CHAPTER VII
THE MAYOR BEGINS A VIGIL
One summer evening, in dim dead days gone by, an inexperienced head waiter at Baldpate Inn had attempted to seat Mrs. J. Sanderson Clark, of Pittsburgh, at the same table with the unassuming Smiths, of Tiffin, Ohio. The remarks of Mrs. Clark, who was at the time busily engaged in trying to found a first family, lingered long in the memory of those who heard them. So long, in fact, that Miss Norton, standing with Mr. Magee in the hotel office awaiting the signal from Peters that dinner was ready, could repeat them almost verbatim. Mr. Magee cast a humorous look about.
"Lucky the manners and customs of the summer folks aren't carried over into the winter," he said. "Imagine a Mrs. Clark asked to sit at table with the mayor of Reuton and his picturesque but somewhat soiled friend, Mr. Max. I hope the dinner is a huge success."
The girl laughed.
"The natural nervousness of a host," she remarked. "Don't worry. The hermit and his tins won't fail you."
"It's not the culinary end that worries me," smiled Magee. "It's the repartee and wit. I want the mayor to feel at home. Do you know any good stories ascribed to Congressman Jones, of the Asquewan district?"
Together they strolled to a window. The snow had begun to fall again, and the lights of the little hamlet below showed but dimly through the white blur.
"I want you to know," said the girl, "that I trust you now. And when the time comes, as it will soon – to-night – I am going to ask you to help me. I may ask a rather big thing, and ask you to do it blindly, just trusting in me, as I refused to trust in you." She stopped and looked very seriously into Mr. Magee's face.
"I'm mighty glad," he answered in a low tone. "From the moment I saw you weeping in the station I've wanted to be of help to you. The station agent advised me not to interfere. He said to become involved with a weeping woman meant trouble. The fool. As though any trouble – "
"He was right," put in the girl, "it probably will mean trouble."
"As though any storm," finished Mr. Magee "would not be worth the rainbow of your smile at the end."
"A very fancy figure," laughed she. "But storms aren't nice."
"There are a few of us," replied Magee, "who can be merry through the worst of them because of the rainbow to come."
For answer, she flattened her finely-modeled nose into shapelessness against the cold pane. Back of them in the candle-lighted room, the motley crew of Baldpate's winter guests stood about in various attitudes of waiting. In front of the fire the holder of the Chair of Comparative Literature quoted poetry to Mrs. Norton, and probably it never occurred to the old man that the woman to whom he talked was that nightmare of his life – a peroxide blonde. Ten feet away in the flickering half-light, the immense bulk of the mayor of Reuton reposed on the arm of a leather couch, and before him stood his lithe unpleasant companion, Lou Max, side by side with Mr. Bland, whose talk of haberdashery was forever stilled. The candles sputtered, the storm angrily rattled the windows; Mr. Peters flitted like a hairy wraith about the table. So the strange game that was being played at Baldpate Inn followed the example of good digestion and waited on appetite.
What Mr. Magee flippantly termed his dinner party was seated at last, and there began a meal destined to linger long in the memories of those who partook if it. Puzzled beyond words, the host took stock of his guests. Opposite him, at the foot of the table, he could see the lined tired face of Mrs. Norton, dazed, uncomprehending, a little frightened. At his right the great red acreage of Cargan's face held defiance and some amusement; beside it sneered the cruel face of Max; beyond that Mr. Bland's countenance told a story of worry and impotent anger. And on Mr. Magee's left sat the professor, bearded, spectacled, calm, seemingly undisturbed by this queer flurry of events, beside the fair girl of the station who trusted Magee at last. In the first few moments of silence Mr. Magee compared her delicate features with the coarse knowing face of the woman at the table's foot, and inwardly answered "No."
Without the genial complement of talk the dinner began. Mr. Peters appeared with another variety of his canned soup, whereupon the silence was broken by the gastronomic endeavors of Mr. Max and the mayor. Mr. Magee was reflecting that conversation must be encouraged, when Cargan suddenly spoke.
