Part 16

“Well,” he replied, after a time, scratching his cheekbone thoughtfully, “I’d stick it out if I were you. If there is to be a woman, and she is attractive, you might have some fun out of it without getting yourself in any trouble. It looks like a sporty summer proposition to me. Of course, you’ll have to be on your guard. I’d take out a permit to carry a revolver if I were you. They’ll hear of it if they’re up to anything, and it won’t cheer them any. In the next place, you ought to make out a day-to-day statement of your exact movements, and swear to it before a notary. If they hear of that it won’t cheer them any either, and it may make them try to think up something really original.

“Besides,” he went on, “I haven’t so very much to do evenings and week-ends, and if you want me to I’ll just be around most of the time in case of trouble. If we’re together they can’t turn much of anything without one of us knowing something about it, and then, too, you’ll have an eye-witness.” He was wondering whether the lady might not be interesting to him also. “I’m over at Sunset Point, just beyond you there, and if you want me I’ll come over every evening and see how you’re making out. If any trick is turned, I’d like to see how it is done,” and he smiled in a winsome, helpful manner.

“That’s just the thing,” echoed Gregory thoughtfully. “I don’t want any trick turned. I can’t afford it. If anything should happen to me just now I’d never get on my feet again politically, and then there’s the wife and kid, and I’m sick of the newspaper business,” and he stared out of the window.

“Well, don’t be worrying about it,” Blount insisted soothingly. “Just be on your guard, and if you have to stay in town late any night, let me know and I’ll come and pick you up. Or, if I can’t do that, stay in town yourself. Go to one of the big hotels, where you’ll feel thoroughly safe.”

For several days Gregory, to avoid being a nuisance, returned to the hotel early. Also he secured a permit, and weighted his hip pocket with an unwieldy weapon which he resented, but which he nevertheless kept under his pillow at night. His uncertainty worked on his imagination to such an extent that he began to note suspicious moves on the part of nearly everybody. Any new character about the hotel annoyed him. He felt certain that there was a group of people connected with Mrs. Skelton who were watching him, though he could not prove it, even to himself.

“This is ridiculous,” he finally told himself. “I’m acting like a five-year-old in the dark. Who’s going to hurt me?” And he wrote laughing letters to his wife about it, and tried to resume his old-time nonchalance.

It wasn’t quite possible, however, for not long after that something happened which disturbed him greatly. At least he persuaded himself to that effect, for that was a characteristic of these incidents--their openness to another interpretation than the one he might fix on. In spite of Blount’s advice, one night about nine he decided to return to Triton Hall, and that without calling his friend to his aid.

“What’s the use?” he asked himself. “He’ll be thinking I’m the biggest coward ever, and after all, nothing has happened yet, and I doubt whether they’d go that far, anyhow.” He consoled himself with the idea that perhaps humanity was better than he thought.

But just the same, as he left the train at Triton and saw it glimmering away over the meadows eastward, he felt a little uncertain as to his wisdom in this matter. Triton Station was a lonely one at nearly all times save in the morning and around seven at night, and to-night it seemed especially so. Only he alighted from the train. Most people went to and fro in their cars by another road. Why should he not have done as Blount had suggested, he now asked himself as he surveyed the flat country about;--called him to his aid, or stayed in the city? After all, hiring a car would not have been much better either, as Blount had pointed out, giving a possible lurking enemy a much sought point of attack. No, he should have stayed in town or returned with Blount in his car, and telling himself this, he struck out along the lonely, albeit short, stretch of road which led to the hotel and which was lighted by only a half dozen small incandescent globes strung at a considerable distance apart.

