IXTHE TRAILING OF PAQUITA
Rapidlyrecovering now from the effects of the asphyxiating gun, thanks to the prompt aid of Kennedy, I was soon able to sit up in my improvised bed on the garage floor. As well can be imagined, however, I did not feel like engaging in very strenuous activity. Even the simple investigation of Burke, as he explored the garage, seemed like a wonderful exhibition of energy to me.
“Well, there certainly is no car here now,” he remarked as he surveyed the obvious emptiness of the place.
“Which is not to say that there has not been one here recently,” added Kennedy, who was now dividing his attention between me and the building. “Some one has been here with a car,” he added, pointing to some fresh oil spots on the floor, and bending down beside them. “Jameson’s inhospitable host has evidently taken the pains to remove all traces that might be of any value.See—he has obliterated even the tire tracks by which the car might have been identified.”
“Must have had great respect for your ability,” remarked Burke, also examining the marks that showed how carefully the floor had been gone over to guard against leaving a clue. “Whoever it was was clever enough to keep just a jump ahead of us. Not a single trace was left. I wonder who it could be?”
“I’ve narrowed it down to two theories,” interposed Burke’s Secret Service man, Riley, always fertile with conjectures, “but I can’t say which I prefer. To my way of thinking, either the presence of Mito in the town last night would explain everything, or else this all has something to do with the telegram that we saw the sallow-faced Sanchez receive.”
Either conjecture was plausible enough, on the face of it. Kennedy listened, but said nothing. There seemed to be no reason for remaining longer in the garage.
“How do you feel now, Walter?” asked Craig. “Do you think you could stand being moved to the hotel?”
An oppressive dizziness still affected me, but I knew that I could not continue to lie on the damp floor. With Kennedy’s aid, I struggled to my feet.
Barely able to walk, and leaning heavily on his arm, I managed to make my way from the garage and across the bit of lawn to the side veranda of the Harbor House. Still weak, I was forced to drop into a wicker chair to recover my strength.
“Why, Mr. Jameson, what is the matter?” asked a woman’s voice beside us.
I looked up to see Winifred Walcott. Evidently when she left us she had not gone to her room.
As Craig told her briefly what had happened, she was instantly sympathetic.
“That’s strange,” she murmured. “I felt restless and I was strolling about the paths back of the Lodge. I heard the shot—thought it was an automobile tire or a back-fire. Why, not ten minutes before, I am sure I saw Paquita with Shelby’s valet, Mito.”
Burke whispered to Riley, who nodded and disappeared with alacrity.
I thought of the cordiality I had often observed between Mexicans and Japanese. Was that the case in this instance? Could it be that Paquita knew something about the attack on me? Was Mito the mysterious attacker?
It was scarcely a moment later that Johnson Walcott appeared around the corner, evidently seeking his sister.
Just then Riley returned, dragging the reluctant Mito.
“Where have you been?” bellowed Burke.
The little Jap’s face was impassive.
“I was sitting just outside the servants’ quarters, sir, most of the evening,” he returned, in bland surprise.
“Think a moment,” shouted Burke, advancing close to him and peering into his face. “Who have you been talking to? Tell me, and mind you tell the truth—or it’ll go hard with you.”
“With no one, sir,” asserted Mito, positively.
Burke was by this time red in the face with rage as all that he had ever learned in his third-degree days came to the surface.
“You lie!” he exclaimed. “I saw you with—”
“Well,” demanded a voice, interrupting, “what’s all this? What has Mito been doing?”
It was Shelby Maddox, who had been attracted from the lobby by the loud voices.
“Doing enough,” returned Burke. “Some one’s taken a shot at Mr. Jameson in the garage. Now, look here, you little brown brother. Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t been with any one all the evening? Think—think hard.”
Mito protested, but Burke was not satisfied.
“Don’t try to hide it,” he urged. “This lady saw you.”
Shelby gave a quick glance at Winifred. Then he turned to Mito. “Tell him,” he commanded.
“Only Miss Paquita passed me once,” replied the Jap. “She did not say anything. I saw Mr. Jameson, too, before, on the shore by the Casino.”
It was clever, whatever else it might be. No matter what either Paquita or I might say later, Mito had protected himself. He had admitted everything and confessed nothing.
Burke was far from satisfied. He was about to turn to Winifred when her brother interposed.
“Winifred,” interrupted Johnson Walcott in a tone approaching authority, “I think you had better not get mixed up in this affair.”
“Quite right,” agreed Shelby. “I see no reason why Miss Walcott should be annoyed by this cross-examination.”
Winifred looked open defiance at her brother’s interference.
“I can promise you that if I find that Mito has been doing anything he should not, I shall be responsible for him,” smoothed Shelby.
A moment later both Winifred and her brother left. She still resented his brotherly interference.
Burke had not got anywhere with his questioning and Kennedy apparently believed that the time for such a course was not yet ripe.
