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Page 30
"Twaddle!" he cried. "I'm going to the steamship offices to-day
and argue as I never argued for a vote."
His daughter saw that he was determined; and, wise from long
experience, she did not try to dissuade him.
London that hot Monday was a city on the alert, a city of hearts
heavy with dread. The rumors in one special edition of the papers
were denied in the next and reaffirmed in the next. Men who could
look into the future walked the streets with faces far from happy.
Unrest ruled the town. And it found its echo in the heart of the
girl from Texas as she thought of her young friend of the Agony
Column "in durance vile" behind the frowning walls of Scotland Yard.
That afternoon her father appeared, with the beaming mien of the
victor, and announced that for a stupendous sum he had bought the
tickets of a man who was to have sailed on the steamship Saronia
three days hence.
"The boat train leaves at ten Thursday morning," he said. "Take
your last look at Europe and be ready."
Three days! His daughter listened with sinking heart. Could she
in three days' time learn the end of that strange mystery, know
the final fate of the man who had first addressed her so
unconventionally in a public print? Why, at the end of three days
he might still be in Scotland Yard, a prisoner! She could not
leave if that were true--she simply could not. Almost she was
on the point of telling her father the story of the whole affair,
confident that she could soothe his anger and enlist his aid. She
decided to wait until the next morning; and, if no letter came
then--
But on Tuesday morning a letter did come and the beginning of it
brought pleasant news. The beginning--yes. But the end! This
was the letter:
DEAR ANXIOUS LADY: Is it too much for me to assume that you have
been just that, knowing as you did that I was locked up for the
murder of a captain in the Indian Army, with the evidence all
against me and hope a very still small voice indeed?
Well, dear lady, be anxious no longer. I have just lived through
the most astounding day of all the astounding days that have been
my portion since last Thursday. And now, in the dusk, I sit again
in my rooms, a free man, and write to you in what peace and quiet
I can command after the startling adventure through which I have
recently passed.
Suspicion no longer points to me; constables no longer eye me;
Scotland Yard is not even slightly interested in me. For the
murderer of Captain Fraser-Freer has been caught at last!
Sunday night I spent ingloriously in a cell in Scotland Yard. I
could not sleep. I had so much to think of--you, for example,
and at intervals how I might escape from the folds of the net that
had closed so tightly about me. My friend at the consulate,
Watson, called on me late in the evening; and he was very kind.
But there was a note lacking in his voice, and after, he was gone
the terrible certainty came into my mind--he believed that I was
guilty after all.
The night passed, and a goodly portion of to-day went by--as the
poets say--with lagging feet. I thought of London, yellow in the
sun. I thought of the Carlton--I suppose there are no more
strawberries by this time. And my waiter--that stiff-backed
Prussian--is home in Deutschland now, I presume, marching with his
regiment. I thought of you.
At three o'clock this afternoon they came for me and I was led
back to the room belonging to Inspector Bray. When I entered,
however, the inspector was not there--only Colonel Hughes,
immaculate and self-possessed, as usual, gazing out the window
into the cheerless stone court. He turned when I entered. I
suppose I must have had a most woebegone appearance, for a look of
regret crossed his face.
"My dear fellow," he cried, "my most humble apologies! I intended
to have you released last night. But, believe me, I have been
frightfully busy."
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