Moon of madness
the steamer like wasps to a honey-pot; Portuguese lightermen shrieked
amiable execrations at one another; nobody could find the missing
trunk, nobody could find Nanette; Nanette’s father said both would
turn up--and the Bay of Funchal embraced it all with peaceful beauty.
When the last shore-signal was sounded, I found Jack beside me. He was
plainly in a panic.
“Here, I say,” he exclaimed. “I thought Nanette was with you!”
“And I thought she was with you!”
“When did you see her last?”
“When she went to look for her cabin.”
“But she came back to fetch _you_!”
“She didn’t arrive.”
“Hurry up, please,” urged the officer on the gangway. “You’re last for
the shore, sir.”
Jack turned and ran in at the saloon entrance. I could see no one else
I knew; so there was nothing for it but to tumble down the ladder.
Reid’s launch had gone, and I took the boat in which some customs
people, office men, and others were going ashore.
They had turned steam on to the anchor and the ladder was swinging up
as we drew away. I stood in the boat, searching the decks far above
me, their rails lined with unfamiliar faces. From the white-capped,
gold-laced officers on the bridge, I worked down, deck by deck. I
caught a momentary glimpse of some folks I knew and waved
automatically; but of Nanette’s party I could see nothing.
Then sounded faintly a bell. Straggling boats seemed to be drawn
astern of the liner by some powerful current. There was movement in
the placid water; a swell rocked us. One could see the churning of the
screw in clear blue sea. Renewed waving--and the _Arundel Castle_ was
homeward bound for Southampton, with mails, mixed cargo, several
potential weddings, and a broken heart or so.
As I stepped from the boat on to the stone stairs and went up to the
jetty, I paused, looking back. I was shortly to meet Edmond O’Shea,
and the thought was pleasurable, but I would have given much to have
been aboard the liner now headed for the open sea.
I walked up the tree-lined street, sighing when I passed the shop
where Nanette had found that wonderful shawl. The square, you may
recall, is planted with those trees that flourish principally in South
Africa and bear a light blue blossom. In the sunshine of early morning
it seemed to me that all the streets were dim with an azure born of
the flowers.
Only two tables had been placed outside the Golden Gate. At one of
them a girl was seated, her elbows on the table, her chin propped upon
clenched hands. She stirred slightly, and I saw the sunlight gleaming
in her hair.…
I stood stock still. Then I began to run.
Nanette looked up.
She was pale. Her widely opened eyes were the colour of those
flowers--misty blue. And they said, “I am afraid. I am ashamed. Don’t
be angry with me.”
“Nanette!” I whispered.
She bit her lip and turned her head aside quickly; then:
“I was mad to do it,” she confessed. “I am sorry--now. Please send a
message to the ship. They will be frantic.”
“But--your things? You will have to wait for a whole week.”
“They are in the small wardrobe trunk. I bribed Pedro to leave it
behind. Oh, please, Mr. Decies!” She clutched my arm and I felt how
she trembled. “Look after me. I am so frightened.”
CHAPTER XI.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS
The S.S. _Aguila_ of Messrs. Yeoward Brothers dropped her anchor on
to the rocky bottom of Funchal Harbour at fifteen minutes after two
A.M. under a perfect moon like the crescent of Islam; a true Moon of
Madness.
They had the ladder down in a trice, and my boat drew alongside. I ran
up to the deck--and there was Edmond O’Shea in a white drill suit,
more like John Barrymore than ever with the moonlight gleaming on his
wavy hair.
We shook hands in silence, whilst his searching gray eyes looked into
mine and mine told him all that I was helpless to conceal. Then:
“It was good of you, Decies,” he said. “My message has put you out?”
“I had booked in the _Arundel_; but it didn’t matter. My time is my
own.”
Indeed, already the spell of The O’Shea was on me. There are many
names honoured in connection with the Grand Parade, but ask one of the
men who knows what happened on the Retreat when Smith Dorrien sent for
O’Shea; a company commander then, and only a major now. We all won the
war, according to our own accounts; the old Irish Guards--what’s left
of them--would convince you that Edmond O’Shea helped us.
“What has happened?” I asked him.
He gave me the facts, whilst we enjoyed the hospitality of the captain
who was delighted to have been instrumental in helping so
distinguished a passenger.
“The original letters are safe in Whitehall, Decies. But I found
pinholes showing where they had been stuck on a board--obviously to be
photographed! We sent a radio to Captain McPhee here, and I doubled
back. The mails will be watched at Southampton; but I don’t fear the
mails. Some trusted agent will carry the photographs. I wired
headquarters for likely birds.”
“Scotland Yard replied,” said I. “One, Julian Macalister, is under
surveillance.”
O’Shea’s cold eyes fixed me.
“Who’s watching him?” he asked.
This brought me to it, and I gulped a quick drink before replying:
“Nanette.”
His expression changed; then:
“So they are still here?” he said.
“_She_ is still here.”
The captain excused himself gracefully, on a plea of duty; and I told
O’Shea.
“You think she overheard you in the consul’s office?”
“I know she did. She admitted it.”
“And so you told her--the rest?”
“Was I wrong?”
O’Shea stood up and paced the room a couple of times; then:
“I don’t know,” said he. “Let’s go ashore.”
