Chief Mern's interview with his two operatives the next forenoon did not
yield the solid facts he was after. They disputed each other. Miss
Elsham insisted that she had had Latisan on the run and claimed that his
apparent involvement with Miss Kennard was merely a silly and fleeting
flirtation with one whom he supposed was a table girl in a tavern.
"You gave me his character, all written out," insisted Miss Elsham.
"He's that kind. He didn't dare to presume with me as he would with a
girl in a dining room; but I was getting along all right till Crowley
butted in." She turned spitefully on that monopolizer and meddler. "And
now don't stand there and say again that you claim the credit. I'll slap
your face!"
Miss Elsham lied so strenuously that she was convincing.
Crowley, trying hard to tell the truth for once, stammered and stumbled
over the amazing details of the lovemaking between Latisan and Miss
Kennard. The chief found the really veracious recital beyond belief.
"She wouldn't offer to marry him, standing there in public," stormed
Mern. "I know Kennard. She isn't that sort. I'll go to the bottom of
this thing, even if it means a trip for me to that God-forsaken tank
town. I'd give a thousand dollars to see Lida Kennard walk in through
that door. I was never so worried about anything in all my life," he
lamented. "Crowley, you deserted the most valuable person I have ever
had in my office--and God knows what has happened to her." He sent them
away.
"What does it get anybody to tell the truth?" grumbled Crowley.
"Nothing, when it sounds so ridiculous as the truth in this case,"
averred Miss Elsham. "Everybody seems to go crazy up in the tall
timbers. Give me the tall buildings for mine after this."
In high good humor Rufus Craig appeared to Mern that afternoon a little
before three o'clock. He sat down, pulled out the slide leaf of Mern's
desk, and produced a check book. "No need my seeing Exhibit A before
settling. Tell me the expense account. I'll include everything in one
check."
With pen poised, waiting until the figures were brought in, the Comas
man expressed his satisfaction. "There were three on the job, so I was
told in Adonia when I came through. That's all right, Mern. I expected
you to use your own judgment. I didn't have much time in Adonia--grabbed
what information I could while waiting for the train to start--but it's
a sure bet that Latisan is off for good. From what I heard it was your
Miss Jones who really put it over--gave Latisan what they call up there
the Big Laugh. Now who the blazes is this Miss Jones?"
"An operative of ours," the chief replied, with repression of enthusiasm
decidedly in contrast with Craig's indorsement of her. Mern did not dare
to be other than vague, leaving Lida Kennard's identity concealed until
he could understand something about the inside affairs in his agency.
The reflection that he was still in the dark--could not talk out to a
client as a detective should--was stirring his sour indignation more and
more.
"I'd like to meet her," urged the director. "She must be a wonder. A
great actress, I should judge, from what I was told in Adonia."
"She's having her vacation just now."
"Look here, Mern! I'm going to stick a couple of hundred more onto this
check. Send it along to her and tell her to have an extra week or a new
dress at my expense. I've made a side-line clean-up on the Tomah this
season and money is easy with me." That was as explicit as Craig cared
to be in regard to the deal with the Walpole heir. Still poising his
pen, the director turned expectant gaze on the door when the knob was
turned; a flurried, fat girl whose manner showed that she was new to the
place had received Mern's orders about the figures; now she came
bringing them.
Craig frowned while he wrote the check after the girl had retired.
He was a bit pettish when he snapped his check book shut. "Say, Mern, I
always like to see that Kennard girl when I come into your office. I
like her looks. I like the way she puts out her hand to a man."
"I'm sorry she isn't here. But she's--she's out--sick."
"Good gad! I hope it's nothing serious." Craig showed real concern.
"Oh no! Just a--a rather severe cold." The chief was having hard work
to conceal his mental state--being obliged to lie that way, like a fool,
in order to hide the mystery in his own office!
"Give me her street number. I'll send up a bunch of flowers."
"She is out with some friends in the country to get clean air. I don't
know the address."
Mern perceived that more questions were coming. Craig was frankly
revealing his interest in Miss Kennard.
The chief pulled out his watch; he had a good excuse for changing an
embarrassing subject. "Latisan is about due. Of course, you don't want
to be seen. I'll post you in one of the side consulting rooms."
