The Adventuress Read online

  Without a word he wrote on a pad on the desk:

  ‘Leave it there. They don’t know we’ve found it. We can use it against them!’

  CHAPTER XI

  THE FRAME-UP

  HASTILY Craig wrote on the paper, while Hastings and I read in silence:

  ‘We’ll lay a trap by a fake conversation about the garage.’

  Neither of us spoke a word, waiting for our cue from him.

  ‘Well,’ he said, in a rather loud tone, as though he had just come into the office, ‘one thing that we must do is to find out whether there was a car that came into the city from Westport that night—and perhaps went back there. There’s a clue in that garage, Walter. Someone is making that a headquarters. But we can’t do anything tonight—not after your experience. No, we’ll have to wait until daylight tomorrow and then we’ll make a thorough search.’

  ‘You won’t get me here again alone at night,’ I put in, and my tone was rather convincing after my experience.

  ‘I’m sure there’s something there, all right,’ added Hastings, following the lead, although he seemed to have only the most indefinite notion of where it took him.

  ‘Indeed there is,’ agreed Kennedy quickly.

  ‘Personally, I think that Mito knows more than he should about the whole business,’ I added. ‘The Jap is a mystery to me.’

  ‘And Sanchez, too,’ put in Hastings, evidently thinking of how he seemed always to be crossing our path.

  ‘Yes, that’s the place to look into, all right,’ concluded Craig, beckoning us to leave the room and the conversation.

  ‘If that doesn’t sink into somebody’s mind,’ he chuckled, when we were outside, ‘I shall be surprised. We must get back to Westport before it is too late.’

  ‘Why didn’t you follow the wire down and find out where it ended?’ I asked, as we left Hastings’s office. ‘You might have—’

  ‘Surprised a stenographer at the other end taking notes,’ he interrupted. ‘We can do that any time. What I wanted was to plant something that would make the real criminal act and throw him off his guard. We’ll have to stop again at the laboratory. There is something there I must take out with me. That will give us just time to catch the late afternoon express if we hurry.’

  While Hastings and I waited outside Kennedy went in and soon returned with the instrument he sought. Even yet, Hastings could not resist the impulse to gaze about nervously, recalling the shot that had been fired at him on the occasion of his first visit. Nothing happened this time, however, and we made the train by a matter of seconds.

  Frances Maddox and her husband were the only persons on the express whom we knew. The others seemed to have returned already. I saw that we would have to rely on Riley and the Secret Service men to get anything that might have happened in the meanwhile. Once or twice I caught the eye of Mrs Walcott furtively gazing in Kennedy’s direction, and I fancied she was a trifle nervous. Walcott himself read a magazine stolidly, as though declining to get excited and I wondered, from his manner, whether the affair and the constant feud in the family into which he had married might not be getting on his nerves. They did not talk much, nor did we, and it was with a sense of relief that we all arrived finally at Westport.

  ‘Well,’ I remarked, aside to Kennedy, as we three piled into the little ‘flivver’ that did public hack duty at the station, ‘I wonder what we shall run into now.’

  ‘Things ought to develop fast, I should say,’ he returned. ‘I think we’ve laid a good foundation.’

  Without even looking about or inquiring for Burke or Riley, Kennedy rather ostentatiously went directly to the hotel office on our arrival at the Harbour House.

  ‘Our rooms are at the north side of the hotel,’ he began. ‘I wonder if there are any vacant on the bay side?’

  The clerk turned to look at his list and I took the opportunity to pluck at Kennedy’s sleeve.

  ‘Why don’t you get rooms in the rear?’ I whispered. ‘That’s the side on which the garage is.’

  Kennedy nodded hastily to me to be silent and a moment later the clerk turned.

  ‘I can fix you up on the bay side,’ he reported, indicating a suite on a printed floor-plan.

  ‘Very fine,’ agreed Craig. ‘If you will send a porter I will have our baggage transferred immediately.’

  As we left the desk Kennedy whispered his explanation. ‘Don’t you understand? We’ll be observed. Everything we do is watched, I am convinced. Just think it over. Selecting a room like this will disarm suspicion.’

