CHAPTER XXXVIII.LIKE A BAD PENNY.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.LIKE A BAD PENNY.

When Virginia returned to the embassy, an unpleasant surprise awaited her in the form of a good-looking, dapper young man who greeted her with a sardonic grin.

“Hardly expected to see me back again, I suppose?” he remarked quizzically.

“I certainly did not,” the girl replied coldly. “I supposed that you were in New York by this time, Mr. Gale.”

“I changed my mind just after the boat sailed out of San Juan harbor, and went ashore in the pilot boat,” the reporter informed her. “There were certain reasons why I deemed it advisable to return to Baracoa, so I cabled the office that they’d have to struggle along without me for a little while longer, and caught the next boat back to Puerto Cabero.” He chuckled. “I rather thought you’d be astonished to see me, Virginia. Almost as astonished, I’ll wager, as you were to see our friend Hawley come back again.”

The girl gave an involuntary start of surprise, and her face paled. “Then you——” she began, but caught herself quickly. “Mr. Hawley back again!” she exclaimed, with an air of incredulity which was well simulated. “Surely that can’t be possible!”

Gale smiled triumphantly. The sentence which shehad left uncompleted and her momentary agitation had not escaped his notice. “Yes, he’s back,” he said, with sarcasm. “Didn’t you know that? I had an idea that you might have seen him.”

“Surely you wouldn’t expect him to show his face in San Cristobal, considering the circumstances under which he left,” the girl returned, her blue eyes boldly meeting his searching gaze.

“Perhaps not,” Gale rejoined, after a slight pause, during which he did some rapid thinking. “Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that he has returned to Baracoa at all. He disappeared from the ship at San Juan, and I had an idea that he might have come back here.”

“Is that why you returned, too?” Virginia demanded scornfully. “Were you lured back by the hope of finding him in Portiforo’s clutches again, and being able to gloat over his fate?”

“Certainly not,” the reporter answered emphatically. “I’m not bothering about Hawley at all. I came back here on a matter of business.”

Part of his statement was the truth. It was not merely malice which had caused the man to postpone his return to New York and hurry back to San Cristobal as soon as he had discovered that Hawley was missing from the steamer. He had a professional reason for taking this step. He decided that he might have acted somewhat rashly in notifying his office that there was nothing in the weird rumors concerning Felix’s incarceration in El Torro fortress. A certainnote which the wife of the missing president of Baracoa had written to the Camera Chap, part of which he had managed to read over the latter’s shoulder, on the promenade deck of the steamship, had opened the reporter’s eyes to the possibility that he might have made a big mistake. He concluded that he had better seek to rectify that mistake by returning to Baracoa and making another attempt to get at the facts concerning Felix.

“I am sorry to find that you took me seriously the other day when we had that talk concerning Hawley,” he said to Virginia. “I don’t really wish the fellow any harm. He and I are good friends, now—I suppose he’s told you of the large part I had in getting him set free—and I should regret exceedingly seeing him in trouble again. I am glad to learn that he hasn’t shown up in San Cristobal. I was afraid that he might have shipped from San Juan in a tramp steamer headed this way. But, as you say, it is scarcely likely that he would have done such a rash thing.”

He spoke without the slightest tinge of irony in his tone. It had suddenly occurred to him that it would be a good idea to give his host’s daughter the impression this his suspicions were lulled. More was to be gained, he decided, by watching her closely for the next few days than by endeavoring to bluff her into an admission that she knew of the Camera Chap’s return to Baracoa and the reason thereof. That Hawley had returned to Baracoa he now felt quite sure. Virginia’s demeanor had confirmed what, until then, had been merely a suspicion on his part. And that thesnapshot adventurer’s motive in coming back was to have another try at getting Felix’s picture, Gale was equally certain. For the next three days he proceeded to carry out his plan of keeping a close watch on his host’s daughter. He felt sure that sooner or later she would communicate in some way with the Camera Chap. Probably they were hatching out some scheme together for landing the precious snapshot. If so, by watching the fruition of that scheme, he hoped at least to gain some valuable information as to the whereabouts of Felix. Perhaps, even, if he played his cards right, he might be able to force Hawley to share the picture with him, in the event of the latter’s success. A still more alluring prospect was the possibility of letting that expert snapshotter get the picture, and then, by working some clever trick, getting it away from him so that he could hand to his paper one of the greatest photographic scoops which had ever startled Park Row. Difficult as he realized this last feat would be, theNewsman did not consider it impossible of fulfillment.

He subjected Virginia to an espionage which would have done credit to one of Portiforo’s professional spies, shrewdly suspecting that she was the keystone to the whole situation. But if the girl was in communication with the Camera Chap she was managing it with a skill and cautiousness which outclassed his keen powers of observation; for he was unable to detect even any indication that she had knowledge of Hawley’s whereabouts. One discovery he did make, though: she seemed to have grown very friendly with acertain good-looking, husky young officer of the battleshipKearsarge. Gale learned that this man’s name was Ridder. He and Virginia met frequently and with a secretiveness which made the reporter wonder whether the daughter of his host hadn’t already forgotten all about Hawley and was going through the early stages of a new romance. Strange to say, it did not occur to Gale that the naval officer might be acting as an intermediary between Virginia and the exiled snapshotter. He began to feel less positive that the latter had returned to Baracoa. At all events, he was pretty sure that the Camera Chap hadn’t ventured to show his face in the capital or its environs, for he had reason to believe that Portiforo’s spies were keeping a sharp lookout for that unwelcome visitor, and if he had been there it was scarcely likely that those human ferrets wouldn’t have unearthed him by this time.

Having come to this conclusion, the reporter gradually ceased his close watch of Virginia’s movements, and spent most of his time in Puerto Cabero, cultivating the acquaintance of the soldiers of the fortress, particularly that of Captain Ernesto Reyes. He managed to persuade the latter to take him on another tour of inspection through the prison of El Torro, but was unable to find any trace of Felix there.

One day, as he sat drinking with Reyes in a café much frequented by officers of the army, the captain asked him whether he had received an invitation to the banquet on the warship.

“What banquet is that?” Gale inquired curiously.

Captain Reyes produced a card on which was engraved a formal invitation requesting his presence at a dinner to be tendered by the officers of theKearsargeto the officers of El Torro garrison.

“I supposed that surely you would receive an invitation, Señor Gale,” the army officer remarked. “The American minister and Miss Throgmorton are going to be there, so it is queer that you should have been overlooked.”

“Maybe mine will arrive later,” the reporter said. “Are you going to attend?”

The other announced that he expected to be among those present. “I was going to send my regrets at first, on account of my eyesight,” he declared. “I was afraid that with these glasses I should not be exactly an ornament at the festive board, and in such a well-lighted room I would not dare to leave them off. But Miss Throgmorton insisted upon my accepting the invitation.”

“Miss Throgmorton?” There was an inflection of surprise in Gale’s tone.

The gallant captain smiled complacently. “She told me that it would spoil the whole evening for her if I were not present. So what could I do, my friend? Of course, as a gentleman and a soldier, I could not disappoint a lady—especially one so charming as the daughter of the American minister.”

Gale looked thoughtfully at his wine. “I wonder why she should be so anxious to have you there,” he muttered. “It strikes me as being deucedly queer.”

His companion’s manner showed that he resented the remark. “I see nothing so very queer about it,” he said indignantly. “I do not wish to appear boastful. Otherwise, perhaps, it would not be difficult for me to explain why Miss Throgmorton finds such evident pleasure in my society.”

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