One Wonderful Night: A Romance of New York
trans-shipment of building materials, and a quick scrutiny showed that
the lane supplied the only practicable means of egress. Some gaunt
sheds blocked one end of the wharf and piles of dressed stone cumbered
the other. The tiny wavelets of the river murmured and gurgled amid
the heavy piles which shored up the landing-place, and Devar's sharp
eyes soon detected a corner of the gray-colored limousine round which a
ripple had formed. In all probability the heated cylinders had burst
when the water rushed in, and the explosion had tilted the chassis,
else the river, necessarily deep by the side of the quay, would have
concealed the wreckage completely.
From out of the mist came a white glare. Brodie had set the lamps
going, and now the square section of the submerged car became
distinctly visible. A little to one side a barge was moored, and the
policeman, who had produced a serviceable looking revolver, determined
to search it.
A plank spanned the foot or so of interstice between the quay and the
rough deck, and, in the flurry of the moment, the three men crossed
without warning the chauffeur as to their movements. The squat craft
had an open well amidships, but there were two covered-in ends, and
McCulloch, taking one of the lamps, peered down into the nearest
hatchway.
"If anyone is below there, speak," he said, "or I give you warning that
I shall shoot at sight."
There was no answer; he knelt down, lowered the lamp, and peered inside.
"Empty!" he announced. "Now for the other one."
He repeated the same tactics, but the cavity revealed no lurking form
within. Naturally, his companions were absorbed in McCulloch's
actions, because they knew that any instant a blinding sheet of flame
might leap out of the darkness and a bullet send him prostrate and
writhing. Of the three, Curtis was most inured to an environment that
was unusual and weird, and he it was who first noticed that the barge
was altering its position with regard to the white discs of light which
the lamps of the automobile formed in the mist, and a splash caused by
the falling plank confirmed his frenzied doubt.
One glance showed what had happened. Already they were ten or twelve
feet from the quay, which stood fully two feet above the deck of the
barge. Even while the fantastic notion flashed through his mind, a
shoreward jump barely achievable by a first-rate athlete became a sheer
impossibility.
"Good Lord!" he cried, almost laughing with vexation. "The barge has
been cast off from her moorings!"
Devar and McCulloch greeted the discovery with appropriate remarks, but
the situation called for deeds rather than words. The cumbrous craft
was swinging gayly out into the stream, displaying a light-hearted
energy and ease of motion which would certainly not have been
forthcoming had it been the object of her unwilling crew to get her
under way.
The whereabouts of Brodie and the automobile were still vaguely
discernible by two fast converging luminous circles now some twenty
yards distant, and the fact was painfully borne in on them that in
another few seconds this landmark would be swallowed in a sea of mist
and swirling waters.
Curtis, accustomed to the vagaries of Chinese junks in the swift
currents of the Yang-tse-Kiang, adopted the only measures which
promised any degree of success. He ran to the helm, which had been
lashed on the starboard side to keep it from fouling any submerged
piles near the bank. Casting it loose, he put it hard a-port, and
shouted to the policeman and Devar to bring a couple of boards from the
floor of the well, and use them to sheer in the hulk to the bank.
The night was pitch dark, the mist fell on them like an impenetrable
veil, and the wooded heights which dominated both banks of the river
prevented any ray of light from coming to their assistance. Still,
they had two lamps, which at least enabled them to see each other, and
Curtis could judge with reasonable accuracy of the direction they were
taking by the set of the stream. They seemed to have been toiling a
weary time before the helmsman fancied he could see something looming
out of the void. He believed that, however slowly, they were surely
forging inshore again, and was about to ask Devar to abandon his
valiant efforts to convert a long plank into a paddle and go forward in
order to keep a lookout, when the barge crashed heavily into the stern
of a ship of some sort, and simultaneously bumped into a wharf. The
noise was terrific, coming so unexpectedly out of the silence, and
their argosy careened dangerously under some obstruction forward.
No orders were needed now. They scrambled ashore, abandoning one of
the lamps in their desperate hurry, and the policeman instantly
extinguished the light of the other by pressing the glass closely to
his breast when a rumble of curses heralded the coming on deck of two
men who had been aroused from sleep on board the vessel by the
thunderous onset of the colliding barge.
CHAPTER XII
TWO-THIRTY A. M.
Few men or women of sympathetic nature, and gifted with ordinary powers
of observation, can go through life without learning, at some time or
other in the course of their careers, that circumstances wholly beyond
human control can display on occasion a fiendish faculty of converting
patent honesty into apparent dishonesty--and that which is true of
motive holds equally good in the case of conduct.
The three men standing breathless and unmoved on some unknown wharf on
the left bank of the Hudson might fairly be described as superlatively
honest persons, nor had they done any act which could be construed as
wrongful by the most captious critic; yet McCulloch's concealment of
the lamp suggested something thievish and illicit, and, though he alone
could give a valid reason for exercising extreme discretion, because he
realized, better than the others, what a choice morsel this adventure
would supply to the press if ever it became known, both Curtis and
Devar listened like himself with bated breath to the oaths and
ejaculations which came from the after part of the moored vessel.
