III
“Don’t talk, woman,” said Mr. Neuburg’s voice. “He is here, in this hotel.”
“He ... who?” gasped a female voice. It was a little fainter than Mr. Neuburg’s, who, Clement was delighted to hear, was in that masculine condition of rage when he must “take it out” on some one.
“Don’t be a dense fool,” the big man snapped. “He ...! Who ...! The Englishman, ninny. Is there another?”
“It is impossible. He has been arrested.”
“Pah! Do I have to keep on saying it? He is here. He has not been arrested. He is somewhere in this hotel now. The Englishman, Clement Seadon, is here. He is free. Do you begin to gather ... just a glimmer, woman?”
“But”—the woman’s voice was almost scandalized—“but he was to have been arrested. Molke was to see to it that he was arrested.”
“And he is not arrested. It is Molke who has been arrested.”
Clement heard the creak of a chair. The news had been too much for the amiable Méduse. She had had to sit down—and sit down hard. He would have liked to chuckle. He dare not. The snarling voice of the mountainous Mr. Neuburg said with bitter passion, “Ah, you begin to see. Something active begins to stir in your head. And you are shocked. Well, I did not thrill with joy myself.... No, I do not know how it happened. I only know I set Molke to effect this Englishman’s arrest, and it doesn’t happen; it is Molke who is arrested instead.”
“Yes; but that—that Englishman,” protested an incredulous female voice.
“Yes—that Englishman. Only, my dear Méduse, say ‘that Englishman’ with more respect. I assure you, he is like that. He does not look like intelligence at all. He looks a mere decoration. He looks a mere easy-going, meaningless, drawing-room young man without any wits of his own.... And—and it is Molke who is arrested after all. Just appreciate the fact, my dear. That is the Anglo-Saxon. He does not look like anything in particular, and you find him sitting firmly on top of you just at that moment when you are beginning to rub your hands over the clever way you have knocked him down?”
“But—but Molke had him so tight.”
“So tight,” snarled Mr. Neuburg, “that Mr. Clement Seadon walked smiling and calm into the lobby of the hotel, and still smiling, still calm, told me to my face that he had beaten me at my own game.”
“He—he told you to your face?”
“In his own way, of course. He told me that he was not in prison, but that the steward Molke was.... I am not so dull that I did not understand him completely. But—but, you see what it means?”
“That—that”—the woman was a little flustered before the bullying anger of her companion—“that means he is still a danger we have to contend with.”
“Women”—said the mountainous Mr. Neuburg—“women are the apostles of the obvious. Yes, he is a danger we have to contend with, my dear. Only he is something more. It means that he thinks we are a danger that no longer counts.... I see I will have to explain. This is truly your day for being heroically dull. This man who looks foolish is not. He knows that we have delivered ourselves into his hands. He is going to strike—strike once and swiftly—and smash us. He will expose us to Heloise Reys. That is why he is so confident. His sort do not taunt for the mere sport of the thing.”
Clement smiled grimly, appreciating the acuteness with which Mr. Neuburg had sized up the situation. Mr. Neuburg, also, was no fool.
“Heloise will not speak with him,” said the woman.
“He will speak with her. It will come to the same in the end. Oh, yes, I tell you that is what he will do. He is not a man to miss chances.”
“We will prevent that,” said the woman.
“We will do our best to prevent that,” said the man.
Clement knew they would. He knew that to get that ten minutes’ talk with Heloise would not be an easy matter.
He listened intently. Since they meant to prevent him speaking to the girl, they might say how they meant to do it. He might, thanks to his splendid good luck, overhear their plan for check-mating him. That would be a crowning triumph. A silence settled down on the other side of the door. Then, surprisingly, astoundingly, Neuburg growled, “But there is something else. Gunning has broken loose again.”
Clement gasped—and so did the woman. But where his gasp was one of astonishment, that of the woman was one of anger. “Ah, that was what made Joe look so sour on the quayside. I saw he was there,” she gasped. “Well—what is it now?”
“It is not revealed,” said Mr. Neuburg, being, apparently, sardonic. “Nor is it revealed to where he has—vanished.”
“Vanished—you mean he’s left Sicamous?”
“My dear Méduse, he always leaves Sicamous. He is behaving, as he always behaves—the slack-willed, backboneless swine.”
Clement registered that character reading of Henry Gunning in his mind. Assuredly fortune was smiling on him to-day with her most genial smile.
The woman on the other side of the door suddenly showed a flash of spirit.
“Just stop being clever, Adolf, and tell me exactly what Joe Wandersun told you on the quayside.”
“He told me that Henry Gunning had been Henry Gunning. He got drunk, as usual. He talked big about his idiot mine claims, as usual. He boasted about the millionaire he’d be when his soft-hearted English sweetheart married him—I suppose that’s as usual now. He then got a little drunker. Told the world that he was going to strike the trail and ‘show ’em all.’ And he struck the trail—and—so—vanished.”
“And Joe sat down on his hunkers and watched him go?” said Méduse bitterly.
“Leave Joe to me, my dear.” There was a nasty edge to the big man’s tone, the position of Joe was not enviable. “Joe says that the brute sneaked off in the night. Joe left him apparently sleeping the solid sleep of ‘bootleg’ whisky in his shack. He thought he was safe for eight hours. When he went there again in the morning Gunning had gone. He had taken his kit, slipped off somewhere in the dark.”
