“Most remarkable,” murmured Tarzan, cudgeling his brain for some pretext upon which to turn the subject. He delighted in hearing Hazel Strong talk of Jane, but when he was the subject of the conversation he was bored and embarrassed. But he was soon given a respite, for the girl’s mother joined them, and the talk became general.
The next few days passed uneventfully. The sea was quiet. The sky was clear. The steamer plowed steadily on toward the south without pause. Tarzan spent quite a little time with Miss Strong and her mother. They whiled away their hours on deck reading, talking, or taking pictures with Miss Strong’s camera. When the sun had set they walked.
One day Tarzan found Miss Strong in conversation with a stranger, a man he had not seen on board before. As he approached the couple the man bowed to the girl and turned to walk away.
“Wait, Monsieur Thuran,” said Miss Strong; “you must meet Mr. Caldwell. We are all fellow passengers, and should be acquainted.”
The two men shook hands. As Tarzan looked into the eyes of Monsieur Thuran he was struck by the strange familiarity of their expression.
“I have had the honor of monsieur’s acquaintance in the past, I am sure,” said Tarzan, “though I cannot recall the circumstances.”
Monsieur Thuran appeared ill at ease.
“I cannot say, monsieur,” he replied. “It may be so. I have had that identical sensation myself when meeting a stranger.”
“Monsieur Thuran has been explaining some of the mysteries of navigation to me,” explained the girl.
Tarzan paid little heed to the conversation that ensued — he was attempting to recall where he had met Monsieur Thuran before. That it had been under peculiar circumstances he was positive. Presently the sun reached them, and the girl asked Monsieur Thuran to move her chair farther back into the shade. Tarzan happened to be watching the man at the time, and noticed the awkward manner in which he handled the chair — his left wrist was stiff. That clew was sufficient — a sudden train of associated ideas did the rest.
Monsieur Thuran had been trying to find an excuse to make a graceful departure. The lull in the conversation following the moving of their position gave him an opportunity to make his excuses. Bowing low to Miss Strong, and inclining his head to Tarzan, he turned to leave them.
“Just a moment,” said Tarzan. “If Miss Strong will pardon me I will accompany you. I shall return in a moment, Miss Strong.”
Monsieur Thuran looked uncomfortable. When the two men had passed out of the girl’s sight, Tarzan stopped, laying a heavy hand on the other’s shoulder.
“What is your game now, Rokoff?” he asked.
“I am leaving France as I promised you,” replied the other, in a surly voice.
“I see you are,” said Tarzan; “but I know you so well that I can scarcely believe that your being on the same boat with me is purely a coincidence. If I could believe it the fact that you are in disguise would immediately disabuse my mind of any such idea.”
“Well,” growled Rokoff, with a shrug, “I cannot see what you are going to do about it. This vessel flies the English flag. I have as much right on board her as you, and from the fact that you are booked under an assumed name I imagine that I have more right.”
“We will not discuss it, Rokoff. All I wanted to say to you is that you must keep away from Miss Strong — she is a decent woman.”
Rokoff turned scarlet.
“If you don’t I shall pitch you overboard,” continued Tarzan. “Do not forget that I am just waiting for some excuse.” Then he turned on his heel, and left Rokoff standing there trembling with suppressed rage.
He did not see the man again for days, but Rokoff was not idle. In his stateroom with Paulvitch he fumed and swore, threatening the most terrible of revenges.
“I would throw him overboard tonight,” he cried, “were I sure that those papers were not on his person. I cannot chance pitching them into the ocean with him. If you were not such a stupid coward, Alexis, you would find a way to enter his stateroom and search for the documents.”
Paulvitch smiled. “You are supposed to be the brains of this partnership, my dear Nikolas,” he replied. “Why do you not find the means to search Monsieur Caldwell’s stateroom — eh?”
