hitherto. But now, England all but in sight, and the enigma of
Zara unsolved, he showed himself a desperately worried man.
“If I get him,” he began abruptly, after long and taciturn
promenading, “do you know to whom the credit will belong?”
“No,” I returned, puzzled.
“To Nanette,” said O’Shea.
This silenced me effectually. For what Nanette had to do with the
matter was about as clear as pea soup.
I left him, toward one o’clock, promising to return. I had abandoned
the idea of sleeping; and I wanted to change. No message for O’Shea
had come up to the time of my departure from the boat-deck. The
wireless operator on duty was unable to conceal his intense
excitement. Just before I came down, leaning over the half-door of his
room:
“Fog in the Channel, sir!” he announced gleefully.
“Good!” said O’Shea. “Go and change, Decies.”
I managed to effect a change of costume without arousing my Scottish
friend. He snored harmoniously and uninterruptedly. When I returned to
the deck, no trace of mist was visible. The sea looked like oil and
the heat was oppressive. I lingered at the rail for a moment, staring
forward to where the Cornish coast lay veiled in distance.
Right ahead, I discerned a faintly moving white speck. Then I became
aware of someone beside me.
I turned. The Captain stood at my elbow.
“No rest for me to-night, Mr. Decies,” he said. “The Channel is a mass
of soup.”
“So I have heard,” I replied. “What’s that ahead?”
“I have been wondering,” he murmured. “It looks like a motor boat--and
right on our course. Excuse me. I might as well go up.”
A few minutes later, as I rejoined O’Shea, the ship bellowed her
warning to the small craft ahead.
O’Shea was in the operator’s room.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Not fog already?”
“No,” said I. “There’s some kind of boat in our way.”
“Oh,” said he. “Fisherman?”
“No. It looks like a pleasure cruiser.”
He stared for a moment. I had never seen him look so ill groomed. His
wavy hair, since he had gone hatless all night, was wildly disordered.
Then the instrument began its mysterious coughing.
O’Shea placed his monocle carefully in position and lighted a
cigarette. The operator adjusted the headpiece.
“Here it is, sir!” he said. “At last!”
“Excellent,” said O’Shea calmly.
And, whilst this long-awaited message came through, the horn began its
disturbing solo--and mist crept, damply, into the cabin. We had struck
the outer fringe of the Channel fog.
At this moment I saw Nanette. She stood at the door, wide-eyed,
wrapped in a furry coat. I ran out to her.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, and clutched me--“where is--Major O’Shea?”
She was trembling.
“Nanette!” I said. “What is it? He is there--in the operator’s room.”
“Thank God!” I heard her whisper. Then: “I have been so frightened!”
she went on, clinging to me. “Mrs. Porter sleeps like a log--and
Captain Slattery came to our room a few minutes ago and knocked. I
opened the door, not realizing who it was.”
“Yes?” I said, clenching my hands tightly.
“He was--insane. He said--he was going to kill Major O’Shea----”
“What’s that?” came in a cool voice.
O’Shea stepped out on the deck. He held a slip of paper in his hand.
The mist had closed down, now, like a blanket. Even the deep note of
the fog-horn was muted.
“I’ve got him, Decies!” said O’Shea.
“What!”
“He sent off two code messages before my eyes were opened; and he
received one reply. I don’t know the code.”
Dimly, through the fog, a queer, high siren note reached us.
“Major O’Shea!” Nanette released her grip and grasped O’Shea’s arm.
“Are you talking about Captain Slattery?”
The Marconi operator joined our party as:
“Yes,” O’Shea replied, “thanks to you, Nanette! Only the Bolsheviks
knew so much about our trouble in that camp as Slattery confided to
you!” He turned to me. “I acted on that slender clue, Decies. The name
of a company sergeant-major--and I was right! The _real_ Captain
Slattery is in hospital at Ladysmith!”
“Good God!” said I. “Then this man----”
“Is Adolf Zara! I told you he was dangerously clever!”
Then, muffled, ghostly, it reached our ears on the boat-deck--that
most thrilling of all sea cries:
“Man overboard!”
Already the ship’s engines were running dead slow. Now they were rung
off.
Helter-skelter we went hounding after O’Shea--to Slattery’s stateroom.
It was empty. One of the lifebelts was missing. Out in the fog, that
queer high siren note persisted. I thought of the white motor
boat--and of Slattery’s radio message.
O’Shea fixed his monocle in place. The sleeping ship was awakening to
a growing pandemonium.
“Have you a cigarette, Decies?” he said. “I have smoked all mine. It
needs a brave man to do what Adolf Zara has done to-night. If ever I
have the pleasure of meeting Captain Slattery again, I shall tell him
so.”
CHAPTER XXI.
A MISSING PICTURE
“Oh, I say!” cried Jack. “This is topping!”
