Dorothy's Double Volume Ii Part 8

'Yes; I want to know if they made any inquiries about trains.'

'I don't know that they inquired, but the man spent a whole morning going through the train books and looking through the tables hanging up there. I wondered what in thunder he could be wanting to spend such a time over them, when a couple of minutes would have shown him the train time to any place he wanted to go to. I expect he had not made up his mind where to go. I reckon that was it. I saw him come in with half a dozen books under his arm the morning after they got here.'

'Well, we can do nothing till we hear what station they were taken to. I will look in again this evening.'

'Do you mean to say they were bad ones, Mr. Tricher?'

The detective nodded.

'Well, well, one never knows what to believe. I don't know about the man, but that gal I should never have thought could have been bad.'

'Please look at the photograph again,' Captain Hampton said. 'Examine it closely; is it what you would call a very good likeness?'

'It is a good likeness,' the man said. 'I should have known it if I had seen it in a shop window anywhere; but photographs are never quite like--men's may be, but I have never seen a woman's that was the real thing. They always smooth out their faces somehow, and put on a sort of company expression. This is as like her as two peas, and yet it isn't quite like, if you can understand it. That has got a pretty, innocent sort of expression. The girl's face was harder than that; it was just as pretty, but somehow it looked older, as if she had had some sort of disappointment, and had had a bad time of it. This one looks like the face of a thoroughly happy girl. The other didn't, you know. I said to myself that she had made up her mind to marry some chap her father didn't like, and that he had brought her over here to get her out of his way. You see, she was an unusual sort of woman. I don't know that I ever saw a much prettier one--and one naturally reckoned her up a bit. She only went out once while they were here, and did not seem to have much interest in the city.'

'Well, I think we have been pretty lucky, Captain Hampton,' the detective said when he went out.

'Wonderfully lucky. I am more thankful than I can express; the evidence of that man alone would go a long way towards clearing my friend, for it would at any rate prove that just after these robberies were committed, and at the exact time at which a thief would reach here from England, a woman precisely like her arrived here with a man answering to the description of the one believed to be her accomplice.'

'That would be a great thing certainly; at any rate, if I were you, Captain Hampton, I would get an affidavit, made by Muller and one or two of the waiters, to the effect that a man of whom they would give a description, and the original of a portrait that would of course be marked for identification, arrived at the hotel on August 4, having come by the steamer "Bremen" from Hamburg. There is nothing like getting an affidavit when you can, and the waiters are to hand now; there is no saying where they might be three months hence. I don't say that Muller is likely to leave, but he is bright, and might get a better offer any day from one of the big hotels at St. Louis or Cincinnati, or any other place where there are many Germans.'

'I will certainly do so, and send it across to England at once.'

Arranging with the detective to call for him at the Metropolitan at seven o'clock that evening, Captain Hampton returned to the hotel. It had been a splendid morning's work. Even if all further search was unsuccessful, enough had been done to establish at least a strong case in favour of the contention that the person who called upon the jeweller and Mr. Singleton was not Dorothy Hawtrey. The interview he himself had witnessed, which, had he been compelled to give evidence, would have been in itself almost fatal to her, was now strongly in her favour, for it showed the connecting link between the person who had taken the jewels and this man who was now proved to be pa.s.sing as her father in the States. It was no longer Dorothy Hawtrey buying off the man who had been persecuting her, but Truscott's partner in the crime informing him of the success of her operations.

Jacob was standing at the door of the hotel when he arrived there. He had long since been made acquainted with the object for which a search was being made for the betting man Marvel, and the woman whose likeness he had been shown. He was greatly delighted at learning that a trace had been obtained of him, and eager to set to work to follow it up.

'It will be bang up, Captain, if we find them here while all them perlice at home is running after them everywhere.'

'Well, I did not think of it in that light, and I don't much care whether they are run down by us or by any one else, so long as they are caught at last, but it is a long way between hearing of them here and catching them. You must remember that this country is twenty times as large as England, and we have really nothing to go upon. We don't know what the man's intentions are. If he intended to go in for swindling, I should think he would have done better on the Continent than here. There are not many very large towns where he could as a stranger expect to make much money, and it would be easier to trace him here than in Europe, where the distances are so much shorter that one can get out of any country in a few hours. If he intends, as I should think most likely, only to stop over here for a short time so as to be out of the way, and then go back and begin the same thing over again, he might take lodgings here or anywhere else.

