This, then, was the home of the canoe-maker mentioned by Ijima. I found his name repeated on the rural delivery mail-box affixed to the sign-post. Henry Holbrook was probably a boarder at the house—it required no great deductive powers to fathom that. I stole back through the hedge and down to the house-boat. The moon was coming up over the eastern wood, and the stars were beautifully clear. I walked the length of the platform, which was provided with a railing on the waterside, with growing curiosity. Several canoes, carefully covered with tarpaulins, lay about the deck, and chairs were drawn up close to the long, low house in shipshape fashion. If this house-boat was the canoe-maker's shop he had chosen a secluded and picturesque spot for it.
As I leaned against the rail studying the lines of the house, I heard suddenly the creak of an oar-lock in the stream behind, and then low voices talking. The deep night silence was so profound that any sound was doubly emphasized, and I peered out upon the water, at once alert and interested. I saw a dark shadow in the creek as the boat drew nearer, and heard words spoken sharply as though in command. I drew back against the house and waited. Possibly the canoe-maker had been abroad, or more likely Henry Holbrook had gone forth upon some mischief, and my mind flew at once to the two women at St. Agatha's, one of whom at least was still under my protection. The boat approached furtively, and I heard now very distinctly words spoken in Italian:
"Have a care; climb up with the rope and I'll follow."
Then the boat touched the platform lightly and a second later a man climbed nimbly up the side. His companion followed, and they tied their boat to the railing. They paused now to reconnoiter—so close to me that I could have touched them with my hands—and engaged in a colloquy. The taller man gave directions, the other replying in monosyllables to show that he understood.
"Go to the side porch of the cottage, and knock. When the man comes to the door tell him that you are the chauffeur from an automobile that has broken down in the road, and that you want help for a woman who has been hurt."
"Yes, sir."
"Then—you know the rest."
"The knife—it shall be done."
I have made it the rule of my life, against much painful experience and the admonitions of many philosophers, to act first and reason afterwards. And here it was a case of two to one. The men began stealing across the deck toward the steps that led up to the cottage, and with rather more zeal than judgment I took a step after them, and clumsily kicked over a chair that fell clattering wildly. Both men leaped toward the rail at the sound, and I flattened myself against the house to await developments. The silence was again complete.
"A chair blew over," remarked one of the voices.
"There is no wind," replied the other, the one I recognized as belonging to the leader.
"See what you can find—and have a care!"
The speaker went to the rail and began fumbling with the rope. The other, I realized, was slipping quite noiselessly along the smooth planking toward me, his bent body faintly silhouetted in the moonlight. I knew that I could hardly be distinguishable from the long line of the house, and I had the additional advantage of knowing their strength, while I was still an unknown quantity to them. The men would assume that I was either Hartridge, the boat-maker, or Henry Holbrook, one of whom they had come to kill, and there is, as every one knows, little honor in being the victim of mistaken identity. I heard the man's hand scratching along the wall as he advanced cautiously; there was no doubt but that he would discover me in another moment; so I resolved to take the initiative and give battle.
My finger-tips touched the back of one of the folded camp-chairs that rested against the house, and I slowly clasped it. I saw the leader still standing by the rail, the rope in his hand. His accomplice was so close that I could hear his quick breathing, and something in his dimly outlined crouching figure was familiar. Then it flashed over me that he was the dark sailor I had ordered from Glenarm that afternoon.
He was now within arm's length of me and I jumped out, swung the chair high and brought it down with a crash on his head. The force of the blow carried me forward and jerked the chair out of my grasp; and down we went with a mighty thump. I felt the Italian's body slip and twist lithely under me as I tried to clasp his arms. He struggled fiercely to free himself, and I felt the point of a knife prick my left wrist sharply as I sought to hold his right arm to the deck. His muscles were like iron, and I had no wish to let him clasp me in his short thick arms; nor did the idea of being struck with a knife cheer me greatly in that first moment of the fight.
My main business was to keep free of the knife. He was slowly lifting me on his knees, while I gripped his arm with both hands. The other man had dropped into the boat and was watching us across the rail.
