The evening world. Newspaper, June 17, 1905, Page 12

THE WORLD: SATURDAY ay othorwise.’ 6 charming Miss Werner?” the is quite charming.” fost Australian girls are,” said 1. low did you know she was one?" he erled, » *E heared her speak Brute!" said Raffles, laughing; “she has no more twang than you ve, Her people are German, she has been to school in Dresden and ts bt: her way out alone. “Money?” 1 inquired, % mfound you!” he said, and, thongh he was Iaughing, 1 thought it 4 point at wh the subject might be changed. ih “Well,” I said, ‘it wasn't for Miss Werner you wanted us to play strau- rv ‘ou have some deeper game than that, eh?” ‘I suppose I have.” “Then hadn't you better tell mo what it is?” , Raffles treated me to the old, cautious scrutiny that 1 knew so we very familiarity of it, after all these months, set me smiling i) a way might have reassured him, for dimly already | divined his enterprise, ‘It won't send you off in the pilot's boat, Bunny?" “Not quite.” 'Then—you remember the pearl you wrote the’-—— did not wait for him to finish bis sentence, ‘ou've got it!” I cried, my face on fire, for I caught sight of it that nt in the stateroom mirror, ffles scemed taken aback, “Not yet,” said he; “but I mean to have it before we get to Naples.’ “Ms it on board? ~) “Yea.” “But how--where—who's got it?” “A little German officer, a whipper-snapper with perpendicular mus- ” St saw him in the smoke-room,.” “That's the dhap; he's always ther pans, if you look in the list, Well, h d he’s taking the pearl out with him!" 7) "You found this out in Hremen? “No, in Berlin, from a newspaper man I know there. I'm ashamed to tell you, Bunny, that 1 went there on purpose!” I burst out laughing. “You needn't be ashamed, You are doing the very thing I was rather | hoping you were going to propose the other day on the river.” “You were hoping it?” said Raffles, with his eyes wide open, Indeed, tt 3 shad his turn to show surprise and mine to be much more ashamed than 1 i Herr Capt, Wilhelm yon Heu- the special envoy of the Emperor, Ue 4 'Yes,” I answered, “I was quite keen on the idea, but t wasn't going Propose it." ce “Yet you would have listened to me the other da Certainly 1 would, and I told him so without reserve; not br: understand; not even now with the gusto of a man who savors adventure for its own sake, but doggedly, deflantly, throngh my teeth, 8 one who had tried to jive honestly and failed, And while I was about fh) [I told him much more, Eloquently enough, I dare 1 gave him ) chapter and verse of my hopeless struggle, my inevitable defeat; for hope- and inevitable they were to a man with my record, even though that “Fecord was written only in one’s own soul. It was the old story of the * thief trying to turn honest man; the thing was against nature, and there Was an end of it. y Raffles ontircly disagreed with me, He shook his head over my con- Yentional view. Human nature was a board bf checkers: why not recon- eile one’s self to alternate black and white? Why desire to be all one thing (or all the other, like our forefathers on the stage or in the old-fashioned ©) fiction? Vor his part he enjoyed himself on all squares of the board and “Ket the light the better for the shade, My conclusion he considered urd, zenly, neh ) “But you err in good company, Bunny, for all the cheap moralists who Preach the same twaddle: old Virgil was the first and worst offender of you all, I back myself to climb out of Avernus any day I like, and sooner or later I shal! elim) out vor good, I suppose 1 can't very well turn myself ito a Limited Liability Company, But I could retire and settle down and ivo blamelessly ever after, I’m not sure that it couldn't be done on this pearl alone!” “Then you don’t still think it too remarkable to sell?" . “We might take a tishery and haul it up with emaller fry. It would come after months of ill-luck, just as we were going to sell the schooner; by Jove, it would be the (alk of the Pacific!” “Well, we've got to get it first. Is this Von What Mmidable cuss3” “More so than he looks; and he has the cheek of the devil As he spoke u white drill skirt fluttered past the open stateroom door, Qnd I caught a glimpse of an upturned mustache beyond. “But is he the chap we have to deal with? Won't the pearl be in the purser's keeping’ Raffles stood at the door, frowning out upon the Solent, but for an nt he turned to me with a sniff, ae ‘My good fellow, do you suppose the whole ship's company knows > there's a gem like that aboar You said that it was worth a hundred thousand pounds; in Berlin they say it's priceless. I doubt if the skipper ‘himself knows that Von Heumann has it on him “And he has?” ‘Must have. ‘Then we have only kim to deal with?” : He answered me without a word, Something white was fluttering past / Once more, and Raffles, stepping forth, made the promenaders