"How about the circus woman?"
"Oh, we let her go. What was the use? She has an alibi a mile long."
"Do you mean to say all this can happen without any one being interested
enough to require an investigation?"
"Sure--didn't I tell you I fixed it up with the Chief? He knows we're on
the square, Ted. The newspapers ran a peach of a story--whole front
page. I gave 'em a picture of you I dug out of your room. You'll find
yourself quite a local hero when you get out. There was some good sob
stuff in it about Miss Claybourne nursing you back from the Valley of
the Shadow. I don't believe her old man liked it."
"I should think not," I cried indignantly. "It was outrageous."
"Well, Ted, I don't believe you'll have to announce your engagement.
It's saved you that much trouble. The paper said you were related to the
English nobility, and hinted that Miss Claybourne was the true
explanation of your coming to Deep Harbor. When the evening paper came
out, the headline man boosted you up a notch higher--something about
'English peer's son nursed by local society girl'--say, you furnished
'em great stuff for three days."
"That must be the real reason 'mother' went to Asheville," I reflected.
"Ted, what I don't understand is how Prospero could slip anything like
that over on you. As a chemist you ought to know enough to look out for
fumes. How'd he do it? Hypnotize you?"
"Like you," I replied, "I guess I was a little careless. You see, oil of
cassia has a pleasant smell--really delicious--it's just like cinnamon,
you know. I thought I'd bluffed Prospero into doing what I wanted,
and--I don't know--one doesn't expect murder and suicide."
Knowlton rubbed his chin. "Let's hear the whole yarn," he said. I told
him everything that had happened from the time he left me that night
until I lost consciousness. At the end, Knowlton grinned: "Ted, the
_Eagle_ reporter can beat you all hollow telling that story. Wait until
you see what he says happened. But he didn't know about the wife in
Cripple Creek--you've scored on the _Eagle_ there. Now take a little
advice from me, Ted. The next time you try to blackmail a paranoiac
because he's a bigamist, don't do it."
"Blackmail him?"
"Well, bluff him, then. It's about the same thing. You turn those jobs
over to me. If you tried to commit burglary some one would pick your
pocket and steal your jimmy."
Dr. Sinclair interrupted us at this point. "I think we've talked
business long enough for one day. It makes us a little feverish, I fear.
Just a moment; we'll have a look at our temperature," and he clicked his
thermometer into my jaws, Knowlton both winked and grinned at me.
"I'll send the new chemist up to see you in a couple of days, Ted. Give
him all our formulas and experiments you can think of. Good luck!" and
he was gone.
* * * * *
Within two or three days I was allowed to come downstairs and sit at the
big living-room window, where one could see the sleighs passing up and
down Myrtle Boulevard. Helen, with Leonidas at her feet, would sit
beside me, and we read or talked or kept silent as the fancy seized us.
Miss Hershey discreetly kept in the library, where she alternated
embroidering with copious letter-writing. Her correspondents were
apparently endless, for fully half her time was occupied with letters.
Helen and I used to try to guess their contents; once we found a half
finished one on the library table, and it was only by the exercise of
the strongest will-power that we resisted the temptation to read it. The
handwriting was angular and large, sprawling diagonally across the page:
like Miss Hershey, it was conscious of its excellent social connections.
Occasionally we indulged in a little teasing at Miss Hershey's expense,
but without solving the mystery of her correspondence. One thing we did
that horrified her: we bought a scrap book and pasted in all the lurid
accounts of the "tragedy" collected from the pages of the _Eagle_ and
_Evening Star_. Helen was particularly fond of the passage in which she
was described as nursing "a scion of the English nobility back from the
Valley of the Shadow." We used to read it aloud to Miss Hershey until
the latter protested it was sacrilegious. There was also a beautiful map
of my laboratory, with dotted lines, foot prints, and two crosses to
show where Prospero and I were found.
We also had some correspondence of our own on our hands. There was my
family to write to; the cable had already informed them of the accident
and my recovery, but we had to tell them all about our engagement and
future plans. Helen was shy and diffident about it, nor did I blame her.
It was no easy task to write to a mother and sister she had never seen.
She studied their pictures a long time before beginning and asked for
advice often as she wrote. Then she wouldn't show me the finished
letters, and we almost squabbled over it. She got out of it at last by
telling me that some of the things she had said about me would make me
too conceited. I retaliated by refusing to let her see my letters. All
this took the whole of a happy morning.
Although we had delayed formal announcement of our engagement until Mrs.
Claybourne's return at Christmas, all Deep Harbor knew it, thanks to the
_Eagle_, and every day Helen's friends dropped in to congratulate us and
give us good wishes. Every one was friendly and cordial; I felt as if
the town had adopted me and now counted me as part of it. Even the Herr
Lieutenant Ludwig von Oberhausen made a call, stiffer and more formal
than ever, as the importance of the occasion demanded. He was making
great headway with the wealthy Miss Greyson, and it was rumoured their
engagement would be announced at about the same time as ours.
