The Rose in the Ring Part 39

Except for the schoolboyish signature, that was all; but there was a world of importance between the laconic lines. David caught the early morning stage and was on his way over the ridge to the railroad with old Jeff, before eight o'clock.

He reached home that night, surprising the housekeeper and servants. To his amazement, they knew absolutely nothing of d.i.c.k Cronk. He had not been there, nor any one answering to the description. David was thunderstruck. He carefully examined the letter, which he had retained.

There could be no mistake as to the stationery or the postmark. He went to his room, gravely mystified by the circ.u.mstance. A messenger was sent post haste to the village hard by, with instructions to find d.i.c.k if he were at either of the boarding-houses. The master of Jenison Hall could not help chuckling to himself in contemplation of the crafty tricks the writer of the letter had employed in securing his information and in appropriating stationery.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when the darky boy returned with the word that no one fitting the description had been seen in the village.

"But he must be there," said the young master, vastly perplexed and not a little annoyed.

"Yas, sah," agreed the darky, not for a moment questioning the a.s.sertion that fell from his master's lips. If "Ma.r.s.e David" said he was there, he _was_ there; that is all there could be to it. "He suttinly mus' be thah, sah. But I 'spec's he mussa fo'got to tell anybody 'bout hit, sah."

"Ask Jeff to call me early in the morning, Pete," said David. "Good night."

"Good night, Ma.r.s.e David."

The boy went out, gently closing the door behind him. Almost instantly it was reopened.

"What now, Pete?" demanded David, who, with his back to the door, was advancing to the mahogany bureau across the room. He came in line with the tall mirror that surmounted the chest of drawers. His fingers stopped suddenly in the light task of removing a pin from his scarf.

Just inside the door stood Artful d.i.c.k Cronk, a genial smile reflecting itself in the mirror which confronted the other. David stared unbelievingly for a few seconds and then whirled to face the--but it was not an apparition.

The lean, cunning visage of the pickpocket was illumined by the never-to-be-forgotten smile of guilelessness that so ably stood him in hand in moments of peril. The humor of it gradually succ.u.mbed to the satirical leer that always came to translate his strange sophistry into something more expressive than mere words. He was plainly enjoying the effect of his magic invasion. To make the puzzle all the more startling, Mr. Cronk was attired in one of David's loose dressing-gowns. He wore a pair of comfortable slippers and he smoked David's picturesque Algerian pipe. A picture of domestic contentment was he. You might have taken him to be the owner of the house, and not the sly intruder.

"What are you doing in my room?" d.i.c.k demanded, a.s.suming an air of severity.

David's astonishment gave way to a hearty laugh. He advanced with his hand extended.

"Well, you _do_ beat the world," he exclaimed. "In the name of heaven, where did you come from?"

They shook hands. d.i.c.k's sprightly face presented a myriad of joyous wrinkles.

"Where did I come from, kid--I should say, Mr. Jenison? I--"

"Call me David," interrupted the other.

"Sure! Come from? Take a seat, kid. You are my guest for the evening.

Make yourself at home. I've got a couple of toddies planted here behind the dresser. You see, I was expectin' you." He went over and, reaching down behind the bureau, came up with two toddy gla.s.ses in which the ice clinked cheerily. "I made 'em just before you came in," he explained.

David pa.s.sed his hand across his brow. Then he accepted one of the gla.s.ses from the pseudo host.

"Do you mean to tell me that you were in this room all the time I sat over there waiting--"

d.i.c.k put his finger to his lips. "s.h.!.+ Not so loud, please. I'm not really supposed to be here, you know. Just think what heart disease would do to the wooly old boy that runs the front door if he heard you talking to me at this time o' night. I'm glad to see you, David. You got my letter, I see. Well, well, it's wonderful what a two-cent stamp'll do sometimes. A postage stamp is the greatest detective I know of. I've had 'em find me time and again, right off the real, when twenty plain-clothes men couldn't get a smell of me to save their souls. Sit down, David. Make yourself at home. It's good to see you here, old chap. I'm sorry you must be leaving so soon."

"Leaving so soon?"

"Yep. You're going away to-morrow." He was sitting now, with his long legs crossed, leaning lazily back in the lounging chair at the end of David's desk.

"Don't talk in riddles, d.i.c.k. What's up? And how do you happen to be here, occupying my house without the knowledge of my servants?"

"A simple question, with a simple answer. I've been here two days and two nights, right here in the house. My bedchamber is down the hall there, and this has been my lounging room. Of course, I had my meals in the dining-room--my after-the-theater suppers, you might say. It's been good fun, foolin' the servants. I hope you don't mind my fakin' grub from your larder, kid. I used to sit around, unbeknownst to the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and listen to them talk about spirits and ghosts and all that sort of thing. It was most amusin'. They couldn't account for the disappearance of pies and cakes and Sally Lunn--say, how I do love Sally Lunn. And jam, too. To say nothin' of fried chicken. Say! I've been living like a prince, kid. Sleepin' in a real bed and hangin'

around in swell togs like these. Say! You _do_ know how to live, David.

