The Secret of the Reef Part 32

In the luxuriously appointed smoking-room of the hotel Clay leaned forward in the deep leather chair into which he had dropped and looked keenly at Osborne.

"Tell me how you are interested in this fellow Farquhar," he demanded.

"I don't know that I am much interested," Osborne replied. "He was of some service to us during our voyage from j.a.pan, and seemed a smart young fellow. It merely struck me that I might give him a lift up in return for one or two small favors."

"Let him drop! Didn't it strike you that your daughter might have her own views about him? The man's good-looking."

Osborne flung up his head, and his eyes narrowed.

"I can't discuss-"

"It has to be discussed," Clay interrupted. "You can't have that man at your house: he's one of the fellows who were working at the wreck."

"Ah! That makes a difference, of course. I suppose you have been on their trail, but you have told me nothing about it yet."

"I had a suspicion that you didn't want to know. You're a fastidious fellow, you know, and I suspected that you'd rather leave a mean job of that kind to me."

"You're right," Osborne admitted. "I'm sure you would handle it better than I could; but I'm curious to hear what you've done."

"I've gone as far as seems advisable. Had the fellows fired from several jobs and made it difficult for them to get another; but it wouldn't pay to have my agents guess what I'm after." Clay laughed. "Farquhar and his partners are either bolder or smarter than I thought; I found them taking my own money at the Clanch Mill."

"You meant to break them?"

"Sure! A man without money is pretty harmless; but wages are high here, and if they'd been left alone, they might have saved enough to give them a start. Now I don't imagine the poor devils have ten dollars between them."

"What's your plan?"

"I don't know yet. I thought of letting them find out the weakness of their position and then trying to buy them off; but if I'm not very careful that might give them a hold on me."

Osborne looked thoughtful.

"I wonder whether the insurance people would consider an offer for the wreck? I wouldn't mind putting up my share of the money."

"It wouldn't work," Clay said firmly. "They'd smell a rat. I suppose you felt you'd like to give them their money back."

"I have felt something of the kind."

"Then why did you take the money in the first instance?"

"You ought to know. I had about two hundred dollars which you had paid me then, and I wanted to give my girl a fair start in life."

"And now she'd be the first to feel ashamed of you if she knew."

Osborne winced.

"What's the good of digging up the bones of a skeleton that is better buried!" he said impatiently. "The thing to consider is the wreck. If we could buy it we could blow it up."

"We can blow it up, anyway. That is, if we can get there before the Farquhar crowd. We have steam against their sail, and I've made it difficult for them to fit out their boat. Unless I find I can come to terms with the fellows, I'll get off in the yacht as soon as the ice breaks up."

"Your crew may talk."

"They won't have much to talk about; I'll see to that. Now, I don't know what claim insurers have on a vessel they've paid for and abandoned for a number of years, but I guess there's nothing to prevent our trying to recover her cargo, so long as we account for what we get. It's known that the yacht has been cruising in the North, and what more natural than that we should discover that a gale or a change of current had washed the wreck into shallow water after the salvage expedition gave her up? If there had been anything wrong, we'd have made some move earlier. Very well; knowing more about the vessel and her freight than anybody else, we try what we can do. If we fail, like the salvage people, n.o.body can blame us."

"You'd run some risk, for all that," Osborne said thoughtfully.

"I can't deny it. If Farquhar and his friends were business men, I'd feel uneasy. He has cards in his hand that would beat us; but he doesn't know how many trumps he holds. If he did know, we'd have heard from him or the underwriters before this."

"It seems probable," Osborne agreed. "All the same, I wish the winter was over and you could get off. It will be a relief to know that she is destroyed."

"You'll have to wait; but there won't be much of her left after we get to work with the giant-powder," Clay promised cheerfully.

They talked over the matter until it got late; and the next morning the party broke up, the Osbornes returning home and Aynsley going back to his mill. Clay, however, stayed in Vancouver and visited a doctor who was beginning to make his mark. There were medical men in Seattle who would have been glad to attend to him, but he preferred the Canadian city, where he was not so well known. He had been troubled rather often of late by sensations that puzzled him, and had decided that if he had any serious weakness it would be better to keep it to himself. Hitherto he had been noted for his mental and physical force, and recognized as a daring, unscrupulous fighter whom it was wise to conciliate, and it might prove damaging if rumors that he was not all he seemed got about.

His work was not finished and his ambitions were only half realized.

Aynsley had his mother's graces, for Clay's wife had been a woman of some refinement who had yielded to the fascination the handsome adventurer once exercised. The boy must have wealth enough to make him a prominent figure on the Pacific Slope. Clay knew his own limitations, and was content that his son should attain a social position he could not enjoy. This was one reason why he had been more troubled about Farquhar's salvage operations than he cared to admit. His personal reputation was, as he very well knew, not of the best, but his business exploits, so far as they were known to the public, were, after all, regarded with a certain toleration and would be forgotten. The wreck, however, was a more serious matter, and might have a damaging effect on his son's career if the truth concerning it came out. This must be avoided at any cost. Moreover, with his business increasing, he would need all his faculties during the next few years, and the mysterious weakness he suffered from now and then dulled his brain. In consequence, he was prudently but rather unwillingly going to see a doctor.

The man examined him with a careful interest which Clay thought ominous, and after questioning him about his symptoms stood silent a few moments.

"You have lived pretty hard," he commented.

"I have," said Clay, "but perhaps not in the way that's generally meant."

The doctor nodded as he studied him. Clay's face showed traces of indulgence, but these were not marked. The man was obviously not in the habit of exercising an ascetic control over his appet.i.tes, but he looked too hard and virile to be a confirmed sensualist. Yet, to a practised eye, he showed signs of wear.

"I mean that you haven't been careful of yourself."

"I hadn't much chance of doing so until comparatively recent years,"

Clay replied with a grim smile. "In my younger days, I suffered heat and thirst in the Southwest; afterwards I marched on half-rations, carrying a heavy pack, in the Alaskan snow; and I dare say I got into the habit of putting my object first."

"Before what are generally considered the necessities of life-food and rest and sleep?"

"Something of the kind."

"You work pretty hard now?"

"I begin when I get up; as a rule, it's eleven o'clock at night when I finish. That's the advantage of living in a city hotel. You can meet the people you deal with after office hours."

"It's a doubtful advantage," said the doctor. "You'll have to change all that. Have you no relaxations or amus.e.m.e.nts?"

"I haven't time for them; my business needs too much attention. It's because I find it tries me now and then that I've come here to learn what's wrong."

The doctor told him he had a serious derangement of the heart which might have been inherited, but had been developed by his having taxed his strength too severely.

Clay listened with a hardening face.

"What's the cure?" he asked.

"There is none," said the doctor quietly. "A general slackening of tension will help. You must take life easier, shorten your working hours, avoid excitement and mental concentration, and take a holiday when you can. I recommend a three months' change with complete rest, but there will always be some risk of a seizure. Your aim must be to make it as small a risk as possible."