I turned with a start to perceive a bare head thrust above the cabin roof, the scant hair flying, and two large, brown eyes staring into mine full of alarm and reproach. A plump finger was pointing to where the sandy reef lay far astern of us.
The Mackinaws were flecked far and wide over the lake, and a dirty smudge on the blue showed where the Far Harbor and Beaverton boat had gone over the horizon. But there, over the point and dangerously close to the land, hung another smudge, gradually pushing its way like a writhing, black serpent, lakewards. Thus I was rudely jerked back to face the problem with which we had left the island that morning.
I snatched the neglected glasses from the deck and hurried aft to join my client on the overhang, but a pipe was all they revealed above the bleak hillocks of sand. My client turned to me with a face that was white under the tan.
“Crocker,” he cried, in a tragic voice, “it's a blessed police boat, or I never picked a winner.”
“Nonsense,” I said; “other boats smoke beside police boats. The lake is full of tugs.”
I was a little nettled at having been scared for a molehill.
“But I know it, sure as hell,” he insisted.
“You know nothing about it, and won't for an hour. What's a pipe and a trail of smoke?”
He laid a hand on my shoulder, and I felt it tremble.
“Why do you suppose I came out?” he demanded solemnly.
“You were probably losing,” I said.
“I was winning.”
“Then you got tired of winning.”
But he held up a thumb within a few inches of my face, and with it a ring I had often noticed, a huge opal which he customarily wore on the inside of his hand.
“She's dead,” said Mr. Cooke, sadly.
“Dead?” I repeated, perplexed.
“Yes, she's dead as the day I lost the two thousand at Sheepshead. She's never gone back on me yet. And unless I can make some little arrangement with those fellows,” he added, tossing his head at the smoke, “you and I will put up to-night in some barn of a jail. I've never been in jail but once,” said Mr. Cooke, “and it isn't so damned pleasant, I assure you.” I saw that he believed every word of it; in fact, that it was his religion. I might as well have tried to argue the Sultan out of Mohammedanism.
The pipe belonged to a tug, that was certain. Farrar said so after a look over his shoulder, disdaining glasses, and he knew the lake better than many who made their living by it. It was then that I made note of a curious anomaly in the betting character; for thus far Mr. Cooke, like a great many of his friends, was a skeptic. He never ceased to hope until the stake had found its way into the other man's pocket. And it was for hope that he now applied to Farrar. But even Farrar did not attempt to account for the tug's appearance that near the land.
“She's in some detestable hurry to get up this way, that's flat,” he said; “where she is, the channel out of the harbor is not forty feet wide.”
By this time the rest of the party were gathered behind us on the high side of the boat, in different stages of excitement, scrutinizing the smoke. Mr. Cooke had the glasses glued to his eyes again, his feet braced apart, and every line of his body bespeaking the tension of his mind. I imagined him standing thus, the stump of his cigar tightly clutched between his teeth, following the fortunes of some favorite on the far side of the Belmont track.
We waited without comment while the smoke crept by degrees towards the little white spindle on the tip of the point, now and again catching a gleam of the sun's rays from off the glass of the lantern. And presently, against the white lather of the lake, I thought I caught sight of a black nose pushed out beyond the land. Another moment, and the tug itself was bobbing in the open. Barely had she reached the deep water beyond the sands when her length began to shorten, and the dense cloud of smoke that rose made it plain that she was firing. At the sight I reflected that I had been a fool indeed. A scant few miles of water lay between us and her, and if they really meant business back there, and they gave every sign of it, we had about an hour and a half to get rid of the Celebrity. The Maria was a good boat, but she had not been built to try conclusions with a Far Harbor tug.
My client, in spite of the ominous condition of his opal, was not slow to make his intentions exceedingly clear. For Mr. Cooke was first and last, and always, a gentleman. After that you might call him anything you pleased. Meditatively he screwed up his glasses and buckled them into the case, and then he descended to the cockpit. It was the Celebrity he singled out of the party.
“Allen,” said he, when he stood before him, “I want to impress on you that my word's gold. I've stuck to you thus far, and I'll be damned now if I throw you over, like they did Jonah.”
Mr. Cooke spoke with a fine dignity that in itself was impressive, and when he had finished he looked about him until his eye rested on Mr. Trevor, as though opposition were to come from that quarter. And the senator gave every sign of another eruption. But the Celebrity, either from lack of appreciation of my client's loyalty, or because of the nervousness which was beginning to show itself in his demeanor, despite an effort to hide it, returned no answer. He turned on his heel and resumed his seat in the cabin. Mr. Cooke was visibly affected.
