Chapter 3

“'And I'll say a little something myself!' I could hardly keep my foot clear of him. 'When you got sober this morning and remembered who I was, you took a turn up round the post office to make sure of it, and while you were in there you saw the notice of the reward for the stolen bond plates. That gave you the notion with which you pieced out your fairy story about how you got the dollar tip. Having discovered my identity through a piece of damned carelessness on my part, and having seen the postal notice of the reward, you undertook to enlarge your little game. That's the reason you wouldn't take fifty cents. It was your notion in the beginning to make a touch for a tip. And it would have worked. But now you can't get a damned cent out of me.' Then I threw a little brush into him: 'I'd have stood a touch for your finding the fake tanner, because there isn't any such person.'

“I intended to put the hobo out of business,” Walker went on, “but the effect of my words on him were even more startling than I anticipated. His jaw dropped and he looked at me in astonishment.

“'No such person!' he repeated. 'Why, Governor, before God, I found a man like that, an' he was a banker--one of the big ones, sure as there's a hell!'”

Walker put out his hands in a puzzled gesture.

“There it was again, the description of Mulehaus! And it puzzled me. Every motion of this hobo's mind in every direction about this affair was perfectly clear to me. I saw his intention in every turn of it and just where he got the material for the details of his story. But this absolutely distinguishing description of Mulehaus was beyond me. Everybody, of course, knew that we were looking for the lost plates, for there was the reward offered by the Treasury; but no human soul outside of the trusted agents of the department knew that we were looking for Mulehaus.”

Walker did not move, but he stopped in his recital for a moment.

“The tramp shuffled up a step closer to the bench where I sat. The anxiety in his big slack face was sincere beyond question.

“'I can't find the banker man, Governor; he's skipped the coop. But I believe I can find what he's hid.'

“'Well,' I said, 'go and find it.'

“The hobo jerked out his limp hands in a sort of hopeless gesture.

“'Now, Governor,' he whimpered, 'what good would it do me to find them plates?'

“'You'd get five thousand dollars,' I said.

“'I'd git kicked into the discard by the first cop that got to me,' he answered, 'that's what I'd git.'

“The creature's dirty, unshaved jowls began to shake, and his voice became wholly a whimper.

“'I've got a line on this thing, Governor, sure as there's a hell. That banker man was viewin' the layout. I've thought it all over, an' this is the way it would be. They're afraid of the border an' they're afraid of the customhouses, so they runs the loot down here in an automobile, hides it up about the Inlet, and plans to go out with it to one of them fruit steamers passing on the way to Tampico. They'd have them plates bundled up in a sailor's chest most like.

“'Now, Governor, you'd say why ain't they already done it? An' I'd answer, the main guy--this banker man--didn't know the automobile had got here until he sent me to look, and there ain't been no ship along since then.... I've been special careful to find that out.' And then the creature began to whine. 'Have a heart, Governor, come along with me. Gimme a show!'

“It was not the creature's plea that moved me, nor his pretended deductions; I'm a bit old to be soft. It was the 'banker man' sticking like a bur in the hobo's talk. I wanted to keep him in sight until I understood where he got it. No doubt that seems a slight reason for going out to the Inlet with the creature; but you must remember that slight things are often big signboards in our business.”

He continued, his voice precise and even

“We went directly from the end of the Boardwalk to the old shed; it was open, an unfastened door on a pair of leather hinges. The shed is small, about twenty feet by eleven, with a hard dirt floor packed down by the workmen who had used it; a combination of clay and sand like the Jersey roads put in to make a floor. All round it, from the sea to the board fence, was soft sand. There were some pieces of old junk lying about in the shed; but nothing of value or it would have been nailed up.

“The hobo led right off with his deductions. There, was the track of a man, clearly outlined in the soft sand, leading from the board fence to the shed and returning, and no other track anywhere about.

“'Now, Governor,' he began, when he had taken a look at the tracks, 'the man that made them tracks carried something into this shed, and he left it here, and it was something heavy.'

