[408]CHAPTER XSMOOTH CROSSINGOnthis voyage theMesopotamiawas to sail at midnight. It was now, to be precise about it, eleven forty-fiveP. M.and some odd seconds; and they were wrestling the last of the heavy luggage aboard. The Babel-babble that distinguishes a big liner’s departure was approaching its climax of acute hysteria, when two well-dressed, youngish men joined the wormlike column of eleventh-hour passengers mounting a portable bridge labelled First Cabin which hyphenated the strip of dark water between ship and shore. They were almost the last persons to join the line, coming in such haste along the dock that the dock captain on duty at the foot of the canvas-sided gangway let them pass without question.Except that these two men were much of a size and at a first glance rather alike in general aspect; and except that one of them, the rearmost, bore two bulging handbags while the[409]other kept his hands muffled in a grey tweed ulster that lay across his arms, there was nothing about them or either of them to distinguish them from any other belated pair of men in that jostling procession of the flurried and the hurried. Oh, yes, one of them had a moustache and the other had none.Indian file they went up the gangway and past the second officer, who stood at the head of it; and still tandem they pushed and were pushed along through the jam upon the deck. The second man, the one who bore the handbags, gave them over to a steward who had jumped forward when he saw them coming. He hesitated then, looking about him.“Come on, it’s all right,” said the first man.“How about the tickets? Don’t we have to show them first?” inquired the other.“No, not now,” said his companion. “We can go direct to our stateroom.” The same speaker addressed the steward:“D-forty,” he said briskly.“Quite right, sir,” said the steward. “D-forty. Right this way, sir; if you please, sir.”With the dexterity born of long practice the steward, burdened though he was, bored a path for himself and them through the crowd. He led them from the deck, across a corner of a big cabin that was like a hotel lobby, and down flights of broad stairs from B-deck to C and from C-deck to D, and thence aft along a[410]narrow companionway until he came to a cross hall where another steward stood.“Two gentlemen for D-forty,” said their guide. Surrendering the handbags to this other functionary, he touched his cap and vanished into thin air, magically, after the custom of ancient Arabian genii and modern British steamship servants.“’Ere you are, sirs,” said the second steward. He opened the door of a stateroom and stood aside to let them in. Following in behind them he deposited the handbags in mathematical alignment upon the floor and spoke a warning: “We’ll be leavin’ in a minute or two now, but it’s just as well, sir, to keep your stateroom door locked until we’re off—thieves are about sometimes in port, you know, sir. Was there anything else, sir?” He addressed them in the singular, but considered them, so to speak, in the plural. “I’m the bedroom steward, sir,” he added in final explanation.The passenger who had asked concerning the tickets looked about him curiously, as though the interior arrangement of a steamship stateroom was to him strange.“So you’re the bedroom steward,” he said. “What’s your name?”“Lawrence, sir.”“Lawrence what?”“I beg your pardon, sir?” said the steward, looking puzzled.“He wants to know your first name,”[411]explained the other prospective occupant of D-forty. This man had sat himself down upon the edge of the bed, still with his grey ulster folded forward across his arms as though the pockets held something valuable and must be kept in a certain position, just so, to prevent the contents spilling out.“’Erbert Lawrence, sir, thank you, sir,” said the steward, his face clearing, “I’ll be ’andy if you ring, sir.” He backed out. “Nothing else, sir? I’ll see to your ’eavy luggage in the mornin’. Will there be any trunks for the stateroom?”“No trunks,” said the man on the bed. “Just some suitcases. They came aboard just ahead of us, I think.”“Right, sir,” said the accommodating Lawrence. “I’ll get your tickets in the morning and take them to the purser, if you don’t mind. Thank you, sir.” And with that he bowed himself out and was gone.As the door closed behind this thoughtful and accommodating servitor the fellow travellers looked at each other for a moment steadily, much as though they might be sharers of a common secret that neither cared to mention even between themselves. The one who stood spoke first:“I guess I’ll go up and see her pull out,” he said. “I’ve never seen a ship pull out; it’s a new thing to me. Want to go?”The man nursing the ulster shook his head.[412]“All right, then,” said the first. He pitched his own topcoat, which he had been carrying under his arm, upon the lone chair. “I’ll be back pretty soon.” He glanced keenly at the one small porthole, looked about the stateroom once more, then stepped across the threshold and closed the door. The lock clicked.Left alone, the other man sat for a half minute or so as he was, with his head tilted forward in an attitude of listening. Then he stood up and with a series of shrugging, lifting motions, jerked the ulster forward so that it slipped through the loop of his arms upon the floor. Had the efficient Lawrence returned at that moment it is safe to say he would have sustained a profound shock, although it is equally safe to say he would have made desperate efforts to avoid showing his emotions. The man was manacled. Below his white shirt-cuffs his wrists were encircled by snug-fitting, shiny bracelets of steel united by a steel chain of four short links. That explained his rather peculiar way of carrying his ulster and his decidedly awkward way of ridding himself of it.He stepped across the room and with his coupled hands tried the knob of the door. The knob turned, but the bolt had been set from the outside. He was locked in. With his foot he dragged forward a footstool, kicking it close up against the panels so that should any person coming in open the door suddenly, the stool would retard that person’s entrance for a[413]moment anyway. He faced about then, considering his next move. The circular pane of thick glass in the porthole showed as a black target in the white wall; through it only blankness was visible. D-deck plainly was well down in the ship’s hull, below the level of promenades and probably not very far above the waterline. Nevertheless, the handcuffed man crossed over and drew the short silken curtains across the window, making the seclusion of his quarters doubly secure.Now, kneeling upon the floor, he undid the hasps of the two handbags, opened them and began rummaging in their cluttered depths. Doing all these things, he moved with a sureness and celerity which showed that he had worn his bonds for an appreciable space of time and had accustomed himself to using his two hands upon an operation where, unhampered, he might have used one or the other, but not both at once. His chain clinked briskly as he felt about in the valises. From them he first got out two travelling caps—one a dark grey cap, the other a cap of rather a gaudy check pattern; also, a plain razor, a safety razor and a box of cigars. He examined the safety razor a moment, then slipped it back into the flap pocket where it belonged; took a cigar from the box and put the box back into the grip; tried on first one of the travelling caps and then the other, and returned them to the places from which he had taken them; and reclosed[414]and refastened the grips themselves. But he took the other razor and dropped it in a certain place, close down to the floor at the foot of one of the beds.He shoved the footstool away from the door, and, after dusting off his knees, he went and stood at the porthole gazing out into the night through a cranny in the curtains. The ship no longer nuzzled up alongside the dock like a great sucking pig under the flanks of an even greater mother-sow; she appeared to stand still while the dock seemed to be slipping away from her rearward; but the man who looked out into the darkness was familiar enough with that illusion. With his manacled hands crossed upon his waistcoat and the cigar hanging unlighted between his lips, he watched until the liner had turned and was swinging down stream, heading for the mouth of the river and the bay.He lit the cigar, then, and once more sat himself down upon the edge of the bed. He puffed away steadily. His head was bent forward and his hands dangled between his knees in such ease as the snugness of the bracelets and the shortness of the chain permitted. Looking in at him you would have said he was planning something; that he was considering various problems. He was still there in that same hunching position, but the cigar had burned down two-thirds of its length, when the lock snicked a warning and his companion re-entered,[415]bearing a key with which he relocked the door upon the inner side.“Well,” said the newcomer, “we’re on our way.” There was no reply to this. He took off his derby hat and tossed it aside, and began unbuttoning his waistcoat.“Making yourself comfortable, eh?” he went on as though trying to manufacture conversation. The manacled one didn’t respond. He merely canted his head, the better to look into the face of his travel mate.“Say, look here,” demanded the new arrival, his tone and manner changing. “What’s the use, your nursing that grouch?”Coming up the gangway, twenty minutes before, they might have passed, at a casual glance, for brothers. Viewed now as they faced each other in the quiet of this small room such a mistake could not have been possible. They did not suggest brothers; for all that they were much the same in build and colouring they did not even suggest distant cousins. About the sitting man there were abundant evidences of a higher and more cultured organism than the other possessed; the difference showed in costume, in manner, in speech. Even wearing handcuffs he displayed, without trying to do so, a certain superiority in poise and assurance. In a way his companion seemed vaguely aware of this. It seemed to make him—what shall I say?—uneasy; maybe a bit envious; possibly arousing in him the imitative instinct. Judging[416]of him by his present aspect and the intonations of his voice, a shrewd observer of men and motives might have said that he was amply satisfied with the progress of the undertaking which he had now in hand, but that he lately had ceased to be entirely satisfied with himself.“Say, Bronston,” he repeated, “I tell you there’s no good nursing the grouch. I haven’t done anything all through this matter except what I thought was necessary. I’ve acted that way from the beginning, ain’t I?”“Have you heard me complain?” parried the gyved man. He blew out a mouthful of smoke.“No, I haven’t, not since you made the first kick that day I found you out in Denver. But a fellow can’t very well travel twenty-five hundred miles with another fellow, sharing the same stateroom with him and all that, without guessing what’s in the other fellow’s mind.”There was another little pause.“Well,” said the man upon the bed, “we’ve got this far. What’s the programme from this point on regarding these decorations?” He raised his hands to indicate what he meant.“That’s what I want to talk with you about,” answered the other. “The rest of the folks on this boat don’t know anything about us—not a blessed thing. The officers don’t know—nor the crew, nor any of the passengers, I reckon. To them we’re just two ordinary Americans crossing the ocean together on business or pleasure. You give me your promise not to[417]make any breaks of any sort, and I’ll take those things off you and not put them on again until just before we land. You know I want to make this trip as easy as I can for you.”“What earthly difference would it make whether I gave you my promise or not? Suppose, as you put it, I did make a break? Where would I break for out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? Are you still afraid of yourself?”“Certainly not; certainly I ain’t afraid. At that, you’ve been back and forth plenty of times across the ocean, and you know all the ropes on a ship and I don’t. Still, I ain’t afraid. But I’d like to have your promise.”“I won’t give it,” said he of the handcuffs promptly. “I’m through with making offers to you. Four days ago when you caught up with me, I told you I would go with you and make no resistance—make no attempt to get away from you—if you’d only leave my limbs free. You knew as well as I did that I was willing to waive extradition and go back without any fuss or any delay, in order to keep my people in this country from finding out what a devil’s mess I’d gotten myself into over on the other side. You knew I was not really a criminal, that I’d done nothing at all which an American court would construe as a crime. You knew that because I was an American the British courts would probably be especially hard upon me. And you knew too—you found that part out for yourself without my telling[418]you—that I was intending to go back to England at the first chance. You knew that all I needed was a chance to get at certain papers and documents and produce them in open court to prove that I was being made a scapegoat; you knew that if I had just two days free on British soil, in which to get the books from the place those lying partners of mine hid them, I could save myself from doing penal servitude. That was why I meant to go back of my own accord. That was why I offered to give you my word of honour that I would not attempt to get away. Did you listen? No!”“Well, didn’t I make the whole thing as easy for you as I could?” protested his companion. He spoke as if in self-defence, or at least in extenuation.“Easy? Didn’t you put these things on me? Haven’t I worn them every minute since then, awake or asleep, except when I was dressing or undressing?”“What’s the use of going into all that all over again? This was too big a case for me to be taking any risks. I’d had a hard enough job locating you; I couldn’t afford to lose you. Let me ask you a few questions: Didn’t we travel all the way from Denver in a stateroom, so that outside of the conductors and a couple of porters there wasn’t a soul knew you was in trouble? Didn’t I show you how to carry that overcoat over your arms when we were changing cars at Chicago, and again coming[419]across New York to-night, so’s nobody would catch on? Didn’t I steer clear of reporters all along the line? Didn’t I keep it all a secret when I was sending the wire on ahead to book the passage?”He paused; then remembered something else:“Didn’t I go to the trouble of buying a lighter pair of cuffs than the ones I usually use and having an extra link set in the chain so as to keep your arms from cramping, wearing them? Yes, I did—I did all those things and you can’t deny it.“Nobody on this boat suspects anything,” he went on. “Nobody here knows you’re Bronston, wanted in London for that Atlas Investment Company swindle, and I’m Keller, chief operative for the Sharkey Agency. So far as anybody else knows we’re just Mr. Brown and Mr. Cole, a couple of friends travelling together. Until the day we land over there on the other side you can keep on being Mr. Brown and I’ll keep on being Mr. Cole. I’ll keep this stateroom door locked at night just to be on the safe side. And seeing as we’ve got seats together at the same table I guess we’d better make a point of taking our meals together at the same time. Otherwise, you can do just what you please and go where you please and I won’t bother you. These folks on this boat will think we’re just a couple of pretty close friends.” He fished a key ring out of his pocket, selected a certain key and bent over the other[420]man. “Here, hold your hands up for a minute. You ought to be glad enough to get rid of those darbies. There!”He lifted the opened bracelets off his prisoner’s wrists and pitched them, clinking, upon the bedcover.“Have it your own way,” said the freed Bronston. “But remember, I’ve had my say. I’m making no pledges, now or hereafter.” With his fingers, which were long and slender, he chafed his flesh where the steel had bruised it red.“Oh, all right, all right,” answered Keller; “I’m willing to take the chance—although there ain’t really any chance to take. I’ll get these things out of sight first thing.”He picked up the handcuffs and dropped them into a pocket of his ulster where it lay on the one chair in the room, and wadded a handkerchief down into the pocket upon them. “Now, then, everything is shipshape and proper. There’s no reason why we can’t be pals for three or four days anyway. And now what do you say to turning in and getting a good night’s rest? I’m good and tired and I guess you are too.”Whistling to himself like a man well satisfied with the latest turn in a difficult situation, he began to undress. The other followed suit. They were both in their pajamas and both were in bed and the lights had been put out before Bronston spoke:[421]“Mind you, Keller,” he said, “I’m not fooled to any great extent by this change in attitude on your part.”“What do you mean?” asked Keller sharply.“Well,” said Bronston, “I can’t help but realise that you’ve got a selfish and a personal motive of your own for doing what you’ve just done. You’re bound to know that if the truth about us were to get out the people on this boat probably wouldn’t value your company any higher than they’d value mine—maybe not so highly as they might value mine.”Keller sat up in bed.