They were within a hundred yards of the Durham when Quest gave a little exclamation. From the other side of the steamer another tug shot away, turning back towards New York. Huddled up in the stern, half concealed in a tarpaulin, was a man in a plain black suit. Quest, with a little shout, recognised the man at the helm from his long brown beard.
“That’s one of those fellows who was in the truck,” he declared, “and that’s Craig in the stern! We’ve got him this time. Say, Captain, it’s that tug I want. Never mind about the steamer. Catch it and I’ll make it a hundred dollars!”
The man swung round the wheel, but he glanced at Quest a little doubtfully.
“Say, what is this show?” he asked.
Quest opened his coat and displayed his badge. He pointed to the Inspector.
“Police job. This is Inspector French, I am Sanford Quest.”
“Good enough,” the man replied. “What’s the bloke wanted for?”
“Murder,” Quest answered shortly.
“That so?” the other remarked. “Well, you’ll get him, sure! He’s looking pretty scared, too. You’d better keep your eyes open, though. I don’t know how many men there are on board, but that tug belongs to the toughest crew up the river. Got anything handy in the way of firearms?”
Quest nodded.
“You don’t need to worry,” he said. “We’ve automatics here, but as long as we’re heading them this way, they’ll know the game’s up.”
“We’ve got her!” the captain exclaimed. “There’s the ferry and the first of the steamers coming down in the middle. They’ll have to chuck it.”
Right ahead of them, blazing with lights, a huge ferry came churning the river up and sending great waves in their direction. On the other side, unnaturally large, loomed up the great bows of an ocean-going steamer. The tug was swung round and they ran up alongside. The man with the beard leaned over.
“Say, what’s your trouble?” he demanded.
The Inspector stepped forward.
“I want that man you’ve got under the tarpaulin,” he announced.
“Say, you ain’t the river police?”
“I’m Inspector French from headquarters,” was the curt reply. “The sooner you hand him over, the better for you.”
“Do you hear that, O’Toole?” the other remarked, swinging round on his heel. “Get up, you blackguard!”
A man rose from underneath the oilskin. He was wearing Craig’s clothes, but his face was the face of a stranger. As quick as lightning, Quest swung round in his place.
“He’s fooled us again!” he exclaimed. “Head her round, Captain—back to the Durham!”
The sailor shook his head.
“We’ve lost our chance, guvnor,” he pointed out, “Look!”
Quest set his teeth and gripped the Inspector’s arm. The place where the Durham had been anchored was empty. Already, half a mile down the river, with a trail of light behind and her siren shrieking, the Durham was standing out seawards.
CHAPTER IX
THE INHERITED SIN
1.
“Getting kind of used to these courthouse shows, aren’t you, Lenora?” Quest remarked, as they stepped from the automobile and entered the house in Georgia Square.
Lenora shrugged her shoulders. She was certainly a very different-looking person from the tired, trembling girl who had heard Macdougal sentenced not many weeks ago.
“Could anyone feel much sympathy,” she asked, “with those men? Red Gallagher, as they all called him, is more like a great brute animal than a human being. I think that even if they had sentenced him to death I should have felt that it was quite the proper thing to have done.”
“Too much sentiment about those things,” Quest agreed, clipping the end off a cigar. “Men like that are better off the face of the earth. They did their best to send me there.”
“Here’s a cablegram for you!” Lenora exclaimed, bringing it over to him. “Mr. Quest, I wonder if it’s from Scotland Yard!”
Quest tore it open. They read it together, Lenora standing on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder:
“Stowaway answering in every respect your description of Craig found on ‘Durham.’ Has been arrested, as desired, and will be taken to Hamblin House for identification by Lord Ashleigh. Reply whether you are coming over, and full details as to charge.”
“Good for Scotland Yard!” Quest declared. “So they’ve got him, eh? All the same, that fellow’s as slippery as an eel. Lenora, how should you like a trip across the ocean, eh?”
“I should love it,” Lenora replied. “Do you mean it really?”
Quest nodded.
“The fellow’s fooled me pretty well,” he continued, “but somehow I feel that if I get my hands on him this time, they’ll stay there till he stands where Red Gallagher did to-day. I don’t feel content to let anyone else finish off the job. Got any relatives over there?”
“I have an aunt in London,” Lenora told him, “the dearest old lady you ever knew. She’d give anything to have me make her a visit.”
Quest moved across to his desk and took up a sailing list. He studied it for a few moments and turned back to Lenora.
“Send a cable off at once to Scotland Yard,” he directed. “Say—‘Am sailing on Lusitania to-morrow. Hold prisoner. Charge very serious. Have full warrants.’”
Lenora wrote down the message and went to the telephone to send it off. As soon as she had finished, Quest took up his hat again.
“Come on,” he invited. “The machine’s outside. We’ll just go and look in on the Professor and tell him the news. Poor old chap, I’m afraid he’ll never be the same man again.”
“He must miss Craig terribly,” Lenora observed, as they took their places in the automobile, “and yet, Mr. Quest, it does seem to me a most amazing thing that a man so utterly callous and cruel as Craig must be, should have been a devoted and faithful servant to anyone through all these years.”
Quest nodded.
“I am beginning to frame a theory about that. You see, all the time Craig has lived with the Professor, he has been a sort of dabbler with him in his studies. Where the Professor’s gone right into a thing and understood it, Craig, you see, hasn’t managed to get past the first crust. His brain wasn’t educated enough for the subjects into the consideration of which the Professor may have led him. See what I’m driving at?”
“You mean that he may have been mad?” Lenora suggested.
“Something of that sort,” Quest assented. “Seems to me the only feasible explanation. The Professor’s a bit of a terror, you know. There are some queer stories about the way he got some of his earlier specimens in South America. Science is his god. What he has gone through in some of those foreign countries, no one knows. Quite enough to unbalance any man of ordinary nerves and temperament.”
“The Professor himself is remarkably sane,” Lenora observed.
“Precisely,”