XIVThe Logic of Fact
UPON their arrival at the drilling plant the two young men who had been Mrs. Caswell’s dinner-guests made a dressing-room of the small tool shanty and changed quickly to their working clothes; after which they sat upon the door-step to smoke in sober silence, each busy with his own thoughts.
For Tregarvon the talk with Richardia had wrenched the point of view violently aside, adding new perplexities and fresh discouragement. Richardia’s apparent fear that her father was responsible for the obstacles which had been thrown in the way of the test-drilling was a thing to be believed only because Richardia’s plea could apparently have no other meaning. Being alien to the South and a townlander, the Philadelphian found it difficult to understand the attitude of a man who would make a personal matter of an ancient business defeat, carrying his animosity over from the real offender to an innocent third party. But seemingly—since Richardia’s word was not to be doubted—the fact remained.
Tregarvon saw at once that the Ocoee experiment was made vastly less hopeful by the discovery to which Richardia had led him. Though he had never met Judge Birrell, Coalville gossip had done the fiery old recluse ample justice. For the loungers at Tait’s store the judge figured as a venerable survival of theancien régime; of the good old times when the great landed proprietors ruled their small kingdoms with an iron rod; and were coincidentally and in the meliorating sense of the word, kindly and generous tyrants to all and sundry. Tregarvon had heard enough to assure him that the sentiment of the entire countryside would be with Judge Birrell in any cause he might see fit to champion; but apart from this, the one insurmountable bar to any defensive reprisals on his own part lay in Richardia’s appeal. Tregarvon felt that the appeal, and his yielding thereto, had effectually tied his hands, and he was still sufficiently infatuated to be glad. Carfax might marry Richardia and endow her with his millions; but her greatest debt would still be to the man who had refused to defend himself at her father’s expense.
Back of the dismaying discovery which had changed the point of view, there was other food for reflection. When he had ventured to hopethat Carfax might make her happy, why had Richardia laughed? The query led to the recognition of another impression, given often when he was with her, and as often slurred over and dismissed when it came to be analyzed. Not the least of her charms for him was her crystal-clear straightforwardness. Nevertheless, there had been times when he had been made to feel that behind the frankness there were reservations; times when he had been given fleeting glimpses of an inner Richardia hiding behind the slate-blue eyes and whimsically mocking him.
“I hope the good Mrs. Caswell’s dinner is not disagreeing with you,” Carfax broke in, in the midst of the analyzing abstraction; and Tregarvon came back to things present with a jerk.
“Not at all,” he denied. “I was just thinking.”
“Better not think too much after a hearty meal. It’s bad for the digestion,” was the gentle rejoinder.
Tregarvon grunted. “You didn’t leave out anything but the name. I can’t help thinking of her, Poictiers. It’s no disloyalty to you, or to Elizabeth. You had no business to leave me alone with her when Doctor Caswell asked you to go and look over the gymnasium things.”
Carfax chuckled softly.
“You are a wild ass of the plains, Vance. It is borne in upon me that I shall have to marry her out of hand to bring you to your senses.”
“The quicker the better,” said Tregarvon gloomily. “There is no use in prolonging the agony.”
“Then you’ll admit that it is an agony?”
“I can’t joke about it, Poictiers. I have made the one crowning blunder that spoils a man’s life. Don’t look at me that way. I’m not going to be either a fool or a scoundrel. I shall marry Elizabeth and try to make her as happy as I can; but it will be without prejudice to the fact that I didn’t know what love was when I promised her. I can imagine just how brutal that sounds to you, but it’s the truth.”
“The truth is always rather brutal, isn’t it?” Then the golden youth permitted himself a word that he rarely used. “I’m damned sorry for Elizabeth.”
“As I told you once before, you needn’t be,” Tregarvon snapped back. “There is absolutely no question of sentiment between us, and there has never been. You’d appreciate that if you should read her letters to me; letters in answer to my babblings about Richardia. If Elizabeth had a spark of sentiment in her she would havesent me packing long ago. I’ve told her pretty nearly everything there was to tell.”
“I suppose you have. That is one of your amiable weaknesses—to tell some woman, any woman who happens to be within reach, a lot of things that no woman ought to be told. You deserve all that is coming to you, Vance.”
