CHAPTER VII.
Ten Thousand Sheep.
For several days thereafter Betty was kept closely confined to the house. Mrs. Atterbury had accepted her statement that she lost her way in attempting a short cut through the park as the explanation of her late return and attributed her own agitation to anxiety over the young girl's welfare. The mask was lifted for an instant, however, and Betty had a glimpse of the sullen fury which seethed beneath her employer's calm austerity.
She was in no sense made to feel like a virtual prisoner once more, but Mrs. Atterbury made constant demands upon her which practically filled her hours of daylight, and no further errands were broached.
The evenings were usually her own, however, and she spent them in fascinated study of the Egyptian translation. Her enthusiasm grew with its development, but she resolutely banished it from her mind during the daily routine, for fear her abstraction be noticed and questioned. Yet always, with every hour of freedom from espionage, she continued her protracted search. Whatever her object she sought it in every place of concealment which suggested itself to her. Betty learned quickly to know when the servants' tasks would lead them to various parts of the house, and managed skilfully to elude them. It was from her employer herself that she most feared discovery, but in this eventuality fortune had so far been with her.
Mrs. Atterbury's correspondence continued to prove negative and devoid of interest, but one morning she dictated a letter which caught Betty's wandering attention. It was evidently in reply to one which had not passed through the girl's hands, and the oddity of its phrasing impressed her so acutely that when her employer went to receive a caller, she sorted it from the pile of envelopes and read it again:
"My dear Shirley:Your letter received. Send me ten of the thousand circulars quoting sheep prices for March. Home market good this week for forty or fifty and even more points rise if my brokers handled the situation properly. State Senator Laramie advocates strict game laws now up before house. Comet, my horse, sold. Speranza invited us last Thursday out for week-end to see her pink hothouse roses bud. The frost killed them, however. Her sister is safe from submarines on the northern way home from Japan. Demon won red ribbon show held last month in Littleton, near Denver. Mrs. Ardmore's 'Alibi' beat him straight. John will meet your friend Professor Blythe, of Chicago University, on Saturday at eight. He says he has obeyed your instructions about buying new machinery; to substitute old endangers success. He fears block contracts will head off buyers, but he is conscientious. There is no longer any danger of piracy, discovery now patented so you can use the invention this year. Unwritten code among manufacturers in America is letting unions ruin us. Do you know what the result was out West in the Cote vs. Williams affair? Was the end satisfactory to all concerned?Write soon.Sincerely,Marcia Atterbury."
"My dear Shirley:
Your letter received. Send me ten of the thousand circulars quoting sheep prices for March. Home market good this week for forty or fifty and even more points rise if my brokers handled the situation properly. State Senator Laramie advocates strict game laws now up before house. Comet, my horse, sold. Speranza invited us last Thursday out for week-end to see her pink hothouse roses bud. The frost killed them, however. Her sister is safe from submarines on the northern way home from Japan. Demon won red ribbon show held last month in Littleton, near Denver. Mrs. Ardmore's 'Alibi' beat him straight. John will meet your friend Professor Blythe, of Chicago University, on Saturday at eight. He says he has obeyed your instructions about buying new machinery; to substitute old endangers success. He fears block contracts will head off buyers, but he is conscientious. There is no longer any danger of piracy, discovery now patented so you can use the invention this year. Unwritten code among manufacturers in America is letting unions ruin us. Do you know what the result was out West in the Cote vs. Williams affair? Was the end satisfactory to all concerned?
Write soon.
Sincerely,Marcia Atterbury."
The abrupt change of subject matter throughout, the short sentences and inconsistent style of the missive—now terse with telegraphic brevity, then verbose in unexpected and seemingly irrelevant detail—was utterly unlike her employer's usual concise mode of expression, and Betty's wonderment grew.
What had game laws to do with the market value of sheep, and who were "Professor Blythe," and "John" and the mysterious "Shirley" to whom the puzzling letter was addressed? The girl had not known that Mrs. Atterbury owned horses, or Mme. Cimmino a country residence; surely the latter had no conservatory in which to raise hothouse roses connected with her stuffy, overcrowded town apartment!
A minor point, too, stood out in challenging mendacity; Betty was too discriminating a judge of dogs to credit Demon with having taken a ribbon at any show. He might possess many traits which would render him invaluable as a watchdog, but his mixed breeding was too evident to admit of his qualifying on points.
As she further analyzed the letter two coincidences sprang to her mind, which brought back vividly the mysterious communication in code that she had opened on the first morning of her secretarial work. That, too, had contained a reference to sheep, but the number mentioned had been five thousand. The last sentence contained the word "comet," and Mrs. Atterbury had made use of it also in her present letter.
