Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not
athirst for information; but to be quite fair, we must admit
that superior reticence is a good deal due to lack of matter.
Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily
brood over a full nest.--GEORGE ELIOT--(_Felix Holt_).
It did not take Detective Dearborn long to find out that Jack had
engaged a cab early in the morning and had then removed some luggage
from his rooms. This confirmed him in the idea that the crime had been a
carefully planned one. But his trouble lay in not being able to find the
driver of the cab. This man had driven off somewhere on a trip that took
him apparently out of town, and Dearborn began to wonder whether Jack
had been driven to some neighboring town, so as to proceed in a less
conspicuous way by some railway.
Late at night, however, Jehu turned up at his own house very drunk. The
horses had brought him home without being driven. He had been down at
Leslieville all day, with some "sports," who were enjoying a
pigeon-shooting match at that place, and who had retained cabby at
regulation rates and all he could drink--a happy day for him. Dearborn
found he could tell him nothing about the occurrence of the morning of
the same day, or where he had gone with Jack's valises; so, perforce, he
had to let him sleep it off till morning.
The first rational account the detective could get out of him was at ten
o'clock on the morning following. He then found out why the valises had
not been seen at the railway stations, or at any of the usual points of
departure. The caretaker of the yacht club could only tell him, when he
called, that Mr. Cresswell had been at the club somewhere about noon the
day before, and had gone away in his boating-clothes, rowing east round
the head of the wharf close by.
"I must tell you," said Dearborn to the caretaker, "that Mr. Cresswell's
friends are alarmed at his absence and have sent me to look after him.
Would you know the boat he went in if you saw it?"
"Oh, yes. I handle it frequently, in one way and and another. I painted
it for him last spring."
"Well, if you don't mind making a dollar, I'd be glad if you would walk
along the docks and help me find it."
"Come along," said the caretaker. "There is nothing to do here, at this
hour, but watch the club-house, and I certainly can't make an extra
dollar doing that. We'll call it two dollars if I find the boat, seeing
as how I'm dragged off from duty."
"All right," said Dearborn, who had _carte blanche_ for expenses from
the bank.
They walked off together at a good pace.
"You say that none of the yachts left the harbor yesterday?"
"No. There they are, over there, every one of them."
"Well, what size was the skiff he went off in?"
"An ordinary fourteen-foot shooting-skiff. One of old Rennardson's. You
mind old Rennardson? He built a handy boat, did the old man."
"Could it cross the lake?"
"Well it could, perhaps, on six days in the week, in summer. Perhaps on
the seventh the best handling in the world wouldn't save her. But they
are a fine little boat, for all that I've crossed the bay myself in them
when there was an all-fired sea runnin'."
"Could it have crossed the lake yesterday?"
"I don't think Mr. Cresswell would be such a fool as to try. Perhaps he
could have done it if anybody could. But risks for nothing ain't his
style. Not but what he'll run his chances when the time comes. You
should have seen him bring in that Ideal last fall, in the race I sailed
with him. The wind sprung up heavy in the afternoon. Lord! it was a
sight to see that boat come in to the winnin' buoy with the mast hanging
over her bows like a Greek fruiter. You see, he had the wind dead after
him, blowin' heavy, and he'd piled rags on to her, wings and all, till
she was in a blind fury and goin' through it like a harpooned whale. The
owner was a-standing by him a-watchin' for everythin' to carry out of
her. 'Jack,' says he, 'she can't do it. The backstays won't do the
work.' 'Slack them up, then, four inches, and let the mast do its own
part of the work,' says Mr. Cresswell. And he kept on easin' backstays
to give fair play all round, till the mast was hangin' forward like a
cornstalk; but I'm dummed if he'd lift a rag on her till she passed the
gun. Perhaps you don't care for that sort of thing. I follered the sea
myself formerly. Lord! it was immense, that little sail! And thirty
seconds ain't a great deal to win on. Nothin' but bull-head grit would
ha' done it."
Mr. Dearborn was not much comforted by all this talk. Cresswell might
have crossed the lake in his skiff. Evidently he was a man who would do
it if he wished. They continued their search on every wharf and through
every boat-house, which occupied a good deal of time.
Suddenly, near Yonge Street wharf, the caretaker said: "Give us your two
dollars, mister. There's the skiff on the deck of the stone-hooker."
Inquiries soon showed that Jack had gone off on the schooner North Star
to Oswego, and then Mr. Dearborn began to look grave. The schooner had
got a long start. He was well acquainted with all different routes to
different places, and he finally decided to go on the Eleusinian by
water to Oswego. Possibly he might be able to come across the schooner
in the lake before she arrived at Oswego, and bribe the captain to land
him and his prisoner on Canadian soil, where his warrant would be good.
He had still half an hour to spare, so he dashed off in a cab to the
chief's office, and wired the Oswego police to arrest Jack, on the
arrival of the North Star, on the charge of bringing stolen money into
the States.
Of course, Dearborn knew he could not extradite Jack from Oswego for his
offense, but he thought that after being locked up the money could be
scared out of him, when he found that he could get a long sentence in
the States on the above charge, which Dearborn knew could be proved if
the stolen bills were found in his possession.
