THE SPY AND THE DEAD BOATSWAIN
Three steps at a time I took the matted stairway, which was reckless
speed, for the shell-paned windows were shut, and the awnings pulled down
to keep out the heat of the blinding sun, making it quite dark. But I was
bound to capture the little red-headed man, thrash him soundly, make him
tell his motive in trailing me, and turn him over to the police.
I caught the indistinct figure of a man in white coming up, and threw
myself to one side to avoid him, but he stumbled in front of me, and we
went sprawling into the corridor below. It was a nasty spill, and I shot
out on the matting at full length with my hands thrown before me. The
polished teak-wood floor and the loose matting saved me from injury.
"My dear sir!" exclaimed the man who fell with me, and I found the Rev.
Luther Meeker sitting on a crumpled mat and propped up with his arms
behind him, while his pith helmet went dancing away on its rim to settle
crazily upon its crown a dozen feet from us.
For an instant I was tempted to attack him, when I realized that his
presence on the stairs and his interruption of my pursuit of the
redheaded man were significant of more than an accident, and that Meeker
and the other were spying upon me. I bridled my ire, and decided to play
the game out with them and fathom the mystery of their espionage.
"My dear sir, I am almost certain that I have sprained my back--I am sure
I have injured my back!"
"I am sorry for your back," I said, getting to my feet. "For my part, I
am satisfied to escape without a broken neck."
"My immortal soul, if it isn't Mr. Trenholm!" said he, blinking at me,
his goggles bobbing on a rubber string made fast to a jacket-button. "Of
all persons, Mr. Trenholm! Bless my soul!"
My mental remark was somewhat similar and with equal fervour, if not
complimentary to him and his soul. Brushing my soiled ducks, I started to
move away, for it would never do to assume an excess of friendship too
suddenly.
"Just one moment, Mr. Trenholm--" he called after me, shaking a bony
forefinger--"just one moment, I beg of you, sir! I have some information
which I desire to impart, and, strangely enough, I was seeking you when
this unfortunate tumble came about, partly through my infirmities, I am
sure. One moment, sir. It is to your advantage to wait, I assure you."
"What is it?" I asked, hesitating. The little beggar had undoubtedly
escaped, and I knew that in Meeker I had bigger game if I handled him
cautiously.
"The _Kut Sang_!" he said, arising with difficulty and holding his back
with one hand while he hobbled after his helmet.
I was convinced that his injury and decrepit bearing were clever bits of
acting.
"I desire to correct you regarding the _Kut Sang_" he cackled, caressing
the recovered helmet.
"What about it? My dear Mr. Meeker, I am in a hurry and cannot waste the
day waiting for you to talk. I am sorry for what has happened here, but I
trust that you are not incapacitated. Anyway, I do not think there is
anything you can tell me about the _Kut Sang_ that I do not already
know."
"Oh, but there is," he protested, holding up his hand and eyeing me
craftily. "I was seeking you to tell you when we fell upon each other so
unceremoniously. It is quite--"
"I suppose you want to tell me that the sailing has been delayed. I know
all about that--she sails in the morning."
"Sails in the morning!" he exclaimed, pretending surprise, but being
puzzled about something. "Does she?"
There was guile in that last question, and when he asked it I knew it was
he or some one acting for him who had attempted to mislead me about the
time of the vessel's departure. I saw a chance to trap him, and asked:
"Was that what you wanted to tell me?"
He parried it, and while he fumbled in his pockets for something, a trick
to gain time, he was thinking hard and fast.
I had him against the ropes, so to speak, and he knew it, for what he did
want to find out was whether I knew the telephone message to be
fraudulent. If I did, he wanted to take credit for setting me right; and
if I didn't, he wanted me to miss the _Kut Sang_. So, knowing his game, I
came to the conclusion that I must not press him too hard and so make him
suspicious that I knew his true character--his character, that is, as a
decidedly suspicious person.
"I was told that she sails in the morning, but it was some mistake," I
told him, as if I had not found anything peculiar in the error and was
not the least disturbed about it.
"Oh, no! Nothing in that!" he cried, unable to conceal his delight over
my admission of how much I knew. "For a minute I thought there might be
something in the story, after all, when I heard you say she was delayed.
That is just what I was going to tell you--there is no truth in that
report. Some person, who I cannot say, also gave me misinformation
regarding the _Kut Sang_. I feared that you might have had the same
experience. That, however, is only a part of it--what I want to tell you
is that it is now possible to buy a ticket in the _Kut Sang_."
