Hildegarde had acquired the habit of stepping softly as she went about her
father's house; of stopping to listen before she turned corners or entered
rooms. Every activity of the house she scrutinized with suspicion. She
felt that affairs went forward there under the surface which she could
only guess at but could not detect. There was a sort of melodrama about
her situation that keyed her up. She would never admit it, but,
nevertheless, there were times when she really enjoyed herself. There was
no air of mystery about the place, but she knew mystery was there. She
knew there were servants waiting upon her who were set there to keep
watchful eyes upon her father; perhaps they carried on at the same time
other and more sinister occupations. Her father seemed to go about his
usual pursuits without interruption, but she believed there were
interruptions. Every time a fire worked its destruction, every time the
papers reported the havoc of an explosion, she wondered if her father's
hand had been in it. But she saw nothing to evidence his guilt. Simply and
baldly, she saw nothing. She only felt.
Ever since that night of climaxes she had hoped to discover the identity
of the man who had forced her father, not against his honorable scruples,
but against his fears, to assume a part in Germany's secret war against
the United States, but his identity was never hinted at by anything that
came to her ears or eyes. Once, on some pretext, she had rummaged the
basements of the house to see if she could find the explosives whose
presence had been hinted at. She found nothing.
She listened for and searched for things she did not want to find. "If I
should find something," she asked herself, "what would I do about it?"
There was a problem indeed. One may despise a parent, but, nevertheless,
parenthood exists. She loved the memory of her mother, and Herman von
Essen had dominated her mother's life. Possibly her mother had loved him.
Surely she had loved him for an interval. Considerations of this sort
reared themselves; but perhaps the major consideration was her horror of
disgrace--her horror of being shown to the world as the daughter of a man
guilty of treachery toward his country. Perhaps she was not the only
daughter of German parentage who faced such a problem in those days.
As a natural opposite of her father, she had felt loyalty where he
exhibited disloyalty; his attitude toward the United States had compelled
her to a love for her country which otherwise might have lain as dormant
as it seemed to lie in the majority of men and women about her. But her
father quickened it, and she nursed it. It was not in her to do things by
halves, and inevitably she became fiercely, flamingly patriotic....
Perhaps girlishly patriotic; patriotic with immature enthusiasm.... She
brooded and dreamed. She saw herself frustrating her father's designs--but
always without betraying him. She pictured herself discovering plots, and
bringing them to futility with clever counter-plots. She pictured herself
in possession of indisputable evidence of her father's guilt, and would
sit painting to herself scenes in which she confronted him with it,
compelled him to grovel for mercy, and wrung from him promises to abandon
his sinister enterprises. But though she spied with what cleverness for
spying was in her, she hit upon nothing tangible. Almost she came to
believe there was nothing tangible to discover.
The thing was never absent from her mind. How could it be? One cannot
whistle away fear, shame, the sense of impending calamity which has its
birth in such certain insecurity as was hers. When a nature, reckless,
turbulent, headstrong--and feminine--is moved by such emotions as hatred,
terror, black doubt, love of country, all conflicting, a dance, a game of
cards, a novel, cannot bring forgetfulness nor ease of mind. It was
wearing on her, chafing at those restraints which were naturally irksome
to her. Hildegarde was being modified, as Potter had been modified, but
the forces that acted upon her were far different from the forces which
had worked upon him. To Potter, through enforced idleness, unavoidable
thought, had come certainty and sureness of purpose, darkened and made
saturnine through these last months by love that had come down about him
in ruins. To Hildegarde came only more uncertainty, more anguish of mind.
There was no light ahead; nothing was clear before her. The strain she
underwent, the constant pressure of suspense, the tenseness of a most
singular precariousness, all pulled her this way and that. How the thing
would end with her none could say. It would change her; another woman
would result, but what sort of woman? The answer depended upon the innate
strength of her soul, the sturdiness of such virtues as resided in her.
For weeks after her brief encounter with Potter outside the dining-room of
the Athletic Club he insisted upon obtruding himself into her thoughts and
multiplying her perplexities. She herself, if she had been given to
introspection, could not have told what were her sentiments toward him.
She was very angry with him; that persisted. But the meeting with him had
given her a shock she did not suspect it would give her. It had upset her.
After she declined so sharply to sit at table with him it had seemed to
her she had to get away from that spot; had to be alone, could not bear
the presence of a human being. She did not want to hide away to think
about him; that was the thing she least desired to do. She would have told
you she never wanted to see him or be reminded of him again. But she
reminded herself of him. There were times when she really believed he had
assumed such importance in her considerations because she hated him. That,
she fancied, would account for it, for she was forced to acknowledge that
he was important. At other times she was not so certain of hatred; vivid
recollections of pleasant, glowing moments spent with him would come to
her. Again and again she saw the look that was in his eyes at their
unexpected meeting. The memory of that look disturbed and accused her, but
she would not admit the accusation. Against her will she lived over again
her flight from the house; Potter's offer of love and marriage, and her
reception of it.... She would have married him that night--without love;
it was not in her at that time to understand why he had acted as he had;
why he should have declined to marry her without her love coming to him as
a part of the transaction. She liked to fancy herself scorned and
affronted, but in her heart she knew she had not been scorned nor
affronted. She had accepted Cantor's attentions because, with a sort of
childish petulance, she imagined it would hurt Potter.
