“That is very good of you, Tower,” murmured Meiklejohn brokenly. He looked in far worse plight than the man who had survived such a desperate adventure.
“Well, my dear chap, I was naturally anxious to see you, because—but perhaps you don’tknow that those scoundrels meant to attack you, not me?”
Meiklejohn smiled wanly. “Oh, yes,” he said. “The police found that out by some means. I believe the authorities actually suspected me of being concerned in the affair.”
Tower laughed boisterously. “That’s the limit!” he roared. “Come with me to the club. We’ll soon spoil that yarn. What a fuss the papers made! I’m quite a celebrity.”
“I’ll follow you in half an hour. And, look here, Tower, this matter did really affect me. There was a woman in the case. I butted into an old feud merely as a friend. I think matters will now be settled amicably. Allow me to make good your loss in every way. If you can persuade the police that the whole thing was a hoax—”
For the first time Tower looked non-plussed. He was enjoying the notoriety thrust on him so unexpectedly.
“Well, I can hardly do that,” he said. “But if I can get them to drop further inquiries I’ll do it, Meiklejohn, for your sake. Gee! Come to look at you, you must have had a bad time.... Well, good-by, old top! See you later. Suppose we dine together? That will help dissipate this queer story as to you being mixed up in an attack on me. Now, I must be off and play ghost in the club smoking-room.”
Meiklejohn heard his fluttering man-servant let Tower out. He tottered to a chair, and Ralph Voles came in noiselessly.
“Well, what about it?” chuckled the reprobate. “We seem to have struck it lucky.”
“Go away!” snarled the Senator, goaded to a sudden rage by the other man’s cynical humor. “I can stand no more to-day.”
“Oh, take a pull at this!” And the decanter was pushed across the table. “Didn’t Dr. Johnson once say that claret is the liquor for boys, port for men, but he who aspires to be a hero should drink brandy? And you must be a hero to-night. Get onto the Bureau and use the soft pedal. Then beat it to the club. You and Tower ought to be well soused in an hour. He’s a good sport, all right. I’ll mail him that sixpence if it’s still in my pants.”
“Do nothing of the sort!” snapped Meiklejohn. “You’re—”
“Ah, cut it out! Tower wants plenty to talk about. His crooked sixpence will fill many an eye, and the more he spiels the better it is for you. Gee, but you’re yellow for a two-hundred pounder! Now, listen! Make those cops drop all charges against Rachel. Then, in a week or less, I’ll come along and fix things about the girl. She’s the fly in the amber now. Mind she doesn’t get out, or the howl about Mr. Ronald Tower’s trip to Barnegat won’t amount toa row of beans against the trouble pretty Winifred can give you.Dios!It’s a pity. She’s a real beauty, and that’s more than any one can say for you, Brother William.”
“You go to—”
“That’s better! You’re reviving. Well, good-by, Senator!Au revoir sans adieux!”
The big man swaggered out. Meiklejohn drank no spirits. He needed a clear brain that evening. After deep self-communing he rang up police headquarters and inquired for Mr. Clancy.
“Mr. Clancy is out,” he was told by some one with a strong, resonant voice. “Anything we can do, Senator?”
“About that poor woman, Rachel Craik—”
“Oh, she’s all right! She gave us a farewell smile two hours ago.”
“You mean she is at liberty?”
“Certainly, Senator.”
“May I ask to whom I am speaking?”
“Steingall, Chief of the Bureau.”
“This wretched affair—it’s merely a family squabble between Miss Craik and a relative—might well end now, Mr. Steingall.”
“That is for Mr. Tower and Mr. Van Hofen to decide.”
“Yes, I quite understand. I have seen Mr. Tower, and he shares my opinion.”
“Just so, Senator. At any rate, the yacht mystery is almost cleared up.”
“I agree with you most heartily.”
For the first time in nearly twenty-four hours Senator Meiklejohn looked contented with life when he hung up the receiver. Therefore, it was well for his peace of mind that he could not hear Steingall’s silent comment as he, in turn, disconnected the phone.
“That old fox agreed with me too heartily,” he thought. “The yacht mystery is only just beginning—or I’m a Dutchman!”
That evening of her dismissal from Brown’s, and her meeting with Rex Carshaw, Winifred opened the door of the dun house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street the most downhearted girl in New York. Suddenly, mystery had gathered round her. Something threatened, she knew not what. When the door slammed behind her her heart sank—she was alone not only in the house, but in the world. This thought possessed her utterly when the excitement caused by Carshaw and Fowle, and their speedy arrest, had passed.
That her aunt, the humdrum Rachel Craik, should have any sort of connection with the murder of Ronald Tower, of which Winifred had chanced first to hear on Riverside Drive that morning, seemed the wildest nonsense. Then Winifred was overwhelmed afresh, and breathed to herself, “I must be dreaming!”
And yet—the house was empty! Her aunt was not there—her aunt was held as a criminal! It was not a dream, but only like one, a waking nightmare far more terrifying. Most of therooms in the house had nothing but dust in them. Rachel Craik had preferred to live as solitary in teeming Manhattan as a castaway on a rock in the midst of the sea.
Winifred’s mind was accustomed now to the thought of that solitude shared by two. This night, when there were no longer two, but only one, the question arose strongly in her mind—why had there never been more than two? Certainly her aunt was not rich, and might well have let some of the rooms. Yet, even the suggestion of such a thing had made Rachel Craik angry. This, for the first time, struck Winifred as odd. Everything was puzzling, and all sorts of doubts peeped up in her, like ghosts questioning her with their eyes in the dark.
When the storm of tears had spent its force she had just enough interest in her usual self to lay the table and make ready a meal, but not enough interest to eat it. She sat by a window of her bedroom, her hat still on her head, looking down. The street lamps were lit. It grew darker and darker. Down there below feet passed and repassed in multitudes, like drops of the eternal cataract of life.
Winifred’s eyes rested often on the spot where Rex Carshaw had spoken to her and had knocked down Fowle, her tormentor. In hours of trouble, when the mind is stunned, it will often go off into musings on trivial things. Sothis young girl, sitting at the window of the dark and empty house, let her thoughts wander to her rescuer. He was well built, and poised like an athlete. He had a quick step, a quick way of talking, was used to command; his brow was square, and could threaten; he had the deepest blue eyes, and glossy brown hair; he was a tower of strength to protect a girl; and his wife, if he had one, must have a feeling of safety. Thoughts, or half-thoughts, like these passed through her mind. She had never before met any young man of Carshaw’s type.
