SPUN-GOLD HAIR, BLUE EYES, AND VARIOUS ENCOUNTERS
She was quite unaware of his presence, and yet he was directly in her
path, though some distance away. Her head was bent; her mien was
thoughtful, her stride slow and aimless.
The azure blue of the sweater she wore presented an inharmonious note
on the field of velvety green;--it was strangely out of place, he
thought,--almost an offence to the eye. He was conscious of an instant
protest against this profanation.
She was slender, graceful and evidently quite tall, although she seemed
a pigmy among the towering giants that attended her stroll. Her hands
were thrust deep into the pockets of a white duck skirt. A glance
revealed white shoes and trim ankles in blue. She wore no hat. Her hair
was like spun gold, thick, wavy and shimmering in the subdued light.
Suddenly she stopped, and looked up. He had a full view of her face as
she gazed about as if startled by some unexpected, even alarming,
sound. For a second or two he held his breath, stunned by the amazing
loveliness that was revealed to him. Then she discovered him standing
there.
He was never to forget the expression that came into her eyes; nor had
he ever seen eyes so blue. Alarm gave way to bewilderment as she stared
at the motionless intruder not thirty feet away. Then, to his utter
astonishment, her lips parted and a faint, wondering smile came into
her eyes. His heart leaped. She recognised him!
In a flash he realised that he was face to face with the stranger of
the day before,--she of the veil, the alluring voice, the unfaltering
spirits, and the weighty handbag!
He took two or three impulsive steps forward, his hand going to his
hat,--and then halted. Evidently his senses had deceived him. There was
no smile in her eyes,--and yet he could have sworn that it was there an
instant before. Instead, there was a level stare.
"I am sorry if I startled--" he began.
The figure of a man appeared, as if discharged bodily from some magic
tree-trunk, and stood directly in his path: A tall, rugged man in
overalls was he, who held a spade in his hand and eyed him inimically.
Without another glance in his direction, the first and more pleasing
vision turned on her heel and continued her stroll, sauntering off to
the right, her fair head once more bent in study, her back eloquently
indifferent to the gaze that followed her.
"Who do you want to see?" inquired the man with the spade.
Before Barnes could reply, a hearty voice accosted him from behind. He
whirled and saw O'Dowd approaching, not twenty yards away. The
Irishman's face was aglow with pleasure.
"I knew I couldn't be mistaken in the shape of you," he cried,
advancing with outstretched hand. "You've got the breadth of a
dock-hand in your shoulders, and the trimness of a prize-fighter in
your waist."
They shook hands. "I fear I am trespassing," said Barnes. His glance
went over his shoulder as he spoke. The man with the spade had been
swallowed up by the earth! He could not have vanished more quickly in
any other way. Off among the trees there were intermittent flashes of
blue and white.
"I am quite sure you are," said O'Dowd promptly, but without a trace of
unfriendliness in his manner. "Bedad, loving him as I do, I can't help
saying that Curtis is a bally old crank. Mind ye, I'd say it to his
face,--I often do, for the matter of that. Of course," he went on
seriously, "he is a sick man, poor devil. I have the unholy courage to
call him a chronic crank every once in awhile, and the best thing I can
say for his health is that he grins when I say it to him. You see, I've
known him for a dozen years and more, and he likes me, though God knows
why, unless it may be that I once did his son a good turn in London."
"Sufficient excuse for reparation, I should say," smiled Barnes.
"I introduced the lad to me only sister," said O'Dowd, "and she kept
him happy for the next ten years. No doubt, I also provided Mr. Curtis
with three grandchildren he might never have had but for my
graciousness. As for that, I let meself in for three of the most
prodigious nephews a man ever had, God bless them. I'll show you a
photograph of them if ye'd care to look." He opened the back of his
watch and held it out to Barnes. "Nine, seven and five, and all of them
as bright as Gladstone."
"They must be stunning," said Barnes warmly.
"They'll make a beggar of me, if I live long enough," groaned O'Dowd.
