READY FOR THE SEA
Ridgeway, his nerves tense and his eyes gleaming, marched his thoroughly
chilled companion up to the bar. He manoeuvred so that the plain-clothes
man stood with his back toward the door, and he seemed to be in no
especial haste to attract the attention of the bartender. As they gave
their order for drinks, Hugh saw Grace, in his mind's eye, slipping from
the carriage and off into the crowd--and every fibre of his heart was
praying for success to attend her flight. He found himself talking
glibly, even volubly to the watcher, surprised that he could be doing it
with his mind so full of other thoughts.
"Awful night to be out. I'd hate to have a job like yours," he was
rattling on, heaving intermittent breaths of relief as he saw the size
of the drink the other was pouring out for himself.
"I've been at it for twelve years. I don't mind anything just so it
helps to make a comfortable home for the old lady and the kids."
"Ah, the kids," said Hugh, grasping at the subject as if it were the
proverbial straw. "How I love kids! How many have you?"
"Four. The oldest is ten."
"They're worth working for, I'll bet. Nothing like children. How many
have you?"
"Four," said the officer, looking at him in surprise.
"I'm a little deaf," explained Hugh, recovering himself quickly. "I
thought you said ten."
"No; the oldest is ten. Yes; they're worth slaving for. I've hung onto
this job all these years just because it might go hard with 'em if I
gave it up and tried something else."
Hugh looked into the sober, serious face and a lump flew to his throat.
It struck him as probable that this man was to lose his position the
next morning. A sort of pity assailed Ridgeway for an instant, but he
put it away resolutely.
After all, he had Grace to think of and not the children of the
plain-clothes man.
They had a second drink and it fired his brain with a gleeful desire for
action. The plain-clothes man shivered as he swallowed the fiery stuff.
He looked thin and haggard and ill, a condition which Hugh, in his
hatred, had failed to observe until this moment.
"You certainly have a home and some money saved up by this time," he
said, trying to suppress the eager gleam in his eyes.
"We've had lots of sickness and it's taken nearly everything. Besides,
I've been too d---- honest. It's my own fault that I haven't a big wad
put away."
"What is your name?" demanded Hugh suddenly.
"Friend."
"I understand all that. But what is your name?"
"That's it--George Friend--Street Station."
"Oh, I see." Hugh also saw the picture of this poor fellow as he stood
before his superior later on with his luckless tale, facing a
thirty-days' lay-off at the lowest. "By the way, I want to write a short
note." He secured envelope, paper and stamp from the bar and hastily
wrote a brief letter. The inscription on the outside of the envelope was
"George Friend,--Police Station, New York," and there were three
one-hundred-dollar bills inclosed with the note of explanation. "I'll
mail it later," he said. "Come on."
They went forth into the rain, Hugh's blood leaping with excitement, the
plain-clothes man shivering as if he were congealing. Mr. Ridgeway
dashed across the pavement and peered into the cab. Grace was not there,
just as he had hoped and expected.
"The lady's in the drug-store below, sir," announced the cabman.
"Wait here" called Hugh to the plain-clothes man. "I'm afraid she's ill.
She's gone to the drug-store." He hurried toward the drug-store as the
officer began to question the driver. A second later Mr. Ridgeway turned
the corner and was off like the wind toward Sixth Avenue. Turning into
an alley, he fled southward, chuckling to himself as he splashed through
the puddles and mudholes. He heard shouts in the distance and he did not
decrease his speed until he neared the street opening below. There he
ran into some one and fell. Besmeared and bespattered, he quickly
picked himself up; and when, a moment later, he gained the sidewalk, no
one would hardly have recognized in the dilapidated-looking creature the
dapper Hugh Ridgeway. Police whistles were calling behind him, nearer
and nearer, but he walked boldly out into the street and up to Sixth
Avenue. His nerves were tingling and his breathing was hard to control
after the mad dash through the alley, but he slouched along in the lee
of the buildings to escape the downpour, stopping near the corner.
