The chest lay in deeper water than the stranger thought, for as Merry stooped to up-end it, a wave broke over his shoulders. This discomfort irritated the baffled Merry beyond all bearing, and he expended his rage upon the chest. Large it was, as the stranger had said, and had it been a bank chest it could not have been heavier. Merry decided that its owner must be a bank messenger bringing gold bar from America, and he cursed his ill-luck that he had not murdered him as well as the captain. His burning resentment against the stranger made him regard the chest as his own property out of which he had been cheated by gross injustice, and his only comfort was that, knowing the chest existed, the devil might yet give him another chance at it. He would anyway show the stranger that he was a man to be feared for his strength, and with a superhuman effort fed with rage and wounded pride, he somehow got the brass-bound breaking weight upon his back and staggered with it from the water.
“Splendid,” cried the stranger, with a great show of admiration as Merry passed him.
'And when I have a knife in your shoulder-blades, I'll say “splendid” too,' said Merry to himself. Aloud he grunted: “To the Court House, you said?”
“I did,” replied the stranger, “where I intend to spend this night unless Tony Cobtree be much changed from the gallant lad he was when I knew him.”
As they climbed the steps cut in the sea-wall, Merry rested the chest upon the ledge of masonry, for the stranger, who had coiled the long slack of the cord over his arm, had given Merry's wrist a pull as he stopped and regarded the captain's body.
“Yes,” ejaculated Merry, as though blaming the stranger for the dead man's plight. “What are you going to do about that? Best thing is to give him a sea-burial, eh?”
“No, we'll lay him to rest in the churchyard with full honours,” said the stranger. “I happen to know his wishes on burial. We discussed it. I was for sea-burial, having witnessed one, and he, the sailor, said not for him. So we'll respect his wish and cheat Davy Jones. I'll take his papers and report his death.”
“But the wound?” muttered Merry in interrogation. “They'll find that and wonder. Unless they think the fire aboard spread panic and it was a case of every man for himself. I've known cases where sailors run wild against authority. Now if you, being a survivor, could tell them some such panic took place—”
The stranger, who had stowed the oilskin packet in his pocket, silenced Merry with a gesture, then straightened out the dead man's limbs. A sea-gull screeching and hovering overhead, then caused him to lay his kerchief over the face. Having concluded the last service of respect, he removed his hat and with bowed head uttered a prayer. Then signing to Merry to proceed, he climbed the steps and fell in at his side, saying quickly:
“As to what they will think of the captain's death wound, I cannot say, but you can be sure of this. Cross me but once, and they shall know the truth, for just as surely as they will believe my word against yours, I shall denounce you for to-night's murder at the next Assizes.”
They walked on silently save for Merry's heavy breathing. It was slow going, for the rough road was littered with branches of trees, and bricks and tiles. At the corner of the churchyard the stranger stopped and gave a little tug on the rope. Merry stopped too and eased the weight of the chest on the low churchyard wall.
“Yes, a moment's rest before we ring at the door, I think,” said the stranger. “The old church, eh? Looking very beautiful in the moonlight. But I see that you are more interested in the gallows and the rags and bones that swing there. What was he? A smuggler?”
“No. Sheep-stealer,” growled Merry.
“And to think that love of mutton should bring a poor fellow to that,” philosophised the stranger.
“It was other people's mutton, you see,” grunted Merry.
“Oh, I am not excusing him,” replied the stranger. “The law of the Marsh must be kept, just as the Wall must be maintained.”
“It seems then you're no stranger to these parts,” said Merry. “Since we are to be further acquainted, it might be as well if I knew what your name and occupation might be.”
“All in good time, Mister Merry. This is Friday? Very well then, on Sunday you will attend morning prayer inside there. Then you may learn something, if you keep awake.”
“I don't attend church. I ain't a hypocrite,” growled Merry.
“No one is a hypocrite who tries to turn over a new leaf, my friend, and next Sunday you will show the parish that you intend to turn one. You will be there early to insure yourself a seat.”
“Me in church? That's good,” scoffed Merry.
“Nevertheless, you will be there,” continued the other. It is a command. Understand? And one thing more, before we part. To insure your good behaviour, your guilty secret will be made public at your first legal offense. In plain words, if Mister Merry appears for any misdemeanour at the Petty Sessions, he will appear also at the Assizes for the captain's murder and attempted murder on me. Now, up with the chest again and follow me.”
