Mr. Achilles Part 9

He had held the horses. Yes--there wa'n't n.o.body--but little Miss Harris and him.... She was in the carriage--he held the horses. The horses?

They had frisked a bit, maybe, the way horses will--at one o' them autos that squirted by, and he had quieted 'em down--but there wa'n't n.o.body.... And he was the last link between little Betty Harris and the world--all the bustling, wrestling, interested world of Chicago--that shouted extras and stared at the house on the lake and peered in at its life--at the rising and eating and sleeping that went on behind the red-stone walls. The red-stone walls had thinned to a veil and the whole world might look in--because a child had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away; and the heart of a city understood. But no one but James could have told what had happened to the child sitting with her little red cherries in the light; and James was stupid--and in the bottomless abyss of James's face the clue was lost.

Achilles had come in for his share of questioning. The child had been to his shop it seemed... and the papers took it up and made much of it--there were headlines and pictures... the public was interested. The tale grew to a romance, and fathers and mothers and children in Boston and New York and London heard how Betty had sat in the gay little fruit-shop--and listened to Achilles's stories of Athens and Greece, and of the Acropolis--and of the studies in Greek history, and her G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses and the temples and ruins lying packed in their boxes waiting her return. The daily papers were a thrilling tale--with the quick touch of love and human sympathy that brings the world together.

To Achilles it was as if the hand of Zeus had reached and touched the child--and she was not. What G.o.d sheltered her beneath a magic veil--so that she pa.s.sed unseen? He lifted his face, seeking in air and sun and cloud, a token. Over the lake came the great breeze, speaking to him, and out of the air a thousand hands reached to him--to tell him of the child. But he could not find the place that held her. In the dusky shop, he held his quiet way. No one, looking, would have guessed--"Two cen's, yes," and his swift fingers made change while his eyes searched every face. But the child, in her s.h.i.+ning cloud, was not revealed.

When he was summoned before the detectives and questioned, with swift sternness, it was his own questions that demanded answer--and got it.

The men gathered in the library, baffled by the search, and asking futile, dreary questions, learned to wait in amus.e.m.e.nt for the quick, searching gestures flung at them and the eager face that seemed to drink their words. Gradually they came to understand--the Greek was learning the science of kidnapping--its methods and devices and the probable plan of approach. But the Chief shook his head. "You won't trace these men by any of the old tricks. It's a new deal. We shall only get them by a fluke." And to his own men he said, "Try any old chance, boys, run it down--if it takes weeks--Harris won't compromise--and you may stumble on a clue. The man that finds it makes money." Gradually they drew their lines around the city; but still, from the tapped wires, the messages came--to them, sitting in conclave in the library--to Philip Harris in his bare office and to the mother, waiting alone in her room.

At last she could not bear it. "I cannot hold out, Philip," she said, one day, when he had come in and found her hanging up the receiver with a fixed look. "Don't trust me, dear. Take me away." And that night the big car had borne her swiftly from the city, out to the far-breathing air of the plain and the low hills. In her room in the house on the lake, her little telephone bell tinkled, and waited, and rang again--baffled by long silence and by discreet replies.... The tapped wires concentrated now upon Philip Harris, working by suggestion, and veiled threat, on his overwrought nerves till his hand shook when he reached out to the receiver--and his voice betrayed him in his denials.

They were closing on him, with hints of an ultimatum. He dared not trust himself. He left the house to the detectives and went down to the offices, where he could work and no one could get at him. Every message from the outside world came to him sifted, and he breathed more freely as he took up the telephone. The routine of business steadied him. In a week he should be himself--he could return to the attack.

Then a message got through to him--up through the offices. The man who delivered it spoke in a clear, straight voice that did not rise or fall.

He had agreed to give the message, he said--a hundred thousand paid to-day, or no communication for three months. The child would be taken out of the country. The men behind the deal were getting tired and would drop the whole business. They had been more than fair in the chances they had offered for compromise.... There was a little pause in the message--then the voice went on, "I am one of your own men, Harris, inside the works--a man that you killed--in the way of business. I agreed to give you the message--for quits. Good-bye." The voice rang off and Philip Harris sat alone.

A man that he had killed--in the way of business--! Hundreds of them--at work for him--New York--Cincinnati--St. Louis. It would not be easy--to trace a man that he had killed in business.

So he sat with bent head, in the circle of his own works... the network he had spread over the land--and somewhere, outside that circle, his child, the very heart, was held as hostage--three months. Little Betty!

He s.h.i.+vered a little and got op and reached for a flask of brandy and poured it out, gulping it down. He looked about the room ... inside now.

He had shut himself in his citadel... and they were inside. The brandy stayed his hand from shaking--but he knew that he had weakened. His mind went back to the man he had "killed in business"--the straight, clear voice sounding over the 'phone--he had not wanted to ruin him--them, hundreds of them. It was the System--kill or be killed. He took his chance and they took theirs--and they had gone down.

XVI

A CLUE GOES TO SLEEP

The morning was alive in the hospital. The sun glinted in. Pale faces, lifted on their pillows, turned toward it; and Achilles, pa.s.sing with light step between the rows, smiled at them. Alcibiades was better. They had told him, in the office, that he might talk to him to-day--a little while--and his face glowed with the joy of it.

