A Suspicious Intruder
Guy made mental note of one peculiarity in Mr. Gunseyt; the tone of his
voice was slightly strained, and the fluency of his speech seemed to
have been accomplished after long practiced effort to overcome a
difficulty of some kind. The boy was unable to explain this to his own
satisfaction. He could not convince himself that it was due entirely to
a natural impediment or physical defect.
In the afternoon Guy made the acquaintance of an interesting, tall,
square-built, large-featured man in the gymnasium. The latter introduced
himself as Henry Watson of Cincinnati. They played handball together for
more than an hour.
“I was sitting a few feet away from you and that fellow Gunseyt while
you were talking wireless with him,” Watson remarked during one of their
resting periods. “He had quite a stunning story to tell, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he had,” Guy agreed. “I’m going in and have a look at his outfit
the first opportunity.”
“Did he tell you what business he’s in?” asked Watson.
“No, he didn’t; I felt like asking him, but checked my curiosity.”
At the close of their last game they sat down and continued their talk
along other lines.
“Been traveling on the continent?” inquired Watson.
“No; we were in London all the time,” replied Guy. “I was having my eyes
treated.”
“Where did you stop?”
“At the Morley hotel.”
“Is that so?” said Watson with a shade of surprise. “I have a friend
living there—Smithers is his name. Didn’t happen to meet him, did you?”
“The jeweler? Yes, I met him, got well acquainted with him. Very
accommodating fellow.”
“Yes, he’s a jolly old bachelor,” replied Watson meditatively. “I’ve
known him for ten years, more or less, I’m in the wholesale jewelry
business and have had occasion to visit London and Paris and one or two
other European cities every year, except during the war.”
After exercising a while in the gym, they visited the shower baths and
then returned to the promenade deck. There they separated, and soon
afterward Guy came upon Mr. Gunseyt lounging alone in one of the
sheltered corners. His hat was tipped slightly over his eyes and he
looked as if he was on the verge of a doze.
“Hello, my young radio friend,” he called out, sitting up straight as he
caught sight of the boy. “When are you coming in to have a look at my
wireless?”
“Any time you say,” answered Guy.
“Come on now.”
“All right.”
They went to Gunseyt’s stateroom, and there Guy found the man’s
receiving set apparently all that it was represented to be. The
cabineted outfit was mounted on a table, near which was a collapsible
frame standard supporting a rather elaborate loop antenna. The owner of
this outfit gave his guest a more or less learned lecture on its strong
points of usefulness, and invited the boy to “listen in” a few minutes.
Then they returned to the sheltered corner where Guy had found Gunseyt
in a mood of mid-day drowsiness.
There they sat down and engaged in a rambling conversation on subjects
incident to a trans-oceanic trip. Guy was enthusiastic over the
accommodations on board the Herculanea and spoke warmly of the athletic
refreshment he and Watson had enjoyed in the gymnasium.
“Who’s Watson?” asked Gunseyt.
“He’s a tall, big-boned man who sat near you and me when you first told
me about your radio set,” Guy replied.
“That fellow? His name isn’t Watson. It’s Lantry, and he’s a crook, or
I’m badly mistaken. I suspect he’s one of those card sharks that live on
the ocean and bleed the rich, sporty passengers. If he isn’t that, he’s
something else not classed with good citizenship.”
“What makes you think that?” asked the astonished Guy. “He seems to be a
very fine man.”
“Of course he does. The best of them always do. He’s traveling under a
false name. And I know something more about him, but I don’t like to
tell it because I can’t prove my story. There’s some things you can know
in this world, my boy, but it’s safer to keep ’em to yourself. My advice
to you is to give Mr. Lantry, alias Watson, a wide berth, or lock your
money in an iron trunk and throw the key overboard.”
“He wouldn’t get much from me if he did get into my trunk or my
pockets,” replied the boy. “I’m not afraid of him.”
“Well, be careful anyway. Such fellows have got a surprise for you at
every turn. They’re not safe to get mixed up with under ordinary
circumstances.”
“Would one of those big gamblers pick your pocket?”
“Oh, perhaps not. They’d rather get your ‘spon’ legitimately. That’s
safer, you know. But I’m not saying positively this fellow’s a card
shark. I’ll tell you, though, what he’s been if you’ll promise not to
breathe a word to anybody. He could make a lot of trouble for me for
circulating stories about him that I couldn’t prove in a court of law.”
“I’m not a gossip,” reassured the boy a little proudly.
“Well, be sure you keep this to yourself. If by accident it does you any
good, I’m glad to pass you the information. I don’t know what his game
is now, but he used to be a fog pirate.”
“A what?”
“A fog pirate, a London fog pirate. That’s a highwayman, or footpad, who
works his game under cover of the fog.”
“How do you know Watson, or Lantry, has been a fog pirate?” inquired
Guy, with peculiar interest because of “fog pirate” experiences of his
own.
“He was pointed out to me as such by a man who knows London street life
from West End to Woolwich. That man told me Lantry was king of the fog
pirates.”
“You’re sure there’s no mistake about it?”
“Absolutely. And he’s the nerviest gent of the mist that ever lived.
Likes to hobnob with swells on dough borrowed in the fog.”
“I’m much obliged to you for telling me this,” said Guy appreciatively.
“I’ll look out that he doesn’t try any game on me.”
