Quill's Window Part 30

"Sure!" he replied, and limped painfully away.

A little later Annie Jordan found her standing beside the road, where he had left her. She was looking up at the brightly lighted house at the top of the lane.

"Goodness!" cried Annie. "I thought you were lost, Rosie. Where on earth have you been?"

"Maybe I AM lost," replied the girl, and Annie, failing to see anything cryptic in the words, laughed gaily at the quaintness of them.

"Come on," she said, thrusting her arm through Rosabel's, "let's go back home. There's nothing doing here. And that wind cuts through one like a knife. Gee, it's fierce, isn't it?"

"I don't want to go in yet," protested Rosabel, hanging back.

"Let's wait awhile. Let's wait till Dr. Smith comes out. He's up there with--with Alix Crown. Maybe he can tell us how--"

"Doc Smith isn't up there. He's gone up the road in his car with d.i.c.k Hurdle and--why, Rosie, you're shivering like a leaf. Have you got a chill? Come on home. We'll have Dr. Smith in as soon as he gets back to--"

"I don't want the doctor," cried Rosabel fiercely. "I won't have one, I tell you. I won't have one!"

CHAPTER XVII

SHADOWS

Greatly to Courtney's chagrin, his triumphal progress was summarily checked when he presented himself at the door. He could hardly believe his ears. Miss Crown was in her room and would not be able to see any one that night. She was very nervous and "upset," explained the maid, and had given orders to admit no one. Of course, Hilda went on to say, if Mr. Thane wanted to come in and rest himself, or if there was anything she or the cook could do for him,--but Courtney brusquely interrupted her to say that he was sure Miss Crown did not mean to exclude him, and directed Hilda to take word up to her that he was downstairs.

"It won't do any good," said Hilda, who was direct to say the least.

"She's gone to bed. My orders is not to disturb her."

"Are they her orders or Mrs. Strong's orders?" demanded Courtney, driven to exasperation.

"All I can say, sir, is they're MY orders, sir," replied Hilda, quite succinctly.

"All right," said he curtly. Then, as an afterthought: "Please say that I stopped in to see if I could be of any further service to Miss Crown, will you, Hilda?"

He was very much crestfallen as he made his way down the steps to the lane. This wasn't at all what he had expected.

There were a number of people near the gate. Instead of going directly down the walk, he turned to the right at the bottom of the terrace and cut diagonally across the lawn. Coming to one of the big oaks he sat down for a moment on the rustic seat that encircled its base. Sheltered from the wind he managed to strike a match and light a cigarette. a.s.sured that no one was near, he leaned over and felt with his hand under the bench. His fingers closed upon an object wedged between the seat and one of the slanting supports.

Quickly withdrawing it, he dropped it into his overcoat pocket, and, after a moment, resumed his progress, making for the carriage gate in the left lower corner of the grounds.

He had a sharp eye out for Rosabel Vick. He heard Annie Jordan's high-pitched voice in the road ahead of him and slackened his pace.

In due time he limped up the steps of Dowd's Tavern.

Several women were in the "lounge," chattering like magpies in front of the fire. There were no men about. He went in and for ten minutes listened to the singing of his praises. Then, requesting a pitcher of hot water, he hobbled upstairs, politely declining not only the Misses Dowd's offer to bathe and bandage his heroic knee, but Miss Grady's bottle of witchhazel, Miss Miller's tube of Baume a.n.a.lgesique and old Mrs. Nichols' infallible remedy for every ailment under the sun,--a flaxseed poultice.

The first thing he did on entering his room was to open his trunk and deposit therein the shiny object he had recovered from its hiding-place under the tree-seat. Before hanging his hat on the clothes-tree in the corner of the room, he thoughtfully examined the bullet hole in the crown.

"Thirty-eight calibre, all right," he reflected. Poking his forefinger through the hole, he enlarged it to some extent. "More like a forty-four now," he said in a satisfied tone.

Margaret Slattery brought up the hot water and some fresh firewood for his stove, in which the fire burned low.

