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CHAPTER XIX
Passing the town-wharf laggingly like the maimed thing she was, limping nearer and nearer the spot whence she had set out three-quarters of an hour before, Mr. Carstairs's Cypriani slowed down at an abandoned private landing—the same one by which Peter's trunk had been conveyed ashore that morning—and ran out her stairs.
As the two on board stood watching the yacht make fast, conversing, if the truth be known, somewhat disjointedly, they were astonished to see the great form of a man rise from a grassy bed a little way back from the river-bank and advance towards them.
"Why, look!" said Mary. "There's Mr. Maginnis! I thought he'd gone to town long ago."
Varney did not answer her. His eyes were glued upon Maginnis, and he called in a strange voice:
"You have been waiting for us."
"Haven't budged a step," answered Peter, moving out upon the landing. And he added what seemed an odd remark to Miss Carstairs: "I knew you were coming back."
He greeted Mary at the foot of the stairs, cordially, and begged the privilege of escorting her to any destination it might be her fancy to name. But she stoutly declined his good offices, as she had Varney's a moment before, declaring that she could not think of troubling so busy and important a man.
"But where did you spirit Mr. Hare off to, if I might ask?" she said.
"On a very important mission I assure you, madam,—that is, Miss Carstairs," said Peter, diplomatically, having no idea how matters stood. "He begged me to let him go back and say good-bye to you, but I told him I'd make it a personal matter."
"I am awfully glad that you have stopped calling me 'madam,'" said Mary, rather inconsequently. "I did hate it so!"
And she walked off up the woodland path, swinging her recovered parasol, and finding herself with a good deal to think about.
Peter, coming on deck, found his friend waiting for him, taut as a whipcord.
"Well, old horse!" said Maginnis. "Welcome back to jolly little
Hunston."
"The machinery broke down on me," said Varney, turning away to light a cigarette.
"Sure," said Peter cheerfully. "You knew it was going to do it when you started. I read it in your eye when we said farewell forever."
"You are quite mistaken," said Varney. "Ask Ferguson."
"Oh! Then you'll do it to-morrow morning, when the machinery is all right again?"
"No," said Varney, "nor at any other time."
The two men looked at each other steadily, unwinkingly. As the look lengthened, each face gave way to a slow reluctant smile.
"I won't pretend," said Peter, "that I am disappointed in you. I never dreamed that I hated this thing till the time came, and hang me if I don't rather like that little girl."
"It was a thing," said Varney, "that simply couldn't be done. We were a pair of asses not to see that all along." He glanced hurriedly at his watch and started for the companionway. "Jove! I'll have to hustle."
"Hustle! Where the devil to?"
"I'm off to New York by the five o'clock train to tell Uncle Elbert that
I've resigned. I'll feel mighty mean doing it, too."
"Well, don't anticipate trouble," called Peter dryly. "You can't feel mean by the five o'clock train, however much you may deserve—"
"Why not?"
"There isn't any. She goes through at four-seven. You'll have to compose yourself to wait till eight-ten, unless you want to walk."
Varney halted at the head of the companionway, surprisingly disappointed. From the moment when the Cypriani had put about, he had been insistently conscious that his first duty now was to see Mr. Carstairs, beg absolution from his promise, and formally surrender his commission. So only, he had felt, could he go on with clean hands.
"Well, don't look so glum over it," said Peter. "You're not any sorrier about your prolonged stay in our midst than I am."
Varney turned an inquiring eye upon him, and he began walking rather restlessly up and down the deck.
"Oh, this same old rot!" he broke out impatiently. "I'll never be easy in my mind till you are back in New York, and stay there—"
"Well, well, Peter! Stick it out for three hours more—"
"Not long after you and Miss Carstairs steamed off," continued Peter, "Hare blew back down here, tired of waiting and a little excited. He had just heard some passing whispers about you and me. He says there seems to be a little suppressed excitement in town this afternoon."
"Why, I thought your paper had kicked all that nonsense into a cocked hat."
"A lot of people don't believe the paper, though," said Peter. "On the contrary they believe that you are Stanhope and that you bought the Gazette to disown yourself and save your hide. A foolish idea, but it has doubtless been helped out by whispers from higher up. Smith's selling out has made Ryan see red. Smith's still in town, by the way, which argues a good deal of cool nerve on his part. Hare hears that Ryan is in a murdering humor—"
"You seem to forget entirely that Stanhope—the real, the genuine, double-extry-guaranteed—has appeared, to bear his own—"
"But Hunston doesn't know it yet!" exclaimed Peter. "Kindly get that well into your head. All these Hackleys and Orricks still think that you're their meat—Where're you going?"
Varney, pausing at the hatch, deliberated whether he should say anything to Peter about Mr. Higginson's latest and most daring intrusion, and declared for the negative. "There's no reason," he mused, "why I should let him in on this. And besides—"
"To town," he said aloud. "I've got to send a telegram to Uncle Elbert.
He's very much on my conscience—poor old chap!"
"I'll go with you. Got a Reform Committee meeting at five-thirty. And some other business."
