Blow the Man Down, Holman Day [e ink epub reader TXT] 📗

are," commanded Fogg. "I'll give no chance for any underhand work." He scowled when the prisoner winked at him. "This looks to me like a put-up job between you two."
"There's nothing put up between us," declared the man. "There'd better be something put up between _you_ two. The thing can go about so far, where I'm concerned, and no farther. I want an understanding, I say!"
Fogg slapped open the pages of his newspaper.
"I have made my talk," said Mayo.
"By gad, I'm not going to jail--not for anybody!"
Fogg removed his eye-glasses and gave the man a full, unblinking stare.
"Did you try to dynamite that wreck?"
"Is that orders--orders to talk right out?"
"Orders? I don't know what you mean, sir. I have asked you a plain question."
"And you want an answer?"
"Naturally."
"What I tried to do didn't work--he was too quick for me. There, now, get together! He has made you a fair offer, Mr. Fogg. There's no need of my going to jail. I won't go!"
"You ought to go, for what you did!" commented Fogg, dryly.
"No, for what he didn't do--from your standpoint," suggested Captain Mayo.
"And you have been boasting, eh?" Fogg kept up his disconcerting stare, with fishy eyes.
"I ain't going to let men walk over me and wipe their feet on me when I'm obeying orders."
"Orders from whom, sir?"
"Condemn it all, orders from men who can protect me by saying one word! I ain't going to stand all this riddle-come-ree business! Flat down, now, Mr. Fogg, what say?"
"Not a word! If what this fellow says is true, you ought to be in jail."
"The advice is good. He'll be there very soon," declared Mayo, starting for the telephone. Fogg replaced his eye-glasses and began to read.
"I'm ready to blow up!" warned the man. He hurried across the room and guarded the telephone with outspread arms.
"Both of you will be sorry if the police are called," he cried. To Mayo, who was close to him, he mumbled, "Damn him, if he dumps me like this you're going to be the winner!"
There was so much reality in the man's rancor that Mayo was impressed and seized upon the idea which came to him.
"We'll test your friend," he whispered, clutching the man, and making pretense of a struggle. "I'll fake a call. Keep wrestling."
Fogg gave only indifferent attention to the affair in the corner of the room.
With one hand holding down the receiver-arm Mayo called; he was pushed about violently, but managed to say: "Desk? Call police to hotel--lobby--at once!"
"Mr. Fogg," pleaded the man, giving Mayo an understanding nudge with his elbow, "ain't you going to give me a chance for a private talk?"
"If you ever speak to me or try to see me again I'll have you arrested."
"But you're dumping me."
"Get out of this room, both of you! I don't want the police up here."
Mayo clapped hand on his prisoner's shoulder and pushed him out.
"Go down-stairs slow," protested the man. "He is bound to come out and call me back! He's got to! He doesn't dare to dump me!"
"He dares to do anything," stated Mayo, bitterly, "including what he did to me and the _Montana_. I suppose you read about it--everybody else did."
They walked leisurely, but Mr. Fogg's door remained closed. They waited in the office of the hotel. He did not appear.
"By Judas!" rasped the man, "another two-spot torn up and thrown into the discard along with you! And I helped 'em do it to you! I'm coming across, Mayo! That telephone business was a mighty friendly trick to help me force him. I appreciate it! I was on board the _Montana_ that night you and she got yours! My name is Burkett--Oliver. I was there, though you didn't see me."
"I heard you were there, afterward," stated Captain Mayo, grimly. "Captain Wass mentioned you!"
"And probably didn't give me much of a reputation. I can't help that! You needn't put one bit more trust in me, Captain Mayo, than you want to. I don't ask you to have any respect for me. But I want to tell you that when a man promises to back me and then turns round and dumps me so as to cover his own tracks, he will get his if I'm able to hand it to him! I'm generally dirty. I'm especially dirty in a case like that!"
"If you show me any favors, Mr. Burkett, I suppose I'll have to depend on your spite against Fogg instead of your affection for me. You see, I'm perfectly frank. But I have been fooled too much to place any trust in anybody."
"I don't ask you to trust me. I know how the _Montana_ job was done. I'm not going to tell you right now. I'm going to make sure that I have been thrown down by Fogg. And if I have been--if he means it--I'm going to use you so that I can get back at him, no matter how much it helps you. I can be pretty frank myself, you understand!"
They were silent and looked at each other.
"Well?" inquired Burkett, sourly.
"Well, what?" asked Mayo, with as little show of liking.
"What about this police business--about your complaint against me?"
"I'm not going to say anything about the case! You're free, as far as I'm concerned. I am ashore here to make a raise of money or credit. I can't spend any time in court, bothering with you."
"I reckon you got your satisfaction out of that beating-up you gave me. I rather began to like you after that," said Burkett, pulling one corner of his mouth into a grin that was a grimace. "I'm going to stay at this hotel."
