The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [1049]
The steamer whistled sharply, circled backwards into the road-stead, and then steamed away. The pier soon hid her, but her smoke showed she was steering towards the North Sea.
'What does this mean?' I asked.
'There must be some other quay to stop at nearer the town,' said Davies. 'Let's go ashore and get your letters.'
We had made a long and painful toilette that morning, and felt quite shy of one another as we sculled towards the pier, in much-creased blue suits, conventional collars, and brown boots. It was the first time for two years that I had seen Davies in anything approaching a respectable garb; but a fashionable watering-place, even in the dead season, exacts respect; and, besides, we had friends to visit.
We tied up the dinghy to an iron ladder, and on the pier found our inquisitor of the night before smoking in the doorway of a shed marked 'Harbour Master'. After some civilities we inquired about the steamer. The answer was that it was Saturday, and she had, therefore, gone on to Juist. Did we want a good hotel? The 'Vier Jahreszeiten' was still open, etc.
'Juist, by Jove!' said Davies, as we walked on. 'Why are those three going to Juist?'
'I should have thought it was pretty clear. They're on their way to Memmert.'
Davies agreed, and we both looked longingly westward at a straw-coloured streak on the sea.
'Is it some meeting, do you think?' said Davies.
'Looks like it. We shall probably find the Kormoran here, wind-bound.'
And find her we did soon after, the outermost of the stack of galliots, on the farther side of the harbour. Two men, whose faces we took a good look at, were sitting on her hatch, mending a sail.
Flooded with sun, yet still as the grave, the town was like a dead butterfly for whom the healing rays had come too late. We crossed some deserted public gardens commanded by a gorgeous casino, its porticos heaped with chairs and tables; so past kiosques and _cafés,_ great white hotels with boarded windows, bazaars and booths, and all the stale lees of vulgar frivolity, to the post-office, which at least was alive. I received a packet of letters and purchased a local time-table, from which we learned that the steamer sailed daily to Borkum _via_ Norderney, touching three times a week at Juist (weather permitting). On the return journey to-day it was due at Norderney at 7.30 p.m. Then I inquired the way to the 'Vier Jahreszeiten'. 'For whatever your principles,
Davies,' I said, 'we are going to have the best breakfast money can buy! We've got the whole day before us.'
The 'Four Seasons' Hotel was on the esplanade facing the northern beach. Living up to its name, it announced on an illuminated sign-board, 'Inclusive terms for winter visitors; special attention to invalids, etc.' Here in a great glass restaurant, with the unruffled blue of ocean spread out before us, we ate the king of breakfasts, dismissed the waiter, and over long and fragrant Havanas examined my mail at leisure.
'What a waste of good diplomacy!' was my first thought, for nothing had been tampered with, so far as we could judge from the minutest scrutiny, directed, of course, in particular to the franked official letters (for to my surprise there were two) from Whitehall.
The first in order of date (6th Oct.) ran: 'Dear Carruthers.--Take another week by all means.--Yours, etc.'
The second (marked 'urgent') had been sent to my home address and forwarded. It was dated 15th October, and cancelled the previous letter, requesting me to return to London without delay--'I am sorry to abridge your holiday, but we are very busy, and, at present, short-handed.--Yours, etc.' There was a dry postscript to the effect that another time I was to be good enough to leave more regular and definite information as to my whereabouts when absent.
'I'm afraid I never got this!' I said,