The Black House in Harley Street/Chapter 18

While Macnaughten was narrating the story of his brief but somewhat too exciting stay on the Sparrow-Hawk, that piratical craft was speeding away to the open sea at a good two-and-twenty knots an hour. Over a surface as smooth as that of an island lake untroubled even by the gentlest mountain breezes she flew, a long trailing column of smoke marking her progress in the sky, a widening track of white foam showing it in the sea. Folk who saw her start off from the quay-sides of Trondhjem remarked on her turn of speed—she should, said they, have been called the Swallow.

Van Mildart's five prisoners, left to themselves in the saloon, with their captor's mocking invitation to eat breakfast with such appetites as they could muster still fresh in their memories, were anything but cheerful. The Countess and Moira had been terribly frightened at hearing Macnaughten sentenced to summary execution, and the first shots on deck sent the former into hysterics and then into a swoon. Lord Maxton and Goulburn, however, quickly recognised the true meaning of the score or so of shots which rang out in rapid succession; rushing to the port-holes of the saloon they ​were able to announce that Macnaughten had effected his escape, and was swimming strongly towards the Lorelei; then that they were afraid he had been hit; then that a boat had put off to meet him; finally, that he had got on board again.

"He and Aspinall will do something between them!" exclaimed Lord Maxton. "Neither of 'em fools, begad—no, indeed. Both got brains, yah know. Now's the time to exercise 'em. I've great faith in Aspinall—smart fellow."

"The worst of it is," said Miss Lamotte, who also had been making observations through a port-hole, and had noticed that the Sparrow-Hawk was slipping through the water at a great rate, "the worst of it is that this vessel seems to be very fast,—much faster, I think, Lord Maxton, than the Lorelei,—and I'm afraid van Mildart will soon carry us out of sight."

"Well, but he can't go on for ever, yah know, Miss Lamotte," replied the Earl. "Bound to put in somewhere, some time, for grub and provisions, eh?—and water and coal. I say, I'm mons'ous hungry. Prisoners or no prisoners, I think we ought to eat. Dolly, if you're out of that faint, try to pick something. Here, I'll give you a tumbler of the Boy—do you heaps of good. No use being miserable, eh? Mrs. Goulburn, sit down and breakfast."

With that Lord Maxton very deftly opened a large bottle of champagne, in a fashion which showed much experience, and gave everybody a glassful with a dexterity and celerity that would have made a young ​butler's fortune. Then he fell to on the viands, and proved himself as good a trencherman as if he had been in his own dining-room at Maxton after a big day with his horse or his gun.

The two niggers who had escorted Macnaughten to a sudden death reëntered the saloon, transformed from bloodthirsty ruffians to decorous and civil attendants. They evinced no surprise at finding Lord Maxton breakfasting heartily and the rest making some pretence at eating and drinking, and they performed their duties quietly and respectfully. When everybody had finished (which really means when Lord Maxton had quite finished) they cleared the table and rearranged the saloon. The man who called himself Vanderkiste came in just after they had retired. He was evidently in anything but a good temper, and his face (a handsome if somewhat sinister one) bore the marks of the blow which Macnaughten had dealt him.

"Dr. van Mildart begs that you will make yourself as comfortable as the circumstances permit," he said stiffly. "Of course, as prisoners of war, you cannot expect anything so grand and luxurious as the floating palace from which we have removed you; but you may regard this saloon as private, and there are three staterooms here (those on the left side) which you may have. Your meals will be served at the usual times. As to your coming on deck, that cannot be allowed until we are in the Atlantic, unless Dr. van Mildart sees fit to permit you to come up one at a time after dark has fallen."

​"All of which means that you intend to hold us prisoners," said Goulburn.

The man bowed.

"You are prisoners at your own pleasure—with the exception of Miss Lamotte. Either you, Lord Maxton, or you, Mr. Goulburn, can release yourselves and your wives by complying with Dr. van Mildart's terms."

"And suppose we did?" asked Lord Maxton.

"In that case you will be placed in a position from whence you can quickly regain your liberty. You have only to comply."

"Well—and suppose we don't?" inquired Lord Maxton.

The supposed Vanderkiste shrugged his shoulders.

