Part 22 (1/2)
With that we left our hotel and set off in the direction of the Casino, stopping, however, on the way to make the purchases above referred to.
We pa.s.sed down one thoroughfare and up another, and at last reached the spot where I had commented on the sign-boards, and where we had been garrotted. Surely the house must be near at hand now? But though we hunted high and low, up one street and down another, not a single trace of any building answering the description of the one we wanted could we discover. At last, after nearly an hour's search, we were obliged to give it up, and return to our hotel, unsuccessful.
As we finished lunch a large steamer made her appearance in the harbour, and brought up opposite the town. When we questioned our landlord, who was an authority on the subject, he informed us that she was the s.s.
_Pescadore_, of Hull, bound to Melbourne.
Hearing this we immediately chartered a boat, pulled off to her, and interviewed the captain. As good luck would have it, he had room for a couple of pa.s.sengers. We therefore paid the pa.s.sage money, went ash.o.r.e again and provided ourselves with a few necessaries, rejoined her, and shortly before nightfall steamed into the Ca.n.a.l. Port Said was a thing of the past. Our eventful journey was resumed--what was the end of it all to be?
_PART II_
CHAPTER I
WE REACH AUSTRALIA, AND THE RESULT
The _Pescadore_, if she was slow, was certainly sure, and so the thirty-sixth day after our departure from Port Said, as recorded in the previous chapter, she landed us safe and sound at Williamstown, which, as all the Australian world knows, is one of the princ.i.p.al railway termini, and within an hour's journey of Melbourne. Throughout the voyage nothing occurred worth chronicling, if I except the curious behaviour of Lord Beckenham, who, for the first week or so, seemed sunk in a deep lethargy, from which neither chaff nor sympathy could rouse him. From morning till night he mooned aimlessly about the decks, had visibly to pull himself together to answer such questions as might be addressed to him, and never by any chance sustained a conversation beyond a few odd sentences. To such a pitch did this depression at last bring him that, the day after we left Aden, I felt it my duty to take him to task and to try to bully or coax him out of it.
”Come,” I said, ”I want to know what's the matter with you. You've been giving us all the miserables lately, and from the look of your face at the present moment I'm inclined to believe it's going to continue. Out with it! Are you homesick, or has the monotony of this voyage been too much for you?”
He looked into my face rather anxiously, I thought, and then said: ”Mr.
Hatteras, I'm afraid you'll think me an awful idiot when I _do_ tell you, but the truth is I've got Dr. Nikola's face on my brain, and do what I will I cannot rid myself of it. Those great, searching eyes, as we saw them in that terrible room, have got on my nerves, and I can think of nothing else. They haunt me night and day!”
”Oh, that's all fancy!” I cried. ”Why on earth should you be frightened of him? Nikola, in spite of his demoniacal cleverness, is only a man, and even then you may consider that we've seen the last of him. So cheer up, take as much exercise as you possibly can, and believe me, you'll soon forget all about him.”
But it was no use arguing with him. Nikola had had an effect upon the youth that was little short of marvellous, and it was not until we had well turned the Leuwin, and were safely in Australian waters, that he in any way recovered his former spirits.
And here, lest you should give me credit for a bravery I did not possess, I must own that I was more than a little afraid of another meeting with Nikola, myself. I had had four opportunities afforded me of judging of his cleverness--once in the restaurant off Oxford Street, once in the _Green Sailor_ public-house in the East India Dock Road, once in the West of England express, and lastly, in the house in Port Said. I had no desire, therefore, to come to close quarters with him again.
Arriving in Melbourne we caught the afternoon express for Sydney, reaching that city the following morning a little after breakfast. By the time we had arrived at our destination we had held many consultations over our future, and the result was a decision to look for a quiet hotel on the outskirts of the city, and then to attempt to discover what the mystery, in which we had been so deeply involved, might mean. The merits of all the various suburbs were severally discussed, though I knew but little about them, and the Marquis less.
Paramatta, Penrith, Woolahra, Balmain, and even many of the bays and harbours, received attention, until we decided on the last named as the most likely place to answer our purpose.
This settled, we crossed Darling harbour, and, after a little hunting about, discovered a small but comfortable hotel situated in a side street, called the _General Officer_. Here we booked rooms, deposited our meagre baggage, and having installed ourselves, sat down and discussed the situation.
”So this is Sydney,” said Beckenham, stretching himself out comfortably upon the sofa as he spoke. ”And now that we've got here, what's to be done first?”
”Have lunch,” I answered promptly.
”And then?” he continued.
”Hunt up the public library and take a glimpse of the _Morning Herald's_ back numbers. They will tell us a good deal, though not all we want to know. Then we'll make a few inquiries. To-morrow morning I shall ask you to excuse me for a couple of hours. But in the afternoon we ought to have acquired sufficient information to enable us to make a definite start.”
”Then let's have lunch at once and be off. I'm all eagerness to get to work.”
We accordingly ordered lunch, and, when it was finished, set off in search of a public library. Having found it--and it was not a very difficult matter--we sought the reading room and made for a stand of _Sydney Morning Heralds_ in the corner. Somehow I felt as certain of finding what I wanted there as any man could possibly be, and as it happened I was not disappointed. On the second page, beneath a heading in bold type, was a long report of a horse show, held the previous afternoon, at which it appeared a large vice-regal and fas.h.i.+onable party were present. The list included His Excellency the Governor and the Countess of Amberley, the Ladies Maud and Ermyntrude, their daughters, the Marquis of Beckenham, Captain Barrenden, an aide-de-camp, and Mr.
Baxter. In a voice that I hardly recognized as my own, so shaken was it with excitement, I called Beckenham to my side and pointed out to him his name. He stared, looked away, then stared again, hardly able to believe his eyes.
”What does it mean?” he whispered, just as he had done in Port Said.