Another code! Betty stifled an exclamation as the truth burst upon her. It would be compatible with her employer's imperturbable daring to dictate a private and possibly incriminating letter to her unconscious amanuensis, secure in the belief that it would never occur to her to question its superficial meaning or seek to solve it without the key. Then, too, it might be that for certain cogent reasons, Mrs. Atterbury did not wish her own handwriting to appear in the communication, although she had said she would address the envelope herself. Betty had even signed the former's name, at her request.
If only she might hit upon the key! Concentration was impossible with the imminent fear of discovery before her, but she felt that she could not relinquish this rare opportunity to pierce the web of mystery without at least an effort.
Transcribing the letter hastily, she thrust the copy in her blouse, and when her employer returned she found the girl apparently deep in a book.
That afternoon, for the first time since her recent escapade, a suggestion was made that she go for a walk, and Betty eagerly availed herself of the permission.
"Be sure you do not get lost again!" Mrs. Atterbury warned her, with a smile which struck a chill to the girl's heart. "If you go beyond the gates, turn only in one direction and when you are tired, retrace your steps. I shall expect you home in an hour."
There was more than a hint of spring in the languorous, humid air, and the sight of a venturesome robin preening his scarlet breast on the lawn made the blood leap in her veins. In spite of the dark shadows which surrounded her, and the problematic future looming ahead, the youth in Betty responded joyously to the burgeoning year and she quickened her pace as she passed out of the tall gate.
Chance led her to turn southward along the drive and at the corner she came face to face with a man lounging against a lamp-post. He was smooth shaven and respectable in appearance, but the cap pulled low over his eyes gave him a furtive air and his burly figure and truculent bearing made her think somehow of a policeman, although the clothes he wore resembled those of an artisan. He glanced at her sharply and moved on, but the trail of cigarette stubs about the lamp-post told of a lengthy vigil, and Betty's heart contracted in sudden apprehension.
Could he be a detective watching the house? Had the law already found a trail from that secluded spot on Vanderduycken Road to the place where George Breckinridge had so mysteriously come to his end? Would swift retribution descend and engulf her also, the innocent with the guilty, while yet her position had availed her nothing?
She walked on quickly without looking back, conscious of the stranger's scrutiny. Her step was still brisk, although the buoyancy had died out of it as the momentary, carefree happiness was blotted from her face. The future, black and uncertain, stretched forth tentacles of doubt and dismay which dragged at her spirit and the bright day seemed suddenly lowering and chill.
A half-mile further on, she came to a low, square, ivy-covered gate-post, and paused almost wistfully to examine the springing green of the new shoots, when a sedate step upon the stone flagging made her glance upward.
A woman was coming toward her down the path which flanked the driveway from the house; an erect, elderly woman with smooth, white hair beneath her severe toque and a figure as trim as that of a girl. She was peering about her with an alert, bird-like movement of her head as if unaccustomed to viewing the world without artificial aid for her eyes and she had evidently not as yet observed the girl at the gate.
For an instant Betty stood rooted to the spot, staring as though she could scarcely credit the evidence of her senses. Slowly the blood receded from her face, leaving it blanched and ghastly, and into her eyes, dulled with introspection but a moment since, there crept a look of livid fear.
She swayed, then with a sobbing gasp turned blindly and fled as if the very fiends of darkness were pursuing her, back toward the doubtful haven of the house among the cedars.
She had scarcely traversed a hundred yards, however, when she collided violently with a young man whose approach she had not been conscious of in her supreme agitation. She clutched at him instinctively as the impact threatened to sweep her off her feet and he put out a steadying arm.
"I beg your pardon—" His tone was conventionally contrite, but he broke off in unfeigned surprise when she raised her head. "Why, Miss Shaw!"
It was the young man from the museum!
"Mr. Ross!" she gasped. "How stupid of me! I must have run full tilt into you."
"I'm not seriously injured," he assured her gravely, although his eyes twinkled. "But you were going at a most extraordinary pace. Tell me what villian was pursuing you and I will cheerfully annihiliate him."
Betty laughed with a note of sheer hysteria in her trembling tones.
"I have an appointment for which I am late." She lowered her tell-tale eyes. "I did not see you coming and the long deserted avenue tempted me to run for it. I—I cannot wait—"
"You are a long way from home." He had caught the dismayed, hunted look which she cast involuntarily over her shoulder. "If anyone has annoyed or frightened you, won't you allow me to walk with you to your destination?"
"Oh, no!" Her alarm at the suggestion was unmistakable. "Thank you, but I shall be quite all right, and I must go on alone. Nothing frightened me, Mr. Ross, I was only surprised at meeting you so unexpectedly in this part of town."
"And the Egyptian translation?" He was studying her face.
"I will bring it to you on Tuesday. Good bye."
Betty nodded in farewell, and turning, sped lightly off down the Drive, the fear that he might follow lending wings to her feet. The broad avenue stretched straight away for miles to the northward without a curve or obstruction which would serve to screen her destination from view, but she felt that in any event she could have gone no farther.
