A DISAPPEARANCE AND AN ENCOUNTER
The next few days passed by without event; and the absence of excitement
was a welcome enough relief, even to me. Adventures in themselves are
all very well, but I prefer mine uncomplicated with nervous anxiety; and
although my enlistment in the family garrison had relieved me in some
measure from that torment of personal worry which had hounded me before,
yet the trouble had only taken another form, the more heavy for being
less selfish. I was inside the mystery now, in action if not in
knowledge. What the root of the matter might be, I knew no better than
before; but somehow, I had been quite sincere in saying that I did not
really care. It was as if the nerve of curiosity had been blunted in me
through overstrain. And I knew now that come what might, Lady had begun
to care for me, and that left little in the world which for myself I
could fear. Only for her I feared everything; and the necessity of her
remaining here at the mercy of dangers which I could neither dispel nor
understand was too heavy a burden for my frivolous enjoyment of
adventure. I could not say so, nor try again to persuade her away from
the fight. As her way was, she had dropped my interrupted protest into
nothingness, as though it had never been; and my only comfort was the
hope that, knowing how wholly my blindfold loyalty to them all was for
her sake, might be a secret help to her.
Beyond taking care that one of us three men should be always in the
house, we did nothing, so far as I knew, except to await events
passively. Doctor Reid, of course, went daily to his office, where he
remained often until late in the afternoon; and Mr. Tabor, though I
understood that he was retired from active business, made two or three
all-day trips to the city. What they might be doing to safeguard us from
Carucci or in affairs more intimate to the situation, I could not guess.
At any rate, my own periods of guardianship were generally lonely; for
Mrs. Tabor was still too shaken by our recent alarm to be much out of
her room, and Lady made occasion of shopping to accompany her father.
Perhaps I was touchy; but it seemed that she avoided the strain of
being long alone with me, skating on thin ice above emotion.
Mrs. Tabor had gone to lie down after luncheon, and I was trying to
forget in a book the prospect of a long uninteresting afternoon within
doors, when the telephone in the den across the hall began to ring. I
hurried across, with an irritable impulse to shout, "Yes, I'm coming,"
and picked it up.
"Hello!" drawled the little voice. "Who is this?"
I gave the number, with a mental reservation concerning some unknown
person's telephone manners.
"Yes, I know; but who's there? Who is this speaking?"
"This is Mr. Tabor's house," said I sharply. "Do you want some one in
particular, or will you leave a message?" It may have been partly the
voice which annoyed me: a thick, soft voice unnaturally sweet in its
inflection, a voice like the caress of a fat hand. I thought there was a
trace of foreign accent, but that might be imagination.
"Oh--might I speak with Mrs. Tabor, please?"
"Hold the line a moment," said I; and as I turned, there was Mrs. Tabor
herself in the doorway.
"Is it for me?" she asked. "You know, I'm sure it's the very same
person I was going to call. Telephone calls cross that way all the time,
just like letters."
I left her, and went back to my book. A few minutes later Sheila came
in.
"Mrs. Tabor"--she began. Then with an astonished look about the room,
"Why, where is she?"
"She was in Mr. Tabor's study, telephoning, a moment ago," I said. "Is
anything the matter?"
"She never came up-stairs again at all. Will she be out around the
garden anywhere, I wonder? Would you mind looking, sir, while I'll be
seeing if she's in the house?"
I searched not only the garden, but the entire grounds; and I did it
with hurried thoroughness and a growing anxiety. Sheila's alarm when I
returned put an edge upon my own.
"Ah, the Saints preserve us, what'll we do now, with Mr. Tabor away in
the city an' that black villain of mine runnin' around the country after
us? If it's him has anything to do with her--"
"Nonsense!" I said uneasily. "She's probably only gone over to one of
the neighbors. You'd better telephone Doctor Reid, while I go and see."
But Sheila refused absolutely to use the telephone. "I never did like
them things," she said, "a little ugly voice in your ear out of nowhere,
like a ghost. Ah, I know they're all right, but I wouldn't touch it."
So I called up Reid myself. He plunged in and took immediate command of
the situation with his usual busy efficiency; but I could see that he
was alarmed.
"Probably just gone to one of the neighbors. Certainly. No occasion for
any uneasiness. None at all. I'll just call up the people she might be
with, and be sure. Glad you told me. Quite right. Glad you told me."
"You don't think there's any chance that Carucci--?"
"Not the least. No chance at all. Still, you might scout around the
neighborhood a bit, and see if you see anything of him. And tell Sheila
to go to Stamford and go through all the stores. Might have gone
shopping. I'll come right up and stay at the house myself."
"How about Mr. Tabor?" I asked.
"All right. No need to alarm him. Not a bit. I'll call him up later, if
necessary. But, of course, we'll find her at once. Hurry up and get
started. Always best to act at once. Sure to be all right. Don't wait
for me."
