“I hope I won’t feel strange,” said the consul dreamily. “I’m going back next year. Do you know, I’m thinking about fried fish. They don’t have the same kinds of fish down here, and they don’t cook them the same way. The first thing I’m going to do when I land in New York, is to eat a meal in a restaurant. And I’m going to have fried fish and griddle cakes with maple syrup. I don’t know why fried fish appeals to me so much,” he added thoughtfully, “because I never cared much for them when I could get them.”
Beckwith moved uneasily.
“Any news lately?” he asked, succeeding very well in keeping his tone casual.
“Nothing but the papers,” answered Melton abstractedly. “Your boy was down at the dock and got a batch of them. I say, Beckwith—”
He launched forth in a vivid description of the joys of living in Springfield, Massachusetts, to which Beckwith listened uninterestedly, but perforce, sipping at his grenadine rickey from time to time. When he left, Beckwith was puzzled, but convinced that there had been no message or inquiry sent to Melton from the States concerning him he went slowly up to his white house that sprawled over the hillside, wondering why. As he was entering his own door the obvious solution came to him.
Wells would naturally have tried to keep the murder secret for twenty-four hours. That was one of his favorite tricks, keeping a crime secret to afford himself so much start in his efforts to unravel the mystery, so that the story of the crime and the capture of the criminal could be announced at the same time. Twenty-four hours was usually his limit. Evidently, however, he had been able to extend the time on this occasion. He must have possessed an incredible influence with the newspapers to keep them for seven days from exploiting so succulent a morsel of melodrama.
Beckwith chuckled. Wells was trying to save his face. He had held off public knowledge of his failure for a week, but would be unable to keep it up much longer. When the next mail came, in seven days more, the newspapers would spread the news of Conway’s death and Wells’s humiliation, with Beckwith’s triumph as their principal theme. A man who so defiantly flouted the law, who sneered at the police to the extent of giving them his address, would surely be made much of by the press, even if they denounced him. The next mail would tell the story, and Wells’s humiliation would be the more complete for being delayed. The newspapers would flay him for trying to conceal the crime.
Beckwith went to sleep with a sense of profound satisfaction in spite of his recent disappointment.
The steamer usually made the port of Bahia del Toro about noon, but as early as nine o’clock in the morning of the next steamer day Beckwith was looking down the coast-line for the smudge of smoke that would portend the arrival of the vessel. He swept the horizon with his glasses from time to time, growing more and more impatient. The white hull did not appear until nearly four, however, and it was five o’clock before it turned in between the forts. Beckwith went out in one of the launches to meet it, smiling in anticipation of triumph. He waved gaily to the globetrotting passengers clustered by the after rail. They would know of Conway’s death, and one of the officers of the ship would undoubtedly point him out as the man who had defied the law.
The bundle of newspapers fell into the launch with a heavy thump, and the purser who had dropped them over waved a friendly hand. The little boat backed off from the steamer and sped toward the shore, while Beckwith cut the twine about his package of papers and began to run rapidly through them, glancing only at the first-page head-lines.