A Splendid Hazard Part 20

And with this admonition the captain drank his beer and thumped off for the water front, satisfied that the village would hear nothing from Mr.

Donovan. Nevertheless, it was shameful to let a hundred go that easy; twenty would have served. He was about to hail the skiff when he was accosted by the quiet little man he had recently observed sitting alone in the corner of Swan's office.

"Pardon, but you are Captain Flanagan of the yacht _Laura_?"

"Yessir," patiently. "But the owner never lets anybody aboard he don't know, sir."

"I do not desire to come aboard, my Captain. What I wish to know is if his excellency the admiral is at home."

"His excellency" rather confounded the captain for a moment; but he came about without "takin' more'n a bucketful," as he afterward expressed it to Halloran the engineer. "I knew right then he wus a furriner; I know 'em. They ain't no excellencies in th' navy. But I tells him that the commodore was snug in his berth up yonder, and with that he looks to me like I wus a lady. I've seen him in Swan's at night readin'; allus chasin' b.u.t.terflies when he sees 'em in the street." And the captain rounded out this period by touching his forehead as a subtle hint that in his opinion the foreigner carried no ballast.

In the intervening time the subject of this light suggestion was climbing the hill with that tireless resiliant step of one born to mountains. No task appeared visibly to weary this man. Small as he was, his bones were as strong and his muscles as stringy as a wolf's.

If the b.u.t.terfly was worth while he would follow till it fell to his net or daylight withdrew its support. Never he lost patience, never his smile faltered, never his mild spectacled eyes wavered. He was a savant by nature; he was a secret agent by choice. Who knows anything about rare b.u.t.terflies appreciates the peril of the pursuit; one never picks the going and often stumbles. He was a hunter of b.u.t.terflies by nature; but he possessed a something more than a mere smattering of other odd crafts. He was familiar with precious gems, marbles he knew and cameos; he could point out the weakness in a drawing, the false effort in a symphony; he was something of mutual interest to every man and woman he met.

So it fell out very well that Admiral Killigrew was fond of b.u.t.terflies. Still, he should have been equally glad to know that the sailor's hobby inclined toward the exploits of pirates. M. Ferraud was a modest man. That his exquisite brochure on lepidopterous insects was in nearly all the public libraries of the world only gratified, but added nothing to his vanity.

As it oftentimes happens to a man whose mind is occupied with other things, the admiral, who received M. Ferraud in the library, saw nothing in the name to kindle his recollection. He bade the savant to be seated while he read the letter of introduction which had been written by the secretary of the navy.

"MY DEAR KILLIGREW:

"This will introduce to you Monsieur Ferraud, of the b.u.t.terfly fame.

He has learned of the success of your efforts in the West Indies and South America and is eager to see your collection. Do what you can for him. I know you will, for you certainly must have his book. I myself do not know a b.u.t.terfly from a June-bug, but it will be a pleasure to bring you two together."

Breitmann arranged his papers neatly and waited to be dismissed. He had seen M. Ferraud at Swan's, but had formed no opinion regarding him; in fact, the growth of his interest had stopped at indifference. On his part, the new arrival never so much as gave the secretary a second glance--the first was sufficient. And while the admiral read on, M.

Ferraud examined the broken skin on his palms.

"Mr. Ferraud! Well, well; this is a great honor, I'm sure. It was very kind of them to send you here. Where is your luggage?"

"I am stopping at Swan's Hotel."

"We shall have your things up this very night."

"Oh!" said Ferraud, in protest; though this was the very thing he desired.

"Not a word!" The admiral summoned the butler, who was the general factotem at The Pines, and gave a dozen orders.

"Ah, you Americans!" laughed M. Ferraud, pyramiding his fingers. "You leave us breathless."

"Your book has delighted me. But I'm afraid my collection will not pay you for your trouble."

"That is for me to decide. My South American specimens are all seconds. On the other hand, you have netted yours yourself."

And straightway a bond of friends.h.i.+p was riveted between these two men which still remains bright and untarnished by either absence or forgetfulness. They bent over the cases, agreed and disagreed, the one with the sharp gestures, the other with the rise and fall of the voice.

For them nothing else existed; they were truly engrossed.

Breitmann, hiding a smile that was partly a yawn, stole quietly away.

b.u.t.terflies did not excite his concern in the least.

M. Ferraud was charmed. He was voluble. Never had he entered a more homelike place, large enough to be called a chateau, yet as cheerful as a winter's fire. And the daughter! Her French was the elegant speech of Tours, her German Hanoverian. Incomparable! And she was not married? _Helas_! How many luckless fellows walked the world desolate? And this was M. Fitzgerald the journalist? And M. Breitmann had also been one? How delighted he was to be here! All this flowed on with perfect naturalness; there wasn't a false note anywhere. At dinner he diffused a warmth and geniality which were infectious. Laura was pleased and amused; and she adored her father for these impulses which brought to the board, unexpectedly, such men as M. Ferraud.