“Always be on your guard wherever you go,” advised Gunseyt, settling
back in his seat as if to indicate that he had said all he cared to say
on this subject. “There are sharpers all around you. Even a lot of the
biggest guns will try to do you if you’re big enough game to make it
worth their while.”
“I’ll watch out,” was the boy’s assurance as he walked away.
Next day Guy met Watson in the gymnasium again. At first he was inclined
to avoid him because of the light in which the large-featured man had
been pictured by Gunseyt. But a hearty greeting forced the boy’s
geniality to the surface and constrained him to be polite.
“Hello, Burton,” cried Watson, ceasing his vicious jabs at a punching
bag. “How’s your nautical demeanor?”
“On even keel,” replied Guy. “Engine’s oiled, pilot’s sober and the
fireman’s shovelin’ coal.”
“Good! You’re an up-to-date seaman. I presume this isn’t your first
trip?”
“First across the ocean; but my father owns a yacht, and I can run it
better than he can.”
“How’s your radio friend, Gunseyt? Great name he’s got, isn’t it? That
goatee of his ought to make a good direction finder, oughtn’t it?”
“I think I’d change my name if I had one like that,” laughed the boy.
“Why?”
“Because it attracts too much attention. It sounds too much like a joke
nom-de-plume of a war correspondent.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” roared Watson. “I hadn’t thought of that. If you were going
to change your name from Gunseyt, what name would you choose?”
“If I were going to change my name right now, I’d change it to Lantry.”
Guy looked keenly at the large-featured man as he made this reply. He
was watching for a sudden change in his countenance, indicating surprise
or confusion; but he was disappointed. The only expression he beheld was
one of curiosity.
“Why would you change it to that?” Watson inquired.
“It’s the first that came to my mind. Mr. Gunseyt was telling me a story
of a man named Lantry.”
“Was Lantry another radio shark?”
“No, Mr. Lantry, he said, was a fog pirate.”
“A fog pirate! What’s that?”
If Watson was pretending innocence, he did it cleverly. Guy was unable
to detect a suggestion of duplicity in his manner.
“That’s what I wanted to know when he used the term to me,” said the
boy. “He explained that it’s a footpad in London who holds up people in
the fog.”
“How did he happen to tell you about Lantry? Did he know him?”
“He seemed to. He said the man had been pointed out to him as a fog
pirate.”
At the close of this conversation Guy was more puzzled than ever
regarding Watson. The latter’s face seemed honest enough, but it
exhibited a shrewdness of expression that determined the boy to keep on
his guard. However, there was little timidity in Guy, and he could see
no reason why he should avoid the man during the short period of their
voyage.
But the next day something happened that put a new complexion on matters
and seemed to make action with regard to this strange man necessary. The
weather had been warm and fair during the first day out, and passengers
could pass the time on the open decks with comfort. But the steamer took
a northern route, and soon it became cold and stormy and everybody kept
under cover. The reading rooms, the smokers, the parlors, and the
lounges and various sheltered places of recreation, rest and amusement
were well patronized.
In the middle of the afternoon of the day in question, Guy left his
mother writing letters in a drawing-room and started for his stateroom
to get a book. When he was about fifty feet away from his number, he was
startled to see a man step hastily out of his mother’s room, which
adjoined his own, close the door, and walk rapidly away.
At first Guy thought the man must be an employee of the steamer, but a
second glance assured him that this could not be. All the ship’s
attendants were in uniform, and this person was not so attired.
Moreover, the boy was certain he recognized the intruder.
But the man did not turn his face toward Guy after a first hurried
glance in the latter’s direction. He moved with long strides toward the
nearest stairway. Guy observed that he was tall, squarely built, and
carried no superfluous flesh.
“I’ll follow him and make sure,” resolved the boy, starting after the
retreating figure. “If anything’s been stolen, I want to know who took
it.”
Guy pursued the man up the stairway to the next deck above. The fellow
ran up the stairs, two steps at a bound, and when the boy reached the
next upper landing, he fancied he saw the fugitive enter a cafe. Guy
entered also, but the man had disappeared.
Vexed at being thus outwitted, young Burton left the cafe and searched
the neighborhood unsuccessfully. Then he returned to his stateroom, the
door of which he found locked. He unlocked the door and entered. Inside
all was not in the orderly condition in which it had been left an hour
or two earlier.
Guy and his mother occupied adjoining staterooms. Each of these, owing
to architectural necessity in its peculiar position, was constructed and
fitted for the accommodation of but one passenger. A door between the
two rooms indicated that they were intended occasionally to be used as a
suite.
The door was open, as Guy and his mother had left it. On a chair in his
mother’s room, the boy found his mother’s valise, which he remembered
distinctly she had left on the floor. He took hold of the handle and was
about to lift, when it fell open. Probably the intruder had attempted to
clasp it, but failed, in his haste to depart.
A protruding piece of linen under the lid of his trunk in his own room
next attracted the boy’s attention. He took hold of the lid and lifted.
It was unlocked. Guy was certain he had locked the trunk before leaving
the room two hours earlier.
Inside the trunk he found new evidence of meddling. The box containing
the “wireless shoe” outfit had been opened. The paper in which it had
been wrapped was removed and tucked under other contents of the trunk.
Apparently the man had hoped to find valuables in this box.
Guy made a through examination of all his belongings, which were in
considerable disorder, but nothing had been stolen. Then he left the
room, locked the door, and started for the place where he had left his
mother.