Agatha Webb (25 page)

The first thing he did was to show his list of addresses and
inquire into what quarter they would lead him. To his surprise he
found it to be the fashionable quarter. Two of them were names of
well-known club-houses, a third that of a first-class restaurant,
and the fourth that of a private house on Commonwealth Avenue.
Heigho! and he was dressed like a tramp, or nearly so!

"Queer messenger, I, for such kind of work," thought he. "I wonder
why he lighted on such a rough-looking customer. He must have had
his reasons. I wonder if he wished the errand to fail. He bore
himself very nonchalantly at the depot. When I last saw him his
face and attitude were those of a totally unconcerned man. Have I
been sent on a fool's chase after all?"

The absurdity of this conclusion struck him, however, as he
reasoned: "Why, then, should he have paid my fare? Not as a
benefit to me, of course, but for his own ends, whatever they
might be. Let us see, then, what those ends are. So now for the
gentleman of the red hair who plays cards with one arm in a
sling."

He thought that he might get entrance into the club-houses easily
enough. He possessed a certain amount of insinuation when
necessity required, and, if hard-featured, had a good expression
which in unprejudiced minds defied criticism. Of porters and
doorkeepers he was not afraid, and these were the men he must
first encounter.

At the first club-house he succeeded easily enough in getting word
with the man waiting in the large hall, and before many minutes
learned that the object of his search was not to be found there
that evening. He also learned his name, which was a great step
towards the success of his embassy. It was Wattles, Captain
Wattles, a marked man evidently, even in this exclusive and
aristocratic club.

Armed with this new knowledge, be made his way to the second
building of the kind and boldly demanded speech with Captain
Wattles. But Captain Wattles had not yet arrived and he went out
again this time to look him up at the restaurant.

He was not there. As Sweetwater was going out two gentlemen came
in, one of whom said to the other in passing:

"Sick, do you say? I thought Wattles was made of iron."

"So he was," returned the other, "before that accident to his arm.
Now the least thing upsets him. He's down at Haberstow's."

That was all; the door was swung to between them. Sweetwater had
received his clew, but what a clew! Haberstow's? Where was that?

Thinking the bold course the best one, he re-entered the
restaurant and approached the gentlemen he had just seen enter.

"I heard you speak the name of Captain Wattles," said he. "I am
hunting for Captain Wattles. Can you tell me where he is?"

He soon saw that he had struck the wrong men for information. They
not only refused to answer him, but treated him with open disdain.
Unwilling to lose time, he left them, and having no other
resource, hastened to the last place mentioned on his list.

It was now late, too late to enter a private house under ordinary
circumstances, but this house was lighted up, and a carriage stood
in front of it; so he had the courage to run up the steps and
consult the large door-plate visible from the sidewalk. It read
thus:

HABERSTOW.

Fortune had favoured him better than he expected.

He hesitated a moment, then decided to ring the bell. But before
he had done so, the door opened and an old gentleman appeared
seeing a younger man out. The latter had his arm in a sling, and
bore himself with a fierceness that made his appearance somewhat
alarming; the other seemed to be in an irate state of mind.

"No apologies!" the former was saying. "I don't mind the night
air; I'm not so ill as that. When I'm myself again we'll have a
little more talk. My compliments to your daughter, sir. I wish you
a very good evening, or rather night."

The old gentleman bowed, and as he did so Sweetwater caught a
glimpse (it was the shortest glimpse in the world) of a sweet face
beaming from a doorway far down the hall. There was pain in it and
a yearning anxiety that made it very beautiful; then it vanished,
and the old gentleman, uttering some few sarcastic words, closed
the door, and Sweetwater found himself alone and in darkness.

The kaleidoscope had been given another turn.

Dashing down the stoop, he came upon the gentleman who had
preceded him, just as he was seating himself in the carriage.

"Pardon me," he gasped, as the driver caught up the reins; "you
have forgotten something." Then, as Captain Wattles looked hastily
out, "You have forgotten me."

The oath that rang out from under that twitching red moustache was
something to startle even him. But he clung to the carriage window
and presently managed to say:

"A messenger, sir, from New Bedford. I have been on the hunt for
you for two hours. It won't keep, sir, for more than a half-hour
longer. Where shall I find you during that time?"

