ON THE TRAIL
Breakfasting, a little one-handedly, that Monday morning, Billy was
approached by his companion of the night. The young Englishman
looked fresh and fit and subtly triumphant.
"Good news--what?" he said with a genial smile.
"If authentic," said the dogged Billy.
"Of all the fanatic f----!" The sandy-haired young man checked his
explosiveness in mid-air. He gave a glance at the bulge of bandage
beneath Billy's coat sleeve and dropped into a chair beside him.
"How's the arm?" he inquired in a tone of restraint.
"Fine," said Billy without enthusiasm.
"Glad of that. Afraid the canal bath wouldn't do it any good.
Beastly old place, that." Then the Englishman gave a sudden chuckle.
"It's a regular old lark when you come to think of it!"
"Our lack of luck wasn't any great lark." Savagely Bill speared his
bacon.
"Luck? Why we--Oh, come now, my dear fellow, you can't pretend to
maintain those suspicions now! Of course the letter is authentic!"
Falconer spoke between irritation and raillery. "That Turkish
fellow could hardly fake that letter to them, could he? No, and we
will have to acknowledge ourselves actuated by a too-hasty
suspicion--inevitable under the circumstance--and be grateful that
the uncertainty is over. That's the only way to look at it."
"We don't know that the Evershams have received a 'letter.' It might
be another fraudulent telegram that was sent them from Alexandria."
"That is a bit too thick. You're a Holmes for suspicion!" Falconer
laughed. "I believe if Miss Beecher herself walked into this dining
room you would question if she were not a deceiving effigy!"
"I might question that anyway." Billy's tone was dry. "And I daresay
I am a fool. But that dancer's story is pretty straight if she
didn't know the names, and it fits in disasterously well with my
limousine story."
"You're not the first man to be staggered by a coincidence,"
Falconer told him. "And that woman's yarn was convincing enough,
though all the time I was dubious, you remember. But now that the
Evershams have heard," and the young Englishman's deep note of
relief showed how tormenting had been his uncertainty, "why now we
have no further right to put Miss Beecher's name into the affair.
There is evidently some other girl concerned who may or may not be
as guileless as she represented to the Baroff girl, and I shall lay
that story before the ambassador and leave her rescue to authentic
ways."
He laughed a little shamefacedly at the unauthentic ways of last
night, and added, looking off across the room, "My sister and Lady
Claire are going to Luxor to-night, and I expect to accompany them.
If you should have any word about Miss Beecher's return here I
should be glad if you would let me know."
"If she is safe in Alexandria she'd never think of writing me," said
Billy bluntly. "Our acquaintance is distinctly one-sided."
"I quite understand. She was your countrywoman in a strange land and
all that."
"And all that," Billy echoed. "What time is your train?"
"Six-thirty."
"Then if I don't see you before that here's good luck and good-by."
Billy rose and shook hands and the two young men parted after a few
more words.
"You have an _idée-fixe_--beware of it!" was Falconer's caution,
serious beneath its air of banter, and on the other hand Billy
perceived in the cautioner a latent uneasiness considered so
irrational that he was doing his sensible best to disown it.
So Falconer took himself off about the preparations for departure
and Billy B. Hill was left to face his problem alone. Black worry
plucked at him. He did not know what under the sun he could do next.
Already that day he had done what he could. He had been out early
and run down the one-eyed factotum loitering about the corner and
under cover of a transaction over a scarab he had made a number of
plans.
He wanted the Captain followed every instant of the day. There were
enough active little Arabs greedy for _piastres_ to do that well
and send back constant word to him. There was coming that day, he
felt, an interview between him and that Captain. Then he wanted the
one-eyed man to insinuate himself into the palace. He must find out
things. He could use his connection with the eunuch who was uncle of
his brother's wife.
So much Billy had already arranged and now after a hasty breakfast
he was off to the consul, where he proceeded to unfold his story
while the consul drew little circles on his blotter and looked out
of the corners of his eyes at this astonishing young man.
