Elliott awoke next morning with an uneasy head and a feverish taste in
his mouth, and looked vaguely around the unfamiliar hotel chamber
without being able to recall how he had come there. It was only
yesterday that he had been riding surreptitiously in box cars. But as
his brain cleared he remembered the splendid and joyous dinner that
had closed the day before, a misty glitter of glass and silver and
delicious wines and cigars. That recalled his new friends and his
message to them, and then the whole transformation of his fortunes
flashed back upon him—the miraculous winning at roulette, the treasure
trail; and, wide awake instantly, he jumped out of bed in a flush of
excitement.
He found a new suit of clothes on a chair, which he now recollected
having bought ready-made on the previous afternoon. They were very
good clothes and fitted well, and in the trousers pocket he found a
thick wad of bills. Each of the partners had taken a hundred dollars,
and the rest of the money was in a sealed package in the hotel safe.
In the dining-room he found Henninger and Hawke finishing breakfast,
though it was nearly eleven o’clock. Hawke looked wearied and nervous,
with the rags of yesterday’s excitement still clinging about him, but
Henninger was as fresh, as neat, and as unmoved as ever. A few other
late breakfasters at the other end of the room looked at the trio with
curiosity, for the report of their coup, greatly magnified in the
telling, had gone abroad; and the negro waiter served them with
exaggerated respect.
In the lobby Elliott bought himself the best cigar he had ever smoked,
luxuriating in the novel sense of riches, which was like a sudden
relief from pain. He had never felt so wealthy in his life. The money
had come with such incredible ease; the sum looked almost
inexhaustible; and beyond it was the great treasure to be fished up
from the African seas.
There were too many people in the lobby for private conversation, and
they returned to Henninger’s room.
“First of all, I vote we send Bennett a hundred dollars. I kept it out
for him when I sealed the money last night,” said Henninger. “I’ll
wire him what we’ve done, and then I’ll wire Sullivan. I don’t know
that we told you, Elliott, where Sullivan is. He’s in Washington,
attending to a case for us. We were all in South America last winter,
and we’ve got a claim against the Venezuelan government for damages
and confiscation of property, and so forth, for two millions.”
“Two what?” exclaimed Elliott.
“Two millions. We thought we might get a few thousands out of it.
Anyway, Sullivan has been trying to get our case taken up at
Washington, but we’ll drop all that and tell him to meet us in New
York.”
“I’d like very much to look up that Madagascar channel on the largest
map there is,” Hawke broke in, “and see what we can make of it.”
He voiced a common desire. Every one wanted to look at it, and they
went down to the Public Library and obtained a gigantic atlas. They
propped it up on a table and put their heads together over the map of
East Africa. The steamer route from Delagoa Bay to Zanzibar and Suez
was marked in red, and at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel
it passed through a tangle of little islands and reefs.
“Comoro, Mohilla, Mayotta, St. Lazarus Bank,” read Hawke, under his
breath. “It must be one of these.”
They all gazed at the archipelago, two thumbs’ width on the paper that
represented a hundred sea leagues. Somewhere among these islands lay
the treasure that had cost the lives of a ship’s company already, and
as he stared at the brown and yellow spots, Elliott saw in excited
imagination the barren islands on the sunny tropical ocean, and the
spray spouting high over the reefs where the sea-birds wheeled about
the iron skeleton of the _Clara McClay_. There was the end of the
rainbow; there was the golden magnet that had already stirred the
passions of men on the other side of the world; and as he looked at
the lettered surface of the map, he felt a sudden cold prescience of
tragedy.
“Glorioso, Farquahar!” murmured Hawke. “They surely couldn’t have run
so far out of their course as that. St. Lazarus is my choice, and, if
I’m right, we’ll make it St. Dives.”
“We don’t know enough yet to make this any use,” said Henninger,
suddenly. “Let’s get out.”
The sight of the map and its hundreds of miles of islands and seas did
in fact bring the problem into concrete reality, and forcibly
emphasized the difficulties. They all felt somewhat downcast and
vaguely disappointed, but, as they were going down the steps, Elliott
had an inspiration.
“It occurs to me,” he said, “that if anybody escaped in the boats,
they must have been picked up somewhere at sea. In that case, the fact
is likely to be reported in some newspaper, isn’t it?”
“What have we been thinking of?” exclaimed Henninger. “You’re right,
of course. The New York _Herald_ should have it, as she was an
American ship. We’ll go back and look through the files of the
_Herald_, if they have them, for the last few months.”
The papers were bound up by months, and each man took a volume and sat
down to run through the shipping news. Elliott finished his without
finding anything, and obtained another file. He was half through this
when Hawke tiptoed over to him.
“Here’s where Bennett appears,” he whispered.
It was a four-line telegram from Sydney, stating that a seaman named
Bennett had been picked up from a raft in the Indian Ocean, reporting
that the American steamer _Clara McClay_ had foundered with all hands
in the Mozambique Channel.
