CHAPTER XV

TELLS HOW AMAZEMENT FILLED THE MIND OF MR. SCANLON

There was something in the manner of Kretz as he approached that drew Bat Scanlon’s attention.

“I should say that he was somewhat peevish,” said the big man to Ashton-Kirk. “But why I can’t say.”

Indeed, the face of the German was grimmer than ever; his small grey eyes looked from under their thick, overhanging brows in a way that showed open hostility.

“Hello!” said Scanlon. “Having a little exercise?”

But the man ignored this.

“Who is this?” asked he, and his angry eyes were fixed upon Ashton-Kirk.

“A friend of mine,” replied Bat. “He’s stopping over at the inn. Only had the pleasure of meeting him this morning, but I will say for him that he has one of the most picturesque livers in captivity.”

The German only looked grim.

“This,” said he, “is private property.”

“My name is Flood,” said Ashton-Kirk, huskily. “And I am sorry to trespass.”

“When you reach the edge of our domain in going back, be sure to wipe your shoes,” admonished Scanlon. “We wouldn’t care to have you take any of it away with you.”

The man with a yellow face smiled.

“Well, good-day, Mr. Scanlon,” said he. “I think I’ll make my way back to the inn. You have been very kind.”

“Not at all,” said Bat, with a wave of the hand. “Glad to do any little thing I can for you at any time.”

The fictitious Mr. Flood, saffron-hued, blue-spectacled and stiff-gaited, moved away, taking a path which soon hid him from view behind the rising ground.

Kretz now turned to Scanlon.

“You,” said he, “are a friend of Mr. Campe’s. Good! I am but a servant. Good! It is not my place to say what you must not do. Is it not so?”

“I think that statement would stand in most instances,” replied Bat.

“I have the excuse,” said Kretz. “Herr Campe is now like a man who is sick. He can’t help himself. You have seen that. And so his people must be his eyes and his ears. They must also,” and here the square-cut face tightened more than ever, “be his tongue. They must speak when he cannot.”

“I see,” said Bat. “And so you accordingly seized upon this occasion to lift up your voice in his behalf.”

“You are a stranger here,” said the German, who did not seem to listen to what Bat said, much less understand it. “You do not know some things which are known to me.”

Bat blinked solemnly.

“It seems to me I’ve heard that, or something like it, before,” said he. “But don’t take so much credit for your exclusive information. You might not have it as safely cornered as you think.”

“The tramps----” began Kretz, but the big man stopped him impatiently.

“Tramps grandmothers!” said he bluntly. “Don’t go on with that kind of thing. I’m not an infant in arms to be fed with a bottle. If you have no real out-in-the-open talk on this subject, keep quiet about it. I passed the point where the tramps were long ago.”

Kretz stood, with frowning brows, looking at the other. Then his right hand went up in a salute.

“Excuse!” said he.

He regarded Bat for still another moment; then he came a step nearer.

“You have known Herr Campe for a long time?”

“Quite a while.”

“Before you come he spoke much of you,” said the German. “He asked me what I thought of sending for you. I said,” candidly, the hand lifting to another salute, “not to do it.”

“Why?”

“I was not sure. It was a time when a man could _not_ be sure. All strangers were dangerous.”

“But I was a stranger to you only. Didn’t you give Mr. Campe any credit for judgment, or knowledge of people?”

“Herr Campe,” said Kretz, “as I have said, is like a man who is sick. He does not know who his friends are. That, sir, was plain to me when----” But he stopped shortly at this, his jaws snapping as though to shut in any words which might complete the sentence. Then, after a moment, he said: “You will be careful of the strangers?”

Bat nodded.

“Excuse,” said the man, and with another salute he turned and went on his way along the river.

Scanlon returned to the castle and was admitted, much to his surprise, by Miss Knowles.

“You must have gone a great way to-day,” she said, with a smile which showed her beautiful teeth.

“Quite a bit of a stride,” acknowledged the big man. “But then it’s a bracing morning, and a fellow should put such days to good use.”

“Kretz seems to think the same,” said she. “He asked leave to go, and I promised to keep the gate. But,” and her head shook slowly, “he didn’t cross the hills, as you did; he seemed to prefer to take the path along the river.”

“That so?” said Bat. And, mentally, he added: “Oh, golden Helen, what makes you always speak in double meanings? This is the first time I’ve seen you to-day, and you are at it already.”

“But then Kretz has shown a preference for the river of late,” the girl went on. “I’ve noticed that he likes to stand upon the wall overlooking it.”

