CHAPTER IIIA FAN
The morning mail brought a letter from Searles acknowledging my congratulations on his play. While my enthusiastic praise pleased him, he was very scornful of my suggestions about available stars, and seemed even more depressed than when he talked to me.
"It's impossible for me to plan other work. 'Lady Larkspur' ate the soul out of me. I'm done; finished, clean out of the running. There's only this to report. I had a letter from Dalton saying that some time ago he asked at the hotel where he sent the script of 'Lady Larkspur' to know whether Miss Dewing had sent a forwarding address. He had to see the manager before he got any satisfaction, but he did learn that her accumulated mail had been called for by some one whose identity was not disclosed. Of course this isn't much to hang a hope on, but if that play is what I think it is and MissViolet Dewing ever reads it she's going to jump for the telegraph office the moment she finishes the last act. I have no plans for returning East; the folks at home let me do as I please, and it's a relief to be in seclusion where I hear nothing of the doings of Broadway. I hope your ancient globe-trotting aunt still lingers in the Far East! Keep the ink flowing, son. That novel ought to be well under way when I get back."
The tale I had begun seemed utter trash in comparison with the story of Alice Bashford, in which, much against my will, I had become a minor character. I had rather prided myself on my ability to see through a plot in the first chapter of the most complicated mystery story, but there were points in this unwritten tale that baffled me.
I kept away from the house until dinnertime, when I was received quite as an old friend by Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth. The table talk was of Celtic poetry, and proved less disturbing to Antoine than the previous night's discussion of ghosts.
Their day had been spent, they explained, in a further examination of my uncle's Japaneseloot, and they had taken a long walk beyond the estate's boundaries and were enthusiastic about the landscape.
"It's so beautifully peaceful all about here," Alice murmured. "I feel that I never want to move again."
"That's a real tribute to America," Mrs. Farnsworth remarked; "for Alice dearly loves new scenes. She inherited a taste for travel from her father, who put some new places on the maps, you know."
I didn't know and I wanted to ask questions about Alice's father, but as though anxious to frustrate such inquiries my aunt asked how close we were to the place made famous by Israel Putnam's spectacular escape from the British. She had read the story and would motor to the scene, she declared. It was quite clear that there were chapters in her life that were not to be opened for my perusal. No sooner had I caught a glimpse of a promising page than the book was politely closed. A curtain hung between the immediate present at Barton-on-the-Sound and other scenes and incidents of the girl's life; and Mrs. Farnsworth was equally detachedfrom any tangible background. It seemed that I might meet them daily for the rest of my life in this same friendly fashion without adding a particle to my knowledge of them.
I became alert immediately when, as we rose from the table, Alice said, with the air of asking an unimportant favor:
"We were speaking last night of a man who has been asking for us here. His visits have alarmed the servants, but there is nothing to fear from him. You know"—she smiled at Mrs. Farnsworth—"it's rather he who seems to fear us; that, at least, is our impression, though we have no idea why he should do so. Still, it's rather good fun to find yourself an object of special attention and to be followed, even pursued. We've even led him on a little, haven't we, Constance?"
Mrs. Farnsworth laughingly admitted that they had led the gentleman on a trifle, "but with all circumspection," she protested.
"We met him here and there in Tokyo, and later were surprised to find him crossing on our steamer. We threw him off in the Canadian Rockies, where we stopped for a day,and eluded him in Chicago, where he was evidently lying in wait for us."
"Delightful!" I exclaimed.
"But please don't get the idea that the man annoys us," interposed Mrs. Farnsworth.
"Far from it!" cried Alice.
"You've seen enough of us perhaps to understand that we enjoy little adventures," said Mrs. Farnsworth. "The man pretends to be interested in Mr. Bashford's art treasures. Antoine's story about the disguise is rather against that; but we will give him the benefit of the doubt. What we are hoping is that something really amusing may come of his persistent pursuit. With you and the army of servants here we feel perfectly safe; so we're for giving him every chance to show his hand."
"He is the Count Giuseppe Montani," said my aunt, "who represents himself as a connoisseur—a lover of the beautiful."
"The mystery is solved! It is easy to understand why he has haunted the place."
"Yes; quite easy. Count Montani is very anxious to see the porcelains."
"I wasn't referring to the pottery; but I shan't press the matter."
"I advise you not to; your remark was highly improper from a nephew to an aunt! I have told you about all I know of this Italian gentleman. I am going to ask a favor. He telephoned from Stamford this afternoon to know whether we had arrived, and I bade him call to-night. I should be glad if you would remain until he leaves. I should like to know what you make of him."
"Certainly," I assented, pleased that she had taken me into her confidence and deeply curious as to the Italian connoisseur. What she had told so frankly and plausibly did not, however, touch upon the matter of the interest shown by the American State Department in my aunt's arrival at Barton, which troubled me much more than the antics of the Italian who had followed the women across the Pacific.
Count Montani arrived shortly and was received in the drawing-room. The ladies greeted him with the greatest cordiality. As he crossed the room I verified the limp and other points of Antoine's description. His bearing was that of a gentleman; and in his very correct evening dress he hardly lookedlike a man who would disguise himself and attempt to rob a house. He spoke English all but perfectly and proceeded at once to talk a great deal.
"I was sad when I found I had so narrowly missed you at Seattle, and again at Chicago. You travel far too rapidly for one of my age!"
His age might have been thirty. He was a suave, polished, sophisticated person. Nothing was more natural than that he should pause in his travels to call upon two agreeable women he had met on a Pacific steamer. Possibly he was in love with Alice Bashford; this was not a difficult state of heart and mind for a man to argue himself into. She was even more strikingly beautiful to-night than I had thought her before. She was again in white—it was only in daytime that she wore black—and white was exceedingly becoming to her. As we talked she plied listlessly a fan—a handsome trinket of ostrich plumes. A pretty woman and a fan are the happiest possible combination. There is no severer test of grace than a woman's manner of using a fan. A clumsy womanmakes an implement of this plaything, flourishing it to emphasize her talk, or, what is worse, pointing with it like an instructor before a blackboard. But in graceful hands it is unobtrusive, a mere bit of decoration that teases and fascinates the beholder's eye.
