Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/153

 await Barker's return. He has been on the watch barely half an hour when the detective swings himself from a cable car in front of the hotel.

"Well?" is Jack's impatient salutation as he leads the way to a retired corner of the reading-room.

Barker is not in exuberant spirits; his brows are knitted in a frown and he is nervously biting his mustache.

"Well, she has gone—left town, and is apparently en route from the country—for Cuba, I believe."

"For Cuba!" and Jack stares at the detective in mild amaze. Verily, either a most remarkable series of coincidences or the tangled threads of the Raymond mystery are pointing unmistakably to the fair isle of the Antilles.

"Yes, for Cuba. Let me impress it upon your mind in the beginning that Mrs. Isabel Harding—that's the name she is sailing under—is no ordinary woman. Why—but to begin at the beginning. According to our understanding last night, I followed her to this hotel, where I found she was actually stopping. I naturally concluded that she made the engagement with you in good faith, else she would have given another hotel."

"She did give me a fictitious name," breaks in Jack. "Or, rather, she led me to believe that her name was still Winthrop."

"Did she? Well, that was useless. Anyhow, I decided to stop here last night, to be on guard early this morning. I found that my lady had breakfasted early. This made me suspicious and I kept close watch of her. Shortly after 9 o'clock she settled her bill at the hotel and with her trunks was driven to the Jersey City ferry. Of course I followed. At the Pennsylvania depot she was joined by a foreign-looking chap—Spaniard. Quite a distinguished-looking duffer. If you should ever run across him you will know him by a small, crescent-*shaped scar on his left cheek. I was successful in getting close enough to them to hear some of the conversation. It appeared from their talk, Ashley, that your Mrs. Harding is, in addition to her other accomplishments, a spy