The figure was that of a woman and her skin was whiter than his own!
BOOK II
"An' they talks a lot o' lovin',
But wot do they understand?"
CHAPTER XII
THE HARDEST OF CONFESSIONS
Six months after the departure of the Susquehanna with its unwilling member of the crew, Harnash found himself in a position of advantage far beyond his wildest dream. The active search for Beekman had of necessity been abandoned long since, although the authorities still kept the matter in view. No one had yet connected his disappearance with the Susquehanna because her clearance papers had been taken out the day before, although her actual sailing had been delayed. She had slipped away unmarked in the early dawn, under her own canvas, the wind being favorable, and as Captain Fish knew the channel well she had even dispensed with the pilot.
In the search and the negotiations connected with it George Harnash had been thrown rather intimately and closely with John Maynard. There had been no business associations between them at first, but Maynard's growing appreciation of the ability of Harnash, which was very considerable, was heightened by a rather brilliant coup which the young man pulled off and from which Maynard suffered; not seriously, of course, from Maynard's point of view, although the results were of a very considerable financial gain to Harnash.
Now there was none of the mean spirit of revenge in Maynard. It was his policy to convert a brilliant enemy into a friend, if possible. Of course, some enemies were too big for that purpose, and those Maynard fought to a finish. Harnash was not in that category. Maynard was getting along in years. The excitement of battle had begun somewhat to pall upon him. He loved fighting for its own sake, but he had fought so long and so hard and so successfully that he was willing to withdraw gradually from the more active conflict, leaving warfare to youth, to which indeed it appertains.
Among the young men he gathered around him there was none who stood quite as high in his good graces as Harnash. No suspicion of the love affair between Harnash and Stephanie had arisen in the old man's mind, but he was not unaware that Stephanie greatly liked the young man. At first he had thought that the liking had developed from the other man's affection for Beekman.
Against that young man his resentment grew hotter and hotter. The police scouted the conclusion that Beekman was dead. His case, they alleged, was just one of the many mysterious disappearances from New York, most of which were eventually explained. There was not a scrap of evidence anywhere to account for Beekman's disappearance. Probably the labels had been torn from his clothing before it had been disposed of, if it had been sold. His watch case might have been melted down for old gold, obviously, if it had not accompanied him. At any rate, the works had not been traced. And no pawn shop or fence yielded the slightest clew to any other jewelry. The great reward still standing brought no information whatever.