"Make haste, Giuseppe!" he called impatiently, and I laughed a little, either at his confidence in the outcome or at his care for his own security; and my courage rose to find that I had only one to reckon with. I bent grimly to the task of holding the Italian's right arm to the deck, with my left hand on his shoulder and my right fastened to his wrist, he meanwhile choking me very prettily with his free hand. His knees were slowly raising me and crowding me higher on his chest and the big rough hand on my throat tightened. I suddenly slipped my left hand down to where my right gripped his wrist and wrenched it sharply. His fingers relaxed, and when I repeated the twist the knife rattled on the deck.
I broke away and leaped for the rail with some idea of jumping into the creek and swimming for it; and then the man in the boat let go twice with a revolver, the echoing explosions roaring over the still creek with the sound of saluting battleships.
"Hold on to that man—hold him!" he shouted from below. I heard the Italian scraping about on the deck for his knife as I dodged round the house. I missed the steps in the dark and scrambled for them wildly, found them and was dashing for the path before the last echo of the shot had died away down the little valley. I was satisfied to let things stand as they were, and leave Henry Holbrook and the canoe-maker to defend their own lives and property. Then, when I was about midway of the steps, a man plunged down from the garden and had me by the collar and on my back before I knew what had happened.
There was an instant's silence in which I heard angry voices from the house-boat. My new assailant listened, too, and I felt his grasp on me tighten, though I was well winded and tame enough.
I heard the boat strike the platform sharply as the second man jumped into it; then for an instant silence again held the valley.
My captor seemed to dismiss the retreating boat, and poking a pistol into my ribs gave me his attention.
"Climb up these steps, and do as I tell you. If you run, I will shoot you like a dog."
"There's a mistake—" I began chokingly, for the Italian had almost strangled me and my lungs were as empty as a spent bellows.
"That will do. Climb!" He stuck the revolver into my back and up I went and through the garden toward the cottage. A door opening on the veranda was slightly ajar, and I was thrust forward none too gently into a lighted room.
My captor and I studied each other attentively for half a minute. He was beyond question the man whom Helen Holbrook had sought at the house-boat in the summer dusk. Who Hartridge was did not matter; it was evident that Holbrook was quite at home in the canoe-maker's house, and that he had no intention of calling any one else into our affairs. He had undoubtedly heard the revolver shots below and rushed from the cottage to investigate; and, meeting me in full flight, he had naturally taken it for granted that I was involved in some designs on himself. As he leaned against a table by the door his grave blue eyes scrutinized me with mingled indignation and interest. He wore white duck trousers turned up over tan shoes, and a gray outing shirt with a blue scarf knotted under its soft collar.
I seemed to puzzle him, and his gaze swept me from head to foot several times before he spoke. Then his eyes flashed angrily and he took a step toward me.
"Who in the devil are you and what do you want?"
"My name is Donovan, and I don't want anything except to get home."
"Where do you come from at this hour of the night?"
"I am spending the summer at Mr. Glenarm's place near Annandale."
"That's rather unlikely; Mr. Glenarm is abroad. What were you doing down there on the creek?"
"I wasn't doing anything until two men came along to kill you and I mixed up with them and got badly mussed for my trouble."
He eyed me with a new interest.
"They came to kill me, did they? You tell a good story, Mr. Donovan."
"Quite so. I was standing on the deck of the houseboat or whatever it is—"
"Where you had no business to be—"
"Granted. I had no business to be there; but I was there and came near getting killed for my impertinence, as I have told you. Those fellows rowed up from the direction of the lake. One of them told the other to call you to your door on the pretense of summoning aid for a broken motor-car off there in the road. Then he was to stab you. The assassin was an Italian. His employer spoke to him in that tongue. I happen to be acquainted with it."
"You are a very accomplished person," he observed dryly.
He walked up to me and felt my pockets.
"Who fired that pistol?"
"The man in charge of the expedition. The Italian was trying to knife me on the deck, and I broke away from him and ran. His employer had gone back to the boat for safety and he took a crack at me as I ran across the platform. It's not the fault of either that I'm not quite out of business."
An inner door back of me creaked slightly. My captor swung round at the sound.
"O Rosalind! It's all right. A gentleman here lost his way and I'm giving him his bearings."
The door closed gently, and I heard the sound of steps retreating through, the cottage. I noted the anxious look in Holbrook's face as he waited for the sounds to cease; then he addressed me again.
