CHAPTER VIII
A STRING OF GOLD BEADS
A moment later Bates entered with a fresh supply of wood. I watched him narrowly for some sign of perturbation, but he was not to be caught off guard. Possibly he had not heard the shots in the wood; at any rate, he tended the fire with his usual gravity, and after brushing the hearth paused respectfully.
“Is there anything further, sir?”
“I believe not, Bates. Oh! here’s a hammer I picked up out in the grounds a bit ago. I wish you’d see if it belongs to the house.”
He examined the implement with care and shook his head.
“It doesn’t belong here, I think, sir. But we sometimes find tools left by the carpenters that worked on the house. Shall I put this in the tool-chest, sir?”
“Never mind. I need such a thing now and then and I’ll keep it handy.”
“Very good, Mr. Glenarm. It’s a bit sharper to-night, but we’re likely to have sudden changes at this season.”
“I dare say.”
We were not getting anywhere; the fellow was certainly an incomparable actor.
“You must find it pretty lonely here, Bates. Don’t hesitate to go to the village when you like.”
“I thank you, Mr. Glenarm; but I am not much for idling. I keep a few books by me for the evenings. Annandale is not what you would exactly call a diverting village.”
“I fancy not. But the caretaker over at the summer resort has even a lonelier time, I suppose. That’s what I’d call a pretty cheerless job,—watching summer cottages in the winter.”
“That’s Morgan, sir. I meet him occasionally when I go to the village; a very worthy person, I should call him, on slight acquaintance.”
“No doubt of it, Bates. Any time through the winter you want to have him in for a social glass, it’s all right with me.”
He met my gaze without flinching, and lighted me to the stair with our established ceremony. I voted him an interesting knave and really admired the cool way in which he carried off difficult situations. I had no intention of being killed, and now that I had due warning of danger, I resolved to protect myself from foes without and within. Both Bates and Morgan, the caretaker, were liars of high attainment. Morgan was, moreover, a cheerful scoundrel, and experience taught me long ago that a knave with humor is doubly dangerous.
Before going to bed I wrote a long letter to Larry Donovan, giving him a full account of my arrival at Glenarm House. The thought of Larry always cheered me, and as the pages slipped from my pen I could feel his sympathy and hear him chuckling over the lively beginning of my year at Glenarm. The idea of being fired upon by an unseen foe would, I knew, give Larry a real lift of the spirit.
The next morning I walked into the village, mailed my letter, visited the railway station with true rustic instinct and watched the cutting out of a freight car for Annandale with a pleasure I had not before taken in that proceeding. The villagers stared at me blankly as on my first visit. A group of idle laborers stopped talking to watch me; and when I was a few yards past them they laughed at a remark by one of the number which I could not overhear. But I am not a particularly sensitive person; I did not care what my Hoosier neighbors said of me; all I asked was that they should refrain from shooting at the back of my head through the windows of my own house.
On this day I really began to work. I mapped out a course of reading, set up a draftsman’s table I found put away in a closet, and convinced myself that I was beginning a year of devotion to architecture. Such was, I felt, the only honest course. I should work every day from eight until one, and my leisure I should give to recreation and a search for the motives that lay behind the crafts and assaults of my enemies.
When I plunged into the wood in the middle of the afternoon it was with the definite purpose of returning to the upper end of the lake for an interview with Morgan, who had, so Bates informed me, a small house back of the cottages.
I took the canoe I had chosen for my own use from the boat-house and paddled up the lake. The air was still warm, but the wind that blew out of the south tasted of rain. I scanned the water and the borders of the lake for signs of life,—more particularly, I may as well admit, for a certain maroon-colored canoe and a girl in a red tam-o’-shanter, but lake and summer cottages were mine alone. I landed and began at once my search for Morgan. There were many paths through the woods back of the cottages, and I followed several futilely before I at last found a small house snugly bid away in a thicket of young maples.
The man I was looking for came to the door quickly in response to my knock.
“Good afternoon, Morgan.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Glenarm,” he said, taking the pipe from his mouth the better to grin at me. He showed no sign of surprise, and I was nettled by his cool reception. There was, perhaps, a certain element of recklessness in my visit to the house of a man who had shown so singular an interest in my affairs, and his cool greeting vexed me.
“Morgan—” I began.
“Won’t you come in and rest yourself, Mr. Glenarm?” he interrupted. “I reckon you’re tired from your trip over—”
“Thank you, no,” I snapped.
“Suit yourself, Mr. Glenarm.” He seemed to like my name and gave it a disagreeable drawling emphasis.
“Morgan, you are an infernal blackguard. You have tried twice to kill me—”
“We’ll call it that, if you like,”—and he grinned. “But you’d better cut off one for this.”
He lifted the gray fedora hat from his head, and poked his finger through a hole in the top.
“You’re a pretty fair shot, Mr. Glenarm. The fact about me is,”—and he winked,—”the honest truth is, I’m all out of practice. Why, sir, when I saw you paddling out on the lake this afternoon I sighted you from the casino half a dozen times with my gun, but I was afraid to risk it.” He seemed to be shaken with inner mirth. “If I’d missed, I wasn’t sure you’d be scared to death!”
