CHAPTER VIII
EPH FEELS LIKE THIRTY TACKS
As agreed, the young West Pointer was in a room at the Grindley House. As this room was equipped with a telephone, the young Army man was in touch both with Fort Craven and with the submarine boys, should the latter find anything to report over the talking wire.
Here in the room Captain Jack found Ridder, for the boy had felt it best to go direct to the hotel.
"Surely, you haven't found out anything as quickly as this?" asked the young lieutenant of engineers, looking up in surprise.
"I've learned a few things," replied Jack, quietly.
"Sit down, and let us hear what you've learned."
Jack dropped to the chair, but Lieutenant Ridder, when he heard the news, was so excited that no chair could hold him.
"Jove! and just our luck!" gasped the Army officer. "No policeman in sight! Now, if you three boys had kept together—"
"But, you see, when I dropped from the automobile, I wasn't sure it was
Millard. I had had only a glance, and his face was away from me."
"If you see that wretch again, jump on him wherever he is."
"I could have done it, this last time," Benson nodded. "Yet I had an idea that, if I followed him, he might lead me to the place where he kept his maps and his other stolen information. And he did, I guess," added Jack, with a somewhat disappointed smile.
"Wait a moment. I'll try to get Major Woodruff over the wire," muttered
Lieutenant Ridder. "He may have some orders for us."
Major Woodruff was at his home. He heard the message and sent his orders crisply.
"The major thinks we had better keep this matter from the police, yet, and do our best to find Millard, either in his own garments, or behind that gray dress and veil," announced the Army lieutenant.
"Then I wish we had the other boys here," muttered Jack, wistfully.
At that moment the 'phone bell rang. It was Hal, reporting, and inquiring whether any word had come from his chum.
"Mr. Benson is here, and I think you'll do well to get here as quickly as you can," replied Ridder.
"Is there any word—" began Hal Hastings.
Ting-ling-ling! The 'phone bell rang, cutting off Hal. The latter had received his orders, and his next concern was to obey them. That was lesson number one in brisk Army discipline.
Hal was on hand in five minutes. While Jack was recounting to him the adventure with Millard, Eph Somers came in. He stood in the background, listening, his jaw gradually dropping until his mouth was wide open.
"You heard how Benson ran into the fellow?" asked Lieutenant Ridder, turning to Somers.
"Yes," muttered Eph, disgustedly, "and I guess I have been enjoying the fool's part of the adventure!"
"How so?" demanded the Army officer quickly.
"I met that same woman, I'll bet a cookie," growled Eph, "and—and—I—"
"Well, sir?" demanded Lieutenant Ridder, briskly.
"I carried that bag for her—carried it nearly two blocks!"
"What's that?" cried Jack Benson, leaping up. "How—"
"No; I don't believe, on second thought, that I'm the prize fool."
"Come, come," directed Lieutenant Ridder. "Talk up quickly, young man."
"If you want to hear what I have to say," retorted Eph, with a slight flash of his eyes, "you'll have to wait until I get around to it."
It was serving direct notice on Ridder that Army briskness wouldn't do in Eph's case.
"Well, what have you to tell?" demanded the young lieutenant, impatiently.
"I was on my way back here," Eph continued. "Guess, maybe, I was eight blocks or so away from here. I had been to the hotels that I agreed to visit, and—"
"Why did you go to the hotel, anyway, after you knew Benson had sighted
Millard?" broke in the Army officer.
"Because it wasn't a sure thing that Jack had seen Millard. He thought so, and so did we. But, after we left him, the auto ran along slowly, and we heard no row behind, so we guessed that maybe Jack had been wrong in his guess. At least, Hal and I figured it out that way. So I went to the hotels on my list, just the same, and I guess you did, didn't you, Hal?"
"Yes," nodded Hastings.
"This isn't bringing us, very fast, to your latest adventure," complained young Ridder.
"It's your fault, then," continued Eph, placidly. "You asked a question, and I answered it."
"Well, what about meeting the woman in a gray dress and veil?"
"I met her," retorted Eph.
"Could you see through the veil?"
"No."
"Then how do you know it was Millard?"
"I don't know," Eph rejoined. "But there are mighty few women as tall as Millard. Besides, this one had rather a long foot, and wore rubbers. I noticed that. Huh! This makes me feel like thirty tacks!"
"How did you meet her—or him?" asked Ridder.
"I was crossing a street, maybe eight blocks from here," Eph replied, "and I saw that tall woman, in gray, slip on the crossing. There was a street car coming, and she gave a little yell. I got to 'her' just in time to pull 'her' out of the way of the trolley and to set 'her' on 'her' feet again. Then I picked up 'her' dress suit case. It struck me that the one I supposed to be a woman was on the point of speaking to me when he—she—seemed to see my uniform and then get a look at my face. Then the party, whether it was he or she, made signs to show that he, or she, was deaf and dumb. The suit case was heavy, so I offered to tote it along, as I was headed the same way. I thought it was the least I could do for a woman who had just had a great shock. If that was Millard—and I'd bet a torpedo boat it was—how he must have chuckled over the idea of having one of the submarine boys carry his bag for him."
"How far did you go with this 'lady'?" asked the Lieutenant Ridder, with a faint touch of sarcasm.
"Two blocks," replied Eph.
"And you left her—"
"At a cheap hotel where I can find her again. And I guess it's up to us to start right away."
"Yes," nodded Jack. "And we can't start too soon."
It may have occurred to Lieutenant Ridder that he wasn't exactly being consulted. However, he saw that these submarine boys were used to acting swiftly, and he began to believe that they would work better if left to their own devices. So he merely nodded, adding:
"I'll wait here. I'll hope to have a report before long."