He made no comment when Billy paused. Perhaps he could think of none
adequate, or perhaps, after all, he had ceased to be amazed. He
merely said slowly and thoughtfully, "Of course the dancer's story
is all you really have to go upon. You had better bring her here."
"Nothing easier," Billy declared, and thinking a cab as prompt as a
telephone he drove briskly off.
The hotel held a shock for him. Fritzi Baroff was gone. She had gone
the evening before, the clerk reported, consulting the register, and
she had paid her bill. As he had not been the one on duty then he
knew nothing more about it. She had left no address.
Ultimately the clerk who had been on duty was unearthed in the
labyrinths of the hotel's backgrounds, but he could supply very
little further except the certainty that she had paid her bill in
person, and the vague belief that she had been accompanied. This
belief was companioned by a hazy notion that some one had called on
her that evening.
Even Billy's sense of humor was unstirred by the half-cynical
sympathy of the night-clerk's gaze; Billy didn't feel a laugh
anywhere within him. He was balked. The dancer had vanished with her
story, and that story was essential to the consul. Like a fool he
must return empty-handed with this yarn of her disappearance and the
consul would be justified in declaring that he had no actual proof
to act upon. Which was precisely what the consul did, but he
offered, impressed with Billy's earnestness, "to take the matter
up," with the proper authorities.
It seemed the best that could be done. Billy urged him to prompt
action, and to himself he promised some prompt action of a totally
unofficial character. He knew now what he was going to do, or rather
he thought he did, for the day still held its unsettling surprises
for him, and as he set forth on business bent that afternoon he
found himself besieged by a skinny little boy in tattered blue
robes, who danced around him with a handful of dirty postcards.
"Be off," said Billy, in vigorous Arabic, and the little boy
answered proudly, in most excellent English, "I am a messenger, sir.
I am the boy who held the canoe that night. Buy a postcard, sir?
Only six piastres a dozen, six piastres, Views of Egypt, the Sphinx,
the Nile, the----"
Impatiently Billy cut him short.
"Never mind the bluff. No one is listening. What's your message?"
"The streets have ears, sir. Buy a postcard?... I have come from the
palace. I brought in the bread. I--_I_ got in under their nose while
the big Mohammed was turned away without sight of his uncle,"
bragged the little Imp. "I am a clever boy, I. No one else so clever
to find out things. The American man did well to come to me."
"What the devil, then, did you find out?"
"Five piastres a dozen, then, only five.... Go on walking, sir, I
will run alongside. Keep shaking your head at me--very good.... I
find out where she are."
"Where _who_ are?"
The little braggart had roused Billy's suspicions. He determined to
be wary.
"The young girl with the very light hair. Mohammed send me to ask of
her. You know, sir," the little fellow insisted, hopping up and down
beside him. "Only four a dozen--very cheap!" he screeched at him in
a tone that must have carried for blocks. "I run in with the bread
and take it to the kitchen where women are working. And I pretend
make love to one very pretty girl, tell her how I come marry her
when I old enough and make enough, and hold up piece money to show
how rich I am. And the rest they think I just make game, but I
whisper to her quick how much you pay her for news of that lady
upstairs with the fair hair, and I give her some money. It are not
much, sir. I promise her to come back with more."
"Go on," demanded Billy, stopping short. "What did she tell you?"
"Walk along, sir, walk along. Just half a dozen then--very cheap,
very beautiful!" cried the little rascal with deep enjoyment of his
rôle. Billy found his hands clenching frenziedly. The Imp proceeded,
"She are much afraid, that girl, to say things, but I tell her how
safe it is an' I tell her you great big rich man who pay her well. I
make her honest promise to come back with money--and she very poor
girl. She whisper quick what she know, looking backward over
shoulder like this." Turning his face about after this dramatic
illustration the Imp caught sight of Billy's countenance, and rolled
the rest of his narration into one speedy sentence.
