Part 38

Jarvis sat down and studied the fragment. He sat bolt upright, at first with rage and then a growing amusement.

"Look here, Rusty. This Duke is trying to put one over on me," he declared, waking his servant.

"Huh? What's dat, Marse Warren?" and Rusty rubbed his eyes drowsily.

"Do you see what this paper is?"

"Looks like a telegram letter, boss."

"That's a wireless blank, Rusty. It has never been sent. It is the first draft. See--the words are crossed out here, and a sentence changed there. The person who wrote this message tried to save money, by cutting it down, just as we, back home, waste a dollar's worth of time, trying to shorten a telegraph message into ten words. Isn't that reasonable?"

"Yassir. But what does it mean? I don't read no sich langwidge."

Jarvis smiled.

"It's in Spanish. It's addressed to Scotland Yard, in London."

"What's dat? Is it some schoolhouse lot?"

"It's detective headquarters, Rusty. And it is about me."

"About you-all!" Rusty was wide awake by this time, in all truth. He had an instinctive suspicion of anything connected with brass buttons and detectives.

"Yes. It warns Scotland Yard that a man named Warren, on this steamship, is wanted by the New York police, and that I should be arrested before the passengers can leave."

"Who signed dat mizzable contraption?"

"It isn't signed, Rusty. The only person who writes Spanish and who could be so deeply interested in my wickedness is that high and mighty relative of the Princess. He wrote it in Spanish so the wireless operator probably wouldn't notice or understand the message."

"Well, Marse Warren, dis is a ship--dey alluz has ropes. Can't you climb overboard when she is hitched to de wharfboat?"

Jarvis was thinking rapidly. He looked at his watch.

"The detectives will come on with the pilot boat, Rusty, which I understand meets the Mauretania about eight or ten miles offshore. There won't be any chance on the wharfboat. But that gives me a good idea--however, it doesn't seem right to make the Duke of Alva waste his hard-earned coin on wireless messages. There's no free list with Marconi, you know."

Jarvis was walking up and down the stateroom nervously by this time.

"Rusty, in my suitcase is an old suit of clothes which I put in to use, if I had to jump the town on account of Marcum. I thought I might go to the mountains when I went over to the Belmont Hotel. Now, get it out, and those old tennis shoes, and that cap."

"Whaffor, Marse Warren?" The big whites of his eyes were rolling--an indication that Rusty Snow's mind was not as much at ease as usual. "You ain't gonta do nothin' dangerous, is you, Marse Warren? Remember you-all is de oney one left in de fam'ly an' you's got to look after yohself."

Warren placed a kindly hand on the negro's shoulder.

"Rusty, I remember that once when Meadow Green got too small for you, years ago, you started out with a minstrel show--'The Darktown Merrymakers,' they called it."

This leap over the chasm of years was too much for Rusty.

"Yassir," he agreed, after recovering from his surprise. "But, I had to walk back home."

"The thing I want to know, Rusty, is whether you learned how to act when you were with that troupe. Did you?"

"Did I? Marse Warren, dere wasn't no amotion dat wasn't developed in me on dat trip--I started off laughin' and came back like a weepin' angel."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Jarvis. "That's splendid. Now, Rusty, I want to have you do some more play-acting--only turn it around. This time I want you to go away weeping, and we'll come back laughing!"