with the napkin, "with your hair all cobwebs and all that dirt on
your knees and those finger-marks on your apron, and being so small
and all"--he began to chuckle again.
"Small?" she repeated portentously.
"Oh, I didn't mean small compared with--with anybody else the same
size," he assured her quickly.
Catching her mollified glance, he went on more soberly.
"And how did you get in, now? No doors, I'll bet."
"Under the kitchen porch, through the little cellar window and up
the back stairs," she explained.
"You mean to say you were out in that little back hall and I never
heard you?"
She nodded. "I took pains to be still," she added, "so as to
surprise the--so if there had been--"
"I understand," he said gravely, "so as to get them if they had been
there. Well, you'd have done it. You're all right. Now, I suppose
you're wondering what all this means, aren't you? You haven't got
any idea who I am, have you? You don't know one single thing about
me, and you may be thinking--"
"I know one thing about you," she interrupted, "I know you went to
Yale."
The man's jaw dropped, his hands gripped the arm of the chair.
"And how in--how did you know that?" he cried roughly, with blazing
eyes.
Caroline shrank a little but faced him.
"Your pin," she said, pointing to his vest, "I saw it when you held
your arm up."
The man sank back in his chair and fingered the little jeweled badge
unconsciously.
"Well, of all the cute ones ... so you've seen this before?" he
suggested.
"Of course I have--my brother has one, and my Uncle Joe and Uncle
Lindsay and Cousin Lindsay and Cousin Joe."
"All went to Yale?" he inquired.
"Lindsay and Joe are there now--they're seniors," she informed him.
"The General's going when he grows up. All the Holts go there.
Grandfather Holt went."
"You don't say," said the man, bending forward in genuine interest,
"I guess it's a pretty good college, eh?"
"The best of them all," she assured him.
"I'll tell you an awful funny thing," she went on abruptly, "you
know all the Holts look alike. Well, when Uncle Lindsay first went
to Yale, he was walking along the Campus, and right by Old South
Middle he met the President. And the President stopped and said,
'Well, well, I see the race of Holts is not yet extinct. Good
afternoon, sir!' _The President._ And he never saw him before!"
The man shook his head thoughtfully.
"You don't say," he repeated. "Old South Middle--that's it. That's
the one."
Suddenly he shrugged his shoulders and took out his watch. "This'll
never pay the rent!" he said briskly. "Now let's get to business. I
suppose you were surprised to see all that stuff in the suit-case?"
Caroline nodded and grinned back at him, his own quick smile was so
friendly and compelling.
"Well," he continued, rising and bunching the napkin beside his
plate, "I don't blame you. Not a bit. I'd have been the same myself.
And you'll be even more surprised when you find out what I'm
doing--that is," he stopped abruptly, "unless your Uncle Joe has
told you already and sent you over to help?"
She shook her head.
"Didn't, eh?" he stepped over to the sideboard, wiping off the knife
and fork he had been using, and packed them with the others.
Caroline, watching his hands, noticed in the corner of the case a
familiar chamois skin bag; she had often seen it on Aunt Edith's
bureau.
"Well, now," he continued, "If I had a niece as sharp and smart and
quiet as you are, Missy, I'd tell her my plans, I would, and get her
to help me. I wonder your uncle didn't. Sure he didn't mention
me--Mr. Barker?"
Again she shook her head, her eyes fastened to the bag.
"Well," said the man, shutting down the cover of the suit-case and
strapping it tightly, "it's this way. You may have heard your uncle
say something about it being kind o' careless, leaving the house so
much alone? Anyhow, whether he's talked to you or not about it, he
has to me often enough."
"Oh, yes!" Caroline was conscious of a distinct sense of relief.
"I've often heard him. Then you _do_ know Uncle Joe?"
The man faced her, starting in violent surprise.
"Do I know Uncle Joe?" he repeated; "do I _know_ him?" He shook his
head feebly and gazed about the room. "She says, do I know Joe Holt!
And what should I be doing, eating my lunch here, if I didn't?" he
demanded. "What should he tell me about his troubles for, and ask me
to help him, if I didn't know him? Is it likely I'd be packing his
silver in my suit-case if I didn't know him?"
Caroline stood abashed.
"I should think you might guess by this time what the joke is," he
went on forgivingly, seeing that she was quite overcome with her own
stupidity, "but as I have to get away pretty quick now, I'll tell
you. You see, Joe isn't coming right back with your aunt; he's going
on to Chicago, and that may keep him some time away--"
("I know," Caroline interpolated), "and he wanted your aunt to have
somebody stay in the house to look after it--he felt worried. But
no, she wouldn't. Wouldn't even get a dog--that is," eyeing Caroline
steadily, "unless she's got one lately, but when I last heard--"
"No," she assured him, "she wouldn't. Aunt Edith hates dogs."
