A MYSTERIOUS SEARCH BEGINS
From a sky that had been rapidly clearing, a bolt fell.
Somewhere in the city, in what mysterious spot Baron could not surmise,
a search for Bonnie May began. Like a wireless message seeking
persistently for a receiving-centre, the quest of the unclaimed child
launched itself.
The afternoon delivery of letters at the mansion had been made, and
Bonnie May met the carrier at the door.
A moment later she entered the library, where Baron sat, and laid
before him a single letter.
He examined postmark and inscription without being in the least
enlightened. With a pair of scissors he cut the end from the envelope
and drew forth the single sheet it contained.
His glance dropped to the bottom of the sheet, and then he sat up
suddenly erect, and uttered an unintelligible exclamation.
For the first time in his life he had received an anonymous
communication.
The thing had the merit of brevity:
“_Do not give up the child, Bonnie May, to any one who does not present
a legal claim on her._”
A disguised handwriting. This was obvious from certain exaggerations
and a lack of symmetry.
He replaced the missive in its envelope, and then he took it out and
read it again.
The thing excited him. Who could be seeking the child, after days of
silence--even of hiding? And who could have known of his possession of
her? Again, why make a mystery of the matter?
He threw the puzzling words aside. People did not pay any attention to
anonymous communications, he reflected.
Nevertheless, he could not calm himself. He started nervously at the
sound of the telephone-bell down in the dining-room.
Responding, he heard Thornburg’s voice at the other end of the wire.
“Is this Baron? Say, can you come down to my office right away?” The
manager’s voice betrayed excitement, Baron thought. Or was he himself
in an abnormal frame of mind?
“Yes, certainly,” he replied. He added: “Anything wrong?”
“Why--no; no, I think not. I’ll tell you when you get here.”
Something was wrong, however--Baron could see it the moment he entered
the manager’s office, half an hour later.
He had to wait a little while for an audience. Thornburg was talking
to an actress--or to a woman who had the appearance of an actress.
She sat with her back toward the office door and did not turn. But
Thornburg, upon Baron’s entrance, made a very obvious effort to bring
the interview with this earlier caller to an end. He seemed vastly
uncomfortable.
“What you ought to do is to get a stock engagement somewhere,”
Thornburg was saying impatiently. “I might possibly get you in with
Abramson, out in San Francisco. He wrote me the other day about a
utility woman. I’ll look up his letter and see if there’s anything in
it. You might come back.”
He arose with decision, fairly lifting the woman to her feet by the
force of peremptory example. “About that other matter--” he moved
toward the door, clearly intimating that he wished to finish what he
had to say outside the office.
The woman followed; but in passing Baron she paused, and her eyes
rested upon him sharply. There was a suggestion of suspicion in her
manner, in her glance, and Baron had the vexing sensation of having
seen her before without being able to identify her. A furrow appeared
in his forehead. He made a determined effort to remember. No, he
couldn’t place her. She might be an actress he had seen on the stage
somewhere or other.
She and Thornburg passed out of the office and the manager closed the
door behind him. Baron could still hear their voices, now lowered to an
angry whisper. Thornburg seemed to be speaking accusingly, but Baron
could not catch the words.
Then this one sentence, in Thornburg’s voice, came sharply: “I tell
you, you’ve worked me as long as you’re going to!”
Then the manager, flushed and excited, re-entered the office and closed
the door angrily.
And in that moment Baron remembered: That was the woman who had stood
in the theatre, talking in a tense fashion with the manager, the day
he, Baron, had sat up in the balcony box with Bonnie May!
He had no time to ponder this fact, however. Thornburg turned to him
abruptly. “Have you seen the _Times_ to-day?” he asked.
“I glanced at it. Why?”
The manager took a copy of the paper from a pigeonhole in his desk.
“Look at that,” he directed, handing the paper to Baron. It was folded
so that a somewhat obscure item was uppermost.
Baron read: “Any one having knowledge of the whereabouts of the child
calling herself Bonnie May, and professionally known by that name, will
please communicate with X Y Z, in care of the _Times_.”
Baron dropped the paper on the desk and turned to Thornburg without
speaking.
The manager, now strangely quiet and morose, gazed abstractedly at
the floor. “I wish,” he said at length, “I wish she was in Tophet, or
somewhere else outside my jurisdiction.”
“But how do you know it is a _she_?” demanded Baron, indicating the
newspaper.
“I mean Bonnie May. I don’t know anything about that advertisement.”
For a moment Baron could only stare at the manager. He was wholly at
sea. He was beginning to feel a deep resentment. He had done nothing
that a man need apologize for. By a fair enough interpretation it
might be said that he had tried to do a good deed. And now he was
being caught in the meshes of a mystery--and Thornburg was behaving
disagreeably, unreasonably.
He leaned back in his chair and tried to assume a perfectly tranquil
manner. He was determined not to lose his head.
“This advertisement,” he said, “seems to solve the problem. The writer
of it may not care to take Bonnie May to Tophet; but at least he--or
she--seems ready enough to take her off our hands. Off my hands, I
should say. What more do you want?”
