CHAPTER VIIIFACE TO FACE
When the two men got into the house the dim rooms made them stumble for a moment after the brilliant sunshine of the outer skies; but in a second Birdsall’s groping hand had found an electric push-button and the room was flooded with light. They were in a small office off the kitchen, apparently. Smoke of a peculiarly pungent odor and eye-smarting character blurred all the surroundings; but during the moment the Jap halted to explore its cause the others perceived two doors and made for them. One was locked, but the other must have been free to open, since Haley, with his watering-can, bounded through it while they were tugging at the other. Almost immediately, however, Haley was back again shouting and pointing down the dark passage.
“The fire’sthere,” screamed the detective. “I can smell smoke! The smoke comes through the keyhole!” But while the Jap fitted a key in thelock and swung back the door, and Haley, who had paused to replenish his watering-can at a convenient faucet, darted after the other two, the colonel stood listening with every auditory nerve strained to catch some sound. He yelled “Fire! help!” at the top of his voice, but not moving a muscle. “Too far off,” he muttered, then he yelled again and threw a heavy chair as if he had stumbled against it. Another pause; he got down on his knees to put his ear to the floor. Directly he rose; he did not speak, but the words that he said to himself were only: “Just possible. Some one down cellar; but not under here.” Meanwhile he was hurrying in pursuit of the others as swiftly as his stiff knee would allow. He found them in a side hall with tiled or brick floor, gathered about a water-soaked heap of charred red paper.
“’Tis terrible!” announced Haley, “a bum for sure! a dinnermite bum!”—fishing out something like a tin tomato can from the sodden mass.
“Anyhow,theregoes the real thing,” observed the colonel coolly, as a formidable explosion jarred the air.
“If you blow us up, I kill you flist!” hissed the Jap, and his knife flashed.
“Chito, Chito!” soothed the colonel, lifting hisrevolver almost carelessly. Simultaneously two brawny arms pinioned the Jap’s own arms at his sides.
“Shure, Mister Samurai, ’tis the ongrateful chap youse is,” expostulated Haley. “I hate to reshtrain ye, but if ye thry any jehujits on me ’twill be sahanara wid youse mighty quick.”
“No understan’,” murmured the Jap plaintively. “Why you hult me?”
“Come, put out the fire first,” said the colonel; “you know the house, you go ahead.”
The Jap darted on ahead so swiftly that they had some ado to follow; which seemed necessary, since he might have clashed a bolt on them at any turn. The colonel’s stiff leg kept him in the rear, but Haley was never a hand’s-breadth behind the runner.
They found smoke in two places, but they easily extinguished the tiny flames. In both cases the bombs turned out to be no more dangerous than a common kind of fireworks yielding a suffocating smoke in an inclosure, but doing no especial damage on safe and fire-proof ground, like a hearth. They were quickly extinguished. In their search they passed from one luxurious room to another, the Jap leading, until he finally halted in a spaciouslibrary hung in Spanish leather, with ancient, richly carved Spanish tables and entrancing Spanish chairs of turned wood and age-mellowed cane, and bookcases sumptuously tempting a book-lover. But the colonel cared only for the soul of a book, not its body; the richest and clearest of black letter or the daintiest of tooling had left him cold; moreover, every fiber in him was strung by his quest; and Haley, naturally, was immune; strangely enough, it was the cheerful, vulgar little detective who gave a glance, rapid but full of admiration, at the shelves and pile of missals on the table, incongruously jostled by magazines of the day.
Winter faced the Jap, who was sheathed again in his bland and impassive politeness. “Where is Mr. Mercer?” said he.
The Jap waved his hands in an eloquent oriental gesture. He assured the honorable questioner that he did not know any Mr. Mercer. There was no one in the house.
The colonel had seated himself in a priceless arm-chair in Cordova stamped leather; he no longer looked like an invalid. “Show your star, please,” he commanded Birdsall, and the latter silently flung back the lapel of his coat.
“I ought to tell you,” continued Rupert Winter, “that the game is up. It would do no good for you to run that poisoned bit of steel of yours into me or into any of us; we have only to stay here a little too long and the police of San Francisco will be down on you—oh, I know all about what sort they are, but we have money to spend as well as you. You take the note I shall write to Mr. Mercer, or whatever you choose to call him, and bring his answer. We stay here until he comes.”
Having thus spoken in an even, gentle voice, he scribbled a few words on a piece of paper which he took out of his note-book. This he proffered to the Jap.
On his part, the latter kept his self-respect; he abated no jot of his assurance that they were alone in the house; he insinuated his suspicion that they were there for no honest purpose; finally he was willing to search the house if they would stay where they were.
