The Brand of Silence | Page 6

himself, some man he had not noticed, and who was
trying to frighten him after a childish fashion. He searched the faces of
the landing passengers, but saw nobody he had known in Central
America, nobody who looked at all suspicious.

"Either a joke--or a mistake," Prale told himself again.
He started ashore. He saw Kate Gilbert just ahead of him, the bulky
maid at her heels. An elderly man met her, but did not greet her as a
father would have been expected to do. Prale saw them hold a
whispered conversation, and it seemed to him that the elderly man gave
him a searching glance.
"I must look like a swindler!" Prale mused.
Finally, as he went out upon the street to engage a taxicab and start for
a hotel, he saw Kate Gilbert and her maid and the elderly man again,
getting into a limousine. The girl held a piece of paper in her hand, and
was reading something from it to the elderly man. As she got into the
car, she dropped the piece of paper to the curb.
The limousine was gone before Prale reached the curb. He put his suit
case down and picked up the piece of paper. There was nothing on it
except a couple of names that meant nothing to Sidney Prale. But his
eyes bulged, nevertheless, as he read them.
For the paper was similar to that upon which had been written the note
that he had found on the pillow in the stateroom--and the coarse
handwriting was the same!
"What the deuce----" Prale caught himself saying.
Had Kate Gilbert written that message about retribution and had her
maid leave it in the stateroom? Had Kate Gilbert written that single
word and had her maid paste it on his suit case as he passed, or pasted
it there herself?
Why had Kate Gilbert--whom he never had seen and of whom he never
had heard until she appeared at the ball in Tegucigalpa--avoided him in
such a peculiar manner? And why had the misnamed Marie glared at
him, and expressed loathing and anger when her eyes met his?
"What the deuce----" Prale asked himself again.

Then a taxicab drew up at the curb, and he got in.
CHAPTER III
SOME DISCOURTESIES
Sidney Prale obtained accommodations in a prominent hostelry on
Fifth Avenue, bathed, dressed, ate luncheon, and then went out upon
the streets, walking briskly and swinging his stick, going about New
York like a stranger who never had seen it before.
As a matter of fact, he never had seen this New York before. He had
expected a multitude of changes, but nothing compared to what he
found. He watched the crowds on the Avenue, cut over to Broadway
and investigated the electric signs by daylight, observed the congestion
of vehicles and the efforts of traffic policemen to straighten it out. He
darted into the subway and rode far downtown and back again just for
the sport of it. After that he got on an omnibus and rode up to Central
Park, and acted as if every tree and twig were an old friend.
He made himself acquainted with the animals in the zoo there, and
promised himself to go to the other zoo in the Bronx before the end of
the week. He stood back at the curb and lifted his head to look at new
buildings after the manner of the comic supplement farmer with a straw
between his teeth.
"Great--great!" said Sidney Prale.
Then he hurried back to the hotel, dressed for dinner, and went down to
the dining room, stopping on the way to obtain a ticket for a musical
revue that was the talk of the town at the moment.
Prale ordered a dinner that made the waiter open his eyes. He made it a
point to select things that were not on the menus of the hotels in
Honduras. Then he sat back in his chair and listened to the orchestra,
and watched well-dressed men and women come in and get their places
at the tables.

But the dinner was a disappointment to Prale after all. It seemed to him
that the waiter was a long time giving him service. He remonstrated,
and the man asked pardon and said that he would do better, but he did
not.
Prale found that his soup was lukewarm, his salad dressing prepared
imperfectly, the salad itself a mere mess of vegetables. The fish and
fowl he had ordered were not served properly, the dessert was without
flavor, the cheese was stale. He sent for the head waiter.
"I'm disgusted with the food and the service," he complained. "I rarely
find fault, but I am compelled to do so this time. The man who has
been serving me seems to be