Captain Wattles, on whom the name New Bedford seemed to have made
some impression, pointed up at the coachman's box with a growl, in
which command mingled strangely with menace. Then he threw himself
back. Evidently the captain was not in very good humour.

Sweetwater, taking this as an order to seat himself beside the
driver, did so, and the carriage drove off. It went at a rapid
pace, and before he had time to propound more than a question or
two to the coachman, it stopped before a large apartment-house in
a brilliantly lighted street.

Captain Wattles got out, and Sweetwater followed him. The former,
who seemed to have forgotten Sweetwater, walked past him and
entered the building with a stride and swing that made the plain,
lean, insignificant-looking messenger behind him feel smaller than
ever. Indeed, he had never felt so small, for not only was the
captain a man of superb proportions and conspicuous bearing, but
he possessed, in spite of his fiery hair and fierce moustache,
that beaute de diable which is at once threatening and imposing.
Added to this, he was angry and so absorbed in his own thoughts
that he would be very apt to visit punishment of no light
character upon anyone who interfered with him. A pleasing prospect
for Sweetwater, who, however, kept on with the dogged
determination of his character up the first flight of stairs and
then up another till they stopped, Captain Wattles first and
afterwards his humble follower, before a small door into which the
captain endeavoured to fit a key. The oaths which followed his
failure to do this were not very encouraging to the man behind,
nor was the kick which he gave the door after the second more
successful attempt calculated to act in a very reassuring way upon
anyone whose future pay for a doubtful task rested upon this man's
good nature.

The darkness which met them both on the threshold of this now open
room was speedily relieved by a burst of electric light, that
flooded the whole apartment and brought out the captain's
swaggering form and threatening features with startling
distinctness. He had thrown off his hat and was relieving himself
of a cloak in a furious way that caused Sweetwater to shrink back,
and, as the French say, efface himself as much as possible behind
a clothes-tree standing near the door. That the captain had
entirely forgotten him was evident, and for the present moment
that gentleman was too angry to care or even notice if a dozen men
stood at the door. As he was talking all this time, or rather
jerking out sharp sentences, as men do when in a towering rage,
Sweetwater was glad to be left unnoticed, for much can be gathered
from scattered sentences, especially when a man is in too reckless
a frame of mind to weigh them. He, therefore, made but little
movement and listened; and these are some of the ejaculations and
scraps of talk he heard:

"The old purse-proud fool! Honoured by my friendship, but not
ready to accept me as his daughter's suitor! As if I would lounge
away hours that mean dollars to me in his stiff old drawing-room,
just to hear his everlasting drone about stocks up and stocks
down, and politics gone all wrong. He has heard that I play cards,
and—How pretty she looked! I believe I half like that girl, and
when I think she has a million in her own right—Damn it, if I
cannot win her openly and with papa's consent, I will carry her
off with only her own. She's worth the effort, doubly worth it,
and when I have her and her money—Eh! Who are you?"

He had seen Sweetwater at last, which was not strange, seeing that
he had turned his way, and was within two feet of him.

"What are you doing here, and who let you in? Get out, or—"

"A message, Captain Wattles! A message from New Bedford. You have
forgotten, sir; you bade me follow you."

It was curious to see the menace slowly die out of the face of
this flushed and angry man as he met Sweetwater's calm eye and
unabashed front, and noticed, as he had not done at first, the
slip of paper which the latter resolutely held out.

"New Bedford; ah, from Campbell, I take it. Let me see!" And the
hand which had shook with rage now trembled with a very different
sort of emotion as he took the slip, cast his eyes over it, and
then looked back at Sweetwater.

Now, Sweetwater knew the two words written on that paper. He could
see out of the back of his head at times, and he had been able to
make out these words when the man in New Bedford was writing them.

"Happenings; Afghanistan," with the figures 2000 after the latter.

Not much sense in them singly or in conjunction, but the captain,
muttering them over to himself, consulted a little book which he
took from his breast pocket and found, or seemed to, a clew to
their meaning. It could only have been a partial one, however, for
in another instant he turned on Sweetwater with a sour look and a
thundering oath.

