Chapter X: Smooth Crossing (2)

"Better not," advised Bronston. "If I'm not mistaken it is against the English law to carry a razor upon the person. A locked valise would be a better place for it, I should say."

"I guess you're right," agreed Keller. "In a strange country it's just as well to be careful."

He turned and stooped down, fumbling with the hasps upon his small handbag. As he did, something supple and quick descended in a loop over his head and shoulders. In an instantaneous flash of alarm he sensed that it was the same broad strap which he had seen a moment before in the hands of the other man. As he straightened with an exclamation of surprise, the strap was violently tightened from behind, the tough leather squeaking under the strain as the tongue of the buckle slipped through a handy hole; and there he was, trussed fast about the middle, with his arms bound down against his sides just at the elbows, so that his lower arms flapped in the futile fashion of a penguin's wings. He cried out then, cursing and wriggling and straining. But a man who would have been his equal in bodily vigour even though his limbs were unhampered was upon him from the rear, pitching him forward on his bed, face downward, wrestling him over on his side, muffling his face in a twist of bed clothing, then forcing his wrists together and holding them so while there was a jingle of steel chain and a snapping together of steel jaws. Half suffocated under the weight of his antagonist, with his mouth full of blanket and his eyes blinded, overpowered, tricked, all but helpless, lashing out with his feet in a vain protest against this mishandling, Keller now was dimly aware of a wallet being hurriedly removed from his breast-pocket and of something else of equal bulk being substituted for it. Then he was yanked upon his feet, a cap was jammed upon his head, the leather noose about his body was cast off, and he stood unsteadily--a composite picture of dishevelment, dismay, chagrin and rage--wearing upon his two clamped hands the same gyves which his conqueror had worn when they boarded the ship.

"You'll pay for this--I'll make you pay for this!" he sputtered. "I'll show you up! Damn you, take these things off of me!" and he tugged impotently at his bonds until his wrist-bones threatened to dislocate themselves. "You ain't got a chance to get away with this--not a chance," he cried. "I'll raise this whole ship! I'll----"

"Rest perfectly easy," said Bronston calmly, soothingly almost, as he flung the strap aside and stepped back. "The ship has already been raised, or a part of it. If you weren't so excited you would know that our friend Lawrence has been trying to get in the door for the last half minute or so. I think he must have heard you kicking. Let us admit him."

He had the key in his hands--in the stress and fever of the encounter he had even remembered, this thoughtful man, to secure the key. And now, with his eyes turned toward the captive, who remained stupefied at this inexplicable manoeuvre, he was stepping backward and unfastening the door, and swinging it open for the admission of the astounded servant.

"Lawrence," snapped Bronston in the voice of authority and command, "I want you. My man here tried to give me the slip and I had to use a little violence to secure him. Bring these bags and come along with us to the deck. I shall possibly need your help in making the explanations which may be necessary. Understand, don't you?"

Reaching backward, he slipped a shining gold coin into Lawrence's palm; he slid into a grey ulster; he advanced a step and fastened a firm hand upon the crook of Keller's fettered right arm. Involuntarily the captive sought to pull away.

"I keep telling you you ain't got a chance," he blurted. "I'll go to the captain----"

"No, my noisy friend, you won't go to the captain," Bronston broke in on his tirade, "but you'll be taken to him." With a forward swing he thrust Keller across the threshold and they bumped together in the narrow cross hall. "Come along now, Lawrence, and look sharp," he bade the pop-eyed steward over his shoulder.

We may briefly sketch the details of the trip through the passageway, and up the steps from D-deck to C-deck and from C-deck to B, for really it occupied less time than would be required for a proper description of it. Suffice it to say that it was marked by many protestations and by frequent oaths and by one or two crisp commands and once by a small suggestion of a struggle. These sounds heralded the progress of the trio as they moved bumpingly along, so that the first officer, catching untoward noises which rose above the chatter of the passengers who surrounded him, garbed and ready for the shore, stepped back from the deck into the cabin foyer, followed by a few first-cabin folk who, like him, had heard the clamour and had gathered that something unusual must be afoot.

The first officer barred the way of the procession. He was a competent and self-possessed young man, else he would not have been the first officer. At sight of his brass buttons and gold-braided sleeves Keller, still striving to cast off Bronston's hold, emitted a cry of relief.

