Waylaid by Wireless/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
THE "PROTECTOR" ATTACKED
"He has been seen then?"
"Yes. The police finally traced the porter who took the stolen baggage from the room. They now have his description."
"And they sent it—by the 'wireless'?"
"Yes. We had passed out of direct communication with the land station, of course; but the Hibernia, which is behind us, relayed the message to us. An American, they say, well built, six feet, tanned, dark hair and eyes, gray clothes."
"But that does not make it him, surely. It might be any one of a dozen."
"Not so many—out of this passenger list."
The two men talking in the next cabin prepared to go out again. Miss Varris, now thoroughly awakened, sat up in her berth and listened intently.
"Of course," one of the voices objected, as the door of the adjoining cabin opened, "he could easily have pretended to have been robbed of the pool to turn suspicion from him and to put up the game afterwards. But the girl—would he have chloroformed and robbed her? You have seen them together and she—"
"Lower!" the other voice warned. "Her cabin is about here somewhere. Did he chloroform or even rob her?" the voice returned then to the first discussion. "Couldn't she have just said she had been to—"
The voices moved away down the passage and were gone. The girl found herself clutching the mattress and sitting up rigidly. She stared about, still dazed at the sudden awakening.
A note had been put under her door. She seized it hastily and read:—
"Dear Miss Varris,—I am writing this to catch you before you can leave your cabin. I will state the plain facts first, without comment.
"You knew that the captain had asked yesterday morning, by the 'wireless,' for further identification of Manling.
"Early this morning, when we first arose, Mr. Dunneston and I together went to the 'wireless' operating room to inquire if answer had been received. We found then that we had been out of direct communication with land for several hours—almost since receiving our last message for the captain yesterday morning. But the Hibernia, which is following us about two hundred miles behind, had more recently communicated with land.
"Our operator reported us to the Hibernia and asked that vessel to try to get an answer for us from the land station. We waited several minutes, while we could hear the Hibernia trying to call the land station, when I agreed with our operator that it was useless and—either I went away with him, or got him to go away with me and give it up, as may be preferred.
"Mr. Dunneston was not satisfied, however! He stayed, and in less than ten minutes after we left, the Hibernia got the answer she was calling for, and Mr. Dunneston had to call us back to receive.
"The Hibernia, then, as relay ship, sent us from the shore the description which the police had gathered from the porter who took the stolen things from the hotel room which Mr. Manling had entered, and where he had coolly packed. This description corresponded, in as complete a way as a general description can, to mine.
"Also, the pool which Mr. Tremont won yesterday has been stolen. He took me down with him to his cabin last night to determine whether his placing of the pool was under the spirit of our agreement.
"I need not say, of course, that I am now positively identified to the ship as Manling. On shore I might have continued to justify myself with you upon the possibility of Mr. Manling's being my double. But here on shipboard that possibility vanishes. So I send this to you before you leave your cabin so that you can govern yourself upon full information to date.
"Very regretfully yours,
"Richard Preston.
"P.S.—I must warn you also of the most embarrassing feature of this. It is agreed that I pretended the theft of my own money to turn aside suspicion and bring about the arrangement I perfected yesterday. Now, as every one has seen us together and recognized our companionship, they are saying that you, also, pretended the loss of your things and the chloroforming to assist me.
"From this you will understand the manner you must take towards me. I fully appreciate your position and will not further presume upon your thousand kindnesses to me. I am still left at large."
Across the bottom, as an afterthought, was written:
"I am glad that, at least, no one has thought me capable of hurting or even robbing you."
The girl smiled suddenly as she read that last line, and re-read it, and afterwards re-read the whole note carefully and then crumpled it impatiently in her hand. Immediately she smoothed it out to study again the line at the end. Then she hurriedly dressed and went out.
As she came out upon the deck, she expected a stare, of course; but the free and unconcealed curiosity which met her and which brazenly ringed her round as she proceeded toward her chair at the stern, caused her to color red, not so much with mortification as with an anger which served to steady her in her determination.
As she came toward the stern, however, she was conscious, with some admission of relief, that the stare centred upon her was being diverted, or, at least, divided. She looked about for an explanation and saw young Preston before her.
"Good-morning!" she greeted him heartily.
Preston fell back, but recovered himself at once.
"Good-morning, Miss Varris!" he stammered. He drew her from blocking the promenade and brought her beside him against the rail.
"Why—haven't you heard?" he asked. "Didn't you receive my note?"
"Of course!" the girl replied. She looked at him frankly, and he reddened again.
"Then why have you done—why do you do this?" he pleaded.
The girl laughed easily.
