The Pirate of Panama Part 11

"Did you happen to notice that we were followed to-night?"

"That's nothing new. They've been d.o.g.g.i.ng me ever since I got the map.

But I play a pretty careful game."

"I would," Blythe agreed gravely. "I say. Let me stay with you here till we get off. Better be sure than sorry."

"Glad to have you, though I don't think it's necessary."

It may have been five minutes later that I suddenly sat bolt upright in my chair. An idea had popped into my head, one so bold that it might have been borrowed from Bothwell's lawless brain.

"I say. Let's play this out with Captain Boris his own way. Let's just remind him we're on earth too."

"Meaning----"

My eyes danced.

"I'm as good a burglar as he is, and so are you."

Blythe waited.

"He doesn't give a tinker's dam for the law," I continued. "Good enough!

We'll take a leaf out of his book. To-morrow night you have an engagement--to ransack the captain's rooms."

"What for?"

"To get that corner of a map he stole from his cousin. Part of the directions for finding the treasure are on it."

"But Miss Wallace has another copy."

"An inaccurate one. Her father changed the directions on purpose in case some one found it."

Blythe smoked for a minute without answering.

"You're a devilish cool hand, Sedgwick. I'm a law-abiding citizen myself."

"And so am I--when the other fellow will let me. But if a chap hits me on the head with a bit of scantling I'll not stop to look for a policeman."

"Just so. I was about to say that since I'm a law-abiding citizen it's my duty to take from Bothwell the goods he has stolen. I'm with you to search his rooms for that paper."

Underneath his British phlegm I could see that he was as keen on the thing as Jack Sedgwick. Looking back on it from this distance, it seems odd that two reputable citizens should have adventured into housebreaking so gaily as we did.

But Bothwell had brought it on himself, and both of us were eager to show him he had some one more formidable than a young woman to deal with. Moreover, there is something about the very name of buried treasure that knocks the pins of respectability from under a man.

Up to date I had led the normal life of a super-civilized city dweller, but within a fortnight I was to shoot a man down and count it just part of the day's work. None of us knows how strong the savage is in us until we are brought up against life in the raw.

My trailers followed me about next day as usual, but I chuckled whenever I saw them. For we were doing a little sleuthing ourselves. I borrowed Jimmie from the firm and the little gamin kept tab on Bothwell.

The captain did not leave his room until nearly midday, but as soon as he had turned the corner next to his hotel, the Argonaut, on the way to his breakfast-lunch, Jimmie dodged in at the side entrance, slipped up the stairs and along a corridor, up a second and a third flight by the back way, down another pa.s.sage, and stopped at a room numbered 417.

With him he had a great bunch of keys similar to those used in that hotel. One after another he tried these, stopping whenever he heard approaching footsteps to hide the keys under his coat. Several persons pa.s.sed, but found nothing unusual in the sight of a boy knocking innocently on a door.

At last Jimmie found a key which turned in the socket. That was all he wanted. Relocking the door he went down the stairs to the street, his fingers tightly clenched around the key that fitted. Nor did he take the little closed fist out of his coat pocket until he and I were alone together in my office, from whence he departed two dollars richer than he had entered.

Jimmie having been retired from duty, Blythe took his place in watching Bothwell. He engaged a room on the fourth floor of the Argonaut, from which he was able to observe the coming and going of the enemy.

My work at the office finished, I took a car for the Graymount, followed as usual by one of the detectives that for days had dogged me. My attendant on this occasion was a shrimp of a man with a very wrinkled face and a shock of red hair. Some imp of deviltry in me moved me to change my seat for one beside his.

"A pleasant day," I suggested to open the conversation.

He agreed that it was.

"I suppose your kind of work is always more cheerful in good weather," I went on.

"My kind of work!" Plainly he was disconcerted at my remark.

"Yes. Must be devilish unpleasant shadowing a man in cold weather.

Don't you have to wait outside houses sometimes for hours at a stretch?"

The palm of his hand rasped a stubbly chin as he looked askance at me.

"Why--er--I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you?" I laughed in his face. "Come now, let's put aside the little fiction that I'm not wise to your game. I'm not at all annoyed at the attentions you pay me. It's entirely a matter of business with you.

I suppose I'm good for about five dollars a day to you. Faith, that's more than I've ever been able to earn for myself. Sorry I'm leaving these parts soon--on your account."

He did not at all know how to take me, but he earnestly a.s.sured me that I was quite mistaken. He was a carpenter by trade.

"Why not make it as easy for you as we can?" I chuckled. "Come in to the Graymount and have dinner with me. Our cafe isn't what it should be, but it will pa.s.s at a pinch. What do you say?"

He said that I was making game of him.

"Not at all," I a.s.sured him. "I'm merely trying to lighten the load of honest labor. Well, if you won't, you won't. After dinner I'm going to my rooms to smoke a cigar. About nine--or somewhere near that time--I'll be going out for an hour. Are your instructions to follow me?"

"You're all wrong about me, sir. I don't know any more than a rabbit what you are talking about."

"I was only going to say that if you care to go I'll try to arrange for another place at our little party."

He was, I judged, glad to get rid of me at my corner. It had been his instruction to leave the car there too, no doubt, but my discovery of him drove the little man one block farther. I waited till he got off and waved a hand at him before I walked to the Graymount. For me it had been a very entertaining little adventure, but I am inclined to think he found it embarra.s.sing.

The program of my movements which I had given him was accurate enough.

Dinner finished. I went to my room for a cigar, after which I called up a taxi.

I selected an ulster with a deep collar, and in the right hand pocket I dropped a revolver, but not before I had carefully examined the weapon.

As I stepped into the taxi the vest-pocket edition of Nick Carter with whom I had ridden up from the city a few hours earlier darted out from the alley where he had been lurking. Again I waved a hand derisively toward him. The chauffeur threw in the clutch and we moved swiftly down the hill. The little sleuth wheeled off in the direction of the nearest drug store.

"He's going to call up Bothwell to tell him I've gone," was my guess.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour I had the chauffeur drive me about the city, now fast, now slow, crossing and recrossing our track half a dozen times. When I was finally convinced that no other car was following mine I paid the driver and dismissed him.