elliott had expected to find an oriental city; he had looked for a sort of maze of black alleys, ivory lattices, temples, minarets, and a medley of splendour and squalor; but in his surprise at the reality he said that bombay was almost like an american city. there was squalor and splendour enough, but they were not as he had imagined them; and at the first sight of the wide, straight, busy streets he felt a great relief, realizing that his detective work would not have to be pursued under such “arabian night” conditions as he had anticipated.
at the landing-stage he surrendered himself to a white-robed and barefoot native runner, who claimed to represent ward’s anglo-indian hotel, and this functionary at once bundled him into a ricksha which started off at a trot. so unfamiliar a mode of locomotion revived some of elliott’s primal expectations of the east, and the crowds that filled the street from house-front to house-front helped to strengthen them. the populace, as elliott observed with surprise, were nearly as black as the negroes at home, clad in every variety and colour of costume, brilliant as a garden of tulips, and through the dense mass his ricksha man forced a passage by screaming unintelligible abuse at the top of his voice. occasionally a black victoria clove its slow way past him, bearing a white-clad englishman, who gazed unseeingly over the swarming mass; and elliott for the first time breathed the smell of the east, that compound of heat and dust and rancid butter and perspiring humanity that somehow strangely suggests the yellow marigold flowers that hang in limp clusters in the marketplaces of all bengal.
at the hotel, a gigantic and imposing structure, he was received by a eurasian in a frock coat and no shoes, who assigned him to a vast bedroom, cool and darkened and almost large enough to play tennis in. elliott examined the unfamiliar appurtenances with some curiosity, and then took a delicious dip in the bathroom that opened from his chamber. he then changed his clothes and went down-stairs, determined to lose no time in visiting the united states consulate.
the mate of the clara mcclay, as the only surviving officer, was required to report the circumstances of the loss of his ship to the american consul; and self-interest, as much as law, should equally have impelled him to do so. for by reporting the foundering of the steamer in deep water he would clear himself of responsibility, and at the same time close the case and check any possible investigation into the whereabouts of the wreck.
but elliott learned at once that the white man in india is not supposed to exert himself. the manager of the house, to whom he applied for information, placed him in a long cane chair while a ricksha was being called, and then installed him in the baby-carriage conveyance, giving elaborate instructions in the vernacular to the native motor. and again the vivid panorama of the streets unrolled before elliott’s eyes under the blinding sun-blaze,—the closely packed crowd of white head-dresses, the nude torsos, bronze and black, the gorgeous silks, and violent-hued cottons rolling slowly over the earthen pavement that was packed hard by millions of bare feet.
the gridiron shield with the eagle looked home-like to elliott when he set eyes on it, but he found the official representative of the united states to be a brass-coloured eurasian, who seemed to have some recollection of the clara mcclay or her mate, but was either unable or unwilling to impart any information. he was the consular secretary; the consul was out at the moment, but he returned just as elliot was turning away in disappointment. he was a rubicund gentleman of middle age, from ohio, as elliott presently learned, and proud of the fact. he wore a broad straw hat of american design—heaven knows how he had procured it in that land—and, to elliott’s unbounded amazement, he was accompanied by his own steamer acquaintance, the alabaman sevier.
elliott nodded to sevier, trying to conceal his consternation, and was for going away immediately, but the secretary was, after all, only too anxious to give assistance.
“be pleased to wait a moment, sir. this is the consul. mr. guiger, this gentleman is asking if we know anything of the position of the mate of the wrecked american steamer, called the clara mcclay.”
“his position? by jupiter, i wish i knew it!” ejaculated the consul, mopping his face, but showing a more than physical warmth. “this other gentleman here has just been asking me the same thing, and i’ve had a dozen wires from the owners in philadelphia.”
elliott was thunderstruck at this revelation of sevier’s interest in the matter, but it was too late to draw back.
“i was asked to make inquiries by relatives of one of the crew,” he said, mendaciously. “has the mate showed up here at all?”
