Captivating Mary Carstairs Part 29

"Why--I had understood that it was purely a pleasure-trip that brought you here!"

He made no answer to this, but stepped forward and swung open the door for her.

"Maginnis," he said, "is to call for me immediately in a motor. We shall leave by the un.o.btrusive back alley. Two men, a motor, and a dark rear exit. You will scarcely imagine that there is any danger now. But may I thank you again for giving us warning when there _was_, perhaps, some danger?"

"So you think there is a 'perhaps'? If you take precautions, it is only to humor a--"

"I withdraw that 'perhaps,'" he broke out in a rush. "I blot it out, annihilate it. Who am I to catch at tatters of self-respect? Are you blind? Can't you see that every fiber of me is tingling with the knowledge that there was real danger, and that you saved me from it?"

The quick bitterness in his voice, which there was no missing, was the last straw, breaking through her reserve, demolishing her dainty aloofness. She shook the swinging gray veil back out of her eyes and looked up at him, openly and frankly bewildered, looking very young and immeasurably alluring.

"Will you tell me why you speak in that way? Will you tell me why it is the worst thing that has happened to you in Hunston to have been helped a little by me?"

They faced each other at the open door, not an arm's length between them; and the moment of his reckoning for the quarter of an hour he had spent with her that night was suddenly upon him. He met her eyes, which were darkly blue, stared down into them; and as he did so, the spell of her beauty treacherously closed round him, piping away his self-control, deadening him to the iron fact of who she was and who he was, shutting out all knowledge except that of her fragrant nearness.

"It is absurd," he answered her suddenly, "but to save my life I can't decide whether you are tall or short."

The front door came open with a bang; the noise brought him sharply to himself; and the next moment a pleasant impatient masculine voice called out:

"I say, Miss Carstairs! Er--everything all right?"

"Oh!--yes, Mr. Richards!" she called penitently. "I'm coming this minute. No, please don't go out with me, Mr. Varney. Don't let anybody see that you are here."

"Certainly not," said he, struggling for a poise which he could not quite recapture. "Then will you be good enough to convey my grat.i.tude to Mr. Higginson and say that I hope to have the opportunity of thanking him personally to-morrow?"

"Yes, of course. Good-night once more--and good luck!"

But he detained her long enough to put the plain business question which had been torturing his soul for the last twenty-four hours.

"We shall see you at luncheon to-morrow?"

He strove to give his remark the air of a mere commonplace of farewell; but at it, he saw her look break away from his and the warm color stream into her face.

"Why--I--I'll come with pleasure. We don't get the chance to lunch on yachts every day in Hunston. Oh, but please," she exclaimed, her embarra.s.sment suddenly melting in a very natural and charming smile--"never let my mother _dream_ that we've _not been introduced!_"

He bowed low so that she might not see the burlesque of polite pleasure on his face.

The back alley exit proved all that the most timorous could have desired. Peter approached it by an elusive detour; Varney appeared promptly at the sound of his three honks; and the rendezvous was effected in a black darkness which they seemed to have entirely to themselves. Not a hand was raised to them, not a threatening figure sprang up to dispute their going, not a fierce curse cursed them. The would-be a.s.sa.s.sins, if such there were, presumably still lurked in some Main Street cranny, patiently and stupidly waiting, entirely unaware that they had been neatly outwitted by the clever strategies of Miss Mary Carstairs.

The car rolled noiselessly out of the alley, skimmed off through the southern quarter of the town and bowled into the rough and rutty River road toward the yacht. Once there, since a sharp lookout for the reporter was necessary, they slowed down and down until the smooth little car, with all lights out, crawled along no faster than a vigorous man will walk.

"What're you going to do when we catch him?" asked Peter. "Want to haul him on back to the yacht?"

"No. I'm--only going to talk to him a little. Go on with the story."

"Well," resumed Peter, taking one hand from the driving-wheel to remove a genuine Connecticut Havana, "the first thing was a wire from the _Daily_ firing Hammerton. That a.s.sisted a little, of course. Then, they asked us to give them a new, good man at once, and meantime to push along all the story we had. We answered with a wire that was a beauty, if I do mention it myself, telling them exactly how they'd been sold a second-hand gold brick by a corrupt paper which was trying to play politics. It simply knocked the pins from under them. It took 'em quite a while to come back with inquiries about the name off the yacht, Varney's air of mystery and all that line of slush. My response was vigorous, yet gentlemanly, straining the truth for all she'd stand, and even bu'sting her open here and there, I gravely fear. However, it was a clincher. It crimped them right. Not a peep have we had from 'em since."

"I suppose they'll run four lines on the thirteenth page to-morrow explaining it was all a mistake."

