The Vagrant Duke Part 11

"I'll take my chances on that," replied Peter calmly. "I'm used to commanding men, in emergencies--if that's what you mean."

"Yes. That's what I mean. Er--you're an Englishman, Mr. Sheldon says."

"Er--yes," said Peter, "an Englishman," for this was the truth now more than ever before, and then repeated the story he had told in New York about his work in Russia. While Peter was talking, McGuire was pacing up and down the room with short nervous strides, nodding his head in understanding from time to time. When Peter paused he returned to his chair.

"You British are a pretty steady lot," said McGuire at last. "I think you'll do. I like the way you talk and I like your looks. Younger than I'd hoped maybe, but then you're strong--Mr. Sheldon says you're strong, Mr. Nichols."

"Oh, yes," said Peter, his curiosity now getting the better of him. "But it might be as well, Mr. McGuire, if you let me know just what, that is unusual, is to be required of me. I a.s.sume that you want me to take command of the men policing your grounds--and immediate property?"

"Er--yes. That will have to be put in shape at once--at once." He leaned suddenly forward in his chair, his hairy hands clutching at his knees, while he blurted out with a kind of relieved tension, "No one must come near the house at night. No one, you understand----"

"I understand, sir----" said Peter, waiting patiently for a revelation.

"There'll be no excuse if any one gets near the house without my permission," he snarled. And then almost sullenly again--"You understand?"

"Perfectly. That should not be difficult to----"

"It may be more difficult than you think," broke in McGuire, springing to his feet again, and jerking out his phrases with strange fury.

"Nothing is to be taken for granted. Nothing," he raged. Peter was silent for a moment, watching McGuire who had paced the length of the room and back.

"I understand, sir," he said at last. "But doesn't it seem to you that both I and the man under me could do our work with more intelligence if we knew just who or what is to be guarded against?" Mr. McGuire stopped beside him as though transfixed by the thought. Then his fingers clutched at the back of a chair to which he clung for a moment in silence, his brows beetling. And when he spoke all the breath of his body seemed concentrated in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"You won't know that. You understand, I give the orders. You obey them.

I am not a man who answers questions. Don't ask them."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. So long as this thing you fear is human----"

"Human! A ghost! Who said I was afraid? Sheldon? Let him think it. This is _my_ business. There are many things of value in this house," and he glanced towards the safe. "I'm using the right of any man to protect what belongs to him."

"I see," said Peter.

The man's tension relaxed as he realized Peter's coolness.

"Call it a fancy if you like, Mr. Nichols----" he said with a shrug. "A man of my age may have fancies when he can afford to gratify 'em."

"That's your affair," said Peter easily. "I take it then that the systematic policing of the grounds is the first thing I am to consider."

"Exactly. The systematic policing of the grounds--the dividing of your men into s.h.i.+fts for day and night work--more at night than in the day.

Three more men come to-morrow. They will all look to you for orders."

"And who is in charge now?"

"A man named Wells--a native--the foreman from one of the sawmills--but he--er--well, Mr. Nichols--I'm not satisfied. That's why I wanted a man from outside."

"I understand. And will you give the necessary orders to him?"

"Wells was up here to-day, I told him."

"How many men are on guard here at the house?"

"Ten and with the three coming--that makes thirteen----" McGuire halted--"thirteen--but you make the fourteenth," he added.

Peter nodded. "And you wish me to take charge at once?"

"At once. To-night. To-morrow you can look over the ground more carefully. You'll sleep in the old playhouse--the log cabin--down by the creek. They'll show you. It's connected with this house by 'phone. I'll talk to you again to-morrow; you'd better go down and get something to eat."

McGuire went to the door and called out "Tillie!"

And as a faint reply was heard, "Get Mr. Nichols some supper."

Peter rose and offered his hand.

"I'll try to justify your faith in me, sir. Much obliged."

"Good-night."

Peter went down the stairs with mingled feelings. If the words of Beth Cameron had created in his mind a notion that the mystery surrounding Black Rock was supernatural in character, the interview with Jonathan K.

McGuire had dispelled it. That McGuire was a very much frightened man was certain, but it seemed equally certain to Peter that what he feared was no ghost or banshee but the imminence of some human attack upon his person or possessions. Here was a practical man, who bore in every feature of his strongly-marked face the tokens of a successful struggle in a hard career, the beginnings of which could not have been any too fortunate. A westerner whose broad hands and twisted fingers spoke eloquently of manual labor, a man who still possessed to all appearances considerable physical strength--a prey to the fear of some night danger which was too ominous even to be talked about.

It was the quality of his terror that was disturbing. Peter was well acquainted with the physical aspects of fear--that is the fear of violence and death. That kind of fear made men restless and nervous, or silent and preoccupied; or like liquor it accentuated their weaknesses of fiber in sullenness or bravado. But it did not make them furtive. He could not believe that it was the mere danger of death or physical violence that obsessed his employer. That sort of danger perhaps there might be, but the fear that he had seen in McGuire's fanatical gray eyes was born of something more than these. Whatever it was that McGuire feared, it reached further within--a threat which would destroy not his body alone, but something more vital even than that--the very spirit that lived within him.

Of his career, Peter knew nothing more than Sheldon, Senior, had told him--a successful man who told nothing of his business except to the Treasury Department, a silent man, with a pa.s.sion for making money. What could he fear? Whom? What specter out of the past could conjure up the visions he had seen dancing between McGuire's eyes and his own?

These questions it seemed were not to be answered and Peter, as he sat down at the supper table, put them resolutely from his mind and addressed himself to the excellent meal provided by the housekeeper. For the present, at least, fortune smiled upon him. The terrors of his employer could not long prevail against the healthy appet.i.te of six-and-twenty.

But it was not long before Peter discovered that the atmosphere of the room upstairs pervaded the dining room, library and halls. There were a cook and housemaid he discovered, neither of them visible. The housekeeper, if attentive, was silent, and the man who had opened the front door, who seemed to be a kind of general factotum, as well as personal bodyguard to Mr. McGuire, crept furtively about the house in an unquiet manner which would have been disturbing to the digestion of one less timorous than Peter.

Before the meal was finished this man came into the room and laid a police whistle, a large new revolver and a box of cartridges beside Peter's dish of strawberries.

"These are for you, sir," he whispered sepulchrally. "Mr. McGuire asked me to give them to you--for to-night."

"Thanks," said Peter, "and you----"

"I'm Stryker, sir, Mr. McGuire's valet."

"Oh!"

Peter's accent of surprise came from his inability to reconcile Stryker with the soiled s.h.i.+rt and the three days' growth of beard on the man upstairs, which more than ever testified to the disorder of his mental condition.

And as Stryker went out and his footsteps were heard no more, the housekeeper emerged cautiously from the pantry.

"Is everything all right, Mr. Nichols?" she asked in a stage whisper.

"Right as rain. Delicious! I'm very much obliged to you."

"I mean--er--there ain't anythin' else ye'd like?"

"Nothing, thanks," said Peter, taking up the revolver and breaking it.