The Screaming Gull Page 9

  “Look out, we’re going to strike!”

  The strangers in the bow heard the warning. So did the women and the children, and a low wailing echoed behind us.

  The musician and his companions half-turned to discover their danger. But they turned too late. With a shuddering impact the Kilkerran struck.

  *

  The little Jew and I were gripping the rails of the gangway which spanned the forward hold, while Maureen and Peter held the side rails. We were able to keep our feet, therefore, when the tremor ran through the steamer. But behind us pandemonium reigned. The fiery colonel fell to his knees and the faded lady and her child rolled into the scuppers, trampled on by the feet of staggering, jostling passengers and members of the crew.

  In the bows the Gatling slid along the deck and overturned. The musician fell across it, grunting with pain as one of the protuberances hurt his belly. The parson and the ‘old maid’ both took a header to the deck, and the revolver which the latter carried went off with a loud report as he fell.

  I heard the skipper yelling on the bridge and the clanging of the engine-room telegraph.

  “Hard aport! I’m going astern!”

  Then, before the trembling of the steamer had ceased and just as the first rumble of the reversing engines reached us from the depths of the ship, the Jew and I leaped forward. In two seconds we had crossed the thirty feet which separated us from the group around the Gatling. The Jew seized the machine-gun, and later I was amazed to note how expertly he handled it. I snatched the automatic from the parson’s hand as he endeavoured to rise.

  But as I stooped a bullet whipped past my head. I sprang round to see Maureen and Peter struggling with the ‘lady’, who had tried to pick me off from where he lay. I jumped across the Gatling and got my hands on his throat. Maureen took his gun.

  The ‘lady’s’ veil had been torn in the struggle, and as I loosed my grip of his throat I noticed for the first time the distinctive square mole on his left cheek… So this was Wotherspoon! The parson, then, must be Reid, and the musician, with his youthful appearance and grey hair, the third of the trio which had accosted Peter and me in Princes Street, Edinburgh. The discovery left me nerveless and useless for a moment; and I was possessed by a strange, chill feeling of thankfulness that the MacNair family had not been recognized.

  As we shepherded the three criminals to a position in front of the Gatling, I noticed that the skipper had skilfully backed his vessel away from the rocks and that now, taking a wide sweep, the Kilkerran was again gaining speed on her set course.

  “Skipper!” I shouted. “Get some of your men to tie up these blackguards!”

  “And don’t try to move — you parson fellow!” snapped the little Jew. “You’re thinking of swimming for it, aren’t you? If you make von move I will shoot vit’ great skill.”

  Again the small man was using the accent of Israel, and though I was badly shaken by exertion and excitement, I found time to be curious regarding his identity.

  As three members of the crew, their eyes round with wonder, made great play with ropes round the bodies of the prisoners, the Jew went over to Maureen. I heard him speak in a voice which again held nothing of the Jewish inflection.

  “Well done, my friend!” he said softly. “That was a narrow squeak. They were after me… My name, at the moment, is Ruben Levison.” Maureen at first seemed bewildered. Then I saw recognition in her eyes, and she smiled.

  “Bill,” she called, “come here!”

  I went over and offered my hand to the little Jew. We were out of earshot of all the others on board.

  “Good work, sir!” he said, grinning. “But what you said to Miss MacLaren a minute or two ago might have proved serious had any other person than myself heard it.”

  “Bill,” whispered Maureen, “this is Mr. Robert Lawson, a — er — member of my father’s business. Remember I told you about his exploit in Perth and about his nom de guerre. But his make-up is so good that today I was completely deceived. Mr. Lawson, this is… Bill, my temporary husband. He is working for us, too.”

  He looked at me closely, and I wondered if he had the slightest suspicion of my real identity. But he gave no sign of recognition.

  “And who is the third member of your happy family?” he asked with a chuckle. “He seems to be a particularly fierce specimen. ‘An eye for an eye’ is undoubtedly his motto!”

  Maureen and I turned sharply to discover Peter standing before the prostrate, bound figure of the parson. And as we watched, he delivered a stinging kick on the appropriate part of the unfortunate Mr. Reid’s anatomy.