As the church bells were pealing out their danger summons to the Marsh, the stranger and Merry had not heard the ringing of the Court House bell, but as they crunched their way across the gravel to the front door, they saw that they were forestalled, and that another man was being admitted into the hall. The footman was about to close the door again when the stranger called out to him.
“I wish to see Sir Tony,” and then, without waiting for the footman's reply he turned to Merry and added: “You can bring my chest in here and put it down. Not on the rug but against the wall there on the flagstones, where the sand and wet won't harm.”
New Hall, the residence which surrounded the Marsh Court House and legal offices, in those days kept up a great show of state, all the Cobtree serving men wearing scarlet liveries and powdered hair. Although taken back by the stranger's unexpected entrance and air of command, which assured him that he had to deal with a gentleman above the ordinary, the pompous young footman was not so impressed when he recognised the bearer of the chest was none other than the infamous Merry. Also, the stranger's clothes of solemn black were sadly deranged by sea water and sandy mud.
Before the footman could utter a word, the stranger continued: “I take it that the squire has not departed from the Cobtree habit of sitting up o' nights. However, if he should be abed, I fear that the occasion demands you to call him.”
There was a something about the stranger which made the footman realise that if he tried any browbeating he would fare the worse. But the presence of Merry demanded that he should demonstrate his own dignity.
So, avoiding the stranger's gaze, which disconcerted him, he looked at Merry down his exalted nose and replied: “The High Lord of the Level is at present engaged in the company of several local gentlemen. One of the villagers who arrived just before you, and is the bearer of grave news, has been admitted, so that for a time the squire is fully occupied. No doubt, he would see you by appointment in the morning if your business is urgent.”
“Urgent?” repeated the stranger. “It would seem so, I think, in that I have successfully negotiated fire, tempest and sudden death to transact it. When a man sets out from New England to Old in bad weather even those more exacting than yourself will admit the urgency, I think. As to the villager you mention, I rather gather that his bad news concerns myself, since I have but now swum from the brig, City of London, which lies with her back broken on Dymchurch Wall.
“Are you then a survivor of the wreck, sir?” asked the footman.
“Unless you can convince me that I am a ghost,” smiled the stranger. “And I assure you I feel far from real. After so long a time to be picked up by a wave and deposited here into the Cobtree Hall, and 'fore heaven, how often, when I have seen false weights and measures in the New World, have I not thought of these.”
He strode up the long hall, talking more to himself than to the footman and examined the solid brass measures that were arranged in sizes upon a great oak table. He picked up one of great weight with the King's crown in the centre, Romney Marsh Level writ round it, with the figures of weight, the orthodox weight by which all disputes must be settled.
The footman cleared his throat and followed the stranger. He was annoyed that anyone should handle the brass weights and measures, as he had the cleaning of them. “If you are a survivor of the wreck, sir—“ he began, but the stranger cut him short with:
“If? Well, if not, how do you suggest I arrived here? Do you think I swam with my sea-chest from Boston?”
“I was about to say, sir, that if you are a survivor, Sir Antony will see you, and immediately, for such were his orders, though he had small hope that any could live.”
“Then that bad news you spoke of,” continued the stranger, “was no doubt a report that no survivor had reached land, eh?”
“It was somewhat worse than that, sir,” replied the footman solemnly. “It was the report that the body of our vicar, who had attempted with another to swim out with a life-line, has been recovered. He is dead.”
“The vicar of Dymchurch is dead?” repeated the stranger.
“Aye, sir. Parson Bolden. He went out with young Clouder. Both lost. The young widow Clouder has been brought here. Going on something shocking till Dr. Pepper give her something to quieten her. She's asleep now.”
“Poor lass,” said the stranger. “Crying out for her husband, I suppose?”
“Oh, she was sweet on Abel right enough,” went on the footman. “For a married pair they were a regular brace of turtle doves. Which only seems to make it the more strange.”
“Make what more strange?” asked the stranger.
“Why, that she didn't. Cry out for her husband, I mean. Instead, she gets the horrors. Keeps clutching her ladyship and pointing about the room. A nice room it is too. One of the best of our guest chambers. The squire's like that, sir. Always the best for Dymchurch folk in distress. Nothing the matter with the room except what she seemed to make of it. Kept screaming out that the devil was in the room, and what was very strange, and I had it from one of the chambermaids who was waiting in the passage, the devil she saw weren't like the one in church with a forked tail and pointed ears, but kept changing, first one and then t'other.”
“One and t'other what—who?” asked the bewildered stranger.
“Well, now the devil would look like a wooden giant climbing over the sea-wall and then who do you think?”
