“I did,” she answered naïvely.
“No; I did. I am beginning to feel too lucky to be awake. And would you have turned back if you had lost? Would you have left me here with all this anticipation to dispose of?” he cried.
“If it came tails, I was to turn back. It came tails.”
“What! And you came anyhow?”
“Well, you see, after the first flip I concluded to make it two out of three trials. So I flipped again, Hugh, and it came tails. Then I made it three out of five. That was only fair, wasn’t it?”
“Certainly. Seven out of thirteen or eleven out of twenty, just so you won.”
“I tossed that coin seventeen times, and the final count was nine for New York and eight for Chicago. The train had started, so I didn’t flip again. Wasn’t it a narrow majority, dear?”
“If it were not for appearing ridiculous, I would kiss you seventeen times right here. Oh, how about your baggage—luggage, I mean?” he cried.
“The transfer man will take them to the dock. I have ten big ones—new steamer trunks. You’ll never know how much trouble I had in getting them packed and out of the house.”
“Ten! Great Scott! I have but two!”
“Don’t worry, dear. You can pack some of your things in mine—coming home, of course,” she said laughingly.
“Great, isn’t it?” he chuckled. “Nobody on earth ever did anything like it. But before I forget it, how did you leave your aunt?”
“Poor Aunt Elizabeth! She will be so disappointed. I promised to do a lot of shopping for her. But she’s well and can endure the delay, I fancy. To prepare her for the shock, I told her that I might stay East for a couple of weeks, perhaps longer. She does not suspect a thing, but she was awfully cut up about my leaving at this time.”
“I’m glad you quieted Aunt Elizabeth, for it would be just like her to send detectives after us.” Both laughed as he whispered this to her. As the cab whirled away she said:
“What happy fools we are!”
“Sit back, quick! Cover your face,” he suddenly cried.
“What—who is it?” she giggled.
“We just passed a policeman, and he looked rather hard at the windows,” he cried, with a broad grin.
“Oh, you ninny!”
“Well, we must elope with fear and trembling or it won’t count,” he cried. “Is there anything you have to buy before we sail? If there is, we must attend to it now, because we leave at a most outlandish hour in the morning.”
Miss Vernon looked alarmed for a moment, the real enormity of the escapade striking her with full force. But she smiled in the next and said that she could make a few necessary purchases in a few minutes if he would direct the cabman. “It’s a long way to Manila, you know,” she said. “Hugh, I noticed in the paper the other day that this is the season for typhoons, or whatever you call them, in the Indian Ocean. I looked them up in the dictionary. There’s a picture of one in action, and they must be dreadful things. One of them could tear our ship to pieces in a minute, I should judge. Wouldn’t it be awful—if—if—”
“Pshaw! Typhoons are nothing! It’s a simoon that you’re thinking about, and they happen only on the desert. In what dictionary did you see that?”
“Webster’s, of course.”
Mr. Ridgeway did not continue along that line, but mentally resolved to look into Webster’s on the sly, and, furthermore, to ask the captain of the Saint Cloud to tell him all he knew about typhoons.
“Have him drive to Arnold’s, Hugh.”
She left him in the carriage in front of the store, promising to be gone not more than five minutes. Ten minutes passed and Hugh resignedly lighted a cigarette, stepping to the sidewalk to smoke. After he had smoked four cigarettes a perceptible frown approached his brow. He looked at the big doorway, then at his watch, then at the imperturbable cabman. Her five minutes had grown to half an hour. His good nature was going to the bad and he was about to follow in her footsteps when suddenly he saw her emerging from the store.
“I had to mail a letter,” she explained as they drove off. “Oh, Hugh, I’m so nervous, I know that I will do something silly before we sail.”
“A letter?”
“Yes; I mailed one letter to Uncle Harry before I left Chicago, you know, but I forgot something important, so I had to write again today.”
“What did you forget?”
“I forgot to tell him you were coming out on the same ship and would look after me as if I were your own sister, Hugh.”