"It beats the deuce how childer as young as they are can have
discovered what a doddering fool their uncle is. Bedad, the smallest of
them knows it. The very instant I pretend to be a sensible, provident,
middle-aged gentleman he shows me up most shamelessly. 'Twas only a
couple of months ago that his confounded blandishments wiggled a
sixty-five dollar fire engine out of me. He squirted water all over the
drawing-room furniture, and I haven't been allowed to put foot into the
house since. My own darlin' sister refused to look at me for a week,
and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if she changed me namesake's
title to something less enfuriating than William." A look of distress
came into his merry eyes. "By Jove, I'd like nothing better than to ask
you in to have a dish of tea,--it's tea-time, I'm sure,--but I'd no
more think of doing it than I'd consider cutting off me head. He
doesn't like strangers. He--"
"My dear fellow, don't distress yourself," cried Barnes heartily.
"There isn't the least reason in the world why--"
"You see, the poor old chap asks us up here once or twice a year,--that
is to say, De Soto and me,--to keep his sister from filling the house
up with men he can't endure. So long as we occupy the only available
rooms, he argues, she can't stuff them full of objectionables. Twice a
year she comes for a month, in the late fall and early spring. He's
very fond of her, and she stands by him like a major."
"Why does he continue to live in this out-of-the-world spot, Mr.
O'Dowd? He is an old man, I take it, and ill."
"You wouldn't be wondering if you knew the man," said O'Dowd. "He is a
scholar, a dreamer, a sufferer. He doesn't believe in doctors. He says
they're all rascals. They'd keep him alive just for the sake of what
they could get out of him. So he's up here to die in peace, when his
time comes, and he hopes it will come soon. He doesn't want it
prolonged by a grasping, greedy doctor man. It's his kidneys, you know.
He's not a very old man at that. Not more than sixty-five."
"He certainly has a fanciful streak in him, building a place like
that," said Barnes, looking not at the house but into the thicket
above. There was no sign of the blue and white and the spun gold that
still defied exclusion from his mind's eye. He had not recovered from
the thrall into which the vision of loveliness plunged him. He was
still a trifle dazed and distraught.
"Right you are," agreed O'Dowd; "the queerest streak in the world. It's
his notion of simplicity. I wish you could see the inside of the place.
You'd wonder to what exalted heights his ideas of magnificence would
carry him if he calls this simplicity. He loves it all, he dotes on it.
It's the only joy he knows, this bewildering creation of his. For
nearly three years he has not been more than a stone's throw from the
walls of that house. I doubt if he's been as far as the spot where
we're standing now."
"Green Fancy. Is that the name he gave the place or does it spring
from--"
"'Twas christened by me own sister, Mr. Barnes, the first time she was
here, two years ago. I'll walk with you to the fence beyond if you've
no objections," said O'Dowd, genially, and linked his arm through that
of Barnes.
The latter was at once subtly aware of the fact that he was being
deliberately conducted from the grounds. Moreover, he was now convinced
that O'Dowd had been close upon his heels from the instant he entered
them. There was something uncanny in the feeling that possessed him.
Such espionage as this signified something deep and imperative in the
presence not only of O'Dowd but the Jack-in-the-box gardener a few
minutes earlier. He had the grim suspicion that he would later on
encounter the spectacled De Soto.
His mind was still full of the lovely stranger about whom O'Dowd had so
manifestly lied over the telephone.
"I must ask you to apologise to the young lady on whom I blundered a
few moments ago, Mr. O'Dowd. She must have been startled. Pray convey
to her my solicitude and excuses."
"Consider it done, my dear sir," said the Irishman. "Our most charming
and seductive guest," he went on. "Bedad, of the two of you, I'll stake
me head you were startled the most. Coming suddenly upon such rare
loveliness is almost equivalent to being struck by a bolt of lightning.
It did something like that to me when I saw her for the first time a
couple of weeks ago. I didn't get over it for the better part of a
day,--I can't say that I really got over it at all. More than one
painter of portraits has said that she is the most beautiful woman in
the world. I don't take much stock in portrait painters, but I'm always
fair to the lords of creation when their opinions coincide with mine.
Mayhap you have heard of her. She is Miss Cameron of New Orleans, a
friend of Mrs. Van Dyke. We have quite an enchanting house-party, Mr.
Barnes, if you consider no more than the feminine side of it.