“I suppose I do,” Tregarvon admitted; and beyond this the silence came to its own again. After a time, Carfax suggested quizzically that the ghosts might be too bashful to come out while there were two able-bodied watchers in sight; and at that they went inside to find seats on a coil of rope opposite the open door. Before long, the interior darkness began to make Tregarvon sleepy and he had quite lost himself when a touch of Carfax’s hand aroused him.
“Look steadily at the big oak just beyond the engine—the one where we found the tripod marks,” was the whispered injunction. “Do you see anything?”
Tregarvon rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stared hard at the oak. “Nothing doing,” he said.
“Yes, there is,” Carfax asserted. “There is a man behind that tree. I saw him just before I shook you awake.”
“Piffle!” said Tregarvon. “That oak isn’t big enough to hide a man.”
“Just the same, he is there!” retorted Carfax, still in a whisper. Then: “I suppose it didn’t occur to you that we might need something more persuasive than our bare hands up here to-night, did it?”
“No; and we shan’t.” Tregarvon was suddenly reminded of his promise to Richardia that there should be no tragedies. “What we can’t handle peaceably, we’ll let go.”
“All right; you’re the doctor,” said the golden youth mildly. “Nevertheless, if I had a gun I’d go out and capture that fellow who is hiding behind the tree.”
“Still nervous, are you?” Tregarvon put in. “You are dreaming, Poictiers. There isn’t any one there.”
“All right, again,” was the serene reply. “Have it that way, if you like. Only don’t forget to keep your eye on the tree.”
That was the beginning of a patient watch which was maintained for a full quarter of an hour. The night was perfectly still; there was not wind enough to rustle the browning leaves of the oaks or to whisper in the pines. Afar off, the little screech-owl whose haunts had beeninvaded by the drilling plant lifted up his voice in shrill chatterings, but there were no other sounds to break the silence. Once during the watchful vigil Tregarvon thought he saw something stirring among the trees on the farther side of the glade, and his fingers closed upon Carfax’s arm. But when he looked again the shadows were undisturbed.
“This is tremendously exciting,” Carfax commented finally, in gentle irony. “If I weren’t morally certain that I saw a man dodge behind that tree a little while ago, I’d fall asleep.”
“Do it anyway,” Tregarvon suggested. “I’ll stand watch, and call you when your turn comes. Take Rucker’s cot.”
“Do you really mean it?”
“Sure I do. Turn in and take your forty winks. If anything seems likely to happen, I’ll let you know.”
“Then I believe I’ll take you at your word. I haven’t been so sleepy since the year before Noah built the ark of gopherwood. If Mrs. Caswell wasn’t as far above suspicion as the angels of light, I might suspect her of having put something into the black coffee.”
Five minutes later Tregarvon was sitting alone on the rope coil, rubbing his eyes andwishing that he might decently follow Carfax’s example. The very act of staring at the moonlit glade hypnotized him, the more since there was nothing unusual to be seen. With the view through the open door becoming hazy and startlingly distinct by turns, he struggled manfully against the rising tide of somnolence, nodding, and recovering himself with a jerk when he realized that the tide was submerging him. But out of one of the nodding moments he came with a violent start that instantly banished all thoughts of sleep. The little screech-owl had ceased complaining, and the arousing sound had been the distinct clink of metal upon stone.
When he looked he saw that the time for action had come. Standing fairly in the midst of the small clearing, the drill derrick was struck out boldly in the white moonlight, with every outline and detail sharply distinguishable. In the square of cleaned rock surface marked off by the four legs of the derrick frame Tregarvon saw a man crouching. The clinking noise was repeated and the watcher at the door faced about and felt his way in the inner darkness to the bed in the corner of the tool-room.
“Wake up, Poictiers!” he called in low tones; “the play has begun!”
Carfax sat up promptly and asked but a moment for the finding of himself. “I’m all here,” he said. “What’s doing?”
For answer Tregarvon led him to the door and pointed to the square of bared bed-rock under the derrick frame. There was a man there, without doubt, but now he was standing up and was apparently examining something which lay in the palm of his hand. The sudden rush of the two from the tool shanty was quite evidently a surprise for the intruder, but he made no attempt to escape. So far from it, he lifted his soft hat politely and said: “Good evening again, gentlemen. You took me completely by surprise—as perhaps you meant to. I was quite sure that you were both safely in bed in Coalville by this time.”
