"C Q", or, In the Wireless House/Chapter 16
XVI
In which every minute counts
THE next day was as thick as ever and the Pavonia poked her way through the fog towards Fire Island in the company of half a dozen other screaming liners with whom Micky kept m constant conversation. Indeed there were so many messages to and from shore that morning and all the afternoon as well, and he had little time to think of either Graeme or Chilvers. A message had come for the Captain congratulating him on his arrest of the latter but there was nothing further officially about the murder of the Earl of Roakby. Nevertheless Micky knew that the bolt would be searched from keel to crow’s nest before she was half way to her dock from quarantine and that if anything was to be done for Graeme it would have to be done within the next few hours.
The Pavonia had slackened her speed until she was barely making twelve knots an hour, and under the circumstances it was unlikely that she would pick up a pilot before evening, but she kept up a constant whistling in the hope that one might be near by. The passengers, nervous at the delay, tramped up and down the decks or spent hectic hours in their state-rooms endeavoring to conceal recent purchases of underwear, lace or dresses under soiled linen or inside other and more ancient belongings. Each was or had been industriously engaged in attempting to outwit the United States government in its effort to enforce the protective tariff for which two out of every three male passengers had voted indirectly at the last election. Fantine, by her mistress’s instructions made a careful pile of all Lily’s newly acquired Paris creations, together with her hats, gloves and lingerie.
“I ’m going to declare everything I bought!” she had announced convincingly in the morning when the stewardess had brought in the breakfast. “I ’ve given up trying to smuggle things—it ’s no use, and the duty amounts to very little at the most.”
“Yes, Madam,—it ’s best not!” answered Dorrance, bobbing and beaming as Lily slipped into her ready palm three golden sovereigns. “Thank you, Madam! I really don’t deserve as much, ma’am!”
Lily had hoped and still did hope to see Cosmo and offer to assist him in any way in her power for old friendship’s sake, but he had kept studiously out of her way. After all, he was nothing to her. He had killed a man and would have to suffer, if not swing, for it, and the less she had to do with him the better. But a gray depression rivaling that of the atmosphere outside gradually settled upon her spirits. The voyage had been a fizzle. She had lost money, made a fool of herself with the Captain, and had mixed herself up in two embarrassing criminal affairs. Then there was the necklace! Should she try to get Micky to take it in for her, or should n’t she? She had intended to go up to the wireless house the preceding evening, but the violence of the storm had rendered it out of the question. Her delicate evening dress would have been quite ruined, even had she been physically equal to the climb up the slippery ladder in the wind and rain. Had she done so she would have had more time to make her plans in case he refused to aid her. She must see him that day or at any rate that evening, at the latest!
“I don’t suppose you pay on much, do you?” Ashurst had asked her.
“Of course not!” she had replied. “The inspectors all know me and then—” with a laugh—“I never have anything to declare, you know!”
“Rather—not!” he had smirked. “By the way, I suppose Trevelyan will be climbing up the side before long.”
“I hope so!” she had retorted unsympathetically. “I would n’t mind seeing his face again. Perhaps you like these interminable trips—I don’t!”
The day wore on with the Pavonia sliding quietly through an oily sea only visible through the fog for the space of a few feet beyond the bowsprit. Just at dusk a shrill whistle from the obscurity announced the presence of a steam pilot boat; the engines ceased throbbing as a white dory came swiftly alongside and the pilot in tarpaulins and rubber boots appeared up the gangway with a huge bundle of papers in his arms. These he tossed to the Captain’s steward and then, dripping, made his way towards the bridge.
The pilot’s dory slid away from the ship's side, the bell rang once in the engine-room, and the Pavonia surged ahead. Micky, looking out of the window of the wireless house, made a rapid calculation. Those papers would be delivered at once to Captain Ponsonby, who would immediately retire to his room, light a big black cigar, remove his boots, and hold a reading fest. The papers were for the last fourteen days. Ponsonby would begin by hunting through them for the accounts of his own exploit. That might take thirty minutes. It was now a quarter after six, and that would make it six forty-five. Dinner was at seven-thirty, and of course Ponsonby would have to go down the last night of the trip. He always shaved himself and was a slow dresser. No, it was unlikely that the Captain would learn of the murder of Roakby before half after eight or nine o’clock. But he certainly would discover it then and begin to suspect that Micky had held back something from him.
The ship was now about half an hour from quarantine and it was a question whether or not she would come to anchor before the Captain should learn that he might still add to the luster already surrounding his name by identifying yet another fleeing felon on board his ship. Once at anchor Graeme must swim for it. Micky had already figured out that that was his only chance. With a life preserver or an oar pitched from the last life-boat aft he might, if the tide were favorable, make the Long Island shore. But in the meantime? Suppose Ponsonby stumbled on the Roakby affair the first thing?
The ship’s bell struck six times and the bugler began simultaneously to blow the first call for dinner. Seven o’clock. It still lacked thirty minutes before the ringing notes of “Roast Beef of Old England” would send the passengers in their everyday clothes down into the saloon for their last musty meal at the line’s expense. It was the moment when all the passengers were in their state-rooms washing up and brushing their hair, or taking an appetizer at the bar.