Unfortunate creatures! To be saddled with such ungainly lummixes as De
Soto and me! By the way, have you heard when the coroner is to hold his
inquests?"
"Nothing definite. He may wait a week," said Barnes.
"I suppose you'll stick around until it's all over," ventured O'Dowd.
Barnes thought he detected a slight harshness in his voice.
"I have quite made up my mind to stay until the mystery is entirely
cleared up," he said. "The case is so interesting that I don't want to
miss a shred of it."
"I don't blame ye," said O'Dowd heartily. "I'd like nothing better
meself than to mix up in it, but, Lord love ye, if I turned detective
I'd also be turned out of the spare bed-room beyond, and sped on me way
with curses. Well, here we are. The next time you plan to pay us a
visit, telephone in advance. I may be able to persuade my host that
you're a decent, law-abiding, educated gentleman, and he'll consent to
receive you at Green Fancy. Good day to ye," and he shook hands with
the departing trespasser.
A quarter of a mile below the spot where he parted from O'Dowd, Barnes
caught a glimpse of De Soto sauntering among the trees. He smiled to
himself. It was just what he had expected.
"Takin' a walk?" was the landlord's greeting as he mounted the tavern
steps at dusk. Putnam Jones's gaunt figure had been discernible for
some time, standing motionless at the top of the steps.
"Going over the ground of last night's affair," responded Barnes,
pausing. "Any word from the sheriff and his party?"
"Nope. The blamed fools are still up there turnin' over all the loose
stones they c'n find," said Jones sarcastically. "Did you get a glimpse
of Green Fancy?"
Barnes nodded. "I strolled a little distance into the woods," he said
briefly.
"I wouldn't do it again," said Jones. "Strangers ain't welcome. I might
have told you as much if I'd thought you were going up that way. Mr.
Curtis notified me a long while ago to warn my guests not to set foot
on his grounds, under penalty of the law."
"Well, I escaped without injury," laughed Barnes. "No one took a shot
at me."
As he entered the door he was acutely aware of an intense stare
levelled at him from behind by the landlord of Hart's Tavern. Half way
up the stairway he stopped short, and with difficulty repressed the
exclamation that rose to his lips.
He had recalled a significant incident of the night before. Almost
immediately after the departure of Roon and Paul from the Tavern,
Putnam Jones had made his way to the telephone behind the desk, and had
called for a number in a loud, brisk voice, but the subsequent
conversation was carried on in subdued tones, attended by haste and
occasional furtive glances in the direction of the tap-room.
Upon reaching his room, Barnes permitted the suppressed emotion to
escape his lips in the shape of a soft whistle, which if it could have
been translated into words would have said: "By Gad, why haven't I
thought of it before? He sent out the warning that Roon and Paul were
on the way! And I'd like to bet my last dollar that some one at Green
Fancy had the other end of the wire."
Mr. Rushcroft stalked majestically into his room while he was shaving,
without taking the trouble to knock at the door, and in his most
impressive manner announced that if there was another hostelry within
reasonable distance he would move himself, his luggage and his entire
company out of Putnam Jones's incomprehensible house.
"Why, sir," he declared, "the man is not only a knave but a fool. He
flatly declines the prodigious offer I have made for the corner rooms
at the end of the corridor. In fact, he refuses to transfer my daughter
and me from our present quarters into what might be called the royal
suite if one were disposed to be facetious. The confounded blockhead
insists on seeing the colour of my money in advance." He sat down on
the edge of the bed, dejectedly. "My daughter, perversity personified,
takes the extraordinary stand that the wretch is right. She agrees with
him. She has even gone so far as to say, to my face, that beggars
cannot be choosers, although I must give her credit for not using the
expression in the scoundrel's presence. 'Pon my soul, Barnes, I have
never been so sorely tried in all my life. Emma,--I should say,
Mercedes,--denounces me to my face. She says I am a wastrel, a
profligate,--(there I have her, however, for she failed to consult the
dictionary before applying the word to me),--an ingrate, and a lot of
other things I fail to recall in my dismay. She contends that I have no
right to do what I please with my own money. Indeed, she goes so far as
to say that I haven't any money at all. I have tried to explain to her
the very simple principles upon which all financial transactions are
based, but she remains as obtuse as Cleopatra's Needle. Her ignorance
would be pitiful if she wasn't so damned obstinate about it. And to cap
the climax, she had the insolence to ask me to show her a dollar in
real money. By gad, sir, she's as unreasonable as Putnam Jones himself."
