"Gone!" Lady Agatha, who had emerged from her stateroom, turned pale and caught at her heart.
They rushed on deck. The young Doctor was right; the box, which had stood on the larboard side of the cabin, had disappeared.
"It might have been blown into the canal during the storm," suggested the Rev. Mr. Calthrop. All of the crew of the Jasper B. knew Lady Agatha's story, and were aware of the importance of the box.
"It was on the lee side of the cabin," objected Dr. Farnsworth, "and while it might have been blown flat to the deck, in spite of its protected position, it would scarcely have been picked up by the wind again and wafted over the port bulwarks."
"If you was to ask me," said Cap'n Abernethy, who had joined in the discussion, "I'd give it as MY opinion it's a good riddance of bad rubbish."
"Rubbish?" said Miss Pringle. "Rubbish, indeed! I am confident that that box contained my plum preserves!"
"It has been stolen!" cried Cleggett, with conviction. "Fool that I was, not to have taken it into the cabin!"
"But, if you had, you know," said Lady Agatha, "one would scarcely have cared to stay in there with it."
"Loge has outgeneraled me," murmured Cleggett, well-nigh frantic with self-reproach. "While he made the attack in front, he sent some of his men to the rear of the vessel and it was quietly made off with while we were fighting." Had the disappearance of the box concerned himself alone Cleggett's sense of disaster might have been less poignant. But the thought that his own carelessness had enabled the enemy to get possession of a thing likely to involve Lady Agatha in further trouble was nearly insupportable. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands in impotent rage.
"No doubt Loge caught sight of it during the early part of the skirmish, by a flash of lightning," said Dr. Farnsworth, "and acted as you suggest, Mr. Cleggett. But does he believe it to be the box which contains the evidence against him? Or can he, by any chance, be aware of its real contents?"
"No matter which," groaned Cleggett, "no matter which! For when he opens it, he will learn what is in it. Don't you see that he has us now? If he offers to trade it back to us for the other oblong box, how can I refuse? If we have his secret, Loge has ours!"
But Dr. Farnsworth was not listening. He had suddenly leaned over the port rail and was staring down the canal. The others followed his gaze.
The house boat Annabel Lee, they perceived, had got under weigh, and was slowly approaching the Jasper B. in the moonlight. They watched her gradual approach in silence. She stopped within a few yards of the Jasper B., and a voice which Cleggett recognized as that of Wilton Barnstable, the great detective, sang out:
"Jasper B., ahoy!"
"Aye, aye!" shouted Cleggett.
"Is Mr. Cleggett on board?"
"He is speaking."
"Mr. Cleggett, have you lost anything from your canal boat?"
Cleggett did not answer, and for a moment he did not move. Then, tightening his sword belt, and cocking his hat a trifle, he climbed over the starboard rail and walked along the bank of the canal a few yards until he was opposite the Annabel Lee. The great detective, on his part, also stepped ashore. They stood and faced each other in the moonlight, silently, and their followers, also in silence, gathered in the bows of the respective vessels and watched them.
Finally, Cleggett, with one hand on his hip, and standing with his feet wide apart, said very incisively:
"Sir, the Jasper B. is NOT a canal boat."
"Eh?" Wilton Barnstable started at the emphasis.
"The Jasper B.," pursued Cleggett, staring steadily at Wilton Barnstable, "is a schooner."
"Ah!" said the other. "Indeed?"
"A schooner," repeated Cleggett, "indeed, sir! Indeed, sir, a schooner!"
There was another silence, in which neither man would look aside; they held each other with their eyes; the nervous strain communicated itself to the crews of the two vessels. At last, however, the detective, although he did not lower his gaze, and although he strove to give his new attitude an effect of ease and jauntiness by twisting the end of his mustache as he spoke, said to Cleggett:
"A schooner, then, Mr. Cleggett, a schooner! No offense, I hope?"
"None at all," said Cleggett, heartily enough, now that the point had been established. And the tension relaxed on both ships.
"You have lost an oblong box, Mr. Cleggett." The great detective affirmed it rather than interrogated.
"How did you know that?"
The other laughed. "We know a great many things—it is our business to know things," he said. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper, and said rapidly, "Mr. Cleggett, do you know who I am?" Before Cleggett could reply he continued, "Brace yourself—do not make an outcry when I tell you who I am. I am Wilton Barnstable."
"I knew you," said Cleggett. The other appeared disappointed for a moment. And then he inquired anxiously, "How did you know me?"
"Why, from your pictures in the magazines," said Cleggett.
The detective brightened perceptibly. "Ah, yes—the magazines! Yes, yes, indeed! publicity is unavoidable, unavoidable, Mr. Cleggett! But this box, now——"
The great detective interrupted himself to laugh again, a trifle complacently, Cleggett thought.
"I will not mystify you, Mr. Cleggett, about the box. Mystification is one of the tricks of the older schools of detection. I never practice it, Mr. Cleggett. With me, the detection of crime is a business—yes, a business. I will tell you presently how the box came into my possession."
"It IS in your possession?" Cleggett felt a dull pang of the heart. If the box of Reginal Maltravers were in the hands of Logan Black he could at least trade the other oblong box to Loge for it, and thus save Lady Agatha. But in the possession of Wilton Barnstable, the great detective——! Cleggett pulled himself together; he thought rapidly; he recognized that the situation called, above all things else, for diplomacy and adroitness. He went on, nonchalantly:
"I suppose you are aware of the contents of the box?"
