Chapter 6

"My mother doesn't think it's right for Aunt Edith to go off and leave the house all alone the way she does," she explained; "she's always telling her some one will break in if she doesn't leave Selma or a dog. And she never locks a thing, you know--she says if they intend to get in, they will, and that's all there is about it. So this time she went for three days, and Miss Honey and the General and Delia; and Selma and Anna went to a wedding and Ed went somewhere about a lawn-mower, and little Ed was going to get the pony shod. I told Aunt Edith I'd--" she coughed importantly--"keep an eye on the house."

"I see," said the man.

He poured himself two inches of the topaz liquor; it rocked in the glass.

Caroline sniffed inquiringly.

"That's the Scotch," she said; "I know by the smell, partly like cologne and partly smoky. Do you like it?"

The man raised the glass to the level of his eyes and watched the light play through it, then made a slight movement of his arm and the whisky disappeared smoothly.

"Your Aunt Edith's taste is as good as her voice," he said, eyeing Caroline carefully.

"Oh, that's not Aunt Edith's--that's Uncle Joe's," she explained. Then, as it flashed across her suddenly.

"Did you want to see him? He's in New York, too. They're going to have pictures taken of Miss Honey and General. But after that, Uncle Joe's going to Chicago. Did you want him?"

"N-no, not exactly," said the man, studying his well-kept finger-nails. "I can't say I do. No, my business is with--is more--"

He stopped suddenly and followed the direction of Caroline's eyes.

There on the sideboard behind him stood a leather suit-case, long and solid looking. It was open and tight rows of forks and spoons filled it.

The room was quite still for a moment. Caroline wanted to show by some intelligent remark that she understood the situation, and could easily imagine what the man was doing with the silver, but she found this difficult.

Strange people came to Aunt Edith's house. Dark, foreign-looking men ate meals there at unusual hours; once Caroline had seen with her own eyes a plump, yellow German fall suddenly on his knees at Aunt Edith's feet, as a hand-organ struck up its brassy music under the window, and burst into passionate singing, waving a whisk-broom in the air and offering it to Aunt Edith with the most extraordinary force of manner. And her aunt, who wore at the time a raincoat and tam o'shanter cap, had leaned forward graciously, gurgled out a most delicious little tune, accepted the whisk-broom, affected to inhale its fragrance rapturously, and whirled into a big and beautiful song in which the plump, yellow gentleman joined, and rising seized her in his arms, at which point they drowned the hand-organ completely, and the hand-organ man and Uncle Joe applauded loudly, and they gave the hand-organ man all he could eat and a dollar.

You may see from this that one did not look for the commonplace in Aunt Edith's house. Moreover, the stranger was not unlike some of her aunt's friends; though he was handsome and assured and noticeably at his ease, Caroline felt that his manner was subtly different from that of the friends of her own family. But even the most unconventional guest had never collected the sideboard silver, and a little feeling was growing in the air ... doubt and a bit of what might have begun to be fear ... when suddenly the man began to laugh. It was abrupt and it rang harshly at first, but grew with every moment warmer and more infectious, so that Caroline, though she felt that she was in some way the cause of it, joined in it finally, in spite of herself.

"If you knew what a sight you were!" he exclaimed, wiping his eyes with the napkin, "with your hair all cobwebs and all that dirt on your knees and those finger-marks on your apron, and being so small and all"--he began to chuckle again.

"Small?" she repeated portentously.

"Oh, I didn't mean small compared with--with anybody else the same size," he assured her quickly.

Catching her mollified glance, he went on more soberly.

"And how did you get in, now? No doors, I'll bet."

"Under the kitchen porch, through the little cellar window and up the back stairs," she explained.

"You mean to say you were out in that little back hall and I never heard you?"

She nodded. "I took pains to be still," she added, "so as to surprise the--so if there had been--"

"I understand," he said gravely, "so as to get them if they had been there. Well, you'd have done it. You're all right. Now, I suppose you're wondering what all this means, aren't you? You haven't got any idea who I am, have you? You don't know one single thing about me, and you may be thinking--"

"I know one thing about you," she interrupted, "I know you went to Yale."

The man's jaw dropped, his hands gripped the arm of the chair.

"And how in--how did you know that?" he cried roughly, with blazing eyes.

Caroline shrank a little but faced him.

