Captivating Mary Carstairs Part 21

CHAPTER XII

A YELLOW JOURNALIST SECURES A SCOOP BUT FAILS TO GET AWAY WITH IT

Garbed in a suit of Varney's clothes, warmed beneath his belt by a libation from the _Cypriani's_ choicest stock, eased as to his person by a pillow beneath his head and a comfortable rest for his feet, Charlie Hammerton threw back his head and laughed.

"I'm not crazy about those grand-stand plays as a rule," he said.

"Because in the first place they're yellow, and in the second place they're a darned lot of bother. But I just _had_ to see you--I guess you know why--and I couldn't think of anything else that struck me as really sure. How'd I do it? Fair imitashe, hey? And I only told one lie, which is pretty good for a proposition of this sort. I _can_ swim, Mr. Varney.

Like a blooming duck."

Varney laughed. "You're half an hour too late in telling me that, you know! But tell me how you managed all this: it was so clever! And do try one of these cigars."

They sat at ease on the awninged after-deck, a wicker table between them convivial with decanters and their recognized appurtenances, like two old friends met for a happy reunion. The _Gazette's_ star reporter was as different from one's conception of a dangerous adversary as it is possible for a man to be. He seemed only a pleasant-faced, friendly boy of twenty-three or four, with an honest eye and a singularly infectious laugh.

"Don't mind if I do--thanks!" said Hammerton, to the proffer of cigars.

"Well, it wasn't so very hard. After you steamed off, and left me gazing nervously out to sea like a deserted fisher's wife, I--"

"No, you don't!" laughed Varney. "Begin way back at the beginning. I'm as ignorant as a baby about all this, you know."

Hammerton rather liked the idea of lolling on a luxurious yacht and explaining to the outwitted owner just how he had done it.

"Well," he said, "it's like this. When you fellows jumped in and kidnapped Ryan and banged the administration in the eye and slapped the _Gazette_ some stinging ones on the wrist, of course, we couldn't just sit still and go quietly on with our knitting. Nay, nay! So we played up that gossip about you as strong as we could, sort of guessing that it might hurt your feelings a little. I'm going to be frank with you, you see! And then another idea came to us that wasn't half bad. You said you were Mr. Laurence Varney of New York. Well, whether that was true or not--begging your pardon, of course!--that gave it a New York interest, don't you see? So Mr. Smith, more by way of a feeler than anything else, wired it off to the _Daily_--"

"Why," interrupted Varney, "I thought you were the correspondent of the _Daily_?"

"So I am. But this time it was only nominal. He's pretty fond of doing it himself, Smith is. Well, as soon as I got down this morning, he called me in and showed me the _Daily_. You've seen it, I suppose? Of course, we were struck with the way our story had caught on, and particularly with the postscript about Elbert Carstairs and the mystery idea. Smith said: 'There appears to be more in this than meets the eye, Charles. Hustle you down to the _Cypriani_, or ever the birds be flown.'

So I hustled. But then I did a fool thing that nearly gummed the game entirely. Just at the edge of the woods, I met a boy coming up the hill.

"Maybe you remember that kid, Mr. Varney--the telegraph boy? He was just on his way back from the yacht when I ran into him."

"Come to think of it, I believe I did see that boy hanging around here."

"As hard a little nut," said Hammerton, "as you ever saw in your life.

When he saw me, he stopped short and asked where I was going. I told him to the yacht. ''T ain't no use,' he said--I won't try to give his lingo--'they've gone.' And the little devil actually went on to tell me how he had overheard the two gentlemen talking--guys he called you--and how you had decided to return to New York at once, and how he had looked back from the sh.o.r.e and seen the yacht already steaming away."

Thus Varney learned that he had one friend in Hunston who was true to him, according to his poor little lights; and he felt that that kindly lie of Tommy Orrick's, if it was ever set down against him anywhere, must be the kind that is blotted out again in tears.

"Why, I've been good to that kid," said Hammerton, "giving him cigar-ends nearly every time I see him and that sort of thing. I never thought he had so much pure _malice_ in him. Well, like a fool, I turned right around and went back. I felt so pleased about it--for of course that was just what the _Gazette_ wanted--that I dropped in at the Ottoman for an eye-opener, and by Jove! it was nearly an hour before I got back to the office."

He laughed, at first ruefully, then merrily--for had not everything turned out in the most satisfactory way in the world?

"Smith's a beaut," he said, shaking his head reminiscently. "I don't believe anything ever got away from him since he was big enough to sit in front of a desk. When I told him that you fellows had gone back to New York, he never batted an eye. He just pulled a telescope out of the bottom drawer of his desk and went up to the roof. In two minutes he was down again. 'Charles,' he said in that quiet biting way of his, 'G.o.d may have put bigger fools than you into this world, but in his great mercy he has not sent them to r.e.t.a.r.d the work of the _Gazette_. The yacht lies precisely where she has lain for these two days. Will it be quite convenient for you to drop down there and have a talk, or do you design to wait until the gentlemen call at your desk and beg the privilege of telling you all?'"

He laughed again, this time without a trace of resentment; and so merry and spontaneous was this laugh that Varney could not help joining in.

"I suppose old Smith can tell you to go-to-h.e.l.l more politely, yet more thoroughly, than any man that ever lived. I _ran_--and I was just in time at that, hey? Well, when you fellows steamed off, I kind of suspected that you weren't going very far. So I got a boy and had him trail you down the old River road on a wheel. By the time he got back and told me that I had sized it up about right, I had my plans arranged and my make-up all ready. That make-up was rather neat, I thought, what?

