Out of a Labyrinth Part 31

It was received without comment, as such excursions were of frequent occurrence, and as no one presumed to question the movements of the spoiled young pleasure seeker.

He did not return on the next day, but the morning of the 19th brought him home, not, however, as he went, but in company with a sewing-machine agent whom he called Ed., and whose full name was Edward S. Dwight.

La Porte stated that his horse was lame again, and that he had left his team at Amora, and returned with Dwight in the machine wagon.

During that day La Porte accompanied Dwight on his rounds among the farmers, and early the following morning the two returned together to Amora.

That was a week ago. The following Sunday, La Porte and Dwight had again visited Groveland, this time with La Porte's own turnout. During the day they had made several calls upon young ladies, and this time our "dummy," being cordially invited, accompanied them on their rounds.

On Monday morning, as before, they returned to Amora, and since then had not reappeared in Groveland.

Wyman, according to instructions, had visited Mrs. Ballou. She had nothing new to communicate, but she gave into his hands a small package, which Wyman had inclosed with his report.

It contained three photographs; one of Miss Amy Holmes, one of Johnny La Porte, and a third of the same gentleman and Mr. Ed. Dwight, a rather rakish-looking duo.

I read and re-read Wyman's long, complete descriptive report. I studied the photographed faces again and again, and that evening, before the sunset had fairly faded from the west, I told Carnes the whole story, and placed before him the printed letter and the autographs, photographs and reports.

CHAPTER XXI.

"EVOLVING A THEORY."

"And you want me to go to New Orleans?" says Carnes, as he rises slowly, and stretches himself up to his fullest height, following up his words with an immense yawn. "What for, now?"

He has listened so attentively, so silently, with such moveless, intelligent eagerness, that I forgive him the yawn, and treat myself to a long breath of restfulness and relief, at being at last unburdened of this great secret, and he crosses the room and drops into his favorite att.i.tude beside the window that overlooks the fast darkening street.

"I hardly know just what I expect you to unearth in New Orleans," I answer, after a pause of some moments. "But I have a notion that the links we have failed to find here may be in hiding down there."

Carnes plunges his hands deep down into his pockets. I know, from the intentness of his face, and the unwinking fixedness of the eyes that stare yet see nothing beyond the panorama conjured by his own imagination, that he is studying diligently at the Groveland problem; and I sit silently, waiting his first movement, that I feel sure will be speedily followed by something in the way of an opinion.

"It's a queer muddle," he says at last, coming back to his chair and dropping into his former att.i.tude of interested attention. "It's a queer muddle; and, it seems to me, you have got hold of the wrong end of the business."

"How the wrong end?"

"Why, you have your supposed princ.i.p.als and accessories, and, perhaps, the outline of a plot; but where is your _motive_?"

"Where, indeed! I have not even found a theory that suits me, although I have pondered over various suppositions. You are good at this sort of a.n.a.lysis, Carnes. Can't you help me to some sort of a theory that won't break of its own weight?"

Carnes bit his under lip and pondered.

"How far have you got?" he asked, presently.

"I will tell you how I have reasoned thus far. Experience and statistics have proved that, of all the missing people, male and female, whose dead bodies are never found, or whose deaths are never satisfactorily proven, more than three-fourths have eventually turned up alive, or it is found they _have_ lived many years after they were numbered among the missing. In the majority of cases, say four to one, where missing persons, supposed to have been dead, are proved to be alive, it is also proved that they have 'disappeared' of their own free will. In the list of missing young girls, the police records show that two-thirds of those supposed to have been murdered or abducted, have eloped or forsaken their friends of their own free will. Let us keep in mind these statistics and begin with Nellie Ewing. Was she murdered? Was she forcibly abducted? Did she run away?"

"Umph! If _she_ were a man I might venture an opinion," broke in Carnes.

"Let us see. She left her house at sunset, riding a brown pony, and intent, or seeming so, upon visiting her friend, Grace Ballou."

"Grace Ballou--oh!" Carnes lifts his head, then drops it again, quickly.

I note the gesture and the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and smile as I proceed.

"She had announced her intention of spending the night with her friend Grace, but instead of so doing, she is suddenly afflicted with a headache, and, at dusk, or perhaps even later, she sets out, on her brown pony, for home, a distance of about four miles."

"Um--ah!" from Carnes.

"She is not seen after that. Neither is the brown pony. Was she murdered? If so, no trace of her body, no clue to her murderer, no motive for the deed, has been discovered. And the horse; if she was murdered, was the horse slaughtered also? And were they both buried in one grave? She was riding alone, after nightfall, over a country road.

She might have been a.s.sailed by tramps or stragglers of some sort, but the first investigation proved that nothing in the form of tramp, or stranger of any sort, had been seen about Groveland, neither on that day nor for many days previous. And again, a tramp who might have killed her to secure the horse, would hardly have tarried to conceal the body so effectually that the most thorough search could not bring it to light.

Nor would he have carried it with him beyond the reach of search. Was she murdered for revenge, or from motives of jealousy? Then, in all probability, the brown horse would have been found wandering somewhere at large."

