_A Stern Chase_
Wilson came out into the night with a sense of the world having
suddenly grown larger. He stood on the broad stone steps of the
library, breathing deep of the June air, and tried to get some sort of
a sane perspective. Below him lay Copley Square; opposite him the
spires of Trinity Church stood against the purple of the sky like
lances; to the right the top of Westminster was gay with its roof
garden, while straight ahead Boylston street stretched a brilliant
avenue to the Common. Wilson liked the world at night; he liked the
rich shadows and the splendor of the golden lights, and overhead the
glittering stars with the majestic calm between them. He liked the
night sounds, the clear notes of trolley bell and clattering hoofs
unblurred by the undertone of shuffling feet. Now he seemed to have
risen to a higher level where he saw and heard it all much more
distinctly. The power and, with the power, the freedom which he felt
with this tremendous secret in his possession filled him with new
life. He lost the sense of being limited, of being confined. A minute
ago this city, at least, had imprisoned him; now his thoughts flew
unrestrained around half the globe. But more than anything else it
made him stand better in his own eyes before the girl. He need no
longer await the whims of chance to bring her to him; he could go in
search of her. Somehow he had never thought of her as a girl to be won
by the process of slow toil--by industry; she must be seized and
carried away at a single coup. The parchment which rustled crisply in
his pocket whispered how.
The chief immediate value of the secret lay to him in the power it
gave him to check Sorez in whatever influence he might have gained
over the girl. As soon as he could convince Sorez that the girl's
psychic powers were of no use to him in locating the treasure, he
would undoubtedly lose interest in her. Strangely enough, Wilson felt
no moral scruples in retaining the map which he had found so
accidentally; to him it was like treasure-trove. If it rightly
belonged to anyone, it belonged to this fanatical priest and his
people.
In some way, then, he must communicate with Jo before it was too late.
He knew that it was impossible to locate her through the telephone;
the numbers were not all recorded in the book, and Central was not
allowed to divulge the location of any of them. However, he would try
to reach her again over the wire in the morning. If unsuccessful at
this, he must wait for her letter. In the meanwhile he would have
plenty to do in pursuing further investigation into the history and
topography of the country covered by his map. Of course, a great
difficulty ahead of him was lack of funds. But, if worse came to
worse, he thought it might be possible to interest someone in the
project. There were always men readier to finance a venture of this
sort than a surer and less romantic undertaking. He would feel better,
however, to investigate it alone if possible, even if it cost him a
great deal of time and labor. All those problems, however, were for
the future--its present worth lay in the influence it gave him with
Sorez.
He came down the library steps and started to cross the square with a
view to walking, but he found his legs weak beneath him. The best
thing he could do now, he thought, was to devote some attention to the
recovery of his strength. He still had the change from his ten
dollars, and with this recollection he felt a fresh wave of gratitude
for the man who had helped him so opportunely. He must look him up
later on. He boarded a car and, going down town, entered a restaurant
on Newspaper Row. Here he ordered beefsteak, potatoes, and a cup of
coffee. He enjoyed every mouthful of it and came out refreshed but
sleepy. He went up town to one of the smaller hotels and secured a
room with a bath. After a warm tub, he turned in and slept without
moving until he awoke with the sun streaming into the room. He felt
the old springiness in his body as he leaped out of bed, and a courage
and joy beyond any he had ever known at thought of Jo and the
treasure. These two new elements in his life came to him in the
morning with all the freshness and vividness of their original
discovery. In the full glare of the morning sun they seemed even more
real than the night before. He drew the parchment from beneath his
pillow, where he had hidden it, and looked it over once more before
dressing. No, it was not a dream; it was as real a thing as the
commonplace furnishings of the room.
He took a plunge in cold water and hurried through his dressing in
order to reach the post-office as soon as possible. He could not
believe his eyes when he came downstairs and saw the clock hands
pointing at twelve. He had slept over fourteen hours. Without waiting
for breakfast, he hurried up town and inquired for his mail. There was
nothing. He was bitterly disappointed for he had felt sure that she
would write him. It did not seem possible that he could go on waiting
patiently without at least one more talk with her. Though he knew it
was against her wish, he made up his mind to call her up once more. He
went to the nearest telephone and, asking for the number, received at
the end of five minutes the reply:
"That number doesn't answer, sir."
"There must be some mistake. I used it yesterday."
"I'll try again."
He waited several minutes. The droning voice came once more.
"I get no answer, sir."
"Ring 'em hard. I know there is someone there."
But nothing Central could do roused any reply. Either the line was out
of order or the occupants of the house refused to answer the call. He
left the booth with an uneasy feeling that something was wrong with
the girl. He should not have allowed her to leave the telephone
without telling him her address. It was possible she was held a
prisoner--possible that Sorez, failing to persuade her to go with him
in any other way, might attempt to abduct her. Doubtless she had told
him her story, and he knew that with only an indifferent housekeeper
to look after the girl no great stir would be made over her
disappearance. Like dozens of others, she would be accounted for as
having gone to the city to work. The more he thought of it, the more
troubled he became. One thing was certain; under these circumstances
he could no longer remain passive and wait for her letter. The chances
were that she would not be allowed to write.
