Waylaid by Wireless

Front matter

WAYLAID BY WIRELESS

"These big 'wireless' boats," she said sympathetically, "never let one get well away from trouble, even upon the ocean, do they?"

Waylaid by Wireless/Chapter 12#224|[Page 224]

The Suspicion

WAYLAID BY WIRELESS

CHAPTER I

THE SUSPICION

"So it still keeps on?"

"Certainly it has occurred here again."

"But this must make the third time, now, within five days!"

"Rather the twelfth, I should say," the Englishman exacted sternly after a moment's computation, "within the past three weeks—within twenty days, indeed, I make it."

"Yes." The American accepted the correction easily, though he looked up from his breakfast chop with surprise. "Of course I meant that this is now the third time it has happened in the same town with us."

"And twice, indeed, in the same inn."

"Yes."

"Quite so!" the Englishman reaffirmed. He pondered gravely a moment. "This is the third time, as you say, Mr. Preston," he reviewed, "that these extraordinary thefts have happened in the same towns with us since you—ah—joined with me. And, I say, this is the second instance of these bobry burglaries in the very inn with us!"

"Well, Mr. Dunneston?" the American urged on, expectantly, as the Briton hesitated again.

"I say, my dear fellow, don't fancy I have entertained it an instant. I've never imagined it for a moment, I assure you." The Englishman bent nearer his young companion solicitously. "But—ah—Mr. Preston, tell me, will you, how many times have you happened to encounter this extraordinary series of crimes in towns where you were stopping before we—ah—met?"

The American laid down his knife and fork and straightened stiffly; but meeting the frank and all unoffending equanimity of the Briton's curious concern for him, he controlled his first impulse and smiled in spite of himself.

The Englishman drew back at this affront. Young Preston stared at him incredulously; then laughed openly.

"I thought you had forgotten yourself, Mr. Dunneston," he returned. "So you were just remembering yourself and I had forgotten!"

"Forgotten, Mr. Preston?" the Briton repeated.

"Yes—you, you English, Mr. Dunneston," Preston explained. "If I had been travelling with any one else but an Englishman and he questioned me at the end of the week on the chances of my being a thief, I would—discourage that as an insult. But, of course, for a travelling Englishman, your query was scarcely personal. Since you have asked for the information, I have 'encountered' this series of crimes at least twice before—at Canterbury and, before that, at Chichester, though they had not yet begun to attract much attention."

"Only twice, then?" The Englishman leaned back, clearly a little relieved.

"As you haven't my genealogical table and know not a single ancestor of mine on either side, Mr. Dunneston," the American mocked on, "it was inexcusably vain of me to presume that an Englishman would hesitate to connect me with these robberies—merely from knowing me."

"But, my dear Mr. Preston," the Briton protested, "you've no idea how I have hesitated on that very point, really! And I wouldn't press it now, in spite of those additional coincidences at Canterbury and Chichester, except—" he stared down a moment at the news column beside his plate; then he studied his young travelling acquaintance across the table—"that you mentioned to me the other day, Mr. Preston," he continued, "that you were stopping in Rochester the fortnight back and in Winchester the week's end before that."

"Why, yes, I did, Mr. Dunneston."

"I thought I recalled it. So, I say, surely you must see I'm mentioning it only because some one must soon; and, besides, after jogging about half England with you, it's my lookout, too; for it would be jolly humiliating to me, wouldn't it, to lose you to the police? So, do you know that the time given for the pilferings in Rochester and Winchester corresponds exactly with the time you were in those towns?"

"What, Mr. Dunneston!" Young Preston threw down his napkin and arose in his place. But again, as he stared down, flushed, into the Englishman's perplexed and anxious face, a calmer sense of the situation overcame him and he reached an impulsive hand for Mr. Dunneston's newspaper.

