A Splendid Hazard, Harold MacGrath [websites to read books for free txt] 📗

yards from the quay. Every one was astir by now; but at the breakfast table there was one vacant chair-Breitmann's. M. Ferraud and Fitzgerald exchanged significant glances. In fact, the Frenchman drank his coffee hurriedly and excused himself. Breitmann was not on deck; neither was he in his state-room. The door was open. M. Ferraud, without any unnecessary qualms of conscience, went in. One glance at the trunk was sufficient. The lock hung down, disclosing the secret hollow. For once the little man's suavity forsook him, and he swore like a sailor, but softly. He rushed again to the deck and sought Captain Flanagan, who was enjoying a pipe forward.

"Captain, where is Mr. Breitmann?"

"Breitmann? Oh, he went ashore in one of the fruit-boats. Missed th' motor."

"Did he take any luggage?"

"Baggage?" corrected Captain Flanagan. "Nothin' but his hat, sir. Anythin' wrong?"

"Oh, no! We missed him at breakfast." M. Ferraud turned about, painfully conscious that he had been careless.

Fitzgerald hove in sight. "Find him?"

"Ashore!" said M. Ferraud, with a violent gesture.

"Isn't it time to make known who he is?"

"Not yet. It would start too many complications. Besides, I doubt if he has the true measurements."

"There was ample time for him to make a copy."

"Perhaps."

"Mr. Ferraud?"

"Well?"

"I've an idea, and I have had it for some time, that you wouldn't feel horribly disappointed if our friend made away with the money."

M. Ferraud shrugged; then he laughed quietly.

"Well, neither would I," Fitzgerald added.

"My son, you are a man after my own heart. I was furious for the moment to think that he had outwitted me the first move. I did not want him to meet his confederates without my eyes on him. And there you have it. It is not the money, which is morally his; it is his friends, his lying, mocking friends."

"Are we fair to the admiral? He has set his heart on this thing."

"And shall we spoil his pleasure? Let him find it out later."

"Do you know Corsica?"

"As the palm of my hand."

"But the women?"

"They will never be in the danger zone. No blood will be spilled, unless it be mine. He has no love for me, and I am his only friend, save one."

"Suppose this persecution of Germany's was only a blind?"

"My admiration for you grows, Mr. Fitzgerald. But I have dug too deeply into that end of it not to be certain that Germany has tossed this bombshell into France without holding a string to it. Did you know that Breitmann had once been hit by a spent bullet? Here," pointing to the side of his head. "He is always conscious of what he does but not of the force that makes him do it. Do you understand me? He is living in a dream, and I must wake him."

The adventurers were now ready to disembark. They took nothing but rugs and hand-bags, for there would be no preening of fine feathers on hotel verandas. With the exception of Hildegarde all were eager and excited. Her breast was heavy with forebodings. Who and what was this man Ferraud? One thing she knew; he was a menace to the man she loved, aye, with every throb of her heart and every thought of her mind.

The admiral was like a boy starting out upon his first fishing-excursion. To him there existed nothing else in the world beyond a chest of money hidden somewhere in the pine forest of Aïtone. He talked and laughed, pinched Laura's ears, shook Fitzgerald's shoulder, prodded Coldfield, and fussed because the motor wasn't sixty-horse power.

"Father," Laura asked suddenly, "where is Mr. Breitmann?"

"Oh, I told him last night to go ashore early, if he would, and arrange for rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Ajaccio. He knows all about the place."

M. Ferraud turned an empty face toward Fitzgerald, who laughed. The great-grandson of Napoleon, applying for hotel accommodations, as a gentleman's gentleman, and within a few blocks of the house in which the self-same historic forebear was born! It had its comic side.

"Are there any brigands?" inquired Mrs. Coldfield. She was beginning to doubt this expedition.

"Brigands? Plenty," said the admiral, "but they are all hotel proprietors these times, those that aren't conveniently buried. From here we go to Carghese, where we spend the night, then on to Evisa, and another night. The next morning we shall be on the ground. Isn't that the itinerary, Fitzgerald?"

"Yes."

"And be sure to take an empty carriage to carry canned food and bottled water," supplemented Cathewe. "The native food is frightful. The first time I took the journey I was ignorant. Happily it was in the autumn, when the chestnuts were ripe. Otherwise I should have starved."

"And you spent a winter or spring here, Hildegarde?" said Mrs. Coldfield.

"It was lovely then." There was a dream in Hildegarde's eyes.

The hotel omnibus was out of service, and they rode up in carriages. The season was over, and under ordinary circumstances the hotel would have been closed. A certain royal family had not yet left, and this fact made the arrangements possible. It was now very warm. Dust lay everywhere, on the huge palms, on the withered plants, on the chairs and railings, and swam palpable in the air. Breitmann was nowhere to be found, but he had seen the manager of the hotel and secured rooms facing the bay. Later, perhaps two hours after the arrival, he appeared. In this short time he had completed his plans. As he viewed them he could see no flaw.