“I'd sooner lose my whip hand than go back on him now,” he declared.
Then Vesuvius began to rumble.
“Mr. Cooke,” said the senator, “may I suggest something which seems pertinent to me, though it does not appear to have occurred to you?”
His tone was the calm one that the heroes used in the Celebrity's novels when they were about to drop on and annihilate wicked men.
“Certainly, sir,” my client replied briskly, bringing himself up on his way back to the overhang.
“You have announced your intention of 'standing by' Mr. Allen, as you express it. Have you reflected that there are some others who deserve to be consulted and considered beside Mr. Allen and yourself?”
Mr. Cooke was puzzled at this change of front, and unused, moreover, to that veiled irony of parliamentary expression.
“Talk English, my friend,” said he.
“In plain words, sir, Mr. Allen is a criminal who ought to be locked up; he is a menace to society. You, who have a reputation, I am given to understand, for driving four horses, have nothing to lose by a scandal, while I have worked all my life for the little I have achieved, and have a daughter to think about. I will neither stand by Mr. Allen nor by you.”
Mr. Cooke was ready with a retort when the true significance of this struck him. Things were a trifle different now. The tables had turned since leaving the island, and the senator held it in his power to ruin our one remaining chance of escape. Strangely enough, he missed the cause of Mr. Cooke's hesitation.
“Look here, old man,” said my client, biting off another cigar, “I'm a first-rate fellow when you get to know me, and I'd do the same for you as I'm doing for Allen.”
“I daresay, sir, I daresay,” said the other, a trifle mollified; “I don't claim that you're not acting as you think right.”
“I see it,” said Mr. Cooke, with admirable humility; “I see it. I was wrong to haul you into this, Trevor. And the only thing to consider now is, how to get you out of it.”
Here he appeared for a moment to be wrapped in deep thought, and checked with his cigar an attempt to interrupt him.
“However you put it, old man,” he said at last, “we're all in a pretty bad hole.”
“All!” cried Mr. Trevor, indignantly.
“Yes, all,” asserted Mr. Cooke, with composure. “There are the police, and here is Allen as good as run down. If they find him when they get abroad, you don't suppose they'll swallow anything you have to say about trying to deliver him over. No, sir, you'll be bagged and fined along with the rest of us. And I'd be damned sorry to see it, if I do say it; and I blame myself freely for it, old man. Now you take my advice and keep your mouth shut, and I'll take care of you. I've got a place for Allen.”
During this somewhat remarkable speech Mr. Trevor, as it were, blew hot and cold by turns. Although its delivery was inconsiderate, its logic was undeniable, and the senator sat down again on the locker, and was silent. But I marked that off and on his fingers would open and shut convulsively.
Time alone would disclose what was to happen to us; in the interval there was nothing to do but wait. We had reached the stage where anxiety begins to take the place of excitement, and we shifted restlessly from spot to spot and looked at the tug. She was ploughing along after us, and to such good purpose that presently I began to catch the white of the seas along her bows, and the bright red with which her pipe was tipped. Farrar alone seemed to take but slight interest in her. More than once I glanced at him as he stood under me, but his eye was on the shuddering leach of the sail. Then I leaned over.
“What do you think of it?” I asked.
“I told you this morning Drew would have handcuffs on him before night,” he replied, without raising his head.
“Hang your joking, Farrar; I know more than you about it.”
“Then what's the use of asking me?”
“Don't you see that I'm ruined if we're caught?” I demanded, a little warmly.
“No, I don't see it,” he replied. “You don't suppose I think you fool enough to risk this comedy if the man were guilty, do you? I don't believe all that rubbish about his being the criminal's double, either. That's something the girls got up for your benefit.”
I ignored this piece of brutality.
“But I'm ruined anyway.”
“How?”
I explained shortly what I thought our friend, O'Meara, would do under the circumstances. An inference sufficed Farrar.
“Why didn't you say something about this before?” he asked gravely. “I would have put into Far Harbor.”
“Because I didn't think of it,” I confessed.
Farrar pulled down the corners of his mouth with trying not to smile.
“Miss Thorn is a woman of brains,” he remarked gently; “I respect her.”
I wondered by what mysterious train of reasoning he had arrived at this conclusion. He said nothing for a while, but toyed with the spokes of the wheel, keeping the wind in the sail with undue nicety.