  “Peter!” I exclaimed. “That’s not sportsmanship. You should never hit a man when he’s down.”

  “Who said that?” demanded Peter in a more truculent voice than I had heard him use before. “He clouted me, an’ a lot o’ chances I wad get tae hit him if he was up!”

  Finally my fierce ‘son’ was persuaded to leave his prey. He was introduced to Mr. ‘Levison’ and the pair regarded one another for a second. Then Peter spoke slowly.

  “If ye’re a Jew,” he said, “ye’re the dandiest wi’ yer fists I’ve ever seen!”

  *

  The three prisoners were conveyed by the steamer to Campbeltown, where they were incarcerated in the police station pending their removal to Glasgow.

  The news of the outrage had been telephoned to the town from Carradale Pier, and, when our depositions had been taken down by a dark, lean-jawed sergeant, Maureen, Lawson, Peter and I made our way quietly through the excited throng on the quay to the White Stag Hotel. There we had lunch.

  Afterwards Peter went out to explore the town and possibly to spread the news of Mr. Reid’s depravity. I gave him a word of warning before he left to guard his accent and to be careful to whom he spoke; but I knew that the warning was probably quite unnecessary. Up to the present, with the exception of a few lapses of accent, Peter had been remarkably discreet. Not once, when within the hearing of others, had he failed to claim Maureen and me as his parents; and to our enterprise he had been worth his weight in gold.

  Maureen, Lawson and I sat in the lounge which overlooked the loch. For a while we watched from the big bay window the work proceeding at the harbour side and the folk moving on the promenade. Three ‘puffers’ were unloading coal on the north side of the quay, and the roar and rattle of the metal as it was tipped from the huge buckets into high-sided carts reached our ears in a continuous muffled sound.

  The Kilkerran lay at the point of the pier, a thin haze of smoke issuing from her almost unraked funnel and hanging in the still, clear air like the pall over a smouldering volcano. On the south side the fleet of herring-skiffs lay in closely packed ranks, their tapering masts rising like a forest of dead, branchless trees. And opposite the mooring-place of the trim, squat vessels the stances of the herring-curers were a-bustle.

  Almost a hundred girls stood behind the square troughs, gutting the fish and sending them whisking behind into small wooden barrels. The smooth, black oilskin aprons and Wellington boots worn by the ‘gutters’ winked in the gleaming, cold sun of the afternoon as their wearers bent, straightened, and half-turned with endless and machine-like precision.

  The peculiar mingled smell of fish and the sea floated up to us from the quay, and for a moment the salt tang made me homesick for Stranraer; for there also one could sniff the unmistakable, homely air of a fishing port.

  I longed to know what my sister Annie was thinking and doing; and I considered the question of whether Aunt Jane would go to Stranraer to stay with her, or if Annie would journey down to Cairngarroch. They would not remain alone, I conjectured, in their time of anxiety. I experienced a sudden pang of sorrow for the sharp way I had spoken to Aunt Jane on the last occasion I had been with her; and, like many another man, resolved to make up for my brusqueness at the first opportunity.

  But would that opportunity ever arrive? Where would it end — this wild-goose chase upon which I had so carelessly embarked? What exac
tly was the strength of the enemy with whom we had to deal?

  I realized that when the facts were faced we had very little to work upon. We knew, of course, that a secret society called ‘The Screaming Gull’ was intent upon fostering a revolution in Britain, an old blind woman being at the head of that organization. We knew that a warrant was out for my arrest on a charge of murdering Merriman and that I could not, in a moment, prove my innocence of the crime. We knew that attempts had been made upon Merriman’s life and that Wotherspoon and his friends were making bold efforts to frustrate the work of the Secret Service. These points were clear-cut and definite.

  But further than that we relied solely upon conjecture. We could only suppose, for example, that Merriman, by some miraculous means, was still alive. We could only suppose that it was he who had given us the clue regarding the Cow and Calf. We could only suppose, moreover, that this clue was not a bogus one. The greater part of the edifice of our work was built upon supposition. What if we had begun to follow a completely false trail?

