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Box with the Broken Seals

<h2 id="id00825" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XI</h2> Katharine came on deck that morning in a somewhat disturbed frame of mind. It was beginning to dawn upon her that her position as sick nurse to Mr. Phillips was meant to be a sinecure. She was allowed to sit by the sick man's side sometimes whilst the doctor took a promenade or ate a meal in the saloon, but apart from that, the usual exercise of her duties was not required from her. She was forced to admit that there was something mysterious about the little stateroom, the suffering man, and the doctor who watched him speechlessly night and day. She was conscious presently that Crawshay, who had been walking up and down the deck, had stopped before the chair on which she lay extended. She greeted him without enthusiasm. "Are you taking one of your health constitutionals, Mr. Crawshay?" she enquired. "Not altogether," he replied. "May I sit down for a moment?" "Of course! I don't think any one sits in that chair." He took his place by her side, deliberately removed his muffler and unfastened his overcoat. It struck her, from the first moment she heard his voice, that his manner was somehow altered. She was altogether unprepared, however, for the almost stern directness of his first question. "Miss Beverley," he began, "will you allow me to ask you how long you have known Mr. Jocelyn Thew?" She turned her head towards him and remained speechless for a moment. It seemed to her that she was looking into the face of a stranger. The little droop of the mouth had gone. The half-vacuous, half-bored expression had given place to something altogether new. The lines of his face had all tightened up, his eyes were hard and bright. She found herself quite unable to answer him in the manner she had intended. "Are you asking me that question seriously, Mr. Crawshay?" "I am," he assured her. "I have grave reasons for asking it." "I am afraid that I do not understand you," she replied stiffly. "You must change your attitude, if you please, Miss Beverley," Crawshay persisted. "Believe me, I am not trying to be impertinent. I am asking a question the necessity for which I am in a position to justify." "You bewilder me!" she exclaimed. "That is simply because you looked upon me as a different sort of person. To tell you the truth, I should very much have preferred that you continued to look upon me as a different sort of person during this voyage, but I cannot see my way clear to keep silence on this one point. I wish to inform you, if you do not know it already, that Mr. Jocelyn Thew is a dangerous person for you to know, or for you to be associated with in any shape or form." She would have risen to her feet but he stopped her. "Please look at me," he begged. She obeyed, half against her will. "I want you to ask yourself," he went on, "whether you do not believe that I am your well-wisher. What I am saying to you, I am saying to save you from a position which later on you might bitterly regret." She was conscious of a quality in his tone and manner entirely strange to her, and she found any form of answer exceedingly difficult. The anger which she would have preferred to have affected seemed, in the face of his earnestness, out of place. "It seems to me," she said, "that you are assuming something which does not exist. I am not on specially intimate terms with Mr. Jocelyn Thew. I have not talked to him any more than to any other casual passenger." "Is that quite honest?" he asked quietly. "Isn't it true that Jocelyn Thew is interested in your mysterious patient?" She started. "What do you mean?" "Just what I say," he replied. "I happen also to have very grave suspicions concerning the presence on this ship of Mr. Phillips and his doctor." Her fingers gripped the side of her deck chair. She leaned a little towards him. "What concern is all this of yours?" she demanded. "Never mind," he answered. "I am risking more than I should like to say in telling you as much as I have told you. I cannot believe that you would consciously associate yourself with a disgraceful and unpatriotic conspiracy. That is why I have chosen to risk a great deal in speaking to you in this way. Tell me what possible consideration was brought to bear upon you to induce you to accept your present situation?" Katharine sat quite still. The thoughts were chasing one another through her brain. Then she was conscious of a strange thing. Her companion's whole expression seemed suddenly to have changed. Without her noticing any movement, his monocle was in his left eye, his lip had fallen a little. He was looking querulously out seaward. "I don't believe," he declared, "that the captain has any idea about the weather prospects. Look at those clouds coming up. I don't know how you are feeling, Miss Beverley, but I am conscious of a distinct chill." Jocelyn Thew had come to a standstill before them. He was wearing no overcoat and was bare-headed. "I guess that chill is somewhere in your imagination, Mr. Crawshay," he observed. "You are pretty strong in that line, aren't you?" Crawshay struggled to his feet. "I have some ideas," he confessed modestly. "I spend my idle moments, even here, weaving a little fiction." "And recounting it, I dare say," Jocelyn ventured. "I am like all artists," Crawshay sighed. "I love an audience. I must express myself to something. I will wish you good evening, Miss