THE MAN WHO WAS LOST.
“Man overboard!”
Nick Carter—known to the captain and crew of the tramp steamer Cherokee as Sykes, the bos’n—heard this shout, taken up by man after man, as he lay stretched out on the foc’s’le head, in the early morning, just as the ship nosed her way into San Juan harbor, on the northern coast of Porto Rico.
The thrilling warning that somebody has fallen into the sea, which always sends a shock through both crew and passengers whenever heard, does not permit any ordinary person to remain quietly dozing.
The famous detective was one of the first to rush over to the side of the ship when the alarm had been given.
Close by him were his two assistants, Chick and Patsy Garvan, who, in the rôles of common sailors, had come down to Porto Rico to help him get back the fortune in jewels which had been stolen from Stephen Reed, the well-known New York millionaire.
“Who is it, chief?” asked Patsy, forcing his way to the front.
“I haven’t heard.”
“One of the crew, I suppose?” hazarded Chick.
“No doubt. There is only one passenger on board now, Paul Clayton. It isn’t he, for there he is, behind you.”
Meanwhile, under orders from Captain Bill Lawton himself, two life rings, each with some thirty fathoms of line attached, had been hurled over in the direction of where the drowning man might be expected to be.
It was too dark to make out plainly anything in the water, but a sharp lookout was kept for an hour, until the vessel reached her anchorage and the “mud hooks” were let go.
“Well, we couldn’t do any better,” grunted Captain Lawton, through his shaggy mustache, as he and his big, two-fisted first mate, Van Cross, stood together on the bridge. “We might have a roll call of the crew. I don’t know who it was went over. I reckon it wasn’t anybody who might have become President of the United States, nor nothing like that.”
The saturnine skipper gave vent to a husky “Haw-haw!” at his own joke, and Van Cross joined in with an equally raucous guffaw.
Nick Carter was the only person on board the Cherokee who thought of a certain possibility which would attach more importance to the falling off the vessel of the man than its commander had supposed.
“Patsy!” whispered Nick. “Go to Mr. Clayton’s cabin and see if that suit case of his, containing the Reed jewelry, is safe.”
“I can’t see it unless Clayton is there,” objected Patsy.
“Naturally. But he is there. I saw him go down just now. You may tell him I sent you to inquire.”
“Who shall I say? Sykes?”
“Of course. I have no other name on the Cherokee.”
As Patsy Garvan disappeared to obey his chief, although without understanding what it all meant, Nick Carter beckoned to Chick, and the two went down a forward hatch.
“What’s the idea, chief?” asked Chick.
“I want to see that the prisoners are secure, Chick. It has always been difficult to keep John Garrison Rayne behind the bars—except when he is inside the stone walls of a State’s prison—and I have not much faith in the place they have him in on the Cherokee.”
“The same about his man French, I suppose?”
“French is an insignificant scoundrel,” returned Nick. “He is entirely under Rayne’s influence. I dare say he regrets that he ever was persuaded to come on this ship—to act as assistant engineer and to do what he could toward robbing Clayton of the Reed jewelry.”
“The whole case strikes me as curious,” observed Chick. “To begin with, the robbery of Stephen Reed was traced directly to Paul Clayton, the passenger they call Miles.”
“I know, Chick. But I don’t want that talked about.”
“Nobody’s talking about it,” rejoined Chick. “Except to you. Of course, I think enough of Clayton—and his sweetheart, Lethia Ford—to be glad you are letting him go. But that isn’t all. If there should be any hitch about the delivery of the loot to Stephen Reed, it might put you in a bad position.”
Chick spoke with a gravity and directness that no one else would have ventured on with Nick Carter. But as the principal assistant of the great detective he had gained the right to advise with his chief, and the latter valued his counsel.
“There will not be any hitch,” answered Nick positively. “Paul Clayton has kept a constant eye on his suit case ever since we got it away from Rayne the other day.”
“Rayne nearly had it, in the engine room, that time,” remarked Chick, with a shrug.
“I cannot admit that,” was the detective’s quick negative. “He had stolen the suit case, jewelry and all, from Clayton’s stateroom, it is true. Also, he had stowed it away in the engine room. But, unless he got it off the ship, of what use could it ever have been to him?”
Chick shook his head dubiously.
“He’s as cunning as any old-time Indian, and you can’t tell what he might have done. No wonder they call him the Apache.”
“He is called the Apache partly because he is so ruthless when pursuing any object,” said Nick. “Remember that. I don’t believe I ever knew another white man with quite so cruel a disposition. He neither asks nor gives quarter. I give him credit for being a fighter. Only, like the Indian warrior of thirty or forty years ago, he is not satisfied with merely overcoming his foe. He wants to torture and kill him, too. But, come on, Chick! We’ll take a look at the door of his glory hole, anyhow. I don’t suppose it was Rayne who jumped or fell overboard just now. But I want to make sure.”
Chick was a few paces ahead of his chief as they turned a corner in a narrow passage, lighted by an oil lantern swinging from the ceiling, and it was Chick who exploded in a shout of astonishment and dismay.
