HARVEY SPENCER TAKES UP THE TRAIL
Harvey had waited about the jail for days. He was certain that Elsie
Welcome would return to Druce, and he was resolved to make a great effort
to induce her to leave him.
In his unsubtle makeup the measure of his devotion was as great as the
measure of his unspoiled manhood. The girl he wished to make his wife had
been taken from him. She had removed herself far from his kindness and
care, but he could not cease to offer her the care she needed more
poignantly than before.
The personal interest of so conspicuous a person as Mary Randall, in
Elsie's case, had undoubtedly urged Harvey on--when otherwise he might
have given up. Even so, his courage and persistency, and personal
sacrifices, were wonderful to behold.
On the night when Druce was at last removed from the jail Harvey was
standing in an alley opposite the public entrance to the jail watching
the automobile which stood awaiting the coming of someone from within.
Finally he saw the slender figure of a woman emerge from a doorway and
enter the automobile. He knew that figure. He ran across the street and
around the car. He noted its number with one of those keen flashes of
memory, conscious at the moment that he should remember that number as
long as he drew breath.
He flung open the door on the further side of the automobile.
Elsie faced him. "What are you doing here?" she asked in an icy little
voice.
"I--no--Won't you come to your mother, Elsie? Won't you come away from
this man? Your mother and Patience love you so much and have been trying
so hard to find you and--"
"I can't, Harvey--I--perhaps--Oh! Go away. Druce is coming. He will--hurt
you."
"It doesn't matter about me. It's you."
"I--I must stand by my husband."
"Husband! He isn't your husband. He fooled you with a marriage license.
Anybody can get a license in Chicago, but Druce's license was never
returned. He likely got some fellow to pretend to perform the marriage.
Elsie, it wasn't legal, I can prove it."
For an instant Elsie's spirit flamed in her eyes and her burning cheeks
paled. Then she saw Druce coming and she turned towards him wearily, a
strange quivering and drooping of her eyelids alone showing that she had
heard. In the presence of her master she grew meek as a little child.
Harvey drifted back into the shadows of the jail, powerless to help her,
and saw her driven away with the man who had ruined her earthly life.
Fighting his grief and despair, he went to the nearest drug-store and
telephoned Miss Randall of what he had seen.
"Druce out on bail! A murderer out on bail in Chicago!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, Harvey, if only you had thought to jump into a taxicab and follow
them to see where they have been taken."
"I'm no detective. I am going back to Millville. Perhaps I can get back
my old job in the grocery store," he answered grimly.
"Hello! Miss Randall! Hello! I remember the number of the machine." He
gave it.
"Good! Wait a minute till I see whose that is. Hold the wire." She
consulted her list of the automobile numbers entered in Illinois and
found that this one belonged to a professional bondsman named Comstock.
She gave Harvey the man's residence number.
"Go out there first thing in the morning and see if you can find out from
the chauffeur where the machine went tonight. Keep a stiff upper lip, Mr.
Spencer, you have really done splendidly."
Harvey went early next day to the address given him, a residence of the
type called stone-fronted, in a district no longer fashionable. There was
a garage, but no automobile. Harvey made a careful survey of the premises
without gaining ground. He saw another of Mary Randall's aids come,
linger about and go away; but remembering her advice about keeping a
stiff upper lip, he stayed on. He was to be rewarded late in the
afternoon.
A car rumbled into the garage. Its colored driver immediately began
washing it and Harvey sauntered back into the yard. The number on it was
the one printed on his memory.
From somewhere back in his tired brain came the impulse to say,
"I'm a repair man from Gavin's garage. Mr. Comstock told me to come over
and take a look at his car. Said he had it out in the rain last night and
it wasn't working right."
"Yes, sah; that car certainly has been drove last night. Some of the
battery connections got wet." The chauffeur was glib enough.
"Lights and ignition out of order?" Harvey pretended to examine the car,
asking seemingly careless questions and gaining from the negro the
information that the car had gone from the jail with Druce to an obscure
street far out on the northwest side. The man could not give the number
of the house, but said it was one of three in the middle of "a short
little street."
Harvey made the excuse that he must go back to the garage where he was
employed to get his tools, and hurried away.
It was growing dark and a wild, stormy rain-wind was blowing when he
reached the remote neighborhood described for him by the bondsman's
talkative servant. He was gazing at the three forbidding dwellings
standing near the center of the block, trying to make up his mind which
to approach first, when he saw Elsie in her long rain-coat come out of
the middle house, hesitate a moment, then hurry down the steps into the
street.
