Red Pepper Burns Part 17

"I'm mighty sorry to have broken up the fun this way, gentlemen," he said with a pale sort of smile. "Grayson was telling a story when I b.u.t.ted in, I think. Finish it, will you, Grayson?"

"Not much. Yours is the story we want now, if you're up to telling it.

What happened out there on the Red Bank road?"

Burns scanned him. "How do you know what road?"

"Your friend Mr. Chester's detective instincts. He says there's no other red clay like that that plasters your car. By the way, that's a fast machine of yours. Did you lose control on the hill?"

"That's it," acknowledged Burns simply. "I lost control."

Chester was staring at him. It was not in the nature of reason to suppose that Red Pepper had lost control of that car unless something else had happened first. The steering gear of the Imp was certainly in perfect condition; Macauley had said so. He wondered if Red meant that he had lost his temper. But what could make him lose his temper--on Red Bank hill?

They questioned him closely, all of them in turn. But that was all he would say. He had lost control of the car. One or two of the men who knew Burns least looked as if they could tell what was the probable cause of such loss of control. Chester wanted to knock them down as he fancied he recognized this att.i.tude of mind. And at last they went away--which was certainly the best thing they could do in the circ.u.mstances.

All but Ronald Grant. The Scottish surgeon accepted without hesitation Burns's suggestion that Doctor Grant should stay and keep him company for an hour or two while he got used to his arm, and should then sleep under his roof. So they settled down, Burns on his couch, Grant in an armchair. When Chester left he was thinking that, except for the outward signs of his adventure, Burns did not look as unfit as might have been expected for a happy hour with an old friend.

Just outside the house Chester himself had an adventure. He was quite alone, and he almost ran into a slim figure on the walk. The lights from the office shone out into the October night, and Chester could see at a glance who the girl was, even if the gleam of golden hair which all the town knew had not told him. She was panting and her hand was on her side.

"Did Doctor Burns get home all right?" she cried under her breath.

"What do you know about Doctor Burns?" was Chester's quick reply. He was startled by the girl's appearance here at this hour.

"It doesn't make any difference what I know. Tell me if he got home. Was he much hurt? Why shouldn't you tell me that, Mr. Chester?"

"He is home and all right. Do you want him professionally? He can't go out to-night."

"I know he can't. But I had to know he got home. I--"

She sank down on the doorstep, shaken and sobbing. Chester stood looking down at het, wondering what on earth he was to say. What had Rose Seeley to do with Red? What had she to do with his losing control on the Red Bank hill? A quick thought crossed his mind, to be as quickly dismissed.

No, whatever Red's private affairs were, they could have nothing to do with this Rose--too bruised and trampled a rose to take the fancy of a man like him even in his most evil hour.

Suddenly she lifted her head. "He saved my life and 'most lost his.

They'd been making repairs on the hill and, some way, the lanterns wasn't lit. It's an awful dark night. He saw what he was comin' to and turned out sudden into the gra.s.s. He had to go into the ditch, then, not to run over me--and somebody else. He ran away!" Plainly that scornful accent did not mean Burns. "I didn't. I helped him get the car up. I got his engine goin' for him; he showed me how. His arm was broke. There ain't no house for a mile out there. I hated to see him try to come home alone. I've walked all the way--run some of it--to make sure he got here."

"He got here," murmured Chester, thinking to himself that this was the queerest story he'd over heard, but confident he would never have any better version of it and pretty sure that it was the true one.

"I suppose I'm a crazy fool to tell you, Mr. Chester," said the girl thickly. "But you're a gentleman. You won't tell. No more will he. He didn't tell you how it happened, did he?"

She did not ask the question. She made the a.s.sertion, looking to him for confirmation. Chester gave it. "No, he didn't tell," he said gravely.

When she had gone he crossed the lawn to his own home, musing. "For a 'plain, quiet dinner,'" said he, quoting a phrase of Burns's used when he gave Chester the invitation, "I think Red's has been about as spectacular as they make 'em. Bully old boys."

CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH HE GETS EVEN WITH HIMSELF

R. P. Burns sat at his desk in the inner office, laboriously inscribing a letter with his left hand. It did not get on well. The handwriting in the four lines he had succeeded in fixing upon paper bore not the slightest resemblance to his usual style; instead, it looked like the chirography of a five-year-old attempting for the first time to copy from some older person's script.

