CHAPTER VII

SHOWS HOW MR. SCANLON MET THE MAN WITH THE SOFT VOICE

It was late in the afternoon when Bat Scanlon got off the train at Marlowe Furnace and struck down the little road toward the covered bridge.

Upon the west bank he held to the regular road toward Schwartzberg; and he had gone perhaps half the distance when he heard hoof beats behind him; turning, he recognized Grace Knowles, mounted upon a powerful grey horse.

She waved her whip to him, smilingly, and as she came up, drew in her mount.

“It’s a very pleasant afternoon,” said she.

Bat cast his eyes first at one point and then at another. The question, it would appear, was a weighty one and must be carefully considered. The sun touched the hilltops with a dull gold; the sky was filled with sailing ribbons of white; and the breeze was bracing and free.

He nodded.

“Pretty good,” said he. “Reminds me of some of the afternoons we used to have in the foot-hills when they were dragging the railroads over them, and through them, and alongside of them.”

“Mr. Campe has been telling me of some of your experiences,” said she, her beautiful face filled with interest. “It must have been a very wild life, there in the West in those days.”

“It was all of that,” replied Bat, as he trudged along beside the grey. “Wild is the word that just fits it. A fellow had to sleep with his guns in his hands and a call for help in his mouth. We had some fine, enterprising lads out that way. They’d go for anything, and stop at nothing. But,” with a sigh, “it was tame enough before I pulled out. Things seemed to have shifted, somehow.”

“In what way?” asked Miss Knowles.

“The West having taken to growing grain and feeding sheep, the East seems to be providing the excitement necessary for the country’s good,” stated the big man, calmly. “For example: I’ve see more little proceedings around this village of Marlowe Furnace than I’ve seen in some frontier towns with the hardest kind of names.”

“You refer to what happened yesterday in the vaults,” said Miss Knowles. “Yes, that must have been quite thrilling.”

“It was also a bit dangerous,” said Bat, stoically. “I don’t object to being shot at, mind you; but I do want to see the party that’s got the matter in hand. This having surprise packages dealt one in the dark is carrying the matter too far.”

Miss Knowles smiled.

“No doubt,” she said, very calmly, “it seems rather awkward.” There was a pause, and she stroked the horse’s neck with her whip. “I suppose your friend was also startled,” she said.

“Almost into fits,” stated Bat. “He’s a fellow, you see, who’s not used to such attentions; and to have them forced on him suddenly in that way was too much for him.”

Miss Knowles still smiled.

“That is really too bad,” she said. “Being so abruptly treated,” inquiringly, “I suppose he will not come again?”

“You never can tell,” replied Scanlon. “Sometimes people take things to heart; and again they laugh them off, like a pine-snake does his worn-out jacket. You might never catch him within ten miles of Schwartzberg again; and then he might walk in on us this very night.”

The smile vanished from the beautiful face; and the blue eyes looked at the big man steadily.

“To-night,” she said, and there was a catch in her voice. Then, quietly enough, “I don’t think Mr. Campe expects him.”

“Mr. Ashton-Kirk is not the fellow to stand back for a little thing like that,” remarked Bat Scanlon. “As a matter of fact, the time that he’s not expected is more than likely to be the time he’d pick.”

From somewhere over the rolling country a bell struck the hour. At once the girl gathered her reins tighter.

“I must hurry on,” she said. She waved her whip as the grey struck into a long, easy gallop; and away they went down the road toward the castle. The thoughtful eyes of Mr. Scanlon followed her until both horse and rider were hidden behind the next rise of ground.

“She knows Kirk,” thought he with a twist at the corner of his mouth, and a sharp nod of the head. “She knew his name as soon as she heard it, and she guessed what he came for. And now she’s anxious to know when he’s coming again, is she? When I hint that he might bob up to-night she takes fire, and goes off like a shot.” Here his eyes snapped sharply and he went on: “And what is the answer to so much agitation? Is something doing for this P.M.? Does the beautiful Miss Knowles know it; does she think the horning in of a party of A-K.’s intelligence might have awkward results?”

As he proceeded along the road, Mr. Scanlon drew a tobacco pouch from his pocket, also a packet of small papers, and formally rolled himself a cigarette. With this properly lighted, he went calmly on, his brows level and his expectations at their highest.

“At first,” meditated he, “I took this thing in another way. It was all worry. But now that I’ve shifted the responsibility to Kirk, I see it differently. It’s an experience--an adventure. And, believe me, I’m going to get out of it all there is in it.”

When he reached the rise which the girl had ridden over, he sighted a small road which his tramping trips had told him led down to the river. By the side of this road, writing in a leather-covered book, was a man. He was a fat man and soft-looking.

“Hello,” said Mr. Scanlon, “Who’s this?”

