Stanley’s Mission.
“I THINK I can walk,” were the first words she spoke, as they were
dragged out of the water.
“I don’t think you can,” returned Stanley Downs positively. “I will
carry you.”
He did so. There were half a dozen stone steps from the wooden boat
landing to the top of the wall. From there, it was a trip of some five
hundred feet to the veranda of the hotel, which faced the broad lake
and the magnificent vista of mountain, where the verdure-clad slopes
were bursting into the fresh green beauty of spring.
Stanley had recovered most of his strength by the time he was pulled
from the water. Besides, he rather liked the task of carrying this
dainty young woman, whose independence of spirit had manifested itself
with the first glimmer of returning consciousness.
“Won’t you put me down, please?” she asked, with a touch of
imperiousness.
“Couldn’t do it,” answered Stanley, as he hurried toward the veranda.
“You would fall.”
“Nonsense! I’m not so weak as all that. Where is my car?”
“At the bottom of the lake, I guess.”
“And yours?”
“By its side—or perhaps underneath or on top of yours. We all went in
together.”
Her eyes—deep-violet eyes they were, as Stanley Downs saw—were wide
open by this time, and it was clear that her mind was working in
orderly fashion, no matter how distressed she might be physically.
“I am too heavy for you to carry,” she persisted. “You are badly hurt.
There is a great cut in your forehead. Put me down!”
“You don’t weigh much,” he laughed. “It steadies me to carry you. A
hundred pounds or so in my arms is what I need to keep me balanced.”
“I weigh a hundred and thirty!” she burst out indignantly. “I may not
be very big, but I play tennis and I swim as well as——”
“And drive a six-cylinder Fanchon,” threw in Stanley. “That keeps
you in good condition. Yes, I understand that. But when a young lady
is hurled out of a car into a lake, and especially when she has some
little difficulty in getting clear of the wreckage, she must expect to
feel a little shaken.”
“You threw that door of the car open just before we went over the
wall,” she remarked with a smile. “That showed you had not lost your
head. But for that I might not have got clear. I wonder you thought of
it—so quickly.”
“Quickness of thought was needed at that stage of the proceedings if
the thought was to do any good. Well, here we are at the veranda. I’ll
carry you up the steps, and then you will be all right. Here is a lady
who seems to know you.”
Stanley Downs put his burden down gently on the broad veranda and drew
a large wicker chair to her. As he did so, a middle-aged, motherly sort
of woman, in a light-blue morning gown, came running up and took the
girl’s two hands in hers.
“Why, Miss Ranvelt! What is this? Was it you that went crashing
into the lake? I heard that there had been an accident, but I never
supposed——”
“Never supposed it was I, Mrs. Somers?” laughed the girl. “Why not? It
was just as likely as to be anybody else. I’m always racing around in a
motor car. You know that. Dad says I’ll get into a bad mess some time.
It seems as if I came near it this morning.”
“Came near it?” grunted Karl, who had followed close behind Stanley.
“How much closer does she want to come?”
Karl’s voice brought Stanley sharply to a recollection of something
of great importance to himself that he had forgotten all about in the
excitement—even after he had found himself safe, with the girl in his
arms.
He waved a farewell to the young lady, who was being hurried away to
the housekeeper’s own rooms, for dry clothes and general attention, and
turned to Karl:
“The money?”
“It went down with the car,” replied Karl. “I had no time to get at it,
and you were in the other car. It was in the door pocket in front, with
the latch fastened. It ought to be there now.”
“Yes, yes!” agreed Stanley nervously. “It ought. The door pocket is not
waterproof. But it will keep some of the water away, perhaps. Anyhow,
it will keep it all in one place. Then there is a thick wrapping of
brown paper over it. That ought to help.”
“Twenty thousand dollars, isn’t it?” asked Karl.
“Hush! No need to tell everybody,” warned Stanley. “But that’s what
there is. A little more than twenty thousand.”
“Hello, Stan!” broke in a cheery voice, as a brawny brown hand seized
Stanley’s. “What have you been doing to yourself? You’re soaking wet.
By George! So is Karl! What in thunder is it all about?”
“Fell into the lake,” replied Stanley briefly. “Where did you come
from. Clay?”
“Adirondacks. Cold as the deuce up there! Too early in the year; so I
just turned my gas wagon in this direction, and I’m bound for New York.
It is the only place for civilized beings in May.”
Clay Varron was a member of the Thracian Club—the athletic organization
in New York to which Stanley Downs also belonged—and the two young men
were good friends. Their mutual liking was based on respect, for both
were clean-living, bright young fellows, who enjoyed athletic sports as
earned recreation, without making them the principal business in life.
Among other reasons for Clay Varron and Stanley Downs being good
comrades was that both were ardent motorists. Clay had done seventy
miles an hour on the road, and Stanley Downs would have beaten that
record, in the opinion of the Thracian Club, if he had not been
dissuaded on the ground that more than seventy miles an hour away from
a regular track would be idiocy, rather than good sportsmanship.
“Got any clothes with you?” asked Stanley.