It became ten o’clock. She was tired after the day’s work and trouble of mind. The blow of her dismissal, the fright of her interview with the police, the arrest of her aunt—all this sudden influx of mystery and care formed a burden from which there was no escape for exhausted nature but in sleep. Her eyes grew weary at last, and, getting up, she discarded her hat and some of her clothes; then threw herself on the bed, still half-dressed, and was soon asleep.
The hours of darkness rolled on. That tramp of feet in the street grew thin and scattered, as if the army of life had undergone a repulse. Then there was a rally, when the theaters and picture-houses poured out their crowds; but it was short, the powers of night were in the ascendant, and soon the last stragglers retreatedunder cover. Of all this Winifred heard nothing—she slept soundly.
But was it in a dream, that voice which she heard? Something somewhere seemed to whisper, “She must be taken out of New York—she is the image of her mother.”
It was a hushed, grim voice.
The room, the whole house, had been in darkness when she had thrown herself on the bed. But, somewhere, had she not been conscious of a light at some moment? Had she dreamed this, or had she seen it? She sat up in bed, staring and startled. The room was in darkness. In her ears were the words: “She is the image of her mother.”
She had heard them in some world, she did not know in which. She listened with the keen ears of fear. Not a wagon nor a taxi any longer moved in the street; no step passed; the house was silent.
But after a long ten minutes the darkness seemed to become pregnant with a sound, a steady murmur. It was as if it came from far away, as if a brook had spurted out of the granite of Manhattan, and was even more like a dream-sound than those words which still buzzed in Winifred’s ear. Somehow that murmur as of water in the night made Winifred think of a face, one which, as far as she could remember, she had never consciously seen—a man’sface, brown, hard, and menacing, which had looked once into her eyes in some state of semi-conscious being, and then had vanished. And now this question arose in her mind: was it not that face, hard and brown, which she had never seen, and yet once had seen—were not those the cruel lips which somewhere had whispered: “She is the image of her mother?”
Winifred, sitting up in bed, listened to the steady, dull murmuring a long time, till there came a moment when she said definitely: “It is in the house.”
For, as her ears grew accustomed to its tone, it seemed to lose some of its remoteness, to become more local and earthly. Presently this sound which the darkness was giving out became the voices of people talking in subdued undertones not far off. Nor was it long before the murmur was broken by a word sharply uttered and clearly heard by her—a gruff and unmistakable oath. She started with fright at this, it sounded so near. She was certain now that there were others in the house with her. She had gone to bed alone. Waking up in the dead of the small hours to find men or ghosts with her, her heart beat horribly.
But ghosts do not swear—at least such was Winifred’s ideal of the spirit world. And she was brave. Nerving herself for the ordeal, she found the courage to steal out of bed and makeher way out of the room into a passage, and she had not stood there listening two minutes when she was able to be certain that the murmur was going on in a back room.
How earnest that talk was—how low in pitch! It could hardly be burglars there, for burglars do not enter a house in order to lay their heads together in long conferences. It could not be ghosts, for a light came out under the rim of the door.
After a time Winifred stole forward, tapped on a panel, and her heart jumped into her mouth as she lifted her voice, saying:
“Aunty, is it you?”
There was silence at this, as though they had been ghosts, indeed, and had taken to flight at the breath of the living.
“Speak! Who is it?” cried Winifred with a fearful shrillness now. A chair grated on the floor inside, hurried steps were heard, a key turned, the door opened a very little, and Winifred saw the gaunt face of Rachel Craik looking dourly at her, for she had frightened this masterful woman very thoroughly.
“Oh, aunt, itisyou!” gasped Winifred with a flutter of relief.
“You are to go to bed, Winnie,” said Rachel.
“It is you! They have let you out, then?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what happened; let me come in—”
“Go back to bed; there’s a good girl. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.”
“Oh, but I am glad! I was so lonely and frightened! Aunt, what was it all about?”
“About nothing; as far as I can discover,” said Rachel Craik—“a mere mare’s-nest found by a set of stupid police. Some man—a Mr. Ronald Tower—was supposed to have been murdered, and I was supposed to have some connection with it, though I had never seen the creature in my life. Now the man has turned up safe and sound, and the pack of noodles have at last thought fit to allow a respectable woman to come home to her bed.”
“Oh, how good! Thank heaven! But, you have some one in there with you?”
“In here—where?”
“Why, in the room, aunt.”
“I? No, no one.”
“I am sure I heard—”
“Now, really, you must go to bed, Winifred! What are you doing awake at this hour of the morning, roaming about the house? You were asleep half an hour ago—”
“Oh, then, it was your light I saw in my sleep! I thought I heard a man say: ‘She is the image—’”
“Just think of troubling me with your dreams at this unearthly hour! I’m tired, child; go to bed.”
“Yes—but, aunt, this day’s work has cost me my situation. I am dismissed!”
“Well, a holiday will do you good.”
“Good gracious—you take it coolly!”
“Go to bed.”
A sudden din of tumbling weights and splintering wood broke out behind the half-open door. For, within the room a man had been sitting on a chair tilted back on its two hind legs. The chair was old and slender, the man huge; and one of the chair-legs had collapsed under the weight and landed the man on the floor.
“Oh, aunt! didn’t you say that no one—” began Winifred.
The sentence was never finished. Rachel Craik, her features twisted in anger, pushed the young girl with a force which sent her staggering, and then immediately shut the door. Winifred was left outside in the darkness.
She returned to her bed, but not to sleep. It was certain that her aunt had lied to her—there was more in the air than Winifred’s quick wits could fathom. The fact of Rachel Craik’s release did not clear up the mystery of the fact that she had been arrested. Winifred lay, spurring her fancy to account for all that puzzled her; and underlying her thoughts was the man’s face and those strange words which she had heard somewhere on the borders of sleep.
She fancied she had seen the man somewherebefore. At last she recalled the occasion, and almost laughed at the conceit. It was a picture of Sitting Bull, and that eminent warrior had long since gone to the happy hunting-grounds.
Meantime, the murmur of voices in the back room had recommenced and was going on. Then, towards morning, Winifred became aware that the murmur had stopped, and soon afterward she heard the click of the lock of the front door and a foot going down the front steps.
