AN EXTRAORDINARY CHAMBERMAID, A MIDNIGHT TRAGEDY, AND A MAN WHO SAID
"THANK YOU"
Miss Thackeray was "turning down" his bed when he entered his room
after bidding his new actor friends good night. All three promised to
be up bright and early in the morning to speed him on his way with good
wishes. Mr. Rushcroft declared that he would break the habit of years
and get up in time to partake of a seven o'clock breakfast with him.
Mr. Dillingford and Mr. Bacon, though under sentence to eat at six with
the rest of the "help," were quite sanguine that old man Jones wouldn't
mind if they ate again at seven. So it was left that Barnes was to have
company for breakfast.
He was staggered and somewhat abashed by the appearance of Miss
Thackeray. She was by no means dressed as a chambermaid should be, nor
was she as dumb. On the contrary, she confronted him in the choicest
raiment that her wardrobe contained, and she was bright and cheery and
exceedingly incompetent. It was her costume that shocked him. Not only
was she attired in a low-necked, rose-coloured evening gown, liberally
bespangled with tinsel, but she wore a vast top-heavy picture-hat whose
crown of black was almost wholly obscured by a gorgeous white feather
that once must have adorned the king of all ostriches. She was not at
all his idea of a chambermaid. He started to back out of the door with
an apology for having blundered into the wrong room by mistake.
"Come right in," she said cheerily. "I'll soon be through. I suppose I
should have done all this an hour ago, but I just had to write a few
letters." She went on with her clumsy operations. "I don't know who
made up this bed but whoever did was determined that it should stay
put. I never knew that bed clothes could be tucked in as far and as
tight as these. Tight enough for old Mother Jones to have done it
herself, and heaven knows she's a tight one. I am Miss Thackeray. This
is Mr. Barnes, I believe."
He bowed, still quite overcome.
"You needn't be scared," she cried, observing his confusion. "This is
my regular uniform. I'm starting a new style for chambermaids. Did it
paralyse you to find me here?"
"I must confess to a moment of indecision," he said, smiling.
"Followed by a moment of uneasiness," she added, slapping the bolster.
"You didn't know what to think, now did you?"
"I couldn't believe my eyes."
She abandoned her easy, careless manner. A look of mortification came
into her eyes as she straightened up and faced him. Her voice was a
trifle husky when she spoke again, after a moment's pause.
"You see, Mr. Barnes, these are the only duds I have with me. It wasn't
necessary to put on this hat, of course, but I did it simply to make
the character complete. I might just as well make beds and clean
washstands in a picture hat as in a low-necked gown, so here I am."
She was a tall, pleasant-faced girl of twenty-three or four, not unlike
her father in many respects. Her features were rather heavy, her mouth
large but comely, her eyes dark and lustrous behind heavy lashes. As
she now appeared before Barnes, she was the typical stage society
woman: in other words, utterly commonplace. In a drawing-room she would
have been as conspicuously out of place as she was in her present
occupation.
"I am very sorry," he said lamely. "I have heard something of your
misfortunes from your father and--the others. It's--it's really hard
luck."
"I call it rather good luck to have got away with the only dress in the
lot that cost more than tuppence," she said, smiling again. "Lord knows
what would have happened to me if they had dropped down on us at the
end of the first act. I was the beggar's daughter, you see,--absolutely
in rags."
"You might have got away in your ordinary street clothes, however," he
said; "which would have been pleasanter, I dare say."
"I dare say," she agreed brightly. "Glad to have met you. I think
you'll find everything NEARLY all right. Good night, sir."
She smiled brightly, unaffectedly, as she turned toward the open door.
There was something forelorn about her, after all, and his heart was
touched.
"Better luck, Miss Thackeray. Every cloud has its silver lining."
She stopped and faced him once more. "That's the worst bromide in the
language," she said. "If I were to tell you how many clouds I've seen
and how little silver, you'd think I was lying. This experience? Why,
it's a joy compared to some of the jolts we've had,--dad and me. And
the others, too, for that matter. We've had to get used to it. Five
years ago I would have jumped out of a ten story window before I'd have
let you see me in this get-up. I know you'll laugh yourself sick over
the way I look, and so will your friends when you tell them about me,
but, thank the Lord, I shan't be in a position to hear you. So why
should I mind? What a fellow doesn't know, isn't going to hurt him. You
haven't laughed in my face, and I'm grateful for that. What you do
afterward can't make the least bit of difference to me."