Micky put out the lights in the wireless house and climbed down the ladder. Graeme’s porthole showed a yellow circle through the fog and he turned the handle of his door and opened it without knocking. Cosmo was sitting on the bunk—writing a letter. His face was ashen. He nodded, finished writing, licked the envelope, and sealing it, wrote an address. Then he handed it to Micky.
“I say, old chap, mail this for me?” he said “I may n’t get a chance. This is my last night of freedom, I fancy.”
“Freedom—fiddlesticks!” retorted Mickv. “I ’ll have you safe on shore before midnight—if you don’t mind swimming in water that ’s a trifie cold.
Graeme shook his head.
“I don’t mind cold water, but they ’ll have me under arrest before we ’re within reach of land. By the way, here ’s a thrippence for the stamp.”
Micky took the three-penny bit and the letter.
The Hon, Evelyn Arabella Farquhar,
Toppingham Manor,
Toppingham,
Old Stottesbury, Hants.
The blood rushed to his freckled face. He had striven to keep this phase of his relation to Graeme in complete abeyance, but now—! It would be his last chance. What if it were n’t his business? Was Graeme the accepted suitor of his Lady of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem or not? He opened his mouth as if in interrogation.
“It ’s only a penny to England,” he said in a queer voice, fumbling awkwardly in his pocket and producing twopence. “You ’ll need the change when you get ashore.”
Graeme laughed in spite of himself, and pocketed the two coppers.
“You ’re a queer chap,” he said. “Somehow when you are with me I feel as if nothing could happen.”
He hesitated—
“Do you mind if I give you my watch? I ’d like you to have something of mine. Your taking it would make me feel as if—somehow—you didn’t blame me too much for what I ’d done.”
He unhooked his watch from its guard and laid it in Micky’s hand.
“I ’ll exchange with you,” said the Marconi man.
“You ’re an understanding sort of fellow,” continued Graeme. “Maybe we’ll meet again. I hope so.”
“No,” answered Micky. “We shan’t ever meet again. But sometime, when you ’re mining out in Vancouver or farming in Manitoba or trading in the Malay Peninsula, you might look at the name engraved inside my old turnip and drop me a line how you are.”
“Done!” said Graeme.
Each snapped on the other’s timepiece and Micky laid his hands on his friend’s shoulder.
“Now,” said he, “put out your light and follow me up the ladder.”
Graeme turned the switch and, locking the door of his state-room, placed the key in his pocket. No one was on deck. Indeed the night had fallen swiftly and black darkness covered their movements. Micky opened the door of the wireless house stealthily and closed it after them.
“In about two hours,” said he in a whisper, “old Ponsonby will wake up to the fact that you are on board. Of course he knows you ’re Cosmo Graeme. Mrs. Trevelyan’s responsible for that. Then he ’ll probably search the ship. I ’ve got to keep you out of the way until you can swim for it, and that won’t be until we ’re off Fire Island.”
Behind the bunk was a narrow closet, totally concealed when the door of the wireless house was open, and amply large enough to contain a human being standing.
“I won’t turn on the lights,” said Micky, “and even if any one comes up there is n’t a chance in a hundred of his finding you. You can sit on the bunk, and hide in the closet, if we hear anybody on the ladder.”
Micky sat down at his desk and put the receivers to his ears. Instantly he found himself in the midst of a babel of sound. Within fifty miles from New York at nine o’clock at night the ocean is as noisy as a department store. Everybody is working all along the coast from Hatteras to Glace Bay, including the five hundred amateurs inhabiting New York City, most of whom can send but few of whom can read. Thus if they jam no one can explain to them what trouble they are making for everybody else. Outside the night seemed to be clearing up and the air was carbonizing. He could hear all the big stations shouting at each other and high above the racket the shrill whistle of the quenched spark sets of the Radio Telegraph Company on the Metropolitan Tower.
“Toot-o-o-t-oot-oot!” they went, just like a French locomotive.
Over on the Waldorf old man Pickering was complaining to the operator at the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia—
“Oh, you! You! You! Why don't you wake up? I ’ve been calling for fifteen minutes. Don't you know this little hole up here is as hot as Hades? W A P K.”
“Oh, shut up!” came back from Philadelphia m the sharp tone of the DeForest wave. “Why can’t you give us a rest? Ain’t Philadelphia hotter than New York? B S S P.”
Micky laughed. He knew both those fellows. Later, when he ’d nothing to do he ’d call up Pickering and get the details of the ball game.
“AX” (Atlantic City) was trying to get some vessel far out in the gulf-stream and an amateur was answering just for fun. Other amateurs joined in the ha-ha chorus. Really it was a scandal the way those fellows jammed and got in the way. There ought to be aerial regulations and an American board of supervisors.
Then the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which uses a rotary spark gap that whines like a gigantic humming-top, began calling Hatteras. Starting with a low, angry buzz like a militant mosquito, it rose gradually to high G, soaring into the acoustic zone like a rocket, and wailing like a lost soul. Micky always liked to listen to the Navy Yard. It did good clean work.
