_ CHAPTER XV. GONE
A metamorphosis had taken place in Vernon Halstead. He was distrait and mooned about the house, getting in people's way and apologizing with an air of such profound abstraction that the family were moved to comment.
"I think Vernon must be ill." This from his mother. "The poor dear boy seems very pale and hollow-eyed. Haven't you noticed it, Ripley?"
"I've noticed that he looks as if someone had given him a jolt that he hadn't yet recovered from," her husband retorted. "Maybe he's waking up and getting on to himself at last. It's high time! It would give anyone a shock to find they'd been wasting the best years of their lives----"
"You were never sympathetic with his sensitive highly-strung temperament----"
"'Temperament,' Irene? He's about as temperamental as an army tank!" Ripley added more mildly: "I don't say there's no good in the boy, but it needs waking up. He asked me last night about a course in petroleum engineering, like young Thode, and that's a promising sign. I wish I felt as easy in my mind about Willa."
"I wash my hands of her." Mrs. Halstead shrugged coldly. "It was to be supposed that she would be quite impossible, coming from such an environment, but I fancied at least that she would want to advance herself. She cares nothing for making acquaintances or getting in with the right people and hasn't the slightest conception of the importance of establishing herself. If I had the proper authority over her it would be vastly different, but you and Mason----"
"We haven't it ourselves," her husband reminded her. "We've got to accept her on her own terms or not at all, it seems. She has too much principle to get herself into disgrace, I am confident on that score, but she has such ultra-democratic ideas that I am afraid she may lay herself open to comment. Have you heard anything, Irene, about a--a gray car?"
"What is that?" Mrs. Halstead sat up very straight. "I've been expecting trouble from her absurd independence, but you know my position. What about a gray car?"
"Nothing much." Ripley looked decidedly uncomfortable. "You are not to mention it to her, Irene, remember. Mason spoke of it and it's up to him to take care of it, but I thought you might keep your eyes open. Mason has an idea that he has seen her more than once running around town in a fast little gray car with a mighty good-looking chauffeur. He's near-sighted and he asked me to find out about it."
"I know nothing of it!" his wife said bitterly. "An elopement with a person of that sort is quite within the possibilities, Ripley. I will watch, of course, but what good will it do? I have tried to guard her, and been insulted for my pains. If I had my way, I should lock her in her room until I brought her to terms.--A chauffeur, indeed! Really, Uncle Giles' money is scarcely worth the strain, and now with poor Vernon acting so strangely, and you so unsympathetic, it is a wonder I am not down with nervous prostration!"
On the morning after the Erskine affair, however, Vernon came in at lunch time with a cheerful air of suppressed but pleasurable excitement which nullified the effect of his former solemnity.
After the meal was over, he drew Willa mysteriously into the library, and shut the door.
"Say! I've simply got to tell you! I don't peddle club gossip as a rule, but this is to good to keep. Starr got his last night!"
"What do you mean?" Willa cried. "He's not----"
"Not dead, you want to say? No, it isn't as good as that, but he got the thrashing of his life and his beauty is pretty well spoiled. Gad, if I'd only been there to see it!"
Willa turned a shade more white.
"Who--did it?" Her voice was a mere whisper.
"Kearn Thode. He is pretty well cut up about the face himself, for of course Starr didn't put up his fists like a man; he threw glassware."
"Oh, is he badly hurt?" Willa caught at her surprised informant's arm in sudden dread. "Is Mr. Thode----"
"Hello! What's the tragic idea? Of course he's not; but you ought to see Starr! The fellows say it was all over in about two seconds, but it must have been great while it lasted!"
"Where--where did it occur?" she asked faintly.
"Right in the club, of all places in the world! The board of governors got together this morning like ducks in a thunderstorm and held a special meeting. Of course, they're both suspended until the board can get hold of the facts, but it's a pretty general opinion that Starr will be asked for his resignation. Nobody seems to know what the row was about, or else they are all keeping mum, but Starr must have said something rather average awful. The only name he called Thode, though, as far as I can make out, was 'knight-errant'."
Willa turned away to hide a sudden trembling.
"That isn't so terrible, is it?" she stammered.
"Silly word to start anything! But you never can tell what's back of it with Starr----"
"Excuse me, Miss. Note for you by messenger." Welsh stood in the doorway.
Willa took the envelope from the salver the butler presented. The superscription was in an unknown hand, but a swift intuition came to her as she broke the seal.