“I think the best thing we can do is to get Jameson to his room,” he suggested, by way of cutting off an unprofitable examination before any damage was done.
Burke accepted the broad hint. While Shelby and Mito withdrew, Hastings and Craig between them managed to get me up to our room and to bed.
As I lay there, glad enough to be quiet, we held a hasty conference to consider the strange attack that had been made.
“What I don’t understand,” I repeated, “is how any one should know that we ever thought of visiting either that garage or the other.”
Kennedy had been saying very little. As Hastings and I talked he seemed to be thinking over something deeply. Suddenly his face registered the dawn of an idea.
“To-morrow, Hastings,” he exclaimed, “we must go into town. I want to go to your office. As for to-night, there doesn’t seem to be anything more that we can do. Burke and Riley are on guard down-stairs. I think Walter needs a good rest. So do we all. Good night, Mr. Hastings. I will see you to-morrow early.”
A night’s rest fixed me up all right and I was anxiously down in the lobby early next morning.
Fortunately nothing further of any great importancehad happened during the night and I felt a sense of satisfaction at not having missed anything. Among us all we had been able to keep a pretty close surveillance on those in Westport whom we suspected might have any information. The day before had brought with it a grist of new mystery instead of clearing up the old, but Kennedy was happy. He was in his element, and the harder it was to crack the nut the more zest he put into the cracking of it.
To my surprise, the morning express found the entire Maddox family, except Irene Maddox, gathered on the platform of the quaint little station.
“What do you suppose has given them this sudden impulse to go in to town?” whispered Kennedy to Hastings.
The lawyer shrugged. “I shouldn’t be surprised if they were getting back into their normal state after the first shock,” he replied, dryly. “I think they are all going to consult their various attorneys—Shelby probably will see Harvey, and Mrs. Walcott and her husband will see Duncan Bruce.”
As we waited for the train I realized why it was that Westport was popular. The little town was not only within fair access to the city, but it was far enough away to be beyond the city’sblight. Going back and forth was so easy that each of the contending parties was able to take it as a matter of course that he should go to New York.
The crowning surprise came, however, just a moment before the express swung around the curve. The cream-colored speedster swung up to the platform, turned, and backed in with the other cars. No one could miss it. The beautiful Paquita jumped airily out, more baffling than ever in her artificiality.
As I watched her my former impression was confirmed that the notoriety which she courted was paradoxically her “cover.” She seemed to seek the limelight. In so doing did she hope to divert attention from what was really going on back-stage? It would have been a bold stroke. I expressed my idea to Kennedy. He smiled, but not with his usual indulgence. Was it his own idea, too?
Nothing occurred during the ride in to town in the chair-car, except that each was still furtively watching the other and all were watching Paquita. Paquita was trying desperately to attract the notice of Shelby. The young man seemed greatly embarrassed. As he sat beside his sister I saw that Frances Walcott was keenly appreciative of the efforts of the little dancer.
Once I excused myself on the pretext that I wanted another morning paper, and walked forward into the smoking-car. It was as I had suspected. Sanchez was there.
“I think we had better split our forces,” planned Kennedy, when I reported to him what I had seen. “Sanchez, I suppose, will trail along after Paquita. In that case, Walter, I shall leave them to you. I want to handle Shelby myself. Meet me at the laboratory and then we can go down to your office, Mr. Hastings. And, by the way, if you will take a hint from me, sir, you will be careful what you do and what you say at your office. I think you’ll understand when I see you there again.”
The astonished look on Hastings’s face was quite worth study. It was as though some one had told him to guard his thoughts. The very possibility that there could be a “leak,” which was evidently the way in which he interpreted Kennedy’s cryptic remark, had never seemed to occur to him, so sure was he about those whom he employed.
Nothing more was said about the matter, however, and as our train rolled through the under-river tube into the station the various groups began to break up as we had expected.
With a parting word from Kennedy I wormedmy way through the crowd in the direction of the cab-stand and was already in a cab and half-way up the ramp to the street when, looking back through the little glass window, I saw, as I had expected, Paquita trip gaily up to the same starter and enter another. On the avenue a stop gave me ample time to tip my driver and instruct him to follow the cab that was coming up back of us. Then by settling back from the windows I was able to let Paquita’s cab pass and pick her up again without her knowing that she was being trailed. Without looking back, I knew that Sanchez had tried to follow, but it was not until we had gone several blocks and made a sudden turn into Broadway that I realized, on looking cautiously around, that somehow he had missed out. Perhaps there had not been another cab on the instant. Anyhow, I was not myself followed.