En route, and as he was saying to himself that it was a blessed thing that it was only a few hundred yards and that he was well-armed and fairly well constructed physically for a contest, a car swerved about a bend in the road a short distance ahead and stopped. Two men got out and, in the shadow back of the lights, which were less flaring than was usual, began to examine a wheel. It seemed odd to him on the instant that its headlights were so dim. Why should they be so dim at this time of night and why should this strange car stop just here at this lonely bend just as he was approaching it? Also why should he feel so queer about it or them, for at once his flesh began to creep and his hair to tingle. As he neared the car he moved to give it as wide a berth as the road would permit. But now one of the men left the wheel and approached him. Instantly, with almost an involuntary urge, he brought the revolver out of his hip pocket and stuffed it in his coat pocket. At the same time he stopped and called to the stranger:

“Stay right where you are, Mister. I’m armed, and I don’t want you to come near me. If you do I’ll shoot. I don’t know who you are, or whether you’re a friend or not, but I don’t want you to move. Now, if there’s anything you want, ask it from where you are.”

The stranger stopped where he stood, seemingly surprised.

“I was going to ask you for a match,” he said, “and the way to Trager’s Point.”

“Well, I haven’t a match,” returned Gregory savagely, “and Trager’s Point is out that way. There’s the hotel ... if you’re coming from there, why didn’t you ask for directions there, and for matches, too?” He paused, while the man in the shadow seemed to examine him curiously.

“Oh, all right,” he returned indifferently. “I don’t want anything you don’t want to give,” but instead of returning to the car, he stood where he was, following Gregory with his eyes.

Gregory’s skin seemed to rise on the back of his neck like the fur of a cat. He fairly tingled as he drew his revolver from his pocket and waved it ominously before him.

“Now, I’m going to walk around you two,” he called, “and I want you to stand right where you are. I have you covered, and at the first move I’ll shoot. You won’t have any trouble out of me if you’re not looking for it, but don’t move,” and he began orienting his own position so as to keep them directly in range of his eyes and weapon.

“Don’t move!” he kept calling until he was well up the road, and then suddenly, while the men, possibly in astonishment, were still looking at him, turned and ran as fast as he could, reaching the hotel steps breathless and wet.

“That’s the last lone trip for me,” he said solemnly to himself.

When he spoke to Blount about it the latter seemed inclined to pooh-pooh his fears. Why should any one want to choose any such open place to kill or waylay another? There might have been other passengers on the train. A stray auto might be coming along there at any time. The men might have wanted a match, and not have been coming from the hotel at all. There was another road there which did not turn in at the hotel.

Still Gregory was inclined to believe that harm had been intended him--he could scarcely say why to himself--just plain intuition, he contended.

And then a day or two later--all the more significant now because of this other incident--Mrs. Skelton seemed to become more and more thoughtful as to his comfort and well-being. She took her meals at one of the tables commanding a view of the sea, and with (most frequently) one or the other, or both, broker friends as companions, to say nothing of occasional outside friends. But usually there was a fourth empty chair, and Gregory was soon invited to occupy that, and whenever Blount was present, a fifth was added. At first he hesitated, but urged on by Blount, who was amused by her, he accepted. Blount insisted that she was a comic character. She was so dressy, sporty, unctuous, good-natured--the very best kind of a seaside companion.

“Why, man, she’s interesting,” the latter insisted one night as they were taking a ride after dinner. “Quite a sporty ‘fair and forty,’ that. I like her. I really do. She’s probably a crook, but she plays bridge well, and she’s good at golf. Does she try to get anything out of you?”

“Not a thing, that I can see,” replied Gregory. “She seems to be simple enough. She’s only been here about three weeks.”

“Well, we’d better see what we can find out about her. I have a hunch that she’s in on this, but I can’t be sure. It looks as though she might be one of Tilney’s stool pigeons. But let’s play the game and see how it comes out. I’ll be nice to her for your sake, and you do the same for mine.”

