The Blue Lagoon

CHAPTER III: CAPTAIN FOUNTAIN

CHAPTER III

CAPTAIN FOUNTAIN

He had a suite of rooms at the Palace Hotel, and he lived the life of any other rich man who is not addicted to pleasure. He knew some of the best people in the city, and conducted himself so sanely in all respects that a casual stranger would never have guessed his reputation for madness; but when you knew him better, you would find sometimes in the middle of a conversation that his mind was away from the subject; and were you to follow him in the street, you would hear him in conversation with himself. Once at a dinner-party he rose and left the room, and did not return. Trifles, but sufficient to establish a reputation of a sort.

One morning--to be precise, it was the second day of May, exactly eight years and five months after the wreck of the Northumberland--Lestrange was in his sitting-room reading, when the bell of the telephone, which stood in the corner of the room, rang. He went to the instrument.

"Are you there?" came a high American voice. "Lestrange--right- -come down and see me--Wannamaker--I have news for you."

Lestrange held the receiver for a moment, then he put it back in the rest. He went to a chair and sat down, holding his head between his hands, then he rose and went to the telephone again; but he dared not use it, he dare not shatter the newborn hope.

"News!" What a world lies in that word. I In Kearney Street he stood before the door of Wannamaker's office collecting himself and watching the crowd drifting by, then he entered and went up the stairs. He pushed open a swing- door and entered a great room. The clink and rattle of a dozen typewriters filled the place, and all the hurry of business; clerks passed and came with sheaves of correspondence in their hands; and Wannamaker himself, rising from bending over a message which he was correcting on one of the typewriters' tables, saw the newcomer and led him to the private office.

"What is it?" said Lestrange.

"Only this," said the other, taking up a slip of paper with a name and address on it. "Simon J. Fountain, of 45 Rathray Street, West- -that's down near the wharves--says he has seen your ad. in an old number of a paper, and he thinks he can tell you something. He did not specify the nature of the intelligence, but it might be worth finding out.

"I will go there," said Lestrange.

"Do you know Rathray Street?"

"No."

Wannamaker went out and called a boy and gave him some directions; then Lestrange and the boy started.

Lestrange left the office without saying "Thank you," or taking leave in any way of the advertising agent who did not feel in the least affronted, for he knew his customer.

Rathray Street is, or was before the earthquake, a street of small clean houses. It had a seafaring look that was accentuated by the marine perfumes from the wharves close by and the sound of steam winches loading or discharging cargo--a sound that ceased not a night or day as the work went on beneath the sun or the sizzling arc lamps.

No. 45 was almost exactly like its fellows,. neither better nor worse; and the door was opened by a neat, prim woman, small, and of middle age. Commonplace she was, no doubt, but not commonplace to Lestrange.

"Is Mr Fountain in?" he asked. "I have come about the advertisement."

"Oh, have you, sir?" she replied, making way for him to enter, and showing him into a little sitting-room on the left of the passage. "The Captain is in bed; he is a great invalid, but he was expecting, perhaps, someone would call, and he will be able to see you in a minute, if you don't mind waiting."