"I assure you, Miss Thackeray, that I shall not laugh, nor shall I ever
relate the story of your--"
"There is one more bromide that I've never found much virtue in," she
interrupted, not disagreeably, "and that is: 'it's too good to be
true.' Good night. Sleep tight."
She closed the door behind her, leaving him standing in the middle of
the room, perplexed but amused.
"By George," he said to himself, still staring at the closed door,
"they're wonders, all of them. We could all take lessons in philosophy
from such as they. I wish I could do something to help them out of--"
He sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed and pulled his wallet from
his pocket. He set about counting the bills, a calculating frown in his
eyes. Then he stared at the ceiling, summing up. "I'll do it," he said,
after a moment of mental figuring. He told off a half dozen bills and
slipped them into his pocket. The wallet sought its usual resting place
for the night: under a pillow.
He was healthy and he was tired. Two minutes after his head touched the
pillow he was sound asleep, losing consciousness even as he fought to
stay awake in order that he might continue to vex himself with the
extraordinary behavior and statement of Putnam Jones.
He was aroused shortly after midnight by shouts, apparently just
outside his window. A man was calling in a loud voice from the road
below; an instant later he heard a tremendous pounding on the tavern
door.
Springing out of bed, he rushed to the window. There were horses in
front of the house,--several of them,--and men on foot moving like
shadows among them. A shuffling of feet came up to his open window; the
intervening roof shut off his view of the porch and all that was
transpiring. His eyes, accustomed to darkness, made out at least five
horses in the now unlighted area before the tavern.
Turning from the window, he unlocked and opened the door into the hall.
Some one was clattering down the narrow staircase. The bolts on the
front door shot back with resounding force, and there came the hoarse
jumble of excited voices as men crowded through the entrance. Putnam
Jones's voice rose above the clamour.
"Keep quiet! Do you want to wake everybody on the place?" he was saying
angrily. "What's up? This is a fine time o' night to be--Good Lord!
What's the matter with him?"
"Telephone for a doctor, Put,--damn' quick! This one's still alive. The
other one is dead as a door nail up at Jim Conley's house. Git ole Doc
James down from Saint Liz. Bring him in here, boys. Where's your
lights? Easy now! Eas-EE!"
Barnes waited to hear no more. His blood seemed to be running ice-cold
as he retreated into the room and began scrambling for his clothes. The
thing he feared had come to pass. Disaster had overtaken her in that
wild, senseless dash up the mountain road. He was cursing half aloud as
he dressed, cursing the fool who drove that machine and who now was
perhaps dying down there in the tap-room. "The other one is dead as a
door nail," kept running through his head,--"the other one."
The rumble of voices and the shuffling of feet continued, indistinct
but laden with tragedy. The curious hush of catastrophe seemed to top
the confusion that infected the place, inside and out. Barnes found his
electric pocket torch and dressed hurriedly, though not fully, by its
constricted light. As he was pulling on his heavy walking shoes, a head
was inserted through the half open door, and an excited voice called
out:
"You awake? Good work! Hustle along, will you? No more sleep to-night,
old chap. Man dying downstairs. Shot smack through the lungs. Get a
move--"
"Shot?" exclaimed Barnes.
"So they say," replied the agitated Mr. Dillingford, entering the room.
He had slipped on his trousers and was then in the act of pulling his
suspenders over his shoulders. His unlaced shoes gaped broadly; the
upper part of his body was closely encased in a once blue undershirt;
his abundant black hair was tousled,--some of it, indeed, having the
appearance of standing on end. And in his wide eyes there was a look of
horror. "I didn't hear much of the story. Old man Jones is telephoning
for a doctor and--"
"Did you say that the man was shot?" repeated Barnes, bewildered.
"Wasn't it an automobile accident?"
