The Complete Simon Iff (54 page)

Simon Iff suddenly stood up.

"We have with us to-night," cried Camilla, "a very distinguished gentleman who very wisely observed on the night that we left Durban, that as a general rule, it was safe to look for truth. I crave that gentleman's inculgence for my little fiction."

Lord Juventius Mellor looked very swiftly at Simon Iff. Camilla's mouth had shut like a trap. The boy seemed to understand that a duel had been in progress; and he was amazed to see that his master, having tried to cover his movement by pretending to adjust his trousers, sat down again and folded his arms. Camilla's smile was radiant as sunrise on soft snowy mountains.

"Once upon a time," she began again, "it was just three and twnety years ago, a wealthy lawyer whom I will call James Smith, finding himself threatened with consumption, had gone to an island in the South Seas, which I will call Friendly Island."

The audience shuddered. An incredibly bitter sneer was in the tone with which she pronounced 'friendly'.

"James Smith was accompanied by his wife and their infant daughter. Friendly Island is an earthly Paradise; only two or three Europeans live there, in the regular way. I do not mean that this circumstance alone would constitute a paradise. There was the inevitable missionary--there was a romantic German who sold stores--there was a rascally pearler who was always getting drunk and raising trouble, and besides James Smith, there was another stranger whom I will call William Brown. He was a man of good breeding, manners and education, and he was undeniably handsome. He had arrived there about six weeks after Smith had settled down. He had come from the port of the neighbouring island where steamers occasionally put in, in a small fishing boat, a boat with a big square sail easily handled by one man.

"Smith and Brown became the greatest friends possible. The lawyer was passionately fond of fishing, and would often go out in Brown's boat, to an island some four hours' sail distant, where were tall crags, within whose shadow lay a pool which enjoyed a tremendous reputation for big fish. Lawyer though he was, he had not lost faith in humanity. He never guessed that Brown would soil honour and betray friendship.

"It happened that Mrs. Smith was a true woman. She told Brown to cease his insults, but she was too good a woman for this world. She ought to have warned her husband; and she did not.

"Brown pretended to acquiesce in the situation, but the devil had entered into him. His guilty passion decided him to override all obstacles. Smith was in his way--then Smith must go. Most of us who sail these seas believe that there is something in the sun's heat which tends to intoxicate the passions. It is as if the brain boiled into madness. When Brown finally decided to put Smith out of the way, he was not content to choose a simple accident. He resolved upon a death by torture.

"One night, it had been arranged that Smith should sail over to the little island for the fishing. Starting at mid-night, he would arrive comfortably at dawn, catch is fish, and be back in time for dinner. Mrs. Smith had retired early to bed that night, with a slight touch of fever. But Brown took his friend" (again the sneer rang out) "to the boat. He pushed it off from the little warf. waved his hand cheerfully to Smith, and cried, 'A pleasant voyage to you!'"

The audience sat as if hypnotized. Not one but was too appalled even to shudder.

"Drowsing at the helm, Smith sailed past a long, low key of coral, which extends some two miles eastward from the island. It lies almost flush with the water. It has neither a hut nor a tree; but it serves to break the freshness of the Trade Winds. Smith was hardly beyond the point, about two miles from shore, when he was awakened from his pleasant lethargy by the sudden fall of the mainsail. He jumped up, amazed, for the rope was nearly new. An examination revealed something absolutely astounding. The main haul had been treated with sulphuric acid--the stain was on smith's fingers. I suppose he thought this was Brown's idea of a joke. He looked for the oars. they had been taken out of the boat. There was absolutely nothing for him to do but wait for rescue. It never entered his mind that this was a plot against his life. the sun came up--it began to be very hot--not a breath stirred. He began to be thirsty. He went to the locker for water--the bottles had been filled from the sea!

