THE MAN IN THE BLUE PAJAMAS
The rain had ceased almost as Miss Pringle was removed to the cabin.The storm had passed.Low down on the edges of the world there were still a few dark clouds, there was still an occasional glimmer of lightning; but overhead the mists were fleecy, light and broken.A few stars were visible here and there.
And then in a moment more a full moon rose high and serene above the world.The May moon is often very brilliant in these latitudes, as sailors who are familiar with the coasts of Long Island can testify.This moon was unusually brilliant, even for the season of the year and the quarter of the globe.It lighted up earth and sky so that it was (in the familiar phrase) almost possible to read by it.Only a few moments had elapsed since the rout of Logan Black's ruffians, but in the vicinity of this remarkable island such sudden meteorological changes are anything but rare, geographers and travelers know.
Lady Agatha had gone into the cabin to resuscitate Miss Pringle and, as she said, "have it out with her." Cleggett, gazing from the deck towards Morris's, in the strong moonlight, wondered when the attack would be renewed.He thought, on the whole, that it was improbable that Loge would return to the assault while this brightness continued.
Suddenly three figures appeared within his range of vision.They were running.But running slowly, painfully, lamely.In the lead were the two men whom he had first seen hazed up and down the bank of the canal by Wilton Barnstable, and whom he had seen the second timechained in the great detective's boat.
They were shackled wrist to wrist now.To the left leg of one of them was attached a heavy ball.A similar ball was attached to the right leg of the other.They had picked these balls up and were struggling along under their weight at a gait which was more like a staggering walk than a trot.
They were pursued by the man whom Cleggett had seen attempt to escape from Morris's.This man still wore his suit of baby blue pajamas.
He wore nothing else.He was stiff.He moved as if the ground hurt his bare feet.
He especially favored, as Cleggett noticed, the foot on which there was a bunion.He was lame.He crept rather than ran.But he seemed bitterly intent upon reaching the two men in irons who labored along twenty or thirty feet ahead of him.And they, on their part, casting now and then backward glances over their shoulders at their pursuer.
Cleggett divined that the men in irons had escaped from the Annabel Lee, and that the man in the baby blue pajamas was loose from Morris's.But why the man in the pajamas pursued and the others fled he could not guess.
They passed within fifty yards of the Jasper B.But the men in irons were so intent upon their own troubles, and the pursuer was so keen on vengeance, that none of them noticed the vessel.As they limped along, splashing through the pools the rain had left, the pursuer would occasionally pause to fling stones and sticks and even cakes of mud at the fugitives, who were whimpering as they tottered forward.
The man in the baby blue pajamas was cursing in a high-pitched, nasal, querulous voice.Cleggett noticed with astonishment that a single- barreled eyeglass was screwed into one of his eyes.Occasionally it dropped to the ground, and he would stop and fumble for it and wipe it on his wet sleeve and replace it.Had it not been for these stops he would have overtaken the men in irons.
"Clement!" Lady Agatha laid her hand upon his arm."Miss Pringlewants to see you in the cabin."
"Well--imposter!" laughed Cleggett."Is she able to talk to you yet? And what on earth did she mean by her plum preserves?""That is what she wants to tell, evidently," said Lady Agatha.And she went aft with him.
Miss Pringle, who had been rubbed dry by Lady Agatha, and was now dressed in some articles of that lady's clothing, which were much too large for her, sat on the edge of the bed in Lady Agatha's stateroom and awaited them.Her appearance was scarcely conventional, and she seemed to feel it; nevertheless, she had a duty to perform, and her innate propriety still triumphed over her situation and habiliments.
"Mr.Cleggett," she said, pointing to the box which contained the evidence against Logan Black, which was exactly similar to the box of Reginald Maltravers, and which had been placed in this inner room for safe-keeping, "what does that box contain?"Cleggett was startled.He and Lady Agatha exchanged glances."What do you think it contains?" he asked.
"That box," she said, "was shipped to me from Flatbush, and was claimed in my name--in the name of Genevieve Pringle--at the freight depot at Newark, New Jersey, by this lady here.Deny it if you can!""I do deny it, Miss Pringle," said Lady Agatha, accompanying her words with a winsome smile.But Miss Pringle was not to be won over so easily as all that; she met the smile with a look of steady reprobation.And then she turned to Cleggett again.
"Mr.Cleggett," she said, "my birthday occurred a few days ago.It was--I have nothing to conceal, Mr.Cleggett--it was my forty-ninth birthday.Every year, for many years past, a niece of mine who lives in Flatbush sends me on my birthday a box of plum preserves.
"These preserves have for me, Mr.Cleggett, a value that they would not possess for anyone else; a value far above their intrinsic or, as one might say, culinary value.They have a sentimental value as well.I was born in Flatbush, and lived there, during my youth, on my father's estate.
