VII
Evening dress was becoming to Hood, enhancing the distinction which his rough corduroys never wholly obscured. He surveyed Deering critically, gave a twist to his tie, and said it was time to be off. As they drove slowly through the country he discussed the various houses they passed, speculating as to the entertainment they offered. He finally ordered Cassowary to stop at the entrance to an imposing estate, where a large colonial mansion stood some distance from the highway.
“This strikes me as promising,” he remarked, rising in the car and craning his neck to gain a view of the house through the shrubbery. “Drive in, Cassowary,and stand by with the car till you see whether we have to run for it.”
He gave the electric annunciator a prolonged push, and as a butler opened the door advanced into the hall with his most authoritative air.
“Mr. Hood and Mr. Tuck. I trust I correctly understood that we dine at seven.” The man eyed them with surprise but took their coats and hats. “We are expected. Please announce us immediately.”
Deering followed him bewilderedly into the drawing-room and planted himself close to the door.
“Assurance, my dear boy, conquers all things,” Hood declaimed. “This stuff looks like real Chippendale, and the rugs seem to be genuine.” He sniffed contemptuously as he posed beforea long mirror for a final inspection of his raiment. “It always pains me to detect the odor of boiled vegetables when I enter a strange house. Architects tell me that it is almost impossible to prevent——”
A woman’s figure flashed in the mirror beside him, and he whirled round and bowed from the hips.
“I trust you are not so lacking in the sense of hospitality that you find yourself considering means of ejecting us. My comrade and I are weary from a long journey.”
Turning quickly, her gaze fell upon Deering, who was stealing on tiptoe toward the door.
“Halt!” commanded Hood.
Deering paused and sheepishly faced his hostess.
She was a small, trim, graceful woman, of the type that greets middle life smilingly and with no fear of what may lie beyond. Her dark hair had whitened, but her rosy cheeks belied its insinuations. She viewed Deering with frank curiosity, but with no indication of alarm. She was not a woman one would consciously annoy, and Deering’s face burned as he felt her eyes inspecting him from head to foot. He had never before been so heartily ashamed of himself; once out of this scrape, he meant to escape from Hood and lead a circumspect, orderly life.
“Which is Hood and which is Tuck?” the woman asked with a faint smile.
“The friar is the gentleman standing on one foot at your right,” Hood answered. “Conscious of my unworthiness,I plead guilty to being Hood—Hood the hobo delectable, the tramp incomprehensible!”
“Incomprehensible,” she repeated; “you strike me as altogether obvious.”
“You never made a greater mistake,” Hood returned with asperity. “But the question that now agitates us is simply this: do we eat or do we not?”
Deering looked longingly at a chair with which he felt strongly impelled to brain his suave, unruffled companion. Hood apparently was hardened to such encounters, and stood his ground unflinchingly. All Deering’s instincts of chivalry were roused by the little woman, who had every reason for turning them out of doors. He resolved to make it easy for her to do so.
“I beg your pardon—” he faltered.
Hood signalled to him furiously behind her back to maintain silence.
“No apology would be adequate,” she remarked with dignity. “We’d better drop that and consider your errand on its strict merits.”
“Admirably said, madam,” Hood rejoined readily. “We ask nothing of you but seats at your table and the favor of a little wholesome and stimulating conversation, which I refuse to believe you capable of denying us.”
A clock somewhere began to boom seven. She waited for the last stroke to die away.
“I make it a rule never to deny food to any applicant, no matter how unworthy. You may remain.”
“I make it a rule never to deny food to any applicant,no matter how unworthy. You may remain.”
“I make it a rule never to deny food to any applicant,no matter how unworthy. You may remain.”
Deering had hardly adjusted himself to this when an old gentleman entered the room, and with only the most casual glance at the two pilgrims walked to the grand piano, shook back his cuffs, and began playing Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song,” as though that particular melody were the one great passion of his life. When he had concluded he rose and shook down his cuffs.
“If that isn’t music,” he demanded, walking up to the amazed Deering, who still clung to his post by the door, “what is it? Answer me that!”
“You played it perfectly,” Deering stammered.
“And you,” he demanded, whirling upon Hood, “what have you to say, sir?”
“The great master himself would have envied your touch,” Hood replied.
The old gentleman glared. “Rot!”he ejaculated; and then, turning to the mistress of the house, he asked: “Do these ruffians dine with us?”
“They seem about to do us that honor. My father, Mr. Hood, and—Mr. Tuck. Shall we go out to dinner?”
The gentleman she had introduced as her father glared again—a separate glare for each—and, advancing with a ridiculous strut, gave the lady his arm.
In the hall Hood intercepted Deering in the act of effecting egress by way of the front door. His fingers dug deeply into his nervous companion’s arm as he dragged him along, talking in his characteristic vein:
“My dear Tuck, it’s a pleasure to find ourselves at last in a home whose appointments speak for breeding and taste. The portrait on our right bearsall the marks of a genuine Copley. Madam, may I inquire whether I correctly attribute that portrait to our great American master?”
