The Lost Road, etc.
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Richard Harding Davis >> The Lost Road, etc.
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Over the face of the rock, into which Peabody had dived as into
water, hung a curtain of vines. Everett tore it apart. Concealed
by the vines was the narrow mouth to a tunnel; and from it they
heard, rapidly lessening in the distance, the patter of footsteps.
"Will you wait," demanded Everett, "or come with me?"
With a shudder of distaste, Monica answered by seizing his hand.
With his free arm Everett swept aside the vines, and, Monica
following, they entered the tunnel. It was a passageway cleanly
cut through the solid rock and sufficiently wide to permit of their
moving freely. At the farther end, at a distance of a hundred
yards, it opened into a great vault, also hollowed from the rock
and, as they saw to their surprise, brilliantly lighted.
For an instant, in black silhouette, the figure of Peabody
blocked the entrance to this vault, and then, turning to the
right, again vanished. Monica felt an untimely desire to laugh.
Now that they were on the track of Peabody she no longer feared
the outcome of the adventure. In the presence of the American
minister and of herself there would be no violence; and as they
trailed the archaeologist through the tunnel she was reminded of
Alice and her pursuit of the white rabbit. This thought, and her
sense of relief that the danger was over, caused her to laugh aloud.
They had gained the farther end of the tunnel and the entrance to
the vault, when at once her amusement turned to wonder. For the
vault showed every evidence of use and of recent occupation. In
brackets, and burning brightly, were lamps of modern make; on
the stone floor stood a canvas cot, saddle-bags, camp-chairs,
and in the centre of the vault a collapsible table. On this were
bottles filled with chemicals, trays, and presses such as are used
in developing photographs, and apparently hung there to dry,
swinging from strings, the proofs of many negatives.
Loyal to her brother, Monica exclaimed indignantly. At the proofs
she pointed an accusing finger.
"Look!" she whispered. "This is Peabody's darkroom, where he
develops the flash-lights he takes of the hieroglyphs! Chester has
a right to be furious!"
Impulsively she would have pushed past Everett; but with an
exclamation he sprang in front of her.
"No!" he commanded, "come away!"
He had fallen into a sudden panic. His tone spoke of some
catastrophe, imminent and overwhelming. Monica followed
the direction of his eyes. They were staring in fear at the proofs.
The girl leaned forward; and now saw them clearly.
Each was a United States Treasury note for five hundred dollars.
Around the turn of the tunnel, approaching the vault apparently
from another passage, they heard hurrying footsteps; and then,
close to them from the vault itself, the voice of Professor Peabody.
It was harsh, sharp, peremptory.
"Hands up!" it commanded. "Drop that gun!"
As though halted by a precipice, the footsteps fell into instant
silence. There was a pause, and then the ring of steel upon the
stone floor. There was another pause, and Monica heard the
voice of her brother. Broken, as though with running, it still
retained its level accent, its note of insolence.
"So," it said, "I have caught you?"
Monica struggled toward the lighted vault, but around her Everett
threw his arm.
"Come away!" he begged.
Monica fought against the terror of something unknown. She could
not understand. They had come only to prevent a meeting between
her brother and Peabody; and now that they had met, Everett was
endeavoring to escape.
It was incomprehensible.
And the money in the vault, the yellow bills hanging from a
cobweb of strings; why should they terrify her; what did they
threaten? Dully, and from a distance, Monica heard the voice
of Peabody.
"No," he answered; "I have caught you! And I've had a hell of a
time doing it!"
Monica tried to call out, to assure her brother of her presence.
But, as though in a nightmare, she could make no sound. Fingers
of fear gripped at her throat. To struggle was no longer possible.
The voice of Peabody continued:
"Six months ago we traced these bills to New Orleans. So we guessed
the plant was in Central America. We knew only one man who could
make them. When I found you were in Amapala and they said you had
struck 'buried treasure'--the rest was easy."
Monica heard the voice of her brother answer with a laugh.
"Easy?" he mocked. "There's no extradition. You can't touch me.
You're lucky if you get out of here alive. I've only to raise my voice--"
"And, I'll kill you!"
This was danger Monica could understand.
Freed from the nightmare of doubt, with a cry she ran forward.
She saw Peabody, his back against a wall, a levelled automatic in
his hand; her brother at the entrance to a tunnel like the one from
which she had just appeared. His arms were raised above his head.
