Starbuck abruptly headed for the lounge, motioned Ray to follow. The
latter did so, mechanically, too utterly dumfounded for words or
coherent thought. The knowledge that Eve Gaylord, reported to have been
kidnaped or spirited away from her Philadelphia home, was on board the
Raven, was in itself overwhelming!
How she came to be there and whether she had come willingly were other
matters. But the look Ray had caught in Starbuck’s eyes and the sudden
alertness that had flashed into the girl’s face in the fleeting instant
that Ray had looked upon her—these indicated, without question, that
something was amiss.
Starbuck’s “Well” had been the involuntary exclamation of a man caught
in a jam. But in the few seconds occupied by their progress to the
lounge, Ray had no time to sort out the impressions that were crying for
recognition.
He felt dumb and stupid. Therefore, he did the sensible thing, followed
Starbuck and, when they had seated themselves, waited for his host to
speak.
Starbuck was frowning. “Why did you follow me down there?” he asked
sharply.
“I didn’t follow you,” Ray told him. “I was looking for my room when you
came out.”
“Well, what do you think about it?” the other demanded.
“I don’t know what to think,” Ray admitted, adding: “What do you expect
me to think?”
Starbuck sparred yet a moment longer. “You know who the lady is, I
suppose.”
“Sure. Eve Gaylord,” Ray answered shortly.
“Just so. And, before you left New York, the papers, no doubt—well, just
what was being said?”
“I was too busy with my own affairs to follow the thing closely,” was
the reply. “But I gathered that the girl had disappeared, and that she
was believed to have been kidnaped. There were reports that a big ransom
had been demanded from Wilbur Gaylord.”
Starbuck smiled faintly. “I fancy he could pay a pretty stiff price for
anything he wanted badly enough,” he observed.
“There is no doubt about that, but—Holy Moses, _you_ haven’t kidnaped
the girl, Mr. Starbuck!”
Starbuck laughed shortly, a disagreeable little chuckle, it was, and
turned abruptly to the taboret. He mixed a stiff drink, motioned Ray to
help himself, then said, half to himself: “It is too bad that you
couldn’t have remained here where you belonged.”
The sudden recollection of that floor plan forced its way into the tide
of Folsom’s racing thoughts and the young man paused in the act of
pouring a drink to look keenly at his host. Starbuck noted this.
“Now what?” he queried.
Ray set down his glass.
“Hell!” he exclaimed. “Why go on like this? If you think any sort of
explanation is coming to me, Mr. Starbuck, I should be pleased to hear
it. Otherwise—well, the subject is not pleasant.”
Starbuck pondered this for a moment.
“We’ll drop the matter for the present,” he announced. “Tonight at Cobh,
we shall have the British papers and the American prints at Liverpool
next day. We’ll just drop it for now. Only—only, I fear I cannot put you
ashore at Cobh, nor yet at Liverpool. You have suddenly become a
problem, Mr. Folsom.”
“But—but—why, I must get ashore! I have to report on my trip—to report
the—the—disappearance of Mrs. Benham!”
“Sorry,” Starbuck told him. “But it can’t be done, you see. I hate to
inconvenience you, but there you are. It can’t be done. Damned shame you
came along when you did; otherwise I would have had you snugly ashore
this evening or first thing in the morning.”
“You’re crazy,” Ray blurted out. “Why, you can’t keep me here. You can’t
keep the news of our mishap bottled up like this, you know!”
“Can’t I, though? I fancy I can if I choose. It’s really remarkable what
I can do along those lines—what I have done. But we were about to drop
the subject until after seeing those papers. It will be tremendously
interesting to read the sundry versions of the affair.
“Meanwhile, I will admit that I’m puzzled. There is a lot of thinking to
be done. I hope we make Cobh in time to send a boat ashore tonight.”
Whereupon the astonishing Starbuck wheeled and walked out of the lounge.
Ray stared after him. He could put but one construction upon what the
man had said. That and his refusal to put his guests ashore could
signify only—but, why, the thing was impossible!
This yacht, these guests, the estate in the north, Starbuck himself. Was
not the man wealthy and of good repute? There had been enough in the
papers about him. That he could be a desperate criminal seemed
preposterous!
And these people about him—where did they fit in? Rats! It probably was
something in the nature of an astounding hoax. Ah, well. He would make
the best of the business and see what the newspapers had to say.