Now it came about that Captain Flanagan, who had not left the ship once during the journey, found his one foot aching for a touch and feel of the land. So he and Holleran, the chief-engineer, came ashore a little before noon and decided to have a bite of maccaroni under the shade of the palms in the Place des Palmiers. A bottle of warm beer was divided between them. The captain said Faugh! as he drank it.

"Try th' native wine, Capt'n," suggested the chief-engineer.

"I have a picture of Cap'n Flanagan drinkin' the misnamed vinegar. No Dago's bare fut on the top o' mine, when I'm takin' a glass. An' that's th' way they make ut. This Napoleyun wus a fine man. He pushed 'em round some."

"Sure, he had Irish blood in 'im, somewheres," Holleran assented. "But I say," suddenly stretching his lean neck, "will ye look t' see who's comin' along!"

Flanagan stared. "If ut ain't that son-of-a-gun ov a Picard, I'll eat my hat!" The captain grew purple. "An' leavin' th' ship without orders!"

"An' the togs!" murmured Holleran.

"Watch me!" said Flanagan, rising and squaring his peg.

Picard, arrayed in clean white flannels, white shoes, a panama set rakishly on his handsome head, his fingers twirling a cane, came head-on into the storm. The very jauntiness of his stride was as a red rag to the captain. So then, a hand, heavy and charged with righteous anger, descended upon Picard's shoulder.

"Right about face an' back to th' ship, fast as yer legs c'n make ut!"

Picard calmly shook off the hand, and, adding a vigorous push which sent the captain staggering among the little iron-tables, proceeded nonchalantly. Holleran leaped to his feet, but there was a glitter in Picard's eye that did not promise well for any rough-and-tumble fight. Picard's muscular shoulders moved off toward the vanishing point. Holleran turned to the captain, and with the assistance of a waiter, the two righted the old man.

"Do you speak English?" roared the old sailor.

"Yes, sir," respectfully.

"Who wus that?"

The waiter, in reverent tones, declared that the gentleman referred to was well known in Ajaccio, that he had spent the previous winter there, and that he was no less a person than the Duke of-But the waiter never completed the sentence. The title was enough for the irascible Flanagan.

"Th'-hell-he-is!" The captain subsided into the nearest chair, bereft of future speech, which is a deal of emphasis to put on the phrase. Picard, a duke, and only that morning his hands had been yellow with the stains of the donkey-engine oil! And by and by the question set alive his benumbed brain; what was a duke doing on the yacht Laura? "Holleran, we go t' the commodore. The devil's t' pay. What's a dook doin' on th' ship, and we expectin' to dig up gold in yonder mountains? Look alive, man; they's villany afoot!"

Holleran's jaw sagged.


CHAPTER XXII

THE ADMIRAL BEGINS TO DOUBT

"What's this you're telling me, Flanagan?" said the admiral perturbed.

"Ask Holleran here, sir; he wus with me when th' waiter said Picard wus a dook. I've suspicioned his han's this long while, sir."

"Yes, sir; Picard it was," averred Holleran.

"Bah! Mistaken identity."

"I'm sure, sir," insisted Holleran. "Picard has a whisker-mole on his chin, sir, like these forriners grow, sir. Picard, sir, an' no mistake."

"But what would a duke . . ."

"Ay, sir; that's the question," interrupted Flanagan; and added in a whisper: "Y' c'n buy a dozen dooks for a couple o' million francs, sir. Th' first-officer, Holleran here, an' me; nobody else knows what we're after, sir; unless you gentlemen abaft, sir, talked careless. I say 'tis serious, Commodore. He knows what we're lookin' fer."

Holleran nudged his chief. "Tell th' commodore what we saw on th' way here."

"Picard hobnobbin' with Mr. Breitmann, sir."

Breitmann? The admiral's smile thinned and disappeared. There might be something in this. Two million francs did not appeal to him, but he realized that to others they stood for a great fortune, one worthy of hazards. He would talk this over with Cathewe and Fitzgerald and learn what they thought about the matter. If this fellow Picard was a duke and had shipped as an ordinary hand foreward . . . Peace went out of the admiral's jaw and Flanagan's heart beat high as he saw the old war-knots gather. Oh, for a row like old times! For twenty years he had fought nothing bigger than a drunken stevedore. Suppose this was the beginning of a fine rumpus? He grinned, and the admiral, noting the same, frowned. He wished he had left the women at Marseilles.

"Say nothing to any one," he warned. "But if this man Picard comes aboard again, keep him there."

"Yessir."

"That'll be all."

"What d' y' think?" asked Holleran, on the return to the Place des Palmiers, for the two were still hungry.

"Think? There's a fight, bucko!" jubilantly.

"These pleasure-boats sure become monotonous." Holleran rubbed his dark hands. "When d' y' think it'll begin?"

"I wish ut wus t'day."

"I've seen y' do some fine work with th' peg."

They had really seen Picard and Breitmann talking together. The