DR. ANNISTER HAS DOUBTS
Early in the second week of Brand's absence his secretary had another
call from Hugh Gordon. Henrietta was aware of a little thrill of
pleasure when the office boy brought her his card, and quickly
accounted for it to herself by thinking that perhaps he would have
some news of her employer. But he had nothing to tell her and he made
excuse for coming by asking if Brand had returned or if she had heard
from him.
Henrietta was puzzled by his manner as he made this inquiry. For he
showed no anxiety, and when she replied he received her answer with as
little interest as if he had known beforehand what she would say.
"I hoped you would be able to tell me something about him," she added.
"I do not know where he is," he replied, "but I am positive that you
have no occasion to feel anxious about him. I am quite sure he will
return, perhaps before long. I assure you, if anything should happen
to him, I should know it before any one else."
He spoke with such sincerity that her lingering distrust faded away,
while his abundant physical vigor, manifest alike in his appearance
and his manner, made a strong appeal to her feminine nature. He seemed
so full of energetic purpose, and he looked at her with such a
self-assured, straightforward gaze that she could no longer withhold
the confidence she felt him to be demanding. Nor did the fact that her
woman's instinct, quickly discovering the scarcely concealed
admiration in his eyes and countenance, told her the reason for his
visit lessen her inclination to give him the trust he desired.
"Do you think," she anxiously asked, "that I ought to report Mr.
Brand's disappearance to the police?"
"No," he said with abrupt positiveness, "I do not."
Then he seemed to take second thought and purposely to soften his
manner as he proceeded: "When he returns do you think he would be
pleased to learn that another hullaballoo had been made over his
absence, doubtless on necessary business?"
"Oh, no, I am sure he would not! He didn't like it at all the other
time. It was only--I feel so much responsibility--and I am so
uncertain as to what I ought to do. I am not letting anybody
know"--she hesitated and blushed--"except you, that I don't really
know where he is. I thought it was what he would wish if--if he is on
a business trip--in West Virginia--or anywhere. But if anything has
happened--should happen--to him----"
"Don't feel anxious on that score. I shall be the first one to know if
any harm comes to him, and I give you my word that you shall be
informed as soon as possible. I came in to give you this assurance, as
I feared you would be worried by his long absence."
Henrietta was surprised when her visitor left to find that their
conversation had lasted for half an hour. "It didn't seem so long,"
she thought, smiling in the pleasant glow that still enveloped her
consciousness.
"I hope I didn't say anything I ought not," her thought ran on, with
just a tinge of anxiety. "He is such a compelling sort of man, you
have to trust him, and he's so blunt and direct himself that before
you know it you are being just as frank as he is."
She reviewed their talk and reassured herself, with much
gratification, that nowhere had it touched what the most sensitive
loyalty to her employer could have thought forbidden ground.
"It's very curious," she marvelled, "how he knows about Mr. Brand's
affairs. They must be the very closest friends or he could never know
so much about Mr. Brand's ambitions and how he feels about his art.
And yet there was a flash in his eyes every time Mr. Brand's name was
mentioned, and he looked just as if he were trying to control an angry
feeling. Still, they are surely friends.... His mustache is very
handsome. I wonder why he doesn't let it grow longer."
Toward the end of the week he came again and renewed his assurances
of Brand's safety, and again they talked happily together for a length
of time that startled Henrietta when she looked at her watch after he
left. Her confidence in him increased with each interview and so also
did her puzzlement as to his relations with Felix Brand. For several
days she debated with herself as to what she ought to do and at last,
in her anxiety and doubt, she sought the counsel of Dr. Annister.
She told him the whole story, admitting that she did not herself
believe the architect had taken the southern trip, giving her reasons
for that suspicion, describing the three visits of Hugh Gordon and
recounting the assurances he had made her of Brand's safety and early
return.
"I haven't come to you before, Dr. Annister," she said, "because I
didn't like to worry you about it. I know what a nervous condition
Mildred is in, anyway, because she doesn't hear from him and I thought
that if she guessed the real state of affairs it would be ten times
harder for her."
"I fear Mildred will have a nervous collapse if he does not return
soon," said Dr. Annister gravely, "or we do not get some assurance
that all is well with him. You say that this Hugh Gordon declares he
doesn't know where Felix is?"
