_ CHAPTER XVI. THE POOL OF THE LOST SOULS
Willa went home at last in a daze of consternation which took no note of the heightened storm. The unexpected catastrophe was a death-blow to her long-cherished plan, but even that faded for the moment before the stern anxiety for Tia Juana's safety.
The story which Willa succeeded in dragging from the Rodriguez woman and Jose was simple on the face of it, yet many possible complexities presented themselves to the girl's vivid imagining. Tia Juana had seemed contented enough in her new abode for the first day, taking a childish pleasure in the novelty of her surroundings, but later she had become depressed and sunk into a moody silence save that now and then she muttered ominously to herself and made strange gestures with her claw-like hands.
Jose she had driven from her harshly, only to seize and draw him close, and on the previous day she had eaten nothing, but crouched through the long hours before the glowing coals of her grate. At twilight she had demanded a large cooking pot which she placed upon the fire, and with an earthenware jar of liquid and sundry packets of herbs from the conglomerate heap of her luggage, she had brewed a concoction that piqued her landlady's curiosity.
It had not pleased Tia Juana, however, and after glowering darkly into its depths, she had flung it, pot and all, from the window down into the back yard.
She had retired passively enough, but when the Senora Rodriguez came with her morning coffee, the room was empty. There were no signs of a struggle, the silence had remained unbroken throughout the night, and the front door was found to have been unfastened from the inside, although the Senora Rodriguez asserted that she had locked and bolted it before retiring.
This argued that Tia Juana had of her own volition slipped away from the house on some unknown mission, but to Willa such an hypothesis seemed unlikely. In the first place, the old woman was heart and soul in the plan in which Willa herself was the moving spirit, and well content to leave all things to the guidance of her idolized young friend. Then, too, she had the dread of the strange new city of one who had followed a long and open trail and would scarcely in her right mind have ventured forth to brave it on her own initiative. Had some cajoling or threatening message reached her which induced her to play into Wiley's hands, or could it be that Senora Rodriguez had been bribed to aid in her abduction?
Fierce and implacable as Tia Juana's will was, age had taken its toll of her mental strength and resiliency, and Willa shuddered to think of the coercion which might be brought to bear upon her bewildered and shaken sensibilities.
Dan noted his mistress' profound despondency, but ventured no remark until she addressed him just as they reached the bridge once more.
"Dan, you drove a car once for a detective agency, you told me. Did you ever do any detective work yourself? Do you know anything of their methods?"
"I do, Miss!" he responded promptly, a sparkle dawning in his eyes. "Not that I ever did any of it, but I used to watch the other fellers at work and I'm thinking I could go them one better at it. I've seen them make some bonehead plays, in my time, and some wonderful hits, too, I'll admit that."
"Do you want to try a little of it for me?" Willa asked. "An old Spanish woman disappeared early this morning from that house back on Second Place, and I want her found without delay. It's she whom those other men are after; she used to live with her grandson, a hunchback, in that cottage upon the Parkway. There will be double wages in it for you while you're working on it, and a thousand dollars reward if you find her and bring her to me."
She went on to describe Tia Juana, and Dan listened in rapt attention to every detail, fired with instant enthusiasm for the new job.
"You leave it to me, Miss!" he announced confidently when she had finished. "I'll get into that house to-morrow, one way or another, and have a talk with the landlady and the kid. I'll soon find out if they know more than they've told. In the meantime, I'll make the round of the hospitals to-night and have a look-in at headquarters to see if she's turned up missing. Those fellers trailing us this afternoon don't make it look as if they or the man they're workin' for could have got hold of her already and there's a chance that she just wandered off, like, on her own hook. I'll let you know the minute I've got a line on her. Wish I spoke her lingo!"
"Oh, Tia Juana understands English well enough when she wants to, and speaks it, too, but only when necessity compels it. She hates everything American but me. I--I could not bear to think of her wandering about, destitute and dazed and freezing in this storm! Dan, you must find her for me!"
The erstwhile chauffeur promised, with extravagant protestations of assurance, and it was evident that he was in thorough earnest, with illimitable faith in his own powers.
His attitude of mind was infectious and when Willa descended before the Halstead house her own natural buoyancy of thought had reasserted itself, although the mystery remained as black and sinister as ever.
Wiley, still hors de combat from his thrashing at Thode's hands, could scarcely have been a factor himself in this new development and if it proved to be the result of any of his agents' activities, surely Dan would be able to find some trace.
She passed a sleepless night, however, and arose to find a foot of snow glistening on the ground and the air keen and brittle with cold. No word came from Dan, and in the afternoon she threw discretion to the winds and went boldly to the Brooklyn house.
Nothing had developed save that Jose had worried himself into a fever, and the Senora Rodriguez's lamentations were tinged with a querulous resentment.
