Fate Knocks at the Door: A Novel

by Will Levington Comfort

TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER

AT TREASURE ISLAND INN

The morning rode in grandly upon the sea. Bedient was early below, and overtook Miss Mallory in the gardens. She seemed particularly virile. A pair of Señora Rey's toy-spaniels were frisking about.

"These are not my favorite kind, but I like dogs," she said…. "How men reveal their earth-binding! A laugh is enough—or a fear, a word, a convention—and you have a complete discovery of limitations."

Bedient fell into her mood. "And what manner of man would he be who could keep hidden from such very old and very wise eyes his covering of clay?"

"First, he would be without vanity," she said readily. "Then, he would do noble things thoughtlessly and unwatched. He wouldn't be dollar-poisoned, nor could he fail to help all who are poor and whipped, whether wicked or not. And he would have enough intelligence to enfold mine, so I wouldn't be constantly banging against his walls…. In a word, he would be great without knowing it. Do you think I ask a great deal?"

"Yes, but I should like him," Bedient answered.

"And now what is it?" she asked quickly. They had turned upon the main-drive, away from the trees. "I can see you have something to say."

"I shall take up lodgings for the next few days in the city below—at Treasure Island Inn. Señor Rey has ordered me out of The Pleiad."

Her face colored instantly, and yet she said, "I'm very glad to hear it. At least, you will be safe in Treasure Island Inn."

"I had not considered that, Miss Mallory, though I've a great respect for all that you think important…. I still intend to see Jim Framtree—and before the end of 'the four days' spoken of night before last. The fact is, I have nothing else to do. Celestino Rey may mean to start his rebellion then, so there is only to-morrow and next day. It would be next to impossible for me to meet this man with hostilities begun."

She was quite astonished at this stir of action.

"Can't you tell me anything more?" Her appeal was penetrating.

"Only that I've got to see him. It's not to do him harm," he said. "The story isn't altogether mine…. I can't help laughing at this move of Señor Rey's—and yet——"

"It hurts, doesn't it?" she urged.

"Not exactly that, but it makes me all the more determined to get to
Framtree."

"I'm glad if it does hurt," she said hastily. "You look like death, but the apathy is gone. Even red rage is better than that. I think you are better. It was about your illness—that I wanted you to tell me…. Good-by."

"I hope," Bedient said suddenly, "that Rey isn't afraid of you—that you are clear from the impulse that made him send me downtown."

"I've been careful…. I'll help, if I can. Good-by…. Aren't 'good-bys' hideous?… But we can't be too careful…. At Treasure Island Inn?"

"Yes, and where—you couldn't call!"

"But I shall know where you are."

Bedient returned to his rooms, and Miss Mallory resumed her walk…. An hour and a half later, Bedient walked out of the big gate of The Pleiad, and down to the city…. For the first time in several days, Celestino Rey breathed long. Assassination was only one of the things he had feared….

Forty-eight unavailing hours passed in Treasure Island Inn. This night would bring an end to the mysterious four days. Bedient was at bay before the remnant of what had been and hoped. To his own eyes, he was an abject failure now, even in these physical affairs—he who had dared to arraign New York workers in almost every aspect of their life! The last beacon of his spirit was blown out in the storm; his mind had long since preyed upon itself, the pith gone from it, through drifting in dark dream-tides; and now he who had been trained from a boy to physical actions weakly succumbed before the old Spaniard's will and strategy. Yet he could not find it within him greatly to care.

Treasure Island Inn had interested him at first, not so much through its exterior contrast to The Pleiad (which was complete enough for any city to furnish), but because its wretchedness in the sense of money-lack was less than in its moral poverty. Its evils were so open and self-reviling; its passages so angular, so suggestive of blood-drip and brooding horror; its rooms so peeled, meagre and creaking—depravity so sincere. Crime certainly had not been spared around the world to furnish its living actors for Treasure Island Inn. All the ragtag was there—not a lust nor a mannerism missing.

And now that life had cast him into this place, Bedient found himself utterly unable to contend with the squalor of fact and mind; indeed, he was quite as ineffectual as he had been in the midst of the glittering deviltry of The Pleiad…. Abased before realities; lost to the meaning of every excellence of his life-training; shattered by psychic revolts; his brain reflecting the strange mirages and singing the vague nothings of starvation—but enumeration only dulls the picture! In every plane of his nature, he was close to the end, forty-eight hours after his arrival at the Inn of the lower city.