“I can't make them out,” he said, all at once.
“Then you believe they're after us?”
“I changed the course a point or two, just to try them.”
“And—”
“And they changed theirs.”
“Who could have informed?”
“Drew, of course,” I said; “who else?”
He laughed.
“Drew doesn't know anything about Allen,” said he; “and, besides, he's no more of a detective than I am.”
“But Drew was told there was a criminal on the island.”
“Who told him?”
I repeated the conversation between Drew and Mr. Trevor which I had overheard. Farrar whistled.
“But you did not speak of that this morning,” said he.
“No,” I replied, feeling anything but comfortable. At times when he was facetious as he had been this morning I was wont to lose sight of the fact that with Farrar the manner was not the man, and to forget the warmth of his friendship. I was again to be reminded of this.
“Well, Crocker,” he said briefly, “I would willingly give up this year's state contract to have known it.”
It was, accurately as I can remember, half after noon when Mr. Cooke first caught the smoke over the point, for the sun was very high: at two our fate had been decided. I have already tried to describe a part of what took place in that hour and a half, although even now I cannot get it all straight in my mind. Races, when a great deal is at stake, are more or less chaotic: a close four miles in a college eight is a succession of blurs with lucid but irrelevant intervals. The weary months of hard work are forgotten, and you are quite as apt to think of your first velocipede, or of the pie that is awaiting you in the boathouse, as of victory and defeat. And a yacht race, with a pair of rivals on your beam, is very much the same.
As I sat with my feet dangling over the washboard, I reflected, once or twice, that we were engaged in a race. All I had to do was to twist my head in order to make sure of it. I also reflected, I believe, that I was in the position of a man who has bet all he owns, with large odds on losing either way. But on the whole I was occupied with more trivial matters a letter I had forgotten to write about a month's rent, a client whose summer address I had mislaid. The sun was burning my neck behind when a whistle aroused me to the realization that the tug was no longer a toy boat dancing in the distance, but a stern fact but two miles away. There could be no mistake now, for I saw the white steam of the signal against the smoke.
I slid down and went into the cabin. The Celebrity was in the corner by the companionway, with his head on the cushions and a book in his hand. And forward, under the low deck beams beyond the skylight, I beheld the crouching figure of my client. He had stripped off his coat and was busy at some task on the floor.
“They're whistling for us to stop,” I said to him.
“How near are they, old man?” he asked, without looking up. The perspiration was streaming down his face, and he held a brace and bit in his hand. Under him was the trap-door which gave access to the ballast below, and through this he had bored a neat hole. The yellow chips were still on his clothes.
“They're not two miles away,” I answered. “But what in mystery are you doing there?”
But he only laid a finger beside his nose and bestowed a wink in my direction. Then he took some ashes from his cigar, wetted his finger, and thus ingeniously removed all appearance of newness from the hole he had made, carefully cleaning up the chips and putting them in his pocket. Finally he concealed the brace and bit and opened the trap, disclosing the rough stones of the ballast. I watched him in amazement as he tore a mattress from an adjoining bunk and forced it through the opening, spreading it fore and aft over the stones.
“Now,” he said, regaining his feet and surveying the whole with undisguised satisfaction, “he'll be as safe there as in my new family vault.”
“But,” I began, a light dawning upon me.
“Allen, old man,” said Mr. Cooke, “come here.”
The Celebrity laid down his book and looked up: my client was putting on his coat.
“Come here, old man,” he repeated.
And he actually came. But he stopped when he caught sight of the open trap and of the mattress beneath it.
“How will that suit you?” asked Mr. Cooke, smiling broadly as he wiped his face with an embroidered handkerchief.
The Celebrity looked at the mattress, then at me, and lastly at Mr. Cooke. His face was a study:
“And—And you think I am going to get in there?” he said, his voice shaking.
My client fell back a step.
“Why not?” he demanded. “It's about your size, comfortable, and all the air you want” (here Mr. Cooke stuck his finger through the bit hole). “Damn me, if I were in your fix, I wouldn't stop at a kennel.”
“Then you're cursed badly mistaken,” said the Celebrity, going back to his corner; “I'm tired of being made an ass of for you and your party.”
“An ass!” exclaimed my client, in proper indignation.
“Yes, an ass,” said the Celebrity. And he resumed his book.
