The dynamite magazines consist, as the name indicates, of the dismantled hulks of old merchant vessels, which, though long past active service, are still water-tight. One man only is in charge of each hulk, which he is not supposed to leave, everything that he needs being obtained for him by the boatman, whose sole duty it is to fetch and carry for the hulk-keepers.
Not only is a hulk-keeper who happens to be married forbidden to have his children with him, but even the presence of his wife is disallowed, his instructions being that no one but himself is under any circumstances to come on board.
These rules are not, however, very rigidly complied with. A hulk-keeper is only human, and as his life is lonely it often happens that when visitors row out to the ship he is by no means displeased to see them, and half-a-crown will frequently procure admittance, not only to his own quarters, but to the hold where the explosive itself is stored in small oblong wooden boxes, each containing fifty pounds. Nor are instances unknown where the solitude of a married hulk-keeper’s life has been cheered by the presence of his wife, the good lady joining her husband immediately after an inspection and remaining with him until such time as another visit may be looked for. Even if the fact of her presence on board becomes known on the island the matter is considered as nobody’s business but the inspector’s, and the love of an officer of the Crown is not so great among watermen and villagers as to lead them to go out of their way to assist him in the execution of his duty.
Had I not had reason to suppose that Mullen was somewhere in the neighbourhood of Southend, the possibility of his being on one of these hulks would never have occurred to me. But the more I thought of it the more I was impressed with the facilities which such a place afforded for a fugitive to lie in hiding, and I promptly decided that before I dismissed the hulks from my consideration I must first satisfy myself that the man I was looking for was on none of them.
A point which I did not lose sight of was that it was quite possible for a hulk-keeper who was taciturn by nature, and not prone to encourage gossip, to remain in entire ignorance of what was taking place throughout the country, and of the reward which had been offered for the apprehension of Captain Shannon. In fact there is at this moment in charge of one of the hulks off Canvey a man who is never known to go ashore, to receive visitors, or to enter into conversation. Whether he is unable to read I cannot say, but at all events he never asks for a newspaper, so that it is conceivable that he may not know—happy man!—whether the Conservatives or Liberals are in power, or whether England is ruled by Queen Victoria or by Edward the Seventh.
The first thing to be done was to make out a list of the dynamite hulks—just as I had made a list of the boats off Southend—and then to take the vessels one by one and satisfy myself that no one was there in hiding. I need not more fully describe the details of the various inquiries than to say that, in order to avoid attracting attention, they were made as at Southend by the waterman Quickly.
Most of the hulks are moored in the creek within sight of Hole Haven, where the principal inn of the island is situated, and all these we were soon able to dismiss from our calculation. But there was one hulk, the “Cuban Queen,” lying, not in the shelter of the creek, but in a much more lonely spot directly off Canvey, in regard to which I was not able to come to a conclusion. It lay in deeper water, nearly a mile out, and no one seemed to know much about the man in charge except that he was named Hughes and was married. He very rarely came on shore, but when he did so, returned immediately to his ship without speaking to anybody, and it was generally believed on the island that he often had his wife with him. That he had some one,—wife or otherwise,—on board I soon satisfied myself, and that by very simple means.
The man whose duty it was to wait upon the hulk-keepers was, I found, a methodical sort of fellow and kept a memorandum book in which he wrote down the different articles he was instructed to obtain. This book Quickly managed to get hold of for me, and on looking over it I saw that from a certain time,—dating some months back,—the supply of provisions ordered by Hughes had doubled in quantity. This might, of course, be due to the fact that his wife was on board; and, indeed, Quickly reported that the hulk attendant had remarked to him, “Hughes have got his old woman on the ‘Cuban Queen.’ I see her a-rowing about one night in the dinghy.” But I had made another and much more significant discovery when looking over the book,—a discovery which the presence of Hughes’ wife did not altogether explain. This was that not only had the quantity of food supplied to Hughes been largely increased, but that the quality too was vastly superior.
The man in attendance on the hulk had probably failed to notice this fact, and I did not deem it advisable to arouse his suspicion by making further inquiries. But I at once decided that before I put against the name of the “Cuban Queen” the little tick which signified that I might henceforth dismiss it from consideration, I should have to make the personal acquaintance of “Mrs. Hughes.”