A RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL THEME
For a moment I did not know which feeling was apparent; surprise, anger,
or a new and abominable sensation that combined the sense of personal
injury with an intolerable sense of loss. Then I saw in Bob's face the
reflection of my own astonishment, and tried to pull myself together.
"Brace up, man," he said, pounding me heartily on the shoulder. "Don't
look as if you saw Hamlet's grandmother. She's neither married nor
dead--he's only taken her home in a hurry. Good Lord, if I'd known you
were going to be so tragic I'd have broken it as gently as a sucking
dove."
By that time I found words. "I'm all right," I said, "only you made me
jump with your ornamental way of putting things. Who is he, anyway, and
what the devil right has he to come and drag her away like this in the
middle of her visit?"
"Reid? He's only her brother."
"Her half-brother, you mean."
"I suppose so, since the name's different. Anyhow, he's no relation to
Bluebeard, so you needn't go looking for blood and thunder. I know you.
It's just that somebody wasn't well at home, and they wanted her.
Nothing at all serious, he said; only if Lady was on the ground she
could be useful. Her mother's heart is a little weak, you know. I
suppose it's that."
"Look here, Bob," said I. "There's something mysterious about that
family; and although it's none of my business, I want to know whatever
you can tell me about them. I want to tell you first what I know, and
see if you can help me clear it up."
"Nonsense! You never saw a windmill yet without swearing it was a green
dragon with yellow eyes and a three-pronged tail. They are not half so
mysterious as you are with that hush-hush expression on your innocent
countenance. Tabor's an importer, with a flourishing business in red ink
and spaghetti and other products of Sunny It'. Mrs. Tabor's a dear
little soul with nerves and an occasional palpitation. Lady's a pippin,
and Reid's a strenuous sawbones that lost half a second once in his
youth and has been chasing it ever since. You've been reading too much
classical literature."
"Have you known them long?"
"Why, no, not so very. Oh, come in out of the sun and take a sedative.
You won't be happy till you've relieved your florid mind."
I followed him into his den and accepted a cigarette and something cool
to drink. Then without more preface I told the tale of my adventure,
beginning with my arrival at the Tabors' home.
"Fine!" was his unfeeling comment, "I shall lie awake nights waiting for
your next instalment of confidences. What are you going to do next?"
"That's what I'm trying to decide," I growled. "And I wish you'd give me
a little serious thought, if you can stand the strain. I like
adventures, but my end of this one is getting rather unmanageable."
"My dear man, I'm as serious as a caged owl. You've been treated
outrageously, if that's any comfort to you. Only I fail to see where
your mystery comes in. Of course, it's just as they said: Mr. Tabor has
heard some absurd slander, or got you mixed up with somebody else; and
Mrs. Tabor worried herself into a state about it, and they turned you
out. It's a shame--or it would be if the thought of you as a desperate
character who couldn't be allowed overnight in a decent family were not
so ridiculous. I'll write to Tabor myself and tell him that he's got the
wrong mule by the wrong leg; or if you prefer, we'll delegate the job to
one of your older and wiser friends. That's all there is to it."
"You're leaving out altogether too much. How about my door being locked?
How about the dago sailor at the inn? How about Miss Tabor's warning me
off for all time, and then meeting me here as if she hadn't seen me
since Christmas?"
Bob smoked and frowned a moment, then brushed the difficulty aside.
"Accidents, old fellow, accidents. The locked door was a mistake, unless
somebody thought you were too dangerous a reprobate to leave at large.
The guinea was drunk, on your own showing. As for Lady, she has a better
head than the average, but you can't get me to waste any time figuring
out how any woman's mind works. I've been married three years."
"Well, I'm going to find out what it all means."
"It doesn't all mean anything. That's where your kaleidoscopic
imagination gets to work. There isn't any conceivable connection between
these details! and you talk as if they were veiled and awful hints all
pointing one way. Your dragons are windmills, I tell you, and your
helmet's a copper kettle."
"You'd think differently if you had been there. Besides, I know--" I
stopped short. Bob was my friend, and whatever I chose to tell him was
my own business; but even to him I was not betraying confidences.
"Bob," I said, "I can't prove it, even to you, but I know that there is
something wrong; and I firmly believe that somehow or other all these
things work into it. Now, if you can throw any light at all, help me
out."
"I've told you all I know. I'm not exactly an intimate of these people,
but I've known them off and on for three or four years, and there simply
isn't anything unusual about them. They're just like every one else,
only a little nicer--the last people on earth to act queerly or have a
closet skeleton."
"At any rate, they seem to want to get rid of me," I said. "Well, they
can't do it. If they've got some scandalous idea of me, they're going to
apologize; and if they're in trouble, I'm going to make myself useful.
I've fallen into an adventure, and I'm going through with it."
"I'll tell you one thing," said Bob, very solemnly for him, "if there is
any family secret, it's nothing against Lady. She's about as good and
white and honest--but you don't need to be told that."
"No," said I, "I don't. And perhaps that's the reason."
I waited where I was for the rest of the week; partly because I was
resolved not to put myself in the wrong afresh by following Miss Tabor's
movements too immediately, and partly to give time for Bob's promised
vindication of my character to take effect. I could not, however,
believe that it would, in itself, make any great difference; for the
more I considered, the more it seemed to me that I had been right in my
suspicion, and that the whole empty charge had been merely an excuse for
driving me from the house and a device for terminating the acquaintance.
I discovered during those few days the truth of the saying that to think
is the hardest thing in the world; for my attempts to reason out the
situation persistently resolved themselves into adventurous dreams and
emotional reminiscences until I suspended judgment in despair and put
the whole matter from my mind. And it was with an eager relief at last
that I bade good-by to the Ainslies and retraced my journey. Bob had
received in the meantime no answer to his letter; but by that time I was
not to be surprised.