"So Joe told me. 'Now what would you do, Henry,' says Joe to me,
that's my name, Henry Barker, 'what would you do with a woman like
that?'
"'Do, Joe?' says I, 'why, I'll tell you what I'd do, I'd teach her a
lesson, that's what. I'd I'd give her one good scare, and then you'd
find she'd take your advice, after that.'"
At this point the man reached for his overcoat and began to struggle
into it.
"'But I don't know how to, Henry,' says he. 'You don't?' says I,
'nothing easier. Just tip somebody off when the house is empty and
they'll run up and slip in, take what silver and jewelry they can
find in a hurry, pack it up careful and hide it away wherever you
say. Then when your wife gets back and finds 'em gone, there'll be
the d---- there'll be a row, and when she says it's her fault for
not leaving the servants in the house, and she'll never do it again,
then you say, 'All right, my dear, I'm glad you've learned your
lesson,' and step out and get the bag! How's that?' I said."
He put his hat on, drew a pair of gloves from his pocket, and looked
hard at Caroline; her answering glance was troubled and
non-committal. He scowled slightly and rested one hand on the bag.
"'All very well, Henry,' says Joe to me, 'but who's to do all this?
I don't know anyone that would dare to, let alone be willing,'" he
went on, glancing hurriedly around the room. "'You know as well as I
do that if they should get caught doing it, anybody would swear
'twas burglary plain and simple, and run' em right in. They'd call
the police. It would look bad for whoever did it, you know,' he
said."
"He might have asked me. I'd love to do it," Caroline muttered
resentfully.
As a matter of fact the scheme was sufficiently like many a
practical joke of her irrepressible uncle. Better than anyone,
Caroline, his conspirator elect, knew the lengths he was capable of
going to confound or scandalize his adjacent relatives.
"Of course," said the man, with relief in his voice, "that's why I
asked you if he hadn't. I guess he was afraid you wouldn't dare. I'd
have trusted you, though, myself."
She looked gratefully at him.
"Then, I said, 'Why, Joe, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll
do it myself,'" he concluded, lifting the suit-case from the
sideboard and grimacing at its weight. "'What's the good,' says I,
'of calling yourself a friend, if you can't run a little risk? Just
tell me the day to come and where you want 'em put--be sure you pick
a good safe place--and I'll 'tend to it for you,' I said, 'and
you'll do as much for me some day when I'm in a tight place.'"
He settled his hat firmly and moved to the long window.
"I'll have to hurry if I don't want to lose my train," he explained.
"But where's the place?" Caroline cried excitedly; "what place did
Uncle Joe pick out? Won't you tell me? I won't tell--truly, I
won't!"
The man paused with one hand on the window button, and looked
thoughtfully at her.
"By George," he announced, "I've a good mind to tell you! I'm not
supposed to tell a soul, you know, but you've been such a brick, and
being his own niece and all, I think you've got a _right_ to know, I
really do."
Caroline nodded breathlessly.
"Look here!" he cried, "I'll trust you if your uncle won't. I don't
like the place he told me, much--it isn't safe enough. There's two
thousand dollars' worth of stuff here, counting the--counting
everything, and an old barn's no place for it. See here. You promise
me to stay here for an hour--one hour exactly, by the clock--and
I'll leave this bag at your house for you. Then you can hide it
under your bed, or anywhere you want, till to-morrow, and then you
can manage the rest to suit yourself. How's that?"
"Oh, that would be grand!" she gasped.
"You can just tell your uncle that I saw you were game and I trusted
you, if he wouldn't," he concluded, opening the window, "and I'll
take this to your house in half an hour. Will you promise not to
leave for an hour? We mustn't be seen together, you know, or people
might suspect and then the game'd be up. And will you lock this
window after me and go out the same way you came?"
"Yes, yes! I promise, I promise solemnly!" she assured him, flushed
with importance, "and tell 'em not to open it, will you? They might.
Say it's private for me, will you?"
"All right," he said soberly. "I'm kind o' sorry they went to Yale,"
he added abruptly. "I'd rather--sh! what's that?"
He stood rigidly listening; his eyes rolled back, his hand raised in
warning.
"I don't hear--" she began, but his angry gesture and the furious
whisper that went with it cowed her into a silence as strained as
his own.