“I am not often mistaken in people,” was the colonel’s rather oblique answer, “and I think you are a gentleman who might kill me if you had a chance, but would not break his word to me. If you will promise to play fair with us, do no harmto my nephew, take this letter and bring me an answer—if you find any one—on your word of honor as a Japanese soldier and gentleman, you may go; we will not signal the police. Is it a bargain?”
The Jap gravely assented, still in the language of the East, “saving his face” by the declaration of the absence of his principals. And he went off as gracefully and courteously as if only the highest civilities had passed between them.
“Won’t he try some skin game on us?” the detective questioned; but Winter only motioned toward the telephone desk. “Listen at it,” he said, “you can tell if the wires are cut; and he knows your men are outside hiding, somewhere; he doesn’t know how many. You see, we have the advantage of them there; to be safe they don’t dare to let many people into their secret.Wecan have a whole gang. We haven’t many, but they maythinkwe have.”
Birdsall, who had lifted the receiver to his ear, laid it down with an appeased nod. Immediately he proceeded to satisfy his professional conscience by a search in every nook and cranny of the apartment. But no result appeared important enough to justify the production of his red morocco note-bookand his fountain-pen. He had paused in disgust when the colonel sat up suddenly, erect in his chair; his keener ears had caught some sound which made him dart to all the windows in succession. He called Haley (whom he had posted outside to guard the door) and despatched him across the hall to reconnoiter. “I am sure it was the sound of wheels,” he explained, “but Haley will be too late; we are on the wrong side of the house.”
As he spoke the buzz of an electric bell jarred their ears. “Somebody is coming in the front door,” hazarded Birdsall.
“Evidently,” returned the colonel dryly. “How can our absent friends get in otherwise—at least how can they let us understand they have come in? I think we are going to have the pleasure of an interview with the elusive Mr. Mercer.”
They waited. The colonel motioned Birdsall to a seat by the table, within breathing distance of the telephone. He himself fluttered the loose journals and magazines, his ironic smile creasing his cheek. “Our Japanese friend reads the newspapers,” he remarked. “Here are to-day’s papers; yes,ExaminerandChronicle, unfolded and smoked over. Cigar, too, not cigarette, for hereis a stump—decidedly our cherry-blossom friends are getting civilized!”
“Oh, there is somebodyinhere all right,” grunted Birdsall. “Say, Colonel, you are sure Mrs. Winter has had no answer to her ad? No kind of notice about sending money?”
“I haven’t seen her for a few hours, but I saw Mrs. Melville Winter; she was positive no word had come. She thought my aunt was more worried than she would admit, and Miss Smith looked pale, although she seemed hopeful.”
“She didn’t really want to give me the letter, I thought,” said the detective. The colonel gave him no reply save a black look. A silence fell. A footfall outside broke it, a firm, in nowise stealthy footfall. Birdsall slipped his hand inside his coat. The colonel rose and bowed gravely to Cary Mercer.
On his part, Mercer was not in the least flurried; he looked at the two men, not with the arrogant suspicion which had stung Winter on the train, but with the melancholy courtesy of his bearing at Cambridge, three years before.
“This, I think, is Colonel Winter?” he said, returning the bow, but not extending his hand, which hung down, slack and empty at his side.
“I am glad you recognized me this time, Mr. Mercer.”
“I am sorry that I did not recognize you before,” answered Mercer. “Will you gentlemen be seated? I am not the owner of the house nor his son; I am not even a friend, only a casual acquaintance of the young man, but I seem to be rather in the position of host, so will you be seated, and may I offer you some Scotch and Shasta—Mr.—ah—”
“Mr. Horatio Birdsall, of the Birdsall and Gwen Detective Agency,” interposed Winter. Birdsall bowed. Mercer bowed. “Excuse me if I decline for us both; our time is limited—no, thank you, not a cigar, either. Now, Mr. Mercer, to come to the point, I want my nephew. I understand he is in this house.”
“You are quite mistaken,” Mercer responded with unshaken calm. “He is not.”
“Where is he, then?”
“I do not know, Colonel Winter. What I should recommend is for you to go back to the Palace, and if you do not find him there—why, come and shoot us up again!” His eye strayed for a second to the blackened, reeking mass on the great stone hearth.
“Have you sent him home? Is that what you mean to imply?”
“I imply nothing, Colonel; I don’t dare to with such strenuous fighters as you gentlemen; only go and see, and if you do find the young gentleman has had no ill treatment, no scare—only a little adventure such as boys like, I hope you will come out here, or wherever I may be, and have that cigar you are refusing.”
The colonel was frankly puzzled. He couldn’t quite focus his wits on this bravado which had nothing of the bravo about it, in fact had a tinge of wistfulness in its quiet. One would have said the man regretted his compulsory attitude of antagonism; that he wanted peace.
