A STRANGE FIND
My feet had no more than touched the new deck when I became electrified
with a glorious feeling of possession, of mastery. Immediately I seemed
to know just what to do, where to go; and my first move was another
headlong rush at the companionway door, bursting it in with a kick and
springing quickly aside--ready, listening; being for the time shielded
from a fusillade of expected shots. And, because these were not
forthcoming, I felt momentarily confused.
Yet in times of white hot action it is impulse that succeeds. This door
ahead of me was the only way below, except perhaps a hatch, offering
greater danger, somewhere forward; it was the only way, therefore,
through which Sylvia might be brought up to safety. She was now below,
and I would reach her if it were my last journey! Three bounds down the
stairs took me into the cabin, my pistol forward, my nerves on
hair-trigger, ready for anything that moved.
Silence!--that sickish silence which permeates places of death! No human
sound could be detected--no sound of any kind, except an uncanny
creaking beneath the floor where the old masts rested in their steps,
and a gentle swish of water outside the hull.
There were two doors from the cabin, each opening into a separate,
though parallel, passageway that doubtless led forward to about the same
general arrangements we had on the _Whim_--one past three staterooms,
through a galley and into the sailors' quarters; the other, also past a
stateroom or two, but opening to the ice-box room and galley. Both of
these doors now swung slightly ajar, at a suspicious angle that almost
without doubt told me where the men were crouched, and this rendered my
position so inexcusably exposed that swift and vigorous action was the
only choice. With finger tightening on the trigger I dashed at the
nearer of these, giving it a kick that sent it banging against the wall.
The passageway was empty, and thus encouraged I rushed the other door.
Here, again, no foe had lain in ambush.
I was crouched now, sheltered by a strip of paneled wall between the two
doorways. The staterooms on one side must come next, and after them the
galley, with the forecastle beyond, and even beyond this, perhaps, some
kind of a cuddy.
Where the men were hiding God only knew, but hiding they were with
cocked weapons, firmly gripped knives at some point of vantage that had
been carefully chosen--as they expected nothing less than half our crew.
I could almost feel their nearness; so alert were my senses that I
fancied I could smell their sweaty clothes.
Again action spelled success and, marking the first stateroom, I bounded
into it covering the interior with a quick sweep of my automatic.
Nothing! From this I sprang to the second room, showing myself in the
passageway only long enough to cover the space. This, also, was empty.
A third was on this side before the galley should be reached. By my
tactics of quick rushes I had doubtless made too fleeting a target to
draw their fire, so I dashed at this third door. It was closed but
yielded to my shoulder. As I entered, and became instantaneously aware
that it contained no foe, my nerves were fired by the sound of rushing
feet behind me.
Trapped! At such a time a man will ask an awful price for his life--when
he is trapped by merciless villains to whom quarter is an unknown
tongue! Springing behind the door, keeping only my pistol hand and eye
beyond its thin partition, I waited with leveled weapon, ready to drop
the first man who came in sight. He did not keep me long in suspense. It
was Gates, while behind him pressed several anxious faces.
"Thank God, sir, you're not killed," he shouted.
I was glad to see him, there's no denying it!
"Mr. Thomas said he heard you call, so we came a-biling, sir!"
My mind was working rather fast; indeed, it seemed to be thinking at the
rate of a thousand miles a minute--clear thinking, too--so even before
Gates spoke the second time I had seen through Tommy's ruse. Bless his
old scalp, I was a dog not to have taken him in the first place, now
that things were nearer equal. But I said hastily:
"Look sharp, Gates, I haven't been farther than here! They're in the
galley!--I'm rushing it!"
So I splintered the door and charged through, with the others tripping
over my heels. Then my revolver swung across and covered a crouching
form.
"Hands up," I commanded.
Although darker here, we could see a huge, partially clothed figure on
the floor, reclining very much as The Wounded Gladiator. Leaning above
him, with an arm passed beneath his shoulders, was another man.
"Hands up, you fool," I called again, ready to fire at the first
suspicious move. The man lowered his burden and turned. It was Tommy.
"You'll forgive me, Jack," he grinned. "We thought I heard you call--and
that was to be the signal, you know!"
We thought I heard you call!
"I know about that, you prince of liars. Who's this? But hold
him!--we're going on through!"
"You needn't," he said. "I took a speedy trip down the other passageway
while Gates went to you. There isn't a soul on board, except this poor
devil who's got a crack on the bean."
"It isn't possible," I cried. For, indeed, it was not possible, and we
hurried forward, leaving him as he was.
But a two-minute search revealed the truth of Tommy's words. There was
not a sign of anyone. The yacht was as absolutely deserted as if it had
been sailed by spirits--except, of course, the wretch in Tommy's charge.
"You're sure we've looked everywhere, Gates?" I asked, stunned at the
disappearance of Sylvia and mystified by the whole affair.
