The Net

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THE NET

By H. Bedford-Jones Author of “Brassbound Nerve,” “A Letter for Saigon,” etc.

MORTON WAS TO LEARN MORE OF THE MAN WITH THE INHUMAN SMILE WHO CAME ABOARD THE OLD HOOKER MAKING HER WAY IN THE CHINA SEAS. A DRAMA OF VENGEANCE, CRUELTY, POWERFUL HUMAN EMOTIONS AND THE NET OF FATE WAS TO BE PLAYED OUT ON HER SUN WARPED DECKS AS SHE SLIPPED ALONG OVER DESERTED TROPIC SEAS

II

NOON had sounded. The steam-winches were rattling and clanking, and the Fei Yen was about to haul out. She was not pretty, but this was not entirely her fault; a man with half an eye could see that her officers were a slovenly lot.

Morton stood at the rail, watching a native craft swinging out into the tide and go slipping away before the wind, her three sails bellied out. A quiet voice at his elbow, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Crane there, also looking at the craft.

“Remarkable grace about her, eh?” said Crane. “Half junk, half prau—these Annamese coasters have the best features of each. She seemes to glide over the water rather than pass through it.”

“What's the crowd over there at the wharf?” asked Morton, pointing to a long, low dock at one side, where a throng of natives and Chinese were gathered. Crane stared, and then a low, queer laugh came to his lips.

“Moving picture chap—that fisherman is performing for him. Ever see it done? Then watch! It's a marvel. You never saw anything to equal it, except a stage magician. Watch!”

Morton watched. A camera-man on the wharf, turning his crank; beyond him, over the water, a motionless bronze figure—a native fisherman. In his hand the native held a coiled net—apparently a small one. He stood for an instant, statuesque in the sunlight. Then, so suddenly that the eye could scarce realize it, the whole bronze body seemed to contort in a muscular ripple. The net flew out, spread in a perfect circle fifteen feet in diameter on the water's surface, and settled from sight. The native drew it in, slowly.

“Poorly done,” said Crane. “He was slow about it.”

“Slow?” exclaimed Morton. “Man, the thing was like a flash!”

Crane smiled. In his eyes Morton surprised that odd cruel glitter noted previously.

“A delayed flash, then. You'd see it better done out among the islands, where it's an art. Well, see you later! Must slick up a bit for luncheon. You haven't met the officers yet? It'll be a pleasure to remember.”

Morton frowned after the slender, graceful figure. More irony! A queer man. Well, any man would be queer after doing time in a French jail out here.

A HALF-HOUR later, going down to the mess-call, Morton met the officers, Captain Bray performed the introductions, then went back to the bridge, where the pilot was taking the ship out. His manner to both Morton and Crane was cheerful, as though he had forgotten how one had refused to help him run opium, and how the other was an ex-convict. Morton rather thought he had somehow contrived to get the opium aboard after all.

So far as the officers were concerned, one and all had abandoned shore-clothes with the blast of the whistle, and wore pajamas at best. Mr. Chambers the mate and partner of the skipper in the dope business, was a sheer brute—powerful blue-jowled, heavy of jaw and hard of eye. He was, obviously, the efficient driving force aboard the old hooker.

The second officer was nominally an Englishman, sufficiently so to let the Fei Yen answer the board requirements at Hong Kong. His name was Smithers. He had sandy, nearly colorless hair, which gave him the appearance of being without eyelashes, a dusky skin and odd frightened dark eyes. His face was weak, his mouth very bad, and whenever he opened his lips he vented a chuckling obscenity which would have won him honors in Sodom and Gomorrah. Morton put him down as the product of a Cockney father and Japanese mother.

The chief engineer, Maquorrie, and his assistant, Saunders, were on extremely bad terms with the bridge staff. Maquorrie was a grizzled, blear-eyed, unshaven old man; his assistant was unclean in more ways than one, and matched the second officer's ribaldry with an aggressive flood of billingsgate appalling to hear. Morton gathered that Mr. Chambers had infringed upon the rights of the old chief, and bad blood had risen between the two shipboard authorities. It was certainly at danger-point now. From the unchecked comments of Mr. Smithers, the whole crowd had apparently plumbed the depths of dissipation in Tonkin, and everybody was at a keen edge.