Strange to say, neither of them smiled as their hands met in a warm, confident clasp.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST OBSTACLE
A drizzling rain began to fall and an overcast sky, cold and bleak, dropped lower and lower until it covered the dripping park like a sombre mantle. The glass in the hood of the hansom kept out the biting rain, but the drear approach of a wet evening was not to be denied. For nearly three hours Hugh and Grace had been driven through the park and up the Riverside, killing time with a nervous energy that was beginning to tell. The electric lights were coming on; pavements glistened with the glare from the globes; tiny volcanoes leaped up by thousands as the patting, swishing raindrops flounced to the sidewalks.
“Isn’t it dismal?” murmured Grace, huddling closer to his side. “I thought the weather man said it was to be nice? It’s horrid!”
“I think it’s lovely!” said he beamingly. “Just the sort of weather for a mystery like this. It begins like a novel.”
“I hope it ends as most of them do, commonplace as they are. Anyhow, it will be fun to dine at Sherry’s. If any one that we know should see us, we can say—”
“No, dear; we’ll not attempt to explain. In the face of what is to follow, I don’t believe an accounting is necessary. This is to be our last dinner in good old America for many a day, dear. We’ll have a good one, just for history’s sake. What kind of a bird will you have?”
“A lark, I think,” she said with a bright smile.
“Oh, one doesn’t eat the lark for dinner. He’s a breakfast bird, you know. One rises with him. Bedsides, we should try to keep our lark in fine feather instead of subjecting it to the discomforts of a gridiron in some—”
His observations came to an abrupt close as both he and his companion pitched forward violently, barely saving themselves from projection through the glass. The hansom had come to a sudden stop, and outside there was a confused sound of shouting with the crunching of wood and the scraping of wheels. The horse plunged, the cab rocked sharply and then came to a standstill.
“What is it?” gasped Grace, trying to straighten her hat and find her bag at the same time. Hugh managed to raise the glass and peer dazedly forth into the gathering night. A sweep of fine rain blew into their faces. He saw a jumble of high vehicles, a small knot of men on the sidewalk, gesticulating hands on every side, and then came the oaths and sharp commands.
“We’ve smashed into something!” he said to her.
“Some one is hurt! Confound these reckless drivers! Why can’t they watch where—”
“Come down off that!” shouted a voice at the wheel, and he saw a huge policeman brandishing his club at the driver above. “Come down, I say!”
“Aw, the damn fool backed into me,” retorted the driver of Hugh’s hansom. His fare noticed that they were at the Sherry corner, and the usual crowd of seven-o’clock cabs was in full evidence.
“That’ll do—that’ll do,” roared the officer. “I saw the whole thing. Ye’ve cracked his head, you dirty cur.”
Two men were holding the horse’s head and other policemen were making their way to the side of their fellow-officer. Evidently something serious had happened.
“What’s the trouble?” Hugh called out to the officer.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” answered the policeman. “Don’t butt in—don’t butt in!”
“Here, here, now!” exclaimed Mr. Ridgeway. “You’ve no right to talk like that to—”
“Oh, I ain’t, eh? Well, we’ll see if somebody else has a right. You dudes can’t kill people and then get off with talk like that. Not much, my Johnny. You go along, too, an’ explain yer hurry to the captain.”
“But I’ve got a lady here—”
“Tush! tush! Don’t chew the rag. Stay in there!”
Other officers had dragged the driver from the cab, jostling him roughly to the outer circle of wheels. The man was protesting loudly. Rain had no power to keep a curious crowd from collecting. Hugh, indignant beyond expression, would have leaped to the ground had not a second and superior officer stepped up and raised his hand.
“Don’t get down, sir,” he said with gentle firmness. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go to the station for a few minutes.”
“But, confound it, officer—I have nothing to do with this row.”
“That may be true, sir. You can explain all that at the desk. We have to get at the bottom of this. This is no place to argue.”
A moment later the hansom, with a bent axle, was hobbling its way down the street engineered by bluecoats. Hugh, seeing that it was useless to remonstrate, sank back in the seat and swore audibly.
“Don’t worry about it, Hugh,” said a soft voice in his ear. “We can explain, can’t we?”
