The Militants Part 6

Captain Comerford imparted this in jerky whispers, listening with one ear all the time to a sound which stirred Katherine, the voice which she had heard yesterday in the church at St. George's. The Englishman's spasmodic growl stopped, and she drifted a step nearer, listening. As she caught the words, her brows drew together with displeasure, with shocked surprise. The inspired saint of yesterday was reciting with earnestness, with every delicate inflection of his beautiful voice, these words:

"There was a young curate of Kidderminster, Who kindly, but firmly, chid a spinster, Because on the ice She said something not nice When he quite inadvertently slid ag'inst her."

As the roar which followed this subsided, Katherine's face cleared.

What right had she to make a pattern of solemn righteousness for this stranger and be insulted if he did not fit? Certainly he was saintly--she had seen his soul bared to her vision; but certainly he was human also, as this moment was demonstrating. It flashed over her vaguely to wonder which was the dominant quality--which would rule in a stress of temptation--the saintly side or the human? But at least he was human with a winning humanity. His mirth and his enjoyment of it were as spontaneous as a mischievous, bright child's, and it was easy to see that the charm of his remarkable voice attracted others as it had attracted her.

"There was a young fellow from Clyde, Who was often at funerals espied--"

he had begun, and with that, between her first shock and her swift recovery, with the contrast between the man of yesterday and the man of to-day, Katherine suddenly laughed aloud. North stopped short, and turned and looked at her, and for a second and their eyes met, and each read recognition and friendliness. The Limerick went on:

"When asked who was dead, He nodded and said, '_I_ don't know--_I_ just came for the ride.'"

"Eleven for Mr. North--one-half minute more," called Mr. Gale, and instantly North was in the breach:

"A sore-hipped hippopotamus quite fl.u.s.tered Objected to a poultice made of custard; 'Can't you doctor up my hip With anything but flip?'

So they put upon the hip a pot o' mustard.'"

And the half-minute was done and North had won, and there was clapping of hands for the victor, and at once, before the little uproar was over, Katherine saw him speak a word to Mr. Gale, and saw the latter, turning, stare about as if searching for some one, and, meeting her glance, smile.

"I want to present Mr. North, Miss Newbold," Gale said.

"Why did you laugh in the middle of my Limerick? Had you heard it?"

North demanded, as if they had known each other a year instead of a minute.

"No, I had not heard it." Katherine shook her head.

"Then why did you laugh?"

She looked at him reflectively. "I don't know you well enough to tell you that."

"How soon will you know me well enough--if I do my best?"

She considered. "About three weeks from yesterday."

Many things grow fast in southern climates--fruits, flowers, even friendship and love. Three weeks later, on a hot, bright morning of April, North and Katherine Newbold were walking down a road of Bermuda to the sea, and between them was what had ripened in the twenty-one days from a germ to a full-grown bud, ready to open at the lightest touch into flower. As they walked down such a road of a dream, the man talked to the girl as he had never talked to any one before. He spoke of his work and its hopes and disappointments, of the pathos, the tragedy, the comedy often of a way of life which leads by a deeper cut through men's hearts than any other, and he told her also, modestly indeed, and because he loved to tell her what meant much to him, of the joy of knowing himself successful in his parish. He went into details, absorbingly interesting to him, and this new luxury of speaking freely carried him away.

"I hope I'm not boring you." His frank gaze turned on her anxiously. "I don't know what right I have to a.s.sume that the increase in the Sunday-school, or even the new bra.s.s pulpit, is a fascinating subject to you. I never did this before," he said, and there was something in his voice which hindered the girl from answering his glance. But there was no air of being bored about her, and he went on. "However, life isn't all good luck. I had a serious blow just before I came down here--a queer thing happened. I told you just now that all the large gifts to St. John's had come from one man--a former parishioner. The man was James Litterny, of the great firm of--Why, what's the matter--what is it?" For Katherine had stopped short, in her fast, swinging walk, and without a sound had swayed and caught at the wall as if to keep herself from falling. Before he could reach her she had straightened herself and was smiling.

"I felt ill for a second--it's nothing,--let's go along."

North made eager suggestions for her comfort, but the girl was firm in her a.s.sertion, that she was now quite well, so that, having no sisters and being ignorant that a healthy young woman does not, any more than a healthy young man, go white and stagger without reason, he yielded, and they walked briskly on.

"You were telling me something that happened to you--something connected with Mr.--with the rich parishioner." Her tone was steady and casual, but looking at her, he saw that she was still pale.

"Do you really want to hear my yarns? You're sure it isn't that which made you feel faint--because I talked so much?"

"It's always an effort not to talk myself," she laughed up at him, yet with a strange look in her eyes. "All the same, talk a little more.

Tell me what you began to tell about Mr. Litterny." The name came out full and strong.

"Oh, that! Well, it's a story extraordinary enough for a book. I think it will interest you."

"I think it will," Katherine agreed.

"You see," he went on, "Mr. Litterny promised us a new parish-house, the best and largest practicable. It was to cost, with the lot, ten thousand dollars. It was to be begun this spring. Not long before I came to Bermuda, I had a note one morning from him, asking me to come to his house the next evening. I went, and he told me that the parish-house would have to be given up for the present, because the firm of Litterny Brothers had just met with a loss, through a most skilful and original robbery, of five thousand dollars."

"A robbery?" the girl repeated. "Burglars, you mean?"