  And then the thought struck me that Kintyre and the adjacent islands of Ringan and Oa might, after all, yield us some information; for it was obvious that ‘The Screaming Gull’, through Wotherspoon and his companions, had done their utmost to prevent the Secret Service man Lawson from reaching the district.

  But swiftly my ideas rook another tangent. The methods used by the trio had been desperate and cold-blooded. Who could tell when Maureen, Peter, and I should be similarly attacked, with no fortunate circumstance to assist in our rescue? I felt very inept, very frightened and woebegone.

  I turned away from the window and looked at Maureen. She was still wearing the impossible tweed costume; but now, without the hat, her beauty had less of a handicap to overcome. Her elbow rested on the windowsill and her cupped hand supported her firm little chin in the attitude now familiar to me and very precious. I wished I could have spoken to her concerning my depression, for I knew that she would have understood what I felt. But Robert Lawson, small and Jew-like, sat close beside me and I could say nothing.

  I knew by this time that I loved Maureen. And I knew that if our adventure together came to a successful end — which I very much doubted — I should have to clench my teeth pretty firmly to prevent myself being hurt. For it was fairly evident that the daughter of Sir David MacLaren would not consider marriage with a — with a damned draper, no matter how much she believed that he was innocent of murder. A princess could perceive that the character of a tinker would not allow him to commit a violent crime; but she could not marry him… Which shows my form as a logician.

  I think, however, that my liver must have been badly out of order that afternoon. Further, I had an exceedingly stiff neck, occasioned by the close hair-cut which Peter and I had accomplished. These facts formed a combination which could hardly fail to render my outlook pessimistic and rather hopeless. The only satisfaction which I experienced was that Wotherspoon, Reid and their grey-haired, youthful leader had been captured without having discovered the identities of the MacNair family.

  *

  “Why so gloomy, Bill?” asked Maureen, twisting her head round on the pivot of her hand to look in my direction. Her right eye was half-closed in the quizzical way that she had. “We’ve got on rather well — so far.”

  I don’t know if my expression gave anything away; but as I looked down into her blue eyes I saw a light flit across their dark surface, as if a sudden shaft of sunshine had darted over the water of a mountain loch. And then something happened which I could not have believed possible. Slowly, like a rising wave, the red colour crept up from her throat and across her cheeks, and she began to breathe in the strange, jerky fashion which I had noted in her room at the Royal Hotel in Stirling.

  “I — I can’t help being gloomy, Maureen,” I said hurriedly and in some confusion. “Lawson will tell you that a bad liver creates havoc with a man’s better nature.”

  “Undoubtedly!” agreed Lawson. He smiled slightly and his dark, deep-set eyes glanced quickly from Maureen’s face to mine. He smoothed one end of his neat black moustache with meticulous fingers.

  “I see,” said Maureen; but I knew perfectly well that she did not believe a gentle indisposition to be the sole cause of my bleak expression.

  Lawson looked about him, round the empty room and then out over the streets.

  “Isn’t everything so homely and ordinary!” he said.

  I was surprised at his tone of weariness. It was exactly similar to that which I had noted Merriman use in the cottage at Cairngarroch. Both Secret Service men were bright, quick-witted and alert; but when they spoke the strange tired and wistful intonation was to be heard. I wondered if Maureen, were she to continue long as her father’s assistant, would also develop the unmistakable undercurrent in her voice.

  “Homely and ordinary,” repeated Lawson. “The big leather chairs and the roaring fire in the grate. The boats at the pier and the fisher-girls working; and the housewives with their baskets shopping on the promenade. Unless we knew the truth we should imagine that no evil could exist in the midst of it. And if we told anyone in the streets of what we have learned they would not believe it. They would scoff at the idea of ‘The Screaming Gull’ working for power in the background. They would ridicule the notion of a secret society whose ostensible aim was to re-establish Scotland as a separate state.”

  “And yet something almost similar happened in Ireland after the Great War,” I said. “And no one seemed to be surprised.”