Rising quickly, she crept to the window and looked out. Going from the door down the utterly empty street she saw a man, a big swaggerer, with something of the over-seas and the adventurer in his air. It was Ralph “Voles,” the “brother” of Senator William Meiklejohn. But Winifred could not distinguish his features, or she might have recognized the man she had seen in her half-dreams, and who had said: “She must be taken out of New York—she is the image of her mother.”
Voles had hardly quitted the place before a street-car conductor, who had taken temporary lodgings the previous evening in a house opposite, hurried out into the coldness of the hour before dawn. He seemed pleased at the necessity of going to work thus early.
“Oh, boy!” he said softly. “I’m glad there’s somethin’ doin’ at last. I was getting that sleepy. I could hardly keep me eyes open!”
When Detective Clancy came to the Bureau a few hours later he found a memorandum to the effect that a Mr. Ralph V. Voles, of Chicago, stopping at a high-grade hotel in Fifth Avenue, had dined with Rachel Craik in a quiet restaurant, had parted from her, and met her again, evidently by appointment. The two had entered the house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street separately shortly before midnight, and Voles returned to his hotel at four o’clock in the morning.
Clancy shook his head waggishly.
“Who’d have thought it of you, Rachel?” he cackled. “And, now that I’ve seenyou, what sort of weird specimen can Mr. Ralph V. Voles, of Chicago, be? I’ll look him up!”
Carshaw and Fowle enjoyed, let us say, a short but almost triumphal march to the nearest police-station. Their escort of loafers and small boys grew quickly in numbers and enthusiasm. It became known that the arrest was made in East One Hundred and Twelfth Street, and that street had suddenly become famous. The lively inhabitants of the East Side do not bother their heads about grammatical niceties, so the gulf between “the yacht murder” and “the yacht murderers” was easily bridged. The connection was clear. Two men in a boat, and two men in the grip of the law! It needed only Fowle’s ensanguined visage to complete the circle of reasoning. Consciousness of this ill-omened popularity infuriated Carshaw and alarmed Fowle. When they arrived at the precinct station-house each was inclined to wish he had never seen or heard of Winifred Bartlett!
Their treatment by the official in charge only added fuel to the flame. The patrolman explained that “these two were fighting about thegirl who lives in that house in East One Hundred and Twelfth,” and this vague statement seemed all-sufficient. The sergeant entered their names and addresses. He went to the telephone and came back.
“Sit there!” he said authoritatively, and they sat there, Carshaw trying to take an interest in a “drunk” who was brought in, and Fowle alternately feeling the sore lump at the back of his head and the sorer cartilage of his nose. After waiting half an hour Carshaw protested, but the sergeant assured him that “a man from the Bureau” wasen routeand would appear presently. At last Clancy came in. That is why he was “out” when Senator Meiklejohn inquired for him.
“H’lo!” he cried when he set eyes on Fowle. “My foreman bookbinder! Your folio looks somewhat battered!”
“Glad it’s you, Mr. Clancy,” snuffled Fowle. “You can tell these cops—”
“Supposeyoutell me,” broke in the detective, with a glance at Carshaw.
“Yes, Fowle, speak up,” said Carshaw. “You’ve a ready tongue. Explain your fall from grace.”
“There’s nothing to it,” growled Fowle. “I know the girl, an’ asked her to come with me this evening. She’d been fired by the firm, an’—”
“Ah! Who fired her?” Clancy’s inquiry sounded most matter-of-fact.
“The boss, of course.”
“Why?”
“Well—this newspaper stuff. He didn’t like it.”
“He told you so?”
“Yes. That is—the department is a bit crowded. He—er—asked me—Well, we reckoned we could do without her.”
“I see. Go on.”
“So I just came up-town, meanin’ to talk things over, an’ find her a new job, but she took it all wrong.”
Clancy whirled around on Carshaw. Evidently he had heard enough from Fowle.
“And you?” he snapped.
“I know nothing of either party,” was the calm answer. “I couldn’t help overhearing this fellow insulting a lady, so put him where he belongs—in the gutter.”
“Mr. Clancy,” interrupted the sergeant, “you’re wanted on the phone.”
The detective was detained a good five minutes. When he returned he walked straight up to Fowle.
“Quit!” he said, with a scornful and sidelong jerk of the head. “You got what you wanted. Get out, and leave Miss Bartlett alone in the future.”
Fowle needed no second bidding.
“As for me?” inquired Carshaw, with arched eyebrows.
“May I drop you in Madison Avenue?” said Clancy. Once the police car was speeding down-town he grew chatty.
“Wish I had seen you trimming Fowle,” he said pleasantly. “I’ve a notion he had a finger in the pie of Winifred Bartlett’s dismissal.”
“It may be.”
Carshaw’s tone was indifferent. Just then he was aware only of a very definite resentment. His mother would be waiting for dinner, and alarmed, like all mothers who own motoring sons. The detective looked surprised, but made his point, for all that.
“I suppose you’ll be meeting that very charming young lady again one of these days,” he said.
“I? Why? Most unlikely.”
“Not so. Do you floor every man you see annoying a woman in the streets?”
“Well—er—”
“Just so. Winifred interested you. She interests me. I mean to keep an eye on her, a friendly eye. If you and she come together again, let me know.”
“Really—”
“No wonder you are ready with a punch. You won’t let a man speak. Listen, now. Thepatrolman held you and Fowle because he had orders to arrest, on any pretext or none, any one who seemed to have the remotest connection with the house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street, where Winifred Bartlett lives with her aunt. You’ve read of the Yacht Mystery and the lassoing of Ronald Tower?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Tower are my close friends.”
“Exactly. Now, Rachel Craik, Winifred’s aunt, was released from custody an hour ago. She would have been charged with complicity in the supposed murder of Tower. I say ‘supposed’ because there was no murder. Mr. Tower has returned home, safe and sound—”
“By Jove, that’s good news! But what a strange business it is! My mother was with Helen Tower this morning, trying to console her.”
“Good! Now, perhaps, you’ll sit up and take notice. The truth is that the mystery of this outrage on Tower is not—cannot be—of recent origin. I’m sure it is bound up with some long-forgotten occurrence, possibly a crime, in which the secret of the birth and parentage of Winifred Bartlett is involved. That girl is no more the niece of her ‘aunt’ than I am her nephew.”
“But one is usually the niece of one’s aunt.”