“I don’t get you,” he said. “Just what do you mean by that?”“You’re a private detective, aren’t you?”“Well, what of it?” demanded Keller. “What’s wrong with my being a private detective?”“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” said Bronston, suddenly grown drowsy. He settled his head down in the pillow and rolled over on his side, turning his back to his roommate. “Let’s go to sleep.”Instantly he seemed to be off; he began drawing long, heavy breaths. With a snort Keller settled down, uttering grumbled protests in an injured and puzzled tone. Presently he slept, too, with the choky snores of a very weary man.So far as we know they both slept the sleep of travel-worn men until morning. It was seven o’clock and the sunlight was flooding in[422]at the porthole when their bathroom steward knocked upon the outer panels of their door, at first softly, then more briskly. When they had roused and answered him, he told them that their baths were ready and waiting for them; also that the weather was fine and the sea smooth. It was Bronston who went first to the bathroom. He had come back, and was dressing himself when Keller, after clearing his throat several times, reopened a subject which seemingly had laid uppermost in his dormant mind while he slept.“Say, Bronston,” he began in an aggrieved voice, “what made you say what you said just after we turned in last night—about private detectives, you know?”“Oh, let it drop,” answered Bronston, as though the topic were of no consequence.“No,” pressed Keller, “I won’t let it drop. I’d like to know what you meant. I don’t care much for that sort of talk.”Bronston had his shaving kit open and was soaping his cheeks in front of a small mirror at a stationary washstand in the corner of the room. He turned with the lather brush in his hand.“If you insist then,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I meant. If the facts about our relationship should get out—if the truth should leak out in any way—I’m inclined to think there might be some sympathy for me aboard this ship. People are apt to have a sympathy for[423]any man who’s in trouble through no real fault of his own, especially as there are apt to be people on this boat—Americans—who’ve heard some of the inside history of this trouble I’m in. They might believe me when I told them that I was an innocent party to the transaction, especially as there is no way, as things stand now, of my proving my innocence. But you’re a private detective, and at the risk of wounding your feelings I’m going to repeat something which you probably realise already, and that is that people at large don’t particularly fancy a person of your calling in life. No, nor the calling either. I presume you remember, don’t you, what the biggest detective in America said not so very long ago in a signed article? He said most of the private detective agencies were recruited from among ex-convicts—said a big percentage of the private detectives in the United States were jailbirds and evidence-fixers and blackmailers and hired thugs!”“I don’t care what Burns or anybody else said.” Keller’s voice betokened indignation. “I may not have had as much education as some other people, but I’ve made my own way in the world and I’m no crook, nor no old lag neither. There’s nobody got anything on me. Besides, unless somebody tells ’em, how’re they going to know what line of business I’m in, any more than they’llknow, just from looking at you, that you’re on your way back to London to stand trial for a felony?”[424]“My friend,” said Bronston gently, “everything about you spells private detective. You’ve got it written all over you in letters a foot high.”“What now, for instance, gives me away?” There was incredulity in the question, but also there was a tinge of doubtfulness too.“Everything about you, or nearly everything, gives you away—your clothes, your shoes, your moustache. But particularly it’s your shoes and your moustache. I wonder why all detectives wear those broad-toed, heavy-soled shoes?” he added, half to himself.“What’s wrong with my moustache?” asked Keller, craning to contemplate himself over Bronston’s shoulder in the mirror. “Seems to me you used to wear a moustache yourself. The description that was sent to our people said you wore one, and your not wearing it made it all the harder for me to trail you when I was put on the case.”“Oh, I cut mine off months ago,” said Bronston, “and besides it was always a modest, close-cropped affair. I never wore the ends of my moustache turned up like a cow’s horns.” He glanced at Keller quizzically. “Honestly, aside from any other considerations, I think you’d look better without one.”“Let’s drop the moustache part,” said Keller, who seemed nettled. “Tell me, what’s wrong with my clothes?”“To be frank,” criticised Bronston, “you run[425]just a bit to extremes. There’s that cap you bought yesterday evening when we stopped at that store on our way across town. It struck me as being—well, a trifle loud.”“I don’t see anything wrong with this cap, if you’re asking me,” said Keller. He drew it forth from his opened handbag and slipped it on his head. It slipped down until his ears stopped it; its owner whistled in astonishment. “Yes, by gee!” he exclaimed, “there is something wrong with it too—it’s too large.” He drew it off and examined the little tag pasted in the crown. “Why, it’s a full half size too large.” He turned to Bronston.“You told the clerk what numbers we wanted. Remember, don’t you, offering to attend to that while I was getting me a bathrobe, so as to save time? See if he made any mistake in yours?”Bronston slid on the cap he had bought, a plain grey one; it stuck on the top of his head.“Yes,” he said, “the idiot must have got the sizes twisted. This one is a half size too small for me.”“And mine’s a half size too large,” said Keller. “I suppose we’ll have to trade.”“There’s nothing else to do,” said Bronston, “although I can’t say I fancy this plaid design much.”In accordance with the plan of Keller, as stated the night before, they went to breakfast together to find that they had been assigned[426]places at a five-seated, circular table on the balcony of the dining saloon. Their tablemates were an elderly couple, who said little to each other and nothing at all to strangers, and a tall, reserved, exceedingly silent Englishman. The indefinable something that marked these two men as hailing from different circles and different environments was accentuated in their table manners. Keller ate correctly enough, but there was a suggestion of grossness about him, an awkwardness in his fashion of holding his fork while he cut his ham. But he watched Bronston closely, and before the end of the meal had begun to copy Bronston’s method of handling a fork.They had quit the dining room and sought out the location of their deck chairs when, for the first time, the detective seemed to become aware that Bronston’s cheeks were rosy and smooth, whereas a roughened stubble covered his own jowls. “I think I’ll go below and take a shave,” he said, running the palm of his hand over his chops.“Use my safety, if you feel like it,” suggested Bronston casually. “There’s a new blade in it.”Half an hour later, when Bronston invaded the stateroom to get a pocketful of cigars, Keller stood facing the mirror, putting on his collar and tie.“I couldn’t find my razor,” he said, with his head turned away from Bronston; “I must’ve[427]left it on that Chicago train. And yet I’d have sworn I put it into my valise. So I had to use yours. But you were wrong when you said it had a new blade in it. If that’s a new blade I’ll eat it. It mighty near pulled my upper lip off.”“Your upper lip?” echoed Bronston instantly.“Sure,” said Keller. There was a touch of embarrassment in his tone as he faced Bronston. “I took your advice about this moustache of mine—clipped it close with the scissors and then gave myself the twice-over with your safety.” His upper lip showed bare; the skin had a bleached look and was raw from the scraping it had just undergone.As Keller passed out of the room, caressing the place where his moustache had been, Bronston noted that Keller had made other changes in his person. Keller had exchanged the bright green tie which he wore at breakfast for a dull brown bow; and he had put on a lighter pair of shoes—patent-leather shoes, with thin soles and buttoned uppers. His broad-toed, heavy-soled pair showed under his bed where he had shoved them.Conceding the weather to be fair, as in this instance it assuredly was, the majority of the passengers upon a big liner eastward bound give over their first day at sea to getting used to their new and strange surroundings, to[428]getting lost in various odd corners of the ship and finding themselves again, to asking questions about baggage gone astray, to wondering why they are not seasick. As regards the two principal characters of this narrative, nothing of interest occurred during the first day except that Keller went below late in the afternoon to take a nap, and that shortly before dark, when he had waked, Bronston limped in with a look of pain upon his face, to report that while watching a lifeboat drill he had got a foot hurt.“A clumsy ass of a coal passer dropped his oar and hit me right on the big toe with the butt of it,” he explained. “I didn’t give him away, because the second officer was right there and I judged he would have given the poor devil fits for being so careless. But it hurts like the very mischief.”He got his left shoe off and sat for a bit caressing the bruised member.“The skin isn’t broken evidently,” he continued, in response to Keller’s inquiries concerning the extent of the injury; “but there’s some swelling and plenty of soreness.” He started to put his shoe back on his stockinged foot, but halted with a groan.“If you don’t mind,” he said to Keller, “I’m going to wear those heavy shoes of yours for a day or two. They’re easier than mine and broader in the toe.”“Help yourself,” agreed Keller. “Seeing as we’ve swapped caps we might as well swap[429]shoes too. Anyhow, I kind of like this pair I’ve got on, even if they do pinch a little.” He contemplated his shining extremities admiringly. Shortly afterward they went up to dinner. After dinner Bronston found reason for returning to the stateroom. Here he did a strange thing. He dropped a pair of perfectly good shoes out of the porthole.Conceding further that on a big liner’s second day out the weather continues fine, the Americans among the first-cabin passengers begin making acquaintances; and, under official guidance, go on trips of exploration and discovery to the engine room and the steerage and the steward’s domain. Card games are organised and there is preliminary talk of a ship’s concert. The British travellers, on the other hand, continue for the most part to hold themselves aloof. This also was true of the second day’s passage of theMesopotamia.Keller—or Cole, to use the name which he now used—met some congenial fellow countrymen in the smoking room and played bridge with them for small stakes during most of the afternoon. Bronston, who apparently did not care for cards, saw his warder only at the lunch hour, preferring to spend the time in his steamer chair upon the deck, enjoying the air, which was balmy and neither too warm nor yet too cool, but just right. Presently as he sat there he fell into a conversation—which was at[430]first desultory, although it shortly took on a more animated character—with a rather fluffy young lady who occupied the steamer chair next his own. She dropped a book which she had been reading; he picked it up and returned it to her. That was how it started, at first with an interchange of polite commonplaces, then with a running bestowal of small confidences on the part of the young lady, who proved to be talkative.By bits and snatches it developed that her name was Miss Lillian Cartwright and that her home was in Evanston, Illinois. There were several other Evanston people on the boat—she pointed out a group of them some distance down the deck—but she was not travelling with them. She was travelling with her uncle, Major Slocum. Perhaps her new acquaintance had heard of her uncle, Major Slocum? He was a prominent attorney in Chicago, quite a prominent attorney, and he was also on the staff of the present governor of Illinois, and in former years had taken a deep interest in the welfare of the Illinois National Guard.“Possibly you may have seen his name in the papers,” she said. “Uncle is always getting into the papers.”Bronston rather thought he had heard the name. Miss Cartwright talked on. This was her first trip at sea. She had expected that she would be seasick, but on the contrary she[431]felt splendid; not a suggestion of seasickness so far. Really she felt almost disappointed—as though she had been cheated out of something. But seriously, wasn’t the sea just perfectly lovely? She loved the sea. And she loved theMesopotamiatoo; it was so big and so roomy and the officers were so polite; and even the seamen were accommodating about answering questions. She was always going to travel on theMesopotamiaafter this. They—her uncle and she—were on their way to Scotland to visit her married sister who lived there. It wasn’t certain yet whether they would leave the ship at Fishguard and run up to London for a day or two, or go straight on to Liverpool and from there take the train for Scotland and stop off in London on the way back. Her uncle rather favoured going on to Liverpool. Here Bronston found a chance to slip in a word or two.“I’m sure I’ve noticed your uncle—tall, isn’t he, and distinguished and rather military looking? I should like very much to meet him. You might introduce him to me, and then perhaps he would be good enough to introduce us two properly to each other. I answer to the name of Brown.” He stood up and lifted his cap. “I expect to be back in a little while.”The plan seemed to please Miss Cartwright. “That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” she said, as Bronston moved off up the deck.It is possible that she repeated to her uncle[432]what Bronston—or Brown—had said. For when Bronston happened along again a few minutes later, Major Slocum was sitting with his niece, and upon being introduced, arose and clasped Mr. Bronston’s hand with a warm cordiality. The Major was one of those native-born Demostheneses with a stiff spine and a fine mane of rather long, iron-grey hair. His manner of speech betrayed him instantly as one addicted to after-dinner oratory. Instinctively, as it were, one gathered that his favourite toast was The Ladies—God Bless ’Em.As he confided to his niece afterward, the Major found this Mr. Brown to be an exceedingly well-mannered, well-informed person; and indeed the conversation did cover a wide range of subjects that afternoon.It first took on a briskened tone when a lone porpoise came tumbling across the waves to race with the ship. From porpoises the talk turned to whales, and from whales to icebergs, and from icebergs to disasters at sea, and from that to discipline aboard ship, and from that to discipline in the army and in the national guard, which was where Major Slocum shone. Thence very naturally it drifted to a discussion of police discipline as it existed in certain of the larger American cities, notably New York and Chicago, and thence to police corruption and crime matters generally. Here Mr. Bronston, who had until now been third in the conversational output, displayed a[433]considerable acquaintance with methods of crime detection. He knew about the Bertillon system and about finger-print identifications, and what was more he knew how to talk about them—and he did. There are two classes of people who are interested in shop talk of crime—those who know something of the subject and those who do not. Miss Cartwright and Major Slocum listened attentively to most of what the young man had to say, and both professed themselves as having been deeply entertained.It followed, quite in the order of things, therefore, that the three of them should agree to meet in the lounge after dinner and take their coffee together. They did meet there, and the evening was made to pass both pleasantly and rapidly. The Major, who told quite a considerable number of his best stories, was surprised when eleven o’clock arrived. Meanwhile, Keller played bridge in the smoking room. He didn’t turn in until after midnight, finding Bronston already in bed.At the latter’s suggestion they breakfasted abed the following morning; and so the forenoon was well spent when they got upon deck. Fine weather continuing, the ship ran a steady course. The side-to-side motion was barely perceptible. Having finished the prescribed morning constitutional—twelve times round the ship—Miss Cartwright was sitting in her steamer-chair, feeling just a wee bit lonely and finding so smooth a crossing just a trifle monotonous,[434]when Bronston came up, looking spick and span. She preened herself, greeting him with sprightly words, and when after a few minutes of small talk he offered to initiate her into the mysteries of horse billiards, up on the boat deck, she accepted the invitation instantly.They went up and the young lady proved an apt and willing pupil. There on the boat deck Major Slocum presently found them. He didn’t care to play, but he kept score for them. The Major put the sonorous emphasis of the true orator’s delivery into everything he said; his calling off of the count invested it with the solemnity and vocal beauty of a well-delivered ritual.Presently when the game was over and they sat, all three, side by side upon a bench in the lee of one of the huge ventilator funnels, the younger man spoke up and said he was afraid Miss Cartwright must be getting chilled without a wrap. She insisted that she was perfectly comfortable, but masterfully declaring that she needed better protection for her shoulders than a silken blouse and a light jacket he got up.