"Your pin," she said, pointing to his vest, "I saw it when you held your arm up."

The man sank back in his chair and fingered the little jeweled badge unconsciously.

"Well, of all the cute ones ... so you've seen this before?" he suggested.

"Of course I have--my brother has one, and my Uncle Joe and Uncle Lindsay and Cousin Lindsay and Cousin Joe."

"All went to Yale?" he inquired.

"Lindsay and Joe are there now--they're seniors," she informed him. "The General's going when he grows up. All the Holts go there. Grandfather Holt went."

"You don't say," said the man, bending forward in genuine interest, "I guess it's a pretty good college, eh?"

"The best of them all," she assured him.

"I'll tell you an awful funny thing," she went on abruptly, "you know all the Holts look alike. Well, when Uncle Lindsay first went to Yale, he was walking along the Campus, and right by Old South Middle he met the President. And the President stopped and said, 'Well, well, I see the race of Holts is not yet extinct. Good afternoon, sir!' _The President._ And he never saw him before!"

The man shook his head thoughtfully.

"You don't say," he repeated. "Old South Middle--that's it. That's the one."

Suddenly he shrugged his shoulders and took out his watch. "This'll never pay the rent!" he said briskly. "Now let's get to business. I suppose you were surprised to see all that stuff in the suit-case?"

Caroline nodded and grinned back at him, his own quick smile was so friendly and compelling.

"Well," he continued, rising and bunching the napkin beside his plate, "I don't blame you. Not a bit. I'd have been the same myself. And you'll be even more surprised when you find out what I'm doing--that is," he stopped abruptly, "unless your Uncle Joe has told you already and sent you over to help?"

She shook her head.

"Didn't, eh?" he stepped over to the sideboard, wiping off the knife and fork he had been using, and packed them with the others. Caroline, watching his hands, noticed in the corner of the case a familiar chamois skin bag; she had often seen it on Aunt Edith's bureau.

"Well, now," he continued, "If I had a niece as sharp and smart and quiet as you are, Missy, I'd tell her my plans, I would, and get her to help me. I wonder your uncle didn't. Sure he didn't mention me--Mr. Barker?"

Again she shook her head, her eyes fastened to the bag.

"Well," said the man, shutting down the cover of the suit-case and strapping it tightly, "it's this way. You may have heard your uncle say something about it being kind o' careless, leaving the house so much alone? Anyhow, whether he's talked to you or not about it, he has to me often enough."

"Oh, yes!" Caroline was conscious of a distinct sense of relief. "I've often heard him. Then you _do_ know Uncle Joe?"

The man faced her, starting in violent surprise.

"Do I know Uncle Joe?" he repeated; "do I _know_ him?" He shook his head feebly and gazed about the room. "She says, do I know Joe Holt! And what should I be doing, eating my lunch here, if I didn't?" he demanded. "What should he tell me about his troubles for, and ask me to help him, if I didn't know him? Is it likely I'd be packing his silver in my suit-case if I didn't know him?"

Caroline stood abashed.

"I should think you might guess by this time what the joke is," he went on forgivingly, seeing that she was quite overcome with her own stupidity, "but as I have to get away pretty quick now, I'll tell you. You see, Joe isn't coming right back with your aunt; he's going on to Chicago, and that may keep him some time away--"

("I know," Caroline interpolated), "and he wanted your aunt to have somebody stay in the house to look after it--he felt worried. But no, she wouldn't. Wouldn't even get a dog--that is," eyeing Caroline steadily, "unless she's got one lately, but when I last heard--"

"No," she assured him, "she wouldn't. Aunt Edith hates dogs."

"So Joe told me. 'Now what would you do, Henry,' says Joe to me, that's my name, Henry Barker, 'what would you do with a woman like that?'

"'Do, Joe?' says I, 'why, I'll tell you what I'd do, I'd teach her a lesson, that's what. I'd I'd give her one good scare, and then you'd find she'd take your advice, after that.'"

At this point the man reached for his overcoat and began to struggle into it.

"'But I don't know how to, Henry,' says he. 'You don't?' says I, 'nothing easier. Just tip somebody off when the house is empty and they'll run up and slip in, take what silver and jewelry they can find in a hurry, pack it up careful and hide it away wherever you say. Then when your wife gets back and finds 'em gone, there'll be the d---- there'll be a row, and when she says it's her fault for not leaving the servants in the house, and she'll never do it again, then you say, 'All right, my dear, I'm glad you've learned your lesson,' and step out and get the bag! How's that?' I said."