Under the warming influence of this companionship, things seemed to develop fairly rapidly. It was only a day or two later, and after Gregory had seated himself at Mrs. Skelton’s table, that she announced with a great air of secrecy and as though it were hidden and rather important information, that a friend of hers, a very clever Western girl of some position and money, one Imogene Carle of Cincinnati, no less, a daughter of the very wealthy Brayton Carle’s of that city, was coming to this place to stay for a little while. Mrs. Skelton, it appeared, had known her parents in that city fifteen years before. Imogene was her owny ownest pet. She was now visiting the Wilson Fletchers at Gray’s Cove, on the Sound, but Mrs. Skelton had prevailed upon her parents to let her visit her here for a while. She was only twenty, and from now on she, Mrs. Skelton, was to be a really, truly chaperone. Didn’t they sympathize with her? And if they were all very nice--and with this a sweeping glance included them all--they might help entertain her. Wouldn’t that be fine? She was a darling of a girl, clever, magnetic, a good dancer, a pianist--in short, various and sundry things almost too good to be true. But, above all other things, she was really very beautiful, with a wealth of brown hair, brown eyes, a perfect skin, and the like. Neither Blount nor Gregory offered the other a single look during this recital, but later on, meeting on the great veranda which faced the sea, Blount said to him, “Well, what do you think?”

“Yes, I suppose it’s the one. Well, she tells it well. It’s interesting to think that she is to be so perfect, isn’t it?” he laughed.

A few days later the fair visitor put in an appearance, and she was all that Mrs. Skelton had promised, and more. She was beautiful. Gregory saw her for the first time as he entered the large dining room at seven. She was, as Mrs. Skelton had described her, young, certainly not more than twenty-one at most. Her eyes were a light gray-brown, and her hair and skin and hands were full of light. She seemed simple and unpretentious, laughing, gay, not altogether fine or perfect, but fairly intelligent, and good to look at--very. She was at Mrs. Skelton’s table, the brokers paying her marked attention, and, at sight, Blount liked her, too.

“Say,” he began, “some beauty, eh? I’ll have to save you from yourself, I fancy. I’ll tell you how we’ll work it. You save me, and I’ll save you. The old lady certainly knows how to select ’em, apparently, and so does Tilney. Well now, my boy, look out!” and he approached with the air of one who was anxious to be a poor stricken victim himself.

Gregory had to laugh. However much he might be on his guard, he was interested, and as if to heighten this she paid more attention to Mrs. Skelton and her two friends than she did to Gregory or Blount. She was, or pretended to be absolutely sincere, and ignorant of her possible rôle as a siren, and they in turn pretended to accept her at her own valuation, only Blount announced after dinner very gaily that she might siren him all she blanked pleased. He was ready. By degrees, however, even during this first and second evening, Gregory began to feel that he was the one. He caught her looking at him slyly or shyly, or both, and he insisted to himself stubbornly and even vainly enough that he was her intended victim. When he suggested as much to Blount the other merely laughed.

“Don’t be so vain,” he said. “You may not be. I wish I were in your place. I’ll see if I can’t help take her attention from you,” and he paid as much attention to her as any one.

However, Gregory’s mind was not to be disabused. He watched her narrowly, while she on her part chattered gaily of many things--her life the winter before in Cincinnati, the bathing at Beachampton where she had recently been, a yachting trip she had been promised, tennis, golf. She was an expert at tennis, as she later proved, putting Gregory in a heavy perspiration whenever he played with her, and keeping him on the jump. He tried to decide for himself at this time whether she was making any advances, but could not detect any. She was very equitable in the distribution of her favors, and whenever the dancing began in the East room took as her first choice one of the brokers, and then Blount.

The former, as did Mrs. Skelton and the brokers, had machines, and by her and them, in spite of the almost ever-present Blount, Gregory was invited to be one of a party in one or the other of their cars whenever they were going anywhere of an afternoon or evening. He was suspicious of them, however, and refused their invitations except when Blount was on the scene and invited, when he was willing enough to accept. Then there were whist, pinochle, or poker games in the hotel occasionally, and in these Gregory as well as Blount, when he was there, were wont to join, being persistently invited. Gregory did not dance, and Imogene ragged him as to this. Why didn’t he learn? It was wonderful! She would teach him! As she passed amid the maze of dancers at times he could not help thinking how graceful she was, how full of life and animal spirits. Blount saw this and teased him, at the same time finding her very companionable and interesting himself. Gregory could not help thinking what a fascinating, what an amazing thing, really, it was (providing it were true) that so dark a personality as Tilney could secure such an attractive girl to do his vile work. Think of it, only twenty-one, beautiful, able to further herself in many ways no doubt, and yet here she was under suspicion of him, a trickster possibly. What could be the compulsion, the reward?

