Glencannon, page 19
"Ah, but wait!" Captain Speed looked up from another sheet upon which he had been penciling corrections. "I'm just putting your name in instead of Duncan's," he explained. "Now, this is a news item which will appear in the papers tomorrow evening. Here!"
Mr. Glencannon drew it toward him and read:
EXPLORER SEEKS LOST FRIEND
SPEED POSTS REWARD, PLANS EXPEDITION
TO FIND GREEN, LONG MISSING;
CLUE TO JUNGLE MYSTERY IN LONDON
BOOKSTORE
A trail which may lead halfway round the world, through the jungles of Kola-Bahur Province, India, and end in either a pygmies' cavern or a white man's grave, was brought to light in dramatic fashion Friday when Captain Randolph Rashleigh Speed, the explorer, chanced to make the acquaintance of Mr. Colin Glencannon in an Oxford Street bookstore. Glencannon brought the first news of Speed's friend and colleague, William Green, who left London last June on a mystery trek the object of which he refused to divulge. Grave fears had been entertained for his safety ever since. According to Mr. Glencannon, who is chief engineer of the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle, now in Spiller's Yards, Rotherhithe, Green was in Kola-Bahur until August ninth, on which date he was planning a lone search for a lost mine worked by a tribe of pygmies known as the Mole People. Captain Speed and Mr. Glencannon fear that Green, if not dead, is now held prisoner by these underground workers, who are believed to be cannibals. "Although I have advertised a £100 reward for further information, I haven't much hope of anyone claiming it," said Speed yesterday. "I am certain that poor Billy Green is in dire need of help and I am working day and night organizing an expedition to locate him. Mr. Glencannon's statement, while throwing the first definite light on Green's foolhardy venture, only increases the anxiety which I have felt for a long time."
Mr. Glencannon looked up blankly. "But—but swith, sir! I ne'er met a mon named Wulliam Green in Kola-Bahur!"
"No, of course you didn't," the explorer chuckled. "How could you, when there isn't any such person? But I'm depending upon you to stick to the yarn and spin it out to the reporters who'll come to check up on all this tomorrow. Frankly, Mr. Glencannon, the press doesn't trust me. That's why I'm paying five quid for your confirmation of the story. Good Lord!" he sat back and laughed heartily. "You surely didn't think I'd put up those hundred hard-earned pounds for somebody to come along and snaffle, did you? No, no, Mr. Glencannon, the whole idea is to advertise myself, my next expedition and the book I'll write about it. A search for a lost pal is a fine, dramatic, human-interest angle, and when I don't find him the first crack, or even the second, the excitement will keep on building up until I can string it out for four or five books, maybe. Oh, the stunt's absolutely sure-fire, can't you see it?"
Little by little, wrinkle by wrinkle, Mr. Glencannon's face was suffused by a smile. "Captain," he breathed wonderingly, "I—I congrotulate ye! Ye've concocted a swundle after my ain heart! Losh, what cleverness! Why, the plon is mognificent—in fact, it's all but pairfict!"
"All but? H'mph! Why, what's the flaw in it?" challenged Captain Speed.
"A-weel, only a minor detail, and pairhops I'm wrong e'en there," said Mr. Glencannon diffidently. "However, I wudna be earning my five poonds if I didna express my condid opinion that 'Wulliam Green' is no' the richt name for yere imoginary lost pal. In the feerst place, there are too many real Wulliam Greens in the world to risk having the fond but dishonest reelatives o' a dead one show up and claim the money. In the seecond place, the name is no' sufficiently meemorable to reegister with the public. It seems to me that an explorer shud have an unusual name—a name with an adventurous sound to it—in fact, sir, yere ain name is a vurra guid exomple."
"M'm—by Jove, I believe you're right!" agreed Captain Speed. "I'm glad you raised the point, Mr. Glencannon. Green—no, Green won't do at all! Well, fortunately, it's easy to change. Let's see, what shall we call him? Stockley? Leffingwell? Sanders?"
"Stockley? Stockley is grond! Aye, Steve Stockley! But wait, wait. How aboot Falcon? Ah, Falcon's a lovely swashbuckling name! John—no, Jeffry Falcon! Jeffry Ronald Falcon! There!"
"Falcon? Jeffry Ronald Falcon? Oh, I say, that's perfect! Yes, by Jove, it's a masterpiece! Jeffry Ronald Falcon it is, Mr. Glencannon, and many thanks for the suggestion! Well," he arose, laid five pounds on the table and extended his hand. "I must rush up to Fleet Street with this stuff for the papers and then catch my train for the north. I'm off on a lecture tour—three weeks' solid booking."
