GROUND BAIT
When Burton reached High Ridge, it was already late in the evening. If
he had followed his inclinations, he would have gone like a shot to
Rowan Street, but something that he called common sense interfered. He
lost no time, however, in hunting up Watson, the chief of police. The
chief was at home, and was thinking of going to bed when Burton
called. He didn't think of it again for quite a while.
"I feel as though I was rehearsing for private theatricals," he said,
with a somewhat embarrassed laugh, after Burton had gone over his
plans with him in minute detail.
"That's all right. If we get what we want, it will be worth it. If we
don't, we won't be any worse off than we are now. You understand. You
will see that Underwood is taken home--not before eleven o'clock--and
that your plainclothes man stays with him from that minute until
further orders. And no one must know that he is out of jail except
the man with him. I'll see the family in the morning and explain, and
I'll see Selby in the course of the morning and see that he knows the
news. Then just an hour after he is in the house,--neither more nor
less,--there is to be an alarm of fire. You will see about that. Then
I'll see you afterwards and we'll decide whether to go on with it."
"I guess I've got it straight," said Watson. "You are responsible for
this, you know, and if anything goes wrong--"
"I'll take the responsibility, all right. It will be a busy day, but I
rather hope something may come of it, Mr. Watson."
Watson cleared his throat discreetly. Of course if anything did come
of it, he wouldn't mind taking the credit for the result, but since he
was already committed to a theory on the subject of the High Ridge
mystery, he didn't care to welcome any other suggestion too
enthusiastically.
Burton went to his hotel, his thoughts in an excited whirl of
possibilities. There was a telegram waiting for him. He tore it open,
and read it twice over before he could focus his mind on it
sufficiently to understand it.
"Arrive at two to-morrow private car. Be ready to go on west with me.
"RACHEL OVERMAN."
"To-morrow!" Burton said, trying to pull his thoughts together. "What
in the world is the matter? Go west? Well, hardly! Is Phil worse, I
wonder. Thank heaven she doesn't arrive in the morning. But go west
to-morrow! Why, what nonsense!"
He did not stop to consider that it was exactly the sort of nonsense
that he had given Rachel reason to expect of him for the last twenty
years.
Burton made an early call the next day at the house on Rowan Street.
Leslie Underwood was in the garden when he came up, and he stopped for
a moment at the gate to enjoy the picture she made. It would be
impossible for any one with sensibilities not to enjoy a painted
picture of a beautiful girl bending before a bed of pansies, her
summer gown of blue lawn making an effective contrast to the green
grass upon which its folds rippled, and her hair bare to the sun. It
would therefore have merely argued brutish insensibility on Burton's
part if he had not felt the charm of the real thing. Perhaps, however,
it would not have been necessary for him to feel it so keenly that it
seemed like a hand laid hushingly upon his heart. He stood staring in
a forgetfulness of himself that would have been a valued tribute to
any work of art. Some instinct warned the girl; she turned her head
abruptly and then, when she saw him, she rose and came toward him,
strewing the gathered pansies like many-colored jewels along the sod.
[Illustration: "_He stopped for a moment at the gate to enjoy the
picture she made_." Page 250.]
"Oh, you're back!" she exclaimed.
It was so indisputable a statement of fact that he did not attempt an
answer. But perhaps she did not notice the omission, for as she
withdrew her hand from his she asked gayly: "Well, what luck?"
"I'll tell you, to-morrow."
"Then you have found something?"
"This is the time, Miss Underwood, when I can properly assume the air
of inscrutable mystery which belongs by all tradition to the astute
detective. If I had really been up in my part I should have assumed it
long ago, instead of revealing my actual ignorance so recklessly. It's
rather late in the day to begin to be mysterious, I admit, but I am
disposed to claim the privilege for the next twenty-four hours."
She watched him eagerly. "Something is brewing!"
"Hum,--possibly. But please observe that I don't say there is."
"I shall watch you."
"I am flattered by your notice. I begin to perceive that I have been
even more improvident than I guessed in letting the opportunity to be
mysteriously interesting slip until now."
She laughed, and stooped to gather her forgotten pansies.
"I believe it's good news! I know you are hopeful, because you are
gay."
"Perhaps I am gay merely to hide a perturbed heart."
She looked up quickly, questioningly.
"Have you heard from Philip lately? Or his mother?" she asked. The
question may have been suggested by his words or it may not.
"I received a telegram from Mrs. Overman last night. She says she is
to be here to-morrow on her way west."
"Here? Oh!" The girl looked startled. "Must I see her?"
"Would you rather not?"
"Oh, I could not bear to see her--yet."
"Then you need not," said Burton promptly, reckless of Rachel's
feelings on the subject. "She is only going through the town, and very
likely may not leave her car."
"You are not going on with her?" she asked, with sudden alarm.
