The Siege of the Seven Suitors Part 17

"Then it might have been your father. A man who can enter a house at will might easily play any manner of other tricks. His disappearance after I had gone down into the house with him was just as mysterious as the ghost."

"It was natural for father not to want you to know how he got in; the motive for that would be the fact that he is not supposed to see me or communicate with me in any way. But you 've got to get a ghost-_motif_."

"I think I have one," I said.

"Then all the rest is easy. To whom does this ghost-_motif_ lead you?"

"I need hardly say; for it must have occurred to you that there is one member of the Hollister family we have n't mentioned in this connection."

"If you mean Hezekiah"--

"None other!"

The surprise in her face was not feigned,--I was confident of this,--and the questions evoked by my answer at once danced in her eyes.

"If Hezekiah should be caught in the house just now we should all pay dearly for her rashness. Believe me, this is true. Some day you may know the whys and wherefores; at present no one may know. There is this, however,--if Hezekiah or my father should be found at Hopefield Manor, anywhere on the premises, while I am there, the consequences would be disastrous,--more so than I dare tell you. But why should Hezekiah wish to prowl about there at night,--to a.s.sume for a moment that she is doing it?"

Her manner was wholly earnest. It was plain that she had entered into some sort of a compact with her aunt, and no doubt the arrangement was in the characteristic whimsical vein of which I had enjoyed personal experience. I did not wish to press Cecilia for explanations she might not be free to make, but I ventured a suggestion or two.

"Hezekiah may be entering the house and playing ghost for amus.e.m.e.nt, merely in a spirit of childish rebellion against the interdiction that forbids her the house. That is quite plausible, Hezekiah being the spirited young person we know her to be. And it may amuse her, too, to plug the chimneys at a time when her sister is enjoying the visits of suitors. Without quite realizing that such was her animus, she may be the least,--the very least bit jealous!"

Cecilia flushed and her eyes flashed indignantly. She bent toward me eagerly.

"Please do not say such a thing! You must not even think it!"

"She may be a little forlorn, alone in your father's house over the hills at times when you are surrounded by admirers, and it is my a.s.sumption from what I have learned in one way and another of your flight abroad last summer, that some of these gentlemen now established at the Prescott Arms are known to her."

"Oh, all of them, certainly."

"And Hartley Wiggins among the rest?"

"That, Mr. Ames, is most unkind," she declared earnestly. "She has told me that she was not in the least interested in Mr. Wiggins."

"And she told me the same thing, but I do not feel sure of it! But what if she is! You are not really interested in him yourself!"

In the library at Hopefield Manor I should not have thought of speaking to Cecilia Hollister in any such fashion; but the flying train gave wings to my daring. I was surprised at my own temerity, and more surprised that she did not seem to resent my new manner of speech. She did not, however, vouchsafe any reply to my statement, but changed the subject abruptly.

My description of the ghost had taken considerable time, and we were now running through the tunnels and would soon be at the end of our journey. She put on her hat and veil without making it necessary for us to discontinue our talk. A certain languor that had marked her at her aunt's vanished. There was a clearer light in her eye, and as I helped her into her coat I felt that here was a woman to whose high qualities I had done scant justice.

"I count on finishing my errand and taking the two-seven," she remarked.

"That's a short time to allow yourself. I've heard that it's a dreary business chasing the employment agencies."

"Not if you know where not to go. If you 'll get me a machine of some sort I 'll be off at once."

"I fear I shan't conclude my own business so soon; but if you will honor me at luncheon?"--

This last was at the door of a taxicab I had found for her.

"Sorry, Mr. Ames, but it's out of the question. I hope to see you at dinner to-night. And please"--

"Yes, Miss Hollister"--

"Please remember that you are Aunt Octavia's guest, and don't annoy her by failing to appear at dinner. You know you have n't fixed that chimney yet!"

Her smile left me well in the air; I stood staring after the very commonplace cab as it rolled away with her, my mind a whirling chaos of emotion. The crowd jostled me impatiently; for other people, not breathing celestial ether from an hour of Cecilia Hollister's society, were bent upon the day's business.

I set off at once for Pepperton's office, where I learned that the architect was out of town; but his chief clerk greeted me courteously.

I told him frankly that I wanted to look at the plans of Hopefield Manor to enable me to learn the exact lines of the chimneys. He confessed surprise that they were causing trouble, and expressed regret that they were not in the office.

