Abner Fownes was apprehensive. Notwithstanding his success in obtaining
the appointment of Deputy Jenney as sheriff and the utter discomfiture
of Carmel Lee, uneasiness possessed him. He felt driven, pursued.
Events marshaled their forces against him with a sort of sinister
inexorability. Being a man of superior intelligence, he was able to see
the intricacies and dangers of his position more surely than a lesser
man could have done; and as he sat in the train on his return to Gibeon
he took stock of himself, reviewed the past, and prepared himself for
the future.
To see Carmel Lee in the capital was a shock. He had not expected to
see her, but, on the contrary, was awaiting reports on the success of
his plan to eliminate her.... It was his first piece of bad luck; the
first time things had worked out crookedly for him, and it alarmed
him. Every successful man believes in his luck, and now Fownes was
apprehensive lest luck had deserted him.
That Carmel had accused him of crimes in the Governor’s presence did
not alarm him especially--except for this: that anybody would dare
to speak such words concerning him. It was not the thing uttered,
the person who listened, but that fact of the utterance. Hitherto
people had been afraid of him, but this girl was unafraid.... It must
mean something, some turning of the tide. He felt a trembling of his
foundations.
It is at such a moment that a man of Fownes’s type is most to be
feared. He was vain; his position in the world meant more to him than
any other consideration. To have that position assailed, to face the
possibility of being thrust from his eminence in ignominy, was an
eventuality he would avert by any means within reach of his hand.
Indeed, he had already reached for the weapon--but luck had intervened.
He felt stifled by adversities. Never before had he doubted his ability
to come through this emergency with satisfaction to himself. He had
believed in himself. Even when he had been forced outside the law to
protect his position, he regarded it only as a makeshift, undesirable,
perhaps, but necessary to him, and therefore permissible. It had been
his intention to stabilize his business again, and then to withdraw to
lawful practices and a life of conscious rectitude.... But adversities,
of late, erected themselves with such rapidity! Money was required
of him when he had hoped promises to pay would have sufficed; he was
rushed into expedients endangering the whole edifice of his life. So
far there had been no slip, but he was intelligent enough to perceive
there might be a slip....
A slip would not be so dangerous if it were not that Carmel Lee were
standing, watching always, ready to pounce upon any mishap. She and
that professor fellow!... Evan Pell, with a natural adaptability for
snooping. Fownes had him dismissed from the schools because he snooped
into his affairs.... It was therefore essential that both these
individuals should be rendered no longer a menace.
There was Sheriff Churchill.... Well, there was something which could
never be brought home to him. It had been well and successfully
managed.... But he wanted no more of that--unless absolute necessity
demanded.
If he could have married the girl! That would have shut her mouth and
at the same time have given him a desirable wife--one whom he would
have taken pride in introducing into such functions as that which he
had attended at the capital.... But he could not marry her.... She
could be made to disappear as Churchill had disappeared--but three
disappearances would be rather too many. If three persons vanished,
folks would regard it as rather more than a coincidence. Therefore
Carmel and Pell would not vanish unless all other expedients failed.
If, however, he could keep his word to her; if he could smash her
life, place her in a position which would overwhelm her, destroy
her self-respect, send her crashing down in some infamous way--that
would serve so much better.... He had found the way to do it, but
luck intervened. Instead of being where he intended she should be,
Carmel appeared safely in the capital--and multiplied the danger she
represented.
He wondered if the whole scheme had gone awry. There was no word
from Jenney. Nothing as to the whereabouts of Evan Pell. Pell was of
importance in Fownes’s plan--indispensable to it. Deputy Jenney was
indispensable to it, as were Peewee Bangs and his Lakeside Hotel....
The plan had been so simple and would have been so effective.
If Carmel had not gone to the capital, but, instead, had adventured to
the Lakeside Hotel to investigate the mysterious note--the rest was
simple. She would have been followed; Pell would have been followed.
To seize and imprison the pair in a room in the unsavory Lakeside
Hotel would have been a mere matter of a couple of strong arms....
To imprison them in the same room! Following that, the room being
set according to the demands of the occasion, the hotel would have
been raided. Deputy Jenney, that public-spirited official, would have
conducted the raid.... The posse would have found Carmel and Pell in
their room, surrounded by evidences of such orgies as the Lakeside
was famous for. They would have been arrested together, taken to the
jail.... That was all, but it would have sufficed. Never again could
Carmel hold up her head; she would be destroyed utterly, driven out of
Gibeon, made forever ineffective. It was really better than killing her
outright....
Abner alighted at Gibeon’s depot and was driven to his office. He
summoned Jenney, who came with alacrity.
“Well, Sheriff?” said Abner, jocularly.
“Much obleeged,” said Jenney.
“What happened?”
“The girl went off some’eres in Whitefield’s auto. Didn’t git back till
some time in the mornin’.... But we got _him_.”
“Eh?”
“We got him--the perfessor.”
Fownes considered that. They had the professor--but he was worse than
useless alone, he was a menace. So long as Carmel Lee was at liberty,
Evan Pell, as a prisoner, was a constant danger. No telling what the
girl would do. Besides, she was allied with Jared Whitefield--and
Whitefield was no man to overlook. Abner scowled.
“Where is he?”
“Out to Peewee’s.”
“He went out there?”
“Came spyin’ around. Kind of clever about it, too. We almost missed
him.... But we didn’t?”
“Is he hurt?”
“Mussed up some. No hurt to speak of.”
“And to-night the big shipment comes in.”
“Your orders.”
“We’ve got to get the girl,” Abner said. “Have her watched every
instant. Have everything in readiness. If she puts her foot in a spot
where you and your men can take her, don’t lose a minute.” His voice
lifted with excitement. “Get her. Do you hear?... Get her!”
“Where’s Whitefield?” Jenney said.
“How should I know?”
“I _want_ to know.... You can’t handle him like you can this girl. He’s
gone some’eres, and I want to know where and why.”
Fownes scowled, but made no rejoinder.
“I don’t like the way things is goin’,” Jenney said, sulkily. “I feel
like I was gittin’ cornered.”
“You’re sheriff, aren’t you? Who’ll corner you. You’re frightened,
Jenney. Men who get frightened aren’t useful to me. Now, get out of
here. You know what you’ve got to do. Do it.”
“Town meetin’ to-morrer. I got to be there.”
“You’ll be some place beside at a town meeting, Sheriff, if that girl
is allowed to run around another twenty-four hours.... Git!”
Jenney went out slowly, much perturbed. He was a man of consequence
to-day. Yesterday he had been nobody but Deputy Jenney, a political
henchman, a nobody. To-day his life’s ambition was realized; he
bestrode the pinnacle of his hopes. He had achieved the position toward
which he had labored and schemed for a dozen years. What happened
to Deputy Jenney was more or less inconsequential. As Deputy Jenney
he dared take chances--for money or for advancement. But as Sheriff
Jenney!... That was a different matter. Very gladly, now, would he have
extricated himself from his entanglements and conducted himself as,
according to his system of ethics, a man of mark should do. Why, he was
the biggest man in the county--with a salary and fees and patronage!...
Well, he was in it and he must protect himself.... Damn Fownes, anyhow.
He did not pause to consider that without Fownes and his connection
with the whisky-smuggling industry he would never have become
sheriff.... That was forgotten. Like many men, he ignored the ladder
by which he had climbed. In this case, however, the ladder declined to
ignore him. If Jenney had ever heard the word _sardonic_ he would have
made telling use of it now.... How many men are trammeled by inadequate
vocabularies!
His first step was cautiously to call Peewee Bangs by telephone, and in
his conversation Jenney disclosed a kind of apt and helpful humor of
which few would have accused him.
“Hello, Peewee!” he said. “That you?”
“It’s me, Sheriff.”
“H’m!... Got that bundle of school books safe?” Jenney chuckled a
little at this. He considered it very acute indeed--to describe Evan
Pell as a bundle of school books.
“Got ’em tight,” said Peewee. “And the bookcase door’s locked. Was jest
lookin’ ’em over. Gittin’ me an eddication, so to say.”
“Was the bindin’s injured much?”
“Not to speak of. One of the covers was tore off, but it kin be patched
on ag’in with glue, seems as though. Hain’t no pages tore.”
“It’s too bad we got to keep ’em alone,” said Jenney. “I’m figgerin’
on addin’ to the lib’rary.... Durin’ the day or night. You be ready
to take care of another volume. ’Tain’t so educational as the other
figgers to be, but it’s put up in a dum sight pertier cover.”
“I git you,” said Peewee. “The librarian’ll be on the job. Got any idee
what hour you’ll deliver?”
“May be any hour. Sit tight, and don’t on no account lose what we got.
What we want, Peewee, is a nice, complete eddication, and we can’t git
it ’less we have both them books to study side by side.”
“Uh huh.... An’ say, Sheriff, the pantry’s all ready fer that shipment
of catchup. Quite a consignment, eh? Never had so much catchup in the
house before.”
“Too doggone much. I was ag’in it.... But it’s comin’, and we got to
look out f’r it.”
“Five loads,” said Peewee.
“Comin’ different roads.”
“Mebby ye kin dispose of some of it if the order’s too big fer your own
use.”
“I kind of arranged to,” said Peewee. “Everythin’s all right _this_
end.”
“For Gawd’s sake,” said Jenney, betraying for a moment his anxiety,
“don’t let nothin’ slip.”
“I’ll tend to my end if you tend to your’n,” snapped Mr. Bangs.
Directly following this conversation, Jenney detailed two trustworthy
gentlemen to keep an eye on Carmel Lee. It was pointed out to them to
be their duty not to lose sight of her an instant, and, on pain of
certain severe penalties, to let no opportunity slip to induce her to
join Evan Pell at the Lakeside Hotel.... It was these two gentlemen
who, gratefully, saw her take her way out of town in the late evening,
following the very road they would have chosen for her. They made sure
she was alone, that no one was coming after her, and then took to
themselves the office of escort. Quite gleefully they followed her, as
she, unconscious of their presence, trudged toward the hotel. She was
so thoughtful as to save them even the small trouble of transporting
her.
“Like the feller that let the bear chase him into camp so’s he could
shoot his meat nigh home,” whispered one of the gentlemen.
Carmel proceeded rapidly; too rapidly for such precautions as she
should have observed. She was without plan; her mind was in such chaos
as to render planning futile. Instinct alone was not inactive....
No matter how shaken the objective faculties may be, those superior
subjective intuitions and inhibitions and urgings never sleep. Their
business is so largely with the preservation of the body which they
inhabit that they dare not sleep.
Quite without thinking; without a clear idea why she did so, Carmel
turned off the road and took to the woods. Self-preservation was at
work. Instinct was in control.... The gentlemen behind quickened their
pace, disgruntled at this lack of consideration on the part of their
quarry.... It was with some difficulty they found the place where she
entered the woods.... Carmel herself had vanished utterly. In that
black maze, a tangle of slashings, a huddle of close-growing young
spruce, it was impossible to descry her, to tell in which direction
she had turned. Nor did they dare make use of a flashlight in an
effort to follow her trail. However, they must needs do something, so,
keeping the general direction of the hotel, paralleling the road, they
proceeded slowly, baffled, but hopeful....