THE ELUSIVE JOAN

The sun shone brightly across Darville’s sitting-room, as next morning he sat down as usual to write.

He placed before him the blank sheets of ruled manuscript paper, which bore a red line from top to bottom, making the margin, and with a sigh took up his fountain pen and began to work in that uneven scribbly hand, specimens of which were ever and anon reproduced among the handwritings of popular authors. His writing was characteristic of a man of erratic temperament who scribbled swiftly, as indeed he did. His pen flew over the paper, for his thoughts always arose quicker than his pen could register them. He declared that he wrote mechanically, and that he only conjured up his characters for the moment, and next second all remembrance of them had left him. During the hours of morning when he wrote, he lived with his characters, and experienced within himself all their loves, their hatreds, their sympathies, and their bitter regrets. But as soon as he rose from his table all knowledge of the romance he was weaving left him, and he again became just an ordinary being, a careless cosmopolitan without a single thought in the world.

His mood that morning was a sad one. The heavy expression upon his countenance showed it.

He lunched alone, for Joan was out on a motor picnic with an American family who were their fellow-guests. He had been invited, but had declined, because he was sadly behindhand with his work, and only the previous day had received an urgent letter from his literary agent in London pointing out that the new novel was already a month overdue, and that the publishers were eager for the manuscript. Hence he had decided in favor of work before pleasure, though, with his happy-go-lucky nature, the reverse was usually the case.

In the afternoon he felt a trifle unwell, due perhaps to brain fag, a malady from which most hard-worked writers suffer more or less. So he went up to his room, lay upon the couch, and, over an old magazine, dropped off into a heavy sleep.

In his unconsciousness he was unaware of the fact that about two hours later the door opened noiselessly and Joan, still in her motor-coat and hat, crept in on tiptoe, and, pausing, looked at him with a strange expression of hardness, almost of hatred, upon her otherwise charming face.

She whispered some words to herself, her hands clenching themselves as though in anger. Then she crossed to where Darville’s dispatch-case lay upon the table unlocked. Without making the slightest sound, she opened it and swiftly examined its contents. She glanced at several long slips of paper of a peculiar egg-shell blue, and, having apparently satisfied herself, quietly withdrew, Darville being none the wiser.

The room was in darkness when he awakened. His head was heavy as lead, while his eyes burned like fire as they moved in their sockets. His mouth was parched, while he felt himself shivering. His condition was so unusual that he stood trying to collect his thoughts before switching on the light. When he did so, the clock revealed the fact that it was already nine o’clock at night. He had slept six hours!

Had he been drugged he wondered. He recollected that the wine had tasted slightly bitter. The bottle was what he had left from dinner on the previous night. It bore the number of his room scribbled on its label by the waiter, and could easily have been tampered with, as it had been re-corked.

He could have kicked himself for being so indiscreet. Yes. Now he recollected, that wine at lunch had a very curious flavor. He strongly suspected that he had been drugged by some hidden hand. He would never drink from an uncorked bottle in future. But who could have tampered with it? Surely he had no enemy there.

He called the waiter and ordered a stiff cognac. It was Greek brandy, hence none too good, but he swallowed it as soon as it was brought, and took two or three turns around the room. He had had no dinner, and felt faint. But the brandy revived him, and, it being too late to dress, he descended the stairs to the lounge to find Joan.

A number of people were smoking and taking coffee, but she was not among them. He reascended in the lift and knocked at the door of her little sitting-room. There was no response, so he entered. All was darkness, but there greeted his nostrils the sweet odor of “Jardines de España,” her favorite perfume. He tapped at the communicating door which led to her bedroom, but there was no answer. Twice he knocked, and then, turning the handle, entered, and switched on the light.

The room was empty, and had been cleaned for the next visitor.

A cry of dismay escaped him. Joan had gone!

He dashed down to the concierge, who, in reply to his eager questions, said:

“Madame Caborn left by the north-bound mail-boat at half-past four this afternoon, monsieur. She left all in a hurry. She came back from motoring, found a telegram, and packed immediately.”

“Where has she gone?” Darville asked with curiosity.

“I have no knowledge, monsieur!” replied the tall, black-bearded Greek, exhibiting his palms with a gesture indicative of ignorance.

“Which steamer was it?”

“The Prinz Luitpold, monsieur. She goes to Ragusa, Pola, and Trieste.”

“Then madame has evidently gone to Trieste,” Darville said, angered that she should thus have slipped away in that manner.

He turned on his heel, and crossed the hall.

“Gone!” he muttered to himself, his brows narrowed in anger. She had left him surreptitiously and without a word, just as her husband had done. No doubt her departure had been cunningly prepared. But how could he account for that narcotic—as evidently it had been—being introduced into his wine?