With all his poise and equanimity I was distinctly conscious that Montani's dark eyes were intent upon the idly swaying fan. I thought at first it was her hands that interested him as they unfailingly interested me, but when, from time to time, she put down the fan his gaze still followed it. And yet there was nothing novel in the delicate combination of ivory and feathers. I had seen many fans that to all appearances were just like it. Once, as she picked it up and lazily opened it, I saw him bend forward eagerly, then, finding that I had noted his eagerness, he rose, pretending that a brass screen before the fireplace had caught his eye and asked whether it was not a Florentine production, which shook my faith in his connoisseurship, as I had bought the thing myself from a New York brassworker who had made it to my order.
Montani spoke of the porcelains. "Oh, to be sure! They don't show to best advantage in electric light, do they? But I can have a few of the prize pieces taken into the dining-room," said Alice.
Mrs. Farnsworth had excused herself to finish a letter, and from my chair I could see her head bent over the big desk in the library. Alice rang for Antoine, and I followed her into the hall to offer my aid.
"Oh, don't trouble," she said. "Antoine can do anything necessary. Yes; thanks; if you will turn on the dining-room lights."
I was gone hardly half a minute. When I reached the drawing-room door Montani had crossed the room to the table on which Alice had dropped the fan and was examining it closely. He faced the door, and the moment he detected me exclaimed carelessly: "An exquisite little bauble! I am always curious as to the source of such trifles. I was looking for the maker's imprimatur. I know a Parisian who is the leading manufacturer of the world. But it is not his, I see."
As we stood talking of other things he plied the fan carelessly as though for thepleasure of the faint scent it exhaled, and when Alice called us he put it down carefully where he had found it.
He really did seem to know something about ceramics and praised, with lively enthusiasm, the pieces that had been set out on the table. One piece, as to whose authenticity my uncle had entertained serious doubts, Montani unhesitatingly pronounced genuine and stated very plausible reasons for his opinion.
On the whole, he was an interesting fellow. When he had finished his inspections he lingered for only a few minutes and took his leave, saying that he was spending the night at an inn near Stamford.
"Well," said Alice when the whir of his machine had died away, "what do you think of him?"
"A very agreeable gentleman," I answered. "If he doesn't know porcelains, he fakes his talk admirably."
"And as to fans—" suggested Mrs. Farnsworth.
I had not intended to mention Montani's interest in Alice's fan, and the remark surprised me.
"Oh, I saw it all from the library," laughed Mrs. Farnsworth. "My back was to the door, but I was facing a mirror. The moment you and Alice went into the hall he pounced upon the fan—pounced is the only word that describes it. He concealed his interest in it very neatly when you caught him examining it."
"Fans are harmless things," said Alice, "and if there's any story attached to this one I'm not aware of it. My father bought it in Paris about three years ago, and it has never been out of my possession except to have it repaired. There's a Japanese jeweller who does wonderful things in the way of repairing trinkets of every kind. I left it with him for a few days. I can't tell now which panel was broken, he did his work so deftly."
I took it from her and balanced it in my fingers. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship with the simplest carvings on the ivory panels.
"He couldn't have seen it anywhere before to-night," observed Alice musingly. "In fact, I hadn't used it at all for a year. It was really by mistake that my maid put it into my trunk when I went to Japan. I didn'twant to risk breaking it again, so I've been carrying it in a hand-bag. The last day we were in Tokyo I think I had it in our sitting-room in the hotel, to make sure it wasn't jammed into the trunk again. We had a good many callers—a number of people came in to bid us good-by, but I'm sure Count Montani was not among them, and it would have been impossible for him to see it at any other time."
"Oh, there is nothing disturbing in the count's interest in the thing," said Mrs. Farnsworth with an air of dismissing the matter. "If it were a Jade trinket inscribed with Chinese mysteries, you might imagine that it would be sought by some one—I have heard of such things—but Alice's fan has no such history."
"We weren't very hospitable," said Alice. "I might have asked Count Montani to dine with us to-morrow; and we might even have put him up for the night in this vast house."
"Not with Antoine on the premises!" I exclaimed. "Antoine is convinced that the man is what we call in America a crook. AndAntoine takes his responsibilities very seriously."
While I was breakfasting at the garage the next morning Antoine appeared and, waiting until Flynn was out of hearing, handed me a slip of paper.
"That's a New York automobile number," he said. "It was on the tag of that machine the party came in last night. I heard him saying, sir, as how he had motored up from the Elkton Inn at Stamford. Visitors from Stamford would hardly send in to the city for a machine."
I bade him wait while I called the Elkton by telephone. No such person as Giuseppe Montani had spent the night there or had been a guest of the house within the memory of the clerk. Antoine's chest swelled at this confirmation of his suspicions.
"If the man returns, treat him as you did last night—as though he were entitled to the highest consideration."
"He won't come back—not the same way," said Antoine. "He mentioned the Elkton just to throw you off. The next you hear of him will be quite different."
"You mean he'll come as a burglar?"
"That's what's in my mind, Mr. Singleton. Everything seems very queer, sir."
"Such as what, Antoine?"
"The widow has been telegraphing and telephoning considerable, sir."
"There must be no spying upon these ladies!" I admonished severely. "All the people on the place must remember that Mrs. Bashford is mistress here, and entitled to fullest respect."
He had hardly gone before Torrence had me on the wire to hear my report and to say that Raynor had left Washington for a weekend in Virginia.
"That lets us out for a few days, but I'll have to report that Mrs. Bashford is at Barton the moment I learn that he is back in Washington."
I assured him that nothing had occurred to encourage a suspicion that Mrs. Bashford was not all that she pretended to be. The day was marked by unusual activities on the part of the waiters and bell-hops. Instead of the company drills to which I had become accustomed they moved about in pairs alongthe shore and the lines of the fences. I learned that Antoine had ordered this, and the "troops" were obeying him with the utmost seriousness. The "service" on the estate was certainly abundant. It was only necessary to whistle and one of the Tyringham veterans would come running.
In spite of the complete satisfaction I had expressed to Torrence as to the perfect integrity and honest intentions of the two women, the curiosity of the American State Department and the visit of Montani required elucidation beyond my powers. At dinner they were in the merriest humor. The performances of the little army throughout the day had amused them greatly.
"How delightfully feudal!" exclaimed Alice. "Really we should have a moat and drawbridge to make the thing perfect. Constance and I are the best protected women in the world!"