"Then guid-bye, sir," said Mr. Glencannon, picking up the money and counting it carefully. "It's been a hoppy meeting and ye can depend upon me telling the repoorters a guid straightforward tale tomorrow. Tuesday, o' coorse, we'll be sailing."
"Well, I wish you a pleasant voyage," said Captain Speed, glancing at his wrist watch and moving toward the door. "Long trip?"
"No," said Mr. Glencannon gloomily, "only to China. 'Twull be a frichtful bore."
IV
It was Monday morning. Mr. Glencannon sat at the breakfast table scanning the newspapers which had just been brought aboard by Jessup, the steward. "Ah, here it is in black on white!" he chuckled as the advertisement met his eye. "Jeffry Ronald Falcon, one hoonderd poonds reward and all the rest o' it—as binding as any legal contract! Weel, I fear that when Nephew Duncan sees it, there'll be frogments o' youth's shottered idols lying all ower the ship! However—Jessup!" he called, "Jessup! I'll thonk ye please to osk the cook to step in here a minute!"
Shortly, a stoutish person in a dirty white apron appeared and stood nervously beside the table. "Please, sir," he began guiltily, "if it's about the lumps in that there porridge—"
Mr. Glencannon sprang to his feet. "Aye," he thundered, "it's aboot the loomps in the parritch and something more besides!" He advanced upon the quaking cook and thrust his finger in his face. "Where were you on August ninth last, to yere best knowledge and belief?"
"W-why—Oh, lawks, sir, August—er—yes, on August ninth we was in that narsty Coalhole-Bahur, or wotever its nyme was. But, please, chief, if it's the Worcestershire-sauce tyste yer complained of yestiddy, I give yer my oath that there ain't a single drop of it on the ship, and wot's more there 'asn't been for over—"
"What's yere full and true name?" the engineer bellowed menacingly.
"J-J-Jeffry Ronald Falcon, sir," quaked the cook. "Oh, please, sir, if that porridge ain't—"
"Say no more, Jeffry Ronald Falcon!" Mr. Glencannon ordered him. "Go put on yere shore clothes, bring yere passport and identity papers, and come alang with me to the London and Empire Bank! If ye stick to yere story and back up mine, I may forget yere nauseous parritch and no' get ye sacked as ye desairve. Aye!" he added, in a sudden burst of generosity. "Why, pairhops, when I've collected the reward, I may e'en pay yere bus fare back here to the ship!"
MUTINY ON THE INCHCLIFFE CASTLE
I
On a day not long ago, two old gentlemen met for lunch in a private room of a London club. After a prolonged scowl at the menu, one of them ordered bran wafers and a cup of barley water heated for three minutes to 110 degrees, while the other, casting prudence to the winds, demanded the scrapings from four slices of whole-wheat toast in a wine glassful of the juice of the upper halves of raw Monmouthshire carrots. There was a slight delay in obtaining these delicacies to specification, in the course of which they sent for the club secretary, the secretary spoke to the manager, the manager snarled at the headwaiter and the headwaiter garroted the chef. Finally fed, our two old gluttons sat back and, over their pepsin tablets, talked of the momentous matter which had brought them there.
At 3:15, they called for their cars and left the club. At four, it was whispered at Lloyd's that Lord Forthdale, chairman of the White Crown Steamship Line, and Mr. Virgil Hazlitt, managing director of Clifford, Castle & Company, Ltd., had been seen together. At 4:30, rumors at the Baltic Exchange had it that the biggest shipping combine of the decade was imminent, while at the close of business all Leadenhall Street was saying that the merger was signed and sealed. By nightfall, the news had traveled eastward even unto those grimy Thames-side regions where great ships, home from their pastures on the Seven Seas, lie penned like drowsing cattle in the docks.
Now, on at least one of these vessels, the tidings were received with consternation and wrath. She was the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle, of the Clifford & Castle cargo fleet, and around the table in her stuffy little saloon her officers sat discussing the smoked kippers, the news, and its bearing on their futures, with a common and profound pessimism.
"But wot's the sense of it, that's wot I want to know?" sulked Mr. Montgomery, the mate. "Why, the White Crown's a swank, 'igh-clarss passenger line! Besides their ferry across the Western to New York, they run cruises for millionaires, with a bleddy great public barthtub in every ship and the mates orl singing soprano. Wot the 'ell do they want to merger with us for?"