three, is-name a for, I do not ask to set foot aboard a finer steamship than the Uhlan, of the Norddeutscher Lloyd, to meet a kindlier gentleman than her then | commander or better fellows than | his officers, his much at least let |) me have the grace to admit, I hated the voyage. It was no fault of any- hody connected with the ship: it was no fault. of the weather, which Was monotonously id Not even In my own heart did the reason side; conscience and I were divorced At last and the decree made absolute With my scruples had fled all fear, and I was ready to revel between bright skies and sparkling sea with the light-hearted detachment of Raf- flee himself. It was Ratiles himself ‘who prevented me, but nol Raffles Mone, It was Raffles and that Col- » onfal minx on her way home from school. What he could see in her—but that begs the question, Of co he saw no more than I did, but to annoy me, or perhaps to punish me Mor my long defection, he must tur ‘back on me and deyote himself Mo this chit from Southampton to the Mediterranean, They e ale yways together, It was too absurd iAfter breakfast they would begin and go on until 11 or 12 at night; there was no intervening hour which you might not hi her ni Ynugh or his quiet volce talking nonsense into her ear, Of course i was nonsense! Is it conceivable that a man like Rafles, with his perience of women (a side of his cheracter vpon which L have pu posoly never touched, for It desery another volume)—is it dible, Lask, that such a man could tind anything = Riiasnrerse to tlk by the day to- A whipper = snapper ther to a giddy young schoolgirl? gt ; i Would not be unfair for the world, With perpendicular muse AD think 1 have admitted that the taches.’? young person had points. Her eyes, I suppos, were really fine, and certain face was charming, so far as contour can charm gdmil also more audacity than I cared about, with enyiable ealth, met ‘ana vitality, I may not have occasion to report any of this young lady peechos (they would scarcely bear it), and am therefore the more anxious jo describe her without injustice, I confess to some little prejudice against with Raffles, of whom, in consequence, I saw less mein thing to have to confess, but there must. we been something not unlike fealo| rankling within me, there was in another quarter—crude, rampant, undignified ‘apt, Von Heumann would curl bis mustaches into twin spires, his white cuffs over his rings and stare at me insolently through his © 6; We ought to have consoled each other, but we never need a ayllable, The captain had a murderous sear across one of his @ present from Heidel and T used to think how he must long same, It was not as thoush Von Heu- ever bad his innings. Raffles let him go in ve times a day for pleasure of bowling him ont as he was "getting * ihoxg j words when I taxed him disingenously with obnoxious conduct wf bh op a German oat, y the shape of the }, “You'll make yourself disliked on board! “By Von Heumann merely.” “But is that wise when he's the man we've got to diddle “The wisest thing I ever did. ‘To have chummed up with him would tal—the common dodge." nsoled, encouraged, almost content, 1 had feared Raffles was and 1 told him so in a burst, Here we were ’ word since the Soient, MWe shook his head with a “Plenty of Ume, Bunny, plenty of time, We ean do nothing before we get to Genoa, and that won't be till Sunday night. ‘The yoyage is still young andso are we; Jet's make the most of things while we can “Tt was alter dinney ov the promenade deck, and as Raffles spoke he glanced sharply fore and aft, leaving me next moment with a step full of purpose. I yetlred to the smioking-room to smoke and read in @ corner and to watch Von Heumann, who very soon came to drink beer and to sulk in another, Few travellere tempt the Red Sea at midsummer; the Uhlan was very empty indeed, She had, however, but a Hmited supply of cabins on the There was A. J. Raffles. he got his mission out of him?” H “Yes, I've forced him to score all the points he could, and that was his Since friend Crawshay slipped clean through his fingers list He has even shown Amy the peurl.” promenade deck, and there was just that excuse for my sharing Raflles's room. I could have had one to myself downstairs, but 1 must be up above. Raflies had insisted that I should insist on the point. So we were together, 1 think, without suspicion, though also without any object that I could see. On the Sunday afternoon I was asleep in my berth, the lower one, when the curtains were shaken by Raflles, who was in his shirt-sleevyes on the setlee, ‘Achilles sulking in his bunk!" “What else is there to do?" IT asked him as I stretched and yawned. T noted, however, the good humor of his tone, and did my best to catch it, “L have found something else, Bunny.” I dare say!" ‘ou misunderstand me, The whippersnapper's making his century this efternoon, I've had other fish to fry.” I swung my legs over the side of my berth and sat forward, as he was eltring, all attention. The inner door, a grating, was shut and bolted and curtained like the open porthole, “We shall be at Genoa before sunset,” continued Raffles, “It's the where the deed's got to be done.’ ) vou still mean to do it!" “Did 1 ever say 1 didn't?” “You hove said so little either way.’ ‘On land? “No, on Loard, to-morrow night. To-night would do, but to-morrow is hetter in cage of mishap, If we were forced to use violence we could ret away hy the eartest train and nothing be known ull the ship was sailing and Von Heumann found dead or drugged''—— “Not dei ? “Of cd Nh “assented Raf- fles, ‘or there would be no need for us to bolt; but if we should have to bolt, ‘Tuesday morning ts our time, when this ship has got to sall what- ever happens, But I don't antici ps any violence. Violence is a confes sion of terrible incompetence, In all these years how many blows have you known me to strike? Not one, I helieve; but I have been quite ready to kill my man every time if the worst came to the worst," T asked him how he proposed to enter Von Heumann’s stateroom un- observed, and even through the eure tained gloom of ours his face Hghted up, “Climh into my bunk, Bunny, and you shall seo," I did so, but could see nothing, Nafiles reached across me and tapped the v r, a sort of trap-door in the wall above his head, some elgh- teen inches long and halt that height. It opened outward into the ventilat- d he, “is our door to fortune, {i if you like; you won't see mueh, hevause it doesn't open far; but loosening & couple of HW oset that all right. ‘The * is more or leas nder it when- ever you to your bath, and the top is a skylight on the bridge, That's why this thing has to be done while Were ait Geno iusc they keep no watch on the brilgs in port The ventilator opposite ours is Von Heumann's, It again will only mean a couple of sorews, and there's a beam to stan Lon while vou wort.” “Pur if anybody should look up from below?" “Is extvemely unlikely that anybody will be astir below--so unlikely that we enn atterd to chance it, 1 can't have you thave to make pure, The great point Is thar neither of hould be seen from the time we turn in, A couple of heys do 8 0 on these decks, and they shall be our witnesses; Jove, it'll be the biggest mystery that ever was made!" “If Von Heumann doesn't resist,” “Resist! He won't get the ance, He drinks too much beer to sleep light, and nothing is so easy as to chloroform a heavy sleeper; you've even done it yourself on an occasion of which it’s perhaps unfalr to remind von, Ven Fevmann will pe ast sensation almost as soon as 1 get my hand through his ventilator, I shall crawl in over his body, Bunny, my boy! “And 1!" EVENING, JUNE 17, 1905 “You will hand me what.I want and hold the fort in case of accidents, mann's ventilator and had left it fast as hi and generally lend me the moral support you've made me require, It’s a stantly proceeded to muke his own, Ag fc ry, Bunny, but I found it devilish diMeult to do without it after you enough to place the drenched wad first on his mustache, and then to hold false scent while riiling the cabin, fact, Raflles knew exactly where and in what he kept it. ARRANGEMENT LICELER ¢, He took a et great stroke, as I hoped it would be, “Amy, eh! and she promptly told you?” “Nothing of the kind, trouble in getting {t ont of her.” His tone should have been a sufficient warning to me, At last I knew the meaning of his furions flirta- d stood wagging my head and shaking my finger, blinded to his his motive cut and dried, Great frowns by my own enlightenment. Vily worm!” said I, What makes you think so? I had the greatese ®nd I'll defy him to find the pearl! Theor, tact to take it as such, “Sure you're not still?” now I understand what has beaten me all the week. couldn't fathom what you saw in that little girl. part of the game,” “So you think It was that and nothing more?" ‘ou deep old dog—of course J do!" ‘ou didn't know she was the daughter of ‘a wealthy squatter?” hours, during which Mackenzie ne “There are wealthy women by the dozen who would marry you to- during the luncheon hour—he was in our cabin I never dreamt it was gers, no whisper of what had happened tn the airy In und live happily ever “With that yoic “Bunny!” he But no more followed. "Do you think you would live happily?” I made bold to ask him. “That's POSED BY KYRLE BELLEW, ARRANGEMENT LIEBLER CO ere we were near Gibraltar, And with that he left me to marvel at and lost it; ergo, as we're Britishers they think we've got It!" ver at the insuMeciently exciting canse, “But I know ye have,” put in Mackenzle, nodding to his beard, "he answered, his look and tone and more than form, at once the had ubtaatened had. found it—fast