“showed up? of course he did. he had to, by jupiter! but it was his business to keep in touch with me till the case was gone into and settled. he gave me an address on malabar hill,—too swell a locality for a sailorman, thinks i,—and, sure enough, when i sent there for him, they had never heard of him. i’ve not set eyes on him since. he’ll lose his ticket, that’s all.”
“what sort of a report did he make?”
“why, nothing. said the ship was rotten, and her cargo shifted in a gale and some of her rivets must have drawn, and she foundered. every one went down but himself,—all drunk, i suppose. but he didn’t even make a sworn statement. said he’d come back next day, and i was in a hurry myself, and i let him go, like a fool.”
“you don’t know whether he’s still in the city?”
“i don’t know anything. i’ve set the police to look for him, but these black-and-tan cops don’t amount to anything. he may be half-way to australia by this time. like as not he is.”
“where did he say his ship foundered?” asked sevier, speaking for the first time.
“somewhere in the mozambique channel, in deep water. he didn’t know exactly. along about latitude twelve, south, he said. went down like a lump of lead.”
elliott thought of her weighty cargo, and, glancing up, he met sevier’s eye fixed keenly on him.
“well, if the man can’t be found, i suppose that’s the end of it,” he said, carelessly, and turned away again.
“sorry i can’t help you, gentlemen,” responded the consul. “if i get any news, i’ll let you know. you don’t happen to have brought out any american newspapers, do you—chicago ones, for choice?”
elliott was devoid of these luxuries, and sevier followed him out to the street, where the ricksha was still waiting.
“is that your perambulator?” inquired the alabaman. “let’s walk a little. the streets aren’t so crowded here.”
“it’s undignified for a white man to walk in this country, but i’ll make my ricksha man follow me,” said elliott. “besides, i couldn’t find my way back to the hotel without him.”
they walked for several minutes in silence down the side of the street that was shaded by tall buildings of european architecture.
“were you ever at a new orleans mardi gras? hanged if this town doesn’t remind me of it!” sevier suddenly broke silence. “by the way, i didn’t know that you were interested in the clara mcclay.”
“i’m not,” said elliott, on the defensive. “i was simply making inquiries on behalf of other people, to get some details about her loss. you seem to have more interest than that in her yourself.”
“oh, my interest is a purely business one,” replied sevier, lightly. “i know her owners pretty well, and they wired me from philadelphia to find out something about her. i found the cablegram waiting for me when i got here. funny thing that the mate should disappear that way. something crooked, eh?”
“possibly. queer things happen on the high seas. it looks as if he were afraid of something.”
“or after something. i’ve heard of ships being run ashore for insurance.”
“but the clara mcclay didn’t run ashore,” elliott reminded him. “she foundered in deep water, you know.”
“oh, yes, she foundered in deep water,” drawled sevier. “have you got the spot marked on your map?”
this attack was so sudden and so unexpected that elliott floundered.
“that map you have in your pocket, with her course marked in red,” sevier pursued, relentlessly.
“that map you saw on the steamer? that wasn’t a chart of the clara mcclay’s course. or, at least,” elliott went on, recovering his wind, “i don’t suppose it is, accurately. i drew it to see if i could make out where she must have sunk, by a sort of dead reckoning. you see, i felt a certain interest in her on account of the inquiries i was commissioned to make. nobody knows exactly what her course was.”
“nobody but the mate, and he’s skipped the country. well, i hope you find him, for the sake of the bereaved kinfolk.”
he turned a humourous and incredulous glance at elliott, and its invitation to frankness was unmistakable. had elliott been alone in the affair he might have responded, and taken his companion as a partner. but he had not the right to do that; there were men enough to share the plunder already; but he was possessed with curiosity to learn what sevier knew, and, above all, what he wanted. sevier had learned nothing from bennett; he could have learned nothing from the mate, else he would not be in pursuit of him. how then could he know what cargo the clara mcclay had carried?
they walked a little further, talking of the features of interest like a pair of cook’s tourists, while the ricksha man marched stolidly behind.
“queer that burke didn’t know where she went down!” said sevier, as if to himself.
“who’s burke?” asked elliott, on the alert this time.