“HA—HA-HA-NAH“ sent the Navy man. (Hatteras—Brooklyn Navy Yard calling.)
“NAH I-I-I (I ’m here) G A. (Go ahead),“ replied Hatteras.
“HA-AA. MSG (message) CK 11 (check eleven words),“ answered the Yard.
“Waldon Torpedo Destroyer Yellow Jacket Hampton Roads. Report at once Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs and general overhauling. Seavey. PR-NAH.“
“PR—That ’s Proctor,“ mused Micky.
Hatteras acknowledged the message.
“NAH— MSG.—OK GB (good-by) HA.”
Then the New York Herald office on the Ferry building at the Battery began calling the New Willard in Washington for Senator Smith, and a lunatic on the Ansonia kept interrupting.
“Please—please don’t jam!” expostulated the Herald. “My message is important.”
“Oh, rats!” retorted the Ansonia. “Who ’s Smith? And who are you, anyhow? Do you think you own the whole air?”
“Please—please—” whined the Herald.
“Shut up, boy, and let the Herald talk!” thundered the deep tones of the United Wireless at Manhattan Beach. “Mind your own business or we ’ll lodge a complaint against you.”
“Ha! Ha!” mocked the Ansonia. “What can you do, old fuss cat?”
“Please—please—” kept on the exasperated and almost demented Herald.
“Oh, for God's sake, let somebody work can’t you, kid?" threw in Atlantic City. “You ’re getting entirely too gay!”
“Listen, everybody!”
It was DeForest fooling with his radio telephone over in Newark.
“Listen, everybody!”
And through the air came clearly the chorus of “There ’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight,” rendered by a phonograph nearly a hundred miles away.
“By gad! That’s great!” ejaculated Micky.
“What is?” asked Graeme from the darkness of the bunk.
“I can hear the Radio Company’s phonograph as plain as if it were on the bridge!” answered Micky. “Wait a minute till I call up the Waldorf and see how the game came out!”
“WA—WA—WA—” he flashed. “Are you there, Pickering ? This is the Pavonia—Fitzpatrick. How about the ball game?”
“MPA—MPA—Hello, Micky. Glad to see you. Giants won game—one, nothing—eleven innings. Josh Devore knocked a home run. Great work. Say, did you hear that kid at the Ansonia? He makes me sick! Can’t hear yourself think some of these evenings. PK.,” answered Pickering.
“WA — WA— Thanks. GB. MPH—MF,” said Mickey.
There was an unexpected diminution of speed and the engines of the Pavonia stopped. Through the mist appeared a row of yellow lights. Beyond could be seen the feeble ray of a search-light creeping here and there around the zenith.
“Quarantine!” cried Micky. “It’s now or never!”
There was a thunder of running chains, a thud, a roar—and the Pavonia was still. Suddenly he snatched up the receivers and placed them at his ears. A second or two more and the blue flashes leaped in showers across his spark gap.
“Do you see those lights?” he whispered in running comment. “Over there to starboard? That ’s the Patrie—French Liner—bound for Algiers. Operator is a friend of mine—Gaston Bruyere. She ’s waiting for the tide to turn and the fog to lift. To-morrow she ’ll be three hundred miles on her way to Africa. What do you say? Will you try it?”
“How can I get aboard?” asked Graeme.
“Wait a minute!”
Again the crackle of the leaping sparks.
“I ’ve asked Bruyere to lend you a hand, and he says he will. Wants you to swim around to the starboard chains and he ’ll throw you a line. Are you on?”
“Yes!” replied Graeme.
Micky dropped his receivers and turned to where Graeme was sitting in the dark.
“Ever since that fellow from Sadi-bel-Abas got off all that stuff about the foreign legion I ’ve had a hunch Africa was the only place for you. This is your chance. You can trust whatever Bruyere says—and you ’re safe on board the Frenchman. No extradition papers are valid on the high seas. And it mast be a great life—fighting the desert and the Arabs!”
“I ’ve thought of it myself—often,” answered Graeme. “Yes, I ’ll take the chance and thank you for it.”
They crept out of the wireless house, climbed down the ladder to the after-deck and side by side walked silently towards the stern—the stern where a week before they two had struggled so fiercely together in the moonlight. Not more than two hundred feet away the Frenchman lay with her nose towards the sea, her lights gleaming, the water pouring from her vents. Graeme took off his coat and waistcoat and held out his hand.
“God bless you!” he whispered.
For the last time Micky turned to ask him a single question—but he did not ask it.
“Good-by,” he answered. “Good luck and God bless you!”
Graeme lowered himself as far as he could oyer the stern and dropped. There was a slight splash. A moment more and Micky could see his head bobbing among the waves as he was carried by the tide towards the Frenchman. Presently he was lost in the darkness.
“Well!” sighed Micky to himself. “That disposes of one of them!”
He folded the coat and waistcoat into as small a bundle as possible and stole back to the wireless house.