The Incendiary Part 14

"Tarnal idiot! Yer fool, yer! I'll shorten yer fodder for yer! I'll teach yer to stand! Woa!"

"Eavesdropping! What nonsense!" said McCausland, smiling. Shorn of its mustache his face looked more ferret-like than ever and one could excuse Tristram March's estimate of its owner's villainy. "I had to leave Hillsborough on the 6:21, and natural impatience led me to follow the lazy girl who went after the cream for my supper."

"It took you a long time to make up that fib," retorted Bertha, but she took the hint and went over to the farmhouse to fill her pitcher.

"Perhaps you will join me at lunch, Miss Barlow. You may be taking the same train and I shall have the pleasure of your company to the station in Mrs. Arnold's carriage."

"No, I thank you. I will not trouble Mrs. Arnold either for lunch or for the carriage."

"Or, Mr. McCausland?"

"Or Mr. McCausland."

Emily spoke in a tone which was meant to convey that there were too many unforgiven injuries between them to permit her to accept favors from either of them. She looked at her watch. It was 5:30.

"There is no other conveyance from here and the station is three miles," urged the inspector, with good humor.

"I can walk there in an hour."

"You must have walked a part of the way from Elmwood."

"Please do not press me, Mr. McCausland."

He muttered something about "s.p.u.n.k" as he looked after the girl's slight figure retreating. Then he gallantly relieved Bertha of her foaming pitcher and sauntered with her back to the Arnold mansion.

When Emily reached the Hillsborough station she was indeed a footsore girl, fully convinced that country miles are as indefinite as nautical knots, but in the few moments she had to spare before the train came by she purchased a lunch of fruit, which refreshed her a little. Before they were well out of the station Inspector McCausland came up and asked permission to occupy the seat at her side.

During her walk Emily had come around to a gentler view of the detective's behavior. She could not look back on the afternoon's events without a certain complacency. For the true aspect of the case against Robert, as a grand chess duel between the criminal lawyer and the detective, was gradually dawning upon her, and surely in the discovery of Bertha's hiding-place and the unmasking of Bill Dobbs, white, her champion, had gained two positive advantages over black, the enemy's color. Besides, loyal as she was to her sweetheart, with that singleness of heart which we sometimes call womanly prejudice, there was a genial persistency in McCausland few could resist. So she forbore to fire upon his flag of truce and a.s.sented to the request.

They talked for the most part of irrelevant matters, and she herself did not like to broach the subject of all subjects. Only once did he appear to glance at his official relation to her.

"The fisherman, Miss Barlow, doesn't enjoy the death struggles of the mackerel in his nets," he said. "But he is obliged to see that they do not escape."

"Then you do disagreeable work from a sense of public duty?"

"And for the support of my family," he added. "But as we've arrived at the city perhaps I'd better return these now."

So saying, he laid Emily's watch, pocketbook and brooch in her lap. Dumfounded, she felt of her bodice, where these articles should be. The neck-clasp was missing, the watch-pocket empty. McCausland had picked her pockets while they were conversing.

"Set a thief to catch a thief," said the detective, still smiling, but raising his hat with respect. Emily smiled herself, less at the prank he had played than because she thought she had good reasons to be cheerful. But she did not communicate them to Richard McCausland, alias William Dobbs.

It happened that her course through town took her by s.h.a.garach's office. It was nearly 7:30, but there was a light in his window still, and an impulse seized her to convey the glad tidings of her successful journey to the lawyer. So she picked her way across the street and tripped light-heartedly up the stairs.

"You bring good news, Miss Barlow," said s.h.a.garach, a little heavily. He was standing at the window with his hands in his pockets and his back turned, but there was power in his very carelessness. If he could not pick pockets he could master men.

"How could you know?" she asked.

"I simply heard you coming. There is mood in a footstep," he answered, facing her and offering a chair, while he sat himself at the table with his arms folded expectantly. Through the open window where he had been standing Emily felt the cool evening air, dim with dew it held in suspension; and far away the hill-built capitol of the city, printed darkly against the blood-orange sunset, seemed lifted into the uppermost heavens, at an immeasurable height from earth. Had this been the object of s.h.a.garach's contemplation?

"What is the result?"

"Bertha is found again."

"At Arnold's?"

"At Arnold's."

Knowing his taste for brevity, she condensed the story of her day's wanderings, not omitting, however, the incidents which seemed to connect McCausland with the pretended English cracksman.

Toward the end of the narrative she perceived an unwonted wandering of attention in her listener. A trio of street minstrels, with flute, violin and harp, had set up a pa.s.sionate Spanish dance tune, just far enough away to afford that confused blending of harmonies which adds so much to the effect of carelessly rendered music. s.h.a.garach's eyes had left Emily's face and strayed toward the window. Twice he had asked her to repeat, as though he were catching up a lost thread. At last he arose abruptly and shut down the sash, m.u.f.fling the minstrelsy at the height of its wildest abandon.

