CHAPTER LII.

THE ENCOUNTER AT THE CAFE DE ALMENDRAS.

“You have settled your business interests in this country satisfactorily?”

“Perfectly so. Much more profitably, indeed, than I expected.”

“Then there is nothing further to keep you here except sight-seeing?”

“Nothing—except sight-seeing.”

Cyrus Felton, Phillip Van Zandt and Louise Hathaway are seated on the veranda of the little Cafe de Almendras, on the outskirts of Santiago. They have returned this morning from a short jaunt to the interior and are not impressed favorably with rural Cuba. So they gladly return to the contemplation of that view which is ever welcome, no matter where one may roam—old ocean.

“And you, Miss Hathaway—have you any Cuban ties that you will sever with regret?” inquires Van Zandt.

Miss Hathaway is more thoughtful than the occasion would seem to require. “None,” she replies, slowly. “Unless,” she adds quickly, “the pleasure of your society for the last month may be regarded as a Cuban tie.”

“Thank you,” rejoins Van Zandt, with a glance that brings a blush to the face of the Vermont maiden.

“No; I am utterly, uncompromisingly disappointed with Cuba,” she says. “And the people! But I have been here but a few days, so I shall not place my opinion upon record.”

“And yet your brief impression of Cuba, Miss Hathaway, would not be likely to change much for the better if you were to spend a dozen years here. The country is uninteresting. The Spaniard cannot be changed. The Cuban—that is, the Cuban we see about us—does not deserve freedom. He lets the blacks and his brothers of the chaparral do all the fighting, and hardly dares, except in private, to express his cordial hatred of his ancient enemy. Do you know, Mr. Felton, I rather fancied that you had relatives in Cuba.”

“Relatives in Cuba?” The little color suddenly recedes from Mr. Felton’s face.

“Yes,” says Van Zandt. “The day before I had the pleasure of meeting you and Miss Hathaway I was reading in a New York paper an interview with a member of the Cuban revolutionary society. In speaking of the diversified character of the Spanish officers in Cuba, the gentleman mentioned that attached to the staff of General Truenos was a young American, a former sugar planter. His name was Felton, but he changed it to Alvarez. When I first discovered your name and learned that you were en route to Cuba I unconsciously associated you with this young sugar planter so friendly to the Spanish cause.”

During Van Zandt’s speech, delivered in apparently careless tones, Mr. Felton succeeds in mastering a strong emotion. Louise is regarding him somewhat nervously, but Van Zandt quickly refills Miss Hathaway’s glass with jerez and passes it to her with a smiling comment on the quality of the wine.

The rather awkward silence is broken by Mr. Felton.

“Mr. Van Zandt, and to you, Louise, I may say that I believe I have a son in Cuba, and that he is the young man alluded to in that newspaper. One reason why I have come to Cuba is to find that son. I supposed he was operating the sugar plantation that we visited last week. I did not know that he had joined the Spanish service.”

“I regret,” remarks Van Zandt, “that my idle remark should have stirred you to speak of a matter on which you might have preferred to have remained silent.”

“The subject is a painful one, it is true, but once started I may as well go on to the end. It is nearly a year ago—the 1st of June—that Ralph left home, and since then I have heard from him but twice, and vaguely each time.”

Both Mr. Felton and Louise are gazing seaward, else they would note the swift look of surprise that passes across Van Zandt’s face.

“The 1st of June,” he repeats, as if attempting to recall some incident of the past. “Did not something peculiar occur in Raymond—that is the name of your town, is it not?—about that time?”

Mr. Felton shoots a quick, inquiring look at Van Zandt’s face, but reads nothing there except disinterested curiosity.

“Something very peculiar occurred two days before that date,” he replies, gravely. “On the night of Memorial day Roger Hathaway, Louise’s father, the cashier of the Raymond National Bank, was found dead in his office at the bank, and the institution was discovered to have been robbed of a large amount of money. The murderer has never been discovered and presumably never will be.”

An expression of self-reproach is visible in Van Zandt’s face as he turns to Louise.

“Forgive me, Miss Hathaway; I was not aware—”

“There is nothing to forgive, Mr. Van Zandt,” Louise replies. “But I do not share Mr. Felton’s opinion that the veil of mystery enshrouding the tragedy will never be lifted. Something within me tells me that one day the slayer of my father will be brought to justice.”

Miss Hathaway again turns her eyes, now wet with tears, toward the sea. Mr. Felton is very pale and it is apparent that he would welcome a change in the conversation. Van Zandt, however, continues:

“Now, that you speak of it,” he says, knitting his brows, “I recall that I read something about the case in the papers at the time. Was no one suspected?”