"I knew you wouldn't see it!" she taunted him. "And you are always laughing at the density of Mr. Dunneston and the English!"
"See what, Miss Varris?" he demanded.
"Oh—your inconsistency," the girl replied. "And the particular absurdity which you are now taking seriously yourself and trying to impose upon me."
"What one, Miss Varris?" he demanded. She had roused him more than a little.
"I see," she still taunted, finding she was gaining her effect, "that I shall have to demonstrate and explain to you, in the way your despised Punch has to reason its jokes into the English. Well," she sighed with resignation, "then let me ask you this first. You say that, in any case, no one can suspect you of chloroforming or robbing me?"
"No," Preston replied warmly. "No one. I breathe fervid thanks for that—not even the most reluctant Englishman can suspect that I would really have chloroformed or robbed you."
"So I thought," the girl pressed on triumphantly. "The only way any one dares to make you out the robber is by assuming that I was not really visited, but that I reported that I was only to help you."
"Yes."
"Well, then, as I know I was both robbed and chloroformed night before last, you want me to believe of you what even the most incorrigible Briton balks at. So as I know I was visited as I reported, I know that the robber must be some one else aboard the ship—unless you now prefer me to believe that you did what was done to me."
"I see! I see!" he acknowledged humbly. "And, please, I don't prefer that! But, Miss Varris," he recollected himself in alarm, "whatever you may know, or be willing to believe about me, can't change it with the others. And you mustn't let me be seen with you. Oh, I can't tell you how I appreciate this! But you know you mustn't! If for no other reason, you are here without any older person and—it will make you conspicuous."
"Make me, Mr. Preston?" the girl mocked. "You could not have observed my entrance and progress down the deck, could you? Why, truly," she forced on lightly, "the only way I found relief was by coming down here near you; then the stares were divided. So, since I must pay anyway, I'm going to have my part of the fun. Every single, solicitous soul who took me up so officiously yesterday has dropped me as conspicuously to-day! They all merely sit and stare with the rest! And what am I to do? What did you wish me to do?" she demanded. "Could I have cut you after having spent almost the whole last two days on deck here with you before them all?"
"No; I did not think that you would cut me entirely. But I can't allow you to do this for me, Miss Varris!" he protested desperately. "I would not have stood by like a mummy at Polporru if I had suspected what you were going to do. You had committed yourself before I was clear-headed enough to understand. But now I can't let you do this for me! I—"
"No," the girl agreed with cool assent. "You couldn't let me compromise myself, if it were only on your account. But it is not!" she went on calmly, meeting his eyes. "Wait and you will see. You know that you are innocent and you think that you are the one Mr. Manling is attacking, and that I am merely involved in his attacks on you. But that is not so. The attacks may be through you, but they are aimed at me!"
"At you?"
"Yes. Of course, he's attacking you directly sometimes, for yourself. But other times—as just this morning—he is more concerned with attacking me through you. Recollect—
"Mr. Manling, the cathedral thief—whoever he was—robbed me first at Ely. Not content with that, he gave me the additional fillip of forcing us to put you, our friend, under suspicion for his theft. But, though I could scarcely feel him even as a mysterious personality, then I—mother and I—met his move with a better one," she raised her head a little proudly and her eyes lighted with a recollection of her triumph, "and we cleared you by putting into your hands the police investigation, which he must have expected to go against you.
"I began to feel this mysterious double of yours even then as a clever, subtle, intangible force. And I have thought that maybe he, too, began to feel me opposing him.
"But at once," the girl continued calmly, as the other watched her in wonder, "you laid yourself and us open to his attack again when we scattered forces—when you deserted us after Ely."
"Guilty, Protector!" Preston pleaded.
"We kept hearing from the police how some one was making it uncomfortable for you by repeatedly robbing Americans in the towns where you went. The compromising position into which we put you at Ely kept you continually under suspicion, of course. So we sent for you as soon as we were able to. As soon as you rejoined us I began to feel that he was working against me again. Why, sometimes it seemed to me that he had made it a matter of honor to jail you, and maybe he felt that it was becoming as much a matter of honor for us to keep you free.
"Then at Polporru—that morning at Polporru! I couldn't comprehend much about 'wireless'—I can't understand it yet, very clearly—so I thought at first, when the police gave that description of you which I knew couldn't be correct, that the police had a plot against you. But, of course, I can now see that it wasn't the police. It must have been this mysterious Manling again. And I tell you, Mr Preston!" the blood came hot to her cheeks at the remembrance, "when he was able to fool us all somehow again and he dared to describe you down to the last detail as you stood there before the police, I tell you I had to think quickly that time to beat him! But I did," she flushed honestly with her triumph, "don't you remember?"
