I turned to Quickly: “Can you get round to the station without being seen, before that person gets there, so that he shan’t suppose he’s followed?”
“Ees zur,” said Quickly, “if I go through the churchyard and cross yon field.”
“Off you go, then,” I said. “Here are three pounds for expenses. Get to the station before he does and keep an eye for him from the window of the men’s waiting-room, where he can’t see you. If he goes into any waiting-room it will have to be into the ladies’, while he has that dress on. So you go into the general room. But take tickets before he gets there, one to Shoeburyness, which is as far as the line goes one way, and the other to London, which is as far as it goes in the opposite direction. If he waits for the next down train, you wait too, and go where he goes, but if he takes the up train to London, slip out and into the same train when his back is turned. Wherever he goes, up or down, you’re to go too, and when he gets out, shadow him, without being seen yourself, and make a note of any place he calls at. Then when you’ve run him to earth, telegraph to Mr. Muir at the inn here—not to me—saying where you are, and I’ll join you next train. But keep your eyes open at all the stations the train stops at to see he doesn’t get out and give you the slip. Do this job well and carry it through and there’ll be a couple of ten-pound notes for you when you get back. And now be off.”
CHAPTER X
I BOARD THE “CUBAN QUEEN”
The opportunity to pay a surprise visit to the “Cuban Queen” in the absence of “Mrs. Hughes” had come at last, and as I had already hit upon a plan by which I might carry out my purpose, without giving Hughes cause to suspect that my happening upon him was other than accidental, I proceeded at once to put it into effect.
Telling Muir that I would rejoin him at the inn before long, I slipped off my clothes, tossed them together in a heap on the beach with a big stone atop to keep them from being blown away, and plunged into the water. I am a strong swimmer, and the tide was running out so swiftly that when I reached the “Cuban Queen,” which was moored about a mile from shore, I was not in the least “winded,” and indeed felt more than fit to fight my way back against the current. But, in order that the game should work out as I had planned, it was necessary for me to assume the appearance of being extremely exhausted. Hence when I found myself approaching the hulk I began to make a pretence of swimming feebly, panting noisily meanwhile, and sending up the most pitiful cries for help.
As I had expected and intended, Hughes came on deck, and looking over the ship’s side inquired loudly, “Wot’s the —— row?”
Hughes, I may here remark, was, as I soon discovered (you could not be in his company for half a minute without doing so), a man of painfully limited vocabulary. Perhaps I should say that his colour sense had been developed at the expense of his vocabulary, for if he did not see everything in a rose-coloured light, he certainly applied one adjective, vividly suggestive of crimson, to every object which he found it necessary to particularise.
“Wot’s the —— row?” he repeated, when there was no immediate reply to his question.
“Help!” I gasped faintly, pretending to make frantic clutches at a mooring chain, and clinging to it as if half dead with exhaustion and fear.