Seven Miles to Arden Part 25

"Billy told me just before I came down why he had gone away; and I wanted to tell you. I don't know how much you know about the old man's reputation, but he was credited with being the hardest master with his men that you could find either side of the water. In the beginning he made his money by s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g down the wages and uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the labor--and no sentiment. That was his slogan. Whether he kept it up from habit or pure cussedness I can't tell, but that's the real reason Billy would never go into his father's business--he couldn't stand his meanness. The old man's secretary forged a check for ten thousand; Billy caught him and cashed it himself--to save the man. He shouldered the guilt so his father wouldn't suspect the man and hound him."

"I know," said Patsy, forgetting that she was supposed to know nothing. "But why in the name of all the saints did the secretary want to forge a check?"

"Why does any one forge? He needs money. When Billy caught him the old fellow went all to pieces and told a pretty tough story. You see, he'd been Burgeman's secretary for almost twenty years, given him the best years of his life--slaved for him--lied for him--made money for him. Billy said his father regarded him as an excellent piece of office machinery, and treated him as if he were nothing more. The poor chap had always had hard luck; a delicate wife, three or four children who were eternally having or needing something, and poor relations demanding help he couldn't refuse. Between doctors' bills and clothing--and the relatives--he had no chance to save. At last he broke down, and the doctor told him it was an outdoor life, with absolute freedom from the strain of serving a man like Burgeman--or the undertaker for him. So he went to Burgeman, asked him to loan him the money to invest in a fruit-farm, and let him pay it off as fast as he could."

"Well?" Patsy was interested at last.

"Well, the old man turned him down--shouted his 'no sentiment' slogan at him, and shrugged his shoulders at what the doctor said. He told him, flat, that a man who hadn't saved a cent in twenty years couldn't in twenty years more; and he only put money into investments that paid. The poor chap went away, frantic, worked himself into thinking he was ent.i.tled to that last chance; and when Billy heard the story he thought so, too. In the end, Billy cashed the check, gave the secretary the money, and they both cleared out. He knew, if his father ever suspected the truth, he would have the poor chap followed and dragged back to pay the full penalty of the law--he and all his family with him."

Patsy smiled whimsically. "It sounds so simple and believable when you have it explained; but it would have been rather nice, now, if Billy Burgeman could have known that one person believed in him from the beginning without an explanation."

"Who did?"

"Faith! how should I know? I was supposing, just."

But as Patsy climbed onto the train she muttered under her breath: "We come out even, I'm thinking. If he's missed knowing that, I've missed knowing a fine lad."

XVI

THE ROAD BEGINS ALL OVER AGAIN

On the second day following Patsy played Juliet at Brambleside, and more than satisfied George Travis. While his mind was racing ahead, planning her particular stardom on Broadway, and her mind was pestering her with its fears and uncertainties into a state of "private prostration," the manager of the Brambleside Inn was telephoning the Green County sheriff to come at once--he had found the girl.

So it came about at the final dropping of the curtain, as Patsy was climbing down from her bier, that four eagerly determined men confronted her, each plainly wishful to be the first to gain her attention.

"Well," said the tinker, pointedly, "are you ready?"

"It's all settled." Travis was jubilant. "You'll play Broadway for six months next winter--or I'm no manager."

It was the manager of the Brambleside Inn and the Green County sheriff, however, who gave the greatest dramatic effect. They placed themselves adroitly on either side of Patsy and announced together: "You're under arrest!"

"Holy Saint Patrick!" Patsy hardly knew whether to be amused or angry. With the actual coming of the tinker, and the laying of her fears, her mind seemed strangely limp and inadequate. Her lips quivered even as they smiled. "Maybe I had best go back to my bier; you couldn't arrest a dead Capulet."

But George Travis swept her aside; he saw nothing amusing in the situation. "What do you mean by insulting Miss O'Connell and myself by such a performance? Why should she be under arrest--for being one of the best Shakespearean actresses we've had in this country for many a long, barren year?"

"No! For stealing two thousand dollars' worth of diamonds from a guest in this hotel the night she palmed herself off as Miss St.

Regis!" The manager of the Inn bit off his words as if he thoroughly enjoyed their flavor.