"Is this all?" he shouted. "Does he call this a complete message?"

"There is another word," returned Sweetwater, "which he bade me
give you by word of mouth; but that word don't go for nothing.
It's worth just twenty-five dollars. I've earned it, sir. I came
up from New Bedford on purpose to deliver it to you."

Sweetwater expected a blow, but he only got a stare.

"Twenty-five dollars," muttered the captain. "Well, it's fortunate
that I have them. And who are you?" he asked. "Not one of
Campbell's pick-ups, surely?"

"I am a confidential messenger," smiled Sweetwater, amused against
his will at finding a name for himself. "I carry messages and
execute commissions that require more or less discretion in the
handling. I am paid well. Twenty-five dollars is the price of this
job."

"So you have had the honour of informing me before," blustered the
other with an attempt to hide some serious emotion. "Why, man,
what do you fear? Don't you see I'm hurt? You could knock me over
with a feather if you touched my game arm."

"Twenty-five dollars," repeated Sweetwater.

The captain grew angrier. "Dash it! aren't you going to have them?
What's the word?"

But Sweetwater wasn't going to be caught by chaff.

"C. O. D.," he insisted firmly, standing his ground, though
certain that the blow would now fall. But no, the captain laughed,
and tugging away with his one free hand at his pocket, he brought
out a pocketbook, from which he managed deftly enough to draw out
three bills. "There," said he, laying them on the table, but
keeping one long vigorous finger on them. "Now, the word."

Sweetwater laid his own hand on the bills.

"Frederick," said he.

"Ah!" said the other thoughtfully, lifting his finger and
proceeding to stride up and down the room. "He's a stiff one. What
he says, he will do. Two thousand dollars! and soon, too, I
warrant. Well, I'm in a devil of a fix at last." He had again
forgotten the presence of Sweetwater.

Suddenly he turned or rather stopped. His eye was on the
messenger, but he did not even see him. "One Frederick must offset
the other," he cried. "It's the only loophole out," and he threw
himself into a chair from which he immediately sprang up again
with a yell. He had hurt his wounded arm.

Pandemonium reigned in that small room for a minute, then his eye
fell again on Sweetwater, who, under the fascination of the
spectacle offered him, had only just succeeded in finding the knob
of the door. This time there was recognition in his look.

"Wait!" he cried. "I may have use for you too. Confidential
messengers are hard to come by, and one that Campbell would employ
must be all right. Sit down there! I'll talk to you when I'm
ready."

Sweetwater was not slow in obeying this command. Business was
booming with him. Besides, the name of Frederick acted like a
charm upon him. There seemed to be so many Fredericks in the
world, and one of them lay in such a curious way near his heart.

Meanwhile the captain reseated himself, but more carefully. He had
a plan or method of procedure to think out, or so it seemed, for
he sat a long time in rigid immobility, with only the scowl of
perplexity or ill-temper on his brow to show the nature of his
thoughts. Then he drew a sheet of paper toward him, and began to
write a letter. He was so absorbed over this letter and the
manipulation of it, having but one hand to work with, that
Sweetwater determined upon a hazardous stroke. The little book
which the captain had consulted, and which had undoubtedly
furnished him with a key to those two incongruous words, lay on
the floor not far from him, having been flung from its owner's
hand during the moments of passion and suffering I have above
mentioned. To reach this book with his foot, to draw it toward
him, and, finally, to get hold of it with his hand, was not
difficult for one who aspired to be a detective, and had already
done some good work in that direction. But it was harder to turn
the leaves and find the words he sought without attracting the
attention of his fierce companion. He, however, succeeded in doing
this at last, the long list of words he found on every page being
arranged alphabetically. It was a private code for telegraphic or
cable messages, and he soon found that "Happenings" meant: "Our
little game discovered; play straight until I give you the wink."
And that "Afghanistan" stood for: "Hush money." As the latter was
followed by the figures I have mentioned, the purport of the
message needed no explanation, but the word "Frederick" did. So he
searched for that, only to find that it was not in the book. There
was but one conclusion to draw. This name was perfectly well known
between them, and was that of the person, no doubt, who laid claim
to the two thousand dollars.