Kitabı oku: «Miss Maitland, Private Secretary», sayfa 16

CHAPTER XXVIII – THE MAN IN THE BOAT

Price took Bébita to Grasslands, handed her over to Annie and telephoned in to the Janneys. Then he left to rejoin Ferguson who was to go to the shore and find out the meaning of the shots. Price, missing the leading car, had decided that it had turned from the pike and scouring the side roads in a blind chase had heard the shots, agreeing with Ferguson that they came from the direction of the Sound.

Ferguson went that way, driving at breakneck speed. He had almost reached the shore, felt the water's coolness, saw the wood's vista widen when, to avoid a deep rut, he slewed his machine to the left. The lights penetrated a thicket, revealing behind the woven foliage, a dark, large body, black among the tangled green. He drew up, peering at it – it was not a rock; its side showed smooth through the boughs. He jumped out and pushed his way through the bushes. It was a taxi, its lamps extinguished, broken branches and crushed foliage marking its track.

It gave evidence of a violent flight and a hasty desertion, careened to one side, its door open, a rug hanging over the step. He went to the back, struck a match and looked at the license tag – the number was that of the motor he had followed. Covered by the darkness, driven deep among the trees, it could easily have passed unnoticed until the daylight betrayed it.

The plan of escape revealed a new artfulness – the man had made off either on foot or in another vehicle. It accounted for the license – he knew his pursuers would mark it and look for a car carrying that number. In the face of such a crafty completeness of detail the young man felt himself reduced to a baffled indecision. Cogitating on the various routes his quarry might have taken, he ran out on to the shore road and here again halted.

Before him the Sound lay, a smooth dark floor, along which glided the small golden glimmerings of river craft. He looked up and down the road, discernible as a gray path between the upstanding solidity of the woods and the flat solidity of the water. Some distance in front a black blot took shape under his exploring glance as a small house. He started the car and ran toward it, seeing as he approached a dancing yellow spot come from behind it in swaying passage. He stopped, the yellow spot steadied, rose, swung aloft – a lantern in the hands of a man, half dressed, who came toward him spying out from under the upraised glow.

Ferguson spoke abruptly:

"Did you hear shots a while ago?"

The man setting his lantern on the ground, spoke with the slow phlegm of the native:

"I did – close here. I bin down to the waterside seein' if I could make out what they was."

The house was skirted by a balcony along which a second light now came into view; this time from a lamp carried in the hand of a woman. She was wrapped in a bed gown, a straggle of loose hair hanging round a frightened face.

"We was asleep and they woke us up. They was right off there," she jerked her head to the Sound behind her.

"From the water?" Ferguson asked.

"Sounded that way," the man took it up. "We wasn't sure at first what it was; then they come crack, crack, one after the other, from somewheres beyont. My wife, she said it was motor boats, said she heard 'em off across the water. But by the time we got something on and was outside it was over. There wasn't no more and we couldn't see nothing. I bin down on the beach lookin' round, thinkin' they might have come from there, but I ain't found no tracks or signs of anybody."

"I was wonderin'," said the woman, "if may be it was that patrol boat – the one they got this summer runnin' along the shore for thieves – That they caught a sight of one and went after him."

Ferguson was silent for a moment then said:

"Is there any place round here where a boat could be hidden, deep enough water for a launch?"

The man answered:

"Yes, right down the road a step there's a cove and an old dock; used to belong to the folks that lived on the bluff but the house burned down a while back and ain't been rebuilt and no one's used the dock since. A feller could hide a boat there fine; it's all overgrown so you can't see it unless you know where it is."

"I'd like to take a look at it," said Ferguson. "Come along with the lantern."

The place was only a few yards from the mouth of the wood road. Trees and shrubs sheltered it, concealing with their rank growth a small wharf, rotted and sagging to the water line. The lantern rays revealed a recent presence, scattered leaves and twigs on the wooden planking, the long marshy grasses showing a track from the road to the wharf's edge.

"Yes, sir," said the native, much impressed; "some one's been here to-night and not s'long ago either. You can see where the dew's been swep' off the grasses right to the water."