"Captain! Captain!" he yelled; "listen to me. Listen to me a minute, please."

"The captain is on the bridge until the ship has docked," answered the uniformed one. "I am the first officer. What is the trouble?"

"There is no trouble--now." It was Bronston speaking; speaking authoritatively and without outward signs of excitement. "Would you care to hear what I have to say, Mr. Officer?"

"I would."

"But, see here, I'm the one that's got a right to do the talking," burst in a frenzied gurgle from the sorely beset Keller. "You listen to me. This is an outrage!"

"One at a time," quoth the first officer in the voice of one accustomed to having his orders obeyed. "Proceed," he bade Bronston.

"You may have heard," stated Bronston, "that we are a detective and a prisoner. I believe there has been talk to that effect on board here for the past day or two."

The first officer--his name was Watts--nodded to indicate that such rumours had come to his ears.

"Very well, then," went on Bronston; "my man here will probably claim he is being kidnapped. That is his last hope." He smiled at this. "He tried to get away from me a bit ago. We had a tussle. The steward here heard us struggling. I overpowered him and ironed him. Now, for reasons best known to himself, I apprehend that he will claim that he is really the detective and that I am really the prisoner. Will you kindly look at us both and tell me, in your opinion, which is which?"

Dispassionately, judicially, First Officer Watts considered the pair facing him, while curious spectators crowded together in a semicircle behind him and a thickening stream of other first-cabin passengers poured in from off the deck, jostling up closely to feast their gaping eyes upon so sensational an episode. It took the young Englishman only a moment or two to make up his mind; a quick scrutiny was for him amply sufficient. For one of these men stood at ease; well set up, confident, not noticeably rumpled as to attire or flustered as to bearing. But the other: His coat was bunched up on his back, one trouser leg was pulled half way up his shin; his mussed hair was in his eyes; his cap was over one ear; his eyes undoubtedly had a most wild and desperate look; from his mouth came vain words and ravings. Finally there were those handcuffs. Handcuffs, considered as such, may not signify guilt, yet somehow they typify it. So far as First Officer Watts was concerned those handcuffs clinched the case. To his understanding they were _prima facie_ evidence, exceedingly plausible and highly convincing. Promptly he delivered his opinion. It was significant that, in so doing, he addressed Bronston and ignored Keller:

"I'm bound to say, sir, the appearances are in favour of you. But there should be other proof, don't you think--papers or something?"

"Certainly," agreed Bronston. He drew a red leather wallet from his own breast-pocket and handed it over to Watts. Then, working deftly, he extracted half a dozen letters and a sheaf of manuscript notes from an inner pocket of Keller's coat and tendered them for examination; which crowning indignity rendered Keller practically inarticulate with madness. Watts scanned these exhibits briefly, paying particular attention to a formal-looking document which he drew from the red wallet.

"These things seem to confirm what you say," was his comment. He continued, however, to hold the written and printed testimony in his hands. He glanced at the impressive document again. "Hold on; this description of the man who is wanted says he has a moustache?"

"Oh, I'm going to offer you other proof, plenty of it," Bronston promised, cutting in on Keller, who grew more incoherently vocal with each moment. "Would you be so good as to send for the ship's barber?"

"Bring the barber!" ordered Watts of a wide-eyed cabin boy.

"This steward has served us since we came aboard," went on Bronston, indicating Lawrence. "Now, my man, I want you to tell the truth. Which of us two seemed to be in charge on the night you first saw us--the night we came aboard--this man or I?"

"You, sir," answered Lawrence. "I recall quite distinctly that 'twas you spoke to me about the 'eavy luggage."

"Who took from you the wireless message which you brought yesterday to our stateroom, addressed to the representative of the Sharkey Detective Agency?"

"You, sir."

"Who handed you your tip a few minutes ago for serving us during the voyage?"

"You did, thank you, sir."

A figure of dignity pushed forward through the ring of excited spectators and a sonorous, compelling voice was raised impressively. Major Slocum had been late in arriving upon the scene, but what he now said earned for him instant attention.