The stranger shook his head. The footman looked back at Merry, who still stood beside the chest.
“Perhaps this man, with your permission sir, could tell you?”
“Was it—me?” demanded Merry fiercely.
“Aye, it was,” returned the footman just as savagely. “'Keep him away from me. It's that Merry trying to get me,' and suchlike ravings. What's more, the quire heard it himself and so did Dr. Pepper, let alone her ladyship and the Miss Cobtrees. What you've been up to scaring the girl, I don't know, but my advice to you is to clear out before any of the household sees you here, or you'll find your name's mud because of it.”
The stranger put down the weight and picked up a clothier's yard of brass, which he examined carefully. The dropping the point as though he were about to fence with it, he eyed the footman with displeasure.
“My young friend,” he said quickly, “I have been absent from England for so long that belike the habits and manners of gentlemen's gentlemen have changed, but even in New England, where a democratic spirit is daily increasing, it is not yet the fashion for servants to argue, squabble or indeed expression opinions in the presence of superiors. As for you, Mister Merry, you have at least played my porter well, and for that must be rewarded.”
He undid his coat with his left hand, for he still held the brass bar in his right, and his long sensitive fingers felt in one of the many pockets of the captain's belt. He took out a guinea piece and dropped it ringing on the table of weights and measures.
“And now, my very young friend of the scarlet livery, be good enough to carry that coin to the man Merry there.”
“A guinea, sir?” ejaculated the astonished footman. “For a porter's fee? We can change this to-morrow at the bursar's office and he can call for a shilling.”
“Give him the guinea, sir, and have done with it. The money is mine and the chest is heavy. I will give you the same if you can carry it up to my bedroom here later.”
The footman eyed the stranger with a puzzled look, something between admiration and suspicion. Who was this man who came from Boston, referred to the squire as 'Tony', and boldly talked of his chest being carried to his room for a guinea? If he were a survivor of the wreck, then it was probable that the squire would offer him hospitality, and since he wore such a well-filled money belt and was obviously a gentleman of importance, it would be wise to show him attention in order to gain, perhaps, another guinea at his departure.
So he picked up the guinea and carrying it to Merry, handed it over with some disgust. Merry, however, showed no sign of moving.
“Well?” asked the footman. “Why don't you hop to it now that the gentleman's treated you handsome? You ain't wishing to stay the night, I suppose, for the only time you honour us is on a pallet bed in the cells. So get along with you.”
“How can I get along when I'm lashed taut to the gentleman's chest?” asked Merry with a scowl.
“You have at least two free hands to unfasten the rope from the chest,” suggested the stranger. “I shall not need the rope any more, I think, and I daresay you can find use for it, if only as a reminder that a knot at the wrist is better than a noose around the neck.”
It took even the strong fingers of Merry some time to loosen the knot attached to one of the iron handles of the chest, for it had been tied by one who knew something of knots and cordage. But at last it was undone, and with a snort of disgust from the footman and quite a cheery “good night and keep Sunday in mind” from the stranger, Merry was shown the door and barred out.
He looked at the golden guinea. Under other circumstances he would have taken himself off to the 'Sea-Wall Tavern' and got drunk while feasting his eyes on Meg; but she was not there. But neither was Abel there. He had just heard that Abel Clouder was dead. That was news that compensated for a lot of disappointment. Of late, the puzzle of how to remove Abel without prejudice to himself had become an obsession. Well, his mind was free of that problem. Abel had most obligingly been heroic once too often. Meg was now a widow. What would she do? He cursed the fact that she had been taken to the Court House, and wondered how long she would remain under the direct protection of the Cobtrees, and an influence that boded no jot of good to his cause. The squire was no friend to him. At their last encounter he had told him plainly that if he (Merry) could not learn to behave himself, the Court would find means to rid the Marsh of such a rascal. Although born and bred in Dymchurch, Merry had no great love for it, for he hated his neighbours as cordially as they disliked him. But, on account of his strange passion for Meg, he had no intention of quitting it, and he knew that short of the gallows, even the squire would have a difficulty in shifting him, for he was a free-born Marsh-man. This fact could be got rid of by a vote of jurors, but Merry knew too much about them and he was confident that they would tolerate him rather than run the risk of his 'peaching' in public, which, of course, he was quite prepared to do.
As he clutched his guinea he was reminded again of what he had missed. The two money belts and the contents of that chest. With a little luck, he should by now have been a rich man, and then Meg would have been his for the taking. The exasperation at such a failure sent his blood racing in red rage, and he vowed that somehow or other he would find the means of settling scores with the mysterious stranger. Cudgelling his brain how best to accomplish this, a magnetic curiosity, common to criminals, compelled him to make his way towards the scene of the crime.