For a moment it seemed to Caroline that she heard a faint snap as of
a board released from pressure, but dead quiet followed; she held
her breath with excitement as the man lifted the suit-case over the
ledge, and peering over the balcony stepped out. Suddenly he paused,
one leg over the sill; his eyes rolled back towards the room, his
lips tightened. So terrible, and so despairing his face had turned
that Caroline rushed to the window. Even as she started she heard
quick soft steps in the hall, and pointed to the freedom outside.
"Jump, oh, jump, Mr. Barker!" she whispered in a glow of terror,
"hurry! It _is_ somebody!"
He pointed silently to the ground below, and with her heart pounding
heavily she peered over the sill. Directly below them crouched a
Great Dane, brindled, enormous, one eye fixed sternly on the window.
The soft steps paused: perhaps she had imagined them! Perhaps, if
they kept quite still, that quaking pair, perhaps.... The man
breathed like a drowning swimmer; it seemed to Caroline she must
scream.
The door flew open.
"Look out, there--it's loaded!" the voice came sharp as a
cracked whip.
Caroline gave a shriek of joy.
"Why, it's Lindsay!" she cried, "it's just Cousin Lindsay!"
A tall, powerful young man came in behind a leveled revolver.
"Car--what--be still, there!" he gasped, steadying the weapon. The
man stood motionless, his eyes on the ground.
"It's all right--I never carried a gun in my life," he said quietly.
"Oh, Lindsay, it's only a joke!"
Caroline ran towards him, stopping in horror at the ugly winking
eyes of the revolver.
"Mr. Barker only meant--tell Lin about it!" she entreated, sick with
foreboding at the dogged man before her, the scornful flushed boy at
her side.
"I guess you better tell him, Missy," said the man in a low empty
voice.
"Go home, Caroline; go straight home this moment."
Caroline had never heard her cousin speak in that tone, and it was
partly in tears, partly in wrath that she answered,
"I will _not_ go straight home, Lindsay Holt, and you needn't talk
to me that way, either! Uncle Joe himself asked Mr. Barker--"
She began glibly enough, but even to her simple consciousness the
story wavered and rang false, with this stricken, passive man before
her. Her voice faltered, she choked.... Had Uncle Joe really asked
this man to get the emeralds? Was it possible that--Lindsay laughed
disagreeably.
"If you've quite finished, Caroline, will you go home?" he demanded,
his eyes still on the revolver.
She gulped painfully; her faith tottered on the last brink.
"Oh, let it go at that; can't you?" the man broke in roughly. "What
difference does it make to you, eh, how this part of the job gets
done? Have I made you any trouble yet? My goose is cooked, all
right, and we'll--we'll talk that over, later, when Missy goes,
but--but couldn't you"--he looked almost appealingly at the young
fellow,--"couldn't we--it's all there in the suit-case--"
"It was going under my bed Lin--I'd have been careful," Caroline was
hoping against hope, now.
"You see, Missy," said the man quickly, in almost his old manner,
"you see how it turns out. It was a bad plan, I guess--you can see
how your cousin takes it. You'll have to--to tell your uncle how it
worked; it's one on me, all right."
"Suppose we put it all back and--oh Lord, what's the use?" he ended
suddenly.
"Cut it short--what the hell do I care?"
He dropped suddenly into the chair behind him; his head fell over on
his arms, and the stiff hat rolled along the floor.
The young man stared curiously at him, but the weakness was genuine;
every muscle was relaxed.
Lindsay's face softened a little. "As far as that goes, you're quite
right," he said curtly, "though it's a little late in the day. Look
here, Caroline. Mr.--Mr. Barker and I don't agree very well on the
best way to teach people to lock their houses. I--it seems to me a
pretty poor joke. Uncle Joe never meant it to go quite so far, I'm
quite sure," he concluded jerkily. "I--I want to do the best thing
all round, but," looking anxiously towards her for a second, "this
is a little too--a little too--"
Her face cleared at his change of tone. "I know," she returned
eagerly, "I know just what you mean, Lindsay. I think so, too.
Anybody would think--"
"That's it," he said briefly.
"You say you thought so yourself at first," she added, looking
uncomfortably at the bent figure in the chair, "and that made him
feel--"
"Well, well, I understand now," Lindsay interrupted irritably, "it's
all right now, Caroline. Hadn't you better go? Mr.--Mr. Barker and I
will come along later."
"Oh, I'll wait and go with you, Lin," she returned, almost assured,
now, "why do I have to go first?"
The man lifted his head; at sight of the young fellow's nervous
perplexity he smiled faintly.