Suddenly he rushed out and hailed a passing cab, climbed inside and gave
orders to drive as quickly as possible to the Twenty-third Street Ferry.
Then he sat up boldly and stared forth with all the courage that his
escape inspired.
"By Jove," he was shouting inwardly, "that poor devil was on my heels.
He looked hard as he hustled past, but I stared back just as hard. It
took nerve to face him. Hang it all, I'm sorry for him. He wasn't to
blame. But this letter will cheer him up. It's for the kids if anything
happens to him."
Apparently changing his mind at Herald Square, he instructed the driver
to go down Thirty-fifth Street to Eighth Avenue and drop him at the
corner. After leaving the cab he ventured into an all-night shop and
bought a cheap raincoat, slouch hat and umbrella. Then, like a thief, he
stole forth and warily made his way toward the dock. It was bad going
and he hailed a second cab. Before climbing into it, he crossed and
dropped an envelope into the mailbox.
"There," he muttered, "that helps my conscience. By Jove, this has been
a corking start for the adventure. Talk about dime novels!"
He instructed the driver to take him to a point not far from the dock, a
precaution which suddenly invested itself. It would be wise to approach
the liner by stealth, taking no chances. They were sailing by one of the
obscure lines, not for economy's sake, but to avoid possible contact
with friends of their own class.
As he rattled off through the night, huddled back in the blackness of
the cab, Hugh began to have the first pangs of uneasiness. The
distressing fear that all had not gone well with Grace flooded his brain
with misgivings and feverish doubts. A clock in a shop window told him
it was nearly ten o'clock. He was cursing himself for permitting her to
rush off alone in a night like this, into a quarter that reeked with
uncertainty and disorder. Vague horrors presented themselves to his
distressed mind; calamity stared at him from the mouth of every dark
alley; outrage, crime, misfortune, danced in every shadow. As for
himself, he was a sorry sight and enough to frighten Grace into
convulsions at one glance. Rain-soaked, muddy, bedraggled, it was not
the débonnaire Chicagoan of old who skulked away from the cab at a
certain black corner and made his way stealthily, even fearfully, toward
the distant dock.
Every sound startled and alarmed him; every pedestrian looked like a
pursuer in plain clothes or blue. A couple of policemen eyed him sharply
and he trembled in his boots. The sudden, overpowering recollection that
he had the passage tickets in his pockets with the reservations and the
luggage checks almost sent him flying through the air, so swift was his
pace. He lost his way twice, but was set straight by unsuspecting
bluecoats.
At last he zigzagged his way through devious channels and into the
presence of a company's official, who informed him that Miss Ridge had
not gone aboard nor had she presented herself at the dock during the
evening. Hugh's jaw dropped and a sick, damp perspiration started on his
forehead. Hardly knowing what he did, he went aboard and plied his
questions right and left, hoping that she might have come through
unobserved. But she was not there, and it was half past ten o'clock.
Out into the drizzle he sallied once more, racked by a hundred doubts
and misgivings. Reproaching himself fiercely for a fool, a dolt, he
posted himself at the approach to the dock and strained his eyes and
ears for the first sight of Grace Vernon. Other people went aboard, but
an hour passed before he gave up all hope and distractedly made up his
mind to institute a search for the missing girl. He conjectured all
manner of mishaps, even to the most dreadful of catastrophes. Runaway
accident, robbery, abduction, even murder harassed his imagination until
it became unbearable. The only cheerful alternative that he could hope
for was that she might not have escaped the authorities after all and
was still in custody, crushed and despairing. Reviling himself with a
bitterness that was explicit but impotent, he started off resolutely to
seek the aid of the police--the last extremity.
A quick little shriek came to his ears, and then the door of a cab that
had been standing at the opposite corner flew open.
