THE POOL OF THE LOST SOULS
Willa went home at last in a daze of consternation which took no note
of the heightened storm. The unexpected catastrophe was a death-blow
to her long-cherished plan, but even that faded for the moment before
the stern anxiety for Tia Juana's safety.
The story which Willa succeeded in dragging from the Rodriguez woman
and José was simple on the face of it, yet many possible complexities
presented themselves to the girl's vivid imagining. Tia Juana had
seemed contented enough in her new abode for the first day, taking a
childish pleasure in the novelty of her surroundings, but later she had
become depressed and sunk into a moody silence save that now and then
she muttered ominously to herself and made strange gestures with her
claw-like hands.
José she had driven from her harshly, only to seize and draw him close,
and on the previous day she had eaten nothing, but crouched through the
long hours before the glowing coals of her grate. At twilight she had
demanded a large cooking pot which she placed upon the fire, and with
an earthenware jar of liquid and sundry packets of herbs from the
conglomerate heap of her luggage, she had brewed a concoction that
piqued her landlady's curiosity.
It had not pleased Tia Juana, however, and after glowering darkly into
its depths, she had flung it, pot and all, from the window down into
the back yard.
She had retired passively enough, but when the Señora Rodriguez came
with her morning coffee, the room was empty. There were no signs of a
struggle, the silence had remained unbroken throughout the night, and
the front door was found to have been unfastened from the inside,
although the Señora Rodriguez asserted that she had locked and bolted
it before retiring.
This argued that Tia Juana had of her own volition slipped away from
the house on some unknown mission, but to Willa such an hypothesis
seemed unlikely. In the first place, the old woman was heart and soul
in the plan in which Willa herself was the moving spirit, and well
content to leave all things to the guidance of her idolized young
friend. Then, too, she had the dread of the strange new city of one
who had followed a long and open trail and would scarcely in her right
mind have ventured forth to brave it on her own initiative. Had some
cajoling or threatening message reached her which induced her to play
into Wiley's hands, or could it be that Señora Rodriguez had been
bribed to aid in her abduction?
Fierce and implacable as Tia Juana's will was, age had taken its toll
of her mental strength and resiliency, and Willa shuddered to think of
the coercion which might be brought to bear upon her bewildered and
shaken sensibilities.
Dan noted his mistress' profound despondency, but ventured no remark
until she addressed him just as they reached the bridge once more.
"Dan, you drove a car once for a detective agency, you told me. Did
you ever do any detective work yourself? Do you know anything of their
methods?"
"I do, Miss!" he responded promptly, a sparkle dawning in his eyes.
"Not that I ever did any of it, but I used to watch the other fellers
at work and I'm thinking I could go them one better at it. I've seen
them make some bonehead plays, in my time, and some wonderful hits,
too, I'll admit that."
"Do you want to try a little of it for me?" Willa asked. "An old
Spanish woman disappeared early this morning from that house back on
Second Place, and I want her found without delay. It's she whom those
other men are after; she used to live with her grandson, a hunchback,
in that cottage upon the Parkway. There will be double wages in it for
you while you're working on it, and a thousand dollars reward if you
find her and bring her to me."
She went on to describe Tia Juana, and Dan listened in rapt attention
to every detail, fired with instant enthusiasm for the new job.
"You leave it to me, Miss!" he announced confidently when she had
finished. "I'll get into that house to-morrow, one way or another, and
have a talk with the landlady and the kid. I'll soon find out if they
know more than they've told. In the meantime, I'll make the round of
the hospitals to-night and have a look-in at headquarters to see if
she's turned up missing. Those fellers trailing us this afternoon
don't make it look as if they or the man they're workin' for could have
got hold of her already and there's a chance that she just wandered
off, like, on her own hook. I'll let you know the minute I've got a
line on her. Wish I spoke her lingo!"
"Oh, Tia Juana understands English well enough when she wants to, and
speaks it, too, but only when necessity compels it. She hates
everything American but me. I--I could not bear to think of her
wandering about, destitute and dazed and freezing in this storm! Dan,
you must find her for me!"
The erstwhile chauffeur promised, with extravagant protestations of
assurance, and it was evident that he was in thorough earnest, with
illimitable faith in his own powers.
His attitude of mind was infectious and when Willa descended before the
Halstead house her own natural buoyancy of thought had reasserted
itself, although the mystery remained as black and sinister as ever.
Wiley, still hors de combat from his thrashing at Thode's hands, could
scarcely have been a factor himself in this new development and if it
proved to be the result of any of his agents' activities, surely Dan
would be able to find some trace.
She passed a sleepless night, however, and arose to find a foot of snow
glistening on the ground and the air keen and brittle with cold. No
word came from Dan, and in the afternoon she threw discretion to the
winds and went boldly to the Brooklyn house.
Nothing had developed save that José had worried himself into a fever,
and the Señora Rodriguez's lamentations were tinged with a querulous
resentment.