Two hours later fate was kind to them, for Paulvitch, who was ever on the watch, saw Tarzan leave his room without locking the door. Five minutes later Rokoff was stationed where he could give the alarm in case Tarzan returned, and Paulvitch was deftly searching the contents of the ape-man’s luggage.
He was about to give up in despair when he saw a coat which Tarzan had just removed. A moment later he grasped an official envelope in his hand. A quick glance at its contents brought a broad smile to the Russian’s face.
When he left the stateroom Tarzan himself could not have told that an article in it had been touched since he left it — Paulvitch was a past master in his chosen field. When he handed the packet to Rokoff in the seclusion of their stateroom the larger man rang for a steward, and ordered a pint of champagne.
“We must celebrate, my dear Alexis,” he said.
“It was luck, Nikolas,” explained Paulvitch. “It is evident that he carries these papers always upon his person — just by chance he neglected to transfer them when he changed coats a few minutes since. But there will be the deuce to pay when he discovers his loss. I am afraid that he will immediately connect you with it. Now that he knows that you are on board he will suspect you at once.”
“It will make no difference whom he suspects — after to-night,” said Rokoff, with a nasty grin.
After Miss Strong had gone below that night Tarzan stood leaning over the rail looking far out to sea. Every night he had done this since he had come on board — sometimes he stood thus for an hour. And the eyes that had been watching his every movement since he had boarded the ship at Algiers knew that this was his habit.
Even as he stood there this night those eyes were on him. Presently the last straggler had left the deck. It was a clear night, but there was no moon — objects on deck were barely discernible.
From the shadows of the cabin two figures crept stealthily upon the ape-man from behind. The lapping of the waves against the ship’s sides, the whirring of the propeller, the throbbing of the engines, drowned the almost soundless approach of the two.
They were quite close to him now, and crouching low, like tacklers on a gridiron. One of them raised his hand and lowered it, as though counting off seconds — one — two — three! As one man the two leaped for their victim. Each grasped a leg, and before Tarzan of the Apes, lightning though he was, could turn to save himself he had been pitched over the low rail and was falling into the Atlantic.
Hazel Strong was looking from her darkened port across the dark sea. Suddenly a body shot past her eyes from the deck above. It dropped so quickly into the dark waters below that she could not be sure of what it was — it might have been a man, she could not say. She listened for some outcry from above — for the always-fearsome call, “Man overboard!” but it did not come. All was silence on the ship above — all was silence in the sea below.
The girl decided that she had but seen a bundle of refuse thrown overboard by one of the ship’s crew, and a moment later sought her berth.
Chapter 13
The Wreck of the “Lady Alice”
The next morning at breakfast Tarzan’s place was vacant. Miss Strong was mildly curious, for Mr. Caldwell had always made it a point to wait that he might breakfast with her and her mother. As she was sitting on deck later Monsieur Thuran paused to exchange a half dozen pleasant words with her. He seemed in most excellent spirits — his manner was the extreme of affability. As he passed on Miss Strong thought what a very delightful man was Monsieur Thuran.
The day dragged heavily. She missed the quiet companionship of Mr. Caldwell — there had been something about him that had made the girl like him from the first; he had talked so entertainingly of the places he had seen — the peoples and their customs
— the wild beasts; and he had always had a droll way of drawing striking comparisons between savage animals and civilized men that showed a considerable knowledge of the former, and a keen, though somewhat cynical, estimate of the latter.
When Monsieur Thuran stopped again to chat with her in the afternoon she welcomed the break in the day’s monotony. But she had begun to become seriously concerned in Mr. Caldwell’s continued absence; somehow she constantly associated it with the start she had had the night before, when the dark object fell past her port into the sea. Presently she broached the subject to Monsieur Thuran. Had he seen Mr. Caldwell today? He had not. Why?
“He was not at breakfast as usual, nor have I seen him once since yesterday,” explained the girl.
Monsieur Thuran was extremely solicitous.
“I did not have the pleasure of intimate acquaintance with Mr. Caldwell,” he said. “He seemed a most estimable gentleman, however. Can it be that he is indisposed, and has remained in his stateroom? It would not be strange.”