Certain things had become mature, irrevocable: That he was a superfluous type in this Western world of his birth; that Beth Truba had left the highway, where pass the women of earth, to enter his most intimate environs and possess him entirely; that passing on, she had left but the stuff of death. The time had been when he would have depreciated in another man the utter weakness into which he had fallen.

Bedient unearthed a companion at Treasure Island Inn, one whom he did not doubt for an instant to be the chief of Rey's agents assigned to watch his every movement. But even as a spy, old Monkhouse had helped him to sit tight, during that forty-eight hours. For Monkhouse talked alluringly, incessantly,—and asked only to be with the stranger—and many a time, all unknowing, he banished for the moment some devouring anguish with a tale of disruption told to a turn. The Island did not hold more loyal devotion than his for Dictator Jaffier, to hear Monkhouse tell it; and how Celestino Rey had reached his ripe years, with such hatred in the world, was by no means the least of Equatorian novelties…. Here was a desperado in the sere, shaking for the need of drink, when he first appeared to Bedient. On the final forenoon of the latter's stay at the Inn, he sat with Monkhouse in the big carriage doorway on the street-level. The old man was elaborating a winsome plan to capture the Spaniard at sea; and though Bedient mildly interposed that he wouldn't know what to do with Celestino if he had him,—the conspiracy was unfolded nevertheless:

"You're a good lad," Monkhouse communed. "I belave in you to the seeds. C'lestin'—an' may Heaven deefin' the walls as I speak his name—has nine an' seventy ways of makin' off with you. Boy, I've known the day in these seas when he'd do it for practice. But he's old now an' tender of hear-rt. He laves it to your good sense to lave him alone. 'Tis well, you trusted no one save old Monkhouse. Adhere to it, lad, or I'll be mournin', one of these gay mornin's, with you gone—an' your name on no passenger list save—what's the name of that divil of a pilot—Charybdus?"

"Charon?"

"True for you, lad. Charon it is. What with drink an' the sinful climate, I've forgot much that many niver knew."

Monkhouse winked his red lashless lids, and meditated the while, as he pressed the juice of an orange into the third of a cup of white rum, and stirred in a handful of soggy brown sugar.

"Hark to you, boy—come closer," he whispered presently. "Nothin' that sails in these par-rts can scrape the paint of the Savonarola. At the same time, you can do nothin' by stayin' ashore. What's the puzzle? 'Tis this, lad: you must get one of thim gasolin' launches that move like the divil and smell like the sleepin' sickness! You can get one at the Leeward Isles betchune here an' sun-down…. Listen now, come back in good time, standin' on your own deck, with old Monkhouse for a mate, and three or four clane-eyed American boys lookin' for adventures—an' hang out at sea waitin' for the Savonarola. God save the day whin he comes! We'll meet him on the honest seaboard in the natural way, where he can't spring the tricks of The Pleiad, nor use the slather of yellow naygurs that live off the cold sweat of him——"

Hereupon Monkhouse drained his already empty cup, the sign that another sirocco was sweeping his throat. His mind wandered until it was brought: "Many a man's soul has filtered up through salt-water off these shores, lad, because he talked less of his memories than his troubles—but you won't betray me, boy!… My Gawd, lad, to have C'lestin' in the hold under 'me feet—as he wanst had me—but let that pass—or lyin' deeper still under the Savonarola with the fishes tuggin' at his carcass. Ah, 'tis deep fathims under the Savonarola, me lad——"

Bedient had not been listening for a moment. A carometa was moving slowly toward him, down the Calle Real, and he fancied the flutter of a handkerchief from its side window. It was nearly noon. The dazzle of sunlight upon the glass of the carometa was in his eyes, so he could not see the face within, but a slim hand signaled again. The vehicle approached with torturing slowness until the dazzle nickered out and he hurried forward to greet Miss Mallory, whose face blanched at the sight of him.

"You look as if you would fall!" she whispered. "But I'm so glad to see you again——"

"I was just going to say it…. It's been dull—and I haven't done——"
He opened the door of the carometa.

"Quickly, they're watching from your house," she managed to say between commonplaces, "pick up that crumpled letter at my foot!… But it won't do for you to follow the suggestion in it—you're not able!"

