“It is you, Miss Whitney. I knew I couldn’t be wrong even in the dark,” the young officer said, betraying with each word the deep and deferential interest which had grown steadily during the weeks since the Humboldt had left Seattle with “Miss Marie Whitney” among her passengers.
“I’m the unfortunate bearer of bad news, Miss Whitney,” he concluded seriously.
“Bad news?” repeated the girl, looking up quickly.
“I fear so,” he continued. “You know how crowded we are this trip. Every stateroom is sold, and we’re even bunking some of the miners down in the crew’s quarters; but even so, I was sure until the last moment that I could keep your double stateroom for you alone. But I can’t. An hour before we left Nome, Captain McNaughton received a wireless from Seattle that forces us to make room for express company detectives and—”
“Detective!” echoed the girl.
In the darkness her slender hands clutched the rail until the knuckles whitened. With a quick, fierce effort of will she mastered her fear and looked up at him with a smile that invited confidence.
“How exciting!” she exclaimed. “But what have detectives to do on the prosaic old Humboldt?” The man bent toward her and lowered his voice. “The Seattle police have been informed by one of their spies, a woman, that two crooks—top-notchers with an international reputation, the wire said—are on board the Humboldt for the purpose of looting the treasure-room on the trip home,” he said: “That, of course, is impossible; the strong-room is absolutely burglar-proof. But with two millions of gold on board, precautions even against the impossible are necessary. So I had to turn over a stateroom opposite the treasure-room to the officers, and must ask you to permit me to give you company on the return trip. I’m sorry, but—”
“Whom are you putting in with me?”
“A Miss Nina Francisco. She’s a Californian, an exceptionally likable young woman, I think. She has been in Nome all summer, visiting mines in which her father is interested, she told me. Do you mind sharing your cabin with her, Miss Whitney?” he finished with unconscious tenderness.
“Certainly not,” Mary answered. Then, spurred to the necessity of obtaining further information by Blackie’s danger, she looked into the officer’s face with parted lips and eyes that were bright with an excitement which she had no need to feign.
“A robbery planned on this ship!” she cried. “How wonderfully exciting! Are these crooks being watched? Will they be arrested here on the Humboldt?”
“Probably not, unless they really make an attempt to break into the strong-room,” Jessen replied. “We have their names and a description, but they are using aliases, naturally, and we haven’t been able to identify them yet. But it really doesn’t matter, for now that we have been warned, there isn’t a chance in a million for them to accomplish anything on shipboard; and at the dock in Seattle, officers who know them will take them into custody as they go ashore.”
The girl’s body stiffened, and her face, protected by the darkness, grew suddenly white and infinitely careworn. Imminent danger threatened Boston Blackie, for she knew he would use without delay the circlet she had given him but a moment before. She must warn him at once of his peril.
“I think I’ll go below,” she said. “It’s growing chilly.”
She shivered, but not from cold.
“I may have Miss Francisco’s baggage moved into your cabin?” asked the purser, steadying her with a gentle hand as they returned across the deck.
“Of course—and thank you for your courtesy,” Mary answered with cordiality that quickened the pulse of the bronzed, clear-eyed young officer beside her. “As you have chosen her as my companion, I am sure Miss Francisco and I will be congenial, and I am so excited over your news about the—the—crooks. You’ll let me know if anything exciting happens, won’t you, please? Why, it’s all just like a movie, with all of us playing a part in it!”
She laid her hand on his arm and looked pleadingly into eyes as innocent and straightforward and free from guile as the sea winds that had tanned his cheeks.
“You know I will, Miss Whitney. Good night,” said Jessen, his voice revealing what he feared to put into Words.
“Good night—and don’t forget your promise,” she said with a smile that gave no hint of the anxiety in her heart as she disappeared toward her stateroom.
Mary penned a hasty note telling Blackie the crucially important news, and slipped out of her stateroom to rap in the code of the crook-world at his door—under which she slipped the note when an answering rap came from within.
