CHAPTER IV
To keep such a romance to himself was beyond the powers of Mr. Chalk. The captain had made no conditions as to secrecy, and he therefore considered himself free to indulge in hints to his two greatest friends, which caused those gentlemen to entertain some doubts as to his sanity. Mr. Robert Stobell, whose work as a contractor had left a permanent and unmistakable mark upon Binchester, became imbued with a hazy idea that Mr. Chalk had invented a new process of making large diamonds. Mr. Jasper Tredgold, on the other hand, arrived at the conclusion that a highly respectable burglar was offering for some reason to share his loot with him. A conversation between Messrs. Stobell and Tredgold in the High Street only made matters more complicated.
"Chalk always was fond of making mysteries of things," complained Mr. Tredgold.
Mr. Stobell, whose habit was taciturn and ruminative, fixed his dull brown eyes on the ground and thought it over. "I believe it's all my eye and Betty Martin," he said, at length, quoting a saying which had been used in his family as an expression of disbelief since the time of his great-grandmother.
"He comes in to see me when I'm hard at work and drops hints," pursued his friend. "When I stop to pick'em up, out he goes. Yesterday he came in and asked me what I thought of a man who wouldn't break his word for half a million. Half a million, mind you! I just asked him who it was, and out he went again. He pops in and out of my office like a figure on a cuckoo-clock."
Mr. Stobell relapsed into thought again, but no gleam of expression disturbed the lines of his heavy face; Mr. Tredgold, whose sharp, alert features bred more confidence in his own clients than those of other people, waited impatiently.
"He knows something that we don't," said Mr. Stobell, at last; "that's what it is."
Mr. Tredgold, who was too used to his friend's mental processes to quarrel with them, assented.
"He's coming round to smoke a pipe with me to-morrow night," he said, briskly, as he turned to cross the road to his office. "You come too, and we'll get it out of him. If Chalk can keep a secret he has altered, that's all I can say."
His estimate of Mr. Chalk proved correct. With Mr. Tredgold acting as cross-examining counsel and Mr. Stobell enacting the part of a partial and overbearing judge, Mr. Chalk, after a display of fortitude which surprised himself almost as much as it irritated his friends, parted with his news and sat smiling with gratification at their growing excitement.
"Half a million, and he won't go for it?" ejaculated Mr. Tredgold. "The man must be mad."
"No; he passed his word and he won't break it," said Mr. Chalk. "The captain's word is his bond, and I honour him for it. I can quite understand it."
Mr. Tredgold shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Mr. Stobell; that gentleman, after due deliberation, gave an assenting nod.
"He can't get at it, that's the long and short of it," said Mr. Tredgold, after a pause. "He had to leave it behind when he was rescued, or else risk losing it by telling the men who rescued him about it, and he's had no opportunity since. It wants money to take a ship out there and get it, and he doesn't see his way quite clear. He'll have it fast enough when he gets a chance. If not, why did he make that map?"
Mr. Chalk shook his head, and remarked mysteriously that the captain had his reasons. Mr. Tredgold relapsed into silence, and for some time the only sound audible came from a briar-pipe which Mr. Stobell ought to have thrown away some years before.
"Have you given up that idea of a yachting cruise of yours, Chalk?" demanded Mr. Tredgold, turning on him suddenly.
"No," was the reply. "I was talking about it to Captain Bowers only the other day. That's how I got to hear of the treasure."
Mr. Tredgold started and gave a significant glance at Mr. Stobell. In return he got a wink which that gentleman kept for moments of mental confusion.
"What did the captain tell you for?" pursued Mr. Tredgold, returning to Mr. Chalk. "He wanted you to make an offer. He hasn't got the money for such an expedition; you have. The yarn about passing his word was so that you shouldn't open your mouth too wide. You were to do the persuading, and then he could make his own terms. Do you see? Why, it's as plain as A B C."
"Plain as the alphabet," said Mr. Stobell, almost chidingly.
Mr. Chalk gasped and looked from one to the other.
"I should like to have a chat with the captain about it," continued Mr. Tredgold, slowly and impressively. "I'm a business man and I could put it on a business footing. It's a big risk, of course; all those things are . . . but if we went shares . . . if we found the money–"
He broke off and, filling his pipe slowly, gazed in deep thought at the wall. His friends waited expectantly.
"Combine business with pleasure," resumed Mr. Tredgold, lighting his pipe; "sea-air . . . change . . . blow away the cobwebs . . . experience for Edward to be left alone. What do you think, Stobell?" he added, turning suddenly.
Mr. Stobell gripped the arms of his chair in his huge hands and drew his bulky figure to a more upright position.
"What do you mean by combining business with pleasure?" he said, eyeing him with dull suspicion.
"Chalk is set on a trip for the love of it," explained Mr. Tredgold.
"If we take on the contract, he ought to pay a bigger share, then," said the other, firmly.
"Perhaps he will," said Tredgold, hastily.
Mr. Stobell pondered again and, slightly raising one hand, indicated that he was in the throes of another idea and did not wish to be disturbed.
"You said it would be experience for Edward to be left alone," he said, accusingly.
"I did," was the reply.
"You ought to pay more, too, then," declared the contractor, "because it's serving of your ends as well."
"We can't split straws," exclaimed Tredgold, impatiently. "If the captain consents we three will find the money and divide our portion, whatever it is, equally."
Mr. Chalk, who had been in the clouds during this discussion, came back to earth again. "If he consents," he said, sadly; "but he won't."