"Mr. Donovan, this is a quiet neighborhood, and I am a peaceable man, whose worldly goods could tempt no one. There were undoubtedly others besides yourself down there at the creek, for one man couldn't have made all that row; but as you are the one I caught I must deal with you. But you have protested too much; the idea of Italian bandits on Tippecanoe Creek is creditable to your imagination, but it doesn't appeal to my common sense. I don't know about your being a guest at Glenarm House—even that is flimsy. A guest in the absence of the host is just a little too fanciful. I'm strongly disposed to take you to the calaboose at Tippecanoe village."
Having been in jail several times in different parts of the world I was not anxious to add to my experiences in that direction. Moreover, I had come to this lonely house on the Tippecanoe to gain information touching the movements of Henry Holbrook, and I did not relish the idea of being thrown into a country jail by him. I resolved to meet the situation boldly.
"You seem to accept my word reluctantly, even after I have saved you from being struck down at your own door. Now I will be frank with you. I had a purpose in coming here—"
He stepped back and folded his arms.
"Yes, I thought so." He looked about uneasily, before his eyes met mine. His hands beat nervously on his sleeves as he waited, and I resolved to bring matters to an issue by speaking his name.
"I know who you are, Mr. Holbrooke."
His hands went into his pockets again, and he stepped back and laughed.
"You are a remarkably bad guesser, Mr. Donovan. If you had visited me by daylight instead of coming like a thief at midnight, you would have saved yourself much trouble. My name is displayed over the outer gate. I am Robert Hartridge, a canoe-maker."
He spoke the name carelessly, his manner and tone implying that there could be no debating the subject. I was prepared for evasion but not for this cool denial of his identity.
"But this afternoon, Mr. Holbrook, I chanced to follow the creek to this point and I saw—"
"You probably saw that house-boat down there, that is my shop. As I tell you, I am a maker of canoes. They have, I hope, some reputation—honest hand-work; and my output is limited. I shall be deeply chagrined if you have never heard of the Hartridge canoe."
He shook his head in mock grief, walked to a cabarette and took up a pipe and filled it. He was carrying off the situation well; but his coolness angered me.
"Mr. Hartridge, I am sorry that I must believe that heretofore you have been known as Holbrook. The fact was clenched for me this afternoon, quite late, as I stood in the path below here. I heard quite distinctly a young woman call you father."
"So? Then you're an eavesdropper as well as a trespasser!"—and the man laughed.
"We will admit that I am both," I flared angrily.
"You are considerate, Mr. Donovan!"
"The young woman who called you father and whom you answered from the deck of the house-boat is a person I know."
"The devil!"
He calmly puffed his pipe, holding the bowl in his fingers, his idle hand thrust into his trousers pocket.
"It was Miss Helen Holbrook that I saw here, Mr. Hartridge."
He started, then recovered himself and peered into the pipe bowl for a second; then looked at me with an amused smile on his face.
"You certainly have a wonderful imagination. The person you saw, if you saw any one on your visit to these premises to-day, was my daughter, Rosalind Hartridge. Where do you think you knew her, Mr. Donovan?"
"I saw her this morning, at St. Agatha's School. I not only saw her, but I talked with her, and I am neither deaf nor blind."
He pursed his lips and studied me, with his head slightly tilted to one side, in a cool fashion that I did not like.
"Rather an odd place to have met this Miss—what name, did you say?—Miss Helen Holbrook;—a closed school-house, and that sort of thing."
"You may ease your mind on that point; she was with your sister, her aunt, Mr. Holbrook; and I want you to understand that your following Miss Patricia Holbrook here is infamous and that I have no other business but to protect her from you."
He bent his eyes upon me gravely and nodded several times.
"Mr. Donovan," he began, "I repeat that I am not Henry Holbrook, and my daughter—is my daughter, and not your Miss Helen Holbrook. Moreover, if you will go to Tippecanoe or to Annandale and ask about me you will learn that I have long been a resident of this community, working at my trade, that of a canoe-maker. That shop down there by the creek and this house, I built myself."
"But the girl—"
"Was not Helen Holbrook, but my daughter, Rosalind Hartridge. She has been away at school, and came home only a week ago. You are clearly mistaken; and if you will call, as you undoubtedly will, on your Miss Holbrook at St. Agatha's in the morning, you will undoubtedly find your young lady there quite safely in charge of—what was the name, Miss Patricia Holbrook?—in whose behalf you take so praiseworthy an interest."
