LAYING A COURSE
When the dinner was over, Boatswain Joe was in no haste to leave the
restaurant; but he returned to the table and ordered a drink, having
seen Dennis and Florence Hathaway depart. As he had already paid for
the meal, giving the waiter a handsome _pourboire_, no objection was
made to his remaining as long as he wished. He stated that he
expected a telephone-call.
Nearly an hour later, indeed, the waiter summoned him to the lobby.
Ericksen took up the telephone-receiver and said: "Aye, matey!" Then
he listened. Again he said: "Aye, matey!" and hung up the receiver.
He took the elevator to the street and briskly walked the two and a
half blocks to a down-town hotel. It appeared that he was stopping
here, for he went directly to the desk, demanded his key, then
vanished in the elevator.
Fifteen minutes later a man inquired at the desk for Mr. Ericksen,
and was shown to the room occupied by Boatswain Joe. This second man
was as peculiar in appearance as the red-haired boatswain. He was
rather small, very dapper in looks, and wore a tight little moustache
on his upper lip. His movements were swift, agile, extremely alert.
One would have said that he was a Frenchman, although upon entering
Ericksen's room he spoke in good English.
"Ah, Boatswain! Well done, my friend; you described them
excellently."
Ericksen regarded him with a twisted smile.
"Then you followed them?"
"Certainly. They went to a place on the North Side, a girls' school
where she teaches; presently he came out and walked to a
lodging-house on North Clark Street. I followed him inside and
engaged a room adjoining his, which I shall occupy this afternoon.
He is on the third _étage_--what you call--yes, flight! Upstairs."
"Good, Dumont." Ericksen ran his fingers through his tousled red
hair. "We've made quick work of it, eh? Got here two days ago, and
ready to slip our cable to-morrow night. 'Move sharp,,' says the
Skipper; 'crack on all sail!' And we've done it. Hey? You've got
your stuff all complete?"
Dumont lighted a cigarette and blew a thin cloud, nodding.
"All done. Everything is to be ready for me to-morrow morning. I
shall inspect it; then it will be packed in a special suitcase, ready
for the shipment."
"Good. We're leaving to-morrow night at eight bells or thereabouts.
Get your ticket in the morning, and check the stuff on it. Sure it's
what the Skipper ordered?"
Dumont inspected him with a sleepy cattish smile.
"Me, my friend, I make no mistakes. Ah, that skipper of ours! He is
a marvel, a great man! It is not every man who can improve upon the
so-wonderful Dumas! But this our skipper, he does so--pouf! Like
that. To him--it is nothing at all."
"I dunno about that there Dumaw," returned Ericksen. "I used to know
a guy o' that name, a nigger mate on the _Columbia_ packet out o'
Singapore----"
Dumont chuckled. "Worry not your so red head, my friend! Now,
suppose you have the goodness to explain? Who is this man with the
big body and the dangerous eyes?"
"Dangerous, rats!" Ericksen snorted. "On his uppers, he is. Ran
foul o' law-sharks an' got laid on his beam-ends. He's suspicious;
that's all. He and the lady are goin' to get spliced, see? Or they
think they are. His name's Dennis. He means to go West with us."
The sleepy eyes of Dumont suddenly opened. They became very black
and flashing. His white teeth showed beneath his tiny moustache in a
smile.
"Oh, I see! It is in that direction the land lies! Well, let him
come. Let our so-wonderful skipper take care of him!"
Ericksen shook his head. "Nope. Skipper says: 'Boatswain, don't you
bring no barnacles along! Bring that young lady--and no barnacles.'
Skipper knowed what he was about; strike me blind if he didn't! So
Mr. Dennis he stays here."
Dumont regarded his companion with an admiring air.
"Ah, you have the head, my friend! You have not the looks, perhaps,
but the head----"
"What's the matter with my looks, Frenchy?" demanded Ericksen
suddenly, regarding the smaller man with steady eyes. "Come, now!
Step aft an' speak it out, you! What's the matter with 'em?"
"Nothing in particular--merely the general aspect." And Dumont
cocked his head on one side in pretended survey. Then he broke into
laughter. "_Drôle_! You cannot afford to fight with me, eh? No.
And you know better. Eh? I have always desired, my friend, to get
my finger in that left eye of yours; it looks so devilish! I always
wondered how the socket would look--if there were not a little devil
sitting there, _couchant_!"
Ericksen changed countenance suddenly, and sat back in his seat.
Behind those jesting words of Dumont's there lay a grotesque
speculation--an earnestness, even! The dapper little man assumed a
frightful air, an air of abnormality. One sensed that he spoke of
tearing out a man's eye with calm enjoyment, as though--as though he
had done it before this.