The young Señorita was paying handsomely for the hospitality to her
friends, and she herself would gladly do anything to aid her
country-people, even if they were but Mexican Spanish and not of the
blood. Nevertheless, she was not to blame for the old Señora's
departure, she had not agreed to stand guard over her and surely the
Evil Eye had descended upon her house! She would nurse the little José
as though he were her own, and the old Señora's room should be kept in
readiness for her return, but she, Conchita Rodriguez, would worry her
own head no longer!
Willa placated the woman's displeasure with promises of more generous
pay, and arranged for extra care and comforts for José, whom the Señora
evidently regarded with a tenderness born of superstition; to aid a
jorobado brought luck to one's hearth-stone, even as the touch of his
humped shoulders gave promise of good fortune.
Secure at least in the thought of his well-being, Willa was content to
leave José in the hands of his irascible but kind-hearted landlady,
stipulating that daily messages should be telephoned to her of his
condition.
"And if anyone comes to inquire for him, remember that he is not here,
please," she added. "He and the Señora have both gone; that is, unless
a young American named Morrissey should appear. He is a friend of
mine, and trying to help me find the Señora."
"'Morrissey?' I shall not forget." Señora Rodriguez repeated the name
thoughtfully. "No one has been here to-day but a plumber, who arrived
without my order. He said there was a leak in the cellar next door
which came from my house and he did strange things to my pipes so that
now I can draw no water in my kitchen. Now my neighbor tells me there
was no leak, and I cannot understand. They do singular things, these
Americanos."
Willa returned to her home in a more despondent mood even than before,
and a telephone call from Dan late in the evening did not tend to raise
her spirits.
"I've canvassed every hospital and institootion in the five boroughs!"
he announced. "I even tried the morgue, but there ain't hide nor hair
of the old lady. Looks like the earth might have opened and swallowed
her up. I take it you don't want me to report her missing at
headquarters, do you?"
"Only as the very last resort," Willa responded. "We must avoid
publicity if we can, although of course if she is ill or in any danger
I shall have to let every other consideration go."
"You leave it to me, Miss!" The familiar slogan came as cheerfully as
ever over the wire. "I don't think the old lady's in bad, wherever she
is. Nobody'd dare do anything to her, would they? It ain't a
rough-house gang that's after her, from what you told me."
"No, Dan. I am not afraid of any violence to her at their hands. They
will only worry and annoy her."
"Well, the chances are, if she just wandered off and lost herself, that
somebody's taken her in. I'm doin' fine, so far. I had a grand talk
with the dame over in Brooklyn to-day, and she never once got on to me."
His tone was filled with such honest pride that Willa was loath to
disturb it, yet she could not forbear I remarking:
"I did, though, Dan, when she told me what had been done to the
plumbing! What did you find out from her?"
"Everything she knew and a lot that she threw in for good measure. I
didn't have to start her; she was just aching to tell the whole story;
how they came to her and all! If them other people get on to the
house, she'll spill the beans to them sure, Miss. She don't own that
house; she only rents it, and the next time I go I'll have an order
from the agent to put in weatherstrips or clean the chimneys and
grates. I want a talk with the lad as soon as he is well enough. I'll
report to you, Miss, just as quick as anything turns up."
Willa gave him some final instructions and hung up the receiver, to
find Angie at her elbow.
"You've been an unconscionable time!" the latter complained, veiling
her eyes to conceal their gleam of awakened curiosity and interest.
"We're waiting for you to make up a rubber. Who was that message from?
Any of the crowd?"
"No," Willa replied directly. "It was from a friend of mine; you do
not know him, Angie."
"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean to intrude.--Dear me! to-morrow's
Thanksgiving, and this wretched season is scarcely begun!"
It was a weary holiday for Willa and she sat through the elaborate
formal dinner with which the Halsteads celebrated it in an abstraction
of mood which gave two of her callow admirers much concern.
The presence of Kearn Thode's sister, however, brought her out of her
reverie and later, when Mrs. Beekman sought her out in the
drawing-room, Willa left her problem to take care of itself for the
hour in her interest in the breezy clear-eyed woman so like Kearn
himself.
"I must apologize for not coming yesterday, as I assured my brother I
would. An epidemic of something or other has broken out at my kennels
and I spent a disheartening and doggy afternoon." She laughed, adding
with sudden seriousness: "My brother has told me so many interesting
things of you, Miss Murdaugh, that I have wanted to really know you,
but I suppose you have been submerged in a sea of festivity with your
cousins. I am a gregarious person but not a conventionally social one.
I suppose that is why we have not happened to meet since that first
dinner; I do not follow the beaten path, as a rule."
"Nor I, except when I am led by the nose!" Willa responded, laughing,
too. "But tell me, is Mr. Thode improving?"
Mrs. Beekman gave her a swift, keen glance.
"Oh, yes! He suffered a mere scratch or two; you know what babies men
are about such things.--Look at them trailing in now from the
dining-room, fed up on the newest stories and the oldest cognac!
There's something almost tragic in their boredom, isn't there?"
Willa gasped, a little taken aback by her companion's cynical
frankness, and Mrs. Beekman laid an impulsive hand upon her arm.
"Come and lunch with me to-morrow; just we two. We'll have a nice
little chat and if Kearn comes bothering around I'll send him away. I
want you to tell me about Mexico."
