A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE
Next day Leslie repeated the visit to her home. The second expedition to
it was made in a small black car which she boldly requisitioned from a
garage located not far from her father’s offices. There he kept several
cars, immediate to the use of himself and one or two of his lieutenants.
The call Leslie had made at her father’s offices had proved advantageous
to her. She had not only gained important information from Mr.
Carrington, she had also received a fresh supply of temerity to bolster
her for further daring deeds. She knew the manager of the garage to
which she went only slightly. He had treated her request with the
respect due Peter Cairns’s daughter. She calculated there was small
possibility that the proprietor and her father would ever discuss her
visit to the garage. She preferred that risk to the annoyance of being
watched by a curious taxicab driver.
On the second occasion she was free to park her own car. She made one
deliberate patrol of the block. Then paused before the gates. From a
pocket of the leather motor coat she wore she pulled a heavy
medium-sized brass key suspended from a brass ring. Without an instant’s
hesitation she fitted the key to a fat brass padlock which secured the
gates against intruders.
“Whuh-h-h!” Leslie blew a breath of relief. “Easiest thing I ever tried
to do,” she murmured with satisfaction. “Wonder who’s home, or if anyone
saw me?” She drew the key from the open padlock, fastened it in place
from the inside of the gates through which she had just triumphantly
passed and snapped it energetically back on guard. “This time,” she
laughed her silent selfish laugh, “I’m on the inside, looking out.”
In spite of her bold manner and ready laughter Leslie was experiencing a
certain amount of trepidation. She fought it down with all the sternness
she could summon against herself. The night before, long after Doris and
Mrs. Gaylord had retired, Leslie had sat at a little table in her room
arranging the peculiar expedition to which she had now committed
herself. She had drawn a sketchy little plan of the first and second
floors of her home. With a lead pencil she had lightly traced on the
plan precisely the course by which she would proceed when she had once
passed through the vestibule of her home and had set foot in the great
entrance hall with its lofty ceiling and grand stairway.
Knowing her father’s secretive nature she was reasonably sure that such
of the servants as might be in the house knew nothing of the strained
relations between herself and her father. Parsons, the steward, might be
there, possibly the second cook and two or three of the maids. The
others had probably been sent to the country house on Long Island which
was never closed. When in or near New York, summer or winter, this was
her father’s favorite haunt.
Leslie had resolved to brazen matters out, if, when she entered the
house, she should suddenly encounter any of the servants. Her objective
was a certain room on the second floor. It held something she wanted;
needed; must have.
“Go to it,” she mutteringly encouraged the reluctant side of her brain.
With this spur to action she sauntered away from the gate and up to the
short drive which soon curved to the left and continued on to the garage
behind the house. She left the drive for the wide stone walk leading up
to the deep, central pillared veranda. Her cool, self-possessed manner,
her walk, indifferent, swaggering, was at variance with the excited
beating of her heart and her private distaste for the visit she was
about to make. This distaste was not of moral persuasion. Leslie was
merely afraid that her father might have changed his mind about going
west at the last minute. It was “Peter the Great,” not the servant she
dreaded encountering. If her father were afterward to learn from any of
the servants whom she might encounter of her visit to the house, it
would show him that she was a force not easy to control.
To gain access to the house itself would be a simple matter since the
doors and windows had not been sealed. Leslie had several latch keys on
a special ring which fitted various doors of her stately home. She was
well prepared, but chose to use the main entrance for the sake of
appearances, should she be observed.
She stepped presently into the great rosewood reception hall with its
vast crystal sheet of mirror, occupying the whole lower end of the
apartment; its two grim guardian Norman suits of armor. A richly
cushioned bench extended the length of one side of it. Leslie paused
beside the bench, listening for sounds of human presence other than the
thump of her heart and the excited sigh of her own breath. Not a sound
disturbed the church-like quiet which pervaded the hall.
She dropped down on the bench and carefully restored to a small leather
handbag the latch key she had just used and which she still held in one
hand. For as much as ten minutes she sat still, watching, waiting,
listening, hoping no one might come. During that time her eyes roved
ceaselessly about the hall and from the magnificent archway, lightly
draped with velvet of a rosewood tint, to a lower smaller arch at the
rear of the hall which stood open into a sun parlor.
She rose, at length slipped silently as an Indian to the grand archway
and made a comprehensive survey of the French salon beyond the arch.
Satisfied that no one was there to spy upon her she next inspected the
sun parlor. There her father always established himself in the morning,
when at home, with the morning papers. The long mahogany library table
was stacked with an orderly array of newspapers and magazines. That in
itself was significant proof to Leslie that “Peter the Great” was
“missing from the show shop.”
Without pausing to explore further the main floor of the house she
turned and darted noiselessly back into the hall and up the grand
stairway. Straight as an arrow she directed her steps on reaching the
second floor landing to a wide solid looking door of black walnut which
stood part way down a short wide corridor hung on both sides with
nothing but marine paintings. It was Peter Cairns’s famous marine
collection; the pride of his heart. Leslie ran her fingers up and down
one side of the knobless black walnut door. Silently it slid to the
left, disappearing into a space cleverly designed to receive it. She was
across the threshold in one long step and the door was moving back into
place again.