"You're right, hearty," said Ericksen, wetting his lips. "Right-o!
No trouble in the after cabin, and there'll be none forward. What
were we speakin' of? Oh, yes! Dennis. Well, you go and occupy that
room to-night, and do your business to-morrow morning, then go back
there. Dennis will mess with me an' the lady to-morrow noon, see?
You get me a scrap of his fist--or better, take a squint at it and
copy this here entry in the log."
Ericksen took from the table a paper bearing a few lines of writing,
on which he had been engaged when Dumont entered, and passed it to
his friend. The latter scrutinised the writing, and chuckled softly.
"Oh! For the lady, eh? Ah, what a head you have! It is wasted upon
you, my friend. It should have gone with such intelligence as mine."
"You lay off them personal remarks, Frenchy," snapped Ericksen
suddenly.
"Aye, matey," retorted the other with mocking air. "Well? What
next?"
"You telephone me here right after noon mess. I'll be able to give
you Dennis' afternoon programme then. You've got to stop him from
taking that train to-morrow night--an' stop him hard! Don't forget
to take all his money, either--strip him to the bone."
Dumont shrugged. "What would you? Here in Chicago are the police,
and I like them not. It is not as if we were aboard the _Pelican_,
my friend."
"Oh, don't kill him," snapped Ericksen impatiently. "Merely a good
stiff jolt that will leave him on his back a few days. And do it at
the last minute, too. 'Take no chances, Boatswain,' says the
Skipper, 'and if there's any wind in sight, get your top-canvas
down.' So do it at the last minute, and then get the train. Have a
taxi waiting."
"All right." Dumont straightened up. "Let's go see a picture-show,
eh?"
Ericksen assented with a grunt.
Promptly at one o'clock on Monday, Boatswain Joe was waiting in the
lobby of the Royton restaurant, when Tom Dennis and Florence were
deposited by the elevator. With a cheerful grin on his freckled
features, Ericksen approached them.
"Good day to you. 'Two bells,' says you, and two bells it is, all
shipshape! It's fine and rosy ye look, ma'am!"
"Thank you, Mr. Ericksen." And under his light-blue predatory eyes
the girl blushed as she shook hands. "I've been shopping this
morning, and that always makes a woman happy, you know!"
They entered the breakfast-room, where the waiter, mindful of
Ericksen's tip, led them to a table by one of the front windows
overlooking the Art Institute and the sparkling blue lake front.
"Does it remind you of the sea?" Tom Dennis motioned toward the blue
horizon, and smiled at the sailor.
"In a way, yes. It looks like the sea down south, under the Line."
"You've been in the South Seas?" asked the girl quickly. Ericksen
met her gaze, and seemed a trifle embarrassed.
"Yes'm, oncet or twicet. I been whalin' with Cap'n Pontifex, you
know, all us whalers work off Lower California and across to the
islands 'fore going north--that is, we used to. Nowadays things
change. 'There's no tellin' at all,' says the Skipper, 'what kind of
a wind is rising these days.' And Skipper's right."
"You seem to like your skipper." Florence laughed. "Is he a nice
man?"
Ericksen's down-drawn left lip twitched as if in repression of a
grimace.
"Nice is as nice does, hey? I reckon he's all right, Miss Hathaway."
"Oh, you mustn't call me that any more," said the girl calmly, and
held out her hand. "Look at the present I got an hour ago!"
Ericksen's predatory eyes fastened upon the gold circlet. His face
whitened. Tom Dennis, watching intently, saw the man's lips open and
form a silent unspoken curse. In the light-blue eyes he read a
message of astounded incredulity, of passionate anger.
"You--you've been an' got spliced!" Ericksen, speaking hoarsely,
looked at Florence. His face changed suddenly. He plunged to his
feet and extended a horny hand across the table toward Dennis.
"Strike me blind!" he ejaculated. "Took me all of a heap, it did!
Well, sir, this is a surprise! And only an hour ago, you say?
Congratulations, and may you always have a fair course and a bone in
your teeth; aye, and a good cargo under hatches! Well, well--strike
me blind if I'd thought this was goin' to happen! We'll have a
bottle o' fizz-wine, hey? A toast all around--real weddin' dinner!
And to think o' me sittin' here with no present, nothin' but an
honest sailor-man's hearty good wishes to give--why, it fair breaks
me up!"
"Oh, we decided to make the trip West our honeymoon," said Tom
Dennis, with a smile at Florence. "It was too good a chance to miss,
Boatswain."
"Then--then you're going, hey? To-night?"
