Part 5

The three were now on the ice of the canal, spreading out to distribute their weight. The day had been warm enough to soften the ice and it cracked ominously as the trio sped along. Half a dozen bridges were plainly in sight toward the city and Burgess got his bearings again. Four blocks away was his motor and the big car was worth making a break for at any hazard. They stopped under the second bridge and heard the enemy charging over the tracks and out upon the ice. A patrol wagon clanged on a bridge beyond the coalyard and a whistle blew.

A sergeant began bawling orders and half a dozen men were sent to reconnoiter the canal. As they advanced they swept the banks with their electric lamps and conferred with scouts flung along the banks. The snow fell steadily.

“We can’t hold this much longer,” said Nellie; and as she spoke there was a wild shout from the party advancing over the ice. The lamps of several policemen shot wildly into the sky and there were lusty bawls for help.

“A bunch of fat cops breaking through the ice!” chuckled the girl, hurrying on.

They gained a third bridge safely, Nellie frequently admonishing Bob to stick close to her. It was clear enough to Burgess that Drake wanted to be rid of him and the girl and take charge of his own destiny. Burgess had fallen behind and was feeling his way under the low bridge; Nellie was ahead, and the two men were for the moment flung together.

“Gi’ me my gun! I ain’t goin’ to be pinched this trip. Gi’ me the gun!”

“Keep quiet; we’re all in the same boat!” panted Burgess, whose one hundred and seventy pounds, as registered on the club scales that very day after luncheon, had warned him that he was growing pulpy.

The rails on the bank began to hum, and a switch engine, picking up cars in the neighboring yards, puffed along the bank. Burgess felt himself caught suddenly round the neck and before he knew what was happening landed violently on his back. He struggled to free himself, but Bob gripped his throat with one hand and snatched the revolver from his pocket with the other. It was all over in a minute. The rattle of the train drowned the sound of the attack, and when Nellie ran back to urge them on Burgess was just getting on his feet and Bob had vanished.

“I couldn’t stop him--he grabbed the gun and ran,” Burgess explained. “He must have jumped on that train.”

“Poor Bob!” She sighed deeply; a sob broke from her. Her arms went around Burgess’s neck. “Poor Bob! Poor old Bob!”

The locomotive bell clanged remotely. It was very still, and Mr. Webster G. Burgess, president of the White River National Bank, stood there under a canal bridge with the arms of a sobbing girl round his neck! Under all the circumstances it was wholly indefensible, and the absurdity of it was not lost upon him. Drake had bolted, and all this scramble with the ex-convict and his sweetheart had come to naught.

“He’ll get away; he was desperate and he didn’t trust me. He didn’t even wait for the money Gordon sent me!”

“Oh!”--she faltered, and her breath was warm on his cheek--“that wasn’t Drake!”

“It wasn’t Robert Drake?” Burgess blurted. “Not Drake?”

“No; it was Bob, my stepbrother. He got into trouble in Kentucky and came here to hide, and I was trying to help him; and I’ll miss Robert--and you’ve spoiled your clothes--and they shot at you!”

“It was poor shooting,” said Burgess critically as the red feather brushed his nose; “but we’ve got to clear out of this or we’ll be in the patrol wagon in a minute!”

It was his turn now to take the initiative. His first serious duty was to become a decent, law-abiding citizen again, and he meant to effect the transformation as quickly as possible. He began discreetly by unclasping the girl’s arms.

“Stop crying, Nellie--you did the best you could for Bob; and now we’ll get out of this and tackle Drake’s case. When that wagon that’s coming has crossed this bridge we’ll stroll over to Senate Avenue, where my car’s waiting, and beat it.”

IV

The policemen had been pried out of the ice and the search continued, though the spirit seemed to have gone out of it. The scouting party had scattered among the grim factories along the railway tracks. Bob had presumably been borne out of the zone of danger and there was nothing more to be done for him.

