ROSAMOND CURWOOD
A clear, bright day followed the heavy thunder shower which had
occurred late in the night. Peter, as he boarded the train for Hobart
Falls, hoped that it was an omen.
He had just had time for a few minutes' talk with O'Malley, in which
he gave his partner instructions about reaching him if anything of
importance should transpire during the day.
"Better wire me at Hobart Falls," he said. "Have it left in the
telegraph office to be called for. I can't tell where I'll be stopping
and I can't think of any other way I'd be sure of getting it. I don't
believe there'll be anything."
After that, he had hastily called Donald Morris on the telephone and
explained briefly that he was rushing out of town on a new scent.
"Another false clue?" asked Morris, wearily, and Peter saw, in his
mind's eye, the pale, tired face of his client.
"May be," said Peter, in a friendly, hopeful tone. "But you never can
tell. We mustn't miss a trick and I've found something I'm bound to
follow up. It may lead to nothing, of course, but there's always a
chance. I'm in a deuce of a rush just now and I'll have to wait till
I get back to tell you about it. Don't get discouraged. While there's
life, there's hope. While there's life----" he repeated to himself as
he hung up the receiver--"I wish to God I could be sure that Mary Blake
is still alive. Well, anyway----"
He made the nine-thirty train for Hobart Falls with four minutes to
spare. "Which is enough for anybody," thought Peter, as he watched the
ugly houses and factories slip by.
The railroad ran northward on the west side of the Hudson, for Peter
had ascertained Hobart Falls to be situated in the Catskill Mountains.
After a time the train slipped from behind a range of hills into a
tunnel and out again, and Peter, startled from his deep absorption, saw
below him the great river, shining blue and silver, in the morning sun.
No one who has ever seen it thus suddenly could fail to be impressed
by its beauty and grandeur. Peter, city-bred as he was, was strongly
affected by the sight of the blue-green wooded hills, lapping and
over-lapping, and the great, serene river winding in between.
His thoughts ran--"I wonder if I'll be lucky enough to find Walter
Lord, and what he'll know.... Gee, those rocks are corking, and those
big, soft pines.... It was a long while ago--maybe twenty years since
they wore that kind of clothes.... That's a house, way up on that
mountain! Must have a ripping view.... And he may be dead by now....
But he mustn't dare to be--I need him too much...." And so his mind ran
on, alternating between hope and discouragement, through the hours that
followed.
He had to change cars twice, each time to a road of narrower gauge.
"The next'll be roller skates, I should think," he said to himself as
he jerked and bumped along in the little mountain train.
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when they ran in to the
tiny, ugly, red-painted station of Hobart Falls. They had passed
through a number of stations, vociferous with red-faced hackmen and
seething with fat, jewelled, and overdressed Hebrews of the middle
class. This little place was quite different. There were no big hotels
or boarding houses in the immediate vicinity, and so few people that
only two trains a day stopped at Hobart Falls. The loungers about the
station were obviously country-bred and American.
Peter quickly approached one of them and asked where the telegraph
office could be found. He wished to ascertain at once if there was
anything from O'Malley.
The man jerked his thumb in the direction of the waiting room. "In
there," he said, briefly, "ticket office," and, with stupid, bovine
eyes, watched the stranger as he disappeared inside the station.
"Nothing ain't come fer nobody to-day," said the agent, in reply to
Peter's inquiry.
Peter stepped swiftly out again upon the platform, and looked about
him. Blue hills and valleys surrounded the little station on every
side. In the middle distance could be seen one or two small farmhouses,
and in the immediate foreground, drawn up close to the platform, was a
decrepit, dingy Ford. A long, lank man, sitting at the wheel, glanced
up at Peter expectantly.
"Is this for hire?" asked Peter, indicating the ancient car with a
motion of his head. "And can you take me to the village?"
The driver grinned at a man who was leaning against the edge of the
doorway, and spat, generously, over the wheel.
"Git in," he said, laconically.
Peter threaded himself into the back seat, and the weary flivver, with
a heavy groan, started down the empty road.