“I was fairly certain that the hobo had salted the place for me, made the tracks himself; but I played out a line to him.

“'How do you know that?' I said.

“'Well, Governor,' he answered, 'take a look at them two lines of tracks. In the one comin' to the shed the man was walkin' with his feet apart and in the one goin' back he was walkin' with his feet in front of one another; that's because he was carryin' somethin' heavy when he come an' nothin' when he left.'

“It was an observation on footprints,” he went on, “that had never occurred to me. The hobo saw my awakened interest, and he added:

“'Did you never notice a man carryin' a heavy load? He kind of totters, walkin' with his feet apart to keep his balance. That makes his foot tracks side by side like, instead of one before the other as he makes them when he's goin' light.”'

Walker interrupted his narrative with a comment:

“It's the truth. I've verified it a thousand times since that hobo put me onto it. A line running through the center of the heel prints of a man carrying a heavy burden will be a zigzag, while one through the heel prints of the same man without the burden will be almost straight.

“The tramp went right on with his deductions:

“'If it come in and didn't go out, it's here.'

“And he began to go over the inside of the shed. He searched it like a man searching a box for a jewel. He moved the pieces of old castings and he literally fingered the shed from end to end. He would have found a bird's egg.

“Finally he stopped and stood with his hand spread out over his mouth. And I selected this critical moment to touch the powder off under his game.

“'Suppose,' I said, 'that this man with the heavy load wished to mislead us; suppose that instead of bringing something here he took one of these old castings away?'

“The hobo looked at me without changing his position.

“'How could he, Governor; he was pointin' this way with the load?'

“'By walking backward,' I said. For it occurred to me that perhaps the creature had manufactured this evidence for the occasion, and I wished to test the theory.”

Walker went on in his slow, even voice:

“The test produced more action than I expected.

“The hobo dived out through the door. I followed to see him disappear. But it was not in flight; he was squatting down over the footprints. And a moment later he rocked back on his haunches with a little exultant yelp.

“'Dope's wrong, Governor,' he said; 'he was sure comin' this way.' Then he explained: 'If a man's walkin' forward in sand or mud or snow the toe of his shoe flirts out a little of it, an' if he's walkin' backward his heel flirts it out.'

“At this point I began to have some respect for the creature's ability. He got up and came back into the shed. And there he stood, in his old position, with his fingers over his mouth, looking round at the empty shed, in which, as I have said, one could not have concealed a bird's egg.

“I watched him without offering any suggestion, for my interest in the thing had awakened and I was curious to see what he would do. He stood perfectly motionless for about a minute; and then suddenly he snapped his fingers and the light came into his face.

“'I got it, Governor!' Then he came over to where I stood. 'Gimme a quarter to git a bucket.'

“I gave him the coin, for I was now profoundly puzzled, and he went out. He was gone perhaps twenty minutes, and when he came in he had a bucket of water. But he had evidently been thinking on the way, for he set the bucket down carefully, wiped his hands on his canvas breeches, and began to speak, with a little apologetic whimper in his voice.

“'Now look here, Governor,' he said, 'I'm a-goin' to talk turkey; do I git the five thousand if I find this stuff?'

“'Surely,' I answered him.

“'An' there'll be no monkeyin', Governor; you'll take me down to a bank yourself an' put the money in my hand?'

“'I promise you that,' I assured him.

“But he was not entirely quiet in his mind about it. He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and his soft rubber nose worked.

“'Now, Governor,' he said, 'I'm leery about jokers--I gotta be. I don't want any string to this money. If I git it I want to go and blow it in. I don't want you to hand me a roll an' then start any reformin' stunt--a-holdin' of it in trust an' a probation officer a-pussyfootin' me, or any funny business. I want the wad an' a clear road to the bright lights, with no word passed along to pinch me. Do I git it?'

“'It's a trade!' I said.