"Oh, no, indeed!"
Then, as an afterthought, she asked: "Is Philip with her?"
"She didn't say. She doesn't tell me more than she thinks is good for
me to know. But I have a bit of news for you. Henry is coming home
this morning."
"Oh! How is that?"
"He is under guard, of course. But even so it will be a pleasant
change for him. But it is not to be spoken of outside of the house."
She looked puzzled. "That's all I am to know?"
"At present."
"Very well," she said, with a sweet meekness that made him laugh, but
with a curious catch at his heart. It is dangerous for a woman to play
at meekness! She recovered herself quickly, and struck gayly into
another theme. "Guess who's engaged!"
They had been walking up the path to the house, but at this he stopped
short. "Engaged? Here? Some one I know?"
"Yes!"
"Not your brother?"
"Henry? Why, no. What made you think of him? It's Mr. Selby!"
"And Miss Hadley?" he asked, in dismay.
"Yes! How clever of you! How did you guess?"
"Wait a minute. Don't go in just yet," said Burton, stopping at the
door. He led her aside to a garden bench which stood against the wall.
"I want to consider this. Tell me all you know about it."
"There is nothing more to tell. Mr. Selby hasn't called for our
congratulations. But the report is abroad."
"Does your brother know it?"
"I don't know." She looked up with obvious surprise. "Why? Why do you
speak of him?"
"Did it never occur to you that Henry and Selby hated each other so
bitterly because they both cared for Miss Hadley?"
"Henry? Oh, impossible!"
"Not impossible at all, I assure you."
"Why, he hardly knows her."
"How long is it necessary to know a person before falling in love?"
"I have no statistics on the subject."
"Well, my word for it, it doesn't take very long sometimes. And my
word for it, Henry was in love with Miss Hadley. I wish we might keep
him from hearing this news for a while."
"Why, you don't think Henry will shoot Selby at sight for carrying off
his girl, do you?" she laughed.
"You are a heartless girl to laugh about it. Having some one else
carry off the girl you love is a much more serious matter than you
seem to realize. But I am not worrying about Selby. To be sure, It
would look pretty bad for Henry if Selby were assassinated the first
day he was out of jail, but Mr. Selby is under the special protection
of the powers of mischief who are running things here, and I have no
anxiety on his behalf."
"Mrs. Bussey says that the milkman says that the Hadleys' housemaid
says that Minnie was up in her room crying all day yesterday," said
Leslie mischievously.
"For goodness' sake, don't let Henry hear that," exclaimed Burton. But
the name reminded him of Mrs. Bussey's specialty, and he glanced
rather anxiously at the open drawing-room windows under which they had
been sitting. Was it his fancy, or did the curtain stir with something
more palpable than the wind? What a situation for this girl to live
in! It was intolerable.
He was looking at her so intently that she looked up as though he had
spoken.
"What is it?" she asked swiftly. "You are hiding something from me!"
"I am trying to," he said, recovering himself. "I think my only chance
of succeeding is in keeping away from you. Where is your father?"
"In the surgery, I think."
"I'm going in to speak to him." He left her a little abruptly and went
to the front door where Mrs. Bussey admitted him with her old air of
curiosity struggling with timid resentment. Burton returned her look
with keen interest. Had she been listening at the window?
"How do you do, Mrs. Bussey? And how's Ben? I'm coming up to see him
in a minute. I have a little present from an old Indian who used to
know him."
Mrs. Bussey relaxed into a smile, and hurried away, and Burton went on
to the surgery to find the doctor.
"I don't dare say that my soul is my own in this house without first
making sure that Mrs. Bussey won't overhear me and betray the damaging
secret to my dearest enemy," he said, as he shook hands. "She is
always at hand when I am indiscreet. I wanted to tell you privately
and with the utmost secrecy that Henry is coming home this
morning,--very soon. It is a part of a little scheme I am working out.
He is really to be kept under the strictest surveillance. I wanted to
explain this so that you would understand the presence of the stranger
who will accompany him more or less inconspicuously, and not make any
remarks in regard to him,--say in the hearing of Mrs. Bussey!"
"You are very mysterious."
"I am engaged in the services of a very mysterious family. The point
is simply that Henry is to seem free, and yet is really to be under
close guard, and that nobody is to say anything about anything, but
simply lie low and wait! You understand?"
"I don't understand a thing."
"That will do just as well, provided you are content to remain in that
state."
"Does Henry understand that he is to be watched?"
"Oh, of course." Burton glanced at his watch, and rose. But the doctor
detained him.
"What about that basket? Did anything come of that?" he asked eagerly.
"I found the old squaw who made it."
"Well?"
"Well!"
"What of it?"
Burton shook his head. "I don't know--yet."
"You still think--?"
