The City of Fire Part 26

Billy read no further. He clapped down a nickel and stuffed the paper indifferently into his pocket, almost forgetting in his disgust to purchase the county news. "Aw Gee!" he said to himself. "More o' that Judas stuff. I gotta get rid o' them thirty pieces!"

He stepped back and bought a County paper, stood idly looking over its pages a moment with the letters swimming before his eyes, at last discovering the column where the Economy "murder" was discussed, and without reading it stuffed it in the pocket on the other side and rode away into the sunlight. Murder! It was called murder! Then Dolph must be dead! The plot thickened! Dead! Murder! Who killed him? Surely he wasn't responsible for that at least! He was out on the road with Mark when it happened. He hadn't done anything which in the remotest way had to do with the killing, he thanked his lucky stars for that. And Mark. But who did it? Cherry? She might be a reason for what Mark did last night.

At a turn in the road where a little grove began he got off his wheel and seeking a sheltered spot dropped down under a tree to read his papers. His quick eye searched through the County paper first for the sensational account of the murder, and a gray look settled over his pug countenance as he read. So might a mother have regarded her child in deep trouble, or a lover his beloved. Billy's spirit was bowed to the depths. When he had devoured every word he flung the paper aside wrathfully, and sat up with a kind of hopeless gesture of his hard young hands. "Aw Gee!" he said aloud, and suddenly he felt a great wet blob rolling down his freckled cheek. He smashed it across into his hair with a quick slash of his dirty hand as if it had been a mosquito annoying him, and lest the other eye might be meditating a like trick he gave that a vicious dab and hauled out the other paper, more as a matter of form than because he had a deep interest in it. All through the description of those wonderful Shafton jewels, and the mystery that surrounded the disappearance of the popular young man, Billy could see the word "murder" dancing like little black devils in and out among the letters. The paragraph about Mrs. Shafton's collapse held him briefly:

"Aw, gee!" he could see pink tears everywhere. He supposed he ought to do something about that. For all the world like Aunt Saxon! He seemed to sense her youth through the printed words as he had once sensed Mrs.

Carter's. He saw her back in school, pretty and little. Rich women were always pretty and little to his mind, pretty and little and helpless and always crying. It was then that the thought was born that made him look off to the hills and ponder with drawn brows and anxious mien. He took it back to his home with him and sat moodily staring at the lilac bushes, and gave Aunt Saxon another bad day wondering what had come to Willie. She would actually have been glad to hear him say: "I gotta beat it! I gotta date with tha fellas!"

That evening the rumor crept back to Sabbath Valley from who knows where that Dolph was dead and Mark Carter had run away!

XXI

Tuesday morning Lynn slipped down to Carters with a little cake she had made all white frosting and sprinkles of nuts. Her face was white but brave with a smile, and she said her mother wanted to know how Mrs.

Carter's neuralgia was getting on.

But Mrs. Carter was the only one in the village perhaps who had not heard the rumor, and she was gracious and pleased and said she wished Mark was home, he loved nut cake so much.

"You know he was called back to New York suddenly last night didn't you?" she said. "He felt real sorry to leave so soon, but his partner wired him there was something he must see to himself, and he just took his car and went right away as soon as he got back from taking that girl home. He hoped he'd get back again soon though. Say, who was that girl?

Wasn't she kind of queer to ask Mark to take her home? Seems somehow girls are getting a little forward these days. I know you'd never do a thing like that with a perfect stranger, Marilyn."

The girl only stayed a few minutes, and went home with a braver heart.

At least Mark was protecting his mother. He had not changed entirely. He wouldn't let her suffer! But what was he doing? Oughtn't he to be told what rumors were going around about him? But how could it be done? Her father? Perhaps. She shrank from that, Mark had so withdrawn from them, he might take it as an interference. Billy? Ah, yes, Billy!

But Billy did not appear anywhere, and when she got back she found that Shafton's car had been finished and was ready to drive, and he wanted her to take a little spin with him to try it, he said. He warily invited her mother to go along, for he saw by her face that she was going to decline, and the mother watching her daughter's white face said: "Yes, Marilyn we will go. It will do you good. You have been housed up here ever since you came home." And there was nothing for the girl to do but succ.u.mb or seem exceedingly rude. She was not by nature rude, so she went.

As they drove by the Saxon cottage Billy was just coming out, and he stared glumly at the three and hardly acknowledged Marilyn's greeting.