“'O. K.,' he answered, and he took up the bucket. He began at the door and poured the water carefully on the hard tramped earth. When the bucket was empty he brought another and another. Finally about midway of the floor space he stopped.

“'Here it is!' he said.

“I was following beside him, but I saw nothing to justify his words.

“'Why do you think the plates are buried here?' I said.

“'Look at the air bubbles comin' up, Governor,' he answered.”

Walker stopped, then he added:

“It's a thing which I did not know until that moment, but it's the truth. If hard-packed earth is dug up and repacked air gets into it, and if one pours water on the place air bubbles will come up.”

He did not go on, and I flung at him the big query in his story.

“And you found the plates there?”

“Yes, Sir Henry,” he replied, “in the false bottom of an old steamer trunk.”

“And the hobo got the money?”

“Certainly,” he answered. “I put it into his hand, and let him go with it, as I promised.”

Again he was silent, and I turned toward him in astonishment.

“Then,” I said, “why did you begin this story by saying the hobo faked you? I don't see the fake; he found the plates and he was entitled to the reward.”

Walker put his hand into his pocket, took out a leather case, selected a paper from among its contents and handed it to me. “I didn't see the fake either,” he said, “until I got this letter.”

I unfolded the letter carefully. It was neatly written in a hand like copper plate and dated Buenos Aires.

DEAR COLONEL WALKER: When I discovered that you were planting an agent on every ship I had to abandon the plates and try for the reward. Thank you for the five thousand; it covered expenses.

Very sincerely yours,

D. Mulehaus.

III. The Lost Lady

It was a remark of old Major Carrington that incited this adventure.

“It is some distance through the wood--is she quite safe?”

It was a mere reflection as he went out. It was very late. I do not know how the dinner, or rather the after-hours of it, had lengthened. It must have been the incomparable charm of the woman. She had come, this night, luminously, it seemed to us, through the haze that had been on her--the smoke haze of a strange, blighting fortune. The three of us had been carried along in it with no sense of time; my sister, the ancient Major Carrington and I.

He turned back in the road, his decayed voice whipped by the stimulus of her into a higher note.

“Suppose the village coachman should think her as lovely as we do--what!”

He laughed and turned heavily up the road a hundred yards or so to his cottage set in the pine wood. I stood in the road watching the wheels of the absurd village vehicle, the yellow cut-under, disappear. The old Major called back to me; his voice seemed detached, eerie with the thin laugh in it.

“I thought him a particularly villainous-looking creature!”

It was an absurd remark. The man was one of the natives of the island, and besides, the innkeeper was a person of sound sense; he would know precisely about his driver.

I should not have gone on this adventure but for a further incident.

When I entered the house my sister was going up the stair, the butler was beyond in the drawing-room, and there was no other servant visible. She was on the first step and the elevation gave precisely the height that my sister ought to have received in the accident of birth. She would have been wonderful with those four inches added--lacking beauty, she had every other grace!

She spoke to me as I approached.

“Winthrop,” she said, “what was in the package that Madame Barras carried away with her tonight?”

The query very greatly surprised me. I thought Madame Barras had carried this package away with her several evenings before when I had put her English bank-notes in my box at the local bank. My sister added the explanation which I should have been embarrassed to seek, at the moment.

“She asked me to put it somewhere, on Tuesday afternoon.... It was forgotten, I suppose.... I laid it in a drawer of the library table.... What did it contain?”

I managed an evasive reply, for the discovery opened possibilities that disturbed me.

“Some certificates, I believe,” I said.

My sister made a little pretended gesture of dismay.

“I should have been more careful; such things are of value.”

Of value indeed! The certificates in Madame Barras' package, that had lain about on the library table, were gold certificates of the United States Treasury--ninety odd of them, each of a value of one thousand dollars! My sister went:

“How oddly life has tossed her about.... She must have been a mere infant at Miss Page's. The attachment of incoming tots to the older girls was a custom.... I do not recall her.... There was always a string of mites with shiny pigtails and big-eyed wistful faces. The older girls never thought very much about them. One has a swarm-memory, but individuals escape one. The older girl, in these schools, fancied herself immensely. The little satellite that attached itself, with its adoration, had no identity. It had a nickname, I think, or a number.... I have forgotten. We minimized these midges out of everything that could distinguish them.... Fancy one of these turning up in Madame Barras and coming to me on the memory of it.”