"Something much more artistic than burglars. I told you this story was good enough for a book. It's been kept quiet because the detectives thought the chance better that way of hunting the thief to earth." (Why should she catch her breath?) "But I'm under no promise--I'm sure I may tell you. You're not likely to have any connection with the rascal."

Katherine's step hung a little as if she shrank from the words, but she caught at a part of the sentence and repeated it, "'Hunting the thief to earth'--you say that as if you'd like to see it done."

"I would like to see it done," said North, with slow emphasis. "Nothing has ever more roused my resentment. I suppose it's partly the loss of the parish-house, but, aside from that, it makes me rage to think of splendid old James Litterny, the biggest-hearted man I know, being done in that way. Why, he'd have helped the scoundrel in a minute if he'd gone to him instead of stealing from him. Usually my sympathies are with the sinner, but I believe if I caught this one I'd be merciless."

"Would you mind sitting down here?" Katherine asked, in a voice which sounded hard. "I'm not ill, but I feel--tired. I want to sit here and listen to the story of that unprincipled thief and his wicked robbery."

North was all solicitude in a moment, but the girl put him aside impatiently.

"I'm quite right. Don't bother. I just want to be still while you talk.

See what a good seat this is."

Over the russet sand of the dunes the sea flashed a burning blue; storm-twisted cedars led a rutted road down to it; in the salt air the piny odor was sharp with sunlight. Katherine had dropped beneath one of the dwarfed trees, and leaning back, smiled dimly up at him with a stricken face which North did not understand.

"You are ill," he said, anxiously. "You look ill. Please let me take care of you. There is a house back there--let me--" but she interrupted:

"I'm not ill, and I won't be fussed over. I'm not exactly right, but I will be in a few minutes. The best thing for me is just to rest here and have you talk to me. Tell me that story you are so slow about."

He took her at her word. Lying at full length at her feet--his head propped on a hillock so that he might look into her face, one of his hands against the hem of her white dress,--the shadows of the cedars swept back and forth across him, the south sea glittered beyond the sand-dunes, and he told the story.

"Mr. Litterny was in his office in the early afternoon of February 18,"

he began, "when a man called him up on the telephone. Mr. Litterny did not recognize the voice, but the man stated at once that he was Burr Claflin, whose name you may know. He is a rich broker, and a personal friend of both the Litternys. Voice is so uncertain a quant.i.ty over a telephone that it did not occur to Mr. Litterny to be suspicious on that point, and the conversation was absolutely in character otherwise. The talker used expressions and a manner of saying things which the jeweller knew to be characteristic of Claflin.

"He told Mr. Litterny that he had just made a lucky hit in stocks, and 'turned over a bunch of money,' as he put it, and that he wanted to make his wife a present. 'Now--this afternoon--this minute,' he said, which was just like Burr Claflin, who is an impetuous old chap. 'I want to give her a diamond brooch, and I want her to wear it out to dinner to-night,' he said. 'Can't you send two or three corkers up to the house for me?' That surprised Mr. Litterny and he hesitated, but finally said that he would do it. It was against the rules of the house, but as it was for Mr. Claflin he would do it. They had a little talk about the details, and Claflin arranged to call up his wife and tell her that the jewels would be there at four-thirty, so that she could look out for them personally. All that was the Litterny end of the affair. Simple enough, wasn't it?"

Katherine's eyes were so intent, so brilliant, that Norman North went on with a pleased sense that he told the tale well:

"Now begins the Claflin experience. At half past four a clerk from Litterny's left a package at the Claflin house in Cleveland Avenue, which was at once taken, as the man desired, to Mrs. Claflin. She opened it and found three very handsome diamond brooches, which astonished her extremely, as she knew nothing about them. However, it was not unusual for Claflin to give her jewelry, and he is, as I said, an impulsive man, so that unexpected presents had come once or twice before; and altogether, being much taken with the stones, she concluded simply that she would understand when her husband came home to dinner.

"However, her hopes were dashed, for twenty minutes later, barely long enough for the clerk to have got back to the shop, she was called to the telephone by a message, said to be from Litterny's, and a most polite and apologetic person explained over the line that a mistake had been made; that the diamonds had been addressed and sent to her by an error of the shipping-clerk; that they were not intended for Mrs. Burr Claflin, but for Mrs. Bird Catlin, and that the change in name had been discovered on the messenger's return. Would Mrs. Claflin pardon the trouble caused, and would she be good enough to see that the package was given to their man, who would call for it in fifteen minutes? Now the Catlins, as you must know, are richer people even than the Claflins, so that the thing was absolutely plausible. Mrs. Claflin tied up the jewels herself, and entrusted them to her own maid, who has been with her for years, and this woman answered the door and gave the parcel into the hands of a man who said that he was sent from Litterny's for it. All that the maid could say of him was that he was 'a pretty young man, with a speech like a gentleman.' And that was the last that has been seen of the diamond brooches. Wasn't it simple? Didn't I tell you that this affair was an artistic one?" North demanded.

Katherine Newbold drew a deep breath, and the story-teller, watching her face, saw that she was stirred with an emotion which he put down, with a slight surprise, to interest in his narrative.

"Is there no clew to the--thief? Have they no idea at all? Haven't those wonderful detectives yet got on--his track?"

North shook his head. "I had a letter by yesterday's boat from Mr.

Litterny about another matter, and he spoke of this. He said the police were baffled--that he believed now that it could never be traced."

"Thank G.o.d!" Katherine said, slowly and distinctly, and North stared in astonishment.