"Yes, that is what he says, but at the same time he seems so confident
there can be nothing wrong that when I talk with him I feel it will be
all right. And then afterwards I wonder if I am doing the right thing
in keeping it all so quiet. Do you think, Dr. Annister, that we ought
to put the case into the hands of the detectives? You know, if we did
that and then he should come back in a few days, as he did before, he
would be dreadfully annoyed."
Dr. Annister, in a shabby leather arm-chair, in whose roomy depths his
undersized figure seemed smaller than ever, leaned forward with his
elbows on its arms and thoughtfully struck together the ends of his
fingers.
They were in his private office, where this chair had been for twenty
years his favorite seat. It was his attitude and gesture of deepest
abstraction. Many a time, sitting thus, and gazing with intent eyes
on nothing at all, had he found light on difficult cases. And many a
nervous wreck among his patients had marched back to health and vigor
to the rhythmic tapping of those finger-ends.
Just now he was considering the possibility that Felix Brand, the
famous young architect, his son-in-law to be, might have sunk out of
sight intentionally in order to indulge in deeply hidden debauch.
Although it had but recently become manifest, that suggestion of
sensuality in the young man's refined and handsome countenance, the
physician's only ground of objection to the early marriage for which
his daughter and her lover had pleaded, had grown stronger of late.
But if Brand should be found in some low dive it might get out and the
carrion-loving sensational newspapers would make an ill-smelling
scandal into which Mildred's name would be dragged. No, if that were
the explanation, it would be better to let him return in his own good
time and then have a serious talk with him and try to get at the
truth.
"No," he said at last, taking down his arms and leaning back into the
chair's capacious embrace, "I don't think we'd better take that
extreme measure; at least, not yet. In my judgment you've acted
prudently, my dear, in not letting anybody know his absence is other
than an ordinary business matter. It is now about two weeks since
he--went away?"
"Two weeks and a half."
"Well, I think we'd better wait at least another week before we do
anything. And, meantime, all that you've told me will be a secret
between you and me."
"Thank you, Dr. Annister. You've relieved my anxiety very much,
indeed. And I'm so glad you think as you do, for I dreaded doing
anything about it for fear it might get into the papers and there'd be
all that horrid publicity and the reporters coming and catechizing me
every day."
"Wait a bit," he said as she rose to go. "I want to ask you more about
this Gordon. He seems to you an honest, straightforward sort of man?"
"Oh, entirely, Dr. Annister! He is so frank and sincere and direct
that you can't help believing in him. He seems to know Mr. Brand
very, very intimately, too. And yet such an angry look crosses his
face sometimes when we speak about Mr. Brand that I am very much
puzzled. It doesn't seem as if they could be such good friends as they
would have to be for Mr. Gordon to know all he does."
"I wish I could see him and talk with him myself. Do you know his
address?"
"No, sir. And he's not in either the telephone or the city directory."
"Well, if he comes to your office again ask him to come up here with
you. Explain how anxious we are--doubtless he knows that Felix and
Mildred are engaged--and say that it would be a great relief to us if
we could hear from his own lips that he is still sure of Mr. Brand's
safety. I'll see him first and if he inspires my confidence as he does
yours I'll have Mildred come in and talk with him, too. Won't you go
up and see Mildred and Mrs. Annister?"
"I'd love to, Dr. Annister, but--Mildred will be so anxious for news,
and I can't tell her anything more than I have a dozen times already,
and----"
"I understand," he interrupted. "I know, it's hard not to be able to
tell her what she longs to hear. Ah, Henrietta," and he shook his head
sadly, "there isn't a man on the face of this earth that is worthy of
such a wealth of love! But how are the mother and sister? And how is
the mortgage getting on?"
He was standing in front of her, and, although she was not a tall
woman, their eyes were on a level. His deeply lined, thin face was so
pale, that, with its white mustache, heavy, gray-white eyebrows and
crown of silver-white hair, it was like an artist's study of white
against white.
As Henrietta looked into it a sudden vision came to her of the long
procession of men and women who had passed through that office,
stricken and fearful, their desperate eyes pleading with that one pale
face for help, and a lump came in her throat. She coughed before she
could speak.
"We begin to think mother is getting better," she said, "now that she
is feeling so much at ease about money matters. And the mortgage is
slowly dwindling. If I have no bad luck I expect to clear it all off
by the end of the summer."
"Good! You are a splendid, plucky girl, my dear, and I'm as proud of
you as your father would have been!"