as he in- Von Heumann, it had been it between his gaping lips; thereafter the intruder had climbed both ways He said that Von Heumann was certain to sleep with a bolted door, across his shins without elleiting a groan, which he of course would leave unbolted, and spoke of other ways of lay- And here was the prize—this pearl as large as a filbert—with a pale t Not that Raffles anticipated a pink tinge like a lady's finger. rl would be about Von Heumann's person; in gift from a European emperor to a South Sea chief. We gloated over it Naturally Tasked when all was snug, We tonsted it in whiskey and soda water laid in over how he could have come by such knowledge, and his answer led up to a night in view of the groat moment, But the moment was greater, more ry unpleasantness, “It's a very old story, Bunny, I'm only sure of the Testament, one Delilah the heroine.” And he looked so knowing that I could not be In a moment's doubt to his meaning, “So the fair Australian has been playing Delilah?” said I, “In a very harmless, innocent sort of wa! ail—bhis spoil of filibnstering © 5. —thts, triumphant than our most sanguine dreams. All we had now to do was 1 really forget in what Book {t comes; to secrete the gem (which Raffles had prized from its setting, replacing But Samson was the unlucky hero and the latter), so that we could stand the strictest search and yet take it ashore with us at Naples; and this Raffles was doing when I turned in, 1 myself would have landed incontinently that night at Genoa and bolted with the spoil; he would not hear of it, for a dozen good reasons which will be obvious. On the whole I do not think that anything was discovered or suspected before we weighed anchor, but I cannot be sure, It 1s difficult to belleve that a man could be chloroformed in his sleep and feel no telltale effects, sniff no suspicious odor in the morning. Nevertheless Von Heumann re- appeared as though nothing had happened to him, his German cap over his eyes and his mustaches brushing the peak. And by 10 o'clock wo were quit of Genoa; the last jean, blue-chinned official had left our decks; the last frult-seller had been beaten off with bucketsful of water and left cursing us from his boat; the last passenger had come aboard at the 1 moment—a fussy graybeard who kept the big ship waiting while he h gled with his boatman oyer half a lira, But at length we were off, the tis was shed, the lighthouse ed, and Rafiles and I leaned together over the rail watching our shadows on the pale green, liquid, veined marble that ogain washed the vessel's side, Von Heumann was having his innings once more; it was part of the design that he should remain In all day and so postpone the inevitahte how, and, though the lady looked bored and was forever wncing in our direction, he seemed only too willing to avail himself of his opportunit But RaMes was moody and fll at ease, He had not the air of a sur man, I Nd but opine that the Impending parting at Naple: on his spirit. He would neither talk to me nor would he let me go. “stop where you are, Bunny, I’ve things to tell you. Can you swim?” “A bit! “Ten miles “Ten?” T barst oud laughing, “Not one! Why do you ask?" “We shall be within a ten nfles’ swim of the shore most of the day." “What on th are you driving at, Rates?” “Nothing; only | shall swim for it if the worst comes to the worst. I Suppose you can't win under water at all?” T did not answer his question. I scarcely heard it; cold beads were bursting through my skin, “Why should t worst come to the worst?” T whisp found out, are we ad. We aren't 0. Then why speak as though we were?” “We may be: an old enemy of ours is on board.” re you sure?" “Sure! 1 was only sorry to see you didn't recognize him too.” T took my handkerehief to my face; now that I thought of it there had been something familiar in the old man’s gait, as well as something rather youthful for his apparent years, Tis very beard seemed unconvincing, now that I recatled it in the light of this horrible revelation, 1 looked up and down the deck, but the old man was nowhere to be seen, “Thats the worst of it,” said Raflles, “f saw him go into the captain's cabin twenty minutes ago.” ‘But what can have brought him?" I cried miserably, “Can It be a coincidence—-is it somebody else he's aft Raifles shook his head, “Hardly this time,” “Then you think he's after you?” “T've been afraid of it for some weeks.” “Yet there you stand'" “What am I to do? I don't want to swim for it before T must. T begin to wish I'd taken your advice, Bunny, and left the ship at Genoa, But I've not the smallest doubt that Mac was watching both ship and station till the last moment, That's why he ran it so fine.” arette and handed me the case, but I shook my head impatiently. “T still don't understand,” said I, ‘Why should he he after you? Te couldn't come ail this