The Brand of Silence: A Detective Story by Johnston McCulley (read book txt) 📖

my business card, my boy. And I generally put up at the Graymore."

Sidney Prale took the card, thanked Rufus Shepley, and hurried down the deck toward his stateroom, one of the best on the ship. Rufus Shepley looked after him sharply.

"Went straight to Honduras and stayed there for ten years, eh?" Rufus Shepley said to himself. "Um! Looks bad! I never put much stock in those Honduras chaps—but this one seems to be all right. Never can tell, though!"

Sidney Prale, still smiling, and humming a Spanish love song, reached his stateroom and threw open the door; and just inside, he came to a stop, astonished.

Somebody had been in that stateroom and had been going through his things. The contents of his suit case were spilled on the floor. A bag was wide open; he had left it closed and in a corner less than an hour before.

Prale went down on his knees and made a quick inspection. There did not seem to be anything missing. A package of papers—business documents for the greater part—had been examined, he could tell at a glance, but none had been taken.

"Peculiar!" Prale told himself. "Some sneak thief, I suppose. No sense in complaining to the ship's officers at this late hour, especially since nothing has been stolen. Makes a man angry, though!"

He put the suit case on the table and began repacking the things that had been scattered on the floor. Then he gathered up his toilet articles, bits of clothing he had left out until the last minute, a few souvenirs of Honduras he had been showing a tourist the evening before. He turned toward the berth to pick up his light overcoat.

There was a sheet of paper pinned to the pillow, paper that might have been taken from an ordinary writing tablet. Sidney Prale took it up and glanced at it. A few words of handwriting were upon the paper, words that looked as if they had been scrawled hurriedly with a pencil that needed sharpening badly.

"Retribution is inevitable and comes when you least expect it."

The smile fled from Sidney Prale's lips, and the Spanish love song he had been humming died in his throat. He frowned, and read the message again.

"Now what the deuce does this mean?" he gasped.

CHAPTER II THE GIRL ON THE SHIP

Sidney Prale folded the piece of paper carefully and slipped it into his wallet. Winning a fortune in ten years in a foreign country had taught Prale many things, notably that everything has its cause and effect, and that things that seem trifles may turn out to be of great importance later.

He finished his packing, locked the suit case, put on coat and hat and went out upon the deck. The Manatee was docking. A throng was on the wharf. Prale glanced at the buildings in the distance and forgot for the time being the scrap of paper, because of his happiness at being home again and his eagerness to land. Returning to New York after an absence of so many years was in the nature of an adventure. There would be exploring trips to make, things to find, surprises at every turn and on every side.

The passengers were crowding forward now, preparing to go ashore. Sidney Prale picked up his suit case and started through the jostling crowd. Already those on board were calling greetings to relatives and friends on the wharf, and Prale's face grew solemn for a moment because there was nobody to welcome him.

"Not a friend in the world," he had said to Rufus Shepley that morning.

"A man with a million dollars has a million friends," Shepley had replied. "The only trouble is, you can't enjoy that sort of friends except by getting rid of them, unless you happen to be a miser."

Well, that was something, Sidney Prale told himself now. He had ample funds, at least, and perhaps he could enjoy himself after ten years of battling with financial sharks, of inspecting and working mines, of cutting through dense forests and locating growths that could be turned into wealth.

Prale put his suit case against the rail to wait until he could move forward again. He looked down at the throng on the wharf, and up and down the rail at his fellow passengers. Then he saw the girl again!

He had seen her before. The first time had been at Tegucigalpa, at a ball given by some society people for charity. He had known her at once for an American, and finally had obtained an introduction. Her name was Kate Gilbert, and she lived in New York. It was understood that she was of a wealthy family and traveling for her health. She was accompanied only by a middle-aged maid, a giant of a woman who seemed to be maid and chaperon and general protector in one.

That night at Tegucigalpa, Prale had talked to her and had danced with her twice. He judged her to be about twenty-eight, some ten years younger than himself. She was small and charming, not one of the helpless butterfly sort, but a woman who gave indication that she could care for herself if necessary.

Prale had been surprised to find her aboard the Manatee, but she had told him that she was going home, that her health had been much benefited, and that she felt she could not remain away longer. It had seemed to Prale that she avoided him purposely, and that puzzled him a bit. He could not understand why any woman should absolutely dislike him. His record in Honduras was a clean one; it was known that he did not care much for women, and surely she had learned that he was a man of means, and did not think he might be a fortune hunter wishing to marry a prominent heiress.

He had not spoken to her half a dozen times during the voyage. She made the acquaintance of others aboard and, for the first few days, had been busy in their company. The last three days had been stormy ones, and Kate Gilbert had not been much in evidence. Prale judged that she was a poor sailor.

Now she stopped beside him, the middle-aged maid standing just behind her.

"Well, we're home, Mr. Prale!" she said.

"I suppose that you are glad to get home?"

"Surely!" she replied. "And I'll be angry if there are not half a dozen to meet me when I land. I've been trying to spot some friends in that crowd, but it is a hopeless task."

