Waylaid by Wireless/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
THE SPORTING PROPOSITION
The girl offered her little gloved hand impulsively, and the two men touched her fingers in turn, taking her into their newly re-established confidence in each other. And she found herself smiling with amusement, but perhaps with a little pride, too, as her eyes followed the erect, alert young figure of the American accompanying the staid, tweed-clad figure of the Briton down the deck.
She turned to her steamer-chair as they disappeared; but as she found the uncertainties of which she was herself a part much more interesting to her just then than those in the book she had been reading, she started up restlessly again to pace the promenade deck alone.
She noted, with an excited little thrill, that already the news of the robberies upon the ship the night before had spread with inevitable exaggerations and distortions as the story passed from lip to lip. And, as one of the principals in the reports and the obvious friend of the others, she submitted patiently to the unconcealed curiosity and concern which the other passengers began to bestow upon her. She passed unnoticing by the bolder gazes, but smiled and thanked the women who stopped and spoke to her, and who—finding that she was alone—solicitously offered their care.
Facing the second day at sea without newspapers or other interests fresher than those they had brought on board with them, the men especially welcomed gladly the vague promise of some action; and as Miss Varris, in a group of her new-found chaperones, passed by at the end opposite the smoking-room, she could hear the groups within rejoicing vociferously and hazarding high hopes upon the awaited developments.
Many of them moved mischievously about the decks, subtly exaggerating and further distorting the rumors which had already been vaguely diffused, till all the first cabin was properly primed either to impatience, hope, or apprehension. And, under the cohesive influence of the news, the passengers had begun to draw together in close little groups.
"Well, Mr. Preston?" the girl greeted the young American brightly, as at last he returned to the deck an hour or so later. "You see," she nodded down the frankly attentive lines of people in their deck chairs, "we are all clearly expecting something from you! Really, I never knew such commotion on shipboard as there is over this—even among the English. And half the women are positively afraid. Wild stories are going about."
"What kind?" Preston asked, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
"Oh, of all sorts. I very much more than half suspect that your 'smoking-room' cliques, who have been getting up the pools, are not letting this opportunity for excitement die from inanition. Many of the women are truly frightened; but most of you men, I believe, are actually glad."
"Yes," Preston confessed. "We are. I dropped in the smoking-room on the way here and was greeted really with cheers, and—as you said—even from the English. Truly, I believe that though it scares some of the women, this is going to save the lives of no mean number of our British cousins.
"We have an unusually large number of the regular 'globe-trotters' aboard this trip who are always game and on the lookout for anything in the way of a novelty, or a sporting proposition. Yesterday and last night I really feared that half of them were going to die on the decks from virulent ennui. Between yawns, they bought numbers in the pools, of course, in a hopeless, somnambulistic sort of way; but they had no interest in winning just a little more money. Dear old Dunneston himself was bad enough. Of course, he had a mild sort of interest in seeing whether I would finally confirm his conviction that I was Mr. Manling. But that could furnish him no real interest in the chase.
"But now that he knows that Mr. Manling is on board and is again convinced, at least for a while," Preston put in cautiously, "that I am not he, he's revivified most wonderfully. You wouldn't know him. And the captain's not only a Briton like him, but the best sort of an old sport, too. It was better than Thackeray to see them together.
"When the captain told old Dunneston that he had received warning from the police that Mr. Manling had sailed with us, but that they were yet unable to furnish any clue to his identity, except the description which they received at Polporru and had to discard, Dunneston almost fell over him with joy.
"'I say, Captain,' he congratulated him, 'I say, perfect that, what? We know he is on board, and have no clue to his identity?'
"'No, sir; not yet,' the captain said. 'Absolutely none.'
"'How extraordinarily fortunate!' our friend let him have that then. Of course, he gave the captain the ordinary English time allowance for thought; but I needed a little time myself. Pretty soon, however, Dunneston explained.
