IV

It was close upon six o'clock when a knock roused him from a sleep that

had not been easily won.

"It's yo' baggage, boss!"

"Baggage?" repeated Archie.

He had told the clerk he had no baggage and had paid in advance for his

room. His suitcase was at Walker's and it was hardly possible that

Walker had forwarded his effects. He opened the door cautiously and saw

at a glance that the bag was undeniably his. He groped for his trousers

and gave the waiting porter half a dollar.

"How did it get here?" he asked with attempted indifference.

"Don't know nuffin' 'bout it, suh; gemmen tole me tote 'er up. If it

ain't all right--"

"Oh, it's all right enough!" Archie exclaimed hastily, fearing to pursue

the inquiry.

He opened the bag and found that it not only contained all his

belongings but they had been packed neatly by an experienced hand. The

unaccountable arrival of his luggage sent his thoughts flying to

Walker's farm and the Governor.

Pleased as he was by the arrival of his effects, the reappearance of the

bag brought him back to earth with a reverberating jar. He was confident

that malevolent agencies were responsible; and to be reminded thus

sharply of the powers of evil just when he craved nothing so much as

slumber's oblivion was disturbing and ominous.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed idly smoothing the wrinkles out of

a pet necktie when a gently insinuating knock unpreluded by a step in

the hall caused him to start.

"Come!"

The door opened slowly, wide enough to permit a man's head to be thrust

in. A face wearing an amused smile, a familiar face but the last he

expected to see, met his gaze.

"Hist!"

The Governor widened the opening in the door and squeezed through.

"My dear Archie!" he exclaimed as he locked the door, "how infinitely

relieved I am! I was afraid some harm had befallen you, but to find you

here safe and sound fills my heart with gratitude."

He flung down his cap and linen duster, chose a chair by the window and

seated himself with a little sigh.

"I hope," Archie ventured timidly, "that you came alone?"

"Oh, yes; I'm alone! Trust me for that; but my friend Walker was not

easily shaken. A strong passionate nature, Walker; a man long habituated

to the lethal knife, the unerring pistol. No easy task you may well

believe to get rid of him. And his provocation! O my boy, his

provocation to justifiable homicide and all that sort of thing!"

"Well, I only did what I thought was right," Archie declared doggedly.

"I wasn't weighing the consequences."

The Governor, filling his pipe, lifted a hand to emphasize the

"splendid" with which he received this statement.

"Splendid, my dear Archie, to see how beautifully you rose to the

situation--a situation that spoke powerfully to your generous heart! If

there has been any error it is mine. I should have known from the way

you played up to the Seebrook girl that you were far too susceptible to

be trusted with women. The error is mine; not yours, Archie; I don't

blame you a particle. Indeed the incident warms my heart to you. Sally

is a winsome lass; she has a way with her, that girl!"

"I would have done the same thing for any girl in like circumstances,"

Archie declared, pacing the floor with shoulders erect.

"I dare say you would! Your heart and your sword are at the command of

any pretty jade who squints at you! But when I suggested that it might

be well for you to keep in practice I didn't mean for you to make a

monkey of yourself. Your true love--what did you say her name is?"

To recall Isabel to his memory was a greater mockery than the Governor

knew, but Archie met the question with well-feigned unconcern.

"I didn't say," he answered; "but her name is Isabel."

"Ah! One of the few really perfect names in the whole list! Rather more

style to it than Sally! And yet Sally has been used to good advantage by

the balladists. To 'Sally in Our Alley,' we might add Sally at the Churn

or Sally Softly Singing in the Corn, or Sally Leading Archie by the Ear.

The possibilities are exquisite."

"If you don't mind," said Archie with dignity, "we'll stop talking

nonsense. I want to know what happened."

"Just a little curious, are you, as to what followed your amazing breach

of hospitality? Ran away with a pretty girl, assisted in marrying her to

an undesirable son-in-law, and now you want to know how the old folks

take it! Oh, Archie, for sheer innocence you are a wonder!"

"Walker had no right to force a girl like Sally to marry an old

curmudgeon she hated. I never hesitated as to the course I should take

after she told me her story. The marriage was in proper form and I

haven't a single regret!"

The Governor rocked with delight.

