Seth Miller returned home shortly after the boys. Greatly alarmed, he
rushed over to Miss Penny’s and frightened her still more. But Mrs.
Lorraine spoke calmly and suggested that he get Walter Phelps to drive
him over to the post office, enquiring all the way, and if he did not
find the baby meantime, someone in the crowd collected for the mail
would be sure to have tidings of him.
The stage was late and they reached the post office just as it drove
up. Anna stepped out, white and anxious. She had learned the news at
Wenham just in time to catch the coach.
The girl did not lose an instant. She consulted the post master who had
enquired of everyone who had come in. He had no information to offer.
Her father had stopped at every house except the parsonage, Miss Penny
having cautioned him not to go there because of the invalid. Wherefore
Seth Miller supposed that they had better be working over Wenham way.
But Anna decided otherwise. Asking Walter to remain at the post office
for possible tidings, she had her father drive her to the parsonage.
Three minutes after she had let herself quietly in, she came running
out to the buggy.
“Mrs. Langley’s gone, too,” she said. “Dear me, isn’t it great luck
that Mr. Langley’s way at the further end of the Hollow? We met him,
and I suppose he’s talking school business with Mr. Phillips. He’d be
perfectly crazy, you know.”
She climbed into the buggy.
“Did you look in the garret?” her father enquired.
“I don’t know about that, but Bell went everywhere else,” Anna
returned. Her father stared at her for she seemed less anxious.
“Anna, someone may have kidnapped the two of ’em,” he said hoarsely.
“I don’t know as you have heard, but they do say there’s a strange man
around the village peering in windows at night and the like.”
Anna almost laughed. “They’d bring Mrs. Langley back when daylight
came,” she returned flippantly.
She directed her father to drive down the Wenham road, beyond the house
where they had lived when the boys were babies, to the bridge and to
watch from there, dropping her at a point she would indicate.
“Give me your bandana,” she ordered. “Now, Pa, if you see me waving it,
you come straight towards it as far as you can come with a horse and
wait. I’m going cross lots but you may see me later against the western
sky line.”
“O Anna, I don’t dare have you go off alone away from beaten tracks
with strange men and kidnappers about,” he protested. “Let me hitch the
horse and go with you.”
But Anna laughed, reassured him, and disappeared. Making a bit of
detour to avoid being seen, she headed for the cemetery. Anxious still,
she was nevertheless relieved, and once on the direct path, ran all
the way, leaping ditches, pushing through underbrush and taking the
steepest part of the bank as if it were a plain. When she reached the
top, she was hot and breathless. Throwing her jacket on top of the
wall, she vaulted it lightly and made for a point whence she could see
the Langley lot. Even while she caught her breath and wondered if she
should dare look, she heard a little familiar sound.
The girl stopped short. For a second she could not move. The complete
relief from suspense was so great that she had to choke back her tears.
For there they were, just where she hard hardly dared to think of them
as being, Mrs. Langley wrapped in a gay old-fashioned paisley shawl
with her head uncovered, sitting on the ground with Joe, Junior, in
her lap. The baby was fondling the little marble image and murmuring
baa-baa, the while Mrs. Langley looked on as if she were in Paradise.
As she stole towards the little group and stood before them, Anna was
unaware that tears were streaming down her cheeks. The baby saw her
first and smiled. “Baa-baa” he cried out stretching out his hands, and
Mrs. Langley looked up quickly. Her expression changed instantly from
beatitude to deep guilt.
“You said you would give him to me for a Christmas present, anyhow,
Anna,” she declared, half defiantly, half-entreatingly.
“Yes, but you didn’t--take him,” gasped Anna dropping down beside them.
She was hugging Joe, Junior, but she did not take him into her arms.
“I’m sorry I didn’t. I’ve been sorry ever since. But you took me so by
surprise. Of course I really wanted him when I could straighten out my
thoughts.”
“We have all been frightened nearly to death thinking the little fellow
was lost,” Anna remarked reproachfully.