“I think you need a cigarette,” said Clancy dryly. “Organisms accustomed to poisonousstimulants often wilt when deprived too suddenly of such harmful tonics.”
Carshaw edged around slightly and looked at this quaint detective.
“I apologize,” he said contritely. “But the crowd got my goat when it jeered at me as a murderer. And the long wait was annoying, too.”
Clancy, however, was not accustomed to having his confidences slighted. He was ruffled.
“Perhaps what I was going to say is hardly worth while,” he snapped. “It was this. If, by chance, your acquaintance with Winifred Bartlett goes beyond to-day’s meeting, and you learn anything of her life and history which sounds strange in your ears, you may be rendering her a far greater service than by flattening Fowle’s nose if you bring your knowledge straight to the Bureau.”
“I’ll not forget, Mr. Clancy. But let me explain. It will be a miracle if I meet Miss Bartlett again.”
“It’ll be a miracle if you don’t,” retorted the other.
So there was a passing whiff of misunderstanding between these two, and, like every other trivial phase of a strange record, it was destined to bulk large in the imminent hazards threatening one lone girl. Thus, Clancy ceased being communicative. He might have referredguardedly to Senator Meiklejohn. But he did not. Oddly enough, his temperament was singularly alike to Carshaw’s, and that is why sparks flew.
The heart, however, is deceitful, and Fate is stronger than an irritated young man whose conventional ideals have been besmirched by being marched through the streets in custody. The garage in which Carshaw’s automobile was housed temporarily was located near One Hundred and Twelfth Street. He went there on the following afternoon to see the machine stripped and find out the exact extent of the damage. Yet he passed Winifred’s house resolutely, without even looking at it. He returned that way at half past six, and there, on the corner, was posted Fowle—Fowle, with a swollen nose! There also was their special patrolman, with an eye for both!
The mere sight of Fowle prowling in unwholesome quest stirred up wrath in Carshaw’s mind; and the heart, always subtle and self-deceiving, whispered elatedly: “Here you have an excuse for renewing an acquaintance which you wished to make yourself believe you did not care to renew.”
He walked straight to the door of the brown-stone house and rang. Then he rapped. There was no answer. When he had rapped a second time he walked away, but he had not gone farwhen he was almost startled to find himself face to face with Winifred coming home from making some purchases, with a bag on her arm.
He lifted his hat. Winifred, with a vivid blush, hesitated and stopped. From the corner Fowle stared at the meeting, and made up his mind that it was really a rendezvous. The patrolman thought so, too, but he had new orders as to these two.
“Pardon me, Miss Bartlett,” said Carshaw. “Ah, you see I know your name better than you know mine. Mine is Carshaw—Rex Carshaw, if I may introduce myself. I have this moment tapped at your door, in the hope of seeing you.”
“Why so?” asked Winifred.
“Do you wish to forget the incident of yesterday evening?”
“No; hence my stopping to hear what you have to say.”
“Well, then, I am here to see to the repairing of my car—not in the hope of seeingyou, you know”—Carshaw said this with a twinkle in his eye; “though, perhaps, if the truth were known, a little in that hope, too. Then, there at the corner, I find the very man who molested you last night looking at your house, and this spurred me to knock in order to ask a favor. Was I wrong?”
“What favor, sir?”
“That, if ever you have the least cause to be displeased with the conduct of that man in the future, you will consider it asmybusiness, and as an insult offered tome—as it will be after the trouble of last night—and that you will let me know of the matter by letter. Here is my address.”
Winifred hesitated, then took the proffered card.
“But—” she faltered.
“No; promise me that. It really is my business now, you know.”
“I cannot write to you. I—don’t—know you.”
“Then I shall only have to stand sentinel a certain number of hours every day before your house, to see that all goes well. You can’t prevent me doing that, can you? The streets are free to everybody.”
“You are only making fun.”
“That I am not. See how stern and solemn I look. I shall stand sentinel and gaze up at your window on the chance of seeing your face. Will you show yourself sometimes to comfort me?”
“No.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“I’d better promise to write the letter—”
“There now, that’s a point for me!”
“Oh, don’t make me laugh.”
“Point number two—for you have been crying, Miss Winifred!”
“I?”
“Yes, I’m sorry to say. Oh, I only wish—”
“How do you know my name?”
“What, the ‘Winifred’ and the ‘Bartlett?’ Winifred was always one of my favorite names for a girl, and you look the name all through. Well, Fowle and I were taken to the station-house last night, and in the course of the inquiry I heard your name, of course.”
“Did they do anything to you for knocking down Mr. Fowle?”
“No, no. Of course, they didn’t do anything to me. In fact, they seemed rather pleased. Were you anxious, then, about me?”
“I was naturally anxious, since it was I who—”
“Ah, now, don’t spoil it by giving a reason. You were anxious, that is enough; let me be proud, as a recompense. And now I want to ask you two favors, one of them a great favor. The first is to tell me all you know about this Fowle. And the second—why you look so sad and have been crying. May we walk on a little way together, and then you will tell me?”
They walked on together, and for a longer time than either of them realized. Winifred was rather bewitched. Carshaw was something of a revelation to her in an elusive quality ofmind or manner which she in her heart could only call “charming.”
She spoke of life at Brown, Son & Brown’s, in Greenwich Village. She even revealed that she had been crying because of dark clouds which had gathered round her of a sudden, doubts and fears for which she had no name, and because of a sort of dream the previous night in which she had seen a man’s Indian face, and heard a hushed, grim voice say: “She must be taken out of New York—she is the image of her mother.”
“Ah! And your mother—who and where is she?” asked Carshaw.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. I never knew her,” answered Winifred droopingly, with a shake of her head.
“And as to your father?”
“I have no father. I have only my aunt.”
“Winifred,” said Carshaw solemnly, “will you consider me your friend from this night?”
“You are kind. I trust you,” she murmured.
“A friend is a person who acts for another with the same zeal as for himself, and who has the privilege of doing whatever seems good to him for that other. Am I to regard myself as thus privileged?”
Winifred, who had never flirted with any young man in her life, fancied she knew nothingabout the rules of the game. She was confused. She veiled her eyes.
“I don’t know—perhaps—we shall see,” she stammered. Which was not so bad for a novice.
They parted with a warm hand-shake. Ten minutes later Carshaw was in a telephone booth with Clancy’s ear at the other end of the wire.