  In the lobby of the hotel Riley was waiting for us anxiously.

  ‘Where’s Mr Burke?’ asked Kennedy. ‘Hasn’t he returned?’

  ‘No, sir. And not a word from him yet. I don’t know where he can be. But we are handling the case at this end very well alone. I got your wire,’ he nodded to me. ‘We haven’t missed Sanchez since he got back.’

  ‘Then he didn’t make any attempt to get away,’ I remarked, gratified that I had lost nothing by not following him on the earlier train. ‘Is Paquita back?’

  ‘Yes; she came on the train just before yours.’

  ‘What has she done—anything?’

  Riley shook his head in perplexity.

  ‘If it didn’t sound ridiculous,’ he replied slowly, ‘I would say that that fellow Sanchez was on the trail of Paquita more than we are.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Why, he follows her about like a dog. While we’re watching her he seems to be watching us.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s part of her gang—her bodyguard, if there is such a thing as a gang,’ I remarked.

  ‘Well, he acts very strangely,’ returned Riley doubtfully. ‘I’m not the only one who has noticed it.’

  ‘Who else has?’ demanded Kennedy quickly.

  ‘Mrs Maddox, for one. She went up to the city later—oh, you know? Miss Walcott went with her. You know that, too? They returned on the train with Paquita.’

  ‘What has Mrs Maddox done since she came back?’ inquired Craig.

  ‘It wasn’t half an hour before they returned that Paquita came downstairs,’ replied the Secret Service man. ‘As usual Sanchez was waiting, in the background, of course. As luck would have it, just as she passed out of the door Mrs Maddox happened along. She saw Sanchez following Paquita—you remember she had already paid him off for the shadowing he had done for her. I don’t know what it was, but she went right up to him. Oh, she was some mad!’

  ‘What was it all about?’ asked Craig, interested.

  ‘I didn’t hear it all. But I did hear her accuse him of being in with Paquita even at the time he was supposed to be shadowing her for Mrs Maddox. He didn’t answer directly. “Did I ever make a false report about her?” he asked Mrs Maddox. She fairly spluttered, but she didn’t say that he had. “You’re working for her—you’re working for somebody. You’re all against me!” she cried. Sanchez never turned a hair. Either he’s a fool or else he’s perfectly sure of his ground, as far as that end of it went.’

  ‘I suppose he might have double-crossed her and still made honest reports to her,’ considered Kennedy; ‘that is, if he made the same reports to someone else who was interested, I mean.’

  Riley nodded, though it was evident the remark conveyed no more idea to him than it did to me.

  ‘Shelby Maddox has returned, too,’ added Riley. ‘I found out that he sent that Jap, Mito, with a note to Paquita. I don’t know what it was, but I have a man out trying to get a line on it.’

  ‘Mito,’ repeated Kennedy, as though the Japanese suggested merely by his name a theory on which his mind was working.

  There seemed to be nothing that could be done just now but to wait, and we decided to take the opportunity to get a late dinner. Winifred Walcott and Mrs Maddox had already dined, but Frances Walcott and her husband were at their table. They seemed to be hurrying to finish and we did the same—not because they did, but because we had work to do.

  Dinner over, Hastings excused h
imself from us, saying that he had some letters to write, and Kennedy made no objection. I think he was rather pleased than otherwise to have the opportunity to get away.

  Outside we met Riley again, this time with one of his operatives.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ inquired Kennedy.

  ‘Matter enough,’ returned Riley, much exercised. ‘You know I told you that Shelby had come ashore from the Sybarite with Mito? Well, we’ve been following them both pretty closely. I think I told you of his sending a note to Paquita. Both Shelby and Mito have been acting suspiciously. I had this man detailed to watch Shelby. That confounded Jap is always in the way, though. Tell Mr Kennedy what happened,’ he directed.