"You didn't miss a stroke!" he exclaimed wiping the tears from his eyes.

"The marriage satisfied all legal requirements. Your work was only too

well done!"

"I'm glad you're satisfied," said Archie spitefully. "And if Walker is a

sensible man he will welcome the young couple home and make the best of

it."

"It saddens me to be obliged to speak the grievous truth when your

conscience is so pleased with itself. Let me deal in surmises a moment

before I hand you a few unhappy facts. Sitting with Sally down by the

brook and probably holding her hand"--(Archie flinched)--"holding her

hand perhaps, and strongly tempted to kiss her, you fell an easy prey to

her fascinations. She told you a plausible yarn as to Walker's cruelty

in wanting her to marry a tottering old widower and asked you to assist

her to elope with a sturdy young farmer who was even then waiting for

her by the old mill or the school house, or something like that. And

your heart swelled to bursting with the thought of serving one so fair!

Wholly natural, Archie, for I too have dwelt in Arcady! If that minx

hadn't told you she had a lover loitering in the background, you'd

probably have thrown yourself into the breach and eloped with her

yourself. Yes, you would, Archie! I must have a care of you or your

Isabel will never meet you at the altar!"

"We're not talking of Isabel," Archie interrupted haughtily. "I'll

trouble you to say all you have to say about Sally and Abijah."

"Abijah!" squeaked the Governor, again overcome by mirth.

For the first time Archie disliked the Governor. His unsympathetic

attitude toward the elopement was intolerable. A round of abuse would

have been more palatable than this ironic jesting. The Governor saw that

he had gone too far and immediately shifted the key.

"What you did, Archie," he resumed paternally, "what you did was to

marry Sally, the incomparable, Sally the divine, to Pete Barney, the

diamond thief. He took refuge with Walker a couple of weeks ago, and the

old man extended him his usual generous hospitality. Barney had been

well vouched for and had all the pass-words and countersigns of the

great fraternity, but Walker mistrusted him. A week is the usual limit

for a pilgrim's stay, and seeing how Sally and Barney were hitting it

off the old man gave the chap a hint to move along. He didn't go, it

seems, but hung round the neighborhood waiting for a chance to pull off

the elopement in which you so kindly assisted even to the extent of

bolting with Slippery Abe's car."

"You mean--you mean I married the girl to a crook?" gasped Archie.

"One of the smoothest in the game! And Sally knew he was a crook! I

suppose it was the diamonds that fetched her. If you'd looked at his

hands you would have noticed that he hadn't the paws of an honest Green

Mountain farmer. Pick-pocket originally and marvelously deft; but

precious stones are his true métier. The trifling little necklace he had

on his person when he struck Walker's is worth a cool hundred thousand.

He'll have to break it up and sell 'em in the usual way and it will take

time."

Archie sank upon the bed, twisting his hands together. He had done a

horrible thing, hardly second to murder, and his penitence weighed

heavily upon him.

"You are not chaffing me! It doesn't seem possible that the girl would

have deceived me!"

"We never know when they are going to deceive us, Archie! I hate to

think that Sally inherited a strain of lawlessness and yet she hated the

farm and was crazy to escape. I forgot to mention that she lifted a

couple of hundred dollars the old man kept under a plank in the parlor

floor--an emergency fund in case he ever had to run for it. A nasty

trick, I call it; most unfilial on Sally's part. The Walkers are crushed

by her conduct. They have tried to shield her from all the sorrow and

shame of the world; and there was really a very decent young farmer wild

to marry her, old New England stock, revolutionary stuff, aristocrats,

you may say. And if you hadn't muddled everything it would have come

about in time. But you will have your fling, Archie! You certainly

spilled the beans. And I had vouched for you at the Walkers'; it's

almost as bad as though I had betrayed them myself. You will not, of

course, make the serious error of knocking at the Walker door again!

That would be rubbing it in; but I hope you have learned your lesson. It

probably didn't occur to you that I might have been sore enough to

mention somewhere your connection with certain blood stains on the board

walk at Bailey Harbor. You should have a care of yourself!"

"I don't want you to think me ungrateful," Archie stammered. "The girl

made a fool of me; I see it all now!"