The manager scowled. “I don’t want anybody to take her off your hands,
nor my hands.”
“Why not? If they’re entitled to her----”
“I don’t believe they’re entitled to her. A child like that.... She’s
worth a lot to people who know how to handle her. Somebody who needs
her in his business is probably trying to get hold of her.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound reasonable to me at all. Somebody has had
charge of her. Somebody brought her to the theatre. Her mother, in
all probability.” Baron tried to speak quite casually. “Possibly her
father’s somewhere about, too.”
Thornburg glared resentfully at the younger man. “If her mother was
about,” he demanded, “would she have waited all this while to speak?”
Baron was silenced for a moment. “Well, then,” he asked at length,
“what is your sizing up of the case?”
“I think she was deserted, maybe because for the moment she was a
burden. I think some tin-horn manager is looking for her now. And
here’s another thing I know. I want her myself!”
“But you were just saying----”
“Well, then, my wife wants her. It’s the same thing. She made up her
mind, and now she won’t change it. When I went home that night and
reported that we couldn’t have her, she began to cry. She wouldn’t
leave her bed the next morning. She’s been sick ever since. She’ll lie
for hours at a time without saying anything but--‘I wish we could have
had the little girl.’ It’s nonsense, of course; but you have to take
things as you find them. The doctor says I must get her interested in
something--as if the thing were perfectly simple. If he’d ever run
a theatre he’d know what it means to get anybody interested. Well,
there....” He calmed himself suddenly and leaned toward Baron. His next
words were little more than whispered. “You see,” he said, “I’m fond
of her--of the wife. I don’t know if you could understand how I feel.
She’s all I’ve got, and there’s a good bit of the child about her, and
she hasn’t been quite well for a long time. She needs me to think and
plan for her--to understand her, as far as I can. You interested her in
this child. She wants her. And I want her to have her.”
“That’s plain,” said Baron. He was trying not to be too much influenced
by the manager’s sudden humility, his voicing of a need. So far as he
knew, he had his own rights in the case. And above everything else
there was to be considered Bonnie May’s right. If it seemed best for
her to remain in the mansion, there, Baron resolved, she should remain,
until he was forced to release her. “That’s plain,” he repeated. “I
think it makes the case simple enough. At least it makes it simpler.
Why not communicate with these people who are advertising? If they have
any claim on her you can come to terms with them. They ought to be
glad to see her placed in a good home. If they haven’t any claims, the
sooner we know it the better.”
“I don’t intend to pay any attention to them,” declared Thornburg. He
was sullen and stubborn again.
“Well, of course it isn’t up to you,” agreed Baron mildly. “It’s I who
must do it, as of course I shall.”
“That’s precisely what I don’t want you to do. That’s why I sent for
you.”
Baron flushed. “But--” he objected.
“Do you know what’ll happen if you show your hand? I’ll tell you. A lot
of mountebanks will be pouring into your house. They’ll make it look
like a third-rate booking agency. Your people will like that!”
Baron could see the picture: the grotesque persons at his door; the
sallow tragedian with a bass voice and no mentality to speak of; the
low comedian, fat and obtuse; the ingénue with big, childish eyes and
deep lines in her face; the leading lady with a self-imposed burden of
cheap jewelry. He saw, too, the big-hearted among them, gravely kind
toward children, and with a carefully schooled yearning for them.
He straightened up with a jerk. “Oh, that wouldn’t be necessary,”
he declared. “I could correspond with them through the agency of
the newspaper. I needn’t give them my name and address at all. I
could require proper proofs before I appeared in the matter at all
personally.”
This idea seemed to strike Thornburg as a method of escape from
a dilemma. “Why shouldn’t I have thought of that way myself?” he
exclaimed. “I can do it that way, of course. Better for me than for
you. More in my line, at least.”
“I’m inclined to think I ought to do it myself,” objected Baron.
“I really don’t see why I should leave it to you.” Something in
Thornburg’s manner had created a suspicion in his mind. There was
something too eager in the manager’s tone; there was a hint of cunning.
“If I give you my word?” said Thornburg. He was resentful, offended.
His face had flamed to the roots of his hair.
“Oh, if you give me your word,” agreed Baron lightly. “I’ve no
objection. Certainly, go ahead.” He scrutinized his stick with a long,
frowning inspection. Then he arose with decision. “I’ll leave it to
you,” he added. “Only, I want to make one condition.”
“Oh--a condition! Well, what?”
“You’ll not take offense, Thornburg. You see, I have certain scruples.”
His mind had gone back over several episodes, and his analysis of them
pointed unyieldingly to one plain duty. “I want to ask you just one
question, and you’re to answer it in just a word: Yes, or No.”
“Well, what’s the question?”
Baron looked steadily into the other’s eyes.
“The woman who was here in your office when I came in; who stood with
you in the theatre that day I took Bonnie May home----”
“Well?”
“Is she the--the former Mrs. Thornburg? Is she the mother of Bonnie
May?”
And Thornburg’s answer came resolutely, promptly, in the tone of a man
who tells the truth:
“No!”