CHAPTER XXV
"It's Dogged as Does It"
Fortunately, to prevent delay and temporary embarrassment, there was plenty of gold for present needs in the pockets of the one garment which I had put on before escaping. Everything else which I had brought to the Santa Anna Hotel was lost; but never, perhaps, was a man more completely indifferent to such loss than I. The only thing on the American side of the Atlantic which now interested me was to find out whether the false Harvey Farnham had actually (by an irony of fate) perished in the flames, or whether–as I more than suspected–he himself was responsible for the fire.
It would be impossible to ascertain the truth until such time as the ruins of the burnt wing of the hotel should have sufficiently cooled to render a search practicable. Even then, if no other measures were taken, the fact might never be absolutely substantiated. If nothing more was ever heard of Harvey Farnham, it would probably be taken for granted that he had met his death in the fire at the Santa Anna Hotel, even though no actual traces of his body were forthcoming. His heirs, whoever they might be, would doubtless claim their inheritance, and even assurance money, if such there were to be had, before many months had passed. Carson Wildred would be for ever safe, and my quest would have ended in nothing but bitterness and disappointment.
This being the case, I could not afford to wait until the burnt building should be ransacked for Harvey Farnham's remains, I must take it for granted that no such remains were there, and go in search of the living, breathing body. I tried to put myself mentally in place of the man who had stolen his identity from the dead. Were I he, I thought, and had I done that of which I believed he had been guilty, I would lose no time in putting myself beyond the reach of possible pursuit. I would have laid my plans with some exactitude, and would have been prepared for the necessity of flight. I would have thrown aside as many details of my likeness to Harvey Farnham as nature had not provided me with, and having set fire to the room I had occupied, I would have got out of the hotel as quietly and quickly as practicable. If it had been comparatively easy for me to escape by means of the creepers down the side of the house, the same means might well have been employed by the man whose movements I was mentally trying to follow.
Success having attended my movements so far, I should have gone straight to a railway station, and would never have breathed freely until I had left San Francisco well behind me.
So wise, under the given circumstances, did this course of action seem to me, that I promptly decided no other would have been feasible. The thing for me to do, therefore, was to find out what trains left San Francisco during the night time. I thought I might calculate upon the fellow's having boarded a passenger train in an open and ordinary manner as, if his plans had been properly laid, no suspicion could attach to him, and there would be no necessity for more desperate precautions.
He could have had a good start before the fire spread and was discovered, and–still taking it for granted that I was correct in my deductions–the sooner I was on his track the better. My hands were burned, I was practically without clothes, and had suffered a considerable nervous shock, which at another time I might have had leisure to feel and analyse.
But I did neither at the present juncture. I simply procured a stiff portion of brandy neat, drank it at a gulp, purchased a few articles of clothing from an accommodating waiter, dressed myself with all speed, and set off to the principal railway station, or "depot," of San Francisco.
"It's dogged as does it," I quoted to myself, with a certain grimness of resolution, when my spirits began to flag.