"Miss Hollister sent for them this morning, and I have just given them to a young woman who bore a note from her. Ordinarily I should not have let them go, but the note was peremptory, and Miss Hollister is a friend of Mr. Pepperton's, you know, and a person I'm sure he would not refuse. We're at work now on plans for a cathedral she proposes building for the Bishop of Manila."

I was not surprised that Octavia Hollister should be building cathedrals in the Orient,--I was beyond that,--but I was taken aback to find that she had antic.i.p.ated me in my rush for the plans of her house.

Clearly, I was dealing with a woman who was not only immensely amusing but exceedingly shrewd as well. Could it be possible after all that she was herself playing ghost merely for her own entertainment! She was capable of it; but I had satisfied myself that she could not have performed the tricks of which I had been the victim the night previous unless she possessed some rare vanishing power like that of the East Indian mystics.

"May I ask who came for the plans?"

"I judged the young woman to be a maid, or perhaps she was Miss Hollister's secretary."

I had given little heed during my short stay at Hopefield Manor to Miss Hollister's personal attendant. I had pa.s.sed her in the halls once or twice, a young woman of twenty-five, I should say, fair-haired and blue-eyed. She might herself be the ghost, now that I thought of it; but this seemed the most unlikely hypothesis possible,--and there was no difficulty in accounting for her flight to town, for there were many horses and vehicles in the Hopefield stable, and trains were frequent.

"If there is anything further, Mr. Ames"--

I roused myself to find the chief clerk regarding me impatiently, and I thanked him and hurried away.

At my own office my a.s.sistant pounced upon me wrathfully. He was half wild over the pressure of vexatious business, and had just been engaging in a long-distance conversation with a country gentleman at Lenox which had left him in bad temper. I was explaining to him the seriousness of my errands at Hopefield, rather unconvincingly I fear, and the fact that I must return at once, when the office-boy entered my private room to say that three gentlemen wished to see me immediately.

They had submitted cards, but had refused to state the nature of their business. It was with a distinct sensation of surprise that I read the names respectively of Percival B. Shallenberger, Daniel P. Ormsby, and John Stewart d.i.c.k.

"Show the gentlemen in," I said promptly, greatly to the disgust of my a.s.sistant, who retired to deal with several clients whom I had pa.s.sed in the reception-room fiercely walking the floor.

I had imagined all the suitors established at the Prescott Arms. As the three appeared clad in light automobiling coats, I could not forbear a smile at their grim appearance. Shallenberger, the novelist, and Ormsby, the knit-goods manufacturer, were big men; d.i.c.k was much shorter, though of compact and st.u.r.dy build. They growled surlily in response to my greeting, and Ormsby closed the door behind them. d.i.c.k seemed to be the designated spokesman, and he advanced to the desk behind which I sat, with a stride and manner that advertised his belligerent frame of mind.

"Mr. Ames," he began, "we have come here to speak for ourselves and certain other gentlemen who are staying for a time at the Prescott Arms."

"Gentlemen of the committee, welcome to our office," I replied, greatly amused by his ferocity.

My tone caused the others to draw in defensively behind him.

"We want you to understand that your conduct in accompanying a lady that I shall not name to the city is an act we cannot pa.s.s in silence.

Your conduct in going to Hopefield Manor was in itself an affront to us, but your behavior this morning pa.s.ses all bounds. We have come, sir, to demand an explanation!"

At a glance this was a situation I dare not take seriously. In any circ.u.mstances the fact that these men had followed me to my office to rebuke me for accompanying Cecilia Hollister to town was absurd. This young Mr. d.i.c.k was absurd in himself. His gray cap had twisted itself oddly to the side of his head, and a bang of black hair lay at a piratical angle across his forehead. Behind him Ormsby, the knit-goods man, tugged at a brown moustache; Shallenberger's blue eyes snapped wrathfully.

"Mr. d.i.c.k," I said soberly, "I have heard of you as the original pragmatist of Nebraska, and as I am a mere ignorant chimney-doctor, to whom the later philosophical meaning of that term is only so much punk, I must identify you with that more obvious meaning of the word which is within my grasp. Mr. d.i.c.k, and gentlemen of the committee, you are meddlesome persons!"

"Meddlesome!" cried d.i.c.k, heatedly, and leaning toward me across my desk, "do I correctly understand, sir, that you mean to insult us?"

"Nothing could be further from my purpose. But I cannot permit you to imagine that I'm going to allow you to beard me in my office and criticise my conduct in regard to Miss Cecilia Hollister or anybody else. As a philosopher from the fertile corn-lands of Nebraska, I salute you with admiration; as a critic of my ways and manners, I show you the door!"