We laughed together, and I showed him at once that I was not disappointed.
“You are face to face with a master,” I exclaimed, “and you expect to find childs’ toys in his hands. If Valentine Imroth is to be hanged by any thieves’ den in Germany or in Paris—to say nothing of London—then he is a hundred miles from being the man I met at Santa Maria, or that brother Jew who commands the Diamond Ship. Do not believe it, Murray. The success of this organisation is a success of delegation. Nine out of ten men in Imroth’s employ have never heard his name, never seen him, or become aware of his existence. The greater rogues, who form his cabinet, are as little likely to be taken in any café des assassins as the Jew himself is likely to make a speech at Westminster. We have touched the fringe of a splendid fabric, but threads of it only are in our hands. To-day, at the Admiralty, Sir James Freeman tells me that a second cruiser will be despatched to the South Atlantic next week. If they discover the derelict, I shall be astounded. Ask me for a reason and I can give you none. It is mere premonition. Sitting here in London I can depict that sagging hulk as clearly as if I watched her from the deck of my own yacht. She is drifting there, peopled by devils, a ship of blood and death—drifting God knows where, without hope, or idea, or haven. She may so drift to the Day of Judgment, but man will never discover her. That is my belief. I have no reason for it—I admit freely that it is ridiculous.”
Murray did not quarrel with my point of view, but assuredly he could not help me. No trace of Imroth had been discovered; Fordibras had not been arrested, nor had any news of him come from Santa Maria. The house there, I understood, was shut up, and the so-called miners had left many weeks ago in a steamer for Europe. The most diligent search had revealed none of those caverns of treasure which I believed (and still believe) to exist. There were implements for drilling and blasting, forges, cranes, and cartridges, but of secret habitation, none. The Valley House was declared to be an American’s whim, the mountain passage one of old existence, and perfectly well known to every inhabitant. Such simplicity I judged to have been bought at a handsome price. Gold alone could have set these people’s tongues wagging so pleasantly.
“They are bought to a man, Murray,” I said; “and unless we care to pay a higher price, we may trouble them no more. In my view they are not the only recipients of this man’s oily bounty. I would venture to say that he has friends enough in some of the South American republics to save an army from the gallows. We will take it at that and leave it there. If the Park Lane people do not care to carry it further, I have no interest. You cannot arrest this man, you say, because there is no evidence against him. That must be told him when we meet—it shall be part of the price I pay for his secret. Such a secret I am determined to force from him if I lose my life in the venture. Nothing else concerns me now, Murray. Let a thousand criminals go down to the sea in ships, and I am unmoved. His secret—my task begins and ends with that.”
He did not understand me wholly, nor would I unbosom myself to him. The partial failure of my voyage could not but result in such incredulity as I met everywhere at home. Nor might I blame a shrewd officer for saying frankly that there was at present no evidence that could be read in court against Valentine Imroth. His treasure had been successfully hidden from every human eye. A friendly Government sheltered him; his dupes seemed unable to betray him. The spell that he cast had been powerful to protect him even in his absence. I saw more plainly than ever that the final scene must be between the arch-rogue and myself—even at the peril of my life.
And how should this be, you ask? How might I draw from the shadows a man fearing the light; one for whom the police of five nations were supposed to be seeking—a man who would as soon come to England, you might say, as venture into the jaws of hell? Let the circumstance answer me. I had a letter from the Jew himself three days after Murray assured me that all the talent of Europe could not discover him. Twenty-four hours later one of the fastest steam launches on the River Thames carried me from London Bridge to a house which should give all or deny me all before another dawn had broken. These were the truths, and they need no ornament of mine. I was going to the Jew’s house, and Okyada, my little Jap, alone went with me. Let the circumstance speak, I say, for it is worth a thousand guesses. The greatest criminal alive, as I believed this man to be, had asked me to go to him, and I had answered “yes.” So shall the record stand—even, as it would seem, this surpassing folly—for a woman’s sake, as so much folly and wisdom have been since man’s world began.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE MASTER CARD.
We Visit Canvey Island.
The Jew had written to me, I say, and I had answered his letter. In a few brief sentences, worthy of the man and his story, he put me upon my honour and recited the compact between us.
“To Dr. Fabos, of London, from the Master of the Ship.
“At Canvey Island, to which you will come alone or with your servant at the most (such attendants as your launch brings being careful not to land), I will await you at sundown on the afternoon of the Fifth day of May. Fear nothing, as I am unafraid. The word is no less sacred to me than to you. I pass it and bid you come.”
Whence, then, had this strange letter been delivered, and how had I falsified the fine phrases of the police and communicated with the Jew? The truth shall be told with all the brevity I can command.
There is published thrice every month in Paris a pretendedly comic paper, called the Journal des Polissons. Ostensibly a journal pour rire, a poor man’s Punch and jester, it is, as I have long known, a sure means by which one thief may communicate with another, or any assassin make known his hiding place to his friends. This knowledge I employed directly it became plain to me that Valentine Imroth had escaped the meshes of the law’s clumsy net, and defied a police which vainly protested that there was no evidence against him. I advertised in the paper in the common cryptogram of the Polish societies. Making no effort to be clever, I intimated to the Master of the Ship that I could be of the greatest service to him if he, in his turn, were willing to be of some little service to me. This letter, so amazing and so many are the eyes which watch the Jew’s career, was answered before a week had run. In a sentence I learned that the so-called Master was in hiding on Canvey Island—that desolate marsh beyond Tilbury, familiar to all who go down to the Nore in ships. There he would see me and hear my news. There I must challenge him and be answered—ah, what would I not have given to know in what manner he would answer me!
It is not to be supposed that I claim any merit of this voyage or was unaware of its peculiar dangers. The Jew knew perfectly well with whom he had to deal, and I might reasonably argue that he would never be madman enough to attempt anything against me at a moment when I could render him a service of such magnitude as that I proposed. To be frank, I found the whole business not less humiliating than that former failure in mid-ocean, which will remain the supreme misfortune of my career. Here was I, who had set out to hunt this man down, about to say to him—“Go your way; I have done with you. The police say there is no evidence against you. It is their affair, and I will take no further part in it.” He, on his part, must guess that I came to him in some such mood. Canvey Island, I remembered, could be easily gained from the open sea, and just as easily from the shore of Essex. There would be a hundred eyes watching the coming of my launch, spies afloat and spies ashore, a launch of his own, perhaps, and certainly every expedient his subtle mind could contrive against any treachery