"Our street troubadours distract you?" asked Emily.

"The violinist is a gypsy," said the lawyer, shutting his eyes. Emily remembered this saying afterward, and even now she began to understand why a certain compa.s.sion, mingled with the fear and admiration which this man so gifted, but so meanly surrounded, aroused.

"That is all?" he said. She thought it amounted to a good deal. "I fear Miss Barlow may not descend the stairs as gayly as she mounted them."

"What have I done? How have I blundered?" she asked herself.

"To have caught McCausland napping was a pleasant diversion, but of little practical value. He is merely playing the nest-egg game."

"The nest-egg game?"

"Dressing up as a convict, locating himself in the adjoining cell and confessing some enormity himself so as to induce his bird to lay. The trick has an excellent basis in psychology, since the second law of life is to imitate."

"And the first?"

"To devour. You think that crude?" he added, noting Emily's look. "Ah, fact is crude, and we must never shirk fact. But since Floyd is innocent it could have availed McCausland little to continue his harmless efforts to wheedle a confession out of him--which I presume you will now interrupt."

"Not necessarily," answered Emily, who would by no means be sorry to prolong the joke at the expense of the subtle inspector.

"But that our discovery of Bertha's hiding-place should be known to McCausland is a little unfortunate. She may be removed at once, this time beyond our reach."

"Is he so suspicious a man?"

"When fighting wealth."

"But we are not rich."

"You forget the $5,000,000 and McCausland's point of view."

Emily colored slightly. This was the bitter fruit of her wasted afternoon, her six miles' walk, her long fast. But she kept these things to herself. And s.h.a.garach did not look at all perturbed. John Davidson had told her that he was accounted by some a trifle slack in the preparation of his matter, trusting overmuch to his power in the cross-examination to bring out the truth. His record, however, showed that he did not overrate his own skill. As certain clever exhibitors, blindfolded, will take the arm of a reluctant guide, and, by noting his resistances, compel him to lead them to some article in hiding, so s.h.a.garach followed the windings and subterfuges of unwilling testimony, bringing witnesses at last face to face with the truth they had striven to conceal.

"Our cause has a.s.sumed a novel aspect," said the lawyer, opening a drawer and producing three or four letters. "I am the victim of an anonymous correspondent."

Emily glanced at the envelopes. Their penmanship appeared to be that of an illiterate person, the "s.h.a.garach" in particular bearing a strong resemblance to the four priceless if illegible autographs which are the only relics left us bearing the immediate personal impress of the man of Stratford.

"The earlier epistles merely threaten me with death in its least desirable forms if I do not surrender my brief for Robert Floyd. The writer appears to cherish a grievance against your friend. Had he any enemies?"

"Not that I know of."

"Very well. It appears I was to suffer martyrdom for his sake. Today's mail, however, discloses a change of policy. The handwriting is the same, but sloped backward to disguise it."

He pa.s.sed a letter over so that Emily might read the wretched scrawl.

"Dear Mr. s.h.a.garach: I mean to let you know that I have discovered a important klew which will save your cliant. Pleeze be at the bridge, the Pere leading over to the island Fort, at 8 o'clock (8 P. M.) sharp To-morrow, and I mean to let you know my klew for nothing. If you do not c.u.m, yore life is not worth living. You will be torn into on site."

A rude skull and crossbones was figured in place of a signature.

"Don't you think the writer's brain has a flaw in it?" asked Emily.

"Possibly. There is something not entirely consistent in the promise to rend me in two if I do not accept his a.s.sistance."

"Or hers?"

"You do not recognize the handwriting?"

"It might be that of any very ignorant person. There is almost no style or character."

"Rather masculine. It may be some irresponsible being, as you say. But there is a singular accent of sincerity in the earlier letters; a genuine hatred of Floyd."

"You will not venture to the meeting-place at that hour?"

"I hardly fear Mr. Skull-and-Crossbones."

s.h.a.garach drew a delicate revolver from his lowest drawer. It lay like a toy in his small white palm, but Emily could not repress a shudder.

"You do not value my advice. You ask it, but you will not follow it?"

"The chance of seeing and studying my correspondent is too good to be lost."

"Do you really read minds, Mr. s.h.a.garach?" asked Emily.

"Not in the charlatan's sense, certainly not. But the dominant thought in every man's soul--self, money, pleasure, fame--is written plainly on his face. The trained psychologist can predict much from a photograph."