The other laughed again as if Cleggett had made an excellent jest; there was something urbane and benign in his manner; it appeared as if he regarded the contents of the box of Reginald Maltravers as anything but serious; his tone puzzled Cleggett.
"Suppose I bring the box on board the Jasper B.," suggested the great detective. "It interests me, that box. I have no doubt it has its story. And perhaps, while you are telling me some things about it, I may be able to give you some information in turn."
There was no mistaking the fact that the man, whether genuinely friendly or no, wished to appear so.
"Have it brought into my cabin," said Cleggett, "and we will discuss it."
A few minutes later Wilton Barnstable, Cleggett, Lady Agatha, Miss Pringle, and two of Wilton Barnstable's men sat in the cabin of the Jasper B., with the two oblong boxes before them—the one which had contained Loge's incriminating diary, and the one which had caused Lady Agatha so much trouble.
In the light of the cabin the three detectives were revealed as startlingly alike. Barton Ward and Watson Bard, Barnstable's two assistants, might, indeed, almost have been taken for Barnstable himself, at a casual glance. In height, in bulk, in dress, in facial expression, they seemed Wilton Barnstable all over again. But, looking intently at the three men, Cleggett began to perceive a difference between the real Wilton Barnstable and his two counterfeits. It was the difference between the face which is informed of genius, and the countenance which is indicative of mere talent.
"Mr. Cleggett," began Wilton Barnstable, "as I said before, I will make no attempt to mystify you. I was a witness to the attack upon your vessel. Mr. Ward, Mr. Bard, and myself, in fact, had determined to assist you, had we seen that the combat was going against you. We lay, during the struggle, in the lee of your—your—er, schooner!—in the lee of your schooner, armed, and ready to bear a hand. We have our own little matter to settle with Logan Black. Why Logan Black should desire possession of this particular box, I am unable to state. Nevertheless, at the moment when he was leading his assault upon your starboard bow, two of his men, who had made a detour to the stern of your vessel, had clambered stealthily aboard, and were quietly pushing the box over the side into the canal. They let themselves down into the water, and swam towards the mouth of the canal, pushing it ahead of them. We followed in our rowboat, Mr. Ward, Mr. Bard, and myself, at a discreet distance. We let them push the box as far south as the Annabel Lee. And then——"
He paused a moment, and smiled reminiscently. Barton Ward and Watson Bard also smiled reminiscently, and the three detectives exchanged crafty glances.
"Then, to be brief, we took the box away from them. They were so ill-advised as to struggle. They are in irons, now, on board the Annabel Lee.
"But what I cannot understand, Mr. Cleggett, is why these men should risk so much to make off with an empty box."
"An empty box!" cried Cleggett.
"Empty!" echoed Lady Agatha and Miss Pringle, in concert.
The detective wrenched the cover from the box of Reginald Maltravers.
"Practically empty, at any rate," he said.
And, indeed, except for a few wads of wet excelsior, there was nothing in the box of Reginald Maltravers.
"Where, then," cried Lady Agatha, "is Reginald Maltravers?"
"Where, indeed," said Wilton Barnstable, "is Reginald Maltravers?"
"Where, then," cried Miss Pringle, "are my plum preserves?"
"Where, indeed?" repeated Wilton Barnstable. And Barton Ward and Watson Bard, although they did not speak aloud, stroked their mustaches and their lips formed the ejaculation, "Where, indeed?"
"We will tell you everything," said Cleggett. And beginning with his purchase of the Jasper B. he recounted rapidly, but with sufficient detail, all the facts with which the reader is already familiar, weaving into his story the tale of Lady Agatha and the adventures of Miss Pringle. Wilton Barnstable listened attentively. So did Barton Ward and Watson Bard. The benign smile which was so characteristic of Wilton Barnstable never left the three faces, but it was evident to Cleggett that these trained intelligences grasped and weighed and ticketed every detail.
While Cleggett narrates, and Wilton Barnstable and his men listen, a word to the reader concerning this great detective.
Wilton Barnstable was the inventor of a new school of detection of crime. The system came in with him, and it may go out with him for lack of a man of his genius to perpetuate it. He insisted that there was nothing spectacular or romantic in the pursuit of the criminal, or, at least, that there should be nothing of the sort. And he was especially disgusted when anyone referred to him as "a second Sherlock Holmes."
"I am only a plain business man," he would insist, urbanely, with a wave of his hand. "I have merely brought order, method, system, business principles, logic, to the detection of crime. I know nothing of romance. Romance is usually all nonsense in my estimation. The real detective, who gets results in real life, is NOT a Sherlock Holmes."
The enemies of Wilton Barnstable sometimes said of him that he was jealous of Sherlock Holmes. When this was reported to Barnstable he invariably remarked: "How preposterous! The idea of a man being envious of a literary creation!"
Perhaps his denial of the existence of romance was merely one of those poses which geniuses so often permit themselves. Perhaps he saw it and was thrilled with it even while he denied it. At any rate, he lived in the midst of it. The realism which was his metier was that sort of realism into which are woven facts and incidents of the most bizarre and startling nature.