He was treating me quite as though I were a stupid school-boy, but I rallied sufficiently to demand:
"If you are so peaceable and only a boat-maker here, will you tell me why you have enemies who are so anxious to kill you? I imagine that murder isn't common on the quiet shores of this little creek, and that an Italian sailor is not employed to kill men who have not a past of some sort behind them."
His brows knit and the jaw under his short beard tightened. Then he smiled and threw his pipe on the cabarette.
"I have only your word for it that there's an Italian in the wood-pile. I have friends among the country folk here and in the lake villages who can vouch for me. As I am not in the least interested in your affairs I shall not trouble you for your credentials; but as the hour is late and I hope I have satisfied you that we have no acquaintances in common, I will bid you good night. If you care for a boat to carry you home—"
"Thank you, no!" I jerked.
He bowed with slightly exaggerated courtesy, walked to the door and threw it open. He spoke of the beauty of the night as he walked by my side through the garden path to the outer gate. He asked where I had left my horse, wished me a pleasant ride home, and I was striding up the highway in no agreeable frame of mind before I quite realized that after narrowly escaping death on his house-boat at the hands of his enemies, Henry Holbrook had not only sent me away as ignorant as I had come, but had added considerably to my perplexities.
Of course, in company with the rest of my fellow-men, I had always tied the sheet in a sailing-boat; but in so little and crank a concern as a canoe, and with these charging squalls, I was not prepared to find myself follow the same principle; and it inspired me with some contemptuous views of our regard for life. It is certainly easier to smoke with the sheet fastened; but I had never before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco against an obvious risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable pipe.—R. L. S., An Inland Voyage.
The faithful Ijima opened the door of Glenarm House, and after I had swallowed the supper he always had ready for me when I kept late hours, I established myself in comfort on the terrace and studied the affairs of the house of Holbrook until the robins rang up the dawn. On their hint I went to bed and slept until Ijima came in at ten o'clock with my coffee. An old hymn chimed by the chapel bells reminded me that it was Sunday. Services were held during the summer, so the house servants informed me, for the benefit of the cottagers at Port Annandale; and walking to our pier I soon saw a flotilla of launches and canoes steering for St. Agatha's. I entered the school grounds by the Glenarm gate and watched several smart traps approach by the lake road, depositing other devout folk at the chapel.
The sight of bright parasols and modish gowns, the semi-urban Sunday that had fallen in this quiet corner of the world, as though out of the bright blue above, made all the more unreal my experiences of the night. And just then the door of the main hall of St. Agatha's opened, and forth came Miss Pat, Helen Holbrook and Sister Margaret and walked, toward the chapel.
It was Helen who greeted me first.
"Aunt Pat can't withstand the temptations of a day like this. We're chagrined to think we never knew this part of the world before!"
"I'm sure there is no danger," said Miss Pat, smiling at her own timidity as she gave me her hand. I thought that she wished to speak to me alone, but Helen lingered at her side, and it was she who asked the question that was on her aunt's lips.
"We are undiscovered? You have heard nothing, Mr. Donovan?"
"Nothing, Miss Holbrook," I said; and I turned away from Miss Pat—whose eyes made lying difficult—to Helen, who met my gaze with charming candor.
And I took account of the girl anew as I walked between her and Miss Pat, through a trellised lane that alternated crimson ramblers and purple clematis, to the chapel, Sister Margaret's brown-robed figure preceding us. The open sky, the fresh airs of morning, the bird-song and the smell of verdurous earth in themselves gave Sabbath benediction. I challenged all my senses as I heard Helen's deep voice running on in light banter with her aunt. It was not possible that I had seen her through the dusk only the day before, traitorously meeting her father, the foe of this dear old lady who walked beside me. It was an impossible thing; the thought was unchivalrous and unworthy of any man calling himself gentleman. No one so wholly beautiful, no one with her voice, her steady tranquil eyes, could, I argued, do ill. And yet I had seen and heard her; I might have touched her as she crossed my path and ran down to the house-boat!
