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

something to show fight with, too?” answered Spurge, with a knowing wink. “I’ve got my revolver handy, what Mr. Vickers give me, and I reckon you can handle yours. However, it ain’t come to no revolver yet. What I want is to see and hear, guv’nor⁠—follow me.”

He had opened a ramshackle door in the rear of the premises as he spoke and he now beckoned his companion to follow him down a passage which evidently led to the front. There was no more than a dim light within, but Copplestone could see that the whole place was falling to pieces. And it was all wrapped in a dead silence. Away out on the quay was the rattle of chains, the creaking of a windlass, the voices of men and shrill laughter of women, but in there no sound existed. And Spurge suddenly stopped his stealthy creeping forward and looked at Copplestone suspiciously.

“Queer, ain’t it?” he whispered. “I don’t hear a voice, nor yet the ghost of one! You’d think that if they was in here they’d be talking. But we’ll soon see.”

Clambering up a pile of fallen timber which lay in the passage and beckoning Copplestone to follow his example, Spurge looked through a broken slat in the wooden partition into an open shed which fronted the Cut. The shed was empty. Folk were passing to and fro in front of it; the North Sea tug still lay at the wharf beyond; a man who was evidently its skipper sat on a tub on its deck placidly smoking his short pipe⁠—but of Addie Chatfield or of Andrius there was no sign. And the silence in that crumbling, rat-haunted house was deeper than ever.

“Guv’nor!” muttered Spurge, “How long is it since you see⁠—her?”

“Almost as soon as you’d gone,” answered Copplestone.

“Ten minutes ago!” sighed Spurge. “Guv’nor⁠—they’ve done us! They’re off! I see it⁠—she must ha’ caught sight o’ me, nosing round, and she came here and gave the others the office, and they bucked out at the back. The back, Guv’nor! And Lord bless you, at the back o’ this shanty there’s a perfect rabbit warren o’ places⁠—more by token, they call it the Warren. If they’ve got in there, why, all the police in Norcaster’ll never find ’em⁠—leastways, I mean, to speak truthful, not without a deal o’ trouble.”

“What about upstairs?” asked Copplestone.

“Upstairs, now?” said Spurge with a doubtful glance at the ramshackle stairway. “Lord, mister!⁠—I don’t believe nobody could get up them stairs! No⁠—they’ve hooked it through the back here, into the Warren. And once in there⁠—”

He ended with an eloquent gesture, and dismounting from his perch made his way along the passage to a door which opened into the shed. Thence he looked out on the quay, and along the crowded maze of Scarvell’s Cut.

“Here’s some of ’em, anyway, guv’nor,” he announced. “I see Mr. Vickers and t’other London gentleman, and the old Admiral, at all events. There they are⁠—getting out of a motor at the end. But go to meet ’em, Mr. Copplestone, while I keep my eye on this here tug and its skipper.”

Copplestone elbowed his way through the crowd until he met Sir Cresswell and his two companions. All three were eager and excited: Copplestone could only respond to their inquiries with a gloomy shake of the head.

“We seem to have the devil’s own luck!” he growled dismally. “Spurge and I spotted Andrius by sheer accident. He was on a North Sea tug, or trawler, along the quay here. Then Spurge ran off to summon you. While he was away Miss Chatfield appeared⁠—”

“Addie Chatfield!” exclaimed Vickers.

“Exactly. And that of course,” continued Copplestone, glancing at Gilling, “that without doubt⁠—in my opinion, anyway⁠—explains those elegant footprints up at the tower. Addie Chatfield, I tell you! She passed me as I was hiding at the entrance to an alley down the Cut here, and she went into an old sail loft, outside which the tug I spoke of is moored, and into which Andrius had strolled a minute or two previously. But⁠—neither she nor Andrius are there now. They’ve gone! And Spurge says that at the back of this quay there’s a perfect rabbit warren of courts and alleys, and if⁠—or, rather as they’ve escaped into that⁠—eh?”

The detectives who had accompanied Sir Cresswell on the interrupted expedition to the old tower and who had now followed him and his companions in a second car and arrived in time to hear Copplestone’s story, looked at each other.

“That’s right enough⁠—comparatively speaking,” said one. “But if they’re in the Warren we shall get ’em out. The first thing to do, gentlemen, is to take a look at that tug.”

“Exactly!” exclaimed Sir Cresswell. “Just what I was thinking. Let us find out what its people have to say.”

The man who smoked his pipe in placid contentment on the deck of the tug looked up in astonishment as the posse of eight crossed the plank which connected him with the quay. Nevertheless he preserved an undaunted front, kept his pipe in his tightly closed lips, and cocked a defiant eye at everybody.

“Skipper o’ this craft?” asked the principal detective laconically. “Right? Where are you from, then, and when did you come in here?”

The skipper removed his pipe and spat over the rail. He put the pipe back, folded his arms and glared.

“And what the dickens may that be to do with you?” he inquired. “And who may you be to walk aboard my vessel without leave?”

“None of that, now!” said the detective. “Come on⁠—we’re police officers. There’s something wrong round here. We’ve got warrants for two men that we believe to have been on your tug⁠—one of ’em was seen here not so many minutes ago. You’d far better tell us what you know. If you don’t tell now, you’ll have to tell later. And⁠—I expect you’ve been paid already. Come on⁠—out with it!”

The skipper, whose gnarled countenance had undergone several changes during this address, smote one red fist on top of the other.

“Darned if I don’t