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Title: The Red House on Rowan Street

Author: Roman Doubleday

Illustrator: William Kirkpatrick

Release Date: April 11, 2018 [EBook #56961]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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(the New York Public Library)

The Red House on Rowan Street

"'Mr. Underwood has enemies,'--he said calmly."

FRONTISPIECE. See p. 176.

THE RED HOUSE

ON ROWAN STREET

By

ROMAN DOUBLEDAY

Author of "The Hemlock Avenue Mystery," etc.

With Illustrations by

William Kirkpatrick

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1910

Copyright, 1909, 1910,

BY LITLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

All rights reserved

Published March, 1910

Second Printing

Printers

S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.

BURTON BECOMES AN AMBASSADOR.

II.

AT THE RED HOUSE.

III.

THE HIGHWAYMAN'S MASK IS FOUND.

IV.

THE CURIOUS EXPERIENCES OF THE UNDERWOOD FAMILY.

V.

THE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE.

VI.

A MIDNIGHT WATCH.

VII.

THE WORK OF THE INCENDIARY.

VIII.

THE BABY THAT WAS TIED IN.

IX.

A POINTED WARNING.

X.

MR. HADLEY PROVES A TRUE PROPHET.

XI.

HENRY UNDERWOOD IS ARRESTED.

XII.

AN UNSTABLE SWEETHEART.

XIII.

HENRY IS HARD TO HANDLE.

XIV.

BURTON'S TURN.

XV.

AN ODD KNOT.

XVI.

THE TRAIL TO YESTERYEAR.

XVII.

A TEMPORARY ABERRATION.

XVIII.

BURTON THINKS HE IS MENDING MATTERS.

XIX.

BURTON GOES TO THE RESERVATION.

XX.

GROUND BAIT.

XXI.

RACHEL APPEARS ON THE SCENE.

XXII.

HENRY TAKES TO HIS HEELS.

XXIII.

THE TRAP IS SPRUNG.

XXIV.

BURTON'S LAST APPEARANCE AS AN AMBASSADOR.

Illustrations

"'MR. UNDERWOOD HAS ENEMIES,' HE SAID CALMLY."

Frontispiece. See p. 176.

"'WELL, PERHAPS THIS CAN BE EXPLAINED AWAY, TOO!'"

Page 71

"HE FOUND BEN BUSSEY IN A WHEELED CHAIR NEAR A WINDOW"

Page 200

"HE STOPPED FOR A MOMENT AT THE GATE TO ENJOY THE PICTURE SHE MADE"

Page 250

The

Red House on Rowan Street

CHAPTER I

BURTON BECOMES AN AMBASSADOR

When Hugh Burton stepped from the train at High Ridge, he wondered (in his ignorance of the events that were about to engage him) whether he would be able to catch a return train that evening. He had no desire to linger in this half-grown town on the western edge of civilization one minute longer than his fool errand demanded. He called it a "fool errand" every time he thought of his mission. That he, who had secretly prided himself on the "disengaged" attitude which he had always maintained toward life, should have consented to come halfway across the continent to hunt up a Miss Leslie Underwood whom he had never met, and ask her if she would not be so kind as to reconsider her refusal to marry Philip Overman, because Philip was really taking it very hard, don't you know, and particularly because Philip's mother would be quite distracted if the boy should carry out his threat to enlist and go to the Philippines,--oh, Lord! he must have had some unsuspected idiot among his ancestors. Did Rachel Overman know how heavily she was drawing on his friendship?

An Indian woman sitting on the stone steps of the railway station made him realize how near the edge of civilization, in very truth, he had come. There was, he remembered, a Reservation for Indians on the northern border of the State. It could not be very far from High Ridge.

With her bright shawl about her shoulders and her beadwork and baskets spread about her, the woman made a picturesque spot in the sunshine. At another time Burton would have stopped to examine her wares, for among his other dilettante pursuits was an interest in Indian basketry; but in his present impatient mood he would have pushed past with a mere glance but for one of those queer little incidents that we call accidental. A man who was coming down the steps that Burton was about to ascend passed near the black-eyed squaw, and she looked up with smiling recognition and laid her hand arrestingly upon his coat. But he was not in a responsive mood. He gave her a black look and struck her hand away with such impatience and violence that a pile of her upset baskets rolled down the steps and over the platform at Burton's feet. At once he stepped in front of the man, who was hurrying heedlessly on.

"Pick them up. You knocked them over," he said quietly.

The man gathered up one or two with instinctive obedience to a positive order, before he realized what he was doing. Then he straightened up and glared wrathfully at his self-appointed overseer.

"What the devil have you got to say about it?" he asked.

"What I did say."

"You mind your own infernal business," the man cried, and flinging the baskets in his hand at Burton's feet he rushed on.

Burton beckoned a porter, who gathered up and restored the woman's scattered merchandise. For himself, he walked on toward the booth marked "Bureau of Information," and wondered what had possessed him to make him act so out of character. Why hadn't he called the porter in the first instance, if he felt it his affair? Something in the man's brutality had aroused a corresponding passion in himself. It was a case of hate at first sight, and he rejoiced that at any rate he had declared himself, and had put the uncivilized pale face into a humiliating rage!

The particular information of which he stood in immediate need was Leslie Underwood's address. He opened the city directory and turned to the U's. There were a dozen Underwoods,--a baker, a banker, a coal heaver, a doctor, a merchant,--where did Miss Leslie belong?

"Have you a Blue Book?" he asked the lazy-looking attendant.

"Naw."

"Anything with ladies' addresses?--a society list, you know."

"Naw."

"I want to get the address of Miss Leslie Underwood," Burton went on, with grim patience. "And I don't want to waste time. Can you suggest how I can find it?"

The attendant had tipped down his uptilted chair so abruptly that it cracked. He was looking at Burton with lively curiosity and amusement.

"You a friend of Dr. Underwood's?"

"Miss Underwood belongs to the doctor's family then, does she?"

"Sure. You coming to visit, or are you going to write him up?"

"I didn't know this was a bureau to extract information," Burton remarked, as he made a note of the doctor's home address from the directory. "What is there to write up about Dr. Underwood?"

"Aw, you think I'm green."

"No, merely ill-mannered," said Burton politely, as he turned away.

Outside, a row of cabmen, toeing an imaginary line, waved their whips frantically over it to attract his attention. He selected the nearest.

"Do you know where Dr. Underwood lives?"

The man held Burton's suitcase suspended in mid-air while he honored its owner with the same look of amused curiosity.

"Sure! The Red House, they call it, on Rowan street. Take you there?"

"No. Take me to the best hotel in town," Burton said coolly, stepping into the cab.

Why the mischief did everybody grin at the mention of Dr. Underwood's name? Burton was conscious of being in an irritable state of mind, but still it could not be altogether his sensitiveness that made him hear innuendoes everywhere. What sort of people were the Underwoods, anyhow? Philip had met Miss Underwood in Washington and fallen crazily in love,--after a fashion he had. (Hadn't he been crazy about Ellice Avery a year before?) But this time he had emphasized the depths of his despair by falling ill of a low fever when his suit failed to prosper. Beyond the fact that the girl was "an angel," "a dream," and other things of the same insubstantial order, Burton had little knowledge to go upon. The family might be the laughing stock of High Ridge, for all he knew. When a boy of twenty-two fell crazily in love, he didn't think about such matters; but Rachel, who, in a panic over her boy, had hurried him off to intercede with the cold-hearted damsel, would, as he well knew, hold him personally responsible for the consequences of his unwelcome mission, if they should prove to be unpleasant. Well, he would have to put in his time thinking up something to demand of Rachel that would be hard enough to even up scores a little.

It was with deliberate intention that he said to the hotel clerk, after he had registered: "How far is it to Dr. Underwood's house?"

The clerk looked up with the sudden awakening of curiosity that Burton had expected, then glanced at the registered name.

"You want his office?"

"No. His home."

"It's out on Rowan street, not very far from here. Know the doctor?"

"No. I'm a stranger here. Is he a regular physician?"

"Oh, yes."

"In practice?"

"When he gets any."

"Is there anything peculiar about him?"

The clerk permitted himself a languid smile. "There is nothing about him that isn't peculiar. Have you seen the morning paper?"

"Not any of your local papers."

"I'll find one for you. Did you want lunch?"

"Yes." Burton gave his order and went to the room assigned to him, where he made himself as presentable as possible for his proposed call on Miss Underwood.

When he returned to the dining-room he found a newspaper by his plate, folded so as to bring out the headline:

"DR. UNDERWOOD DENIES."

Under this appeared the following card:

"To Whom it may Concern: Having been informed that there is a report abroad to the effect that, as a masked highwayman, I robbed Mr. Orton Selby on Crescent Terrace last Friday evening, I beg to state to my friends and the public that the report is without foundation in fact. I never robbed Mr. Selby or any one else, either as a masked highwayman or as an attending physician, and I defy anybody and everybody to prove anything to the contrary.

"ROGER UNDERWOOD, M. D."

Burton read the card several times while the waiter was placing his order before him. The hour was late and the dining-room was practically deserted, but Burton saw the clerk through the doorway, and beckoned to him. He sauntered in with an amused smile and leaned against the window while Burton questioned him.

"This is the most extraordinary announcement I ever saw in my life. Are people in High Ridge in the habit of publishing cards of this sort?"

"Dr. Underwood is rather original in his methods."

"I should judge so. What does he mean by this? Surely there is nothing to connect him with a highway robbery?"

"Well,--there has been some gossip."

"You really mean that? Why, what sort of a man is Dr. Underwood? I wish you would tell me about him. I am entirely ignorant, but I have some business in hand involving some friends of mine and of his, and I'd like to know what I am up against."

"Well, there's a good deal of talk about the Doctor and Henry Underwood, both. People are ready to believe anything."

"How old a man is the doctor?"

"Between fifty and sixty."

"And his family consists of--?"

"His wife, who is very pious, his son Henry, who is rather less liked than the doctor, if any thing, and a daughter."

"Anything queer about her?"

"Oh, no! She's rather pretty."

Burton recognized the point of view, but he did not feel that it solved his own problem. Miss Underwood would have to be very pretty indeed, if her personal charms were to cover the multitude of her family's sins.

"Are there any specific charges against them?" he asked.

"Not exactly. It's more a feeling in the air. There's a good deal of talk about his keeping a cripple shut up upstairs in his house. He's the son of the housekeeper,--Ben Bussey is his name. Kept him there for years. Mrs. Bussey says he ain't treated right."

"That might be investigated, I should think. Anything else?"

"A few months ago an old man died while the doctor was attending him. There was some talk about poison in his medicine."

"Was anything done about investigating it?"

"No, it just dropped. Nobody exactly likes to tackle the doctor. They're afraid. That old man had been complaining about his treatment, and then he died, and there are people who say that something is sure to happen to anybody that says anything against the doctor. This Orton Selby, now, had been making a lot of talk about old man Means' death, saying it was malpractice, if nothing worse, and that something ought to be done about it; and then last Friday he was held up. Somehow it always seems to happen the same way. That's what makes people talk."

"What specific reason is there for connecting the doctor with the robbery?"

"Well, it is known that the doctor was not far from Crescent Terrace at the time, for some one saw him driving very fast from that locality a few minutes later. It was in the dusk of evening. The man that held Selby up was masked by having a handkerchief tied over his face, with slits cut in it to see through, but Selby says he was the size and height of the doctor, and walked like him. But the closest point is that after he left Selby, with his hands tied above his head to the railing that runs along the Terrace, Selby saw him pick up a gray cloak from the ground and throw it over his arm as he walked off."

"Well?"

"The doctor commonly wears a gray cloak, something like a military cape. Nobody ever saw any one else wear another just like it. Everybody knows him at sight by his gray cloak."

"But he wasn't wearing it."

"That's the point. It looks as though he had thrown it down on the ground so as to conceal it. Selby swears it was a gray cape or cloak, not a coat, because he saw a corner fall down over the man's arm as he hurried away."

"What sort of a man is Selby?"

"Why,--his word is considered good. He's a builder and contractor. Worked himself up from a common workman, and is very successful. He's built some of our best houses. Ben Bussey, the young man I told you about who lives at the doctor's, does woodcarving for him."

"I thought you said he was a cripple."

"Oh, his hands are all right."

"Do the people consider that Selby is justified in his charges?"

"Well, they don't know just what to think. I guess most of them would rather like to have Selby prove something against the doctor, for the sake of justifying all the talk that has gone before. But I think it's mostly Henry that makes the family unpopular."

"How does he do it?"

The clerk shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know all the stories, but they say there was something queer about the things he did when he was a boy. Anyhow, he got the town down on him, and that's the way it has been ever since."

"The latest about Dr. Underwood," a boy called at the door. He tossed a crumpled sheet of paper to the clerk, who read it and then smilingly laid it before Burton. The sheet was typewritten, not printed, and it bore the following legend:

"Search Dr. Underwood's house. You will find evidence of his guilt."

Burton frowned. "It strikes me that there is either too much or too little said about all this business. If there is any substantial evidence against the man, he ought to be arrested. If there isn't, his accusers ought to be. Why don't the parties who send out a bill like this sign it?"

The clerk smiled his disinterested smile. "They're afraid to. I told you it wasn't considered healthy to oppose Dr. Underwood. Something is bound to happen to them."

"Nonsense," said Burton impatiently.

"Of course," agreed the smiling clerk, and sauntered away.

Burton sat still and considered. His personal irritation was swallowed up in this more serious complication. How did this curious and unexpected situation affect the commission with which he was charged? He thought of Rachel Overman, fastidious, critical, ultra refined, and in spite of his preoccupation he smiled to himself. The idea of an alliance between her house and that of a man who was popularly supposed to indulge on occasion in highway robbery struck him as incongruous enough to be called humorous. At any rate, he now had a reasonable excuse for going no further with his "fool errand." The role of Lancelot, wooing as a proxy for the absent prince, had by no means pleased him, and it was with a guilty sense of relief at the idea of dropping it right here that he called for a time-table.

He figured out his railway connections, and went to the office to give his orders. As he passed the open window his attention was caught by two men who had met on the sidewalk outside. One of them was talking excitedly and flourishing a paper which looked much like the typewritten sheet the clerk had shown him. It was the man with whom Burton had clashed at the station.

"Who is that man,--the smaller one?" he asked.

The clerk glanced out and smiled.

"That's the man I was telling you about,--Orton Selby."

"So that's the man who is bringing this charge against Dr. Underwood! Who's the other?"

"Mr. Hadley. A banker and one of our prominent citizens."

Burton crumpled up his time-table and tossed it into the waste-basket quite as though he had had no intention of taking the next train out of town.

"Will you direct me to Dr. Underwood's house now?" he said.

CHAPTER II

AT THE RED HOUSE

Burton could have found his way to the Red House without any further direction than the clerk had given him, and it was chiefly curiosity that made him try another experiment on the way. He had come by the side street, and half a block away he saw the large red house facing toward Rowan street. At the rear ran a high board fence, separating the grounds belonging to the house from an alley which cut through the middle of the block. As he passed the end of the alley, he noticed a man and a woman talking together by the gate which opened into the house grounds. The woman's excited gestures caught his attention. She was shaking her hands at the man in a way that might have meant anger or impatience or merely dismissal, but which certainly meant something in a superlative and violent degree. Then she darted in through the gate, slamming it shut, and the man came running down the alley toward the street with a curious low lope that covered the ground amazingly, though it seemed effortless.

Burton had stopped, at first to see whether it were a case that called for interference. Now, as the man jumped out just in front of him, he spoke to him,--as much from a desire to see the face of a man who ran so furtively as from curiosity as to the effect the doctor's name would have. "Pardon me," he said. "Can you tell me if this is where Dr. Underwood lives?"

But this time his cast drew nothing. The man stopped a moment, cast a sharp though furtive glance up at his questioner, and shook his head.

"Don't know," he said curtly, and hurried on. Burton took the liberty of believing that the man had lied.

The Red House had a character and quality of its own that set it immediately apart from the rest of this half-baked town. It was a large house, with signs of age that were grateful to him, set back in extensive grounds which were surrounded by high hedges of shrubbery. The house itself was shaded by old trees, and the general effect of the place was one of aloofness, as different as possible from the cheap, new, easy-going publicity of the rest of the street. If it be true that human beings mould their surrounding to reflect their own characters, then the Underwoods were certainly not commonplace people. Burton was sensitive to influences, and as he stepped inside the grounds and let the gate shut behind him, he had an indefinable feeling that he had stepped into an alien territory. He glanced back at the street outside as an adventurer who has strayed into an enchanted land may look back for reassurance to the safe and commonplace country he has left.

A man in the rough dress of a gardener was down on his knees beside a flower-bed in the garden, and Burton approached him.

"Is this Dr. Underwood's house?"

"He lives here," the man said coolly, without glancing up.

"You mean he doesn't own it?" Burton asked, more for the sake of pursuing the conversation than from any special interest in Dr. Underwood's tax list.

"He couldn't own that, could he?" asked the man, pointing dramatically at the tulip about which he had been building up the earth.

"You are a philosopher as well as a gardener."

"I?" The man stood up, and Burton saw that he was young, and that his face, in spite of its somberness, was intelligent and not unattractive. "Oh, I am a human being, like the rest of the impertinent race. I try to forget what I am, but I have no right to. You do well to remind me."

"Why do you wish to forget?" asked Burton curiously.

"Who that is human would not wish to forget? Who that is human would not wish at times that he were a tulip, blooming in perfect beauty, and so doing all that could be asked of him? Or an oak, like that one, fulfilling its nature without blame and without harm?"

"Are you Ben Bussey?" Burton asked on a sudden impulse, remembering the name of the young man whom the hotel clerk had mentioned as being the subject of popular stories. This young man was certainly queer enough to give rise to legends.

He was not prepared for the effect of his question. The young man drew back as though he had been struck, while a look where fear and distaste and reproach were mingled darkened his face.

"Who are you?" he asked harshly. "What do you know about Ben Bussey?"

"I have heard the name mentioned, that's all, as that of a young man living with Dr. Underwood. I assure you I meant nothing offensive." Unconsciously he had adopted the tone of one speaking to an equal. This was no common gardener.

"No, I am not Ben Bussey," the young man said, after a pause in which he obviously struggled to regain his self-control. "I have often wished I were, however. I am Henry Underwood." He looked up with a sharp defiance in his eyes as he spoke the name. It was as though he expected to see some sign of repulsion.

"I am very glad to meet you, then. My name is Burton. Mrs. Overman, of Putney, asked me to bring a message to your sister."

"You will find her in the house, I suppose," the young man answered carelessly. He turned indifferently away, as though he had no further interest in his visitor, and in a few minutes he was bent over another flower-bed, absorbed in his work.

Burton walked up to the house, his pulses curiously atingle. No wonder the Underwoods got themselves talked about in the neighborhood, if this was a sample of the way in which they met the advances of strangers! After ringing the bell, he glanced back at Henry Underwood. He had risen from the ground and stood with bared head looking up into the branches of the oak with an expression that struck Burton even at that distance as inexpressibly sad.

The door was opened by a middle-aged servant, in whom Burton recognized the woman he had seen gesticulating so violently in the back yard. She looked out at him with surprise and caution, and with the obvious intent of not admitting him without cause shown.

"Is Miss Underwood at home?" he asked.

"I don't know. Likely she is," the woman answered, still with that uncomprehending look of wonder at his intrusion.

"Will you take her my card, please?" And with a little more muscular effort than he was in the habit of using when entering a house, he forced the door far enough back to enable him to pass the guarded portal, and with an air of assurance that was largely factitious, walked into a room opening from the hall, which he judged to be a reception room.

The woman followed him to the door and looked dubiously from him to his card, which she still held in her hand.

"I will wait here while you see if Miss Underwood is at home and whether she can see me. Please look her up at once," he said positively. The tone was effective. The woman departed.

The same evidences of old-time dignity and present-day decay that he had noted in the grounds struck Burton in the drawing-room. The room was a stately one, built according to the old ideas of spaciousness and leisure, but the carpet was worn, the upholstery dingy, and a general air of disuse showed that the days of receptions must be long past. Evidently the Underwoods were not living in the heyday of prosperity. To do Rachel justice, she would not care about that except incidentally. But she would care a great deal about the family's social standing. Burton tried, to the best of his masculine ability, to take an inventory of things that would enable him to answer the questions she was sure to pour out upon him,--always supposing his mission were in any degree successful.

He walked to the window and looked out upon the side garden. Not far from the house was a rustic seat, and here a lady was sitting,--a tall, gray-haired lady, reading a ponderous book. The conviction that this must be Mrs. Underwood made him look at her with the liveliest interest. The servant to whom Burton had given his card came out, in obvious haste and excitement, but the reading lady merely lifted a calm hand to check her, and turned her page without raising her eyes. But she shook her head, seemingly in answer to some question, and the messenger returned hastily to the house. The lady continued to read.

Burton smiled to himself over the little scene. Mrs. Underwood, if this were she, would be able to give points in self-possession to Rachel herself.

But the moment that Leslie Underwood entered the room, Burton forgot all his hesitations and reluctances. In the instant while he bowed before her, his mind took a right-about-face. It was not merely that she was unexpectedly beautiful. That would account for Philip's infatuation, but Burton was a keener judge of human nature. Behind the girl's mask of beauty there looked out a spirit so direct, so genuine, that it was like a touchstone to prove those qualities in others. Burton felt something pull him erect as he looked at her. Philip had drawn a prize which he probably neither understood nor deserved,--and the High Ridge tales about Dr. Underwood were preposterous absurdities. All this in the flash of an eye!

"You wished to see me?" she asked. Her voice had a vibrant ring.

"Yes,--though I am merely an ambassador." (No thought now of modifying his commission!) "I come from Philip Overman."

Her face flushed sensitively at the name.

"Philip has been seriously ill," he said.

"I am sorry to hear it."

"Even yet his condition causes keen anxiety to his mother."

A little change passed over her sensitive face,--could it have been a flicker of amusement? The suspicion helped to restore his nerve. Who was this young woman after all, that she should dare to smile at Rachel Overman's anxiety for her boy? People who knew Mrs. Overman were accustomed to treat even her whims with respect. He continued a thought more stiffly.

"His physician, I may say, admits that her fears are justified. He is in an extremely nervous and excitable condition, and it is considered that the best hope for his recovery lies in removing the cause of the mental disturbance which is at the root of his physical overthrow. His unhappiness is sending him into a decline."

She looked at him quizzically. There was no question now about the hidden amusement that brought that gleam into her eyes. And she answered with a rocking, monotonous cadence that flared its mockery in his ears.

"Men have died, and worms have eaten them," she said slowly, "but--not for love."

Burton flushed to the roots of his hair. He knew that he had not been honest in his plea,--that it was for Rachel's sake and not for Philip's (confound the boy!) that he had turned special pleader in the case,--but for heaven's sake, why couldn't the girl have pretended with him for a little while? Couldn't she see that he had to present the best side of his cause?

"I think possibly the matter is more serious than you realize," he said, dropping his eyes. "Philip is a high-strung young man. His disappointment was profound. It has seemingly shattered his ambition and his interest in life."

"Philip is a self-willed young man," she said, in a carefully modulated voice that was so palpable a mimicry of his own that he was torn between a desire to applaud her skill and to box her ears for her impertinence. "He cried for the moon, and when he couldn't have it, he evidently made things uncomfortable for his dear mamma and his self-sacrificing friend. But I believe, speaking under correction, that the best modern authorities, as well as the classic one I have already quoted, agree that the probabilities are highly in favor of a complete recovery,--in time. Don't you agree with me?"

"I am sorry not to be able to do so. In the first place I have been retained as a witness by the other side. In the second place, I can judge, as you cannot, of the rarity of the treasure that he thinks he has lost. I cannot say that his despair is excessive."

She smiled appreciatively.

"That was really very well done, under the circumstances. Well, now that these polite preliminaries have passed, what is the real object of your visit?"

"Allow me to point out that you make an ambassador's task unusually difficult by pressing so immediately to the point, but, since that is your way, I can only meet you in the same direct manner. My object is to ask whether it is not possible for you to reconsider your refusal to marry Philip Overman."

She lifted her head with a look of surprise. There was a sparkle in her eyes and this time it was not amusement.

"Did he send you?" she asked.

"He raved of you in his delirium. He talked of you incessantly. He has begged me times without number to ask you to come and let him see you for a minute,--for an hour. We pulled him through the fever and the rest of it, but his physical recovery has not restored his mental tone. He will not take up his life in the old way. He vows now that as soon as we let go our present surveillance, he will enlist and get himself sent to the Philippines. I think he means it. And it would be rather a pity, for in his state of health, to go to the Philippines as a common soldier would mean a fairly expeditious form of suicide. It would, beyond the slightest question, break his mother's heart. And she has no one else,--her husband died less than a year ago. Philip's death would mean a rather sad end for a good old family that has written its name in its country's history more than once."

She had dropped her eyes when he began, but at the last word she looked up.

"And what of my family?" she asked. There was a vibrant undertone of suppressed feeling in her voice which made Burton look at her questioningly. Exactly what feeling was it that brought such a challenging light into her eyes? He took refuge in a generalization.

"In America, the families of the high contracting parties come in only for secondary consideration, don't they?" he suggested. "But I have discharged my commission very poorly if I have failed to make you understand that Philip's family is waiting to welcome you with entire love and--respect." In spite of himself, he had hesitated before the last word.

She laughed,--a forlorn little laugh that was anything but mirthful; but whatever answer she might have made was interrupted by the sounds of an unusual commotion outside. A woman's excited voice was heard in exclamations that were at first only half distinguishable.

"Oh, doctor, doctor, for the love of heaven what have you been in, now? What have you done to yourself? You're hurt, doctor, I can see that you're hurt!"

"Nonsense, Mrs. Bussey, don't make a fuss," a man's voice answered impatiently.

But the housekeeper who had admitted Burton now rushed into the drawing-room, calling hysterically: "Oh, Miss Leslie, your father is killed!" And thereupon she threw her apron up over her head to render her more effective in the emergency.

She was followed almost immediately by a sufficiently startling apparition,--a powerfully built man of more than middle age, with a keen blue eye and an eager face. But just now the face was disfigured by the blood that flowed freely from a wound on his temple, and he supported himself by the door as though he could not well stand alone.

Leslie ran toward him with a cry.

"Father! Oh, father, what has happened?"

CHAPTER III

THE HIGHWAYMAN'S MASK IS FOUND

Burton had jumped to his feet. "Let me help you to a couch," he said, offering his arm as a support. "Not into this room," Dr. Underwood sputtered, wincing with pain as he spoke. "Good land, man, do you suppose a man with a sprained ankle who isn't going to be able to walk for the rest of his natural life, and then will have to go on crutches for a while, wants to sit down on one of those spindle-legged chairs that break if you look at them? Get me into the surgery. And Leslie, if you have an atom of filial feeling, you might show him the way instead of standing there like a classical figure of despair on a monument smiling at a bloody temple. I'm ashamed of you. Where's your equanimity? Ouch! Jerusalem! Sante Fe! You don't need to try to carry me, man. I can walk. Leslie, if you haven't any religious scruples against really opening the door while you are about it, perhaps this procession could get through without scraping the skin off its elbows,--"

Burton had slipped his shoulder under the doctor's arm, and, guided by Leslie, he got him through a hall which seemed interminably long, and into the room which he had called the surgery. Burton helped him to the leathern couch.

"Get me some hot water," he said in a hasty aside to Leslie, and she quickly left the room.

He stripped off Dr. Underwood's shoe, and began to manipulate the swollen ankle.

"This isn't going to be serious," he said soothingly. "It's merely a strain, not a dislocation. It will be painful for a while,--"

"Will be! Jerusalem, what do you think it is now? You are a doctor."

"No. But I have had some experience with accidents. If you want me to go for a doctor,--"

"You are all I can stand at present, thank you. I know you are a doctor by your confounded nerve. Will be painful! I wish it were your ankle, confound you. And I'll never grumble again when my patients swear at me. I never realized before what a relief it is to swear at your doctor. How did you happen to be here? I suppose it was an accident and not a special dispensation of Providence."

"I was the bearer of a message to your daughter, and so happened to be on hand at the right moment, that's all. My name is Burton,--Hugh Burton, Putney, Massachusetts."

"A message? From whom? What about?"

"There, doesn't that begin to feel more comfortable?"

"Humph! That's a neat way of telling me to mind my own business."

Burton merely laughed. "Let me look at this cut in your temple. So! Any more damages?"

"My little finger was knocked out of joint, but I think I put it back. I guess that's all they had time to get in,--"

"Who?"

The sharp monosyllable made them both start. Leslie had returned with Mrs. Bussey, who was carrying a kettle of hot water; but in her surprise at her father's remark, she was very effectively blocking the way for the timid servant.

"Leslie, your curiosity unfits you for any useful career," her father exclaimed, with a great show of irritation. "Do you suppose Dr. Burton wanted that hot water to meliorate the temperature of the room? If so, it will probably be just as well to keep Mrs. Bussey holding it in the doorway; but if you think he possibly meant to use it as a fomentation,--"

"You needn't think you are going to put me off in that way," said Leslie, making way for Mrs. Bussey. "I am just as sorry as I can be that you are hurt, you know, but that isn't all. I want to know what has happened now."

"Dr. Burton assures me it is merely a strain, though he goes so far as to admit that if I make the worst of it, I may be able to imagine that it hurts. But of course it doesn't really. It will merely be nerves."

"Can I help you with that hot application, Mr. Burton?" Leslie asked.

"Mrs. Bussey can do this. Do you know where to find some court-plaster? And scissors?"

She got the required articles deftly, and watched in silence while he dressed the doctor's temple. Then she asked: "May he talk now?"

"I should not undertake to prevent him."

"Now, father,--"

"Well, those little imps of Satan that live in that tumble-down house on King Street, where you went Friendly Visiting,--"

"The Sprigg children?"

"That's the name. They have heard Aristides called the unjust so long that they thought they would throw a stone or two to mark their ennui, but they misunderstood the use of the stone, and so they threw it at me instead of for me--"

"Do you mean that they stoned you?"

"Oh, I shouldn't have minded the little devils, but they threw stones at Dolly, and they might easily have broken her leg. That's what made me jump out of the buggy to go after them, because I thought they needed a lesson, but I jumped on one of their infernal stones and it turned my foot and that's how I twisted my ankle. So I got back into the buggy, and was glad I didn't have far to go to get to it. Then I came on home. I never knew that walk from the street to the front door was so long."

"But your face--?"

"Oh, that was one of the stones that flew wide of the mark. The little heathen don't know how to throw straight. They ought to be kept under an apple-tree with nothing to eat until they learn how to bring down their dinner with the first throw."

Leslie clenched her hands.

"It is outrageous. I don't see how you can treat it so lightly. That they should dare to stone you,--to try deliberately to hurt you, perhaps to kill you! Oh, they would never dare if it were not for this shameful, unendurable, wicked persecution!"

"Leslie, after the example which I have always carefully given you of moderation in language,--"

"It is wicked. It is unendurable. I feel as though I were in a net that was drawing closer and closer about me. It is the secrecy of it that makes me wild. If I could only fight back! But to have some one watching in the dark, and not to know who or what it is,--to suspect everybody,--"

"Leslie, don't you realize that Dr. Burton will think you delirious if you talk like this? If you are jealous of my temporary prominence as an interesting patient,--"

Leslie turned swiftly to Burton.

"My father has been made the object of a most infamous persecution by some unknown person. The most outrageous stories are circulated about him, the most unjustifiable things are done,--like this. Those children don't go around stoning people in general; they have been put up to it by some one who is always watching a chance,--some one who has used them as an instrument for his malice!"

"You must make some allowance for the intemperate zeal of a daughter, Dr. Burton," said Dr. Underwood. A twinge of pain twisted his smile into a grimace. He had a wide, flexible mouth, and when he grinned he looked a caricature. Burton reflected that a man must be sustained by an unusually strong consciousness of virtue to risk his character on such a grin,--or else it was the very mockery of virtue.

"Then you think Miss Underwood overstates the case?" he asked thoughtfully. He was glad to have them talk about the matter. It was a curious situation, even without considering its possible effect on Philip's life.

"Well, I have seen too many queer things that turned out to be mere coincidences to be so sure that there is really a conspiracy against me," Underwood said quietly. "Public opinion is a queer thing. It takes epidemics. At present it seems to have an epidemic of suspicion of me. It will probably run its course and recover."

"What form does it take?"

"The latest and for the time being the most embarrassing form is that it takes me for a highwayman. I have been pretty hard up at times, but I confess I never had the originality to think of that method of relieving my necessities. And yet, confound the sarcasm of the idiots, they are determined to give me the discredit without the cash. If I had only got Selby's money,--I've no doubt he got it by holding up his customers in his turn,--I wouldn't mind these innuendoes so much."

"Oh, well, so long as the Grand Jury doesn't think it worth mentioning, you can probably afford to take it with equal indifference," said Burton lightly.

But Leslie turned upon him with immediate dissent.

"I should much rather have the matter taken up and sifted to the bottom. Then there might be some chance of finding out who is behind all these mysterious happenings. They don't happen of themselves. As it is, there is talk, and suspicion, and sidelong looks, and general ostracism, and I go around hating everybody, because I don't know whom to hate! Oh, if I were only a man! I would do something."

"I have done something now, Leslie," said her father. "I have invited a committee to come here this evening and make a search, as those fool bills suggested."

"This evening?"

"Yes. You will have to do the honors, if I am going to be laid up. I don't suppose your mother will care to see them. And Henry is not exactly the one." A shadow passed over his face, and he fell suddenly silent.

"What do you mean by a search, if I may ask?" Burton put in. They were so frank in their attitude, he felt that his interest would not be regarded as an impertinence.

"Why, ever since this rumor went abroad that I had held up Selby, there have been handbills distributed about town,--posted up on fences and thrust in open doors,--urging that my house be searched. It got on Leslie's nerves. So, just to let her see that something was doing, I told them today to come and search, and be hanged to them."

"And they are coming this evening?"

"Yes. That's the plan."

"Is Selby one of them?" asked Burton with sudden interest.

"Oh, yes. He's the one I spoke to about it. I understand he takes an interest in the matter."

"Well, have you made ready for them?"

"What do you mean?" asked Dr. Underwood.

"Have you searched yourself?" laughed Burton.

"I don't understand you," said Dr. Underwood. His tone was stern, and his manner indicated plainly that he considered it a matter of politeness not to understand.

"Mrs. Bussey, may I trouble you to bring some more hot water? This is getting too cold. Thank you." He closed the door behind her, and came back to Dr. Underwood's couch. "It seems to me my suggestion is perfectly simple and the reason for it perfectly obvious. Some enemy is urging that your house be searched. I say enemy, because it must be clear that no friend would urge it in that manner. Now, if it is an enemy, he is not doing it for your benefit. He must have an idea that a search would injure you. How could he have that idea unless he knew that it would result in discovering something that, we will say for the sake of argument, he had previously concealed where it would be found at the right time? And here you are walking right into the trap, by inviting a public search without taking the precaution to make a preliminary search yourself."

Leslie had listened with breathless eagerness, never moving her eyes from Burton's face. Now she turned with earnest reproach to her father.

"Now, father!" she said.

