Loe raamatut: «Miss Maitland, Private Secretary», lehekülg 15

CHAPTER XXVI – THE COUNTER PLOT

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.

CHAPTER XXVII – NIGHT ON THE CRESSON PIKE

The night fell stifling and airless, unfortunately favorable for the kidnapers, as the sky was covered with clouds and the country wrapped in a thick darkness.

At half-past eight the roadster, with Ferguson driving, glided into the little village of North Cresson and swung out into the Cresson Turnpike. Ten minutes behind him was his touring car with Saunders, his chauffeur, at the wheel. Twenty minutes later a limousine was to strike into the pike from a road just beyond the village, and a runabout, emerging from an opposite direction, complete the chain. At the other end of the ten-mile limit Chapman Price in the black racer, was running up from the shore drive, with two satellites, one his own motor, one a hired Ford, strung out behind him.

Of a hot summer night at this hour the pike was alive with autos; returning holiday-makers, city dwellers taking a spin in the country to cool off, joy riders rioting by, belated business men speeding to the sea-side for the Sunday rest. They bore down on Ferguson like a procession of fleeing monsters with round, goblin eyes staring in affright. They came from behind, swinging across his path in a blur of dust, laughter and shrill cries rising from their crowded tonneaus. Keeping to their narrow track between the borders of the fields they were like a turbulent, flashing torrent, dividing the darkness with a stream of streaked radiance, cutting the silence with a current of continuous sound.

Ferguson's glance ranged ahead, dazzled by the glare of advancing lamps that enlarged on his vision, grew to a blinding haze and swept by. He could see little, blackness and brightness alternating, the motors emerging as dim solidities, realized for a passing moment, then gone. Once a small car, cutting across his bows from a side road, made him slacken, but it slowed round showing the gnarled face of a farmer with a fat woman on the seat beside him and a bunch of children behind.

As he went on the press of vehicles thinned, the line of the road showed bare for longer stretches. The runabout overhauled him, kept by his side for a few yards, then drew ahead, its red tail lantern receding with an even, skimming smoothness; a spot, a spark, nothing. He calculated he had covered nearly half the distance when the black racer passed in a soft, purring rush, his eye, through the yellow fog that preceded it, catching a glimpse of Price's face. Then came a long, straight level between fields where only two cars went by, both going cityward. He looked back and tried to see the road behind him, straining his vision for a following shape, but the darkness lay close and unbroken, no goblin eyes peering through it in anxious pursuit.

The road took a dive into woods, black as a cavern, the air breathless. It wound in sharp curves, his lamps sending their swinging rays into thickets, then out again on a hilltop, and down, swooping with a long, smooth glide into a valley. Here the touring car passed him and he met a limousine, traveling at a pace as sober as his own, in its lit interior two men talking; after that a farmer's wagon drawn up against the roadside grasses, the horse prancing in fractious fear. Then nobody – a wide strip of open country with the sky setting down like an arched lid over the low circular surface of the land.

It was very still and his listening ear caught the buzzing hum of a vehicle behind him. This time he did not turn but drew off further to the right, and a closed coupé swung by, with the jarring rattle of an old and loose-geared body. He was on the alert at once, its hooded shape suggesting secrecy, the surrounding loneliness apt for its design. Its tail light cast a bobbing, crimson blot on the bed and he saw its back, dust-grimed and rusty, and the numbered oblong of its license tag. That caused his expectancy to drop – the tag stood for respectability and honest wayfaring, then, with a quickened leap of his heart, he realized that its speed was slackening. It slowed down to his own gait, and at the limit of his lamp's illumination, moved before him, a square bulk, its back cut by a small window. He felt sure now, and with his hand on the wheel took a look over his shoulder. In the distance, cresting a rise, he saw two golden dots, too far for a speedy overtaking, and even if that were possible he had no reason to suppose they belonged to any of his followers.

A belt of woods spread across the way and the road entered it as if tunneling a vault. It wound, looped and twisted, tree trunks and leafy hollows starting out as the long bright tubes swept over them. As one of these, slewing wide in a sharper turn, crossed the bank of the forward car, Ferguson saw an arm extended and from the hand a white spark flash twice. Almost immediately the coupé turned to the left, and plunged into a by-way, black as a pocket, the woods' thick growth crowding on its edges.

The roadbed was good and the leading car accelerated its speed racing onward under the arching boughs. Ferguson, close on its heels, knew that the sounds of their going would be muffled by the enshrouding woodland, absorbed in its woven density. No chance either of meeting any one; the way was one of those forest trails, sought by the rich on their afternoon drives, but at night deserted by all but the birds and the squirrels. Cursing at the failure of his schemes, powerless now to protest or to retaliate, he followed until he knew by a freshening of the air that they were near the Sound. The coupé's speed began to lessen and it came to a halt.

Ferguson drew up a few rods behind it. He could see the trees about him picked out in detail and behind them the engulfing darkness. The machine in front still seemed to shake and vibrate; he caught the sound of a step and then a voice, a man's, deep and low-keyed:

"This is the place. Get out."