For a novel diversion I heartily recommend a meeting with the assassin who has, only a few days or hours before, tried to murder you. I know of nothing in the way of social adventure that is quite equal to it. Morgan was a fellow of intelligence and, whatever lay back of his designs against me, he was clearly a foe to reckon with. He stood in the doorway calmly awaiting my next move. I struck a match on my box and lighted a cigarette.
“Morgan, I hope you understand that I am not responsible for any injury my grandfather may have inflicted on you. I hadn’t seen him for several years before he died. I was never at Glenarm before in my life, so it’s a little rough for you to visit your displeasure on me.”
He smiled tolerantly as I spoke. I knew—and he knew that I did—that no ill feeling against my grandfather lay back of his interest in my affairs.
“You’re not quite the man your grandfather was, Mr. Glenarm. You’ll excuse my bluntness, but I take it that you’re a frank man. He was a very keen person, and, I’m afraid,”—he chuckled with evident satisfaction to himself,—”I’m really afraid, Mr. Glenarm, that you’re not!”
“There you have it, Morgan! I fully agree with you! I’m as dull as an oyster; that’s the reason I’ve called on you for enlightenment. Consider that I’m here under a flag of truce, and let’s see if we can’t come to an agreement.”
“It’s too late, Mr. Glenarm; too late. There was a time when we might have done some business; but that’s past now. You seem like a pretty decent fellow, too, and I’m sorry I didn’t see you sooner; but better luck next time.”
He stroked his yellow beard reflectively and shook his head a little sadly. He was not a bad-looking fellow; and he expressed himself well enough with a broad western accent.
“Well,” I said, seeing that I should only make myself ridiculous by trying to learn anything from him, “I hope our little spats through windows and on walls won’t interfere with our pleasant social relations. And I don’t hesitate to tell you,”—I was exerting myself to keep down my anger,—”that if I catch you on my grounds again I’ll fill you with lead and sink you in the lake.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said, with so perfect an imitation of Bates’ voice and manner that I smiled in spite of myself.
“And now, if you’ll promise not to fire into my back I’ll wish you good day. Otherwise—”
He snatched off his hat and bowed profoundly. “It’ll suit me much better to continue handling the case on your grounds,” he said, as though he referred to a business matter. “Killing a man on your own property requires some explaining—you may have noticed it?”
“Yes; I commit most of my murders away from home,” I said. “I formed the habit early in life. Good day, Morgan.”
As I turned away he closed his door with a slam,—a delicate way of assuring me that he was acting in good faith, and not preparing to puncture my back with a rifle-ball. I regained the lake-shore, feeling no great discouragement over the lean results of my interview, but rather a fresh zest for the game, whatever the game might be. Morgan was not an enemy to trifle with; he was, on the other hand, a clever and daring foe; and the promptness with which he began war on me the night of my arrival at Glenarm House, indicated that there was method in his hostility.
The sun was going his ruddy way beyond St. Agatha’s as I drove my canoe into a little cove near which the girl in the tam-o’-shanter had disappeared the day before. The shore was high here and at the crest was a long curved bench of stone reached by half a dozen steps, from which one might enjoy a wide view of the country, both across the lake and directly inland. The bench was a pretty bit of work, boldly reminiscential of Alma Tadema, and as clearly the creation of John Marshall Glenarm as though his name had been carved upon it.
It was assuredly a spot for a pipe and a mood, and as the shadows crept through the wood before me and the water, stirred by the rising wind, began to beat below, I invoked the one and yielded to the other. Something in the withered grass at my feet caught my eye. I bent and picked up a string of gold beads, dropped there, no doubt, by some girl from the school or a careless member of the summer colony. I counted the separate beads—they were round and there were fifty of them. The proper length for one turn about a girl’s throat, perhaps; not more than that! I lifted my eyes and looked off toward St. Agatha’s.
“Child of the red tam-o’-shanter, I’m very sorry I was rude to you yesterday, for I liked your steady stroke with the paddle; and I admired, even more, the way you spurned me when you saw that among all the cads in the world I am number one in Class A. And these golden bubbles (O girl of the red tam-o’-shanter!), if they are not yours you shall help me find the owner, for we are neighbors, you and I, and there must be peace between our houses.”
With this foolishness I rose, thrust the beads into my pocket, and paddled home in the waning glory of the sunset.
That night, as I was going quite late to bed, bearing a candle to light me through the dark hall to my room, I heard a curious sound, as of some one walking stealthily through the house. At first I thought Bates was still abroad, but I waited, listening for several minutes, without being able to mark the exact direction of the sound or to identify it with him. I went on to the door of my room, and still a muffled step seemed to follow me,—first it had come from below, then it was much like some one going up stairs,—but where? In my own room I still heard steps, light, slow, but distinct. Again there was a stumble and a hurried recovery,—ghosts, I reflected, do not fall down stairs!
The sound died away, seemingly in some remote part of the house, and though I prowled about for an hour it did not recur that night.