"But suppose he won"t persuade?"
"What"s the use of crossing bridges," Tommy grinned. "If he won"t persuade, then sit on his head--anything, I don"t care! The main thing is--keep him!"
CHAPTER III
THE GIRL IN THE CAFe
Next morning began the conversion, or rather the persuasion, of Monsieur Dragot to remain a while longer with the _Whim_. Pete started off with another triumphant breakfast and before our guest had gone far with it his face was agleam with pleasure. Tommy and I put ourselves out to be agreeable, telling him jokes that sometimes registered but frequently did not. Yet we were on most affable terms when, stuffed to repletion, we leaned back and lighted cigarettes.
"Professor," Tommy suggested, "I think if you stay with us you"ll have a better chance to find that child!"
Our guest beamed agreeably at the appelative, then looked toward me.
"I"m sure of it," I said. "We"ve nowhere to go but anywhere, and that ought to fall in with your plans."
"_Pardieu_, you overwhelm me! You mean I may sail about with you, searching?"
"Nothing simpler," I a.s.sured him. "We"ve rather taken a fancy to you, haven"t we, Tommy?"
"Double it," Tommy laughed. "We agreed last night that you looked like a million-dollar bill to us!"
"Oh, my boys," Monsieur sputtered with embarra.s.sment and pleasure, "you disarm my power to thank you--see, I blush!"
"d.a.m.ned if he isn"t," Tommy grinned at me. "What d"you know about this little gezabo, anyhow!"
Monsieur"s face grew more composed as he showed his interest in a new word.
"You say--gazebo?" he asked, blandly. "Is that not a belvedere?"
"Gazebo is, yes; but I said gezabo--that"s you!"
"Your American Indian language?"
"Sure thing. Pure talk. If you"re interested in Indians, stick around.
Why not get the Havana police to help us hunt the kiddie?"--I had known that before long Tommy would be using a first personal p.r.o.noun.
"Bah! They are of no value! But even I have small hope of finding her.
The report was written nearly six years ago, and she has been gone upwards of twenty years."
"So it"s a she," Tommy looked over at me and nodded. "Well, nearly six years, and upwards of twenty, plus what she was when she left home, leads me to believe the lady"s almost old enough to take care of herself!"
Monsieur considered this a great joke, exclaiming:
"It is not so much as that! She is but three--to me, always three! Yet, as you say, I might better find her with you than anywhere! A despairing search, my boys!"
Tommy"s eyes were twinkling as he murmured sympathetically:
"If it"s a three-year-old you want, there"s a place in Havana called "Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad," where furtive-eyed damsels leave kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up one there, as a last resort."
"But--but," Monsieur began to sputter, when I threw an orange at Tommy, explaining to our agitated guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ideas, really an intellectual outcast.
"Well," he cried, seeming to exude pleasure, "I will stay with you a while, eh? Maybe we can teach him something--this cut-upping Tommy of yours!"
He had fallen in with our scheme most agreeably, and later Tommy confided to me that he was glad we wouldn"t have to sit on the old fellow"s head.
Pa.s.sing that afternoon beneath Morro Castle, the _Whim_ tacked prettily through the entrance of Havana harbor and in another scant two miles dropped anchor.
Havana Bay is a dancing sheet of water, as bright as the skies and hardly less contagious than the city"s laughter. But when one drops anchor and then hoists it up, one recoils from the black and slimy mud those blue waves hide; and this circ.u.mstance, slight as it may seem, held a potent influence on our future.
Riding nearby was another yacht, in size and design very much like the _Whim_, except that her rigging had an old-fashioned cut. Her masts were checked with age and, where our craft showed polished bra.s.s, she long ago had resorted to white paint. At the same time, she gave the impression of aristocracy--broken-down aristocracy, if you choose. No bunting fluttered at her masthead, no country"s emblem waved over her taffrail, and the only hint of nationality or ownership was a rather badly painted word _Orchid_ on her name plate. Taken altogether, she was rather difficult to place.
These signs of poverty would have pa.s.sed un.o.bserved by us, had we not in coming to anchor swung between her moorings and the Machina wharf. Not that it made any serious difference, Gates explained, nor were we impertinently near, but it just missed being the scrupulously polite thing to have done--and Gates was a stickler on matters of yacht etiquette. So he felt uncomfortable about it, while at the same time being reluctant to hoist anchor and foul our decks with the bottom of Havana Bay. To be on the safe side he determined to megaphone apologies and consult her wishes. Twice he hailed, receiving no answer. Two sailors were seated forward playing cards--a surlier pair of ruffians would have been hard to find--but neither of them so much as glanced up.
"Let the professor try in Spanish," Tommy said.
Monsieur took the megaphone and did so, but with no better success. Then to our profound admiration he called in half a dozen languages; finally growling: "Lascars, likely!"--and proceeded to hail in something he afterwards explained was Lascar gibberish. All of which failed to attract the surly pair who played at cards.
"Now you might try Airedale and Pekinese," Tommy suggested, but this was lost on the serious little man. Yet he did call in another strangely sounding tongue, then with a sigh laid the megaphone down, saying:
"They must be stuffies!"
"Dummies, sir, dummies," Tommy corrected. "Nice people don"t say stuffies, ever!"
"Your Tommy does so much cut-upping, eh!" he smiled at me. I had noticed that when preoccupied or excited the idioms of his various languages got tumbled into a rather hopeless potpourri.
Quarantine and customs were pa.s.sed in the leisurely fashion of Cuban officials, and Monsieur asked to be sent immediately ash.o.r.e, promising to return at sundown. There was a man, the secret agent, he explained, who held important information.
"I"ll have the launch for you at Machina wharf, sir," Gates told him, but he refused to consider this, declaring that he could hire any of the boatmen thereabout to bring him out.
"He"s that considerate, sir," Gates later confided to me. "But I carn"t make head nor tail of him. Bilkins says he went in to lay out his clothes, and the things he"s got stuck in those bags would astonish you!"
Nearing six o"clock a skiff drew alongside, being propelled by one oar--a method much in vogue with Havana harbormen--and when Monsieur came aboard we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms hung listlessly, and his large head drooped forward as if at last its weight had proven too great for the squat body.
"What"s wrong?" I asked.
"How do you know there is anything wrong, my boy Jack?"
"You look so killingly happy," Tommy said, joining us.
Monsieur"s pale eyes stared for a moment, then blinked several times before he murmured:
"The man I went to see is dead--murdered, just after he mailed that report. So I have no information. These police called it suicide because a knife lay in his hand. Bah! I could place a knife in the hand of any man I kill!"
"Was he a friend of yours?"