They waited to make sure they were not watched and then crawled up the bank into Vevay Street. The rapidly falling snow enfolded them protectingly. Now that life had grown more tranquil Burgess became conscious that the scratch above his left ear had not ceased tingling. It was with real emotion that Webster G. Burgess reflected that he had escaped death by a hairbreadth. He meant to analyze that emotion later at his leisure. The grazing of his head by that bullet marked the high moment of his life; the memory of it would forever be the chief asset among all his experiences. There was a wet line down his cheek to his shirt collar that he had supposed to be perspiration; but his handkerchief now told another story. He turned up the collar of his buttonless ulster to hide any tell-tale marks of his sins and knocked his battered cap into shape. Glancing down at Nellie, he saw that the red feather had not lost its jauntiness, and she tripped along placidly, as though nothing unusual had happened; but as they passed opposite the Murdock house, where a lone policeman patrolled the walk, her hand tightened on his arm and he heard her saying, as though to herself:

“Goodby, house! Goodby, dad and mother! I’ll never be back any more.”

Burgess quickly shut the door of the tonneau upon Nellie; he had cranked the machine and was drawing on the chauffeur’s gauntlets, which he had found in the driver’s seat, when the druggist ran out and accosted him.

“Hello, Miller! Seen anything of my chauffeur?”

“I guess he’s out with the police,” the man answered excitedly; “they’ve been chasing a bunch o’ crooks over there somewhere. Two or three people have been shot. There was a woman mixed up in the scrimmage, but she got away.”

“Yes; it was a big fight--a whole gang of toughs! I took a short dash with the police myself, and fell over a dead man and scratched my ear. No, thanks; I’ll fix it up later. By-the-way, when my man turns up you might tell him to come home--if that harmonizes with his own convenience.” He stepped into the car. “Oh, has the plumber fixed that drain for you yet? Well, the agent ought to look after such things. Call me up in a day or two if he doesn’t attend to it.”

It was rather cheering, on the whole, to be in the open again, and he lingered, relishing his freedom, his immunity from molestation. The very brick building before which he stood gave him a sense of security; he was a reputable citizen and property owner--not to be trifled with by detectives and policemen. A newspaper reporter whom he knew jumped from a passing street car, recognized him and asked excitedly where the bodies had been taken.

“They’re stacked up like cordwood,” answered Burgess, “over in the lumber-yard. Some of the cops went crazy and are swimming in the canal. Young lady--guest of my wife--and I came over to look after sick family, and ran into the show. I joined the hunt for a while, but it wasn’t any good. You’ll find the survivors camped along the canal bank waiting for reenforcements.”

He lighted a cigarette, jumped in and drove the car toward home for half a dozen blocks--then lowered the speed so that he could speak to the girl. He was half sorry the adventure was over; but there yet remained his obligation to do what he could for Drake--if that person could be found.

“You must let me go now,” said Nellie earnestly; “the police will wake up and begin looking for me, and you’ve had trouble enough. And it was rotten for me to work you to help get Bob off! You’d better have stayed in the house; but I knew you would help--and I was afraid Bob would kill somebody. Please let me out right here!”

Her hand was on the latch.

“Oh, never in this world! I have no intention of letting the police take you--you haven’t done anything but try to help your brother, like the fine girl you are; and that’s all over. Where’s Drake?”

Her gravity passed instantly and her laugh greeted his ears again. He was running the car slowly along a curb, his head bent to hear.

“Listen! Robert telephoned just as I was leaving the office. I told him to keep away from the house. When I saw you in the bank I knew Bob was here, but I thought he’d be out of the way; but he wouldn’t go until dark, and I would have telephoned you but I was afraid. I really meant to tell you at the house that Robert wasn’t there and wouldn’t be there; but Bob was so ugly I made you go with us, because I wanted your help. I thought if they nailed us you would pull Bob through. And now you don’t really mind--do you?” she concluded tearfully.

“Well, what about Drake? If he’s still----”

She bent closer and he heard her murmurous laugh again.

“I told Robert I’d meet him at the courthouse--by the steps nearest the police station--at seven o’clock. That’s the safest place I could think of.”

Burgess nodded and the machine leaped forward.

“We’ve got ten minutes to keep that date, Nellie. But I’m going to be mighty late for dinner!”