"I already have my ticket," I said. "So we will be fellow-passengers, and
I hope you will pardon my throwing you down the stairs; but I was running
after a beggar or a thief."
"Indeed! Do you know the rascal, or did you see him so that you can give
a comprehensive description of him to the police?"
"A little red-headed man," I said, watching him closely. "Did you see him
before you started up the stairs?"
He burst out in a dry, mirthless cackle of laughter, and slapped his
knees, much as if he had heard a good joke.
"If you will come in to tiffin with me, Mr. Trenholm, I will tell you
about him."
Assuming affability, I accepted his invitation, and we went into the
dining-room together and found a table to ourselves in the corner. I was
rather pleased at having an opportunity to study him, especially at his
own suggestion, and I made up my mind that before the lunch was over I
would have solved the mystery of who or what the missionary was, and why
he had the little red-headed man at my heels since I had arrived in
Manila that morning, and why he had attempted to keep me out of the
_Kut Sang_.
"And who is this little red-headed man?" I asked as we took our chairs.
He bowed his head and mumbled a grace before replying, and I had a sense
of mental conflict between us, and knew that I would have to guard
against chicane, or the suave old fellow would talk me out of my
suspicions.
"It must have been Dago Red you saw," he began, grinning, and wagging his
head. "I hope he did not actually steal anything, my dear Mr. Trenholm. I
am quite sure you must be mistaken about his being a thief; but it is
quite possible, he has deceived me."
"I found him sneaking near my door in the hall," I said. "Who is this
Dago Red?"
"A worthy man," he replied getting serious. "I am afraid you have done
him an injustice, for I sent him up to see if you were in your room, and
after I had given him the errand the clerk informed me that you were in,
and I started up myself."
"He didn't appear anxious to talk with me when he saw me open the door."
"You probably startled him by--"
"But who is he?"
"Petrak, I think his name is, although I am not sure, and my poor old
memory cannot hold names long. He is a sailor who has been shipwrecked,
and he became a vagrant here and was sent to Bilibid Prison. Much of my
work is in prisons, and I took charge of him when he got out and sent him
to the Sailors' Home, sure that he would be able to get a ship again.
That was a couple of months ago, and when I arrived to-day he met me and
told me that he had left the Home because the keeper was prejudiced
against him, owing to his term in prison.
"He was on the verge of starvation, and I gave him some money from my
charity fund, which he promptly spent on drink, for he is quite
dissolute. But he took charge of my luggage and attended to some errands
for me, but he fears the police and cannot get out of his habit of
skulking about, and, as the detectives have hounded him, he is suspicious
of everybody, and ready to go into a panic when a stranger approaches
him. It is a pity that he cannot get back to sea, but he has had the
fever, and no master seems to want him, and he has been forced into
vagabondage."
He gave me this history of the little red-headed man in disconnected
sentences while we were at the soup, and I let him run on. As he talked
his eyes were roaming over the room, and he scanned every person that
entered, and peered at me from under his brows when he thought I was not
observing him.
It was plausible enough, but I could not forget that Meeker and the
little sailor were together a great deal, and whenever I had seen them
they were acting suspiciously, and both of them had kept close watch upon
me. Neither had he explained away the fact that he had told me I could
not buy a ticket in the _Kut Sang_, which I did; nor the fact that he had
his own ticket when he told me that, nor the false telephone message for
the obvious purpose of making me miss the steamer, and then his getting
in my way when I was in pursuit of Petrak, or "Dago Red," as he called
him.
It seemed beyond reason that this chain of events could be nothing but a
combination of coincidences, and, when I analyzed the situation, I framed
what I considered a good theory regarding Petrak's presence outside my
door. It occurred to me that Meeker was the author of the false message,
and that he was really on his way to visit me to learn if I had
discovered the falsity of it when he met me rushing down the stairs. But
he had sent Petrak ahead of him to listen at the door in case I
telephoned the company to verify the first message; Petrak had heard
me ask the company for the sailing time and was about to report to Meeker
when I opened the door upon him.
Meeker was probably at the foot of the stairs and covered the retreat of
his henchman. Petrak may not have been able to stop and report what he
had heard, so Meeker fished for the information from me, ready to confirm
the report that the sailing of the vessel was delayed, or pretend that he
was about to set me right.
