I
Out of the woods and once more on a smooth highway the stolen car sped
like a frightened ghost through the starry night. The Governor drove
with the assurance of a man who knows what he's about. Huddled in a long
ulster he had found in the cabin, Archie, whose ideas of motoring had
always been extremely conservative, yielded himself more and more to the
inevitable. He was no longer a free agent but a plaything of
circumstance. In no exaggerated sense he was a captive, a prisoner of
the man beside him, whose friendliness was flattering and alarming in a
breath!
At any moment they might be held up and subjected to scrutiny and
questioning, and Archie experienced a tingle at the prospect; but the
Governor had declared with apparent sincerity that he had never been in
jail and this in itself was reassuring, for presumably a man who so
keenly enjoyed his freedom was a skilled dodger of the law. The
Governor, who would have passed anywhere for a successful banker or
lawyer, had more of the spirit of the debonair swashbucklers of romance
than any other man Archie had known. He might be a great liar, and
Archie suspected that he was; and doubts of the man's sanity troubled
him not a little; but it sufficed for the moment that his comrade was
steering him rapidly away from Bailey Harbor, and so far had managed
the business with excellent judgment.
Occasionally the Governor lifted his voice in songs of unimpeachable
literary and musical quality that rang sonorously above the hum of the
engine.
"Who is Sylvia? What is she?
That all our swains commend her,"
he sang through to the end to the old familiar air; followed by "Drink
to Me Only with Thine Eyes."
They struck a stretch of road under repair and slowing up the Governor
remarked carelessly as he picked his way through a line of red lanterns:
"Speaking of women, my dear Archie, do you share the joy of the lyric
poets in the species?"
"Women?" gulped Archie, as surprised as though he had been asked
suddenly his opinion of the _gazella dorcas_.
"The same, Archie. It occurs to me that you have probably had many
affairs. A fellow of your coolness and dash couldn't fail to appeal to
the incomprehensible sex. I'm thirty-four but I've loved only one
woman--that's the solemn truth, Archie. Occasionally small
indiscretions, I confess; and I sometimes weakly yield to the temptation
to flirt, but with my hand on my heart I declare solemnly that only once
have I ever been swayed by the grand passion. And strange as it may seem
she's a bishop's daughter, though a saint in her own right! O wonderful!
O sublime!"
This confidence, vague as to the identity and habitat of the lady of the
Governor's adoration, nevertheless made it incumbent upon Archie to make
some sort of reply. The Governor would probably be disappointed in him
if he confessed the meagerness of his experiences, and he felt that it
would be a grave error to jeopardize his standing with his companion.
"Well, I'm in the same boat," he answered glibly. "There's only one girl
for me!"
"Magnificent!" cried the Governor. "I hope she's not beyond your reach
like my goddess?"
"Well, I'll hardly say that," Archie replied. "But there are
difficulties, embarrassments, you know."
"Possibly your choice of the open road as a career is a bar to marriage?
Such situations are always deplorable."
"It is quite the other way round with me," Archie protested. "It was she
who put me up to it!"
"What! Your inamorata wanted you to be a crook?" cried the Governor.
"She must be a wonderful girl! Shoplifter, perhaps? There are some jolly
girls in that business! Or, maybe she's one of these confidence women
who play a sure game and usually get by with it?"
"Nothing like that!" cried Archie hastily. "She just fancies the
life--thinks it offers me a good chance to prove my mettle. She hates
conventionality."
This reference to Isabel Perry, remote and guarded as it was, he
defended only on the ground that it was necessary in some way to meet
the Governor half-way in his confidences. And what he had said was
really true, though to be sure Isabel could hardly be held responsible
for the shooting at the Congdon house. He wondered what Isabel would say
if she could see him with a criminal beside him, joy-riding in a stolen
car. And it was no lie that he sincerely believed that he loved her. No
other girl had ever roused him so much, or given him so good reason for
standing off and taking a look at himself. His thoughts of her had led
him far afield when the Governor remarked ruminatively:
"Do you manage to see her? That's the devil of it in my case! The lady's
forbidden to recognize me in any way and the right reverend father is a
tart old party and keeps sharp watch of her. You'd think a girl of
twenty-two or thereabouts who spends her time in good works for the
heathen and runs a Sunday-school class in a slum would be indulged in
her admiration for a jolly rogue like me! But the facts are decidedly
otherwise. She's never quite brought her nerve to the point of breaking
home ties and bolting with me; but she's declined to marry all the
bachelor and widower dominies in the paternal diocese on my account. And
a young bishop of the brightest prospects. Actually, my dear Archie!
There's a steadfast soul for you! But I can't see her and the regular
mails are closed to us. Nevertheless we have an arrangement--highly
romantic, by which if she ever needs me or thinks I can serve her in any
way she's to leave a note in a certain place. It's her own idea and very
pretty. Savors of the good old times when bold knights went riding up to
the castle and yelled to the flinty-hearted duke inside to lower the
draw-bridge and send out his daughter to be married on the spot or he'd
be dropped in the moat with all his armor for a sinker."
Archie thought it would be a fine thing if he could make an arrangement
with Isabel by which he could hear from her on his travels and he
mustered courage to ask the Governor how he managed his line of
communication.
"The device is the simplest possible. In our jauntings we shall pass a
town where she visits a good deal--the home of an ancient aunt. It's a
jolly old place, big grounds, with elms and maples all round, and
there's a tea house with a tile floor, and there's a particular blue
tile under a bench that can be pried out with a pen knife. That's our
post-office, and much safer than registered mail. Of course my business
correspondence is a different matter. I pick that up in countless places
between here and California--reports of the boys, their hopes and
ambitions and hints of schemes for acquiring sudden wealth. If you'd
like to use some of these addresses and have mail forwarded I'll be glad
to oblige you. You know how fussy the government is about the use of the
mail for irregular purposes? Well, it rather tickled me to get some
envelopes with S. S. S. P. printed in the corner and the number of a
vacant lot in Sioux City as the address. A careless eye would think the
initials stood for some sort of learned society but the real translation
is Society for the Segregation of Stolen Property. I always use these in
communicating with the brotherhood."
"There's a good deal about the business I don't know," said Archie with
twinges of envy and admiration. "My bridges are all burned behind me and
I'm not getting mail anywhere; but I'll remember your offer."
Further conversation was ended by the swinging of a lantern across the
road.
"Ah!" exclaimed the Governor, with a curious rising inflexion. "I've
been looking for that."
He slowed up instantly and in a moment halted car. The headlights played
upon two men standing belligerently in front of the roadster.
"Good evening, gentlemen!" cried the Governor. "Short of gas or what's
the trouble?"
"We're from the Portsmouth police," answered one of the men while the
other ran to the rear of the car and swung a lantern over the license
tag.
"Maine tag," he shouted.
"Certainly a Maine license," replied the Governor. "We're deputy
sheriffs from Cumberland County looking for two crooks who've been
robbing houses up our way. Got blank warrants all ready to serve if we
catch the scoundrels."
Archie shuddered at the Governor's assurance. The Portsmouth officers
manifested the deepest professional interest and sympathy as the
Governor with an authoritative air flourished two documents.
"Burglar shot at Bailey Harbor last night," explained one of the
officers; "they found his body this morning and we're looking for his
accomplice. Guess he didn't come this way; we been on the road all
night."
"We've held up everybody that looked suspicious all the way down and
haven't seen a soul," the Governor replied in official tones. "Think the
chaps we're looking for skipped by train. What did the dead burglar look
like?"
"I talked with the Bailey mayor over the telephone and he said the dead
man was a big fellow, clean-shaven with the scar of an old knife wound
under his left arm. One of the cottagers shot him in his house, but he
got away--crawled down on the shore and died. Boston police
department's sending a man up to look at the body. Never knew so many
burglaries up this way. Must be a whole gang at work."
"Certainly looks like it," the Governor assented. "Well, if you see a
tall chap and a short thick-set fellow anywhere nail 'em for us. Old
criminals with long records. They've been enjoying themselves up our
way. The tall one doesn't say much, but the little chap is a smooth
talker--can talk himself right out of jail if you give him a chance."
"We'll shoot first and get an explanation afterward if we see 'em,"
declared the Portsmouth officer, as his companion buttoned up his coat
preparatory to getting back into the car.
"Glad to see you, boys!" exclaimed the Governor, backing the stolen
machine and then calling a cheery "Good luck!" as he passed their car.
Archie had been sitting pigeon-toed expecting that at any minute the two
officers would discover points in the stolen car to arouse their
suspicions; but the Governor's jaunty tone had evidently thrown them
entirely off guard. He had hoped that the Governor would press for
further details as to the killing of the burglar at the Harbor, but as
matters stood he had learned nothing except that a burglar had been shot
in one of the Harbor cottages and he was again torn with anxiety as to
the identity of the man he had fired at in the Congdon house.
The Governor began to chortle after a quick glance at the vanishing red
light of the Portsmouth car.
"Not the first time I've used warrants in that way! And they're good
warrants too. I plucked a bunch of such literature from a deputy sheriff
who got too inquisitive last summer and I had to grab and tie him to a
tree up near Moosehead where I'd gone for a conference with some of the
boys who were coming out of Canada. But I guess it's a sure thing those
Portsmouth chaps were looking for me! I'd been strolling round quite
freely with poor Hoky up the shore. If that chap had stuck his finger
into the paint this machine would have gone no further. We'll do well
to leave the main road for a while, then step briskly into a train
somewhere."
"Your nerve in describing us--you and me, sitting right there before
them--to those officers gave me a chill," confessed Archie. "If you'd
talked to them much more we'd have been pinched for sure."
"You flatter the intelligence of the police. There are not a half a
dozen detectives worthy of the name in the whole country. Possibly we
may have a contest of wits with some of them before we close the
season."
It had always been Archie's habit to greet courteously the policemen he
passed at night in the Avenue, little dreaming that the day would come
when he would view the policing of the world with contemptuous disdain.
The Governor spoke of policemen and detectives with pity; they were so
stupid, he said, though he admitted under Archie's cross-examination
that they could be a nuisance at times.
"Make yourself as conspicuous as possible and they're hardly likely to
bother you. There are times, of course, when one must hide, but the
mistake our boys make is in hiding in places where the police can call
them up by telephone and tell them to pay their own taxi fare to the
nearest police station. I call on police chiefs in a purely social way
now and then, and talk to them about the best way of reforming crooks.
It's their philosophy that no crook ever reforms; an absurd idea, of
course. But there's no surer way to ingratiate yourself with a big fat
detective than to ask how you can help poor repentant sinners, which
gives him a chance to discourage you. There's nothing in it, he warns
you. You thank him for his advice and ask him out to lunch. I've bought
expensive dinners for some of the highest priced crime-ferrets in the
game just for the joy of hearing their pessimism. They're all swollen up
with the idea of their superior knowledge of human nature. But it serves
a good purpose to cultivate them, for you're perfectly safe so long as
you listen and don't try to tell them anything."