THE AGENT OF THE FIRELESS STOVE
The time was two hours later. Rupert Winter was sitting on one of
the stone benches of the colonnade about the _patio_. The court was
suffused with the golden glow presaging sunset. Warm afternoon shadows
lay along the flags; wavering silhouettes of leafage or plant; blurred
reflections from the bold bas-reliefs of Spanish warriors and Spanish
priests sculptured between the spandrels of the arches. Winter’s dull
eyes hardly noted them: the exotic luxuriance of foliage, the Spanish
armor and Spanish cowls were all too common to a denizen of a Spanish
colony in the tropics, to distract his thoughts from his own ugly
problem. He had been having it out with himself, as he phrased it. And
there had been moments during those two hours, when he had ground his
teeth and clenched his fists because of the futile and furious pain in
him.
When he recognized Janet Smith, by that same illuminating flash he
recognized that this woman who had been tricking him was the woman
that he loved. He believed that he had said his last word to love, but
love, after seeming to accept the curt dismissal, was lightly riding
his heart again. “Fooled a second time,” he thought with inexpressible
bitterness, recalling his unhappy married life and the pretty, weak
creature who had caused him such humiliation. Yet with her there had
been no real wrong-doing, only absolute lack of discretion and a
childish craving for gaiety and adulation. Poor child! what a woeful
ending for it all! The baby, the little boy who was their only living
child, to die of a sudden access of an apparently trifling attack of
croup, while the mother was dancing at a post ball! He was East, taking
his examination for promotion. The frantic drive home in the chill
of the dawn had given her a cold which her shock and grief left her
no strength to resist--she was always a frail little creature, poor
butterfly!--and she followed her baby inside of a month. Had she lived,
her husband might have found it hard to forgive her, for already a sore
heart was turning to the child for comfort; but she was dead, and he
did not let his thoughts misuse her memory. Now--here was another, so
different but just as false. Then, he brought himself up with a jerk;
he would be fair; he would look at things as they were; many a man had
been fooled by the dummy. He would not jump at conclusions because they
were cruel, any more than he would because they were kind. There was
such a thing, he knew well, as credulous suspicion; it did more harm
than credulous trust. Meanwhile, he had his detail. He was to find
Archie; therefore, he waited. They were in the house; it were only
folly to give up their advantage under the stress of any of Mercer’s
plausible lurings to the outside.
Moreover, by degrees, he became convinced that Mercer, certainly to
some extent, was sincere in his profession of belief in Archie’s
absence and safety. This, in spite of hearing several times that Archie
was not returned. Mercer did all the speaking, but he allowed Birdsall
to hold the receiver and take the message from Mrs. Winter.
The telephone was in an adjoining room, but by shifting his position
a number of times the colonel was able to catch a murmur of the
conversation. He heard Mercer’s voice distinctly. He had turned away
and was following the detective out of the room. “I don’t understand it
any more than you do, Mr. Birdsall,” he said; “you won’t believe me,
suh, but I am right worried.”
“Of course I believe you,” purred the detective so softly that the
colonel knew he did not believe any more than Mercer suspected. “Of
course I believe you; but I don’t know what to do. It ain’t on the map.
I guess it’s up to you to throw a little light. I’ve called the boys
off twice already and told ’em to wait an hour or a half-hour longer. I
got to see the colonel.”
“I can trust my intuitions, or I can trust the circumstantial
evidence,” thought the colonel. He jumped up and began to pace the
court.
“Seems to be like a game of bridge before one can see the dummy,” he
complained; and as so often happens in the crises of life, a trivial
illustration struck a wavering mind with the force of an argument. His
thoughts reverted whimsically to the card-table; how many times had he
hesitated over the first lead between evenly balanced suits of four;
and how often had he regretted or won, depending solely upon whether
his card instinct had been denied or obeyed! It might be instinct, this
much-discussed “card instinct,” or it might be a summing up of logical
deductions so swift that the obscure steps were lost, and the reasoner
was unconscious of his own logical processes. “Now,” groaned Rupert
Winter, “I am up against it. She _looks_ like a good woman; she _seems_
like a good woman; but I have only my impressions and Aunt Rebecca’s
against the apparent facts in the case. Well, Aunt Rebecca is a shrewd
one!” He sat down and thought harder. Finally he rose, smiling. He
had threshed out his problem; and his conclusion, inaudibly but very
distinctly uttered to himself, was: “Me for my own impressions! If that
girl is in with this gang, either what they are after isn’t so bad--or
they have made her believe it isn’t bad.”