"But that wasn't the serious part of the thing--not by a mile-walk,"

continued Peter, the shine of victory in his honest eyes. "Am I still in the road? Sing out if you see me taking to the woods, will you? The more I think of what you and I have missed by a shave, the more I'm likely to feel sick in the stomach. You know those rascals had already begun asking for orders all over the country--they were so sure they'd have a hot story to send out. Not only that, but a lot of papers wired for it without being asked. It looked as if every newspaper office in America that had got a glimpse at the _Daily_ this morning instantly got dead stuck on that story. I stood at the telegraph desk and watched the accursed things come in, like this: '500 words story involving Stanhope, Rochester _Tribune_.' 'No. 3.--' That was the number of our story on the query list.--'No. 3.--Full details, Chicago _Ledger_.' 'No. 3--1000 words, Philadelphia _Journal_.' And so on and on. It looked uncanny, I tell you--all those far-away people calling for information about our affairs just like old friends. Will you kindly let your mind play about that a minute, Laurence? Will you kindly think of a situation like that with Ryan and Coligny Smith handling it as their little whimseys dictated?"

"I'd rather not. You wired those papers that the story was a canard and all that, I suppose?"

"No!" roared Peter, "I did something a whole lot better than that. I had one of the men write a hot political story about the _Gazette_ and the change of management and the sudden rise of Reform. There's _news_ in that, don't you see?--and it was the Stanhope-Varney story, too--the real one. When I left the office, they were selling it like hot cakes, all over the country--all over the world--"

"Hold on!" said Varney, sharply. "Here's Hammerton, I think--bringing in a whole lot better story than yours!"

The road here was straight as a string stretched tight. Far down it, they saw a single small light, dancing towards them a foot or two above the ground.

Peter threw off his clutch, clapped on his brakes and stopped short.

Varney slid out of the seat and stood waiting in the black inkiness beside the unlighted car. In the sudden stillness they could hear the rattle of the bicycle chain and even the crunch of the hard-blown tires, spinning rapidly over the road. Now the light was perhaps a hundred yards away.

"Blow!" hispered Varney.

The horn's honk cut the silent air hoa.r.s.ely. Instantly the speed of the oncoming light was checked. It advanced steadily, but much more slowly, as though the rider sensed that his road might be blocked, but could not yet determine where the hidden obstacle might be.

"h.e.l.lo!" called a l.u.s.ty young voice suddenly. "Who's there?"

There was no answer. The light came on more slowly still. Now it was fifty yards away, now twenty, now ten. Varney stepped out of the blackness, directly in front of it, and seized both handle-bars in fingers that gripped like a vise. The shock of the sudden stopping all but cost the rider his seat.

"May I detain you one moment, please, Mr. Hammerton?"

The little light of the bicycle lamp was all concentrated downward.

Above that round yellow ray, faces were unrecognizable in the pitchy blackness. The voice, however, was unmistakable. Hammerton was off the back of his wheel in the wink of an eye, on a sudden desperate bolt for the woods.

Peter, still on the driver's seat, and seeing neither his friend nor his enemy, saw the light with the bicycle behind it go over with a crash.

That was when Varney's hands let go of the handle-bars. The next instant they fell upon Hammerton's withdrawing figure and brought it up with a sharp jerk.

Peter heard the ensuing struggle, but saw nothing. He paid Varney the tribute of sitting still in his seat and saying not a word. The contest was bitter, but brief. Hammerton fought wildly, but Varney's arms presently closed round him, squeezing the life out of him. Locked fast in each other's arms, they fell heavily, Hammerton underneath. Varney freed his legs with a swift wrench, swung round and came up riding upon the other's chest.

Charlie Hammerton was beaten and knew it. His body lay along the rocky road, inert and unresisting. He breathed in convulsive gasps, but apart from that, now that he was down, he never moved. He was as tired as a man well could be. Varney sitting closely upon him, holding him fast, felt that the reporter's clothes were wringing wet. However, he had him, and the _Cypriani's_ great secret was once more in captivity.

The eyes of the two men strained into the dark where each other's faces must be, but they saw nothing.

"It's all up with you, Hammerton," said Varney presently. "The _Daily_ fired you an hour ago."

"Thanks to you," said Hammerton doggedly. "But if you think that lets _you_ out, you're a bigger fool than I thought."

"That is not all," said Varney slowly. "The _Gazette_ has fired you, too."

The reporter swore bitterly beneath his breath: curiously enough, he did not seem to question the statement for a moment. "What of it?" he cried. "You don't think that'll stop my mouth, do you--you _devil_!"

"There is still something more. Maginnis has bought the _Gazette_. He and I own the news of this town now. Coligny Smith is fired, too. The _Gazette_ starts an honest life to-morrow, and the old dirty regime is over forever."

"Liar!" cried Hammerton, hoa.r.s.ely. "Liar!" but there was no conviction in the mad resentment of his voice.