"But you will," he said, and went away again as abruptly as he had come.

The day wore on without adventure. The ladies examined the cabins allotted to them, and found them as comfortable as the saloon; the two men smoked, chatted, and stared out of the port-holes at the dancing sea, through which they were speeding so rapidly. Lunch was duly served to them, on just as generous a scale as breakfast; tea was brought at five o'clock, a perfectly cooked dinner at eight. But the monotony was as great as the confinement was wearing, and Lord Maxton began to fume and fret and to utter savage threats against his jailer. Since his disappearance in the morning they had seen nothing of van Mildart—except the white-liveried niggers, no one had been near them since ​the pseudo-Vanderkiste came to tell them of the arrangements for their accommodation.

"Expect we shall have to make some bargain with the fellow!" growled the Earl after dinner, as he smoked furiously at a large pipe by an open port-hole. "He's got the whip hand of us, begad!"

"I suppose we shall!" sighed Goulburn. "No one knows what such a desperate man as van Mildart would do."

"Pity we can't swag the fellow—break his blessed back, or something comforting of that sort!" said Lord Maxton. "How would it be to bargain with him? We're fairly had, yah know."

Miss Lamotte, who had been very quiet during dinner, interposed.

"Wait a little—wait until morning," she said. "Let me have a talk with him to-night, and see what I can do."

"If anybody can do anything with Dr. van Mildart, Miss Lamotte can," remarked Lady Maxton. "Do, Miss Lamotte, see him, and try to get him to hear reason! Of course, we know quite well that he is a very clever man, but surely it isn't fair to be always kidnapping people and stealing their diamonds and their money—and besides, he wants such a lot! Perhaps I wouldn't have minded giving him a few of my diamonds, and I'm sure that Freddie would have written him a cheque, if it had been necessary; but when it comes to asking for all my diamonds———"

"Asking, begad!" ejaculated Lord Maxton. "Taking, ​you mean, and without so much as a 'By your leave,' begad! Man's mad, I think."

Goulburn, who had been talking quietly to his wife at a little distance, caught Lord Maxton's last words.

"That's just what Moira and I have been talking about," he said. "We believe he is mad."

Lord Maxton whistled.

"The deuce you do! Monstrous nasty thing, now, you know, to be fastened up in a ship with a madman. What do you think, now, Miss Lamotte?"

Miss Lamotte shook her head.

"I don't know what to say," she replied. "He may be, and probably is, suffering from some form of mania—witness his craving to amass wealth by robbing others; and he certainly lets nothing stand in his way, and is utterly callous to pain and suffering. Mad—yes, very likely he is mad—there are so many degrees of madness. But I will see him—if he will see me."

She rang a bell. One of the white-coated niggers answered it. She sent a message to van Mildart. Might she see him?—on behalf of herself and the others?

When the nigger had gone away to deliver this message Miss Lamotte passed into the cabin which had been set apart for her. She closed and fastened the door, and turning up the electric light, drew a curtain over the port-hole. And for a moment she stood in apparent irresolution in the centre of the room. Had any one been watching her, he would have thought that she was trying to make up her mind about something, and that she found it difficult to do it. But she suddenly ​made a short, sharp exclamation, and a look of determination came into her eyes and shaped itself about her mouth.

"It's the only thing to do," she said, whispering the words to herself. "And it's as merciful to him as to the rest of us. He'd leave me on that island if he had the chance. I'll do it!"

Then Miss Lamotte did what an onlooker would have thought a strange thing. Unloosing the bosom of her gown, she drew from some secret receptacle a small bag of chamois leather which was evidently attached to her neck by a thin gold chain. From this receptacle she produced what was obviously a ring-case, covered in thick scarlet morocco, somewhat the worse for wear. She snapped this open, and revealed a massive gold ring of curious design, which was set about all round its circle with what appeared to be diamonds, all of them cut in an unusual fashion and tapering to very sharp points. Miss Lamotte picked this ring out of its case with scrupulous care and fitted it on the first finger of her right hand with equal attention. Then she put the case back in the chamois-leather bag, and replaced the bag in its hiding-place, and having turned out her electric light, went to join her fellow-prisoners. And she had only just taken her place amongst them when the nigger envoy returned and motioned her, with formal politeness but in silence, to follow him. She went away. Lady Maxton gave her an imploring glance as she passed, and Moira looked at her wonderingly.