“No,” replied the girl, “it would not be strange, of course; but for some inexplicable reason I have one of those foolish feminine presentiments that all is not right with Mr. Caldwell. It is the strangest feeling — it is as though I knew that he was not on board the ship.”
Monsieur Thuran laughed pleasantly. “Mercy, my dear Miss Strong,” he said; “where in the world could he be then? We have not been within sight of land for days.”
“Of course, it is ridiculous of me,” she admitted. And then: “But I am not going to worry about it any longer; I am going to find out where Mr. Caldwell is,” and she motioned to a passing steward.
“That may be more difficult than you imagine, my dear girl,” thought Monsieur Thuran, but aloud he said: “By all means.”
“Find Mr. Caldwell, please,” she said to the steward, “and tell him that his friends are much worried by his continued absence.”
“You are very fond of Mr. Caldwell?” suggested Monsieur Thuran.
“I think he is splendid,” replied the girl. “And mamma is perfectly infatuated with him. He is the sort of man with whom one has a feeling of perfect security — no one could help but have confidence in Mr. Caldwell.”
A moment later the steward returned to say that Mr. Caldwell was not in his stateroom. “I cannot find him, Miss Strong, and” — he hesitated— “I have learned that his berth was not occupied last night. I think that I had better report the matter to the captain.”
“Most assuredly,” exclaimed Miss Strong. “I shall go with you to the captain myself. It is terrible! I know that something awful has happened. My presentiments were not false, after all.”
It was a very frightened young woman and an excited steward who presented themselves before the captain a few moments later. He listened to their stories in silence — a look of concern marking his expression as the steward assured him that he had sought for the missing passenger in every part of the ship that a passenger might be expected to frequent.
“And are you sure, Miss Strong, that you saw a body fall overboard last night?” he asked.
“There is not the slightest doubt about that,” she answered. “I cannot say that it was a human body — there was no outcry. It might have been only what I thought it was — a bundle of refuse. But if Mr. Caldwell is not found on board I shall always be positive that it was he whom I saw fall past my port.”
The captain ordered an immediate and thorough search of the entire ship from stem to stern — no nook or cranny was to be overlooked. Miss Strong remained in his cabin, waiting the outcome of the quest. The captain asked her many questions, but she could tell him nothing about the missing man other than what she had herself seen during their brief acquaintance on shipboard. For the first time she suddenly realized how very little indeed Mr. Caldwell had told her about himself or his past life. That he had been born in Africa and educated in Paris was about all she knew, and this meager information had been the result of her surprise that an Englishman should speak English with such a marked French accent.
“Did he ever speak of any enemies?” asked the captain.
“Never.”
“Was he acquainted with any of the other passengers?”
“Only as he had been with me — through the circumstance of casual meeting as fellow shipmates.”
“Er — was he, in your opinion, Miss Strong, a man who drank to excess?”
“I do not know that he drank at all — he certainly had not been drinking up to half an hour before I saw that body fall overboard,” she answered, “for I was with him on deck up to that time.”
“It is very strange,” said the captain. “He did not look to me like a man who was subject to fainting spells, or anything of that sort. And even had he been it is scarcely credible that he should have fallen completely over the rail had he been taken with an attack while leaning upon it — he would rather have fallen inside, upon the deck. If he is not on board, Miss Strong, he was thrown overboard — and the fact that you heard no outcry would lead to the assumption that he was dead before he left the ship’s deck — murdered.”
The girl shuddered.
It was a full hour later that the first officer returned to report the outcome of the search.
“Mr. Caldwell is not on board, sir,” he said.
“I fear that there is something more serious than accident here, Mr. Brently,” said the captain. “I wish that you would make a personal and very careful examination of Mr. Caldwell’s effects, to ascertain if there is any clew to a motive either for suicide or murder — sift the thing to the bottom.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” responded Mr. Brently, and left to commence his investigation.
