Part 23 (1/2)
”I? My name is Ford Page Hamilton, and this is my boy. I've been looking for him for months.”
Page's eyes intently searched his father's face, as alternate fear and joy possessed him. The moment was tense; we waited breathlessly; at last Page asked: ”But, Father, what did I do with them?”
”With what, son?”
”The bags of money--the collection I was to turn over to the firm.”
”You delivered them sealed and labeled, then you disappeared off the map, just as if you had melted.”
The word ”melted” seemed to open in the brain of the invalid a door long closed. A sleeping memory stirred. ”Wait! It is all coming back!
Give me time!” he pleaded.
It was no place for a crowd. I took Zura by the hand, pulled Jane's sleeve, motioned Kobu toward the door, and together we went softly away.
An hour later, when Mr. Hamilton came in, the happiest spot in all the Flowery Kingdom was the little living-room of ”The House of the Misty Star.”
Page was asleep through sheer exhaustion, and the father, with lowered voice and dimmed eyes, told the story.
The explanation was all so simple I felt as if I should be sentenced for not thinking of it before. For had I not seen what tricks the heat of the Orient could play with the brain cells of a white man? Had I not seen men and women go down to despair under some fixed hallucination, conjured from the combination of overwork and a steamed atmosphere--transforming happy, normal humans into fear-haunted creatures, ever pursued by an unseen foe? In such a fever-racked mind lay all Page's troubles.
For the last four years he had held a place of heavy responsibility with a large oil concern in Singapore. His duties led him into isolated districts. Danger was ever present, but a Malay robber was no more treacherous an enemy than the heat, and far less subtle. One day, after some unusually hard work, Page turned in his money and reports, and went his way under the blistering sun.
It was then that the fever played its favorite game by confusing his brain and tangling his thoughts. He wandered down to the docks and aboard a tramp steamer about to lift anchor. When the vessel was far away the fateful disease released its grip on his body. But in the many months of cruising among unnamed islands in southern seas, it cruelly mocked him with a belief he had purloined the money and taunted him with forgetfulness as to the hiding place.
When Page left the s.h.i.+p at a j.a.panese port memory cleared enough to give him back a part of his name, but tricked him into hiding from a crime he had not committed.
My remorse was unmeasurable as I realized the whole truth, but my heart out-caroled any lark that ever grew a feather. The boy's soul was as clean as our love for him was deep.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Oh! boy, boy, I thought I'd lost you”]
”You see,” continued Mr. Hamilton, ”Page's mother died when he was only a lad, and my responsibility was doubled. When his regular letters ceased I cabled his firm for information. They were unable to find any trace of him. He had always been such a strong, st.u.r.dy youth I could not connect him with illness. Fearing he had been waylaid or was held for ransom I offered the reward through my Chicago bankers. The months at sea of course blocked us. The suspense was growing intolerable when the information came from Mr. Kobu; that brought me here.”
All this time the detective had been silent. But no word or look of the others escaped him. At last the thing was forced upon him. He had missed the much-wanted cas.h.i.+er whose capture meant a triumph over the whole detective world. And he had been so very sure Page was the man!
Descriptions and measurements were so alike. Both from the same city, one with the name of Hamilton, the other with that of Hammerton.
As Page's father remarked when he heard the story: ”Mr. Kobu, those names are enough alike to be brothers, though I'm glad they are not.”
But Kobu was not to be coaxed into any excuse for himself. Any one who knew him could but know the humiliation he would suffer at mistaking the prize. Even a big reward was slight balm to the blow at his pride.
Intently he watched and listened until the details were clear to him. He could not understand all this emotion and indulgence in tears which were good only to wash the dust from eyes. But Kobu was truly j.a.panese in his comprehension of a father's love. He masked his chagrin with a smile and paid unstinted praise to the man who had tirelessly searched for his only son. With many bows and indrawings of breath the detective made a profound adieu to each of us and took his leave.
As the sound of the closing lodge gates reached us something in Jane's att.i.tude caught my attention. In her eye was the look of a mischievous child who had foiled its playmate.
”Jane, what is the matter with you?” I asked.
”I was just feeling so sorry for Mr. Kobu. He is awfully nice, but I could not tell him. I knew!”