Van Mildart's cabin was at the end of a passage​way opening out of the saloon—a spacious apartment which filled the width of the stern, as the captain's cabins in the old men-of-war did. He sat at a desk in its midst, a mass of papers before him and around him, and he scarcely took any notice when his ex-assistant entered the room, except to point to a chair. Miss Lamotte sat down. Van Mildart continued his work, whatever it was. Some moments went by—at last he half-looked up, half-glanced at her.

"Well?" he said. "You have of course come to say that the rest comply with my demands, and that you yourself ask for mercy."

"Not quite that," replied Miss Lamotte.

Van Mildart uttered an impatient exclamation. He spread out his hands. Looking at the papers loosely strewn about the desk, she saw that they were covered with what seemed to be architectural drawings, specifications, diagrams, and the like. Other sheets were filled with row upon row of figures; others with geometrical designs. And here and there on the sides of the cabin were great sheets of paper, brown, white, grey, with pictures of vast buildings—palaces, museums, galleries: all on a grand scale.

"I am far too much occupied to be troubled with opposition—which is, of course, futile," said van Mildart. "If Maxton and Goulburn do not pay over the money I demand I will make them do so—the means are at hand. I cannot brook any interference—I have much to do. Since it really does not matter what you, personally, know or do not know, I have no objection ​to telling you that I am founding a model city in the centre of what I intend to make a model kingdom. It will be formed out of the money paid by the people whom I am entitled to exact ransom from. I have already amassed enormous amounts—Maxton's money, Goulburn's money will help. It is a pity that you are not a rich woman—a great pity!"

"Why?" she asked.

"In that case you could have paid ransom: as it is, you will be eaten by the crabs. It is a fitting fate for a traitress."

"To be starved, sleepless, and—eventually—eaten by crabs?"

"Certainly. I once spent one night on that island myself, after being shipwrecked just off it. I was nearly mad within a couple of hours—I wonder how long you will hold out? But the crabs will eat you."

Miss Lamotte's chair was close to van Mildart's desk, and while they had been talking she had quietly edged it nearer and nearer. Now she suddenly leaned forward and seized his wrist with her right hand, gazing at him with a hard, fixed look.

"You don't mean to say that you, a man, will leave a woman to a death like that!" she exclaimed, gripping his wrist fiercely.

Van Mildart uttered a sharp cry of pain and drew his hand out of her grasp. He turned his wrist over—a slight red scratch showed itself just over the delicate tracery of the veins.

"You have scratched my wrist with one of your ​rings," he said, as pettishly as a child might have complained of a pin-prick. "There must be a jagged point there—why do you not have it filed down?"

"I am sorry," said Miss Lamotte, fingering her rings. "I will attend to it. But—answer my question."

Van Mildart shook his head.

"I am incapable of pity," he said. "I was so sinned against by men and women in other days that my delight in life is to prey upon them now that I have the power. I want nothing of those people outside but their money. When I have got that they may go—where they like. With you, however, the case is different. You belong to a class with which I, of course, can never be at peace. Very fortunately, the place to which I am retiring after this final coup, which will add half a million to my resources, is inaccessible to even detectives. I may carry you there, but it will not be pleasant for you. The crabs might be preferable. No, you must suffer for your treachery. I never forgive."

Miss Lamotte rose and approached the door. With her hand upon it she turned and looked narrowly at van Mildart.

"Very good," she said. "Nor do I."

Then she went out and closed the door behind her.

The four expectant ones in the saloon looked anxiously at Miss Lamotte as she rejoined them, and Lady Maxton made haste to question her.

"Oh, Miss Lamotte, what does that awful man say?"

Miss Lamotte placed the tips of her fingers on the ​table at which they were all sitting, and bending forward, spoke in a low voice.

"I don't think there is any doubt that van Mildart is quite mad," she said. "It will be best to leave him alone just now, and to await developments. We can't do anything else."