"Everywhere, sir. To tell the truth, Mr. Jack, a minute ago it was as
complete a mystery as I ever saw. But I understand it now. They've taken
to the small boats and escaped, sir. They've just sailed in close to
shore and done that during the night, sir; and all morning we've been
chasing a boat with nobody on it. I should have noticed the small boats
gone, if I hadn't been so sure the people were here."
I leaned against the wall too utterly disappointed to move, vaguely
wondering if this were another dream from which I should awake and find
the _Orchid_ sailing out ahead of us. But it was no dream. In dreams
one can not always know that one is dreaming, but there is never a
doubt of knowing when one is awake.
"They couldn't be under the floor?" I asked, absurdly clinging to a
straw of hope that Sylvia might be there.
"Lor' bless you, no, sir! I tell you, Mr. Jack, they just sailed as
close as they dared to those islands, and skipped--the hull pack of 'em;
first having headed the _Orchid_ out as we found her. That's why
everything was so quiet the larst part of the night--there warn't anyone
here to _make_ a noise!"
Passing back to the galley we saw half our crew, in a circle, looking
down at the wounded man.
"Who is it, Tommy?" I asked. "Not the old scoundrel himself, by any good
luck?"
"Stranger yet," he said, waving the others back and standing up, "It's
your black giant of the Key West docks!"
"How the devil did he get here?" I cried, pushing between the men and
also looking down at him. "How did he get here?" I asked again, but
Tommy had gone.
Someone had put a cushion under his head. His eyes were open, gazing up
with their former gentle expression; more sad now, I fancied, since the
great human machine he had controlled was wounded.
"How did he get here?" I repeated my general question, this time
straight at him.
His lips moved with a curious, rather horrible, inarticulate sound, and
his glance swept our crew as though in search of a face. Then he seemed
to give it up, and passed a hand slowly over his forehead. I was about
to order him carried on deck when Tommy called through the galley
portlight:
"Fetch your wounded, Jack! The professor's here with his outfit!"
As our men stooped to obey the big fellow surprised us by quietly
arising; and, when cushions had been arranged in a shaded place above,
he laid on them as obediently as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much
in his element, became busy at once.
The _Whim_ and the _Orchid_ were still at grips--or rather were it more
correct to say the _Orchid_ was in the _Whim's_ grip. Lines had been
passed through the chocks of each, sails had been hauled down, and both
yachts rode inertly side by side.
The part of our crew that had stayed behind to attend these matters now
came over the rail like monkeys, grinning broadly and crowding up to
shake hands with me--a wholly uncalled for proceeding which charmed me,
nevertheless.
"Lie on your face," I heard Monsieur saying to the big black. He had
become excessively busy and his fingers were feeling everywhere over the
man's cranium, yet as tenderly as a woman's. "What struck you?" he
asked.
"I've told you he can't talk," Tommy, who was also kneeling by him,
explained.
"And I did not ask you," the professor snapped. "What if he can not! May
I not see him make the effort?"
"But what's the use of having the poor beggar make the effort when you
know he can't put it over? Why not get down to cases and cure him,
instead of monkeying?"
"Down to cases! Cure him!" Monsieur sputtered. "How great a surgeon are
you to direct me in this impertinent manner?"
Really, he was quite a great deal put out.
"You fellows cut it," I interposed. "While you're squabbling the chap
might click it, and then what?"
"I'm not squabbling," Tommy looked up earnestly. "I'm only saying it's a
rotten shame to put a _blesse_ through a lot of unnecessary paces that
hurt him, and I stick to it! But go ahead, professor!"
"I shall go ahead, have no fear of it! You think me cruel--but see: if I
am aware something is wrong with a machine, how better to find out what
than by trying to make it run?"
He turned again to his examination, while Tommy lit a cigarette and sat
nearby, looking on. At last Monsieur gave a sigh, indicating that his
diagnosis was ready. I waited until he, too, had lit a cigarette, then
asked:
"Well, doctor, how serious?"
"Perhaps not serious, as there is no fracture. He has suffered a
concussion over the third frontal convolution, resulting in an
aphasia--aphemia we are sure of, and doubtless also agraphia----"
"Hold on! This isn't the University of Bucharest," Tommy cried. "If you
insist on telling us, instead of putting this man to bed where he ought
to be, tell it nursery-fashion!"
"Already I have said it for children," he witheringly replied.
"Then God help 'em!" This in a whisper from Gates, but with no thought
of levity.
"Go ahead and cure the man," I implored. "We couldn't understand you,
anyhow."
"But, yes, you will understand--I desire it! This blow has produced the
aphemia. If he were not illiterate we could, by asking him to write, say
if agraphia also is present. But he can not write, therefore we do not
know whether he can or not; so, therefore, we only know that he can not
speak."
"You know he can't write, too--you just said so!"
"Exactly, my boy Tommy, you have the correct idea. Yet we do not know it
by the test."
"I begin to see what he's driving at, Jack. He knows he can't write
because it's a known fact, but he doesn't know it by the scientifically
known test known to him--and that's agraphia. If it isn't, it's near
enough. Now, he knows he can talk because we all know he can, but no one
knows it at present because he can't--and that's aphemia. Do I get you,
Professor?"