“I have just had a chat with Miss Bartlett,” he began.
“Tut, tut! How passing strange!” cackled the detective. “The merest chance in the world, I’m sure.”
“Yes. The miracle came off, so you’re entitled to your gibe. But I have news for you. It’s about a dream and a face.”
“Gee! Throw the picture on the screen, Mr. Carshaw.”
Then Carshaw spoke, and Clancy listened and bade him work more miracles, even though he might have to report such phenomena to the Psychical Research Society. Next morning Carshaw, a hard man when offended, visited Brown, Son & Brown, who had executed a large rebinding order for his father’s library, and Fowle was speedily out of a job. The ex-foreman knew the source of his misfortune, and vowed vengeance.
In the evening, about half past six, Carshaw was back in One Hundred and Twelfth Street. There had been no promise of a meeting betweenhim and Winifred—no promise, but, by those roundabout means by which people in sympathy understand each other, it was perfectly well understood that they would happen to meet again that night.
He waited in the street, but Winifred did not appear. The brown-stone house was in total darkness. An hour passed, and the waiting was weary, for it was drizzling. But Carshaw waited, being a persistent young man. At last, after seven, a pang of fear shot through his breast. He remembered the girl’s curious account of the dream-man.
He determined to knock at the door, relying on his wits to invent some excuse if any stranger opened. But to his repeated loud knockings there came no answer. The house seemed abandoned. Winifred was gone! Even a friendly patrolman took pity on his drawn face and drew near.
“No use, sir!” he confided. “They’ve skipped. But don’t let onItold you. Call up the Detective Bureau!”
“
Busy, Mr. Carshaw?” inquired some one when an impatient young man got in touch with Mulberry Street after an exasperating delay.
“Not too busy to try and defeat the scoundrels who are plotting against a defenseless girl,” he cried.
“Well, come down-town. We’ll expect you in half an hour.”
“But, Mr. Clancy asked me—”
“Better come,” said the voice, and Carshaw, though fuming, bowed to authority.
It is good for the idle rich that they should be brought occasionally into sharp contact with life’s realities. During his twenty-seven years Rex Carshaw had hardly ever known what it meant to have a purpose balked. Luckily for him, he was of good stock and had been well reared.
The instinct of sport, fostered by triumphs at Harvard, had developed an innate quality of self-reliance and given him a physical hardihood which revelled in conquest over difficulties. Each winter, instead of lounging in flannels atthe Poinciana, he was out with guides and dogs in the Northwest after moose and caribou.
He preferred polo to tennis. He would rather pass a fortnight in oilskins with the rough and ready fisher-folk of the Maine coast than don the white ducks and smart caps of his wealthy yachting friends. In a word, society and riches had not spoiled him. But he did like to have his own way, and the suspicion that he might be thwarted in his desire to help Winifred Bartlett cut him now like a sword. So he chafed against the seeming slowness of the Subway, and fuel was added to the fire when he was kept waiting five minutes on arriving at police headquarters.
He found Clancy closeted with a big man who had just lighted a fat cigar, and this fact in itself betokened official callousness as to Winifred’s fate. Hot words leaped from his lips.
“Why have you allowed Miss Bartlett to be spirited away? Is there no law in this State, nor any one who cares whether or not the law is obeyed? She’s gone—taken by force. I’m certain of it.”
“And we also are certain of it, Mr. Carshaw,” said Steingall placidly. “Sit down. Do you smoke? You’ll find these cigars in good shape,” and he pushed forward a box.
“But, is nothing being done?” Nevertheless,Carshaw sat down and took a cigar. He had sufficient sense to see that bluster was useless and only meant loss of dignity.
“Sure. That’s why I asked you to come along.”
“You see,” put in Clancy, “you short-circuited the connections the night before last, so we let you cool your heels in the rain this evening. We want no ‘first I will and then I won’t’ helpers in this business.”
Carshaw met those beady brown eyes steadily. “I deserved that,” he said. “Now, perhaps, you’ll forget a passing mood. I have come to like Winifred.”
Clancy stared suddenly at a clock.
“Tick, tick!” he said. “Eight fifteen.Nom d’un pipe, now I understand.”
For the first time the true explanation of Senator Meiklejohn’s covert glance at the clock the previous morning had occurred to him. That wily gentleman wanted Winifred out of the house for her day’s work before the police interviewed Rachel Craik. He had fought hard to gain even a few hours in the effort to hinder inquiry.
“What’s bitten you, Frog?” inquired the chief.
Probably—who knows?—but there was some reasonable likelihood that the Senator’s name might have reached Carshaw’s ears had not thetelephone bell jangled. Steingall picked up the receiver.
“Long-distance call. This is it, I guess,” and his free hand enjoined silence. The talk was brief and one-sided. Steingall smiled as he replaced the instrument.
“Now, we’re ready for you, Mr. Carshaw,” he said, lolling back in his chair again. “The Misses Craik and Bartlett have arrived for the night at the Maples Inn, Fairfield, Connecticut. Thanks to you, we knew that some one was desperately anxious that Winifred should leave New York. Thanks to you, too, she has gone. Neither her aunt nor the other interested people cared to have her strolling in Central Park with an eligible and fairly intelligent bachelor like Mr. Rex Carshaw.”
Carshaw’s lips parted eagerly, but a gesture stayed him.
“Yes. Of course, I know you’re straining at the leash, but please don’t go off on false trails. You never lose time casting about for the true line. This is the actual position of affairs: A man known as Ralph V. Voles, assisted by an amiable person named Mick the Wolf—he was so christened in Leadville, where they sum up a tough accurately—hauled Mr. Ronald Tower into the river. For some reason best known to himself, Mr. Tower treats the matter rather as a joke, so the police cancarry it no further. But Voles is associated with Rachel Craik, and was in her house during several hours on the night of the river incident and the night following. It is almost safe to assume that he counseled the girl’s removal from New York because she is ‘the image of her mother.’ One asks why this very natural fact should render Winifred Bartlett an undesirable resident of New York. There is a ready answer. She might be recognized. Such recognition would be awkward for somebody. But the girl has lived in almost total seclusion. She is nineteen. If she is so like her mother as to be recognized, her mother must have been a person of no small consequence, a lady known to and admired by a very large circle of friends. The daughter of any other woman, presumably long since dead, who was not of social importance, could hardly be recognized. You follow this?”