"Any p'tickeler place?" asked the man at the wheel, turning his
weather-beaten face, and looking Peter over from head to foot.
"I think I'll want to spend the night here," answered Peter, a trifle
dubiously. "Is there a hotel?"
The man laughed. "This ain't no metrolopus," he vouchsafed, "but I
guess the Widder Lord'll put you up for the night, if you'd like to go
there."
The "Widder Lord." Peter's heart sank, but he only said, "That'll do
all right, I guess. Take me there, will you?"
At that moment they turned a sharp corner, and Peter saw why the driver
had grinned at the lounger on the station platform. The village, what
there was of it, was not four minutes' walk from the station, but quite
out of sight, hidden by the small, wooded shoulder of a hill.
It was a sleepy, quiet little place, shut in by rolling upland. There
was one long street, or, rather, a wide place in the road, on each
side of which were small, old village houses, mostly painted white,
with green shutters. There were two stores, one of which was also the
post office, and a blacksmith's shop. In front of the latter stood an
old-fashioned buggy with empty shafts. From within came the ringing
clink of metal upon metal. Save for an old dog wandering down the
street, and a few loose hens dusting themselves in the road, there was
no sign or sound of life.
"Rip Van Winkle might have taken his twenty-year nap right here in the
middle of the street, instead of going to all the trouble of climbing
up one of those mountains," thought Peter. "No wonder there aren't any
Jews here. This place sure would cramp their style, and then some....
Wild-goose chase I've come on, anyway, I feel it in my bones. Walter
Lord is probably as dead as the rest of the village." The silence got
on his nerves and he spoke to the driver. "Think the Widow Lord will be
awake when we get there?" he asked.
The man turned a sardonic, screwed-up eye upon him. "'S next house,"
he said, pointing, "and we'll be there in one shake of a lamb's tail.
What'd she be asleep this time of day fer?"
Peter looked without much interest at the house indicated. It was
old and gray and weather-beaten but had evidently once been the
considerable house of Hobart Falls. Low and rambling, it faced the
street, standing a few feet back, among some ragged, flowering shrubs.
Suddenly Peter's eye lightened and he reached over and caught the
driver's shoulder.
"Stop here," he said, sharply. "This is the place where I want to stop."
"Sure it's the place ye want to stop," repeated the driver,
disgustedly. "Ain't I been tellin' ye? This is the Widder Lord's."
"Oh, yes. I forgot for the moment." The light faded from Peter's eyes.
"The '_Widder_ Lord's'," he muttered, inwardly. "The man's dead, of
course. However----"
He glanced again at the object which had raised a sudden hope within
him. At the far end of the house, standing out at right angles from it,
and partly hidden by vines, was an old battered sign:
WALTER LORD
PHOTOGRAPHER
"I've got the right house, anyway, and without any lost motion,"
thought Peter. "And that's the luck of the Irish--as far as it goes."
He paid the driver the "two bits" suggested as the amount of the fare.
The sum was paid so unconcernedly that the driver lingered while Peter
stepped quickly up to the front door and rang the old jangling bell. A
man as free as that with money didn't come to Hobart Falls so often.
Peter had made up his mind that he would spend the night there, in any
case, if the "Widder Lord" would take him in. He knew he would have
to take a taxi (he thought in city terms) to Kortenkill, two stations
below, to catch the midnight train, which did not stop at Hobart Falls,
if he were to go back to town that night, and the thought of bumping
over the bad roads in a pre-historic flivver, after being up most of
the previous night, made no appeal to him.
"I'll make her take me in," thought Peter, and rang the bell again.
"Anybody want me?"
The voice came from just over Peter's head, but he could see no one,
for the roof of the little old Dutch porch hid the speaker.
"Who wants me, Josh?" the voice repeated.
"Nobuddy wants you, Walt," the driver in the road bawled out. "'S a
stranger wants to spend the night. 'S yer sister-in-law to home?"
Peter's heart leaped harder, if not so far, as his long legs. One jump,
and he was on the narrow brick walk, looking up at an open window from
which protruded the quaintest old head he thought he had ever seen.
