He resumed chewing, regarding me stolidly.
“That goes in my report, Mr. Kerrigan.”
“Thank God!” I whispered. “Because, you see. Sergeant Rorke, no one came in. I was just behind the door. And you know that no one came out!”
“Someone is coming out!” a snappy voice announced. “It’s impossible to sleep through all this chatter!”
Turning, I saw Nayland Smith.
“Smith!” I exclaimed, “I did not want to wake you; but something very strange is going on.”
“So I gather.”
Rapidly, in a very gabble of words, I told him of the incident of the padding footsteps, of the remarkable behaviour of the marmoset, and of the opening door.
“And I’ll say,” Rorke interpolated, “that nobody comes out.”
“As you say,” Smith murmured thoughtfully, “no one comes out.”
He stared at me very hard, and in the sudden silence I knew that he was listening.
“I shall be glad,” he added, “when the conference is over, Kerrigan. In New York we are besieged by enemies who fight with strange weapons.”
CHAPTER XVII
CHRISTOPHERS CHART
“I shall be obliged. Sir Lionel,” said Mr. Hannessy, “if you will tell us now in your own way the circumstances which have led you to believe that you hold a clue to what may prove to be a secret submarine base in the Caribbean. We are told by our Navy—represented here by Commander Ingles—that allowing for underwater craft belonging to belligerent nations, there is still a big surplus around those waters belonging to no nation which so far we have been able to identify. Valuable lives have been lost in trying to plumb the mystery. One”—he glanced at Kennard Wood—”right here in New York, only last night. The credentials borne by Sir Denis Nayland Smith”—he nodded in Smith’s direction—”are sufficient proof that your theory has a concrete basis. We are all anxious to hear the facts.”
We sat around a long table in our sitting-room. On my right, at one end of the table, was Nayland Smith; facing me. Commander Ingles and Kennard Wood; on my left the celebrated Mr. Wilber Ord, expert adviser to the White House on international relations. Facing Wilber Ord, John Hannessy, the speaker, white-haired, fresh- coloured, vigorous, stood for that monument which is sometimes called Republican and sometimes Democratic but which always stands for freedom. From the other end of the table Sir Lionel Barton dominated everybody. The steel box lay before him.
He was in his element. Those dancing blue eyes under shaggy brows told how much he was enjoying himself. He glanced around at everybody, and then: “I might remark, sir,” he said, addressing Mr. Hannessy, “that the credentials borne by
He paused, looking about again from face to face.
“The family met with misfortune. I had great difficulty in tracing the survivor—last of the Stewarts of that branch. From her—she is a very old woman—I acquired the Stewart Luck.”
Opening the steel box. Barton took out an old duelling pistol.
“This,” he said, “with the object attached, is the Stewart Luck. Now, this pistol was almost certainly manufactured in Edinburgh about 1810-14. The fact is significant. It is fitted with a Forsyth percussion lock, an early example. It was designed, of course, to fire a ball. How it came into the possession of that remarkable character to whom I am about to introduce you, I leave to you, gentlemen, to decide. Myself, I think I know. But this crest was added by a later hand.”
He pointed to a crest engraved upon the mounting.
“The ‘attached object’—a piece of silver resembling a small pencil case—called for my special skill. For a long time it defeated me. Only by identifying the monogram on the pistol was I enabled to grasp the real character of this mysterious object. After many failures, I deciphered the monogram. The monogram mystery solved, my next conclusion was obvious. The small silver object was almost certainly the first
Sir Lionel was warming to his subject. His great voice boomed around the room: he no longer looked at us in stressing his
points; he glared.
“My discovery was revolutionary. I had satisfied myself that the device, monogram, or crest, embodied a date in Roman numerals. That date was A.D. 1811. Together with the monogram and the silver bullet it was sufficient. This pistol had been the property of Christophe—that great Negro who built the Citadel, perhaps the most majestic fortress in the world; who expelled Napoleon’s troops; who made of cowering slaves from the interior of Africa prosperous and useful citizens. Yes, gentlemen—Henry Christophe, crowned in 1811 King of Haiti!”
No one interrupted. Barton had his audience enthralled.
“King Christophe, that noble Negro, at the height of his power was betrayed, deserted; and it is common knowledge that he fired a silver bullet into his own brain!”
John Hannessy stared around, nodding in confirmation to the others present.
“The first conical bullet in history was fired into the brain of King Christophe by his own hand. He was a negro genius; possibly the bullet was of his own invention, made for him by some skilled workmen brought to Haiti for the purpose. This point of my inquiry reached—what did I ask myself?”
“I cannot imagine, sir,” said John Hannessy in a hushed voice.
“The question I asked myself was this:—Why should so many persons—myself included—incur great risk and expense to recover the pistol and the bullet with which King Christophe possibly committed suicide? I replied: A great treasure—jewels, bullion, variously estimated at five to seven million pounds sterling—was hidden by the Negro king during his lifetime, searched for after his death—but never found!”
By now I was keyed up as tensely as the others. This strange story was not wholly new to me; but I understood at last the importance of the steel box which Sir Lionel had guarded so jealously from the outset. I was not prepared, however, for what was to follow.
Barton continued: “I found myself to be much intrigued by the fragment of catgut which formerly had attached the bullet to the pistol. Catgut is uncommon stuff. It suggested (a) a fiddler; (b) a surgeon—”
“I don’t believe, sir,” John Hannessy burst in, “
“And I don’t care a damn, sir! Some later owner may have tied the bullet to the pistol. But I had my clue! You see, I knew that King Christophe had a resident medical attendant—Duncan Stewart, Scots physician.”
“Good heavens!” Smith murmured. “You certainly know your own game. Barton.”
“I knew that he.Dr. Stewart, was probably the last man to see the black king alive. Later, the body was thrown into a pit in the courtyard of Christophe’s great fortress, the Citadel, on the crest of the mountain. But”—he spoke slowly and emphatically, punctuating periods with a bang of his fist on the table—”before that event took place.Dr. Stewart had extracted the bullet and had seized the pistol, which I suspect to have been his own present to the black king.
‘“We must assume that Dr. Stewart was ignorant of the secret, assume that he retained these gruesome relics for purely sentimental reasons. It remained for me to discover that the historical silver bullet was
Nayland Smith was staring hard at Sir Lionel, who had now taken from the steel box a tiny piece of papyrus set under glass. The expression upon Barton’s sun-wrinkled, truculent face was ironical.
“I should be glad, Mr. Hannessy,” he said, “if you would examine this and then pass it on.” He handed the fragment to John Hannessy. “A glance was enough. Christophe had had a chart—a minute chart—made of his treasure cave and had hidden it in his own skull at the instant of death!”