"Yus, and wot's to become of we poor chaps when they do?" demanded Mr. Swales, the second. "Oh, mark my words, gempmen! Whenever any of these combines and mergers 'appens, there's orlways no end of shifts and shake-ups, and poor blighters like us with twenty years' service getting the sack! Well, where's the social justice there? Where is it; yus, where is it, I arsks you?"
"How do I know?" retorted Captain Ball, irritably. "Really—ker-hem—I mean to say, you needn't beller at me like I'd stole it, Mr. Swales! Now, hold on. I'll call in Jessup and he can tell you exactly what he heard ... Steward! Steward! Just give us that story again, will you?"
Jessup, a wizened little man whose nose twitched like a rabbit's, flicked the bread crumbs from the table with a limp dishrag, which he then stuffed into the pocket of his greasy white jacket.
"Welp, captain and gempmen, sirs, I can only tell yer wot Missus O'Halloran told my missus and my missus told me. Veronica O'Halloran, of course, is charlady in our owners' offices and sometimes, when she's giving Mr. 'Azlitt's brarss door 'andle a bit of a rub-up, 'er ear gets so close to the key'ole that she can't 'elp but 'ear wot's being said inside. Welp, according to Veronica, this 'ere deal with the White Crown people 'as been cooking for a long time. The itch 'as been that the White Crown gempmen are no end proud of their reputation for running their ships very smart and navy-like, their motter in Latin being Hic, hoc, quid; spit-and-polish disciplinus,' or some silly tosh to that effeck. Anyway, they was afraid that joining up with a 'ard-bitten tramp line like us might damage their ruddy prestige in the passenger business."
"Humph, fancy that, the stiff-necked snobs!" said Captain Ball... "Go on, Jessup!"
"Welp, it seems that today old Mr. 'Azlitt and old Lord Forthdale went out at noon, chewed up a stewed cat 'ead together, and now the 'ole thing's settled. A lot of our ships will be laid up orlmost immejiately, the freights to be carried by the White Crowners, and there'll be a big dust-up generally."
"Yus, our ships laid up and us laid orff!" groaned Mr. Montgomery. "Blyme, gempmen, there's a ruddy fine prospeck to look forward to, I don't think!"
Mr. Glencannon, the chief engineer, crashed a horny fist upon the table. "Foosh!" he snorted. "It's the most ootrageous piece o' skulduggery e'er peerpetrated! But as lang as they're laying up our ships, dinna ye think they'll at least be decent enough to find us jobs aboord their ain?"
"Yus, wot a 'ope!" sneered Mr. Montgomery. "And anyway, wot a fine sight a lot of 'airy-chested chaps like us would make, working on them fancy passenger packets! Mess jackets and epaulets every night for dinner, dancing the Rotten Apple with the passengers, and do let me pour you another swill of this delicious rum, my dear Lady Gallstone! Oh, my eye!"
"M'm, well, if I could only get the job, I wouldn't be afraid of the social end of it," said Captain Ball, with finger and thumb dislodging a herring vertebra from the upper plate of his false teeth, considering it gloomily and then tossing it over his shoulder. "Although, of course, I spose getting stinko with the passengers every night would become a bit irksome after a while."
"Eh? What's that, captain?" demanded Mr. Glencannon. "Do ye mean to say that the possengers buy drinks for the officers? That—that they actually stond treat?"
"Indeed they do," said Captain Ball. "It's the custom in all passenger ships. Why, the captains and senior officers even draw an entertainment allowance to treat back with."
"Humph!" grunted Mr. Swales. "Well, without friends or influence to 'elp us get transferred, all we poor beggars'll draw will be the slack in our belts! Yus, draw and draw, until we 'ave to eat the ruddy belts to keep from starving!"
Mr. Glencannon rose, strode to the porthole and stood gazing out upon the pattern of masts, funnels and rigging etched in black upon a sky aglow with London's lights. Then, champing pensively on the bristles of his walrus mustache, he went aft to his room, collected his cap and a bottle of whisky, and descended the gangway into the gloom of the Limehouse Commercial Docks. Instead of heading for the main gate on Torchbasket Road, however, he cut across the dockyard toward the Blackwall Basin side. As he walked, he muttered.
Emerging from the shadows of ships, cranes and cavernous goods sheds where the echo of his footfalls set furtive rats to scurrying, he was dazzled by the scene which suddenly confronted him. For there, lit up like an amusement park, loomed the mighty bulk of the Malaita, flagship of the White Crown fleet. She was wearing a single plume of steam which swayed gently above her in the dank night breath of the Thames, and in the glare of floodlights on the dock and electric clusters slung along her glossy black sides, tens, scores and hundreds of robots were toiling. Off to the left, an endless procession of stewards lugged quarters of fancy prime beef and mutton up a gangway into a loading door; nearer, another battalion bore crates of choice dressed pheasants, kegs of Colchester oysters, baskets of Boulogne lobsters which creaked their joints and rattled their nippers in lively indignation, and ice-packed boxes of the silent but succulent soles of Arcachon. The men moved swiftly, purposefully; despite the humble nature of their labors, all were spruce, clean and military.
