Ferguson’s knock on Suzanne’s door was promptly answered by the lady
herself, still in her hat and wrap. She clutched at him as she had done
when he came to her in her dark hour, drawing him into the room and
gasping her news. He was in no mood to follow her ramblings and, as soon
as she spoke of a letter, interrupted her with a brusque demand for it.
After he had mastered its contents he told her to ’phone at once to
Larkin that it was all right, and while she delivered the message, stood
by studying the paper. When she turned back to him he laid his hands on
her shoulders and looked into her eyes. The touch that once would have
sent the blood burning to her cheeks called up no responsive thrill now:
"This lets you out—it’s the end of your responsibility. Your part now is
to be quiet and wait. To-morrow night you’ll have Bébita back. Just nail
that up in your mind and keep your eyes on it."
"Back where? Will you bring her here?"
It was so like her—so indicative of a mental attitude invariably small
and personal, that he could have smiled:
"I can’t say, but probably Grasslands. The end of the route laid down
isn’t so far from there."
"Shall I go back to Grasslands?"
He pondered a moment, then decided it was wiser to trust nothing to her,
even so simple a matter as her withdrawal to the country.
"No, stay where you are. There’d be a lot of questioning if you went,
bothersome, hard to answer. When we have her I’ll let you know. For the
rest of this afternoon I’ll be in town, in my room here on the floor
below. If anything of moment should happen send for me, but don’t unless
it’s vital. I’ll be busy getting things ready. Be silent, be grave, be
hopeful—that’s all you have to do now."
He left her, going directly to his room on a lower floor of the hotel.
She felt numb and dazed, wondering how she was to live through the next
twenty-four hours. Her parents returned from their drive and close on
their entrance came a communication from the Whitney office, saying the
jewels had been found and Mr. and Mrs. Janney were wanted downtown. In
the midst of their bustling excitement she sat mute, following their
movements with vacant eyes. She saw them leave in agitated haste, Mr.
Janney forgetful of her, her mother throwing out phrases of comfort as
she hurried to the door. She was glad when they were gone and she could
be still, draw all her energies inward in the fight for endurance and
courage.
His coat off, the windows wide for such breaths of air as floated across
the heated roofs, Ferguson paced back and forth with a long, even
stride. His uncertainty was ended, the tension relaxed; he stood face to
face with the event and measured it.
His assurances to Suzanne that he would make no attempt to apprehend the
kidnapers had been sops thrown to pacify her terror. He had no more
intention of a supine acquiescence than Mrs. Janney would have had.
Beyond the clearing of Esther, stood out the man’s desire to bring to
justice the perpetrators of a foul and dastardly deed. Now, with their
cards laid on the table, it rose higher, burned into a steady, hot blaze
of rage and resolution.
But between his desire and its fulfilment stretched a maze of
difficulties. He saw at once what Larkin had seen—that their plan was as
nearly impregnable as such a plan could be. Though he knew every mile of
the country they had selected, he knew that the chances of waylaying or
flanking them were ten to one against him. Numerous roads, north and
south, led from the Cresson Pike, some to the shore drive along the
Sound, some inland crossing the various highways that threaded the
center of the Island. Any one of these might be chosen as the road down
which their car would turn, and any one of them, winding through woods
and lonely tracts of country, would offer avenues of escape.
He thought of stationing men along the designated route but it would
take an army, impossible to gather at such short notice and impossible
to place without his opponent’s cognizance. Hundreds of men could not be
picketed along a ten-mile stretch of highway without those who were the
authors of so daring a scheme being aware. They would be on the watch;
no move of such magnitude could be hidden from them. It would be the
same if he called in the police. They would know it, and what could the
police do that he could not do more secretly, more efficiently?
A following car was also out of the question. There was no reason to
suppose that they would not have several cars of their own, passing and
repassing him, making sure that he was unescorted. The threats of injury
to the child he had set down as efforts to reduce Suzanne to a paralyzed
silence. But if they saw an attempt was on foot to trap them they might
not show up at all—go as they had come, unknown and unsighted, their car
lost among the procession of motors that passed along the Cresson Pike.
Then taken fright, they might not dare another effort, might drop out of
sight with their hostage unredeemed. A chill crept over the young man,
he had a dread vision of the old people’s despair, of Suzanne
distraught, crazed perhaps. It behooved him to run no risks; to make
sure of the child was his first duty, to strike at her abductors his
second.
The course he finally decided on was the only one that made Bébita’s
restoration certain and offered a possibility of routing his opponents.
At the hour named he would place on the road six motors, driven by his
own chauffeurs and garage men, and entering the turnpike at intervals of
ten minutes. Three would start from its eastern end, meeting him en
route, three from its western, strung out behind him, now and then
speeding up, overhauling him and passing on. Of a summer’s Saturday
night the Cresson Pike was full of vehicles, and the six, merged in the
shifting stream, would suggest no connection with him or his mission.
