Chapter XXXVI We find an Old Friend
The ugly castle of Elsinore was in sight when we came on deck, and a few minutes later the pilot’s own little craft, splendidly sailed by his mate and a boy, came alongside, and without asking us to stop for her, made fast to us and raced along in our company.
After a hasty farewell with Captain Edwards, and a whispered injunction under all circumstances to keep a good look-out upon Michail, we threw our portmanteaus into the arms of the astonished Dane below, and followed the pilot down the steps swung over the side of the ship for our accommodation.
Though the pilot lived at a village at some little distance from Elsinore, he kindly agreed to convey us to the railway station at the latter town, and with a fair wind we soon made the jetty close to the very spot from which the trains start. Here, having paid off our gallant boatmen, we jumped ashore and hurried with all speed to the station, to find that we had just missed one train and that we could not now catch another for an hour and more. This was tantalising and vexatious; but at least we were ashore and in full chase after our quarry, and that was a source of some comfort to us.
Together we paced up and down the platform of Elsinore Station. We tried to converse. I asked Jack what he thought would be Hamlet’s opinion of the state of affairs if he were to “come down” and see a railway station within a stone’s-throw of his capital castle of Elsinore.
Jack replied that all depended upon whether Strong should have been lucky in catching his train; if one had started from Copenhagen soon after he landed there, then his advantage over us would be very great, and probably our best way would be to let him go, and hurry back to England, ourselves, by land.
Presently, standing at a spot whence he commanded a good view of the castle, Jack observed that if Hamlet’s father’s ghost ever walked upon the parapet of the great ugly building nowadays, he must be as active as a cat, for there would be a lot of climbing to do, there being a kind of miniature turret at every few yards which the ghost would have to negotiate if he desired to get along.
To which I replied, in a contemplative fashion, that in any case we knew well enough without the paper where we had to dig for the money, and the only thing that really mattered was the picture. The question was, did we absolutely require the daub to help us find the treasure, or not? At anyrate, Strong knew too much to come fooling around in England. He must know that we would nab him at once. There was no fear of Strong himself turning up. From all of which it will be gathered that our conversation was a little mixed. However, the train started at last, and we left Elsinore behind us.
At Copenhagen many inquiries had to be made, and at first we were somewhat helpless; for though the language sounded sufficiently like English to make it additionally annoying that we could not understand it, yet neither we nor those with whom we attempted to converse could make head or tail of that which we or they respectively tried to convey. At the station we could do nothing towards making our wishes known, and at length we determined to visit the nearest hotel and engage an interpreter, if such a person existed.
Here we were lucky, for we found the very man, and to him we confided our need, namely, to get upon the track of an individual who landed from an English steamer, and had, presumably, gone on by the first train elsewhere.
“But where?” asked our commissionaire; and to this question we had, of course, no reply.
“We must begin at the beginning, and go down first to the landing-stage,” said our friend.
Now this was annoying, because the journey would be a loss of time; but it was obviously the correct course, and we took it. We must begin our inquiries from the spot at which he first touched land.
Down at the wharf our Dane interviewed several boatmen, all of whom had seen the Thomas Wilcox arrive and depart, and all of whom agreed that a passenger had landed and had engaged a conveyance and driven away.
“To the station, of course,” said I. “Why do we wait? This is all a waste of precious time!”
“Which station?” asked our Dane grimly; and, when I had no reply to make, he added, “That is what we have come for to find out.”
It seemed, however, that the point was a most difficult one to establish, and that we should be obliged to drive to each station in turn, thereby wasting more time, until there wandered upon the scene, presently, a Danish youth who said he had taken the passenger’s bag out of the boat and put it into the carriage. The passenger was a German, he said.
“How do you know that?” asked Jack, through the interpreter.
“Because he wanted to get to Kiel,” said the boy; “he knew no Danish, and could only hold up his finger to the driver and say, ‘Skielskor, for Kiel!’”
This was good enough for us. We drove rapidly towards the station, feeling that we were about to make a real start at last.
The clerk at the booking-office remembered the man we wanted. He had hurried into the station and said, in an interrogative manner, “Skielskor?” and when the clerk had replied that it was all right, if he meant that he required a ticket for that place, he had repeated, “Kiel—Bremen?” Whereupon the clerk, seeing that conversation would be difficult, had tentatively offered two tickets, one to Skielskor, and the other through to Kiel; of which he had selected and paid for the latter. He had left just an hour ago.