Dr. Underwood shook his head impatiently. "Do you mean that you would have me ask them to come here to make a search, and then look the place over first and remove anything that they might think incriminating? That would be a farce. I should be ashamed of myself."

Leslie turned her reproachful eyes upon Burton.

"Of course," she said, with that same earnestness.

Burton laughed. "Why, what nonsense! Beautiful nonsense, if you will, but utter nonsense, all the same. According to your own account, you are dealing with some unscrupulous person who is trying to turn suspicion upon you. Why should you help him? He certainly wouldn't be trying to bring about an investigation unless it would help on his purpose,--assuming that he has the purpose Miss Underwood attributes to him."

Dr. Underwood moved restlessly.

"I should feel mighty cheap," he said.

"Do you happen to have one of those handbills you speak of about?" asked Burton.

"There's one on the mantel. Give it to him, Leslie."

Burton crossed to the mantel and picked up the paper. It was a single sheet, typewritten. It read: "Search Underwood's rooms. You will find proof."

"These have been distributed generally?"

"Not many at a time, but a few one place one night and another place the next night. Every day since that damnable hold-up, I have heard directly or indirectly that some one has received or seen some such notice."

Burton's eye wandered around the room. "When they come, I suppose they will begin here. This is the room where you would be most likely to conceal the evidence of your crimes, I take it. Now, let me consider where you would hide it. There might be a hiding place beneath the bricks in front of the fireplace, or behind some of the loose tiles back of the mantel. I see that one book has recently been disturbed in that set of medical encyclopedias,--the dust on the shelf shows it. Did you put something behind it?"

Laughingly he pulled out the volume he had indicated, and with it a handkerchief which had been thrust behind it. He shook it out, and then he laughed no more. There were two holes cut in the handkerchief for eyelets, and the wrinkled corners showed that it had been knotted hard, as a kerchief that had been tied over a man's face would have been.

"Santa Fe!" gasped Dr. Underwood, wrinkling up his face in one of his peculiar grimaces. It served to conceal his emotions as effectively as a mask.

Leslie sprang to her feet and stared hard at the rag, with a fascinated look. She had unconsciously clasped her hands together, and there was a look of fright in her eyes.

"Now do you see?" she cried. "That's the sort of thing we have to expect all the time."

Burton crushed the kerchief in his hand. "A very crude device. Your committee would have to be very special fools to believe that a man would preserve such a damning piece of evidence when there was a fireplace in the room, and matches were presumably within reach. Shall I burn it up?"

"No," said Dr. Underwood suddenly. "Give it to me. I feel in honor bound to show it to the committee and tell them just how and where it was found."

Burton shrugged his shoulders. "I am rather inclined to believe that you need a business manager, my dear Dr. Quixote."

The door opened and the gray-haired woman whom Burton had seen reading in the garden entered the room. Her composure was so insistent that Burton felt suddenly convicted of foolish excitability.

"Mrs. Bussey understood that you had been hurt," she said, going up to the couch and looking down calmly at the doctor.

Dr. Underwood squirmed. "Yes, Angelica, some sin or other has found me out, I suppose, for I have hurt my ankle. This is Mr. Burton, who happened to be on hand to take the place of Providence."

Mrs. Underwood acknowledged Burton's bow with a slight inclination of the head, but with no slightest indication of curiosity. She sat down beside her husband's couch and thoughtfully placed her finger on his pulse.

"Land of the living, Angelica, my ankle hasn't gone to my heart," muttered Dr. Underwood, with some impatience.

Leslie spoke aside to Burton.

"What can we do? It isn't this thing only; this is just an instance. You don't know how horrible it is to have the feeling that some enemy is watching you in the dark. And my father is not practical,--you see that. We have no friends left!"

"That is not so," he said quickly.

"You mean that you will help him?" she asked eagerly. "Oh, if you would! There is no one to whom I can turn for advice."

It was not exactly what he had meant, but he recognized at once that it was what he should have meant. If ever there were two babes in the wood, needing the kind attentions of a worldly and unoccupied robin--! Aside from that, if this girl were going to marry into the Overman family, he certainly owed it to Rachel to see that she came with a clean family record, if any efforts that he could make would establish a fact that should have been beyond question from the first.

"Let me be present this evening, when this committee comes," he said, slowly. "I will consider the matter and tell you what I think I can do, after I have seen and heard them."

"Stay and dine with us, then," she said quickly. "That will give me a chance to tell you some of the other things that have happened,--the things that father would like to call coincidences but that I know are all parts of one iniquitous conspiracy."

"Thank you, I shall be glad to," he answered. "If I am going to undertake this case, I certainly want all the facts that have any bearing upon it."

Leslie turned quickly to her mother.

"Mother, Mr. Burton will stay for dinner."

Mrs. Underwood had risen and she turned her calm eyes from her husband to Leslie. "Will he?" she said placidly. Then she drew her shawl about her shoulders and walked out of the room.

Leslie exchanged a look with her father.

"I'll speak to Mrs. Bussey," she said, and with one of her characteristically swift movements, she crossed the room and threw open the door which led to the rear of the house.

"Why, Mrs. Bussey!" she exclaimed, with surprise and annoyance. That faithful servant, doubtless on the theory that her further attendance might be required, had been crouching so close to the door that the sudden opening of it left her sitting like a blinking mandarin in the open doorway. She rose somewhat stiffly to her feet, and turned a reproachful look upon her young mistress. Leslie shut the door with some emphasis, as she went out to the housekeeper's domain.

Dr. Underwood laughed softly.

"Poor old soul, it's hard on one with such an appetite for news to get nothing but the crumbs that float through the keyhole. I'm mighty glad that you are going to stay, Doctor."

"Thank you. But your giving me that title makes me uncomfortable. I am not a physician. I'm afraid I am not much of anything but a dilettante."

"You are a good Samaritan to come to the rescue of the outcast," said the doctor. "Perhaps you didn't know what an outcast I am,--or did you?" he added keenly, warned by some subtle change in Burton's face.

"On the contrary, I thought when I saw your patience to your servant that you were the good Samaritan," said Burton quickly. This old man was so sharp that it was dangerous to think before him!

The doctor's manner changed. "The poor woman is a fool, but she can't help that," he said. "We keep her for the sake of her son. Ben is a cripple,--paralyzed from a spinal injury. He has no other home. Are you to be in High Ridge for some time?"

"That will depend on circumstances. By the way, Miss Underwood has asked me to be present this evening when the committee comes. If you have any objection--"

Dr. Underwood looked quietly at the young man for a moment before replying. When he spoke, it was with courtesy in his tone, but he made no apology for his hesitation.

"Not in the least. You will put me under further obligations by staying. Anyhow, if Leslie has asked you to stay, I know my place too well to object. Did you meet Leslie in Washington?"

"I never had the pleasure of meeting Miss Underwood before, but I have heard a great deal of her from my friend, Philip Overman."

"Oh!" said Dr. Underwood, with a keen look. Then he threw his head back, closed his eyes, and murmured: "I am glad you arrived in time to meet the other investigating committee in active operation, Mr. Burton. The theatrical attractions in High Ridge are dull just now."

"I am finding High Ridge anything but dull," said Burton, ignoring the covert thrust of that "other." "And I can see possibilities of much entertainment here. For instance, in investigating your investigating committee, while your investigating committee is investigating you."

He laughed as he spoke, little guessing how far afield the pursuit of that entertainment was going to carry him.

CHAPTER IV

THE CURIOUS EXPERIENCES OF THE UNDERWOOD FAMILY

It was a curious meal, that dinner. Burton often thought afterwards that in all the varied experiences of his life, and he had had a good many, first and last, he had never met at one time, and under circumstances of such sudden and peculiar intimacy, four people so unusual. Dr. Underwood had been helped to a couch in the dining-room, and had his dinner from an invalid's table. His eager face, with its keen blue eyes and flexible mouth, was so vividly alert that no one could forget him for a moment, whether he spoke or was silent. When he laughed, which was often, he wrinkled his face into a mask. For a simple device, it was the most effective means imaginable for concealing an emotion.

Mrs. Underwood presided at her own table with the detached air of a casual guest. "Mistress of herself, though china fall," Burton murmured to himself as he looked at her; and he had an intuition that china would quite frequently be exasperated into falling by her calm. Henry sat mostly silent, with downcast eyes, though occasionally he would look up, under half-lifted lids, with an expression of scorn or secret derision. If he had shown more animation or kindliness, he would have been a handsome man; but the heavy melancholy of his look had drawn bitter lines about his mouth, and his very silence seemed half reproachful, half sullen.

As for Leslie, the only discomposing thing about her was her beauty. Every time that Burton looked at her, it struck him anew as incongruous and distracting that she should hand him the bread or have an eye to his needs. She should have been kept in a case or a frame. She belonged in a palace, where she would have due attendance and ceremony. Well,--Philip had not been such a fool, after all.

"Now I am going to begin my story," said Leslie, "because I want Mr. Burton to understand what lies back of this present persecution. The story goes back six years."

Henry gave his sister one of his slow, curious looks, but dropped his eyes again without putting his silent comment into words.

"Six years ago we were kept in hot water all one summer by some malicious person who played mischievous pranks on us, and wrote anonymous letters to us and about us. For instance, there were letters warning people to be on their guard against papa, saying he had learned from the Indian medicine men how to put spells on people and make them wither away and die."

"If I could have done half the wonders they credited with me with," laughed Dr. Underwood, "I would have out-Hermanned Hermann and out-Kellered Keller. Indian fakirs and black magicians wouldn't have been in it with Roger Underwood, M. D. It was like accusing a man who is shoveling dirt for one-twenty-five a day of having money to pay the national debt concealed in his hatband."

"Then there were a lot of letters about Henry," Leslie went on. "They would say, for instance: 'Henry Underwood is a liar.' 'Henry Underwood is a thief.' 'Henry Underwood ought to be in the penitentiary.' All one summer that kept up."

Henry had dropped his knife and fork and sat silent, without looking at his sister. His face was the face of one who is nerving himself to endure torture.

"Were there any accusations of the other members of the family?"

"No. Only Henry and father.

"Who received the letters? Friends of yours? Or enemies?"

"They were sent to the tradesmen and the more prominent people in town. We heard of them here and there, but probably we didn't know about all that were received. I remember more clearly than anything else how angry I was at some of the tricks."

"There was something more than these anonymous letters, then?"

The doctor frowned but Leslie answered readily.

"Yes. The letters continued at odd times all summer, but there were other things happening at the same time. For instance, one day an advertisement appeared in the paper saying that Dr. Underwood offered fifty cents apiece for all the cats and dogs that would be brought him for the purpose of vivisection. Now, papa does not practise vivisection--"

"He does not now," Mrs. Underwood interrupted, with impressive deliberation, "but I am not at all sure that he never did. And as I have said before, if he was ever guilty of that abominable wickedness, at any time or under any circumstances, he richly deserved all the annoyance that advertisement brought upon him."

Dr. Underwood wrinkled up his face in a grimace, but made no answer.

"Well, he doesn't now, and he didn't six years ago," Leslie resumed pacifically, "but it was hard to convince people of that. You should have seen the place the next day! Farmers, street boys, tramps, all sorts of rough people kept coming here with cats and dogs of all kinds,--oh, the forlorn creatures! And when papa refused to buy them, the people were angry and threatened to have him arrested for not carrying out his agreement. And all the ministers and the women's societies called on him to remonstrate with him for such wickedness, and when he said that he had not had anything to do with the advertisement, they showed plainly that they thought he was trying to crawl out of it because he had been caught. Oh, it was awful."

"Did you make any attempt to find out how the advertisement came to the paper, Doctor?"

Dr. Underwood shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, they showed me the order. It had come by mail, with stamps enclosed to pay for the insertion. The dunderheaded fools hadn't had sense enough to guess that when a physician wants 'material' he doesn't advertise for it in the morning paper."

"Under the circumstances, Roger," said Mrs. Underwood gravely, "your flippancy is not becoming."

"It certainly was a neat scheme, if the object was to embarrass you, Doctor. What else, Miss Underwood?"

"One day every grocer in town appeared at the door with a big load of household supplies,--enough to provision a regiment for a winter. They had all received the same order,--a very large order, including expensive and unusual things that they had had to send away for. And of course they were angry when we wouldn't take any of the things. They said that after that they would accept no orders unless we paid for them in advance, and that was sometimes embarrassing, also!"

"Were the orders received by mail, as in the other cases?"

"I believe they were."

"Did you get any of the original papers? And have you preserved them?"

"No, I didn't preserve them," said Dr. Underwood. "You see, the disturbance was only a sporadic one. It stopped, and I dismissed the matter from my mind. I didn't realize that Leslie had stored so many of the details in her memory. I think she attaches too much importance to them."

"I am not at all sure that she does," said Burton promptly. "They certainly constitute a curious series of incidents. Was there anything more, Miss Underwood?"

"Oh, yes, indeed. One morning we could not get out of the house. During the night, every door and every window had been barred across from the outside. Strips of board had been fastened across all of them with screws so there had been no noise that would waken us. On the front door was a piece of paper, and written on it in big letters was 'This is a prison.' Henry found it when he came home,--he had been spending the night with a friend,--and tore it down, and unscrewed the bars on the front door and let us out of our prison."

"You could have got down all right from the second story by the big oak on the east side," said Henry. It was the first time he had contributed anything to the recital, and he spoke now in an impatient tone, as though the whole conversation bored him.

"Has it occurred to you," asked Burton thoughtfully, "that all these incidents bear the same marks of freakishness and mischief rather than of venomous malice? They are like the tricks a schoolboy might play to get even with some one he had a grudge against. They are not like the revenge a man would take for a real injury or a deep-felt grievance."

He glanced up at Dr. Underwood as he spoke, and caught the tail end of a scrutinizing look which that careless gentleman was just withdrawing from Henry's unconscious face. The furtive watchfulness of that look was wholly at variance with the offhand tone in which he answered Burton.

"I have not the slightest doubt you are right about that. It was mere foolishness on the part of some ignorant person, who wanted to do something irritating, and probably enjoyed the feeling that he was keeping us all agog over his tomfoolery."

"Oh, but it was more than nonsense," cried Leslie. "You forget about the fires. One night, Mr. Burton, Mrs. Bussey left the week's washing hanging on the lines in the back yard, and in the morning we found that it had all been gathered into a heap and burned. That was carrying a joke pretty far. And soon afterwards there was an attempt to burn the house down."

"Come, Leslie, let me tell that incident," interposed her father. "We found, one morning, a heap of half-charred sticks of wood on the front doorstep. It looked sinister at first sight, of course, but when I examined it, I was sure that there had been no fire in the sticks when they were piled on the step, or afterwards. It was a menace, if you like, but as Mr. Burton points out about those other matters, it was rather a silly attempt at a scare than a serious attempt at arson. Don't paint that poor devil any blacker than he is, my girl. He has probably realized long ago that it was all a silly performance, and we don't want to go about harboring malice."

"Of course not. Only,--those things did actually happen to us, Mr. Burton."

"Don't say happen, Leslie," said Mrs. Underwood, with the curious effect she always had of suddenly coming back to consciousness at any word that struck her ethical mind. "Things don't happen to people unless they have deserved them. What seems to be accident may be really punishment for sin."

"Well, these things befell us after that fashion," said Leslie patiently, picking her words to avoid pitfalls of metaphysics. "Then they stopped. Everything went on quietly until a few weeks ago. Then things began again."

"Let me warn you, Burton," interposed Dr. Underwood again, "that this is where Leslie becomes fantastic. She has too much imagination for her own good. She ought to be writing fairy tales, or society paragraphs for the Sunday papers. Now go ahead, my dear. Do your worst."

"Papa persists in making fun of me because I see a connection between what happened six years ago, and the things that have been coming up lately, but I leave you to judge. There have been no tricks on us, no disturbances about the house, but there have been stories circulated, perfectly outrageous stories,--"

"The highwayman story?"

"That is one of them."

"But surely the best way to treat that is with silent contempt!"

But Leslie shook her head.

"That isn't papa's way. He answers back. And it certainly is annoying to have your neighbors repeating such tales, and humiliating to find that they are ready to go more than halfway in believing them."

"It is not only humiliating; it is expensive," murmured Dr. Underwood, letting his head fall back against the cushions of the couch, and closing his eyes a little wearily. "You can't expect people to call in a doctor who is suspected of robbing the public and occasionally poisoning a patient. I have practically nothing left but charity patients now, and pretty soon they will consider that it is a charity to let me prescribe for them."

Burton's eyes were drawn to Leslie's face. She was looking at her father with a passion of pity and sympathy that was more eloquently expressed through her silence than by any words. Mrs. Underwood broke the silence with her judicial speech.

"I do not think," she said, "that there has ever been anything in your treatment of your patients that would at all justify the idea that you poisoned Mr. Means. Therefore, you can rest assured that the story will do you no harm. We really can suffer only from our own acts."

Underwood opened his eyes and looked at Burton with portentous gravity.

"We'll consider that matter settled, then. Sometime I should like to lay the details of that affair before you, Mr. Burton, because you would understand the wild absurdity of it all. As a matter of fact, strychnine in fatal quantities was found in the bottle of medicine which I made up myself, and I have not the slightest idea who could have tampered with it. Some one had. That is one of the mysteries which Leslie wants to fit in with the others of the series. But we haven't time for that now, for my committee is almost due, and I am going to ask you to help me back to the surgery. I will meet them there."

"One moment," said Burton. "You surely must have laid these matters before the police. Did they make no discoveries, have no theories?"

Underwood glanced at his daughter,--plainly and obviously a glance of warning. But he spoke in his habitually easy way.

"Oh, Selby has put it before the police," he said. "As I understand it, he has been neglecting his business to labor with the police by day and by night, trying to induce them to arrest me. It strike me that he is becoming something of a monomaniac on the subject, but I may be prejudiced."

"I didn't mean the recent hold-up, but those earlier affairs," explained Burton. "Didn't the police investigate them?"

"Our police force has fallible moments, and this proved to be one of them. They chased all over the place, like unbroken dogs crazy over a scent, ran many theories to earth, and proved nothing," said the doctor in an airy tone, as one dismissing a subject of no moment.

But Mrs. Underwood looked down the table toward Burton and spoke with her disconcerting and inopportune candor.

"They tried to make out that it was Henry," she said calmly. "I think I may say, without being accused of partiality, that I do not consider their charges as proven, for though Henry has much to answer for--"

"So you see we are very well-known people in the town and have been much in the public eye," interrupted the doctor smoothly.

"Not so well-known as you might be," said Burton, catching wildly at the first conversational straw he could think of, in his eagerness to second the doctor's obvious effort to put a stop to his wife's disconcerting admissions. "I asked a man who was talking to Mrs. Bussey at your back gate if this was your house, and he didn't even know your name."

"That is as gratifying as it is surprising," the doctor responded, also marking time. "I wonder who the ignorant individual could be."

At that moment Mrs. Bussey entered the room, with her tray, and to keep the ball going he turned to question her. "Who was it you were talking to at the back gate this afternoon, Mrs. Bussey?"

"Wasn't nobody," said Mrs. Bussey, with startled promptness.

"A man. Didn't know my name. Was he a stranger?"

"Didn't talk to nobody," she repeated doggedly, without looking up. "Who says I was talking to a strange man?"

"It doesn't matter," said the doctor, with a surprised glance. "He was evidently unknown as well as unknowing, Mr. Burton,--or at any rate we keep peace in the family by assuming that he was non-existent. There are things into which it is not wise to inquire too closely. Now I believe that I'll have to ask for help in getting back into the surgery."

Burton waited just long enough to assure himself that Henry was not going to his father's assistance, then offered his own arm. At the same moment he caught a slight but imperative sign from Mrs. Underwood to her son. In silent response to it, Henry came forward to support his father upon the other side. As soon as they got Dr. Underwood again into the surgery, Henry withdrew without a word. Burton felt that there was something wistful in the look which the doctor turned toward his son's retreating form. But he was saved from the embarrassment of recognizing the situation, for immediately Mrs. Bussey flung open the door without the formality of tapping and burst into the room.

"There's men a-coming," she exclaimed breathlessly.

"What's that? What d'ye mean?" demanded Dr. Underwood, startled and impatient.

"There's three men a-coming in at the gate. Shall I let loose the dog?"

"Go and let them in, you idiot. You will make Mr. Burton think that we have no visitors. Don't keep them waiting outside. They didn't come to study the architecture of the façade. Bring them here,--here to this room, do you understand?"

Mrs. Bussey departed, muttering something under her breath that evidently expressed her bewildered disapproval of this break in the familiar routine of life, and Dr. Underwood looked up at Burton with his peculiar grin, which might mean: amusement or embarrassment or any other emotion that he wanted to conceal.

"My investigating committee," he said.

CHAPTER V

THE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE

If Dr. Underwood awaited his investigating committee with any special anxiety, his mobile face did not show it. Burton read excitement, interest, even satirical amusement in it, but nothing like dread. But surprise and disapproval came into it when the door opened abruptly and Leslie entered.

"I'm going to hear what they have to say," she announced.

"Now, see here, Leslie, it's bad enough to have a daughter bothering a man to death in his own home, but when she begins to tag him around in public affairs, so that he can't even meet a committee of his neighbors who want to search his study in order to arrest him for highway robbery without having her putting herself in evidence, it becomes a regular nuisance. You go back to your spinning-wheel."

"You neglected to bring me up to a spinning-wheel, father."

"You go back to your mother."

"I am going to stay here. I'll be reasonably quiet, but that's the only compromise I'll agree to. Don't waste nerve force scolding me, father. You need to conserve your strength." And with the evident intention of making herself as inconspicuous as possible she took a low chair half hidden by the heavy curtain of the window. Burton could not help thinking how futile any attempt at obscurity on her part must always be. Her beauty lit up the shadowy corner as a jewel lights its case. He had to make a conscious effort to turn his eyes away.

Again the door opened and Henry entered. The contrast between his attitude and his sister's was striking. He entered hesitatingly, one would have said reluctantly, and his eyes were not lifted from the floor.

"Mother thought I ought to be present," he said in a low voice.

Dr. Underwood regarded him with a baffled look, and Burton understood and sympathized with his perplexity. He looked curiously at Henry himself. His youthful escapades, so out of the ordinary, had evidently made him something of a family problem.

"You might profitably take for an example your brother's ready obedience to a parent's wishes," the doctor said dryly. He spoke to Leslie, but it was Henry who winced at the jibe. His face darkened, and he shot an angry look at his father.

The tramping of feet in the hall announced the approach of the committee.

"Here they be," said Mrs. Bussey, opening the door, and herself entering at the head of the little procession of three men. Her lively interest in the affair was comically evident.

Dr. Underwood saved the situation from its awkwardness with a savoir faire which Burton could not too much admire.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he cried genially. "You are very welcome. You will excuse my remaining seated, I hope. I have sprained my ankle. Let me present you to my friend, Mr. Burton,--Mr. Hadley, who is one of our most distinguished citizens; Mr. Ralston, who forms the opinions of the public of High Ridge by virtue of his position as our leading editor; Mr. Orton Selby, who was the unhappy victim of the highway robbery of which you have heard and who is justifiably anxious to let no guilty man escape. Be seated, gentlemen."

Burton bowed, in acknowledgment of the several introductions. He was touched by the simple-heartedness of Dr. Underwood in presenting him so frankly as a "friend," and felt more bound by it to act the part of a friend than he could have been by any formal pledge. He took quick appraisal of the three committeemen. Hadley was evidently prosperous, pompous and much impressed with his own importance. Ralston had the keen eye and dispassionate smile of the experienced newspaperman, so accustomed to having today's stories contradicted by to-morrow's that he has learned to be slow about committing himself to any side. Selby he had already met! That Selby remembered the fact was quite evident from the look of surprise and suspicion which he cast upon Dr. Underwood's guest. A striking man he was, with a dark narrow face, and a nervous manner. His eye was so restless that it seemed continually flitting from one object to another. His lips were thin, and, in their spasmodic twitching, gave the same sense of nervous instability that his restless eyes conveyed. Burton had an impulse to pick him up and set him forcibly down somewhere, with an injunction to sit still.

"If you have formed any plan of procedure, gentlemen, go ahead," said Underwood. "We stand ready, of course, to assist you in any way possible."

"Sorry you've had an accident," said Ralston, with friendly interest, "I hope it's not serious."

"Oh, no. It interferes with my walking for the present, but I'll be all right in a few days. Those pestiferous little imps, the Sprigg children, threw stones at my nag, and some of them took effect on me. Tormented little wretches! They are bound to be in the fashion if it takes a leg,--my leg, I mean. I told them fire would descend from heaven to burn up children who stoned prophets, but they didn't seem to realize that I was a prophet."

"I hope you may not prove so, in this instance," laughed Ralston.

"Yes, if fire should descend upon them, it might look as though you were responsible," said Hadley, with a ponderous air of perpetrating a light pleasantry. "They say it is dangerous to go up against you, Doctor. Something is apt to happen."

"Oh, laws!" gasped a frightened voice. Mrs. Bussey had been an open-mouthed listener to the conversation.

Underwood turned sharply upon her, perhaps glad of an opportunity to vent his irritation indirectly.

"Mrs. Bussey, while I regret to interfere with the liberty of action which belongs to every freeborn citizen of this great republic, I think we shall have to dispense with your presence at the ceremonies. I mean, Mrs. Bussey, we shan't need you any longer. You may go."

The woman muttered a grumbling dissent, but slowly withdrew. Burton was divided between amusement over the scene and wonder that the Underwoods, whatever their financial stress, should keep so untrained and untrainable a servant. She seemed to have all the defects and none of the merits of an old family retainer.

"Well, we came here for business and we don't want to be wasting time," said Selby abruptly. "You probably know how to get even with the Spriggs without delaying us."

"Certainly," said Underwood courteously, "but there is something I'd like to say first,--"

"If you are ready to make a confession, of course we are ready to hear you. I don't think anything else is in order at this point," said Selby, in the same aggressively abrupt manner.

Burton was suddenly conscious of an impulse to go up to the man and knock him down, and by that token he knew, if there had been any reservation in his mind before, that he had taken sides for good and all. He was for Dr. Underwood. He glanced swiftly around the room to see how the others took this wanton rudeness. Ralston was watching the doctor quizzically from under his eyebrows. Hadley did not know that anything had happened. Henry was still as impassive as a statue, but Leslie, from her low seat by the window, was leaning forward with a look of lively indignation that was more eloquent than words. Burton went quickly over to her and sat down beside her without speaking.

"What I have to say is entirely in order at this point, even though it be not a confession," Dr. Underwood said quietly. "I invited you here in good faith to conduct any sort of an investigation that you might consider necessary. An hour or so ago, Mr. Burton found this handkerchief concealed behind the books on that shelf. As you would of course have discovered it, if he had not found it, I consider it only proper that I should place it in your hands." He picked up the mutilated handkerchief which had been left on the table, and after a moment's hesitation, said: "Henry, will you hand this to Mr. Hadley, as chairman of this committee?"

As Henry took the handkerchief from his father's hand, it fell open and the staring eyelet holes glared at the company. He stopped suddenly and a look of dismay went like a wave over his face. He glanced swiftly at his father. But while he hesitated, Selby sprang forward and snatched it from his hand with something like the snarl of an animal.

"Look at that! Look at that, will you?" he almost shouted. Hadley blinked at it and Ralston got up and took the handkerchief in his hand.

"It seems to be the orthodox thing," he said with interest.

"Seems to be! Seems to be pretty conclusive, I should say. It's proof!"

"It's proof that Dr. Underwood has a malicious enemy and a rather stupid one," said Burton, thinking that it was time for him to take a hand in this remarkable scene. "I found that handkerchief an hour ago, tucked behind one of the books there, where you would certainly have found it if you had made any search. It is, of course, perfectly evident that it was placed there for the express purpose of having you find it."

"I don't see that that is so evident," Selby interrupted. "What have you got to say about this, anyhow?"

"Do you think that if Dr. Underwood had had such an incriminating piece of evidence he would have kept it instead of destroying it? If he were bound to keep it, do you think he would hide it where the first careless search would bring it to light? If he had so hidden it, would he have invited you here to search? You can't answer yes to those questions, unless you think he is a fit subject for the insane asylum rather than the jail."

Leslie shot him an eloquent glance of thanks. Hadley coughed and looked at Ralston, who was attending to Burton closely.

"I agree with you perfectly," the editor said, and Hadley nodded.

Selby turned a face of deliberate insolence upon Burton. "I don't know who you are, Mr. Burton, but you are here as a friend of Dr. Underwood's, that's clear."

"Yes," said Burton. "I love him for the enemies he has made." Ralston looked at him with evident enjoyment.

"Well, a friend's say-so won't go very far in clearing a man when facts like these stand against him. We're here looking for a thief. If it wasn't Dr. Underwood that held me up, let him explain that handkerchief, found here in his own private room."

And Hadley sagely nodded.

"I can't explain it," said Dr. Underwood. The life had gone out of his voice.

"It explains itself," said Burton impatiently. "Some one is trying to make trouble for Dr. Underwood by a very clumsy and transparent device. Of course," he added, suddenly realizing that he was not taking the politic tone, "of course such an obvious trick might impose on ignorant people, but to three men of more than average intelligence and experience, it must be perfectly clear that the very obviousness of the evidence destroys its value."

Ralston cocked his left eye at him and laughed silently. Hadley nodded, but with some dubiousness. He agreed heartily with that part of the speaker's last sentiment which bore witness to his more than average intelligence, but he had a dizzy feeling that he was getting himself somewhat tangled up as to what he was committed to. But Selby was a Cerberus superior to the temptations of any sop.

"Then we'll look for some other evidence," he said aggressively. "We're here to search, and I propose to search."

"The house is yours, gentlemen," said Dr. Underwood.

Selby took a truculent survey of the room, which was not a large one. He walked over to the bookcase and ran his hand behind the books on the shelves and lifted heaps of loose papers and magazines without disclosing anything more deadly than dust. Then he opened the door of a medicine cabinet on the wall and pulled out the drawers of the table, and ran his eye over the mantel. He suggested a terrier trying to unearth a rat and apparently he was perfectly willing to conduct the search alone.

Leslie was watching him with a look of so much indignation and repressed scorn that Burton bent to her and said in a low voice: "Wouldn't it be better for you to leave?"

She shook her head.

"Don't waste your good hate on him," Burton urged gently. "He isn't worth it."

"There is some one behind all this who is," she flashed.

"Yes. We'll find out who it is before we are through."

She gave him a grateful look, and on the instant he began wondering how he could win another. They seemed especially well worth collecting.

Selby had dropped on his knees before the open fireplace and was examining the bricks that made the hearth.

"Some of these bricks are loose," he said accusingly to Underwood.

"Careless of them," murmured the doctor.

But Selby was in no mood for light conversational thrusts and parries. He was trying to pry up the suspicious bricks with his fingers and breaking his nails on them.

"Hand him a knife, Henry," said Dr. Underwood.

Henry took a clasp-knife from his pocket in the same passive silence that had marked him throughout, and mechanically opened the large blade. It slipped in his hand and Burton saw him wince as the steel shut with a snap upon his finger. But he opened it again and handed it to Selby, who took it with an inarticulate grunt. Burton kept his eye upon the cut finger, but as Henry, after a hasty glance, merely wrapped his handkerchief hard about it, and made no motion to leave the room, he concluded the hurt had not been as serious as it looked.

"'Well, perhaps this can be explained away, too!'" Page 71.

Selby was busy trying to pry up one of the bricks with the knife, when suddenly the point snapped.

"You've broken it," exclaimed Henry, who was standing nearest.

"If I have, I'll pay for it," said Selby, with a vicious look. "I pay my debts in full every time. Hello! This looks like something interesting! Well, perhaps this can be explained away, too!" He picked up from the mortar under the loose brick a glittering something and held it up with a triumphant air.

"What is it?" asked Ralston.

"It's my watch-chain and my charm, that I was robbed of; that's what it is." He shook it in his excitement until the links rattled. "Is that evidence or isn't it? Does that prove anything or doesn't it?"

"Is that chain yours?" asked Underwood gravely.

"Of course it's mine. My initials are on the charm and the date it was presented to me. I guess there isn't any one going to claim that chain but me."

He took it to Ralston and Hadley, talking excitedly. Underwood sat silent, with his head a little bent and his eyes on the floor. He looked as though a weight had fallen upon him. Burton tried to catch Leslie's eye for a reassuring glance, but she was anxiously watching her father and was regardless of everything else.

"It looks bad--bad," muttered Hadley, handing the chain back to Selby.

Henry had been glowering at Selby in somber silence, and now he startled every one by speaking out with a slow emphasis that stung.

"I've heard it said that those who hide can find," he said.

Selby whirled upon him. "Meaning me?"

Henry lifted his shoulders in an exasperating shrug. "You went pretty straight to the right brick."

Selby walked up to Henry with out-thrust chin, and spoke in a manner that struck Burton as deliberately offensive and provocative.

"That's what you have to say, is it? Now my advice to you is that you say just as little as possible. You're not far enough out of the woods yourself to holler very loud."

"How so? Do you mean now that it was I who robbed you?" Henry asked tauntingly. "It would have been quite easy for me to wear my father's cloak, if I wanted to throw suspicion on him; and to hide these things in the room, wouldn't it? Come, now! Was it I, or wasn't it?"

Selby hesitated an instant. Burton wondered whether he were considering the advisability of changing his line of attack to that so audaciously suggested by Henry. Perhaps he regretted that he had not accused Henry in the first place, but saw that it was impossible consistently to do so now.

"It's the sort of thing that you might do, easy enough, we all know that," he said bitingly. "We haven't forgotten your tricks here six years ago, and you needn't think it. Just because the police didn't catch you, you needn't think that you fooled anybody."

"Gentlemen," the doctor tried to interpose, but no one heard him. Henry was evidently enjoying himself. He seemed curiously determined to provoke Selby to the uttermost, and the insolent mockery of his manner was all the more strange because of its contrast to his former taciturnity.

"You're a poor loser, Selby. What's a few dollars more or less to make a fuss over? Some time you may lose something that you really will miss. As for this robbery, if you really were held up,--I don't know whether you were or not, since I have only your word for it,--I'm sure you didn't have money enough to pay for that cheap handkerchief. And as for that plated chain!" He lifted his shoulders.

"What's mine is mine," said Selby, with the ineffective viciousness of a badgered animal.

"But the point is, is everything yours that you think is?"

"I'm going to find out who got my money," said Selby doggedly. "And as for you,--I'll get you yet."

"Sorry, but you can't have me. I'm already engaged," said Henry deliberately.

The retort seemed to carry Selby entirely beyond his own control.

"You're very clever at making speeches, aren't you? Almost as clever as you are at throwing people, and breaking their backs--"

But Dr. Underwood again interposed and this time successfully.

"All this is aside from the question. We are not here to study ancient history in any of its forms. This committee was invited here to consider the robbery of Mr. Selby, and anything else is beside the mark."

"And my watch-chain? Is that beside the mark? Found concealed here under your hearth. Does that mean nothing?"

The doctor looked so unhappy that Burton took the answer upon himself.

"It means exactly as much and as little as the handkerchief," he said. "It means that the place has been 'salted' in expectation of your visit, and if you want to go into the investigating business to some effect, you'll set yourselves to finding out who did it."

