JUNO.
The house remained silent while Nick Carter waited.
Indeed there was barely a sound to be heard at all, even from without,
so remote was the place, for Kingsgift, comprising more than eight
hundred acres of land, much of it forest, was bounded on three sides
by water, and on the fourth by a narrow neck of land only, so that
the nearest neighbor, save for the negro tenants, lived several miles
distant.
While the time passed during which the negress was preparing food
for the detective, he amused himself by inspecting the room in which
he waited. It was evidently a reception room, used only for the
accommodations of people like Nick Carter, who appeared there without
any definite purpose—apparently—and presently went on their ways again,
never to be heard of more.
After a time the negress reappeared and invited him to follow her; and
he was conducted to the spacious dining room where Liza had spread food
enough for three hungry men.
“It’s on’y jes’ a cold snack, honey,” she said apologetically, “but
it sure was de bestes’ I cud do on so short notice. Dar ain many
strangers what gits in h’yere from de main road. It suttinly is
clar-to-goodnes clean off’n de trabbled road.”
“So your master isn’t at home, eh?” said the detective, helping himself
to the good things before him.
“No, sah, dat he ain’t.”
“And your mistress is away, too?”
“Yassir; yassir. She done gone away, too.”
“It is rather strange that uncle should have said she was here.”
“Say, ain’t I done tol yo’ dat my ol man is de hugest-most liah in de
worl’? My, my, yo’ don’ wanttuh go for to b’lieve wat dat man tells
yo’. Tain’t safe, nohow. He suttinly is de onliest man I know what
can’t tell de truth; he suttinly is.”
“Well, auntie, maybe you can tell me how to go from here to Hague. I
want to go there in the morning, after breakfast.”
“In de mawnin’? Yo’ jes’ drives ’long de road. Dere ain’t nothin’ else
to do. Reckon yo’ must ha’ come straight through Hague when you done
come yere. When you is quite finished eatin’, sah, I’ll show you to
your room whar you is to sleep, and you kin go to baid jes’ as soon as
yo’ is a mind to.”
“Oh, I won’t go to bed right away, auntie. I’ll sit out there on the
veranda and smoke,” said the detective, rising, for he had eaten his
fill. “You can show me where the room is, if you wish, and I will go
to it after I have smoked my cigar.”
“Lord bless yo’, sah, you is welcome to smoke right in yo’ room, all
yo’ pleases,” said the woman hastily. So hastily that Nick decided at
once that she wished to get him stowed away immediately. He was just
turning over in his mind the question as to why the woman desired that,
when he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs on the roadway, and then a
musical voice called from the darkness:
“Lize! Lize! Oh, uncle! Here I am!”
The negro woman looked appealingly toward the detective, as if she
wished that he would hide himself away somewhere. Nick stepped quickly
to the door, threw it ajar, and then stood there, framed in the
opening, with the light of the room behind him so that it fell full
upon the face and figure of a woman who had pulled her saddle horse
close to the stepping block, and was just gathering the reins in her
hand preparatory to dismounting.
She straightened quickly when she saw Nick, and for an instant it
seemed to him as if she was on the point of urging the horse away
again. But if she felt the impulse, she controlled it; and she said
coolly:
“Good evening, sir.” Then she called past Nick to the negress, adding:
“Where is your mistress, Liza? I rode over to make a call upon her.”
“She done gone out, missy, jes’ a lil’ while ago, for sure,” the
negress replied quickly, and the detective could not repress a smile
at the transparency of the falsehood, or, rather, at the attempt to
deceive.
It was evident that the woman on the horse’s back saw the expression on
Nick Carter’s face, and read it correctly, for she instantly broke into
a laugh, and exclaimed:
“Oh, dear, it isn’t the slightest use to tell Aunt Liza to say that I’m
not at home. She cannot understand how a person can be not at home and
in the house at the same time. But I won’t try to deceive you, sir. I
am Mrs. Dinwiddie, and if you are a stranger, you are welcome to such
hospitality as I can provide.”
She started to dismount, and Nick stepped forward to assist her; but
with a quick, light spring, she was out of the saddle before he could
touch her.
There was no mistaking the accent of the woman when she spoke, or
rather, there could be no two opinions in regard to her enunciation.
It was decidedly English, and yet with so faint a trace of it that she
probably thought, herself, that she spoke it like an American.
It has been said that the real English sing their words, and she sang
hers, certainly, and with a voice that sounded capable of singing
anything.
“I found myself in this neighborhood a little while ago, and made bold
to ask for accommodation,” explained the detective, approaching nearer
to her; and he perceived that she answered very well indeed to the
meager description he had of her.
There was no denying her beauty, or that it belonged to a class by
itself.