It would seem that a student of human nature, such as every successful writer should be, might by this time have arrived at some conception of my client's character, simple as it was, and have learned to overlook the slight peculiarity in his mode of expressing himself. But here the Celebrity fell short, if my client's emotions were not pitched in the same key as those of other people, who shall say that his heart was not as large or his sympathies as wide as many another philanthropist?
But Mr. Cooke was an optimist, and as such disposed to look at the best side of his friends and ignore the worst; if, indeed, he perceived their faults at all. It was plain to me, even now, that he did not comprehend the Celebrity's attitude. That his guest should reject the one hope of escape left him was, according to Mr. Cooke, only to be accounted for by a loss of mental balance. Nevertheless, his disappointment was keen. He let down the door and slowly led the way out of the cabin. The whistle sounded shrilly in our ears.
Mr. Cooke sat down and drew a wallet from his pocket. He began to count the bills, and, as if by common consent, the Four followed suit. It was a task which occupied some minutes, and when completed my client produced a morocco note-book and a pencil. He glanced interrogatively at the man nearest him.
“Three hundred and fifty.”
Mr. Cooke put it down. It was entirely a matter of course. What else was there to be done? And when he had gone the round of his followers he turned to Farrar and me.
“How much are you fellows equal to?” he asked.
I believe he did it because he felt we should resent being left out: and so we should have. Mr. Cooke's instincts were delicate.
We told him. Then he paused, his pencil in the air, and his eyes doubtfully fixed on the senator. For all this time Mr. Trevor had been fidgeting in his seat; but now he opened his long coat, button by button, and thrust his hand inside the flap. Oh, Falstaff!
“Father, father!” exclaimed Miss Trevor. But her tongue was in her cheek.
I have heard it stated that if a thoroughly righteous man were cast away with ninety and nine ruffians, each of the ruffians would gain one-one-hundredth in virtue, whilst the righteous man would sink to their new level. I am not able to say how much better Mr. Cooke's party was for Mr. Trevor's company, but the senator seemed to realize that something serious had happened to him, for his voice was not altogether steady as he pronounced the amount of his contribution.
“Trevor,” cried Mr. Cooke, with great fervor, “I take it all back. You're a true, public-spirited old sport.”
But the senator had not yet reached that extreme of degradation where it is pleasurable to be congratulated on wickedness.
My client added up the figures and rubbed his hands. I regret to say that the aggregate would have bought up three small police organizations, body and soul.
“Pull up, Farrar, old man,” he shouted.
Farrar released the wheel and threw the Maria into the wind. With the sail cracking and the big boom dodging over our heads, we watched the tug as she drew nearer and nearer, until we could hear the loud beating of her engines. On one side some men were making ready to lower a boat, and then a conspicuous figure in blue stood out by the davits. Then came the faint tinkle of a bell, and the H Sinclair, of Far Harbor, glided up and thrashed the water scarce a biscuit-throw away.
“Hello, there!” the man in uniform called out. It was Captain McCann, chief of the Far Harbor police.
Mr. Cooke waved his cigar politely.
“Is that Mr. Cooke's yacht, the Maria?
“The same,” said Mr. Cooke.
“I'm fearing I'll have to come aboard you, Mr. Cooke.”
“All right, old man, glad to have you,” said my client.
This brought a smile to McCann's face as he got into his boat. We were all standing in the cockpit, save the Celebrity, who was just inside of the cabin door. I had time to note that he was pale, and no more: I must have been pale myself. A few strokes brought the chief to the Maria's stern.
“It's not me that likes to interfere with a gent's pleasure party, but business is business,” said he, as he climbed aboard.
My client's hospitality was oriental.
“Make yourself at home, old man,” he said, a box of his largest and blackest cigars in his hand. And these he advanced towards McCann before the knot was tied in the painter.
Then a wave of self-reproach swept over me. Was it possible that I, like Mr. Trevor, had been deprived of all the morals I had ever possessed? Could it be that the district attorney was looking calmly on while Mr. Cooke wilfully corrupted the Far Harbor chief-of-police? As agonizing a minute as I ever had in my life was that which it took McCann to survey those cigars. His broad features became broader still, as a huge, red hand was reached out. I saw it close lingeringly over the box, and then Mr. Cooke had struck a match. The chief stepped over the washboard onto the handsome turkey-red cushions on the seats, and thus he came face to face with me.
“Holy fathers!” he exclaimed. “Is it you who are here, Mr. Crocker?” And he pulled off his cap.
“No other, McCann,” said I, with what I believe was a most pitiful attempt at braggadocio.