Ferguson said nothing; he now saw the whole plan of escape – the coupé left in the woods, a short run to the cove where a boat had been concealed, the get-away down on across the Sound. What had the shots meant? Was the woman right in thinking the police patrol had come upon the fleeing criminal? And if they had what had been the result?

Lantern in hand, the man at his heels, he crushed through the swampy copse to the shore. There his glance swept the long stretch of the water, sewn in the distance with a pattern of moving sparks. Two of them, red and green, stole over the ebony surface toward him, advancing with an even, gliding smoothness, piercing and steady, like the eyes of a stealthily approaching animal, fixing him with a meaning scrutiny. He snatched up the lantern and ran for a point that jutted out in a pebbly cape. Standing on its tip he raised and waved the light, letting his voice ring out across the stillness:

"Boat ahoy!"

The lights drew closer, their reflections stabbing down into the oily depths, gleam below gleam. The pulsing of a muffled engine came with them, a prow took shape, a shine of wood and brass above the lusterless tide. Ferguson called again:

"Who are you?"

An answer rose in a man's surly voice:

"What's that to you?"

"A good deal. I'm Ferguson of Council Oaks and I'm looking for the boat that fired on some one round here about an hour ago."

The voice replied, its tone changed to sudden conciliation:

"Oh, Mr. Ferguson; couldn't see who it was. We're what you're looking for – the police patrol. We have the launch here in tow."

"Have you got the man?"

"Yes, sir. He didn't answer our challenge and fired on us. We chased and gave it back to him – a running fight. One of us got him – he's dead."

"Go on to my wharf; I'll be there when you come."

On his way along the shore road he met Price, paused for a quick explanation, and the two cars ran at a racing clip to Ferguson's wharf. The men were standing on its end when the police boat glided into the gush of light that fell from the high electric lamps at either side of the ship. Behind it, lifted and dropped by the languid wavelets, was a launch, a covered shape lying on the floor.

The story of the police was quickly told. The night, dark and windless, was the kind chosen by the water thieves for their operations. The men had been on the watch faring noiselessly with engine muffled and hooded lamps. It was nearly the end of their run, a length of shore with few estates, when they saw a boat glide from a part of the beach peculiarly dark and deserted. The craft carried no lights, a fact that instantly roused their suspicions, and they waited. As it drew out for the open water they challenged. There was no answer, but a sudden acceleration of its speed, shooting by them like a streak for the mid reaches of the Sound.

They started in pursuit, repeating their challenge and then an order to lie to. Again there was no response and they clapped on top speed and raced in its wake. They were gaining on it when, in answer to a louder hail, the man fired on them, the bullet passing between two of them and burying itself in the gunwale. They replied with a return fire, there was a fusillade of shots, and the two boats sped in a darkling rush across the Sound. They knew something was wrong with their opponent; his launch headed in a straight line swept through the wash of steamers, cut across the bows of tugs and river craft, rocking like a cockleshell, menaced by destruction, shouts and objurgations following its mad course. They were up with it, almost alongside on the last lap. He made no answer to their hails, sat upright and motionless, sat so when his bow crashed against the rocks of the Connecticut shore. They found him dead, a bullet in his brain, the wheel still gripped in his hands.

Ferguson dropped into the launch and drew down the coat that had been thrown over the body. The face, the false beard gone, was handsome, the body large and powerful, the hands fine and well kept – it was not the type he had expected to see. He felt in the pockets and found the money still in its envelope, clasped by the rubber bands. There were no other papers, no means of identification. After a short colloquy with the men, he and Price drove back to Council Oaks.

Price left the next morning. His presence was necessary in the city, he said, and he seemed preoccupied and anxious to go. He hinted at forthcoming revelations which would clear up what was still unexplained, but declared himself unable at present to say more.

When he had gone, Ferguson walked to Grasslands where he found the family recuperating in a relief too deep for words. Bébita was in bed still asleep. The doctor, sent for the night before, said she was suffering from the effects of a drug, but that rest and quiet would soon restore her.