“My boy, you don’t know these people,” Blount was always telling him. “They’re the limit. In politics you can get people to do anything--anything. It isn’t like the rest of life or business, it’s just politics, that’s all. It seems a cynical thing to say, but it’s true. Look at your own investigations! What do they show?”

“I know, but a girl like that now----” replied Gregory solemnly.

But after all, as he insisted to Blount, they did not _know_ that there was anything to all this. She might and she might not be a siren. It might be possible that both of them were grossly misjudging her and other absolutely innocent people.

So far, all that they had been able to find out concerning Mrs. Skelton was that she was, as she represented herself to be, the successful owner and manager of a theatrical agency. She might have known the better days and connections which she boasted. Gregory felt at times as though his brain were whirling, like a man confronted by enemies in the dark, fumbling and uncertain, but he and Blount both agreed that the best thing was to stay here and see it through, come what might. It was a good game even as it stood, interesting, very. It showed, as Blount pointed out to him, a depth to this political mess which he was attempting to expose which previously even he had not suspected.

“Stick by,” the other insisted sport-lovingly. “You don’t know what may come of this. It may provide you the very club you’re looking for. Win her over to your side if you can. Why not? She might really fall for you. Then see what comes of it. You can’t be led into any especial trap with your eyes open.”

Gregory agreed to all this after a time. Besides, this very attractive girl was beginning to appeal to him in a very subtle way. He had never known a woman like this before--never even seen one. It was a very new and attractive game, of sorts. He began to spruce up and attempt to appear a little gallant himself. A daily report of his movements was being filed each morning, though. Every night he returned with Blount in his car, or on an early train. There was scarcely a chance for a compromising situation, and still there might be--who knows?

On other evenings, after the fashion of seaside hotel life, Gregory and Imogene grew a little more familiar. Gregory learned that she played and sang, and, listening to her, that she was of a warm and even sensuous disposition. She was much more sophisticated than she had seemed at first, as he could now see, fixing her lips in an odd inviting pout at times and looking alluringly at one and another, himself included. Both Blount and himself, once the novelty of the supposed secret attack had worn off, ventured to jest with her about it, or rather to hint vaguely as to her mission.

“Well, how goes the great game to-night?” Blount once asked her during her second or third week, coming up to where she and Gregory were sitting amid the throng on the general veranda, and eyeing her in a sophisticated or smilingly cynical way.

“What game?” She looked up in seemingly complete innocence.

“Oh, snaring the appointed victim. Isn’t that what all attractive young women do?”

“Are you referring to me?” she inquired with considerable hauteur and an air of injured innocence. “I’d have you know that I don’t have to snare any one, and particularly not a married man.” Her teeth gleamed maliciously.

Both Gregory and Blount were watching her closely.

“Oh, of course not. Not a married man, to be sure. And I wasn’t referring to you exactly--just life, you know, the game.”

“Yes, I know,” she replied sweetly. “I’m jesting, too.” Both Gregory and Blount laughed.

“Well, she got away with it without the tremor of an eyelash, didn’t she?” Blount afterward observed, and Gregory had to agree that she had.

Again, it was Gregory who attempted a reference of this kind. She had come out after a short instrumental interpretation at the piano, where, it seemed to him, she had been posing in a graceful statuesque way--for whose benefit? He knew that she knew he could see her from where he sat.

“It’s pretty hard work, without much reward,” he suggested seemingly idly.

“What is? I don’t quite understand,” and she looked at him questioningly.

“No?” he smiled in a light laughing manner. “Well, that’s a cryptic way I have. I say things like that. Just a light hint at a dark plot, possibly. You mustn’t mind me. You wouldn’t understand unless you know what I know.”

“Well, what is it you know, then, that I don’t?” she inquired.