She wore to-day a white and green gown and trailed a green parasol in a white-gloved hand. Her small round hat with its sharply upturned brim imparted a new frankness to her face. Several times she looked at me quickly—she was almost my own height—and there was no questioning the perfect honesty of her splendid eyes.
"We hoped you might drop in yesterday afternoon," she said, and my ears were at once alert.
"Yes," laughed Miss Pat, "we were—"
"We were playing chess, and almost came to blows!" said Helen. "We played from tea to dinner, and Sister Margaret really had to come and tear us away from our game."
I had now learned, as though by her own intention, that she had been at St. Agatha's, playing a harmless game with her aunt, at the very moment that I had seen her at the canoe-maker's. And even more conclusive was the fact that she had made this statement before her aunt, and that Miss Pat had acquiesced in it.
We had reached the church door, and I had really intended entering with them; but now I was in no frame of mind for church; I murmured an excuse about having letters to write.
"But this afternoon we shall go for a ride or a sail; which shall it be, Miss Holbrook?" I said, turning to Miss Pat in the church porch.
She exchanged glances with Helen before replying.
"As you please, Mr. Donovan. It might be that we should be safer on the water—"
I was relieved. On the lake there was much less chance of her being observed by Henry Holbrook than in the highways about Annandale. It was, to be sure, a question whether the man I had encountered at the canoe-maker's was really her brother; that question was still to be settled. The presence of Gillespie I had forgotten utterly; but he was, at any rate, the least important figure in the little drama unfolding before me.
"I shall come to your pier with the launch at five o'clock," I said, and with their thanks murmuring in my ears I turned away, went home and called for my horse.
I repeated my journey of the night before, making daylight acquaintance with the highway. I brought my horse to a walk as I neared the canoe-maker's cottage, and I read his sign and the lettering on his mail-box and satisfied myself that the name Hartridge was indisputably set forth on both. The cedar hedge and the pines before the house shut the cottage off from the curious completely; but I saw the flutter of white curtains in the open gable windows, and the red roof agleam in the bright sunlight. There was no one in sight; perhaps the adventure and warning of the night had caused Holbrook to leave; but at any rate I was bent upon asking about him in Tippecanoe village.
This place, lying about two miles beyond the canoe-maker's, I found to be a sleepy hamlet of perhaps fifty cottages, a country store, a post-office, and a blacksmith shop. There was a water-trough in front of the store, and I dismounted to give my horse a drink while I went to the cottage behind the closed store to seek the shopkeeper.
I found him in a garden under an apple-tree reading a newspaper. He was an old fellow in spectacles, and, assuming that I was an idler from the summer colony, he greeted me courteously.
He confirmed my impression that the crops were all in first-rate condition, and that the day was fine. I questioned him as to the character of the winters in this region, spoke of the employments of the village folk, then mentioned the canoe-maker.
"Yes; he works the year round down there on the Tippecanoe. He sells his canoes all over the country—the Hartridge, that's his name. You must have seen his sign there by the cedar hedge. They say he gets big prices for his canoes."
"I suppose he's a native in these parts?" I ventured.
"No; but he's been here a good while. I guess nobody knows where he comes from—or cares. He works pretty hard, but I guess he likes it."
"He's an industrious man, is he?"
"Oh, he's a steady worker; but he's a queer kind, too. Now he never votes and he never goes to church; and for the sake of the argument, neither do I,"—and the old fellow winked prodigiously. "He's a mighty odd man; but I can't say that that's against him. But he's quiet and peaceable, and now his daughter—"
"Oh, he has a daughter?"
"Yes; and that's all he has, too; and they never have any visitors. The daughter just come home the other day, and we ain't hardly seen her yet. She's been away at school."
"I suppose Mr. Hartridge is absent sometimes; he doesn't live down there all the time, does he?"
"I can't say that I could prove it; sometimes I don't see him for a month or more; but his business is his own, stranger," he concluded pointedly.
"You think that if Mr. Hartridge had a visitor you'd know it?" I persisted, though the shopkeeper grew less amiable.
"Well, now I might; and again I mightn't. Mr. Hartridge is a queer man. I don't see him every day, and particularly in the winter I don't keep track of him."
