SHOWS HOW MR. SCANLON MET THE MAN WITH THE SOFT VOICE
It was late in the afternoon when Bat Scanlon got off the train at
Marlowe Furnace and struck down the little road toward the covered
bridge.
Upon the west bank he held to the regular road toward Schwartzberg; and
he had gone perhaps half the distance when he heard hoof beats behind
him; turning, he recognized Grace Knowles, mounted upon a powerful grey
horse.
She waved her whip to him, smilingly, and as she came up, drew in her
mount.
“It’s a very pleasant afternoon,” said she.
Bat cast his eyes first at one point and then at another. The question,
it would appear, was a weighty one and must be carefully considered.
The sun touched the hilltops with a dull gold; the sky was filled with
sailing ribbons of white; and the breeze was bracing and free.
He nodded.
“Pretty good,” said he. “Reminds me of some of the afternoons we used
to have in the foot-hills when they were dragging the railroads over
them, and through them, and alongside of them.”
“Mr. Campe has been telling me of some of your experiences,” said she,
her beautiful face filled with interest. “It must have been a very wild
life, there in the West in those days.”
“It was all of that,” replied Bat, as he trudged along beside the grey.
“Wild is the word that just fits it. A fellow had to sleep with his
guns in his hands and a call for help in his mouth. We had some fine,
enterprising lads out that way. They’d go for anything, and stop at
nothing. But,” with a sigh, “it was tame enough before I pulled out.
Things seemed to have shifted, somehow.”
“In what way?” asked Miss Knowles.
“The West having taken to growing grain and feeding sheep, the East
seems to be providing the excitement necessary for the country’s
good,” stated the big man, calmly. “For example: I’ve see more little
proceedings around this village of Marlowe Furnace than I’ve seen in
some frontier towns with the hardest kind of names.”
“You refer to what happened yesterday in the vaults,” said Miss
Knowles. “Yes, that must have been quite thrilling.”
“It was also a bit dangerous,” said Bat, stoically. “I don’t object to
being shot at, mind you; but I do want to see the party that’s got the
matter in hand. This having surprise packages dealt one in the dark is
carrying the matter too far.”
Miss Knowles smiled.
“No doubt,” she said, very calmly, “it seems rather awkward.” There was
a pause, and she stroked the horse’s neck with her whip. “I suppose
your friend was also startled,” she said.
“Almost into fits,” stated Bat. “He’s a fellow, you see, who’s not used
to such attentions; and to have them forced on him suddenly in that way
was too much for him.”
Miss Knowles still smiled.
“That is really too bad,” she said. “Being so abruptly treated,”
inquiringly, “I suppose he will not come again?”
“You never can tell,” replied Scanlon. “Sometimes people take things
to heart; and again they laugh them off, like a pine-snake does
his worn-out jacket. You might never catch him within ten miles of
Schwartzberg again; and then he might walk in on us this very night.”
The smile vanished from the beautiful face; and the blue eyes looked at
the big man steadily.
“To-night,” she said, and there was a catch in her voice. Then, quietly
enough, “I don’t think Mr. Campe expects him.”
“Mr. Ashton-Kirk is not the fellow to stand back for a little thing
like that,” remarked Bat Scanlon. “As a matter of fact, the time that
he’s not expected is more than likely to be the time he’d pick.”
From somewhere over the rolling country a bell struck the hour. At once
the girl gathered her reins tighter.
“I must hurry on,” she said. She waved her whip as the grey struck
into a long, easy gallop; and away they went down the road toward the
castle. The thoughtful eyes of Mr. Scanlon followed her until both
horse and rider were hidden behind the next rise of ground.
“She knows Kirk,” thought he with a twist at the corner of his mouth,
and a sharp nod of the head. “She knew his name as soon as she heard
it, and she guessed what he came for. And now she’s anxious to know
when he’s coming again, is she? When I hint that he might bob up
to-night she takes fire, and goes off like a shot.” Here his eyes
snapped sharply and he went on: “And what is the answer to so much
agitation? Is something doing for this P.M.? Does the beautiful Miss
Knowles know it; does she think the horning in of a party of A-K.’s
intelligence might have awkward results?”
As he proceeded along the road, Mr. Scanlon drew a tobacco pouch from
his pocket, also a packet of small papers, and formally rolled himself
a cigarette. With this properly lighted, he went calmly on, his brows
level and his expectations at their highest.
“At first,” meditated he, “I took this thing in another way. It was
all worry. But now that I’ve shifted the responsibility to Kirk, I see
it differently. It’s an experience--an adventure. And, believe me, I’m
going to get out of it all there is in it.”
When he reached the rise which the girl had ridden over, he sighted a
small road which his tramping trips had told him led down to the river.
By the side of this road, writing in a leather-covered book, was a man.
He was a fat man and soft-looking.
“Hello,” said Mr. Scanlon, “Who’s this?”