Her reason was a double one, perhaps a triple one. Potter was the first
consideration; then, second in importance, she must get away from the
house, be away from it frequently, be amused, excited. Cantor offered
amusement and excitement. She was not so inexperienced that she failed to
perceive early in their intimacy that Cantor was not the safest of
escorts, that he might, perhaps, prove to be more exciting than amusing,
and more dangerous than either. That feature of it rather egged her on. In
her state of mind she courted the risks she saw, and dared them. It
provided the element of contest her restlessness demanded. She took on
Cantor as she would have taken on a game of chess, knowing or suspecting
the chances of winning or losing.... And she found him fascinating, a
skilled cavalier, a delightful companion--but a watchful, ready companion,
not likely to pass over the opportunities of the game. It required all her
wit, her ready impertinence, to hold the man at arm's-length.
On the Fourth of July she drove with Cantor to the Bloomfield Hills
Country Club, adjacent to the beautiful little lakes of Oakland County,
distant some twenty-odd miles from Detroit. There they lunched and dined
and played golf. In the evening there were to be dancing and fireworks,
but a sudden mood seized Hildegarde, before the evening's entertainment
was well begun, to go home. She could not account for it herself. Simply
she wanted to go home, and wanting to go, she insisted upon being taken.
Cantor discovered that there was no arguing with her.
They drove along the country road to Woodward Avenue, and through
Birmingham, rapidly spreading Royal Oak, Highland Park, that had grown
from a distant country village to a considerable city perched upon
Detroit's very shoulder--on down the broad avenue which had, but a few
years before, known neither pavement nor street-car. Through miles upon
miles of the most convincing evidences of the city's miraculous growth
they drove--and for the most part in silence. Endless rows of fine
residences where, as a little girl, she had seen meadows and wheat-fields,
did not now interest her.... She wanted to be alone, alone in the dark.
She wanted to crouch in her room and to endeavor to compel her brain to
cease from thinking.
As they approached the Boulevard she became conscious of a tremendous glow
in the sky toward the west, a glow that seemed to rise, to pulsate, to
bound and leap fitfully. Cantor saw it, too, and slackened speed. His lips
were drawn; every now and then he moistened them with his tongue, and his
eyes glowed with repressed excitement.
"It's a fire," said Hildegarde, with interest awakened. There was
something about a big fire that fitted into her mood. "Let's drive across
the Boulevard and see."
"We'll only get into a mob," he protested.
"Never mind. We'll take that chance."
"But, Miss von Essen, we may get shut off there and held up for hours."
"You needn't worry, if I don't," she said, sharply.
Cantor appeared more unwilling to obey her than a mere fear of delay could
easily account for. One might have said that the region of the fire was
one he very obviously wished to avoid, but he obeyed, nevertheless.
As they drew nearer and were able to guess at the locality of the fire
Hildegarde said under her breath: "The Waite Motor Company--it is about
there. Can that be it?"
"I don't imagine so," Cantor said, tensely; "their buildings are
fire-proof, I've heard."
"But it is," Hildegarde insisted. "I'm sure it is. Hurry! It will be a
tremendous fire. I want to see it."
They turned and turned again. Before them lay the great mass of the Waite
Motor Company's plant, silhouetted against an eye-blasting inferno of
roaring flame. The fire seemed to be not in the motor-plant, but to the
rear of it.... They turned, made their way through crowds of people,
avoided reinforcements of fire apparatus, and arrived at a point where the
conflagration lay before them.
"It seems to be a lot of sheds and things," Hildegarde said. Then,
speaking to a police officer, she asked what was burning.
"Temporary buildings of the motor company," he said. "They were put up
this spring as warehouses. They tell me they were filled with motor-trucks
for the Allies, hundreds of 'em--and with parts and supplies."
"Fireworks started it, I suppose," said Cantor, harshly.
"I don't know.... Maybe so, but there's a heap of things happening lately
that fireworks hain't got anythin' to do with. Them Germans...."
"Nonsense!" said Cantor, vehemently.
"It isn't nonsense," Hildegarde said, sharply. "They could lay it on the
fireworks. That's why they did it to-day. I--" She stopped short and bit
her lip.
An ambulance came forcing its way through the crowd, to be stopped close
beside Hildegarde and Cantor.
"Oh," she said, "some one's hurt.... See who it is. Please do." She turned
to the policeman. "Won't you ask who is hurt, please?"
