Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 33
“Stores, perhaps,” Colin surmised. “Dinnet said the Heather Lodge people got most of their stuff from a motor-boat that called now and again.”
“Stores, most likely, as you say,” Northfleet answered, though with a faint touch of irony in his tone.
“Yes, it is pretty obvious, I admit,” Colin confessed. “After all, they’ve got to have some supplies in a place like this. But if it’s merely supplies, where does the gent with the gun come in?” he added doubtfully. “Can’t see why he should be so ready with his gun in defence of a jar of marmalade or a tin of chicken-ham-and-tongue paste.”
Northfleet evaded the direct issue.
“It wasn’t you and Mrs. Trent they were afraid of,” he pointed out. “That’s as plain as a pikestaff.”
“What’s their game, then?”
“I don’t know,” Northfleet answered, rather irritably. “Can you think of anything yourself?”
Colin had another revelation of the obvious.
“Smuggling, eh?” he suggested. “That might fit. But what’s really worth smuggling in these days?”
“Dope, for one thing. And the duty on saccharin runs up to over six thousand pounds per ton. It’s easy enough to find something worth smuggling, if you look round.”
“ ’S that so?” Colin was surprised by the figure. “Why, then, look here. Easy to land stuff on Ruffa; no Customs people within miles. Easy to ferry it over, bit by bit, and land it on the coast hereabouts. Not at Stornadale, where you might be noticed. Land it on the shore somewhere at night. No risk at all. Take it away in a car. Dead easy.”
“Why not land it on the shore direct, then, instead of dumping it here? And why doesn’t Arrow keep a motor-boat? Rowing to the mainland’s a bit of a job at the best; and quite impossible if the sea gets up at all.”
Colin still clung to the smuggling theory.
“Was that stuff they landed heavy?” he asked.
“How can I tell?” Northfleet retorted, with another touch of irritation. “I can’t see in the dark. All I know is that they did land something. And it can’t have been a load heavier than two men could carry easily, or they’d have come back again for a second trip up to Heather Lodge.”
Colin, slightly irritated in his turn, resolved to make a frontal attack.
“Look here,” he said abruptly, “Just where do you come in, Northfleet? This bird-watching stunt’s all my eye. I could do it better myself. You’ve some other game on. What is it? If it’s a straight one, I might lend a hand.”
For a full minute he got no reply. The tip of Northfleet’s cigarette glowed periodically in the darkness; but the rhythm remained unaltered; and if Colin had expected Northfleet to betray agitation by quick smoking he was disappointed.
“I’m in a difficult position—a damnably difficult position,” he said at last, with a certain irascibility which Colin knew was not directed to his own address. “If I go the length of saying that I’m up here on a confidential bit of work, it’s as far as I can go. I expect you’d guess that anyway, so I’m not giving much away. But who my employers are is their own affair and mine.”
“Quite so,” Colin agreed.
“I don’t live on air, and my fees are pretty stiff. It’s been worth these people’s while to make me drop my practice and come up here for weeks. Therefore they must think the business important. I’m not telling you anything you couldn’t infer for yourself.”
“I guessed something of the sort,” Colin admitted.
“So far as I’m concerned,” Northfleet went on, emphasising his words with a movement of his cigarette, “the business is absolutely straight. I wouldn’t touch it if it weren’t.”
“Take your word for that,” Colin volunteered at once. “It’s old Arrow you’re after. And Hazel Arrow——”
He paused, annoyed that he had let that slip out unawares.
“Miss Arrow’s one of my difficulties,” Northfleet said quite frankly. “But so far as she’s concerned—— She has nothing to do with the matter I’m employed on. Is that absolutely clear?”
“Quite,” said Colin, not anxious to pursue this branch of the problem for reasons which seemed obvious to him.
Northfleet smoked for a time in silence.
“Well, there it is,” he said at last. “I’ve broken no confidence in telling you that. I can’t tell you any more. You could queer my pitch for me by going to old Arrow, I expect; but I don’t think you’ll do that.”
“Hardly,” Colin protested indignantly.
“Or you can stand neutral,” Northfleet continued, without taking notice of the interjection. “Or else you can lend me a hand, if you like. Unless you choose, that needn’t involve you in any risks.”
“Meaning the pirate with the pistol?”
A movement of Northfleet’s glowing cigarette-tip showed that he nodded in confirmation.
“I’ve a notion,” he said, after a moment or two, “that a copy of that gibberish which came over the wireless the other night might be useful. You noted it down, you told me. Care to risk the wrath of the Postmaster-General and ‘make known its contents’ as they say on the licence?”
“What makes you think it’d be any use to you?” Colin asked. “It was short-wave stuff. The sender may be anywhere.”
“You got it perfectly clearly on a night when general conditions in the ether were bad,” Northfleet pointed out. “That looks to me like a ground-wave; and the range of ground-wave reception for a weak amateur transmitter is nothing much. Ergo, the transmitting station isn’t far off. What about the call-sign?”
“A fake one,” Colin declared promptly. “It ought to be Siamese. But if you’re right about the transmitter