"I hope I ain't putting you folks out none," he remarked with obvious sarcasm. "It ain't my habit to drop in unexpected like this. But business – "
"We're delighted, I'm sure," said Mr. Magee politely.
"I suppose you want to know why I'm here," the mayor went on. "Well – " he hesitated – "it's like this – "
"Dear Mr. Cargan," Magee broke in, "spare us, I pray. And spare yourself. We have had explanations until we are weary. We have decided to drop them altogether, and just to take it for granted that, in the words of the song, we're here because we're here."
"All right," replied Cargan, evidently relieved. "That suits me. I'm tired explaining, anyhow. There's a bunch of reformers rose up lately in Reuton – maybe you've heard about 'em. A lovely bunch. A white necktie and a half-portion of brains apiece. They say they're going to do for me at the next election."
Mr. Max laughed harshly from the vicinity of his soup.
"They wrote the first joke book, them people," he said.
"Well," went on Cargan, "there ain't nobody so insignificant and piffling that people won't listen to 'em when they attack a man in public life. So I've had to reply to this comic opera bunch, and as I say, I'm about wore out explaining. I've had to explain that I never stole the town I used to live in in Indiana, and that I didn't stick up my father with a knife. It gets monotonous. So I'm much obliged to you for passing the explanations up. We won't bother you long, me and Lou. I got a little business here, and then we'll mosey along. We'll clear out about nine o'clock."
"No," protested Magee. "So soon? We must make it pleasant for you while you stay. I always hate hosts who talk about their servants – I have a friend who bores me to death because he has a Jap butler he believes was at Mukden. But I think I am justified in calling your attention to ours – Mr. Peters, the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. Cooking is merely his avocation. He is writing a book."
"That guy," remarked Cargan, incredulous.
"What do you know about that?" asked Mr. Bland. "It certainly will get a lot of hot advertising if it ever appears. It's meant to prove that all the trouble in the world has been caused by woman."
The mayor considered.
"He's off – he's nutty, that fellow," he announced. "It ain't women that cause all of the trouble."
"Thank you, Mr. Cargan," said Miss Norton, smiling.
"Anybody'd know it to look at you, miss," replied the mayor in his most gallant manner. Then he added hastily: "And you, ma'am," with a nod in the other woman's direction.
"I don't know as I got the evidence in my face," responded Mrs. Norton easily, "but women don't make no trouble, I know that. I think the man's crazy, myself, and I'd tell him so if he wasn't the cook." She paused, for Peters had entered the room. There was silence while he changed the courses. "It's getting so now you can't say the things to a cook you can to a king," she finished, after the hermit had retired.
"Ahem – Mr. Cargan," put in Professor Bolton, "you give it as your opinion that woman is no trouble-maker, and I must admit that I agree with your premise in general, although occasionally she may cause a – a slight annoyance. Undeniably, there is a lot of trouble in the world. To whose efforts do you ascribe it?"
The mayor ran his thick fingers through his hair.
"I got you," he said, "and I got your answer, too. Who makes the trouble? Who's made it from the beginning of time? The reformers, Doc. Yes, sir. Who was the first reformer? The snake in the garden of Eden. This hermit guy probably has that affair laid down at woman's door. Not much. Everything was running all right around the garden, and then the snake came along. It's a twenty to one shot he'd just finished a series of articles on 'The Shame of Eden' for a magazine. 'What d'ye mean?' he says to the woman, 'by letting well enough alone? Things are all wrong here. The present administration is running everything into the ground. I can tell you a few things that will open your eyes. What's that? What you don't know won't hurt you? The old cry', he says, 'the old cry against which progressives got to fight,' he says. 'Wake up. You need a change here. Try this nice red apple, and you'll see things the way I do.' And the woman fell for it. You know what happened."
"An original point of view," said the dazed professor.