With much industry, the stranger wrote in the little book; and never
once did he lift his head. Scanlon halted.
“There is something tells me,” was his thought, “that I have met with
this gentleman upon some past occasion. But where?”
The little lane was one of the retiring sort; it had fallen oak leaves
covering it to the depth of one’s shoe tops; the crooked rail fences
gave it a homely look.
The man with the book paused in his writing, and then went carefully
over what had been done; it did not seem to please him, and so he began
some alterations in the entry.
Then, glancing up, he sighted Scanlon, and moved toward him softly.
When he spoke his voice was also soft.
“I am a stranger,” said he. “And I fear I’ve lost my way. Can you
direct me to the station at Marlowe Furnace?”
And with that Bat had him placed! There was something reminiscent in
the combination of softness, even at first glance; but the mention of
the railway station placed the tag upon him. It was the man whom the
old station agent had described--the man of the bridge--the man who had
given him the queer green stone.
Quietly the big man blew out a thin spiral of smoke.
“You go down this road,” said he, “until you come to a bridge. This you
cross. Ten minutes further on, and there you are.”
The soft-looking man closed the leather-covered book; then he put it
away carefully in one pocket, and the pencil in another.
“I am extremely obliged to you,” he said, gently. “Your directions, I
think, will be very easy to follow.” He stroked his white soft chin
with a hand that was equally thick and soft and white; and his eyes
searched Scanlon’s face. “You live hereabouts, I suppose?”
“For the time being,” replied Bat, evenly. “It’s a nice kind of a
place, and I’m sticking around a while.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure,” observed the soft man. “You are right. It is a
nice place. Very picturesque, and also very historical, I understand.”
He waved one hand in a stubby gesture toward the north. “I came that
way. And just above I saw a most astonishing house.”
“Big one?” asked Bat. “Things on top?”
“A very big one,” agreed the other. “Very big, indeed; and, as you say,
with things on the top.”
“That’s Schwartzberg,” said Bat. “A German castle, only not in Germany.
The rule is to plant them along the Rhine, I believe, but the fellow
who put this one in must have thought one river as good as another. And
I agree with him.”
The soft man laughed. If anything, his laugh was the softest thing
about him. As Bat listened to the laugh, and looked at the man’s eyes,
which were green and cold and steady, he felt his scalp prickle with
something like dread. But he puffed quietly at his cigarette; and, from
his manner, such a feeling was no nearer to him than the poles.
“Oh, yes, to be sure,” said the soft-looking man. “He was quite right.
It is very stately--most charming, and adds to the picturesqueness of
the locality.” From where they stood the towers of Schwartzberg were to
be seen through the naked trees; and one fat, white finger pointed to
them. “The moon, now,” said the man, “must play about those portions of
the building very strikingly when it is at its full.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Bat.
“In fact,” said the other, “night hereabouts must be very different in
many ways.”
Bat agreed.
“As to that,” said he, “I don’t know but what I agree with you. It _is_
different.”
The soft man moved softly nearer; there was an eagerness under his
smooth manner that was not lost upon Scanlon.
“I love the night,” said he. “It is rather an old-fashioned thing to
do, I admit; but I love it, for all that. In these times when the
electric lights have robbed the heavens of their stars, and put out the
very moon, there are few who admire the night. But I love to walk in
it, to watch the canopy, to reflect upon the vastness of the universe.”
“I was brought up in Kansas,” said Bat, “and in the days when there was
no end of stars, plenty of moon, and lots of chance for them to show
themselves. But to me, night was made to sleep in, and the only use I
had for either moon or stars was to see my way home by, if I happened
to be out after hours.”
“Is it possible that you never walk out--here?” The soft man seemed
appalled, but the cold green eyes were as watchful as those of a cat.
“Is it possible that you never hear--from your window, perhaps--the
whispering of the night?”
Bat laughed.
“Whispering,” said he. “Well, if that’s whispering, let me say that
the night has some well developed voice. Up here,” he added, “it’s the
greatest place for thunder you ever saw. It comes up when you never
expect it.”
“Thunder!” said the soft man; and the cold eyes seemed to smile.
Bat nodded.
“Pretty loud, too,” said he. “And as for taking little walks at
night--well, that’s hardly the thing to do hereabouts. You see, there’s
a lot of tramps about; and they make it a little dangerous. A friend
of mine up at the big place you were just talking about,” and Scanlon
gestured toward the castle, “is kept on the jump all the time by them.
They’re very forward; even undertake a little housebreaking now and
then, he says.”
The soft man caressed one hand with the other.
“Ah, well,” he sighed, “everything has its drawbacks. I suppose it’s
too much to hope for complete tranquillity. I thank you, sir, for your
courtesy. Straight on, did you say? and then across the bridge? Again,
thank you. You are very kind.”
And so the soft-looking man moved softly down the road, and Bat stood
looking after him from beneath puckered brows.