“You are quite right,” she answered over her shoulder. “The subject of the portrait is my great-great-grandfather.”
“My dear Tuck!” cried Hood jubilantly, still clutching Deering’s arm, “fate has again been kind to us; we are among folk of quality, as I had already guessed.”
The dining-room was in dark oak; the glow from concealed burners shed a soft light upon a round table.
“You will sit at my right, Mr. Hood, and Mr. Tuck by my father on the other side.”
Deering pinched himself to make surehe was awake. The next instant the room whirled, and he clutched the back of his chair for support. A girl came into the room and walked quickly to the seat beside him.
“Mr Hood and Mr. Tuck, my daughter——”
She hesitated, and the girl laughingly ejaculated: “Pierrette!”
“Sit down, won’t you, please,” said the little lady; but Deering stood staring open-mouthed at the girl.
Beyond question, she was the girl of the Little Dipper; there was no mistaking her. At this point the old gentleman afforded diversion by rising and bowing first to Hood and then to Deering.
“I am Pantaloon,” he said. “My daughter is Columbine, as you may have guessed.”
“It’s very nice to see you again,” Pierrette remarked to Deering; “but, of course, I didn’t know you would be here. How goes the burgling?”
“I—er—haven’t got started yet. I find it a little difficult——”
“I’m afraid you’re not getting much fun out of the adventurous life,” she suggested, noting the wild look in his eyes.
“I don’t understand things, that’s all,” he confessed, “but I think I’m going to like it.”
“You find it a little too full of surprises? Oh, we all do at first! You see grandfather is seventy, and he never grew up, and mamma is just like him. And I—” She shrugged her shoulders and flashed a smile at her grandparent.
“You are wonderful—bewildering,” Deering stammered.
The old gentleman was inveighing at Hood upon America’s lack of mirth; the American people had utterly lost their capacity for laughter, the old man averred. Deering’s fork beat a lively tattoo on his plate as he attacked his caviar.
And then another girl entered and walked to the remaining vacant place opposite him.
“Smeraldina,” murmured the mistress of the house, glancing round the table, and calmly finishing a remark the girl’s entrance had interrupted.
Deering’s last hold upon sanity slowly relaxed. Unless his wits were entirely gone, he was facing his sister Constance. She wore a dark gown, with white collar and cuffs, and her manner was marked by the restraint of an upper servant ofsome sort who sits at the family table by sufferance. He was about to gasp out her name when she met his eyes with a glinty stare and a quick shake of the head. Then Pierrette addressed a remark to her—kindly meant to relieve her embarrassment—referring to a walk over the hills they had taken together that afternoon.
“Ah, Smeraldina!” cried Pantaloon, “how is that last chapter? Columbine refuses to show me any more of the book until it is finished. I look to you to make a duplicate for my private perusal.”
Here was light of a sort upon the strange household; its mistress was a writer of books; Constance was her secretary; but the effort to explain how his sister came to be masquerading in such a rôle left him doddering, andthat she should refuse to recognize him—her own brother!
“If that new book is half as good as ‘The Madness of May,’” Pantaloon was saying, “I shall not be disappointed.”
“Oh, it’s much better; infinitely better!” Constance declared warmly.
“Tuck, do you realize we are in the presence of greatness?” cried Hood. Then, turning to Columbine: “The author will please accept my heartiest congratulations!”
“Thank you kindly,” replied the hostess. “I’m fortunate in my secretary. Smeraldina is my fifth, and the first who ever made a suggestion that was of the slightest use. The others had no imagination; they all objected to being called Smeraldina, and one of them was named Smith!”
“I’m afraid I’m the first who everhad the impertinence to suggest anything,” Constance answered humbly.
This was not the sister Deering had known in his old life before he fell victim to the prevailing May madness. She was in servitude and evidently trying to make the best of it. She had been the jolliest, the most high-spirited of girls, and to find her now meekly acting as amanuensis to a lady whose very name he didn’t know sent his imagination stumbling through the blindest of dark alleys.
Only the near presence of Pierrette and her perfect composure and good-nature checked his inclination to stand up and shout to relieve his feelings.
“I hope you don’t mind my not turning up for breakfast,” she remarked in her low, bell-like tones.
Deering’s hopes rose. That breakfastat the bungalow seemed the one tangible incident of his twenty-four hours in Hood’s company and, perhaps, if he let her take the lead, he might find himself on solid earth again.
“I’d been week-ending with Babette; she’s an artist, you know, and I’m posing for another of mamma’s heroines. Babette got me up at daylight to pose for the last picture and then—I skipped and left her to manage the breakfast.”
Her laugh as she said this established her identity beyond question. For a moment the thought of the packages of worthless wrapping-paper he had found in his suitcase chilled his happiness in finding her again; but it had not been her fault; the unbroken seals fully established her innocence.
“You understand, of course, that it’sa dark secret that mother writes. She had scribbled for her own amusement all her life, and published ‘The Madness of May’ just to see what the public would do to it.”