"Mr. Officer," announced the Major with a gesture which comprehended the central pair of figures, "you may accept it from me as an absolute and indisputable fact that this gentleman, who calls himself Brown, is a bona-fide detective. I gleaned as much from my conversation with him upon the occasion of our first meeting. He evinced a wide knowledge of police matters. Of the other person I know nothing, except that, since Brown is the detective, he must perforce be the prisoner." He cleared his throat before going on:

"Moreover, deeply though I regret to bring a lady, and especially a young lady, into a controversy involving a person who is charged with crime"--here he blighted the hapless Keller with a glare--"deeply as I regret it, I may say that my niece is in position to supply further evidence."

The crowd parted to admit Miss Lillian Cartwright, then closed in behind her. Excitement flushed the young lady's cheeks becomingly. The first officer bowed to her:

"Pardon me, miss, but would you mind telling us what you know?"

"Why, I've known for two days--no, three days, I think--who they were," stated Miss Cartwright. "Mr. Brown--the detective, you know--loaned me his ulster the other morning; and when I put it on I felt something--something heavy that jingled in the pocket. Mr. Brown didn't seem to want me to take it out or speak about it. But at the very first chance I peeped in the pocket, and it was a pair of handcuffs. I'd never seen any handcuffs before--closely, I mean--so I peeped at them several times. They are the same handcuffs that are on that man now."

"That was my overcoat he loaned you!" yelled Keller, waving his coupled hands up and down in his desperate yearning to be heard in his own defence. "Those handcuffs were in my overcoat pocket, I tell you, not in his."

"Oh, no," contradicted Miss Cartwright, most positively. "Yours is a brown ulster. I've seen you wearing it evenings on the deck. And this was a dark-grey ulster, the same one that Mr. Brown is wearing this very minute.

"And I remember, too, that on that very same morning you came up and asked Mr. Brown to take you to lunch, or rather you asked him to go to lunch so that you could go, too. You spoke to him twice about it--quite humbly, I thought."

There were murmurs of applause at this. Another voice, unheard until now, spoke out, rising above the confused babbling. It was the voice of a sophisticated New Yorker addressing an equally sophisticated friend:

"There's nothing to it, Herman! Look at those feet on Brown. Nobody but a bull would be wearing shoes like that. And pipe the plaid lid--a regulation plain-clothes man's get-up, the whole thing is."

"But those are my shoes he's wearing," wailed Keller, feeling the trap closing in upon him from every side. "Those are my shoes--I loaned 'em to him."

"Lawrence," said Bronston, "you've been giving our shoes to Boots and getting them back from him, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are these shoes which I have on now the same shoes I've been wearing right along?"

"Oh, yes, sir, the same boots!"

"When you helped me pack my luggage to-day, did you notice any other shoes?"

"No, sir."

"I wasn't in my stocking feet when I came aboard, was I?"

"Oh, no, indeed, sir." This with a respectful smile.

"Then these must be the only shoes I have or have had, mustn't they?"

Before Lawrence could make answer to this question the ship's barber appeared at the first officer's elbow, touching his cap.

"You wanted me, sir?" he asked.

"I wanted you," put in Bronston. "Look at me closely, please. How long would you say that it has been since I wore a moustache?"

With the air of a scientist examining a rare and interesting specimen, the barber considered the speaker's upper lip.

"Not for some months, sir, I should say," he announced with professional gravity, while all the audience craned their necks to hear his words.

"Now, then," said Bronston, yanking Keller forward into the full light, "would you please look this prisoner over and tell us how long, in your opinion, it has been since he wore a moustache?"

A pause ensued; all waited for the decision.

"I should say, sir," stated the barber at the end of half a minute, "that 'e's been wearing a moustache lately--I should say that 'e must 'ave took it off quite recently. 'Is upper lip is still tender--tenderer than the rest of 'is face."

"But I took it off since we sailed," blared Keller. He turned furiously on Bronston. "Damn you, you conned me into taking it off!"

"Why should I do that?" parried Bronston coolly; his manner changed, becoming accusing. "Why should I persuade you to cut off the principal distinguishing mark as set forth in the description that was sent to our people from London, the thing which aided me in tracing and finding you?"

A sputtered bellow was the answer from Keller, and a suggestion of applause the response from the crowd. The popular verdict had been rendered. Before the tribunal of the onlookers the prisoner stood convicted of being rightfully and properly a prisoner. Even in his present state Keller realised this, and filled for the moment with a sullen resignation he dropped his manacled hands.