'He may know some one who has come over here and has gone in for farming, and may be going to stay with him for a time. There is no saying, in fact, what he may be going to do. I do not suppose that he has the slightest fear that the share he and this woman have played has been discovered, and his motive in coming away was chiefly to ensure Miss Hawtrey's disgrace, and he was anxious that there should be no chance whatever of any one who knew her meeting this woman and discovering that there was some one about who was so strikingly like Miss Hawtrey as to be able to pa.s.s for her. My best hope is that we shall get some clue this evening from the man who drove them away from the hotel.'

This hope was realised. On reaching the hotel with the detective the clerk at once sent for the driver. 'He remembers the parties well enough, but I don't know that you will find his news altogether satisfactory. You have got a crafty bird to deal with. Here is the man, he had better tell you himself. Now, Mike, this is the gentleman who wants to know about those people I was speaking to you about.'

'I mind them well enough, sor--a gintleman with as pretty a little girl as I've seen since I left ould Ireland. I drove them down to the wharf and saw the baggage carried on board the steamer.'

'And what steamer was it, Mike?' the detective asked.

'The steamer for New Orleans, of course; that was where they told me to take them. She had got her steam up when we got there, and a nice-looking crowd there was going on board.'

'Would the steamer touch anywhere else on its way?' Captain Hampton asked.

'It might put in at Mobile; some do and some don't,' the detective replied, 'but as we know the day she sailed there will be no difficulty at finding that out at the office.'

'That was the lady, I suppose,' Captain Hampton said, showing the photograph to the driver.

'That's her, sor. I would swear to her anywhere.'

'Well, here is a couple of dollars for you now; I shall want to see you again to-morrow.'

'We shall be getting some affidavits out,' the detective said to the clerk. 'It is important to us to be able to prove that they have been here, even if we never succeed in catching them. It will be a simple thing, merely a statement signed before a justice of the peace to the effect that you make oath that a man of the appearance and description set down and a young woman pa.s.sing as his daughter, and whose photograph, which will of course be marked and verified, you recognise as being hers without any possibility of doubt, arrived at this hotel on August 4, and left on August 6, being driven from here and seen on board a steamer starting for New Orleans. I shall be glad of the signatures of yourself and as many of the waiters as attended upon them at their meals and can recognise the portrait, also of the chambermaid. We shall have a separate affidavit drawn out for the driver.'

'Very well. Can you leave the photograph with me? I will give it to the head waiter and tell him to show it to the others; as they were here two days and took all their meals here I should say most of the crowd would recognise her. Look here, you had better bring a justice round here to swear them, for it would be difficult to let a dozen of them all go at once.'

'I will manage that. Well, can you spare a couple of minutes to come round into the bar and have a drink?'

The clerk thought he could manage it, and drinks were taken in due course.

'Now what is my best way of getting down to New Orleans?' Captain Hampton asked, as they left the hotel.

'Steamer,' the detective said; 'the railway is not fairly through yet, and it will take pretty nearly as long as if you go by boat, and be a deal more uncomfortable.'

'How often do the boats go?'

'Once or twice a week, sometimes more. There are considerable people travelling down there now. A good many of the folk going to California go that way; they either strike across from there or go up the river by steamer and then make across the plains; it saves a long land journey.

But I will tell you about it when I see you in the morning. I will go round the first thing and find out whether that boat that sailed on the 6th put in anywhere, and also what her name was; also whether they took their berths under the name of White or changed them again; then I will see when the next boat goes. I will bring the man before whom they can take an affidavit round here with me--I know two or three I can lay my hands on any time--and then we will go together to the hotel.'

By twelve o'clock next day the business was finished, and the affidavits sworn in duplicate by thirteen witnesses, in addition to that of the driver.

When all was done, Captain Hampton asked the detective as to how much he was indebted to him.

'Nothing at all, sir. My services were placed at your disposal by the chief, and it is all in the way of business. I am very glad to have been of a.s.sistance to you.'

