THE PIRATE CHIEFTAIN UNMASKED.
The interior of the turret was as dark as a pocket, but the detective
quickly discovered the door which communicated with the interior of the
vessel proper, and he opened it. Contrary to his expectations, he found
himself then inside a brilliantly lighted section of the vessel, which he
recognized at a glance to be the general assembling-room—the apartment
used by the pirates for their general uses.
It was, in fact, in the form of a miniature social hall of a great
steamship, and even the detective was amazed to see the sumptuousness
with which it was furnished and decorated. It might have done service
as a compartment in the palace of a prince, so perfect were its
appointments. But the thing which interested the detective most just then
was the fact that there was not a human being to be seen, not a sign of
one, beyond the general significance of the place itself.
“Come!” he whispered. “It will never do for us to remain here. They will
be bringing their spoils aboard presently, and we must be well concealed
before that time.”
“Are you going to remain here?” asked Kane also in a whisper.
“Sure! What do you suppose I took all that trouble to get here for?”
“Why, to have it out with the pirate—to have a scrap with him at once,
capture his ship and cargo, and all that.”
“We will do that later. Just now we have other axes to grind.”
He glided rapidly aft toward a door he saw in the bulkhead, opened it
cautiously, and peered through. But instantly he started back, and,
seizing Chick and Kane with either hand, forced them underneath the long
table behind them.
And they were not a moment too soon. The door which he had partially
opened was thrown wide ajar this time, and a woman appeared on the
threshold. She paused there for a moment, and the detective, from his
position under the table, could see her plainly.
His mental comment at that moment was that it would not do to say that
she was beautiful, merely because her face was too strong for that
adjective; but she was certainly handsome. She was tall and well formed,
and her hair and eyes were as black as night, while her skin was as white
as that which you often see on people with red hair.
For a moment she stood there in the doorway, while her great, round,
black eyes took in every detail of the cabin she was surveying.
“I surely thought I heard somebody here,” Nick heard her murmur.
“Doubtless it was one of the men.”
Again she looked around her searchingly. Then she turned, and seemed to
study the room she had quitted, as if she were undecided what to do; but,
after a moment of hesitation, she came into the room where Nick and his
companions were concealed under the table, closed the door after her, and
walked rapidly through toward the turret door by which the detective had
effected an entrance.
Nick changed his position so that he could watch her, and he saw that
she hesitated again at the turret door; but it was at once evident that
her curiosity was too much for her judgment, for, after an instant, she
pushed the door open in front of her, and disappeared through it, closing
it behind her.
“Now is our opportunity,” said Nick. “Quick! Follow me!”
He darted from under the table, glided rapidly toward the door through
which the woman had first made her appearance, and in an instant,
followed by Chick and Kane, passed through into the after-cabin of the
vessel.
And if the other one was sumptuous in its appointments, this one put it
entirely in the shade. It was veritably a palace—the palace of a queen,
too; but evidently of a queen who was provided with a prince consort, for
there were many evidences about of masculine uses.
There were cigarettes and cigars upon the table in the center of the
room. There was a piano built into the bulkhead at one end of it.
There was an electric drop light burning on the table, and there were
comfortable chairs, books, papers, periodicals, and articles of various
kinds and uses scattered about everywhere.
At one side of the center-table there was a chess-stand, with the ivory
men in such a position as to indicate that a game had been interrupted
in order that the _Aurora_ might be looted; and there were pictures and
hangings and other decorations in the compartment, which showed that it
was the abode of refinement, as well as of a pirate.
All these things the detective noticed in his first searching glance
around him.
“That woman was afraid to go outside, for some reason,” he said to the
others. “She did not wish the captain of this craft to see her, and so it
follows that she won’t be gone more than a minute or two; but there must
be another cabin aft of this one—at least, there is sure to be a couple
of staterooms.”
He started forward as he spoke, and, pushing aside a hanging drapery,
found himself in a narrow gangway, or passage, with an open door of a
stateroom on either side of him. But a glance told him that these were
the rooms occupied by the two people he most wished to avoid until he had
heard enough of what they might have to say to each other to determine
him how to act.
Beyond these, however, there were other doors—two of them—and, as before,
one on either side. These were closed, and he decided at once that they
were not in constant use. He opened one of them at the same time that he
pointed toward the other.
“Go in there,” he directed, and so it happened that Chick and Kane went
together into one of the rooms, while Nick found himself alone in the
remaining one.
And then, just as he pulled the door shut behind him—that is, he closed
it all but the merest crack—the noise of the opening and closing of the
door of the outer cabin apprised him of the fact that the woman had
returned.
He supposed that she would return to the table and seat herself there,
while she awaited the return of the pirate chief from his expedition
aboard the _Aurora_; but in that he was mistaken. He was peering through
the crack left him by not quite closing his own door, and he could see
past an aperture at the side of the portière at the end of the passage
that the woman was coming straight toward it.
He watched her without moving.
He hoped that she would not come to his door, or visit that of the room
in which his companions had taken refuge, but he was thoroughly prepared
to receive her if she should do either the one thing or the other.
