CHAPTER XX
A BRIGHT LOOK AND A DEADLY WARNING
Jack's employer gave him rather too much credit in supposing that the boy had already worked out the problem of finding those who had made the attack on the "Benson."
As the submarine boy left the breakfast room he felt as much in the dark as ever. The only known spies who were still at large, for some reason known only to the Secret Service men, were M. Lemaire, Mlle. Nadiboff and Kamanako.
"This is rather earlier than either of that pair in the habit of showing themselves," muttered Benson, as the first two names crossed his thoughts. "I wonder whether I could get the least bit of an inkling by going to the jail and talking with Gaston? If I could bluff him into telling me anything, it might be so much gained. I might catch him off his guard, if I could get him angry enough."
Full of this interesting idea, the submarine boy strolled slowly along to the little jail, forming his plans as he went.
Arrived at the jail, Captain Jack found the keeper, as yet, in ignorance of the dastardly attempt that had been made on the submarine boat the night before. He listened, aghast, as Benson told him the whole story.
"Now, I've got a notion that Gaston's crowd are very likely at the bottom of this whole deal," continued the submarine boy, in a low tone. "For one thing, while perhaps nothing much can be done to the other spies, this fellow, Gaston, is in here for a crime which, under the Florida laws, will go hard with him. It means that he'll be locked up for a few years. That may make both him and Lemaire ugly enough to put them up to almost any mischief. Was M. Lemaire here to see the fellow yesterday?"
"Lemaire has not been hero at all," replied the jailer.
"Was Mlle. Nadiboff here to see him yesterday?"
"No; she has been holding aloof. With the exception of his lawyer, the only people who ye been here to see Gaston were two fellows who came yesterday, about noon."
"Oho!" muttered Benson. "Who were they?"
The jailer turned to reach for a memorandum book.
"I keep the names given by all who come here to see prisoners, so I shall be able to answer you."
"Ah, here are the names. One fellow called himself Leroux, the other
Stephanoulis."
"One name French, and the other Greek," muttered the submarine boy, thinking hard. "What did they look like?"
The jailer quickly and carefully described the pair. Jack listened attentively. Then rose, briskly.
"Did you hear any of the conversation they had with Gaston?"
"No."
"If they come again to-day can you lock them up and hold them?"
"If I have proper authority."
"If you get a telephone message from Mr. Trotter, would that be good enough authority?"
"Yes; on that I could hold them long enough to give Trotter a chance to come here and take them or else to get them committed on a regular warrant."
"If you keep within sound of your telephone bell, then, I think you'll have authority within a few minutes," replied Jack, briskly.
"That's a live, hustling boy," muttered the jailer, looking after young Benson through a window, as the submarine boy hurried away.
Before he had gone far, Jack encountered one of the nondescript surreys, hauled by an antiquated nag and driven by a battered darkey, that often do duty as cab in Florida. Poor as the rig was, it offered a chance of greater speed than Captain Benson could make at a walk, so he quickly engaged the rig and was driven to the place where the Secret Service men were stopping.
"You've brought us the only thing like a real clue that we have," declared Mr. Trotter, very frankly, after he had heard Jack's story. "Wait a moment, and I'll have Packwood get busy over the telephone."
Within the next twenty minutes not only had the jail been telephoned to; Packwood also talked with all the nearby railway stations in that section of the country.
"If those rascals can be found," declared Trotter, "I think we shall have gone a long way in clearing up the matter. As you say, the fellow Gaston has more reason than any of the rest of the crowd to want a complete revenge against you."
Then Mr Packwood left to walk through the little town around Spruce Beach, to see whether he could encounter any two worthies who answered to the description of Leroux and Stephanoulis.
Before half-past nine, however, word came that local constables at a little railway town a dozen miles away had arrested a couple of suspects and were bringing them to Spruce Beach. The prisoners had been taken while waiting for a north bound train, and had tickets all the way through to New York.
Then Jack hastened back to Messrs. Farnum and Pollard to report what was in the air.
"By Jupiter, Jack, I knew you had some thing strong in your mind when you left us," gasped the shipbuilder. "But I didn't imagine you'd run down the wretches as swiftly as that."
"We don't yet know that we've got the right hair," replied Captain Jack.
"I'm willing to wager money on it, if it comes to that," retorted Mr.
Farnum.
Before noon the two prisoners were brought into Spruce Beach. Trotter and Packwood stopped, in a 'bus with the prisoners, to show them to Jack at the hotel.
"That pair look rascally enough to do any dirty trick," declared Jacob
Farnum, in high disgust, as he looked over Leroux and Stephanoulis.