He stood near the door for a few moments in indecision. Seton Darville was a man of few words, but a man of action. Joan’s elusiveness had aroused that hard, stern, other nature of his, and in a few seconds his mind had been made up.

He crossed back to the concierge, and asked:

“Is Mr. Taylor in the hotel?”

“He is in his room, monsieur,” was the uniformed man’s reply. “He has just ordered coffee. He is entertaining a party of friends.”

“Thanks,” he said, and straightway went up to suite No. 1, the best suite of rooms in the hotel.

On entering, a middle-aged, clean-shaven, rosy-faced American, with silver hair, sprang up to greet him warmly. Hiram S. Taylor, of Philadelphia, was his name, and he was one of the greatest dealers in real estate in the United States.

“Come right in, Darville!” he cried warmly. “Have a drink, boy.”

The novelist hesitated, seeing three other men sitting around.

“Can I see you a moment?” he asked.

“Why, sure. Come into my bedroom,” was the reply.

They entered together, when, without preamble, Darville asked:

“Is the Coya ready to put to sea?”

“Yes, of course. Why?”

“Because I want you to help me, Mr. Taylor,” he said earnestly.

“How?” asked the alert American, who owned the great white steam yacht in which he was cruising with friends in the Adriatic.

In a few brief sentences he explained that Mrs. Caborn had left suddenly, and he wished, for certain reasons—which he did not state—to overtake her.

“In love with her—eh, Darville?” asked the rosy-faced man. “I thought so! I’m not blind. Wal, you can try and overtake the Trieste boat if you like, but she’s got nearly six hours start of you.”

“She’ll put into Ragusa. We’ll find her there,” the novelist said. “In any case, we’ll be in Trieste before she arrives.”

“The Coya isn’t a fast yacht, recollect. But if you like to have her, Darville, she’s entirely at your disposal. My secretary shall go at once to Merton, the captain, with a note putting her under your orders.”

Darville expressed his thanks to the wealthy American, who said:

“As long as she’s back next Sunday it’ll be all right. I suppose you’ll get away at once—eh? Wal—good luck to you, Seton”; and he shook the Englishman’s hand.

Half an hour later Darville was on board the splendid spick-and-span yacht, and had established himself in one of the luxurious cabins, while the vessel slowly steamed out of the harbor.

A few minutes later he mounted the bridge where Captain Merton, a well-known English yacht skipper, a smart sailor-like man with iron-gray hair, stood on duty.

“I understand, sir, we have to overtake the Prinz Luitpold? I fear it will be a difficult matter, as she’s a fast boat.”

“But she stops at Ragusa and Pola,” Darville said. “We must do our best.”

“Of course, sir. We’ll put on every ounce of steam. It’s fortunate that we coaled the day before yesterday, as Mr. Taylor goes to Constantinople next Sunday. If the Prinz Luitpold goes into Zara this trip, then we’ll overtake her. But if not, then I’m doubtful if she won’t be at Trieste before we can get there.”

And with the same breath he gave a sharp order to the helmsman.

The vessel had already crossed the harbor bar, and, with the engines throbbing evenly, she cut her way through the night, the seas swishing away from her bows and the wind whistling through the rigging, which held the wireless aerial.

The Coya was one of the finest ocean-going steam yachts afloat. It had been built by one of the great American railway magnates in the pre-war days. But he had died, and Hiram S. Taylor of Philadelphia had acquired her from his executors, and had since been to Europe in her on two occasions, always entertaining parties of friends. No expense had been spared in her fittings. The acme of luxury was everywhere. The cook was a well-known French chef, and the captain, officers, and crew were all picked men. On every hand was seen a lavishness only possible to the pocket of a millionaire.

As Darville stood upon the bridge he glanced back to the twinkling lights of Corfu slowly disappearing in the distance, as the vessel, with its powerful engines throbbing, sped out into the open sea. The night was overcast and rather dark. On the bow showed the flashing light of a warning buoy, and here and there were the twinkling lights of fishing vessels, those toilers of the Adriatic who send their fish down to Patras or to Athens.

“It is imperative—absolutely imperative, captain, that I get to Trieste before the mail-boat,” Darville said presently. In the dim, shaded light on the bridge the novelist looked a fine, strong figure, in his golf cap and heavy traveling coat, the collar of which was upturned, a typical cosmopolitan traveler of the hard-bitten sort. As a matter of fact he had, until the outbreak of war, been one of the King’s Foreign Service Messengers, and for several years had traveled constantly to and fro with dispatches from the Foreign Office in Downing Street to the various British Embassies and Legations abroad. But the life of the wagon-lit had been too much for him, and, like all the others, he had resigned after three years of constant journeying up and down Europe.