We extracted all the fun possible from the idea that the estate was under siege; that Alice was the chatelaine of a beleaguered castle, and that before help could reach us we were in danger of being starved out bythe enemy. They called into play the poetry which had so roused Antoine's apprehensions, and their talk bristled with quotations. Alice rose after the salad and repeated at least a page of Malory, and the Knights of the Round Table having thus been introduced, Mrs. Farnsworth recited several sonorous passages from "The Idyls of the King." They flung lines from Browning's "In a Balcony" at each other as though they were improvising. The befuddlement of Antoine and the waiter who assisted him added to the general joy. They undoubtedly thought the two women quite out of their heads, and it was plain that I suffered greatly in Antoine's estimation by my encouragement of this frivolity. Mrs. Farnsworth walked majestically round the table and addressed to me the lines from Macbeth beginning:
"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised,"
while Antoine clung to the sideboard listening with mouth open and eyes rolling.
Later, in the living-room, Alice sang some old ballads. She was more adorable thanever at the piano. It was a happiness beyond any in my experience of women to watch her, to note the play of light upon her golden head, to yield to the spell of her voice. Ballads had never been sung before with the charm and feeling she put into them; and after ending with "Douglas, Douglas," she responded to my importunity with "Ben Bolt," and then dashed into a sparkling thing of Chopin's, played it brilliantly and rose, laughingly mocking my applause.
I left the house like a man over whom an enchantment has been spoken and was not pleased when Antoine blocked my path: "Pardon me, sir."
"Bother my pardon; what's troubling you now?" I demanded.
"It's nothing troubling me, sir; not particularly. If you give me time, I think I'll grow used to the poetry talk and playing at being queens. It's like children in a family I served once; an English family, most respectable. But in a widow, sir——"
"God knows we ought to be glad when grown-ups have the heart to play at being children and can get away with it as beautifullyas those women do! What else is on your mind?"
"It's about Elsie, sir." I groaned at the mention of Flynn's German wife. "I'm sorry, sir; but I thought I should report it. It was a man who came to see her this afternoon. You was out for your walk, and Flynn had taken the ladies for a drive, so Elsie was alone at the garage. This person rode in on the grocer's truck from the village, which is how he got by the gate. As it happened, Pierre—he was a waiter at the Tyringham, a Swiss, who understands German—had gone into the garage for a nap; he's quite old, sir, and has his snooze every afternoon."
"He's entitled to it," I remarked; "he must be a thousand years old."
"From what he heard Pierre thought the man a spy, sir. He wanted Elsie to steal something from the house, it was a fan he wanted her to take most particular, and it was to be done soon, to-day if she could manage. It was for the love of the Fatherland that he wanted her to do it. Did you notice, sir, that Mrs. Bashford didn't have the fan to-night? Not that one she carried last night."
I had noticed that she had substituted a tiny Japanese fan for the one that Montani had inspected so eagerly. When I spoke of the change she had said the other was too precious for every-day use, and she meant to keep it locked up.
"I hate to bother you, sir, knowing you——"
The mention of the fan had brought me to an abrupt halt. I resented having the thing thrust at me in the ecstatic mood in which I had left the house, but the visit of the German-speaking stranger was serious, and Antoine knew that his story had startled me. He told me further that the man had carefully outlined to Elsie just how she could take advantage of her freedom of the house to appropriate the fan when the ladies were out and the servants off the second floor. She was to be paid for her assistance; two hundred dollars had been promised; even more had been suggested. Elsie and the stranger had left the garage and passed out of ear-shot before Elsie fully consented; but Pierre had given Antoine the impression that she would make the attempt.
"It was to be for the Kaiser, for Germany,"declared Antoine bitterly. "And she was to be careful about Flynn. I always thought Flynn was straight—I did indeed, sir!"
"I think Flynn and his wife are both honest, but we'll take no chance. Warn the guards to be on the alert. We don't want Elsie to get the idea that she's being watched; so tell the men to keep away from the garage. I'll keep an eye on the Flynns. You go home and go to bed...."
The deep calm of the country night had settled upon the shore, and the Flynns' quarters were perfectly tranquil. It didn't seem possible that an international episode was in process of incubation in that quiet neighborhood. I began to think that the general distrust of the German woman by her associates might be responsible for Pierre's story. But, viewed in any light, I had a duty to perform. If Elsie had visited the house and purloined the fan, she would be very likely to get rid of it as quickly as possible, and I determined to keep watch. I drew the blinds, got into my dressing-gown and, reinforcing the lampshade with a newspaper to deaden the light, proceeded to read.
It was on toward one o'clock and I was dozing when a sound roused me. A door on the Flynn side of the hall creaked; there was silence, then I heard furtive steps on the stair. I snapped out my light and peered out of the window just as Elsie's robust figure disappeared into the shadows. I was about to follow when the creaking of the Flynn door was repeated. In a moment another peep through the shade showed me Flynn himself, and he, too, quickly vanished. Here was a situation indeed! If Elsie was keeping tryst with her co-conspirator of the afternoon and her husband was spying upon her, a row of large proportions was likely to result at any moment. I leaned from the window as far as I dared, and saw the woman close to the wall at the farther end of the building. The scene was well set for trouble, and I was wondering what I could do to avert a disturbance and the exposure of the foolish woman when the whole matter was taken out of my hands.
"You fool! You scoundrel!" she bellowed in German. "That you should think me a plaything to commit a robbery for you! ThatI should steal from my mistress to satisfy you, you piece of swine-flesh!"
I had often heard Elsie vocally disciplining her Irish husband and knew the power of her lungs and the vigor of her invective, but she seemed bent upon apprising the whole commonwealth of Connecticut of the fact that she was vastly displeased with the person she was addressing, who was certainly not Flynn. Amid sounds of a scuffle and the continuous outpouring of billingsgate the light over the garage door flashed on suddenly and disclosed Flynn in the act of precipitating himself into the fray. Elsie had grasped, and was stoutly clinging to a tall man who was trying to free himself of her muscular embrace. Her cries meanwhile included some of the raciest terms in the German dictionary and others—mouthfuls of frightfulness—that I didn't recognize.