"Yes, as you say, you get me. The motor area has suffered a concussion;
perhaps a slight hemorrhage, perhaps not. It may pass in a few days, or
longer. We will keep him quiet, with ice bags to the head and blood
pressure low, and see what we shall see. A hundred years ago they would
have bled him and made him well. But we shall see!"
"If he'd got well a hundred years ago by being bled, why not now?" I
asked.
"He'd be too old now," Tommy whispered; but the professor, not hearing
this, looked at me as though I had committed an unpardonable breach of
etiquette, and again witheringly replied:
"We have more advanced methods."
Having thus been put in my place, he ordered his patient taken aboard
the _Whim_ and ran ahead to superintend the construction of a bed.
Scientists are a curious lot, Tommy says, but I doubt if there is
another like the professor. I hope not, for the sake of the sciences.
But let that pass. In half an hour the big black was resting easily in
the midst of paraphernalia especially designed, and Bilkins had been
assigned the place as nurse.
I fancied, when this latter suggestion came up, that our old servant
might not readily take to it. With twenty years of his life spent as
major domo and general valet in my father's household, a sudden
transformation into trained nurse for a dusky African must,
peradventure, have been a shock.
But in this I was mistaken. The last forty hours of common peril, of a
central interest, had lifted Bilkins from that pettiness usually
burdensome in servants of his type. He was, as a matter of fact,
cheerfully alert to take the job, accepting it with the same enthusiasm
that Gates, and later the mate, had straddled the bowsprit. So I
realized that Bilkins had doffed the uniform of servitude to put on one
that fit a man. True, indeed, there is no such potent melting-pot as
common peril! It had been the same in France--banker, lawyer, merchant,
beggar-man, thief, perhaps--all one. Common peril, common necessity!--O
thou molders of men!
When everything had been arranged, and a sailor put at our ice machine
to supply packs for the wounded man's head, Tommy, the professor and I
climbed back aboard the _Orchid_, this time to give her a thorough
search. We held to the hope that there might be a note, or little clue,
from the girl whose extremity had once led her to send the other
message. Monsieur thought this most probable, and our hopes ran high.
Beginning with a writing desk in the cabin, we examined the book shelves
and every nook and corner, then passed to the staterooms. These gave the
same impression of having been swept clean--cupboards, presses, all were
empty. Only in one drawer, delicately scented, was there a single
item--a hairpin. Here, then, must be Sylvia's room, but otherwise it
was devoid of any article. Equally unproductive did we find the galley,
the crew's quarters, and a small cuddy forward.
Monsieur sat down and pursed his lips.
"They have anticipated our intention," he said, thoughtfully. "Doubtless
the things were emptied into sheets, then either weighted and sunk, or
taken in the boats. But she must have exerted her ingenuity. There
absolutely must be some word left for us. Wait!"
Hurrying to the _Whim_ he returned with his lens, while from the mate he
had borrowed a caliper, a two-foot rule and a sail needle.
"Now we shall search scientifically," he cried. "Remember, that as no
personal belonging remains, even the books being gone, we must infer
they made a great effort to destroy everything that would leave a clue.
They suspected the girl, too, and that made them doubly careful. What
would she do then? Exactly as we would do--hide her message so the
others could not discover it! Now, my boy Jack, you take the sail needle
and probe cushions, pillows and mattresses! My boy Tommy, take my lens
and look for places where the glue has been disturbed on furniture
joints; I will measure the desk, piano, panels--everything--for a secret
hiding place!"
"Well, I'll be darned," Tommy grinned. "You're some cop, professor!"
When each of us had finished and reported failure, Monsieur did not seem
at all discouraged.
"Now we go to the second phase," he said. "Keep in mind, whenever you
search for anything, that it may be under your nose. That is the place
to look, not off at the clouds--and nothing is too insignificant to
escape investigation. For see: I can write on a very thin piece of
paper, roll it into a string, thread it into a bodkin, and weave it into
a rug, curtain, quilt, and so forth; or press it lengthwise into a crack
in the floor. A favorite way is to tie it to a real piece of string, and
throw them carelessly into a wastebasket, thus making them appear to
have been cut from a bundle. But there are a thousand ways! Now we
proceed with this. Later we probe down gas jets, water spouts and
outlets, empty lamp reservoirs, unscrew the backs of mirrors, search key
holes, unravel carpets----"
"Heavens," I cried, seeing that in his zeal for doing this
professionally he was making himself absurd; and Tommy burst into a
hearty laugh, saying:
"Gezabo, there isn't a girl in a million who'd think of those places,
and if she did she wouldn't credit us with enough sense to find 'em.
Call off your bloodhounds! There's no message for us, that's a cinch!
Let's get busy at once on something practical!"
"That's what I say," I chipped in. "It's only eleven o'clock, and we
have eight good hours of daylight. Let's go back and call Gates for a
conference, without losing a minute!"
"You may be right," he sighed, "but--well, let us go, as you say. With
eight hours of light we can accomplish everything. Today may bring
success!"