A glance showed him that so far the corpse had not been discovered, and it occurred to the murderer that it might be worth his while to go through the captain's pockets. No horror of what he had done assailed him. Only an increasing black hate that he had not accomplished more.
The white silk handkerchief placed there so reverently by the stranger had at least preserved the face from the greedy sea-gulls, who walked around it suspiciously, afraid of one of its flapping corners. As he appeared they flew off screaming.
Realising that he must not be discovered lest his story of discovering the corpse might not agree with whatever it pleased the stranger to tell the squire, he went through the pockets rapidly, becoming the richer by two crown pieces and three silver four-pennies, a brass whistle and a clasp knife, which he used to sever the rope around his wrist. It was then that he noticed particularly the flapping corner of the stranger's kerchief that had successfully kept the sea-birds at bay. It was worked. Now, although not claiming to be a scholar, Merry at least had this superiority over many—that he could write and read. A silk kerchief was, he knew, of sufficient value to safeguard, especially to a traveller who did not know his washer-woman. He ripped the kerchief quickly from the dead man's face and read by the light of the moon the owner's name. Yes—there it was. Beautifully worked in violet silk thread. A large 'D' and a small 'r'. That, he knew, stood short for 'doctor'. So, he thought, this arch-enemy is none but a bloody saw-bones. Then followed a capital 'S', a 'y' and an 'n'. 'Syn.' 'Doctor Syn.'?
And just as the murderer spelt out the name and committed it to his memory, the footman in the hall, turning back to the stranger, added: “Oh, and what name shall I say, sir?”
They had been talking together for several minutes, the footman having pointed out that they should give the squire a little while to recover from what would be to him a great shock—the tragedy of the parson's death; and then the stranger remarking that the parson must have been a man of the highest courage, the footman delivered an appreciation of the dead man, which in spite of the pomposity of his office proved very moving in its simplicity. The stranger was impressed.
“He seems to have been the very man for this place,” he remarked.
“Yes, sir,” replied the footman, “and the more so as he followed one or two who, with all respect to their calling, were not what you might call entirely satisfactory. One was old and gouty and disliked the sea. Another was young and ambitious, so went to Canterbury Cathedral, and another was just nothing that none of us took to. He died of his own depressions. Then comes Parson Golden, young, strong and laughing glad to be here and hoping never to be called elsewhere, and naturally the squire felt settled like, having given the living to one everybody liked. That rascal Merry who carried your chest was the only one I ever heard with a bad opinion of our parson, but so he has of everyone, and the better the man, the worse opinion he holds of him. Well, let's hope we get a good man in his place—”
“Amen,” answered the stranger.
“We're not likely to get a better. Now, why should he be taken? I call it strange.”
“I agree with you,” replied the stranger. “It is one of the most curious tricks of fate that I have encountered, and under these circumstances I think there is no one the squire would sooner see at this moment than myself. But before you announce me, I think we'll carry my chest into the inner hall, and then when I have spoken to the squire, you can help me up with it to my bed-chamber. For to tell you the truth, what you say of this fellow Merry, makes me anxious to move the chest from where he put it. There is a window there, shuttered, it is true, but such things have been opened before now. And having successfully preserved it through fire and water, not to mention wharf thieves and hostile Indians, it would be the height of folly to bring it to safety and lose it.”
“Might be full of gold by the weight,” exclaimed the footman.
“Well, yes, there is a little gold in it, I confess,” replied the other, “but it is books mostly that give it such weight. Weighty volumes on the weightiest subjects. Valuable tomes, as you can imagine, since their weight makes them awkward travelling companions.”
They carried the chest into the private hall which was built beyond the court room and legal offices, and set it down outside the squire's dining-room, and it was here that the footman had asked the stranger for his name.
His answer astonished him. At first he thought the gentleman was giving way to an oath, and resentfully he said, “Well, I must know the name in order to announce it, sir.”
“Syn,” repeated the other. “Not S-I-N but S-Y-N, and I rather imagine it will astonish the good squire more than it has you.”
“I beg pardon, sir, but the name is unusual.”
“I beg yours, but 'tis none of my fault,” smiled the owner of the name. “All we can do for our names, whether those bequeathed by forefathers or given by godfathers, is to hold them in honour as well as we can, so that when we pass on the names we have done our best to make them the more honoured.” He then repeated: “Doctor Syn.”