"She are gone," he cried.
"Gone?"
"Took away.... Take these cards, sir, stop and look at them.... Yes,
she are took away. It happen very quick; early that morning after
the other lady go in the night. Everyone much excited that night,
great noise about, and no one know just what happen. But the Captain
give orders quick, and early the motor car is ready and the strange
girl go away. Old woman go, too. Nobody know where."
"That would be Sunday morning," Billy cried excitedly. "Are you sure
there is no mistake? There were lights in that room on Sunday
night."
"I tell what the girl tell. She are very honest girl," the Imp
insisted. "She say the other lady run away with her lover an'
Captain afraid the new lady has a lover so he send her away quick."
"But he didn't go himself?"
"No, he have something with his reg-reglement," gulped the Imp
hastily, "that day and he stay and he there now--but now he sick."
"What's the matter?"
"I don't know, sir, but I know the doctor comes because she say to
me to come back and say I am boy from doctor with medicine, and if I
don't see her I must say I lost that medicine and go away, and come
again as I can till I bring that money to her. She are very much
afraid, sir."
Billy shuffled the postcards with absent hands and stared down at
them with unseeing eyes. She was gone--and the Captain was not with
her! That much at least was gain. And the fellow was here sick from
his shot hand, apparently. "I hope gangreen sets in," he said
between his teeth.
"You are pleased with me, sir?" the Imp was demanding. "You are glad
of so much clever boy? And you give me that money now to give that
girl? I make her most honest promise--and you see, sir, I am very
honest boy, I tell you all I know and I ask nothing of price yet. I
know that you are honest American man."
At that Billy came out of his brown study and praised the tattered
little Imp with hearty earnestness. He saw no reason to doubt the
boy's story. If he had been trying to invent something in order to
make capital out of him he would hardly have invented that story of
Arlee's departure, for that put an immediate end to further
remunerative investigations in the palace. Of course Billy might be
mistaken, and the boy might be mistaken, but one had to leave
something to probabilities. He was very generous with the boy, and
the droll little brown face was lined with grins. Most naïvely he
besought that the American would not reveal the extent of his
donations to Mohammed, the one-eyed man, as the boys had promised
their employer a just one-half.
It was the first laugh Billy had enjoyed in a long time. His spirits
were vastly lightened by the news that Arlee was out of the palace
where the Captain was staying. Fritzi had optimistically informed
him that the Turk's courtship could be made most lengthy, but that
had been a sadly slender hope and the picture of Arlee playing such
a fearful game was simply horrible to him. So his relief at her
departure was intense, although it complicated more and more the
hope of speedy rescue.
For where was she now? In Cairo? In some of the outlying villages?
He felt swamped by the number of things were to be found out
immediately. He must find where that big gray motor went so early on
Sunday--surely there were people who had remarked it if they could
only be found and induced to talk! And he must find where the
Captain had other homes or palaces where he would be likely to hide
a girl. And he must find out where the Captain was every instant of
the day and night.
That was the most important thing of all. For the Captain unless
delayed by extreme illness, or held back by a caution which Billy
judged was foreign to his nature, would not wait long before he
joined Arlee. He had evidently stayed behind for some review of his
troops and also to be _au courant_ of whatever stir would result
from Fritzi Baroff's reappearance in the world, and be on hand to
disarm whatever further suspicions would result from it. The lights
in the rose room that last night and the used look of the room,
puzzled Billy, but he concluded that the Captain liked the room and
there was a good deal in that palace that had better be left to no
imagination whatever.
So back to the hotel went Billy to enter upon a period of waiting
that frayed his nerves to an utter frazzle. Inaction was horrible to
him, and now it was inevitable. He must wait for word from that
agile web of little spies which the one-eyed man was weaving about
the Captain's palace, and be ready to start whenever the word came.