He stared after them scowling.

"h.e.l.l!" said Billy aloud, regardless of Aunt Saxon at the front window, "Yes _h.e.l.l_!" and he realized the meaning of his epithet far better than the young man he was staring after had the first night he had used it in Sabbath Valley.

"What was that you said Willie?" called Aunt Saxon's anxious voice.

"Aw, nothing!" said Billy, and slammed out the gate, his wheel by his side. _Now_! Something had to be done. He couldn't have _that_ going on. He was hurt at Mrs. Severn. She ought to take better care of her daughter! In sullen despair he mounted and rode away to work out his problem. It was certain he couldn't do anything with Saxy snivelling round. And _something had to be done!_

Billy managed to get around the country quite a little that morning. He rode up to Economy and learned that Mr. Fenner, the tailor, was sick, had been taken two nights ago, was delirious and had to have two men to hold him down. He thought everybody was an enemy and tried to choke them all. He rode past the jail but saw nothing though he circled the block three times. The Chief stood out in front talking with three strange men. Billy sized them up for detectives. When there was nothing further to be gained in Economy he turned his steed toward Pleasant Valley and took in a little underground telephone communication between a very badly scared Pat and a very angry Sam at some unknown point at the end of the wire. It was then, lying hidden in the thick undergrowth, that a possible solution of his difficulties occurred to him, a form of n.o.ble self sacrifice that might in part do penance for his guilt. Folded safely in his inner pocket was the thirty pieces of silver, the blood money, the price of Mark Carter's freedom and good name. If he had not taken that he might have fixd this Pat so he would be a witness to Mark's alibi. But according to the code he had been taught it would not be honorable to squeal on somebody whose money he had taken. It wasn't square. It wasn't honorable. It was yella, and yella, he would not be if the sky fell. It was all the religion he had as yet, not to be "yella."

It stood for all the fineness of his soul. But he had reasoned within himself that if in some way he could get that money back to Pat, then he would be free from obligation. Then he could somehow manage to put Pat where he would have to tell the right thing to save Mark. Just how it could be done he wasn't sure, but that was another question.

When Pat had trundled away to the train he rolled himself out from ambush and went on his way across Lone Valley by a little tree-shaded path he knew that cut straight over to Stark mountain.

Not a ripple of a leaf showed above him as he pa.s.sed straight up the mountain to the old house, for the watchful eye looking out to see.

Billy was a great deal like an Indian in his goings and comings, and Billy was wary. Had he not seen the winking light? Billy was taking no chances. Smoothly folded in his hip pocket he carried a leaf of the New York paper wherein was offered a large reward for information concerning jewels and bonds and other property taken from the Shafton country home on pretense of setting free the son. Also there was a stupendous reward offered for information concerning the son, and Billy's big thought as he crept along under the trees with all the stealth of a wild thing, was that here was another thirty pieces of silver multiplied many times, and _he wasn't going to take it!_ He _could, but he wouldn't!_ He was going to give these folks the information they wanted, but he wasn't going to get the benefit of it. That was going to be his punishment. He had been in h.e.l.l long enough, and he was going to try to pull himself out of it by his good works. And he would do it in such a way that there wouldn't be any chance of the reward being pressed upon him. He would just fix it so that n.o.body would particularly know he had anything to do with the clews. That was Billy all over. He never did a thing half way. But first he must find out if there was anybody about the old house. He couldn't get away from those three winks he had seen.

So, feeling almost relieved for a moment Billy left his wheel on guard and crept around to his usual approach at the back before he came out in the open. And then he crept cautiously to the cellar window where he had first entered the house. He gripped Pat's old gun with one hand in his pocket, and slid along like a young snake, taking precaution not to appear before the cellar window lest his shadow should fall inside. He flattened himself at last upon the gra.s.s a noticeless heap of gray khaki trousers and brown flannel s.h.i.+rt close against the house. One would have to lean far out of a window to see him, and there he lay and listened awhile. And presently from the depths beyond that grated window he heard a little scratch, scratch, scratch, tap, tap, tap, scratch, tap, scratch, tap, steadily, on for sometime like his heart beats, till he wasn't sure he was hearing it at all, and thought it might be the blood pounding through his ears, so strange and uncanny it seemed. Then, all at once there came a puff, as if a long breath had been drawn, like one lifting a heavy weight, and then a dull thud. A brief silence and more scratching in soft earth now.

