The Bartlett Mystery Part 20

Rachel had to move quickly to avoid a holocaust in which a hapless bullock provided the burnt offering. The light of this pyre revealed the distant figures of Winifred and Carshaw, whereupon the maddened Voles tried pot shots at a hundred yards. Bullets came close, too. One cut the heel of Carshaw's shoe; another plowed a ridge through his motoring cap. Realizing that Voles would aim only at him, he told Winifred to run wide.

She caught his hand.

"Please--help!" she breathed. "I cannot run far."

He smothered a laugh of sheer joy. Winifred's legs were supple as his.

She was probably the fleeter of the two. It was the mother-instinct that spoke in her. This was her man, and she must protect him, cover him from enemies with her own slim body.

Soon they were safe from even a chance shot. On climbing a rail fence, Carshaw led the girl clearly into view until a fold in the ground offered. Then they doubled and zigzagged. They saw some houses, but Carshaw wanted no explanation or parleying then and pressed on. They entered a lane, or driveway, and followed it. There came a murmuring of mighty waters, the voice of the sea; they were on the beach of Long Island Sound. Far behind, in the gloom, shone a lurid redness, marking the spot where the two cars and the bullock were being converted into ardent ga.s.ses.

Carshaw halted and surveyed a long, low line of blackness breaking into the deep-blue plain of the sea to the right.

"I know where we are," he said. "There's a hotel on that point. It's about two miles. You could walk twenty, couldn't you?"

"Oh, yes," said Winifred unthinkingly.

"Or run five at a jog-trot?" he teased her.

"Well--er--"

She blushed furiously, and thanked the night that hid her from his eyes.

No maid wishes a man to think she is in love with him before he has uttered the word of love. When next she spoke, Winifred's tone was reserved, almost distant.

"Now tell me what has caused this tornado," she said. "I have been acting on impulse. Please give me some reasonable theory of to-night's madness."

It was on the tip of Carshaw's tongue to a.s.sure her that they were going to New York by the first train, and would hie themselves straight to the City Hall for a marriage license. But--he had a mother, a prized and deeply reverenced mother. Ought he to break in on her placid and well-balanced existence with the curt announcement that he was married, even to a wife like Winifred. Would he be playing the game with those good fellows in the detective bureau? Was it fair even to Winifred that she should be asked to pay the immediate price, as it were, of her rescue? So the fateful words were not uttered, and the two trudged on, talking with much common sense, probing the doubtful things in Winifred's past life, and ever avoiding the tumult of pa.s.sion which must have followed their first kiss.

In due course an innkeeper was aroused and the mishap of a car explained. The man took them for husband and wife; happily, Winifred did not overhear Carshaw's smothered:

"Not yet!"

The girl soon went to her room. They parted with a formal hand-shake; but, to still the ready lips of scandal, Carshaw discovered the landlord's favorite brand of wine and sat up all night in his company.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NEW LINK

Steingall and Clancy were highly amused by Carshaw's account of the "second burning of Fairfield," as the little man described the struggle between Winifred's abductors and her rescuer. The latter, not so well versed in his country's history as every young American ought to be, had to consult a history of the Revolution to learn that Fairfield was burned by the British in 1777. The later burning, by the way, created a pretty quarrel between two insurance companies, the proprietors of two garages and the owner of a certain bullock, with Carshaw's lawyer and a Bridgeport lawyer, instructed by "Mr. Ralph Voles," as interveners.

"And where is the young lady now?" inquired Steingall, when Carshaw's story reached its end.

"Living in rooms in a house in East Twenty-seventh Street, a quiet place kept by a Miss Goodman."

"Ah! Too soon for any planning as to the future, I suppose?"

"We talked of that in the train. Winifred has a voice, so the stage offers an immediate opening. But I don't like the notion of musical comedy, and the concert platform demands a good deal of training, since a girl starts there practically as a princ.i.p.al. There is no urgency.

Winifred might well enjoy a fortnight's rest. I have counseled that."

"A stage wait, in fact," put in Clancy, sarcastically.

By this time Carshaw was beginning to understand the peculiar quality of the small detective's wit.