“Nothing definite yet. Just an idea. Don’t mind me.”

“Really, you are very odd, both you and Mr. Blount. You are always saying such odd things and then adding that you don’t mean anything. And what’s cryptic?”

Gregory, still laughing at her, explained.

“Do you know, you’re exceedingly interesting to me as a type. I’m watching you all the while.”

“Yes?” she commented, with a lifting of the eyebrows and a slight distention of the eyes. “That’s interesting. Have you made up your mind as to what type I am?”

“No, not quite yet. But if you’re the type I think you are, you’re very clever. I’ll have to hand you the palm on that score.”

“Really, you puzzle me,” she said seriously. “Truly, you do. I don’t understand you at all. What is it you are talking about? If it’s anything that has any sense in it I wish you’d say it out plain, and if not I wish you wouldn’t say it at all.”

Gregory stared. There was an odd ring of defiance in her voice.

“Please don’t be angry, will you?” he said, slightly disconcerted. “I’m just teasing, not talking sense.”

She arose and walked off, while he strolled up and down the veranda looking for Blount. When he found him, he narrated his experience.

“Well, it’s just possible that we are mistaken. You never can tell. Give her a little more rope. Something’s sure to develop soon.”

And thereafter it seemed as if Mrs. Skelton and some others might be helping her in some subtle way about something, the end or aim of which he could not be quite sure. He was in no way disposed to flatter himself, and yet it seemed at times as if he were the object of almost invisible machinations. In spite of what had gone before, she still addressed him in a friendly way, and seemed not to wish to avoid him, but rather to be in his vicinity at all times.

A smug, dressy, crafty Jew of almost minute dimensions arrived on the scene and took quarters somewhere in the building, coming and going and seeming never to know Mrs. Skelton or her friends, and yet one day, idling across some sand dunes which skirted an adjacent inlet, he saw them, Imogene and the ant-like Jew, walking along together. He was so astounded that he stopped in amazement. His first thought was to draw a little nearer and to make very sure, but realizing, as they walked slowly in his direction, that he could not be mistaken, he beat a hasty retreat. That evening Blount was taken in on the mystery, and at dinner time, seeing the Hebrew enter and seat himself in state at a distant table, he asked casually, “A newcomer, isn’t he?”

Mrs. Skelton, Imogene, and the one broker present, surveyed the stranger with curious but unacquainted indifference.

“Haven’t the slightest idea,” answered the broker. “Never saw him before. Cloaks and suits, I’ll lay a thousand.”

“He looks as though he might be rich, whoever he is,” innocently commented Imogene.

“I think he came Thursday. He doesn’t seem to be any one in particular, that’s sure,” added Mrs. Skelton distantly, and the subject was dropped.

Gregory was tempted to accuse the young woman and her friends then and there of falsehood, but he decided to wait and study her. This was certainly becoming interesting. If they could lie like that, then something was surely in the air. So she was a trickster, after all, and she was so charming. His interest in her and Mrs. Skelton and their friends grew apace.

And then came the matter of the mysterious blue racer, or “trailer,” as Gregory afterward came to call it, a great hulking brute of a car, beautifully, even showily, made, and with an engine that talked like no other. There was a metallic ring about it which seemed to carry a long way through the clear air and over the sands which adjoined the sea. It was the possession, so he learned later through Mrs. Skelton, of one of four fortunate youths who were summering at the next hotel west, about a mile away. The owner, one Castleman by name, the son and heir to a very wealthy family, was a friend of hers whom she had first met in a commercial way in the city. They came over after Imogene’s arrival, she explained, to help entertain, and they invariably came in this car. Castleman and his friends, smart, showy youths all, played tennis and bridge, and knew all the latest shows and dances and drinks. They were very gay looking, at least three of them, and were inclined to make much of Imogene, though, as Mrs. Skelton cautiously confided to Gregory after a time, she did not propose to allow it. Imogene’s parents might not like it. On the other hand, Gregory and Blount, being sober men both and of excellent discretion, were much more welcome!