Crowley, shrouded in the evening gloom, tapped on the parlor window the
signal tattoo agreed upon between himself and Miss Elsham. The light in
the parlor went out promptly and she came and replied to Crowley under
the edge of the lifted sash. She had been apprised by her associate of
the advent of Miss Kennard on the scene; Crowley had hastened to slip a
note under her door.
"You saw 'em start for a walk, did you? Well, you saw me follow 'em,
then. Chased 'em to the edge of the falls and hid."
"What sort of talk is she giving him?"
"Talk! I couldn't hear. I don't like water, anyway. I like it less when
it bangs down over rocks and stops me from hearing what I want to hear."
"What does she tell you?"
"She has only shot a few words at me like beans out of an air gun.
Claims she's here on the case."
"Do you believe that?"
"I don't dare to tell her that I don't believe it--considering the way
she stands in with Mern. It may be his afterthought--he's a bird that
flies funny sometimes, you know."
"Leave her to me; I'll dredge her to-morrow."
"That'll be good dope; she'll have to bring in your meals as soon as you
give orders to Brophy."
"They'll have to be snappy orders to make him stop bringing 'em
himself," said Miss Elsham. "The old fool stood around while I was
eating supper and told me how much money he has saved and how lonesome
he is since his wife died. I have told him to send Latisan to me this
evening on a matter of business, no matter how late Latisan comes in.
He's too jealous to give the word, I do believe."
"I can't understand the hang of it--her grabbing him so quick," lamented
Crowley. "It's a devil of a note when we have to take time off the main
job to detect out a mystery right in our own concern! What are you going
to say about her when you write up your report to-night?"
He was referring to the inviolable rule of the Vose-Mern office that a
daily report must be made by each operative.
"Nothing, Buck. Let's tread easy. We may seem to be trying to tell Mern
his business. She's here and he must be perfectly well aware that she's
here. Don't you write anything in your report. Leave her to me."
"All right! You handle it."
Then Crowley departed and sat down in his room and put into his report a
full statement about Miss Kennard's arrival and actions and his own
activity in regard to her. Crowley had elaborate ideas about the art of
double-crossing everybody, even his associates in the agency. He figured
that it could not hurt anything to give Mern a full report on all
matters; and if there was anything peculiar in Kennard's presence there,
Crowley's assiduity would contrast to his credit and shame Elsham's
negligence. He had frequently made good hits by cajoling fellow
operatives to suppress certain matters which he had then reported to his
advantage with Mern. And Elsham, in this case, was claiming to be in
charge, making him only the watchdog of her safety.
Crowley growled derogatory comments on her temptress qualities when he
peered past the edge of his curtain in the morning and looked down on
Latisan mounting into his jumper seat. The young man did not seem to be
in an amiable or a confident state of mind, and his plain dolor
comforted Crowley somewhat, even though Latisan was going back to the
drive.
The drive master had not been able to see Miss Patsy Jones that morning,
as he had hoped; he had no excuse to hang around the tavern till she did
appear. Brophy served the breakfast; he declared that he was going to
hang on to that table girl if good treatment could prevail, and he was
never going to ask her to wait on early breakfasters.
Crowley got additional comfort out of Latisan's loud proclamation that
he would be down in Adonia again very soon. The drive master seemed to
be striving to draw somebody's attention to that fact. He cast looks
behind him at the upper windows of the tavern when he drove away.
That day, according to the plans he had made in New York, Mr. Crowley
took pains to give himself an occupation in Adonia; loafers who were not
bashful were quizzing him about the nature of his business up there.
The barber had one corner of the village pool room; Crowley made a
trade to occupy another corner. He opened up a case of cheap jewelry and
traded it by day and raffled it evenings; he was not molested in his
sporting propositions, as he called the procedure, after he had arranged
a private talk with the deputy sheriff. Crowley, with his fancy
waistcoat and his tip-tilted hat, fitted the role he was playing. He was
right in the path of all the gossip that traveled to and fro; therefore,
the role suited his needs.
His nightly conferences with Miss Elsham at the parlor window were not
pleasant; Miss Elsham was not in a state of mind which conduced to
cordial relations.
She had not been able to "dredge" Miss Kennard. That young lady waited
on Miss Elsham, but not with a tray. After a talk with Brophy, who
agreed with her absolutely and placatingly, begging her to suit herself
in all her acts provided she would stay on, Miss Kennard went into the
parlor, closed the door carefully, and told Miss Elsham where that young
woman got off as an exacting lady of leisure. "Mr. Mern would not allow
it--one operative doing menial work for another. If you choose to come
into the dining room, that's different."
Miss Kennard then turned and walked out. She refused to stay with Miss
Elsham and have a talk. "We are ordered to be very careful up here," she
reminded the operative. Miss Elsham was impressed. It was as if Mern
were sending new cautions by this latest arrival.