He looked idly about him at the arched doorway of the outer court. It
was carved with a favorite mission design of eight-pointed flowers with
vase-like fluting below. There was a tiny crack in one of the flowers,
the tiniest crack in the world. He looked at it without seeing it, or
seeing it with only the outer half of his senses, but--he could not
have told how--into his effort to pierce his own tangle there crept
a sudden interest, a sudden keenness of scrutiny of this minute,
insignificant crack in the stone. He became aware that the crack was
singularly regular, preserving the form of the flower and the fluting
beneath. Kito, the Japanese, who was sitting at the far end of the
court, conversing in amity with Haley, just here rose and came to this
particular pillar. The Irishman sat alone, rimmed by the sunset gold,
little spangles of motes drifting about him; for the merest second
Winter’s glance lingered on him ere it went to the Jap, who passed him,
courteously saluting.
After he had passed, the colonel looked again at the column and the
crack--it was not there.
“_Chito, chito!_” muttered the colonel. Carelessly he approached
the column and took the same posture as the Jap. Unobtrusively his
fingers strayed over the stone. He scratched the surface; not stone,
but cement. He tapped cautiously, keeping his hand well hidden by his
body; no hollow sound rewarded him; but all at once his groping fingers
touched a little round object under the bold point of an eight-pointed
flower. He didn’t dare press on it; instead he resumed his cautious
tapping. It seemed to him that the sound had changed. He glanced about
him. Save for Haley he was alone in the _patio_. He pressed on the
round white knob, and what he had half expected happened: a segment
of the column swung on inner hinges, disclosing the hollow center
of the engaged columns on either side. He looked down. Nothing but
darkness was visible, but while he stood, tensely holding his breath,
his abnormally sensitive auricular nerve caught distinctly the staccato
breath of that kind of sigh which is like a groan, and a voice said
more wearily than angrily: “Oh, damn it all!”
* * * * *
Almost simultaneously, he heard the faint footfalls of the men within;
he must replace his movable flower. The column was intact, and he was
bending his frowning brows on the stylobate of another when Birdsall
and Mercer entered together, Mercer, with a shrug of his shoulders at
the detective’s dogged suspicion, preceding the latter.
“Well,” said the colonel, “did you get my aunt?”
“Yes, suh, I got your aunt herself,” responded Mercer, with his
Virginian survival of the formal civility of an earlier generation.
“Yes, suh; but I regret to say Archie is not there.”
“Where is he?” The soldier’s voice was curt.
“Honestly,” declared Mercer, “I wish I knew, suh, I certainly _do_.
But--” Mercer’s jaw fell; he turned sharply at the soft whir of an
electric stanhope gently entering the _patio_ through the great arched
gateway. It stopped abreast of the group, and its only occupant, a
handsome young man, jumped nimbly out of the vehicle. He greeted them
with a polite removal of his cap, a bow, and a flashing smile which
made the circuit of the beholders. Birdsall and the colonel recognized
the traveling enthusiast of the Fireless Stove.
The colonel took matters into his own hands.
“I think you’re the young gentleman who took my nephew away,” said he.
“Will you kindly tell us where he is?”
“And don’t get giddy, young gentleman,” Birdsall chimed in, “because
we know perfectly well that you are _not_ the agent of the Peerless
Fireless Stove.”
“I’ve got one here on trial, and I’ve come back to see if they like
it,” explained the young man, in silken accents, but with a dancing
gleam of the eyes.
“We are going to keep it,” said Mercer. “Kito,” calling the unseen Jap,
“fetch that Fireless Stove this gentleman left us, and show it to this
gentleman here.”
“Oh, cut it out!” Birdsall waved him off. “It’s only ten minutes
before our fellows will come. You can put the police court wise with
all that. Try it on _them_; it don’t go with us.”
“Where is the boy?” said the colonel.
“Tell him, if you know,” said Mercer. “This gentleman,” he explained,
“left a stove with us to test. He was here about it this morning, and
we gave Archie to _him_ to take to the Palace Hotel.”
“And he is there now,” said the young man.
“Did you leave him there?” asked the colonel.
“Yes, _did_ you?” insisted Mercer.
The young man looked from Mercer to the other two men. There was no
visible appeal to the Southerner, but Winter felt sure of two things:
one, that the new-comer was Mercer’s confederate whom he was striving
to shield by pretending to disavow; the other, that for some reason
Mercer was as anxious for the answer as were they.
“Why-y,” hesitated the stove promoter, “you see, Mr.--ah, gentlemen,
you see, I was told to take the boy to the Palace Hotel, and I set out
to do it. We weren’t going at more than an eight-mile-an-hour clip,
yet some foozler of a cop arrested us for speeding. It was perfectly
ridiculous, and I tried to shake him, but it was no use. They carried
us off to a police court and stuck me for ten dollars. Meanwhile my
machine and my passenger were outside. When I got outside I couldn’t
find them. I skirmished around, and finally did get the machine. I’d
taken the precaution to fix it so it couldn’t be run before I left
it--took the key out, you know--it must have been trundled off by
hand somewhere!--but I couldn’t find the boy. Naturally, I was a bit
worried; but after I had looked up the force and the neighborhood, it
occurred to me to ’phone to the Palace. I did, and I was told he was
there.”