They collected on the balcony to hear his story. When it was over, questions answered, amazement and horror vented in various forms, Mr. Janney said he would like to walk over to the wharf and have a talk with the police himself. Ferguson decided to go with him; there would be a lot of business to be gone through, an inquest with all its unpleasant detail.

As they rose to leave, Suzanne announced that she wanted to come too. She looked a wreck, in her hysterical jubilation forgetful of her rouge and powder; a worn little wraith of a woman whose journey to the heart of life had stripped her of all coquetry and beauty. They tried to dissuade her, but, as usual, she was insistent; she wanted to see the men herself, she wanted to hear everything. On this day of thanksgiving no one had the will to thwart her, so they accepted with the best grace they could and she walked through the woods with them.

There was a group of men on the wharf, the local police, the coroner, some of Ferguson's employees. The body had been put in the boathouse, laid on a table under a sheltering tarpaulin. Ferguson and Mr. Janney drew off to the end of the dock in low-toned conference with the officials. They were relieved to see that Suzanne had no mind to listen, but stayed by herself in the shade of the boathouse wall.

She leaned against it, looking out over the sparkling reaches of the Sound. Her thoughts were of the dead man, close behind her there, on the other side of the wooden partition. She wondered with an awed amaze at his wild act and its dark ending. She wondered what manner of man he was, what he was like – a human creature, unknown to her, who could want only to cause her such anguish.

She shot a glance over her shoulder and saw that the door of the boathouse was half open – the coroner had been in and had neglected to close it. She looked at the men at the end of the wharf; they stood in a little cluster, backs toward her, heads together in animated discussion. She moved from the wall, advanced on tip-toe through the slant of shade, and slipped through the open doorway.

The place was very still, its clear, varnished brownness impregnated with the sea's salty tang, through its windows the golden gleam of the waves reflected in rippling lights that chased across its peaked ceiling. She stole to the table where the grim shape lay and lifted the tarpaulin with a trembling hand. The other shot suddenly to her mouth, strangling a scream, and she dropped the heavy cloth as if it burned her. Both hands went up over her face, flattened there until the nails were empurpled, and she stood, bent as if cramped with pain, for the moment all movement paralyzed.

Ferguson, informed of all he wanted to know, turned from the others to join her. She was not where he had left her, and moving down the wharf he looked about and, seeing no sign of her, decided that she had gone home. He was passing the boathouse doorway when she came through it almost upon him.

"Good heavens!" he said angrily, "have you been in there?" Then, seeing her face, he caught her arm and held her. Would there ever be an end to her willfulness!

"Come home," he said, sharply, and led her away. She tottered beside him, drooping and ghastly. As they crossed the road to the path up the bluff he could not forbear an exasperated:

"What in the name of common sense did you do that for? Didn't you know it was not a thing for you to see?"

Her hands locked on his arm; she leaned against him lifting a haggard glance to his face. Her voice was a husky whisper:

"It's not that, Dick. It wasn't just the dead man. It was – it was – he was my detective – Larkin!"

CHAPTER XXIX – MISS MAITLAND EXPLAINS

On Saturday afternoon several telephone messages were sent to Esther Maitland at O'Malley's flat. They came from Ferguson, from Grasslands, and the Whitney office. In the two latter cases they were conciliatory and apologetic and asked that Miss Maitland would see the senders and explain the circumstances that had so strangely involved her in the case.

To both her employers and the Whitneys Miss Maitland returned an evasive answer. She would be happy to do as they asked, but would have to let a few more days pass before she would be free to speak. Meantime she would remain with Mrs. O'Malley, who had offered to keep her, and who had treated her with the utmost kindness and consideration. One request she made – this to the Whitneys – she would like Chapman Price to be advised of her whereabouts. It would be necessary for her to communicate with him before she would be able to explain her share in the mystery.

Ferguson's message had been an importunate demand to let him come to her. She refused, said she would see no one until she was at liberty to clear herself, which would not be for some days yet. Her voice showed a tremulous urgency, a note of pleading, new to his ears and infinitely sweet. But he could not break down her resolution; she begged him to do as she asked, not to seek her out, not to demand any explanations until she was ready to give them. The one favor she granted him was that when the time was up and she could break her silence, he could come for her.