The boy hailed him, from far down the ward, his weak voice filled with gladness, and Achilles hurried. He dropped into the chair beside him and took the thin hand in his strong, dark one, holding it while he talked--gentle words, full of the morning and of going home. The boy's eyes brightened, watching his father's face.

"Pain--gone," he said, "--all gone." His hand lifted to his forehead.

Achilles bent forward and touched it lightly, brus.h.i.+ng the hair across it. "You are well now," he said gratefully.

The boy smiled, his dark eyes fixed absently on his thoughts. "They--bad men!" he said abruptly.

Achilles leaned forward with anxious look, but the boy's eyes were clear. "They run down," he said quietly, "--and go fast--like wind--I try--I run. They shout and hit cart--and swear--and I lie on ground."

His lifted eyes seemed to be looking up at some great object pa.s.sing close above him... and a look of dread held them. He drew a quick breath. "They bad men--" he said. "Little girl cry!"

Achilles bent forward, holding his breath. "What was it--Alcie?"

The boy's eyes turned toward him trustingly. "They hurt bad," he said.

"I try--I run--"

"And the little girl--?" suggested Achilles gently. His voice would not have turned the breath of a dream; but Alcibiades wrinkled his forehead.

"She cry--" he said. "She look at me and cry--quick--They hurt that little girl. Yes--she cry--" His eyes closed sleepily. The nurse came forward.

"Better not talk any more," she said.

Achilles got to his feet. He bent over the boy, his heart beating fast.

"Good-bye, Alcie. To-morrow you tell me more--all about the little girl." The words dropped quietly into the sleeping ear and the boy turned his face.

"To-morrow--tell--about--little girl..." he murmured--and was asleep.

Achilles pa.s.sed swiftly out of the hospital--through the sun-glinting wards, out to the free air--his heart choking him. At the corner, he caught a car bound for the South side and boarded it.

And at the same moment Philip Harris, in his office in the works, was summoning the Chief of Police to instruct him to open negotiations with the kidnappers.

But Achilles reached the office first and before noon every member of the force knew that a clue had been found--a clue light as a child's breath between sleep and waking, but none the less a clue--and to-morrow more would be known.

So Philip Harris stayed his hand--because of the muttered, half-incoherent word of a Greek boy, drowsing in a great sunny ward, the millionaire waited--and little children were safer that night.

XVII

PHILIP HARRIS WAKES UP

But the surgeon, the next morning, shook his head peremptorily. His patient had been tampered with, and was worse--it was a critical case--all the skill and science of modern surgery involved in it... the brain had barely escaped--by a breath, it might be--no one could tell ... but the boy must be kept quiet. There must be no more agitation.

They must wait for full recovery. Above all--nothing that recalled the accident. Let nature take her own time--and the boy might yet speak out clearly and tell them what they wanted--otherwise the staff could not be responsible.

It was to Philip Harris himself that the decree was given, sitting in the consulting-room of the white hospital--looking about him with quick eyes. He had taken out his cheque-book and written a sum that doubled the efficiency of the hospital, and the surgeon had thanked him quietly and laid it aside. "Everything is being done for the boy, Mr. Harris, that we can do. But one cannot foresee the result. He may come through with clear mind--he may remember the past--he may remember part of it--but not the part you want. But not a breath must disturb him--that is the one thing clear--and it is our only chance." His eyes were gentle and keen, and Philip Harris straightened himself a little beneath them.

The cheque, laid one side, looked suddenly small and empty... and the great stockyards were a blur in his thought. Not all of them together, it seemed, could buy the skill that was being given freely for a Greek waif, or hurry by a hair's breadth the tiny globule of grey matter that held his life.

"Tell me if there is anything I can do," he said. He had risen and was facing the surgeon, looking at him like a little boy--with his hat in his hand.

The surgeon returned the look. "There will be plenty to do, Mr. Harris.

This, for instance--" He took up the cheque and looked at it and folded it in slow fingers. "It will be a big lift to the hospital ... and the boy--there will be things later--for the boy--"

"Private room?" suggested the great man.

"No--the ward is better. It gives him interests--keeps his mind off himself and keeps him from remembering things. But when he can be moved, he must be in the country--good food, fresh air, things to amuse him--he's a jolly little chap!" The surgeon laughed out. "Oh, we shall bring him through." He added it almost gaily. "He is so sane--he is a Greek!"

Philip Harris looked at him, uncomprehending. "How long before he can be moved?" he asked bluntly.

The surgeon paused--"two weeks--three--perhaps--I must have him under my eye--I can't tell--" He looked at the great man keenly. "What he really needs, is someone to come in for awhile everyday--to talk with him--or keep quiet with him--someone with sense."

"His father?" said Philip Harris.

"Not his father. It must be someone he has never seen--no memories to puzzle him--yet. But someone that he might have known always--all his life."

"That is Miss Stone," said Philip Harris promptly.

"Does he know Miss Stone?" asked the surgeon.