The presence of the two passengers caused a nominal restraint and prevented trouble. Once or twice Morton surprised upon the face of Crane that same flicker of a cold and cruel smile as the man regarded those around; insensibly, before this first meal was over, Crane and the mate together were dominating the table.

Captain Bray had blabbed—even Morton could see it, as they shook hands with Crane, eyed him, glanced one at another. Half way through the meal, indeed, Smithers became emboldened by the atmosphere of familiarity his general obscenity induced, and gave Crane a leer and a grinningly offensive word.

“Ain't you the chap who piled up the Emily Jane near Zamboanga four-five years back? And been enjoying French hospitality lately?”

At this direct insult, there was a growling oath from the others.

“Shut your damned mouth,” snapped Maquorrie. Crane, however, merely gave Smithers a level look, not at all unpleasant or angered.

“Why, yes,” he said. “And you, if I mistake not, are the gentleman who cut the throat of a woman in Pak-hoi two years ago?”

Morton was slow to credit the frightful accusation as sober earnest, but he was swift enough to read the truth in Smithers' distended eyes and livid lips. There was a tense silence for a moment, then the second officer forced a smile.

“Lor' bli'me, if you ain't ready with the comeback!” he said, and that was all. All, except the one look of distilled venom his lidless eyes shot at Crane.

MORTON presently sought the deck and watched the receding mountains of Annam with a singular sense of oppression. The yellow men working about the decks were far and away cleaner company than the rascally pack of officers, he thought; and he looked forward to the succeeding meals aboard the Fei Yen with something very like distaste.

Not that company or environment mattered much to Morton. He had plenty of work to keep him busy, and was impervious to distasteful surroundings. In fact, he began to laugh at the mess-table gang, once the hot afternoon sunlight had cleaned out his brain, and in the cool rush of wind he came back to his usual poised self. Yet something lingered—something he could not explain.

Oddly enough, it was nothing he had noticed at the moment, and only now did it come back to him. Not the exchange of courtesies between the chief and the after-guard, not the startling repartee between Crane and the second officer, not the looks or the words or comments of the others. Just the way Crane had smiled when introduced to Mr. Chambers, the burly mate—that queer, inhuman smile! Crane had smiled the same way at the skipper, on the hotel veranda. Crane had smiled the same way at the portal of the governor's palace, when the native said it looked like a net.

What did this smile mean?

“Waiting!” Morton's brain flashed to the meaning suddenly. “Waiting—for what? Here's a mystery—or do I imagine it all?”

THERE was little enough comfort for passengers aboard the old Fei Yen, but there were two or three unbroken Singapore chairs, and Captain Bray had rigged a flapping sort of awning abaft the bridge and chart-house. Morton got Wang, the steward, to take a small table up there. With his notebooks and pencils and brain, he had plenty to do, and was left to himself for a time.

Later in the afternoon the mate and two naked saffron men from forward came into sight, the men unlashing the tarpaulins over each lifeboat, while Mr. Chambers made an inspection of the regulation Board of Trade contents, from sail to stores, and substituted a keg here, a box there. When it was finished, he came over to Morton, dropped into a chair, let the cool breeze blow upon his hairy chest, and lighted a cigarette.

“I'm the only seaman aboard this here blasted craft o' perdition,” he said profanely. “Didn't get anything stole at Tonkin, anyhow, but I'm takin' no chances, Bray's got a bottle on the bridge—blast his dirty old soul, I expect he wants to forget things! He's a soft 'un, he is.”

“Doesn't look soft,” said Morton, amused, studying the brute.

“What's rotten is allus soft,” said Mr. Chambers profoundly. “You're a scientific chap—why is it, huh? Apple or mango or man, don't make no difference.”

“Decomposition,” said Morton. “It's merely a chemical change, Mr, Chambers—an organic change. Whether in the fibers of an orange, or in the moral fibers of a man, it's the same thing.”

“Huh!” Mr. Chambers scowled, dark eyes glittering from beneath shaggy brows. A long shadow fell across the deck between them, but neither man noticed. “Huh! I s'pose death is the same thing, huh? Worms—it all comes to worms, huh? Well, there's more'n one man aboard here got worms in him, lemme tell you! Yep, I guess death's the same thing.”