The close confinement of her position had ill prepared her for a test of physical endurance and when she reached the gateway of home her limbs were trembling beneath her and her panting breath came in agonized strangling sobs. Reckless of the young man's possible observation she turned in between the high gates, and staggering up the side path to a little knoll ringed with low-growing holly bushes, she sank breathlessly upon a stone bench, and crouched waiting, but her solitude was undisturbed and no tread of an approaching footstep sounded upon the graveled walk. Gradually her composure returned and with the gathering of her scattered forces she remembered her employer's final warning. Whatever the future held in store, she must play the game.
Herbert Ross had watched the girl until she disappeared within the gates, then slowly proceeded on his way. The surprise in their meeting had been mutual, but he made no attempt to fathom the reason for her presence in the neighborhood. His thoughts were busied with the cause of her evident terror. From whom or what was she flying when chance precipitated her into his arms?
She had recovered herself quickly, but her attempt to dissemble had been vain. The detective had read aright the hunted, cowering look in her eyes. What had so changed her from the confident, self-assured young woman of a few days previous to the trembling, terrified creature who had shrunk from him in dismay and attempted so vainly to conceal her consternation?
The solution of the enigma was approaching even as he cogitated, but so unprepared was he for the revelation that it was with a distinct sensation of shock he beheld Madame Dumois coming toward him down the avenue. The full significance of the scene burst upon his brain and the momentary flash of self-disgust for his stupidity was followed by the exultation of achievement. He had solved the case!
With the slenderest of clues to work upon and the most difficult of clients to handle; blindfold, knowing nothing of his subject's past or her relations with the stern old woman who was so relentlessly running her to earth, without even a name to guide him, he had found her! Nothing remained but to produce her and take his fee.
Then, unaccountably, the girl's face, as he had last seen it, rose before him, frightened, appealing in its very helplessness and despair. What would be her fate at the hands of his grim client? She was so young, with a sufficiently long future before her in which to atone for any mistake of the past. He shrank even in thought from the suggestion of crime in connection with her, and for the first time in his professional career he hesitated in the face of his duty.
And the scar! If indeed it was a birthmark as he had concluded, why had Madame Dumois not only eliminated it from her description, but deliberately denied its existence when he himself had referred to it? What had Betty Shaw to fear from her?
If he could only have felt assured of his client's motive in seeking out the girl, his course would have been clearly defined, but his experience forced him to conclude it could only be in a spirit of retribution for some real or fancied offense. If she were trying to find a missing relative, a daughter, perhaps, who had disappeared, her anxiety would have been more marked in spite of her iron self-control, and why would the other have flown from her? There could have been no reason for her secrecy with one professionally bound to preserve her confidence, save in the incredible contingency that the young girl was a fugitive from justice.
An impulse came to him to turn and flee, even as the girl herself had done; to put off the interview until he had made up his mind to face the issue. The next moment he banished the thought resolutely and stepped forward with extended hand.
"Madame Dumois! This is a fortunate meeting. I was just on my way to call upon you, although I rather fancied you could not resist the lure of this wonderful spring day!"
"It isn't the weather which has brought me out, young man." She spoke dryly, but her sharp eyes softened and her smile was one of unalloyed welcome. "When you reach my age you will remember your rheumatism and think twice before you venture out in this wonderful humid atmosphere. You have news?"
He shook his head.
"If you have an engagement, and I am detaining you——" he began weakly, raging within himself in self-contempt at his irresolution, but the old lady placed her hand upon his arm.
"No, Mr. Ross. I have no interests which supersede in importance the case on which you are working. Come back to the house and tell me why you wished to see me. Where is the young woman you mentioned? You have not lost sight of her?"
Her voice trembled with eagerness and the angular gloved hand upon his coat sleeve trembled too. It was the first sign of emotion she had betrayed in the detective's presence, but whether anxiety or vindictiveness actuated it, he was at a loss to determine.
"The resemblance can only be a casual one, on the strength of your description." He evaded the direct question. "Then, too, remember that the young woman whom I have seen bears a mark upon her face. That would seem to prove my mistake, would it not?"
They had turned and were walking together up the path which led to the house and for a short space the old lady maintained silence. When she replied her voice was low, but quite steady once more.
"But as you suggested it might be a fresh scar." She gave him a shrewd sidelong glance. "If my description of her appearance were so casual, and the mark would seem to disprove it, you must have surer grounds on which to base your theory."
He flashed one of his rare, winning smiles upon her.
"Madame Dumois, if you were not beyond the necessity of making a career for yourself, permit me to say quite without impertinence that you would have been an ornament to my profession."
A delicate flush tinted her cheeks like old ivory and a spark twinkled in her eyes.