When I reached the open Flynn was dancing round the belligerents like an excited boxer, occasionally springing in to land a blow; and all the while Elsie continued to address her captive and the world at large in her native tongue. Flynn was rather morethan sixty, and Elsie was not much his junior, while the invader was young and agile. The man had loosened one arm and drawn a revolver with which he was pounding Elsie in the face. I knocked the gun from his hand with my walking-stick and shouted to Elsie to let go of him. Her shouts had roused the guards and, hearing answering cries and the beat of hurrying feet on the walks, he redoubled his efforts to escape. I had hardly got my hands on him when with a twist of his body he wrenched himself free and sped away in the darkness.
I hadn't gone far in pursuit of him before I tripped over the skirts of my dressing-gown and fell into a bed of cannas. This would have been less melancholy if Flynn, hard behind, hadn't stumbled over me and, believing he had captured the enemy, gripped my legs until I could persuade him to let go.
The lights now flared on all the walks and driveways, and Antoine was bellowing orders to the guards to surround the sunken garden. I surmised that the fugitive, surprised by the attack, had lost his bearings and was now far from the boundary wall back of the garagefrom which presumably he had entered the grounds. With the Sound cutting off his exit beyond the residence, there was a fair chance of catching him if Antoine's veterans were at all vigilant.
I found Antoine, armed with a club and swinging a lantern, majestically posed at the nearer entrance to the garden. With a swallow-tail coat over his night-shirt and his nightcap tipped over one ear, he was an enthralling figure. As he strode toward me his slippers flapped weirdly upon the brick walk. "There's somebody in the garden, sir," he whispered huskily. "The troops has it surrounded." No general in all history, reporting in some critical hour the disposition of his army, could have been more composed.
"You have done well, Antoine. Shall you dig in until morning or go over the top now?"
"As you say, sir. It's better you should take charge."
I walked round the garden and found his men well distributed, but the old fellows were exceedingly nervous. "It's a bit suspicious,sir, that he broke for the garden," remarked Antoine.
"He broke for the garden," I suggested, "because his line of retreat was cut off and he had to go somewhere."
"It's queer, though, sir, when Dutch has been sleeping on the long bench down there by the fountain. You know how we feel about him, sir, he being of that race."
"Dutch told me he was camping in the tool-house," I answered.
"The boys drove him out, sir, and he took to the garden."
"Nasty of the boys, I should say. If that interloper should murder him——"
A yell rose from the midst of the garden, followed by a crash and an instant later by a splash that interrupted another yell. I snatched Antoine's lantern and ran down the steps toward the scene of commotion. When I reached the circular pool the jet was still playing gayly, but the waters on one side were in furious agitation. Two men were rolling and tumbling about as though bent upon drowning each other. I swung the lantern over them just as Dutch got uponhis feet, gripping his antagonist by the collar. He flung him backward over the stone curbing of the pool and fell upon him in the walk with a swish of wet garments. The guards from the outer edges of the garden had clambered down and they gathered about us as I began questioning Dutch.
Dutch, undoubtedly enjoying his victorious encounter, was tearing open the prostrate captive's collar to give him air and with his knees clamping the man's body was disposed to delay the story of his adventures to increase its dramatic effect.
"It happens this evenin'," he began, spouting water, "that I seen Elsie, who's been sneakin' me meals to the old stables, an' she says to me: 'Dutch,' she says, 'they's all ag'in us here, callin' us Huns, an' we gotta show 'em we's good Americans,' she says. An' she tole me a feller been to see 'er 'at wanted 'er to rob the house fer 'im, he thinkin' 'er likely to do ut fer love o' the Kaiser. She said as 'ow she'd nail 'im when he comes to-night to git a fan she's promised to lift fer 'im. She said that'd prove she wasn't no Dutchwoman and recommended if I got thechance to do the same. I thought nothin' wuz goin' to happen an' wuz sleepin' on me bench here in the garden when the hollerin' at the garage woke me up. I sits quiet, listenin' an' this guy drops into the garden an' wuz crawlin' past me bench an' I pinches 'im. He wuz fer havin' a fight, an' we knocks over one of the big urns an' lit in the tank. He says it's a thousand bones an' ye turn me loose, he says, an' I soused 'im ag'in fer that."
The man was still choking from the sousings and Dutch turned him over and pounded him vigorously on the back, assisted by Zimmerman, the obliging valet, who had seized the occasion to show his hand on the side of the Allies. "Shall I telephone for the Barton police, sir?" asked Antoine with an extreme exaggeration of his professional manner.
This obviously was the thing to do, but I feigned not to hear the question while I debated the matter. It was plain that many things relating to the capture were veiled in mystery: that if Mrs. Bashford and her companion were involved in an international tangle and had in their possession something that vitally concerned the nations at war,common chivalry demanded that I handle the arrest of Montani's agent in such manner as to shield them. I was thinking hard and in my perplexity even considered sending a messenger for Torrence; but he was already suspicious and would be very likely to summon Raynor immediately and precipitate a crisis I was not prepared to face. To invite the attention of the American State Department to the increasingly complex situation would not be giving my aunt the chance I meant she should have to clear herself.
The captive had got upon his feet and stood dazedly staring at us. He refused to answer my questions, even when I suggested that if he could give a satisfactory account of himself he would be released. He only doggedly shook his head. When I asked if he had been hurt in his bout with Dutch he smiled and extended his arms in denial. He was a very decent-looking fellow, blue-eyed and smooth-shaven, who seemed to accept his plight with a degree of good humor.
I decided that as nothing would be gained by sending him to the Barton calaboose that night, I would assume the responsibility ofdetaining him until I had groped my way through the haze of suspicions and circumstances that enveloped him.
"Get some dry clothes for this man and lock him up in the tool-house. Be sure he has blankets, and you'd better give him some hot coffee."
The captive manifested relief at my decision and broke his silence to thank me, which he did in very good English. His submissiveness only deepened my perplexity, but I couldn't help laughing as he walked away surrounded by the "troops," with Dutch leading the way—Dutch fully conscious that he had vindicated himself and disposed to be rather disdainful of his comrades.
I hurried to the house, where I found Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth ministering to Elsie, who had been taken there by their order. Elsie, sharing with Dutch the honors of the night, lay on a davenport, where she had received first aid. Alice rose from her knees as I entered, gathering up strips of bandages, and turned to me laughingly.