“the mate of the clara mcclay. didn’t you know his name? i got it from the owners. they’re wild about him; swear they’ll have his certificate taken from him. it seems he hasn’t reported a word to them, and all they know is a newspaper item saying that he was picked up from the wreck.”
“was all that in your cablegram?” demanded elliott, with malice.
“they told me that in philadelphia, before i left,” sevier replied, imperturbably.
this was just possible, but, after a rapid mental calculation of dates, elliott decided that it was unlikely. besides, why should the owners have cabled, if they had seen their messenger just before he sailed? but he had already arrived at the conviction that sevier’s explanation of his interest in the treasure-ship was as fictitious as his own.
“isn’t it likely,” he said, easily, “that the mate was drunk and navigated her out of her course, and ran her ashore? he knows that he’s responsible for her loss, and he’s afraid to face a court of inquiry.”
“he’ll sure lose his certificate anyway, if he doesn’t show up. besides, he didn’t run her ashore. she went down in deep water.”
“sure enough, she went down in deep water,” elliott acquiesced. a strong sense of the futility of this fencing stole over him, and he turned abruptly and beckoned to his ricksha.
“it’s too hot to walk. i’m going back to my hotel—the anglo-indian. come around and look me up. are you going to search for your lost mate?”
“oh, dear, no! i’m not paid for doing that. besides, i’m going up the country in a day or so to get stuff for my articles.”
he watched elliott into his ricksha, and walked off, elliott wondered vainly where.
he wondered also whether he ought not to keep close to this smooth-spoken pseudo-journalist, who, he felt sure, was also on the track of the treasure-ship. but this would hamper him fatally in his quest for the elusive mate burke, and this quest was to be elliott’s next affair.
but he had next to no idea just where or how he would look. he was an inlander; he knew little of the ways of seafaring men ashore, and nothing at all of this particular city. he plunged boldly into the search, however, and, as a preliminary, he spent a day in roaming about the waterfront of mazagon bay, entering into conversation with such white seamen as he came across. but he was acutely conscious that he made a bungle of this. these men were too far outside his experience for him to enter into easy relations with them. his immaculate white flannels were also against him; he received either too much deference or too little, and he suspected that he was taken for a detective or a customs officer. he decided that he would have to assume a less respectable appearance.
but every one he met professed total ignorance of the clara mcclay and her mate. most of the men were transient; they had been in bombay for only a few days or weeks, and the arrival of a single man, even the survivor of a wreck, is too slight an episode to leave any mark upon such a port as bombay, where the shipping of a whole world is gathered. but a vessel is a different thing, and elliott learned—it was the whole result of his day’s work—that the italian steamer andrea sforzia, which had picked up burke’s boat, had sailed a month ago for cape town.
had burke gone with her? no one knew. elliott thought it most probable; and in that case the rich grave of the gold-ship must be rifled already. a feeling of sick failure spread through elliott’s system as he realized that the whole quest might have been in vain, even before they left america. but he cabled to henninger at zanzibar:
“steamer andrea sforzia sailed cape town about april 10th, likely with burke.”
still it might be that the mate had not sailed with the italian steamer, after all, and, while awaiting a reply from zanzibar, elliott resumed his detective work. it was good to pass the anxious time, if it led to no other result. he hired a room in a cheap sailors’ hotel in mazagon, where he went every morning to change his white clothes for a dirty, bluish dungaree slop-suit, which he bought at a low clothing store, and, thus suitably attired, he was able to pursue his explorations among the tortuous ways of the old portuguese settlement and attract no attention so long as he kept his mouth shut. these wanderings he often carried far into the night, returning finally to his dirty room to resume the garb of respectability.
he saw many strange things in these explorations among the groggeries, dives, and sailors’ boarding-houses, where the seamen of every maritime race on earth herded together in their stifling quarter. he sat in earthen-floored drinking-shops, where lascars, norse, yankees, englishmen, and italians gulped down poisonous native liquors like water, and quarrelled in a babel of tongues; he leaned over fan-tan tables in huge, filthy rooms that had been the palaces of merchant princes; and nightly he saw the tired dancing-girls from the hills posture obscenely before an audience of white, yellow, and brown sea scum, ferociously drunk or stupid with opium. more than once he saw knives drawn and used, and the blood spurt dark in the candle-light; and once he had to run for it to avoid being gathered in by the police along with his companions. but nowhere could he hear anything of what he sought, and he could find no one who would admit having seen the mate of the clara mcclay.
