Deep Waters Read online

  ‘And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the moment, however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my host to think of anything else.

  ‘“I hope that I have said nothing to pain you,” said I.

  ‘“Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask how you know and how much you know?” He spoke now in a half-jesting fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.

  ‘“It is simplicity itself,” said I. “When you bared your arm to draw that fish into the boat, I saw that ‘J. A.’ had been tattooed in the bend of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the staining of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to obliterate them. It was obvious, then, that those initials had once been very familiar to you, and that you had afterwards wished to forget them.”

  ‘“What an eye you have!” he cried, with a sigh of relief. “It is just as you say. But we won’t talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a quiet cigar.”

  ‘From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of suspicion in Mr Trevor’s manner towards me. Even his son remarked it. “You’ve given the governor such a turn,” said he, “that he’ll never be sure again of what you know and what you don’t know.” He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind that it peeped out at every action. At last I became so convinced that I was causing him uneasiness that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day, however, before I left, an incident occurred which proved in the sequel to be of importance.

  ‘We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us, basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when the maid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to see Mr Trevor.

  ‘“What is his name?” asked my host.

  ‘“He would not give any.”

  ‘“What does he want, then?”

  ‘“He says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment’s conversation.”

  ‘“Show him round here.” An instant afterwards there appeared a little weazened fellow, with a cringing manner and a shambling style of walking. He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve, a red and black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As he came slouching across the lawn I heard Mr Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing noise in his throat, and, jumping out of his chair, he ran into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of brandy as he passed me.

  ‘“Well, my man,” said he, “what can I do for you?”

  ‘The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the same loose-lipped smile upon his face.

  ‘“You don’t know me?” he asked.

  ‘“Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson!” said Mr Trevor, in a tone of surprise.

  ‘“Hudson it is, sir,” said the seaman. “Why, it’s thirty year and more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still picking my salt meat out of the harness cask.”

  ‘“Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,” cried Mr Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low voice. “Go into the kitchen,” he continued out loud, “and you will get food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a situation.”

  ‘“Thank you, sir,” said the seaman, touching his forelock. “I’m just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short handed at that, and I wants a rest. I thought I’d get it either with Mr Beddoes or with you.”

  ‘“Ah!” cried Mr Trevor, “you know where Mr Beddoes is?”

  ‘“Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,” said the fellow, with a sinister smile, and slouched off after the maid to the kitchen. Mr Trevor mumbled something to us about having been shipmates with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the house we found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The whole incident left a most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was not sorry next day to leave Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my presence must be a source of embarrassment to my friend.

  ‘All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I went up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a few experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I received a telegram from my friend imploring me to return to Donnithorpe, and saying that he was in great need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped everything and set out for the north once more.

  ‘He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance that the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had grown thin and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for which he had been remarkable.

  ‘“The governor is dying,” were the first words he said.

  ‘“Impossible!” I cried. “What is the matter?”

  ‘“Apoplexy. Nervous shock. He’s been on the verge all day. I doubt if we shall find him alive.”

  ‘I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news.

  ‘“What has caused it?” I said.

  ‘“Ah, that is the point. Jump in, and we can talk it over while we drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you left us?”

  ‘“Perfectly.”

  ‘“Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?”

  ‘“I have no idea.”

  ‘“It was the Devil, Holmes!” he cried.

  ‘I stared at him in astonishment.

  ‘“Yes; it was the Devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour since—not one. The governor has never held up his head from that evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him, and his heart broken, all through this accursed Hudson.”

  ‘“What power had he, then?”

  ‘“Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable, good old governor! How could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian? But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise me for the best.”

  ‘We were dashing along the smooth, white country road, with the long stretch of Broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of the setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the high chimneys and the flagstaff which marked the squire’s dwelling.

  ‘“My father made the fellow gardener,” said my companion, “and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father’s best gun and treat himself to little shooting parties. And all this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face, that I would have knocked him down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time, and now I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a little more, I might not have been a wiser man.

  ‘“Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal, Hudson, became more and more intrusive, until at last, on his making some insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the shoulder and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid face,
and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I don’t know what passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind apologising to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties with himself and his household.

  ‘“Ah, my boy,” said he, “it is all very well to talk, but you don’t know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor. I’ll see that you shall know, come what may! You wouldn’t believe harm of your poor old father, would you, lad?” He was very much moved, and shut himself up in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he was writing busily.

  ‘“That evening there came what seemed to be a grand release, for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the dining-room as we sat after dinner and announced his intention in the thick voice of a half-drunken man.

  ‘“I’ve had enough of Norfolk,” said he, “I’ll run down to Mr Beddoes, in Hampshire. He’ll be as glad to see me as you were, I dare say.”