"Never mind going into that," said Underwood a little anxiously. "These gentlemen were invited here to investigate me, and here my interest in the matter ends. If they are satisfied--"

"But we are not," interrupted Selby. "Satisfied! I'm satisfied that we've got evidence enough to hang a man on, and I shall demand the arrest of Dr. Underwood."

"Then you will do so on your own responsibility," said Ralston, in decided tones. "I think Mr. Burton is right. The evidence was so plainly intended to be found that it amounts to nothing. I, for one, shall not allow myself to be made a laughing stock by taking action on it, and I am sure that Mr. Hadley agrees with me."

"I--certainly--ah--should not wish to be made a laughing stock," said Mr. Hadley, with a reproachful look at Selby.

Selby picked up his hat and made for the door. "You needn't think I'm going to drop this," he said with bitter emphasis. He addressed the room in general, but his look fell on Henry Underwood.

Hadley and Ralston also rose.

"If he acts on this evidence," said Ralston, addressing Dr. Underwood, "you may count on Mr. Hadley and myself to state exactly how it was found. We will say good night now, and I hope your foot will be all right in a day or two."

"Thank you," said Underwood. "Henry, will you see the gentlemen to the door?"

Henry went out with the committee. Incidentally, he did not return to the surgery. From his place by the window, Burton saw the men depart. Selby, who had left the room some minutes before the others, was the last to leave the house. Indeed, the others waited at the gate some minutes before he came hurriedly out to join them. Burton wondered if he had occupied the time in poking into other rooms in his absurd "search."

Leslie had sprung up and gone to her father. She put one arm around his neck and lifted his face with a sort of fierce affection.

"Why do you look so depressed, father?" she demanded. "How dare you let yourself go down like that?"

He wrinkled his face in one of those queer smiles.

"I know, my dear, that it is the proper and right-minded thing for a man with a sprained ankle to go around capering and dancing for joy, and I am sorry not to be living up to your just expectations. I'll try to improve."

She turned with one of her swift transitions to Burton. "What do you think of it?"

"Exactly what I told the committee," he said, and was glad that he could say it promptly.

"You can understand now how I feel,--as though a net were drawing around me. It is so intangible and yet so horribly real. What can one do?"

Instead of answering he asked a question in his turn.

"Why does your brother hate Selby?"

"Wouldn't any one hate him?"

"Well, then, why does Selby hate your brother?"

"I don't know that he does."

"Yes, he does. They hate each other royally, and it is nothing new, either."

Underwood groaned, and Leslie promptly patted his shoulder.

"Poor papa, does it hurt?"

"Yes," he sputtered.

Then he pulled himself together and turned again to Burton. "Henry has an unfortunate way of provoking antagonism. But all this has no more to do with this robbery than it has to do with the spots on the sun. Even Selby doesn't accuse Henry of holding him up. I am the target of his attacks, thank Heaven."

"Why this pious gratitude?"

"I can stand it better than Henry. Possibly you did not understand Selby's slur. It has been the tragedy of Henry's life that he crippled Ben Bussey. It was ten years ago that it happened. They had a tussle. Ben was the older, but Henry was larger and stronger, and he was in a violent temper. He threw Ben in such a way that his spine was permanently injured. But the effect on Henry was almost equally serious. His hand has been against friend and foe alike. I don't consider that he was responsible for what happened here a few years later."

"Of course not. He had nothing to do with it," said Leslie. Burton saw that she had missed the significance of the doctor's remark,--and he was glad she had. As the doctor said, that matter had nothing to do with the robbery, and Henry was not implicated in the present trouble. He turned to the doctor. "I don't want to force myself upon you in the character of a pushing Perseus, but if you have no objections, I should like to spend the night in this room."

The doctor looked at him with the countenance of a chess player who is looking several moves ahead. "Why?" he asked.

"I have an idea that the person who made such elaborate preparations for your committee may be curious to learn how much of his cache was unearthed, and, knowing that the committee has been here, may come before morning to take a look. I'd like to receive him properly. I can't at this moment imagine anything that would give me more unalloyed pleasure. As no one knows of my being here, I hope the gentleman may not yet have been put upon his guard. It is evident that he has been able to get into this room before, and possibly he might try again."

"But you won't be comfortable here," protested Leslie.

"I shall be more than comfortable. That couch is disgraceful luxury compared with what I am accustomed to when camping. May I stay, Doctor?"

Dr. Underwood's grave face relaxed into a sardonic smile.

"The house is yours!"

"Thank you! I was horribly afraid you would refuse. Is this room locked at night?"

"No."

"This door opens into a back hall, I noticed. Where does that lead?"

"To the kitchen and back stairs. Also, at the other end, to the side door of the house, opening out into the garden and to a path which runs down to the side street."

"Is that outside door locked at night?"

"Oh, yes."

"Yet--some one has been able to get into this room without detection. That could only have been at night."

"But why should any one wish to?" protested the doctor uncomfortably.

"The heart is deceitful and wicked. Your faith in human nature does you honor, but I am afraid it has also got you into trouble. However, we'll hope that it may also serve to put an end to the trouble. When we find the man who hid these claptrap stage properties in here, we will find the man who knows something about the robbery. It seems to me a fair guess that he may come back to this room tonight to investigate; but in any event there isn't anything else I can do tonight, and it will flatter my sense of importance to feel that I am trying to do something. Now, if I may, I will assist you to your room, and then say good night."

Leslie, who had been waiting beside her father, rose. "I hope you won't be too uncomfortable," she said.

"My dear," her father interrupted, "I recognize in Mr. Burton the type that would rather be right than comfortable. We are in his hands, and we may as well accept the situation gracefully. The couch isn't a bad one, Burton. I have frequently spent the night here when I have come in late. Yonder door leads to a lavatory. And I hope you may not be disturbed."

Burton laughed. He had all the eagerness of the amateur. "I'm hoping that I may be! Now if you'll lean on my shoulder and pilot the way, I'll take you to your room."

The doctor accepted his assistance with a whimsical recognition of the curiousness of the situation. "That I should be putting myself and my affairs into your hands in this way is probably strange, but more strangely I can't make it seem strange," he said, when Burton left him.

When Burton came downstairs, Leslie was waiting for him.

"I want to thank you," she said impulsively.

"I haven't done anything yet."

"But you are going to."

"I am going to try." Then the conscience of the ambassador nudged his memory. After all, he was here for another and a specific purpose, and it behooved him to remember it. "If I succeed, will you have a different answer to send to Philip?" he asked, with a searching look.

She clasped her hands together upon her breast with the self-forgetful gesture he had noticed before, and her face was suddenly radiant. "Oh, yes, yes!" she cried.

Very curiously, her eagerness made Burton conscious of a sudden coolness toward his mission. Of course he ought to rejoice at this assurance that she was really fond of Philip and that nothing kept them apart but her sensitive pride, and he had sense enough to recognize that he was going to be ashamed of his divided feeling when he had time to think it over. But in the meantime the divided feeling was certainly there, with its curious commentary on our aboriginal instincts. He smiled a little grimly at himself, as he answered.

"Thank you! I hope that I may claim that promise from you very soon. I shall certainly do my best to have a right to remind you of it. Now I am going to say good night and walk ostentatiously away. That is a part of the game. You can leave the front door unlocked, and I'll let myself in when I think the coast is all clear. The door bolts, I see. And I'll find my way to the surgery all right."

"There is always a light in the hall."

"Then it will be plain sailing. Good night. And be sure to keep Mrs. Bussey out of the way while I am breaking in."

She laughed, as though he jested. But as he walked back to the hotel to make some necessary arrangements for his night's camping, he hoped she would not wholly disregard that injunction.

CHAPTER VI

A MIDNIGHT WATCH

Half an hour later Burton returned--most unostentatiously. In fact, he made himself think of a beginner in burglary as he hugged the shadowy side of the street and sought the shelter of the trees in getting across the garden. If one were going to do this sort of thing, one might as well do it in proper style. The front door yielded noiselessly to his touch, illustrating the advantage of having an accomplice within, and he was safely inside. He bolted the door and made his way through the dimly lit hall to the surgery. The whole entry had occupied less than a minute. He was breathing quickly, but it was from excitement. It was years since he had been in any sort of an adventure. He felt like a college boy again.

The surgery was sufficiently lit by the diffused light of street-lamp and moon to enable him to see his way about. He had brought with him the electric pocket lamp which he carried with him when travelling, but he did not intend to use it unless necessary. His plan was to keep as quiet as possible and wait for the anticipated visitor. If the person who had had access to the room to "salt" it were at all curious about the result of the committee's visit, he ought, logically, to come at the earliest possible moment to investigate. Burton had planned to occupy the time by writing to Rachel, and he now pulled an armchair into such a position that he could get enough of the thin moonlight from the window to see his way across his writing pad, and settled himself to the familiar task.

"My adored Rachel," he began, and then he stopped. It wasn't going to be the easiest letter in the world to write. He had been less than a day in High Ridge, yet already he had got so far away from the Putney atmosphere that he was conscious of a jolt in trying to present the situation here to Mrs. Overman. Rachel was of course the paragon of womankind. He had been a freshman at college when she married Overman, and he had accepted in perfect good faith the theory that as a consequence he was always to live the life of a Blighted Being. It had been the tacit understanding between them ever since, and he was hardly conscious that her new widowhood had put any new significance into their old relation. For years he had come and gone at her beck and call, lived on her smiles and survived her frowns with more or less equanimity, all as a bounden knight should do. It had almost become a secondary occupation. But as time went on, occasions had arisen when his account of facts had to be somewhat tempered for the adored Rachel. She was just as adorable as ever, of course, but--she didn't understand people who didn't live her kind of a life. Burton felt instinctively that the whole Underwood situation would strike her the wrong way. She would simply regard it as something that could never by any possibility have happened to any one in her class, and that would end it. If Philip were going to marry Miss Underwood--and Philip was mighty lucky to have the chance--it behooved him to tell his story warily so as not to prejudice Rachel against her future daughter-in-law. He started in again, with circumspection.

"I am writing you by the light of the fair silver moon. Does that make you think of the luny,--I mean lunar--epistles I used to write you,--the almanac-man alone remembers how many years ago! I wrote by moonlight then for romantic reasons,--now for strategical,--but that is a subject which can only be continued in my next, so please keep up your interest.

"I have seen Miss Underwood, and I wish to assure you in the first place that Philip has shown his usual good taste and discrimination by falling in love with her. She is a beautiful girl, and more. She has charm and sweetness and manner and dignity. I'll report any other qualities she may possess as I discover them. I should judge her to be somewhat older than Philip, but I am the last man in the world with a right to regard that as an obstacle.

"She has as yet given me no final answer in the matter which you commissioned me to lay before her, for the following reason:

"Her father, who is a physician, and who impresses me as a very original, attractive and honorable man, is at present under a curious shadow of popular distrust. There was a highway robbery here a short time ago, and the man robbed charges that Dr. Underwood was the robber. I am sure there is not the slightest ground for such a charge, but the people seem to have taken an attitude of distrust and suspicion toward both the doctor and his son, and you can understand Miss Underwood's natural feeling that until her father is vindicated as publicly as he has been assailed, she will not give any encouragement to Philip's suit. I have her word for it (and what is more, her radiant look for it), that this is all that keeps her from listening at this time. If you will tell Philip this, I am sure it will have the effect upon his spirits which we have both so anxiously desired. I have not the slightest doubt about the doctor's being cleared. He is a most delightful man, and his son--" Burton held his pen suspended. Henry did not lend himself to a phrase. There was something about him that ran off into the shadowy unknown. He ended his sentence lamely,--"is something of a character.

"Of course I shall stay on at High Ridge and bend every energy to clearing up this matter without delay. It can hardly prove very difficult, though there are some curious and unusual features in the case.

"It is unnecessary for me to say that the thought that he is carrying out the wishes of his adored Rachel is the chief joy in life of her

"BLIGHTED BEING."

It was the way in which he had always signed his letters to her since her marriage. He wrote the words now with the cheerful unconsciousness of habit, and folded his letter for mailing. Then after a moment he rose and walked softly to the window. Putting the curtain aside, he stood for some time looking out across the lawn. His window looked not toward Rowan, but toward the side street, a hundred and fifty feet away. The moon was clear and high, and the black and white of its light and shadow made a scene that would have appealed to any lover of the picturesque. It would delight a poet or a philosopher he thought, and that brought Henry Underwood again to his mind. He was a curious man,--a man to give one pause. There was something of the poet and something of the philosopher in him, as witness his speeches in the garden, but there was something else, also. If the moodiness which was so obvious had manifested itself in the tricks that had defied the police and scandalized the family, it went near to the line of the abnormal. It would seem that the accusation was neither admitted nor proved, but the hotel clerk had referred to it, Selby had openly charged him with it, and the doctor evidently did not wish the matter discussed. Well, it had nothing to do with the present affair, unless--unless--Oh, of course it had nothing to do with the present affair.

The figure of a man moving with a sort of stealthy swiftness among the shadows of the garden caught his eye, and instantly he was alert. The man crossed an open patch of moonlight and, with a curious feeling that it was what he had expected, Burton recognized Henry Underwood. He came directly toward the side of the house where the surgery was, and a moment later Burton heard the outer door of the back hall open, and footsteps went past his closed door.

Burton pressed his electric light to look at his watch. It was two o'clock. He turned back to the window, with a feeling of irritation. Henry Underwood might be a poet and a philosopher, but he was also a fool, or he would not be wandering at two A.M. through a town that was already smouldering with suspicion of the Underwood family. It was, to say the least, imprudent. Burton wished he had not seen him. Probably his errand was entirely innocent and easily to be explained, but the human mind is a fertile field, and a seed of suspicion flourishes like the scriptural grain of mustard.

There was a red glow in the sky over the trees of the garden. Burton wondered if it could be the morning glow. It was hardly time for that. He was speculating upon it idly when his ear caught the sound of returning footsteps in the back hall,--though this time they were so soft that if he had not been alert for any sound he would hardly have noticed them. He drew aside from the window, hid himself in the shadow of the long curtain, and waited. Unless the person in the hall entered this room, he had no right to question his movements.

The door was opened with noiseless swiftness, and a man stood for an instant in the opening. His head was bent forward and he carried a light in his hand,--whether small lantern or shaded candle Burton did not have time to see, for almost at the instant of opening the door the light was quenched. Burton was certain that neither sound nor movement had betrayed his own presence, yet after that single moment of reconnoitering, the light went out and the door was shut sharply. Burton sprang toward it, stumbled over the armchair he had himself placed in the way, picked himself up, and reached the door,--only to look into the blank blackness of the back hall. There was a faint quiver of sound in the air, as though the outer house door had jarred with a sudden closing, and he ran down the hall; the door was unlocked and yielded at once to his touch. For a moment everything was still; then he heard the clatter of feet on a board walk. It was as though some one, escaping, had waited to see if he would be pursued and then had fled on. Burton ran around to the rear of the house, thankful that the moonlight now made his way plain. There was a board walk running from the kitchen door to a high wall at the end of the lot, but the sound he had heard was momentary, not continuous, so, on the theory that the man had crossed the walk, not run down the hundred feet of it to the alley, he ran on to the east side of the house. There was no one to be seen, of course. Any one familiar with the location could have hidden himself in any of a hundred shadows. The lot was filled with trees, and one large oak almost rested against the house. It reminded him of Henry's remark at dinner about getting down from the second story by the oak on the east side, and he glanced up. It looked an easy climb--and two of the house windows were lit. On the impulse of the moment, he swung himself up into the branches. As he came level with the lit windows, Henry Underwood passed one of them, still fully dressed. He was so near that Burton was certain for a moment that he himself must have been discovered, and he waited a moment in suspense. But Henry had passed the window without looking out.

What Burton had expected to discover was perhaps not clear to his own mind. If he had analyzed the intuition he followed, he would have said that he was acting on the theory that Henry had looked into his room, and then, fleeing out of doors to throw him off the scent--by that side door to which he obviously carried a key, since he had let himself in that way shortly before--had regained his room by this schoolboy stairway. The feeling had been strong upon him that he was close on the trail of some one fleeing. But if in fact it had been Henry, how could he challenge him, here in his own room? Clearly he was within his rights here,--a fact that was emphasized when, after a minute, he came to the window and pulled the curtain down.

Burton dropped to the ground and retraced his steps around the rear of the house. Here he saw that the board walk ran down to a gate,--the gate in the rear by which he had seen Mrs. Bussey talking in excited fashion to a man, earlier in the day. The gate opened at Burton's touch and he looked out into an empty alley. It was so obvious that this would have been the natural and easy way of escape that he could only blame himself for folly in chasing an uncertain sound of footsteps past the gate around to the east of the house.

He found his way back to the surgery a good deal humiliated. The mysterious intruder had been almost within reach of his arm, and had got away without leaving a trace, and all that was gained was that hereafter he would be more alert than ever, knowing himself watched. It was not a very creditable beginning. Burton threw himself down on the couch, and his annoyance did not prevent his dropping, after a time, into a sound sleep.

Therefore he did not see how that red glow on the sky above the trees deepened and made a bright hole in the night, long before the morning came to banish the darkness legitimately.

CHAPTER VII

THE WORK OF THE INCENDIARY

Burton awoke from his short and uneasy sleep with a sudden start and the feeling that some one had been near him. The room was, however, empty and gray in the early morning light. As full recollection of the events that had passed came back to his mind, an ugly thought pressed to the front. Was it Henry who was persecuting the doctor? Or, rather, was there a possibility that it was not Henry? It certainly was Henry who had been abroad at two in the night,--that was indisputable. Burton had seen him too clearly to be in doubt. Was it not straining incredulity to doubt that it was Henry who had tried to enter his room a few minutes later? If it had been a stranger, would Henry not have been aroused by the opening and shutting of the outside door? It was not a pleasant idea that Miss Underwood's brother was the culprit in the case, but it appeared that he had already laid himself open to suspicion in connection with the series of petty annoyances which his sister had narrated. The local police might not be expert detectives, but they must have average intelligence and experience. And that Henry was moved by a sort of dumb antagonism toward his father was quite obvious.

Burton jumped up from the couch, where he had been revolving the situation, and a scrap of paper, dislodged from his clothing, fell to the floor. He picked it up and read:

"Spy!

"Go back, spy, or you'll be sorry."

In spite of nerves that were ordinarily steady enough, Burton felt a thrill of something like dismay. An unfriendly presence had bent over him while he slept, left this message of sinister import, and vanished as he had vanished into the night when pursued. The thought that he had lain helpless under the scrutiny of this soft-footed, invisible enemy was more disturbing than the threat itself. It gave him a sensation of repulsion that made him understand Miss Underwood's feeling. The situation was not merely bizarre. It was intolerable.

He examined the slip of paper carefully. It was long and narrow and soft,--such a strip as might have been torn from the margin of a newspaper. The writing was with a very soft, blunt pencil. A pencil such as he had seen carpenters use in marking boards might have made those heavy lines. The hand was obviously disguised and not very skilfully, for while occasional strokes were laboriously unsteady, others were rapid and firm.

He folded the paper and put it carefully away in his pocketbook. If this were Henry's work, he undoubtedly was also the author of the anonymous typewritten notices which had been circulated in the town. Why was the message written this time instead of typewritten? A typewriter in the corner of the room caught his eye, as though it were itself the answer to his question. With a swift suspicion in his mind, he sat down before it and wrote a few lines. Upon comparing these with the typewritten slip which the doctor had shown him the evening before, and which still lay on the mantel, it was perfectly clear that they had both been produced by the same machine. Some one who had easy and unquestioned access to this room used the doctor's typewriter to tick off insinuations against its owner! It seemed like substantial proof of Henry's guilt. Who else could use this room without exciting comment? The audacity of the scheme was hardly more surprising than its simple-mindedness. Burton crushed his sheet in his hand and tossed it into the wastepaper basket with a feeling of contempt.

While he made a camp toilet he wondered why he had let himself in for all this. He had acted on a foolish impulse. There were roily depths in the matter which it would probably be better not to stir up, and it must now be his immediate care to get out of the whole connection as soon as possible. He had no desire to play detective against Miss Underwood's brother. Thank heaven that her acceptance of his tender for Philip had been so conditioned! He would withdraw while the matter was still nebulous.

There came a tap at the door and Mrs. Bussey entered.

"Breakfast's ready," she announced. Then she waited a moment and added in a shamefaced undertone that betrayed the unfamiliarity of the message, "Miss Underwood's compliments!" and vanished in obvious embarrassment.

Burton had to laugh at that, and with more cheerfulness than he would have thought possible he found his way to the breakfast room. Miss Underwood herself smiled a welcome at him from the head of the table.

"You are to breakfast tête-à-tête with me," she said, answering his unconscious look of inquiry. "Mother always breakfasts in her room, and poor father will have to do the same this morning. Henry has been gardening for hours. So you have only myself left!"

"I can imagine worse fates," said Burton. And then, with a curiosity about Henry which was none the less keen because he did not intend to make it public, he asked: "Is your brother an enthusiastic gardener?"

"It is the only thing he cares about, but it would be stretching the word to call him enthusiastic, I'm afraid. Poor Henry!"

"Why?"

"I mean because of Ben Bussey."

"Oh, yes."

"It has made him so moody and strange. You see, he has had Ben before him all his life as an object lesson on the effects of temper, and mother has rather pointed the moral. She thinks that all troubles are the punishment of some wrongdoing, and she has had a good deal of influence with Henry always. It has made him resentful toward every one."

"It's unfortunate. Wouldn't it be better to send Ben away?"

"Father hoped to cure him, so he kept him here. Besides, he couldn't afford to keep him anywhere else, I'm afraid. It would be expensive to send him to a hospital,--and father can do everything for him that any one could. No one realizes as I do how father has worried over the whole unhappy situation. He has tried everything for Ben,--even to electricity. And that made trouble, too!"

"Why? Did Ben object?"

"No, but his mother did. I think the popular prejudice against father on all sides is largely the effect of Mrs. Bussey's talking. She is an ignorant woman, as you can see."

"What is Ben's attitude? Is he resentful?"

"Not at all. He is a quiet, sensible fellow, who takes things philosophically. He knows it was all an accident, of course. And he knows that father has done everything possible, besides taking on himself the support of both Ben and his mother for life."

"That is more than mere justice."

"Oh, father is like that! Besides, they would be helpless. Ben's father was a roving character who lived for years among the Indians. He hasn't been heard of for years, and no one knows whether he is dead or alive. He had practically deserted them years before Ben's accident. So father felt responsible for them, because of Henry."

"I see," said Burton thoughtfully.

Just then the door was thrown suddenly open, and Mrs. Bussey popped in, her face curiously distorted with excitement.

"The Spriggs' house is burnt!" she exclaimed, with obvious enjoyment in chronicling great news.

"How do you know?" demanded Leslie.

"Milkman told me. Burnt to the ground."

"Was any one hurt?"

"No," she admitted regretfully. Then she cheered up, and added: "But the house was burnt to the ground! Started at two o'clock in the night, and they had ter get outer the winder to save their lives. Not a rag of clothes to their backs. Jest smoking ashes now."

"I must go and see them immediately after breakfast," said Leslie. And, by way of dismissal, she added: "Please bring some hot toast now."

As soon as Mrs. Bussey was out of the room she turned to Burton.

"That is the family whose children threw stones at father yesterday. I'm awfully sorry this happened."

"Yes?"

"Because--oh, you can't imagine how people talk!--some one is sure to say that it happened because they stoned him."

"Oh, how absurd! Who would say that?"

She shook her head with a hopeless gesture. "You don't realize how eager people are to believe evil. It is like the stories of the wolves who devour their companions when they fall. They can't prove anything, but they are all the more ready to talk as though they thought it might be true. But at any rate, they can't claim that he set fire to the Sprigg house since he can't walk. Oh dear, I'm glad he sprained his ankle yesterday!"

"Filial daughter!" said Burton lightly. But his mind was busy with what he had seen in the night. Where had Henry been when he came back from town at two o'clock in the night? It would be fortunate if popular suspicion did indeed fall upon the doctor in this case, since he could more easily prove an alibi than some other members of his family.

"You will see father before you leave, will you not?" asked Leslie, after a moment.

"Yes. And if you really think it wise to visit the scene of disaster this morning, will you not permit me to accompany you?"

"Wise!" she said, with a look of wonder and a cheerless little laugh. "My family is not conspicuous for its wisdom. But I shall be very glad to have you go with me. I am going immediately. Will you see my father first?"

"Yes," he said, rising.

Dr. Underwood had already heard the news. He was up and nearly dressed when he answered Burton's knock at his door.

"So you think you're all right again," the latter said.

"It doesn't make any difference whether I am all right or not," the doctor said impetuously. "I've got to get out. You've heard about the fire?"

"Yes."

"I would have given my right hand to prevent it."

"You weren't given the choice," said Burton coolly, "so your hand is saved to you and you will probably find use for it. What's more, you are going back to bed, and you will stay there until I give you leave to get up."

"The devil I am! What for?"

"Because you can't walk a step on account of your sprained ankle."

Underwood turned to look at him in amaze.

"Oh, can't I?"

"Not a step."

"Suppose I don't agree with you?"

"If my orders are not obeyed, of course I shall throw up the case."

Underwood sat down on the edge of the bed. "So you think it's as bad as that!" he muttered. Suddenly he lifted his head with a keen look at Burton, but if a question were on his lips he checked it there. "All right," he said wearily. "I--I'll leave the case in your hands, Doctor. By the way, you didn't have any reward for your vigil last night, did you? There was no attempt to enter the surgery?"

"Oh, an amateur can't always expect to bag his game at the first shot," Burton said lightly.

He found Miss Underwood ready and waiting when he came downstairs, and they set out at once for the scene of the fire. She looked so thoughtful and preoccupied that he could not fail to realize how serious this affair must seem to her. Could it be that she entertained any of his own uncomfortable doubts as to the accidental character of the fire?

"I am consumed with wonder as to why you are going to visit the Spriggs," he said, as they went out into the shaded street. "Is it pure humanitarianism?"

"No," she said slowly. "I am worried. Of course they can't connect father with it, and yet--I am worried."

"And so you want to be on the field of battle?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's gallant, at any rate."

"But not wise?" she asked seriously.

"I withdraw that word. It is always wise to meet things with courage."

She walked on in silence a few moments.

"But they can't connect father with this, can they?" she asked earnestly.

"Of course not," he said,--and wished they need prepare to face no more serious attack than one on the doctor.

There was a small crowd about the smoking ruins of what had been a sprawling frame dwelling-house. A couple of firemen were still on the grounds, and uncounted boys were shouting with excitement and running about with superfluous activity. The nucleus of the crowd seemed to be an excited and crying woman, and Miss Underwood pressed toward this point. A large man, pompous even at this early morning hour, whose back was toward them as they approached, was talking.

"I have no doubt you are right, ma'am. I heard him say myself that fire would come down and burn them because they threw stones at him. It is an outrage that such a man should be loose in the community. We are none of us safe in our beds."

It was Hadley. Some exclamation made him turn at that moment and he saw Leslie Underwood, and suddenly fell silent. But the woman to whom he had been talking did not fall silent. Instead, she rushed up to Leslie and screamed at her, between angry sobs:

"Yes, you'd better come and look at your father's work. I wonder that you dare show your face! Burnt in our beds we might have been and that's what he meant, and all because the boys threw some bits of stones playful-like at his old buggy. Every one of us might have been burnt to death, and where are our things and our clothes and our home, and where are we going to live? Burnt up by that wicked old man, and I wonder you will show your face in the street!"

Miss Underwood shrank back, speechless and dismayed, before the furious woman, and Burton put himself before her.

"Mrs. Sprigg, your misfortune will make Miss Underwood overlook your words, but nothing will justify or excuse them. You have suffered a loss and we are all sorry for you, and Miss Underwood came here for the express purpose of offering to help you if there is anything she can do. But you must not slander an innocent man. And as for the rest of you," he added, turning with blazing anger to the crowd as a whole, "you must remember that such remarks as I heard when I came up will make you liable to an action for defamation of character. The law does not permit you to charge a man with arson without any ground for doing so."

"If Dr. Underwood didn't do it, who did? Tell me that," a man in the crowd called out.

"I don't have to tell you. That's nonsense. Probably it caught from the chimney."

"The chief says it's incendiary all right. Started in a bedroom on the second floor, in a pile of clothes near a window."

"Even if it were incendiary,--though I don't believe it was--that has nothing to do with Dr. Underwood. He's laid up with a sprained ankle and can't walk a step, let alone climb up to a second story window."

"Well, Henry Underwood hasn't sprained an ankle, has he?" This came from Selby, whom Burton had not noticed before. He thrust himself forward now, and there was something almost like triumph in his excited face.

"What do you mean by bringing his name in?" Burton asked sternly.

"It looks like his work all right. More than one fire has been started by him in High Ridge before this. There are people who haven't forgotten his tricks here six years ago, writing letters about his father, and burning clothes and keeping the whole place stirred up. I'm not surprised he has come to this."

"He ought to be hung for this, that's what he ought," burst in Mrs. Sprigg. "Burning people's houses over their heads, in the dead of night! Hanging's too good for him."

"You have not an atom of evidence to go on," cried Burton, exasperated into argument. "You might just as well accuse me, or Mr. Selby, or any one else. Henry Underwood has no ill-will against you,--"

"The doctor said that fire would come and burn the children up; Mr. Hadley heard him."

"That was nonsense. I heard what he said, too. He was just joking. Besides, that was the doctor, it wasn't Henry."

"If the doctor had a wanted to a done it, he could," said an old man, judicially. "He knows too much for his own good, he does, and too much for the good of the people that go agin him. 'Tain't safe to go agin him. He can make you lay on your back all your life, like he done with Ben Bussey. He'd a been well long afore this if the doctor had treated him right."

"Come away from this," said Burton in a low voice to Leslie. "You see you can do no good. There is no reason why you should endure this."

She let him guide her through the crowd, but as they turned away, Selby called to Burton:

"You say we haven't any evidence. I'm going to get it. There is no one in High Ridge but Henry Underwood who would do such a trick, and I am going to prove it against him. We've stood this just long enough."

Burton made no answer. He was now chiefly anxious to hurry Leslie from an unpleasant scene. But again they were interrupted. Mr. Hadley came puffing after them, with every sign of anxiety in his face.

"Say, Miss Leslie," he began breathlessly, "I didn't mean what I said about not being safe in our beds. You won't mention that to your father, will you? I don't want to get him set against me. I'm sure he wouldn't harm me for the world. I know I'm perfectly safe in my bed, Miss Leslie."

She swept him with a withering look of scorn, and hurried on without a word.

"You see," she said to Burton.

"Yes, I see. It is simply intolerable."

"How can they believe it?"

"I think your father should know what is being said. May I go home with you, and report the affair to him?"

"I shall be thankful if you will."

"You really mean that, don't you? Of course I know that I am nearly a stranger and that I may seem to be pressing into purely family matters. But apart from my interest in anything that concerns Philip, I shall be glad on my own account if I can be of any help to you in a distressing situation."

"Thank you," she said gravely. And after a moment she added, with a whimsical air that was like her father's: "It would hardly be worth while for us to pretend to be strangers, after turning our skeleton-closet into a guest-chamber for you. You know all about us!"

Burton wasn't so sure of that. And he was even less assured after his half-hour conversation with the doctor, whom he found dressed, but certainly not wholly in his right mind.

"I have come to report the progress of the plot," said Burton. "I am glad to inform you that you are not suspected of having fired the Sprigg house with your own hand. Your sprained ankle served you well in that emergency. But your son Henry had no sprained ankle to protect him, so they have quite concluded that it was his doing."

Dr. Underwood looked at him thoughtfully, with no change of expression to indicate that the news was news to him.

"Was the fire incendiary?" he asked after a moment.

"So they assert."

The doctor closed his eyes with his finger-tips and sat silent for a moment.

"Was there any talk of--arrest?"

"There was wild talk, but of course there was nothing to justify an arrest,--no evidence."

"There never is," said the doctor. "This disturber of our peace is very skilful. He swoops down out of the dark, with an accompaniment of mystery and malice, and leaves us blinking, and that's all the satisfaction we get out of it. And the anonymous letters he scatters about are always typewritten."

"Not always," said Burton, resolving swiftly to throw the game into the doctor's hands. He laid before him the slip of paper that had been served upon himself in the night. "You don't, by any chance, recognize that handwriting?"

The doctor took the slip into his own hands and read the message gravely.

"Where did you get this?"

Burton told him the night's adventures in outline, mentioning casually Henry's return to the house at two, and the subsequent attempt of some one to enter his room, and his ineffectual pursuit.

Dr. Underwood listened with a more impassive face than was altogether natural. At the end of the recital he picked up the slip of paper again and studied it.

"I think one of those handwriting experts who analyze forgeries and that sort of thing would say that this was my handwriting, somewhat disguised," he said.

"Yours!" Burton exclaimed, taken by surprise.

"That's what struck me at first sight,--its familiarity. It is like seeing your own ghost. Of course it is obviously disguised, but some of the words look like my writing. You see how I am putting myself into your hands by this admission."

Burton fancied he saw something else, also, and the pathetic heroism of it made his heart swell with sudden emotion.

"A clue!" he cried gaily. "You did it in your sleep! And you wrote those typewritten letters and handbills on the typewriter in your surgery, when you were in the same somnambulic condition! I examined the work of that machine this morning. It corresponds so closely with the sheet you showed me last night that I have no doubt an expert would be able to work out a proof of identity."

"I'll see that the room is locked hereafter at night," said the doctor, with an effort.

"You'd be more likely to catch the villain by leaving the door unlocked and keeping a watch," said Burton, lightly assuming that the capture of the miscreant was still their joint object. "And I'll leave you this new manuscript to add to your collection. It is of no value to me."

'And he presented the incriminating paper to the doctor with a smile and took his leave. To himself, he hoped that enough had been said to make the doctor realize that if the disturber of the peace of High Ridge was not to be caught, it would be best to--get him away.

As he walked toward the hotel, he let himself face the situation frankly. If Henry was, as a matter of fact, the criminal, his firing of the Sprigg house was probably less from malice toward the Spriggs than from the conviction that it would be attributed to the agency of the doctor, whose rash speech about calling down fire on his persecutors had fitted so neatly into the outcome. Like the freakish pranks of which Miss Underwood had told, it was designed to hold the doctor up to public reprobation. Only this was much more serious than those earlier pranks. If a man would go so far as to imperil the lives of an entire family to feed fat his grudge against some one else, and that one his own father, it argued a dangerous degree of abnormality. Was it possible that Leslie Underwood's brother was criminally insane? Suddenly Rachel Overman's face rose before him. He saw just how she would look if such a question were raised about a member of the family from which Philip had chosen his wife.

"Oh, good Lord!" Burton muttered to himself.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BABY THAT WAS TIED IN

It was nearing noon when Burton left Dr. Underwood's. He took the street that ran by the Sprigg house, though it led him somewhat out of the most direct road to the hotel. He wanted to get the temper of the crowd and the gossip of the street. But the crowd had dispersed. He saw one man near the blackened wall of the house where the fire was supposed to have started. He was bending down, as though examining the ground. Then he rose and went away,--somewhat hurriedly and furtively, Burton thought. It was, indeed, this skulking quality in the man's hasty departure that made Burton look at him a second time. It was Selby. So! He was apparently hunting for the "proof" that he had promised. But why should he be so secretive about it?

