Chapter XXV Lapped, but still in the Race
It may strike some of those who read this narrative that, considering the fact that we had (in a cowardly manner, as they may deem it, and with far too much regard for the safety of our skins) surrendered to James Strong not only our invaluable map of the spot to which we were directed by old Clutterbuck’s “message from the tomb,” but also the copy of that document which we had been prudent enough to make in case of emergency—that, considering these facts, it did not really matter very much whether Strong sailed for England with one day’s start of us or one year’s; for he now possessed every available clue to the discovery of the treasure, while we had none whatever.
Our game was played out and lost. Strong had won. We might sail for England to-morrow or this day five years, but James Strong would now both possess himself of and retain the hundred thousand pounds for which we had toiled and travelled and suffered, simply because we were ignorant where to look for either the treasure or for him.
Yet this was not the case, for we—Jack and I—had been in this matter craftier than the fox and wiser than the eagle; and each independently of the other, too.
We discovered this on the morning after Strong’s checkmate of us, as I lay by our camp fire, when, intending to spring a mine of surprise and delight upon Jack, I started bewailing the shipwreck of our hopes to find the treasure. Strong had stolen from us, with fiendish cunning, both the plan and the copy. I dwelt upon this disastrous fact because I intended presently to send Jack into ecstasies of admiration for my sagacity by informing him that it did not really matter a bit, seeing that I had committed the whole letter to memory, and knew by heart every jot and tittle of plan and instructions.
But Jack spoiled my little game by saying—
“Oh, I don’t think you need worry, old man, about the loss of the ‘message from the tomb.’”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I know it by heart,” he said, “every word of it; and the plan too—I could draw it exactly. Look here!”
This was disappointing, for I really had thought I was going to score for once over my acute one!
However, we praised one another, and came unanimously to the conclusion that any two foxes would have to take a back seat for cunning if he and I were to drop treasure hunting and take to robbing farmyards! And that is how it came about that the loss of our papers was not so serious a disaster for us as it might have been if we had been “other than we were”—i.e. less clever.
So three weeks after Mr. Julius Stavenhagen’s departure, or, if you prefer it, Mr. James Strong’s, Jack Henderson and I sailed at last from Cape Town; a bad second, of course, but still not without hope that Strong might hitherto have failed to find the treasure when we should have reached the island of Hogland, or Hochland; indeed, it might even prove that, fearing lest we should have remembered the name of the island, he might have hesitated to visit the place at all, in case we should follow and denounce him for the murderer he was.
I did not greatly rely on this last faint hope, however, for Strong was not the kind of man to surrender an undoubted advantage for any consideration of craven expediency. He would rather occupy the island of Hogland, and shoot us if we appeared to disturb him; and that was what we must look out for, supposing that we ever found the island with Strong in possession.
“It would simply amount to a shooting match in that case,” said Jack; and I think he just about expressed it.
My leg was quite cured by this time, and my only trouble on the voyage to England was that the Bangor Castle, which is one of the fastest passenger steamers afloat, did not travel quickly enough. I was beginning to consume my soul in anxiety to be even with James Strong for his smart trick upon us, and to be “one point ahead” in the matter of the treasure.
But we reached England in due time, and I journeyed straight up north to Hull, in order to lose not a moment in making arrangements for our departure; while Jack took the train at Paddington for Gloucestershire, binding himself first by a solemn promise to come up north the instant I telegraphed for him.
My faithful old friend had vowed to see me through with this treasure hunt, and declared, moreover, that he considered himself under a solemn obligation to discover James Strong and see him thoroughly well hanged for his misdeeds.
So away went Jack for Gloucestershire, and I travelled northwards to Hull and interviewed without delay the shipowners, Messrs. Wilcox, who, I found, ran a line of regular steamers from this port to St. Petersburg and Cronstadt. And first I inquired, with not a little anxiety as to the reply, whether there really existed in the Gulf of Finland any such island as Hogland. The clerk’s answer was encouraging.