“Perfectly.” Carshaw was beginning to remodel his opinion of the Bureau generally, and of its easy-going, genial-looking chief in particular.
“This fear of recognition, with its certain consequences,” went on Steingall, pausing to flick the ash off his cigar, “is the dominant factor in Winifred’s career as directed by Rachel Craik. This woman, swayed by some lingering shreds of decent thought, had the child welleducated, but the instant she approaches maturity, Winifred is set to earn a living in a bookbinding factory. Why? Social New York does not visit wholesale trade houses, nor travel on the elevated during rush hours. But it does go to the big stores and fashionable milliners where a pretty, well proportioned girl can obtain employment readily. Moreover, Rachel Craik would never ‘hear of’ the stage, though Winifred can sing, and believes she could dance. And how prompt recognition might be in a theater. It all comes to this, Mr. Carshaw: the Bureau’s hands are tied, but it can and will assist an outsider, whom it trusts, who means rescuing Miss Bartlett from the exile which threatens her. We have looked you over carefully, and think you are trustworthy—”
“The Lord help you if you’re not!” broke in Clancy. “I like the girl. It will be a bad day for the man who works her evil.”
Carshaw’s eyes clashed with Clancy’s, as rapiers rasp in thrust and parry. From that instant the two men became firm friends, for the young millionaire said quietly:
“I have her promise to call for help on me, first, Mr. Clancy.”
“You’ll follow her to Fairfield then?” and Steingall sat up suddenly.
“Yes. Please advise me.”
“That’s the way to talk. I wish there was aheap more boys like you among the Four Hundred. But I can’t advise you. I’m an official. Suppose, however, I were a young gentleman of leisure who wanted to befriend a deserving young lady in Winifred Bartlett’s very peculiar circumstances. I’d persuade her to leave a highly undesirable ‘aunt,’ and strike out for herself. I’d ask my mother, or some other lady of good standing, to take the girl under her wing, and see that she was cared for until a place was found in some business or profession suited to her talents. And that’s as far as I care to go at this sitting. As for the ways and means, in these days of fast cars and dare-devil drivers who are in daily danger of losing their licenses—”
“By gad, I’ll do it,” and Carshaw’s emphatic fist thumped the table.
“Steady! This Voles is a tremendous fellow. In a personal encounter you would stand no chance. And he’s the sort that shoots at sight. Mick the Wolf, too, is a bad man from the wild and woolly West. The type exists, even to-day. We have gunmen here in New York who’d clean up a whole saloonful of modern cowboys. Voles and Mick are in Fairfield, but I’ve a notion they’ll not stay in the same hotel as Winifred and her aunt. I think, too, that they may lie low for a day or two. You’ll observe, of course, that Rachel Craik, so poverty-strickenthat Winifred had to earn eight dollars a week to eke out the housekeeping, can now afford to travel and live in expensive hotels. All this means that Winifred ought to be urged to break loose and come back to New York. The police will protect her if she gives them the opportunity, but the law won’t let us butt in between relatives, even supposed ones, without sufficient justification. One last word—you must forget everything I’ve said.”
“And another last word,” cried Clancy. “The Bureau is a regular old woman for tittle-tattle. We listen to all sorts of gossip. Some of it is real news.”
“And, by jing, I was nearly omitting one bit of scandal,” said Steingall. “It seems that Mick the Wolf and a fellow named Fowle met in a corner saloon round about One Hundred and Twelfth Street the night before last. They soon grew thick as thieves, and Fowle, it appears, watched a certain young couple stroll off into the gloaming last night.”
“Next time I happen on Fowle!” growled Carshaw.
“You’ll leave him alone. Brains are better than brawn. Ask Clancy.”
“Sure thing!” chuckled the little man. “Look at us two!”
“Anyhow, I’d hate to have the combination working against me,” and with this deft rejoinderCarshaw hurried away to a garage where he was known. At dawn he was hooting an open passage along the Boston Post Road in a car which temporarily replaced his own damaged cruiser.
Within three hours he was seated in the dining-room of the Maples Inn and reading a newspaper. It was the off season, and the hotel contained hardly any guests, but he had ascertained that Winifred and her aunt were certainly there. For a long time, however, none but a couple of German waiters broke his vigil, for this thing happened before the war. One stout fellow went away. The other, a mere boy, remained and flecked dust with a napkin, wondering, no doubt, why the motorist sat hours at the table. At last, near noon, Rachel Craik, with a plaid shawl draped around her angular shoulders, and Winifred, in a new dress of French gray, came in.
Winifred started and cast down her eyes on seeing who was there. Carshaw, on his part, apparently had no eyes for her, but kept a look over the top of his newspaper at Rachel Craik, to see whether she recognized him, supposing it to be a fact that he had been seen with Winifred. She seemed, however, hardly to be aware of his presence.
The girl and the woman sat some distance from him—the room was large—near a window,looking out, and anon exchanging a remark in quiet voices. Then a lunch was brought into them, Carshaw meantime buried in the newspaper except when he stole a glance at Winifred.
His hope was that the woman would leave the girl alone, if only for one minute, for he had a note ready to slip into Winifred’s hand, beseeching her to meet him that evening at seven in the lane behind the church for some talk “on a matter of high importance.”
But fortune was against him. Rachel Craik, after her meal, sat again at the window, took up some knitting, and plied needles like a slow machine. The afternoon wore on. Finally, Carshaw rang to order his own late lunch, and the German boy brought it in. He rose to go to table; but, as if the mere act of rising spurred him to further action, he walked straight to Winifred. The hours left him were few, and his impatience had grown to the point of desperateness now. He bowed and held out the paper, saying:
“Perhaps you have not seen this morning’s newspaper?” At the same time he presented her the note.
Miss Craik was sitting two yards away, half-turned from Winifred, but at this afternoon offer of the morning’s paper she glanced round fully at Winifred, and saw, that as Winifredtook the newspaper, she tried to grasp with it a note also which lay on it—tried, but failed, for the note escaped, slipped down on Winifred’s lap, and lay there exposed.
Miss Craik’s eyebrows lifted a little, but she did not cease her knitting. Winifred’s face was painfully red, and in another moment pale. Carshaw was not often at his wits’ end, but now for some seconds he stood embarrassed.
Rachel Craik, however, saved him by saying quickly: “The gentleman has dropped something in your lap, Winifred.” Whereupon Winifred handed back the unfortunate note.
