IN WHICH HAM MAYBERRY REVEALS HIS SUSPICIONS
Mr. Downes continued to bluster and Paul hung sullenly about the drawing
room. I had got through with both of them, however. Whether the
butler--and the other servants--backed me up, or not, I believed that I
had the whip-hand.
Marie helped me bear my mother to her room. It troubled me greatly to
see her pretty face so pale and deathlike, and her eyes closed. I
hurried to the telephone and called up Dr. Eldridge, who was an old
friend of our family as well as our physician. I felt better when I
heard his voice over the wire and knew that he would soon be at the
house.
Then I turned to get my hat and coat. I looked into the drawing room to
give Mr. Downes one more chance. He had been talking to his son in a low
voice, but with emphasis; and I could see by Paul's countenance that
the "calling down" he had received from his father was a serious one.
"I warn you for the last time, Mr. Downes, that I am going to Justice of
the Peace Ringold just as soon as the doctor gets here to attend my
mother," I said.
"You don't dare do any such thing, you young scoundrel!" roared Mr.
Chester Downes, and he actually sprang across the room at me. He was a
tall and bony man and I knew very well that I should fare ill in his
hands. I dodged back, found the imperturbable James in my way and as I
sidestepped him, too, Mr. Downes came face to face with the impassive
butler in the doorway.
"Beg pardon, sir," James said, quietly. "Hamilton has the horses
harnessed and awaits your pleasure, sir."
"You--you--" stammered Mr. Downes, evidently as much surprised that the
butler had obeyed me as _I_ could possibly be!
"The carriage is waiting, sir," explained James, just as though the
occasion was an ordinary one. "Shall I bring down your bags, sir?"
"No! I don't want our bags brought down!" cried Mr. Downes. "This is an
outrage. And let me tell you, you dunderhead," he added to James, "this
will cost you your position."
The butler's voice did not change in the least. "Shall I bring down your
bags, sir?" he asked once more.
"Yes!" cried Mr. Downes, changing his mind very suddenly. "We will go up
and pack them. But this is a sorry day for this house when we leave it
in such a way," he said, his threat hissing through his clenched teeth
as his glowing eyes sought my face in the hall. "And it is a sorry day
for _you_, you young villain! Remember this."
"You threaten a good deal like your son, Mr. Downes," I said, unable to
resist a mild "gloat." "But he couldn't carry out his threat; I wonder if
you will be better able to compass your revenge?"
He said nothing further, but dashed up stairs. Paul lagged behind him
and James, without a word to me, and with the attitude and manner of the
well-trained servant, followed sedately and stood outside of their rooms
waiting for the bags.
I stepped out upon the side porch and saw Ham Mayberry, our coachman (he
had driven my father in his little chaise the two years that he had
practised in Bolderhead) sitting upon the box of the closed carriage.
Of all the people who worked for mother about the Bolderhead cottage, I
knew that Ham would take my part against the Downeses. Ham and I were
old cronies.
And I believed that I could thank Ham for the butler's espousal of my
cause on this present occasion. Ham had a deal of influence with the
other servants, having been with us before mother was willed the great
Darringford property.
Ham turned his head when I called to him in a low voice.
"Watch what they do and where they go, Ham," I told him. "I want to see
you when you come back."
"Aye, aye, sir!" he returned in his sailorlike way; for in Bolderhead if
you ask your direction of a man on the street he'll lay a course for you
as though you were at sea. Ham Mayberry, like most of the other male
inhabitants of the old town, had been a deep-sea sailor.
I heard the quick, angry step of Mr. Downes descending the stairs then,
and I slipped out of the way. I didn't want any more words with him, if
I could help. They were leaving the house--and I meant it should be for
good. That satisfied me.
I heard Paul follow him out upon the porch, and then James came with
the baggage. The carriage rolled briskly away just as Dr. Eldridge's
little electric wagon steamed up to the other door. The doctor--who was
a plump, bald, pink-faced man--trotted up the steps and I let him into
the house myself.
"Well, well, Clint Webb!" he demanded. "What have you been doing to that
little mother of yours now?"