His admiring gaze was set upon a photograph in my portfolio of Madeira
snapshots. It represented a slender girl, arms raised, poised in the
act of diving from a rock into the clear water below. In justice to
the beauty of the model and not out of any desire to fan my artistic
vanity, I agreed with Jack.
The original of the study, seated on the edge of a table, slim legs
swinging restlessly, surveyed the work with less enthusiasm.
“I look painfully bare,” said Nanette severely.
“Can I have a copy, Decies?” Jack asked.
“Please say no,” came promptly from Nanette. “If you want a
photograph, Jack, I had several good ones taken in Switzerland.”
We examined other items of my collection.
“Hallo!” said Jack. “Who is the sportsman with the toothy smile?”
He was frowning at a snapshot of Nanette coiled up in a deck chair.
Seated very near to her, in smiling tête-à-tête, was a man whose
white sun helmet cast a dark shadow upon his features.
“Captain Slattery,” Nanette replied. “You don’t know him, Jack.”
She turned over the print, giving me a swift glance. Its full
significance rather missed me at the time. I merely supposed that this
picture of the man we had known as “Captain Slattery” conjured up
memories of O’Shea. And memories of O’Shea almost invariably brought
about sudden changes of mood in little Nanette.
Later, however, having induced Jack to telephone to somebody about
something or another, she drew me aside.
“Captain Slattery is in London!” she said, speaking with suppressed
excitement. “This was what I really came to tell you.”
“What!” I exclaimed.
In the days that had lapsed since the disappearance of the notorious
Adolf Zara, alias Captain Slattery, I had begun to share O’Shea’s view
that this greatly daring man had perished at sea.
“I received this note from him last night,” Nanette went on. “And I
don’t know what to do.”
Opening the envelope which she handed to me, I drew out a single sheet
of unheaded, undated paper having a cutting pinned to it. The note
read as follows:
I learn from the appended picture that you are in London. If you can
forgive me for my behaviour and will consent to see me for a moment
before I leave England, put a message in the Personal Column of the
_Daily Planet_ and I will arrange the rest. I can never forget you--so
try to be kind.
J. Slattery.
The picture referred to was cut from the _Daily Planet_, and showed
Nanette as one of a group at a dance party--I forget where.
“How did he learn your address?” I asked.
“He didn’t,” said Nanette. “Look at the envelope. It was forwarded
from the office of the _Planet_.”
She watched me almost pathetically, and I divined the nature of the
problem that was disturbing Nanette’s mind.
“I simply couldn’t do it!” she burst out. “It isn’t as though he were
really a criminal. He _is_ a criminal, I suppose, in a way. But
political crimes leave me rather cold. And, you see--he trusts me.”
“Do you mean, Nanette,” I asked, “that you don’t want me to tell Major
O’Shea?”
Nanette shook her head.
“Of course I don’t,” she replied. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it if I
had meant that. What I mean is--that I am not going to do what he
asks.”
“Yet he begs you to be kind,” said I, feasting my eyes on Nanette’s
charming face which, now, wore an adorably wistful expression.
“I _am_ being kind,” she retorted; then: “Oh!” she exclaimed, and,
suddenly silent, watched the open door.
Jack’s voice might be heard. He was returning from the telephone
downstairs and had evidently admitted visitors. A moment later they
came in--O’Shea and an inspector of the Special Branch whom I had met
before. He was a burly man with a rat-trap jaw, and I thought it
probable that he could trace an unbroken descent from the first Bow
Street runner in criminal history.
Nanette greeted O’Shea with disarming nonchalance. But the only person
in the room who believed that she had not expected to meet him there
was Jack. The detective, a peculiarly efficient man-hunter, as events
were to show, smiled grimly and stared out of the window.
O’Shea held Nanette’s hand for a moment, and then turned aside,
twirling his monocle string around an extended forefinger.
“Come along, Jack!” cried Nanette gaily. “Mumsy will be tearing the
Berkeley down!”
Jack was only too ready to depart. His admiration of O’Shea was
something he could not hide, and, whilst he was no psychologist, this
very hero worship inspired distrust--where Nanette was concerned. In
other words, he was not clever enough to know that Nanette loved
O’Shea, but he was modest enough to wonder how any girl could spare
him an odd glance whilst O’Shea was present.
Nanette’s vivacity became feverish. She literally danced down the
stairs, calling farewells to everybody. But, finally, from a long way
down:
“Good-bye, Major O’Shea!” she cried.
“Good-bye, Nanette,” he said, and shook Jack’s cordially extended
hand. “Look after her, Kelton. She is well worth it.”
“You’re right, sir!” Jack replied with enthusiasm--and was gone.
“Now,” said O’Shea, and fixed one of his coldest stares upon me--“are
the snapshots developed?”
“Yes,” I replied, almost startled by his abrupt change of manner. “The
prints came in this morning.”
“And are there any of Adolf Zara, sir?” asked the inspector.