Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/171

 they have gone to Cuba, and there is no particular reason for my visiting Van Zandt's apartments. It is getting late, anyway, and I believe I will return to the office. If Ricker is in a good-humored mood I will attempt to convince him that the only feature which the paper at present lacks is a live man at Havana who can tell the difference between an overwhelming Spanish or Cuban victory and a fifth-rate scrimmage that a dozen New York policemen could quell in ten minutes."

Ashley swings himself upon a Broadway car and lapses into a meditation. "How the deuce do Miss Hathaway and Cyrus Felton come to be aboard the Semiramis?" And if Ernest Stanley is Phillip Van Zandt, where did he get the money to own such a yacht? Forty or fifty thousand dollars of Raymond National Bank funds wouldn't pay for one side of the Semiramis. But it may not be his yacht. I have simply assumed so because he looked as if he owned the ocean as well. Good gracious, I should be inclined to regard Miss Hathaway's disappearance as a clear case of abduction but for the fact that the fair Louise appeared entirely satisfied with her surroundings when I focused the America's glasses upon her graceful self. I am beginning to believe that I am clear off my reckoning on Van Zandt. The Semiramis may be owned by the Cubans and he may simply be one of the leaders of the expedition. And he may not be Ernest Stanley at all, although I think—hang it! I don't know what I think. I shall quit thinking from now on. It is too hard work."

Much relieved by this determination, Ashley sits at his desk, lights his briar and dashes off a short sketch of the detained filibustering vessel. This he tosses over to the night-desk men, and strolls into the city editor's den.

"When you are at leisure, Mr. Ricker, I should like to bore you for five or ten minutes," he announces.

"I am at leisure now, Jack. Sit down. It has been a rather light night and there is an unusual lull just at present. What is on your mind?"

"It is something like half a dozen years since I began work on the paper, is it not?"