Read Ebook: The Devil's Admiral by Moore Frederick Ferdinand

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Ebook has 1496 lines and 71964 words, and 30 pages

"If he doesn't talk an arm off you before you reach Hong-Kong, I'll give you the ticket for sixpence. He's a missionary," he grinned.

"The Rev. Luther Meeker!" I cried in horror.

"The Rev. Luther Meeker!" he repeated, and gave me my change with a chuckle.

The idea that he would interfere with my plans and delay me for a week simply because he objected to my presence in the same steamer with him filled me with wrath. I so lost my temper for a minute that I was bent on going back to the hotel and knocking him down, missionary or no missionary; but, instead, came to the conclusion that the joke was on him, and I would have plenty of opportunities to retaliate upon him between Manila and Hong-Kong.

My bag was packed again, and I was ready for tiffin and then an afternoon nap, to be called in time to catch the steamer. My telephone rang, and I hastened to answer it, expecting orders from the cable-office, and hoping that London had decided, after all, to send me after the Baltic fleet to the south, rather than to Hong-Kong.

"She sails this afternoon at five, as noted on the board," was the startling response to my query. I was so taken aback for a second that I didn't know what to think or say. I remarked into the telephone that somebody in the steamship office must take me for a fool, and that I did not consider such things jokes.

"Meeker's little joke is going too far," I decided, after I had hung up the receiver. "I think there are a few words I can say to him that will convince him I am not to be trifled with in this manner."

Seizing my cap, I pulled the door open abruptly and almost fell over the little red-headed beggar lurking near my room. He darted down the stairway, and I leaped after him.

THE SPY AND THE DEAD BOATSWAIN

Three steps at a time I took the matted stairway, which was reckless speed, for the shell-paned windows were shut, and the awnings pulled down to keep out the heat of the blinding sun, making it quite dark. But I was bound to capture the little red-headed man, thrash him soundly, make him tell his motive in trailing me, and turn him over to the police.

I caught the indistinct figure of a man in white coming up, and threw myself to one side to avoid him, but he stumbled in front of me, and we went sprawling into the corridor below. It was a nasty spill, and I shot out on the matting at full length with my hands thrown before me. The polished teak-wood floor and the loose matting saved me from injury.

"My dear sir!" exclaimed the man who fell with me, and I found the Rev. Luther Meeker sitting on a crumpled mat and propped up with his arms behind him, while his pith helmet went dancing away on its rim to settle crazily upon its crown a dozen feet from us.

For an instant I was tempted to attack him, when I realized that his presence on the stairs and his interruption of my pursuit of the redheaded man were significant of more than an accident, and that Meeker and the other were spying upon me. I bridled my ire, and decided to play the game out with them and fathom the mystery of their espionage.

"My dear sir, I am almost certain that I have sprained my back--I am sure I have injured my back!"

"I am sorry for your back," I said, getting to my feet. "For my part, I am satisfied to escape without a broken neck."

"My immortal soul, if it isn't Mr. Trenholm!" said he, blinking at me, his goggles bobbing on a rubber string made fast to a jacket-button. "Of all persons, Mr. Trenholm! Bless my soul!"

My mental remark was somewhat similar and with equal fervour, if not complimentary to him and his soul. Brushing my soiled ducks, I started to move away, for it would never do to assume an excess of friendship too suddenly.

"Just one moment, Mr. Trenholm--" he called after me, shaking a bony forefinger--"just one moment, I beg of you, sir! I have some information which I desire to impart, and, strangely enough, I was seeking you when this unfortunate tumble came about, partly through my infirmities, I am sure. One moment, sir. It is to your advantage to wait, I assure you."

"What is it?" I asked, hesitating. The little beggar had undoubtedly escaped, and I knew that in Meeker I had bigger game if I handled him cautiously.

I was convinced that his injury and decrepit bearing were clever bits of acting.

"Oh, but there is," he protested, holding up his hand and eyeing me craftily. "I was seeking you to tell you when we fell upon each other so unceremoniously. It is quite--"

"I suppose you want to tell me that the sailing has been delayed. I know all about that--she sails in the morning."

"Sails in the morning!" he exclaimed, pretending surprise, but being puzzled about something. "Does she?"

There was guile in that last question, and when he asked it I knew it was he or some one acting for him who had attempted to mislead me about the time of the vessel's departure. I saw a chance to trap him, and asked:

"Was that what you wanted to tell me?"