“Every man to his own fancy,” spoke Mr. Scanlon.

“It may be that it has reminded him of some stream he knew at home in Germany. The banks are rather picturesque, don’t you think? At places they are really wonderful!”

The big man rolled himself a cigarette and considered. The river bank, eh? What was all this talk about it--this talk, and other things? He had noticed when he first came to Schwartzberg that the river had a bank; as a matter of fact, it had two of them. But that’s all it, or they, had been--just bank, or banks.

“However,” his thought continued, as he proceeded with his cigarette, “lately the thing’s been getting a whole raft of little attentions. Last night I heard a fellow fall off of it; this morning it attracted Ashton-Kirk greatly. The German, so it seems, likes little walks along and little observations of it from the wall. And, last, the golden one is at great pains to put me up in the facts as she sees them. ‘The river bank,’ says she, as plain as day. ‘Take a good, long, sweeping look at the river bank. And, once seen, do not forget.’”

“I suppose, though,” said the girl, “to one who has, like you, Mr. Scanlon, spent a great deal of his life in the wild places, a tame little river like this has no charm.”

Bat lit the cigarette and smoked peacefully.

“As you say, the river is tame,” said he. “It has a way of slipping by without forcing your notice; and in these days a river, like anything else, if it wants attention, must speak out good and loud. But though I never have been keen on bashful rivers, still river banks, of any denomination whatsoever, have always been a strong point with me.”

The girl’s eyes as she gazed at him were half smiling, half wondering. She said:

“One can never be altogether sure of what you mean.”

Bat nodded, sorrowfully

“Too bad, isn’t it?” remarked he. “When a fellow’s exposed to a thing like that, he’s sure to catch it.”

Here there was the sound of wheels without; a bell, evidently in the kitchen, rang loudly. Miss Knowles and Scanlon were still in the courtyard when Mrs. Kretz made her appearance in answer. While the woman was opening the gate the girl said:

“Your friend, Mr. Ashton-Kirk, did not arrive last night, after all?”

“No,” replied Bat. “But then, as I said, you never know when to expect him. He’s one of those fellows who have their own ideas about things.”

The opened gate showed a waggon outside, one which Scanlon had noticed more than once before. A package was handed to Mrs. Kretz, who at once came in and relocked the gate.

Miss Knowles held out her hand as though to take the package. There was a sweet smile upon her face, but in the movement there was a swiftness, an eagerness which Scanlon could not help but notice.

“Not for me!” she said.

“No,” replied the woman, sullenly.

“For Miss Hohenlo, then. Give it to me. I will take it to her.”

Reluctantly Mrs. Kretz handed her the parcel, and the girl, with a smile and a nod to Scanlon, crossed the courtyard and disappeared.

The woman fumbled at the bolts of the gate for a few moments; it was plain to Bat that she desired to say something but was at a loss as to how to begin.

“You don’t care to have any of your work taken off your hands, I see,” said he.

The woman shook her head; her heavy face still wore the sullen look.

“Always,” she said, “she does that.”

“Well,” asked Bat, “what of it? I don’t see much in her carrying a small package upstairs. It’ll not tire her.”

Mrs. Kretz folded her strong, thick-fingered hands in her apron, and again she shook her head in a stubborn sort of way.

“It is not that,” she said. “It is not what you see. It is never what you see in Schwartzberg, but always something else.”

“Agreed,” said Mr. Scanlon. “That’s exactly how I feel about it myself. But,” and he looked at her with the interest of a prospector who is about to turn over some fresh soil, “just what is the idea this time?”

“Always,” said Mrs. Kretz, “when a parcel comes by the waggon, she is here to see. Never once does she let me take it in myself. And never once does she take it where it belongs until she has looked inside.”

“Ah!” said Scanlon. “I see.”

“More than once I have watched,” said the woman. “It is not my place, but I want to keep trouble from the house. Hours she will spend looking and searching. Then she will tie the bundle up as it was, and take it to whomever it is for.”

Bat considered this for a space.

“The mail now, does she do the same with that?”

“Sometimes,” replied the woman, “when it is a package.”

“Oh,” said Scanlon. “When it’s a package, eh? Never when it is anything else?”

“No.”

Once more Mr. Scanlon considered.

“That looks,” said he, “as if Miss Knowles were interested in the coming of something of some little bulk.” He stroked his shaven jaw and looked at the woman. “Now I wonder what it is she’s looking for?”

The woman returned the look, and again Scanlon saw she desired to say something, but did not know how to begin.