“Who told you?” The question came simultaneously out of three throats.
“Why, Mrs. Winter--that’s what she called herself.”
“But not three minutes ago Mrs. Winter told me that he wasn’t there,”
remarked Mercer coldly. “_When_ did you telephone?”
“It was at least fifteen minutes ago,” the young man said dolefully.
“I say, wouldn’t you better call them up again? There may be some
explanation. I shouldn’t have come back without the kid if I hadn’t
been _sure_ he was safe.”
“Was it Mrs. Melville or Mrs. Winter you got?” This came from the
colonel. “Did she by chance have an English accent, or was it
Southern?”
“Oh, no, not Southern,” protested the young man. “Yes, I should say it
was English--or trying to be.”
“It would be exactly like Millicent,” thought the colonel wrathfully,
“to try to fool the kidnappers, who had apparently lost Archie, by
pretending he was at the hotel!”
He made no comment aloud, but he nodded assent to Mercer’s proposal to
telephone; and then he walked up to the stove man.
“The game is up,” he said quietly. “We have a lot of men waiting
outside. If we signal, they will come any minute; if we don’t signal,
they will come in ten minutes. Give us a chance to be merciful to you.
This is no kind of a scrape for your father’s son--or for Arnold’s.”
Shot without range though it was, Winter was sure that it went home
under all the young fellow’s assumed bewilderment. He continued,
looking kindly at him:
“You look now, I’ll wager, about as you used to look in the office when
you called on the dean--by invitation--and were wondering just where
the inquiry was going to light!”
The dimple showed in the young man’s cheek. “I admit,” he replied,
“that I didn’t take advantage as I should of my university
opportunities. Probably that is why I have to earn a strenuous
livelihood boosting the Only Peerless Fireless Stove. By the way, have
_you_ ever seen the Fireless in action? Just the thing for the army!
Fills a long-felt want. I should be very pleased to demonstrate. We
have a stove here.”
The colonel grinned responsively. “You do it very well,” said he.
“Can’t you let me into the game?”
There was the slightest waver in the promoter’s glance, although he
smiled brilliantly as he answered: “I’ll take it into consideration,
but--will you excuse me? I want to speak to Mr. Mercer about the stove.”
The moment he had removed his affable young presence Birdsall
approached his employer. It had been a difficult quarter of an hour
with the detective. Vague instinct warned him not to touch the subject
of Miss Smith; he felt in no way assured about anything else. The
result had been that he had fidgeted in silence. But the accumulated
flood could no longer be held.
“I’ve found out one thing,” exploded Birdsall, puffing in the haste of
his utterance. “The boy is on the premises.”
“Think so?” was all the colonel’s answer.
“I’m sure of it. Say, I overheard Mercer talking down a speaking-tube.”
“What did he say?”
“Talked French, damn him! But say, what’s _gorge_?”
“Throat.”
“What’s _cupillo gorge_?”
“Sure he wasn’t talking of a carriage, or did he say _je le couperai la
gorge_?”
“Maybe. I wouldn’t swear to it. I don’t _parlez français_ a little bit.”
“Did you hear any other noises? Where were they?”
Birdsall thought he had heard other noises, and that they were down
cellar. “And anyhow, Colonel, I’m dead-to-rights sure those guys are
giving us hot stuff to get us out of the house. I’m for getting our men
in now and rushing the house. It’s me for the cellar.”
While the colonel was rolling Birdsall’s information around in his
mind, he heard the echo of steps on the flagging which preceded Mercer
and the other man.
There was that in the bearing and the look of them that made the
watcher, used to the signs of decision on men’s faces, instantly sure
that their whole course of plans and action was changed.
Mercer spoke first and in a low tone to the colonel.
“I have no right,” said he, “to ask so much trust from you, but will
you trust me enough to step aside with this young man and me for a
moment only--out of ear-shot? I give you my word of honor I mean no
slightest harm to you. I want to be frank. I will go alone if you
desire.”
The colonel eyed him intently for the briefest space. “I’ll trust you,”
said he. Then: “I think you have the key to this queer mix-up. At your
service. And let your friend come, too. He is an ingenuous sort, and he
amuses me.”
Birdsall looked distinctly sullen over the request to wait, intimating
quite frankly that his employer was walking into a trap. “I won’t stand
here more than fifteen minutes,” he grumbled. “I’ve given those fellows
_poco tiente_ long enough.” But the colonel insisted on twenty minutes,
and reluctantly Birdsall acquiesced.