"Yes, Doc," went on Mr. Cargan, evidently on a favorite topic, "it's the reformers that have caused all the trouble, from that snake down. Things are running smooth, folks all prosperous and satisfied – then they come along in their gum shoes and white neckties. And they knock away at the existing order until the public begins to believe 'em and gives 'em a chance to run things. What's the result? The world's in a worse tangle than ever before."
"You feel deeply on the subject, Mr. Cargan," remarked Magee.
"I ought to," the mayor replied. "I ain't no writer, but if I was, I'd turn out a book that would drive this whiskered hermit's argument to the wall. Woman – bah! The only way women make trouble is by falling for the reform gag."
Mr. Peters here interrupted with the dessert, and through that course Mr. Cargan elaborated on his theory. He pointed out how, in many states, reform had interrupted the smooth flow of life, set everything awhirl, and cruelly sent "the boys" who had always been faithful out into the cold world seeking the stranger, work. While he talked, the eyes of Lou Max looked out at him from behind the incongruous gold-rimmed glasses, with the devotion of the dog to its master clearly written in them. Mr. Magee had read many articles about this picturesque Cargan who had fought his way with his fists to the position of practical dictator in the city of Reuton. The story was seldom told without a mention of his man Max – Lou Max who kept the south end of Reuton in line for the mayor, and in that low neighborhood of dives and squalor made Cargan's a name to conjure with. Watching him now, Mr. Magee marveled at this cheap creature's evident capacity for loyalty.
"It was the reformers got Napoleon," the mayor finished. "Yes, they sent Napoleon to an island at the end. And him without an equal since the world began."
"Is your – begging your pardon – is your history just straight?" demurred Professor Bolton timidly.
"Is it?" frowned Cargan. "You can bet it is. I know Napoleon from the cradle to the grave. I ain't an educated man, Doc – I can hire all the educated men I want for eighteen dollars a week – but I'm up on Bonaparte."
"It seems to me," Miss Norton put in, "I have heard – did I read it in a paper? – that a picture of Napoleon hangs above your desk. They say that you see in your own career, a similarity to his. May I ask – is it true?"
"No, miss," replied Cargan. "That's a joking story some newspaper guy wrote up. It ain't got no more truth in it than most newspaper yarn. No, I ain't no Napoleon. There's lots of differences between us – one in particular." He raised his voice, and glared at the company around the table. "One in particular. The reformers got Napoleon at the end."
"But the end is not yet," suggested Mr. Magee, smiling.
Mr. Cargan gave him a sudden and interested look.
"I ain't worrying," he replied. "And don't you, young fellow."
Mr. Magee responded that he was not one to indulge in needless worry, and a silence fell upon the group. Peters entered with coffee, and was engaged in pouring it when Mr. Bland started up wildly from the table with an expression of alarm on his face.
"What's that?" he cried.
The others looked at him in wonder.
"I heard steps up-stairs," he declared.
"Nonsense," said Mr. Cargan, "you're dreaming. This peace and quiet has got to you, Bland."
Without replying, Mr. Bland rose and ran up the stair. In his absence the Hermit of Baldpate spoke into Magee's ear.
"I ain't one to complain," he said; "livin' alone as much as I do I've sort of got out of the habit, having nobody to complain to. But if folks keep coming and coming to this hotel, I've got to resign as cook. Seems as though every few minutes there's a new face at the table, and it's a vital matter to me."
"Cheer up, Peters," whispered Mr. Magee. "There are only two more keys to the inn. There will be a limit to our guests."
"What I'm getting at is," replied Mr. Peters, "there's a limit to my endurance."
Mr. Bland came down-stairs. His face was very pale as he took his seat, but in reply to Cargan's question he remarked that he must have been mistaken.
"It was the wind, I guess," he said.