"If there's anything to do, I'm able," he declared, tucking the paper into the hollow of his hand.

"We miss you at The Pleiad," she said with her usual animation. "I wish I had time for a good talk now, but I'm actually rushed to-day. I'll see you again, though——"

Bedient sauntered back smiling, and sat down with Monkhouse for a little space. The eyes he saw were large, red-rimmed and troubled; tales and conspiracies flagged miserably. Bedient chaffed him for having become incoherent, and left shortly for his own room, where he pressed out two of the thinnest possible sheets of paper, closely written on both sides, and made them his own to the least detail:

DEAR MR. BEDIENT:

I hardly know how to begin, I am so excited and have so much to say. (The letter was dated less than two hours before.) Señor Rey, the Glow-worm, the couple known as "the Sorensons," Mr. Framtree and myself are sailing to-night on the Savonarola. There will also be Chinese, probably three, two to manage the yacht and one for the cabin. I'm not quite sure, but I think we are to have supper aboard. I have been aboard the yacht. The cabin takes up a large part of the hold. There are two doors forward. The one to the left opens into the galley, and the one to the right opens into the forecastle, where there are three berths for the crew, a few ship's stores, piles of cordage, tackle, chains, etc. The berths, of course, will not be occupied this trip, as we plan to be out only a few hours, and the sailors will be on deck.

There is a fine place for concealment in this forecastle. (Possibly under the lower bunk; numerous bedding-rolls lying about might be pulled in after one.) The difficulty will be in getting aboard. There is but a single companion-way to the cabin. It will not be locked this afternoon early, but doubtless there will be a servant or two making ready for the sail. Provisions will be boarded this afternoon, as Señor Rey is a bountiful entertainer. It may happen that the Chinese, in loading the provisions, will be a considerable distance off, or even up the steps to the cliff, for moments at a time. This is the random chance I think of.

The undergrowth is dense on the steep slopes which jut down to the water of the Inlet. One might conceal oneself there, and await the offered chance, not more than twenty or thirty feet from the cabin door. This is the really discouraging part of the whole preliminary, but I may be able to assist you further at the proper time. There seems absolutely no other way to arrange an interview for you with Mr. Framtree.

As for me, I have learned much at The Pleiad. The Spaniard's systems are infamous—a fact that has been terribly impressed upon me. I shall lose my home in The Pleiad, but this is the last of the mysterious "four days." It will be better and safer for me to follow the fortunes of the war after this, from the side of the Defenders.

A dangerous step, but I shall take the chance of the sail, even if you decide that your part is too uncertain. In any case be very sure to destroy this letter. If it should fall into the hands of Rey's innumerable agents,—I'm afraid I shouldn't come back from the party. There is operating in the city as well as in The Pleiad as perfect a system of espionage as one would encounter in the secret service of a formidable nation.

Safely secreted in the forecastle during the early afternoon, you could not fail to hear, some hours later, a signal tapped on the deck forward. This signal would come after supper, when it was dark, and everything propitious as possible. The sailing party would be divided at this time, say half on deck and half below. The signal—three double taps—"tap-tap … tap-tap … tap-tap"—given sharply, unmistakably, with a heavy cane or something of the kind.

Emerging from the forecastle (with a look and a command behind, as if to your hidden compatriots), it would seem that you would have the occupants of the cabin rather neatly at your mercy. If the affair there were attended by luck, and managed quietly enough, you might continue and surprise the deck party, but let us not rely too far upon fair chances. There is a strong flavor of danger about the coup at best. I do not consider here any aid which I may render; so that you are one against eight—three white men, three (?) Chinese, and two women.

I have reasons for helping you.

You seem to want this meeting, and I believe war is imminent. Let me impress upon you: Take every precaution; think out every possible step before joining action. Señor Rey is a cultivated criminal. Sorenson may prove dangerous. Framtree looks big enough to laugh—if he is cornered. The Chinese are Chinese.

I am writing at crazy speed. You should have this by noon, and lose no time after that. Oh, yes, the Savonarola carries two small boats. If the surprise is successful, these boats may be useful to eliminate the Chinese and the Sorensons. You will be armed, of course. I am just adding thoughts at random. A little red chalk-mark on the white frame of the companion-way will tell me that you are aboard, if I should miss seeing you.

Yours in excitement, but not without hope,

ADITH MALLORY.

I know what you can do.