Part 36 (1/2)

d.i.c.k laughed. ”I really did try to keep him, but was helped by luck. We have been unusually busy at the dam and although I don't know that his love for cement is strong he doesn't often leave a half-finished job.”

”If you work upon his feelings in that way, I expect you'll beat me; but after all, I'm not scheming to entangle the lad. He's a bright and amusing youngster, but there wouldn't be much profit in exploiting him.

However, you have had some accidents at the dam, haven't you?”

d.i.c.k was immediately on his guard, but he answered carelessly: ”We broke a crane-drum, which delayed us.”

”And didn't a truck fall down the embankment and do some damage?”

”It did,” said d.i.c.k. ”We had a big molded block, which cost a good deal to make, smashed to pieces, and some others split. I had something of an escape, too, because I was standing under the block.”

He was watching Kenwardine and thought his expression changed and his easy pose stiffened. His self-control was good, but d.i.c.k imagined he was keenly interested and surprised.

”Then you ran a risk of being killed?”

”Yes. Jake, however, saw the danger and warned me just before the block fell.”

”That was lucky. But you have a curious temperament. When we began to talk of the accidents, you remembered the damage to Fuller's property before the risk to your life.”

”Well,” said d.i.c.k, ”you see I wasn't hurt, but the damage still keeps us back.”

”How did the truck run off the line? I should have thought you'd have taken precautions against anything of the kind.”

d.i.c.k pondered. He believed Kenwardine really was surprised to hear he had nearly been crushed by the block; but the fellow was clever and had begun to talk about the accidents. He must do nothing to rouse his suspicions, and began a painstaking account of the matter, explaining that the guard-rail had got loose, but saying nothing about the clamps being tampered with. Indeed, the trouble he took about the explanation was in harmony with his character and his interest in his work, and presently Kenwardine looked bored.

”I quite understand the thing,” he said, and got up as the man d.i.c.k was waiting for came towards the table.

The merchant did not keep d.i.c.k long, and he left the cafe feeling satisfied. Kenwardine had probably had him watched and had had something to do with the theft of the sheet from his blotting pad, but knew nothing about the attempt upon his life. After hearing about it, he understood why the accident happened, but had no cause to think that d.i.c.k knew, and some of his fellow conspirators were responsible for this part of the plot. d.i.c.k wondered whether he would try to check them now he did know, because if they tried again, they would do so with Kenwardine's tacit consent.

A few days later, he was sitting with Bethune and Jake one evening when Stuyvesant came in and threw a card, printed with the flag of a British steams.h.i.+p company, on the table.

”I'm not going, but you might like to do so,” he said.

d.i.c.k, who was nearest, picked up the card. It was an invitation to a dinner given to celebrate the first call of a large new steams.h.i.+p at Santa Brigida, and he imagined it had been sent to the leading citizens and merchants who imported goods by the company's vessels. After glancing at it, he pa.s.sed it on.

”I'll go,” Bethune remarked. ”After the Spartan simplicity we practise at the camp, it will be a refres.h.i.+ng change to eat a well-served dinner in a mailboat's saloon, though I've no great admiration for British cookery.”

”It can't be worse than the dago kind we're used to,” Jake broke in.

”What's the matter with it, anyhow?”

”It's like the British character, heavy and unchanging,” Bethune replied.

”A London hotel menu, with English beer and whisky, in the tropics! Only people without imagination would offer it to their guests; and then they've printed a list of the ports she's going to at the bottom. Would any other folk except perhaps the Germans, couple an invitation with a hint that they were ready to trade? If a Spaniard comes to see you on business, he talks for half an hour about politics or your health, and apologizes for mentioning such a thing as commerce when he comes to the point.”

”The British plan has advantages,” said Stuyvesant. ”You know what you're doing when you deal with them.”

”That's so. We know, for example, when this boat will arrive at any particular place and when she'll sail; while you can reckon on a French liner's being three or four days late and on the probability of a Spaniard's not turning up at all. But whether you have revolutions, wars, or tidal waves, the Britisher sails on schedule.”

”There's some risk in that just now,” Stuyvesant observed.