With much industry, the stranger wrote in the little book; and never once did he lift his head. Scanlon halted.

“There is something tells me,” was his thought, “that I have met with this gentleman upon some past occasion. But where?”

The little lane was one of the retiring sort; it had fallen oak leaves covering it to the depth of one’s shoe tops; the crooked rail fences gave it a homely look.

The man with the book paused in his writing, and then went carefully over what had been done; it did not seem to please him, and so he began some alterations in the entry.

Then, glancing up, he sighted Scanlon, and moved toward him softly. When he spoke his voice was also soft.

“I am a stranger,” said he. “And I fear I’ve lost my way. Can you direct me to the station at Marlowe Furnace?”

And with that Bat had him placed! There was something reminiscent in the combination of softness, even at first glance; but the mention of the railway station placed the tag upon him. It was the man whom the old station agent had described--the man of the bridge--the man who had given him the queer green stone.

Quietly the big man blew out a thin spiral of smoke.

“You go down this road,” said he, “until you come to a bridge. This you cross. Ten minutes further on, and there you are.”

The soft-looking man closed the leather-covered book; then he put it away carefully in one pocket, and the pencil in another.

“I am extremely obliged to you,” he said, gently. “Your directions, I think, will be very easy to follow.” He stroked his white soft chin with a hand that was equally thick and soft and white; and his eyes searched Scanlon’s face. “You live hereabouts, I suppose?”

“For the time being,” replied Bat, evenly. “It’s a nice kind of a place, and I’m sticking around a while.”

“Ah, yes, to be sure,” observed the soft man. “You are right. It is a nice place. Very picturesque, and also very historical, I understand.” He waved one hand in a stubby gesture toward the north. “I came that way. And just above I saw a most astonishing house.”

“Big one?” asked Bat. “Things on top?”

“A very big one,” agreed the other. “Very big, indeed; and, as you say, with things on the top.”

“That’s Schwartzberg,” said Bat. “A German castle, only not in Germany. The rule is to plant them along the Rhine, I believe, but the fellow who put this one in must have thought one river as good as another. And I agree with him.”

The soft man laughed. If anything, his laugh was the softest thing about him. As Bat listened to the laugh, and looked at the man’s eyes, which were green and cold and steady, he felt his scalp prickle with something like dread. But he puffed quietly at his cigarette; and, from his manner, such a feeling was no nearer to him than the poles.

“Oh, yes, to be sure,” said the soft-looking man. “He was quite right. It is very stately--most charming, and adds to the picturesqueness of the locality.” From where they stood the towers of Schwartzberg were to be seen through the naked trees; and one fat, white finger pointed to them. “The moon, now,” said the man, “must play about those portions of the building very strikingly when it is at its full.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Bat.

“In fact,” said the other, “night hereabouts must be very different in many ways.”

Bat agreed.

“As to that,” said he, “I don’t know but what I agree with you. It _is_ different.”

The soft man moved softly nearer; there was an eagerness under his smooth manner that was not lost upon Scanlon.

“I love the night,” said he. “It is rather an old-fashioned thing to do, I admit; but I love it, for all that. In these times when the electric lights have robbed the heavens of their stars, and put out the very moon, there are few who admire the night. But I love to walk in it, to watch the canopy, to reflect upon the vastness of the universe.”

“I was brought up in Kansas,” said Bat, “and in the days when there was no end of stars, plenty of moon, and lots of chance for them to show themselves. But to me, night was made to sleep in, and the only use I had for either moon or stars was to see my way home by, if I happened to be out after hours.”

“Is it possible that you never walk out--here?” The soft man seemed appalled, but the cold green eyes were as watchful as those of a cat. “Is it possible that you never hear--from your window, perhaps--the whispering of the night?”

Bat laughed.

“Whispering,” said he. “Well, if that’s whispering, let me say that the night has some well developed voice. Up here,” he added, “it’s the greatest place for thunder you ever saw. It comes up when you never expect it.”

“Thunder!” said the soft man; and the cold eyes seemed to smile.

Bat nodded.

“Pretty loud, too,” said he. “And as for taking little walks at night--well, that’s hardly the thing to do hereabouts. You see, there’s a lot of tramps about; and they make it a little dangerous. A friend of mine up at the big place you were just talking about,” and Scanlon gestured toward the castle, “is kept on the jump all the time by them. They’re very forward; even undertake a little housebreaking now and then, he says.”

The soft man caressed one hand with the other.

“Ah, well,” he sighed, “everything has its drawbacks. I suppose it’s too much to hope for complete tranquillity. I thank you, sir, for your courtesy. Straight on, did you say? and then across the bridge? Again, thank you. You are very kind.”

And so the soft-looking man moved softly down the road, and Bat stood looking after him from beneath puckered brows.