Otherwise Phyllis Part 55

The sheriff eyed her critically.

"You know who I mean? Sure you ain't seen him?"

"No, I haven't, Jack," replied Phil truthfully.

"If you spot a gent with a suit-case, hop for a telephone and call the jail, and mebbe I'll whack the reward."

"It doesn't sound like such easy money," Phil replied.

"Charlie and Fred ain't so terribly chummy, I guess," remarked the sheriff leadingly. "That's why I thought I'd take a look around here. A fellow as smart as Charlie would pick the unlikeliest place to hide in.

I'll have a word with Fred as I go back. I got a deputy at Stop 7, watching the cars. If Charlie's in the neighborhood we'll pinch him all right. So long, Phil."

Whittlesey moved across the barn-lot toward his horse. Phil's mind had been working busily. Beyond doubt Charles Holton was lurking in the neighborhood, waiting for a chance to escape. The suit-case pointed to this clearly. It was undeniably her duty to tell the sheriff of her discovery, and it had been on the tip of her tongue to do so half a dozen times during their colloquy at the barn door. Whittlesey was an old friend and one of her admirations, and it was only the part of good comradeship to help him.

The remembrance of her last meeting with Charles still flamed angrily in her heart when she thought of him. There was certainly no reason why she should shield him from the outstretched arm of the law; yet she had first hesitated, then rejected the idea of communicating to the sheriff her knowledge that the plunder with which Charles was seeking to escape was hidden in the barn. Contemptible as Charles was and doubtless deserving of his impending punishment, she would not aid in his apprehension. She did not believe that Fred in like circ.u.mstances would do so; and there was Ethel, their sister, on whom the disgrace of Charles's arrest would fall heavily.

Whittlesey swung himself into his saddle and rode slowly toward the highway. Phil returned to the barn, considering whether she should tell Fred of her discovery of the suit-case.

She stopped short on the threshold, all her senses alert. The rear door of the barn had been opened during her brief absence. She saw across the fields the trees that marked the Turkey Run defile, and she was confident that this long vista had not been visible when she first entered. She took a step toward the stall where she had found the suit-case, looked round cautiously before bending down to draw it out again, and a pair of eyes met hers, unmistakably Charles Holton's eyes, fear-struck, as he peered across a farm wagon behind which he had concealed himself. While she had been talking to Whittlesey in the barn-lot, he had stolen in by the rear door to be nearer his booty.

Phil walked to the door and glanced toward Listening Hill. A quarter of a mile away she saw Whittlesey and Fred conversing earnestly at the edge of the cornfield. No one else was in sight. The farm hands were scattered over the fields, and were not likely to visit the barn until they brought home their teams. Phil, standing in the door, spoke in a low tone.

"You can get away, by the back door. The sheriff's talking to Fred down the lane; his man's watching Stop 7. Go back to the Run and follow it to the red covered bridge. Keep away from the trolley line; they're watching it. Better make for Gaston's and take the Chicago train there--it comes along a little before five."

He was furtively creeping round the wagon while Phil spoke. She heard the creaking of the planks and turned to see him tiptoeing toward the stall. His clothing was soiled and crumpled. His bent, slinking figure as he stole toward his booty affected her disagreeably. She took a step toward him.

"You can't do that; you can't have that."

"It's all the baggage I've got; just a few clothes," he muttered huskily. "I crawled in here last night to sleep. I've got to see Fred before I go. I've been waiting two days for a chance to get to him."

He watched her with fearful intentness as he continued his cautious advance upon the stall.

"You can't have that suit-case," said Phil in a sharper tone. "Go out by the rear door, and keep close to the fence. There's n.o.body in those fields, and I'll watch till you get to the creek."

"I want my things; I've got to have them," he blurted hoa.r.s.ely, his hand on the stall-post.

"You can't have it. If you don't go at once I'll call the sheriff back.

There's nothing in that suit-case you need. Quick! Whittlesey knows you're around here somewhere, and if it hadn't been for me he'd have searched the barn."

"He's a fool. I heard his talk through the cracks, and there's nothing in that case but a suit of clothes, and I've got to have it. It's all I've got in the world."

"Then you won't miss it much! I'm giving you a chance to get away. If you don't take it and clear out in ten seconds, I'll call Whittlesey.

He's still talking to Fred just a little way down the lane."

As she turned to rea.s.sure herself of the fact, he made a dive for the suit-case, brought it out and rushed toward the rear door. His foot caught on the edge of a rough plank and he fell headlong, the case flying from his hand. Phil pounced upon it, flung it with all her strength into the farthest corner of the barn, pulled him to his feet, and pushed him through the door. She drew it shut, jerked the bar into place, and ran through the front door into the barn-lot. She continued running until she had gained the mound on which the house stood. She reasoned that the fugitive would hardly venture to reenter the barn, as this would bring him into the open lot with a possibility of encountering new foes. She saw him presently stealing along the edge of the field toward the creek, dodging along the stake-and-rider fence and pausing frequently to rest or make sure that he was not followed. She saw Whittlesey bid Fred good-bye, watched the young farmer return to his corn-planting, and heard his voice as he called cheerily to the horses.

