The Submarine Boys for the Flag Part 14

"What's that?" cried Jack Benson, leaping up. "How--"

"No; I don't believe, on second thought, that I'm the prize fool."

"Come, come," directed Lieutenant Ridder. "Talk up quickly, young man."

"If you want to hear what I have to say," retorted Eph, with a slight flash of his eyes, "you'll have to wait until I get around to it."

It was serving direct notice on Ridder that Army briskness wouldn't do in Eph's case.

"Well, what have you to tell?" demanded the young lieutenant, impatiently.

"I was on my way back here," Eph continued. "Guess, maybe, I was eight blocks or so away from here. I had been to the hotels that I agreed to visit, and--"

"Why did you go to the hotel, anyway, after you knew Benson had sighted Millard?" broke in the Army officer.

"Because it wasn't a sure thing that Jack had seen Millard. He thought so, and so did we. But, after we left him, the auto ran along slowly, and we heard no row behind, so we guessed that maybe Jack had been wrong in his guess. At least, Hal and I figured it out that way. So I went to the hotels on my list, just the same, and I guess you did, didn't you, Hal?"

"Yes," nodded Hastings.

"This isn't bringing us, very fast, to your latest adventure," complained young Ridder.

"It's your fault, then," continued Eph, placidly. "You asked a question, and I answered it."

"Well, what about meeting the woman in a gray dress and veil?"

"I met her," retorted Eph.

"Could you see through the veil?"

"No."

"Then how do you know it was Millard?"

"I don't know," Eph rejoined. "But there are mighty few women as tall as Millard. Besides, this one had rather a long foot, and wore rubbers.

I noticed that. Huh! This makes me feel like thirty tacks!"

"How did you meet her--or him?" asked Ridder.

"I was crossing a street, maybe eight blocks from here," Eph replied, "and I saw that tall woman, in gray, slip on the crossing. There was a street car coming, and she gave a little yell. I got to 'her' just in time to pull 'her' out of the way of the trolley and to set 'her'

on 'her' feet again. Then I picked up 'her' dress suit case. It struck me that the one I supposed to be a woman was on the point of speaking to me when he--she--seemed to see my uniform and then get a look at my face. Then the party, whether it was he or she, made signs to show that he, or she, was deaf and dumb. The suit case was heavy, so I offered to tote it along, as I was headed the same way. I thought it was the least I could do for a woman who had just had a great shock.

If that was Millard--and I'd bet a torpedo boat it was--how he must have chuckled over the idea of having one of the submarine boys carry his bag for him."

"How far did you go with this 'lady'?" asked the Lieutenant Ridder, with a faint touch of sarcasm.

"Two blocks," replied Eph.

"And you left her--"

"At a cheap hotel where I can find her again. And I guess it's up to us to start right away."

"Yes," nodded Jack. "And we can't start too soon."

It may have occurred to Lieutenant Ridder that he wasn't exactly being consulted. However, he saw that these submarine boys were used to acting swiftly, and he began to believe that they would work better if left to their own devices. So he merely nodded, adding:

"I'll wait here. I'll hope to have a report before long."

Eph led his two comrades back unerringly to the cheap hotel. They went straight to the hotel desk, Jack asking, bluntly, whether any very tall woman, in gray, and carrying a dress suit ease, had registered there.

"No," replied the clerk, very positively.

Then they interviewed the porter. He remembered the "woman" having stepped inside the hotel. She readjusted her veil in the lobby near the doorway.

"Then she went outside, spoke to a driver, got into his cab, and went away," continued the porter.

"She spoke to the driver, did she?" Eph asked.

"Of course, sir," retorted the porter. "You didn't think she made signs, did you?"

From their talk the submarine boys were satisfied that it was the same "woman" whom Eph had so gallantly a.s.sisted. They were equally sure that this veiled "woman" in gray was none other than Millard.

"Do you remember which driver it was whose cab she engaged?" Jack asked, turning to hand the porter a dollar.

"Jack Medway's cab, sir," was the quick answer. "And here it comes, now."

The submarine boys hurried out, transferring their attention to Medway.

"I'm just back from taking the lady," replied the driver, after Jack Benson had slipped him, also, a dollar bill. "But say--was it a lady, or a joke?"

"Why?" queried Jack Benson.

"Well," replied the driver, "the voice was pitched high, but there was something peculiar about it. I wondered, at the time, if it was a man rigged and togged out like a woman."

"Where did she tell you to take her," Jack Benson wanted to know.

"To Furnam Square!"

"Did you take her to any address there?"

"No; just to the square. Then I waited to fill my pipe, and I saw the woman, if woman it was, walk across the square and get into another cab."

"If you haven't anything else to do," hinted Jack, "suppose you take us to Furnam Square now."

Within a very few minutes the three friends were gazing out of a cab window upon the square. It looked like a very quiet residence section.

"There was another cab here, you say, that took your last 'fare' from this square?" asked Jack.

"Yes; there is a fellow who has a regular stand here. It's his cab,"

replied Medway.