Miss Kennard, in her dabblings in psychoanalysis, had secured some
concrete aids for action in addition to the vague abstractions which had
come into her mind when Latisan had so naively confessed on the cliff
above the cataract. She understood fully the potency of a suggestion
which left a lot to the imagination of the other party; only a bit of a
suggestion is needed--and it must be left to itself, like yeast, to
induce fermentation. For that reason Miss Kennard abruptly walked out
and left Miss Elsham alone to reflect--not running away, but retiring
with the air of one who had said a sufficient number of words to the
wise.
Miss Elsham, in her conference at the window with Crowley that evening,
revealed how actively her batch of ponderings had been set to working by
that bit of suggestion. Crowley, listening, wished privately that he
could call back that report to Mern; Mern had repeatedly warned him to
keep to his place as a strong-arm operative, bluntly bearing down on the
fact that Crowley's brains were not suited for the finer points of
machination. According to Miss Elsham's figuring--and Crowley
acknowledged her innate brightness--the plot had thickened and Kennard,
known to all operatives as Mern's close confidant, was up there as chief
performer.
Several days elapsed before Crowley--perspiring whenever his worries
assailed him--got any word from Mern. The chief wrote guardedly, and
Crowley read the letter over a dozen times without being exactly sure
just what course he was to pursue. The truth was, Mr. Mern himself was
doing so much guessing as to Miss Kennard that he was in no state of
mind to give clean-cut commands.
Crowley's letter was the first intimation to the chief of the
whereabouts of his confidential secretary. She had not resigned, nor had
she asked for a leave of absence, nor had she bothered to write or
telephone; she did not show up at the office--that was all!
Lida, having discarded ethics, had decided to play her game from an
ambuscade, just as the Vose-Mern agency did its business.
To give any information to the foes of Echford Flagg would be giving
odds--and she was working single-handed and deserved odds for herself.
She resolved to make her game as peculiar as possible--to keep all of
them guessing--to oblige them to take the initiative against her if they
should find out the secret of her strange actions. The element of time
entered largely into her calculations: every day on which she stood
between them and Ward Latisan--every day that he devoted to the
drive--was a day to be charged to her side of the ledger; and there are
not many days in the driving season when the waters _are_ high and the
river is rushing.
A keener mind than Crowley's would have detected in Mern's letter all
the chief's inability to understand. What Crowley did get from the
letter was the conviction that Miss Kennard was not to be molested at
that time. Mern made that clear, though he was vague on other points.
The chief was wondering whether excess of zeal might be the reason for
Miss Kennard's amazing performance. He remembered certain hints which
she had dropped as to her financial needs, and she had not seemed
averse when he had told her on occasions that he thought of giving her a
commission when the right kind of a case came along. To turn a trick for
a rich corporation--working alone so that she might claim full
credit--undoubtedly had appealed to her as her great opportunity, Mern
reflected, and she had set off on her own hook, fearful that he would
not alter the arrangements he had made. He was angry; he muttered oaths
as he weighed the situation. But he did not put any of his anger into
his letter to Crowley. Miss Kennard knew too much about the general
inner workings of the agency! In this new case there was specifically a
five-thousand-dollar net fee in case Latisan could be eliminated and his
crew left to the mercies of Comas bluster and cash. Miss Kennard, if
unduly molested, could say two words in the north country and put that
contingent fee into limbo.
Therefore, Chief Mern was treading softly at first.
But from the letter which treated the general situation so gingerly the
strong-arm operative extracted one solid and convincing command. He was
to watch Miss Kennard. The command seemed entirely natural. Had he not
been sent up there to watch--or watch over--no matter which--Miss
Elsham? His instructions in regard to Miss Kennard seemed to make her a
particularly valuable person in the Vose-Mern plans. He was not to allow
anything to interfere with his watching of Miss Kennard, not even for
the sake of Miss Elsham. He was to observe every movement, catch every
word, if possible, mark every detail of Miss Kennard's operations.
Crowley did not show the letter to Miss Elsham, nor did he speak of it.
He would mortally offend her by revealing his double-crossing tactics;
as a woman she would be more offended by being relegated to the
background in favor of the newcomer.
Crowley found his espionage an easy job at first. All he had to report
to Mern for three or four days was that "Patsy Jones" did her work in
the hotel and remained in her room till after dark--and then went out
and strolled aimlessly. She would not talk with Crowley when he grasped
at opportunities to speak to her on her walks. She reminded him that
fellow operatives must be careful; furthermore, scandal might oblige her
to abandon her job; he would be responsible if he insisted on dogging
her about the village.
However, Crowley was able, a few days later, to slip her a letter from
Mern; the chief had inclosed it in a missive containing further
instructions to the operative to make sure of every move of Lida. The
inclosed letter was addressed to "Patsy Jones."