Fate has playfully set me in some queer situations, but I can recall
none stranger than that in which I found myself now. O’Shea, occupying
a room in the consul’s house, and engaged in private consultations
with the military governor and others; Nanette, studiously declining
to meet him--although his return to Funchal was the reason of her
being there; Da Cunha, incapacitated, and only able to act through
Macalister; the latter gentleman dancing attendance on Nanette.
“He doesn’t know that I know anything,” she said to me. “And he
doesn’t know that Major O’Shea is here.”
We were taking tea on the terrace of Reid’s; the adorably pretty girl
who had “missed the boat” and my innocent self subjects of much
inaccurate speculation. Two frantic radios had been brought out to
Nanette: one from her mother and one from Jack.
“Please answer them for me,” was all she had said.
“Nanette!” I looked into the childish blue eyes, in which, when O’Shea
was mentioned, I had seen the woman-light shine. “I feel responsible
for you. In playing with a dangerous man like Macalister you take
risks which you don’t understand.”
“I’m going to find out where the photographs are!”
“Because of--O’Shea?”
She looked at me bravely.
“No,” she lied--yet did not know she lied. “Because Major O’Shea
insulted my intelligence. I am going to find out for my own sake.”
I dined with O’Shea in the town that night. He was frantically
worried. That Macalister was the man to whom the task had been
assigned of getting the photographs to Red headquarters he could not
doubt. But where were they? And how did Macalister propose to smuggle
them through?
“Where is Nanette?” he asked suddenly.
“Dining with Macalister at Reid’s.”
“Damn!” said O’Shea; then: “Go back and look after her,” he begged. “I
can’t stand it, Decies. You shouldn’t leave her.”
“She dismissed me!”
“Report yourself for duty. ’Phone me here.”
I arrived at the hotel fifteen minutes later. The hall porter handed
me a note as I ran in. I tore the envelope open in a sort of frenzy.
This was the message:
Photographs are on board a motor cruiser belonging to Gabriel da
Cunha. I can’t find out where it is. But Macalister goes in it
to-morrow morning to Las Palmas and from there by steamer to England.
Have gone with him to the Casino. Will keep him as long as possible.
Can’t do any more.
Nanette.
When I ’phoned to O’Shea, I heard him groan.
“Send someone from the hotel to stand by her,” he said; or, rather, it
was an order. “I can find out where Da Cunha’s boat lies by using the
military wires. It’s hell, Decies, but I daren’t take chances. Join me
here. But make sure she is safe.”
CHAPTER XII.
THE MOTOR CRUISER
The governor’s car, a Cadillac--tribute to the far-flung efficiency
of American salesmanship--was driven by the chauffeur over what I took
to be the edge of a sheer precipice. I inhaled noisily. Then we were
gliding down a cobbled road that, serpentine, embraced a fairy port.
Nestling in a cleft, a volcanic chasm, its terraced roofs silvered by
the crescent moon, lay a town asleep. Patches of colour, as though a
Titan artist had thrown uncleaned palettes into the hollow, crowded
upon and overlay the white walls. Green fronds peeped above pools of
shadow. A beautiful auditorium, this town looked down upon the eternal
drama of the sea.
O’Shea spoke to the chauffeur in Portuguese. His command of
unpronounceable languages was not the least of his acquirements. The
powerful brakes were applied and our switchback descent ceased.
We proceeded on foot.
Where a low stone wall prevented the traveller from falling through
the roof of a villa some twenty feet below, O’Shea pulled up, grasped
my arm, and pointed.
Displaying her graceful, creamy shape like a courtesan stretched upon
blue velvet, a fine-lined motor boat rode in the tiny harbour. Lights
shone out from her cabin ports. O’Shea unbuttoned the coat that he
wore over dinner kit and began to twirl his monocle to and fro upon
its black ribbon about an extended finger.
“There is Da Cunha’s boat,” said he; “and there, no doubt, is what we
are after. But it looks----”
“As though Nanette had failed to keep Macalister?”
O’Shea turned to me, and his eyes gleamed very coldly in the
moonlight.
“Decies,” he said, “you remind me of an unpleasant truth: that if I
succeed in this matter I shall be indebted to a girl.”
“She will have done a big thing for England.”
“I don’t begrudge her that. It would hurt me to think she had done it
for me.”
For a moment I hesitated; then:
“I think she knows it,” I ventured, “and wants to hurt you.”
“Why?”
“Because you hurt _her_.”
He stared very fixedly out over the harbour for some moments, but he
did not seem to have taken offence. At last:
“If I had married very young, Decies,” he said, “and God had been good
to me, I might have had a daughter like Nanette. Even if there were no
other reason, shouldn’t I be a blackguard to think of her except as a
wilful child?”
But I could find no answer. This man’s codes were beyond me. Young
though he was in the days of the Big Push, he had won a name that had
outlasted those of a score of general officers and more than one field
marshal. The fact came home to me and brought with it a great
humility, that I was not of the stuff that histories are made of.
“Suppose we go and look for a boat,” I said.
O’Shea aroused himself--for he had his dreams even as you and I.
“A boat it is,” said he. “As I have no official status whatever,
there’s nothing for it but frank piracy. Are you game?”
“Every time.”
We went on down the sloping cobbled street. Presently it led us
through the heart of the little town, where shuttered windows told of
citizens asleep and only a zealous dog broke the silence. This until,
as we were about to come out on the water front, from a high balcony
stole the strains of a guitar.
O’Shea paused, looking up. A dim light might be discerned. He glanced
at me, smiled, and we passed on. Love is an art with the Southerners.