“I understand that it’s immensely amusing,” remarked Deering, thrilling as she turned toward him.
“Oh, you haven’t read it!” she cried. “Mamma, Mr. Tuck hasn’t read your book.”
“My young friend is just beginning his education,” interposed Hood. “I unhesitatingly pronounce ‘The Madness of May’ a classic—something the tired world has been awaiting for years!”
“Right!” cried Pantaloon. “You are quite right, sir. ‘The Madness of May’ isn’t a novel, it’s a text-book on happiness!”
“Truer words were never spoken!” exclaimed Hood with enthusiasm.
“Do you know,” began Deering, when it was possible to address Pierrette directly again, “I don’t believe I was built for this life. I find myself checking off the alphabet on my fingers every few minutes to see if I have gone plumb mad!”
She bent toward him with entreaty in her eyes. He observed that they were brown eyes! In the starlight he had been unable to judge of their color, and he was chagrined that he hadn’t guessed at that first interview that she was a brown-eyed girl. Only a brown-eyed girl would have hung a moon in a tree! Brown eyes are immensely eloquent of all manner of pleasant things—such as mischief, mirth, and dreams.Moreover, brown eyes are so highly sensitized that they receive and transmit messages in the most secret of ciphers, and yet always with circumspection. He was perfectly satisfied with Pierrette’s eyes and relieved that they were not blue, for blue eyes may be cold, and the finest of black eyes are sometimes dull. Gray eyes alone—misty, fathomless gray eyes—share imagination with brown ones. But neither a blue-eyed nor a black-eyed nor a gray-eyed Pierrette was to be thought of. Pierrette’s eyes were brown, as he should have known, and what she was saying to him was just what he should have expected once the color of her eyes had been determined.
“Please don’t! You must never try tounderstandthings like this! Yousee grandpa and mamma love larking, and this is a lark. We’re always larking, you know.”
Hood’s voice rose commandingly:
“Once when I was in jail in Utica——”
Deering regretted his shortness of leg that made it impossible to kick his erratic companion under the table. But a chorus of approval greeted this promising opening, and Hood continued relating with much detail the manner in which he had once been incarcerated in company with a pickpocket whose accomplishments and engaging personality he described with gusto. There was no denying that Hood talked well, and the strict attention he was receiving evoked his best efforts.
Deering, covertly glancing at his sister, found that she too hung upon Hood’swords. Her presence in the house still presented an enigma with which his imagination struggled futilely, but no opportunity seemed likely to offer for an exchange of confidences.
Constance was a thoroughbred and played her part flawlessly. Her treatment by her employer left nothing to be desired; the amusing little grandfather appealed to her now and then with unmistakable liking, and the smiles that passed between her and Pierrette were evidence of the friendliest relationship.
The dinner was served in a leisurely fashion that encouraged talk, and Deering availed himself of every chance for a tête-à-tête with Pierrette. She graciously came down out of the clouds and conversed of things that were within hiscomprehension—of golf and polo for example—and then passed into the unknown again. But in no way did she so much as hint at her identity. When she referred to her mother or grandfather she employed the pseudonyms by which he already knew them. While they were on the subject of polo he asked her if she had witnessed a certain match.
“Oh, yes, I was there!” she replied. “And, of course, I saw you; you were the star performer. At tea afterward I saw you again, surrounded by admirers.” She laughed at his befuddlement. “But it’s against all the rules to try to unmask me! Of course, I know you, but maybe you will never know me!”
“I don’t believe you are cruel enoughto prolong my agony forever! I can’t stand this much longer!”
“Perhaps some day,” she answered quietly and meeting his eager gaze steadily, “we shall meet just as the people of the world meet, and then maybe you won’t like me at all!”
“After this the world will never be the same planet again. Hereafter my business will be to follow you——”
She broke in laughingly, “even to the Little Dipper?”
“Even to the farthest star!” he answered.
After coffee had been served in the drawing-room, Hood, again dominating the company (much to Deering’s disgust), suggested music. Pierrette contributed a flashing, golden Chopin waltz and Pantaloon Schubert’s “Serenade,”which he played atrociously, whereupon Hood announced that he would sing a Scotch ballad, which he proceeded to do surprisingly well. The evening could not last forever, and Deering chafed at his inability to detach Pierrette from the piano; but she was most provokingly submissive to Hood’s demand that the music continue. Deering had protested that he didn’t sing; he hated himself for not singing!
He fidgeted awhile; then, finding the others fully preoccupied with their musical experiments, quietly left the drawing-room. It had occurred to him that Constance, who had disappeared when they left the table, might be seeking a chance to speak to him and he strolled through the library (a large room with books crowding to the ceiling)to a glass door opening into a conservatory, which was dark save for the light from the library. He was about to turn away when an outer door opened furtively and Cassowary stepped in from the grounds. The chauffeur glanced about nervously as though anxious to avoid detection.