He put his hat on, drew a pair of gloves from his pocket, and looked hard at Caroline; her answering glance was troubled and non-committal. He scowled slightly and rested one hand on the bag.

"'All very well, Henry,' says Joe to me, 'but who's to do all this? I don't know anyone that would dare to, let alone be willing,'" he went on, glancing hurriedly around the room. "'You know as well as I do that if they should get caught doing it, anybody would swear 'twas burglary plain and simple, and run' em right in. They'd call the police. It would look bad for whoever did it, you know,' he said."

"He might have asked me. I'd love to do it," Caroline muttered resentfully.

As a matter of fact the scheme was sufficiently like many a practical joke of her irrepressible uncle. Better than anyone, Caroline, his conspirator elect, knew the lengths he was capable of going to confound or scandalize his adjacent relatives.

"Of course," said the man, with relief in his voice, "that's why I asked you if he hadn't. I guess he was afraid you wouldn't dare. I'd have trusted you, though, myself."

She looked gratefully at him.

"Then, I said, 'Why, Joe, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll do it myself,'" he concluded, lifting the suit-case from the sideboard and grimacing at its weight. "'What's the good,' says I, 'of calling yourself a friend, if you can't run a little risk? Just tell me the day to come and where you want 'em put--be sure you pick a good safe place--and I'll 'tend to it for you,' I said, 'and you'll do as much for me some day when I'm in a tight place.'"

He settled his hat firmly and moved to the long window.

"I'll have to hurry if I don't want to lose my train," he explained.

"But where's the place?" Caroline cried excitedly; "what place did Uncle Joe pick out? Won't you tell me? I won't tell--truly, I won't!"

The man paused with one hand on the window button, and looked thoughtfully at her.

"By George," he announced, "I've a good mind to tell you! I'm not supposed to tell a soul, you know, but you've been such a brick, and being his own niece and all, I think you've got a _right_ to know, I really do."

Caroline nodded breathlessly.

"Look here!" he cried, "I'll trust you if your uncle won't. I don't like the place he told me, much--it isn't safe enough. There's two thousand dollars' worth of stuff here, counting the--counting everything, and an old barn's no place for it. See here. You promise me to stay here for an hour--one hour exactly, by the clock--and I'll leave this bag at your house for you. Then you can hide it under your bed, or anywhere you want, till to-morrow, and then you can manage the rest to suit yourself. How's that?"

"Oh, that would be grand!" she gasped.

"You can just tell your uncle that I saw you were game and I trusted you, if he wouldn't," he concluded, opening the window, "and I'll take this to your house in half an hour. Will you promise not to leave for an hour? We mustn't be seen together, you know, or people might suspect and then the game'd be up. And will you lock this window after me and go out the same way you came?"

"Yes, yes! I promise, I promise solemnly!" she assured him, flushed with importance, "and tell 'em not to open it, will you? They might. Say it's private for me, will you?"

"All right," he said soberly. "I'm kind o' sorry they went to Yale," he added abruptly. "I'd rather--sh! what's that?"

He stood rigidly listening; his eyes rolled back, his hand raised in warning.

"I don't hear--" she began, but his angry gesture and the furious whisper that went with it cowed her into a silence as strained as his own.

For a moment it seemed to Caroline that she heard a faint snap as of a board released from pressure, but dead quiet followed; she held her breath with excitement as the man lifted the suit-case over the ledge, and peering over the balcony stepped out. Suddenly he paused, one leg over the sill; his eyes rolled back towards the room, his lips tightened. So terrible, and so despairing his face had turned that Caroline rushed to the window. Even as she started she heard quick soft steps in the hall, and pointed to the freedom outside.

"Jump, oh, jump, Mr. Barker!" she whispered in a glow of terror, "hurry! It _is_ somebody!"

He pointed silently to the ground below, and with her heart pounding heavily she peered over the sill. Directly below them crouched a Great Dane, brindled, enormous, one eye fixed sternly on the window.

The soft steps paused: perhaps she had imagined them! Perhaps, if they kept quite still, that quaking pair, perhaps.... The man breathed like a drowning swimmer; it seemed to Caroline she must scream.

