Adventure, February 1917 — page 183: what you’re looking at

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

A Crossed Trail by a thumb run underneath it. The envel- ope was addressed as he had said, and bore a canceled Philippine stamp. As he was returning it to his pocket I noticed some pencil sketches on its back, and merely for the sake of saying something asked him what they were. . “« ‘Sketches of gun placements on the bluffs along the Nagasaki roadstead which I made for Mrs? Carew this afternoon,’ he “Mrs. Carew — Agnes Caither — there flashed into my mind a suspicion of the truth: she had been sent by the Japs to get those papers. I wondered whether she knew Brock had them; and a moment later he set my mind at rest on this score also. “< ‘Tt was one of those accidents that you can’t guard against,’ he said in answer to my question of how he had met her. ‘I was coming out of my cabin and happened to bump into Brooks who was with Mrs. Carew. Before I could tip him off, he had introduced me by my real name. Of course I am sorry—I had rather that no one but you should know who I am—but after all it makes no great difference. My secret is safe with her; she is an American and she hates the Japs like rats.’ “T told him what I knew of Mrs. Carew —that a young Russian officer who had been friendly with her in Shanghai had shot himself at the Astor House, and another had been found dead in mysterious circum- stances on the Bubbling Well Road near Hongkong; that she had no doubt been try- ‘ing to pump Brooks and had been sent on the Peruvia for the very purpose of entrap- ping him. But it was no use. I might as well have been talking to the wind. He had, like the others, fallen under the spell of her charms. * ‘All right,’ I said at last, ‘I have warned you. You are playing right into her hands. Look out that she doesn’t make a fool of ou.’ : “He got up from his chair, fairly bristling with resentment and started for the door. ““‘Nobody’s going to make a fool of me! I can care for myself. And I don’t think it is nice of you, captain, to repeat the malicious gossip you hear about women.’ _ “With this shot he left. Do you wonder that I thought him a fool? “T called Flaherty, the second officer, and had him send a man down to keep an eye on Brock’s cabin. It was on the saloon deck main starboard corridor. 18t and could only be entered from the door opening onto the passageway leading to the There was no other opening in the room except a port overlooking the sea. Here, I will show you exactly how the cabins are arranged down there so you will understand what hap- pened later.” Ragan took from a drawer of his desk a plan of the saloon deck of the Peruvia. Along either side of the ship, from the en- trance to the dining-saloon to the after deck, ran a long corridor. Between, these corri- dors and the sides of the ship were the cab- “ins, opening onto smaller passages, two out- er and two inner on each passage. Brock had an outer cabin, and directly across the main corridor from its passage was the woman’s bathroom. This extended entirely across the interior of the ship be- tween the port and starboard corridors, and could be entered from either one. “The position of the bath is important,” said Ragan, “as you will see presently. Mrs. Carew had an outer cabin at the other end of the starboard corridor, having changed from the upper deck, I learned from Morton, because she thought there would be less motion down there. She had with her, although I did not discover it un- til the next day and even then thought nothing of it, a Japanese maid, Omata San. “The cabin across the passage from Brock’s was unoccupied, and in it Flaherty stationed the man on watch. And here, while I am explaining things, I may as well mention that the inner cabin, the one ad- joining Brock’s, was taken by a German, a fat, pudgy, beef-necked fellow named Schwartz. He, too, I learned after it was all over, had changed cabins, preferring an inner on account of its being less drafty. “Well, to get back to what happened—it was Tuesday night that I had my talk with Brock. With good weather—and we had it all the way, the sea as smooth as the palm of your hand—we should reach Shanghai Saturday morning. I was convinced that Mrs. Carew was after those papers, and I . suspected she would try to get them on Fri- day night, waiting until the last moment, so as to minimize the chances of their re- covery. How she expected to get off the ship with them in case she was suspected, I could not determine; but I made up my mind that even if she got them from Brock, I would fool her about getting away. You. 0)(0 6) (@) S com