What was he to do now? If he wrote to Winifred through the ordinary channels of the hotel she might, indeed, soon receive the letter, but the risks of this course were many and obvious. He ate, puzzling his brains, spurring all his power of invention. The time for action was growing short.
Suddenly he noticed the German boy, and had a thought. He could speak German well, and, guessing that Rachel Craik probably did not understand a word of it, he said in a natural voice to the boy in German:
“Fond of American dollars, boy?”
“Ja, mein Herr,” answered the boy.
“I’m going to give you five.”
“You are very good,mein Herr,” said the boy, “beautiful thanks!”
“But you have to earn them. Will you do just what I tell you, without asking for any reason?”
“If I can,mein Herr.”
“Nothing very difficult. You have only to go over yonder by that chair where I was sitting, throw yourself suddenly on the floor, and begin to kick and wriggle as though you had a fit. Keep it up for two minutes, and I will give you not five but ten. Will you do this?”
“From the heart willingly,mein Herr,” answered the boy, who had a solemn face and a complete lack of humor.
“Wait, then, three minutes, and then—suddenly—do it.”
The three minutes passed in silence; no sound in the room, save the clicking of Carshaw’s knife and fork, and the ply of Rachel Craik’s knitting-needles. Then the boy lounged away to the farther end of the room; and suddenly, with a bump, he was on the floor and in the promised fit.
“Halloo!” cried Carshaw, while from both Winifred and Rachel came little cries of alarm—for a fit has the same effect as a mouse on the nerves of women.
“He’s in a fit!” screamed the aunt.
“Please do something for him!” cried Winifred to Carshaw, with a face of distress. But he would not stir from his seat. The boy stillkicked and writhed, lying on his face and uttering blood-curdling sounds. This was easy. He had only to make bitter plaint in the German tongue.
“Oh, aunt,” said Winifred, half risen, yet hesitating for fear, “do help that poor fellow!”
Whereupon Miss Craik leaped up, caught the water-jug from the table with a rather withering look at Carshaw, and hurried toward the boy. Winifred went after her and Carshaw went after Winifred.
The older woman turned the boy over, bent down, dipped her fingers in the water, and sprinkled his forehead. Winifred stood a little behind her, bending also. Near her, too, Carshaw bent over the now quiet form of the boy.
A piece of paper touched Winifred’s palm—the note again. This time her fingers closed on it and quickly stole into her pocket.
“
It is highly improper on my part to come here and meet you,” said Winifred. “What can it be that you have to say to me of such ‘high importance’?”
The two were in the lane behind the church, at seven that same evening. Winifred, on some pretext, had escaped the watchful eyes of Rachel Craik, or fancied that she had, and came hurriedly to the waiting Carshaw. She was all aflutter with expectancy not untinged by fear, she knew not of what. The nights were beginning to darken early, and it was gloomy that evening, for the sky was covered with clouds and a little drizzle was falling.
“You are not to think that there is the least hint of impropriety about the matter,” Carshaw assured her. “Understand, please, Winifred, that this is no lovers’ meeting, but a business one, on which your whole future life depends. You cannot suppose that I have followed you to Fairfield for nothing.”
“How could you possibly know that I was here?”
“From the police.”
“The policeagain? What a strange thing!”
“Yes, a strange thing, and yet not so strange. They are keenly interested in you and your movements, for your good. And I, of course, still more so.”
“You are wonderfully good to care. But, tell me quickly, I cannot stay ten minutes. I think my aunt suspects something. She already knows about the note dropped to-day into my lap.”
“And about the boy in the fit. Does she suspect that, too?”
“What, was that a ruse? Good gracious, how artful you must be! I’m afraid of you—”
“Endlessly artful for your sake, Winifred.”
“You are kind. But tell me quickly.”
“Winifred, you are in danger, from which there is only one way of escape for you—namely, absolute trust in me. Pray understand that the dream in which you heard some one say, ‘She must be taken away from New York’ was no dream. You are here in order to be taken. This may be the first stage of a long journey. Understand also that there is no bond of duty which forces you to go against your will, for the shrewdest men in the New York police have reason to think you are not who you imagine you are, and that the woman you call your aunt is no relative of yours.”
“What reason have they?” asked Winifred.
“I don’t care—I don’t know, they have not told me. But I believe them, and I want you to believe me. The persons who have charge of your destiny are not normal persons—more or less they have done, or are connected with wrong. There is no doubt about that. The police know it, though they cannot yet drag that wrong into the light. Do you credit what I say?”
“It is all very strange.”
“It istrue. That is the point. Have you, by the way, ever seen a man called Voles?”
“Voles? No.”
“Yet that man at this moment is somewhere near you. He came in the same train with you from New York. He is always near you. He is the most intimate associate of your aunt. Think now, and tell me whether it is not a disturbing thing that you never saw this man face to face?”
“Most disturbing, if what you say is so.”
“But suppose I tell you what I firmly believe—that youhaveseen him; that it washisface which bent over you in your half-sleep the other night, and his voice which you heard?”
“I always thought that it was no dream,” said Winifred. “It was—not a nice face.”
“And remember, Winifred,” urged Carshawearnestly, “that to-day and to-morrow are your last chances. You are about to be taken far away—possibly to France or England, as surely as you see those clouds. True, if you go, I shall go after you.”
“You?”
“Yes, I. But, if you go, I cannot be certain how far I may be able to defend and rescue you there, as I can in America. I know nothing of foreign laws, and those who have you in their power do. On that field they may easily beat me. So now is your chance, Winifred.”
“But what am I to do?” she asked in a scared tone, frightened at last by the sincerity blazing from his eyes.
“Necessity has no rules of propriety,” he answered. “I have a car here. You should come with me this very night to New York. Once back there, it is only what my interest in you gives me the right to expect that you will consent to use my purse for a short while, till you find suitable employment.”
Winifred covered her face and began to cry. “Oh, I couldn’t!” she sobbed.
“Don’t cry,” said Carshaw tenderly. “You must, you know, since it is the only way. You cry because you do not trust me.”
“Oh! I do. But what a thing it is that you propose! To break with all my past on a sudden.I hardly even know you; last week I had not seen you—”
“There, that is mistrust. I know you as well as if I had always known you. In fact, I always did, in a sense. Please don’t cry. Say that you will come with me to-night. It will be the best piece of work that you ever did for yourself, and you will always thank me for having persuaded you.”
