Part 28 (1/2)

”No. If I am successful--the hand of your daughter, Tessie.”

CHAPTER XIX

GERALD PUTS HIS NOSE TO THE TRAIL

The intelligence of Gerald Danvers has been remarked on.

He had a long interview with Tessie, and told her that her father had engaged him to do certain work, in which, if successful, his reward was her engagement to himself. Which was true.

What the work was he did not say. The farmer, after giving his promise, was rather ashamed of having done so, and bound Danvers down to secrecy on the subject of his mission.

He did not want his wife to laugh at him for throwing fifty pounds away.

A wife's mirth under such circ.u.mstances is irritating. It is not a thing easy to get away from.

Gerald cashed his fifty pound check, and, arrived in New York, sat down and thought.

It was clear to him that Josh Todd--if he were one of the murdered men--could not have had about him any writing to lead to identification with the man whose name he had a.s.sumed; because no shadow of an inquiry had been made at the farm.

The latter was some way from Oakville, and Oakville was a long way from New York. So although the papers after the time that the news reached them were full of the name of Depew, taken from the pa.s.senger list, not a copy of any journal had found its way to the farm.

That made Gerald ponder.

Was it wise in going to the New York police at all? He knew that a murderer had escaped at Queenstown--it had been common talk on the s.h.i.+p--and that the murder was done in English waters.

Why then wake up the American police by giving them identification clues to Josh, and so possibly foul a trail in England?

It was just possible that the murderer was lulled to an idea of security by the absence of discovery. That would make his own work easier.

The news in the American papers would be copied by the English press, and Gerald's first work was to secure copies of the _New York Herald_ and _World_ daily editions dating from the day of the arrival of the s.h.i.+p.

He perused these papers with all their sensational hydra headed columns, from first to last.

Nothing had been discovered more than he knew. Not the faintest trace of the ident.i.ty of the man in the portmanteau could be found.

It was known that two berths had been booked in the name of Depew, but who Depew was or where he had lived was still unascertained.

The man who had been found lying dead in his berth had been photographed, and the picture was sent to England for the inspection of the pa.s.senger agent where the berth had been booked.

He in no way recognized it--had never seen the face! That had deepened the mystery.

It was plain that the New York police knew nothing.

Gerald felt that no good purpose would be served by enlightening them, and that the sooner he got to England, the sooner he would be getting at the root of the matter.

The newspapers gave portraits reproduced by the half tone process from the photograph taken, and Gerald cut one of these out and pasted it on a card.

It went with him to England. He went there himself by the next outgoing steamer.