The Vagrant Duke
by George Gibbs · English · Gutenberg #29617 · 616,034 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Vagrant Duke
Author: George Gibbs
Release date: August 6, 2009 [eBook #29617]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29617
Credits: Produced by Barbara Tozier, Barbara Kosker, Bill Tozier
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGRANT DUKE ***
Produced by Barbara Tozier, Barbara Kosker, Bill Tozier
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
_The_
VAGRANT DUKE
BY GEORGE GIBBS
The Vagrant Duke
The Splendid Outcast
The Black Stone
The Golden Bough
The Secret Witness
Paradise Garden
The Yellow Dove
The Flaming Sword
Madcap
The Silent Battle
The Maker of Opportunities
The Forbidden Way
The Bolted Door
Tony's Wife
The Medusa Emerald
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Publishers New York
[Illustration: PETER STRUCK HIM FULL ON THE HEAD]
_The_
VAGRANT DUKE
BY
GEORGE GIBBS
AUTHOR OF "THE SPLENDID OUTCAST," "THE YELLOW DOVE,"
"THE SECRET WITNESS," ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1921
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1920, by The Story Press Corporation
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PROLOGUE 1
I INTRODUCING PETER NICHOLS 15
II NEW YORK 27
III THE OVERALL GIRL 42
IV THE JOB 56
V NEW ELEMENTS 71
VI THE HOUSE OF TERROR 88
VII MUSIC 105
VIII THE PLACARD 121
IX SHAD IS UNPLEASANT 137
X "HAWK" 153
XI ANCIENT HISTORY 170
XII CONFESSION 186
XIII THE CHASE 207
XIV TWO LETTERS 226
XV SUPERMAN 236
XVI IDENTIFICATION 253
XVII PETER BECOMES A CONSPIRATOR 266
XVIII FACE TO FACE 276
XIX YAKIMOV REVEALS HIMSELF 291
XX THE RUSSIAN PAYS 308
XXI THE INFERNO 326
XXII RETRIBUTION 343
XXIII A VISITOR 357
_The_
VAGRANT DUKE
THE VAGRANT DUKE
_PROLOGUE_
_At the piano a man sat playing the "Revolutionary Étude" of Chopin. The
room was magnificent in its proportions, its furnishings were massive,
its paneled oak walls were hung with portraits of men and women in the
costumes of a bygone day. Through the lofty windows, the casements of
which were open to the evening sky there was a vista of forest and
meadow-land stretching interminably to the setting sun. The mosquelike
cupola of a village church, a few versts distant, glimmered like a pearl
in the dusky setting of wooded hills, and close by it, here and there,
tiny spirals of opalescent smoke marked the dwellings of Zukovo
village._
_But the man at the piano was detached, a being apart from this scene of
quiet, absorbed in his piano, which gave forth the turbulence which had
been in the soul of the great composer. The expression upon the dark
face of the young musician was rapt and eager, until he crashed the
chords to their triumphant conclusion when he sank back in his chair
with a gasp, his head bent forward upon his breast, his dark gaze fixed
upon the keys which still echoed with the tumult._
_It was at this moment that a door at the side of the room was opened
and a white-haired man in purple livery entered and stood in silence
regarding rather wistfully the man at the piano, who raised his head
abruptly like one startled from a dream._
_"What is it, Vasili?" asked the musician._
_The servant approached softly a few steps._
_"I did not wish to intrude, Highness, but----"_
_As the old servant hesitated, the young man shrugged and rose,
disclosing a tall, straight figure, clad in a dark blue blouse, loose
trousers and brown boots liberally bespattered with mud. The glow of the
sun which shot across his face as he came forward into the light, showed
swarthy features, level brows, a straight nose, a well turned chin, a
small mustache and a generous mouth which revealed a capacity for humor.
He was quite calm now, and the tones of his voice were almost boyish in
their confidence and gayety._
_"Well, what is it, Vasili?" he repeated. "You have the air of one with
much on your conscience. Out with it. Has Sacha been fighting with you
again?"_
_"No, Master, not Sacha," said the old man clearing his throat
nervously, "it is something worse--much worse than Sacha."_
_"Impossible!" said the other with a laugh as he took up a cigarette
from the table. "Nothing could be worse than a Russian cook when she
gets into a rage----"_
_"But it is, Master--something worse--much worse----"_
_"Really! You alarm me." The Grand Duke threw himself into an armchair
and inhaled luxuriously of his cigarette. And then with a shrug,
"Well?"_
_The old man came a pace or two nearer muttering hoarsely, "They've
broken out in the village again," he gasped._
_The Grand Duke's brow contracted suddenly._
_"H-m. When did this happen?"_
_"Last night. And this morning they burned the stables of Prince
Galitzin and looted the castle."_
_The young man sprang to his feet._
_"You are sure of this?"_
_"Yes, Master. The word was brought by Serge Andriev less than ten
minutes ago."_
_He took a few rapid paces up and down the room, stopping by the open
window and staring out._
_"Fools!" he muttered to himself. Then turning to the old servitor,
"But, Vasili--why is it that I have heard nothing of this? To-day
Conrad, the forester, said nothing to me. And the day before yesterday
in the village the people swept off their caps to me--as in the old
days. I could have sworn everything would be peaceful at Zukovo--at
least, for the present----" he added as though in an afterthought._
_"I pray God that may be true," muttered Vasili uncertainly. And then
with unction, "In their hearts, they still love you, Highness. They are
children--your children, their hearts still full of reverence for the
Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch in whom runs the same blood as that which
ran in the sacred being of the Little Father--but their brains! They are
drunk with the poison poured into their minds by the Committeemen from
Moscow."_
_"Ah," eagerly, "they returned?"_
_"Last night," replied the old man wagging his head. "And your people
forgot all that you had said to them--all that they owe to you. They are
mad," he finished despairingly, "mad!"_
_The Grand Duke had folded his arms and was staring out of the window
toward the white dome of the church now dyed red like a globule of blood
in the sunset._
_The old man watched him for a moment, all the fealty of his many years
of service in his gaze and attitude._
_"I do not like the look of things, Highness. What does it matter how
good their hearts are if their brains are bad?"_
_"I must go and talk with them, Vasili," said the Grand Duke quietly._
_The old man took a step forward._
_"If I might make so free----"_
_"Speak----"_
_"Not to-night, Master----"_
_"Why not?"_
_"It will be dangerous. Last night their voices were raised even against
you."_
_"Me! Why? Have I not done everything I could to help them? I am their
friend--because I believe in their cause: and they will get their rights
too but not by burning and looting----"_
_"And murder, Master. Two of Prince Galitzin's foresters were killed."_
_The Grand Duke turned. "That's bad. Murder in Zukovo!" He flicked his
extinguished cigarette out of the window and made a gesture with his
hand._
_"Go, Vasili. I want to think. I will ring if I need you."_
_"You will not go to Zukovo to-night?"_
_"I don't know."_
_And with another gesture he waved the servant away._
_When Vasili had gone, the Grand Duke sat, his legs across the chair by
the window, his arms folded along its back while his dark eyes peered
out, beyond the hills and forests, beyond the reddened dome of the
village church into the past where his magnificent father Nicholas
Petrovitch held feudal sway over all the land within his vision and his
father's fathers from the time of his own great namesake held all Russia
in the hollow of their hands._
_The Grand Duke's eyes were hard and bright above the slightly prominent
cheek bones, the vestiges of his Oriental origin, but there was
something of his English mother too in the contours of his chin and
lips, which tempered the hardness of his expression. The lines at his
brows were not the savage marks of anger, or the vengefulness that had
characterized the pitiless blood which ran in his veins, but rather were
they lines of disappointment, of perplexity at the problem that
confronted him, and pity for his people who did not know where to turn
for guidance. He still believed them to be his people, a heritage from
his lordly parent, his children, who were responsible to him and to whom
he was responsible. It was a habit of thought, inalienable, the product
of the ages. But it was the calm philosophy of his English mother that
had first given him his real sense of obligation to them, her teachings,
even before the war began, that had shown him how terrible were the
problems that confronted his future._
_His service in the Army had opened his eyes still wider and when Russia
had deserted her allies he had returned to Zukovo to begin the work of
reconstruction in the ways his awakened conscience had dictated. He had
visited their homes, offered them counsel, given them such money as he
could spare, and had, he thought, become their friend as well as their
hereditary guardian. All had gone well at first. They had listened to
him, accepted his advice and his money and renewed their fealty under
the new order of things, vowing that whatever happened elsewhere in
Russia, blood and agony and starvation should not visit Zukovo._
_But the news that Vasili brought was disquieting. It meant that the
minds of his people were again disturbed. And the fact that Prince
Galitzin had always been hated made the problems the Grand Duke faced
none the less difficult. For his people had burned, pillaged and killed.
They had betrayed him. And he had learned in the Army what fire and the
smell of blood could do...._
_With a quick nod of resolution he rose. He would go to them. He knew
their leaders. They would listen to him. They_ must _listen...._
_He closed the piano carefully, putting away the loose sheets of music,
picked up his cap and heavy riding crop from the divan, on his way to
the door, pausing, his hand on the bell-rope as a thought brought a
deeper frown to his brow.... Why had Conrad Grabar, his chief forester,
said nothing to-day? He must have known--for news such as this travels
from leaf to leaf through the forest. Conrad! And yet he would have
sworn by the faithfulness of his old friend and hunting companion.
Perhaps Conrad had not known...._
_The Grand Duke pulled the bell-rope, then went to the window again and
stood as though listening for the voices of the woods. Silence. The sun
had sunk, a dull red ball, and the dusk was falling swiftly. The aspens
below his window quivered slightly, throwing their white leaves upwards
as though in pain. The stately pines that he loved, mute, solemn,
changeless, filled the air with balsam, but they gave no answer to his
problem. It was difficult to believe that, there, in the restless souls
of men war could rage. And yet...._
_He peered out more intently. Beyond the pine forest, a murky cloud was
rising. A storm? Hardly. For the sun had set in a clear sky. But there
was a cloud surely, growing in darkness and intensity. He could see it
more clearly now, billowing upward in grim portent._
_The Grand Duke started and then stared again. The cloud was of smoke.
Through the woods, tiny lights were sparkling, picked out with ominous
brilliancy against the velvet dusk. Peter Nicholaevitch leaned far out
of the window, straining his ears to listen. And now he seemed to hear
the crackle of flames, the distant sound of hoarse voices, shouting and
singing._
_And while he still listened, aware that a great crisis had come into
his life, there was a commotion just below him, the sound of voices
close at hand and he saw a man come running from the woods, approaching
the gateway of the Castle._
_He recognized him by the gray beard and thickset figure. It was Boris
Rylov, the Huntsman, and as he ran he shouted to some one in the
courtyard below. The Grand Duke made out the words:_
_"They're burning the Hunting Lodge--where is the Master----?"_
_Peter Nicholaevitch waited at the window no longer, but ran out of the
room and down the flight of stairs into the great hall below. For he
knew what had happened now. The Red Terror had come to Zukovo._
_He went out to the garden terrace, crossing quickly to the courtyard
where he met the frightened group of servants that had assembled._
_Boris, the Huntsman, much out of breath was waving his arms excitedly
toward the cloud of smoke rising above the pine trees, now tinged a
dirty orange color from beneath._
_"They came from all directions, Master," he gasped, "like the black
flies upon a dead horse--hundreds--thousands of them from the village
and all the country round. I talked with the first that came, Anton
Lensky, Gleb Saltykov, Michael Kuprin and Conrad Grabar----"_
_"Conrad----!" gasped the Grand Duke._
_"Yes, Highness," muttered Boris, his head bowed, "Conrad Grabar. They
tried to restrain me. Michael Kuprin I struck upon the head with a
stick--and then I fled--to warn your Highness--that they mean to come
hither."_
_The face of the Grand Duke, a trifle pale under its tan, was set in
stern lines, but there was no fear in his manner as he quickly
questioned, his eyes eagerly scrutinizing the frightened men and women
about him while he spoke to them with cool decision._
_"Thanks, Friend Rylov--you have done me a service I shall not forget."
Then to the others, "If there are any of you who fear to remain with me,
you may go. I cannot believe that they will come to Zukovo Castle, but
we will close the gate to the courtyard at once. I will talk with them
from the terrace wall."_
_"Master! Highness!" broke in the Huntsman violently, "you do not
understand. You cannot stay here. They are mad. They will kill you. It
is for that they come----"_
_"Nevertheless--I mean to stay----"_
_"It is death----"_
_"Go thou, then, and Vasili, and Ivan. For before they burn Zukovo, I
mean to talk with them----"_
_"It is madness----!"_
_"Come, Highness," broke in Leo Garshin, the head-groom, eagerly, "I
will put the saddle upon Vera, and you can go out of the iron gate from
the stable-yard into the forest. Nothing can catch you and you can reach
the river----"_
_"No, Leo----" put in the Grand Duke kindly. "I shall stay."_
_The servants glanced at one another, appalled at the Master's attitude.
Some of them, had already disappeared into the Castle but others, less
timorous, had already rushed to close the courtyard gate._
_"You say they are many, Friend Rylov?" he asked again._
_"As the hairs of your head, Master--from Ivanovna,
Jaroslav--everywhere--and women, Highness, more terrible than the
men----"_
_"And the leaders----?"_
_"Dmitri Sidorov of the Zemstvo and Michael Kositzin and Anton Lensky.
See, yonder! Where the road turns from the clearing--they come!"_
_The keen eyes of Boris saw further through the forest than those of
most men but in a moment those of the Grand Duke Peter confirmed him.
Figures were moving in the twilight, along the roads and bypaths._
_To Peter Nicholaevitch they seemed like a great river which had flooded
over its banks seeking new levels. Behind them the flames from the
wooden hunting lodge roared upward painting a lurid sky. He saw that the
flood came rapidly, and above the roar of the flames came the sound of
voices singing the Russian version of the "Marseillaise." The Grand Duke
stood at the terrace wall watching their approach. He knew that if they
meant to attack the Castle the gate could not hold long, but he had hope
that he might still be able to prevail upon them to listen to him. In a
moment they saw him and began running forward toward the courtyard gate.
He recognized individuals now--Anton Lensky, Michael Kuprin, with his
head tied in a dirty handkerchief--and Conrad Grabar. The defection of
his old instructor in wood-lore disturbed him. Conrad must have known
what was to happen and he had said nothing. If Conrad had turned against
him, what hope had he of prevailing against the others?_
_The singing died away and in its place, shouts and cries burst forth in
a bedlam. "Open the gate!" "Let us in!"_
_The Grand Duke had heard that note in men's voices in the Carpathian
passes, and he knew what it meant, but while his gaze sought out the fat
figure of Michael Kositzin who was the leader of the uprising, he held
up his hand for silence._
_There was a roar of voices._
_"Peter Nicholaevitch wishes to speak."_
_"It is our turn to speak now."_
"Nasha pora prishlà," (_our time has come_).
_"Let the little master speak."_
_"We know no little masters here!"_
_"No, nor old ones!"_
"Smiert Bourjouiam" (_Death to the bourgeoisie_).
_But as the young Grand Duke began to speak the voices of the most rabid
of the peasants were hushed for a moment by the others._
_"My friends and my children" he began, "one word before you do
something that you will forever regret. I am your friend. I am young--of
the new generation. I have kept abreast of the new thought of the time
and I believe in the New Life that is for you and for us all. I have
proved it to you by bringing the New Life to Zukovo by peaceful means,
by friendliness and brotherhood while other parts of Russia near by are
in agony and darkness." (Cries of "That is true.") "It was in my heart
that I had brought the Revolution to Zukovo, a Revolution against the
old order of things which can be no more, implanting in you the strong
seeds of Peace and Brotherhood which would kill out the ugly weeds of
violence and enmity."_
_Here a hoarse voice rang out: "Fire--only fire can clean." Then the
reply of a woman, "Yes,_ Tovaristchi, _it is the only way."_
_Peter Nicholaevitch tried to seek out the speakers with his gaze. One
of them was Michael Kuprin whom when a child the Grand Duke had seen
flogged in this very courtyard._
_"There are sins of the past," he went on, raising his voice against the
low murmur of the mob, "many sins against you, but one sin does not wash
out another. Murder, rapine, vengeance will never bring peace to
Zukovo. What you do to-day will be visited on you to-morrow. I pray
that you will listen to me. I have fought for you and with you--with
Gleb Saltykov and Anton Lensky, against the return of Absolutism in
Russia. The old order of things is gone. Do not stain the new with crime
in Zukovo. I beseech you to disperse--return to your homes and I will
come to you to-morrow and if there are wrongs I will set them right. You
have believed in me in the past. Believe in me now and all may yet be
well in Zukovo. Go, my friends, before it is too late----"_
_The crowd wavered, murmuring. But just then a shot rang out and the cap
of the Grand Duke twitched around on his head._
_A roar went up from near the gate,_ "Nasha pora prishlà! _Break in the
gate!" cried the voices and there were those of women among them
shouting_ "Tovaristchi! _Forward!"_
_Over the heads of those in the front ranks, Peter Nicholaevitch saw
some men bringing from the forest the heavy trunk of a felled pine tree.
They meant to break down the gate. He knew that he had failed but still
he stood upright facing them. Another shot, the bullet this time grazing
his left arm. The sting of it angered him._
_"Cowards!" he yelled, shaking his fist at them. "Cowards!"_
_A volley followed but no other bullets struck him. Behind him in the
Castle doorway he heard the voice of Boris Rylov, calling to him
hoarsely._
_"Come, Master. For the love of God! There is yet time."_
_There was a crash of the heavy timbers at the gate._
_"Come, Master----"_
_With a shrug Peter Nicholaevitch turned and walked across the terrace
toward the Castle._ "Bolvany!" _he muttered. "I've finished with
them."_
_Boris and Vasili stood just within the door, pleading with him to
hurry, and together they made their way through the deserted kitchens
and over past the vegetable gardens to the stables, where Leo Garshin
awaited them, the saddles on several horses. Behind them they could now
hear the triumphant cries as the courtyard gate crashed in._
_"Hurry, Master!" cried Garshin eagerly._
_"Where are the others?" asked the Grand Duke._
_"Gone, Highness. They have fled."_
_Boris Rylov was peering out past an iron door into the forest._
_"There is no one there?" asked Garshin._
_"Not yet. They have forgotten."_
_"Come then, Highness."_
_But the Grand Duke saw that the aged Vasili was mounted first and then
they rode out of the iron gate into a path which led directly into the
forest. It was not until they were well clear of the buildings that a
shout at one side announced that their mode of escape had been
discovered. Men came running, firing pistols as they ran. Boris Rylov,
bringing up the rear, reined in his horse and turning emptied a revolver
at the nearest of their pursuers. One man fell and the others halted._
_Until they found the other horses in the stables pursuit was
fruitless._
_Peter Nicholaevitch rode at the head of the little cavalcade, down the
familiar aisles of the forest, his head bowed, a deep frown on his
brows. It was Vasili who first noticed the blood dripping from his
finger ends._
_"Master," he gasped, "you are wounded."_
_"It is nothing," said the Grand Duke._
_But Vasili bound the arm up with a handkerchief while Leo Garshin and
Boris Rylov watched the path down which they had come. They could hear
the crackling of the flames at the Hunting Lodge to the southward and
the cries of the mob at the Castle, but there was no sign of pursuit.
Perhaps they were satisfied to appease their madness with pillage and
fire. Half an hour later Boris pointed backward. A new glow had risen, a
redder, deeper glow._
_"The Castle, Master----" wailed Vasili._
_Peter Nicholaevitch drew rein at a cross-path, watched for a moment and
then turned to his companions, for he had reached a decision._
_"My good friends," he said gently, "our ways part here."_
_"Master! Highness!"_
_But he was resolute._
_"I am going on alone. I will not involve you further in my misfortunes.
You can do nothing for me--nor I anything for you except this. Vasili
knows. In the vault below the wine-cellar, hidden away, are some objects
of value. They will not find them. When they go away you will return.
The visit will repay you. Divide what is there into equal parts--silver,
plate and gold. As for me--forget me. Farewell!"_
_They saw that he meant what he said. He offered these few faithful
servitors his hand and they kissed his fingers--a last act of fealty and
devotion and in a moment they stood listening to the diminishing
hoof-beats of Vera as the young master went out of their lives._
_"May God preserve him," muttered Vasili._
_"Amen," said Boris Rylov and Leo Garshin._
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCING PETER NICHOLS
The British refugee ship _Phrygia_ was about to sail for Constantinople
where her unfortunate passengers were to be transferred to other vessels
sailing for Liverpool and New York. After some difficulties the refugee
made his way aboard her and announced his identity to the captain. If he
had expected to be received with the honor due to one of his rank and
station he was quickly undeceived, for Captain Blashford, a man of rough
manners, concealing a gentle heart, looked him over critically, examined
his credentials (letters he had happened to have about him), and then
smiled grimly.
"We've got room for one more--and that's about all."
"I have no money----" began the refugee.
"Oh, that's all right," shrugged the Captain, "you're not the only one.
We've a cargo of twenty princes, thirty-two princesses, eighteen
generals and enough counts and countesses to set up a new nation
somewhere. Your 'Ighness is the only Duke that has reached us up to the
present speakin' and if there are any others, they'll 'ave to be brisk
for we're sailin' in twenty minutes."
The matter-of-fact tones with which the unemotional Britisher made this
announcement restored the lost sense of humor of the Russian refugee,
and he broke into a grim laugh.
"An embarrassment of riches," remarked the Grand Duke.
