When Virginia returned to the embassy, an unpleasant surprise awaited
her in the form of a good-looking, dapper young man who greeted her
with a sardonic grin.
“Hardly expected to see me back again, I suppose?” he remarked
quizzically.
“I certainly did not,” the girl replied coldly. “I supposed that you
were in New York by this time, Mr. Gale.”
“I changed my mind just after the boat sailed out of San Juan harbor,
and went ashore in the pilot boat,” the reporter informed her. “There
were certain reasons why I deemed it advisable to return to Baracoa, so
I cabled the office that they’d have to struggle along without me for a
little while longer, and caught the next boat back to Puerto Cabero.”
He chuckled. “I rather thought you’d be astonished to see me, Virginia.
Almost as astonished, I’ll wager, as you were to see our friend Hawley
come back again.”
The girl gave an involuntary start of surprise, and her face paled.
“Then you----” she began, but caught herself quickly. “Mr. Hawley
back again!” she exclaimed, with an air of incredulity which was well
simulated. “Surely that can’t be possible!”
Gale smiled triumphantly. The sentence which she had left uncompleted
and her momentary agitation had not escaped his notice. “Yes, he’s
back,” he said, with sarcasm. “Didn’t you know that? I had an idea that
you might have seen him.”
“Surely you wouldn’t expect him to show his face in San Cristobal,
considering the circumstances under which he left,” the girl returned,
her blue eyes boldly meeting his searching gaze.
“Perhaps not,” Gale rejoined, after a slight pause, during which he
did some rapid thinking. “Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that he has
returned to Baracoa at all. He disappeared from the ship at San Juan,
and I had an idea that he might have come back here.”
“Is that why you returned, too?” Virginia demanded scornfully. “Were
you lured back by the hope of finding him in Portiforo’s clutches
again, and being able to gloat over his fate?”
“Certainly not,” the reporter answered emphatically. “I’m not bothering
about Hawley at all. I came back here on a matter of business.”
Part of his statement was the truth. It was not merely malice which had
caused the man to postpone his return to New York and hurry back to San
Cristobal as soon as he had discovered that Hawley was missing from the
steamer. He had a professional reason for taking this step. He decided
that he might have acted somewhat rashly in notifying his office that
there was nothing in the weird rumors concerning Felix’s incarceration
in El Torro fortress. A certain note which the wife of the missing
president of Baracoa had written to the Camera Chap, part of which he
had managed to read over the latter’s shoulder, on the promenade deck
of the steamship, had opened the reporter’s eyes to the possibility
that he might have made a big mistake. He concluded that he had better
seek to rectify that mistake by returning to Baracoa and making another
attempt to get at the facts concerning Felix.
“I am sorry to find that you took me seriously the other day when we
had that talk concerning Hawley,” he said to Virginia. “I don’t really
wish the fellow any harm. He and I are good friends, now--I suppose
he’s told you of the large part I had in getting him set free--and I
should regret exceedingly seeing him in trouble again. I am glad to
learn that he hasn’t shown up in San Cristobal. I was afraid that he
might have shipped from San Juan in a tramp steamer headed this way.
But, as you say, it is scarcely likely that he would have done such a
rash thing.”
He spoke without the slightest tinge of irony in his tone. It had
suddenly occurred to him that it would be a good idea to give his
host’s daughter the impression this his suspicions were lulled. More
was to be gained, he decided, by watching her closely for the next
few days than by endeavoring to bluff her into an admission that she
knew of the Camera Chap’s return to Baracoa and the reason thereof.
That Hawley had returned to Baracoa he now felt quite sure. Virginia’s
demeanor had confirmed what, until then, had been merely a suspicion
on his part. And that the snapshot adventurer’s motive in coming back
was to have another try at getting Felix’s picture, Gale was equally
certain. For the next three days he proceeded to carry out his plan
of keeping a close watch on his host’s daughter. He felt sure that
sooner or later she would communicate in some way with the Camera Chap.
