Chapter 10

THE PRISONER OF GEEEN FANCY, AND THE LAMENT OF PETER THE CHAUFFEUR

He envied Mr. Rushcroft. The barn-stormer would have risen to the occasion without so much as the blinking of an eye. He would have been able to smile and gesticulate in a manner that would have deceived the most acute observer, while he--ah, he was almost certain to flounder and make a mess of the situation. He did his best, however, and, despite his eagerness, managed to come off fairly well. Any one out of ear-shot would have thought that he was uttering some trifling inanity instead of these words:

"You may trust me. I have suspected that something was wrong here."

"It is impossible to explain now," she said. "These people are not my friends. I have no one to turn to in my predicament."

"Yes, you have," he broke in, and laughed rather boisterously for him. He felt that they were being watched in turn by every person in the room.

"To-night,--not an hour ago,--I began to feel that I could call upon you for help. I began to relax. Something whispered to me that I was no longer utterly alone. Oh, you will never know what it is to have your heart lighten as mine--But I must control myself. We are not to waste words."

"You have only to command me, Miss Cameron. No more than a dozen words are necessary."

"I knew it,--I felt it," she cried eagerly. "Nothing can be done to-night. The slightest untoward action on your part would send you after--the other two. There is one man here who, I think, will stand between me and actual peril. Mr. O'Dowd. He is--"

"He is the liveliest liar I've ever known," broke in Barnes quickly. "Don't trust him."

"But he is also an Irishman," she said, as if that fact overcame all other shortcomings. "I like him; he must be an honest man, for he has already lied nobly in MY behalf." She smiled as she uttered this quaint anomaly.

"Tell me how I can be of service to you," said he, disposing of O'Dowd with a shrug.

"I shall try to communicate with you in some way--to-morrow. I beg of you, I implore you, do not desert me. If I can only be sure that you will--"

"You may depend on me, no matter what happens," said he, and, looking into her eyes was bound forever.

"I have been thinking," she said. "Yesterday I made the discovery that I--that I am actually a prisoner here, Mr. Barnes. I--Smile! Say something silly!"

Together they laughed over the meaningless remark he made in response to her command.

"I am constantly watched. If I venture outside the house, I am almost immediately joined by one of these men. You saw what happened yesterday. I am distracted. I do not know how to arrange a meeting so that I may explain my unhappy position to you."

"I will ask the authorities to step in and--"

"No! You are to do nothing of the kind. The authorities would never find me if they came here to search." (It was hard for him to smile at that!) "It must be some other way. If I could steal out of the house,--but that is impossible," she broke off with a catch in her voice.

"Suppose that I were to steal INTO the house," he said, a reckless light in his eyes.

"Oh, you could never succeed!"

"Well, I could try, couldn't I?" There was nothing funny in the remark but they both leaned back and laughed heartily. "Leave it to me. I once got into and out of a Morrocan harem,--but that story may wait. Tell me, where--"

"The place is guarded day and night. The stealthiest burglar in the world could not come within a stone's throw of the house."

"By Jove! Those two men night before last were trying to--" He said no more, but turned his head so that the others could not see the hard look that settled in his eyes. "If it's as bad as all that, we cannot afford to make any slips. You think you are in no immediate peril?"

"I am in no peril at all unless I bring it upon myself," she said, significantly.

"Then a delay of a day or so will not matter," he said, frowning. "Leave it to me. I will find a way."

"Be careful!" De Soto came lounging up behind them. She went on speaking, changing the subject so abruptly and so adroitly that for a moment Barnes was at a loss. "But if she could obtain all those luxuries without using a penny of his money, what right had he to object? Surely a wife may do as she pleases with her own money."

"He was trying to break her of selfishness," said Barnes, suddenly inspired. "The difference between men and women in the matter of luxuries lies in the fact that one is selfish and the other is not. A man slaves all the year round to provide luxuries for his wife. The wife comes into a nice little fortune of her own, and what does she proceed to do with it? Squander it on her husband? Not much! She sets out immediately to prove to the world that he is a miser, a skinflint who never gave her more than the bare necessities of life. The chap I was speaking of--I beg pardon, Mr. De Soto."

"Forgive me for interrupting, but I am under command from royal headquarters. Peter, the king of chauffeurs, sends in word that the car is in an amiable mood and champing to be off. So seldom is it in a good-humour that he--"

"I'll be off at once," exclaimed Barnes, arising.