"Hugh! Hugh!" called a shrill voice. His heart gave a wild leap and then
his long legs did the same--repeatedly. As he brought up beside the cab,
Grace Vernon tumbled out, sobbing and laughing almost hysterically.
"Good Heavens!" shouted he, regardless of the driver, who grinned
scornfully from his private box above, the only witness to this most
unconventional comedy of circumstances.
"I've been--been here an hour--in this cab!" she cried plaintively. "Oh,
oh, oh! You'll never know how I felt all that time. It seemed a year.
Where did you get those awful-looking clothes, and--"
"What--aw--oh, the coat? Great Jehoshaphat! You don't mean to say
that--"
"I thought you were a detective!" she sobbed. "Oh, how wretched I've
been. Pay the man, dear, and take me--take me any place where there is
light. I'm dying from the sight and sound of this awful night."
Mr. Ridgeway lost no time in paying the driver and getting her on board
the _Saint Cloud_. She tried to explain as they hurried along, but he
told her there was time enough for that.
"We may be watched, after all," he said, looking anxiously in all
directions, a habit that had grown upon him to such an extent that he
feared it would cling to him through life. "Go to your stateroom,
dearest, and I'll send you something hot to drink. Good Heavens, what an
eternity it has been! Oh, if you could only know what I've been
calling myself!"
"I'm ashamed to admit it, dear, but _I've_ been calling you things, too.
And I've been so worried about you. How did you get away from that man?"
"Not now, dear. I'll meet you out here in the library in half an hour.
I'll see about the luggage."
"You must change your clothes, Hugh. You're frightfully wet. Send my
small trunk and bag right up, dear."
Like a thief and murderer, Hugh slunk out and attended to the trunks and
bags, watching all the time for the dreaded plain-clothes man and his
cohorts, trembling with a nervous fear so unbecoming in a strong man
that the baggage master smiled in derision and imagined he was looking
upon a "greenie" who was making his first voyage and was afraid of the
sea. Offering up a prayer of thankfulness, he bolted into his own
stateroom soon afterward and came forth later on in dry clothes and a
new frame of mind. He was exuberant, happy once more.
They did not look like brother and sister as they sat on one of the
wide sofas and drank the toddy that came from below in charge of a
well-feed steward.
"Be careful, dear!" he warned, with returning reason. "They'll think
we're bride and groom."
"Oh, dear me," she lamented. "It is almost out of the question to act
like brother and sister after all we've been through to-night."
"Now, tell me all about it. How did it all work out for you," he asked
eagerly.
"Well, it was all very simple--although I was frightened half to
death--until I drove up to the spot where you saw me a little while ago.
I thought it would be wise to take a look around before I tried to go
aboard. Just as I left the cab a man rushed past me and I flew back into
my seat like a bullet. He was a tall, slouchy fellow, with a sly look.
All at once it came to me that he was a detective. You know, they're
always mysterious looking. So I stayed in the cab trying to think what
to do next. I was quite sure you had not yet arrived, for I had come
down as quickly as possible. And I wasn't real sure, either, that you
had escaped. I didn't know how many drinks it might take, dear."
"Don't let me forget to tell you how sorry I was for Mr. Plain Clothes
and what I did afterward for the kids," interposed Hugh.
"The kids?"
"Yes. His."
"Oh, I see. Well, pretty soon that awful man came out and stood at the
corner. He was waiting for some one. He was nervous and sleuth-like. He
acted so queerly that I was sure of it. He was after you and me. Of
course, I nearly fainted. All the time I was afraid you would run right
into his arms, so I was watching from both windows to warn you if
possible. My plan was to get you into the cab and drive away like mad.
Hours passed, it seemed to me, and--"
"I know the rest!" he cried, laughing so loud that the steward looked up
reprovingly.
"Is everything ready, Hugh?" she asked anxiously. "The trunks, the
tickets,--everything?"
"Yes, dear," he said tenderly, soberly. "We are ready for the sea."
"God be with us," she said wistfully.