her and them, in spite of the almost ever-present Blount, Gregory was
invited to be one of a party in one or the other of their cars whenever
they were going anywhere of an afternoon or evening. He was suspicious
of them, however, and refused their invitations except when Blount was
on the scene and invited, when he was willing enough to accept. Then
there were whist, pinochle, or poker games in the hotel occasionally,
and in these Gregory as well as Blount, when he was there, were wont to
join, being persistently invited. Gregory did not dance, and Imogene
ragged him as to this. Why didn’t he learn? It was wonderful! She would
teach him! As she passed amid the maze of dancers at times he could
not help thinking how graceful she was, how full of life and animal
spirits. Blount saw this and teased him, at the same time finding her
very companionable and interesting himself. Gregory could not help
thinking what a fascinating, what an amazing thing, really, it was
(providing it were true) that so dark a personality as Tilney could
secure such an attractive girl to do his vile work. Think of it, only
twenty-one, beautiful, able to further herself in many ways no doubt,
and yet here she was under suspicion of him, a trickster possibly. What
could be the compulsion, the reward?
“My boy, you don’t know these people,” Blount was always telling
him. “They’re the limit. In politics you can get people to do
anything--anything. It isn’t like the rest of life or business, it’s
just politics, that’s all. It seems a cynical thing to say, but it’s
true. Look at your own investigations! What do they show?”
“I know, but a girl like that now----” replied Gregory solemnly.
But after all, as he insisted to Blount, they did not _know_ that there
was anything to all this. She might and she might not be a siren. It
might be possible that both of them were grossly misjudging her and
other absolutely innocent people.
So far, all that they had been able to find out concerning Mrs. Skelton
was that she was, as she represented herself to be, the successful
owner and manager of a theatrical agency. She might have known the
better days and connections which she boasted. Gregory felt at times
as though his brain were whirling, like a man confronted by enemies in
the dark, fumbling and uncertain, but he and Blount both agreed that
the best thing was to stay here and see it through, come what might.
It was a good game even as it stood, interesting, very. It showed, as
Blount pointed out to him, a depth to this political mess which he was
attempting to expose which previously even he had not suspected.
“Stick by,” the other insisted sport-lovingly. “You don’t know what may
come of this. It may provide you the very club you’re looking for. Win
her over to your side if you can. Why not? She might really fall for
you. Then see what comes of it. You can’t be led into any especial trap
with your eyes open.”
Gregory agreed to all this after a time. Besides, this very attractive
girl was beginning to appeal to him in a very subtle way. He had never
known a woman like this before--never even seen one. It was a very new
and attractive game, of sorts. He began to spruce up and attempt to
appear a little gallant himself. A daily report of his movements was
being filed each morning, though. Every night he returned with Blount
in his car, or on an early train. There was scarcely a chance for a
compromising situation, and still there might be--who knows?
On other evenings, after the fashion of seaside hotel life, Gregory
and Imogene grew a little more familiar. Gregory learned that she
played and sang, and, listening to her, that she was of a warm and
even sensuous disposition. She was much more sophisticated than she
had seemed at first, as he could now see, fixing her lips in an odd
inviting pout at times and looking alluringly at one and another,
himself included. Both Blount and himself, once the novelty of the
supposed secret attack had worn off, ventured to jest with her about
it, or rather to hint vaguely as to her mission.
“Well, how goes the great game to-night?” Blount once asked her during
her second or third week, coming up to where she and Gregory were
sitting amid the throng on the general veranda, and eyeing her in a
sophisticated or smilingly cynical way.
“What game?” She looked up in seemingly complete innocence.
“Oh, snaring the appointed victim. Isn’t that what all attractive young
women do?”
“Are you referring to me?” she inquired with considerable hauteur and
an air of injured innocence. “I’d have you know that I don’t have to
snare any one, and particularly not a married man.” Her teeth gleamed
maliciously.
Both Gregory and Blount were watching her closely.
“Oh, of course not. Not a married man, to be sure. And I wasn’t
referring to you exactly--just life, you know, the game.”
“Yes, I know,” she replied sweetly. “I’m jesting, too.” Both Gregory
and Blount laughed.
“Well, she got away with it without the tremor of an eyelash, didn’t
she?” Blount afterward observed, and Gregory had to agree that she had.