On up-town Paquita’s cab proceeded, until finally it stopped before a building which I knew to be full of theatrical agencies and offices. I could not, of course, follow her into the office into which she went, but I managed to find out that she had gone to the office that had recently been opened by a company that proposed to put on a new feature in the fall known as La Danza Mexicana. It seemed like a perfectly legitimate business trip, yet according to my idea Paquitawas merely using her notoriety to attract those whom she might use for her own purposes. What interested me was whether it was purely money or a deeper motive that actuated her.
From the office of her agent she hurried over to Fifth Avenue, and there she made several lengthy stops at fashionable costumers, milliners, and other dealers and designers of chic wearing apparel. In all this there seemed to be nothing to take exception to and I became weary of the pursuit. It was not her legitimate theatrical career that interested me.
However, so it went until the lunch hour arrived. Quite demurely and properly she stopped at a well-known tea-room where tired shoppers refreshed themselves. I swore softly under my breath. I could not well follow her in, for a man is a marked card in a tea-room. To go in was like shouting in her ear that I was watching her.
Therefore, I stayed outside and, instead of lunching, watched the passing crowd of smart shoppers while the clock on the taximeter mounted steadily.
I had fidgeted in my cab for perhaps half an hour when I became aware that mine was not the only cab that was waiting in the neighborhood. In these shadowing jobs one has to keep his eyes glued on the door through which the“subject” must exit, for it is unbelievable how easily a person, even when not aware of being watched, may slip out into a crowd and disappear. Consequently I had not paid much attention to my surroundings.
But once when I leaned forward to speak to my driver, who by this time was fully convinced that I was crazy, I happened to glance across the street. At the window of another cab I saw a familiar face. Sanchez had lost Paquita at the station, but by some process of reason had picked her up again at the tea-room. I was determined more than ever now to hang on to both of them.
Luncheon over, Paquita finally emerged, still alone. What business she may have transacted over the telephone during her various stops I do not know. What I wanted was for her to feel perfectly free, in the hope that she might do something. Yet she had not given me the satisfaction of meeting a single person whom she should not have met.
Again her cab started on its round, but this time it rolled back into the theater district.
My driver almost jolted me from the seat as he stopped once. I looked ahead. Paquita’s cab had pulled up before the office of a well-known music publisher and she was getting out.
To my surprise, however, instead of entering she deliberately turned and walked back in the direction of my cab. I sank farther back into its shallow recesses, trusting that she would not glance my way.
A dainty creation of headgear intruded itself through the open window of my cab.
“You have been following me all day, Mr. Jameson,” purred Paquita in her sweetest tone, as her baffling brown eyes searched my face and enjoyed the discomfiture I could not hide. “I know it—have known it all the time. There’s another cab, too, back of you. I’ve been going about my own business—haven’t I?—making arrangements for my new show this fall. You haven’t anything—except a bill, have you? Neither has the man in the other cab. Now I’m going to go right on. You are welcome to follow.”
Before I could reply she had swept disdainfully back and had entered the building. Chagrined though I was at the way she had led the chase, I determined to stick to her, nevertheless.
In the publishing house she remained an uncommonly long time, but when at last she came out I saw that she gave a little petulant glance first to see whether I was still there.
Her cab shot away, but my man was alertand we trailed along down the avenue. Twice, now, I saw her looking back at me. That, at least, was some encouragement. Perhaps vexation might impel her to do something.
As we came to a tangle of cars crossing Longacre Square, Paquita leaned forward through the front window of her taxicab and deliberately turned the wheel that the driver was steering. The unexpected interference caused him to stop suddenly.
As my driver pulled up, there came a crash and a smashing of glass behind me. His pulling up had fortunately thrown me forward. The car in which Sanchez was riding had crashed into mine, and only my being thrown forward prevented me from receiving the shattered glass.
Instantly the traffic policeman was beside us and a crowd began to collect. Before I knew it Paquita in her taxi was off and there was no possibility of following.
Where she was going I could not now find out. Perhaps there was, as Burke suspected, a gang, and she had all day been seeking to get to their rendezvous. As I watched the officer and the crowd blankly, I had but one satisfaction. At least Sanchez could not follow, either.
Quickly I gave the policeman my name as a witness, glanced at the “clock,” and paid my taxicabbill. Sanchez saw what I did and that it was no use for him to try to get away. He paid his own bill and deliberately turned away, on foot, and walked down Seventh Avenue.
A few feet behind I followed.
He paid no attention to me, but kept on down-town, until at last I realized that we had come to the neighborhood of the railroad terminal.
At the station he turned, and I knew that he had decided to take the early train back to Westport. Still following, I went through all the motions of having also decided to take the train myself. I let Sanchez go through the gate, then at the last moment retreated and walked over to the telegraph office as the gate banged shut.
I would not have missed the appointment with Kennedy and Hastings for anything, and the train, except for one stop, was an express to Westport. A wire to Riley out there would prevent Sanchez from getting away from sight, even if he should decide to get off at the only other stop.
What the little dancer was up to was just as mysterious as ever.