As Deering watched him a shadow darted by, and his sister—unmistakably Constance in the dark gown with its white collar and cuffs that she had worn at dinner—moved swiftly toward the chauffeur. She gave him both hands; he kissed her eagerly; then they began talking earnestly. For several minutes Deering heard the blurred murmur of rapid question and reply; then, evidently disturbed by an outburst of merriment from the drawing-room, the twoparted with another hand-clasp and kiss, and Cassowary darted through the outer door.
Constance waited a moment, as though to compose herself, and then began retracing her steps down the conservatory aisle. As she passed his hiding-place Deering stepped out and seized her arm.
“So this is what’s in the wind, is it?” he demanded roughly. “I suppose you don’t know that that man’s a bad lot, a worthless fellow Hood picked up in the hope of reforming him! For all I know he may be the chauffeur he pretends to be!”
She freed herself and her eyes flashed angrily.
“You don’t know what you’re saying! That man is a gentleman, and ifhe went to pieces for a while it was my fault. I met him at the Drakes’ last year when you were away hunting in Canada. He came to our house afterward, but for some reason father took one of his strong dislikes to him, and forbade my seeing him again. I knew he was with this man Hood, and when I left the table awhile ago I met him outside the servants’ dining-room and told him I would talk to him here.”
“What does he call himself?” Deering asked.
“Torrence is the name the Drakes gave him,” she answered with faint irony. “He’s a ranchman in Wyoming and was in Bob Drake’s class in college.”
He knew perfectly well that the Drakes were not people likely to countenance an impostor. His first instincthad been to protect his sister from an unknown scamp, and he was sorry that he had spoken to her so roughly. Her distress and anxiety were apparent, and he was filled with pity for her. Since childhood they had been the best of pals, and if she loved a man who was worthy of her he would aid the affair in every way possible. He was surprised by the abruptness with which she stepped close to him and laid her hand on his arm.
“Billy, whoisHood?” she whispered.
“I don’t know!” he ejaculated, and then as she eyed him curiously he explained hurriedly: “I was in an awful mess when he turned up, Connie. I’d gone into a copper deal with Ned Ranscomb and needed more money to help him through with it. I put in all Ihad and touched one of father’s boxes at the bank for some more and lost it, or didn’t lose it; God knows what did become of it! It would take a week to tell you the whole story. Ranscomb disappeared, absolutely, and there I was! I should have killed myself if that lunatic Hood hadn’t turned up and hypnotized me. But what—what—” (he fairly choked with the question), “in heaven’s name are you doing here? Why did you cut out California? I tell you, Connie, if I’m not crazy everybody else is! I nearly fainted when you came into the dining-room.”
Constance smiled at his despair, but hurried on with explanations:
“We can’t talk here, but I can clear up a few things. Father read that woman’s book, and it went to hishead. Yes,” she added as Deering groaned in his helplessness, “father’s acting a good deal like those people in the drawing-room. He’s got the May madness, and I’m afraid I’ve got a touch of it myself! Father started off to have adventures like the people in that book and dragged me along to get my mind off Tommy——”
“Tommy?”
“Mr. Torrence!”
Billy swallowed this with a gulp.
“But, Billy,” Constance continued seriously, “there’s really something on father’s mind; he thinks he’s looking for somebody, and I’m not sure whether he is or not. That’s how I come to be here. He made me answer an advertisement and take this position to spy on these people.”
“My God!” Deering gasped, “gone clean mad, the whole bunch of us. Who the deuce are these lunatics anyhow?”
“I don’t know, Billy; honestly I don’t! You know nearly as much about them as I do. Their mail goes to a bank in town, and I met my employer at a lawyer’s office in Hartford. Father suspects something and made me do it, so I might watch them. The mother and daughter have been abroad a great deal, and just came home a month ago. I never saw this man Hood until to-night. The mother and daughter and the old gentleman call each other by the names you heard at the table, and the books in the library are marked with half a dozen names. Even the silver gives no clew. I’ve been here a week and only one person has come tothe house” (she lowered her voice to a whisper), “and that was Ned Ranscomb!”
He clutched her hands, and the words he tried to utter became a queer, inarticulate gurgle in his throat.
“Ned came here to see a girl,” she went on: “an artist who made the pictures for ‘The Madness of May.’ He’s quite crazy about her. I did get that much out of Pierrette. This artist’s a victim of the madness too, and seems to be leading Ned a gay dance!”
“Took my two hundred thousand and got me to steal two more,” he groaned, “and then went chasing a girl all over creation! And the fool always bragged that he was immune; that no girl——”
“Another victim of the same disease, that’s all,” answered Constance with a wry smile.
“Not Ned; not Ranscomb! That settles it! We’ve all gone loony!”
“Well, even so, we mustn’t be caught here,” said Constance with decision as the music ceased.
“Tell me, quick, where can I find the governor?” Deering demanded.
“If youmustknow, Billy,” she replied, her lips quivering with mirth, “our dear parent is in jail—injail! Tommy collected those glad tidings at the garage.”
Having launched this at her astounded brother, she pushed him from her and ran away through the conservatory.