And, certainly, behind the light blue eyes that could look with such apparent ingenuousness out of his plump, bland face there was the subtle mind of a psychologist. Barnstable, true to his attitude of the plain business man, would have been the first to ridicule the idea publicly if anyone had dubbed him "the psychological detective." That, to his mind, would have savored of charlatanism. He would have said: "I am nothing so strange and mystifying as that—I am a plain business man." But in reality there was no new discovery of the investigating psychologists of which he did not avail himself at once. His ability to clothe himself with the thoughts of the criminal as an actor clothes himself with a role, was marvelous; he knew the criminal soul. That is to say, he knew the human soul. He refused to see anything extraordinary in this. "It is only my business to know such things," he would say. "We know many things. It is our business to know them. There is no miracle about it." This was the public character he had created for himself, and emphasized—that of the plain business man. This was his mask. He was so subtle that he hid the vast range of his powers behind an appearance of commonplaceness.
Wilton Barnstable never disguised himself, in the ordinary sense of the term. That is, he never resorted to false whiskers or wigs or obvious tricks of that sort.
But if Wilton Barnstable were to walk into a convention of blacksmiths, let us say, he would quite escape attention. For before he had been ten minutes in that gathering he would become, to all appearances, the typical blacksmith. If he were to enter a gathering of bankers, or barbers, or bakers, or organ grinders, or stockbrokers, or school-teachers, a similar thing would happen. He could make himself the composite photograph of all the individuals of any group. He disguised himself from the inside out.
This art of becoming inconspicuous was one of his greatest assets as a detective. Newspaper and magazine writers would have liked to dwell upon it. But he requested them not to emphasize it. As he modestly narrated his triumphs to the young journalists, who hung breathless upon his words, he was careful not to stress his talent for becoming just like anybody and everybody else—his peculiar genius for being the average man.
The front which he presented to the world was, in reality, his cleverest creation. The magazine and newspaper articles which were written about him, the many pictures which were printed every month, presented the mental and physical portrait of a knowing, bustling, extraordinarily candid personality. A personality with a touch of smugness in it. This was very generally thought to be the real Wilton Barnstable. It was a fiction which he had succeeded in establishing. When he addressed meetings, talked with reporters, wrote articles about himself, or came into touch with the public in any manner, he assumed this personality. When he did not wish to be known he laid it aside. When he desired to pass incognito, therefore, it was not necessary for him to assume a disguise. He simply dropped one.
The two men with him, Barton Ward and Watson Bard, were his cleverest agents. They were learning from the master detective the art of looking like other people, and were at present practicing by looking like the popular conception of Wilton Barnstable. They were clever men. But Barton Ward and Watson Bard were, as Cleggett had felt at once, only men of extraordinary talent, while Wilton Barnstable was a genius.
As Cleggett talked he was given a rather startling proof of Wilton Barnstable's gift. He was astonished to find a change stealing over Wilton Barnstable's features. Subtly the detective began to look like someone else. The expression of the face, the turn of the eyes, the lines about the mouth, began to suggest someone whom Cleggett knew. It was rather a suggestion, an impression, than a likeness; it was rather the spirit of a personality than a definite resemblance. It was a psychic thing. Barnstable was disguising himself from the inside out; he had assumed the mental and spiritual clothing of someone else.
Cleggett could not think at first who it was that Wilton Barnstable suggested. But presently he saw that it was himself. He glanced at Barton Ward and Watson Bard; they still resembled the popular conception of Wilton Barnstable.
Gradually the look of Cleggett faded from Wilton Barnstable's face. It changed, it shifted, that look did; Cleggett almost cried out as he saw the face of Wilton Barnstable become an impressionistic portrait of the soul of Logan Black. He looked at Barton Ward. Barton Ward was now looking like Wilton Barnstable's conception of Cleggett. But Watson Bard, less facile and less creative, still clung stolidly to the popular conception of Wilton Barnstable.
But, even as Cleggett looked, this remarkable exhibition ceased; the Wilton Barnstable look dominated the faces again. Plump, yet dignified, smiling easily and kindly, three plain business men looked at him; respectable citizens, commonplace citizens, a little smug; faces that spoke of comfort, method, regularity; eyes that seemed to wink with the pressure of platitudes in the minds behind them; platitudes that desired to force their way to the lips and out into the world.
Yes, such was the genius of Wilton Barnstable that he could at will impose himself upon people as the apotheosis of the commonplace. He did it often. It was almost second nature to him now. His urbane smile was the only visible sign of his own enjoyment of this habitual feat. He knew his own genius, and smiled to think how easy it was to pass for an average man!
"I think," said Wilton Barnstable, when Cleggett had finished, "that I may be able to clear up a few points for you.
"The two men whom you saw me hazing up and down the bank of the canal, and whom you saw again tonight, followed by the man in the baby blue silk pajamas, were Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat!"
"The wretches!" cried Lady Agatha.
"Wretches indeed," said Wilton Barnstable, Barton Ward, and Watson Bard, in unison, and with conviction.
"And the man in the baby blue silk pajamas, was——" the great detective paused, as if to make his revelation more effective. And while he paused, Miss Genevieve Pringle, with pursed lips and averted face, signified that the very idea of introducing a man in baby blue silk pajamas into the conversation was intensely displeasing to her.