The face was that of a man of seventy or more, but the hair and long
sweeping moustache were brilliantly black. The hair was thin and
carefully brushed forward above the ears, in a bygone style. Two little
twinkling eyes looked down from either side of a long, thin, pointed
nose--looked down at Peter in mild surprise.
"You wanted to stay the night, Mr.--uh----"
"Clancy," Peter supplied, eagerly. "Yes. I want to look around Hobart
Falls a little. Could you----This is Mr. Walter Lord, isn't it?" He
glanced aside, as if for verification, to the half-hidden sign.
"That's me," replied the owner of the craning head, with a smile.
"That's me, all right."
Peter's heart settled down to a steady beat.
"Well, Mr. Lord," he said, "it's just like this. I've got a little
business here in Hobart Falls, and I want to spend the night. Josh," he
spoke as if the driver, who still lingered, were an old and intimate
friend, "Josh thought Mrs. Lord would take me in. I'm sorry she's away,
but couldn't you manage to put me up? It'd be a great favour."
"Aw, take him in, Walt," urged Josh, from the road. "'N let me know if
you'll need a hack again, Mister. I got the best car in the Falls."
Peter was anxiously watching the face above him.
"Well, you see, Miranda not being here, and all--makes it kind of hard.
She's awful particular about the linen closet, and I don't know what
sheets----"
"Never mind the sheets," Peter interrupted, quickly. "I'll sleep on
the floor, if necessary. I've just got to stay to-night, Mr. Lord, and
if you don't take me in----"
"Wait a second, and I'll come down," said Walter Lord, disappearing
from the window with the abruptness of a Jack-in-the-box.
"He'll take ye, all right," Josh called out, encouragingly, as he
turned his little car. "Lemme know when ye want me agin," and was gone,
in a cloud of dust.
"If you wouldn't mind coming around this way, Mr. Clancy----"
The entire figure of Walter Lord disclosed itself at the corner
of the house, and the figure was in strict accord with the face.
Slender, bent, and old it was, but almost jauntily clad. Light gray
trousers, somewhat stained with chemicals, were carefully pressed
into a knife-like crease down the front. A double-breasted waistcoat
of starched white duck sported a long festoon of old worn gold
watch-chain. Around his neck was a standing collar with tall points,
and so large that it made his thin neck look, so Peter thought,
like a lily in a pot. About the collar was tied a long, black
"shoe-string" tie of silk. He was just settling his thin shoulders into
a wide-lapelled, square-tailed, black broadcloth coat which he had
obviously donned for the occasion.
"Come this way, Mr. Clancy," he repeated. "The front door sticks in
this warm, damp weather, for we scarcely ever use it. All our friends
come in here," and with a gracious, hospitable gesture, he held open
the side door for Peter to pass.
Peter had just time to notice that there was a small outside stairway
leading to the second floor, built on at this end of the house, and
that, upon the second floor, there was a fairly good-sized slanting
window, and on the roof a skylight. "The photographic studio," thought
Peter, as he followed Lord into the house. As he crossed the threshold,
he unostentatiously dropped his small handbag just inside the door.
"I'm afraid I can't make you very comfortable, Mr. Clancy," said the
old man, doubtfully, drawing forward a sagging rocker with an elaborate
"tidy" on the back. "Won't you sit down? My sister has gone over to
Letty Bowen's just for the day and to spend the night. She'll be home
in the morning. Too bad, too bad. There's only a cold supper. D'you
mind cold suppers? I rather like 'em myself, this hot weather--and
I said to Miranda, 'I'll be as happy as a clam at high tide.' But I
didn't expect to have a visitor. (Let me take your hat.) Not that
I'm not always glad of company. Miranda says I'm worse than misery.
(Misery loves company, you know. Her joke.) But I do like to see new
people--new faces. Keeps you young, don't you think?--Oh, I almost
forgot. Do have a cigar----"
He slipped one thin, stained hand into his breast pocket and drew out
a Pittsburg stogie of the longest, thinnest, and stogiest type. Peter
shuddered inwardly and ventured to ask if he might smoke cigarettes
instead. "Perhaps you would have one yourself, sir," he added, noting a
funny little twinkle in the old man's eye.