VIII
“Tuck, my boy, you should cultivate the art of music!” cried Hood as Deering reappeared, somewhat pale but resigned to an unknown fate, in the drawing-room. “And now that ten has struck we must be on our way. Madam, will you ring for Cassowary, the prince of chauffeurs, as we must leave your hospitable home at once?” He began making his adieus with the greatest formality.
“Mr. Tuck,” said the mistress of the house as Deering gave her a limp hand, “you have conferred the greatest honor upon us. Please never pass our door without stopping.”
“To-morrow,” he said, turning toPierrette, “I shall find you to-morrow, either here or in the Dipper!”
“Before you see me or the Dipper again, many things may happen!” she laughed.
The trio—the absurd little Pantaloon; Columbine, laughing and gracious to the last, and Pierrette, smiling, charming, adorable—cheerily called good night from the door as Cassowary sent the car hurrying out of the grounds.
“Well, what do you think of the life of freedom now?” demanded Hood as the car reached the open road. “Begin to have a little faith in me, eh?”
“Well, you seemed to put it over,” Deering admitted grudgingly. “But I can’t go on this way, Hood; I really can’t stand it. I’ve got to quit right now!”
“My dear boy!” Hood protested.
“I’ve heard bad news about my father; one of the—er—servants back there told me he was in jail!”
“Stop!” bawled Hood. “This is important if true! Cassowary, I’ve told you time and again to bring me any news you pick up in servants’ halls. What have you heard about the arrest of a gentleman named Deering?”
“He’s been pinched, all right,” the chauffeur answered as he stopped the car and turned round. “The constables over at West Dempster are trapping joy-riders, and they nailed Mr. Deering about sundown for speeding. I learned that from the chauffeur at that house where you dined.”
Hood slapped his knee and chortled with delight.
“There’s work ahead of us! But probably he’s bailed himself out by this time.”
“Not on your life!” Cassowary answered, and Deering marked a note of jubilation in his tone, as though the thought of Mr. Deering’s incarceration gave him pleasure. “The magistrate’s away for the night, and there’s nobody there to fix bail. It’s part of the treatment in these parts to hold speed fiends a night or two.”
Again Hood’s hand fell upon Deering’s knee.
“A situation to delight the gods!” he cried. “Cassowary, old man, at the next crossroads turn to the right and run in at the first gate. There’s a farmhouse in the midst of an orchard; we’ll stop there and change our clothes.”
As the car started Deering whirled upon Hood and shook him violently by the collar.
“I’m sick of all this rot! I can’t stand any more, I tell you. I’m going to quit right here!”
Hood drew his arm round him affectionately.
“My dear son, have I failed you at any point? Have you ever in your life had any adventures to compare with those you’ve had with me? Stop whining and trust all to Hood!”
Deering sank back into his corner with a growl of suppressed rage.
When they reached the farmhouse Hood drew out a key and opened the front door with a proprietorial air.
“Whose place is this? I want to know what I’m getting in for,” Deering demanded wrathfully.
“Mine, dearest Tuck! Mine, and the taxes paid. I use it as a rest-house for weary and jaded crooks, if that will ease your mind!”
Cassowary struck matches and lighted candles, disclosing a half-furnished room in great disorder. Old clothing, paper bags that had contained food, a violin, and books in good bindings littered a table in the middle of the floor, and articles of clothing were heaped in confusion on a time-battered settle. The odor of stale pipe smoke hung upon the air. Under an empty bottle on the mantel Hood found a scrap of paper which he scanned for a moment and then tore into pieces.
“Just a scratch from good old Fogarty; he’s been taking the rest-cure here between jobs. Skipped yesterday; same chap that left his mark for me on thatbarn. One of the royal good fellows, Fogarty; does his work neatly—never carries a gun or pots a cop; knows he can climb out of any jail that ever was made, and that, son, gives any man a joyful sense of ease and security. The Tombs might hold him, but he avoids large cities; knows his limitations like a true man of genius. Rare bird; thrifty doesn’t describe him; he’s just plain stingy; sells stolen postage-stamps at par; the only living yegg that can put that over! By George, I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t sell ’em at a premium!”
As he talked he rummaged among the old clothes, chose a mud-splashed pair of trousers, and bade Deering put them on, adding an even more disreputable coat and hat. Cassowary helped himselfto a change of raiment, and Hood selected what seemed to be the worst of the lot.
“Three suspicious characters will be noted by the constabulary of West Dempster within two hours!” cried Hood, hopping out of his dress trousers. “Into the calaboose we shall go, my dear Tuck! Never say that I haven’t a thought for your peace and happiness. It will give me joy unfeigned to bring you face to face with your delightful parent. Cassowary, my son, I’m going to hide those bills of yours in the lining of my coat for safety. If they found ten thousand plunks on me, they’d never let us go!”
“Hood!” cried Deering in a voice moist with tears, “for God’s sake what fool thing are you up to now?”