“Why, certainly!” he said. “Here, Captain Edwards, you can tell this gentleman all about what he wants to know far better than I can. Captain Edwards has just returned from a trip to Cronstadt, and must have passed this very Hogland a few days since.”
“At five forty-five last Sunday afternoon,” said the captain, a quiet and most gentlemanly little man, who, I was afterwards to learn, was a pronounced favourite not only with his employers but also with every passenger who had the good luck to take the trip in his fine steamer, the Thomas Wilcox.
“Do passengers ever land there?” was my next question.
“Well, they don’t get a chance, as a matter of fact,” said Captain Edwards; “for we never stop. There is nothing particularly attractive in the island to cause passengers to wish to land and explore it. Stay, though; I have heard of one visitor to the place—in fact, I took him off the island eventually, though it was not I that landed him.”
“Not just now—this month?” I blurted. The communication gave me a shock, for it struck me that the passenger referred to could be no other than James Strong, who, if he had already visited and left the island, must have taken the treasure with him.
“Now? Dear, no!” said Edwards. “Four years since, at least—if not five. An old fellow—cracky, I should say. He gave out on board the Rinaldo, tripping from Hull to Cronstadt, that he was in search of an island to bury treasure in, and asked to be landed in Hogland when he passed it. You remember the story, Mr. Adams?”
Mr. Adams laughed, and said he had heard about it.
I laughed too, to hide my deeper emotions. This was delightful confirmation of my best hopes!
“Was he landed there?” I asked. The captain’s first words rather staggered me.
“No, he wasn’t,” he replied. “He couldn’t be without permission from the Russian Government. But he went on to St. Petersburg, got his permission, and was landed by the Rinaldo on her return journey. I took him off and brought him home. Dotty, I should say, decidedly. He was in the rarest spirits, and declared that he had tricked his blackguards of heirs, as he called them. They were not going to touch his money, he said, before they had sweated a bit to earn it—just as he had. Nobody believed he had a farthing to leave. He was dressed like a pauper, and disputed his steward’s bill.”
Nothing could have portrayed my late revered acquaintance more realistically than these words.
“It’s sport, I suppose, isn’t it?” continued Captain Edwards. “I am told that numbers of wolves, foxes, and game birds of all kinds come over the ice in winter, and some are caught there when the thaw sets in. You might have a pleasant week—lonely, though; only a few fisherfolk and the lighthouse people. The island is five or six miles in length.”
I blushed, and declared that sport was—in part, at least—the object of my visit; but that my main idea was to make some investigations in the hope of finding coal and iron, which were supposed to exist in the islands of the Gulf of Finland as on the mainland of Esthonia on the Russian side of the water.
“Oh, I see!” said Captain Edwards. “Well, look out for my old friend’s treasure if you get digging. Who knows you mayn’t hit upon something that will pay you even better than coal and iron!”
Captain Edwards laughed merrily at his little joke; he did not dream how near he came to touching the truth.
“Get yourself ready in a week,” he added, “and I’ll take you out. You’ll have to get leave, though, before you can land. Try the Russian Consul; he’s a sensible chap, and isn’t likely to refuse anyone with commercial intentions that might benefit his country.”
I thanked Captain Edwards, and left the ship-owners’ office to digest what I had heard.
James Strong had apparently not sailed for Hogland from Hull; or, if he had, he had not revealed his intention to land before sailing. If that was the case, then he would not be landed at all—unless, indeed, he relied upon getting permission from the authorities in St. Petersburg to visit the island, and then returning thence to the spot.
After all, thought I, he would scarcely be so rash as to give himself away by announcing who he was, and why he desired to visit the island of Hogland. He would reflect that the first thing we should do on reaching England would be to travel up to Hull and inquire after his movements; and whether our designs upon him should prove to have reference to the treasure or to the welfare of his neck, he would naturally prefer to keep his whereabouts a secret. He would guess that, though we had lost our maps, we might at least remember the name of Hogland, and that it lay somewhere between St. Petersburg and Hull.