This did not happen until Wednesday. That morning she 'phoned to them all that she could now see them and tell them what they wanted to hear. A meeting was arranged at the Whitney office for three that afternoon and Ferguson went to fetch her.

They met in Mrs. O'Malley's front parlor, considerately vacated and with the folding doors closed against intrusion. Without greeting Ferguson took her hands and held them, looking down into her face. She was beaming, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shy. She began to say something about being at last able to vindicate herself, but he cut her off:

"Before you go into that, I want to say something to you."

"No, that's not fair; I must speak first and you must let me. It's my privilege."

"With the others maybe, but not with me. What I have to say has to be said before I hear. Esther, do you know what it is?"

She was silent, her head drooping, her hands growing cold in his grasp. He went on, very quietly and simply:

"It's that I ask you to be my wife. And I must ask it before the clearing or vindicating or any rubbish of that sort. I don't know what you'll say to it and I don't want any answer now. That's at your own good time and your own good pleasure. It's just that I wanted you to see how I stand and have stood since that night when we walked through the woods together. Come along now – it's nearly three, and we mustn't keep them waiting."

It was a very different Esther who sat in Wilbur Whitney's private office, facing those who had once been her accusers. She gave no evidence of rancor, greeted them with a frank friendliness, smiled with a radiance they set down to the rebound from long tension and strain. Suzanne, her jealous fires burned out, could acknowledge now that she was handsome; Mr. Janney wondered at her look of breeding. "A fine girl," old Whitney thought, as he studied her through his glasses, "spirited and high-mettled as a racer."

"It's a long story," she said, "and for you to understand it I'll have to go back to a time when none of you had ever heard of me. And before I begin, I want to say to Mrs. Janney," she turned to the older woman eagerly earnest, "if I had understood people better, if I hadn't been hardened and made suspicious by the struggle I'd had, I would have trusted you and told you more, and all this misery would have been averted. So, in a way it was my fault, and being such I've suffered for it.

"I have a half-sister, Florence Jackson, nine years younger than I am; that would make her eighteen. When my stepfather died, ten years ago, he left us penniless and I had to start in at once to make our bread. I boarded Florry out with friends and found a position as a school teacher. That was only for a year or two; soon I advanced into the secretarial work which was less fatiguing and better paying. In the first place I got, Florry was living near me and on Sundays she used to come and see me. My employer didn't like it – did not want a strange child about the house and told me so without mincing words. I was angry – I was hot-tempered and sensitive in those days and I made a vow to keep my life to myself, be nothing to my employers but a machine who rendered certain services for a certain wage. When I came to you, Mrs. Janney, I should have seen that I was with some one who was big-hearted and generous, but I had been molded and the mold had set in a hard and bitter shape.

"Earning more money I was able to put Florry in good schools. It was my intention to give her a fine education, and equip her for the task of earning her living. She was quick and clever, but willful and hard to control. I suppose it was because she had had no home influences, no place that belonged to her. She had to spend her vacations anywhere – sometimes at the school, sometimes with classmates. It was a miserable life for a child.

"She was always pretty – when she was little people used to stop on the streets to look at her – and as she grew older she grew prettier. She was charming, too, there was something about her very willfulness that was captivating. The combination worried me; if she had had more balance, been more reasonable, it wouldn't have mattered. But she was the kind who is always full of wild enthusiasms, going off at a tangent about this, that and the other. Not a promising temperament for a girl who has to support herself.

"A year ago I got her into a first class school near Chicago – I had met the principal, who had been very kind and taken her at a greatly reduced rate. It was to be her last year; in June she would graduate and with her education finished, I felt sure I could get her a position in New York where I could help her and watch over her. During the winter – last winter – her letters made me uneasy. She was discontented, tired of study, wanted to be out in the world doing something. I was prepared for a struggle with her, but not for what happened.

"One day – it was in March – I had a letter from her saying she had run away from school, was in New York and was looking for a job. I was angry and bitterly disappointed, also I was frightened – Florry in New York without a cent, with no one to be with her, with no home or companion. I went to the address she gave me and found her in the hall bedroom of a third rate boarding house – a woman on the train had told her of it – full of high spirits and a sort of childish joy at being free. She did not understand my disappointment, laughed at my fears. I lost my temper, said more than I ought – and – well, we had a quarrel, the first real one we ever had.