As he came around by the other side of the burned house, he saw that two boys were still lingering on the scene of the morning's excitement. They were talking vigorously, and when Burton stopped by the fence and looked in, one of the boys, recognizing a kindred interest in the drama of life, called to him:

"Did yer see the bush where the kid was found?"

"What kid?" asked Burton.

"The Sprigg baby. He was right in here among the lilac bushes and the soft little shoots had been tied together around him, so's he couldn't get away, like Moses an' the bulrushes. Right in here. Yer can see the place now."

Burton jumped the fence and went up to the place where the boys were.

"Was the baby lost?" he asked.

"Mrs. Sprigg thought it was all burned up, because she forgot it when she came down in a hurry, and she was carrying on just awful, and then the firemen found the baby in here among the bushes, and they most stepped on it before they saw it."

"Had it crawled in by itself?"

"Naw, it was tied in! See here. You can see the knots yet, only most of them have been pulled to pieces."

"Who tied it in?" pressed Burton, bending down to examine the knots. They certainly were peculiar. The lithe lilac twigs had been drawn together by a cord that ran in and out among them till they were twisted and woven together as though they were part of a basket. It was the knot of an experienced and skilful weaver.

"Mrs. Sprigg she says at Henry Underwood would be too durn mean to look out for the kid and she thinks it was sperrets. But if it was sperrets they could a took the baby clear over to some house, couldn't they? The branches was tied together so's they had to cut some of them to get the kid out. See, you can see here where they cut 'em."

Burton found that the theory advanced by the boys that the incendiary who had fired the house had also, in dramatic fashion, saved the life of the youngest of the Sprigg brood, by carrying the infant down from the second floor, and knotting the lilac shoots about it so that it could not crawl into danger, was the most popular byproduct of the fire. The story was in every one's mouth.

When he entered the dining-room at the hotel, he encountered Ralston.

"Hello!" said the newspaper man. "I saw that you were registered here. Allow me to welcome you to the only home a bachelor like myself owns. Won't you sit at my table, to give the fiction some verisimilitude?"

"Thank you. I shall be glad to."

"You will suspect that my whole-hearted hospitality has some professional sub-stratum if I ask you at once how our friends the Underwoods are, but I'll have to risk that. I assume that you have seen them today."

"Yes, I have seen the doctor and Miss Underwood. They have met the amazing charge against Henry with dignity and patience. I didn't see Henry, and don't know what he may have to say."

"He'd better say nothing," said Ralston tersely. "It isn't a matter that is bettered by talk."

"Do you think there will be anything more than talk? I have as yet heard no suggestion of the slightest evidence against him."

"No, so far it is merely his bad reputation and the doctor's threat of yesterday. Have you happened to hear of the lively times Henry gave the town some six years ago? Property was burnt, things were stolen, people were terrorized in all sorts of ways for an entire summer. He must have had a glorious time."

"Was it proved against him?" asked Burton.

"The police never actually caught him, but they came so close upon his tracks several times that they warned the doctor that they had evidence against him. Then the disturbances stopped. That was significant."

"I heard something about it, but I understood that the attacks were mostly directed against the Underwoods themselves, and that the anonymous letters written by the miscreant were particularly directed against Henry. You don't suspect him of accusing himself!"

"But that's what he did. In fact, that was what first set the police to watching him. Perhaps you haven't happened to hear of such things, but there is a morbid form of egotism that makes people accuse themselves of crimes just for the sake of the notoriety. The handwriting of those letters was disguised, but the police were satisfied that Henry wrote them. They watched him for weeks, and though, as I say, they never caught him at anything really incriminating, they came so close on his trail several times that he evidently got scared and quit. Watson, the chief of police here, told me about it afterwards, and he is not sensational. Quite the contrary."

"How old was Henry at that time?"

"About nineteen."

"No wonder that he has grown into a morose man," said Burton thoughtfully. "It would be hard for any one to keep sweet-tempered against the pressure of such a public opinion."

Ralston shrugged his shoulders. "Public opinion is a brute beast, I admit, but still Henry has teased it more than was prudent. However, he has his picturesque sides. Did you hear about the rescue of the Sprigg baby?"

"Being knotted in among the lilac bushes for safe keeping? Yes, I have even seen the bushes."

"He probably knew that the others would be able to escape and so looked after the only helpless one,--which seems to have been more than the baby's mother did. That should count in his favor with a jury."

"Well, they certainly can't bring him to trial unless they get more evidence against him than they have at present," said Burton.

Ralston's reply was interrupted by a telephone call. He went to the office to answer it, and when he returned his face was grave.

"It looks as though they really had got something like direct evidence at last," he said. "They have found Henry Underwood's knife under the window where the incendiary must have got in."

"Who found it?"

"A couple of schoolboys. They turned it over to the police. One of my men has just got the story."

"Is it beyond question that it is Henry's?"

"Selby has identified it as the same knife that Henry had last night when we were there. He was in the neighborhood, it seems, and recognized the knife which the boys showed him on finding it. You remember that Selby had Henry's knife in his hands last night, and broke the point of the blade."

"Yes, I remember," said Burton. He was also recalling something else,--a skulking figure slipping away from the spot where the knife was found a very little later. "Doesn't it seem curious that the knife was only discovered now, considering how many people have been back and forth over the place all forenoon?"

"The knife seems to have been trodden into the earth by the crowd. That's how it was not found sooner."

"It seems to be a case of Carthage must be destroyed," said Burton, with some impatience. "Selby vowed this morning that he would find evidence against Henry. He conveniently is at hand to identify a knife as Henry's which he had in his own hands last night. It wouldn't require very much imagination to see a connection there. Selby hates Henry. Selby uses Henry's knife, and in the passion of the moment slips it forgetfully into his own pocket. Then at the right time he loses it at a place where its discovery will seem to implicate Henry in a crime--"

"Sh!" warned Ralston, with a look of comic dismay.

But the warning came too late. Burton, startled, looked up in some anxiety, and found Selby just back of him, glaring at him with a look that was like a blow from a bludgeon. There was nothing less than murder in his eye. But instead of speaking, he turned on his heel as Burton half rose, and walked out of the room.

"I had no idea there was any one within earshot," said Burton, with dismay in his face.

"He just came in by that door back of you. I had no time to warn you."

"I'm a poor conspirator. Must I hunt Mr. Selby up, and apologize for the liveliness of my imagination?"

Ralston looked grave. "You must do as you please, but I'd let the cards lie as they fell. Selby has a violent temper,--"

"He certainly looked murderous."

"I can't understand why he walked off without saying anything. I should have expected him to do something violent. I saw him beat a horse nearly to death once because he was in a rage,--"

"That settles it. I shall not apologize. I'm glad he heard me."

Ralston laughed. "I'm glad you came to High Ridge! Do stay. We may be able to afford you some entertainment. You should hear Hadley! He is terrified to death for fear something will happen to him next because he rashly made the remark that we are not safe in our beds so long as the Underwoods are loose."

"What does he expect to happen?"

"Goodness knows!" Then, with a mischievous look, he added: "Henry Underwood's methods are always original! It will probably be a surprise."

Burton once more, to speak figuratively, threw his time-table into the waste-basket. He certainly could not leave High Ridge while things were in this chaotic condition. He must at least wait until something definite happened.

He did not have long to wait.

CHAPTER IX

A POINTED WARNING

Burton did not know exactly what he expected to happen, or what he would gain by staying, but something more than a sense of his responsibility to Rachel made him want to see the thing through. That suspicion should have buzzed so long about Henry Underwood and nothing yet be proved could only be due to a combination of luck and circumstances which could not be expected to continue indefinitely. With Selby hot on the trail, the police were likely to have some effective assistance. Malevolence is a great sharpener of the wits.

Wouldn't it be possible to get Henry out of town? Had he gone far enough in his hint to the doctor? Possibly if he saw Henry alone he could convey a warning that would be understood. He determined to see Henry.

But Henry was not at home. His disappointment in this information might have been greater if it had not been conveyed by Miss Underwood. He found it very easy to extend his inquiry into a call, and when he finally rose to take his leave he was surprised to find how time had flown. Philip was justified. The only thing to wonder at was Philip's discrimination. He must have been caught merely by her beauty, but even to appreciate her beauty at its right value was more than he had given Philip credit for. But what was the outcome to be? If the family were involved in a scandal, Philip was not the man to stand by her. He would be dominated by Rachel's prejudices, and Rachel would think the whole thing simply unspeakable. Yet things had gone so far that it would be impossible for Philip to withdraw without humiliating the girl,--and that, Burton now saw clearly, was the one impossible thing. No, the only way out was to stop the scandal from going further. Henry must be suppressed.

He had been revolving these thoughts as he walked the streets back to the hotel, when all at once his eye was caught by the sign:

ORTON SELBY

CONTRACTOR AND BUILDER

It swung above the door of a prosperous looking place, and he looked at the premises with interest. So this was where Mr. Selby did business! As he looked, Mrs. Bussey came out of the office door, and scuttled off down the street like a frightened animal finding itself out of bounds. Possibly she was bringing some of her crippled son's carving to his employer. The connection was obvious and the relation was well understood, but somehow he did not like the idea of an inmate of the Underwood house having this side relation with a man who was an enemy. If anything were to be done to save Henry, it must be done skilfully and promptly. The atmosphere of the place was not favorable.

"There's a letter for you," the clerk said, as he handed Burton his key.

Burton took it with some wonder. He was not expecting mail here. But this letter had never gone through the mails. It was unstamped. The envelope was addressed in a heavy blunt penciling that he had seen before.

"Who left this?" he asked.

"I found it on the desk. I didn't see who left it there," the clerk said.

Burton did not open it until he reached his room. Then his premonition was confirmed. The scrap of paper was covered with the same heavy-lined writing that had been on the warning paper he had found in the morning. The message read:

"You have had one warning. This is the second. The third will be the last. You may as well understand that your help is not wanted."

And the clerk did not know how it came on his desk! There seemed to be a very conspiracy of stupidity and malice in the place. He examined it carefully. It was addressed to him by his full name,--and his circle of acquaintances in High Ridge was extremely limited! Henry had not been at home when he called there. The letter had been left by some one who could come into the hotel and go out without exciting comment,--then clearly a familiar figure in the town. Burton's lips curled cynically. And the meaning of the message was quite plain! His "help" was not wanted. Whom was he trying to help, except the Underwoods?

He put the letter, envelope and all, into a large envelope which he sealed and directed to himself. He did not wish to destroy it just yet, neither did he wish to leave it where it would fall under another eye.

He dined in the public dining-room, without seeing either Ralston or Selby, and, being in no mood to cultivate new acquaintances, returned at once to his own room. He lit a cigar and got a book from his bag and settled down to read himself into quietness; but his mind would not free itself from the curious situation in which he found himself, and presently he tossed the book aside and went to the table where he had left the sealed letter addressed to himself. It was gone. It had been abstracted from his locked room while he was down at dinner.

Suddenly, as he stood there thinking, there was a sharp "ping," and a pane of his window crashed into splinters and fell into the room. A thud near his head caused him to turn, and there in the wall was a small hole where a bullet had buried itself in the plaster. The third warning!

Burton went down the stairs two steps at a time and out into the street. The hotel was on the main street, and Burton's room on the second floor looked toward the front. Across the street from the hotel was a small park, full of trees and shadows. It was clear that the shot through his front window had come from the direction of this park, and also that it would be futile to try to discover any one who might have been in hiding there. There were a hundred avenues of unseen escape. It was already dark enough to make the streets obscure.

Burton went in and reported the shooting to the clerk. Of the missing letter he said nothing.

"Some boys must have been fooling around in the park with a gun," said the clerk, after viewing the scene of the disaster. "They might have hit you, the idiots. I'll bet they are scared stiff by now,--and serve them right."

"I wish you'd give me another room," said Burton abruptly.

"Why? You don't think they'll try to pot you again, do you?" smiled the clerk.

"I prefer to take another room," said Burton stiffly.

"Oh, very well. The adjoining room is vacant, if that will suit you."

"Yes. You may have my things moved in. Or, hold on. I'll move them in now, with your assistance, and you needn't say anything about the change downstairs."

The clerk took some pains to make it evident that he was suppressing a smile, but Burton did not particularly care what opinion the young man might form of his courage. He had other things in view.

His new room looked toward the side of the hotel. A driveway ran below his windows, separating the hotel from a large private house adjoining. Burton took a careful survey of his location, and when he settled down again to read, he was careful to select a position which was not in range with the windows.

He was beginning to take the High Ridge mystery seriously.

CHAPTER X

MR. HADLEY PROVES A TRUE PROPHET

Burton had reason to congratulate himself on having formed a clear idea of the location of his new room, for he had occasion to use that knowledge in a hurry.

He had dropped into an early and heavy sleep, to make up for his wakeful adventures of the night before, when he was awakened by a succession of screams that seemed to fill the room with vibrating terror. He was on his feet and into his clothes in less time than it would have taken the average man to wake up. While he was dressing another shriek showed that the sounds came from the adjoining house which he had noticed across the driveway. He dropped at once from his window to the roof of a bay window below and thence to the ground. It was a woman shrieking. That was all he knew. He stumbled across the driveway, and found his way to the front door of the house. It was locked. Even while he was trying it, a man from the street dashed up the steps and ran along the porch to a side window, which he threw up.

"Lucky you thought of that," cried Burton, running to the spot. On the instant he recognized Henry Underwood.

"For heaven's sake, if there is trouble here, keep away," he said impetuously, forgetting everything except that this was Leslie's brother.

But Henry had jumped in through the open window without answering, and naturally Burton followed. Together they sprang up the stairway, their way made plain by the low-turned light in the upper hall. At the top a girl stood, screaming in the mechanical, terrified way that he had heard. At the sight of Henry, who was ahead, she shrieked and cowered.

"What is the matter?" Burton demanded. And when she did not answer immediately, he added impatiently: "Tell me at once what frightened you."

She pointed to an open bedroom door, and Burton sprang toward it. It was a curious sight that met his eye.

In a large old-fashioned four-poster a man was lying, gagged and bound,--and not only bound, but trussed and wound about with heavy cord until he looked like a cocoon, or an enlarged Indian papoose, ready to be swung from a drooping branch. His head fell sideways on the pillow in a way that would have been ludicrous, if the whole situation had not been so serious.

Burton removed the gag first of all and tried to help the man to sit up, but he was so bound to the framework of the bed that nothing could be done until the cord was cut. While he was still struggling with the cord, other people began to come rushing in,--servants from the house and men from the street or the hotel, attracted, as Burton had been, by the girl's cries, and a stray policeman. Their exclamations and questions, rather than any recognition on his own part, told him that this absurdly undignified figure, almost too terrified to talk, was none other than his pompous friend, Mr. Hadley.

Under their united efforts the cord was soon cut, and Mr. Hadley was lifted to a sitting position.

"Are you hurt, Mr. Hadley?" some one asked.

He only groaned reproachfully in reply.

Burton had for the moment forgotten about Henry. Now he glanced anxiously about the room, which already seemed crowded. Henry was not to be seen, and Burton drew a breath of relief. Thank heaven he had cleared out!

Ralston had been one of the first to arrive on the scene, and his practical question soon brought order into the confusion.

"Now, Mr. Hadley, you must pull yourself together and give us all the information you can at once, so that we can take steps to discover who did this before he gets beyond reach. Did some one enter your bedroom?"

"Yes. Oh, Lord, yes!"

"Did you see him come in?"

"I was asleep. Then I felt some one touching me and tried to sit up. I couldn't move. I tried to call out, but my jaw was tied up with that horrible cloth. I couldn't see, because the handkerchief was tied over my eyes."

"Didn't you see him at all? Can you give no description?"

"How could I see, with my eyes tied up?"

"Did he say anything?"

"No, but he laughed horribly under his breath, in a kind of devilish enjoyment. It made my blood run cold. I thought he was going to kill me next. Oh, Lord!"

"How did he get out? By the window or the door?"

"I don't know. It was quiet and I waited for what was going to happen next and waited, and waited, and it got to be more and more horrible until I thought I should die before some one came."

"He came in by the window," said a man in the crowd, who had been examining the room. "See, here are the marks of mud on the window sill. He must have pulled himself up by the vine trellis. See how it is torn loose here. Was the window open when you went to bed, Mr. Hadley?"

"Yes. Oh, Lord, that such things should be allowed to happen!"

"Who was it gave the alarm? You, Miss Hadley? How did you discover what had happened to your father?"

The young woman whom Burton had seen in the hall had come into the room. She was holding fast to the bedpost and staring at her father with a look of fascinated horror.

"I felt the wind blowing through the hall," she said. "I came out to see where it came from."

"Had you been asleep?"

"N-no." (She was fully dressed, Burton noticed.)

"Had you been in your room long?" Ralston persisted.

"N-yes," she hesitated, with an involuntary glance at her father. "A-all evening."

"And you heard no noise of any one entering the house or leaving it?"

"No."

"Where did the wind come from? Was there a door open?"

"No, it came from father's room. It was blowing so hard that I thought I ought to shut his window, so I went in and then I found him all strapped in bed."

"Yes, and she just began to scream, and never thought of cutting the cord," grumbled Hadley.

"Was there a light in the room?" Ralston pressed his questions.

"Yes, the gas was lit."

"Well, it seems perfectly clear that some one has climbed up by the vine to the open window, entered while you were asleep, lit the gas after first bandaging your eyes so that you could not see, and then, after tying you up, made his escape in the same way. Now let's see if we can get any clue as to his identity. Of course it was no burglar. A burglar doesn't indulge in fancy work of this sort. There must have been personal enmity back of it. Did he leave anything in the room?"

Burton had been standing by the fireplace, listening. His eye had already caught sight of a folded paper on the mantel which had a curiously familiar look. Surely he had no interest in preventing the truth from being known; yet he was on the point of moving nearer and getting quiet possession of the paper when some one else noticed it and picked it up.

"Here's a message from him," he shouted, and then read aloud:

"If you keep on accusing me, and slandering me in public, worse things will happen to you next.

"DR. UNDERWOOD."

"I knew it was Dr. Underwood," gasped Hadley. "Oh, Lord, I knew he would get even with me for saying that we would not be safe in our beds. I didn't mean it. I always knew I was perfectly safe in my bed."

Ralston came quickly over and took the paper from the hand of the man who had picked it up. As he did so he glanced at Burton, as though recognizing that he was the one man here who might be expected to speak for Dr. Underwood.

"Where was it?"

"Right here, on the mantel."

Ralston handed it over to Burton, asking in an undertone: "What do you make of it?"

Burton took the paper and examined it, but merely shook his head to escape answering. It did not need a glass to show him that it was written on the same typewriter that had produced the other documents he had examined.

"But it is signed, isn't it?" exclaimed Hadley. "It says Dr. Underwood."

"Of course it is perfectly clear in the first place that Dr. Underwood did not write it, since he would not leave a public confession behind him, and he would not sign his name in that fashion. It is written by some one who wanted to throw suspicion on Dr. Underwood, and who was ignorant enough to think it could be done in this very clumsy way," said Burton.

Some one in the room gave an unpleasant laugh. Selby, who had been standing in the background near Miss Hadley, now spoke up.

"If it wasn't Dr. Underwood himself, I guess it was some one not so very far from him."

"What do you mean?"

"Henry Underwood was in the hall there when I came in. He kept out of sight, but he was there. He stayed until Proctor read that paper aloud. He isn't here now, is he?"

There was a sensation in the room. No one else had seen him, but no one but Selby had stood where he could look into the dimly-lit hall.

"Well, what of it?" said Burton impatiently, though he had wondered himself what had become of Henry. "It seems to me that the name of Underwood sets you all off. If Henry Underwood chose to go home when he found his assistance was not needed, that surely is not in itself a suspicious circumstance. He probably knew his presence, if noticed, would be made the subject of vilification in some way."

Selby sneered, but he exercised the unusual self-control of saying nothing. But the man who had picked up the note on the mantel had been examining the cord with which Hadley had been bound and which Burton had cut. He now stood up and faced the little company with a seriousness of aspect that was more impressive than any voluble excitement could have been.

"I sold Henry Underwood that cord, yesterday," he said. His tone and look made it seem like an affidavit.

"You are sure of it, Mr. Proctor?" asked Ralston.

"Quite sure. It is a peculiar cord. I got it in a general invoice about two years ago, and it has been lying in a drawer in the store ever since,--there has never been any call for anything of that sort. Yesterday Henry Underwood was in and asked for some light rope that would be strong enough to bear a man's weight, and I remembered this ball and brought it out. I have never seen another piece of cord like it. It isn't likely that there is another piece in town of that same unusual make."

The men pressed about the bed to examine the cut cord,--all except Selby, who crossed the room to where Miss Hadley had sunk into a chair. She still had a dazed look, and though Selby talked to her for some time in an earnest undertone, Burton could not see that she made any response. Selby caught Burton's eye upon them and scowled, but went on with his murmured speech.

"If you will make the charge against Henry Underwood, I will take him into custody," at last said the police officer who was in the room.

"Oh, Lord, what will happen to me if I do?" gasped Hadley.

"Well, if he is in jail, I guess nothing more will happen to you," said the officer dryly.

"But Dr. Underwood--"

"If Henry Underwood is at the bottom of all these tricks, then Dr. Underwood isn't," said Ralston quickly. "We all know that the doctor and Henry are not on very good terms. Just what the trouble is between them, or how deep it goes, we don't know, but it may be that Henry is bitter enough against his father to try to turn suspicion against him in this way, and if he did this, he did the other things. They all hang together. What do you think, Mr. Burton?"

"I agree with you that they all seem to hang together."

"But not that Henry would seem to be the responsible person?"

"As to that, I am hardly in a position to express an opinion," he said quietly. He had been examining the curiously knotted cord that had been wound about the unfortunate Mr. Hadley.

The knots rather than the cord itself were what attracted his attention. They were peculiarly intricate,--the knots of a practiced weaver. What was more, they had the same peculiar twist that the woven withes of lilac had had. Probably it was a knot familiar to sailors and weavers, but certainly not one man in a thousand could make it so neatly, so deftly, so exactly. The police was certainly incredibly stupid not to take note of so peculiar and distinguishing a mark, but at this moment it was not his role to offer any suggestions.

"Do you wish me to arrest Henry Underwood?" asked the policeman. "It's up to you to say, Mr. Hadley."

"You won't tell him that I accused him?"

"I won't tell him anything! I only want to know if you think that there is a reasonable guess that he did this night's work. If you will say that, I'll arrest him on suspicion. I don't want to get myself into trouble by arresting a man if you are going to back down afterwards and say you have no charge to bring against him."

"I'll bring the charge, if Mr. Hadley won't," said Selby sharply. "I demand his arrest."

"That's enough," said the policeman, slipping quietly from the room.

Burton was at his heels. "If you don't mind, I'll go out with you."

"And if I do mind?"

"I'll go anyhow," said Burton.

CHAPTER XI

HENRY UNDERWOOD IS ARRESTED

Burton's policeman picked up two other men on the way, and, thus reënforced, they made their way to Rowan street. It was away past midnight and as they went through the silent streets, Burton had a queer feeling that he was taking a part in some strange melodrama in an alien world. Never before had he come into direct personal contact with the world where policemen were important people, and where the primitive affairs he had supposed represented the dregs of human nature were matters of every-day occurrence. Why hadn't Henry Underwood had sense enough to be satisfied with his narrow escape of the night before?

There was a light burning in the surgery as they approached the house,--a fact to which Higgins, the first policeman, called attention.

"That light sometimes burns all night," he said, pursing up his lips.

"Any city ordinance against it?" asked Burton.

Higgins looked up with a slow question in his eyes.

"You will stay with me, Mr. Burton," he said quietly. "O'Meara and Hanna, you go to the rear of the house and see that he doesn't make a get-away."

He rang the bell at the front door, and stepped instantly back, so that he could keep an eye on the whole front of the house. In a minute the door was opened wide and Dr. Underwood, in a dressing-gown, stood there peering out into the dark.

"Who wants me?" he asked.

Higgins stepped quickly inside, and as soon as Burton, who followed in his wake, had entered, he closed the front door, turned the key and slipped it into his pocket.

"Excuse me," he said, in a brisk undertone. "No one wants you, Doctor. I want Mr. Henry Underwood."

"You want him, Higgins? What for?"

"Assault."

"Assault? Henry? You're crazy. Henry hasn't spirit enough to assault any one. I'd bail him out with the greatest joy in the world, if he did. Whom did he assault, in the name of Goshen?"

"Mr. Hadley."

"Hadley! Well, there may be something to the boy, after all. When did this happen?"

"Just now, tonight. I don't want any trouble, but I don't want any foolishness, either. I've got to arrest him, you know, Doctor. It ain't what I may choose to do about it. So will you take me up to his room at once, before he hears me or takes an alarm?"

"You always were an unfortunate man, Higgins, but it is mighty hard luck that you should have to show the whole community what an idiot you are. It is kind of hard to be made a fool of in such a public way. Henry is abed and asleep and has been for hours."

"Then I'll have to wake him and if you'll excuse me, Doctor, I can't let you give him any more time by this palaver. Will you take me to his room, or shall I hunt for it myself?"

Underwood glanced at Burton and wrinkled his face into an unbetraying mask, but as he led the way upstairs he walked more slowly and draggingly than he had done in the afternoon, and Burton's heart ached for him.

"That's his room," he said, pointing to a closed door. The gleam of light along the lower edge showed plainly that the occupant was still up.

Higgins went to the door with a catlike silence and swiftness and laid his hand on the knob. It turned without resistance and he burst in upon Henry Underwood, half undressed. The bed had not been disturbed. The scattered clothing on the chairs showed that he had just come in from outdoors.

"What does this mean?" Henry demanded, with a look of amazement.

"You are under arrest," said Higgins. "Don't try any tricks. My men are about the house."

"What am I arrested for?"

"For assault on Mr. Hadley. And I warn you that anything you may say will be used against you."

"This is all foolishness, you know," Henry said, but his voice was spiritless and unconvincing, and Dr. Underwood groaned involuntarily.

"I haven't anything to do with that. All I have to do is to carry out orders. And I'll have to ask you to change your shoes. No, you don't!" He sprang forward and caught Henry roughly as the latter, at the word, rubbed his muddy shoe upon the rug on which he was standing. "We want your shoes, fresh mud and all. Just take them off, will you?"

"Take them off yourself," growled Henry, with a black look.

Higgins whistled and the two other men answered, one by melodramatically dropping in through the open window, and the other by appearing at the door. "Take off his shoes,--carefully, mind you. We want that mud on them. And get another pair for him, if you can find them."

He motioned Henry to sit down, but instead of dropping obligingly into the nearest chair, Henry stalked indignantly across the room and threw himself down on an upholstered lounge. Then he thrust out both feet before him with an arrogant air, and the two policemen, who had followed him closely, dropped on their knees and unfastened and removed his shoes. Higgins, who was proud of himself for thinking of a detail which might prove important, watched the process so closely that he paid no attention to anything else. Underwood, who leaned heavily against the door-casing, watched his son's face with a look that was something like despair. But Burton, who stood silently at one side, watched Henry, and so saw an apparently casual motion that took his right hand from the vicinity of his breast pocket to the inner edge of the upholstered seat of the lounge.

"Well, what next?" Henry asked brusquely, when the men had shod him.

"You will come with us," said Higgins.

He rose without a word, and reached for his hat and coat.

"Henry!" The word broke from Dr. Underwood like a cry. "Have you anything to say to me?"

Henry gave him one look, and then dropped his eyelids.

"I think not," he said, with a curious air of deliberation.

"I'll come and see you to-morrow, my boy."

Henry nodded carelessly, and turned to Higgins.

"I'm ready," he said briefly.

"One moment," said Burton. "How is your cut finger? I think I'd better look at it before you go." And without waiting for permission, he picked up Henry's hand and examined the forefinger which had been cut the evening before. Henry had dressed it carelessly with court-plaster, but it was evident that the finger was both stiff and sore.

But Henry was far from being a model patient. He pulled his hand away with a look of surprise and resentment at Burton's touch. "That's nothing," he said impatiently. "What are you waiting for, Higgins?"

"You," replied Higgins succinctly, slipping his hand under Henry's elbow.

Dr. Underwood followed the little procession downstairs and did not notice that Burton lingered for a moment in the room. He lingered without moving until Henry was out of eyeshot, and then jumped to the sofa and ran his long fingers between the upholstered back and seat. It did not take more than a minute to satisfy his curiosity. Then he hurried downstairs, where he found a forlorn group.

Mrs. Underwood, tragically calm, sat like a classic statue of despair in a large armchair, while the doctor, who had evidently been explaining the situation to his family, limped painfully and restlessly about the room. Leslie, erect, and with hands clenched and head thrown back, followed him with her eyes.

"I think Henry is insane," she said deliberately.

Dr. Underwood glanced apprehensively at Burton, who just then appeared in the doorway. Then he dropped into a chair with a groan.

"I forgot my confounded ankle," he said, in lame explanation.

Mrs. Underwood turned her gaze slowly upon him. "Don't prevaricate, Roger," she said coldly. "You did not groan because of your ankle, but because Henry's sin has found him out. I should think that you would at least see the importance of keeping clear of future sin."

"May I come in?" asked Burton. There was something strange in his voice,--a quality that made every one turn toward him expectantly, as though he brought a message. "May I venture a word? Of course you know that I know what has happened. I came here with the officer because I felt that my interest in everything touching the honor of your family warranted me in seeing this unfortunate affair through as far as possible. I say unfortunate, because of course it must add to your annoyance temporarily. But I do not think it will do more than that. In fact, I think it may be the means of really getting at the truth that lies under this mass of misunderstanding. I do not think that Henry Underwood is insane,--or that he had anything to do with Mr. Hadley's plight. I believe him innocent and honorable, and I am going to bend every energy I possess to proving him so."

He had spoken to all, but his eyes rested eagerly on Leslie, and at his last words she sprang impulsively forward and caught his hand in both her own.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" she cried.

"Leslie, control yourself," said Mrs. Underwood, in calm reproof.

Dr. Underwood got upon his feet, with entire disregard of his ankle, and crossed the room to Burton.

"Have you any ground for that opinion, beyond an optimistic disposition and a natural desire to spare the family of your patient?" he demanded. "God knows I want to believe you,--but--" He broke off and shook his head.

Burton hastily realized that he was hardly justified, at this point, in making his own grounds for assurance public.

"Well,--his cut finger is sufficient. He couldn't tie all the knots that bound Hadley with that stiff finger," he said, with a would-be astute air.

Underwood could not conceal his disappointment. "You have nothing definite, then, to go upon?"

"Perhaps my evidence, in the present stage, would not be conclusive in court. But that is what I hope to make it. That is what I am definitely undertaking to do. And I believe I shall succeed." He smiled at Leslie, and though she did not repeat her impulsive demonstration of gratitude, he was satisfied with the look in her eyes.

On his way back to the hotel, he suddenly stopped under the trees and spoke to himself impatiently. What difference did it make to him what sort of a look there was in the eyes of Philip's betrothed? He would be better employed in considering the situation of the Underwoods in the light of this new revelation about the silent Henry. If Henry was in love with Miss Hadley--and why else should he carry a locket with her portrait in his breast pocket and think first of all of concealing this trinket when threatened with arrest and fearing a search?--then there was a reasonable explanation of his prowling in the neighborhood of the Hadley house. Burton had thrust the locket back into its hiding-place in the upholstered lounge, but he could not be mistaken. It was the same face that he had seen looking up at Selby,--Hello! No need to hunt further for an explanation of the antagonism between the two men! The look on Selby's face when he talked so earnestly to Miss Hadley was one of the few human expressions that can neither be concealed nor counterfeited. And since nothing could be more reckless, hopeless and bitter, than love between the daughter of the pompous banker and the scapegoat of the town, why, of course, that was the mine that Cupid would fire.

But if Henry was innocent, who was the man who was so bent on making him appear guilty? Who really was behind the High Ridge mystery? The problem was not solved. It was merely made more complicated. And Burton had to acknowledge that his guess was not evidence that would convince the public. Indeed, now that he was half an hour away from it, he began to wonder at his own confidence. It had come to him like a revelation, but it needed verification.

Very well, he said doggedly, he would verify a part of it at once. He would call on Miss Hadley to-morrow.

CHAPTER XII

AN UNSTABLE SWEETHEART

Burton awoke the next morning in a new frame of mind. His half reluctant interest in the Underwood situation had suddenly been touched with enthusiasm. If Henry was innocent, then the whole thing was a hideous conspiracy that cried to heaven to be exposed. The fact that it was not taking place in past historic times or in distant lands, but here in a commonplace town of the middle west in the light of newspapers, police regulations and prevalent respectability,--all this made it more interesting to him, instead of more prosaic. It was a real and vital situation, not an imaginable possibility. If Henry was in truth innocent, if the doctor was the guileless child of light that he seemed, if Miss Leslie had been involved in all this tangle by a cruel trick of Fate's, then certainly here was work waiting for him. He was no detective, but neither was this the ordinary melodrama of crime. It was rather a psychological problem, and it was just possible that he was better fitted to get at the truth of the matter than a professional who would have less human interest in the persons involved.

First of all, he would see Miss Hadley. He wanted to verify his guess that Henry's presence in the neighborhood last night was something that she could very well explain if she wanted to. And if that proved true, then Henry's wanderings on the night of the fire might easily have been in the same direction. Burton could not deny that it would ease his mind to have that point settled!

Miss Hadley came into the reception room with a nervous flutter in her manner and a startled look in her soft eyes. She was a pretty girl, of an excessively feminine type,--all soft coloring and timid grace. Certainly she was a pleasant thing to look upon, yet Burton's heart rather sank as he stood up to meet her. "She hasn't the backbone to stand by a man," he thought to himself, with a swift recognition of what Henry was going to need. But aloud he said: "I took the liberty of calling to inquire about your father. I hope that his trying experiences last night have not had any serious effects."

"He has gone down to the bank," she answered. "He felt that he ought to take the risk."

"Risk? What is he afraid of?"

"Why, anything might happen, after last night," she said, opening her eyes wide upon him.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Burton quickly, "because it indicates that you--and I hope your father--do not share the foolish idea that Henry Underwood was in any way responsible for that outrage."

Her eyes filled with quick tears at the name. "They say he did it," she murmured.

"But you don't believe that," he said reassuringly. "You know that he has been arrested and put in jail, yet you say that your father fears other possible attacks. Of course if Mr. Underwood were the one, there would be no further danger, now that he is locked up! So I infer that your father is satisfied that it was some one else."

But anything so logical as this bit of reasoning found no response in Miss Hadley's mind. She looked at him from brimming violet eyes that, Burton confessed to himself with some cynicism, would have made anything like common sense seem an impertinence to him if he had been fifteen years younger.

"Papa says that he must have done it," she persisted. "He never did like Hen-- Mr. Underwood."

"But I am sure that any personal dislike will not prevent his being fair to him in a case like this. You can help, you know. You can tell your father quite frankly why Mr. Underwood was found loitering in the garden. That will clear him of the most serious part of the evidence against him."

"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, looking at him in a kind of terror and half rising, as though she would flee from the room.

"Mr. Underwood came here last night to see you, didn't he?" he asked, in a matter-of-course tone.

The ready tears overflowed the brimming violets, and though she dabbed them away with a trifle that she called a handkerchief, they continued to well up and overflow, while she kept her eyes fixed upon him.

