Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 57/Number 5/Hatching a Volcano/Chapter 4

FTER a week at the Havana restaurant, Andrew Brant, erstwhile cabaret performer, was given notice. Just why he was unable to discover. The proprietor of the café merely shrugged, which implied any number of things. Subsequently, Brant was unable to connect with anything remotely resembling a job, and the services of a gifted Americano went begging.

Faced with this ominous predicament, he made valiant and futile efforts to earn his passage to New York, or even across to Key West. He spent most of his time along the docks, watching the departing liners, the big, freight-car ferries, the graceful yachts that belonged to American millionaires, and the swift, birdlike hydroplanes that sped in a few hours as far north as Miami. But it was useless. It was as difficult to escape from Havana with a lean purse as to reach the stars with a ladder.

Now at one time in the past, when the clouds had more of a silver lining, Brant had reckoned his future with the stars, horoscopically speaking; and, according to the horoscope, he was cast for robust adventure. Moreover, the stars predicted that he would arrive at a wintry old age.

Robust adventure was somewhat to his liking; but so far, it seemed, the stars were slightly off their course. Still, he was ready for it. Adventure and romance fairly permeated Havana. One rubbed elbows with it at every turn of the road. The very atmosphere was full of it.

After waiting more or less patiently, however, Brant concluded that what was written in the stars was pure hokum; that Adventure, Romance and Company cared no more for his services than did the café proprietors or the departing vessels.

On that particular evening, when he had admired the sunset and for the first time discovered that Morro Castle resembled the post-card views of it, the collector for the seats made Brant retreat to the side lines, where the benches were less comfortable and the crowds more promiscuous. He dickered with a swarthy peddler for the best un tabaco at the lowest possible price.

Later, he found himself an empty bench on the far side of the square that was adorned by melodramatic Latin statuary and sheltered by palm and laurel. Drawing meditatively upon his recent purchase, his thoughts remote from his surroundings, Brant presently became aware that a newcomer had usurped the far end of his bench.

Lazily, he turned. His indifference vanished magically when he glanced at his companion. The girl, sitting within three feet of him, was unmistakably American, undeniably attractive, and, so far as he could judge, alone. He wondered at that, for most of the tourists had gone, and winsome bits of femininity from the States—unaccompanied—were rare enough to arouse speculation.

Guardedly, and perhaps stealthily, Brant surveyed the girl. After one fleeting glance at him, she kept her face averted. He did not endeavor to attract her attention or to make advances, although had the opportunity presented itself he might have been a partner to a mild flirtation. Almost anything that would have broken the deadly monotony of things would have been welcomed.

Evidently the fair creature at the far end of the bench was not in a flirtatious spirit. She sat perfectly quiet, her eyes fixed upon the lighted square beyond, where, on an elevated platform, the band members were assembled.

The music, so long in starting, blared suddenly; and just as suddenly Brant heard the girl's voice.

“Please be careful,” she was saying, and for a moment he was not certain if she was addressing him. “I must not be seen speaking to you. Can you hear me?”

“Perfectly!” answered Brant.

The girl had not turned. She seemed intent upon the music and the crowds that passed; appeared to ignore his presence entirely.

“I am being watched and followed.” Once again her voice reached his ear. “I have a message that must be delivered. There is no time now to ask or answer questions. will you do me that kindness?”

“I'm at your service,” Brant responded. He realized then and there, thrilling at the thought, that Adventure had given him the high sign. Perhaps the stars weren't wrong after all!

“Be careful!” The girl's warning came sharply.

Quick to obey instructions, Brant relighted his cigar, puffed calmly upon it, and seemed to be interested only in the music. He even turned slightly on the bench, so that his back was partly toward his companion. The girl was the stage director of this particular scene; and like a well-trained actor, he implicitly followed orders, even though he had no script to guide him, and the business of the scene was still uncertain.

The music stopped; an encore followed the applause. Brant waited impatiently. What had happened? Was his companion being too closely watched? Did some one in the shifting crowd beyond suspect?

“I will drop the message behind the bench.” The girl's voice sounded again. “It is addressed. I must trust you to deliver it. when I have gone, move over and reach back. Stay a few minutes after I have left or—or they might suspect. Do you understand?”

“Every word.” Brant's pulse raced expectantly.

“I have dropped it,” she said,

He wanted to turn, but dared not. He kept his cigar going. “After I have delivered the message—what then?” he asked cautiously. “Shall I see you again?”

“Perhaps.”

“Make it more definite,” he urged. “Are you in trouble? Let me be of more service to you than a mere messenger boy.”

“Thank you very much; but there is nothing more to be done—now.”

“To-morrow, then?” he suggested hopefully. “Where can I see you? You'll want to know if I've delivered the message safely.”

“I'll know if you've been successful,” she replied. “Good night—and good luck.”

The girl arose and walked away. Brant dared not turn to follow her course; dared not betray the slightest interest in his mysterious companion.

At length he did turn and with as much indifference as he could command moved along on the bench. Just as slowly he reached back his hand, fumbling in the shadows of the low hedge for the message the girl had dropped.

With the abruptness of an electric shock, Brant's groping fingers came in contact with a moving object. He choked down the startled exclamation that leaped into his throat, while his fingers closed mechanically upon a man's lean wrist.

The next instant, alive to the danger that threatened, he leaned over to peer into the hedge where the skulker lay among the shadows, singularly quiet, uttering no protest at being caught and detained. It was light enough for Brant to see, clutched in the man's hand, the letter he had promised to deliver.