"By Jove, it is half-past ten. I had no idea--Good night, Miss Cameron. Sorry my time is up. I am sure I could have made you hate your own sex in another half hour."

She held out her hand. "One of our virtues is that we never pretend to be in love with our own sex, Mr. Barnes. That, at least, is a luxury reserved solely for your sex."

He bowed low over her hand. "A necessity, if I may be pardoned for correcting you." He pressed her hand re-assuringly and left her.

She had arisen and was standing, straight and slim by the corner of the fireplace, a confident smile on her lips.

"If you are to be long in the neighbourhood, Mr. Barnes," said his hostess, "you must let us have you again."

"My stay is short, I fear. You have only to reveal the faintest sign that I may come, however, and I'll hop into my seven league boots before you can utter Jack Robinson's Christian name. Good night, Mrs. Van Dyke. I have you all to thank for a most delightful evening. May I expect to see you down our way, Mr. Van Dyke? We have food for man and beast at all times and in all forms."

"I've tackled your liquids," said Van Dyke. "You are likely to see me 'most any day. I'm always rattling 'round somewhere, don't you know." (He said "rettling," by the way.) The car was waiting at the back of the house. O'Dowd walked out with Barnes, their arms linked,--as on a former occasion, Barnes recalled.

"I'll ride out to the gate with you," said the Irishman. "It's a winding, devious route the road takes through the trees. As the crow flies it's no more than five hundred yards, but this way it can't be less than a mile and a half. Eh, Peter?"

Peter opined that it was at least a mile and a quarter. He was a Yankee, as O'Dowd had said, and he was not extravagant in estimates.

The passengers sat in the rear seat. Two small lamps served to light the way through the Stygian labyrinth of trees and rocks. O'Dowd had an electric pocket torch with which to pick his way back to Green Fancy.

"I can't, for the life of me, see why he doesn't put in a driveway straight to the road beyond, instead of roaming all over creation as we have to do," said O'Dowd.

"We foller the bed of the crick that used to run through here 'fore it was dammed a little ways up to make the ice-pond 'tween here an' Spanish Falls," supplied Peter. "Makes a durned good road, 'cept when there's a freshet. It would cost a hull lot o' money to build a road as good as this-un."

"I was only thinking 'twould save a mile and more," said O'Dowd.

"What's the use o' him savin' a mile, er ten miles, fer that matter, when he never puts foot out'n the house?" said Peter, the logician.

"Well, then," persisted O'Dowd testily, "he ought to consider the saving in gasolene."

Peter's reply was a grunt.

They came in time, after many "hair-pins" and right angles, to the gate opening upon the highway. Peter got down from the seat to release the pad-locked chain and throw open the gate.

O'Dowd leaned closer to Barnes and lowered his voice.

"See here, Barnes, I'm no fool, and for that reason I've got sense enough to know that you're not either. I don't know what's in your mind, nor what you're trying to get into it if it isn't already there. But I'll say this to you, man to man: don't let your imagination get the better of your common-sense. That's all. Take the tip from me."

"I am not imagining anything, O'Dowd," said Barnes quietly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean just what I say. I'm giving you the tip for selfish reasons. If you make a bally fool of yourself, I'll have to see you through the worst of it,--and it's a job I don't relish. Ponder that, will ye, on the way home?"

Barnes did ponder it on the way home. There was but one construction to put upon the remark: it was O'Dowd's way of letting him know that he could be depended upon for support if the worst came to pass.

His heart warmed to the lively Irishman. He jumped to the conclusion that O'Dowd, while aligned with the others in the flesh, was not with them in spirit. His blithe heart was a gallant one as well. The lovely prisoner at Green Fancy had a chivalrous defender among the conspirators, and that fact, suddenly revealed to the harassed Barnes, sent a thrill of exultation through his veins.

He realised that he could not expect O'Dowd to be of any assistance in preparing the way for her liberation. Indeed, the Irishman probably would oppose him out of loyalty to the cause he espoused. His hand would be against him until the end; then it would strike for him and the girl who was in jeopardy.

O'Dowd evidently had not been deceived by the acting that masked the conversation on the couch. He knew that Miss Cameron had appealed to Barnes, and that the latter had promised to do everything in his power to help her.

Suspecting that this was the situation, and doubtless sacrificing his own private interests, he had uttered the vague but timely warning to Barnes. The significance of this warning grew under reflection. The mere fact that he could bring himself to the point of speaking to Barnes as he did, established beyond all question that his position was not inimical. He was, to a certain extent, delivering himself into the hands of one who, in his rashness, might not hesitate to cast him to the lions: the beasts in this instance being his own companions.