The door flew open.

"Look out, there--it's loaded!" the voice came sharp as a cracked whip.

Caroline gave a shriek of joy.

"Why, it's Lindsay!" she cried, "it's just Cousin Lindsay!"

A tall, powerful young man came in behind a leveled revolver.

"Car--what--be still, there!" he gasped, steadying the weapon. The man stood motionless, his eyes on the ground.

"It's all right--I never carried a gun in my life," he said quietly.

"Oh, Lindsay, it's only a joke!"

Caroline ran towards him, stopping in horror at the ugly winking eyes of the revolver.

"Mr. Barker only meant--tell Lin about it!" she entreated, sick with foreboding at the dogged man before her, the scornful flushed boy at her side.

"I guess you better tell him, Missy," said the man in a low empty voice.

"Go home, Caroline; go straight home this moment."

Caroline had never heard her cousin speak in that tone, and it was partly in tears, partly in wrath that she answered,

"I will _not_ go straight home, Lindsay Holt, and you needn't talk to me that way, either! Uncle Joe himself asked Mr. Barker--"

She began glibly enough, but even to her simple consciousness the story wavered and rang false, with this stricken, passive man before her. Her voice faltered, she choked.... Had Uncle Joe really asked this man to get the emeralds? Was it possible that--Lindsay laughed disagreeably.

"If you've quite finished, Caroline, will you go home?" he demanded, his eyes still on the revolver.

She gulped painfully; her faith tottered on the last brink.

"Oh, let it go at that; can't you?" the man broke in roughly. "What difference does it make to you, eh, how this part of the job gets done? Have I made you any trouble yet? My goose is cooked, all right, and we'll--we'll talk that over, later, when Missy goes, but--but couldn't you"--he looked almost appealingly at the young fellow,--"couldn't we--it's all there in the suit-case--"

"It was going under my bed Lin--I'd have been careful," Caroline was hoping against hope, now.

"You see, Missy," said the man quickly, in almost his old manner, "you see how it turns out. It was a bad plan, I guess--you can see how your cousin takes it. You'll have to--to tell your uncle how it worked; it's one on me, all right."

"Suppose we put it all back and--oh Lord, what's the use?" he ended suddenly.

"Cut it short--what the hell do I care?"

He dropped suddenly into the chair behind him; his head fell over on his arms, and the stiff hat rolled along the floor.

The young man stared curiously at him, but the weakness was genuine; every muscle was relaxed.

Lindsay's face softened a little. "As far as that goes, you're quite right," he said curtly, "though it's a little late in the day. Look here, Caroline. Mr.--Mr. Barker and I don't agree very well on the best way to teach people to lock their houses. I--it seems to me a pretty poor joke. Uncle Joe never meant it to go quite so far, I'm quite sure," he concluded jerkily. "I--I want to do the best thing all round, but," looking anxiously towards her for a second, "this is a little too--a little too--"

Her face cleared at his change of tone. "I know," she returned eagerly, "I know just what you mean, Lindsay. I think so, too. Anybody would think--"

"That's it," he said briefly.

"You say you thought so yourself at first," she added, looking uncomfortably at the bent figure in the chair, "and that made him feel--"

"Well, well, I understand now," Lindsay interrupted irritably, "it's all right now, Caroline. Hadn't you better go? Mr.--Mr. Barker and I will come along later."

"Oh, I'll wait and go with you, Lin," she returned, almost assured, now, "why do I have to go first?"

The man lifted his head; at sight of the young fellow's nervous perplexity he smiled faintly.

"Suppose you run along, Missy," he suggested; "your cousin and I want to talk business, and--and then I must be hurrying on--hurrying on," he repeated vaguely, with dazed eyes. He raised his hand to his head; Lindsay started forward, the revolver loose in his hand.

"Where did you get that pin?" he cried sharply. "Give that to me."

The man fingered the pin thoughtfully. "You're 'way off there," he said. "That's not--that's not--"

"Not one of your 'jokes'?" Lindsay's voice rang disagreeably. "I happen to know the contrary. I'll trouble you to hand it over. I'll soon know to whom it belongs."

Caroline, hanging over the sill, lost in talkative admiration of the Great Dane, was oblivious for the moment of the room behind her.

"It belongs to my son," said the man. There was a moment of silence. Outside the great hound whined softly.

