There was no doubt about it: Mr. Benjamin Skeets was a very crafty fellow. By adopting the disguise of a woman, and acting up to the part of a vulgar parvenue, he had completely covered his tracks, and had thrown dust into the eyes of everyone with whom he had come in contact—up to a certain point and then only with one exception.
Messrs. Skeets and Shale were no mere novices in crime, and their daring coup of defrauding the United Trusts Banking Company of the round sum of ￡30,000, and their subsequent disappearance, had both mystified and astonished the British public by its audacity, and had completely baffled the greatest detective experts of Scotland Yard.
Skeets had lived up to his disguise very thoroughly. Even the subsequent engagement of Miss Olive Baird had been undertaken solely with the idea of elaborating the smaller but by no means unnecessary details of his disguise. Since there was no reliable description of Mr. Joseph Shales, who was the unseen partner in the deal with the banking firm, it was a fairly simple matter for him to get out of the country under the guise of the husband of "Mrs. Shallop".
It had been the intention of the precious pair to leave the West Barbican at Cape Town; hence Mrs. Shallop\'s anxiety to get a wireless message through as soon as the ship came within radio range of Table Bay. But the absence of a reply from Skeets\'s confederate at Cape Town had so startled the fugitives that they decided to go on until they found a convenient port, preferably in India, where they could lie low and live on their ill-gotten plunder.
The foundering of the West Barbican had upset their calculations. Practically the whole of the pair\'s booty went down with the ship. Mr. Shallop, otherwise Shales, having no further use for his destitute partner, went off in one of the ship\'s boats which was eventually picked up. Arriving at Cape Town he took the ill-advised step of looking-up a pal. The latter was already languishing in a South African penal establishment, and Mr. Shales, upon making inquiries, was enlightened by an acquaintance of the convict, who chanced to be an astute detective.
The outcome of this meeting was that Mr. Shallop, under the mellow influence of strong waters, said more than he would have done had he been in his sober senses. Recovering from his maudlin state he found himself in custody.
Having no belief in the worn proverb concerning honour amongst thieves, and perhaps fully convinced that his partner in crime had been lost in the disaster to the West Barbican, Joseph Shales confessed to a minor part in the United Trusts Bank frauds, at the same time laying the blame upon the missing Benjamin Skeets.
The immediate result was that directly the news was cabled that more survivors from the West Barbican, including Mrs. Shallop, had been landed at Pangawani, the Kilba Protectorate Police were instructed to arrest the much-wanted Benjamin.
Before Mostyn left to go on board the Quilboma he had an opportunity of saying farewell to Olive, and at the same time telling her of the astounding news.
"And to think that she—or, rather, he—bluffed the whole jolly lot of us," he added. "Even the Old Man and Doctor Selwyn were taken in completely."
"Not all of us, Peter," rejoined the girl softly. "I knew—but not at first."
"By Jove!" ejaculated the astonished Mostyn. "You did? When did you?"
"Not until the West Barbican was sinking," replied Olive. "I found it out then: I couldn\'t help it. Of course, I didn\'t know exactly what to do, and I knew nothing whatever of the crime she—I mean, he—had committed. But I meant to tell you some day, Peter."
"We are well rid of him," remarked Mostyn.
"Yes," agreed the girl thoughtfully. Then, after a pause, she added frankly. "But if it had not been for Mrs. Shallop I might never have met you, Peter."
Mostyn departed radiantly upon the voyage on which depended the fate of the Brocklington Ironworks Company\'s contract.
It was not until the day following that Davis, in his official capacity, completed the inspection of the dhow. When he came to knock off the lid of the box in which Mostyn had nailed up the gold and silver coins, he found that, although the seals were intact, the money had vanished.
Davis gave a low whistle.
"That stuff\'s been lifted before the dhow put into Pangawani," he declared to his assistant. "The seals being intact proves that."
His companion laughed.
"After sneaking ￡30,000 friend Skeets wouldn\'t scruple to lift that little lot," he remarked.
"S\'pose so," conceded Davis. "We\'ll go and report the loss; but I\'m afraid that Mrs. Shallop has got well away with it this time."
Which was exactly what had happened. As far as the authorities at Pangawani were concerned Benjamin Skeets had vanished, seemingly into thin air. Although the daily train from Pangawani up-country had been rigorously searched at every intermediate station, soon after the flight of the much wanted man was made known, no one unable to give a good account of himself or herself had been discovered. With the exception of the Quilboma no vessel had left the port during the previous twenty-four hours. Native police and trackers had scoured the bush for miles in the vicinity of Pangawani without picking up any traces of the fugitive.
*****
Meanwhile Peter Mostyn was speeding south on board the S.S. Quilboma. From the moment the harbour launch had placed him on the deck of the tramp outside Pangawani bar, he was entirely cut off from news of the rest of the world. The Quilboma was not fitted with wireless, her owners, since the relaxation of Board of Trade regulations on the termination of the war, having dispensed with what they considered to be an unprofitable, expensive, and unnecessary outfit.
The tramp was only of 1500 tons gross register, and with a speed of nine knots. Her engines were of an antiquated, reciprocating type, while her coal consumption was out of all proportion to her carrying capacity. Had she been plying in home waters she would never have passed the official re-survey; consequently her owners, one of whom was her skipper, took good care to confine the Quilboma\'s activities to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
In fine weather, and aided by the current constantly setting southward through the Mozambique Channel, the Quilboma was actually making between eleven and a half and twelve knots "over the ground". Three days after leaving Pangawani she arrived at the entrance to Bulonga Harbour.
Six hours elapsed before she was berthed alongside the rotting wharf, to dry-out in a bed of noxious mud as the tide left her.
Mostyn got to work promptly, and with his accustomed enthusiasm. He had the good luck to find the Portuguese agent on the spot. The preposterous storage charges were discussed, haggled over, and settled; gangs of native workmen were hired, and the task of loading up the Quilboma with her bulky but precious cargo began.
It was now that Peter met with a sudden and unexpected check, for, on inspecting the metalwork, he found that even in a comparatively short time the moist, tropical atmosphere had attacked the steel in spite of the coating of oxide it had received before leaving England.
To deliver it in this state meant a possible, nay, probable rejection by the consignees; but fortunately the skipper of the Quilboma rose to the occasion.
"I\'ve a couple o\' kegs of oxide aboard," he announced. "Put the niggers on to it, and let \'em give the stuff another coat."
"Over the rust?" queried the conscientious Peter,
The Old Man winked solemnly.
"Who\'s to know?" he asked. "Paint\'s like charity: covers a multitude of defects."
"That won\'t do for me," declared Peter. "I\'ll have every bit of the scale chipped off before the least flick of paint is put on."
The skipper shrugged his shoulders but refrained from audible comment. Although in his mind he considered his charterer to be a silly young owl, especially as he was bound to a time limit, he had to confess that Mostyn was doing the right thing.
It took the native workmen two days of unremitting toil (Peter and the Portuguese agent took care that it was unremitting) to clean the steelwork and recoat it with oxide. Then the loading commenced.
With the perspiration pouring down his face, Mostyn supervised the removal of the ponderous girders from the enclosure, the Chief Mate being responsible for the storage of the material in the hold.
Presently the Old Man, puffing like a grampus, hurried up to Mostyn.
"Those four long bits won\'t stow," he announced. "Our main hold ain\'t long enough, not by five feet."
"Will they stow on deck?" asked Mostyn.
"And capsize the old hooker in the first bit o\' dirty weather we run into?" rejoined the skipper caustically. "You don\'t catch me doing that, my dear sir. We\'ll have to leave \'em behind, and the Thylied can pick \'em up. She\'s about due to leave Port Elizabeth, and ought to be here in a week\'s time."
"Look here, Skipper," said Peter firmly. "You contracted to bring this consignment from Bulonga to Pangawani. I gave you the dimensions of the longest girders before we came to terms, and you decl............