“Chief! He’s gone!”
“Who?”
“Rayne!”
Nick Carter required only one glance at the open door of the confined space used as a prison cell on the Cherokee to understand that the man who had gone overboard was really John Garrison Rayne, the international crook, known as the Apache.
There were three cells in a row. When not employed as prisons they were used as storerooms for rope, spare canvas, and similar material. Now one was full of such stuff, the second was locked, and the third stood open.
“Well, it doesn’t so much matter,” remarked Nick Carter, when satisfied that Rayne had got away. “Of course he dived off the ship and swam to shore. He may hang about San Juan. But most likely he will get away as soon as there is a ship sailing that suits him. We have the comfort of knowing that he failed to steal the Reed jewelry, and that is the main point, after all. Come on, Chick! We’ll go on deck.”
Hardly had they got there when they heard Captain Lawton raging profanely up and down.
“Six hundred dollars!” howled the skipper. “In good American money! Took it out of my locker, and had to break a lock that was strong enough for a jail door! But I’ll get the thief somehow. Mr. Cross!”
Van Cross, who had been enjoying a quiet cigar, looked down from the bridge, and, in a surly tone, asked what was wanted.
“Line up the whole crew and find out first who it was that went overboard,” growled Captain Lawton.
“I can tell you that,” put in Nick Carter, in his character of Sykes, the boatswain.
“Whoever he is, he got six hundred dollars out of my cabin!” roared the skipper. “I’ll skin him alive when I get my hands on him. Who is he?”
“The passenger you shut up for’ard for trying to steal the property of the passenger you call Mr. Miles,” replied Nick. “He has got out of the brig, and he is not on the ship.”
“What?” bellowed the wrathful skipper. “Do you mean to tell me that lubber has broken out? Who is he, anyhow? He says he is a business man, and he looks like it. Do you know anything about him?”
“I think I do,” replied the detective. “I believe he is an ex-convict named John Garrison Rayne.”
“John Garrison Rayne?” shouted Lawton. “I’ve heard of that fellow. He operates all over this continent.”
“And on others, too,” put in Chick.
“Come down to my cabin with me, Sykes, and help me go through my sea chest again. Bring your two men with you. Come on, Cross! I’ll rummage it from top to the very bottom.”
That is exactly what they did do. The locker belonging to Captain Lawton was an old-fashioned affair, such as seamen were more accustomed to use fifty years ago than in these days.
They had everything out and in again before the skipper was convinced that his money really was gone.
“Cross!” he bellowed.
The mate stepped to his side, looking at him questioningly.
“I’m going ashore!” announced Captain Lawton.
“When?”
“Now!” thundered the commander. “I’m going to find that lubber who dived overboard with my money. And, when I get him, I’ll turn him inside out. Then I’ll——”
“I wouldn’t,” advised Van Cross. “You have to look after the ship now we are in port.”
“You can do that,” interrupted Lawton savagely. “A captain can trust his first mate to do some things, can’t he?”
“Sure!” assented Van Cross. “But I don’t believe you’d ever find that man if you did go after him. Now, here’s this Sykes, who has just said he knows the man. Why don’t you let him go?”
“How do I know he’d ever come back?”
“He hasn’t got his wages, has he?” grinned Cross. “Don’t give him anything to spend, and he’s bound to come back. Besides, he’s got it in for that tall, gray-haired lubber himself. I know that from some words he let drop when he didn’t know I was near.”
Nick Carter overheard this confab, notwithstanding that it was conducted in hoarse whispers, and it coincided with his inclinations exactly.
He wanted to get ashore, for he was nervous over the way Rayne had left the ship.
He knew it was not like the Apache to give up a purpose he had nearly carried to fruition without fighting it to the end, and he believed something more would be heard of him before they were out of San Juan.
It would suit Nick exactly to go ashore, and, as he did not know just when he would be back, he resolved that he would take at least one of his assistants with him.
He was glad when he found that the master of the Cherokee was willing that he should go.
“Will you go into the town and see if you can get any trace of that lubber who jumped overboard, Sykes?” asked Captain Lawton, turning to him with as propitiatory an expression as his rocky face would permit. “Just loaf around in saloons and places where you’d be likely to pick up news.”
“And if I find the man?” asked Nick.
“Bring him aboard, and I’ll deal with him,” was the significant answer. “Once you find him, that will be enough.”
“How many men can I have with me?” asked Nick.
“How many do you want?”
“Two. Give me my two old shipmates. We’ve worked together before, and I’d rather have them than anybody else.”
The captain gave a growling consent, and Nick Carter went forward to get his two assistants.
“The suit case is all right,” announced Patsy. “I talked to Clayton, and he said he would not let it out of his hands until he had taken it to a bank in San Juan.”
“The wise course!” approved Nick. “We are going ashore—you and Chick—with me.”
“Bully! To get Rayne?” asked Patsy.
“If we can.”
“Well, you bet we can,” was the confident response, accompanied by a chuckle of delight at the prospect of some real action.