"His name Barker, too?" Lindsay asked coldly, half rising.

"No, sir. His name is James Wardwell," said the man defiantly.

Lindsay sprang to his feet.

"That's a dirty lie!" he shouted. He stood over the man, careless of the revolver. "And you'll pay for it, too!"

Caroline stared aghast at them.

"Look out for the gun," the man warned him, and, as with a flush of mortification Lindsay mastered his weapon, he added quietly, "you can't be too careful with firearms."

Lindsay gritted his teeth.

"You--you--" he began furiously. The man met his eyes for a second, then with a dark, slow blush, dropped his arm.

The boy drew back uncertainly.

"What's the good of lying like that?" he said, "how's it going to help you?"

The man looked at the floor.

"Don't be a fool--how's it going to?" Lindsay repeated irritably.

The other did not move.

"Is that the truth?" Lindsay's voice was strained and worried.

The man drew a long, uneven breath. "Yes," he answered.

Lindsay glanced at the suit-case, at the man in the chair, at the revolver.

"Jimmy!" he muttered, "Jimmy B.!" For the first time since he had last addressed her, he noticed Caroline. He frowned, then suddenly his face cleared.

"Look here," he said, his eye again on the man, "do you know where all that silver belongs?"

She nodded.

"I help Selma sometimes."

"Could you put it back so nobody would know?"

"Oh, yes," she answered him, "and the--things from the bureau, too?"

His lips curled scornfully and his hold on the revolver tightened.

"A thorough job, wasn't it?" he muttered, then controlling himself he answered evenly, "Oh, yes, might as well get 'em all back. We'll just step in the library a minute."

The man got up and went before him into the library, stumbling as he walked.

Lindsay watched him drop into a seat and stood in front of him.

"What proof have you got that what you said in there is true?" he asked abruptly, "before we leave the house, I must know."

"Proof?" the man repeated, "proof?" He stared almost vacantly at Lindsay.

"Why, yes," the boy answered impatiently.

"You say you're the father of one of the most brilliant men in my class, you wear the pin of his society--a pin I happen to know he lost recently--and I find you stealing my aunt's spoons! For God's sake, what's the meaning of it?"

The man twisted his fingers together and moistened his lips.

"It kind of settled on me all at once," he said in a hollow voice, "I felt it since morning. She scared me so to begin with--she came like a ghost--and then the dog finished me. I had one o' them once and he nearly did me up--turned on me. Jim pulled him off," he added, "but they give me a turn whenever I see 'em."

Lindsay stamped angrily.

"Will you prove what you say? Or shall we discuss it at the station-house?"

The man raised his hand deprecatingly. "No, no;" he said hastily, "no--that's what I don't want. That's why I--that's the reason I don't--good Lord, don't you know you've given me a half a dozen chances, if I'd had the nerve for the risk? Why, I c'd've butted that gun out of your hand twice in the last ten minutes, you young fool! How long d'ye suppose it would take a husky man to back you into one closet and Missy into another and walk off with the stuff? Hey?"

His eyes flashed, he threw back his head and breathed hard, a cornered animal. Lindsay felt a tingle of excitement run down his spine; for a moment there was danger in the air.

"I--I notice you didn't see your way to all this," he said scornfully. But he blushed as he spoke, the man saw it, and Lindsay knew he saw it; he winced and drew himself up in a boyish attempt to save the situation.

"It's quite true--I'm not in the habit of catching house thieves," he said, drawling a little, "and I doubt if many of them are quite such accomplished liars as you appear to be; but my stroke will improve, I've no doubt, as we go on. Would you mind getting up and 'coming along with me' as they call it, I believe?"

The man made no answer, but raised his hands high above his head.

"If you'll look in that left vest pocket, there's a little leather case there," he said, "and--and you'd better take the pin, too, I guess. I'd be obliged if you'd say you found it somewhere; I never should've put it on."

Somewhat clumsily Lindsay extricated the leather case, cursing his awkwardness and the patience of the man.

A worn little photograph of a boy of eight or nine was in his hand; across the bottom was scrawled in a childish hand, "Daddy, from your son James."

He drew a long breath.

"That's Jimmy, all right," he said dully.

"If you'll just tear it up," said the man. "It's all I've got, and nobody'd know but some friend that--that would be lookin' for the likeness."

Lindsay threw the picture on the floor.