Noiselessly the young man crept up the alley until he reached the window of the back parlour of the Black Swan.
Since it was now eleven o’clock at night, the doors of that excellent hostelry had been closed—officially—an hour before.
But a light shone through a chink of the curtains drawn across the window, and a sound of murmuring voices reached the sharp-set ears of the young man without.
Inch by inch he crept forward until he could see through the chink. One swift glance at the four people seated round the card-table in the centre of the room was enough.
Carrying his suitcase in his hand, he glided out of the alley into the old-fashioned and at that hour practically deserted High Street of the little port of Sandhaven.
After a swift glance in both directions, he set off at a rapid pace towards the quay, little more than a quarter of a mile distant.
It was a fine night in early spring: dark, for the moon had not yet risen. The young man, in his anxiety to avoid observation, kept as closely as possible under the shadow of the houses.
As he passed the closed door of a greengrocer’s shop, his foot came into contact with something that rolled away from him and came to rest in the centre of the pavement.
He appeared not to notice the incident, for his eyes were fixed upon the open space ahead of him. A minute later he had reached the quay.
It was even darker here than it had been in the High Street, for the waterside was illuminated only by feeble gas lamps, set at wide intervals. But the young man did not hesitate. He struck diagonally across the quay until he could see the thin pencil of a mast outlined against the skyline.
He increased his pace, reached the edge of the wharf, and stared down at the deck of the motor-cruiser Amelia, a couple of feet below the level of the quay.
At this time of year very few of the yachts belonging to the port had yet been fitted out, and the Amelia was the only craft tied up alongside the quay.
Her owner, Mr Peter Underwood, was a well-known local character. A childless widower, he was a rich man, as wealth was estimated in Sandhaven.
He lived in a rather pretentious house in the newer part of the town, where his material wants were faithfully attended by an elderly housekeeper.
But every now and then an urge for more cheerful companionship would seize him, and he would spend a convivial evening at the Black Swan or one of the other taverns in the old town.
On such occasions, if the Amelia was in commission, he preferred to spend the night on board her rather than return home. The motor-cruiser had no censorious eyes. For Tom, her one-man crew, slept ashore.
The young man seemed to be well aware that the Amelia was untenanted, for after a sharp look up and down the quay to make sure that he was unobserved, he caught hold of a shroud and swung himself lightly down upon the motor-cruiser’s deck.
He ran forward, slid back the forecastle hatch, and dropped into the darkness beneath.
The forecastle contained nothing but a bunk along one side and a lot of gear stowed in lockers on the other. The young man took an electric torch from his pocket, and balanced it so that its rays shone on the floor.
He lifted one of the floor boards revealing the ribs of the craft and the strakes of planking beneath them.
Then he opened his suitcase and took from it a two-inch auger, with which he rapidly bored a hole in the strake nearest the keel.
As he withdrew the auger, a jet of water followed it, and he surveyed this with grim satisfaction.
‘That’ll do the trick,’ he muttered. ‘She’ll fill gradually by the head in two or three hours, and Uncle Peter, damn him, asleep in the cabin aft, won’t know anything about it until she dives head-first into the harbour. And if he can manage to get to the surface after that—well, I lose, that’s all.’
He replaced the auger in the suit-case, switched off the torch, and swung himself on deck. Then, having closed the hatch, he vaulted on to the quay and disappeared.
It was roughly half an hour later that the card game in the back parlour of the Black Swan came to an end. Mr Peter Underwood drained his glass and stood up, rather unsteadily.
‘Well, I must thank you and the ladies for a very jolly evening,’ he said to Mr George Blickfield, the landlord. “Time for me to turn in now.’
‘You’re not going to sleep on board the Amelia, surely, Mr Underwood?’ Mrs Blickfield asked, a trifle anxiously.
‘Ah, but I am.’ Mr Underwood replied, with an inebriated leer. ‘And if you or that good-looking daughter of yours likes to come with me, I shan’t raise any objection.’
‘How you do go on, to be sure!’ exclaimed Mrs Blickfield. ‘George’ll show you to the door. And mind the two steps outside, they’re treacherous.’
After repeated good-nights, Mr Underwood was safely escorted out of the side door of the Black Swan. Mrs Blickfield listened to the irregular sound of his footsteps receding down the alley.
‘Do you think he’s all right, George?’ she asked her husband. ‘I shouldn’t like him to fall into the harbour or anything like that.’
‘Oh, you needn’t worry about him,’ Mr Blickfield replied. ‘He’s gone on board dozens of times when he was much worse than he is now. Come along, let’s go to bed. It’s just on a quarter to midnight.”
Mr Underwood reached the end of the alley, and turned down the High Street towards the quay.
His progress, though perhaps not in an undeviatingly straight line, was stately and dignified. Damn good chap, Blickfield. Keeps a decent drop of whisky, too. And his wife and daughter. Good sports, both of them.
Hullo, what’s that?