He parried it, and while he fumbled in his pockets for something, a trick to gain time, he was thinking hard and fast.

"I was told that she sails in the morning, but it was some mistake," I told him, as if I had not found anything peculiar in the error and was not the least disturbed about it.

"I already have my ticket," I said. "So we will be fellow-passengers, and I hope you will pardon my throwing you down the stairs; but I was running after a beggar or a thief."

"Indeed! Do you know the rascal, or did you see him so that you can give a comprehensive description of him to the police?"

"A little red-headed man," I said, watching him closely. "Did you see him before you started up the stairs?"

He burst out in a dry, mirthless cackle of laughter, and slapped his knees, much as if he had heard a good joke.

"If you will come in to tiffin with me, Mr. Trenholm, I will tell you about him."

"And who is this little red-headed man?" I asked as we took our chairs.

He bowed his head and mumbled a grace before replying, and I had a sense of mental conflict between us, and knew that I would have to guard against chicane, or the suave old fellow would talk me out of my suspicions.

"It must have been Dago Red you saw," he began, grinning, and wagging his head. "I hope he did not actually steal anything, my dear Mr. Trenholm. I am quite sure you must be mistaken about his being a thief; but it is quite possible, he has deceived me."

"I found him sneaking near my door in the hall," I said. "Who is this Dago Red?"

"A worthy man," he replied getting serious. "I am afraid you have done him an injustice, for I sent him up to see if you were in your room, and after I had given him the errand the clerk informed me that you were in, and I started up myself."

"He didn't appear anxious to talk with me when he saw me open the door."

"You probably startled him by--"

"But who is he?"

"Petrak, I think his name is, although I am not sure, and my poor old memory cannot hold names long. He is a sailor who has been shipwrecked, and he became a vagrant here and was sent to Bilibid Prison. Much of my work is in prisons, and I took charge of him when he got out and sent him to the Sailors' Home, sure that he would be able to get a ship again. That was a couple of months ago, and when I arrived to-day he met me and told me that he had left the Home because the keeper was prejudiced against him, owing to his term in prison.

"He was on the verge of starvation, and I gave him some money from my charity fund, which he promptly spent on drink, for he is quite dissolute. But he took charge of my luggage and attended to some errands for me, but he fears the police and cannot get out of his habit of skulking about, and, as the detectives have hounded him, he is suspicious of everybody, and ready to go into a panic when a stranger approaches him. It is a pity that he cannot get back to sea, but he has had the fever, and no master seems to want him, and he has been forced into vagabondage."

He gave me this history of the little red-headed man in disconnected sentences while we were at the soup, and I let him run on. As he talked his eyes were roaming over the room, and he scanned every person that entered, and peered at me from under his brows when he thought I was not observing him.

It seemed beyond reason that this chain of events could be nothing but a combination of coincidences, and, when I analyzed the situation, I framed what I considered a good theory regarding Petrak's presence outside my door. It occurred to me that Meeker was the author of the false message, and that he was really on his way to visit me to learn if I had discovered the falsity of it when he met me rushing down the stairs. But he had sent Petrak ahead of him to listen at the door in case I telephoned the company to verify the first message; Petrak had heard me ask the company for the sailing time and was about to report to Meeker when I opened the door upon him.

Meeker was probably at the foot of the stairs and covered the retreat of his henchman. Petrak may not have been able to stop and report what he had heard, so Meeker fished for the information from me, ready to confirm the report that the sailing of the vessel was delayed, or pretend that he was about to set me right.

While I was thinking these things over he was keeping up a running conversation about trivial matters, and we were well into the curried lamb and getting along famously when he asked a question which put me on my guard at once, and set me groping mentally for a solution of the puzzle.

"Did you deliver your letter?" he asked, casually, but I saw in an instant that he had been paving the conversational way all along for that very question.

"What letter?" I asked, although I knew the one he meant.

He looked at me craftily, with what I took for a bit of surprise that I did not know the letter he referred to, or that he expected me to deceive him.

"Perhaps I shouldn't mention it, for it may recall our little unpleasantness this morning," he sent back. "Perhaps it was my fault, my dear sir, in speaking to you when I picked it up, and I certainly want to assure you that I was not put out by your disinclination to begin an acquaintance with a stranger."

"Haven't the slightest idea of what you are talking about," I said lightly, and professing ignorance in my puzzled expression.

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