A FIGHT ON A HOUSE-BOAT
The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame and
opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power
to feign, if there be no remedy.--_Francis Bacon_.
At ten o'clock I called for a horse and rode out into the night,
turning into the country with the intention of following the lake-road
to the region I had explored in the launch a few hours before. All was
dark at St. Agatha's as I passed. No doubt Helen Holbrook had returned
in due course from her visit to her father and, after accounting
plausibly to her aunt for her absence, was sleeping the sleep of the
just. Now that I thought of the matter in all its bearings, I accused
myself for not having gone directly to St. Agatha's from the lonely
house on Tippecanoe Creek and waited for her there, demanding an
explanation of her perfidy. She was treating Miss Pat infamously: that
was plain; and yet in my heart I was excusing and defending her. A
family row about money was ugly at best; and an unfortunate--even
criminal--father may still have some claim on his child.
Then, as against such reasoning, the vision of Miss Pat rose before
me--and I felt whatever chivalry there is in me arouse with a rattle of
spears. Paul Stoddard, in committing that dear old gentlewoman to my
care, had not asked me to fall in love with her niece; so, impatient to
be thus swayed between two inclinations, I chirruped to the horse and
galloped swiftly over the silent white road.
I had learned from the Glenarm stable-boys that it was several miles
overland to the Tippecanoe. A Sabbath quiet lay upon the world, and I
seemed to be the only person abroad. I rode at a sharp pace through
the cool air, rushing by heavy woodlands and broad fields, with an
occasional farm-house rising somberly in the moonlight. The road
turned gradually, following the line of the lake which now flashed out
and then was lost again behind the forest. There is nothing like a
gallop to shake the nonsense out of a man, and my spirits rose as the
miles sped by. The village of Tippecanoe lay off somewhere in this
direction, as guide-posts several times gave warning; and my study of
the map on the launch had given me a good idea of the whole region.
What I sought was the front entrance of the green cottage above the
house-boat by the creek, and when, far beyond Port Annandale, the road
turned abruptly away from the lake, I took my bearings and dismounted
and tied my horse in a strip of unfenced woodland.
The whole region was very lonely, and now that the beat of hoofs no
longer rang in my ears the quiet was oppressive. I struck through the
wood and found the creek, and the path beside it. The little stream
was still murmuring its own name musically, with perhaps a softer note
in deference to the night; and following the path carefully I came in a
few minutes to the steps that linked the cottage with the house-boat at
the creek's edge. It was just there that I had seen Helen Holbrook,
and I stood quite still recalling this, and making sure that she had
come down those steps in that quiet out-of-the-way corner of the world,
to keep tryst with her father. The story-and-a-half cottage was
covered with vines and close-wrapped in shrubbery. I followed a garden
walk that wound among bits of lawn and flower-beds until I came to a
tall cedar hedge that cut the place off from the road. A semicircle of
taller pines within shut the cottage off completely from the highway.
I crawled through the cedars and walked along slowly to the gate, near
which a post supported a signboard. I struck a match and read:
RED GATE
R. Hartridge,
Canoe-Maker,
Tippecanoe, Indiana.
This, then, was the home of the canoe-maker mentioned by Ijima. I
found his name repeated on the rural delivery mail-box affixed to the
sign-post. Henry Holbrook was probably a boarder at the house--it
required no great deductive powers to fathom that. I stole back
through the hedge and down to the house-boat. The moon was coming up
over the eastern wood, and the stars were beautifully clear. I walked
the length of the platform, which was provided with a railing on the
waterside, with growing curiosity. Several canoes, carefully covered
with tarpaulins, lay about the deck, and chairs were drawn up close to
the long, low house in shipshape fashion. If this house-boat was the
canoe-maker's shop he had chosen a secluded and picturesque spot for it.
As I leaned against the rail studying the lines of the house, I heard
suddenly the creak of an oar-lock in the stream behind, and then low
voices talking. The deep night silence was so profound that any sound
was doubly emphasized, and I peered out upon the water, at once alert
and interested. I saw a dark shadow in the creek as the boat drew
nearer, and heard words spoken sharply as though in command. I drew
back against the house and waited. Possibly the canoe-maker had been
abroad, or more likely Henry Holbrook had gone forth upon some
mischief, and my mind flew at once to the two women at St. Agatha's,
one of whom at least was still under my protection. The boat
approached furtively, and I heard now very distinctly words spoken in
Italian:
"Have a care; climb up with the rope and I'll follow."