"I have postponed thinking till to-morrow. Now I must go up and see
Ben for a minute; I told Mrs. Bussey I was coming up. I found that his
father is not forgotten up there."
"You must come back and tell me all about it," insisted the doctor.
"Stay for luncheon and entertain me. Do!"
Burton shook his head, standing impatiently with his hand on the
door-knob. "Thanks, but I can't. I have a full afternoon before me. I
am hatching a conspiracy of my own."
"And you won't take me into your confidence?"
"No! You look out for Henry. He's due to arrive any minute." He let
himself out, glanced at his watch, and ran up the broad back stairs to
Ben's room.
Mrs. Bussey opened the door to admit him with an air of embarrassment
which he did not understand until he entered and found that Selby also
was in the room. While Burton was surprised, he was glad it had so
fallen out. It would save him the necessity of thinking up some excuse
for an interview later.
"How are you, Bussey? Good day, Mr. Selby," he said, taking a chair
without waiting for further invitation. The men returned his greeting
rather ungraciously, and Burton guessed at once that he had
interrupted something in the nature of a discussion which had left
them at cross-purposes. Selby's face was twitching with nervous anger,
and Ben looked as morose as a badgered animal.
"I have just been up to the Reservation for a few days, trying to find
some Indian baskets," Burton went on, feeling his way conversationally
into the murky atmosphere. "You see your collection inspired me, Mr.
Selby. And I learn that important things have been happening in High
Ridge 'while I was away." He smiled significantly at Selby, who
scowled in embarrassment, and then escaped from personalities by his
customary way of anger.
"At any rate, there haven't been any houses set afire lately."
"No, nor any hold-ups in the streets, nor any shots fired through
people's windows," Burton said lightly. "All seems to have been
beautifully quiet. But I hear that Henry goes free today."
"Goes free?" repeated Selby nervously. "So I hear. Probably they came
to the conclusion that they didn't have sufficient reason for holding
him."
Selby jumped from his chair and fidgetted across the room. Ben watched
him with the hint of a malicious smile chasing the shadows from his
face. It was Mrs. Bussey who spoke.
"Then like as not some one will be held up or some house will be set
afire tonight."
"Oh, I hope not," said Burton, with a good show of concern. "That
would make it look pretty black for Henry. But I hear that Watson
didn't want to let him out just on that account. Henry and Watson are
not very good friends, it seems."
"Watson knows the tricks that Henry was up to six years ago," said
Mrs. Bussey.
"Well, I may be able to get Henry out of town by to-morrow," said
Burton. "If he isn't in High Ridge, nobody can blame him if Watson's
house burns after that. I guess it's safe to risk it for one night."
Ben had turned his head away indifferently. He still seemed to be
brooding over something, and heedless of Burton's talk. But Selby
turned abruptly from the window where he had been standing, and flared
out at Burton.
"You seem to be meddling a good deal in matters that don't concern
you. Did you tell Ben that I didn't pay him enough for his work?"
So that was what they had been quarrelling about! "I told him I
thought I could get better prices for it," he said. "I think I can.
Don't you consider it probable?"
"What business is it of yours?"
"None. I am simply meddling, as you correctly say."
"Then meddle and be damned to you. As for Ben's carving, I'll never
take another stick of it. You can look out for him after this." And he
flung out of the room.
Mrs. Bussey began to whimper. "Now what'll we do? Selby was mean, but
he did pay something. And there ain't anybody else that Ben can work
for."
"Yes, there is," said Burton promptly. "I'll see that he has a chance
to sell anything he does."
Mrs. Bussey sniffed, but perhaps she did not mean to sniff cynically.
However, Burton felt that the tide of sympathy was setting against
him, and he hastened to talk of more cheerful matters.
"I met an old friend of yours on the Reservation,--Washitonka, his
name is. Remember him?"
"Yes," said Ben impassively.
"He sent you this red-stone pipe."
Ben took the pipe in his fingers and turned it over and over, with
careless curiosity. "I can carve better than that," he said calmly,
and laid it down.
"Yes, you carve very well. You have strong and skilful fingers. But I
think Washitonka sent you the pipe in token of friendship rather than
to show his skill. He says he taught you to carve pipes long ago. Is
that so?"
"Maybe so. I have forgotten."
"He hasn't forgotten you. And I saw Ehimmeshunka, who made the big
basket I bought of Pahrunta. She is old." Burton glanced again at his
watch, and as he replaced it in his pocket he took out a little wooden
box. "Here is something else I brought you," he said, crossing over to
Ben. "It's a box of red pigment. Did you ever try to color your
carvings? I have seen Indian carvings that were colored, and I thought
you might like to experiment with something of that sort. It would
make your work look more Indian. This is a powder, you see, but it
dissolves readily in water, and it makes a fast color. It's some kind
of earth, I suppose,--"
"Fire! Fire!"