"Elsie's injuries are not serious; only disagreeable bruises in the face. There will beno scars, I'm sure. We'll keep her at the house for a few days until she's quite fit again. Surely any one who has questioned Elsie's loyalty ought to be satisfied now."
"You certainly managed it very cleverly, Elsie. We're all very grateful."
Elsie, her face covered with bandages, acknowledged my thanks by wiggling her foot.
Mrs. Farnsworth said she would put Elsie to bed. Now, I thought, Alice would make some sign if she knew anything that would explain Montani and the prisoner in the tool-house. But the whole affair only moved her to laughter and she seemed less a grown woman than ever in her white robe. My efforts to impress her with the seriousness of the attempt to secure the fan only added to her delight.
"How droll! How very droll! You couldn't possibly have arranged anything that would please me more! It's delicious! As you say in America, it's perfectly killing!"
I suggested that the holding of a prisoner without process of law might present embarrassments.
"I know," she cried, clapping her hands joyfully. "You mean we are likely to bump into dear oldhabeas corpus! The sheriff will come and read a solemn paper to you and you will have to hie you to court and produce the body of the prisoner. That will be splendid!"
"It won't be so funny if——"
I was about to say that the humor of the thing would be spoiled somewhat if she were made a witness and there proved to be something irregular about the fan which had caused all the trouble, but I hadn't the heart to do it. To spoil such merriment as bubbled in her heart would be cruel—an atrocity as base as snatching a plaything from a joyous child.
"Constance and I so love the unusual—and it is so hard to find!" she continued. "And yet from the moment I reached the gates of these premises things have happened! Nothing is omitted! Strange visitors; fierce attacks upon our guards, and still the mystery deepens in the wee sma' hours, with heroes and heroines at every turn! To think that that absurd little Dutch was asleep inthe garden and really captured the spy or whatever he is! But you are a hero too! You shall be decorated!"
She walked to a stand and pondered a moment before a vase of roses, chose a long-stemmed red one and struck me lightly across the shoulder with it.
"Arise, sir knight! You should have knelt, but to kneel in skirts requires practice; you could hardly have managed in that monk's robe."
I couldn't be sure whether she was mocking me or whether there was really liking under this nonsense. I was beyond the point of being impatient with her. I was helpless in her hands; she would do with me as she willed, and it was my business to laugh with her, to meet her as best I could in the realm of folly.
"You must go!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Constance will be calling down the stairs for me in a moment."
"To-morrow—" I began. The wistful look she had at times came into her eyes as she stood in the centre of the room, playing with the flower.
"To-morrow," she repeated, "and then—to-morrow!"
"There must be endless to-morrows for you and me," I said, and took the flower from her hand. The revery died in her eyes, and they were awake with reproach and dismissal. At the door I looked back. She hadn't moved and she said, very quietly, but smiling a little: "Nothing must happen to make me sorry I came. Please remember!"
CHAPTER IVPURSUING KNIGHTS
I didn't sleep until near daybreak, and was aroused at nine o'clock by Flynn, who appeared at the door in his chauffeur's togs, carrying a tray.
"The wife didn't come back, sorr, but I made coffee and toast. Sorry to waken you, but I'm takin' the new car into the city."
I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
"Who's going to the city?" I demanded.
"The ladies is goin' at once, sorr. They sent orders an hour ago to be ready with the new machine. Orders was to take my bag; it looks like I'd be gone the night. I'm late and you'll have to excuse me, sorr."
I sprang out of bed and plied him with questions, most of which he was unable to answer. I did, however, extract from him the information that nothing had occurred after I retired for the night that could havealarmed the women at the residence and prompted this abrupt departure. There was no reason why Alice shouldn't run to town if it pleased her to do so, and yet it was odd that she hadn't mentioned the matter. Flynn hurried away, and from the window I followed the car's course to the house, and a moment later caught a glimpse of it on its way to the gates.
I was shaving when Antoine appeared, pale from the stirring incidents of the night.
"I suppose you know, sir," he said, straightening the coffee-pot on the tray in an attempt to conceal his emotions.
"When did you first hear that the ladies meant to leave to-day?" I shouted with a flourish of the razor. "If you knew it last night and didn't tell me——"
"I heard it, incidental-like, at breakfast this morning. There was a night letter, sir, read by the agent at Barton to the mistress quite early, sir. I can't tell you what it was, sir."
"Did they seem alarmed or depressed; was there anything to indicate whether they had bad news?"
"They seemed quite merry over it, sir. But you know their goings-on, which I never understand, sir. For all I know it may be a death in the family; you'd never tell it from their actions. You will pardon me for remarking it again, sir; but, considering that they're ladies, their actions and goings-on is most peculiar."
"As to luggage, I hope you had the intelligence to note whether they went for a long stay?"
"Only the suitcases that fits into the rack of the machine. Louise thought they might be going for a week, maybe."
This was all I got out of him. Mrs. Bashford and Mrs. Farnsworth had flown, giving no hint of the length of their absence. They had slipped away and left me with a prisoner that I didn't know what to do with; with an inquiry by the American Department of State hanging over me; with Torrence to reckon with, and, in general, a muddled head that only a vast number of lucid explanations could restore to sanity.
I called from the window to one of the gardeners who knew how to manage a machineand told him to be ready to drive me to the village in half an hour. There was an express at ten-forty, and by taking it I would at least have the satisfaction of being somewhere in New York when the runaways arrived. Antoine packed my suitcase; I am not sure that he didn't shed tears on my belongings. The old fellow was awed into silence by the rapidity with which history had been made in the past twenty-four hours, and clearly was not pleased by my desertion.
We drove past the tool-house, where I found the prisoner seated on a wheelbarrow smoking a cigarette. He was no more communicative than when I had questioned him after his capture. He smiled in a bored fashion when I asked if he wanted anything, and said he would be obliged for cigarettes and reading-matter. He volunteered nothing as to his identity, and the guards said that a thorough search of the captive's clothing had disclosed nothing incriminating. He had three hundred dollars in currency (this was to cover Elsie's bribe money, I conjectured), a handkerchief, a cigarette-case, and a box of matches. I directed that he be wellfed and given all the reading-matter he wanted, and hurried on to catch my train.
The futility of my errand struck me hard as I felt the city surging round me. Without a clew to work on, I was utterly unlikely to find the two women, and even if I should stumble upon them, in what way could I explain my conduct in following them? I was visited also by the discouraging thought that New York might not, after all, be their destination.