"Remember," he groaned, "somebody'll pay out big damages if you let this man off this ship. That's all I've got to say now. He tricked me and he'll trick you, too, if he can!"

"Mr. First Officer," said Bronston, "hasn't this farce gone far enough? Is there any lingering doubt in your mind regarding our proper identities?"

The first officer shook his head. "I am satisfied," he said with unqualified conviction in his words; "quite satisfied. Indeed, sir, I was satisfied from the beginning. I only wished to be absolutely sure."

"I thought as much," said Bronston. "I am expecting a man from Scotland Yard to meet us here at Liverpool. Would you please bring him to me here? This man is dangerous, and I prefer to have assistance before taking him off the boat. Kindly explain the situation to the Scotland Yard man as he comes aboard, will you, please, and ask him to hurry."

"I understand," said Mr. Watts, moving back. "Clear the way, please," he bade those about him. "We are about to dock, I think."

He was a bit late. The steamer had already swung to, broadside, alongside the long landing stage, and just as Mr. Watts, in a great hurry, reached the rail, the gangway went out. But before the first eager shoregoer could start down it, a square-jawed, stockily-built man, with short side whiskers, came briskly up it from the other end. He spoke ten words to the first officer, and the first officer, escorting him, bored back through the press to the foyer, explaining the situation in crisp sentences, as he made a path for the newcomer to the spot where Bronston, with his legs braced, was jamming the blasphemous and struggling Keller into an angle of the cabin wall. For Keller had once more grown violent. At sight of this the square-jawed man jumped forward to lend a hand.

"Inspector Drew, from Scotland Yard," he said, by way of introduction for himself as he grabbed for one of Keller's flailing legs.

"All right, inspector," answered Bronston, between hard-set teeth. "I'm glad to see you. I'm having trouble handling our man."

"So I see," said Drew, "but we'll cure that in a jiffy." He cured it by the expedient of throwing the whole weight of his body upon Keller. Together he and Bronston pressed the captive flat and helpless against the woodwork.

"The boat train is waiting," panted Drew in Bronston's ear. "Shall we get our man aboard?"

"I'm not going on any train!" snorted Keller, his voice rising to an agonised shriek.

"Oh, yes, but you are, me beauty!" said the inspector. "Get him by the other arm," he told Bronston. "I'll take care of him on this side."

Propelled by an irresistible force, held fast by strong grips upon his coat-collar and his elbows, shoved along, while his feet dragged and scuffled under him and his pinioned hands waggled the air impotently, hurried on so fast that his profane sputterings gurgled and died in his throat--thus and after such a fashion did the hapless, helpless Keller travel across the deck and through the crowd, which parted before him and closed in behind; thus did he progress, without halt, across the landing dock, on past the stand of the customs office and out at the other side of the dock, where, upon tracks that ran along the quay, a train stood with steam up. Bodily he was flung in at an open coach door; roughly he was spun about and deposited like a sack of oats upon the seat of a compartment, and Inspector Drew, gasping for breath but triumphant, shoved a knee into his heaving chest to keep him there.

"Whew, that was a job!" puffed Bronston, releasing his grasp of their still feebly struggling charge. "Inspector, can you keep him where he is for just a minute or two? I'll see to it that the baggage is brought here."

"I can keep the gentleman quiet," said Drew, mending his grip and shoving down hard upon the wriggling human cushion beneath him.

"For God's sake, don't let him get away! Don't----" The rest was but muffled gurglings and snortings, made meaningless and wordless by a sinewy, tweed-clad forearm, which was jammed across poor Keller's face with crushing and extinguishing violence.

"Go get your baggage," panted Inspector Drew. "He'll stay right 'ere with me, no fear." So Bronston stepped down out of the compartment and slammed the door fast behind him.

As the passengers of the _Mesopotamia_ come swarming aboard the boat train, and as the boat train prepares to pull out for London, we may as well leave the inspector and the handcuffed detective wrestling there together in the narrow confines of that English railway compartment.

Because that was where Bronston left them.

THE END

Transcriber's Notes

Inconsistent hyphenation retained as originally printed: cooperation/co-operation, everyday/every-day, lamppost/lamp-post, pipestem/pipe-stem, upended/up-ended.

In Chapters VII and IX the author has used small capitals with semantic intent: these have been marked =like this= using equality symbols.