Rex Stout: Target Practice

This gift, however, Martin steadfastly refused, seemingly on the grounds of personal dignity. The paymaster pocketed the note with great reluctance and waved a cheerful au revoir as Martin went down the gangway.

About three o’clock on the following afternoon the paymaster, by a tremendous effort of the will, lifted himself from the wardroom lounge, proceeding to the pay office, made an entry in the provision return, opened the safe, and balanced the cash.

That is, he tried to balance it. It was eight thousand dollars short.

For the remainder of that day, and the whole of the next, Paymaster Garway Ross was thoroughly stunned.

He was conscious of an immense incredulity. This was not based on any real knowledge of Martin’s character or belief in his honesty, but originated in and proceeded from the paymaster himself. His mind, limited by its own habits, was incapable of registering so sudden and complete a reversal of conception.

In short, the thing was incredible.

But when, on the morning of the third day and for the fortieth time, he checked up the contents of the safe and found the shortage actually existent he forced himself to recognize the truth and prepare for action.

Owing to certain of the naval regulations, his dilemma was a curious one, for had it become known that he had entrusted the combination of the safe to his yeoman the paymaster would have been court-martialed and probably dismissed from the service; so runs the rule. Obviously, therefore, he could not expose Martin’s guilt without at the same time admitting his own.

But the paymaster’s sympathies had been smothered by an overwhelming fact — he disliked, as he expressed it to himself, being made the goat for anyone. For a long hour he sat perched on the edge of the office stool, smoking a huge black cigar, revolving schemes innumerable and rejecting each in its turn.

Exactly in proportion as his helplessness became apparent his anger increased, and the cold anger of a brain slow to conceive and strong to retain is to be feared.

It was well for Jimmie Martin that he was many miles away from the berth-deck of the Helena when Paymaster Ross emerged from the pay office and mounted the officers’ ladder to his own room.

The following morning he visited his bankers in Cedar Street, and in exchange for a personal check received eight hundred ten-dollar bills. These he took to the ship and placed in the safe, after which he balanced the cash. He then drew forth a private account-book and turned to a clean page, which he headed, “James Martin.”

Beneath this he wrote: “To experience supplied — $8000.”

He knew nothing of bookkeeping, however, and the sense of the entry appeared to be somewhat obscure. Accordingly, after a minute of thought, he wrote in the middle of the page in pencil the words: “Account not closed.”

One hot June morning the United States steamship Helena, with her shining decks and her rakish stack, boomed forth a salute to the commandant and weighed anchor in the harbor of San Juan.

Within half an hour her boats were lowered and her starboard gangway made fast, and a few minutes later the steam launch glided away, headed for the naval station wharf.

The passengers were the captain, paying a call to the commandant; the surgeon, whose errand was personal; and Paymaster Garway Ross, in search of fresh meat. The commissary was paying for a little indiscretion by reposing in solitary grandeur in the brig.

For two years and six months, since the disappearance of Jimmie Martin, the Helena had roamed the seas and paraded the coast. She had escorted a floating dry dock from Cherbourg to Norfolk, honored a New Orleans Mardi Gras with her presence, twice attended the annual maneuvers at Guantanamo, and made herself generally handy and useful. She was at San Juan in obedience to an order to relieve the Chester.

More than two years ago it was that the new pay yeoman had placed a big red “D” opposite Jimmie Martin’s name on the crew payroll, for Martin’s furlough, already extended by himself from two weeks to thirty months, seemed likely to become permanent.

Perhaps some day some country deputy would appear at Norfolk or Brooklyn with Martin in one hand and an expense list in the other, and, pocketing the reward for apprehension of a deserter, leave Martin to be sentenced for three dreary years to the prison ship at Portsmouth; but he remained as yet on the list of the wanted. His billet had been filled, his bag and hammock sold at auction, and he had become but a vague and unrecognized number to the roll and the crew of the United States steamship Helena.

With one exception.

Paymaster Garway Ross did neither forget nor forgive. Perhaps it would be not exactly just to call him vindictive; yet he desired revenge. Almost unconsciously he nursed his anger and the wish for vengeance.

It had never taken the form of active investigation or pursuit. But it was there, smoldering, waiting; just as, according to the scientists, we each harbor within us the sleeping germ of insanity, ready to be raised at any moment to dreadful activity by something that is not within us.

In his search for fresh meat the paymaster followed his nose in and out of three smaller shops before he found the way to the large establishment of Hernandez y Hermanos. Here he found what he wanted.

The elder Hernandez, smiling, courteous, recorded his order for ten hindquarters and the same number of fores, promising immediate delivery and the freshest beeves. Then he turned to a clerk and beckoned sharply.

“No! Mendez! Drive to the storage and bring this,” he said, handing the clerk a duplicate of the paymaster’s order. “And, going, you may take the scales to the hotel.”

“But there are the jars of Señor Martin—”

“Go, fool!” the excitable Hernandez shouted. “Bah! Señor Martin can wait.”

An electric thrill, indefinable, illusive, passed through the brain of the paymaster. He decided to disregard it, but it was insistent. He turned to Hernandez.

“Señor Martin?” he said half indifferently. “Who is this Martin?”

Hernandez was glad to oblige the paymaster.

“Americano,” he replied. “Coffee planter this side — a little — of Caguas. A very good man, I believe, but small. He pays very well.”

“I think I know him,” said the paymaster. “What is he like?” He understood that the “small” applied to the fortune, not to the person.

“I have never seen him, señor,” was the reply. “Never does he come to San Juan. He sends money by the carrier and a writing. Every month — sometimes two.”

“Do you keep the orders? Could I see them?”

“Certainly, señor.”

Hernandez trotted to the office at the rear, and after some minutes reappeared with an old letter file. From this he took some papers which he handed to the paymaster.

The paymaster was curiously excited. Whether it was the spoken name of Martin or an awakened recollection of something he had once said about Puerto Rico, or merely the effect of intuition, may not be known; but he was actually quivering with eagerness — the eagerness of bruin roused by the odor of the hidden sweet.

The first paper showed him his mistake. It was an order for three chairs and some glass jars and was signed “S. Martin.” He gazed at it blankly.

“Pardon, señor,” said the courteous Hernandez, “but that was written by the señora. For many months she has written. But there are some—”

He rummaged in the pile of papers, drew one forth, and handed it to the paymaster.

And then the face of Garway Ross turned pale and his eyes closed to a narrow slit. Perhaps, after all, he was vindictive. As for the paper — that handwriting! The books of the pay office of the Helena were full of it.