"It seems rather silly, this spying," remonstrated Craig. "I'm taking
your word about Latisan. I'm getting ready to start north, and have a
lot of matters to look after."
"Humor my notion," urged the chief. "He has been tamed down and I want
you to see him. You'll understand why I believe I can keep him hanging
around here till you have nailed things to the cross up-country."
Craig showed no alacrity, but he allowed Mern to lead him to a small
room that was separated from the main office by a ground-glass
partition; there was a peephole at one corner of a panel. The director
promised to wait there until the interview with Latisan was over. The
chief said he would make it short.
Latisan walked in exactly on the stroke of three; after he came up in
the elevator he had waited in the corridor, humbly obedient to Mern's
directions as to the hour.
"Nothing doing in that matter to-day, Latisan," stated the chief,
affecting to be busily engaged with papers on his desk. "Try me
to-morrow, same time."
"Very well, sir," agreed the young man, somberly. In prospect, another
twenty-four hours filled with lagging minutes! He had grown to know the
hideous torture of such hours in the case of a man who before-time had
found the days too short for his needs.
"By the way," said Mern, still hanging grimly to the desire to find out
more about what the matter was with the office's internal affairs, "did
anybody tell you that Miss Jones had returned to New York?"
"I wired to Brophy a few days ago. He said she had come back here,
according to what he knew of her movements."
"You fell in love with her, didn't you?" The chief's tone was crisp with
the vigor of third-degree abruptness.
"Yes," admitted Latisan, showing no resentment; he had promulgated that
fact widely enough in the north.
"Just why did she urge you so strongly to go back to the drive?" The
young man's meekness had drawn the overeager chief along to an
incautious question.
"You ought to know better than I, sir. I take it that she was obeying
your orders about how to work the trick on me, though it isn't clear in
my mind as yet; but I'm not a detective."
"Did she promise to marry you as soon as the Flagg drive was down?"
Still Mern was boldly taking advantage of the young man's docility.
"That's true. I must admit it because it was said in public."
Mern scratched his ear. The thing was clearing somewhat in Crowley's
direction; the blunderer had not lied on one point at least--the point
that Mern found most blindly puzzling. What in the mischief had happened
to the nature of Lida Kennard, as Mern knew that nature, so he thought!
"You remember Operative Crowley, do you?"
"Naturally."
"Are you holding an especial grudge against him?"
"I don't know why I should, sir. It's a dirty business he's in, but he
gave me that letter which I turned over to you yesterday, and for some
reason he exposed the trick that was being put upon me by the girl. If I
can get at the bottom of the thing, for my own peace of mind, I'll be
glad."
Chief Mern sympathized with that sentiment!
Then he took a little time for reflection. Perhaps a meeting between
Latisan and Crowley might strike a few sparks to illuminate a situation
that was very much in the dark.
"If Crowley is around the office I'm going to ask him to step in here.
The talk will be all friendly, I take it?"
"I have nothing against Crowley, as matters stand."
Latisan did not greet Crowley when the operative replied to the summons
and walked into the private office; on the other hand, Latisan showed no
animosity. He merely surveyed Crowley with an expression of mingled pity
and wonderment, as if he were sorry for an able-bodied man who earned a
living by the means which the operative employed.
Crowley, at first, was not as serene as the man whom he had injured.
"Latisan tells me that he holds no grudge," stated Mern, encouragingly.
"I'm glad of that, Latisan. We have to play the game in this business.
And I'm not laying it up against you, how you made a monkey of me in
that dining room and nigh twisted my head off. Both of us know now who
it was that rubbed our ears and sicked us at each other."
The victim of the operations nodded, no especial emotion visible in his
countenance.
"Right here between us three I'll come out all frank and free,"
continued Crowley. "I'm making a claim to the chief in this thing,
Latisan, and I believe you'll back me up. She jumped in on me and
Elsham--one day later from the agency than we were--and she wouldn't
talk to me, and I'll admit I didn't have her play sized from the start.
But she wasn't the one that turned the trick." Mr. Crowley was venturing
rather far with the victim, but he was encouraged by Latisan's continued
mildness and by a firm determination to set himself right with Mern, who
had been doubting his efficiency.
"As I have been looking at it, she was the one who did it," insisted the
young man.
