Gordon Keith Part 79

Wickersham knows quite as well as I whether or not he is married. I know nothing of your reasons for persisting in this investigation. It is quite irregular, I a.s.sure you. I don't know that ever in the course of my life I knew quite such a case. A clergyman performs many functions simply as a ministerial official. I should think that the most natural way of procedure would be to ask Mr. Wickersham."

"Certainly it might be. But whatever my reason may be, I have come to ask you. As a matter of fact, Mr. Wickersham took this young girl away from her home. I taught her when she was a school-girl. Her grandfather, who brought her up, is a friend of mine. I wish to clear her good name.

I have reason to think that she was legally married here in New York, and that you performed the ceremony, and I came to ask you whether you did so or not. It is a simple question. You can at least say whether you did so or did not. I a.s.sumed that as a minister you would be glad to help clear a young woman's good name."

"And I have already answered you," said Mr. Rimmon, who, while Keith was speaking, had been forming his reply.

Keith flushed.

"Why, you have not answered me at all. If you have, you can certainly have no objection to doing me the favor of repeating it. Will you do me the favor to repeat it? Did you or did you not marry Ferdy Wickersham to a young girl about three years ago?"

"My dear sir, I have told you that I do not recognize your right to interrogate me in this manner. I know nothing about your authority to pursue this investigation, and I refuse to continue this conversation any longer."

"Then you refuse to give me any information whatever?" Keith was now very angry, and, as usual, very quiet, with a certain line about his mouth, and his eyes very keen.

"I do most emphatically refuse to give you any information whatever. I decline, indeed, to hold any further communication with you," (Keith was yet quieter,) "and I may add that I consider your entrance here an intrusion and your manner little short of an impertinence." He rose on his toes and fell on his heels, with, the motion which Keith had remarked the first time he met him.

Keith fastened his eye on him.

"You do?" he said. "You think all that? You consider even my entrance to ask you, a minister of the Gospel, a question that any good man would have been glad to answer, 'an intrusion'? Now I am going; but before I go I wish to tell you one or two things. I have heard reports about you, but I did not believe them. I have known men of your cloth, the holiest men on earth, saints of G.o.d, who devoted their lives to doing good. I was brought up to believe that a clergyman must be a good man. I could not credit the stories I have heard coupled with your name. I now believe them true, or, at least, possible."

Mr. Riminon's face was purple with rage. He stepped forward with uplifted hand.

"How dare you, sir!" he began.

"I dare much more," said Keith, quietly.

"You take advantage of my cloth--!"

"Oh, no; I do not. I have one more thing to say to you before I go. I wish to tell you that one of the shrewdest detectives in New York is at work on this case. I advise you to be careful, for when you fall you will fall far. Good day."

He left Mr. Rimmon shaken and white. His indefinite threats had struck him more deeply than any direct charge could have done. For Mr. Rimmon knew of acts of which Keith could not have dreamed.

When he rose he went to his sideboard, and, taking out a bottle, poured out a stiff drink and tossed it off. "I feel badly," he said to himself: "I have allowed that--that fellow to excite me, and Dr. Splint said I must not get excited. I did pretty well, though; I gave him not the least information, and yet I did not tell a falsehood, an actual falsehood."

With the composure that the stimulant brought, a thought occurred to him. He sat down and wrote a note to Wickersham, and, marking it, "Private," sent it by a messenger.

The note read:

"DEAR FERDY: I must see you without an hour's delay on a matter of the greatest possible importance. Tripper-business. Your friend K. has started investigation; claims to have inside facts. I shall wait at my house for reply. If impossible for you to come immediately, I will run down to your office.

"Yours, RIMMON."

When Mr. Wickersham received this note, he was in his office. He frowned as he glanced at the handwriting. He said to himself:

"He wants more money, I suppose. He is always after money, curse him. He must deal in some other office as well as in this." He started to toss the note aside, but on second thought he tore it open. For a moment he looked puzzled, then a blank expression pa.s.sed over his face.

He turned to the messenger-boy, who was waiting and chewing gum with the stolidity of an automaton.

"Did they tell you to wait for an answer?"

"Sure!"

He leant over and scribbled a line and sealed it. "Take that back."

"Yes, sir." The automaton departed, glancing from side to side and chewing diligently.

The note read: "Will meet you at club at five."

As the messenger pa.s.sed up the street, a smallish man who had come down-town on the same car with him, and had been reading a newspaper on the street for some little time, crossed over and accosted him.

"Can you take a note for me?"

"Where to?"

"Up-town. Where are you going?"

The boy showed his note.

"Um--hum! Well, my note will be right on your way." He scribbled a line.

It read: "Can't be back till eight. Look out for Shepherd. Pay boy 25 if delivered before four."

"You drop this at that number before four o'clock and you'll get a quarter."

Then he pa.s.sed on.

That afternoon Keith walked up toward the Park. All day he had been trying to find Phrony, and laying plans for her relief when she should be found. The avenue was thronged with gay equipages and richly dressed women, yet among all his friends in New York there was but one woman to whom he could apply in such a case--Alice Lancaster. Old Mrs. Wentworth would have been another, but he could not go to her now, since his breach with Norman. He knew that there were hundreds of good, kind women; they were all about him, but he did not know them. He had chosen his friends in another set. The fact that he knew no others to whom he could apply struck a sort of chill to his heart. He felt lonely and depressed. He determined to go to Dr. Templeton. There, at least, he was sure of sympathy.

He turned to go back down-town, and at a little distance caught sight of Lois Huntington. Suddenly a light appeared to break in on his gloom.

Here was a woman to whom he could confide his trouble with the certainty of sympathy. As they walked along he told her of Phrony; of her elopement; of her being deserted; and of his chance meeting with her and her disappearance again. He did not mention Wickersham, for he felt that until he had the proof of his marriage he had no right to do so.

"Why, I remember that old, man, Mr. Rawson," said Lois. "It was where my father stayed for a while?" Her voice was full of tenderness.

"Yes. It is his granddaughter."

"I remember her kindness to me. We must find her. I will help you." Her face was sweet with tender sympathy, her eyes luminous with firm resolve.

Keith gazed at her with a warm feeling surging about his heart. Suddenly the color deepened in her cheeks; her expression changed; a sudden flame seemed to dart into her eyes.

"I wish I knew that man!"

"What would you do?" demanded Keith, smiling at her fierceness.

"I'd make him suffer all his life." She looked the incarnation of vengeance.

"Such a man would be hard to make suffer," hazarded Keith.

"Not if I could find him."

Keith soon left her to carry out his determination, and Lois went to see Mrs. Lancaster, and told her the story she had heard. It found sympathetic ears, and the next day Lois and Mrs. Lancaster were hard at work quietly trying to find the unfortunate woman. They went to Dr.