The blue scarab
on the look-out for it in various likely directions, but I am staying
here with a couple of plain-clothes men. I’ve a conviction that it is
still somewhere in this neighbourhood, and I mean to stick here in the
hope that I may spot somebody trying to move it.”
As the inspector was speaking we had been walking slowly from the
station towards the village, which was on the opposite side of the
river. On the bridge Thorndyke halted and looked down the river and
over the wide expanse of marshy country.
“This is an ideal place for a bullion robbery,” he remarked. “A tidal
river near to the sea and a network of creeks, in any one of which one
could hide a boat or sink the booty below tide-marks. Have you heard
of any strange craft having put in here?”
“Yes. There’s a little ramshackle bawley from Leigh--but her crew of
two ragamuffins are not Leigh men. And they’ve made a mess of their
visit--got their craft on the mud on the top of the spring tide. There
she is, on that spit; and there she’ll be till next spring tide. But
I’ve been over her carefully and I’ll swear the stuff isn’t aboard
her. I had all the ballast out and emptied the lazarette and the chain
locker.”
“And what about the barge?”
“She’s a regular trader here. Her crew--the skipper and his son--are
quite respectable men and they belong here. There they go in that
boat; I expect they are off on this tide. But they seem to be making
for the bawley.”
As he spoke the inspector produced a pair of glasses, through which he
watched the movements of the barge’s jolly-boat, and a couple of
elderly fishermen, who were crossing the bridge, halted to look on.
The barge’s boat ran alongside the stranded bawley, and one of the
rowers hailed; whereupon two men tumbled up from the cabin and dropped
into the boat, which immediately pushed off and headed for the barge.
“Them bawley blokes seems to be taking a passage along of old Bill
Somers,” one of the fishermen remarked, levelling a small telescope at
the barge as the boat drew alongside and the four men climbed on
board. “Going to work their passage, too,” he added as the two
passengers proceeded immediately to man the windlass while the crew
let go the brails and hooked the main-sheet block to the traveller.
“Rum go,” commented Badger, glaring at the barge through his glasses;
“but they haven’t taken anything aboard with them. I could see that.”
“You have overhauled the barge, I suppose?” said Thorndyke.
“Yes. Went right through her. Nothing there. She’s light. There was no
place aboard her where you could hide a split-pea.”
“Did you get her anchor up?”
“No,” replied Badger. “I didn’t. I suppose I ought to have done so.
However, they’re getting it up themselves now.” As he spoke, the rapid
clink of a windlass-pawl was borne across the water, and through my
prismatic glasses I could see the two passengers working for all they
were worth at the cranks. Presently the clink of the pawl began to
slow down somewhat and the two bargemen, having got the sails set,
joined the toilers at the windlass, but even then there was no great
increase of speed.
“Anchor seems to come up uncommon heavy,” one of the fishermen
remarked.
“Aye,” the other agreed. “Got foul of an old mooring maybe.”
“Look out for the anchor, Badger,” Thorndyke said in a low voice,
gazing steadily through his binocular. “It is out of the ground. The
cable is up and down and the barge is drifting off on the tide.”
Even as he spoke the ring and stock of the anchor rose slowly out of
the water, and now I could see that a second chain was shackled
loosely to the cable, down which it had slid until it was stopped by
the ring of the anchor. Badger had evidently seen it too, for he
ejaculated, “Hallo!” and added a few verbal flourishes which I need
not repeat. A few more turns of the windlass brought the flukes of the
anchor clear of the water, and dangling against them was an undeniable
wooden case, securely slung with lashings of stout chain. Badger
cursed volubly, and, turning to the fishermen, exclaimed in a rather
offensively peremptory tone:
“I want a boat. Now. This instant.”
The elder piscator regarded him doggedly and replied: “All right. I
ain’t got no objection.”
“Where can I get a boat?” the inspector demanded, nearly purple with
excitement and anxiety.
“Where do you think?” the mariner responded, evidently nettled by the
inspector’s masterful tone. “Pastrycook’s? Or livery stables?”
“Look here,” said Badger. “I’m a police officer and I want to board
that barge, and I am prepared to pay handsomely. Now where can I get a
boat?”
“We’ll put you aboard of her,” replied the fisherman, “that is, if we
can catch her. But I doubt it. She’s off, that’s what she is. And
there’s something queer a-going on aboard of her,” he added in a
somewhat different tone.
There was. I had been observing it. The case had been, with some
difficulty, hoisted on board, and then suddenly there had broken out
an altercation between the two bargees and their passengers, and this
had now developed into what looked like a free fight. It was difficult
to see exactly what was happening, for the barge was drifting rapidly
down the river, and her sails, blowing out first on one side and then
on the other, rather obscured the view. Presently, however, the sails
filled and a man appeared at the wheel; then the barge jibed round,
and with a strong ebb tide and a fresh breeze, very soon began to grow
small in the distance.
Meanwhile the fishermen had bustled off in search of a boat, and the
inspector had raced to the bridgehead, where he stood gesticulating
frantically and blowing his whistle, while Thorndyke continued
placidly to watch the receding barge through his binocular.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, a little surprised at my
colleague’s inaction.
