Читать книгу Wings of the Wind - Credo Fitch Harris - Страница 14

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A perfect tropical night crept down on us, with the sky a deep and velvety blue, and the stars low enough to touch. Brilliant phosphorescence dashed from our bow and a silvery streak trailed in our wake emphasizing the enchantment as the Whim rose, leaned, and dipped over the bosom of the breathing Gulf. So, also, were my hopes; now up, now down, on the breast of another fickle monster. Love and the sea! Have they not always been counterparts? Do they not span the known and unknown in each man's world, carrying some in safety—others destroying?

It must have been nine o'clock when the forward watch called and, springing to the rail, peering through the darkness, we saw down upon the horizon the fixed white eye and three red sectors of the Key West light.

"A good run, Gates."

"Nothing of our size can beat it, sir."

"You think the Orchid will be in harbor?"

"I carn't say, sir. She had six hours' start of us, and could have left."

"How long do we lay off this burg?" Tommy asked, sauntering up.

"That depends. If the mysterious yacht's here we'll stay till something happens."

"And if she isn't," he nudged the professor, "we'll comb out the universe. You get that, don't you? A nice fat job, I'll say it is! How'll we know which way to start? Gates, couldn't you get a peep at her papers in the port?" But the skipper solemnly shook his head, saying:

"It carn't be done, sir."

"Well, Jack, when customs are finished we'll take the launch and comb out the harbor, anyhow! She'll be anchored nearby, like as not."

Not caring to tie up at the dock we chose a berth far enough out to escape the electric glare ashore, and had hardly swung-to when Gates was off in his gig to clear our papers. The port officials were astir and accommodatingly looked us over without loss of time, for the skipper had mentioned our wish to leave whenever the spirit moved us. Those, indeed, had been his identical words, and I wondered if they were prophetic—whenever the spirit moved us!

They were a nice pair of fellows, those American officers, and before going into business—a mere formality in our case—we gathered in the cockpit for a long straw and a bowl of ice. The occasion was more agreeable for possessing that sense of aloofness one feels at being on the edge, yet safely beyond the reach, of a little city's night diversions and excitements.

"I suppose you've nothing dutiable," one said, knowing we had left Havana unexpectedly soon.

"Nothing," Tommy volunteered.

"But, yes," Monsieur exclaimed. "I shall declare!"

"About the only thing he brought away was a wad of money from a roulette game," I laughed.

"Ah, I surprise you," he cried, in high good humor, ducking below; and was soon heard struggling up the stairs, crying: "Give me help!"

Into our hands then he began thrusting packages of cigars; packages containing a dozen boxes each, until the cockpit looked like moving day in a tobacco shop. Behind the last of these, he came.

"Oh, là là," Tommy's jaw dropped. "Where did you tie up with this stuff? We've been together all the time!"

"Not all the time," the professor chuckled. "Before you were awake this morning I was in town for camera supplies, and brought back, also, much of that most genial and ameliorating of influences exerted upon us in life—cigars! How much do I pay?"

"How many have you?"

"Ten thousand."

"Ten thousand cigars!" We stared at him.

"That's a lot of ameliorating influence," one of the officers laughed. "But, in spite of it, I'll have to charge you on nine thousand, nine hundred—unless a hundred belong to each of your friends. Everyone's entitled to bring in a hundred free."

"A hundred are mine," Tommy spoke up at once. "I haven't won cigars so fast, ever! Jack, you for a hundred. Gates, you, too. Colonel," he turned to the officer—out of the Army he scattered the titles of Colonel, Judge, Governor and Parson with a free hand—"suppose you all take a hundred each. It'll be a whole lot cheaper for Sir Walter, here!"

The professor was giggling.

"They have cost me nothing," he cried, "for last night I have won almost a thousand dollars at that wretched place—see, here is plenty with which to pay!"

And a fortunate thing it was that he had, being called on for something in the neighborhood of three hundred dollars.

The officer—Hardwick, by name—and his associate were good fellows, as I have said. They had greeted us as congenial spirits and, probably on this account, I noticed some embarrassment on his part when he leaned into the light and slowly looked over the money Monsieur had given him. The rest of us were conversing in a more or less distrait fashion till this unpleasant duty should be finished, when he took an electric torch from his pocket and flashed it on one of the bills; then on another, and so through the lot. Hesitatingly he touched Monsieur's arm, asking:

"Is this the money you won last night?"