"Fogg will see that our affair just now was a bluff. He will have you into camp once more."
"You've got to take your chances on it, Mayo. What do you say?"
"I'll take my chances."
"By gad! sir, you're a square chap, and I'm not meeting many of that sort in these days! Let this thing hang. Before you leave the city, slip word to me here. I'll tell you the news!"
With that understanding they parted.
Three days later, acknowledging to himself that he was a thoroughly beaten young man, Mayo walked into the Nicholas Hotel. He had been unable to secure either encouragement, money, or credit. There were parties who would back him in any attempt to junk the _Conomo_; but his proposition to raise her with the aid of the tribe of Hue and Cry made his project look like a huge joke and stirred hearty amusement all along the water-front. Everywhere he found proof of Fogg's neat work of discouragement. If a real salvaging company had turned the scheme down as impracticable, how could penniless amateurs hope? It was conceded in business and financial circles that they hoped because they were amateurs.
Mayo's outlook on his own strictly personal affairs was as dismal as his view of the Razee project in which his associates were concerned. He went to the hotel merely because he had promised Burkett that he would notify that modern buccaneer regarding any intended departure. He despondently reflected that if Fogg and Burkett had agreed again, the combination against him still existed. If they were persistently on the outs, Burkett was merely a discredited agent whose word, without proofs, could be as easily brushed away as his connection with Fogg in the' matter of the _Conomo_. In fact, so Mayo pondered, he might find association with Burkett dangerous, because demands for consideration can be twisted into semblance of blackmail by able lawyers. He entertained so few hopes in regard to any assistance from Burkett that he was rather relieved to discover that the man was no longer a guest at the hotel.
"Has he left town?"
"I suppose there's no secret about the thing," explained the clerk. "Mr. Fogg had the man arrested yesterday, for threatening words and actions. Something of that sort. Anyway, he is in jail and must give bonds to keep the peace."
Mayo's flagging interest in the possibilities of Burkett as an aid in his affairs was a bit quickened by that piece of news, and he hurried up to the jail. If ever a captured and fractious bird of passage was beating wings against his cage's bars in fury and despair, Mr. Burkett was doing it with vigor. Mayo, admitted as a friend who might aid in quelling the disturbance that was making the deafened jailers and noise-maddened prisoners regret the presence of Mr. Burkett, found the man clinging to the iron rods and kicking his foot against them.
"It's the last thing he did before he left town, this what he has done to me. I can't give bonds. I don't know anybody in this city," raved the prisoner.
"I'm afraid that I don't know the folks here very well, judging from my experiences trying to raise money," stated Captain Mayo, after he had quieted Burkett. "But I'll go out and see what I can do."
After some pleading he induced a fish wholesaler to go to the jail with him and inspect Burkett as a risk in the matter of bonds. Mr. Burkett, being a man of guile, controlled his wrath and offered a presentable guise of mildness.
"But how am I going to know that he won't be hunting this enemy up as soon as I give bonds?" asked the fishman.
"Captain Mayo is tackling a job of wrecking, offcoast," said Burkett, "and I'm out of work just now and will go with him. I'll be a safe risk, all right, out there."
"Does that go with you, Captain Mayo?"
"Yes, sir."
After the matter of bonds had been arranged before the commissioner, and when Burkett walked down the street with Mayo, the latter stopped on a corner.
"I'll have to leave you here, Burkett. I'm going aboard the schooner. We're sailing."
"But how about your taking me?"
"I was willing to help you lie that much, Burkett. I knew you did not intend to go with me."
"I don't want to put you in bad with anybody after this, Captain Mayo. I need to keep away for a time where I won't be in danger of seeing Fletcher Fogg. If I meet him while I'm frothing like this, I'll kill him, even if it means the chair. Give me a lay aboard that steamer, no matter how bad your prospects are, and I'll be square with you. That's my man's word to you. I realize it isn't much of a word in your estimation--but there are some promises I can keep. I propose to help you get back at Fogg and his gang. That's reason enough for what I'm doing," he pleaded, earnestly. "You ought to see that yourself. I'm just as good a man with machinery as I am in the pilot-house. I won't set you back any!"
"All right, Mr. Burkett, come along," agreed Mayo, curtly, without enthusiasm.
There was a fair wind for their departure and Mayo headed the schooner for Maquoit. The few words which Captain Candage had dropped in regard to Rowley's state of mind worried Mayo. His little edifice of hope was tottering to a fall, but the loss of the _Ethel and May_ meant the last push and utter ruin. He decided that he was in honor bound to preserve the schooner for the uses of the men of Hue and Cry, even if it meant abandonment of the _Conomo_ and going back to fishing. Without that craft they would be paupers once more.
The _Ethel and May_ sneaked her way into Maquoit harbor--if a schooner can be said to sneak. A breeze at nightfall fanned her along, and when her killick went down, the