Hazel Strong was prostrated. For two days she did not leave her cabin, and when she finally ventured on deck she was very wan and white, with great, dark circles beneath her eyes. Waking or sleeping, it seemed that she constantly saw that dark body dropping, swift and silent, into the cold, grim sea.
Shortly after her first appearance on deck following the tragedy, Monsieur Thuran joined her with many expressions of kindly solicitude.
“Oh, but it is terrible, Miss Strong,” he said. “I cannot rid my mind of it.”
“Nor I,” said the girl wearily. “I feel that he might have been saved had I but given the alarm.”
“You must not reproach yourself, my dear Miss Strong,” urged Monsieur Thuran. “It was in no way your fault. Another would have done as you did. Who would think that because something fell into the sea from a ship that it must necessarily be a man? Nor would the outcome have been different had you given an alarm. For a while they would have doubted your story, thinking it but the nervous hallucination of a woman — had you insisted it would have been too late to have rescued him by the time the ship could have been brought to a stop, and the boats lowered and rowed back miles in search of the unknown spot where the tragedy had occurred. No, you must not censure yourself. You have done more than any other of us for poor Mr. Caldwell — you were the only one to miss him. It was you who instituted the search.”
The girl could not help but feel grateful to him for his kind and encouraging words. He was with her often — almost constantly for the remainder of the voyage — and she grew to like him very much indeed. Monsieur Thuran had learned that the beautiful Miss Strong, of Baltimore, was an American heiress — a very wealthy girl in her own right, and with future prospects that quite took his breath away when he contemplated them, and since he spent most of his time in that delectable pastime it is a wonder that he breathed at all.
It had been Monsieur Thuran’s intention to leave the ship at the first port they touched after the disappearance of Tarzan. Did he not have in his coat pocket the thing he had taken passage upon this very boat to obtain? There was nothing more to detain him here. He could not return to the Continent fast enough, that he might board the first express for St. Petersburg.
But now another idea had obtruded itself, and was rapidly crowding his o
riginal intentions into the background. That American fortune was not to be sneezed at, nor was its possessor a whit less attractive.
“SAPRISTI! but she would cause a sensation in St. Petersburg.” And he would, too, with the assistance of her inheritance.
After Monsieur Thuran had squandered a few million dollars, he discovered that the vocation was so entirely to his liking that he would continue on down to Cape Town, where he suddenly decided that he had pressing engagements that might detain him there for some time.
Miss Strong had told him that she and her mother were to visit the latter’s brother there — they had not decided upon the duration of their stay, and it would probably run into months.
She was delighted when she found that Monsieur Thuran was to be there also.
“I hope that we shall be able to continue our acquaintance,” she said. “You must call upon mamma and me as soon as we are settled.”
Monsieur Thuran was delighted at the prospect, and lost no time in saying so. Mrs. Strong was not quite so favorably impressed by him as her daughter.
“I do not know why I should distrust him,” she said to Hazel one day as they were discussing him. “He seems a perfect gentleman in every respect, but sometimes there is something about his eyes — a fleeting expression which I cannot describe, but which when I see it gives me a very uncanny feeling.”
The girl laughed. “You are a silly dear, mamma,” she said.
“I suppose so, but I am sorry that we have not poor Mr. Caldwell for company instead.”
“And I, too,” replied her daughter.
Monsieur Thuran became a frequent visitor at the home of Hazel Strong’s uncle in Cape Town. His attentions were very marked, but they were so punctiliously arranged to meet the girl’s every wish that she came to depend upon him more and more. Did she or her mother or a cousin require an escort — was there a little friendly service to be rendered, the genial and ubiquitous Monsieur Thuran was always available. Her uncle and his family grew to like him for his unfailing courtesy and willingness to be of service. Monsieur Thuran was becoming indispensable. At length, feeling the moment propitious, he proposed. Miss Strong was startled. She did not know what to say.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 40