Barnes gallantly came to the daughter's defense. He was more than
pleased by the father's revelations. They proved her to be possessed of
fine feelings and a genuine sense of appreciation.
"As a matter of fact, Mr. Rushcroft, I think she is quite right," he
said flatly. "It isn't a bad idea to practice economy."
"My dear sir," said Rushcroft peevishly, "where would I be now in my
profession if I had practiced economy at the expense of progress?"
"I don't know," confessed Barnes, much too promptly.
"I can tell you, sir. I would be nowhere at all. I would not be the
possessor of a name that is known from one end of this land to the
other, a name that guarantees to the public the most elaborate
productions known to--"
"Pardon me," interrupted the other; "it doesn't get you anywhere with
Putnam Jones, and that is the issue at present. The government puts the
portrait of George Washington on one of its greenbacks but his face and
name wouldn't be worth the tenth of a penny if the United States went
bankrupt. As it is, however, if you were to go downstairs and proffer
one of those bills to Putnam Jones he would make his most elaborate bow
and put you into the best room in the house. George Washington has
backing that even Mr. Jones cannot despise. So, you see, your daughter
is right. Your name and face is yet to be stamped on a government bank
note, Mr. Rushcroft, and until that time comes you are no better off
than I or any of the rest of the unfortunates who, being still alive,
have to eat for a living."
"You speak in parables," said Mr. Rushcroft, arising. "Am I to assume
that you wish to withdraw your offer to lend me--"
"Not at all," said Barnes. "My desire to stake you to the comforts and
dignity your station deserves remains unchanged. If you will bear with
me until I have finished shaving I will go with you to Mr. Jones and
show him the colour of your money."
Mr. Rushcroft grinned shamelessly. "My daughter was right when she said
another thing to me," he observed, sitting down once more.
"She appears to be more or less infallible."
"A woman in a million," said the star. "She said that I wouldn't make a
hit with you if I attempted to put on too much side. I perceive that
she was right,--as usual."
"Absolutely," said Barnes, with decision.
"So I'll cut it out," remarked Rushcroft quaintly. "I will be
everlastingly grateful to you, Mr. Barnes, if you'll fix things up with
Jones. God knows when or whether I can ever reimburse you, but as I am
not really a dead-beat the time will certainly come when I may begin
paying in installments. Do we understand each other?"
"We do," said Barnes, and started downstairs with him.
Half an hour later Barnes succeeded in striking a bargain with Putnam
Jones. He got the two rooms at the end of the hall at half price,
insisting that it was customary for every hotel to give actors a
substantial reduction in rates.
"You shall be treasurer and business-manager in my reorganized
company," said Rushcroft. "With your acumen and my eccentricity united
in a common cause we will stagger the universe."
Despite his rehabilitation as a gentleman of means and independence,
Mr. Rushcroft could not forego the pleasure of staggering a small
section of the world that very night. He was giving Hamlet's address to
the players in the tap-room when Barnes came downstairs at nine
o'clock. Bacon and Dillingford having returned earlier in the evening
with the trunks, bags and other portable chattels of the defunct
"troupe," Mr. Rushcroft was performing in a sadly wrinkled Norfolk suit
of grey which Dillingford was under solemn injunction to press before
breakfast the next morning.
"I know I don't have to do it," said the star, catching the surprised
look in Barnes's eye and pausing to explain, sotto voce, "but I hadn't
the heart to refuse. They're eating it up, my dear fellow. Up to this
instant they've been sitting with their mouths wide open while I hurled
it, word after word, into their very vitals. "Whereupon he resumed the
sonorous monologue, glowering balefully upon his transfixed hearers.
Barnes, leaning against the door-jamb, listened with an amused smile on
his lips. His gaze swept the rapt faces of the dozen or more customers
seated at the tables, and he found himself wondering if one of these
men was the father of the little girl whose mother had described Hart's
Tavern as a "shindy." Was it only yesterday that he had spoken with the
barefoot child? An age seemed to have passed since that brief encounter.