With a little leading the storekeeper described Hartridge for me, and his description tallied exactly with the man who had caught me on the canoe-maker's premises the night before. And yet, when I had thanked the storekeeper and ridden on through the village, I was as much befuddled as ever. There was something decidedly incongruous in the idea that a man who was, by all superficial signs, at least, a gentleman, should be established in the business of making canoes by the side of a lonely creek in this odd corner of the world. From the storekeeper's account, Hartridge might be absent from his retreat for long periods; if he were Henry Holbrook and wished to annoy his sister, it was not so far from this lonely creek to the Connecticut town where Miss Pat lived. Again, as to the daughter, just home from school and not yet familiar to the eyes of the village, she might easily enough be an invention to hide the visits of Helen Holbrook. I found myself trying to account for the fact that, by some means short of the miraculous, Helen Holbrook had played chess with Miss Pat at St. Agatha's at the very hour I had seen her with her father on the Tippecanoe. And then I was baffled again as I remembered that Paul Stoddard had sent the two women to St. Agatha's, and that their destination could not have been chosen by Helen Holbrook.
My thoughts wandered into many blind alleys as I rode on. I was thoroughly disgusted with myself at finding the loose ends of the Holbrooks' affairs multiplying so rapidly. The sun of noon shone hot overhead, and I turned my horse into a road that led homeward by the eastern shore of the lake. As I approached a little country church at the crown of a long hill I saw a crowd gathered in the highway and reined my horse to see what had happened. The congregation of farmers and their families had just been dismissed; and they were pressing about a young man who stood in the center of an excited throng. Drawing closer, I was amazed to find my friend Gillespie the center of attention.
"But, my dear sir," cried a tall, bearded man whom I took to be the minister of this wayside flock, "you must at least give us the privilege of thanking you! You can not know what this means to us, a gift so munificent—so far beyond our dreams."
Whereat Gillespie, looking bored, shook his head, and tried to force his way through the encircling rustics. He was clad in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers of fantastic plaid, with a cap to match.
A young farmer, noting my curiosity and heavy with great news, whispered to me:
"That boy in short pants put a thousand-dollar bill in the collection basket. All in one bill! They thought it was a mistake, but he told our preacher it was a free gift."
Just then I heard the voice of my fool raised so that all might hear:
"Friends, on the dusty highway of life I can take none of the honor or credit you so kindly offer me. The money I have given you to-day I came by honestly. I stepped into your cool and restful house of worship this morning in search of bodily ease. The small voice of conscience stirred within me. I had not been inside a church for two years, and I was greatly shaken. But as I listened to your eloquent pastor I was aware that the green wall-paper interrupted my soul currents. That vegetable-green tint is notorious as a psychical interceptor. Spend the money as you like, gentlemen; but if I, a stranger, may suggest it, try some less violent color scheme in your mural decorations."
He seemed choking with emotion as with bowed head he pushed his way through the circle and strode past me. The people stared after him, mystified and marveling. I heard an old man calling out:
"How wonderful are the ways of the Lord!"
I let Gillespie pass, and followed him slowly until a turn in the road hid us from the staring church folk. He turned and saw me.
"You have discovered me, Donovan. Be sure your sins will find you out! A simple people, singularly moved at the sight of a greenback. I have rarely caused so much excitement."
"I suppose you are trying to ease your conscience by giving away some of your button money."
"That is just it, Donovan. You have struck the brass tack on the head. But now that we have met again, albeit through no fault of my own, let me mention matters of real human interest."
"You might tell me what you're doing here first."
"Walking; there were no cabs, Donovan."
"You choose a queer hour of the day for your exercise."
"One might say the same for your ride. But let us be sensible. I dare say there's some common platform on which we both may stand."
"We'll assume it," I replied, dismounting by the roadside that I might talk more easily. Bandages were still visible at his wrists, and a strip of court-plaster across the knuckles of his right hand otherwise testified to the edges of the glass in St. Agatha's garden. He held up his hands ruefully.
"Those were nasty slashes; and I ripped them up badly in climbing out of your window. But I couldn't linger: I am not without my little occupations."
"You stand as excellent chance of being shot if you don't clear out of this. If there's any shame in you you will go without making further trouble."
"It has occurred to me," he began slowly, "that I know something that you ought to know. I saw Henry Holbrook yesterday."
"Where?" I demanded.
"On the lake. He's rented a sloop yacht called theStiletto. I passed it yesterday on the Annandale steamer and I saw him quite distinctly."