Upon my admission that I knew the report was false, he grasped at the
latter alternative, and, seeing that it was impossible to prevent me
going in the _Kut Sang_, determined to make friends with me and disarm
whatever suspicions I might have regarding him. It seemed a tenable
theory, but I could not account for all this bother on his part because
James Augustus Trenholm, of the Amalgamated Press, took passage in the
_Kut Sang_.
It seemed absurd to me that Meeker or anybody else would be concerned
because I was leaving Manila for Hong-Kong. It was plain enough that
he, or somebody, had done their best to keep me from sailing in the
_Kut Sang_. That it was the Rev. Luther Meeker there could be little
doubt, but the mystery lay in what his motives could be, or who he
was acting for, and it was beyond me to say why there should be any
objection to my sailing in the steamer _Kut Sang_ that afternoon.
While I was thinking these things over he was keeping up a running
conversation about trivial matters, and we were well into the curried
lamb and getting along famously when he asked a question which put me on
my guard at once, and set me groping mentally for a solution of the
puzzle.
"Did you deliver your letter?" he asked, casually, but I saw in an
instant that he had been paving the conversational way all along for that
very question.
"What letter?" I asked, although I knew the one he meant.
He looked at me craftily, with what I took for a bit of surprise that I
did not know the letter he referred to, or that he expected me to deceive
him.
"Perhaps I shouldn't mention it, for it may recall our little
unpleasantness this morning," he sent back. "Perhaps it was my fault, my
dear sir, in speaking to you when I picked it up, and I certainly
want to assure you that I was not put out by your disinclination to begin
an acquaintance with a stranger."
"Haven't the slightest idea of what you are talking about," I said
lightly, and professing ignorance in my puzzled expression.
"The letter you dropped in the bus." He fairly hurled the sentence at me,
although his voice was low and he was pretending to have trouble with the
saltcellar.
"Oh! To be sure, the letter I dropped in the bus, and which you so kindly
picked up for me. I have an idea that I was rather gruff at the time, and
not at all inclined to appreciate the service you performed. I might have
lost it entirely but for you, so I'll thank you now, with an apology."
"Don't mention it--don't mention it, I assure you. I trust you delivered
it safely."
He had given me the key to the mystery. The letter for the Russian consul
was the cause of Meeker's attentions to me! And, instead of being a
newspaper correspondent, to Meeker I was a Russian agent, probably a spy!
It was all I could do to restrain myself from laughing in his face.
"Delivered it safely," I repeated inanely. "It was only an errand for a
friend of mine, and I left it at the--"
He waited for me to finish the sentence. He forgot himself and failed to
conceal his assumed nonchalance regarding the letter, for, as I cut off
what I was saying, he held his fork poised over his lamb, so intent was
he on learning where I had delivered the letter for the Russian consul.
I seized a glass of water and struggled with an imaginary obstruction in
my throat, and mentally cursing my stupidity in telling my friend's
private business to a stranger who had already betrayed an inordinate
interest in the letter.
"Where did you leave it?" purred Meeker.
"At the post-office," I finished, amazed at his boldness in pursuing the
destination of the letter, and having no qualms of conscience about
telling him a falsehood. I did not regard it as any of his affair where I
had delivered the letter, and did not intend to inform him I had left the
bulky envelope at the Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank.
The image of the bank-front which crossed my mind gave me another clue to
Meeker's solicitude about me and the letter. I remembered seeing a sign
over the teller's window, which stated that the bank was a branch of a
Russian financial house. What could be more natural for a Russian spy
than to cash his drafts in a place which dealt with Vladivostok and Port
Arthur, or even St. Petersburg and Moscow?
And, if he took me for a spy in the Russian service, it followed that
he must be watching me for the Japanese, and it was probable that the
cable-agent in Saigon was in the service of the Czar and found it
convenient to deliver an important document with my assistance.
At that time Manila was the headquarters for blockade-runners bound for
Port Arthur, and Russian and Japanese spies, from coolies to bankers,
were watching every ship and every stranger. So it was not strange that
I, coming from French Indo-China, with a dispatch for the Russian consul,
should be mistaken for a spy by Meeker the instant he read the address on
the envelope and saw the wax seals.
I had a mind to tell the old fellow the joke on him, but that would
require explaining where the letter to the consul came from, which would
hardly be playing fair with my friend in Saigon. If he knew the truth he
might abandon his trip to Hong-Kong in the _Kut Sang_, and I would be rid
of him, for I knew he was going with me in the steamer for the purpose of
attempting to learn what my business would be in the British port.