This time she indulged in a burst of silent merriment as she collapsed
into an immense leather arm chair. She “had got away with it.” She was
now safe from any possible intrusion of servants. She was in Peter the
Great’s own den. No one other than they two knew the secret mechanism of
the walnut door. When she left the house it would be by a private
stairway leading directly to a side veranda which no one but herself and
her father ever used. She had not been able to enter by this means.
There was only one key to the veranda entrance to the stairway and this
was carried by the financier. The long room behind the walnut door,
furnished comfortably rather than luxuriously, was Peter Cairns’s den.
In it were his rarest books, a collection of priceless ancient coins,
one of cameos, and numbers of unique treasures picked up in all parts of
the world. Leslie could open the door from the inside by manipulation of
a little steel knob, like that of a safe. The door would close after
her, securing itself automatically.
When her flash of victorious amusement had subsided she let her gaze
travel slowly about her. Quickly her features changed to a somber cast.
She was once more in the good old “playroom” of happier days. It was in
this very room that she had best learned to understand her father. Peter
Cairns had then treated her more as though she were his son instead of
his daughter. Her grotesquely plain little face and lawless domineering
ways as a youngster had appeared to please and entertain him. He had
called her his “ugly little beauty kid” and “the boss” and “Cairns II.”
He had, as she had grown older, and come home from prep school, then
college, spent long hours with her in the den. Sometimes they had played
chess or backgammon of which they were both fond. Again he would talk
freely to her of his financial operations. It was a school into which
the maxims of Brooke Hamilton would not have fitted. Peter Cairns had
made Leslie’s mind up to his own way of living as he was one day to
learn.
Realizing the flight of time she gathered herself together for the final
episode of her surreptitious errand. She rose, crossed the room to where
a rare etching hung and lifted it from its hook. The space thus left
vacant showed the indentation of a wall safe. Leslie manipulated the
tiny knob with sure fingers. She next pulled open the safe’s door and
moved a tiny switch inside the cavity. A bright light flooded it. She
ran a finger down a stack of small, black, leather-bound notebooks,
bindings out, lettered in gilt, A to Z. She drew the third book, I to M,
from the little pile and sat down with it in the nearest chair.
“So that’s his name—Lavigne! It sounds French, but he looked more like a
dago. He’s probably forgotten his real name,” Leslie mused satirically.
“All right, Anton. I’ll proceed to tell your fortune. You are going to
receive a visit from a dark woman who knows all about you.”
Leslie copied the address from her father’s very private directory into
a note book of her own. She replaced the little black book, closed and
locked the safe and made business-like preparations to depart. She
purposed to call at the address she had obtained that same afternoon. It
was not yet four o’clock. She could reach Anton Lavigne at the Central
Park West address in good season if she started promptly. If he were not
at home she would leave a note of appointment with him for ten o’clock
the next morning.
She let herself out of Peter the Great’s den by a curtained door at the
back of the room. It also had a spring lock, its key was also in the
financier’s possession. The stairway was in darkness but Leslie knew her
way without switching on a light at the head of the stairs. Sure-footed,
she quickly made the descent and went cautiously onto the veranda. Still
no one in sight.
Leslie kept as close to the house as she could until she reached its
front. There she crossed a strip of frozen lawn to the drive and
hurriedly followed it to the gates. She could hardly believe as she got
back into the car that she had spent over an hour in the show shop
without having seen sign of a servant. The house was in perfect order.
She was confident that Parsons was still caretaker. She had seen signs
of the steward’s expert domestic management as soon as she stepped
inside. She moodily wondered when she would see home again. She
afterward brightened a little under the dogged determination to “make
things come her way.”
When she reached the somewhat garish apartment hotel which housed Anton
Lavigne she was of the opinion that her good fortune had held. She
received the cheering information that Mr. Lavigne was in and was soon
shaking hands with the dark-faced, suave, but keen-eyed foreigner. He
came downstairs to the lounge to greet her and conduct her to the family
apartment on the fifth floor. He inquired with the courtliness Leslie so
well remembered in him for her father. He had not seen or heard from him
in some time. He waited with admirable reserve for Leslie to state her
errand.
“My father is away from New York at present,” Leslie began when he had
ushered her into a small reception hall furnished in a manner which
suggested its use as office as well. “I am through college now and
starting a business career for myself.”
“Indeed,” Lavigne raised polite commendatory brows. “May I ask, how long
you have been engaged in such an enterprise. You American girls are so
amazing. The English girls, too, for that matter. In France every woman
is a business woman, so we say, but American girls are the business
adventurers. They plan business on a large scale, and really accomplish
what they plan.”
“I hope I shall,” was Leslie’s fervent reply. “My father isn’t helping
me at all. I don’t wish him to do so. I am using my own money, and he
isn’t giving me a word of advice. All I claim from him is a free use of
some of his most private successful methods. That is why I am here. I
know you can be as useful to me as you have been to him.” She suddenly
fixed her eyes on Lavigne with an expression startlingly like that of
Peter Cairns, though she bore small physical resemblance to him.