“You can’t explain anything to asses, Grace,” he lamented, “especially if they wear buttons.” They lapsed into a mournful, regretful silence. For five full minutes the hansom wobbled painfully along and then pulled up in front of a building which Hugh lugubriously recognized as a police station. “We’ve got to make the best of it, dear. Did you ever hear of such beastly luck? I’ll see if they won’t let me go in alone and square things. You won’t be afraid to sit out here alone for a few minutes, will you? There’s really nothing to be alarmed about. This driver of ours is in trouble, that’s all. We’re not to blame. A word or two will fix everything. I’ll be out in a jiffy.”
But the bluecoats would not see it that way. Miss Vernon was compelled to climb down from the seat and march indignantly into the desk sergeant’s presence. Hugh at once began to explain and to expostulate against what he called an outrage.
“What had we to do with it? The truth is, I don’t know what has happened,” he was saying.
“Neither do I,” said the bewhiskered sergeant shortly. “Who are you, sir?”
“These people saw the whole thing, sir. They were in the hansom when Bernhardt smashed him, an’ this felly had ordered him to get to Sherry’s in five minutes if he had to kill some one,” explained the officer who had first addressed Hugh in the crowd.
“That’s a lie,” cried Hugh. “I said if he had to kill the old plug. Who is Bernhardt? What the deuce is it all about?”
“I don’t believe the gentleman saw the row,” said the polite roundsman. “It happened in the crush there.”
“Somebody shall pay for this outrage,” exclaimed Ridgeway. “It’s beastly to drag a lady and gentleman into a police station like common criminals when they—”
“That will do, sir,” commanded the sergeant sharply. “You’ll talk when you are asked to, sir.”
Turning to the patrolman, he asked, “Has that fellow been taken to the hospital?”
“The ambulance came up just as we left, sir.”
“Bernhardt says he didn’t hit him. He says the guy fell off his own cab.”
“Don’t cry, dear,” Hugh managed to whisper to Grace as they took the seats designated by a brusque man in blue.
“Never!” she whispered bravely. “It’s a lark!”
“Bravo! We’ll have that bird yet—at Sherry’s.” Then he approached the desk with determination in his eye. “Look here, officer, I demand respectful attention. Whatever it was that happened between those cabmen, I had nothing to do with it, and I am absolutely ignorant of the trouble. We have a dinner engagement, and I want you to take our statements, or whatever it is you want, and let us go our way.”
“What is your name?” shortly.
“Why—er—that isn’t necessary, is it?” floundered Hugh.
“Of course it is. Name, please.”
“Will it get into the papers?”
“That’s nothin’ to me. Will you answer now, or do you want to stay here till mornin’?”
“My name is Smith.”
“Place of residence?”
“Brooklyn.”
“Who’s the lady?”
“My sister.”
“Step up here, lady, if you please!”
Hugh felt the floor giving away beneath him. That Grace could not have heard a word of the foregoing examination, he was perfectly aware. Vainly, and with a movement of his lips, he essayed to convey the name she should answer.
“Don’t butt in, you!” was the instant warning given by the observant officer, and then—
“Lady, what is your name?”
For a moment the question bewildered the girl. With considerable misgiving she discerned that another occasion for prevarication was unavoidable, and something like a sigh escaped her lips; but as suddenly fear gave way to a feeling of elation. How clever Hugh would consider her remembrance of his instructions! What felicity to extricate him from this predicament! Alone, she would save the situation!
Unblushingly, and with a glance at him for instant approval, she stepped forward and pronounced jubilantly the alias agreed upon:
“Ridge—Miss Ridge is my name.”
A smothered exclamation of dismay burst from Hugh’s lips.
“Eh, what? Miss Ridge, and your brother’s name—Smith?” ejaculated the man of authority.
For a brief moment there was a pause of embarrassment; and then with a dazzling, bewitching smile directed at her questioner, she electrified them both:
“Most assuredly. Mr. Smith is my half-brother.”
Hugh could have shouted for joy, as he watched the somewhat amused discomfiture of the officer.
“Where do you live?”
“St. Louis,” gasped she, with blind confidence in luck.