  “Just as no one is surprised when a child has measles,” returned Lawson, his mood changing swiftly. “But when a grown-up person is afflicted there’s a devil of a to-do!”

  Maureen laughed softly, and the sudden thought struck me that Lawson must appear to her a most interesting fellow. I had never, I imagined, been able to make her laugh in such a comradely spirit. When she had laughed at anything I had said, she had done it, I conjectured, with some indulgences, as a mother might laugh at the quaintness of her child… Without a doubt my liver was that afternoon in a foul condition.

  “We still have three clear days before ‘The Screaming Gull’ is due to strike,” I said quickly. “What is our next move?”

  “Fairly obvious, Bill,” chided Maureen. “Get to Ringan somehow and interview the Blind One.”

  “But how? There are three good miles of green sea between the island and Kintyre.”

  “My notion,” said Lawson, smoothing his moustache caressingly, “when I read of Merriman’s message, was to come here as a Jewish archaeologist collecting material for a book. Kintyre, if the papers are to be believed, is a kind of happy hunting-ground for such gentlemen. I’d get a boat easily enough in Blaan to take me across, I think.”

  “The trouble now, though,” I objected, “is that if Wotherspoon and company knew that there was a Secret Service man on the Kilkerran, the Blind One is almost certain also to know that she has enemies in the district. Strangers coming to Ringan at this time of the year won’t get much of a welcome from her, I’m afraid.”

  “Absolutely right, Bill,” agreed Lawson. “We must get to Ringan without the Blind One being aware of it.”

  “That would mean pinching a boat,” I suggested, “and rowing or sailing over to the island in the dark.”

  “Wait a minute!” exclaimed Lawson suddenly, and the weariness had gone from his voice. His brown eyes sparkled. “I’ve got it! Miss MacLaren, couldn’t Bill and I get on board one of those shifts out there for a night’s fishing and when we were at sea demand to be put ashore on Ringan?”

  “A good idea,” agreed Maureen quietly. “But what about me — and Peter?”

  “Miss MacLaren, it will be dangerous. If anything goes wrong you will still be left to carry on.” I saw her bite her lip, but she did not argue further. I understood then Lawson’s particular genius; his diplomacy was of a high order.

  For almost half an hour we discussed the queer business on which we were engaged, and thought out details of ou
r assault on Ringan. Then Maureen, who had been gazing rather abstractedly from the window, started and turned to face us.

  “Goodness!” she exclaimed. “Look at Peter!” Lawson and I were both amazed and annoyed. The youngest MacNair was coming hot-foot across the promenade in the direction of the hotel, pursued by two perspiring but determined young men.

  Chapter 8

  Peter’s pursuers were not more than ten yards behind him and he had still a good hundred yards to cover before reaching the sanctuary of the hotel. But his little bandy legs twinkled and the tails of his coat fluttered wildly, so great was his speed. The two young men scarcely gained a foot on him during their mad dash across the promenade. For a very small boy of fifteen Peter had the makings of a first-class sprinter.

  We saw him leap under our window, out of vision, making straight for the big front entrance to the hotel, and presently we heard his footsteps pounding on the stairs. His opponents in the race had dived after him, beneath the overhanging sill of our vantage-point. A sound as if of altercation ascended to us from the hallway.

  The door of the lounge was thrust open and Peter hurled himself into the middle of the floor.

  “Two reporters from the papers!” he gasped. “They wanted to get something out of me. I gave them the slip. But they chased me. They’re on this Kilkerran business.”

  “By Jove, you can sprint, Peter!” I said.

  His eyes sparkled, and for a moment he forgot his carefully cultivated accent.

  “If ye had a stepfaither wi’ a strap ye’d be a sprinter tae!”

  “What are we going to do about the reporters, though?” asked Maureen, adding: “It was jolly good of you, Peter, to bring us the warning.”

  Lawson stroked his moustache.

  “I shouldn’t wonder if the best thing we can do is to allow them all the scope they want. It will establish our assumed names and occupations in the minds of the local people at any rate, and maybe it will also prevent the Blind One, if she reads the newspapers, from suspecting us.”