CHAPTER III

THE SPY AND THE DEAD BOATSWAIN

Three steps at a time I took the matted stairway, which was reckless speed, for the sh.e.l.l-paned windows were shut, and the awnings pulled down to keep out the heat of the blinding sun, making it quite dark. But I was bound to capture the little red-headed man, thrash him soundly, make him tell his motive in trailing me, and turn him over to the police.

I caught the indistinct figure of a man in white coming up, and threw myself to one side to avoid him, but he stumbled in front of me, and we went sprawling into the corridor below. It was a nasty spill, and I shot out on the matting at full length with my hands thrown before me. The polished teak-wood floor and the loose matting saved me from injury.

"My dear sir!" exclaimed the man who fell with me, and I found the Rev.

Luther Meeker sitting on a crumpled mat and propped up with his arms behind him, while his pith helmet went dancing away on its rim to settle crazily upon its crown a dozen feet from us.

For an instant I was tempted to attack him, when I realized that his presence on the stairs and his interruption of my pursuit of the redheaded man were significant of more than an accident, and that Meeker and the other were spying upon me. I bridled my ire, and decided to play the game out with them and fathom the mystery of their espionage.

"My dear sir, I am almost certain that I have sprained my back--I am sure I have injured my back!"

"I am sorry for your back," I said, getting to my feet. "For my part, I am satisfied to escape without a broken neck."

"My immortal soul, if it isn't Mr. Trenholm!" said he, blinking at me, his goggles bobbing on a rubber string made fast to a jacket-b.u.t.ton. "Of all persons, Mr. Trenholm! Bless my soul!"

My mental remark was somewhat similar and with equal fervour, if not complimentary to him and his soul. Brushing my soiled ducks, I started to move away, for it would never do to a.s.sume an excess of friendship too suddenly.

"Just one moment, Mr. Trenholm--" he called after me, shaking a bony forefinger--"just one moment, I beg of you, sir! I have some information which I desire to impart, and, strangely enough, I was seeking you when this unfortunate tumble came about, partly through my infirmities, I am sure. One moment, sir. It is to your advantage to wait, I a.s.sure you."

"What is it?" I asked, hesitating. The little beggar had undoubtedly escaped, and I knew that in Meeker I had bigger game if I handled him cautiously.

"The _Kut Sang_!" he said, arising with difficulty and holding his back with one hand while he hobbled after his helmet.

I was convinced that his injury and decrepit bearing were clever bits of acting.

"I desire to correct you regarding the _Kut Sang_" he cackled, caressing the recovered helmet.

"What about it? My dear Mr. Meeker, I am in a hurry and cannot waste the day waiting for you to talk. I am sorry for what has happened here, but I trust that you are not incapacitated. Anyway, I do not think there is anything you can tell me about the _Kut Sang_ that I do not already know."

"Oh, but there is," he protested, holding up his hand and eyeing me craftily. "I was seeking you to tell you when we fell upon each other so unceremoniously. It is quite--"

"I suppose you want to tell me that the sailing has been delayed. I know all about that--she sails in the morning."

"Sails in the morning!" he exclaimed, pretending surprise, but being puzzled about something. "Does she?"

There was guile in that last question, and when he asked it I knew it was he or some one acting for him who had attempted to mislead me about the time of the vessel's departure. I saw a chance to trap him, and asked:

"Was that what you wanted to tell me?"

He parried it, and while he fumbled in his pockets for something, a trick to gain time, he was thinking hard and fast.

I had him against the ropes, so to speak, and he knew it, for what he did want to find out was whether I knew the telephone message to be fraudulent. If I did, he wanted to take credit for setting me right; and if I didn't, he wanted me to miss the _Kut Sang_. So, knowing his game, I came to the conclusion that I must not press him too hard and so make him suspicious that I knew his true character--his character, that is, as a decidedly suspicious person.

"I was told that she sails in the morning, but it was some mistake," I told him, as if I had not found anything peculiar in the error and was not the least disturbed about it.

"Oh, no! Nothing in that!" he cried, unable to conceal his delight over my admission of how much I knew. "For a minute I thought there might be something in the story, after all, when I heard you say she was delayed.

That is just what I was going to tell you--there is no truth in that report. Some person, who I cannot say, also gave me misinformation regarding the _Kut Sang_. I feared that you might have had the same experience. That, however, is only a part of it--what I want to tell you is that it is now possible to buy a ticket in the _Kut Sang_."

"I already have my ticket," I said. "So we will be fellow-pa.s.sengers, and I hope you will pardon my throwing you down the stairs; but I was running after a beggar or a thief."

"Indeed! Do you know the rascal, or did you see him so that you can give a comprehensive description of him to the police?"

"A little red-headed man," I said, watching him closely. "Did you see him before you started up the stairs?"