Barnes was not slow to appreciate the position in which O'Dowd voluntarily placed himself. A word or a sign from him would be sufficient to bring disaster upon the Irishman who had risked his own safety in a few irretrievable words. The more he thought of it, the more fully convinced was he that there was nothing to fear from O'Dowd. The cause for apprehension in that direction was wiped out by a simple process of reasoning: O'Dowd would have delivered his warning elsewhere if he intended evil. While it was impossible to decide how far O'Dowd's friendly interest would carry him, Barnes was still content to believe that he would withhold his suspicions, for the present at least, from the others at Green Fancy.

He was at a loss to account for his invitation to Green Fancy under the circumstances. The confident attitude of those responsible for Miss Cameron's detention evidently was based upon conditions which rendered their position tenable. Their disregard for the consequences that might reasonably be expected to result from this visit was puzzling in the extreme. He could arrive at no other conclusion than that their hospitality was inspired by a desire to disarm him of suspicion. An open welcome to the house, while a bold piece of strategy, was far better than an effort to cloak the place in mystery.

As he left the place behind him, he found himself saying that he had received his first and last invitation to visit Green Fancy.

Peter drove slowly, carefully over the road down the mountain, in direct contrast to the heedless rush of the belated "washer."

Responding to a sudden impulse, Barnes lowered one of the side-seats in the tonneau and moved closer to the driver. By leaning forward he was in a position to speak through the window at Peter's back.

"Pretty bad going, isn't it?" he ventured.

"Bad enough in the daytime," said Peter, without taking his eyes from the road, "but something fierce at night."

"I suppose you've been over it so often, however, that you know every crook and turn."

"I know 'em well enough not to get gay with 'em," said Peter.

"How long have you been driving for Mr. Curtis?"

"Ever since he come up here, more'n two years ago. I used to drive the station bus fer the hotel down below Spanish Falls. He stayed there while he was buildin'. Guess I'm going to get the G. B. 'fore long, though."

His listener started. "You don't say so! Cutting down expenses?"

"Not so's you could notice it," growled Peter. "Seems that he's gettin' a new car an' wants an expert machinist to take hold of it from the start. I was good enough to fiddle around with this second-hand pile o' junk an' the Buick he had last year, but I ain't qualified to handle this here twin-six Packard he's expectin', so he says. I guess they's been some influence used against me, if the truth was known. This new sec'etary he's got cain't stummick me."

"Why don't you see Mr. Curtis and demand--" "SEE him?" snorted Peter. "Might as well try to see Napoleon Bonyparte. Didn't you know he was a sick man?"

"Certainly. But he isn't so ill that he can't attend to business, is he?"

"He sure is. Parylised, they say. He's a mighty fine man. It's awful to think of him bein' so helpless he cain't ever git out'n his cheer ag'in. Course, if he was hisself he wouldn't think o' lettin' me out. But bein' sick-like, he jest don't give a durn about anything. So that's how this new sec'etary gets in his fine work on me."

"What has Mr. Loeb against you, if I may ask?"

"Well, it's like this. I ain't in the habit o' bein' ordered aroun' as if I was jest nobody at all, so when he starts in to cuss me about somethin' a week or so ago, I ups and tells him I'll smash his head if he don't take it back. He takes it back all right, but the first thing I know I get a call-down from Mrs. Collier. She's Mr. Curtis's sister, you know. Course I couldn't tell her what I told the sheeny, seein' as she's a female, so I took it like a lamb. Then they gits a feller up here to wash the car. My gosh, mister, the durned ole rattle-trap ain't wuth a bucket o' water all told. You could wash from now till next Christmas an' she wouldn't look any cleaner'n she does right now. So I sends word in to Mr. Curtis that if she has to be washed, I'll wash her. I don't want no dago splashin' water all over the barn floor an' drawin' pay fer doin' it. Then's when I hears about the new car. Mr. Loeb comes out an' asts me if I ever drove a Packard twin-six. I says no I ain't, an' he says it's too bad. He asts the dago if he's ever drove one and the dago lies like thunder. He says he's handled every kind of a Packard known to science, er somethin' like that. I cain't understand half the durn fool says. Next day Mrs. Collier sends fer me an' I go in. She says she guesses she'll try the new washer on the Packard when it comes, an' if I keer to stay on as washer in his place she'll be glad to have me. I says I'd like to have a word with Mr. Curtis, if she don't mind, an' she says Mr. Curtis ain't able to see no one. So I guess I'm goin' to be let out. Not as I keer very much, 'cept I hate to leave Mr. Curtis in the lurch. He was mighty good to me up to the time he got bed-ridden."