At his feet lay a revolver. For an instant, with disbelief, he stared
at Monica, and then, as though assured that it was she, his eyes
dilated. In them were fear and horror. So genuine was the agony
in the face of the counterfeiter that Everett, who had followed,
turned his own away. But the eyes of the brother and sister
remained fixed upon each other, hers, appealingly; his, with
despair. He tried to speak, but the words did not come. When
he did break the silence his tone was singularly wistful, most
tenderly kind.
"Did you hear?" he asked.
Monica slowly bowed her head. With the same note of gentleness
her brother persisted:
"Did you understand?"
Between them stretched the cobweb of strings hung with yellow
certificates; each calling for five hundred dollars, payable in gold.
Stirred by the night air from the open tunnels, they fluttered and
flaunted.
Against the sight of them, Monica closed her eyes. Heavily, as
though with a great physical effort, again she bowed her head.
The eyes of her brother searched about him wildly. They rested on
the mouth of the tunnel.
With his lowered arm he pointed.
"Who is that?" he cried.
Instinctively the others turned.
It was for an instant. The instant sufficed.
Monica saw her brother throw himself upon the floor, felt herself
flung aside as Everett and the detective leaped upon him; saw her
brother press his hands against his heart, the two men dragging
at his arms.
The cavelike room was shaken with a report, an acrid smoke
assailed her nostrils. The men ceased struggling. Her brother lay
still.
Monica sprang toward the body, but a black wave rose and
submerged her. As she fainted, to save herself she threw out her
arms, and as she fell she dragged down with her the buried
treasure of Cobre.
Stretched upon the stone floor beside her brother, she lay motionless.
Beneath her, and wrapped about and covering her, as the leaves
covered the babes in the wood, was a vast cobweb of yellow bills,
each for five hundred dollars, payable in gold.
A month later the harbor of Porto Cortez in Honduras was shaken
with the roar of cannon. In comparison, the roaring of all the cannon
of all the revolutions that that distressful country ever had known,
were like fire-crackers under a barrel.
Faithful to his itinerary, the Secretary of State of the United States
was paying his formal visit to Honduras, and the President of that
republic, waiting upon the Fruit Company's wharf to greet him, was
receiving the salute of the American battle-ships. Back of him, on
the wharf, his own barefooted artillerymen in their turn were saluting,
excitedly and spasmodically, the distinguished visitor. As an honor
he had at last learned to accept without putting a finger in each ear,
the Secretary of State smiled with gracious calm. Less calm was the
President of Honduras. He knew something the Secretary did not
know. He knew that at any moment a gun of his saluting battery
might turn turtle, or blow into the harbor himself, his cabinet, and
the larger part of his standing army.
Made fast to the wharf on the side opposite to the one at which
the Secretary had landed was one of the Fruit Company's steamers.
She was on her way north, and Porto Cortez was a port of call.
That her passengers might not intrude upon the ceremonies, her
side of the wharf was roped off and guarded by the standing army.
But from her decks and from behind the ropes the passengers, with
a battery of cameras, were perpetuating the historic scene.
Among them, close to the ropes, viewing the ceremony with the
cynical eye of one who in Europe had seen kings and emperors
meet upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was Everett. He made
no effort to bring himself to the attention of his former chief. But
when the introductions were over, the Secretary of State turned
his eyes to his fellow countrymen crowding the rails of the
American steamer. They greeted him with cheers. The great
man raised his hat, and his eyes fell upon Everett. The Secretary
advanced quickly, his hand extended, brushing to one side the
standing army.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"On my way home, sir," said Everett. "I couldn't leave sooner; there
were--personal reasons. But I cabled the department my resignation
the day Mendoza gave me my walking-papers. You may remember,"
Everett added dryly, "the department accepted by cable."
The great man showed embarrassment.
"It was most unfortunate," he sympathized. "We wanted that treaty,
and while, no doubt, you made every effort--"
He became aware of the fact that Everett's attention was not
exclusively his own. Following the direction of the young man's
eyes the Secretary saw on the deck just above them, leaning upon
the rail, a girl in deep mourning.
She was very beautiful. Her face was as lovely as a violet and as shy.
To the Secretary a beautiful woman was always a beautiful woman.
But he had read the papers. Who had not? He was sure there must
be some mistake. This could not be the sister of a criminal; the
woman for whom Everett had smashed his career.
The Secretary masked his astonishment, but not his admiration.
"Mrs. Everett?" he asked. His very tone conveyed congratulations.
"Yes," said the ex-diplomat. "Some day I shall be glad to present
you."
