The Last Stroke Part 28

The wisdom of this was admitted, for, since the attack upon Robert Brierly, the unseen foe had become a bugbear indeed to Hilda and Ruth; and they abetted Ferrars in all possible ways, no longer questioning and with growing confidence in his leadership, in spite of the seeming absence of results.

The cable message which Mr. Myers read was worded as follows:

"Jas. Myers, etc., etc.

"H. has seen brother, who is watching affairs, unable to sail at present; letter follows.

"F."

These were the words; their meaning, according to the chart, was this:

"Hilda has seen the western tourist. He is watching us, and we will not attempt to sail until he is off the scent.

"F."

Half an hour later this message went speeding back to New York, and from thence westward:

"To F. Ferrars, etc., etc.

"Case all right; way clear; no claimants."

Which meant precisely what it said.

A few days later two letters pa.s.sed each other in mid-ocean. The one westward-bound read thus:

"MY DEAR FERRARS,--It will not take me long to tell all that I have to tell concerning my mission. As I had antic.i.p.ated, Mr. Wendell Haynes was more than ready to a.s.sist, and had the few facts I now give you already tabulated and awaiting me. Here they are in the order of your written queries:

"1st. The Paisley fortune is no hoax. There is a fine country seat, a factory, a town house, and various stocks, bonds and city investments amounting in all to above a million in American dollars.

"2nd. The English Paisleys are quite extinct, and the claim to the whole estate can surely be established by our claimant.

"3rd. And this may change all your plans possibly, and will startle you quite as much as it has me. There has been no effort made by any one to claim or get possession of the property, and there is no clue to such a person if he, she, or they exist. This balks us. How shall I proceed? Was ever a trail so completely hidden?

"Mr. Haynes has placed himself, and his knowledge and resources--both being extensive--entirely at our disposal. If you still think well of the advertising plan, wire me. I am idle until I hear from you, and mean to employ myself doing London, which will render my part of the enforced waiting very pleasant.

"By the by, I omitted to say that there have been but two 'notices'

published. No unseemly haste, you observe. Awaiting your reply, I am,

"Yours sincerely,

"JAS. MYERS."

The letter which pa.s.sed this midway was from Ferrars, and contained some information.

"DEAR SIR AND FRIEND"--it began--

"This finds us all in the city, the ladies at the flats, and myself in the old quarters, with which you have lately grown familiar. I fancied that we were quite snugly placed and could pa.s.s our period of waiting your summons with some ease of mind. Your house, which looks as untenanted and forbidding as possible, has been viewed, your caretaker says, by a 'party' who, from the description, I take to be the man whom we have termed the 'westerner,' and who was seen for a day or two in Glenville.

"But I have been rudely aroused from my comfortable sense of security. Yesterday Miss Grant and Miss Glidden were down town, and were driven out of the avenue by a long political parade. Driving down a cross street their coachman turned up Clark Street, only to find that another contingent was moving into that street, at the upper corner of the block. It was moving toward them, and the man quickly reined his horses close to the curb to await the pa.s.sage of the line. Directly opposite the carriage was the sign, so frequent upon that street, of three b.a.l.l.s, and while Miss Hilda gazed with some idle curiosity at the, to her, strange sight, a man came out tucking something into his waistcoat as he stepped down upon the pavement, glanced about him, and, without seeming to observe the carriage, or its occupants, walked quickly away. She had seen him, twice at least, at the Glenville, and she knew him at once. She ordered the driver home by a round-about road, but she is certain that the man was the same whom we thought a spy or worse. The most disagreeable feature of this is that I have not yet seen the man, watch as I would, and if he is watching us, he has the advantage.

If the worst comes to the worst we shall have to spread out and go aboard our boat, when the time comes, singly and in disguise.

"Evening--

"Since writing the above I have visited the place of the three gilt b.a.l.l.s and have found, at last, 'a straight tip.'

"The fellow had just redeemed a watch, p.a.w.ned three days ago. It was a very pathetic story that we got out of the warm-hearted p.a.w.nbroker. The young man was overjoyed to be able to claim his watch so soon, for it was a keepsake given him by his dead father, and he 'prized it beyond words.' The watch was a fine foreign made affair, and on the inside was engraved Charles A. 'Braily' or 'Brierly'; he could not remember exactly. So, you see, the probability is that we have stumbled upon the watch stolen from Brierly's room in Glenville, which the fellow first p.a.w.ned, from necessity perhaps, and then hastened to redeem, having taken the alarm in some way. He may even have been made aware that a description of the stolen watch and jewels had been lodged with the police. But all this is guessing. I am still confident that we shall find the solution of our problem on the other side of the Atlantic. Miss Glidden is still bent upon crossing, and your wife is her willing abettor. As for the fifth member of our party, he is at present like wax in our hands. Mind I say our, not mine alone.

"There is nothing new from Glenville--how could there be--now? I need not tell you about ourselves; Mrs. Myers, I know, keeps you well up in our personal history. And so, good luck to you. From yours in good hope,

"F. S. FERRARS."

Two days later this letter reached Ferrars.

"Glenville, July----

"FERRIS GRANT, ESQ.

"DEAR SIR,--Yesterday, too late for the mail, I struck luck, at least I hope you will call it luck. It came through our 'girl,'

that is, the young woman who presides in my kitchen; she has a chum in the kitchen of the Glenville, and last evening they were exchanging confidences upon my back porch. It appears--I'm going to cut the story short--it appears that the night clerk is a kodak fiend, and a month or two ago the fellow, after being guyed about his poor work until he got rattled, vowed he'd contrive to get a picture of every person who set foot in that house for the next month to come, and that they should be the judges as to whether the pictures were good or not. Now it turns out that our traveller from out west was one of the victims of this rash vow, and when I found it out I lost no time in getting that picture. The fellow likes to drive my horses, and he always owes me a pretty good bill. I enclose to you this masterpiece of art. As you never saw him, to your knowledge, and as I had one glimpse, you will be glad, I dare say, to be told that the Glenville House people think it a good likeness.

"There's nothing else in the way of news, and so, good luck to you, and a good voyage.

"SAMUEL DORAN."

When Francis Ferrars had looked long at the picture enclosed in Doran's letter he started, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, in the short, jerky fashion in which he used habitually to commune with himself, "That face!--I've seen it before--but where?" And then he suddenly seemed to see himself approaching the City Hall, and noting, as he walked on, this same face.

It was the habit of the detective to see all that came within his range of vision, as he went about, but he might not have retained a memory so distinct if he had not, in leaving the very same place, encountered the man again, his position slightly shifted, but his att.i.tude as before, that of one who waits, or watches.

For some moments he looked thoughtfully at the picture, which was that of a dark and bearded man wearing a double eyegla.s.s, and then he placed it under a strong magnifier, and looked again.

"Ah!" he finally exclaimed, "I was sure of it! The man is in disguise!"

He took the picture at once to the ladies' sitting room, and held it before the eyes of Hilda Grant.

"Do you know it?" he asked.

"That!" She caught it from his hand, and held it toward the light. "It is the man whom----" She paused, looking at Ferrars, inquiringly.