From his box in the office Ashley extracts a letter, evidently hastily written and sealed. The address is in Barker's handwriting, and Ashley tears it open. He reads:
"My Dear Ashley: I start for Cuba at 12 o'clock via Key
West. Write this just before the train starts. Felton has eluded
me—thanks to your infernal French ball—and sailed for
Cuba on City of Havana at 11 o'clock. Don't know whether
he got wind of contemplated arrest or not. If I have good
luck at Key West will be in H. as soon as he. May trail him
to the son and bag both at once. In any event, do not intend
to lose sight of him again till he is safely landed in Vermont.
I may run across your Mrs. Harding, and if I do will try my
luck at making her tell what she knows of young Felton, on
threat of exposing her as a Spanish spy. Good scheme, eh?
Must close, train starting; will write from Cuba. Hastily,
"Barker."
"So Cuba is to be the scene of the next act of the
Raymond tragedy," Jack thinks. "How suddenly all the
characters have betaken themselves to the southern isle,
and how events have crowded on each other the last day
or two! First, news that young Felton is in Cuba; then
appear Cyrus Felton and Louise Hathaway in the city;
then the mysterious woman of the Raymond hotel, and
the stranger of the mountain gorge—and all of these are
at this moment en route to Cuba. Only Derrick Ames
and Helen Hathaway remain to be accounted for, and if
Barker's theory is correct, and they, too, are in Cuba,
what a situation and what a complication! I must be
there at the finish. The paper really needs a war correspondent
in the ever-faithful isle, and I've half a mind to
ask for the assignment."
From his desk Ashley takes a bulky package of manuscript, glances through it, and with a sigh replaces it within an inner compartment. "The Raymond mystery story, the newspaper beat of the year," is not to be used yet.
But the account of the trial trip of the America must be written, and soon the sheaves of yellow paper are being rapidly covered by Jack's flying pen.
At last it is finished, and with a grunt of satisfaction