He had intended to go out and see Danbury that afternoon, but he made
up his mind to take a car and go to Belmont on the chance of securing,
through the local office, some information which would enable him to
trace the house. If worse came to worse, he might appeal to the local
police for aid.
Before starting, he returned to the hospital and had his wound
examined. It was in good condition and the surgeon was able this time
to use a very much smaller dressing.
"Will it need any further treatment?" Wilson inquired.
"You ought to have the dressing changed once more, but on a pinch even
that will not be necessary so long as the cut keeps clean. If,
however, it begins to pain you, that means trouble. Don't neglect it
a day if that happens. But I don't anticipate anything of the sort.
Probably you can have the stitches out in a week."
It was a relief to be able to go out upon the street again without
attracting attention. The snapshot judgment upon every man with a
bandaged head is that he has been in a street fight--probably while
intoxicated. He bought a clean collar and a tie and indulged in the
luxury of a shoe polish and a shave. When he stepped out upon the
street after this he looked more like himself than he had for six
months. Had it not been for his anxiety over the girl, he would have
felt exultant, buoyant.
The Belmont car took him through green fields and strips of woods
rich leaved and big with sap. The sun flecked them with gold and a
cooling breeze rustled them musically. After the rain of the night
before the world looked as fresh as though new made. He was keenly
sensitive to it all and yet it mingled strangely with the haunting
foreign landscape of his imagination--a landscape with a background
of the snow-tipped summits of the Andes, a landscape with larger,
cruder elements. He felt as though he stood poised between two
civilizations. His eyes met the conventional details of surroundings
among which he had been born and brought up; he was riding on an
open trolley car, surrounded by humdrum fellow-passengers who
pursued the sober routine of their lives as he had expected, until
within a day, to do, passing through a country where conditions
were settled--graded, as it were, so that each might lay his track and
move smoothly upon it; and yet his thoughts moved among towering
mountains untouched by law, among people who knew not the meaning of a
straight path, among heathen gods and secret paths to hidden gold.
Yes, sitting here staring at the stereotyped inscription upon the
wooden seat-back before him, "Smoking on the three rear seats
only"--sitting here in the midst of advertisements for breakfast
foods, canned goods, and teas,--sitting here with the rounded back
of the motorman and the ever moving brass brake before his eyes, he
still felt in his pocket the dry parchment which had lain perhaps
for centuries in the heart of a squat idol. While riding through the
pretty toy suburbs in the comfort of an open car, he was still one
with Raleigh and his adventurous crew sailing the open seas; while
still a fellow with these settled citizens of a well-ordered
Commonwealth, he was, too, comrade to the reckless Quesada--lured by
the same quest. And this was not a dream--it was not a story--it was
dead, sober reality. The world about him now was no vision; he saw,
felt, and smelled it; the other was equally real, he had shared in a
struggle to possess it, he had the testimony of his eyes to
substantiate it, and the logic of his brain to prove it. If the wound
upon his head was real, if this girl in search of whom he was now
bent was real, if that within his pocket was real--if, in brief,
he were not a lunatic in complete subjection to a delusion--then,
however extravagant it might appear, all was real.
The fact which made it substantial, as nothing else did, was the
girl--the girl and all she meant to him. It must be a very genuine
emotion to turn the world topsy-turvy for him as it had. This
afternoon for instance, it was she who filled the sunbeams with golden
light, who warmed the blue sky until it seemed of hazy fairy stuff,
who sang among the leaves, who urged him on with a power that placed
no limit on distance or time. Within less than a day she had so
obsessed him as to cause him to focus upon the passion the entire
strength of his being. The fortune of gold and jewels before him was
great, but if necessary he could sacrifice it without hesitancy to
bring her nearer to him. That was secondary and so was everything
which lay between him and that one great need.
He sought out the telephone exchange at Belmont at once and was
referred to the superintendent. He found the latter a brisk,
unimaginative man--a creature of rules and regulations.
"Can't do it," he said gruffly.
Wilson went a little further into details. The girl was very possibly
a prisoner--very possibly in danger.
"Go to the police with your story."
"That means the newspapers," answered Wilson. "I don't wish the affair
made public. I may be altogether wrong in my suspicions, but they are
of such a nature that they ought to be investigated."
"Sorry, but the rule cannot be broken."
Wilson spent fifteen minutes longer with him, but the man impatiently
rose.
"That number is not listed," he said finally, "and under no
circumstances are we allowed to divulge it. You will have to go to the
police if you want help."
But Wilson had no idea of doing that. He still had one chance left--a
ruse which had occurred to him as he left the office. He went down
stairs and to the nearest telephone, where he rang up Information.
"Central?"
"Yes, sir."
"My line--Belmont 2748--is out of order. Can you send an inspector up
at once?"
"I'll see, sir."
In a minute the reply came.
"Yes, we can send a man right up."
"One thing more--from where does the inspector start? The house is
closed, but I'll send my man along to go up with him."