he had received no reply from henninger, and this, perhaps, illogically reassured him. after a week he had ceased to expect any, but by this time he had well ceased to believe that burke was still in bombay. if he were there, elliott did not believe that he could be found, and he regretted anew that he had not obtained a detailed description of the man from bennett. he visited the american consul again, but that official had no further news, and was able to describe the mate only as “a big fellow, with a big beard turning gray,” which was indefinite enough.
after all, elliott reflected, the man would be likely to change his name and to keep apart from other seamen. surely, if he had been going to fit out a wrecking expedition, he would have done it long since, but such an enterprise would certainly have left memories upon the waterfront. elliott could not learn that anything of the sort had been done. possibly burke had gone elsewhere to launch his expedition; very likely he had no money, and had gone elsewhere to obtain it.
elliott grew very weary with turning over all these possibilities, and almost disheartened, but he persisted in his perambulations about the sailors’ quarter. he was beginning to feel the deadly lassitude which stealthily grows upon the unacclimated white man in the tropics, and he would probably have given up the quest in another week, but for a lucky chance.
the crush of the crowd had elbowed him into a corner beside a tiny second-hand clothes-stall near the landing-place of the coasting steamers, and he gazed idly at the foul-looking seamen’s clothing—caps, oilskins, sea boots, cotton trousers—that almost filled the recess in the wall that served for a shop. in the centre lounged the shopman, apparently half eurasian and half english jew, who looked as if he clothed himself from his own stock in trade.
as elliott was trying to disengage himself from the crowd, he knocked down a suit of oilskins, and stooped to pick it up. it was an excellent suit, though considerably worn, and as he rescued the heavy sou’wester hat, his eye was caught by rude black lettering on the under side of the peak. it had been done in india ink, and read “j. burke, s. s. clara mcclay.”
elliott stared at the initials, dazzled by his good luck. they must be the oilskins of the missing mate, who had sold them there. who else could have brought clothing from the wreck to bombay? the shopman, scenting trade, had crept forward, and was sidling and fawning at elliott’s shoulder.
“want nice oilskins, sahib? ver’ scheap. you shall haf dem for ten rupee.”
“i’ll give you five,” said elliott, carelessly, hanging up the cap.
“fif rupee? blood of buddha! i pay eight, s’help me gawd!”
“look here,” said elliott. “i don’t want the oilskins, but i think they used to belong to a friend of mine, and i’ll give you eight rupees if you’ll tell me where you got them.”
the merchant wrinkled his brows, undoubtedly pondering whether he was in danger of compromising any thief of his acquaintance.
“i remember,” he presently announced. “you gif me ten rupee?”
“ten it is.”
“i buy dem more than two weeks ago from your friend’s kitmatgar, hurris chunder.”
elliott’s heart sank again. “my friend’s a sailorman, and wouldn’t have a servant.”
“hurris chunder say his master gif dem to him,” insisted the jew.
“can you find hurris chunder?”
“maybe,” with an avid grin.
“here’s your ten rupees,” said elliott. “i’ll give you ten more if you’ll manage to have hurris chunder here to-night, and he shall have another ten for telling me what he knows. does it go?”
“yes,” responded the trader, with lightning comprehension of western slang. “the sahib will find hurris chunder here to-night. at ten o’clock.”
elliott had already learned the indefinite notions of the east regarding time, and he did not care to show the impatience he felt, so he did not arrive at his appointment till nearly eleven o’clock. the yellow jew led him to the rear of the tiny shop and introduced him through an unsuspected door into a small chamber littered with rags, old clothes, rubbish of copper and brass, and dirty-looking apparatus. it was here that the merchant ate and slept, and in the middle of the floor a white-clad figure was squatting, smoking a brass pipe.