The Secretary did not wait for an introduction. Raising his eyes
to the ship's rail, he made a deep and courtly bow. With a gesture
worthy of d'Artagnan, his high hat swept the wharf. The members
of his staff, the officers from the war-ships, the President of
Honduras and the members of his staff endeavored to imitate his
act of homage, and in confusion Mrs. Everett blushed becomingly.
"When I return to Washington," said the Secretary hastily, "come
and see me. You are too valuable to lose. Your career--"
Again Everett was looking at his wife. Her distress at having been
so suddenly drawn into the lime-light amused him, and he was
smiling. Then, as though aware of the Secretary's meaning, he
laughed.
"My dear sir!" he protested. His tone suggested he was about to
add "mind your own business," or "go to the devil."
Instead he said: "I'm not worrying about my career. My career has
just begun."
THE BOY SCOUT
A rule of the Boy Scouts is every day to do some one a good turn.
Not because the copybooks tell you it deserves another, but in
spite of that pleasing possibility. If you are a true scout, until
you have performed your act of kindness your day is dark. You
are as unhappy as is the grown-up who has begun his day without
shaving or reading the New York Sun. But as soon as you have
proved yourself you may, with a clear conscience, look the world
in the face and untie the knot in your kerchief.
Jimmie Reeder untied the accusing knot in his scarf at just ten
minutes past eight on a hot August morning after he had given one
dime to his sister Sadie. With that she could either witness the
first-run films at the Palace, or by dividing her fortune patronize
two of the nickel shows on Lenox Avenue. The choice Jimmie
left to her. He was setting out for the annual encampment of
the Boy Scouts at Hunter's Island, and in the excitement of that
adventure even the movies ceased to thrill. But Sadie also could
be unselfish. With a heroism of a camp-fire maiden she made
a gesture which might have been interpreted to mean she was
returning the money.
"I can't, Jimmie!" she gasped. "I can't take it off you. You
saved it, and you ought to get the fun of it."
"I haven't saved it yet," said Jimmie. "I'm going to cut it out
of the railroad fare. I'm going to get off at City Island instead
of at Pelham Manor and walk the difference. That's ten cents
cheaper."
Sadie exclaimed with admiration:
"An' you carryin' that heavy grip!"
"Aw, that's nothin'," said the man of the family.
"Good-by, mother. So long, Sadie."
To ward off further expressions of gratitude he hurriedly advised
Sadie to take in "The Curse of Cain" rather than "The Mohawk's
Last Stand," and fled down the front steps.
He wore his khaki uniform. On his shoulders was his knapsack,
from his hands swung his suit-case, and between his heavy stockings
and his "shorts" his kneecaps, unkissed by the sun, as yet unscathed
by blackberry vines, showed as white and fragile as the wrists of a girl.
As he moved toward the "L" station at the corner, Sadie and his mother
waved to him; in the street, boys too small to be scouts hailed him
enviously; even the policeman glancing over the newspapers on the
news-stand nodded approval.
"You a scout, Jimmie?" he asked.
"No," retorted Jimmie, for was not he also in uniform? "I'm Santa
Claus out filling Christmas stockings."
The patrolman also possessed a ready wit.
"Then get yourself a pair," he advised. "If a dog was to see your
legs--"
Jimmie escaped the insult by fleeing up the steps of the
Elevated.
An hour later, with his valise in one hand and staff in the other,
he was tramping up the Boston Post Road and breathing heavily.
The day was cruelly hot. Before his eyes, over an interminable
stretch of asphalt, the heat waves danced and flickered. Already
the knapsack on his shoulders pressed upon him like an Old Man
of the Sea; the linen in the valise had turned to pig iron, his pipe-
stem legs were wabbling, his eyes smarted with salt sweat, and the
fingers supporting the valise belonged to some other boy, and were
giving that boy much pain. But as the motor-cars flashed past with
raucous warnings, or, that those who rode might better see the boy
with bare knees, passed at "half speed," Jimmie stiffened his shoulders
and stepped jauntily forward. Even when the joy-riders mocked with
"Oh, you scout!" he smiled at them. He was willing to admit to those
who rode that the laugh was on the one who walked. And he regretted--
oh, so bitterly--having left the train. He was indignant that for his
"one good turn a day" he had not selected one less strenuous--that,
for instance, he had not assisted a frightened old lady through the
traffic. To refuse the dime she might have offered, as all true scouts
refuse all tips, would have been easier than to earn it by walking five
miles, with the sun at ninety-nine degrees, and carrying excess baggage.