"'For it would quite prevent any possible interest in this if we knew, wouldn't it?' he appealed. 'Oh, quite prevent it! But now—'
"'Aw—Captain, no offence, sir; none at all! But you know, sir, this passage had started out extraordinarily dully. Even the pools in the smoking-room, sir, upon which one can usually count, have attracted only the most forced interest. And aside, sir, from the protection we could give the ladies, do not you think, Captain, that this extraordinary chance might be profitably employed to—'
"But you wouldn't believe the rest now, if I told you, Miss Varris," Preston broke off, laughing at the recollection. "Even I caught their spirit for a moment and was quite carried away by them; and when they got stuck in perfecting their scheme to use Manling to protect the ladies and still revive the smokingroom, I was able to help them out a little myself."
"You mean, Mr. Preston," the girl asked, "that you perfected Mr. Dunneston's scheme for interesting the ship?"
"Right! Why not?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing! But—what is that going on down there?"
"I guess that is our notice going up."
"What for?"
"Oh, the mass-meeting in the salon to-night! Haven't you heard? Come forward and see!" He led proudly.
They waited till the first groups of curious readers scattered to carry the word to the others down the decks, and then they read:
"In view of the alarming reports which have spread over the ship in consequence of certain occurrences in the first cabin last night, and to suggest an action which may be taken by the gentlemen, the passengers of the first cabin will kindly assemble in the main dining salon at nine this evening, by request of
"The Captain."
"I see!" the girl comprehended. "Who is to address the meeting?"
"Oh, the captain and Mr. Dunneston, chiefly."
"And not you also?" the girl queried suspiciously.
"Yes," he confessed, "they asked me, as an American and the first one robbed, to help them with a few words."
"I thought so!"
"But I didn't want to, truly. I would much prefer to take you to the meeting."
"Thank you; but I can come with any of my present forty chaperones!" She turned away and, nodding brightly, left him.
He saw her only once or twice again that day when other girls and women were with her. But sharp at nine that evening she was waiting in her place in the main dining salon.
Mr. Dunneston and young Preston, with the captain and one or two of the other officers, occupied the little platform at one end, where the orchestra usually played; and when the captain arose a few moments later, there was scarcely a place vacant in the whole salon.
"I have assembled you here, ladies and gentlemen," the commander started briskly, "not to soothe you with false assurances, but to acquaint you truthfully and fully with the situation which faces you passengers of the first cabin, so that you may take whatever precautions you consider proper to best deal with it.
"After having put this matter before you precisely as it has occurred," the captain continued, after he had finished his concise recount of the events of the night before, "I make no secret of the fact that I believe that the man known as Manling, of whom you all must have heard in England this summer, is here on board with us and must have been the agent of the robberies which occurred here last night.
"I have formed this opinion, not only from the cool character of the crimes themselves, but more particularly from the information which I have received by the 'wireless' from the authorities upon shore, that Mr. Manling probably sailed with us from Southampton.
"And though I have this double assurance," he continued, "I make no secret, either, of the fact that I have at this moment absolutely no clue or indication of the man—other than this," he qualified calmly. "I am convinced that he is now present before me as one of you, the first-cabin passengers of this ship.
"I have a plan by which I hope to ascertain his presence in a moment or two," he went on, while those in the salon raised themselves in their seats and glanced about curiously, and a few laughed nervously, "but it is enough now to say that, not only do the indications, which the police were able to give me, point to the fact that he booked first class, but we know, from the clearly declared peculiarity and fastidiousness of Mr. Manling, that he would not have consented to come except first class.
"It is safe to say, then, that he is here in the salon with us, free and entirely unsuspected."
Three fourths of the occupants of the salon now lifted themselves from their seats, and the nervous laughter and whispering became general.
"Appreciating then," the commander continued, "that we have on board—unsuspected and as one of us—a man who successfully relieved two gentlemen in one cabin of almost every article of value, including a very considerable sum of money, without awaking either or leaving a clue; and considering also that he must have forced the lock of one of the ladies' cabins and chloroformed the occupant, while he removed the stone-bag she wore about her neck and even slipped two rings from her fingers; and considering also that Manling, the remarkable cathedral-town thief who began his extraordinary career less than two months ago, and during all that time has been pillaging travellers steadily and securely under the very noses of our police, is now on board with us, and must continue with us till we land, you will appreciate the situation which faces us upon this ship.