During Mary’s absence a young woman, tall, dark and voluptuously handsome, entered and stood eyeing curiously the cabin to which her baggage had just been moved. On the table she saw the tablet on which Mary had written, with a freshly used pen beside it. Without hesitation she stepped to the table and held the paper to the light. On the sheet beneath the one that had been used, and which Mary in her hurry had neglected to destroy, a few words were visible.
“‘Seattle … wireless … treasure-room … detectives!’” the woman read with widening eyes at each telltale word. “So she knows the secrets of the wireless room, does she?” she mused. “And she was talking with a man out on that dark deck when the purser went for her! Ah! She hurried down here and wrote a note and evidently has gone to deliver it. I’m lucky to have stumbled across this. I think the delightful Miss Whitney who so obviously has turned that simple-minded purser’s head is not quite what she seems.”
Once more she picked up the tablet and strove to decipher further information from the few faint words imprinted there.
As she bent over the paper, Mary entered. The newcomer laid down the tablet without a trace of embarrassment.
“Miss Whitney, I presume?” she said, extending a jeweled hand languidly. “I was just admiring the tint of your stationery. You have guessed, of course, that I am Miss Francisco, whom you have so kindly permitted to share this cabin.”
The women’s, eyes met in a long, appraising glance, during which each tried vainly to hide beneath smiling lips a surging flood of hostility based on feminine intuition rather than reason.
“I’m sure we shall have a delightful trip together,” said Mary in slightly strained tones, as she picked up the tablet and tossed it carelessly into a drawer. Her quick eyes had caught the words at which her new companion was staring as she entered, and she realized that her momentary carelessness had doubled the gravity of her problem.
“A spy!” she decided instantly. “A spy put here to watch me, but I’ll not let her know that I suspect!”
“She sees the words imprinted on that sheet of paper and knows I have read them,” thought Miss Francisco. “She’s on her guard now, but can’t possibly guess that I know who is on this steamer and why he is here. I’ll win her confidence, and maybe—”
She turned with a smile to her new friend. Ten minutes later the two went arm in arm to the music-room.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SHOT IN THE DARK
As the Humboldt, plowing steadily southward beneath sunny skies, neared Seattle, the tension in the stateroom occupied by Miss Whitney and Miss Francisco increased until it became a tangible something as vibrant as an electric current. Neither woman for an instant relaxed her ceaseless watchfulness, and neither betrayed it; yet each knew that as she spied, she was being spied upon. Mary, in the light of her knowledge of the crucial situation on shipboard, found much in her gay companion’s conduct to deepen her suspicion that Miss Francisco, if not actually a detective, was an emissary of those whom she knew were on board.
On the days following the woman’s first appearance in Mary’s stateroom, Nina spent much time in the steamer’s wireless station—where, apparently, she flirted flagrantly with the operator—a role in which she proved herself decidedly adept.
“Camoufl
age to cloak her anxiety for further news from Seattle that will enable the officers to identify Blackie and Lewes,” was Mary’s inward comment as for the hundredth time she studied her fellow-passengers with the hope of determining the identity of the police officers she knew to be among them. The detectives were lodged close to the treasure-room, the purser had said; and gradually her suspicion centered on an Englishman—Sir Arthur Cumberland on the passenger list—who, with a secretary-companion, was ostensibly making the Alaskan trip as part of a round-the-world tour.
Cumberland was a big, blond Britisher with a long, drooping mustache, an accent that was joyfully mimicked by other passengers in the salon, and a decided weakness for the American bar below decks. His secretary was a keen-eyed little man named McDonald whose burr suggested the Clyde.
Just why she doubted Cumberland, Mary herself could hardly have explained, except that she felt he was too obviously in dress and personal appearance what he seemed—too perfectly the familiar, titled Englishman of the American stage. A chance word crystallized her suspicion into certainty on the night she hid herself in a secluded nook behind a lifeboat to win for a moment the relief of being off guard. The Englishman, smoking, stopped beside the boat. Almost immediately he was joined by the secretary.