"Riches," grunted the Captain, "in a manner of speakin', yes. Money is
not so plentiful. But jools! Good God! There must be half a ton of
diamonds, rubies and emeralds aboard. All they're got left most of 'em,
but complaints and narvousness. Give me a cargo of wheat and I'm your
man," growled the Captain. "It stays put and doesn't complain," and then
turning to Peter--"Ye're not expectin' any r'yal suite aboard the
_Phrygia_, are ye?"
"No. A hammock for'rad will be good enough for me."
"That's the way I like to 'ear a man talk. Good God! As man to man, I
arsk you,--with Counts throwin' cigarette butts around an' princesses
cryin' all over my clean white decks an' all, what's a self-respectin'
skipper to do? But I 'ave my orders to fetch the odd lot to
Constantinople an' fetch 'em I will. Oh! They're odd--all right. Go
below, sir, an' 'ave a look at 'em."
But Peter Nicholaevitch shook his head. He had been doing a deal of
quiet thinking in those starry nights upon the Dnieper, and he had
worked out his problem alone.
"No, thanks," he said quietly, "if you don't mind, I think I'd rather
preserve my incognito."
"Incognito, is it? Oh, very well, suit yourself. And what will I be
callin' your Highness?"
"Peter Nichols," said the Grand Duke with a smile, "it's as good as any
other."
"Right you are, Peter Nichols. Lay for'rad and tell the bos'n to show
you up to my cabin."
So Peter Nichols went forward, avoiding the cargo aft, until within a
day's run of the Bosphorus when he found himself accosted by no less a
person than Prince Galitzin who had strolled out to get the morning air.
He tried to avoid the man but Galitzin planted himself firmly in his
path, scrutinizing him eagerly.
"You too, Highness!" he said with an accent of grieved surprise.
The Grand Duke regarded him in a moment of silence.
"It must be evident to you, Prince Galitzin, that I have some object in
remaining unknown."
"But, Your Highness, such a thing is unnecessary. Are we not all
dedicated to the same misfortunes? Misery loves company."
"You mean that it makes you less miserable to discover that I share your
fate?"
"Not precisely that. It is merely that if one holding your liberal views
cannot escape the holocaust that has suddenly fallen there is little
hope for the rest of us."
"No," said the Grand Duke shortly. "There is no hope, none at all, for
us or for Russia."
"Where are you going?"
"To America."
"But, your Highness, that is impossible. We shall all have asylum in
England until conditions change. You should go there with us. It will
lend influence to our mission."
"No."
"Why?"
"I am leaving Russia for the present. She is outcast. For, not content
with betraying others, she has betrayed herself."
"But what are you going to do?"
Peter Nicholaevitch smiled up at the sky and the fussy, fat, bejeweled
sycophant before him listened to him in amazement.
"Prince Galitzin," said the Grand Duke amusedly, "I am going to do that
which may bring the blush of shame to your brow or the sneer of pity to
your lips. I am going to fulfill the destiny provided for every man with
a pair of strong hands, and a willing spirit--I am going to work."
The Prince stepped back a pace, his watery eyes snapping in
incomprehension.
"But your higher destiny--your great heritage as a Prince of the Royal
blood of Holy Russia."
"There is no Holy Russia, my friend, until she is born again. Russia is
worse than traitor, worse than liar, worse than murderer and thief. She
is a fool."
"All will come right in time. We go to England to wait."
"I have other plans."
"Then you will not join us? Princess Anastasie, my daughter, is here.
General Seminoff----"
"It is useless. I have made up my mind. Leave me, if you please."
Prince Galitzin disappeared quickly below to spread the information of
his discovery among the disconsolate refugees and it was not long before
it was known from one end of the _Phrygia_ to the other that the fellow
who called himself Peter Nichols was none other than the Grand Duke
Peter Nicholaevitch, a cousin to his late Majesty Nicholas and a Prince
of the Royal blood. Peter Nichols sought the Captain in his cabin,
putting the whole case before him.
"H-m," chuckled the Captain, "Found ye out, did they? There's only a few
of you left, that's why. Better stay 'ere in my cabin until we reach
Constantinople. I'd be honored, 'Ighness, to say nothin' of savin' you a
bit of bother."
"You're very kind."
"Not at all. Make yourself at 'ome. There's cigarettes on the locker and
a nip of the Scotch to keep the chill out. Here's a light. You've been
worryin' me some, 'Ighness. Fact is I didn't know just how big a bug you
were until to-day when I arsked some questions. You'll forgive me,
'Ighness?"
"Peter Nichols," corrected the Grand Duke.
"No," insisted the Captain, "we'll give you yer title while we can. You
know we British have a bit of a taste for r'yalty when we know it's the
real thing. I don't take much stock in most of my cargo aft. And beggin'
yer 'Ighness's pardon I never took much stock in Russia since she lay
down on the job and left the Allies in the lurch----"
"Captain Blashford," said the Grand Duke quietly. "You can't hurt my
feelings."
"But I do like you, 'Ighness, and I want to do all that I can to 'elp
you when we get to anchor."
"Thanks."
"I take it that you don't want anybody ashore to know who ye are?"
"Exactly. Most of these refugees are going to England. I have reasons
for not wishing to go with them."
"Where then do you propose to go?"
"To the United States," said the Grand Duke eagerly.
"Without money?"
"I'd have no money if I went to England unless I subsisted on the
charity of my friends. My branch of the family is not rich. The war has
made us poorer. Such securities as I have are in a vault in Kiev. It
would be suicide for me to attempt to reclaim them now. I'm going to try
to make my own way."
"Impossible!"
The Grand Duke laughed at the Englishman's expression.
"Why?"
"Yer 'ands, 'Ighness."
The Grand Duke shrugged and grinned.
"I'll risk it. I'm not without resources. Will you help me to a ship
sailing for America?"
"Yes--but----"
"Oh, I'll work my passage over--if nobody bothers me."
"By George! I like your spirit. Give me your 'and, sir. I'll do what I
can. If the _Bermudian_ hasn't sailed from the Horn yet, I think I can
manage it for ye."
"And keep me clear of the rest of your passengers?" added His Highness.
"Righto. They'll go on the _Semaphore_. You stay right 'ere and mum's
the word." And Captain Blashford went out on deck leaving Peter Nichols
to his cigarette and his meditations.
Many times had the Grand Duke Peter given thanks that the blood of his
mother flowed strongly in his veins. He was more British than Russian
and he could remember things that had happened since he had grown to
adolescence which had made the half of him that was English revolt
against the Russian system. It was perhaps his musical education rather
than his University training or his travels in England and France that
had turned him to the _Intelligentsia_. In the vast republic of art and
letters he had imbibed the philosophy that was to threaten the very
existence of his own clan. The spread of the revolution had not dismayed
him, for he believed that in time the pendulum would swing back and
bring a constitutional government to Russia. But in the weeks of
struggle, privation, and passion a new Peter Nicholaevitch was born.
The failure of his plans in the sudden flood of anarchy which had swept
over Zukovo, the treachery of those he had thought faithful and the
attempt upon his life had changed his viewpoint. It takes a truly noble
spirit to wish to kiss the finger that has pulled the trigger of a
revolver, the bullet from which has gone through one's hat. From
disappointment and dismay Peter Nicholaevitch had turned to anger. They
hadn't played the game with him. It wasn't cricket. His resolution to
sail for the United States was decided. To throw himself, an object of
charity, upon the mercies of the Earl of Shetland, his mother's cousin,
was not to be thought of.
To his peasants he had preached the gospel of labor, humility and peace,
in that state of life to which they had been called. He had tried to
exemplify it to them. He could do no less now, to himself. By teaching
himself, he could perhaps fit himself to teach them. In England it would
perhaps be difficult to remain incognito, and he had a pride in wishing
to succeed alone and unaided. Only the United States, whose form of
government more nearly approached the ideal he had for Russia, could
offer him the opportunities to discover whether or not a prince could
not also be a man.
To the Princess Anastasie he gave little thought. That their common
exile and the chance encounter under such circumstances had aroused no
return of an entente toward what had once been a half-sentimental
attachment convinced him of how little it had meant to him. There were
no royal prohibitions upon him now. To marry the Princess Anastasie and
settle in London, living upon the proceeds of her wealthy father's
American and British securities, was of course the easiest solution of
his difficulties. A life of ease, music, good sportsmanship, the comfort
that only England knows.... She was comely too--blond, petite, and
smoked her cigarette very prettily. Their marriage had once been
discussed. She wanted it still, perhaps. Something of all this may have
been somewhere in the back of Prince Galitzin's ambitious mind. The one
course would be so easy, the other----
Peter Nicholaevitch rose and carefully flicked his cigarette through the
open port. No. One does not pass twice through such moments of struggle
and self-communion as he had had in those long nights of his escape
along the Dnieper. He had chosen. Peter Nichols! The name amused him. If
Captain Blashford was a man of his word to-night would be the end of the
Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch, and the Princess Anastasie might find
some more ardent suitor to her grace and beauty.
She did not seek him out. Perhaps the hint to Galitzin had been
sufficient and the Grand Duke from his hiding place saw her pretty
figure set ashore among the miscellany of martyred "r'yalty." He turned
away from his port-hole with a catch of his breath as the last vestige
of his old life passed from sight. And then quietly took up a fresh
cigarette and awaited the Captain.
The details were easily arranged. Blashford was a man of resource and at
night returned from a visit to the Captain of the _Bermudian_ with word
that all was well. He had been obliged to relate the facts but Captain
Armitage could keep a secret and promised the refugee a job under his
steward who was short-handed. And so the next morning, after shaving and
dressing himself in borrowed clothes, Peter Nichols shook Captain
Blashford warmly by the hand and went aboard his new ship.
Peter Nichols' new job was that of a waiter at the tables in the dining
saloon. He was a very good waiter, supplying, from the wealth of a
Continental experience, the deficiencies of other waiters he had known.
He wore a black shell jacket and a white shirt front which remained
innocent of gravy spots. The food was not very good nor very plentiful,
but he served it with an air of such importance that it gained flavor
and substance by the reflection of his deference. There were English
officers bound for Malta, Frenchmen for Marseilles and Americans of the
Red Cross without number bound for New York. Girls, too, clear-eyed,
bronzed and hearty, who talked war and politics beneath his very nose,
challenging his own theories. They noticed him too and whispered among
themselves, but true to his ambition to do every task at the best of his
bent, he preserved an immobile countenance and pocketed his fees, which
would be useful ere long, with the grateful appreciation of one to whom
shillings and franc pieces come as the gifts of God. Many were the
attempts to draw him into a conversation, but where the queries could
not be answered by a laconic "Yes, sir," or "No, sir," this paragon of
waiters maintained a smiling silence.
"I'm sure he's a prince or something," he heard one young girl of a
hospital unit say to a young medico of the outfit. "Did you ever see
such a nose and brows in your life? And his hands----! You can never
mistake hands. I would swear those hands had never done menial work for
a thousand years."
All of which was quite true, but it made the waiter Peter uncomfortably
careful. There were no women in the kitchen, but there was an amatory
stewardess, fat and forty, upon whom the factitious technique of the
saloon fell with singular insipidity. He fled from her. Peter, the
waiter, was already a good democrat but he was not ready to spread his
philosophy out so thin.
He slept forward, messed abaft the galley, enriched his vocabulary and
broadened his point of view. There is no leveler like a ship's fo'c'sle,
no better school of philosophy than that of men upon their "beam ends."
There were many such--Poles, Slovaks, Roumanians, an Armenian or two,
refugees, adventurers from America, old, young, dissolute, making a
necessity of virtue under that successful oligarchy, the ship's bridge.
In the Americans Peter was interested with an Englishman's point of
view. He had much to learn, and he invented a tale of his fortunes which
let him into their confidences, especially into that of Jim Coast,
waiter like himself, whose bunk adjoined his own. Jim Coast was a
citizen of the world, inured to privation under many flags. He had been
born in New Jersey, U. S. A., of decent people, had worked in the
cranberry bogs, farmed in Pennsylvania, "punched" cattle in Wyoming,
"prospected" in the Southwest, looted ranches in Mexico, fought against
Diaz and again with the insurgents in Venezuela, worked on cattle-ships
and so, by easy stages, had drifted across the breadth of Europe living
by his wits at the expense of the credulous and the unwary. And now, for
the first time in many years, he was going home--though just what that
meant he did not know. He had missed great fortune twice--"by the skin
of his teeth," as he picturesquely described it, once in a mine in
Arizona and again in a land-deal in the Argentine. There were reasons
why he hadn't dared to return to the United States before. He was a man
with a grievance, but, however free in his confidences in other
respects, gave the interested Peter no inkling as to what that grievance
was.
No more curious acquaintanceship could possibly be imagined, but
privation, like politics, makes strange bedfellows, and, from tolerance
and amusement, Pete, as the other called him, found himself yielding,
without stint, to the fantastic spell of Jim Coast's multifarious
attractions. He seemed to have no doubts as to the possibility of making
a living in America and referred darkly to possible "coups" that would
net a fortune. He was an agreeable villain, not above mischief to gain
his ends, and Peter, who cherished an ideal, made sure that, once safe
ashore, it would be best if they parted company. But he didn't tell Jim
Coast so, for the conversational benefits he derived from that
gentleman's acquaintance were a liberal education.
We are admonished that they are blessed who just stand and wait, and
Peter Nichols, three days out of New York harbor, found himself the
possessor of forty dollars in tips from the voyage with sixty dollars
coming to him as wages--not so bad for a first venture upon the high
seas of industry. It was the first real money he had ever made in his
life and he was proud of it, jingling it contentedly in his pockets and
rubbing the bills luxuriously one against the other. But his plans
required more than this, for he had read enough to know that in the
United States one is often taken at one's own estimate, and that if he
wasn't to find a job as a ditch-digger, he must make a good appearance.
And so it was now time to make use of the one Grand Ducal possession
remaining to him, a gold ring set with a gorgeous ruby that had once
belonged to his father. This ring he had always worn and had removed
from his finger at Ushan, in the fear that its magnificence might betray
him. He had kept it carefully tied about his neck in a bag on a bit of
string and had of course not even shown it to Jim Coast who might have
deemed it an excuse to sever their strange friendship.
Through the Head Steward he managed a message to Captain Armitage and
was bidden to the officer's cabin, where he explained the object of his
visit, exhibited his treasure and estimated its value.
The Captain opened his eyes a bit wider as he gazed into the sanguine
depths of the stone.
"If I didn't know something of your history, Nichols," he said with a
wink, "I might think you'd been looting the strong box of the Sultan of
Turkey. Pigeon's blood and as big as my thumb nail! You want to sell
it?"
"I need capital."
"What do you want for it?"
"It's worth a thousand pounds of English money. Perhaps more, I don't
know. I'll take what I can get."
"I see. You're afraid to negotiate the sale ashore?"
"Exactly. I'd be arrested."
"And you don't want explanations. H-m--leave it with me over night. I'll
see the Purser. He'll know."
"Thanks."
The Captain offered the waiter in the shell-jacket the hospitality of
his cabin, but Peter Nichols thanked him gratefully and withdrew.
The result of this arrangement was that the ruby ring changed owners.
The Purser bought it for two thousand in cash. He knew a good thing when
he saw it. But Peter Nichols was satisfied.
CHAPTER II
NEW YORK
The Duke-errant had prepared himself for the first glimpse of the
battlements of lower New York, but as the _Bermudian_ came up the bay
that rosy spring afternoon, the western sun gilding the upper half of
the castellated towers which rose from a sea of moving shadows, it
seemed a dream city, the fortress of a fairy tale. His fingers tingled
to express this frozen music, to relieve it from its spell of
enchantment, and phrases of Debussy's "Cathédrale Engloutie" came
welling up within him from almost forgotten depths.
"_Parbleu!_ She's grown some, Pete, since I saw her last!"
This from his grotesque companion who was not moved by concord of sweet
sounds. "They've buried the Trinity clean out of sight."
"The Trinity?" questioned Peter solemnly.
"Bless your heart----" laughed Coast, "I'd say so----But I mean, the
church----And that must be the Woolworth Building yonder. Where's yer
St. Paul's and Kremlin now? Some village,--what?"
"Gorgeous!" muttered Peter.
"Hell of a thing to tackle single-handed, though, eh, boh?"
Something of the same thought was passing through Peter's mind but he
only smiled.
"I'll find a job," he said slowly.
"Waitin'!" sneered Coast. "Fine job that for a man with your learnin'.
'Hey, waiter! Some butter if you please,'" he satirized in mincing
tones, "'this soup is cold--this beef is underdone. Oh, _cawn't_ you
give me some service here!' I say, don't you hear 'em--people that never
saw a servant in their own home town. Pretty occupation for an old war
horse like me or a globe-trotter like you. No. None for me. I'll fry my
fish in a bigger pan. _Allons!_ Pete. I like you. I'll like you more
when you grow some older, but you've got a head above your ears that
ain't all bone. I can use you. What d'ye say? We'll get ashore, some
way, and then we'll show the U. S. A. a thing or two not written in the
books."
"We'll go ashore together, Jim. Then we'll see."
"Righto! But I'll eat my hat if I can see you balancin' dishes in a
Broadway Chop House."
Peter couldn't see that either, but he didn't tell Jim Coast so. Their
hour on deck had struck, for a final meal was to be served and they went
below to finish their duties. That night they were paid off and
discharged.
The difficulties in the way of inspection and interrogation of Peter
Nichols, the alien, were obviated by the simple expedient of his going
ashore under cover of the darkness and not coming back to the ship--this
at a hint from the sympathetic Armitage who gave the ex-waiter a
handclasp and his money and wished him success.
Midnight found Peter and Jim Coast on Broadway in the neighborhood of
Forty-second Street with Peter blinking comfortably up at the electric
signs and marveling at everything. The more Coast drank the deeper was
his cynicism but Peter grew mellow. This was a wonderful new world he
was exploring and with two thousand dollars safely tucked on the inside
of his waistcoat, he was ready to defy the tooth of adversity.
In the morning Peter Nichols came to a decision. And so over the coffee
and eggs when Coast asked him what his plans were he told him he was
going to look for a job.
Coast looked at him through the smoke of his cigar and spoke at last.
"I didn't think you'd be a quitter, Pete. The world owes us a
livin'--you and me----Bah! It's easy if you'll use your headpiece. If
the world won't give, I mean to take. The jobs are meant for little
men."
"What are you going to do?"
"An enterprisin' man wouldn't ask such a question. Half the people in
the world takes what the other half gives. You ought to know what half
_I_ belong to."
"I'm afraid I belong to the other half, Jim Coast," said Peter quietly.
"_Sacré--!_" sneered the other, rising suddenly. "Where you goin' to
wait, Pete? At the Ritz or the Commodore? In a month you'll be waitin'
on _me_. It'll be _Mister_ Coast for you then, _mon garçon_, but you'll
still be Pete." He shrugged and offered his hand. "Well, we won't
quarrel but our ways split here."
"I'm sorry, Jim. Good-by."
He saw Coast slouch out into the street and disappear m the crowd moving
toward Broadway. He waited for a while thinking deeply and then with a
definite plan in his mind strolled forth. First he bought a second-hand
suit case in Seventh Avenue, then found a store marked "Gentlemen's
Outfitters" where he purchased ready-made clothing, a hat, shoes,
underwear, linen and cravats, arraying himself with a sense of some
satisfaction and packing in his suitcase what he couldn't wear, went
forth, found a taxi and drove in state to a good hotel.
* * * * *
New York assimilates its immigrants with surprising rapidity. Through
this narrow funnel they pour into the "melting pot," their racial
characteristics already neutralized, their souls already inoculated with
the spirit of individualism. Prepared as he was to accept with a good
grace conditions as he found them, Peter Nichols was astonished at the
ease with which he fitted into the niche that he had chosen. His room
was on the eighteenth floor, to which and from which he was shot in an
enameled lift operated by a Uhlan in a monkey-cap. He found that it
required a rather nice adjustment of his muscles to spring forth at
precisely the proper moment. There was a young lady who presided over
the destinies of the particular shelf that he occupied in this enormous
cupboard, a very pretty young lady, something between a French Duchess
and a lady's maid. Her smile had a homelike quality though and it was
worth risking the perilous catapulting up and down for the mere pleasure
of handing her his room key. Having no valuables of course but his money
which he carried in his pockets there was no danger from unprincipled
persons had she been disposed to connive at dishonesty.
His bedroom was small but neat and his bathroom was neat but small,
tiled in white enamel, containing every device that the heart of a clean
man could desire. He discovered that by dropping a quarter into various
apertures he could secure almost anything he required from tooth paste
to razor blades. There was a telephone beside his bed which rang at
inconvenient moments and a Bible upon the side table proclaimed the
religious fervor of this extraordinary people. A newspaper was sent in
to him every morning whether he rang for it or not, and every time he
did ring, a lesser Uhlan brought a thermos bottle containing iced water.
This perplexed him for a time but he was too much ashamed of his
ignorance to question. You see, he was already acquiring the first
ingredient of the American character--omniscience, for he found that in
New York no one ever admits that he doesn't know everything.
But it was all very wonderful, pulsing with life, eloquent of
achievement. He was in no haste. By living with some care, he found that
the money from his ruby would last for several months. Meanwhile he was
studying his situation and its possibilities. Summing up his own
attainments he felt that he was qualified as a teacher of the piano or
of the voice, as an instructor in languages, or if the worst came, as a
waiter in a fashionable restaurant--perhaps even a head-waiter--which
from the authority he observed in the demeanor of the lord of the hotel
dining room seemed almost all the honor that a person in America might
hope to gain. But, in order that no proper opportunity should slip by,
he scanned the newspapers in the hope of finding something that he could
do.