"I--I was going away. Papa said that I had to go to my aunt in Williamston, so--that Hen-- Mr. Underwood c--could not come and see me. And he c--couldn't even come to say goodbye, so he came to the garden, and--and--I was afraid some one might see him if he kept hanging around,--it wasn't my fault,--he wouldn't pay attention to me when I told him never to come again,--"

"So you went down to the garden to say goodbye to him," said Burton, cheerfully. "Well, that was kind of you, and I don't think for my part that you could have done any less. He loves you and you love him and you had a right to say goodbye to him before you went away. Of course you would stand up for him, just as he would stand up for you. I understand!"

Miss Hadley was so surprised by this mode of attack that she could only stare at him in silence.

"Now the point that I want you to tell me," Burton continued, "is just when you left Mr. Underwood in the garden and returned to the house."

She continued to stare in fascinated terror.

"You came in through the window in the drawing-room, didn't you?"

She made the slightest possible sign of assent.

"And you went directly up to your room?"

"Yes."

"And then when the wind came up you remembered that you had left the window open and you went back to close it. Is that it?"

"Y--yes."

"And then when you got into the hall, what was it that called your attention to your father's room? Was his door open?"

She nodded. "There was a light. I was afraid that he was up and would hear me in the hall, so I peeked through the crack--" She stopped, but she was not weeping now. She evidently saved her tears for her own troubles.

"And then you saw him tied up in bed and you began to scream,--which was the very best thing you could have done, my dear Miss Hadley. How long were you in your room before you remembered about the window?"

"I--don't know."

"You had not begun to undress."

She gave him a startled look.

"I noticed that you were fully dressed. Did you read anything after you went to your room?"

"No."

"Or write anything?"

"No."

"Or sew, or-- I don't know what girls do do when they go to their room! But did you do anything, and how long did it take you? You see I want to get an idea how long it was between the time you left Mr. Underwood after saying goodbye to him, and the time that you looked into your father's room."

"I don't know," she wailed, and Burton ground his teeth.

"But it may be very important! You must try to remember. It would have taken quite a while for any one to tie all those knots. Of course if he was with you in the garden he was not up in your father's room, and if we can prove that there was not time enough--"

But she had sprung to her feet with a little scream. "You don't think he will ever tell that I met him in the garden?"

"Aren't you going to tell, yourself?" asked Burton dryly.

She began to sob again, more with terror, it seemed, than anything else. "Papa would be--so angry."

"But you wouldn't let that frighten you into silence, when your word would mean so much to him?" Burton forced himself to speak gently and coaxingly, for he saw that this frightened girl held the key to much of the mystery,--and he doubted her generosity!

"I wish I had--never seen him. I wish he had never come to--the garden. I never wanted him to come!"

"That wasn't the first time he had come, though, was it? You met him in the garden the evening before, you know," Burton said. He took a positive tone because he did not dare risk it as a question. But she met his assertion with a look so startled that it was all the confirmation he needed. Thank goodness! Henry had been here, then, when he came home in the small hours, and there was no further need to wonder about his whereabouts when the Sprigg fire started! Burton drew a breath of relief.

"I didn't think he would tell," wailed Miss Hadley.

"He didn't," said Burton quickly. "I happened to see him both times; that's how I knew."

"And I never thought he would be so wicked as to tie my father up in knots!"

"But he didn't, my dear Miss Hadley; you surely knew he didn't. He wouldn't have had time, even if there were nothing else. That's what we can prove, you and I. I want you to tell--"

"Oh, I can't! I can't! I'll say I don't know anything about it, if you try to make me tell. I think you are horrid!"

Burton beat his mind in despair. How was he to pin this irresponsible child down to the facts of the situation? Suddenly she looked up from her handkerchief.

"Mr. Selby says it was Henry, and now I can see what sort of a man he really is."

"When did he say that?"

"Last night. And today."

Burton reflected that Selby certainly knew the advantage of striking when the iron was hot. But he only asked: "Is Mr. Selby a friend of Mr. Underwood's?"

A self-conscious look came into her face, and she dropped her eyes. It was quite evident that her vanity took the jealousy of the two men as a tribute to her powers.

"Does Mr. Selby know that you are engaged to Mr. Underwood?" he asked abruptly.

"N--no!" she stammered.

"Did you tell him that you had just left Mr. Underwood in the garden last night?"

"No," she gasped. "You--you don't think Mr. Underwood would tell?"

"No, I don't think he would," said Burton. "In fact, I feel quite sure he would keep silence on that point, at any cost. But I am going to tell, if it becomes necessary."

"I will never speak to him again," she cried desperately. "I will never see him or speak to him again."

Burton held himself from retorting: "It will be better for him if you don't," and merely answered, with as much kindliness as he could put into his voice:

"I shall not speak of it unless necessary. If we can clear him without that, all right; I know he would rather have it that way. But if it becomes necessary to prove where he was that evening, in order to prove that he could not have been in your father's room at the same time, I am going to tell the facts. There won't be any harm to you in them. And there isn't anything else to do, if that question comes up."

But Miss Hadley would not answer. She gave him one look of indignant and tearful reproach, and then fled from the room, leaving him to find his way out of the house as best he could.

Burton found himself in a somewhat embarrassing quandary as he considered the matter. While he felt morally satisfied that he had found the true explanation of Henry's presence in the neighborhood, and the proof of his innocence of all complicity in the assault upon the banker, he realized that it would not be easy to convince either a prejudiced public or a jury. Miss Hadley was obviously not to be counted upon. She might deny the whole thing, or she might be terrified into admitting anything as to time and place that the prosecution might wish to draw from her. Undoubtedly the opposition of her father would seem to the multitude merely another reason for suspecting Henry, instead of its being, as Burton saw it, a fairly conclusive proof that he would have been more than ordinarily scrupulous in his dealings with the man whom he hoped to call his father-in-law. And of course Henry would neither tell himself, nor thank Burton for telling, a piece of news that would be gossip and cause for laughter in a small town like High Ridge. It was unfortunate that Henry should have fixed his affections upon so unstable a creature as the pretty Miss Hadley, anyhow. Why couldn't he have had the judgment to choose some one like--well, like his sister Leslie, who would have walked by the side of the man she loved down into the valley of the shadow of death if need be?

But then, he reflected cynically, people never did show any judgment when it came to falling in love, for the matter of that. There was Miss Underwood, herself. Of course Philip was a charming boy, and all that, but--He shook his head impatiently, and went on to interview Henry.

CHAPTER XIII

HENRY IS HARD TO HANDLE

Burton found Henry Underwood in prison quite as calm and saturnine as he had been in the garden.

"Have you made any arrangement for counsel?" he asked, after shaking hands.

"Counsel? You mean a lawyer? No."

"Is there some one you would prefer?"

"Do I have to have one?"

"Oh, yes! That's one of the rules of the game."

"Suppose I just don't play?" suggested Henry.

Burton laughed in spite of himself.

"Then the court will appoint some young lawyer to practise on you. You'd better make your own selection. For one thing you want a lawyer to arrange to bail you out. This is a bailable offence, you understand, and you don't want to stay in this hole any longer than is necessary."

"Nevertheless, I shall stay for the present," said Henry coolly. "I do not want to be bailed out."

"Why not?" demanded Burton. "In the name of wonder, why not?"

"For one thing, I will ask no favors of any one. I will not be put in the attitude of suppliant."

"If you will pardon my frankness," said Burton, "that is pig-headed nonsense. But aside from that point, you won't need to do anything about it. Your lawyer will attend to it. And I herewith offer to put up any bond that may be required, so your pride is saved. It is I who am the suppliant!"

Henry looked neither surprised nor grateful. "I told you that I was not going to let myself be bailed out," he said with some impatience. "Now that they have shut me up in here, they at least can't accuse me of the next thing that happens."

"Oh, I see! Well, if you have the nerve for it, I am not sure that isn't a good plan," said Burton thoughtfully. "It will certainly eliminate you as a factor, if anything more does happen. Of course if the person who seems bent on implicating you should be shrewd enough to keep quiet for a while, it would not have the effect you wish for. Have you thought of that possibility?"

"I'm out of it," said Henry shortly. "That's all I care about. And here I am going to stay until they get tired and let me out to get rid of me."

"I am really very glad you can take that attitude," said Burton. He spoke sincerely, for the young man's manner contained no personal offence in spite of his brusqueness, and Burton was the least vain of men. "It leaves us free to work on the outside,--and of course you understand that I am going to work for you. Now, I want your help so far as you can give it to me. I want to know if you have any idea who is at the bottom of these occurrences,--any knowledge or any suspicion."

"No."

"Of course you must have given a good deal of thought to it, in the course of all these years. You have never had a glimmering of an idea as to who it is that is persecuting you?"

Henry smiled sardonically. "My mother says it is no persecution,--merely the punishment for my evil temper. I suppose you have heard that I have an evil temper?"

"Yes. It gave me a fellow-feeling for you. I have an evil temper myself, at bottom. But as for punishment, what I want to get at is the human agency. It seems incredible that you should have never, in your own mind, had a suspicion of the guilty party."

"What I may have thought in my own mind is neither here nor there," said Henry, knitting his black brows together.

"Have you an enemy, then?"

Henry shrugged his shoulders. "I have no friends."

"Then you absolutely refuse to give me any help?"

"I absolutely refuse to give you what I don't possess," said Henry impatiently.

Burton waited a moment, then he asked suddenly: "Did Selby give you back your knife, before he left the surgery the other night?"

The look that had flashed instantaneously into Henry's eyes at the mention of that name gave Burton all the information he needed as to Henry's power of hating one man at least. But the answer to his question was abrupt and positive.

"No."

"Did you notice what he did with it,--whether he gave it to your father, or left it on the mantel, or anywhere else?"

"I didn't notice."

"But you are positive that he didn't give it to you and that you didn't unconsciously drop it into your own pocket?"

"Of course I am positive. I wouldn't be unconscious in connection with anything that Selby was concerned in. If he came near enough to me to hand me anything, I would be conscious of the fact, you may be sure. Why?"

"That knife has been found near the Sprigg house."

Henry frowned.

"The last I saw of that knife, it was in Selby's hands," Burton continued. "Well, what of it?"

"How did it come to be under the Sprigg ruins? You must help me to work that out. You are suspected of firing the house,--you know that, don't you?"

Henry's eyes fell. "Who says so?" he asked doggedly, but without spirit. "Selby does."

But this time he drew nothing. Henry merely shrugged his shoulders.

"The knife is the only direct link with you," Burton went on. "Therefore we must explain the knife. How did it get there?"

"What do I know about it? Or about anything?" Henry asked impatiently.

But Burton was persistent. "There are two possible theories," he said, watching Henry as he spoke. "The knife may have been left in the surgery when the committee departed, and the incendiary may have found it there and carried it off. I have reasons for believing that some one tried to enter--or rather, did enter--that room in the night. Or, as an alternative theory, Selby may have carried it away with him, either intentionally or unconsciously, and then dropped it near the Sprigg house,--either intentionally or unconsciously."

Henry listened with little softening of the bitterness in his face. "There is another possible theory," he said, with something like a sneer. "I may be lying when I say he didn't give the knife back to me."

"That is of course possible," said Burton calmly, "but I don't believe it. At any rate I'll try out the other theories first. Now, here's another point. Did you buy a ball of stout twine at Proctor's the other day?"

Henry stared. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because Proctor said that he had sold you the cord that Hadley was tied up with. He claimed to identify it. Did you buy it of him?"

"I bought a ball of cord,--yes."

"What did you do with it?"

"I used it to tie up some heavy vines in the back yard."

"Did you use all of it?"

"No."

"What did you do with the rest,--the ball?"

Henry considered. "I don't remember. I may have left it on the ground where I was working."

"You can't be sure about it?"

"No." Henry spoke with an exasperating indifference. It might have been Burton whose honor was involved, and Henry merely an uninterested bystander. Burton looked at him in great perplexity. His desire to help the man out was not lessened, but he felt baffled by the mask of reserve which Henry refused to lay aside. He so greatly disliked being placed in the attitude of forcing his proffers of assistance upon an unwilling recipient that only the thought of Leslie Underwood kept him from wishing to drop the matter then and there. But he did remember, and he put his pride in his pocket.

"All these matters are for your attorney," he said at last. "If there is any one whom you would rather have or would rather not have, I wish you'd tell me. I do not want to involve your feelings unnecessarily, and I shall certainly have to confer with your father on the subject."

Henry frowned, but after a moment's hesitation he took a pencil from his pocket and wrote a name and address on a leaf which he tore from a memorandum book.

"I think they would be as good as anybody, if I have to have some one," he said.

Burton took the paper, but he hardly glanced at the name, so interested was he in the pencil with which Henry wrote. It was a short flat pencil, such as carpenters use, and it made the broad black mark that Burton already knew from the mysterious missives of warning.

"Do you always use that sort of a pencil?" he asked.

Henry bent his black brows in a look of resentful inquiry.

"What if I do?"

"Because it is unusual, and leaves a peculiar mark, easily identified, and because I am assuming that you would rather be cleared than convicted," said Burton, exasperated into impatience. "When it is common report that you are the author of the anonymous messages which appear either in the typewriting of the machine in your house or in that broad black pencil, there certainly is every reason for finding out who is sufficiently familiar with your ways to imitate them so skilfully. Or is it common knowledge that you use a carpenter's pencil?"

"It is not uncommon for people to use it for things that are to stand weathering," said Henry, reluctantly. "I use it in my work in the garden."

"Is your custom in the matter generally known?"

"How can I tell?"

"Just for instance,--does Selby know?"

But Henry was guarding his expression now. He shook his head with rather an elaborate affectation of lack of interest. "I'm sure I couldn't say."

"Selby might carry a carpenter's pencil," mused Burton, "but he would be too shrewd to use it. Who would know your ways? Who comes frequently and familiarly to your house? Does Selby--again, just for instance,--have access to your house?"

"No," said Henry coldly. "He never comes there. That is, he never comes to our part of the house. He comes now and then to see Ben Bussey about work, but he goes to the back door."

"The back hall that runs by the door of the surgery?"

"Yes," said Henry. He turned away, as though to mark the end of the conversation, and Burton refrained from pressing him further.

Burton left the jail a good deal perplexed as to what he really did think of things by this time. He had jumped so enthusiastically to the conclusion the night before that Henry was innocent that he could not easily relinquish that hope, and yet certainly Henry had not cared at all to help him to establish it as a fact. He seemed more than unwilling to make any admission that would throw suspicion on Selby, and yet, if there were anything in expression, he hated Selby. Was it possible that just because he hated Selby he was so scrupulous not to implicate him? The idea struck Burton at first merely as a paradox, but the more he thought about it, the more he began to believe he had hit upon the truth. It was exactly the sort of Quixotism of which the doctor would have been guilty. Perhaps Henry was not so unlike his father as he appeared. If he knew or guessed, for instance, that Miss Hadley was wavering between himself and Selby, it was not difficult to understand that he would have considered it anything but "sporting" to involve his rival in the obloquy which had fallen upon himself. Well, if Miss Hadley were the key that would unlock Henry's heart,--or his lips,--he must try Miss Hadley again. Perhaps she could be moved to pity. He swerved out of his way to call again upon the banker's daughter.

Miss Hadley was in the drawing-room, and she received him this time with an evident embarrassment and hesitation which he attributed to her lingering resentment at his former urgency. But he had already taken her measure. She was one of the people who must never be allowed to exercise free will. She needed a master to keep her from making a fool of herself. He determined at once to assume what he wanted her to believe.

"I have just been to see Mr. Underwood," he said. "He is a fine fellow,--but you found that out before the rest of the town did! However, everybody will know it one of these days. We are going to have all this misunderstanding and mystery cleared up, and you will have a chance to be proud of him publicly. But just now, while he is so unhappy, you must help to cheer him up. Don't you think you might go and see him and tell him that you believe in him? It would mean a great deal to him. You would seem like an angel of mercy to him."

He had talked rapidly, pressing his plan with a sort of urgency that he would never have dared to use, for instance, with Leslie Underwood. Almost he assumed that she would have no opinion to offer if only he didn't give her time to consider! But she drew away from him with a look of absolute dismay that was not in the character he had outlined for her.

"I couldn't think of it,--not at all," she stammered.

"But you know you are engaged--"

"Oh, no!" she gasped.

"Well, practically you are," he persisted calmly.

"And you know that it would mean more to him--"

"I don't know what you mean at all," she exclaimed desperately, and unconsciously she glanced at the drawn curtains that separated the drawing-room from a room in the rear.

Burton bit his lip. He certainly had been rashly foolish to assume that he was speaking tête-à-tête with Miss Hadley. Who was in the back room? Her father? If he understood Mr. Hadley's temperament, he would have burst into the room to demand an explanation by this time. Could it possibly be Selby who was eavesdropping? If it were, he would give him something for his pains!

"Mr. Underwood has enemies," he said calmly. "Mr. Selby, for instance, is not friendly to him. Of course you know that, and you will understand that anything he may say to you about his rival ought to be discounted. I don't need to suggest to you which is the more worthy of faith and credit. One is a gentleman, the other isn't. Of course there could never for a moment be a question of counting the two men equal." And then, fearful from the terrified dismay on her face that if he kept on she would say something that would give the situation away, he switched the conversation off upon tracks of glittering generality, and spun it out as long as he dared. If it really were Selby in the back room waiting for him to go, he was going to give him his money's worth! He even ventured on a form of open flattery which he guessed would make Selby furious and which certainly made Miss Hadley stare at him in innocent amazement. When the lengthening shadows forced him at last to take his leave, he took it with a lingering deliberation that measured out exasperation to his hidden enemy drop by drop.

He went immediately to his own room in the hotel, which, it will be remembered, overlooked the Hadley house, and sat down by the open window to read the evening papers. There was no reason, surely, why he should not sit by his own window! He had to wait nearly half an hour, but he was rewarded. At the end of that time Selby came out of the house and, with a dark glance toward the hotel, hurried up the street.

Burton laughed softly, but after a while he began to wonder just what he had gained by his absurd punishment of the eavesdropper. Nothing, probably, except a malicious satisfaction which was not particularly creditable to him. He instinctively disliked Selby; but unless Selby could be shown to have an active hand in the mysterious disturbances which had been laid at Henry's door, he had no quarrel with him. It was questionable wisdom to antagonize Selby unnecessarily at this stage of the proceedings. However, the first thing to do now was to see Dr. Underwood and consult with him as to the steps to be taken for securing legal counsel.

It was noticeable that the necessity of calling at the Red House immediately lightened the burden of the day's affairs.

CHAPTER XIV

BURTON'S TURN

The surgery, whatever claim it may originally have had to the title, appeared now to be the doctor's den and smoking-room. Mrs. Bussey indicated that he would find the doctor there, and Burton did not attempt to conceal from himself the pleasure with which he discovered that Leslie was with her father, and that she gave no sign of any intention to beat an immediate retreat.

"How is my patient?" he asked, with an elaborate assumption of the popular physician's "bedside manner."

"Mighty glad to see you," said Dr. Underwood, with a look that made the words go home. "Leslie and I have been sitting here cultivating a magnificent crop of the blues. There was trouble enough before, but this affair--"

"Is the best possible thing that could have happened, because it will bring matters to a crisis," answered Burton. "I told you that I am firmly convinced that your son is innocent, and I hold to that belief in spite of the unnatural conduct of his father in feeling discouraged. I have been talking with Mr. Underwood in the jail."

"Did you get any satisfaction out of your conversation?" asked the doctor dryly. "If you did, I'll engage you as my official interpreter."

"Not very much concrete satisfaction, perhaps, but a good deal of subjective reassurance. I am firmly convinced that he is the victim, first, of his own pride and bitterness, and, second, of some unscrupulous enemy, who is taking advantage of the state of the public mind to throw unmerited discredit upon him."

"That's what Leslie says. But how are we going to make it clear to the world at large? And things have now reached a point where the world at large will have to be taken into the family confidence to a disconcerting extent. Leslie, I wish you were married and overseas."

Leslie looked as though it might be a relief to her to allow her spirits to droop, but at this challenge she lifted her head gallantly.

"Then you would put me to all the trouble and expense of a trip back overseas to come to you," she said promptly. "Counsel to run away from trouble doesn't come with a good grace from you, father. You have never set me the example."

"You see what influence I have over my children," said the doctor, appealing to Burton.

"I'm beginning to see. My sympathies go out to you. Let us talk of some less distressing matter. For instance,--Miss Hadley." He glanced from one to the other as he spoke the name, but in neither face could he read the slightest consciousness. A curious impulse of masculine loyalty to Henry made him hesitate to divulge the secret which Henry had evidently guarded so carefully that it was unsuspected by his family. "I have just been calling on Miss Hadley," he added, in lame explanation. "I wanted to get some further particulars. But that really should be the work of your son's lawyer, Doctor, and that's what I specially wanted to consult with you about. I want your permission to send for a real lawyer,--a big man who will bring the very best skill and experience to the case. You won't object?"

The doctor hesitated a moment before he answered.

"Is a big man necessary if the case is to turn on facts? Frankly, I can't afford a big lawyer, you know. I'd rather take a local man with a sickly family, so that I could work it out in bills! I know it sounds sordid, but that is the mercenary, habit of the world, and I can't hope to change it out of hand. I should be perfectly willing to ignore matters of that sort, but--the big lawyer wouldn't."

"I see," said Burton, recognizing that one of the impossibilities in the case was any offer of financial assistance on his own part. "Perhaps you are right. If we can simply establish the facts, we shan't need any hired eloquence to present them. They will speak for themselves. Well, we will establish the facts."

"But how? How?" demanded Leslie eagerly.

"I have one or two fragmentary theories in my mind. In the first place--"

But he got no farther, for there was suddenly an alarming clash and clatter in the back hall. Both Burton and Leslie sprang for the door But the sight that met their eyes was not nearly so alarming as the noise. It was merely Mrs. Bussey, gathering up the broken pieces of a starch box which lay in curious proximity to a kitchen chair which stood in curious proximity to the transom of the door to the surgery.

"I was jest a-trying to get down them cobwebs," she gasped, and retreated hastily to the safe precincts of the kitchen with the unreliable box.

Burton took up his theme as though he had not been interrupted, deeming it wisest to take no further notice of this curious domestic situation.

"Your son does not wish to take advantage of his unquestionable privilege of bail," he said to the doctor. "He goes on the theory that things will continue to happen and that he will therefore be cleared by implication. I can't say I feel sure of it. This unknown enemy seems to be quite astute enough to suspend operations while Mr. Underwood is under lock and key, merely to avoid giving him the vindication which he would like to secure in that way. But perhaps it might be as well to let him carry out his plan for a time. It will probably give you a temporary respite from further disturbances."

"Even that will be gratefully received," said the doctor wearily.

"It will at least give us time," said Burton.

And then, feeling that his friends needed to be taken away from the thought of the burden which they were carrying, he turned the conversation upon impersonal matters. He deliberately laid himself out to be entertaining,--and the effort was more of a compliment than they were apt to realize. When finally he said good night, he had to admit that he had enjoyed the evening very much. Of course it wouldn't do to ask Miss Underwood if she had had as good a time as he had,--but at any rate she had not looked bored. But then, she could hardly have told a man to his face that she found him dull!

His thoughts were running along after this idiotic fashion when he became aware that a man was following him in the street. He noticed it at first merely because the street was otherwise so entirely deserted, and it did not occur to him that the man was actually dogging him until he had turned a corner or two, and found that the man did the same. Then he slackened his pace and the man fell back. By this time he began to be curious. He took a couple of unnecessary turns, and satisfied himself that the pursuit was no accident. Then he turned sharply on his heel and made a jump toward his pursuer. But the man dodged, jumped from the sidewalk, and ran off between two buildings.

The incident puzzled Burton, and made him somewhat uncomfortable. High Ridge was a place of mysteries. Also, he reflected, it was a place of very few policemen. Was his pursuer a common street bandit, with designs on his purse, or was he connected with the Underwood mystery and the warning that had been sent him at the hotel? The thought made him square his jaw. Did they think to frighten him off? He would let them see!

He had turned aside from his most direct route to the hotel in this experiment, and he now found himself in a street with which he was not familiar, though he knew the general location. He turned in the direction where his hotel must be, and was glad to hear no longer the sound of feet behind him. Suddenly from the shadow of a large business block, a man sprang out from a driveway and jumped at him. The attack was so sudden and so fierce and Burton was so unprepared that for a moment he was borne backward and almost carried to the ground. How he recovered himself he could not have told. The primitive instinct of the fighting animal awoke within him, and perhaps some of the acquired skill of his college days came back. He knew that he was fighting for his life, for the hand that he had clutched held a knife, and there was no mistaking the vicious energy that his assailant was exerting. Burton answered with a strength that he had not known he possessed. He felt the man's body yielding inch by inch under his clutch, and then suddenly it slipped away from his hands, and the man darted off and disappeared into the night, leaving Burton panting and dishevelled and very much amazed. He had never before had occasion to defend his life,--he had always taken for granted that civilization would take that burden off the hands of any decent man. And yet here, in a quiet little village, where he was practically unknown, he had been assailed by some one who really wanted to kill him. He was quite sure that the man's object had not been merely thievish. His attack was personally vicious.

Suddenly he remembered how he had kept Selby cooling his heels in Miss Hadley's back parlor while he amused himself with Miss Hadley, and the satisfaction he had taken in the situation faded into a rather serious inquiry. Selby was a man of violent temper who had no occasion to love him. But did he have occasion to hate him to the death? If so, there could be but one reason. He feared his investigations.

CHAPTER XV

AN ODD KNOT

Burton awoke the next morning with a consuming desire to go at once and look at Selby. If it really had been he who had been guilty of that midnight attack, was it in human power for him to conceal all trace of his consciousness? Burton recalled the note of warning which had been left for him at the clerk's desk, and afterwards abstracted from his room. Selby lodged in the hotel, and had therefore the advantage of position. He could have come and gone without attracting attention. A stranger could not. Certainly he must take a look at Selby.

He found him at his desk in the rear of a large and crowded room which appeared to be a combined office and workroom. He looked up as Burton entered, but scowled instead of nodding, and went on talking to a workman who was receiving instructions. Burton merely nodded and took a chair to wait. Selby gave him plenty of time for it. Burton could not help feeling, after awhile, that he was being ignored for the express purpose of insult, and to remove the sting of the enforced waiting he got up and sauntered across the room to look at a collection of Indian baskets, moccasins, and pipes, fastened against the wall. The specimens were of little intrinsic beauty and less commercial value, but Burton knew something about Indian basketry, and these examples of the common work of the mid-continent tribes interested him. More, they stirred some pulse of thought deep down in his mind. There was some connection,--something,--of which those baskets were trying to remind him. He stared at them so intently that he did not notice that the workman had finally departed, until Selby pushed back his chair, rose, and grudgingly came over to where he stood.

"Looking at my Indian things?" he asked, with an uneasy assumption of civility.

"Yes, they interest me. Where did you get hold of them?"

"Oh, just picked them up. I've been about among the Indians a good deal."

"I've made a collection myself of the work of the Aleutians," said Burton, glad to find some abstract topic which would serve as a springboard for the intercourse which he meant to establish with Mr. Selby. "So naturally these things catch my eye. From the artistic standpoint they don't compare, of course, with the work of the Alaskan Indians, but they are good indications of the tribal development." As he talked he remembered suddenly the old Indian woman at the station, and Selby's rudeness. How he and Selby had clashed at every meeting!

"Where did you know the Indians?"

"Hereabouts. In the early days."

"Right here? In High Ridge?"

"High Ridge wasn't on the map then. The Indians lived all over this part of the country before the settlers came."

"And you really remember back to those days? It sounds very far back."

"Twenty-five years will cover a good deal of history in this part of the country. High Ridge has grown up inside of that time, and most of the people here don't know any more about Indians than you do." The words were innocent enough, but there was an insolence in the tone that made Burton feel that the ice of courtesy between them was thin as well as cool. He turned from the baskets and said abruptly:

"I suppose you heard that Henry Underwood's knife was found near the Sprigg house."

"Yes," said Selby, looking at Burton defensively under his eyebrows.

"It was the same knife you used to pry up the hearthstone with, the evening that your comrades(??) called on the doctor. You broke the point off you know. Do you remember whether you gave the knife to Henry or to the doctor when you left?" He tried to make his question sound casual.

"I gave it to Henry," said Selby deliberately.

"Did something fix that fact in your memory?"

"Do you mean that I am lying?" demanded Selby aggressively.

"Let us limit our discussion to what I am actually saying," said Burton, with the access of politeness he was apt to assume when ruffled. "I merely wanted to know what your position would be in case any question is raised in regard to that knife. But probably it never will be."

"Not just at present," said Selby, with white lips. "The fool has his hands full enough for the present with the Hadley outrage. When we are through with that, we will take up the Sprigg matter. I rather think we can keep Mr. Underwood busy for some time to come."

"You have done pretty well in that direction up to this time," said Burton, with a congratulatory smile. "I hope you will console yourself with that reflection when luck turns. We must all learn to bear reverses patiently." He smiled and bowed elaborately and left the office.

Once outside, he reflected on his folly. "I am a blessed fool as a diplomat," he said to himself. "I seem unable to deny myself the pleasure of making him angry."

The sight of Selby's curios had set his mind off on the thought of Indians, and since he had nothing else to do he turned his steps to the railway station where he had seen the Indian woman with her wares the day he arrived.

She was there again, and when Burton stopped before her she looked up with a broad smile which might have meant recognition and gratitude, or might have meant simply commercial hopes.

"How!" she said, and Burton responded "How!" Then suddenly his eye caught something that made him bend over her wares in very real interest. The burden-basket in which her goods were stowed was a net-like bag, made of flexible thongs of hide, tied together with a peculiar knotting. It made him think of the uncommon knot that he had noticed in the cords that bound Mr. Hadley and in the cord that had fastened the lilac branches together about the baby. He was sufficiently expert in Indian basketry to feel certain that it was the same knot, and that it was a peculiar and individual knot,--an adaptation of an old knot, undoubtedly, but none the less distinctly and recognizably original.

"Did you make that basket?" he asked.

"Nice," she said cheerfully, holding up a beaded basket of birch-bark.

"No, this big basket. How much?"

She giggled and tried to take it from him. Evidently it had not been invoiced for sale. But Burton wanted that and no other. He took a bill from his pocketbook, and, recovering forcible possession of the basket, laid the bill on her capacious knee.

"All right," he said authoritatively, and waited to see if she would confirm him. She took up the bill and put it away in her pocket. She might not understand the methods of the paleface, but she undoubtedly understood the language that his money spoke.

"Who make this basket?" he asked, but this went into linguistic difficulties. She pattered something unintelligible, and hastily tied up her remaining wares in her shawl. Burton tried in various ways to explain his meaning, but finally gave it up because she departed from his neighborhood with a haste that suggested fear on her part that he might repent him of his spendthriftiness and try to recover his money.

Burton was left alone with his basket, and as he examined it his excitement grew. At last he had something positive,--something to work with. There was a definite clue in that Indian basket. Who in High Ridge knew how to tie that peculiar knot? He must consult Dr. Underwood at once.

(Incidentally, it was curious how all roads led inevitably to the Red House.)

CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAIL TO YESTERYEAR

That afternoon, following a hint from Ralston, Burton made a point of interviewing Watson, the chief of police, on the subject of the old High Ridge disturbances which had been laid at Henry Underwood's door. He found it a sore subject. Watson was a decent fellow and disposed to be fair-minded, but Henry Underwood was a red rag to him. The way in which the police force had been defied and outwitted in the former outbreak was not likely to soften their attitude toward the culprit in the present case. The hope of proving Henry guilty was evidently dear to the official heart, and Burton departed, feeling that there was no help to be looked for in that direction. The rigor of the law was all that the Underwood family could expect. It was evening before he found the time and opportunity to take his basket to the Red House. Mrs. Bussey did not appear. Instead, it was Leslie herself who admitted him, and conducted him to the surgery.

"See what a bargain I have found," said Burton, displaying his purchase.

The doctor gave it a casual glance. "An Indian basket, isn't it? And not a very good one."

"A very good--for my purpose. I wish I had another. Do you know any one in town who could weave one for me?"

"No, I'm afraid not." The doctor made an obvious effort to respond to his guest's trivial interests.

"Are there any Indians living in or near town?"

"No. They were all corralled on the Reservation years ago. There is a squaw who comes down from the Reservation to sell beadwork and things like that on the streets, but she is the only one I ever see nowadays."

"Yes, I got this basket from her today. But I want a mate to it. Is there any one in town who can weave in the Indian fashion?"

"I don't know of any one."

"Would you know if there were any one? Excuse the persistence of a tourist and a faddist!"

Underwood aroused himself to a more genuine interest. "Why, if it is a matter that you have your heart set upon, I certainly should be glad to give you any information possible. But I don't believe there is any one in town who makes any attempt at that sort of work, or takes any interest in it. I should certainly know if any one made a profession of it, or even had a well-developed fad for it, to use your own word. Why? Is the basket rare?"

"I have never seen that particular knot before. What's more, I didn't know that the mid-continent Indians did that sort of weaving at all. I should guess that it is the work of some one individual weaver and possibly those who have learned from her. Do you know any one in town who has a personal acquaintance with the Indians?"

The doctor smiled whimsically. "Our dear and cherished friend Selby has a first-hand acquaintance with them. When I first came to High Ridge, it was just a frontier settlement. The Indians were the free lances of the State. They still hunted in the northern woods with much of their original freedom, and they came to town to do their trading and to get what they wanted by a sort of proud and independent begging that came near to having the ethical weight of natural law. How could you refuse a fellow mortal a paper of tobacco when he came and took it out of your pocket? To take it back with a dignity matching his own was something that required more ancestral training in dignity than most of us had. All the men that had a love for hunting came sooner or later to pick out some Indian who would act as scout and show him the best trails. There's an attraction about that sort of life."

"And Selby was one of them?"

"More than any of us. Selby and old man Bussey antedate my time. They were here when there was only a beginning of a town, and it was mostly wild country. Bussey was a born Bohemian who lived among the Indians for years like one of themselves. Even after he was married, he would go off for the whole summer, leaving his wife and the kid to shift for themselves. Sometimes he took Ben along, and Mrs. Bussey would come around and work for Mrs. Underwood."

"You linked Selby and Bussey together. Did he go among them also?"

"He often went off with Bussey, but he went for the trades he could make, rather than for any innocent purpose like hunting. He was a mere boy when he began selling them calicoes warranted to fade in the first wash in exchange for muskrat and beaver skins. And he cheated them when he could, at that."

"Did he take any interest in Indian basketmaking?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Old man Bussey could probably have woven your basket for you and put in some extra kinks of his own in addition, but I never paid much attention to that sort of thing,--old squaw's work!"

"I hope to convince you of its value and importance. If I went up to the Reservation, should I find any of those old neighbors of yours?"

"You might, and you might not. The Indians do not live to be old under the conditions of life that the white man provides for them. But it is more than probable that some of them are still alive."

"What does Selby pay Ben Bussey for that woodcarving he buys?" Burton asked abruptly.

"I don't know," said the doctor, with a look of helpless surprise.

"You think my questions irrelevant," smiled Burton. "I was wondering if Selby cheated Ben as he used to cheat the Indians."