Soon the doctor gave me permission to go out in the afternoons for a
short walk; Helen and I went back and forth on Myrtle Boulevard, all
bundled up in wraps and furs, for nearly every day now a screaming north
wind blew off the lake. There was snow on the ground, several inches of
it, but not so much, Helen said, as there would be after Christmas. The
cold was greater than any I had ever experienced, and in my weakened
condition I felt it keenly. On some days the air in one's lungs was
almost painful; the snow underfoot squeaked annoyingly as one trod upon
it. Helen throve on these sharp days; her cheeks glowed with a rosy
tint, and the grey of her eyes took on new depths of color and an added
sparkle. I liked to watch an escaped lock of her brown hair blowing
across her face as I walked beside her, or to see the radiant health
shown by her springing step, her quickly aroused laugh, and her interest
in everything that the earth had to offer. On these expeditions Sir
Leonidas de la Patte Jaune was our delighted escort. Although no person
passed upon the street without turning to smile at his uncouth
appearance,--he would not have attracted more attention if he had been a
hippogriff,--Sir Leonidas's happy spirit was irrepressible. He had a
sniff and a wag for all comers and an abiding faith in the goodness of
human nature. Occasionally we dropped in to return calls, stopping here
and there at various large piles of rough stone with rounded arches
which comprised the architecture of Myrtle Boulevard's newer residences.
On one gorgeous sunshiny afternoon, when the breeze from the lake was
like iced champagne, Dr. Sinclair prescribed a sleigh ride, on condition
that Helen did the driving. We consulted by telephone my old friends at
the "livery and feed" stable, with the result that they delivered at our
front door a shiny equipage all bells and fur. It was my first
experience with a sleigh, and I was much amused to watch Helen's
preparations. She could not have done more had we been planning a dash
for the Pole. Hot bricks and steamer rugs were merely preliminaries. I
was tucked in like a baby and wrapped up until only my eyes and nose
were left visible. All having been done to her satisfaction, this
handsome young lady took her seat beside me, and we were off. The
motor-car had not as yet become such a common experience as to deaden us
for all lesser forms of speed; thus it was that this first sleigh-ride
seemed to me a most exhilarating thing. The low seat comparatively close
to the ground, and the absence of any noise save for the bells, did much
to increase the illusion of rapid motion. No wonder Henry Irving had
been struck with the dramatic nature of sleigh bells. I told Helen about
that strange old melodrama, _The Bells_, as we whizzed along our
favourite Ridge Road. "We shall go to see Irving together in it next
year when we are in London, Ted," she whispered. I thrilled with
delight, as I always did whenever Helen referred to the golden future we
were to share. We were intensely happy in the present, yet "next year"
enshrined everything we really wanted; we looked upon our present, happy
as it was, as something of a hand-to-mouth existence. Next year we
should begin to live.
"I think I shall take some courses at South Kensington Museum," Helen
remarked casually, awakening me from a dream of next year.
"South Kensington--what on earth do you know about it?"
"I've naturally been looking up a few things, Ted dear, about the city
where I am to spend the rest of my life--"
"Yes, but what does one study at South Kensington?"
"I'm ashamed of you, Ted--particularly when you've told me about the
theatre things to be seen there--costumes and pictures and all the
Pre-Raphaelite designs for furnishings. Well, there is also a big
technical school, too, and I'm going to study some of these things. I
want to be useful, too."
I did not reply immediately. I think it is always a shock to discover
that the woman one loves has a practical turn of mind. As a matter of
fact, it is the woman who plans life, although the man is not always
aware of it.
"Well, Ted, you didn't imagine life was all bread and cheese and kisses,
did you?" she broke in upon me. "Of course, if you don't want me to
study the things you really like, I won't."
Woman's illogical relentless logic is always unanswerable.
"I'm sorry you took me by surprise, dear," I apologized. "The truth is,
I haven't planned our life very definitely."
"Then don't you think it is about time we did?"
I noted the change in pronouns. The horse slowed down to a walk, his
breath drifting back from his nostrils like smoke from a dragon.
"I suppose we should," I admitted a little reluctantly. The practical
aspects of living I was accustomed to think concerned only the contents
of my laboratory. Once I closed that door behind me, I entered another
world where no practical matters were ever considered. For the first
time I realized that this was a sign of weakness of character. I sat up
disturbed at this latter thought. The horse zig-zagged across the road
at will.
"Chemistry isn't your real work, Ted--it never will be. You've admitted
that a dozen times."