Part 19 (1/2)

He handed Peter the paper, his thumb crooked to indicate the place, which was superfluous; for near the middle of the front page, top of column and in the strong type of captions, the words leaped out to Peter's eye as though hand-illumined in many colors:

FERRIS STANHOPE OR LAURENCE VARNEY

Mystery Surrounding Young Man On Yacht Near Hunston.

He Says He's Varney--Natives say He's Stanhope and Trouble Feared--Yacht is Elbert Carstairs's, with Her Name Painted Out--Mr. Varney's Movements Unknown to Friends Here.

Peter read the story aloud in a guarded undertone. In general, it closely followed the story in the _Gazette_; so closely indeed as to show at a glance that both productions came from one brain and pen. But toward the end, the new story took a different turn. It said:

”The above is a sample of the gossip which is agitating this usually quiet little town. Late to-night there are two distinct factions. One holds that the young 'stranger' is Ferris Stanhope, reconnoitring under an _alias_. The other contends that he is really Laurence Varney, or somebody else, up here on some secret mission. Unless the stranger leaves town before, the facts will doubtless be brought out to-morrow.

The gossips promise that a sensation of no mean order is forthcoming.”

Below this, some one in the _Daily_ office had added:

”A certain air of mystery surrounds Laurence Varney's recent movements.

At his bachelor apartments, in the Arvonia, it was learned last night that Mr. Varney was out of the city, but the man-servant there had no idea of his master's whereabouts. From other sources, however, it was learned that Mr. Varney left New York several days ago on the _Cypriani_, a handsome steam yacht belonging to Elbert Carstairs of No.

00 Fifth Avenue. An attempt was made to reach Mr. Carstairs at his home, but the hour was late, and he could not be interviewed. A telegram sent to Ferris Stanhope's last known address, Camp Skagway in the Adirondacks, was unanswered up to the hour of going to press.”

Peter let the paper drop upon his knees, and whistled father shamefacedly. Here was a pretty kettle of fish indeed, and it was all of his brewing. If he had kept his fingers out of the affairs of Hunston, as both his enemy and his friend had warned him to do, the unscrupulous editor would have had no interest in attacking him, over his captain's shoulders, and this damaging story would never have been concocted and spread broadcast as a feast for gossips. He had been brought to Hunston to help Varney--and here was the front-page result.

If a similar thought flashed across Varney's mind in this disturbing moment, he instantly forgot it for others more practical. He sat curled up in a folding deck-chair, swiftly weighing what this new issue might mean, and a moment of rather heavy silence ensued.

The cat was all but out of the bag: this fatal hint at ”some secret mission” made that plain. A little carelessness, some more shrewd probing into his affairs, and the jig would be up, indeed. This was the one way that their enemies in Hunston could interfere with him--insisting on knowing why he had come there; and Coligny Smith had had the bull luck, as Peter put it, to stumble on it.

Thus it fell out that he, Varney, who had needed to seek the dark and un.o.btrusive ways, found himself thrust suddenly into the full glare of the calcium. He who was guarding an errand which n.o.body should know about was now to be asked by everybody who read newspapers just what that errand was.

It was so absurd that all at once he laughed aloud. However, it was becoming quite serious, and he saw that, too.

”d.a.m.n him!” broke out Peter, compactly, and he added presently: ”Think of his throwing a bomb in the air like that, and smoking out poor old Carstairs!”

Varney looked up, knocked out his pipe against his heel, and restored it thoughtfully to his pocket. ”Yes. Did you notice the difference between those two stories? He doesn't want Hunston even to suspect that I may be myself. His game here is to _know_ I'm Stanhope, whom the whole town is sore on. In New York, he tries both stories, not knowing which will hurt the most. However, theories will keep. The facts are plain. They've started out to run us down--that's all. The point is now to decide what we are going to do about it.”

He stood up, tall and cool, his jaw shut tightly, his brow puckered into a long frown, thinking rapidly.

”As I see it,” he said slowly, ”it works about like this. Probably the _Gazette_ is the local news bureau for this town. At any rate, it is evident that somebody on it is the correspondent of the _Daily_. The _Gazette_, we know, wants to run you out of town in order to have a free hand in slaughtering Hare. Last night they supposed that my looking like Stanhope was the best card they had. This morning they will guess that there may be a still better one lying around somewhere. The _Daily_ tells them that I'm Varney, and, what is much more interesting, that I'm using Elbert Carstairs's yacht. Mrs. Elbert Carstairs lives in Hunston.

Putting two and two together, and adding the painted-out name and a dash of seeming furtiveness on my part, you have all the materials for a nice, yellow mystery. I haven't the slightest doubt that when that telegraph editor in New York gets down to his office about one o'clock to-day, the very first thing he does, after hanging his coat on the nail, is to wire his correspondent to begin operating on me.”

Peter nailed the alternative. ”If he doesn't, the _Gazette_ will attend to the job, anyway.”

”Yes, the press is on our trail, in any case. The fact that this is the Carstairs yacht will mean more to the _Gazette_ than it could to the _Daily_. It will be a kind of connecting link for them. Of course, they'll jump at it like wildfire. If they can make anything at all out of it, they'll play it up to-morrow so that n.o.body in this town can possibly miss seeing it.”

”Pray heaven,” said Peter, referring to Mary Carstairs, ”that she won't see the _Daily_ this morning!”

”Yes. Her father's name would naturally start her to thinking, which would make things awkward.”

”Larry, the _Gazette_ is going to print his name to-morrow morning as sure as Smith is a lying sneak.”