He listened for perhaps an hour, and once a footstep grated on the cement floor, and coals rattled down as if they were disturbed. Once too a soft chirrup from up above like the call of a wood bird, only strangely human and the sounds in the cellar ceased altogether, till another weird note sounded and they began again.

When he was satisfied with his investigations he began slowly to back away from his position, lifting each atom of muscle slowly one at a time till his going must have been something like the motion picture of a bud unfolding, and yet as silent as the flower grows he faded away from that cellar window back into the green and no one was the wiser. An hour later the watchful eye at the little half moon opening in the shutter might have seen a little black speck like a spider whizzing along on the Highroad and turning down toward Sabbath Valley, but it never would have looked as if it came from Stark mountain, for it was headed straight from Lone Valley. Billy was going home to get cleaned up and make a visit to the parsonage. If that guy was still there he'd see how quick he would leave! If there wasn't one way to make him go there was another, and Billy felt that he held the trick.

But as fate would have it Billy did not have to get cleaned up, for Miss Severn stood on the front porch looking off toward the mountains with that wistful expression of hers that made him want to laugh and cry and run errands for her anywhere just to serve her and make her smile, and she waved her hand at Billy, and ran down to the gate to speak to him.

"Billy, I want to ask you,--If you were to see Mark Carter--of course you mightn't, but then you might--you'll let him know that we are of course his friends, and that anything he wants done, if he'll just let us know--"

"Sure!" said Billy lighting off his wheel with a downward glance at his dirty self, all leaves and dust and grime, "Sure, he'd know that anyhow."

"Well, Billy, I know he would, but I mean, I thought perhaps you might find something we _could do_,--something maybe without letting him know.

He's very proud about asking any help you, know, and he wouldn't want to bother us. You may discover something he--needs--or wants done--while--he is away--and maybe we could help him out, Father or Mother or I. You'll remember, won't you Billy?"

"Sure!" said Billy again feeling the warm glow of her friendliness and loyalty to Mark, and digging his toes into the turf embarra.s.sedly. Then he looked up casually as he was about to leave:

"Say is there a guy here named Shafton? Man from n'Yark?"

"Why, yes," said Lynn looking at him curiously, "Did you want to see him?"

"Well, if he's round I might. I got a message for him."

She looked at him keenly:

"You haven't _seen_ Mark to-day, have you, Billy?"

"Aw, naw,'taint from him," he grinned rea.s.suringly, "He's away just now.

But I might see him soon ya know, ur hear from him."

Lynn's face cleared. "Yes, of course. His mother told me he was suddenly called back to New York."

"Yep. That's right!" said Billy as if he knew all about it, and pulled off his old cap with a glorious wave as she turned to call the stranger.

Billy dropped his wheel at the curb and approached the steps as he saw Shafton coming slowly out leaning on a cane. He rustled the folded newspaper out from his pocket with one hand and shook it open as only a boy's sleight of hand can do, wafting it in front of the astonished Laurie, and saying with an impudent swag,

"Say, z'your name Shafton? Well, _see that?_ Why don't you beat it home?

Your ma is about t'croke, an' yer dad has put up about all his dough, an' you better rustle back to where you come from an' tell 'em not to b'leeve all the bunk that's handed out to 'em! Good night! They must need a nurse!"

Laurie paused in the act of lighting one of his interminable cigarettes with which he supplied the lack of a stronger stimulant, and stared at the boy curiously, then stared at the paper he held in his hand with the flaring headlines, and reaching out his hand for it began to laugh:

"Well, upon my word, Kid, where'd you get this? If that isn't a joke! I wonder if Opal's seen it. Miss Severn, come here! See what a joke! I'm kidnapped! Did you ever hear the like? Look at the flowery sentences.

It's almost like reading one's own obituary, isn't it?"

Marilyn, glancing over his shoulder at the headlines, took in the import of it instantly. "I should think you'd want to telephone your mother at once. How she must have suffered!" she said.

Laurie somewhat sobered agreed that it would be a good idea:

"The mater's a good old scout," he said lightly, "She's always helping me out of sc.r.a.pes, but this is one too many to give up her emeralds, the Shafton Emeralds! Gosh but dad will be mad about them! And Oh, say, call that boy back will you? I want to give him a dollar!"

But Billy had faded down the road with mortal indignation in his breast.

To think of giving up a ten thousand dollar reward and having a dollar flung at you! It seemed to measure the very depth of the shame to which he had descended.