Then the boat touched the platform lightly and a second later a man
climbed nimbly up the side. His companion followed, and they tied
their boat to the railing. They paused now to reconnoiter--so close to
me that I could have touched them with my hands--and engaged in a
colloquy. The taller man gave directions, the other replying in
monosyllables to show that he understood.
"Go to the side porch of the cottage, and knock. When the man comes to
the door tell him that you are the chauffeur from an automobile that
has broken down in the road, and that you want help for a woman who has
been hurt."
"Yes, sir."
"Then--you know the rest."
"The knife--it shall be done."
I have made it the rule of my life, against much painful experience and
the admonitions of many philosophers, to act first and reason
afterwards. And here it was a case of two to one. The men began
stealing across the deck toward the steps that led up to the cottage,
and with rather more zeal than judgment I took a step after them, and
clumsily kicked over a chair that fell clattering wildly. Both men
leaped toward the rail at the sound, and I flattened myself against the
house to await developments. The silence was again complete.
"A chair blew over," remarked one of the voices.
"There is no wind," replied the other, the one I recognized as
belonging to the leader.
"See what you can find--and have a care!"
The speaker went to the rail and began fumbling with the rope. The
other, I realized, was slipping quite noiselessly along the smooth
planking toward me, his bent body faintly silhouetted in the moonlight.
I knew that I could hardly be distinguishable from the long line of the
house, and I had the additional advantage of knowing their strength,
while I was still an unknown quantity to them. The men would assume
that I was either Hartridge, the boat-maker, or Henry Holbrook, one of
whom they had come to kill, and there is, as every one knows, little
honor in being the victim of mistaken identity. I heard the man's hand
scratching along the wall as he advanced cautiously; there was no doubt
but that he would discover me in another moment; so I resolved to take
the initiative and give battle.
My finger-tips touched the back of one of the folded camp-chairs that
rested against the house, and I slowly clasped it. I saw the leader
still standing by the rail, the rope in his hand. His accomplice was
so close that I could hear his quick breathing, and something in his
dimly outlined crouching figure was familiar. Then it flashed over me
that he was the dark sailor I had ordered from Glenarm that afternoon.
He was now within arm's length of me and I jumped out, swung the chair
high and brought it down with a crash on his head. The force of the
blow carried me forward and jerked the chair out of my grasp; and down
we went with a mighty thump. I felt the Italian's body slip and twist
lithely under me as I tried to clasp his arms. He struggled fiercely
to free himself, and I felt the point of a knife prick my left wrist
sharply as I sought to hold his right arm to the deck. His muscles
were like iron, and I had no wish to let him clasp me in his short
thick arms; nor did the idea of being struck with a knife cheer me
greatly in that first moment of the fight.
My main business was to keep free of the knife. He was slowly lifting
me on his knees, while I gripped his arm with both hands. The other
man had dropped into the boat and was watching us across the rail.
"Make haste, Giuseppe!" he called impatiently, and I laughed a little,
either at his confidence in the outcome or at his care for his own
security; and my courage rose to find that I had only one to reckon
with. I bent grimly to the task of holding the Italian's right arm to
the deck, with my left hand on his shoulder and my right fastened to
his wrist, he meanwhile choking me very prettily with his free hand.
His knees were slowly raising me and crowding me higher on his chest
and the big rough hand on my throat tightened. I suddenly slipped my
left hand down to where my right gripped his wrist and wrenched it
sharply. His fingers relaxed, and when I repeated the twist the knife
rattled on the deck.
I broke away and leaped for the rail with some idea of jumping into the
creek and swimming for it; and then the man in the boat let go twice
with a revolver, the echoing explosions roaring over the still creek
with the sound of saluting battleships.
"Hold on to that man--hold him!" he shouted from below. I heard the
Italian scraping about on the deck for his knife as I dodged round the
house. I missed the steps in the dark and scrambled for them wildly,
found them and was dashing for the path before the last echo of the
shot had died away down the little valley. I was satisfied to let
things stand as they were, and leave Henry Holbrook and the canoe-maker
to defend their own lives and property. Then, when I was about midway
of the steps, a man plunged down from the garden and had me by the
collar and on my back before I knew what had happened.
There was an instant's silence in which I heard angry voices from the
house-boat. My new assailant listened, too, and I felt his grasp on me
tighten, though I was well winded and tame enough.
I heard the boat strike the platform sharply as the second man jumped
into it; then for an instant silence again held the valley.
