V
All through the night journey Clement was sleepless. He was thinking of Heloise and the danger she was in. His own adventures with Mr. Neuburg and his gang had taught him that there was very little these scoundrels would stop at, and the thought of that slim, beautiful and fine-tempered girl at the mercy of creatures so base and so cruel was a thing of terror.
What would happen to her? What, even now, was happening to her, or was about to happen? He was tortured by a thousand fears.
That Neuburg was going on before he knew was ominous. He was going to deal with the inveterate Henry Gunning so that he would appear at his best when Heloise “found” him. From his own experience Clement felt that what Mr. Neuburg took in hand would be done thoroughly.
At Montreal they were met by a slim, pleasant young man, with a quiet manner and a nearly bald head. A satisfying young man, whose modesty covered a definite ability to think and do things quickly. He told The Chief at once that he had reserved accommodation for two on the next train out to Cobalt.
“Two?” asked Clement.
“Xavier Gatineau here is going with you, Mr. Seadon,” said The Chief, indicating the quiet young man with a nod. “It’s our case, too, you know. We want to get to the bottom of that tiara business. Now, come along and have breakfast with me. We have time before your train goes. Xavier will tell us anything fresh.”
Over the cantaloupe and ice water and gaspé salmon and superb coffee, that made the breakfast, the young man told them there was nothing particularly fresh.
“The two ladies went through to Cobalt,” he said. “A point is they traveled light. They took only suitcases. The heavy baggage was left here—on demand. The baggage master told me that Miss Reys expected to wire for it to be sent on somewhere.”
“That means they don’t expect to make a stay in Cobalt. It also means that if they left in a hurry it wouldn’t be so easy to trail them,” commented The Chief. “Well, we’re warned anyhow. I’ll take steps, Xavier. If you lose the trail, or anything goes wrong, get a message to me. I’ll try and have something at all divisions,[1] too, and I’ll send a general warning west. Now, about Mr. Neuburg?”
“He pulled out early on the westbound. He’ll have changed at North Bay, and so got to Cobalt last night. I haven’t been able to connect up with Cobalt.—It’s not on our system, you know,” he explained to Clement. “Neuburg had another man with him. Both only carried suitcases.”
“Anything through from Sicamous?”
“Joe Wandersun is a bad hat. We have his record, because he fell foul of us once over false declarations in way-sheets. He’s got a shack at Sicamous.... I’ve had a message through from the station master there. Seems to be living more or less in retirement for the present. Sicamous, anyhow, is no more than a scattered handful of shacks, no scope for a man who lives by his wits. That’s what Wandersun has been doing for years. He’s done a term in prison for fraud; it reads as though it were the confidence trick. He’s a friend of Gunning’s.”
“Ah,” said Clement. “You’ve heard something about Gunning.”
“Our chap at Sicamous says he’s a remittance man. That’s a term in British Columbia for a man who won’t work—a fellow who lives by sponging. Gunning says he has mine claims, and is a booze artist.” The young man’s eyes twinkled. “That’s our expression for a man given to drink, Mr. Seadon.”
“Nothing against him?”
“Nothing proven—to our knowledge, but his habits are bad, and his company shady.”
“Have you found out anything about Siwash Mike?” asked The Chief.
“Nothing.”
“Neuburg?”
“I’m going to hear from the Dominion police—perhaps; or, rather, they’ll get on to you, sir. They don’t place him. But one of them said he had an idea that the description you gave was like a man the U. S. A. police were after. As far as he remembered, this man was wanted in Oregon, well, considerably more than two years ago. They are going to look into it, and get in touch with the U. S. A., too.”
From the way he spoke, Clement thought that the quiet young man was holding something back. Abruptly he leaned across the breakfast table. “Did they say what he was wanted for?”
The young man looked at The Chief before answering. The Chief nodded.
“Murder,” he said quietly.
Murder! Clement fell back in his chair, staring at the quiet, partly bald young man who had made the calm statement.
“As far as the Dominion police could remember—it was a good while back, you understand—it was a matter of murder, or complicity in a murder. Something with a lot of money in it, and a man killed. But they’ll find out the full facts.”
“Good God! and that girl is in this—this murderer’s power,” gasped Clement, unable to think of anything else.
“It may not be the same feller, Mr. Seadon,” said The Chief kindly. “It’s an old case, and they are only working from memory, not facts.”
“Are there many men answering to the description of Mr. Neuburg?”
“No,” said The Chief slowly. “But then I don’t know. An’ when we get the Oregon description we may find it doesn’t fit him.”
“A case of money and murder ... that fits Neuburg,” said Clement. “Yes, he’s a murderer and a thief, and—and that poor girl’s at his mercy. We must do something.”
“We can’t do anything until you get to Cobalt, Mr. Seadon. Come now, you mustn’t lose your nerve.”
But that was a thing easier to talk about than to do. Clement’s nerves, very decidedly, had become jumpy. The thought that he had to sit passive while that murderer had his way with Heloise filled him for a moment with panic.
He suggested getting through to Cobalt by ’phone or wire and doing something. It was only the soothing calm of The Chief, who, rightly or wrongly, trusted only his own system that quieted him in the end. He felt that there was no good doing anything until he and Xavier Gatineau got to Cobalt. A false step, a clumsy movement, a hint thrown out by some one not too sure of his job, and the rogues would take fright and all their work would be undone.
And after all, as The Chief pointed out, Heloise could not be in danger for a day or two, and, moreover, it was extremely unlikely that she could get away from Cobalt before they arrived.