"Suppose you run along, Missy," he suggested; "your cousin and I
want to talk business, and--and then I must be hurrying on--hurrying
on," he repeated vaguely, with dazed eyes. He raised his hand to
his head; Lindsay started forward, the revolver loose in his hand.
"Where did you get that pin?" he cried sharply. "Give that to me."
The man fingered the pin thoughtfully. "You're 'way off there," he
said. "That's not--that's not--"
"Not one of your 'jokes'?" Lindsay's voice rang disagreeably. "I
happen to know the contrary. I'll trouble you to hand it over. I'll
soon know to whom it belongs."
Caroline, hanging over the sill, lost in talkative admiration of the
Great Dane, was oblivious for the moment of the room behind her.
"It belongs to my son," said the man. There was a moment of silence.
Outside the great hound whined softly.
"His name Barker, too?" Lindsay asked coldly, half rising.
"No, sir. His name is James Wardwell," said the man defiantly.
Lindsay sprang to his feet.
"That's a dirty lie!" he shouted. He stood over the man, careless
of the revolver. "And you'll pay for it, too!"
Caroline stared aghast at them.
"Look out for the gun," the man warned him, and, as with a flush of
mortification Lindsay mastered his weapon, he added quietly, "you
can't be too careful with firearms."
Lindsay gritted his teeth.
"You--you--" he began furiously. The man met his eyes for a second,
then with a dark, slow blush, dropped his arm.
The boy drew back uncertainly.
"What's the good of lying like that?" he said, "how's it going to
help you?"
The man looked at the floor.
"Don't be a fool--how's it going to?" Lindsay repeated irritably.
The other did not move.
"Is that the truth?" Lindsay's voice was strained and worried.
The man drew a long, uneven breath. "Yes," he answered.
Lindsay glanced at the suit-case, at the man in the chair, at the
revolver.
"Jimmy!" he muttered, "Jimmy B.!" For the first time since he had
last addressed her, he noticed Caroline. He frowned, then suddenly
his face cleared.
"Look here," he said, his eye again on the man, "do you know where
all that silver belongs?"
She nodded.
"I help Selma sometimes."
"Could you put it back so nobody would know?"
"Oh, yes," she answered him, "and the--things from the bureau, too?"
His lips curled scornfully and his hold on the revolver tightened.
"A thorough job, wasn't it?" he muttered, then controlling himself
he answered evenly, "Oh, yes, might as well get 'em all back. We'll
just step in the library a minute."
The man got up and went before him into the library, stumbling as he
walked.
Lindsay watched him drop into a seat and stood in front of him.
"What proof have you got that what you said in there is true?" he
asked abruptly, "before we leave the house, I must know."
"Proof?" the man repeated, "proof?" He stared almost vacantly at
Lindsay.
"Why, yes," the boy answered impatiently.
"You say you're the father of one of the most brilliant men in my
class, you wear the pin of his society--a pin I happen to know he
lost recently--and I find you stealing my aunt's spoons! For God's
sake, what's the meaning of it?"
The man twisted his fingers together and moistened his lips.
"It kind of settled on me all at once," he said in a hollow voice,
"I felt it since morning. She scared me so to begin with--she came
like a ghost--and then the dog finished me. I had one o' them once
and he nearly did me up--turned on me. Jim pulled him off," he
added, "but they give me a turn whenever I see 'em."
Lindsay stamped angrily.
"Will you prove what you say? Or shall we discuss it at the
station-house?"
The man raised his hand deprecatingly. "No, no;" he said hastily,
"no--that's what I don't want. That's why I--that's the reason I
don't--good Lord, don't you know you've given me a half a dozen
chances, if I'd had the nerve for the risk? Why, I c'd've butted
that gun out of your hand twice in the last ten minutes, you young
fool! How long d'ye suppose it would take a husky man to back you
into one closet and Missy into another and walk off with the stuff?
Hey?"
His eyes flashed, he threw back his head and breathed hard, a
cornered animal. Lindsay felt a tingle of excitement run down his
spine; for a moment there was danger in the air.
"I--I notice you didn't see your way to all this," he said
scornfully. But he blushed as he spoke, the man saw it, and Lindsay
knew he saw it; he winced and drew himself up in a boyish attempt to
save the situation.
"It's quite true--I'm not in the habit of catching house thieves,"
he said, drawling a little, "and I doubt if many of them are quite
such accomplished liars as you appear to be; but my stroke will
improve, I've no doubt, as we go on. Would you mind getting up and
'coming along with me' as they call it, I believe?"
The man made no answer, but raised his hands high above his head.
