Adventure, February 1917 — page 188: what you’re looking at

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

186 ing somewhere, and thrown you off the track until the girl could make her getaway to the fishing-boat with them,” I answered without hesitation. : Ragan laughed, a short, dry, unmirthful laugh. : “Exactly, and that is what I thought, too. But she hadn’t. The papers were in Brock’s cabin!” He put by my exclamation with a wave of his hand; but there was a gleam of amuse- mentin his eyes at my obvious bewilderment. “Hogan, I told you, had been left to guard Mrs. Carew’s cabin. As soon as I saw that the maid had escaped and that it would be useless to try to overhaul her, I slipped down and questioned him. He was boiling with excitement, but now and then broke off in his story to gaze somewhat stu- pidly at a flowered silk kimono he held in his hand. ‘Sal “Tt seems that while he was standing in Mrs. Carew’s door he noticed something flash out of the bathroom and disappear into the passage leading to Brock’s cabin. He hustled down after it. “The door was locked and it took him a few minutes to forée it. The room was empty. Omata San, the maid, had slipped through the hole into the next cabin. Ho- gan did not know of that opening, and it was not until he heard Schwartz’s door close that he realized where the girl was. He took out after her, as she raced down the corri- dor, and actually caught her as she climbed the rail on the after deck. But all he got _ was the kimono, which she slipped off as she jumped. : “‘A moment later, when I entered Brock’s cabin, I found out what she had gone there for. “On the settee, half hidden under some clothes, was a package-wrapped in oil-skin paper; and from Brock’s expression when he saw it—I had sent Hogan for him—I knew that it contained the missing papers. “Now what do you make of it?” _ “They must have copied the papers and returned the originals,’ I ventured. ‘But I don’t see why they took that trouble and ran the risk of being caught by having the girl return to the cabin.” “Oh,” said Ragan, “I figured that out. Mrs. Carew expected the girl to slip in without being detected. That was the bril- liant part of her plan. She could not be held for stealing the papers, because the Adventure papers were in the cabin and might, of course, have been there all the time. And then the admiral could not be certain that the contents of the papers were known to the Japs. As it was, in spite of Omata San’s being discovered, her plans worked out just as she must have hoped they would.” “T don’t understand,” I said. “Surely the admiral must know that his orders have been reported to the fleet on guard off Shanghai.” Ragan brdught his fist down angrily on the desk; then rising abruptly he began to pace the floor. “No,” he said, “the admiral doesn’t. And you must warn him. My God man, if he put to sea they would pot him before he got out of sight of land! You see Brock wouldn’t believe the plain evidence of his senses. “No, it sounds incredible, but it’s true. He even apologized to Mrs. Carew before he left the ship.” “But the girl going down to his cabin, and then jumping overboard. How did she explain that?” “Explain it? She said at once that the girl must have been a spy. But she made Brock believe that she knew nothing of Oma- ta San’s intentions and that Hogan had frightened her off before she learned what was in the papers.”’ Ragan continued to pace the floor, gnaw- ing at his under lip. I turned over in my | mind the story he had told me. Somehow I could not escape the feeling that there was something yet to be explained. Brock could never have been as gullible as the captain had pictured him.. Presently Ragan paused. “T don’t know what instructions those papers contained,” he said. “But you must get word to the admiral, Peel, that they are waiting for him. Can you do it?” “T don’t know, but I’ll try,” I said. [4__| IT WAS some hours later. The <s crash had come. It was war. = Ragan was facing me across a lunch-table in the Hongkong Hotel. He had spoken but little since we learned the news. I suspect he was thinking of our men trapped on the hopelessly outclassed ships in Shanghai, whom we had been unable to warn. Had they ventured out? Had they. gone down, giving their lives in useless sac- . rificer Pn, > a (E@) (€(0) Wook