“I didn’t think of that,” Mrs. Langley returned meekly, stroking the
baby’s little hand. “I saw him go by and I wanted to see him so badly
that I got my shawl and followed as far as the post office. He was all
alone and so near the road that a horse might have run over him if it
shied. Really, Anna, I was just meaning to stand by him until your
brothers came out; but he reached out his little hands and I had to
take him--he knew me, you see. For he said Baa-baa, and it seemed as if
he was asking me to bring him to see this little lamb; and as I wanted
to see it myself, I brought him up here.”
“Brought him up here!” exclaimed Anna suddenly realizing the magnitude
of the action. “How in this world did you ever do it?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure, but he didn’t seem heavy. He’s so still, I
suppose. I didn’t mean to stay at all, but it is so warm and pleasant;
and baby has been so happy that I forgot everything else.”
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Seth Miller had driven out to the bridge and waited,
talking the while to the Phelps horse which, like most of the horses
in the village, was a great pet and like one of the family. Presently
he caught a flash of red among the pines on the hill, saw his daughter
waving to him, and drove on until he saw her waiting at the lower gate
of the cemetery with the baby and a strange, foreign-looking woman whom
he took to be a gypsy who had probably been carrying the baby away when
Anna caught her. Again and again that night at home he exclaimed over
his surprise to think that the old and faded woman with the piercing
black eyes who might have been a gypsy crone was none other than the
handsome Mr. Langley’s wife. And yet he granted she was pleasant-spoken
and the baby seemed to take to her amazingly and he only hoped she
wasn’t out of her head.
Anna got out with Mrs. Langley at the parsonage and asked her father
to bring the baby in. Seth Miller held the baby close, whispering to
him and lengthening the inconsiderable distance by crawling along, the
while Anna explained that she would have to go in for a little and
asked him to stop at Miss Penny’s with the news and have someone come
for her with the pony later.
“And pa, if you see Mr. Langley, send him home right away,” she added
eagerly. “Or--if you happen to hear where he is, do go get him and
bring him home.”
* * * * *
Seth Miller did not meet Mr. Langley, however, nor could he learn
where he was except that he wasn’t in the Hollow. As a matter of fact
Mr. Langley was engaged in an affair of some moment.
He had left the parsonage early in the afternoon. Directly after
dinner, an informal, self-constituted committee of three men living
in the Farleigh end of the village had waited on the minister in his
study. Though not taken wholly by surprise, he had been shocked and
distressed by the nature of their errand, even while he could not but
feel, as he assured them, that they acted within their rights. He
would have persuaded them to wait until after Christmas, but he could
not insist upon it. And he was grateful to them for coming to him
and allowing him to forestall their action so that it should be less
shockingly abrupt to those who must suffer thereby.
Hastening from the parsonage, he met Rusty and Anna Miller in the
phaeton driving the fat pony. As he had already seen Rusty, he only
greeted them in passing. And realising at once that they were on their
way to Wenham to meet Reuben, he was thankful to have them out of the
way for a good measure of time. His business was with Alice Lorraine,
and the fewer people he saw besides the girl herself, the quicker might
he dispatch it.
Unhappily, he did not find Alice at home. He looked so concerned when
Miss Penny told him that the girl had gone away for the afternoon that
Mrs. Lorraine was startled.
“Is it something serious, Mr. Langley?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Lorraine, it is indeed. May I ask if it would be possible to
get your daughter within half an hour?”
Mrs. Lorraine feared not. Miss Penny made an excuse and went out. As
Mr. Langley resumed his chair, Mrs. Lorraine turned to him despairingly.
“I haven’t the slightest idea where Alice is, Mr. Langley. She left
the house an hour ago. Anna and Rusty Miller came over just as we were
finishing dinner, and when we looked for Alice she was not to be found.”
“May I ask if she went in the direction of Farleigh?”
“I hardly think she did, Mr. Langley. As a matter of fact, she
practically always starts out in that direction, but I do not think she
did to-day for if she had we should have seen her. Miss Penny and I
both happened to be where we saw everyone who passed over that way for
half an hour before we discovered she wasn’t in the house.”
“Then I shall have to trouble you, Mrs. Lorraine,” he said gravely. “I
am sorry. I would spare you if I could, but even if I had seen Miss
Lorraine first, you would have had to know presently. May I ask you, in
the first place, whether you have allowed anyone to occupy the cottage
in the lane since you and your daughter have been at Miss Penny’s?”
“O no, Mr. Langley,” she declared so decisively that he frowned
unconsciously. “We might as well have given it up, only Alice thought
we should keep it until after Christmas. I suppose----”
But she could not go on. His expression disconcerted her.
“And the little building in the rear that is called the shop?” he asked.
“We never used that, anyhow,--never even looked into it, though I
believe we have the key.”
He picked up his gloves and looked inside as if to determine the size.
Then he looked at her.
“Three men came to me this noon about a matter that has been troubling
the village for some little time and which now seems to them to be
approaching a crisis,” he began. “This is the situation, Mrs. Lorraine.
There has been a strange man around for--it must be upwards of three
weeks now. One person and another has caught sight of him at night,
and he seems to have looked into the windows of nearly every house in
Farleigh. It may be imagination in some cases, but before I had heard
anything about the stranger, I felt quite sure one night that there
was someone peering in at my study window, and I certainly saw someone
slink away from another window at the parsonage about a fortnight
since. Someone saw the figure of a man pass across the window in the
organ loft at the church one Sunday afternoon, and there have been
other similar things--not of great moment when taken separately but
which collectively seem to these men and others to constitute a menace
to public safety.”
“But Mr. Langley, what has that to do with my--with the cottage in the
lane?” she enquired with a sharp note of pain in her voice.
“They seem to think that the man has hidden there the while. Smoke has
been seen a number of times coming from the chimney of the little shop.
At first people explained it by saying that Miss Lorraine probably had
gone down to fetch something and had made a fire to take off the chill,
but lately one thing and another has led them to suspect that that
isn’t the right explanation.”
“I have heard of tramps occupying deserted houses,” she remarked.
He had nothing to say. She grew very white. “Did you ask for Alice
simply to spare me, Mr. Langley?” she asked.
“No, Mrs. Lorraine,” he replied reluctantly, “it was because I hoped
she might be able to throw some light upon the matter. It appears
almost certain that she knows something about this mystery in our
midst. She has been seen more or less about the lane, and--I don’t
credit the particular rumor people have patched up, but----”
“And what is that, Mr. Langley?” she broke in breathlessly.
“They think Alice’s father--that Mr. Lorraine is hereabout--that he
has been staying in the shop behind the cottage and that his daughter
carries him food and visits him daily.”
For a few seconds, Mrs. Lorraine was too dazed to speak. Alice’s
strange conduct seemed to accord with this tale, and yet--she rallied
her forces. It was impossible.
“Alice hears from her father. She had a letter only a day or two ago,”
she declared. But even as she spoke, she realised that that wasn’t
valid evidence. She knit her brows, then looked up. “But Mr. Langley,
if Mr. Lorraine had escaped, why wouldn’t it have been in the papers?”
she demanded. “You say this has been going on over three weeks,
and--Mr. Lorraine was--well-known.”
“I said something of the sort to these gentlemen,” he returned.
“They claimed that such an escape is often kept secret for a time
for strategical reasons. But irrespective of that, there is no doubt
that someone has been skulking about the village, and that your shop
building has been occupied and probably by that person. But for more
than a week everything was quiet. No smoke was seen and no one saw any
suspicious person and it was decided that the mysterious stranger had
departed. But night before last something happened to arouse suspicion
again. The men who came to me declare that the tramp or stranger came
back at that time and is still here. They say he is in your shop at
this moment. The building is being watched now, and they are only
awaiting my return to enter and arrest whomever they may find within.”
He rose. “You know nothing about it, Mrs. Lorraine, but there’s nothing
to do but to allow them to proceed?”
[Illustration: The echoes of the thundering knocks had hardly died away
... when Alice Lorraine appeared.]
“No. Mr. Langley, there isn’t,” she acknowledged, and asked him if
he was going thither. And when he said that he was she asked if she
might go along. He acquiesced. After she had spoken to Miss Penny, Mr.
Langley handed her into the carriage and they drove to the lane where
the minister gave the horse in charge to someone standing about. Going
straight to the shop, they found the three men Mr. Langley had seen and
the constable.
The latter pounded on the door preliminary to breaking it in. He waited
a few seconds. The echoes of the thundering knocks had hardly died away
when the door opened and Alice Lorraine appeared before the five men
and her mother.