CHAPTER IX

THE CONUNDRUM OF THE GOLF LINKS

I have wondered sometimes whether I have ever really liked Christopher Quarles; at times I have certainly resented his treatment, and had he been requested to make out a list of his friends, quite possibly my name would not have figured in the list unless Zena had written it out for him. Some remark of the professor's had annoyed me at this time, and I had studiously kept away from Chelsea for some days, when one morning I received a telegram:

"If nothing better to do, join us here for a few days.--Quarles, Marine Hotel, Lingham."

I did not even know they were out of town, for Zena and I never wrote to each other, and I had a strong suspicion the invitation meant that the professor wanted my help in some case in which he was interested.

Still, there would be leisure hours, and I had visions of pleasant rambles with Zena. If I could manage it, some of them should be when the moon traced a pale gold path across the sleeping waters. I may say at once that some moonlight walks were accomplished, though fewer than I could have wished, and that, although there was no business behind the professor's invitation, my visit to Lingham resulted in the solution of a mystery which had begun some months before and had baffled all inquiry ever since.

Lingham, as everybody knows, is a great yachting center, and as I journeyed down to the East Coast I wondered if yachting interested Quarles, and, if not, why he had chosen Lingham for a holiday.

The professor was a man of surprises. I have seen him looking so old that a walk to the end of the short street in Chelsea might reasonably be expected to try his capacity for exercise; and, again, I have seen him look almost young; indeed, in these reminiscences I have shown that at times he did not seem to know what fatigue meant. When he met me in the vestibule of the Marine Hotel he looked no more than middle-aged, and as physically fit as a man could be. He was dressed in loose tweeds, and wore a pair of heavy boots which, even to look at, almost made one feel tired.

"Welcome, my dear fellow!" he said. "But why bring such infernal weather with you? It began to blow at the very time you must have been leaving town, and has been increasing ever since. It has put a stop to all racing."

"I didn't know you took an interest in yachting."

"I don't. Golf, Wigan! At golf I am an enthusiast. There's a good sporting course here, that's why I came to Lingham. You've brought your clubs, I see."

"Chance. You did not say anything about golf in your wire."

"Why should I? Useless waste of money. I remembered your telling me once that you never went for your holiday without taking your clubs.

We shall have grand sport."

He laughed quite boisterously, and a man who was pa.s.sing through the hall looked at me and smiled. I recollected that smile afterward, but took little notice of it just then, because Zena was coming down the stairs.

Before dinner that evening it blew a gale, and from windows overlooking the deserted parade we watched a sullen, angry sea pounding the sandy sh.o.r.e and hissing into long lines of foam, which the wind caught up and carried viciously inland.

"Isn't that a sail--a yacht?" said Zena suddenly, pointing out to sea, over which darkness was gathering like a pall.

It was, and those on board of her must be having a bad time, not to say a perilous one. She was certainly not built for such weather as this, but she must be a stout little craft to stand it as she did, and they were no fools who had the handling of her.

"Blown right out of her course, I should think," said Quarles. "The yachts shelter in the creek to the south yonder. I should not wonder if that boat hopes to make the creek which lies on the other side of the golf course."

"She's more likely to come ash.o.r.e," said a man standing behind us, and he spoke with the air of an expert in such matters. "There's no anchorage in that creek, and, besides, a bar of mud lies right across the mouth of it."

As the curved line of the sea front presently hid the yacht from our view the gong sounded for dinner--a very welcome sound, and I, for one, thought no more about the yacht that night.

Before morning the gale had subsided, but the day was sullen and cloudy, threatening rain, and we did not attempt golf until after lunch.

It was an eighteen-hole course, and might be reckoned sporting, but it was not ideal. There was too much loose sand, and a great quant.i.ty of that rank gra.s.s which flourishes on sand dunes. It said much for the management that the greens were as good as they were.

