by Don Marquis
CHAPTER VIII
A FLAME LEAPS OUT OF THE DARK
Kuroki announced dinner; Cleggett entered the captain's mess room ofthe cabin, where the cloth was laid, and a moment later lady Agathaemerged from the stateroom and gave him her hand with a smile.
If he had thought her beautiful before, when she wore her plaintraveling suit, he thought her radiant now, in the true sense of thatmuch abused word. For she flung forth her charm in vital radiations.If Cleggett had possessed a common mind he might have phrased it tohimself that she hit a man squarely in the eyes. Her beauty had thatdirect and almost aggressive quality that is like a challenge, and withsophisticated feminine art she had contrived that the dinner gown shechose for that evening should sound the keynote of her personality likea leitmotif in an opera. The costume was a creation of white satin,the folds caught here and there with strings of pearls. There was asingle large rose of pink velvet among the draperies of the skirt; alooped girdle of blue velvet was the only other splash of color. Butthe full-leaved, expanded and matured rose became the vivid epitome andillustration of the woman herself. A rope of pearls that hung down toher waist added the touch of soft luster essential to preserve thepicture from the reproach of being too obvious an assault upon thesenses; Cleggett reflected that another woman might have gone too farand spoiled it all by wearing diamonds. Lady Agatha always knew whereto stop.
"I have not been so hungry since I was in Holloway Jail," said LadyAgatha. And she ate with a candid gusto that pleased Cleggett, wholoathed in a woman a finical affectation of indifference to food.
When Kuroki brought the coffee she took up her own story again. Therewas little more to tell.
Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat, it appeared, had mistaken theirinstructions. Two nights after they had been engaged they had appearedat Lady Agatha's apartment with the oblong box.
"The horrid creatures brought it into my sitting-room and laid it onthe floor before I could prevent them," said Lady Agatha.
"'What is this?' I asked them, in bewilderment.
"They replied that they had killed Reginald Maltravers ACCORDING TOORDERS, and had brought him to me.
"Orders!" I cried. "You had no such orders." Elmer, who lived on thesame floor, was absent temporarily, having taken Teddy out for anairing. I was distracted. I did not know what to do. "Your orders," Isaid, "were to--to----"
She broke off. "What was it that Elmer told them to do, and what wasit that they did?" she mused, perplexed. She called Elmer into thecabin.
"Elmer," she said, "exactly what was it that you told your friends todo to him? And what was it that they did? I can never remember thewords."
"Poke him," said Elmer, addressing Cleggett. "I tells these ginks topoke him. But these ginks tells th' little dame here they t'inks I hassaid to croak him. So they goes an' croaks him. D' youse get me?"
Being assured that they got him, Elmer downheartedly withdrew.
"At any rate," continued Lady Agatha, "there was that terrible box uponmy sitting-room floor, and there were those two degraded wretches. Thecallous beasts stood above the box apparently quite insensible to theethical enormity of their crime. But they were keen enough to see thatit might be used as a lever with which to force more money from me.For when I demanded that they take the box away with them and disposeof it, they only laughed at me. They said that they had had enough ofthat box. They had delivered the goods--that was the phrase theyused--and they wanted more money. And they said they would not leaveuntil they got it. They threatened, unless I gave them the money atonce, to leave the place and get word to the police of the presence ofthe box in my apartment.
"I was in no mental condition to combat and get the better of them. Ifelt myself to be entirely in their power. I saw only the weakness ofmy own position. I could not, at the moment, see the weak spots intheirs. Elmer might have advised me--but he was not there. Themiserable episode ended with my giving them a thousand dollars each,and they left.
"Alone with that box, my panic increased. When Elmer returned withTeddy, I told him what had happened. He wished to open the box, havinga vague idea that perhaps after all it did not really contain what theyhad said was in it. But I could not bear the thought of its beingopened. I refused to allow Elmer to look into it.
"I determined that I would ship the box at once to some fictitiouspersonage, and then take the next ship back to England.
"I hastily wrote a card, which I tacked on the box, consigning it toMiss Genevieve Pringle, Newark, N. J. The name was the first inventionthat came into my head. Newark I had heard of. I knew vaguely that itwas west of New York, but whether it was twenty miles west or twothousand miles, I did not stop to think. I am ignorant of Americangeography.
"But no sooner had the box been taken away than I began to be uneasy.I was more frightened with it gone than I had been with it present. Iimagined it being dropped and broken, and revealing everything. Andthen it occurred to me that even if I should get out of the country,the secret was bound to be discovered some time. I do not know why Ihad not thought of that before--but I was distracted. Having got ridof the box, I was already wild to get it into my possession again.
"I confided my fears to Elmer, and was surprised to learn from him thatNewark is very near New York. We took a taxicab at once, and werewaiting at the freight depot in Newark when the thing arrived. There Iclaimed it in the name of Miss Genevieve Pringle.
"It became apparent to me that I must manage its final dispositionmyself. Elmer hired for me the vehicle in which we arrived here, andwe started back to New York.
"But the driver, from the first, was suspicious of the box. Hissuspicions were increased when, upon returning to my apartment hotel,where I now decided to keep the box until I could think out a coherentplan of action, the manager of the hotel made inquiries. The managerhad seen the box brought in, and taken out again, before. Its returnstruck him as odd. He offered to store it for me in the basement. Itook alarm at once. Naturally, he questioned me more closely. I wasunready in my answers. His inquiries excited and alarmed me. I feltthat any instant I might do something to betray myself. I cut themanager short, paid my bill, got my luggage, and ordered the chauffeurto drive to the Grand Central Station. But when we had gone three orfour blocks, I said to him: 'Stop!--I do not wish to go to the GrandCentral Station. Drive me to Poughkeepsie!' I wished a chance tothink. I knew Poughkeepsie was not far from New York City, but Isupposed it was far enough to give me a chance to determine what to donext by the time we arrived there.
