A few moments more, and the cruiser is slowing down preparatory to making her pier, and Jack seeks Capt. Meade to express his thanks. The latter shakes his hand cordially and remarks: “Better come on our next cruise, my boy; we may have another try at the black yacht. The navy expert says it was rumored in official circles that if this trial was satisfactory the America is to be ordered immediately to Cuba to protect American interests. Good news, if true, eh?”
Ashley allows that if the captain says it is good news, good news it certainly must be; and a half-defined hope is forming in his mind as he steps once more on terra firma.
“After I turn in my story on the trial trip I shall proceed to hunt up some possible light on the latest twist in the Hathaway tangle,” he meditates, as he sets his face toward the lights of Gotham town. “Felton and Miss Hathaway were booked to sail on the City of Callao on Saturday; yet I discover them to-day headed southward on the Semiramis. Miss Hathaway must have left some explanation, and it is barely possible that Barker may know something about the sudden departure. I should not be a particle surprised if John, too, were aboard the Semiramis. Nothing will ever surprise me again. But if Barker got left I shall probably find him sitting on the steps of the Hemisphere office, in a state of mind bordering on the profane.”
But fate decrees that many days shall elapse ere the detective and his newspaper friend again clasp each other by the hand; days big with exciting events that the serene Ashley dreams not of as he saunters down Newspaper Row.
From his box in the office Ashley extracts a letter, evidently hastily written and sealed. The address is in Barker’s handwriting, and Ashley tears it open. He reads:
“My Dear Ashley: I start for Cuba at 12 o’clock via Key West. Write this just before the train starts. Felton has eluded me—thanks to your infernal French ball—and sailed for Cuba on City of Havana at 11 o’clock. Don’t know whether he got wind of contemplated arrest or not. If I have good luck at Key West will be in H. as soon as he. May trail him to the son and bag both at once. In any event, do not intend to lose sight of him again till he is safely landed in Vermont. I may run across your Mrs. Harding, and if I do will try my luck at making her tell what she knows of young Felton, on threat of exposing her as a Spanish spy. Good scheme, eh? Must close, train starting; will write from Cuba. Hastily,
“Barker.”
“So Cuba is to be the scene of the next act of the Raymond tragedy,” Jack thinks. “How suddenly all the characters have betaken themselves to the southern isle, and how events have crowded on each other the last day or two! First, news that young Felton is in Cuba; then appear Cyrus Felton and Louise Hathaway in the city; then the mysterious woman of the Raymond hotel, and the stranger of the mountain gorge—and all of these are at this moment en route to Cuba. Only Derrick Ames and Helen Hathaway remain to be accounted for, and if Barker’s theory is correct, and they, too, are in Cuba, what a situation and what a complication! I must be there at the finish. The paper really needs a war correspondent in the ever-faithful isle, and I’ve half a mind to ask for the assignment.”
From his desk Ashley takes a bulky package of manuscript, glances through it, and with a sigh replaces it within an inner compartment. “The Raymond mystery story, the newspaper beat of the year,” is not to be used yet.
But the account of the trial trip of the America must be written, and soon the sheaves of yellow paper are being rapidly covered by Jack’s flying pen.