Hetty Wesley | Page 8

the East
India House and was looking forward to a highly uncomfortable
interview with the Board of Governors: but he was concerned, too, as
an honest man; and had jumped at Mrs. Wesley's invitation to sup with
her in Johnson's Court and tell what he could.
Mr. Matthew Wesley, as host, sat at the head of his table and puffed at
a churchwarden pipe; a small, narrow-featured man, in a
chocolate-coloured suit, with steel buttons, and a wig of professional
amplitude. On his right sat his sister-in-law, her bonnet replaced by a
tall white cap: on his left the Captain in his shore-going clothes. He and
the apothecary had mixed themselves a glass apiece of Jamaica rum,
hot, with sugar and lemon-peel. At the foot of the table, with his injured
leg supported on a cushion, reclined the Reverend Samuel Wesley,
Junior, Usher of Westminster School, his gaunt cheeks (he was the
plainest-featured of the Wesleys) wan with recent illness, and his eyes
fixed on Captain Bewes's chubby face.
"Well, as I told you, Mr. Annesley's cabin lay beside my state-room,
with a window next to mine in the stern: and, as I showed Mrs. Wesley
to-day, my stateroom opens on the 'captain's cabin' (as they call it),
where I have dined as many as two dozen before now, and where I do

the most of my work. This has three windows directly under the big
poop-lantern. I was sitting, that afternoon, at the head of the mahogany
swing table (just as you might be sitting now, sir) with my back to the
light and the midmost of the three windows wide open behind me, for
air. I had the ship's chart spread before me when my second mate, Mr.
Orchard, knocked at the door with word that all was ready to cast off. I
asked him a few necessary questions, and while he stood there chatting
I heard a splash just under my window. Well, that might have been
anything--a warp cast off and the slack of it striking the water, we'll say.
Whatever it was, I heard it, turned about, and with one knee on the
window-locker (I remember it perfectly) took a glance out astern. I saw
nothing to account for the sound: but I knew of a dozen things which
might account for it-- anything, in fact, down to some lazy cabin-boy
heaving the dinner-scraps overboard: and having, as you'll understand,
a dozen matters on my mind at the moment, I thought no more of it, but
turned to Mr. Orchard again and picked up our talk. To this day I don't
know that there was anything in the sound, but 'tis fair to tell you all I
can."--Captain Bewes took a sip at his grog, and over the rim looked
down the table towards Samuel, who nodded.
The Captain nodded back, set down his glass, and resumed. "Quite so.
The next thing is that Mr. Orchard, returning to deck two minutes later
and having to pass the door of Mr. Annesley's cabin on his way, ran
against an old Hindu beggar crouching there, fingering the door-handle
and about to enter--or so Orchard supposed, and kicked him up the
companion. He told me about it himself, next day, when we found the
cabin empty and I began to make inquiries. 'Now here,' says you, 'here's
a clue,' and I'm not denying but it may be one. Only when you look into
it, what does it amount to? Mr. Annesley-- saving your presence--was
known for a stern man: you may take it for certain he'd made enemies
over there, and these Hindus are the devil (saving your presence again,
ma'am) for nursing a grudge. 'Keep a stone in your pocket seven years:
turn it, keep it for another seven; 'twill be ready at hand for your
enemy'--that's their way. But, to begin with, an old jogi is nothing
strange to meet on a ship before she clears. These beggars in the East
will creep in anywhere. And, next, you'll hardly maintain that an old
beggarman ('seventy years old if a day,' said Orchard) was going to

take an active man like Mr. Annesley and cram him bodily through a
cabin window? 'Tis out of nature. And yet when we broke into his
cabin, twenty-four hours later, there was not a trace of him: only his
boxes neatly packed, his watch hanging to the beam and just running
down, a handful of gold and silver tossed on to the bunk--just as he
might have emptied it from his pockets--nothing else, and the whole
cabin neat as a pin."
"But," objected Mr. Matthew Wesley, "if this jogi--or whatever you
call him--had entered the cabin for no good, he would hardly have
missed the money lying on the bunk."
"Sir, you must