“What have you learned?” demanded Cumberland.
“Haven’t located anything yet,” answered McDonald.
“You must—quickly; for I’ll have them before we sight Seattle or my name’s not—” He stopped, glanced round as if fearing eavesdroppers and laughed at his own caution.
“Be careful,” warned his companion as they strolled on.
From that moment Mary assiduously courted the company of the pair—an easy task, for a pretty face was the open sesame to Sir Arthur’s good will and interest. She had no definite plan, no specific hope, but hour by hour prayed for inspiration.
Miss Francisco had scarcely noticed the Englishman until Mary adopted them as deck companions. From that moment, however, she managed to make herself an inseparable member of the party.
One night after too-frequent visits to the buffet, Cumberland dropped an h now and then and lapsed occasionally into an accent not at all suggestive of Regent Street. Mary, looking up as she caught this falsenote, found Nina Francisco studying her curiously. McDonald also was keenly aware of his chief’s incriminating bit of forgetfulness, for with ill-hidden anger he managed to separate him from the ladies, and the pair vanished into their cabin.
That night when they were alone in their stateroom Miss Francisco, to Mary’s surprise, began to discuss and speculate upon Sir Arthur Cumberland and his business.
“Did you notice anything peculiar in our friend the baronet’s language this evening?” she asked innocently.
Mary, busy at her dressing-table, flashed a quick look into the glass and met her companion’s eyes in the mirror.
“She’s wondering whether her detective friends have betrayed themselves to me,” she thought.
“It was peculiar for a titled Englishman,” she said aloud. Then, after a moment’s thought in which to weigh her words, Mary added: “But it was nothing that I was not fully prepared to expect from him.”
Again the women studied each other furtively.
“So you think as I do that our titled globe-trotter may be—” began Nina.
“I know just as you do,” interrupted Mary with increasing emphasis on each word, “that Sir Arthur Cumberland is playing a part for a purpose. I think even you will admit he plays it badly.”
Nina tucked a drooping lock of her raven hair into place and toyed with a powder-puff before answering.
“You’re quite right,” she said at last. “Sir Arthur would play any game rather badly, I imagine—very differently from you, my dear.”
“And from you also,” added Mary, following the words with a look that accentuated their inner meaning.
“Does that mean necessarily that we—you and I—must play at cross purposes on the Humboldt?” asked Nina.
“You can answer your own question far better than I,” said Mary.
“Thanks,” replied Nina. “You have clarified the atmosphere for both of us, I think. Anyway, in seventy-two hours we will be in Seattle, and then—” Mary without replying threw herself on her berth and switched off the lights to save herself the ordeal of parrying Nina Francisco’s coldly analyzing eyes. In seventy-two hours the Humboldt would be in Seattle, she had said pointedly—in Seattle, with detectives waiting at the dock, she meant, and a prison looming large and certainly in the background. Mary’s clenched fingers bit into her palms at the thought. Her fears were not for herself but for the man she loved. With the robbery still uncommitted—for in the light of the information she had given him she had no thought that Blackie would persevere in his attempt to secure the gold—Mary knew there would be little or nothing on the Humboldt that would justify a prison term; but she knew, too, that with a man of Boston Blackie’s crook-world prestige in their toils, the police would find or invent something for which he could be imprisoned.
Without realizing that she had slept, Mary was suddenly awakened to full consciousness by a stealthy movement near her in the pitch-dark cabin. She listened with every sense keyed to superlative alertness. The sound, a soft, slippered step, was repeated, and she felt a faint fresh breeze stir her hair. Instantly she realized its significance. The door of the stateroom, locked when she retired, now was ajar. Silently she raised herself and stared into the darkness. Her eyes detected a blacker blotch just within the cabin door, crouching furtively like an animal ready to spring. Now and then in the faint light that filtered in through the open porthole she caught a reflected glint of bright metal near the figure at the doorway. She recognized that changing, intermittent flash. A person within the cabin, watching the companionway—down which twenty steps distant was the door of the treasure-room—held a revolver.