"The man in pajamas was Reginald Maltravers," finished the great detective.
"Reginald Maltravers!" cried Lady Agatha.
She opened her mouth again as if to say something more, but words failed her, and she only stared at the detective, with parted lips and round eyes.
Cleggett went to her and touched her on the arm, and with the touch she gave a sob of emotion and found her tongue again.
"Reginald Maltravers," she said, "is not dead then! Not dead after all!"
She endeavored to control herself, but for a moment or two she trembled. It was evident that it was all she could do to keep from crying hysterically with relief. The nightmare that had haunted her for days had vanished almost too suddenly. Presently she began to be herself again.
"You are sure that he is not dead?" she said with a voice that still shook.
"Sure," said Wilton Barnstable.
And as if quietly satisfied with the sensation they had produced, the three detectives smiled at each other urbanely and contentedly. Barnstable continued:
"Reginald Maltravers came to my agency some days ago and requested a bodyguard. Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat had attacked him, no doubt intending to earn the money which Elmer had promised them. He beat them off. In fact, he caned them soundly. But they still continued to dog him.
"Mr. Ward here, who handled the case, soon reported to me that he believed Reginald Maltravers to be insane."
"Insane he was," cried Lady Agatha. "I have seen the light of insanity in his eye, gleaming through his accursed monocle." She spoke with vehemence. Now that she knew the man to be alive, her hatred of him had flared up again.
"Insane he was," agreed Wilton Barnstable. "And shortly after that discovery was made, he disappeared. The next day after his disappearance, Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat were liberally supplied with money.
"Of course they got the money, Lady Agatha, through the clever trick they worked upon you."
"A great many people have got money from me since I have been in America," said Lady Agatha.
"Ah! Yes?" The great detective went on with his masterly summing up. "Of course they got the money from the trick they worked on Lady Agatha. But at the time I thought it possible that they had robbed Reginald Maltravers and then put him out of the way. They are well-known gunmen.
"I took them into custody and determined to hold them until such time as Reginald Maltravers would be found, or his fate discovered. Eventually I brought them with me on my house boat. I was really holding them without due legal warrant, but I am forced to do that, sometimes. They complained of lack of exercise, so I gave them exercise in the manner which you saw the other morning, Mr. Cleggett.
"One of my agents, shortly after this, picked up the trail of Reginald Maltravers again. When I learned that he was alive my first impulse was to release Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat. But I learned that the two gunmen could, if they would, give me a tip as to certain of the activities of Logan Black, against whom I have been collecting evidence for nearly a year. So I kept them on my boat.
"Reginald Maltravers, most of the time that you were riding about the country, Lady Agatha, with the box that you thought contained him, was really following you. He would lose your trail and find it again, but he was always some hours behind you. Of course, he knew nothing of the oblong box. He thought that you were running away from him. And all the time that Reginald Maltravers was following you, agents of mine were following Reginald Maltravers."
"Lady Agatha," interrupted Cleggett, "was also being pursued by Miss Pringle here."
Wilton Barnstable carefully made a note in a little book which he drew from his waistcoat pocket. Barton Ward also made a note in a little book, Watson Bard started to make a note, and then paused; in fact, Watson Bard did not complete his note until he had gotten a peep into the notebook of Barton Ward. The notes made, the three detectives once more smiled craftily at each other, and Wilton Barnstable resumed:
"We knew, of course, that another lady was also following Lady Agatha. But, until the present moment, we had not identified her with Miss Pringle. And I should not be at all surprised, not at ALL surprised, if still another person had been following Miss Pringle."
"With what object?" asked Miss Pringle, looking alarmed at the idea.
"The motive, my dear lady, I must for the present withhold," said Wilton Barnstable. And again the three detectives exchanged knowing glances.
"Reginald Maltravers' pursuit of you, Lady Agatha, led him to Fairport," went on the great sleuth. "No doubt he met the driver of the vehicle which brought you hither, and learned that you and Elmer had been set down in this neighborhood, just as Miss Pringle learned it. No doubt it was well after dark when he arrived in the vicinity of the Jasper B. And it is to be supposed that, once out here, he went to Morris's road house, thinking it quite likely that you and Elmer would stop there, as he had been tracking you from road house to road house. Logan Black, knowing that the authorities were on his trail, mistook Reginald Maltravers for a detective, and held him prisoner at Morris's. Logan Black's men took away his clothes in order to minimize the possibility of his escape."
"And the Earl of Claiborne's signet ring——" began Cleggett.
"Of course, Reginald Maltravers was wearing it, and of course they took his valuables from him," said Barnstable. "One of the ruffians was wearing the ring as he approached your vessel with a bomb. But, Mr. Cleggett, there are points about that bomb explosion which I do not understand."
"Nor I," admitted Cleggett.
"We will clear them up later," said the great detective, smiling benignly at his thumbs, which he was revolving slowly about each other as he reconstructed the case.
"Later!" smiled Barton Ward. "Later!" murmured Watson Bard. With their hands clasped over their stomachs, they, too, benignly twirled their thumbs.
"Tonight," pursued Barnstable, "having finally got all the information I wished from Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat with regard to Logan Black, I tossed them the key to their irons and told them to unlock themselves and clear out. It was just before the storm began, and they were sitting on the bank of the canal at the time. I allowed them to sit there in the evenings and get the fresh air.
