FIVE times Mr. Thomas Harmon vainly rang the bell of the Remsen
mansion. While engaged upon the sixth variation he became aware of a
face in the window, scrutinizing him.
“All right,” called the face.
Mr. Harmon was then admitted through a crack scarcely adequate to his
well-set, muscular frame, to the presence of Mr. Jacob Remsen, who wore
an expensive dressing-gown and an expression of unutterable boredom.
“Laid up?” inquired Mr. Harmon, shaking hands.
“Bottled up,” answered the young man gloomily.
“Can I help?”
“Possibly. Did you ever kill a subpoena-server?”
“Not yet.”
“Care to try?”
“What does the thing look like?”
“Cast your eyes toward the Avenue and you’ll see one.”
“Hm! Not much to look at, is he?”
“A worse-looking one comes on at ten and stays all night.”
“I see,” said the visitor. “It’s a blockade.”
“Hard and fast.”
Among Mr. Harmon’s many endearing virtues is this: he never asks
questions about other people’s troubles. He now busied himself in
thought.
“Haven’t you any of your amateur theatrical duds here?” was the outcome
of his cogitations.
“All of ’em.”
“Why not dress a part and walk away _incognito?_”
“Oh, certainly!” assented the other with bitterness. “Put on a suit of
tights and dive out of the conservatory window disguised as Annette
Kellerman, I suppose.”
“What’s the matter with an old man makeup and the front door?”
“Just this. Friend Murphy on watch hauls out his little paper and on
the chance of its being me, slaps the wrist of anybody who appears on
those steps. He’ll do it to you when you go out.”
“He didn’t when I came in.”
“No, he wouldn’t, coming in.”
“Then why not fool him by coming in?”
“How the devil can I come in without going out?” demanded Mr. Remsen
crossly, for confinement was beginning to tell upon his equable
disposition.
“Simplest thing in the world if you’ll be guided by me.”
“Spill it.”
“Merely a matter of distracting Friend Murphy’s attention for ten
seconds. At the end of the ten seconds you will be seen going up the
steps to the front door. Presently you will be seen coming down again,
unable to effect an entrance against the watchfulness of the faithful
Connor. Do you get me?”
“I get you. I’m to be in disguise. But how shall we get the
process-server off guard?”
“Leave that to me.”
The two conspirators elaborated their plan, built it up, revised it,
tested it at every point, and pronounced it perfect.
“But we’ve forgotten one point,” said Remsen at the end of the
discussion.
“What’s that?”
“Where do I go when I get out?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere out of the world.”
Mr. Thomas Harmon submerged himself in thought and came up bearing a
pearl of great price.
“Keno! I’ve got it. Refuges furnished to order. You’ve never been to my
place in the mountains, have you?”
“No.”
“Boulder Brook on Lake Quam. Plumb in the dead center of nowhere.
Thirteen miles from a railroad. Fishing and hunting on the premises.”
“Reads like a real-estate man’s prospectus,” observed Remsen.
“This year,” pursued Harmon, “I’m keeping open house for a special
reason. Two fellows I know are getting married to-morrow. It’s a double
wedding. It’s also a double honeymoon. But they aren’t onto that yet.”
Harmon’s clear brown eyes twinkled. “One half won’t know how the other
half lives till they get there. I’ve loaned the place to both couples
for a fortnight. It’s a dead secret. Neither couple knows where the
other is going. They’re on oath.”
“They won’t thank you when they meet across the dinner-table.”
“Oh, it isn’t as bad as that. They’ll be a mile apart. The Lees will be
at the cottage. They get off at Meredith and go in on the truck. The
Woods I’m sending to the Island. They climb out at Ashland and go over
by boat. Unless they all happen to take the same train, one pair won’t
even know the other is around until they meet up on the lake or in the
woods.”
“Sounds like a party.”
“Doesn’t it? Want to join?”
“What? Butt in on a double bridal tour? Excuse me with thanks.”
“No butt in about it. You can go to Laconia, get yourself a car from
the garage, and motor to the Bungalow. That’s at the third corner of my
little triangular piece of mountain and forest. By the practice of
expert woodcraft and dodging you can avoid seeing the others.”
“Wouldn’t know them if I did. Any other agreeable surprises about the
resort?”
“No. Oh, yes. I nearly forgot. There’s a little friend of Gloria
Greene’s. Girl. Tired out. Too much gayety or something. Don’t know
what it is or who she is, but she’s up against it for a month’s rest.