“It was extremely lucky for her,” I said. “Imagine arriving from the interior of Brazil on the invitation of Mrs. Jordan to find that lady dead and buried; with no friend, until, by chance, one happened on your name in the social register, and ventured on a school attachment of which there might remain, perhaps a memory only on the infant's side.”

My sister went on up the stair.

“I am glad we happened to be here, and, especially, Winthrop, if you have been able to assist her.... She is charming.”

Charming was the word descriptive of my sister, for it is a thing of manner from a nature elevated and noble, but it was not the word for Madame Barras. The woman was a lure. I mean the term in its large and catholic sense. I mean the bait of a great cosmic impulse--the most subtle and the most persistent of which one has any sense.

The cunning intelligences of that impulse had decked her out with every attractiveness as though they had taken thought to confound all masculine resistance; to sweep into their service those refractory units that withheld themselves from the common purpose. She was lovely, as the aged Major Carrington had uttered it--great violet eyes in a delicate skin sown with gold flecks, a skin so delicate that one felt that a kiss would tear it!

I do not know from what source I have that expression but it attaches itself, out of my memory of descriptive phrases, to Madame Barras. And it extends itself as wholly descriptive of her. You will say that the long and short of this is that I was in love with Madame Barras, but I point you a witness in Major Carrington.

He had the same impressions, and he had but one passion in his life, a distant worship of my sister that burned steadily even here at the end of life. During the few evenings that Madame Barras had been in to dinner with us, he sat in his chair beyond my sister in the drawing-room, perfect in his early-Victorian manner, while Madame Barras and I walked on the great terrace, or sat outside.

One had a magnificent sweep of the world, at night, from that terrace. It looked out over the forest of pines to the open sea.

Madame Barras confessed to the pull of this vista. She asked me at what direction the Atlantic entered, and when she knew, she kept it always in her sight.

It had a persisting fascination for her. At all times and in nearly any position, she was somehow sensible of this vista; she knew the lights almost immediately, and the common small craft blinking about. To-night she had sat for a long time in nearly utter silence here. There was a faint light on the open sea as she got up to take her leave of us; what would it be she wondered.

I replied that it was some small craft coming in.

“A fishing-boat?”

“Hardly that,” I said, “from its lights and position it will be some swifter power-boat and, I should say, not precisely certain about the channel.”

I have been drawn here into reminiscence that did not, at the time, detain me in the hall. What my sister had discovered to me, following Major Carrington's remark, left me distinctly uneasy. It was very nearly two miles to the village, the road was wholly forest and there would be no house on the way; for my father, with an utter disregard for cost, had sought the seclusion of a large acreage when he had built this absurdly elaborate villa on Mount Desert Island.

Besides I was in no mood for sleep.

And, over all probability, there might be some not entirely imaginary danger to Madame Barras. Not precisely the danger presented in Major Carrington's pleasantry, but the always possible danger to one who is carrying a sum of money about. It would be considered, in the world of criminal activities, a very large sum of money; and it had been lying here, as of no value, in a drawer of the library table since the day on which the gold certificates had arrived on my check from the Boston bank.

Madame Barras had not taken the currency away as I imagined. It was extremely careless of her, but was it not an act in character?

What would such a woman know of practical concern?

I spoke to the butler. He should not wait up, I would let myself in; and I went out.

I remember that I got a cap and a stick out of the rack; there was no element of selection in the cap, but there was a decided subconscious direction about the selection of the stick. It was a heavy blackthorn, with an iron ferrule and a silver weight set in the head; picked up--by my father at some Irish fair--a weapon in fact.