"It's all your fault that he's here!" I blurted, thoroughly aroused. "If you had not followed those women they might have spent the remainder of their lives here and never have been molested. But he undoubtedly caught the trail from you."
Gillespie nodded gravely and frowned before he answered.
"I am sorry to spoil your theory, my dear Irish brother, but put this in your pipe:Henry was here first! He rented the sail-boat ten days ago—and I made my triumphal entry a week later. Explain that, if you please, Mr. Donovan."
I was immensely relieved by this disclosure, for it satisfied me that I had not been mistaken in the identity of the canoe-maker. I had, however, no intention of taking the button king into my confidence.
"Where is Holbrook staying?" I asked casually.
"I don't know—he keeps afloat. TheStilettobelongs to a Cincinnati man who isn't coming here this summer and Holbrook has got the use of the yacht. So much I learned from the boat storage man at Annandale; then I passed theStilettoand saw Henry on board."
It was clear that I knew more than Gillespie, but he had supplied me with several interesting bits of information, and, what was more to the point, he had confirmed my belief that Henry Holbrook and the canoe-maker were the same person.
"You must see that I face a difficult situation here, without counting you. You don't strike me as a wholly bad lot, Gillespie, and why won't you run along like a good boy and let me deal with Holbrook? Then when I have settled with him I'll see what can be done for you. Your position as an unwelcome suitor, engaged in annoying the lady you profess to love, and causing her great anxiety and distress, is unworthy of the really good fellow I believe you to be."
He was silent for a moment; then he spoke very soberly.
"I promise you, Donovan, that I will do nothing to encourage or help Holbrook. I know as well as you that he's a blackguard; but my own affairs I must manage in my own way."
"But as surely as you try to molest those women you will have to answer to me. I am not in the habit of beginning what I never finish, and I intend to keep those women out of your way as well as out of Holbrook's clutches, and if you get a cracked head in the business—well, the crack's in your own skull, Mr. Gillespie."
He shrugged his shoulders, threw up his head and turned away down the road.
There was something about the fellow that I liked. I even felt a certain pity for him as I passed him and rode on. He seemed simple and guileless, but with a dogged manliness beneath his absurdities. He was undoubtedly deeply attached to Helen Holbrook and his pursuit of her partook of a knight-errantish quality that would have appealed to me in other circumstances; but he was the most negligible figure that had yet appeared in the Holbrook affair, and as I put my horse to the lope my thoughts reverted to Red Gate. That chess game and Helen's visit to her father were still to be explained; if I could cut those cards out of the pack I should be ready for something really difficult. I employed myself with such reflections as I completed my sweep round the lake, reaching Glenarm shortly after two o'clock.
I was hot and hungry, and grateful for the cool breath of the house as I entered the hall.
"Miss Holbrook is waiting in the library," Ijima announced; and in a moment I faced Miss Pat, who stood in one of the open French windows looking out upon the wood.
She appeared to be deeply absorbed and did not turn until I spoke.
"I have waited for some time; I have something of importance to tell you, Mr. Donovan," she began, seating herself.
"Yes, Miss Holbrook."
"You remember that this morning, on our way to the chapel, Helen spoke of our game of chess yesterday?"
"I remember perfectly," I replied; and my heart began to pound suddenly, for I knew what the next sentence would be.
"Helen was not at St. Agatha's at the time she indicated."
"Well, Miss Pat," I laughed, "Miss Holbrook doesn't have to account to me for her movements. It isn't important—"
"Why isn't it important?" demanded Miss Pat in a sharp tone that was new to me. She regarded me severely, and as I blinked under her scrutiny she smiled a little at my discomfiture.
"Why, Miss Holbrook, she is not accountable to me for her actions. If she fibbed about the chess it's a small matter."
"Perhaps it is; and possibly she is not accountable to me, either."
"We must not probe human motives too deeply, Miss Holbrook," I said evasively, wishing to allay her suspicions, if possible. "A young woman is entitled to her whims. But now that you have told me this, I suppose I may as well know how she accounted to you for this trifling deception."
"Oh, she said she wished to explore the country for herself; she wished to satisfy herself of our safety; and she didn't want you to think she was running foolishly into danger. She chafes under restraint, and I fear does not wholly sympathize with my runaway tactics. She likes a contest! And sometimes Helen takes pleasure in—in—being perverse. She has an idea, Mr. Donovan, that you are a very severe person."
