_ CHAPTER XXIV. THE LOST SOULS' TREASURE
On a certain bright February morning Ben Hallock puffed up the Calle Rivera and across the plaza of Limasito as fast as his battered jitney could carry him and rushed into Baggott's hotel with an anticipatory gleam in his heavy eyes.
"Hey, Jim! I got your message and I come a-hummin'!" he announced. "What is it? Vigilance Committee?"
"Sort of!" Jim Baggott fairly pranced from behind the bar, his round face shining with excitement. "Here's a gentleman from New York, old friend of yours."
Ben Hallock turned to find himself facing an elderly personage with an impressively pointed gray beard and keen eyes behind gold-rimmed pince-nez.
"Jumping Jehosaphet! If it ain't Perry Larkin!" Ben pumped the stranger's hand energetically. "Mighty glad to see you, Sir! Your engineer, Kearn Thode, called on me last fall; fine young feller he is, too! You heard about what he did when El Negrito came?"
"Yes, Hallock, but I'm even more proud of him to-day!" The keen eyes sparkled. "I want you to meet a--er--a confrere of mine, Mr. Morrissey."
Honest Dan, late taxi'-driver and amateur detective, purpled with embarrassment as he rose and shook hands, but his eyes, too, were dancing.
Ben nodded to Henry Bailey, his ranch neighbor and the only other occupant of the bar, and then turned again to Jim Baggott.
"Now perhaps you'll tell me what in thunder the racket is about! I'd have come to meet Mr. Larkin without you hinting at a lynchin' party!"
"Just you say what you'll have and hold your horses!" Jim chuckled. "I'm acting under instructions, the same that brought Mr. Larkin and this-here young man down from New York, and Hen Bailey in from his hacienda; the orders of Gentleman Geoff's Billie, by God!"
"Billie! She ain't--you don't mean she's comin' back?" Ben cried joyfully. "I told you she wasn't the kind to forget her old friends in spite of the grand life she's walked into! I knew she'd come back to see us----"
"It is business which brings her now, Hallock, and grim business, too," Mr. Larkin interposed. "She wanted you and Henry here as her friends and witnesses, and there's apt to be a rather ugly scene."
"Do you mean she's coming right now, that she's here?" Ben Hallock touched his hip significantly. "I've come heeled for any kind of a little party that's liable to be sprung, but I little thought Billie'd be mixed up in it. What's the matter? Anybody been tryin' to stack the cards on her?"
"The dirtiest, crookedest game that was ever pulled!" Jim smote the bar a blow which made the glasses tinkle. "But she'll beat 'em to it yet, or she wouldn't be Gentleman Geoff's girl! She ain't here now, but we expect her any minute and when she comes the fun'll start."
As if in answer the hum and whirr of two high-powered motors chugging in unison stole upon the air and rapidly increased in volume. Ben craned his neck from the window and then turned disappointedly.
"It's only that Lost Souls crowd!" he grunted. "Jim, if anything in the line of a fracas starts here, you'll lose that passel of swell boarders of yours! Can you see them women when the shootin' commences?"
"They're in on it, too!" Jim grinned. "Not the women-folk, but the men, and more especially our fine young friend, Starr Wiley."
"Something to do with the Lost Souls----"
"Shut up, quick!" Jim advanced from behind the bar with an almost comic air of ceremony as the motor party trooped in at the door and headed for the stairs. Perry Larkin squared his pince-nez and recognized Mrs. Ripley Halstead and her daughter, Angelica, while behind them appeared seven men; Halstead himself, his son, Vernon, Starr Wiley, Harrington Chase, Mason North and his son, Winthrop, and a stranger whom a second glance revealed as Cranmore, the Mexican representative of the Chase-Wiley interests.
"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but we've been waiting for you!" Jim Baggott began in the voice of a showman. "I'll have to ask you gentlemen to step this way, all of you. It's a real-pressing little matter of business you're all concerned in, and the ladies can come, too, if they feel like it. There'll be more ladies present shortly."