“What can we do?” he asked in reply. “Badger will follow the barge. He
probably won’t overtake her, but he will prevent her from making a
landing until they get out into the estuary, and then he may possibly
get assistance. The chase is in his hands.”
“Are we going with him?”
“I am not. This looks like being an all-night expedition, and I must
be at our chambers to-morrow morning. Besides, the chase is not our
affair. But if you would like to join Badger there is no reason why
you shouldn’t. I can look after the practice.”
“Well,” I said, “I think I should rather like to be in at the death,
if it won’t inconvenience you. But it is possible that they may get
away with the booty.”
“Quite,” he agreed; “and then it would be useful to know exactly how
and where it disappears. Yes, go with them, by all means, and keep a
sharp look-out.”
At this moment Badger returned with the two plain-clothes men whom his
whistle had called from their posts, and simultaneously a boat was
seen approaching the steps by the bridge, rowed by the two fishermen.
The inspector looked at us inquiringly. “Are you coming to see the
sport?” he asked.
“Doctor Jervis would like to come with you,” Thorndyke replied. “I
have to get back to London. But you will be a fair boat-load without
me.”
This appeared to be also the view of the two fishermen, as they
brought up at the steps and observed the four passengers; but they
made no demur beyond inquiring if there were not any more; and when we
had taken our places in the stern sheets, they pushed off and pulled
through the bridge and away down stream. Gradually, the village
receded and the houses and the bridge grew small and more distant,
though they remained visible for a long time over the marshy levels;
and still, as I looked back through my glasses, I could see Thorndyke
on the bridge, watching the pursuit with his binocular to his eyes.
Meanwhile the fugitive barge, having got some two miles start, seemed
to be drawing ahead. But it was only at intervals that we could see
her, for the tide was falling fast and we were mostly hemmed in by the
high, muddy banks. Only when we entered a straight reach of the river
could we see her sails over the land; and every time that she came
into view, she appeared perceptibly smaller.
When the river grew wider, the mast was stepped and a good-sized
lug-sail hoisted, though one of the fishermen continued to ply his oar
on the weather side, while the other took the tiller. This improved
our pace appreciably; but still, whenever we caught a glimpse of the
barge, it was evident that she was still gaining.
On one of these occasions the man at the tiller, standing up to get a
better view, surveyed our quarry intently for nearly a minute and then
addressed the inspector.
“She’s a-going to give us the go-by, mister,” he observed with
conviction.
“Still gaining?” asked Badger.
“Aye. She’s a-going to slip across the tail of Foulness Sand into the
deep channel. And that’s the last we shall see of her.”
“But can’t we get into the channel the same way?” demanded Badger.
“Well, d’ye see,” replied the fisherman, “’tis like this. Tide’s
a-running out, but there’ll be enough for her. It’ll just carry her
out through the Whitaker Channel and across the spit. Then it’ll turn,
and up she’ll go, London way, on the flood. But we shall catch the
flood-tide in the Whitaker Channel, and a rare old job we’ll have to
get out; and when we do get out, that barge’ll be miles away.”
The inspector swore long and earnestly. He even alluded to himself as
a “blithering idiot.” But that helped matters not at all. The
fisherman’s dismal prophecy was fulfilled in every horrid detail. When
we were approaching the Whitaker Channel the barge was just crossing
the spit, and the last of the ebb-tide was trickling out. By the time
we were fairly in the Channel the tide had turned and was already
flowing in with a speed that increased every minute; while over the
sand we could see the barge, already out in the open estuary, heading
to the west on the flood-tide at a good six knots.
Poor Badger was frantic. With yearning eyes fixed on the dwindling
barge, he cursed, entreated, encouraged and made extravagant offers.
He even took an oar and pulled with such desperate energy that he
caught a crab and turned a neat back somersault into the fisherman’s
lap. The two mariners pulled until their oars bent like canes; but
still the sandy banks crept by, inch by inch, and ever the turbid
water seemed to pour up the channel more and yet more swiftly. It was
a fearful struggle and seemed to last for hours; and when, at last,
the boat crawled out across the spit and the exhausted rowers rested
on their oars, the sun was just setting and the barge had disappeared
into the west.
I was really sorry for Badger. His oversight in respect of the anchor
was a very natural one for a landsman, and he had evidently taken
infinite pains over the case and shown excellent judgment in keeping
a close watch on the neighbourhood of Garbridge; and now, after all
his care, it looked as if both the robbers and their booty had slipped
through his fingers. It was desperately bad luck.
“Well,” said the elder fisherman, “they’ve give us a run for our
money; but they’ve got clear away. What’s to be done now, mister?”
Badger had nothing to suggest excepting that we should pull or sail up
the river in the hope of getting some assistance on the way. He was in
the lowest depths of despair and dejection. But now, when Fortune
seemed to have deserted us utterly, and failure appeared to be an
accomplished fact, Providence intervened.
A small steam vessel that had been approaching from the direction of
the East Swin suddenly altered her course and bore down as if to speak
us. The fisherman who had last spoken looked at her attentively for a
few moments and then slapped his thigh. “Saved, by gum!” he exclaimed.