In spite of Molly’s excited certainty that Willitts was the thief,
Ferguson was not convinced. He met her impetuous demand for the valet’s
arrest with a recommendation for a fuller knowledge of his activities on
the night of the robbery. Willitts had gone to the movies with the
Grasslands servants and if he had been with them the whole evening he
was as innocent as Dixon or Isaac. She had to agree and promised to do
nothing until she had satisfied herself that his movements tallied with
their findings.
Ferguson had a restless night. There was matter on his mind to keep him
awake; he was fearful that Suzanne might make some false step. She was
at best a shifty, unstable creature, how much more so now strained to
the breaking point. He felt he ought to be in town where he could keep
her under his eye, and decided to motor in in the morning. Also he began
to think that Molly was probably right; she was shrewd and experienced,
knew more of such matters than he. He would go to the Whitney office and
put the Willitts’ affair in their hands, then run up to the St.
Boniface, take a room, and have a look in at Suzanne.
He left the house at nine-thirty, telling the butler he was called to
the city on business, and might be gone a day or two. At the Whitney
office he was informed that Mr. and Mrs. Janney were in consultation
with the heads of the firm, and, saying he would not disturb them,
waited in an outer room from whence he telephoned to Suzanne, telling
her he would be at the hotel later. When the Janneys had gone he was
ushered into the old man’s office where he found the air still vibrating
with the clash of battle. A combined attack had been made on Mrs. Janney
who, under its pressure and the slow undermining of her confidence by a
week of failure, had given in and consented to a move on Price. It had
been planned for that afternoon, when he was to be summoned to the
office, charged with the kidnaping and commanded to render up the child.
Whitney and his son listened to Ferguson’s story of the cigar band with
unconcealed interest. George, however, was skeptical—it was ingenious
and plausible, showed Molly’s fine Italian hand; but his mind had
accepted the theory of Esther’s participation and was of the unelastic,
unmalleable kind. His father was obviously impressed by it, admitting
that his original conviction of the girl’s guilt had been shaken. To
George’s indignant rehearsal of the evidence, he accorded a series of
acquiescing nods, agreed that the facts were against him and maintained
his stand. He would see Willitts as soon as possible and put him through
a grilling examination. O’Malley could be sent to Council Oaks at once
to bring him in, and his business could be disposed of before they got
round to Price. As Ferguson rose to go George had the receiver of the
desk telephone down and was giving low-voiced instructions to O’Malley
to report immediately at the office.
It was nearly one when the young man found himself on the street level.
There was no use going to the St. Boniface now as the family would be at
lunch and speech alone with Suzanne impossible. On the way uptown he
stopped at a restaurant, ordered food which he hardly touched, filling
out the time with cigarettes. By half-past two he was on the move again,
threading a slow way through the traffic, his eye lingering on the clock
faces that loomed at intervals along the Avenue. Suzanne had told him
that the old people always went for a drive after lunch and he scanned
the motors that passed him, hoping to see them. He was in no mood for
polite conversation—felt with the passing of the hours an increasing
tension, a gathering of his forces for a leap and a struggle.
At the desk in the St. Boniface he heard that Mr. and Mrs. Janney had
just gone out, and waited while Mrs. Price’s room was called up. There
was no response; Mrs. Price must be out too. The information made him
uneasy; she had told him she went nowhere except to Larkin’s. More than
ever anxious to see her, he engaged a room and left the message that he
would be there and to be called up when she came in. The door shut on
him, his uneasiness increased; wondering what had taken her out,
wondering if she had done anything foolish, cursing the fate that had
placed so much in her feeble hands, perturbed and restless as a lion in
a cage.
Suzanne had gone to Larkin’s, called there by a telephone message. It
had come almost on the heels of her parents’ departure and was brief—a
request to come to him as soon as she could. She had scrambled into her
street clothes, and, shaking in every limb, slipped out of the hotel’s
side door and sped across town in a taxi to hear how Bébita was to be
found.
She was hardly inside the door, her veil lifted from a face as pale as
Cæsar’s ghost, when Larkin answered her look of agonized question:
"Yes, the letter’s come—what we expect, very clear and explicit. It was
sent to me this time—came on the two o’clock delivery."
He turned to the desk and took up a folded paper. Before he could offer
it to her, she had leaned forward and snatched it out of his hand.
Instantly her eyes were riveted on the lines:
"Mr. Horace Larkin,
"_Dear Sir_:
"In answer to the ad. in the _Daily Record_, we are dealing
through you as the agent named by Mrs. Price. We do this as we
realize that a lady of Mrs. Price’s type and experience would be
unable to handle alone so important a matter. Before we enter
into details we must again repeat our warnings—not only the
return of the child but her life is dependent on the actions of
her mother and yourself. If you are wise to this and follow our
instructions Bébita will be restored to her family on Saturday
night.
"The plan of procedure must be as follows: At eight-thirty a
roadster, containing only the driver and marked by a
handkerchief fastened to the windshield, must leave the village
of North Cresson by the Cresson turnpike, at a rate of speed not
exceeding fifteen miles an hour. It must proceed eastward along
the pike for a distance of ten miles. Somewhere during this run
a car will pass it and from its tonneau flash an electric
lantern twice. Follow this car. Make no attempt to hail or to
overtake it. It will turn from the main road and proceed for
some distance. When it stops the driver of the roadster must
alight, place the money at a spot indicated, and submit, without
parley, to being bound and gagged. When this is done the child
will be left beside him. If agreed to insert following personal
in _The Daily Record_ of Saturday morning: 'James, meet you at
the time and place specified. Tom.’