"That night I couldn't sleep, blaming myself, knowing that whatever she did it was my duty to stand by her. The next day I went to the place and found she'd gone, leaving no address. For three days I heard nothing from her and was on the verge of going to you, Mrs. Janney, and imploring your aid and advice, when a letter came. She was all right, she had found paying employment, she was independent at last. In my first spare hour I went to her and found her in another boarding house, a cheap, shabby place, but decent. A good many working women lived there, the better paid shop girls and heads of departments. It was through one of these, a fitter, at Camille's, that she had got work. With her beauty it had been easy – she had been employed as a model at Camille's."

"Camille's!" the word came on a startled note from Suzanne. Esther turned to her:

"Yes, Mrs. Price, and you saw her there – you ordered a dress from a model that Florry wore."

"The girl with the reddish hair – the tall girl?"

"Yes, that was Florry. She told me afterward how she walked up and down in front of you."

"But – " Suzanne's voice showed an incredulous wonder, "she was beautiful; they were all talking about her."

"I said she was – I was not exaggerating. She was satisfied with her work, liked it, I think she would have liked anything that was novel and took her away from the grind of study. I didn't like it, but at least it wasn't the stage, and I set about trying to find something better. That was the situation till April and then – " She paused, her eyes dropped to the floor. The color suddenly rose in her face and raising them she shot a look at Ferguson. He answered it with a slight, almost imperceptible nod and smiled in open encouragement. She took a deep breath and addressed Mrs. Janney:

"What I have to tell now isn't pleasant for me to say or for you to hear, but I have to tell it for all the subsequent events grew from it. Mr. Price had been to Camille's that first time with his wife."

There was a slight stir in the listening company, a sudden focusing of intent eyes on the girl, a waiting expectancy in the grave faces. She saw it and answered it:

"Yes, he saw Florry. He went again – Mrs. Price was buying several dresses. After that second visit he waited one night at the side door used for employees and spoke to her. I can't condone what she did, but I can say in extenuation that she was very young, very inexperienced, that she knew who Mr. Price was, and that she had never in her life met a man of his attractions.

"She didn't hide it from me, was frank and outspoken about the meeting and his subsequent attentions. For he saw her often after that, took her for walks on Sunday, sent her theater tickets and books. I was filled with anxiety, besought of her to give it up, but she wouldn't, she couldn't. Before I went to Grasslands I realized a situation was developing that made me sick with apprehension. She was in love, madly in love. I couldn't reason with her, I couldn't make her listen to me; she was blind and deaf to anything but him and what he said.

"I went to Mr. Price and implored him to leave her alone. I had to catch him as I could – in the halls, at odd moments in the library, for he hated the scenes I made and tried to avoid me. He assured me that he meant no harm, that her position was hard and he was sorry for her. I threatened to tell Mrs. Janney, and he said I could if I wanted, that he would soon be done with them all and didn't care. I saw then that he too, like Florry, was growing indifferent to everything but the hours when they were together – that he was in love.

"That was the situation when I went to Grasslands. It was much worse there – I couldn't see her often, I was in ignorance of how things were going with her, for her letters told me little. It was unbearable, and I went into town whenever I could; all the extra holidays were asked for so that I could go into the city and see how Florry was getting on. On one of these visits she told me something that, at the time, I paid little attention to, setting it down as one of her passing fancies; she was interested in the working girls' unions. At Camille's and in the boarding house she had fallen in with a group of girls of Socialistic beliefs and, through them, had met their organizers and backers. She was much more deeply involved than I guessed. Her fearlessness, her ardor for anything new and exciting, making her a valuable addition to their ranks. It carried her far, to the edge of tragedy."

She turned to Mr. Janney:

"Do you remember, Mr. Janney, one morning early in July, how I read you an account of a strike riot among the shirtwaist makers when one of the girls stabbed a policeman with a hatpin?"

The old man nodded:

"Yes, vaguely. I have a dim memory of arguing about it with you."

