The Pirate of Panama Part 10

I consulted Sam with my eyes.

"I suppose there is no absolute bar to letting the ladies go. There is room enough on the _Argos_."

"There's plenty of room," he admitted.

After all it was fanciful to suppose that we should run across Bothwell on the face of the broad Pacific. Why shouldn't they have the pleasure of a month's yachting? Certainly their presence would make the voyage a more pleasant one for us.

"All right. Go if you must, but don't blame me if it turns out to be no picnic."

"Thank you, Mr. Sedgwick. That's just what it is going to be--a nice long picnic," the girl beamed.

"Wish I had your beautiful confidence. Have you forgotten Captain Bothwell? Shall we take him along, too?" I asked with a laugh.

"I'm afraid he would want all the cake. No, we'll not ask him to our picnic. He may stay at home."

"Let's hope he will," Miss Berry contributed cheerfully.

I don't think she gave the least weight to our fears of Bothwell. In fact he was rather a favorite of hers.

"If he comes he'll have to take what is left. He understands he's not invited," Miss Wallace nodded gaily.

Blythe was fortunately able to secure his sailing master, Mott, and one of the crew that had sailed with him before, a man named Williams. The Englishman's valet, Morgan, went as steward. For the rest, we had to be content with such men as we could get hurriedly together.

Two brothers named Fleming were secured as engineers, a little c.o.c.kney as fat as a prize pig for cook. He answered to the cognomen of 'Arry 'Iggins, though on the ship's register the letter H was the first initial of both his names. Caine, the boatswain, was a sinister-looking fellow, but he knew his business. Taken as a whole, the crew appeared to average well enough.

From long practice Blythe was an adept at outfitting a yacht for a cruise. Without going into details I'll only say that we carried very little that was superfluous and lacked nothing that would tend to increase our comfort.

I am no sailor, but it did not take a professional eye to see that the _Argos_ was a jewel of a boat. Of her seagoing qualities I knew nothing except by repute, but her equipment throughout was of the best. She was a three-masted schooner with two funnels, fitted with turbines and Yarrow boilers. To get eighteen knots out of her was easy, and I have seen her do twenty in a brisk wind.

In addition to her main deck the _Argos_ carried a topgallant forecastle and a bridge, the latter extended on stanchions from the main deck to the sides of the ship so as to give plenty of s.p.a.ce for games or promenades. The bridge contained a reception and a tea room, which were connected by a carved stairway with the deck below.

The rooms of the commander, the cook, and other servants lay well forward under the bridge. Abaft of these were the kitchen and the pantry, the dining room, the saloon, and the rooms of the owner and his guests.

The conventional phrase "a floating palace" will do well enough to describe the interior of this turbine yacht. No reasonable man could have asked more of luxury than was to be found in the well-designed bath rooms, in the padded library with its shelves of books, its piano and music rack, and in the smoking room arranged to satisfy the demands of the most fastidious.

I had resigned my place with Kester & Wilc.o.x to help push the preparation for our departure, but I was still spending a good deal of my time in the office cleaning up some matters upon which I had been working. Much of the time I was down at the docks, and when I could not be there my thoughts were full of the _Argos_ and her voyage.

Since I was giving my time to the firm without pay I took the liberty of using the boy Jimmie to run errands for me. Journeying back and forth to the wharf with messages and packages, he naturally worked up a feverish interest in our cruise, even though he did not know the object of it.

When he came out point-blank one morning with a request to go with us as cabin boy I was not surprised. I sympathized with Master Jimmie's desire, but I very promptly put the lid on his hopes.

"Nothing doing, Mr. James A. Garfield Welch."

"You've gotter have a kid to run errands for youse, Mr. Sedgwick," he pleaded.

"No use talking, Jimmie. You're not going."

"All right," he acquiesced meekly.

Too meekly, it occurred to me later.

CHAPTER VI

THE MISSING CORNER

Blythe and I had agreed that Bothwell would not let us get away without first making an effort to get hold of the original map of Doubloon Spit.

He was n.o.body's fool, and there was no doubt but he had very soon detected the trick his cousin had played upon him.

Since the chart was in a safety-deposit vault we felt pretty sure of ourselves, for he would have to secure it between the time we took it out and our arrival on the _Argos_, at best a spare half hour in the middle of the day. But since the captain did not know what we had done with the doc.u.ment, it was a good guess that he would have a try at searching for it.

On the evening of the third day before we were due to sail, Blythe and I took Miss Berry and her niece to the opera and afterward to a little supper at a cozy French restaurant just round the corner from the Chronicle Building.

It was well past midnight when we reached the hotel where the ladies had their rooms. Miss Wallace had no sooner flung open the door than she gave an exclamation of amazement.

The room had been fairly turned upside down. Drawers had been emptied, searched, and their contents dumped down in one corner. Rugs had been torn up. Even the upholstery of chairs and the lounge had been ripped.

The inner room was in the same condition. A thorough, systematic examination had been made of every square inch of the apartment. It had been carried so far that the linings of gowns had been cut away and the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of hats plucked off.

"A burglar!" gasped Miss Berry.

"Let's give him a name. Will Captain Boris Bothwell do?" I asked of Blythe.

The Englishman nodded.

"You've rung the bell at the first shot, Sedgwick."

"Oh, I don't think it," Miss Berry protested. "Captain Bothwell is too much of a gentleman to destroy a lady's things wantonly. Just look at this hat!"

Evelyn laughed at her wail. It happened not to be her hat.

"It's dear Boris, all right. I wonder if he left his card?"

"Shall we call in the police?" her aunt asked.

Miss Wallace questioned me with her eyes.

"Might as well," I a.s.sented. "Not that it will make a bit of difference, but it will satisfy the hotel people. Probably it would be as well not to mention our suspicions."

So we had the police in. They talked and took notes and asked questions, and at last went away with the omniscient air peculiar to officers of the law the world over. They had decided it was the work of Nifty Jim, a notorious diamond thief at that time honoring San Francisco with his presence.

Over a cigar in my rooms Blythe and I talked the matter out. Bothwell had made the first move. Soon he would make another, for of course he would search my place at the Graymount. The question was whether to keep the rooms guarded or to let him have a clear field. We decided on the latter.

"How far will the man go? That's the question." My friend looked at his cigar tip speculatively. "Will he have you knocked on the head to see if you are carrying it?"

"He will if he can," I told him promptly. "But I'm taking no chances. I carry a revolver."