"For Mr. Manling has as yet, as the Graphic well put it, become known to the police only as a series of extraordinarily simple, audacious, and successful robberies; not as a man.
"In the single instance at Plymouth last week, when he was thought to have slipped at last and exposed himself, in some incomprehensible and clever way he had so confused his identity with another that he tricked the police into arresting a man who had an incontestable alibi. The police then were back where they were before.
"They have been able to name him Manling only because that is the name which he himself has preferred to give when he addresses his impertinent communications to them.
"Invariably, as I said, he has carried through his various projects successfully, and often with really laughable simplicity, under the very noses of our police. And not content with that, recently he has begun to fear detection so little, that first he invites it, and when the police are close upon him, seems actually to use them to perfect his escape.
"Some say that he likes delicate situations so much that he creates them merely for the pleasure of extricating himself from them. But as he has consistently extricated, from those delicate situations, so much more than himself, I do not press that view of Mr. Manling.
"However, I can safely press the view that—unless we upon this ship develop abilities exceeding those of the officers of the dozen details which have been pursuing Mr. Manling ashore—he can calmly proceed in taking from us whatever he fancies and walk off the dock at New York unmolested.
"For, though there is no doubt that our special service men will make an effort to apprehend him upon landing, they have as yet no further indication of his sailing than this: They knew he was in Plymouth last week, where he evidently tried to find passage to America—and found only the bunk upon the Bahia in which he deposited his victim for Brazil. Then they traced him to Southampton, but only by another daring haul he made there. For he robbed another American there just before he sailed, and sent the new steamer rug and the new leather travelling box, which the American had just received from a London dealer, down to our dock and had them brought on board with the first-cabin luggage for this ship!
"So when I received this remarkable warning of the presence of such a man, and these gentlemen," he indicated the young American and the Englishman beside him, "brought their evidence that Mr. Manling had indeed followed his box and rug aboard, I finally decided to let them lay before you the extraordinary sporting proposition which they proposed to me this morning.
"I appreciate that there is positively no precedent for the presentation of such a proposition to the passengers of a ship. But the situation confronting us is equally without precedent. I can see no additional danger to any one from the acceptance of this suggestion; on the other hand, it promises complete protection to many. For if you gentlemen of the 'smoking-room' choose to carry out this suggestion and take the encounters with Manling to yourselves—and Mr. Manling makes the proposed compact with you—I feel that I can absolutely insure the rest of you passengers from the visits of the masterful Mr. Manling during the rest of this voyage!"
The applause which started from the rear, where the men were gathered, swept over the salon. Anticipatory cries of "Hear! Hear!" came from the enthusiastic smoking-room crowd, as the captain nodded to Mr. Dunneston, and the Englishman arose.
"I rather fancied that my friends of the smoking-room, who have been in on our little pools, would appreciate with me the extraordinary sporting possibilities," the Briton began with gratification, "in this presence of Mr. Manling on board ship with us. Still, in presenting this suggestion which—aw—the captain has just mentioned, please understand that I do not propose it only to lend a higher and keener interest to our pools; I suggest it, I say, quite as much—if not more, indeed—out of a chivalrous regard for the safety of the ladies of the ship!"
"Hear! Hear!" two of the previously most dejected Britons burst forth with reckless enthusiasm.
"Our captain has just sketched slightly to you," Mr. Dunneston continued, carefully combing his imaginary mustache with his finger-tips, "a few of the known characteristics of Mr. Manling which led us to lay this proposal before you. But perhaps he has not emphasized sufficiently the most conspicuous characteristic of this extraordinary thief—and the characteristic which I consider most essential to the operation of my plan. I refer to the sense of refinement—I might rather say, honor—which the extraordinary Mr. Manling has invariably shown.
"As we all know, he has never inflicted the slightest personal injury upon a single one of his victims. His remarkable shanghai-ing of the bobry drunkard at Plymouth—which he publicly deplored, you know—is the nearest he has ever approached to bodily harm to any one. Perhaps he may have chloroformed one of our fellow passengers a bit last night, but even if that were certain, it couldn't vitiate the fact that Mr. Manling avoids violence at almost any hazard.