“What is it?” he asked. “If you’ve got any suggestions to make, don’t be backward.”

“If you would see her searching and looking,” said the woman, “there is a window near the stable. She always locks herself in that room.”

Mrs. Kretz then returned to her kitchen, and Scanlon leaned with his back against the wall and pondered. That he might the better do this, he took out his tobacco pouch and the little sheaf of papers; then he carefully shaped another cigarette. With the pale smoke hovering about him, he turned the question over carefully.

“It stands like this,” he told himself. “Something is doing that threatens to knock out a friend of mine. Said friend asks me to give him help. This I do. In the process of helping I run smack into the fact that the girl he’s in love with is on the cross. She stands in with the parties who are trying to get him. Mixed up in her efforts in his direction is a desire to see what’s inside all the packages which come to the house. I have a chance, maybe, to find our what the reason is--by peeping in at a window. Question before the committee on morals: Is it permissible to peep under such circumstances?”

Evidently the said committee went into session at once, and a great cloud of smoke arose above its meeting place. Mr. Scanlon, after a space, threw the cigarette away with decision.

“As it’s a case of out and out crookedness, the thing can be done without sacrifice to the finer feelings. Therefore I’ll go and take a peep at the lady with the package.”

So down the courtyard went Mr. Scanlon; at the near end of the stable was a grated window some dozen feet from the ground; a ladder stood under it.

“The Frau Kretz, I suppose, got up this way,” said Bat. “Therefore, so shall I.”

Peering in through the grating he saw that the room was the one the servants used for storage. At a table stood Miss Knowles, and the parcel, opened, lay before her.

The room was a dark one, but the girl had lighted a large swinging lamp and the rays fell downward upon the table.

The observant eyes of Mr. Scanlon went all about the place; nothing in the room was missed.

“For you see,” mused he, “a fellow, in a case like this, never knows just what belongs to the game being played, and what doesn’t.”

It was a high ceilinged room, narrow, but long; shelves were upon two sides of it, shelves loaded with packets and jars and labeled boxes.

“How many of them are in on this business of the packet?” was Bat’s mental query. “They all look innocent enough, of course; they seem to be simple things having to do with the kitchen and the preparation of meals. But are they what they seem to be? Or are they like a good many things about this house--putting up an innocent front, but, in reality, working as something else.”

The big man had come to a mental state in which he took nothing for granted. His stay at Schwartzberg had been one which shook his confidence in his own judgment; there was nothing his senses told him that he could accept without investigation.

“The good old days when a fellow could take a glance at a thing, and then pass it on, are gone by,” he’d sadly told himself more than once.

“And they may never come again.”

The parcel contained papers, small rolls, each tied with a tape. Carefully the girl undid the fastenings of one of these; slowly the sheets were unrolled and separated. Then, one at a time, they passed under the eye of Miss Knowles; one at a time they were laid aside; and when the little packet was examined, it was re-rolled and tied with the tape once more. Profound was the amazement of Mr. Scanlon, perched upon the ladder outside; he felt almost like rubbing his eyes: he could scarcely believe his senses. For each sheet of the paper was absolutely blank.

Another and still another of the rolls was gone over in a like manner; each blank sheet was studied; each little packet was faithfully re-tied; and when all were done, the girl stood looking down at them thoughtfully. The yellow lamp-light glinted in her hair; her smooth skin looked inexpressibly fair; the pink in her cheeks was like the softly-sunned side of a peach. For a long time she stood without moving; then she assembled the rolls of blank paper and carefully wrapped them as they had been when she received them from Mrs. Kretz. After this she turned off the light, and with the package in her hand she left the room.

Mr. Scanlon stepped down from the ladder, his face a study. Walking the length of the courtyard, his hands in his pockets, his cheeks puffed out like small balloons, he fell once more to pondering. But evidently his cogitations did not bring any enlightenment, for after a while he removed his hands from his pockets and elevated them above his head.

“I’m done,” stated he. “I am completely and absolutely beat. Every minute I spend in this place puts it up to me more and more plainly that I was never meant for anything but elementary purposes. After this I will gaze and not even try to think. I will record like the camera and the phonograph and leave the developing for a professional. I could stand this stuff about the northwest and also the play of the sick man in the moonlight. But when it comes to otherwise competent young ladies displaying intense interest in sheets of blank paper, I’m done!”

And once again Mr. Scanlon had recourse to his tobacco pouch; once again he rolled himself a comforting smoke; and once again he fell into amazement after amazement regarding the things which were going on about him.