If I was to remain in Manila I would have disillusioned him, and so put a
stop to his trailing me about, but, as I was leaving in a few hours, I
anticipated but little more trouble from him or the redheaded man.
Besides, I saw an opportunity to make game of him by telling him his
mistake after we were well to sea and leading him on a fool's voyage.
"I am sure that we will have a pleasant passage in the _Kut Sang_," he
said. "I am something of a literary man myself, Mr. Trenholm--an
exhaustive life of the saints, a shilling in paper covers, four shillings
in cloth, with gilt title and frontispiece of me. It is recommended by
the Bishop of Salisbury, and in its class quite a standard work.
"Then I did some poems, chiefly on sacred subjects. Not much as poetry,
perhaps, judged by severe standards, but I am told they are regarded as
marvels of piety and sweetness. I may have a copy in my luggage, which I
will show you after we are settled aboard the steamer."
I let him ramble on like that, turning over in my mind the while all the
schemes I intended to put into play to convince him I was really a spy,
and when a boy brought a paper I fell upon the war news.
"Another Russian defeat," I half moaned, and made out that I was
dreadfully upset because the Japanese were winning battles.
He said he deplored war, and had a prejudice against the Japanese, and
hoped they would lose, and praised the Russians as brave and pious. When
I expressed satisfaction at his views in order to prove my character as a
Russian agent, we might have been mistaken by an observer for a couple of
old friends.
He wearied me, however, with his chatter and efforts to make himself
agreeable, and after the meal I escaped from him on the plea of business
which must be attended to before the steamer sailed.
Leaving the walled city, I crossed the Bridge of Spain to the Escolta and
took a stroll in Calle Rosario, where the Chinese merchants keep
themselves in grateful shade with miles of awning. After an hour of
sight-seeing, I found myself in a square near the San Miguel Bridge.
There was a crowd gathered before a building, which I remember on account
of the picture of a frigate painted upon the stucco wall and the great
red letters spelling out:
THE FLAGSHIP BAR
There had evidently been a fight; and coolies and natives, and Europeans
in white, clustered at the door. I joined the knot of people and pressed
forward to see what was holding their attention, and saw the body of a
big, foreign-looking man, half inside the door and half on the pavement,
with his head outside.
His mouth was open, and from his upper lips drooped long, black
moustaches, looking all the blacker for the ghastly pallor of his cheeks.
He had been stabbed in the back, and the spectators in the front of the
group edged away to avoid the growing pool of blood on the sidewalk.
"Does anybody know who he is?" demanded a khaki-clad policeman, taking
out a note-book.
"A sailor," said an American in a white apron, who leaned out of the
door. "Drank whiskey and vermouth and talked like a squarehead."
"Greek he was," said a man with the appearance of a mariner.
"Here's his cap in here," said the bartender, and he turned and picked up
a watch-cap, and held it so we could see letters wrought in it with gilt
cord, and I made out "Kut Sang," which excited my interest in the case.
"Boatswain he was in the _Kut Sang_, bound out to-day for Hong-Kong,"
said the mariner.
"Jolly long road to Hong-Kong for him now," said another.
"Who cut him?" demanded the policeman. "Didn't you see how this happened?
Are you all deaf and dumb? You, there in the apron! Who did this?"
"You can search me," said the bartender. "He had a couple of drinks and
was going out when somebody slipped a knife in him. I was at the other
end of the bar--never saw a thing until this one here lets out a yell and
goes down. Somebody cut and run through the door."
"I see him! I see him!" cried a boy in kilts who had a hoop, and we all
turned, expecting the murderer to be pointed out to us; but the boy meant
that he had seen the man running away and all that he knew was that he
had worn a "funny hat," and he could tell nothing else.
"A little chap it was," volunteered a cockney.
"What's that?" asked the policeman. "Speak up--nobody here going to bite
you, my man! Did you see him? What did he look like?"
"I didn't see him do no cuttin', if that's what you mean, officer. I
didn't see no knife-play, and ye couldn't hang a man on what I see,
and--"
"What did you see?" said the policeman, with a show of asperity. "Never
mind what we can do with it. What did you see?"
"Small chap, in a white navy-cap, and 'air red as the sun in the Gulf of
H'annam."