"And quite as conscientiously as he has kept himself from doing bodily harm, you know, Mr. Manling has consistently made even his bally burglaries, themselves, as little embarrassing to others as possible. I might, indeed, say he has made it a positive point of honor to plunder only those who can well afford his pilferings and—more than that—to rob them in the most extraordinarily considerate manner.
"I recall this, because it was while considering this point of Mr. Manling's honor that my idea suggested itself to me—or, perhaps, I might more properly say, Mr. Manling, himself, suggested it to me by his significant action in stealing the pool last night.
"And having it so suggested, Mr. Preston here—my cabin-mate, who was the one robbed of the pool—helped me develop it from the original pure sporting proposition for us men into a most chivalrous protection for the ladies in our care!"
"Hear! Hear! What is it? What is it? Hear! Hear!" broke out impatiently and appreciatively from the English and Americans alike.
"It is, simply and in short," the Englishman cried, "that as Mr. Manling stole the pool last night, we propose and compact with him that hereafter—as long as he is left to steal among us—he steal only the pools and we, on our side, offer him each night fair pools to steal!
"Appreciate, gentlemen," he explained as he saw the start of astonishment which greeted him, "if we cannot make some such compact to govern the manœuvres of this remarkable Mr. Manling, we not only lose a most extraordinary sporting opportunity, but we must leave him to continue his operations promiscuously—as he robbed Mr. Preston and myself and one of the ladies last night.
"I say, our police are undoubtedly making every effort to collect evidence to cable to New York to identify him and catch him when he lands. But, as the captain has just told you, he seems to have left absolutely no clue. So, unless we can confine him by this compact or somehow, he can probably continue to plunder us all as he pleases and walk off the gangplank at New York as coolly as he walked on at Southampton. So the captain agreed that this seemed fair for us.
"Mr. Manling could scarcely suggest a fairer proposition for himself, either; as this offers him an unfailing crib to crack, averaging two hundred pounds nightly, while permitting us cheaply and safely to insure the protection of the women and keep the proposition a pure sporting one, as the loss of the pools—to which we all contribute—really hits no one hard.
"This implies, of course," Mr. Dunneston concluded, "that we shall each night run up the pools to at least four thousand shillings, as we have been doing—and to as much more as we will—and that the winner will, without taking cowardly or unusual precautions, pit himself alone against Mr. Manling. The winner will compact, that is, to carry the pools with the customary carelessness of the usual traveller; and let Mr. Manling compact, in return, to operate against only the winners of our pools! What do you say?"
"The gentlemen will all please, now, take paper," young Preston requested, after the now vociferous cheers of approval of the Englishmen had died down, "and each may write upon a slip, yes or no, as he accepts or declines this proposition. Mr. Manling, as evidence that he is here and accepts, will put upon his ballot, besides, the monogram which was upon my purse which he took last night. And as Mr. Dunneston and I lead, please all file by and drop your ballots into the hat here!"
"Mr. Manling is present! He has agreed!" the young American cried almost immediately, as he sorted over the slips of paper.
"And the gentlemen have all voted yes," the captain concluded. "I thank you for having taken away from yourselves, in this strange but effective way, the more embarrassing possibilities of the extraordinary situation which confronts us. As long as the thief plays fair, I shall see that the officers and servants of the ship shall play fair, too, and in the spirit of this agreement, give him his chance at the pools. Is it the sense of the gentlemen that this agreement binds at once?"
A middle-aged American broker edged forward.
"Mr. Tremont, who won the pool to-day," young Preston announced then, "asks me to say that he voted upon this agreement, considering it retroactive—that is, to include the pool he won to-day. His cabin number is seventy-nine. Mr. Tremont will play fair, and we will all keep away and give the thief his chance!"
"Gentlemen," cried Mr. Dunneston, "shall we now retire to the smoking-room and bid upon the next pool? Let us follow the spirit of our compact, and bid it high!"
The women clapped as the men laughed and filed out, looking at each other.