  The operative rubbed his back ruefully. ‘I was following Mr Maddox down to the beach,’ he began. ‘It was rather dark and I tried to keep in the shadow. Mr Maddox never would have known that he was being followed. All of a sudden, from behind, comes that Jap. Before I knew it he had me—like this.’

  The man illustrated his remark by lunging forward at Kennedy and seizing both his hands. He stuck his crooked knee upward and started to fall back, just catching himself before he quite lost his balance.

  ‘Over he went backwards, like a tumbler,’ went on the man, ‘threw me clean over his head. If it had been on a stone walk or there had been a wall there, it would have broken my head.’

  ‘Jiu-jitsu!’ exclaimed Kennedy.

  ‘I wonder why Mito was so anxious to cover his master?’ considered Riley. ‘He must have had some reason—either of his own or orders from Maddox. Anyhow, they both of them managed to get away, clean.’

  Riley looked from Craig to me in chagrin.

  ‘Quite possibly orders,’ put in the man, ‘although it’s not beyond him even to be double-crossing Mr Maddox, at that.’

  ‘Well, try to pick them up again,’ directed Kennedy, turning to me. ‘I’ve some rather important business just now. If Mr Burke comes back, let me know at once.’

  ‘You bet I’ll try to pick them up again,’ promised the Secret Service man, viciously, as we left him and went to our room.

  There Craig quickly unwrapped one of the two packages which he had brought from the laboratory while I watched him curiously but did not interrupt him, since he seemed to be in a great hurry.

  As I watched Kennedy placed on a table what looked like a miniature telephone receiver.

  Next he opened the window and looked out to make sure that there was no one below. Satisfied, he returned to the table again and took up a pair of wires which he attached to some small dry cells from the package.

  Then he took the free ends of the wires and carefully let them fall out of the window until they reached down to the ground. Leaning far out, he so disposed the wires under the window that they fell to one side of the windows of the rooms below us and would not be noticed running up the side wall of the hotel, at least not in the twilight. Then he took the other package from the table and was ready to return downstairs.

  We had scarcely reached the lobby again when we ran into Hastings, alone and apparently searching for us.

  ‘Is there anything new?’ inquired Kennedy eagerly.

  Hastings seemed to be in doubt. ‘None of the Maddox family are about,’ he began. ‘I thought it might be strange and was looking for you. Where do you suppose they all can be? I haven’t seen either Paquita or Sanchez. But I just saw Winifred alone.’

  ‘What was she doing? Where is she?’ demanded Kennedy.

  Hastings shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I was really looking for Shelby. I think she was going toward the Casino. Have you heard anything?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ returned Kennedy brusquely. ‘You will pardon me, I have a very important matter in hand just now. I’ll let you know the moment I hear anything.’

  Kennedy hurried from the Lodge toward the Casino, leaving Hastings standing in the hotel, amazed.

  ‘Nothing new!’ he almost snorted as he suddenly paused where he could see the Casino. ‘Yet Hastings sees Winifred going out in a hurry, evidently bent on something. If he was so confounded eager to find Shelby, why didn’t it occur to him to stick about and follow Winifred?’

  It was quite dark by this time and almost impossible to see anyone in the shadows unless very close. Kennedy and I took a few turns about the Casino and along some of the gravel paths, but could find no trace of any of those whom we were watching.

  ‘I oughtn’t to let anything interfere with this “plant” I am laying,’ he fretted. ‘Riley and the rest ought to be able to cover the case for a time. Anyhow, I must take a chance.’

  He turned and for several minutes we waited, as if to make perfectly sure that we were not being watched or followed.

  Finally he worked his way by a round-about path from the Casino, turned away from the Lodge into another path, and at last we found ourselves emerging from a little hedge of dwarf poplars just back of the little garage, which had evidently been his objective point.

  Mindful of my own experience there, I looked about in some trepidation. I had no intention of running again into the same trap that had nearly finished me before. Nor had Kennedy.

  Cautiously, in the darkness, he entered. This time it was deserted. No asphyxiating gun greeted us. He looked about, then went to work immediately.