"I dare say you will have no difficulty in finding another place," said Barnes, feeling his way.

"'Tain't easy to git a job up here. I guess I'll have to try New York er some of the big cities," said Peter, confidently.

An idea was taking root in Barnes's brain, but it was too soon to consider it fixed.

"You say Mr. Loeb is new at his job?"

"Well, he's new up here. Mr. Curtis was down to New York all last winter bein' treated, you see. He didn't come up here till about five weeks ago. Loeb was workin' fer him most of the winter, gittin' up a book er somethin', I hear. Mr. Curtis's mind is all right, I guess, even if his body ain't. Always was a great feller fer books an' writin' 'fore he got so sick."

"I see. Mr. Loeb came up with him from New York."

"Kerect. Him and Mr. O'Dowd and Mr. De Soto brought him up 'bout the last o' March."

"I understand that they are old friends."

"They was up here visitin' last spring an' the fall before. Mr. Curtis is very fond of both of 'em."

"It seems to me that I have heard that his son married O'Dowd's sister."

"That's right. She's a widder now. Her husband was killed in the war between Turkey an' them other countries four er five years ago."

"Really?"

"Yep. Him and Mr. O'Dowd--his own brother-in-law, y' know--was fightin' on the side of the Boolgarians and young Ashley Curtis was killed. Mr. O'Dowd's always fightin' whenever they's a war goin' on anywheres. I cain't understand why he ain't over in Europe now helpin' out one side or t'other."

"Was this son Mr. Curtis's only child?"

"So fer as I know. He left three little kids. They was all here with their mother jest after the house was finished. Finest children I ever--"

"They will probably come into this property when Mr. Curtis dies," said Barnes, keeping the excitement out of his voice.

"More'n likely."

"Was he very feeble when you saw him last?"

"I ain't seen him in more'n six months. He was failin' then. That's why he went to the city."

"Oh, I see. You did not see him when he arrived the last of March?"

"I was visitin' my sister up in Hornville when he come back unexpected-like. This ijiot Loeb says he wrote me to meet 'em at Spanish Falls but I never got the letter. Like as not the durn fool got the address wrong. I didn't know Mr. Curtis was home till I come back from my sister's three days later. The wust of it was that I had tooken the automobile with me,--to have a little work done on her, mind ye,--an' so they had to hire a Ford to bring him up from the Falls. I wouldn't 'a' had it happen fer fifty dollars." Peter's tone was convincingly doleful.

"And he has been confined to his room ever since? Poor old fellow! It's hard, isn't it?"

"It sure is. Seems like he'll never be able to walk ag'in. I was talkin' to his nurse only the other day. He says it's a hopeless case."

"Fortunately his sister can be here with him."

"By gosh, she ain't nothin' like him," confided Peter. "She's all fuss an' feathers an' he is jest as simple as you er me. Nothin' fluffy about him, I c'n tell ye. Course, he must 'a' had a screw loose some'eres when he made sich a botch of that house up there, but it's his'n an' there ain't no law ag'in a man doin' what he pleases with his own property." He sighed deeply. "I'm jest as well pleased to go as not," he went on. "Mrs. Collier's got a lot o' money of her own, an' she's got highfalutin' New York ideas that don't seem to jibe with mine. Used to be a time when everything was nice an' peaceful up here, with Sally Perkins doin' the cookin' and her daughter waitin' table, but 'tain't that way no more. Got to have a man cook an' men waitresses, an' a butteler. An' it goes ag'in the grain to set down to a meal with them hayseeds from Italy. You never saw sich table manners."

He rambled on for some minutes, expanding under the soulful influence of his own woes and the pleasure of having a visible auditor instead of the make-believe ones he conjured out of the air at times when privacy afforded him the opportunity to lament aloud.

At any other time Barnes would have been bored by such confidences as these. Now he was eagerly drinking in every word that Peter uttered. His lively brain was putting the whole situation into a nutshell. Assuming that Peter was not the most guileful person on earth, it was quite obvious that he not only was in ignorance of the true state of affairs at Green Fancy but that he was to be banished from the place while still in that condition.