My captor seemed to dismiss the retreating boat, and poking a pistol
into my ribs gave me his attention.
"Climb up these steps, and do as I tell you. If you run, I will shoot
you like a dog."
"There's a mistake--" I began chokingly, for the Italian had almost
strangled me and my lungs were as empty as a spent bellows.
"That will do. Climb!" He stuck the revolver into my back and up I
went and through the garden toward the cottage. A door opening on the
veranda was slightly ajar, and I was thrust forward none too gently
into a lighted room.
My captor and I studied each other attentively for half a minute. He
was beyond question the man whom Helen Holbrook had sought at the
house-boat in the summer dusk. Who Hartridge was did not matter; it
was evident that Holbrook was quite at home in the canoe-maker's house,
and that he had no intention of calling any one else into our affairs.
He had undoubtedly heard the revolver shots below and rushed from the
cottage to investigate; and, meeting me in full flight, he had
naturally taken it for granted that I was involved in some designs on
himself. As he leaned against a table by the door his grave blue eyes
scrutinized me with mingled indignation and interest. He wore white
duck trousers turned up over tan shoes, and a gray outing shirt with a
blue scarf knotted under its soft collar.
I seemed to puzzle him, and his gaze swept me from head to foot several
times before he spoke. Then his eyes flashed angrily and he took a
step toward me.
"Who in the devil are you and what do you want?"
"My name is Donovan, and I don't want anything except to get home."
"Where do you come from at this hour of the night?"
"I am spending the summer at Mr. Glenarm's place near Annandale."
"That's rather unlikely; Mr. Glenarm is abroad. What were you doing
down there on the creek?"
"I wasn't doing anything until two men came along to kill you and I
mixed up with them and got badly mussed for my trouble."
He eyed me with a new interest.
"They came to kill me, did they? You tell a good story, Mr. Donovan."
"Quite so. I was standing on the deck of the houseboat or whatever it
is--"
"Where you had no business to be--"
"Granted. I had no business to be there; but I was there and came near
getting killed for my impertinence, as I have told you. Those fellows
rowed up from the direction of the lake. One of them told the other to
call you to your door on the pretense of summoning aid for a broken
motor-car off there in the road. Then he was to stab you. The
assassin was an Italian. His employer spoke to him in that tongue. I
happen to be acquainted with it."
"You are a very accomplished person," he observed dryly.
He walked up to me and felt my pockets.
"Who fired that pistol?"
"The man in charge of the expedition. The Italian was trying to knife
me on the deck, and I broke away from him and ran. His employer had
gone back to the boat for safety and he took a crack at me as I ran
across the platform. It's not the fault of either that I'm not quite
out of business."
An inner door back of me creaked slightly. My captor swung round at
the sound.
"O Rosalind! It's all right. A gentleman here lost his way and I'm
giving him his bearings."
The door closed gently, and I heard the sound of steps retreating
through, the cottage. I noted the anxious look in Holbrook's face as
he waited for the sounds to cease; then he addressed me again.
"Mr. Donovan, this is a quiet neighborhood, and I am a peaceable man,
whose worldly goods could tempt no one. There were undoubtedly others
besides yourself down there at the creek, for one man couldn't have
made all that row; but as you are the one I caught I must deal with
you. But you have protested too much; the idea of Italian bandits on
Tippecanoe Creek is creditable to your imagination, but it doesn't
appeal to my common sense. I don't know about your being a guest at
Glenarm House--even that is flimsy. A guest in the absence of the host
is just a little too fanciful. I'm strongly disposed to take you to
the calaboose at Tippecanoe village."
Having been in jail several times in different parts of the world I was
not anxious to add to my experiences in that direction. Moreover, I
had come to this lonely house on the Tippecanoe to gain information
touching the movements of Henry Holbrook, and I did not relish the idea
of being thrown into a country jail by him. I resolved to meet the
situation boldly.
"You seem to accept my word reluctantly, even after I have saved you
from being struck down at your own door. Now I will be frank with you.
I had a purpose in coming here--"
He stepped back and folded his arms.
"Yes, I thought so." He looked about uneasily, before his eyes met
mine. His hands beat nervously on his sleeves as he waited, and I
resolved to bring matters to an issue by speaking his name.
"_I know who you are, Mr. Holbrooke._"
His hands went into his pockets again, and he stepped back and laughed.