It occurred to me as I started out that Doctor Reid did not have a very
high opinion of my ability. He was one of those cocksure men who confine
their sureness mostly to their own mental processes. Well, we should
see; and if I found myself right, I promised Carucci a beating that
would dampen his black hand imaginings for some time to come.
My first move on leaving the house was to call up New York from the
telephone booth at the inn. I was lucky enough to find Maclean at the
office of his paper.
"Say, Mac," I asked him, "what did you make of that dago story?"
"Nothin'," Mac sniffed. "Nothin' at all. The gum-shoes think he croaked
his old woman, an' they're waitin' for him to give himself or somebody
else away, you see? Then they'll grab him. Course, I could have told 'em
she was alive; but then that might have brought you people in, an'
besides, those fellows wouldn't come across for me. Reciprocity's my
cry, an' always has been."
"Well, do you know where I can find our friend? I want to talk to him?"
"Sure. I found him myself, but he wouldn't scare for a darn. Said Tabor
had his wife all right, and not one of you dared touch him. You'll find
Mr. Giuseppe workin' on the railroad, all the live-long day--that new
trolley embankment we passed on the line. They have a guinea camp back
in the woods a piece. Say, Laurie, course your friends are all right,
an' it's none o' my business; but they smell fishy to me a mile off. If
I was you, I'd duck out right now. There's some nigger in this wood-pile
that we don't know anythin' about, you see?"
"Thanks, Mac," I said. "I know better than that, though. There's no
trouble."
"Well, I'm only tellin' you what I think. That guinea put up a long howl
to me about the old man that I wouldn't use and didn't more'n half
believe; but I want to see you about it when you come in town, all the
same. Say, you ain't sore, are you?"
"All right, old man," said I; and I hung up the receiver.
Maclean's warning came too patently from his point of view on the
sinister surface of the situation to give me the slightest additional
uneasiness; but it made me all the more determined to talk with Carucci
and at least learn whatever he thought, he knew, even though he should
prove innocent of Mrs. Tabor's disappearance. I took the trolley to the
nearest switch, and walked the couple of hundred yards between it and
the new embankment. Construction was in full blast, and about
seventy-five Italians swarmed over the work under the direction of
lordly Irish foremen. I sauntered about the place with as much idle
curiosity as I could assume, stopping to watch little groups, going from
place to place, even making a second round; but no Carucci was to be
seen. One or two of the men glanced at me with what I imagined was a
certain sullen suspicion; but that may have been purely imaginary. From
the embankment I cast about for the construction camp. The nearest
wooded spot that I could see was half a mile or so across country, and I
made toward this, skirting a little swamp or so, and climbing an
occasional fence. As I went along, I made more and more sure that I was
right; for a trodden path developed, and fence-rails were broken or left
carelessly out of place.
With the ugly huddle of tin-roofed huts in sight, I came upon Carucci;
or perhaps I should say that he came upon me. He came running to meet me
down the pathway, with a sort of rolling, dancing gait that would have
been very funny had I not known him.
"Whata you want?" he shouted. "Go-a da 'way!"
"That is what I am asking you," I said in Italian. "You know well enough
that your wife can come to you whenever she pleases. What do you want of
Mr. Tabor?"
He had stopped a little way from me, pulling off his jacket, and
throwing it over his left arm. Now he showed his teeth in a mechanical
grin.
"Come-a here," he grunted, "I show you."
He must have been drunk to imagine that I had not seen the knife. I took
half a dozen quick steps, my hands opening and shutting, and as soon as
I was within reach, I dived. I had him by the knees with a shock that
reminded me that I was growing older; and as he sprawled on his back, I
sprang away from him, and with a kick that must have nearly broken his
fingers, sent the knife spinning away behind him. He was upon his feet
in a second, and I looked for him at my throat. Instead, he threw his
jacket full in my face, and leaped after it. I could feel his teeth
gripping at the muscles of my upper arm. It was fighting of a new kind
for me, and I kneed him joyfully in the stomach, tearing with my free
arm at the jacket which blinded me. For a moment he fell away, and I
hurled the coat from me, and struck him in the mouth; then again, my
shoulder behind it; and he went down with a grunt. I flung myself
promptly on top of him, clutching him by the throat. Then an arm was
thrown about my neck from behind, while a strong hand ripped at my hair.
"Ye murtherin' baste, ye black scun, lave him alone, ye limb av hell,
come out av it!"
I shook myself roughly free, and whirled about to face the unexpected.
"Why, Sheila!" I cried, "how in the world did you get here?"
"Oi had me rasons, an' 'twas hoigh toime." She was very angry, and her
brogue was faint no longer. "'Tis a swate blayguard ye are, an' bad cess
to ye, sthrikin' a bit av a lad half the soize av yersilf."