Wondering, the whole party crowded into the room, and, recognizing Perry Larkin, greeted him with varying degrees of cordiality. Jim bustled about, setting chairs for them, and in the general confusion none noted that a little group of men in uniform had issued from a door behind the bar and taken up their stations at the windows and entrance. The last comers were in two divisions; the ornate ones, stocky and swarthy for the most part, the soberly attired, taller and stalwart with the paler hue of the North.
Starr Wiley was the first to observe their presence, and he uttered a stifled oath.
"These are just extra witnesses," Jim explained blandly. "They're here to represent the United States Federal Government and also Mexico. You see, this-here little matter has what you might call an international aspect.--Did you speak, Mr. Wiley?"
"I should like to, when you've finished shooting off fireworks!" that gentleman blustered. "What's the meaning of this, anyway? What sort of trumped-up game are you----?"
"Steady, Starr." Ripley Halstead interposed quietly, and turned to the proprietor. "Will you state the nature of this meeting to which you have called us, Mr. Baggott? We are waiting to learn."
"I'm waiting, too!" confessed Jim. "I've got my orders--gosh almighty! Here she comes!"
Unheard, a single touring-car had slipped across the plaza and halted before the entrance. A slim, girlish, heavily-veiled figure alighted, and at sight of the men who accompanied her, Starr Wiley emitted a second oath.
They paused in the doorway and with a sudden movement the girl tore off her veil. There was a moment of electrified silence, broken by a little cry from Angie.
"It's Willa!--That impostor, I mean----"
"No!" Kearn Thode, the second of the newcomers, advanced to Mason North. "You were appointed the guardian of Willa Murdaugh, were you not, Mr. North? I have brought her back to you, with proof of her absolute identity."
"Bless my soul!" The rotund little man advanced with shining eyes, and seized the girl's hands. "I am overwhelmed, my dear girl, delighted! And you have proof, you say? What an amazingly fortunate turn of affairs!"
No one echoed him for a moment. The Halsteads sat stunned, and Harrington Chase, his face a greenish gray, had slumped in his chair. Only Starr Wiley, his eyes glittering and a sinister sneer curling his thin lips, looked on imperturbably. Winthrop North gasped. Then he hurried forward.
"Good work, Kearn! Oh, Willa!" His voice broke as he took her hands from his father's and wrung them hard. "Our trails have crossed again, and it has been 'good luck' indeed!"
Ripley Halstead had risen, and his wife made a tentative movement to follow his example. Vernon, too, recovered himself and advanced eagerly, but Willa waved them back and took her place before the bar.
"This is quite a reunion, isn't it?" She smiled, but there was a grim menace behind it. "I'm glad you're all here, for I've got a story to tell you that I shouldn't care to tell twice. It goes back to before a lot of you ever knew me, but you'll find it interesting enough, for it concerns you all as well as me; you, and the Pool of the Lost Souls."
She leaned back with one elbow resting upon the bar and her other hand in the pocket of her traveling-coat and surveyed them one by one, her expression unchanging. No one stirred and after a moment she went on:
"I have asked my old friends, my real friends, to meet me here that they, too, may learn the truth. Most of you have heard the legend of the Lost Souls' Pool; Mr. Larkin heard it from Ben Hallock and sent Kearn Thode down here to find it, if he could. Mr. Chase also learned it, and his partner came on the same errand, but I had the story from the lineal descendant of the first Spanish owner, and the one person in the world who knew where it was located, Juana Reyes. In her youth she married a cousin of the same name, and her only relative living now is her crippled grandson, Jose. My foster father scoffed at the truth of the legend, but I had faith in Tia Juana's knowledge.
"When El Negrito, the butcher, came down from the hills on his murderous raid and killed Dad among the rest, I learned that his visit had been prearranged and paid for by a white man. He had been hired to burn and rape and slay in order to evoke United States intervention, by a man in this room!"
"By God----" Jim Baggott leaped to his feet, and Henry Bailey and Ben Hallock emitted a simultaneous roar of rage; but she silenced them.
"The government men are here as much to protect him as to see that he does not escape, and hard as it is we must let the law take its course." She spoke with frank regret, but her steady, significant smile never wavered. "In Dad's name I dedicated my life to getting that man. I had a witness to prove his conspiracy, but I wanted to play a lone hand. Nothing else mattered, nothing else has ever mattered!
