BLIND CLUES
“But this is preposterous,” cried Mrs. Melville, “you _must_ have seen
him had he come out of the room; you were directly in front of the
doors all the time.”
“I was,” admitted the colonel; “can--can the boy be hiding to scare
us?” He spoke to Miss Smith. She had grown pale; he did not know that
his own color had turned. Millicent stared from one to the other.
“How ridiculous!” she exclaimed; “of course not; but he must be
somewhere; let _me_ look!”
Look as they might through all the staring, empty rooms, there was no
vestige of the boy. He was as clean vanished as if he had fallen out of
the closed and locked windows. The colonel examined them all; had there
been one open, he would have peered outside, frightened as he had never
been when death was at his elbow. But it certainly wasn’t possible to
jump through a window, and not only shut, but lock it after one.
Under every bed, in every closet, he prowled; he was searching still
when Mrs. Winter returned. By this time Mrs. Melville was agitated,
and, naturally, irritated as well. “I think it is unpardonable in
Archie to sneak out in this fashion,” she complained.
“I suppose the boy wanted to see the town a bit,” observed Aunt Rebecca
placidly. “Rupert, come in and sit down; he will be back in a moment;
smoke a cigar, if your nerves need calming.”
Rupert felt as if he were a boy of ten, called back to common sense out
of imaginary horrors of the dark.
“But, if he wanted to go out, why did he leave his hat and coat behind
him?” asked Miss Smith.
“He may be only exploring the hotel,” said Mrs. Winter. “Don’t be so
restless, Bertie; sit down.”
The colonel’s eye was furtively photographing every article of
furniture in the room; it lingered longest on Mrs. Winter’s
wardrobe-trunk, which was standing in her room. Randall had been
despatched for a hot-water bottle in lieu of one which had sprung a
leak on the train; so the trunk stood, its door ajar.
“Maybe he is doing the Genevra stunt in there--is that what you are
thinking?” she jeered. “Well, go and look.”
Light as her tone was, she was not unaffected by the contagion of
anxiety about her; after a moment, while Rupert was looking at the
wardrobe-trunk, and even profanely exploring the swathed gowns held in
rigid safety by bands of rubber, she moved about the rooms herself.
“There isn’t room for a mouse in that box,” growled the colonel.
“Of course not,” said his aunt languidly, sinking into the easiest
chair; “but your mind is easier. Archie will come back for dinner;
don’t worry.”
“How could he get by _me_?” retorted the colonel.
“Perhaps he went into one of the neighboring rooms,” Miss Smith
suggested. “Shall I go out and rap on the door of the next room on the
left?” On the right the last room of the party was a corner room.
“Why, you _might_,” acquiesced Aunt Rebecca; but Mrs. Melville cut the
ends of her words.
“Pray let me go, Aunt Rebecca,” she begged, suiting the action to the
words, and was out of the door almost ahead of her sentence.
The others waited; they were silent; little flecks of color raddled
Mrs. Winter’s cheeks. They could hear Millicent’s knock reverberating.
There was no answer. “Telephone to the adjacent rooms,” proposed the
colonel.
“I’ll telephone,” said Mrs. Winter, and rang up the number of the next
room. There was no response; but when she called the number of the
room adjoining, she seemed to get an answer, for she announced her
name. “Have you seen a young lad?” she continued, after an apology for
disturbing them. “He belongs to our party; has he by chance got into
your room? and is he there?” In a second she put down the receiver with
a heightened color, saying, “They might be a little civiler in their
answers, if it _is_ Mr. Keatcham’s suite.”
“What did the beggar say?” bristled the colonel.
“Only that it was Mr. Keatcham’s suite--Mr. E. S. Keatcham--as if
_that_ put getting into it quite out of the question. Some underling, I
presume.”
“There is the unoccupied room between. That is not accounted for.
But it shall be. I will find out who is in there.” Rupert rose as he
spoke, pricked by the craving for action of a man accustomed to quick
decision. He heard his aunt brusquely repelling Millicent’s proposal of
the police, as he left the room. Indeed, she called him back to exact a
promise that he would not make Archie’s disappearance public. “We want
to find him,” was her grim addendum; “and we can’t have the police and
the newspapers hindering us.”