"I was not fair to you a moment ago, Mr. Dunneston," he admitted, as he glanced quickly down the column the Briton had had before him. "You did not hesitate to bring these facts to me," he indicated the newspaper as he returned it, "and suggest to me the possi of my being suspected as the perpetrator of these pilferings, as you call them. I am afraid that any chance acquaintance but an Englishman would have suggested it first to the police."

"And have the police pothering me here until the trial for my trouble? Oh, but I say, aside from that, and in spite of this array of—coincidences against you, Mr. Preston, I couldn't stop myself forming so favorable an idea of you and so hoping to still have you with me," the Englishman confessed, "that I'd drop the coincidences gladly, if I could only have some decently credible explanation for your—your certainly extraordinary actions about these little towns, sir, when you're not with me."

"So I have some extraordinary actions to explain," young Preston inquired, as he reseated himself, "entirely apart from my circumstantial connection with these crimes?" He took up his knife and fork and cut into his second thick mutton chop, hot from the ancient Ely grill. "I know that I am not exactly conventional in my ways of going about a country; but I was not aware that I have been acting so suspiciously about your little towns, Mr. Dunneston."

"You were not, sir?" the Englishman checked him. "Really, it seems you must have appreciated how you appeared to one watching you for a time like myself—particularly since you offered no explanation."

"Of what?"

"Of why you were touring these cathedral towns of ours, alone."

The American smiled again.

"I assure you it wasn't my fault you found me alone, Mr. Dunneston. And I recognize," he laughed as he glanced down at himself, "that I'm scarcely one of the sort that take the English cathedrals for their vacation. But you must mean something else. Besides being a man, in good health and spirits, and still touring the cathedral towns, what have I been doing which seemed so suspicious?"

"What? Almost everything! I have had to go about these towns to comply with the bally entail, as I told you, so I had observed you even before you joined with me. And how would you do? You would burst into the hotels and inns, where you Americans stop, and stand about glancing over new arrivals. You would search through all the bookings and trace the lists of the travelling Americans, and even look them up at the banks. Then, instead of showing any sort of interest in the cathedrals, to see which your countrymen and, particularly, your countrywomen tour through these towns, you seemed merely to be estimating the visitors to them. The remainder of the time you would mope about—planning or plotting, it might appear—and that night some rich American, carefully chosen from the travellers in the inns, would be most skilfully plundered—and you would move on. And then—"

But the Englishman had suddenly become conscious, as he elaborated his description, that the young American's incomprehensible sense of humor was conquering him again. Before the Briton had checked himself, Preston was laughing at him outright.

"Is not that a fair account of how you appeared—and still appear at times, sir?" Dunneston demanded.

"I suppose—yes, of course it is, Mr. Dunneston!" Preston admitted. "So that was what first set your suspicions against me?" he cried.

"Obviously!" the Englishman replied. "So when I was confronted with this statement—" he tapped his newspaper—"I thought it might be the part of even a travelling acquaintance to warn you of its apparent purport!"

"If I appeared that way, I certainly can't blame you at all!" the young American's humor had now entirely restored itself. "And I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, Mr. Dunneston. Tell me the rest. Please go on!"

"That was quite all!" the Englishman returned, applying himself to his breakfast tea and chop. He rattled over the newspaper till he found the editorial and read it slowly.

The American reached over to a neighboring table for another copy of the newspaper in which the Briton was absorbed. He glanced across, hopefully, before he spread it beside his plate; but the Englishman gave no encouraging sign.

He was a tall and thin Briton, obsessed by an ancient and exalted ancestry, and with heredity heavy upon him. Not only must his heavy, sombre features and gray eyes and dull black hair have been determined for him by some eminent progenitor at least six centuries before, but even their expression must have been decided and established then.

Young Preston could almost see his companion carefully copying the stern facial arrangement of that founder of the family who, sometime in the Middle Ages, had perfected the best expression for that countenance, perpetuated his triumph in a portrait and handed it soberly down for his descendants to profit by. This particular descendant was devoid of a mustache; but either the founder must have worn one, or mustaches must have been prevalent somewhere in the direct line, for whenever he was absent-minded or annoyed, an hereditary habit seemed to hold this Dunneston; he brushed his shaven upper lip with his finger-tips and carefully twisted and arranged the atmosphere about an inch from his face.