But Varney had already disappeared below. Peter picked up his splendid guitar and, sprawling upon the transom, gave himself up to soft humming and, presently, to the work of composition. Soon, after some little painstaking effort, he produced the following, to be rendered to the tune of "Yankee Doodle":
The tale of crime is at an end,
For little Laurence Va-arney
Declines to swipe his loidy friend
Upon the
Cypria-a-ani
!
Peter tried this over to himself with considerable satisfaction. He possessed a remarkably sweet tenor and pleasurably anticipated singing his ditty to its hero, and doubtless getting a cushion pitched at his head for his pains. But it happened that Varney was to go to his grave without ever hearing that small chanson.
He came on deck again in five minutes with a face which drove all thoughts of melody from Peter's head. In fact, at sight of it, he came instantly to a sitting position and his guitar slid unheeded to the floor.
"What's happened?"
Varney did not answer immediately. He stood at the rail and stared into the woods with fixed eyes which saw nothing. Peter rose and came towards him.
"Out with it!" he said encouragingly. "I'm full partner here. You want to murder somebody. Well and good! Now who is it?"
Varney turned towards him, half-reluctantly, and spoke in a quiet voice.
"I told you just now that the machinery broke down. I was mistaken. It was broken down."
" Broken down? "
"When I went below," continued the younger man, "it occurred to me to look in the engine-room and see how bad the damage was. It was very bad indeed. I'm no mechanic, Lord knows, but a child could make no mistake here. The effect is about as if somebody had jammed a crowbar in the works while she was running full-tilt. Probably that is just what somebody did. It'll be some days before she'll run again."
Peter's bewilderment deepened. "What in the world does this mean?"
"Treachery," said Varney calmly. "Somebody on board has been bought."
The two men stared at each other. Varney read on Peter's face the swift unfolding of precisely his own thought. He was rather surprised at Peter's quickness, in view of the fact that he knew nothing of the episode of the morning.
"Yes," he said. "That's the man."
He told concisely of Mr. Higginson's attempt to break up the lunch-party by keeping the guest of honor away. Peter's face, as he listened, underwent a curious change. It first slowly gained color, then slowly lost it; and all of it, from the top of his forehead to the end of his chin, seemed subtly to contract and tighten up.
His comment at the end was: "Excuse me a minute."
Upon which he vanished below to see with his own eyes and judge with his own brain. He was back in less than two minutes, with a tiny spot of red in the corner of his eye, and his manner unwontedly calm.
"You're right. Pretty clumsy treachery that," he said, standing and staring at Varney, who had dropped into a chair. "What was the man thinking about to … I don't begin to see bottom on this."
Varney's eyes were on the sailing-master, who sat far forward, feet on the rail, apparently engrossed in a magazine. The young man had just recalled the master's curious manner when he notified him of the accident to the machinery.
"Larry—you meant to turn around anyway?"
"But Higginson, you see, couldn't predict that."
"The immediate cause of your turning—"
"Was the little mishap to our gear."
He raised his voice: "Ferguson! I'd like a word with you if you please."
The sailing-master jumped at the sound of the voice as though it had shot a projectile into his back. However, he rose at once and came forward in his usual, brisk, stiff way, halting before the two men with a salute. Varney eyed him inscrutably.
"I believe you were in town for a while this morning, Ferguson?"
"Yes, sir, I was."
"While there did you chance to see anything of an elderly gentleman, a stranger here, by the name of Higginson?"
Though he had the look of being braced for trouble, the man changed color at the direct question, and his eyes instantly shifted. With an evident effort he recaptured something like his usual steadiness and spoke in a voice of elaborate thought fulness.
"Higginson? No, sir. I know no one of that name."
"Ah? I thought not. I asked on the mere chance. And oh, Ferguson."
"Sir?"
"I have just been down to look at the damaged machinery. Ignorant of these matters myself, I can naturally make little of it. You will prepare a written report for Mr. Carstairs, explaining in detail the nature of the accident, and in particular just how it took place."
"Very good, sir."
"And—oh, Ferguson."
"Yes, sir?"
"As the—er—mishap appears to be so serious, I think it best to have an expert from town advise with me before the work of repairing begins. You will therefore leave matters just as they are until I instruct you otherwise."
"Oh—very good, sir."
Peter turned his dissatisfied eyes from the back of the retreating sailing-master to Varney.
"What better proof d'you want than the rogue's face? Why didn't you fire him on the spot?"
"I neither hire nor fire here," said Varney. "These are Mr. Carstairs's employees. He will have to deal with them as he thinks best."
He rose immediately and put on his hat.
"With Mr. Higginson, however," he mused, starting for the stair, "the case is altogether different."
"Exactly," said Peter with great heartiness.
As one man they descended the stairs, crossed the battered landing and struck rapidly up the woodland path for Remsen Street and the town. As they walked, Varney silently condemned the unfailing genius of the Irish for intruding themselves into all the trouble that hove upon the horizon. It was with acute pleasure that he recalled, before long, his friend's engagement for half-past five. For he himself had but three hours left in Hunston that day, and he had an urgent use for them—beyond even Mr. Higginson.