"Oh, I guess not. If he didn't take Ben's work, I don't know who would, in High Ridge. There isn't much demand for that sort of thing. I have always felt that Selby made a market for Ben out of old friendship."

"That's an amiable trait which I should hate to discover in Mr. Selby. It would be so lonesome. I wonder if it is friendship."

"Well, say merely old acquaintance, then. Selby as a boy was out and about with Bussey, and they naturally would have come to have a feeling of comradeship. Then Ben grew up, and Selby took him about as Ben's father had taken him before. Especially after Bussey disappeared. Ben was a sort of a waif, and Selby took him along in his trips into the back country. I have no doubt he made him work for his keep, all right."

"Then Ben would be likely to know whether Selby learned weaving from the Indians, wouldn't he?" exclaimed Burton. "That's the way to find out! Can I talk to Ben Bussey?"

"Certainly. He sees people whenever he likes. That back part of the house, over the kitchen, is given over to them, and they are as independent there as if they lived in their own house. But why are you so curious about Selby's Indian experiences? If one is to believe gossip, he had more experiences than he would care to have remembered against him nowadays. But you are not inquiring into his morals?"

"No, merely his skill." He hesitated a moment, and then explained. "I don't want to raise any false hopes, but I have an idea that the person who tied Mr. Hadley in his bed and who braided the lilac branches together over the Sprigg baby had learned weaving from the same squaw who wove this basket I bought today. It's a peculiar knot,--not at all a common one in such weaving, so far as I am acquainted with it."

The doctor looked serious. "I wonder! Unquestionably Selby might have learned Indian weaving. But--"

"That wouldn't prove very much. No, but it would be something. Suppose you ask Mrs. Bussey to take me up to see Ben. His woodcarving will supply a reason for my visit. And incidentally I'll find out what Selby pays him."

Mrs. Bussey was obviously both surprised and flattered at the request that she conduct this important visitor to her son's room. She had evidently taken Dr. Underwood's chaffing use of the title "Doctor" in good earnest, and insisted upon regarding Burton as a famous physician.

"You can't do nothing for Ben, Doctor," she said, pursing up her lips and shaking her head. "He's that bad nobody can do anything for him. Henry Underwood done for him all right."

He found Ben Bussey in a wheeled chair near a window which in the daytime must command a pleasant view of the garden. He was a heavy-featured young man, somewhat gaunt and hollow-eyed from his confinement, but nowise repulsive. His lower limbs were wrapped in an afghan, but his hands, which held a piece of wood and his knife, were strong and capable looking. A table with the material for his work was drawn up beside his chair.

"He found Ben Bussey in a wheeled chair near a window." Page 200

"Dr. Underwood happened to mention that you did woodcarving," Burton said, drawing up a chair for himself, "and I asked if I might come up and see it. I'm interested in things of that sort. That's good work you are doing. How did you come to learn carving?"

"Just picked it up," Ben answered. He was looking at his visitor with an air of quiet indifference, as though the comings and goings of other people could have nothing vital to do with his isolated life.

"Ben's real smart with his hands," said Mrs. Bussey proudly.

"Do you find any market for your carving?"

"Selby takes it."

"Selby the contractor," explained Mrs. Bussey. "Sometimes people want hand-carved mantels and cornishes, and things like that. He makes quite a bit that way, Ben does."

"I won't unless I want to," drawled Ben.

"Does Selby come here with his orders?"

Ben looked at him with a slow, peculiar smile. "I can't very well go to him."

"I asked, because I had an impression that he was not on very friendly terms with the Underwood family, and I wondered if he would come to their house to see you."

"He don't see none of them," said Mrs. Bussey, with a lofty air. "He can come in by the side door and right off here to Ben's room. The doctor says as Ben and I shall have this part of the house for our own, and little enough, too, seeing what Henry done to Ben."

"Is Selby an old friend of yours?"

"Guess we've known him as long as anybody. When my old man was alive, he used to take Ort Selby out into the woods hunting and trapping with the Indians. He was great for that, my man was."

Ben looked at his mother with a satirical smile. "He wasn't great for much of anything else, was he?"

"That's not for you to say," she retorted sharply. "Here you lay, and have everything done for you. You needn't say anything agin your dad."

Ben picked up his tool and board in contemptuous silence.

"That was before the Indians were put on a Reservation, wasn't it?" asked Burton.

"Yes."

"How did they live? By hunting and fishing?"

"Yes."

"Anything else? Did they do any kind of work like carving?"

"Redstone pipes, and things like that."

"And baskets?"

"Birch-bark baskets. To sell."

"Other baskets, too, didn't they? I have a lot of Indian baskets at home."

"Not from here," said Ben.

"No, you are right about that. But today I saw some baskets an Indian woman was selling at the station. They are made at the Reservation, aren't they?"

Ben looked up with the first sign of real interest he had shown. "That was Pahrunta. She comes down sometimes to sell the baskets that her mother makes. Her mother is Ehimmeshunka. She came from another tribe,--many moons away, they said. She was stolen, I guess. She makes baskets like the western Indians, not like the Indians here."

"You have seen her working, then?"

"Yes."

"Was that when you were with Selby?"

"Yes. My dad was chummy with Washitonka,--brothers, they called each other. Ehimmeshunka was Washitonka's squaw."

"Did Selby learn how to make baskets like Ehimmeshunka?" asked Burton. Immediately he regretted that he had put the question so bluntly, for a surprised question came into Ben's face. He fixed his somber eyes on Burton for a moment before he answered curtly: "No."

And Burton knew at once that the answer was merely prompted by a desire to shut off questioning! He tried to turn the conversation into another channel.

"Is that work you are doing an order?"

"Yes."

"What is it for?"

"Bookcase."

"What does Selby pay you for a piece of work like that?"

Ben did not open his lips to reply. He merely looked at Burton with a gaze like a blank wall.

"Unless he pays you a fair price," Burton continued, "I might be able to do something for you in some place where there is more demand for that sort of work."

An unmistakable gleam of interest came into Ben's eyes, though he did not answer. But Mrs. Bussey answered for him.

"Do you hear that, Ben? He'll get you better prices. I told you all along that Selby wasn't paying you enough."

"What does he pay for a piece of work like this?"

"Whatever he likes," said Ben morosely. Burton saw that he had touched a sensitive spot.

"One dollar,--two dollars, maybe. If he feels 'good.'"

"And then he doesn't pay what he says he will," added Mrs. Bussey. "It's always come next week, and wait a little."

"Why, that's absurd! I'm sure I can get you ten to twenty times that for it. May I see it?"

Ben dropped the piece of wood he held, and Burton picked it up. It was intended for a panel in the side of a bookcase, and the design was cut out in low relief. It was a spirited sketch of an Indian with a bent bow drawn up to his shoulder.

"That's good," said Burton, in frank admiration. "Awfully good. Did you copy it or design it yourself?"

"Just made it up."

"What is he shooting at?"

The answer was startling, in view of Burton's theory of the situation. Ben glanced at him with a smile that held some hidden meaning. "Selby says he is shooting at the brave that has stolen his squaw." Then he lapsed back into his former attitude of somber indifference. "I think he is just shooting for fun," he added carelessly.

"Can Selby shoot?" asked Burton, trying to draw the conversation around again to the subject of Selby's Indian schooling.

Ben lifted himself on his elbow and looked up into Burton's face with a grin of malicious amusement. "Not very well," he said, and opened his mouth in a silent laugh that struck Burton as somehow horrible. Was it possible that he connected the shot through Burton's window, which had been talked of merely as an accident, with Selby?

"What makes you laugh?" he asked abruptly.

But Ben would not talk. He turned his head away with a gesture of weariness that aroused Burton's conscience.

"I mustn't tire you now, but I'll see you again before I leave. I think I can help you to get a better market for your work. Is there anything you want now?"

"No. Only to be let alone," said Ben, without looking at him. He spoke so indifferently that it was impossible to charge him with intentional rudeness. The natural man was expressing himself naturally. Burton suppressed an apology as he took his leave.

The door of the surgery was open when he came down the stairs to the back hall, and Dr. Underwood, keen-eyed and eager, with a crutch under his arm, stood in the doorway.

"Well," he asked. "What have you discovered?"

Burton pushed him gently inside the room and shut the door.

"For one thing, I have discovered that it isn't safe to talk secrets in this house unless you know where Mrs. Bussey is," he laughed.

"Yes, she's an inveterate eavesdropper, I know. But we have no secrets to discuss, so I haven't minded. She has the mother-instinct to purvey for her helpless young,--gossip or food or anything else she may think will be acceptable. She wants to keep Ben interested, that's all."

"Perhaps that's all. But she has so much to do with Selby that it makes me uncomfortable for her to hear my casual remarks about him. I couldn't get what I wanted from Ben. He shied off at once when I asked if Selby had learned Indian weaving. I have decided to go up to the Reservation to find out."

"Really?" exclaimed the doctor, in obvious surprise. "You attach so much importance to this--idea of yours?"

"It is the only definite and positive clue I have found yet, and I am going to follow it out. I am satisfied that Selby hates your son. So does the mysterious unknown. The Unknown unconsciously ties his knots in a very peculiar manner which he must have learned among the Indians. Selby has had the opportunity to learn from the Indians. There are two steps taken."

"Yes," mused the doctor thoughtfully.

"Is there any one else more likely?" asked Burton. "Have you any enemies? Discharged servants, for instance?"

"No."

"Professional rivals?"

"If there is any poor devil of a doctor so unfortunate as to envy my degree of success, let him go ahead with his revenge. He needs all the barren consolation he can get."

"Then you really have no suspicion to better my own?"

The doctor shook his head. "I have believed it to be Henry," he said simply.

"Not the hold-up?"

"Even that might have been,--though I confess that was the first event that gave me hope, because it gave me a doubt."

"Then I hold to my theory. Did Selby hold himself up, and afterwards, with Mrs. Bussey's connivance, get access to your surgery and hide his chain here under the hearth and his handkerchief behind your books? Does he write those typewritten accusations on your machine while Mrs. Bussey plays sentry? In that case, instead of being a short-sighted proceeding, as I at first thought, it is rather deep. The first intelligent investigation would throw suspicion upon Henry, who of course would have access to your room. In short, does Selby supply the venom, and Mrs. Bussey the easy, ignorant and vindictive tool? That's what is occupying my mind at present."

"Jumping Jerusalem!" gasped Dr. Underwood. "Aren't there some more tenable hypotheses that you have overlooked? Have you given due consideration to the possibility that Ben may be the son of an earl, stolen in childhood, with a strawberry mark on his arm, and Henry my first wife in disguise, and that I--Oh, I can't think of anything that would not be an anticlimax to your imaginative effort. What do you do for mental exercise when you are at home?"

But Burton refused to be diverted.

"I am willing to accept any other theory, but I am determined that the mystery shall be named and known. The police don't seem equal to it. I never had any experience in this direction, and I am not over-confident of my own abilities, but I am better than nothing, and I am going to do something,--something absurd, or futile, quite possibly, but at any rate something."

"If you succeed," said Dr. Underwood quietly, "you will have lifted the curse from my life and such a load from my heart as I pray you may never have to carry for an hour. If I were a king of the old style, I'd say: 'Ask what you will, even to the half of my kingdom.'"

Burton was about to make some light reply, when the sound of music from the old piano in the drawing-room came in between them. Leslie was playing. It was to the doctor's offer of half his kingdom what a spark is to a train of powder. The flashing thought it conjured up--though it was less a thought than a dazzling recognition--made him dizzy. He dropped his eyes, dismayingly conscious that it was a thought which he did not care to expose to the keen eyes of the old doctor. He stood silent for a moment, ostensibly listening to the music. Then he lifted his eyes, and put out his hand in farewell.

"Good night, Doctor. I shall go up to the Reservation to-morrow, and may not be back for a few days, but I'll leave my address at the hotel, in the event of your possibly wanting me. I'll say good night to Miss Underwood as I go out. I assume I'll find her if I follow the music."

"Yes, that's the way it seems, sometimes," said the doctor. The remark was so unintelligible that Burton wondered whether he had dropped his eyes soon enough.

CHAPTER XVII

A TEMPORARY ABERRATION

For a moment, as he stood in the doorway, watching her, he had a vision. He saw her in the music-room at Oversite, her head outlined against the stained-glass window that he had helped Rachel choose, while Philip, restless, radiant, pervasive Philip, hung over the piano, turning her music, or looking at her with those adoring eyes of his. He shook his head impatiently, the picture vanished, and he went forward to the piano.

Leslie looked up with a smile, and though her fingers kept on playing, that appeared to offer no bar to their owner's conversing.

"It was very wise and kind of you to get father to talking about the Indians," she said, looking at him with grateful eyes. "It took his mind from these worrying affairs. He has a lot of enthusiasm for the Indians and the old times in the woods."

"That's the way we get credit we don't deserve, and miss praise that belongs to us," said Burton. "As De Bergerac said, 'I have done better since.' But I drew your father out for purely selfish reasons. I wanted information. I am going up to the Reservation myself to-morrow to make a few inquiries."

"What if something happens while you are away?" she said, in evident alarm.

"It isn't likely to, while your brother is in jail."

She looked so dismayed and reproachful that he hastened to make his meaning clearer. "Oh, merely because this evil genius of his will be too shrewd to try anything on while your brother is so evidently and publicly out of the reckoning. I think you are quite safe for the immediate present. But at the same time I hope you will be very watchful, and if anything happens that is out of the ordinary, be sure to make a note of it, and let me know when I come back."

"What sort of things?" she asked, with wide eyes.

"If you see any one hanging about the house, or talking to Mrs. Bussey,--"

"Goodness! She talks to everybody!"

"Go on playing," said Burton softly. As she took up the thread of the melody with obedient fingers, though wondering eyes, he sauntered across the room and then suddenly turned into the hall as he passed the open doorway.

"Oh, Mrs. Bussey! Is that you?" he asked. "Did you want something?"

There was a sound of pattering feet, as the housekeeper hurried nervously away.

"She lacks invention," said Burton, as he came back to the piano. "It would have been so easy for her to pretend that she came to see if you wanted another lamp, or something of that sort."

"She is stupid past belief," said Leslie, in manifest annoyance.

"Does her habit of eavesdropping suggest nothing to you but idle curiosity?" Burton could not refrain from asking.

She looked startled. "No. You don't mean--"

"Oh, I am of an uncharitable nature, and I am ready to see something sinister in anything and everything. I don't want to sow seeds of distrust in your mind, but I'm rather anxious to overlook no possible agency."

"I can't believe it is anything more than vulgar curiosity," said Leslie, after a thoughtful pause. "You know people of that sort have so little to occupy their minds that they become inordinately curious about the personal doings and sayings of the people they live among. I don't suppose a delivery wagon goes by in the street that Mrs. Bussey does not know about it, and speculate as to where it is going and what it is going to deliver at whose house. If she were not so curious about everything, I might feel that this was a more serious matter. But--she is so inefficient! I can't imagine her a mysterious conspirator!"

"Well, let's forget her. Won't you play some more for me?"

"I'd rather talk," she said. "There are some things I want to ask you."

"That pleases me still better."

"I want you to tell me about Philip's mother."

"Very well," he said, but the eagerness had faded out of his voice. "What in particular?"

"You are a great friend of hers, are you not?"

"Yes,--an old friend."

"It was to please her, rather than Philip, that you came here?"

"Yes," he said. He knew that something more than this tame acquiescence was really due from him, but he felt suddenly as barren of invention as ever Mrs. Bussey could have been.

Leslie touched the keys of the piano softly and absent-mindedly as she asked her next question. "What does she look like? Is she very beautiful?"

"I have always thought so," said Burton. "She is a little woman, compared with you,--tiny, but very imperious and queenly. When she tells me to do a thing, I go and do it, without any objection."

"What would happen if you didn't?"

Burton laughed. "Goodness knows! I never tried it."

"Is she dark?"

"No, very fair."

"Then she probably looks younger than she is. How young does she look?"

"Oh,--as though she had been caught in an eddy somewhere between twenty-five and thirty!"

"And would stay there. I see. And she dresses exquisitely, doesn't she?"

"That is exactly the word for it."

"Is she contemptuous of those who do not dress exquisitely? Or merely tolerant?"

Burton felt rather uncomfortable under these probing questions, but he understood something of the girl's mood, and he could not resent the trace of defiance that he caught under rather than in her words. He therefore answered gently:

"I think that if she likes a person, she likes him whole-heartedly, and without regard to the accidental attributes. She will like you. She will love you."

"What makes you think so?" she asked, with her searching eyes steadily upon him.

"Why,--because Philip does, for one thing."

"But if it were not for that,--am I the sort of girl that she would be apt to like?"

"What sort of a girl are you?" he asked, with a smile. He knew that her last question held dangerous depths into which he did not care to look at that instant. Rachel was so--well, narrow in her social sympathies!

"Never mind that," said the girl, and he wondered uneasily whether she thought her last question had been sufficiently answered. "Tell me something about their place,--Oversite. That is the name of their estate at Putney?"

"Yes, and it is quite as important a place as the town that honors itself by existing alongside the estate. It goes back to the colonial days. The Overmans were Tories during the Revolution, but they managed somehow to hold or to recover their estate, and though the family has consented to live under a republic, it has always been conscious of the graciousness of its attitude. Of course Rachel--Mrs. Overman--is an Overman by marriage only. She comes from a Southern family, herself, and she has the Southern woman's beautiful voice and sweet graciousness. And Philip you know. There is nothing priggish about him."

She was silent a moment, considering.

"Is he fond of the place,--Oversite? Would he wish to live there?"

"Oh, unquestionably. It would be difficult to imagine an Overman in any other setting."

"Does Mrs. Overman have the same feeling about it?"

"She is devoted to it. She is more of a Royalist than the king."

The broken music that was dropping unconsciously from Leslie's fingers crashed into a sudden stormy volume of sound that made Burton feel as nervous as though a peal of thunder had suddenly shot across the summer night. It filled the room with inharmonious noise for a few minutes. Then Leslie stopped abruptly and whirled about on her piano stool. There was a threatening storm in her cloudy eyes.

"You understood clearly, didn't you, that my--my agreement to consider Philip's proposal further was conditioned upon the absolute, complete and unequivocal clearing of my family's name from the reflections that have been cast upon it? Under no other conditions would I for a moment consider the possibility of entering such a family."

"I understood perfectly," said Burton gravely. "Believe me, I shall guard your dignity quite as jealously as you would yourself."

She dropped her eyes swiftly, but not soon enough to hide the rush of tears that suddenly brimmed them at his words. But she was staunch, and after a moment she said gaily, though without lifting her eyelids:

"You asked a while ago what sort of a girl I am. I fancy I am a sort that Mrs. Overman has never met,--a girl who has known humiliation, poverty, struggle, and yet who is unreasonably and uncomfortably proud. What have I to commend me to her? My accomplishments are commonplace,--perhaps not even passable in her eyes. And I have nothing else, except a knowledge of life which she would deprecate as something most undesirable,--a knowledge that has never come near her. I am just one of the great average!"

She had begun gaily, but she ended bitterly. Burton could not help realizing, as he watched her eyes, misty with deep feeling, and her flushed face, what an exceptional woman she would be in any assembly by the one gift of beauty, and yet he felt that she was one of the few women who would regard a reference to her beauty as a slur rather than a compliment. So he only answered, as lightly as possible:

"You are--yourself! And that is not an average, by any means. And as for the knowledge of life that you are inclined to treat so slightingly, any real knowledge is one of the precious things of earth, and what is more to be desired than true understanding of the most important thing the planet holds,--life? You surely know in your heart that you would not give up what you know for the most graceful ignorance that ever bloomed in some sheltered corner of a drawing-room! When your epitaph comes to be written, would you rather have it read. 'Here lies Leslie, beloved wife, et cetera, et cetera, whose horizon was bounded by the painted windows of her husband's colonial mansion, and who could make the most exquisite courtesy of any in her set'; or, 'She knew the real things of real life. She faced the troubles and the humiliations that come to the men and women who are building up the world of to-morrow out of today, and she helped to build courage and loyalty and love and good cheer into the work!'"

Leslie listened with held breath, then suddenly she dropped her folded arms upon the jangled keys and hid her face upon them. A tremor ran all through her slender body. Burton bit his lip as he looked at her. He wanted to put his hand out and touch her bowed head, to tell her how wonderful he thought her, to comfort her in some way. The impulse was an amazing one. It set every pulse in his body tingling. It astonished him so that he walked slowly away toward the window, wondering what had come over him, and how he was going to keep her from guessing that he was liable to attacks of losing his senses. But in a moment she lifted her head, with a long breath.

"Don't think me silly. I--believe I am too tired to be quite myself."

"We are all a little overwrought," said Burton, with great relief. That was probably what the trouble was!

"You have been so much more than kind that there is nothing for me to say about it," she added, rising. "I can't really imagine what I should have done if all this trouble had developed before you came. You have somehow made it seem possible to go through with it."

"Of course we will go through with it," he answered cheerily. "A year from now, you and Philip will be laughing at it." He said the words deliberately, to see how they sounded. They seemed to sound quite simple and natural.

"A year is a long way to guess," she said lightly. "You are going away to-morrow? Then I will say goodbye now."

"Let it be good night only," he said, and held out his hand steadily.

She touched it so carelessly with her own that the act seemed almost unconscious.

"Good night," she repeated. And then, as he was turning away, she added quickly, "How long has Mrs. Overman been a widow?"

"Nearly a year," he answered.

"Good night," she said again, as though forgetful that she had already said it twice. "I think I am a little tired. But--I'll be all right to-morrow." She lifted her head with that gallant air of hers, and he turned away. It required something of a conscious effort.

He got away quickly, but he did not return at once to his hotel. He wanted to be by himself,--though there was nothing that he wanted to say to himself. He simply wanted to walk and walk under the spreading trees that lined the avenues of the town and--avoid all thinking. The moonlight flickered down through the branches very beautifully. He did not remember that he had ever noticed before how very beautiful that effect was. And yet there was something sad in it. He had not noticed that before, either. At least, not since he was in college, and spent good time that should have been otherwise occupied in writing bad poetry to Rachel. Yes, decidedly there was something saddening about the effect of the moonlight.

CHAPTER XVIII

BURTON THINKS HE IS MENDING MATTERS

"My adored Rachel," wrote Burton that night. "I am having a very curious experience. I have dropped into a regular melodrama. I suppose there is a plot to it, but so far I have chiefly been kept guessing. You will be interested in it, though I know melodrama is not your favorite style of literature, because it nearly involves the Underwood family. In fact, they are supposed to be the whole head and front of the offending.

"I told you that there was some vague accusation of Dr. Underwood in the town, which I felt under obligations, as your ambassador, to investigate, in carrying out the mission with which I was charged. That matter has almost been lost sight of, in the popular excitement over subsequent events. A house burned down the next night, and the police said the fire was of incendiary origin. Thereupon the public jumped to the conclusion that it was set either by Dr. Underwood or his son Henry, though as to the doctor I can personally testify that he was laid up with a sprained ankle that night, and could hardly hobble about his room. But a trifle like that would cut no figure with an excited public, eager only to hear some new thing that would make its hair stand on end. Then the following night a man was assaulted in his own house,--tied to his bed, and warned not to talk about people as recklessly as he had been doing. This time suspicion was directed to Henry Underwood, and he has been arrested. The young man refuses bail, on the ground that he wants to be locked up so as to leave no room for charging him with the next eccentric thing that may happen in High Ridge. I hope you agree with me that this shows a good deal of spirit and pluck, especially as the town jail is a place that no one who was looking for downy beds of ease would choose for a summer resort. I must tell you that this young man interests me extremely. There is no vanity in this, for I cannot say that the interest is reciprocated. He treats me with a haughty tolerance that would wound my self-esteem, if I did not see that it is merely his manner to everybody. He seems to go on the theory that all men are in a conspiracy against him, and he will neither ask nor give quarter. You will gather from this that I do not believe he assaulted the old gentleman in his bed. I don't. Use your judgment as to how much of all this you should tell Philip. And speaking of that, I am not sure that I fully expressed, in my last letter, my great enthusiasm for Philip's sagacity. My admiration for the young lady in question has grown with my more extended acquaintance. She is not only beautiful,--as I told you in my first report,--but she has a lot of personality. That is an attribute which it is hard to more specifically designate, but you know what I mean. She has character, so that you feel you could rely upon her absolutely in need, and fascination, so that you would never be dull in her company, and simplicity, so that you would never weary of her. I think it is the artificial element in people that tires us, just as it is the artificial in life. The large, simple things are always restful. The longer we live with them,--as shown in the sea and the mountain and the desert,--the more we come to depend upon them and love them. Some people are like that,--large-natured and simple and so true that you never have any disturbing perplexity as to what they may stand for. She is like that, I think. And I feel that Philip has chosen a really wonderful woman for his wife,--a woman who will be the making of him.

"You may not hear from me again very soon, for I am going out of town on a mission,--a secret mission which may be big with importance if I do not miss my guess. Does that make you curious? In short, I, even I, am going to try my hand at some detective work on my own account. I shall not tell you the details in advance, because if I fail utterly, it will be less humiliating to reflect that I have not confessed my wild-goose chasing. But if your wishes have any influence with the powers that be, do wish me success. I want terribly to pull this thing off. Just think what it will mean to that poor, brave girl! Oh, Rachel, you will be so proud and fond of her! To have helped in any degree to have brought you so rare a daughter is a matter to cheer the solitary moments of

"YOUR BLIGHTED BEING."

"MY ADORED RACHEL: This is not a postscript, nor yet is it a mere subterfuge to give me a chance to call you 'adored' again. It is another letter under the same cover, because I just happened to think of something else I wanted to say. Miss Underwood is very proud, very sensitive, and, I suspect, more than a little in awe of the paragon of perfection who will receive this epistle. I think it would be a very 'nice' thing, as you would say, for you to write her a little letter, telling her how you will love her and all that. Who knows better how beautifully you can write when you want to than your own

"BLIGHTED BEING."

Burton mailed the letter without reading it over. It is possible that if he had applied his mind to the matter, he might have realized that it was not exactly the sort of an introduction that would make Miss Underwood persona grata to her future mother-in-law, for he had intervals of common sense; but his mind was otherwise engaged. So he sent the letter on its way with innocent cheerfulness.

CHAPTER XIX

BURTON GOES TO THE RESERVATION

It was a barren prospect that greeted Burton when he stepped from the train at the station,--the only passenger to alight. A bare windswept prairie; at a little distance, a colony of teepees, with fluttering rags and blankets blowing about, and a bunch of ponies nibbling at the coarse grass; and nothing to mark the hand of the white man but the rails which ran in gleaming and significant silence away. A man whose clothes were of the indistinguishable color of the sunburnt grass was sitting on the edge of the platform which made the whole of the station. He was dangling his feet over the edge and whittling, and it was this occupation quite as much as his looks that made Burton guess him to be a white man. He went up to him.

"Can you tell me where to find the Agent?" he asked.

The man had been staring at him intently as he approached, and now, after a pause that made Burton wonder whether he had been understood, the man cocked his thumb in the direction of a long frame building on the other side of the track. A man was standing in the doorway, watching the daily pageant of civilization represented by the passing train, and Burton approached him. Immediately the man to whom he had spoken slipped from the platform and ran, with a long lope, toward the teepees on the right.

Burton presented himself to the Indian Agent, introducing himself as an amateur on the subject of Indian basketry, who wished to add to his knowledge by studying the art among the Indians on the Reservation.

The Agent, whose name was Welch, evidently found some difficulty in adjusting his own point of view to that of his visitor, but Burton finally succeeded in convincing him that he was at least sane enough to receive the benefit of the doubt, and that there really were people who cared to know about what the Indians made for their own use.

"I especially want to see the older squaws who remember how things were done in the old days, before they were put on Reservations," said Burton.

"Old Ehimmeshunka would about fill that bill, I guess," said Welch. "She's old, all right. She's Washitonka's squaw. Their daughter is Pahrunta, and she takes baskets and fancy things like that on the railroad train to sell."

"I should like to see them," said Burton eagerly. They certainly were the very people he wanted to see. Those were the names Ben Bussey had mentioned.

"All right; come along."

"Can they speak English?"

"Washitonka speaks fairly well. Ehimmeshunka doesn't need to, of course. Pahrunta knows a few words, enough to enable her to get about by herself. She probably understands a good deal more than she shows. They are that way."

"I shall be greatly obliged if you will act as interpreter."

"Certainly. Hello, here's Washitonka now!"

An old Indian had entered the room so noiselessly that neither of the white men had heard him. He was a striking figure, erect in spite of the years he carried, and wrapped in a blanket which looked as dignified as any Roman toga. In spite of the stolidity of his expression, there was unmistakable curiosity in the look he bent upon Burton.

"What you want, Washitonka?" asked Welch, in a tone of indulgent jocularity.

The Indian continued to look at Burton with a frank interest that did not approach rudeness or lessen his dignity. It was hard to say whether his curiosity was friendly or not. He seemed a mixture of the child and the Sphinx.

"How!" said Burton, with friendly intent.

"How!" responded Washitonka. Then he turned to Welch and made some observations in a very guttural voice.

"He says he has come to see the man who has a charmed life," said Welch with a laugh.

"Ask how he knows that I have a charmed life."

After some colloquy, which Burton wished vainly that he could understand, Welch explained.

"He says he knew, when he saw the smoke rise this morning, that a man who bore a charmed life would come to his teepee today."

"Oh, did he!" exclaimed Burton. "Well, tell him that when I lit my cigar this morning I knew by the way the smoke rose that I should meet today a wise old man with a silver tongue, who would tell me many wonderful tales of the old days when the Indian and the paleface hunted the buffalo together and were brothers."

Welch laughed, and after a moment's stony impassivity Washitonka relaxed into a grin which betrayed his understanding of the white man's tongue.

"Good talk," he said briefly.

"Will you explain to him that I want to find out about basket-weaving?" said Burton.

Welch evidently found it expedient to use Washitonka's own language for elaborate disquisitions of this sort. At the end of his exposition, Washitonka approached a step toward Burton and spoke with grave dignity.

"Bacco," was what he said.

Burton had come prepared for this emergency, and he produced a package of tobacco, artfully allowing it to be seen that there were other packages still in reserve.

"Come," said Washitonka, and stalked off toward the sunburnt teepees toward which the stray lounger at the station had gone.

By this time the little village was very much alive. Curiosity had brought the women and the children to the doors, where they stood shyly staring at the stranger. The men scorned to show open curiosity, but they all seemed to have business out of doors at that moment.

Washitonka's teepee was somewhat larger than the others, but there was nothing else about it to suggest the dignity of the chief. A pile of folded blankets and garments filled one corner, and cooking utensils were piled in another. But Burton had neither eyes nor thoughts for the accessories of the place. His attention was wholly given to the little old woman, broad-faced, brown-skinned, who sat by the doorway stringing beads. Her face was wrinkled like a piece of leather, and her coarse black hair was drawn down behind her ears and tied with gay cord. Her small black eyes followed Burton's motions as an animal's might. She was so complete and so unusual a picture that Burton would very gladly have made the trip just to see her.

Back of her in the teepee a woman was moving about her work,--the daughter, Pahrunta. Burton smiled at her and she smiled back in recognition.

Welch said something in their own tongue, and the younger woman waddled across the place and brought out a large basket holding the wares that she took to the town to sell. They were mostly trumpery things,--impossible birch-bark baskets and bead-worked match-holders and collar-boxes supposed to appeal to the taste of the tourist. But Burton saw, with thankfulness, that the large basket which held the things was woven with the same strong, peculiar twist that he had studied so carefully in the example he already owned.

"Ask them who made the large basket," he said, while he handled the gay trivialities with careless hand.

Welch duly translated the inquiry, and said: "She did,--Ehimmeshunka here. Made it long ago, she says."

"Ask her if she will teach me to make one like it."

This, translated, provoked only laughter from Pahrunta and a grunt from Washitonka. The old, old woman looked on without expression.

"Tell her I will pay her," said Burton, showing money.

It took a good deal of explaining to get the idea really understood, and then Ehimmeshunka shook her head.

"She says the winter has come into her fingers and they are like twigs when the frost is on them," he explained, with some difficulty. "Now she can only put beads on a string like a child."

"Ask if she ever taught any one else when her fingers were young."

Before Welch could translate this question, Washitonka spoke a curt word to the woman. His intonation and look needed no translation. Burton guessed quickly enough that it was an injunction of silence, and this was confirmed when Ehimmeshunka's grin faded into stolidity and she took up her work again.

"Old Wash says she never taught anybody," said Welch.

This response and the look he had intercepted gave Burton pause. Was he being purposely blocked in his investigation? He did not wish to prejudice his case by too much urgency, so he deemed it best to drop the matter for the time. He gave Ehimmeshunka a coin, and turned away with Welch.

"What do you know yourself about these people?" he asked the Agent.

"Well, not much. You see, I've just come."

"You know their language."

"Oh, yes. I've been in the service for some time, but I was assigned here only about a month ago, when the other Agent died. I haven't seen all the Indians that belong to me yet. They're away somewhere, hunting or loafing, or riding their wild ponies over the prairies just for fun. No head for business."

"Then you know nothing of the personal history of Washitonka or who his friends are?"

"Not a scrap."

"I'm sorry," said Burton. "I wanted to learn something about the early days when they saw more or less of the early settlers."

"Writing a book?"

"You might call it so," said Burton non-committally. (Certainly he might, if he wanted to.)

"That old chap, Washitonka, ought to have stories to tell," said Welch, with interest, "but he seems as close as a clam. That's an Indian trait. They won't talk personalities."

"What did he mean by saying I had a charmed life?" asked Burton, returning to a point that had puzzled him.

"Don't know. Said that you cheated death. They have a way of giving names like that. Have you had any narrow escapes?"

"How would Washitonka know it, if I had?"

"Oh, there you get me! Perhaps Pahrunta heard talk of it."

But the suggestion did not satisfy Burton. He had the feeling that Washitonka knew more than he should--unless posted. Yet how could he have been posted? It made him feel that he must go warily.

In the afternoon he visited other teepees under Welch's chaperonage, and tried to establish a wide-spread reputation as a collector of curios and of stories. He did not go near Washitonka's teepee. He followed the same plan of procedure the next day,--and it took more self-control than he often had occasion to call upon. He gained one point by this method, however: he definitely satisfied himself that if he did not get the information he wanted in Washitonka's teepee, he might as well abandon the idea of getting it anywhere on the Reservation. There was no one else, in this little colony at any rate, who dated back to the time he wanted to probe. When he asked why there were no old people, the Agent answered tersely: "Smallpox."

That curse of the winter had swept the nomadic tribes again and again in their days of wandering, and only the younger and stronger had survived to find the comparative protection of the Reservation life. And to this younger generation the past had either no value or too emotional a value. They had forgotten its traditions, or else they refused to tell them to the stranger of today. Burton's inquiry was specific and definite: Had any white men been among them and learned how to weave baskets? To them it was a foolish question,--so foolish that they could with difficulty be persuaded to make a definite answer. Why should any white man wish to weave baskets? Could he not buy better baskets in the stores, not to mention buckets of beautiful tin? Nobody made baskets but old Ehimmeshunka.

