CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PENALTY OF PROCRASTINATION.

A pencil of sunlight has struggled through the heavy draperies at the windows and laid a tiny straight line across the carpet in the comfortable apartments of Jack Ashley on West Thirty-fourth Street. The oriole timepiece on the mantel chimes the hour of 9 when that individual awakens with a series of prodigious yawns.

Fifteen minutes more and Ashley’s toilet is complete, and with heels elevated to a comfortable angle, he proceeds to scan the pages of his morning paper. His own story of the French ball first claims his attention, and with a comment of satisfaction on the size of the headlines with which it is introduced, he runs his eye approvingly over the dozen or so illustrations with which the article is embellished.

A scare head of the largest size catches his eye, and with awakening interest he reads the sensational headlines. “Gaining Ground—Cuban Revolutionists Driving Spaniards before Them—Hemisphere’s Exclusive Interview with Senor Manada Creates Excitement in Washington—United States Man-of-War to Be Sent to Cuba to protect American Interests,” and much more of the same tenor. As Jack skims over the voluminous dispatches that follow the head, he reads with interest one brief item, dated Santiago de Cuba, via Nassau, N. P. It is as follows:

“The Government is redoubling its efforts to suppress the news, and is apparently determined that the press of the United States and elsewhere shall not learn the exact state of affairs on the island. Nine-tenths of the local newspaper men have been fined by the press censor. Several editions of the leading papers have been seized, and telegrams for transmission abroad from eastern Cuba are now absolutely forbidden. It is also a fact that foreign correspondents have been threatened with expulsion. The Spanish authorities allege that the mysterious steamer fired upon by the warship Galicia was not the American ward liner Santiago, but a rebel vessel which the insurrectionists have purchased in the United States and fitted up as a gunboat. A blockade of all the ports of the island, as previously intimated, has been formally announced.”

“It looks as if the paper would be obliged to send a man down there,” Ashley reflects, as he struggles into his topcoat. “What a superb day for the trial trip,” as he opens the street door and steps into the sunlight. “And this is the day, too, that Barker is to arrest Felton. He didn’t specify any time, probably not till afternoon, anyway. I almost wish I wasn’t assigned to that trial trip. I should like to interview him after the arrest. However, my story is all written up and I can get the details of the arrest from Barker after I return from the America. I wonder how Miss Hathaway will take the affair,” a softer light shining in his eyes as his thoughts revert to the beautiful ward of Cyrus Felton. “She treats him with the utmost deference and respect, but I cannot think that she cares especially for him. Heigho! Now for a cup of coffee and then for another tete-a-tete with the beautiful unknown of the Raymond hotel.”

It is on the stroke of 10 as Ashley saunters up to the clerk’s desk in the Kensington and requests that his card, upon which he has penciled a few lines explaining his identity, be taken to Mrs. Winthrop.

“Mrs. Winthrop?” the urbane clerk repeats. “There is no such lady stopping here, to my knowledge.”

Ashley is nonplused. So he has been duped, he thinks, by the fair unknown. But why has not Barker kept his agreement? A nice sort of a shadow if he cannot follow as striking-looking a woman as “Mrs. Winthrop.” But stay! Perhaps she has given a fictitious name, but is actually stopping at the Kensington after all. Barker could not have slipped upon a simple matter like that.

Abstractedly twirling his glove, Jack leans over the desk and says in a low tone to the clerk, an old acquaintance: “Is there a rather striking-looking young woman, with dark eyes and midnight hair, stopping at the house?”

The clerk smiles.

“Sorry, Jack, but you are too late, I’m afraid. The beautiful Mrs. Harding left at 9 o’clock, bag and baggage.”

Ashley turns thoughtfully away and repairs to the reading-room for a quiet think. So her name—for the present at least—is Mrs. Harding. But where is Barker? The detective is probably shadowing Mrs. Harding now. Ashley concludes that there is nothing for him to do but await Barker’s return. He has been on the watch barely half an hour when the detective swings himself from a cable car in front of the hotel.

“Well?” is Jack’s impatient salutation as he leads the way to a retired corner of the reading-room.

Barker is not in exuberant spirits; his brows are knitted in a frown and he is nervously biting his mustache.

“Well, she has gone—left town, and is apparently en route from the country—for Cuba, I believe.”