Beverley. I feel inclined to take a little walk, in case it becomes too rough later on." He shuffled away, once more the perfect prototype of the malade imaginaire. Jocelyn Thew watched him in silence until he had disappeared. Then he turned and seated himself by the girl's side. "I find myself," he remarked ruminatively, "still a little troubled as to the precise amount of intelligence which our friend Mr. Crawshay might be said to possess. I wonder if I might ask; without your considering it a liberty, what he was talking to you about?" "About you," she answered. "Ah!" "Warning me against you." "Dear me! Aren't you terrified?" "I am not terrified," she replied, "but I think it best to tell you that he also has suspicions, absurd though it may seem, of Phillips and the doctor." "Why not the purser and captain, while he's about it?" Jocelyn said coolly. "Every one on this boat seems to have got the nerves. They searched my stateroom this morning." "Searched your stateroom?" she repeated. "Do you mean while you were out?" "Not a bit of it," he replied. "They dragged me up at half-past eight this morning—the captain, purser and a steward—fetched up my trunk and searched all my possessions." "What for?" she asked, with a sudden chill. He smiled at her reassuringly. "Something they didn't find! Something," he added, after a slight pause, "which they never will find!" Towards midday, Jocelyn Thew abandoned a game of shuffleboard, and, leaning against the side of the vessel, gazed steadily up at the wireless operating room. The lightnings had been playing around the mast for the last ten minutes without effect. He turned towards one of the ship's officers who was passing. "Anything gone wrong with the wireless?" he enquired. "The operator's ill, sir," was the prompt reply. "We've only one on board, as it happens, so we are rather in a mess." Jocelyn strolled away aft, considering the situation. He found Crawshay seated in an elaborate deck chair and immersed in a novel. "I hear the wireless has gone wrong," he remarked, stopping in front of him. Crawshay glanced up blandly. "What's that?" he demanded. "Wireless? Why, it's been going all the morning." "There has been no one there to take the messages, though. If anything happens to us, we shall be in a nice pickle." Crawshay shivered. "I wish you people wouldn't suggest such things," he said, a little testily. "I was just trying to get all thought of this most perilous voyage out of my mind, with the help of a novel here. From which do you seriously consider we have most to fear," he went on, "mines, submarines, or predatory vessels of the type of the Blucher?" "The latter, I should think," Jocelyn replied. "They say that submarines are scarcely venturing so far out just now." There was a brief silence. Jocelyn Thew was apparently engaged in trying to fit a cigarette into his holder. "Specially hard luck on you," he remarked presently, "if anything happened when you've taken so much trouble to get on board." "It would be exceedingly annoying," Crawshay declared, with vigour, "added to which I am not in a state of health to endure a voyage in a small boat. I have been this morning to look at our places, in case of accident. I find that I am expected to wield an oar long enough to break my back." Jocelyn Thew smiled. The other man's peevishness seemed too natural to be assumed. "I expect you'll be glad enough to do your bit, if anything does happen to us," he observed. "By-the-by," Crawshay asked, "I wonder what will become of that poor fellow downstairs—the man who is supposed to be dying, I mean—if trouble comes?" "I heard them discussing it at breakfast time," Jocelyn Thew replied. "I understand that he has asked specially to be allowed to remain where he is. There would of course be not the slightest chance of saving his life. The doctor who is with him—Gant, I think his name is—told us that anything in the shape of a rough sea, even, would mean the end of him. He quite understands this himself." Crawshay assented gravely. "It seems a little brutal but it is common sense," he declared. "In times of great stress, too, one becomes primitive, and the primitive instinct is for the strong to save himself. I am not ashamed to confess," he concluded, "that I have secured an extra lifebelt." Jocelyn glanced, for a moment scornfully down at the man who had now picked up his novel again and was busy reading. Crawshay represented so much the things that he despised in life. It was impossible to treat or consider him in any way as a rival to be feared. He passed down the deck and made his way below to the doctor's room. He found the latter in the act of starting off to see a patient. "I came around to ask after Robins, the young Marconi man," Jocelyn explained. "I hear that he was taken ill last night." The doctor looked at his questioner keenly. "That is so," he admitted. "What's wrong with him?" "I have not thoroughly diagnosed his complaint as yet," was the careful reply. "I can tell you for a certainty, though, that he will not be able to work for two or three days." "It seems very sudden," Jocelyn Thew persisted. "As a matter of fact, I had some slight acquaintance with him, and I always thought that he was a remarkably strong young fellow." The doctor, who had completed his preparations for departure, picked up his cap and politely showed his visitor out. "You wouldn't care," the latter suggested, "to let me go down and have a look at him? I can't call myself a