“You speak with great confidence—with frankness.” Lavigne’s thick dark
brows drew together. “I knew when you were announced that you wished
something out of the usual. Only your father, Mr. Peter Cairns, and a
few of my special friends have this address.” He gazed steadily at her
as though waiting to hear a certain assurance from her which his foreign
mind toward caution demanded.
“I have just come from the house on Riverside Drive. I took your address
from its usual place. Do you get me?” Leslie spoke in the best imitation
of her father she could muster.
“Ah, yes.” There was relief in the response. “I understand the
situation, I believe. What can I do for you, Miss Cairns?” It had long
been known to Lavigne that Peter Cairns’s greatest interest in life was
his daughter. Such a calamity as an estrangement between the two would
have seemed impossible to this man who had been one of the financier’s
ablest allies for many years. He now believed that his best interests
lay in serving Leslie.
Leslie could tell nothing of the man’s thoughts by watching his face. No
expression or emotion contrary to Lavigne’s will was allowed to appear
on his dark features.
“My business operation is the building of a garage not far from the
campus of Hamilton College. Hamilton is my—er—the college I went to.”
Leslie always stuck at the words “Alma Mater.” “I had a good deal of
trouble obtaining the site, due to the underhandedness of a crowd of
would-be welfare students who tried to make me give it up to them. They
wanted it for a dormitory.”
Lavigne smiled with heartening sympathy and made a gesture of
understanding regret for Leslie’s troubles.
“I found out what their scheme was and managed to get into touch with
the owner of the property before they did. Before he closed with me they
let him know they wanted the site and he charged me sixty thousand
dollars for what I should have paid not more than thirty-five or forty
thousand. When they discovered I had won out over them they made a great
fuss. They circulated very hateful gossip about how dishonorable I was,
and so forth. A rich old crank at Hamilton, the last of the Hamilton
family, sided with these students against me, though she’d never met me,
and presented them with a dormitory site right next to the property I
had bought. Can you beat that?” Leslie had forgotten dignity in slangy
disgust for the way the matter had turned out.
“Incredible, yet true.” Lavigne lightly raised a hand. “But proceed,
Miss Cairns. I am deeply interested.”
Leslie went on to explain regarding the old houses standing on both
pieces of property. “These students have the advantage of the services
of the only builder and architect of ability in that part of the
country. He knows the labor situation there. He has had plenty of men
since the start. I have a New York firm on the job and they are
slackers. They claim they can’t get the laborers. My ground hasn’t been
cleared off yet. My garage building isn’t started. The old dormitory is
half up. I must do something about it. Two-thirds of those laborers are
Italians, from an Italian colony outside Hamilton. I want them to work
for me. I’ll pay them double, triple, if necessary, to quit the other
operation.”
She stopped. Not for an instant did her gaze leave Lavigne’s face. He
was now looking at her very shrewdly, an odd gleam in his black eyes.
Leslie thought they twinkled. It put her on her mettle.
“This isn’t a schoolgirl quarrel I’ve had with these other students, Mr.
Lavigne,” she said a trifle sullenly. “If you want to know the secret
truth it’s a fight between another student and myself for—to bring about
a certain result. I have as much right to the use of these men as she—as
they—these students have. I don’t care what I pay you to have you help
me. I have a large fortune in my own right. I can soon prove it to you.
This business is really a race to see which side wins. I’ll win, if
you’ll help me. No one need even suspect you of being concerned in the
matter. I want you to engineer it. That’s the way you’ve always worked
for my father, isn’t it?” Leslie asked the question with innocent
ingenuousness. She understood, however, precisely how much depended upon
it.
“Your father’s and my transactions have always been conducted with great
discretion,” was the indirect admission.
“I know that. I know _all about certain deals between you and him in the
past_. If I didn’t, would I be here now? It’s not simply a question of
the garage operation with me. I’m fighting to assert myself. I’m going
to follow my father’s methods. They’ve been absolutely successful. What
I want I intend to get, if those who can give it to me are willing to
sell out.” Leslie asserted boldly.
“Of course, of course. You are like your father. You are not a minor,
Miss Cairns?” Lavigne inquired tentatively.
“Hardly.” Leslie smiled. “And you don’t have to consult my father. He
has told me to do as I pleased with my own money. I’ll ask you to
observe absolute secrecy in the matter. When the battle is won, then he
is to be told.”
“You may trust me to serve you as best I can, Miss Cairns,” Lavigne
declared with flattering sincerity. “In a few days I will go to Hamilton
and look over the situation. I can tell you then what ought to be done.
Where shall I address you?”
“At the Essenden until day after tomorrow. Then I’m going back to
Hamilton. My address there is the Hamilton House.” Leslie rose to
conclude her call. She was reminded that her father’s interviews with
others were always brief. She was experiencing all the sweetness of
vengeful exultation. At last she was going to “get back at Bean.”
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