Again, it was Gregory who attempted a reference of this kind. She had
come out after a short instrumental interpretation at the piano, where,
it seemed to him, she had been posing in a graceful statuesque way--for
whose benefit? He knew that she knew he could see her from where he sat.
“It’s pretty hard work, without much reward,” he suggested seemingly
idly.
“What is? I don’t quite understand,” and she looked at him
questioningly.
“No?” he smiled in a light laughing manner. “Well, that’s a cryptic
way I have. I say things like that. Just a light hint at a dark plot,
possibly. You mustn’t mind me. You wouldn’t understand unless you know
what I know.”
“Well, what is it you know, then, that I don’t?” she inquired.
“Nothing definite yet. Just an idea. Don’t mind me.”
“Really, you are very odd, both you and Mr. Blount. You are always
saying such odd things and then adding that you don’t mean anything.
And what’s cryptic?”
Gregory, still laughing at her, explained.
“Do you know, you’re exceedingly interesting to me as a type. I’m
watching you all the while.”
“Yes?” she commented, with a lifting of the eyebrows and a slight
distention of the eyes. “That’s interesting. Have you made up your mind
as to what type I am?”
“No, not quite yet. But if you’re the type I think you are, you’re very
clever. I’ll have to hand you the palm on that score.”
“Really, you puzzle me,” she said seriously. “Truly, you do. I don’t
understand you at all. What is it you are talking about? If it’s
anything that has any sense in it I wish you’d say it out plain, and if
not I wish you wouldn’t say it at all.”
Gregory stared. There was an odd ring of defiance in her voice.
“Please don’t be angry, will you?” he said, slightly disconcerted. “I’m
just teasing, not talking sense.”
She arose and walked off, while he strolled up and down the veranda
looking for Blount. When he found him, he narrated his experience.
“Well, it’s just possible that we are mistaken. You never can tell.
Give her a little more rope. Something’s sure to develop soon.”
And thereafter it seemed as if Mrs. Skelton and some others might be
helping her in some subtle way about something, the end or aim of
which he could not be quite sure. He was in no way disposed to flatter
himself, and yet it seemed at times as if he were the object of almost
invisible machinations. In spite of what had gone before, she still
addressed him in a friendly way, and seemed not to wish to avoid him,
but rather to be in his vicinity at all times.
A smug, dressy, crafty Jew of almost minute dimensions arrived on the
scene and took quarters somewhere in the building, coming and going and
seeming never to know Mrs. Skelton or her friends, and yet one day,
idling across some sand dunes which skirted an adjacent inlet, he saw
them, Imogene and the ant-like Jew, walking along together. He was so
astounded that he stopped in amazement. His first thought was to draw
a little nearer and to make very sure, but realizing, as they walked
slowly in his direction, that he could not be mistaken, he beat a hasty
retreat. That evening Blount was taken in on the mystery, and at dinner
time, seeing the Hebrew enter and seat himself in state at a distant
table, he asked casually, “A newcomer, isn’t he?”
Mrs. Skelton, Imogene, and the one broker present, surveyed the
stranger with curious but unacquainted indifference.
“Haven’t the slightest idea,” answered the broker. “Never saw him
before. Cloaks and suits, I’ll lay a thousand.”
“He looks as though he might be rich, whoever he is,” innocently
commented Imogene.
“I think he came Thursday. He doesn’t seem to be any one in particular,
that’s sure,” added Mrs. Skelton distantly, and the subject was dropped.
Gregory was tempted to accuse the young woman and her friends then
and there of falsehood, but he decided to wait and study her. This
was certainly becoming interesting. If they could lie like that, then
something was surely in the air. So she was a trickster, after all, and
she was so charming. His interest in her and Mrs. Skelton and their
friends grew apace.
And then came the matter of the mysterious blue racer, or “trailer,”
as Gregory afterward came to call it, a great hulking brute of a car,
beautifully, even showily, made, and with an engine that talked like
no other. There was a metallic ring about it which seemed to carry a
long way through the clear air and over the sands which adjoined the
sea. It was the possession, so he learned later through Mrs. Skelton,
of one of four fortunate youths who were summering at the next hotel
west, about a mile away. The owner, one Castleman by name, the son and
heir to a very wealthy family, was a friend of hers whom she had first
met in a commercial way in the city. They came over after Imogene’s
arrival, she explained, to help entertain, and they invariably came in
this car. Castleman and his friends, smart, showy youths all, played
tennis and bridge, and knew all the latest shows and dances and drinks.