The shadow lengthened, spoke, and Morton looked up to see Crane there, smiling.

“No, no, Mr. Chambers,” said Crane in his level, restrained voice. “Death is not the same thing at all. It's the same thing so far as the body's concerned—but when the heart stops, something leaves the body. Something goes out of it that worms can't touch, that dissolution can't affect, something invisible and beyond comprehension. And that's death.”

“Huh!” said Mr. Chambers, looking up with a sidelong glance. “I know what you're driving at—preachers' talk, huh? Soul! That's all bosh, same as heaven and hell. You can't hand me that sort o' slaver. Don't believe it. Nobody else does neither. You ask Morton, here—he's a bug-hunter. He knows better.”

CRANE took the third chair, stretched out easily, yet carefully, as though—as though waiting, it seemed to Morton. Odd fancy! Amused, Morton eyed the other two. Crane was mouthing a cheroot critically, before lighting it. Mr. Chambers stared at the horizon and his squat, heavy fingers played with one of the gorgeous buttons of his pajamas.

They were very gorgeous, those buttons, and caught Morton's eye. Strange contrast, gold and lapis buttons and cheap cotton cloth! An impossible thing in any town, but quite possible here aboard ship, where Mr. Chambers had his washing done by the steward and so could indulge his fancy for expensive trimmings.

Crane glanced at the mate, looked for a moment at those gold and lapis buttons, and Morton could have sworn that in this instant the man's eyes flickered as though from some swift and intolerable anguish. Then Crane smiled and turned.

“Well, Morton, how about it? You're a scientist, so back up Mr. Chambers with sound reason in his denial of heaven and hell.”

Morton laughed. “Unfortunately, I can't,” he said. “My little fund of science tells me there's something everywhere I can't understand.”

“Bah!” growled the mate, giving him a scornful look. “Twanging harps and shoveling coal—huh! What factory turns out them harps, huh? Where's the devil's coal come from?”

“You don't get me,” said Morton. “As you said, Crane, there's something that escapes from the body. And hell or heaven is the condition of that something, I think. Call it a state of mind. Call it what you like. But what matter? We'll learn some day.”

“Oh, hell!” said Mr. Chambers, and heaved up his hairy bulk. “You chaps can talk it out all day if you want. I know what I know—there ain't any such bunk.”

“Those are fine buttons of yours,” said Crane, “Chinese work?”

“Huh, them?” Mr Chambers twiddled a button in his fingers and inspected it as though for the first time. “I dunno. Found 'em in a bazar up to Canton. Well, see you later.”

“Wait”? said Crane. His voice leaped out suddenly, sharply, and the mate turned about in surprise. But Crane was smiling up at him. “Don't you know what those buttons are? Where they came from?”

“Huh?” Mr. Chambers scowled, and Morton was aware of a deep-flaring menace in his gaze, and perhaps a hint of fear as well. “Huh? What you mean?”

“Why, there's a native story,” said Crane easily, “about a set of buttons like those. I don't know the details. Something about a native woman, very highly born, and a splendid set of gold and lapis buttons denoting her rank. I heard a lot of talk about it while I was in that up-country jail of theirs.”

“You did?” said the mate, staring down at Crane and fingering the button. “You did?” He paused. He seemed fascinated by the story. “What was it?”

Crane squinted out at the horizon. “Hm! Hard to recall it now—seems to me this princess or whatever she was had got into some sort of a fuss with the authorities, and skipped out, and tried to get out of the country but drowned herself. Her body was recognized by the buttons, if I remember rightly.”

“Huh!” said Mr. Chambers, and looked down with conscious pride at his ornaments. “Well, these ain't the ones, sure. Reckon I've had these all of three-four years now—and they couldn't ha' got from there up to Canton, huh? Lots o' buttons in the world.”

“I'll give you an English sovereign for one of them,” said Crane. “For a souvenir.”

“You will?' Chambers stared at him again, and grinned suddenly. “Done. I got two-tree extry ones anyhow. Done with you, here and now!”

His powerful fingers twisted one of the buttons around and around. It came loose, and he held it out. Crane motioned Morton to take it—he was trying to extricate the coin from his trousers' pocket. He pulled out the gold coin and Mr. Chambers pouched it with a grin.