Willa promised with an odd little thrill of warmth at her heart. With
the exception of fat, comfortable Sallie Bailey and old Tia Juana, the
girl had had no intimates of her own sex, and the competition appeared
to be so keen among the members of the set in which she found herself
that friendship was eyed askance as a subterfuge to be wary of.
The daily bulletins from Brooklyn were not encouraging, nor was Dan
Morrissey gaining ground in the search. Three days had passed since
the disappearance of Tia Juana, and Willa decided despairingly that
should a week go by without news, she must go to the police and brave
the storm of notoriety and questioning from Mason North and the
Halsteads, which would mean the end of her cherished secrecy and hem
her in with a multitude of complications.
She lunched with Mrs. Beekman as she had promised, in the dingy
old-fashioned house on the Square which somehow gave the girl,
untutored as she was, an impression of aristocracy that the newer, more
ornate piles of stone farther up the Avenue had utterly failed to
convey. She was miserably aware that the other woman was making a
sympathetic effort to understand her and gain her friendship, yet the
thought of Tia Juana drove all else from her mind and she knew she was
creating a far from propitious impression.
An unaccountable shyness, too, took possession of her at the
possibility of meeting Kearn Thode beneath his sister's discerning eye,
and as soon as she could courteously do so, she tore herself away from
her disappointed hostess and went over the bridge to José.
The cripple's fever had abated, but he was still very weak. His little
hot hands clutched hers nervously and his big eyes seemed to burn into
hers as he asked in his own tongue:
"The Señorita has a friend whom she trusts?"
"Yes, José," responded Willa promptly. "Have you seen him?"
"He came this morning, and told me his name. He said I was to ask it
of you, and you would tell me the same."
"Is it 'Dan'?" She watched the thin face brighten.
"That was it! And am I to trust him, too?"
"You can tell him anything as you would me, amiguito, but remember, no
word of the Pool!"
"That is written, Señorita Billie, on my heart!--But will the grandmama
ever return?"
Willa soothed him as well as she was able, and, after a brief
conference with Señorita Rodriguez, took her departure.
A man was standing near the bottom of the steps, lighting a cigarette.
Her eyes rested upon him with no flash of recognition until he glanced
up and then with a slow smile tossed his cigarette into the gutter. It
was Starr Wiley.
His puffed, discolored lips stood out against the pasty whiteness of
his face with the grotesque effect of a mask and his eyes gleamed
malevolently, but he lifted his hat with the old airy insouciance.
"We meet again, my dear Billie!"
She bowed gravely, and made as if to pass him, but he barred her way.
"Are you in such haste? I've come on purpose to escort you back over
the bridge and have a little chat with you. There is something almost
comic in the situation, don't you think?"
"If there is, Mr. Wiley, it is discernible only to you." She shrugged.
"I will leave you to the enjoyment of it."
"Not yet, my dear! Our bird has flown, I know, but I am curious to
learn why you haunt the empty cage."
Willa paused, eying him steadily.
"What is it to you, as long as the Señora Reyes is not here?"
"Because I believe that you will lead me to her more quickly than my
agents can!" Wiley's smile became a knowing leer. "Very clever, your
conversation over the telephone the other night, designed for Angie's
benefit! You knew that she would report it faithfully to me and you
counted on it to throw me off the track, but it didn't quite serve its
purpose."
Willa's heart gave a leap, and then sank in a sick wave of fear for Tia
Juana. She did not realize until that moment how certain she had been
that the old woman was in the hands of those whose interest it would be
to keep her safe.
Wiley's attitude betrayed the fact that he knew no more than the girl
herself where Tia Juana was. What, then, could have happened to her?
"I really must congratulate you once more!" he went on, ironically.
"It was a master stroke, a flash of genius, to spirit the old lady away
from this latest retreat of hers, and pretend that you, too, were in
the dark as to her whereabouts. It was not your fault that the shot
fell short of its mark!"
Willa hesitated. Should she tell him the truth? That would, of
course, give him equal ground with her and he would move heaven and
earth to beat her in the search, but in her hideous new anxiety she
would almost rather know that Tia Juana was in antagonistic hands than
face the vague but terrible possibilities confronting her.
Starr Wiley accepted her silence as an admission and on the instant his
manner changed.
"I have followed you here to tell you that the time is past for
quibbling, and no mere ruse will suffice longer to put me off!" He
moved close to her and glared down implacably into her unwavering eyes.
"You refused to meet me half way, and now you shall hear my ultimatum:
You will produce Tia Juana or take me to her within three days, or I
shall tell what I know!"
"Mr. Wiley--" Willa drew herself up very straight and tall--"I have no
statement to make about Tia Juana, save that I cannot and will not take
you to her. I have listened to your threats and innuendoes until my
patience is exhausted and I warn you not to approach me again on this
or any other matter. What you know is immaterial to me, you must tell
it to whom you please. Will you leave me now, or permit me to depart
without a further scene?"
He bowed and stepped back.
"As you desire. Remember you have three days. Think it over well, my
dear Billie. It is your present position, the Murdaugh money, a
brilliant future and a name, against the Pool of the Lost Souls!"