“And you know too the familiar bungler who is always boasting about his astuteness, unless, as occasionally happens (but only in the pages of a detective novel, for in real life our friends are more ready to record our failures than our successes), he has some applauding Boswell—a human note of exclamation—who passes his life in ecstasies of admiring wonder at his friend’s marvellous penetration. And as it is not unlikely that you have your own opinion as to what a detective should or should not do under certain circumstances, I ask you at this point of my narrative to take me into your confidence and let me put to you the following question. Suppose it had been you, and not I, who, in the hope of getting sight of James Mullen—as we will for convenience’ sake call the person passing as Mrs. Hughes—had kept a watch upon the ‘Cuban Queen,’ as described in Chapter IX. And suppose it had been you and not I who had been in the company of Muir and Quickly that evening, and had seen Mullen come from the hulk in a boat, under cover of twilight, and proceed in the direction of Benfleet, whence he could take train either to London or to Southend. Would you in that case have acted as I did, and instructed Quickly to shadow him, so that you might get an opportunity of paying a surprise visit to the ‘Cuban Queen’ in Mullen’s absence? or would you have abandoned your proposed visit to the hulk and decided to follow him yourself?”
Let me sum up briefly the arguments for and against either course as they presented themselves to me when I had so hastily to make choice. In the first place, I had to recognise that in intrusting the task to Quickly I had one or two very ugly possibilities to face. Though a sensible fellow enough for ordinary purposes, he was hardly the sort of man one would select for so delicate a piece of work as that of shadowing a suspect. He might prove himself sufficiently clever to carry it through successfully, but it was much more likely that he would fail, and it was even conceivable that he might so bungle it as to attract the attention of Mullen, and thus to frighten away the very bird for whom I was spreading a net. But what weighed with me even more than this was that in deputing Quickly to follow Mullen I was losing sight—at all events for a time—of the central figure of my investigations, as they then stood—of the person whom, rightly or wrongly, I suspected to be the object of my search—and this was a course which no one placed as I was could adopt without the gravest misgiving.
On the other hand, the reasons which most influenced me in deciding to intrust the task of shadower to Quickly were equally weighty. If the person who was secreted on the “Cuban Queen” were James Mullen, he was not likely, in view of the hue and cry that had been raised, and of the vigorous search which was being made, to venture far from so secure a hiding-place, and the probability was that he had gone to some station up or down the line—probably to Southend—to post some package in order that it might not bear the Canvey postmark.
Another reason was that I could not ask for an arrest merely upon suspicion, and it was quite possible that to obtain the necessary evidence I might have to keep an eye upon Mullen for some time to come. By shadowing him upon the present occasion, I ran the risk of being seen and recognised, which would not so much matter in the case of Quickly. Then, again, it was highly desirable I should pay my surprise visit to the “Cuban Queen” in the absence of the suspected party, and if I neglected to do so on the present occasion I might not get another opportunity.
If I could satisfy myself by a visit to the hulk that the person who had been concealed there was really a woman, I need trouble myself no further about the vessel and its occupants. But if, on the other hand, I found evidence which went to prove that the supposed Mrs. Hughes was of the male sex, I should have good cause to believe that I had indeed discovered the hiding-place of the redoubtable James Mullen.
My last reason was that at the moment when I was called upon to make my decision, I was wearing a Norfolk shooting jacket and knickerbockers. This costume, especially in the streets of London, would render me conspicuous, and in fact would be the worst possible attire for so ticklish a job as that of shadowing a suspect, whereas Quickly’s dress would attract no attention either in town or country.
I have asked my readers to take me into their confidence and to face with me the dilemma in which I was placed, because I am in hopes that most of them will admit that under the circumstances, and especially in view of the conspicuous dress I happened to be wearing, I acted rightly. Those who so decide will not be too hard upon me when I confess that, in allowing myself to lose sight of the person who had been in hiding on the hulk, I made, as events proved, a fatal and, but for other circumstances, an irretrievable mistake. That I am but a bungler at the best is, I fear, already only too evident, though I make bold to say that it is not often that I bungle so badly as I did on this occasion. The results of that bungle—results big with consequences to others and to myself—were twofold. The first was that Quickly never returned from the quest upon which I had despatched him, nor from that day to this has any word of him been received. He simply disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. The second was that he was companioned in his disappearance by the person whom I had instructed him to follow. James Mullen, if James Mullen it were, did not come back to the hulk, and I had after a time to admit to myself that, so far as Canvey Island and the “Cuban Queen” were concerned, “the game was up.”
CHAPTER XII
HOW CAPTAIN SHANNON’S AUTOGRAPH CAME INTO MY POSSESSION
The set-back I had received, so far from causing me to abandon my search for Mullen, only nerved me to fresh endeavour, though how to go to work I could not for some time determine. To threaten Hughes that I would report him to the authorities unless he made terms for himself by telling me all he knew about his mysterious visitor, was not a course which commended itself to me. I might, as a last resource, and in the event of everything else failing, be compelled to so bold a step, but for the present I felt that the wisest thing I could do would be to trace Quickly’s movements after he had started to shadow the person who had come ashore from the hulk. This would, however, necessitate my leaving Canvey, and in the meantime it was of the highest importance that an eye should be kept upon the “Cuban Queen.”
It was quite within the bounds of possibility that Mullen might yet return, in which case he would probably do so by night. Hence it was at night that I kept my keenest watch upon the hulk, and in order to do this I thought it advisable to leave the inn and install myself in a small furnished cottage, which, by an unexpected stroke of luck, I was able to rent very cheaply. But, as I could not pursue my inquiries in regard to the fate of Quickly and keep an eye at the same time upon the “Cuban Queen,” I decided to send for a friend of mine, named Grant, whom I could trust implicitly.