Once in a while, as when with sudden interest in the column he was reading he involuntarily tipped his teacup too high, he was startled out of his ancestral expression. But, having wiped his lips and carefully dried his imaginary mustache, he regained his lineal sternness at once, and met the young American's gaze severely.

Preston laughed again with the delight of his irresponsibility. He was young, in most excellent health, and decidedly well looking. For three hard years, since graduating from his university in Massachusetts, he had been working without rest or vacation in the West. And now, after those long thirty-six months of daily toil pushing the tracks of a railroad over the last virgin prairie, he had applied for a week's leave in June to attend his class triennial reunion.

With the grant of three accumulated months' vacation—with promotion promised at the end—he had "bounded," as he said, from his reunion aboard the first ship out of Boston to spend the summer in England, "roughing it in civilization."

The close constraint of three years with grading gangs and cantalever bridges fell from him with his flannel shirts and corduroys. He smiled as he thought of the first time he went West, looking to the prairies to give him an interesting outlet to his disposition for excitement and activity. But he knew now what it meant to be "free" to do anything—but with nothing to do and, what was worse, without a kindred soul to share an experience with him.

He told himself that his longing, as he left, was for no especial one—least of all, a girl. He merely wished to be with people again, civilized, interesting, and interested people. So he had taken himself to England as the country containing the most concentrated civilization and characteristics most in contrast to his prairies.

Three or four times, when he was a boy, his mother and older sisters had taken him with them to this England and toured him with most eminent propriety through all the cathedral towns. But this time he had come to see England of himself and aright, at last; and he was not to tour the cathedral cities.

In fact, when he got on the boat, he waited with unholy glee for the Mrs. Varris and her daughter, who had places beside his in the dining-salon, to confess their plan of touring those towns. Mrs. Varris was so very like his own mother that he was sure of her as soon as he saw her; so when they became acquainted and she confessed, he was very clever and satirical. But she only laughed and asked him if he played bridge. He did, of course, though he laughed long and merrily at himself that night for having fled from his own mother and sisters. At least he could have done the French châteaux this summer with them; while here he was, after three years of exile, seriously contemplating a tour of the cathedral towns once more with—some one else's mother!

Very early the next morning he sought out that mother and her daughter to say the few final things which would make it impossible for him to find himself touring those towns again. And every day of the succeeding six to Southampton he had told them bravely of the superior things he would do and particularly of the glory of "roughing England" free from women and—with ultimate particularity—free from the cathedral towns. So as he saw them on the train at Southampton for Winchester, he had bid them a very superior farewell. But when their carriage had disappeared, he had looked down at himself to try to recall exactly what his idea of seeing England, of himself and aright, had been.

He had recalled it with an effort and started boldly off; and then—he laughed now honestly at himself as he considered the fairness of the description the Englishman had just given of his subsequent behavior. For—with a few shamed intermissions—during the past three weeks since he landed, he had found himself bursting into the cathedral towns almost precisely as the Briton had said; and—doing the rest, as Mr. Dunneston had sketched to him.

And though he had not yet found them, for a healthy person who still retained some sense of humor, the cathedral towns had not been entirely without compensations. The first and greater was the Briton watching him sternly from across the table. The other? Young Preston applied himself to his newspaper.

The Circuit of Crime

CHAPTER II

THE CIRCUIT OF CRIME

"Continuation of Crimes against our Visitors!" the heading announced. And under it the lines ran:

"The shocking series of crimes against Americans which have disgraced England this summer were continued—we dare not say culminated—last evening by the surprisingly simple and successful robbery of two American visitors stopping at the Royal Arms here in our own town of Ely.

