Out of a Labyrinth Part 29

Opposite her stands Arch Brookhouse, his att.i.tude that of careless indifference, an insolent smile upon his countenance.

"If I were you, I would drop that nonsense," he says, coolly. "You might make an inning with this new city sprig, perhaps. He looks like an easy fish to catch; more money than brains, I should say."

"I think his brains will compare favorably with yours; he is nothing to me--"

Brookhouse suddenly s.h.i.+fts his position.

"Don't you see the arrow?" calls a voice behind me, and so near that I know Miss Harris is coming to a.s.sist my search.

I catch up the arrow and turn to meet her.

No rustle of the leaves has betrayed my presence; the sound of our voices, and their nearness, is drowned by the general hilarity.

We return to our archery, and the two behind the screen finish their strange interview. How, I am unable to guess from their faces, when, after a time, they are once more among us, Brookhouse as unruffled as ever, Miss Manvers flushed, nervous, and feverishly gay.

Throughout the remainder of the _fete_, the face of my hostess is continually before me; not as her guests see it, fair, smiling, and serene, but pallid, pa.s.sionate, vengeful, as I saw it from behind the rose thicket. And I am haunted by the thought that somewhere, sometime, I have seen just such a face; just such dusky, gleaming, angry eyes; just such a scornful, quivering mouth; just such drawn and desperate features.

Now and then I find time to chuckle over the words, uncomplimentary in intent, but quite satisfactory to me--"a city sprig with more money than brains."

So this is the ultimatum of Mr. Brookhouse? Some day, perhaps, he may cherish another opinion, at least so far as the money is concerned.

Then, while the gayety goes on, I think of Groveland and its mystery; of the anonymous warning, the alb.u.m verse, the initials A. B. Again I take my wild John Gilpin ride, with one arm limp and bleeding.

"Ah," I say to myself, thinking wrathfully of his taunting words and insolent bearing, which my hostess had seemed powerless to resent, "Ah, my gentleman, if I _should_ trace that unlucky bullet to you, then shall Miss Manvers rejoice at your downfall!"

What was the occasion of their quarrel? What was the meaning of their strange words?

Again and again I ask myself the question as I go home through the August darkness, having first seen pretty Nettie Harris safely inside her father's cottage gate.

But I find no satisfactory answer to my questions. I might have dismissed the matter from my thoughts as only a lover's quarrel, save for the last words uttered by Brookhouse. But lovers are not apt to advise their sweethearts to "make an inning" with another fellow. If jealousy existed, it was a.s.suredly all on the side of the lady.

Having watched them narrowly after their interview behind the rose trellis, I am inclined to think it was not a lover's quarrel; and if not that, what _was_ it?

I give up the riddle at last, but I can not dismiss the scene from my mental vision, still less can I banish the remembrance of the white, angry face, and the tormenting fancy that I have not seen it to-day for the first time.

I am perplexed and annoyed.

I stop at the office desk to light a cigar and exchange a word with "mine host." Dimber Joe is writing ostentatiously at a small table, and Blake Simpson is smoking on the piazza.

The sight of the two rogues, so inert and mysterious, gives me an added twinge of annoyance. I cut short my converse with the landlord and go up to my room.

Carnes is sitting before a small table, upon which his two elbows are planted; his fingers are twisted in his thick hair, and his head is bent so low over an open book that his nose seems quite ready to plow up the page.

Coming closer, I see that he is glowering over a pictured face in his treasured "rogues' gallery."

"If you want to study Blake Simpson's cranium," I say, testily, "why don't you take the living subject? He's down-stairs at this moment."

"I've been studying the original till my head got dizzy," replies Carnes, pus.h.i.+ng back the book and tilting back in his chair. "The fact is, the fellow conducts himself so confoundedly like a decent mortal, that I have to appeal to the gallery occasionally to convince myself that it _is_ Blake himself, and not his twin brother."

I laugh at this characteristic whim, and, drawing the book toward me, carelessly glance from page to page.

Carnes prides himself upon his "gallery." He has a large and motley collection of rogues of all denominations: thieves, murderers, burglars, counterfeiters, swindlers, fly crooks of every sort, and of both s.e.xes.

"They've been here four days now," Carnes goes on, plaintively, "and nothing has happened yet. It's enough to make a man lose faith in 'Bene Coves.' I wonder--"

"Ah!" The exclamation falls sharply from my lips, the "gallery" almost falls from my hands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Ah!" The exclamation falls sharply from my lips, the "gallery" almost falls from my hands.--page 233.]

Carnes leaves his speech unfinished and gazes anxiously at me, while I sit long and silently studying a pictured face.

By-and-by I close the book and replace it upon the table.

One vexed question is answered; I know now why the white, angry face of Adele Manvers has haunted me as a shadow from the past.

I arise and pace the floor restlessly; like Theseus, I have grasped the clue that shall lead me from the maze.

After a time, Carnes goes out to inform himself as to the movements of Blake and Dimber Joe.

Midnight comes, but no Carnes.

The house is hushed in sleep. I lock the door, extinguish my light, and, lowering myself noiselessly from the window to the ground, turn my steps toward the scene of the afternoon revel.

In the darkness and silence I reach my destination, and scaling a high paling, stand once more in the grounds of The Hill.

CHAPTER XX.

SOME BITS OF PERSONAL HISTORY.

While Miss Manvers was bidding farewell to the latest of her guests, and the "average Traftonite" was making his first voyage into dreamland, Dr.

Barnard closed his eyes upon Trafton forever, and slept that long, sound, last, best sleep that comes once to all of us, and I, as well as numerous other restless sleepers, was awakened in the early morning by the sound of the tolling bell.

It was sad news to many, for Dr. Barnard was an old and well-beloved citizen.

It afforded a new subject for gossip to many more, who now learned for the first time that Louise Barnard was affianced to Dr. Carl Bethel, and that Dr. Barnard, with almost his latest breath, had proclaimed his entire faith in the young man's honor, by formally sanctioning his engagement with Louise.

I had not seen Bethel since my return from the city, until we met that day, and exchanged a few words across the dinner table.

He looked worn and weary, and seemed to have forgotten his own annoyances and interests in the absorption of his regret for the loss of his old friend and a.s.sociate, and sympathy with the sorrow of his beloved.

I had spent the entire morning in writing a long letter to my Chief, giving a detailed account of my acquaintance with Miss Manvers, and a description of the lady, her style of living, and, above all, more graphic than all, my experience of the previous day, up to the moment when I closed the "rogues' gallery" and opened my eyes to a new and startling possibility.

This doc.u.ment I addressed to a city post-office box, and, having sealed it carefully, registered and dispatched it through the Trafton post-office.

In the afternoon I received an express package from Baysville. It was a _book_, so the agent said. Innocent enough, no doubt, nevertheless I did not open it until I had closed and locked my door upon all intruders.