Kitabı oku: «Against Odds: A Detective Story», sayfa 14

But not alone, when he took his second promenade lake-ward. The boy Billy was at his heels unseen but watchful, and well knowing how to act should danger threaten.

In the meantime, since the night of the attack upon Lossing, the brunette, Bob, Delbras, Smug – all had vanished utterly. Neither in Midway nor elsewhere, as Turks or gentlemen of leisure, were they seen by Dave, myself, or the boy Billy.

'But they're here all right!' Dave declared, 'and if we don't find a new gap in the fence somewhere soon, I don't know the gentry!'

During Lossing's confinement in the hospital, after he had begun to mend, I had brought Dave to see him, and after that he had several times looked in upon the invalid; sometimes at my request, and later for his own pleasure as well.

Dave's bluff ways had made for him a friend in our guard, and so one day, the day following that of Lossing's third lakeside promenade, I asked Dave, who had declared himself off duty for the night, to go and see him.

I had just received a letter from Boston which made me anxious to see Miss Jenrys; and as I had not called upon nor met her during the day, I decided to go to Washington Avenue that evening.

'Go early, Dave,' I said, when he had assured me of his readiness to go, 'and ask him to put in the evening with you. I don't like these lakeshore prowls. The fellow's a good one with his fists, but he don't seem to realize that it's treachery, a blow in the back, that he must guard against.'

Dave went his way, and it being rather early for my call, I sat down to re-read Mr. Trent's letter.

It was brief and evidently penned under excitement. He had received an anonymous letter from Chicago, proposing to open negotiations for the ransom of his son, who, it declared, was at that moment a prisoner in the hands of desperate men.

'In short,' Trent's letter ended, 'it's an alarming letter. I write this in haste that it may reach you at once, and can only say that my daughter and Miss O'Neil, in my absence, opened and read the letter, and have written to Miss Jenrys in full. I am very anxious to know what they have written. See Miss J – at once; it is important. I have no time for more.

'Yours hastily,

'Trent.'

As I was turning the key in the lock and about to set out at once for Washington Avenue, Brainerd came puffing up the stairs.

'He's gone!' he panted, 'and I was afraid you'd be!'

'Do you mean Lossing?'

'Of course! He laid off his regimentals, one of the guards told me, and put on a swell evening suit, and away he went. Want me to follow him?'

'Yes,' I answered promptly. 'I can't come home with him, I fear; I must somehow see the ladies alone. You know the place, Dave, do you not? He won't stay late, you know.'

I was not greatly surprised to hear of Lossing in Washington Avenue, for we knew well enough that his first evening's visit would be to Miss Jenrys. He had been three or four times taken to the gate in a rolling chair, and had walked from there to the house for a morning call; but this was his first evening outside the grounds since his recovery.

As I approached the house I saw that someone was before me, already at the threshold, and ringing the bell. I could not identify the figure, because of the two trees which stood one on each side of the stone steps before the door, the one half concealing his figure, the other the light at the corner below.

The door opened so promptly that he was admitted before I had left the pavement, and the visitor, Lossing as I supposed, passed in.

'Poor fellow,' I said to myself, 'I won't come upon his very heels. I'll give him a few moments, at least, alone with the lady of his choice,' and I turned away and walked at a moderate pace around the block. But I could spare him no further grace, and so upon again reaching the house I ran up the steps and rang hastily.

The rooms occupied by the ladies as parlour and reception rooms were small and cosy, and thrown together by an arch, beneath which a portière was draped, and Miss Ross came forward to greet me at the doorway of the first of these.

I could hear a murmur of conversation from the farther room, but it was not until I was standing beneath the curtained archway that I saw, to my amazement, Lossing and Monsieur Voisin at the farther side of the room, talking amiable nothings, as men of the world will when they meet. Both were in evening dress, and the Frenchman held in his hand a splendid bunch of American Beauty roses.

Voisin greeted me with empressement, and Lossing carelessly acknowledged 'having met me before.'

Miss Jenrys, her aunt informed me, as she had before informed the others, was engaged upon a letter of some importance, which must be sent in the early mail. She would join us soon; and then I learned from our desultory talk that it was Voisin for whose accommodation I had been pacing the block, and that Lossing had been the first arrival.

These two were still seated at the rear of the inner room, with Miss Ross at a little table near its centre and myself opposite her, and with my back to the archway, when there came a sudden sound at the outer door. It opened and closed quickly, and Miss Jenrys' voice exclaimed:

'Oh, Mr. Masters! I have had such a letter! One of those wretches has written that he will ransom poor lost Gerald Trent for – '

'June, my dear, come and receive thy visitors before thee tells thy news.'

There was just a second of embarrassed silence, and then Miss Jenrys came forward and greeted her guests, with precisely the same courteous welcome extended to us each and all.