"She made a fool of you but you in turn made a fool of me! And while I'm

not caviling, you will pardon me, son, if I suggest that hereafter you

play square with me. I'm no saint, but I wouldn't desert a comrade or

stick a knife in his back. Please understand that I don't mean to curb

your personal enterprise, or set any limit on your little affairs of the

heart. You are not the first man who thought he understood women, and

you are not the last victim of that deplorable delusion. But let's have

no more foolishness."

"I haven't a thing to say for myself!" blurted Archie, who was at the

point of tears. "I was weak, miserably weak. I had no idea that any one

could lie as that girl did. And it's not fair for me to stay on with

you. I can't ask you to trust me again. We'd better part company right

here!"

"How completely you misjudge me, Archie! There's a charm in you begotten

of your very innocence and helplessness, and I should be very unhappy if

we parted now. We've shared some danger together and in spite of your

weaknesses I'm fond of you. And if I left you to your own devices

something quite disastrous might happen to you."

Discomfited and humiliated as he was the very thought of going out into

the world alone filled Archie with horror. Under Sally's hypnotic

influence he had concluded that the Governor was a negligible factor in

his life; but away from the girl and rankling under her deceit he

grasped at the Governor's friendship with the frantic clutch of a

drowning man. The Governor drew out his bill fold and extracted from it

a newspaper cutting.

"Note this, Archie, from a Boston paper of today. Our old friend Congdon

has stirred up the Boston police about the disappearance of his son. I

don't ask you to make any comment on that item; I merely call your

attention to the fact that Putney Congdon is on the missing list and

like ourselves Putney Congdon was at Bailey Harbor. Nothing particularly

startling in all this, as the police records show something like an

average of one thousand four hundred and thirteen missing or unaccounted

for persons in the United States every year. This paper says that

Congdon was seen by one person and one only at Bailey Harbor. That was a

garage man who sold him some gas--it was a stormy night--and

incidentally that night poor Hoky set sail for the happy isles. And the

date is further memorable from the fact that it was the occasion of our

first meeting. And the blood stains on the board walk of one of the

streets at Bailey--"

"Stop, for God's sake!" cried Archie. "I'll tell you everything; I'll--"

"You'll tell me nothing, because I refuse to listen! Confessing is a

habit. If I encourage you to confess to me you'll be pouring your tale

into the ear of the first policeman you meet. As things stand you are

not suspected, and if we follow my program you are likely to walk the

world in safety for the rest of your days. If I knew the circumstances I

might become nervous and I must retain my poise or we perish. Your

autobiography for the past week or so would make a ripping narrative,

but you'd better learn to forget. Our yesterdays are as nothing; it's

tomorrow we've got to think about. Those Congdons are rather a

picturesque lot as I catch them in cinema flashes. It appears from the

paper that young Putney's wife had left him, and there was some sort of

row about the children. The old boy we struck at Cornford will probably

be charging the absconding wife with killing Putney the first thing we

know!"

"Charge Mrs. Congdon with killing her husband! O my God!" wailed Archie.

"Control yourself, my dear boy! One would infer from that item that Mrs.

Congdon dropped off the earth after she left Bailey Harbor. She and her

children motored out of Bailey and haven't yet reached their house in

New York, for which she was presumably bound. By Jove, it's woozzy the

way these Congdons keep bobbing up! I'd give something handsome to know

how the old chap and Seebrook came out at Cornford. I learn that they're

holding Silent Tim, the chap I told you would be arrested, and our part

in the delicate transaction is already obscured."

Archie was giving the Governor only half attention. His nerves were

unstrung by the bald, colorless report of Putney Congdon's

disappearance, which shocked him all the more from the fact that it was

so hideously commonplace, merely a bit of journalistic routine. He

wished the Governor would stop reading newspapers. Now that the man's

disappearance had been heralded the police of the entire country would

be searching for him dead or alive and if his body were found there

would be a great hue and cry until his murderer was apprehended.

The Governor was unconcernedly sketching one of the diagrams with which

he seemed to visualize his plans. These he made in small compass, any

scrap of paper serving his purpose. Archie had supposed this was a means

of recalling places and highways and determining the time required to

reach a certain point, but the Governor was always at pains to conceal

these calculations or memoranda. Archie was startled now to hear his

companion muttering to himself:

"Aries, the Lamb, the Fishes! For a time I stumbled and walked in

darkness but the leading light is clearer now. The moving finger

writes--writes!" He dropped his pencil and gazed blankly into space.

Archie had caught one day a glimpse of several of the zodiacal signs

drawn on the margin of a newspaper where the Governor had neglected to

erase them; but he was astounded to find that he was in the company of a

man who took counsel of the stars.

"_Né sous une mauvaise étoile!_ You catch the sense admirably. Yes, I

was born under an evil star; just that! But if I haven't pondered the

mysteries unprofitably I shall emerge from the shadow in due season.

When you see me scribbling I am calculating the potency of the dark fate

that overhangs me and trying to estimate when if ever the cloud will

pass. Don't trouble your head with those fancies; leave them to me. Hope

is buoyed in me by the fact that never yet have my figures erred. The

night before I picked you up in the road I knew that you were walking

toward me out of nowhere, and I was charged by the planets to befriend

you. So here we are, pilgrims under heavenly protection!"

"I'm sorry; I don't want to leave you; I couldn't make it alone," Archie

answered, awed and meek under these revelations.

"It's very curious, Archie," the Governor resumed, making a little pile

of the scraps to which he had already reduced the sketch; "it's quite

remarkable that the light still hangs in the west for us. Since you

joined me it has been more brilliant. It may be that after all you are

destined to bring me good luck!" He paced the floor for several minutes,

then struck his hands together sharply. "All right!" he exclaimed. "It

has never failed me! The light is mild, feminine, we shall say, gentle,

persuasive, encouraging. It would be fatal to ignore its message."

Archie watched him for some gleam of humor, but the Governor had never

been more serious. His face lighted as he found Archie's eyes fixed upon

him.

"You were thinking just then that I've gone crazy; but I assure you that

I'm perfectly able to give myself all the tests for insanity; I should

recognize the symptoms immediately, from my ability to look into myself

with the detachment of a man who stands at a window and peers into a

lighted room. To return to practical affairs, we shall abandon Collins'

machine and I'll wire him where to pick it up. Then we'll entrain at our

leisure."

"If you don't mind my asking, I'd like to know where we're bound for?"

"New York, my dear boy; but you needn't be alarmed. It will be hot there

and we'll only pause for a day or so. We both need to freshen up our

wardrobe a bit."

Archie shook his head stubbornly.

"I haven't told you this, but I'm supposed to be in the Canadian

Rockies. It would be a risky business for me to show up in town! I might

at any turn run into relatives or friends who know I left for a two

months' absence in the Rockies. And incidentally, the same people

_might_ know I had been to Bailey Harbor."

"You're a frightful egotist, Archie! This is a large world and man's

memory is short. The man you dine with most frequently at your club

wouldn't remember in a week whether you told him you were going to the

Rockies or the Himalayas and if you met him on the Avenue he'd merely

nod and pass on trying to remember who the devil you were. But I renew

my sacred promise to take care of you; you may rely on me, Archie. Now

as always we invite the most searching scrutiny! If you see any old

friends I beg of you do not attempt to dodge them; shake one and all

heartily by the hand. We'll pretend that our black wool is as white as

the drifted snow, and no one will run after us shouting, 'Blacksheep,

blacksheep!'"

V

As the train flew along the Connecticut shore Archie realized with a new

poignancy the tremendous change that had occurred in his life since he

left New York, his birthplace and the home of his family for two hundred

years. Instead of lounging in clubs and his luxurious apartment he would

now go skulking through the streets with a master crook, and his

imagination was already intent upon the character of the lair to which

the Governor would guide him. He still swayed between the joys of his

mad adventure and its perils. He might, he knew, bid the Governor

good-by at the Grand Central Station, step into a taxi and walk into the

door of one or another of his clubs and bid the world defiance. The

serenity of his life as known to his friends would be a sufficient

refutation of any charge that might be made against him. No one would

believe the mysterious Governor if he were to declare on oath that

Archibald Bennett was a criminal who had left a scarlet trail across

three states.

It would be an interesting experiment to defy the Governor; but he

dismissed this as foolish and hazardous. The Governor had a long arm,

and having trifled with his good nature at the Walkers' it would

certainly be ungracious and in all likelihood disastrous to offend him a

second time. But the Governor's fantastic talk about the joining of

their stars in the west had touched his imagination. With all his

absurdities, and strange and unaccountable as he was, the Governor did

make good his promises. If he wasn't in league with occult powers he at

least possessed a baffling sort of prescience; and what was more to the

point he had apparently reduced to a fine art the business of keeping

clear of the authorities. If he could escape from the Governor it would

be to take up his old eventless life, with a recrudescence no doubt of

the ills that had so long beset him; and he had utterly forgotten that

he had ever been an invalid. He grinned as he reflected that he had been

obliged to shoot a man to find a cure for his nerves.

As the train drew out of New Haven the Governor, seemingly absorbed in a

magazine, covertly kicked him. A man passed slowly through the car,

carelessly eyeing the passengers. When he reached Archie's chair he

paused as though steadying himself against the swaying train. For a

moment he clung to the back of the Governor's chair, which was turned

toward the window, and his eyes surveyed the luggage piled under the

windows. The Governor swung round presently and remarked indifferently

without changing his position:

"Rawlings, the best man they have in the Department now. He's looking

for some one but let us hope it's not us. A very keen eye has Rawlings.

Not one of these sleuths in a black derby and false mustache you see in

the movies, but a gentleman and a man of education. He's probably

looking for that teller who cut a slice out of the surplus of a

Massachusetts bank last week. It's not our trouble, Archie. Embezzlers

and defaulters are not to my taste; we rather look down on that breed in

the brotherhood. A low order of talent; no brains; they're not in our

class."

"But it isn't necessary to advertise our sins to the whole train!"

whispered Archie, eyeing apprehensively their nearest neighbors in the

crowded car. "You haven't convinced me yet that we're not making a

serious blunder."

"Cease grumbling! If we wanted to play safe we'd both enter some home

for aged and decrepit men and sit among the halt and blind and toothless

until we became even as they. Rawlings' defaulter is encumbered, most

disgracefully, with the usual blonde, in this case the lily-handed

cashier in a motion picture shop; and a man of Rawlings' intelligence

would know at a glance that we are not villains of that breed. I

haven't traveled by this route for some time and I mean to keep awake to

enjoy the pleasant view. My historical sense is always tickled as I cut

across Rhode Island and contemplate the state house at Providence. If we

were not really upon business bent we might have run down to

Narragansett Pier or even to Newport for a breath of air. Newport!

Newport is adorable! I am far from being a snob, Archie, but Newport is

really the loveliest place in America. I grant you that Bar Harbor has

its points and even Bailey Harbor is not so bad--do pardon me, Archie! I

forgot for the moment your unhappy memories of that place--but Newport

alone is perfection gone to heaven! It would please me enormously to

join you in a little excursion to Newport, by yacht preferably; but if

it leaked out that we had been flying so high it would injure us with

the simple-hearted comrades of the great brotherhood. You can imagine

what a man like Red Leary would say if he knew we were dining at tables

where the jewels run into millions. And your young friend Abijah, alias

Pete Barney, would certainly cut our acquaintance if we failed to take

advantage of such glorious opportunities."

"How are you going to know whether we're watched?" asked Archie in a

frightened whisper when "Forty-second Street" flashed at him from the

wall of the tunnel.

"In a few minutes we'll know the worst," replied the Governor blandly.

"I beg of you be confident, be assured, be cheerful!"

At the station gates a man in gray livery stepped up and touched his cap

to the Governor.

"Ah, Tom; glad to see you again!"

"Thank you, sir; is this all the luggage?"

"That's all, Tom. Have an eye to Mr. Comly's bag; he's stopping with

me."

Archie dragged himself into a handsome limousine that was brought to the

curb by a chauffeur as impeccably tailored as the footman.

"Well, George, how are things with you?" asked the Governor pleasantly.

"Very good, sir; things running very smoothly, sir."

"Drive directly home, please.

"We may wander to our hearts' content, Archie, but there's no place like

home, particularly when it's little old New York," remarked the

Governor, sinking back contentedly.