"Well--you know----" Walter Lord spoke with slight embarrassment, at
the same time reaching out an eager hand, "I must say I do prefer 'em
to cigars, but Miranda, well, she kind of feels that--that cigars are
more suitable for a man of my age--and so----"
He lit one of Peter's cigarettes, inhaled a long, delicious whiff, and
smiled gently.
"Dear old duck," thought Peter, "with the heart of a kid, and scared to
death of his sister-in-law. Bet she's a Tartar. Thank heaven she isn't
here."
Peter leaned his head back against a large yellow butterfly worked in
wool on a black background, crossed his long legs and smoked leisurely,
with the air of a man at ease.
"There must be a lot of good fishing around here," he remarked, taking
a long shot at a possible hobby of the man he had determined should
be his host. "Crossed a lot of likely looking streams as we came up
through the mountains."
He saw, by the expression of Walter Lord's face, that he had made a
bull's-eye. The little man leaned forward and spoke with enthusiasm.
"There's the best fishing to be found in the Catskills just beyond that
meadow over there," he pointed out of the window. "You can't see the
stream from here, on account of the tall grass, but it's fine, open
fishing and just full of trout. Of course they're not very large, but
along at the beginning of the season I caught one that weighed two
pounds. Yes, sir. He was a beauty. And there are more of 'em, if you
know the pools. I could show you----"
After that, Peter had things pretty much his own way. The talk ran
largely on flies and tackle. ("He was sure to be a fly fisherman, if
he fished at all, the good old sport," thought Peter, smiling at his
host.) Peter told a story of some wonderful fishing he had once had,
up in Nova Scotia, and Lord capped it with an experience of his in the
Adirondacks when he was a boy--and so the minutes flew.
There was no further question as to Peter's spending the night there.
The lonely old man was too eager for society, and too trusting and
unsophisticated to raise any objections to the harbouring of an
unheralded guest, particularly since the guest was a fisherman, and a
fly fisherman, at that.
If Walter Lord had any idea that Mr. Clancy had come to Hobart Falls
with a purpose other than to investigate the fishing possibilities of
that region, his curiosity on the subject was completely held in check
by his innate courtesy.
In the first few minutes of their acquaintance Peter's quick mind
had invented several stories to account for his presence there. He
hesitated between the advisability of being a doctor, seeking a good
site for a sanitarium. ("For patients troubled with insomnia, this
would be ideal," Peter grinned to himself.) Or, perhaps, it would
awaken more sympathy to have a young wife who was ill, and needed
mountain air and seclusion.
But before he had talked with the old man very long Peter conceived a
deep distaste for subterfuge. "Dammit all, I won't lie to the good old
scout unless he makes me," he said to himself, as he watched Walter
Lord making his fussy little preparations for supper, and listened to
his constant flow of pleasant chatter as he passed back and forth from
the kitchen.
"Cold lamb and some of Miranda's currant jelly," he said, as he
placed a blue platter and a sauce dish filled with a truncated cone
of wobbling, clear crimson upon a small table near the west window.
"Beautiful, rich colour where the sun strikes it, isn't it?" He stepped
back to note the effect. "Let me see, there's a salad, too. Lettuce
from our own garden, Mr. Clancy. Pretty late for lettuce, but I plant
it right along through the summer and it does real well. Oh, I almost
forgot the pot cheese."
He bustled out in the kitchen and presently returned with a crisp salad
and a yellow bowl brimming with creamy cheese.
"The coffee's almost ready, and it'll be good, too," he chuckled.
"Miranda thinks strong coffee, three times a day, is bad for my nerves,
but I made this myself, and I'll bet you won't get a better cup of
coffee at the St. Denis Hotel." (Peter had told him that his home was
in New York.) "I used to go there quite a bit when I was younger. It's
a grand, good place, don't you think so, Mr. Clancy?"
