CHAPTER VIII
PUBLICITY
GEORGE did not go to the club that night. He went straight home and sent Farintosh out to buy all the evening papers and Farintosh returned with a bundle of everything from the Evening Sun to the Polk Street Pikers’ Messenger. Every paper had the news, under all sorts of scare headlines. Some of these headlines referred to Fisher and some to himself; through all the notices ran a gentle and breezy humour, and in them all, with one exception, Joe Barrett had his advertisement and walked protected from laughter as Shadrac from flame.
The one exception was the Polk Street Piker, a free spoken organ that generally kept to ward politics. The Piker, whilst allowing that Rat Trap Fisher had swelled head and had better stick to rodents, was frankly libellous about Barrett, said the whole thing was a fake got up by Barrett to help his sale of damaged goods then on, said a business must be pretty rocky to adopt such means, said that it was likely the whole Dutchman business was a business fake.
George read this horrible libel with a chill at his heart, for he knew that Hennessy, the editor of the Piker, was a led captain and creature of Barrett’s. No one of any account read the Piker, but everyone of any account would read the abject apology of the Piker sure to be published in a day or two in every newspaper in California, together with editorial comments and a full statement about the Fisher Expedition supplied by Scudder. The thing would probably reach New York and London. With Vanderdecken as engine and Barrett as driver and stoker, there was no knowing where it might not reach or how long it might not keep running, and he, George du Cane, was tied to the tail of it. He was already in the blaze of the limelight and at that moment men in the clubs, people at dinner parties, people in restaurants and people in cars were talking of him. The fact of his wealth would give him a little place, all his own, in this show. There was only one way of escape—justification. “We’ve gotta get the Dutchman.” Hank’s words came back to him. If they did not get the Dutchman, it would be much better not to come back to San Francisco. George had a fine feeling for Pacific Coast temperament; leaving that alone, half frozen Icelanders would see the point and the joke of a much advertised amateur expedition such as theirs returning empty handed.
He went to bed early but he could not sleep for a long time. It was all very well talking about getting the Dutchman, but how were they to get him? When the getting of him had been only a matter of sport, the thing seemed fairly easy; now that it was a matter of dire necessity, it seemed next to impossible. A nightmare task like hunting for a lost needle in Kearney Street.
He jumped out of bed, fetched an atlas, and, taking it back to bed with him, looked up the California coast, running his eye along from San Francisco to Cape San Lucas, exploring the sea from the Channel Islands to Guadaloupe and from Guadaloupe to the Tres Marias Islands. Somewhere in that vast stretch of sea, somewhere on that line of coast that ran from the Golden Gate to Cancer, they had to find a man who most certainly did not want to be found by searchers. He went to sleep on the thought and awoke to it.
Farintosh was entering the room; he was carrying a bundle of morning papers.
“Pull up the blind,” said George.