A Futile Search
It would seem that in a city of fifty thousand inhabitants, it would be
impossible for the Mayor and his (or her) private secretary to drop so
suddenly and completely from sight as to leave no trace or clue behind
them; yet such was the fact. Knowing Fitzgerald to be of a peculiar
temperament, Gertrude had arranged to meet him as quietly as possible.
Had her cousin, Jessie Craig, been at home, she would have told her
where she was going, but that lady had gone to Philadelphia for a few
days' visit, and there was no one in the Van Deusen home but the
servants, to whom Miss Van Deusen had merely remarked that she was
going out and would be back, probably, about ten.
Mary Snow lived in an apartment hotel and occupied her two-room suite in
spinster independence, carrying her own latch-key and accounting to no
one for her goings and comings. So accustomed had the clerks and
elevator-boys become to seeing her come in, during her newspaper days,
at all hours of the night, that they paid little heed to her movements.
So there was no one to feel any alarm when midnight came and they did
not return from their excursion to the suffering Fitzgerald.
Towards morning, however, when Miss Van Deusen failed to appear, the old
butler who had known her so many years, became alarmed, and at daylight
telephoned to Bailey Armstrong. The news came to him with a shock, but
he went at once to Miss Snow's hotel, thinking the Mayor might have
stayed there for some reason. When he found them both missing, he became
alarmed, sent for the chief of police and the district attorney, and
telegraphed Jessie Craig to return.
A systematic search was instituted, detectives set to work, and all the
majestic machinery of the law put in motion. It had happened strangely
enough, that the proprietor of the drug-store which had been their
rendezvous was out when the two women had met there, and neither of the
two young clerks knew the Mayor or her secretary by sight. Consequently,
there was not a soul who had seen or recognized either of them after
they had set out for the appointment with Fitzgerald. Neither had anyone
known of that appointment; nor would it have mattered in the least if
they had, since, Fitzgerald himself, alive and well, had known nothing
of the engagement made in his name, and was even now talking loudly
against the outrage and the shame of what was plainly foul play.
"Kidnaping," every other man said, and believed, and the detectives were
on a still hunt again for the mysterious electric cab of election eve.
In this particular line of search John Allingham was bending all his
energies. Every garage in the city was visited and made to account for
each one of its machines. No chauffeur was left unquestioned, and the
records were thoroughly examined--all with the foolish consciousness
that nothing could be easier than for some private owner or renter of an
automobile to have skimmed quietly away with the mayor in his tonneau,
quite out of reach of the law. As the day passed, rumors of flying
automobiles came in from all directions, making a hopeless confusion of
clues that led nowhere.
At City Hall, the chairman of the board of aldermen took the helm,
becoming acting-mayor for the time being. Although he directed the
search for the mayor and her secretary with much skill and patience, the
Honorable Otis H. Mann was enjoying an inflated sense of independence,
such as does not come often to a small man on large occasions.
As the day closed and no news came from the missing women, the
excitement grew. Crowds gathered on the streets and squares, until
someone, by a happy thought, called for a mass-meeting in Masonic
Temple. If Gertrude could have heard the speeches made there, and noted
the sympathy and pride of her townspeople, she would have felt her
strength renewed as the eagle. For however they might have been divided
in opinion before, every man, woman and child were solidly for her now.
A great wave of indignation had swept the city, and left the public
heart alive with love and sorrow for the brave young woman who had dared
take up this burden. Although they talked hopefully and determinedly of
perfecting their search and restoring her to her office, many a heart
was cherishing a great fear that death, or worse than death, had already
overtaken her.
"A terrible thing has befallen us," one of the speakers was saying. "And
an awful state of affairs exists when the mayor of our own city can be
completely swallowed up--and hidden from all pursuit--in an evening.
When we remember that it is a woman--two women--of the highest breeding
and inheritance who have been so foully dealt with, we are overwhelmed
with a sense of disaster."
"But we must find a way--we must organize our forces," interrupted
another. "They must, they shall be found."
There was much ardent talk, but little practical advice, and when Bailey
Armstrong and John Allingham left the hall together, the hearts of both
were heavy.
"I'd give all I've got in the world to find those two," said Bailey.
"But between you and me, it looks pretty dark. There was something queer
about it. Why should Gertrude go out at night alone? Why didn't she call
on me to go with her? She often did, if no one else was going--from the
house, I mean."
"Did you hear her say anything about an appointment?--or Miss Snow?"
asked Allingham. "Evidently they had one."
"Not a word. I was in the office yesterday. We talked things over, some.
I asked her--" Bailey stopped. "Say, she was going to telephone Newton
Fitzgerald to come up. You don't suppose he's in it?"
"Let's go over to his saloon," said Allingham. "Here's a car coming
now."
But when they got over there, Fitzgerald was declaiming loudly gainst
the rotten politics of Roma.
"I've known her since she was a kid," he was saying to a gang of beery
individuals around his door, "and she's been an angel of light to me an'
mine. I voted for her--yes, I'm proud to say I did, against the party
though it was. And I shall do it again, if she comes back alive. Why, I
found a note on my desk this morning when I came in, that my barkeeper
put there, saying she'd telephoned for me to come up to the Hall
yesterday afternoon. I'd a' gone, only I was out of town and didn't get
back here last night at all. Mebbe I'd 've been of use to her some way
if I'd been on time. Anyway, I'm going on a still hunt for her tomorrow,
all by my lonesome."
"He's sincere enough," remarked Bailey. "Newton's a good-hearted fellow.
He always liked Gertrude."
They walked back and soon separated for the night, but neither of them
slept, for thinking of those two, so suddenly and mysteriously snatched
away.
As John Allingham walked home he lived over again the exciting evening
before election. He recalled the moonlit night, the rushing automobile,
the ghostly shadows chasing themselves in swift procession ever behind
him. He remembered the shock and the overturn and finding himself face
to face with Gertrude Van Deusen on the pine-shaded road. He lived again
through the rushing ride home, hearing again her silvery voice as she
talked, and feeling again the indefinable charm of her presence. He
forgot--that she was doing a man's work; he thought only of her
femininity and grace and beauty. Then, realizing afresh the calamity
that had befallen the city, he groaned aloud.
"Oh, my God!" he muttered. "If she is lost--"
Then he knew, all suddenly and with a great heartache, that he loved a
woman--that she was Gertrude Van Deusen--and that she was lost, and that
she might be dead, or in great misery and sorrow.
"Good God," he cried, "what can I do to help her?"