"That? It is just as they paid me."

A moment of silence, then:

"I'm sorry to tell you, but these two fifty-dollar bills are counterfeits."

There ensued an absolute hush, and before my eyes arose the vision of Sylvia's father paying his supper check with a crisp fifty.

"Counterfeit," the professor mused, putting out a hand for them and moving nearer the light. "Strange! Just today I was speaking of a counterfeiter!" And Tommy, in an awed voice, asked:

"You don't think it's more dreams?"

The officials, I rather suspected, were beginning to look at us askance. Our various attitudes at this discovery were scarcely in accordance with the usually accepted actions of innocent people; on the contrary, with but a grain of imagination, we might be branded as a trio of rascals trying to stall out of a tight place. My apprehension was more confirmed when Hardwick, a shade less cordial, said:

"As a United States official, I should like to hear your views about these."

Now Tommy looked across at me and I saw that he was awake. Monsieur, on the other hand, remained blissfully indifferent that anything might be out of the ordinary—except, of course, being loaded with a hundred dollars of bad money, which does not happen every day.

"My counterfeiter?" he smiled innocently. "Yes, he could have done these. His plates are all but perfect. And these bills—you will admit they almost fooled you!" Whereupon he laughed.

Tommy fidgeted, saying:

"Have a care, gezabo, or you'll be sending us to the rock pile!"

"My friend is cut-upping," Monsieur beamed on the official, but met with no more hearty response than the dry acquiescence:

"I've no doubt of it. But suppose you tell me more of your other friend—the counterfeiter!"

"Friend? My friend?" Monsieur's face now became the picture of horror. "I was telling these boys of one who disappeared years ago, and afterwards the police showed me some plates found in his rooms! My friend!"

Hardwick began to laugh.

"Please accept my apologies, but, really, for the moment——"

"Don't mention it," Tommy interrupted him, handing across a newly opened box of cigars. "I understand you—the professor couldn't!"

Returning to the important subject, Hardwick said:

"Whoever put these out is probably in Cuba. You got them at the café——?"

"Quite so," Monsieur exclaimed, warming up with the notion of doing detective work. "I was playing roulette—but, pardon me, you have heard."

"Do you remember any one around the table who showed new-looking bills?"

"No. We were the only ones playing, and but a few were looking on."

"The restaurant was crowded," Tommy said, "and connects with the gambling rooms. Mightn't they send money back and forth if needed?"

"Quite probable."

In the silence that followed I started twice to tell him that Sylvia's father had used a new bill of that denomination, yet the words would not come. It seemed a sneaky thing to do, after she had turned to me for help. Yet, if she were in danger, what quicker way to safety than arrest the old vulture who had her in his power? So I said:

"Mr. Hardwick, last night in that restaurant I saw a man——" but this time something stopped my words. It was a voice, a girl's voice, beautiful with an impassioned ring of protest, that cried from some place near us on the water:

"It isn't fair!"

It isn't fair! Oh, the just and pleading accusation of that cry! I sprang up, loudly calling her name:

"Sylvia!"

There was not a breath of sound. Those with whom I had been conversing were as mute as graven images, but in the black pall just beyond our taffrail drifted the magnetic presence toward which every nerve and fiber of my body pointed;—pointed, aye, tugged and wrestled with my poor flesh to be free! Yet, silence; all silence. No sound, no vision, no anything to guide me, other than my flashing brain and thumping heart which spoke of her.

I saw one of our sailors staring at the water with strange owlish eyes, and yelled at him:

"Into the gig, man!"

But this was frustrated before he moved, for some black shadow, showing vaguely, glided out from beneath our rail and disappeared. I could not be sure that I saw it, but the sailor did because he crossed himself.

"It ain't no use—now, sir," he managed to say.

My own eyes were trying to follow the eerie, silent thing which had passed so spookily into the night, leaving the merest suggestion of phosphorescence after it. Then an arm slipped affectionately about my shoulders, and I felt that Tommy was also standing by, looking along the trail of deadened sound. His face showed excitement, but he whispered steadily enough:

"Come and sit down."

Indeed, now that the thing had disappeared, I felt like an ass; and, resuming my seat, attempted to make the best of it.

"Really," I laughed, "you fellows mustn't judge a man too critically. There was something in the voice of that young lady which took me off my guard, and recalled—well, it recalled what you've all probably had recalled by one means or another, at some time or other, during your—er—lives." And I gave a weakish smile, waving my hand toward any old thing in sight by way of saying: "You know, old chaps, how just that one girl plays the devil with a fellow, sometimes!"

