The Fifth Ace Part 30

His att.i.tude of mind was infectious and when Willa descended before the Halstead house her own natural buoyancy of thought had rea.s.serted itself, although the mystery remained as black and sinister as ever.

Wiley, still hors de combat from his thrashing at Thode's hands, could scarcely have been a factor himself in this new development and if it proved to be the result of any of his agents' activities, surely Dan would be able to find some trace.

She pa.s.sed a sleepless night, however, and arose to find a foot of snow glistening on the ground and the air keen and brittle with cold. No word came from Dan, and in the afternoon she threw discretion to the winds and went boldly to the Brooklyn house.

Nothing had developed save that Jose had worried himself into a fever, and the Senora Rodriguez's lamentations were tinged with a querulous resentment.

The young Senorita was paying handsomely for the hospitality to her friends, and she herself would gladly do anything to aid her country-people, even if they were but Mexican Spanish and not of the blood. Nevertheless, she was not to blame for the old Senora's departure, she had not agreed to stand guard over her and surely the Evil Eye had descended upon her house! She would nurse the little Jose as though he were her own, and the old Senora's room should be kept in readiness for her return, but she, Conchita Rodriguez, would worry her own head no longer!

Willa placated the woman's displeasure with promises of more generous pay, and arranged for extra care and comforts for Jose, whom the Senora evidently regarded with a tenderness born of superst.i.tion; to aid a jorobado brought luck to one's hearth-stone, even as the touch of his humped shoulders gave promise of good fortune.

Secure at least in the thought of his well-being, Willa was content to leave Jose in the hands of his irascible but kind-hearted landlady, stipulating that daily messages should be telephoned to her of his condition.

"And if anyone comes to inquire for him, remember that he is not here, please," she added. "He and the Senora have both gone; that is, unless a young American named Morrissey should appear. He is a friend of mine, and trying to help me find the Senora."

"'Morrissey?' I shall not forget." Senora Rodriguez repeated the name thoughtfully. "No one has been here to-day but a plumber, who arrived without my order. He said there was a leak in the cellar next door which came from my house and he did strange things to my pipes so that now I can draw no water in my kitchen. Now my neighbor tells me there was no leak, and I cannot understand. They do singular things, these Americanos."

Willa returned to her home in a more despondent mood even than before, and a telephone call from Dan late in the evening did not tend to raise her spirits.

"I've canva.s.sed every hospital and inst.i.tootion in the five boroughs!"

he announced. "I even tried the morgue, but there ain't hide nor hair of the old lady. Looks like the earth might have opened and swallowed her up. I take it you don't want me to report her missing at headquarters, do you?"

"Only as the very last resort," Willa responded. "We must avoid publicity if we can, although of course if she is ill or in any danger I shall have to let every other consideration go."

"You leave it to me, Miss!" The familiar slogan came as cheerfully as ever over the wire. "I don't think the old lady's in bad, wherever she is. n.o.body'd dare do anything to her, would they? It ain't a rough-house gang that's after her, from what you told me."

"No, Dan. I am not afraid of any violence to her at their hands. They will only worry and annoy her."

"Well, the chances are, if she just wandered off and lost herself, that somebody's taken her in. I'm doin' fine, so far. I had a grand talk with the dame over in Brooklyn to-day, and she never once got on to me."

His tone was filled with such honest pride that Willa was loath to disturb it, yet she could not forbear I remarking:

"I did, though, Dan, when she told me what had been done to the plumbing! What did you find out from her?"

"Everything she knew and a lot that she threw in for good measure. I didn't have to start her; she was just aching to tell the whole story; how they came to her and all! If them other people get on to the house, she'll spill the beans to them sure, Miss. She don't own that house; she only rents it, and the next time I go I'll have an order from the agent to put in weatherstrips or clean the chimneys and grates. I want a talk with the lad as soon as he is well enough. I'll report to you, Miss, just as quick as anything turns up."

Willa gave him some final instructions and hung up the receiver, to find Angie at her elbow.

"You've been an unconscionable time!" the latter complained, veiling her eyes to conceal their gleam of awakened curiosity and interest.

"We're waiting for you to make up a rubber. Who was that message from?

Any of the crowd?"

"No," Willa replied directly. "It was from a friend of mine; you do not know him, Angie."