"Well, he can only, refuse," said Mr. Tredgold; "and, anyway, we'll have the first refusal. Things like that soon get about. What do you say to a stroll? I can think better while I'm walking."
His friends assenting, they put on their hats and sallied forth. That they should stroll in the direction of Dialstone Lane surprised neither of them. Mr. Tredgold leading, they went round by the church, and that gentleman paused so long to admire the architecture that Mr. Stobell got restless.
"You've seen it before, Tredgold," he said, shortly.
"It's a fine old building," said the other. "Binchester ought to be proud of it. Why, here we are at Captain Bowers's!"
"The house has been next to the church for a couple o' hundred years," retorted his friend.
"Let's go in," said Mr. Tredgold. "Strike while the iron's hot. At any rate," he concluded, as Mr. Chalk voiced feeble objections, "we can see how the land lies."
He knocked at the door and then, stepping aside, left Mr. Chalk to lead the way in. Captain Bowers, who was sitting with Prudence, looked up at their entrance, and putting down his newspaper extended a hearty welcome.
"Chalk didn't like to pass without looking in," said Mr. Tredgold, "and I haven't seen you for some time. You know Stobell?"
The captain nodded, and Mr. Chalk, pale with excitement, accepted his accustomed pipe from the hands of Miss Drewitt and sat nervously awaiting events. Mr. Tasker set out the whisky, and, Miss Drewitt avowing a fondness for smoke in other people, a comfortable haze soon filled the room. Mr. Tredgold, with a significant glance at Mr. Chalk, said that it reminded him of a sea-fog.
It only reminded Mr. Chalk, however, of a smoky chimney from which he had once suffered, and he at once entered into minute details. The theme was an inspiriting one, and before Mr. Tredgold could hark back to the sea again Mr. Stobell was discoursing, almost eloquently for him, upon drains. From drains to the shortcomings of the district council they progressed by natural and easy stages, and it was not until Miss Drewitt had withdrawn to the clearer atmosphere above that a sudden ominous silence ensued, which Mr. Chalk saw clearly he was expected to break.
"I—I've been telling them some of your adventures," he said, desperately, as he glanced at the captain; "they're both interested in such things."
The latter gave a slight start and glanced shrewdly at his visitors. "Aye, aye," he said, composedly.
"Very interesting, some of them," murmured Mr. Tredgold. "I suppose you'll have another voyage or two before you've done? One, at any rate."
"No," said the captain, "I've had my share of the sea; other men may have a turn now. There's nothing to take me out again—nothing."
Mr. Tredgold coughed and murmured something about breaking off old habits too suddenly.
"It's a fine career," sighed Mr. Chalk.
"A manly life," said Mr. Tredgold, emphatically.
"It's like every other profession, it has two sides to it," said the captain.
"It is not so well paid as it should be," said the wily Tredgold, "but I suppose one gets chances of making money in outside ways sometimes."
The captain assented, and told of a steward of his who had made a small fortune by selling Japanese curios to people who didn't understand them.
The conversation was interesting, but extremely distasteful to a business man intent upon business. Mr. Stobell took his pipe out of his mouth and cleared his throat. "Why, you might build a hospital with it," he burst out, impatiently.
"Build a hospital!" repeated the astonished captain, as Mr. Chalk bent suddenly to do up his shoelace.
"Think of the orphans you could be a father to!" added Mr. Stobell, making the most of an unwonted fit of altruism.
The captain looked inquiringly at Mr. Tredgold.
"And widows," said Mr. Stobell, and, putting his pipe in his mouth as a sign that he had finished his remarks, gazed stolidly at the company.
"Stobell must be referring to a story Chalk told us of some precious stones you buried, I think," said Mr. Tredgold, reddening. "Aren't you, Stobell?"
"Of course I am," said his friend. "You know that."
Captain Bowers glanced at Mr. Chalk, but that gentleman was still busy with his shoe-lace, only looking up when Mr. Tredgold, taking the bull by the horns, made the captain a plain, straightforward offer to fit out and give him the command of an expedition to recover the treasure. In a speech which included the benevolent Mr. Stobell's hospitals, widows, and orphans, he pointed out a score of reasons why the captain should consent, and wound up with a glowing picture of Miss Drewitt as the heiress of the wealthiest man in Binchester. The captain heard him patiently to an end and then shook his head.
"I passed my word," he said, stiffly.
Mr. Stobell took his pipe out of his mouth again to offer a little encouragement. "Tredgold has broke his word before now," he observed; "he's got quite a name for it."
"But you would go out if it were not for that?" inquired Tredgold, turning a deaf ear to this remark.
"Naturally," said the captain, smiling; "but, then, you see I did."
Mr. Tredgold drummed with his fingers on the arms of his chair, and after a little hesitation asked as a great favour to be permitted to see the map. As an estate agent, he said, he took a professional interest in plans of all kinds.
Captain Bowers rose, and in the midst of an expectant silence took the map from the bureau, and placing it on the table kept it down with his fist. The others drew near and inspected it.
"Nobody but Captain Bowers has ever seen the other side," said Mr. Chalk, impressively.
"Except my niece," interposed the captain. "She wanted to see it, and I trust her as I would trust myself. She thinks the same as I do about it."
His stubby forefinger travelled slowly round the coast-line until, coming to the extreme south-west corner, it stopped, and a mischievous smile creased his beard.
"It's buried here," he observed. "All you've got to do is to find the island and dig in that spot."
Mr. Chalk laughed and shook his head as at a choice piece of waggishness.
"Suppose," said Mr. Tredgold, slowly—"suppose anybody found it without your connivance, would you take your share?"