Rushcroft ended Hamlet's speech in fine style, and almost instantly a
mild voice from the crowd asked if he knew "Casey at the Bat." Not in
the least distressed by this woeful commentary, Mr. Rushcroft
cheerfully, obligingly tackled the tragic fizzle of the immortal Casey.
A small, dark man who sat alone at a table in the corner, caught
Barnes's eye and smiled almost mournfully. He was undoubtedly a
stranger; his action was meant to convey to Barnes the information that
he too was from a distant and sophisticated community, and that a bond
of sympathy existed between them.
Putnam Jones spoke suddenly at Barnes's shoulder. He started
involuntarily. The man was beginning to get on his nerves. He seemed to
be dogging his footsteps with ceaseless persistency.
"That feller over there in the corner," said Jones, softly, "is a
book-agent from your town. He sold me a set of Dickens when he was here
last time, about six weeks ago. A year's subscription to two magazines
throwed in. By gosh, these book-agents are slick ones. I didn't want
that set of Dickens any more'n I wanted a last year's bird's nest. The
thing I'm afraid of is that he'll talk me into taking a set of Scott
before he moves on. He's got me sweatin' already."
"He's a shrewd looking chap," commented Barnes.
"Says he won't be satisfied till he's made this section of the country
the most cultured, refined spot in the United States," said Jones
dolefully. "He brags about how much he did toward makin' Boston the
literary centre of the United States, him and his father before him.
Together, he says, they actually elevated Boston from the bottomless
pit of ignorance and----Excuse me. There goes the telephone. Maybe it's
news from the sheriff."
With the spasmodic tinkling of the telephone bell, the book-agent arose
and made his way to the little office. As he passed Barnes, he winked
broadly, and said, out of the corner of his mouth:
"He'd make DeWolf Hopper look sick, wouldn't he?"
Barnes glanced over his shoulder a moment later and saw the book-agent
studying the register. The poise of his sleek head, however, suggested
a listening attitude. Putnam Jones, not four feet away, was speaking
into the telephone receiver. As the receiver was restored to its hook,
Barnes turned again. Jones and the book-agent were examining the
register, their heads almost meeting from opposite sides of the desk.
The latter straightened up, stretched his arms, yawned, and announced
in a loud tone that he guessed he'd step out and get a bit of fresh air
before turning in.
"Any news?" inquired Barnes, approaching the desk after the door had
closed behind the book-agent.
"It wasn't the sheriff," replied Jones shortly, and immediately resumed
his interrupted discourse on books, book-agents and the reclamation of
Boston. Ten minutes elapsed before the landlord's garrulity was checked
by the sound of an automobile coming to a stop in front of the house.
Barnes turned expectantly toward the door. Almost immediately the car
started up again, with a loud shifting of gears, and a moment later the
door opened to admit, not a fresh arrival, but the little book-agent.
"Party trying to make Hornville to-night," he announced casually.
"Well, good night. See you in the morning."
Barnes was not in a position to doubt the fellow's word, for the car
unmistakably had gone on toward Hornville. He waited a few minutes
after the man disappeared up the narrow stairway, and then proceeded to
test his powers of divination. He was as sure as he could be sure of
anything that had not actually come to pass, that in a short time the
automobile would again pass the tavern but this time from the direction
of Hornville.
Lighting a cigarette, he strolled outside. He had barely time to take a
position at the darkened end of the porch before the sounds of an
approaching machine came to his ears. A second or two later the lights
swung around the bend in the road a quarter of a mile above Hart's
Tavern, and down came the car at a high rate of speed. It dashed past
the tavern with a great roar and rattle and shot off into the darkness
beyond. As it rushed through the dim circle of light in front of the
tavern, Barnes succeeded in obtaining a brief but convincing view of
the car. That glance was enough, however. He would have been willing to
go before a jury and swear that it was the same car that had deposited
him at Hart's Tavern the day before.
Having guessed correctly in the one instance, he allowed himself
another and even bolder guess: the little book-agent had either
received a message from or delivered one to the occupant or driver of
the car from Green Fancy.