“Well,” snapped the woman after a pause. “It doesn’t stop there, does it? Joe didn’t just sit down and weep, did he? What’s he found out?”
Mr. Neuburg chuckled. “You are unerring, my dear,” he said. “As you imply, our good Joe did not sit down and weep.... People who work for Adolf Neuburg know better than to do that. Our Joe has found out things. Not everything, but something. This sodden and spineless Gunning struck east. No, my dear, do not spoil your burst of intelligence by asking the obvious. If I knew exactly where he had gone I should have mentioned it. You appreciate that? When one fails to mention things it is because one doesn’t know. But we will know. Siwash Mike is finding out. He will find out. That is his forte. In a day or two we shall know where this fool Gunning is.”
The woman vented an exclamation.
“Ah, you see that that is the point, my mild Méduse. In a day or two. That means, perhaps, a day or two longer here in Quebec, with that foolish-looking Englishman, who is far from foolish, on the spot. The situation is not excellent.”
The pair were silent for a moment. Clement, with ears straining, wanted to learn answers to several questions that passed through his head.
As though his thoughts had been communicated telepathically through the door, his speculations were immediately answered.
The voice of the big man boomed abruptly, “This Heloise has gone out to the postoffice, eh?”
“Yes,” said Méduse. “She has gone to see if the letter is there.”
“It is there,” said Mr. Neuburg. “Her agent at Sicamous—our good Joe—sent it before he left. He showed me a copy. He did quite well. He informs her that Henry Gunning has left Sicamous on one of his periodical trips—probably on business. He does not know where Mr. Gunning has gone, but he will cable when he finds out, or when Mr. Gunning returns ... as he should in a few days.”
“That, I suppose, will not make her suspicious,” said the woman.
“What is the matter with you, Méduse?” snarled the big man with an oath. “Where is the reason for suspicion? Gunning—the fool—is not supposed to know she is coming. If he likes to go off, well, it is merely a natural thing for him to do.... If anything, his going off destroys the suggestion of a plot, of his being kept there by us as a bait for her. You are a fool, Méduse. This Englishman—he is destroying your nerve.”
“Yes, it is the Englishman. He is too unexpected. I do not like the idea of our remaining here several days with him about.”
“Well, you know his capacities; it will help to keep you alert. And we will deal with him—as best we can.”
The woman said, “Still—would it not be better to get her away? Would it be possible?”
“It would be better, but not possible,” said Mr. Neuburg. “We must remain here, in touch with the Sault Algonquin; Siwash is to report there. He is ‘in the air,’ as it were, and that is the only way we can keep in touch. No, my dear Méduse, it will not suffice that he cables. He will cable Sicamous, and Joe’s wife will send on the message to our soft-hearted little girl. But the cable is not good enough for us. We must know all the details: what Gunning is doing, what is his condition, and so forth, in order to know how to act. No, we must stay in Quebec until we see Siwash.”
“And Joe is staying, too?”
“Yes, he is at the gluemaker’s in Algonquin. I see what you mean. He will be an addition to our forces if we have to deal with that Englishman. Joe is a useful man.... He may be slow at times, but he is not squeamish.”
Clement Seadon was glad of the hint. He would adopt a special alertness for the benefit of this unknown and unsqueamish Joe. But more than this, he was exceedingly grateful for the address they had given him—the gluemaker’s in the Sault Algonquin. He rather fancied he knew the street. It was one of those in the old town, in that network of dark and narrow alleys crowded between the water front and the rocky cliff on which Quebec was piled up. It was good to know the local headquarters of the gang. Also, Siwash Mike—whoever he was—was to report there. It would be interesting to hear that report. One might gather a great deal of useful and destructive information about Henry Gunning and the plans of the gang from it. The woman Méduse was saying, “Yes, something must be done about this Englishman. I assure you, Adolf, I do not feel secure with him about. It is not merely that apparently his easy-going appearance covers an unnatural cleverness—but—but—we must not mince matters, he has an effect on this girl Heloise.”
There was a pause. Clement felt that the big Mr. Neuburg was impressed by the significance of the companion Méduse’s words. He knew that he himself was certainly impressed by the significance of Méduse’s words. His heart had suddenly leaped. His brain was singing. He could scarcely restrain himself from calling out, “Say it. Say what you mean plainly.” And, as before, it was as though the intensity of his own feelings compelled those in the farther room to be explicit.
“Ah,” breathed the mountainous man. “You mean that she is, perhaps, in love with him?”
“I mean,” answered the woman, “that it would be very easy for her to be in love with him. I do not think she knows it yet. But he—he would quickly make her know the state of her heart.”
“Thank you,” Clement almost cried aloud.
“That is the devil,” said the big Mr. Neuburg, and his was the only expression that was vocal. “We must certainly deal with him....” And then came an unexpected happening, the woman hissed.
“Shiss, one moment.”
There was a sound of stealthy and swift movement in the room. A silence. Presently another movement of skirts, as though the woman was returning from a farther chamber. Then, “It is she. She has returned from the postoffice. I hear her moving in her room. I must go to her before she finds the bathroom door locked.” It was the companion Méduse, speaking softly.
Again movement. Again silence. A long silence. Clement heard the scratch of a match. Smelt cigar smoke. Heard a chair complain as a heavy body dropped into it. Then once more silence.
Mr. Neuburg had sat down to think things out.
Clement shut his own bathroom door noiselessly, noiselessly bolted it.
The seance of eavesdropping was over.