Fighting Byng Part 17

He looked at the manager and did not answer readily.

"Forman--Charles Forman," he finally blurted.

"That's a lie!" came from Howard Byng as clear as the sound of a church bell. "His name is Ramund--a d.a.m.ned Prussian!"

CHAPTER XIX

Howard and I patched up the bow of the Bulow boat and a Government vessel came and took it away to an Atlantic port, with the five prisoners also on board. This was safer than the trip by rail and I was much relieved thereby.

I was instructed by wire to remain to note the effect and pick up additional information. I was glad as I wanted to get Howard's story and account of his doings during the last fifteen years, since I left him in New York, a rich man with enviable surroundings and prospects.

He insisted that I make my headquarters with him, placing little Jim's swift _t.i.tian_ entirely at my disposal.

He was just the same likable fellow he was the last time I stopped with him, up in Georgia. He was most attentive, and always anxious for my safety when I went away, even for a short time, but I had to wait several days before he was ready to talk.

An alien enemy custodian took charge of the Bulow affairs and marines were quickly planted on all their s.h.i.+ps and tugs before they could be damaged. In fact everything was working well, so I was in no hurry, and awaited a convenient time for my heart-to-heart talk with Howard.

One afternoon little Jim took Don marketing in the _t.i.tian_ for fruit and vegetables up on the mainland of Florida, a small matter, to her, of sixty or seventy miles. Howard busied himself tinkering about his big boat, the _Sprite_, getting it ready for sea, myself an interested onlooker.

"Howard, are you sure you are doing the wisest thing by going on this way?" I asked as soon as I saw he was through with the job on hand.

"You mean going by the name of Canby?"

"Yes."

"Well--maybe not. You know I never took Canby as a name. They--the fishermen--just gave it to me, and for a long time it suited my purposes. I wanted to get away from everybody and everything and if I had planned it deliberately it could not have come out better. But little Jim's future bothers me. She can't stay here much longer; she has got to go to school somewhere, and she, girl-like, wants to go up North, about which I have told her so much in order to amuse her when little. What do you think?" he asked, again the simple Georgia Cracker.

"It will be pretty hard to advise you without knowing more of the circ.u.mstances," I said, dropping down on a seat in the cabin by a porthole.

He dropped his tools, came in and sat on the other side, throwing off his hat. His long black mane was turning slightly gray at the temples, but his body was st.u.r.dy and powerful.

"I never before felt as though I could talk about it, and don't believe I could now to anyone but you. I think it would be a relief to tell you because you have known me so long and understand so many things," he said, filling his pipe carefully and lighting up. He leaned back, crossed his legs, and looked keenly the friends.h.i.+p he felt for me.

"You know," he began, in wonderful self-restraint, "it takes a long time to get real, cankerous bitterness out of a man--me anyhow. I think it was you who told me that hatred, malice, and revenge were the three arch enemies of peace of mind and development. Wood, I have remembered that, and am glad I have made some progress, but I suppose I am like everybody else. I think my trouble has been the worst. I believe now that if I had followed your advice and not borrowed from the Transatlantic I could have kept my property, but I would have to go through some kind of a melting fire to be made into good steel. No doubt, the family trouble would have come in some other way." I arched my brows, appearing not to understand.

"You, of course, recall, for I know you don't forget anything, the last talk we had in the Waldorf in New York," he continued. "You advised me to sit tight and let good enough alone. That night, and for a day or two, I thought you had grown over-cautious and conservative, and had entered the cla.s.s who hold up their hands and cry be careful, be cautious; but never do a d.a.m.n thing for themselves. But I soon began to see that way myself, and decided to let things be as they were. Mrs. Potter took the lead against me. That name I have never p.r.o.nounced since then, till now. It sounds strange to do so. It seems like recalling things to memory that might have happened when I was on earth at some former time. Mrs. Potter, as you well know, was my sister-in-law, my partner's wife, and while the family stood well socially, she had a great ambition to be at the head of the Four Hundred. She wanted to be worth millions. She not only filled Potter with it but won over her father, and with all of them against me I gave in and the deal went through. I am satisfied now the Transatlantic Trust Company plotted to acquire the property. The panic played into their hands, enabling them to call our loans, without which we could not run or pay the interest on the bonds. They took snap judgment and foreclosed as cold as a cake of ice, kicked me out, and Byng & Potter, Incorporated, was theirs. I had a card up my sleeve that would have brought them down, but this blackleg Ramund extended the robbery to my home and wrecked that, too."

Howard stopped here, filled his pipe again and looked at me appealingly, apparently waiting for me to arrive at the true significance of his quiet statement of fact.

"Ramund, Ramund, you don't mean to say----" And then, as though shot between the eyes, I recalled the same name and the peculiar cultivated inflection given it by Norma Byng some twelve years before. Now the cause of his extreme interest and agitation when we were examining the prisoners a few days before rushed upon me like Niagara. I could still hear Byng's cut--"It is a lie, his name is Ramund--a d.a.m.ned Prussian!" It was strange I did not remember the name then, especially as both times it had been connected with a foreign banking house.

"Yes--yes," said Howard, taking his pipe down and looking out of the cabin door reflectively, "don't you think I have made some progress to be able to even talk about it now without becoming insane? I am trying to tell you of a snake that has crawled across my path twice to destroy me. You know that don't happen often. I should have killed him the first time. I would have done it had it not been for one thing. I can think of it now--but I never dared to before. I couldn't tell anyone but you, even now! You seem to support me."