"If you'll look in that left vest pocket, there's a little leather
case there," he said, "and--and you'd better take the pin, too, I
guess. I'd be obliged if you'd say you found it somewhere; I never
should've put it on."
Somewhat clumsily Lindsay extricated the leather case, cursing his
awkwardness and the patience of the man.
A worn little photograph of a boy of eight or nine was in his hand;
across the bottom was scrawled in a childish hand, "Daddy, from your
son James."
He drew a long breath.
"That's Jimmy, all right," he said dully.
"If you'll just tear it up," said the man. "It's all I've got, and
nobody'd know but some friend that--that would be lookin' for the
likeness."
Lindsay threw the picture on the floor.
"I won't believe it--its too sickening!" he cried, "Jim Wardwell's a
gentleman! I--I--why I admired him more than--good God, he's a
_friend_ of mine!"
The man smiled faintly.
"Oh, Jimmy has fine friends," he said almost complacently, "he's
always gone with the best. He's very particular."
Lindsay's forehead was a network of pain and doubt.
"But Jimmy has plenty of money," he insisted, "he always had
the--his things--oh, it's idiotic! You're crazy, that's all."
"Oh, yes, he always had plenty," the man said simply.
In the pause that followed they heard the soft chink of silver
through the wall; Caroline was evidently busy.
Lindsay twisted his face into an ugly smile.
"And I thought he was the squarest of the lot," he said slowly,
"I've said so often. We all did. Pretty easy, weren't we?"
"He is!" The man half rose, but fell back with a grunt of pain.
"Oh, _damn_ this heart!" he complained fretfully. "I don't know
what's the matter with me. That fortune woman, she knew. Last week
it was I went. 'You're making a plan to end up your business,' she
says to me, 'and so you will, mister, but not the way you think.
There's some trouble coming to you and a child's mixed up in it.
Look out for strange dogs,' she says, they all tell me that--'and
run no risks this month. I don't just like the looks of your hand,'
she says. And when I saw that child, it was all up with me, I
thought. I didn't think the machine would ever get started again.
And then that infernal dog...."
"We were speaking of--of--did you say that Jim--" Lindsay's voice
sounded strange, even to himself.
The man blinked a moment.
"What?" he said vaguely, "what about Jim? Oh--he don't know anything
about it, of course. I sh'd think you'd know enough for that. That's
what I'm telling you, if you'd keep still a minute."
He stared thoughtfully at the floor and Lindsay waited. Caroline ran
up the front stairs, and he had counted each step before the man
went on.
"So I sent the money regular every quarter," he muttered, as if
continuing some tale, "and I'd go to see him sometimes all dressed
up, and I tried to talk like he did. He thought I was traveling and
didn't want to be bothered. But I couldn't see him much--was I going
to drag him down, just as I'd got him started right? Not much. 'Go
and visit your friends, o' course,' I used to tell him, 'and you can
write to me.' The best schools I picked out, the very best. And they
came high. But I was good for it."
He shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
"I had a hunch when I bought the ticket," he muttered. "It just come
over me--'you ought not to go to a place you got the idea of from
Jim,' something seemed to say to me, 'it's unlucky.' And everything
so still, and the stuff so easy--'twas like finding it in the road.
And the last time, too--the last time."
"But Jim--he thought--" Lindsay prompted. A dreadful curiosity
held him.
"So then he wrote, 'of course it's Yale, dad,' he wrote, 'we're all
going up together. You don't mind if it costs a little to get
settled, do you?' And was I going to go to him--he was head of his
class, mind you--and say, the Trust has treated me the way I
wouldn't treat a dog--it's all up with me and you? I can go back and
be foreman again at the works--we're bought up, chewed up and spit
out like a wad o' paper?' Not much, I guess. No. Here's where I quit
the honesty game, I said, for it don't pay. You stole my patent, and
I shut up because I couldn't afford to fight you, and you raised me
and raised me--and let me into the firm when you knew it was going
to bust! Now, I says, since my boy's education has been stole from
me, I'll steal it back, I says, and only from them that can afford
it, too! And I'll use no lawyer to do it, either, and we'll have no
trick-work with papers. I'll get it straight from the wives and
daughters of the big thieves that pass the plate on Sundays."
Lindsay listened to Caroline moving over their heads; her steps
seemed the only reality in this horrid dream.
"It--it will just about kill Jim," he said slowly.
"It would have killed him not to go to college," the man returned
sharply, "and he had a right to go."
"But, good heavens, there are ways--he could have earned money--he's
clever enough to work his way through a dozen colleges!" Lindsay
cried despairingly.