The Case of the Fickle Mermaid (26 page)

It was while they were occupied thus that their assailants crept up behind them. Later, when Gretel had time to think about it, she would deduce that the fellows must have been hiding in the shadowy recesses of the cave, awaiting their moment to pounce. And pounce they did. The first Gretel knew of their presence was a speedy scuffle of footsteps, and then rough hessian against her face as a large sack was forced over her head. Judging by the muffled oaths uttered to her left, Captain Ziegler had also been caught entirely off guard and was being similarly ensnared. Gretel shouted out, more from alarm than anger. The sack was sufficiently capacious to come down to her middle, and as soon as it was in place her attackers wound rough rope around it, tying her arms to her sides and rendering her bagged, trussed, and helpless as a farmyard fowl on its way to market.

“Take your hands off me!” she insisted, as she was manhandled, stumbling, across the uneven floor. But the villain gave no reply. She could hear the captain raging and bellowing, the sacking masking his exact words, but sentiments nonetheless clear. The pair of them were marched a short distance and then shoved into a nook farther inside the cave, on a slope. She could hear waves entering the cave via another pool—this one was not peaceful and low, but obviously affected by the tides. She was forced to sit, whereupon her feet were also bound. Once sitting, the sack over Gretel's head moved slightly, so that, as chance would have it, her left eye came level to a small patch worn threadbare. There was just enough light to enable her to
see through. The first thing she saw was Pustule's heavenly visage. The sight of it so close up made her gasp, but she quickly recovered herself. They were in a tight enough spot without her letting her captors know that she had discovered their identity. Her mind raced. The smugglers had evidently been expecting them. But how? Had the mermaid told them? Had Hoffman guessed their plans and sent a gull? It really mattered not. What did matter was what the ruffians planned to do next, and how she might stop them doing it. Particularly if they planned on doing it to her. At that precise moment, she was being secured to a rock by yet more rope, as was the captain.

She squinted through her prickly window. She could make out Mold and Cat's Tongue as they stooped to fasten the captain's feet. Mold took his sword and pistol from him, deaf to his victim's vehement protestations. Cat's Tongue felt the need to cut a piece of rope in two, and so removed the dagger from its sheath. Gretel gave a small shout, which fortunately the men took no notice of, well able as they were to ignore cries of distress. What had caused her to exclaim, however, was not fear or despair, but amazement, for she saw that Cat's Tongue did not have a dagger at all. What he did have was a large, bone-handled knife with a silver end to it, and a curiously curved blade. Frenchie's knife. It could be no other. The very murder weapon itself, and now a link between the smugglers and the cook's death. The puzzle was, how had it come into Cat's Tongue's possession? He had not been on the
Arabella
the night Frenchie met his end, if ever. Gretel's thoughts scampered this way and that, exploring promising avenues that quickly revealed themselves to be cul de sacs. Surely Hoffman would have thrown the thing overboard; it would have been the wisest and safest thing to do. But here was the knife. The sprite said that Bo'sun Brandt had been present at the killing. Had he been charged with disposing of the weapon, perhaps, but
seen value in the thing, as was his nature, and gone against his master's wishes? He might have sold it to his fellow smuggler. It seemed the most likely explanation. Gretel cared not for the detail, but knew, as certainly as she knew her own shoe size, that she must obtain that knife. Here at last was the proof she needed to condemn Hoffman.

As she and the captain fell to silence, the men, being of limited intellectual capacity, began to fill that void with their own increasingly audible mutterings. So it was that Gretel learned her intended fate. The men were waiting for the tide to come in, so that they could take delivery of more brandy from a vessel evidently larger than their own boat. Once they had their cargo safely stored away in another cave, they would return to deal with their prisoners. They would let the rising water in this cave do its work, then transport the bodies back to their own lifeboat, which they would hole before setting it out on the sea once more. If the wreckage was found, it would suggest it had been snagged upon rocks, and its occupants, were they ever to float to notice, would bear no scars other than where the fish might have feasted upon them, as is often the case with those unfortunate souls who drown at sea.