They were very gay looking, at least three of them, and were inclined
to make much of Imogene, though, as Mrs. Skelton cautiously confided
to Gregory after a time, she did not propose to allow it. Imogene’s
parents might not like it. On the other hand, Gregory and Blount, being
sober men both and of excellent discretion, were much more welcome!
Almost every day thereafter Mrs. Skelton would go for a ride in her own
car or that of Castleman, taking Gregory if he would, and Imogene for
companions. Blount, however, as he explicitly made clear at the very
beginning, was opposed to this.
“Don’t ever be alone with her, I tell you, or just in the company of
her and her friends anywhere except on this veranda. They’re after
you, and they’re not finding it easy, and they’re beginning to work
hard. They’ll give themselves away in some way pretty soon, just as
sure as you’re sitting there. They want to cut me out, but don’t let
them do it--or if you do, get some one in my place. You don’t know
where they’ll take you. That’s the way people are framed. Take me, or
get them to use my machine and you take some other man. Then you can
regulate the conditions partially, anyhow.”
Gregory insisted that he had no desire to make any other arrangements,
and so, thereafter, whenever an invitation was extended to him, Blount
was always somehow included, although, as he could see, they did not
like it. Not that Imogene seemed to mind, but Mrs. Skelton always
complained, “Must we wait for him?” or “Isn’t it possible, ever, to go
anywhere without him?”
Gregory explained how it was. Blount was an old and dear friend of his.
They were practically spending the summer together. Blount had nothing
to do just now.... They seemed to take it all in the best part, and
thereafter Blount was always ready, and even willing to suggest that
they come along with him in his car.
But the more these accidental prearrangements occurred, the more
innocently perverse was Mrs. Skelton in proposing occasional trips of
her own. There was an interesting walk through the pines and across the
dunes to a neighboring hotel which had a delightful pavilion, and this
she was always willing to essay with just Gregory. Only, whenever he
agreed to this, and they were about to set out, Imogene would always
appear and would have to be included. Then Mrs. Skelton would remember
that she had forgotten her parasol or purse or handkerchief, and would
return for it, leaving Imogene and Gregory to stroll on together. But
Gregory would always wait until Mrs. Skelton returned. He was not to be
entrapped like this.
By now he and Imogene, in spite of this atmosphere of suspicion and
uncertainty, had become very friendly. She liked him, he could see
that. She looked at him with a slight widening of the eyes and a faint
distention of the nostrils at times, which spelled--what? And when
seated with him in the car, or anywhere else, she drew near him in a
gently inclusive and sympathetic and coaxing way. She had been trying
to teach him to dance of late, and scolding him in almost endearing
phrases such as “Now, you bad boy,” or “Oh, butterfingers!” (when once
he had dropped something), or “Big, clumsy one--how big and strong you
really are. I can scarcely guide you.”
And to him, in spite of all her dark chicane, she was really beautiful,
and so graceful! What a complexion, he said to himself on more than
one occasion. How light and silken her hair! And her eyes, hard and
gray-brown, and yet soft, too--to him. Her nose was so small and
straight, and her lip line so wavily cut, like an Englishwoman’s, full
and drooping in the center of the upper lip. And she looked at him so
when they were alone! It was disturbing.
But as to the Blue Trailer on these careening nights. Chancing one
night to be invited by Mrs. Skelton for a twenty-five-mile run to
Bayside, Blount accompanying them, they had not gone ten miles, it
seemed to him, when the hum of a peculiarly and powerfully built motor
came to him. It was like a distant bee buzzing, or a hornet caught
under a glass. There was something fierce about it, savage. On the
instant he recalled it now, recognized it as the great blue machine
belonging to young Castleman. Why should he be always hearing it, he
asked, when they were out? And then quite thoughtlessly he observed to
Imogene:
“That sounds like Castleman’s car, doesn’t it?”
“It does, doesn’t it?” she innocently replied. “I wonder if it could
be.”