"Search ME. Gosh, I had one look at that fellow's face down there
and--I didn't hear another word that was said. I never saw a man's face
look like that. It was the colour of grey wall paper. Hurry up! Old man
Jones told me to call you. He says you understand some of the foreign
languages, and maybe you can make out what the poor devil is trying to
say." "Do they know who he is?"
"Sure. He's been staying in the house for three days. The other one
spoke English all right but this one not a word."
"Did they ride away from here about nine o'clock?"
"Yes. They had their own horses and said they were going to spend the
night at Spanish Falls so's they could meet the down train that goes
through at five o'clock in the morning. But hustle along, please. He's
trying to talk and he's nearly gone."
Barnes, buoyed by a sharp feeling of relief, followed the actor
downstairs and into the tap-room. A dozen men were there, gathered
around two tables that had been drawn together. Transient lodgers, in
various stages of dishabille, popped out of all sorts of passageways
and joined the throng. The men about the table, on which was stretched
the figure of the wounded man, were undoubtedly natives: farmers,
woodsmen or employees of the tavern. At a word from Putnam Jones, they
opened up and allowed Barnes to advance to the side of the man.
"See if you c'n understand him, Mr. Barnes," said the landlord.
Perspiration was dripping from his long, raw-boned face. "And you,
Bacon,--you and Dillingford hustle upstairs and get a mattress off'n
one of the beds. Stand at the door there, Pike, and don't let any women
in here. Go away, Miss Thackeray! This is no place for you."
Miss Thackeray pushed her way past the man who tried to stop her and
joined Barnes. Her long black hair hung in braids down her back; above
her forehead clustered a mass of ringlets, vastly disordered but not
untidy. A glance would have revealed the gaudy rose-coloured skirt
hanging below the bottom of the long rain-coat she had snatched from a
peg in the hall-way.
"It is the place for me," she said sharply. "Haven't you men got sense
enough to put something under his head? Where is he hurt? Get that
cushion, you. Stick, it under here when I lift his head. Oh, you poor
thing! We'll be as quick as possible. There!"
"You'd better go away," said Barnes, himself ghastly pale. "He's been
shot. There is a lot of blood--don't you know. It's splendid of you--"
"Dangerously?" she cried, shrinking back, her eyes fixed in dread upon
the white face.
The man's eyes were closed, but at the sound of a woman's voice he
opened them. The hand with which he clutched at his breast slid off and
seemed to be groping for hers. His breathing was terrible. There was
blood at the corners of his mouth, and more oozed forth when his lips
parted in an effort to speak.
With a courage that surprised even herself, the girl took his hand in
hers. It was wet and warm. She did not dare look at it.
"Merci, madame," struggled from the man's lips, and he smiled.
Barnes had heard of the French soldiers who, as they died, said "thank
you" to those who ministered to them, and smiled as they said it. He
had always marvelled at the fortitude that could put gratefulness above
physical suffering, and his blood never failed to respond to an
exquisite thrill of exaltation under such recitals. He at once deduced
that the injured man, while probably not a Frenchman, at least was
familiar with the language.
He was young, dark-haired and swarthy. His riding-clothes were
well-made and modish.
Barnes leaned over and spoke to him in French. The dark, pain-stricken
eyes closed, and an almost imperceptible shake of the head signified
that he did not understand. Evidently he had acquired only a few of the
simple French expressions. Barnes had a slight knowledge of Spanish and
Italian, and tried again with no better results. German was his last
resort, and he knew he would fail once more, for the man obviously was
not Teutonic.
The bloody lips parted, however, and the eyes opened with a piteous,
appealing expression in their depths. It was apparent that there was
something he wanted to say, something he had to say before he died. He
gasped a dozen words or more in a tongue utterly unknown to Barnes, who
bent closer to catch the feeble effort. It was he who now shook his
head; with a groan the sufferer closed his eyes in despair. He choked
and coughed violently an instant later.
"Get some water and a towel," cried Miss Thackeray, tremulously. She
was very white, but still clung to the man's hand. "Be quick! Behind
the bar." Then she turned to Jones. "Don't call my father. He can't
stand the sight of blood," she said.
Barnes unbuttoned the coat and revealed the blood-soaked white shirt.
"Better leave this to me," he said in her ear. "There's nothing you can
do. He's done for. Please go away."