His tone was so wistful, so full of pleasant pictures and
recollections, that Peter hadn't the heart to tell him that the old St.
Denis had vanished long ago. He only said that it certainly was one of
the best places in New York, and let it go at that.
In a few minutes they were seated on either side of the little table
near the window, a simple but bountiful meal spread between them. The
westering sun gleamed on the quaint old blue-and-white china and on the
jug of larkspur and madonna lilies which Walter Lord had moved to one
side of the table so that he could look at Peter as they ate and talked.
Peter had but one object, for the moment, and that was to captivate
the mind of his host, a feat which his experience and ready Irish wit
made easy of accomplishment. He told some stories which brought tears
of laughter to Walter Lord's little, twinkling eyes, and made him rock
backward and forward in his chair. In order to invite the old man's
confidence, Peter told some of his early experiences. Truthful stories
they were, in the main, only slightly embellished, and most effective
in their skilful blending of humour and pathos--but in them was no hint
of Peter's present profession.
By the time supper was finished, Peter had achieved a footing of such
friendly intimacy that he was allowed to help clear away. And all the
while he had been studying the little old man, whose quaint appearance
would have been simply ridiculous to one less sympathetic than Peter
Clancy. To him, the dyed hair and the jauntily worn old-fashioned
clothes spoke aloud of a spirit of undying youthfulness and simplicity,
a heart kept young by the love of all things beautiful, a mind so
filled with imagination and artistic longings that it had selected a
thing as impractical as photography for its profession.
Peter thought of the little, sleepy village and the emptiness of the
wooded hills, and could imagine how few were the sitters who came to
Walter Lord's old photographic studio. And he wondered, in that remote
spot, what incentive kept the light gray trousers so carefully creased,
the linen vest so stiffly starched, the old, worn broadcloth coat so
immaculately brushed.
"He must be like 'St. Ives'," Peter concluded, at last. "Since there's
no one else to dress for, he 'dresses for God.'"
They had left things tidy in the kitchen, and now, at ease in their
pleasant relationship of host and welcome guest, they sat beside the
open west window, smoking limitless cigarettes and talking endlessly.
Peter, looking always for an opening for the introduction of the
subject which was uppermost in his mind, carefully guided the old man
into speaking further of himself and his pursuits, a matter presenting
no difficulties whatever, for Walter Lord had many hobbies and rode
them with an enthusiasm which age could not abate.
He learned, among other things, that the Lords had once been well off,
but that the family estate had dwindled before Walter and his older
brother, Tom, came into possession, and that after Tom had died and
left his elderly widow and the remainder of the property to Walter's
care, it had suffered still more.
"I did the best I could," said the old man, wistfully, "but there it
was--I always felt that I could have made more money if I could have
gone to New York--but Miranda--and the old house--they seemed sort of
to anchor me."
"And your photograph studio, Mr. Lord. I should think you'd have hated
to leave that," said Peter, at last boldly approaching the subject
deepest in his thoughts. "By the way, speaking of photography"--he
smiled and leaned forward across the table, confidentially--"you may be
surprised, but I've seen some of your work. It's bully, too!"
"What?" cried Walter Lord, excitedly. "You don't say so, Mr. Clancy.
Some of my work in New York! Now I wonder who it could have been.
I've only taken pictures of people around here--and there aren't so
many--it's never been what you could call a paying profession, and
Miranda----But never mind. Whose picture was it that you saw? And how
did you know that I----"
"By George, I believe I've got it with me," said Peter, slapping his
pockets, the while his heart beat quickly. Now or never--"Here it is,
sure enough," he added, gleefully--and laid the small carte-de-visite,
the sole trophy of his midnight quest, face upward on the table.
There was a moment of suspense while the old man carefully adjusted his
glasses and took the old photograph up in his hand. Peter watched his
face, narrowly. It had been many years. Would he----
"Why! Why!" exclaimed Walter Lord, in tones of deep surprise. "Why,
how, in Heaven's name, Mr. Clancy, did you get a picture of--of little
Rosamond Curwood?"