“this is hurris chunder, sahib,” said the jew, eagerly.
the native, a golden-complexioned young man, with a somewhat sleepy buddha-like face, put down his pipe, and bowed without getting up.
“very good,” said elliott. “here’s your ten rupees, israel. now, get out. i want to have a little private talk with our friend.”
the half-caste scuttled into the outer shop and closed the door.
“now, then, hurris, tell me the truth. where did you steal those oilskins?”
hurris chunder made a deprecating gesture. “may the presence pardon me,” he said, in soft and excellent english. “i did not steal them. my master, baker sahib, gave them to me.”
“baker sahib, indeed!” elliott murmured. “where is your master? what did he look like?”
“he was a tall, lean, strong sahib, and when he first came he had a great gray beard. he lived for many days at the planters’ hotel, and i was unworthily his kitmatgar.”
this was another surprise, for the planters’ was an excellent, quiet, and rather high-priced hotel, and the mate was presumably short of funds.
“he had money, then?”
“he had much money, english money. he was a very generous sahib.”
“well, you’ll find me a generous sahib, too, if you act on the level. here’s your ten rupees. baker sahib is at the planters’, then?”
“no, sahib, he went away. he gave me the oilskins when he went. he sailed on a ship, a great black steamer. he went to england.”
“to england? are you sure it wasn’t africa?”
“yes, sahib, to africa.”
“what port was she bound for?”
“sahib, before god, i do not know. i think london.”
“london? you said africa. wasn’t it america?”
“the sahib is right.”
“or australia?”
“if the sahib pleases, it is so,” was the submissive response.
“you old fraud!” said elliott. “you don’t know where he went. are you sure he went away at all?”
“yes, sahib. he cut off his great beard, and i took his luggage to the ship for him,—a great black steamer, full of english. i do not know the name of the ship.”
“cut off his beard, eh? and you don’t know what ship it was, or where she went? well, never mind, i can find that out myself. your knowledge is distinctly limited, hurris, but you’re a good boy, and i believe you’ve given me the key to the situation. it’s worth another rupee or two. good-bye.”
he tossed the native three more rupees, and went to change his clothes, bursting with excited impatience. to-morrow he would know the mate’s destination.
as early as possible the next morning, he sought the planters’ hotel, and found that baker sahib had indeed been there since the 18th of march. this was the day after the arrival of the andrea sforzia at bombay, and the coincidence of the dates was corroborative evidence. he had left on the 27th of march, and his destination was unknown at the hotel.
an examination of the shipping-lists, however, showed that on march 27th three passenger steamers had sailed from bombay,—the punjaub, for london; the imperadora, for southampton, and the prince of burmah for hongkong. elliott hastened to the city passenger offices of these lines, and begged permission to inspect the passenger-lists of their ships sailing on that day. the sheets of the punjaub and of the imperadora proved devoid of interest, but half-way down the list of the prince of burmah’s saloon passengers he came upon the name of henry baker. he was booked through to hongkong.
the amazing improbability of this almost staggered elliott. if the mate knew the secret of the treasure, why should he fly thus to the very antipodes; and if he knew no guilty secrets, why should he have secreted himself in bombay, and cut off his beard for purposes of disguise?
were baker and burke identical, after all? but the american consul’s brief description of the man tallied with that of hurris chunder, and baker had arrived at the planters’ hotel the day after burke had arrived in bombay. baker had brought with him oilskins from the wrecked ship, from which he alone had been picked up at that time.
it must be the mate, elliott thought. in any case, baker must know things of importance to the gold hunters, and elliott cabled again to zanzibar:
“mate sailed hongkong. am following.”
three days later he sailed for hongkong himself. up to the very moment of clearing port he was tormented with apprehensions that sevier would appear on board. but, whatever were the researches of the alabaman, they were evidently being conducted in a different quarter, and the weight gradually lifted from elliott’s mind as the steamer ploughed slowly down the bay, past the white moored monitors and the little rocky islets of the peninsula. the treasure hunt had turned out a man hunt, but he hoped that he was upon the last stage of the long stern chase.