MORTON examined the button. It was certainly handsome, being a stud of true lapis set in Chinese-worked gold. He glanced up, and saw that the mate had disappeared. Crane shook his head as Morton extended the button; the man's face was, of a sudden, all wet with sweat.

“No—wait,” he said. “Do you read Chinese, Morton?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“You think I'm a fool to pay five dollars for that thing? Well, it's worth a good deal more than that price—not intrinsically. Upon it hangs the life of more than one man. I've gambled carefully for this bit of evidence, Morton; more carefully than you'd ever believe. I've gambled with time, with money, with careful planning. Upon what you're about to tell me, depends success or failure.”

Morton frowned slightly. For an instant he wondered if Crane were a bit off—then he knew better. For Crane was smiling at him—that same terrible thin smile with its hint of inhumanity, of merciless precision. And under that smile Morton felt a tingle of fear,

“Look at the back of the button,” said Crane. “If it's an ordinary button, nothing is there—and I lose. If it's the button of that native woman I told Mr. Chambers about, it will bear two very tiny Chinese ideograms—and I win.”

Morton held up the button and looked it over. He shook his head, then frowned and looked more closely. Sure enough, he saw two very small ideograms, beautifully chased in the gold.

“You win,” he said, and held out the button.

Crane took it and stuffed it into a pocket, then relaxed in his chair. He opened his mouth and exhaled a deep breath, gazing out at the sky and sea. When his eyes came back to Morton, a flame was kindled in them. The hint of sardonic mockery was clear fled out of his face; it had become resolute, hard, bitter hard.

“I lied to Mr. Chambers about that native woman,” he said softly.

Morton gave him a casual look. “You seem to have a lot of information handy today about native girls,” he said. “And I'm sorry to see you're beginning to take yourself very seriously. I thought you had more sense.”

Crane looked astonished, then broke into a laugh, got out a fresh cigarette, lighted it. Amusement wrinkled the bronzed cheeks about his eyes.

“I like you, Morton!” he exclaimed. “Sensible—that's the word for you. Dead right, too; I musn't take myself seriously or I'd go mad. Would you like to hear about that native woman?”

“Very much,” said Morton, looking at him.

“Good. She was the native ruler of a little up-country state in the hills. A white man was there with his wife—just married. She was a French girl. He had located some very good sapphire ground and was taking out stones. The French got wind of it and came down on the place like a ton of brick. The princess got into a whale of a row with them, and a French officer slapped her face. Oh, yes, the French do that sometimes—you know the life of a Frenchwoman of the lower classes, don't you?

“Well, the princess took some of her jewels and skipped out. She went with the white man and his wife, who had to skip also. They took their sapphires as well. They got to the coast and a native boat took them up to Pak-hoi, en route to China and safety. But on the way, the white man came down with fever. He was out of it, clear out of it.”

Crane paused, and puffed at his cigarette for a long moment, his eyes narrowed at the horizon.

While the man spoke, Morton had a twinge of memory. Where was it he had heard of a French girl and a native woman—why, in connection with Captain Bray, of course! Bray had taken them aboard at Pak-hoi and had landed them at Singapore. That was what Crane had blackmailed the skipper with—forced him to grant passage. Was this some other fact of the same story? Very likely.

“The three of them got to Pak-hoi all right,” pursued Crane, cocking up his feet comfortably. “But the white man was clear out of it with fever, and his wife was down with it, too. They had to keep clear of the authorities, of course, and the princess, who had only one man with her, did not speak French and was pretty well up against it. However, a ship was in the harbor bound for Singapore, a tramp steamer, and she heard it was a ship from Hong Kong, and she knew all Englishmen were good men. So she went to the skipper of the ship, she and the man who served her, showed him their jewels, and asked for passage to Singapore. She gave him one of the jewels, and he agreed.”

Crane paused again, and seemed rather uneasy for a moment.

“I remember now you mentioned it to Bray,” put in Morton, but the other seemed not to hear the words.