You'd have been very much entertained half an hour ago if you could have seen me swipe a Was.h.i.+ngton pie and a quart of milk right out from under the nose of old Aunt f.a.n.n.y. Milk is my favorite beverage, David.

You notice I'm not drinkin' this fire-water. I made two of 'em for company's sake, but I still turn my back on the wine when it's pink.

Not for me--not for little d.i.c.ky-bird."

"I don't see how you do it, d.i.c.k," cried David delightedly.

"That's part of my game, kid--not letting people see how I do anything.

But it's as simple as rollin' off a log, as the jays say. I must confess--and that is something I make it a rule never to do--that this high living is not good for me. I'll get into awful habits, if I keep it up. I won't be satisfied with pretzels and bologny sausages. Seems to me I feel a touch of the gout coming on now."

"You will have breakfast with me in the dining-room to-morrow morning, d.i.c.k," announced the master of the house. "It won't be necessary to swipe it, as you call it."

d.i.c.k grinned. "My dear chap," he mimicked, "I have my breakfast stowed away in the garret at this minute. Never put off till to-morrow what you ought to do to-day. In time of plenty prepare for famine. Still, if you insist, I'll join you at some ham and eggs--and coffee. I _do_ miss my coffee, old chap. We take a train for Richmond at nine A. M."

David's patience gave out. "What does it all mean, d.i.c.k? I must know at once. It must be important or you wouldn't--"

"Maybe it's important and maybe it ain't," philosophized d.i.c.k, relighting the long pipe.

"Well, let's have it."

"Tom Braddock's out."

"Out? I don't understand."

d.i.c.k's surprise was genuine. "You don't mean to say you never heard what happened to him?"

"Joey wrote me that he had gone completely to the dogs in Chicago."

"Joey's off his nut. Brad's just out of Sing Sing."

"Sing Sing! The penitentiary?"

"The sure-enough cooler. He's been there for nearly three years."

"Christine's father a convict!" groaned David.

"As I said before, he's out. It may interest you to know that I spent a year's vacation up there in '78. I needed the rest, old chap. Brad came in shortly after I got settled. He _had_ been in Chicago for two years, boning his friends and living like a gutter-snipe. We spent most of our evenings at Sing Sing on the same piazza. During the day we sauntered back and forth between our apartments and the academy for physical research. Just to amuse ourselves we learned to make barrel staves between times. It was two months before we managed to speak to one another. After that we corresponded quite reg'lar. I had notes from him, and he from me. I soon got on to Brad's troubles. Seems that Bob Grand owed him several thousand dollars. He had owed it for more 'n two years. Some deal in connection with the show. You remember Brad was froze out soon after his wife left the aggregation in '75. He says Grand bulldozed him into duckin' the--I mean, leavin' the show, all the time owin' him the long green. Seems that Brad hadn't delivered all the goods mentioned in the bill of sale. Bob wouldn't settle until he got the goods.

"Well, Brad hung around Chicago, fightin' firewater and always gettin'

licked at it, for two years or more. Then he up and sashayed to New York for a show-down with our old friend Robert. He had blood in his eye, Brad had. He'd been buncoed bad, and a bad man hates that worse than the thought of h.e.l.l. When he got to New York he hunted up Mr. Bob Grand, who was just leavin' for England. It seems that Brad's wife and girl had been located over there by the Colonel, who had never stopped lookin' for them. Which is more than you could say for Brad. Mrs.

Braddock, through her father and a firm of lawyers, had forced old Colonel Dough-face to fork over a big wad of greenbacks. Her share in the show, you understand. Brad heard of it in some way. So he concludes he'll get in his little graft. He goes to the Colonel's rooms in a hotel on Broadway, but misses him. Then he lays for him on the street.

They have it hot and heavy, back and forth, and it all ends with the Colonel puttin' over a job on Brad that lands him in the cooler. Charge of highway robbery. Brad gets three years in the pen. I'll say this for him, though; I'm dead sure he wasn't guilty."

d.i.c.k paused to relight his pipe.

David was trembling with eagerness. "What did he have to say of Mrs.

Braddock and Christine? I am interested only in them, d.i.c.k."

"He's up a tree regardin' them. They never peeped, so far as he's concerned. He never heard from them after they dusted that time. Of course, he thinks it was a put-up job, that gag of the Colonel's, payin' her all that money. He argues that it was all understood between 'em, and that it wasn't a squeeze on her part. The Colonel denied it, mighty strong, sayin' he had never heard from Mrs. Braddock until her lawyers and old man Portman came down on him, just after his own wife had got a divorce from him."