The detective had seen enough already to make him wish to see and hear
much more. The mere capture of the pirate vessel and those who were
aboard of her was now not sufficient to satisfy him, for he realized
that he would then have only a part of the explanation of the unheard-of
circumstance of a pirate roaming the waters of Long Island Sound.
On the other hand, he figured that if he could remain where he was a
sufficient length of time without discovery there might be an opportunity
for a complete investigation—or, at least, that he would hear enough of
conversation between the pirate chief and the woman to inform him.
“But,” he thought to himself, “there must somewhere be a port for this
vessel. She must have some place somewhere, to lay by and rest, and to
permit her crew to rest. I hardly suppose that she goes to the bottom
of the Sound and rests there, and it is certain that she could not
visit a frequented port without attracting attention which would be
fatal. Therefore, she must go somewhere. She must have a port; and, in
all likelihood, she will go directly to that port when she leaves the
vicinity of this harbor.
“Now, if she does go to such a place, it is more than likely that the
pirate and his wife—or whatever she is to him—will go ashore, and that
is, the opportunity I want. Just give me half an hour of undisturbed
opportunity aboard this vessel, and I will read every secret its owner
ever had. Ah!”
All these thoughts passed through his brain while he was watching the
woman’s approach, and the concluding exclamation he uttered—or thought,
for he made no sound—was caused by her hastening directly to the door
behind which he was concealed.
Just outside of it she came to an abrupt halt, and the detective drew
back and flattened himself as closely as possible against the bulkhead,
in order that if she did decide to enter the stateroom where he was
concealed, he might remain undiscovered for as long a time as possible.
But whatever the thoughts were which troubled her, and gave rise to the
hesitation under which she seemed to be struggling, they were of short
duration; for, although she stretched out her hand until it touched the
door, she withdrew it again, and then, after sighing deeply, turned and
retraced her steps to the cabin.
The detective opened his door again, and stepped out far enough into the
passageway to discover that the woman had resumed the reading of a book,
which had been left lying open on the table, and he decided that in all
probability she would not leave her chair again for some time to come;
at least, not until the work of the pirates in looting the _Aurora_ was
finished and the chief returned to the cabin and to her. Satisfied on
that point, and perceiving that the woman’s back was toward him, he went
inside the cabin in which he had taken refuge, and without hesitation
turned on the electric light.
He believed this to be as good a time as any in which to search the cabin
in which he found himself, and he had already perceived that, although it
was one which did not appear to be permanently occupied, it nevertheless,
bore evidences of individual uses.
He knew, also, that he ran no apparent danger in turning on the light
for a few moments, since the woman’s back was toward him, and he was
positive that the door beyond her, which communicated with the waist of
the vessel, could not be opened without his hearing it.
The stateroom was in every way as commodious as possible in the narrow
space allowed, and everything within it had been arranged by a master
hand, with a view to comfort and convenience.
The berth itself was a bed; in the bulkhead at one end had been built
a rosewood dresser, and at the other end a writing-desk. There was
a folding Morris chair, also fashioned so that it could be made to
disappear in the bulkhead, under the electric light; there was a narrow
and shallow wardrobe close beside the dresser, and a steamer trunk showed
its front under the edge of the narrow bed.
Nick took in all these things at a glance, and with one step he
approached the dresser.
The opening of the top drawer revealed an assorted collection of a
gentleman’s collars, cuffs, ties, handkerchiefs, et cetera. The second
drawer was filled with shirts; the third and last, with an assortment of
underclothing.
He took all this into account in one rapid survey, but it was a
handkerchief on top of its fellows which chiefly attracted his attention,
and which nearly caused him to utter an exclamation of surprise as well
as satisfaction. The handkerchief had been folded so that the marked
corner was uppermost, and the detective saw at a glance that it bore a
crest, and that underneath it were the initials “J. de C.”
That was a discovery worth while, he thought, but he closed the drawers
quickly and crossed the stateroom to the writing-desk. In an instant he
had opened that, and in another he was holding a sheet of writing-paper
in his hand upon which was embossed the same crest, and the words
“Château de Cadillac, Anjou, France.”
“So,” he mused, as he returned it to its place and closed the desk, “I
have here a full and complete explanation of the mystery. My theory about
the family characteristics and traits was the correct one, after all,
for there is no doubt now in my mind that the chief of these pirates, the
master of the _Shadow_, Captain Sparkle by name, is closely related to
Jean, the Count of Cadillac—probably a brother.”
He was in the act of reclosing the desk, when he heard the sound of an
opening door proceeding from the cabin, and he hastily extinguished the
electric light and resorted again to the aperture he had left in closing
the door, so that he might see all that took place in the apartment
beyond.
And then, as he gazed past the portières, he saw the erect figure of the
pirate chief as he entered the cabin, arrayed in his Hamletesque costume
of red; and he saw him raise his right hand, and with one gesture remove
the hat and wig of blond hair from his head; and the detective could
scarcely refrain from uttering an exclamation, for the pirate chieftain
stood revealed, a perfect counterpart of Count Cadillac!