A CLEVER GAME.
The clerk at the Hotel Trinidad had been bound and gagged and laid down
behind his counter, where he was found an hour later by other employees
of the hotel who came on duty. He reported that bandits had carried off
Mr. James Morrison and a lady who had entered the hotel as they were
departing, and the police immediately notified the government, so that
General Carlo Lopez was in receipt of the information a few minutes
later; but he was not surprised by it.
He had written to the bandit Pizzo that he could probably win a fortune
by capturing Morrison and, as he had personal reasons for wishing the
fellow out of the way, he would arrange that Pizzo and a few picked
men might enter and leave the city unmolested. There was a chance that
the minister of war was only laying a trap for the bandit, but Pizzo
did not think so, because he was aware that the existence of a small
band of robbers was the government's excuse for taxing the people to
support an army which was overlarge for the population of the republic.
There was no special enmity between him and Lopez, and the government
had made no serious effort to molest him for a couple of years.
So General Pizzo had risked himself and a few followers in the city and
escaped, not with one prisoner but with two; but Lopez did not learn
the identity of the second captive until Consul Goring telephoned him
in great distress that Ellen had gone out shortly after two o'clock and
had not returned to dinner.
Although Lopez had been informed that the hotel clerk had reported that
a lady had been carried off with Morrison, it had not occurred to him
for a second that the woman might be Ellen Goring. Having a low opinion
of male morality he had supposed that Pizzo had found the American with
some plaything and had obliged him by taking her along.
A search of the city which occupied the entire police force for hours
revealed no trace of Ellen, and the minister of war was forced to
conclude that the woman he hoped to marry had been taken in the trap he
had arranged for his rival. If Ellen had seen Lopez in his rage, the
fact that it was due to concern for her would not have prevented her
from being terrified.
His plan had been to send an expedition after Pizzo, with secret
instructions not to find him, after being officially informed that
Morrison had been carried off by the bandit. Tom Morrison in New
York would rage and storm against the government of Santa Rosa, and
undoubtedly would make threats that no self-respecting administration
need tolerate. In retaliation, President Garcia would break the
exclusive trade arrangement with the Morrison Fruit Company, and the
Blue Star would enter the republic in triumph.
Morrison, of course, would agree to pay the ransom when it was evident
that the Santa Rosa government was incapable of rescuing his son, but
this would be a matter of weeks, possibly months, and in the meantime
Lopez expected to persuade Ellen Goring to marry him.
This imbecile of a Pizzo had complicated a very sweet little plot by
carrying off the very girl Lopez wanted to keep away from Morrison, and
he made the air blue with curses upon the devoted head of the bandit.
Then he cooled down and considered the situation more calmly.
Apparently the girl had either been calling on Morrison in his
chambers, something which his esteem for Ellen made it impossible to
believe, or she had entered the hotel by accident at the moment of the
raid and had been carried off by Pizzo lest she give the alarm. In any
case, she was of no value to Pizzo, and when the bandit learned that
she was dear to the minister of war he would release her quickly.
Lopez sent for the young officer who had delivered his first message to
the bandit and, while awaiting him, indited a letter which would put
fear into Pizzo's soul if he had one. It was a peremptory demand for
the immediate release of Miss Goring, daughter of the American consul.
If she were not back in Rosa Blanca in twenty-four hours the entire
army of the republic would take the field against him and exterminate
his band.
The messenger started in a speedy motor car some seven hours after
the car containing the captives and their captors had passed out of
the city. Lopez ordered two regiments to be prepared to march into
the hills at six o'clock the following morning, and then he called on
the president to explain how the failure to rescue Jim Morrison would
result to the advantage of the administration.
It was necessary to make a gesture against the bandits, of course, but
Morrison would only be satisfied with success, and a break between him
and President Garcia was certain. Garcia saw the light quickly.