"When the Blue Chip was sold and Jim Baggott handed over the money to me I knew it wouldn't be enough; if I was to beat the man at his own game I must be able to match finances as well as wits. I thought then of the Pool of the Lost Souls and the fabulous profits to be made from it.
"Three days before Mr. North came to Limasito I took Tia Juana away, and she guided me to the Pool. It had been passed over by the searchers for generations, but she possessed an old map of its true location. I bought the Pool with the money from the sale of the Blue Chip, recorded it in her name with the Notary at Victoria and gave her a half interest. All she cared about, anyway, was the home of her ancestors.
"Then Mr. North brought the news of my inheritance. I didn't want it at first, as he can tell you. The name and the money meant little to me until I realized that they would be useful to my plan. They mean less to me now that my purpose has been achieved, but since they are mine and have been wrested from me by fraud I claim them--if only to trample them under my feet, if I choose.
"I realized that the name would carry me into the very inner circle of the man I was after, the man who had murdered Dad, and the money would help when I could exercise unlimited control of it. That was the only reason I consented to go to New York, and my ultimate purpose never wavered.
"I had no detailed plan, but I meant to keep Tia Juana and the fact that I possessed the Lost Souls' Pool under cover until I had come into my full inheritance, when I would return and fight the man to the finish. Mr. North never knew that Tia Juana and Jose accompanied us to New York, although he did complain of my frequent disappearances en route, I remember."
Mason North sputtered.
"So do I! But why did you not tell me all, my dear? I might have helped you----"
"And taken the whole thing out of my hands?" Willa shook her head, still smiling. "The man was my meat, Mr. North! Vengeance may be the Lord's, but it was sweet to me, too, and I meant to taste it to the last morsel!
"The man was one of those who were still searching for the Lost Souls' Pool. After our departure he possessed himself by violence of the map which Tia Juana had only partly destroyed, located the Pool, learned of its new owner and started out to find her. He knew that I was her one friend, and suspected that I was back of the purchase. Before following me to New York, therefore, he made a journey West, of which I'll tell you more later, or rather Mr. Thode will.
"When he did finally appear in New York, he tried by every means in his power to force me to a confession of my knowledge of Tia Juana's whereabouts; he spied upon me and I removed her to new quarters just in time. He flattered and cajoled me, and, when that failed, resorted to vague threats.
"Then Tia Juana disappeared. She vanished from the home I had found for her, leaving no trace, and I feared that the man had abducted her, to coerce her into making the Pool over to him, until I met him outside the house from which she had gone. He accused me of having spirited her away to keep her out of his reach and demanded that I produce her in three days, or he would strip me of my position and name and inheritance, seeing me driven forth as an impostor! That man is Starr Wiley, and you know how he carried out his threat!"
Wiley made a sudden convulsive leap for the window, but paused transfixed at her significant gesture. The government officials had closed in about him, but he saw only the girl before the bar and the pointed bulge in her cloak, beneath her hidden hand.
"Better not try it, Starr Wiley, although I almost wish you would!" Her voice rang out in the suddenly stayed tumult. "I've had you covered from the first, and I'll drop you with a shot through my pocket if you make another move! The rest of you know only what he has done to me, but you shall hear how he has served you, too!
"I left the Halstead house, and then by a miracle Tia Juana was restored to me. After her disappearance little Jose remembered her interest in a conversation between her landlady and a friend concerning some Spanish gypsies who had settled in squatters' cabins north of the city, and conceiving the idea that she had joined them, he slipped away to find her. He succeeded, although how she ever reached her destination we cannot know, for she was bewildered and lost her mind, temporarily enfeebled. Jose, as a vender of tomales, established himself near the garage where I kept my car, hoping to attract the attention of my chauffeur, Dan Morrissey here, who had helped me all through that trying time and whom Jose knew he could trust.
"Once he was frightened away, but the second time he succeeded and Dan brought him to me. I took Tia Juana away to another city, but she was ill for a long time. When I could leave her, I placed her and Jose in the care of Dan's sister whom I summoned from New York, and went West myself to disprove Starr Wiley's story if I could.
