The Pirate of Panama | Page 4

double-quick time and presently had lost myself in the
hurrying crowds on Kearney Street. Five minutes later I was in the
elevator on the way to our office.
I set to work resolutely, but my drifting thoughts went back to the
military man with the frogged coat, to the distractingly pretty girl who
did not want him to have the map, and to that spit of land lapped by
Pacific waves in a latitude and longitude that shall be nameless for
reasons that will hereafter appear.
It must have been fifteen minutes after my return that our office boy,
Jimmie, came in to tell me that a lady wanted to see me.
"She's a peach, too," he volunteered with the genial impudence that
characterized him.

This brought me back to earth, a lawyer instead of a treasure seeker,
and when my first client crossed the threshold she found me deep in a
volume on contracts, eight other large and bulky reference books piled
on the table.
The name on the card Jimmie had handed me was Miss Evelyn Wallace.
I rose at once to meet her.
"You are Mr. John Sedgwick?" asked a soft, Southern voice that fell on
my ears like music.
"I am."
My bow stopped abruptly. I stifled an exclamation. The young woman
was the one I had seen framed in a second-story window some hours
earlier.
"I think you know me by sight," she said, not smiling exactly, but little
dimples lurking in her cheeks ready to pounce out at the first
opportunity. "That is, unless you have forgotten?"
Forgotten! I might have told her it would be hard to forget that piquant,
oval face of exquisite coloring, and those blue eyes in which the
sunshine danced like gold. I might have, but I did not. Instead, I
murmured that my memory served me well enough.
"I have come for the paper you were good enough to take care of for
me, Mr. Sedgwick. It belongs to me--the paper you picked up this
morning."
From my pocket I took the document and handed it to her.
"May I ask how you found out who I was, Miss Wallace?"
You might have thought that roses had brushed her cheeks and left their
color there.
"I asked a policeman," she confessed, just a little embarrassed.

"To find you a man in a gray ulster, medium height, weight, and
complexion," I laughed.
"I had seen you come from the Graymount once or twice, and by
describing you to the landlady he discovered who you were and where
you worked," she explained.
Her touch of shyness had infected me, too. It was as if unwittingly I
had intruded on her private affairs, had seen that morning an incident
not meant for the eyes of a stranger. We avoided the common interest
between us, though both of us were thinking of it.
Later I was to learn that she had been as eager to approach the subject
as I. But she could not very well invite a stranger into her difficulty any
more than I could push myself into her confidence.
"I hope you find the paper exactly as you left it, or rather as it left you,"
I stammered at last.
She had put the map in her hand-bag, but at my words she took it out,
not to verify my suggestion but to prolong for a moment her stay in
order to find courage to broach the difficulty. For she had come to the
office in desperation, determined to confide in me if she liked my face
and felt I was to be trusted.
"Yes. It was torn at the moment I threw it away. My cousin has the
other part. It is a map."
"So I noticed. My impression was that the paper was yours. I examined
it to see whether it held your name and address."
Her blue eyes met mine shyly.
"Did it--interest you at all?"
"Indeed, and it did. Nothing in a long time has interested me more."
I might have made an exception in favor of the owner of the document,
but once more I decided to move with discretion.

"You understood it?" Her soft voice trailed upward so that her
declaration was in essence a question.
"I am thinking it was only a wild guess I made."
"I'd like right well to hear it."
My eyes met hers.
"Buried treasure."
With eager little nods she assented.
"Right, sir; treasure buried by pirates early in the nineteenth century.
We have reason to think it has never been lifted."
"Good reason?"
"The best. Except the copy I have, this map is the only one in existence.
Only four men saw the gold hidden. Two of them were killed by the
others within the hour. The third was murdered