"But before they could unlock themselves Reginald Maltravers, who had, we must suppose, escaped from Morris's through the carelessness of one of Logan Black's subordinates, crawled up the bank of the canal, which he had swum, and made for the two gunmen, with the water dripping from his eyeglass. He had recognized them as the men who had dogged and assaulted him, and every other idea was obliterated in his desire for vengeance.
"They fled. He pursued. He caught them, and they fought. They succeeded in dropping one of the iron balls on his foot—on his bunion foot, Mr. Cleggett—crippling him."
As this mention of the bunion, Miss Genevive Pringle arose with dignity, and, flinging a shawl about her shoulders, left the cabin, chin in air. She did not vouchsafe so much as one backward glance at Cleggett or the three detectives or lady Agatha as she left, but outraged propriety was expressed in every line of her figure.
"H'm," mused the detective, flushing slightly; and Watson Bard and Barton Ward also colored a little, and looked hacked. They glanced furtively at Lady Agatha, to see if she too might be offended.
"Proceed, Mr. Barnstable," she said a little impatiently. "Bunions don't bother me, either mentally or physically. I am familiar with the idea of bunions. There are many bunions in the Claiborne family."
"On his bunion foot, crippling him," resumed the detective, reassured. "The storm came up, and still the gunmen fled, and still Reginald Maltravers pursued. I suppose, since you saw them on the west side of the canal, Mr. Cleggett, that they had run around the north end of it. Probably, while you and Logan Black were fighting, they were running up and down in the neighborhood, in the storm, intent only upon their own feud."
"They certainly seemed exhausted when I saw them," said Cleggett, "all three of them. But if you will permit me to say so, the astuteness with which you are reconstructing this case compels my admiration."
Wilton Barnstable bowed, and Barton Ward and Watson Bard slightly inclined their heads.
"Your skill," said Lady Agatha, "is equal to that of Sherlock Holmes."
At the name of Sherlock Holmes a shade passed over the face of Wilton Barnstable. He slightly compressed his lips, and his eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. This shade was reflected on the faces of Barton Ward and Watson Bard. There was a moment of silence, but presently Wilton Barnstable continued, repressing a sigh:
"I thought at first, Mr. Cleggett, that you were an ally of Logan Black's, just as you believed me to be his ally, and as he believed you and me to be working together. It may interest you to know that smuggling has been one of his side lines. There is, somewhere hereabouts, a cave in which smuggled goods are stored. These coasts have a sinister history, Mr. Cleggett. It is possible that your canal boat—I beg your pardon, your schooner, Mr. Cleggett—played some part in their smuggling operations. At any rate it is evident that Logan Black transferred to the hold of this vessel the incriminating evidence against him, contained in that oblong box, when he learned that my agents were watching Morris's. The Jasper B. has been lying in her present position for a long time. In the event that a sudden get-away from Morris's became necessary, it was an advantage to Logan Black to be able to leave without being hampered with this matter. No one, for many years, had paid any attention to the Jasper B., with the exception of the old truck farmer, Abernethy, who used sometimes to fish from her deck, and——"
"Truck farmer!" cried Cleggett. "Abernethy?"
"Truck farmer," repeated Wilton Barnstable.
"Is not Abernethy an old sea captain?" asked Cleggett.
"Why, no, I believe not," said Barnstable. "At least I never heard so. He is well known as a small truck gardener in this neighborhood. It is true that he comes of a seafaring family—indeed, it is his boast. But, in a community where nearly everyone knows a little about boats, I believe that Abernethy is remarkable for an indisposition to venture far from shore."
"I can scarcely believe it," breathed Cleggett.
"He does not understand boats," said Barnstable. "That is the reason, I take it, why he has always fished in the canal from the deck of the Jasper B."
"Abernethy is a gallant man," said Cleggett, rather sternly. "And even although he may have had little actual seafaring experience, the instinct is in him! The inherited love of a nautical life has been latent in him all along. And at the first opportunity it has come out. He has shown his mettle aboard the Jasper B."
"I do not doubt it, if you insist upon it," said Wilton Barnstable, politely. And from revolving his thumbs benignly towards himself he began to revolve them urbanely from himself. The reversal was imitated at once by Barton Ward, but Watson Bard was slower in putting this new coup into execution.
"The resemblance between the two oblong boxes evidently fooled Logan Black," continued Barnstable, "and his men stole the wrong one, but he knows by this time that his plan to get the box has failed."
"He knows it?" said Cleggett.
"From the bank of the canal he witnessed our capture of the box, and of the two men who were making off with it. After you had beaten off his assault upon the ship, he turned his attention to the canal, to see if the men whom he had assigned to the job of creeping over the stern of the Jasper B. had by any chance succeeded in purloining the box. He was alone, but he attempted to come to the assistance of his two followers even as we made them prisoners. In fact, we exchanged shots."
The great detective made little of the danger he had encountered.
Indeed, his smile became one of amusement as he removed his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and exhibited a bandaged wound in the fleshy part of his arm.
"It is only a slight wound," he said, beaming on it as if wounds were quite delightful affairs, "and scarcely inconveniences me."