Flynn was a capable but cautious driver, and they would hardly reach town before five o'clock. I took a room at the Thackeray Club and pondered carefully whether, in spite of my misgivings, I hadn't better see Torrence and tell him all that had happened since his call on Mrs. Bashford. If there was any chance of doing the wrong thing in any matter not prescribed in the laws governing the administration of estates, he would be sure to do it; but I was far from satisfied with the results of my own management of affairs at Barton. I finally called up the trust company and learned that Torrence was in Albany attending the trial of a will case and might not be in town for a coupleof days. His secretary said he had instructions to wire my daily report to Albany. I told him there had been no developments at Barton, and went out and walked the Avenue. Inquiries at hotels large and small occupied me until seven o'clock. No one had heard of a Mrs. Bashford or a Mrs. Farnsworth. My inspection of the occupants of several thousand automobiles proved equally fruitless. I ate a lonely dinner at the club and resumed my search. Hanging about theatre doors, staring at the crowd, is not a dignified occupation, and by nine o'clock, having seen the most belated theatre-goers vanish, I was tired and footsore. The flaming sign of Searles's "Who Killed Cock Robin?" over the door of the "As You Like It" caught my eye. I bought a seat—the last in the rack—and squeezed into my place in the middle of the last row. As I had seen the piece at least a dozen times, its novelty was gone for me, but the laughter of the delighted audience was cheering. The first act was reaching its culmination, and I watched it with a glow of pride in Searles and his skilful craftsmanship.
As the curtain fell and the lights went upamid murmurs of pleasure and expectancy, I glanced across the rows of heads with awakened interest. "Who Killed Cock Robin?" had been praised with such unanimity that if Alice were in any playhouse that night I was as likely to see her in the "As You Like It" as anywhere.
The half-turned face of a man three rows in front of me suddenly caught my attention. There was something curiously familiar in his outlines and the gesture with which, at the moment, he was drawing his handkerchief across his forehead. I judged that he too had come late, for he now removed his topcoat and thrust his hat under the seat. It was Montani—beyond any question Montani—and I instinctively shrank in my seat and lifted my programme as he turned round and swiftly surveyed the rows behind him.
I watched his black head intently until I remembered the superstition that by staring at a person in a public place you can make him look at you. Montani knew a great many things I wanted to know, but I must have time to adjust myself to the shock of his propinquity. I satisfied myself that hewas alone and as he continued to mop his face I judged that he had arrived in some haste. The house now took note of a stirring in one of the boxes. There was an excited buzz as the tall form and unmistakable features of Cecil Arrowsmith, the English actor, were recognized. I had read that day of his arrival in New York. With him were two women. My breath came hard and I clutched the iron frame of the seat in front of me so violently that its occupant turned and glared.
The trio settled into their places quickly, but not before I had satisfied myself that Arrowsmith's companions were Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth. As they fell into animated talk I saw that Alice was in her gayest humor. The distinguished tragedian seemed greatly amused by what she was saying to him.
"Must be members of Arrowsmith's company," one of my neighbors remarked. "They open in two weeks in Shakespearian repertoire."
Montani had half risen, the better to focus an opera-glass on the box. The gong solemnly announced the second act, and Alice moved her chair to face the stage. Once more Montaniscanned the party with his glass. As the lights faded Alice, with the pretty languorous gesture I so well remembered, opened her fan—the fan of ostrich plumes, that became a blur of white that held my eye through the dusk after the curtain rose.
Alice, Montani, and the fan! To this combination I had now to add the new element introduced into the situation by the apparent familiar acquaintance of Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth with Cecil Arrowsmith. And yet, as the play proceeded on its swift-moving course, I reasoned that there was nothing extraordinary in their knowing the eminent actor. He had long been a personage in England and had lately been knighted. Their appearance with him at the theatre really disposed of the idea that they might be impostors. The presence of Arrowsmith had put zest into the company, and I hadn't seen a better performance of Searles's play. The trio in the box joined in the prolonged applause at the end of the act.
As they resumed their talk Alice, it seemed, was relating something of moment for Arrowsmith's benefit, referring now and then toMrs. Farnsworth as though for corroboration. The scene in the box was almost as interesting as any in the play, and the audience watched with deep absorption. Alice, the least self-conscious of mortals, was, I knew, utterly unaware of the curious gaze of the house; whatever she was saying with an occasional gesture of her gloved hands or a shrug of her shoulders possessed her completely. I thought she might be telling Arrowsmith of her adventures at Barton; but the length of her narrative was against this, and Arrowsmith's attitude was more that of a critic appealed to for an opinion than of a polite listener to a story. He nodded his head several times, and finally, as Alice, with a slight dip of the head and an outward movement of her arms, settled back in her chair, he patted his hands approvingly.
In my absorption I had forgotten Montani's existence, but as the third act began I saw that he had gone. Whether I should put myself in Alice's way as she left the theatre was still an undetermined question when the play ended. With Montani hanging about I felt a certain obligation to warn her that hehad been watching her. I was among the first to leave, and in the foyer I met Forsythe, the house manager, who knew me as a friend of Searles.
"You notice that we're still turning 'em away," he remarked. "We don't have to worry about this piece; everybody who sees it sends his friends the next day. Searles hasn't looked in for some time; hope he's writing a new play?"
"He's West visiting his folks. Don't know when he'll be back," I answered. "I must write him that Sir Cecil Arrowsmith enjoyed 'Who Killed Cock Robin?' just as much as common mortals."
Forsythe had paused at the box-office, and in my uncertainty I stuck to him as the crowd began to surge by.
Arrowsmith's approach was advertised by the peculiar type of tall hat that he affected, and the departing audience made way for him, or hung back to stare. At his left were Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth, and they must pass quite close to me. "Who Killed Cock Robin?" was a satisfying play that sent audiences away with lightened hearts andsmiling faces, and the trio were no exception to the rule.
Listening inattentively to Forsythe, I was planning to join Alice when the trio should reach me. She saw me; there was a fleeting flash of recognition in her eyes, and then she turned toward Arrowsmith. She drew nearer; her gaze met mine squarely, but now without a sign to indicate that she had ever seen me before. She passed on, talking with greatest animation to Arrowsmith.