“No,” said Carfax very gently. “We have not been in Coalville at all: we have been here, waiting, quite patiently for—you, Mr. Hartridge.”
“That was kind,” said Hartridge affably. “And, now that your patient waiting has been duly rewarded?——”
“Now that we have caught you we shall ask you to solve that little problem in psychology for us,” put in Tregarvon. “We’d like to knowwhat it is that you have just been dropping into that drill-hole.”
“And if I assure you that I have been putting nothing into your drill-hole, what then, Mr. Tregarvon?”
“In that case I shall ask Carfax to see that you don’t run away while I ascertain for myself,” was the firm rejoinder; and a careful dip of the long cleaning spoon into the test-hole brought up a half-dozen small metallic objects; cubes cut from a bar of tool-steel they appeared to be.
Tregarvon handled the cubes and passed them on to Carfax.
“We owe you something for a day lost and four drill points all but ruined, Mr. Hartridge,” he said rather grimly, adding: “But we’ll credit your account with this present failure to make us do it all over again to-morrow. Would you mind telling us in so many words what your object has been—or still is, perhaps?”
The professor’s smile was imperturbably bland.
“I am sure you wouldn’t be so harsh as to put me on the witness-stand in my own defense,” he said, still amiable. “Especially since you have no evidence of anything worse than a neighborly call at, perhaps, a somewhat unseasonable hour.”
At this Carfax came quite close and he forgotto lisp when he said: “Mr. Hartridge, may I ask you to remove your overcoat for a moment? The night is a bit chilly, I know, but——”
The tone of the request was gentle enough but there was a quality in it that made the suggestion a demand. The professor slipped out of the coat, quaintly quoting Scripture for the ready compliance. “‘If any man ... take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak, also.’ Anything to oblige a friend, Mr. Carfax.”
Carfax took the surrendered coat and, feeling in the right-hand pocket, drew out one of the little steel cubes; quite evidently the one which Hartridge had had in his hand at the moment of surprises.
“Thank you; that is all,” said the searcher, returning the coat, or rather holding it thoughtfully while Hartridge put it on. And then: “You will hardly deny that we have sufficient evidence now, I take it?”
The professor of mathematics spread his hands as one who has done his best and is only regretful that he can do no more.
“Let us assume that the case has gone to the jury: what is the verdict, gentlemen?”
“You are asking what we mean to do?” Tregarvon demanded.
“That is it, precisely. What can you do?—drag me before the nearest justice of the peace on a charge of malicious mischief? You would scarcely wish to disturb the tranquillity of an old and honored institution of learning like Highmount College by such a proceeding as that, would you?”
Tregarvon could not help smiling at the audacity of the man, and the New Yorker laughed outright.
“You have a most excellent quality of nerve, Mr. Hartridge,” was Carfax’s tribute to the audacity. “As you suggest, our field is rather limited. You are perfectly well aware of the fact that Highmount and its hospitality stand as the only barrier between us and social starvation. Let us try to discover amodus vivendi. The verdict is: ‘Guilty, with a recommendation to mercy.’ We are willing to give any man’s sense of humor a chance to redeem itself. You quoted Scripture at me a moment ago, let me return the compliment: ‘Go in peace, and sin no more.’”
The professor drew himself up, smiling genially and lifting his hat.
“I thank you, gentlemen; you are very considerate,” he returned in gentle irony. Afterwhich he walked away, pausing at the edge of the glade to lift his hat again.
Carfax drew a long breath when the tall, black-coated figure was lost under the tree shadows. Then he turned upon his companion:
“I’m not going to say, ‘I told you so,’ Vance, because I think you came around to my point of view some little time ago. What is the motive—Hartridge’s motive? Is it merely impish humor? Or does it go deeper than that?”
Tregarvon was busily engaged in putting two and two together to make the inevitable four. The schoolmaster was in love with Richardia Birrell; the Philadelphian’s first visit to Highmount had made this perfectly plain: could it be possible that Hartridge was acting as Judge Birrell’s agent in the obstacle-raising? And, if so, did Richardia know it?
“Stay here a few minutes, Poictiers,” he directed. “I’m going to follow him and see if he goes straight back to Highmount.”
“Joy go with you,” said Carfax; and when he was left alone he went to sit on the step of the tool-house to smoke while he waited.