In the office, he found external courtesy and a rather perfunctory
sympathy, based on a suppressed, but perfectly visible conviction that
the boy had stolen out for a glimpse of the city, and would be back
shortly.
The manager had no objection to telling Colonel Winter, whom he knew
slightly, that the occupant of the next room was a New England lady
of the highest respectability, Mrs. Winthrop Wigglesworth. If the
young fellow didn’t turn up for dinner, he should be glad to ask
Mrs. Wigglesworth to let Mrs. Winter examine her room; but he rather
thought they would be seeing young Winter before then--oh, his hat?
They usually carried caps in their pockets; and as to coats--boys never
thought of their coats.
The manager’s cheeriness did not especially uplift the colonel. He
warmed it over dutifully, however, for his womankind’s benefit. Miss
Smith had gone out; why, he was not told, and did not venture to ask.
Mrs. Melville kept making cautious signals to him behind his aunt’s
back; otherwise she was preserving the mien of sympathetic solemnity
which she was used to show at funerals and first visits of condolence
and congratulation to divorced friends. Mrs. Winter, as usual, wore an
inscrutable composure. She was still firmly opposed to calling in the
aid of the police.
Did she object to his making a few inquiries among the hotel bell-boys,
the elevator boy and the people in the restaurant or in the office?
Not at all, if he would be cautious.
So he sallied out, and, in the midst of his fruitless inquisition,
Millicent appeared.
Forcing a civil smile, he awaited her pleasure. “Go on, don’t mind me,”
said she mournfully; “you will feel better to have done everything in
your power.”
“But I shall not discover anything?”
“I fear not. Has it not occurred to you that he has been kidnapped?”
“Hmn!” said the colonel.
“And did you notice how perturbed Miss Smith seemed? She was quite
pale; her agitation was quite noticeable.”
“She is tremendously fond of Archie.”
“Or--she knows more than she will say.”
“Oh, what rot!” sputtered the colonel; then he begged her pardon.
“Wait,” he counseled, and his man’s resistance to appearances had
its effect, as masculine immobility always has, on the feminine
effervescence before him. “Wait,” was his word, “at least until we give
the boy a chance to turn up; if he has slipped by us, he is taking a
little _pasear_ on his own account; lads do get restless sometimes if
they are held too steadily in the leash, especially--if you will excuse
me--by, well, by ladies.”
“If he has frightened us out of our wits--well, I don’t know what
oughtn’t to be done to him!”
“Oh well, let us wait and hear _his_ story,” repeated the soldier.
But the last streaks of red faded out of the west; a chill fog smoked
up from the darkening hills, and Archie had not come. At eight, Mrs.
Winter ordered dinner to be served in their rooms. Miss Smith had
not returned. The colonel attempted a military cheerfulness, which
his aunt told him bluntly, later in the evening, reminded her of a
physician’s manner in critical cases where the patient’s mind must be
kept absolutely quiet.
But she ate more than he at dinner; although her own record was not a
very good one. Millicent avowed that she was too worried to eat, but
she was tempted by the strawberries and carp, and wondered were the
California fowls really so poor; and gave the sample the benefit of
impartial and fair examination, in the end making a very fair meal.
It is not to be supposed that Winter had been idle; before dinner he
had put a guard in the hall and had seen Haley, who reported that his
wife and child had gone to a kinswoman in Santa Barbara.
“Sure the woman has a fine house intirely, and she’s fair crazy over
the baby that’s named afther her, for she’s a widdy woman with never a
child excipt wan that’s in hivin, a little gurrl; and she wudn’t let
us rist ’til she’d got the cratur’. Nor I wasn’t objictin’, for I’m
thinking there’ll be something doin’ and the wimin is onconvanient,
thim times.”
The colonel admitted that he shared Haley’s opinion. He questioned the
man minutely about Mercer’s conduct on the train. It was absolutely
commonplace. If he had any connection (as the colonel had suspected)
with the bandits, he made no sign. He sent no telegrams; he wrote no
letters; he made no acquaintances, smoking his solitary cigar over a
newspaper. Indeed, absolutely the only matter of note (if that were
one) was that he read so many newspapers--buying every different
journal vended. At San Francisco he got into a cab and Haley heard
him give the order: “To the St. Francis.” Having his wife and child
with him, the sergeant couldn’t follow; but he went around to the St.
