Colonel Carter of Cartersville Part 13

In ten minutes he returned with the mystifying news that Mr. Klutchem's letters had been sent to his apartment the night before, and that a telegram had just been received notifying his clerks that he would not be down that day.

"Escaped, suh, has he? Run like a dog! Like a yaller dog as he is!

Where has he gone?"

"After a policeman, I guess," said Fitz.

The colonel stopped, and an expression of profound contempt overspread his face.

"If the gentleman has fallen so low, suh, that he proposes to go about with a constable taggin' after his heels, you can tell him, suh, that he is safe even from my boot."

Then he shut the door of the private office in undisguised disgust, leaving Fitz and me on the outside.

"What are we going to do, Major?" said Fitz, now really anxious. "I am positive that old Klutchem has either left town or is at this moment at police headquarters. If so, the dear old fellow will be locked up before sundown. Klutchem got that letter last night."

It was at once decided to head off the broker, Fitz keeping an eye on his office every half hour in the hope that he might turn up, and I completing the arrangements for the colonel's bail so as to forestall the possibility of his remaining in custody overnight.

Fitz spent the day in efforts to lay hands on Klutchem in order to prevent the law performing the same service for the colonel. My own arrangements were more easily completed, a friend properly possessed of sufficient real estate to make good his bond being in readiness for any emergency. One o'clock came, then three, then five; the colonelall the time keeping to the seclusion of his private office, Fitz watching for Klutchem, and I waiting in the larger office for the arrival of one of those clean-shaven, thick-set young men, in a Derby hat and sack-coat, the unexpected pair of handcuffs in his outside pocket.

The morning of the second day the situation remained still unchanged; Fitz had been unable to find Klutchem either at his office or at his lodgings, the colonel was still without any reply from his antagonist, and no young man answering to my fears had put in any appearance whatever.

The only new features were a telegram from Tom Yancey to the effect that he and Judge Kerfoot would arrive about noon, and another from the judge himself begging a postponement until they could reach the field.

Fitz read both dispatches in a corner by himself, with a face expressive of the effect these combined troubles were making upon his otherwise happy countenance. He then crumpled them up in his hand and slid them into his pocket.

Up to this time not a soul in the office except the colonel, Fitz, and I had the faintest hint of the impending tragedy, it being one of the colonel's maxims that all affairs of honor demanded absolute silence.

"If yo' enemy falls," he would say, "it is mo' co'teous to say nothin'

but good of the dead; and when you cannot say that, better keep still.

If he is alive let him do the talkin'--he will soon kill himself."

Fitz kept still because he felt sure if he could get hold of Klutchem the whole affair--either outcome powder or law--could be prevented.

"Just as I had got the syndicate to look into the coal land," said Fitz, "which is the only thing the colonel's got worth talking about, here he goes and gets into a first-cla.s.s cast-iron sc.r.a.pe like this.

What a lovely old idiot he is! But I tell you, Major, something has got to be done about this shooting business right away! Here I have arranged for a meeting at the colonel's house on Sat.u.r.day to discuss this new coal development, and the syndicate's agent is coming, and yet we can't for the life of us tell whether the colonel will be on his way home in a pine box or locked up here for trying to murder that old windbag. It's horrible!

"And to cap the climax,"--and he pulled out the crumpled telegrams,--"here come a gang of fire-eaters who will make it twice as difficult for me to settle anything. I wish I could find Klutchem!"

While he spoke the office door opened, ushering in a stout man with a red face, accompanied by an elderly white-haired gentleman, in a b.u.t.ternut suit. The red-faced man was carrying a carpet bag--not the Northern variety of wagon-curtain canvas, but the old-fas.h.i.+oned carpet kind with leather handles and a mouth like a catfish. The snuff-colored gentleman's only charge was a heavy hickory cane and an umbrella with a waist like a market-woman's.

The red-faced man took off a wide straw hat and uncovered a head slightly bald and reeking with perspiration.

"I'm lookin' fur Colonel Caarter, suh. Is he in?"

Fitz pointed to the door of the private office, and the elderly man drew his cane and rapped twice. The colonel must have recognized the signal as familiar, for the door opened with a spring, and the next moment he had them both by the hands.

"Why, Jedge, this is indeed an honor--and Tom! Of co'se I knew you would come, Tom; but the Jedge I did not expec' until I got yo'

telegram. Give me yo' bag, and put yo' umbrella in the corner.

"Here Fitz, Major; both of you come in here at once.

"Jedge Kerfoot, gentlemen, of the district co'te of Fairfax County.

Major Tom Yancey, of the army."

The civilities over, extra chairs were brought in, the door again closed, and a council of war was held.

Major Yancey's first word--but I must describe Yancey. Imagine a short, oily skinned, perpetually perspiring sort of man of forty, with a decollete collar, a double-breasted waistcoat with gla.s.s b.u.t.tons, and skin-tight light trousers held down to a pair of high-heeled boots by leather straps. The s.p.a.ce between his waistband and his waistcoat was made good by certain puckerings of his s.h.i.+rt anxious to escape the thralldom of his suspenders. His paunch began and ended so suddenly that he constantly reminded you of a man who had swallowed a toy balloon.

Yancey's first word was an anxious inquiry as to whether he was late, adding, "I came ez soon ez I could settle some business mattahs." He had borrowed his traveling expenses from Kerfoot, who in turn had borrowed them from Miss Nancy, keeping the impending duel carefully concealed from that dear lady, and reading only such part of the colonel's letter as referred to the drawing up of some important papers in which he was to figure as chief executor.

"Late? No, Tom," said the colonel; "but the scoundrel has run to cover.

We are watchin' his hole."

"You sholy don't tell me he's got away, Colonel?" replied Major Yanccy.

"What could I do, Yancey? He hasn't had the decency to answer my letter."

Yancey, however, on hearing more fully the facts, clung to the hope that the Yankee would yet be smoked out.

"I of co'se am not familiar with the code as practiced Nawth--perhaps these delays are permis'ble; but in my county a challenge is a ball, and a man is killed or wounded ez soon ez the ink is dry on the papah.

The time he has to live is only a mattah of muddy roads or convenience of seconds. Is there no way in which this can be fixed? I doan't like to return home without an effo't bein' made."

The colonel, anxious to place the exact situation before Major Yancey so that he might go back fully a.s.sured that everything that a Carter could do had been done, read the copy of the challenge, gave the details of Fitz's efforts to find Klutchem, the repeated visits to his office, and finally the call at his apartments.

The major listened attentively, consulted aside with the judge, and then in an authoritative tone, made the more impressive by the decided way with which he hitched up his trousers, said:--

"You have done all that a high-toned Southern gemman could do, Colonel.

Yo' honor, suh, is without a stain."

In which opinion he was sustained by Kerfoot, who proved to be a ponderous sort of old-fas.h.i.+oned county judge, and who accentuated his decision by bringing down his cane with a bang.

While all this was going on in the private office under cover of profound secrecy, another sort of consultation of a much more public character was being held in the office outside.

A very bright young man--one of the clerks--held in his hand a large envelope, bearing on one end the printed address of the firm whose private office the colonel was at that moment occupying as a council chamber. It was addressed in the colonel's well-known round hand. This was not the fact, however, which excited interest; for the colonel never used any other envelopes than those of the firm.

The postman, who had just taken it from his bag, wanted to deliver it at its destination. The proprietor wanted to throw it back into the box for remailing, believing it to be a Garden Spot circular, and so of no especial importance. The bright young man wanted to return it to the colonel.

The bright young man prevailed, rapped at the door, and laid the letter under the colonel's nose. It bore this address:--

P. A. KLUTCHEM, ESQ., Room 21, Star Building, Wall Street, _Immediate._ New York.

The colonel turned pale and broke the seal. Out dropped his challenge!

"Where did you get this?" he asked, aghast.

"From the carrier. It was held for postage."

Had a bombsh.e.l.l been exploded the effect could not have been more startling.

Yancey was the first man on his feet.