There was nothing new in this, but it seemed somehow encouraging, and
while Elliott was reading it, Henninger came over to them. His eyes
were sparkling, and he looked as if holding some strong emotion in
check. He laid down his file before them, and put his finger on a
paragraph, dated more than a fortnight earlier than the despatch from
Sydney.
“Bombay, March 19.
“The Italian steamer _Andrea Sforzia_, arriving yesterday
from Cape Town and Durban, reports having picked up on the
10th about one hundred miles N. E. of Cape Amber, a boat
containing First Mate Burke, of the steamer _Clara
McClay_, of Philadelphia. He stated that his ship
foundered in deep water in the Mozambique Channel by
reason of heavy weather and shifting of cargo, and
believes himself to be the only survivor. He was almost
unconscious, and nearly dead of thirst when rescued.
“The _Clara McClay_ was an iron steamer of 2,500 tons,
built at Greenock in 1869, and has been for some years
engaged in the East and West African coast trade. She was
owned by S. Jacobs and Son, of Philadelphia, and commanded
by Captain Elihu Cox.”
The two men read this item, and Elliott, glancing up, saw his
mystification reflected on Hawke’s face. What new development did it
indicate that Bennett and the mate should have told the same falsehood
about the sinking of the _Clara McClay_, and certainly without
collusion? Henninger meanwhile was carefully copying the paragraph
into a note-book, and when he had finished, he gathered up the papers,
returned them to the librarian’s desk, and led the way out of the
building.
“We’ve got a line on it at last,” he said, when they were in the open
air, and there was a keen eagerness in his usually impassive voice.
“It’s clear that the mate was saved, but it don’t help us to find the
island, so far as I can see,” Hawke objected.
“Oh, the island—confound it!” as they came into the crowds of Church
Street. “Let’s go somewhere where we can talk.” And he shut his mouth
and did not open it again till they were placed comfortably in a small
German café, which happened to be almost empty.
“You don’t seem to understand,” he then resumed. “The mate lied,—said
the ship sunk in deep water, didn’t he? He told the same story as
Bennett. Why? For the same reason. He must have known the bullion was
there, after all. He took chances on being the only survivor of the
wreck, and he wanted to choke off any inquiry. There’s never any
search for a wreck that goes down in a hundred fathoms.”
“But there were other survivors,” said Elliott. “There were others in
that boat with him when Bennett saw them sailing away. That must have
been the mate’s boat, and what became of the others?”
“Ah, yes,—what?” replied Henninger, grimly. “He was alone when he was
picked up.”
There was a moment’s silence at this sudden apparition of the crimson
thread in the tangle.
“This is the way I see the story,” said Henninger. “That mate—what’s
his name—Burke?—knew the gold was on board. How he found out, I don’t
know. Whether he accidentally ran the steamer out of her course that
night, or whether he piled her up intentionally, I don’t know, either.
He may have done it by reason of his jag, or he may have tanked up to
give himself courage to carry it through. I suspect it was the latter.
Anyhow, when she was smashed, he saw his chance, for he reckoned that
his was the only boat to get away safe. He had several men with him,
but they seem to pass out of the story. He was picked up, carried to
Bombay; he lied about the wreck.
“What does he do next? Why, of course he gets ready to go back to
Zanzibar or some such port and hire a craft to go to look for his
wreck. If he thinks he’s safe, he may lie low for awhile; or, if he
hasn’t the capital for the thing, he will have to hunt up some
ruffians to finance him. But if he thinks that he’s in any danger of
being forestalled, he’ll make haste. If by bad luck he reads of
Bennett’s being picked up, it’ll galvanize him; and as like as not
he’s sailing up the channel this minute, while we’re sitting here
drinking lager, doing nothing—because we don’t know anything!”
“Yes, but how are we going to find out anything,—where the wreck is,
for example?” demanded Elliott.
“Why, from this same mate, Burke, if we can catch him. He’s the source
of knowledge. He knows very well where it is; if he didn’t, he
wouldn’t have taken the trouble to lie about it. First of all, we’ve
got to catch that mate, and when we’ve got him, we’ll induce him to
tell us what he knows. Do you remember how Casal used to interrogate
prisoners in Venezuela, Hawke? We’ve got to get on his trail right
away, and meanwhile see that he doesn’t collar the cash before we know
it.”
“It’ll be a long, wide trail,” Hawke remarked.
“No. There’s only one hemisphere for Burke, and only one spot in it,
and that’s somewhere between Madagascar and the African coast. He
won’t go far from that if he can help it, and wherever he goes he’s
bound to come back. And he’ll have to come in his own ship, for there
aren’t any steamers plying to his island. He’ll have to hire or buy a
small craft on the East African coast, and there are only three ports
that will serve.”
Henninger sipped his beer, and meditated in silence for a little.