“I tell you we’re going to jail!” Hood answered jubilantly. “You’ve dined in good company with the most charming of girls at your side; you’ve had a taste of the prosperous life; and now it’s fitting that we should touch the other extreme. The moment we step out of this shack we’re criminals, crooks, gallows meat;” he rolled this last term under his tongue unctuously. “This will top all our other adventures. Here’s hoping Fogarty may have preceded us. The old boy likes to get pinched occasionally just for the fun of it.”
He was already blowing out the candles, and, seizing his stick, led the way back to the highway, with Deering and Cassowary at his heels. The car had been run into an old barn, whichhad evidently served Hood before. Within twenty-four hours they would be touring again, he announced. The change from his dress clothes to ill-fitting rags had evidently wrought a change of mood. Between whiffs at his pipe he sought consolation in Wagner, chanting bars of “InfernemLand.”
Cassowary, who had adjusted himself to this new situation without question, whispered in Deering’s ear: “Don’t kick; he’s got something up his sleeve. And he’ll get you out of it; remember that! I’ve been in jail with him before.”
Deering drew away impatiently. He was in no humor to welcome confidences from Torrence,aliasCassowary, whom his sister met clandestinely andkissed—the kiss rankled! And yet it was nothingagainst Cassowary that he had been following Hood about like an infatuated fool. Deering knew himself to be equally culpable on that score, and he was even now trudging after the hypnotic vagabond with a country calaboose as their common goal. The chauffeur’s interview with Constance had evidently cheered him mightily, and he joined his voice to Hood’s in a very fair rendering of “Ben Bolt.” Deering swore under his breath, angry at Hood, and furious that he had so little control of a destiny that seemed urging him on to destruction.
IX
At one o’clock West Dempster lay dark and silent before them. As they crossed a bridge into the town Hood began to move cautiously.
“Remember that we give up without a struggle: there’s too much at stake to risk a bullet now, and these country lumpkins shoot first, and hand you their cards afterward.”
He dived into an alley, and emerged midway of a block where a number of barrels under a shed awning advertised a grocery.
“Admirable!” whispered Hood, throwing his arms about his comrades. “We will now arouse the watch.”
With this he kicked a barrel into the gutter, and jumped back like a mischievous boy into the shelter of the alley. Footsteps were heard in a moment, far down the street.
“These country cops are sometimes shrewd, but often the silly children of convention like the rest of us. West Dempster has an evil reputation in the underworld. The pinching of joy-riders is purely incidental; they run in anybody they catch after the curfew sounds from the coffin factory.”
A window overhead opened with a bang, and a blast from a police whistle pierced the air shrilly. Deering started to run, but Hood upset him with a thrust of his foot. Two men were already creeping up behind them in the alley; the owner of the grocery stole out ofthe front door in a long nightgown and began howling dismally for help.
“Throw up your hands, boys; it’s no use!” cried Hood in mock despair.
Then the man in the nightgown, after menacing Hood with a pistol, stuck the barrel of it into Deering’s mouth, opened inopportunely to protest his innocence. The policemen threw themselves upon Hood and Cassowary, toppled them over, and flashed electric lamps in their faces.
“More o’ them yeggs,” announced one of the officers with satisfaction as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on Cassowary’s wrists. “Don’t you fellows try any monkey-shines or we’ll plug you full o’ lead. Trot along now.”
The gentleman in the night-robe wished to detain the party for a recitalof his own prowess in giving warning of the attempted burglary. The police were disposed to make light of his assistance, while Hood hung back to support the grocer’s cause, a generosity on his part that was received ill-temperedly by the officers of the law. They bade the grocer report to the magistrate Monday morning, and they parted, but only after Hood had shaken the crestfallen grocer warmly by the hand, warning him with the greatest solicitude against further exposure to the night air. Two other policemen appeared; the whole force was doing them honor, Hood declared proudly. He lifted his voice in song, but the lyrical impulse was hushed by a prod from a revolver. He continued to talk, however, assuring his captors of his heartiest admiration fortheir efficiency. He meant to recommend them for positions in the secret service—men of their genius were wasted upon a country town.
“Throw up your hands, boys; it’s no use!” cried Hoodin mock despair.
“Throw up your hands, boys; it’s no use!” cried Hoodin mock despair.
When they reached the town hall a melancholy jailer roused himself and conducted them to the lockup in the rear of the building. Careful search revealed nothing but a mass of crumpled clippings and a pipe and tobacco in Hood’s pockets.
“Guess they dropped their tools somewhere,” muttered one of the officers.
“My dear boy,” explained Hood, “the gentleman in the nightie, whom I take to be a citizen and merchant of standing in your metropolis, may be able to assist you in finding them. We left our safe-blowing apparatus in a chicken-coop in his back yard.”
They were entered on the blotter as R. Hood, F. Tuck, and Cass O’Weary—the last Hood spelled with the utmost care for the scowling turnkey—and charged with attempt to commit burglary and arson.
Hood grumbled; he had hoped it would be murder or piracy on the high seas; burglary and arson were so commonplace, he remarked with a sigh.