"Well, remember me to Searles if you write him," I heard Forsythe saying. I clutched his arm as he opened the office door.
"Who are those women?" I demanded.
"You may search me! I see you have a good eye. That girl's rather nice to look at!"
Crowding my way to the open, I blocked the path of orderly, sane citizens awaiting their machines until a policeman pushed me aside. Alice I saw for a bewildering instant, framed in the window of a big limousine that rolled away up-town.
I had been snubbed! No snub had ever been delivered more deliberately, with a nicer calculation of effect, than that administeredto me by Alice Bashford—a girl with whom, until a moment before, I had believed myself on terms of cordial comradeship. She had cut me; Alice who had asked me at the very beginning of our acquaintance to call her by her first name—Alice had cut me without the quiver of a lash.
I walked to the Thackeray and settled myself in a dark corner of the reading-room, thoroughly bruised in spirit. In my resentment I meditated flying to Ohio to join Searles, always my chief resource in trouble. Affairs at Barton might go to the devil. If Alice and her companion wanted to get rid of me, I would not be sorry to be relieved of the responsibility I had assumed in trying to protect them. With rising fury I reflected that by the time they had shaken off Montani and got rid of the prisoner in the tool-house they would think better of me.
"Telephone call, sir."
I followed the boy to the booth in a rage that any one should disturb my gloomy reflections.
"Mr. Singleton? Oh! This is Alice speaking——"
I clutched the shelf for support. Not only was it Alice speaking, but in the kindest voice imaginable. My anger passed, but my amazement at Alice and all her ways blinded me. If she had suddenly stepped through the wall, my surprise could not have been greater.
"You told me the Thackeray was your usual refuge in town, so I thought I'd try it. Are you very, very cross? I'm sorry, really I am—Bob!"
The "Bob" was added lingeringly, propitiatingly. Huddled in the booth, I doubted my senses—wondering indeed whether Alice hadn't a double—even whether I hadn't dreamed everything that had occurred at Barton.
"Iwantedto speak to you ever so much at the theatre, but I couldn't very well without introducing you to Sir Cecil, and I wasn't ready to do that. It might have caused complications."
If anything could have multiplied the existing complications, I was anxious to know what they were; but her voice was so gentle, so wholly amiable, that I restrained an impulse to demand explanations.
"Are you on earth or are you speaking from paradise?" I asked.
"Oh, we're in a very nice house, Constance and I; and we're just about having a little supper. I wish you were here, but that can't be arranged. No; really it can't! We shall be motoring back to Barton to-morrow and hope you can join us. Let us have luncheon and motor up together."
When I suggested that I call for them she laughed gayly.
"That would be telling things! And we mustn't spoil everything when everything is going so beautifully."
Remembering the man I had locked up in the tool-house and the explanations I should have to make sooner or later to the unimaginative Torrence, I wasn't wholly convinced of the general beauty of the prospect.
"Montani was in the theatre," I suggested.
Her laughter rippled merrily over the wire. "Oh, he tried to follow us in a taxi! We had a great time throwing him off in the park. I'm not sure he isn't sitting on the curb right now watching the house ungraciously."
"You have the fan with you; Montanijumped right out of his seat when you opened it in the theatre."
This she received with more laughter; Montani amused her immensely, she said. She wasn't in the least afraid of him. Returning to the matter of the luncheon, she suggested the Tyringham.
"You know, I want very much to see Mr. Bashford's old home and the place all our veteran retainers came from. At one?—yes. Good night!" ...
Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth reached the Tyringham on time to the minute. As I had spent the morning on a bench in the park, analyzing my problems, I found their good humor a trifle jarring.
"You don't seem a bit glad to see us," Alice complained as she drew off her gloves. "How can any one be anything but happy after seeing that delicious 'Cock Robin'! It is so deliciously droll."
"I haven't," I remarked with an attempt at severity, "quite your knack of ignoring disagreeable facts. There was Montani right in front of me, jumping like a jack-in-the-box every time you flourished your fan.There's that fellow we've got locked up at Barton——"
"Just hear the man, Constance!" she interrupted with her adorable laugh. "We were thinking that he was beginning to see things our way, the only true way, the jolly way, and here he cometh like a melancholy Jaques! We'll have none of it!"
"We must confess," said Mrs. Farnsworth conciliatingly, "that Mr. Singleton is passing through a severe trial. We precipitated ourselves upon him without warning, and immediately involved him in a mesh of mystery. His imagination must have time to adjust itself."
"Ah, the imagination!" sighed Alice with her wistful smile. "How little patience the world has with anything but the soberest facts! Why should we bother about that lunatic Montani or the gentleman immured in the tool-house? I couldn't introduce you to Sir Cecil without anticipating the end of our story; and I want you to keep wondering and wondering about us. It's all so jolly! I love it all! And really you wouldn't spoil it, Bob! It's dreadful to spoil things."
They were spoiling my appetite; I was perfectly aware of that. I had ordered the best luncheon I knew how to compose, and they were doing full justice to it; but I was acting, I knew, like a resentful boy.
"I love you that way," said Alice as I stared vacantly at my plate. "But you really are not making yourself disagreeable to us—really he is not, Constance!"
Mrs. Farnsworth affirmed this. I knew that I was merely being rude, and the consciousness of this was not uplifting. At the luncheon hour the influx of shoppers gives the Tyringham a cheery tone, and all about us were people apparently conversing sanely and happily. The appearance of Uncle Bash's ghost in the familiar dining-room would have been a welcome diversion. I was speculating as to just what he would say about his widow and the whole mess at Barton when Mrs. Farnsworth addressed me pleadingly.
"If you knew that we want you to play with us only a few days longer—three days, shall we say, Alice?—if you knew that then we'll untangle everything, wouldn't you be nice—very nice?"
In spite of myself I couldn't resist this appeal. I was more and more impressed by the fineness, the charm of Mrs. Farnsworth. When she dropped the make-believe foolishness in which she indulged quite as amusingly as Alice, she appeared to be a very sensible person. The humor danced in her eyes now, but her glance was more than an appeal; it was a command.
"If you knew that our troubles are not at all the troubles you're thinking about, but very different——"
"Please pardon me!" I muttered humbly, and wished that Alice were not so bewitching in a sailor hat. It may have been the hat or only Mrs. Farnsworth's pleading tone that brought me to a friendlier attitude toward the universe and its visible inhabitants. The crowd thinned out, but we lingered, talking of all manner of things.