Where his hope of success lay was that one of these satellites, to whom
the character and marking of his roadster would be visible at some
distance, might be within sight when he was signaled and see him turn
into the branch road. Its business would be to wait until another of the
fleet came up, pass the word, and the two follow on his tracks. This
halt would give the kidnapers time to complete the transaction, get the
money, give up the child, and bind him. If they were interrupted the
situation would be too perilous to permit of delay—he had thought of an
attack on the child—and if they had finished and gone the rescuing cars
could fly in pursuit.
He was far from satisfied with it; it was very different from the
schemes he had had in his head before he measured his resourcefulness
against theirs. He dropped into a chair, sunk in moody contemplation of
its deficiencies. The men he had to rely on were not the right kind,
loyal and willing enough, but without the boldness and initiative
necessary to such an enterprise. He wanted a lieutenant, some one he
could look to for quick, independent action if the affair took an
unexpected turn. You couldn’t tell how it might develop, and he, pledged
to his ungrateful rôle, would be powerless to meet new demands, might
not know they had arisen.
He was roused by a knock on the door. It surprised him for his presence
in the city was unknown except to his own household and the Janney
family. Then he thought of Suzanne coming down to him to pour out her
fears, and his "Come in" was harsh and unwelcoming. In answer to it the
door opened and Chapman Price entered.
Ferguson rose, looking at his visitor, startled and silent. His surprise
was caused by the man’s appearance, by a fierce disturbance in the
handsome face, pale under its swarthy tan, by the eyes, agate-black and
gleaming in a bovine glare. He had seen Chapman angry but never just
like this, and from a state, keyed to anticipate any new shock from any
direction, said:
"What’s happened now?"
Price had closed the door and backing up, leaned against it. His answer
came, hoarse and broken:
"I’ve been to those hounds, the Whitneys."
It illuminated the ignorance of his listener, who was readjusting his
mind for a reply when the other burst into a storm of invective against
the lawyers and the Janneys. It broke like a released torrent, sentences
stumbling on one another, curses mingled with wild accusations, its
cause revealed in a final cry of: "Stolen—my child—kidnaped—gone!"
Through Ferguson’s head, full of weightier matters, flashed a vision of
Chapman raging at the Whitneys and a wonder as to what effect his rage
had had. Kicking a chair forward he spoke with a dry quietness:
"That’s all right—you needn’t bother to go over it. Pull yourself
together and sit down."
But he might as well have counseled self-control to an angry lion. The
man, still standing against the door, jerked out:
"I can get nothing from any of them. They know nothing. They’ve let all
this time pass—following _me_, suspecting _me_. I don’t know why I
didn’t kill them!"
"Probably because you’ve sense enough left not to complicate what’s
complicated enough already. What brought you here?"
He seemed unable to answer any direct question, staring with dilated
eyes, his thoughts fastened on the subject of his pain:
"Spent a week—lost a week! Good God, Dick, they ought to be held
responsible. Where is she? Not one of them knows—not an effort made.
She’s gone, lost, been stolen, spirited away, while they’ve been sitting
in their office, turning their d——d detectives loose on me."
"Look here, Chapman, I’m not saying you’re not right, but the milk’s
spilled and it’s no good trying to pick it up. If you’ll sit down and
listen to me—"
Price cut him off, leaving his post by the door to begin a distracted
striding about the room:
"I couldn’t stand it—when I’d got it through me I left. Then I tried to
get hold of Suzanne—telephoned her, here somewhere in this place. She’s
half crazy, I think—I don’t wonder, she’s fonder of Bébita than anything
in the world. She wouldn’t see me, crying and moaning out that she
couldn’t, that she couldn’t bear any more. And when I begged—I thought
that she and I might arrange some combined effort, that whatever we had
been we were partners _now_ in this—she told me to come to you, that you
could tell me more, that you could help." He swerved round on Ferguson,
the hard passion of his glance softened to a despairing urgency, "For
God’s sake, do. I’m penniless, I know almost nothing except that I’ve
got to act now, at once, before any more time is lost. Give me a hand,
help me to find her."
Ferguson’s voice had an element of endurance in its level tones:
"That’s just what I want to do. And if you’ll stop talking and let me
explain, you’ll see I’m on the way to do it. But it’s not _my_ help that
you want, it’s the other way round—_I_ want _yours_."
It was almost dark and Ferguson turned on the lights. Under their thin,
white radiance, the two men sat, drawn close to the open window, and
Ferguson told his story. The other listened, the storm of his anger
gone, his dark face growing keen and hard as he heard the plan unfolded.
An hour later they parted, Price to go to Council Oaks and lie low there
until the following night when he would command the fleet of motors in
the chase along the Cresson Turnpike.