The cry came so sharply and shrilly across the quiet that Burton
started, spilling the powder. He hastily snapped the cover on the box
and sprang to the door. A puff of smoke, acrid and yellow, rushed into
the room from the hall.
"Your kitchen is afire, Mrs. Bussey," he exclaimed, and ran down the
stairs. Mrs. Bussey followed in a clattering hurry. The kitchen door,
opening into the back hall at the foot of the stairs, was wide open,
and the smoke was rushing out in great volumes. Burton heroically
dashed into the midst of things, and then in a minute he laughed
reassuringly.
"No great harm. It's only your dish towels, Mrs. Bussey."
The noise and the smoke had penetrated to the rest of the house, and
almost at the same moment Leslie, Henry, and a stranger came rushing
to the spot, followed by Mrs. Underwood and the doctor. Even in that
moment of general confusion, Mrs. Underwood was calm enough to still
the turmoil of the elements. Burton could not but admire her perfectly
consistent poise. Turning her still eyes upon Mrs. Bussey, who was
exclaiming hysterically over the pile of smouldering towels, she
dropped her cool words like snowflakes on the fire.
"What matter about a few towels, Mrs. Bussey? There are more important
things in the world."
"Important, indeed! It's important enough that we might all have been
burnt in our beds!"
"Not at midday, Mrs. Bussey," interposed the doctor. "We do many
things in this house that we ought not to do and we leave undone many
things that we ought to do, but we haven't yet achieved the
distinction of staying in bed till twelve of the clock."
"How would we have got Ben down from that second floor where he lies
like a log, if the house had gone?" cried Mrs. Bussey, with a sudden
access of fury, as the thought struck her. Then she saw Henry
Underwood leaning against the door-post, a sardonic smile on his white
face. "You villain, that's what you were trying to do," she screamed.
"You were going to burn the house down to catch Ben!"
"If your dish towels weren't so dirty, they wouldn't catch fire all by
themselves," he said insolently.
"All by themselves!" the indignant woman exclaimed. "They were set
fire to, and that any one can see. It's incenerary, that's what it is,
and--"
"Come, scatter," said Leslie quickly. "Mrs. Bussey and I want to clean
up this kitchen. You can discuss the philosophy of events elsewhere."
Henry laughed and turned on his heel. The strange man who had stood
just behind him and had said nothing through it all, went out with
him.
"I wish you'd come into the surgery, Burton," said the doctor. He had
been staring steadily at the smouldering pile of towels, still smoking
whitely on the floor where Burton had flung them. One might almost
have guessed that he wished to avoid the eyes of the little group in
the room.
"In a moment. I'll just run up and reassure Ben." And, suiting the
action to the word, he ran up the stairs two steps at a time, and put
his head in at the half-open door.
"A false alarm, Bussey," he said. "No danger. Just a lot of smoke from
some towels in the kitchen. Were you frightened?"
"No," said Ben stolidly.
"Here's your box of pigment that I carried off. I'll leave it on your
table," said Burton, crossing the room. His voice shook in his throat
when he spoke. He came back and stood by the couch for a moment,
looking down curiously at Ben's impassive face.
"Suppose it had been a real fire, Ben! Wouldn't you have been
frightened then? What would you have done?"
Ben's face twitched for a moment with a passing emotion.
"I guess that would have been Henry Underwood's affair," he said
indifferently, and turned his face away.
"Henry is downstairs now."
But Ben made no answer to this, and Burton left him. He ran down the
stairs and looked into the surgery, the door of which was standing
open.
"Come inside," the doctor said, pulling him in and shutting the door
behind him. "What am I to think of this?"
"Of what?"
"You know perfectly well. You are as white as--as I would be if I
showed what I felt. Where was Henry when that fire started?"
"I don't know."
"He came into the house not ten minutes ago,--"
"Watson is a man of his word."
"--and went up to his room. Do you believe in evil spirits that carry
out the secret wishes of men who are--criminally insane?"
"I should hate to say I didn't, because the idea offers so interesting
a field for speculation that it strikes me it would be amusing to
entertain it. But what suggests the question?"
The doctor looked at him with miserable eyes. "Who started that fire?"
he asked, almost inaudibly.
Burton answered in the same undertone. "I did. But don't mention it.
I'm afraid my reputation might suffer."
The doctor stared at him with such obvious dismay that Burton laughed
aloud.
"By deputy, of course! I'm not crazy, Doctor, but I confess I am
somewhat excited. I can't stop to explain further, because I have an
engagement."
"Engagement be hanged. You are inventing that. Explain what you mean."
"If I hadn't an engagement, I should invent one, to get away from you.
I don't want to talk to you. And I shall have a continuous engagement
for the rest of the day. Good day to you."
"Pooh-pooh to you," responded the doctor, derisively. But the
miserable look had been taken from his face.