SHE DOUBTS HER THEORY
One morning Eveley telephoned from the office to Marie that she would not
be home for dinner that night, as she was going with Kitty to hear the
minute details of her engagement, and the plans of her coming marriage
with Arnold. She assured Marie that she would be home early, begged her
not to be lonesome, cautioned her once more not to venture into the
canyon after nightfall, and went serenely on her way.
At ten o'clock that night she guided her car into the garage whistling
boyishly, and ran up the rustic stairs, stopping with painful suddenness
on the landing as she observed there was no light in the Cote.
"Marie," she called, "Marie!"
She looked anxiously over the little roof garden, and peered down to the
canyon. Twice she went up to the window, and each time drew back again,
afraid to enter.
She leaned over the railing on the roof, calling aimlessly and
hopelessly.
"Marie, Marie!"
A moment later she heard a light step below, "Oh, Marie," she cried and
her voice was a sob.
"It's me, Miss Eveley, what's the matter?"
It was only Angelo running up the steps to her.
"Angelo, what are you doing here?" she demanded sharply, her nerves on
edge.
"Oh, I was just fooling around," he said evasively. "I thought I heard
you calling."
But Eveley's nerves were too highly strung this night to brook an idle
answer. She caught him by the shoulder.
"Tell me where you have been and what you were doing," and there was
something like suspicion in her voice.
And then suddenly the little bit of foreign flotsam became a man, to give
her courage.
"Come inside and sit down," he said authoritatively. "I'll tell you what
I've been doing, but don't stand out here like this and get yourself all
worked up for nothing."
He threw up the window, and went in first, turning on the light, and
Eveley followed him numbly.
"Now sit down and I'll tell you. I have been sleeping in the garage ever
since you got mixed up with that bunch of Bolshevists and--er Greasers. I
thought something might happen and I've sort of stuck around. I had a key
made to the garage, and I've got a nice bed fixed up in the attic."
Eveley held out her hand with a faint smile. "You are a good friend,
Angelo, sure enough. But there was no danger. And oh, where can my Marie
have gone?"
"Are her things here?"
Acting instantly upon the suggestion, Eveley ran into the other room
followed closely by Angelo. Every slightest scrap and shred that had been
Marie's had disappeared.
"Maybe she left a note somewhere," said Angelo.
Frantically Eveley flashed through the small rooms, searching eagerly for
some final word or token. But there was nothing to be found.
"Some one has kidnapped her," she cried, wringing her hands. "We must
phone the police."
"I wouldn't do that--not yet. I'd phone for Mr. Nolan first. Let me do
it. And why don't you go down-stairs and ask them if they saw any one
around here to-day, or saw her leaving?"
"Oh, Angelo, that is fine," she cried. "I'll go--and you phone Nolan
quickly."
By the time she returned, Nolan was on his way to the Cote.
"She--she left herself--just walked away with her bag--alone," said
Eveley faintly. "I am afraid she did not--care for me." And there was
sorrow in her voice.
"Oh, sure she did," said Angela reassuringly. "That's why she left I
guess. She may be in bad in some way, and so she went off not to get you
mixed up in it."
"Do you think that, Angelo? Do you really? But she should not have gone
for that. I would have stood by Marie through any kind of trouble."
Angelo walked impatiently about the room, fingering endless little
objects, puzzling in his mind what to say and what to do.
"He could be here if he had taken a taxi," he said restlessly. "I told
him to beat it."
"We might phone Mr. Hiltze," said Eveley suddenly. "He may know where to
find her."
Angelo smiled scornfully at that. "Aw gee, Miss Eveley, ain't you on to
them yet? Sure they are working in cahoots."
Eveley sat down at once and folded her hands. "Now, Angelo, tell me
everything you know, or suspect about them. Begin at the beginning. You
may be wrong, but let me hear it."
But before Angelo could begin his little story, Nolan came springing up
the steps, and knew in a word all they had to tell.
"Sit down now, Nolan, and listen. Angelo thinks he knows something."
"Well, when Carranza got in, a lot of Mexicans had to get out. Political
refugees they call them. Marie is one of them."
"That is no secret," said Eveley. "She told me that herself. And it is
nothing to her discredit--rather the opposite I should think."
"Yes, but they are looking ahead to the next election. That guy Obregon
has promised to let all the refugees come back free and easy if he is
elected, and no questions asked. But they've got such a lot running for
president, that maybe they won't elect anybody and then Carranza will
stick on himself. And so the refugees on this side are working up a new
little revolution of their own, to spring on Carranza the day after the
election. And that is against the law, and the Secret Service is on to
it, and after them hot and heavy."
"The Secret Service," said Eveley slowly. "The Secret Service."
She crossed the room, and from her bag took out a small bit of steel
which she had carried there for weeks.
"The Secret Service," she said again, and held the badge tightly in her
hand.
"What have you there, Eveley?" asked Nolan.
"Nothing," she said, gripping it so tightly the sharp edges cut into her
hand. "Just a little souvenir--of Marie. That is all."
"Well, is there anything else, Angelo?"
"That guy Hiltze is a crook, too. He's what you call a Red. He's mixed up
with all the funny business going on."
"Are you sure, Angelo? You must only tell us what you really know."
"Well, they've got a lot of crazy shacks around town, and they hold
meetings. My dad goes to 'em. So a few times I went, too. This guy Hiltze
does the talking. He's got enough money. He don't have to sell autos for
a living, he does that for a blind, just like he strings Miss Eveley on
the Americanization hot-air stuff."
"Did you ever hear him speak?" asked Nolan.
"Sure. He says they are chasing him from cellar to garret, from mountain
to desert. He says they are the damned rich, and they got to keep him
harried to earth so they can grind the laborers under their heel. He
gives 'em all money for doing things, and hauling stuff, and getting
things across the border. I was there. He says they must pray God to
strengthen them to fight to the last ditch. He says the army and navy are
the slaves of the God of Money."
"I know he had rather--advanced ideas," said Eveley gravely. "But these
are such troublous times. Every one feels the lack, and the need in the
social life. He may have gone too far--but these are the days that try
one's soul. If it was only talk--"
"Aw gee," interrupted Angelo. "They ain't got no room to talk. I know all
about that stuff. I was over there with the rest of 'em, and I know. We
slept on straw, and dressed in rags, and lived like dogs. And they come
to a decent country, and get soured because they ain't fed up on chicken
and wine like a lord. It's a darn' sight more than they ever had before,
and the Secret Service needs to watch 'em. For they're the ones that did
for Russia--yes, and they're doing it for Germany now, and trying it on
Italy."
The Secret Service--the diagnostician of social unrest, with professional
finger on the pulse of the foreign element--had that finger touched the
wrist of Marie?
"But this isn't finding my Marie," said Eveley. "I want her."
"Let's call Lieutenant Ames," said Nolan suddenly. "I rather imagine this
will hit him."
"Oh, poor Jimmy," cried Eveley. "He told me he wanted to marry her."
Far into the night, they puzzled and pondered, not knowing which way to
turn, but all in their love of Marie resolved that she must be found and
saved again from the chaos. The next day, against the advice of all the
others, Eveley sent word to Amos Hiltze and seemed to feel some comfort
in his evident surprise and perturbation.
"I can not understand it," he said. "She was so happy, and loved you so
much. I will look for her. She may have taken fright at something--but
what could it possibly have been?"
"Tell her I do not care what has happened, nor what she fears. She must
come to me and I will help her."
In spite of the insistence of Nolan, Angelo and Jimmy Ames, Eveley would
have given the matter into the hands of the police, trusting to her own
promises and her own standing to save Marie from whatever they held
against her. But at her first suggestion of this to Amos Hiltze, he took
a most positive stand against it.
"If you do that, you have lost her forever. It is the police she fears.
She would never forgive you for putting her into their hands, even if you
could afterward extricate her. You must not dream of such a thing."
So Eveley gave it up and tried to reconcile herself to patient waiting,
and to prayers of faith, determined to believe that the persistent search
going on in all sections of the town would be effective, and believing
still more fervently that God must return to her again the sister she had
learned to love.
This time, because Eveley was suffering no one connected the
disappearance of Marie with Eveley's theory of duty. And to herself
Eveley made no claims, not even for her favorite Exception.
For if Marie had loved her, would she not have left at least one word of
sympathy, and affection, in farewell? Indeed, if she had loved her, would
she not have preferred the investigation of the Secret Service to
separation? For Eveley would have braved every court in the country for
her little foreign sister.
She tried to interest herself in the affairs of her friends, as of old.
She tried to return to her old whimsical routine of living alone in her
Cloud Cote, but from being a little nook of laughter and love, it became
ineffably dreary and dull. And Eveley was suffering not only because her
love had been slighted and her hospitality abused, but because everything
she had undertaken had failed. Americanization--what was it? For to Marie
she had given every good thing in her power--and Marie had used her as
long as she could be of service, and then had gone back to her own life,
to her own people.