The Cheyne mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

French stepped quickly forward and seized her arm.

“There now, Miss Dangle,” he said kindly but firmly. “Stop that and pull yourself together. Your terrible experiences are over now and you’re in the hands of friends. But you mustn’t give way like this. Make an effort, and you’ll be better directly.” He led her to a hatchway and made her sit down, while he continued soothing her as one would a fractious child.

But so great was the agitation of both girls that it was quite a considerable time before the tragic tale of the L’Escaut’s expedition became fully unfolded. And when at last it was told it proved still but one more illustration of the old truth that the qualities of greed and envy and selfishness have that seed of decay within themselves which leads their unhappy victims to overreach themselves, and instead of gaining what they seek, to lose their all. Shorn of incoherent phrases and irrelevant details the story was this.

On the 24th of May the L’Escaut had left Antwerp with twenty-eight souls aboard. Aft there were Joan, Susan, Blessington, Sime, Dangle, and Merkel, with the captain, first officer, and engineer—nine persons, while forward were three divers, six assistants, a cook, a steward, four seamen, and four engine-room staff, or nineteen altogether. Once clear of the Scheldt Joan’s treatment had changed. Her food was no longer drugged, and when in a few days she got over the effects of the doses she had received, she found her jailers polite and friendly and anxious to minimize the inconvenience and anxiety she was suffering. They told her they did not wish her evil, and were taking her with them simply to prevent information as to themselves or their affairs leaking out through her. This, of course, she did not believe, since she did not possess sufficient information about them to enable her to interfere with their plans. But later their real motive dawned on her. Gradually she realized that Blessington had fallen in love with her, and though he was circumspect enough, her distrust of him was such that she felt sick with horror and dread when she thought of him. Nothing, however, had occurred to which she could take exception, and had it not been for her fears as to her own fate and her anxieties as to Cheyne’s, the voyage would have been pleasant enough.

The L’Escaut was a fast boat, and four days had brought them to the spot referred to in the cipher. After three days’ search they found the wreck, and all three divers had at once gone down. A week was spent in making an examination of the vessel, at the end of which time they had located the gold. It was in her stern, low down and not far from her port side. The divers recommended blowing her plates off at this spot, and ten days more sufficed for this. Through the hole thus made the divers were able to draw in tackle lowered from the L’Escaut, and the ingots of gold were slung to cradles and drawn up with really wonderful ease and speed. They had, moreover, been favored with a peculiarly fine stretch of weather, work having to be suspended on only eight days of the thirty-seven they were there.

On reaching the wreck in the first instance the captain had mustered his crew aft and had informed them—what he could no longer keep secret—that they were out for gold, and that if they found it in the quantities they hoped, every man on board would receive at the end of the trip a gift of £1,000 in addition to his pay. The men at first seemed more than satisfied, but as ingot after ingot was recovered the generosity of the offer shrank in their estimation. Four days before the appearance of French’s party the divers had reported that another day would complete the work, and then appeared the first hint that all was not well. On that last evening before the completion of the diving the men came forward in a body and asked to see the captain. They explained that they had been reckoning up the value of the gold, and they weren’t having £1,000 apiece: they wanted an even divide all round. The captain argued with them civilly enough at first—told them that they couldn’t get the metal ashore and turned into money in secret, that the port officers or coastguards wherever it was unloaded would be bound to learn what they were doing and that then the government would claim an enormous percentage of the whole, so that the £1,000 per man was an extremely liberal gift. The men declared that they would look after the unloading, and that they were going to have what they wanted. Hot words passed, and then the captain drew a revolver and said that he was captain there, and that what he said would go. Susan was watching the scene from the quarter-deck behind, but she could not be quite sure of what followed. One of the crew pressed forward and the captain raised his revolver. She did not think he meant to fire, but another of the men either genuinely or purposely misunderstood his action. He raised his hand, a shot rang out, and the captain fell dead. The mutineers were evidently terribly upset by a murder which they had apparently never intended, and had Blessington and Sime acted intelligently, the trouble might have gone no further. But at that moment these two worthies, who must have been in the chart-house all the time, began firing through the windows at the men. A regular pitched battle ensued, in which Sime and five of the crew were hit, three of the latter being killed. It was then war to the knife between those who berthed forward and those who berthed aft. All that night sporadic shots rang out at intervals, but at daybreak on the following day matters came to a head. The crew with considerable generalship made a feint on the fo’c’sle with some of their number while the remainder swarmed aft below decks. The defenders, taken in the rear, were shot down, and the mutineers were masters of the ship.

All that next day Joan and Susan, terror-stricken, clung to each other in the latter’s cabin. The men were reasonably civil: told them they might get themselves food, and let them alone. But that night a further terrible quarrel burst out between, as they learned afterwards, those who wished to murder the girls and go off with the treasure and those who feared murder more than the loss of the gold. Once again there were the reports of shots and the groans of wounded men. The fusillade went on at intervals all night, until next morning one of the divers—a superior man with whom the girls had often talked—had come in with his head covered with blood, and asked the girls to bandage it. Susan had some slight surgical knowledge, and did what she could for him. Then the man told them that of the entire ship’s company only themselves and seven others were alive, and that of these seven four were so badly wounded that they would probably not recover. Among these was Blessington. Sime and James Dangle were dead.

The slightly injured men threw the dead overboard and cleaned up the traces of the fighting, while the girls ministered to the seriously wounded. Of course, in the three days up till the arrival of the avengers—who had by a strange trick of fate become the rescuers—one man had died. Of the eight-and-twenty who sailed from Antwerp there were therefore left only nine: the two girls and four slightly and three seriously wounded men. None of those able to move understood either engineering or seamanship, so that they had luckily decided to remain at anchor in the hope of some ship picking up their flag of distress.

“There is just one thing I should like to understand,” said Cheyne to Joan, when later on that day a prize crew had been put aboard the L’Escaut and steam was being raised for the return to England, “and that is what happened to you on the night that we burgled Earlswood. You got back to your rooms, then left again with Sime and Blessington?”

“There’s not much to tell about that,” Joan answered, smiling happily up into her lover’s eyes. “I was, as you know, standing like a watchman before the door of Earlswood, when I saw Susan and her brother coming up. I rang and knocked and kept them talking as long as possible. Then when they opened the door I slipped away, but I heard your footsteps and realized that you had got out by the back way. I heard you run off down the lane with Dangle after you, then remembering your arrangement about throwing away the tracing, I climbed over the wall, picked it up and went back to my rooms. The first thing I did was to photograph it, then I hid it in my color box. I had scarcely done so when Sime called. He said you had met with an accident—been caught between two motorcars and knocked down by one of them—and that you were seriously injured. He said you were conscious and had given him my address and were calling for me. I went down to find Blessington driving a car, though I didn’t know then it was Blessington. As soon as we started Sime held a chloroformed cloth over my mouth, and I don’t remember much more till we were on the L’Escaut.”