V

As Nellie jumped from the car at the courthouse a young man stepped out of the shadows instantly. Only a few words passed between them. Burgess opened the door for them and touched his hat as he snapped on the electric bulb in the tonneau. Glancing round when he had started the car, Burgess saw that Drake had clasped Nellie’s hand; and there was a resolute light in the young man’s eyes--his face had the convict’s pallor, but he looked sound and vigorous. On the whole, Robert Drake fulfilled the expectations roused by Gordon’s letter--he was neatly dressed, and his voice and manner bespoke the gentleman. One or two questions put by the banker he answered reassuringly. He had reached the city at five o’clock and had not been interfered with in any way.

As they rolled down Washington Street a patrol passed them, moving slowly toward the police station. Burgess fancied there was dejection in the deliberate course of the wagon homeward, and he grinned to himself; but when he looked around Nellie’s face was turned away from the street toward the courthouse clock, to which she had drawn Drake’s attention as the wagon passed.

“Are you and Nellie going to be married? That’s the first question.”

“Yes, sir; it’s all on the square. There’s a lawyer here who got me out of a scrape once and he helped me get the license. If you’ll take us to a minister--that’s all we want.”

“Oh, the minister will be easy!”

“Now,” he said as they reached his home, “come along with me and do exactly what I tell you. And don’t be scared!”

The evening had been full of surprises, but he meant now to cap the series of climaxes, that had mounted so rapidly, with another that should give perfect symmetry to the greatest day of his life. They entered the house through a basement door and gained the second floor by the back stairs. Nora, his wife’s maid, came from one of the rooms and he gave her some orders.

“This is Miss Murdock. She’s just come in from a long journey and I wish you would help her touch up a bit. Go into Mrs. Burgess’s room and get anything you need. Miss Murdock has lost her bag, and has to be off again in half an hour; so fix up a suitcase for her--you’ll know how. It will be all right with Mrs. Burgess. How far’s the dinner got? Just had salad? All right. Come with me, Drake.”

In his own dressing room he measured the young man with his eye. Mindful of Gordon’s injunction that Drake might be picked up by the police, he went into the guest-room, tumbled over the effects of the Bishop of Shoshone and threw out a worn sackcoat, a clerical waistcoat and trousers, and handed them to his guest.

Webster G. Burgess prided himself on being able to dress in ten minutes; in fifteen on this occasion he not only refreshed himself with a shower but tended his bruises and fitted a strip of invisible plaster to the bullet scratch above his ear. His doffed business suit and ulster he flung into the laundry basket in the bathroom; then he went into the guest-room to speak to Drake.

“It was bully of you to stand by Nellie in her trouble!” said Drake with feeling. “I guess you came near getting pinched.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” remarked Burgess, shooting his cuffs with the air of a gentleman to whom a brush with the police is only part of the day’s work.

“Nellie told me about it, coming up in the machine. I guess you’re a good sport, all right.”

Webster G. Burgess was conscious of the ex-convict’s admiration; he was not only aware that Drake regarded him admiringly but he found that he was gratified by the approbation of this man who had cracked safes and served time for it.

“Nellie is a great girl!” said Burgess, to change the subject. “I believe you mean to be good to her. You’re a mighty lucky boy to have a girl like that ready to stand by you! Here’s some money Gordon asked me to give you. And here’s something for Nellie, a check--one thousand--Saxby will cash it for you at New Orleans. Please tell your wife tomorrow that it’s my wife’s little wedding gift, in token of Nellie’s kindness in keeping me out of jail. Now where’s that marriage license? Good! There’s a bishop in this house who will marry you; we’ll go down and pull it off in a jiffy. Then you can have a nibble of supper and we’ll take you to the station. There’s a train for the South at eight-twenty.”

Nellie was waiting in the hall when they went out. Nora had dressed her hair, and bestowed upon her a clean collar and a pair of white gloves. She had exchanged her shabby, wet tan shoes for a new pair Mrs. Burgess had imported from New York. The mud acquired in the scramble through the lumber-yard had been carefully scraped from her skirt. Voices were heard below.