"I found a witness who can swear to my identity as the daughter of Ralph and Violet Murdaugh and prove it by a scar I bear from the fire which cost my mother her life, but Mr. Thode, unknown to me, had gone West also in my interest and his efforts were even more successful than mine.--Will you show them, please, what you obtained in Arizona?"
She turned to Kearn Thode, who drew forth a folded paper which he handed to Mason North.
"It is a confession, signed and witnessed, from the forger Starr Wiley employed to manufacture that false article of adoption," he announced. "The child who died in the trapper's cabin was his own daughter and it was Willa Murdaugh who went on with Gentleman Geoff. I did not know until this morning the whole story of the Lost Souls' Pool transaction, but I suspected it. Starr Wiley had a strong motive for getting Miss Murdaugh out of the way if she did not prove amenable to his schemes, and he provided himself with a strong weapon, but he overlooked one salient point. I happened to know Gentleman Geoff's last name, I learned it from his own lips as he lay dying, and it was not Abercrombie."
"After I left New York," Willa took up the story, "Starr Wiley came down here, registered a deed of sale, signed by Tia Juana, giving him possession of the Lost Souls' Pool and proceeded with his partner to develop it and float it on the market. I believe Mr. Thode tried to warn Mr. North through his son not to go into it, but unfortunately for him, Mr. North would not heed, and he and Mr. Halstead invested heavily. I say 'unfortunately,' for the money is lost! Gentlemen, Juana Reyes and I still own that property. Starr Wiley--and in this his partner, Harrington Chase, is equally guilty with him--had induced a poor ignorant old Mexican woman, Rosa Mendez, to sign the name of Juana Reyes to the bill of sale, copying it from the original signature in the registry. He thought the trick which had served him so well in Arizona could be safely repeated, but I have Rosa Mendez upstairs at this moment, together with the real Juana Reyes and Jose. Shall I call them?"
"No, no!" shrieked Starr Wiley. "I will not face that old hag! What's the use? You've got the goods on me! It's all true, all of it except that I instigated El Negrito's raid! That I never----"
"It was Tia Juana herself who witnessed your secret negotiations with Juan de Soria, El Negrito's agent!" Willa interposed swiftly. "It's been a fair fight, Starr Wiley, for I warned you once, but you have played directly into my hands. I've paid my debt to Dad, but you have yet to meet the penalty. For your crime against me, and those you have victimized in the Lost Souls venture you will not live to make restitution; you know what awaits you for summoning El Negrito down from the hills!"
For an instant Wiley cowered, shuddering. Then with a supreme effort he straightened and turned to his guards.
"Take me out of this!" he demanded hoarsely, through white lips. "I'm through! Take me away!"
With a scream Angie flung herself forward, but he put her aside as if in a dream and marched out with his guards on either side and his eyes fixed straight ahead over the abyss of the future. Muttering and cursing, Harrington Chase was led after him from the room, and for a space there was silence.
Ripley Halstead sat as though turned to stone, his wife had collapsed in her chair and Mason North's head was buried in his hands. Winthrop with his arm across his father's shoulders met Vernon's dazed eyes and with one accord they turned to Willa.
Her quiet, set, terrible smile was unchanged, but her face had blanched and with an effort she motioned to Jim Baggott.
"Jim, do you remember what happened in Manzanillo away over on the West Coast ten years ago when you were pay clerk for the Colima-Zamora Company and a man stuck you up in broad daylight?"
"I sure do!" Jim returned. "I shot him in the head!"
"Not in but across," observed Willa. "You left your mark on him from brow to ear, only you didn't recognize it while he was here under your own roof."
"What!" Jim's eyes were fairly starting from his head. "That feller was a swindling promoter down on his luck; he broke jail afterward, I heard. His name was Harry Carter."
"It used to be, but now it is Harrington Chase."
The smile faded at last, and Willa swayed suddenly, catching at the bar for support. Jim Baggott sprang for her, but Thode reached her side first, and for a moment she clung to him. Then she raised herself indomitably upright once more.
"It is not easy to hate, after all!" she murmured. "If it were not for the memory of Dad I could find it in my heart to forgive." _