THE MYSTERIOUS MEN
As the machine drove away several street urchins came running toward the girls, begging the privilege of carrying their bags. Nan would have refused, the bags being not at all heavy and the walk to the end of the dock from the entrance not very far, but Bess nudged her sharply.
"Go ahead," she urged. "I have a quarter to pay for it. Don't be a silly."
So Nan obeyed and reluctantly handed over to one of the eager street urchins the handsome bag which contained, among other things, Mrs. Bragley's papers. Bess had already loaded the small boy with her own belongings, and it seemed impossible to Nan that the lad could be able to carry it all.
Yet he sauntered ahead quite cheerfully while the other boys turned away disappointed to wait for the next arrival.
As the girls emerged from the long, tunnel-like entrance into the bright sunshine of the dock they quickened their steps instinctively. The steamship Dorian, which was to carry them to Florida, was already waiting for the passengers.
Nan had never seen a harbor like this before, and she gazed with fascinated eyes out over the glistening water, dotted thickly with craft of all sizes and descriptions.
There were a great many docks like the kind upon which she and Bess were standing, and they stretched out into the harbor like so many legs of an octopus, cleaving the brilliant water with dark ugly gashes.
Over all the bustling harbor was a sense of feverish activity, of mystery and romance, of adventuring in far, fair lands that set Nan's blood atingle and made her breath come quickly.
"What are you waiting for?" Bess asked impatiently, and Nan roused from her reverie with a start.
"I wasn't waiting, I was just looking," said Nan in a soft voice, as they started up the gangplank that led to the deck of the Dorian. "I never saw anything so wonderful."
"Beg pardon, Miss," said a voice in her ear, and a small hand was laid upon her arm.
Nan turned quickly and saw that it was their small luggage carrier. In their preoccupation the girls had both of them forgotten about their precious bags.
With quick fingers Nan fished in her purse for the necessary quarter, gave it to the boy and received her bag in return.
"Oh, Bess!" she cried as the boy tipped his cap and started on, "how could I ever have done such a thing? Why, if I had lost this bag I never would have dared face Mrs. Bragley again. Never in this wide world!"
"I wish Mrs. Bragley were in Guinea," said Bess crossly. "She and her old papers are just about going to spoil our trip. They are making you as nervous as a cat."
"Sh-h, Bess, not so loud," cautioned Nan, as they stepped upon the deck of the Dorian and handed over the tickets which Papa Sherwood had secured for them.
It was perhaps fortunate for the girls' peace of mind that they did not notice two men who were closely behind them. One of the men was fat and short and had little eyes and a bald head, which he was now mopping vigorously with a rather soiled handkerchief.
His companion was his complete opposite. He was tall and thin, with a severe, straight line for a mouth and long, nervous hands, and had a habit of caressing his beardless chin as though a beard had once grown there.
As the tall thin man, whom his companion called Jensen, overheard Nan's startled reference to Mrs. Bragley's papers, he put a hand upon the fat man's arm and nodded once with a sort of jerk of satisfaction.
"What did I say, Davis?" he asked, in a carefully guarded voice. "I tell you, I am never wrong." And his eyes followed the girls as they started down the deck in the direction of their cabin.
As they, in turn, stepped upon the deck, the short man looked up at his tall companion and said rather enigmatically: "Sometimes I wonder, Jensen, whether you are a great man, or a great fool. It's certainly great to have them on this trip to Florida with us."
Although the girls knew nothing of this strange conversation, Nan was extremely careful to stow her bag away in a corner of their stateroom and piled several things on it and about it so that it could not be easily seen by curious eyes.
"Nan, if you don't leave that old thing alone I'm going to throw it overboard," Bess finally said complainingly. "You act as if it contained diamonds and rubies instead of——"
"Oh, please hush," said Nan, rising quickly from her knees and coming over to Bess. "I don't know what has gotten into me lately, Bess dear," she said, speaking so earnestly that her chum regarded her in surprise; "but ever since I took charge of those papers I have had the strangest impression that I am being watched."
"Nan!" cried Bess, looking uneasily over her shoulder, "what a terrible thing. But, of course, it's only imagination," she added easily, for it was instinct with Bess to cast aside anything that threatened to worry her or interfere with her fun. "I told you the old papers were getting on your nerves."
"You're right," said Nan, with a little sigh as she rose to take off her coat and hat and straighten her hair before the tiny mirror. "They certainly are getting on my nerves."
"Well, for goodness' sake get them off then," commanded Bess, bouncing impatiently on a berth. "I never saw such a girl to take everybody else's troubles on her own shoulders. I'll be glad when you turn the papers over to Mr. Mason."
Nan smiled a resigned little smile at her reflection in the mirror. Then she came over and put an arm about her pouting chum.
"All right," she promised gaily, "I won't ever do it again. Only come on and smile, honey. If you knew how pretty you look when you do, you would never do anything else."
There are very few girls who can withstand an appeal like that, and Bess was not one of them. A smile replaced the frown immediately and the next minute she was chatting merrily about their crowded little stateroom and the two narrow berths, one above the other, wondering with a grimace whether they would be seasick or not, and so, on and on, till Nan's momentary depression forsook her and she felt again the thrill that had quickened her blood as they had stood on the dock, gazing out over the harbor.
Yet, almost unknown to Nan herself, there lingered in the back of her mind a strange, uneasy premonition of trouble to come, and again and again her eyes sought the spot where the bag with Mrs. Bragley's papers stowed safely inside lay hidden.
"I wonder which one of us is going to take the upper berth," Bess chattered gaily on. "You had better, Nan, because you're thinner than I. And then if the berth should cave in it wouldn't hurt you so much because there would be something soft to fall on. It's a snug little place, isn't it?"
"Snug is right," said Nan, with a giggle. "You can't turn around without running in to something."
"That's Linda's fault. She shouldn't have wrecked the heating system at school in the Palm Beach season. If it had been in December now, or March, there wouldn't have been such a crowd and we could have had a real honest to goodness stateroom, instead of this two-by-one hole in the wall."
"Elizabeth, how shocking," laughed Nan. "You must have been taking lessons from Walter." And then, for no apparent reason at all, or perhaps because of the expression in her chum's eyes as they rested upon her, Nan became suddenly confused and hurriedly changed the subject.
"Let's go outside," she suggested, rising and making toward the door of the stateroom, which opened directly out upon the deck. "It—it's awfully hot in here."
Bess laughed tantalizingly and stretched lazily as she prepared to follow her chum.
"Nan, honey," she drawled, irrelevantly, or so it seemed to Nan, "you are a darling, but, oh, you're awfully foolish."