“They’ve just come in from dinner,” said the maid, “Shall I tell Bridget to keep something for you?”

“Yes--something for three, to be on the table in fifteen minutes.”

* * * * *

Mrs. Webster G. Burgess always maintains that nothing her husband may do can shock her. When her husband had not appeared at seven she explained to her guest that he had been detained by an unexpected meeting of a clearing-house committee, it being no harder to lie to a bishop than to any one else when a long-suffering woman is driven to it. She was discussing with the Bishop of Shoshone the outrageously feeble support of missionaries in the foreign field when she heard steps on the broad stair that led down to the ample hall. A second later her husband appeared at the door with a young woman on his arm--a young woman who wore a hat with a red feather. This picture had hardly limned itself upon her acute intelligence before she saw, just behind her husband and the strange girl, a broad-shouldered young clergyman who bore himself quite as though accustomed to appearing unannounced in strange houses.

The banker stepped forward, shook hands with the bishop cordially, and carried off the introductions breezily.

“Sorry to be late, Gertie; but you know how it is!” Whereas, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Burgess did not know at all how it was. “Bishop, these young people wish to be married. Their time is short, as they have a train to make. Just how they came to be here is a long story, and it will have to wait. If you see anything familiar in Mr. Drake’s clothes please don’t be distressed, I’ve always intended doing something for your new cathedral, and you shall have a check and the price of a new suit early in the morning. And, Gertie”--he looked at his watch--“if you will find a prayerbook we can proceed to business.”

Mrs. Burgess always marveled at her husband’s plausibility, and now she had fresh proof of it. She blinked as he addressed the girl as Nellie; but this was just like Web Burgess!

The Bishop of Shoshone, having married cowboys and Indians in all manner of circumstances in his rough diocese, calmly began the service.

At the supper table they were all very merry except Nellie, whose face, carefully watched by Mrs. Burgess, grew grave at times--and once her eyes filled with tears; her young bridegroom spoke hardly at all. Burgess and the bishop, however, talked cheerfully of old times together, and they rose finally amid the laughter evoked by one of the bishop’s stories. Burgess said he thought it would be nice if they all went to the station to give the young people a good sendoff for their long journey; and afterward they could look in at a concert, for which he had tickets, and hear Sembrich sing.

“After a busy day,” he remarked, meeting Nellie’s eyes at one of her tearful moments, “there’s nothing like a little music to quiet the nerves--and this has been the greatest day of my life!”

VI

The president of the White River National Bank was late in reaching his desk the next morning. When he crossed the lobby he limped slightly; and his secretary, in placing the mail before him, noticed a strip of plaster above his left ear. His “Good morning!” was very cheery and he plunged into work with his usual energy.

He had dictated a telegram confirming a bond deal that would net him fifty thousand dollars, when his name was spoken by a familiar voice. Swinging round to the railing with calculated deliberation he addressed his visitor in the casual tone established by their intimacy:

“Hello, Hill--looking for me?”

“Nope; not yet!”

Both men grinned as their eyes met.

“Has the charming Miss Murdock been in this morning?” asked the detective, glancing toward the tellers’ cages.

“Haven’t seen her yet. Hope you’re not infatuated with the girl.”

“Only in what you might call an artistic sense; I think we agreed yesterday that she’s rather pleasing to the jaded eyesight. See the papers?”

“What’s in the papers?” asked the banker, feeling absently for a report a clerk had laid on his desk.

“Oh, a nice little muss out on Vevay Street last night! The cops made a mess of it of course. Old Murdock’s son Bob shot a constable in Kentucky and broke for the home plate to get some money, and I’d had a wire to look out for him when I was in here yesterday. He handled some very clever phony money in this district a while back. I went out to Vevay Street to take a look at him--and found the police had beat me to it! The cash Nellie drew yesterday was for him.”

“Of course you got him!”

“No,” said Hill; “he made a getaway, all right. It was rather funny though----”

“How funny?”

“The chase he gave us. You don’t mean you haven’t heard about it!”

Burgess clasped his hands behind his head and yawned.