He burst out in a dry, mirthless cackle of laughter, and slapped his knees, much as if he had heard a good joke.

"If you will come in to tiffin with me, Mr. Trenholm, I will tell you about him."

a.s.suming affability, I accepted his invitation, and we went into the dining-room together and found a table to ourselves in the corner. I was rather pleased at having an opportunity to study him, especially at his own suggestion, and I made up my mind that before the lunch was over I would have solved the mystery of who or what the missionary was, and why he had the little red-headed man at my heels since I had arrived in Manila that morning, and why he had attempted to keep me out of the _Kut Sang_.

"And who is this little red-headed man?" I asked as we took our chairs.

He bowed his head and mumbled a grace before replying, and I had a sense of mental conflict between us, and knew that I would have to guard against chicane, or the suave old fellow would talk me out of my suspicions.

"It must have been Dago Red you saw," he began, grinning, and wagging his head. "I hope he did not actually steal anything, my dear Mr. Trenholm. I am quite sure you must be mistaken about his being a thief; but it is quite possible, he has deceived me."

"I found him sneaking near my door in the hall," I said. "Who is this Dago Red?"

"A worthy man," he replied getting serious. "I am afraid you have done him an injustice, for I sent him up to see if you were in your room, and after I had given him the errand the clerk informed me that you were in, and I started up myself."

"He didn't appear anxious to talk with me when he saw me open the door."

"You probably startled him by--"

"But who is he?"

"Petrak, I think his name is, although I am not sure, and my poor old memory cannot hold names long. He is a sailor who has been shipwrecked, and he became a vagrant here and was sent to Bilibid Prison. Much of my work is in prisons, and I took charge of him when he got out and sent him to the Sailors' Home, sure that he would be able to get a ship again.

That was a couple of months ago, and when I arrived to-day he met me and told me that he had left the Home because the keeper was prejudiced against him, owing to his term in prison.

"He was on the verge of starvation, and I gave him some money from my charity fund, which he promptly spent on drink, for he is quite dissolute. But he took charge of my luggage and attended to some errands for me, but he fears the police and cannot get out of his habit of skulking about, and, as the detectives have hounded him, he is suspicious of everybody, and ready to go into a panic when a stranger approaches him. It is a pity that he cannot get back to sea, but he has had the fever, and no master seems to want him, and he has been forced into vagabondage."

He gave me this history of the little red-headed man in disconnected sentences while we were at the soup, and I let him run on. As he talked his eyes were roaming over the room, and he scanned every person that entered, and peered at me from under his brows when he thought I was not observing him.

It was plausible enough, but I could not forget that Meeker and the little sailor were together a great deal, and whenever I had seen them they were acting suspiciously, and both of them had kept close watch upon me. Neither had he explained away the fact that he had told me I could not buy a ticket in the _Kut Sang_, which I did; nor the fact that he had his own ticket when he told me that, nor the false telephone message for the obvious purpose of making me miss the steamer, and then his getting in my way when I was in pursuit of Petrak, or "Dago Red," as he called him.

It seemed beyond reason that this chain of events could be nothing but a combination of coincidences, and, when I a.n.a.lyzed the situation, I framed what I considered a good theory regarding Petrak's presence outside my door. It occurred to me that Meeker was the author of the false message, and that he was really on his way to visit me to learn if I had discovered the falsity of it when he met me rushing down the stairs. But he had sent Petrak ahead of him to listen at the door in case I telephoned the company to verify the first message; Petrak had heard me ask the company for the sailing time and was about to report to Meeker when I opened the door upon him.

Meeker was probably at the foot of the stairs and covered the retreat of his henchman. Petrak may not have been able to stop and report what he had heard, so Meeker fished for the information from me, ready to confirm the report that the sailing of the vessel was delayed, or pretend that he was about to set me right.

Upon my admission that I knew the report was false, he grasped at the latter alternative, and, seeing that it was impossible to prevent me going in the _Kut Sang_, determined to make friends with me and disarm whatever suspicions I might have regarding him. It seemed a tenable theory, but I could not account for all this bother on his part because James Augustus Trenholm, of the Amalgamated Press, took pa.s.sage in the _Kut Sang_.

It seemed absurd to me that Meeker or anybody else would be concerned because I was leaving Manila for Hong-Kong. It was plain enough that he, or somebody, had done their best to keep me from sailing in the _Kut Sang_. That it was the Rev. Luther Meeker there could be little doubt, but the mystery lay in what his motives could be, or who he was acting for, and it was beyond me to say why there should be any objection to my sailing in the steamer _Kut Sang_ that afternoon.

While I was thinking these things over he was keeping up a running conversation about trivial matters, and we were well into the curried lamb and getting along famously when he asked a question which put me on my guard at once, and set me groping mentally for a solution of the puzzle.