C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
errand, who could tell? The girl's heart was beating high with hope, no doubt. How little she guessed that, half across the world, a man was setting forth to defeat her plans, even if they attained success!
Chapter XII.
Stand and Deliver!
The Marchese Loria had always been lucky in games of chance. In this biggest game of all Fortune still stood behind him and, with a guiding finger, pointed out the cards to play.
There were no delays in his programme. His ship arrived in port precisely at the appointed hour. He was able to go on immediately to San Francisco. There he was just in time to catch a boat for Samoa. He wired to his friend, Monsieur de Letz, the French Consul, that he was coming, and received an enthusiastic welcome. The Consul was a bachelor, approaching middle age, was intensely bored with the monotony of life on an island of the Pacific, and was ravished with the chance of entertaining a personage so brilliant in the great far-away world as the Marchese Loria. He had a charming house, and a good cook; some wine also, and cigars of the best. Loria arrived at dinner-time, and afterward, smoking and talking in the moonlight on a broad verandah, the guest led up to the question he was half dying to ask.
"Have you heard any exciting news lately?" he airily inquired, in a tone that hovered between pleasantry and mystery.
"Does one ever hear exciting news in this place?" groaned the French Consul. "Nothing has happened for years. Nothing is ever likely to happen again now that we have become so dull and peaceful here."
"No news of another visitor?"
"Another visitor?"
"A gentleman from New Caledonia."
"Mon Dieu! How did you know that?"
"Is it then so difficult to know, mon ami?"
"One hopes so. It is not good that these things should leak out and reach the public ear. The information is very private. The authorities at home and abroad do all they can to keep it dark, and yet it seems——"
"My ear isn't exactly the 'public ear,' as I'll presently explain. But it is a fact, then, that a convict has escaped from the Ile Nou, and you have got word that he is likely to turn up here on board a steam yacht?"
"It is a fact. I see you have the whole story. But how did you get it?"
"I'll tell you that later. First, just a question or two, if you don't mind, for I happen to be interested in the affair. How long ago did the fellow get away—or rather, when may the yacht, the Bella Cuba, be expected here, if at all?"
"She might come in to-morrow."
Loria gave a long sigh. He was lying back in a big easy-chair and sending out ring after ring of blue smoke, which he watched, as they disappeared, with half-shut eyes. One would have fancied him the embodiment of happy laziness, unless one had chanced to notice the tension of the fingers which grasped an arm of the chair.
"What will happen when she does come in?"
"Oh, trouble for me, and nothing to show for it."
"What do you mean?"—with a sudden change of tone.
"All I could do, I have done; which is to inform the Government authorities here that on board the expected yacht is a runaway forçat belonging to France, and ask that he be arrested on the yacht's arrival."
"And then?"
"Then a boat will go out to meet this Bella Cuba as she comes into the harbour, and she will be requested to give up the man. Her people will say that there's no such person there, and refuse to let any one on board."
"But surely you could detain the yacht and search? The Bella Cuba comes from Sydney and New Caledonia. If you had reason to believe that there was a case of plague on board, for instance, the yacht would be quarantined."
"Yes; but if she were detained, and the convict found on board, he couldn't be identified by any one here. There has been no time for a photograph to arrive from New Caledonia. He won't be dressed like a convict; his hair will have grown. I have only the description telegraphed. His friends will take care he doesn't answer to that. Even if the Government fellows here had any pluck and wanted to attempt an arrest they wouldn't dare, with no one to identify the forçat. You see, the yacht will be flying the English or American flag, and so——"
"I can identify him."
"You? There is a mystery then. I scented it at your first words."
"Scarcely a mystery. You have been very good to answer my questions. Answer one more now, and I'll explain everything. Suppose I can put you in the way of identifying this man, without chance of error; suppose I can put you up to a trick for detaining the yacht, is there any hope, if I proved to you it would be for your own advantage, as well as of everybody else concerned, that you could have the man arrested, and sent back where he deserves to be?"
The Frenchman hesitated. Then he said slowly, and more gravely than he had yet spoken: "Yes, I think I could."
"That is well, for he is a fiend in human shape, not fit to be at large. Worse than all, if he escapes, he is almost certain to ruin the life of the woman I love, and end my hopes of winning her."
"Mon Dieu! We must send him back to New Caledonia, to spend the rest of his life in the Black Cell!" enthusiastically exclaimed De Letz. "But my curiosity is on the stretch. A moment more unsatisfied, and it snaps."
"It shall be satisfied on the instant. I'll tell you the story in as few words as may be. You remember the crime committed by this fellow—for of course you know that, before he was Convict 1280, he was Maxime Dalahaide?"
"I know that. I know he is a murderer. But it is eight years, you must recollect, since I was in France, long before the thing happened. I took no particular interest in the crime, as I had never met the Dalahaides. He killed a woman: so much I recall. You were acquainted with him, I suppose?"
"To my sorrow. I thought he was my friend. He was a traitor. I cared for his sister. She loved and would have married me; but because I knew too much about him and his evil ways, he did not want me in the family. He told the girl and her parents lies. They believed them and sent me away. He borrowed huge sums of money of me, and never paid—never meant to pay. Always he was my secret enemy, yet when the world knew he was a murderer I strained every nerve to save his life, for his sister's sake. I did save it. But for every one concerned it was better that he should be removed where he could no longer strike at society, and I could scarcely regret his fate. Four years passed; I loved again, this time a beautiful American girl, the most perfect creature I have ever seen, and a great heiress. Madeleine Dalahaide had learned to detest me. She prejudiced this girl against me, and, not satisfied with that, excited her romantic nature to sympathy for the murderer, as a victim of injustice. The Bella Cuba is this girl's yacht—Miss Beverly's. She bought it in the hope of rescuing Maxime Dalahaide, and if he can escape, there is little doubt that she will put her hand in his, red though it is with a detestable crime. She must be saved from so ghastly a fate. But if she learns that she owes the failure of her plans to me, she will hate me to the death, and I shall lose all hope of her; whereas, if my agency in this affair could be hidden from her knowledge, the chances are that, if I could keep my head, I might win back her heart, after it is healed from its first disappointment. Help me to accomplish this, De Letz, for the sake of old times, and there's nothing you can ask of me that I will not do. Italian though I am, you know that my French cousins have powerful political influence. They shall use it to the utmost for you, and get you what post you please. I promise it—and I never break a promise to a friend."
"You fire me with your own enthusiasm!" cried De Letz. "We shall work the thing between us. But if you, and you alone, can identify this man, how will your part in the business be kept dark?"
"I