"Yes, Mr. Ericksen." Florence nodded. "And believe me, I'd sooner
have your good wishes than all the presents in the world! Good
wishes mean lots more, don't they?"
"Sometimes, miss. Ha--I mean, Mrs. Dennis--sometimes," assented
Ericksen solemnly. "And to think o' you springing it on me that
way--why, it took me all aback, it did!"
So the "fizz-wine" came and was drunk with many toasts.
In the course of the luncheon it developed that Florence was to spend
the afternoon packing for the trip, and would dine at the school in
order to save time. Tom Dennis, who had in view an endeavour to
secure orders for some special articles on the West from his former
newspaper editors, arranged to call for her in time to make the train
that night.
Ericksen insisted upon protracting the luncheon with a second bottle
of "fizz-wine" in honour of the occasion; afterward all three
departed, and separated at the Adams Street entrance to the "L",
where the newly-married couple said farewell to Boatswain Joe.
No sooner had they vanished up the stairway than Boatswain Joe made
all haste to his hotel. He found no message at the desk; but when he
entered his room he found Dumont awaiting him.
"You--here! What's up, Frenchy?"
Smilingly, Dumont extended him a note Ericksen seized it and examined
it with quick approval.
"It was very easily done, my friend," said Dumont, yawning sleepily.
"So I came here myself. You seem to be irritated, eh? What is the
matter?"
Ericksen gave vent to a full-blown curse.
"Matter enough! Here that swab has been and married her this
mornin'!"
Dumont's brows lifted. He uttered a long whistle.
"They are married! Well, Cap'n Pontifex, he will not like that, eh?"
"Blast it!" snarled Ericksen. "Don't you see what it means?"
"More or less," Dumont spat out the words with venom. "It means that
the Skipper promised me the girl, eh? And that now he will try----"
"You bloody fool!" roared Ericksen, smashing his big fist down on the
table. "Don't it mean squalls ahead of us all? Don't it mean that
instead of havin' her to deal with, now we have him too? Don't it
mean that he's signed up for a share in old Hathaway's leavin's? And
if we don't scuttle him, then he'll scuttle us!"
Dumont caressed his moustache, his dark yes narrowed and alert.
"_Mille tonnerre_!" he ejaculated slowly. "You are right. He is the
old man's son-in-law, eh? Ah, but you have the head, my friend! You
see the things, yes! And her signature would be no good, eh?"
Ericksen rammed tobacco into his pipe and held his peace for a
moment, until the briar was smoking.
"Now," he said shortly, "that train leaves to-night at one bell?"
"Eight and the half," assented Dumont with a nod.
"He's goin' to call for her about eight bells, see? He'll prob'ly be
in his room stowin' his dunnage bag about six bells. You have to
scuttle him, Frenchy--all proper. Open the sea-cocks and stand by
the ship till she's gone. No mistake!"
"And the madame?" queried Dumont. "Who will call for her?"
"I will. And this here note you've written----"
"Oh, now I understand!" Dumont chuckled softly. "You have the head,
my friend! Good. I must scuttle this fellow, eh? Well, it is for
all our sakes now. And by the way, I have taken a compartment, so
that I could keep my eye on the suitcase better. The Skipper said to
be careful. I had to buy another ticket."
Ericksen merely waved his hand carelessly. "You scuttle that swab,
Frenchy, and money won't cut no figure. So you'll carry the
suitcase, eh? Better send it down to the train ahead of you. 'Don't
get your lines tangled,' says the Skipper. You mind that! I'll
sleep with you in the compartment, eh? All right."
"All right," assented the other. "I'll send the suitcase down to the
train. Now see, my friend! Is it not humorous--what you call the
paradox? In order to make our little venture legal, we must first
keel a man! Is it not droll!"
Boatswain Joe thrust forward his head, and so terribly threatening
were his arrogant light-blue eyes that Dumont flinched a trifle.
"Never you mind your laughin'--it ain't time yet, Frenchy! You mind
your course, d'ye see? Fall off a couple o' points and things'll be
in a mess, see? You mind your course! You and me have big lays in
this thing. If it goes through all shipshape, we'll have money.
Now, you let her head fall off and there'll be trouble, see?"
Dumont spread out his hands, Gallic fashion.
"My friend," he said softly, "there is no need for threats. Me, I
know what to do. Me, I shall do it, so! But remember one thing,
you: on the train, you shall introduce me to the lady, so I shall
console her for the absent one. Eh?"
"Agreed!" Ericksen made an impatient gesture. "You're a dago and
you can't help settin' your course by a woman, I s'pose. But you
better watch out, Frenchy. This here one is married."
Dumont smiled. "I shall attend to that--to-night."