Twenty times James shifted the valise to the other hand, twenty times
he let it drop and sat upon it.
And then, as again he took up his burden, the good Samaritan drew
near. He drew near in a low gray racing-car at the rate of forty miles
an hour, and within a hundred feet of Jimmie suddenly stopped and
backed toward him. The good Samaritan was a young man with white
hair. He wore a suit of blue, a golf cap; the hands that held the wheel
were disguised in large yellow gloves. He brought the car to a halt and
surveyed the dripping figure in the road with tired and uncurious eyes.
"You a Boy Scout?" he asked.
With alacrity for the twenty-first time Jimmie dropped the valise,
forced his cramped fingers into straight lines, and saluted.
The young man in the car nodded toward the seat beside him.
"Get in," he commanded.
When James sat panting happily at his elbow the old young man, to
Jimmie's disappointment, did not continue to shatter the speed limit.
Instead, he seemed inclined for conversation, and the car, growling
indignantly, crawled.
"I never saw a Boy Scout before," announced the old young man.
"Tell me about it. First, tell me what you do when you're not
scouting."
Jimmie explained volubly. When not in uniform he was an office
boy, and from peddlers and beggars guarded the gates of Carroll
and Hastings, stock-brokers. He spoke the names of his employers
with awe. It was a firm distinguished, conservative, and long
established. The white-haired young man seemed to nod in assent.
"Do you know them?" demanded Jimmie suspiciously. "Are you a
customer of ours?"
"I know them," said the young man. "They are customers of mine."
Jimmie wondered in what way Carroll and Hastings were customers
of the white-haired young man. Judging him by his outer garments,
Jimmie guessed he was a Fifth Avenue tailor; he might be even a
haberdasher. Jimmie continued. He lived, he explained, with his
mother at One Hundred and Forty-sixth Street; Sadie, his sister,
attended the public school; he helped support them both, and he
now was about to enjoy a well-earned vacation camping out on
Hunter's Island, where he would cook his own meals, and, if the
mosquitoes permitted, sleep in a tent.
"And you like that?" demanded the young man. "You call that fun?"
"Sure!" protested Jimmie. "Don't you go camping out?"
"I go camping out," said the good Samaritan, "whenever I leave
New York."
Jimmie had not for three years lived in Wall Street not to
understand that the young man spoke in metaphor.
"You don't look," objected the young man critically, "as though
you were built for the strenuous life."
Jimmie glanced guiltily at his white knees.
"You ought ter see me two weeks from now," he protested. "I get all
sunburnt and hard-
-hard as anything!"
The young man was incredulous.
"You were near getting sunstruck when I picked you up," he
laughed. "If you're going to Hunter's Island, why didn't you go
to Pelham Manor?"
"That's right!" assented Jimmie eagerly. "But I wanted to save
the ten cents so's to send Sadie to the movies. So I walked."
The young man looked his embarrassment.
"I beg your pardon," he murmured.
But Jimmie did not hear him. From the back of the car he was
dragging excitedly at the hated suit-case.
"Stop!" he commanded. "I got ter get out. I got ter walk."
The young man showed his surprise.
"Walk!" he exclaimed. "What is it--a bet?"
Jimmie dropped the valise and followed it into the roadway. It
took some time to explain to the young man. First, he had to be
told about the scout law and the one good turn a day, and that it
must involve some personal sacrifice. And, as Jimmie pointed out,
changing from a slow suburban train to a racing-car could not be
listed as a sacrifice. He had not earned the money, Jimmie argued;
he had only avoided paying it to the railroad. If he did not walk
he would be obtaining the gratitude of Sadie by a falsehood.
Therefore, he must walk.
"Not at all," protested the young man. "You've got it wrong. What
good will it do your sister to have you sunstruck? I think you are
sunstruck. You're crazy with the heat. You get in here, and we'll
talk it over as we go along."
Hastily Jimmie backed away. "I'd rather walk," he said.
The young man shifted his legs irritably.
"Then how'll this suit you?" he called. "We'll declare that first 'one
good turn' a failure and start afresh. Do me a good turn."
Jimmie halted in his tracks and looked back suspiciously.
"I'm going to Hunter's Island Inn," called the young man, "and I've
lost my way. You get in here and guide me. That'll be doing me
a good turn."
On either side of the road, blotting out the landscape, giant
hands picked out in electric-light bulbs pointed the way to
Hunter's Island Inn. Jimmie grinned and nodded toward them.