As the weeks passed he made the discovery that he was being immensely
entertained. He was all English now. It was not in the least difficult
to make acquaintances. Almost everybody spoke to everybody without the
slightest feeling of restraint. He learned the meaning of the latest
American slang but found difficulty in applying it, rejoiced in the
syncopation of the jazz, America's original contribution to the musical
art, and by the end of a month thought himself thoroughly acclimated.
But he still surprised inquiring glances male and female cast in his
direction. There was something about his personality which, disguise it
as he might under American-made garments and American-made manners,
refused to be hidden. It was his charm added to his general good nature
and adaptability which quickly made Peter Nichols some friends of the
better sort. If he had been willing to drift downward he would have cast
in his lot with Jim Coast. Instead, he followed decent inclinations and
found himself at the end of six weeks a part of a group of young
business men who took him home to dine with their wives and gave him the
benefit of their friendly advice. To all of them he told the same story,
that he was an Englishman who had worked in Russia with the Red Cross
and that he had come to the United States to get a job.
It was a likely story and most of them swallowed it. But one clever girl
whom he met out at dinner rather startled him by the accuracy of her
intuitions.
"I have traveled a good deal, Mr. Nichols," she said quizzically, "but
I've never yet met an Englishman like you."
"It is difficult for me to tell whether I am to consider that as
flattery or disapproval," said Peter calmly.
"You talk like an Englishman, but you're entirely too much interested in
everything to be true to type."
"Ah, really----"
"Englishmen are either bored or presumptuous. You're neither. And
there's a tiny accent that I can't explain----"
"Don't try----"
"I must. We Americans believe in our impulses. My brother Dick says
you're a man of mystery. I've solved it," she laughed, "I'm sure you're
a Russian Grand Duke incognito."
Peter laughed and tried bravado.
"You are certainly all in the mustard," he blundered helplessly.
And she looked at him for a moment and then burst into laughter.
These associations were very pleasant, but, contrary to Peter's
expectations, they didn't seem to be leading anywhere. The efforts that
he made to find positions commensurate with his ambitions had ended in
blind alleys. He was too well educated for some of them, not well enough
educated for others.
More than two months had passed. He had moved to a boarding house in a
decent locality, but of the two thousands dollars with which he had
entered New York there now remained to him less than two hundred. He
was beginning to believe that he had played the game and lost and that
within a very few weeks he would be obliged to hide himself from these
excellent new acquaintances and go back to his old job. Then the tide of
his fortune suddenly turned.
Dick Sheldon, the brother of the girl who was "all in the mustard,"
aware of Peter's plight, had stumbled across the useful bit of
information and brought it to Peter at the boarding house.
"Didn't you tell me that you'd once had something to do with forestry in
Russia?" he asked.
Peter nodded. "I was once employed in the reafforestation of a large
estate," he replied.
"Then I've found your job," said Sheldon heartily, clapping Peter on the
back. "A friend of Sheldon, Senior's, Jonathan K. McGuire, has a big
place down in the wilderness of Jersey--thousands of acres and he wants
a man to take charge--sort of forestry expert and general
superintendent, money no object. I reckon you could cop out three
hundred a month as a starter."
"That looks good to me," said Peter, delighted that the argot fell so
aptly from his lips. And then, "You're not spoofing, are you?"
"Devil a spoof. It's straight goods, Nichols. Will you take it?"
Peter had a vision of the greasy dishes he was to escape.
"Will I?" he exclaimed delightedly. "Can I get it?"
"Sure thing. McGuire is a millionaire, made a pot of money somewhere in
the West--dabbles in the market. That's where Dad met him. Crusty old
rascal. Daughter. Living down in Jersey now, alone with a lot of
servants. Queer one. Maybe you'll like him--maybe not."
Peter clasped his friend by the hands.
"Moloch himself would look an angel of mercy to me now."
"Do you think you can make good?"
"Well, rather. Whom shall I see? And when?"
"I can fix it up with Dad, I reckon. You'd better come down to the
office and see him about twelve."
Peter Sheldon, Senior, looked him over and asked him questions and the
interview was quite satisfactory.
"I'll tell you the truth, as far as I know it," said Sheldon, Senior
(which was more than Peter Nichols had done). "Jonathan K. McGuire is a
strange character--keeps his business to himself----. How much he's
worth nobody knows but himself and the Treasury Department. Does a good
deal of buying and selling through this office. A hard man in a deal but
reasonable in other things. I've had his acquaintance for five years,
lunched with him, dined with him--visited this place in Jersey, but I
give you my word, Mr. Nichols, I've never yet got the prick of a pin
beneath that man's skin. You may not like him. Few people do. But
there's no harm in taking a try at this job."
"I shall be delighted," said Nichols.
"I don't know whether you will or not," broke in Sheldon, Senior,
frankly. "Something's happened lately. About three weeks ago Jonathan K.
McGuire came into this office hurriedly, shut the door behind him,
locked it--and sank into a chair, puffing hard, his face the color of
putty. He wouldn't answer any questions and put me off, though I'd have
gone out of my way to help him. But after a while he looked out of the
window, phoned for his car and went again, saying he was going down into
Jersey."
"He was sick, perhaps," ventured Peter.
"It was something worse than that, Mr. Nichols. He looked as though he
had seen a ghost or heard a banshee. Then this comes," continued the
broker, taking up a letter from the desk. "Asks for a forester, a good
strong man. You're strong, Mr. Nichols? Er--and courageous? You're not
addicted to 'nerves'? You see I'm telling you all these things so that
you'll go down to Black Rock with your eyes open. He also asks me to
engage other men as private police or gamekeepers, who will act under
your direction. Queer, isn't it? Rather spooky, I'd say, but if you're
game, we'll close the bargain now. Three hundred a month to start with
and found. Is that satisfactory?"
"Perfectly," said Peter with a bow. "When do I begin?"
"At once if you like. Salary begins now. Fifty in advance for expenses."
"That's fair enough, Mr. Sheldon. If you will give me the directions, I
will go to-day."
"To-morrow will be time enough." Sheldon, Senior, had turned to his desk
and was writing upon a slip of paper. This he handed to Peter with a
check.
"That will show you how to get there," he said as he rose, brusquely.
"Glad to have met you. Good-day."
And Peter felt himself hand-shaken and pushed at the same time, reaching
the outer office, mentally out of breath from the sudden, swift movement
of his fortunes. Sheldon, Senior, had not meant to be abrupt. He was
merely a business man relaxing for a moment to do a service for a
friend. When Peter Nichols awoke to his obligations he sought out
Sheldon, Junior, and thanked him with a sense of real gratitude and
Sheldon, Junior, gave him a warm handclasp and Godspeed.
* * * * *
The Pennsylvania Station caused the new Superintendent of Jonathan K.
McGuire to blink and gasp. He paused, suit case in hand, at the top of
the double flight of stairs to survey the splendid proportions of the
waiting room where the crowds seemed lost in its great spaces. In Europe
such a building would be a cathedral. In America it was a railway
station. And the thought was made more definite by the Gregorian chant
of the train announcer which sounded aloft, its tones seeking concord
among their own echoes.
This was the portal to the new life in which Peter was to work out his
own salvation and the splendor of the immediate prospect uplifted him
with a sense of his personal importance in the new scheme of things of
which this was a part. He hadn't the slightest doubt that he would be
able to succeed in the work for which he had been recommended, for apart
from his music--which had taken so many of his hours--there was nothing
that he knew more about or loved better than the trees. He had provided
himself the afternoon before with two books by American authorities and
other books and monographs were to be forwarded to his new address.
As he descended the stairs and reached the main floor of the station,
his glance caught the gaze of a man staring at him intently. The man was
slender and dark, dressed decently enough in a gray suit and soft hat
and wore a small black mustache. All of these facts Peter took note of
in the one glance, arrested by the strange stare of the other, which
lingered while Peter glanced away and went on. Peter, who had an
excellent memory for faces, was sure that he had never seen the man
before, but after he had taken a few steps, it occurred to him that in
the stranger's eyes he had noted the startled distention of surprise and
recognition. And so he stopped and turned, but as he did so the fellow
dropped his gaze suddenly, and turned and walked away. The incident was
curious and rather interesting. If Peter had had more time he would have
sought out the fellow and asked him why he was staring at him, but
there were only a few moments to spare and he made his way out to the
concourse where he found his gate and descended to his train. Here he
ensconced himself comfortably in the smoking car, and was presently shot
under the Hudson River (as he afterwards discovered) and out into the
sunshine of the flats of New Jersey.
He rolled smoothly along through the manufacturing and agricultural
districts, his keenly critical glances neglecting nothing of the waste
and abundance on all sides. He saw, too, the unlovely evidences of
poverty on the outskirts of the cities, which brought to his mind other
communities in a far country whose physical evidences of prosperity were
no worse, if no better, than these. Then there came a catch in his
throat and a gasp which left him staring but seeing nothing. The feeling
was not nostalgia, for that far country was no home for him now. At last
he found himself muttering to himself in English, "My home--my home is
here."
After a while the mood of depression, recurrent moments of which had
come to him in New York with diminishing frequency, passed into one of
contemplation, of calm, like those which had followed his nights of
passion on the Dnieper, and at last he closed his eyes and dozed.
Visions of courts and camps passed through his mind--of brilliant
uniforms and jeweled decorations; of spacious polished halls,
resplendent with ornate mirrors and crystal pendant chandeliers; of
diamond coronets, of silks and satins and powdered flunkies. And then
other visions of gray figures crouched in the mud; of rain coming out of
the dark and of ominous lights over the profile of low hills; of
shrieks; of shells and cries of terror; of his cousin, a tall, bearded
man on a horse in a ravine waving an imperious arm; of confusion and
moving thousands, the creak of sanitars, the groans of men calling upon
mothers they would never see. And then with a leap backward over the
years, the vision of a small man huddled against the wall of a courtyard
being knouted until red stains appeared on his gray blouse and then
mingled faintly in the mist and the rain until the small man sank to the
full length of his imprisoned arms like one crucified....
Peter Nichols straightened and passed a hand across his damp forehead.
Through the perspective of this modern civilization what had been
passing before his vision seemed very vague, very distant, but he knew
that it was not a dream....
All about him was life, progress, industry, hope--a nation in the
making, proud of her brief history which had been built around an ideal.
If he could bring this same ideal back to Russia! In his heart he
thanked God for America--imperfect though she was, and made a vow that
in the task he had set for himself he should not be found wanting.
Twice he changed trains, the second time at a small junction amid an
ugliness of clay-pits and brickyards and dust and heat. There were
perhaps twenty people on the platform. He walked the length of the
station and as he did so a man in a gray suit disappeared around the
corner of the building. But Peter Nichols did not see him, and in a
moment, seated in his new train in a wooden car which reminded him of
some of the ancient rolling stock of the St. Petersburg and Moscow
Railroad, he was taken haltingly and noisily along the last stage of his
journey.
But he was aware of the familiar odor of the pine balsam in his
nostrils, and as he rolled through dark coverts the scent of the growing
things in the hidden places in the coolth and damp of the sandy loam. He
saw, too, tea-colored streams idling among the sedges and charred
wildernesses of trees appealing mutely with their blackened stumps like
wounded creatures in pain, a bit of war-torn Galicia in the midst of
peace. Miles and miles of dead forest land, forgotten and uncared for.
There was need here for his services.
With a wheeze of steam and a loud crackling of woodwork and creaking of
brakes the train came to a stop and the conductor shouted the name of
the station. Rather stiffly the traveler descended with his bag and
stood upon the small platform looking about him curiously. The baggage
man tossed out a bundle of newspapers and a pouch of mail and the train
moved off. Apparently Peter Nichols was the only passenger with Pickerel
River as a destination.
And as the panting train went around a curve, at last disappearing, it
seemed fairly reasonable to Peter Nichols that no one with the slightest
chance of stopping off anywhere else would wish to get off here. The
station was small, of but one room and a tiny office containing, as he
could see, a telegraph instrument, a broken chair with a leather
cushion, a shelf and a rack containing a few soiled slips of paper, but
the office had no occupant and the door was locked. This perhaps
explained the absence of the automobile which Mr. Sheldon had informed
him would meet him in obedience to his telegram announcing the hour of
his arrival. Neither within the building nor without was there any
person or animate thing in sight, except some small birds fluttering and
quarreling along the telegraph wires.
There was but one road, a sandy one, wearing marks of travel, which
emerged from the scrub oak and pine and definitely concluded at the
railroad track. This, then, was his direction, and after reassuring
himself that there was no other means of egress, he took up his black
suitcase and set forth into the wood, aware of a sense of beckoning
adventure. The road wound in and out, up and down, over what at one time
must have been the floor of the ocean, which could not be far distant.
Had it not been for the weight of his bag Peter would have enjoyed the
experience of this complete isolation, the fragrant silences broken only
by the whisper of the leaves and the scurrying of tiny wild things among
the dead tree branches. But he had no means of knowing how far he would
have to travel or whether, indeed, there had not been some mistake on
Sheldon, Senior's, part or his own. But the directions had been quite
clear and the road must of course lead somewhere--to some village or
settlement at least where he could get a lodging for the night.
And so he trudged on through the woods which already seemed to be
partaking of some of the mystery which surrounded the person of Jonathan
K. McGuire. The whole incident had been unusual and the more interesting
because of the strange character of his employer and the evident fear he
had of some latent evil which threatened him. But Peter Nichols had
accepted his commission with a sense of profound relief at escaping the
other fate that awaited him, with scarcely a thought of the dangers
which his acceptance might entail. He was not easily frightened and had
welcomed the new adventure, dismissing the fears of Jonathan K. McGuire
as imaginary, the emanations of age or an uneasy conscience.
But as he went on, his bag became heavier and the perspiration poured
down his face, so reaching a cross-path that seemed to show signs of
recent travel he put the suitcase down and sat on it while he wiped his
brow. The shadows were growing longer. He was beginning to believe that
there was no such place as Black Rock, no such person as Jonathan K.
McGuire and that Sheldon, Senior, and Sheldon, Junior, were engaged in a
conspiracy against his peace of mind, when above the now familiar
whisperings of the forest he heard a new sound. Faintly it came at first
as though from a great distance, mingling with the murmur of the
sighing wind in the pine trees, a voice singing. It seemed a child's
voice--delicate, clear, true, as care-free as the note of a
bird--unleashing its joy to the heavens.
Peter Nichols started up, listening more intently. The sounds were
coming nearer but he couldn't tell from which direction, for every leaf
seemed to be taking up the lovely melody which he could hear quite
clearly now. It was an air with which he was unfamiliar, but he knew
only that it was elemental in its simplicity and under these
circumstances startlingly welcome. He waited another long moment,
listening, found the direction from which the voice was coming, and
presently noted the swaying of branches and the crackling of dry twigs
in the path near by, from which, in a moment, a strange figure emerged.
At first he thought it was a boy, for it wore a pair of blue denim
overalls and a wide-brimmed straw hat, from beneath which the birdlike
notes were still emitted, but as the figure paused at the sight of him,
the song suddenly ceased--he saw a tumbled mass of tawny hair and a pair
of startled blue eyes staring at him.
"Hello," said the figure, after a moment, recovering its voice.
"Good-afternoon," said Peter Nichols, bowing from the waist in the most
approved Continental manner. You see he, too, was a little startled by
the apparition, which proclaimed itself beneath its strange garments in
unmistakable terms to be both feminine and lovely.
CHAPTER III
THE OVERALL GIRL
They stood for a long moment regarding each other, both in curiosity;
Peter because of the contrariety of the girl's face and garments, the
girl because of Peter's bow, which was the most extraordinary thing that
had ever happened in Burlington County. After a pause, a smile which
seemed to have been hovering uncertainly around the corners of her lips
broke into a frank grin, disclosing dimples and a row of white teeth,
the front ones not quite together.
"Could you tell me," asked Peter very politely as he found his voice,
"if this road leads to Black Rock?"
She was still scrutinizing him, her head, birdlike, upon one side.
"That depends on which way you're walkin'," she said.
She dropped her "g" with careless ease, but then Peter had noticed that
many Americans and English people, some very nice ones, did that.
Peter glanced at the girl and then down the road in both directions.
"Oh, yes, of course," he said, not sure whether she was smiling at or
with him. "I came from a station called Pickerel River and I wish to go
to Black Rock."
"You're _sure_ you want to go there?"
"Oh, yes."
"I guess that's because you've never been to Black Rock, Mister."
"No, I haven't."
The girl picked a shrub and nibbled at it daintily.
"You'd better turn and go right back." Her sentence finished in a shrug.
"What's the matter with Black Rock?" he asked curiously.
"It's just the little end of nothin'. That's all," she finished
decisively.
The quaint expression interested him. "I must get there, nevertheless,"
he said; "is it far from here?"
"Depends on what you call far. Mile or so. Didn't the 'Lizzie' meet the
six-thirty?"
Peter stared at her vacuously, for this was Greek.
"The 'Lizzie'?"
"The tin 'Lizzie'--Jim Hagerman's bus--carries the mail and papers.
Sometimes he gives me a lift about here."
"No. There was no conveyance of any sort and I really expected one. I
wish to get to Mr. Jonathan K. McGuire's."
"Oh!"
The girl had been examining Peter furtively, as though trying vainly to
place him definitely in her mental collection of human bipeds. Now she
stared at him with interest.
"Oh, you're goin' to McGuire's!"
Peter nodded. "If I can ever find the way."
"You're one of the new detectives?"
"Detective!" Peter laughed. "No. Not that I'm aware. I'm the new
superintendent and forester."
"Oh!"
The girl was visibly impressed, but a tiny frown puckered her brow.
"What's a forester?" she asked.
"A fellow who looks after the forests."
"The forests don't need any lookin' after out here in the barrens. They
just grow."
"I'm going to teach them to grow better."
The girl looked at him for a long moment of suspicion. She had taken off
her hat and the ruddy sunlight behind her made a golden halo all about
her head. Her hands he had noted were small, the fingers slender. Her
nose was well shaped, her nostrils wide, the angle of her jaw firmly
modeled and her slender figure beneath the absurd garments revealed both
strength and grace. But he did not dare to stare at her too hard or to
question her as to her garments. For all that Peter knew it might be the
custom of Burlington County for women to wear blue denim trousers.
And her next question took him off his guard.
"You city folk don't think much of yourselves, do you?"
"I don't exactly understand what you mean," said Peter politely, marking
the satirical note.
"To think you can make these trees grow better!" she sniffed.
"Oh, I'm just going to help them to help themselves."
"That's God's job, Master."
Peter smiled. She wouldn't have understood, he thought, so what was the
use of explaining. There must have been a superior quality in Peter's
smile, for the girl put on her hat and came down into the road.
"I'm goin' to Black Rock," she said stiffly, "follow me." And she went
off with a quick stride down the road.
Peter Nichols took up his bag and started, with difficulty getting to a
place beside her.
"If you don't mind," he said, "I'd much rather walk with you than behind
you."
She shrugged a shoulder at him.
"Suit yourself," she said.
In this position, Peter made the discovery that her profile was quite as
interesting as her full face, but she no longer smiled. Her reference to
the Deity entirely eliminated Peter and the profession of forestry from
the pale of useful things. He was sorry that she no longer smiled
because he had decided to make friends at Black Rock and he didn't want
to make a bad beginning.
"I hope you don't mind," said Peter at last, "if I tell you that you
have one of the loveliest voices that I have ever heard."
He marked with pleasure the sudden flush of color that ran up under her
delicately freckled tan. Her lips parted and she turned to him
hesitating.
"You--you heard me!"
"I did. It was like the voice of an angel in Heaven."
"Angel! Oh! I'm sorry. I--I didn't know any one was there. I just sing
on my way home from work."
"You've been working to-day?"
She nodded. "Yes--Farmerettin'."
"Farmer----?"
"Workin' in the vineyard at Gaskill's."
"Oh, I see. Do you like it?"
"No," she said dryly. "I just do it for my health. Don't I look sick?"
Peter wasn't used to having people make fun of him. Even as a waiter he
had managed to preserve his dignity intact. But he smiled at her.
"I was wondering what had become of the men around here."
"They're so busy walkin' from one place to another to see where they can
get the highest wages, that there's no time to work in between."
"I see," said Peter, now really amused. "And does Mr. Jonathan McGuire
have difficulty in getting men to work for him?"
"Most of his hired help come from away--like you----But lately they
haven't been stayin' long."
"Why?"
She slowed her pace a little and turned to look at him curiously.
"Do you mean that you don't know the kind of a job you've got?"
"Not much," admitted Peter. "In addition to looking after the preserve,
I'm to watch after the men--and obey orders, I suppose."
"H-m. Preserve! Sorry, Mr. what's your name----"
"Peter Nichols----" put in Peter promptly.
"Well, Mr. Peter Nichols, all I have to say is that you're apt to have a
hard time."
"Yes, I'm against it!" translated Peter confidently.
The girl stopped in the middle of the road, put her hands on her hips
and laughed up at the purpling sky. Her laugh was much like her
singing--if angels in Paradise laugh (and why shouldn't they?). Then
while he wondered what was so amusing she looked at him again.
"_Up_ against it, you mean. You're English, aren't you?"
"Er--yes--I am."
"I thought so. There was one of you in the glass factory. He always
muffed the easy ones."
"Oh, you work in a glass factory?"
"Winters. Manufacturin' whiskey and beer bottles. Now we're goin' dry,
they'll be makin' pop and nursin' bottles, I guess."
"Do you help in the factory?"
"Yes, and in the office. I can shorthand and type a little."
"You must be glad when a summer comes."
"I am. In winter I can't turn around without breakin' something. They
dock you for that----"
"And that's why you sing when you can't break anythin'?"
"I suppose so. I like the open. It isn't right to be cooped up."
They were getting along beautifully and Peter was even beginning to
forget the weight of his heavy bag. She was a quaint creature and quite
as unconscious of him as though he hadn't existed. He was just somebody
to talk to. Peter ventured.
"Er--would you mind telling me your name?"
She looked at him and laughed friendly.
"You must have swallowed a catechism, Mr. Nichols. But everybody in
Black Rock knows everybody else--more'n they want to, I guess. There's
no reason I shouldn't tell you. I don't mind your knowin'. My name is
Beth Cameron."
"Beth----?"
"Yes, Bess--the minister had a lisp."
Peter didn't lack a sense of humor.
"Funny, isn't it?" she queried with a smile as he laughed, "bein' tied
up for life to a name like that just because the parson couldn't talk
straight."
"Beth," he repeated, "but I like it. It's like you. I hope you'll let me
come to see you when I get settled."
"H-m," she said quizzically. "You don't believe in wastin' your time, do
you?" And then, after a brief pause, "You know they call us Pineys back
here in the barrens, but just the same we think a lot of ourselves and
we're a little offish with city folks. You can't be too particular
nowadays about the kind of people you go with."
Peter stared at her and grinned, his sense of the situation more keenly
touched than she could be aware of.
"Particular, are you? I'm glad of that. All the more credit to me if
you'll be my friend."
"I didn't say I was your friend."
"But you're going to be, aren't you? I know something about singing.
I've studied music. Perhaps I could help you."
"You! You've studied? Lord of Love! You're not lyin', are you?"
He laughed. "No. I'm not lying. I was educated to be a musician."
She stared at him now with a new look in her eyes but said nothing. So
Peter spoke again.
"Do you mean to say you've never thought of studying singing?"
"Oh, yes," she said slowly at last, "I've thought of it, just as I've
thought of goin' in the movies and makin' a million dollars. Lots of
good _thinkin'_ does!"
"You've thought of the movies?"
"Yes, once. A girl went from the glass factory. She does extra ladies.
She visited back here last winter. I didn't like what it did to her."
"Oh!" Peter was silent for a while, aware of the pellucid meaning of her
"it." He was learning quite as much from what she didn't say as from
what she did. But he evaded the line of thought suggested.
"You do get tired of Black Rock then?"
"I would if I had time. I'm pretty busy all day, and--see
here--Mr.--er--Nichols. If I asked as many questions as you do, I'd know
as much as Daniel Webster."
"I'm sorry," said Peter, "I beg your pardon."
They walked on in silence for a few moments, Peter puzzling his brain
over the extraordinary creature that chance had thrown in his way. He
could see that she was quite capable of looking out for herself and that
if her smattering of sophistication had opened her eyes, it hadn't much
harmed her.
He really wanted to ask her many more questions, but to tell the truth
he was a little in awe of her dry humor which had a kind of primitive
omniscience and of her laughter which he was now sure was more _at_,
than with, him. But he had, in spite of her, peered for a moment into
the hidden places of her mind and spirit.
It was this intrusion that she resented and he could hardly blame her,
since they had met only eighteen minutes ago. She trotted along beside
him as though quite unaware of the sudden silence or of the thoughts
that might have been passing in his mind. It was Beth who broke the
silence.
"Is your bag heavy?" she asked.
"Not at all," said Peter, mopping the perspiration from his forehead.
"But aren't we nearly there?"
"Oh, yes. It's just a mile or so."
Peter dropped his bag.
"That's what you said it was, back there."
"Did I? Well, maybe it isn't so far as that now. Let me carry your bag a
while."
Thus taunted, he rose, took the bag in his left hand and followed.
"City folks aren't much on doin' for themselves, are they? The taxi
system is very poor down here yet."
Her face was expressionless, but he knew that she was laughing at him.
He knew also that his bag weighed more than any army pack. It seemed too
that she was walking much faster than she had done before--also that
there was malicious humor in the smile she now turned on him.
"Seems a pity to have such a long walk--with nothin' at the end of it."
"I don't mind it in the least," gasped Peter. "And if you don't object
to my asking you just one more question," he went on grimly, "I'd like
you to tell me what is frightening Mr. Jonathan K. McGuire?"
"Oh, McGuire. I don't know. Nobody does. He's been here a couple of
weeks now, cooped up in the big house. Never comes out. They say he
sees ghosts and things."
"Ghosts!"
She nodded. "He's hired some of the men around here to keep watch for
them and they say some detectives are coming. You'll help too, I guess."
"That should be easy."
"Maybe. I don't know. My aunt works there. She's housekeeper. It's
spooky, she says, but she can't afford to quit."
"But they haven't _seen_ anything?" asked Peter incredulously.
"No. Not yet. I guess it might relieve 'em some if they did. It's only
the things you don't see that scare you."
"It sounds like a great deal of nonsense about nothing," muttered Peter.
"All right. Wait until you get there before you do much talkin'."
"I will, but I'm not afraid of ghosts." And then, as an afterthought,
"Are you?"
"Not in daylight. But from what Aunt Tillie says, it must be something
more than a ghost that's frightenin' Jonathan K. McGuire."
"What does she think it is?"
"She doesn't know. Mr. McGuire won't say. He won't allow anybody around
the house without a pass. Oh, he's scared all right and he's got most of
Black Rock scared too. He was never like this before."
"Are you scared?" asked Peter.
"No. I don't think I am really. But it's spooky, and I don't care much
for shootin'."
"What makes you think there will be shooting?"
"On account of the guns and pistols. Whatever the thing is he's afraid
of, he's not goin' to let it come near him if he can help it. Aunt
Tillie says that what with loaded rifles, shotguns and pistols lyin'
loose in every room in the house, it's as much as your life is worth to
do a bit of dustin'. And the men--Shad Wells, Jesse Brown, they all
carry automatics. First thing they know they'll be killin' somebody,"
she finished with conviction.
"Who is Shad Wells----?"
"My cousin, Shadrack E. Wells. He was triplets. The other two died."
"Shad," mused Peter.
"Sounds like a fish, doesn't it? But he isn't." And then more slowly,
"Shad's all right. He's just a plain woodsman, but he doesn't know
anything about making the trees grow," she put in with prim irony.
"You'll be his boss, I guess. He won't care much about that."
"Why?"
"Because he's been runnin' things in a way. I hope you get along with
him."
"So do I----"
"Because if you don't, Shad will eat you at one gobble."
"Oh!" said Peter with a smile. "But perhaps you exaggerate. Don't you
think I might take two--er--gobbles?"
Beth looked him over, and then smiled encouragingly.
"Maybe," she said, "but your hands don't look over-strong."
Peter looked at his right hand curiously. It was not as brown as hers,
but the fingers were long and sinewy.
"They are, though. When you practice five hours a day on the piano, your
hands will do almost anything you want them to."
A silence which Peter improved by shifting his suitcase. The weight of
it had ceased to be amusing. And he was about to ask her how much
further Black Rock was when there was a commotion down the road ahead of
them, as a dark object emerged from around the bend and amid a whirl of
dust an automobile appeared.
"It's the 'Lizzie'," exclaimed Beth unemotionally.
And in a moment the taxi service of Black Rock was at Peter's disposal.
"Carburetor trouble," explained the soiled young man at the wheel
briefly, without apology. And with a glance at Peter's bag--
"Are you the man for McGuire's on the six-thirty?"
Peter admitted that he was and the boy swung the door of the tonneau
open.
"In here with me, Beth," he said to the girl invitingly.
In a moment, the small machine was whirled around and started in the
direction from which it had come, bouncing Peter from side to side and
enveloping him in dust. Jim Hagerman's "Lizzie" wasted no time, once it
set about doing a thing, and in a few moments from the forest they
emerged into a clearing where there were cows in a meadow, and a view of
houses. At the second of these, a frame house with a portico covered
with vines and a small yard with a geranium bed, all enclosed in a
picket fence, the "Lizzie" suddenly stopped and Beth got down.
"Much obliged, Jim," he heard her say.
Almost before Peter had swept off his hat and the girl had nodded, the
"Lizzie" was off again, through the village street, and so to a wooden
bridge across a tea-colored stream, up a slight grade on the other side,
where Jim Hagerman stopped his machine and pointed to a road.
"That's McGuire's--in the pines. They won't let me go no further."
"How much do I owe you?" asked Peter, getting down.
"It's paid for, Mister. Slam the door, will ye?" And in another moment
Peter was left alone.
It was now after sunset, and the depths of the wood were bathed in
shadow. Peter took the road indicated and in a moment reached two stone
pillars where a man was standing. Beyond the man he had a glimpse of
lawns, a well-kept driveway which curved toward the wood. The man at the
gate was of about Peter's age but tall and angular, well tanned by
exposure and gave an appearance of intelligence and capacity.
"I came to see Mr. McGuire," said Peter amiably.
"And what's your name?"
"Nichols. I'm the new forester from New York."
The young man at the gate smiled in a satirical way.
"Nichols. That was the name," he ruminated. And then with a shout to
some one in the woods below, "Hey, Andy. Come take the gate."
All the while Peter felt the gaze of the young man going over him
minutely and found himself wondering whether or not this was the person
who was going to take him at a gobble.
It was. For when the other man came running Peter heard him call the
gateman, "Shad."
"Are you Mr. Shad Wells?" asked Peter politely with the pleasant air of
one who has made an agreeable discovery.
"That's my name. Who told you?"
"Miss Beth Cameron," replied Peter. "We came part of the way together."
"H-m! Come," he said laconically and led the way up the road toward the
house. Peter didn't think he was very polite.
Had it not been for the precautions of his guide, Peter would have been
willing quite easily to forget the tales that had been told him of Black
Rock. The place was very prettily situated in the midst of a very fine
growth of pines, spruce and maple. At one side ran the tea-colored
stream, tumbling over an ancient dam to levels below, where it joined
the old race below the ruin that had once been a mill. The McGuire
house emerged in a moment from its woods and shrubbery, and stood
revealed--a plain square Georgian dwelling of brick, to which had been
added a long wing in a poor imitation of the same style and a garage and
stables in no style at all on the slope beyond. It seemed a most prosaic
place even in the gathering dusk and Peter seemed quite unable to
visualize it as the center of a mystery such as had been described. And
the laconic individual who had been born triplets was even less
calculated to carry out such an illusion.
But just as they were crossing the lawn on the approach to the house,
the earth beneath a clump of bushes vomited forth two men, like the
fruit of the Dragon's Teeth, armed with rifles, who barred their way.
Both men were grinning from ear to ear.
"All right, Jesse," said Shad with a laugh. "It's me and the new
forester." He uttered the words with an undeniable accent of contempt.
The armed figures glanced at Peter and disappeared, and Peter and Mr.
Shad Wells went up the steps of the house to a spacious portico. There
was not a human being in sight and the heavy wooden blinds to the lower
floor were tightly shut. Before his guide had even reached the door the
sound of their footsteps had aroused some one within the house, the door
was opened the length of its chain and a face appeared at the aperture.
"Who is it?" asked a male voice.
"Shad Wells and Mr. Nichols, the man from New York."
"Wait a minute," was the reply while the door was immediately shut
again.
Peter glanced around him comparing this strange situation with another
that he remembered, when a real terror had come, a tangible terror in
the shape of a countryside gone mad with blood lust. He smiled toward
the bush where the armed men lay concealed and toward the gate where
the other armed man was standing. It was all so like a situation out of
an _opéra bouffe_ of Offenbach.
What he felt now in this strange situation was an intense curiosity to
learn the meaning of it all, to meet the mysterious person around whom
all these preparations centered. Peter had known fear many times, for
fear was in the air for weeks along the Russian front, the fear of
German shells, of poison gas, and of that worst poison of all--Russian
treachery. But that fear was not like this fear, which was intimate,
personal but intangible. He marked it in the scrutiny of the man who
opened the door and of the aged woman who suddenly appeared beside him
in the dim hallway and led him noiselessly up the stair to a lighted
room upon the second floor. At the doorway the woman paused.
"Mr. Nichols, Mr. McGuire," she said, and Peter entered.
CHAPTER IV
THE JOB
The room was full of tobacco smoke, through which Peter dimly made out a
table with an oil lamp, beside which were chairs, a sofa, and beyond, a
steel safe between the windows. As Peter Nichols entered, a man advanced
from a window at the side, the shutter of which was slightly ajar. It
was evident that not content to leave his safety in the hands of those
he had employed to preserve it, he had been watching too.
He was in his shirt sleeves, a man of medium height, compactly built,
and well past the half century mark. The distinguishing features of his
face were a short nose, a heavy thatch of brows, a square jaw which
showed the need of the offices of a razor and his lips wore a short,
square mustache somewhat stained by nicotine.
In point of eagerness the manner of his greeting of the newcomer left
nothing to be desired. Peter's first impression was that Jonathan K.
McGuire was quite able to look out for himself, which confirmed the
impression that the inspection to which Peter had been subjected was
nothing but a joke. But when his employer began speaking rather jerkily,
Peter noticed that his hands were unsteady and that neither the muscles
of his face nor of his body were under complete control. Normally, he
would have seemed much as Sheldon, Senior, had described him--a
hard-fisted man, a close bargainer who had won his way to his great
wealth by the sheer force of a strong personality. There was little of
softness in his face, little that was imaginative. This was not a man
to be frightened at the Unseen or to see terrors that did not exist.
Otherwise, to Peter he seemed commonplace to the last degree, of Irish
extraction probably, the kind of person one meets daily on Broadway or
on the Strand. In a fur coat he might have been taken for a banker; in
tweeds, for a small tradesman; or in his shirt as Peter now saw him, the
wristbands and collar somewhat soiled from perspiration, for a laboring
man taking his rest after an arduous day. In other words, he was very
much what his clothes would make of him, betraying his origins in a
rather strident voice meant perhaps to conceal the true state of his
mind.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Nichols. Thought you were never comin'," he jerked
out.
"I walked most of the way from Pickerel River. Something went wrong,
with the 'Lizzie.'"
"Oh--er--'Lizzie'. The flivver! I couldn't send my own car. I've got
only one down here and I might need it."
"It doesn't matter in the least--since I'm here."
"Sit down, Mr. Nichols," went on McGuire indicating a chair. "You've
been well recommended by Mr. Sheldon. I talked to him yesterday over
long distance. He told you what I wanted?"
"Something. Not much," said Peter with a view to getting all the
information possible. "You wanted a forester----?"
"Er--er--yes, that's it. A forester." And then he went on
haltingly--"I've got about twenty thousand acres here--mostly scrub
oak--pine and spruce. I've sold off a lot to the Government. A mess of
it has been cut--there's been a lot of waste--and the fire season is
coming around. That's the big job--the all-the-year job. You've had
experience?"
"Yes--in Russia. I'm a trained woodsman."
"You're a good all-round man?"
"Exactly what----?" began Peter.
"You know how to look after yourself--to look after other men, to take
charge of a considerable number of people in my employ?"
"Yes. I'm used to dealing with men."
"It's a big job, Mr. Nichols--a ticklish kind of a job for a
furriner--one with some--er--unusual features--that may call for--er--a
lot of tact. And--er--courage."
It seemed to Peter that Jonathan K. McGuire was talking almost at
random, that the general topic of forestry was less near his heart
to-night than the one that was uppermost in Peter's mind, the mystery
that surrounded his employer and the agencies invoked to protect him. It
seemed as if he were loath to speak of them, as if he were holding Peter
off at arm's length, so to say, until he had fully made up his mind that
this and no other man was the one he wanted, for all the while he was
examining the visitor with burning, beady, gray eyes, as though trying
to peer into his mind.
"I'm not afraid of a forester's job, no matter how big it is, if I have
men enough," said Peter, still curious.
"And you're a pretty good man in a pinch, I mean----" he put in jerkily,
"you're not easy scared--don't lose your nerve."
"I'll take my chances on that," replied Peter calmly. "I'm used to
commanding men, in emergencies--if that's what you mean."
"Yes. That's what I mean. Er--you're an Englishman, Mr. Sheldon says."
"Er--yes," said Peter, "an Englishman," for this was the truth now more
than ever before, and then repeated the story he had told in New York
about his work in Russia. While Peter was talking, McGuire was pacing up
and down the room with short nervous strides, nodding his head in
understanding from time to time. When Peter paused he returned to his
chair.
"You British are a pretty steady lot," said McGuire at last. "I think
you'll do. I like the way you talk and I like your looks. Younger than
I'd hoped maybe, but then you're strong--Mr. Sheldon says you're strong,
Mr. Nichols."
"Oh, yes," said Peter, his curiosity now getting the better of him. "But
it might be as well, Mr. McGuire, if you let me know just what, that is
unusual, is to be required of me. I assume that you want me to take
command of the men policing your grounds--and immediate property?"
"Er--yes. That will have to be put in shape at once--at once." He leaned
suddenly forward in his chair, his hairy hands clutching at his knees,
while he blurted out with a kind of relieved tension, "No one must come
near the house at night. No one, you understand----"
"I understand, sir----" said Peter, waiting patiently for a revelation.
"There'll be no excuse if any one gets near the house without my
permission," he snarled. And then almost sullenly again--"You
understand?"
"Perfectly. That should not be difficult to----"
"It may be more difficult than you think," broke in McGuire, springing
to his feet again, and jerking out his phrases with strange fury.
"Nothing is to be taken for granted. Nothing," he raged. Peter was
silent for a moment, watching McGuire who had paced the length of the
room and back.
"I understand, sir," he said at last. "But doesn't it seem to you that
both I and the man under me could do our work with more intelligence if
we knew just who or what is to be guarded against?" Mr. McGuire stopped
beside him as though transfixed by the thought. Then his fingers
clutched at the back of a chair to which he clung for a moment in
silence, his brows beetling. And when he spoke all the breath of his
body seemed concentrated in a hoarse whisper.
"You won't know that. You understand, I give the orders. You obey them.
I am not a man who answers questions. Don't ask them."
"Oh, I beg your pardon. So long as this thing you fear is human----"
"Human! A ghost! Who said I was afraid? Sheldon? Let him think it. This
is _my_ business. There are many things of value in this house," and he
glanced towards the safe. "I'm using the right of any man to protect
what belongs to him."
"I see," said Peter.
The man's tension relaxed as he realized Peter's coolness.
"Call it a fancy if you like, Mr. Nichols----" he said with a shrug. "A
man of my age may have fancies when he can afford to gratify 'em."
"That's your affair," said Peter easily. "I take it then that the
systematic policing of the grounds is the first thing I am to consider."
"Exactly. The systematic policing of the grounds--the dividing of your
men into shifts for day and night work--more at night than in the day.
Three more men come to-morrow. They will all look to you for orders."
"And who is in charge now?"
"A man named Wells--a native--the foreman from one of the sawmills--but
he--er--well, Mr. Nichols--I'm not satisfied. That's why I wanted a man
from outside."
"I understand. And will you give the necessary orders to him?"
"Wells was up here to-day, I told him."
"How many men are on guard here at the house?"
"Ten and with the three coming--that makes thirteen----" McGuire
halted--"thirteen--but you make the fourteenth," he added.
Peter nodded. "And you wish me to take charge at once?"
"At once. To-night. To-morrow you can look over the ground more
carefully. You'll sleep in the old playhouse--the log cabin--down by the
creek. They'll show you. It's connected with this house by 'phone. I'll
talk to you again to-morrow; you'd better go down and get something to
eat."
McGuire went to the door and called out "Tillie!"
And as a faint reply was heard, "Get Mr. Nichols some supper."
Peter rose and offered his hand.
"I'll try to justify your faith in me, sir. Much obliged."
"Good-night."
Peter went down the stairs with mingled feelings. If the words of Beth
Cameron had created in his mind a notion that the mystery surrounding
Black Rock was supernatural in character, the interview with Jonathan K.
McGuire had dispelled it. That McGuire was a very much frightened man
was certain, but it seemed equally certain to Peter that what he feared
was no ghost or banshee but the imminence of some human attack upon his
person or possessions. Here was a practical man, who bore in every
feature of his strongly-marked face the tokens of a successful struggle
in a hard career, the beginnings of which could not have been any too
fortunate. A westerner whose broad hands and twisted fingers spoke
eloquently of manual labor, a man who still possessed to all appearances
considerable physical strength--a prey to the fear of some night danger
which was too ominous even to be talked about.
It was the quality of his terror that was disturbing. Peter was well
acquainted with the physical aspects of fear--that is the fear of
violence and death. That kind of fear made men restless and nervous, or
silent and preoccupied; or like liquor it accentuated their weaknesses
of fiber in sullenness or bravado. But it did not make them furtive. He
could not believe that it was the mere danger of death or physical
violence that obsessed his employer. That sort of danger perhaps there
might be, but the fear that he had seen in McGuire's fanatical gray eyes
was born of something more than these. Whatever it was that McGuire
feared, it reached further within--a threat which would destroy not his
body alone, but something more vital even than that--the very spirit
that lived within him.
Of his career, Peter knew nothing more than Sheldon, Senior, had told
him--a successful man who told nothing of his business except to the
Treasury Department, a silent man, with a passion for making money. What
could he fear? Whom? What specter out of the past could conjure up the
visions he had seen dancing between McGuire's eyes and his own?
These questions it seemed were not to be answered and Peter, as he sat
down at the supper table, put them resolutely from his mind and
addressed himself to the excellent meal provided by the housekeeper. For
the present, at least, fortune smiled upon him. The terrors of his
employer could not long prevail against the healthy appetite of
six-and-twenty.
But it was not long before Peter discovered that the atmosphere of the
room upstairs pervaded the dining room, library and halls. There were a
cook and housemaid he discovered, neither of them visible. The
housekeeper, if attentive, was silent, and the man who had opened the
front door, who seemed to be a kind of general factotum, as well as
personal bodyguard to Mr. McGuire, crept furtively about the house in an
unquiet manner which would have been disturbing to the digestion of one
less timorous than Peter.
Before the meal was finished this man came into the room and laid a
police whistle, a large new revolver and a box of cartridges beside
Peter's dish of strawberries.
"These are for you, sir," he whispered sepulchrally. "Mr. McGuire asked
me to give them to you--for to-night."
"Thanks," said Peter, "and you----"
"I'm Stryker, sir, Mr. McGuire's valet."
"Oh!"
Peter's accent of surprise came from his inability to reconcile Stryker
with the soiled shirt and the three days' growth of beard on the man
upstairs, which more than ever testified to the disorder of his mental
condition.
And as Stryker went out and his footsteps were heard no more, the
housekeeper emerged cautiously from the pantry.
"Is everything all right, Mr. Nichols?" she asked in a stage whisper.
"Right as rain. Delicious! I'm very much obliged to you."
"I mean--er--there ain't anythin' else ye'd like?"
"Nothing, thanks," said Peter, taking up the revolver and breaking it.
He had cut the cover of the cartridge box and had slipped a cartridge
into the weapon when he heard the voice of the woman at his ear.
"D'ye think there's any danger, sir?" she whispered, while she nervously
eyed the weapon.
"I'm sure I don't know. Not to you, I'd say," he muttered, still putting
the cartridges in the pistol. As an ex-military man, he was taking
great delight in the perfect mechanism of his new weapon.
"What is it----? I mean, d'ye think----," she stammered, "did Mr.
McGuire say--just what it is he's afraid of?"
"No," said Peter, "he didn't." And then with a grin, "Do you know?"
"No, sir. I wish t'God I did. Then there'd be somethin' to go by."
"I'm afraid I can't help you, Mrs. ----"
"Tillie Bergen. I've been housekeeper here since the new wing was put
on----"
"Oh, yes," said Peter, pausing over the last cartridge as the thought
came to him. "Then you must be Beth Cameron's aunt?"
"Beth?" The woman's sober face wreathed in a lovely smile. "D'ye know
Beth?"
"Since this afternoon. She showed me the way."
"Oh. Poor Beth."
"Poor!"
"Oh, we're all poor, Mr. Nichols. But Beth she's--different from the
rest of us somehow."
"Yes, she _is_ different," admitted Peter frankly.
Mrs. Bergen sighed deeply. "Ye don't know how different. And now
that--all this trouble has come, I can't get home nights to her. And she
can't come to see me without permission. How long d'ye think it will
last, sir?"
"I don't know," said Peter, slipping the revolver and cartridges into
his pockets. And then gallantly, "If I can offer you my services, I'd be
glad to take you home at night----"
"It's against orders. And I wouldn't dare, Mr. Nichols. As it is I've
got about as much as I can stand. If it wasn't for the money I wouldn't
be stayin' in the house another hour."
"Perhaps things won't be so bad after a time. If anything is going to
happen, it ought to be pretty soon."
She regarded him wistfully as he moved toward the door. "An' ye'll tell
me, sir, if anything out o' the way happens."
"I hope nothing is going to happen, Mrs. Bergen," said Peter cheerfully.
Stryker appeared mysteriously from the darkness as Peter went out into
the hall.
"The upstairs girl made up your bed down at the cabin, sir. The
chauffeur took your bag over. You'll need these matches. If you'll wait,
sir, I'll call Mr. Wells."
Peter wondered at the man in this most unconventional household, for
Stryker, with all the prescience of a well-trained servant, had already
decided that Peter belonged to a class accustomed to being waited on.
Going to the door he blew one short blast on a police whistle, like
Peter's, which he brought forth from his pocket.
"That will bring him, sir," he said. "If you'll go out on the portico,
he'll join you in a moment."
Peter obeyed. The door was closed and fastened behind him and almost
before he had taken his lungs full of the clean night air (for the house
had been hot and stuffy), a shadow came slouching across the lawn in the
moonlight. Peter joined the man at once and they walked around the
house, while Peter questioned him as to the number of men and their
disposition about the place. There were six, he found, including Wells,
with six more to sleep in the stable, which was also used as a
guardhouse. Peter made the rounds of the sentries. None of them seemed
to be taking the matter any too seriously and one at least was sound
asleep beneath some bushes. Peter foresaw difficulties. Under the
leadership of Shad Wells the strategic points were not covered, and, had
he wished, he could have found his way, by using the cover of shadow and
shrubbery, to the portico without being observed. He pointed this out to
Wells who, from a supercilious attitude, changed to one of defiance.
"You seem to think you know a lot, Mister?" he said. "I'd like to see ye
try it."
Peter laughed.
"Very well. Take your posts and keep strict watch, but don't move. If I
don't walk across the lawn from the house in half an hour I'll give you
ten dollars. In return you can take a shot if you see me."
He thought the men needed the object lesson. Peter was an excellent
"point." He disappeared into the woods behind him and making his way
cautiously out, found a road, doubling to the other side of the garage
along which he went on his hands and knees and crawling from shrub to
shrub in the shadows reached the portico without detection. Here he
lighted a fag and quietly strolled down to the spot where he had left
Shad Wells, to whom he offered a cigarette by way of consolation. Wells
took it grudgingly. But he took it, which was one point gained.
"Right smart, aren't ye?" said Shad.
"No," said Peter coolly. "Anybody could have done it,--in three ways.
The other two ways are through the pine grove to the left and from the
big sycamore by the stream."
"And how do you know all that?"
"I was in the Army," said Peter. "It's a business like anything else."
And he pointed out briefly where the five men should be stationed and
why, and Shad, somewhat mollified by the cigarette, shrugged and
agreed.
"We'll do sentry duty in the regular way," went on Peter cheerfully,
"with a corporal of the guard and a countersign. I'll explain in detail
to-morrow." And then to Shad, "I'll take command until midnight, when
you'll go on with the other shift until four. I'll make it clear to the
other men. The countersign is the word 'Purple.' You'd better go and
turn in. I'll call you at twelve."
Peter watched the figure of the woodsman go ambling across the lawn in
the direction of the garage and smiled. He also marked the vertical line
of light which showed at a window on the second floor where another kept
watch. The man called Jesse, the one who had been asleep beneath the
bushes, and who, fully awake, had watched Peter's exhibition of
scouting, now turned to Peter with a laugh.
"I guess you're right, Mister. S'long's we're paid. But I'd like to know
just what this 'ere thing is the ol' man's skeered of."
"You know as much as I do. It will probably have two legs, two hands and
a face and carry a gun. You'd better be sure you're not asleep when it
comes. But if you care to know what I think, you can be pretty sure that
it's coming--and before very long."
"To-night?"
"How do I know? Have a cigarette? You cover from the road to the big
cedar tree; and keep your eyes open--especially in the shadows--and
don't let anybody get you in the back."
And so making the rounds, instilling in their minds a sense of real
emergency, Peter gave the men their new sentry posts and made friends.
He had decided to stay up all night, but at twelve he called Shad Wells
and went down to look over his cabin which was a quarter of a mile away
from the house near Cedar Creek (or "Crick" in the vernacular). The key
was in the cabin door so he unlocked it and went in, and after striking
a match found a kerosene lamp which he lighted and then looked about
him.
The building had only one room but it was of large dimensions and
contained a wooden bed with four posts, evidently some one's heirloom, a
bureau, washstand, two tables and an easy chair or two. Behind the bed
was a miscellaneous lot of rubbish, including a crib, a rocking horse, a
velocipede, beside some smaller toys. Whom had these things belonged to?
A grandson of McGuire's? And was the daughter of McGuire like her
father, unlovely, soiled and terror-stricken? His desultory mental
queries suddenly stopped as he raised his eyes to the far corner of the
room, for there, covered with an old shawl, he made out the lines of a
piano. He opened the keyboard and struck a chord. It wasn't so bad--a
little tuning--he could do it himself....
So this was his new home! He had not yet had the time or the opportunity
to learn what new difficulties were to face him on the morrow, but the
personal affairs of his employer had piqued his interest and for the
present he had done everything possible to insure his safety for the
night. To-morrow perhaps he would learn something more about the causes
of this situation. He would have an opportunity too to look over the
property and make a report as to its possibilities. To a man inured as
Peter was to disappointments, what he had found was good. He had made up
his mind to fit himself soldierlike into his new situation and he had to
admit now that he liked the prospect. As though to compensate for past
mischief, Fate had provided him with the one employment in the new land
for which he was best suited by training and inclination. It was the one
"job" in which, if he were permitted a fair amount of freedom of action
and initiative, he was sure that he could "make good." The trees he
could see were not the stately pines of Zukovo, but they were pines, and
the breeze which floated in to him through the cabin door was laden with
familiar odors.
The bed looked inviting, but he resolutely turned his back to it and
unpacked his suitcase, taking off his tailor-made clothing and putting
on the flannel shirt, corduroy trousers and heavy laced boots, all of
which he had bought before leaving New York. Then he went to the doorway
and stood looking out into the night.
The moonbeams had laid a patine of silver upon the floor of the small
clearing before the door, and played softly among the shadows. So silent
was the night that minute distant sounds were clearly audible--the
stream seemed to be tinkling just at his elbow, while much farther away
there was a low murmur of falling water at the tumbling dam, mingling
with the sighs of vagrant airs among the crowns of the trees, the rustle
and creak of dry branches, the whispering of leaf to leaf. Wakeful birds
deceived by the moon piped softly and were silent. An owl called. And
then for the briefest moment, except for the stream, utter silence.
Peter strode forth, bathed himself in the moonlight and drank deep of
the airs of the forest. America! He had chosen! Her youth called to his.
He wanted to forget everything that had gone before, the horrors through
which he had passed, both physical and spiritual,--the dying struggles
of the senile nation, born in intolerance, grown in ignorance and
stupidity which, with a mad gesture, had cast him forth with a curse. He
had doffed the empty prerogatives of blood and station and left them in
the mire and blood. The soul of Russia was dead and he had thought that
his own had died with hers, but from the dead thing a new soul might
germinate as it had now germinated in him. He had been born again.
_Novaya Jezn!_ The New Life! He had found it.
He listened intently as though for its heartbeats, his face turned up
toward the silent pines. For a long while he stood so and then went
indoors and sat at the old piano playing softly.
CHAPTER V
NEW ELEMENTS
Some of the men on guard in the middle watch reported that they had
heard what seemed to be the sounds of music very far away in the woods
and were disturbed at the trick their ears had played upon them. But
Peter didn't tell them the truth. If listening for the notes of a piano
would keep them awake, listen they should. He slept until noon and then
went to the house for orders.
Morning seemed to make a difference in the point of view. If the moon
had made the night lovely, the sun brought with it the promise of every
good thing. The walk through the woods to Black Rock House was a joy,
very slightly alleviated by the poor condition of the trees under which
Peter passed. It was primeval forest even here, with valuable trees
stunted and poor ones vastly overgrown according to nature's law which
provides for the survival of the fittest. This was the law too, which
was to be applied to Peter. Would he grow straight and true in this
foreign soil or gnarled and misshapen like the cedars and the maples
that he saw? Yes. He would grow and straight ... straight.
Optimism seemed to be the order of the new day. At the house he found
that his employer had put on a clean shirt and was freshly shaven. The
windows of the room were opened wide to the sunlight which streamed into
the room, revealing its darkest corners. McGuire himself seemed to have
responded to the effulgence of the sun and the balmy air which swept
across his table. His manner was now calm, his voice more measured.
When Peter came into the room, Mr. McGuire closed the heavy doors of the
steel safe carefully and turned to greet him.
"Oh, glad to see you, Nichols," he said more cheerfully. "A quiet night,
I understand."
"Yes," laughed Nichols, "except for the man who got through the guards
and smoked a cigarette on your portico."
"What!" gasped McGuire.
"Don't be alarmed, sir. It was only myself. I wanted to show Shad Wells
the defects of his police system."
"Oh! Ah! Ha, ha, yes, of course. Very good. And you weren't shot at?"
"Oh, no, sir--though I'd given them leave to pot me if they could. But I
think you're adequately protected now."
"Good," said McGuire. "Have a cigar. I'm glad you've come. I wanted to
talk to you."
And when they had lighted their cigars, "It's about this very guard.
I--I'm afraid you'll have to keep your men under cover at least in the
daytime."
"Under cover?"
"Well, you see," went on McGuire in some hesitation, "my daughter (he
called it darter) Peggy is motoring down from New York to-day. I don't
want her, but she's coming. I couldn't stop her. She doesn't know
anything about this--er--this guarding the house. And I don't want her
to know. She mustn't know. She'd ask questions. I don't want questions
asked. I'll get her away as soon as I can, but she mustn't be put into
any danger."
"I see," said Peter examining the ash of his cigar. "You don't want her
to know anything about the impending attempts upon your life and
property."
"Yes, that's it," said McGuire impatiently. "I don't want her to find
out. Er--she couldn't understand. You know women, Nichols. They talk too
much." He paused "It's--er--necessary that none of her friends in New
York or mine should know of--er--any danger that threatens me. And of
course--er--any danger that threatens me would--in a way--threaten her.
You see?"
"I think so."
"I've put all weapons under cover. I don't want her to see 'em. So when
she comes--which may be at any moment--nothing must be said about the
men outside and what they're there for. In the daytime they must be
given something to do about the place--trimming the lawns, pruning trees
or weeding the driveway. Pay 'em what they ask, but don't let any of 'em
go away. You'll explain this to the new men. As for yourself--er--of
course you're my new superintendent and forester."
McGuire got up and paced the floor slowly looking at Peter out of the
tail of his eye.
"I like you, Nichols. We'll get along. You've got courage and
intelligence--and of course anybody can see you're a gentleman. You'll
keep on taking your meals in the house----"
"If you'd like me to go elsewhere----"
"No. I see no reason why Peggy shouldn't like you. I hope she will. But
she's very headstrong, has been since a kid. I suppose I humor her a
bit--who wouldn't? I lost my oldest girl and her boy with the 'flu.' Her
husband's still in France. And Peggy's got a will of her own, Peg has,"
he finished in a kind of admiring abstraction. "Got a society bee in her
bonnet. Wants to go with all the swells. I'm backin' her, Nichols.
She'll do it too before she's through," he finished proudly.
"I haven't a doubt of it," said Peter soberly, though very much amused
at his employer's ingenuousness. Here then, was the weak spot in the
armor of this relentless millionaire--his daughter. The older one and
her child were dead. That accounted for the toys in the cabin. Peggy
sounded interesting'--if nothing else, for her vitality.
"I'd better see about this at once, then. If she should come----"
Peter rose and was about to leave the room when there was a sound of an
automobile horn and the sudden roar of an exhaust outside. He followed
McGuire to the window and saw a low red runabout containing a girl and a
male companion emerging from the trees. A man in the road was holding up
his hands in signal for the machine to stop and had barely time to leap
aside to avoid being run down. The car roared up to the portico, the
breathless man, who was Shad Wells, pursuing. Peter was glad that he had
had the good sense not to shoot. He turned to his employer, prepared for
either anger or dismay and found that McGuire was merely grinning and
chuckling softly as though to himself.
"Just like her!" he muttered, "some kid, that!"
Meanwhile Shad Wells, making a bad race of it was only halfway up the
drive, when at a signal and shout from McGuire, he stopped running,
stared, spat and returned to his post.
There was a commotion downstairs, the shooting of bolts, the sounds of
voices and presently the quick patter of feminine footsteps which
McGuire, now completely oblivious of Peter, went to meet.
"Well, daughter!"
"Hello, Pop!"
Peter caught a glimpse of a face and straggling brown hair, quickly
engulfed in McGuire's arms.
"What on earth----" began McGuire.
"Thought we'd give you a little touch of high life, Pop. It was so hot
in town. And the hotel's full of a convention of rough necks. I brought
Freddy with me and Mildred and Jack are in the other car. We thought the
rest might do us good."
The voice was nasal and pitched high, as though she were trying to make
herself audible in a crowd. Peter was ready to revise his estimate that
her face was pretty, for to him no woman was more beautiful than her own
voice.
"But you can't stay here, Peg," went on McGuire, "not more than over
night--with all these people. I'm very busy----"
"H-m. We'll see about that. I never saw the woods look prettier. We came
by Lakewood and Brown's Mills and--Why who----?"
As she sidled into the room she suddenly espied Peter who was still
standing by the window.
"Who----? Why--Oh, yes, this is my new superintendent and forester. Meet
my daughter,--Mr. Nichols."
Peter bowed and expressed pleasure. Miss McGuire swept him with a quick
glance that took in his flannel shirt, corduroy breeches and rough
boots, nodded pertly and turned away.
Peter smiled. Like Beth Cameron this girl was very particular in
choosing her acquaintances.
"I nearly killed a guy in the driveway," she went on, "who was he, Pop?"
"Er--one of the gardeners, I've told them to keep people off the place."
"Well. I'd like to see him keep _me_ off! I suppose he'll be trying to
hold up Mildred and Jack----"
She walked to the window passing close beside Peter, paying as little
attention to his presence as if he had been, an article of furniture.
"Can't you get this man to go down," she said indicating Peter, "and
tell them it's all right?"
"Of course," said Peter politely. "I'll go at once. And I'd like to
arrange to look over part of the estate with Wells, Mr. McGuire," he
added.
"All right, Nichols," said the old man with a frown. And then
significantly--"But remember what I've told you. Make careful
arrangements before you go."
"Yes, sir."
Peter went down the stairs, amused at his dismissal. On the veranda he
found a young man sitting on some suitcases smoking a cigarette. This
was Freddy, of course. He afterwards learned that his last name was
Mordaunt, that he was a part of Peggy's ambitions, and that he had been
invalided home from a camp and discharged from the military service. As
Freddy turned, Peter bowed politely and passed on. Having catalogued him
by his clothing, Freddy like Peggy had turned away, smoking his
cigarette.
Peter thought that some Americans were born with bad manners, some
achieved bad manners, and others had bad manners thrust upon them.
Impoliteness was nothing new to him, since he had been in America. It
was indigenous. Personally, he didn't mind what sort of people he met,
but he seemed to be aware that a new element had come to Black Rock
which was to make disquietude for Jonathan K. McGuire and difficulty for
himself. And yet too there was a modicum of safety, perhaps, in the
presence of these new arrivals, for it had been clear from his
employer's demeanor that the terrors of the night had passed with the
coming of the day.
He commented on this to Shad Wells, who informed him that night was
always the old man's bad time.
"Seems sort o' like he's skeered o' the dark. 'Tain't nateral. 'Fraid o'
ghosts, they say," he laughed.
"Well," said Peter, "we've got our orders. And the thing he fears isn't
a ghost. It's human."
"Sure?"
"Yes. And since he's more afraid after dark he has probably had his
warning. But we're not to take any chances."
Having given his new orders to Jesse, who was to be in charge during
their absence, they struck into the woods upon the other side of the
Creek for the appraisal of a part of the strip known as the "Upper
Reserve." From an attitude of suspicion and sneering contempt Peter's
companion had changed to one of indifference. The unfailing good humor
of the new superintendent had done something to prepare the ground for
an endurable relation between them. Like Beth Cameron Shad had sneered
at the word "forester." He was the average lumberman, only interested in
the cutting down of trees for the market--the commercial aspect of the
business--heedless of the future, indifferent to the dangers of
deforestation. Peter tried to explain to him that forestry actually
means using the forest as the farmer uses his land, cutting out the
mature and overripe trees and giving the seedlings beneath more light
that they may furnish the succeeding crop of timber. He knew that the
man was intelligent enough, and explained as well as he could from such
statistics as he could recall how soon the natural resources of the
country would be exhausted under the existing indifference.
"Quite a bit of wood here, Mister--enough for my job," said Shad.
But after a while Peter began to make him understand and showed him what
trees should be marked for cutting and why. They came to a burned patch
of at least a hundred acres.
"Is there any organized system for fighting these fires?" Peter asked.
"System! Well, when there's a fire we go and try to put it out----"
laughed Wells.
"How do the fires start?"
"Campers--hunters mos'ly--in the deer season. Railroads sometimes--at
the upper end."
"And you keep no watch for smoke?"
"Where would we watch from?"
"Towers. They ought to be built--with telephone connection to
headquarters."
"D'ye think the old man will stand for that?"
"He ought to. It's insurance."
"Oh!"
"It looks to me, Wells," said Peter after a pause, "that a good 'crown'
fire and a high gale, would turn all this country to cinders--like
this."
"It's never happened yet."
"It may happen. Then good-by to your jobs--and to Black Rock too
perhaps."
"I guess Black Rock can stand it, if the old man can."
They walked around the charred clearing and mounted a high sand dune,
from which they could see over a wide stretch of country. With a high
wooden platform here the whole of the Upper Reserve could be watched.
They sat for a while among the sandwort and smoked, while Peter
described the work in the German forests that he had observed before the
war. Shad had now reached the point of listening and asking questions as
the thought was more and more borne into his mind that this new
superintendent was not merely talking for talk's sake, but because he
knew more about the woods than any man the native had ever talked with,
and wanted Shad to know too. For Peter had an answer to all of his
questions, and Shad, though envious of Peter's grammar--for he had
reached an age to appreciate it--was secretly scornful of Peter's white
hands and carefully tied black cravat.
This dune was at the end of the first day's "cruise" and Shad had risen
preparatory to returning toward Black Rock when they both heard a
sound,--away off to their right, borne down to them clearly on the
breeze--the voice of a girl singing.
"Beth," said Shad with a kindling eye. And then carelessly spat, to
conceal his emotions.
"What on earth can she be doing in here?" asked Peter.
"Only half a mile from the road. It's the short cut from Gaskill's."
"I see," from Peter.
"Do you reckon you can find your way back alone, Nichols?" said Shad,
spitting again.
Peter grinned. "I reckon I can try," he said.
Shad pointed with his long arm in the general direction of Heaven. "That
way!" he muttered and went into the scrub oak with indecent haste.
Peter sat looking with undisguised interest at the spot where he had
disappeared, tracing him for a while through the moving foliage,
listening to the crackling of the underbrush, as the sounds receded.
It was time to be turning homeward, but the hour was still inviting, the
breeze balmy, the sun not too warm, so Peter lay back among the grasses
in the sand smoking a fresh cigarette. Far overhead buzzards were
wheeling. They recalled those other birds of prey that he had often
watched, ready to swoop down along the lines of the almost defenseless
Russians. Here all was so quiet. The world was a very beautiful place if
men would only leave it so. The voice of the girl was silent now. Shad
had probably joined her. Somehow, Peter hadn't been able to think of any
relationship, other than the cousinly one, between Shad Wells and Beth.
He had only known the girl for half an hour but as Aunt Tillie Bergen
had said, her niece seemed different from the other natives that Peter
had met. Her teeth were sound and white, suggesting habits of personal
cleanliness; her conversation, though careless, showed at the very
least, a grammar school training. And Shad--well, Shad was nothing but a
"Piney."
Pity--with a voice like that--she ought to have had opportunities--this
scornful little Beth. Peter closed his eyes and dozed. He expected to
have no difficulty in finding his way home, for he had a pocket compass
and the road could not be far distant. He liked this place. He would
build a tower here, a hundred-foot tower, of timbers, and here a man
should be stationed all day--to watch for wisps of smoke during the
hunting season. Smoke ... Tower ... In a moment he snored gently.
"Halloo!" came a voice in his dream. "Halloo! Halloo!"
Peter started rubbing his eyes, aware of the smoking cigarette in the
grasses beside him.
Stupid, that! To do the very thing he had been warning Shad Wells
against. He smeared the smoking stub out in the sand and sat up yawning
and stretching his arms.
"Halloo!" said the voice in his dream, almost at his ear. "Tryin' to set
the woods afire?"
The question had the curious dropping intonation at its end. But the
purport annoyed him.
Nothing that she could have said could have provoked him more! Behind
her he saw the dark face of Shad Wells break into a grin.
"I fell asleep," said Peter, getting to his feet.
Beth laughed. "Lucky you weren't burnt to death. _Then_ how would the
trees get along?"
Peter's toe burrowed after the defunct cigarette.
"I know what I'm about," he muttered, aware of further loss of dignity.
"Oh, do you? Then which way were you thinkin' of goin' home?"
Peter glanced around, pointed vaguely, and Beth Cameron laughed.
"I guess you'd land in Egg Harbor, or thereabouts."
Her laugh was infectious and Peter at last echoed it.
"You's better be goin' along with us. Shad asked me to come and get you,
didn't you, Shad?"
Peter glanced at the woodsman's black scowl and grinned, recalling his
desertion and precipitate disappearance into the bushes.
"I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you both," said Peter diplomatically.
"But I think I can find my way in."
"Not if you start for Hammonton or Absecon, you can't. I've known people
to spend the night in the woods a quarter of a mile from home."
"I shouldn't mind that."
"But Shad would. He'd feel a great responsibility if you didn't turn up
for the ghost-hunt. Wouldn't you, Shad?"
Shad wagged his head indeterminately, and spat. "Come on," he said
sullenly, and turned, leading the way out to the northward, followed by
Beth with an inviting smile. She still wore her denim overalls which
were much too long for her and her dusty brown boots seemed like a
child's. Between moments of avoiding roots and branches, Peter watched
her strong young figure as it followed their leader. Yesterday, he had
thought her small; to-day she seemed to have increased in stature--so
uncertain is the masculine judgment upon any aspect of a woman. But his
notions in regard to her grace and loveliness were only confirmed. There
was no concealing them under her absurd garments. Her flanks were long
and lithe, like a boy's, but there was something feminine in the way she
moved, a combination of ease and strength made manifest, which could
only come of well-made limbs carefully jointed. Every little while she
flashed a glance over her shoulder at him, exchanging a word, even
politely holding back a branch until he caught it, or else when he was
least expecting it, letting it fly into his face. From time to time Shad
Wells would turn to look at them and Peter could see that he wasn't as
happy as he might have been. But Beth was very much enjoying herself.
They had emerged at last into the road and walked toward Black Rock,
Beth in the center and Peter and Shad on either side.
"I've been thinkin' about what you said yesterday," said Beth to Peter.
"About----?"
"Singin' like an angel in Heaven," she said promptly aware of Shad's
bridling glance.
"Oh, well," repeated Peter, "you do--you know."
"It was very nice of you--and you a musician."
"Musician!" growled Shad. "He ain't a musician."
"Oh, yes, he is, and he says I've a voice like an angel. _You_ never
said that, Shad Wells."
"No. Nor I won't," he snapped surlily.
Peter would have been more amused if he hadn't thought that Shad Wells
was unhappy.
He needed the man's allegiance and he had no wish to make an enemy of
him.
"Musician!" Shad growled. "Then it was you the men heard last night."
"I found a piano in the cabin. I was trying it," said Peter. Shad said
nothing in reply but he put every shade of scorn into the way in which
he spat into the road.
"A piano----!" Beth gasped. "Where? What cabin?"
"The playhouse--where I live," said Peter politely.
"Oh."
There was a silence on the part of both of his companions, awkwardly
long.
So Peter made an effort to relieve the tension, commenting on the new
arrivals at Black Rock House.
At the mention of Peggy's name Beth showed fresh excitement.
"Miss McGuire! Here? When----?"
"This morning. Do you know her?"
"No. But I've seen her. I think she's just lovely."
"Why?"
"She wears such beautiful clothes and--and hats and veils."
Peter laughed. "And that's your definition of loveliness."
"Why, yes," she said in wonder. "Last year all the girls were copyin'
her, puttin' little puffs of hair over their ears--I tried it, but it
looked funny. Is she going to be here long? Has she got a 'beau' with
her? She always had. It's a wonder she doesn't run over somebody, the
way she drives."
"She nearly got me this mornin'," growled Shad.
"I wish she would--if you're going to look like a meat-ax, Shad Wells."
There was no reconciling them now, and when Beth's home was reached, all
three of them went different ways. What a rogue she was! And poor Shad
Wells who was to have taken Peter at a gobble, seemed a very poor sort
of a creature in Beth's hands.
She amused Peter greatly, but she annoyed him a little too, ruffled up
the shreds of his princely dignity, not yet entirely inured to the
trials of social regeneration. And Shad's blind adoration was merely a
vehicle for her amusement. It would have been very much better if she
hadn't used Peter's compliment as a bait for Shad. Peter had come to
the point of liking the rough foreman even if he was a new kind of human
animal from anything in Peter's experience.
And so was Beth. A new kind of animal--something between a harrier and a
skylark, but wholesome and human too, a denim dryad, the spirit of
health, joy and beauty, a creature good to look at, in spite of her envy
of the fashionable Miss Peggy McGuire with her modish hats, cerise veils
and ear puffs, her red roadsters and her beaux. Poverty sat well upon
Beth and the frank blue eyes and resolute chin gave notice that whatever
was to happen to her future she was honorable and unafraid.
But if there was something very winning about her, there was something
pathetic too. Her beauty was so unconscious of her ridiculous clothing,
and yet Peter had come to think of it as a part of her, wondering indeed
what she would look like in feminine apparel, in which he could not
imagine her, for the other girls of Black Rock had not so far blessed
his vision. Aunt Tillie Bergen had told him, over his late breakfast, of
the difficulties that she and Beth had had to keep their little place
going and how Beth, after being laid off for the summer at the factory,
had insisted upon working in the Gaskill's vineyard to help out with the
household. There ought to be something for Beth Cameron, better than
this--something less difficult--more ennobling.
Thinking of these things Peter made his way back to the cabin. Nothing
of a disturbing nature had happened around Black Rock House, except the
arrival of the remainder of McGuire's unwelcome house party, which had
taken to wandering aimlessly through the woods, much to the disgust of
Jesse Brown, who, lost in the choice between "dudes" and desperadoes,
had given up any attempt to follow Peter's careful injunctions in regard
to McGuire. It was still early and the supper hour was seven, so Peter
unpacked his small trunk which had arrived in his absence and then,
carefully shutting door and windows, sat at the piano and played quietly
at first, a "Reverie" of Tschaikowsky, a "Berceuse" of César Cui, the
"Valse Triste" of Jean Sibelius and then forgetting himself--launched
forth into Chopin's C Minor Étude. His fingers were stiff for lack of
practice and the piano was far from perfect, but in twenty minutes he
had forgotten the present, lost in memories. He had played this for
Anastasie Galitzin. He saw the glint of the shaded piano lamp upon her
golden head, recalled her favorite perfume.... Silver nights upon the
castle terrace.... Golden walks through the autumn forest....
Suddenly a bell rang loudly at Peter's side, it seemed. Then while he
wondered, it rang again. Of course--the telephone. He found the
instrument in the corner and put the receiver to his ear. It was
McGuire's voice.
"That you, Nichols?" it asked in an agitated staccato.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, it's getting dark, what have you done about to-night?"
"Same as last night," said Peter smiling, "only more careful."
"Well, I want things changed," the gruff voice rose. "The whole d--n
house is open. I can't shut it with these people here. Your men will
have to move in closer--but keep under cover. Can you arrange it?"
"Yes, I think so."
"I'll want you here--with me--you understand. You were coming to
supper?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well--er--I've told my daughter and so--would you mind putting on a
dress suit----? Er--if you have one--a Tuxedo will do."
"Yes, sir," said Peter. "That's all right."
"Oh--er--thanks. You'll be up soon?"
"Yes."
"Good-by."
With a grin, Peter hung up the receiver, recalling the soiled,
perspiring, unquiet figure of his employer last night. But it seemed as
though McGuire were almost as much in awe of his daughter as of the
danger that threatened, for, in the McGuire household, Miss Peggy, it
appeared, was paramount.
Peter's bathroom was Cedar Creek. In his robe, he ran down the dusky
path for a quick plunge. Then, refreshed and invigorated, he lighted his
lamp and dressed leisurely. He had come to his cravat, to which he was
wont to pay more than a casual attention, when he was aware of a feeling
of discomfort--of unease. In the mirror something moved, a shadow, at
the corner of the window. He waited a moment, still fingering his
cravat, and then sure that his eyes had made no mistake, turned quickly
and, revolver in hand, rushed outside. Just as he did so a man with a
startled face disappeared around the corner of the cabin. Peter rushed
after him, shouting and turned the edge just in time to see his shape
leap into the bushes.
"Who goes there?" shouted Peter crisply. "Halt, or I'll fire."
But the only reply was a furious crashing in the undergrowth. Peter
fired twice at the sound, then followed in, still calling.
No sound. Under the conditions a chase was hopeless, so Peter paused
listening. And then after a few moments a more distant crackling advised
him that his visitor had gotten well away. And so after a while he
returned to the cabin and with his weapon beside him finished his
interrupted toilet.
But his brows were in a tangle. The mystery surrounding him seemed
suddenly to have deepened. For the face that he had seen at the window
was that of the stranger who had stared at him so curiously--the man of
the soft hat and dark mustache--who had seemed so startled at seeing him
in the Pennsylvania Station when he was leaving New York.
CHAPTER VI
THE HOUSE OF TERROR
Who--what was this stranger who seemed so interested in his whereabouts?
Peter was sure that he had made no mistake. It was an unusual face,
swarthy, with high cheek bones, dark eyes, a short nose with prominent
nostrils. Perhaps it would not have been so firmly impressed on his
memory except for the curious look of startled recognition that Peter
had surprised on it at the station in New York. This had puzzled him for
some moments in the train but had been speedily lost in the interest of
his journey. The man had followed him to Black Rock. But why? What did
he want of Peter and why should he skulk around the cabin and risk the
danger of Peter's bullets? It seemed obvious that he was here for some
dishonest purpose, but what dishonest purpose could have any interest in
Peter? If robbery, why hadn't the man chosen the time while Peter was
away in the woods? Peter grinned to himself. If the man had any private
sources of information as to Peter's personal assets, he would have
known that they consisted of a two-dollar watch and a small sum in
money. If the dishonest purpose were murder or injury, why hadn't he
attacked Peter while he was bathing, naked and quite defenseless, in the
creek?
There seemed to be definite answers to all of these questions, but none
to the fact of the man's presence, to the fact of his look of
recognition, or to the fact of his wish to be unobserved. Was he a part
of the same conspiracy which threatened McGuire? Or was this a little
private conspiracy arranged for Peter alone? And if so, why? So far as
Peter knew he hadn't an enemy in America, and even if he had made one,
it was hardly conceivable that any one should go to such lengths to
approach an issue and then deliberately avoid it.
But there seemed no doubt that something was up and that, later, more
would be heard from this curious incident. It seemed equally certain
that had the stranger meant to shoot Peter he could easily have done so
in perfect safety to himself through the window, while Peter was
fastening his cravat. Reloading his revolver and slipping it into his
pocket, Peter locked the cabin carefully, and after listening to the
sounds of the woods for awhile, made his way up the path to Black Rock
House.
He had decided to say nothing about the incident which, so far as he
could see, concerned only himself, and so when the men on guard
questioned him about the shots that they had heard he told them that he
had been firing at a mark. This was quite true, even if the mark had
been invisible. Shad Wells was off duty until midnight so Peter went the
rounds, calling the men to the guardhouse and telling them of the change
in the orders. They were to wait until the company upon the portico went
indoors and then, with Jesse in command, they were to take new stations
in trees and clumps of bushes which Peter designated much nearer the
house. The men eyed his dinner jacket with some curiosity and not a
little awe, and Peter informed them that it was the old man's order and
that he, Peter, was going to keep watch from inside the house, but that
a blast from a whistle would fetch him out. He also warned them that it
was McGuire's wish that none of the visitors should be aware of the
watchmen and that therefore there should be no false alarms.
Curiously enough Peter found McGuire in a state very nearly bordering
on calm. He had had a drink. He had not heard the shots Peter had fired
nor apparently had any of the regular occupants of the house. The
visitors had possibly disregarded them. From the pantry came a sound
with which Peter was familiar, for Stryker was shaking the cocktails.
And when the ladies came downstairs the two men on the portico came in
and Peter was presented to the others of the party, Miss Delaplane, Mr.
Gittings and Mr. Mordaunt. The daughter of the house examined Peter's
clothing and then, having apparently revised her estimate of him, became
almost cordial, bidding him sit next Miss Delaplane at table.
Mildred Delaplane was tall, handsome, dark and aquiline, and made a foil
for Peggy's blond prettiness. Peter thought her a step above Peggy in
the cultural sense, and only learned afterward that as she was not very
well off, Peggy was using her as a rung in the social ladder. Mordaunt,
Peter didn't fancy, but Gittings, who was jovial and bald, managed to
inject some life into the party, which, despite the effect of the
cocktails, seemed rather weary and listless.
McGuire sat rigidly at the head of the table, forcing smiles and
glancing uneasily at doors and windows. Peter was worried too, not as to
himself, but as to any possible connection that there might be between
the man with the dark mustache and the affairs of Jonathan McGuire.
Mildred Delaplane, who had traveled in Europe in antebellum days, found
much that was interesting in Peter's fragmentary reminiscences. She knew
music too, and in an unguarded moment Peter admitted that he had
studied. It was difficult to lie to women, he had found.
And so, after dinner, that information having transpired, he was
immediately led to the piano-stool by his hostess, who was frequently
biased in her social judgments by Mildred Delaplane. Peter played Cyril
Scott's "Song from the East," and then, sure of Miss Delaplane's
interest, an Étude of Scriabine, an old favorite of his which seemed to
express the mood of the moment.
And all the while he was aware of Jonathan McGuire, seated squarely in
the middle of the sofa which commanded all the windows and doors, with
one hand at his pocket, scowling and alert by turns, for, though the
night had fallen slowly, it was now pitch black outside. Peter knew that
McGuire was thinking he hadn't hired his superintendent as a musician to
entertain his daughter's guests, but that he was powerless to interfere.
Nor did he wish to excite the reprobation of his daughter by going up
and locking himself in his room. Peggy, having finished her cigarette
with Freddy on the portico, had come in again and was now leaning over
the piano, her gaze fixed, like Mildred's, upon Peter's mobile fingers.
"You're really too wonderful a superintendent to be quite true," said
Peggy when Peter had finished. "But _do_ give us a 'rag.'"
Peter shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't do ragtime."
"Quit your kidding! I want to dance."
"I'm not--er--kidding," said Peter, laughing. "I can't play it at
all--not at all."
Peggy gave him a look, shrugged and walked to the door.
"Fred-die-e!" she called.
Peter rose from the piano-stool and crossed to McGuire. The man's cigar
was unsmoked and tiny beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
"I don't think you need worry, sir," whispered Peter. "The men are all
around the house, but if you say, I'll go out for another look around."
"No matter. I'll stick it out for a while."
"You're better off here than anywhere, I should say. No one would
dare----"
Here Freddy at the piano struck up "Mary" and further conversation was
drowned in commotion. Mildred Delaplane was preëmpted by Mr. Gittings
and Peggy came whirling alone toward Peter, arms extended, the passion
for the dance outweighing other prejudices.
Peter took a turn, but four years of war had done little to improve his
steps.
"I'm afraid all my dancing is in my fingers," he muttered.
Suddenly, as Freddy Mordaunt paused, Peggy stopped and lowered her arms.
"Good Lord!" she gasped. "What's the matter with Pop?"
McGuire had risen unsteadily and was peering out into the darkness
through the window opposite him, his face pallid, his lips drawn into a
thin line. Peggy ran to him and caught him by the arm.
"What is it, Pop? Are you sick?"
"N-no matter. Just a bit upset. If you don't mind, daughter, I think
I'll be going up."
"Can I do anything?"
"No. Stay here and enjoy yourselves. Just tell Stryker, will you,
Nichols, and then come up to my room."
Peggy was regarding him anxiously as he made his way to the door and
intercepted Peter as he went to look for the valet.
"What is it, Mr. Nichols?" she asked. "He may be sick, but it seems to
me----" she paused, and then, "Did you see his eyes as he looked out of
the window?"
"Indigestion," said Peter coolly.
"You'll see after him, won't you? And if he wants me, just call over."
"I'm sure he won't want you. A few home remedies----"
And Peter went through the door. Stryker had appeared mysteriously from
somewhere and had already preceded his master up the stair. When Peter
reached the landing, McGuire was standing alone in the dark, leaning
against the wall, his gaze on the lighted bedroom which, the valet was
carefully examining.
"What is it, sir?" asked Peter coolly. "You thought you saw something?"
"Yes--out there--on the side portico----"
"You must be mistaken--unless it was one of the watchmen----"
"No, no. I saw----"
"What, sir?"
"No matter. Do you think Peggy noticed?"
"Just that you didn't seem quite yourself----"
"But not that I seemed--er----"
"Alarmed? I said you weren't well."
Peter took the frightened man's arm and helped him into his room.
"I'm not, Nichols," he groaned. "I'm not myself."
"I wouldn't worry, sir. I'd say it was physically impossible for any one
to approach the house without permission. But I'll go down and have
another look around."
"Do, Nichols. But come back up here. I'll want to talk to you."
So Peter went down. And, evading inquiries in the hallway, made his way
out through the hall and pantry. Here a surprise awaited him, for as he
opened the door there was a skurry of light footsteps and in a moment he
was in the pantry face to face with Beth Cameron, who seemed much
dismayed at being discovered.
"What on earth are you doing here?" he asked in amazement.
She glanced at his white shirt front and then laughed.
"I came to help Aunt Tillie dish up."
"You!" He didn't know why he should have been so amazed at finding her
occupying a menial position in this household. She didn't seem to belong
to the back stairs! And yet there she was in a plain blue gingham dress
which made her seem much taller, and a large apron, her tawny hair
casting agreeable shadows around her blue eyes, which he noticed seemed
much darker by night than by day.
She noticed the inflection of his voice and laughed.
"Why not? I thought Aunt Tillie would need me--and besides I wanted to
peek a little."
"Ah, I see. You wanted to see Miss Peggy's new frock through the
keyhole?"
"Yes--and the other one. Aren't they pretty?"
"I suppose so."
"I listened, too. I couldn't help it."
"Eavesdropping!"
She nodded. "Oh, Mr. Nichols, but you do play the piano beautifully!"
"But not like an angel in Heaven," said Peter with a smile.
"Almost--if angels play. You make me forget----" she paused.
"What----?"
"That's there's anything in the world except beauty."
In the drawing-room Freddy, having found himself, had swept into a song
of the cabarets, to which there was a "close harmony" chorus.
"There's that----," he muttered, jerking a thumb in the direction from
which he had come.
But she shook her head. "No," she said. "That's different."
"How--different?"
"Wrong--false--un--unworthy----"
As she groped for and found the word he stared at her in astonishment.
And in her eyes back of the joy that seemed to be always dancing in them
he saw the shadows of a sober thought.
"But don't you like dance music?" he asked.
"Yes, I do, but it's only for the feet. Your music is for--for _here_."
And with a quick graceful gesture she clasped her hands upon her breast.
"I'm glad you think so, because that's where it comes from."
At this point Peter remembered his mission, which Beth's appearance had
driven from his mind.
"I'll play for you sometime," he said.
He went past her and out to the servants' dining-room. As he entered
with Beth at his heels, Mrs. Bergen, the housekeeper, turned in from the
open door to the kitchen garden, clinging to the jamb, her lips
mumbling, as though she were continuing a conversation. But her round
face, usually the color and texture of a well ripened peach, was the
color of putty, and seemed suddenly to have grown old and haggard. Her
eyes through her metal-rimmed spectacles seemed twice their size and
stared at Peter as though they saw through him and beyond. She faltered
at the door-jamb and then with an effort reached a chair, into which she
sank gasping.
Beth was kneeling at her side in a moment, looking up anxiously into her
startled eyes.
"Why, what is it, Aunt Tillie?" she whispered quickly. "What it is? Tell
me."
The coincidence was too startling. Could the same Thing that had
frightened McGuire have frightened the housekeeper too? Peter rushed
past her and out of the open door. It was dark outside and for a moment
he could see nothing. Then objects one by one asserted themselves, the
orderly rows of vegetable plants in the garden, the wood-box by the
door, the shrubbery at the end of the portico, the blue spruce tree
opposite, the loom of the dark and noncommittal garage. He knew that one
of his men was in the trees opposite the side porch and another around
the corner of the kitchen, in the hedge, but he did not want to raise a
hue and cry unless it was necessary. What was this Thing that created
terror at sight? He peered this way and that, aware of an intense
excitement, in one hand his revolver and in the other his police
whistle. But he saw no object move, and the silence was absolute. In a
moment--disappointed--he hurried back to the servants' dining-room.
Mrs. Bergen sat dazed in her chair, while Beth, who had brought her a
glass of water, was making her drink of it.
"Tell me, what is it?" Beth was insisting.
"Nothing--nothing," murmured the woman.
"But there is----"
"No, dearie----"
"Are you sick?"
"I don't feel right. Maybe--the heat----"
"But your eyes look queer----"
"Do they----?" The housekeeper tried to smile.
"Yes. Like they had seen----"
A little startled as she remembered the mystery of the house, Beth cast
her glance into the darkness outside the open door.
"You _are_--frightened!" she said.
"No, no----"
"What was it you saw, Mrs. Bergen," asked Peter gently.
He was just at her side and at the sound of his voice she half arose,
but recognizing Peter she sank back in her chair.
Peter repeated his question, but she shook her head.
"Won't you tell us? What was it you saw? A man----?"
Her eyes sought Beth's and a look of tenderness came into them,
banishing the vision. But she lied when she answered Peter's question.
"I saw nothin', Mr. Nichols--I think I'll go up----"
She took another swallow of the water and rose. And with her strength
came a greater obduracy.
"I saw nothin'----" she repeated again, as she saw that he was still
looking at her. "Nothin' at all."
Peter and Beth exchanged glances and Beth, putting her hand under the
housekeeper's arm, helped the woman to the back stairs.
Peter stood for a moment in the middle of the kitchen floor, his gaze on
the door through which the woman had vanished. Aunt Tillie too! She had
seen some one, some Thing--the same some one or Thing that McGuire had
seen. But granting that their eyes had not deceived them, granting that
each had seen Something, what, unless it were supernatural, could have
frightened McGuire and Aunt Tillie too? Even if the old woman had been
timid about staying in the house, she had made it clear to Peter that
she was entirely unaware of the kind of danger that threatened her
employer. Peter had believed her then. He saw no reason to disbelieve
her now. She had known as little as Peter about the cause for McGuire's
alarm. And here he had found her staring with the same unseeing eyes
into the darkness, with the same symptoms of nervous shock as McGuire
had shown. What enemy of McGuire's could frighten Aunt Tillie into
prostration and seal her lips to speech? Why wouldn't she have dared to
tell Peter what she had seen? What was this secret and how could she
share it with McGuire when twenty-four hours ago she had been in
complete ignorance of the mystery? Why wouldn't she talk? Was the
vision too intimate? Or too horrible?
Peter was imaginative, for he had been steeped from boyhood in the
superstitions of his people. But the war had taught him that devils had
legs and carried weapons. He had seen more horrible sights than most men
of his years, in daylight, at dawn, or silvered with moonlight. He
thought he had exhausted the possibilities for terror. But he found
himself grudgingly admitting that he was at the least a little
nervous--at the most, on the verge of alarm. But he put his whistle in
his mouth, drew his revolver again and went forth.
First he sought out the man in the spruce tree. It was Andy. He had seen
no one but the people on the porch and in the windows. It was very dark
but he took an oath that no one had approached the house from his side.
"You saw no one talking with Mrs. Bergen by the kitchen door?"
"No. I can't see th' kitchen door from here."
Peter verified. A syringa bush was just in line.
"Then you haven't moved?" asked Peter.
"No. I was afraid they'd see me."
"They've seen something----"
"You mean----?"
"I don't know. But look sharp. If anything comes out this way, take a
shot at it."
"You think there's something----"
"Yes--but don't move. And keep your eyes open!"
Peter went off to the man in the hedge behind the kitchen--Jesse Brown.
"See anything?" asked Peter.
"Nope. Nobody but the chauffeur."
"The chauffeur?"
"He went up to th' house a while back."
"Oh--how long ago?"
"Twenty minutes."
"I see." And then, "You didn't see any one come away from the kitchen
door?"
"No. He's thar yet, I reckon."
Peter ran out to the garage to verify this statement. By the light of a
lantern the chauffeur in his rubber boots was washing the two cars.
"Have you been up to the house lately?"
"Why, no," said the man, in surprise.
"You're sure?" asked Peter excitedly.
"Sure----"
"Then come with me. There's something on."
The man dropped his sponge and followed Peter, who had run back quickly
to the house.
It was now after eleven. From the drawing-room came the distracting
sounds from the tortured piano, but there was no one on the portico. So
Peter, with Jesse, Andy and the chauffeur made a careful round of the
house, examining every bush, every tree, within a circle of a hundred
yards, exhausting every possibility for concealment. When they reached
the kitchen door again, Peter rubbed his head and gave it up. A screech
owl somewhere off in the woods jeered at him. All the men, except Jesse,
were plainly skeptical. But he sent them back to their posts and, still
pondering the situation, went into the house.
It was extraordinary how the visitor, whoever he was, could have gotten
away without having been observed, for though the night was black the
eyes of the men outside were accustomed to it and the lights from the
windows sent a glimmer into the obscurity. Of one thing Peter was now
certain, that the prowler was no ghost or banshee, but a man, and that
he had gone as mysteriously as he had come.
Peter knew that his employer would be anxious until he returned to him,
but he hadn't quite decided to tell McGuire of the housekeeper's share
in the adventure. He had a desire to verify his belief that Mrs. Bergen
was frightened by the visitor for a reason of her own which had nothing
to do with Jonathan McGuire. Any woman alarmed by a possible burglar or
other miscreant would have come running and crying for help. Mrs. Bergen
had been doggedly silent, as though, rather than utter her thoughts, she
would have bitten out her tongue. It was curious. She had seemed to be
talking as though to herself at the door, and then, at the sound of
footsteps in the kitchen behind her, had turned and fallen limp in the
nearest chair. The look in her face, as in McGuire's, was that of
terror, but there was something of bewilderment in both of them too,
like that of a solitary sniper in the first shock of a shrapnel wound, a
look of anguish that seemed to have no outlet, save in speech, which was
denied.
To tell McGuire what had happened in the kitchen meant to alarm him
further. Peter decided for the present to keep the matter from him,
giving the housekeeper the opportunity of telling the truth on the
morrow if she wished.
He crossed the kitchen and servants' dining-room and just at the foot of
the back stairs met Mrs. Bergen and Beth coming down. So he retraced his
steps into the kitchen, curious as to the meaning of her reappearance.
At least she had recovered the use of her tongue.
"I couldn't go to bed, just yet, Mr. Nichols," she said in reply to
Peter's question. "I just couldn't."
Peter gazed at her steadily. This woman held a clew to the mystery. She
glanced at him uncertainly but she had recovered her self-possession,
and her replies to his questions, if anything, were more obstinate than
before.
"I saw nothin', Mr. Nichols--nothin'. I was just a bit upset. I'm all
right now. An' I want Beth to go home. That's why I came down."
"But, Aunt Tillie, if you're not well, I'm going to stay----"
"No. Ye can't stay here. I want ye to go." And then, turning excitedly
to Peter, "Can't ye let somebody see her home, Mr. Nichols?"
"Of course," said Peter. "But I don't think she's in any danger."
"No, but she can't stay here. She just can't."
Beth put her arm around the old woman's shoulder.
"I'm not afraid."
Aunt Tillie was already untying Beth's apron.
"I know ye're not, dearie. But ye can't stay here. I don't want ye to. I
don't want ye to."
"But if you're afraid of something----"
"Who said I was afraid?" she asked, glaring at Peter defiantly. "I'm
not. I just had a spell--all this excitement an' extra work--an'
everything."
She lied. Peter knew it, but he saw no object to be gained in keeping
Beth in Black Rock House, so he went out cautiously and brought the
chauffeur, to whom he entrusted the safety of the girl. He would have
felt more comfortable if he could have escorted her himself, but he knew
that his duty was at the house and that whoever the mysterious person
was it was not Beth that he wanted.
But what was Mrs. Bergen's reason for wishing to get rid of her?
As Beth went out of the door he whispered in her ear, "Say nothing of
this--to any one."
She nodded gravely and followed the man who had preceded her.
When the door closed behind Beth and the chauffeur, Peter turned quickly
and faced the housekeeper.
"Now," he said severely, "tell me the truth."
She stared at him with a falling jaw in a moment of alarm--then closed
her lips firmly. And, as she refused to reply,
"Do you want me to tell Mr. McGuire that you were talking to a stranger
at the kitchen door?"
She trembled and sinking in a chair buried her face in her hands.
"I don't want to be unkind, Mrs. Bergen, but there's something here that
needs explaining. Who was the man you talked to outside the door?"
"I--I can't tell ye," she muttered.
"You must. It's better. I'm your friend and Beth's----"
The woman raised her haggard face to his.
"Beth's friend! Are ye? Then ask me no more."
"But I've got to know. I'm here to protect Mr. McGuire, but I'd like to
protect you too. Who is this stranger?"
The woman lowered her head and then shook it violently. "No, no. I'll
not tell."
He frowned down at her head.
"Did you know that to-night McGuire saw the stranger--the man that _you_
saw--and that he's even more frightened than you?"
The woman raised her head, gazed at him helplessly, then lowered it
again, but she did not speak. The kitchen was silent, but an obbligato
to this drama, like the bray of the ass in the overture to "Midsummer
Night's Dream," came from the drawing-room, where Freddy Mordaunt was
now singing a sentimental ballad.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bergen, but if Mr. McGuire is in danger to-night, I've
got to know it."
"To-night!" she gasped, as though clutching at a straw. "Not to-night.
Nothin'll happen to-night. I'm sure of that, Mr. Nichols."
"How do you know?"
She threw out her arms in a wide gesture of desperation. "For the love
o' God, go 'way an' leave me in peace. Don't ye see I ain't fit to talk
to anybody?" She gasped with a choking throat. "_He_ ain't comin' back
again--not to-night. I'll swear it on th' Bible, if ye want me to."
Their glances met, hers weary and pleading, and he believed her.
"All right, Mrs. Bergen," he said soothingly. "I'll take your word for
it, but you'll admit the whole thing is very strange--very startling."
"Yes--strange. God knows it is. But I--I can't tell ye anything."
"But what shall I say to Mr. McGuire--upstairs. I've got to go up--now."
"Say to him----?" she gasped helplessly, all her terrors renewed. "Ye
can't tell him I was talkin' to anybody." And then more wildly, "Ye
mustn't. I wasn't. I was talkin' to myself--that's the God's truth, I
was--when ye come in. It was so strange--an' all. Don't tell him, Mr.
Nichols," she pleaded at last, with a terrible earnestness, and
clutching at his hand. "For my sake, for Beth's----"
"What has Beth to do with it?"
"More'n ye think. Oh, God----" she broke off. "What am I sayin'----?
Beth don't know. She mustn't. He don't know either----"
"Who? McGuire?"
"No--no. Don't ask any more questions, Mr. Nichols," she sobbed. "I
can't speak. Don't ye see I can't?"
So Peter gave up the inquisition. He had never liked to see a woman cry.
"Oh, all right," he said more cheerfully, "you'd better be getting to
bed. Perhaps daylight will clear things up."
"And ye won't tell McGuire?" she pleaded.
"I can't promise anything. But I won't if I'm not compelled to."
She gazed at him uncertainly, her weary eyes wavering, but she seemed to
take some courage from his attitude.
"God bless ye, sir."
"Good-night, Mrs. Bergen."
And then, avoiding the drawing-room, Peter made his way up the stairs
with a great deal of mental uncertainty to the other room of terror.
CHAPTER VII
MUSIC
Stryker, who kept guard at the door of McGuire's room, opened it
cautiously in response to Peter's knock. He found McGuire sitting
rigidly in a rocking-chair at the side of the room, facing the windows,
a whisky bottle and glass on the table beside him. His face had lost its
pallor, but in his eyes was the same look of glassy bewilderment.
"Why the H---- couldn't you come sooner?" He whined the question, not
angrily, but querulously, like a child.
"I was having a look around," replied Peter coolly.
"Oh! And did you find anybody?"
"No."
"H-m! I thought you wouldn't."
Peter hesitated. He meant to conceal the housekeeper's share in the
night's encounters, but he knew that both Andy and the chauffeur would
talk, and so,
"There _was_ somebody outside, Mr. McGuire," he said. "You were not
mistaken, a man prowling in the dark near the kitchen. Andy thought it
was the chauffeur, who was in the garage washing the cars."
"Ah!"
McGuire started up, battling for his manhood. It seemed to Peter that
his gasp was almost one of relief at discovering that his eyes had not
deceived him, that the face he had seen was that of a real person,
instead of the figment of a disordered mind.
"Ah! Why didn't they shoot him?"
"I've just said, sir, Andy thought it was the chauffeur."
McGuire was pacing the floor furiously.
"He has no business to think. I pay him to act. And you--what did you
do?"
"Three of us searched the whole place--every tree, every bush--every
shadow----. The man has gone."
"Gone," sneered the other. "A H---- of a mess you're making of this
job!"
Peter straightened angrily, but managed to control himself.
"Very well, Mr. McGuire," he said. "Then you'd better get somebody else
at once."
He had never given notice before but the hackneyed phrase fell crisply
from his lips. For many reasons, Peter didn't want to go, but he bowed
and walked quickly across the room. "Good-night," he said.
Before he had reached the door the frightened man came stumbling after
him and caught him by the arm.
"No, no, Nichols. Come back. D'ye hear? You mustn't be so d---- touchy.
Come back. You can't go. I didn't mean anything. Come now!"
Peter paused, his hand on the knob, and looked down into the man's
flabby, empurpled countenance.
"I thought you meant it," he said.
"No. I--I didn't. I--I like you, Nichols--liked you from the very
first--yesterday. Of course you can't be responsible for all the
boneheads here."
Peter had "called the bluff." Perhaps the lesson might have a salutary
effect. And so, as his good humor came back to him, he smiled
pleasantly.
"You see, Mr. McGuire, you could hardly expect Andy to shoot the
chauffeur. They're on excellent terms."
McGuire had settled down into a chair near the table, and motioned Peter
to another one near him.
"Sit down, Nichols. Another glass, Stryker. So." He poured the whisky
with an assumption of ease and they drank.
"You see, Nichols," he went on as he set his empty glass down, "I know
what I'm about. There _is_ somebody trying to get at me. It's no
dream--no hallucination. You know that too, now. I saw him--I would have
shot him through the window--if it hadn't been for Peggy--and the
others--but I--I didn't dare--for reasons. She mustn't know----" And
then eagerly, "She doesn't suspect anything yet, does she, Nichols?"
Peter gestured over his shoulder in the direction of the sounds which
still came from below.
"No. They're having a good time."
"That's all right. To-morrow they'll be leaving for New York, I hope.
And then we'll meet this issue squarely. You say the man has gone. Why
do you think so?"
"Isn't it reasonable to think so? His visit was merely a reconnoissance.
I think he had probably been lying out in the underbrush all day,
getting the lay of the land, watching what we were doing--seeing where
the men were placed. But he must know now that he'll have to try
something else--that he hasn't a chance of getting to you past these
guards, if you don't want him to."
"But he nearly succeeded to-night," mumbled McGuire dubiously.
Peter was silent a moment.
"I'm not supposed to question and I won't. But it seems to me, Mr.
McGuire, that if this visitor's plan were to murder you, to get rid of
you, he would have shot you down to-night, through the window. From his
failure to do so, there is one definite conclusion to draw--and that is
that he wants to see you--to talk with you----"
McGuire fairly threw himself from his chair as he roared,
"I can't see him. I won't. I won't see anybody. I've got the law on my
side. A man's house is his castle. A fellow prowls around here in the
dark. He's been seen--if he's shot it's his own lookout. And he _will_
be shot before he reaches me. You hear me? Your men must shoot--shoot to
kill. If they fail I'll----"
He shrugged as if at the futility of his own words, which came stumbling
forth, born half of fear, half of braggadocio.
Peter regarded him soberly. It was difficult to conceive of this man,
who talked like a madman and a spoiled child, as the silent, stubborn,
friendless millionaire, as the power in finance that Sheldon, Senior,
had described him to be. The love of making money had succumbed to a
more primitive passion which for the time being had mastered him. From
what had been revealed, it seemed probable that it was not death or
bodily injury that he feared, for Peter had seen him stand up at the
window, a fair target for any good marksman, but an interview with this
nocturnal visitor who seemed bent upon bringing it about. Indeed, the
childish bravado of his last speech had voiced a wish, but beneath the
wish Peter had guessed a protest against the inevitable.
Peter acknowledged McGuire's right to seclusion in his own house, but he
found himself wondering whether death for the intruder as proposed by
his employer were a justifiable means of preserving it, especially if
the strange visitor did not himself use violence to gain his ends. And
so, when McGuire presently poured himself another glass of whisky, and
drank it, Peter took the liberty of asking the question.
"I am ignorant of your laws in this country, Mr. McGuire, but doesn't it
seem that short of forcible entry of this house we would hardly be
justified in shooting the man?"
"I take the responsibility for that."
"I understand. But what I was going to propose was a hunt through the
woods to-morrow. A description of this man would be helpful. For
instance, whether he was smoothly shaven or whether he had a
beard--or--or a mustache?"
McGuire scowled.
"The man has a slight growth of beard--of mustache. But what difference
does that make? No one has a right here--without my permission."
Peter sipped at his glass. As he had suspected, there were two of them.
"That's true. But even with this, we can move with more intelligence.
This forest is your property. If we find any person who can't give an
account of himself, we could take him into custody and turn him over to
the proper authorities."
"No. No," cried McGuire. "And have him set loose after a trivial
examination? Little good that would do. This man who is trying to reach
me----"
McGuire stopped suddenly, glaring at his superintendent with bloodshot
eyes, and Peter very politely waited for him to go on. But he brought
his empty glass down on the table with a crash which shattered it.
"He mustn't reach me," he roared. "I won't see him. That's understood.
He's a man I'd have no more compunction about shooting than----"
McGuire, with a curious suddenness, stopped again. Then rose and resumed
his habit of pacing the floor. For a moment it had almost seemed as if
he were on the point of a revelation. But the mood passed. Instead of
speaking further he threw out his arms in a wide gesture.
"I've said enough," he growled, "more than enough. You know your duty."
And he gestured toward the door. "Do it!" he finished brusquely.
Peter had already risen, and Stryker unemotionally opened the door for
him.
"I'll stay on duty all night, Mr. McGuire," he said quietly. "I'd advise
you to turn in and get some sleep. You need it."
"Yes. Yes, I will. Thanks, Nichols," said McGuire, following him to the
door and offering a flabby hand. "Don't mind what I've said to-night. I
think we understand each other. Stryker will see that the house is
locked when the young people come up. Keep your men to the mark and take
no chances."
"Good-night."
The remainder of the night, as Mrs. Bergen had predicted, proved
uneventful, and at daylight Peter went to his cabin and tumbled into
bed, too tired to think further of McGuire's visitors--or even of the
man with the black mustache.
The next day he lay abed luxuriously for a while after he had awakened,
but no amount of quiet thinking availed to clarify the mystery. There
were two men, one bearded, interested in watching McGuire, another with
a black mustache, interested in Peter. And so, after wondering again for
some puzzling moments as to how Mrs. Bergen, the housekeeper, had come
to be involved in McGuire's fortunes, he gave the problem up.
Foreseeing difficulties over breakfast at the house, he had arranged to
make his own coffee on a small oil stove which happened to be available,
and so Peter set the pot on to boil and while he dressed turned over in
his mind the possibilities of the future. It seemed quite certain that
the antagonism, whatever its nature, between his employer and the
prowling stranger must come to an issue of some sort almost at once. The
intruder, if he were the sort of man who could inspire terror, would
not remain content merely to prowl fruitlessly about with every danger
of being shot for his pains, and McGuire could hardly remain long in his
present situation without a physical or mental collapse.
Why hadn't McGuire taken flight? Why indeed had he come to Black Rock
House when it seemed that he would have been much safer amongst the
crowds of the city, where he could fall back upon the protection of the
police and their courts for immunity from this kind of persecution?
Pieced together, the phrases his employer had let slip suggested the
thought that he had come to Black Rock to escape publicity in anything
that might happen. And McGuire's insistence upon the orders that the
guards should shoot to kill also suggested, rather unpleasantly, the
thought that McGuire knew who the visitor was and earnestly desired his
death.
But Mrs. Bergen could have no such wish, for, unlike McGuire, she had
shown a reticence in her fears, as though her silence had been intended
to protect rather than to accuse. Beth Cameron, too, was in some way
unconsciously involved in the adventure. But how? He drank his coffee
and ate his roll, a prey to a very lively curiosity. Beth interested
him. And if Aunt Tillie Bergen, her only near relative, showed signs of
inquietude on the girl's account, the mysterious visitor surely had it
in his power to make her unhappy. As he washed up the dishes and made
his bed, Peter decided that he would find Beth to-night when she came
back from work and ask her some questions about her Aunt Tillie.
Beth Cameron saved him that trouble. He was sitting at the piano,
awaiting a telephone call to Black Rock House, where he was to have a
conference with his employer on the forestry situation. He was so deeply
absorbed in his music that he was unaware of the figure that had stolen
through the underbrush and was now hidden just outside the door. It was
Beth. She stood with the fingers of one hand lightly touching the edge
of the door-jamb, the other hand at her breast, while she listened,
poised lightly as though for flight. But a playful breeze twitched at
the hem of her skirt, flicking it out into the patch of sunlight by the
doorsill, and Peter caught the glint of white from the tail of his eye.
The music ceased suddenly and before Beth could flee into the bushes
Peter had caught her by the hand.
Now that she was discovered she made no effort to escape him.
"I--I was listening," she gasped.
"Why, Beth," he exclaimed, voicing the name in his thoughts. "How long
have you been here?"
"I--I don't know. Not long."
"I'm so glad."
She was coloring very prettily.
"You--you told me you--you'd play for me sometime," she said demurely.
"Of course. Won't you come in? It's rather a mess here, but----"
He led her in, glancing at her gingham dress, a little puzzled.
"I thought you'd be farmeretting," he said.
But she shook her head.
"I quit--yesterday."
He didn't ask the reason. He was really enjoying the sight of her. Few
women are comely in the morning hours, which have a merciless way of
exaggerating minute imperfections. Beth hadn't any minute imperfections
except her freckles, which were merely Nature's colorings upon a
woodland flower. She seemed to fill the cabin with morning fragrance,
like a bud just brought in from the garden.
"I'm very glad you've come," he said gallantly, leading her over to the
double window where there was a chintz-covered seat. "I've wanted very
much to talk to you."
She followed him protestingly.
"But I didn't come to be talked to. I came to listen to you play."
"You always arrive in the midst of music," he laughed. "I played you in,
without knowing it. That was an Elfentanz----"
"What's that?"
"A dance of the Elves--the fairies." And then, with a laugh, "And the
little devils."
"The little devils? You mean _me_!"
"Elf--fairy and devil too--but mostly elf."
"I'm not sure I like that--but I _do_ like the music. Please play it
again."
She was so lovely in her eagerness that he couldn't refuse, his fingers
straying from the dance by slow transitions into something more quiet,
the "Romance" of Sibelius, and then after that into a gay little
_scherzo_, at the end of which he turned suddenly to find her flushed
and breathless, regarding him in a kind of awe.
"How lovely!" she whispered. "There were no devils in that."
"No, only fairies."
"Angels too--but somethin' else--that quiet piece--like the--the memory
of a--a--sorrow."
"'Romance,' it's called," he explained gently.
"Oh!"
"The things we dream. The things that ought to be, but aren't."
She took a deep breath. "Yes, that's it. That's what it meant. I felt
it." And then, as though with a sudden shyness at her self-revelation,
she glanced about. "What a pretty place! I've never been here before."
"How did you find your way?"
"Oh, I knew where the cabin was. I came through the woods and across the
log-jam below the pool. Then I heard the music. I didn't think you'd
mind."
"Mind! Oh, I say. I don't know when I've been so pleased."
"Are you really? You _say_ a lot."
"Didn't I play it?"
That confused her a little.
"Oh!" she said demurely.
"And now, will you talk to me?"
"Yes, of course. But----"
"But what----?"
"I--I'm not sure that I ought to be here."
"Why not?"
"It's kind of--unusual."
He laughed. "You wouldn't be you, if you weren't unusual."
She glanced at him uneasily.
"You see, I don't know you very well."
"You're very exclusive in Black Rock!" he laughed.
"I guess we _have_ to be exclusive whether we want to or not," she
replied.
"Don't you think I'll do?"
"Maybe. I oughtn't to have come, but I just couldn't keep away."
"I'm glad you did. I wanted to see you."
"It wasn't that," she put in hastily. "I had to hear you play again.
That's what I mean."
"I'll play for you whenever you like."
"Will you? Then play again, now. It makes me feel all queer inside."
Peter laughed. "Do you feel that way when you sing?"
"No. It all comes out of me then."
"Would you mind singing for me, Beth?" he asked after a moment.
"I--I don't think I dare."
He got up and went to the piano.
"What do you sing?"
But she hadn't moved and she didn't reply. So he urged her.
"In the woods when you're coming home----?"
"Oh, I don't know----It just comes out--things I've heard--things I make
up----"
"What have you heard? I don't know that I can accompany you, but I'll
try."
She was flushing painfully. He could see that she wanted to sing for
him--to be a part of this wonderful dream-world in which he belonged,
and yet she did not dare.
"What have you heard?" he repeated softly, encouraging her by running
his fingers slowly over the simple chords of a major key.
Suddenly she started up and joined him by the piano.
"That's it--'The long, long trail a-windin'----" and in a moment was
singing softly. He had heard the air and fell in with her almost at
once.
"There's a long, long trail a-winding
Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingale is singing
And a bright moon beams----"
Like the good musician that he was, Peter submerged himself, playing
gently, his gaze on his fingers, while he listened. He had made no
mistake. The distances across which he had heard her had not flattered.
Her voice was untrained, of course, but it seemed to Peter that it had
lost nothing by the neglect, for as she gained confidence, she forgot
Peter, as he intended that she should, and sang with the complete
abstraction of a thrush in the deep wood. Like the thrush's note, too,
Beth's was limpid, clear, and sweet, full of forest sounds--the falling
brook, the sigh of night winds....
When the song ended he told her so.
"You do say nice things, don't you?" she said joyously.
"Wouldn't you--if it cost you nothing and was the truth? You must have
your voice trained."
"Must! I might jump over the moon if I had a broomstick."
"It's got to be managed somehow."
"Then you're not disappointed in the way it sounds, close up?"
She stood beside him, leaning against the piano, her face flushed, her
breath rapid, searching his face eagerly. Peter knew that it was only
the dormant artist in her seeking the light, but he thrilled warmly at
her nearness, for she was very lovely. Peter's acquaintance with women
had been varied, but, curiously enough, each meeting with this girl
instead of detracting had only added to her charm.
"No. I'm not disappointed in it," he said quite calmly, every impulse in
him urging a stronger expression. But he owed a duty to himself.
_Noblesse oblige!_ It was one of the mottoes of his House--(not always
followed--alas!). With a more experienced woman he would have said what
was in his mind. He would probably have taken her in his arms and kissed
her at once, for that was really what he would have liked to do. But
Beth....
Perhaps something in the coolness of his tone disconcerted her, for she
turned away from the piano.
"You're very kind," she said quietly.
He had a feeling that she was about to slip away from him, so he got up.
"Won't you sing again, Beth?"
But she shook her head. For some reason the current that had run between
them was broken. As she moved toward the door, he caught her by the
hand.
"Don't go yet. I want to talk to you."
"I don't think I ought." And then, with a whimsical smile, "And you
ought to be out makin' the trees grow."
He laughed. "There's a lot of time for that."
She let him lead her to the divan again and sat, her fingers dovetailed
around a slender knee.
"I--I'm sorry I made fun of you the other day," she confessed
immediately.
"I didn't mind in the least."
"But you _did_ seem to know it all," she said. And then smiled in the
direction of the piano. "Now--I'm comin' to think you do. Even Shad says
you're a wonder. I--I don't think he likes you, though----" she
admitted.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't you care. Shad don't like anybody but himself and
Goda'mighty--with God trailin' a little."
Peter smiled. Her singing voice may have been impersonal but one could
hardly think that of her conversation.
"And you, Beth--where do _you_ come in?"
She glanced at him quickly.
"Oh, I----," she said with a laugh, "I just trail along after God."
Her irony meant no irreverence but a vast derogation of Shad Wells.
Somehow her point of view was very illuminating.
"I'm afraid you make him very unhappy," he ventured.
"That's _his_ lookout," she finished.
Peter was taking a great delight in watching her profile, the blue eyes
shadowed under the mass of her hair, eyes rather deeply set and
thoughtful in repose, the straight nose, the rather full underlip ending
in a precipitous dent above her chin. He liked that chin. There was
courage there and strength, softened at once by the curve of the throat,
flowing to where it joined the fine deep breast. Yesterday she had
seemed like a boy. To-day she was a woman grown, feminine in every
graceful conformation, on tiptoe at the very verge of life.
But there was no "flapper" here. What she lacked in culture was made up
in refinement. He had felt that yesterday--the day before. She belonged
elsewhere. And yet to Peter it would have seemed a pity to have changed
her in any particular. Her lips were now drawn in a firm line and her
brows bore a curious frown.
"You don't mind my calling you Beth, do you?"
She flashed a glance at him.
"That's what everybody calls me."
"My name is Peter."
"Yes, I know." And then, "That's funny."
"Funny!"
"You look as if your name ought to be Algernon."
"Why?" he asked, laughing.
"Oh, I don't know. It's the name of a man in a book I read--an
Englishman. You're English, you said."
"Half English," said Peter.
"What's the other half?"
"Russian." He knew that he ought to be lying to her, but somehow he
couldn't.
"Russian! I thought Russians all had long hair and carried bombs."
"Some of 'em do. I'm not that kind. The half of me that's English is the
biggest half, and the safest."
"I'm glad of that. I'd hate to think of you as bein' a Bolshevik."
"H-m. So would I."
"But Russia's where you get your music from, isn't it? The band leader
at Glassboro is a Russian. He can play every instrument. Did you learn
music in Russia?"
Beth was now treading dangerous ground and so it was time to turn the
tables.
"Yes, a little," he said, "but music has no nationality. Or why would I
find a voice like yours out here?"
"Twenty miles from nowhere," she added scornfully.
"How did you come here, Beth? Would you mind telling me? You weren't
born here, were you? How did you happen to come to Black Rock?"
"Just bad luck, I guess. Nobody'd ever come to Black Rock just because
they want to. We just came. That's all."
"Just you and Aunt Tillie? Is your father dead?" he asked.
She closed her eyes a moment and then clasped her knees again.
"I don't like to talk about family matters."
"Oh, I----"
And then, gently, she added,
"I never talk about them to any one."
"Oh, I'm sorry," said Peter, aware of the undercurrent of sadness in her
voice. "I didn't know that there was anything painful to you----"
"I didn't know it myself, until you played it to me, just now, the piece
with the sad, low voices, under the melody. It was like somebody dead
speakin' to me. I can't talk about the things I feel like that."
"Don't then----Forgive me for asking."
He laid his fingers softly over hers. She withdrew her hand quickly, but
the look that she turned him found his face sober, his dark eyes warm
with sympathy. And then with a swift inconsequential impulse born of
Peter's recantation,
"I don't s'pose there's any reason why I shouldn't tell you," she said
more easily. "Everybody around here knows about me--about us. Aunt
Tillie and I haven't lived here always. She brought me here when I was a
child."
She paused again and Peter remained silent, watching her intently. As
she glanced up at him, something in the expression of his face gave her
courage to go on.
"Father's dead. His name was Ben Cameron. He came of nice people," she
faltered. "But he--he was no good. We lived up near New Lisbon. He used
to get drunk on 'Jersey Lightnin'' and tear loose. He was all right
between whiles--farmin'--but whisky made him crazy, and then--then he
would come home and beat us up."
"Horrible!"
"It was. I was too little to know much, but Aunt Tillie's husband came
at last and there was a terrible fight. Uncle Will was hurt--hurt so
bad--cut with a knife--that he never was the same again. And my--my
father went away cursing us all. Then my mother died--Uncle Will
too--and Aunt Tillie and I came down here to live. That's all. Not much
to be proud of," she finished ruefully.
Peter was silent. It was a harrowing, sordid story of primitive passion.
He was very sorry for her.
Beth made an abrupt graceful movement of an arm across her brows, as
though to wipe out the memory.
"I don't know why I've told you," she said. "I never speak of this to
any one."
"I'm so sorry."
He meant it. And Beth knew that he did.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PLACARD
The look that she had given him showed her sense of his sympathy. So he
ventured,
"Did you hear from your father before he died?"
"Aunt Tillie did,--once. Then we got word he'd been killed in a railway
accident out West. I was glad. A man like that has no right to live."
"You and Aunt Tillie have had a pretty hard time----" he mused.
"Yes. She's an angel--and I love her. Why is it that good people have
nothin' but trouble? She had an uncle who went bad too--he was younger
than she was--my great-uncle--Jack Bray--he forged a check--or somethin'
up in Newark--and went to the penitentiary."
"And is he dead too?"
"No--not at last accounts. He's out--somewhere. When I was little he
used to come to Aunt Tillie for money--a tall, lantern-jawed man. I saw
him once three years ago. He was here. Aunt Tillie tried to keep me out
of the kitchen. But I thought he was up to some funny business and
stayed. He took a fancy to me. He said he was camera man in the movies.
He wanted me to go with him--thought I could be as good as Mary
Pickford. I'm glad I didn't go--from what I know now. He was a bad man.
Aunt Tillie was scared of him. Poor soul! She gave him all she had--most
of what was left from the old farm, I guess."
"Do you think----" began Peter, then paused. And as she glanced at him
inquiringly, "Did you notice that your Aunt Tillie seemed--er--frightened
last night?" he asked at last.
"I thought so for a while, but she said she was only sick. She never
lies to me."
"She seemed very much disturbed."
"Her nerve's not what it used to be--especially since Mr. McGuire's
taken to seein' things----"
"You don't believe then that she could have seen John Bray--that he had
come back again last night?"
"Why, no," said Beth, turning in surprise. "I never thought of it--and
yet," she paused, "yes,--it might have been----"
She became more thoughtful but didn't go on. Peter was on the trail of a
clew to the mystery, but she had already told him so much that further
questions seemed like personal intrusion. And so,
"I'd like to tell you, Beth," he said, "that I'm your friend and Mrs.
Bergen's. If anything should turn up to make you unhappy or to make your
aunt unhappy and I can help you, won't you let me know?"
"Why--do you think anything is goin' to happen?" she asked.
His reply was noncommittal.
"I just wanted you to know you could count on me----" he said soberly.
"I think you've had trouble enough."
"But I'm not afraid of Jack Bray," she said with a shrug, "even if Aunt
Tillie is. He can't do anything to me. He can't _make_ me go to New York
if I don't want to."
She had clenched her brown fists in her excitement and Peter laughed.
"I think I'd be a little sorry for anybody who tried to make you do
anything you didn't want to do," he said.
She frowned. "Why, if I thought that bandy-legged, lantern-jawed, old
buzzard was comin' around here frightenin' Aunt Tillie, I'd--I'd----"
"What would you do?"
"Never you mind what I'd do. But I'm not afraid of Jack Bray," she
finished confidently.
The terrors that had been built up around the house of McGuire, the
mystery surrounding the awe-inspiring prowler, the night vigils, the
secrecy--all seemed to fade into a piece of hobbledehoy buffoonery at
Beth's contemptuous description of her recreant relative. And he smiled
at her amusedly.
"But what would you say," he asked seriously, "if I told you that last
night Mr. McGuire saw the same person your Aunt Tillie did, and that he
was terrified--almost to the verge of collapse?"
Beth had risen, her eyes wide with incredulity.
"Merciful Father! McGuire! Did he have another spell last night? You
don't mean----?"
"I went up to his room. He was done for. He had seen outside the
drawing-room window the face of the very man he's been guarding himself
against."
"I can't believe----," she gasped. "And you think Aunt Tillie----?"
"Your Aunt Tillie talked to a man outside the door of the kitchen. You
didn't hear her. I did. The same man who had been frightening Mr.
McGuire."
"Aunt Tillie!" she said in astonishment.
"There's not a doubt of it. McGuire saw him. Andy saw him too,--thought
he was the chauffeur."
Beth's excitement was growing with the moments.
"Why, Aunt Tillie didn't know anything about what was frightening Mr.
McGuire--no more'n I did," she gasped.
"She knows now. She wasn't sick last night, Beth. She was just
bewildered--frightened half out of her wits. I spoke to her after you
went home. She wouldn't say a word. She was trying to conceal something.
But there was a man outside and she knows who he is."
"But what could Jack Bray have to do with Mr. McGuire?" she asked in
bewilderment.
Peter shrugged. "You know as much as I do. I wouldn't have told you this
if you'd been afraid. But Mrs. Bergen is."
"Well, did you _ever?_"
"No, I never did," replied Peter, smiling.
"It does beat _anything_."
"It does. It's most interesting, but as far as I can see, hardly
alarming for you, whatever it may be to Mr. McGuire or Mrs. Bergen. If
the man is only your great-uncle, there ought to be a way to deal with
him----"
"I've just got to talk to Aunt Tillie," Beth broke in, moving toward the
door. Peter followed her, taking up his hat.
"I'll go with you," he said.
For a few moments Beth said nothing. She had passed through the stages
of surprise, anger and bewilderment, and was now still indignant but
quite self-contained. When he thought of Beth's description of the Ghost
of Black Rock House, Peter was almost tempted to forget the terrors of
the redoubtable McGuire. A man of his type hardly lapses into hysteria
at the mere thought of a "bandy-legged buzzard." And yet McGuire's
terrors had been so real and were still so real that it was hardly
conceivable that Bray could have been the cause of them. Indeed it was
hardly conceivable that the person Beth described could be a source of
terror to any one. What was the answer?
"Aunt Tillie doesn't know anything about McGuire," Beth said suddenly.
"She just couldn't know. She tells me everything."
"But of course it's possible that McGuire and this John Bray could have
met in New York----"
"What would Mr. McGuire be doin' with him?" she said scornfully.
Peter laughed.
"It's what he's doing with McGuire that matters."
"I don't believe it's Bray," said Beth confidently. "I don't believe
it."
They had reached a spot where the underbrush was thin, and Beth, who had
been looking past the tree trunks toward the beginnings of the lawns,
stopped suddenly, her eyes focusing upon some object closer at hand.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing.
Peter followed the direction of her gaze. On a tree in the woods not far
from the path was a square of cardboard, but Beth's eyes were keener
than Peter's, and she called his attention to some writing upon it.
They approached curiously. With ironic impudence the message was
scrawled in red crayon upon the reverse of one of Jonathan McGuire's
neat trespass signs, and nailed to the tree by an old hasp-knife. Side
by side, and intensely interested, they read:
TO MIKE MCGUIRE
I'VE COME BACK.
YOU KNOW WHAT I'VE GOT AND I KNOW WHAT YOU'VE GOT.
ACT PRONTO. I'LL COME FOR MY ANSWER AT ELEVEN FRIDAY
NIGHT--AT THIS TREE. NO TRICKS. IF THERE'S NO
ANSWER--YOU KNOW WHAT I'LL DO.
HAWK.
"Hawk!" muttered Beth, "who on earth----?"
"Another----," said Peter cryptically.
"You see!" cried Beth triumphantly, "I knew it couldn't be Jack Bray!"
"This chap seems to be rather in earnest, doesn't he? _Pronto!_ That
means haste."
"But it's only a joke. It must be," cried Beth.
Peter loosened the knife, took the placard down and turned it over,
examining it critically.
"I wonder." And then, thoughtfully, "No, I don't believe it is. It's
addressed to McGuire. I'm going to take it to him."
"Mike McGuire," corrected Beth. And then, "But it really does look
queer."
"It does," assented Peter; "it appears to me as if this message must
have come from the person McGuire saw last night."
Beth looked bewildered.
"But what has Aunt Tillie got to do with--with Hawk? She never knew
anybody of that name."
"Probably not. It isn't a real name, of course."
"Then why should it frighten Mr. McGuire?" she asked logically.
Peter shook his head. All the props had fallen from under his theories.
"Whether it's real to McGuire or not is what I want to know. And I'm
going to find out," he finished.
When they reached a path which cut through the trees toward the creek,
Beth stopped, and held out her hand.
"I'm not goin' up to the house with you and I don't think I'll see Aunt
Tillie just now," she said. "Good-by, Mr.----"
"Peter----," he put in.
"Good-by, Mr. Peter."
"Just Peter----" he insisted.
"Good-by, Mr. Just Peter. Thanks for the playin'. Will you let me come
again?"
"Yes. And I'm going to get you some music----"
"Singin' music?" she gasped.
He nodded.
"And you'll let me know if I can help--Aunt Tillie or you?"
She bobbed her head and was gone.
Peter stood for a while watching the path down which she had
disappeared, wondering at her abrupt departure, which for the moment
drove from his mind all thought of McGuire's troubles. It was difficult
to associate Beth with the idea of prudery or affectation. Her visit
proved that. She had come to the Cabin because she had wanted to he
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