The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ was wrong. Want another room? What happened.”

      “I got into an accident,” said Jim. “Machine hit me, picked me up and took me along with ’em a ways. I’ll take a room, I reckon. And I’d like my things.”

      The clerk looked at him with an expression that showed he thought Jim was lying, but said nothing. His things were brought to the new room. They had plainly been overhauled. Foster had doubtless been glad of the chance to see if the diary was there or not. And a new thought struck him. Foster might by now be a confirmed believer in his own suggestion that Jim was a fake, and that, seeing his story was to be investigated thoroughly, he had skipped. Though if Foster had seen the little diary, he could tell almost at a glance—any keen-witted person could—that its content was authentic enough with its everyday comments and the stains upon the pages with their more or less legible entries. But—if Foster had suggested the assault and abduction, it was clever of him to have come to the hotel and shown just the right amount of concern. Foster was clever.

      Jim changed shirt, collar, and tie, slicked up to the best of his ability, hard put to it to do much to his only suit. At twenty minutes past eight he pressed the bell between the two porches with a side glance at the ship model. He had already noticed light coming from the two windows of the dining-living room.

      The gaunt maid opened the door, starting back.

      “Land o’ Goshen!” she exclaimed. “I—”

      Jim pushed past her with an imperative gesture for silence. For a moment the woman seemed dazedly about to try and bar his way. She gasped like a stranded fish, muttering confusedly.

      “For the land’s sake. I wanter know. Why, I—” Jim grasped her bony wrist with his left hand.

      “Shut up,” he said. “Are the rest here? Mr. Foster and his son?” She nodded, gathering herself together.

      “I’ll tell Miss Kitty you’re here.”

      “You needn’t bother.” Jim went through the hall and abruptly opened the door of the dining room. About the table were seated the four he had expected to find, rising to his entrance. He saw immediately that Kitty and her cousin had received his telegram, though they exhibited well feigned surprise. As for Stephen and Newton Foster, there was no question about their astonishment. The former especially showed some measure of alarm and consternation. They did not seem attempting to mask their emotions. Yet Jim could not construe guilt out of their appearance. Young Newton surveyed him quizzically. The elder Foster swiftly recovered himself. Jim spoke first.

      “I’ve got to apologize for my appearance.” he said, “But I’ve been on the jump every minute that I wasn’t tied up since I saw you last.”

      “Tied up?” The ejaculation was unanimous. Jim could not detect any difference in expressions.

      “Hand and foot, with a couple of sacks to boot,” he said grimly. “Someone asked me to help them with a busted automobile on my way to your house at your invitation to talk things over, Mr. Foster. I stooped and somebody hit me over the head with a blackjack. The rest sounds like a chapter in a dime novel, but I had made up my mind to keep this appointment and here I am.”

      “But,” said Kitty Whiting, “you wrote me that you were going away. And you’ve been hurt. Oh—your poor hand!”

      “I hurt that on someone else, a gentleman by the name of Hellfire Swenson. I met him at Wareham, Buzzards Bay. Maybe you know the place?” He wheeled on Stephen Foster. There was the idea in the back of his head that Swenson might have been caretaker for Foster, the Wareham place the latter’s summer residence. But Foster’s face was absolutely blank. He was either an accomplished actor or—Jim’s theories commenced to suffer from a reaction that immediately grew.

      “Never heard it more than mentioned,” said Foster. “How about Lyman writing to you, Kitty? You didn’t tell me anything about it.” Jim looked from one to the other, puzzled. Then Foster didn’t know anything about the sending of the log.

      “I haven’t had a chance,” she said. “You and Newton were out of town, to begin with, up to this afternoon. Newton phoned early yesterday morning and told me you were going before the letter came by special delivery. As you were coming tonight it hardly seemed worth while until you told me that Mr. Lyman had missed an appointment with you. That was just before you came in,” she explained to Jim. And Jim, who could not suspect the girl of any connivance at his kidnapping, grew more bewildered, less and less sure of his own reasoning.

      “I was telling my niece what happened—what I thought happened,” said Stephen Foster frankly. “My son, against my own judgment—but I told you that over the phone. I will only say that when you did not appear we telephoned, and then ran down to the hotel in the car as soon as it was adjusted. I had a talk with the clerk, who showed me your baggage. It was, er—not of great value. He considered you had left it in lieu of payment. I must admit that I reverted to my original belief that you had in some way got hold of information concerning the Golden Dolphin and had arrived here with spurious information in the hope of a reward of some sort, abandoning the plan on seeing that your proofs would have to be submitted to more than casual investigation. In other words, I thought you got cold feet when I suggested an interview, not with more or less interested and credulous women influenced by sentiment, but with me.

      “I apologize. It is evident you have been more or less misjudged by us. Very evident that you have been at—er—some pains to return, after rough treatment that seems to have been extended to both sides of the argument. Now will you tell us what has happened; why you wrote that you were not coming back; why you changed your mind, and, seemingly, fought your way back?”

      Despite himself, Jim found his feelings changing toward Stephen Foster. There was a frankness about his regrets, a thawing of his general chilliness, a changing in his eyes, a touch of actual humanity that affected him as the difference between heat and cold. But he did not forego caution, he was unable to cast off all suspicion.

      “I went,” he said, “because I found myself regarded by you as a faker; because I feared that Miss Whiting was being swayed by sentimentality, and I thought the chances of finding her father on the island remote; because she offered me a share of the pearls in return for the figures which I considered belonged to her.

      “Therefore, I mailed her the little diary, intending to leave. I considered you had a right to such information as I might give about landings and anchorages, so I told you I would come to your house. I have changed my mind about the possibilities of the trip. At any rate I am now inclined to think the pearls are there. Others do, also, it appears. In order to get a chance to get away from my host at Wareham I had to furnish him with false figures. It was very plain he intended going to the island. I hope he’ll try to go to the position I furnished him. I am afraid he won’t. From my short acquaintance with him I should be surprised if he does not make another attempt to get hold of the correct figures—he, or those who may be behind him, who might have been behind the mutiny that Captain Whiting hinted at in his letters to his daughter.

      “So, as soon as I could, I wired Miss Whiting, also Miss Warner for security, not to divulge the figures I had given her to anybody under any consideration. And I would advise her to hang on to them until the last necessary moment—that would be after leaving Fiji—if she makes the trip.”

      Jim said this almost defiantly, striving to detect some clew that father or son, or both, were what he had surmised. Stephen Foster’s face showed little but grave attention. Newton Foster displayed close interest. Nothing more.

      “I consider that an excellent idea,” said Foster. “I СКАЧАТЬ