The young Senorita was paying handsomely for the hospitality to her friends, and she herself would gladly do anything to aid her country-people, even if they were but Mexican Spanish and not of the blood. Nevertheless, she was not to blame for the old Senora's departure, she had not agreed to stand guard over her and surely the Evil Eye had descended upon her house! She would nurse the little Jose as though he were her own, and the old Senora's room should be kept in readiness for her return, but she, Conchita Rodriguez, would worry her own head no longer!
Willa placated the woman's displeasure with promises of more generous pay, and arranged for extra care and comforts for Jose, whom the Senora evidently regarded with a tenderness born of superstition; to aid a jorobado brought luck to one's hearth-stone, even as the touch of his humped shoulders gave promise of good fortune.
Secure at least in the thought of his well-being, Willa was content to leave Jose in the hands of his irascible but kind-hearted landlady, stipulating that daily messages should be telephoned to her of his condition.
"And if anyone comes to inquire for him, remember that he is not here, please," she added. "He and the Senora have both gone; that is, unless a young American named Morrissey should appear. He is a friend of mine, and trying to help me find the Senora."
"'Morrissey?' I shall not forget." Senora Rodriguez repeated the name thoughtfully. "No one has been here to-day but a plumber, who arrived without my order. He said there was a leak in the cellar next door which came from my house and he did strange things to my pipes so that now I can draw no water in my kitchen. Now my neighbor tells me there was no leak, and I cannot understand. They do singular things, these Americanos."
Willa returned to her home in a more despondent mood even than before, and a telephone call from Dan late in the evening did not tend to raise her spirits.
"I've canvassed every hospital and institootion in the five boroughs!" he announced. "I even tried the morgue, but there ain't hide nor hair of the old lady. Looks like the earth might have opened and swallowed her up. I take it you don't want me to report her missing at headquarters, do you?"
"Only as the very last resort," Willa responded. "We must avoid publicity if we can, although of course if she is ill or in any danger I shall have to let every other consideration go."
"You leave it to me, Miss!" The familiar slogan came as cheerfully as ever over the wire. "I don't think the old lady's in bad, wherever she is. Nobody'd dare do anything to her, would they? It ain't a rough-house gang that's after her, from what you told me."
"No, Dan. I am not afraid of any violence to her at their hands. They will only worry and annoy her."
"Well, the chances are, if she just wandered off and lost herself, that somebody's taken her in. I'm doin' fine, so far. I had a grand talk with the dame over in Brooklyn to-day, and she never once got on to me."
His tone was filled with such honest pride that Willa was loath to disturb it, yet she could not forbear I remarking:
"I did, though, Dan, when she told me what had been done to the plumbing! What did you find out from her?"
"Everything she knew and a lot that she threw in for good measure. I didn't have to start her; she was just aching to tell the whole story; how they came to her and all! If them other people get on to the house, she'll spill the beans to them sure, Miss. She don't own that house; she only rents it, and the next time I go I'll have an order from the agent to put in weatherstrips or clean the chimneys and grates. I want a talk with the lad as soon as he is well enough. I'll report to you, Miss, just as quick as anything turns up."
Willa gave him some final instructions and hung up the receiver, to find Angie at her elbow.
"You've been an unconscionable time!" the latter complained, veiling her eyes to conceal their gleam of awakened curiosity and interest. "We're waiting for you to make up a rubber. Who was that message from? Any of the crowd?"
"No," Willa replied directly. "It was from a friend of mine; you do not know him, Angie."
"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean to intrude.--Dear me! to-morrow's Thanksgiving, and this wretched season is scarcely begun!"
It was a weary holiday for Willa and she sat through the elaborate formal dinner with which the Halsteads celebrated it in an abstraction of mood which gave two of her callow admirers much concern.
The presence of Kearn Thode's sister, however, brought her out of her reverie and later, when Mrs. Beekman sought her out in the drawing-room, Willa left her problem to take care of itself for the hour in her interest in the breezy clear-eyed woman so like Kearn himself.
"I must apologize for not coming yesterday, as I assured my brother I would. An epidemic of something or other has broken out at my kennels and I spent a disheartening and doggy afternoon." She laughed, adding with sudden seriousness: "My brother has told me so many interesting things of you, Miss Murdaugh, that I have wanted to really know you, but I suppose you have been submerged in a sea of festivity with your cousins. I am a gregarious person but not a conventionally social one. I suppose that is why we have not happened to meet since that first dinner; I do not follow the beaten path, as a rule."
"Nor I, except when I am led by the nose!" Willa responded, laughing, too. "But tell me, is Mr. Thode improving?"
Mrs. Beekman gave her a swift, keen glance.
"Oh, yes! He suffered a mere scratch or two; you know what babies men are about such things.--Look at them trailing in now from the dining-room, fed up on the newest stories and the oldest cognac! There's something almost tragic in their boredom, isn't there?"
Willa gasped, a little taken aback by her companion's cynical frankness, and Mrs. Beekman laid an impulsive hand upon her arm.
"Come and lunch with me to-morrow; just we two. We'll have a nice little chat and if Kearn comes bothering around I'll send him away. I want you to tell me about Mexico."