"Oh, I sha'n't faint--at least, not yet. Poor fellow! I've seen him
upstairs and wondered who he was. Is he really going to die?"
"Looks bad," said Barnes, gently opening the shirt front. Several of
the craning men turned away suddenly.
"Can't you understand him?" demanded Putnam Jones, from the opposite
side.
"No. Did you get the doctor?"
"He's on the way by this time. He's got a little automobile. Ought to
be here in ten or fifteen minutes."
"Who is he, Mr. Jones?"
"He is registered as Andrew Paul, from New York. That's all I know. The
other man put his name down as Albert Roon. He seemed to be the boss
and this man a sort of servant, far as I could make out. They never
talked much and seldom came downstairs. They had their meals in their
room. Bacon served them. Where is Bacon? Where the hell--oh, the
mattress. Now, we'll lift him up gentle-like while you fellers slip it
under him. Easy now. Brace up, my lad, we--we won't hurt you. Lordy!
Lordy! I'm sorry--Gosh! I thought he was gone!" He wiped his brow with
a shaking hand.
"There is nothing we can do," said Barnes, "except try to stanch the
flow of blood. He is bleeding inwardly, I'm afraid. It's a clean wound,
Mr. Jones. Like a rifle shot, I should say."
"That's just what it is," said one of the men, a tall woodsman. "The
feller who did it was a dead shot, you c'n bet on that. He got t' other
man square through the heart."
"Lordy, but this will raise a rumpus," groaned the landlord. "We'll
have detectives an'--"
"I guess they got what was comin' to 'em," said another of the men.
"What's that? Why, they was ridin' peaceful as could be to Spanish
Falls. What do you mean by sayin' that, Jim Conley? But wait a minute!
How does it happen that they were up near your dad's house? That
certainly ain't on the road to Span--"
"Spanish Falls nothin'! They wasn't goin' to Spanish Falls any more'n I
am at this minute. They tied their hosses up the road just above our
house," said young Conley, lowering his voice out of consideration for
the feelings of the helpless man. "It was about 'leven o'clock, I
reckon. I was comin' home from singin' school up at Number Ten, an' I
passed the hosses hitched to the fence. Naturally I stopped, curious
like. There wasn't no one around, fer as I could see, so I thought I'd
take a look to see whose hosses they were. I thought it was derned
funny, them hosses bein' there at that time o' night an' no one around.
So as I said before, I thought I'd take a look. I know every hoss fer
ten mile around. So I thought I'd take--"
"You said that three times," broke in Jones impatiently.
"Well, to make a long story short, I thought I'd take a look. I never
seen either of them animals before. They didn't belong around here. So
I thought I'd better hustle down to the house an' speak to pa about it.
Looked mighty queer to me. Course, thinks I, they might belong to
somebody visitin' in there at Green Fancy, so I thought I'd--"
"Green Fancy?" said Barnes, starting.
"Was it up that far?" demanded Jones.
"They was hitched jest about a hundred yards below Mr. Curtis's
propity, on the off side o' the road. Course it's quite a ways in from
the road to the house, an' I couldn't see why if it was anybody callin'
up there they didn't ride all the ways up, 'stead o' walkin' through
the woods. So I thought I'd speak to pa about it. Say," and he paused
abruptly, a queer expression in his eyes, "you don't suppose he knows
what I'm sayin', do you? I wouldn't say anything to hurt the poor
feller's feelin's fer--"
"He doesn't know what you are saying," said Barnes.
"But, dern it, he jest now looked at me in the funniest way. It's given
me the creeps."
"Go on," said one of the men.
"Well, I hadn't any more'n got to our front gate when I heard some one
running in the road up there behind me. 'Fore I knowed what was
happenin', bang went a gun. I almost jumped out'n my boots. I lept
behind that big locus' tree in front of our house and listened. The
runnin' had stopped. The hosses was rarin' an' tearin' so I thought
I'd--"
"Where'd the shot come from?" demanded Jones.
