“Skinner, my dear boy,” he said solemnly, “this is certainly hell! Cable the American consul in Pernambuco and ask him if Murphy received the cablegram we sent in care of the consulate. And, in the meantime, don't whisper a word of this disquieting information to Matt Peasley. Time enough to cross a bridge, Skinner, when you come to it.”
Mr. Skinner promptly filed a cablegram to the American consul, and just before the office closed they got about forty dollars' worth of reply, informing them that Captain Murphy had appeared at the consulate greatly excited the night previous; that he had declared the cablegram awaiting him might mean life or death—certainly a large sum of money; that he had been given the cablegram and had gone aboard ship to look up his cipher key. He had not returned and the ship was not in the harbor.
“Let me see the carbon copy of the cablegram you sent Murphy in care of the American consul,” Cappy demanded. Mr. Skinner with a sinking heart obeyed.
“Skinner,” said Cappy, “do I understand you sent this message in cipher, which necessitated on the part of our captain a trip back to his ship before he could decipher it? Why didn't you send him the message in regular code? He would then have decoded it right in the consulate, or at best he could have gone to the cable office and borrowed a code book from them.”
“I sent it in our secret cipher,” Mr. Skinner faltered. “It was delicate business—quite—er—an international complication, as it were, and in the event of unpleasant developments—Well, how did I know but that some German might be on the key at the cable office when the message arrived there for Murphy—”
“Quite right, Skinner, my boy, quite right,” Cappy interrupted sadly. “The only trouble with you, Skinner, is that you're too danged efficient. You look so far into the future you're always gumming up the present.” He sighed.
“Why, what do you think—” Skinner began, but Cappy silenced him with an autocratic finger.
“I do not think, Skinner, I know. Had it not been for your damnable cipher message, Murphy would have got your warning ashore instead of being forced to go back to the ship for it. Having got it ashore he would have taken care to warn the Brazilian authorities and they would have been on watch and prevented the ship from leaving. As I view the situation, Mike went aboard, deciphered your message and got ripping mad. Von Staden and Ulrich were probably aboard, and hot-headed Mike probably undertook to throw them overboard single-handed—and failed. His body is doubtless feeding the fishes in Pernambuco harbor this minute, and our lovely—big—Narcissus—the pride of—the Blue Star fleet—”
“Shall I tell Captain Peasley?” Mr. Skinner faltered.
“Yes, tell him. He's bound to find out sooner or later. Skinner, I could stand the loss of the ship, but what breaks me all up is the thought that after forty years of honorable business my friends and my enemies might suspect me of being a filibuster. I, Alden P. Ricks, whose great-grandfather died at Yorktown, whose grandfather was killed at Lundy's Lane, whose father won a medal of honor at Chapultepec—I, Alden P. Ricks, who had to belong to the Home Guard because I was such a little runt they wouldn't take me in the Civil War—to think that I should attain to seventy years and even be suspected of staining the flag of my country for the sake of a few dirty dollars—after all the Ricks blood that has been shed for that flag! Horrible!”