The prisoners were, indeed, "hard hooking." Both were men below average size, with sullen, defiant eyes. Both were dressed roughly, like laborers. Yet, when taken, each had been found to have a considerable sum of money about him.
"We can't make either of the fellows talk, but maybe they will later, when we begin to employ some of the third degree on them," whispered Mr. Trotter to Jack. "My boy, I think you've put us on the real trail. If the jailer identifies them as Gaston's callers of yesterday, we'll know where we stand."
Fifteen minutes later the Secret Service men returned. The jailer had pronounced the pair to be Gaston's callers of the day before. Moreover, the jailer had obligingly locked up the pair until Trotter and Packwood could obtain proper authority for him to hold them. Leroux and Stephanoulis had been placed in cells from which they could not possibly communicate with Gaston, whose cell lay in another wing of the jail.
"As soon as that pair found that, for some reason, their mine failed to explode under you last night," Trotter hinted, "they knew that their game was up. They hurried away and lay concealed in the distance. Then they saw the party from the 'Waverly' hunting on shore, with lantern's, and they took to the woods. That pair of rascals knew how risky it would be for them to try to leave at the local railway station today, so they struck off through the woods on foot making for another town at a distance. The constables who brought them down here say that Leroux and Stephanoulis were a surely astonished pair when they found themselves nabbed. We are getting into a bigger nest of trouble down here than we expected when we left Washington."
After, the Secret Service men had gone, Jacob Farnum turned as though to go inside the hotel.
"I'm wondering whether there are any letters for me," he said.
"I'll go to the office and inquire," proposed Jack Benson. At the desk he received two letters for his employer, and turned away with them in one hand when his steps were arrested by the sound of a sweet feminine voice at the further end of the desk.
The speaker was Mlle. Nadiboff.
"She looks as sweet and as contented as ever," thought the submarine boy, with some wonder. "Really, she doesn't look as though a care had crossed her path."
"Can you furnish me with a chauffeur, and order my car up?" Mlle.
Nadiboff was inquiring.
"I am very sorry, Mademoiselle, but we haven't a single chauffeur that we can spare," replied the clerk, respectfully.
"Then may I rent one of your own cars, with a man to drive it?"
"Again, I am very sorry, Mademoiselle, but all the hotel cars are engaged."
The pretty Russian stamped her foot impatiently.
"Oh, no matter, then," she cried. "I will go to the garage and take out my own car. I know how to manage it."
"I regret very much to have to report, Mademoiselle," replied the clerk, speaking as respectfully as ever, "that one of the hind wheels has been removed from your car."
Mlle. Nadiboff stared at the clerk in amazement.
"Who has dared do such a thing?" she demanded, angrily.
"I am sorry, but I do not know," answered the clerk.
"Then I suppose it would be impossible, even, for me to hire one of your livery rigs?" she continued icily.
"You have guessed right, Mademoiselle."
"Oh, but this is insupportable!" cried the pretty Russian, turning away.
As she did so, she caught sight of Jack Benson for the first time.
"Oh, I would like just a word with you, my Captain," she called softly, moving after the boy, who had started toward the door.
She overtook Jack, resting a gloved hand on his sleeve.
"Do not stop," she urged, softly. "I will keep on with you, out onto the veranda."
In silence Jack stepped outside with her. Mr. Farnum had vanished for the moment, so Benson was alone with his pretty companion.
"Now, tell me, my Captain," she begged, "why it is that I cannot get either my own car, or any other conveyance, for a little drive?"
"I could only guess, Mlle. Nadiboff, and you can do that as well as
I," Jack replied, gravely.
"But I desire you should guess for me, my Captain. What do you say?" she insisted, her eyes scanning his grave face.
"At the risk of seeming rude, Mademoiselle, I am not going to be prying enough to make any guesses about your affairs," Captain Benson answered, quickly.
He thought he had gotten out of the matter as cleverly as it could be done.
"Some one is taking altogether too great an interest in my affairs, my Captain. I trust you have no hand in it, for it is possible that interference with my comfort will prove dangerous to the offenders. Yet, pardon me, for I am sure that you, my Captain, would not cause me any uneasiness. Let those who do beware!"
As she let go of his arm and turned to go inside, Mlle. Nadiboff's smile was bright, almost friendly. Yet back of that smile, in her expressive eyes, lurked a look that made the boy start.
It was a look that spoke of deadly, things, and Captain Jack Benson had come quite to believe that Mlle. Nadiboff could be not only quite deadly at need, but also equally reckless.