"My dear Miss Murdaugh," she read silently.
"Will you believe me when I tell you that I am more than sorry I shall not be able to come to you to-day? I was caught in an annoying but superficial motor smash-up last night and the broken windshield has made a bizarre spectacle of me, but I shall be my normal self again in a few days. My sister, Mrs. Beekman, will call to-morrow and I shall present my apologies in person at the earliest possible moment, if I may.
"Very sincerely and regretfully,
"KEARN THODE."
Willa mused so long that Welsh finally asked, with a deferential cough:
"Any answer, Miss? The messenger is waiting to know."
"No.--Yes! Just a moment!"
She seated herself at the desk and wrote rapidly:
"My Dear Mr. Thode;
"I am deeply sorry to learn of your motor accident. Knights-errant rode on chargers in the old days, I believe, but the spirit remains the same, doesn't it? I scorned it once to my shame, but it is a spirit for which I am now profoundly grateful. Come to me when you can; I shall be at home.
"Hasta la vista,
"WILLA MURDAUGH."
"Well, for the love of Pete!" Vernon exploded, when the butler had withdrawn. "You're blushing like a June rose! Willa, are you holding out on us? Have you a steady you are keeping company with, unbeknownst?"
"Don't be absurd, Vernon!" She dimpled, in spite of herself. "That was only from Mr. Thode. He was going to call this afternoon with his sister, but he can't. He's had a slight motor accident."
"Then Starr must have met a steam-roller!" Vernon stopped, and added in sudden suspicion: "I say, you didn't give me away? You didn't mention----?"
"I?" Willa's eyes widened demurely. "I expressed polite regret, of course. What have I to do with motor accidents?"
"Nothing, I hope, if you go slow," Vernon hesitated. "I don't want to butt in, Willa, but I'd like to give you a hint, if you don't mind. Gray cars are not invisible."
She had paused at the door.
"Just what does that mean?" she demanded. "Of course I know you and Starr Wiley followed me the other day, but how do you know where the car came from?"
"I don't," retorted Vernon quickly. "That's your own affair, Willa, only I thought you ought to know that Art Judson and one or two others spoke of the nifty little car they'd seen you about in, in the last two or three days. I thought I had better tell you before Mason North gets hold of it and asks questions."
"Much obliged, Vernie, but if he does I sha'n't answer them." Willa smiled. "I'll take you out some day if you like. The little car is a wonder and you and Starr Wiley would never in the world have been able to hang on the trail that time if I hadn't meant you to! If anyone asks you about the car, however, you never heard of it. Understand?"
She turned lightly and ran from the room, leaving her cousin chuckling. The simple, formal little note was pressed tightly to her breast as a most passionate avowal might have been, and her eyes were like dew-drenched violets when she reached her room. Thode had come at the moment of her unapprehended need, and he had fought for her once more, asking no guerdon but the unalienable right of man to protect the women of his world and kind from insult and contumely.
And she? She must repay him by thwarting his ambition, dashing his hopes, bringing to defeat his most cherished plan! What would he think of her when he learned the truth and recalled how she had accepted his confidence and given him in return only silence pregnant with deceit?
Her head drooped and burning tears smarted in her eyes, but she held them back grimly. If Willa Murdaugh was a self-pitying weakling, Gentleman Geoff's Billie was not, and she would see the game through! Because of all that the old name had meant she would not be a quitter, though her own happiness be forever lost. What was her happiness? she demanded wrathfully of herself. A side-bet, nothing more! She was out for bigger stakes than mere happiness, and she was playing to win.
Wrapping herself in her fur coat, with a tiny close-fitting cap upon her head, she slipped out of doors and around the corner to where, half-way through the block, Dan Morrissey waited with the gray car.
It was commencing to snow; great, soft, feathery flakes which lighted upon her as softly as thistledown and melted each in a single glistening drop like a tear. The air was coldly still and the sky a sheet of lead.
"Have I kept you waiting long, Dan?" she asked as he tucked the robe about her. "I'm sorry, I hope you've not been cold. It looks as though we were in for a real storm, doesn't it?"
"I wisht it'd come down a regular blizzard, Miss," he responded dourly. "Then maybe we could shake off the boys that have been hangin' on my trail for dear life! It's not cold I've been, sitting here trying to figure out how to stall them, but hot under the collar! Where to, Miss? It don't make any partic'lar difference, they'll be right along behind!"