"We must come in again very soon," said Alice. "And next time we shan't run away, which was very naughty. I suppose when you begin a story you just have to keep it going or it will die on your hands. That's the way with our story, you know. Of courseit's unkind to mystify you: but you are in the story just as we are."
My mystification was certainly deep enough without this suggestion that I was a mere character in a tale whose awkward beginning aroused only the gravest apprehensions as to the conclusion. She looked at her watch and continued:
"I'm so absurd—really I am, in ever so many ways, that no one would ever put me in a book. Every one would say no such person ever existed! It's incredible! And so I have to pretend I'm in a story all the time. It's the only way I can keep happy. And so many people are in my story now, not only Montani and the poor fellow locked up at Barton—oh, what if he should escape! Constance, it would be splendid if he should escape!"
"I don't think it would be splendid if he escaped!" I exclaimed, sitting up very straight at the bare thought of such a calamity. "He would either kill me or sue me for damages."
"Oh, that wouldn't fit into the story at all! Murder and damages are so frightfullysordid and generally disagreeable. We must have nothing like that in our story."
"You didn't finish your enumeration of characters," I suggested. "Is my part an important one or am I only a lay figure?"
"My dear boy," cried Mrs. Farnsworth, "you are the hero! You have been the hero from the hour the story began. If you should desert us now, whatever should we do!"
"If I'm the hero," I replied in her own key, "I shall begin making love to Alice at once."
Alice, far from being disturbed by my declaration, nodded her head approvingly.
"Oh, we had expected that! But you needn't be in a hurry. In a story like this one, that runs right on from day to day, we must leave a lot to chance. And there are ever so many chances——"
"Not all on the side of failure, I hope?"
"Wemustbe going." She laughed. I wished she hadn't that characteristic little turn of the head that was so beguiling!
Folly rode with us all the way to Barton. If anything sensible was uttered on the drive, I can't recall it. Our talk, chiefly of knightsand ladies, and wild flights from imaginary enemies, had the effect of spurring Flynn to perilous spurts of speed.
"Flynn has caught the spirit!" cried Alice exultingly. "Haven't you, Flynn?"
Flynn, turning to confirm this, caused the car to swerve and graze a truck piled high with household goods.
"We may elude the pursuing knights," I suggested, "but some village constable may take it into his head to pinch us."
"Oh, that would be lovely," cried Alice. "And we'd telegraph dear Mr. Torrence to come and bail us out."
We reached Barton at nine o'clock and after an informal supper I listened to Antoine's solemn reports as I walked to the garage. The prisoner had made no sign, he said, and nothing had occurred during the day.
"But there's this, Mr. Singleton, which you ought to know, sir. The old Tyringham people don't like the goings on here. You'll admit it's all mighty queer. I don't complain, sir, but some of the boys threatens to leave, sir. And I look at it this way, thatnobody understanding what the spying and bribes offered and taking prisoners is all about, is most peculiar. We got to know where we stand, that's what it's come to, sir. And the widow being flighty-like and Flynn coming home and saying nothing, but shaking his head when we ask him where he's been—You see for yourself, sir, how it looks to us."
What he said as to the general aspect of things was true, but I didn't admit that it was true. Alice had converted me to the notion that I was a character in a story, a plaything of fate, and I lightly brushed aside Antoine's melancholy plaint.
"Any man of you," I said, "who leaves this property will be brought back and shot. Tell that to the boys!"
Nevertheless, the perfect equanimity of the gentleman in the tool-house when I visited him the next morning shook my faith a trifle in the story-book features of life at Barton. He was an exemplary prisoner, the guards reported, and he had maintained the strictest silence in my absence. He ate, smoked, and read, courteously thanking the men for theirattentions, and that was all. When I showed myself at the window he rose and threw down the magazine he was reading and replied good-naturedly to my inquiry as to how he was getting along.
"I have no complaint except that the guards snore outrageously. The poor old chaps will sleep, you know."
"If you're so badly guarded, why don't you escape?" I asked tartly.
"It would relieve your mind a lot if I should disappear?" he asked insinuatingly.
"You are impertinent," I replied, irritated that he should have surmised that his presence was causing me uneasiness. "If you will come to your senses and tell me the meaning of your visits here, we may agree upon terms. As it stands, you're a trespasser; you tried to bribe a servant to rob the house. If you're at all familiar with criminal law in this country, you can estimate the number of years' imprisonment that will be handed you for these little indiscretions."
"If it's all so plain, why don't you hand me over to the authorities?" he asked, provokingly cool.
"I'm giving you a chance to confess and tell who's back of all this. Tell me just why your confederate Montani is annoying Mrs. Bashford, and I'll turn you loose."
"Perhaps, my dear sir, the motive that impels you to detain me unlawfully is the same that enjoins silence upon me! Please consider that a little."
I replied that I would consider nothing short of a confession. In a match of wits he was fully my equal, and in the mastery of his temper he certainly had the best of me.
"If you wait for me to confess anything, you will wait forever," he replied. "I repeat that we are impelled by the same motives, you and I. I think I needn't enlighten you as to what they are."
"I shall be glad to hear your idea of my motives," I answered feebly.
"I shall be frank," he replied readily. "The reason you don't turn me over to the police is the very simple one that you don't want to embarrass the mistress of the house yonder by causing the light of publicity to beat upon her very charming head. Youwish to save her annoyance, and possibly something much graver. I can see that you are impressed; but it ought to please you to know that I share your feeling of delicacy where she is concerned. And let me add that the Count Montani is animated by like feeling. So there we are, exactly on the same ground!"
"You haven't answered my questions!" I blustered to hide my annoyance at being thrust further into the dark. "You don't understand Mrs. Bashford," I went on hurriedly. "It is inconceivable that any one should wish to injure her or that she could have committed any act that would cause her to be spied upon. She's tremendously imaginative; she indulges in little fancies that are a part of her charm!"
"Little fancies!" he repeated, hiding a yawn. "It's deplorable for a pretty woman to have an imagination; there's danger there!"
"Your philosophy bores me," I said, and left him. He had lied about the snoring of the guards—Antoine satisfied me of that—but I gave instructions to double the watch.