"But she never was here," shouted Travis.

"Yes, I was," contradicted Patsy.

"And she sneaked off in the morning with the jewels," growled the manager.

"And I trailed over the country for four days, trying to find the girl in a brown suit that he'd described--said she was on her way to Arden. I'd give a doggoned big cigar to know where you was all that time." And there was something akin to admiration in the sheriff's expression.

But Patsy did not see. She was looking hard at the tinker, with an odd little smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

The tinker smiled back, while he reached deep into his trousers pocket and brought out a small package which he presented to the sheriff. "Are those what you are looking for?"

They were five unset diamonds.

"Well, I'll be hanged! Did she give them to you?" The manager of the Inn looked suspiciously from the tinker to Patsy.

"No; she didn't know I had them--didn't even know they existed and that she was being trailed as a suspected thief. Why, what's the matter?" For Patsy had suddenly grown white and her lips were trembling past control.

"Naught--naught they could understand. But I'm finding out there was more than one quest on the road to Arden, more than one soul who fared forth to help another in trouble. And my heart is breaking, just, with the memory of it." And Patsy sank back on the bier and covered her face.

"What is it, dear?" whispered a distressed tinker.

"Don't ask--now--here. Sometime I'll be telling ye."

"Well"--the sheriff thumbed the armholes of his vest in a business-like manner--"I cal'ate we've waited about long enough, young man; supposin' you explain how you come to have those stones in your possession; and why you lied to me about her and sent me hiking off to that country club--when you knew durned well where she was."

The tinker laughed in spite of himself. "Certainly; it's very simple.

I found these, in a suit of rags which I saw on a tramp the morning you lost the diamonds--and Miss O'Connell. I liked the rags so well that I paid the tramp to change clothes with me; he took mine and gave me his, along with a knockout blow for good measure."

The manager of the Inn interrupted with an exclamation of surprise: "So! You were the young fellow they picked up senseless by the stables that morning. When the grooms saw the other man running, they made out it was you who had struck him first."

"Wish I had. But I squared it off with him a few days later," the tinker chuckled. "At the time I couldn't make out why he struck me except to get the rest of the money I had; but of course he wanted to get the stones he'd sewed up in these rags and forgotten. I began to suspect something when I found you trailing Miss O'Connell."

"See here, young man, and wasn't you the feller that put me on the wrong road twice?" The sheriff laid a hand of the law suggestively against his chest.

The tinker chuckled again. "I certainly was. It would have been pretty discouraging for Miss O'Connell if you'd found her before we had the defense ready; and it would have been awkward for you--to have to take a lady in custody."

"I cal'ate that's about right." And the sheriff relaxed into a grin.

Suddenly he turned to the manager of the Inn and pounded his palm with his fist. "By Jupiter! I betcher that there tramp is the feller that's been cleanin' up these parts for the past two years. Hangs round as a tramp at back doors and stables, and picks up what information he needs to break into the house easy. Never hitched him up in my mind to the thefts afore--but I cal'ate it's the one man--and he's it."

"Guess you're right," the tinker agreed. "Last Sat.u.r.day, when I came upon him again--in an automobile--still in my clothes, we had a final fight for the possession of the rags, which I still wore, and the--"

But he never finished.

Patsy had sprung to her feet and was looking at him, bewilderment, accusation, almost fright, showing through her tears. "Your clothes--your clothes! You wore a--Then you are--"

"Hush!" said the tinker. He turned to the others. "I think that is all, gentlemen. I searched the rags after I had finished my score with the thief and found the stones. I brought them over this afternoon to return to their rightful owner. I might have returned them that day after the play--but I forgot until the sheriff had gone. You are entirely welcome. Good afternoon!" He dismissed them promptly, but courteously, as if the stage had been his own drawing-room and the two had suddenly expressed a desire to take their leave.

At the wings he left them and came back direct to George Travis.

"There is more thieving to be done this afternoon, and I am going to do it. I am going to steal your future star, right from under your nose; and I shall never return her."

"What do you mean?" Travis stared at him blankly.

"Just what I say; Miss O'Connell and I are to be married this afternoon in Arden."

"That's simply out of the--"