"Then around the Park, please, Dan. You can tell me about them as we go."
She snuggled down in the soft robes as the car leapt and fled like a lithe gray cat through the storm. Her thoughts were busy with the new problem; these followers were Wiley's men, of course. He had boasted that he would have more able tools to aid him in the future than Vernon had proved. Where had he obtained them?
"Are they professional detectives, do you think, Dan?" she asked.
He needed but the word to start him.
"They are that! I was chauffeur once for a private detective agency, and I know them and their ways, though these fellows seem to have a new wrinkle or two. It started a couple of nights ago when I was waiting in the garage for a call from you, Miss. A fine big, new touring car was edged in beside mine and the chauffeur, a little dark feller, began talkin' to me. I remembered what you'd told me, and keepin' my own mouth shut, I let him rave. In just about ten minutes I knew it was all bunk; he was tellin' too much, tryin' too hard to get thick with me all of a sudden. His gentleman was a free-handed sport and what was good enough for him was none too good for his driver; champagne, the fellow wanted me to go out and have with him, and I couldn't tell you what-all, Miss."
"I rather expected that," Willa nodded.
"Then, when I got home to my boardin'-house, there was a new lodger in the room next to mine, a long-legged, sandy-haired galoot. The same thing began again; he came in to borry a match and stayed half the night. I let him down easy, though if I hadn't remembered your instructions I'd be after sendin' him home through his own transom! Everywhere I've been for the last two days, barber shop and all, I've been tailed. It's fun if you look at it in one way, but it gets my goat, too. If you say the word, Miss, I'll sail in and lick the bunch of them!"
"No, Dan; not yet," Willa smiled. "The man behind them is responsible and he's been punished for the time being, anyway. How many men are trailing us? I haven't looked back."
"I made sure of three, but they may be strung out after us like an Irish funeral, for all I know," replied Dan, gloomily. "My chauffeur friend is on a motor cycle now, my red-headed neighbor is in a runabout, and a strange feller in a big car. There's small chance of losing them, I'm thinkin'."
"Then drive straight to that apartment-house from which the two taxicabs followed us the other day. They've spotted me there already, you see, and I've no doubt they've investigated there, so another visit won't do any harm. Wait around the corner for me, as you did the last time."
Willa alighted before the shabby vestibule and without a glance to right or left made her way in and pressed a button marked "Lopez." The front door clicked a prompt response and she ran lightly up two flights of dark and dingy stairs.
A thin, sallow little woman with soft, black eyes awaited her at an opened door and ushered her into the stuffy garish front parlor where she eyed her visitor in palpable nervousness.
"How are my friends?" Willa asked without preamble. "They are quite comfortable at your mother's house? You have heard from her?"
"Ah, yes!" The woman replied with the slightest trace of a Latin accent. "The young lad has been suffering a little with his back, pobrecito! It is the climate here, no doubt, but my mother rubs him with a remedy of her own making and he is soothed."
"And the Senora?"
The woman hesitated visibly.
"She--she sits all day by her fire and talks but seldom, yet she seems well."
"They understand why I have not been to see them?" Willa eyed her narrowly, for the woman's agitation boded ill.
"Yes. They ask when you will come, but they know it must not be for a time." The Senora Lopez paused, and then added in a swift rush: "My mother bakes for them tortillas and they are pleased together. Jose begs my mother to tell him of Spain, but the old Senora, she has not the interest. It is always as if she waited, but she is content."
Willa nodded. The description was such as she had anticipated, yet despite the volubility of the other's assurance, the suggestion of something odd and furtive remained.
"Have there been any inquiries for them here?"
The woman smiled in obvious relief, and spread out her hands.
"But yes! You spoke truly, Senorita, when you warned me of those who would seek them. In the evening just after you were here last a gentleman--an Americano--came asking for the Senora Reyes. I knew nothing of her." She drew down her eyelids, significantly. "Next morning, there came a young man of our country. He said that he was from Mexico, but he lied; the speech of the Basque was on his tongue. The Senora Reyes was his aunt, and he came to tell her that he had found her lost son, his cousin. He, too, departed. Yesterday it was a boy. He was an amigo, a companero of Jose; he desired to know where he might be found, but he, also, was unsatisfied. We are the Lopez--what have we to do with the Senora Reyes or Jose?"