Barton Ward and Watson Bard, with their sleeves rolled up, were also smiling placidly and indulgently at bandages about their left arms. Whether there were real wounds beneath their bandages also, Cleggett could not determine. The bandage of Barton Ward was slightly stained with red, but the bandage of Watson Bard was quite white. All three replaced their coats at the same time, and Wilton Barnstable went on:
"Our course of procedure is plain, Mr. Cleggett. We have the evidence against Logan Black. We must have the man himself. I depend upon you to cooperate with me. I think," he said, beaming at Barton Ward and Watson Bard with an air of modest triumph, "that the case of Logan Black is going to prove one of my really GREAT cases.
"There is only one point which I have not yet made clear to you, I believe—and that is how Logan Black's men were able to enter and leave the hold of your vessel so mysteriously. But I am shaping up my theory about that! I am shaping it up!"
"Would it be indescreet to inquire just what your theory is?" asked Cleggett.
And Lady Agatha murmured:
"For my part, I can make nothing of it, and I should be glad to hear your theory."
"It would," said Wilton Barnstable, soberly, "it would be premature, if I told you my theory at the present moment. You must pardon me—but it WOULD. In my line of business—and I insist, Mr. Cleggett, that I am a plain business man, nothing more—I find it absolutely necessary not to communicate all my information to the layman until the case is quite perfect in all its points. But do not get the notion, Mr. Cleggett, that I underestimate the part that you have taken in the case of Logan Black. You have helped me, Mr. Cleggett. When I have my secretary prepare the case of Logan Black for magazine and newspaper publication I shall have your name mentioned as that of a person who has helped me. Yes, you have helped me."
As he spoke he picked from a reading table a magazine, on the cover of which appeared his own portrait—or rather, the portrait of the popular conception of Wilton Barnstable—and began to make motions about it with his finger. He appeared to be marking off the space beside the portrait into an arrangement of letters and spaces. His lips moved as he did so; he murmured: "The Case of Logan Black—the Case of Logan Black!" He seemed to see, with the eye of a typographical expert, the legend printed there. Barton Ward and Watson Bard, slightly flushed and a little excited in spite of themselves, seemed also to see it there.
It might have occurred to a person more critical than Cleggett that it was he himself who had furnished nearly all the real evidence upon which Wilton Barnstable was constructing this Case of Logan Black. But Cleggett looked for the gold in men, not the dross; the great qualities of Wilton Barnstable appealed to his imagination; the best in Cleggett responded to the best in Wilton Barnstable; if the detective possessed a certain amount of vanity, Cleggett preferred to overlook it.
"Decidedly," said Wilton Barnstable, laying down the magazine, and looking at Cleggett kindly and serenely, "I shall see to it that your name is mentioned in connection with the Case of Logan Black." And Barton Ward and Watson Bard also bent upon him their bland and friendly regard.
Cleggett was about to thank them, but at that moment there was a commotion of some sort on deck.
Two female voices, one of which they all recognized as that of Miss Genevieve Pringle, were mingling in a babble of greeting, expostulation, interjection, and explanation, and presently Miss Pringle entered the cabin, followed by a younger lady who, except for her youth, looked much like her.
"My niece, Miss Henrietta Pringle, of Flatbush," said Miss Pringle, primly presenting her prim relation. "She has just arrived——"
"With the plum preserves!" cried Lady Agatha.
"With the plum preserves," confirmed Miss Genevieve Pringle.
And Captain Abernethy and George the Greek bore into the cabin a third oblong box, exactly similar in appearance to the box of Reginald Maltravers and the box which contained the evidence against Logan Black, and set it on the floor.
The three detectives stood and looked at the three boxes with an air of great satisfaction.
"With this addition to our oblong boxes," said Wilton Barnstable, "their number is now complete. Miss Henrietta Pringle, we will listen to your story."
There was little to tell, and Miss Henrietta Pringle told it in a breath. Having received no acknowledgment of the receipt of the plum preserves from her aunt, an unusual oversight on her aunt's part, she had journeyed to Newark with a vague fear that there might be something wrong.
"Arrived in Newark," she said, "I learned that my aunt, with her two white horses and her family carriage driven by Jefferson, the negro coachmen, had suddenly left Newark, without giving any explanation to anyone, or making her destination known.
"The proceeding was very strange; it was very unlike my aunt, and I was frightened. Everyone who had seen her start testified that she was laboring under a great nervous strain of some sort.
"I called at the freight depot and got the box of plum preserves which I had shipped to her. To tell the truth, I feared for her reason. I thought that if I could find her, and could show her the familiar plum preserves, which she loved so well, they would be of material assistance in influencing her to return to her home. So, setting out to search for her in my Ford auto, I took the box of plum preserves with me.
"I soon got upon her trail. The negro coachman, the family carriage and the white horses had excited remark everywhere. Briefly, I traced her here, and am happy to discover that my worst fears with regard to her have proved false."
"Henrietta," said her aunt, reproachfully, "your fears do you very little credit, or me either."
"Aunt Genevieve," said the niece, "pray, do not rebuke me."
"I was certain," said Wilton Barnstable, complacently, "that it would develop that Miss Genevieve Pringle was herself being pursued. I was confident of it, Cleggett. And now that I have cleared up for you the mystery of Logan Black, the mystery of the box of Reginald Maltravers, and the mystery of the box of plum preserves, there only remains the capture of Logan Black to hold me in this part of the country and to keep you from your voyage to the China Seas."