Nothing caused him to think any more about it just then, but another
time when he was passing along a distant road he heard its motor
nearby on another road, and then it passed them. Again, it brought its
customary group to the same inn in which he and Blount and Imogene and
Mrs. Skelton were.
Suddenly it came to him just what it meant. The last time he had heard
it, and every time before that, he now remembered, its sound had been
followed by its appearance at some roadside inn or hotel whenever he,
Imogene and Blount happened to be in the same party; and it always
brought with it this self-same group of young men (“joy riders,” they
called themselves), accidentally happening in on them, as they said.
And now he remembered (and this fact was corroborated by the watchful
Blount) that if the car had not been heard, and they had not appeared,
either Mrs. Skelton or Imogene invariably sought the ladies’ retiring
room once they had reached their destination, if they had one, when
later the car would be heard tearing along in the distance and the “joy
riders” would arrive. But what for? How to compromise him exactly, if
at all?
One night after Mrs. Skelton had left them in one of these inns, but
before the joy riders had arrived, Gregory was sitting at the edge of a
balcony overlooking a silent grove of pines when suddenly it seemed to
him that he heard it coming in the distance, this great rumbling brute,
baying afar off, like a bloodhound on the scent. There was something
so eerie, uncanny about it or about the night, which made it so. And
then a few moments later it appeared, and the four cronies strolled in,
smart and summery in their appearance, seemingly surprised to find them
all there. Gregory felt a bit cold and chill at the subtlety of it all.
How horrible it was, trailing a man in this way! How tremendous the
depths of politics, how important the control of all the great seething
cities’ millions, to these men--Tilney and his friends,--if they could
find it important to plot against one lone investigating man like this!
Their crimes! Their financial robberies! How well he knew some of
them--and how near he was to being able to prove some of them and drive
them out, away from the public treasury and the emoluments and honors
of office!
That was why he was so important to them now--he a self-established
newspaperman with a self-established investigating bureau. Actually,
it was villainous, so dark and crafty. What were they planning, these
two smiling women at his side and these four smart rounders, with their
pink cheeks and affable manners? What could they want of him really?
How would it all end?
As Mrs. Skelton, Imogene, Blount and himself were preparing to return,
and Castleman and his friends were entering their own car, a third
party hitherto unknown to Blount or Gregory appeared and engaged the
two women in conversation, finally persuading them to return with them
in their car. Mrs. Skelton thereupon apologized and explained that
they were old friends whom she had not seen for a long time, and that
they would all meet at the hotel later for a game of bridge. Blount
and Gregory, left thus to themselves, decided to take a short cut to
a nearby turnpike so as to beat them home. The move interested them,
although they could not explain it at the time. It was while they were
following this road, however, through a section heavily shaded with
trees, that they were suddenly confronted by the blazing lights of
another machine descending upon them at full speed from the opposite
direction, and even though Blount by the most amazing dexterity managed
to throw his car into the adjacent fence and wood, still it came so
close and was traveling at such terrific speed that it clipped their
left rear wheel as he did so.
“Castleman’s car!” Blount said softly after it had passed. “I saw him.
They missed us by an inch!”
“What do you think of that!” exclaimed Gregory cynically. “I wonder if
they’ll come back to see the result of their work?”
Even as they were talking, however, they heard the big car returning.
“Say, this looks serious! I don’t like the looks of it!” whispered
Blount. “That car would have torn us to bits and never been scratched.
And here they are now. Better look out for them. It’s just as well that
we’re armed. You have your gun, haven’t you?”
The other group approached most brazenly.
“Hello! Any trouble?” they called from a distance. “So sorry,” and then
as though they had just discovered it, “--well, if it isn’t Gregory and
Blount! Well, well, fellows, so sorry! It was an accident, I assure
you. Our steering gear is out of order.”
Gregory and Blount had previously agreed to stand their ground, and
if any further treachery were intended it was to be frustrated with
bullets. The situation was partially saved or cleared up by the arrival
of a third car containing a party of four middle-aged men who, seeing
them in the wood and the other car standing by, stopped to investigate.
It was Gregory’s presence of mind which kept them there.
“Do you mind staying by, Mister, until that other car leaves?” he
whispered to one of the newcomers who was helping to extricate Blount’s
machine. “I think they purposely tried to wreck us, but I’m not sure;
anyway, we don’t want to be left alone with them.”
