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Green Fancy

by George Barr McCutcheon · English · Gutenberg #5871 · 499,443 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Green Fancy

Author: George Barr McCutcheon


        
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5871]
                Most recently updated: April 11, 2013

Language: English

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Credits: Etext produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN FANCY ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team











[Illustration: THE RED GLEAM FROM THE BLAZING LOGS FELL UPON HER
SHINING HAIR; IT GLISTENED LIKE GOLD. SHE WORE A SIMPLE EVENING GOWN OF
WHITE.]

GREEN FANCY

BY

GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON

AUTHOR OF "GRAUSTARK," "THE HOLLOW OF HER HAND," "THE PRINCE OF
GRAUSTARK," ETC.

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY C. ALLAN GILBERT

NEW YORK

1917




CONTENTS


I.     THE FIRST WAYFARER AND THE SECOND WAYFARER MEET AND PART ON THE
         HIGHWAY

II.    THE FIRST WAYFARER LAYS HIS PACK ASIDE AND FALLS IN WITH
         FRIENDS

III.   MR. RUSHCROFT DISSOLVES, MR. JONES INTERVENES, AND TWO MEN RIDE
         AWAY

IV.    AN EXTRAORDINARY CHAMBERMAID, A MIDNIGHT TRAGEDY, AND A MAN WHO
         SAID "THANK YOU"

V.     THE FARM-BOY TELLS A GHASTLY STORY, AND AN IRISHMAN ENTERS

VI.    CHARITY BEGINS FAR FROM HOME, AND A STROLL IN THE WILDWOOD
         FOLLOWS

VII.   SPUN-GOLD HAIR, BLUE EYES, AND VARIOUS ENCOUNTERS

VIII.  A NOTE, SOME FANCIES, AND AN EXPEDITION IN QUEST OF FACTS

IX.    THE FIRST WAYFARER, THE SECOND WAYFARER, AND THE SPIRIT OF
         CHIVALRY ASCENDANT

X.     THE PRISONER OF GREEN FANCY, AND THE LAMENT OF PETER THE
         CHAUFFEUR

XI.    MR. SPROUSE ABANDONS LITERATURE AT AN EARLY HOUR IN THE MORNING

XII.   THE FIRST WAYFARER ACCEPTS AN INVITATION, AND MR. DILLINGFORD
         BELABORS A PROXY

XIII.  THE SECOND WAYFARER RECEIVES TWO VISITORS AT MIDNIGHT

XIV.   A FLIGHT, A STONE-CUTTER'S SHED, AND A VOICE OUTSIDE

XV.    LARGE BODIES MOVE SLOWLY,--BUT MR. SPROUSE WAS SMALLER THAN THE
         AVERAGE

XVI.   THE FIRST WAYFARER VISITS A SHRINE, CONFESSES, AND TAKES AN
         OATH

XVII.  THE SECOND WAYFARER IS TRANSFORMED, AND MARRIAGE IS FLOUTED

XVIII. MR. SPROUSE CONTINUES TO BE PERPLEXING, BUT PUTS HIS NOSE TO
         THE GROUND

XIX.   A TRIP BY NIGHT, A SUPPER, AND A LATE ARRIVAL

XX.    THE FIRST WAYFARER HAS ONE TREASURE THRUST UPON HIM,--AND
         FORTHWITH CLAIMS ANOTHER

XXI.   THE END IN SIGHT




CHAPTER I

THE FIRST WAYFARER AND THE SECOND WAYFARER MEET AND PART ON THE HIGHWAY


A solitary figure trudged along the narrow road that wound its
serpentinous way through the dismal, forbidding depths of the forest: a
man who, though weary and footsore, lagged not in his swift, resolute
advance. Night was coming on, and with it the no uncertain prospects of
storm. Through the foliage that overhung the wretched road, his
ever-lifting and apprehensive eye caught sight of the thunder-black,
low-lying clouds that swept over the mountain and bore down upon the
green, whistling tops of the trees. At a cross-road below he had
encountered a small girl driving homeward the cows. She was afraid of
the big, strange man with the bundle on his back and the stout walking
stick in his hand: to her a remarkable creature who wore "knee pants"
and stockings like a boy on Sunday, and hob-nail shoes, and a funny
coat with "pleats" and a belt, and a green hat with a feather sticking
up from the band. His agreeable voice and his amiable smile had no
charm for her. He merely wanted to know how far it was to the nearest
village, but she stared in alarm and edged away as if preparing to
break into mad flight the instant she was safely past him with a clear
way ahead.

"Don't be afraid," he said gently. "And here! Catch it if you can." He
tossed a coin across the road. It struck at her feet and rolled into
the high grass. She did not divert her gaze for the fraction of a
second. "I'm a stranger up here and I want to find some place to sleep
for the night. Surely you have a tongue, haven't you?" By dint of
persuasive smiles and smirks that would have sickened him at any other
time he finally induced her to say that if he kept right on until he
came to the turnpike he would find a sign-post telling him where to get
gasolene.

"But I don't want gasolene. I want bread and butter," he said.

"Well, you can git bread an' butter there too," she said. "Food fer man
an' beast, it says."

"A hotel?"

"Whut?"

"A boarding-house?" he substituted.

"It's a shindy," she said, painfully. "Men get drunk there. Pap calls
it a tavern, but Ma says it's a shindy."

"A road-house, eh?" She was puzzled--and silent. "Thank you. You'll
find the quarter in the grass. Good-bye."

He lifted his queer green hat and strode away, too much of a gentleman
to embarrass her by looking back. If he had done so he would have seen
her grubbing stealthily in the grass, not with her brown little hands,
but with the wriggling toes of a bare foot on which the mud, perhaps of
yesterday, had caked. She was too proud to stoop.

At last he came to the "pike" and there, sure enough, was the
sign-post. A huge, crudely painted hand pointed to the left, and on
what was intended to be the sleeve of a very stiff and unflinching arm
these words were printed in scaly white: "Hart's Tavern. Food for Man
and Beast. Also Gasolene. Established 1798. 1 mile." "Also Gasolene"
was freshly painted and crowded its elders in a most disrespectful
manner.

The chill spring wind of the gale was sweeping in the direction
indicated by the giant forefinger. There was little consolation in the
thought that a mile lay between him and shelter, but it was a relief to
know that he would have the wind at his back. Darkness was settling
over the land. The lofty hills seemed to be closing in as if to smother
the breath out of this insolent adventurer who walked alone among them.
He was an outsider. He did not belong there. He came from the lowlands
and he was an object of scorn.

On the opposite side of the "pike," in the angle formed by a junction
with the narrow mountain road, stood a humbler sign-post, lettered so
indistinctly that it deserved the compassion of all observers because
of its humility. Swerving in his hurried passage, the tall stranger
drew near this shrinking friend to the uncertain traveller, and was
suddenly aware of another presence in the roadway.

A woman appeared, as if from nowhere, almost at his side. He drew back
to let her pass. She stopped before the little sign-post, and together
they made out the faint directions.

To the right and up the mountain road Frogg's Corner lay four miles and
a half away; Pitcairn was six miles back over the road which the man
had travelled. Two miles and a half down the turnpike was Spanish
Falls, a railway station, and four miles above the cross-roads where
the man and woman stood peering through the darkness at the laconic
sign-post reposed the village of Saint Elizabeth. Hart's Tavern was on
the road to Saint Elizabeth, and the man, with barely a glance at his
fellow-traveller, started briskly off in that direction.

Lightning was flashing fitfully beyond the barrier heights and faraway
thunder came to his ears. He knew that these wild mountain storms moved
swiftly; his chance of reaching the tavern ahead of the deluge was
exceedingly slim. His long, powerful legs had carried him twenty or
thirty paces before he came to a sudden halt.

What of this lone woman who traversed the highway? Obviously she too
was a stranger on the road, and a glance over his shoulder supported a
first impression: she was carrying a stout travelling bag. His first
glimpse of her had been extremely casual,--indeed he had paid no
attention to her at all, so eager was he to read the directions and be
on his way.

She was standing quite still in front of the sign-post, peering up the
road toward Frogg's Corner,--confronted by a steep climb that led into
black and sinister timberlands above the narrow strip of pasture
bordering the pike.

The fierce wind pinned her skirts to her slender body as she leaned
against the gale, gripping her hat tightly with one hand and straining
under the weight of the bag in the other. The ends of a veil whipped
furiously about her head, and, even in the gathering darkness, he could
see a strand or two of hair keeping them company.

He hesitated. Evidently her way was up the steep, winding road and into
the dark forest, a far from appealing prospect. Not a sign of
habitation was visible along the black ridge of the wood; no lighted
window peeped down from the shadows, no smoke curled up from unseen
kitchen stoves. Gallantry ordered him to proffer his aid or, at the
least, advice to the woman, be she young or old, native or stranger.

Retracing his steps, he called out to her above the gale:

"Can I be of any assistance to you?"

She turned quickly. He saw that the veil was drawn tightly over her
face.

"No, thank you," she replied. Her voice, despite a certain nervous
note, was soft and clear and gentle,--the voice and speech of a
well-bred person who was young and resolute.

"Pardon me, but have you much farther to go? The storm will soon be
upon us, and--surely you will not consider me presumptuous--I don't
like the idea of your being caught out in--"

"What is to be done about it?" she inquired, resignedly. "I must go on.
I can't wait here, you know, to be washed back to the place I started
from."

He smiled. She had wit as well as determination. There was the
suggestion of mirth in her voice--and certainly it was a most pleasing,
agreeable voice.

"If I can be of the least assistance to you, pray don't hesitate to
command me. I am a sort of tramp, you might say, and I travel as well
by night as I do by day,--so don't feel that you are putting me to any
inconvenience. Are you by any chance bound for Hart's Tavern? If so, I
will be glad to lag behind and carry your bag."

"You are very good, but I am not bound for Hart's Tavern, wherever that
may be. Thank you, just the same. You appear to be an uncommonly
genteel tramp, and it isn't because I am afraid you might make off with
my belongings." She added the last by way of apology.

He smiled--and then frowned as he cast an uneasy look at the black
clouds now rolling ominously up over the mountain ridge.

"By Jove, we're going to catch it good and hard," he exclaimed. "Better
take my advice. These storms are terrible. I know, for I've encountered
half a dozen of them in the past week. They fairly tear one to pieces."

"Are you trying to frighten me?"

"Yes," he confessed. "Better to frighten you in advance than to let it
come later on when you haven't any one to turn to in your terror. You
are a stranger in these parts?"

"Yes. The railway station is a few miles below here. I have walked all
the way. There was no one to meet me. You are a stranger also, so it is
useless to inquire if you know whether this road leads to Green Fancy."

"Green Fancy? Sounds attractive. I'm sorry I can't enlighten you." He
drew a small electric torch from his pocket and directed its slender
ray upon the sign-post. So fierce was the gale by this time that he was
compelled to brace his strong body against the wind.

"It is on the road to Frogg's Corner," she explained nervously. "A mile
and a half, so I am told. It isn't on the sign-post. It is a house, not
a village. Thank you for your kindness. And I am not at all
frightened," she added, raising her voice slightly.

"But you ARE" he cried. "You're scared half out of your wits. You can't
fool me. I'd be scared myself at the thought of venturing into those
woods up yonder."

"Well, then, I AM frightened," she confessed plaintively. "Almost out
of my boots."

"That settles it," he said flatly. "You shall not undertake it."

"Oh, but I must. I am expected. It is import--"

"If you are expected, why didn't some one meet you at the station?
Seems to me--"

"Hark! Do you hear--doesn't that sound like an automobile--Ah!" The
hoarse honk of an automobile horn rose above the howling wind, and an
instant later two faint lights came rushing toward them around a bend
in the mountain road. "Better late than never," she cried, her voice
vibrant once more.

He grasped her arm and jerked her out of the path of the on-coming
machine, whose driver was sending it along at a mad rate, regardless of
ruts and stones and curves. The car careened as it swung into the pike,
skidded alarmingly, and then the brakes were jammed down. Attended by a
vast grinding of gears and wheels, the rattling old car came to a stop
fifty feet or more beyond them.

"I'd sooner walk than take my chances in an antediluvian rattle-trap
like that," said the tall wayfarer, bending quite close to her ear. "It
will fall to pieces before you--"

But she was running down the road towards the car, calling out sharply
to the driver. He stooped over and took up the travelling bag she had
dropped in her haste and excitement. It was heavy, amazingly heavy.

"I shouldn't like to carry that a mile and a half," he said to himself.

The voice of the belated driver came to his ears on the swift wind. It
was high pitched and unmistakably apologetic. He could not hear what
she was saying to him, but there wasn't much doubt as to the nature of
her remarks. She was roundly upbraiding him.

Urged to action by thoughts of his own plight, he hurried to her side
and said:

"Excuse me, please. You dropped something. Shall I put it up in front
or in the tonneau?"

The whimsical note in his voice brought a quick, responsive laugh from
her lips.

"Thank you so much. I am frightfully careless with my valuables. Would
you mind putting it in behind? Thanks!" Her tone altered completely as
she ordered the man to turn the car around--"And be quick about it,"
she added.

The first drops of rain pelted down from the now thoroughly black dome
above them, striking in the road with the sharpness of pebbles.

"Lucky it's a limousine," said the tall traveller. "Better hop in.
We'll be getting it hard in a second or two."

"I can't very well hop in while he's backing and twisting like that,
can I?" she laughed. He was acutely aware of a strained, nervous note
in her voice, as of one who is confronted by an undertaking calling for
considerable fortitude.

"Are you quite sure of this man?" he asked.

"Absolutely," she replied, after a pause.

"You know him, eh?"

"By reputation," she said briefly, and without a trace of laughter.

"Well, that comforts me to some extent," he said, but dubiously.

She was silent for a moment and then turned to him impulsively.

"You must let me take you on to the Tavern in the car," she said. "Turn
about is fair play. I cannot allow you to--"

"Never mind about me," he broke in cheerily. He had been wondering if
she would make the offer, and he felt better now that she had done so.
"I'm accustomed to roughing it. I don't mind a soaking. I've had
hundreds of 'em."

"Just the same, you shall not have one to-night," she announced firmly.
The car stopped beside them. "Get in behind. I shall sit with the
driver."

If any one had told him that this rattling, dilapidated
automobile,--ten years old, at the very least, he would have
sworn,--was capable of covering the mile in less than two minutes, he
would have laughed in his face. Almost before he realised that they
were on the way up the straight, dark road, the lights in the windows
of Hart's Tavern came into view. Once more the bounding, swaying car
came to a stop under brakes, and he was relaxing after the strain of
the most hair-raising ride he had ever experienced.

Not a word had been spoken during the trip. The front windows were
lowered. The driver,--an old, hatchet-faced man,--had uttered a single
word just before throwing in the clutch at the cross-roads in response
to the young woman's crisp command to drive to Hart's Tavern. That word
was uttered under his breath and it is not necessary to repeat it here.

He lost no time in climbing out of the car. As he leaped to the ground
and raised his green hat, he took a second look at the automobile,--a
look of mingled wonder and respect. It was an old-fashioned,
high-powered Panhard, capable, despite its antiquity, of astonishing
speed in any sort of going.

"For heaven's sake," he began, shouting to her above the roar of the
wind and rain, "don't let him drive like that over those--"

"You're getting wet," she cried out, a thrill in her voice. "Good
night,--and thank you!"

"Look out!" rasped the unpleasant driver, and in went the clutch. The
man in the road jumped hastily to one side as the car shot backward
with a jerk, curved sharply, stopped for the fraction of a second, and
then bounded forward again, headed for the cross-roads.

"Thanks!" shouted the late passenger after the receding tail light, and
dashed up the steps to the porch that ran the full length of Hart's
Tavern. In the shelter of its low-lying roof, he stopped short and once
more peered down the dark, rain-swept road. A flash of lightning
revealed the flying automobile. He waited for a second flash. It came
an instant later, but the car was no longer visible. He shook his head.
"I hope the blamed old fool knows what he's doing, hitting it up like
that over a wet road. There'll be a double funeral in this neck of the
woods if anything goes wrong," he reflected. Still shaking his head, he
faced the closed door of the Tavern.

A huge, old-fashioned lantern hung above the portal, creaking and
straining in the wind, dragging at its stout supports and threatening
every instant to break loose and go frolicking away with the storm.

The sound of the rain on the clap-board roof was deafening. At the
lower end of the porch the water swished in with all the velocity of a
gigantic wave breaking over a ship at sea. The wind howled, the thunder
roared and almost like cannon-fire were the successive crashes of
lightning among the trees out there in the path of fury.

There were lights in several of the windows opening upon the porch; the
wooden shutters not only were ajar but were banging savagely against
the walls. Even in the dim, grim light shed by the lantern he could see
that the building was of an age far beyond the ken of any living man.
He recalled the words of the informing sign-post: "Established in
1798." One hundred and eighteen years old, and still baffling the
assaults of all the elements in a region where they were never timid!

It may, in all truth, be a "shindy," thought he, but it had led a
gallant life.

The broad, thick weather-boarding, overlapping in layers, was brown
with age and smooth with the polishing of time and the backs, no doubt,
of countless loiterers who had come and gone in the making of the
narrative that Hart's Tavern could relate. The porch itself, while old,
was comparatively modern; it did not belong to the century in which the
inn itself was built, for in those far-off days men did not waste time,
timber or thought on the unnecessary. While the planks in the floor
were worn and the uprights battered and whittled out of their pristine
shapeliness, they were but grandchildren to the parent building to
which they clung. Stout and, beyond question, venerable benches stood
close to the wall on both sides of the entrance. Directly over the
broad, low door with its big wooden latch and bar, was the word
"Welcome," rudely carved in the oak beam. It required no cultured eye
to see that the letters had been cut, deep and strong, into the timber,
not with the tool of the skilled wood carver but with the hunting knife
of an ambitious pioneer.

A shocking incongruity marred the whole effect. Suspended at the side
of this hundred-year-old doorway was a black and gold, shield-shaped
ornament of no inconsiderable dimensions informing the observer that a
certain brand of lager beer was to be had inside.

He lifted the latch and, being a tall man, involuntarily stooped as he
passed through the door, a needless precaution, for gaunt, gigantic
mountaineers had entered there before him and without bending their
arrogant heads.




CHAPTER II

THE FIRST WAYFARER LAYS HIS PACK ASIDE AND FALLS IN WITH FRIENDS


The little hall in which he found himself was the "office" through
which all men must pass who come as guests to Hart's Tavern. A steep,
angular staircase took up one end of the room. Set in beneath its upper
turn was the counter over which the business of the house was
transacted, and behind this a man was engaged in the peaceful
occupation of smoking a corn-cob pipe. He removed the pipe, brushed his
long moustache with the back of a bony hand, and bowed slowly and with
grave ceremony to the arrival.

An open door to the right of the stairway gave entrance to a room from
which came the sound of a deep, sonorous voice, employed in what turned
out to be a conversational solo. To the left another door led to what
was evidently the dining-room. The glance that the stranger sent in
that direction revealed two or three tables, covered with white cloths.

"Can you put me up for the night?" he inquired, advancing to the
counter.

"You look like a feller who'd want a room with bath," drawled the man
behind the counter, surveying the applicant from head to foot. "Which
we ain't got," he added.

"I'll be satisfied to have a room with a bed," said the other.

"Sign here," was the laconic response. He went to the trouble of
actually putting his finger on the line where the guest was expected to
write his name.

"Can I have supper?"

"Food for man and beast," said the other patiently. He slapped his palm
upon a cracked call-bell, and then looked at the fresh name on the
page. "Thomas K. Barnes, New York," he read aloud. He eyed the newcomer
once more. "And automobile?"

"No. I'm walking."

"Didn't I hear you just come up in a car?"

"A fellow gave me a lift from the cross-roads."

"I see. My name is Jones, Putnam Jones. I run this place. My father an'
grandfather run it before me. Glad to meet you, Mr. Barnes. We used to
have a hostler here named Barnes. What's your idea fer footin' it this
time o' the year?"

"I do something like this every spring. A month or six weeks of it puts
me in fine shape for a vacation later on," supplied Mr. Barnes
whimsically.

Mr. Jones allowed a grin to steal over his seamed face. He re-inserted
the corn-cob pipe and took a couple of pulls at it.

"I never been to New York, but it must be a heavenly place for a
vacation, if a feller c'n judge by what some of my present boarders
have to say about it. It's a sort of play-actor's paradise, ain't it?"

"It is paradise to every actor who happens to be on the road, Mr.
Jones," said Barnes, slipping his big pack from his shoulders and
letting it slide to the floor.

"Hear that feller in the tap-room talkin'? Well, he is one of the
leading actors in New York,--in the world, for that matter. He's been
talkin' about Broadway for nearly a week now, steady."

"May I enquire what he is doing up here in the wilds?"

"At present he ain't doing anything except talk. Last week he was
treadin' the boards, as he puts it himself. Busted. Up the flue. Showed
last Saturday night in Hornville, eighteen mile north of here, and
immediately after the performance him and his whole troupe started to
walk back to New York, a good four hunderd mile. They started out the
back way of the opery house and nobody missed 'em till next mornin'
except the sheriff, and he didn't miss 'em till they'd got over the
county line into our bailiwick. Four of 'em are still stoppin' here
just because I ain't got the heart to turn 'em out ner the spare money
to buy 'em tickets to New York. Here comes one of 'em now. Mr.
Dillingford, will you show this gentleman to room eleven, and carry his
baggage up fer him? And maybe he'll want a pitcher of warm water to
wash and shave in." He turned to the new guest and smiled
apologetically.

"We're a little short o' help just now, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Dillingford
has kindly consented to--"

"My God!" gasped Mr. Dillingford, staring at the register. "Some one
from little old New York? My word, sir, you--Won't you have
a--er--little something to drink with me before you--"

"He wants something to eat," interrupted Mr. Jones sharply. "Tell Mr.
Bacon to step up to his room and take the order."

"All right, old chap,--nothing easier," said Mr. Dillingford genially.
"Just climb up the elevator, Mr. Barnes. We do this to get up an
appetite. When did you leave New York?"

Taking up a lighted kerosene lamp and the heavy pack, Mr. Clarence
Dillingford led the way up the stairs. He was a chubby individual of
indefinite age. At a glance you would have said he was under
twenty-one; a second look would have convinced you that he was nearer
forty-one. He was quite shabby, but chin and cheek were as clean as
that of a freshly scrubbed boy. He may not have changed his collar for
days but he lived up to the traditions of his profession by shaving
twice every twenty-four hours.

Depositing Barnes' pack on a chair in the little bedroom at the end of
the hall upstairs, he favoured the guest with a perfectly unabashed
grin.

"I'm not doing this to oblige old man Jones, you know. I won't attempt
to deceive you. I'm working out a daily bread-bill. Chuck three times a
day and a bed to sleep in, that's what I'm doing it for, so don't get
it into your head that I applied for the job. Let me take a look at
you. I want to get a good square peep at a man who has the means to go
somewhere else and yet is boob enough to come to this gosh-awful place
of his own free will and accord. Darn it, you LOOK intelligent. I don't
get you at all. What's the matter? Are you a fugitive from justice?"

Barnes laughed aloud. There was no withstanding the fellow's sprightly
impudence.

"I happen to enjoy walking," said he.

"If I enjoyed it as much as you do, I'd be limping into Harlem by this
time," said Mr. Dillingford sadly. "But, you see, I'm an actor. I'm too
proud to walk."

"Up against poor business, I presume?"

"Up against no business at all," said Mr. Dillingford. "We couldn't
even get 'em to come in on passes. Last Saturday night we had out
enough paper to fill the house and, by gosh, only eleven people showed
up. You can't beat that, can you? Three of 'em paid to get in. That
made a dollar and a half, box office. We nearly had to give it back."

"Bad weather?" suggested Barnes feelingly. He had removed his wet coat,
and stood waiting.

"Nope. Moving pictures. They'd sooner pay ten cents to see a movie than
to come in and see us free. The old man was so desperate he tried to
kill himself the morning we arrived at this joint."

"You mean the star? Poison, rope or pistol?"

"Whiskey. He tried to drink himself to death. Before old Jones got onto
him he had put down seven dollars' worth of booze, and now we've got to
help wipe out the account. But why complain? It's all in a day's--"

The cracked bell on the office desk interrupted him, somewhat
peremptorially. Mr. Dillingford's face assumed an expression of
profound dignity. He lowered his voice as he gave vent to the following:

"That man Jones is the meanest human being God ever let--Yes, sir,
coming, sir!" He started for the open door with surprising alacrity.

"Never mind the hot water," said Barnes, sorry for the little man.

"No use," said Mr. Dillingford dejectedly. "He charges ten cents for
hot water. You've got to have it whether you want it or not. Remember
that you are in the very last stages of New England. The worst
affliction known to the human race. So long. I'll be back in two shakes
of a lamb's--" The remainder of his promise was lost in the rush of
exit.

Barnes surveyed the little bed-chamber. It was just what he had
expected it would be. The walls were covered with a garish paper
selected by one who had an eye but not a taste for colour: bright pink
flowers that looked more or less like chunks of a shattered water melon
spilt promiscuously over a background of pearl grey. There was every
indication that it had been hung recently. Indeed there was a distinct
aroma of fresh flour paste. The bedstead, bureau and washstand were
likewise offensively modern. Everything was as clean as a pin, however,
and the bed looked comfortable. He stepped to the small, many-paned
window and looked out into the night. The storm was at its height. In
all his life he never had heard such a clatter of rain, nor a wind that
shrieked so appallingly.

His thoughts went quite naturally to the woman who was out there in the
thick of it. He wondered how she was faring, and lamented that she was
not in his place now and he in hers. A smile lighted his eyes. She had
such a nice voice and such a quaint way of putting things into words.
What was she doing up in this God-forsaken country? And how could she
be so certain of that grumpy old man whom she had never laid eyes on
before? What was the name of the place she was bound for? Green Fancy!
What an odd name for a house! And what sort of house--

His reflections were interrupted by the return of Mr. Dillingford, who
carried a huge pewter pitcher from which steam arose in volume. At his
heels strode a tall, cadaverous person in a checked suit.

Never had Barnes seen anything quite so overpowering in the way of a
suit. Joseph's coat of many colours was no longer a vision of
childhood. It was a reality. The checks were an inch square, and each
cube had a narrow border of azure blue. The general tone was a dirty
grey, due no doubt to age and a constitution that would not allow it to
outlive its usefulness.

"Meet Mr. Bacon, Mr. Barnes," introduced Mr. Dillingford, going to the
needless exertion of indicating Mr. Bacon with a generous sweep of his
free hand. "Our heavy leads. Mr. Montague Bacon, also of New York."

"Ham and eggs, pork tenderloin, country sausage, rump steak and spring
chicken," said Mr. Bacon, in a cavernous voice, getting it over with
while the list was fresh in his memory. "Fried and boiled potatoes,
beans, succotash, onions, stewed tomatoes and--er--just a moment,
please. Fried and boiled potatoes, beans--"

"Learn your lines, Ague," said Mr. Dillingford, from the washstand. "We
call him Ague for short, Mr. Barnes, because he's always shaky with his
lines."

"Ham and eggs, potatoes and a cup or two of coffee," said Barnes,
suppressing a desire to laugh.

"And apple pie," concluded the waiter, triumphantly. "I knew I'd get it
if you gave me time. As you may have observed, my dear sir, I am not
what you would call an experienced waiter. As a matter of fact, I--"

"I told him you were an actor," interrupted his friend. "Run along now
and give the order to Mother Jones. Mr. Barnes is hungry."

"I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Barnes," said Mr. Bacon, extending his
hand. As he did so, his coat sleeve receded half way to the elbow,
revealing the full expanse of a frayed cuff. "So delighted, in fact,
that it gives me great pleasure to inform you that you have at last
encountered a waiter who does not expect a tip. God forbid that I
should ever sink so low as that. I have been a villain of the deepest
dye in a score or more of productions--many of them depending to a
large extent upon the character of the work I did in--"

"Actor stuff," inserted Mr. Dillingford, unfeelingly.

"--And I have been hissed a thousand times by gallery gods and kitchen
angels from one end of this broad land to the other, but never, sir,
never in all my career have I been obliged to play such a diabolical
part as I am playing here, and, dammit, sir, I am denied even the
tribute of a healthy hiss. This is--"

The bell downstairs rang violently. Mr. Bacon departed in great haste.

While the traveller performed his ablutions, Mr. Dillingford, for the
moment disengaged, sat upon the edge of the bed and enjoyed himself. He
talked.

"We were nine at the start," said he, pensively. "Gradually we were
reduced to seven, not including the manager. I doubled and so did Miss
Hughes,--a very charming actress, by the way, who will soon be heard of
on Broadway unless I miss my guess. The last week I was playing Dick
Cranford, light juvenile, and General Parsons, comedy old man. In the
second act Dick has to meet the general face to face and ask him for
his daughter's hand. Miss Hughes was Amy Parsons, and, as I say,
doubled along toward the end. She played her own mother. The best you
could say for the arrangement was that the family resemblance was
remarkable. I never saw a mother and daughter look so much alike. You
see, she didn't have time to change her make-up or costume, so all she
could do was to put on a long shawl and a grey wig, and that made a
mother of her. Well, we had a terrible time getting around that scene
between Dick and the general. Amy and her mother were in on it too, and
Mrs. Parsons was supposed to faint. It looked absolutely impossible for
Miss Hughes. But we got around it, all right."

"How, may I ask?" enquired Barnes, over the edge of a towel.

"Just as I was about to enter to tackle the old man, who was seated in
his library with Mrs. Parsons, the lights went out. I jumped up and
addressed the audience, telling 'em (almost in a confidential whisper,
there were so darned few of 'em) that there was nothing to be alarmed
about and the act would go right on. Then Amy and Dick came on in total
darkness, and the audience never got wise to the game. When the lights
went up, there was Amy and Dick embracing each other in plain view, the
old folks nowhere in sight. General Parsons had dragged the old lady
into the next room. We made our changes right there on the stage,
speaking all four parts at the same time."

"Pretty clever," said Barnes.

"My idea," announced Mr. Dillingford calmly.

"What has become of the rest of the company?"

"Well, as I said before, two of 'em escaped before the smash. The low
comedian and character old woman. Joe Beckley and his wife. That left
the old man,--I mean Mr. Rushcroft, the star--Lyndon Rushcroft, you
know,--myself and Bacon, Tommy Gray, Miss Rushcroft, Miss Hughes and a
woman named Bradley, seven of us. Miss Hughes happened to know a chap
who was travelling around the country for his health, always meeting up
with us,--accidentally, of course,--and he staked her to a ticket to
New York. The woman named Bradley said her mother was dying in Buffalo,
so the rest of us scraped together all the money we had,--nine dollars
and sixty cents,--and did the right thing by her. Actors are always
doing darn-fool things like that, Mr. Barnes. And what do you suppose
she did? She took that money and bought two tickets to Albany, one for
herself and another for the manager of the company,--the lowest,
meanest, orneriest white man that ever,--But I am crabbing the old
man's part. You ought to hear what HE has to say about Mr. Manager. He
can use words I never even heard of before. So, that leaves just the
four of us here, working off the two days' board bill of Bradley and
the manager, Rushcroft's ungodly spree, and at the same time keeping
our own slate clean. Miss Thackeray will no doubt make up your bed in
the morning. She is temporarily a chambermaid. Cracking fine girl, too,
if I do say--"

"Miss Thackeray? I don't recall your mentioning--"

"Mercedes Thackeray on the programme, but in real life, as they say,
Emma Smith. She is Rushcroft's daughter."

"Somewhat involved, isn't it?"

"Not in the least. Rushcroft's real name is Otterbein Smith. Horrible,
isn't it? He sprung from some place in Indiana, where the authors come
from. Miss Thackeray was our ingenue. A trifle large for that sort of
thing, perhaps, but--very sprightly, just the same. She's had her full
growth upwards, but not outwards. Tommy Gray, the other member of the
company, is driving a taxi in Hornville. He used to own his own car in
Springfield, Mass., by the way. Comes of a very good family. At least,
so he says. Are you all ready? I'll lead you to the dining-room. Or
would you prefer a little appetiser beforehand? The tap-room is right
on the way. You mustn't call it the bar. Everybody in that little
graveyard down the road would turn over completely if you did. Hallowed
tradition, you know."

"I don't mind having a cocktail. Will you join me?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm expected to," confessed Mr. Dillingford.
"We've been drawing quite a bit of custom to the tap-room. The rubes
like to sit around and listen to conversation about Broadway and Bunker
Hill and Old Point Comfort and other places, and then go home and tell
the neighbours that they know quite a number of stage people. Human
nature, I guess. I used to think that if I could ever meet an actress
I'd be the happiest thing in the world. Well, I've met a lot of 'em,
and God knows I'm not as happy as I was when I was WISHING I could meet
one of them. Listen! Hear that? Rushcroft is reciting Gunga Din. You
can't hear the thunder for the noise he's making."

They descended the stairs and entered the tap-room, where a dozen men
were seated around the tables, all of them with pewter mugs in front of
them. Standing at the top table,--that is to say, the one farthest
removed from the door and commanding the attention of every creature in
the room--was the imposing figure of Lyndon Rushcroft. He was reciting,
in a sonorous voice and with tremendous fervour, the famous Kipling
poem. Barnes had heard it given a score of times at The Players in New
York, and knew it by heart. He was therefore able to catch Mr.
Rushcroft in the very reprehensible act of taking liberties with the
designs of the author. The "star," after a sharp and rather startled
look at the newcomer, deliberately "cut" four stanzas and rushed
somewhat hastily through the concluding verse, marring a tremendous
climax.

A genial smile wiped the tragic expression from his face. He advanced
upon Barnes and the beaming Mr. Dillingford, his hand extended.

"My dear fellow," he exclaimed resoundingly, "how are you?" Cordiality
boomed in his voice. "I heard you had arrived. Welcome,--thricefold
welcome!" He neglected to say that Mr. Montague Bacon, in passing a few
minutes before, had leaned over and whispered behind his hand:

"Fellow upstairs from New York, Mr. Rushcroft,--fellow named Barnes.
Quite a swell, believe me."

It was a well-placed tip, for Mr. Rushcroft had been telling the
natives for days that he knew everybody worth knowing in New York.

Barnes was momentarily taken aback. Then he rose to the spirit of the
occasion.

"Hello, Rushcroft," he greeted, as if meeting an old time and greatly
beloved friend. "This IS good. 'Pon my soul, you are like a thriving
date palm in the middle of an endless desert. How are you?"

They shook hands warmly. Mr. Dillingford slapped the newcomer on the
shoulder, affectionately, familiarly, and shouted:

"Who would have dreamed we'd run across good old Barnesy up here? By
Jove, it's marvellous!"

"Friends, countrymen," boomed Mr. Rushcroft, "this is Mr. Barnes of New
York. Not the man the book was written about, but one of the best
fellows God ever put into this little world of ours. I do not recall
your names, gentlemen, or I would introduce each of you separately and
divisibly. And when did you leave New York, my dear fellow?"

"A fortnight ago," replied Barnes. "I have been walking for the past
two weeks."

Mr. Rushcroft's expression changed. His face fell.

"Walking?" he repeated, a trifle stiffly. Was the fellow a tramp? Was
he in no better condition of life than himself and his stranded
companions, against whom the mockery of the assemblage was slyly but
indubitably directed? If so, what was to be gained by claiming
friendship with him? It behooved him to go slow. He drew himself up to
his full height. "Well, well! Really?" he said.

The others looked on with interest. The majority were farmers, hardy,
rawboned men with misty eyes. Two of them looked like
mechanics,--blacksmiths, was Barnes' swift estimate,--and as there was
an odor of gasolene in the low, heavy-timbered room, others were no
doubt connected with the tavern garage. For that matter, there was also
an atmosphere of the stables.

Lyndon Rushcroft was a tall, saggy man of fifty. Despite his determined
erectness, he was inclined to sag from the shoulders down. His head,
huge and grey, appeared to be much too ponderous for his yielding body,
and yet he carried it manfully, even theatrically. The lines in his
dark, seasoned face were like furrows; his nose was large and somewhat
bulbous, his mouth wide and grim. Thick, black eyebrows shaded a pair
of eyes in which white was no longer apparent; it had given way to a
permanent red. A two days' stubble covered his chin and cheeks.
Altogether he was a singular exemplification of one's idea of the
old-time actor. He was far better dressed than the two male members of
his company who had come under Barnes' observation. A fashionably made
cutaway coat of black, a fancy waistcoat, and trousers with a delicate
stripe (sadly in need of creasing) gave him an air of distinction
totally missing in his subordinates. (Afterwards Barnes was to learn
that he was making daily use of his last act drawing-room costume,
which included a silk hat and a pair of pearl grey gloves.) Evidently
he had possessed the foresight to "skip out" in the best that the
wardrobe afforded, leaving his ordinary garments for the sheriff to lay
hands upon.

"A customary adventure with me," said Barnes. "I take a month's walking
tour every spring, usually timing my pilgrimage so as to miss the
hoi-polloi that blunders into the choice spots of the world later on
and spoils them completely for me. This is my first jaunt into this
part of New England. Most attractive walking, my dear fellow. Wonderful
scenery, splendid air--" "Deliver me from the hoi-polloi," said Mr.
Rushcroft, at his ease once more. "I may also add, deliver me from
walking. I'm damned if I can see anything in it. What will you have to
drink, old chap?"

He turned toward the broad aperture which served as a passageway in the
wall for drinks leaving the hands of a fat bartender beyond to fall
into the clutches of thirsty customers in the tap-room. There was no
outstanding bar. A time-polished shelf, as old as the house itself,
provided the afore-said bartender with a place on which to spread his
elbows while not actively engaged in advancing mugs and bottles from
more remote resting-places at his back.

"Everything comes through 'the hole in the wall,'" explained Rushcroft,
wrinkling his face into a smile.

He unceremoniously turned his back on the audience of a moment before,
and pounded smartly on the shelf, notwithstanding the fact that the
bartender was less than a yard away and facing him expectantly. "What
ho! Give ear, professor. Ye gods, what a night! Devil-brewed
pandemonium--I beg pardon?"

"I was just about to ask what you will have," said Barnes, lining up
beside him with Mr. Dillingford.

Mr. Rushcroft drew himself up once more. "My dear fellow, I asked you
to have a--"

"But I had already invited Dillingford. You must allow me to extend the
invitation--"

"Say no more, sir. I understand perfectly. A flagon of ale, Bob, for
me." He leaned closer to Barnes and said, in what was supposed to be a
confidential aside: "Don't tackle the whiskey. It would kill a
rattlesnake."

A few minutes later he laid one hand fondly upon Barnes' shoulder and,
with a graceful sweep of the other in the direction of the hall,
addressed himself to Dillingford.

"Lead the way to the banquet-hall, good fellow. We follow." To the
patrons he was abandoning:

"We return anon." Passing through the office, his arm linked in one of
Barnes', Mr. Rushcroft hesitated long enough to impress upon Landlord
Jones the importance of providing his "distinguished friend, Robert W.
Barnes," with the very best that the establishment afforded. Putnam
Jones blinked slightly and his eyes sought the register as if to accuse
or justify his memory. Then he spat copiously into the corner, a
necessary preliminary to a grin. He hadn't much use for the great
Lyndon Rushcroft. His grin was sardonic. Something told him that Mr.
Rushcroft was about to be liberally fed.




CHAPTER III

MR. RUSHCROFT DISSOLVES, MR. JONES INTERVENES, AND TWO MEN RIDE AWAY


Mr. Rushcroft explained that he had had his supper. In fact, he went on
to confess, he had been compelled, like the dog, to "speak" for it.
What could be more disgusting, more degrading, he mourned, than the
spectacle of a man who had appeared in all of the principal theatres of
the land as star and leading support to stars, settling for his supper
by telling stories and reciting poetry in the tap-room of a tavern?

"Still," he consented, when Barnes insisted that it would be a kindness
to him, "since you put it that way, I dare say I could do with a little
snack, as you so aptly put it. Just a bite or two. Like you, my dear
fellow, I loathe and detest eating alone. I covet companionship,
convivial com--what have you ready, Miss Tilly?"

Miss Tilly was a buxom female of forty or thereabouts, with spectacles.
She was one of a pair of sedentary waitresses who had been so long in
the employ of Mr. Jones that he hated the sight of them. Close
proximity to a real star affected her intensely. In fact, she was
dazzled. For something like twenty years she had nursed an ambition
that wavered between the desire to become an actress or an authoress.
At present she despised literature. More than once she had confessed to
Mr. Rushcroft that she hated like poison to write out the bill-o'-fare,
a duty devolving solely upon her, it appears, because of a local
tradition that she possessed literary talent. Every one said that she
wrote the best hand in the county.

Mr. Rushcroft's conception of a bite or two may have staggered Barnes
but it did not bewilder Miss Tilly. He had four eggs with his ham, and
other things in proportion. He talked a great deal, proving in that way
that it was a supper well worth speaking for. Among other things, he
dilated at great length upon his reasons for not being a member of The
Players or The Lambs in New York City. It seems that he had promised
his dear, devoted wife that he would never join a club of any
description. Dear old girl, he would as soon have cut off his right
hand as to break any promise made to her. He brushed something away
from his eyes, and his chin, contracting, trembled slightly.

"Quite right," said Barnes, sympathetically. "And how long has Mrs.
Rushcroft been dead?"

A hurt, incredulous look came into Mr. Rushcroft's eyes. "Is it
possible that you have forgotten the celebrated case of Rushcroft vs.
Rushcroft, not more than six years back? Good Lord, man, it was one of
the most sensational cases that ever--But I see that you do not recall
it. You must have been abroad at the time. I don't believe I ever knew
of a case being quite so admirably handled by the press as that one
was. She got it after a bitter and protracted fight. Infidelity.
Nothing so rotten as cruelty or desertion,--no sir!"

"Ahem!" coughed Miss Tilly.

"The dear old girl married again," sighed Mr. Rushcroft, helping
himself to Barnes' butter. "Did very well, too. Man in the wine trade.
He saves a great deal, you see, by getting it at cost, and I can assure
you, on my word of honour, sir, that he'll find it quite an item. What
is it, Mr. Bacon? Any word from New York?"

Mr. Bacon hovered near, perhaps hungrily.

"Our genial host has instructed me to say to his latest guest that the
rates are two dollars a day, in advance, all dining-room checks payable
on presentation," said Mr. Bacon, apologetically.

Rushcroft exploded. "A scurvy insult," he boomed. "Confound his--"

The new guest was amiable. He interrupted the outraged star. "Tell Mr.
Jones that I shall settle promptly," he said, with a smile.

The "heavy leads" lowered his voice. "He told me that he had had a
horrible thought."

"He never has anything else," said Mr. Rushcroft.

"It has just entered his bean that you may be an actor, Mr. Barnes,"
said Bacon.

Miss Tilly, overhearing, drew a step or two nearer. A sudden interest
in Mr. Barnes developed. She had not noticed before that he was an
uncommonly good-looking fellow. She always had said that she adored
strong, "athletic" faces.

"Hence the insult," said Mr. Rushcroft bitterly. He raised both arms in
a gesture of complete dejection. "My God!"

"Says it looks suspicious," went on Mr. Bacon, "flocking with us as you
do. He mentioned something about birds of a feather."

Mr. Rushcroft arose majestically. "I shall see the man myself, Mr.
Barnes. His infernal insolence--"

"Pray do not distress yourself, my dear Rushcroft," interrupted Barnes.
"He is quite within his rights. I may be even worse than an actor. I
may turn out to be an ordinary tramp." He took a wallet from his
pocket, and smiled engagingly upon Miss Tilly. "The check, please."

"For both?" inquired she, blinking.

"Certainly. Mr. Rushcroft was my guest."

"Four twenty five," she announced, after computation on the back of the
menu.

He selected a five dollar bill from the rather plethoric purse and
handed it to her.

"Be so good as to keep the change," he said, and Miss Tilly went away
in a daze from which she did not emerge for a long, long time.

Later on she felt inspired to jot down, for use no doubt in some future
literary production, a concise, though general, description of the
magnificent Mr. Barnes. She utilised the back of the bill-of-fare and
she wrote with the feverish ardour of one who dreads the loss of a
first impression. I herewith append her visual estimate of the hero of
this story.

"He was a tall, shapely speciman of mankind," wrote Miss Tilly.
"Broad-shouldered. Smooth shaved face. Penetrating grey eyes. Short
curly hair about the colour of mine. Strong hands of good shape. Face
tanned considerable. Heavy dark eyebrows. Good teeth, very white.
Square chin. Lovely smile that seemed to light up the room for
everybody within hearing. Nose ideal. Mouth same. Voice aristocratic
and reverberating with education. Age about thirty or thirty one. Rich
as Croesus. Costume resembling the picture in the English novel the
woman forgot and left here last summer. Well turned legs. Would make a
good nobleman."

All this would appear to be reasonably definite were it not for the
note regarding the colour of his hair. It leaves to me the simple task
of completing the very admirable description of Mr. Barnes by
announcing that Miss Tilly's hair was an extremely dark brown.

Also it is advisable to append the following biographical information:
Thomas Kingsbury Barnes, engineer, born in Montclair, New Jersey, Sept.
26, 1885. Cornell and Beaux Arts, Paris. Son of the late Stephen S.
Barnes, engineer, and Edith (Valentine) Barnes. Office, Metropolitan
Building, New York City. Residence, Amsterdam Mansions. Clubs: (Lack of
space prevents listing them here). Recreations: golf, tennis, and
horseback riding. Author of numerous articles resulting from
expeditions and discoveries in Peru and Ecuador. Fellow of the Royal
Geographic Society. Member of the Loyal Legion and the Sons of the
American Revolution.

Added to this, the mere announcement that he was in a position to
indulge a fancy for long and perhaps aimless walking tours through more
or less out of the way sections of his own country, to say nothing of
excursions in Europe.

Needless to say, he obtained a great deal of pleasure from these lonely
jaunts, and at the same time laid up for future use an ample supply of
mind's ease. His was undoubtedly a romantic nature. He loved the
fancies that his susceptibilities garnered from the hills and dales and
fields and forests. He never tired of the changing prospect; the simple
meadow and the inspiring mountain peak were as one to his generous
imagination. He found something worth while in every mile he traversed
in these long and solitary tramps, and he covered no fewer than twenty
of them between breakfast and dinner unless ordered by circumstance to
loiter along the way.

Each succeeding spring he set out from his "diggings" in New York
without having the remotest idea where his peregrinations would carry
him. It was his habit to select a starting point in advance, approach
that spot by train or ship or motor, and then divest himself of all
purpose except to fare forward until he came upon some haven for the
night. He went east or west, north or south, even as the winds of
heaven blow; indeed, he not infrequently followed them.

For five or six weeks in the early spring it was his custom to forge
his daily chain of miles and, when the end was reached, climb
contentedly aboard a train and be transported, often by arduous means,
to the city where millions of men walk with a definite aim in view. He
liked the spring of the year. He liked the rains and the winds of early
spring. They meant the beginning of things to him.

He was rich. Perhaps not as riches are measured in these Midas-like
days, but rich beyond the demands of avarice. His legacy had been an
ample one. The fact that he worked hard at his profession from one
year's end to the other,--not excluding the six weeks devoted to these
mentally productive jaunts,--is proof sufficient that he was not
content to subsist on the fruits of another man's enterprise. He was a
worker. He was a creator, a builder and a destroyer. It was part of his
ambition to destroy in order that he might build the better.

The first fortnight of a proposed six weeks' jaunt through Upper New
England terminated when he laid aside his heavy pack in the little
bed-room at Hart's Tavern. Cock-crow would find him ready and eager to
begin his third week. At least, so he thought. But, truth is, he had
come to his journey's end; he was not to sling his pack for many a day
to come.

After setting the mind of the landlord at rest, Barnes declined Mr.
Rushcroft's invitation to "quaff" a cordial with him in the tap-room,
explaining that he was exceedingly tired and intended to retire early
(an announcement that caused unmistakable distress to the actor, who
held forth for some time on the folly of "letting a thing like that go
without taking it in time," although it was not made quite clear just
what he meant by "thing"). Barnes was left to infer that he considered
fatigue a malady that ought to be treated.

Instead of going up to his room immediately, however, he decided to
have a look at the weather. He stepped out upon the wet porch and
closed the door behind him. The wind was still high; the lantern
creaked and the dingy sign that hung above the steps gave forth
raucous, spasmodic wails as it swung back and forth in the stiff, raw
wind. Far away to the north lightning flashed dimly; the roar of
thunder had diminished to a low, half-hearted growl.

His uneasiness concerning the young woman of the cross-roads increased
as he peered at the wall of blackness looming up beyond the circle of
light. He could not see the towering hills, but memory pictured them as
they were revealed to him in the gathering darkness before the storm.
She was somewhere outside that sinister black wall and in the
smothering grasp of those invisible hills, but was she living or dead?
Had she reached her journey's end safely? He tried to extract comfort
from the confidence she had expressed in the ability and integrity of
the old man who drove with far greater recklessness than one would have
looked for in a wild and irresponsible youngster.

He recalled, with a thrill, the imperious manner in which she gave
directions to the man, and his surprising servility. It suddenly
occurred to him that she was no ordinary person; he was rather amazed
that he had not thought of it before.

She had confessed to total ignorance regarding the driver of that
ramshackle conveyance; to being utterly at sea in the neighbourhood; to
having walked like any country bumpkin from the railroad station,
lugging an unconscionably heavy bag; and yet, despite all this, she
seemed amazingly sure of herself. He recalled her frivolous remark
about her jewels, and now wondered if there had not been more truth
than jest in her words. Then there was the rather significant
alteration in tone and manner when she spoke to the driver. The soft,
somewhat deliberate drawl gave way to sharp, crisp sentences; the
quaint good humour vanished and in its place he had no difficulty in
remembering a very decided note of command.

Moreover, now that he thought of it, there was, even in the agreeable
rejoinders she had made to his offerings, the faint suggestion of an
accent that should have struck him at the time but did not for the
obvious reason that he was then not at all interested in her. Her
English was so perfect that he had failed to detect the almost
imperceptible foreign flavour that now took definite form in his
reflections. He tried to place this accent. Was it French, or Italian,
or Spanish? Certainly it was not German. The lightness of the Latin was
evident, he decided, but it was all so faint and remote that
classification was impossible, notwithstanding his years of association
with the peoples of many countries where English is spoken more
perfectly by the upper classes, who have a language of their own, than
it is in England itself.

He took a few turns up and down the long porch, stopping finally at the
upper end. The clear, inspiring clang of a hammer on an anvil fell
suddenly upon his ears. He looked at his watch. The hour was nine,
certainly an unusual time for men to be at work in a forge. He
remembered the two men in the tap-room who were bare-armed and wore the
shapeless leather aprons of the smithy.

He had been standing there not more than half a minute peering in the
direction from whence came the rhythmic bang of the anvil,--at no great
distance, he was convinced,--when some one spoke suddenly at his elbow.
He whirled and found himself facing the gaunt landlord.

"Good Lord! You startled me," he exclaimed. He had not heard the
approach of the man, nor the opening and closing of the tavern door.
His gaze travelled past the tall figure of Putnam Jones and rested on
that of a second man, who leaned, with legs crossed and arms folded,
against the porch post directly in front of the entrance to the house,
his features almost wholly concealed by the broad-brimmed slouch hat
that came far down over his eyes. He too, it seemed to Barnes, had
sprung from nowhere.

"Fierce night," said Putnam Jones, removing the corn-cob pipe from his
lips. Then, as an after thought: "Sorry I skeert you. I thought you
heerd me."

"I was listening to the song of the anvil," said Barnes, as the
landlord moved forward and took his place beside him. "It has always
possessed a singular charm for me."

"Special hurry-up job," said Jones, and no more.

"Shoeing?"

"Yep. You'd think these hayseeds could git their horses in here durin'
regular hours, wouldn't you?"

"I dare say they consider their own regular hours instead of yours, Mr.
Jones."

"I didn't quite ketch that."

"I mean that they bring their horses in after their regular day's work
is done."

"I see. Yes, I reckon that's the idee." After a few pulls at his pipe,
the landlord inquired: "Where'd you walk from to-day?" "I slept in a
farm-house last night, about fifteen miles south of this place I should
say."

"That'd be a little ways out of East Cobb," speculated Mr. Jones.

"Five or six miles."

"Goin' over into Canada?"

"No. I shall turn west, I think, and strike for the Lake Champlain
country."

"Canadian line is only a few miles from here," said Jones. "Last summer
we had a couple of crooks from Boston here, makin' a dash for the
border. Didn't know it till they'd been gone a day, however. The
officers were just a day behind 'em. Likely lookin' fellers, too. Last
men in the world you'd take for bank robbers."

"Bank robbers, as a rule, are very classy looking customers," said
Barnes.

Mr. Jones grunted. After a short silence, he branched off on a new
line. "What you think about the war? Think it'll be over soon?"

"It has been going on for nearly two years, and I can't see any signs
of abatement. Looks to me like a draw. They're all tired of it."

"Think the Germans are going to win?"

"No. They can't win. On the other hand, I don't see how the Allies can
win. I may be wrong, of course. The Allies are getting stronger every
day and the Germans must surely be getting weaker. As a matter of fact,
Mr. Jones, I've long since stopped speculating on the outcome of the
war. It is too big for me. I am not one of your know-it-alls who figure
the whole thing out from day to day, and then wonder why the fool
generals didn't have sense enough to perform as expected."

"I wish them countries over there would let me fix 'em out with
generals," drawled Mr. Jones. "I could pick out fifteen or twenty men
right here in this district that could show 'em in ten minutes just how
to win the war. You'd be surprised to know how many great generals we
have running two by four farms and choppin' wood for a livin' up here.
And there are fellers settin' right in there now that never saw a body
of water bigger'n Plum Pond, an' every blamed one of 'em knows more'n
the whole British navy about ketchin' submarines. The quickest way to
end the war, says Jim Roudebush,--one of our leadin' ice-cutters,--is
for the British navy to bombard Berlin from both sides, an' he don't
see why in thunder they've never thought of it. I suppose you've
travelled right smart in Europe?"

"Quite a bit, Mr. Jones."

"Any partic'lar part?"

"No," said Barnes, suddenly divining that he was being "pumped." "One
end to the other, you might say."

"What about them countries down around Bulgaria and Roumania? I've been
considerable interested in what's going to become of them if Germany
gets licked. What do they get out of it, either way?"

Barnes spent the next ten minutes expatiating upon the future of the
Balkan states. Jones had little to say. He was interested, and drank in
all the information that Barnes had to impart. He puffed at his pipe,
nodded his head from time to time, and occasionally put a leading
question. And quite as abruptly as he introduced the topic he changed
it.

"Not many automobiles up here at this time 'o the year," he said. "I
was a little surprised when you said a feller had given you a lift.
Where from?"

"The cross-roads, a mile down. He came from the direction of Frogg's
Corner and was on his way to meet some one at Spanish Falls." Barnes
shrewdly leaped to the conclusion that the landlord's interest in the
European War was more or less assumed. The man's purpose was beginning
to reveal itself. He was evidently curious, if not actually concerned,
about his guest's arrival by motor.

"That's queer," he said, after a moment. "There's no train arrivin' at
Spanish Falls as late as six o'clock. Gets in at four-ten, if she's on
time. And she was reported on time to-day."

"It appears that there was a misunderstanding. The driver didn't meet
the train, so the person he was going after walked all the way to the
forks. We happened upon each other there, Mr. Jones, and we studied the
sign-post together. She was bound for a place called Green Fancy."

"Did you say SHE?"

"Yes. I was proposing to help her out of her predicament when the
belated motor came racing down the slope. As a matter of fact, I was
wrong when I said that a man brought me here in an automobile. It was
she who did it. She gave the order. He merely obeyed,--and not very
willingly, I suspect."

"What for sort of looking lady was she?"

"She wore a veil," said Barnes, succinctly.

"Young?"

"I had that impression. By the way, Mr. Jones, what and where is Green
Fancy?"

Jones looked over his shoulder, and his guest's glance followed. The
man near the entrance had been joined by another.

"Well," began the landlord, lowering his voice, "it's about two mile
and a half from here, up the mountain. It's a house and people live in
it, same as any other house. That's about all there is to say about it."

"Why is it called Green Fancy?"

"Because it's a green house," replied Jones succinctly.

"You mean that it is painted green?"

"Exactly. Green as a gourd. A man named Curtis built it a couple o'
year ago and he had a fool idee about paintin' it green. Might ha' been
a little crazy, for all I know. Anyhow, after he got it finished he
settled down to live in it, and from that day to this he's never been
off'n the place. He didn't seem sick or anything, so we can't make out
his object in shuttin' himself up in the house an' seldom ever stickin'
his nose outside the door."

"Isn't it possible that he isn't there at all?"

"He's there all right. Every now an' then he has visitors,--just like
this woman to-day,--and sometimes they come down here for supper. They
don't hesitate to speak of him, so he must be there. Miss Tilly has got
the idee that he is a reecluse, if you know what that is."

"It's all very interesting. I should say, judging by the visitor who
came this evening, that he entertains extremely nice people."

"Well," said Jones drily, "they claim to be from New York. But," he
added, "so do them cheapskate actors in there." Which was as much as to
say that he had his doubts.

Further conversation was interrupted by the irregular clatter of
horses' hoofs on the macadam. Off to the left a dull red glow of light
spread across the roadway, and a man's voice called out: "Whoa, dang
ye!"

The door of the smithy had been thrown open and some one was leading
forth freshly shod horses.

A moment later the horses,--prancing, high-spirited animals,--their
bridle-bits held by a strapping blacksmith, came into view. Barnes
looked in the direction of the steps. The two men had disappeared.
Instead of stopping directly in front of the steps, the smith led his
charges quite a distance beyond and into the darkness.

Putnam Jones abruptly changed his position. He insinuated his long body
between Barnes and the doorway, at the same time rather loudly
proclaiming that the rain appeared to be over.

"Yes, sir," he repeated, "she seems to have let up altogether. Ought to
have a nice day to-morrow, Mr. Barnes,--nice, cool day for walkin'."

Voices came up from the darkness. Jones had not been able to cover them
with his own. Barnes caught two or three sharp commands, rising above
the pawing of horses' hoofs, and then a great clatter as the mounted
horsemen rode off in the direction of the cross-roads. The beat of the
hoofs became rhythmical as the animals steadied into a swinging lope.

Barnes waited until they were muffled by distance, and then turned to
Jones with the laconic remark:

"They seem to be foreigners, Mr. Jones." Jones's manner became natural
once more. He leaned against one of the posts and, striking a match on
his leg, relighted his pipe.

"Kind o' curious about 'em, eh?" he drawled.

"It never entered my mind until this instant to be curious," said
Barnes.

"Well, it entered their minds about an hour ago to be curious about
you," said the other.




CHAPTER IV

AN EXTRAORDINARY CHAMBERMAID, A MIDNIGHT TRAGEDY, AND A MAN WHO SAID
"THANK YOU"


Miss Thackeray was "turning down" his bed when he entered his room
after bidding his new actor friends good night. All three promised to
be up bright and early in the morning to speed him on his way with good
wishes. Mr. Rushcroft declared that he would break the habit of years
and get up in time to partake of a seven o'clock breakfast with him.
Mr. Dillingford and Mr. Bacon, though under sentence to eat at six with
the rest of the "help," were quite sanguine that old man Jones wouldn't
mind if they ate again at seven. So it was left that Barnes was to have
company for breakfast.

He was staggered and somewhat abashed by the appearance of Miss
Thackeray. She was by no means dressed as a chambermaid should be, nor
was she as dumb. On the contrary, she confronted him in the choicest
raiment that her wardrobe contained, and she was bright and cheery and
exceedingly incompetent. It was her costume that shocked him. Not only
was she attired in a low-necked, rose-coloured evening gown, liberally
bespangled with tinsel, but she wore a vast top-heavy picture-hat whose
crown of black was almost wholly obscured by a gorgeous white feather
that once must have adorned the king of all ostriches. She was not at
all his idea of a chambermaid. He started to back out of the door with
an apology for having blundered into the wrong room by mistake.

"Come right in," she said cheerily. "I'll soon be through. I suppose I
should have done all this an hour ago, but I just had to write a few
letters." She went on with her clumsy operations. "I don't know who
made up this bed but whoever did was determined that it should stay
put. I never knew that bed clothes could be tucked in as far and as
tight as these. Tight enough for old Mother Jones to have done it
herself, and heaven knows she's a tight one. I am Miss Thackeray. This
is Mr. Barnes, I believe."

He bowed, still quite overcome.

"You needn't be scared," she cried, observing his confusion. "This is
my regular uniform. I'm starting a new style for chambermaids. Did it
paralyse you to find me here?"

"I must confess to a moment of indecision," he said, smiling.

"Followed by a moment of uneasiness," she added, slapping the bolster.
"You didn't know what to think, now did you?"

"I couldn't believe my eyes."

She abandoned her easy, careless manner. A look of mortification came
into her eyes as she straightened up and faced him. Her voice was a
trifle husky when she spoke again, after a moment's pause.

"You see, Mr. Barnes, these are the only duds I have with me. It wasn't
necessary to put on this hat, of course, but I did it simply to make
the character complete. I might just as well make beds and clean
washstands in a picture hat as in a low-necked gown, so here I am."

She was a tall, pleasant-faced girl of twenty-three or four, not unlike
her father in many respects. Her features were rather heavy, her mouth
large but comely, her eyes dark and lustrous behind heavy lashes. As
she now appeared before Barnes, she was the typical stage society
woman: in other words, utterly commonplace. In a drawing-room she would
have been as conspicuously out of place as she was in her present
occupation.

"I am very sorry," he said lamely. "I have heard something of your
misfortunes from your father and--the others. It's--it's really hard
luck."

"I call it rather good luck to have got away with the only dress in the
lot that cost more than tuppence," she said, smiling again. "Lord knows
what would have happened to me if they had dropped down on us at the
end of the first act. I was the beggar's daughter, you see,--absolutely
in rags."

"You might have got away in your ordinary street clothes, however," he
said; "which would have been pleasanter, I dare say."

"I dare say," she agreed brightly. "Glad to have met you. I think
you'll find everything NEARLY all right. Good night, sir."

She smiled brightly, unaffectedly, as she turned toward the open door.
There was something forelorn about her, after all, and his heart was
touched.

"Better luck, Miss Thackeray. Every cloud has its silver lining."

She stopped and faced him once more. "That's the worst bromide in the
language," she said. "If I were to tell you how many clouds I've seen
and how little silver, you'd think I was lying. This experience? Why,
it's a joy compared to some of the jolts we've had,--dad and me. And
the others, too, for that matter. We've had to get used to it. Five
years ago I would have jumped out of a ten story window before I'd have
let you see me in this get-up. I know you'll laugh yourself sick over
the way I look, and so will your friends when you tell them about me,
but, thank the Lord, I shan't be in a position to hear you. So why
should I mind? What a fellow doesn't know, isn't going to hurt him. You
haven't laughed in my face, and I'm grateful for that. What you do
afterward can't make the least bit of difference to me."

"I assure you, Miss Thackeray, that I shall not laugh, nor shall I ever
relate the story of your--"

"There is one more bromide that I've never found much virtue in," she
interrupted, not disagreeably, "and that is: 'it's too good to be
true.' Good night. Sleep tight."

She closed the door behind her, leaving him standing in the middle of
the room, perplexed but amused.

"By George," he said to himself, still staring at the closed door,
"they're wonders, all of them. We could all take lessons in philosophy
from such as they. I wish I could do something to help them out of--"
He sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed and pulled his wallet from
his pocket. He set about counting the bills, a calculating frown in his
eyes. Then he stared at the ceiling, summing up. "I'll do it," he said,
after a moment of mental figuring. He told off a half dozen bills and
slipped them into his pocket. The wallet sought its usual resting place
for the night: under a pillow.

He was healthy and he was tired. Two minutes after his head touched the
pillow he was sound asleep, losing consciousness even as he fought to
stay awake in order that he might continue to vex himself with the
extraordinary behavior and statement of Putnam Jones.

He was aroused shortly after midnight by shouts, apparently just
outside his window. A man was calling in a loud voice from the road
below; an instant later he heard a tremendous pounding on the tavern
door.

Springing out of bed, he rushed to the window. There were horses in
front of the house,--several of them,--and men on foot moving like
shadows among them. A shuffling of feet came up to his open window; the
intervening roof shut off his view of the porch and all that was
transpiring. His eyes, accustomed to darkness, made out at least five
horses in the now unlighted area before the tavern.

Turning from the window, he unlocked and opened the door into the hall.
Some one was clattering down the narrow staircase. The bolts on the
front door shot back with resounding force, and there came the hoarse
jumble of excited voices as men crowded through the entrance. Putnam
Jones's voice rose above the clamour.

"Keep quiet! Do you want to wake everybody on the place?" he was saying
angrily. "What's up? This is a fine time o' night to be--Good Lord!
What's the matter with him?"

"Telephone for a doctor, Put,--damn' quick! This one's still alive. The
other one is dead as a door nail up at Jim Conley's house. Git ole Doc
James down from Saint Liz. Bring him in here, boys. Where's your
lights? Easy now! Eas-EE!"

Barnes waited to hear no more. His blood seemed to be running ice-cold
as he retreated into the room and began scrambling for his clothes. The
thing he feared had come to pass. Disaster had overtaken her in that
wild, senseless dash up the mountain road. He was cursing half aloud as
he dressed, cursing the fool who drove that machine and who now was
perhaps dying down there in the tap-room. "The other one is dead as a
door nail," kept running through his head,--"the other one."

The rumble of voices and the shuffling of feet continued, indistinct
but laden with tragedy. The curious hush of catastrophe seemed to top
the confusion that infected the place, inside and out. Barnes found his
electric pocket torch and dressed hurriedly, though not fully, by its
constricted light. As he was pulling on his heavy walking shoes, a head
was inserted through the half open door, and an excited voice called
out:

"You awake? Good work! Hustle along, will you? No more sleep to-night,
old chap. Man dying downstairs. Shot smack through the lungs. Get a
move--"

"Shot?" exclaimed Barnes.

"So they say," replied the agitated Mr. Dillingford, entering the room.
He had slipped on his trousers and was then in the act of pulling his
suspenders over his shoulders. His unlaced shoes gaped broadly; the
upper part of his body was closely encased in a once blue undershirt;
his abundant black hair was tousled,--some of it, indeed, having the
appearance of standing on end. And in his wide eyes there was a look of
horror. "I didn't hear much of the story. Old man Jones is telephoning
for a doctor and--"

"Did you say that the man was shot?" repeated Barnes, bewildered.
"Wasn't it an automobile accident?"

"Search ME. Gosh, I had one look at that fellow's face down there
and--I didn't hear another word that was said. I never saw a man's face
look like that. It was the colour of grey wall paper. Hurry up! Old man
Jones told me to call you. He says you understand some of the foreign
languages, and maybe you can make out what the poor devil is trying to
say." "Do they know who he is?"

"Sure. He's been staying in the house for three days. The other one
spoke English all right but this one not a word."

"Did they ride away from here about nine o'clock?"

"Yes. They had their own horses and said they were going to spend the
night at Spanish Falls so's they could meet the down train that goes
through at five o'clock in the morning. But hustle along, please. He's
trying to talk and he's nearly gone."

Barnes, buoyed by a sharp feeling of relief, followed the actor
downstairs and into the tap-room. A dozen men were there, gathered
around two tables that had been drawn together. Transient lodgers, in
various stages of dishabille, popped out of all sorts of passageways
and joined the throng. The men about the table, on which was stretched
the figure of the wounded man, were undoubtedly natives: farmers,
woodsmen or employees of the tavern. At a word from Putnam Jones, they
opened up and allowed Barnes to advance to the side of the man.

"See if you c'n understand him, Mr. Barnes," said the landlord.
Perspiration was dripping from his long, raw-boned face. "And you,
Bacon,--you and Dillingford hustle upstairs and get a mattress off'n
one of the beds. Stand at the door there, Pike, and don't let any women
in here. Go away, Miss Thackeray! This is no place for you."

Miss Thackeray pushed her way past the man who tried to stop her and
joined Barnes. Her long black hair hung in braids down her back; above
her forehead clustered a mass of ringlets, vastly disordered but not
untidy. A glance would have revealed the gaudy rose-coloured skirt
hanging below the bottom of the long rain-coat she had snatched from a
peg in the hall-way.

"It is the place for me," she said sharply. "Haven't you men got sense
enough to put something under his head? Where is he hurt? Get that
cushion, you. Stick, it under here when I lift his head. Oh, you poor
thing! We'll be as quick as possible. There!"

"You'd better go away," said Barnes, himself ghastly pale. "He's been
shot. There is a lot of blood--don't you know. It's splendid of you--"

"Dangerously?" she cried, shrinking back, her eyes fixed in dread upon
the white face.

The man's eyes were closed, but at the sound of a woman's voice he
opened them. The hand with which he clutched at his breast slid off and
seemed to be groping for hers. His breathing was terrible. There was
blood at the corners of his mouth, and more oozed forth when his lips
parted in an effort to speak.

With a courage that surprised even herself, the girl took his hand in
hers. It was wet and warm. She did not dare look at it.

"Merci, madame," struggled from the man's lips, and he smiled.

Barnes had heard of the French soldiers who, as they died, said "thank
you" to those who ministered to them, and smiled as they said it. He
had always marvelled at the fortitude that could put gratefulness above
physical suffering, and his blood never failed to respond to an
exquisite thrill of exaltation under such recitals. He at once deduced
that the injured man, while probably not a Frenchman, at least was
familiar with the language.

He was young, dark-haired and swarthy. His riding-clothes were
well-made and modish.

Barnes leaned over and spoke to him in French. The dark, pain-stricken
eyes closed, and an almost imperceptible shake of the head signified
that he did not understand. Evidently he had acquired only a few of the
simple French expressions. Barnes had a slight knowledge of Spanish and
Italian, and tried again with no better results. German was his last
resort, and he knew he would fail once more, for the man obviously was
not Teutonic.

The bloody lips parted, however, and the eyes opened with a piteous,
appealing expression in their depths. It was apparent that there was
something he wanted to say, something he had to say before he died. He
gasped a dozen words or more in a tongue utterly unknown to Barnes, who
bent closer to catch the feeble effort. It was he who now shook his
head; with a groan the sufferer closed his eyes in despair. He choked
and coughed violently an instant later.

"Get some water and a towel," cried Miss Thackeray, tremulously. She
was very white, but still clung to the man's hand. "Be quick! Behind
the bar." Then she turned to Jones. "Don't call my father. He can't
stand the sight of blood," she said.

Barnes unbuttoned the coat and revealed the blood-soaked white shirt.

"Better leave this to me," he said in her ear. "There's nothing you can
do. He's done for. Please go away."

"Oh, I sha'n't faint--at least, not yet. Poor fellow! I've seen him
upstairs and wondered who he was. Is he really going to die?"

"Looks bad," said Barnes, gently opening the shirt front. Several of
the craning men turned away suddenly.

"Can't you understand him?" demanded Putnam Jones, from the opposite
side.

"No. Did you get the doctor?"

"He's on the way by this time. He's got a little automobile. Ought to
be here in ten or fifteen minutes."

"Who is he, Mr. Jones?"

"He is registered as Andrew Paul, from New York. That's all I know. The
other man put his name down as Albert Roon. He seemed to be the boss
and this man a sort of servant, far as I could make out. They never
talked much and seldom came downstairs. They had their meals in their
room. Bacon served them. Where is Bacon? Where the hell--oh, the
mattress. Now, we'll lift him up gentle-like while you fellers slip it
under him. Easy now. Brace up, my lad, we--we won't hurt you. Lordy!
Lordy! I'm sorry--Gosh! I thought he was gone!" He wiped his brow with
a shaking hand.

"There is nothing we can do," said Barnes, "except try to stanch the
flow of blood. He is bleeding inwardly, I'm afraid. It's a clean wound,
Mr. Jones. Like a rifle shot, I should say."

"That's just what it is," said one of the men, a tall woodsman. "The
feller who did it was a dead shot, you c'n bet on that. He got t' other
man square through the heart."

"Lordy, but this will raise a rumpus," groaned the landlord. "We'll
have detectives an'--"

"I guess they got what was comin' to 'em," said another of the men.

"What's that? Why, they was ridin' peaceful as could be to Spanish
Falls. What do you mean by sayin' that, Jim Conley? But wait a minute!
How does it happen that they were up near your dad's house? That
certainly ain't on the road to Span--"

"Spanish Falls nothin'! They wasn't goin' to Spanish Falls any more'n I
am at this minute. They tied their hosses up the road just above our
house," said young Conley, lowering his voice out of consideration for
the feelings of the helpless man. "It was about 'leven o'clock, I
reckon. I was comin' home from singin' school up at Number Ten, an' I
passed the hosses hitched to the fence. Naturally I stopped, curious
like. There wasn't no one around, fer as I could see, so I thought I'd
take a look to see whose hosses they were. I thought it was derned
funny, them hosses bein' there at that time o' night an' no one around.
So as I said before, I thought I'd take a look. I know every hoss fer
ten mile around. So I thought I'd take--"

"You said that three times," broke in Jones impatiently.

"Well, to make a long story short, I thought I'd take a look. I never
seen either of them animals before. They didn't belong around here. So
I thought I'd better hustle down to the house an' speak to pa about it.
Looked mighty queer to me. Course, thinks I, they might belong to
somebody visitin' in there at Green Fancy, so I thought I'd--"

"Green Fancy?" said Barnes, starting.

"Was it up that far?" demanded Jones.

"They was hitched jest about a hundred yards below Mr. Curtis's
propity, on the off side o' the road. Course it's quite a ways in from
the road to the house, an' I couldn't see why if it was anybody callin'
up there they didn't ride all the ways up, 'stead o' walkin' through
the woods. So I thought I'd speak to pa about it. Say," and he paused
abruptly, a queer expression in his eyes, "you don't suppose he knows
what I'm sayin', do you? I wouldn't say anything to hurt the poor
feller's feelin's fer--"

"He doesn't know what you are saying," said Barnes.

"But, dern it, he jest now looked at me in the funniest way. It's given
me the creeps."

"Go on," said one of the men.

"Well, I hadn't any more'n got to our front gate when I heard some one
running in the road up there behind me. 'Fore I knowed what was
happenin', bang went a gun. I almost jumped out'n my boots. I lept
behind that big locus' tree in front of our house and listened. The
runnin' had stopped. The hosses was rarin' an' tearin' so I thought
I'd--"

"Where'd the shot come from?" demanded Jones.

"Up the road some'eres, I couldn't swear just where. Must 'a' been up
by the road that cuts in to Green Fancy. So I thought I'd hustle in an'
see if pa was awake, an' git my gun. Looked mighty suspicious, thinks
I, that gun shot. Jest then pa stuck his head out'n the winder an'
yelled what the hell's the matter. You betcher life I sung out who I
was mighty quick, 'cause pa's purty spry with a gun an' I didn't want
him takin' me fer burglars sneakin' around the house. While we wuz
talkin' there, one of the hosses started our way lickety-split, an' in
about two seconds it went by us. It was purty dark but we see plain as
day that there was a man in the saddle, bendin' low over the hoss's
neck and shoutin' to it. Well, we shore was guessin'. We waited a
couple o' minutes, wonderin' what to do, an' listenin' to the hoss
gittin' furder and furder away in the direction of the cross-roads.
Then, 'way down there by the pike we heerd another shot. Right there
an' then pa said he'd put on his clothes an' we'd set out to see what
it was all about. I had it figgered out that the feller on the hoss had
shot the other one and was streakin' it fer town or some'eres. That
second shot had me guessin' though. Who wuz he shootin' at now, thinks
I.

"Well, pa come out with my gun an' his'n an' we walks up to where I
seen the hosses. Shore 'nough, one of 'em was still hitched to the
fence, an' t'other was gone. We stood around a minute or two examinin'
the hoss an' then pa says let's go up the road aways an' see if we c'n
see anything. An' by gosh, we hadn't gone more'n fifty feet afore we
come plumb on a man layin' in the middle of the road. Pa shook him an'
he didn't let out a sound. He was warm but deader'n a tombstone. I wuz
fer leavin' him there till we c'd git the coroner, but pa says no. We'd
carry him down to our porch, an' lay him there, so's he'd be out o'
danger. Ma an' the kids wuz all up when we got him there, an' pa sent
Bill and Charley over to Mr. Pike's and Uncle John's to fetch 'em
quick. I jumps on Polly an' lights out fer here, Mr. Jones, to
telephone up to Saint Liz fer the sheriff an' the coroner, not givin' a
dang what I run into on the way. Polly shied somethin' terrible jest
afore we got to the pike an' I come derned near bein' throwed. An'
right there 'side the road was this feller, all in a heap. I went back
an' jumped off. He was groanin' somethin' awful. Thinks I, you poor
cuss, you must 'a' tried to stop that feller on hossback an' he plunked
you. That accounted fer the second shot. But while I wuz tryin' to lift
him up an' git somethin' out'n him about the matter, I sees his boss
standin' in the road a couple o' rods away. I couldn't understand a
word he said, so I thought I better go back home an' git some help,
seein's I couldn't manage him by myself. So I dragged him up on the
bank an' made him comfortable as I could, and lit out fer home. We
thought we'd better bring him up here, Mr. Jones, it bein' just as near
an' you could git the doctor sooner. I hitched up the buck-board and
went back. Pa an' some of the other fellers took their guns an' went up
in the woods lookin' fer the man that done the shootin'. The thing that
worries all of us is did the same man do the shootin', or was there two
of 'em, one waitin' down at the cross-roads?"

"Must have been two," said Jones, thoughtfully. "The same man couldn't
have got down there ahead of him, that's sure. Did anybody go up to
Green Fancy to make inquiries?"

"'Twasn't necessary. Mr. Curtis heard the shootin' an' jest before we
left he sent a man out to see what it was all about. The old skeezicks
that's been drivin' his car lately come down half-dressed. He said
nothin' out of the way had happened up at Green Fancy. Nobody had been
nosin' around their place, an' if they had, he said, there wasn't
anybody there who could hit the side of a barn with a rifle."

"It's most mysterious," said Barnes, glancing around the circle of awed
faces. "There must have been some one lying in wait for these men, and
with a very definite purpose in mind."

"Strikes me," said Jones, "that these two men were up to some kind of
dirty work themselves, else why did they say they were goin' to Spanish
Falls? It's my idee that they went up that road to lay fer somebody
comin' down from the border, and they got theirs good an' plenty
instead of the other way round. They were queer actin' men, I'll have
to say that."

His eyes met Barnes' and there was a queer light in them.

"You don't happen to know anything about this, do you, Mr. Barnes?" he
demanded, suddenly.




CHAPTER V

THE FARM-BOY TELLS A GHASTLY STORY AND AN IRISHMAN ENTERS


Barnes stared. "What do you mean?" he demanded sharply.

"I mean just what I said. What do you know about this business?"

"How should I know ANYTHING about it?"

"Well, we don't know who you are, nor what you're doing up here, nor
what your real profession is. That's why I ask the question."

"I see," said Barnes, after a moment. He grasped the situation and he
admitted to himself that Jones had cause for his suspicions. "It has
occurred to you that I may be a detective or a secret service man,
isn't that the case? Well, I am neither. Moreover, this man and his
companion evidently had their doubts about me, if I am to judge by your
remark and your actions on the porch earlier in the evening."

"I only said that they were curious about you. The man named Roon asked
me a good many questions about you while you were in at supper. Who
knows but what he was justified in thinkin' you didn't mean any good to
him and his friend?"

"Did you know any more about these two men, Mr. Jones, than you know
about me?"

"I don't know anything about 'em. They came here like any one else,
paid their bills regular, 'tended to their own business, and that's
all."

"What was their business?"

"Mr. Roon was lookin' for a place to bring his daughter who has
consumption. He didn't want to take her to a reg'lar consumptive
community, he said, an' so he was lookin' for a quiet place where she
wouldn't be associatin' with lungers all the time. Some big doctor in
New York told him to come up here an' look around. That was his
business, Mr. Barnes, an' I guess you'd call it respectable, wouldn't
you?"

"Perfectly. But why should he be troubled by my presence here if--"
Miss Thackeray put an end to the discussion in a most effectual manner.

"Oh, for the Lord's sake, cut it out! Wait till he's dead, can't you?"
she whispered fiercely. "You've got all the time in the world to talk,
and he hasn't more than ten minutes left to breathe unless that rube
doctor gets here pretty soon. If you've GOT to settle the question
right away, at least have the decency to go out of this room."

Barnes flushed to the roots of his hair. Jones was aghast, dumb with
surprise and anger.

"You are right, Miss Thackeray," said the former, deeply mortified.
"This is not the time nor the place to----"

"He can't understand a word we say," said Putnam Jones loudly. "You
better get out of here yourself, young woman. This is a job for men,
not--"

"I think he's going now," she whispered in an awe-struck voice. "Keep
still, all of you. Is he breathing, Mr. Barnes? That awful cough just
now seemed to--"

"Come away, please," said Barnes, taking her gently by the arm. "I--I
believe that was the end. Don't stay here, Miss Thackeray. Dillingford,
will you be good enough to escort Miss--"

"I've never seen any one die before," she said in a low, tense voice.
Her eyes were fixed on the still face. "Why--why, how tightly he holds
my hand! I can't get it away--he must be alive, Mr. Barnes. Where is
that silly doctor?"

Barnes unclasped the rigid fingers of the man called Andrew Paul, and,
shaking his head sadly, drew her away from the improvised bier. He and
the shivering Mr. Dillingford conducted her to the dining-room, where a
single kerosene lamp gave out a feeble, rather ghastly light. The tall
Bacon followed, the upper part of his person enveloped in the blanket
Putnam Jones had hastily snatched from the mattress before it was
slipped under the dying man. Several of the women of the house,
including the wife of the landlord, clogged the little entrance hall,
chattering in hushed undertones.

"Would you like a little brandy?" inquired Barnes, as she sat down
limply in the chair he pulled out for her. "I have a flask upstairs in
my--"

"I never touch it," she said. "I'm all right. My legs wabble a little
but--Sit down, Mr. Barnes. I've got something to say to you and I'd
better say it now, because it may come in pretty handy for you later
on. Don't let those women come in here, Dilly."

Barnes drew a chair close beside her. Bacon, with scant regard for
elegance, seated himself on the edge of the table and bent an ear.

"It's all rot about that man Roon being here to look for a place for
his daughter." She spoke rapidly and cautiously. "I don't know whether
Jones knows, but that certainly wasn't what he was here for. The young
fellow in there was a sort of secretary. Roon had a room at the other
end of the hall from yours, on the corner, facing the road and also
looking toward the cross-roads. Young Paul had the next room, with a
door between. I was supposed to make up their rooms after they'd gone
out in the forenoon for a horseback ride. I kept out of their sight,
because I knew they were the kind of men who would laugh at me. They
couldn't understand, and, of course, I couldn't explain. Yesterday
morning I found a sort of map on the floor under young Paul's
washstand. The wind had blown it off the table by the window and he
hadn't missed it. It was in lead pencil and looked like a map of the
roads around here. I couldn't read the notations, but it required only
a glance to convince me that this place was the central point. All of
the little mountain roads were there, and the cross-roads. There wasn't
anything queer about it, so I laid it on his table and put a book on it.

"This afternoon I walked up in the woods back of the Tavern to go over
some lines in a new piece we are to do later on,--God knows when! I
could see the house from where I was sitting. Roon's windows were
plainly visible. I wasn't very far away, you see, the climb being too
steep for me. I saw Roon standing at a window looking toward the
cross-roads with a pair of field-glasses. Every once in awhile he would
turn to Paul, who stood beside him with a notebook, and say something
to him. Paul wrote it down. Then he would look again, turning the
glasses this way and that. I wouldn't have thought much about it if
they hadn't spent so much time there. I believe I watched them for an
hour. Suddenly my eyes almost popped out of my head. Paul had gone away
from the window. He came back and he had a couple of revolvers in his
hands. They stood there for a few minutes carefully examining the
weapons and reloading them with fresh cartridges. The storm was coming
up, but I love it so that I waited almost until dark, watching the
clouds and listening to the roar of the wind in the trees. I'm a queer
girl in that way. I like turmoil. I could sit out in the most dreadful
thunder storm and just revel in the crashes. Just as I was about to
start down to the house--it was a little after six o'clock, and getting
awfully dark and overcast,--Roon took up the glasses again. He seemed
to be excited and called his companion. Paul grabbed the glasses and
looked down the road. They both became very much excited, pointing and
gesticulating, and taking turn about with the glasses."

"About six o'clock, you say?" said Barnes, greatly interested.

"It was a quarter after six when I got back to the house. I spoke to
Mr. Bacon about what I'd seen and he said he believed they were German
spies, up to some kind of mischief along the Canadian border. Everybody
is a German spy nowadays, Mr. Barnes, if he looks cross-wise. Then
about half an hour later you came to the Tavern. I saw Roon sneak out
to the head of the stairs and listen to your conversation with Jones
when you registered. That gave me an idea. It was you they were
watching the road for. They saw you long before you got here, and it
was--"

Barnes held up his hand for silence. "Listen," he said in a low voice,
"I will tell you who they were looking for." As briefly as possible he
recounted his experience with the strange young woman at the
cross-roads. "From the beginning I have connected this tragedy with the
place called Green Fancy. I'll stake my last penny that they have been
hanging around here waiting for the arrival of that young woman. They
knew she was coming and they doubtless knew what she was bringing with
her. They went to Green Fancy to-night with a very sinister purpose in
mind, and things didn't turn out as they expected. What do you know
about the place called Green Fancy?"

He was vastly excited. His active imagination was creating all sorts of
possibilities and complications, depredations and intrigues.

Bacon was the one who answered. He drew the blanket closer about his
lean form and shivered as with a chill.

"I know this much about the place from hearsay," he said in a guttural
whisper. "It's supposed to be haunted. I've heard more than one of
these jays,--big huskies too,--say they wouldn't go near the place
after dark for all the money in the state."

"That's just talk to scare you, Ague," said Dillingford. "People live
up there and since we've been here two or three men visitors have come
down from the place to sample our stock of wet goods. Nothing
suspicious looking or ghostly about them either. I talked with a couple
of 'em day before yesterday. They were out for a horseback ride and
stopped here for a mug of ale."

"Were they foreigners?" inquired Barnes.

"If you want to call an Irishman a foreigner, I'll have to say one of
them was. He had a beautiful brogue. I'd never seen an Irishman in
slick riding clothes, however, so I doubted my ears at first. You don't
associate a plain Mick with anything so swell as that, you know. The
other was an American, I'm sure. Yesterday they rode past here with a
couple of swell looking women. I saw them turn up the road to Green
Fancy, so that knocks your ghost story all to smash, Bacon."

"It isn't MY ghost story," began Mr. Bacon indignantly. The arrival of
four or five men, who stamped into the already crowded hallway from the
porch outside, claimed the attention of the quartette. Among them was
the doctor who, they were soon to discover, was also the coroner of the
county. A very officious deputy sheriff was also in the group.

Before rejoining the crowd in the tap-room, Barnes advised his
companions, especially the girl, to say as little as possible about
what they had heard and seen.

"This thing is going to turn out to be a whacking sensation, and it may
be a great deal more important than we think. You don't want to become
involved in the investigation, which may become a national affair. I'd
like to have a hand in clearing it up. My head is chock-full of
theories that might--"

"Maybe Roon was right," said Dillingford, slowly, as he edged a step or
two away from Barnes.

"In what respect?"

"He certainly thought you were a detective or something like that.
Maybe he thought you came with that young woman, or maybe he thought
you were shadowing her, or--"

"There are a lot of things he may have thought," interrupted Barnes,
smiling. "It is barely possible that my arrival may have caused him to
act more hastily than he intended. That may be the reason why the job
ended so disastrously for him."

Mrs. Jones called out from the doorway. "Mr. Barnes, you're wanted in
there."

"All right," he responded.

"Better let me get you a wet towel to wash your hand," said Bacon to
Miss Thackeray. "My God, I wouldn't have THAT on my hand for a million
dollars."

The doctor had been working over the prostrate form on the tables. As
Barnes entered the room, he looked up and declared that the man was
dead.

"This is Mr. Barnes," said Putnam Jones, indicating the tall traveller
with a short jerk of his thumb.

"I am from the sheriff's office," said the man who stood beside the
doctor. The rest of the crowd evidently had been ordered to stand back
from the tables. The sheriff was a burly fellow, whose voice shook in a
most incongruous manner, despite his efforts to appear composed and
otherwise efficient. "Did you ever see this man before?"

"Not until he was carried in here half an hour ago. I arrived here this
evening."

"What's your business up here, Mr. Barnes?"

"I have no business up here. I just happened to stroll in this evening."

"Well," said the sheriff darkly, "I guess I'll have to ask you to stick
around here till we clear this business up. We don't know you
an'--Well, we can't take any chances. You understand, I reckon."

"I certainly fail to understand, Mr. Sheriff. I know nothing whatever
of this affair and I intend to continue on my way to-morrow morning."

"Well, I guess not."

"Do you mean to say that I am to be detained here against my--"

"You got to stay here till we are satisfied that you don't know
anything about this business. That's all."

"Am I to consider myself under arrest, sir?"

"I wouldn't go as far as to say that. You just stick around here,
that's all I got to say. If you're all right, we'll soon find it out.
What's more, if you are all right you'll be willin' to stay. Do you get
me?"

"I certainly do. And I can now assure you, Mr. Sheriff, that I'd like
nothing better than to stick around here, as you put it. I'd like to
help clear this matter up. In the meantime, you may readily find out
who I am and why I am here by telegraphing to the Mayor of New York
City. This document, which experience has taught me to carry for just
such an emergency as this, may have some weight with you." He opened
his bill-folder and drew forth a neatly creased sheet of paper. This he
handed to the sheriff. "Read it, please, and note the date, the
signature, the official seal of the New York Police department, and
also the rather interesting silver print pasted in the lower left hand
corner. I think you will agree that it is a good likeness of me. Each
year I take the precaution of having myself properly certified by the
police department at home before venturing into unknown and perhaps
unfriendly communities. This, in a word, is a guarantee of good
citizenship, good intentions and-good health. I was once taken up by a
rural Sherlock on suspicion of being connected with the theft of a
horse and buggy, although all the evidence seemed to indicate that I
was absolutely afoot and weary at the time, and didn't have the outfit
concealed about my person. I languished in the calaboose for
twenty-four hours, and might have remained there indefinitely if the
real desperado hadn't been captured in the nick o' time. Have you read
it?"

"Yes," said the sheriff dubiously; "but how do I know it ain't a
forgery?"

"You don't know, of course. But in case it shouldn't be a forgery and I
am subjected to the indignity of arrest or even detention, you would
have a nasty time defending yourself in a civil suit for damages. Don't
misunderstand me. I appreciate your position. I shall remain here, as
you suggest, but only for the purpose of aiding you in getting to the
bottom of this affair."

"What do you think about it, Doc?"

"He says he's willing to stay, don't he? Well, what more can you ask?"
snapped the old doctor. "I should say the best thing for you to do,
Abner, is to get a posse of men together and begin raking the woods up
yonder for the men that did the shooting. You say there is another one
dead up at Jim Conley's? Well, I'll go over and view him at once. The
first thing to do is to establish the corpus delicti. We've got to be
able to say the men are dead before we can charge anybody with murder.
This man was shot in the chest, from in front. Now we'll examine his
clothes and so forth and see if they throw any additional light on the
matter."

The most careful search of Andrew Paul's person established one thing
beyond all question: the man had deliberately removed everything that
might in any way serve to aid the authorities in determining who he
really was and whence he came. The tailor's tags had been cut from the
smart, well-fitting garments; the buttons on the same had been replaced
by others of an ordinary character; the names of the haberdasher, the
hat dealer and the boot maker had been as effectually destroyed. There
were no papers of any description in his pockets. His wrist watch bore
neither name, date nor initials. Indeed, nothing had been overlooked in
his very palpable effort to prevent actual identification, either in
life or death.

Subsequent search of the two rooms disclosed the same extreme
precautions. Not a single object, not even a scrap of paper had been
left there on the departure of the men at nine o'clock. Ashes in an
old-fashioned fireplace in Roon's room suggested the destruction of
tell-tale papers. Everything had vanished. A large calibre automatic
revolver, all cartridges unexploded, was found in Paul's coat pocket.
In another pocket, lying loose, were a few bank notes and some silver,
amounting all told to about thirty dollars.

The same thorough search of the dead body of Roon later on by the
coroner and sheriff, revealed a similar condition. The field-glasses,
of English make, were found slung across his shoulder, and a fully
loaded revolver, evidently his, was discovered the next morning in the
grass beside the road near the point where he fell. There were several
hundred dollars in the roll of bills they found in his inside coat
pocket.

Roon was a man of fifty or thereabouts. Although both men were
smooth-faced, there was reason to suspect that Roon at least had but
recently worn a mustache. His upper lip had the thick, stiff look of
one from which a beard of long-standing recently had been shaved.

Later on it was learned that they purchased the two horses in
Hornville, paying cash for the beasts and the trappings. The
transaction took place a day or two before they came to Hart's Tavern
for what had been announced as a short stay.

Standing on Jim Conley's front porch a little after sunrise, Barnes
made the following declaration:

"Everything goes to show that these men were up here for one of two
reasons. They were either trying to prevent or to enact a crime. The
latter is my belief. They were afraid of me. Why? Because they believed
I was trailing them and likely to spoil their game. Gentlemen, those
fellows were here for the purpose of robbing the place you call Green
Fancy."

"What's that?" came a rich, mellow voice from the outskirts of the
crowd. A man pushed his way through and confronted Barnes. He was a
tall, good-looking fellow of thirty-five, and it was apparent that he
had dressed in haste. "My name is O'Dowd, and I am a guest of Mr.
Curtis at Green Fancy. Why do you think they meant to rob his place?"

"Well," began Barnes drily, "it would seem that his place is the only
one in the neighbourhood that would BEAR robbing. My name is Barnes. Of
course, Mr. O'Dowd, it is mere speculation on my part."

"But who shot the man?" demanded the Irishman. "He certainly wasn't
winged by any one from our place. Wouldn't we have known something
about it if he had attempted to get into the house and was nailed
by--Why, Lord love you, sir, there isn't a soul at Green Fancy who
could shoot a thief if he saw one. This is Mr. De Soto, also a guest at
Green Fancy. He will, I think, bear me out in upsetting your theory."

A second man approached, shaking his head vigorously. He was a thin,
pale man with a singularly scholastic face. Quite an unprepossessing,
unsanguinary person, thought Barnes.

"Mr. Curtis's chauffeur, I think it was, said the killing occurred just
above this house," said he, visibly excited. "Green Fancy is at least a
mile from here, isn't it? You don't shoot burglars a mile from the
place they are planning to rob, do you? Is the man a native of this
community?"

"No," said Barnes, on whom devolved the duties of spokesman. "By the
way, his companion lies dead at Hart's Tavern. He was shot from his
horse at the cross-roads."

"God bless me soul," gasped O'Dowd. "The chauffeur didn't mention a
second one. And were there two of them?"

"And both of them dead?" cried De Soto. "At the cross-roads? My dear
sir, how can you reconcile--" He broke off with a gesture of impatience.

"I'll admit it's a bit out of reason," said Barnes. "The second man
could only have been shot by some one who was lying in wait for him."

"Why, the thing's as clear as day," cried O'Dowd, facing the crowd. His
cheerful, sprightly face was alive with excitement. "They were not
trying to rob any one. They were either trying to get across the border
into Canada themselves or else trying to head some one off who was
coming from that side of the line."

"Gad, you may be right," agreed Barnes instantly. "If you'd like to
hear more of the story I'll be happy to relate all that we know at
present."

While the coroner and the others were loading the body of Albert Roon
into a farm wagon for conveyance to the county-seat, Barnes, who had
taken a sudden fancy to the two men from Green Fancy, gave them a brief
but full account of the tragedy and the result of investigations as far
as they had gone.

"Bedad," said O'Dowd, "it beats the devil. There's something big in
this thing, Mr. Barnes,--something a long shot bigger than any of us
suspects. The extraordinary secrecy of these fellows, their evident
gentility, their doubtful nationality--why, bedad, it sounds like a
penny-dreadful thriller."

"You'll find that it resolves itself into a problem for Washington to
solve," said De Soto darkly. "Nothing local about it, take my word for
it. These men were up to some international devilment. I'm not saying
that Germany is at the back of it, but, by Jove, I don't put anything
beyond the beggars. They are the cleverest, most resourceful people in
the world, damn 'em. You wait and see if I'm not right. There'll be a
stir in Washington over this, sure as anything."

"What time was it that you heard the shots up at Green Fancy?" ventured
Barnes.

"Lord love you," cried O'Dowd, "we didn't hear a sound. Mr. Curtis, who
has insomnia the worst way, poor devil, heard them and sent some one
out to see what all the racket was about. It wasn't till half an hour
or so ago that De Soto and I were routed out of our peaceful nests and
ordered,--virtually ordered, mind you,--to get up and guard the house.
Mr. Curtis was in a pitiful state of nerves over the killing, and so
were the ladies. 'Gad, everybody seemed to know all about the business
except De Soto and me. The man, it seems, made such a devil of a racket
when he came home with the news that the whole house was up in pajamas
and peignoirs. He didn't say anything about a second Johnnie being
shot, however. I'm glad he didn't know about it, for that matter. He'll
be seeing one ghost for the rest of his days and that's enough, without
having another foisted upon him."

"I think I have a slight acquaintance with the chauffeur," said Barnes.
"He gave me the most thrilling motor ride I've ever experienced. 'Gad,
I'll never forget it."

The two men looked at him, plainly perplexed.

"When was all this?" inquired De Soto.

"Early last evening. He took me from the cross-roads to Hart's Tavern
in a minute and a half, I'll bet my soul."

"Last evening?" said O'Dowd, something like skepticism in his tone.

"Yes. He picked up your latest guest at the corners, and she insisted
on his driving me to the Tavern before the storm broke. I've been
terribly anxious about her. She must have been caught out in all that
frightful--"

"What's this you are saying, Mr. Barnes?" cut in De Soto, frowning. "No
guest arrived at Green Fancy last evening, nor was one expected."

Barnes stared. "Do you mean to say that she didn't get there, after
all?"

"She? A woman, was it?" demanded O'Dowd. "Bedad, if she said she was
coming to Green Fancy she was spoofing you. Are you sure it was old
Peter who gave you that jolly ride?"

"No, I am not sure," said Barnes, uneasily. "She was afoot, having
walked from the station below. I met her at the corners and she asked
me if I knew how far it was to Green Fancy, or something like that.
Said she was going there. Then along came the automobile, rattling down
this very road,--an ancient Panhard driven by an old codger. She seemed
to think it was all right to hop in and trust herself to him, although
she'd never seen him before."

"The antique Panhard fits in all right," said O'Dowd, "but I'm hanged
if the woman fits at all. No such person arrived at Green Fancy last
night."

"Did you get a square look at the driver's face?" demanded De Soto.

"It was almost too dark to see, but he was old, hatchet-faced, and
spoke with an accent."

"Then it couldn't have been Peter," said De Soto positively. "He's old,
right enough, but he is as big as the side of a house, with a face like
a full moon, and he is Yankee to his toes. By gad, Barnes, the plot
thickens! A woman has been added to the mystery. Now, who the devil is
she and what has become of her?"




CHAPTER VI

CHARITY BEGINS FAR FROM HOME, AND A STROLL IN THE WILDWOOD FOLLOWS


Mr. Rushcroft as furious when he arose at eleven o'clock on the morning
after the double murder, having slept like a top through all of the
commotion. He boomed all over the place, vocal castigations falling
right and left on the guilty and the innocent without distinction. He
wouldn't have missed the excitement for anything in the world. He
didn't mind missing the breakfast he was to have had with Barnes, but
he did feel outraged over the pusillanimous trick played upon him by
the remaining members of his troupe. Nothing was to have been expected
of Putnam Jones and his damnation crew; they wouldn't have called him
if the house was afire; they would let him roast to death; but
certainly something was due him from the members of his company,
something better than utter abandonment!

He was still deep in the sulks when he came upon Barnes, who was pacing
the sunlit porch, deep in thought.

"There will never be another opportunity like that," he groaned, at the
close of a ten minute dissertation on the treachery of friends; "never
in all the years to come. The driveling fools! What do I pay them for?
To let me lie there snoring so loud that I couldn't hear opportunity
for the noise I was making? As in everything else I undertake, my dear
Barnes, I excel at snoring. My lung capacity is something amazing. It
has to have an outlet. They let me lie there like a log while the
richest publicity material that ever fell to the lot of an actor went
to waste,--utter waste. Why, damme, sir, I could have made that scene
in the tap-room historic; I could have made it so dramatic that it
would have thrilled to the marrow every man, woman and child in the
United States of America. That's what I mean. They allowed a chance
like that to get away. Can you beat it? Tragedy at my very elbow,--by
gad, almost nudging me, you might say,--and no one to tell me to get
up. Think of the awful requiem I could have--But what's the use
thinking about it now? I am so exasperated I can't think of anything
but anathemas, so--"

"I don't see how you managed to sleep through it," Barnes broke in.
"You must have an unusually clear conscience, Mr. Rushcroft."

"I haven't any conscience at all, sir," roared the star. "I had an
unusually full stomach, that's what was the matter with me. Damme, I
ought to have known better. I take oath now, sir, never to eat again as
long as I live. A man who cannot govern his beastly appetite ought to
defy it, if nothing else."

"I gather from that remark that you omitted breakfast this morning."

"Breakfast, sir? In God's name, I implore you not to refer to anything
so disgusting as stewed prunes and bacon at a time like this. My mind
is--"

"How about luncheon? Will you join me at twelve-thirty?"

"That's quite another matter," said Mr. Rushcroft readily. "Luncheon is
an aesthetic tribute to the physical intelligence of man, if you know
what I mean. I shall be delighted to join you. Twelve-thirty, did you
say?"

"It would give me great pleasure if your daughter would also grace the
festal board."

"Ahem! My daughter and I are--er--what you might say 'on the outs' at
present. I dare say I was a trifle crusty with her this morning. She
was a bit inconsiderate, too, I may add. As a matter of fact she told
me to go and soak my head." Mr. Rushcroft actually blushed as he said
it. "I don't know where the devil she learned such language, unless
she's been overhearing the disrespectful remarks that some of these
confounded opera house managers make when I try to argue with them
about--But never mind! She's a splendid creature, isn't she? She has it
born in her to be one of the greatest actresses in--"

"I think it is too bad that she has to go about in the gown she wears,
Mr. Rushcroft," said Barnes. "She's much too splendid for that. I have
a proposition I'd like to make to you later on. I cannot make it,
however, without consulting Miss Thackeray's feelings."

"My dear fellow!" beamed Rushcroft, seizing the other's hand. "One
frequently reads in books about it coming like this, at first sight,
but, damme, I never dreamed that it ever really happened. Count on me!
She ought to leave the stage, the dear child. No more fitted to it than
an Easter lily. Her place is in the home, the--"

"Good Lord, I'm not thinking of--" And Barnes, aghast, stopped before
blurting out the words that leaped to his lips. "I mean to say, this is
a proposition that may also affect your excellent companions, Bacon and
Dillingford, as well as yourselves."

"Abominations!" snorted Rushcroft. "I fired both of them this morning.
They are no longer connected with my company. I won't have 'em around.
What's more, they can't act and never will. The best bit of acting that
Bacon ever did in his life was when he told me to go to hell a little
while ago. I say 'acting,' mind you, because the wretch COULDN'T have
been in earnest, and yet he gave the most convincing performance of his
life. If I'd ever dreamed that he had it in him to do it so well, I'd
have had the line in every play we've done since he joined us, author
or no author."

At twelve-thirty sharp, Barnes came down from his room freshly shaved
and brushed, to find not only Mr. Rushcroft and Miss Thackeray awaiting
him in the office, but the Messrs. Dillingford and Bacon as well.
Putnam Jones, gloomy and preoccupied behind the counter, allowed his
eyes to brighten a little as the latest guest of the house approached
the group.

"I've given all of 'em an hour or two off," he said genially. "Do what
you like to 'em."

Rushcroft expanded. "My good man, what the devil do you mean by a
remark like that? Remember--"

"Never mind, dad," said Miss Thackeray, lifting her chin haughtily.
"Forgive us our trespassers as we forgive our trespasses. And remember,
also, that poor, dear Mr. Jones is all out of sorts to-day. He is all
keyed up over the notoriety his house is going to achieve before the
government gets through annoying him."

"See here, Miss," began Mr. Jones, threateningly, and then, overcome by
his Yankee shrewdness, stopped as suddenly as he started. "Go on in and
have your dinner. Don't mind me. I am out of sorts." He was smart
enough to realise that it was wiser to have the good rather than the
ill-will of these people. He dreaded the inquiry that was imminent.

"That's better," mumbled Mr. Rushcroft, partially mollified. "I took
the liberty, old fellow," he went on, addressing Barnes, "of asking my
excellent co-workers to join us in our repast. In all my career I have
not known more capable, intelligent players than these--"

"Delighted to have you with us, gentlemen," said Barnes affably. "In
fact, I was going to ask Mr. Rushcroft if he had the slightest
objection to including you--"

"Oh, the row's all over," broke in Mr. Dillingford magnanimously. "It
didn't amount to anything. I'm sure if Mr. Rushcroft doesn't object to
us, we don't object to him."

"Peace reigns throughout the land," said Mr. Bacon, in his deepest
bass. "Precede us, my dear Miss Thackeray."

The sole topic of conversation for the first half hour was the
mysterious slaying of their fellow lodgers. Mr. Rushcroft complained
bitterly of the outrageous, high-handed action of the coroner and
sheriff in imposing upon him and his company the same restrictions that
had been applied to Barnes. They were not to leave the county until the
authorities gave the word. One would have thought, to hear the star's
indignant lamentations, that he and his party were in a position to
depart when they pleased. It would have been difficult to imagine that
he was not actually rolling in money instead of being absolutely
penniless.

"What were these confounded rascals to me?" he demanded, scowling at
Miss Tilly as if she were solely to blame for his misfortune. "Why
should I be held up in this God-forsaken place because a couple of
scoundrels got their just deserts? Why, I repeat? I'd--"

"I--I'm sure I--I don't know," stammered Miss Tilly, wetting her dry
lips with her tongue in an attempt to be lucid.

"What?" exploded Mr. Rushcroft, somewhat taken aback by the retort from
an unexpected quarter. "Upon my soul, I--I--What?"

"He won't bite, Miss Tilly," said Miss Thackeray soothingly.

"Oh, dear!" said Miss Tilly, putting her hand over her mouth.

Barnes had been immersed in his own thoughts for some time. A slight
frown, as of reflection, darkened his eyes. Suddenly,--perhaps
impolitely,--he interrupted Mr. Rushcroft's flow of eloquence.

"Have you any objection, Mr. Rushcroft, to a more or less personal
question concerning your own private--er--misfortunes?" he asked,
leaning forward.

For a moment one could have heard a pin drop. Mr. Rushcroft evidently
held his breath. There could be no mistake about that.

"I don't mean to be offensive," Barnes made haste to add.

"My misfortunes are not private," said Mr. Rushcroft, with dignity.
"They are decidedly public. Ask all the questions you please, my dear
fellow."

"Well, it's rather delicate, but would you mind telling me just how
much you were stuck up for by the--er--was it a writ of attachment?"

"It was," said the star. "A writ of inquisition, you might as well
substitute. The act of a polluted, impecunious, parsimonious,--what
shall I say? Well, I will be as simple as possible: hotel keeper. In
other words, a damnation blighter, sir. Ninety-seven dollars and forty
cents. For that pitiful amount he subjected me to--"

"Well, that isn't so bad," said Barnes, vastly relieved. "It would
require that amount to square everything and release your personal
effects?"

"It would release the whole blooming production," put in Mr.
Dillingford, with unction. "Including my dress suit and a top hat, to
say nothing of a change of linen and--"

"Two wood exteriors and a parlor set, make-up boxes, wardrobe trunks, a
slide trombone and--" mused Mr. Bacon, and would have gone on but for
Barnes' interruption.

He was covertly watching Miss Thackeray's half-averted face as he
ventured upon the proposition he had decided to put before them. She
was staring out of the window, and there was a strained, almost
harassed expression about the corners of her mouth. The glimpse he had
of her dark eyes revealed something sullen, rebellious in them. She had
taken no part in the conversation for some time.

"I am prepared and willing to advance this amount, Mr. Rushcroft, and
to take your personal note as security."

Rushcroft leaned back in his chair and stuck his thumbs in the arm
holes of his vest. He displayed no undue elation. Instead he affected
profound calculation. His daughter shot a swift, searching look at the
would-be Samaritan. There was a heightened colour in her cheeks.

"Ahem," said Rushcroft, squinting at the ceiling beams.

"Moreover, I shall be happy to increase the amount of the loan
sufficiently to cover your return at once to New York, if you so
desire,--by train." Barnes smiled as he added the last two words.

"Extremely kind of you, my dear Barnes," said the actor, running his
fingers through his hair. "Your faith in me is most gratifying. I--I
really don't know what to say to you, sir."

"Of course, Mr. Barnes, you ought to know that you may be a long time
in getting your money back," said his daughter levelly. "We are poor
pay."

"My dear child," began Mr. Rushcroft, amazed.

"I shall permit your father himself to specify the number of months or
years to be written in the body of the note," said Barnes.

"And if he never pays, what then?" said she.

"I shall not trouble him with demands for the money," said Barnes.

"May I inquire just how you expect to profit by this transaction, Mr.
Barnes?" she asked steadily.

He started, suddenly catching her meaning.

"My dear Miss Thackeray," he exclaimed, "this transaction is solely
between your father and me. I shall have no other claim to press."

"I wish I could believe that," she said.

"You may believe it," he assured her.

"It isn't the usual course," she said quietly, and her face brightened.
"You are not like most men, Mr. Barnes."

"My dear child," said Rushcroft, "you must leave this matter to our
friend and me. I fancy I know an honest man when I see him. My dear
fellow, fortune is but temporarily frowning upon me. In a few weeks I
shall be on my feet again, zipping along on the crest of the wave. I
dare say I can return the money to you in a month or six weeks. If--"

"Oh, father!" cried Miss Thackeray.

"We'll make it six months, and I'll pay any rate of interest you
desire. Six per cent, eight per cent, ten per--"

"Six per cent, sir, and we will make it a year from date."

"Agreed. And now, Miss Tilly, will you ask the barmaid,--who happens to
be masculine,--to step in here and take the orders? We would drink to
Dame Fortune, who has a smile that defies all forms of adversity. Out
of the clouds falls a slice of silver lining. It alights in my
trembling palm. I--I--Damme, sir, you are a nobleman! In behalf of my
daughter, my company and the--Heaven forfend! I was about to add the
accursed management!--I thank you. Get up and dance for us, Dilly! We
shall be in New York to-morrow!"

"You forget the dictatorial sheriff, Mr. Rushcroft," said Barnes.

"The varlet!" barked Mr. Rushcroft.

It was arranged that Dillingford and Bacon were to go to Hornville in a
hired motor that afternoon, secure the judgment, pay the costs, and
attend to the removal of the personal belongings of the stranded
quartette from the hotel to Hart's Tavern. The younger actors stoutly
refused to accept Barnes' offer to pay their board while at the Tavern.
That, they declared, would be charity, and they preferred his
friendship and his respect to anything of that sort. Miss Thackeray,
however, was to be immediately relieved of her position as chambermaid.
She was to become a paying guest.

"I'll be glad to have my street togs, such as they are," said she,
rosily. "I dare say you are sick of seeing me in this rig, Mr. Barnes.
That's probably why you opened your heart and purse."

"Not at all," said he gaily. "As I presume I shall have to remain here
for some time, I deem it my right to improve the service as much as
possible. You are a very incompetent chambermaid, Miss Thackeray."

Rushcroft took the whole affair with the most noteworthy complacency.
He seemed to regard it as his due, or more properly speaking as if he
were doing Barnes a great favour in allowing him to lend money to a
person of his importance.

"A thought has just come to me, my dear fellow," he remarked, as they
arose from table. "With the proper kind of backing I could put over one
of the most stupendous things the theatre has known in fifty years. I
don't mind saying to you,--although it's rather sub rosa--that I have
written a play. A four act drama that will pack the biggest house on
Broadway to the roof for as many months as we'd care to stay. Perhaps
you will allow me to talk it over with you a little later on. You will
be interested, I'm sure. I actually shudder sometimes when I think of
the filthy greenbacks I'll have to carry around on my person if the
piece ever gets into New York. Yes, yes, I'll be glad to talk it over
with you. Egad, sir, I'll read the play to you. I'll--What ho,
landlord! When my luggage arrives this evening will you be good enough
to have it placed in the room just vacated by the late Mr. Roon? My
daughter will have the room adjoining, sir. By the way, will you have
your best automobile sent around to the door as quickly as possible? A
couple of my men are going to Hornville--damned spot!--to fetch hither
my--"

"Just a minute," interrupted Putnam Jones, wholly unimpressed. "A man
just called you up on the 'phone, Mr. Barnes. I told him you was
entertaining royalty at lunch and couldn't be disturbed. So he asked me
to have you call him up as soon as you revived. His words, not mine.
Call up Mr. O'Dowd at Green Fancy. Here's the number."

The mellow voice of the Irishman soon responded.

"I called you up to relieve your mind regarding the young woman who
came last night," he said. "You observe that I say 'came.' She's quite
all right, safe and sound, and no cause for uneasiness. I thought you
meant that she was coming here as a guest, and so I made the very
natural mistake of saying she hadn't come at all, at all. The young
woman in question is Mrs. Van Dyke's maid. But bless me soul, how was I
to know she was even in existence, much less expected by train or motor
or Shanks' mare? Well, she's here, so there's the end of our mystery.
We sha'n't have to follow your gay plan of searching the wilderness for
beauty in distress. Our romance is spoiled, and I am sorry to say it to
you. You were so full of it this morning that you had me all stirred up
meself."

Barnes was slow in replying. He was doubting his own ears. It was not
conceivable that an ordinary--or even an extraordinary--lady's maid
could have possessed the exquisite voice and manner of his chance
acquaintance of the day before, or the temerity to order that
sour-faced chauffeur about as if--The chauffeur!

"But I thought you said that Mr. Curtis's chauffeur was moon-faced
and--"

"He is, bedad," broke in Mr. O'Dowd, chuckling. "That's what deceived
me entirely, and no wonder. It wasn't Peter at all, but the rapscallion
washer who went after her. He was instructed to tell Peter to meet the
four o'clock train, and the blockhead forgot to give the order. Bedad,
what does he do but sneak out after her himself, scared out of his
boots for fear of what he was to get from Peter. I had the whole story
from Mrs. Van Dyke."

"Well, I'm tremendously relieved," said Barnes slowly.

"And so am I," said O'Dowd, with conviction. "I have seen the heroine
of our busted romance. She's a good-looking girl. I'm not surprised
that she kept her veil down. If you were to leave it to me, though, I'd
say that it's a sin to carry discretion so far as all that. I thought
I'd take the liberty of calling you up as soon as I had the facts, so
that you wouldn't go forth in knightly ardour--You see what I mean,
don't you?" His rich laugh came over the wire.

"Perfectly. Thank you for letting me know. My mind is at rest."

"Will you be staying on for some days at the Tavern?"

"I think so."

"Well, I shall give myself the pleasure of running over to see you in a
day or so."

"Do," said Barnes. "Good by." As he hung up the receiver he said to
himself, "You are a most affable, convincing chap, Mr. O'Dowd, but I
don't believe a word you say. That woman is no lady's maid, and you've
known all the time that she was there."

At four o'clock he set out alone for a tramp up the mountain road in
which the two men had been shot down. A number of men under the
direction of the sheriff were scouring the lofty timberland for the
deadly marksmen. He knew it would turn out to be as futile as the
proverbial effort to find the needle in the haystack.

His mind was quite clear on the subject. Roon and Paul were not
ordinary robbers. They were, no doubt, honest men. He would have said
that they were thieves bent on burglarising Green Fancy were it not for
the disclosures of Miss Thackeray and the very convincing proof that
they were not shot by the same man. Detected on the grounds about Green
Fancy by a watchman, they would have had an encounter with him there
and then. Moreover, they would have taken an active part in the play of
firearms. Desperadoes would not have succumbed so tamely.

It was not beyond reason,--indeed, it was quite probable,--that they
were trying to cross the border; in that event, their real operations
would be confined to the Canadian side of the line. They were
unmistakably foreigners. That fact, in itself, went far toward
establishing in his mind the conviction that they were not attempting
to intercept any one coming from the other side. Equally as strong was
the belief that the Canadian authorities would not have entered upon
United States territory for the purpose of apprehending these suspects,
no matter how thoroughly the movements and motives of the two men might
have been known to them.

He could not free himself of the suspicion that Green Fancy possessed
the key to the situation. Roon and his companion could not have had the
slightest interest in his movements up to the instant he encountered
the young woman at the cross-roads. It was ridiculous to even consider
himself an object of concern to these men who had been haunting the
border for days prior to his appearance on the scene. They were
interested only in the advent of the woman, and as her destination
confessedly was Green Fancy, what could be more natural than the
conclusion that their plans, evil or otherwise, depended entirely upon
her arrival at the strange house on the mountainside? They had been
awaiting her appearance for days. The instant it became known to them
that she was installed at Green Fancy, their plans went forward with a
swiftness that bespoke complete understanding.

His busy brain suddenly suffered the shock of a distinct conclusion. So
startling was the thought that he stopped abruptly in his walk and
uttered an exclamation of dismay. Was she a fellow-conspirator? Was she
the inside worker at Green Fancy in a well-laid plan to rifle the
place? She too was unmistakably a foreigner.

Could it be possible that she was the confederate of these painstaking
agents who lurked with sinister patience outside the very gates of the
place called Green Fancy?

In support of this theory was the supposition that O'Dowd may have been
perfectly sincere in his declarations over the telephone. Opposed to
it, however, was the absolute certainty that Roon and Paul were waylaid
and killed at widely separated points, and not while actively employed
in raiding the house. That was the rock over which all of his theories
stumbled.

His ramble carried him far beyond the spot where Roon's body was found
and where young Conley had come upon the tethered horses. His eager,
curious gaze swept the forest to the left of the road in search of
Green Fancy. Overcome by a rash, daring impulse, he climbed over the
stake and rider fence and sauntered among the big trees which so far
had obscured the house from view. He had looked in vain for the lane or
avenue leading from the road up to Mr. Curtis's house. He could not
have passed it in his stroll, of that he was sure, and yet he
remembered distinctly seeing O'Dowd and De Soto turn their horses into
the forest at a point far back of the place where he now entered the
grounds.

The trees grew very thickly on the slope, and they were unusually
large. Virgin timber, he decided, on which the woodman's axe had made
no inroads. The foliage was dense. Tree tops seemed to intermingle in
one vast canopy through which the sun but rarely penetrated. The bright
green of the grass, the sponginess of the soil, the presence of great
stretches of ferns and beds of moss told of almost perpetual moisture.
Strangely enough there was no suggestion of dankness in these shadowy
glades, rich with the fulness of early Spring.

He progressed deeper into the wood. At the end of what must have been a
mile, he halted. There was no sign of habitation, no indication that
man had ever penetrated so far into the forest. As he was on the point
of retracing his steps toward the road, his gaze fell upon a huge
moss-covered rock less than a hundred yards away. He stared, and
gradually it began to take on angles and planes and recesses of the
most astounding symmetry. Under his widening gaze it was transformed
into a substantial object of cubes and gables and--yes, windows.

He was looking upon the strange home of the even stranger Mr. Curtis:
Green Fancy.

Now he understood why it was called Green Fancy. Its surroundings were
no greener than itself; it seemed to melt into the foliage, to become a
part of the natural landscape. For a long time he stood stock-still,
studying the curious structure. Mountain ivy literally enveloped it.
Exposed sections of the house were painted green,--a mottled green that
seemed to indicate flickering sunbeams against an emerald wall. The
doors were green; the leafy porches and their columns, the chimney
pots, the window hangings,--all were the colour of the unchanging
forest. And it was a place of huge dimensions, low and long and
rambling. It seemed to have been forcibly jammed into the steep slope
that shot high above its chimneys; the mountain hung over its vine clad
roof, an ominous threat of oblivion.

There was no lawn, no indication of landscape gardening, and yet Barnes
was singularly impressed by the arrangement of the shrubbery that
surrounded the place. There was no visible approach to the house
through the thick, unbroken sea of green; everywhere was dense
underbrush, standing higher than the head of the tallest of
men,--clean, bright bushes, revealing the most astonishing uniformity
in size and character.

"'Gad," he said to himself, "what manner of crank is he who would bury
himself like this? Of all the crazy ideas I ever--"

His reflections ended there. A woman crossed his vision; a woman
strolling slowly toward him through the intricate avenues of the
wildwood.




CHAPTER VII

SPUN-GOLD HAIR, BLUE EYES, AND VARIOUS ENCOUNTERS


She was quite unaware of his presence, and yet he was directly in her
path, though some distance away. Her head was bent; her mien was
thoughtful, her stride slow and aimless.

The azure blue of the sweater she wore presented an inharmonious note
on the field of velvety green;--it was strangely out of place, he
thought,--almost an offence to the eye. He was conscious of an instant
protest against this profanation.

She was slender, graceful and evidently quite tall, although she seemed
a pigmy among the towering giants that attended her stroll. Her hands
were thrust deep into the pockets of a white duck skirt. A glance
revealed white shoes and trim ankles in blue. She wore no hat. Her hair
was like spun gold, thick, wavy and shimmering in the subdued light.

Suddenly she stopped, and looked up. He had a full view of her face as
she gazed about as if startled by some unexpected, even alarming,
sound. For a second or two he held his breath, stunned by the amazing
loveliness that was revealed to him. Then she discovered him standing
there.

He was never to forget the expression that came into her eyes; nor had
he ever seen eyes so blue. Alarm gave way to bewilderment as she stared
at the motionless intruder not thirty feet away. Then, to his utter
astonishment, her lips parted and a faint, wondering smile came into
her eyes. His heart leaped. She recognised him!

In a flash he realised that he was face to face with the stranger of
the day before,--she of the veil, the alluring voice, the unfaltering
spirits, and the weighty handbag!

He took two or three impulsive steps forward, his hand going to his
hat,--and then halted. Evidently his senses had deceived him. There was
no smile in her eyes,--and yet he could have sworn that it was there an
instant before. Instead, there was a level stare.

"I am sorry if I startled--" he began.

The figure of a man appeared, as if discharged bodily from some magic
tree-trunk, and stood directly in his path: A tall, rugged man in
overalls was he, who held a spade in his hand and eyed him inimically.
Without another glance in his direction, the first and more pleasing
vision turned on her heel and continued her stroll, sauntering off to
the right, her fair head once more bent in study, her back eloquently
indifferent to the gaze that followed her.

"Who do you want to see?" inquired the man with the spade.

Before Barnes could reply, a hearty voice accosted him from behind. He
whirled and saw O'Dowd approaching, not twenty yards away. The
Irishman's face was aglow with pleasure.

"I knew I couldn't be mistaken in the shape of you," he cried,
advancing with outstretched hand. "You've got the breadth of a
dock-hand in your shoulders, and the trimness of a prize-fighter in
your waist."

They shook hands. "I fear I am trespassing," said Barnes. His glance
went over his shoulder as he spoke. The man with the spade had been
swallowed up by the earth! He could not have vanished more quickly in
any other way. Off among the trees there were intermittent flashes of
blue and white.

"I am quite sure you are," said O'Dowd promptly, but without a trace of
unfriendliness in his manner. "Bedad, loving him as I do, I can't help
saying that Curtis is a bally old crank. Mind ye, I'd say it to his
face,--I often do, for the matter of that. Of course," he went on
seriously, "he is a sick man, poor devil. I have the unholy courage to
call him a chronic crank every once in awhile, and the best thing I can
say for his health is that he grins when I say it to him. You see, I've
known him for a dozen years and more, and he likes me, though God knows
why, unless it may be that I once did his son a good turn in London."

"Sufficient excuse for reparation, I should say," smiled Barnes.

"I introduced the lad to me only sister," said O'Dowd, "and she kept
him happy for the next ten years. No doubt, I also provided Mr. Curtis
with three grandchildren he might never have had but for my
graciousness. As for that, I let meself in for three of the most
prodigious nephews a man ever had, God bless them. I'll show you a
photograph of them if ye'd care to look." He opened the back of his
watch and held it out to Barnes. "Nine, seven and five, and all of them
as bright as Gladstone."

"They must be stunning," said Barnes warmly.

"They'll make a beggar of me, if I live long enough," groaned O'Dowd.
"It beats the deuce how childer as young as they are can have
discovered what a doddering fool their uncle is. Bedad, the smallest of
them knows it. The very instant I pretend to be a sensible, provident,
middle-aged gentleman he shows me up most shamelessly. 'Twas only a
couple of months ago that his confounded blandishments wiggled a
sixty-five dollar fire engine out of me. He squirted water all over the
drawing-room furniture, and I haven't been allowed to put foot into the
house since. My own darlin' sister refused to look at me for a week,
and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if she changed me namesake's
title to something less enfuriating than William." A look of distress
came into his merry eyes. "By Jove, I'd like nothing better than to ask
you in to have a dish of tea,--it's tea-time, I'm sure,--but I'd no
more think of doing it than I'd consider cutting off me head. He
doesn't like strangers. He--"

"My dear fellow, don't distress yourself," cried Barnes heartily.
"There isn't the least reason in the world why--"

"You see, the poor old chap asks us up here once or twice a year,--that
is to say, De Soto and me,--to keep his sister from filling the house
up with men he can't endure. So long as we occupy the only available
rooms, he argues, she can't stuff them full of objectionables. Twice a
year she comes for a month, in the late fall and early spring. He's
very fond of her, and she stands by him like a major."

"Why does he continue to live in this out-of-the-world spot, Mr.
O'Dowd? He is an old man, I take it, and ill."

"You wouldn't be wondering if you knew the man," said O'Dowd. "He is a
scholar, a dreamer, a sufferer. He doesn't believe in doctors. He says
they're all rascals. They'd keep him alive just for the sake of what
they could get out of him. So he's up here to die in peace, when his
time comes, and he hopes it will come soon. He doesn't want it
prolonged by a grasping, greedy doctor man. It's his kidneys, you know.
He's not a very old man at that. Not more than sixty-five."

"He certainly has a fanciful streak in him, building a place like
that," said Barnes, looking not at the house but into the thicket
above. There was no sign of the blue and white and the spun gold that
still defied exclusion from his mind's eye. He had not recovered from
the thrall into which the vision of loveliness plunged him. He was
still a trifle dazed and distraught.

"Right you are," agreed O'Dowd; "the queerest streak in the world. It's
his notion of simplicity. I wish you could see the inside of the place.
You'd wonder to what exalted heights his ideas of magnificence would
carry him if he calls this simplicity. He loves it all, he dotes on it.
It's the only joy he knows, this bewildering creation of his. For
nearly three years he has not been more than a stone's throw from the
walls of that house. I doubt if he's been as far as the spot where
we're standing now."

"Green Fancy. Is that the name he gave the place or does it spring
from--"

"'Twas christened by me own sister, Mr. Barnes, the first time she was
here, two years ago. I'll walk with you to the fence beyond if you've
no objections," said O'Dowd, genially, and linked his arm through that
of Barnes.

The latter was at once subtly aware of the fact that he was being
deliberately conducted from the grounds. Moreover, he was now convinced
that O'Dowd had been close upon his heels from the instant he entered
them. There was something uncanny in the feeling that possessed him.
Such espionage as this signified something deep and imperative in the
presence not only of O'Dowd but the Jack-in-the-box gardener a few
minutes earlier. He had the grim suspicion that he would later on
encounter the spectacled De Soto.

His mind was still full of the lovely stranger about whom O'Dowd had so
manifestly lied over the telephone.

"I must ask you to apologise to the young lady on whom I blundered a
few moments ago, Mr. O'Dowd. She must have been startled. Pray convey
to her my solicitude and excuses."

"Consider it done, my dear sir," said the Irishman. "Our most charming
and seductive guest," he went on. "Bedad, of the two of you, I'll stake
me head you were startled the most. Coming suddenly upon such rare
loveliness is almost equivalent to being struck by a bolt of lightning.
It did something like that to me when I saw her for the first time a
couple of weeks ago. I didn't get over it for the better part of a
day,--I can't say that I really got over it at all. More than one
painter of portraits has said that she is the most beautiful woman in
the world. I don't take much stock in portrait painters, but I'm always
fair to the lords of creation when their opinions coincide with mine.
Mayhap you have heard of her. She is Miss Cameron of New Orleans, a
friend of Mrs. Van Dyke. We have quite an enchanting house-party, Mr.
Barnes, if you consider no more than the feminine side of it.
Unfortunate creatures! To be saddled with such ungainly lummixes as De
Soto and me! By the way, have you heard when the coroner is to hold his
inquests?"

"Nothing definite. He may wait a week," said Barnes.

"I suppose you'll stick around until it's all over," ventured O'Dowd.
Barnes thought he detected a slight harshness in his voice.

"I have quite made up my mind to stay until the mystery is entirely
cleared up," he said. "The case is so interesting that I don't want to
miss a shred of it."

"I don't blame ye," said O'Dowd heartily. "I'd like nothing better
meself than to mix up in it, but, Lord love ye, if I turned detective
I'd also be turned out of the spare bed-room beyond, and sped on me way
with curses. Well, here we are. The next time you plan to pay us a
visit, telephone in advance. I may be able to persuade my host that
you're a decent, law-abiding, educated gentleman, and he'll consent to
receive you at Green Fancy. Good day to ye," and he shook hands with
the departing trespasser.

A quarter of a mile below the spot where he parted from O'Dowd, Barnes
caught a glimpse of De Soto sauntering among the trees. He smiled to
himself. It was just what he had expected.

"Takin' a walk?" was the landlord's greeting as he mounted the tavern
steps at dusk. Putnam Jones's gaunt figure had been discernible for
some time, standing motionless at the top of the steps.

"Going over the ground of last night's affair," responded Barnes,
pausing. "Any word from the sheriff and his party?"

"Nope. The blamed fools are still up there turnin' over all the loose
stones they c'n find," said Jones sarcastically. "Did you get a glimpse
of Green Fancy?"

Barnes nodded. "I strolled a little distance into the woods," he said
briefly.

"I wouldn't do it again," said Jones. "Strangers ain't welcome. I might
have told you as much if I'd thought you were going up that way. Mr.
Curtis notified me a long while ago to warn my guests not to set foot
on his grounds, under penalty of the law."

"Well, I escaped without injury," laughed Barnes. "No one took a shot
at me."

As he entered the door he was acutely aware of an intense stare
levelled at him from behind by the landlord of Hart's Tavern. Half way
up the stairway he stopped short, and with difficulty repressed the
exclamation that rose to his lips.

He had recalled a significant incident of the night before. Almost
immediately after the departure of Roon and Paul from the Tavern,
Putnam Jones had made his way to the telephone behind the desk, and had
called for a number in a loud, brisk voice, but the subsequent
conversation was carried on in subdued tones, attended by haste and
occasional furtive glances in the direction of the tap-room.

Upon reaching his room, Barnes permitted the suppressed emotion to
escape his lips in the shape of a soft whistle, which if it could have
been translated into words would have said: "By Gad, why haven't I
thought of it before? He sent out the warning that Roon and Paul were
on the way! And I'd like to bet my last dollar that some one at Green
Fancy had the other end of the wire."

Mr. Rushcroft stalked majestically into his room while he was shaving,
without taking the trouble to knock at the door, and in his most
impressive manner announced that if there was another hostelry within
reasonable distance he would move himself, his luggage and his entire
company out of Putnam Jones's incomprehensible house.

"Why, sir," he declared, "the man is not only a knave but a fool. He
flatly declines the prodigious offer I have made for the corner rooms
at the end of the corridor. In fact, he refuses to transfer my daughter
and me from our present quarters into what might be called the royal
suite if one were disposed to be facetious. The confounded blockhead
insists on seeing the colour of my money in advance." He sat down on
the edge of the bed, dejectedly. "My daughter, perversity personified,
takes the extraordinary stand that the wretch is right. She agrees with
him. She has even gone so far as to say, to my face, that beggars
cannot be choosers, although I must give her credit for not using the
expression in the scoundrel's presence. 'Pon my soul, Barnes, I have
never been so sorely tried in all my life. Emma,--I should say,
Mercedes,--denounces me to my face. She says I am a wastrel, a
profligate,--(there I have her, however, for she failed to consult the
dictionary before applying the word to me),--an ingrate, and a lot of
other things I fail to recall in my dismay. She contends that I have no
right to do what I please with my own money. Indeed, she goes so far as
to say that I haven't any money at all. I have tried to explain to her
the very simple principles upon which all financial transactions are
based, but she remains as obtuse as Cleopatra's Needle. Her ignorance
would be pitiful if she wasn't so damned obstinate about it. And to cap
the climax, she had the insolence to ask me to show her a dollar in
real money. By gad, sir, she's as unreasonable as Putnam Jones himself."

Barnes gallantly came to the daughter's defense. He was more than
pleased by the father's revelations. They proved her to be possessed of
fine feelings and a genuine sense of appreciation.

"As a matter of fact, Mr. Rushcroft, I think she is quite right," he
said flatly. "It isn't a bad idea to practice economy."

"My dear sir," said Rushcroft peevishly, "where would I be now in my
profession if I had practiced economy at the expense of progress?"

"I don't know," confessed Barnes, much too promptly.

"I can tell you, sir. I would be nowhere at all. I would not be the
possessor of a name that is known from one end of this land to the
other, a name that guarantees to the public the most elaborate
productions known to--"

"Pardon me," interrupted the other; "it doesn't get you anywhere with
Putnam Jones, and that is the issue at present. The government puts the
portrait of George Washington on one of its greenbacks but his face and
name wouldn't be worth the tenth of a penny if the United States went
bankrupt. As it is, however, if you were to go downstairs and proffer
one of those bills to Putnam Jones he would make his most elaborate bow
and put you into the best room in the house. George Washington has
backing that even Mr. Jones cannot despise. So, you see, your daughter
is right. Your name and face is yet to be stamped on a government bank
note, Mr. Rushcroft, and until that time comes you are no better off
than I or any of the rest of the unfortunates who, being still alive,
have to eat for a living."

"You speak in parables," said Mr. Rushcroft, arising. "Am I to assume
that you wish to withdraw your offer to lend me--"

"Not at all," said Barnes. "My desire to stake you to the comforts and
dignity your station deserves remains unchanged. If you will bear with
me until I have finished shaving I will go with you to Mr. Jones and
show him the colour of your money."

Mr. Rushcroft grinned shamelessly. "My daughter was right when she said
another thing to me," he observed, sitting down once more.

"She appears to be more or less infallible."

"A woman in a million," said the star. "She said that I wouldn't make a
hit with you if I attempted to put on too much side. I perceive that
she was right,--as usual."

"Absolutely," said Barnes, with decision.

"So I'll cut it out," remarked Rushcroft quaintly. "I will be
everlastingly grateful to you, Mr. Barnes, if you'll fix things up with
Jones. God knows when or whether I can ever reimburse you, but as I am
not really a dead-beat the time will certainly come when I may begin
paying in installments. Do we understand each other?"

"We do," said Barnes, and started downstairs with him.

Half an hour later Barnes succeeded in striking a bargain with Putnam
Jones. He got the two rooms at the end of the hall at half price,
insisting that it was customary for every hotel to give actors a
substantial reduction in rates.

"You shall be treasurer and business-manager in my reorganized
company," said Rushcroft. "With your acumen and my eccentricity united
in a common cause we will stagger the universe."

Despite his rehabilitation as a gentleman of means and independence,
Mr. Rushcroft could not forego the pleasure of staggering a small
section of the world that very night. He was giving Hamlet's address to
the players in the tap-room when Barnes came downstairs at nine
o'clock. Bacon and Dillingford having returned earlier in the evening
with the trunks, bags and other portable chattels of the defunct
"troupe," Mr. Rushcroft was performing in a sadly wrinkled Norfolk suit
of grey which Dillingford was under solemn injunction to press before
breakfast the next morning.

"I know I don't have to do it," said the star, catching the surprised
look in Barnes's eye and pausing to explain, sotto voce, "but I hadn't
the heart to refuse. They're eating it up, my dear fellow. Up to this
instant they've been sitting with their mouths wide open while I hurled
it, word after word, into their very vitals. "Whereupon he resumed the
sonorous monologue, glowering balefully upon his transfixed hearers.

Barnes, leaning against the door-jamb, listened with an amused smile on
his lips. His gaze swept the rapt faces of the dozen or more customers
seated at the tables, and he found himself wondering if one of these
men was the father of the little girl whose mother had described Hart's
Tavern as a "shindy." Was it only yesterday that he had spoken with the
barefoot child? An age seemed to have passed since that brief encounter.

Rushcroft ended Hamlet's speech in fine style, and almost instantly a
mild voice from the crowd asked if he knew "Casey at the Bat." Not in
the least distressed by this woeful commentary, Mr. Rushcroft
cheerfully, obligingly tackled the tragic fizzle of the immortal Casey.

A small, dark man who sat alone at a table in the corner, caught
Barnes's eye and smiled almost mournfully. He was undoubtedly a
stranger; his action was meant to convey to Barnes the information that
he too was from a distant and sophisticated community, and that a bond
of sympathy existed between them.

Putnam Jones spoke suddenly at Barnes's shoulder. He started
involuntarily. The man was beginning to get on his nerves. He seemed to
be dogging his footsteps with ceaseless persistency.

"That feller over there in the corner," said Jones, softly, "is a
book-agent from your town. He sold me a set of Dickens when he was here
last time, about six weeks ago. A year's subscription to two magazines
throwed in. By gosh, these book-agents are slick ones. I didn't want
that set of Dickens any more'n I wanted a last year's bird's nest. The
thing I'm afraid of is that he'll talk me into taking a set of Scott
before he moves on. He's got me sweatin' already."

"He's a shrewd looking chap," commented Barnes.

"Says he won't be satisfied till he's made this section of the country
the most cultured, refined spot in the United States," said Jones
dolefully. "He brags about how much he did toward makin' Boston the
literary centre of the United States, him and his father before him.
Together, he says, they actually elevated Boston from the bottomless
pit of ignorance and----Excuse me. There goes the telephone. Maybe it's
news from the sheriff."

With the spasmodic tinkling of the telephone bell, the book-agent arose
and made his way to the little office. As he passed Barnes, he winked
broadly, and said, out of the corner of his mouth:

"He'd make DeWolf Hopper look sick, wouldn't he?"

Barnes glanced over his shoulder a moment later and saw the book-agent
studying the register. The poise of his sleek head, however, suggested
a listening attitude. Putnam Jones, not four feet away, was speaking
into the telephone receiver. As the receiver was restored to its hook,
Barnes turned again. Jones and the book-agent were examining the
register, their heads almost meeting from opposite sides of the desk.

The latter straightened up, stretched his arms, yawned, and announced
in a loud tone that he guessed he'd step out and get a bit of fresh air
before turning in.

"Any news?" inquired Barnes, approaching the desk after the door had
closed behind the book-agent.

"It wasn't the sheriff," replied Jones shortly, and immediately resumed
his interrupted discourse on books, book-agents and the reclamation of
Boston. Ten minutes elapsed before the landlord's garrulity was checked
by the sound of an automobile coming to a stop in front of the house.
Barnes turned expectantly toward the door. Almost immediately the car
started up again, with a loud shifting of gears, and a moment later the
door opened to admit, not a fresh arrival, but the little book-agent.

"Party trying to make Hornville to-night," he announced casually.
"Well, good night. See you in the morning."

Barnes was not in a position to doubt the fellow's word, for the car
unmistakably had gone on toward Hornville. He waited a few minutes
after the man disappeared up the narrow stairway, and then proceeded to
test his powers of divination. He was as sure as he could be sure of
anything that had not actually come to pass, that in a short time the
automobile would again pass the tavern but this time from the direction
of Hornville.

Lighting a cigarette, he strolled outside. He had barely time to take a
position at the darkened end of the porch before the sounds of an
approaching machine came to his ears. A second or two later the lights
swung around the bend in the road a quarter of a mile above Hart's
Tavern, and down came the car at a high rate of speed. It dashed past
the tavern with a great roar and rattle and shot off into the darkness
beyond. As it rushed through the dim circle of light in front of the
tavern, Barnes succeeded in obtaining a brief but convincing view of
the car. That glance was enough, however. He would have been willing to
go before a jury and swear that it was the same car that had deposited
him at Hart's Tavern the day before.

Having guessed correctly in the one instance, he allowed himself
another and even bolder guess: the little book-agent had either
received a message from or delivered one to the occupant or driver of
the car from Green Fancy.




CHAPTER VIII

A NOTE, SOME FANCIES, AND AN EXPEDITION IN QUEST OF FACTS


Dillingford gave him a lighted candle at the desk and he started
upstairs, his mind full of the events and conjectures of the day.
Uppermost in his thoughts was the dazzling vision of the afternoon, and
the fleeting smile that had come to him through the leafy interstices.
As he entered the room, his eyes fell upon a white envelope at his
feet. It had been slipped under the door since he left the room an hour
before.

Terse reminder from the prudent Mr. Jones! His bill for the day! He
picked it up, glanced at the inscription, and at once altered his
opinion. His full name was there in the handwriting of a woman. For a
moment he was puzzled; then he thought of Miss Thackeray. A note of
thanks, no doubt, unpleasantly fulsome! Vaguely annoyed, he ripped open
the envelope and read:

"In case I do not have the opportunity to speak with you to-night, this
is to let you know that the little man who says he is a book-agent was
in your room for three-quarters of an hour while you were away this
afternoon. You'd better see if anything is missing.
                                    M.T."

He read the note again, and then held it over the candle flame.
Surprise and a temporary indignation gave way before the thrill of
exultation as the blazing paper fell upon the hearth.

"'Gad, it grows more and more interesting," he mused, and chuckled
aloud. "They're not losing a minute's time in finding out all they can
about me, that's certain. Thanks, my dear Miss Thackeray. You are
undoubtedly deceived but I am not. This chap may be a detective but he
isn't looking for evidence to connect me with last night's murders. Not
a bit of it. He is trying to find out whether I ought to be shot the
next time I go snooping around Green Fancy. I'd give a good deal to
know what he put into the report he sent off a little while ago. And
I'd give a good deal more to know just where Mr. Jones stands in this
business. Selling sets of Dickens, eh? Book-agent by day, secret agent
by night,--'gad, he may even be a road-agent!"

He made a hasty but careful examination of his effects. There was not
the slightest evidence that his pack had been opened or even disturbed.
Naturally he travelled without surplus impedimenta; he carried the
lightest outfit possible. There were a few papers containing notes and
memoranda; a small camera and films; a blank book to which he
transferred his daily experiences, observations and impressions; a
small medicine case; tobacco and cigarettes; a flask of brandy; copies
of Galworthy's "Man of Property" and Hutchinson's "Happy Warrior";
wearing apparel, and a revolver. His purse and private papers rarely
were off his person. If the little book-agent spent three-quarters of
an hour in the room he managed most effectually to cover up all traces
of his visit.

Barnes did not go to sleep until long after midnight. He now regarded
himself as definitely committed to a combination of sinister and
piquant enterprises, not the least of which was the determination to
find out all there was to know about the mysterious young woman at
Green Fancy.

His operations along any line of endeavour were bound to be difficult,
perhaps hazardous. Every movement that he made would be observed and
reported; his every step followed. He could hope to disarm suspicion
only by moving with the utmost boldness and unconcern. Success rested
in his ability to convince O'Dowd, Jones and the rest of them that they
had nothing to fear from his innocuous wanderings.

His interest in the sensational affair that had disturbed his first
night's rest at Hart's Tavern must remain paramount. His theories,
deductions and suggestions as to the designs and identity of Roon and
Paul; the stated results of personal and no doubt ludicrous
experiments; sly and confidential jabs at the incompetent
investigators, uttered behind the hand to Putnam Jones and, if
possible, to the book-agent;--a quixotic philanthropy in connection
with the fortunes of Rushcroft and his players; all these would have to
be put forward in the scheme to dispel suspicion at Green Fancy.

It did not occur to him that he ought to be furthering the ends of
justice by disclosing to the authorities his secret opinion of Putman
Jones, the strange behaviour of Roon as observed by Miss Thackeray, and
his own adventure with the lady of the cross-roads. The chance that
Jones, subjected to third degree pressure, might break down and reveal
all that he knew was not even considered.

Back of all his motives was the spur of Romance: his real interest was
centred in the lovely lady of Green Fancy.

He was confident that O'Dowd's system of espionage would quickly
absolve him of all interest in or connection with the plans of Albert
Roon; it remained therefore for him to convince the Irishman that he
had no notions or vagaries inimical to the well-being of Green Fancy or
its occupants. With that result achieved, he need have no fear of
meeting the fate that had befallen Roon and his lieutenant; nothing
worse could happen than an arrest and fine for trespass.

The next day he, with other lodgers in the Tavern, was put through an
examination by police and county officials from Saint Elizabeth, and
notified that, while he was not under suspicion or surveillance, it
would be necessary for him to remain in the "bailiwick" until
detectives, already on the way, were satisfied that he possessed no
knowledge that would be useful to them in clearing up what had now
assumed the dignity of a "national problem."

O'Dowd rode down from Green Fancy and created quite a sensation among
the officials by announcing that Mr. Curtis desired them to feel that
they had a perfect right to extend their search for clues to all parts
of his estate, and that he was deeply interested in the outcome of
their investigations.

"The devils may have laid their ambush on his property," said O'Dowd,
"and they may have made their escape into the hills back of his place
without running the risk of tackling the highways. Nothing, Mr. Curtis
says, should stand in the way of justice. While he knows that you have
a legal right to enter his grounds, and even his house, in the pursuit
of duty, he urges me to make it clear to you gentlemen, that you are
welcome to come without even so much as a demand upon him. If I may be
so bold as to offer my services, you may count on me to act as guide at
any time you may elect. I know the lay of the land pretty well, and
what I don't know the gardeners and other men up there do. You are to
call upon all of us if necessary. Mr. Curtis, as you know, is an
invalid. May I suggest, therefore, that you conduct your examination of
the grounds near his home with as little commotion as possible?
Incidentally, I may inform you, but one person at Green Fancy heard the
shots. That person was Mr. Curtis himself. He rang for his attendant
and instructed him to send some one out to find out what it was all
about. The chauffeur went down to Conley's, as you know. If you
consider it absolutely necessary to question Mr. Curtis as to the time
the shots were fired, he will receive you; but I think you may properly
establish that fact by young Conley without submitting a sick man to
the excitement and distress of a--"

The sheriff hastily broke in with the assurance that it was not at all
necessary to disturb Mr. Curtis. It wasn't to be thought of for a
moment. He would, however, like to "run over the ground a bit" that
very afternoon, if it was agreeable to Mr. O'Dowd.

It being quite agreeable, the genial Irishman proposed that his friend,
Mr. Barnes,--(here he bestowed an almost imperceptible wink upon the
New Yorker),--should join the party. He could vouch for the
intelligence and discretion of the gentleman.

Barnes, concealing his surprise, expressed himself as happy to be of
any service. He glanced at Putnam Jones as he made the statement. It
was at once borne in upon him that the landlord's attitude toward him
had undergone a marked change in the last few minutes. The furtive,
distrustful look was missing from his eyes and in its place was a
friendly, approving twinkle.

O'Dowd stayed to dinner. (Dinner was served in the middle of the day at
Hart's Tavern.) He made a great impression upon Lyndon Rushcroft, who,
with his daughter, joined the two men. Indeed, the palavering Irishman
extended himself in the effort to make himself agreeable. He was vastly
interested in the stage, he declared. As a matter of fact, he had been
told a thousand times that he ought to go on the stage. He had decided
talent....

"If you change your mind," said Mr. Rushcroft, "and conclude to try a
whirl at it, just let me know. I can find a place for you in my company
at any time. If there isn't a vacancy, we can always write in an Irish
comedy part."

"But I never wanted to be a comedian," said O'Dowd. "I've always wanted
to play the young hero,--the fellow who gets the girl, you know." He
bestowed a gallant smile upon Miss Thackeray.

"You may take my word for it, sir," said Mr. Rushcroft with feeling,
"heroism, and nothing less, is necessary to the man who has to play
opposite most of the harridans you, in your ignorance, speak of as
girls." And he launched forth upon a round of soul-trying experiences
with "leading-ladies."

The little book-agent came in while they were at table. He sat down in
a corner of the dining-room and busied himself with his subscription
lists while waiting for the meal to be served. He was still poring over
them, frowning intently, when Barnes and the others left the room.

Barnes walked out beside Miss Thackeray.

"The tailor-made gown is an improvement," he said to her.

"Does that mean that I look more like a good chambermaid than I did
before?"

"If you would consider it a compliment, yes," he replied, smiling. He
was thinking that she was a very pretty girl, after all.

"The frock usually makes the woman," she said slowly, "but not always
the lady."

He thought of that remark more than once during the course of an
afternoon spent in the woods about Green Fancy.

O'Dowd virtually commanded the expedition. It was he who thought of
everything. First of all, he led the party to the corner of the estate
nearest the point where Paul was shot from his horse. Sitting in his
own saddle, he called the attention of the other riders to what
appeared to be a most significant fact in connection with the killing
of this man.

"From what I hear, the man Paul was shot through the lungs, directly
from in front. The bullet went straight through his body. He was riding
very rapidly down this road. When he came to a point not far above
cross-roads, he was fired upon. It is safe to assume that he was
looking intently ahead, trying to make out the crossing. He was not
shot from the side of the road, gentlemen, but from the middle of it.
The bullet came from a point almost directly in front of him, and not
from Mr. Curtis's property here to the left, or Mr. Conley's on the
right. Understand, this is my whimsey only. I may be entirely wrong. My
idea is that the man who shot him waited here at the cross-roads to
head off either or both of them in case they were not winged by men
stationed farther up. Of course, that must be quite obvious to all of
you. My friend De Soto is inclined to the belief that they were trying
to get across the border. I don't believe so. If that were the case,
why did they dismount above Conley's house, hitch their horses to the
fence, and set forth on foot? I am convinced in my own mind that they
came here to meet some one to whom they were to deliver a verbal report
of vital importance,--some one from across the border in Canada. This
message was delivered. So far as Roon and Paul were concerned their
usefulness was ended. They had done all that was required of them. The
cause they served was better off with them dead than alive. Without the
slightest compunction, without the least regard for faithful service,
they were set upon and slain by their supposed friends. Now, you may
laugh at my fancy if you like, but you must remember that frightful
things are happening in these days. The killing of these men adds but a
drop to the ocean of blood that is being shed. Roon and Paul, suddenly
confronted by treachery, fled for their lives. The trap had been set
with care, however; they rushed into it."

"I am inclined to your hypothesis, O'Dowd," said Barnes. "It seems
sound and reasonable. The extraordinary precautions taken by Roon and
Paul to prevent identification, dead or alive, supports your whimsey,
as you call it. The thing that puzzles me, however, is the singular
failure of the two men to defend themselves. They were armed, yet
neither fired a shot. You would think that when they found themselves
in a tight place, such as you suggest, their first impulse would be to
shoot."

"Well," mused O'Dowd, squinting his eyes in thought, "there's something
in that. It doesn't seem reasonable that they'd run like whiteheads
with guns in--By Jove, here's a new thought!" His eyes glistened with
boyish elation. "They had delivered their message,--we'll assume that
much, of course,--and were walking back to their horses when they were
ordered to halt by some one hidden in the brush at the roadside. You
can't very well succeed in hitting a man if you can't see him at all,
so they made a dash for it instead of wasting time in shooting at the
air. What's more, they may have anticipated the very thing that
happened: they were prepared for treachery. Their only chance lay in
getting safely into their saddles. Oh, I am a good romancer! I should
be writing dime novels instead of living the respectable life I do.
Conley heard them running for their lives. Assassins had been stationed
along the road to head them off, however. The man who had his place
near the horses, got Roon. The chances are that Paul did not accompany
Roon to the meeting place up the road. He remained near the horses.
That's how he managed to get away so quickly. It remained for the man
at the cross-roads to settle with him. But, we're wasting time with all
this twaddle of mine. Let us be moving. There is one point on which we
must all agree. The deadliest marksmen in the world fired those shots.
No bungling on that score, bedad."

In course of time, the party, traversing the ground contiguous to the
public road, came within sight of the green dwelling among the trees.
Barnes's interest revived. He had, from the outset, appreciated the
futility of the search for clues in the territory they had covered. The
searchers were incapable of conducting a scientific examination. It was
work for the most skilful, the most practised, the most untiring of
tracers. His second view of the house increased his wonder and
admiration. If O'Dowd had not actually located it among the trees for
him, he would have been at a loss to discover it, although it was
immediately in front of him and in direct line of vision.

"Astonishing, isn't it?" said the Irishman, as they stood side by side,
peering ahead.

"Marvellous is the better word," said Barnes.

"The fairies might have built it," said the other, with something like
awe in his voice. He shook his head solemnly.

"One could almost fancy that a fairy queen dwelt there, surrounded by
Peter Pans and Aladdins," mused Barnes.

"Instead of an ogre attended by owls and nightbirds and the devil knows
what,--for I don't."

Barnes looked at him in amazement, struck by the curious note in his
voice.

"If you were a small boy in knickers, O'Dowd, I should say that you
were mortally afraid of the place."

"If I were a small boy," said O'Dowd, "I'd be scairt entirely out of me
knickers. I'd keep me boots on, mind ye, so that I could run the
better. It's me Irish imagination that does the trick. You never saw an
Irishman in your life that wasn't conscious of the 'little people' that
inhabit the places that are always dark and green."

De Soto was seen approaching through the green sea, his head appearing
and disappearing intermittently in the billows formed by the undulating
underbrush. He shook hands with Barnes a moment later.

"I'm glad you had the sense to bring Mr. Barnes with you, O'Dowd," said
he. "You didn't mention him when you telephoned that you were
personally conducting a sight-seeing party. I tried to catch you
afterwards on the telephone, but you had left the tavern. Mrs. Collier
wanted me to ask you to capture Mr. Barnes for dinner to-night."

"Mrs. Collier is the sister of Mr. Curtis," explained O'Dowd. Then he
turned upon De Soto incredulously. "For the love of Pat," he cried
"what's come over them? When I made so bold as to suggest last night
that you were a chap worth cultivating, Barnes,--and that you wouldn't
be long in the neighbourhood,--But, to save your feelings I'll not
repeat what they said, the two of them. What changed them over, De
Soto?"

"A chance remark of Miss Cameron's at lunch to-day. She wondered if
Barnes could be the chap who wrote the articles about Peru and the
Incas, or something of the sort, and that set them to looking up the
back numbers of the geographic magazine in Mr. Curtis's library. Not
only did they find the articles but they found your picture. I had no
difficulty in deciding that you were one and the same. The atmosphere
cleared in a jiffy. It became even clearer when it was discovered that
you have had a few ancestors and are received in good society--both
here and abroad, as the late Frederic Townsend Martin would have said.
I hereby officially present the result of subsequent deliberation. Mr.
Barnes is invited to dine with us to-night."

Barnes's heart was still pounding rapidly as he made the rueful
admission that he "didn't have a thing to wear." He couldn't think of
accepting the gracious invitation--

"Don't you think the clothes you have on your back will last through
the evening?" inquired O'Dowd quaintly.

"But look at them!" cried Barnes. "I've tramped in 'em for two weeks
and--"

"All the more reason why you should be thankful they're good and
stout," said O'Dowd.

"We live rather simply up here, Mr. Barnes," said De Soto. "There isn't
a dinner jacket or a spike tail coat on the place. It's strictly
against the law up here to have such things about one's person. Come as
you are, sir. I assure you I speak the truth when I say we don't dress
for dinner."

"Bedad," said O'Dowd enthusiastically, "if it will make ye feel any
more comfortable I'll put on the corduroy outfit I go trout fishing in,
bespattered and patched as it is. And De Soto will appear in the white
duck trousers and blazer he tries to play tennis in,--though, God bless
him, poor wretch, he hates to put them on after all he's heard said
about his game."

"If they'll take me as I am," began Barnes, doubtfully.

"I say," called out O'Dowd to the sheriff, who was gazing longingly at
the horses tethered at the bottom of the slope; "would ye mind leading
Mr. Barnes's nag back to the Tavern? He is stopping to dinner. And,
while I think of it, are you satisfied, Mr. Sheriff, with the day's
work? If not, you will be welcome again at any time, if ye'll only
telephone a half minute in advance." To Barnes he said: "We'll send you
down in the automobile to-night, provided it has survived the day.
We're expecting the poor thing to die in its tracks at almost any
instant."

Ten minutes later Barnes passed through the portals of Green Fancy.




CHAPTER IX

THE FIRST WAYFARER, THE SECOND WAYFARER, AND THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY
ASCENDANT


The wide green door, set far back in a recess not unlike a kiosk, was
opened by a man-servant who might easily have been mistaken for a
waiter from Delmonico's or Sherry's. He did not have the air or aplomb
of a butler, nor the smartness of a footman. On the contrary, he was a
thick-set, rather scrubby sort of person with all the symptoms of cafe
servitude about him, including the never-failing doubt as to
nationality. He might have been a Greek, a Pole, an Italian or a Turk.

"Say to Mrs. Collier, Nicholas, that Mr. Barnes is here for dinner,"
said De Soto. "I will make the cocktails this evening."

Much to Barnes's surprise,--and disappointment,--the interior of the
house failed to sustain the bewildering effect produced by the
exterior. The entrance hall and the living-room into which he was
conducted by the two men were singularly like others that he had seen.
The latter, for example, was of ordinary dimensions, furnished with a
thought for comfort rather than elegance or even good taste. The rugs
were thick and in tone held almost exclusively to Turkish reds; the
couches and chairs were low and deep and comfortable, as if intended
for men only, and they were covered with rich, gay materials; the
hangings at the windows were of deep blue and gold; the walls an
unobtrusive cream colour, almost literally thatched with etchings.

Barnes, somewhat of a connoisseur, was not slow to recognise the value
and extreme rarity of the prints. Rembrandt, Whistler, Hayden, Merryon,
Cameron, Muirhead Bone and Zorn were represented by their most notable
creations; two startling subjects by Brangwyn hung alone in one corner
of the room, isolated, it would seem, out of consideration for the
gleaming, jewel-like surfaces of other and smaller treasures. There
were at least a dozen Zorns, as many Whistlers and Camerons.

O'Dowd, observing the glance of appreciation that Barnes sent about the
room, said: "All of thim are in the very rarest state. He has one of
the finest collections in America. Ye'll want your boots cleaned and
polished, and your face needs scrubbing, if ye don't mind my saying
so," he went on, critically surveying the visitor's person. "Come up to
my room and make yourself tidy. My own man will dust you off and
furbish you up in no time at all."

They passed into another room at the left and approached a wide
stairway, the lower step of which was flush with the baseboard on the
wall. Not so much as an inch of the stairway protruded into the room,
and yet Barnes, whose artistic sense should have been offended, was
curiously pleased with the arrangement and effect. He made a mental
note of this deliberate violation of the holy rules of construction,
and decided that one day he would try it out for himself.

The room itself was obviously a continuation of the larger one beyond,
a sort of annex, as it were. The same scheme in decoration and
furnishings was observed, except here the walls were adorned with small
paintings in oil, heavily framed. Hanging in the panel at the right of
the stairway was an exquisite little Corot, silvery and feathery even
in the dim light of early dusk. On the opposite side was a brilliant
little Cazin.

The stairs were thickly carpeted. At the top, his guide turned to the
left and led the way down a long corridor. They passed at least four
doors before O'Dowd stopped and threw open the fifth on that side of
the hall. There were still two more doors beyond.

"Suggests a hotel, doesn't it?" said the Irishman, standing aside for
Barnes to enter. "All of the sleeping apartments are on this floor, and
the baths, and boudoirs, and what-not. The garret is above, and that's
where we deposit our family skeletons, intern our grievances, store our
stock of spitefulness, and hide all the little devils that must come
sneaking up from the city with us whether we will or no. Nothing but
good-humour, contentment, happiness and mirth are permitted to occupy
this floor and the one below. I might also add beauty, for you can't
conceive any of the others without it, me friend. God knows I couldn't
be good-natured for a minute if I wasn't encouraged by beauty
appreciative, and as for being contented, happy or mirthful,--bedad,
words fail me! Dabson," he said, addressing the man who had quietly
entered the room through the door behind them, "do Mr. Barnes, will ye,
and fetch me from Mr. De Soto's room when you've finished. I leave you
to Dabson's tender mercies. The saints preserve us! Look at the man's
boots! Dabson, get out your brush and dauber first of all. He's been
floundering in a bog."

The jovial Irishman retired, leaving Barnes to be "done" by the silent,
swift-moving valet. Dabson was young and vigorous and exceedingly
well-trained. He made short work of "doing" the visitor; barely fifteen
minutes elapsed before O'Dowd's return.

Presently they went downstairs together. Lamps had been lighted, many
of them, throughout the house. A warm, pleasing glow filled the rooms,
softening,--one might even say tempering,--the insistent reds in the
rugs, which now seemed to reflect rather than to project their hues; a
fire crackled in the cavernous fireplace at the end of the living-room,
and grouped about its cheerful, grateful blaze were the ladies of Green
Fancy.

Barnes was aware of a quickening of his pulses as he advanced with
O'Dowd. De Soto was there ahead of them, posed ungracefully in front of
the fire, his feet widespread, his hands in his pockets. Another man,
sallow-faced and tall, with a tired looking blond moustache and sleepy
eyes, was managing, with amazing skill, the retention of a cigarette
which seemed to be constantly in peril of detaching itself from his
parted though inactive lips.

SHE was there, standing slightly aloof from the others, but evidently
amused by the tale with which De Soto was regaling them. She was
smiling; Barnes saw the sapphire lights sparkling in her eyes, and
experienced a sensation that was woefully akin to confusion.

He had the feeling that he would be absolutely speechless when
presented to her; in the full, luminous glow of those lovely eyes he
would lose consciousness, momentarily, no doubt, but long enough to
give her,--and all the rest of them,--no end of a fright.

But nothing of the kind happened. Everything went off quite naturally.
He favoured Miss Cameron with an uncommonly self-possessed smile as she
gave her hand to him, and she, in turn, responded with one faintly
suggestive of tolerance, although it certainly would have been recorded
by a less sensitive person than Barnes as "ripping."

In reply to his perfunctory "delighted, I'm sure, etc.," she said,
quite clearly: "Oh, now I remember. I was sure I had seen you before,
Mr. Barnes. You are the magic gentleman who sprung like a mushroom out
of the earth yesterday afternoon."

"And frightened you," he said; "whereupon you vanished like the
mushroom that is gobbled up by the predatory glutton."

He had thrilled at the sound of her voice. It was the low, deliberate
voice of the woman of the crossroads, and, as before, he caught the
almost imperceptible accent. The red gleam from the blazing logs fell
upon her shining hair; it glistened like gold. She wore a simple
evening gown of white, softened over the shoulders and neck with a fall
of rare vallenciennes lace. There was no jewelry,--not even a ring on
her slender, tapering fingers. Oddly enough, now that he stood beside
her, she was not so tall as he had believed her to be the day before.
The crown of her silken head came but little above his shoulder. As she
had appeared to him among the trees he would have sworn that she was
but little below his own height, which was a liberal six feet. He
recalled a flash of wonder on that occasion; she had seemed so much
taller than the woman at the cross-roads that he was almost convinced
that she could not, after all, be the same person. Now she was back to
the height that he remembered, and he marvelled once more.

Mrs. Collier, the hostess, was an elderly, heavy-featured woman,
decidedly over-dressed. Barnes knew her kind. One encounters her
everywhere: the otherwise intelligent woman who has no sense about her
clothes. Mrs. Van Dyke, her daughter, was a woman of thirty, tall, dark
and handsome in a bold, dashing sort of way. She too was rather
resplendent in a black jet gown, and she was liberally bestrewn with
jewels. Much to Barnes's surprise, she possessed a soft, gentle
speaking-voice and a quiet, musical laugh instead of the boisterous
tones and cackle that he always associated with her type. The
lackadaisical gentleman with the moustache turned out to be her husband.

"My brother is unable to be with us to-night, Mr. Barnes," explained
Mrs. Collier. "Mr. O'Dowd may have told you that he is an invalid.
Quite rarely is he well enough to leave his room. He has been feeling
much better of late, but now his nerves are all torn to pieces by this
shooting affair. The mere knowledge that our grounds were being
inspected to-day by the authorities upset him terribly. He has begged
me to present his apologies and regrets to you. Another time, perhaps,
you will give him the pleasure he is missing to-night. He wanted so
much to talk with you about the quaint places you have described so
charmingly in your articles. They must be wonderfully appealing. One
cannot read your descriptions without really envying the people who
live in those enchanted--"

"Ahem!" coughed O'Dowd, who actually had read the articles and could
see nothing alluring in a prospect that contemplated barren, snow-swept
wildernesses in the Andes. "The only advantage I can see in living up
there," he said, with a sly wink at Barnes, "is that one has all the
privileges of death without being put to the expense of burial."

"How very extraordinary, Mr. O'Dowd," said Mrs. Collier, lifting her
lorgnon.

"Mrs. Collier has been reading my paper on the chateau country in
France," said Barnes mendaciously. (It had not yet been published, but
what of that?)

"Perfectly delightful," said Mrs. Collier, and at once changed the
subject.

De Soto's cocktails came in. Miss Cameron did not take one. O'Dowd
proposed a toast.

"To the rascals who went gunning for the other rascals. But for them we
should be short at least one member of this agreeable company."

It was rather startling. Barnes's glass stopped half-way to his lips.
An instant later he drained it. He accepted the toast as a compliment
from the whilom Irishman, and not as a tribute to the prowess of those
mysterious marksmen.

"Rather grewsome, O'Dowd," drawled Van Dyke, "but offset by the
foresightedness of the maker of this cocktail. Uncommonly good one, De
Soto."

The table in the spacious dining-room was one of those long, narrow
Italian boards, unmistakably antique and equally rare. Sixteen or
eighteen people could have been seated without crowding, and when the
seven took their places wide intervals separated them. No effort had
been made by the hostess to bring her guests close together, as might
have been done by using one end or the centre of the table. Except for
scattered doylies, the smooth, nut-brown top was bare of cloth; there
was a glorious patina to this huge old board, with tiny cracks running
like veins across its surface.

Decorations were scant. A half dozen big candlesticks, ecclesiastical
in character, were placed at proper intervals, and at each end of the
table there was a shallow, alabaster dish containing pansies. The
serving plates were of silver. Especially beautiful were the
long-stemmed water goblets and the graceful champagne glasses. They
were blue and white and of a design and quality no longer obtainable
except at great cost. The aesthetic Barnes was not slow to appreciate
the rarity of the glassware and the chaste beauty of the serving plates.

The man Nicholas was evidently the butler, despite his Seventh Avenue
manner. He was assisted in serving by two stalwart and amazingly clumsy
footmen, of similar ilk and nationality. On seeing these additional
men-servants, Barnes began figuratively to count on his fingers the
retainers he had so far encountered on the place. Already he has seen
six, all of them powerful, rugged fellows. It struck him. as
extraordinary, and in a way significant, that there should be so many
men at Green Fancy.

Somewhere back in his mind was the impression that O'Dowd had spoken of
Pierre the cook, a private secretary and male attendant who looked
after Mr. Curtis. Then there was Peter, the regular chauffeur, whom he
had not seen, and doubtless there were able-bodied woodchoppers and
foresters besides. Not forgetting the little book-agent! It suddenly
occurred to him that he was surrounded by a company of the most
formidable character: no less than twenty men would be a reasonable
guess if he were to include O'Dowd, De Soto and Van Dyke.

Much to his disappointment, he was not placed near Miss Cameron at
table. Indeed, she was seated as far away from him as possible. He sat
at Mrs. Collier's right. On his left was Mrs. Van Dyke, with Miss
Cameron at the foot of the table flanked by O'Dowd and De Soto. Van
Dyke had nearly the whole of the opposite side of the table to himself.
There was, to be sure, a place set between him and De Soto, for
symmetry's sake, Barnes concluded. In this he was mistaken; they had
barely seated themselves when Mrs. Collier remarked:

"Mr. Curtis's secretary usually joins us here for coffee. He has his
dinner with my brother and then, poor man, comes in for a brief period
of relaxation. When my brother is in one of his bad spells poor Mr.
Loeb doesn't have much time to himself. It seems to me that my brother
is at his best when his health is at its worst. You may be interested
to know, Mr. Barnes, that he is writing a history of the Five Nations."

"Indians, you know," explained Van Dyke.

"A history of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagas and Senecas, and
their 'Long House' should be of great value, Mrs. Collier," said
Barnes, a trifle didactically. "When does he expect to have it
completed?"

"'Gad, you know a little of everything, don't you?" said Van Dyke,
sitting up a little straighter in his chair and eyeing Barnes fishily.
("Awfully smart chap," he afterwards confided to O'Dowd.) "If he lives
long enough, he'll finish it in 1999," he added, lifting his voice
above Mrs. Collier's passive reply out of which Barnes gathered the
words "couple" and "years."

It is not necessary to dilate upon the excellence of the dinner, to
repeat the dialogue, or to comment on the service, other than to say,
for the sake of record, that the first WAS excellent; the second
sprightly, and the third atrocious.

Loeb, the private secretary, came in for coffee. He was a tall, spare
man of thirty, pallidly handsome, with dark, studious eyes and features
of an unmistakably Hebraic cast, as his name might have foretold. His
teeth were marvellously white, and his slow smile attractive. When he
spoke, which was seldom unless a remark was directed specifically to
him, his voice was singularly deep and resonant. More than once during
the hour that Loeb spent with them Barnes formed and dismissed a
stubborn, ever-recurring opinion that the man was not a Jew. Certainly
he was not an American Jew. His voice, his manner of speech, his every
action stamped him as one born and bred in a land far removed from
Broadway and its counterparts. If a Jew, he was of the East as it is
measured from Rome: the Jew of the carnal Orient.

And as the evening wore on, there came to Barnes the singular fancy
that this man was the master and not the servant of the house! He could
not put the ridiculous idea out of his mind.

He was to depart at ten. The hour drew near and he had had no
opportunity for detached conversation with Miss Cameron. He had
listened to her bright retorts to O'Dowd's sallies, and marvelled at
the ease and composure with which she met the witty Irishman on even
terms. Her voice, always low and distinct, was never without the
suggestion of good-natured raillery; he was enchanted by the faint,
delicious chuckle that rode in every sentence she uttered during these
sprightly tilts.

When the conversation turned to serious topics, her voice steadied
perceptibly, the blue in her eyes took on a deeper and darker hue, the
half-satirical smile vanished from her adorable lips, and she spoke
with the gravity of a profound thinker. Barnes watched her, fascinated,
bereft of the power to concentrate his thoughts on anything else. He
hung on her every movement, hoping and longing for the impersonal
glance or remark with which she occasiona

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