Francis later, and inquired for Mr. Mercer, for whom he had a letter
(as was indeed the case--the colonel having provided him with one),
but no such name appeared on the register. Invited to leave the letter
to await the gentleman’s arrival, Haley said that he was instructed
to give it to the gentleman himself; therefore, he took it away with
him. He had carried it to all the other hotels or boarding-places in
San Francisco which he could find, aided greatly thereto by a friend
of his, formerly in “the old --th,” a sergeant, now stationed at the
Presidio. Thanks to him, Haley could say definitely that Mercer was not
at any of the hotels or more prominent boarding-houses in the city, at
least under his own name.
“And you haven’t seen him since he got into the cab at the station?”
the colonel summed up.
Haley’s reply was unexpected: “Yes, sor, I seen him this day, in the
marning, in this same hotel.”
“Where?”
“Drinking coffee at a table in th’ coort. He wint out, havin’ paid
the man, not a-signin’, an’ he guv the waiter enough to make him say,
‘Thank ye, sor,’ but not enough to make him smile and stay round to
pull aff the chair. I follied him to the dure, but he got into an
autymobile--”
“Get the number?”
“Yis, sor. Number--here ’tis, sor, I wrote it down to make sure.” He
passed over to the colonel an old envelope on which was written a
number.
[A]“M. 20139,” read the colonel, carefully noting down the number in
his own memorandum-book. And he reflected, “That is a Massachusetts
number--humph!”
Haley’s information ended there. He heard of Archie’s disappearance
with his usual stolid mien, but his hands slowly clenched. The colonel
continued:
“You are to find out, if you can, by scraping acquaintance with the
carriage men, if that auto--you have written a description, I see,
as well as the number--find out if that auto left this hotel this
afternoon between six and seven o’clock. Find out who were in it. Find
out where it is kept and who owns it. Get H. Birdsall, Merchants’
Exchange Building, to send a man to help you. Wait, I’ve a card ready
for you to give him from me; he has sent me men before. Report by
telephone as soon as you know anything. If I’m not here, speak Spanish
and have them write it down. Be back here to-night by ten, if you can,
yourself.”
Haley dismissed, and his own appetite for dinner effectually dispelled
by his report, Winter joined his aunt. Should he tell her his
suspicions and their ground? Wasn’t he morally obliged, now, to tell
her? She was co-guardian with him of the boy, who, he had no doubt, had
been spirited away by Mercer and his accomplice; and hadn’t she a right
to any information on the matter in his possession?
Reluctantly he admitted that she did have such a right; and, he
admitted further, being a man who never cheated at solitaire, that his
object in keeping the talk of the two men from her had not been so much
the desire to guard her nerves (which he knew perfectly well were of a
robuster fiber than those of most women twenty or forty years younger
than she); no, he admitted it grimly, he had not so much spared his
aunt as Janet Smith; he could not bear to direct suspicion toward her.
But how could he keep silent longer? Kicking this question about in his
mind, he spoiled the flavor of his after-dinner cigar, although his
aunt graciously bade him smoke it in her parlor.
And still Miss Smith had not returned; really, it was only fair to her
to have her present when he told his story to his aunt; no, he was
_not_ grabbing at any excuse for delay; if he could watch that girl’s
face while he told his story he would--well, he would have his mind
settled one way or another.
Here the telephone bell rang; the manager informed Colonel Winter that
Mrs. Wigglesworth had returned.
“Wigglesworth? what an extraordinary name!” cried Millicent when the
colonel shared his information.
“Good old New England name; I know some extremely nice Wigglesworths
in Boston,” Mrs. Winter amended with a touch of hauteur; and, at this
moment, there came a knock at the door.
There is all the difference in the world between knocks; a knock
as often as not conveys a most unintentional hint in regard to the
character of the one behind the knuckles; and often, also, the mood of
the knocker is reflected in the sound which he makes. Were there truth
in this, one would judge that the person who knocked at this moment
must be a woman, for the knock was not loud, but almost timidly gentle;
one might even guess that she was agitated, for the tapping was in a
hurried, uneven measure.