At last their captors satisfied themselves that their catch was secure and headed off to make their rendezvous. For a moment neither Gretel nor the captain spoke, so that all that could be heard was the echo of the smugglers' dwindling footsteps and the teasing roll and splash of the waves entering the nearest part of the cave. At last Gretel ventured to voice her thoughts.

“It would seem that matters have not gone entirely to plan.”

“God's truth, woman, you have that right! What folly have you led me to?”

“Me?”

“Aye, 'tis plain we were expected.”

“By the mermaid, yes, but . . .”

“But we found no mermaid, only a watery death, if those rogues have their way. How is it that they knew we were to come here? Someone told them of our plans.”

“Well, it wasn't me. Really, how could you think I'd put my own person at risk of such a fate, let alone that of my client? Credit me with wishing to preserve my own neck, even if you think me ready to give up yours!” The ropes were starting to chafe at her wrists and ankles, and she was in no mood to be tactful.

“It was you who brought me here,” the captain insisted on pointing out again. “You who persuaded me to take this course of action.”

“And you who kept brandishing your weapons and strutting about before we left in a manner suggesting we could be assailed by a small army and still come off the better party in the encounter.”

“I was taken by surprise!”

“And where is it written that your enemies must give notice of their intention to attack? You cannot entirely blame me for our predicament when you have so singularly failed to protect us.”

“Should a detective need to be protected?”

“My work is of the mind, not the sword. For pity's sake, I was safer with Hans!”

“Blast you for a woman! Have you nothing more to offer than complaints?” he growled.

He had a point. There was little to be gained by argument, and time was against them. Even now Gretel could feel the cool water touching the soles of her shoes. They had an hour, maybe two at most before the sea level would rise to claim them. They had better not waste it in fruitless conjecture and disagreement.

“Very well,” she said, more calmly than she felt, “I accept that I am in part to blame for the predicament in which we now find ourselves. We must now work together if we are to
escape our fate. I'm certain those villains would like nothing better than for us to turn on each other.”

The captain harrumphed in a way that suggested grudging agreement. He struggled against his bonds. “The knots are tight and the rope new,” he told her. “I cannot break free.”

Gretel wriggled her feet and was able to kick off one shoe. This enabled her to remove her foot from the rope that tied her to the rock. “Look,” she cried, “I am untethered.”

“How can I look?”

“Oh, yes, of course, forgive me. I have a small hole in my sack and can see through it.”

“Is there any sight of the scoundrels who bound us?”

“Alas, there is not. Still, I have freed myself from the rock to which I was tied, but, argh . . .” She cursed as, in her attempt to get up, she pitched forward and landed hard upon the rough floor of the cave. Her legs were still tied and the knees and her hands still bound, her arms pinned tight to her side. She tried again, this time kneeling and trying to shuffle forward, but again she lost her balance, catching on her head a glancing blow as she toppled sideways, the rough sacking providing ineffectual protection. “It's no use,” she said. “I can make no purposeful progress like this. I might well knock myself senseless.”

“Ha! At least you will know what to do to escape a slow drowning.” Captain Ziegler was surprisingly quick to give up hope. Gretel was on the point of attempting to raise his morale when she heard a sound.

“Listen,” she hissed in an excited whisper. “Someone is coming.”

Footsteps ruled out the mermaid, so that it seemed at least one of their attackers was returning. Gretel wondered if they had decided to put them to the sword instead. She lay tense and still, peering through her unhelpfully ragged eyehole. A
figure came into view. A man, moving quickly and quietly. He approached the captain, hesitated, and then lifted the sack from his head.

“By all that floats!” exclaimed Captain Ziegler, at the same moment Gretel recognized their visitor.

“Dr. Becker!” she cried. “Dr. Becker, how came you here?”

“By a small boat, much like your own,” he explained gently, removing Gretel's hood.

She gasped air and shook her head, spitting hessian fibers as she did so. She was irritated at the thought of what the wretched sacking must have done to her hair and thought briefly of how exasperated Everard would be to see his efforts yet again ruined.

