Scarhaven Keep by J. S. Fletcher (best value ebook reader TXT) 📕

scarcely slept!” he blurted out, gazing intently at her. “Couldn’t! Blaming myself for letting you get into this confounded mess! You’re all right?”

Audrey responded a little to the pressure of his hands before she disengaged her own.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s nobody’s fault. Don’t blame Mr. Vickers⁠—he couldn’t foresee this. Yes, I’m all right⁠—and I slept like a top. What’s the use of worrying? Do you know,” she went on, lowering her voice and drawing nearer to him, “I believe something’s going to come of all this⁠—something that’ll clear matters up once and for all.”

“Why?” asked Copplestone, wonderingly. “What makes you think that?”

“Don’t know⁠—instinct, intuitiveness, perhaps,” she answered. “Besides⁠—I’m dead certain we’re not the only people⁠—I don’t mean crew and Captain⁠—aboard the Pike. I believe there’s somebody else. There’s some mystery, anyway. Keep that to yourself,” she said as Andrius and Vickers appeared from below. “Don’t show any sign⁠—wait to see how things turn out.”

She turned away from him to greet the other two as unconcernedly as if there were nothing unusual in the situation, and Copplestone marvelled at her coolness. He himself, not so well equipped with patience, was feverishly anxious to know how things would turn out, and when. But the day went by and nothing happened, except that Captain Andrius was very polite to his guests and that the yacht, a particularly fast sailer, continued to make headway through the grey seas, sometimes in bare sight of land and sometimes out of it. To one or two inquiries as to the fulfilment of his promise Andrius made no more answer than a reassuring nod; once when Vickers pressed him, he replied curtly that the day was not yet over. Vickers drew Copplestone aside on hearing that.

“Look here!” he said. “I’ve been reckoning things up as near as I can. I make out that we’ve been running due north, or northeast ever since we left Scarhaven last night. I reckon, too, that this vessel makes quite twenty-two or three, knots an hour. We must be off the extreme northeast coast of Scotland. And night’s coming on!”

“There are ports there that he can put into,” said Copplestone. “The thing is⁠—will he keep his promise? Remember!⁠—he must know very well that if we once land anywhere within reach of a telegraph office, we can wire particulars about him to every port in the world if we like⁠—and he’s got to go somewhere, eventually, you know.”

Vickers shook his head as if this were a problem he would give up. It was beyond him, he said, to even guess at what Andrius was after, or what was going to happen. And nothing did happen until, as the three prisoners sat at dinner with their polite gaoler, the Pike came to a sudden stop and hung gently on a quiet sea. Andrius looked up and smiled.

“A pleasant night for your landing,” he remarked. “Don’t hurry⁠—but there will be a boat ready for you as soon as dinner is over.”

“And where are we?” asked Vickers.

“That, my dear sir, you will see when you land.” replied Andrius. “You will, at any rate, be quite comfortable for the night, and in the morning, I think, you will be able to journey⁠—wherever you wish to go to.”

There was something in the smile which accompanied the last words which made Copplestone uneasy. But the prospect of regaining their liberty was too good⁠—he kept his own counsel. And half an hour later, he, Audrey and Vickers, stood on deck, looking down on a boat alongside, in which were two or three of the crew and a man holding a lantern. In front was the dark sea, and ahead a darker mass which they took to be land.

“You won’t tell us what this place is?” said Vickers as he was about to follow the others into the boat. “It’s on the mainland, of course?”

“The morning light, my good sir, will show you everything,” replied Andrius. “Be content that I have kept my promise⁠—you have come off luckily,” he added with a significant look.

Vickers felt a strange sense of alarm as the boat left the yacht. He noticed two or three suspicious circumstances. As soon as they got away, he saw that all the yacht’s lights had been or were being darkened or entirely obscured; at a dozen boat lengths they could see her no more. Then a boat, swiftly pulled, passed them in the darkness, evidently coming from the shore to which they were being taken: it, too, carried no light. Nor were there any lights on the shore itself; all there was in utter blackness. They were on the shingle within a quarter of an hour; within a minute or two the yachtsmen had helped all three on to the beach, had carried up certain boxes and packages which had been placed in the boat, had set down the lighted lantern, jumped into the boat again and vanished in the darkness. And in the silence, broken only by the drip of water from the retreating oars, and by the scarcely-noticed ripple of the waves, Audrey voiced exactly what her two companions felt.

“Andrius has kept his word⁠—and cheated us! We’re stranded!”

From somewhere out of the darkness came a groan⁠—deep and heartfelt, as if in entire agreement with Audrey’s declaration. That it proceeded from a human being was evident enough, and Vickers hastily snatched up the lantern and strode in the direction from which it came. And there, seated on the shingle, his whole attitude one of utter dejection and misery, the three castaways found a sharer of their sorrows⁠—Peter Chatfield!

XXI Marooned

To each of these three young people this was the most surprising moment which life had yet afforded. It was an astonishing thing to find a fellow mortal there at all, but to find that mortal was the Scarhaven estate agent was literally short of marvellous. What was also astounding was to see Chatfield’s only too evident distress. Swathed in a