"Yes," he said, smiling into those piercing and brilliant eyes. "There are periods in a man's life when he ought to submit his desires to the acid test. Such a time has come now for me."

"But 'Aunt Rachel' may find her. Is she strong-willed enough to resist cajoling, and seek the aid of the law if force is threatened?"

"Yes, I am sure now. What she heard and saw of those two men during the mad run along the Post Road supplied good and convincing reasons why she should refuse to return to Miss Craik."

"Why are you unwilling to charge them with attempted murder?" said Steingall, for Carshaw had stipulated there should be no legal proceedings.

"My lawyers advise against it," he said simply.

"You've consulted them?"

"Yes, called in on my way here. When I reached home after seeing Winifred fixed comfortably in Miss Goodman's, I opened a letter from my lawyers, requesting an interview--on another matter, of course. Meaning to marry Winifred, if she'll take me, I thought it wise to tell them something about recent events."

Steingall carefully chose a cigar from a box of fifty, all exactly alike, nipped the end off, and lighted it. Clancy's fingers drummed impatiently on the table at which the three were seated. Evidently he expected the chief to play Sir Oracle. But the head of the Bureau contented himself with the comment that he was still interested in Winifred Bartlett's history, and would be glad to have any definite particulars which Carshaw might gather.

Clancy sighed so heavily on hearing this "departmental" utterance that Carshaw was surprised.

"If I could please myself, I'd rush Winifred to the City Hall for a marriage license to-day," he said, believing he had fathomed the other's thought.

"I'm a bit of a Celt on the French and Irish sides," snapped Clancy, "and that means an ineradicable vein of romance in my make-up. But I'm a New York policeman, too--a guy who has to mind his own business far more frequently than the public suspects."

And there the subject dropped. Truth to tell, the department had to tread warily in stalking such big game as a Senator. Carshaw was a friend of the Towers, and "the yacht mystery" had been deliberately squelched by the highly influential persons most concerned. It was impolitic, it might be disastrous, if Senator Meiklejohn's name were dragged into connection with that of the unsavory Voles on the flimsy evidence, or, rather, mere doubt, affecting Winifred Bartlett's early life.

Winifred herself lived in a pa.s.sive but blissful state of dreams during the three weeks. Perhaps, in her heart of hearts, she wondered if every young man who might be in love with a girl imposed such rigid restraint on himself as Rex Carshaw when he was in her company. The unspoken language of love was plain in every glance, in every tone, in the merest touch of their hands. But he spoke no definite word, and their lips had never met.

Miss Goodman, who took an interest in the pretty and amiable girl, spent many an hour of chat with her. Every morning there arrived a present of flowers from Carshaw; every afternoon Carshaw himself appeared as regularly as the clock and drank of Miss Goodman's tea. They were weeks of _Nirvana_ for Winifred, and, but for her fear of being found out and her continued lack of occupation, they were the happiest she had ever known. Meantime, however, she was living on "borrowed" money, and felt herself in a false position.

"Well, any news?" was always Carshaw's first question as he placed his hat over his stick on a chair. And Winifred might reply:

"Not much. I saw such-and-such a stage manager, and went from such an agent to another, and had my voice tried, with the usual promises. I'm afraid that even your patience will soon be worn out. I am sorry now that I thought of singing instead of something else, for there are plenty of girls who can sing much better than I."

"But don't be so eager about the matter, Winifred," he would say. "It is an anxious little heart that eats itself out and will not learn repose.

Isn't it? And it chafes at being dependent on some one who is growing weary of the duty. Doesn't it?"

"No, I didn't mean that," said Winifred with a rueful and tender smile.

"You are infinitely good, Rex." They had soon come to the use of Christian names. Outwardly they were just good friends, while inwardly they resembled two active volcanoes.

"Now I am 'infinitely good,' which is really more than human if you think it out," he laughed. "See how you run to extremes with nerves and things. No, you are not to care at all, Winnie. You have a more or less good voice. You know more music than is good for you, and sooner or later, since you insist on it, you will get what you want. Where is the hurry?"

"You don't or won't understand," said Winifred. "I know what I want, and must get some work without delay."

"Well, then, since it upsets you, you shall. I am not much of an authority about professional matters myself, but I know a lady who understands these things, and I'll speak to her."