"We must get together," said Cleggett, "on a plan of campaign. Logan Black will certainly attack again. He has only been beaten off temporarily. In the meanwhile, it is almost breakfast time."
And, indeed, the lights in the cabin were suddenly growing pale. The sun was rising. Its beams, shining through the cabin skylight, fell upon the three great detectives, each one of whom, with an air of ineffable satisfaction, was gloating—but gloating urbanely and with dignity—over an oblong box.
It was decided, at a conference of Lady Agatha, Cleggett, and the three detectives, at the breakfast table, to throw up a line of entrenchments along the bank of the canal commanding the approach to the Jasper B. and the Annabel Lee. No one felt the least doubt that Logan Black would renew the attack sooner or later, unless the two vessels made off.
"And," said Cleggett, "I shall not leave until the Jasper B. has been rigged as a schooner again. Anything else would have the appearance of a retreat. Nor will I be hurried. I am on my own property, and I purpose to defend it at whatever cost."
He set his jaws firmly as he declared this intention, and Lady Agatha's eyes dwelt upon him in admiration.
"The Annabel Lee could tow you away, you know," demurred Wilton Barnstable.
"When the Jasper B. moves," said Cleggett, with finality, "it will be under her own power."
Accordingly, work was begun at once on the entrenchments. Everyone on board the Jasper B. was sadly in need of sleep, but Cleggett felt that the earthworks could not wait. He divided his force into two shifts. Cleggett, the three detectives, Jefferson the genial coachman, and Washington Artillery Lamb, the janitor and butler of the house boat Annabel Lee, a negro as large and black as Jefferson himself, took a two-hour trick with the spades and then lay down and slept while Abernethy, Kuroki, Elmer, Calthrop, George the Greek, and Farnsworth dug for an equal length of time. The two prisoners captured by Barnstable the night before, one of whom was the smirking and sinister Pierre, were compelled to dig all the time. Even Teddy, Lady Agatha's little Pomeranian, dug. The ladies of the party slept throughout the morning.
During the forenoon Cleggett dispatched Dr. Farnsworth to the city in Miss Henrietta Pringle's Ford car, and he returned about one o'clock with four more trained nurses. They were installed on board the houseboat Annabel Lee, instead of at Parker's Beach as Cleggett had originally intended, and the Red Cross flag was hoisted over that vessel. Cleggett felt confident that the next battle would be sanguinary in character, and, true to his humanitarian ideals, was resolved to be fully prepared this time to care for as many people as he might disable. Giuseppe Jones, who was quieter now, although at times still irrationally babbling incendiary vers libre poems, was removed to the Annabel Lee, where Miss Medley, quite worn out, turned him over to a fresh nurse.
By the time the reinforcement of nurses had arrived the earthworks of the good ship Jasper B. were completed, and, after a double portion of stiff grog all around, Cleggett ordered all hands to lie down on the deck for an hour's comfortable nap. He stood watch himself. Cleggett had not slept much during the past forty-eight hours, but he was a man of iron. Like King Henry Fifth of England, Cleggett found a certain pleasure in watching while his troops slumbered. Cleggett and this lively monarch had other points in common, although Cleggett, even in his youth, would never have associated with a character so habitually dissolute as Sir John Falstaff.
The construction of the trench was not without its effect upon the gang of villains at Morris's. About nine in the morning Cleggett noticed that he was under observation from the roof of the east verandah of the road house. Loge and two of his ruffianly lieutenants were scrutinizing the Cleggett flotilla and fortifications through their binoculars. Cleggett, through his own glass, returned the compliment.
The three men were conducting an animated discussion. From their gestures they seemed to be completely nonplussed by the entrenchments. Watching their pantomime closely, Cleggett gathered that Loge was endeavoring to enforce some point of view with regard to the Jasper B. upon his two followers. Finally Loge, making a gesture towards Cleggett with one hand, tapped himself several times on the forehead with the other, his lips moving rapidly the while. The two other men shrugged their shoulders and nodded, as if in agreement with Loge. The insulting significance of the gesture was only too apparent. As plainly as if he had heard the accompanying words Cleggett understood that Loge, out of the depths of his perplexity, had said that he (Cleggett) was mentally erratic.
"Ah, you think so, do you?" said Cleggett aloud, laying down his glass and seizing a rifle. "Well, just to let you know that I have a certain opinion of you, also, my friend Loge——" And he sent a bullet over the heads of the three men. They hastily ducked into the house. Cleggett might have picked Loge off, but he disdained to do so. It was his purpose to take the man alive, if possible.
But the rifle shot did not end the espionage. All day scouting parties in taxicabs kept appearing on the sandy plain to reconnoiter the fleet and fortress. They circled, they swooped, they dashed, they zigzagged here and there, but always at a high rate of speed, and always at a prudent distance from the canal. Beyond sending an occasional rifle ball whistling towards the wheels of the cabs, or over the heads of the occupants, to remind them to keep their distance, Cleggett paid but little attention to these parties. If Loge thought him demented, if he had his enemy guessing, so much the better. The eccentric movements of these cabs was a circumstance which in itself testified to Loge's bewilderment and curiosity.