The mayor made facetious comment on Mr. Bland's "skittishness", and Mr. Max also indulged in a gibe or two. These the haberdasher met with a wan smile. So the dinner came to an end, and the guests of Baldpate sat about while Mr. Peters removed all traces of it from the table. Mr. Magee sought to talk to Miss Norton, but found her nervous and distrait.
"Has Mr. Bland frightened you?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I have other things to think of," she replied.
Mr. Peters shortly bade the company good-by for the night, with the warmly expressed hope in Mr. Magee's ear that there would be no further additions to the circle in the near future. When he had started off through the snow for his shack, Mr. Cargan took out his watch.
"You've been pretty kind to us poor wanderers already," he said. "I got one more favor to ask. I come up here to see Mr. Bland. We got some business to transact, and we'd consider it a great kindness if you was to leave us alone here in the office."
Mr. Magee hesitated. He saw the girl nod her head slightly, and move toward the stairs.
"Certainly, if you wish," he said. "I hope you won't go without saying good-by, Mr. Cargan."
"That all depends," replied the mayor. "I've enjoyed knowing you, one and all. Good night."
The women, the professor and Mr. Magee moved up the broad stairway. On the landing Mr. Magee heard the voice of Mrs. Norton, somewhere in the darkness ahead.
"I'm worried, dearie – real worried."
"Hush," came the girl's voice. "Mr. Magee-we'll meet again – soon."
Mr. Magee seized the professor's arm, and together they stood in the shadows.
"I don't like the looks of things," came Bland's hoarse complaint from below. "What time is it?"
"Seven-thirty." Cargan answered. "A good half-hour yet."
"There was somebody on the second floor when I went up," Bland continued. "I saw him run into one of the rooms and lock the door."
"I've got charge now," the mayor reassured him, "don't you worry."
"There's something doing." This seemed to be Max's voice.
"There sure is," laughed Cargan. "But what do I care? I own young Drayton. I put him where he is. I ain't afraid. Let them gumshoe round as much as they want to. They can't touch me."
"Maybe not," said Bland. "But Baldpate Inn ain't the grand idea it looked at first, is it?"
"It's a hell of an idea," answered Cargan. "There wasn't any need of all this folderol. I told Hayden so. Does that phone ring?"
"No – it'll just flash a light, when they want us," Bland told him.
Mr. Magee and Professor Bolton continued softly up the stairs, and in answer to the former's invitation, the old man entered number seven and took a chair by the fire.
"It is an amazing tangle," he remarked, "in which we are involved. I have no idea what your place is in the scheme of things up here. But I assume you grasp what is going on, if I do not. I am not so keen of wit as I once was."
"If you think," answered Mr. Magee, proffering a cigar, "that I am in on this little game of 'Who's Who', then you are vastly mistaken. As a matter of fact, I am as much in the dark as you are."
The professor smiled.
"Indeed," he said in a tone that showed his unbelief. "Indeed."
He was deep in a discussion of the meters of the poet Chaucer when there came a knock at the door, and Mr. Lou Max's unpleasant head was thrust inside.
"I been assigned," he said, "to sit up here in the hall and keep an eye out for the ghost Bland heard tramping about. And being of a sociable nature, I'd like to sit in your doorway, if you don't mind."
"By all means," replied Magee. "Here's a chair. Do you smoke?"
"Thanks." Mr. Max placed the chair sidewise in the doorway of number seven, and sat down. From his place he commanded a view of Mr. Magee's apartments and of the head of the stairs. With his yellow teeth he viciously bit the end from the cigar. "Don't let me interrupt the conversation, gentlemen," he pleaded.
"We were speaking," said the professor calmly, "of the versification of Chaucer. Mr. Magee – "
He continued his discussion in an even voice, Mr. Magee leaned back in his chair and smiled in a pleased way at the settings of the stage: Mr. Max in a cloud of smoke on guard at his door; the mayor and Mr. Bland keeping vigil by a telephone switchboard in the office below, watching for the flash of light that should tell them some one in the outside world wanted to speak to Baldpate Inn; a mysterious figure who flitted about in the dark; a beautiful girl who was going to ask Mr. Magee to do her a service, blindly trusting her.