But the government officials received this in a different spirit than that which I had hoped to arouse. They looked at me with a gravity most disquieting, and Hardwick, suspicion written in every line of his face, asked:

"Is the young lady a member of your party?"

"Heavens, no," I answered quickly. "Oh, no," I vigorously repeated. "We don't know her, at all—none of us!"

An ominous silence followed this emphatic denial, and I could actually feel him making up his mind about us. It was an awful moment. At last Tommy flecked the ash from his cigar and, with great deliberation, asked:

"Colonel, do you believe in ghosts?"

"If you're serious," Hardwick snapped, "I certainly do not!"

"I'm serious, all right," Tommy purred, and I knew, from the unusually soft quality of his voice, that, indeed, he was—"for, if you don't believe in ghosts, you believe we're a bunch of damn crooks—oh, yes you do!—and I may say that if you don't, you're a damn fool. Now you see how serious I am, and how serious this affair is! This man was telling the exact truth when he said that none of us have ever heard that voice. If we actually did hear it just now, the coincidence that brought a small boat past us at this time of night, and prompted some woman in it to speak when and what she did, is more inexplicable to me than you think it is to you—because you've made up your mind to understand it. I can, however, understand how any sweet voice on a night like this might make my friend skid off his usually sane and normal track, because——" he hesitated, adding slowly: "Hardwick, I can't go into my friend's private affairs, but I wish to tell you that he's had a hell of a jolt, and on account of a memory—a memory, Hardwick—we're at Key West tonight. I trust, sir, that you won't misjudge, but rather fit these fragments and supply the needed others; for I know that your appreciation of—er—things is too delicate to allow me to proceed."

Be it noted that Tommy did tell but the simple truth; and, what is more, he told it with such sincerity that, in a large measure, our embarrassment became shifted over to our guests. Personally, I felt like a howling ass to be staked out and exhibited as somebody's jilted Romeo, but this was a welcome compromise; thrice welcome, since Hardwick's next words showed that he had forgotten, or dismissed, the prelude to my burst of confidence about "a man in the restaurant," for arising he said:

"Well, we've kept you longer than we should. If this gentleman will give my government good money for its revenue we'll bid you bon voyage. I suppose there's no objection to my keeping those?" He pointed to the spurious bills.

"I have paid dearly for them," the professor remonstrated.

"I'm sorry, but you won't lose any more than you've already lost—nor gain more, as you won't think of using them!"

"Why should I not use them? I will use them—certainement!"

"Be explicit, or forever hold your peace," Tommy laughed. "Can't you see the man reaching for his handcuffs?"

But Monsieur, thoroughly aroused, waved the crisp bills with a great show of indignation, crying:

"If there is a way to run this cheat to earth I, alone, will know it! Then you will want me to be telling you! For my own pleasure I have made a study of counterfeiters and their methods. Perhaps it may surprise you to learn that the police of Europe come to Bucharest and consult with me, eh? Thus, if I may also help you, I must retain my bills!"

We laughed, although I felt tremendously proud of the professor, having had no idea he was such a wonder; and Hardwick said, bowing:

"Then help yourself so I, also, may be helped. But let me take one for my government and, when you finish with the other, mail it to me with your report. I shall appreciate your assistance, really."

Monsieur was delighted.

They left us then, and again we settled about the cockpit; each waiting for one of the others to begin. My own thoughts were like a whirlwind, and my ears strained with listening toward the black Gulf—listening for a voice, or the unnamable noise of the gods knew what, that might float to me across the water. I think Tommy half expected me to suggest that we take one of the small boats, and went to his room to put on darker clothes. In a few minutes Monsieur yawned and followed him—though I rather suspected that his yawn was caused more by nervousness than the want of sleep. A moment later Gates, standing near the wheel, softly called my name, so I arose and went to him.

It must be remembered that Gates was absolutely dependable. There were no frills about the old skipper, he shared not one superstitious sentiment in common with Tommy, and it is extremely doubtful if he knew the sensation of fear; therefore, when I saw his face, I was astonished, and in alarm asked:

"Are you ill?"

"No, sir, but I'm sore upset. Please come a bit more aft, sir."

Taking a few steps till we were abaft the traveler, he turned and whispered:

"Mr. Jack, someone's been trying to blow us up!"