A RIDDLE NOT EASILY ANSWERED――THE “OLD PROVINCE.”
It was nearly ten o’clock in the evening. Gerald was in bed and asleep.
Mr. Hilliard was lying back in his leather arm-chair, his eyes resting
thoughtfully on the ceiling.
Opposite him, looking into his face, sat Philip.
“Well,” remarked his host, “here we have sat ever since dinner, going
over the whole affair from beginning to end! We’re not any closer to
solving some knots in it than we were when we started. Still, I fancy
we’ve guessed all that is necessary, my boy. You’re tired out. So am I.
What’s left gets the best of me completely. We’d better go to bed.”
“And what about your advertising, sir?”
“O, that must be attended to, of course; as soon as George comes, in
fact. It will not likely trace the scamp or make any difference, so
far as you and Gerald are concerned. It may protect me, though, if he
continues to sail under _my_ colors for any length of time.”
“You still think, sir, that he has no special designs against you?”
“Against _me_? Certainly not! He used my name simply because he
happens――I’d like to discover how!――to know enough about me to serve
his turn. I don’t know how long he has been acting me, I’m sure.”
“He must have some way of keeping your affairs before him, sir. Surely,
he knows the Ossokosee House and the people there very well indeed.”
“No, that don’t follow,” returned Mr. Hilliard. “He must have been
on the train longer than you think, and within ear-shot of you. Such
characters are amazingly clever in making a little knowledge go a great
way, and, besides, he drew more from you both with each sentence.
Didn’t he contrive, too, to get hold of my letter by that impudent
dodge? Mark my words, those torn pieces of handwriting will bring me a
fine forged check some day unless I take good care. My dear boy,” Mr.
Hilliard continued, less ruefully, “under the circumstances the rascal
had ten chances to your one, and it’s not strange you were bowled over.”
“But what was it all _for_?” cried Philip once again. “What object was
there for such a trick? But that brings us around just to where we
started.”
“My dear fellow,” rejoined Mr. Hilliard, rising and leaning on the back
of his great chair, “his object I don’t think was any worse than the
one we have decided upon. Surely, that is unfavorable enough to you,
too. He is a common sharper. There are hundreds of them all about the
country. He was coming on from B――――, where, I dare say, he had been
losing money. Sitting near you he heard you discuss this trip that you
are making. Every thing you said implied that you were going alone; and
that meant that one or the other of you carried a couple of hundred
dollars, or perhaps more――”
“We didn’t say a word about money.”
“But your whole look and conversation told him of your having it! Very
well, then; how to get it from you was the task before him. It was
simple for such a scamp, if he was lucky enough to be a little familiar
with my doings and gathered your references together. There are scores
of scoundrels in this big city, Philip, who make a business of becoming
versed in the looks, friends, history, every thing, of respectable men
on purpose to make use of their information to swindle other persons.”
“I’ve heard that,” said Philip, ruefully; “but I never expected to find
out how neatly it could be tried upon me.”
Mr. Hilliard laughed. Nobody expected it. “Of course, the mainspring of
his fraud was my failure to get aboard the train. After he was certain
that I had not kept to my plan he marched up to you. ‘Nothing venture,
nothing have,’ is the motto of a blackleg. The game was in his hands.
He must have dreaded my possible turning-up all the time he devoted
himself to you; but practice in such acting makes perfect. All his care
after the first instance lay in seeming perfectly at ease with you.
That most lucky falling into Mr. Fox’s cellar separated you and cut the
fraud short. He must have raged when he found that you failed to get
aboard the train!”
“There were other fellows on it,” said Philip. “In the crowd hurrying
to it when the whistle blew he probably took another couple that we
saw for Gerald and me. Otherwise, I believe, he would have jumped off.”
“By the time he found out his carelessness he couldn’t. However, if
he had met you in New York, my lad, and prevented your coming here
to me he could yet get hold of that money. Down at one or the other
passenger-station I don’t doubt that he hung about waiting for you.
We’ll find out if your telegrams were called for. George can go and ask
about that for us.”
“After we had met him in New York, sir, he would have robbed us?”
“Certainly, if he couldn’t manage it before. He could have taken you to
his quarters. (Likely they are handsome enough, as he said, and they
may be not far from where we sit to-night.) There he would have given
you, probably, a better supper than I have, added a dose to insure your
sleeping, robbed you, and found means to get rid of you, very likely
without injuring you, before morning.” (Mr. Hilliard did not choose
to suggest any other notion than that “very likely without injuring
you;” but he had others.) “He would contrive it so that you could never
have him traced out. It’s not a rare scheme, remember, though its bad
enough to think about.”
“Then it was just a clever plan to rob two boys?” Philip asked, tapping
his fingers on the table reflectively. Was he, or was he not, quite
satisfied of it?
“Positively. Nothing more romantic, I am sure,” responded Mr. Hilliard.
“I must say I think that sufficiently exciting to satisfy most people.
You will not be likely to hear of him again; I may.”
Mr. Hilliard touched his bell. George came in. “I shall want you to
mail these letters at once,” said his master; “and these must go by
hand to the newspaper-offices addressed.”
Each envelope contained a notice cautioning all persons against putting
any confidence in the pseudo Hilliard, whom the advertisement briefly
described, denouncing him in the usual form.
“Now for bed!” ejaculated the boys’ host as George vanished.
“Excitement has kept you from realizing how your journey has tired you.