M. Ferraud did not smoke, but he dissipated to the extent of drinking three small cups of coffee after dinner.

"You are right," he acknowledged--there had been a slight dispute relative to the methods of roasting the berry--"Europe does not roast its coffee, it burns it. The aroma, the bouquet! I am beaten."

"So am I," Fitzgerald reflected sadly, s.n.a.t.c.hing a vision of the girl's animated face.

Three days he had ridden into the country with her, or played tennis, or driven down to the village and inspected the yacht. He had been lonely so long and this beautiful girl was such a good comrade. One moment he blessed the prospective treasure hunt, another he execrated it. To be with this girl was to love her; and whither this pleasurable idleness would lead him he was neither blind nor self-deceiving. But with the semi-humorous recklessness which was the leaven of his success, he thrust prudence behind him and stuck to the primrose path.

He had played with fire before, but never had the coals burned so brightly. He did not say that she was above him; mentally and by birth they were equals; simply, he was compelled to admit of the truth that she was beyond him. Money. That was the obstacle. For what man will live on his wife's bounty? Suppose they found the treasure (and with his old journalistic suspicion he was still skeptical), and divided it; why, the interest on his share would not pay for her dresses. To the ordinary male eye her gowns looked inexpensive, but to him who had picked up odd bits of information not usually in the pathway of man, to him there was no secret about it. That bodice and those sleeves of old Venetian point would have eaten up the gains of any three of his most prosperous months.

And Breitmann, dropping occasionally the ash of his cigarette on the tray, he, too, was pondering. But his German strain did not make it so easy for him as for Fitzgerald to give concrete form to his thought.

The star, as he saw it, had a nebulous appearance.

M. Ferraud chatted gaily. Usually a man who holds his audience is of single purpose. The little Frenchman had two aims: one, to keep the conversation on subjects of his own selection, and the other, to study without being observed. Among one of his own tales (b.u.t.terflies) he told of a chase he once had made in the mountains of the Moors, in Abyssinia. To ill.u.s.trate it he took up one of the nets standing in the corner. In his excitable way he was a very good actor. And when he swooped down the net to demonstrate the end of the story, it caught on a b.u.t.ton on Breitmann's coat.

"Pardon!" said M. Ferraud, with a blithe laugh. "The b.u.t.terfly I was describing was not so big."

Breitmann freed himself amid general laughter. And with Laura's rising the little after-dinner party became disorganized.

It was yet early; but perhaps she had some thought she wished to be alone with. This consideration was the veriest bud in growth; still, it was such that she desired the seclusion of her room. She swung across her shoulders the sleepy Angora and wished the men good night.

The wire bell in the hall clock vibrated twice; two o'clock of the morning. A streak of moon-s.h.i.+ne fell aslant the floor and broke off abruptly. Before the safe in the library stood Breitmann, a small tape in his hand. For several minutes he contemplated somberly the nickel combination wheel. He could open it for he knew the combination. To open it would be the work of a moment. Why, then, did he hesitate?

Why not pluck it forth and disappear on the morrow? The admiral had not made a copy, and without the key he might dig up Corsica till the crack of doom. The flame on the taper crept down. The man gave a quick movement to his shoulders; it was the shrug, not of impatience but of resignation. He saw the lock through the haze of a conjured face. He shut his eyes, but the vision remained. Slowly he drew his fingers over the flame.

Yet, before the flame died wholly it touched two points of light in the doorway, the round crystals of a pair of spectacles.

"Two souls with but a single thought!" the secret agent murmured.

"Poor devil! why does he hesitate? Why does he not take it and be gone? Is he still honest? _Peste_! I must be growing old. I shall not ruin him, I shall save him. It is not goot politics, but it is good Christianity. _Schlafen Sie wohl, Hochwohl geboren_!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE WOMAN WHO KNEW

"Don't you sometimes grow weary for an abiding place?" Laura pulled off her gauntlets and laid her hot hands on the cool lichen-grown stones of the field-wall. The bridle-rein hung over her arm.

Fitzgerald had drawn his through a stirrup. "Think of wandering here and there, with never a place to come back to."

"I have thought of it often in the few days I have been here. I have a home in New York, but I could not possibly afford to live in it; so I rent it; and when I want to go fis.h.i.+ng there's enough under hand to pay the expenses. My poor old dad! He was always indorsing notes for his friends, or carrying stock for them; and nothing ever came back. I am afraid the disillusions broke his heart. And then, perhaps I was a bitter disappointment. I was expelled from college in my junior year.

I had no head for figures other than that kind which inhabit the Louvre and the Vatican."

Her face became momentarily mirthful.

"So I couldn't take hold of the firm for him," he continued. "And I suppose the last straw was when I tried my hand at reporting on one of the newspapers. He knew that the gathering of riches, so far as I was concerned, was a closed door. But I found my level; the business was and is the only one that ever interested me or fused my energy with real work."

"But it is real work. You are one of those men who have done something. Most men these days rest on their fathers' laurels."