So Miss Greene wished her on Boulder Brook, and welcome.”
“Where does _she_ go?” inquired Remsen suspiciously. “To the Cave? Or
the Castle on the Crags? Or the Haunted Manor House? Or the
Co-educational Club? Or which one of the numerous institutions you
maintain in your private city?”
“She goes to the Farmhouse. Mrs. Bond, my housekeeper, is looking after
her. Seclusion is her watchword. If you see her, make a noise like a
dry leaf and blow away. You’ll go, won’t you?”
Remsen meditated. “It certainly seems made to order. And it’s mighty
good of you, old man. Yes, I’ll just take you up on that.”
“There’s a train at nine o’clock in the morning. To-morrow?”
“Make it the day after. I’ve got some things to attend to.”
“Now, about our jail-breaking scheme? I’ve got an amendment. How would
it be if the taxi I arrive in should catch fire at the psychological
moment?”
“Can it be done?”
“Easily. I’m not a manufacturer of chemicals for nothing.”
“Great! Keep it going for ten seconds for the benefit of the watchful
Murphy, and if you look up after that, you’ll see the Englishest
looking Englishman you ever sat eyes on outside the pages of _Punch_,
trying to tear my old-fashioned doorbell out by the roots.”
“That’s your best make-up, is it, Remsen?”
“As good as any. Fortified by my accent, it is most convincing. That’ll
be Carteret.”
“Who?”
“Rodney Carteret.”
“Am I supposed to know him?”
“Rather. Not know a man with whom you toured for two months in Japan?”
said Remsen reproachfully.
“Stupid of me,” confessed Harmon, grinning. “Carteret. Good old Roddy!
Certainly. Then I’d better capture you—him, I mean, and take him to the
nine o’clock train for Boulder Brook, in my taxi.”
“Right-o, old thing! Be here at eight-thirty. Cheery-o!” said his host
Britishly.
Promptly at that hour, on the second morning thereafter, a taxicab
swerved violently into the curbstone almost at the feet of the patient
and vigilant Murphy, and stopped with an alarming scrunch of brakes.
From its window emerged a heavy puff of smoke. From its door emerged
Mr. Thomas Harmon, who rolled upon the pavement apparently strangling.
Mr. Murphy rushed to his aid. When he was restored to his feet and his
breath, and the taxi had ceased to imitate Fafnir the Dragon, a tall
figure in an extremely English ulster (which had hastily emerged from
the Remsen front door, rushed down ten steps, and leisurely climbed
them again) was wrenching violently at the bell. For a time Mr. Murphy
regarded him disdainfully, then crossed over, held brief colloquy, and
returned.
“Hot chance he’s got of breaking in,” he observed to Mr. Harmon.
“What is he making all the fuss about?” inquired that gentleman as the
visitor again applied himself forcefully to the bell.
“Wants to see Mr. Remsen. But the old bulldog of a butler won’t let him
put his nose inside the door. Says his name is Carteret, and he’s come
all the way from England to see him.”
“England? Not Roddy Carteret!” It was done almost as well as that
accomplished actor, Mr. Jacob Remsen, could have done it. Harmon sprang
across the street.
“Carteret! Roddy Carteret!” he called. “What on earth are you doing
over here?” The bell-ringer adjusted a monocle and ambled down the
steps to shake hands. “Well met, m’deah fellah! Perhaps you can tell me
what’s amiss with this beastly house.”
“I’ll tell you,” proffered the obliging and innocent Mr. Murphy. He did
so.
“Then I’ll just go back and jolly well camp there till somebody jolly
well lets me in,” decided the caller.
Argument followed while the chauffeur burrowed into the mechanism of
his car. It ended by the Englishman bestowing two dollars upon Mr.
Murphy to get a message to Mr. Remsen containing a protest and an
address. The two gentlemen then moved away in the extinguished taxi.
Tickets had been provided by the forethoughtful Harmon. The fugitive
was the first man in the parlor car. Hardly had he settled when a young
couple in suspiciously new apparel arrived, and were shown into
Drawing-Room “A,” at the upper end of the car. Shortly after, another
couple, also glistening as to garb, entered and took possession of
Drawing-Room “B,” at the lower end of the car. The eluder of justice
eyed them and drew his own conclusions.
“Here we are, all of us,” he said to himself, retiring discreetly
behind his newspaper.
This was just one short of the full and fateful facts.