The professor droned on monotonously. Once Mr. Magee interrupted to engage Lou Max in spirited conversation. For, through the squares of light outside the windows, he had seen the girl of the station pass hurriedly down the balcony, the snowflakes falling white on her yellow hair.
CHAPTER VIII
MR. MAX TELLS A TALE OF SUSPICION
An hour passed. Mr. Max admitted when pressed that a good cigar soothed the soul, and accepted another from Magee's stock. The professor continued to talk. Obviously it was his favorite diversion. He seemed to be quoting from addresses; Mr. Magee pictured him on a Chautauqua platform, the white water pitcher by his side.
As he talked, Mr. Magee studied that portion of his delicate scholarly face that the beard left exposed to the world. What part had Thaddeus Bolton, holder of the Crandall Chair of Comparative Literature, in this network of odd alarms? Why was he at Baldpate? And why was he so little moved by the rapid changes in the make-up of the inn colony – changes that left Mr. Magee gasping? He took them as calmly as he would take his grapefruit at the breakfast-table. Only that morning Mr. Magee, by way of experiment, had fastened upon him the suspicion of murder, and the old man had not flickered an eyelash. Not the least strange of all the strange figures that floated about Baldpate, Mr. Magee reflected, was this man who fiddled now with Chaucer while, metaphorically, Rome burned. He could not make it out.
Mr. Max inserted a loud yawn into the professor's discourse.
"Once I played chess with a German," he said, "and another time I went to a lecture on purifying politics, but I never struck anything so monotonous as this job I got now."
"So sorry," replied Magee, "that our company bores you."
"No offense," remarked the yellow-faced one. "I was just thinking as I set here how it all comes of people being suspicious of one another. Now I've always held that the world would be a better place if there wasn't no suspicion in it. Nine times out of ten the suspicion ain't got a leg to stand on – if suspicion can be said to have a leg."
Evidently Mr. Max desired the floor; graciously Professor Bolton conceded it to him.
"Speaking of suspicion," continued the drab little man on the threshold, turning his cigar thoughtfully between his thin lips, "reminds me of a case told me by Pueblo Sam, a few years ago. In some ways it's real funny, and in others it's sad as hell. Pueblo Sam was called in them terms because he'd never been west of Sixth Avenue. He was a swell refined gentleman who lived by his wits, and he had considerable."
"A confidence man," suggested Magee.
"Something along that order," admitted Mr. Max, "but a good sport among his friends, you understand. Well, this case of suspicion Sam tells me about happened something like this. One scorching hot day in summer Sam gets aboard the Coney boat, his idea being to put all business cares away for an hour or two, and just float calm and peaceful down the bay, and cool off. So he grabs out a camp chair and hustles through the crowd up to the top deck, beside the pilot's hangout, and sits down to get acquainted with the breeze, if such there was.
"Well, he'd been sitting there about ten minutes, Sam tells me, when along came about the easiest picking that ever got loose from the old homestead – "
"I beg your pardon," protested Professor Bolton.
"The ready money, the loosened kale, the posies in the garden waiting to be plucked," elucidated Mr. Max. "This guy, Sam says, was such a perfect rube he just naturally looked past him to see if there was a trail of wisps of hay on the floor. For a while Sam sits there with a grouch as he thought how hard it was to put business aside and get a little rest now and then, and debating whether, being on a vacation, as it was, he'd exert himself enough to stretch forth his hand and take whatever money the guy had. While he was arguing the matter with himself, the jay settled the question by coming over and sitting down near him.
"He's in the city, he tells Sam, to enjoy the moving pictures of the streets, and otherwise forget the trees back home that grow the cherries in the bottom of the cocktail glasses. 'And believe me,' he says to Sam, 'there ain't none of those confidence men going to get me. I'm too wise,' he says.