"It won't do," mutters Carnes, half to himself, and with a slow wag of the head; "it won't do."

"That's what I said to myself, after reviewing the pros and cons of the 'murder theory.' Now, was Nellie Ewing abducted? She _may_ have been, but, again, there's the missing horse. If a tramp or a horse-thief would take the horse, and leave the girl, a desperate lover would just as surely take the girl and leave the horse. Again, an avaricious lover _might_, with some difficulty, secure both horse and rider, but he could hardly travel far with an unwilling girl and a stolen horse, without becoming uncomfortably conspicuous. Did the young lady elope? If so, then it is my belief that she and her horse parted company very soon after she left the widow Ballou's. And here ends my theorizing. How, and why, and whither, the horse was spirited away, I can not guess."

"If the thing had occurred in Trafton," says Carnes, thoughtfully, "one might account for the horse."

"True; but as it did not occur within the limit of the Trafton operations, I naturally concluded that, if the young lady really did abscond, her lover must have had a confederate who took charge of the horse. But, at first, this seemed to me improbable."

"Why improbable?"

"Because I did not view the matter, as you do now, in the light of after discoveries and developments."

"Then you think now that Miss Ewing eloped?"

"I think she was not murdered; and the elopement theory is much more plausible, more reasonable, all things considered, than that of abduction. First of all, there are the movements of the girl herself.

Supposing her quartered for the night with her friend Grace, 'Squire Ewing felt no uneasiness at her absence, even when it was prolonged into the second day. Might she not have considered all this when she planned her flight? When she was actually missed, she had two days the start of her inquiring friends."

"True."

"Then, not long after, Mamie Rutger, a friend and schoolmate of the missing Nellie, also disappears. While it is yet daylight, or at least hardly dark, she vanishes from her father's very door-step, and is seen no more. Now, let me call your attention to some facts. Farmer Rutger's house stands on a bit of rising ground; the road runs east and west. To the east of the house is a thick grove of young trees planted as a wind-break for the cattle. This belt of trees begins at the front of the house and extends northward, the house being on the north side of the highway, past the barns, cow stables, and sheep pens. So while a person in the front portion of the house, on the porch or in the door-yard, can obtain a clear view of the road to the west, those farther back, in the kitchen, the stables, or the milking sheds, are shut off from a view of the road by the wind-break on the one hand, by a high orchard hedge on the other, and by the house and thick door-yard shrubbery in front. For over an hour, on the night of her disappearance, Mamie Rutger was the only person within view of this highway. The hired girl was in the kitchen washing up the supper things. Mrs. Rutger, who, by-the-by, is Miss Mamie's step-mother, was skimming milk in the cellar, and Mr.

Rutger, with the two hired men, were watering and feeding the stock and milking the cows. When the work for the night was done and the lamps were lighted, if they thought of Mamie at all it was as sitting alone on the front piazza, or perched in her chamber window up-stairs, enjoying the quiet of the evening. It was only when their early bed-time came that the girl's absence, and more than that, her unusual silence, was noted, and that a search proved her missing. Was _she_ murdered? That theory in this case is so unreasonable that I discard it at once."

Carnes nodded his head approvingly.

"Was she abducted? Possibly; but to my mind, it is not probable. Mamie Rutger was a gypsyish la.s.sie, pretty as a May blossom, skittish as a colt, hard to govern and p.r.o.ne to adventurous escapades. Her father was kind and her step-mother meant to be so, but the latter perpetually frowned down the girl's innocent hilarity, and curbed her gayety, when she could, with a stern hand. They sent her to school to tame her, and the faculty, after bearing with her, and forgiving her many mischievous pranks because of her youth, at last sent her home in disgrace, expelled. If this girl, wearied of a humdrum farmhouse existence and thirsting for a broader glimpse of the gay outer world, had planned an elopement or runaway escapade, she could have chosen no better time.

While all the others are busy at their evening task, she, from the front, watches for a swift horse and a covered buggy, which comes from the west. Sure that no eyes are looking, she awaits it at the gate, springs in, with a backward glance, and when she is missed, is miles away."

"Yes, I see," comments Carnes, dryly; "it's a pity your second sight couldn't keep 'em in view till ye see where they land."

I curb my imagination. That useful quality is deficient in the cranium of my comrade; he can neither follow nor sympathize.

"Well, here is the condensed truth for you," I reply, amiably: "for this much we have ocular and oral testimony: Four young ladies attend school at Amora; all are pretty, under the age of discretion, and, with perhaps one exception, little versed in the ways of the world and its wickedness. During their sojourn at school, where they are not under constant discipline owing to the fact that they all board outside of the Seminary, and all together, they are much in the society of four young men, two of whom are students of the Seminary. This quartette of youths are more or less good looking, and all of them notably 'gay and festive,' after the manner of the stereotyped young man of the period."

"Right you are now," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Carnes.

"Just how these gentlemen divided their affections or attentions," I continue, "it is difficult to say, in regard to all. We know that Mr.