The captain was incensed. “You followed us! I was certain our departure went unseen. I had not reckoned with such an early riser as yourself. But, no matter. It is our good fortune that you are here.”

“I am only too glad to be of assistance. I saw the ruffians responsible on the cliff path.”

“Did they see you?” Gretel asked.

“I am certain they did not. I was able to duck into a crevice in the rocks and remain hidden. They were too engaged in discussing their plans to notice me.”

“And you were intent on your own,” Gretel suggested. The words of the sprite's riddle were coming back to her and, at last, making sense.
The sharp-eyed man
—surely there was no eyesight sharper in the region than Dr. Becker's with his ever-present binoculars.

Dr. Becker smiled ruefully. “I confess, fraulein, my mind is ever on one matter, and that is what brought me here, as I think you know.”

The captain finished untying his bonds and stood up, striding about the cave to stretch his cramped legs. “You took
up a dangerous course in following us, Dr. Becker. We are, as you have witnessed, dealing with murderous rogues.”

Gretel allowed her fellow passenger to assist her to her feet. The scrapes and bruises from her falls upon the rocks were beginning to smart unpleasantly, but there was no time to concern herself with such trifles. “I think you will find, captain, that the good doctor's interests lie with someone, indeed, something, other than ourselves. Is that not correct, Dr. Becker?”

“Your powers of deduction are impressive, Fraulein Gretel,” he replied.

“Alas, such powers, if powers they be, have come a little late in the day for convenience.”

“Better late than never,” he said.

“Had you not come here upon your mission,” she replied, “there might have been no ‘later,' either for myself or the captain.”

“Mission?” Captain Ziegler was confused.

At that moment, a sound from the main part of the cave disturbed their conversation. The trio moved toward the little pool and stood watching as the mermaid emerged from the silky waters. Gretel was struck anew by the creature's allure. No matter that she had seen her before, it was impossible not to gaze in awe at the beautiful face, curvaceous upper body, and iridescent blue-green shimmer of her tail. The mermaid lifted herself gracefully from the pool and sat on the mossy edge, arranging herself in the most decorous manner.

“Well!” she purred. “Three visitors all at once. How lucky I am. I do hope you have not been waiting long. It can be chilly in here at times.”

The captain had been momentarily rendered speechless by the vision before him. For all his insistence that he had no fear of mermaids, he was certainly overawed by the presence of this one. Gretel fancied there raged within him the confusion any man must endure when faced with a vision of loveliness even
more beautiful than was fabled, undeniably erotic, and yet somehow sexless at the same time. It was yet another instance, as far as Gretel was concerned, that demonstrated how fortunate she was to be a woman.

“Good morning to you,” she said to the mermaid.

“Fraulein! I am so happy you were able to return.”

“Did I not promise that I would?”

Dr. Becker stepped forward. “Good morning,” he said.

“Oh!” the mermaid exclaimed. “I know that voice! You are my shadowy benefactor. At last I see your face.”

“Benefactor?” The captain had rediscovered his voice. “What goes on here?”

“Allow me to enlighten you, captain,” said Gretel. “This charming creature is the source of the singing that has so disturbed your crew and your business. And this”—here she indicated Dr. Becker with a sweep of her arm—“is the man who has been paying her—and paying her handsomely, I might say—to sing.”

“This! Dr. Becker!?” The captain's face darkened with fury. His hand went instinctively to his scabbard, forgetting that his sword had been taken from him. “Hell's teeth, man! It was
you
who sought to see me ruined?”

“My wish was never to do you any damage, captain, I assure you.”

“What? My crew disappearing, my clients following, and my reputation likely to go the same way, and yet you think you do me no harm?”

“It was my intention only ever to see you go elsewhere. To leave these waters and offer your cruises somewhere other.”

“He did not single you out for this treatment,” Gretel told him. “The mermaid was to sing for one and all ships, not only the
Arabella
. Is that not the case, Dr. Becker?”