Captain Merton, his hands thrust into the pockets of his thick uniform jacket, because it was a chilly night and the wind was cutting, peered straight before him and deliberately answered.

“I quite understand, sir. But, if we fail, you’ll know it is not my fault. I’ve told the chief engineer, and we shall go full speed ahead to Trieste. If we arrive too late, then I can’t help it.”

“I quite understand, captain. It will be no fault of yours,” he said. Then he added: “I want to send a wireless message. Is it working?”

“Certainly. You’ll find the wireless-cabin just abaft the funnel.”

The popular novelist descended to his cabin, and, upon a slip of paper taken from his dispatch-case, he scribbled a message addressed to a man named Marrucci, living in Milan. The message was an undecipherable jumble of figures and letters—a code message which none could understand save the addressee. It was signed “George Hatherley.”

This he took to the little deck cabin, in which he found a young man lying in his berth fully dressed, reading a novel.

The operator jumped up, and, after reading the message, put in a switch which caused the electric generator to hum, and with a telegraph key he began to tap out the call letters of Naples. Time after time he repeated them, the head-phones on his ears, as ever and anon he listened intently. Suddenly, through the void of the night sky, came an acknowledgment, and then by spark he sent the urgent message which Darville had penned.

Through the night they steamed full speed ahead, north, towards the end of the beautiful Adriatic. Dawn broke in a glory of rose, crimson, and gold in the eastern sky. Darville still remained on the bridge. Before them lay the low streak of land in the misty blue, the “Mouths” of Cattaro which gave entrance to that impregnable little rocky land of Montenegro, the Land of the Black Mountain, hidden away in the hills and approached only by that ladder-like road which led up and up in spirals, and then by devious ways to Cetinje, the gallant little capital.

The sun shone out quite warmly, and Darville went below with the captain to breakfast in the handsome little saloon.

“The barometer is falling very fast,” said the bluff old skipper. “We may get dirty weather before we get to Trieste.”

“Well, what’s the trouble? The Prinz Luitpold will get a taste of the same weather,” laughed the novelist.

“They may be out of it before we arrive,” said the skipper doubtfully, as he attacked his ham and eggs.

Through the whole day they steamed on steadily past many green, fertile islets, with Medela, Curzola, and the delightful islet of Lacroma, with its ericas, myrtles, oleanders, and aloes growing down to the water’s edge, and where legend has it that Richard Cœur-de-Lion was shipwrecked and nearly lost his life in returning from the Crusades.

By wireless they had news that the mail-boat had left Ragusa for Pola six hours before, therefore, instead of putting in there, they still continued skirting the coast, perhaps the most picturesque in all Europe, until again night fell, and with it a stiff breeze sprang up.

The chief engineer put on all the pressure that the Coya’s boilers would stand, and they forged full speed ahead all through the dark, tempestuous night. Tired out, Darville turned in at midnight, but no sleep came to his eyes; he lay in his berth thinking deeply. He knew that much depended on the result of that wild chase, much that the readers of his books must never know. The secret was his own—a strange secret of real life, of which, if he dared to write it in one of his novels, the truth would be put down as fiction.

For nearly two hours he lay pondering, as the yacht rolled in the heavy seas which now and then thundered upon the deck above and caused the vessel to quiver from stern to bow.

Suddenly the second officer opened the door of the cabin and said:

“The captain says, sir, that the Prinz Luitpold is about five miles ahead of us, and he’d like to see you.”

Darville, who was still half dressed, hurried on his coat and rushed to the bridge.

“Look!” cried the captain. “There she is!” He pointed to a distant light, a mere speck in the darkness ahead. “Now I propose to burn flares of distress, and call to her by wireless, asking for assistance. What do you think, sir?”

“An excellent idea,” was Darville’s reply.

“We’re off Fiume. Let’s go to the wireless-room.” Then he gave the second officer instructions to burn a flare in five minutes’ time.

In the wireless-cabin the captain scribbled a message to the captain of the mail-boat, asking him to heave to and render him assistance. A few moments later the operator was calling the Prinz Luitpold, which with other vessels almost at once responded.

Then the generator hummed again, and the smart young fellow tapped out the message of distress heard by every vessel in the Adriatic.

Afterwards he switched off, and listened eagerly for the reply.

“O.K., sir,” said the young man suddenly, addressing the captain. “She’s coming back to us.”

“Harrison!” shouted the skipper, looking out of the cabin, along the deck. “Light the flare!”

A few seconds later the vessel was illuminated by an intense blue glare—the signal of distress.

Then, when it died down, they saw the lights on the vessel ahead slowly alter, as she changed her course, then they knew that she was steaming straight in their direction.