On the third day he returned, with as casual an air as was possible, to Washitonka's teepee. Ehimmeshunka was sitting in the sunshine by the door. Washitonka was smoking some of Burton's tobacco, with an air of obliviousness, but when Burton placed himself beside Ehimmeshunka and began talking in a low voice to his interpreter, Welch, the old Indian promptly laid aside his dignity and came over to the little group by the door. Clearly he was not going to allow any conversation in his teepee without his knowledge.

There was little opportunity, however, for any asides, since Burton was under the necessity of talking through an interpreter. It was so cumbersome a method that he resolved to abandon his small attempt at diplomacy and strike boldly for what he wanted.

"Ask Washitonka if he knows Dr. Underwood. I am a friend of his," Burton said to Welch. He watched the faces of the Indians as this was translated, but he could see no glimmer of responsiveness in any face. Possibly it was merely because he did not understand the language of their unfamiliar faces any more than he did their unfamiliar tongue.

"Tell them I know Selby," he continued, while he watched Pahrunta. At the sound of the name she looked toward him with blank directness and Burton rejoiced. He had established communication! But when Welch repeated the question in Indian, it brought no response from any one. Washitonka merely grunted. Pahrunta turned away and spat upon the ground, but that might have had no significance.

"They don't seem to know him, either," said Welch.

"Ask the woman what she calls the man who struck her arm in the station when she spoke to him, and spilled her baskets."

But Pahrunta would not answer. She listened as though she heard nothing and turned away as though they had not spoken.

"Is it possible that she is still friendly to Selby?" he wondered. "Is she so much the savage that she admires him the more for striking her?"

Welch yawned, as though the game were losing its interest. "The train is about due," he said, rising. "I guess I'd better go and meet it, in case there is any mail."

He wandered off, leaving Burton to his own resources. Washitonka, apparently satisfied that he was not dangerous without an interpreter, lapsed back into dignified unconcern and tobacco smoke. He looked the Sphinx more than ever.

Burton was, indeed, helpless. Should he confess himself beaten and take the afternoon train back to High Ridge? He was still debating the question when Welch returned,--the train from the south having come in while he was tossing his mental penny.

"A letter for you!" Welch called, while still at a distance, as though the arrival of a letter were a great event.

It was from Ralston, and Burton read it with interest.

"Everything is so quiet along this Potomac," Ralston wrote, "that Watson is getting more pessimistic about Henry Underwood than ever. He has long felt that to lock Henry up would be the quickest means of giving High Ridge a long-needed rest, and now he feels confirmed in his faith--or in his unfaith, if you take that point of view. I have been tempted to stir up a little local ruction myself, just to give your side some moral support,--but I am not sure it would be moral support under those circumstances. How is that?"

"I'd better go back," mused Burton, as he folded the letter. "I'm accomplishing nothing here, and I'm wasting time." To Welch he said aloud: "Tell them I am going back to High Ridge this afternoon."

Welch made the announcement. After an undemonstrative silence of some moments, Washitonka put a question which Welch translated.

"He asks if you will see the man who lies on his back all the time."

"Ben Bussey?"

Washitonka caught the name and nodded.

"Yes, I shall see Ben Bussey," said Burton. "What then?"

Washitonka went to a side of the teepee and from a pile of folded blankets he drew out a red-stone pipe, beautifully carved. With an air of dignity that would have done credit to a Spanish grandee, he carried it to Burton and placed it in his hands with a guttural injunction which Welch translated.

"He wants you to give it to the cripple. He says he taught the boy to carve pipes many moons ago, and Ben's father ate of his corn and slept under his buffalo robe like a brother."

"Thank him for the pipe," dictated Burton. "Tell him I will carry it safely to Ben Bussey, the man who cannot walk, and it will speak to him of old friends. Ask him if he knows when Ben's father died."

But instantly the mask of reserve dropped over the bronze features that for a moment had looked human.

"He doesn't remember," said Welch.

There was no use in waiting for a lapse into memory when ignorance was so persistently fostered. Burton rose.

"Ask Washitonka to accept from me this tobacco," he said. "It is in farewell. And for the women in his teepee I have brought presents." He took from his pocket two small hand-mirrors, and presented one to Ehimmeshunka and one to Pahrunta. Old Ehimmeshunka received hers with the delight of a child. She looked in it and laughed, and laughed and laughed, wrinkling up her queer old face in a manner wonderful to see. Pahrunta received hers in silence. She indeed hid it at once in her dress with an eagerness that showed its ownership was prized, but she did not show the excitability of Ehimmeshunka. Instead, she looked steadily at Burton. While he was making his final and formal adieux to Washitonka, he several times caught Pahrunta's serious eyes fixed upon him. But when he left the teepee she was busy over her work and gave no heed to him.

The train went out at four. Half an hour before it was due, Burton carried his bag over to the station platform. Then, merely from the habit of motion, he began pacing up and down the length of the board walk, waiting for the train. He was not in a cheerful mood, for his expedition had been a failure, and he was going back to a situation no more promising than he had left. As he turned on his heel at the extreme end of the walk, a blinding flash of light struck his eyes and made him wince. Where in the world did it come from? As he looked about, it again flashed dazzlingly into his eyes. A recollection of the way in which, as a youngster, he had indulged in the pleasing diversion of bewildering the passers in the street with a properly manipulated bit of looking-glass, helped him now to form a theory as to the present phenomena. Some urchin was having fun with the paleface! He looked carefully about, but there was no one in sight, nor was there seemingly any place on the bare prairie for a mischievous child to hide,--unless it was behind that leaning fence which served the railroad for a snow break in winter but which was now overgrown with the rank weeds of the summer. As he turned a suspicious eye upon it, he caught a momentary flash, instantly hidden. With a smile on his lips he sauntered down to the place, expecting to pull out from among the weeds some lithe, wriggling, brown-skinned boy, but to his utter amaze he found, crouching among the tall weeds, the heavy-featured Pahrunta, in her hand the mirror he had given her an hour before, and which she had used to attract his attention. Her attitude and actions showed plainly that she was anxious not to be seen from the teepees, and with a quick understanding of her desire for concealment Burton walked on a few steps, lit a cigar, and then slowly sauntered back as far as the fence and stopped near the place where she crouched.

"Did you want to tell me something?" he asked, speaking distinctly and hoping she might be more of a linguist than had yet appeared.

Such seemed, indeed, to be the case.

"You--friend," she said in a throaty guttural, helping her halting speech by pointing her finger at him.

"I am your friend,--yes," said Burton.

But she shook her head.

"You--friend--man--" In a rapid pantomime she struck her own arm, shrank from the blow, and threw a handful of leaves before her which she followed with her eye as they blew away. It was so vivid a sketch of the scene at the station at High Ridge when Selby struck down her outstretched hand and sent her baskets flying down the steps before her that Burton was thrilled by the skill of it. She wished to know if he were a friend of Selby's! For a moment he hesitated as to the policy of his answer; then, hoping the truth might prevail, he shook his head.

"No. Enemy. I follow on his trail. Some day scalp him." He felt that it was the proper place for pantomime on his part, but feared his ability. But she seemed to catch his meaning, and to his great relief she smiled in satisfaction.

"Washitonka friend," she said, pointing to the teepee. "Me no friend." She spat upon the ground. "Washitonka hide. Me show." And from the folds of her garment she suddenly brought out a small black object. It was an old-fashioned daguerreotype case. She opened it and held it toward Burton, but when he would have taken it into his own hand she drew back.

"See, no take," she said. Evidently she would not trust it out of her own possession.

He bent down to look. The case held, on one side, one of those curious early portraits which can only be seen when the light is right, and then come out with the startling distinctness of ghost-pictures. He turned her hand, which clutched the case tightly, until he caught the picture. Two young men--rather, a boy and a young man--looked out from behind the glass with the odd effect of an older fashion in hair and dress. The older of the two had the close-set eyes and narrow face that characterized Selby. It was Selby as he might have been twenty odd years ago,--a young man under twenty. The other might, he thought, be Ben Bussey. Of that he could not be sure, but he felt eagerly sure of Selby. He put his finger on the face and looked at Pahrunta.

"Selby?" he said. "The man that struck you?"

She shut the case, hastily hid it in her dress, and drew back among her concealing weeds. With the skill and noiselessness of an animal, she slunk in among them so that Burton himself was hardly able to locate her with his eye. There was no use in following her. If he had learned nothing else, he had learned that it is not possible to get from an Indian any information except what he wishes to give.

At that moment the whistle announced the approach of the train. Pahrunta had timed her confession so that he could not press her farther if he wanted to. He walked back to the platform, picked up his bag, and swung himself on. As they puffed past the weed-grown snow-break a moment later, he looked out, but no sign could he catch of the skulking figure he knew to be hidden there. But on the chance he tossed a gleaming coin backward toward it.

He found a quiet seat and gave himself up to analyzing the situation. Just what had he gained? A few disconnected facts. He pieced them together.

1. Old Ehimmeshunka did use in her basket work the peculiar knot he had identified in the woven lilac withes and in the knotted cord that bound Hadley.

2. Washitonka was either naturally very secretive or he had been warned not to talk. The latter theory was strengthened by the fact that he had seemed to know something about the two attacks on Burton, and by Pahrunta's fear of discovery.

3. Pahrunta had broken the imposed silence, under the spur of resentment toward Selby, and revealed the fact that there was the link of an ancient friendship between Selby and the red man. The presentation of the portrait as a souvenir could mean nothing else.

4. Washitonka had most carefully refrained from mentioning Selby, although he had avowed his friendship for Bussey, Ben's father.

5. Yet Dr. Underwood had spoken of Bussey and young Selby as companions in the wild early days. They had hunted together and together had roamed among the Indians. As civilization caught up with them, Selby had dropped the ways of the Indian, while Bussey, more of a Bohemian by nature, had gone with them when they went. But in the beginning they had all been intimate, and the fact that Ben (if it were Ben, as seemed likely) had been taken in the same picture with Selby, showed that the intimacy had extended over a number of years. Dr. Underwood, too, had formed acquaintances among the Indians, but his day, apparently, was later.

Had old Ehimmeshunka, who wove baskets like no one else in the tribe, taught her skill to young Selby when he went about among them in the garb of that old portrait, trading calicoes "warranted to fade in the first wash," as the doctor said, for their mink and muskrat skins? That was the prime question, and he could hardly claim that it was certainly answered. The opportunity had existed,--that much he had learned. Had it been used?

"By Jove!" said Burton, suddenly struck by an idea. He leaned forward, seeing nothing, for a long time. Then he repeated, in an awestruck way, "By Jove!"

The idea had struck him hard.

CHAPTER XX

GROUND BAIT

When Burton reached High Ridge, it was already late in the evening. If he had followed his inclinations, he would have gone like a shot to Rowan Street, but something that he called common sense interfered. He lost no time, however, in hunting up Watson, the chief of police. The chief was at home, and was thinking of going to bed when Burton called. He didn't think of it again for quite a while.

"I feel as though I was rehearsing for private theatricals," he said, with a somewhat embarrassed laugh, after Burton had gone over his plans with him in minute detail.

"That's all right. If we get what we want, it will be worth it. If we don't, we won't be any worse off than we are now. You understand. You will see that Underwood is taken home--not before eleven o'clock--and that your plainclothes man stays with him from that minute until further orders. And no one must know that he is out of jail except the man with him. I'll see the family in the morning and explain, and I'll see Selby in the course of the morning and see that he knows the news. Then just an hour after he is in the house,--neither more nor less,--there is to be an alarm of fire. You will see about that. Then I'll see you afterwards and we'll decide whether to go on with it."

"I guess I've got it straight," said Watson. "You are responsible for this, you know, and if anything goes wrong--"

"I'll take the responsibility, all right. It will be a busy day, but I rather hope something may come of it, Mr. Watson."

Watson cleared his throat discreetly. Of course if anything did come of it, he wouldn't mind taking the credit for the result, but since he was already committed to a theory on the subject of the High Ridge mystery, he didn't care to welcome any other suggestion too enthusiastically.

Burton went to his hotel, his thoughts in an excited whirl of possibilities. There was a telegram waiting for him. He tore it open, and read it twice over before he could focus his mind on it sufficiently to understand it.

"Arrive at two tomorrow private car. Be ready to go on west with me.

"RACHEL OVERMAN."

"To-morrow!" Burton said, trying to pull his thoughts together. "What in the world is the matter? Go west? Well, hardly! Is Phil worse, I wonder. Thank heaven she doesn't arrive in the morning. But go west to-morrow! Why, what nonsense!"

He did not stop to consider that it was exactly the sort of nonsense that he had given Rachel reason to expect of him for the last twenty years.

Burton made an early call the next day at the house on Rowan Street. Leslie Underwood was in the garden when he came up, and he stopped for a moment at the gate to enjoy the picture she made. It would be impossible for any one with sensibilities not to enjoy a painted picture of a beautiful girl bending before a bed of pansies, her summer gown of blue lawn making an effective contrast to the green grass upon which its folds rippled, and her hair bare to the sun. It would therefore have merely argued brutish insensibility on Burton's part if he had not felt the charm of the real thing. Perhaps, however, it would not have been necessary for him to feel it so keenly that it seemed like a hand laid hushingly upon his heart. He stood staring in a forgetfulness of himself that would have been a valued tribute to any work of art. Some instinct warned the girl; she turned her head abruptly and then, when she saw him, she rose and came toward him, strewing the gathered pansies like many-colored jewels along the sod.

"He stopped for a moment at the gate to enjoy the picture she made." Page 250.

"Oh, you're back!" she exclaimed.

It was so indisputable a statement of fact that he did not attempt an answer. But perhaps she did not notice the omission, for as she withdrew her hand from his she asked gayly: "Well, what luck?"

"I'll tell you, to-morrow."

"Then you have found something?"

"This is the time, Miss Underwood, when I can properly assume the air of inscrutable mystery which belongs by all tradition to the astute detective. If I had really been up in my part I should have assumed it long ago, instead of revealing my actual ignorance so recklessly. It's rather late in the day to begin to be mysterious, I admit, but I am disposed to claim the privilege for the next twenty-four hours."

She watched him eagerly. "Something is brewing!"

"Hum,--possibly. But please observe that I don't say there is."

"I shall watch you."

"I am flattered by your notice. I begin to perceive that I have been even more improvident than I guessed in letting the opportunity to be mysteriously interesting slip until now."

She laughed, and stooped to gather her forgotten pansies.

"I believe it's good news! I know you are hopeful, because you are gay."

"Perhaps I am gay merely to hide a perturbed heart."

She looked up quickly, questioningly.

"Have you heard from Philip lately? Or his mother?" she asked. The question may have been suggested by his words or it may not.

"I received a telegram from Mrs. Overman last night. She says she is to be here to-morrow on her way west."

"Here? Oh!" The girl looked startled. "Must I see her?"

"Would you rather not?"

"Oh, I could not bear to see her--yet."

"Then you need not," said Burton promptly, reckless of Rachel's feelings on the subject. "She is only going through the town, and very likely may not leave her car."

"You are not going on with her?" she asked, with sudden alarm.

"Oh, no, indeed!"

Then, as an afterthought, she asked: "Is Philip with her?"

"She didn't say. She doesn't tell me more than she thinks is good for me to know. But I have a bit of news for you. Henry is coming home this morning."

"Oh! How is that?"

"He is under guard, of course. But even so it will be a pleasant change for him. But it is not to be spoken of outside of the house."

She looked puzzled. "That's all I am to know?"

"At present."

"Very well," she said, with a sweet meekness that made him laugh, but with a curious catch at his heart. It is dangerous for a woman to play at meekness! She recovered herself quickly, and struck gayly into another theme. "Guess who's engaged!"

They had been walking up the path to the house, but at this he stopped short. "Engaged? Here? Some one I know?"

"Yes!"

"Not your brother?"

"Henry? Why, no. What made you think of him? It's Mr. Selby!"

"And Miss Hadley?" he asked, in dismay.

"Yes! How clever of you! How did you guess?"

"Wait a minute. Don't go in just yet," said Burton, stopping at the door. He led her aside to a garden bench which stood against the wall. "I want to consider this. Tell me all you know about it."

"There is nothing more to tell. Mr. Selby hasn't called for our congratulations. But the report is abroad."

"Does your brother know it?"

"I don't know." She looked up with obvious surprise. "Why? Why do you speak of him?"

"Did it never occur to you that Henry and Selby hated each other so bitterly because they both cared for Miss Hadley?"

"Henry? Oh, impossible!"

"Not impossible at all, I assure you."

"Why, he hardly knows her."

"How long is it necessary to know a person before falling in love?"

"I have no statistics on the subject."

"Well, my word for it, it doesn't take very long sometimes. And my word for it, Henry was in love with Miss Hadley. I wish we might keep him from hearing this news for a while."

"Why, you don't think Henry will shoot Selby at sight for carrying off his girl, do you?" she laughed.

"You are a heartless girl to laugh about it. Having some one else carry off the girl you love is a much more serious matter than you seem to realize. But I am not worrying about Selby. To be sure, It would look pretty bad for Henry if Selby were assassinated the first day he was out of jail, but Mr. Selby is under the special protection of the powers of mischief who are running things here, and I have no anxiety on his behalf."

"Mrs. Bussey says that the milkman says that the Hadleys' housemaid says that Minnie was up in her room crying all day yesterday," said Leslie mischievously.

"For goodness' sake, don't let Henry hear that," exclaimed Burton. But the name reminded him of Mrs. Bussey's specialty, and he glanced rather anxiously at the open drawing-room windows under which they had been sitting. Was it his fancy, or did the curtain stir with something more palpable than the wind? What a situation for this girl to live in! It was intolerable.

He was looking at her so intently that she looked up as though he had spoken.

"What is it?" she asked swiftly. "You are hiding something from me!"

"I am trying to," he said, recovering himself. "I think my only chance of succeeding is in keeping away from you. Where is your father?"

"In the surgery, I think."

"I'm going in to speak to him." He left her a little abruptly and went to the front door where Mrs. Bussey admitted him with her old air of curiosity struggling with timid resentment. Burton returned her look with keen interest. Had she been listening at the window?

"How do you do, Mrs. Bussey? And how's Ben? I'm coming up to see him in a minute. I have a little present from an old Indian who used to know him."

Mrs. Bussey relaxed into a smile, and hurried away, and Burton went on to the surgery to find the doctor.

"I don't dare say that my soul is my own in this house without first making sure that Mrs. Bussey won't overhear me and betray the damaging secret to my dearest enemy," he said, as he shook hands. "She is always at hand when I am indiscreet. I wanted to tell you privately and with the utmost secrecy that Henry is coming home this morning,--very soon. It is a part of a little scheme I am working out. He is really to be kept under the strictest surveillance. I wanted to explain this so that you would understand the presence of the stranger who will accompany him more or less inconspicuously, and not make any remarks in regard to him,--say in the hearing of Mrs. Bussey!"

"You are very mysterious."

"I am engaged in the services of a very mysterious family. The point is simply that Henry is to seem free, and yet is really to be under close guard, and that nobody is to say anything about anything, but simply lie low and wait! You understand?"

"I don't understand a thing."

"That will do just as well, provided you are content to remain in that state."

"Does Henry understand that he is to be watched?"

"Oh, of course." Burton glanced at his watch, and rose. But the doctor detained him.

"What about that basket? Did anything come of that?" he asked eagerly.

"I found the old squaw who made it."

"Well?"

"Well!"

"What of it?"

Burton shook his head. "I don't know--yet."

"You still think--?"

"I have postponed thinking till to-morrow. Now I must go up and see Ben for a minute; I told Mrs. Bussey I was coming up. I found that his father is not forgotten up there."

"You must come back and tell me all about it," insisted the doctor. "Stay for luncheon and entertain me. Do!"

Burton shook his head, standing impatiently with his hand on the door-knob. "Thanks, but I can't. I have a full afternoon before me. I am hatching a conspiracy of my own."

"And you won't take me into your confidence?"

"No! You look out for Henry. He's due to arrive any minute." He let himself out, glanced at his watch, and ran up the broad back stairs to Ben's room.

Mrs. Bussey opened the door to admit him with an air of embarrassment which he did not understand until he entered and found that Selby also was in the room. While Burton was surprised, he was glad it had so fallen out. It would save him the necessity of thinking up some excuse for an interview later.

"How are you, Bussey? Good day, Mr. Selby," he said, taking a chair without waiting for further invitation. The men returned his greeting rather ungraciously, and Burton guessed at once that he had interrupted something in the nature of a discussion which had left them at cross-purposes. Selby's face was twitching with nervous anger, and Ben looked as morose as a badgered animal.

"I have just been up to the Reservation for a few days, trying to find some Indian baskets," Burton went on, feeling his way conversationally into the murky atmosphere. "You see your collection inspired me, Mr. Selby. And I learn that important things have been happening in High Ridge 'while I was away." He smiled significantly at Selby, who scowled in embarrassment, and then escaped from personalities by his customary way of anger.

"At any rate, there haven't been any houses set afire lately."

"No, nor any hold-ups in the streets, nor any shots fired through people's windows," Burton said lightly. "All seems to have been beautifully quiet. But I hear that Henry goes free today."

"Goes free?" repeated Selby nervously. "So I hear. Probably they came to the conclusion that they didn't have sufficient reason for holding him."

Selby jumped from his chair and fidgetted across the room. Ben watched him with the hint of a malicious smile chasing the shadows from his face. It was Mrs. Bussey who spoke.

"Then like as not some one will be held up or some house will be set afire tonight."

"Oh, I hope not," said Burton, with a good show of concern. "That would make it look pretty black for Henry. But I hear that Watson didn't want to let him out just on that account. Henry and Watson are not very good friends, it seems."

"Watson knows the tricks that Henry was up to six years ago," said Mrs. Bussey.

"Well, I may be able to get Henry out of town by to-morrow," said Burton. "If he isn't in High Ridge, nobody can blame him if Watson's house burns after that. I guess it's safe to risk it for one night."

Ben had turned his head away indifferently. He still seemed to be brooding over something, and heedless of Burton's talk. But Selby turned abruptly from the window where he had been standing, and flared out at Burton.

"You seem to be meddling a good deal in matters that don't concern you. Did you tell Ben that I didn't pay him enough for his work?"

So that was what they had been quarrelling about! "I told him I thought I could get better prices for it," he said. "I think I can. Don't you consider it probable?"

"What business is it of yours?"

"None. I am simply meddling, as you correctly say."

"Then meddle and be damned to you. As for Ben's carving, I'll never take another stick of it. You can look out for him after this." And he flung out of the room.

Mrs. Bussey began to whimper. "Now what'll we do? Selby was mean, but he did pay something. And there ain't anybody else that Ben can work for."

"Yes, there is," said Burton promptly. "I'll see that he has a chance to sell anything he does."

Mrs. Bussey sniffed, but perhaps she did not mean to sniff cynically. However, Burton felt that the tide of sympathy was setting against him, and he hastened to talk of more cheerful matters.

"I met an old friend of yours on the Reservation,--Washitonka, his name is. Remember him?"

"Yes," said Ben impassively.

"He sent you this red-stone pipe."

Ben took the pipe in his fingers and turned it over and over, with careless curiosity. "I can carve better than that," he said calmly, and laid it down.

"Yes, you carve very well. You have strong and skilful fingers. But I think Washitonka sent you the pipe in token of friendship rather than to show his skill. He says he taught you to carve pipes long ago. Is that so?"

"Maybe so. I have forgotten."

"He hasn't forgotten you. And I saw Ehimmeshunka, who made the big basket I bought of Pahrunta. She is old." Burton glanced again at his watch, and as he replaced it in his pocket he took out a little wooden box. "Here is something else I brought you," he said, crossing over to Ben. "It's a box of red pigment. Did you ever try to color your carvings? I have seen Indian carvings that were colored, and I thought you might like to experiment with something of that sort. It would make your work look more Indian. This is a powder, you see, but it dissolves readily in water, and it makes a fast color. It's some kind of earth, I suppose,--"

"Fire! Fire!"

The cry came so sharply and shrilly across the quiet that Burton started, spilling the powder. He hastily snapped the cover on the box and sprang to the door. A puff of smoke, acrid and yellow, rushed into the room from the hall.

"Your kitchen is afire, Mrs. Bussey," he exclaimed, and ran down the stairs. Mrs. Bussey followed in a clattering hurry. The kitchen door, opening into the back hall at the foot of the stairs, was wide open, and the smoke was rushing out in great volumes. Burton heroically dashed into the midst of things, and then in a minute he laughed reassuringly.

"No great harm. It's only your dish towels, Mrs. Bussey."

The noise and the smoke had penetrated to the rest of the house, and almost at the same moment Leslie, Henry, and a stranger came rushing to the spot, followed by Mrs. Underwood and the doctor. Even in that moment of general confusion, Mrs. Underwood was calm enough to still the turmoil of the elements. Burton could not but admire her perfectly consistent poise. Turning her still eyes upon Mrs. Bussey, who was exclaiming hysterically over the pile of smouldering towels, she dropped her cool words like snowflakes on the fire.

"What matter about a few towels, Mrs. Bussey? There are more important things in the world."

"Important, indeed! It's important enough that we might all have been burnt in our beds!"

"Not at midday, Mrs. Bussey," interposed the doctor. "We do many things in this house that we ought not to do and we leave undone many things that we ought to do, but we haven't yet achieved the distinction of staying in bed till twelve of the clock."

"How would we have got Ben down from that second floor where he lies like a log, if the house had gone?" cried Mrs. Bussey, with a sudden access of fury, as the thought struck her. Then she saw Henry Underwood leaning against the door-post, a sardonic smile on his white face. "You villain, that's what you were trying to do," she screamed. "You were going to burn the house down to catch Ben!"

"If your dish towels weren't so dirty, they wouldn't catch fire all by themselves," he said insolently.

"All by themselves!" the indignant woman exclaimed. "They were set fire to, and that any one can see. It's incenerary, that's what it is, and--"

"Come, scatter," said Leslie quickly. "Mrs. Bussey and I want to clean up this kitchen. You can discuss the philosophy of events elsewhere."

Henry laughed and turned on his heel. The strange man who had stood just behind him and had said nothing through it all, went out with him.

"I wish you'd come into the surgery, Burton," said the doctor. He had been staring steadily at the smouldering pile of towels, still smoking whitely on the floor where Burton had flung them. One might almost have guessed that he wished to avoid the eyes of the little group in the room.

"In a moment. I'll just run up and reassure Ben." And, suiting the action to the word, he ran up the stairs two steps at a time, and put his head in at the half-open door.

"A false alarm, Bussey," he said. "No danger. Just a lot of smoke from some towels in the kitchen. Were you frightened?"

"No," said Ben stolidly.

"Here's your box of pigment that I carried off. I'll leave it on your table," said Burton, crossing the room. His voice shook in his throat when he spoke. He came back and stood by the couch for a moment, looking down curiously at Ben's impassive face.

"Suppose it had been a real fire, Ben! Wouldn't you have been frightened then? What would you have done?"

Ben's face twitched for a moment with a passing emotion.

"I guess that would have been Henry Underwood's affair," he said indifferently, and turned his face away.

"Henry is downstairs now."

But Ben made no answer to this, and Burton left him. He ran down the stairs and looked into the surgery, the door of which was standing open.

"Come inside," the doctor said, pulling him in and shutting the door behind him. "What am I to think of this?"

"Of what?"

"You know perfectly well. You are as white as--as I would be if I showed what I felt. Where was Henry when that fire started?"

"I don't know."

"He came into the house not ten minutes ago,--"

"Watson is a man of his word."

"--and went up to his room. Do you believe in evil spirits that carry out the secret wishes of men who are--criminally insane?"

"I should hate to say I didn't, because the idea offers so interesting a field for speculation that it strikes me it would be amusing to entertain it. But what suggests the question?"

The doctor looked at him with miserable eyes. "Who started that fire?" he asked, almost inaudibly.

Burton answered in the same undertone. "I did. But don't mention it. I'm afraid my reputation might suffer."

The doctor stared at him with such obvious dismay that Burton laughed aloud.

"By deputy, of course! I'm not crazy, Doctor, but I confess I am somewhat excited. I can't stop to explain further, because I have an engagement."

"Engagement be hanged. You are inventing that. Explain what you mean."

"If I hadn't an engagement, I should invent one, to get away from you. I don't want to talk to you. And I shall have a continuous engagement for the rest of the day. Good day to you."

"Pooh-pooh to you," responded the doctor, derisively. But the miserable look had been taken from his face.

CHAPTER XXI

RACHEL APPEARS ON THE SCENE

Burton used his room telephone at the hotel to call up Watson, and even so he did not give his name.

"It's all right so far. We'll go ahead as planned," he said.

Next he went to the station to meet Rachel. The west-bound train to which her car, "Oversee," was attached, came puffing in with the air of importance which every one and everything that ministered to Rachel came sooner or later to assume. He walked down to the end of the long platform, and there was the familiar car, and, what was not so to be taken for granted, there was Rachel herself on the steps, waving an impatient hand to him.

"How jolly of you to come and see me," he said impudently, as he took her hand. For some queer reason, he did not carry it to his lips, as had been his old custom. "I was greatly surprised to receive your telegram yesterday."

"Were you?" she murmured in a tone that might mean nothing or might mean everything. "Didn't you think it was time?"

"Time for what?"

"Oh,--just time!"

"It is always time for you to telegraph me or write me or to come halfway across the continent to see me," he said promptly. "Is Philip with you?"

"Come inside," she said, and led the way into the tiny drawing-room of the coach. "Your things are coming soon, I hope. We have only half an hour here. Is there anything worth getting off for, or shall we just sit and talk?"

"We'll talk first. Please remember that I don't know yet what has brought you here. Where is Philip?"

"Oh, he didn't come with me," she said, motioning him to a seat as she took a chair herself. It was a part of her general harmoniousness that she always took a chair which was in the right light to show up her hair. He used to smile at the trait. It struck him now for the first time as somewhat trivial. And as he looked at her, it struck him for the first time that she was somewhat trivial as a whole. Rachel trivial? It gave him a shock that made his answer almost incoherent.

"Poor fellow!" he said mechanically. "Still unable to bear moving?"

"Philip is greatly improved," she said. She was sliding a jewelled bracelet up and down on her arm, and did not look at him. "In fact, he is so much better that he has run over to France, with the Armstrongs."

Burton looked at her in grave inquiry. "I am glad that he is better, but why didn't he come with you, instead of going across the water?"

"Oh, I didn't need him. And he knew that I should pick you up here."

"But surely it was due to Miss Underwood that he should come to her, if he were able to go anywhere. Nothing but his inability to travel justified my coming between them in this matter in the first place."

"My dear Hugh, I hope you haven't committed Philip in any way to that impossible girl!"

He stared at her in silence, absolutely speechless.

"Of course I know you were sent as envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary," she said, with one of the sudden smiles which had so often disarmed his protests, "but that was because I was so sure I could trust everything to your discretion. And I know you haven't failed me! When you discovered that the Underwoods were the principals in a cause celèbre, surely that was enough!"

He choked down the white wrath that surged upward. The very ghastliness of the situation made it necessary that he should be very careful. He spoke, after a moment, in almost his natural voice.

"I should not be surprised at your attitude, because I remember now--though I had forgotten it until you spoke--that I had the same feeling about the matter before I had met the Underwoods themselves. After knowing them, my feeling changed. I hoped I had made my impressions of Miss Underwood clear in my letters to you."

"You made it sufficiently clear that you had been bewitched," she said, with a smile that was not wholly friendly. "Miss Underwood must be very pretty."

"Yes, she is. And she is 'nice' in every other way, too. She is a brave, staunch, noble woman,--and Philip ought to go down on his knees in thankfulness for winning her."

"You are somewhat extravagant in speech," she said coldly. "Philip Overman would hardly need to express in that fashion his gratitude for winning the daughter of a country doctor of very tarnished reputation, whose brother has also figured in the police court!"

"Did you gather that from my letters?"

"No, from the newspapers. The situation has been written up for the Sunday supplements. The whole thing is cheap,--oh, horribly cheap, my dear Hugh!"

"But, Rachel,--for heaven's sake, what do you mean? Philip is in love with the girl,--"

"Fancies of that sort soon pass, Hugh."

"You thought it serious enough when you sent me to see her."

"I was frantic for the moment over Philip, and I would have sent you to get the moon for him, if he had cried for it. But it doesn't follow that I would let him have it when he got well."

"Has Philip nothing to say on the subject himself?" he asked coldly.

She smiled enigmatically, and instead of answering at once she asked in turn: "Exactly what did you say to Miss Underwood? How far did you--exercise diplomacy?"

"I didn't exercise any. I told her Philip was dying because she had refused him, and I took advantage of every feeling I could play upon to win the conditional promise from her that I sent on to you."

"What was her condition?"

"That the mystery hanging over the family be cleared, so that she could come to him on equal terms."

"That is,--if their name were cleared? I think you so expressed it in one of your interesting letters."

"That was her phrase."

"Then that lets us out," she smiled. "It hasn't been cleared."

"But it will be! Very soon! I am on the track now. By to-morrow I hope to show you the Underwood name as spotless as Overman."

She looked at him with unmistakable astonishment. "That you can make such a comparison makes sufficiently clear your amazing point of view. I hardly think we need discuss the matter further."

"I shall discuss it with Philip," he said abruptly.

"I told you Philip had gone abroad."

"I shall follow him. I must talk with the boy himself. He must have some spark of manliness."

"Why are you so provoking, Hugh?" she exclaimed. "What difference does it make about these people? Who are they that you should care?"

"I care for Philip's honor," he said obstinately. "That is involved. And the girl's happiness is involved."

"I'm sorry," said Mrs. Overman, with a smile that did not look sorry. "I'm afraid the matter is out of our hands, though, Hugh. Janet Armstrong is in the party. I rather think that you would find it too late to interfere."

He looked at her steadily and in silence.

"Janet is a charming girl," she went on lightly. "She will be a better match even than Ellice Avery. A year ago it might have been Ellice, but it has turned out for the best all around. Janet and Philip were engaged the day they sailed. And you must see, Hugh, that there is nothing further to be said about it."

Perhaps he did, for he said nothing. He rose and walked to the window and stood looking out so long that the lady frowned and smiled and frowned again, and finally spoke.

"Where are your things, Hugh? It is getting late."

"My things? Oh, they are not coming."

"But you are going on with me, aren't you?"

"No," he said. "I'm sorry."

"But I counted on you," she cried.

"I'm sorry," he said again, very gently. He could afford to be gentle now. "I have important work to do tonight."

"You are going to see that girl?"

"I did not mean that. I have a different engagement. But of course I shall see her as soon as possible."

Mrs. Overman bit her lip. "You are very punctilious! Well, I will wait a day for you. It need not take you longer."

He shook his head. "It may take me much longer. I shall be in High Ridge for some time, probably."

"Then--I'd better not wait for you."

"No. Don't wait for me," he said slowly.

She was very pale, but she smiled. "Then this is goodbye?"

"Yes, for the present."

She did not see his extended hand. She was untangling an invisible knot in the chain she wore, so her fingers were occupied.

"I don't know when I may see you again, then, for my plans are almost as indefinite as your own," she said airily. "I'm going somewhere,--and then somewhere else. When I'm ready to see you, I'll let you know."

"Good-bye,--and with the deepest meaning of the word," he said gravely. There was no use in ignoring what lay under the scene.

