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DarqueDante
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"Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since
breakfast."
"Nothing?"
"Not a bite. I had no time to think of it."
"And how have you succeeded?"
"Well."
"You have a clue?"
"I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not long
remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish
trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!"
"What do you mean?"
He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he
squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and
thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote "S.
H. for J. O." Then he sealed it and addressed it to "Captain James
Calhoun, Barque Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia."
"That will await him when he enters port," said he, chuckling. "It
may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a precursor
of his fate as Openshaw did before him."
"And who is this Captain Calhoun?"
"The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first."
"How did you trace it, then?"
He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with
dates and names.
"I have spent the whole day," said he, "over Lloyd's registers and
files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel
which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in '83. There
were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were reported there
during those months. Of these, one, the Lone Star, instantly
attracted my attention, since, although it was reported as having
cleared from London, the name is that which is given to one of the
states of the Union."
"Texas, I think."
"I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must have
an American origin."
"What then?"
"I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque Lone
Star was there in January, '85, my suspicion became a certainty. I
then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the port of
London."
"Yes?"
"The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to the Albert
Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by the early
tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired to Gravesend
and learned that she had passed some time ago, and as the wind is
easterly I have no doubt that she is now past the Goodwins and not
very far from the Isle of Wight."
"What will you do, then?"
"Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as I learn,
the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others are Finns and
Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away from the ship
last night. I had it from the stevedore who has been loading their
cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship reaches Savannah the
mail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have
informed the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly
wanted here upon a charge of murder."
There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and
the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips
which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as
themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very severe were the
equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for news of the Lone Star
of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at last hear that
somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of a boat
was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters "L. S."
carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate
of the Lone Star.
THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP
Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of
the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium.
The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak