Phantom Wires Part 17

Suddenly she ran to the companionway and called down to her husband.

"Look!" she said, under her breath, as he came to the rail, "they're talking with their wireless!"

She pointed to the masthead of the Cunarder, where, through the twilight, she could "spell" the spark, signal by signal and letter by letter, as the current broke from the head of the installation wires to the hollow metal mast, from which ran the taut-strung wires connecting, in turn, with the operating office just aft and above the engine-rooms.

"Listen," she said, for in the lull of the wind they could hear the short, crisp spit of the spark as it spelt out its mysterious messages.

Durkin caught her arm, and listened, intently, watching the little appearing and disappearing green spark, spelling off the words with narrowing eyes.

"They're talking with the station up on the mainland. Do you hear what it is? Can't you make it out?"

It was, of course, the Continental, and not the Morse, code, and it was not quite the same as stooping over and listening to the crisp, incisive pulsations of a "sounder." But Frank heard and saw and pieced together enough of the message to clutch, in turn, at Durkin's arm, and wait with quickened breath for the answering spark-play.

"No--such--persons--on--board--send--fuller--description."

There was a silence of a minute or two, and then the mysterious Hertzian voice lisped out once more.

"Description--not--forwarded--by--Emba.s.sy--man--and--wife--are wanted-- for robbery--at--Monte--Carlo--also--at--Genoa--name--Durgin--or-- Durkin."

The listening man and woman looked at each other, and still waited.

"Oh, this _is_ luck!" said the listener, fervently, as he drew a deep breath. "This _is_ luck!"

"Listen, they're answering again!" cried Frank.

"Why--not--confer--with--Trieste--authorities--will--you--please-- telephone--our--agents--to--send--out--tender--to take--off--Admiral-- Stuart."

Then came the silence again.

"Yes," sounded the minute electric tongue from the mountain-top, so many miles away. "Good--night!"

"Good--night!" replied the articulate ma.s.s of heaving steel, swinging at her anchor chains.

CHAPTER XV

WIRELESS MESSAGES

"What are we to do?" asked Frances Durkin, turning from the masthead to her husband's studious face.

"We've got to jump at our chance, and get on board the _Slavonia_ over there!"

"In the face of those messages?"

"It's the messages that simplify things for us. All we now have to do is to get on board in such a manner that the ship's officers will have no suspicions. They mustn't dream of linking us with the runaway couple who are being looked for. That means that we must not, in the first place, appear together, and, in the second, of course, that we must travel and appear as utter strangers!"

"But supposing Keenan himself is on board that steamer?" parried Frank.

"It is obvious that he isn't, for then it would be quite unnecessary to send out any such messages by wireless."

"But supposing it's Pobloff?"

"Didn't you say that Pobloff would never follow us out of Europe?"

"But even if it's Keenan?" she persisted.

"Then you must remember that you are Miss Allen, at your old trade of picking up little art relics for wealthy families in England and America. You will have yourself rowed directly over to the _Slavonia's_ landing ladder--you can see it there, not two hundred feet away--and go on board and secure a stateroom from the purser. The clearing papers can be attended to later. I'll have the _Laminian_ dingey take me ash.o.r.e, somewhere down near Barcola, if it can possibly be done in this wind. Then I'll come out to the _Slavonia_ later, having, you see, just arrived on the train from Venice!"

She shook her head doubtfully. An inapposite and irrational dread of seeing him return to the dangers of land took possession of her. She knew it would be impossible for her to put this untimely feeling into words, so that he would see and understand it; and, such being the case, she argued with him stubbornly to alter his plan, and to allow her to be the one to go ash.o.r.e, while he went immediately to the liner.

He consented to this at last, a little reluctantly, but the thought that he was safely installed in his cabin, as she made her way sh.o.r.eward through the dusk, in the pitching and dripping little dingey, consoled her for the sense of loneliness and desertion which her position brought to her. The wind had increased, by this time, and the rain was coming down in slanting and stinging sheets. But her spirit did not fail her.

From the water-front, deserted and rain-swept, she called a pa.s.sing street carriage, and drove to the Hotel Bristol. There she sent the driver to ask if any luggage had arrived from Venice for Miss Allen.

None had arrived, and Miss Allen, naturally, appeared in great perturbation before the sympathetic but helpless hotel manager. She next inquired if it was possible to ascertain when the Cunard steamer sailed.

"The _Slavonia_, madam, leaves the harbor at daybreak!"

"At daybreak! Then I must go on board tonight, at once!"

"I fear it is impossible, madam. The _bora_ is blowing, as you see, and the harbor is empty!"

"But I _must_ get on board!" she cried, and this time her dismay and despair were not mere dissimulation.

The landlord shrugged his shoulders, while Frank, calling out a peremptory order, in Italian, to her driver, left him at the curb looking after her through the driving rain, in bewilderment.

She went first to the steamship offices. They were closed. Then she sought out the Cunard tender--it was lightless and deserted. Then she hurried to the water-front, driving up and down along that lonely stretch of deserted quays, back and forth, coaxing, wheedling, trying to bribe indifferent and placid-eyed boatmen to row her out to her steamer. It was useless. It could not be done. It was not worth while to risk either their boats or their lives, even in the face of the fifty, one hundred, two hundred _lira_ which she flaunted in their unperturbed faces.

Grating and rocking against the quayside, above the heads of the group about her, she caught sight of a white-painted steam launch, with a high-standing bow, and on it a uniformed officer, smoking in the rain.

She approached him without hesitation. Could he, in any way, carry her out to her steamer? She pointed to where the lights of the _Slavonia_ shone and glimmered through the gray darkness. They looked indescribably warm and homelike to her peering eyes.

The officer looked her up and down in stolid Austrian amazement, trying to catch a glimpse of her face through her wet and flattened traveling veil. Could he take her out to her steamer? No; he was afraid not.

Yes, it was true he had steam up, and that his crew were aboard, but this was the official patrol of the Captain of the Port--it was not to carry pa.s.sengers--it was solely for the imperial service of the Austrian Government.

She pleaded with him, weeping. He was sorry, but the Captain of the Port would permit no such irregularity.

"Where is the Captain of the Port, then?" she demanded.

The officer puffed his cigar slowly, and looked her up and down once more. He was in his office in the Administration Building--but the officer's shrug and smile told her that it was, in his eyes, no easy thing to secure admission to the Captain of the Port. The very phrase, "the Captain of the Port," that had been bandied back and forth for the last few minutes, became odious to her; it seemed to designate the t.i.tle of some august and supernatural and tyrannous power who held her life and death in his hands.

She turned on her heel and drove at once to the Administration Building. Here, at the entrance, she was confronted by a uniformed sentry, who, after questioning her, pa.s.sed her on to still another uniformed personage, who called an orderly, and sent that somewhat bewildered messenger and his charge to the anteroom of the Captain of the Port's private secretary. Frank had a sense of hurrying down long and jail-like corridors, of ascending stairs and pa.s.sing sentries, of questionings and consultations, of at last being ushered into a softly-lighted, softly-carpeted room, where a white-bearded, benignant-browed official sat in a swivel-chair before a high walnut desk.

He shook his head mournfully as he listened to her story. But she did not give up. She even amazed him a little by the sheer impetuosity of her speech.

"Is there much at stake, _signorina_?" he asked, at last, as she paused for breath.