The Ragged Edge Part 27

McClintock laughed. "It's a pump, like an organ."

"Oh, I see. What a wonderful world it is!" Music. She shuddered.

"Ay. Well, I'll be getting this tub under way."

Ruth walked to the companion. It was one of those old sliding trap affairs, narrow and steep of descent. She went down, feeling rather than seeing the way. The door of cabin 2 was open. Someone had thoughtfully wrapped a bit of tissue paper round the electric bulb.

She did not enter the cabin at once, but paused on the threshold and stared at the silent, rec.u.mbent figure in the bunk. In the subdued light she could not tell whether he was asleep or awake.

Never again to be alone! To fit herself into this man's life as a hand into a glove; to use all her skill to force him into the position of depending upon her utterly; to be the spark to the divine fire! He should have his book, even if it had to be written with her heart's blood.

What she did not know, and what she was never to know, was that the divine fire was hers.

"Ruth?" he called.

She entered and approached the bunk. "I thought you were asleep. Is there anything you want?" She laid her hand on his forehead, and found it without fever. She had worried in fear that the excitement would be too much for him.

"Call me Hoddy. That is what my mother used to call me."

"Hoddy," she repeated. "I shall like to call you that. But now you must be quiet; there's been too much excitement. Knock on the part.i.tion if you want anything during the might. I awaken easily.

Good night!" She pressed his hand and went out.

For a long time he stared at the empty doorway. He heard the panting of the donkey-engine, then the slithering of the anchor chains. Presently he felt motion. He chuckled. The vast ironic humour of it: he was starting on his honeymoon!

CHAPTER XIX

Meanwhile the doctor, upon returning to his office, found Ah c.u.m in the waiting room. "Why, h.e.l.lo, Ah c.u.m! What's the trouble?"

Ah c.u.m took his hands from his sleeves. "I should like to know where Mr. Spurlock has gone."

"Did he owe you money?"

"Oh, no!"

"Then why do you wish to know?"

Ah c.u.m pondered. "I have a client who is very much interested in Mr. Spurlock. He was here shortly after the young man was taken ill."

"Ah. What was this man?"

"A detective from the States."

"Why didn't he arrest Mr. Spurlock then?"

"I imagine that Mr. O'Higgins is rather a kindly man. He couldn't have taken Mr. Spurlock back to Hong-Kong with him, so he considered it would be needless to give an additional shock. He asked me to watch Mr. Spurlock's movements and report progress. He admitted that it would bore him to dally here in Canton, with the pleasures of Hong-Kong so close."

The doctor caught the irony, and he warmed a little. "I'm afraid I must decline to tell you. Do you know what Spurlock has done?"

"Mr. O'Higgins did not confide in me. But he told me this much, that no matter how far Mr. Spurlock went, it would not be far enough."

A detective. The doctor paced the room half a dozen times. How easily an evil thought could penetrate a normally decent mind! All he had to do was to disclose Spurlock's destination, and in a few months Ruth would be free. For it was but logical that she would seek a divorce on the ground that she had unknowingly married a fugitive from justice. McClintock would be on hand to tell her how and where to obtain this freedom. He stopped abruptly before the apparently incurious Chinaman.

"Your detective has been remiss in his duty; let him suffer for it."

"Personally, I am neutral," said Ah c.u.m. "I wish merely to come out of this bargain honourably. It would make the young wife unhappy."

"Very."

"There was a yacht in the river?"

"I have nothing to say."

"By the name of _The Tigress_?"

The doctor smiled, but shook his head. He sent a speculative glance at the immobile yellow face. Was Ah c.u.m offering him an opportunity to warn Spurlock? But should he warn the boy? Why not let him imagine himself secure? The thunderbolt would be launched soon enough.

"I haven't a word to say, Ah c.u.m, not a word."

"Then I wish you good night."

Ah c.u.m went directly to the telegraph office, and his message was devoted particularly to a description of _The Tigress_. Spurlock had been taken aboard that yacht with the Kanaka crew, because _The Tigress_ was the only ship marked for departure that night. Ah c.u.m was not a sailor, but he knew his water-front. One of his chair coolies had witnessed the transportation of Spurlock by stretcher to the sampan in the ca.n.a.l. There were three other ships at anchor; but as two would be making Shanghai and one rounding to Singapore two days hence, it was logically certain that no fugitive would seek haven in one of these.

But whither _The Tigress_ was bound or who the owner was lay beyond the reach of Ah c.u.m's deductions. He did not particularly care. It was enough that Spurlock had been taken aboard _The Tigress_.

He wisely refrained from questioning the manager of the Victoria.

He feared to antagonize that distinguished person. The Victoria was Ah c.u.m's bread and b.u.t.ter.

The telegram dispatched, his obligation cancelled, Ah c.u.m proceeded homeward, chuckling occasionally. The Yale spirit!

James Boyle O'Higgins was, as the saying goes, somewhat out of luck. Ah c.u.m's wire reached the Hong-Kong Hotel promptly enough; but O'Higgins was on board a United States cruiser, witnessing a bout between a British sailor and a sergeant in the U.S. Marines.

It was a capital diversion; and as usual the Leatherneck bested the Britisher, in seven rounds. O'Higgins returned to town and made a night of it, nothing very wild, nothing very desperate. A modest drinking bout which had its windup in a fan-tan house over in Kowloon, where O'Higgins tussled with varying fortune until five in the morning.

When he was given the telegram he flew to the Praya, engaged the fast motor-boat he had previously bespoken against the need, and started for the Macao Pa.s.sage, with the vague hope of speaking _The Tigress_. He hung round those broad waters from noon until three and realized that he had embarked upon a wild-goose chase. Still, his conscience was partly satisfied. He made Hong-Kong at dusk: wet, hungry, and a bit groggy for the want of sleep; but he was in no wise discouraged. The girl was in the game now, and that narrowed the circle.

The following morning found him in the doctor's waiting room, a black cigar turning unlighted in his teeth. When the doctor came in--he had just finished his breakfast--O'Higgins rose and presented his card. Upon reading the name, the doctor's eyebrows went up.

"I rather fancy, as you Britishers say, that you know the nature of my visit?"

"I'm an American."

"Fine!" said O'Higgins, jovially. "We won't have any trouble understanding each other; same language. There's nothing on the card to indicate it, but I'm a detective."

O'Higgins threw out his chest, gave it a pat, and smiled. This smile warned the doctor not to underestimate the man. O'Higgins was all that the doctor had imagined a detective to be: a bulky policeman in civilian clothes. The blue jowl, the fat-lidded eyes--now merry, now alert, now tungsten hard--the bullet head, the pudgy fingers and the square-toed shoes were all in conformation with the doctor's olden mental picture.

"Yes; I know I look it," said O'Higgins, amiably.