McCann began to puff at his cigar. Clouds of smoke came out of his face and floated down the wind. He was so visibly embarrassed that I gained a little courage.
“And what brings you here?” I demanded.
He scrutinized me in perplexity.
“I think you're guessing, sir.”
“Never a guess, McCann. You'll have to explain yourself.”
McCann had once had a wholesome respect for me. But it looked now as if the bottom was dropping out of it.
“Sure, Mr. Crocker,” he said, “what would you be doing in such company as I'm hunting for? Can it be that ye're helping to lift a criminal over the border?”
“McCann,” I asked sternly, “what have you had on the tug?”
Force of habit proved too much for the man. He went back to the apologetic.
“Never a drop, Mr. Crocker. Upon me soul!”
This reminded Mr. Cooke of something (be it recorded) that he had for once forgotten. He lifted up the top of the refrigerator. The chief's eye followed him. But I was not going to permit this.
“Now, McCann,” I commenced again, “if you will state your business here, if you have any, I shall be obliged. You are delaying Mr. Cooke.”
The chief was seized with a nervous tremor. I think we were a pair in that, only I managed to keep mine, under. When it came to the point, and any bribing was to be done, I had hit upon a course. Self-respect demanded a dignity on my part. With a painful indecision McCann pulled a paper from his pocket which I saw was a warrant. And he dropped his cigar. Mr. Cooke was quick to give him another.
“Ye come from Bear Island, Mr. Crocker?” he inquired.
I replied in the affirmative.
“I hope it's news I'm telling you,” he said soberly; “I'm hoping it's news when I say that I'm here for Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen,—that's the gentleman's name. He's after taking a hundred thousand dollars away from Boston.” Then he turned to Mr. Cooke. “The gentleman was aboard your boat, sir, when you left that country place of yours,—what d'ye call it?—Mohair? Thank you, sir.” And he wiped the water from his brow. “And they're telling me he was on Bear Island with ye? Sure, sir, and I can't see why a gentleman of your standing would be wanting to get him over the border. But I must do my duty. Begging your pardon, Mr. Crocker,” he added, with a bow to me.
“Certainly, McCann,” I said.
For a space there was only the bumping and straining of the yacht and the swish of the water against her sides. Then the chief spoke again.
“It will be saving you both trouble and inconvenience, Mr. Crocker, if you give him up, sir.”
What did the man mean? Why in the name of the law didn't he make a move? I was conscious that my client was fumbling in his clothes for the wallet; that he had muttered an invitation for the chief to go inside. McCann smoked uneasily.
“I don't want to search the boat, sir.”
At these words we all turned with one accord towards the cabin. I felt Farrar gripping my arm tightly from behind.
The Celebrity had disappeared!
It was Mr. Cooke who spoke.
“Search the boat!” he said, something between a laugh and a cry.
“Yes, sir,” the chief repeated firmly. “It's sorry I am to do it, with Mr. Crocker here, too.”
I have always maintained that nature had endowed my client with rare gifts; and the ease with which he now assumed a part thus unexpectedly thrust upon him, as well as the assurance with which he carried it out, goes far to prove it.
“If there's anything in your line aboard, chief,” he said blandly, “help yourself!”
Some of us laughed. I thought things a little too close to be funny. Since the Celebrity had lost his nerve and betaken himself to the place of concealment Mr. Cooke had prepared for him, the whole composition of the affair was changed. Before, if McCann had arrested the ostensible Mr. Allen, my word, added to fifty dollars from my client, would probably have been sufficient. Should he be found now, no district attorney on the face of the earth could induce the chief to believe that he was any other than the real criminal; nor would any bribe be large enough to compensate McCann for the consequences of losing so important a prisoner. There was nothing now but to carry it off with a high hand. McCann got up.
“Be your lave, Mr. Crocker,” he said.
“Never you mind me, McCann,” I replied, “but you do what is right.”
With that he began his search. It might have been ludicrous if I had had any desire to laugh, for the chief wore the gingerly air of a man looking for a rattlesnake which has to be got somehow. And my client assisted at the inspection with all the graces of a dancing-master. McCann poked into the forward lockers where we kept the stores,—dropping the iron lid within an inch of his toe,—and the clothing-lockers and the sail-lockers. He reached under the bunks, and drew out his hand again quickly, as though he expected to be bitten. And at last he stood by the trap with the hole in it, under which the Celebrity lay prostrate. I could hear my own breathing. But Mr. Cooke had his wits about him still, and at this critical juncture he gave McCann a thump on the back which nearly carried him off his feet.