“I’ll just run down and get my grey ulster,” he said. “I think I left it in my chair.”Leaving uncle and niece together he hurried below. True enough, his grey ulster dangled across the arm of the steamer chair, but after picking it up he made a trip on down to D-deck and spent perhaps a minute in his stateroom with the door closed. No, probably it wasn’t[435]more than half a minute that he spent there. At any rate he was back upon the boat deck almost immediately, holding up the coat while Miss Cartwright slipped her arms into the sleeves. All women like to be waited on and most women like to wear masculine garments of one sort or another. He buttoned the collar about her throat and she smiled up at him her appreciation of his thoughtfulness.“Aren’t men’s overcoats just adorable!” she babbled; “so big and warm and comfy and everything! And they have such lovely big pockets! The very next coat I get is going to be made like a man’s, and have some of those nice big pockets in it.” She shoved her hands deep into the side pockets in what she fondly conceived to be a mannish manner.“Why, what’s this?” she asked. “There’s something heavy and jinglyin——”She stopped short, for the owner of the ulster was looking at her meaningly and shaking his head as a signal for silence.“What did you say, my dear?” inquired her uncle absently.“Nothing,” she answered, but her fingers continued to explore the depths of the pocket, and into her eyes came a half-puzzled, half-excited look. She opened her lips as though to speak, then closed them with an effort.Bronston proposed another go at horse billiards—just a short game before luncheon. Again the Major volunteered to score for them.[436]The game was still going on when Keller appeared. He stopped within easy hailing distance of the trio.“About ready for luncheon?” he called out, addressing Bronston.“Just a minute or so,” answered Bronston, and went on showing his pupil how to make a certain shot.Keller took a turn up and down the deck. He felt rather out of the picture somehow. His appetite was active too; trust the North Atlantic air for that. He took a turn or two more, growing hungrier with every step. Five minutes passed, and still the game showed no sign of breaking up. He swung about and approached them.“Say,” he said, seeking to put a subtle shade of meaning into his words, “I’d like to go to lunch—if you don’t mind.”“Oh, very well,” said Bronston; “we’ll stop, then.” Keller advanced until he was quite near them. As he did so he became aware that Miss Cartwright was staring hard at him. Bronston, all of a sudden, seemed to remember the small proprieties of the occasion.“Miss Cartwright, Major Slocum,” he said, “this is my—this is Mr.—” he hesitated the merest fraction of a second—“Mr. Cole, who is travelling with me this trip.”Miss Cartwright nodded, the Major bowed, Keller pulled off his cap. They descended the steps in a straggling procession, Miss[437]Cartwright and Bronston being in front, the Major next and Keller bringing up the rear. At the foot of the stairs Bronston addressed the young lady.“I’ll relieve you of my coat now,” he said. “I’m afraid you did find it rather heavy.” He looked straight into her eyes as he spoke and touched his lips with a forefinger. She nodded back to show she thoroughly understood the signal, and then he took the ulster across his arm and he and Keller moved on ahead.“Look here, Bronston,” grumbled Keller when they were out of earshot of the Major and his niece, “you acted kind of funny up yonder. It looked to me like you didn’t care much about introducing me to your swell friends.”“To tell you the truth,” apologised Bronston, “I forgot for the moment what your travelling name was—couldn’t remember whether it was Cole, or something else. That’s why I hung fire. It did make the situation a bit awkward, didn’t it? I’m sorry.”“Oh, all right,” said Keller; “that explains it. But I was a little sore just for a minute.”At the door leading into the first cross hall Bronston glanced back over his shoulder. Miss Cartwright and her uncle were not following them. They had halted upon an untenanted stretch of deck, and the young woman was saying something to her uncle and accenting with gestures what she said. Her hands moved[438]with the briskness which generally accompanies an eager disclosure of important tidings. The Major, his stately head bent to hear her, was nevertheless looking at the vanishing figures of the two men.Bronston smiled gently to himself as he and Keller crossed the threshold and headed for the dining saloon. He didn’t go near Miss Cartwright or Major Slocum again that day, but in the course of the afternoon he, watching from a distance, saw her in earnest conversation with two of her friends from Evanston—and both of these two were women. Immediately Bronston went below and stayed there. He didn’t even get up for dinner. The excuse he gave Keller, when Keller came in at dinnertime, was that he wanted to go over some papers connected with his case. The small desk at which he sat was littered with papers and he was steadily making notes upon a scratch pad. He asked Keller to ask their dining-room steward to bring him a light meal upon a tray.At this point we digress, in order to drag in the fact that this ship, theMesopotamia, was one of the largest ships afloat at this time. The following year there would be bigger ones in commission, but for the moment she ranked among the largest. She was over eight hundred feet long and of a beam measurement and a hull depth to correspond; but even upon a craft of such amplified proportions as this was[439]news travels with amazing rapidity, especially if it be news calculated to arouse and to excite. Such a ship might be likened to a small, compact town set afloat, with all the social ramifications of a small town and with all of a small town’s curiosity regarding the private affairs of the neighbours. Ashore gossip flies swiftly enough, goodness only knows; at sea it flits from point to point, as if on the wings of the swallow. What one knows every one else knows, and knows it very soon too.The digression is concluded. Let us return to the main thread of our narrative. Let us go back to the joint occupants of D-forty.It was nine-twenty that same evening when Keller broke in upon his companion, who sat at the little desk, still busied with his writing. Keller seemed flustered, not to say indignant. He slammed the door behind him viciously.“Somebody’s on,” he stated, speaking with disconsolate conviction. “I know I haven’t said anything, and it don’t stand to reason that you’d be talking; but they’re on.”“On what?” inquired Bronston calmly.“On to us—that’s what! It’s leaked out who we are.”“What makes you think that?”“I don’t think anything about it—I know. I’ve got the proofs. We had our little game all fixed up for to-night—me and the same three fellows I’ve been playing with right along; but when I looked them up in the smoking[440]room after dinner they all three excused themselves—said they didn’t feel like playing. Well, that was all right, but a little later I saw Latham and Levy joining in a game with two other men, both strangers to me. So I tried to get into another game that was just starting up, and the fellows there horned me out. I could tell they didn’t want to be playing with me. And going through the lounge I tumbled, all of a sudden, to the fact that all the people there, men and women both, were looking hard at me and nodding to one another—get what I mean? Maybe they didn’t think I saw them—I didn’t let on, of course—but I did see ’em. I tell you they’re on. Say, what do you know about a lot of stuck-up people passing up a man cold, just because they’ve found out some way that he’s a private detective?”Overcome by his feelings he snorted in disgust. Then added, as an afterthought: “Well, what’s the next move? What do you think we’d better do now?”Bronston considered a moment before answering.“If your suspicions are correct I take it the best thing for us to do is to stay away from the other passengers as much as we possibly can during the rest of this trip. At least that’s what I figure on doing—with your consent.”“How about that Miss What’s-her-name, the girl who was with you this morning?”[441]asked Keller. “How are you going to cut her out?”“That’s simple enough—merely by not going near her, that’s all,” said Bronston. “Admitting that you are right and that we have been recognised, the young woman probably wouldn’t care to be seen in my company anyhow. As things seem to stand now it might be embarrassing for her.”“I guess you’ve got the right dope,” said Keller. “If anybody objects to my company they know what they can do. What do you figure on doing—sticking here in the room?”“Remaining in a stateroom for a day or so won’t be much of a privation to a man who faces the prospect of being locked up in an English jail indefinitely,” said Bronston. “It’ll merely be a sort of preliminary training. Besides, we ought to reach shore to-morrow night or the next morning. I shall certainly stay where I am.”“Me too, I guess,” said Keller dolorously. “I sure was enjoying that little game, though.”After all, as it turned out, Keller wouldn’t have cared to leave his quarters anyhow on the next day. For overnight the sea, so placid and benignant until now, developed a passing fit of temperament. In the morning the sea wasn’t exactly what you would call rough, but on the other hand it wasn’t exactly what you would call absolutely smooth; and Keller, being a green traveller, awoke with a headache and a[442]feeling of squeamishness in his stomach, and found it no privation to remain upon the flat of his back. Except for a trip to the bathroom Bronston did not venture out of the room either. He read and wrote and smoked and had his meals brought to him. Keller couldn’t touch food.So the situation stood in the middle of the afternoon when there came a gentle knock at the door. Keller was dozing then, but roused himself as Bronston called out to know what was wanted. The voice which answered through the panels was the voice of their bedroom steward, Lawrence.“I’ve a wireless, sir,” he said; “just received from the coast. It’s addressed to ‘Sharkey Agency’s Operative, aboard SteamshipMesopotamia,’ and the wireless operator brought it to the purser, sir, and the purser told me to bring it to this stateroom. Was that right, sir?”Keller sat up with a groan. His head was swimming.“Stay where you are,” said Bronston; “I’ll get it for you”; and before Keller could swing his feet to the floor Bronston had unbolted the door and had taken the message from Lawrence’s hand. The steward, standing outside, had time only to murmur his inevitable “Thank you, sir,” and catch one peep at the interior of the stateroom before the door was closed in his face. Bronston turned and handed the sealed envelope to Keller.[443]“What did I tell you last night about ’em all being on?” said Keller. “A message comes with no name on it, and yet they know right where to send it. And, say, did you get a flash at the look on that steward’s face? Somebody’s been telling that guy something too.”He opened the brown envelope and glanced at the small sheet that it contained. “The London officer will meet us at Liverpool,” he said, as he crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. “We land at the other place first, don’t we—Fishhawk, or whatever its name is?”“Fishguard,” Bronston told him. “Or rather, we stop off Fishguard, and tenders come out to meet us and to take off mail and passengers. Then the ship goes on to Liverpool.”“Good enough,” said Keller. “You and me will stay right here in this stateroom until we get to Liverpool; that’ll be some time to-morrow, won’t it?”“To-morrow afternoon, probably,” said Bronston. He went back to his writing, whistling a little tune to himself.The precaution of the overcareful Keller proved unnecessary, because in the morning word was brought by the bathroom steward that a notice had just been posted in the gangway opposite the purser’s desk announcing that because of the roughness of the channel the liner would proceed straight to Liverpool without stopping off Fishguard at all. Nevertheless, the detective kept the stateroom door[444]locked. With land in sight he was taking no chances at all.Since their stateroom was on the port side and the hills of Wales stood up out of the sea upon the other side, they saw nothing of Fishguard as theMesopotamiasteamed on up the choppy channel. Mainly they both were silent; each was busy with his own thoughts and speculations. Hampered in their movements by the narrow confines of their quarters they packed their large bags and their small ones, packing them with care and circumspection, the better to kill the time that hung upon their hands. Finally Bronston, becoming dissatisfied with his own bestowal of his belongings, called in the handy Lawrence to do the job all over again for him.As the shifting view through their porthole presently told them, they left the broad channel for the twistywise river. The lightships which dot the Mersey above its mouth, like street-lamps along a street, were sliding by when Lawrence knocked upon the door to ask if the luggage was ready for shore. He was told to return in a few minutes; but instead of going away he waited outside in the little corridor.“Well,” said Keller, “I guess we’d better be getting up on deck, hadn’t we?” He glanced sidewise at the shiny steel cuffs, which he had fished out from an ulster pocket and which lay upon the rumpled covers of his bed. Alongside them was the key of the door.[445]“I suppose so,” said Bronston indifferently; “I’ll be with you in a minute.” With his back half turned to Keller he was adjusting the seemingly refractory buckle of a strap which belonged about one of the valises. He had found it necessary to remove the strap from the bag.“Hello, what’s this?” he said suddenly. The surprise in his tone made Keller look. Bronston had leaned across the foot of his bed and from a wall pocket low down against the wainscoting had extracted something.“Why, it’s a razor,” he said, holding it up; “and what’s more it looks like your razor—the one you thought you’d lost.”“That’s what it is,” said Keller, taking it from him. “I wonder how in thunder it got itself hid there? I’ll stick it in my pocket.”“Better not,” advised Bronston. “If I’m not mistaken it is against the English law to carry a razor upon the person. A locked valise would be a better place for it, I should say.”“I guess you’re right,” agreed Keller. “In a strange country it’s just as well to be careful.”He turned and stooped down, fumbling with the hasps upon his small handbag. As he did, something supple and quick descended in a loop over his head and shoulders. In an instantaneous flash of alarm he sensed that it was the same broad strap which he had seen a moment before in the hands of the other man. As he straightened with an exclamation of[446]surprise, the strap was violently tightened from behind, the tough leather squeaking under the strain as the tongue of the buckle slipped through a handy hole; and there he was, trussed fast about the middle, with his arms bound down against his sides just at the elbows, so that his lower arms flapped in the futile fashion of a penguin’s wings. He cried out then, cursing and wriggling and straining. But a man who would have been his equal in bodily vigour even though his limbs were unhampered was upon him from the rear, pitching him forward on his bed, face downward, wrestling him over on his side, muffling his face in a twist of bed clothing, then forcing his wrists together and holding them so while there was a jingle of steel chain and a snapping together of steel jaws. Half suffocated under the weight of his antagonist, with his mouth full of blanket and his eyes blinded, overpowered, tricked, all but helpless, lashing out with his feet in a vain protest against this mishandling, Keller now was dimly aware of a wallet being hurriedly removed from his breast-pocket and of something else of equal bulk being substituted for it. Then he was yanked upon his feet, a cap was jammed upon his head, the leather noose about his body was cast off, and he stood unsteadily—a composite picture of dishevelment, dismay, chagrin and rage—wearing upon his two clamped hands the same gyves which his conqueror had worn when they boarded the ship.[447]“You’ll pay for this—I’ll make you pay for this!” he sputtered. “I’ll show you up! Damn you, take these things off of me!” and he tugged impotently at his bonds until his wrist-bones threatened to dislocate themselves. “You ain’t got a chance to get away with this—not a chance,” he cried. “I’ll raise this whole ship!I’ll——”“Rest perfectly easy,” said Bronston calmly, soothingly almost, as he flung the strap aside and stepped back. “The ship has already been raised, or a part of it. If you weren’t so excited you would know that our friend Lawrence has been trying to get in the door for the last half minute or so. I think he must have heard you kicking. Let us admit him.”He had the key in his hands—in the stress and fever of the encounter he had even remembered, this thoughtful man, to secure the key. And now, with his eyes turned toward the captive, who remained stupefied at this inexplicable manœuvre, he was stepping backward and unfastening the door, and swinging it open for the admission of the astounded servant.