Ross could feel sorry enough for Eddy, for his ghastly trip to the pond, for all the dread and misery that lay upon his soul. He was sorry for Ives, although his sufferings were at an end. He pitied Mr. Solway, in his ignorance of all this. He was sorry, in his own way, for Amy. But, above all creatures in this world, he pitied that little child.
Eddy told him about her. When Ives had gone to “Day’s End,” he had left the child with the obliging barber in town, and she had been there all that night and the next day, until Mrs. Jones had sent Eddy after her.
“She said it would start people talking, if the kid stayed there, and she told me to take her back to the cottage and leave her till she made some plans. But I couldn’t do that. The way I felt last night, I didn’t care. I’d rather have seen the whole thing go to smash than leave the kid alone there all night. That’s why I brung her here. And this morning—I couldn’t stay there—in that house. It kind of gave me the creeps. So I took her back to the barber’s.” He paused.
“Jones don’t care about the kid,” he added. “She don’t care about anything on earth but Amy. Lissen here! I know she’s old and all, but I think—maybe she—I just wonder if the old girl had the nerve?”
Ross had had that thought, too. But it seemed to him that, no matter who had actually done this thing, even if it were an accident—which he did not believe—the guilt still lay upon the woman who had betrayed and abandoned the man and the child. Amy was guilty, and no one else. He straightened up, with a sigh.
“Come along!” he said. “We’ll get our dinner. No! Don’t be a fool, my lad. It’s what you need.”
Eddy was considerably relieved by his confession. He went upstairs, washed, changed his coat, and brushed his glossy hair, and when he set off toward the house, there was a trace of his old swagger about him. Only a trace, though, for he walked beneath a shadow.
As for Ross, there was precious little change to be discerned in his dour face and impassive bearing. And it was his very good fortune to be so constituted that he did not show what he felt, for he was to receive an unexpected shock.
“Sit down!” said Gracie, sharply. “I put somethin’ aside for you. Now hurry up! It puts me back with the dishes an’ all.”
“An’ thim extry people,” said the cook, who was also a little out of temper. “There’ll not be enough butter for breakfast, the way they did be eatin’, an’ me without a word of warnin’ at all.”
“It’s that Mr. Teagle,” said Gracie. “Them small men is always heavy eaters.”
“Teagle? Who’s he?” asked Eddy.
“Haven’t you heard?” cried Gracie, almost unable to believe that she was to have the bliss of imparting this amazing news. “Why, there was a body found in a lake somewheres.”
“Oh, I heard about that, down at the comp’ny!” said Eddy, scornfully.
“But lissen, Eddy! It turns out it was a cousin o’ Miss Amy’s! It seems they found some papers an’ letters an’ all near where they found him, an’ he turns out to be her cousin! This Mr. Teagle, he’s a lawyer. They sent for him, an’ he come out here to look at the poor feller, and then he come to the house, ’cause Miss Amy’s goin’ to get all his money. She took on somethin’ terrible! Mr. Solway, he telephoned to Mr. Dexter, and he come out, too. I guess it was kinder to comfort her.”
“What would she be needin’ all the comfortin’ for?” demanded the cook. “She’d never set eyes on the cousin at all, and her to be gettin’ all that money.”
“She’s kinder sensitive,” said Gracie.
“Sensitive, is it!” said the cook, with significance.
Ross went on eating his dinner. He did not appear to be interested. When he had finished, he bade them all a civil good night, and got up and went out.
“He’s a cold-blooded fish,” said Gracie.
Yet, something seemed to keep him warm—something kept him steadfast and untroubled as he walked, head down, against the storm of wind and sleet, along the lonely roads to the town. He found the barber shop to which Eddy had directed him, and when he entered, the lively little Italian barber did not think his face forbidding.
“I’ve come for the little girl,” said Ross.
“Oh, she’s all right!” cried the barber. “She’s O. K. She eata soom nica dinner—verrie O. K. She sooma kid.”
He was a happy little man, pleased with his thriving business, with his family, with his own easy fluency in the use of the American tongue. He took Ross through the brilliantly lighted white tiled shop—a sanitary barber, he was—into a back room, where were his wife and his own small children.
And among them was the little fairhaired Lily, content and quite at home as she seemed always to be. You might have thought that she knew she had nobody, and no place of her own in this world, and that she had philosophically made up her mind to be happy wherever fate might place her.