“I believe it is Mrs. Wigglesworth herself,” declared Aunt Rebecca.
“Bertie, I’m going into the other room; she will talk more freely to
you. She would want to spare my nerves. That is the nuisance of being
old. Now open the door.”
She was half-way across the threshold before she finished, and the
colonel’s fingers on the door-knob waited only for the closing of her
door to turn to admit the lady in waiting.
A lady she was beyond doubt, and any one who had traveled would have
been sure that she was a lady from Massachusetts. She wore that little
close bonnet which certain elderly Boston gentlewomen can neither be
driven nor allured to abandon; her rich and quiet black silken gown
might have been made any year within the last five, and her furs
would have graced a princess. She had beautiful gray hair and a soft
complexion and wore glasses. Equally evident to the observer was the
fact of her suppressed agitation.
She waved aside the colonel’s proffered chair, introducing herself in
a musical, almost tremulous voice with the crisp enunciation of her
section of the country. “I am Mrs. Wigglesworth; I understand, Colonel
Winter--you?--y-yes, no, thank you, I will not sit. I--I understood
Mrs. Winter--ah, your aunt, is an elderly woman.”
“This is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Melville Winter,” explained the
colonel. “My aunt is elderly in years, but in nothing else.”
Mrs. Wigglesworth smiled a faint smile; the colonel could see a tremble
of the hand that was unconsciously drawing her fur collar more tightly
about her throat. “How very nice--yes, to be sure,” she faltered. “But
you will understand that I did not wish to alarm her. I heard that you
wanted to speak to me, and that the little boy was lost.”
“Or stolen,” Mrs. Melville said crisply.
The colonel, in a few words, displayed the situation. He had prevailed
upon his visitor to sit down, and while he spoke he noticed that her
hands held each other tightly, although she appeared perfectly composed
and did not interrupt. She answered his questions directly and quietly.
She had been away taking tea with a friend; she had remained to dine.
Her maid had gone out earlier to spend the day and night with a sister
in the city; so the room was empty between six and seven o’clock.
“The chambermaid wasn’t there, then?”
“I don’t think so. She usually does the room and brings the towels
for the bath in the morning. But I asked her, to make sure, and she
says that she was not there since morning. She seems a good girl; I
think she didn’t--but I have found something. At least I am af--I may
have found something. I thought I might see Mrs. Winter’s niece about
it”--she glanced toward Millicent, who said, “Certainly,” at a venture;
and looked frightened.
“And you found--?” said the colonel.
“Only this. I went to my rooms, turned on the light and was taking off
my gloves before I untied my bonnet. One of my rings fell on the floor.
It went under a rug, and I at once remarked that it was a different
place for the rug to the one where it had been before. Before, it
was in front of the dresser, a very natural place, but now it is on
the carpet to one side, a place where there seemed no reason for its
presence. These details seem trivial, but--”
“I can see they are not,” said the colonel. “Pray proceed, Madam. The
ring had rolled under the rug!”
Mrs. Wigglesworth gave him a grateful nod.
“Yes, it had. And when I removed the rug I saw it; but as I bent to
pick it up I saw something else. In one place there was a stain, as
large as the palm of my hand, a little pool of--it looks like blood.”
Mrs. Melville uttered an exclamation of horror.
The colonel’s face stiffened; but there was no change in his polite
attention.
“May we be permitted to see this--ah, stain?” said he.
The three stepped through the corridor to the outside door, and went
into the chamber. The rug was flung to one side, and there on the gray
velvet nap of the carpet was an irregular, sprawling stain about which
were spattered other stains, some crimson, some almost black.
Millicent recoiled, shuddering. The colonel knelt down and examined the
stains. “Yes,” he said very quietly, “you are right, it is blood.”
There was a tap on the door, which was opened immediately without
waiting for a permission. Millicent, rigid with fright, could only
stare helplessly at the erect figure, the composed, pale face and the
brilliant, imperious eyes of her aunt.
“What did you say, Bertie?” said Rebecca Winter. “I think I have a
right to the whole truth.”