“Lawrence,” snapped Bronston in the voice of authority and command, “I want you. My man here tried to give me the slip and I had to use a little violence to secure him. Bring these bags and come along with us to the deck. I shall possibly need your help in making the explanations which may be necessary. Understand, don’t you?”[448]Reaching backward, he slipped a shining gold coin into Lawrence’s palm; he slid into a grey ulster; he advanced a step and fastened a firm hand upon the crook of Keller’s fettered right arm. Involuntarily the captive sought to pull away.“I keep telling you you ain’t got a chance,” he blurted. “I’ll go to thecaptain——”“No, my noisy friend, you won’t go to the captain,” Bronston broke in on his tirade, “but you’ll be taken to him.” With a forward swing he thrust Keller across the threshold and they bumped together in the narrow cross hall. “Come along now, Lawrence, and look sharp,” he bade the pop-eyed steward over his shoulder.We may briefly sketch the details of the trip through the passageway, and up the steps from D-deck to C-deck and from C-deck to B, for really it occupied less time than would be required for a proper description of it. Suffice it to say that it was marked by many protestations and by frequent oaths and by one or two crisp commands and once by a small suggestion of a struggle. These sounds heralded the progress of the trio as they moved bumpingly along, so that the first officer, catching untoward noises which rose above the chatter of the passengers who surrounded him, garbed and ready for the shore, stepped back from the deck into the cabin foyer, followed by a few first-cabin folk who, like him, had heard the clamour and had gathered that something unusual must be afoot.[449]The first officer barred the way of the procession. He was a competent and self-possessed young man, else he would not have been the first officer. At sight of his brass buttons and gold-braided sleeves Keller, still striving to cast off Bronston’s hold, emitted a cry of relief.“Captain! Captain!” he yelled; “listen to me. Listen to me a minute, please.”“The captain is on the bridge until the ship has docked,” answered the uniformed one. “I am the first officer. What is the trouble?”“There is no trouble—now.” It was Bronston speaking; speaking authoritatively and without outward signs of excitement. “Would you care to hear what I have to say, Mr. Officer?”“I would.”“But, see here, I’m the one that’s got a right to do the talking,” burst in a frenzied gurgle from the sorely beset Keller. “You listen to me. This is an outrage!”“One at a time,” quoth the first officer in the voice of one accustomed to having his orders obeyed. “Proceed,” he bade Bronston.“You may have heard,” stated Bronston, “that we are a detective and a prisoner. I believe there has been talk to that effect on board here for the past day or two.”The first officer—his name was Watts—nodded to indicate that such rumours had come to his ears.“Very well, then,” went on Bronston; “my[450]man here will probably claim he is being kidnapped. That is his last hope.” He smiled at this. “He tried to get away from me a bit ago. We had a tussle. The steward here heard us struggling. I overpowered him and ironed him. Now, for reasons best known to himself, I apprehend that he will claim that he is really the detective and that I am really the prisoner. Will you kindly look at us both and tell me, in your opinion, which is which?”Dispassionately, judicially, First Officer Watts considered the pair facing him, while curious spectators crowded together in a semicircle behind him and a thickening stream of other first-cabin passengers poured in from off the deck, jostling up closely to feast their gaping eyes upon so sensational an episode. It took the young Englishman only a moment or two to make up his mind; a quick scrutiny was for him amply sufficient. For one of these men stood at ease; well set up, confident, not noticeably rumpled as to attire or flustered as to bearing. But the other: His coat was bunched up on his back, one trouser leg was pulled half way up his shin; his mussed hair was in his eyes; his cap was over one ear; his eyes undoubtedly had a most wild and desperate look; from his mouth came vain words and ravings. Finally there were those handcuffs. Handcuffs, considered as such, may not signify guilt, yet somehow they typify it. So far as First Officer Watts was concerned those handcuffs clinched[451]the case. To his understanding they wereprima facieevidence, exceedingly plausible and highly convincing. Promptly he delivered his opinion. It was significant that, in so doing, he addressed Bronston and ignored Keller:“I’m bound to say, sir, the appearances are in favour of you. But there should be other proof, don’t you think—papers or something?”“Certainly,” agreed Bronston. He drew a red leather wallet from his own breast-pocket and handed it over to Watts. Then, working deftly, he extracted half a dozen letters and a sheaf of manuscript notes from an inner pocket of Keller’s coat and tendered them for examination; which crowning indignity rendered Keller practically inarticulate with madness. Watts scanned these exhibits briefly, paying particular attention to a formal-looking document which he drew from the red wallet.“These things seem to confirm what you say,” was his comment. He continued, however, to hold the written and printed testimony in his hands. He glanced at the impressive document again. “Hold on; this description of the man who is wanted says he has a moustache?”“Oh, I’m going to offer you other proof, plenty of it,” Bronston promised, cutting in on Keller, who grew more incoherently vocal with each moment. “Would you be so good as to send for the ship’s barber?”[452]“Bring the barber!” ordered Watts of a wide-eyed cabin boy.“This steward has served us since we came aboard,” went on Bronston, indicating Lawrence. “Now, my man, I want you to tell the truth. Which of us two seemed to be in charge on the night you first saw us—the night we came aboard—this man or I?”“You, sir,” answered Lawrence. “I recall quite distinctly that ’twas you spoke to me about the ’eavy luggage.”“Who took from you the wireless message which you brought yesterday to our stateroom, addressed to the representative of the Sharkey Detective Agency?”“You, sir.”“Who handed you your tip a few minutes ago for serving us during the voyage?”“You did, thank you, sir.”A figure of dignity pushed forward through the ring of excited spectators and a sonorous, compelling voice was raised impressively. Major Slocum had been late in arriving upon the scene, but what he now said earned for him instant attention.“Mr. Officer,” announced the Major with a gesture which comprehended the central pair of figures, “you may accept it from me as an absolute and indisputable fact that this gentleman, who calls himself Brown, is a bona-fide detective. I gleaned as much from my conversation with him upon the occasion of our first[453]meeting. He evinced a wide knowledge of police matters. Of the other person I know nothing, except that, since Brown is the detective, he must perforce be the prisoner.” He cleared his throat before going on:“Moreover, deeply though I regret to bring a lady, and especially a young lady, into a controversy involving a person who is charged with crime”—here he blighted the hapless Keller with a glare—“deeply as I regret it, I may say that my niece is in position to supply further evidence.”The crowd parted to admit Miss Lillian Cartwright, then closed in behind her. Excitement flushed the young lady’s cheeks becomingly. The first officer bowed to her:“Pardon me, miss, but would you mind telling us what you know?”“Why, I’ve known for two days—no, three days, I think—who they were,” stated Miss Cartwright. “Mr. Brown—the detective, you know—loaned me his ulster the other morning; and when I put it on I felt something—something heavy that jingled in the pocket. Mr. Brown didn’t seem to want me to take it out or speak about it. But at the very first chance I peeped in the pocket, and it was a pair of handcuffs. I’d never seen any handcuffs before—closely, I mean—so I peeped at them several times. They are the same handcuffs that are on that man now.”“That was my overcoat he loaned you!”[454]yelled Keller, waving his coupled hands up and down in his desperate yearning to be heard in his own defence. “Those handcuffs were in my overcoat pocket, I tell you, not in his.”“Oh, no,” contradicted Miss Cartwright, most positively. “Yours is a brown ulster. I’ve seen you wearing it evenings on the deck. And this was a dark-grey ulster, the same one that Mr. Brown is wearing this very minute.“And I remember, too, that on that very same morning you came up and asked Mr. Brown to take you to lunch, or rather you asked him to go to lunch so that you could go, too. You spoke to him twice about it—quite humbly, I thought.”There were murmurs of applause at this. Another voice, unheard until now, spoke out, rising above the confused babbling. It was the voice of a sophisticated New Yorker addressing an equally sophisticated friend:“There’s nothing to it, Herman! Look at those feet on Brown. Nobody but a bull would be wearing shoes like that. And pipe the plaid lid—a regulation plain-clothes man’s get-up, the whole thing is.”“But those are my shoes he’s wearing,” wailed Keller, feeling the trap closing in upon him from every side. “Those are my shoes—I loaned ’em to him.”“Lawrence,” said Bronston, “you’ve been giving our shoes to Boots and getting them back from him, haven’t you?”[455]“Yes, sir.”“Are these shoes which I have on now the same shoes I’ve been wearing right along?”“Oh, yes, sir, the same boots!”“When you helped me pack my luggage to-day, did you notice any other shoes?”“No, sir.”“I wasn’t in my stocking feet when I came aboard, was I?”“Oh, no, indeed, sir.” This with a respectful smile.“Then these must be the only shoes I have or have had, mustn’t they?”Before Lawrence could make answer to this question the ship’s barber appeared at the first officer’s elbow, touching his cap.“You wanted me, sir?” he asked.“I wanted you,” put in Bronston. “Look at me closely, please. How long would you say that it has been since I wore a moustache?”With the air of a scientist examining a rare and interesting specimen, the barber considered the speaker’s upper lip.“Not for some months, sir, I should say,” he announced with professional gravity, while all the audience craned their necks to hear his words.“Now, then,” said Bronston, yanking Keller forward into the full light, “would you please look this prisoner over and tell us how long, in your opinion, it has been since he wore a moustache?”[456]A pause ensued; all waited for the decision.“I should say, sir,” stated the barber at the end of half a minute, “that ’e’s been wearing a moustache lately—I should say that ’e must ’ave took it off quite recently. ’Is upper lip is still tender—tenderer than the rest of ’is face.”“But I took it off since we sailed,” blared Keller. He turned furiously on Bronston. “Damn you, you conned me into taking it off!”“Why should I do that?” parried Bronston coolly; his manner changed, becoming accusing. “Why should I persuade you to cut off the principal distinguishing mark as set forth in the description that was sent to our people from London, the thing which aided me in tracing and finding you?”A sputtered bellow was the answer from Keller, and a suggestion of applause the response from the crowd. The popular verdict had been rendered. Before the tribunal of the onlookers the prisoner stood convicted of being rightfully and properly a prisoner. Even in his present state Keller realised this, and filled for the moment with a sullen resignation he dropped his manacled hands.“Remember,” he groaned, “somebody’ll pay out big damages if you let this man off this ship. That’s all I’ve got to say now. He tricked me and he’ll trick you, too, if he can!”“Mr. First Officer,” said Bronston, “hasn’t this farce gone far enough? Is there any[457]lingering doubt in your mind regarding our proper identities?”The first officer shook his head. “I am satisfied,” he said with unqualified conviction in his words; “quite satisfied. Indeed, sir, I was satisfied from the beginning. I only wished to be absolutely sure.”“I thought as much,” said Bronston. “I am expecting a man from Scotland Yard to meet us here at Liverpool. Would you please bring him to me here? This man is dangerous, and I prefer to have assistance before taking him off the boat. Kindly explain the situation to the Scotland Yard man as he comes aboard, will you, please, and ask him to hurry.”“I understand,” said Mr. Watts, moving back. “Clear the way, please,” he bade those about him. “We are about to dock, I think.”He was a bit late. The steamer had already swung to, broadside, alongside the long landing stage, and just as Mr. Watts, in a great hurry, reached the rail, the gangway went out. But before the first eager shoregoer could start down it, a square-jawed, stockily-built man, with short side whiskers, came briskly up it from the other end. He spoke ten words to the first officer, and the first officer, escorting him, bored back through the press to the foyer, explaining the situation in crisp sentences, as he made a path for the newcomer to the spot where Bronston, with his legs braced, was jamming the blasphemous and struggling Keller[458]into an angle of the cabin wall. For Keller had once more grown violent. At sight of this the square-jawed man jumped forward to lend a hand.“Inspector Drew, from Scotland Yard,” he said, by way of introduction for himself as he grabbed for one of Keller’s flailing legs.“All right, inspector,” answered Bronston, between hard-set teeth. “I’m glad to see you. I’m having trouble handling our man.”“So I see,” said Drew, “but we’ll cure that in a jiffy.” He cured it by the expedient of throwing the whole weight of his body upon Keller. Together he and Bronston pressed the captive flat and helpless against the woodwork.“The boat train is waiting,” panted Drew in Bronston’s ear. “Shall we get our man aboard?”“I’m not going on any train!” snorted Keller, his voice rising to an agonised shriek.“Oh, yes, but you are, me beauty!” said the inspector. “Get him by the other arm,” he told Bronston. “I’ll take care of him on this side.”Propelled by an irresistible force, held fast by strong grips upon his coat-collar and his elbows, shoved along, while his feet dragged and scuffled under him and his pinioned hands waggled the air impotently, hurried on so fast that his profane sputterings gurgled and died in his throat—thus and after such a fashion did the hapless, helpless Keller travel across[459]the deck and through the crowd, which parted before him and closed in behind; thus did he progress, without halt, across the landing dock, on past the stand of the customs office and out at the other side of the dock, where, upon tracks that ran along the quay, a train stood with steam up. Bodily he was flung in at an open coach door; roughly he was spun about and deposited like a sack of oats upon the seat of a compartment, and Inspector Drew, gasping for breath but triumphant, shoved a knee into his heaving chest to keep him there.“Whew, that was a job!” puffed Bronston, releasing his grasp of their still feebly struggling charge. “Inspector, can you keep him where he is for just a minute or two? I’ll see to it that the baggage is brought here.”“I can keep the gentleman quiet,” said Drew, mending his grip and shoving down hard upon the wriggling human cushion beneath him.“For God’s sake, don’t let him get away!Don’t——” The rest was but muffled gurglings and snortings, made meaningless and wordless by a sinewy, tweed-clad forearm, which was jammed across poor Keller’s face with crushing and extinguishing violence.“Go get your baggage,” panted Inspector Drew. “He’ll stay right ’ere with me, no fear.” So Bronston stepped down out of the compartment and slammed the door fast behind him.[460]As the passengers of theMesopotamiacome swarming aboard the boat train, and as the boat train prepares to pull out for London, we may as well leave the inspector and the handcuffed detective wrestling there together in the narrow confines of that English railway compartment.Because that was where Bronston left them.THE END
Onthis voyage theMesopotamiawas to sail at midnight. It was now, to be precise about it, eleven forty-fiveP. M.and some odd seconds; and they were wrestling the last of the heavy luggage aboard. The Babel-babble that distinguishes a big liner’s departure was approaching its climax of acute hysteria, when two well-dressed, youngish men joined the wormlike column of eleventh-hour passengers mounting a portable bridge labelled First Cabin which hyphenated the strip of dark water between ship and shore. They were almost the last persons to join the line, coming in such haste along the dock that the dock captain on duty at the foot of the canvas-sided gangway let them pass without question.