way about a wel which was perfectly safe for all he knew. What's your own theory?” ‘Simply that he's been on my track for some time, probably ever vember There have been other indications, I am really not unprepared for this. But it can only be pure suspicion, I'll defy him to bring anything home, my dear Bunny? [ know how le tha otchman’s skin, and he’s got here as well as though I'd been ins I had not the ! know what he'll do next, He found out I'd gone abroad and looked for motive; he found out about Von Heuminn and his mission, and there was thance—to nab me on a new job altos mark my words, he'll search the ship gether, Rut he won't do It, Bunn “Now I see through it all; how dense ['ve and search us all when the loss is known, but he'll search tn vain, And there's the skipper beckoning the whippersnapper to his cabin; the fat will be In the fire in five minutes!” 1 simply Yet there was no conflagration, no fuss, no ser rching of the passen« tead of a stir there was portentous peace, and it was clear to me that Mes was not a little disturbed at the falsification of all hig predictions. There was something sinister in silence under such a loss, and the silence was sustained for er reappear But he was abroad T had left my book tn RaMes's berth, and in taking it after lunch I touched the quilt. Tt was “It doesn't occur to you that I might like to draw stumps, start clean warm from the recent pressure of flesh and blood, and on an instinct 1 ter—in the bush?” It certainly does not!” reely that I braced myself for a blow. I waylaid Rates. “All right! Let him find the pea’ sprang to the ventilator, As I opened it the ventilator opposite was closed with a snap. “Have mu dumped it overboard?” a-avestion T sha'n’t condescend to answer,” He turned on his heel, and at sub- sequent intervals T saw him making the most of his last afternoon with the inevitable Miss Werner, I re member that she looked both cool and smart in quite a simple affuir of brawn holland, which toned well with her complexion, and was cley= erly relieved with touches of scarlet, I quite admired her that afternoon, for her eyes were really very good, and so were her teeth, yet [ had never admired her more directly In my own despite, For I passed them again and again in order to get a word with Raffles, to tell him I knew there was danger in the wind; but he would not so much as catch my eye, So at last I gave it up, And I saw him next in the captain's cabin, They had summored him first; he had gone in smiling, and smiling I found him when they summoned me, The stateroom was spacious, as befit- ted that of a commander, Mackenzie sit on the settee, his beard in front of him on the polished table; but a revolver lay in front of the captain, and when I had entered the chief ofticer, who had sunimoned me, shut the door and put his back to it, Von Henmann completed the party, his fingers busy with hls mustache, Raffles greeted me. “This is a great joke!” he cried, “You remember the poarl you were so keen about, Bunny, the Emperor's | pearl, the pear! money wouldn’t buy? It geems it was intrusted to our little friend here to take out to Canoodle Dum, and the poor little chap's gone “You will reeegnize that loyel and patriotic voice,” sald Raffles, ‘Mon, ‘tls our anid acquaintance Mackenzie, o' Scoteland Yarrd an’ Scoteland Of all the mere feats of cracksmanship which I have seen Rafiles per- {tsel’!"” most delicate and most difficult was that which he ac- “Dat is enough,” cried the captain, “Haye you submid to be searge, complished between 1 and 2 o'clock on the Tuesday morning aboard the or do I vorce you eumer Ubjan lying at anchor in Genoa Harbor, Not a hitch occurred, pened as I had been assured everything must, only the ship's boys on deck and nobody on the bridge. “What you will,” sald Radles, “but It will do you no’harm to give us Everything had been foreseen; everything hap- fair play first. You accuse us of breaking into Capt, von Heumann's state- Nobody was about below, room durlyg the small hours of this morning and abstracting from it thly It was twenty-five confounded pear]. Well, I can prove that I was in my own room all night minutes past 1 when Raffles, without a stitch of clothing on his body, but jong, and I have no doubt my friend can prove the same,” with a glass phial, corked with cotton wool, between his teeth, and a tiny “Most certainly I can,” sald I indignantly. “The ship's boys can bear screwdriver behind his ear, squirmed foet tirat through the ventilator over witness ta that.” lls berth; and {t was nineteen minutes to 2 when he returned, head firat, Mackenzie laighed and shook his head at his reflection in the polished , with the phial still between his teeth and the cotton wool rammed home to still the rattling of that which lay like a had taken screws out and put them in again; ithin, He yon Heus