"You are a most refreshing young man!" She tapped his arm with a long forefinger. "But you have not replied to my question."
"I have based my theory on more than the young woman's appearance," Herbert Ross admitted quietly. "Some of the data which you considered irrelevant furnished me with a clue to work from. But that is beside the point. I came this afternoon to find if you have been able to secure the photograph we talked of."
They had mounted the steps and the old lady rang the bell before she replied.
"Yes. I will get it for you at once."
While he waited in the gloom of the drawing-room he tried again to force his mind to a decision, and once more the girl's face loomed before his mental vision, but this time with a haunting entreaty in her soft eyes, and the pitiful scar seemed to plead for at least a respite from final judgment. He cursed himself for a soft-hearted weakling, a susceptible fool to be swerved from his course by the girl's unconscious appeal to the innate chivalry he had believed to have been burned out long ago by the fire of his experiences and vicissitudes in his chosen profession. If only the photograph would prove him mistaken!
The rustle of Madame Dumois' gown sounded upon the stair and in another moment she had entered the room and silently placed in his hand a cabinet size square of cardboard. He walked over to the lamp ostensibly to obtain a better light, but he paused with his shoulder turned to her. Trained as he was to disguise his own thoughts, he dared not trust himself to the old lady's keen scrutiny.
The lower part of the photograph had been cut away, perhaps to destroy a tell-tale inscription, but the upper portion disclosed the picture of a young girl seated in a high cathedral-backed chair, with her head turned sharply to the left, so that only her profile and the right side of her face were visible.
Herbert Ross drew a long breath and Madame Dumois' voice grated hoarsely upon the stillness.
"Well? Is it the girl?"
"I cannot tell." He turned and faced her squarely. "The scar I spoke of is on the young lady's left cheek, which as you see, does not show in this photograph. I only succeeded in obtaining a casual glimpse of her, and although there is a general resemblance, the scar changes the whole expression, and I cannot be certain until I have had an opportunity to observe her more closely."
The old lady seated herself heavily in the nearest chair and the lines seemed suddenly to deepen in her face.
"You're not sure?" She clenched her hands upon the chair arms until the knuckles showed white beneath the soft lace frills which fell from her sleeves. "But there is a resemblance, you say. It must be the girl I am searching for! Go to her at once, Mr. Ross. I cannot endure the strain of waiting longer!"
"One must have patience, Madame Dumois, in a case of this sort. If the young woman knows of your search, and is hiding from you; if she has committed a wrong and fears retribution——"
"That is beside the point!" She glared at him. "Never mind what I want of the girl, Mr. Ross. That is not your province. Only produce her for me and I will be responsible for the consequences."
Madame Dumois set her jaws with a snap, although her breath came quickly and her old eyes flashed.
The detective rose.
"I will see the subject I have in mind at the earliest possible opportunity, and if my suspicions are verified, I will bring her to you."
Late that night, Betty, all unconscious of the meeting between the two people who had so unexpectedly crossed her path that day, sat before the fire in her room, with a paper spread out between her hands. It was not the Egyptian translation tonight, however, which held her absorbed, but the copy of Mrs. Atterbury's strange letter.
She knew nothing of codes or ciphers and racked her brains vainly for a clue which would enable her to glean the hidden meaning from the cryptic sentences. The word "sheep" she felt intuitively would prove a starting point, since it had appeared in the first secret message; "comet," too, must have been indispensable, for the wording of the letter was obviously forced to give it space. But "ten of the thousand circulars quoting sheep prices for March" read lucidly enough and seemed devoid of any suggestion of ambiguity, yet——
All at once Betty started forward in her chair and with parted lips and eyes shining with repressed excitement she scanned the page once more. She had found it! The key which she had sought so vainly lay revealed and the words of the hidden message leaped out at her as in letters of fire.
Her mobile face in the light from the glowing hearth reflected each successive emotion as she read, and her expression changed from avid interest to a dawning horror. Then quite suddenly she threw back her head and laughed silently, in a convulsion of ironic mirth which ended in a little sob; and she sat staring at the name "Marcia Atterbury," which she herself had obediently signed to the note that morning, with a slowly gathering menace in her eyes. As the firelight flared and died again, the spreading birthmark upon her cheek seemed to move as if the five curved tentacles which radiated from it were writhing to grasp their prey and her small hands clenched until the paper tore.
At last she rose with a determined air, and thrusting the letter into the bosom of her loose, dark robe, she took her electric torch from its hiding place behind a loosened tile of the hearth.
Then extinguishing her lamp, she crept to the door, unbolted it softly and stood for a moment listening with every nerve tense. No sound echoed back to her from the sleeping house, no light pierced the darkness save the thread-like ray which played from her hand, and with cautious, silent footsteps she descended the stairs, and entering the library, closed the door behind her.