"The extraordinarily evil fate which has pursued our cousins from across the water during the past few weeks, marked for victims in this instance Mrs. W. H. Hastings and her daughter, Miss Hastings, of Wilmington, Delaware, who only yesterday afternoon arrived at the Royal Arms. This morning, according to the report made to the police, the considerable sum of money which they—very carelessly and incautiously, it must be confessed—carried with them chiefly in bank notes, was taken from their sleeping room in a manner which . . .

"Without useless speculation upon the exact manner in which this particular haul was made," the column ran rapidly on, "or without hazarding a guess of the criminal in this single instance, the Morning News desires to remind our county authorities again that it is high time for them to take more competent measures than have yet been taken to secure the safety of visitors in our English hotels and inns.

"Within the past three weeks—the beginning of which period marked the first arrival of our American summer visitors—the News has had occasion to chronicle in these columns no less than eleven similar outrages against Americans stopping in our inns which have had to be brought to the notice of our authorities.

"Beginning with the robbery of two wellknown and wealthy Americans at Winchester just twenty days ago, the list rapidly swells with the repeated outrages perpetrated upon our visitors at Chichester, Canterbury, Rochester, St. Albans, Oxford, and a half-dozen other towns popular with Americans, including Norwich, in our neighboring county of Norfolk, from which we received word of the last robbery only two days since.

"The recapitulation of this list startles us, not only by showing the astonishing succession of the crimes, but by pointing out a most alarming condition. For from the first crime committed at Winchester twenty days ago to the scandal of the Royal Arms here at Ely last night, the cathedral towns of England—and the cathedral towns alone—have been the places of these repeated outrages practised upon our American cousins.

"However, the explanation may not be far to seek. As all Englishmen must know, the tour of these cathedral towns has been for many years far the most fashionable and popular route for American women of means and refinement. From every ship landing at Southampton, scores of such travelling Americans make at once for the nearest cathedral town, Winchester, but a few miles north. Then, by way of Chichester, they travel on to world-famous old Canterbury in Kent. From there, by way of Rochester, further north in the same county, they usually continue on to St. Albans, and then to Oxford, usually stopping at Cambridge, too—though there is no cathedral there—before going to the east coast again for Norwich cathedral. From there, as we well know, they come here to view our magnificent ecclesiastical structure and stop a day or more before continuing on to Lincoln and York. At Durham, then, they turn south and, visiting Chester, Wells, and their other favorites in our west counties, they take a final view of Exeter's fine transeptal towers and board ship again at Portsmouth or Plymouth, content and satisfied with having 'done' in England only our cathedrals and their cities.

"Landing at Liverpool, the succession of the churches is merely changed by beginning at Chester and ending with Durham.

"For American women of the best class to travel over this route alone or with their daughters has become recognized in America as so customary and proper—if not positively necessary—that we have heard that Americans speak of this preference of their ladies as the 'cathedral habit'; and we have often clipped from American newspapers irreverent allusions to the travellers on our 'cathedral circuit.'

"That they should travel thus unattended is an undoubted compliment from our fair visitors, still we cannot view with entire complacency the carelessness and recklessness in money matters which has, not unnaturally, accompanied the increasing sense of security in our cathedral towns.

"For here at Ely, as at many other of our famous old towns, it has become a matter of comment among banking agents that, while there has been a satisfactory and pleasing growth in travellers' drafts and credits, a remarkably large proportion of present transactions with Americans is mere exchange of large American notes for our currency.

"Obviously, in the care-free American manner, large and growing numbers of our visitors who once so universally carried credits which they cashed only as necessity arose, have now taken to the reckless habit of carrying their funds in currency—and funds sufficient, too, for the expenses of an entire summer's travel. This is the circumstance for which we must hold the Americans themselves to blame, in part at least, for the series of scandals which have been visited upon them this summer. For this circumstance, as it has become notorious, could not but have encouraged—almost invited—the shocking series of crimes which we have had to chronicle.

