A SUBTLE ATTACK
Voles was brought from Boston. Though Meiklejohn dreaded the man,
conditions might arise which would call for a bold and ruthless
rascality not quite practicable for a Senator.
The lapse of time, too, had lulled the politician's suspicions of the
police. They seemed to have ceased prying. He ascertained, almost by
chance, that Clancy was hot on the trail of a gang of counterfeiters.
"The yacht mystery" had apparently become a mere memory in the Bureau.
So Voles came, with him Mick the Wolf, carrying a left arm in splints,
and the Senator thought he was taking no risk in calling at the up-town
hotel where the pair occupied rooms the day after Carshaw blurted out
Winifred's name to Helen Tower. He meant paying another visit that day,
so was attired _de rigueur_, a fact at which Voles, pipe in mouth and
lounging in pajamas, promptly scoffed.
"Gee!" he cried. "Here's the Senator mooching round again, dressed up to
the nines--dust coat, morning suit, boots shining, all the frills--but
visiting low companions all the same. Why doesn't the man turn over a
new leaf and become good?"
"Oh, hold your tongue!" said William. "We've got the girl, Ralph!"
"Got the girl, have we? Not the first girl you've said that about--is
it, my wily William?"
"Listen, and drop that tone when you're speaking to me, or I'll cut you
out for good and all!" said Meiklejohn in deadly earnest. "If ever you
had need to be serious, it is now. I said we've got her, but that only
means that we are about to get her address; and the trouble will be to
get herself afterward."
"Tosh! As to that, only tell me where she is, an' I'll go and grab her
by the neck."
"Don't be such a fool. This is New York and not Mexico, though you
insist on confounding the two. Even if the girl were without friends,
you can't go and seize people in that fashion over here, and she has at
least one powerful friend, for the man who beat you hollow that night,
and carried her off under your very nose, is Rex Carshaw, a determined
youngster, and rich, though not so rich as he thinks he is. And there
must be no failure a second time, Ralph. Remember that! Just listen to
me carefully. This girl is thinking of going on the stage! Do you
realize what that means, if she ever gets there? You have yourself said
she is the living image of her mother. You know that her mother was well
known in society. Think, then, of her appearing before the public, and
of the certainty of her being recognized by some one, or by many, if she
does. Fall down this time, and the game's up!"
"The thing seems to be, then, to let daylight into Carshaw," said Voles.
"Oh, listen, man! Listen! What we have to do is to place her in a lonely
house--in the country--where, if she screams, her screams will not be
heard; and the only possibility of bringing her there is by ruse, not by
violence."
"Well, and how get her there?"
"That has to be carefully planned, and even more carefully executed. It
seems to me that the mere fact of her wishing to go on the stage may be
made a handle to serve our ends. If we can find a dramatic agent with
whom she is in treaty, we must obtain a sheet of his office paper, and
write her a letter in his name, making an appointment with her at an
empty house in the country, some little distance from New York. None of
the steps presents any great difficulty. In fact, all that part I
undertake myself. It will be for you, your friend Mick, and Rachel Craik
to receive her and keep her eternally when you once have her. You may
then be able so to work upon her as to persuade her to go quietly with
you to South America or England. In any case, we shall have shut her
away from the world, which is our object."
"Poor stuff! How about this Carshaw? Suppose he goes with her to keep
the appointment, or learns from her beforehand of it? Carshaw must be
wiped out."
"He must certainly be dealt with, yes," said Meiklejohn, "but in another
manner. I think--I think I see my way. Leave him to me. I want this girl
out of New York State in the first instance. Suppose you go to the
Oranges, in New Jersey, pick out a suitable house, and rent it? Go
to-day."
Voles raised his shaggy eyebrows.
"What's the rush?" he said amusedly. "After eighteen years--"
"Will you never learn reason? Every hour, every minute, may bring
disaster."
"Oh, have it your way! I'll fix Carshaw if he camps on my trail a second
time."
Meiklejohn returned to his car with a care-seamed brow. He was bound now
for Mrs. Carshaw's apartment.
If he was fortunate enough to find her in, and alone, he would take that
first step in "dealing with" her son which he had spoken of to Voles. He
made no prior appointment by phone. He meant catching her unawares, so
that Rex could have no notion of his presence.
Mrs. Carshaw was a substantial lady of fifty, a society woman of the
type to whom the changing seasons supply the whole duty of man and
woman, and the world outside the orbit of the Four Hundred is a rumor of
no importance.
She had met Senator Meiklejohn in so many places for so many years that
they might be called comrades in the task of dining and making New York
look elegant. She was pleased to see him. Their common fund of scandal
and epigram would carry them safely over a cheerful hour.
"And as to the good old firm of Carshaw--prosperous as usual, I hope,"
said Meiklejohn, balancing an egg-shell tea-cup.
Mrs. Carshaw shrugged.
"I don't know much about it," she said, "but I sometimes hear talk of
bad times and lack of capital. I suppose it is all right. Rex does not
seem concerned."
"Ah! but the mischief may be just there," said Meiklejohn. "The rogue
may be throwing it all on the shoulders of his managers, and letting
things slide."
"He may--he probably is. I see very little of him, really, especially
just lately."
"Is it the same little influence at work upon him as some months ago?"
asked Meiklejohn, bending nearer, a real confidential crony.