Eight! The ringing bells recalled Emily to thoughts of home. Almost simultaneously a knock on the door ushered in a visitor, who proved to be Mr. Arthur Kennedy Foxhall. The opium-eater was feathered in peac.o.c.k fashion this evening, but no brilliancy of plumage could offset the undervitalized appearance of his tenuous form and sallow cheeks. He started on recognizing Emily and appeared confused, but lifted his hat with a sweep meant to be grandly courteous.

"I beg pardon. Shall I be so fortunate as to have the privilege of an introduction?"

"I was just about to leave," said Emily, pa.s.sing him without a glance. "Good-evening, Mr. s.h.a.garach."

"Good-evening."

s.h.a.garach attended her to the door with the deference he habitually showed, and she felt his strong presence like a zone of protection thrown around her.

"You are punctual, Kennedy," said s.h.a.garach, returning to the newcomer. He had clicked his desk to and donned a hat and coat while the other was drawling out an answer.

"The Dove-Cote is just about on."

Meanwhile Emily, as s.h.a.garach predicted, had descended the stairs much more doubtfully than she had mounted them. But she clung to her woman's faith that even the interrupted conversation with Bertha might yield items which would germinate at a later stage; and, empty though it were, her victory over the great McCausland was one of those successes which give cheer to a young campaigner.

Sustained by these hopes, she rode home at last and related the whole story of her day's adventures and misadventures to her wondering mother over the supper that had been cold for two hours.

CHAPTER XVIII.

INSIDE THE DOVE-COTE.

"Here we are!" cried Kennedy.

The sudden flood of light dazzled s.h.a.garach's eyes. Glittering chandeliers threw prismatic reflections upon the twenty or thirty occupants of the room, many of them in full evening dress, like his escort, and several adding the sparkle of diamonds to the iridescence of mirrors and cut gla.s.s around them. Across one corner stretched an arc-shaped bar, from which two colored waiters served liquors to the patrons, while others at intervals disappeared behind curtains and reappeared balancing platters of light delicious viands for the men who chatted at the tables. These were octagon-topped and covered with plush. The carpeted floor yielded like turf to the feet. The conversation ran low. The servants whispered their requests and answers. It was an atmosphere of stealth and suppression.

The getting there had been a story in two brief chapters. This palace of fortune owed its name to its location on the uppermost floor of one of those tall, slender structures, like dominoes set on end, which ill.u.s.trate the reaching upward for s.p.a.ce in our cities when horizontal expansion becomes no longer possible. It fronted on a blind pa.s.sageway in the heart of the hotel district. Its proprietor was a jovial man-about-town, rather p.r.o.ne than averse to the society of police captains. On the ground floor a commercial agency conducted its business quietly. Tailors rented the second and third flights, but the fourth story was always unoccupied and never advertised for hire. Applicants covetous of its advantages were frightened away by the rental asked. It was at the head of the stairs leading from this landing up that Kennedy had pressed the three white bell b.u.t.tons in the ma.s.sive door.

The door immediately swung open, and the pair found themselves in front of a second door, similar to the first except that the opaque panels were replaced by gla.s.s. Through these the stairs could be seen beyond. Kennedy repeated his signal, this time, however, reversing the order and beginning with the lowest k.n.o.b. A slide opened at the head of the stairs, and the two men were the object of scrutiny for awhile. s.h.a.garach's sponsor was evidently persona grata to the sentinel, for the second door now swung in and they were free to mount the stairs.

"Sure it's true-blue, Kennedy?" said the sentinel, when they pa.s.sed him.

"Sure," answered the manikin, but his smirk was forced. "Wine, Sambo."

Kennedy began breaking the ice in this manner for his companion.

"Not a life-long votary of the fickle G.o.ddess, I should judge," remarked a man introduced as Mr. Faught.

"This is my initiation into her mysterious rites," answered s.h.a.garach, sweeping the room for Harry Arnold.

"Ah, then, it is not too late for you to withdraw. The ceremonies are trying. I myself am only a neophyte of low degree. Perhaps, being a student of character, you have observed as much from my appearance?"

"I should have known that you had not lost a fortune this evening, at least."

"There is one simple rule to escape that."

"Not to bring one here?"

"Precisely."

s.h.a.garach had indeed been contrasting Faught with the other habitues, most of them men of fashion, still young in years, but middle-aged in the lines of their faces. Several beardless youths appeared to be college students. Two or three wore the style of confidential bookkeepers or bank cashiers. As many more were flush-faced veterans, with wrinkled pouches under their worldly eyes and gray mustaches of knowing twist. Against such a gathering, smiling, but irritable withal underneath from the nervous tension, the large man of bland visage and ironical phrase certainly struck a discordant note.

"Come to the altar and I will explain our ritual."

They moved toward the table in the middle of the room, which was the center of all interest. If men appeared to be chatting absently in a corner, their heads were constantly swiveled this way, their ears caught the announcement of every result.