“But not to-night! I must have time to reflect, at least.”
“Then, when?”
“Perhaps to-morrow night. I don’t know. I must think it over first in all its bearings. To-morrow morning I will leave a letter in the office, telling you—”
“Well, if you insist on the delay. But it is dangerous, Winifred—it is horribly dangerous!”
“I can’t help that. How could a girl run away in that fashion?”
“Well, then, to-morrow night at eleven, precisely. I shall be at the end of this lane in my car, if your letter in the morning says ‘Yes.’ Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“Let me warn you against bringing anything with you—any clothes or a grip. Just steal out of the inn as you are. And I shall be just there at the corner—at eleven.”
“Yes.”
“I may not have the chance of speaking to you again before—”
But Carshaw’s pleading stopped short; from the near end of the lane a tall form entered it—Rachel Craik. She had followed Winifred from the hotel, suspecting that all was not well—had followed her, lost her, and now had refound her. She walked sedately, with an inscrutable face, toward the spot where the two were talking. The moment Carshaw saw this woman of ill omen he understood that all was lost, unless he acted with bewildering promptness, and quickly he whispered in Winifred’s ear:
“It must be to-night or never! Decide now. ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”
“Yes,” said Winifred, in a voice so low that he could hardly hear.
“At eleven to-night?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
Rachel Craik was now up to them. She was in a vile temper, but contrived to curb it.
“What is the meaning of this, Winifred? And who is this gentleman?” she said.
Winifred, from the habit of a lifetime, stood in no small awe of that austere woman. All the blood fled from the girl’s face. She could only say brokenly:
“I am coming, aunt,” and went following with a dejected air a yard behind her captor.In this order they walked till they arrived at the door of the Maples Inn, neither having uttered a single word to the other. There Miss Craik halted abruptly. “Go to your room,” she muttered. “I’m ashamed of you. Sneaking out at night to meet a strange man! No kitchen-wench could have behaved worse.”
Winifred had no answer to that taunt. She could not explain her motives. Indeed, she would have failed lamentably had she attempted it. All she knew was that life had suddenly turned topsy-turvy. She distrusted her aunt, the woman to whom she seemed to owe duty and respect, and was inclined to trust a young man whom she had met three times in all. But she was gentle and soft-hearted. Perhaps, if this Mr. Rex Carshaw, with his earnest eyes and wheedling voice, could have a talk with “aunty,” his queer suspicions—so oddly borne out by events—might be dissipated.
“I’m sorry if I seem to have done wrong,” she said, laying a timid hand on Rachel Craik’s arm. “If you would only tell me a little, dear. Why have we left New York? Why—”
“Do you want to see me in jail?” came the harsh whisper.
“No. Oh, no. But—”
“Obey me, then! Remain in your room till I send for you. I’m in danger, and you, youfoolish girl, are actually in league with my enemies. Go!”
Winifred sped through the porch, and hied her to a window in her room on the first floor which commanded a view of the main street. She could see neither Carshaw nor Aunt Rachel, the one having determined to lie low for a few hours, and the other being hidden from sight already as she hastened through the rain to the small inn where Voles and Mick the Wolf were located.
These worthies were out. The proprietor said they had hired a car and gone to Bridgeport. Miss Craik could only wait, and she sat in the lobby, prim and quiet, the picture of resignation, not betraying by a look or gesture the passions of anger, apprehension, and impatience which raged in her breast.
Voles did not come. An hour passed; eight struck, then nine. Once the word “carousing”! passed Miss Rachel’s lips with an intense bitterness; but, on the whole, she sat with a stiff back, patient as stone.
Then after ten there came the hum and whir of an automobile driven at high speed through the rain-sodden main street. It stopped outside the inn. A minute later the gallant body of Voles entered, cigar in his mouth, and a look of much champagne in his eyes.
“What, Rachel, girl, you here!” he said in his offhand way.
“Are you sober?” asked Rachel, rising quickly.
“Sober? Never been really soused in my life! What’s up?”
He dropped a huge paw roughly on her shoulder, and her hard eyes softened as she looked at his face and splendid frame, for Ralph “Voles” was Rachel Craik’s one weakness.
“What’s the trouble?” he went on, seeing that her lips were twitching.
“You should have been here,” she snapped. “Everything may be lost. A man is down here after Winifred, and I’ve caught her talking to him in secret.”
“A cop?” and Voles glanced around the otherwise deserted lobby.
“I don’t know—most probably. Or he may be that same man who was walking with her on Wednesday night in Central Park. Anyway, this afternoon he tried to hand her a note in offering her a newspaper. The note fell, and I saw it. Afterward he managed to get it to her in some way, though I never for a moment let her out of my sight; and they met about seven o’clock behind the church.”
“The little cat! She beat you to it, Rachel!”
“There is no time for talk, Ralph. That manwill take her from us, and then woe to you, to William, to us all. Things come out; they do, they do—the deepest secrets! Man, man—oh, rouse yourself, sober yourself, and act! We must be far from this place before morning.”
“No more trains from here—”
“You could hire a car for your own amusement. Rush her off in that. Snatch her away to Boston. We may catch a liner to-morrow.”
“But we can’t have her seeing us!”
“We can’t help that. It is dark; she won’t see your face. Let us be gone. We must have been watched, or how could that man have found us out? Ralph! Don’t you understand? You must do something.”
“Where’s this spy you gab of? I’ll—”
“This is not the Mexican border. You can’t shoot here. The man is not the point, but the girl. She must be gotten away at once.”
“Nothing easier. Off, now to the hotel, and be ready in half an hour. I’ll bring the car around.”
Rachel Craik wanted no further discussion. She reached the Maples Inn in a flurry of little runs. Before the door she saw two glaring lights, the lamps of Carshaw’s automobile. It was not far from eleven. Even as she approached the hotel, Carshaw got in and drove down the street. He drew up on a patch ofgrass by the roadside at the end of the lane behind the church. Soon after this he heard a clock strike eleven.
His eyes peered down the darkness of the lane to see Winifred coming, as she had promised. It was still drizzling slightly—the night was heavy, stagnant and silent. Winifred did not come, and Carshaw’s brows puckered with care and foreboding. A quarter of an hour passed, but no light tread gladdened his ear. Fairfield lay fast asleep.