"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean to intrude.--Dear me! to-morrow's Thanksgiving, and this wretched season is scarcely begun!"

It was a weary holiday for Willa and she sat through the elaborate formal dinner with which the Halsteads celebrated it in an abstraction of mood which gave two of her callow admirers much concern.

The presence of Kearn Thode's sister, however, brought her out of her reverie and later, when Mrs. Beekman sought her out in the drawing-room, Willa left her problem to take care of itself for the hour in her interest in the breezy clear-eyed woman so like Kearn himself.

"I must apologize for not coming yesterday, as I a.s.sured my brother I would. An epidemic of something or other has broken out at my kennels and I spent a disheartening and doggy afternoon." She laughed, adding with sudden seriousness: "My brother has told me so many interesting things of you, Miss Murdaugh, that I have wanted to really know you, but I suppose you have been submerged in a sea of festivity with your cousins. I am a gregarious person but not a conventionally social one.

I suppose that is why we have not happened to meet since that first dinner; I do not follow the beaten path, as a rule."

"Nor I, except when I am led by the nose!" Willa responded, laughing, too. "But tell me, is Mr. Thode improving?"

Mrs. Beekman gave her a swift, keen glance.

"Oh, yes! He suffered a mere scratch or two; you know what babies men are about such things.--Look at them trailing in now from the dining-room, fed up on the newest stories and the oldest cognac!

There's something almost tragic in their boredom, isn't there?"

Willa gasped, a little taken aback by her companion's cynical frankness, and Mrs. Beekman laid an impulsive hand upon her arm.

"Come and lunch with me to-morrow; just we two. We'll have a nice little chat and if Kearn comes bothering around I'll send him away. I want you to tell me about Mexico."

Willa promised with an odd little thrill of warmth at her heart. With the exception of fat, comfortable Sallie Bailey and old Tia Juana, the girl had had no intimates of her own s.e.x, and the compet.i.tion appeared to be so keen among the members of the set in which she found herself that friendship was eyed askance as a subterfuge to be wary of.

The daily bulletins from Brooklyn were not encouraging, nor was Dan Morrissey gaining ground in the search. Three days had pa.s.sed since the disappearance of Tia Juana, and Willa decided despairingly that should a week go by without news, she must go to the police and brave the storm of notoriety and questioning from Mason North and the Halsteads, which would mean the end of her cherished secrecy and hem her in with a mult.i.tude of complications.

She lunched with Mrs. Beekman as she had promised, in the dingy old-fashioned house on the Square which somehow gave the girl, untutored as she was, an impression of aristocracy that the newer, more ornate piles of stone farther up the Avenue had utterly failed to convey. She was miserably aware that the other woman was making a sympathetic effort to understand her and gain her friendship, yet the thought of Tia Juana drove all else from her mind and she knew she was creating a far from propitious impression.

An unaccountable shyness, too, took possession of her at the possibility of meeting Kearn Thode beneath his sister's discerning eye, and as soon as she could courteously do so, she tore herself away from her disappointed hostess and went over the bridge to Jose.

The cripple's fever had abated, but he was still very weak. His little hot hands clutched hers nervously and his big eyes seemed to burn into hers as he asked in his own tongue:

"The Senorita has a friend whom she trusts?"

"Yes, Jose," responded Willa promptly. "Have you seen him?"

"He came this morning, and told me his name. He said I was to ask it of you, and you would tell me the same."

"Is it 'Dan'?" She watched the thin face brighten.

"That was it! And am I to trust him, too?"

"You can tell him anything as you would me, amiguito, but remember, no word of the Pool!"

"That is written, Senorita Billie, on my heart!--But will the grandmama ever return?"

Willa soothed him as well as she was able, and, after a brief conference with Senorita Rodriguez, took her departure.

A man was standing near the bottom of the steps, lighting a cigarette.

Her eyes rested upon him with no flash of recognition until he glanced up and then with a slow smile tossed his cigarette into the gutter. It was Starr Wiley.

His puffed, discolored lips stood out against the pasty whiteness of his face with the grotesque effect of a mask and his eyes gleamed malevolently, but he lifted his hat with the old airy insouciance.

"We meet again, my dear Billie!"

She bowed gravely, and made as if to pa.s.s him, but he barred her way.