Mr Underwood had caught sight of an object lying in the middle of the pavement, right at his feet. He stopped and surveyed it suspiciously.
By this time the moon had risen, and by the soft light that filtered into the High Street he discovered the object to be an orange.
‘Well, I’m blest!’ he muttered. ‘Fancy leaving a thing like that where anyone might tread on it. Damn carelessness, I call it. Might break a fellow’s neck. Lucky I spotted it before …’
He bent down to pick it up, but his sense of position was none too accurate, and the orange rolled away a few inches, eluding his grasp. He made a second grab at it, which was successful.
‘Aha, got you this time!’ he chuckled as he straightened himself triumphantly. ‘Old Peter isn’t so drunk as you might think.’
And as he went on towards the quay, he absentmindedly put the orange in his jacket pocket. As he did so, the town hall clock chimed the quarter before twelve.
When Mr Underwood reached the quayside, the tide had risen, so that the deck of the Amelia was almost level with the wharf.
He stepped on board with an air of easy confidence, and stood for a moment looking over the unruffled waters of the harbour, shining like silver under the bright moon.
‘Fine night, and not a breath of wind,’ he muttered. Then he stepped into the cockpit and, opening the folding doors, entered the cabin which occupied the stern of the motor-cruiser.
The cabin was arranged with a centre table and a bunk on either side, at the forward end of each of which was a capacious locker. Mr Underwood made his way to the starboard locker, took from it a bottle and a glass, and poured himself out a generous tot of whisky.
‘Must have a nightcap,’ he muttered as he seated himself heavily on the nearest bunk. ‘Best thing to clear away the cobwebs. How much have I had to drink this evening, I wonder?
‘That confounded chap Blickfield would keep filling up my glass as we were playing. Well, must drown one’s sorrows sometimes. Damn that young rascal! He’s quite upset me.’
As Mr Underwood reached for his glass he became aware of the bulge in his jacket pocket. He withdrew the orange and stared at it owlishly. It was almost perfectly round, smooth-skinned and yellow.
‘Well I’m blessed!’ he exclaimed to himself softly. ‘Whatever possessed me to bring a thing like that on board now? Never mind, it’ll do for some kid or other in the morning.’
He put the orange on the cabin table in front of him and drained his glass to the last drop. Then, not without difficulty, he began to undress. He found it an unduly lengthy process for his fingers seemed to have lost their aptitude for undoing buttons and studs.
By the time he had removed his outer garments, further effort seemed hardly worthwhile. Still clad in his shirt and pants, he lay down on the bunk and rolled himself in his blankets.
But sleep refused to come to him. He could not drive from his mind the memory of the interview with his nephew that morning.
Hateful business driving out one’s own kith and kin like that. Having no children of his own, Mr Underwood had always looked upon his sister’s only son as his natural heir.
But Victor had been a ne’er-do-well ever since the time he had left school.
Time and again his uncle’s money and influence had got him out of nasty scrapes. But when it came to giving stumer cheques in Mr Underwood’s own native town …!
Oh, he’d been fair enough to the young rascal, nobody could deny that. He had sent for him that morning and told him exactly what he meant to do.
He would meet the cheques, and buy him a ticket for any part of the Dominions he might care to select. But, at the same time, he would write to his lawyer and instruct him to draw up a will in which Victor’s name should not appear.
What else could he have been expected to do? Fair? Of course he had been quite fair …
At last Mr Underwood dozed off, for how long he could not tell. Then, still more than three parts asleep, he shifted lazily into a more comfortable position, and, as he did so, half opened his eyes.
His glance fell upon the orange, conspicuous on the table in the bright moonbeams that poured through the cabin skylight.
And it seemed to Mr Underwood’s senses, clogged with sleep, that the orange was moving, rolling slowly towards the forward end of the table.
Ridiculous! Must be the effect of the whisky. If he opened his eyes wider, he would see the orange standing perfectly stationary where he had put it.
But no. The orange continued to move, increasing the speed of its rolling until it reached the end of the table then fell, with a splash, not a thud, on the cabin floor.
Mr Underwood sprang out of his bunk and stood for an instant on the floor, ankle-deep in water.
The Amelia was tilting, ever more rapidly: the water surged past his feet like a mill race. He must get out quick, before …
Somehow he tore open the folding doors, struggled into the cockpit, and thence on deck. The motor cruiser’s bow was already beneath the surface of the water.
Mr Underwood leapt for the quayside, slipped back. His groping hands clutched a mooring-ring, and with a supreme effort he dragged himself to safety.
As he picked himself up the Amelia’s stern rose vertically into the air. Mr Underwood held his breath as she remained in that position for a couple of long-drawn seconds.
Then, with a prodigious gurgling, she plunged bow-first to the bottom of the harbour, leaving behind her a swirl of oily water.
Mr Underwood’s mind was so enthralled by the miracle of his escape that for the moment he could spare no thought for the cause of the foundering.
‘Talk about a bit of luck!’ he exclaimed. ‘If it hadn’t been for that blessed orange …’