She was the brunette that had been partly described to him; the woman
with the luminous eyes, with the perfect figure, the dark hair, the
olive complexion, which was yet too fair to be olive. She was Juno; he
was assured of that; and hence was the woman with whom he wished to
converse.
As soon as she dismounted and after replying to his statement with a
word or two, she led the way into the house, and to a sitting room
which Nick had not seen before.
“You are a stranger in this part of the country?” she said inquiringly,
after indicating a chair for him to occupy, and disposing of her own
person on a low rocker. “Kingsgift is such an out of the way place that
strangers rarely honor us; still, you are welcome. It is unfortunate
that my husband is absent, else he would entertain you.”
“Madam, thank you,” replied Nick, accepting the proffered chair. “You
are very kind. The truth is, I was informed that you, also, were
absent.”
Again she indulged in that musical laugh of hers, which was almost
contagious.
“That is a little story of mine,” she said, “but I cannot make Liza
keep to it. Since my husband went away, I have preferred to keep to
myself, and I permitted it to be thought around here that I had gone
with him—or in another direction. But it makes no difference. I believe
that you have not yet told me your name, sir.”
“I am Mr. Carter, from New York,” he replied, giving his own name in
spite of the fact that he was partly disguised. He wished now that he
was not.
“Then you are a long way from home, are you not?”
“A very long way; yes, indeed; and my horses were about played out when
I arrived here. I doubt if they could have gone three miles farther.”
“And you were bound for——” she stopped with the rising inflection.
“In the morning I will go to a place called Hague, if some one here
will direct me.”
“Did you come from the north?”
“I drove from Fredericksburg.”
“Indeed? And arrived here? Why, you must have gone directly through
Hague, unless you took the wrong road and came by a very devious
course.”
“People who drive along strange highways at night are apt to take the
wrong road, are they not?” he replied, smiling. “But, madam, since
your husband is not at home, I will go on again as soon as my horses
are rested, if you prefer it,” he added.
“Oh, no; there is no reason why you should do that, sir. Make yourself
as comfortable as you can while you are here. You will excuse me, of
course—and, as I probably will not be up when you leave in the morning,
I will also say good-by.”
She inclined her head, and was gone before he could venture a protest.
He had hoped that she would be inclined to remain and talk with him
for a while, but such a proceeding was evidently furthest from her
thoughts. And so Nick Carter found himself alone, almost as soon as the
purpose of his visit was achieved.
For he had accomplished the purpose of that visit, almost as soon as he
saw Juno and heard her speak.
He had satisfied himself of two things; one was that he had never seen
her before, and the other was that he would be able to recognize her
again under any circumstances.
For a time after she left him he remained standing where he had risen
to bid her good night, watching the closed door by which she had passed
from the room. He was thinking to himself:
“A wonderful woman! Truly a remarkable woman—and as beautiful as she is
remarkable. No person who has ever seen her face and looked into her
eyes could forget either; no one who has ever heard the sound of her
voice could forget it. She has a wonderful charm; a quick intelligence;
a keen perception.”
He stopped at that expression, “a keen perception.”
He asked himself if by any possibility her perceptions were
sufficiently keen to have suggested to her the explanation of his call
there; and he replied to his own thought:
“If she is the sort of woman I have believed her to be she would not be
deceived by the explanation I offered of my presence here. She would
know at once that I did not come here by accident.”
However, if Juno knew or guessed such a thing, she did not show it at
all.
She had acted throughout in a perfectly natural manner. The most
critical could have had no fault to find with her conduct, or with her
manner of receiving the detective.
The negress, Liza, entered the room a moment later, evidently sent
there by her mistress, and the detective followed her to the room that
had been assigned to him.
An old-fashioned teester bed, surmounted by a resplendent canopy,
waited there to receive him, and he was tired enough to have taken
advantage of its comforts at once; but another duty demanded his
attention first.
From the lining of his coat, where he had cut a place to receive it,
he drew forth several sheets of drawing paper; from another pocket,
pencils; and then he drew forward under the light the drop leaf
mahogany table, and set himself to work on a reproduction of the
features of the beautiful woman who had entertained him so short a time.
He made a profile; he made a full view drawing; he made a
three-quarters. He drew a picture of her standing; another sketch
represented her in the saddle, as he had first seen her. Still another
showed her seated in the low rocker in the sitting room where she had
talked with him only a few moments.
In all he made eight sketches of Juno, for it was an art which his
father had compelled him to acquire when he was learning to be a
detective—to draw with great accuracy from memory.
When he had finished them and raised them before his eyes for his own
inspection he nodded his head, well satisfied with the result he had
achieved. He had eight fairly good likenesses of Juno to work with.