“Can’t we get to Kiel direct by water, quicker than by land to Skielskor, and thence across?” asked Jack. “If there should be a steamer going just about now, we might possibly cut him off at Kiel.”
Fortune favoured us quite handsomely this time.
Hastening back to the waterside we actually found a Kiel steamer about to depart; that is, a large steamer lay in mid-channel, having arrived since we were down here half an hour before; she had stopped to put down passengers, just as the Thomas Wilcox did, and would proceed almost immediately.
We signalled her to take us on board, and left without a moment’s delay.
“Great Scott, Jack!” I exclaimed; “Strong will have the luck of the evil one himself if he reaches Kiel before us now; this is splendid!”
We ascertained that, all being well, we should reach our destination considerably before Strong could do so, he travelling by land and then by small steamer to Kiel, even though he should catch one just about to start. Under these circumstances the jubilation which we felt was most justifiable, and over a capital dinner we spoke with delight of the joy in store for us, when we should stand on the landing-stage waiting for the arrival of the little Skielskor steamer, and see the countenance of Mr. James Strong change when he caught sight of us there.
“Will he have a fit, think you, Jack?” I asked in glee.
Jack said he thought it quite likely; it would appear so uncanny to the wretched chap, and so utterly unexpected. “I should certainly have a fit under similar circumstances,” he added.
We went to bed with the conviction that fortune was treating us kindly this time, and that to-morrow had consolations for us in expiation for the shocks and disappointments of to-day.
But these rascally to-morrows never perform exactly what is expected of them. Our programme was all of the colour of the rose, and justifiably so; but certain circumstances marred the order of events, and things fell out differently.
Now our steamer, the Peter der Grosse, had come from Cronstadt, just as our own Thomas Wilcox had, and in Russia at this time the cholera was having one of those periodical innings which it enjoys at regular or irregular intervals in that country. And when we arrived at Kiel and requested to be landed as quickly as might be, we were met by the stunning statement that this would be impossible until the quarantine officer should have come on board and passed us.
“How long will that be?” we asked, and were informed that it might be a couple of hours and might be twelve.
“They are very particular here,” said the captain, “and are as likely as not to leave us half a day or so, just to give the germs a chance, in case they should require this much extra time to develop.”
As a matter of fact, the quarantine officer did not visit us until nearly evening, we having arrived before midday. Just before his arrival I had noticed a little Danish steamer creep into harbour, and through the captain’s glasses I distinguished, or thought to distinguish, the words “Helma—Skielskor.”
“Jack,” I said, “look at the little craft just running into harbour—here, take the glasses.”
Jack took them and had a long steady gaze at the small steamer.
“You’re quite right,” he said presently (I had expressed no opinion whatever!); “he’s just done it; that must be his boat; there’s no question of it!”
Then Jack muttered an expressive word between his teeth, and I another.
Then I looked at Jack and he at me, and—having nothing better or wiser to do, I suppose—we both burst into a roar of laughter.
It was sickening to see the fellow just gliding out of our very hands; but at the same time it was really very funny.
“Never mind,” said Jack. “We’ll be after him directly, and we know he’s going viâ Bremen. Perhaps we may catch the same train yet.”
But we were not destined to reap this crop of good fortune. The quarantine officers came on board and examined carefully every creature in the ship. This occupied a couple of hours. Fortunately for us, we were able to prove that we had joined the steamer at Copenhagen; still more so, we were not asked for passports, otherwise the fact would have been revealed that we too had come from Russia, and we, like the rest of the passengers, would have been delayed in quarantine for twenty-four or forty-eight hours, or whatever the term may have been.
As it was, we were allowed to land, though the rest were detained; and without a moment’s delay we made for the station, calling on the way at the jetty, at which lay, sluggishly steaming, the little Skielskor steamer which had arrived a short while since.
We inquired of the captain, as best we could, as to the passengers he had brought over. Was there an Englishman? we asked; and we described our friend Strong. The captain who—excellent man!—spoke English, replied that most certainly there had been an Englishman among his passengers, a charming, cheery sort of person, who had laughed and drunk Swedish punch all the way, and told capital stories. He was a generous kind of a man too, and had stood drinks all round. He had also made him, the skipper, a little present which he declared to be of some value, though it could not be said to have the appearance of much intrinsic worth, so far as he, the skipper, was able to judge!
“Oh,” said Jack, not greatly interested; “and what was that?”
“The picture of an old man—Dutch School; after Gerard Dow, so he said,” laughed the skipper. “You can see it, if you like; you may be a judge of these things. Lord knows why he gave it me—drunk, I suppose!”