He stopped, puzzled by the expression on my face as the details of my meeting with Norma Byng, his wife, years before, rushed through my mind, and the dreadful sadness with which she told me of the same occurrence. Her simple story impressed me with added force after the lapse of time. By gesture I asked him to proceed. The fact was I could see valuable evidence for the Government, too, in the circ.u.mstances.

"As I said before," he continued slowly, "I had an opportunity and would have killed him, if he had not been secretly encouraged. I can see now I was all but insane when they not only took our properties, confiscating even my private account, leaving me without a cent, but I had to sell my household effects to live. Then Mrs. Potter started on another diabolical course. She deliberately undertook to sell my beautiful wife to the Prussian--and was making headway before I noticed it. It took me a long time to realize it and I was sure of it before I acted. I went down to Georgia to get old Don, the only man I ever entrusted with the full details of how the turpentine and rosin could be taken from a stump, bringing him back to New York with me.

"Their scheming, now in full swing, was working well. One day I was told that my wife had gone to Ramund's apartment. Desperate, I went there, intending to break in the door, but that was not necessary. In his c.o.c.ksureness and insolent bravado he had not locked it and I entered. I heard him tell her how much more he could do for her than a bankrupt, discredited husband who could be easily removed. No protests came from my wife. Her silence was consent enough. I was as cool as I would be hunting for bob-cats. He took her in his arms, kissing her pa.s.sionately. She did not resist and that was all that saved his life.

I told her to go home, showed her out and locked the door." Byng buried his face in his hands for a moment, so I waited silently, until he began again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He took her into his arms, kissing her pa.s.sionately.]

"He was a full match for me physically," said he, wearily, "but my sense of injury was so burningly intense that every muscle was as though laminated with steel wire. I felt a strength that knew no bounds. Fear and prudence had departed in the presence of this home wrecker. Almost my first blow knocked him senseless, but such a punishment, even if I had killed him, seemed mean, small, dreadfully inadequate. Instantly it occurred to me that undesirables should be unable to reproduce their species. Desperately, perhaps insanely, I used skill acquired in the pine woods. In a sense I was protecting little Jim and performing a service toward the world." He looked at me appealingly, but went on with his story.

"I went home immediately," said he, "but my wife was not there.

Deciding she was unfit to further care for little Jim, I gathered a few things for the use of both of us, took my child and left within an hour.

"Though desperate and irrational, a part of my mind worked with method. The first schooner I ever had, the _Canby_, was considered too small and worthless to be put in the mortgage. But for old time's sake I had kept her anch.o.r.ed in a safe place and well looked after. I got old Don, took the _Canby_ and started somewhere, I did not care a d.a.m.n where, except I wanted to get away."

"You came south, of course," I ventured for the sake of saying something.

"Perhaps it was the attachment we all feel for our birthplace that made me steer south," he a.s.sented. "In a short time we ran into bad weather, and for what seemed an interminable time drifted with bare poles. To make sail was impossible. How we ever navigated down the coast, through the Straits, into the Gulf, I have no rational idea.

All I can recall is that I took great care of little Jim and that anything else did not matter.

"One morning we fetched up here on this beach, so high that in low tide the _Canby_ was on dry sand. Her bones are out there now, sacred to me."

"I would imagine so," said I absently, thinking of the scoundrel Ramund.

"But I did not feel that way the morning I came ash.o.r.e, carrying little Jim in my arms," he continued. "It seemed as though the _Canby_ had added the last drop, the dregs of misfortune, and had deserted me.

I shook my fist at it, but resolved to fight on for little Jim, old Don's faithfulness being a ray of hope.

"We first made a house tent of the sails of the _Canby_, which we gradually built permanent. I took to sponging to provide for little Jim, and I guess you know and can understand the rest," he finished, struggling with the emotion his whole body expressed.

The sacred solemnity of this powerful, magnificent man, baring his very soul to me, impressed me profoundly. We remained silent until I could control my voice. Finally I asked:

"Howard, have you heard anything from the North since you came here?"

"No--not a word. I have not met a soul I ever saw before until you came. For years I didn't want to. And then a desire to see some one consumed me. You may think it strange but I was too big a coward--a downright coward. Somehow I always thought you would find me. I knew you went to the ends of the earth and sea, and that you would eventually come. That's why I didn't seem surprised the other day when I recognized you. When little Jim told me there was a salesman to sell me goods I never suspected, but I should have known you would not come with a bra.s.s band," he replied, greatly relieved at having unloaded a burden he had carried for fifteen years.

CHAPTER XX

Rehashed departmental reports become mere braggadocio when the human interest is lacking.

I had written perhaps one of the most vital chapters in American history. So far as the department is concerned it will remain unsung.

My reward is in knowing I did it.

Its direct results were the taking over of s.h.i.+ps, needed more than money, and the appointment of a custodian of alien enemy property to confiscate hundreds of millions of dollars' worth, expelling the Hun and his kin from our frontiers and our industrial life for all time.

Though Howard was well past want, I felt for him. I suspected he was even affluent again--you can't keep such a man from making money, even on the barren Keys. I felt sorry for his wife, Norma Byng. Little Jim had wound herself about me as had her wonderful father who sat silently in the cabin of his boat looking wistfully at me. Maybe it was because he made me her G.o.dfather and called her little Jim I felt that the child was partly mine.

Howard, scourged into bitterness, was possessed with an inflexible conviction that his beautiful wife had betrayed him. I had to be extremely careful. I must wait for him to see the light as though from within himself. a.s.suming a more cheerful att.i.tude again, I asked: