CHAPTER XVI.

GOING AFTER JUNO.

The tale that Nan told to the detective was given without names, or localities, more than those already given here; and the story need not be repeated in detail.

It was the story of a highborn girl, left motherless at her birth, and fatherless within a few years thereafter, who is left to the care of governess and servants, and allowed to run wild and to develop a thoroughly willful nature to its fullest extent.

Who, from being ungovernable, became unmanageable; from being reckless, became a wild thing; who developed a terrible temper; who did things that no well-bred girl should have done; who insisted upon having her own way in everything, and who cared not a whit for the opinions or the criticisms of others—and who came to the ultimate consequence of such an ungoverned, non-regulated life, and finally disappeared from her home.

Nan’s story told how this girl, months afterward, was found in London, by relatives of the family, in a hospital, where she was dying. Soon after she died, and was taken to the house of her ancestors and buried in the family plot.

That was practically all of the sad story that need be developed here, and Nick Carter listened to it without comment.

There was no earthly reason why he should suppose that the Juno in whom he was interested at that moment was the girl who had been called Siren in her youth.

Yet, he had that intuitive feeling that they were the same—and without a reason.

“Nan,” he said, at the conclusion of the tale, “I have asked you to assist me in this matter. I had intended to take you to Virginia with me, believing that there might be a something about the appearance of this Juno to associate her with the past of Jimmy Duryea. But I have thought better of taking you down there. I will go to Virginia alone.”

“Oh, thank you. I do not care to go.”

“But,” he continued, with a smile, “I shall ask you to do a more difficult thing; and unless you can and will do it for me, I shall be compelled to do it for myself.”

“What is it?” she asked, somewhat startled by his manner.

“Wait a moment. Have you ever been back among those scenes of your childhood since you left them to go to South Africa?”

“No,” she replied.

“Well, I want you to go back there and——”

“Oh, no, no, no!”

“Either you must go there, or I shall.”

“What is it that you would have me do there?”

“You need not, necessarily, go to the old home. Your search will be in London, rather than in that neighborhood. But I want you to search out the career of that girl from the time she left home until it was reported that she had died in a London hospital.”

“Must I do that, Mr. Carter?”

“Unless you prefer to leave it for me to do. But you are in possession of facts which will aid you materially in such a search, and you can make it more quickly, because you will know exactly where to go in doing it. I would lose valuable time in getting those facts together, unless you related them to me, and you are reluctant to do that. So go there and make the search in your own way. I do not require of you all the names and particulars; all I wish to know is the result.”

“And you? What will you be doing in the meantime?”

“I shall go to Virginia. I start this evening. I am convinced that the only weak spot in the armor of Bare-Faced Jimmy is through that woman, Juno. I shall search her out in some way. I shall follow on her back track—if there is one. It may be that my search and yours will bring us face to face in the end—and it may not be. Nobody can tell as to that.”

“No; nobody can tell as to that.”

“So, you will do as I ask?”

“Yes, since you insist upon it.”

“Then you will sail for England to-morrow. I will see that your passage is engaged on one of the fast steamers. Chick will come here with the tickets, and will take you to the steamer. At London you will stop at Gray’s Hotel, in Dover Street, Piccadilly, at which place I will communicate with you. You will address me at my house, and I will arrange so that any message from you will be forwarded to me at once.”

“What sort of information must I send to you?” she asked.

“You need send none at all unless it is to the point. If you find, for instance, that the report of the death of Siren was not true—if you should become convinced that the report was a subterfuge of the family, to put a stop to gossip and to preserve a good name, you are to inform me of that.”

“But how will that be of any assistance to you?”

“It will assist me only in the dénouement. In order to compel those two plotters who have stolen the name of Dinwiddie, to confess their crimes, I must corner them. The only way in which it can be done is to threaten them with complete exposure. I think that even now you are almost in a position to make that threat, if you would do it. I must attain to that position. That is all, Nan.”

Nan smiled up at him, sadly.

“Oh, if Jimmy had only died, really, when it was supposed he did,” she said.

“Yes; or if that girl, Siren, had not left home when she did. What is the use of all that sort of reasoning, Nan? None at all. You will go?”

“Yes.”

“And try your best to do all that I have asked?”

“Yes.”

“And make reports to me, as I have outlined?”

“Yes.”

“Then good-by. I shall be in Virginia in the morning.”

Nevertheless, it was the following evening, at dark, when Nick Carter arrived in the little village where the supposed Ledger Dinwiddie had been received with such acclaim upon his return to “his own,” and with a wife.

The detective knew that Jimmy was still in New York, and that was one reason why he hastened his movements. He wished to be there on the ground, at Kingsgift, before the supposed heir to it returned.

I wonder if any of the readers realize how entirely remote from the news of the day some portions of the State of Virginia are, right now?

It is a fact that of two letters deposited in a mail box in the City of New York, at the same time, one addressed to Denver, Colorado, and the other to Hague, Virginia, the former will arrive first at its destination—for the Hague is sixty miles from the nearest railway station, and the river boats do not carry the mails. And this fact will suffice to explain how it was that nothing was known in that locality of the strange doings of Ledger Dinwiddie, in New York.

But Nick drove a span of horses from Fredericksburg, sixty miles away; he arrived at Hague at dark; he drove on straight through the one street of the village, and out toward Kingsgift, which is eight miles farther.

Hospitality is a watchword through all that part of Virginia.

There are no hotels, or inns, or anything of the sort, save only in the larger towns, and they are remote from one another.

If a traveler is caught upon the road at dinner time and wants a meal he has only to approach the nearest house, which may stand a mile away from the highway, and ask for it. He gets it, and he must not offer to pay for it, either.

The same unwritten law applies to the matter of a night’s lodging—and Nick Carter intended to make the most of it upon his arrival at Kingsgift, and had timed himself accordingly.

It was after eight o’clock in the evening when he drove upon the estate, and had still another mile to drive before he could reach the house. In due time he stopped his horses before the door, got down and tied them—and by that time a negro servant was at hand, ready to receive him.

“Hello, uncle,” said the detective. “I suppose your master can put me up for the night, can’t he?”

“I reckon so, sah,” was the reply. “Mistur Dinwiddie ain’t to home, sah, but dat don’ make no sort uh diff’ence, sah. You is welcome, jes de same. Whar you done come from, sah?”

“I am from the North, uncle.”

“Hush, chile! Is you, now! Dat mus’ be a won’ful country up dar, sah, from all I hearn tell about it. Jes you walk right into de house, sah; I’ll take care of the hosses—an’ they sure is fine ones. Looks to me like they done come from Fredericksburg. Reckon I’s seen ’em afore, sah.”

“Perhaps you have. Is your mistress at home, uncle?”

“Well, sah, she ain’t rightly at home, nohow; but den she am at home, too.”

“How is that, uncle? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“It’s dissaway, sah. She says to me, ‘Uncle Henery’—dat’s my name, sah—‘Uncle Henery,’ she says, ‘if any pusson done ask fo’ me, you tol ’em dat I is not at home, ceptin’ it’s sure-nuff home folks what asks, an’ in dat case you can say dat I is at home.’ Dat’s de way in, sah; right dar. Yo’ jes rap on dat do’ and my ol woman’ll opin it fo’ you.”

Nick stood still until the negro had led the horses toward the stable, and then he mounted the steps of the wide veranda, and rapped with the metal knocker against the door.

There was a long wait before it was opened, and then a negress, as black as the proverbial ace of spades, appeared so suddenly that Nick was startled, for he had not heard her approach. She peered out at him after throwing the door widely ajar.

“Hello, auntie!” he exclaimed. “Can you take in a traveler, and give him something to eat, and a bed for the night?”

“I reckon so. Yassir. Come right in. You is welcome. Dar ain’t nobody home ‘ceptin’ me an’ dat good-for-nothin’ nigger, Henery, but I reckon we can make you comfortable; yassir.”

“Isn’t your mistress at home?” asked Nick, remembering what Henry had said on that point.

“No, sah. We is de onliest ones to home, jes now. Come in, sah. Mistuh Dinwiddie, he’s in de Norf somewheres—I dunno whar—and de missus she’s in de Souf somewheres—I can’t jes’ tell you where, and we is de onliest ones yere; dat’s a fact.”

“But Uncle Henery said that Mrs. Dinwiddie was at home,” said Nick, entering the house.

“Huh! You mustn’t mind what dat lyin’ nigger done tell you, sah. He’s suttinly de biggest liah dis side uh de Rappahannock, dat’s what he is. Now, sah, you jes’ make yo’self comftil till I rustles yo’ somethin’ to eat.”

Before the detective could say another word she had taken herself off, leaving him alone in the room into which he had been ushered, where a single kerosene lamp, heavily shaded, burned upon a centre table.

“So,” he mused to himself, “Juno is at home; and Juno is not at home. Well, we will see about that, presently.”