'You have been of immense a.s.sistance, indeed, Mr. Tricher, and I feel deeply obliged to you. I should never have got on by myself in the same way; it was entirely owing to the clerk at the hotel knowing you that he so readily gave me the information I required, and interested himself in the matter. Well, will you come round and lunch with me at the hotel at two o'clock? We shall go on board the steamer this evening. I am going round now to thank your chief.'

'I shall be happy to lunch with you, and, by the way, you might as well ask the chief to give you a line to the chief at New Orleans. You might find it very useful there; it is a pretty lively place, and if this man happens to have any pals there, you may find it mighty useful to have the aid of the police.'

'Thank you very much for the suggestion, which I will certainly follow.'

On saying good-bye to the detective, Captain Hampton, with much pressure, succeeded in inducing him to accept, as a remembrance, a handsome meerschaum that he had the evening before admired.

Upon the voyage down, Captain Hampton was much struck at the difference between the pa.s.sengers on board the 'Enterprise,' and those with whom he was a.s.sociated on his pa.s.sage across the Atlantic. There were among them a sprinkling of Southern gentlemen, a few travellers and Northern manufacturers, but the majority were men who were bound to the far west, some to Texas only, but California was the destination of the greater part. These again were sharply divided into two sections, the one composed of hardy-looking men, the sons of Eastern farmers, or British emigrants who were going out with the fixed intention of making their fortune at the goldfields.

Few of the other section were, he thought, likely to get so far. They were simply rough characters who were more likely to remain at New Orleans or some of the river towns than to undertake a long and perilous journey. Whatever might be their nominal vocation, he set them down as being thieves, gambling-house bullies, or ruffians ready to turn their hand to any scoundrelism that presented itself. The real working men soon came to know each other, and being bound by a common object kept aloof from the others, and generally sat in little groups discussing the journey before them and the best methods of proceeding.

Some were in favour of ascending the Missouri to Omaha, others of going up the Arkansas and striking across by the Santa Fe route. All had evidently studied the newspapers diligently, and had almost by heart the narratives of travel that had appeared there, and before the end of the voyage several parties had been made up of men who agreed to journey together for mutual aid and protection.

In the saloon gambling went on all day. As night came on, voices were raised in anger, and fierce quarrels took place, which were only prevented from going further by the captain's prompt intervention, and by his declaration that any man who drew pistol or bowie knife should be put in irons for the rest of the voyage.

Captain Hampton was heartily glad when the vessel entered the Mississippi. He had a.s.sociated princ.i.p.ally with two or three of the Southern gentlemen, and had kept as far as possible aloof from the rowdy portion of the pa.s.sengers. This, however, he had been unable to do altogether. He himself was an object of general curiosity. He was a Britisher; he was not bound for the West; he was not thinking of taking up land; he was unconnected with any commercial house. His explanation that he was travelling for pleasure and intended to go up the two great rivers of the continent, was considered altogether unsatisfactory, and one after another most of his fellow pa.s.sengers endeavoured, by a series of searching questions, to get at the facts of the case. Jacob, on the other hand, enjoyed the voyage greatly; unconsciously to himself he was a student of human nature, and this was a phase entirely new to him.

'It seems to me, Captain,' he said to his master one evening, 'that most of this 'ere gang ought to be in Newgate. Why, to hear what they say of themselves, there is scarce one of them that hasn't killed one or two men in his time. I have been a-listening to some of that black-bearded chap's stories, and if all that he says is true, he has killed over twenty; I counted them up careful. I can't make out how it is that a chap like that is going about free; why, he would have been hung a dozen times if he had been at home. What is the good of the perlice if they lets a chap like that go on as he likes?'

'You may be sure that the greater part of his stories are lies, Jacob, though some of them may be true. New Orleans is perhaps as rough a city as any of its size in the world, and as you go farther West, life becomes still more unsafe. In so vast a country the law is powerless, and men settle their disputes in their own way. Almost every one carries arms, and shooting affrays are of common occurrence, and as long as what is considered fair play is preserved, no one thinks of interfering. A man who is killed is buried, and the one who killed him goes his way unconcernedly; so, though a good many of these stories you hear are lies, there may be more truth in some of them than you would think.'

'They have been a-pumping me, lots of them has,' Jacob said, 'and trying to find out what you are doing out here. I have stuffed them up nicely; I have told them as you had been out in India, and had killed thousands upon thousands of lions, and tigers, and elephants.'