Except that these two men were much of a size and at a first glance rather alike in general aspect; and except that one of them, the rearmost, bore two bulging handbags while the[409]other kept his hands muffled in a grey tweed ulster that lay across his arms, there was nothing about them or either of them to distinguish them from any other belated pair of men in that jostling procession of the flurried and the hurried. Oh, yes, one of them had a moustache and the other had none.
Indian file they went up the gangway and past the second officer, who stood at the head of it; and still tandem they pushed and were pushed along through the jam upon the deck. The second man, the one who bore the handbags, gave them over to a steward who had jumped forward when he saw them coming. He hesitated then, looking about him.
“Come on, it’s all right,” said the first man.
“How about the tickets? Don’t we have to show them first?” inquired the other.
“No, not now,” said his companion. “We can go direct to our stateroom.” The same speaker addressed the steward:
“D-forty,” he said briskly.
“Quite right, sir,” said the steward. “D-forty. Right this way, sir; if you please, sir.”
With the dexterity born of long practice the steward, burdened though he was, bored a path for himself and them through the crowd. He led them from the deck, across a corner of a big cabin that was like a hotel lobby, and down flights of broad stairs from B-deck to C and from C-deck to D, and thence aft along a[410]narrow companionway until he came to a cross hall where another steward stood.
“Two gentlemen for D-forty,” said their guide. Surrendering the handbags to this other functionary, he touched his cap and vanished into thin air, magically, after the custom of ancient Arabian genii and modern British steamship servants.
“’Ere you are, sirs,” said the second steward. He opened the door of a stateroom and stood aside to let them in. Following in behind them he deposited the handbags in mathematical alignment upon the floor and spoke a warning: “We’ll be leavin’ in a minute or two now, but it’s just as well, sir, to keep your stateroom door locked until we’re off—thieves are about sometimes in port, you know, sir. Was there anything else, sir?” He addressed them in the singular, but considered them, so to speak, in the plural. “I’m the bedroom steward, sir,” he added in final explanation.
The passenger who had asked concerning the tickets looked about him curiously, as though the interior arrangement of a steamship stateroom was to him strange.
“So you’re the bedroom steward,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Lawrence, sir.”
“Lawrence what?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?” said the steward, looking puzzled.
“He wants to know your first name,”[411]explained the other prospective occupant of D-forty. This man had sat himself down upon the edge of the bed, still with his grey ulster folded forward across his arms as though the pockets held something valuable and must be kept in a certain position, just so, to prevent the contents spilling out.
“’Erbert Lawrence, sir, thank you, sir,” said the steward, his face clearing, “I’ll be ’andy if you ring, sir.” He backed out. “Nothing else, sir? I’ll see to your ’eavy luggage in the mornin’. Will there be any trunks for the stateroom?”
“No trunks,” said the man on the bed. “Just some suitcases. They came aboard just ahead of us, I think.”
“Right, sir,” said the accommodating Lawrence. “I’ll get your tickets in the morning and take them to the purser, if you don’t mind. Thank you, sir.” And with that he bowed himself out and was gone.
As the door closed behind this thoughtful and accommodating servitor the fellow travellers looked at each other for a moment steadily, much as though they might be sharers of a common secret that neither cared to mention even between themselves. The one who stood spoke first:
“I guess I’ll go up and see her pull out,” he said. “I’ve never seen a ship pull out; it’s a new thing to me. Want to go?”
The man nursing the ulster shook his head.
[412]“All right, then,” said the first. He pitched his own topcoat, which he had been carrying under his arm, upon the lone chair. “I’ll be back pretty soon.” He glanced keenly at the one small porthole, looked about the stateroom once more, then stepped across the threshold and closed the door. The lock clicked.
Left alone, the other man sat for a half minute or so as he was, with his head tilted forward in an attitude of listening. Then he stood up and with a series of shrugging, lifting motions, jerked the ulster forward so that it slipped through the loop of his arms upon the floor. Had the efficient Lawrence returned at that moment it is safe to say he would have sustained a profound shock, although it is equally safe to say he would have made desperate efforts to avoid showing his emotions. The man was manacled. Below his white shirt-cuffs his wrists were encircled by snug-fitting, shiny bracelets of steel united by a steel chain of four short links. That explained his rather peculiar way of carrying his ulster and his decidedly awkward way of ridding himself of it.
He stepped across the room and with his coupled hands tried the knob of the door. The knob turned, but the bolt had been set from the outside. He was locked in. With his foot he dragged forward a footstool, kicking it close up against the panels so that should any person coming in open the door suddenly, the stool would retard that person’s entrance for a[413]moment anyway. He faced about then, considering his next move. The circular pane of thick glass in the porthole showed as a black target in the white wall; through it only blankness was visible. D-deck plainly was well down in the ship’s hull, below the level of promenades and probably not very far above the waterline. Nevertheless, the handcuffed man crossed over and drew the short silken curtains across the window, making the seclusion of his quarters doubly secure.
Now, kneeling upon the floor, he undid the hasps of the two handbags, opened them and began rummaging in their cluttered depths. Doing all these things, he moved with a sureness and celerity which showed that he had worn his bonds for an appreciable space of time and had accustomed himself to using his two hands upon an operation where, unhampered, he might have used one or the other, but not both at once. His chain clinked briskly as he felt about in the valises. From them he first got out two travelling caps—one a dark grey cap, the other a cap of rather a gaudy check pattern; also, a plain razor, a safety razor and a box of cigars. He examined the safety razor a moment, then slipped it back into the flap pocket where it belonged; took a cigar from the box and put the box back into the grip; tried on first one of the travelling caps and then the other, and returned them to the places from which he had taken them; and reclosed[414]and refastened the grips themselves. But he took the other razor and dropped it in a certain place, close down to the floor at the foot of one of the beds.
He shoved the footstool away from the door, and, after dusting off his knees, he went and stood at the porthole gazing out into the night through a cranny in the curtains. The ship no longer nuzzled up alongside the dock like a great sucking pig under the flanks of an even greater mother-sow; she appeared to stand still while the dock seemed to be slipping away from her rearward; but the man who looked out into the darkness was familiar enough with that illusion. With his manacled hands crossed upon his waistcoat and the cigar hanging unlighted between his lips, he watched until the liner had turned and was swinging down stream, heading for the mouth of the river and the bay.
He lit the cigar, then, and once more sat himself down upon the edge of the bed. He puffed away steadily. His head was bent forward and his hands dangled between his knees in such ease as the snugness of the bracelets and the shortness of the chain permitted. Looking in at him you would have said he was planning something; that he was considering various problems. He was still there in that same hunching position, but the cigar had burned down two-thirds of its length, when the lock snicked a warning and his companion re-entered,[415]bearing a key with which he relocked the door upon the inner side.
“Well,” said the newcomer, “we’re on our way.” There was no reply to this. He took off his derby hat and tossed it aside, and began unbuttoning his waistcoat.
“Making yourself comfortable, eh?” he went on as though trying to manufacture conversation. The manacled one didn’t respond. He merely canted his head, the better to look into the face of his travel mate.
“Say, look here,” demanded the new arrival, his tone and manner changing. “What’s the use, your nursing that grouch?”
Coming up the gangway, twenty minutes before, they might have passed, at a casual glance, for brothers. Viewed now as they faced each other in the quiet of this small room such a mistake could not have been possible. They did not suggest brothers; for all that they were much the same in build and colouring they did not even suggest distant cousins. About the sitting man there were abundant evidences of a higher and more cultured organism than the other possessed; the difference showed in costume, in manner, in speech. Even wearing handcuffs he displayed, without trying to do so, a certain superiority in poise and assurance. In a way his companion seemed vaguely aware of this. It seemed to make him—what shall I say?—uneasy; maybe a bit envious; possibly arousing in him the imitative instinct. Judging[416]of him by his present aspect and the intonations of his voice, a shrewd observer of men and motives might have said that he was amply satisfied with the progress of the undertaking which he had now in hand, but that he lately had ceased to be entirely satisfied with himself.
“Say, Bronston,” he repeated, “I tell you there’s no good nursing the grouch. I haven’t done anything all through this matter except what I thought was necessary. I’ve acted that way from the beginning, ain’t I?”
“Have you heard me complain?” parried the gyved man. He blew out a mouthful of smoke.
“No, I haven’t, not since you made the first kick that day I found you out in Denver. But a fellow can’t very well travel twenty-five hundred miles with another fellow, sharing the same stateroom with him and all that, without guessing what’s in the other fellow’s mind.”
There was another little pause.
“Well,” said the man upon the bed, “we’ve got this far. What’s the programme from this point on regarding these decorations?” He raised his hands to indicate what he meant.
“That’s what I want to talk with you about,” answered the other. “The rest of the folks on this boat don’t know anything about us—not a blessed thing. The officers don’t know—nor the crew, nor any of the passengers, I reckon. To them we’re just two ordinary Americans crossing the ocean together on business or pleasure. You give me your promise not to[417]make any breaks of any sort, and I’ll take those things off you and not put them on again until just before we land. You know I want to make this trip as easy as I can for you.”
“What earthly difference would it make whether I gave you my promise or not? Suppose, as you put it, I did make a break? Where would I break for out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? Are you still afraid of yourself?”
“Certainly not; certainly I ain’t afraid. At that, you’ve been back and forth plenty of times across the ocean, and you know all the ropes on a ship and I don’t. Still, I ain’t afraid. But I’d like to have your promise.”
“I won’t give it,” said he of the handcuffs promptly. “I’m through with making offers to you. Four days ago when you caught up with me, I told you I would go with you and make no resistance—make no attempt to get away from you—if you’d only leave my limbs free. You knew as well as I did that I was willing to waive extradition and go back without any fuss or any delay, in order to keep my people in this country from finding out what a devil’s mess I’d gotten myself into over on the other side. You knew I was not really a criminal, that I’d done nothing at all which an American court would construe as a crime. You knew that because I was an American the British courts would probably be especially hard upon me. And you knew too—you found that part out for yourself without my telling[418]you—that I was intending to go back to England at the first chance. You knew that all I needed was a chance to get at certain papers and documents and produce them in open court to prove that I was being made a scapegoat; you knew that if I had just two days free on British soil, in which to get the books from the place those lying partners of mine hid them, I could save myself from doing penal servitude. That was why I meant to go back of my own accord. That was why I offered to give you my word of honour that I would not attempt to get away. Did you listen? No!”
“Well, didn’t I make the whole thing as easy for you as I could?” protested his companion. He spoke as if in self-defence, or at least in extenuation.
“Easy? Didn’t you put these things on me? Haven’t I worn them every minute since then, awake or asleep, except when I was dressing or undressing?”
“What’s the use of going into all that all over again? This was too big a case for me to be taking any risks. I’d had a hard enough job locating you; I couldn’t afford to lose you. Let me ask you a few questions: Didn’t we travel all the way from Denver in a stateroom, so that outside of the conductors and a couple of porters there wasn’t a soul knew you was in trouble? Didn’t I show you how to carry that overcoat over your arms when we were changing cars at Chicago, and again coming[419]across New York to-night, so’s nobody would catch on? Didn’t I steer clear of reporters all along the line? Didn’t I keep it all a secret when I was sending the wire on ahead to book the passage?”
He paused; then remembered something else:
“Didn’t I go to the trouble of buying a lighter pair of cuffs than the ones I usually use and having an extra link set in the chain so as to keep your arms from cramping, wearing them? Yes, I did—I did all those things and you can’t deny it.
“Nobody on this boat suspects anything,” he went on. “Nobody here knows you’re Bronston, wanted in London for that Atlas Investment Company swindle, and I’m Keller, chief operative for the Sharkey Agency. So far as anybody else knows we’re just Mr. Brown and Mr. Cole, a couple of friends travelling together. Until the day we land over there on the other side you can keep on being Mr. Brown and I’ll keep on being Mr. Cole. I’ll keep this stateroom door locked at night just to be on the safe side. And seeing as we’ve got seats together at the same table I guess we’d better make a point of taking our meals together at the same time. Otherwise, you can do just what you please and go where you please and I won’t bother you. These folks on this boat will think we’re just a couple of pretty close friends.” He fished a key ring out of his pocket, selected a certain key and bent over the other[420]man. “Here, hold your hands up for a minute. You ought to be glad enough to get rid of those darbies. There!”
He lifted the opened bracelets off his prisoner’s wrists and pitched them, clinking, upon the bedcover.
“Have it your own way,” said the freed Bronston. “But remember, I’ve had my say. I’m making no pledges, now or hereafter.” With his fingers, which were long and slender, he chafed his flesh where the steel had bruised it red.
“Oh, all right, all right,” answered Keller; “I’m willing to take the chance—although there ain’t really any chance to take. I’ll get these things out of sight first thing.”
He picked up the handcuffs and dropped them into a pocket of his ulster where it lay on the one chair in the room, and wadded a handkerchief down into the pocket upon them. “Now, then, everything is shipshape and proper. There’s no reason why we can’t be pals for three or four days anyway. And now what do you say to turning in and getting a good night’s rest? I’m good and tired and I guess you are too.”
Whistling to himself like a man well satisfied with the latest turn in a difficult situation, he began to undress. The other followed suit. They were both in their pajamas and both were in bed and the lights had been put out before Bronston spoke:
[421]“Mind you, Keller,” he said, “I’m not fooled to any great extent by this change in attitude on your part.”
“What do you mean?” asked Keller sharply.
“Well,” said Bronston, “I can’t help but realise that you’ve got a selfish and a personal motive of your own for doing what you’ve just done. You’re bound to know that if the truth about us were to get out the people on this boat probably wouldn’t value your company any higher than they’d value mine—maybe not so highly as they might value mine.”
Keller sat up in bed.
“I don’t get you,” he said. “Just what do you mean by that?”
“You’re a private detective, aren’t you?”
“Well, what of it?” demanded Keller. “What’s wrong with my being a private detective?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” said Bronston, suddenly grown drowsy. He settled his head down in the pillow and rolled over on his side, turning his back to his roommate. “Let’s go to sleep.”
