The House 'Round the Corner Part 20

"Naturally. If not, why do we honor great soldiers with pensions and peerages?"

"But that is in warfare, when nations are struggling for what they conceive to be their rights."

"Sometimes. The hardest tussle I was ever engaged in dealt with no more sacred trust than the safe-guarding of half a dozen bullocks. Certain fierce-whiskered scoundrels swore by the Prophet that they would rieve those cattle, and perhaps a rifle or two, with a collection of women's ornaments as a side line, while I was equally resolved that the lawful possessors thereof should not be harried. Fifteen men died in five minutes before the matter was settled in accordance with my wishes, and I accounted for three of them. I am not boasting of the achievement. It was a disagreeable necessity. I tell you of it now merely to dissipate any notion you may have formed as to my squeamishness in looking unpleasant facts squarely in the face. A man died here two years ago, and it would be sheer folly to pretend that your father knew nothing about it. I believe you will find that the dead man not only wore Mr.

Garth's clothes, but bore such a close facial and physical resemblance to him that people who had known him half a lifetime were deceived.

Then, there is the letter read by the coroner. I take it for granted that it was in your father's handwriting. If these things are true, and common sense tells me that we ought to go on that a.s.sumption, and on no other, Mr. Garth will surely be called upon to explain why he endeavored to hoodwink the authorities. If he comes here within the next few days he will certainly be arrested. That is why I ask you to send for your mother. Everything points to the belief that she knows why you left Elmdale. I reject the legacy theory _in toto_. By a strange coincidence, your parents may have had some money left to them by will about that time. If so, they merely took advantage of the fortunate chance which enabled them to explain the change of name without any violent wrenching of the probabilities. One word more to define my own position in this matter. I don't care tuppence whether or not your father killed anyone, or why. My sole concern is for you. I am responsible for the whole wretched muddle. Had I not gratified an impish taste for ferreting out mysteries, I would have allowed Betty Jackson to smuggle you out of the house yesterday. Had I obeyed the conventions--those shackles on the wayward-minded devised by generations of careful mammas--I would have bundled you off last night, or, if common charity forbade, sent you away at daybreak. Then, nothing would have happened, except that I should be burdened with a secret, no new thing in _my_ life. Now, will you send for Mrs. Ogilvey?"

"No," came the instant reply.

"Despite Mr. Percy Whittaker's warning, will you trust me so far as to explain your reason for refusing?"

"What do you mean by 'Percy Whittaker's warning'? I have told you nothing of what he said."

"I understand the type of man. He could no more refrain from suggesting that I was actuated by some underhanded motive than a flea-ridden dog from scratching."

"Please, don't pick a quarrel with Percy on my account," she pleaded tearfully.

"On your account I shall suffer Percy, even though he bray me in a mortar."

"Well, then, I'm--I'm sorry if I turned on you a little while ago. I apologize. You are really the only one I can appeal to for help at this moment. It was just because I felt the truth of all that you have said that I tried to force the same confession from you. Heaven help me, I am compelled to believe that my poor father got himself involved in some dreadful crime. It will all come out now. If the police get hold of him he will be put in prison. I must save him. Never did daughter love a father more than I love mine, and I'll sacrifice everything, reputation, happiness, even life itself, for his sake. And that is why my mother must not come here. I shall remain, and she will stay in Cornwall so as to safeguard him, if need be. You have no idea what an innocent he is in worldly affairs. If--if he had to escape--to get away from some foreign country--he could never manage it without her a.s.sistance. Don't you see, the decision must rest with me? I'll write to mother, and tell her what we know, and arrange some plan with her whereby dad will be able to avoid arrest. Oh, I can't make things clearer, but you are so kind and nice that you will understand--and help! Say you'll help, and I'll not cry any more--but be brave--and confident!"

While uttering that broken appeal she had come near, and a timid hand now rested on his shoulder. He looked down into her swimming eyes and saw there the perfect faith of a child. Never was man more tempted to take a woman in his arms and kiss away her fears than was Robert Armathwaite at that instant, but he recoiled from the notion as though a snake had reared its basilisk head from out of a bed of sweet-scented flowers. Nevertheless, he placed his hands on her shoulders, and now his left arm was entwined with her right arm, and they stood there in unconsciously lover-like pose.

"I'm glad you said that, little girl," he said quietly. "I shall not disappoint you, depend on that. If we have to break every statute therein made and provided, we'll save your father from the consequences of his own blundering or wrong-doing. Now, leave everything to me. If strangers, other than the police, ask you questions, refer them to your 'cousin.' Remember, you know nothing and can tell nothing as to bygone events, while you can say, if a demand is made for your father's present address, that I have advised you not to supply it. We must not appear to be actually defying the authorities. Our role is one of blank ignorance, combined with a pardonable curiosity to discover what all the fuss is about. I must not figure as a hindrance to inquiry, but merely as a distant relative who objects to your being bothered by a matter of which you, at least, have no knowledge. Now, one thing more--I want to see your father's handwriting. Will you give me the envelope which contained his letter?"

"Better still," said Marguerite, drying her eyes with a sc.r.a.p of lace which was supposed to be a pocket-handkerchief, "I'll give you the letter itself. You'll find it a highly incriminating doc.u.ment."

To reach the letter, which she had tucked into a waistbelt, she had to withdraw the other hand from Armathwaite's shoulder. He had no excuse to hold her any longer in that protecting way, and his own hands fell.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he became aware that Percy Whittaker was gazing at them through the window.

His first impulse was to tell his companion of this covert espionage, for it was nothing less. The two were talking in the drawing-room, so Whittaker had purposely walked past the porch in order to look in at them. Then he decided that the girl had worries in plenty without embroiling her with one who was admittedly an admirer, so he indulged in a little bit of acting on his own account.

When she produced the letter, he turned his back on the window, ostensibly to obtain a better light, and, at the same time, drew slightly to one side. The handwriting was scholarly but curiously legible, betraying the habit of a dabbler in strange words who printed rather than wrote, lest some playful compositor should invent a new and confounding philology.

The text certainly afforded a weird commentary on the circ.u.mstances which laid at the writer's door responsibility for an audacious crime.

It ran:

"MY DARLING MEG,--Chester has been a bookish city since the days of Julius Caesar. I have small doubt, if one dug deep in its foundations, one would come across an original ma.n.u.script in J.

C.'s own fist. I would impose a lighter task, however. Rummage one or two old bookshops, and get me Wentworth Webster's 'Basque Legends,' published in London in 1877 and 1879. I am hungering for it. Find it quickly, and come home. I need your sharp eyes.--Yours ever,

"Dad."

Marguerite watched Armathwaite's face while he read.

"Enough to hang anybody, isn't it?" she cried, with dolorous effort to speak in lighter vein.

"May I retain this? I shall take good care of it."

"Keep it as a souvenir. The identical book is lying on the library table."

Yet her mobile face clouded again, since it could not be denied that her father knew well that the book was in the Elmdale house, and was deliberately ignoring its existence there.

Armathwaite affected to look through the window.

"Hullo!" he said. "Whittaker has come back."

Whittaker, standing sideways, seemingly discovered them simultaneously.

He came in.

"Thompson speaks a language of his own," he drawled; "but the dispatch of a boy on a bicycle, and the resultant charge of three s.h.i.+llings, gave color to my belief that he understood the meaning of 'telegram.'

Otherwise, his remarks were gibberish."

"Percy," said Marguerite gravely, "Mr. Armathwaite and I have had a serious talk while you were out. He advised me to send for my mother, but, for various reasons, I have decided to fight this battle myself, with your aid, and Mr. Armathwaite's, of course."

Whittaker hesitated perceptibly before he spoke again. Like all neurotics, he had to flog himself into decision.

"I fully expected something of the sort, Meg," he said at last. "As I don't approve of the present state of affairs, I took it on myself to ask Edie to wire Mrs. Ogilvey, bidding her travel north by the next train."

"You didn't dare!" breathed the girl, whose very lips whitened with consternation.

"Oh, yes, I dared all right! A fellow must a.s.sert himself occasionally, you know. I can see plainly that you intend remaining in Elmdale till the mystery you have tumbled into is cleared up. In that case, your mother is the right person to take hold of the situation. You'll be vexed with me, no doubt, and tell me that I had no business to interfere, but I've thought this thing out, and I'm backing my judgment against yours. In a week, or less, you'll thank me. See if you don't."

"I shall never forgive you while I have breath in my body," she said, speaking with a slow laboriousness that revealed the tension of her feelings far more than the mere words.

"I was sure you'd say that, and must put up with it for the time being.

Anyhow, the thing is beyond our control now, and you know Edie well enough to guess that she'll do as I tell her."

"What did you tell her? I have a right to ask."

"I kept a copy of the message," he said with seeming nonchalance. "I'll read it: 'Meg greatly disturbed by rumors concerning death which occurred in Grange two years ago. Telegraph her mother at once, and recommend immediate journey to Elmdale.' Unless I'm greatly mistaken, that will bring Mrs. Ogilvey here without delay, especially when Edie adds her own comments."

Marguerite sank into a chair. Her sky had fallen. She was too unnerved now to find relief even in tears. She continued to glower at Whittaker as though he had become some fearsome and abhorrent object. Evidently, however, he had steeled himself against some such att.i.tude on her part.

"Don't forget there's two to one in this argument, Meg," he said, sitting down and producing a cigarette. "Since Mr. Armathwaite has elected to be your champion after a very brief acquaintance, I must point out that, by your own admission, he recommended the same thing.

The only difference is that while he talked I acted."

For a little time there was silence. Whittaker, brazening the thing out, lighted the cigarette. Armathwaite, unable to indulge the impulse which suggested the one effective way in which this decadent half-breed could be restrained from future interference, could not trust himself to speak. As for the girl, she seemed to be tongue-tied, but her laboring breath gave eloquent testimony of surcharged emotions.

Finally, wis.h.i.+ng to ease the strain, Armathwaite glanced at his watch.

The time was a few minutes after seven.

"I'm going into the village," he said. "I believe the dinner hour is 7:30, but I may not return till much later, so you might kindly tell Betty that I shall forage for myself when I come in."

"Don't leave me, Bob," came the despairing cry. "I can't bear to be left alone to-night."

"Very well," he said, yielding instantly to that heart-felt appeal.

"I'll entrust my business to a deputy. Look for me in ten minutes."