CHAPTER XV.

SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS.

It is early in the evening. Jack Ashley is seated at his desk in the Hemisphere office enjoying his pipe preliminary to setting forth on an assignment.

The month is March. Nearly a year has elapsed since Ashley’s first visit to the Vermont town which, for a brief space, came into the world’s eye as the scene of the mysterious death of Cashier Roger Hathaway in the Raymond National Bank. During this time no further light has been shed on the mystery, which has gradually dropped from the thoughts of all save a few persons, two of whom are Ashley and John Barker, the detective.

Jack hears from Barker occasionally. The latter is busy on other work, but he still keeps a live interest in what he regards as the case of his life, and both he and his newspaper colaborer hope some day to astonish Vermont, and incidentally the country, by solving the Hathaway mystery, one of the most remarkable in the criminal annals of New England.

But as the months slipped by Ashley’s stock of confidence decreased slightly and to-night finds him wondering whether he will ever have the privilege of handing the news editor a bundle of “copy,” with the remark “There is an exclusive that is worth while.”

“I have helped run down a number of crimes and fasten them upon the guilty persons,” he soliloquizes, “and have flattered myself that I was something of a detective. But in each of those cases the trembling villain was on or about the scene of his crime and when you had your case made out all there was to do was to clap a heavy hand upon his shoulder. But in this Hathaway drama about all of the leading characters have disappeared, and the man whom we regard as the key to the mystery, Ernest Stanley, is the very man we are least likely to find.

“But is Stanley the key?” continues Jack, stretching himself in his chair. “I don’t think Barker and I have attached sufficient importance to that blotter found on Hathaway’s desk. These fragments of sentences keep haunting me, even amid my daily duties. Something tells me that if we had the imprint of an entire page of that letter to Felton we could solve the mystery without finding our men. ‘These things I charge you, Cyrus Felton, fail not at the peril of your good name.’ ‘These things—’”

Ashley is slowly scratching a match to relight his pipe, when he suddenly stops and his thought-wrinkled forehead smooths.

“Hello! Here’s an idea, perhaps a valuable one. It is possible that Barker and I have been all wrong in regarding that letter as an accusation. The English language is elastic. ‘I charge you, Cyrus Felton,’—‘I charge you, I charge you, I charge you.’ Now, instead of ‘I accuse you,’ read ‘I adjure you.’ But ‘I adjure you,’ what? To ‘fail not.’ To ‘fail not’ in what? Ay, there’s the rub. I am as much in the dark as before. Still the idea is worth considering, and I’ll spring it on Barker.”

Ashley finishes his smoke in silence and when the last flake of tobacco has yielded its solace he draws on his coat and boards an uptown car.

In that brilliantly lighted section of Broadway where stands the Hoffman House, Jack stops a moment to chat with an acquaintance.

“Say,” remarks the latter, “there’s a chap yonder staring hard at you. Know him?”

At his friend’s suggestion Ashley turns suddenly and catches the searching gaze of a tall, handsome man with a dark-brown beard trimmed to a point. He is richly but simply attired, and his appearance is unmistakably that of a gentleman. As Ashley returns his stare with interest the stranger turns and enters the hotel.

The incident is trivial, but it awakens curious emotions in Ashley, and absently overlooking his acquaintance’s suggestion of a visit to the cafe, he says an au revoir and continues up Broadway.

“I have seen those eyes somewhere,” he muses, “but hang me if I can recall where.”

As, late in the evening, his assignment covered, Ashley is sauntering down Broadway, he is haunted by the vision of a bearded face surrounding a pair of piercing eyes. He even drops in at the Hoffman House and looks through the bar room, cafe and reading rooms, but the handsome stranger is not in view.

Ashley has been in Raymond once since he left it, the spring before, and he was kindly received by Miss Hathaway. But that was all. Not all his engaging manners and clever conversation could penetrate the reserve with which she surrounded herself, and he almost decided that she was indeed the marble which he professed to Barker to have solely interested him. Still, that pure white face, with its matchless blue eyes and the sad smile that occasionally lighted it, lingers vividly in his memory and will continue to linger until—

He is at the Hemisphere office now. A very short time suffices to write and hand in his “copy” and then he lounges into the cable editor’s room, with the inquiry: “What news from over the sea, Chance?”