Meantime, a long wire had come in from the _Daily_ office, which made me keener than ever to see you. So I hired another wheel, ran on down, borrowed a canoe from a man I know here, and I guess you know the rest."

"I should say I did," said Varney. "Ha, ha! I should rather say I did."

One reason why it was so advantageous to make the boy talk was that it gave one a chance to think. All the time that he had listened so pleasantly to this garrulous chatter, Varney had been swiftly planning.

Now he had the situation pretty well a.n.a.lyzed and saw all the ways that there were.

He might send the reporter away convinced that there was nothing in this new theory, after all, that the _Gazette's_ trump card in fighting Maginnis and Reform was still his own unhappy resemblance to the outlawed author. Or he might send him off with enough of a new theory to make him think it unnecessary to go to Mrs. Carstairs or her daughter--the fatal possibility. Or, if both of these proved impracticable as they almost certainly would, there was only one course left: he would not let Hammerton go away at all.

"But have another little drop or two, won't you? Those dips with your clothes on aren't a bit good for the health."

"Well, just a little tickler," said Charlie Hammerton. But he permitted himself to be helped quite liberally, with no protesting "when." "My regards, Mr. Varney! Also my compliments and thanks for accepting the situation like such a genuine game one."

Varney nodded. "The fortunes of war, Mr. Hammerton. But do go on. You have no idea how interesting the newspaper game is to an outsider, particularly--ha, ha!--when it walks right across his own quiet career.

As I understand it, you're on the regular staff of the _Gazette_, and then are a special correspondent of the _Daily_, besides?"

Hammerton, c.o.c.ksure of his game and pleasantly cheered by the potent draught, thought that he had never interviewed so agreeable a man.

"That's it exactly. Then, besides, we run a little news-bureau at the _Gazette_, you know--sell special stuff, whenever there's anything doing, to papers all over the country. The bureau didn't touch this story last night--why, I thought it was too 'it-is-understood' and 'rumor-has-it' and all that, to go even with the _Daily_--in your old own town. It'll be different to-night, all right. We'll query our whole string on it now--unless," he added with frank despondency, "the darned old a.s.sociated Press decides to pinch it."

"Query them, Mr. Hammerton?"

"Yes, wire them a brief, kind of piquant outline of the story, you know, and ask them if they don't want it. And I sort of guess they'll all want it, all right!"

"We'll see about that in a minute," laughed Varney. "There's lots of time. Tell me about that brilliant young editor of yours, Mr. Smith. The men in the office all like him and sympathize with his policies, I suppose?"

Hammerton laughed, doubtfully. "Well, they all look up to him and respect him as one of the cleverest newspaper men in the country.

Personally, I like old Smith fine, though n.o.body ever gets close to him a bit. He's mighty good to me--lets me write little editorials two or three times a week, and says I'm not so awful at it. As for sympathizing with his policies--well, you know I'm not sure Smith sympathizes with 'em much himself. I have a kind of private hunch that he's gotten sore on his job and would sell out if somebody--well, suppose we say our friend Ryan--would offer him his price. No, I'm not so keen for these indirect methods, Mr. Varney. At the same time, it's part of the game, I suppose, and I always believe in playing a game right out to the end, for everything there is in it."

At the unmistakable significance in his tone, Varney looked up and found the reporter's eyes fixed upon him in an odd gaze which made him look all at once ten years older and infinitely difficult to baffle: a gaze which made it plain, in fact, that the wearer of it was not to be put off with anything short of the whole truth. The next second that look broke into an easy laugh, and Hammerton was a chattering boy again.

But Varney's mood rose instantly to meet the antagonism of the reporter's look, and hung there. He pulled a silver case from his pocket, selected a cigarette with care and lit it with deliberation. He had learned everything that he wanted to know; the conversation was beginning to grow tiresome; and he found the boy's careless self-confidence increasingly exasperating.

"But as for undercutting Hare," laughed Hammerton, "I don't like it a--"

"Tell me this," Varney interrupted coolly. "When the _Gazette_ prepared its story about me last night, did it believe for one moment that I was this man Stanhope?"

"Why, I'm not the _Gazette_, of course," said Hammerton, a little taken aback by the cool change of both topic and manner, "but my private suspicion is that it entertained a few doubts on the subject. What do we think now? Look here, Mr. Varney," the boy said amiably, "you've been white about this business, and I do really want to show that I appreciate it."

He fumbled in the side-pocket of his wet coat, which hung on a near-by chair, produced a damp paper of the familiar yellow, smoothed it out and handed it across the table.

"I guess I won't keep any secrets from you, Mr. Varney."

Varney, taking the telegram with a nod, read the following:

_Gazette_, HUNSTON:

Varney-Stanhope story good stuff, but lacking details, vague and inaccurate. Stanhope located in Adirondacks, though not reached. See _Daily_ to-day. Man on yacht Varney. Apparent secrecy surrounding departure from here. Interview him sure and secure full statement as to business which brought him to Hunston. Also interview Mrs. Elbert Carstairs in Hunston. She separated from husband years ago. His yacht there with name erased suggests mystery. Rush fullest details day-rate if necessary. Pictures made. Expect complete story and interviews early to-night sure.

S. P. STOKES.

"Now," said Charlie Hammerton, when Varney looked up, "you see why I went to such a lot of trouble to get hold of you."

"Yes," said Varney, slowly, his eye upon him, "I see."