"Which same little influence?" asked the lady, agog with a sense of
secrecy, and genuinely anxious as to anything affecting her son.
"Why, the girl, Winifred Bartlett."
"Bartlett! As far as I know, I have never even heard her name."
"Extraordinary! Why, it's the talk of the club."
"Tell me. What is it all about?"
"Ah, I must not be indiscreet. When I mentioned her, I took it for
granted that you knew all about it, or I should not have told tales out
of school."
"Yes, but you and I are of a different generation than Rex. He belongs
to the spring, we belong to the autumn. There is no question of telling
tales out of school as between you and him. So now, please, you are
going to tell me _all_."
"Well, the usual story: A girl of lower social class; a young man's head
turned by her wiles; the conventions more or less defied; business
yawned at; mother, friends, everything shelved for the time being, and
nothing important but the one thing. It's not serious, perhaps. So long
as business is not _too_ much neglected, and no financial consequences
follow, society thinks not a whit worse of a young man on that
account--on one condition, mark you! There must be no question of
marriage. But in this case there _is_ that question."
"But this is merely ridiculous!" laughed Mrs. Carshaw shrilly.
"Marriage! Can a son of mine be so quixotic?"
"It is commonly believed that he is about to marry her."
"But how on earth has it happened that I never heard a whisper of this
preposterous thing?"
"It _is_ extraordinary. Sometimes the one interested is the last to hear
what every one is talking about."
"Well, I never was so--amused!" Yet Mrs. Carshaw's wintry smile was not
joyous. "Rex! I must laugh him out of it, if I meet him anywhere!"
"That you will not succeed in doing, I think."
"Well, then I'll frown him out of it. This is why--I see all now."
"There you are hardly wise, to think of either laughing or frowning him
out of it," said Meiklejohn, offering her worldly wisdom. "No, in such
cases there is a better way, take my word for it."
"And that is?"
"Approach the girl. Avoid carefully saying one word to the young man,
but approach _the girl_. That does it, if the girl is at all decent, and
has any sensibility. Lay the facts plainly before her. Take her into
your confidence--this flatters her. Invoke her love for the young man
whom she is hurting by her intimacy with him--this puts her on her
honor. Urge her to fly from him--this makes her feel herself a martyr,
and turns her on the heroic tack. That is certainly what I should do if
I were you, and I should do it without delay."
"You're right. I'll do it," said Mrs. Carshaw. "Do you happen to know
where this girl is to be found?"
"No. I think I can tell, though, from whom you might get the
address--Helen Tower. I heard your son talking to her last night about
the girl. He was wanting to know whether Helen could put him in the way
of placing her on the stage."
"What! Is she one of those scheming chorus-girls?"
"It appears so."
"But has he had the effrontery to mention her in this way to other
ladies? It is rather amusing! Why, it used to be said that Helen Tower
was his _belle amie_."
"All the more reason, perhaps, why she may be willing to give you the
address, if she knows it."
"I'll see her this very afternoon."
"Then I must leave you at leisure now," said Meiklejohn sympathetically.
An hour later Mrs. Carshaw was with Helen Tower, and the name of
Winifred Bartlett arose between them.
"But he did not give me her address," said Mrs. Tower. "Do you want it
pressingly?"
"Why, yes. Have you not heard that there is a question of marriage?"
"Good gracious! Marriage?"
The two women laid their heads nearer together, enjoying the awfulness
of the thing, though one was a mother and the other was pricked with
jealousy in some secret part of her nature.
"Yes--marriage!" repeated the mother. Such an enormity was dreadful.
"It sounds too far-fetched! What will you do?"
"Senator Meiklejohn recommends me to approach the girl."
"Well, perhaps that is the best. But how to get her address? Perhaps if
I asked Rex he would tell it, without suspecting anything. On the other
hand, he might take alarm."
"Couldn't you say you had secured her a place on the stage, and make him
send her to you, to test her voice, or something? And then you could
send her on to me," said the elder woman.
"Yes, that might be done," answered Helen Tower. "I'd like to see her,
too. She must be extraordinarily pretty to capture Rex. Some of those
common girls are, you know. It is a caprice of Providence. Anyway, I
shall find her out, or have her here somehow within the next few days,
and will let you know. First of all, I'll write Rex and ask him to come
for bridge to-night."
She did this, but without effect, for Carshaw was engaged elsewhere,
having taken Winifred to a theater.
However, Meiklejohn was again at the bridge party, and when he asked
whether Mrs. Carshaw had paid a visit that afternoon, and the address of
the girl had been given, Helen Tower answered:
"I don't know it. I am now trying to find out."
The Senator seemed to take thought.
"I hate interfering," he said at last, "but I like young Carshaw, and
have known his mother many a year. It's a pity he should throw himself
away on some chit of a girl, merely because she has a fetching pair of
eyes or a slim ankle, or Heaven alone knows what else it is that first
turns a young man's mind to a young woman. I happen to have heard,
however, that Winifred Bartlett lives in a boarding-house kept by Miss
Goodman in East Twenty-seventh Street. Now, my name must not--"
Helen Tower laughed in that dry way which often annoyed him.
"Surely by this time you regard me as a trustworthy person," she said.
So Fowle had proven himself a capable tracker, and Winifred's
persecutors were again closing in on her. But who would have imagined
that the worst and most deadly of them might be the mother of her Rex?
That, surely, was something akin to steeping in poison the assassin's
dagger.