But she only referred to her exclamatory first words in reply to Monsieur Voisin's question:

'You greeted us with some rather startling words, Miss Jenrys. Pardon me, but is it true that you have a friend lost in this wonderful city?'

But Miss Jenrys was not to be made to commit herself a second time.

'Not at all; it is simply some news just given me by a correspondent, who has told me in a former letter about the disappearance of a young man whom I do not know.'

'A disappearance! Is it possible? I am interested.' He turned quickly toward me. 'May I ask from you the details?'

'You can learn from the daily papers as much as I can tell you,' I replied, with my most candid smile. 'I read some time since of such a disappearance, and speaking of it casually to Miss Jenrys, learned from her that she had the news direct from a young lady correspondent who chanced to know the young man and his family. Is that reported correctly, Miss Jenrys?'

She nodded.

'And he has been ransomed, you say? That is well indeed,' persisted Voisin.

There was a brief moment of silence, during which I knew that her eyes were fixed upon my face; but other eyes were also keenly watching, and I did not return her gaze.

'Not ransomed,' Miss Jenrys said, 'not yet; there has been an offer of some sort, a proposition, I understand;' and she turned to Lossing and began to question him about his health, and then, before the Frenchman could renew his queries, began telling them both of a recent letter from her New York aunt, full, it would seem, of bits of society news, and mention of persons known to herself, Lossing, and Voisin; and she was so well aided by her aunt and Lossing, not to mention myself, that there was no renewal of the former subject, and after a very short call Monsieur Voisin made his adieus, expressed 'the keenest pleasure' at having encountered Mr. Lossing in Chicago, and his determination to see more of him.

When the door had closed behind him I arose, and without a word of explanation crossed the two rooms, and, peering out through the little bay-window overlooking the street, saw Monsieur Voisin standing upon the pavement outside, and casting slow glances, first up and then down the street; after which he walked briskly southward.

There was no need of an explanation where those three were concerned, and I made none. No one referred to Monsieur Voisin, his visit, or his interest in the Trent disappearance, and nothing was said for a time concerning the letter which was foremost in Miss Jenrys' mind and in mine.

For half an hour I conversed with Miss Ross and left the lovers to an uninterrupted chat; at the end of that time Lossing took his leave. As yet he had heard but the briefest outlines of the Trent affair; but in spite of my own request that he would remain and make one at our councils, he withdrew, declaring himself under orders to keep early hours.

I let him go without uneasiness, for was not Dave Brainerd lurking somewhere very near, and very much to be relied upon?

He had said good-bye to the little Quakeress in the back parlour, and then Miss Jenrys and myself had walked with him the length of the two small rooms, bidding him goodnight at the door.

As the street-door was heard to close behind him, Miss Jenrys turned to me, caught my arm, and said quickly, beseechingly:

'Mr. Masters, won't you follow him home? I – I have a strange feeling that he is not safe. It is not far, and it is early. Can you not come back – please?

There was no hesitation, no blushes; she spoke like a woman forgetful of self in her anxiety for another; and when I told her that my friend was doubtless awaiting him, she only wrung her hands.

'He may not be now. It is so early, and I shall not feel at ease until I know. Mr. Masters, I am sure there is danger very near us; I feel it. Won't you go – and come back when all is safe?'

CHAPTER XXIII.
'YOU ARE SUFFERING IN MY STEAD.'

It was useless to argue, and how could I refuse? For the first time, and greatly to my amazement, I saw that self-contained and sweetly reasonable young woman deaf to reason, and in that strange condition which, for lack of power to understand, we men call 'hysterical.'

I went, and in spite of myself I left her presence feeling somehow aroused and watchful – quite prepared, for a little time, to see an assassin at every corner and beneath every tree.

'Do not overtake him,' had been her last command. 'It might offend him. Only see him safe at his own door.'

I was not five minutes behind Lossing, and he could not, or would not, I knew, walk rapidly. I expected to come close upon his heels before I had reached the first corner.

That he would take the most direct and nearest route, I felt, was a matter of course. In fact, he knew no other, or so I thought.

The direct route was straight north to Fifty-seventh Street, and east to the entrance gate; but though I walked fast, and then almost ran, I could see nothing of Lossing and nothing of Dave Brainerd.

What did it mean? When I had reached the end of the first block, without a sight of Lossing, I hastened across the intersecting street and hurried on another block, and still no Lossing. I paused, looked around me, and seeing and hearing nothing, increased my steps almost to a run.

At Fifty-seventh Street I paused, before turning, to look about me and to listen. After the first block, going east, this street became quite densely shaded by the trees on either side.

I had now reached the second block on the south side of the street, that which contained the vacant lots and the overshadowing trees, beneath which the bootblack's stand was placed by day; and here again I paused and listened, in the hope that in the quiet about me I might hear and recognise Lossing's slow, even step. But no step was heard, and I moved on.