“For Cuba!” and Jack stares at the detective in mild amaze. Verily, either a most remarkable series of coincidences or the tangled threads of the Raymond mystery are pointing unmistakably to the fair isle of the Antilles.

“Yes, for Cuba. Let me impress it upon your mind in the beginning that Mrs. Isabel Harding—that’s the name she is sailing under—is no ordinary woman. Why—but to begin at the beginning. According to our understanding last night, I followed her to this hotel, where I found she was actually stopping. I naturally concluded that she made the engagement with you in good faith, else she would have given another hotel.”

“She did give me a fictitious name,” breaks in Jack. “Or, rather, she led me to believe that her name was still Winthrop.”

“Did she? Well, that was useless. Anyhow, I decided to stop here last night, to be on guard early this morning. I found that my lady had breakfasted early. This made me suspicious and I kept close watch of her. Shortly after 9 o’clock she settled her bill at the hotel and with her trunks was driven to the Jersey City ferry. Of course I followed. At the Pennsylvania depot she was joined by a foreign-looking chap—Spaniard. Quite a distinguished-looking duffer. If you should ever run across him you will know him by a small, crescent-shaped scar on his left cheek. I was successful in getting close enough to them to hear some of the conversation. It appeared from their talk, Ashley, that your Mrs. Harding is, in addition to her other accomplishments, a spy in the pay of the Spanish Government, and that she has been successful in learning some of the secret plans and plots of the Cuban filibusters in this city. She is now on her way to Port Tampa aboard the Florida limited, and I should judge it is their intention to proceed from Key West at once to Havana.”

“Their intention? Did the Spanish officer accompany her?”

Barker nods. “He looked as if he was right out of the hospital; his head was bandaged. Perhaps some of the Cuban sympathizers had it out with him. However, that episode is closed, for the present at least. And now for Cyrus Felton. I shall take him directly to the Tombs, and according to our compact he will be invisible to any of the newspaper fraternity. Will you come with me to the St. James while I nab the bird?”

Ashley starts. He has for a moment forgotten the catastrophe that is about to overcome Cyrus Felton. He looks at his watch. “I am overdue at the office,” he says. “But say, Barker, I had an engagement to lunch with Felton and Miss Hathaway at 1 o’clock. Can’t you put off the arrest until to-morrow?”

Barker shakes his head. “Not a minute,” he replies, emphatically. “I have delayed long enough. If you intended to lunch with the fair Miss Hathaway you will have an opportunity to do so just the same and your presence will doubtless be appreciated in her tremendous confusion. If you can’t come with me I will drop round at the office and see you later.”

“All right, then. Do the job in as gentlemanly a manner as possible,” grins Ashley.

Barker nods and walks rapidly toward the St. James, while Ashley boards a Broadway car and rolls downtown.

The detective saunters up to the hotel office desk, writes the name “Cyrus Felton” on a bit of cardboard, and, passing it to the clerk, inquires: “Is that gentleman in?”

“No, sir; gone. Left an hour ago.”

“When will he return?”

“Well, that’s rather beyond me,” smiles the clerk. “Mr. Felton and a lady sailed this morning for Cuba, on the City of Havana. I assume that they did. They were driven from here to the pier.”

“What time does the steamer sail?” asks Barker, taking out his watch.

“Eleven o’clock.”

“Too late!” grits the detective. It is even now five minutes past the hour.

For a moment Barker permits his emotions to master his self-possession, and he startles even the debonair clerk, accustomed as the latter is to the strong terms sometimes employed by irritable guests.

His feelings relieved in a measure by this unusual outbreak, the detective sits down for a moment to consider the situation. Cyrus Felton, then, is on his way to Cuba, doubtless to join his son. Mrs. Harding, a valuable quantity in the mystery, is also headed for the Antilles. Everything seems to point to Cuba. Barker picks up a railroad timetable.

“Twelve m.; Florida express for Savannah, Jacksonville and Port Tampa,” he reads.

“By the gods, I’ll do it!” he exclaims, as he starts for the street. “First to the pier and make sure that the steamer has gone, and, if so, then to Key West. I shall be only two hours behind the woman, and I may reach Havana ahead of Felton. Hi, there, cabby!”