I am glad that Gerald was so used up. There is no need to tell all our
disagreeable theories to so young a boy as he. We must try to get the
thing out of his head to-morrow.”
Philip said good-night and closed his door. Gerald lay sound asleep. He
stood beside the bed watching the younger boy’s regular breathing. He
did not know it, but such moments when he, as it were, struck a balance
between Gerald and himself, and appreciated how Gerald depended upon
him for society and care, were already moments that converted the manly
metal in Philip into finest steel to cleave and endure.
Next morning found them all up early and in great spirits. Breakfast
was eaten with lively chat on indifferent topics. Gerald was
successfully diverted from dwelling on yesterday’s mystery. George was
dispatched early to the down-town waiting-rooms, and came back with
the news that the messages Philip had telegraphed had been duly asked
for by a gentleman who waited about for a long time after he received
them. Philip and Mr. Hilliard exchanged glances. So the unknown sharper
had indeed expected his victims, and finally retired to parts unknown!
“Good-bye to him,” laughed Mr. Hilliard.
Ten o’clock came and the carriage. Philip had several errands to do
around busy Union Square. The tickets were already attended to; but
somehow time was lost. When they hurried down-town and swung around the
corner of the Bowling Green they discovered that they were scarcely
five minutes from the sailing of the _Old Province_.
As they rolled out upon the pier the black hull of the Halifax boat,
built for worthy ocean service, rose before them.
“They’ve rung the ‘all-ashore bell’ long ago, gentlemen! Be lively!”
called out one of the employees. They sprang out of the carriage and
hurried forward. “Halloa, there, wait a minute!” was shouted to the
deck-hands who were preparing to cast off the plank.
“Quick! That trunk there is for Halifax!” Mr. Hilliard called to the
baggage-men. The trunk was caught up and hustled off. “A minute in
time’s as good as an hour――good-bye, good-bye!” he gasped, helping
them up. “I wanted to give you some points about the custom-house
fellows and speak a good word to the captain for you, but I can’t.
I’ll telegraph Marcy that I saw you off nicely. I’m going West myself
to-morrow, you know. Good-bye, and _do_ take care of yourselves!” With
which Mr. Hilliard was fairly dragged down the plank by the impatient
ship’s people, talking to the very bottom of it, and unconsciously
quite a center of observation.
A moment later Philip and Gerald were waving their hands to him as
the _Old Province_ slipped along from the pier. Shall it be confessed
that even Philip felt something like loneliness steal into his breast
as he finally said, “Come, Gerald, let’s go and take a look at our
state-room.”
They made themselves comfortable outside for the afternoon. There did
not appear to be any considerable number of passengers. In fact, they
heard one of the officers remarking that “it was the shortest list they
had had during the season.” A dozen not very interesting commercial
travelers going back to the Provinces; as many New Yorkers bound north
on special errands; some quiet Nova Scotia people――these, with four or
five humble household groups that the boys soon classed as emigrants,
were all the travelers on the _Old Province_ for that trip. They soon
ceased to pay any attention to them, and they passed the long hazy
afternoon quite by themselves. The _Old Province_ steamed onward well
out at sea, with the coast a pale bluish line in the distance.
But as the afternoon closed they began to meet the tides that roll in
brusquely upon the New England inlets. A gray fog swept about the _Old
Province_, and what with a strong swell and a bluff wind that drove the
mist thicker around them, the steamer took to rolling quite too much
for comfort. Darkness came on. The saloon twinkled with its lights in
pleasant contrast to the gloom outside. Gerald, before supper, found
out that he was――for the first time in his life――a particularly bad
sailor.
“I――I think I’d better go and lie down,” he said, a good deal ashamed
of his uneasiness. “I never was sick on our yacht, and I don’t believe
I shall be now; but my head feels pretty topsy-turvy.”
So Philip got him into his berth. There was soon no occasion for Gerald
to blush. Not a few of the other passengers promptly found out the
rolling of the _Old Province_. They sought the seclusion which their
cabins granted. The fog thickened. The steamer slackened up and plowed
along at half-speed, blowing her hoarse fog-whistle. Philip went alone
to supper.
He found only two thirds of those on board, besides some of the
steamer’s officers, scattered about the tables. As he sat down the
captain, hurrying by, suddenly turned toward him.
“Is your little messmate under the weather?” he asked, abruptly, but
not unkindly.
“Yes, sir.”
“In his berth? Quite the best place for him! Your brother, I suppose?
No? H’m! I’ll try to have a little talk with you both later.”
With which Captain Widgins walked away, leaving Touchtone decidedly
surprised at this unexpected attentiveness, which he set down to the
rather public style in which he and Gerald had come aboard.
He had to concentrate all his faculties on his unsteady plate. At last
he pushed back his chair and wiped away the water dashed out of his
glass into his face as he tried to secure a parting swallow. He looked
across to a remote table. Two gentlemen sat there; a pillar partially
hid them. But one of them was now in full sight and staring at him.
Philip nearly let fall his napkin. Those frank eyes of his met the now
impudent dark ones of the “Mr. Hilliard” of Youngwood. As he looked at
the man, asking himself if he were not deceived, “Mr. Hilliard” bowed
politely to him, and then went on sipping his tea.
Philip told Gerald――a long time afterward――that once he had cut in
two with his scythe a black snake coiled about a nest of unfledged
cat-birds in a bush, evidently making up its mind which to devour first.
“I assure you the snake and that man looked exactly alike!” was
Philip’s comparison.