'It is early yet,' I assured myself; 'so early that thugs and night-birds are hardly likely to be abroad.'

I was now opposite the bootblack's stand on the skeleton uprights which supported his rainy-day awning, and the platform upon which his patrons sat enthroned in state – and here memory fails me.

I had turned my gaze upon the gibbet-like uprights, and simultaneously, as it now seems to me, a voice shouted my name; but the sound and something else came together – something bringing with it a sting and the sounds of a rampant engine. I saw a myriad of flashing lights, heard a tremendous crash, and – that was all.

I came to myself a little later, outstretched upon a wire cot, and with a cretonne cushion beneath what felt like a very large and much-battered prize pumpkin, but what was in reality my head. There was a glow of electric light all about and above me, and bottles of all sizes and colours on every side.

Slowly it dawned upon my dazed senses that I was in the corner drug-store where I had more than once called, on my return from Washington Avenue, to buy a cigar.

I stirred slightly, and then the faces of Dave Brainerd, Lossing, the druggist, and a big policeman came suddenly into view surrounding my cot.

'Hello, old man, glad to see you back,' was Dave's characteristic greeting, and the druggist, who proved to be a physician as well, promptly placed a finger on my pulse.

'Better,' he said laconically, and turning, took from the desk at his back a glass which he held before me. 'Can you lift your head and drink this?' he asked.

I made a feeble effort, and with Dave's assistance got my head high enough to swallow the medicine.

'Now,' said the surgeon, 'lie still, and I think before long you will be all right, except for a sore head, which you will probably keep for a day or two.'

For some time longer I lay quiet, and with no desire to think or speak; then slowly the noise and dizziness wore away, and the strength came back to my limbs; but when I attempted to rise, I found that my head was paining me severely, and I contented myself with resting upon my elbow and asking, with my eyes on Dave:

'What has happened?'

'Sandbag,' replied Dave tersely. 'Didn't you feel it?'

'I feel it now,' I said, trying to smile feebly, for I knew that Dave, now assured that my hurt was not serious, was giving vent to his relief in a characteristic bit of chaff.

'You see, it was this way,' he went on. 'Lossing here and I were walking along on the north side of the street, just down here, and we saw you cross the street on the opposite side; the lamp at the corner showed you plainly. We saw you stop and look, and seem to listen, and then go on, and repeat the same manœuvre after you had crossed the street. We had stopped under a tree, and close against the wall nearly opposite that bootblack's stand; and we meant to cross and surprise you, when all at once out from behind that platform sprang someone. I gave a yell, and we heard you go down. I ran to you, and Lossing ran and fired after the fellow, who cut across the open ground. I called him back when I saw that you were insensible, and the next minute this officer came up. He ran to this place (lucky it is so near), and brought the cot, and here you are. Can you remember? Did you hear me call?'

'Y – yes,' I said slowly, 'I – I think I tried to turn.'

'And that saved you, no doubt,' declared the druggist. 'The fellow meant to do you deadly hurt – the weapon shows that. He meant to strike you lower, across the back of the neck; but, at the call, you turned, just as he had taken aim, and as a result you received the blow on the back of the skull, the thickest part; and it struck with less than half its force, glancing away as your head moved sidewise. It was most fortunate for you.'

And now, as I began to think and remember, I knew that Miss Jenrys would be waiting anxiously, and that delay would mean for her, in the mood in which I had left her, a time of terrible suspense.

I brought myself to a sitting posture, and then got upon my feet, rather weakly. The druggist touched my wrist again.

'If you'll take my advice,' he said, 'you will stay right here for the night. I have a comfortable room at the back here, and I think, by keeping up an application during the night, a cooling and healing lotion that will keep out inflammation, you will come out in the morning with nothing worse than a sore and tender skull to show for your encounter. I am a regular physician – you'll be quite safe with me.'

I accepted his courtesy as frankly as he had proffered it, and then, while he busied himself preparing the cooling lotion, I told Dave how I had promised to return, and that Miss Jenrys must not be kept longer in expectation. I did not tell him why I had left the house, to return again so soon, and Dave was not the man to question.

'Tell her,' I said, 'that all is right. She will understand; and later I will explain to you. And tell her I find that I must delay the reading of that letter until to-morrow morning; that it is a purely personal matter that detains me, and that I will explain when we meet.' He got up to go, and I turned to Lossing, who, with the tact so natural to him, had gone to the front of the long room, and was idly turning the leaves of a directory. 'Dave is about to do the thing I failed to do, because of this sore head,' I said to him. 'I wish you would stay with me until he comes back. He won't be long.'

He seated himself without a question, and while Dave was gone, and my host busy in preparing for my comfort, he talked lightly of this and that, and finally of my unknown assailant.