He jumped to the ground, discerning a shape by the coupé's door. He advanced, peering through his lantern's intervening glare, and made out it was alone. Stung with a quick fear, he halted and said.

"Where's the child?"

"Here. Put the money on the rock to your right."

The man came forward, a raised hand pointing to where the top of a rock showed among the wayside grasses. From the lifted hand, the light struck a silvery gleam, touching the barrel of a revolver. Ferguson, without moving said:

"I must see her first."

He thought he detected a moment's hesitation, then the man stepped back to the car and called a gruff:

"All right – quick – look."

He swung the coupé door open and from an electric torch in his left hand sent a ray into the interior. The white shaft pierced the murk like a pointing finger. Its circular end, a spot of livid brightness, played on Bébita curled on the floor asleep. Ferguson saw her as if cut from an encompassing blackness, transparently clear like a picture suspended in a void. Then the ray was extinguished, and as he stood, blinking against the obscurity, heard the man's voice, "The money – on the rock there," and caught the gleam of the revolver barrel level with his eyes.

He walked to the rock and laid the money, in an envelope clasped with rubber bands, on its flat surface. The whole thing seemed to him like a cheap melodrama and he could have laughed as he righted himself and saw the round, shining end of the revolver covering him, and the silent figure behind it.

"Come on," he said, "get to the rest. You tie me – where?"

"The oak – behind you."

It was a large-sized tree back from the edge of the road, and he walked to it hearing the man trampling the underbrush in his wake. He had a sense of a dreamlike quality in the whole fantastic performance, as if he might wake up suddenly and find he'd been having a nightmare.

But there was nothing dreamlike in the force with which the rope was thrown about him and tightened round the tree. As he felt it strained across his chest, lashed round his legs, girding him to the trunk close at its bark, he recognized expertness and strength in the hands that bound him. The thing was done with extraordinary speed and deftness, and ended by a lump of waste, that smelled of gasoline, being thrust into his mouth.

The heavy tread moved again through the underbrush, the man passed to the rock, and, his back to Ferguson, crouched on the light's edges counting the money. Ferguson saw him in silhouette, a large, humped body with bent head. This done, he went to the door of the coupé and lifted out the child. He had some difficulty in getting hold of her, muttered an oath, then drew her out, carried her to the roadside and set her down on the grass. There was a moment when he crossed the full gush of illumination and Ferguson had a clear glimpse of him, a chauffeur's cap on his head, the lower part of his face covered by a thick beard. Returning to his car, he jumped in. Its lurching start broke into a sudden flight, it rushed; Ferguson could hear the bounding of stones, the creaking and wrenching of its body as it hurtled down the road.

Silence settled, the deep, dreaming quiet of the woods. The young man tried to struggle, to writhe and work himself loose, but his bonds held fast, and he found himself choked for air, stifling and snorting over his gag. He gave it up and looked at the child. By straining his eyes he could just see her, a small, relaxed body, one hand outflung, her profile, held in a trance-like sleep, marble white against the grass. A hideous fear assailed him: – she might be dead. Some drug had evidently been administered to keep her quiet – an overdose! He wrenched and pressed at the cords, almost strangled and had to stop, the sweat pouring into his eyes, his heart pounding on the rope that cut into his chest. He called on his will, felt himself steadied, his smothered breath came easier, the only sound on the silence.

Then another broke upon it, far away, from the direction of the Sound – a thin, clear report. He stiffened, all his faculties strained to listen, heard it again, several in a spattering run, dropping distinct, like little globules piercing the stillness. "Shooting!" he thought with a wild surge of excitement, "out toward the water – Oh, Lord, have they got him?"

He listened again, but heard nothing. And then from the ground rose a moaning breath, a sleepy cry – Bébita was awake. He wrenched his head till he could see her plainly, her face turned upward, the eyes still closed, the forehead puckered with a look of pain. He tried to emit some word, heard it only as a guttural mutter, and watching, saw her stir, the out-stretched arm sway upward, her eyes open, dazed and heavy, and heard her drowsy whimper of, "Mummy," and then, "Oh, Annie, where are you?" Slowly, her head moving as her glance swept the unfamiliar prospect, she sat up.

He remembered the next few minutes as something incredibly horrible, the child's consciousness clearing to an overwhelming fear. She looked about, saw him, scrambled to her feet and began to scream, shrill, terrified cries, crouching away from him like a scared animal. She made a rush for the motor, climbing in, cowering down, calling on the names that meant safety: "Mummy! Oh, Mummy! Gramp, Daddy – Come! Come to me!"

An answer came, the hollow bray of a motor horn, the shout of a man's voice, then the twin spears of light, the whirring buzz of a machine shooting out of the road's dark tunnel – Chapman Price in the black car. He leapt out and ran to her, caught her up, strained her to him, held her head back to look into her face, kissed her, babbled words of love that broke on his lips and he hid his face on her neck. She twined round him, arms and legs clutching and clinging, sobbing out, "Popsy, Popsy!" over and over.