The dangerous game
readers of his books must never know. The secret was his own--a
strange secret of real life, of which, if he dared to write it in one
of his novels, the truth would be put down as fiction.
For nearly two hours he lay pondering, as the yacht rolled in the
heavy seas which now and then thundered upon the deck above and caused
the vessel to quiver from stern to bow.
Suddenly the second officer opened the door of the cabin and said:
“The captain says, sir, that the _Prinz Luitpold_ is about five miles
ahead of us, and he’d like to see you.”
Darville, who was still half dressed, hurried on his coat and rushed
to the bridge.
“Look!” cried the captain. “There she is!” He pointed to a distant
light, a mere speck in the darkness ahead. “Now I propose to burn
flares of distress, and call to her by wireless, asking for
assistance. What do you think, sir?”
“An excellent idea,” was Darville’s reply.
“We’re off Fiume. Let’s go to the wireless-room.” Then he gave the
second officer instructions to burn a flare in five minutes’ time.
In the wireless-cabin the captain scribbled a message to the captain
of the mail-boat, asking him to heave to and render him assistance. A
few moments later the operator was calling the _Prinz Luitpold_, which
with other vessels almost at once responded.
Then the generator hummed again, and the smart young fellow tapped out
the message of distress heard by every vessel in the Adriatic.
Afterwards he switched off, and listened eagerly for the reply.
“O.K., sir,” said the young man suddenly, addressing the captain.
“She’s coming back to us.”
“Harrison!” shouted the skipper, looking out of the cabin, along the
deck. “Light the flare!”
A few seconds later the vessel was illuminated by an intense blue
glare--the signal of distress.
Then, when it died down, they saw the lights on the vessel ahead
slowly alter, as she changed her course, then they knew that she was
steaming straight in their direction.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREAT SECRET
Darville stood on the bridge with the yacht’s captain as the vessel
quickly approached. A second flare of distress went up from the
yacht’s deck, and as the steamer came on the two men chuckled to
themselves at their success.
The captain had carried out the orders of his owner, while the
latter’s guest had been successful in his desire to be put on board
the mail-steamer.
Few words were spoken between them. The captain’s eyes were strained
into the darkness for some minutes.
“We’ll have to make some good excuse for our distress signals,” he
remarked to Darville, who stood at his elbow. “We seafaring men don’t
like pranks being played.”
“Tell him there’s something wrong in the engine-room,” said the
novelist, never at a loss for an excuse. “You can order the engineer
to put something out of gear, can’t you?”
“There’s no time,” replied the other, still peering into the darkness
where the steamer’s lights were coming closer. Suddenly he cried: “By
Gad, sir! We’re mistaken! She isn’t the _Prinz Luitpold_! She’s the
Venice boat to Pola and Fiume! We’ve made an infernal blunder!”
Next second he yelled to the mate:
“Signal all well! Quick! It’s the wrong boat!”
And, placing his hand upon the engine-room signal, he pulled it over
to “Full speed ahead.”
Then, taking up his megaphone, the captain shouted:
“Ahoy, there! Ahoy! We’re very much obliged, but we’ve put the damage
right. Lots of thanks for coming back! Do the same for you one day!”
This was answered by some rather uncourtly remarks in Italian from the
other vessel, the captain of which, angered at his loss of salvage,
put over his helm, and the ship turned away as though in disgust.
“By Jove, sir! We nearly made fools of ourselves--eh?” exclaimed the
breezy yacht’s captain to Darville. “It don’t do to play monkey-tricks
at sea. I certainly believed her to be the _Prinz Luitpold_.” They
both went along to the wireless-cabin, where the young operator,
having spoken to the mail-boat and told her that there was no longer
any danger, inquired where she was.
The reply came in Morse, and the operator read it aloud. “We turned
back for you eight miles off Trieste. Now resuming our course.”
“Eight miles from Trieste! Why the passengers will land before
midnight, and we shan’t be there till to-morrow.”
“They’ll have twelve hours’ start of us!” remarked Darville, in keen
disappointment, and then he turned and paced the deck alone. He had
been badly checkmated by Joan. A strong man, of iron constitution, a
man who had never known a day’s illness for thirty years, yet who had
played ducks and drakes with his life, keeping late hours and leading
the gayest existence in all the most reckless circles in the various
Continental cities, he who knew not love, had pretended to make love
to Caborn’s wife! The whole affair was silly and unreal--a scene out
of one of his own books. He had pretended to love her seriously, and
she had acted with both tact and honor. He had a hidden purpose in
playing at love. But to escape him surreptitiously, as she had done,
was an offence against his nature.
In that she had shown her enmity. Enemies he never forgave. Many men
were living who had cause to rue the day when they were at enmity with
Seton Darville. His almost child-like, sympathetic nature, ever full
of good-humor and genuine _bonhomie_, attracted women, and perhaps
more so because of his whole-hearted cosmopolitanism. Most smart women
of to-day love a cosmopolitan; the man who laughs at stay-at-homes,
domesticity, at marriage ties, and hum-drum application to sordid
money-making in business. Some men are born wanderers, and, as hotel
gypsies, lead their erratic lives traveling to and fro across Europe,
acquiring an unerring knowledge of hotels, cafés and hairdressers. Of
such, Seton Darville was one.