“They say the mast is hollow, old man,” he suggested.
“Be jabers, Mr. Cooke,” said McCann, “and I'm beginning to think it is!
“He took off his cap and scratched his head.
“Well, McCann, I hope you're contented,” I said.
“Mr. Crocker,” said he, “and it's that thankful I am for you that the gent ain't here. But with him cutting high finks up at Mr. Cooke's house with a valet, and him coming on the yacht with yese, and the whole country in that state about him, begorra,” said McCann, “and it's domned strange! Maybe it's swimmin' in the water he is!”
The whole party had followed the search, and at this speech of the chief's our nervous tension became suddenly relaxed. Most of us sat down to laugh.
“I'm asking no questions, Mr. Crocker, ye'll take notice,” he remarked, his voice full of reproachful meaning.
“McCann,” said I, “you come outside. I want to speak to you.”
He followed me out.
“Now,” I went on, “you know me pretty well” (he nodded doubtfully), “and if I give you my word that Charles Wrexell Allen is not on this yacht, and never has been, is that sufficient?”
“Is it the truth you're saying, sir?”
I assured him that it was.
“Then where is he, Mr. Crocker?”
“God only knows!” I replied, with fervor. “I don't, McCann.”
The chief was satisfied. He went back into the cabin, and Mr. Cooke, in the exuberance of his joy, produced champagne. McCann had heard of my client and of his luxurious country place, and moreover it was the first time he had ever been on a yellow-plush yacht. He tarried. He drank Mr. Cooke's health and looked around him in wonder and awe, and his remarks were worthy of record. These sayings and the thought of the author of The Sybarites stifling below with his mouth to an auger-hole kept us in a continual state of merriment. And at last our visitor rose to go.
As he was stepping over the side, Mr. Cooke laid hold of a brass button and pressed a handful of the black cigars upon him.
“My regards to the detective, old man,” said he.
McCann stared.
“My regards to Drew,” my client insisted.
“Oh!” said McCann, his face lighting up, “him with the whiskers, what came from Bear Island in a cat-boat. Sure, he wasn't no detective, sir.”
“What was he? A police commissioner?”
“Mr. Cooke,” said McCann, disdainfully, as he got into his boat, “he wasn't nothing but a prospector doing the lake for one of them summer hotel companies.”
When the biography of the Celebrity is written, and I have no doubt it will be some day, may his biographer kindly draw a veil over that instant in his life when he was tenderly and obsequiously raised by Mr. Cooke from the trap in the floor of the Maria's cabin.
It is sometimes the case that a good fright will heal a feud. And whereas, before the arrival of the H. Sinclair, there had been much dissension and many quarrels concerning the disposal of the quasi Charles Wrexell Allen, when the tug steamed away to the southwards but one opinion remained,—that, like Jonah, he must be got rid of. And no one concurred more heartily in this than the Celebrity himself. He strolled about and smoked apathetically, with the manner of one who was bored beyond description, whilst the discussion was going on between Farrar, Mr. Cooke, and myself as to the best place to land him. When considerately asked by my client whether he had any choice in the matter, he replied, somewhat facetiously, that he could not think of making a suggestion to one who had shown such superlative skill in its previous management.
Mr. Trevor, too, experienced a change of sentiment in Mr. Cooke's favor. It is not too much to say that the senator's scare had been of such thoroughness that he was willing to agree to almost anything. He had come so near to being relieved of that most precious possession, his respectability, that the reason in Mr. Cooke's course now appealed to him very strongly. Thus he became a tacit assenter in wrong-doing, for circumstances thrust this, once in a while, upon the best of our citizens.
The afternoon wore cool; nay, cold is a better word. The wind brought with it a suggestion of the pine-clad wastes of the northwestern wilderness whence it came, and that sure harbinger of autumn, the blue haze, settled around the hills, and benumbed the rays of the sun lingering over the crests. Farrar and I, as navigators, were glad to get into our overcoats, while the others assembled in the little cabin and lighted the gasoline stove which stood in the corner. Outside we had our pipes for consolation, and the sunset beauty of the lake.
By six we were well over the line, and consulting our chart, we selected a cove behind a headland on our left, which seemed the best we could do for an anchorage, although it was shallow and full of rocks. As we were changing our course to run in, Mr. Cooke appeared, bundled up in his reefer. He was in the best of spirits, and was good enough to concur with our plans.
“Now, sir,” asked Farrar, “what do you propose to do with Allen?”
But our client only chuckled.
“Wait and see, old man,” he said; “I've got that all fixed.”
“Well,” Farrar remarked, when he had gone in again, “he has steered it deuced well so far. I think we can trust him.”
It was dark when we dropped anchor, a very tired party indeed; and as the Maria could not accommodate us all with sleeping quarters, Mr. Cooke decided that the ladies should have the cabin, since the night was cold. And so it might have been, had not Miss Thorn flatly refused to sleep there. The cabin was stuffy, she said, and so she carried her point. Leaving Farrar and one of Mr. Cooke's friends to take care of the yacht, the rest of us went ashore, built a roaring fire and raised a tent, and proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would allow. The sense of relief over the danger passed produced a kind of lightheartedness amongst us, and the topics broached at supper would not have been inappropriate at a friendly dinner party. As we were separating for the night Miss Thorn said to me:
“I am so happy for your sake, Mr. Crocker, that he was not discovered.”
For my sake! Could she really have meant it, after all? I went to sleep thinking of that sentence, beside my client beneath the trees. And it was first in my thoughts when I awoke.
As we dipped our faces in the brook the next morning my client laughed softly to himself between the gasps, and I knew that he had in mind the last consummate touch to his successful enterprise. And the revelation came when the party were assembled at breakfast. Mr. Cooke stood up, and drawing from his pocket a small and mysterious paper parcel he forthwith delivered himself in the tone and manner which had so endeared him to the familiars of the Lake House bar.
“I'm not much for words, as you all know,” said he, with becoming modesty, “and I don't set up to be an orator. I am just what you see here,—a damned plain man. And there's only one virtue that I lay any claim to,—no one can say that I ever went back on a friend. I want to thank all of you (looking at the senator) for what you have done for me and Allen. It's not for us to talk about that hundred thousand dollars.—My private opinion is (he seemed to have no scruples about making it public) that Allen is insane. No, old man, don't interrupt me; but you haven't acted just right, and that's a fact. And I won't feel square with myself until I put him where I found him, in safety. I am sorry to say, my friends,” he added, with emotion, “that Mr. Allen is about to leave us.”
He paused for breath, palpably satisfied with so much of it, and with the effect on his audience.
“Now,” continued he, “we start this morning for a place which is only four miles or so from the town of Saville, and I shall then request my esteemed legal adviser, Mr. Crocker, to proceed to the town and buy a ready-made suit of clothes for Mr. Allen, a slouch hat, a cheap necktie, and a stout pair of farmer's boots. And I have here,” he said, holding up the package, “I have here the rest of it. My friends, you heard the chief tell me that Drew was doing the lake for a summer hotel syndicate. But if Drew wasn't a detective you can throw me into the lake! He wasn't exactly Pinkerton, and I flatter myself that we were too many for him,” said Mr. Cooke, with deserved pride; “and he went away in such a devilish hurry that he forgot his hand-bag with some of his extra things.”
Then my client opened the package, and held up on a string before our astonished eyes a wig, a pair of moustaches, and two bushy red whiskers.
And this was Mr. Cooke's scheme! Did it electrify his hearers? Perhaps. Even the senator was so choked with laughter that he was forced to cast loose one of the buttons which held on his turn-down collar, and Farrar retired into the woods. But the gravity of Mr. Cooke's countenance remained serene.
“Old man,” he said to the Celebrity, “you'll have to learn the price of potatoes now. Here are Mr. Drew's duplicates; try 'em on.”
This the Celebrity politely but firmly refused to do.
“Cooke,” said he, “it has never been my lot to visit so kind and considerate a host, or to know a man who pursued his duty with so little thought and care of his own peril. I wish to thank you, and to apologize for any hasty expressions I may have dropped by mistake, and I would it were possible to convince you that I am neither a maniac nor an embezzler. But, if it's just the same to you, I believe I can get along without the disguise you mentioned, and so save Mr. Crocker his pains. In short, if you will set me down at Saville, I am willing to take my chances of reaching the Canadian Pacific from that point without fear of detection.”