"A-weel," mused Mr. Glencannon wonderingly, "it's all vurra businesslik' and all vurra painfully neat!" He glanced down at the verdigrised buttons of his uniform jacket and with his cuff endeavored to erase the traces of snuff, egg, lubricating oil, gravy, porridge and pipestem drippings which decorated the breast of it. "H'm!" He turned his attention to another parade of stewards who were transporting cases of drinkables. "Clos Vougeot ... Château d'Yquem ... Château Lafite ..." As he read the names his face fell. "Dearie me, I'm no' so sure that possenger work is going to agree with my liver! Ye'd think that on a feerst-closs cruise lik' this, they'd tak' alang something tastier to guzzle than the nosty wines o' Fronce! Swith, I canna believe it! They must use it for cooking, or to issue to the crew!" He patted the bottle in his pocket to reassure himself, stepped aboard the Malaita and inquired for a Mr. David MacCrummon.
To his amazement, the first five men he asked stood to attention, saluted, and politely regretted to state that they had never heard of Mr. David MacCrummon. The sixth, however, was an officer so trim and tidy that, had he only been using a sextant, he might have stepped out of one of the White Crown Line's own advertisements. This gentleman eyed him suspiciously, consulted a notebook and directed him to the boat deck.
Feeling like a beggar in a palace, Mr. Glencannon strolled through carpeted corridors, tapestried salons and gilded ballrooms; he ascended stairways from the balustrades of which bronze nymphs in the buff seemed to gaze with scorn upon his maculate person.
"A-richt, ye bross-nosed houris!" he told them. "My rags are royal raiment compared to what ye've got on, which isn't enough to mak' a pair o' Sunday breeks for the poet Burns's louse! Foosh to ye one and all!"
Arrived at last upon the boat deck and stepping gingerly, so as not to sully the shuffleboard courts freshly stenciled on the planking, Mr. Glencannon moved forward in the shadows of the towering funnels. Beside the skylight of the main saloon he descried a familiar figure engaged in dismantling the motor of a ventilator blower.
"MacCrummon!" he exclaimed joyfully. "Foosh, dear lad, so clean do ye look in yere braw white overalls, I scarcely reecognized ye!"
Mr. MacCrummon paused in his labors and considered the visitor without enthusiasm. He put down his wrench, selected a larger one, weighed it in his hand and then exchanged it for a hammer.
"There!" he said. "Noo, what do ye want, Glencannon?"
"Want?" repeated Mr. Glencannon, beaming expansively. "Want? Indeed, what more cud I want, David, than the pleasure o' seeing ye here so spruce and grond, after all the hard times we had together in the auld Paxton Merchant? Do ye mind the time in Copenhagen when we derailed the tromcar, and that nicht in Hong Kong when something ye drank made ye drunk and ye bit the heel clean off the Chinamon? And then at—"
"Sh-h-h!" Hammer upraised, Mr. MacCrummon was upon him. "Shut up, ye gowk!" he hissed. "Do ye want to get me fired?" He glanced fearfully over his shoulder, saw only the Malaita's deck and breathed a sigh of relief. "A mon can't be too careful, on these domned ships!" he explained. "Swith, Glencannon! What with one thing and another, ye've got me all onstroong!"
"Haw, weel, I've exockly the reemedy yere puir nairves crave!" chuckled Mr. Glencannon, dragging the bottle from his pocket and letting the floodlights play full upon its label. "Look, MacCrummon; it's Duggan's Dew o' Kirkintilloch, that which no invalid, be he prince or porpoise, cud—"
"Hide it! Quick mon! Put it awa'!" rasped Mr. MacCrummon in renewed panic. "Ho, domn it all, Glencannon! How often must I warn ye that the discipline here is stricter than in a monkastery?"
"But, guid heavens!" said Mr. Glencannon, aghast. "Do ye mean to tell me that a drap o' whusky is forbidden ye, e'en as a tonic?"
"Weel"—Mr. MacCrummon's eye watered somewhat as it strayed toward Mr. Glencannon's pocket—"at least on deck it is. Er"—he licked his lips—"e'en doon in the privacy o' my ain room, Colin, we'll have to be vurra discreet, with no clinking, gurgling or loud belching."
