The Trey o' Hearts/Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXIX
Jailbird
THE period of restraint in durance vile suffered by one Thomas Barcus proved in the upshot far more brief than had been fondly hoped not only by his just judge but, singularly enough, by the misdemeanant himself.
"Ten days' rest will do me no harm," he assured himself. So meditating, he committed himself, body and soul, to the sleep he so sorely needed. But his rest was to be by no means so long. He was sentenced at 10 a. m., and it was little short of 10 p. m. of the same day when his repose was disturbed by the rattle of a key in the lock of the door to his cell.
Sitting up, Mr. Barcus rubbed his eyes and combed his hair with his fingers.
"What did I tell you?" he observed resignedly. "It begins again already. …"
He was conducted to the presence of the judge himself, who at once ordered his release.
"If only you had told me you were a friend of Mr. Digby's," the judge hastened to say as soon as the two were ensconced in the privacy of the judicial limousine, "I would have known better how to guide myself in this unfortunate affair. As it is, I can only assure you of my profound regret that I was not better advised. And I trust sincerely that you will not fail to tell Mr. Digby that I acted immediately on receipt of his telegram."
"Rest easy, I won't forget," Barcus promised him enigmatically, at pains to cover the truth that Digby was nothing more to him than the name of Alan Law's man of business.
"This is what Mr. Digby says," the judge replied, laboriously deciphering the message by the light of a match: "'Please see to immediate release of one Thomas Barcus probably in jail in your jurisdiction for rioting on waterfront this morning. Pay his fine and instruct him to report to me in New York at earliest feasible hour. Give him all the money he wants and look to me for remuneration'"
The private comment of Barcus to this was: "I've suspected that this was a fairy-tale all along. Now I know it is!"
Not until a sound night's sleep had topped off the beginning of his rest in jail did Barcus come down to earth. He demonstrated his return to common sense by making a round breakfast in Grand Central Station before looking up the residence of Digby in the telephone directory, reasoning that, if he was to rejoin his fortunes to those of Alan Law, it was best to be fortified in every conceivable way before delivering himself anew to a career of peril and privation.
The information he garnered from Mr. Digby over the telephone shook only momentarily Barcus's conviction that intimate acquaintance with battle, murder, and sudden death was the inevitable reward of association with this friend of his heart.
"Alan being married to Rose Trine in Jersey City at this very minute!" he breathed, as he emerged from the booth memorizing the address of the officiating clergyman. "I don't believe it; the course of true love can't be running as smooth as all that. Why, its impossible! Alan hasn't ridden the tidal wave yet, nor tamed the bucking earthquake! He has thus far flirted with death in little more than two-score different forms; if this is his finish, he's a rank quitter—hardly half a hero!"
Forthwith he engaged a taxicab to convey him to Jersey City.
"I'd give my earldom," he asseverated, "rather than miss the eruption, or whatever it is, that is bound to take place just in time to crab this unnatural dénouement!"
And when he beheld a dense volume of smoke advertising a conflagration on the Jersey shore, he shook a sagacious head.
"If Alan isn't mixed up in that somehow," he declared, "I'm a sorry failure as a prophet of woe and disaster!"
There was as much intuitive apprehension as humour responsible for this remark; witness the fact that, on landing, he risked the delay required to turn aside and have a look at the fire.
It proved to be situated in the heart of a squalid slum. The firemen had already given up all hope, apparently, of saving anything but the adjoining buildings; that they had done their best was shown by the tangle of apparatus that cumbered the space within the fire-lines.
Mr. Barcus viewed the scene for some moments; then, tolerably satisfied that there was nothing here to excuse his "hunch" about Alan Law, was on the point of instructing his chauffeur to drive on when his attention was attracted by a curious movement in the throng of sightseers. A number of men began to force their way in a V-shaped wedge through the throng, making toward its very heart, the point on the fire-lines nearest the burning building.
What this meant, Mr. Barcus had not the slightest idea. But his attention was fixed by the face of a man who was following in the hollow of the V—an evil white face that seemed somehow vaguely familiar. It was several seconds before Barcus identified it as the face of the man who had borne Judith Trine away in a motor-car from the New Bedford wharf the previous morning: beyond doubt one of Seneca Trine's first lieutenants.
At the same time, at the point where the V had paused, a wild uproar lifted up. A cry was audible—"Firebug! Lynch him! Lynch the firebug!" And at this the mob turned and streamed away in pursuit of an invisible quarry, who chose to attempt his escape by a route directly opposite to that which would have led him within view of Mr. Barcus.
Barcus was on the point of stepping out of his cab when he was stayed by sight of the evil white face returning, still in the hollow of the flying V. And now Barcus saw that the man of the white face was not alone. There was a woman with him. And, Barcus reflected, why might not this be Rose Trine, suffering new persecution at the hands of her unnatural father's creatures?
He was too far away to make sure, but he pointed White Face out to his chauffeur as the V reached a touring-car and the woman was lifted in (unresisting and apparently in a dead faint), and when the touring-car started away the taxicab of Mr. Barcus trailed it.
Ten minutes later, from the rear deck of a ferry-boat in midstream, a boat bearing back to New York not only the touring-car of White Face but the cab of Mr. Barcus, the latter gentleman witnessed an incident of uncommon character, even for New York, wherein (we're told) anything may happen, and most things do.
He saw a young man, hatless, coatless, almost shirtless, tear down to the end of one of the Jersey wharves, his heels snapped at by a ravening rabble, which he was so desperately anxious to escape that he dived headforemost into the greasy, tide-twisted river.
He took the water neatly, came up ininjured and clear-headed, and without an instant's hesitation struck away toward the middle of the Hudson. But he was not to make his getaway so easily. In a moment it was seen that he was being rapidly overtaken by a couple of harbour policemen in a dory.
During the breathless suspense of that chase the ferry-boat drew stolidly farther and still farther away from the scene. Barcus could not tell whether, as it seemed, the police-laden dory was really overhauling the swimmer, or whether the illusion of perspective deceived him. At all events, it seemed a frightfully near thing when the interruption befell which alone could have saved the man whom Barcus believed to be none other than Alan Law.
Out of the very sky dropped a hydroplane, cutting the water with a long graceful curve that brought it, almost at a standstill, directly to the head of the swimmer, and at the same time forced the police-boat to sheer wildly off in order to escape collision.
Immediately the swimmer caught the pontoon of the hydroplane, pulled himself up out of the water, and clambered to the seat beside the aviator. Before he was fairly seated the plane was swinging back into its fastest pace. With the ease of a wild goose it left the water, described a wide circle above the bluffs of Weehawken, and swept away southward. In that quarter it was presently lost to the sight of Mr, Barcus, who gravely lifted his hat in parting salutation.
"You are a brave man, my friend," he apostrophized the spirit of Alan Law, "and an uncommon lucky one, and a bit of a damn fool into the bargain. But the more I see of you the more firmly I believe your own assertion that you were born to be hanged!"