He slept with his clothes on that Monday night, but he slept heavily
for he was tired and his arm was no longer painful. The tear of
wound he called a scratch was healing swiftly.
Tuesday morning passed in the same maddening suspense. Captain
Kerissen rode out that morning but only to the parade ground, where
he took part in a review with his troops. It was noticed that his
right hand was bandaged, but the injury could not have been severe
for his thumb was free from the bandage and he occasionally used
that hand upon the reins. It was the bright eyes of the Imp that
were sure of that.
In the afternoon the Captain went again to the barracks and then to
the palace of one of the colonels in his regiment. Then he went
home.
Utterly disgusted with this waiting game Billy began to dress for
dinner. All lathered for a shave he stood testing his razor on a
hair when his unlocked door was violently opened and a panting
little figure darted across to him. It was the Imp.
"Sir, he goes, he goes upon the minute," he panted out. "He is in
the station. Quick!"
Like a streak of lathered lightening Billy went for his clothes. A
centipede could have been no more active. He jerked up his
suspenders; he jerked on a shirt; he jerked on a coat; he was wiping
his face as he darted through the halls and down the stairs. No lift
had speed enough for his descent. At the desk he flung some gold
pieces at the clerk, cried something about being called out of the
city, and asked to have his room kept; then he was down the steps
and into the carriage that the Imp had magically summoned.
The drive to the station was a series of escapes. Between jolts the
Imp gasped out the rest of the story. The Captain had ridden out in
the automobile. The Imp had given chase and so had the one-eyed man,
also on guard, and by dint of running for dear life they had kept
the motor in sight until the crowded city streets were reached and a
series of delays enabled them to catch up with it. As soon as they
saw the motor stop before the station the boy had rushed for Billy
while the Arab remained to shadow the Captain and learn his
destination.
They themselves were at the station now, and Billy was still tying
his cravat. Now they jumped down and pressed through the confusion,
dodging dragomans, porters, drivers and hotel runners and making a
vigorous way past hurrying travelers and through bewildered
blockades of tourist parties. Suddenly over the bobbing heads they
saw the face they sought. A single eye glared significance upon
them. An uplifted hand beckoned furiously.
"Assiout," whispered the one-eyed man as Billy reached him.
"Assiout. That one goes to Assiout on the night express."
"My ticket? Got a ticket for me?"
Upturned palms bespoke the absence of ticket and the Arab's deep
regret. "The price was much. I waited----"
Billy was off. There was no chance of his getting past that stolid
guard without a ticket and he charged toward the seller's window,
where a line of natives was forming for another train.
"_Siut_!" he shouted over their heads, and scattering silver and
smiles and apologies he crowded past the motley line to the window
and fairly snatched the miles of green ticket from the Copt's quick
fingers.
He was the last man through the gate, and as he darted through the
clicking of compartment doors was heard with the parting cries of
the guards and the shouts of dragomans and porters. It was a train
_de luxe_ where the sleeping sections had long been reserved, but to
accommodate the crowded travel ordinary compartment cars had been
added at the last minute, and it was at one of these that Billy
grasped, as the wheels were moving faster and faster. A gold piece
caused a guard to unlock the first compartment door, although it
said, "_Dames Seules_," and "Ladies Only" in large letters.
It was not a corridor train and the compartment was already filled,
and as Billy wormed his way, not into the nearest corner, for that
was not yielded to him, but into the modicum of space accorded
between two stout and glaringly grudging matrons, he became aware
from the hostile stares that his entrance had not been solitary.
Between his legs the Imp was coiling.
"I made a sneak with you," the boy whispered. "I say I your
dragoman, sir. You will be glad. You need such bright boy in
Assiout."
Billy thought it highly probable that he would. But the ladies
neither needed nor desired him now, and ringed in by feminine
disgust the two scorned intruders sat silent hour after hour while
the train went rushing south through the increasing darkness of the
night.