I need not point out to the observant reader that Mullen’s one anxiety in all his movements was to cover up his traces. He could be daring and even reckless at times, as witness this fact of his having gone away in a boat, which, should his connection with Mrs. Burgoyne leak out, would, as I have already said, be the very first object of inquiry. It would seem, in fact, as if, so long as he had satisfied himself that he had left no “spoor” behind, he preferred adopting a bold course to a timid one, as for instance when he openly proclaimed the murder of Green to be the handiwork of Captain Shannon by leaving a declaration to that effect folded up in a bottle which was attached to the body.
How he had accomplished that particular crime I did not know, but I had the best of reasons for knowing that he had left no sign of himself behind. Carefulness in covering up his traces was indeed the key-word to his criminal code, and perhaps was the secret of the success with which he had hitherto carried out his designs. Given any fresh move on his part, and some cunning scheme for obliterating the trail he had left behind—for cutting the connecting cord between the past and the present—might be looked for as surely and inevitably as night may be looked for after day.
I had—more by luck than by subtlety—traced Mullen to the boatyard at Gravesend, but there I lost sight of him completely. He had taken the “Odd Trick” away with him the same evening, I was told, and had gone down the river, but what had become of him afterwards there was not the slightest evidence to show. To go down the river in search of him seemed the natural and only course, but I was beginning by this time to get some insight into my adversary’s methods, and felt that before asking myself, “Where has Mullen gone?” I should seriously consider the question, “What method has he adopted for covering up his traces?”
CHAPTER XXII
THE ARTFULNESS OF JAMES MULLEN
“What method has Mullen adopted for covering up his traces?” I asked myself, and as I did so a passage from the letter which had been sent to him by Mrs. Burgoyne—the letter which I had fortunately intercepted—flashed into my mind.
“I do not see any necessity,” she had written, “for doing as you say in regard to sending the present crew back to England under the pretence that we are not likely to be using the yacht for some time, and then, after getting the ship’s appearance altered by repainting and rechristening her the name you mention, engaging another crew of Norwegians.”
If Mullen had considered it necessary to take such precautions in regard to the steam yacht, he would beyond all question consider it even more necessary to his safety that a similar course should be adopted in regard to the boat which, until opportunity came for him to leave the country, was to carry “Cæsar and his fortunes.” That boat had been described to me by Gunnell as a five-ton yawl, painted white, picked out with gold. She had by now, no doubt, been entirely metamorphosed, and before I set out to continue my search for Mullen it was of vital importance that I should know something of the appearance of the boat for which I was to look. According to the waterman Gunnell, Mullen had gone down the river when he left Gravesend that evening, and indeed it was in the highest degree unlikely that he had gone up the river towards London in a small sailing vessel. Every mile traversed in that direction would render his movements more cramped and more likely to come under observation, whereas down the river meant the open sea, with access to the entire sea-board of the country and, if necessary, of the Continent.
But should the authorities by any chance discover Mullen’s connection with the Burgoynes and learn in the course of their subsequent inquiries that he had gone down the river in a five-ton yawl, painted white, belonging to Mr. Burgoyne, it would in all probability be down the river that they would go in search of a boat answering to that description. Mullen was not the man to omit this view of the case from his calculations, and knowing as I did the methodical way in which he always set to work to cover up his traces after every move, I felt absolutely sure that he had taken some precaution for setting possible pursuers upon the wrong tack.
The very fact that he had told Gunnell he was to call for a friend at Sheerness and had started off in that direction made me suspicious. What was to hinder him, I asked, from running back past Gravesend under cover of darkness and going up the river in search of a place where he could get the boat repainted or otherwise disguised? The more I thought of it the more certain I felt that to go in search of the “Odd Trick” before I had satisfied myself that nothing of the sort had occurred, would be to start on a fool’s errand, and I decided at last to hire a small sailing-boat from a waterman and to sail down the river as Mullen had done and then to beat back past Gravesend and towards London.
This I did, working the river thoroughly and systematically, and missing no boatyard or other likely place for effecting such a purpose as that with which I credited Mullen. It was a wearisome task, for the inquiries had to be made with tact and caution, and it was not until I had reached Erith that I learned anything which promised to repay me for my pains. There I was told that a small yacht had recently put into a certain boat-builder’s yard for repairs, but what these repairs had been my informant could not tell me. The yard in question was higher up the river, and thither I betook myself to pursue my inquiries. The man in charge was not a promising subject, and doggedly denied having executed any such job as that indicated. Mullen—if it were he—had no doubt paid him, and paid him well, to hold his tongue, and I thought none the worse of the fellow for being faithful to his promise, especially as I was able to obtain elsewhere the information I needed. The boat which had put into the yard for repairs had come by night and had left by night; but every waterside place has its loungers, and the less legitimate work your habitual lounger does himself, the more incumbent upon him does he feel it to superintend in person the work which is being done by other people. From some of the loungers who had witnessed the arrival of the boat which had been put in for repairs I had no difficulty in ascertaining that her hulk was painted white when she entered the yard and chocolate brown when she left, and that the time of her arrival coincided exactly with the date upon which the “Odd Trick” had left Gravesend. Nor was this all, for two different men who had seen her come in, and afterwards had watched her go out, were absolutely sure that, though she went out a cutter, she came in a yawl. This was an important difference, and would so alter the appearance of the boat that the very skipper who had been sailing her might well have been pardoned for not knowing his own craft.