The door closed upon them with an echoing clang, and they found themselves in a large coop, bare save for several benches ranged along the walls. Two of these were occupied by prisoners, one of whom, a short, thick-set man, snored vociferously. Hood noted his presence with interest.
“Fogarty!” he whispered with a triumphant wave of his hand.
A tall man who had chosen a cot as remote as possible from his fellow prisoner sat up and, seeing the newcomers, stalked majestically to the door and yelled dismally for the keeper, who lounged indifferently to the cage, puffing a cigar.
“This is an outrage!” roared the prisoner. “Locking me up with these felons—these common convicts! I demand counsel; I’m going to have a writ of habeas corpus! When I get out of here I’m going to go to the governor of your damned State and complain of this. All Connecticut shall know of it! All America shall hear of it! To be locked up with one safe-blower is enough, and now you’ve stuck three murderers into this rotten hole. I tell you I can give bail. I tell you——”
The jailer snarled and bade him be quiet. In the tone of a man who is careful of his words he threatened the direst punishment for any further expression of the gentleman’s opinions. Whereupon the gentleman seized the bars and shook them violently, and then, as though satisfied that they were steel of the best quality, dropped his arms to his sides with a gesture of impotent despair.
“Father!”
In spite of Constance’s assertion, confirmed by Cassowary, Deering had not believed that his father was in jail; but the outraged gentleman who had demanded the writ of habeas corpus was, beyond question, Samuel J. Deering, head of the banking-house of Deering, Gaylord & Co. Mr. Deering wasstriding toward his bench with the sulky droop of a premium batter who has struck out with the bases full.
Scorning to glance at the creature in rags who had flung himself in his path, Samuel J. Deering lunged at him fiercely with his right arm. Billy, ducking opportunely, saved his indignant parent from tumbling upon the floor by catching him in his arms. Feeling that he had been attacked by a ruffian, Mr. Deering yelled that he was being murdered.
“I’m Billy! For God’s sake, be quiet!”
The senior Deering tottered to the wall.
“Billy! What areyouin for?” he demanded finally.
“Burglary, arson, and little things like that,” Billy answered with a jauntinessthat surprised him as much as it pained his father, who continued to stare uncomprehendingly.
“You’ve been reading that damned book, too, have you?” he whispered hoarsely in his son’s ear. “You’ve gone crazy like everybody else, have you?”
“I’ve been kidnapped, if that’s what you mean,” Billy answered with a meaningful glance over his shoulder, and then with a fine attempt at bravado: “I’m Friar Tuck, and that chap smoking a pipe is Robin Hood.”
Ordinarily his father’s sense of humor could be trusted to respond to an intelligent appeal. A slow grin had overspread Mr. Deering’s face as Friar Tuck was mentioned, but when Billy added Robin Hood his father’s countenance underwent changes indicative of hope,fear, and chagrin. Clinging to Billy’s shoulder, he peered through the gloom of the cage toward Hood, who lay on a bench, his coat rolled up for a pillow, tranquilly smoking, with his eyes fixed upon the steel roof.
“Hood!” Mr. Deering walked slowly toward Hood’s bench.
Hood sat up, took his pipe from his mouth, and nodded.
“Hood, this is my father,” said Billy.
“A great pleasure, I’m sure,” Hood responded courteously, extending his hand. “I suppose it was inevitable that we should meet sooner or later, Mr. Deering.”
“You—youareBob—Bob—Tyringham?” asked Deering anxiously.
“Right!” cried Hood in his usual assured manner. “And I will say foryou that you have given me a good chase. I confess that I didn’t think you capable of it; I swear I didn’t! Tuck, I congratulate you; your father is one of the true brotherhood of the stars. He’s been chasing me for a month and, by Jove, he’s kept me guessing! But when I heard that he’d been jailed for speeding, with a prospect of spending Sunday in this hole, I decided that it was time to throw down the mask.”
Lights began to dance in the remote recesses of Billy’s mind. Hood was Robert Tyringham, for whom his father held as trustee two million dollars. Tyringham had not been heard of in years. The only son of a most practical father, he had been from youth a victim of thewanderlust, absenting himself from home for long periods. For tenyears he had been on the list of the missing. That Hood should be this man was unbelievable. But the senior Deering seemed not to question his identity. He sat down with a deep sigh and then began to laugh.
“If I hadn’t found you by next Wednesday, I should have had to turn your property over to a dozen charitable institutions provided for by your father’s will—and, by George, I’ve been fighting a temptation to steal it!” His arms clasped Billy’s shoulder convulsively. “It’s been horrible, ghastly! I’ve been afraid I might find you and afraid I wouldn’t! I tell you it’s been hell. I’ve spent thousands of dollars trying to find you, fearing one day you might turn up, and the next day afraid you wouldn’t. And, you know, Tyringham,your father was my dearest friend; that’s what made it all so horrible. I want you to know about it, Billy; I want you to know the worst about me; I’m not the man you thought me. When I started away with Constance and told you I was going to California I decided to make a last effort to find Tyringham. I read a damned novel that acted on me like a poison; that’s why I’ve made a fool of myself in a thousand ways, thinking that by masquerading over the country I might catch Tyringham at his own game. And now you know what I might have been; you see what I was trying to be—a common thief, a betrayer of a sacred trust.”
