"That? It is just as they paid me."
A moment of silence, then:
"I"m sorry to tell you, but these two fifty-dollar bills are counterfeits."
There ensued an absolute hush, and before my eyes arose the vision of Sylvia"s father paying his supper check with a crisp fifty.
"Counterfeit," the professor mused, putting out a hand for them and moving nearer the light. "Strange! Just today I was speaking of a counterfeiter!" And Tommy, in an awed voice, asked:
"You don"t think it"s more dreams?"
The officials, I rather suspected, were beginning to look at us askance.
Our various att.i.tudes at this discovery were scarcely in accordance with the usually accepted actions of innocent people; on the contrary, with but a grain of imagination, we might be branded as a trio of rascals trying to stall out of a tight place. My apprehension was more confirmed when Hardwick, a shade less cordial, said:
"As a United States official, I should like to hear your views about these."
Now Tommy looked across at me and I saw that he was awake. Monsieur, on the other hand, remained blissfully indifferent that anything might be out of the ordinary--except, of course, being loaded with a hundred dollars of bad money, which does not happen every day.
"My counterfeiter?" he smiled innocently. "Yes, he could have done these. His plates are all but perfect. And these bills--you will admit they almost fooled you!" Whereupon he laughed.
Tommy fidgeted, saying:
"Have a care, gezabo, or you"ll be sending us to the rock pile!"
"My friend is cut-upping," Monsieur beamed on the official, but met with no more hearty response than the dry acquiescence:
"I"ve no doubt of it. But suppose you tell me more of your other friend--the counterfeiter!"
"Friend? _My_ friend?" Monsieur"s face now became the picture of horror.
"I was telling these boys of one who disappeared years ago, and afterwards the police showed me some plates found in his rooms! _My_ friend!"
Hardwick began to laugh.
"Please accept my apologies, but, really, for the moment----"
"Don"t mention it," Tommy interrupted him, handing across a newly opened box of cigars. "I understand you--the professor couldn"t!"
Returning to the important subject, Hardwick said:
"Whoever put these out is probably in Cuba. You got them at the cafe----?"
"Quite so," Monsieur exclaimed, warming up with the notion of doing detective work. "I was playing roulette--but, pardon me, you have heard."
"Do you remember any one around the table who showed new-looking bills?"
"No. We were the only ones playing, and but a few were looking on."
"The restaurant was crowded," Tommy said, "and connects with the gambling rooms. Mightn"t they send money back and forth if needed?"
"Quite probable."
In the silence that followed I started twice to tell him that Sylvia"s father had used a new bill of that denomination, yet the words would not come. It seemed a sneaky thing to do, after she had turned to me for help. Yet, if she were in danger, what quicker way to safety than arrest the old vulture who had her in his power? So I said:
"Mr. Hardwick, last night in that restaurant I saw a man----" but this time something stopped my words. It was a voice, a girl"s voice, beautiful with an impa.s.sioned ring of protest, that cried from some place near us on the water:
"It isn"t fair!"
It isn"t fair! Oh, the just and pleading accusation of that cry! I sprang up, loudly calling her name:
"Sylvia!"
There was not a breath of sound. Those with whom I had been conversing were as mute as graven images, but in the black pall just beyond our taffrail drifted the magnetic presence toward which every nerve and fiber of my body pointed;--pointed, aye, tugged and wrestled with my poor flesh to be free! Yet, silence; all silence. No sound, no vision, no anything to guide me, other than my flashing brain and thumping heart which spoke of her.
I saw one of our sailors staring at the water with strange owlish eyes, and yelled at him:
"Into the gig, man!"
But this was frustrated before he moved, for some black shadow, showing vaguely, glided out from beneath our rail and disappeared. I could not be sure that I saw it, but the sailor did because he crossed himself.
"It ain"t no use--now, sir," he managed to say.
My own eyes were trying to follow the eerie, silent thing which had pa.s.sed so spookily into the night, leaving the merest suggestion of phosph.o.r.escence after it. Then an arm slipped affectionately about my shoulders, and I felt that Tommy was also standing by, looking along the trail of deadened sound. His face showed excitement, but he whispered steadily enough:
"Come and sit down."
Indeed, now that the thing had disappeared, I felt like an a.s.s; and, resuming my seat, attempted to make the best of it.
"Really," I laughed, "you fellows mustn"t judge a man too critically.
There was something in the voice of that young lady which took me off my guard, and recalled--well, it recalled what you"ve all probably had recalled by one means or another, at some time or other, during your--er--lives." And I gave a weakish smile, waving my hand toward any old thing in sight by way of saying: "You know, old chaps, how just that one girl plays the devil with a fellow, sometimes!"
But the government officials received this in a different spirit than that which I had hoped to arouse. They looked at me with a gravity most disquieting, and Hardwick, suspicion written in every line of his face, asked:
"Is the young lady a member of your party?"
"Heavens, no," I answered quickly. "Oh, no," I vigorously repeated. "We don"t know her, at all--none of us!"
An ominous silence followed this emphatic denial, and I could actually _feel_ him making up his mind about us. It was an awful moment. At last Tommy flecked the ash from his cigar and, with great deliberation, asked:
"Colonel, do you believe in ghosts?"
"If you"re serious," Hardwick snapped, "I certainly do not!"
"I"m serious, all right," Tommy purred, and I knew, from the unusually soft quality of his voice, that, indeed, he was--"for, if you don"t believe in ghosts, you believe we"re a bunch of d.a.m.n crooks--oh, yes you do!--and I may say that if you don"t, you"re a d.a.m.n fool. _Now_ you see how serious I am, and how serious this affair is! This man was telling the exact truth when he said that none of us have ever heard that voice.
If we actually did hear it just now, the coincidence that brought a small boat past us at this time of night, and prompted some woman in it to speak when and what she did, is more inexplicable to me than you think it is to you--because you"ve made up your mind to understand it. I can, however, understand how any sweet voice on a night like this might make my friend skid off his usually sane and normal track, because----"
he hesitated, adding slowly: "Hardwick, I can"t go into my friend"s private affairs, but I wish to tell you that he"s had a h.e.l.l of a jolt, and on account of a memory--a memory, Hardwick--we"re at Key West tonight. I trust, sir, that you won"t misjudge, but rather fit these fragments and supply the needed others; for I know that your appreciation of--er--things is too delicate to allow me to proceed."
Be it noted that Tommy did tell but the simple truth; and, what is more, he told it with such sincerity that, in a large measure, our embarra.s.sment became shifted over to our guests. Personally, I felt like a howling a.s.s to be staked out and exhibited as somebody"s jilted Romeo, but this was a welcome compromise; thrice welcome, since Hardwick"s next words showed that he had forgotten, or dismissed, the prelude to my burst of confidence about "a man in the restaurant," for arising he said:
"Well, we"ve kept you longer than we should. If this gentleman will give my government good money for its revenue we"ll bid you _bon voyage_. I suppose there"s no objection to my keeping those?" He pointed to the spurious bills.