Willa promised with an odd little thrill of warmth at her heart. With the exception of fat, comfortable Sallie Bailey and old Tia Juana, the girl had had no intimates of her own sex, and the competition appeared to be so keen among the members of the set in which she found herself that friendship was eyed askance as a subterfuge to be wary of.
The daily bulletins from Brooklyn were not encouraging, nor was Dan Morrissey gaining ground in the search. Three days had passed since the disappearance of Tia Juana, and Willa decided despairingly that should a week go by without news, she must go to the police and brave the storm of notoriety and questioning from Mason North and the Halsteads, which would mean the end of her cherished secrecy and hem her in with a multitude of complications.
She lunched with Mrs. Beekman as she had promised, in the dingy old-fashioned house on the Square which somehow gave the girl, untutored as she was, an impression of aristocracy that the newer, more ornate piles of stone farther up the Avenue had utterly failed to convey. She was miserably aware that the other woman was making a sympathetic effort to understand her and gain her friendship, yet the thought of Tia Juana drove all else from her mind and she knew she was creating a far from propitious impression.
An unaccountable shyness, too, took possession of her at the possibility of meeting Kearn Thode beneath his sister's discerning eye, and as soon as she could courteously do so, she tore herself away from her disappointed hostess and went over the bridge to Jose.
The cripple's fever had abated, but he was still very weak. His little hot hands clutched hers nervously and his big eyes seemed to burn into hers as he asked in his own tongue:
"The Senorita has a friend whom she trusts?"
"Yes, Jose," responded Willa promptly. "Have you seen him?"
"He came this morning, and told me his name. He said I was to ask it of you, and you would tell me the same."
"Is it 'Dan'?" She watched the thin face brighten.
"That was it! And am I to trust him, too?"
"You can tell him anything as you would me, amiguito, but remember, no word of the Pool!"
"That is written, Senorita Billie, on my heart!--But will the grandmama ever return?"
Willa soothed him as well as she was able, and, after a brief conference with Senorita Rodriguez, took her departure.
A man was standing near the bottom of the steps, lighting a cigarette. Her eyes rested upon him with no flash of recognition until he glanced up and then with a slow smile tossed his cigarette into the gutter. It was Starr Wiley.
His puffed, discolored lips stood out against the pasty whiteness of his face with the grotesque effect of a mask and his eyes gleamed malevolently, but he lifted his hat with the old airy insouciance.
"We meet again, my dear Billie!"
She bowed gravely, and made as if to pass him, but he barred her way.
"Are you in such haste? I've come on purpose to escort you back over the bridge and have a little chat with you. There is something almost comic in the situation, don't you think?"
"If there is, Mr. Wiley, it is discernible only to you." She shrugged. "I will leave you to the enjoyment of it."
"Not yet, my dear! Our bird has flown, I know, but I am curious to learn why you haunt the empty cage."
Willa paused, eying him steadily.
"What is it to you, as long as the Senora Reyes is not here?"
"Because I believe that you will lead me to her more quickly than my agents can!" Wiley's smile became a knowing leer. "Very clever, your conversation over the telephone the other night, designed for Angie's benefit! You knew that she would report it faithfully to me and you counted on it to throw me off the track, but it didn't quite serve its purpose."
Willa's heart gave a leap, and then sank in a sick wave of fear for Tia Juana. She did not realize until that moment how certain she had been that the old woman was in the hands of those whose interest it would be to keep her safe.
Wiley's attitude betrayed the fact that he knew no more than the girl herself where Tia Juana was. What, then, could have happened to her?
"I really must congratulate you once more!" he went on, ironically. "It was a master stroke, a flash of genius, to spirit the old lady away from this latest retreat of hers, and pretend that you, too, were in the dark as to her whereabouts. It was not your fault that the shot fell short of its mark!"
Willa hesitated. Should she tell him the truth? That would, of course, give him equal ground with her and he would move heaven and earth to beat her in the search, but in her hideous new anxiety she would almost rather know that Tia Juana was in antagonistic hands than face the vague but terrible possibilities confronting her.
Starr Wiley accepted her silence as an admission and on the instant his manner changed.
"I have followed you here to tell you that the time is past for quibbling, and no mere ruse will suffice longer to put me off!" He moved close to her and glared down implacably into her unwavering eyes. "You refused to meet me half way, and now you shall hear my ultimatum: You will produce Tia Juana or take me to her within three days, or I shall tell what I know!"
"Mr. Wiley--" Willa drew herself up very straight and tall--"I have no statement to make about Tia Juana, save that I cannot and will not take you to her. I have listened to your threats and innuendoes until my patience is exhausted and I warn you not to approach me again on this or any other matter. What you know is immaterial to me, you must tell it to whom you please. Will you leave me now, or permit me to depart without a further scene?"
He bowed and stepped back.
"As you desire. Remember you have three days. Think it over well, my dear Billie. It is your present position, the Murdaugh money, a brilliant future and a name, against the Pool of the Lost Souls!" _