It was not dark. It was one of those clear hard nights that are not uncommon on this island in midsummer; with a full moon, the road was visible even in the wood. I swung along it with no particular precaution; I was not expecting anything to happen, and in fact, nothing did happen on the way into the village.

But in this attitude of confidence I failed to discover an event of this night that might have given the whole adventure a different ending.

There is a point near the village where a road enters our private one; skirts the border of the mountain, and, making a great turn, enters the village from the south. At this division of the road I heard distinctly a sound in the wood.

It was not a sound to incite inquiry. It was the sound of some considerable animal moving in the leaves, a few steps beyond the road. It did not impress me at the time; estrays were constantly at large in our forests in summer, and not infrequently a roaming buck from the near preserves. There was also here in addition to the other roads, an abandoned winter wood-road that ran westward across the island to a small farming settlement. Doubtless I took a slighter notice of the sound because estrays from the farmers' fields usually trespassed on us from this road.

At any rate I went on. I fear that I was very much engrossed with the memory of Madame Barras. Not wholly with the feminine lure of her, although as I have written she was the perfection of that lure. One passed women, at all milestones, on the way to age, and kept before them one's sound estimates of life, but before this woman one lost one's head, as though Nature, evaded heretofore, would not be denied. But the weird fortune that had attended her was in my mind.

Married to Senor Barras out of the door of a convent, carried to Rio de Janeiro to an unbearable life, escaping with a remnant of her inheritance in English bank-notes, she arrives here to visit the one, old, persisting friend, Mrs. Jordan, and finds her dead! And what seemed strange, incredible beyond belief, was that this creature Barras had thought only of her fortune which he had depleted in two years to the something less than twenty thousand pounds which I had exchanged for her into our money; a mere fragment of her great inheritance.

I had listened to the story entranced with the alluring teller of it; wondering as I now wondered, on the road to the village, how anything pretending to be man could think of money when she was before his eye.

What could he buy with money that equaled her! And yet this curious jackal had seen in her only the key to a strong-box. There was behind it, in explanation, shadowed out, the glamor of an empire that Senor Barras would set up with the millions in his country of revolutions, and the enthusiasms of a foolish mother.

And yet the jackal and this wreckage had not touched her. There was no stain, no crumpled leaf. She was a fresh wonder, even after this, out of a chrysalis. It was this amazing newness, this virginity of blossom from which one could not escape.

The word in my reflection brought me up. How had she escaped from Barras?

I had more than once in my reflections pivoted on the word.

The great hotel was very nearly deserted when I entered.

There was the glow of a cigar where some one smoked, at the end of the long porch. Within, there was only a sleepy clerk.

Madame Barras had not arrived... he was quite sure; she had gone out to dinner somewhere and had not come in!

I was profoundly concerned. But I took a moment to reflect before deciding what to do.

I stepped outside and there, coming up from the shadow of the porch, I met Sir Henry Marquis.

It was chance at its extreme of favor. If I had been given the selection, in all the world, I should have asked for Sir Henry Marquis at that decisive moment.

The relief I felt made my words extravagant.

“Marquis!” I cried. “You here!”

“Ah, Winthrop,” he said, in his drawling Oxford voice, “what have you done with Madame Barras; I was waiting for her?”

I told him, in a word, how she had set out from my house--my concern--the walk down here and this result. I did not ask him at the moment how he happened to be here, or with a knowledge of our guest. I thought that Marquis was in Canada. But one does not, with success, inquire of a C.I.D. official even in his own country. One met him in the most unexpected places, unconcerned, and one would have said at leisure.

But he was concerned to-night. What I told brought him up. He stood for a moment silent. Then he said, softly, in order drat the clerk behind us might not overhear.

“Don't speak of it. I will get a light and go with you!”

He returned in a moment and we went out. He asked me about the road, was there only one way down; and I told him precisely. There was only the one road into the village and no way to miss it unless one turned into the public road at the point where it entered our private one along the mountain.