Instantly he seemed to be off; he began drawing long, heavy breaths. With a snort Keller settled down, uttering grumbled protests in an injured and puzzled tone. Presently he slept, too, with the choky snores of a very weary man.
So far as we know they both slept the sleep of travel-worn men until morning. It was seven o’clock and the sunlight was flooding in[422]at the porthole when their bathroom steward knocked upon the outer panels of their door, at first softly, then more briskly. When they had roused and answered him, he told them that their baths were ready and waiting for them; also that the weather was fine and the sea smooth. It was Bronston who went first to the bathroom. He had come back, and was dressing himself when Keller, after clearing his throat several times, reopened a subject which seemingly had laid uppermost in his dormant mind while he slept.
“Say, Bronston,” he began in an aggrieved voice, “what made you say what you said just after we turned in last night—about private detectives, you know?”
“Oh, let it drop,” answered Bronston, as though the topic were of no consequence.
“No,” pressed Keller, “I won’t let it drop. I’d like to know what you meant. I don’t care much for that sort of talk.”
Bronston had his shaving kit open and was soaping his cheeks in front of a small mirror at a stationary washstand in the corner of the room. He turned with the lather brush in his hand.
“If you insist then,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I meant. If the facts about our relationship should get out—if the truth should leak out in any way—I’m inclined to think there might be some sympathy for me aboard this ship. People are apt to have a sympathy for[423]any man who’s in trouble through no real fault of his own, especially as there are apt to be people on this boat—Americans—who’ve heard some of the inside history of this trouble I’m in. They might believe me when I told them that I was an innocent party to the transaction, especially as there is no way, as things stand now, of my proving my innocence. But you’re a private detective, and at the risk of wounding your feelings I’m going to repeat something which you probably realise already, and that is that people at large don’t particularly fancy a person of your calling in life. No, nor the calling either. I presume you remember, don’t you, what the biggest detective in America said not so very long ago in a signed article? He said most of the private detective agencies were recruited from among ex-convicts—said a big percentage of the private detectives in the United States were jailbirds and evidence-fixers and blackmailers and hired thugs!”
“I don’t care what Burns or anybody else said.” Keller’s voice betokened indignation. “I may not have had as much education as some other people, but I’ve made my own way in the world and I’m no crook, nor no old lag neither. There’s nobody got anything on me. Besides, unless somebody tells ’em, how’re they going to know what line of business I’m in, any more than they’llknow, just from looking at you, that you’re on your way back to London to stand trial for a felony?”
[424]“My friend,” said Bronston gently, “everything about you spells private detective. You’ve got it written all over you in letters a foot high.”
“What now, for instance, gives me away?” There was incredulity in the question, but also there was a tinge of doubtfulness too.
“Everything about you, or nearly everything, gives you away—your clothes, your shoes, your moustache. But particularly it’s your shoes and your moustache. I wonder why all detectives wear those broad-toed, heavy-soled shoes?” he added, half to himself.
“What’s wrong with my moustache?” asked Keller, craning to contemplate himself over Bronston’s shoulder in the mirror. “Seems to me you used to wear a moustache yourself. The description that was sent to our people said you wore one, and your not wearing it made it all the harder for me to trail you when I was put on the case.”
“Oh, I cut mine off months ago,” said Bronston, “and besides it was always a modest, close-cropped affair. I never wore the ends of my moustache turned up like a cow’s horns.” He glanced at Keller quizzically. “Honestly, aside from any other considerations, I think you’d look better without one.”
“Let’s drop the moustache part,” said Keller, who seemed nettled. “Tell me, what’s wrong with my clothes?”
“To be frank,” criticised Bronston, “you run[425]just a bit to extremes. There’s that cap you bought yesterday evening when we stopped at that store on our way across town. It struck me as being—well, a trifle loud.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with this cap, if you’re asking me,” said Keller. He drew it forth from his opened handbag and slipped it on his head. It slipped down until his ears stopped it; its owner whistled in astonishment. “Yes, by gee!” he exclaimed, “there is something wrong with it too—it’s too large.” He drew it off and examined the little tag pasted in the crown. “Why, it’s a full half size too large.” He turned to Bronston.
“You told the clerk what numbers we wanted. Remember, don’t you, offering to attend to that while I was getting me a bathrobe, so as to save time? See if he made any mistake in yours?”
Bronston slid on the cap he had bought, a plain grey one; it stuck on the top of his head.
“Yes,” he said, “the idiot must have got the sizes twisted. This one is a half size too small for me.”
“And mine’s a half size too large,” said Keller. “I suppose we’ll have to trade.”
“There’s nothing else to do,” said Bronston, “although I can’t say I fancy this plaid design much.”
In accordance with the plan of Keller, as stated the night before, they went to breakfast together to find that they had been assigned[426]places at a five-seated, circular table on the balcony of the dining saloon. Their tablemates were an elderly couple, who said little to each other and nothing at all to strangers, and a tall, reserved, exceedingly silent Englishman. The indefinable something that marked these two men as hailing from different circles and different environments was accentuated in their table manners. Keller ate correctly enough, but there was a suggestion of grossness about him, an awkwardness in his fashion of holding his fork while he cut his ham. But he watched Bronston closely, and before the end of the meal had begun to copy Bronston’s method of handling a fork.
They had quit the dining room and sought out the location of their deck chairs when, for the first time, the detective seemed to become aware that Bronston’s cheeks were rosy and smooth, whereas a roughened stubble covered his own jowls. “I think I’ll go below and take a shave,” he said, running the palm of his hand over his chops.
“Use my safety, if you feel like it,” suggested Bronston casually. “There’s a new blade in it.”
Half an hour later, when Bronston invaded the stateroom to get a pocketful of cigars, Keller stood facing the mirror, putting on his collar and tie.
“I couldn’t find my razor,” he said, with his head turned away from Bronston; “I must’ve[427]left it on that Chicago train. And yet I’d have sworn I put it into my valise. So I had to use yours. But you were wrong when you said it had a new blade in it. If that’s a new blade I’ll eat it. It mighty near pulled my upper lip off.”
“Your upper lip?” echoed Bronston instantly.
“Sure,” said Keller. There was a touch of embarrassment in his tone as he faced Bronston. “I took your advice about this moustache of mine—clipped it close with the scissors and then gave myself the twice-over with your safety.” His upper lip showed bare; the skin had a bleached look and was raw from the scraping it had just undergone.
As Keller passed out of the room, caressing the place where his moustache had been, Bronston noted that Keller had made other changes in his person. Keller had exchanged the bright green tie which he wore at breakfast for a dull brown bow; and he had put on a lighter pair of shoes—patent-leather shoes, with thin soles and buttoned uppers. His broad-toed, heavy-soled pair showed under his bed where he had shoved them.
Conceding the weather to be fair, as in this instance it assuredly was, the majority of the passengers upon a big liner eastward bound give over their first day at sea to getting used to their new and strange surroundings, to[428]getting lost in various odd corners of the ship and finding themselves again, to asking questions about baggage gone astray, to wondering why they are not seasick. As regards the two principal characters of this narrative, nothing of interest occurred during the first day except that Keller went below late in the afternoon to take a nap, and that shortly before dark, when he had waked, Bronston limped in with a look of pain upon his face, to report that while watching a lifeboat drill he had got a foot hurt.
“A clumsy ass of a coal passer dropped his oar and hit me right on the big toe with the butt of it,” he explained. “I didn’t give him away, because the second officer was right there and I judged he would have given the poor devil fits for being so careless. But it hurts like the very mischief.”
He got his left shoe off and sat for a bit caressing the bruised member.
“The skin isn’t broken evidently,” he continued, in response to Keller’s inquiries concerning the extent of the injury; “but there’s some swelling and plenty of soreness.” He started to put his shoe back on his stockinged foot, but halted with a groan.
“If you don’t mind,” he said to Keller, “I’m going to wear those heavy shoes of yours for a day or two. They’re easier than mine and broader in the toe.”
“Help yourself,” agreed Keller. “Seeing as we’ve swapped caps we might as well swap[429]shoes too. Anyhow, I kind of like this pair I’ve got on, even if they do pinch a little.” He contemplated his shining extremities admiringly. Shortly afterward they went up to dinner. After dinner Bronston found reason for returning to the stateroom. Here he did a strange thing. He dropped a pair of perfectly good shoes out of the porthole.
Conceding further that on a big liner’s second day out the weather continues fine, the Americans among the first-cabin passengers begin making acquaintances; and, under official guidance, go on trips of exploration and discovery to the engine room and the steerage and the steward’s domain. Card games are organised and there is preliminary talk of a ship’s concert. The British travellers, on the other hand, continue for the most part to hold themselves aloof. This also was true of the second day’s passage of theMesopotamia.
Keller—or Cole, to use the name which he now used—met some congenial fellow countrymen in the smoking room and played bridge with them for small stakes during most of the afternoon. Bronston, who apparently did not care for cards, saw his warder only at the lunch hour, preferring to spend the time in his steamer chair upon the deck, enjoying the air, which was balmy and neither too warm nor yet too cool, but just right. Presently as he sat there he fell into a conversation—which was at[430]first desultory, although it shortly took on a more animated character—with a rather fluffy young lady who occupied the steamer chair next his own. She dropped a book which she had been reading; he picked it up and returned it to her. That was how it started, at first with an interchange of polite commonplaces, then with a running bestowal of small confidences on the part of the young lady, who proved to be talkative.
By bits and snatches it developed that her name was Miss Lillian Cartwright and that her home was in Evanston, Illinois. There were several other Evanston people on the boat—she pointed out a group of them some distance down the deck—but she was not travelling with them. She was travelling with her uncle, Major Slocum. Perhaps her new acquaintance had heard of her uncle, Major Slocum? He was a prominent attorney in Chicago, quite a prominent attorney, and he was also on the staff of the present governor of Illinois, and in former years had taken a deep interest in the welfare of the Illinois National Guard.
“Possibly you may have seen his name in the papers,” she said. “Uncle is always getting into the papers.”
Bronston rather thought he had heard the name. Miss Cartwright talked on. This was her first trip at sea. She had expected that she would be seasick, but on the contrary she[431]felt splendid; not a suggestion of seasickness so far. Really she felt almost disappointed—as though she had been cheated out of something. But seriously, wasn’t the sea just perfectly lovely? She loved the sea. And she loved theMesopotamiatoo; it was so big and so roomy and the officers were so polite; and even the seamen were accommodating about answering questions. She was always going to travel on theMesopotamiaafter this. They—her uncle and she—were on their way to Scotland to visit her married sister who lived there. It wasn’t certain yet whether they would leave the ship at Fishguard and run up to London for a day or two, or go straight on to Liverpool and from there take the train for Scotland and stop off in London on the way back. Her uncle rather favoured going on to Liverpool. Here Bronston found a chance to slip in a word or two.
“I’m sure I’ve noticed your uncle—tall, isn’t he, and distinguished and rather military looking? I should like very much to meet him. You might introduce him to me, and then perhaps he would be good enough to introduce us two properly to each other. I answer to the name of Brown.” He stood up and lifted his cap. “I expect to be back in a little while.”
The plan seemed to please Miss Cartwright. “That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” she said, as Bronston moved off up the deck.
It is possible that she repeated to her uncle[432]what Bronston—or Brown—had said. For when Bronston happened along again a few minutes later, Major Slocum was sitting with his niece, and upon being introduced, arose and clasped Mr. Bronston’s hand with a warm cordiality. The Major was one of those native-born Demostheneses with a stiff spine and a fine mane of rather long, iron-grey hair. His manner of speech betrayed him instantly as one addicted to after-dinner oratory. Instinctively, as it were, one gathered that his favourite toast was The Ladies—God Bless ’Em.
As he confided to his niece afterward, the Major found this Mr. Brown to be an exceedingly well-mannered, well-informed person; and indeed the conversation did cover a wide range of subjects that afternoon.
It first took on a briskened tone when a lone porpoise came tumbling across the waves to race with the ship. From porpoises the talk turned to whales, and from whales to icebergs, and from icebergs to disasters at sea, and from that to discipline aboard ship, and from that to discipline in the army and in the national guard, which was where Major Slocum shone. Thence very naturally it drifted to a discussion of police discipline as it existed in certain of the larger American cities, notably New York and Chicago, and thence to police corruption and crime matters generally. Here Mr. Bronston, who had until now been third in the conversational output, displayed a[433]considerable acquaintance with methods of crime detection. He knew about the Bertillon system and about finger-print identifications, and what was more he knew how to talk about them—and he did. There are two classes of people who are interested in shop talk of crime—those who know something of the subject and those who do not. Miss Cartwright and Major Slocum listened attentively to most of what the young man had to say, and both professed themselves as having been deeply entertained.
It followed, quite in the order of things, therefore, that the three of them should agree to meet in the lounge after dinner and take their coffee together. They did meet there, and the evening was made to pass both pleasantly and rapidly. The Major, who told quite a considerable number of his best stories, was surprised when eleven o’clock arrived. Meanwhile, Keller played bridge in the smoking room. He didn’t turn in until after midnight, finding Bronston already in bed.
At the latter’s suggestion they breakfasted abed the following morning; and so the forenoon was well spent when they got upon deck. Fine weather continuing, the ship ran a steady course. The side-to-side motion was barely perceptible. Having finished the prescribed morning constitutional—twelve times round the ship—Miss Cartwright was sitting in her steamer-chair, feeling just a wee bit lonely and finding so smooth a crossing just a trifle monotonous,[434]when Bronston came up, looking spick and span. She preened herself, greeting him with sprightly words, and when after a few minutes of small talk he offered to initiate her into the mysteries of horse billiards, up on the boat deck, she accepted the invitation instantly.
They went up and the young lady proved an apt and willing pupil. There on the boat deck Major Slocum presently found them. He didn’t care to play, but he kept score for them. The Major put the sonorous emphasis of the true orator’s delivery into everything he said; his calling off of the count invested it with the solemnity and vocal beauty of a well-delivered ritual.
Presently when the game was over and they sat, all three, side by side upon a bench in the lee of one of the huge ventilator funnels, the younger man spoke up and said he was afraid Miss Cartwright must be getting chilled without a wrap. She insisted that she was perfectly comfortable, but masterfully declaring that she needed better protection for her shoulders than a silken blouse and a light jacket he got up.
“I’ll just run down and get my grey ulster,” he said. “I think I left it in my chair.”