"I am honored that she should entertain any opinion of me whatever," I replied, laughing.
"And now," said Miss Pat, "I must go back. Helen went to her room to write some letters against a time when it may be possible to communicate with our friends, and I took the opportunity to call on you. It might be as well, Mr. Donovan, not to mention my visit."
I walked beside Miss Pat to the gate, where she dismissed me, remarking that she would be quite ready for a ride in the launch at five o'clock.
The morning had added a few new-colored threads to the tangled skein I was accumulating, but I felt that with the chess story explained I could safely eliminate the supernatural; and I was relieved to find that no matter what other odd elements I had to reckon with, a girl who could be in two places at the same time was not among them.
Holbrook had not impressed me disagreeably; he had treated me rather decently, all things considered. The fact that he had enemies who were trying to kill him added zest to the whole adventure upon which my clerical friend Stoddard had launched me. The Italian sailor was a long way from tide-water, and who his employer was—the person who had hung aloof so conservatively during my scramble on the deck of the house-boat—remained to be seen. From every standpoint the Holbrook incident promised well, and I was glad to find that human beings were still capable of interesting me so much.
We are in love's land to-day;Where shall we go?Love, shall we start or stay,Or sail or row?There's many a wind and way,And never a May but May;We are in love's hand to-day;Where shall we go?—Swinburne.
The white clouds of the later afternoon cruised dreamily between green wood and blue sky. I brought the launch to St. Agatha's landing and embarked the two exiles without incident. We set forth in good spirits, Ijima at the engine and I at the wheel. The launch was comfortably large, and the bright cushions, with Miss Pat's white parasol and Helen's red one, marked us with the accent of Venice. I drove the boat toward the open to guard against unfortunate encounters, and the course once established I had little care but to give a wide berth to all the other craft afloat. Helen exclaimed repeatedly upon the beauty of the lake, which the west wind rippled into many variations of color. I was flattered by her friendliness; and yielded myself to the joy of the day, agreeably thrilled—I confess as much—by her dark loveliness as she turned from time to time to speak to me.
Snowy sails stood forth upon the water like listless clouds; paddles flashed as they rose dripping and caught the sun; and the lake's wooded margins gave green horizons, cool and soothing to the eye, on every hand. One of the lake steamers on its incessant journeys created a little sea for us, but without disturbing my passengers.
"Aunt Pat is a famous sailor!" observed Helen as the launch rocked. "The last time we crossed the captain had personally to take her below during a hurricane."
"Helen always likes to make a heroine of me," said Miss Pat with her adorable smile. "But I am not in the least afraid on the water. I think there must have been sailors among my ancestors."
She was as tranquil as the day. Her attitude toward her niece had not changed; and I pleased myself with the reflection that mere ancestry—the vigor and courage of indomitable old sea lords—did not sufficiently account for her, but that she testified to an ampler background of race and was a fine flower that had been centuries in making.
We cruised the shore of Port Annandale at a discreet distance and then bore off again.
"Let us not go too near shore anywhere," said Helen; and Miss Pat murmured acquiescence.
"No; we don't care to meet people," she remarked, a trifle anxiously.
"I'm afraid I don't know any to introduce you to," I replied, and turned away into the broadest part of the lake. The launch was capable of a lively clip and the engine worked capitally. I had no fear of being caught, even if we should be pursued, and this, in the broad light of the peaceful Sabbath afternoon, seemed the remotest possibility.
It had been understood that we were to remain out until the sun dropped into the western wood, and I loitered on toward the upper lake where the shores were rougher.
"That's a real island over there—they call it Battle Orchard—you must have a glimpse of it."
"Oh, nothing is so delightful as an island!" exclaimed Helen; and she quoted William Sharp's lines:
"There is an Isle beyond our ken,Haunted by Dreams of weary men.Gray Hopes enshadow it with wingsWeary with burdens of old things:There the insatiate water-springsRise with the tears of all who weep:And deep within it,—deep, oh, deep!—The furtive voice of Sorrow sings.There evermore,Till Time be o'er,Sad, oh, so sad! the Dreams of menDrift through the Isle beyond our ken."