Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone: or, The Plot Against Uncle Sam. Ralphson George Harvey
Frank as one of his father’s favored attendants. He stood by the couch as the boys stepped into the room, his bold black eyes studying their faces impertinently as they entered.
The man was not far from forty, tall, slender, dusky of face – plainly in intellectual capacity and breeding far above the menial position he occupied in the house. Standing in repose, his figure was erect and well balanced, like that of a man trained to military service.
But even as he stood subserviently by the couch of his employer, his slender hands at his sides, there seemed to be something of the alertness of a wild beast in his physical attitude of suppression. Somehow, he gave Ned the impression of one about to spring forth upon an enemy.
After the presentations were made, it was with the greatest difficulty that Lieutenant Gordon restrained himself from at once taking up the topic he had discussed with Mr. Shaw so unsatisfactorily that afternoon – the subject of the plot against the Gatun dam. What did the editor know? What did he suspect concerning the raid on his home? Did he believe that the plotters had opened their defense right there in the city of New York?
However, he curbed his hasty impulse, knowing that the information he sought was not to be obtained in that way. Mr. Shaw was looking upon the matter entirely from the standpoint of an enterprising journalist, and would be cautious about giving out his own discoveries and impressions.
“Are you still suffering from the effects of the chloroform?” asked the lieutenant, anxiously.
“I’m still a little weak,” was the reply, “and still a little tippy at the stomach, but Benson tells me that I shall be well again in an hour.”
“You were of course attacked without warning,” the lieutenant continued, half hoping that the editor would enter into a full and frank discussion of the event.
“Entirely so,” was the reply. “I was sitting at my desk when the door was opened and some one entered. I thought it was Pedro, for I had just rung for him, and did not look around. Then I was seized from behind and a handkerchief soaked with chloroform thrust into my face.”
“You did not see your assailant?” asked Ned.
“Now for the cross-examination,” laughed the editor. “I have heard something of Mr. Nestor’s work in the secret service,” he added, “and shall be glad to answer any of his questions. Go ahead, my boy. No, to answer your first question, I did not see my assailant, and do not know whether there were two or only one.”
“Did you notice the time?” asked Ned, modestly.
“Yes, it was nine o’clock. The next I knew, Pedro was lifting me onto the couch, and a maid was lifting her voice to high heaven out in the corridor. That, I have since learned, was at ten o’clock, so, you see, the ruffians had an hour to work in.”
“They must have mussed the room up quite a lot in that time,” said the lieutenant, hoping to bring the editor to the point in which he was interested.
Mr. Shaw made no reply, but turned to Ned with a smile.
“Go ahead, Ned,” Frank cried. “We all want to know what ideas are brooding in that clever brain of yours.”
“I would like to ask,” Ned began, modestly, “if you can assign a reason for the attack upon you.”
“Why, they came into the house after the emerald necklace,” was the reply. “They looked here for it first. That is all.”
“But it appears that they knew the necklace to be in Frank’s safe,” urged Ned. “At least it did not take them long to find it there after the safe was unlocked and he was brought from his room.”
“Oh, well, they probably looked here first,” insisted the editor. “The manner in which they rummaged the place while I was unconscious shows that they searched for it here. The necklace was the thing sought, of course.”
“Did they take anything from the room?” asked Ned, and Lieutenant Gordon leaned forward, anxiously awaiting the answer.
“Not a thing,” was the quiet reply. “At least, I have missed nothing.”
“Perhaps the thing they sought was not found,” suggested Gordon, no longer able to keep the plot subject out of the conversation.
“I know what you mean, Lieutenant,” the other replied, “and I may as well tell you now that the papers to which you refer are not in the house – were not here and never have been here. They are perfectly safe, and we will drop them from the case, if you please.”
“I am naturally anxious about them,” said Gordon, “in the interest of the government, of course, for I believe they hold the key to a mystery I am asked to solve.”
“You may be mistaken as to the contents of the papers,” laughed Mr. Shaw. “Well,” he added, “we will eliminate them from the matter in hand. What next, Mr. Nestor? I have great hope of your success in unraveling this mystery of the necklace.”
“With your permission,” Ned replied, “and in your presence, I would like to ask your man a few questions.”
Pedro turned a pair of venomous eyes toward the speaker for just an instant. Then he stood respectfully looking at his master again. Ned saw the movement, the quick hostility of the glance, and felt surer of his ground than before.
“He will, I am sure, be happy to answer any questions you may ask,” said Mr. Shaw.
Pedro nodded, half defiantly, as though he felt humiliated by being placed at the service, even a verbal one, of a boy, and Ned asked:
“When you saw the men at the head of the staircase, what did you say to them?”
The answer came in perfect English, yet there was a something in the voice which told as plainly as words could have done that English was not the native tongue of the speaker.
“I ordered them from the house,” he said.
“And then they attacked you?”
“The mark of a hand is on my throat, sir.”
“How many men were there?”
“Two, sir, and they both piled on top of me.”
“There was no one else in the corridor?”
“No one.”
“They were armed, I presume?”
“I saw no weapons in their hands.”
“They might have killed you?”
“Only for the arrival of Master Shaw they might have done so.”
“Can you describe these men?” asked Ned.
“I don’t think I can, sir. I was too busy to notice their faces or their clothes during the short time I was with them.”
“Can you say whether one of them was tall and slender, with very black hair, turning gray in places?” asked Ned, fixing his eyes on those of the servant.
Pedro looked back at his questioner for an instant, and then his gaze fell to the floor.
“I can’t say,” he replied, slowly, while the others, amazed at the character of the question, turned to Ned for explanation.
“If the description I have given is recognized by you as that of one of the men you met in the corridor,” Ned went on, “can you tell me whether his clothing was wet or dry?”
There was dead silence in the room. There had been nothing thus far in the case leading up to this description, and those present looked at Ned with wonder in their faces. To say the least, the questions seemed irrelevant.
Pedro stood for a moment touching his dry lips with the tip of his tongue, his fingers clasping and unclasping, then his shoulders straightened into firmer lines and he faced his questioner with a smile of complacency.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“Perhaps I should have said damp clothing,” Ned replied. “The man I have in mind – the man who might have been one of your assailants