"That was the time. Well, that girl was Florry. She lost her head completely, stabbed the man, and in the tumult that followed, managed to get away through the hall of a tenement house. She was hidden by friends of hers, Russian socialists called Rychlovsky. I have met them; they seem decent, kindly people, and they certainly were very good to her. When I read you the article I had no more idea that the girl was Florry than you had. It was not until the next morning that I received a letter from her, telling me what she had done and where she was.

"She wrote two letters, one to me and one to Mr. Price. He had told her that he would spend his week-ends with the Hartleys at Cedar Brook and she sent his there. Mine was delivered on the morning of July the seventh but he did not get his until the same evening when he came to Cedar Brook from the city. Each of us acted as promptly as we could, but he went to her before I did, going in that night in his car.

"It seems incredible that he should have done what he did, dared to take such a risk. But when he found her cooped up in the rear room of a tenement, lonely and frightened, he prevailed on her to go out with him in his motor. He took her for a drive far up the Hudson, not returning until after midnight. The Rychlovskys, who had missed her and were in a state of alarm, were furious. When I went there the next day they were vociferous in their desire to be rid of her, saying she would land them all in jail. I was her sister; it was up to me, I must find another lair for her.

"I had heard of the house in Gayle Street from two girls, art students, who had once lived there. It was the only place I could think of; and when I found that the top floor was vacant, I realized that she could be hidden in one of the rooms and no one suspect it was occupied. I engaged it and paid the rent, telling the janitor the story of a friend coming from the West. Then I took the key back to Florry. The Rychlovskys, pacified by the thought that she would be out of their house, undertook to furnish her with food. They made her promise that she would keep to the room, light no gas at night, make no noise, and stay away from the window. Florry was by this time thoroughly cowed and agreed to everything. It was through their adroitness that the room passed as vacant. They visited her in the evening, a time when many people came and went in the house, bringing in her food and carrying away what was left in newspapers. They had two extra keys made, one for me, one for Mr. Price. I brought her money, Mr. Price books and magazines. He saw her oftener than I did, and gave me news of her. This I asked him to do by letter. I had once met him by Little Fresh Pond, and another time he had telephoned. I was afraid of repeating the meeting at the pond – we had both come upon Miss Rogers and Bébita on the way out – and I dreaded being overheard at the 'phone.

"All went well for two weeks, though we were terribly frightened, for the policeman developed blood-poisoning, and for some time hung between life and death. Then the Rychlovskys suggested a plan that seemed to me the only way out of our dangers and difficulties. A friend of theirs, a woman doctor, was one of a hospital unit sailing from Montreal to France. This woman, allied with them in their Socialistic activities, agreed to get Florry into her group as a hospital attendant, take her to France and look after her. It struck us all as feasible and as lacking in danger as any plan for her removal could be. The doctor was a woman of high character who told the Rychlovskys she would keep Florry near her as the unit was shorthanded and needed all the workers it could get. The one person who showed no enthusiasm was Florry herself. I knew perfectly what was the matter – she did not want to leave Chapman Price. He tried to persuade her, was as worried and anxious as I was. The situation between them had cleared to a definite understanding – when his wife had obtained her divorce he would go to France and marry Florry there.

"And now I come to the day of the kidnaping, that dreadful, unforgettable day!

"The morning before – Thursday – I had seen her and found her in a state of nervous indecision, weeping and miserable. I knew I was to be in town with Mrs. Price the next day and told her if I could get time I would come to her. Mrs. Price had told me how we were to divide the errands and I realized, if I could finish mine earlier than she expected, I would have a chance of seeing Florry. I had just been paid my salary and that, with some money I had saved, I brought with me. My intention was to give all this to Florry and implore her to go with the hospital unit, which was scheduled to leave Montreal early the following week.

"Things worked out as I had hoped. The commissions took less time than Mrs. Price had calculated and I found that I would be able to spend a few minutes with Florry. In case Bébita should mention the excursion downtown, I ordered the driver to drop me at a bookbindery on the corner of Gale Street. I could easily explain our stop there by saying that I had left a book to be bound.