"(Signed) _Clansmen_."
The letter fluttered to the desk and Suzanne sank into a chair. Larkin
looked at her; his glance showed some anxiety but his voice was hearty
and encouraging:
"Well, you agree, of course?"
She nodded, swallowing on a throat too dry for speech.
He picked up the letter and ran a frowning eye over it:
"It simply confirms what I thought—old hands. It’s about as secure as
such a thing could be. I don’t see a loose end."
She made no answer and he went on still studying the paper:
"I’m not familiar with this country, but they wouldn’t have picked it
out unless it offered every chance of escape."
"Escape!" she breathed. "They’ve _got_ to escape."
It made him smile, the eye he turned on her showed a quizzical
amusement:
"You’re almost talking like an accomplice, Mrs. Price." But he quickly
grew grave as he met her tragic glance. "Pardon me, I shouldn’t have
said that, but the fact is, with the climax in sight, I’m a bit on edge
myself." Then with a brusque change of tone, "Do you know this section
of Long Island?"
"Yes, well—I’ve driven over it often."
"Am I right in thinking there are numbers of roads leading from the
Cresson Turnpike?"
"Lots of them, to the Sound and inland."
"Umph!" he threw the letter on the desk and sat down, "I don’t think you
need worry about their getting away. Now we must settle this up and then
I’ll go out and have the ad inserted. We’ve got to hustle—they’ve only
given us a little over twenty-four hours."
She looked dazedly at him and murmured:
"What have we got to do?"
"Why—" he was very gentle as to a stupid and bewildered child—"we have
to arrange about this car—our car, the one that gets the signal."
"We can hire it, can’t we?"
"Well, we could hire the car, but the driver—we can’t very well hire
him. He must be some one upon whom we can rely."
She stared at him, her eyes dilating:
"Yes, yes, of course. I’d forgotten that."
"Is there any one you can suggest—any one that you _know_ you could
trust and who would be willing to undertake it?"
"Yes," the word came with a sudden decision. "I know some one." Larkin
eyed her sharply. She looked more alive than she had done since her
entrance, seemed to be vitalized into a roused, responsive intelligence.
"I know exactly the person."
"Entirely trustworthy?"
"Absolutely. Mr. Ferguson—Dick Ferguson."
"Oh, yes, Ferguson of Council Oaks." He mused a moment under her hungry
scrutiny. "Do you think he’d be willing to—er—agree to their demands as
you have?"
"Yes, he’d do it to help me. He’s an old friend; I know him through and
through. He’d do it if I asked him."
The detective was silent for a moment, then said:
"Well, we have to have some one and if you’re willing to vouch for him
I’ll abide by what you say. Before you came in I was thinking of
offering to do it myself. But there are reasons against that. I don’t
mind helping you this way—quietly, on the side—but to be an actual
participant in the final deal, handle the money, be more or less
responsible for the person of the child—I’d rather not—I’d better not.
And anyway I think I can be more useful as an observer, an unsuspected
spectator who may see something worth while."
She gave a stifled scream and caught at his hand, resting on the edge of
the desk:
"No, no, Mr. Larkin, _please_, I beg of you. You’re not going to try and
catch them."
Her fingers gripped like talons; he laid his free hand over them,
soothingly patting them:
"Now, now, Mrs. Price, please have confidence in me. Am I likely, at
this stage of the game, to do anything to queer it?"
She did not reply, her eyes shifting from his, her teeth set tight on
her quivering underlip. He waited a moment and then spoke with a new
note, dominating, authoritative, as one in command:
"My dear lady, you’ve got to get hold of yourself. I can’t go on with
this if you don’t trust me. We’re launched on an enterprise by no means
easy and if we don’t pull together we’ll fail, that’s all."
That steadied her. She dropped his hand and broke into tremulous
protestations:
"I do, I do, Mr. Larkin. It’s only that I’m so terribly afraid, so upset
and desperate. Of course I trust you. Would I be here, day after day, if
I didn’t?"
He was mollified, dropped back with the crisp, alert manner of the
detective.
"All right, we’ll let it go at that. Now as to Ferguson—you’ll have to
get word to him at once. Is he in the country?"
"No—he’s here. I had a telephone from him this morning to say he was in
town and would be at the hotel later in the day. He’s probably there
now, waiting for me."
"Um!" Larkin considered for a moment. "That’s lucky. There’s no time to
waste. Get his consent and then ’phone me here. Just a word. And you
understand he’ll have to know the circumstances; he’ll have to be wise
to everything if he’s to play his part."
Suzanne had lied so long and so variously that she did it with a natural
ease. No one, having seen her as Larkin had, would have guessed the
knowledge she hid. Her air of innocently comprehending his charge was a
triumph of duplicity.
"Of course, I know, I understand. It’ll be a dreadful surprise to him
but he’ll see it as I do. And he’ll do what I ask—I’m as certain of that
as I am of his secrecy."
She would have to have the letter to show him, and Larkin, after a last,
careful perusal of it, handed it to her. Then she went, cutting off his
heartening words of farewell, making her way out in a quick, noiseless
rush. At the desk in the hotel she learned that Ferguson was there,
asked to have him apprised of her return and sent at once to her sitting
room.