“This sea captain, this bluff, honest, good English soul,” Crane went on, “saw no earthly reason why he should not benefit from the situation in more ways than one. He and his chief officer put their heads together. They got the four fugitives safe aboard—the white man was delirious, the French girl, his wife, was little better. The two women were given one cabin, the white man another. That night they knocked the native chap in the head and dropped him over-side, and took the white man ashore. It was not difficult to rig up a charge against him and make it stick; they hired a few gentlemen to attend to it, and make sure the white man would go to prison for a good safe term. At midnight they hoisted the hook and left Pak-hoi with their loot of women and jewels.”

MORTON was startled by this turn to the story, and somewhat incredulous. He did not put such an action past Captain Bray, but the thing seemed impossible.

“Bray said,” he put in quietly, “that he had taken the French woman to Singapore.”

“No, I said that—he agreed, in much relief,” and once more Crane, turning his face full to Morton, smiled his queerly inhuman smile. “Mr. Chambers agreed, in much relief that the native woman, the princess, had been found drowned. In actual fact, neither of these things happened. The French girl never reached Singapore, nor did the princess ever show up again.”

Morton stirred restlessly.

“I'm not protesting the story—I know nothing about it—but it hardly sounds very logical,” he objected. “That the white man should be clapped into prison, for example.”

“Read life, my dear chap, is it ever logical?” and Crane laughed curtly, sharply. “He was going under a French name at the time. It reality, he was an American ne'er-do-well, an adventurer, who had previously been sentenced at Pak-hoi for smuggling opium and had escaped from prison up-country. He was not a good man at all, but he did love that French girl, and had married her. These two honest seamen knew nothing about him, thought him a Frenchman, in fact, and did not go near him on acount of his fever. They never even clapped eyes on him! But when the French got their hands on him, they jugged him right. It goes to show how those two honest seamen fell into luck without knowing it.”

“Hm!” said Morton, thoughtfully. “You knew the man in prison?”

“Yes.” Crane looked out at the horizon, and fell silent.

“Well,” said Morton at last, when he felt the silence awkward, “what's the rest of the story? What happened to the two women—French girl and princess?”

“Nobody knows. I fancy Bray took the French girl, and Mr. Chambers the princess—our good chief officer is not particular as to color. Of course, this is only guesswork. Since neither of the women showed up at Singapore and had vanished on the voyage, and since neither was of the type to accept undesired love, it may be taken for granted that they committed suicide. This, at least, is the kindliest solution.”

Crane fell silent again, a sombre quality in his voice at the final words. Morton stirred a little.

“Look here, man—is this a fairy tale? Or do you know these things to be true?”

Crane held up the button, taking it from his pocket.

“What more do you need? There's the evidence.”

“You say it is. There may be dozens of buttons like this.”

“No. Specially made. However2”

“And,” broke in Morton, uneasy before all the bald stark ugliness of it, “you say this happened a couple of years ago. If these two men ever hauled in a fortune in stones, would they stick right along on this old ship? Not much. They'd clear out, dissipate it, invest it—do something with it!”

REAL amusement wrinkled Crane's eyes.

“Logic! Well, that's true. But they didn't get the jewels. The French girl had her husband's sapphires, and the princess her own stuff. Those women either hid the jewels here aboard, where they've never been found, or else chucked 'em over the rail, once they got on to the skipper's game. They were that kind, Morton. Shall we look-see? If we found the stuff, I expect that'd be the best sort of evidence, wouldn't it?”

Morton was silent for a moment, staring at Crane. Those words showed him something,

“Are you looking for evidence?” he demanded bluntly.

Crane shrugged. “No. I don't need it. I'm amusing myself, that's all.”

“With what end in view?” snapped Morton.

Crane gave him a slow look, half sardonic, and the man's face had become masked.

“Oh, mere distraction—passing the time! By the way, you have the cabin of those two women—suppose you look around, You're intelligent. Neither Bray nor Chambers have any imagination. Find those jewels. Might give you something to think about. Well, see you later.”

Crane rose lithely and strode away.

III

TWO days passed, in which Morton saw very little of Crane.

The story Crane had told grew and grew in his mind, with his daily and hourly contacts with the officers of the ship. Captain Bray might be drinking, but did not show it. Mr. Smithers continued his obscene comments, and seemed to have all sorts of startling information as to the private life of his colleagues, nor were his jests resented. In this happy give-and-take came out hints here, a word and a look there, which touched upon the women sometimes carried unofficially by the Fei Yen.