I took my old room at the inn, got myself into white flannels with
leisurely determination, and set forth to call upon Miss Tabor. It was
not hot, and all the air was clear with that sparkling zest common
enough in autumn but rare in the heat of midsummer; and as I hurried
along, the beauty of the world flowed over me in a great, joyous wave of
hope and resolution. The little distance between the inn and the Tabors'
I covered before I realized it.
"Is Miss Tabor at home?" I asked the maid at the door.
She took my card and hesitated. "I'll go and see, sir," she said finally,
and ushered me into the big living-room.
I was all alone; voices came dimly from other parts of the house, and
the room where I sat was cool and pleasant. I found my heart beating a
little faster, and wondered at myself. Presently the maid returned.
"Miss Tabor is not at home," she said.
Somehow, I had not expected it, and for a moment I stood looking at her
foolishly as she held open the door. "She is in town, is she not?" I
asked clumsily.
"I am not sure, sir; she is not at home, sir," the woman repeated
woodenly.
I trudged back through the glare of the impossibly brilliant day sick
with disappointment, and wondering if she had really been away. Could
there be any reason why my card had not been taken to her? Had some
general order gone out against me? Then I brought my imagination to a
sudden halt. I was getting to be a fool. The probability was that the
maid had simply spoken the truth; and in any case, the whole matter was
easy of determination. At the inn I wrote a short note to Miss Tabor,
saying that I was in town for a few days, regretting that I had missed
her and asking when I should find a convenient hour to call. This
despatched, I found myself in a state of empty hurry with nothing to do;
and after supper and a game or so of erratic pool, I set out to walk off
an incipient and unreasoning attack of blues.
By the time I had tramped through a couple of townships and turned
toward home I was fairly cheerful again. Landmarks had begun to look
unfamiliar in the gathering gloom, and I took my turnings a little
uncertainly; so that it was with a thrill of surprise that I found
myself on a crossroad that ran alongside the Tabor place. The great
house was largely dark and peaceful. Windows below glowed dimly through
the dusk; and above, a single square shone brightly. Two men were coming
slowly up the long driveway in front, which paralleled the road on which
I stood; and as they approached the house, it seemed to me that they
were walking not upon the gravel of the drive, but upon the grass beside
it. When they reached the steps they turned aside, and skirting the
house with a more evident avoidance of paths, crossed a stretch of lawn
to what appeared to be a stable or garage some distance behind it. There
was a furtiveness about the whole proceeding that I did not like, and I
stood still a moment watching. Presently a match was struck in a room
above the garage, and the gas flared on. Then, after a little, one of
the men came out, running quietly across the lawn until he came to a
stop beside the house and directly before me. The light from the upper
window fell upon him and he stepped aside into the shade, but not before
I had plainly seen his face. It was Lady's half-brother, Doctor Reid.
He seemed excited, or perhaps anxious; for his movements were more jerky
than ever, and he moved restlessly and continually as he waited in the
shadow. Once or twice he glanced nervously over his shoulder, and I
instinctively drew back under the bulk of a big maple beside the road.
Then he would move out beyond the edge of the shrubbery where he could
see the lighted room above the garage, then return to his watching under
the window. Once or twice he whistled softly. There was no answer, and
at last I saw his hand go back and a tiny pebble tinkled against the
glass. Then I held my breath, my heart hammering in my ears, for Lady
Tabor had come to the window.
She softly raised it and leaned out, her face very white in the
darkness.
"Is that you, Walter?" she called under her breath.
"Yes," he answered, "I have him in the garage. All clear in there? He
mustn't be seen, you know, mustn't be seen at all."
She laid her finger on her lips and nodded. Then the window closed
silently and she was gone. Reid turned and ran back to the garage. When
he came out again the other man was with him, and they crept past me
among the shrubs, talking softly. The other man was tall, with a breadth
of shoulder and thickness of chest that would have done credit to a
professional strong man; yet his voice came in an absurd treble squeak,
with an odd precision of articulation and phrasing.
"It is very important that we shall go quietly," he was saying.
"Of course, of course," Reid whispered. Then they passed beyond hearing
under the shadow of the house. Presently I saw them again, silhouetted
against the gray wall. They were standing close together upon the narrow
terrace that ran between the driveway and the side of the house, and
Reid was fumbling at a pair of French windows. They opened with a faint
click; and motioning the other man before him, he stepped in, closing
the windows after them.
I walked on, full of an impatient wonder at this new mystery, which,
like its predecessors, would neither fit into any reasonable explanation
nor suffer itself to be put aside as unmeaning. In front of the house I
passed a big limousine, drawn up by the roadside, its engine purring
softly and its lamps boring bright tunnels through the gloom. I knew it
for the Tabors' by the monogram on the panels; and as I went by, I
noticed the chauffeur lying sleepily back in his seat puffing at a
cigar. Of course it had brought the stranger, and was waiting to take
him back; but on what errand a man could be brought to the house like a
guest and sneak in at a window like a thief was a question beyond me to
fathom.
After all, I thought, as I reached my room, what business was it of
mine? By every canon of custom and good taste I should accept my rebuke
and drop quietly out of the lives of the Tabors. By staying I was
forcing myself upon them, certainly against the wishes of Doctor Reid
and Mr. Tabor, and possibly even against those of Miss Tabor, herself.
Nevertheless, I made up my mind perversely. Of course, if Miss Tabor
wished it, I should go, but unless she told me to go herself and of her
own free will, canons of politeness might go hang; rightly or wrongly, I
would see the thing to a finish.