The Four Stragglers

by Frank L. Packard

He stood there now in the rain, his face hard, with savage, drooping lines at the corners of his mouth. Was he being watched now? Was there a cat-and-mouse game in play? Well, two could play at that! He, too, could prowl about the ship. His bed held little of invitation for him!

He went to Runnells' room. The man was in bed asleep. That definitely disposed of Runnells!

He returned and made another circuit of the upper deck; and then, forward, by one of the open companionways, he descended to the deck below. His mind was in a strange state of turmoil. It was not physical fear. It was as though a host of haunting shapes were being marshalled against him, were rising up out of the past to disturb him, jeering at him, mocking him, plaguing him with sinister possibilities. The past was peopled with shapes, shapes that had lived in the world of Shadow Varne; shapes which might well be accused of this attempt to do away with him, could they but take tangible form, could their presence but be reconciled with the here and now, with this ship, with these damp, slippery decks, with the drive and sting of the rain, with the scream and howl of the wind, with the plunge and roll of the great liner, the buffeting of the waves—if they could but be reconciled with material things. He clenched his hands. He was not as a man who could search his memory in vain for one who owed him such a debt as this; it was, rather, that his memory became crowded and confused with the number that came thronging in upon it, each vying with the others to shriek the loudest its boasted claim to the attempted retribution to-night.

He set his teeth. Where had he failed? When had he left ajar behind him the door of the past that allowed any one of these ghostly shapes to slip through upon his heels? Ghostly? There was little of the ghostly here! He must have been recognised by some one on board the ship. It seemed incredible, impossible—but it was equally incontrovertible. Who? And what did it portend? To-night he had won the first hand, but—

Locke! He was standing beside the smoking room window. Locke was in there, his back turned, standing beside one of the bridge tables, watching a game. It was a little strange! He had parted with Locke out here on the deck—and Locke was going to his cabin to turn in.

For an instant Captain Francis Newcombe held there, his brows knitted in a perplexed frown. Howard Locke! It was preposterous; it would not hold water; it was childish—unless the young American were some one other than he pretended to be, and there wasn't a chance in a thousand of that! His mind worked swiftly now. Locke had been introduced to him at lunch in the club by a fellow member a few days before they had sailed. That certainly vouched for the man sufficiently, didn't it? Locke had volunteered the information that he had booked passage on this ship, and they had not met again until here on shipboard. If Locke was what he passed for, if he was of one of the best families of America, the son of a millionaire, a clever, hard-working and ambitious young business man, it was untenable to assume for an instant that he was a potential murderer. It was even laughable. There wasn't even that one chance in a thousand that he could be any other than he seemed, not a chance in a million, and yet—

"Chance," said Captain Francis Newcombe, "is the playground of fools. We will see!"

He turned and ran swiftly along the deck. A minute later he was standing before one of the two doors of the young American's suite. A little metal instrument was in his hand, but it went instantly back into his pocket—the door was not locked. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Locke had one of the best and most expensive reservations on the ship—a suite of two rooms and a private bath, but there was a separate door from each of these rooms to the passageway without, since, naturally, they were not always booked en suite. And the room he stood in now was the one Locke used for his sitting room, and always as the entrance to the suite itself.

Captain Francis Newcombe was quick in every movement now. He ran through to the other room—the bedroom—closing the connecting door behind him. He switched on the light, and turned at once to the door that gave here on the passageway. The key was in the lock, and the door was locked. He unlocked it. The next instant he had a portmanteau open and was delving into its contents. It contained nothing but clothing—shirts, collars, ties, underwear, and the like. He opened another, and still another with the same result. Papers! It was the man's papers that interested him.

He snarled a little savagely to himself. There was nothing for it then but the steamer trunk under the couch—and Locke might be back at any moment. He dragged out the trunk—and snarled again savagely. It was locked. He began to work with it now, swiftly, deftly, with the little steel picklock. It yielded finally, and he flung back the lid. Yes, this was what he wanted! On the top lay a leather despatch case. But this also was locked. Again Captain Francis Newcombe set to work—and presently was glancing through a mass of papers and documents that the despatch case had contained: letters from the father's firm to the son, signed by Locke senior; a letter of credit in substantial amount; an underwriting agreement with a London house for the floating of a huge issue of bonds, signed and sealed, the tangible evidence of young Locke's successful trip, of which he had spoken. Incontrovertible evidence that Howard Locke was no other than he appeared to be, and—