"I hope you'll not be disappointed," Prale said.

As he spoke, he glanced past her at the middle-aged maid, and surprised a peculiar expression on the face of the woman. She had been looking straight at him, and her lips were almost curled into a sneer, while her eyes were flashing with something akin to anger.

Prale did not understand that. Why should the dragon be incensed with him? He was making no attempt to lay siege to the heart of Miss Kate Gilbert. He was no fortune hunter after an heiress. The expression on the face of the maid amused Prale even while he wondered what it could mean.

"Picked your hotel?" Kate Gilbert was asking.

"Not yet, but I hope to get in somewhere," Prale told her. "May I be of assistance to you when we land?"

"Marie will help me, thanks—and there will be others on the wharf," she answered.

A cold look had come into her face again, and she turned half away from him and looked down at the crowd on the wharf. Sidney Prale looked straight at her, despite the glare of the middle-aged maid. Kate Gilbert was a woman who would appeal to a majority of men, but there seemed to be something peculiar about her, Prale told himself. He knew that she had avoided him purposely during the voyage, and that she had spoken to him purposely now, yet had asked nothing except whether he had chosen a hotel.

Why should Kate Gilbert wish to know where he was going to stop? Perhaps it had been only an idle question, he explained to himself. In her happiness at getting home, she had merely wished to speak to somebody, and none of her shipboard friends happened to be near.

He turned from her and glanced at the maid again. She was not the sort to be named Marie, Prale told himself. Marie called up a vision of a petite, trim woman from sunny France, and this Marie was nothing of the sort. She appeared more to be a peasant used to hard labor, Prale decided.

And he could not understand the expression on the woman's face as she looked at him. It was almost one of loathing.

"Got me mixed up with somebody else, or somebody has been giving me a bad reputation," Prale mused. "Enough to make a man shiver—that look of hers."

Kate Gilbert, apparently, did not intend to have anything more to do with him. Smiling a little at her manner, Prale lifted his hat, picked up the suit case, and turned away. Once more he tried to force a passage through the jostling crowd. He had not taken three steps when Kate Gilbert touched him on the arm.

"Pardon me, Mr. Prale, but there is something sticking on the end of your suit case," she said.

Prale glanced down. On one end of the suit case was a bit of paper. It had been stuck there by a drop of mucilage, and the mucilage was still wet.

He thanked Kate Gilbert and picked the paper off, but he did not throw it over the rail into the water. He crumpled it in his hand and, when he was some distance away, he smoothed it out.

There was a single word written on it, in the same handwriting as that of the note he had found pinned to the pillow in the stateroom—"Retribution."

Sidney Prale glanced around quickly. Nobody seemed to be paying particular attention to him. Kate Gilbert and her maid had passed him and were preparing to land. Prale put the piece of paper into his coat pocket and picked up his suit case again. That bit of paper, he knew well, had not been on the suit case when he had left the stateroom. It had been put there as he had made his way through the crowd of passengers along the rail. Who could have stuck it there—and why?

Now the passengers were streaming ashore, and Sidney Prale stepped to one side and watched them. Perhaps he had some business enemy on board, he told himself, some man he had not noticed, and who was trying to frighten him after a childish fashion. He searched the faces of the landing passengers, but saw nobody he had known in Central America, nobody who looked at all suspicious.

"Either a joke—or a mistake," Prale told himself again.

He started ashore. He saw Kate Gilbert just ahead of him, the bulky maid at her heels. An elderly man met her, but did not greet her as a father would have been expected to do. Prale saw them hold a whispered conversation, and it seemed to him that the elderly man gave him a searching glance.

"I must look like a swindler!" Prale mused.

Finally, as he went out upon the street to engage a taxicab and start for a hotel, he saw Kate Gilbert and her maid and the elderly man again, getting into a limousine. The girl held a piece of paper in her hand, and was reading something from it to the elderly man. As she got into the car, she dropped the piece of paper to the curb.

The limousine was gone before Prale reached the curb. He put his suit case down and picked up the piece of paper. There was nothing on it except a couple of names that meant nothing to Sidney Prale. But his eyes bulged, nevertheless, as he read them.

For the paper was similar to that upon which had been written the note that he had found on the pillow in the stateroom—and the coarse handwriting was the same!

"What the deuce——" Prale caught himself saying.

Had Kate Gilbert written that message about retribution and had her maid leave it in the stateroom? Had Kate Gilbert written that single word and had her maid paste it on his suit case as he passed, or pasted it there herself?

Why had Kate Gilbert—whom he never had seen and of whom he never had heard until she appeared at the ball in Tegucigalpa—avoided him in such a peculiar manner? And why had the misnamed Marie glared at him, and expressed loathing and anger when her eyes met his?

"What the deuce——" Prale asked himself again.

Then a taxicab drew up at the curb, and he got in.

CHAPTER III SOME DISCOURTESIES

Sidney Prale obtained accommodations in a prominent hostelry on Fifth Avenue, bathed, dressed,