If Geoffrey had known what the able Mr. Dearborn had ferreted out, and
what his plans were, he would have felt more uneasy.
As the afternoon wore on, it was interesting to watch two very
unconcerned people at the bow of the upper deck of the Eleusinian. The
steamer was making excellent time--plowing into the eye of the wind with
all the power that had so nearly dragged the life out of the poor Ideal
in the preceding summer. Nina was sitting in an arm-chair, cushioned
into comfort by the assiduous second officer, who found that his duties
much required his presence in that portion of the boat where Nina
happened, to be. She was sitting, looking through the spyglasses from
time to time at every sail that hove in sight, and seeming disinclined
to leave the deck.
Mr. Dearborn was tempting providence by smoking a cigar close by. The
steamer went almost too fast to pitch much, but there was a decided rise
and fall at the bows. He noticed that the officer suggested to Nina that
by sitting further aft she would escape some of the motion, and that she
declined the change, saying she liked the breeze and was a good sailor.
Once they passed close to a vessel with three masts. Dearborn had
ascertained, before leaving, that the North Star had only two masts, so
he was not anxious. Nina, however, knew nothing about the rig of the
North Star, and she was up standing beside the bulwarks gazing intently
through the binoculars at the crew. She seemed disappointed when she
lowered the glasses, and Dearborn began to wonder whether this was "the
woman in the case." He afterward watched her as she attempted to read a
novel, and noticed that she continually stopped to scan the horizon.
Still, nearly every person does this, more or less, and his idea rather
waned again as he thought that this was quite too fine a person to
bother her head about a poor bank-clerk--such a man as he was hunting.
Mr. Dearborn, perhaps owing to the peculiar formation of his jaw,
generally lost all idea of the respectability of a man as soon as he got
on his trail. He might have the benefit of all doubts in his favor
until the warrant for his arrest was placed in Mr. Dearborn's hands.
After that, as a rule, the individual, whether acquitted or not at his
subsequent trial, took no high stand in Mr. Dearborn's mind. If
acquitted, it was only the result of lawyers' trickery; not on account
of innocence. Men who ought to know best say that if a prize-fighter
wishes to win he must actually hate his antagonist--must fight to really
kill him; and that only when he is entirely disabled is it time enough
to hope that he will not die. Mr. Dearborn, similarly, had that tenacity
of purpose that made every attempt at escape seem to double the
culprit's guilt, and in a hard capture this supplied him with that
"gall" which could meet and overcome the desperate courage of a man at
bay.
Soon another schooner loomed up in the moist air of the east wind, and,
when the hull was visible, Mr. Dearborn approached Nina and said:
"Would you oblige me, madame, by allowing me to look through your
glasses?"
"Certainly," said Nina; "they belong to the ship--not to me."
Dearborn took a long look at the approaching vessel. The North Star had
been described to him as having a peculiar cut-away bow, and the vessel
coming across their track had a perpendicular bow.
Nina then looked through the glasses intently, and for a moment they
stood beside each other.
"I wonder why all the vessels seem to be crossing our track, instead of
going in our direction," she said to quiet-looking Mr. Dearborn.
"I don't know much about sailing, miss. But I know that vessels can't
sail straight into the wind. They seesaw backward and forward, first one
way and then the other. How they get up against the wind I could never
understand. They are like lawyers, I think. They see a point ahead of
them, and they just beat about the bush till they get there. Some of
these things are hard to take in."
Nina smiled.
"A good many of these vessels," added Mr. Dearborn, while he watched his
fair companion, "are going to Oswego."
"Oh, indeed!" said Nina, unconsciously brightening.
"And the wind is ahead for that trip," said Dearborn.
"Is it?"
Nina had been round Lake Ontario in a yacht, and she had had an English
boarding-school finish. She could have told the general course of the
Ganges or the Hoang-ho, but she had no idea in what direction she was
going on her own lake to Oswego. In English schools Canada is a land not
worth learning about, and where hardly any person would live
voluntarily. People go about chiefly on snow-shoes, and it is easy in
most places to kill enough game for dinner from your own doorstep.
"Yes, it would take a sailing vessel a long time, I should think, to get
to Oswego."
"How long do you suppose?" asked Nina.
"I don't really know. It depends on the vessel. I suppose a smart yacht
could do it in a pretty short time. That Toronto yacht, the Ideal, I
suppose, could--"
"Oh, you know the Ideal?"
"No. She was pointed out to me once. They say she's a rare one to go,
and no mistake. That young fellow, Treadwell, that sails her--they say
he is one of the finest yachtsmen in Canada."
"Oh," said Nina, laughing and blushing. It was funny to hear this quiet
stranger praising Jack. She felt proud of his small glory.
"Yes," said Dearborn, rubbing his forehead, as if trying to recollect.
"That's his name--Treadwell. However, it does not matter."
"Not at all," said Nina. She was somewhat more on her guard now against
strangers since her experience with the Rev. Matthew Simpson. But
evidently this man did not even know Jack's name, and did not want to
know it for any reason.
