for many of us the statute of limitations will have worked effectively; and for others there are States in South America that would welcome us and offer us every luxury that money can buy or heart desire.
“Yet I would not advise the scattering of our forces. Rather, I have a scheme which will, I think, enable us to extract the maximum of enjoyment from life, at a minimum of risk. With that end in view, I have expended from our common fund a sum equal to half-a-million English pounds. I have completed elaborate arrangements, which I shall ask you to approve of; I have fashioned our future.” He threw out his hands with a gesture of pride. “It is for you to decide whether we shall go our several ways, each in fear of the weakness of the other, our days filled with dread, our nights sleepless with doubt, or whether in new circumstances we shall live together in freedom, in happiness, and in unity.”
Again the murmured applause.
“But there is an element of danger which must be removed,” Baggin went on; “ — between freedom and us there lies a shadow.”
He stopped and looked from mask to mask.
“That shadow,” he said slowly, “is Count Ivan Poltavo, the man who knows our secrets, who has done our work, the one man in the world who holds our lives in the hollow of his—”
Before he had finished he saw their eyes leave his face and seek the door, and he turned to meet the calm scrutiny of the subject of his discourse. He had entered the room whilst Baggin was speaking and stood listening.
For a few moments there was silence.
Over Baggin’s face came a startling change. The flush of excitement died out of his cheeks, leaving him ghastly pale and overcome with confusion. His mouth, opened to conclude his sentence, hung gaping, as if it had suddenly been frozen in that position. His eyes glared with rage and terror.
Count Poltavo advanced, hat in hand, and bowed gravely to the masked company.
“Monsieur Baggin does me an honour that I do not deserve,” he said.
Baggin, recovering himself, shot a swift side glance at a curtained recess behind which stooped a crop-haired man in a convict shirt, fingering a brand-new knife.
“Monsieur Baggin,” Count Poltavo went on, “is wrong when he says I am the only man who stands between the Nine Bears of Cadiz and freedom — there is another, and his name is T.B. Smith.”
“T.B. Smith is dead, or dying,” said Baggin angrily; “ — we have your word for it.”
His antagonist favoured him with the slightest bow.
“Even I may fall into an error,” he said magnanimously. “T.B. is neither dead nor dying.”
“But he fell?”
The count smiled.
“It was clever, and for the moment even I was deceived,” he confessed.
He walked forward until he was opposite the curtain where the assassin waited.
“He is in Jerez, messieurs — with an assistant. I saw them upon the street this morning. Mr. Smith,” he concluded, smiling, “wore his arm in a sling.”
“It’s a lie!” shouted Baggin. “Strike, Carlos!”
He wrenched the curtain aside, revealing the sinister figure behind.
Poltavo fell back with an ashen face, but the convict made no move.
Baggin sprang at him in a fury, and struck madly, blindly, but Poltavo’s arm caught his, and wrenched him backward.
In the count’s other hand was a revolver, and the muzzle covered the convict.
“Gentlemen,” he said, and his eyes blazed with triumph, “I have told you that T.B. Smith was here with an assistant — behold the assistant!”
And Cord Van Ingen, in his convict shirt, standing with one hand against the wall of the recess, and the other on his hip, smiled cheerfully.
“That is very true,” he said.
Under his hand were the three switches that controlled the light in the room.
“It is also true, my young friend,” said Poltavo softly, “that you have meddled outrageously in this matter — that you are virtually dead.” Van Ingen nodded.
“Wasn’t it a Polish philosopher,” he began, with all the hesitation of one who is beginning a long discourse, “who said—”
Then he switched out the light and dropped flat on the floor. The revolvers cracked together, and Poltavo uttered an oath.
There was a wild scramble in the dark. A knot of men swayed over a prostrate form; then a trembling hand found the switch, and the room was flooded with light.
Poltavo lay flat on his back with a bullet through his leg, but the man they sought, the man in the striped shirt and with a three days’ growth of beard, was gone.
25. In the Garden
That night at nine o’clock, Cord Van Ingen paced with beating heart the length of the tiny enclosed garden upon which the side-door of the hotel opened, and glanced up eagerly at every sound of footsteps. There may be men who can go to a lover’s appointment with an even pulse, but Cord Van Ingen was not one of them. His heart sang a psean of joy and praise. He was going to see Doris! A broad shaft of yellow light streaming from an unshuttered window in the second story, told him that the detective was still busy writing reports and preparing despatches. That he regarded the expedition as a failure the young man knew, but he was indifferent since he had learned the one great fact. Doris was in Jerez!
An old woman, with a face like a withered apple, and her eyes under the fringe of her black headshawl shining like bright beads, had delivered the message. At the conclusion of his adventure with the Nine, he had made his way back to the hotel, and after a few words to the detective, had mounted to his bare little room, bathed, shaved, and descended to supper.
The meal was an unsocial one, for Smith, in an execrable temper over the miscarriage of his plans, glowered blackly through the scant courses, and at their close vanished promptly into his room.
Van Ingen lighted a cigarette, and sauntered out upon the narrow street. He meant to stroll toward the plaza, and have a look at the cathedral. As he stood for a moment in front of the hotel, uncertain of the direction, an old crone, such as haunt the steps of churches with trinkets and sacred relics for sale, hobbled up to him, scanned his face sharply, and dropped a courtesy.
“Senor Van Eenge?” she asked, in a clear soft whisper.
The young man fell back a pace in amazement.
“Yes,” he admitted curtly. On the instant he thought of Poltavo, and his hand went into his coat pocket. “But how did you know?”
She shook her head with a mysterious smile, and held