I glanced at the burly Carucci, and laughed. The murder had died out of
his eyes, and he scrambled to his feet, looking sheepish.
"This seems to be rather a family meeting," I said, and pointed behind
him to the shanties. "Perhaps we had better be going."
Carucci turned to see the fat central office man trotting down the path,
for all the world as if he were taking a little cross-country scamper to
reduce his weight. He came on with such an inevitable matter-of-factness
that it all seemed suddenly funny, like the conclusion of a farce; and
when I looked around to see the other Italian coming up from behind, it
was quite what I expected. The fat one in front of us stooped a second
in the long grass, and picked up the knife that I had kicked away. He
turned it over thoughtfully, and dropped it into his pocket.
"Antonio Carucci," he said calmly, "I arrest you for this assault with
intent to kill, and for the murder of Sheila Carucci, your wife. And I
arrest you, Laurence Crosby, as accessory after the fact."
"What!" I cried.
"Anything that either of you say," put in the thin Italian, "will be
used against you."
[Illustration: "Do ye think I look like a dead woman?"]
Sheila broke into a peal of laughter. "'Tis fine countrymen ye have,
Antonio, an' fine bloodhounds they make, to be sure! Ye poor, ignorant
little men, open your mouths an' shut your eyes. 'Tis a miracle I'll be
showin' ye. Look here--Sheila Macnamara, for her sins called Carucci,
stands before ye--an' ye say I'm murdered! Ye little black, beady-eyed
divils, 'tis the likes av ye that goes makin' trouble for my man. Take
off your dhirty little fat paws; I'll have none av it. Take thim off, ye
thief, ye zany loon! Do ye think I look like a dead woman?"
The fat Italian dangled his handcuffs as if they had been eye-glasses.
"It is true," he said, "she is like the description; but then, how did
she come here?"
"Whisper!" said Sheila, "I do not love me husband," Antonio glared. "So
while he was asleep I eloped with this other handsome young gentleman
here."
The two little men grew very red.
"Look here," I said, "you can see there has been a mistake. Mrs. Carucci
is as well as ever, and she isn't going to make any charge against her
husband. The only thing you've got on me is breaking the speed law. Five
dollars apiece would about cover my fine, wouldn't it?"
Two gravely beautiful Italian smiles answered me. We watched them well
out of sight; then Sheila turned to her crestfallen lord and master.
"Out with it, ye dhrunken beast," she said, "where is she?"
So that was why Sheila had come here.
"Who?" Carucci asked blankly.
"Who? You look innocent, don't ye, standin' there askin' me who! What
have ye done with her, you an' your silly revenges? I'll teach ye to
keep out av things that're none av your business, ye leather-headed,
garlic-eatin' baboon, ye!" She grasped him solidly by both ears, and
shook him till his greasy hair flapped.
All the fight seemed to have gone out of Carucci, and he squirmed away,
appealing and protesting in a torrent of Italian too fast and mutilated
for my ear. Sheila answered incongruously in the same language.
"He says he don't know anything about it," she told me finally, "and for
once I believe him, sir. He can lie well enough to some folks, but he
can't lie to me."
"Well," said I, "if you believe him, you ought to know. But I wish you'd
get him away from here, Sheila. He's been sending black hand letters to
Mr. Tabor."
"He has, has he, the sphalpeen!" and again came the dual and ludicrous
torrent of Neapolitan.
"'Twas just the lovin' heart of him, sir. He's that impetuous. But
I'll learn him manners. You go on back to the house, an' you'll hear no
more from Antonio. It's a beast he is sometimes when he is drunk, but
he's sober enough now, sir, and when sober he has the sense to be afraid
of me. Have no fear, I'll send him packin'. Leave him to me."
I laughed. "All right, Sheila," I said. "If you use the same persuasion
with him that you've been using, I think you can teach him almost
anything."
I reached the Tabors' out of breath, and stumbled panting up the steps;
and at the door I stood a moment to gather my breath and thoughts,
wondering if Lady and Mr. Tabor had returned. Mr. Tabor's hat was still
missing from the rack; and I lit a cigarette as I strolled into the
living-room to wait. Mrs. Tabor was sitting over a piece of embroidery
by the window.
"You look hot," she said, glancing up, "what is the matter? Have you
been running?"
"I've been looking for you," I stammered. "Sheila thought you were lost
or something." The words were out before I could stop them.
"Lost?" Mrs. Tabor repeated, raising her brows, "lost? What should make
you think I was lost?"
"Why, Sheila said you hadn't told her you were going, and she couldn't
find you anywhere, and--"
"You are all the strangest people," said Mrs. Tabor. "I have been out of
town at an afternoon tea with friends at Greenwich. It was the shortest
little trip imaginable. Has Lady got back yet?"