The situation revealed itself. The man must have crept into the hedge back of the bench; doubtless he had overheard the girl's instructions and intended to avail himself of the message. Just why, Brant could only surmise; but most fortunately he had acted in time. Another second of delay and the man and the letter would have vanished.

With his free hand, Brant tugged at the letter; but the fingers that held it tightened desperately. Impatient at the delay, Brant twisted viciously on the man's wrist. It had an immediate and surprising effect.

With a snarling imprecation, the unknown reared up among the shrubbery, dealt Brant a blow, jerked free his wrist, and darted away. Although momentarily dazed by the unexpected attack, Brant recovered and started in pursuit, more than thankful that his quarry had set a course along a deserted thoroughfare. He preferred to deal with the man without raising an alarm or attracting attention.

The purloiner of the letter had gained considerable headway; but he remained in sight, and Brant rapidly overtook him. Apparently aware that he could not escape by running, the man darted into an open court that was lighted by a street arc, stopped, tore open the envelope, and scanned the inclosure as Brant pounced upon him.

A moment later Brant had the man pinned against the wall. He made no attempt to protect himself. Brant stepped back and picked up the envelope and inclosure which the man had tossed to the ground.

“I ought to punch your head!” Brant growled, surveying the thin-faced, grinning man, who now seemed more amused than frightened at his captor's threatening attitude. “What do you mean by stealing this letter and reading it?”

The man continued to grin, but made no response. It occurred to Brant that his prisoner did not comprehend. As Brant's Spanish was as limited as, apparently, the other's knowledge of English, he saw no object in continuing his dialogue.

“Get going! Beat it!” he commanded, giving the man a shove. “Understand? Vamose!”

The man shuffled away, but when he had traveled a dozen yards, he looked back and broke into an ugly laugh. “You'll get yours!” he cried. “Better watch your step! You're buttin' in where you ain't wanted.”

After delivering himself of that veiled threat, the man turned and started off on a brisk run. Brant let him go. He had recovered the letter and saw no good reason for delaying its transit.

Having decided upon that course, assured that the message was important and should be delivered at once, and wholly unperturbed at the threats launched against him, Brant glanced at the envelope and letter clutched in his fingers. The envelope was addressed to James Dixon, at a number on Calle Huerfanos; but the inclosure itself, which the thief had removed from the envelope in a desperate attempt to read it before being overtaken, was a single sheet of pink paper without a mark upon it.

Brant scowled as he turned the letter over in his fingers. A second and more deliberate scrutiny proved beyond all doubt that the inclosure was a blank. There was not a mark of any nature on either side of the pink-tinted sheet of paper; not so much as a bent corner or a peculiarity in its folding that might have represented some code agreed upon between sender and recipient.

Puzzled at the singular discovery, Brant replaced the letter in its torn envelope and once more studied the name and street number of the person to whom it was addressed. what conclusion was to be drawn? what object had the apparently distressed and resourceful young lady in seeking delivery of a blank message?

Obviously the thing was not a practical joke. The girl seemed too serious, too much exercised, to be play-acting. Besides, the culprit hiding behind the bench had been far too anxious to intercept the message, to open and read its contents. He must have suspected something; in all probability he had been the very man the girl spoke of as following and watching her. He was an American, too, although Brant had not judged so at first.

What the girl was up to and why she should have been spied upon, and why, if she was in trouble and danger, she did not enlist the help of the authorities, were questions that remained unanswered.

Brant found his curiosity getting the best of him, possibly because he had nothing better to occupy his mind, perhaps because it was a novelty for him to take part in a mystery that did not exist back of the footlights or on a printed page.

One thing was certain, he reflected as he thrust the letter into his pocket and started away—the thin-faced individual who had made off with the message had obtained little information for his trouble.

When Brant recrossed the Prado, ducking the press of automobile traffic that resembled a five-o'clock Fifth Avenue snarl, and set his face toward the heights that lifted gradually from the harbor, a new theory came to him. He recalled that the use of “invisible” ink was an old standby employed by characters who did not wish their communications read by alien eyes.

Perhaps the sender of the message he bore had used similar tactics, fearful that the contents of the letter might be scanned by undesirable persons. It was possible that the sheet of paper had to be immersed in certain chemicals before the written contents stood revealed. The idea seemed plausible enough.

At any rate the letter was addressed in plain script, and Brant had promised to deliver it, and whatever mystery was attached to the message was none of his affair. The recipient would have to do his own solving; and doubtless, when that was done, Brant would be thanked and asked to step out of the picture.

He had covered perhaps two squares, keeping to the narrow walk to avoid the screeching, recklessly driven taxicabs, when, at a corner ahead, he beheld a crowd of excited pedestrians gathered around a car of the flivver variety.

Reaching the scene as an ambulance drove up, he learned that a man had been struck by a taxicab. The duck-clad hospital internes were applying first-aid treatment to the victim. when they lifted the patient onto the stretcher and rolled it into the ambulance, Brant, who had pushed himself forward, caught a close glimpse of the injured person. It gave him a start, for the flivver victim was the man he had pursued and overtaken a few minutes before; the threatening, thin-faced individual who had attempted to make away with the girl's letter.

A big-shouldered man in a linen suit and Panama hat was talking to the ambulance attendants and seemed to be somewhat exercised over the accident. At first Brant imagined him to be the taxi driver. Presently he stepped into the ambulance and rode off with the doctors and their patient.

Brant walked on speculatively as the crowd dispersed. He did not know, and it would have meant nothing at all to him if he had, that the big-shouldered man who rode away with the flivver victim, was Captain Jud Korry, Chinese runner.