I had just played two holes with the professor before I remembered the man who had smiled in the hall of the hotel yesterday. Certainly Quarles was an enthusiast. In all the etiquette of the game he was perfect, but as a player he was the very last word. He persisted in driving with a full swing, usually with comic effect; he was provided with a very full complement of clubs, and was precise in always using the right one; but he seemed physically incapable of keeping his eye on the ball, and constantly hit out, as if he were playing cricket; yet the bigger a.s.s he made of himself the greater seemed his enjoyment. He never lost his temper. Other men would have emptied themselves of the dregs of their vocabulary; Quarles only smiled, cheerfully explaining how he had come to top a ball, or why he had taken half a dozen shots to get out of a bunker. No wonder the man in the hotel had laughed.

There was one particularly difficult hole. The bogey was six. It required a good drive to get over a ridge of high ground; beyond was a bra.s.sey shot, then an iron, and a mashie on to the green. To the left lay a creek, a narrow water course between mud. My drive did not reach the ridge, on the top of which was a direction post; and the professor pulled his ball, which landed perilously near the mud. It took him three shots to come up with me, and when at last we mounted the ridge we saw there was a man on the distant green, which lay in a hollow surrounded by bunkers, behind which was the bank of the curving creek.

"Fore!" shouted Quarles.

I almost laughed. It was certain the man would have ample time to get off the green before the professor arrived there. Quarles waited for a moment, but the man ahead took no notice, possibly had not heard him.

The professor took a fall swing with his bra.s.sey, and, for a wonder, the ball went as straight and true as any golfer could desire.

"Ah! I am getting into form, Wigan," he exclaimed. "What is that fool doing yonder? Fore!"

This time the man looked round and waved to us to come on, which we did slowly, for Quarles's form was speedily out again.

The man on the green was a curiosity. Thirty-five or thereabouts, I judged him to be; a thin man, but wiry, with a stiff figure and an immobile face, which looked as if he had never been guilty of showing an emotion. His eyes were beady, and fixed you; his mouth gave the impression of being so seldom used for speech that it had become partially atrophied. His costume, perhaps meant to be sporting, missed the mark--looked as if he had borrowed the various articles from different friends; and he was practicing putting with a thin-faced mashie, very rusty in the head, and dilapidated in the shaft.

He stood aside and watched Quarles miss two short puts.

"Difficult," he remarked. "I'm practicing it."

Quarles looked at the speaker, then at the mashie.

"With that?"

"Why not?" asked the man.

"Why?" asked Quarles.

"If I can do it with this I can do it with anything," was the answer.

"That's true," said the professor, making for the next tee. There was no arguing with a man of this type.

The tee was on the top of the creek bank.

"I was right," said Quarles. "Look, Wigan, they did make for this haven last night."

It was almost low water. The bank on the golf course side was steep, varying in height, but comparatively low near the tee, and an irregular line of piles stuck up out of the mud below, the tops of half a dozen of them rising higher than the bank. On the other side of the creek the sh.o.r.e sloped up gradually from a wide stretch of mud.

In the narrow waterway was a yacht, about eighteen tons, I judged.

That she was the same we had seen laboring in the gale last night I could not say, but certainly she was much weather-marked and looked forlorn. She had not had a coat of paint recently, the bra.s.swork on her was green with neglect, and her ropes and sails looked old and badly cared for. Yet her lines were dainty, and, straining at her hawser, she reminded me of a disappointed woman fretting to free herself from an undesirable position.

A yacht is always so sentient a thing, and seems so full of conscious life.

Quarles appeared to understand my momentary preoccupation.

"Don't take any notice of her," he said. "We're out for golf. I always manage a good drive from this tee."

This time was an exception, at any rate, and, in fact, for the remainder of the round he played worse than before, if that were possible. But he was perfectly satisfied with himself, and talked nothing but golf as we walked back, until we were close to the hotel, when he stopped suddenly.

"Queer chap, that, on the green."

"Very."

"Do you think he came from the yacht?"