“Three persons were suspected—two of them unjustly. Derrick Ames”—with a quick glance at Louise, who flushes scarlet and bites her lips—“was one and my son the other. You may be surprised at my stating this,” in response to Van Zandt’s questioning gaze, “but you will understand better why I am so anxious to find Ralph. He had some motive for leaving Raymond as he did, and until that motive is discovered and his name cleared I shall be one of the most unhappy of fathers.”

“And the third party suspected? You have mentioned only two,” says Van Zandt.

“The third? Oh, yes; the third was a young man named Ernest Stanley. He was the only stranger in Raymond, so far as known, on the day of the tragedy. This young man had been liberated from state prison on Memorial day, after serving two years of a three years’ sentence for forgery.”

“Then there was fairly good reason for suspecting him?” comments Van Zandt, with an enigmatic smile. “Give a dog a bad name, you know. But tell me about the fellow. I confess I am rather interested in him. Was his forgery a very serious affair?”

“A matter of $1,000. Mine was the name he forged.”

“Indeed. How did you trace it?”

“That was a peculiar feature of the case. Stanley presented the check at the bank of which I was president.”

“Rather a blundering piece of business, should you not say? But may he not have been innocent?”

“The forgery was proved.”

“Ah! Stanley admitted it?”

“No; he told a fanciful story of the check having been given to him in New York, in payment of a gambling debt.”

“Nothing impossible in that story, Mr. Felton. I will tell you why. A night or two before we left New York I was seated in Madison Square garden, listening to a concert, when a party of sporting men sat down at the next table, and one of them entertained his companions by relating a reminiscence of a game of draw poker in which he had played a part two or three years before. I will not repeat the story, but perhaps you will understand the point I am trying to make. Four men were playing and during the course of one hand the betting had narrowed to two of them. A held what he believed to be a well-nigh invincible hand. Flushed with confidence, and irritated by his opponent’s insinuation that he had no more money to wager, A took a check-book from his pocket, wrote a check for $1,000 or some such sum, and tossed it upon the table. The bet was covered, the hands shown down, and A lost. Now,” finishes Van Zandt, “A might not have had a dollar in the bank. He might have put a worthless check upon the table, knowing, as he thought he knew, that there was not one chance in a thousand of a necessity for its payment arising. That being the case, what mattered it whose name was on the check, his own or—well, say his father’s? I am only theorizing on what might naturally occur some time, you know.”

Cyrus Felton’s face has become ghastly and he appears to be on the verge of collapse. Miss Hathaway regards Van Zandt with wonder and apprehension. The latter seems unconscious of the effect his words have produced, and he remarks carelessly: “But I will not discuss the matter further, as I suspect it bores you.”

At this instant the clatter of hoof-beats sounds from the road, as a detachment of Spanish caballeria ride up, tether their horses and hurry boisterously into the cafe. The Americans are established on a quiet veranda at the rear of the building, where they may be free from just such interruptions.

“Are you ready to depart?” says Van Zandt to his companions.

“I am anxious to return to Santiago as soon as possible,” declares Mr. Felton.

Van Zandt raps upon the table for the waiter, but no response is made. Host and helpers are busily occupied with their noisy guests.

“Pardon me a moment. I will step within and settle the account,” says Van Zandt, as he rises and enters the cafe.

The drinking-room is crowded with the boisterous soldiery, disporting themselves as if war were an amusement and the curtain nearly down on the farce of revolution.

The presumptive leader of the troopers is a tall, rather handsome young fellow, who sits with his back against the wall and a glass in his hand. There is no one within a dozen or twenty feet of him except one caballero, with a scar across his forehead, who sits by himself at a table.

As Van Zandt enters and closes the door behind him the Spanish captain glances up and their eyes meet.

“Great heavens! Am I dreaming,” mutters Van Zandt. And then he stands with white face and clenched fists, staring at the man before him.

The latter returns the stare. “I trust you will know me again senor,” he remarks, ungraciously, as he sets down his glass and strikes a match to ignite a cigarette.

“I believe I have had the misfortune of meeting you before,” Van Zandt replies, folding his arms and regarding the other with blazing eyes.

The Spanish captain shrugs his shoulders. “May I ask where?” he inquires coolly.

“In the United States.”

“The senor is mistaken. I have never been in the states.”

“You lie!”

“Curse you! What d’ye mean?” demands the Spanish captain in the purest of English, as he drops his hand upon his sword hilt. The man at the table near by lays down his paper and turns a pair of interested eyes toward the young men.

“You lie!” repeats Van Zandt, moving not a step. Then he says in a voice passionate with hatred and ringing with the exultation of a Nemesis about to strike:

“So, Ralph Felton, I have found you at last!”