The officer was obliging. He made his way to the ambulance, assisted in
making a path for it to proceed, and then returned to the car.
"One of the watchmen," he said. "Ambulance doctor says he was knocked on
the head.... Hurt bad. Says it looks like somebody hit him a nasty lick.
Skull's cracked."
Hildegarde shuddered. "Murder, too," she whispered. Then: "I've seen all I
want.... Let's go home."
They drove southward to Jefferson Avenue and eastward to the von Essen
residence.... A car preceded them through the entrance and into the
grounds. Hildegarde watched it, wondered who it could be. It stopped just
before them and a man stepped out; he wavered, staggered, stumbled to the
ground, and Hildegarde heard him cry out with pain.
She leaped from Cantor's car and ran to the man's side. "Who is it?" she
asked, breathlessly. "What is it? What's the matter?"
The man struggled to his feet, holding one hand with the other, and
answered through his teeth, as one speaks who suffers agony.
"It's Philip, the chauffeur, Miss von Essen. Playing with fireworks and
got burnt pretty bad." He breathed sharply.
"Come into the house quickly," she said. "Mr. Cantor, take his arm. Help
him in."
As Cantor appeared the man started. "Steady," Cantor said. "Steady."
Hildegarde followed them into the house. She was frightened, she was
doubtful. There was an odor about the chauffeur's clothing which was not
that of powder, nor was it exactly that of gasolene. She was sure it was
kerosene.... What did that mean?
As the man entered the hall he stumbled, cried out breathlessly, and
slumped forward in a faint. Cantor and Hildegarde bent over him as Herman
von Essen came hurriedly out of the library.
"What's this? What's the matter?" he demanded, tensely.
"Nothing to alarm you," said Cantor. "Your chauffeur got burnt a little
with firecrackers, that's all."
Hildegarde switched on more lights as her father and Cantor carried the
man to a lounge. She could see that his hands were badly burnt, but what
was more startling, more significant to her, was that his lips were broken
and bleeding and blood dripped from a gash in his scalp, injuries not
commonly sustained through carelessness with fireworks.
She peered at her father. Manifestly he was frightened. He seemed to be
looking to Cantor in a peculiar manner, not as one looks to a casual guest
who is assisting in a minor emergency. Hildegarde wondered at that look.
The man jerked convulsively, struggled to sit up.
"Leggo!" he said, hoarsely. "Leggo!" Then he saw and recognized Cantor.
"Good job--" he began, and then stopped suddenly, peering craftily at
Hildegarde. "Good job it wasn't anythin' but a little skyrocket," he
finished.
Hildegarde was standing tense, white. "There's blood on your coat," she
said, in a choked voice. "Where were you shooting fireworks?" she
demanded, and looked from the chauffeur to her father. Her father was
still looking at Cantor.
"Go to bed," said von Essen, roughly. "You're in the way here."
"I would go if I were you, Miss von Essen. This isn't a pleasant sight for
you."
"I don't suppose that poor watchman in the ambulance was a pleasant sight,
either," she said, her eyes on the chauffeur. The man started erect.
"What's that?... What you say?... What you mean?"
Cantor's hand was on his arm, and Hildegarde's eyes were sharp enough to
see that his fingers crushed in savagely.
"Be still! Sit down!" he said, and the man obeyed sullenly.
"Go to bed," von Essen said, savagely.
Hildegarde was thinking, piecing together the evidence of her eyes and
ears.... Cantor.... What had he to do with this? He seemed rightly to be a
part of it.... His manner when he spoke to Philip!
"Will you go to bed?" her father said, stepping toward her.
"I'm going," she said, unsteadily, almost hysterically. Indeed, she
laughed unnaturally. "But before I go--I thought you'd like to know
about--another great German victory.... They've burned part of the Waite
Motor Company--and murdered a man.... Murdered a man!..." She turned and
ran up the stairs to her room.
When she was out of hearing von Essen turned savagely to his chauffeur,
"What made you come here like this, you fool?"
"Where else would he go?" Cantor asked, sharply. "No harm's done."
"What's this about--a murder?" von Essen asked, shakily.
"Their damn watchman jumped me--one of them," said Philip. "Before I could
let him have it he landed on me--twice.... But I got him and got him
good.... For God's sake aren't you ever going to do anything to stop this
pain in my hands?"
Von Essen was shaking flabbily; his arrogance had disappeared; his cheeks
were pasty.
"You've got the nerve of a rabbit," Cantor said, sneeringly.
Up-stairs, Hildegarde was listening, listening not to what was being said
down-stairs, but to another conversation she had overheard months ago, the
conversation between her father and a man she had never been able to
identify. She was trying to hear his voice now, trying to bring the sound
of it back into her ears so that she could listen to it and compare it
with Cantor's familiar voice.