Noiselessly as an Indian, Mary drew herself over the side of the berth till her feet touched the floor. She slipped into her dark-colored dressing-gown and with eyes still fixed on the figure in the doorway, felt beneath her pillow till her fingers grasped the butt of a revolver.
As she rose with slow caution, a faint sound reached her from the companionway—the gentle creak of a heavy door moving on little-used hinges. As if that were an awaited signal, the form in the doorway straightened and glided silently as a shadow out of the cabin into the pitch dark companion-way. Mary, a second silent shadow, followed.
With eyes accustomed now to the darkness, Mary detected two forms in the narrow passageway which branched at right angles just beyond the treasure-room. One—the one that had been within the door of her cabin—was slinking inch by inch along the wall with the stealth of a jungle cat stalking its prey. The other was bent over the lock of the treasure-room door. In the absolute silence Mary heard the man’s fingers gently moving over the steel plate.
A faint ejaculation of astonishment came from the man before the strong-room. Then a tiny ray of light illumined the door for a fraction of a second. By its flash Mary saw that the massive padlock that should have guarded the gold was gone.
As the light winked out into absolute blackness, the figure stalking the man by the door moved quickly forward. Mary followed close behind.
Then a dozen amazing things happened at once:
From the cross companionway beyond the strong-room, a third figure rose apparently from the floor and seized the man before the door. There was a fierce struggle, followed by a deafening splintering of wood as they crashed against the cabin partitions and fell to the floor. From between the struggling forms the sharp crack of a revolver followed a brilliant flash of flame which for a second lighted the faces of the fighting men. By the flash Mary saw them clearly.
The attacker, who had risen from the floor beyond the strong-room, wore a crook’s mask. The man w
ho had fired the revolver for which both were now struggling desperately was Sir Arthur Cumberland.
As the shot reverberated down the narrow passageway, the figure that had stolen from the doorway of Mary’s cabin, leaped to the center of the melee with clubbed gun held high as if to end the battle with a single deadly blow. Mary sprang forward to intercept that blow in midair—but with her gun upraised to strike, she shrank back against the shattered wood-work in dazed perplexity. The one whose upraised arm she would have crushed had struck—but not at the masked man. Instead Nina Francisco’s gun butt—Mary recognized her now—struck the revolver from Sir Arthur Cumberland’s hand. Instantly his opponent seized it and crashed it solidly against the Englishman’s temple. Cumberland fell back, limp and senseless.
CHAPTER XIV
THE MYSTERY OF THE S.S. HUMBOLDT
What followed seemed a nightmare of unreality. A fourth form, appearing apparently from nowhere, passed swiftly down the companionway and vanished. The masked victor staggered to his feet and seemingly intent on making more noise and confusion, raised the unconscious Englishman and dashed him against the door of the purser’s cabin, which burst open.
Screams and shouts came from behind stateroom doors. Mary darted back to her own cabin, slipped her revolver beneath her pillow and switched on the lights just as the door was thrown open and Miss Nina Francisco entered, her clubbed revolver still in her hand. The girl shot the bolt in the door while the uproar in the companionway increased and running men poured down from the upper deck.
Without a glance toward Mary, Nina opened a grip, dropped the revolver into it and locked it. Then she drew on a pair of stockings, slipped her feet into shoes and with a calm, quick glance round the room as if to make sure she had forgotten nothing essential, threw open the door of the cabin and began to scream hysterically.
The companionway was lighted now, and ship’s officers and seamen, aided by the shaken and white-faced secretary, were raising the senseless form of Sir Arthur Cumberland.
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Page 55