"'I'll bet money you are,' Sam tells him laughing all over at the fish that was fighting to get into the net.
"'Yes, siree,' says the last of the Mohicans, 'they can't fool me. I can tell them as fur away as I can see 'em, and my eyesight's perfect. One of 'em comes up to me in City Hall park and tries to sell me some mining stock. I guess he ain't recovered yet from what I said to him. I tell you, they can't fool Mark Dennen,' says the guy.
"Sam told me that at them words he just leaned back in his seat and stared at the jay and whistled under his breath. Years ago, it seemed, Sam had lived in the town of Readsboro, Vermont, and run up and down the streets with one suspender and a stone bruise, and the kid that had run with him was Mark Dennen. And Sam says he looked at this guy from the woods that was running round crying to high heaven he needed a guardian, and he sees that sure enough it was the tow-head Mark Dennen and – Sam told me – something seemed to bust inside him, and he wanted to stretch out his arms and hug this guy.
"'Mark Dennen,' shouts Sam, 'as I live. Of Readsboro, Vermont. The kid I used to play with under the arc lights – don't you remember me?'
"But Sam says the guy just looked him straight in the eye and shut his jaw, and says: 'I suppose you'll be asking after my brother George next?'
"'You ain't got any brother George, you idiot,' laughs Sam. He told me he was thinking how he'd treat his old friend Mark to a dinner that would go down in history in Readsboro. 'Mark, you old rascal,' he says, 'don't you remember me – don't you remember little Sam Burns that used to play andy-over with you, and that stole your girl in 1892? Don't you remember the old days in Readsboro?' He was all het up by this time, Sam tells me, and all the old memories came creeping back, and he kept thinking he never was so glad to run across anybody in his life. 'You remember little Sam Burns, don't you?' he asks once more.
"But this guy just looks back into Sam's eye with his own cold as steel, and he says, says he: 'You're pretty clever, mister, but you don't fool me. No, you don't come any games on Mark Dennen.'
"'But, Mark,' says Sam, 'I swear to you by all that's holy that I'm that kid – I'm Sam Burns. What proof do you want? Do you remember old Ed Haywood that used to keep the drug store right across from the post-office? The guy that never washed his windows? I do. And Miss Hunter that taught the sixth grade school when we went there – a little woman with washed-out gray eyes and a broken front tooth? And that pretty little girl, Sarah somebody – wait a minute, I'll get it or bust – Sarah – Sarah – Sarah Scott, you used to be so sweet on? Did you marry her, Mark? And old Lafe Perkins, who used to be on hand whenever there was any repairs being made anywhere – rheumatism and a cane and a high squeaky voice that he used to exercise giving orders about things that wasn't any of his business. Why, Mark, I remember 'em all. Good lord, man,' says Sam, 'do you want any more proof?'
"But this country blockhead just looked Sam up and down, and remarks judicious: 'It's certainly wonderful how you know all these things. Wonderful. But you can't fool me,' he says, 'you can't fool Mark Dennen.'"
Mr. Max paused in his narrative for a moment. The sound of voices came up from the office of Baldpate Inn. One, that of the mayor, boomed loudly and angrily. In an evident desire to drown it, Mr. Max went on with spirit:
"Well, gentlemen, it got to be a point of honor, as you might say, for Sam to convince that guy. He told me he never wanted anything so much in his life as for Mark Dennen to give in. It was a hot afternoon, and he'd come aboard that boat for a rest, but he peeled off his collar and started in. He gave Mark Dennen the number of bricks in the Methodist Church, as reported in the Readsboro Citizen at the time it was built. He told him the name of the piece Mark's sister recited at the school entertainment in the spring of 1890. He bounded on all four sides the lot where the circuses played when they came to Readsboro. He named every citizen of the town, living or dead, that ever got to be known outside his own family, and he brought children into the world and married them and read the funeral service over them, and still that bonehead from the woods sat there, his mouth open, and says: 'It's beyond me how you know all that. You New Yorkers are slicker then I give ye credit for. But you can't fool me. You ain't Sam Burns. Why, I went to school with him.'