Lida read it when she was back in her room. She noted with satisfaction
that Chief Mern was still guessing and that his detective mind was
unable to solve the mystery except on the ground that she was so loyal
to the agency and so ambitious for herself that she had tackled the job
as a speculation. He chided her because she had not reported her
intention. He asked for a full statement.
She hid the letter carefully in her bureau. Having put it away for
further reference in case she did make up her mind to answer the
questions when forced to do so, she delayed replying. She did not want
to lie needlessly to Mern--she was willing to let him do imagining, too,
seeing how well it was working, to all appearances, in the cases of
Elsham and Crowley.
She had her own reasons for keeping withindoors in the daytime. The
matter of Rickety Dick was worrying her. He had seen her as a girl of
sixteen, worn with her vigils beside a sick mother; the light through
the area windows had been dim, and he had stumbled against chairs in the
room as if his vision were poor.
However, she discovered at the outset of her stay in Adonia that she had
become the object of old Dick's intent regard whenever he found
opportunity. He often trudged past the tavern on his errands; he dragged
slow steps and squinted and peered. Once she caught him peeping at her
through the open door of the dining room. She had feared some such
closer inspection and had drawn back her hair and twisted its waviness
into an unsightly pug; the moment she saw him she slipped into her mouth
a piece of spruce gum which an admiring woodsman had presented, and then
she chewed vigorously and slatted herself about in a tough manner. He
sighed and went away muttering.
He ventured another and a last sortie, as if he wanted to make an end of
his doubts. He also made a sensation.
Rickety Dick came to take dinner at the tavern!
He was in his best rig, with which he was accustomed to outfit himself
for the funerals of his old friends. There was a faded tail coat which
flapped against baggy gray trousers. A celluloid collar on a flannel
shirt propped up his wrinkled chin.
Martin Brophy stared at old Dick and then cast a look up at the office
clock, whose hands, like Dick's in the moment of mental stress, were
upraised on the stroke of twelve.
"Flagg dead?" inquired Brophy, unable otherwise to account for Dick's
absence from the big house at the dinner hour.
"No! Toothache! Can't eat to-day. He let me off to go to a burying."
"Whose?"
Old Dick shook his head and passed on into the dining room, peering hard
into the face of the waitress as he plodded toward her. "Burying!" he
muttered. "May as well make sure it's dead--and put it away."
Lida met him as she was meeting her other problems up there--boldly.
She leaned over him when he was seated and recited the daily bill of
fare. He did not take his eyes off her face, now close to his.
"Lida Kennard," he whispered, hoarsely, panting, pulling the hard collar
away from his throat with trembling fingers, "why ain't ye home with
your poor old grandfather, where ye belong? Lida Kennard, why ain't ye
home?"
Her eyes did not waver. Brophy had followed, to be better informed as to
the funeral, and stood in the doorway.
"Who's the nut?" inquired Patsy Jones, acridly, turning her gaze to the
landlord. "He's calling me names." Her hard tones made the old man
wince.
"He's all right--safe--only a little crazier than usual," returned
Brophy. "If you want to eat, Dick, go ahead and eat--but don't bother
Miss Jones. I don't allow anybody to bother her. And where's that
funeral, I ask you again?"
"Here!" said the old man, rapping his knuckles on his breast. "It's
buried. I guess I am crazy. Oh yes, I'll admit it. I see things that
ain't so."
"Well, go ahead and eat," commanded Brophy.
"I don't want to eat--I can't, now." He pushed back his chair and rose.
"What names did he call you?" demanded the landlord, truculently. "I
won't have your feelings hurt, you know!"
"Oh, only made some funny noises," retorted Miss Jones, flippantly. "Let
him go. I don't mind."
Rickety Dick plodded out as he had plodded in; he was shaking his head,
dismissing all his hopes and his dreams.
Miss Jones went to another guest. "The world is full of 'em," she said.
"We have lamb, beef, and pork."
Brophy retired, entertaining no further curiosity.
The surge of homesickness that swept through the girl choked her--its
spray blurred her eyes as she gazed after old Dick, pitying his bent
shoulders under the sun-faded coat. But even in her sorrow, because she
had been obliged to deny his wistful plaint so heartlessly, she was
conscious of relief. She had been afraid of his recognition of her;
after this she would be more free to come and go.
That evening at supper there was a guest who troubled her thoughts more
than had Rickety Dick, but in another way. Ward Latisan was down again
from the drive, still adoring her frankly and unabashed with his eyes,
following all her movements; it was plain that he had taken counsel with
himself while he had been away from her and that his love had been made
acute by separation. She was of a mind to hide away from him in her room
after her work was done. But there was the cultivation of his friendship
to consider! She must keep up that friendship in order to be able to
influence him.
Timorously, wondering what was to come from the coil of events as she
saw them shaping in that region of barehanded conflict, she put on her
hat and went forth. Latisan stepped off the porch and joined her,
plainly no longer concerned with what the gossipers of Adonia might say
or think.