"Much obliged," he called. "I got ter walk." Turning his back
upon temptation, he waddled forward into the flickering heat
waves.
The young man did not attempt to pursue. At the side of the road,
under the shade of a giant elm, he had brought the car to a halt and
with his arms crossed upon the wheel sat motionless, following with
frowning eyes the retreating figure of Jimmie. But the narrow-chested
and knock-kneed boy staggering over the sun-baked asphalt no longer
concerned him. It was not Jimmie, but the code preached by Jimmie,
and not only preached but before his eyes put into practice, that
interested him. The young man with white hair had been running
away from temptation. At forty miles an hour he had been running
away from the temptation to do a fellow mortal "a good turn." That
morning, to the appeal of a drowning Caesar to "Help me, Cassius,
or I sink," he had answered: "Sink!" That answer he had no wish to
reconsider. That he might not reconsider he had sought to escape.
It was his experience that a sixty-horse-power racing-machine is a
jealous mistress. For retrospective, sentimental, or philanthropic
thoughts she grants no leave of absence. But he had not escaped.
Jimmie had halted him, tripped him by the heels, and set him again
to thinking. Within the half-hour that followed those who rolled
past saw at the side of the road a car with her engine running, and
leaning upon the wheel, as unconscious of his surroundings as
though he sat at his own fireplace, a young man who frowned and
stared at nothing. The half-hour passed and the young man swung
his car back toward the city. But at the first road-house that showed
a blue-and-white telephone sign he left it, and into the iron box at
the end of the bar dropped a nickel. He wished to communicate with
Mr. Carroll, of Carroll and Hastings; and when he learned Mr. Carroll
had just issued orders that he must not be disturbed, the young man
gave his name.
The effect upon the barkeeper was instantaneous. With the aggrieved
air of one who feels he is the victim of a jest he laughed scornfully.
"What are you putting over?" he demanded.
The young man smiled reassuringly. He had begun to speak and,
though apparently engaged with the beer-glass he was polishing,
the barkeeper listened.
Down in Wall Street the senior member of Carroll and Hastings
also listened. He was alone in the most private of all his private
offices, and when interrupted had been engaged in what, of all
undertakings, is the most momentous. On the desk before him
lay letters to his lawyer, to the coroner, to his wife; and hidden
by a mass of papers, but within reach of his hand, was an
automatic pistol. The promise it offered of swift release had
made the writing of the letters simple, had given him a feeling
of complete detachment, had released him, at least in thought,
from all responsibilities. And when at his elbow the telephone
coughed discreetly, it was as though some one had called him
from a world from which already he had made his exit.
Mechanically, through mere habit, he lifted the receiver.
The voice over the telephone came in brisk, staccato sentences.
"That letter I sent this morning? Forget it. Tear it up. I've been
thinking and I'm going to take a chance. I've decided to back you
boys, and I know you'll make good. I'm speaking from a road-house
in the Bronx; going straight from here to the bank. So you can begin
to draw against us within an hour. And--hello!--will three millions
see you through?"
From Wall Street there came no answer, but from the hands of the
barkeeper a glass crashed to the floor.
The young man regarded the barkeeper with puzzled eyes.
"He doesn't answer," he exclaimed. "He must have hung up."
"He must have fainted!" said the barkeeper.
The white-haired one pushed a bill across the counter. "To pay
for breakage," he said, and disappeared down Pelham Parkway.
Throughout the day, with the bill, for evidence, pasted against
the mirror, the barkeeper told and retold the wondrous tale.
"He stood just where you're standing now," he related, "blowing
in million-dollar bills like you'd blow suds off a beer. If I'd
knowed it was him, I'd have hit him once and hid him in the
cellar for the reward. Who'd I think he was? I thought he was
a wire-tapper, working a con game!"
Mr. Carroll had not "hung up," but when in the Bronx the
beer-glass crashed, in Wall Street the receiver had slipped from
the hand of the man who held it, and the man himself had fallen
forward. His desk hit him in the face and woke him--woke him
to the wonderful fact that he still lived; that at forty he had been
born again; that before him stretched many more years in which,
as the young man with the white hair had pointed out, he still
could make good.
The afternoon was far advanced when the staff of Carroll and
Hastings were allowed to depart, and, even late as was the hour,
two of them were asked to remain. Into the most private of the
private offices Carroll invited Gaskell, the head clerk; in the
main office Hastings had asked young Thorne, the bond clerk,
to be seated.
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