“Plenty! I’ve engaged a room here at the hotel. Come up to it until you
get one for yourself. Where’s my man? Where the deuce——Oh, here you
are!” he added, as a trim-looking fellow, with “body servant” written
all over him, stood at his employer’s elbow. “What’s the number of my
room here at the Ridgeview, Moran?”
“Forty-three, sir. Suite—bedroom, sitting room, and bath. Baggage is
there already. Clothes laid out, too.”
Clay Varron winked at Stanley Downs, and grinned pleasantly.
“I believe if I were in a shipwreck at night in the middle of the
Atlantic, Moran would have my clothes laid out in regular order, so
that I could be drowned properly dressed,” he said, with a chuckle.
“Well, there’s nothing like doing your work right, whether you are
President of the United States or a valet. Come on! We’ll get you
out of those wet rags in two minutes, once you are in my room. Your
chauffeur can look out for himself, I suppose?”
While Karl sought warmth and dry clothes in another part of the great,
rambling hotel—finally bringing up with a chauffeur he knew—Stanley
Downs went up to Clay Varron’s apartments.
Half an hour later, Stanley and Clay sat at the window of the private
sitting room, which overlooked the lake from the second story, while
Stanley told his story to Varron.
“There’s not much to it, Clay. You know Colonel Prentiss and some
other men are managing this big automobile race for the Lawrence gold
cup and a purse of twenty thousand dollars?”
“Of course I know it. Isn’t that one of the reasons I’m hustling
back to New York? I want to hear what they think of the race at the
Thracian—first-hand. It’s one week from to-day, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And tickets are being taken up very fast, I’m told. I want to get
parking space for two machines. Where’s the best place to look for the
tickets? I’m told the new speedway will be a wonder. One man told me
that there will be accommodation for nearly a hundred thousand people
to see the races.”
“Pretty nearly that,” admitted Stanley. “You can get tickets in New
York. I’ll manage that for you.”
“Why? Are you interested?” asked Clay Varron, rather surprised.
“Only as an official of the bank of Burwin & Son, in New York City. My
uncle, Richard Burwin, is the sole owner of the bank, as I think you
know.”
Varron nodded, and waved a hand for Stanley Downs to continue.
“Because he is the sole owner, he insists on doing things in his own
way. Colonel Prentiss has been selling many tickets in Buffalo, and he
found himself with more cash than he wanted to take care of. He is like
my uncle in the way of having notions, and he will not do business with
any bank except Burwin & Son. That is why he would not deposit any of
his cash in banks at Buffalo or elsewhere, as he might have done.”
“I see. Drive ahead, Stan! Get down to cases!”
“My uncle sent me to Buffalo to get twenty thousand dollars that
Colonel Prentiss wanted to deposit with us. I was not allowed to use
the railroads—I didn’t want to, for that matter—but was to go in my
own car, with Karl, who is my uncle’s own chauffeur, to drive when I
got tired, and to help me guard the money.”
“Swell idea!” observed Clay Varron. “But I never knew the day when
Stanley Downs couldn’t take care of himself—and of anything he was told
to keep safely.”
Stanley got up from his chair and strode up and down the room. In a
suit of light clothes belonging to Clay Varron, which fitted him almost
as well as if they had been made for him, Stanley was a fine-looking
specimen of the American man in his twenties.
His erect carriage, firm jaw, quick eye, and alert bearing were all
those of the young man who “does things.” Even the troubled expression
that drew his brows together and made him bite his lip impatiently,
only seemed to accentuate the firmness of his character.
“Now I am in trouble, Varron,” he said, after a short silence. “When my
car took a header into the lake, out there——”
“Great Scott! Was that what it did?” interrupted Clay excitedly.
“Yes. But that’s nothing in itself,” declared Stanley hurriedly, waving
aside further ejaculations. “What troubles me is that twenty thousand
dollars in bills, which were tied up in a package and placed in one of
the door pockets of the car, went down with it.”
“Good heavens!”
“I dare say the money is still in the door pocket,” continued Stanley.
“But what use is that, when the car is at the bottom of the lake? It is
between fifty and sixty feet deep, right off the edge of the promenade
in front of this hotel.”
“So I’ve heard. But that isn’t deep enough to lose your car for you. I
see they are working at it now. Look!”
Clay Varron pointed out of the window, and they saw that twenty or
thirty men were manipulating ropes that dropped into the water. They
were pulling at them with a big motor truck as well as several teams of
horses. Evidently the crowd had something attached to the ropes under
water, which was giving the motor truck and horses all they could do to
drag it out.
“That’s good!” exclaimed Stanley. “I didn’t think they would get at
it so soon. Ah! I see! Karl is out there directing things. That young
fellow is a wonder, Clay. Let’s go out!”
It was just as Clay Varron and Stanley Downs reached the veranda that
the big Archimedes motor car was drawn to the surface of the lake and
thence to the boat landing, which was almost level with the top of the
water.
Stanley rushed down the steps and laid his hand on the door pocket. It
was in full view as the car lay on its side.
The next moment he gave vent to a groan of dismay.
The door pocket was empty!