Charles gained the edge of the ravine, clambered over the fence, and disappeared. Then Phil sighed deeply and shuddered; the fear in the man's eyes had not been good to see; and yet she had been touched with pity for him. The night he had taunted her about her mother she had taken the measure of his baseness; but she was glad she had helped him to escape. If there was really anything of value in the suit-case, as Whittlesey had said, the law might have it and welcome; and she was already wondering just how to dispose of it. If Charles followed her instructions, he would strike across country and catch the northbound evening train. His fate was out of her hands, and it was wholly unlikely that he would make any further effort to regain his property now that Phil had seen it. She doubted whether he had had any real errand with Fred. It was much more probable that chance alone had directed his steps to this neighborhood, and that all he wanted was to beg his brother's protection and aid. Now that the excitement of the episode had pa.s.sed, Phil hid the bag in a dark corner of the corn-crib and continued her tramp.

Fred, having gone for a shower and change of raiment, was late to the supper that Phil spread in the dining-room of the Montgomery farmhouse.

He seemed unusually grave when they met at the table, and Phil surmised that Whittlesey had discussed Charles's plight with him fully. Amzi had spent an enjoyable afternoon cruising in the neighborhood among his farmer friends, and was in the best of humor. Lois, who had taken her ease, reading and napping, declared that she must cultivate a closer acquaintance with farm life. She p.r.o.nounced it immensely interesting, feigning to ignore the ironical glances exchanged by Phil and Amzi. She exclaimed in a mockery of rapture over a bowl of scentless wild violets which Phil had gathered. They were amazingly fragrant, she said, waving her hand lately splashed with toilet water.

"The fraud! She hasn't been out of the house," Phil remarked to Amzi.

"Why should I go out and walk over the clods in my best slippers? I don't return to Nature; Nature returns to me. It's much pleasanter that way." She nibbled a sandwich, elbows on table, and asked if Montgomery still indulged itself in picnics, a form of recreation which she a.s.sociated only with a youthful horror of chigres.

"Met Jack Whittlesey again, on my way back," said Amzi. "What's he hanging round here for?"

Fred looked up suddenly, the color deepening in his face.

"Jack's always looking for somebody," said Phil lamely, seeking to turn the talk. "He must dream that he's looking for people. I shouldn't like his job."

"He's looking for Charlie," said Fred, raising his head squarely and speaking directly across the table to Amzi. "Jack thinks he's hiding about here somewhere."

Amzi blew out his cheeks to hide his embarra.s.sment. It was not his way to cause pain, and there was a hurt, unhappy look in Fred's eyes. And Amzi liked Fred--liked his simplicity and earnestness, and stubborn pluck, his manly att.i.tude in adversity.

"How absurd," murmured Lois, regarding critically one of Phil's deviled eggs, made, by the way, after Rose Bartlett's recipe.

"I thought that was all a bluff about dragging Charlie into the traction business," remarked Amzi, who had not thought anything of the kind.

"He never surrendered the bonds he got from father," said Fred, relieved, now that the matter had been broached, that he could speak of Charlie's plight to friendly hearers. "Jack said he was trying to get away with them, and there's an indictment against him at Indianapolis."

"Oh, they won't catch him," said Lois in her s.p.a.cious fashion. "They never catch anybody."

This was a well-intentioned effort to eliminate Charles and his troubles from the conversation; but Fred, not heeding, spoke again directly to Amzi.

"I think it wasn't altogether Charlie's fault that he got mixed up in this. The temptation to keep the bonds must have been strong. But he ought to have turned them over. I can't defend his not doing it."

Amzi was still annoyed by his unfortunate reference to the sheriff. He fumbled in his breast pocket and drew out a brown envelope.

"I've got something for you, Fred, that ought to cheer you up. Charlie's troubles haven't anything to do with you. Here's the deed you gave Mr.

Kirkwood for your farm. It's never been recorded, and it stands as though it had never been made. I told Tom he had got back enough money to straighten up the Sycamore business out of those construction fellows without taking your farm, and here you are. I've been holding it a little while just to see how you would take your troubles. Burn it; and now let's forget about Charlie."

Fred stared, frowning, at the deed which Amzi tossed across the table.

"This isn't right; it isn't square," he began.

"Be careful how you sign papers. You may not get 'em back the next time.

They tried to swindle you out of your share in your father's estate--a clean case on Charlie's part, as everybody knows. You needn't worry about Charlie. He got a lot of stuff that never figured in his administrator's inventory. The Sycamore Company's perfectly satisfied with what's been wrung out of the other fellows, and if Charlie really has some of those bonds, they belong to you."

Lois shrugged her shoulders. The subject was distasteful. Discussions of disagreeable business affairs were not to her liking; and she was sincerely sorry for Fred's discomfiture.

"The sheriff's mistaken," remarked Phil. "Charlie hasn't any of those bonds, and Jack won't catch him; not to-day."

At an early age Phil had learned the dramatic value of downright statements. She helped herself to an olive and waited for Amzi to explode. He exploded immediately.

"Charlie hasn't them! Jack won't catch him?"