  Back of the tool-box in a far corner he bent down and unwrapped the other package which he had been carrying. As nearly as I could make it out in the darkness, there were two rods that looked as though they might be electric-light carbons, fixed horizontally in a wooden support, with a spindle-shaped bit of carbon between the two ends of the rods, the points of the spindles resting in hollows in the two rods. To binding screws on the free ends of the carbon rods he attached wires, and led them out through a window, just above.

  ‘We don’t want to stay here a minute longer than necessary,’ he said, rising hurriedly. ‘Come—I must take up those wires outside and carry them around the wing of the Harbour House, where our room is.’

  Without a word we went out. A keen glance about revealed no one looking, and trusting that we were right, Kennedy picked up the wires and we drove back into the shadow of the grove from which we came.

  Carefully as he could, so that no one would trip on them and rip them out, Kennedy laid the wires along the ground, made the connection with those he had dropped from the window, and then, retracing our steps, managed to come into the hotel from the opposite side from the garage and the other wing from our room.

  ‘Just had a wire from Mr Burke,’ announced Riley, who had been looking all over for us, a fact that gave Craig some satisfaction, for it showed that we had covered ourselves pretty well. ‘He’s coming up from the city and I imagine he has dug up something pretty good. That’s not what I wanted to tell you, though. You remember I said Shelby Maddox had sent Mito with a note to Paquita?’

  Kennedy nodded. No encouragement was necessary for Riley to continue his whispered report.

  ‘Well, Shelby just met her on the beach.’

  ‘Met Paquita?’ I exclaimed, in surprise at Shelby’s secret meeting after his public ignoring of the little adventuress.

  ‘On the beach alone,’ reiterated Riley, pleased at retailing even this apparent bit of scandal.

  ‘What then?’ demanded Craig.

  ‘They strolled off down the shore together.’

  ‘Have you followed them?’

  ‘Yes, confound it, but it’s low tide and following them is difficult, without their knowing it. I told the men to do the best they could, though—short of getting into another fight. Mito may be about, and, anyhow, Shelby might give a very good account of himself.’

  ‘You’re not sure of Mito, then?’

  ‘No. No one saw him again after he threw my operative. He may have disappeared. However, I took no chance that Shelby was alone.’

  For a moment Kennedy seemed to consider the surprising turn that Shelby’s secret meeting with the little dancer might give to the affair.

  ‘
Walter,’ he said at last, turning to me significantly, ‘would you like to take a stroll down to the dock? This matter begins to look interesting.’

  We left Riley, after cautioning him to make sure that Burke saw us the moment he arrived, and again made our way quietly from the Lodge toward the Casino, in which we now could hear the orchestra.

  A glance was sufficient to reveal that none of those whom he sought were there, and Kennedy continued down the bank toward the shore and the Harbour House dock.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE EAVESDROPPERS

  IT was a clear, warm night, but with no moon. From the Casino the lights shone out over the dark water, illuminating here and seeming to deepen the already dark shadows there.

  A flight of steps ran down to the dock from the dance pavilion, but, instead of taking this natural way, Kennedy plunged into the deeper shadow of a path that wound around the slight bluff and came out on the beach level, below the dock. From the path we could still hear the sounds of gaiety in the Casino.

  We were about to emerge on the beach, not far from the spiling on which the dock platform rested, when I felt Kennedy’s hand on my elbow. I drew back into the hidden pathway with him and looked in the direction he indicated.

  There, in a little summer-house above us, at the shore end of the dock, I could just distinguish the figures of two women, sitting in the shadow and looking out intently over the strip of beach and the waves of the rising tide that were lapping up on it. It was apparent that they were waiting for someone.

  I turned and strained my eyes to catch a glimpse down the beach, but in the blackness could make out nothing. A look of inquiry toward Kennedy elicited nothing but a further caution to be silent. Apparently he was determined to play the eavesdropper on the two above us.

  They had been talking in a low tone when we approached and we must have missed the first remark. The answer was clear enough, however.

  ‘I tell you, Winifred, I saw them together,’ we heard one voice in the summer-house say.