Morton, usually so impassive to any such external things, found it all reaching into him. Talking with Bray, he would discover himself thinking about that French girl. Across the table, the brutish blue jowl of Mr. Chambers would remind him of a slim brown native woman who preferred death to shame. The chuckling comments of Mr. Smithers would strive in his mind for some double meaning, some connection with the story—and once or twice he found it beyond any doubt.

On the third day out, early in the morning, there was trouble. How it started, Morton never learned—the causes went far back and deep. The finish was a mad conflict on the forward well-deck between Mr. Chambers and Saunders, the assistant engineer. The mate, blood running down his face from a clip with a spanner, bent Saunders back across the hatch-cover and hammered at him, and Saunders died that night of a broken back. Old Maquorrie cursed the after-guard with flaming and terrible blasphemy and threatened to have them all up in court but the skipper took him below and drowned his anger in liquor.

At the burial of Saunders, next morning, Morton for the first time caught a full sight of the native, Mien, who had come aboard with Crane, entering the black gang. Mien stood at the rail, watching the body go over as Captain Bray read the service; naked, tall, straight as an arrow magnificently powerful in every muscle and line. The man's eyes were ugly and smoldering, and Morton was startled by their vicious look.

However, there were other things to ponder. Morton wondered much about Crane, about where Crane came in on the story and why Crane was interesting himself in the lapis button and the evidence in general, but the more Morton thought of the whole thing, the more he became impressed with the possibility of finding the jewels.

He cared nothing about them as jewels, and less about their probable value. If they were here, however, they would stamp Crane's story true; the incredible would become the proven. About this possibility hovered the horrible fascination which invariably lingers around a gruesome mystery. Had this skipper, this mate, calmly going about their duties, actually done these things? Possible enough. Mr. Chambers was no more worried over the broken back of Saunders than if he had killed a fly. But then, that was hot-blooded fight. This other was cold, deliberate inhumanity, cruelty planned for gain and lust.

SO MORTON, intermittently, began to look about his cabin. He began, in fact, soon after his talk with Crane, but did not go into it very earnestly until the folowing day. That night after he saw Saunders' back broken, he was stirred, his imagination was at work, he sat down and concentrated on the thing. After all, it must be simple—if true! Or was it all a wild-goose-flutter? Had those women been here in the cabin?

Then he remembered that Crane had not seen the reverse of the lapis button until after asking about the two ideograms. This was a bit startling.

Morton looked around. He had already searched, vainly enough, everything in the two-berth cabin. Granted the story was true, then; either the jewels had gone out through the port, or they were here. Where? Where could a woman hide such things? Where might they lie for two years undiscovered? The cabin was bare enough. Steel walls, iron berths, two old gray life-jackets in the rack overhead—not a hiding place of any kind visible! Then the jewels must have gone out the port, to keep them from falling into the hands of the fishy-eyed skipper and the burly mate.

Perhaps—and yet—Morton's glance roved around. What had he overlooked? What, so simple, so impossible, that men of no imagination would pass it by? Where, undisturbed and undiscovered during two years?

He rose and locked the door. Then, standing on the berth, he searched for crannies in the wall, searched the rack of the life-jackets, found nothing, no place of hiding. He was folding the life-jackets to replace them, when he halted abruptly. Two of them lay there side by side on the berth—what was that hint of red against the canvas of one? The other did not match it. He looked closer and saw one of the seams sewn with red thread, red silk thread. The other was not, certainly2

Morton got out his knife and ripped open the seam of the life-jacket, got his fingers into the powdery cork within, felt a hard object. In two minutes he had the thing wide open, Out across his bunk spilled a dozen hard little bluish polished pebbles—were they sapphires, then? No matter. With them were other things—stones in fragments of their mountings. Pearls, a diamond, several rubies, jade, three necklaces of pearls and two of fine deep green jade, not the poor light article of commerce but old and valuable jade.

Morton stared at them all, then gathered them up and put them into his pocket. The fact hammered at his brain, hammered remorselessly at him. The blood of women was on these stories, the crimes of men—lust and gain! Their value was nothing to him. He saw only the greater and more important thing. Evidence!