Dearborn was hanging "off and on," as sailors say, thinking that if she
knew anything about this Cresswell she would perhaps give him a lead.
Not getting any lead, he muttered half aloud, by way of coming back to
the point:
"Treadwell--Treadwell--no--that's not the name." Then aloud. "It's
provoking when one can not remember a name, madame."
He then fell to muttering other similar sounding names, and Nina could
not refrain from smiling at his stupid, mild way of bothering himself
about what was clearly no use to him.
"Ah! I have it! What a relief it is to succeed in a little thing like
that! Cresswell. That's the name!"
The air of triumph on the mild-eyed man was amusing, and Nina laughed
softly to herself.
He turned from gazing over the water and saw her laughing. Then he
smiled, too, as if he wished to join in, if there was anything to laugh
at.
"You are amused, madame. Perhaps you know this gentleman quite well--and
are laughing at my stupidity?"
"I ought to," said Nina, unable to resist the temptation to paralyze
this well-behaved person of the middle classes. "I am his wife." And she
laughed heartily at her little joke.
If ever a man did get a surprise it was detective Dearborn. For a bare
instant, it threw him off his guard. He saw too much all at once. Here
was the woman who perhaps had all the $50,000 on her person. He tried to
show polite surprise and pleasure at the intelligence; but it was too
late. For an instant he had looked keen. Comparatively, Nina was
brighter nowadays. Danger and deception had sharpened her faculties. She
was thoughtless enough, certainly, to mention who she was; but she did
not see any reason why she should not. She might as well call herself
Mrs. Cresswell now as when she got to Oswego, where she would have to do
so. Mr. Dearborn had gone almost as far in self-betrayal. He longed for
a warrant to arrest her, and get the money from her, but he said in his
subdued, abstracted sort of way:
"How strange that is! No wonder you laugh! However, I said nothing
against him--quite the contrary--and that is always a comfort when we
feel we have been putting our foot in it. I was wondering, Mrs.
Cresswell, who you were. It seemed to me I had seen you on the street in
Toronto."
He spoke very politely. No one could take any exception to this tone.
Even when he made the following remark it did not seem very much more
than the ordinary growth of a chance conversation among travelers. He
added:
"Let me see--a? Your maiden name was--a?" He raised his eyebrows with
would-be polite inquiry; but it did not work. He had looked keen for the
tenth part of a second, and now he might as well go in and rest himself
for the remainder of the night.
Nina drooped her eyelids coldly.
"I do not know that that is a matter of any consequence."
She gave a little movement, as if she drew herself to herself, and she
leisurely returned the glasses to their case.
Mr. Dearborn saw he had got his _conge_, and he wanted to kill himself.
He felt rather awkward, and could not think of the right thing to say.
The writer of Happy Thoughts has not provided mankind with the best
reply to a snub that comes "straight from the shoulder." Even a
Chesterfield may be unequal to the occasion.
"I hope you will not think me inquisitive?" he said lamely.
"Not at all," said Nina quickly. She slightly inclined her head, without
looking at him, as she moved away to her chair--not wishing to appear
too abrupt.
She sat there wondering who this man was, and thinking she had been
foolish to say anything about herself. The evening came on chill, windy,
and foggy, and she grew strangely lonely. She had got the idea that this
man was watching her. It made her very nervous and wretched. She longed
for some strong friend to be with her--some one on whom she could rely.
Everything had conspired to depress her in the past few weeks. She had
now left her home and a kind father--never to return. She was out in the
world, with no one to look to but Jack. This would be a long night for
her, she thought. She was too nervous to go to sleep. She felt so tired
of all the unrest of her life. What would she not give to have all her
former chances back before her again! How she longed for the mental
peace she had known until lately. Oh, the fool she had been! the
wickedness of it all! How she had been forced from one thing to another
by the consequences of her fault! She was terribly wretched, poor girl,
as the evening wore on. She went to her cabin and undressed for bed. She
said her prayers kneeling on the damp carpet. She prayed for Jack's
safety and for her own, and for the man who assisted her to all her
misery. Still her despair and forlornness weighed upon her more and
more. The sense of being entirely alone, without any protection from a
nameless fear, which the idea of being watched all day by an unknown man
greatly increased; the terrible doubt about everything in the
future--all this culminated in an absolute terror. She lay in bed and
tried to pray again, and then an idea she acquired when a child came to
her, that prayers were unavailing unless said while kneeling on the hard
floor. In all her terror, the conviction of wickedness almost made her
faint, and to make things worse, she got those awful words into her
head, "the wages of sin is death," and she could not get them out.
Yielding to the idea that her prayers would be better if said kneeling,
she climbed out panic-stricken to the cold floor, which chilled her to
the bone, and terrified by the words ringing in her head she almost
shrieked aloud:
"O God, take those words away from me! O God, thou knowest I have
suffered! O God, I am terrified! I am alone. O God, protect me! Forgive
me all things, for I do repent."
Here she felt that if she prayed any more she would be hysterical and
beyond her own control. She crept back into bed; but all she could think
of until she dropped to sleep, exhausted, was, "The wages of sin is
death--The wages of sin--is _Death_."