Long before they came to the turnpike, Barnes had reduced his hundred and one suppositions to the following concrete conclusion: Green Fancy was no longer in the hands of its original owner for the good and sufficient reason that Mr. Curtis was dead. The real master of the house was the man known as Loeb. Through O'Dowd he had leased the property from the widowed daughter-in-law, and had established himself there, surrounded by trustworthy henchmen, for the purpose of carrying out some dark and sinister project.

Putting two and two together, it was easy to determine how and when O'Dowd decided to cast his fortunes with those of the leader in this mysterious enterprise. Their intimacy undoubtedly grew out of association at the time of the Balkan Wars. O'Dowd was a soldier of fortune. He saw vast opportunities in the scheme proposed by Loeb, and fell in with it, whether through a mistaken idea as to its real character or an active desire to profit nefariously time only would tell. Green Fancy afforded an excellent base for operations. O'Dowd induced his sister to lease the property to Loeb,--or he may even have taken it himself. He had visited Mr. Curtis on at least two occasions. He knew the place and its advantages. The woman known as Mrs. Collier was not the sister of Curtis. She--but here Barnes put a check upon his speculations. He appealed to Peter once more.

"I suppose Mrs. Collier has spent a great deal of time up here with her brother."

"First time she was ever here, so far as I know," said Peter, and Barnes promptly took up his weaving once more.

With one exception, he decided, the entire company at Green Fancy was involved in the conspiracy. The exception was Miss Cameron. It was quite clear to him that she had been misled or betrayed into her present position; that a trap had been set for her and she had walked into it blindly, trustingly. This would seem to establish, beyond question, that her capture and detention was vital to the interests of the plotters; otherwise she would not have been lured to Green Fancy under the impression that she was to find herself among friends and supporters. Supporters! That word started a new train of thought. He could hardly wait for the story that was to fall from her lips.

Peter swerved into the main-road. "Guess I c'n hit her up a little now," he said.

"Take it slowly, if you please," said Barnes. "I've had one experience in this car, going a mile a minute, and I didn't enjoy it."

"You never been in this car before," corrected Peter.

"Is it news to you? Day before yesterday I was picked up at this very corner and taken to Hart's Tavern in this car. The day Miss Cameron arrived and the car failed to meet her at Spanish Falls."

"You must be dreamin'," said Peter slowly.

"If you should have the opportunity, Peter, just ask Miss Cameron," said the other. "She will tell you that I'm right."

"Is she the strange young lady that come a day er so ago?"

"The extremely pretty one," explained Barnes.

Peter lapsed into silence. It was evident that he considered it impossible to continue the discussion without offending his passenger.

"By the way, Peter, it has just occurred to me that I may be able to give you a job in case you are let out by Mr. Curtis. I can't say definitely until I have communicated with my sister, who has a summer home in the Berkshires. Don't mention it to Mr. Curtis. I wouldn't, for anything in the world, have him think that I was trying to take you away from him. That is regarded as one of the lowest tricks a man can be guilty of."

"We call it ornery up here," said Peter. "I'll be much obliged, sir. Course I won't say a word. Will I find you at the Tavern if I get my walkin' papers soon?"

"Yes. Stop in to see me to-morrow if you happen to be passing."

There was additional food for reflection in the fact that Peter was allowed to conduct him to the Tavern alone. It was evident that not only was the garrulous native ignorant of the real conditions at Green Fancy, but that the opportunity was deliberately afforded him to proclaim his private grievances to the world. After all, mused Barnes, it wasn't a bad bit of diplomacy at that!

Barnes said good night to the man and entered the Tavern a few minutes later. Putnam Jones was behind the desk and facing him was the little book-agent.

"Hello, stranger," greeted the landlord. "Been sashaying in society, hey? Meet my friend Mr. Sprouse, Mr. Barnes. Sic-em, Sprouse! Give him the Dickens!" Mr. Jones laughed loudly at his own jest.

Sprouse shook hands with his victim.

"I was just saying to our friend Jones here, Mr. Barnes, that you look like a more than ordinarily intelligent man and that if I had a chance to buzz with you for a quarter of an hour I could present a proposition---"

"Sorry, Mr. Sprouse, but it is half-past eleven o'clock, and I am dog-tired. You will have to excuse me."

"To-morrow morning will suit me," said Sprouse cheerfully, "if it suits you."