Mercer conducted the others to the library. When they were seated he
began in his composed, melancholy fashion:
“I earnestly beg of you to listen to me, and to believe me, for your
nephew’s sake. I am going to tell you the absolute truth. It is the
only way now. When you came, we handed him over to this gentleman,
exactly as we have said. I do not know why he should have been stopped.
I do not know why he left the machine--”
“Might he not have been _carried_ away?” said Winter.
“He might; but I don’t know what motive--”
“What motive had _you_? You kidnapped him!”
“Not exactly. We had no intention of harming him. He came accidentally
into the room between Mrs. Winter’s and Mr. Keatcham’s suites. Standing
in that room, trying to stanch the bleeding of a sudden hemorrhage of
the nose, he overheard me and my friend--”
“_You?_” asked the colonel laconically of the young Harvard man.
“I,” smilingly confessed the latter. “I am ready to own up. You are a
decent fellow, and you are shrewd. You ought to be on our side, not
fighting us. I tell you, you don’t want to have the boy turn up safe
and sound any more than I do. Mr. Mercer was talking to me, and the
kid overheard. We heard him and went into the room--”
“How?”
“Knocked on the door and he opened it. And we jumped on him. It was
life and death for us not to be blown on; so, as we didn’t wish to kill
the kid, and as we didn’t know the youngster well enough to trust him
_then_--although we might, for he is game and the whitest chap!--but
we didn’t know--why, we just told him he would have to stay with us a
while until our rush was over. That was all we meant; and we let him
’phone you.”
“How about his great-aunt--the cruel anxiety--”
“Anxiety nothing!” began the other man, but a glance from Mercer cut
him short.
The Southerner took the word in his slow, gentle voice. “I tried to
reassure our aunt, Colonel Winter. I think I succeeded. She telephoned
and I told her it was all right. As for Archie, after we talked with
him, he was willing enough to go. He stole out with my friend inside
of five minutes, while you all were searching your rooms. It was _he_
insisted on calling you up, lest you should be worried. He said you
were right afraid of kidnappers, and you would be sending the police
after us. You can call Mrs. Winter up and find out if I am not telling
you the exact facts.”
“Very well, I _will_,” said Winter. They met the sullen detective at
the door. Cary Mercer, with his mirthless smile, led the way. Mercer
rang up the hotel for Winter, himself. To the colonel’s vast relief
Aunt Rebecca answered the call.
“_Est-ce que c’est vous-même, mon neveu?_” said she dryly.
“_Mais oui, ma tante._ Why are you speaking so formally in foreign
tongues? Is Millicent on deck?”
“In her room,” came the answer, still in French. “Well, you have got us
in a pretty mess. Where is my boy?”
“I only wish I knew! Tell me now, though, is Mercer’s story straight?”
“Absolutely. You may trust him.”
“What’s his real game, then? The one he was afraid Archie would expose?”
“Ask him.”
“But _you_ are in it, aren’t you?”
“Enough to ask that you abandon the chase--immediately! Unless you wish
to ruin me!”
“You’ll have to speak plainer. I’ve been kept in the dark as long as I
can stand in this matter.”
But before he could finish the sentence. “_Pas ici, pas
maintenant--c’est trop de péril_,” she cried, and she must have
gone, for he could get no more from her. When he rang again, Randall
responded:
“Mrs. Winter says, sir, will you please come up here as quick as you
can. She’s gone out. She thought she caught sight of Mr. Archie on the
street.”
To the colonel’s demand, “Where, how did she see him?” he obtained no
answer, and on his vicious pealing of the bell there came, eventually,
mellow Anglican accents which asked: “Yes? Whom do you wish to see?” It
is an evidence of the undisciplined nature of the sex that the soldier
made a face and--hung up the receiver.
He found himself--although this to a really open mind is no excuse--in
a muddle of conflicting impulses. He was on edge to get into the
street for the search after the boy; he was clutched in a vise by his
conviction that the clue to Archie’s whereabouts lay in Mercer’s hands,
and that the Southerner meant no harm to the lad. And all the while he
could feel Birdsall tugging at the leash.
“It’s on the cards,” he grumbled, with a wry face, “quite on the cards
that he may bolt in spite of me, and do some foolish stunt of his own
that will make a most awful muddle.”
Not nearly so composed as he looked, therefore, he turned to Mercer.
However, his ammunition was ready, and to Mercer’s inquiry, was he
satisfied? he replied calmly: “Well, not entirely. If Archie isn’t in
the house, _who_ is it whose throat you wish to cut? Who is hidden
here?”
It could not have been an unexpected question or Mercer hardly had
answered so readily: “You know who it is,” said he. “It is Mr.
Keatcham.”