"Would you be liking a drink of whiskey, Mr. Thane?" she inquired, with a stealthy look over her shoulder. "You're all done up,--and half-frozen, I guess."

"Whiskey?" he exclaimed. "There ain't no sitch animal," he lamented dolefully.

"Miss Jennie's got some cooking brandy stuck away in the cellar,"

whispered Margaret. "We use it at Christmas time,--for the plum pudding, you know. I guess it's the same thing as whiskey, ain't it?"

"Well, hardly. Still, I think I could do with a nip of it, Maggie."

"I'll see what I can do," said Margaret, and departed.

She did not return, for the very good reason that Miss Jennie apprehended her in the act of pouring something from a dark brown bottle into a brand new fruit jar.

"What are you doing there, Maggie?" demanded Miss Dowd from the foot of the cellar stairs.

Miss Slattery's back was toward her at the time. She was startled into hunching it slightly, as if expecting the lash of a whip,--an att.i.tude of rigidity maintained during the brief period in which her heart suspended action altogether.

"I'm--I'm getting some vinegar for Mr. Thane to gargle with, Miss Jennie," she mumbled. "He's--he's got a sore throat."

"Let me smell that stuff, Maggie," said Miss Jennie sternly. One sniff was sufficient. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Margaret Slattery, leading a young man into temptation like this. You may be starting him on the road to perdition. It is just such things as this that--"

"Oh, gosh!" exclaimed Margaret, recovering herself. "Don't you go thinking he's as good as all that. From what he was telling me at breakfast the other day, he used to make the round trip to purgatory every night or so,--only he said it was paradise. Keep your old brandy. He wouldn't like it anyway. Not him! He says he's swallered enough champagne to float the whole American Navy."

"The very idea!" exclaimed Miss Jennie. "Go to your room, Maggie.

It's bad enough for you to be stealing but when you make it worse by lying, I--"

"I'm quitting you in the morning," said Margaret, her Irish up.

"It won't be the first time," said Miss Jennie, imperturbably.

Courtney sat for a long time before the booming little stove. He forgot Margaret Slattery and her mission.

"I guess it took her off her feet," he reflected aloud. "That's the way with some of them. They get panicky. Go all to pieces when they find out what it really means to let go of themselves. G.o.d!

She's wonderful!" He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes; a smile settled on his lips. For a long time he sat there, fondling the memory of that blissful moment. A slight frown made its appearance after a while. He opened his eyes. His thoughts had veered. "What rotten luck! If it could only have been Alix instead of that--"

He arose abruptly and began pacing the floor. After a long time he sighed resignedly. "I mustn't forget to telephone her tomorrow."

Then he began to undress for bed.

He looked at his knee. There was a deep, irregular scar on the outside of the leg, while on the inside a knuckle-like protuberance of considerable size provided ample evidence of a badly shattered joint, long since healed. Along the thigh there was another wicked looking scar, with several smaller streaks and blemishes of a less p.r.o.nounced character. He placed some hot compresses on the joint, gave it a vigorous ma.s.sage, and, before getting into bed, worked it up and down for several minutes.

"Clumsy a.s.s!" he muttered. "Next time you'll watch your step. Don't go jumping over fences in the dark. Gad, for a couple of minutes I thought I'd put it on the blink for keeps."

The next morning, up in the woods above Alix's house, the crude black mask was found, and some distance farther on an old grey cap, from which the lining and sweatband had been ripped. The search for the man, however, was fruitless. Constable Foss visited the camp of a gang of Italian railroad labourers near Hawkins and was reported to be bringing several indignant "dagoes" over to Windomville to see if Courtney or the two ladies could identify them. He was very careful to choose men with thick black moustaches.

Bright and early, Courtney repaired to the house on the hill.

His progress was slow. Aside from the effort it cost him to walk, he was delayed all along the route by anxious, perturbed citizens who either complimented him on his bravery or advised him to "look out for that cut" on his cheek, or he'd have "a tough time if blood-poisoning set in."

Mrs. Strong admitted him.