"'This is beyond a joke,' he cried angrily to the unsympathetic universe. And then he laughed. There was a melon in the locker. He cut it open. A bright blue liquid flowed--copper sulphate! The melon was uneatable! An hour or two later, what with bewilderment, anxiety and torture, he began to wander in his mind. He had made endless efforts to rehoist the sail by cutting away the rotten part of the rope; but he was a poor hand at climbing, and he was not strong enough to take down the mast and fix the sail. Ultimately he drove a spike into the mast as high as he could reach and fixed the boom to it, so that he was able to get a little way on the boat. Of course he headed her for the nearest shore visible. But the breeze was very light, and he made poor progress. The heat of the sun was intense and his thirst maddening. In vain he scanned the sea for any sail.

"Then he discovered that smoke was rising from the forehatch. He hastened to investigate the cause. Again sulphuric acid! Three carboys had been placed upside down and stoppered with some material that would resist the action of the acid for a number of hours. The time had expired--the bottom of the boat was awash with vitriol, and the fumes began to choke him. He knew that to throw water upon it would only quicken the action of the acid. It was only a question of time, and a short time at that, before the sea rushed in. Swimming was out of the question--too many sharks. He might conceivably construct a raft, but that was not a very simple job for a lawyer, single-handed, with he knew not how few minutes to spare.

"As God willed it, however," (Camilla's voice grew very solemn) "he was not to die that day. Out of His treasury, the Great Father let forth a squall, a little local squall scuddling across a tiny strip of ocean. It struck the sinking boat, lifted her almost out of the water, drove her furiously toward the key. She was not two hundred yards from land when she sank under his feet. He had seen his chance, and thrown off his clothes. He never knew how he did it, but he reached the shore. The squall had passed--he lay there naked in the blazing sun--a raving lunatic. Night calmed him. He began to crawl over the razor edges of the coral towards the village. He probably fainted from loss of blood, for the coral cut him cruelly. He said afterwards that he thought his mental and physical agony had made him dance in madness. He passed a second day upon the key--a shadless day--a day of blazing torture--a day without water. But by dawn on the third day, he had reached one of the paths about the village. There he was ound by some of the natives. They did not recognize him. His face was scarred by coral, and twisted by agony. He himself did not know who he was, but his wife and his child knew him. There was no one to suspect anything beyond the most ordinary accident. Brown exhibited the proper sympathy, and even renewed his abominable intrigues. But Mrs. Smith, with her man wounded, was a lioness. She may or may not have suspected something wrong, but however that may be she told Brown--in front of the other white men of the island--to get out and stay out, which he did. A month after that, Smith came to himself with full clear memory of every incident. One thought was uppermost in his mind; revenge upon the fiend! A lawyer's idea of revenge is not to stick a knife into someone when he isn't looking, and trust to luck to get away with it; a lawyer knows a trick worth two of that.

"Brown was a pretty well known person--a capable and ambitious man--a man easy to find--a man without suspicion that he was being hunted--and he was a man moreover on whom the law could put its grip. Smith went to work in a perfectly clear headed way. He found it easy enough to establish the proofs of guilt. He got sworn statements from the trader who had sold Brown the acid--the pearler had been on the warf when Brown arranged the provisioning. Even the missionary was able to contribute a detail to the case. He had been pleading with Brown, begging him to change his manner of life and the sailor had replied, 'I'll come to Jesus when Ella comes to me.' Ella being the name of Mrs. Smith. The missionary had replied that he understood perfectly that Brown's evil passions were in his way, and Brown had replied, 'Hell, no! Smith's in the way--but it won't be for long.'

"Armed with these weapons, Smith and his family went to London to begin the search. All this took over a year, for Smith's activities were interrupted by continually increasing ill-health. A shock more terrible than all was yet in store for the unhappy man. They had not been a month in London before Ella Smith disappeared! No trace of her was ever found, though of course Smith set every wheel in motion. One must not say so, since one does not know, but one can have little doubt that Brown found some means to kidnap her, or perhaps to make away with her. The shock completely wrecked the brain of the unhappy lawyer. Two days after his wife's disappearance, he had to be placed in a private asylum for the cure of the insane. His little daughter was left in the care of her father's unmarried sister. Three years of treatment restored Smith to health. He returned to his house, and his daughter, who by this time was old enough to understand things, heard from him the story of his wrongs. He had prepared a long and formidable statement, supported by the affidavits of his wife and of the other people on the island. 'Yvonne,' he said to her one day, 'there is a spot in my brain not quite healed. I can forget everything but one thing, and that one thing is Brown's Judas smile and false words--"A pleasant voyage to you!" I think he must remember them too. They sealed the triumph of his malice. Now I will burn them in his brain. I will not have him arrested--not just yet. I'm going to change my name, and travel. I shall send him a copy of this statement and these affidavits, so that he may know that I have got him by the short hair, and whenever I find him starting on a voyage, for he is a sea captain, I shall telegraph to him these words, "A pleasant voyage to you." He will know from whom they come.'

