The shadow of the Wolf

by R. Austin Freeman

In that moment his nerve had come back. Holding on, with one hand, to the windlass, he dragged the body to the edge of the forecastle, hoisted the weight outboard, and then, taking advantage of a heavy lurch, gave the corpse a vigorous shove. There was a rattle and a hollow splash; and corpse and weight and suit-case had vanished into the seething water.

He clung to the swinging mast and waited. Breathlessly he told out the allotted seconds until, once again, the invisible Titan belched forth his thunderous warning. But this time the roar came over the yacht’s bow. She had drifted past the rock then. The danger was over; and Purcell would have to go down to Davy Jones’ Locker companionless after all.

Very soon, the water around ceased to boil and tumble, and, as the yacht’s wild plunging settled down once more into the normal rise and fall on the long swell, Varney turned his attention to the refitting of the halyard. But what was this on the creamy, duck sail? A pool of blood and a gory imprint of his own hand! That wouldn’t do at all. He would have to clear that away before he could hoist the sail; which was annoying, as the yacht was helpless without her headsail and was evidently drifting out to sea.

He fetched a bucket, a swab and a scrubbing-brush and set to work. The bulk of the large blood stain cleared off pretty completely after he had drenched the sail with a bucketful or two and given it a good scrubbing. But the edge of the stain, where the heat of the deck had dried it, remained like the painted boundary on a map, and the hand-print—which had also dried—though it faded to a pale buff, continued clearly visible.

Varney began to grow uneasy. If those stains would not come out—especially the hand-print—it would be very awkward; they would take such a deal of explaining. He decided to try the effect of marine soap, and fetched a cake from the cabin; but even this did not obliterate the stains completely, though it turned them a faint, greenish-brown, very unlike the colour of blood. Still he scrubbed on until at last the hand-print faded away entirely and the large stain was reduced to a faint, green wavy line; and that was the best he could do—and quite good enough; for, if that faint line should ever be noticed, no one would ever suspect its origin.

He put away the bucket and proceeded with the refitting. The sea had disengaged the sail from the forefoot and he hauled it on board without difficulty. Then there was the reeving of the new halyard; a troublesome business, involving the necessity of his going aloft, where his weight—small man as he was—made the yacht roll most infernally, and set him swinging to and fro like the bob of a metronome. But he was a smart yachtsman and active, though not powerful, and a few minutes’ strenuous exertion ended in his sliding down the shrouds with the new halyard running fairly through the upper block. A vigorous haul or two at the new, hairy rope sent the head of the dripping sail aloft, and the yacht was once more under control.

The rig of the Sandhopper was not smart but it was handy. She carried a short bowsprit to accommodate the single headsail and a relatively large mizzen, of which the advantage was that, by judicious management of the mizzen-sheet, the yacht would sail with very little attention to the helm. Of this advantage Varney was keenly appreciative just now, for he had several things to do before entering port. The excitement of the last hour and the bodily exertion had left him shaky and faint. He wanted refreshment, he wanted a wash and the various traces of recent events had to be removed. Also, there was that letter to be attended to. So that it was convenient to be able to leave the helm in charge of a lashing for a minute now and again.

When he had washed, he put the kettle on the spirit stove and, while it was heating, busied himself in cleaning the revolver, flinging the empty cartridge-case overboard and replacing it with a cartridge from the bag in the locker. Then he picked up the letter that he had taken from Purcell’s suit-case and examined it. It was addressed to “Joseph Penfield, Esq., George Yard, Lombard Street,” and was unstamped, though the envelope was fastened up. He affixed a stamp from his pocketbook; and, when the kettle began to boil, he held the envelope in the steam that issued from the spout. Very soon the flap of the envelope loosened and curled back, when he laid it aside to mix himself a mug of hot grog, which, together with the letter and a biscuit-tin, he took out into the cockpit. The fog was still dense, and the hoot of a steamer’s whistle from somewhere to the westward caused him to reach the foghorn out of the locker and blow a long blast on it. As if in answer to his treble squeak, came the deep bass note from the Wolf, and, unconsciously, he looked round. He turned automatically as one does towards a sudden noise, not expecting to see anything but fog; and what he did see startled him not a little.

For there was the lighthouse—or half of it, rather—standing up above the fog-bank, clear, distinct and hardly a mile away. The gilded vane, the sparkling lantern, the gallery and the upper half of the red-and-white-ringed tower, stood sharp against the pallid sky; but the lower half was invisible. It was a strange apparition—like half a lighthouse suspended in mid-air—and uncommonly disturbing, too. It raised a very awkward question. If he could see the lantern, the light keepers could see him. But how long had the lantern been clear of the fog? That was the question; and the answer to it might come in a highly disagreeable form.

Thus he meditated, as with one hand on the tiller, he munched his biscuit and sipped his grog. Presently he picked up the stamped envelope and drew from it a letter which he tore into fragments and dropped overboard. Then, from his pocketbook, he took a similar but unaddressed envelope from which he drew out its contents; and very curious those contents were. There was a letter, brief and laconic, which he read over thoughtfully. “These,” it ran, “are all I have by me, but they will do for the present and when you have planted them I will let you have a fresh supply.” There was no date and no signature, but the rather peculiar handwriting in jet black ink was similar to that on the envelope addressed to Joseph Penfield, Esq.