“My idea would be something like this. Three of us will go to South
Africa at once; we pick up Sullivan in New York, of course. One of us
will post himself in each of those three ports,—Lorenzo Marques,
Mozambique, and Zanzibar, watching every boat that comes in, every
stranger that lands, and everything that goes on along the waterfront.
If Burke turns up, our man will have to use his own judgment as to how
to get hold of him,—bribe him or kidnap him, or anything, but keep him
there at any cost till the rest of us can come. Meanwhile the fourth
one of us will go to Bombay, and try to find out where Burke went and
what he did. He might possibly be there yet; anyway, he must have left
some trace at the consulate or the shipping-offices.”
“At any rate,” said Elliott, “it appears fairly certain that no one
knows anything about this ton of yellow metal but ourselves and the
mate, Burke. Then there’s no danger of outside interference.”
“It’s a fair race to Madagascar!” Hawke exclaimed.
“It’s a race,” said Henninger, shrugging his shoulders, “but I don’t
know about its fairness. We’re heavily handicapped at the start. Why
we’re wasting time here, I don’t know.” He stood up suddenly,
frowning, impatient.
“Sit down and finish your cigar,” Hawke advised him. “There’s no train
for New York till nine o’clock to-night.”
“Yes, and there’s no fast steamer for South African ports at all.
We’ll do best to sail for England, I fancy. Then the man who is going
to India can take the P. and O., and the rest of us will go by the
Union Castle Line to the Cape.”
“But which of us is going to India?” Elliott inquired.
“I don’t know.” Henninger glanced calculatingly at his companions.
“I’d like to go to Zanzibar myself, if you don’t mind, because I
suspect that it’s the dangerous point; and Sullivan should take
Lorenzo Marques, because he was there once, and he knows something of
the place. The shadowing lies between you two, as far as I can see.”
“I’ll match you for it,” proposed Hawke.
Elliott pulled out a quarter and spun it on the table, turning up
tail. Hawke followed, and lost.
“I’m to be the tracker, then,” said Elliott. “I’m afraid I’ll make a
poor sleuth. I wish Bennett had given us a description of the mate,
for he has probably changed his name.”
“So do I. I’d like to have time to run up to St. Louis and talk it
over with Bennett. I’d like a lot of things that we haven’t time for.
Bennett can’t write with a broken arm, so there’s no use in writing to
him for more details. But, as a matter of fact, I don’t really expect
that you’ll come up with this man Burke at all. What I do hope is that
you’ll find out where he went when he left Bombay, and if by chance he
hired any kind of vessel anywhere, and in general what he was doing.
We’ve got to get our information from him, there’s no doubt of that.”
“And what about Bennett?” Elliott inquired, after a pause. “How is he
to come into the game?”
“The chances are that the game will be played before his arm’s
mended,” said Henninger. “We’ll send him a hundred, as I suggested,—or
let’s make it three hundred,—and of course he’ll share and share alike
with the rest of us. I think I’d better write him to go to San
Francisco as soon as he’s able to travel, if he hasn’t heard from us
in the meantime, and hold himself in readiness there to join us.
Frisco’ll be the most convenient port, and he can cable us his address
as soon as he gets there.”
“And I reckon we’d better telegraph to New York for staterooms,” Hawke
suggested. “The east-bound steamers are always crowded at this time of
year.”
They sent the despatch at once to Cook’s agency, asking simply to get
to Liverpool or Southampton at the earliest date possible, expense
being no consideration. At the same time Henninger both telegraphed
and wrote to Bennett; and Elliott wired to the express company in
Baltimore to have his trunk placed in storage for him till his return.
He had gone too far now upon the treasure trail to turn back, and
indeed he would not have turned back if he could. It was really the
romance of the adventure that fascinated him, though he did not think
so. He told himself that it was a legitimate enterprise—he clung to
the phrase—with a reasonable expectation of large profits. But in no
manner could he see his way to write a complete explanation of his
plans to Margaret; if he could have talked to her, he thought, it
would be easy. He composed a letter to her that afternoon, however, in
which he remarked negligently that he was going to India on a
commission for other parties, with all expenses paid, and would
probably not be back to America before autumn. At the end of the
letter, forgetting his precaution, he hinted of a vast fortune which
was scarcely out of reach,—an imprudence which he afterward regretted.
The party left Nashville that night, and, as the train rolled out of
range of the last electric lights, Hawke drew a long breath.
“I did begin to think we were never going to get away from that town,”
he sighed. “It looked like we were in pawn to the Hotel Orleans for
the rest of our lives.”
Henninger smiled queerly. “Since we are fairly away, I don’t mind
telling you,” he said, “that the manager and I discussed the matter
last week. I explained that we were waiting for a large remittance
that was overdue, but it would certainly be here in a day or two; we
expected it by every mail. He gave it four days to arrive,—then we’d
leave or be thrown out. Elliott turned up on the last day.”