"And indeed, in every instance of the dozen reported, including the robbery here at Ely last night, American currency in notes of large figure has been the chief or only thing procured by the robbers. And while it has been most fortunate that, in every case so far reported, the victims have been persons whose circumstances have made their losses inconvenient only temporarily, yet without some cooperation upon the part of the Americans, they cannot reasonably expect to continue unmolested—even in our cathedral towns."

"And this," young Preston cried appreciatively as he finished and folded the column over to tear off the strip, "is not only from mother's secure and innocuous old England! It is from her dear cathedral towns! Oh, I must send this to mother and sister, Mr. Dunneston!" he cried to his companion, apparently all forgetful of the warning the moment before. "To think that their dear old church cities would turn upon them this way!"

"What?" the Englishman looked up suddenly. He had not forgotten. "I say, but don't you think this might make even one's mother or sisters a—a bit apprehensive, you know?"

"A bit apprehensive, Mr. Dunneston?" the American laughed. "I hope it will, if it will enable me to get them to England sometime to see something outside of a cathedral town! That's why I want to send it. You can't appreciate it, of course, sir. Your family connection with the 'circuit' is too remote."

"But I didn't mean that, you know," the Englishman corrected. "I didn't mean make them apprehensive about the towns. The towns should soon be safe enough again. I meant, rather, might you not make even—even one's mother and sisters just a bit apprehensive, you know? Or—oh, I see," the Briton comprehended, as he saw what part of the paper Preston had been reading. "You weren't reading the editorial."

"The editorial," the American answered. "What is it?"

He answered himself as he turned to it hur and read it, under his companion's watchful scrutiny.

"An American!" the heading stated confidently. And:—

"Elsewhere in these columns," the editorial read, "is the account of the cool robbery of two American women stopping at the Royal Arms—a robbery which is only the most recent of a dozen which, as already commented, have consecutively scandalized our cathedral cities this summer.

"We have already directed attention to the manner in which the Americans themselves have practically invited these thefts. But till to-day we confess that we had missed the most obvious meaning of the facts as we have given them but which, at last, a friendly correspondent has pointed out.

"Under the theory just communicated to us and which the separate police investigation of every crime serves only to confirm, there is now no possible reason for doubting that which many of us must have long suspected; viz., that this series of scandals which has been visited upon our sober cathedral cities is in no way native to them. These robberies cannot now, as was first feared, be attributed to a sudden and general outbreak of theft in our church cities. They have shown themselves too clearly, in their similarity and slow progression, as the work of one man—and that man not even an Englishman.

"The thief, who is moving about the circle of our cathedral cities with our American visitors, shows too intimate knowledge of the ways and manners of his victims in general, and makes too precise selections of those from whom he may make his invariably easy and profitable hauls, to be other than an American himself, born, bred, and travelled as such.

"As he clearly must mingle freely with his victims at their favorite stopping places and must, indeed, often be registered at the same hotels with them, it should be no great feat for our police to take him almost at once— as there are few American men upon the cathedral tours.

"In this scandal, which was rapidly becoming almost international in its character, we are glad to assure our readers that the disgrace can now, upon the obvious evidences of the robberies themselves, safely be lifted from England and the English. So clear is the course which this remarkable American has left, that by tracing it back we can almost determine the vessel which brought him to our shores to commence, twenty days ago, his extraordinary visits upon his countrywomen travelling here. But while the name of the vessel, perhaps, may be a little too uncertain to place in print, yet it seems sure that the man must have landed at Southampton within the last three weeks, commencing at Winchester, a day or so later, the remarkable series of thefts which he has successfully continued till to-day.

"Whatever the extraordinary character and purpose of the sort of man he must be—for he must, almost conclusively, appear a gentle —we congratulate him upon the preference which has prompted him, so far, to operate against only those who are well able to sustain those losses which become his gains. But at the same time we wish to warn him that, whoever he is, and for whatever purpose he has committed this series of crimes, he can not expect from English courts any possible palliation of his just punishment under the plea of a perverted prank."