Leaving uncle and niece together he hurried below. True enough, his grey ulster dangled across the arm of the steamer chair, but after picking it up he made a trip on down to D-deck and spent perhaps a minute in his stateroom with the door closed. No, probably it wasn’t[435]more than half a minute that he spent there. At any rate he was back upon the boat deck almost immediately, holding up the coat while Miss Cartwright slipped her arms into the sleeves. All women like to be waited on and most women like to wear masculine garments of one sort or another. He buttoned the collar about her throat and she smiled up at him her appreciation of his thoughtfulness.
“Aren’t men’s overcoats just adorable!” she babbled; “so big and warm and comfy and everything! And they have such lovely big pockets! The very next coat I get is going to be made like a man’s, and have some of those nice big pockets in it.” She shoved her hands deep into the side pockets in what she fondly conceived to be a mannish manner.
“Why, what’s this?” she asked. “There’s something heavy and jinglyin——”
She stopped short, for the owner of the ulster was looking at her meaningly and shaking his head as a signal for silence.
“What did you say, my dear?” inquired her uncle absently.
“Nothing,” she answered, but her fingers continued to explore the depths of the pocket, and into her eyes came a half-puzzled, half-excited look. She opened her lips as though to speak, then closed them with an effort.
Bronston proposed another go at horse billiards—just a short game before luncheon. Again the Major volunteered to score for them.[436]The game was still going on when Keller appeared. He stopped within easy hailing distance of the trio.
“About ready for luncheon?” he called out, addressing Bronston.
“Just a minute or so,” answered Bronston, and went on showing his pupil how to make a certain shot.
Keller took a turn up and down the deck. He felt rather out of the picture somehow. His appetite was active too; trust the North Atlantic air for that. He took a turn or two more, growing hungrier with every step. Five minutes passed, and still the game showed no sign of breaking up. He swung about and approached them.
“Say,” he said, seeking to put a subtle shade of meaning into his words, “I’d like to go to lunch—if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, very well,” said Bronston; “we’ll stop, then.” Keller advanced until he was quite near them. As he did so he became aware that Miss Cartwright was staring hard at him. Bronston, all of a sudden, seemed to remember the small proprieties of the occasion.
“Miss Cartwright, Major Slocum,” he said, “this is my—this is Mr.—” he hesitated the merest fraction of a second—“Mr. Cole, who is travelling with me this trip.”
Miss Cartwright nodded, the Major bowed, Keller pulled off his cap. They descended the steps in a straggling procession, Miss[437]Cartwright and Bronston being in front, the Major next and Keller bringing up the rear. At the foot of the stairs Bronston addressed the young lady.
“I’ll relieve you of my coat now,” he said. “I’m afraid you did find it rather heavy.” He looked straight into her eyes as he spoke and touched his lips with a forefinger. She nodded back to show she thoroughly understood the signal, and then he took the ulster across his arm and he and Keller moved on ahead.
“Look here, Bronston,” grumbled Keller when they were out of earshot of the Major and his niece, “you acted kind of funny up yonder. It looked to me like you didn’t care much about introducing me to your swell friends.”
“To tell you the truth,” apologised Bronston, “I forgot for the moment what your travelling name was—couldn’t remember whether it was Cole, or something else. That’s why I hung fire. It did make the situation a bit awkward, didn’t it? I’m sorry.”
“Oh, all right,” said Keller; “that explains it. But I was a little sore just for a minute.”
At the door leading into the first cross hall Bronston glanced back over his shoulder. Miss Cartwright and her uncle were not following them. They had halted upon an untenanted stretch of deck, and the young woman was saying something to her uncle and accenting with gestures what she said. Her hands moved[438]with the briskness which generally accompanies an eager disclosure of important tidings. The Major, his stately head bent to hear her, was nevertheless looking at the vanishing figures of the two men.
Bronston smiled gently to himself as he and Keller crossed the threshold and headed for the dining saloon. He didn’t go near Miss Cartwright or Major Slocum again that day, but in the course of the afternoon he, watching from a distance, saw her in earnest conversation with two of her friends from Evanston—and both of these two were women. Immediately Bronston went below and stayed there. He didn’t even get up for dinner. The excuse he gave Keller, when Keller came in at dinnertime, was that he wanted to go over some papers connected with his case. The small desk at which he sat was littered with papers and he was steadily making notes upon a scratch pad. He asked Keller to ask their dining-room steward to bring him a light meal upon a tray.
At this point we digress, in order to drag in the fact that this ship, theMesopotamia, was one of the largest ships afloat at this time. The following year there would be bigger ones in commission, but for the moment she ranked among the largest. She was over eight hundred feet long and of a beam measurement and a hull depth to correspond; but even upon a craft of such amplified proportions as this was[439]news travels with amazing rapidity, especially if it be news calculated to arouse and to excite. Such a ship might be likened to a small, compact town set afloat, with all the social ramifications of a small town and with all of a small town’s curiosity regarding the private affairs of the neighbours. Ashore gossip flies swiftly enough, goodness only knows; at sea it flits from point to point, as if on the wings of the swallow. What one knows every one else knows, and knows it very soon too.
The digression is concluded. Let us return to the main thread of our narrative. Let us go back to the joint occupants of D-forty.
It was nine-twenty that same evening when Keller broke in upon his companion, who sat at the little desk, still busied with his writing. Keller seemed flustered, not to say indignant. He slammed the door behind him viciously.
“Somebody’s on,” he stated, speaking with disconsolate conviction. “I know I haven’t said anything, and it don’t stand to reason that you’d be talking; but they’re on.”
“On what?” inquired Bronston calmly.
“On to us—that’s what! It’s leaked out who we are.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t think anything about it—I know. I’ve got the proofs. We had our little game all fixed up for to-night—me and the same three fellows I’ve been playing with right along; but when I looked them up in the smoking[440]room after dinner they all three excused themselves—said they didn’t feel like playing. Well, that was all right, but a little later I saw Latham and Levy joining in a game with two other men, both strangers to me. So I tried to get into another game that was just starting up, and the fellows there horned me out. I could tell they didn’t want to be playing with me. And going through the lounge I tumbled, all of a sudden, to the fact that all the people there, men and women both, were looking hard at me and nodding to one another—get what I mean? Maybe they didn’t think I saw them—I didn’t let on, of course—but I did see ’em. I tell you they’re on. Say, what do you know about a lot of stuck-up people passing up a man cold, just because they’ve found out some way that he’s a private detective?”
Overcome by his feelings he snorted in disgust. Then added, as an afterthought: “Well, what’s the next move? What do you think we’d better do now?”
Bronston considered a moment before answering.
“If your suspicions are correct I take it the best thing for us to do is to stay away from the other passengers as much as we possibly can during the rest of this trip. At least that’s what I figure on doing—with your consent.”
“How about that Miss What’s-her-name, the girl who was with you this morning?”[441]asked Keller. “How are you going to cut her out?”
“That’s simple enough—merely by not going near her, that’s all,” said Bronston. “Admitting that you are right and that we have been recognised, the young woman probably wouldn’t care to be seen in my company anyhow. As things seem to stand now it might be embarrassing for her.”
“I guess you’ve got the right dope,” said Keller. “If anybody objects to my company they know what they can do. What do you figure on doing—sticking here in the room?”
“Remaining in a stateroom for a day or so won’t be much of a privation to a man who faces the prospect of being locked up in an English jail indefinitely,” said Bronston. “It’ll merely be a sort of preliminary training. Besides, we ought to reach shore to-morrow night or the next morning. I shall certainly stay where I am.”
“Me too, I guess,” said Keller dolorously. “I sure was enjoying that little game, though.”
After all, as it turned out, Keller wouldn’t have cared to leave his quarters anyhow on the next day. For overnight the sea, so placid and benignant until now, developed a passing fit of temperament. In the morning the sea wasn’t exactly what you would call rough, but on the other hand it wasn’t exactly what you would call absolutely smooth; and Keller, being a green traveller, awoke with a headache and a[442]feeling of squeamishness in his stomach, and found it no privation to remain upon the flat of his back. Except for a trip to the bathroom Bronston did not venture out of the room either. He read and wrote and smoked and had his meals brought to him. Keller couldn’t touch food.
So the situation stood in the middle of the afternoon when there came a gentle knock at the door. Keller was dozing then, but roused himself as Bronston called out to know what was wanted. The voice which answered through the panels was the voice of their bedroom steward, Lawrence.
“I’ve a wireless, sir,” he said; “just received from the coast. It’s addressed to ‘Sharkey Agency’s Operative, aboard SteamshipMesopotamia,’ and the wireless operator brought it to the purser, sir, and the purser told me to bring it to this stateroom. Was that right, sir?”
Keller sat up with a groan. His head was swimming.
“Stay where you are,” said Bronston; “I’ll get it for you”; and before Keller could swing his feet to the floor Bronston had unbolted the door and had taken the message from Lawrence’s hand. The steward, standing outside, had time only to murmur his inevitable “Thank you, sir,” and catch one peep at the interior of the stateroom before the door was closed in his face. Bronston turned and handed the sealed envelope to Keller.
[443]“What did I tell you last night about ’em all being on?” said Keller. “A message comes with no name on it, and yet they know right where to send it. And, say, did you get a flash at the look on that steward’s face? Somebody’s been telling that guy something too.”
He opened the brown envelope and glanced at the small sheet that it contained. “The London officer will meet us at Liverpool,” he said, as he crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. “We land at the other place first, don’t we—Fishhawk, or whatever its name is?”
“Fishguard,” Bronston told him. “Or rather, we stop off Fishguard, and tenders come out to meet us and to take off mail and passengers. Then the ship goes on to Liverpool.”
“Good enough,” said Keller. “You and me will stay right here in this stateroom until we get to Liverpool; that’ll be some time to-morrow, won’t it?”
“To-morrow afternoon, probably,” said Bronston. He went back to his writing, whistling a little tune to himself.
The precaution of the overcareful Keller proved unnecessary, because in the morning word was brought by the bathroom steward that a notice had just been posted in the gangway opposite the purser’s desk announcing that because of the roughness of the channel the liner would proceed straight to Liverpool without stopping off Fishguard at all. Nevertheless, the detective kept the stateroom door[444]locked. With land in sight he was taking no chances at all.
Since their stateroom was on the port side and the hills of Wales stood up out of the sea upon the other side, they saw nothing of Fishguard as theMesopotamiasteamed on up the choppy channel. Mainly they both were silent; each was busy with his own thoughts and speculations. Hampered in their movements by the narrow confines of their quarters they packed their large bags and their small ones, packing them with care and circumspection, the better to kill the time that hung upon their hands. Finally Bronston, becoming dissatisfied with his own bestowal of his belongings, called in the handy Lawrence to do the job all over again for him.
As the shifting view through their porthole presently told them, they left the broad channel for the twistywise river. The lightships which dot the Mersey above its mouth, like street-lamps along a street, were sliding by when Lawrence knocked upon the door to ask if the luggage was ready for shore. He was told to return in a few minutes; but instead of going away he waited outside in the little corridor.
“Well,” said Keller, “I guess we’d better be getting up on deck, hadn’t we?” He glanced sidewise at the shiny steel cuffs, which he had fished out from an ulster pocket and which lay upon the rumpled covers of his bed. Alongside them was the key of the door.
[445]“I suppose so,” said Bronston indifferently; “I’ll be with you in a minute.” With his back half turned to Keller he was adjusting the seemingly refractory buckle of a strap which belonged about one of the valises. He had found it necessary to remove the strap from the bag.
“Hello, what’s this?” he said suddenly. The surprise in his tone made Keller look. Bronston had leaned across the foot of his bed and from a wall pocket low down against the wainscoting had extracted something.
“Why, it’s a razor,” he said, holding it up; “and what’s more it looks like your razor—the one you thought you’d lost.”
“That’s what it is,” said Keller, taking it from him. “I wonder how in thunder it got itself hid there? I’ll stick it in my pocket.”
“Better not,” advised Bronston. “If I’m not mistaken it is against the English law to carry a razor upon the person. A locked valise would be a better place for it, I should say.”
“I guess you’re right,” agreed Keller. “In a strange country it’s just as well to be careful.”
He turned and stooped down, fumbling with the hasps upon his small handbag. As he did, something supple and quick descended in a loop over his head and shoulders. In an instantaneous flash of alarm he sensed that it was the same broad strap which he had seen a moment before in the hands of the other man. As he straightened with an exclamation of[446]surprise, the strap was violently tightened from behind, the tough leather squeaking under the strain as the tongue of the buckle slipped through a handy hole; and there he was, trussed fast about the middle, with his arms bound down against his sides just at the elbows, so that his lower arms flapped in the futile fashion of a penguin’s wings. He cried out then, cursing and wriggling and straining. But a man who would have been his equal in bodily vigour even though his limbs were unhampered was upon him from the rear, pitching him forward on his bed, face downward, wrestling him over on his side, muffling his face in a twist of bed clothing, then forcing his wrists together and holding them so while there was a jingle of steel chain and a snapping together of steel jaws. Half suffocated under the weight of his antagonist, with his mouth full of blanket and his eyes blinded, overpowered, tricked, all but helpless, lashing out with his feet in a vain protest against this mishandling, Keller now was dimly aware of a wallet being hurriedly removed from his breast-pocket and of something else of equal bulk being substituted for it. Then he was yanked upon his feet, a cap was jammed upon his head, the leather noose about his body was cast off, and he stood unsteadily—a composite picture of dishevelment, dismay, chagrin and rage—wearing upon his two clamped hands the same gyves which his conqueror had worn when they boarded the ship.
[447]“You’ll pay for this—I’ll make you pay for this!” he sputtered. “I’ll show you up! Damn you, take these things off of me!” and he tugged impotently at his bonds until his wrist-bones threatened to dislocate themselves. “You ain’t got a chance to get away with this—not a chance,” he cried. “I’ll raise this whole ship!I’ll——”
“Rest perfectly easy,” said Bronston calmly, soothingly almost, as he flung the strap aside and stepped back. “The ship has already been raised, or a part of it. If you weren’t so excited you would know that our friend Lawrence has been trying to get in the door for the last half minute or so. I think he must have heard you kicking. Let us admit him.”
He had the key in his hands—in the stress and fever of the encounter he had even remembered, this thoughtful man, to secure the key. And now, with his eyes turned toward the captive, who remained stupefied at this inexplicable manœuvre, he was stepping backward and unfastening the door, and swinging it open for the admission of the astounded servant.