"Up the road some'eres, I couldn't swear just where. Must 'a' been up
by the road that cuts in to Green Fancy. So I thought I'd hustle in an'
see if pa was awake, an' git my gun. Looked mighty suspicious, thinks
I, that gun shot. Jest then pa stuck his head out'n the winder an'
yelled what the hell's the matter. You betcher life I sung out who I
was mighty quick, 'cause pa's purty spry with a gun an' I didn't want
him takin' me fer burglars sneakin' around the house. While we wuz
talkin' there, one of the hosses started our way lickety-split, an' in
about two seconds it went by us. It was purty dark but we see plain as
day that there was a man in the saddle, bendin' low over the hoss's
neck and shoutin' to it. Well, we shore was guessin'. We waited a
couple o' minutes, wonderin' what to do, an' listenin' to the hoss
gittin' furder and furder away in the direction of the cross-roads.
Then, 'way down there by the pike we heerd another shot. Right there
an' then pa said he'd put on his clothes an' we'd set out to see what
it was all about. I had it figgered out that the feller on the hoss had
shot the other one and was streakin' it fer town or some'eres. That
second shot had me guessin' though. Who wuz he shootin' at now, thinks
I.
"Well, pa come out with my gun an' his'n an' we walks up to where I
seen the hosses. Shore 'nough, one of 'em was still hitched to the
fence, an' t'other was gone. We stood around a minute or two examinin'
the hoss an' then pa says let's go up the road aways an' see if we c'n
see anything. An' by gosh, we hadn't gone more'n fifty feet afore we
come plumb on a man layin' in the middle of the road. Pa shook him an'
he didn't let out a sound. He was warm but deader'n a tombstone. I wuz
fer leavin' him there till we c'd git the coroner, but pa says no. We'd
carry him down to our porch, an' lay him there, so's he'd be out o'
danger. Ma an' the kids wuz all up when we got him there, an' pa sent
Bill and Charley over to Mr. Pike's and Uncle John's to fetch 'em
quick. I jumps on Polly an' lights out fer here, Mr. Jones, to
telephone up to Saint Liz fer the sheriff an' the coroner, not givin' a
dang what I run into on the way. Polly shied somethin' terrible jest
afore we got to the pike an' I come derned near bein' throwed. An'
right there 'side the road was this feller, all in a heap. I went back
an' jumped off. He was groanin' somethin' awful. Thinks I, you poor
cuss, you must 'a' tried to stop that feller on hossback an' he plunked
you. That accounted fer the second shot. But while I wuz tryin' to lift
him up an' git somethin' out'n him about the matter, I sees his boss
standin' in the road a couple o' rods away. I couldn't understand a
word he said, so I thought I better go back home an' git some help,
seein's I couldn't manage him by myself. So I dragged him up on the
bank an' made him comfortable as I could, and lit out fer home. We
thought we'd better bring him up here, Mr. Jones, it bein' just as near
an' you could git the doctor sooner. I hitched up the buck-board and
went back. Pa an' some of the other fellers took their guns an' went up
in the woods lookin' fer the man that done the shootin'. The thing that
worries all of us is did the same man do the shootin', or was there two
of 'em, one waitin' down at the cross-roads?"
"Must have been two," said Jones, thoughtfully. "The same man couldn't
have got down there ahead of him, that's sure. Did anybody go up to
Green Fancy to make inquiries?"
"'Twasn't necessary. Mr. Curtis heard the shootin' an' jest before we
left he sent a man out to see what it was all about. The old skeezicks
that's been drivin' his car lately come down half-dressed. He said
nothin' out of the way had happened up at Green Fancy. Nobody had been
nosin' around their place, an' if they had, he said, there wasn't
anybody there who could hit the side of a barn with a rifle."
"It's most mysterious," said Barnes, glancing around the circle of awed
faces. "There must have been some one lying in wait for these men, and
with a very definite purpose in mind."
"Strikes me," said Jones, "that these two men were up to some kind of
dirty work themselves, else why did they say they were goin' to Spanish
Falls? It's my idee that they went up that road to lay fer somebody
comin' down from the border, and they got theirs good an' plenty
instead of the other way round. They were queer actin' men, I'll have
to say that."
His eyes met Barnes' and there was a queer light in them.
"You don't happen to know anything about this, do you, Mr. Barnes?" he
demanded, suddenly.