“I’ve told you repeatedly, Hill, that I don’t read criminal news. It would spoil the fun of hearing you explain your own failures.”

“Well, I won’t bore you with this. I only want you to understand that it was the police who made a fluke of it. But I can’t deny those Murdocks do interest me a good deal.”

He bent his keen eyes upon the banker for a second and grinned. Burgess returned the grin.

“I’ve got to speak before the Civic League on our municipal government tomorrow night, and I’ll throw something about the general incompetence of our police force--it’s undoubtedly rotten!”

The detective lingered.

“By-the-way, I nearly overlooked this. Seems to be a silver card-case, with your name neatly engraved on the little tickets inside. I picked it up on the ice last night when I was skating on the canal. I’m going to keep one of the cards as a souvenir.”

“Perfectly welcome, Tom. You’d better try one of these cigars.”

Hill chose a cigar with care from the extended box and lighted it. Burgess swung round to his desk, turned over some letters, and then looked up as though surprised to find the detective still there.

“Looking for me, Tom?”

“No; not yet!”

THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING

I

It is not to be counted against Mrs. Robert Fleming Ward that at forty-five she had begun to look backward a little wistfully and forward a little disconsolately and apprehensively. She was a good woman, indeed one of the best of women, loyal, conscientious and self-sacrificing in the highest degree. But she was poignantly aware that certain ambitions dear to her heart had not been realized. Robert Fleming Ward had not attained that high place at the Sycamore County bar which had been his goal, and he seemed unable to pull himself to the level with Canby Taylor and Addison Swiggert who practiced in federal jurisdictions and were not unknown to the docket of the United States Supreme Court.

Even as Mrs. Ward was a good woman, so her husband Robert was a good man and a good lawyer. But just being good wasn’t getting the Wards anywhere. At least it wasn’t landing them within the golden portals of their early dreams. To find yourself marking time professionally and socially in a town of seventy-five thousand souls, that you’ve seen grow from twenty-five thousand, is a disagreeable experience if you are a sensitive person. And Mrs. Ward was sensitive. It grieved her to witness the prosperity flaunted by people like the Picketts, the Shepherds, the Kirbys and others comparatively new to the community, who had impudently availed themselves of Sycamore County’s clay to make brick, and of its water power to turn the wheels of industries for which the old-time Kernville pioneer stock had gloomily predicted failure.

The Picketts, the Shepherds, the Kirbys and the rest of the new element had builded themselves houses that were much more comfortable and pleasing to the eye than the houses of the children and grandchildren of the old families that had founded Kernville away back when Madison was president. The heads of the respective brick, box, match, bottle, canning, and strawboard industries might be deficient in culture but they did employ good architects. The Wards lived in a house of the Queen Anne period, which it had been necessary to mortgage to send John Marshall through college and give Helen a year at a Connecticut finishing school. The Wards’ home had deteriorated to the point of dinginess, and the dinginess, and the inability to keep a car, or to return social favors, or belong to the new country club weighed heavily upon Mrs. Ward.

Her husband, with all his industry and the fine talents she knew him to possess, was making no more money at forty-seven than he had made at thirty-five. She was a little bewildered to find that socially she had gradually lost contact with the old aristocracy without catching step with the flourishing makers of brick and other articles of commerce that were carrying the fame of Kernville into new territory. And as Mrs. Ward was possessed of a pardonable pride, this situation troubled her greatly. They had been unable to send John to the Harvard Law School, but he had made a fine record in the school of the state university, and his name now appeared beneath his father’s on the door of the law office on the second floor of the old Wheatley block, which had been pretty well deserted by tenants now that Kernville boasted a modern ten-story office building.

John Ward was a healthy, sanguine young fellow who had every intention of getting on. Some of the friends he had made in law school threw him some business, and it was remarked about the courthouse that John had more punch than his father, and was bound to succeed. Half way through the trial of a damage suit in which the firm of Ward & Ward represented a plaintiff who had been run down by an inter-urban car, the senior Ward was laid up with tonsilitis, and John carried the case through and won a verdict for twice what the plaintiff had been led to believe he could possibly get.