He slipped into the shadow of a house, his heart thumping.
"Elsie!" he called softly in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
She stopped, startled.
"Is it Harvey?" Elsie peered doubtingly into the darkness, then stepped
trustingly towards him as he replied,
"Yes, it's sure Harvey." He caught the sadness in her words and his voice
shook. "Won't you come away with me now? Your mother wants you!"
"Your life is in danger with him. Why don't you leave him?" he added
earnestly.
"Leave him," she repeated. "Oh, if I only could! My mother and
Patience--how are they?"
"They are well and safe, only they want you. They're going back to
Millville, to the same cottage. It's going to be all fixed over. Patience
is going to be married--Mr. Harry Boland."
Tears streamed from Elsie's eyes. She leaned against the iron fence that
skirted the sidewalk.
"Don't you see, Harvey, I just couldn't go home? I couldn't bear to make
Patience--ashamed of me. Don't tell her that, though, will you? Tell them
that I have to stay with my--my--oh, don't let mother know you saw me.
Don't let her know any different."
"You poor little thing--"
She looked about her in alarm. "I mustn't stay here. You mustn't, either.
It's no use, Harvey. The life's got me--I can't turn back."
The next moment she was running down the street as if hurrying from a
pursuer.
Harvey saw her enter the corner drug-store, waited a little while, then
decided he too had business in the drug-store. He would telephone Miss
Randall--but he must be careful. Elsie was receiving a package from the
drug clerk, as he entered the 'phone booth--and left while he was
talking. Harvey was standing with his face to the wall, speaking in a
whisper, lest his message would be overheard. He did not see Elsie
depart.
He got the reformer herself on the telephone.
"I have found them," he said.
"Good!" Joy and relief were in her tones. "Watch them carefully, won't
you? We'll have detectives there in a jiffy with a new warrant for Druce.
This time for white slavery. He will not escape us again."
Harvey gave the number of the house where Druce and Elsie had been
hidden, appointed a rendezvous with the detective and returned at once to
watch the house. He decided that Elsie had hurried back while he was at
the telephone.
In less than an hour an automobile rushed up to the house. Two men got
out and hurried into the place. One of them he recognized as the lawyer
he had seen at the entrance of the jail. There were not his detectives.
The storm had increased and the rain was driving in blinding torrents
across the street.
Harvey saw a group of people suddenly emerge from the house. The
chauffeur jumped down and took part with the struggling little crowd. He
could hear Druce swearing loudly, calling out Elsie's name with words of
abuse. The men pushed the drunken man into the car, and got in after him.
Harvey looked about for some sort of a vehicle, but none was in sight and
the auto was actually starting. He sprang on the rear, spring and,
crouching, hung on desperately. They drove for a long time; to him it
seemed hours as his hands grew numb and his muscles ached from clinging
to his precarious hold. Fortunately the storm had subsided.
The driver turned into a dark, cobble paved street. The auto swayed and
jolted like a ship on the rocks. The road was full of pitch-holes and as
the wheels slipped into them a blinding spray of muddy water was flung
into Harvey's face. The machine put on more speed and swung around a
corner. Another hole! The car careened, almost turned over, and Harvey
was thrown into the street.
As he struggled to his feet the red rear light of the automobile was two
blocks away. But he went on, gasping for breath, stumbling. Presently he
found himself in the district near the river, close to the north side
water front, which is deserted after night-fall.
He had hurried on like a man in a dream. Now he came to the edge of the
river and stood staring down into the water.
Out in the stream he could see the shadowy outline of a boat. Looking
more closely, he saw that he was scarcely two hundred feet from the
craft. The darkness had multiplied the distance; it was now penetrated by
a lantern light moving on the deck, evidently in the hand of someone who
was standing aft on the boat.
There was distinct, loud talking and swearing between men.
Harvey thought that it was a fishing smack. Its demonstrative passengers
were bent upon waking up the night and almost woke him up to the purpose
of his night's errand when he heard a loud voice say:
"Cut that out, Druce. No more boozing, d'you hear?"
"D-r-u-c-e."
Harvey was as near fainting as a healthy young man might be with the
shock of this surprise after his tremendous exertions and his fall. He
stood as if petrified.
But his ears still caught the sound of swearing and he saw men moving
quickly about on the deck, then the gray white of sails spreading like
gaunt ghosts. The swish of water told him that the boat was moving, that
his quarry was slipping into pitch-blackness ahead.
That was the finish of his courage.
Harvey felt his limbs trembling, felt something trickle down his face. He
was beaten.