The Air Pirate
noticed that the lights in the pilot's cabin had been turned on.
"I took a snap-shot at Vargus and missed him. Almost simultaneously he
fired directly at the light of the torch which Mr. Van Adams held. The
bullet went through Mr. Van Adams' heart, and he fell back dead in my
arms--I was steering the launch. I fired off all the cartridges in my
pistol, but the thunder drowned the noise. The Pirate Ship began to
move. I saw the lights in her side moving along--and then she lifted and
disappeared."
The awful voice ceased, and all of us in that room stood like waxen
figures in a show.
* * * * *
For three days the Press and public were kept in entire ignorance of
what had happened during the storm.
Upon the fourth, just as I was beginning to think that all my measures
were in vain and that the Pirate Ship had vanished utterly, the Head
Office in Whitehall received two long telegrams from the Prefect of
Finistère in France and the Chief of Police of Quimper, the old
cathedral city in Brittany.
On one of the wild and lonely Breton moors a goat-herd had discovered
the wreckage of a large airship. By it was the body of a young man, but
only one body. The telegrams urgently asked me to come over at once.
I did so, in my fastest patrol boat. Lying in a wild wilderness of gorse
and heather were the remains of the Pirate Ship. It had been destroyed
beyond possibility of reconstruction, and destroyed methodically and
deliberately while at rest upon the ground. There was no doubt about
that. The body I afterwards saw in the Morgue at Quimper was that of
Gascoigne. He had not met his death by any accidental means, but had
been stabbed in the back.
He must have been dead for quite two days before the goat-herd made his
discovery, and of Vargus, living or dead, there was not a trace.
I was back in London again that night, and just as I was going to bed
in Half Moon Street the bell of the flat rang. Thumbwood went to the
door and announced that Mr. Danjuro wished to see me.
He was in evening dress, and quite his old self again to outward
appearances, except that his black hair had turned an iron grey.
For a moment or two we discussed details of the inquest that had been
held _in camera_ upon poor Van Adams, arrangements made for the trial of
the three surviving pirates, and so on. Then I told him what I had seen
at Quimper.
"Mr. Muir Lockhart told me of the telegrams from France," he said. "I
called at Whitehall, but you had already started for Quimper, Sir John.
I must apologize for such a late call, but I was anxious to hear your
news. Now I see my way clear."
"I suppose, after your great loss, you will go back to America, or
perhaps Japan, and settle down?"
He shook his head.
"You know," I continued, "that if you cared for it, there is a
highly-paid and important position open to you with the Air Police?
Nothing would give me greater pleasure, as you know, than to have you as
a colleague."
"I thank you, Sir John, but I have other work to do. I am a rich man,
but that only interests me, inasmuch as it is a means to an end. When
that end is reached ..."
He made a curious gesture with his arm, which I did not understand.
"May I ask what your work is?"
He looked at me with surprise.
"Vargus is still alive," he said simply.
"He will be caught soon. The police of the world are looking for him, if
he is alive."
"I think it will be a long pursuit, Sir John. He has got off with the
treasure, and I know one or two things about him which are not generally
known. I do not think that Mr. Vargus will fall into the hands of the
police."
"Then you ...?"
"It is my work. I owe the spirit of my patron this man's blood, and I
shall pay the debt. Were he to hide in the depths of the sea, sooner or
later I shall find him. There is no power strong enough in life to keep
us two apart."
He had dropped his voice. The words hissed like a knife upon a strop.
"I wish you good luck," I said at length, and was about to say more, to
express my gratitude again, when he cut me short.
"I am leaving for Paris in half an hour," he said, "and must bid you
farewell, Sir John. Convey my humble compliments to Miss Shepherd," and
with a low bow and a frigid handshake he was gone.
Six weeks afterwards, on the day before my wedding, I received a
magnificent Japanese vase of the old Satsuma enamel, but the card
enclosed bore no address.
I did not see this extraordinary being again for nearly two years. Of
that meeting I shall write in the following short epilogue.
EPILOGUE
In the winter of 19-- I was at Monte Carlo for three weeks, taking a
short holiday alone, and also looking out for a villa at Roquebrune or
Mentone for my wife, who was to come out with the baby as soon as the
house had been secured.
Now and again I went into the "Rooms" and staked a louis or two upon an
even chance or a _transversale_ at roulette; but, speaking generally,
the Casino bored me. The cosmopolitan crowd of smart people--like
champagne corks floating on a cesspool--the professional gamblers, with
their veil of decorous indifference concealing a fierce greed for money
which they have not earned--a sprinkling of wood-ash over a glowing
fire--presented little interest, and I much preferred long walks and
drives in the earthly paradise of Les Alpes Maritimes.
I stayed at the Métropole Hotel, making it the base of my excursions,
and one evening, after dinner, I paid one of my rare visits to the
Casino. I wandered about the gilded, stuffy saloons, with their
illuminations of oil-lamps--so that no enterprising gentleman may cut
the electric wires and make off with the money on the tables!--the low
voices and almost sanctimonious manner of the players, the over-dressed
demi-mondaines who glide about with their hard, evil eyes. The place was
very full. All the chairs round the roulette tables were occupied, and
people were standing behind the chairs as well. As I am tall, I was able
to reach over and place my stakes, and I did so several times. When I
had lost four louis with monotonous regularity, I decided that it was
not worth while, and thought I would go and smoke, for, contrary to the
usual pictures in the magazines, smoking is _not_ allowed in the
roulette or trente-et-quarante rooms.