"Perhaps you'd better get off now, Hugh. You might be carried away in spite of your resolution,--and I should hate to see you carried away against your judgment," she mocked.

"Good-bye," he repeated. Something whirled in his brain.

As Burton watched the train pull out, its jaunty plume of smoke flaunting its scorn of High Ridge, it might have been hard to say whether he was more angry or more miserable. Perhaps each emotion helped to keep the other within bounds. How was he going to break to Miss Underwood the news that Philip had jilted her? That was the plain fact; and with her sensitive pride, her defenseless humility,--oh, it was an outrage. If he ever got a chance at Philip! To woo her for Philip had been irksome enough in the first place. To refuse her for Philip was something he had not undertaken to do.

But that must wait for to-morrow. He had another matter on his hands for tonight; the trap he had set must be sprung.

CHAPTER XXII

HENRY TAKES TO HIS HEELS

It was nearing midnight when Burton left his room and strolled out with a cigar. His objective point was Watson's house, and it was by no means necessary to go by Rowan Street to get there. Indeed, it was distinctly out of his way. Nevertheless, that was the way he took. He stopped at the farthest corner of the grounds for a moment, and looked up at the great house hidden among the trees. If he were foolishly indulging in mere dreams, his fancies were suddenly and unexpectedly scattered, for while he looked, one of the windows on the second floor was pushed softly up and a man's form appeared in it for a moment. It was the window to Henry's room. Burton was instantly alert. Henry was to be kept under strict guard. Was it possible that he was trying to make an escape? A moment resolved the doubt, for Henry came again to the window, let himself out with obvious precautions to go softly, and then swung himself into the branches of the oak from which Burton himself had once looked into that room. With a vivid realization of what Henry's escape on this night of all nights might mean, Burton vaulted the fence and ran to the tree. He reached it just as Henry touched the ground.

"See here, this won't do," he began argumentatively.

But Henry was in no mood for argument. With an exclamation of surprise and impatience, he started for the street. But Burton sprang after him and caught his arm.

"I say, Underwood!" he panted.

"Confound your meddling, I wish you would let me alone," Henry answered between his teeth, and with a sudden effort he wrenched himself free and darted off. Burton was staggered for a moment, then he set out in pursuit. Whatever happened, Henry's alibi must be clear! Henry vaulted the fence, and Burton went over a minute later. He was congratulating himself, with some surprise over it, that he was able to keep so nearly up with a young fellow who must be about ten years his junior, when Henry disappeared. When Burton came up to the spot he saw that Henry must have gone between two close-set buildings; but there was little use in trying to follow. Henry probably knew his way through the town as well as through his own garden. If he wanted to elude Burton, it was a very easy feat. And it was quite clear to the dullest understanding that this was what he wanted to do. Certainly the gods must have set their seal upon the man for early destruction. Burton shrugged his shoulders, put his hat back at the customary angle, and set off for Watson's.

He had not wished to arrive at Watson's too early, but now he suddenly had a panic fear that he might be too late. He hurried on, trying to guess his way through an unfamiliar part of the town, and wondering what Henry had done with the watchman who was supposed to keep him in sight. Had he drugged him or tied him up as Hadley had been tied, or merely and effectively killed him? Nothing less would excuse the man's failure to keep the watch set. If he had any influence with Watson, that man would have justice measured out to him.

Presently he realized that he was in so unfamiliar a part of the town that he had practically lost his bearings. He knew the general direction he wished to take, but what with turnings and twistings he had no idea of the most direct way to get there. There seemed to be no street names on the corners here, and the streets were entirely deserted. He knew he wanted to go to his right, but he had got upon a winding street that ran along the edge of a bluff and seemed to have no opening to the right. In order to get out of the pocket into which he had dropped, he decided to cut through the yard of the house by which he had stopped to reconnoiter. It would, at any rate, enable him to get on another street, and perhaps then he would see his way clear. Accordingly he jumped the low garden fence and picked his way among the vegetable beds and across the debris of a disorderly back yard. Apparently the owner of the house was having some repairs done, for he stumbled over an empty paint bucket in the yard, and a painter's ladder was resting against the house. There was only a narrow walk between the house and the fence, but Burton slipped past quietly, and thankfully saw that the way on the front was perfectly open and clear.

As he stepped out into the street, he thought he heard a cry. He stopped on the instant and listened intently, but it was not repeated. There had been some quality of terror in the cry that startled him,--or it might simply have been the effect of any sudden cry on the still night. He could not be sure whether it came from the house he had passed or elsewhere. If any one were in trouble, surely he would call again. Burton felt that it would prove exceedingly embarrassing if he rang up the owner of the house only to find that he bad been waking himself up from a wholly personal and private nightmare.

After waiting a minute to make sure that there was no further call or sound of any kind, he hurried on. He knew that he was late for his appointment, and he might spoil the whole scheme by coming upon the scene at the wrong moment. At the next lamppost he found the name of the street,--Larch. He knew now where he was. Also, he suddenly remembered that Selby lived on Larch Street.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE TRAP IS SPRUNG

Watson lived in a modest frame house set well back in its grounds and shaded by some fine old trees. Burton was thankful to find that he had, after all, come with reasonable directness to the place. There was no light in the windows to show that any one was up, but he went to the front door and tapped softly in a preconcerted fashion. The door was opened at once by Watson himself, who drew him into the hall, and then guided him through the darkness into an inner room. Here he removed the hood from a small lamp, and revealed the fact that there was another man in the room. It proved to be Ralston. He looked at Burton with a quizzical smile.

"Watson thought it would be best to let me in on this," he said, in a low voice. "He knew that I would never have forgiven him if he hadn't."

"That's all right. I'm glad you are here," said Burton. He guessed that Watson, at the last moment, had needed some confirmation of this irregular project, and he was glad that he had been inspired to appeal to Ralston rather than to any one else. Ralston had imagination, and therefore was better equipped for seeing a truth that is not yet revealed.

"I was afraid I might be late," he added. And then he told of his explorations in unknown territory and of the outcry he had heard from the house on Larch Street.

Watson listened with professional attention. "Did it sound like a cry for help?" he asked.

"It sounded like the cry of some one in terror. It might have been some one in a nightmare. There was no other sound and no disturbance."

"You don't know the house?"

"No. It was a two-story frame house, narrow and high, with a porch in front. It was on the west side of Larch, and the next cross-street this way from it is James. I noticed that as I came along."

"Why, that's Selby's house!" exclaimed Ralston. "The plot thickens. I don't know why Selby shouldn't have a nightmare if he wants to, as well as any other man, but it looks rather significant that he should have a nightmare on this particular night, doesn't it, now?"

Watson was looking at Burton with a puzzled air.

"If anything has happened to Selby, we might as well know it," said Burton, answering his look.

"I'll telephone to the station," said Watson, and stepped out of the room.

"What made you say to Selby, instead of of, by, for, or from Selby?" asked Ralston curiously. "What makes you think anything could have happened to Selby?"

"I hope nothing has," said Burton abruptly, "--but--"

"But what?"

"Don't tell Watson yet. He'll feel that he ought to investigate, and I want to keep him still for an hour or two. But the truth is, I'm uncomfortable over that cry, now that I come to think of it, because Henry Underwood is loose somewhere in town tonight."

"I thought Watson said he was under special guard."

"He was. He got away--through the window. I was passing the house and was just in time to see him escaping, but could not stop him. Of course it doesn't necessarily follow--"

"No, of course it doesn't," said Ralston, though he looked serious. "Henry wasn't in love with Selby, but it doesn't follow that he would--use violence in any way."

"Of course not," echoed Burton. In his own mind he was pushing away the thought of Selby's newly announced engagement as though he would force himself to ignore its significance. It was like the final bit in a puzzle which so obviously solves the whole mystery that no argument about its fitness is needed.

Watson returned softly. "I've sent a man out to look Selby's place over," he said quietly. "He won't let himself be seen unless he is satisfied something is wrong. Now, if you please, I'll take you upstairs. You'll have to follow me without a light."

He guided them to a rear room on the second floor with an open window looking out into the darkness of the night.

"The woodshed roof is just below this window," said Watson, "and there's a ladder against the shed. If any one really wanted to break into this house, he would have an easy job of it tonight."

"Houses burgled while you wait," laughed Ralston, excitedly.

"It looks all right," said Burton. "Now, if anything is to happen, we'd better keep quiet."

They settled into convenient chairs to wait.

To set a trap is one thing. To catch the quarry is quite another. It does not always follow the setting of the trap, even when there are tracks enough on the ground to warrant some confidence. Burton realized keenly that there were a thousand chances for his failure to one for success. And yet something that was more like the intuition of the hunter than plain reason kept him quietly hopeful through the draggingly slow minutes. He had set the day as the limit of their vigil, and though he could not read the face of his watch he knew that they must have been sitting quiet for something like an hour when there was the sudden tinkle of the telephone bell downstairs.

"Don't answer it," he murmured, as Watson rose softly.

"I must," Watson answered, in the same undertone. "No one outside can either see or hear me. It may be something important."

He went softly down the stairs and they heard him close the door of the room below before he answered the call.

"I'll bet you something has happened to Selby," said Ralston, a quiver of excitement in his guarded voice. "Take me up? Come, now, before Watson gets back! I'll make it two to one! In anything you like. Three to one! Five to one!"

"Cut that out," said Burton impatiently. "Keep still." He fancied he had heard a sound outside, and every nerve was strained to make sure of it.

But at that moment the door below opened abruptly, and Watson came up the stairs in a hurry.

"You may as well drop this tomfoolery," he said, at the door, speaking without precaution or care. "Selby is dead,--stabbed through the heart. My men have found Henry Underwood's cuff-button beside the bed, and they'll soon have him. That's what comes of your theatrical plans, Mr. Burton, and of my cursed foolishness in letting Henry out of jail. This is a pretty night's work."

"Oh, why didn't you take me up?" exclaimed Ralston, in a rapture of excitement.

"Hush!" said Burton suddenly. He thought again that he heard that faint sound outside. Unconsciously he caught each of the other men by the arm, and drew them back against the wall.

Was it a shadow that darkened against the sky,--a shadow in the shape of a man that swung up over the window-ledge in light swift silence, and was poised for an instant against the patch of light that marked the place of the window? Something had dropped into the room as softly as a cat. There was a moment of absolute stillness. Burton held his breath and tried to hush the noisy beating of his heart. Then there came the soft scratch of a safety match, and a point of light marked a spot in the darkness. Then a candle wick caught the point and nursed it into a light, and a man's face was revealed.

Watson's muscles had been tense under Burton's detaining hand. Now he whistled shrilly and at the same instant leaped forward and closed with the intruder. There was a moment's struggle, and then the room was suddenly lit as two men who had been stationed outside rushed in with lights. The chief was down on the floor with the man he had assailed. For a moment they all fought in a furious mêlée, but the policemen met brute strength with brute strength, and the click of the handcuffs told the end. Then they lifted the man to his feet, and Watson held the lamp close to his sullen face. After a long look he turned to Burton.

"You were right," he said, and set the lamp upon the table. His hand was not quite steady.

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Ralston, staring hard at the unknown face of the man. "Is it possible that it really is--Ben Bussey?"

"No one else," said Watson, stooping to pick up a bundle that had fallen on the floor. It was a loosely tied package of rags, soaked in kerosene.

"That's the way the Sprigg house was fired," he said.

Ben parted his lips, but it was not to speak. His teeth were locked tight behind his snarling lips. His eyes were set on Burton.

"How long have you been doing this sort of thing?" persisted Ralston, studying Ben with a curiosity that could not be satisfied. "Those old tricks that we all laid up against Henry,--did you do that, too?"

Ben turned his head at that and looked at his questioner. The look of triumph that flashed into his eyes was as plain as any words could have been, but he did not answer otherwise.

"Take him to the station," Watson said to his men.

But Burton interposed. He had been watching Ben, and he saw that if they were to get anything from him in the way of an admission, he must be goaded into speech before he had time to fully realize the advantages of standing persistently mute.

"No hurry about that," he said, with a slight sign to the chief. "I want to tell you something about how I got on this trail, and Ben may as well hear it."

"There are important matters waiting," Watson reminded him, in a significant aside.

"Nothing more important than this--now," said Burton. Watson hesitated, but drew back, leaving Ben, with a policeman on either side of him, where the light fell on his somber face.

"I was first positively convinced that Henry Underwood was not the man on the night of the Hadley assault," Burton began, with deliberation. "That knotting of the rope was too neat for a man with a forefinger as stiff as a wooden peg. You made a mistake that time, Ben. Didn't your mother tell you that Henry had cut his finger?"

But Ben refused to be drawn. He lifted his upper lip over his closed teeth, but gave no other sign of attending.

"Of course it was clear from the first that the person who was making the trouble had easy access to the Underwood house and very up-to-date information about everything that went on in the house. At first I, too, thought it must be Henry. Then, when I satisfied myself that it wasn't, I began to keep a watch on Selby."

"Poor old Selby," said Ralston, with sudden recollection.

"Poor old Henry," said Burton sternly. "He has been goaded past endurance. Selby's slate was by no means clear, though I acquit him of many of my suspicions. But I am telling you now why I suspected him. He hated Henry and was jealous of him. He was a party to the discovery of Henry's knife near the Sprigg house, and I thought I had reason to believe he had himself dropped it there. He had access to the Red House through his business relations with Ben, and Mrs. Bussey was an eavesdropper and spy who could easily have given him the inside information required. Finally he had in his possession a number of Indian baskets and was known to have been much among the Indians as a boy. I was certain that the strong and supple fingers that had twisted the lilac bushes into a net to hold the Sprigg baby and that had knotted the cords into a snare about Mr. Hadley had learned the trick of Indian weaving when they were young."

Ben's chest heaved. He was looking at Burton with a look that made Watson glance warningly at the officers who stood beside him. Burton went on with his nerve-trying deliberation.

"I went up to the Reservation with the hope of finding some one who would remember teaching young Selby how to tie the peculiar and unusual knot I had noticed. I found Ehimmeshunka, who makes the baskets, and the old chief Washitonka, who knew Ben's father, but I could not get them to talk about the old times. How did you get word to them to hold their tongue, Ben?"

Ben affected not to hear. Watson looked up in quick surprise as though he would have spoken, and then checked himself. The others, who understood by this time Burton's plan of exasperating Ben into speech, said nothing.

"Finally, just as I was leaving, Pahrunta, who sells the baskets to travellers at the station, gave me a clue. By the way," he added, turning to Ralston, "there was a bit of poetic justice in that. The first day I was in High Ridge, I saw Selby rudely strike away her arm, when she tried to stop him to speak to him. It was in revenge for that blow that she gave me the information I wanted and which I could not get from the others. She showed me an old daguerreotype with Selby's portrait in it. It must have been an old keepsake given by him in the early days when they were friends. There was another portrait in it also,--Ben's. Then it occurred to me that Ben was more likely to have learned basket making than Selby, because he had an aptitude for handicrafts. He had all the opportunities Selby had,--provided he could walk. In order to find out whether his paralysis was a sham, I arranged with Watson to have an alarm of fire given at such a time that I should have an opportunity of observing Ben immediately before and immediately after. I spilled a red powder over his clothing just as the alarm sounded. I left him alone in the room, and when I went back, five minutes later, I saw by the marks of the powder that he had left his chair, walked to the head of the stairs to look and listen, and gone back to his chair. That was all I needed to know."

Ben broke silence at last. "I should have killed you first," he said simply.

"All that was necessary after that was to catch him in the act," continued Burton. "Of course that was now merely a question of time and watchfulness, since we knew his secret, but he walked into the first trap we set. I told him Henry was to be free for one day only, and hinted that it would be bad for his reputation if anything happened to Watson, who was opposed to letting him out,--which was a fact! It was the old situation; an opportunity to throw suspicion on Henry. He took the bait."

"And all these years he has been able to walk!" exclaimed Ralston. "The cunning of it! And the patience! How did you always know so surely how to strike, Ben?"

Still Ben did not speak. It was Burton who answered for him.

"Mrs. Bussey kept him informed of the gossip of the town. If you will recall the several instances, I think you will find there was no single case where her prying and spying and his activity will not sufficiently supply the answer."

"But the Hadley case! There were so many things that pointed to Henry,--the cord he had bought,--"

"And which of course Mrs. Bussey could get hold of. It was well thought out."

"And Selby's watch-chain! Did you rob Selby, Ben?"

"Whether he robbed Selby or not, he certainly concealed his watch-chain and the other things in the surgery," said Burton.

"And did you tamper with my medicines, Ben?" a grave voice asked from the door,--a voice full of infinite sadness and pity. Dr. Underwood had entered from the unlit hall and now stood fronting Ben with searching eyes. "Did you touch the bottle I had prepared for old man Means?"

If those in the room were startled by the doctor's unexpected appearance, they were still less prepared for the effect on Ben. The determined silence which had been proof against Burton's taunts was dropped. His eyes glittered with excitement.

"You thought I didn't know where the strychnine was," he said, with an air of careless triumph. "I tried it on old Means just for a joke. It was a good thing to know where it was, because sometime, when I was tired of playing with you, I meant to kill you,--all,--all,--all! You thought Ben was lying there like a log,--tied up--and you didn't know that he could get out when you were asleep and tie things up in a hard, tight knot,--like string,--tie you all up till you couldn't get free!--not kill you at first,--have fun with you first,--" His voice sank into a monotonous monotone, and all at once he seemed to have forgotten his audience. He lifted his hands and looked curiously at the handcuffs that fastened his wrists.

"He's put my hands to sleep," he said, with a childish laugh. Then his laugh turned into a snarl, malevolent and sinister.

"I'm tired of playing with you. Now I'm going to kill you and be done with it," he cried, lunging toward the doctor. The two policemen held him, and he turned upon them furiously, trying to strike them with his manacled hands. His face had grown suddenly malignant.

"Let me go. I will kill you all. Let me go. You can't keep me tied up. I will get away in the night,--I can fool you all,--"

Watson nodded to his men and they took Ben from the room, still shouting his curious mechanical curses at them, like a violent talking machine that is running down. When the door closed behind him, every man in the room realized that he had been unconsciously holding his breath. Burton went up to the doctor and put his hand on his shoulder.

"How much did you hear?"

"I heard your story," he said wearily. "I--wanted to speak to Watson. The door was open, and I heard voices, so I came in and saw the light up here. I heard what you said from the hall there."

"I can quite understand that this has been a shock to you," said Burton, "but it completely clears Henry." He suddenly bit his lip as he realized that Henry was more deeply involved than ever before, and hurried on. "It is quite obvious that Ben must be insane. He is dangerous, and would not long have been content with the minor crimes that have amused him so far. The taint must have been long latent. Probably hereditary."

"That reminds me," said Watson quickly. "You were wondering why the Indians wouldn't talk to you. I believe it was old Bussey. I saw him here one evening in that little park opposite the hotel. I haven't seen him for years and years, but I knew him at once. I told my men to look out for him, but he hasn't been seen since. He's a slim old man,--lively as a youngster. Runs like an Indian, with his knees up and his head down."

"Then I believe I have seen him, myself," said Burton. "Twice. Once the first day I was here, talking to Mrs. Bussey back of your house, Doctor, and again up at the Reservation. That explains. He had been hanging around High Ridge long enough to know me by sight, and he guessed that I was of the other party, and so he warned his friends simply to tell me nothing that I wanted to know. I wonder how far he was in with Ben's schemes."

"He hasn't been hanging around High Ridge very much since I've been in office, I'll swear to that," said Watson. "I know old Bussey pretty well, and he knows me. He never would come into a town if he could help it. You never saw him hanging about your house, did you, Doctor?"

"No, I thought he was dead," said Underwood. He spoke absently as though he were keeping his mind on their talk with something of an effort. Now he turned to Watson with the simple directness that had endeared him to Burton from the first.

"What's this about Henry's escape?" he asked.

"Why,--Henry has got away, hasn't he?" Watson answered evasively.

"It seems so. One of your men woke me up an hour ago to see if Henry were in the house, and when we went to his room we found Mason sleeping across the door, but Henry's window was open and he was gone. How did you happen to send to inquire?"

"Selby has been killed," said Watson.

The doctor drew a quick breath, but said nothing. The silence in the room was so keen that the scratching of Ralston's pencil (he was scribbling like mad at the edge of the table) was like an affront. Burton moved restlessly over to the open window and looked down the way by which Ben had climbed up.

Watson cleared his throat.

"Of course he'll have a chance to explain things," he said, with laborious carelessness.

A sharp exclamation came from Burton, who was leaning out of the window.

"Watson! Look here!"

Watson was getting nervous. He jumped to Burton's side as though he expected an attack from the open window.

"Look here, on the window-sill,--it's fresh paint," said Burton quickly. "I put my hand on it. Get a better light. See there,--and below there. Those marks must have been made by Ben when he climbed in. There must have been paint on his clothes somewhere."

"Perhaps," said Watson, looking carefully at the faint traces on the window-sill. "What of it?"

"When I was stumbling through Selby's back yard this evening, I noticed a painter's ladder there and an empty paint bucket on the ground. There must have been fresh paint on Selby's house tonight."

"My God!" said Ralston, and his tone was not irreverent. "Ben came here from Selby's! It was he who stabbed Selby. And he left Henry's cuff-button in the room to throw suspicion, as usual, on Henry. It was his last coup."

"Perhaps," Watson repeated slowly. "But--where is Henry?"

Like an answer, there was a sharp ring at the door-bell, and before any one could move, the house door was flung open and Henry himself stood in the hall below.

"I say, Watson!" he called aloud.

"Oh, yes, I'm coming," said Watson, in patient amaze, as he hurried down the stairs. The others were at his heels, and all four men faced Henry,--if this were Henry who awaited them. There was a sparkle of laughter in his eye and a flush of energy and happiness on his face that transformed him almost past recognition.

"Hope I don't disturb a secret midnight meeting of any sort," he said, glancing around at the group with obvious surprise. "I only wanted Watson. Mason let me get lost, and I was afraid Watson would be worried about me, so I came around to let him know that I am safe. Do you want me to go back home, or would you rather send some one to show me the way to jail?"

While Watson hunted for an answer, the doctor pushed in front of him.

"Henry, where have you been tonight? What have you been doing?"

There was an appeal in his voice that no one could have heard with indifference, and Burton was thankful that Henry answered at once and with none of his old cynical mockery.

"I have been getting married," he said.

"Oh, joy!" murmured Ralston, in the background.

Henry turned to Watson as he explained.

"I heard today, or yesterday, I suppose it is now, that Selby was engaged,--that is, that he said he was engaged,--to Minnie Hadley. I wanted to speak to her about it, and I didn't see any chance of doing it without the whole town knowing it unless I gave Mason the slip. So I waited till he was asleep and then I shinned down the tree. Burton here tried to stop me, but I didn't have time to explain. I got Minnie down by throwing pebbles on her window, and when we had talked things over we decided that the best way to make things safe for the future was to be married right away. So we went over to Mr. Domat's house,--he's Minnie's minister,--and he married us, and I guess it's legal all right, even if I am in the custody of the law. Then I took her home,--I took her back to Mr. Hadley's house. I was on my way back home when I ran across old Higgins, who said the whole force was out looking for me. I preferred to come by myself rather than to be brought like a runaway schoolboy, so I gave him the slip, and I came here instead of going to the station, because I thought this was your personal affair, Watson. You put me on my word, and you might have known that I was going to keep it. What made you stir up such a hullaballoo about my merely temporary absence?"

"Because," said Watson dryly, "during your merely temporary absence Selby was killed. Your cuff-button was found in his room. It seemed advisable to find the rest of you as soon as possible."

Henry looked so startled and so guilty that Burton interposed. He could not bear to see for even a moment the old look of sullen defiance on Henry's face.

"Go on, Watson. Tell him the rest."

"Ben Bussey is under arrest. We caught him in an attempt to fire this house, but from certain indications, it looks as though the charge against him now would be for the murder of Selby rather than arson. But if your alibi isn't good--!"

"Ben, you say? Ben Bussey?" Henry repeated, in a bewildered manner.

The doctor went up to Henry and threw his arm across his shoulders.

"Ben has been able to walk for years, my boy. He concealed the fact and pretended to be helpless, but it seems clear that it is he who has been working all this mischief in High Ridge, and that he has now ended by killing Selby. Whether he had any grudge against Selby, or whether it was merely another attempt to involve you circumstantially, I don't know."

Henry did not speak. His face was hard set to hide the emotions that must have surged within.

"You go home with your father, Henry," said Watson gruffly. "You are still on parole,--that's all the guard I'll ask for. You will hear from me when I want anything more. Now it's so near daylight that if you don't mind, I am going to say good morning to you. I have a lot of work to do."

The four men shook hands with him and went out. The cool breeze of the early dawn was blowing freshly through the streets of the village and it struck their faces with a pleasant little tang.

"A great night," said the doctor thoughtfully, looking about.

"And a new day," said Burton, with a smile. "Good night, Mr. Underwood, and my congratulations. Good night, Doctor. I shall see you to-morrow,--or later in the day, I should say, rather."

"Good night," said Henry.

"Come early," said the doctor. They turned away together, and Burton saw with keen satisfaction that they had not gone half a dozen steps before they were arm in arm.

"It's good to see that," he said to Ralston, nodding toward the two departing.

"Yes," said Ralston. Then he laughed a little. "I wonder if there isn't one fly in Henry's ointment tonight,--Selby didn't hear of his elopement!"

CHAPTER XXIV

BURTON'S LAST APPEARANCE AS AN AMBASSADOR

When Burton parted from Ralston at the latter's office, the day was beginning to break. He went to his hotel, where only a surprised and solitary watchman saw him enter. He walked up to the second floor instead of taking the elevator, and went at once to his room. To his surprise, the door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open,--and faced Mrs. Bussey.

"How did you get into my room?" he demanded in his first surprise.

She did not answer that,--but no other answer than the ring of chambermaid's keys in her hand was necessary. She cowered away from him in the blinking timidity that she had always shown, and then she suddenly bristled up like a wrathful squirrel.

"What have you done with Ben?"

"Did you come here to look for him?"

"He should be home before this! Have they found him out? Have they found him out?"

"Yes, they have found him out. They have taken him to the police station." He spoke as gently as possible. Nothing could make the facts less than tragic to her, poor thing.

She wrung her hands. "I wish you had never come here! It would have been all right if you had never come!"

Burton could not blame her for her point of view, since wiser philosophers than she had held before this that right and wrong are merely a way of looking at things. Instead, he asked abruptly:

"What made you take that letter out of my room?"

She stopped her whimpering cry, and with a look of terror darted suddenly past Burton, who did not try to check her, and so out of the room.

So that matter was also explained. She it was who had brought him that note of threat, and afterwards had abstracted it from his room. She probably helped the maids at times, and so had the pass-keys to the rooms, and she was a sufficiently familiar figure to excite no comment by her comings and goings. The whole thing had been a combination of cunning and chance, and Mrs. Bussey's low mentality and Ben's insane shrewdness might have kept the whole town in hot water for years longer if Burton had not come upon the scene. The police had been too committed to the Henry Underwood theory to see anything else, until it was actually forced upon them.

A soldier forgets his personal wound in the heat of battle, but when the excitement is past, the smart comes again to his consciousness. As Burton's mind calmed from the excitement of the night, he grew more and more vividly conscious of the exceedingly disagreeable task yet before him,--to give Miss Underwood an account of Mrs. Overman's visit yesterday. It was so inexpressibly irksome a commission that he was almost tempted to repeat Mrs. Bussey's wail. Why had he ever come? Now that the condition which she had set had been fulfilled, she would of course expect a certain urgency on his part for her promise. To tell her that his principal had reconsidered the matter and would not ask anything further at her hands was so near an insult, under all the circumstances, that in his perplexity as to how he was to manage the matter he almost forgot to be angry.

As he stood by the window waiting and trying to collect his thoughts, he saw Mr. Hadley walking down the street, producing, quite by himself, all the effect of a procession. The man was funny, but he wasn't half a bad sort! Burton hated to think he should never see him again. He glanced over at the Hadley house, and had a glimpse of Miss Hadley--no, of Mrs. Henry Underwood, to be sure!--running down the stairs and past a window. The haste was explained when he saw Henry himself crossing the street diagonally toward the house. She had seen him from an upper window! Burton turned from his own window, with a throb of interest so keen that it surprised him. He wanted tremendously to know how that experiment was going to work out. Henry was a babe in the wood,--and the featherheaded Minnie! It would be mighty interesting to see how they "found" themselves. And the doctor--and Leslie-- He whistled softly and picked up his hat. One might as well have the thing over.

The doctor was waiting at the door to receive him, and leaned on his arm as they walked to the surgery with a weight that Burton felt was more affection than need of support.

"I should have to read up in Oriental literature to get a vocabulary to properly express my feelings," he said. "You are the roof-tree of my house and the door-sill of my granary, the protector of the poor and the defender of the right. All of which means, in plain English, that I don't know how to say what I want to."

"I am only too glad that I had a chance to have a hand in the matter," said Burton, "but the chances are that the mystery would soon have been solved, in any event. Ben was getting too confident, and therefore reckless."

"It was the check you gave him that made him reckless. Of course he is insane. Such a long, brooding course of revenge for a boyish quarrel is clear proof of insanity. But the insanity might have remained latent for years if he had not been crossed. No, you can't get out of it. You will have to reconcile yourself to being regarded as a benefactor."

"Well, perhaps I can stand it, mixed in with some other memories I shall have to take away with me," said Burton grimly. Leslie had not appeared, and he knew what was yet before him. "I had a bad time getting away from you yesterday when you wanted to make me stay and tell you what I was doing. I wasn't sure I was doing anything! I felt like a boy who is speculating whether the Fourth-of-July mud can which he is watching is really dead or only sleeping. If my mud can should go off, I could see that the effect would be wholly satisfying. On the other hand, it might be a mud can, only that and nothing more, and nothing could be more humiliating than to be sedulously watching a mud can which might safely be given to children who cry for it."

The doctor laughed. "The explosion was fully up to the claims of the prospectus."

"There's another matter that I am still somewhat in doubt about," said Burton seriously. "That's Selby's death. I said to Miss Underwood yesterday that I hoped Henry wouldn't shoot Selby when he heard of his engagement to Miss Hadley. I am fairly certain that Mrs. Bussey heard me and repeated the remark to Ben. Also, it seems that I precipitated a quarrel between Ben and Selby about the price of his work. Taking these things together, how far am I responsible for Selby's death?"

The doctor turned to look at him questioningly. "Don't blame yourself for things you only touch at that distance," he said abruptly. "If the little gods use us as instruments to carry out their plans, we have to take that lot with the rest. Perhaps there is justice in their schemes. We all have to take our chances in this skirmishing that we call life,--and death isn't the worst that might happen."

"No," said Burton, with a sigh.

The doctor continued to observe him scrutinizingly, but he spoke lightly. "Henry gave me a bad quarter of an hour last night," he said, wrinkling his face in his old, funny grimace. "When I found he had disappeared I thought for a while that my worst nightmares of these past years had come true. That brilliant watch of Watson's didn't even know he was gone. The boy may be--well, a problem, but no one ever suggested he didn't have spirit enough to climb a tree."

"He will be all right after this. He has been worried by the surrounding atmosphere of suspicion into appearing as a problem, that's all. If that little fool--I beg a thousand pardons. That isn't what I was going to talk about. I intended to say that if your new daughter-in-law, who is a very beautiful girl with a sweet nature, will only praise him enough,--and I think that is likely to be her role,--he will probably be not only happy but good. The poor boy needs coddling."

The doctor listened with the glimmer of a smile under his seriousness.

"We all do. It is the great human need." He twisted his face up inscrutably as he added: "I hope you will get your share."

"Thank you," said Burton. His heart sank suddenly. He hadn't wanted to be reminded of his own needs. "Am I to see Miss Underwood this morning?" he asked, facing the inevitable.

"She wishes to see you," said the doctor, somewhat hesitatingly, and a troubled look crossed his face. "She asked me to keep you; I'll tell her you are here." He rose, polishing his glasses painstakingly. He adjusted them carefully on his nose, and then looked over them at Burton. "You saw--I understand that Mrs. Overman was in town yesterday," he said.

"Yes," said Burton uncomfortably. "She was here between trains only. There was no time--"

The doctor raised his hand deprecatingly. "You can tell Leslie about it," he said. At the door he paused. "When the little gods take a hand in any game, there is no use for any of us to borrow responsibility," he said enigmatically, and hastily departed, leaving Burton feeling far from at ease.

He looked about the familiar room with a silent farewell. Here it was that he had seen Leslie fired with generous anger at the attack on her father. By this curtain she had hidden herself away on the evening when that absurd committee came to "investigate," and he had thought of her as a jewel whose beauty could never be concealed. Here he had stood when the sound of her music came to him--

There was a faint sound behind him, and he turned swiftly to face her. She had entered so softly that he had not heard her, and she stood by the door looking at him with a shrinking dread that gave him a pang. She was very pale, and if the dark circles about her eyes did not mean tears, he was at a loss to interpret them.

"What is it? What troubles you?" he asked quickly.

"I am not--" she began. Then she interrupted herself. "Yes, I am troubled and unhappy and wretched and ashamed,--oh, so ashamed! You will despise me!"

"You are wrong there, at least. Can you tell me--?"

"Yes. I told father I wanted to see you alone. Oh, you mustn't think I am not grateful for what you have done, and thankful beyond words to have Henry cleared and all the truth of things made known. I am. I am so thankful that I shall go softly all my days to remember it. That only makes it worse!"

"Makes what worse?"

"My--defaulting! You did it all because of--of a promise I made you. And I can't keep that promise. I can't. I thought while it was far off that I could, and I didn't let myself think much about it, because I was so anxious to have your help, and nothing, nothing, would be too much to pay for it,--and it wouldn't be, only--I simply can't!"

"Do you mean your promise to Philip?" asked Burton, a light that made him giddy coming over him.

"Yes. I--can't!"

"Why can't you?" he asked.

She caught her breath, and something flashed into her face that went to his head. It was gone in an instant, but in that instant all the wavering lights and shadows and uncertainties through which he had been groping were crystallized into white light.

"Then you don't love Philip?" he said tyrannously.

"No!"

"Didn't you ever love him?"

"No."

"In that case, of course you can't marry him," he smiled.

"I--don't--want--to marry him!"

"Then how about me? Do you love me?"

The crimson tide flooded her face, and she flashed on him a look of surprised reproach, but she did not leave the room with the haughty air that would have been the proper sequel to such a look, for the simple but sufficient reason that by this time he was holding both her hands.

"Is there any least possibility of your caring for me? I have been fathoms deep in love with you for--for ages! I don't know when it began! It has always been! Oh, if you have hated the idea of marrying Philip half as much as I have hated the idea that you would! Leslie!" The way in which he spoke her name really left nothing more to be said.

Somewhat later they came back into the story. She drew a little away to look into Burton's face with dismay on her own.

"But poor Philip! How can we ever tell him?"

"Leave that to me," said Burton, with a queer laugh.

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Table of Contents

The Red House on Rowan Street

THE RED HOUSE ON ROWAN STREET

ROMAN DOUBLEDAY

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1910

CONTENTS

Illustrations

The Red House on Rowan Street

CHAPTER I

"DR. UNDERWOOD DENIES."

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

ORTON SELBY CONTRACTOR AND BUILDER

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV