TIMOTHY sat now on an upturned trunk, his elbows on the rails of the s.s. Tigilanes and his speculative eye roving the river front of Liverpool. It was the last hour of the voyage, and Timothy, who had left Funchal with four hundred pounds in his pocket-book, had exactly three genuine shillings and a five-milreis piece of dubious quality.
A man strolled along the deck and fell in at his side.
“Cleaned you out last night, didn’t they?” he asked sympathetically.
“Eh? Oh, yes, I believe they did. That red-haired man had all the luck and most of the cards.”
He smiled and Timothy had a swift, happy smile that brought tired little ridges under his eyes. He was not only good-looking and young, but he was interesting.
The man at his side took the cigar from his teeth and looked at it before he spoke.
“Of course, you know they were crooks—they work this coast line regularly.”
“Eh?”
Timothy looked round, shocked and pained.
“You don’t say? Crooks! What, that little red-haired fellow who has been trying to pick a quarrel with me all the voyage, and the tall, nice-looking Englishman?”
His companion nodded.
“Don’t you remember the Captain warned us not to play cards——”
“They always do that to be on the safe side,” said Timothy, but he was obviously uneasy. “Of course, if I knew they were crooks——”
“Knew! Good lord! Anybody will tell you. Ask the purser. Anyway, you’ve been stung and you can do nothing. The best thing to do is to grin and bear your losses. It is experience.”
Timothy felt the three honest shillings in his pocket and whistled dismally.
“Of course, if I were sure——”
He turned abruptly away and raced down the main companion-way to the purser’s little office under the stairs.
“Mr. Macleod, I want to see you.”
“Yes, sir,”—all pursers are a little suspicious,—“anything wrong with your bill?”
“No—not unless his name’s Bill. Shall I come in?”
The purser opened the half-door and admitted him to the sanctuary.
“There are two fellows aboard this packet—a red-haired fellow named Chelwyn and a disguised duke named Brown—what do you know about ’em?”
The purser made a face. It was intended to convey his lack of real interest in either.
“I’ll put it plainly,” said the patient Timothy. “Are they crooks?”
“They play cards,” said the purser diplomatically.
He desired at this the eleventh hour to avoid scandal, explanations, and such other phenomena which he associated in his mind with the confrontation of the wise men and their dupes. That sort of thing brought the Line into disrepute, and indirectly reflected upon the ship’s officers. Besides, the ship was making port, and, like all pursers, he was up to his eyes in work and frantically anxious to clear it off in a minimum time so that he could take a train to his little villa at Lytham, where his family was established.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Anderson, if you’ve been stung,” he said, “but the captain gives fair warning the first night out of Cape Town and Madeira—that’s where you came aboard, isn’t it?—and there were notices posted up, both in the saloon and in the smoking-room. Have you lost much?”
He looked up with some sympathy at the tall, athletic figure with the tired, smiling eyes.
“I cleared up ￡500 at the Funchal Casino,” said Timothy, “and I reckon I have spent ￡100 legitimately.”
“The rest is gone, eh?” said the purser. “Well, Mr. Anderson, I am afraid I can do nothing. The best thing to do is to mark it down against ‘Experience’.”
“I’ll forgive you for being philosophical about my losses,” said Timothy. “Will you be kind enough to tell me the number of Mr. Chelwyn’s cabin?”
“Two seventy-four,” said the purser. “I say, Mr. Anderson, if I were you I’d let the matter drop.”
“I know you would, dear old thing,” said Timothy, shaking him warmly by the hand, “and if I were you I should let it drop too. But, as I am me—274, I think you said?”
“I hope you’re not going to make any trouble, Mr. Anderson,” said the alarmed purser. “We’ve done our best to make you comfortable on the voyage.”
“And I did my best to pay for my ticket, so we’re quits,” and with a wave of his hand Timothy strode out of the cabin, dodged down past the steward carrying up the luggage to the next deck, and walked swiftly along the carpeted corridor till he found a little number-plate bearing the figures “274.” He knocked at the cabin door, and gruff voice said, “Come in!”
Chelwyn, the red-haired man, was in his shirt sleeves, fastening his collar. Brown was sitting on the edge of his bunk, smoking a cigarette, and Chelwyn, who had seen Timothy reflected in the mirror as he came in, was first to recognise him.
“Hullo, Mr. Anderson, do you want anything?” he asked politely. “Sorry you’ve had such bad luck—what the devil are you doing?”
Timothy had shut the door and slipped the bolt.
“Yes, I want something,” he said. “I want four hundred pounds.”
“You want——”
“Listen. I thought you were playing straight, you fellows, or I wouldn’t have played with you. I’m willing to take a chance, for that’s my motto in life, dear lads, but there isn’t a chance to take when you’re playing with crooks.”
“Look here,” said the red-haired man, walking over to him and emphasising his words with his forefinger against Timothy’s chest, “that kind of stuff doesn’t amuse me. If you lose your money, lose it like a sportsman and a gentleman, and don’t squeal.”
Timothy grinned.
“Boys,” he said, “I want four hundred pounds from you, so step lively.”
The suave Mr. Brown, who had been watching the scene with bored eyes, stroking his drooping moustache the while, made a gentle entrance into the conversation.
“I’m rather surprised, in fact, I am shocked, Mr. Anderson, that you sho............