There was a wait of a few minutes. Wilson almost held his breath. Then
came the answer:
"The inspector leaves from the central office. Have your man ask for
Mr. Riley."
"In twenty minutes?"
"Yes, sir."
Wilson went out and walked around the block. He had told a deliberate lie
and was perpetrating a downright fraud, but he felt no conscientious
scruples over it. It was only after he had exhausted every legitimate
method that he had resorted to this. When he came around to the
entrance door again he found a young man standing there with a tool bag
in his hand. He stepped up to him.
"This Mr. Riley?"
"Yes, sir."
"I was to tell you to go on right out to the house. The man is
there."
"All right, sir."
Wilson started on, but stopped to look into the drugstore window. The
man went down the street to the car corner. Wilson again circled the
block and waited until he saw Riley board the car on the front
platform. He kept out of sight until the car had almost passed him and
then swung on to the rear. The stratagem was simplicity itself.
At the end of a ten-minute ride the inspector swung off and at the
next corner Wilson followed. It was easy enough to keep the man in
sight, and apparently he himself had escaped detection. The inspector
approached a modest looking house setting a bit back from the road
and, going to the front door, rang the bell. At the end of perhaps
three minutes he rang again. At the end of another five he rang a
third time. The curtains were down in the front windows, but that was
not uncommon in hot June days. The inspector went to the rear. In a
few minutes he came back. He tried the door once more and then,
apparently bewildered, came out. He hung around for some ten minutes
more, and then, returning to the corner, took the first car back.
It seemed clear enough that the occupants of the house were gone, but
Wilson waited a few minutes longer, unwilling to accept the
possibilities this suggested. He even went up and tried the bell
himself. A servant from the neighboring house called across to him:
"They all drove off in a carriage an hour ago, sir," she said.
"How many of them?" he asked.
"Mr. Davis and his aunt and his friend, the old man, and the young
girl--all of them."
"But the servants----"
"Ain't but one--old man Sullivan," she answered with some scorn.
"And they went where?"
"Lord, now how d' ye suppose I know that?"
For a second Wilson looked so disconsolate that she offered her last
bit of information.
"They took their trunks with 'em."
"Thanks," he replied as he turned on his heels and ran for the
approaching car.
He made it. During the ride in town his mind was busy with a dozen
different conjectures, each wilder than the preceding one. He was
hoping against hope that she had written him and that her letter now
awaited him in the post-office.
Reaching the Federal Building, he waited breathlessly at the tiny
window while the indifferent clerk ran over the general mail. With a
large bundle of letters in his hand he skimmed them over and finally
paused, started on, returned, and tossed out a letter. Wilson tore it
open. It was from Jo. It read:
"DEAR COMRADE:
I have made my decision--I am going with Dr. Sorez to Bogova,
South America. I have just written them at home and now I am
writing you as I promised. I'm afraid you will think, like the
others, that I am off on a senseless quest; but perhaps you
won't. If only you knew how much my father is to me! Dr. Sorez
is sure he is still living. I know he used to go to Carlina,
of which Bogova is the capitol. Why he should let us believe
him dead is, of course, something for me to learn. At any
rate, I am off, and off--to-day. The priest makes it unsafe
for Dr. Sorez to remain here any longer. You see, I have a
long journey before me. But I love it. I'm half a sailor, you
know.
I am writing this in the hope that you will receive it in time
to meet me at the steamer--the Columba, a merchantman. It
sails at four from Pier 7, East Boston. If not, let me tell
you again how much I thank you for what you have done--and
would do. From time to time I shall write to you, if you wish,
and you can write to me in care of Dr. Carl Sorez, the
Metropole, Bogova, Carlina. When I come back we must meet
again. Good luck to you, comrade.
Sincerely yours,
JO MANNING."
Meet her at the steamer! The boat sailed at four. It was now quarter
of. He ran from the building to Washington street. Here he found a
cab.
"Five dollars," he panted, "if you get me to Pier 7, East Boston, at
four o'clock."
He jumped in and had hardly closed the door before the cabby had
brought his whip across the flanks of the dozing horse. The animal
came to life and tore down Washington Street at a pace that threatened
to wreck the vehicle. The wheels skimmed sides of electric cars and
brushed the noses of passing teams. A policeman shouted, but the cabby
took a chance and kept on. Down Atlantic Avenue the light cab swayed
from side to side, swerving to within a hair's distance of the
elevated structure. They wasted five precious minutes at the Ferry.
From here the distance was short. At one end of the wharf Wilson
sprang through the small group of stevedores who, their work done,
were watching the receding steamer. He was too late by five minutes.
But he pushed on to the very tip of the wharf in his endeavor to get
as near as possible to the boat. The deck looked deserted save for the
bustling sailors. Then Fate favored him with one glance of her. She
had come up from below, evidently for a last look at the wharf. He saw
her--saw her start--saw her hesitate, and then saw her impulsively
throw out her arms to him. He felt a lump in his throat as, with his
whole heart in the action, he in his turn reached towards her.