CHAPTER XXX.
ON TO FAIR CUBA.
“There are only two bits of evidence needed to complete my moral conviction that I am the only person connected with the Raymond tragedy who is not in Cuba or on his way thither,” remarks Ashley, loquitur, as he boards a cross-town car. “One is the assurance that Cyrus Felton and Miss Hathaway have left the St. James Hotel with no intention of an immediate return; the other, the knowledge that Phillip Van Zandt has closed his quarters in the Wyoming flats for an indefinite period. I believe I will try the St. James first.”
He does. The clerk smiles benignly upon him when he inquires for the Vermonters. “Gone, Jack; but you were not forgotten,” he says. “The day clerk turned this over to me,” extracting a note from the letter rack.
“Thank you, Ed,” acknowledges Ashley. He tears open the note and reads:
“Dear Mr. Ashley: I regret very much that circumstances have made it necessary to postpone indefinitely the luncheon for this afternoon at 1, to which I had looked forward with much pleasure. We have just learned that in order to reach Cuba we must sail on the City of Havana, which leaves New York at 11 o’clock to-day. With many thanks for your kindnesses, believe me, sincerely yours,
Louise Hathaway.”
“Far from enlightening me, this note only plunges me deeper in the fog,” thinks Ashley, sniffing the faint odor of violet that clings to the dainty stationery. “She asserts here that she is going to Cuba on the City of Havana, yet I discover her aboard the Semiramis. At any rate they have gone to Cuba, and there is no particular reason for my visiting Van Zandt’s apartments. It is getting late, anyway, and I believe I will return to the office. If Ricker is in a good-humored mood I will attempt to convince him that the only feature which the paper at present lacks is a live man at Havana who can tell the difference between an overwhelming Spanish or Cuban victory and a fifth-rate scrimmage that a dozen New York policemen could quell in ten minutes.”
Ashley swings himself upon a Broadway car and lapses into a meditation. “How the deuce do Miss Hathaway and Cyrus Felton come to be aboard the Semiramis? And if Ernest Stanley is Phillip Van Zandt, where did he get the money to own such a yacht? Forty or fifty thousand dollars of Raymond National Bank funds wouldn’t pay for one side of the Semiramis. But it may not be his yacht. I have simply assumed so because he looked as if he owned the ocean as well. Good gracious, I should be inclined to regard Miss Hathaway’s disappearance as a clear case of abduction but for the fact that the fair Louise appeared entirely satisfied with her surroundings when I focused the America’s glasses upon her graceful self. I am beginning to believe that I am clear off my reckoning on Van Zandt. The Semiramis may be owned by the Cubans and he may simply be one of the leaders of the expedition. And he may not be Ernest Stanley at all, although I think—hang it! I don’t know what I think. I shall quit thinking from now on. It is too hard work.”
Much relieved by this determination, Ashley sits at his desk, lights his briar and dashes off a short sketch of the detained filibustering vessel. This he tosses over to the night-desk men, and strolls into the city editor’s den.