“Nothing special except the insurrection in Cuba,” Chance tells him. “Affairs are getting hot down there. You can judge of the magnitude of to-day’s battle at Cienfuegos when you read that thirty Spaniards were killed and fifty captured.”

“I should say so,” laughs Ashley. “The average mortality per battle is three men killed and four wounded, is it not?”

The cable editor throws a handful of “copy” from him with a sniff of disgust. “One can never tell how far to trust this rot we are getting from Madrid and Key West,” he says. “I wish the Hemisphere had a live man such as you down in Cuba to give us some straight information on the conflict.”

“Thank you. I have no desire to run up against Yellow Jack.”

“Hang Yellow Jack! He is only dangerous to those half-fed raw recruits that the government is sending over from Spain. I have talked with Mr. Hone about the advantage of sending a representative to Havana or Santiago, and he is seriously considering it. Hold on! Here’s something coming now,” and Chance turns to his table.

Ashley waits until the dispatch has been received, and then reads with interest the following special from Madrid:

“Ten thousand additional troops will be dispatched to Cuba within a week, in response to the demand of Gen. Martinez de Truenos, the new captain-general of the island. Gen. Truenos has had experience in fighting Cuban insurgents, and a speedy termination of the uprising is looked for.”

“Same old bluff,” comments Ashley, and then, awakened to an interest in Cuban affairs by the words of the cable editor, he visits the night-editor’s den in search of further information.

The longest story is from Key West, and a portion of it runs in this wise:

“The insurgents are winning victories every day. The Cuban patriots do not need more men. All they want is arms and ammunition.

“It is whispered that the greatest difficulty with which the present captain-general has to contend is the conspiring among his own alleged supporters and advisers. One or two Spanish generals and a number of influential residents and land-owners at Havana, Santiago and other important points are suspected of active sympathy with the insurgents, but no proof of such complicity can be obtained. It is even said that the chosen president of the provisional republic is at present in Cuba, and that under the very nose of the hated oppressor he directs the movements of the patriot armies. It is thought that this condition of affairs is responsible for the change in captain-generals, as Truenos is reputed to be a clever diplomat as well as a tried soldier. The next few months will probably decide the fate of the republic. The Cubans must win this year or never.”

“What do you think?” Ashley asks the night editor. “Has the island any chance of liberty?”

“The prospects were never rosier,” is Chambers’ reply. “It is evident that the Castilian has an enormous job on his hands in the present insurrection. We received a dispatch a short while ago which has a local reference. I sent it up to Hone, and perhaps Ricker has it by this time. It states that the insurgents count upon valuable assistance from New York and that an expedition is being fitted out here. This wire came from Washington and the Spanish minister there has asked our government to prohibit the assistance I speak of. Hello!” as a bunch of copy is thrown upon his table, “the president has issued a proclamation bearing on the matter.”

The proclamation is brief but significant. It sets forth that, without a violation of the friendly relations existing between Spain and the United States, this government cannot countenance the fitting out of expeditions designed to assist the insurrectionists in Cuba. A number of United States vessels have been ordered to patrol duty, and a rigid surveillance of the coast will be maintained.

“That may be good government, but it is confoundedly un-American in sentiment,” remarks Ashley, scornfully, for he is an American through and through.

“The government’s course was clear,” Chambers mildly observes. “The President could do nothing less. I do not imagine, however, that the patrol will be much more than perfunctory.”

When Ashley reports at the Hemisphere office the next day he finds in his letter box two yellow envelopes. One is from the city editor and contains an assignment to interview Senor Rafael Manada of the Cuban revolutionary society in the United States. The senor is stopping at the Fifth Avenue and a full story on Cuban affairs from the New York end is wanted.

“Well this is something new, at any rate,” thinks Jack, and he tears open the second envelope. This contains a dispatch dated from Raymond, Vt., the night before, and Ashley whistles softly as he comprehends the concise but thoroughly interesting contents:

“See you to-morrow afternoon at your office. I have found Hathaway’s revolver. Barker.”