"They was drawing near Coney now," went on Mr. Max, "and Sam's face was purple and he was dripping with perspiration, and rattling off Readsboro happenings at the rate of ten a second, but that Mark Dennen he sat there and wouldn't budge from his high horse. So they came up to the pier, Sam almost weeping real tears and pleading like his heart would break: 'Mark, don't you remember that time we threw little Bill Barnaby into the swimming hole, and he couldn't swim a stroke and nearly drowned on us?' and still getting the stony face from his old pal.
"And on the pier this Dennen held out his hand to Sam, who was a physical wreck and a broken man by this time, and says: 'You sure are cute, mister. I'll have great times telling this in Readsboro. Once you met one too smart for ye, eh? Much obliged for your company, anyhow!' And he went away and left Sam leaning against the railing, with no faith in human nature no more. 'I hope somebody got to him,' says Sam to me, 'and got to him good. He's the kind that if you work right you can sell stock in a company for starting roof gardens on the tops of the pyramids in Egypt. I'd trimmed him myself,' says Sam to me, 'but I hadn't the heart.'"
Mr. Max finished, and again from below came the sound of voices raised in anger.
"An interesting story, Mr. Max," commented Professor Bolton. "I shall treasure it."
"Told with a remarkable feeling for detail," added Mr. Magee. "In fact, it seems to me that only one of the two participants in it could remember all the fine points so well. Mr. Max, you don't exactly look like Mark Dennen to me, therefore – if you will pardon the liberty – "
"I get you," replied Max sadly. "The same old story. Suspicion – suspicion everywhere. It does a lot of harm, believe me. I wouldn't – "
He jumped from his chair and disappeared, for the voice of Cargan had hailed him from below. Mr. Magee and the professor with one accord followed. Hiding in the friendly shadows of the landing once again, they heard the loud tones of the mayor's booming voice, and the softer tones of Bland's.
"How about this?" bellowed the mayor. "Hayden's squealed. Phones to Bland – not to me. Whines about the courts – I don't know what rot. He's squealed. He didn't phone the combination."
"The rat!" screamed Mr. Max.
"By the Lord Harry," said the mayor, "I'll have it open, anyhow. I've earned what's in there, fair and – I've earned it. I'm going to have it, Max."
"See here, Cargan – " put in Mr. Bland.
"Keep out of the way, you," cried Cargan. "And put away that pop-gun before you get hurt. I'm going to have what's mine by justice. That safe comes open to-night. Max, get your satchel."
Mr. Magee and the professor turned and ascended to the second floor. In front of number seven they paused and looked into each other's eyes. Professor Bolton shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm going to bed," he said, "and I advise you to do the same."
"Yes," replied Mr. Magee, but had no idea what he had said. As for the old man's advice, he had no intention of taking it. Melodrama – the thing he had come to Baldpate Inn to forget forever – raged through that home of solitude. Men spoke of guns, and swore, and threatened. What was it all about? And what part could he play in it all?
He entered number seven, and paused in amazement. Outside one of his windows Miss Norton stood, rapping on the glass for him to open. When he stood facing her at last, the window no longer between, he saw that her face was very pale and that her chin trembled as it had in the station.
"What is it?" cried Magee.
"I mustn't come in," she answered. "Listen. You said you wanted to help me. You can do so now. I'll explain everything later – this is all I need tell you just at present. Down-stairs in the safe there's a package containing two hundred thousand dollars. Do you hear – two hundred thousand. I must have that package. Don't ask me why. I came here to get it – I must have it. The combination was to have been phoned to Cargan at eight o'clock. I was hiding outside the window. Something went wrong – they didn't phone it. He's going to open the safe by force. I heard him say so. I couldn't wait to hear more – I saw him."