“Oh, humph! Well, wait a minute,” he said, and both were gratified to see a good-natured grin on his face. “Buckley, see if there is a family named Smith in Brooklyn with connection in St. Louis. Sit down, Miss Ridge, please, and don’t be worried. This is what we have to do. Your driver slugged another of his kind and he’s likely to die of the fall he got. We’ll have to use you as witnesses, that’s all, an’ we must have you where we can put our hands on you in the mornin’. The captain will be here in an hour or two and you can probably manage to give some kind of bond for your appearance. People like you don’t like to appear in court, you see, so we’ve got to make sure of you.”
“But we must go to our—our dinner,” she wailed so prettily that he coughed to cover his official severity.
“Can’t be helped, ma’am. Duty, you know. The captain will soon be here. Would you like to telephone, sir?”
Hugh stared and looked embarrassed. Who was there for him to talk to over the ’phone? And that brought another ghastly thought to mind. Who could he ask to give security for his or her appearance in the morning? He found words to say he would telephone to his friends, a bright idea suddenly coming to the rescue. Grace looked her amazement and alarm as he marched into the telephone booth. Bravely he called up Sherry’s and, with the sergeant listening, he sent word to the head waiter to inform Mr. — (mentioning the name of a very prominent society leader) that Mr. Smith and Miss Ridge were unavoidably detained and could not join the party until quite late, if at all. He came from the booth very much pleased with himself, and sat down beside Grace to await developments.
“What are we to do?” she whispered.
“Give me time to think, dear. I fooled him that time. Perhaps I can do it again. Great bluff, wasn’t it? What do you suppose Mr. — will think?”
“But if they should insist upon holding us till morning,” she cried, on the verge of tears, trouble looming up like a mountain.
“They won
’t dare do that. They’ll probably send us to a hotel with a plain-clothes man unless we give bond, but that’s all. I’ll try another bluff and see how it works. There’s no use kicking about it. We’re not in a position to stir up much of a row, you see, dear.”
He tried it when the captain came in unexpectedly a few minutes later, and with the most gratifying results. He obtained consent to go with a plain-clothes man to a nearby restaurant for a “bite to eat.” In the meantime he was to send a messenger boy with a note to an influential friend in Brooklyn, requesting him to hurry over and give security for their appearance. If this failed, they were to go to a hotel under guard.
“The only thing that sounds fishy about your story, Mr. Smith, is that you say you are brother and sister,” said the captain. “Driving all afternoon in the park with your own sister? Queer.”
“She’s from Missouri, you know,” said Hugh with a fine inspiration. The captain laughed, even though he was not convinced.
“Now, Grace, dear,” said Hugh as they waited for the cab to be called, “our adventure is on in dead earnest. We have to give this plain-clothes man the slip and get aboard the Saint Cloud before they have time to think. They won’t look for us there and we’re safe.”
“Hugh, I’m frightened half to death,” she whispered. “Can we do it? Would it not be wiser to give up the whole plan, Hugh, and—”
“Oh, Grace!” he cried, deep regret in his voice. “What a cad I am to be dragging you into all this sort of thing! Yes, dear. We’ll give it up. We’ll go back to Chicago. It’s too much to ask of you. I’ll—”
“No, no, Hugh! Forgive me. I’ll be strong and firm. I wouldn’t give it up for all the world. I—I was just a bit weak for a second, you know. It does look pretty big and wild, dear,—all that is ahead of us. But, after all, it’s like any sea voyage, isn’t it? Only we’re going to be married when it’s over. We Wouldn’t think anything of taking a trip to Manila under ordinary circumstances, would we? It’s all right, isn’t it?” He squeezed her hand cautiously but fervently.
To their disgust the plain-clothes man took the seat opposite them in the brougham, remarking as he did so that he had sense enough to get in out of the rain. They had no opportunity to concoct a plan for escape, and it was necessary for them to go on to the restaurant in Longacre Square. It occurred to Hugh that it would be timely to explain why they were not dressed for dinner. They were on their way to the hotel to dress when the fracas took place. The plain-clothes man was not interested. Evidently the authorities did not apprehend much trouble from the two young people; their guardian performed his duties perfunctorily and considerately. He even disappeared from view after they entered the restaurant.
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 168