He held up the sheet and gazed at it in disgust. Then he glanced resentfully at his sling-supported right arm, especially at the fingers which protruded from the bandages in unaccustomed limp whiteness. Then he shook his left fist at it. "You'll do some work the minute you come out of those splints," he said. "You'll work your pa.s.sage back to fitness quicker than an arm ever did before, you pale-faced shirk!"

Then he applied himself to his task, painfully forming a series of pothooks until one more sentence was completed. He read it over, then suddenly crumpled the sheet into a ball and dropped it into the waste basket.

"Lie there!" he whimsically commanded it. "You're not fit to go to a lady."

He got up and marched into the outer office where his office nurse sat at a typewriter, making lout bills.

"Miss Mathewson," he requested gruffly, "please take a dictation. No, not on the bill letterheads--on the regular office sheets. I'll speak slowly. In fact, I'll probably speak very slowly."

"I'm sorry I don't know shorthand," said Miss Mathewson, preparing her paper.

"I'm not. Instead, I'd rather you'd be as slow as you can, to give me time to think. I'm not used to transmitting mediums--the battery may be weak--in fact, I'm pretty sure it is. All ready? My dear Mrs. Lessing":

His cheek reddened suddenly as he saw the nurse's waiting hands poised over the keys when she had written this address. He cleared his throat and plunged in.

"This has been a typical November day, dull and cold. We had fine October weather clear into the second week of this month, but all at once it turned cold and dull. The leaves are all off the trees--Hold on--don't say that. She knows the leaves are all off the trees the middle of November."

"I have it partly written."

"Oh! Well, go on, then; I'll fix it: a fact it may be necessary to remind you of down there in South Carolina, where--Miss Mathewson, do you suppose the leaves are on in South Carolina?"

"I really don't know, Doctor Burns. I have always lived in the North."

"So have I--bother it! Well, leave that out."

"But I've written 'a fact it may be necessary--"

"Well, finish it: a fact at may be necessary to remind you of, you have been gone so long. Oh, hang it--that sounds flat! How can I tell how a sentence is coming out, this way? Let that paragraph stand by itself--we'll hasten on to something that will take the reader's mind off our unfortunate beginning:

"You will be glad to know that Bobby Burns is well, and not only well, but fat and hearty. He had a wrestling bout with Harold Macauley the other day and downed him. He got a black eye, but that didn't count, though you may not like to hear of it. He is heavier than when you saw him--Oh, I've said that! Miss Mathewson, when you see I'm repeating myself, hold me up."

"I can't always tell when you're going to repeat yourself," Miss Mathewson objected.

"That's enough about Bob, anyhow. Mrs. Macauley writes her all about him every week, only she probably didn't mention the black eye. Well, let's start a new paragraph. When in doubt, always start a new paragraph. It may turn out a gold mine.

"I found my work much crippled by the loss of my arm. Good Heavens, that sounds as if I'd had it amputated! And I suppose she naturally would infer that a man can't do as much with his arm in a sling as he can when it's in commission. Well, let it stand. I didn't realize how much surgery I was doing till I had to cut it all out. 'Cut it out,' that certainly has a surgical ring. It sounds rather bragging, too, I'm afraid. Never mind. The worst of it is to feel the muscles atrophying from disuse and the tissues wasting, so that when it comes out of the splints it will still have to be cured of the degeneration the splints have--Oh, hold on, Miss Mathewson--this sounds like a paper for a surgical journal!"

Burns, who had been walking up and down the room, cast himself into an armchair and stared despairingly at his amanuensis. But she rea.s.sured him by saying quietly that it was always difficult to dictate when one was not used to it, and that the letter sounded quite right.

"Well, if you think so, we'll try another paragraph--that's certainly enough about me. Let me see--" He ran his left hand through his hair.

Footsteps sounded upon the porch. Arthur Chester opened the door.

"Oh, excuse me, Red. It's nothing. I was going for a tramp, and I thought--"

"I'm with you." Burns sprang to his feet looking immensely relieved.

"Thank you, Miss Mathewson, we'll finish another time. Or perhaps I can scrawl a finish with my left hand. I'll take the letter. I'll look in at Bob and get my hat in a jiffy, Ches."