Eph led his two comrades back unerringly to the cheap hotel. They went straight to the hotel desk, Jack asking, bluntly, whether any very tall woman, in gray, and carrying a dress suit ease, had registered there.
"No," replied the clerk, very positively.
Then they interviewed the porter. He remembered the "woman" having stepped inside the hotel. She readjusted her veil in the lobby near the doorway.
"Then she went outside, spoke to a driver, got into his cab, and went away," continued the porter.
"She spoke to the driver, did she?" Eph asked.
"Of course, sir," retorted the porter. "You didn't think she made signs, did you?"
From their talk the submarine boys were satisfied that it was the same "woman" whom Eph had so gallantly assisted. They were equally sure that this veiled "woman" in gray was none other than Millard.
"Do you remember which driver it was whose cab she engaged?" Jack asked, turning to hand the porter a dollar.
"Jack Medway's cab, sir," was the quick answer. "And here it comes, now."
The submarine boys hurried out, transferring their attention to Medway.
"I'm just back from taking the lady," replied the driver, after Jack Benson had slipped him, also, a dollar bill. "But say—was it a lady, or a joke?"
"Why?" queried Jack Benson.
"Well," replied the driver, "the voice was pitched high, but there was something peculiar about it. I wondered, at the time, if it was a man rigged and togged out like a woman."
"Where did she tell you to take her," Jack Benson wanted to know.
"To Furnam Square!"
"Did you take her to any address there?"
"No; just to the square. Then I waited to fill my pipe, and I saw the woman, if woman it was, walk across the square and get into another cab."
"If you haven't anything else to do," hinted Jack, "suppose you take us to Furnam Square now."
Within a very few minutes the three friends were gazing out of a cab window upon the square. It looked like a very quiet residence section.
"There was another cab here, you say, that took your last 'fare' from this square?" asked Jack.
"Yes; there is a fellow who has a regular stand here. It's his cab," replied Medway.
"Let us know, then, when that particular driver gets back here," begged
Jack. "We'll sit here in your rig and wait."
Medway grinned. Waiting, as well as driving, meant money for him.
Fully an hour and a half dragged by. Jack was beginning to wonder if it would not be better to give up this present clue to the chase, when Medway, leaning down from his box, called quietly.
"That's the other fellow and his rig, coming back into the square now."
"As soon as he stops," directed Benson, "drive us over alongside. Don't say anything to him. Let me do the talking."
In a moment more Jack was out on the sidewalk, talking earnestly with the driver just returned.
"You've had a long trip of it," guessed Jack, noting the warm condition of the horses.
"You bet," nodded the other driver.
"Just got back from taking the tall woman in gray somewhere."
"Yep. But do you call it 'somewhere'? I'd call it most anywhere."
"How far was it?" asked Jack.
"What do you want to know for?" demanded the Jehu, looking with sudden sharpness at his questioner.
"Because we'd like to go to the same place that you took the woman," returned Benson, promptly.
"Huh! I took her for three dollars. I wouldn't go over that trip again for less'n five."
"We'll pay the five, and be glad to," proposed Jack Benson, displaying some money. "More than that, if you play right fair with us, we'll put another five on top of the first, just as a little present to your horses."
"You'd better use the young gentlemen right, Jim," advised Medway.
"They're good fellows, and they pay well."
"Why do you want to go where I took that last party?" questioned Jim, with a shrewd look.
"One of the things that the second five-dollar note pays you for is asking no questions," retorted Jack. "Do you want to take up our offer?"
"Yes; if you'll give me fifteen minutes to rest and water the horses," agreed Jim.
"That'll be all right," nodded Jack. "And now, Medway, have we paid you enough?"
"Plenty," cheerfully responded the first driver, taking the hint and leaving.
"Where did you take that woman?" questioned Jack, while the new driver got out a bucket for watering his horses.
"Away down by the sea-coast. Know where the Cobtown fishing shanties are?"
"No."
"Well, Cobtown is made up of three or four little villages of rickety old houses. Some are occupied by fishermen, and some ain't. There's three or four coves down that way fishing craft anchor in. It's a lonely, wild bit of country, and some rough characters 'mong them fishermen."
"Did you take your fare to any particular house or shanty down at
Cobtown?"
"Nope; she got out on the road, in sight o' Cobtown, an' walked along, toting her old grip."
"What kind of a 'grip' was it?"
"An old brownish suit case."
"That's the one," nodded Eph.
As the driver busied himself over his team, the submarine boys drew aside to talk over their new information.
"I reckon we're going to be too late," grumbled Captain Jack.
"What makes you think so?" Hal inquired.
"Fishing villages, smacks and fishermen," answered Jack, gloomily. "Fishermen are a daring, reckless lot of fellows. They'd take a craft anywhere, in any kind of weather, for money enough. Fellows, I'm afraid Millard has hired a smack and started up or down the coast."
"Then we've got a craft that can chase any smack on the Atlantic coast," declared. Eph, stoutly.
"Of course; if we knew which craft to overhaul, and had the authority to do it."
"Authority? Then what's the matter with the people at the Fort?" demanded Eph.
"Their authority runs only on the land. Besides, by the time we got through the red tape, and got started, any smart smack, in a good wind, would be forty miles the other side of the horizon."
"Are you going to take this long drive, then?" asked Hal Hastings, rather dubiously.
"Yes," declared Jack Benson, promptly. "Hal, old fellow, any trail is best where it's freshest."
"I reckon you can git in, now, gents, if ye want," called the driver.
Seated in the cab the submarine boys set out to meet whatever might be before them in Cobtown. Had they possessed the gift of prophecy—
However, none of us possess that!