“Lawrence,” snapped Bronston in the voice of authority and command, “I want you. My man here tried to give me the slip and I had to use a little violence to secure him. Bring these bags and come along with us to the deck. I shall possibly need your help in making the explanations which may be necessary. Understand, don’t you?”
[448]Reaching backward, he slipped a shining gold coin into Lawrence’s palm; he slid into a grey ulster; he advanced a step and fastened a firm hand upon the crook of Keller’s fettered right arm. Involuntarily the captive sought to pull away.
“I keep telling you you ain’t got a chance,” he blurted. “I’ll go to thecaptain——”
“No, my noisy friend, you won’t go to the captain,” Bronston broke in on his tirade, “but you’ll be taken to him.” With a forward swing he thrust Keller across the threshold and they bumped together in the narrow cross hall. “Come along now, Lawrence, and look sharp,” he bade the pop-eyed steward over his shoulder.
We may briefly sketch the details of the trip through the passageway, and up the steps from D-deck to C-deck and from C-deck to B, for really it occupied less time than would be required for a proper description of it. Suffice it to say that it was marked by many protestations and by frequent oaths and by one or two crisp commands and once by a small suggestion of a struggle. These sounds heralded the progress of the trio as they moved bumpingly along, so that the first officer, catching untoward noises which rose above the chatter of the passengers who surrounded him, garbed and ready for the shore, stepped back from the deck into the cabin foyer, followed by a few first-cabin folk who, like him, had heard the clamour and had gathered that something unusual must be afoot.
[449]The first officer barred the way of the procession. He was a competent and self-possessed young man, else he would not have been the first officer. At sight of his brass buttons and gold-braided sleeves Keller, still striving to cast off Bronston’s hold, emitted a cry of relief.
“Captain! Captain!” he yelled; “listen to me. Listen to me a minute, please.”
“The captain is on the bridge until the ship has docked,” answered the uniformed one. “I am the first officer. What is the trouble?”
“There is no trouble—now.” It was Bronston speaking; speaking authoritatively and without outward signs of excitement. “Would you care to hear what I have to say, Mr. Officer?”
“I would.”
“But, see here, I’m the one that’s got a right to do the talking,” burst in a frenzied gurgle from the sorely beset Keller. “You listen to me. This is an outrage!”
“One at a time,” quoth the first officer in the voice of one accustomed to having his orders obeyed. “Proceed,” he bade Bronston.
“You may have heard,” stated Bronston, “that we are a detective and a prisoner. I believe there has been talk to that effect on board here for the past day or two.”
The first officer—his name was Watts—nodded to indicate that such rumours had come to his ears.
“Very well, then,” went on Bronston; “my[450]man here will probably claim he is being kidnapped. That is his last hope.” He smiled at this. “He tried to get away from me a bit ago. We had a tussle. The steward here heard us struggling. I overpowered him and ironed him. Now, for reasons best known to himself, I apprehend that he will claim that he is really the detective and that I am really the prisoner. Will you kindly look at us both and tell me, in your opinion, which is which?”
Dispassionately, judicially, First Officer Watts considered the pair facing him, while curious spectators crowded together in a semicircle behind him and a thickening stream of other first-cabin passengers poured in from off the deck, jostling up closely to feast their gaping eyes upon so sensational an episode. It took the young Englishman only a moment or two to make up his mind; a quick scrutiny was for him amply sufficient. For one of these men stood at ease; well set up, confident, not noticeably rumpled as to attire or flustered as to bearing. But the other: His coat was bunched up on his back, one trouser leg was pulled half way up his shin; his mussed hair was in his eyes; his cap was over one ear; his eyes undoubtedly had a most wild and desperate look; from his mouth came vain words and ravings. Finally there were those handcuffs. Handcuffs, considered as such, may not signify guilt, yet somehow they typify it. So far as First Officer Watts was concerned those handcuffs clinched[451]the case. To his understanding they wereprima facieevidence, exceedingly plausible and highly convincing. Promptly he delivered his opinion. It was significant that, in so doing, he addressed Bronston and ignored Keller:
“I’m bound to say, sir, the appearances are in favour of you. But there should be other proof, don’t you think—papers or something?”
“Certainly,” agreed Bronston. He drew a red leather wallet from his own breast-pocket and handed it over to Watts. Then, working deftly, he extracted half a dozen letters and a sheaf of manuscript notes from an inner pocket of Keller’s coat and tendered them for examination; which crowning indignity rendered Keller practically inarticulate with madness. Watts scanned these exhibits briefly, paying particular attention to a formal-looking document which he drew from the red wallet.
“These things seem to confirm what you say,” was his comment. He continued, however, to hold the written and printed testimony in his hands. He glanced at the impressive document again. “Hold on; this description of the man who is wanted says he has a moustache?”
“Oh, I’m going to offer you other proof, plenty of it,” Bronston promised, cutting in on Keller, who grew more incoherently vocal with each moment. “Would you be so good as to send for the ship’s barber?”
[452]“Bring the barber!” ordered Watts of a wide-eyed cabin boy.
“This steward has served us since we came aboard,” went on Bronston, indicating Lawrence. “Now, my man, I want you to tell the truth. Which of us two seemed to be in charge on the night you first saw us—the night we came aboard—this man or I?”
“You, sir,” answered Lawrence. “I recall quite distinctly that ’twas you spoke to me about the ’eavy luggage.”
“Who took from you the wireless message which you brought yesterday to our stateroom, addressed to the representative of the Sharkey Detective Agency?”
“You, sir.”
“Who handed you your tip a few minutes ago for serving us during the voyage?”
“You did, thank you, sir.”
A figure of dignity pushed forward through the ring of excited spectators and a sonorous, compelling voice was raised impressively. Major Slocum had been late in arriving upon the scene, but what he now said earned for him instant attention.
“Mr. Officer,” announced the Major with a gesture which comprehended the central pair of figures, “you may accept it from me as an absolute and indisputable fact that this gentleman, who calls himself Brown, is a bona-fide detective. I gleaned as much from my conversation with him upon the occasion of our first[453]meeting. He evinced a wide knowledge of police matters. Of the other person I know nothing, except that, since Brown is the detective, he must perforce be the prisoner.” He cleared his throat before going on:
“Moreover, deeply though I regret to bring a lady, and especially a young lady, into a controversy involving a person who is charged with crime”—here he blighted the hapless Keller with a glare—“deeply as I regret it, I may say that my niece is in position to supply further evidence.”
The crowd parted to admit Miss Lillian Cartwright, then closed in behind her. Excitement flushed the young lady’s cheeks becomingly. The first officer bowed to her:
“Pardon me, miss, but would you mind telling us what you know?”
“Why, I’ve known for two days—no, three days, I think—who they were,” stated Miss Cartwright. “Mr. Brown—the detective, you know—loaned me his ulster the other morning; and when I put it on I felt something—something heavy that jingled in the pocket. Mr. Brown didn’t seem to want me to take it out or speak about it. But at the very first chance I peeped in the pocket, and it was a pair of handcuffs. I’d never seen any handcuffs before—closely, I mean—so I peeped at them several times. They are the same handcuffs that are on that man now.”
“That was my overcoat he loaned you!”[454]yelled Keller, waving his coupled hands up and down in his desperate yearning to be heard in his own defence. “Those handcuffs were in my overcoat pocket, I tell you, not in his.”
“Oh, no,” contradicted Miss Cartwright, most positively. “Yours is a brown ulster. I’ve seen you wearing it evenings on the deck. And this was a dark-grey ulster, the same one that Mr. Brown is wearing this very minute.
“And I remember, too, that on that very same morning you came up and asked Mr. Brown to take you to lunch, or rather you asked him to go to lunch so that you could go, too. You spoke to him twice about it—quite humbly, I thought.”
There were murmurs of applause at this. Another voice, unheard until now, spoke out, rising above the confused babbling. It was the voice of a sophisticated New Yorker addressing an equally sophisticated friend:
“There’s nothing to it, Herman! Look at those feet on Brown. Nobody but a bull would be wearing shoes like that. And pipe the plaid lid—a regulation plain-clothes man’s get-up, the whole thing is.”
“But those are my shoes he’s wearing,” wailed Keller, feeling the trap closing in upon him from every side. “Those are my shoes—I loaned ’em to him.”
“Lawrence,” said Bronston, “you’ve been giving our shoes to Boots and getting them back from him, haven’t you?”
[455]“Yes, sir.”
“Are these shoes which I have on now the same shoes I’ve been wearing right along?”
“Oh, yes, sir, the same boots!”
“When you helped me pack my luggage to-day, did you notice any other shoes?”
“No, sir.”
“I wasn’t in my stocking feet when I came aboard, was I?”
“Oh, no, indeed, sir.” This with a respectful smile.
“Then these must be the only shoes I have or have had, mustn’t they?”
Before Lawrence could make answer to this question the ship’s barber appeared at the first officer’s elbow, touching his cap.
“You wanted me, sir?” he asked.
“I wanted you,” put in Bronston. “Look at me closely, please. How long would you say that it has been since I wore a moustache?”
With the air of a scientist examining a rare and interesting specimen, the barber considered the speaker’s upper lip.
“Not for some months, sir, I should say,” he announced with professional gravity, while all the audience craned their necks to hear his words.
“Now, then,” said Bronston, yanking Keller forward into the full light, “would you please look this prisoner over and tell us how long, in your opinion, it has been since he wore a moustache?”
[456]A pause ensued; all waited for the decision.
“I should say, sir,” stated the barber at the end of half a minute, “that ’e’s been wearing a moustache lately—I should say that ’e must ’ave took it off quite recently. ’Is upper lip is still tender—tenderer than the rest of ’is face.”
“But I took it off since we sailed,” blared Keller. He turned furiously on Bronston. “Damn you, you conned me into taking it off!”
“Why should I do that?” parried Bronston coolly; his manner changed, becoming accusing. “Why should I persuade you to cut off the principal distinguishing mark as set forth in the description that was sent to our people from London, the thing which aided me in tracing and finding you?”
A sputtered bellow was the answer from Keller, and a suggestion of applause the response from the crowd. The popular verdict had been rendered. Before the tribunal of the onlookers the prisoner stood convicted of being rightfully and properly a prisoner. Even in his present state Keller realised this, and filled for the moment with a sullen resignation he dropped his manacled hands.
“Remember,” he groaned, “somebody’ll pay out big damages if you let this man off this ship. That’s all I’ve got to say now. He tricked me and he’ll trick you, too, if he can!”
“Mr. First Officer,” said Bronston, “hasn’t this farce gone far enough? Is there any[457]lingering doubt in your mind regarding our proper identities?”
The first officer shook his head. “I am satisfied,” he said with unqualified conviction in his words; “quite satisfied. Indeed, sir, I was satisfied from the beginning. I only wished to be absolutely sure.”
“I thought as much,” said Bronston. “I am expecting a man from Scotland Yard to meet us here at Liverpool. Would you please bring him to me here? This man is dangerous, and I prefer to have assistance before taking him off the boat. Kindly explain the situation to the Scotland Yard man as he comes aboard, will you, please, and ask him to hurry.”
“I understand,” said Mr. Watts, moving back. “Clear the way, please,” he bade those about him. “We are about to dock, I think.”
He was a bit late. The steamer had already swung to, broadside, alongside the long landing stage, and just as Mr. Watts, in a great hurry, reached the rail, the gangway went out. But before the first eager shoregoer could start down it, a square-jawed, stockily-built man, with short side whiskers, came briskly up it from the other end. He spoke ten words to the first officer, and the first officer, escorting him, bored back through the press to the foyer, explaining the situation in crisp sentences, as he made a path for the newcomer to the spot where Bronston, with his legs braced, was jamming the blasphemous and struggling Keller[458]into an angle of the cabin wall. For Keller had once more grown violent. At sight of this the square-jawed man jumped forward to lend a hand.
“Inspector Drew, from Scotland Yard,” he said, by way of introduction for himself as he grabbed for one of Keller’s flailing legs.
“All right, inspector,” answered Bronston, between hard-set teeth. “I’m glad to see you. I’m having trouble handling our man.”
“So I see,” said Drew, “but we’ll cure that in a jiffy.” He cured it by the expedient of throwing the whole weight of his body upon Keller. Together he and Bronston pressed the captive flat and helpless against the woodwork.
“The boat train is waiting,” panted Drew in Bronston’s ear. “Shall we get our man aboard?”
“I’m not going on any train!” snorted Keller, his voice rising to an agonised shriek.
“Oh, yes, but you are, me beauty!” said the inspector. “Get him by the other arm,” he told Bronston. “I’ll take care of him on this side.”
Propelled by an irresistible force, held fast by strong grips upon his coat-collar and his elbows, shoved along, while his feet dragged and scuffled under him and his pinioned hands waggled the air impotently, hurried on so fast that his profane sputterings gurgled and died in his throat—thus and after such a fashion did the hapless, helpless Keller travel across[459]the deck and through the crowd, which parted before him and closed in behind; thus did he progress, without halt, across the landing dock, on past the stand of the customs office and out at the other side of the dock, where, upon tracks that ran along the quay, a train stood with steam up. Bodily he was flung in at an open coach door; roughly he was spun about and deposited like a sack of oats upon the seat of a compartment, and Inspector Drew, gasping for breath but triumphant, shoved a knee into his heaving chest to keep him there.
“Whew, that was a job!” puffed Bronston, releasing his grasp of their still feebly struggling charge. “Inspector, can you keep him where he is for just a minute or two? I’ll see to it that the baggage is brought here.”
“I can keep the gentleman quiet,” said Drew, mending his grip and shoving down hard upon the wriggling human cushion beneath him.
“For God’s sake, don’t let him get away!Don’t——” The rest was but muffled gurglings and snortings, made meaningless and wordless by a sinewy, tweed-clad forearm, which was jammed across poor Keller’s face with crushing and extinguishing violence.
“Go get your baggage,” panted Inspector Drew. “He’ll stay right ’ere with me, no fear.” So Bronston stepped down out of the compartment and slammed the door fast behind him.
[460]As the passengers of theMesopotamiacome swarming aboard the boat train, and as the boat train prepares to pull out for London, we may as well leave the inspector and the handcuffed detective wrestling there together in the narrow confines of that English railway compartment.
Because that was where Bronston left them.
THE END