Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Secret of Caprice this Carter, whom her father employed as general factotum on the yacht was, with his brother, a protégé of Otto Blaydon— educated by him and on his pay-roll all their lives. Good Lord, Phil! We’ve stum- bled on the right track here, sure.” Phil lighted a cigarette, his face frowning thoughtfully in the yellow glare of the match. “There’s another thing to consider,” he said. ‘‘We’ve not only stumbled on the right track, but we have involved ourselves in the pretty mess by doing it. Looks to me, old man, as if you and I will now be- come the object of this gang’s fond atten- tions, eh?” “T see what you mean,” replied Ward. “You think we know too much for their safety?” ‘Undoubtedly. Somehow they made the mistake of thinking there was only one of us and so they didn’t come prepared for any very strenuous resistance. And this fellow, Cart, said there mustn’t be any kill- ing ‘yet.’ I confess I don’t like that word ‘yet’ used that way. It sounds ominous and sort of disturbing to one’s restful sleep, you know. ‘Yet!’ By gad, Ward, we’ve got to get those fellows or they will get us.” Ward nodded in moody agreement. “The crew of Caprice,” he mused. “Car- ter the ringleader and the other two that Miss Blaydon said the yacht carried. There are several conclusions that we can very naturally draw from this attack. One is that they must have a rendezvous near here somewhere and on the coast. Their use of the boat proves that. And the type of boat they use also proves that they must be plen- tifully supplied with money. She’s a hy- droplane, as far as I could see in the moon- light. Seemed to run with her nose ’way out of water and her stern dragged down. And that thundering big engine that sends her along—a speed engine like that costs a pretty penny.” Conway took up the thread of his thought. “Yes, and from that you can deduce still more. If their scheme has already netted them the money they were after, it looks bad for poor old Otto Blaydon. Looks to me as if he took a heap of cash with him for some purpose and they simply took it and put him out of the way.’ “That is my thought exactly. If they were holding him somewhere, intending to 23 demand a big ransom from his brother when the time was ripe, they wouldn’t have money to spend on expensive hydroplanes now. And, with that much admitted, our own position becomes rather serious.” “Should say it does. Men who have scuttled a yacht and murdered the owner, aren’t going to hesitate to remove the two men who discover their crime. Looks to me as if they intended to take me to their camp, wherever it is, and put me through the third degree of torture to find out how many others know of it. That’s why they didn’t want any killing ‘yet.’ Ugh! That ‘yet’ will haunt me in my dreams tonight, sure as you’re born.” Ward smiled. “You'd better start on a shooting trip to India or go after big game in the Yukon,” he suggested. Phil snorted in disgust. “And leave you to handle these chaps alone? I’m not quite that yellow, Ward. No; we’ll face them together and, by gad! I believe I’m just curious enough to want to tackle them and find out exactly what they have been about.” “But I don’t see how we can find out. There’s nothing to do but wait around here and be ready for their next move. And, meanwhile, they may take it into their heads to disappear, after all, and leave us alone.”’ “Do you know what I’ve been thinking?” Phil asked ponderingly. ‘I’ve been think- ing that there’s only one thing for us to do. We can’t leave here and hunt them, very well. I believe J’ll run up to New York and put Dick Greiner on the case.” “WHO’S Greiner?” ‘Don’t know Greiner? But, then, of course you don’t. He’s a queer chap. Comfortably off and all that. Met him when we were classmates at Harvard. Dick had the oddest hobby imaginable— detecting, if you can call it that. Crazy about the Sherlock Holmes kind of thing, you know. Bring him a mystery to solve and he was your friend for life. We thought it was just a fad of his but, when we left college, hanged if he didn’t take it up: as a profession. Not an agency or anything like that, you know. He just let it be known among his friends that he was in the game professionally, providing the cases were big enough, and wouldn’t involve him in the, Gomichooks iGO