"You lay your life that I do remember!" Preston cried in admiration.
"Yes; and though I had beaten," the girl continued quickly, "when he found both you and me on board this boat with him, he at once began to strike his clear, clever attacks at both of us again. Don't you almost love him for it?" she exclaimed in her excitement. "For this time he not only dared to rob me again, but you, too; and when he implicated you again, as usual, he gave me the final fillip in implicating me with you!"
"He did, Miss Varris!" Preston cried. "And you're right! He is not attacking me only; he does seem to be going for you, too! But can't you tell yet who he is any more than I can?" he demanded. "I tell you it is getting worse than weird, the way he proves over and over again that I am he. It wasn't so bad in England when we had a whole nation of possibilities; but it is different here on shipboard. There are only two hundred men at most in the first cabin; and there is not a single one—English or American—who, by any stretch of the imagination, can be made to correspond to the detailed description of Manling now twice received. I mean, there is no one—except myself."
"There is certainly no one whom I have seen in the first cabin who is at all like you, Mr. Preston," the girl agreed.
"Then where is he? Can he be in the second cabin, or the steerage?"
The girl's eyes flashed brightly.
"No; he must be in the first cabin with us. Who he is, I cannot say yet. But I—we, you and I, can make sure soon. We can catch and discover him! I've felt for a long time, as I told you, that he—whoever he is—has been trying to outdo me. But I beat him twice! Now he has struck again, and straight at me! But I think I can strike back; and you must help me!"
The young American caught himself up in his wonder at the girl as she turned to him. "You're a marvellous person!" he cried incredulously. "A moment ago I was bravely declaring that you shouldn't be seen with me at all; and now you are making it rank desertion in me, if I leave you to fight my mysterious double alone! Help you? Of course I'll try to help you! But I'll wager you can beat him without—"
"Hush!" the girl checked him.
"What—oh!"
"I beg pardon," one of the English passengers began doubtfully, stopping before the American. "I beg pardon, but this is Mr. Manling, I believe? Aw—really I beg pardon," he retracted courteously, as Preston smiled patiently at him. "I rather—anticipated a bit, I say, did I not? I meant only, sir, that I am Mr. Close-Stuart, and I have just been informed that I have won the day's pool with my number 438, and will be only too happy to maintain my portion of our—aw—agreement."
"Thank you, Mr. Close-Stuart."
"I am informed," the Englishman continued cautiously, "that the captain has determined that the indications received this morning by the 'wireless' are a bit too—aw—inconclusive for action; and I believe that—aw—the gentlemen of the smoking-room have urged also that, under the spirit of our compact, no arrest should be made as long as you, sir, live up to our compact and are not—aw—caught by some of us aboard. So I can assure you that you shall have opportunity, sir, to carry out your portion of our—aw—compact."
"Again I thank you, sir," Preston acknowledged gravely. He glanced quickly at the girl beside him and caught the sparkle of appreciation in her eye. "But, Mr. Close-Stuart," he went on recklessly, "your wife is travelling with you, is she not, in the same cabin?"
The Englishman pondered, taken aback for a moment.
"And if she is, sir?"
"Oh, just let me recall that the object of our agreement was to avoid inconveniencing the ladies. Therefore, it might be better for you to have the pool paid you at once and take it about so that Mr. Manling can carry out his part of his compact this afternoon, possibly, and not embarrass Mrs. Close-Stuart to-night."
"My word!" The Englishman exclaimed his admiration. He looked over the young American intently. "I say, you mean to take it from me awake?"
"Mr. Manling probably can and will!" Preston rejoined.
"And he will!" the girl burst out, as the Englishman, after another ejaculation, moved away. "Oh, why do you always play so into his hands? That will be all about the ship in ten minutes. He will hear it, and can easily take the pool from Mr. Close-Stuart this afternoon. And then you are Manling irrevocably."
"Exactly. I am counting upon his hearing and doing that; but it won't make me Manling so irrevocably as you are kind enough to fear for me, Protector."
"Oh! You mean—"
"I'll be as conspicuously on deck as possible this afternoon when, I hope, Mr. Close-Stuart will be successfully looted."
"I see; another alibi! And am I to be in this one, too?"
"I was going to ask, since more people would notice me if I were with you than if I were anywhere else, may I have my chair brought about beside yours again?"
"Of course! I did not know that you were foolish enough to have it moved away. Then I shall look for you on deck here at three?"
"Thank you; yes, at three! But hello! There's my 'bunkie' going towards the 'wireless' room. I'll trace developments!"