The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
official playfully), "but I didn't get any grub. So we'll have to go to Far Harbor."
I caught the hint. Mr. Cooke had given out that he had started for Saville to restock the larder.
"No," he continued, "Brass Buttons didn't let me get to Saville. You see, when he got back to town last night they told him he had been buncoed out of the biggest thing for years, and they got it into his head that I was child enough to run a ferry for criminals. They told him he wasn't the sleuth he thought he was, so he came back. They'll have the laugh on him now, for sure."
McCann listened with admirable good-nature, gravely pulling at his cigar, and eyeing Mr. Cooke with a friendly air of admiration.
"Mr. Crocker," he said, with melancholy humor, "it's leery I am with the whole shooting-match. Mr. Cooke here is a gentleman, every inch of him, and so be you, Mr. Crocker. But I'm just after taking a look at the hole in the bottom of the boat. 'Ye have yer bunks in queer places, Mr. Cooke,' says I. It's not for me to be doubting a gentleman's word, sir, but I'm thinking me man is over the hills and far away, and that's true for ye."
Mr. Cooke winked expressively.
"McCann, you've been jerked," said he. "Have another bottle!"
The Sinclair towed us to Far Harbor for a consideration, the wind being strong again from the south, and McCann was induced by the affable owner to remain on the yellow-plush yacht. I cornered him before we had gone a great distance.
"McCann," said I, "what made you come back to-day?"
"Faith, Mr. Crocker, I don't care if I am telling you. I always had a liking for you, sir, and bechune you and me it was that divil O'Meara what made all the trouble. I wasn't taking his money, not me; the saints forbid! But glory be to God, if he didn't raise a rumpus whin I come back without Allen! It was sure he was that the gent left that place,--what are ye calling it?--Mohair, in the Maria, and we telegraphs over to Asquith. He swore I'd lose me job if I didn't fetch him to-day. Mr. Crocker, sir, it's the lumber business I'll be startin' next week," said McCann.
"Don't let that worry you, McCann," I answered. "I will see that you don't lose your place, and I give you my word again that Charles Wrexell Allen has never been aboard this yacht, or at Mohair to my knowledge. What is more, I will prove it to-morrow to your satisfaction."
McCann's faith was touching.
"Ye're not to say another word, sir," he said, and he stuck out his big hand, which I grasped warmly.
My affection for McCann still remains a strong one.
After my talk with McCann I was sitting on the forecastle propped against the bitts of the Maria's anchor-chain, and looking at the swirling foam cast up by the tug's propeller. There were many things I wished to turn over in my mind just then, but I had not long been in a state of reverie when I became conscious that Miss Thorn was standing beside me. I got to my feet.
"I have been wondering how long you would remain in that trance, Mr. Crocker," she said. "Is it too much to ask what you were thinking of?"
Now it so chanced that I was thinking of her at that moment. It would never have done to say this, so I stammered. And Miss Thorn was a young woman of tact.
"I should not have put that to so literal a man as you," she declared. "I fear that you are incapable of crossing swords. And then," she added, with a slight hesitation that puzzled me, "I did not come up here to ask you that,--I came to get your opinion."
"My opinion?" I repeated.
"Not your legal opinion," she replied, smiling, "but your opinion as a citizen, as an individual, if you have one. To be frank, I want your opinion of me. Do you happen to have such a thing?"
I had. But I was in no condition to give it.
"Do you think me a very wicked girl?" she asked, coloring. "You once thought me inconsistent, I believe, but I am not that. Have I done wrong in leading the Celebrity to the point where you saw him this morning?"
"Heaven forbid!" I cried fervently; "but you might have spared me a great deal had you let me into the secret."
"Spared you a great deal," said Miss Thorn. "I--I don't quite understand."
"Well--" I began, and there I stayed. All the words in the dictionary seemed to slip out of my grasp, and I foundered. I realized I had said something which even in my wildest moments I had not dared to think of. My secret was out before I knew I possessed it. Bad enough had I told it to Farrar in an unguarded second. But to her! I was blindly seeking some way of escape when she said softly:
"Did you really care?"
I am man enough, I hope, when there is need to be. And it matters not what I felt then, but the words came back to me.
"Marian," I said, "I cared more than you will ever learn."
But it seems that she had known all the time, almost since that night I had met her at the train. And how? I shall not pretend to answer, that being quite beyond me. I am very sure of one thing, however, which is that I never told a soul, man or woman, or even hinted at it. How was it possible when I didn't know myself?
The light in the west was gone as we were pulled into Far Harbor, and the lamps of the little town twinkled brighter than I had ever seen them before. I think they must have been reflected in our faces, since Miss Trevor, when she came forward to look for us, saw something there and openly congratulated us. And this most embarrassing young woman demanded presently:
"How did it happen, Marian? Did you propose to him?"
I was about to protest indignantly, but Marian laid her hand on my arm.
"Tell it not in Asquith," said she. "Irene, I won't have him teased any more."
We were drawing up to the dock, and for the first time I saw that a crowd was gathered there. The report of this chase had gone abroad. Some began calling out to McCann when we came within distance, among others the editor of the Northern Lights, and beside him I perceived with amusement the generous lines: of the person of Mr. O'Meara himself. I hurried back to give Farrar a hand with the ropes, and it was O'Meara who caught the one I flung ashore and wound it around a pile. The people pressed around, peering at our party on the Maria, and I heard McCann exhorting them to make way. And just then, as he was about to cross the plank, they parted for some one from behind. A breathless messenger halted at the edge of the wharf. He held out a telegram.
McCann seized it and dived into the cabin, followed closely by my client and those of us who could push after. He tore open the envelope, his eye ran over the lines, and then he began to slap his thigh and turn around in a circle, like a man dazed.
"Whiskey!" shouted Mr. Cooke. "Get him a glass of Scotch!"
But McCann held up his hand.
"Holy Saint Patrick!" he said, in a husky voice, "it's upset I am, bottom upwards. Will ye listen to this?"
"'Drew is your man. Reddish hair and long side whiskers, gray clothes. Pretends to represent summer hotel syndicate. Allen at Asquith unknown and harmless.
"' (Signed.) Everhardt."'
"Sew me up," said Mr. Cooke; "if that don't beat hell!"
CHAPTER XXI
In this world of lies the good and the bad are so closely intermingled that frequently one is the means of obtaining the other. Therefore, I wish very freely to express my obligations to the