So I went out into the Atrium, the great pillared entrance hall, which
looks like an important provincial corn exchange, and lit a cigarette.
The place was fairly full of people, walking up and down, or reading the
latest telegrams, which are fixed up upon a green-baize screen, and I
was watching them idly when, coming round the corner from the
cloak-room, I saw--Danjuro!
My heart gave a sudden leap, the sight of him was so utterly unexpected
and recalled so much. To tell the truth, he seemed to belong to a long
past and forgotten dream, for Connie and I, by mutual consent, hardly
ever spoke of the days of the pirates.
Danjuro was about fifteen yards away. I saw his face distinctly, and was
certain that I was not mistaken. Then he looked up, and I could swear
that he saw and recognized me.
Be that as it may, he turned and slipped round the corner like a weasel,
and when I got there he had vanished. I made a search, of course, though
I knew how futile it would be if he wished to avoid me, and the result
was as I expected. There wasn't a trace of him anywhere, and none of the
attendants or door-keepers had seen a Japanese gentleman anywhere.
I went for a walk on the terrace in the moonlight, and then returned to
the hotel and sought my bed. For a long time I could not sleep. The
sight of Danjuro had made me restless. A legion of memories trooped
through the brain, and curiosity marshalled the procession. What was
that enigmatic and sinister being doing here? Was he still upon his
ruthless quest, moving through the panorama of European life like some
wandering Jew of vengeance? Nothing had ever been heard of Vargus again.
For my part, I shared the opinion of the police bureaux of the
Continent, that the soft-voiced and malignant scoundrel was dead.
It was pathetic to think of Danjuro prowling through life to avenge his
patron, wasting his magnificent powers upon a hopeless quest. Pathetic,
yes--so ran my thoughts--but one can't think of Danjuro as an ordinary
human being. He was simply a single idea, clothed in flesh, a marvellous
machine designed for one operation only, a specialist so perfect that he
became a monomaniac.
Poor Van Adams, to protect and serve him had been Danjuro's whole life.
Every faculty of mind and body had been devoted to that one end. And yet
he must have loved the American to have served him so? And if he could
love he was human!
I wrestled with the problem till dawn, and got no nearer a solution. I
knew that, despite our companionship in peril and the extraordinary
adventures we had gone through together, if Van Adams had lived and for
any reason had told Danjuro to put me out of the way, the little man
would have executed the job with neatness, dispatch, and an entire
absence of compunction.
I decided that Danjuro, as a subject of psychological analysis, was
quite beyond me, and did my best to forget the incident. With an effort
I managed to do so, and got a few hours' sleep before Thumbwood called
me. I said nothing to him of having seen Danjuro, for he also is
unwilling to talk much of the days of terror--perhaps because his wife,
Wilson, that was, and is still, Connie's handmaid--so strenuously
objects to it.
About half-past eleven I left the hotel and strolled to the foot of the
funicular railway which hauls one up from the narrow ledge of land on
which Monte Carlo stands to the heights of La Turbie. I designed to
lunch at the excellent hotel at the top in the clear mountain air, and
then to walk along the Upper Corniche towards Roquebrune, Eze, and the
mountains above Mentone. There is much to explore in these high
regions--ruins of Roman and medieval forts, built as a defence against
the raiding Moors of the Mediterranean, and here and there delightful
villas among pine-woods and olive groves, far from the haunts of men.
It was a house of this description, a mountain hermitage, that I wished
to find and take for six months. I knew that they were occasionally to
be let, but somewhat difficult to come across upon the books of the
agents. In Monte Carlo I had been assured that personal exploration was
the best and quickest way.
I lunched at La Turbie on a magnificent _bouillabaisse_ and
_riz-de-veau_, and after an interval set out upon my walk. It was a
magnificent afternoon, the air golden clear. Far away out to sea Corsica
lay like a dim cloud. The mountain side fell in terrace after terrace
of olives to groups of painted houses looking like toys. Away to the
right were the red roofs and gleaming white buildings of the Monte Carlo
palaces, and the promontory of the Tête du Chien was perfectly outlined
in the azure of the sea.
"Yes," I thought, "upon this great height is the place to live when one
comes to the Côte d'Azur, and I won't go home to-night until I have
found something...." And I began to climb by a by-path.
The afternoon was hot. After a mile or two I rested in the shade of a
great rock and fell asleep. When I awoke the sun, which sets early in
winter, even on the Riviera, was declining. I was not quite sure of my
direction, but thought that I could make Roquebrune by an oblique path
over the spur of the mountain, and from there easily descend to Cap
Martin and get a carriage, and take the tram which crawls along the
cliff to Monte Carlo. So I set out.
The path, however, did not prove to be the right one, and it was
twilight, or that extremely short interval which does duty for it in the