She was sitting on the floor, much in the way of the barber’s wife, who pursued her household duties among the four little children in the room with the deft unconcern of a highly skilled dancer among eggshells. The woman could speak no English, but she smiled at Ross with placid amiability. She could not understand why three different men should have brought this child here at different times; but, after all, she didn’t particularly care. A passing incident, this was, in her busy life.
As for the barber himself, he had his own ideas. He saw something suspicious in the affair; a kidnaping, perhaps; but he preferred to know nothing. It was his tradition to be wary of troubling the police.
He took the money Ross gave him, and he smiled. Nobody had told him anything. He knew nothing.
The barber’s wife got the little girl ready, and Ross picked her up in his arms. She turned her head, to look back at the children, and her little woolen cap brushed across his eyes; he had to stop in the doorway of the shop, to shift her on to one arm, so that he could see. And then, what he did see was Donnelly.
“Well! Well!” said Donnelly, in a tone of hearty welcome.
“Well!” said Ross. “I’m in a hurry to get back, now. Tomorrow—”
“Of course you are!” said Donnelly. “I’m not going to keep you a minute. I’ve got something here I’d like the little girl to identify.”
Ross’s arm tightened about the child.
“No!” he protested. “No! She’s got nothing to do with—this.”
“Pshaw!” said Donnelly, with a laugh. “It’s only this.” And from his pocket he brought out the rabbit.
“Oh, my wabbit!” cried the little girl, with a sort of solemn ecstasy.
“Hi! Taxi!” called Donnelly, suddenly, and a cab going by slowed down, turned, skidding a little on the wet street, and drew up to the curb. Without delay, Ross put the child inside, and got in after her, but Donnelly remained standing on the curb, holding open the door. Light streamed from the shop windows, but his back was turned toward it; his face was in darkness; he stood like a statue in the downpour.
“There’s some funny things about this case—” he observed.
Ross said nothing.
“Mighty funny!” Donnelly pursued. “And, by the way—” He leaned into the cab. “I’ve seen a good deal of you today, but I don’t believe you’ve told me your name.”
It seemed to Ross for a moment that he could not speak. But, at last, with a great effort, he said:
“Ives.”
“Ah!” said Donnelly.
Ross waited and waited.
“If you’d like to see—my bank book and papers,” he finally suggested.
“No,” said Donnelly, soothingly. “No, never mind. And this James Ross. You never heard of him, I suppose?”
“No.”
“He landed in New York on Wednesday, went to a hotel in the city, left his bags, and came right out to Stamford—and fell in a pond. Now, that’s a queer stunt, isn’t it?”
Ross put his arm round the child’s tiny shoulders and drew her close to him.
“Very!” he agreed.
“I thought so myself. Queer! I found the man’s pocketbook in that cottage—in that very room where you waited for me. What d’you think of that? There was a letter from a lawyer in New York—name of Teagle. I telephoned to him, and he came out. He could identify the man’s handwriting and so on. But he’d never seen him. Said he didn’t think there was any one in this country who had. He has a theory, though. Like to hear it—or are you in a hurry?”
“No! Go ahead!”
“Well, Teagle’s theory is that this Mr. James Ross knew he had a cousin out this way. Miss Solway, you know. It seems her mother made a match the family didn’t approve of, and they dropped her, years ago. Now, Teagle thinks this Mr. James Ross wanted to see for himself what this cousin was like, and that he came out to that cottage to stay while he sort of mooched around, getting information about her. Family feeling, see? Only—he met with an accident.”
“That sounds plausible,” said Ross.
“You’re right! Now, of course, there’ll be a coroner’s inquest tomorrow. But—” He paused. “I happened to be around when the doctor made his examination. And he says—the man was dead before he fell in the pond.”
“Oh, God!” cried Ross, in his torment. “Don’t go on!”
“Hold on a minute! Hold on! Of course that startles you, eh? You think it’s a case of murder, eh? Well, I’ll tell you now that the verdict’ll be—death from natural causes. No marks of violence. And Mr. James Ross had a very bad heart. I dare say he didn’t know it. He died of heart failure, and then he rolled down that slope. I saw that for myself—saw bushes broken, and so on, where something had rolled or been dragged down there.”
“Then?”
“Then,” said Donnelly, “as far as I’m concerned, there’s no case. And I’ll say good-by to you. Maybe you wouldn’t mind shaking hands, Mr.—Ives?”
Their hands met in a firm clasp.
“On Miss Solway’s account,” said Donnelly, “I’m mighty glad you’re Mr. Ives. Good-by!”