"You are a remarkably bad guesser, Mr. Donovan. If you had visited me
by daylight instead of coming like a thief at midnight, you would have
saved yourself much trouble. My name is displayed over the outer gate.
I am Robert Hartridge, a canoe-maker."
He spoke the name carelessly, his manner and tone implying that there
could be no debating the subject. I was prepared for evasion but not
for this cool denial of his identity.
"But this afternoon, Mr. Holbrook, I chanced to follow the creek to
this point and I saw--"
"You probably saw that house-boat down there, that is my shop. As I
tell you, I am a maker of canoes. They have, I hope, some
reputation--honest hand-work; and my output is limited. I shall be
deeply chagrined if you have never heard of the Hartridge canoe."
He shook his head in mock grief, walked to a cabarette and took up a
pipe and filled it. He was carrying off the situation well; but his
coolness angered me.
"Mr. Hartridge, I am sorry that I must believe that heretofore you have
been known as Holbrook. The fact was clenched for me this afternoon,
quite late, as I stood in the path below here. I heard quite
distinctly a young woman call you father."
"So? Then you're an eavesdropper as well as a trespasser!"--and the
man laughed.
"We will admit that I am both," I flared angrily.
"You are considerate, Mr. Donovan!"
"The young woman who called you father and whom you answered from the
deck of the house-boat is a person I know."
"The devil!"
He calmly puffed his pipe, holding the bowl in his fingers, his idle
hand thrust into his trousers pocket.
"It was Miss Helen Holbrook that I saw here, Mr. Hartridge."
He started, then recovered himself and peered into the pipe bowl for a
second; then looked at me with an amused smile on his face.
"You certainly have a wonderful imagination. The person you saw, if
you saw any one on your visit to these premises to-day, was my
daughter, Rosalind Hartridge. Where do you think you knew her, Mr.
Donovan?"
"I saw her this morning, at St. Agatha's School. I not only saw her,
but I talked with her, and I am neither deaf nor blind."
He pursed his lips and studied me, with his head slightly tilted to one
side, in a cool fashion that I did not like.
"Rather an odd place to have met this Miss--what name, did you
say?--Miss Helen Holbrook;--a closed school-house, and that sort of
thing."
"You may ease your mind on that point; she was with your sister, her
aunt, Mr. Holbrook; and I want you to understand that your following
Miss Patricia Holbrook here is infamous and that I have no other
business but to protect her from you."
He bent his eyes upon me gravely and nodded several times.
"Mr. Donovan," he began, "I repeat that I am not Henry Holbrook, and my
daughter--is my daughter, and not your Miss Helen Holbrook. Moreover,
if you will go to Tippecanoe or to Annandale and ask about me you will
learn that I have long been a resident of this community, working at my
trade, that of a canoe-maker. That shop down there by the creek and
this house, I built myself."
"But the girl--"
"Was not Helen Holbrook, but my daughter, Rosalind Hartridge. She has
been away at school, and came home only a week ago. You are clearly
mistaken; and if you will call, as you undoubtedly will, on your Miss
Holbrook at St. Agatha's in the morning, you will undoubtedly find your
young lady there quite safely in charge of--what was the name, Miss
Patricia Holbrook?--in whose behalf you take so praiseworthy an
interest."
He was treating me quite as though I were a stupid school-boy, but I
rallied sufficiently to demand:
"If you are so peaceable and only a boat-maker here, will you tell me
why you have enemies who are so anxious to kill you? I imagine that
murder isn't common on the quiet shores of this little creek, and that
an Italian sailor is not employed to kill men who have not a past of
some sort behind them."
His brows knit and the jaw under his short beard tightened. Then he
smiled and threw his pipe on the cabarette.
"I have only your word for it that there's an Italian in the wood-pile.
I have friends among the country folk here and in the lake villages who
can vouch for me. As I am not in the least interested in your affairs
I shall not trouble you for your credentials; but as the hour is late
and I hope I have satisfied you that we have no acquaintances in
common, I will bid you good night. If you care for a boat to carry you
home--"
"Thank you, no!" I jerked.
He bowed with slightly exaggerated courtesy, walked to the door and
threw it open. He spoke of the beauty of the night as he walked by my
side through the garden path to the outer gate. He asked where I had
left my horse, wished me a pleasant ride home, and I was striding up
the highway in no agreeable frame of mind before I quite realized that
after narrowly escaping death on his house-boat at the hands of his
enemies, Henry Holbrook had not only sent me away as ignorant as I had
come, but had added considerably to my perplexities.