"I see now, Mr. Dunneston. Thank you!" The American nodded gratefully across to his observing companion. "I landed, as you know, sir, from the Britannia at Southampton just three weeks ago; and, after casting about a day or so, dropped in on Winchester, as you accurately remember. And they think that this has been done—or rather, is being done—by some young American with the appearance of a gentleman and with a perverted sense of humor."

Preston laughed quietly to himself a moment.

"I don't believe I had better send mother this!" he decided aloud. "As she would certainly claim for me at least a proper appearance, and has always had serious fears for my ideas of humor, this might well make even mother a bit—apprehensive, Mr. Dunneston. But you, sir! If you had read this before coming to talk it over with me, and had the—coincidences in mind, too, I certainly was not appreciative enough of your confidence in me. Why, Mr. Dunneston, knowing what you know, do you not feel that you are near to condoning a felony in keeping with me without informing the police? If you told them what you know, I certainly would not care to trust myself to the mercies of the police," he put aside his paper, "or to this editor, or to his clever correspondent. But—"

His face brightened irrepressibly and he caught himself staring incredulously through the wide doors of the breakfast-room into the morning lounge just beyond. He jumped up suddenly, and the Englishman arose and stood beside him in the doorway of the lounge.

"Miss Varris!" the young American exclaimed, with badly concealed joy.

"Mr. Preston!" a girl's clear voice returned gladly, as the trim, slender figure before them turned about. She was neither tall nor short, and she was neither athletic looking nor "soft." And she was neither beautiful nor handsome, but just at the point halfway between which a girl of twenty-three reaches who inherits good features and healthful figure, and who has learned to dance well, ride well, study enough, golf enough, and has attained the thousand other "well and enoughs" which include talking well and listening enough, and allow a woman to be liked and loved with so little consciousness that she never suspects she is particularly liked at all.

"She is the kind of girl," one of the men upon the boat had commented admiringly to Preston, "of whom the other women who do it themselves can't say that she pads, or powders, or wears other people's hair—though it is a wonder that she can have enough of her own to wear it in the prevailing fashion."

"She is the kind of girl," Preston rejoined, "of whom other women wouldn't want to say that, if they could."

But young Preston, though fully conscious of the goodness of her appearance, was not most concerned with that just then. Though her first welcoming word was surely meant for only an acceptable greeting, he had imagined it held just a touch of the feminine relief in it which women travelling alone should properly feel upon finding a friend again; and he thrilled hotly with it.

The girl herself seemed to feel that she had betrayed something; for, as she released her hand, she laughed at him teasingly.

"But what, Mr. Preston," she demanded, "in the wide world can you be doing here in Ely, a cathedral town? What has brought you to this?"

"I can't tell you!" young Preston laughed joyfully, as the full realization of her pres came to him. "But I tell you that ever since I let that train with you puff away from me at Southampton, I haven't scrupled at searching even the cathedral towns to have a chance to find you again. Really, I've searched the registers of every hotel, inn, and pension where there was any possibility of finding you. And then, just as I had almost decided that you weren't on land, but were an incredible sort of mermaid person whom one finds only at sea, I find you—"

"I find you," the girl laughed gayly, cutting him off. "After staying at the same inn with us for fourteen hours, you let me find you!"

"At the same inn, Miss Varris?"

"Yes; mother and I came last evening. But we had written for our rooms in advance and, as mother was tired, went to them at once without registering. And we went out to the police station early this morning before you came down; so there's nothing for you to explain away."

"Then I wasn't quite so—lacking, was I? But to the police station, Miss Varris?" he asked quickly. "You went there? Why? You weren't robbed? The paper didn't make a mistake in the names?"

"Oh, no!" the girl laughed. "But we had been travelling for a few days with Mrs. Hastings who was robbed, so mother and I went with her to the magistrate this morning to place the formal complaint. I have just come back here ahead of them. I forgot something. No; to tell the truth, Mr. Preston," she said, looking at him frankly, "we had seen that you were here—and I did forget something, but I really made it an excuse to come back here and see you before you could see mother."