Her tone of bland candor was inimitable, but it did not eradicate the consciousness of anxiety and unrest in her bearing at first. Nothing more was to be learned from further parley, and Willa presently departed, leaving behind her a substantial roll of banknotes.
Her mind was far from easy, and as she descended the dark steep stairs she came to an abrupt decision. Something was wrong and despite the hirelings of Starr Wiley she must know.
"Dan," she began when he sprang down to assist her into the car, "I don't know how it is to be done, but we have got to lose those trailers. I don't care how long it takes or how many miles we cover doing it, but we must manage to get to Second Place, Brooklyn, without being followed. Do you think you will be able to make it, or shall I try to give them the slip by taking the subway?"
Dan reflected.
"There's more than one in the big car and you'd be trailed sure, Miss. Better take a chance with me, and I'll get you there safely without them knowing if we ride till morning!"
Then began a strange and devious journey. To Willa, who, aside from her infrequent visits to the cottage on the Parkway, had seen little of New York and its environs save in the beaten path of the conventional social round, it was a revelation. They tore through crooked teeming side-streets whose squalor was veiled in the falling curtain of snow and shot across broad avenues with gleaming vistas of light stretching interminably in either direction, to dash sharply about a corner and off through a lane of canyon-like factories and sweatshop hives. Once they skirted huge railroad yards and twice they circled along the river's edge between towering warehouses, with the tang of salt winds swirling the flakes about them and a forest of tall masts looming up ahead.
Dan Morrissey knew the city as only one can who has grown up practically on its streets and he was following a well-defined route in his mind as he wove back and forth through the myriad threads which held together the vast and varied pattern on the loom which was New York, drawing ever nearer the great bridge. The runabout had been left behind, but the larger car still trailed and the sharp exhaust of the motor-cycle reached their ears tauntingly above the subdued rattle of occasional traffic.
All at once Dan commenced to chuckle and Willa could feel his shoulders shake beside hers.
"What is it?" she demanded with a quick glance at him.
"I've just thought of something, Miss. If Delehanty is on his station now, watch us lose the laddy-buck on the motor-cycle!"
They had reached a corner on lower Broadway, whence the home-going stream of humanity had long since disappeared like ants into the burrow of subway entrances, but where a burly traffic policeman still loomed bulkily in the middle of the thoroughfare.
Dan drew the car up at the curb, leaped out and approached the minion of the law. A short colloquy, and he had returned and the car shot down Broadway. "You can look back now, Miss," suggested Dan. Willa turned. The motor-cycle had been halted in mid-pursuit, its rider gesticulating in futile rage and vexation while the obdurant bluecoat held him fast.
"How did you do it, Dan?" Willa asked.
"Delehanty's death on motor-cyclists since one ran him down last summer. I told him this feller was a chauffeur in the same garage as me, and trailing me now on a bet, but that the license on his machine was phony. We'll be there and back before he gets through explaining at the station-house."
Once across the bridge, Dan led the big car far out to a sparsely built-up section of Flatbush and there at last his object was achieved. A loud report echoed behind them and glancing over her shoulder Willa saw the big car swerve and come to an abrupt halt in the ditch.
"Tire burst!" she announced. "Luck is with us, Dan!"
"It was, in the shape of some broken glass!" Her ally retorted grinning. "I said a prayer myself as we went over it. The way is clear now!"
Second Place was a dull row of somber brick dwellings with prim muslin curtains behind each window pane, and an air of bearing its indubitable respectability self-consciously.
The car halted before a house midway the block, and Willa was up the steps in a flash and pealing the bell.
A swarthy middle-aged woman, with a white apron over her ample silk gown, presented herself and stammeringly bade the girl welcome.
"The Senora Reyes and Jose? I must see them, Senora Rodriquez. I have come from your daughter."
"She did not tell you, then, Senorita?" The woman raised her fat hands in expostulation. "Heaven is my witness, it was not my fault! I did not think to watch her, she did not even glance toward the window! Could I know what she meditated?"
"What is it?" Willa seized the woman's arm and shook it convulsively. "What has happened to Senora Reyes? Tell me!"
All at once a frail, crooked little form catapulted itself down the stairway and fell, sobbing, at the girl's feet.
"Senorita! Senorita Billie! The grandmama has vanished! She rose and went from the house in the dawn, when all were sleeping! She is gone!" _