But he said it in a friendly way. Dr. Eldridge knew well enough that I
never intended to cause mother a moment's anxiety. And I believed that I
could take him into my confidence--to an extent, at least. I did not
tell him how Paul had tried to knife me in the Wavecrest; but I
repeated what had really caused my mother's becoming so suddenly ill.
"Ha!" he jerked out, as he got himself out of his tight, light overcoat
and picked up his case again from the hall settee. "The least said about
_that_ time before her the better. Tut, tut! the least said the better."
And so saying he marched up stairs to her room, leaving me more eager
than ever to learn the particulars regarding my father's death. Now, I
had lived some sixteen years up to this very evening and had never
heard anything but the simplest and plainest story of my father's
unfortunate death. But even the doctor spurred my awakened curiosity
now.
What did it mean? I had been told by my mother, by Ham, and by other
people as I grew up, that Dr. Webb had rowed out in a dory to fish off
White Rock, a particularly good local fishing ground for blackfish. Some
hours later a passing fishing party discovered the empty dory, bobbing
up and down at the end of its kedge cable. The fishing lines were out.
My father's hat was in the boat, and his watch lay upon a seat as though
he had taken it out and put it beside him so as not to forget when to
row back to attend to his patients. It was a fine timepiece, had
belonged to his father, and I wear it myself now on "state and date"
occasions.
But the fishermen saw no other sign of the doctor. It was plain he had
fallen overboard. With the current as it is about White Rock it was no
wonder that the body was never recovered.
The story seemed plain enough. There was nothing that could be added to
it. That there was any mystery about my father's death I could not
believe. And the suggestion that Paul Downes had made I utterly scoffed
at!
Yet I wanted to see Ham Mayberry before I went to sleep that night.
Dr. Eldridge came down after a long time, and his pink, fat face was
very serious. "How is she?" I asked him, eagerly.
"She's all right--for the night," he replied. But his gravity did not
leave him--which was strange. The doctor was a most sanguine
practitioner and usually brought a spirit of cheerfulness with him into
any home where there was illness. "Clint," he said, "you want to be
careful of that little mother of yours."
"My goodness, Doctor!" I exclaimed. "You don't suppose that I had
anything to do with this business tonight? That I brought it about?"
"If you have another row with your cousin--or words with his
father--have it all outside the house. She is in a very nervous state.
She must not be worried. Friction in the household is bad for her.
And--well, I'll drop in again and see her tomorrow."
What he said frightened me. When he had gone I went up and tapped on the
door. But Marie would not let me in the room.
"She is resting now, Master Clin-tone," said the French woman, and then
shut the door in my face.
I couldn't have slept then had I gone to bed. Beside, I was determined
to talk with Ham when he came back. I wandered down stairs again and
James, the butler, beckoned me into the dining room. At one end of the
table he had laid a cloth and he made me sit down and eat a very tasty
supper that had been prepared for me in the kitchen. This was an
attention I had not expected. It served to bolster up my belief that I
had some influence in my mother's house, after all!
By and by I heard Ham drive in and I went out to the stables. We kept no
footman, Ham doing all the stablework. I helped him unharness Bob and
Betty, while he told me where he had taken the Downeses. There was a
small hotel in the old part of the town, and my uncle and Paul had gone
there for the night.
"They'll probably attack the fortifications on the morrow, Master
Clint--or, them's my prognostications," remarked Ham, in conclusion.
"Meaning they'll come over here and try to see mother?" I asked.
"I reckon."
"Then they're not to be let in, Ham. I want them kept out. Dr. Eldridge
says she should not be disturbed. I mean to see that his orders are
obeyed."
"And I'm glad to see ye take the bit in your teeth, sir," exclaimed the
coachman, with emphasis. "It's time ye did so."
"What do you mean, Ham?" I demanded, curiously.
The old man--he was past sixty, but hale and hearty still--came out of
Bob's stall and put his grizzled face close to mine while he stared into
my eyes in the dim light of the stable lantern.
"List ye, Master Clint," he said. "'Tis my suspicion that that same
scaley Chester Downes has it in his mind to get rid of you--to put ye
away from your mother altogether--to make her believe ye air a bad egg,
in fact. 'Tis time he and that precious b'y of his was put off the
place. Ye've done right this night, Clint Webb, if ye never done so
before."