'I believe I hit him somewhere,' he said, 'for I heard him drop an oath as he ran, and, by the way, he dropped something else, too.'

'What was that?'

He got up and went to the place where the policeman had been sitting until, assured that he could do nothing then, he had gone out with Dave, declaring his intention to 'go and look over the ground,' a speech which caused Dave to smile behind his hat. From the floor, close against the wall, Lossing took up something, which he brought forward and laid beside me upon the cot.

It was a bar of iron at least four inches in circumference, and incased in a length of rubber tubing, which was tied tightly over each end. 'That,' said he, 'is the weapon, and if it had struck you fairly, it would have been your death.'

I held it in my hand. A death-dealing weapon indeed, and I shuddered as I put it down, asking myself meanwhile, 'Was it meant for me?'

'But for you,' I said aloud, 'you and Brainerd – '

'Don't!' He put up his hand quickly. 'When I think of what you have done for me, and – I – I fear you are suffering now in my stead.'

It was the echo of my own thought, and I was glad to see my host reappear, thus cutting short the subject, which I was glad to drop just then.

The next morning found me somewhat the worse for my adventure, yet thankful to find that I could go about my day's business, a little stiffened from my fall, a trifle weaker than usual, and with an aching and somewhat misshapen head. But a detective learns to bear occasional hard knocks with fortitude, and I was thankful to be out of the affair so easily.

As an evidence of my dazed condition of the night before was the fact that I had not once thought to ask how Dave and Lossing chanced to be so near me at my time of need. It was one of my first thoughts and questions in the morning, however.

'You see,' explained Dave, 'I had not looked for any one quite so early, but I had stationed myself very near, on the side of the street opposite the house, and was pacing up and down, keeping the place in sight. I had a half-dozen cigars and a pocket full of matches, and when I wanted to turn, if anyone was in sight, I stopped and wasted a couple of minutes trying to light my cigar – see?'

'Distinctly.'

'Well, of course, I looked to see our friend come out and go north; and so, while I was just on the turn, I was a little upset to see someone come out of Miss J.'s door and turn square south. Of course I went south, too, and to carry out your plan, I, being nearer the south crossing than he, turned and crossed in order to meet him, and all ready to be properly surprised at the encounter, you know, according to orders. Well, sir, we met right at the opposite corner, and instead of our man, there was a tall, dark, well-dressed person, who hastened his steps a bit in passing me.'

He stopped, as if for an explanation.

'It was Voisin,' I said. 'The Frenchman I told you of.'

'Um! I thought as much! Well, I stopped to light my cigar, and the Frenchman turned on the east side of the street and went back the way he came; I, on my side, did likewise. At the north end of the block he turned again, this time without crossing, and I did likewise. I didn't try to keep shady, for I thought it began to look like a game of freezeout, and I kept the west side of the street. As might have been expected, after two or three turns he left the field at the south end of the block, going east; and very soon after your man came out and turned south, which surprised me a little. He walked very fast, but I caught up and tackled him, calling him by your name and then apologizing, and explaining that, knowing you were to call upon Miss J., I had been on the lay for you, having a matter of business to impart as promptly as possible.'

'Do you think he suspected us?'

'Not then. He told me very delicately that he had left early, feeling sure that you had some matter of importance to discuss with the ladies, and added his fear that you would not appear for some time yet. Of course I gave up all idea of waiting, and went on with him; and to pass the time and make myself agreeable I told him about the other fellow – what d'ye call him?'

'Voisin.'

'Yes, Voisin. We had reached the south corner where Voisin had turned east, and Lossing was walking briskly. At the corner he turned to me and proposed taking the longest route home by going over to Madison Avenue. In fact, he felt like walking, he said. It was this queer route that set me to telling him about Voisin's promenade, and I wound up by wondering if you would take a new route, too. At that he took my arm and let me know in that polite way of his that he suspected our little game; that he knew how anxious you were for his safety, and that he appreciated your interest. "But," says he, "don't you see that if there is danger abroad to-night, it is Masters who runs the risk?" I saw that he was really uneasy, and so when he proposed that we should hasten on to Fifty-seventh Street and go down past Miss Jenrys' once more, I agreed, thinking, I will admit, that it was a sort of fool's errand.

'Well, sir, we had been walking at a brisk pace and were half-way down the block between the avenues, when we saw a figure start out from the corner beyond, and run across the street. We were almost at the corner, and to avoid the light just there we crossed the street and went along in the shadow of the trees and buildings, past the light and on to the opposite corner. We had just reached it and had stopped to look and listen for the skulkers, when we saw you come into the light, stop, look about, and seem to listen.

'"He's after that fellow," I whispered to Lossing; "let's keep quiet and be ready to lend a hand." We could just see the fellow jump out at you. It's lucky the night was so clear, the shade was so thick just there.'