The Fee, red-haired, freckle-faced boy, who had become a member of the
Colton household as the blind man’s only pay for solving a particularly
baffling murder case, eased his plaster-encircled arm on the rail of the
_Carracas_, and watched with all the power of his round blue eyes the
lowering of the big cage on the forward deck. As it swung for an instant
on a level with the promenade deck on which they stood, the boy caught a
glimpse of the shaggy animal under the canvas protecting-hood that
covered the top and fitted tightly halfway down the sides.
“Gee, Mister Colton, it’s certain’y got some claws on its feet!”
observed the boy admiringly. A hitch of the rope jarred the cage, and
brought forth a deep growl that could be heard above the creaking of
ropes and the squeaky wheels of the stevedores’ trucks as they rushed
the last few cases of freight on deck. “There she bumps!” cried the boy
as the cable touched the deck.
Then came a shriek of pain. “Gee whiz!” gasped the boy, and the blind
man’s cane felt him jump a foot. “One of the workin’men bent down to get
the rope off the bottom of the cage, and the bear reached under the
canvas, tore his arm with its claws. Darn it, but he’s wicious!”
The bawling voice of an officer broke in: “Here, you men that own that
bear! Unsling the cage!”
Three ragged, dark-skinned men jumped to the cage, and unslung the
tackle ropes without arousing even a deep-throated growl from the
animal.
The tense look left Thornley Colton’s face as he heard the block slip to
the deck, and for the first time in hours there came the slightest trace
of satisfaction in the curve of the thin lips. He was right! Once more
he had risked everything on his judgment and his wonderful mental
ability to find logic in seeming chaos by following to their end the
mind processes of men against whom he was pitted.
The proof had come with the shriek of the clawed stevedore. Thornley
Colton’s whole mind had been concentrated to catch one other sound among
the multitude of noises. He had heard it and recognised it--the musical
clink of glass on glass--the ring of a goblet! That had been the thing
that had aroused the fury of the bear at exactly the instant that the
workman was within reach of the tearing claws. That was the thing that
had sent Dryden F. Nelson’s daughter to jail, and had caused Sydney
Thames to renounce the man who loved him.
“I’ll bet nobody but them guys that own the bear’ll go near him after
this,” observed the boy sagely.
“I don’t think they will,” the blind man said grimly. “Let’s take a walk
around.”
The boy’s eyes squinted along the deck from his feet to the rail at the
other side. “It’s ten steps,” he calculated. “They’s a man an’ a fat
woman five ahead lookin’ down at the front deck, an’ at the other rail
there’s a guy in a chair readin’ a paper. Yuh gotta step out a bit for
him.”
“All right,” nodded the blind man, as he started.
The boy walked at his side, and he avoided the man and the woman, but
his foot seemed to slip at the steamer chair, and he fell sprawling into
the lap of the seated man, sending the thin glass he had held in his
hands behind the paper in a hundred pieces to the deck.
“What the devil!” snapped the hoarse voice of the man, as he angrily
brushed away the sparks of fire that had fallen on his coat when the
black-brown cigarette had fallen from his lips.
Instantly Colton was on his feet, apologising. “I am blind; I made a
false step,” he said contritely.
“Oh, all right,” growled the man ungraciously.
The problemist started again on his walk. The grim lines had returned
around his thin-lipped mouth, but there was no other change in the blind
man’s expression, not even triumph. Yet he had located the man he
wanted; the man who had fooled the entire secret service of the country
for months! Reasoning had done it; the pure eliminative reasoning that
was made possible by his lack of sight. The man into whose lap he had
just fallen was the one who had aroused the bear’s anger with the tap of
his glass. He was the man whose pectoral cigarette papers and tobacco
had scented the closet at the Nelson home. And he had recently handled a
bear!
As his brain worked at lightning speed behind his high, white forehead,
the blind man walked with the boy aimlessly around the decks, hardly
hearing Shrimp’s delighted chatter. The _Carracas_ was in mid-stream
now, her nose pointed toward the Narrows. Most of the passengers had
gone to their state-rooms, and the steam hissed from the winch cylinders
forward as the last pieces of cargo were lowered into the hold. The
blind man’s ears were strained to catch each sound, or suspicion of
sound that would tell him the things he could not see, and his brain
counted the steps, measuring distance, memorising directions as years of
training had taught it to do. Suddenly Colton realised that some one was
following them, watching every move. A growingly familiar furtive
footstep every little while as the shadow quickly dodged, whiffs of the
Brazilian tobacco smoke wafted to his nostrils on sudden gusts of wind,
told him more than eyes could have told. His fall, crude because of its
necessity, had aroused the other man’s suspicion.
“Show me our stateroom, Shrimp,” he said finally. “Then you can come up
on deck again. I’ll remember all the steps.”
“Gee!” grinned the boy, in huge relief. “I’m glad I don’t have to stay
down there. I wanta watch that little yacht that’s comin’ out.”
Colton nodded. He knew why the “little yacht” was coming out. He knew
she should be flying a flag with perpendicular red stripes--the flag of
the revenue service. And he knew that on board her was Chief Whittson
and his men, who awaited his signal.
The boy proudly opened the door of the little white room, and Colton
closed it behind him. “Wait a minute, Shrimp,” he said quietly. From his
pocket he took a memorandum book and pencil. For a minute he wrote, then
he handed the torn-out leaf to the boy, who read, with widening eyes:
If you miss me for fifteen minutes, or see me on deck with the
man I fell over, run to the wireless house and give the operator
this message: John Jones, 56 Cedar Street, New York. Close.