medical man, but I know something about sickness and I am quite interested in young Robins." "I don't think that I shall need a second opinion at present, thank you," the doctor rejoined, a little drily. "If you wish to see him later on, you must get permission from the captain. Good morning, Mr. Thew." Jocelyn Thew strolled thoughtfully away, found a retired spot upon the promenade deck behind a boat, lit a very black cigar, and, drawing his field-glasses from his pocket, searched the horizon carefully. There was no sign of any passing steamer, not even the faintest wisp of black smoke anywhere upon the horizon. It was Wednesday to-day, and they had left New York on Saturday. He drew a sheet of paper from his pocket and made a few calculations. It was the day and past the time upon which things were due to happen…. The day wore on very much as most days do on an Atlantic voyage in early summer. The little handful of passengers, who seemed for the moment to have cast all anxieties to the winds, played shuffleboard and quoits, lunched with vigorous appetites, drank tea out on deck, and indulged in strenuous before-dinner promenades. The sun shone all day, the sea remained wonderfully calm. Not a trace of any other steamer was visible from morning until early nightfall, and Jocelyn Thew walked restlessly about with a grim look upon his face. At dinner time the captain hinted at fog, and looked doubtfully out of the open porthole at the oily-looking waste of waters. "Another night on the bridge for me, I think," he remarked. Jocelyn Thew leaned forward in his place. "By-the-by, Captain," he asked, "now that the shipping is so reduced, do you alter speed for fog?" The captain filled his glass from the jug of lemonade which, was always before him. "Do we alter our speed, eh?" he repeated. "You must remember," he went on, "that we have Miss Beverley on board. We couldn't afford to give Miss Beverley a fright." Jocelyn accepted the evasion with a slight bow. Katharine, who had come in to dine a little late and seemed graver than usual, smiled at the captain. "Am I the most precious thing on this steamer?" she asked. "Gallantry," the captain replied, "compels me to say yes!" "Only gallantry? Have we such a wonderful cargo, then?" "There are times," was the cautious reply, "when not even the captain knows exactly what he is carrying." "You remind me," Jocelyn Thew observed, "of a voyage I once made from Port Elizabeth to New York, with half-a-dozen I.D.B's on board, and as many detectives, watching them day and night." The captain nodded. "What happened?" he enquired. "Oh, the detectives arrested the lot of them, I think, got hold of them on the last day." The captain rose from his place. "Queer thing," he remarked, "but the law generally does come out on top." Jocelyn followed his example a few minutes later, and Katharine purposely joined him on the way out. She led her companion to the corner where her steamer chair had been placed, and motioned him to sit by her side. They were on the weather side of the ship, with a slight breeze in their faces and a canopy over their heads which deadened sound. She leaned a little forward. "Smoke, please." she begged. "I mean it—see." She lit a cigarette and he followed suit. "Not a cigar?" He shook his head. "I keep them for my hard thinking times." "Then you were thinking very hard this morning?" "I was," he admitted. "And gazing very earnestly out of those field-glasses of yours." "Quite true." "Mr. Thew," she said abruptly, "it is my impression, although for some reason or other I am scarcely allowed to go near him, that Mr. Phillips is dying." "One knew, of course, that there was that risk," Jocelyn Thew reminded her. "I do not think that he can possibly live for twenty-four hours," she continued. "I was allowed to sit with him for a short time early this morning. He is beginning to wander in his mind, to speak of his wife and a sum of money." Jocelyn's fine eyebrows came a little closer together. "Well?" "Nothing in his appearance or speech indicate the man of wealth or even of birth. I begin to wonder whether I know the whole truth about this frantic desire of his to reach England before he dies?" "I think," Jocelyn Thew said thoughtfully, "that you have been talking again to Mr. Crawshay." "Yes," she admitted, "and he has been warning me against you." "I suppose," Jocelyn ruminated, "the man has a certain amount of puppy-dog intelligence." "I do not understand Mr. Crawshay at all," she confessed. "My acquaintance with him before we met on this steamer was of the slightest, but his manner of coming certainly led one to believe that he was a man of courage and determination. Since then he has crawled about in an overcoat and rubber shoes, and groaned about his ailments until one feels inclined to laugh at him. Last night he was different again. He was entirely serious, and he spoke to me about you." "Do you need to be warned against me?" he asked grimly. "Have I ever sailed under false colours?" "Don't," she begged, looking at him with a little quiver of the lips and a wonderfully soft light in her eyes. "You have never deceived me in any way except, if at all, as regards this voyage. I made up my mind this evening that I would ask you, if you cared to tell me, to take me into your confidence about this man who is dying down below, and his strange journey. I need scarcely add that I should respect that confidence." "I am sorry," he answered. "You ask an