  ‘“You’re not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I hope?” said my father, with a tameness which made my blood boil.

  ‘“I’ve not had my ’pology,” said he sulkily, glancing in my direction.

  ‘“Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow rather roughly?” said the dad, turning to me.

  ‘“On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary patience towards him,” I answered.

  ‘“Oh, you do, do you?” he snarled. “Very good, mate. We’ll see about that!” He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall.

  ‘“And how?” I asked eagerly.

  ‘“In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge postmark. My father read it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that he had had a stroke. Dr Fordham came over at once, and we put him to bed; but the paralysis has spread, he has shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly find him alive.”

  ‘“You horrify me, Trevor!” I cried. “What, then, could have been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result?”

  ‘“Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!”

  ‘As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we dashed up to the door, my friend’s face convulsed with grief, a gentleman in black emerged from it.

  ‘“When did it happen, doctor?” asked Trevor.

  ‘“Almost immediately after you left.”

  ‘“Did he recover consciousness?”

  ‘“For an instant before the end.”

  ‘“Any message for me?”

  ‘“Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.”

  ‘My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while I remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was the past of this Trevor: pugilist, traveller, and gold-digger; and how had he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon his arm, and die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingbridge? Then I remembered that Fordingbridge was in Hampshire, and that this Mr Beddoes, whom the seaman had gone to visit, and presumably to blackmail, had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear enough. But, then, how could the letter be trivial and grotesque as described by the son? He must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but composed, with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in his grasp. He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the table, and handed me a short note scribbled, as you see, upon a single sheet of grey paper. “The supply of game for London is going steadily up,” it ran. “Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant’s life.”

  ‘I dare say my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when first I read this message. Then I re-read it very carefully. It was evidently as I had thought, and some second meaning must be buried in this strange combination of words. Or could it be that there was a prearranged significance to such phrases as “fly-paper” and “hen pheasant”? Such a meaning would be arbitrary, and could not be deduced in any way. And yet I was loath to believe that this was the case, and the presence of the word “Hudson” seemed to show that the subject of the message was as I had guessed, and that it was from Beddoes rather than the sailor. I tried it backwards, but the combination, “Life pheasant’s hen,” was not encouraging. Then I tried alternate words, but neither “The of for” nor “supply game London” promised to throw any light upon it. Then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I saw that every third word beginning with the first would give a message which might well drive old Trevor to despair.

  ‘It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it to my companion:

  ‘“The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.”

  ‘Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. “It must be that, I suppose,” said he. “This is worse than death, for it means disgrace as well. But what is the meaning of these ‘head-keepers’ and ‘hen pheasants’?”

  ‘“It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to us if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has begun by writing, ‘The… game… is,’ and so on. Afterwards he had, to fulfil the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each space. He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, and if there were so many which referred to sport among them, you may be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in breeding. Do you know anything of this Beddoes?”

  ‘“Why, now that you mention it,” said he, “I remember that my poor father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves every autumn.”

  ‘“Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,” said I. “It only remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudson seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and respected men.”

  ‘“Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!” cried my friend. “But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statement which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told the doctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the strength nor the courage to do it myself.”

  ‘These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me, and I will read them to you as I read them in the old study that night to him. They are indorsed outside as you see: “Some particulars of the voyage of the barque Gloria Scott, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8th October, 1855, to her destruction in N. lat 15´ 29° W. long. 25° 14´, on November 6th.” It is in the form of a letter, and runs in this way: />
  ‘My dear, dear son,—Now that approaching disgrace begins to darken the closing years of my life, I can write with all truth and honesty that it is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position in the county, nor is it my fall, in the eyes of all who have known me, which cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought that you should come to blush for me—you who love me, and who have seldom, I hope, had reason to do other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is for ever hanging over me, then I should wish you to read this that you may know straight from me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all should go well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then if by any chance this paper should be still undestroyed, and should fall into your hands, I conjure you by all you hold sacred, by the memory of your dear mother, and by the love which has been between us, to hurl it into the fire, and never to give one thought to it again.

  ‘If, then, your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or, as is more likely—for you know that my heart is weak—by lying with my tongue sealed for ever in death. In either case the time for suppression is past, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth; and this I swear as I hope for mercy.

  ‘My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my younger days, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me a few weeks ago when your college friend addressed me in words which seemed to imply that he had surmised my secret. As Armitage it was that I entered a London banking house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my country’s laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think very harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honour, so-called, which I had to pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty that I could replace it before there could be any possibility of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money which I had reckoned upon never came to hand; and a premature examination of accounts exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon with thirty-seven other convicts in the ’tween decks of the barque Gloria Scott, bound for Australia.