"I confess once more," said Peter, tramping heavily, "that this chap is too many for me. I don't seem to grasp his game."
"And you call yourself a conspirator, Peter! Why, this is ABC."
"All right. I'm listening. Spell it out for me."
"Suppose the gang here is deep enough, as you think, to plan a little rough-house, ostensibly for my benefit, but really to get you into it and thus wipe you out. Doesn't it occur to you that my fading away to New York at the critical moment would rather knock the bottom out of the scheme? Why, it's as clear as noonday! Higginson, learning somehow that I expected to fly off immediately after the lunch-party, first tries to break up the party, and failing that, he bribes Ferguson to break up the machinery. Thus he hopes to make it impossible for me to get away—me whom he needs in his business as the red rag for his little old mob."
They had emerged from the woods and walked a block up Remsen Street before Peter replied.
"By Jove! That does seem to explain everything! That's it! It's Higginson, not Smith, who has been pulling all these wires from the beginning. I suspected the man the first minute I ever clapped eyes on him. But where do you suppose he got his hint?"
"Hammerton?"
"Never. That boy is trustworthy, or I'll eat my hat."
"Well, I think so too. Then he simply corrupted Ferguson and wormed the whole thing out of him. Pretty clever, the whole thing, wasn't it? How much Ferguson may really know, or suspect, I have no idea. Of course, there is only one thing to fear now, and that is scareheads in the New York papers to-morrow—attempted kidnapping foiled, and so on. It would break Uncle Elbert's heart if anything of that sort should come out—"
"Don't you worry. It won't. I'll close his trap—tight."
Once more Varney was slightly annoyed by Peter's presence.
"If we find him," he began, as they came to the square, "you—"
"We must try not to be brutal, Larry," warned Peter soberly. "I remind myself that he is an elderly man—"
"If we find him," began Varney again, "you will please remember that he belongs to me. Higginson is strictly my pickings."
Peter grunted, looking rather annoyed too.
They crossed the square, two determined-looking men, and entered the Palace Hotel. Behind the desk a bored clerk sat paring his nails with a pair of office scissors. He looked up with a certain resentfulness.
"Excuse my interruption," said Varney. "Is Mr. Higginson in?"
The clerk's glance lowered tiredly. "Naw. Left town on the four-seven."
"I don't believe it," said Peter instantly.
There followed a silence. So stern were the gazes fastened upon the clerk that, looking hastily up at Peter's word, he promptly lost something of his lordly demeanor and became for the moment almost human.
"Well, sir, he's left us . Said he was takin' the four-seven."
"Where did he go?" demanded Varney.
"Don't know, sir, but I think to New York."
"You must know where he checked his baggage to."
"Didn't have any baggage, sir," protested the clerk. "Only his suit-case."
"Did he leave no address for the forwarding of his mail?"
"Naw, sir. He did not."
"Of course not. Why on earth should he?" said Peter.
Desisting from the absent but fierce stare with which he was transfixing the clerk, he drew Varney hurriedly aside.
"All bluff!" he stated positively. "Is it likely, after his day's work, that he'd be lolling around the lobby waiting for us to call? He's moved ! But depend on it, he's got more work to do, and he hasn't left town !"
"If that's so, where do you recommend looking?"
Peter made a large gesture. "That's a horse of another color. I told you he had a faculty for disappearing into a hole and pulling the hole in after him. If anybody besides Ryan knows where he is, I should say that it might be Miss Carstairs. She seems to be his only friend on our side of the fence, since I tipped Hare off."
Varney all but jumped. "I'll ask her!" he offered almost precipitately.
"The very thing!"
"It is quite possible," continued Peter, tensely thoughtful, "that the old rascal has sneaked to her since the luncheon, to try to pump something out of her about our movements—even within the bounds of possibility that he is with her at this moment—"
"A great suggestion!" said Varney cordially. "You certainly have a head on you, Peter. Of course, on the other hand, it is quite possible that he has skipped—made a bee-line for Newspaper Row. In that case, I'll see if she—Miss Carstairs, you know—if she knows his address in New York, and I'll hunt him up to-night."
Peter, glancing at his watch, discovered that he was already fifteen minutes late for his committee meeting.
"For this afternoon, then," he said, unwillingly, "you can have him, if you can find him. After to-day, though, he belongs to me. Wherever he is now, he'll certainly be back on the job to-morrow. Well—I'll leave you, then. Er—Larry. It's just as well not to be prowling around after dark by yourself, you know. I'll be back at the yacht early and we'll have dinner together before your train. Say six-thirty, eh?"
"I'll be there."
Peter hurried off for Hare's house with a mingled sense of unjustly baffled vengeance and vague uneasiness. Varney, drawing a long breath of relief, headed for the telegraph office, whence he dispatched the following telegram to Mr. Carstairs:
"Plan permanently abandoned. Arrive in New York
by train 9.20 to-night. Expect me ten minutes later."
That done, he started rapidly down Remsen Street with a steadily mounting spirit.