"This programme was duly carried out. Smith and his daughter travelled in many delightful places of the earth. He took great pains to have her well brought up; but he himself was the only real influence in her mind. Almost from infancy she had been fed by day and night with this tale of infamy and horror. She began to have a fixed idea about it--almost as strong as her father; and he, poor man, was slowly sinking into chronic madness. He developed ideas of persecution--he lived over again and again those hours of agony on the boat--his mind grdually became confused. In his last years, he even ranged his wife among his persecutors."

"Ah," cried Simon Iff on a high note, "what did I tell you? Or, more accurately, what should I have told you if I had had a chance?"

Captain McVea immediately asserted his authority; though, if he were a king, it was surely in some Hell unthinkable. "I must request silence," he said sharply and angrily.

Simon Iff shrugged his shoulders and subsided, murmuring something about an obstinate man doing himself no good.

"I beg your pardon for being interrupted," said Camilla sweetly. "It proves how much I have been boring you."

In point of fact the audience had been breathless ever since she had first pronounced the words "A pleasant voyage to you!"

"To continue my dull story," she went on, "Smith sank slowly from depth to depth of melancholia. He still put off the arrest of Captain Brown. His only pleasure was to gloat upon the agony which that scoundrel must be suffering. And then, quite suddenly, he died. His sister sent Yvonne to a convent to put her wise to all the tricks of life--a very necessary education for one who was intended for the stage. My story is nearly at an end. In the excitement of life, she forgot about Captain Brown; but she always carried with her the proofs of his guilt. Recently, the matter was recalled vividly to her mind. She found herself booked to travel by the ship which Brown commanded. After all, justice is justice. Here are the documents in the case," she cried, throwing a packet on the table, "and I will conclude by calling upon Detective Sergeant Green, of the Durban police, to arrest John McVea."

The detective proceeded to perform his duty. Blank silence reigned in the audience. Then somebody, more imbecile than his fellows, jumped up and shouted, "It's all a joke, boys; it's part of the dramatic monologue!"

The spell was broken. Every one laughed, stamped, shouted, and cheered. For though most people present knew that the captain's apoplexy was no joke, which the theory of a joke would involve, yet when somebody gave voice to an explanation which let everybody out--they followed the bellwether.

"Silence, pray, gentlemen!" roared Simon Iff above the hurricane of the emotion. "Of course we can't let the lady sit down without a hand, but I want to make one comment on the story. It is utterly false, documents or no documents. Captain McVea never did this. We all know him. One can imagine him sufficiently provoked to kill a man in a quarrel, provided that he knew himself to be in the right of it. But that he is what Miss Camilla paints him is unthinkable."

Loud cries of "Speech" came from all over the saloon. "I implore you to say no more," said the captain, raising his manacled hands in a pitiful gesture. "Let the law take its course. I make no defence."

"Nonsense," said Simon. "I am the next item on the programme, with Mr. Mate's permission. Who ever heard of a concert, above all, one in aid of the Seamen's Home, coming to a stop merely because the chairman is held for attempted murder?" If the imbecility of the bellwether had been infectious, how much more the buoyancy of Simon Iff!

A way to the platform was made for him, and he began to speak.

"I only want to put in a word or two of criticism," he said, with a queer grim puckering of his lips. "But I want to say this much--that although we have the facts of the story, detailed in affidavits, the psychology of the story is all hearsay. Miss Craig was not old enough to know what was really happening on the island. This is a purely ex-parte statement prepared by the man who fancied himself injured."