"Now see here! Wake up!" Crowley was blustering as he grew bolder. "You
were letting the girl wind you around her finger. What woke you up? What
made you sore on the whole proposition up there? It was my tip to you!
You can't deny it."
"Yes, it might have been your tip," admitted Latisan, knotting his
brows, staring at the floor, confused in his memories and puzzling over
the mystery. "I had promised to bring down the logs because she asked me
to keep on and do it."
"There you have it!" indorsed Crowley, swinging his arm and flattening
his thick palm in front of the chief. "I claim the credit."
Crowley had become defiantly intrepid, facing that manner of man who was
so manifestly cowed and muddled. The operative was back in his
encouraging environment of the city; he remembered the thrust of those
prongs of fingers on his head when he was obliged to dissemble and was
shamed in the north country. He was holding his grudge. And he was
assiduously backing up the claims he had made to his chief. "The girl
you're talking about had nothing to do with pulling you off the job. She
was double-crossing our agency."
"Think so?" queried Latisan.
"I know it. But I don't know what fool notion got into her up there. I
have told Mr. Mern all about it. I'm the boy who woke you up!"
"Do you agree, Latisan?" asked Mern, brusquely.
"I'm not thinking clearly, sir. But if this man is right, I ought to
apologize to her."
"She is no longer employed by us, but we'll try to locate her." Mern was
willing to come out in front of Crowley with that information; the
situation did seem to have cleared up! "Hang around town. Come in
again."
Latisan dragged himself up from his chair.
Then Crowley of the single-track mind--bull-headed blunderer--went on to
his undoing. "I'm sorry it has come about that you've got to fire her,
Chief. I know what a lot she was worth to you here, as long as she kept
to her own job."
"We'll let it rest," said Mern, warningly. He remembered that he had not
posted Crowley on the fact that the sobriquet "Miss Patsy Jones" still
hid the identity of the girl where Latisan was concerned.
"All right! That suits me, Chief, so long as I get the credit. I'll shut
up, saying only that I'm sorry for Miss Lida Kennard."
Latisan had been moving slowly toward the door, aware that the
conversation between the two pertained to their own affairs and that he
was excluded.
He halted and swung around when he heard the name of Lida Kennard. The
torpor of idleness and woeful ponderings had numbed his wits. The name
of Lida seemed to have been dragged into the affair by Crowley. Ward did
not understand how she could be involved in the matter. He put that
thought into a question which he stammered.
Mern, knowing nothing about his secretary's lineage, resenting her
secrecy and methods which he had not been able to penetrate, was not in
a mood to shield her any longer. "It's the same girl, Latisan. She
called herself Jones up your way. Her right name is Lida Kennard."
Latisan blinked like one who had emerged from darkness into blazing
light. He swayed slowly, breasting that deluge of the truth which
suddenly swept through him.
He walked to the window, turning his back on them, and gazed squarely
into the quivering sun that was westering between lofty buildings. His
eyes were enduring the unveiled sun with more fortitude than his soul
endured the truth which had just been unveiled.
This--this was the heart of the mystery!
He was not meditating while he stood there; he was beholding!
He saw in the white light the spirit of her sacrifice--a sacrifice which
embraced even her submission to him; in his desolate denial of any
worthy attributes in himself he was not admitting that she loved him. He
realized what she had sought to achieve in the north country, why she
could not declare herself. And he had allowed a trick to make a fool of
him, make him a traitor to her, send him off, sneaking in byways, idling
in dark corners, in the time of her most desperate need!
Right then there was in him the awful conviction that he could not go
and face her, wherever she was, so utterly a renegade had he shown
himself.
He was taking all the blame on himself. He had run away from a laugh--a
fool obsessed by a silly notion of the north country--in this new light
it seemed silly. He had not waited like a man to hear the truth from
her! He had betrayed all the cause; he could not go back to the drive.
He had listened to a lying sneak from a detective agency and had
rebuffed, insulted, abused horribly Lida Kennard! Lida Kennard! The name
seemed to be hammering at his eardrums. The granddaughter of Echford
Flagg! A lone girl trying to save a cause! In her anguished desperation
she had been willing to give herself in the way of sacrifice even to
such a recreant as Ward Latisan must have appeared in his boyish and
selfish resentment! Oh, the sun was cool in comparison with the fires
which raged in him.