The Celebrity's speech produced a good impression on all save Mr. Cooke, who appeared a trifle water-logged. He had dealt successfully with Mr. Allen when that gentleman had been in defiant moods, or in moods of ugly sarcasm. But this good-natured, turn-you-down-easy note puzzled my client not a little. Was this cherished scheme a whim or a joke to be lightly cast aside? Mr. Cooke thought not. The determination which distinguished him still sat in his eye as he bustled about giving orders for the breaking of camp. This refractory criminal must be saved from himself, cost what it might, and responsibility again rested heavy on my client's mind as I rowed him out to the Maria.
“Crocker,” he said, “if Allen is scooped in spite of us, you have got to go East and make him out an idiot.”
He seemed to think that I had a talent for this particular defence. I replied that I would do my best.
“It won't be difficult,” he went on; “not near as tough as that case you won for me. You can bring in all the bosh about his claiming to be an author, you know. And I'll stand expenses.”
This was downright generous of Mr. Cooke. We have all, no doubt, drawn our line between what is right and what is wrong, but I have often wondered how many of us with the world's indorsement across our backs trespass as little on the other side of the line as he.
After Farrar and the Four got aboard it fell to my lot to row the rest of the party to the yacht. And this was no slight task that morning. The tender was small, holding but two beside the man at the oars, and owing to the rocks and shallow water of which I have spoken, the Maria lay considerably over a quarter of a mile out. Hence each trip occupied some time. Mr. Cooke I had transferred with a load of canvas and the tent poles, and next I returned for Mrs. Cooke and Mr. Trevor, whom I deposited safely. Then I landed again, helped in Miss Trevor and Miss Thorn, leaving the Celebrity for the last, and was pulling for the yacht when a cry from the tender's stern arrested me.
“Mr. Crocker, they are sailing away without us!”
I turned in my seat. The Maria's mainsail was up, and the jib was being hoisted, and her head was rapidly falling off to the wind. Farrar was casting. In the stern, waving a handkerchief, I recognized Mrs. Cooke, and beside her a figure in black, gesticulating frantically, a vision of coat-tails flapping in the breeze. Then the yacht heeled on her course and forged lakewards.
“Row, Mr. Crocker, row! they are leaving us!” cried Miss Trevor, in alarm.
I hastened to reassure her.
“Farrar is probably trying something,” I said. “They will be turning presently.”
This is just what they did not do. Once out of the inlet, they went about and headed northward, up the coast, and we remained watching them until Mr. Trevor became a mere oscillating black speck against the sail.
“What can it mean?” asked Miss Thorn.
I had not so much as an idea.
“They certainly won't desert us, at any rate,” I said. “We had better go ashore again and wait.”
The Celebrity was seated on the beach, and he was whittling. Now whittling is an occupation which speaks of a contented frame of mind, and the Maria's departure did not seem to have annoyed or disturbed him.
“Castaways,” says he, gayly, “castaways on a foreign shore. Two delightful young ladies, a bright young lawyer, a fugitive from justice, no chaperon, and nothing to eat. And what a situation for a short story, if only an author were permitted to make use of his own experiences!”
“Only you don't know how it will end,” Miss Thorn put in.
The Celebrity glanced up at her.
“I have a guess,” said he, with a smile.
“Is it true,” Miss Trevor asked, “that a story must contain the element of love in order to find favor with the public?”
“That generally recommends it, especially to your sex, Miss Trevor,” he replied jocosely.
Miss Trevor appeared interested.
“And tell me,” she went on, “isn't it sometimes the case that you start out intent on one ending, and that your artistic sense of what is fitting demands another?”
“Don't be silly, Irene,” said Miss Thorn. She was skipping flat pebbles over the water, and doing it capitally, too.
I thought the Celebrity rather resented the question.
“That sometimes happens, of course,” said he, carelessly. He produced his inevitable gold cigarette case and held it out to me. “Be sociable for once, and have one,” he said.
I accepted.
“Do you know,” he continued, lighting me a match, “it beats me why you and Miss Trevor put this thing up on me. You have enjoyed it, naturally, and if you wanted to make me out a donkey you succeeded rather well. I used to think that Crocker was a pretty good friend of mine when I went to his dinners in New York. And I once had every reason to believe,” he added, “that Miss Trevor and I were on excellent terms.”
Was this audacity or stupidity? Undoubtedly both.
“So we were,” answered Miss Trevor, “and I should be very sorry to think, Mr. Allen,” she said meaningly, “that our relations had in any way changed.”
It was the Celebrity's turn to flush.
“At any rate,” he remarked in his most offhand manner, “I am much obliged to you both. On sober reflection I have come to believe that you did the very best thing for my reputation.”