impossibility." "Then there is some sort of conspiracy going on?" she persisted. "Let me ask you a straightforward question. Is it not true that you have made me an unknowing participator in an illegal act?" "It is," he admitted. "I was very sorry to have to do so but it was necessary. Without your assistance, I should never have been allowed to bring Phillips across the Atlantic." "What difference do I make?" she asked. "You lend an air of respectability and credibility to the whole thing," he told her. "You are a person of repute, of distinguished social position, and the object of a good deal of admiration in your own country. The doctor who accompanies you comes from your own hospital. No one would believe it possible that either of you could be concerned in any sort of conspiracy. If that ass Crawshay had not got on board, I am convinced that there would never have been a breath of suspicion." She shivered a little. "Is it quite kind to bring me into an affair of this sort?" she asked. "It is a world," he declared cruelly, "in which we fight always for our own hand or go under. I am fighting for mine, and if I have occasionally to sacrifice a friend as well as an enemy, I do not hesitate." "What has the world done to you," she demanded, "that you should speak so bitterly?" "Better not ask me that." "How will the man Phillips' death affect your plans?" "It will make very little difference either way," he assured her. "We rather expected him to die." "And you won't take me any further into your confidence?" "No further. Your task will be completed at Liverpool. So long as you leave this steamer in company with the doctor and the ambulance, if Phillips is still alive, you will be free to return home whenever you please." "Very well," she said. "You see, I accept my position. I shall go through with what I have promised, whatever Mr. Crawshay may say. Won't you in return treat me, if not as a confederate, as a friend?" He turned and looked at her, met the appealing glance of her soft eyes for a moment and looked suddenly away. "I do not belong to the ranks of those, Miss Beverley, from whom it is well for you to choose your friends." "But why should I not make my own choice?" she insisted. "I have always been my own mistress. I have lived with my own ideas, I have declined to be subject to any one's authority. I am an independent person. Can't you treat me as such?" "There are facts," he said, "which can never be ignored. You belong to the world of wealthy, gently born men and women who comprise what is called Society. I belong, and have belonged all my life, to a race of outcasts." "Don't!" she begged. "It is true," he repeated doggedly. "But what do you mean by outcasts?" "Criminals, if you like it better. I have broken the law more than once. There is an unexecuted warrant out against me at the present moment. You may even see me marched off this steamer at Liverpool between two policemen." "But why?" she asked passionately. "Why? What is the motive of it all? Is it money?" "I am not in need of money," he told her, "but I have a great and sacred use for all I can lay my fingers on. If I succeed in my present enterprise, I shall receive a hundred thousand pounds." "I value Jerry's life and future at more than that," she declared. "Will you make a fresh start, Mr. Jocelyn Thew, with twice that sum of money to your credit?" He shook his head, but there was a curious change creeping into his face. For the first time she saw how soft a man's dark-blue eyes may sometimes become. The slight trembling of his parted lips, too, seemed to unlock all the cruel, hard lines of his face. He had suddenly the appearance of a person of temperament—a poet, even a dreamer. "I could not take money from you, Miss Beverley," he said, "or from any other woman in the world." "Upon no conditions?" she whispered softly. "Upon no conditions," he repeated. The breeze had dropped, and twilight had followed swiftly upon the misty sunset. There was something a little ghostly about the light in which they sat. "I am stifled," she declared abruptly. "Come and walk." They paced up and down the deck once or twice in silence. Then he paused as they drew near their chairs. "Miss Beverley," he said, "in case this should be the last time that we talk confidentially—so that we may put a seal, in fact, upon the subject of which we have spoken to-night—I would like to tell you that you have made me feel, during this last half-hour, an emotion which I have not felt for many years. And I want to tell you this. I am a lawbreaker. When I told you that there was a warrant out against me at the present moment, I told you the truth. The charge against me is a true one, and the penalty is one I shall never pay. I must go on to the end, and I shall do so because I have a driving impulse behind, a hate which only action can soothe. But all my sins have been against men and the doings of men. You will understand me, will you not, when I say that I can neither take your money, nor accept your friendship after this voyage is over? You, on your side, can remember that you have paid a debt." She sank a little wearily into her chair and looked out through the gathering mists. It seemed part of her fancy that they gathered him in, for she heard no sound of retreating footsteps. Yet when she spoke his name, a few moments later, she found that she was alone. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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