Mercer smiled faintly. “You ought to know by this time when a man is lying, Colonel,” he continued, “but I will go further. I may have done plenty of wrong things in my life, some things, maybe, which the law might call a crime; but I have never done anything which would debar me from passing my word of honor as a gentleman; nor any one else from taking it. I give you my word of honor that I have meant and I do mean no slightest harm to Archie Winter; and that, while I do notknowwhere he is at thisspeaking, I believe you will find him safe under your aunt’s protection when you get back to the Palace.”
“Call up the Palace Hotel, Mr. Birdsall,” was the colonel’s reply. “Mr. Mercer, I do not distrust that you are speaking exactly, but you know your Shakespeare; and there are promises which keep their word to the ear but break it to the sense.”
“I don’t wonder at your mistake; but you are mistaken, suh.”
Birdsall was phlegmatically ringing up Mrs. Winter, having the usual experience of the rash person who intrudes his paltry needs on the complex workings of a great hotel system.
“No, I don’t know the number, I haven’t the book here, butyouknow, Palace Hotel. Well give me Information, then—Busy? Well, give me another Information, then—yes, I want the Palace Hotel—P-a-l-a-c-e—yes, yes, Palace Hotel; yes, certainly. Yes? Mrs. Archibald Winter. Yes—line busy? Well, hold on until it is disengaged. Say, Miss Furber, that you? This is Birdsall and Gwen. Yes. Give me Mrs. Winter, will you, 337? This Mrs. Winter? Oh! When will she be back? Is Mrs. Melville Winter in?Well, Miss Smith in? She’s gone, too? Has Master Archibald got back, yet, to the hotel? Hasn’t? Thank you—eh?” in answer to the colonel’s interruption. “What say, Colonel?”
“Tell her to call up this number,”—the colonel read it out of the telephone book—“when Master Archie does get back, will you? I am afraid, Mr. Mercer, that you will have to allow us to trespass on your hospitality for a little longer.”
He suspected that Mercer was annoyed, although he answered lightly enough: “As you please, Colonel Winter. I am sure you will hear very soon. Now, there is another matter, your machine; I understand you left it outside. Will you ring for Kito, Colonel? Under the circumstances you may prefer to do your own ringing. I will ask him to attend to the car.”
The colonel made proper acknowledgments. He was thinking that had Mercer cared to confiscate the motor, he would have done it without ringing; on the other hand, did he desire some special intercourse with his retainer, wherein, under their very noses, he could issue his orders—well, possibly they might get a whiff of the secret themselves were he allowed to try. At present the game baffled him. Therefore he nodded at Birdsall’spuckered face behind Mercer’s shoulder. And he rang the bell.
The Jap answered it with suspicious alacrity.
“Kito,” said Mercer, “will you attend to General Winter’s car? Bring it up to the court.”
Absolutely harmless, to all appearances, but Birdsall, from his safe position behind master and man, looked shrewd suspicion at the soldier.
“Shall your man in the hall go with him?” asked Mercer.
The colonel shook his head. “No,” he said quietly, “we have other men outside if he needs help. Call Skid, please.” But when Birdsall attempted to get Central there was no response.
The colonel merely shrugged his shoulders, although Birdsall frowned with vexation. “What a pity!” said Winter softly. “Now the fellows will come when the time is up; we can’t call them off.”
Mercer smiled faintly. “There are two more telephones in the house,” he observed. “You can call off your dogs easily any time you wish. Also you can hear from the Palace. Will you come up-stairs with me? I assure you I have not the least intention to harm you or the honest sergeant.”
“You take the first trick, Mercer,” said the colonel. “I supposed the bell was your signal to havethe wires cut. But about going; no, I think we will stay here. There is a door out on the court which, if you will open—thank you. A charming prospect! Excuse me if I send Haley out there; and may I go myself?”
Anticipating the answer, he stepped under the low mission lintel into a fairy-like Californian court orpatioof pepper-trees and palms and a moss-grown fountain. There was the usual colonnade with a stone seat running round the wall. Mercer, smiling, motioned to one of them. “I wish I could convince you, Colonel, that you are in no need of that plaything in your hand, and that you are going to dine with your boy—isn’t he a fine fellow?”
The colonel did not note either his admission that he had seen Archie, nor a curious warming of his tone; he had stiffened and grown rigid like a man who receives a blow which he will not admit. He stole a glance at the detective and met an atrocious smirk of complacency. They both had caught a glimpse of a figure flitting into a door of the court. They both had seen a woman’s profile and a hand holding a little steel tool which had ends like an alligator’s nose. And both men had recognized Miss Smith.