Cleggett had no idea that there would be an attack before nightfall, and at two o'clock in the afternoon he awakened all the members of his crew who were still sleeping, ordered them into bathing suits, a supply of which he had been thoughtful enough to have the young doctor bring out along with the nurses, and piped them into the canal. The water was cold, but they came out refreshed and invigorated by the plunge and feeling fit for any struggle that might be ahead of them. This maneuver on the part of Cleggett and his marines and infantrymen seemed still more to excite the curiosity and contribute to the bewilderment of Loge and his ruffians.
After the general bath and a substantial lunch, Cleggett called all hands aft and addressed them.
"Ladies and loyal followers and co-workers," he said. "We have passed some nights and days of peril. And there are, I doubt not, still parlous times ahead of the Jasper B. before our ship sets sail for the China Seas. But what is sweeter than pleasure snatched from the very presence of danger? Courage and gayety should go hand in hand! It is a beautiful May afternoon, we have a goodly deck beneath our feet, and, briefly, who is for a dance?"
A huzza showed the popularity of the suggestion. Washington Artillery Lamb, the janitor and butler of the Annabel Lee, possessed an accordion on which he was an earnest and artistic performer. Miss Pringle's Jefferson had with him a harmonica, or mouth organ, which he at once produced. Jefferson was endowed with the peculiar gift of manipulating this little musical instrument solely with his lips, moving it back and forth and round about as he played, without touching it with his hands; and this left his hands free to pat the time. The negro orchestra perched itself on the top of the cabin, and in a moment Lady Agatha, the five nurses, Cleggett, the three detectives, Dr. Farnsworth, and Captain Abernethy were tangoing on the deck. And this to the still further perplexity of Logan Black. As the dance started Cleggett saw that person, almost distracted by his inability to comprehend the mental processes of the commander of the Jasper B., rise to his feet in an automobile that had stopped a couple of hundred yards away, and beat with both hands upon his temples, gnashing his long yellow teeth the while.
The Rev. Simeon Calthrop turned sadly away from the vessel, and, with a sigh, went and sat in the trench, where he was soon joined by Elmer. The disgraced preacher and the reformed convict had struck up a fast friendship. They sat with their backs towards the Jasper B., and Cleggett supposed from their attitude that they were sternly condemnatory of the frivolity and festivity on board ship.
Cleggett, after the first dance, sought them out.
"I hope," he said to the Rev. Mr. Calthrop, not unkindly, "that you don't disapprove of us."
"It isn't that, Mr. Cleggett," said the ship's chaplain, with sorrow in his eloquent brown eyes, "it isn't that at all. In fact, I had a tango class in the basement of my church, every Thursday evening-when I had a church."
"Then what is it?"
"Alas!" sighed the young preacher. "I do not trust myself! Women, as I have told you, Mr. Cleggett, are apt to become fascinated with me. I cannot help it. It is in such gay scenes as this that the danger lies, Mr. Cleggett. As an honorable man, I feel that I am bound to withdraw myself and my fatal influence."
"You are too subtle—too subtle for moral health," said Cleggett.
"But I will not attempt to influence you. Elmer, are you also afraid of inspiring a hopeless passion?"
"Mister Cleggett," said Elmer gloomily and huskily, out of one corner of his mouth, "I ain't takin' a chance. D' youse get me? Not a chancet. Oncet youse reformed, Mr. Cleggett, youse can't be too careful."
Cleggett returned to the vessel. Miss Pringle the elder was leaving it. Miss Henrietta Pringle was following. Cleggett gathered that the niece left reluctantly, and under the coercion of the aunt.
Miss Pringle the elder was about to join the Rev. Mr. Calthrop in the trench. Morality, as well as misery, loves company. But Mr. Calthrop saw the Misses Pringle coming. He swiftly rose, passed them by with his face averted, and went aboard the Annabel Lee. It was evident that he believed that his fatal gift of fascination had attracted these ladies towards him in spite of himself. Elmer and the Misses Pringle sat gloomily on a clean plank in the trench while the dance went gayly on.
"If you was to ask me," said Captain Abernethy, pausing winded from the tango, strong old man that he was, "I'd give it as my opinion that them that gits their enjoyment in an oncheerful way don't git nigh as much of it as them that gits it in a cheerful way. Mrs. Lady Agatha, ma'am, if you kin fox-trot as well as you kin tango I'll never have another word to say agin female suffragettes."
But as Cap'n Abernethy spoke the grin froze upon his face.
"My God! Look there!" he shrilled, pointing a long finger towards the plain. Simultaneously the Misses Pringle, shrieking wildly, leaped from the trench towards the ship and Elmer fired a pistol shot.
Cleggett beheld five taxicabs, filled with Loge's assassins, charging towards the vessel at the rate of thirty miles an hour.
"To arms! To arms!" shouted the commander of the Jasper B.
But the enemy, with Logan Black in the lead, had already reached the trenches. They flung themselves to the ground and swept over the trench towards the bulwarks, twenty strong, with flashing machetes. So confident had Cleggett been that Loge would not dare to attack in broad daylight that he had scarcely even considered the possibility. It was the one fault of his military and naval career.
"Cutlasses, men, and at them!" he cried.