“Don’t talk like that, father,” began Billy, shaken by his father’s humility. “I guess we’re in the same hole, onlyI’m in deeper. I tried to robyou. I tried to steal some of that Tyringham money myself, but—but——”
Hood, wishing to leave the two alone for their further confidences, walked to the recumbent Fogarty, roused him with a dig in the ribs, and conferred with him in low tones.
“You took the stuff from my box, Billy?” Mr. Deering asked.
Billy waited apprehensively for what might follow. It was possible that his father had already robbed the Tyringham estate; the thought chilled him into dejection.
“Ihadstolen it. My God, I couldn’t help it!” Deering groaned. “I left that waste paper in the box to fool myself, and put the real stuff in another place. I hoped—yes, that was it, I hoped—I’dnever find Tyringham and I could keep those bonds. But all the time I kept looking for him. You see, Billy, I couldn’t be as bad as I wanted to be; and yet——”
He drew his hand across his face as though to shut out the picture he saw of himself as a felon.
“Oh, you wouldn’t have done it; you couldn’t have done it!” cried Billy, anxious to mitigate his father’s misery. “If you hadn’t hidden the real bonds, I’d have been a thief! Ned Ranscomb was trying to corner Mizpah and needed my help. I put in all I had—that two hundred thousand you gave me my last birthday, and then he skipped. When I get hold ofhim——!”
“You put two hundred thousand in Mizpah?”
“I did, like a fool, and, of course, it’s lost! Ned went daffy about a girl and dropped Mizpah—and my money!”
Mr. Deering was once more a business man. “What did Ranscomb buy at?” he asked curtly.
“Seven and a quarter.”
“Then you needn’t kick Ned! The Ranscombs put through their deal and Mizpah’s gone to forty!”
Hood rejoined them, and they talked till daylight. He told them much of himself. The responsibility of a great fortune had not appealed to him; he had been honest in his preference for the vagabond life, but realized, now that he was well launched upon middle age, that it was only becoming and decent for him to alter his ways. Billy’s liking for him, that had struggled so rebelliouslyagainst impatience and distrust, warmed to the heartiest admiration.
“Of course I knew you were married,” the senior Deering remarked for Billy’s enlightenment, “and now and then I got glimpses of you in your gypsy life. Your wife had a fortune of her own—she was one of Augustus Davis’s daughters—so of course she hasn’t suffered from your foolishness.”
“My wife shared my tastes; there has never been the slightest trouble between us. Our daughter is just like us. But now Mrs. Tyringham thinks we ought to settle down and be respectable.”
“I knew your wife and daughter had come home. I had got that far,” Mr. Deering resumed. “And after I began to suspect that you and Hood were thesame person I put my own daughter into your house on the Dempster road as a spy to watch for you.”
“My wife wasn’t fooled for a minute,” Hood chuckled. “We were having our last fling before we settled down for the rest of our days. We all have the same weakness for a springtime lark: my wife, my daughter, and I.”
Billy ran his hands through his hair. “Pierrette! Pierrette is your daughter!”
“Certainly,” replied Hood; “and Columbine, the dearest woman in the world, is my wife, and Pantaloon my father-in-law. In my affair with you there was only one coincidence: everything else was planned. It was Pierrette, whose real name is Roberta—Bobby for short, when we’re not playing a game of some sort—Bobby reallydid lift your suitcase by mistake. And it was stowed away in Cassowary’s car when I came to your house intending to return it. But when I saw that you needed diversion I decided to give you a whirl. It was an easy matter for Cassowary to move the suitcase to the bungalow, where you found it. I steered you to the house on purpose to see how you and Bobby would hit it off. The result seems to have been satisfactory!”
Cassowary turned uneasily on his bench.
“And before we quit all this foolishness,” Hood resumed with a glance at the chauffeur, “there’s one thing I want to ask you, Mr. Deering, as a special favor. That chap lying over there is Tommy Torrence, whom you kicked off your door-step for daring to love yourdaughter. He’s one of the best fellows in the world. Just because his father, the old senator, didn’t quite hit it off with you in a railroad deal before Tommy was born is no reason why you should take it out on the boy. He started for the bad after you made a row over his attentions to your daughter, but he’s been with me six months and he’s as right and true a chap as ever lived. You’ve got to fix it up with him or I’ll—I’ll—well, I’ll be pretty hard on your boy if he ever wants to break into my family!”
With this Hood rose and drew from his pocket a handful of newspaper clippings which he threw into the air and watched flutter to the floor.
“Those are some of your advertisements offering handsome rewards fornews of me dead or alive. In collecting them I’ve had a mighty good time. Let’s all go to sleep; to-morrow night the genial Fogarty will get us out of this. He’s over there now sawing the first bar of that window!”