On entering the great busy harbor of Trieste the captain steered for
the Molo Giuseppina, and landed his eager passenger near the fine
offices of the Austrian Lloyd Steamship Company, the owners of the
_Prinz Luitpold_. It was early afternoon and the clerks were just
returning from their luncheon. At a pigeon-hole in the big public
office, with its fine tessellated pavement, he requested the
inspection of the passenger list of the mail-boat from Corfu. After
brief delay it was brought, and under the initial “C” was “Signora J.
Caborn--Londra.”
“You have no idea where this lady is staying, I suppose,” he asked of
the young Italian clerk.
“Well, signore, yes--I do,” was his reply. “I went on board before the
vessel landed her passengers, and she came up to me to inquire for
apartments. She seemed greatly agitated and traveling alone, so I took
her to a friend of mine, a Madame Pastore, who lives in the Via
Farneto, No. 168.”
“And she is there?” cried the novelist, instantly interested.
“I presume so. She went there in a taxi with all her belongings,” the
young fellow said.
Ten minutes later Darville was in the taxi speeding up the narrow
streets which surround the old castle, and across the Piazza Carlo
Goldoni. He first went to the railway station to leave his small
baggage, and then, reëntering the vehicle, soon reached the broad,
modern street of high houses which had been indicated.
On the third floor of No. 168 he found a small brass plate upon which
the name “Pastore” was inscribed.
Madame Pastore, a pleasant-faced woman of about forty, appeared, and
in response to the novelist’s questions, said:
“The signora came here very late last night, slept a few hours, and
went out again about eleven o’clock. She received a telegram at the
_poste restante_, I think. On her return she apologized to me and said
she was suddenly called to London.”
Darville’s brows contracted.
“To London!” he muttered to himself, and a few minutes later he was on
his way back to the South Station, where he found that the
Trieste-Vienna-Paris train-de-luxe had left just an hour after Joan
had gone from Madame Pastore’s. She had, no doubt, caught that train,
and was now well on her way to the Austrian capital.
For a few moments he hesitated. Should he wire to her, and address the
message care of the station-master at Vienna, where it would be handed
to her in the _wagon-lit_. He, however, decided against that course.
Joan Caborn had a long start, but he intended to run her to earth at
whatever might be her destination, either in Paris or in London.
She had not played the straight game, hence his suspicions were more
than ever confirmed.
He went to the office of the Wagon-Lit Company on the platform, and
there ascertained that Madame Caborn had, at the last moment, booked a
berth in the Paris train-de-luxe.
The next train to Paris left at midnight, therefore he went to the
Hotel Excelsior, on the Riva del Maddracchio, dined, and subsequently
followed the route that Joan had taken. Before he left, however, he
dispatched a telegram to an address in Paris--a commercial message
which, no doubt, conveyed some hidden meaning.
Through the night, as the train roared on its way north to the
Austrian capital, he lay in his narrow sleeping-berth wakeful and
restless. The berth above him was occupied by a bearded plethoric old
man, who snored so loudly that he could be heard above the racket of
the train. Then in the morning, after they left Vienna, he went along
to the restaurant-car, and had his _déjeuner_ as the train rushed
towards Passau. The day was long and dreary as it always is in the
cross-Europe trains. At Wels the sleeping-car was joined to another
train, and then the journey towards Paris began.
On arrival there he was met by a smartly dressed, middle-aged
Frenchman who, gesticulating in his excitement, said:
“I had your telegram, but I’ve been absent in Lille. She left before I
received it! She’s gone to London.”
Darville paused. Then he smiled:
“No,” he said. “Not by any direct route. I know Joan Caborn too well
for that.” He glanced at his watch, and added: “A wire to Dover will
arrive too late. If I’m not mistaken she’ll leave the boat there, and
go to London by some roundabout route. Little Vera did it once, you’ll
remember.”
“I know, Mr. Darville,” said the mysterious man who had met him on the
platform. “The lady is very elusive. Have you any fear of her, or her
friends?”
Darville laughed aloud.
“Fear!” he echoed. “Have you ever known me to fear? Why, my dear
fellow, I don’t think I know what fear means!”
The stranger shrugged his shoulders, and in French said with a smile:
“The lady may prove troublesome.”
“That is my own affair,” responded Darville in the same language. “In
any case, she has been very clever in escaping. I have no doubt she’ll
leave the boat at Dover and cover up her tracks. She’s done so before,
you recollect.”
The Frenchman smiled, and together they went out to a café across the
road, where they sat for half an hour. By the next service from Paris
to London, Seton Darville, the constant traveler, who was known by
name to the chief of the _wagon-restaurant_, left the Gare du Nord and
took a seat for luncheon.
On arrival at Dover, in consequence of a telegram, a short, thick-set
man in a blue serge suit, who looked like a nautical man, met him on
the platform at the Marine Station. Few words were exchanged, but it
was plain that Darville was absolutely disgusted. Therefore the
novelist made some very outspoken and caustic remarks, and then
entered the Pullman for Victoria.
He drove at once to his rooms in Duke Street, St. James’s, where he
was met by his faithful man Drew, and, having washed and changed, he
went to the telephone, and, after a short conversation, invited the
person at the other end to come round and see him.
About a quarter of an hour later Drew, a middle-aged servant who had