She passed on into her own cabin and once more exercised the same precaution of closing and locking the door. But this time, instead of drawing the curtain across the port-hole, she threw the curtain open and let the salt air flow into the cabin. Then with infinite precaution she drew the curious-looking ring from her finger and dropped it from the port-hole into the swirling waves through which the Sparrow-Hawk was still ploughing her way at racing speed.

Left alone, van Mildart began to shuffle about amongst his papers. His desk was piled high with them; close by there were sheaves and stacks of them on a side table. Not finding something that he wanted on his desk, he rose and sought for it on the table. And as he walked across the floor of his cabin he yawned heavily . . . and stumbled forward a little. He shook his head, as if to shake something out of it.

"Strange!" he said. "I am suddenly very sleepy . . . heavy with sleep . . . "

There was a broad settee running round the stern end of the semicircular cabin, and on this van Mildart sank down. His head fell against the cushions behind him; his right arm, limp, inert, dropped by his ​side. He seemed to fade instantly and quietly into a profound slumber, and his body became absolutely motionless.

Lord Maxton was a heavy sleeper, especially at sea, and he was as sound asleep as usual when a heavy knocking somewhere close to his aggrieved ears roused him out of his berth. Then he was aware that the grey light was stealing into the cabin and that the Sparrow-Hawk was rolling somewhat freely. Also he realised that in addition to the knocking there was some commotion going on in the saloon. He hurried some clothing on, opened the door, and looked out. And there he saw the men who posed as Vanderkiste and Kelsey, both obviously upset and perturbed, knocking at Miss Lamotte's door.

"What's the row?" demanded Lord Maxton.

"We want Miss Lamotte," said the pseudo-Vanderkiste. "There's something wrong with Dr. van Mildart. Isn't Miss Lamotte a doctor?"

At that moment Miss Lamotte opened her door and emerged—fully dressed.

"I answered you twice, but you were making such a noise that you didn't hear me," she said. "What is it?"

"You're a doctor by profession, aren't you?" said one of them. "Come to van Mildart's cabin; we can't get an answer from him, but we've seen him through the ventilator, and he's sitting in a very odd attitude on his settee, in his clothes, and looks queer. He looks—dead."

​Miss Lamotte followed them in silence to the door, which had never been opened since she herself closed it the night before. She climbed the chair which enabled her to look through the ventilator. One glance and she got down again.

"Force the door open," she said.

There was quite a small group around the door when the carpenter finally broke it open. Miss Lamotte entered the cabin first. She walked up to the curious still figure and bent over it for an instant, and then turned to the astonished faces behind her and spoke two words.

"Heart failure!" said Miss Lamotte.

When gentlemen like Dr. van Mildart die suddenly they throw many men and things into confusion. On its becoming known that the master mind, the controlling hand which had kept a grip of iron on them, was no more, the officers and crew of the Sparrow-Hawk became desperadoes of the worst type. They began to hunt for the treasure which van Mildart was believed to have on board—and found nothing. There was not a trace of any diamonds—either Lady Maxton's or anybody else's. There was sufficient money in gold and silver to satisfy the crew for a four-weeks' voyage, but the whereabouts of van Mildart's riches had died a secret with him. And now that none of them saw any chance of participating in the spoil, nor of sharing in the glories of the El Dorada to which the dead man was conducting them, there was bad trouble.

It was here that the hereditary genius for diplomacy ​which was naturally born in the Earl of Maxton showed itself. One of his little eccentricities—consequent upon his being a very rich man—was to carry a considerable amount of ready money, in bank-notes, upon his yacht, in case, he said, of contingencies. This was a contingency. Summoning officers and crew, he promised, on his word as a belted earl, to give them ten thousand pounds, cash down, if they would turn back and meet the Lorelei. He would leave his wife and their friends as hostages while the money was fetched from one yacht to the other—no, better still, he would be a hostage himself, and Miss Lamotte should fetch the money.

Officers and crew accepted this offer with acclamation. After all, ten thousand pounds is ten thousand pounds. So before nightfall the captives once more became free people, and the Lorelei was turned homewards. The Countess of Maxton went wondering wherever van Mildart put her diamonds. But only Miss Lamotte knew how van Mildart's career came to this sudden close.