"Howly war!" cried one of the startled crew. "See what's butted into
us--the divvle's own battherin'-ram av a scow, an' wid an ilegant
lanthern shtuck on her mangy hide, if ye plaze."
A ship's lamp bobbed up and down in the gloom, and another voice said
gruffly:
"Mighty good job we had those fenders out, or she would have knocked a
hole in us. She seems to be wedged in good and hard under our mooring
rope; but shin over, Pat, an' make her fast. Somebody owns the brute,
an' there'll be damages to pay for this, an' p'raps salvage as well."
The Irishman dropped down into the barge. The silent trio on the quay
heard him walking to the lamp, and saw its dull orb of radiance lifted
from the deck.
"Begob, but this is a bit of a fairy tale," came the comment. "Here is
none o' yer tin-cint Standard Ile prapositions, but a rale dandy uv a
lamp, fit for a lady's cabin on Vandherbilt's yacht. An', for the luv
o' Hiven, look at the make uv it, wid a handle where the bottom ought
to be, an' all polished up like the pewther in Casey's saloon."
"Oh, get a move on, Pat, an' tie her up," said the other voice. "It's
the Lord knows what o'clock, an' we've a long day before us to-morrow."
The lamp moved astern, and the Irishman investigated matters further.
"There's bin black wur-rk here, George," he shouted. "The moorin' rope
nivver bruk. It was cut."
A sharp hiss of breath between McCulloch's teeth betrayed the stress of
his emotions. To think that he, a smart roundsman of the Broadway
squad, should have been bested so thoroughly by a miserable alien
chauffeur! The man had merely slipped over the edge of the quay, and
clung like a limpet to the rough baulks of timber which faced it; when
his pursuers were safely disposed of on board the barge, one cut of a
sharp knife had sent them adrift by the stern, while the forward rope,
released of any strain, had probably uncoiled itself from a stanchion
with the diabolical ingenuity which inanimate objects can display at
unlooked-for moments.
"Fling a coil uv line here," continued the speaker. "This fag ind is
no good, at all at all."
The thud of a falling rope, and various grunts and comments from the
Irishman, showed that the barge was being secured. Still the three
waited. The primary display of secrecy, the instinct to remain unseen,
had passed, but there was nothing to be gained by entering into a long
and difficult explanation with the ship's hands, while it would be a
simple matter to recoup the owner of the barge for any charge which
might be levied on him for injury to the vessel, provided the liability
rested with him and not with others.
Swearing and grumbling, Pat stumbled along the quay, carrying the lamp.
He passed within a few feet of the motionless group, and soon they
heard him and his mate descending the companionway to their bunks.
"Now for a light," said the policeman, "and let's get out of this!"
Taking heed not to turn the lamp toward the ship, lest their movements
should be overheard and a head pop up out of the hatch, he led the way
quietly to the rear of the wharf. A rough road climbed the hill to the
left, and, as this direction offered the only probable means of
regaining the car, they took it.
After a long climb they reached a better road, which ultimately brought
them into a main thoroughfare. Then Curtis bethought him of looking at
his watch, and was astonished to find that the hour was half-past two
o'clock.
"By Jove!" he cried. "We must have consumed fully half an hour over
that trip. I wonder whether your man has waited, Devar; or would he
give us up as lost, and go home?"
"What! Arthur return alone, and tell my aunt that the last he saw of
me I was adrift on the Hudson River in a barge with a policeman and a
swashbuckler from Pekin? Not much!"
"I hope you are right, sir," said McCulloch. "Even when we reach New
York I must trouble you two gentlemen to come to the station-house and
report the whole affair, as I was due there an hour ago, and the entire
precinct will have been scoured for news of me by this time."
Devar laughed loudly.
"I don't want to alarm you, McCulloch--not that you are of the neurotic
habit, judging by the way you took a chance of having a hole bored
through you while searching that blessed barge--but if you believe you
can frame a cut-and-dried programme during the time you have retained
John D. Curtis's services as guide, philosopher, and friend, you are
hugging a delusion. I started out from a happy home last evening
intending to pick up a friendless stranger and show him the orthodox
sights of New York. Gee whizz! Look at me now! I missed John D. by a
few minutes, but found myself gaping with the crowd at the scene of a
murder in which he had figured heavily. Since then I have helped to
break open hotel doors, discovered a villain tied and gagged by other
villains, stood on my head in Morris Siegelman's joint, started a riot
in East Broadway, helped a detective to commit a larceny, cheeked a
British lord, and scoffed at a Hungarian prince, to say nothing of the
present racket. So don't you go making plans for the night yet a
while, McCulloch, because John D. will keep you busy without any call
for you exercising your brain cells in that respect."
The roundsman did not try to grasp the inner significance of this
rigmarole. He was unfeignedly glad to have escaped from an awkward
predicament.
"Anyhow," he said briefly, "if it comes to the worst I can ring up my
captain from the nearest station-house, and at least he will know where
I am."
"Don't be too sure of that, either. Suppose you had 'phoned your