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Read Ebook: Die Phantasie in der Malerei by Liebermann Max
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Ebook has 52 lines and 2052 words, and 2 pages
CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.
A STARTLING REPORT.
There is a speed limit for automobiles in the City of New Orleans, but a certain red touring car on this Wednesday morning gave little heed to the regulation. With two wheels in the air the car made a sharp turn into Prytania Street, slowed a little as it came within one of colliding with a two-wheeled milk wagon, swerved to one side and then leaped onward.
Besides the driver, the car contained only one man. This passenger sat in front, leaning eagerly forward and urging the driver constantly to a faster gait.
"That's the house," said the passenger finally, indicating a building with his stubby forefinger.
The car pulled up with a jerk and the passenger was out before the machine was fairly at a stop.
"Wait for me," he called as he rushed across the sidewalk, yanked the gate bell and then darted through and up the steps to the porch.
With savage impatience he jabbed at the push button beside the door and tramped fretfully until a colored servant answered his summons.
"Is Cap'n Nemo, Jr., in?" he flung at the darky.
Without pausing further, the man pushed roughly past the darky, to that person's intense astonishment, and went up the hall stairs three steps at a time. A moment later he had flung open a door unceremoniously.
There were two men in the room, and they started up quickly as the newcomer hurled himself in on them.
"Clackett!" exclaimed one of the men who had been in the room, facing the other with a good deal of surprise. "What's all this hurry for?"
"Sixty has sailed, cap'n!" exclaimed Clackett, dropped into a chair.
"Great guns!" gasped the third man. "Must have been kind o' sudden."
"When did he sail, Clackett?"
"He ain't goin' to British Honduras," burst from the third man, "and don't you think it."
"I don't think so either, Cassidy," replied the captain, "but he's the fellow we were to watch, and if he's gone we've got to put out after him."
The captain looked at his watch.
"Ten-twenty," he mused, slipping the watch back into his pocket. "How did you get here, Clackett?"
"In one of them automobiles, cap'n. Street cars was too bloomin' slow."
"You're positive there's no mistake?"
"A mistake, you know," pursued the captain, "would put us on the wrong track and cause no end of trouble."
"There ain't no mistake--take it from me."
At this the captain became intensely alive. He whirled on Cassidy.
"Tough luck," growled Cassidy, "we didn't know something about this move o' Sixty's, 'cause then we could have had the submarine handier by."
"The boys was gettin' on the last of the stores over at Westwego," replied Cassidy.
The captain whirled on Clackett.
"The ferry from Carrolton runs on the half hour," said he, "and if you hit up that buzz-wagon you ought to get Cassidy on the ten-thirty boat. After that, rush back into town. The Snug Harbor Hotel is not far from Stuyvesant Dock. Go there, ask for Motor Matt, and bring him and his friends to the dock, prepared to make the run down the river and into the gulf with us. That will be all. Off with you, on the jump. I'll look after your luggage and mine, Cassidy."
If Cassidy was to catch the first boat from Carrolton landing there was no time for talk. With a hearty, "Ay, ay," the two men whirled from the room and rushed down the stairs. A moment later the captain, looking from a front window, saw them leap into the automobile and vanish up the street.
For some time the captain had been lying ill in the Prytania Street house, but he was now rapidly recovering, and his restless, active nature welcomed this call to action. He felt that it was the one tonic he needed to bring him back to his usual form.
Not much time was required to get Cassidy's property into his ditty-bag, and not much more time for the captain to pack his own satchel. The colored servant had telephoned for a carriage, and the vehicle came just as the captain had finished packing.
All that remained was to settle with Mrs. Thomas, the landlady, to thank her for her kindness, and to leave for downtown.
Twenty minutes after the departure of Cassidy and Clackett the captain was speeding away in the direction of Canal Street. He halted at a bank, at the corner of Camp and Common, and drew five thousand dollars in gold. This money was given to him in a canvas bag, and, with that and his luggage, he was hurried on to Stuyvesant Dock.
Barely had he sighted her, cutting through the waves of the Lower Mississippi, when a quick step behind him caused him to look around.
Clackett, red-faced and perspiring, was hurrying toward him. There was a troubled, ominous look on Clackett's face.
"Where are Motor Matt and his two friends, Dick Ferral and Carl Pretzel?" cried the captain. "I need them on this cruise, and they understand the importance of their being here. Will they be along later, Clackett?"
A frown of heavy disappointment wrinkled the captain's brows.
"What's the matter?" he demanded. "Motor Matt's word is as good as his bond, and he told me he'd stay in New Orleans a week and wait for me to send word to him. Where is the boy?"
The captain jumped to his feet.
"Great Scott!" he exclaimed, staring at Clackett in blank amazement.
"It's a fact, cap'n," asserted Clackett. "I got it straight from the hotel feller that seen Matt and his friends aboard the boat. There's been queer doin's, somehow."
"What do you mean by queer doings?" asked the captain sharply.
The captain stared in bewilderment, his amazement growing as he listened.
"There's underhand work of some kind here," he muttered. "Motor Matt would never have gone off like that without telling me something about it."
"He tried to git you over the telephone, but the line was busy and he didn't have no time to wait."
"Ay, ay, sir, as plain as I see you, this blessed minute. The girl was with him, too."
"Did you see Motor Matt and his friends?"
"I wasn't lookin' for them, particular. They might have been on the deck, cap'n, but I wouldn't swear to it. I was so jolted up by seein' Sixty pull out when we wasn't expectin' it of him, yet a while, that mebby I was excited."
The captain, greatly perturbed, tramped back and forth across the dock. He was aroused from his unpleasant reflections by the voice of Cassidy.
"All aboard, cap'n! I reckon we pulled this off in short order, hey?"
"Pick up the luggage, Clackett," ordered the captain, himself taking charge of the bag of gold, "and we'll get aboard."
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