"But I could not think coherently. I could only feel and fear. Thedrive was longer than I had expected, but when we arrived atPoughkeepsie and the chauffeur asked me again what disposition to makeof the box, I was unable to answer him. Thereupon he insolentlydemanded an enormous fare.
"I could not choose but pay it. For four days we went from place toplace, in and about New York City's suburbs--now in town and now in thecountry--crossing rivers again and again on ferryboats--stopping athotels, road houses and all manner of places--dashing through Brooklynand out among the villages of Long Island--and with the fear on me thatwe were being followed.
"Elmer and I were continually on the lookout for some way to dispose ofthe box, but nothing presented itself. The driver, who had become moreand more impudent in his attitude and outrageous in his charges, wasnow practically a spy upon us. The necessity for ice made frequentstops imperative; at the same time the increasing fear of pursuit madeit agony for me to stop anywhere.
"Today, at a road house thirty or forty miles from here, I made certainthat I was pursued. The very man from whom I had claimed the box atthe railway goods station in Newark confronted me. It appears, fromwhat Elmer says, that he is taking a holiday and is visiting hisbrother, who is the proprietor of the road house.
"And the person who is pursuing me is--a Miss Genevieve Pringle!
"As fate would have it, there lives in Newark a person who really ownsthat name which I th
ought I had invented. It seems that she had beenexpecting a shipment, and had called to inquire for it; upon learningthat a box had been delivered to a person in her name she had taken upthe trail at once. Having somehow traced me to Long Island, she hadactually made inquiries at this very road house some hours earlier.The railway employee, I am certain, would have denounced me at once--hewould have accused me of theft, and would have endeavored to have meheld until he could get into communication with Miss Pringle or withthe authorities--but I bought from him a promise of silence. It costme another large sum.
"A few hours ago the chauffeur, divining from a conversation betweenElmer and me that I was running short of ready money, deserted me here.You know the rest."
Her voice trailed off into a tired whisper as she finished, and withher elbows on the table Lady Agatha wearily supported her head in herhands. Her attitude acknowledged defeat. She was despairingly certainthat she would never see the last of the box which she believed tocontain Reginald Maltravers.
Cleggett did not hesitate an instant. "Lady Agatha," he said, "theJasper B. is at your service as long as you may require the ship. Thecabin is your home until we arrive at a solution of your difficulties."
His glance and manner added what his tongue left unuttered--that thecommander of the ship was henceforth her devoted cavalier. But sheunderstood.
She extended her hand. Her answer was on her lips. But at thatinstant the jarring roar of an explosion struck the speech from them.
The blast was evidently near, though muffled. The earth shook; a tremorran through the Jasper B.; the glasses leaped and rang upon the table.Cleggett, followed by Lady Agatha, darted up the companionway.
As Cleggett reached the deck there was a second shock, and he beheld aflame leap out of the earth itself--a sudden sword of fire thrust intothe night from the midst of the sandy plain before him. The light thatstabbed and was gone in an instant was about halfway between the JasperB. and Morris's. A second after, a missile--which Cleggett laterlearned was a piece of rock the size of a man's head--fell with asplintering crash upon and through the wooden platform beside theJasper B., not thirty feet from where Cleggett stood; another splashedinto the canal. The next day Cleggett saw several of these fragmentslying about the plain.
Calling to his men to bring lanterns--for the night had fallen dark andcloudy--Cleggett ran towards the place. Lady Agatha, refusing toremain behind, went with them. Moving lights and a stir of activity atMorris's, and the gleam of lanterns on board the Annabel Lee, showedCleggett that his neighbors likewise were excited.
But if Cleggett had expected an easy solution of this astonishingeruption he was disappointed. Arrived at the scene of the explosion,he found that its nature was such as to tease and balk his faculties ofanalysis. The blast had blown a hole into the ground, certainly; butthis hole was curiously filled. Two large bowlders that leaned towardseach other had stood on top of the ground. These had been split andshattered into many fragments. A few pieces, like the one that came sonear Cleggett, had been flung to a distance, but for the most part theshivered crowns and broken bulks had been served otherwise; the forceof the blast had disintegrated them, but had not scattered them; thegreater part of this newly-rent stone had toppled into the fissure inthe ground, and lay there mixed with earth, almost filling the hole.It was impossible to determine just where and how the blast had beenset off; the rocks hid the facts. But Cleggett judged that the forcemust have come from below the bowlders; mightily smitten from beneath,they had collapsed into the cavern suddenly opening there, as abuilding might collapse into and fill a cellar. The pieces that hadbeen thrown high into the air were insignificant in proportion to thegreat bulk which had settled into the hole and made its origin amystery.
As Cleggett, bewildered, stood and gazed upon the mass of rock andearth, Cap'n Abernethy gave a cry and pointed at something with hisfinger. Cleggett, looking at the spot indicated, saw upon the edge ofthis singular fracture in the earth a thing that sent a quick chill ofhorror and repulsion to his heart. It was a dead hand, roughly severedbetween the wrist and the elbow. The back of it was uppermost; thefingers were clenched. Cleggett set down his lantern beside it andturned it over with his foot.
The dead fingers clutched a scrap of something yellow. On one of themwas a large and peculiar ring.
"My God!" murmured Lady Agatha, grasping Cleggett convulsively by theshoulder, "that is the Earl of Claiborne's signet ring!"
But Cleggett scarcely realized what she had said, until she repeatedher words. Fighting down his repugnance, he took from the lifeless andstubborn fingers the yellow scrap of paper.
It was a torn and crumpled twenty-dollar bill.