Finding themselves thus replaced and the others determined to stay,
Castleman and his followers were most apologetic and helpful. They had
forgotten something back at the inn, they explained, and were returning
for it. As they had reached this particular spot and had seen the
lights of Blount’s car, they had tried to stop, but something had gone
wrong with the steering gear. They had tried to turn, but couldn’t,
and had almost wrecked their own car. Was there any damage? They would
gladly pay. Blount assured them there was not, the while he and Gregory
accepted their apologies in seeming good part, insisting, however, that
they needed no help. After they had gone Blount and Gregory, with the
strangers as guards, made their way to the hotel, only to find it dark
and deserted.
What an amazing thing it all was, Gregory said to himself over
and over, the great metropolis threaded with plots like this for
spoil--cold blooded murder attempted, and that by a young girl and
these young men scarcely in their middle twenties, and yet there was
no way to fix it on them. Here he was, fairly convinced that on two
occasions murder had been planned or attempted, and still he could
prove nothing, not a word, did not even dare to accuse any one! And
Imogene, this girl of beauty and gayety, pretending an affection for
him--and he half believing it--and at the same time convinced that she
was in on the plot in some way. Had he lost his senses?
He was for getting out now posthaste, feeling as he did that he was
dealing with a band of murderers who were plotting his death by
“accident” in case they failed to discredit him by some trick or plot,
but Blount was of another mind. He could not feel that this was a
good time to quit. After all, everything had been in their favor so
far. In addition, Blount had come to the conclusion that the girl was
a very weak tool of these other people, not a clever plotter herself.
He argued this, he said, from certain things which he had been able
thus far to find out about her. She had once been, he said, the
private secretary or personal assistant to a well known banker whose
institution had been connected with the Tilney interests in Penyank,
and whose career had ended in his indictment and flight. Perhaps there
had been some papers which she had signed as the ostensible secretary
or treasurer, which might make her the victim of Tilney or of some of
his political friends. Besides, by now he was willing to help raise
money to carry Gregory’s work on in case he needed any. The city should
be protected from such people. But Blount considered Imogene a little
soft or easy, and thought that Gregory could influence her to help him
if he tried.
“Stick it out,” he insisted. “Stick it out. It looks pretty serious,
I know, but you want to remember that you won’t be any better off
anywhere else, and here we at least know what we’re up against. They
know by now that we’re getting on to them. They must. They’re getting
anxious, that’s all, and the time is getting short. You might send for
your wife, but that wouldn’t help any. Besides, if you play your cards
right with this girl you might get her to come over to your side. In
spite of what she’s doing, I think she likes you.” Gregory snorted. “Or
you might make her like you, and then you could get the whole scheme
out of her. See how she looks at you all the time! And don’t forget
that every day you string this thing along without letting them bring
it to a disastrous finish, the nearer you are to the election. If this
goes on much longer without their accomplishing anything, Tilney won’t
have a chance to frame up anything new before the election will be upon
him, and then it will be too late. Don’t you see?”
On the strength of this, Gregory agreed to linger a little while
longer, but he felt that it was telling on his nerves. He was becoming
irritable and savage, and the more he thought about it the worse he
felt. To think of having to be pleasant to people who were murderers at
heart and trying to destroy you!
The next morning, however, he saw Imogene at breakfast, fresh and
pleasant, and with that look of friendly interest in her eyes which
more and more of late she seemed to wear and in spite of himself he was
drawn to her, although he did his best to conceal it.
“Why didn’t you come back last night to play cards with us?” she asked.
“We waited and waited for you.”
“Oh, haven’t you heard about the latest ‘accident’?” he asked, with
a peculiar emphasis on the word, and looking at her with a cynical
mocking light in his eyes.
“No. What accident?” She seemed thoroughly unaware that anything had
happened.
“You didn’t know, of course, that Castleman’s car almost ran us down
after you left us last night?”
“No!” she exclaimed with genuine surprise. “Where?”
“Well, just after you left us, in the wood beyond Bellepoint. It was so
fortunate of you two to have left just when you did.” And he smiled and
explained briefly and with some cynical comments as to the steering
gear that wouldn’t work.