Probably they were hatching out some scheme together for landing the
precious snapshot. If so, by watching the fruition of that scheme, he
hoped at least to gain some valuable information as to the whereabouts
of Felix. Perhaps, even, if he played his cards right, he might be able
to force Hawley to share the picture with him, in the event of the
latter’s success. A still more alluring prospect was the possibility of
letting that expert snapshotter get the picture, and then, by working
some clever trick, getting it away from him so that he could hand
to his paper one of the greatest photographic scoops which had ever
startled Park Row. Difficult as he realized this last feat would be,
the _News_ man did not consider it impossible of fulfillment.
He subjected Virginia to an espionage which would have done credit
to one of Portiforo’s professional spies, shrewdly suspecting that
she was the keystone to the whole situation. But if the girl was in
communication with the Camera Chap she was managing it with a skill
and cautiousness which outclassed his keen powers of observation; for
he was unable to detect even any indication that she had knowledge
of Hawley’s whereabouts. One discovery he did make, though: she
seemed to have grown very friendly with a certain good-looking,
husky young officer of the battleship _Kearsarge_. Gale learned that
this man’s name was Ridder. He and Virginia met frequently and with
a secretiveness which made the reporter wonder whether the daughter
of his host hadn’t already forgotten all about Hawley and was going
through the early stages of a new romance. Strange to say, it did not
occur to Gale that the naval officer might be acting as an intermediary
between Virginia and the exiled snapshotter. He began to feel less
positive that the latter had returned to Baracoa. At all events, he
was pretty sure that the Camera Chap hadn’t ventured to show his face
in the capital or its environs, for he had reason to believe that
Portiforo’s spies were keeping a sharp lookout for that unwelcome
visitor, and if he had been there it was scarcely likely that those
human ferrets wouldn’t have unearthed him by this time.
Having come to this conclusion, the reporter gradually ceased his close
watch of Virginia’s movements, and spent most of his time in Puerto
Cabero, cultivating the acquaintance of the soldiers of the fortress,
particularly that of Captain Ernesto Reyes. He managed to persuade the
latter to take him on another tour of inspection through the prison of
El Torro, but was unable to find any trace of Felix there.
One day, as he sat drinking with Reyes in a café much frequented by
officers of the army, the captain asked him whether he had received an
invitation to the banquet on the warship.
“What banquet is that?” Gale inquired curiously.
Captain Reyes produced a card on which was engraved a formal invitation
requesting his presence at a dinner to be tendered by the officers of
the _Kearsarge_ to the officers of El Torro garrison.
“I supposed that surely you would receive an invitation, Señor Gale,”
the army officer remarked. “The American minister and Miss Throgmorton
are going to be there, so it is queer that you should have been
overlooked.”
“Maybe mine will arrive later,” the reporter said. “Are you going to
attend?”
The other announced that he expected to be among those present. “I
was going to send my regrets at first, on account of my eyesight,” he
declared. “I was afraid that with these glasses I should not be exactly
an ornament at the festive board, and in such a well-lighted room I
would not dare to leave them off. But Miss Throgmorton insisted upon my
accepting the invitation.”
“Miss Throgmorton?” There was an inflection of surprise in Gale’s tone.
The gallant captain smiled complacently. “She told me that it would
spoil the whole evening for her if I were not present. So what could
I do, my friend? Of course, as a gentleman and a soldier, I could not
disappoint a lady--especially one so charming as the daughter of the
American minister.”
Gale looked thoughtfully at his wine. “I wonder why she should be
so anxious to have you there,” he muttered. “It strikes me as being
deucedly queer.”
His companion’s manner showed that he resented the remark. “I see
nothing so very queer about it,” he said indignantly. “I do not wish
to appear boastful. Otherwise, perhaps, it would not be difficult for
me to explain why Miss Throgmorton finds such evident pleasure in my
society.”