Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Part 16

Archie sank upon the bed, twisting his hands together. He had done a horrible thing, hardly second to murder, and his penitence weighed heavily upon him.

"You are not chaffing me! It doesn't seem possible that the girl would have deceived me!"

"We never know when they are going to deceive us, Archie! I hate to think that Sally inherited a strain of lawlessness and yet she hated the farm and was crazy to escape. I forgot to mention that she lifted a couple of hundred dollars the old man kept under a plank in the parlor floor--an emergency fund in case he ever had to run for it. A nasty trick, I call it; most unfilial on Sally's part. The Walkers are crushed by her conduct. They have tried to s.h.i.+eld her from all the sorrow and shame of the world; and there was really a very decent young farmer wild to marry her, old New England stock, revolutionary stuff, aristocrats, you may say. And if you hadn't muddled everything it would have come about in time. But you will have your fling, Archie! You certainly spilled the beans. And I had vouched for you at the Walkers'; it's almost as bad as though I had betrayed them myself. You will not, of course, make the serious error of knocking at the Walker door again!

That would be rubbing it in; but I hope you have learned your lesson. It probably didn't occur to you that I might have been sore enough to mention somewhere your connection with certain blood stains on the board walk at Bailey Harbor. You should have a care of yourself!"

"I don't want you to think me ungrateful," Archie stammered. "The girl made a fool of me; I see it all now!"

"She made a fool of you but you in turn made a fool of me! And while I'm not caviling, you will pardon me, son, if I suggest that hereafter you play square with me. I'm no saint, but I wouldn't desert a comrade or stick a knife in his back. Please understand that I don't mean to curb your personal enterprise, or set any limit on your little affairs of the heart. You are not the first man who thought he understood women, and you are not the last victim of that deplorable delusion. But let's have no more foolishness."

"I haven't a thing to say for myself!" blurted Archie, who was at the point of tears. "I was weak, miserably weak. I had no idea that any one could lie as that girl did. And it's not fair for me to stay on with you. I can't ask you to trust me again. We'd better part company right here!"

"How completely you misjudge me, Archie! There's a charm in you begotten of your very innocence and helplessness, and I should be very unhappy if we parted now. We've shared some danger together and in spite of your weaknesses I'm fond of you. And if I left you to your own devices something quite disastrous might happen to you."

Discomfited and humiliated as he was the very thought of going out into the world alone filled Archie with horror. Under Sally's hypnotic influence he had concluded that the Governor was a negligible factor in his life; but away from the girl and rankling under her deceit he grasped at the Governor's friends.h.i.+p with the frantic clutch of a drowning man. The Governor drew out his bill fold and extracted from it a newspaper cutting.

"Note this, Archie, from a Boston paper of today. Our old friend Congdon has stirred up the Boston police about the disappearance of his son. I don't ask you to make any comment on that item; I merely call your attention to the fact that Putney Congdon is on the missing list and like ourselves Putney Congdon was at Bailey Harbor. Nothing particularly startling in all this, as the police records show something like an average of one thousand four hundred and thirteen missing or unaccounted for persons in the United States every year. This paper says that Congdon was seen by one person and one only at Bailey Harbor. That was a garage man who sold him some gas--it was a stormy night--and incidentally that night poor Hoky set sail for the happy isles. And the date is further memorable from the fact that it was the occasion of our first meeting. And the blood stains on the board walk of one of the streets at Bailey--"

"Stop, for G.o.d's sake!" cried Archie. "I'll tell you everything; I'll--"

"You'll tell me nothing, because I refuse to listen! Confessing is a habit. If I encourage you to confess to me you'll be pouring your tale into the ear of the first policeman you meet. As things stand you are not suspected, and if we follow my program you are likely to walk the world in safety for the rest of your days. If I knew the circ.u.mstances I might become nervous and I must retain my poise or we perish. Your autobiography for the past week or so would make a ripping narrative, but you'd better learn to forget. Our yesterdays are as nothing; it's tomorrow we've got to think about. Those Congdons are rather a picturesque lot as I catch them in cinema flashes. It appears from the paper that young Putney's wife had left him, and there was some sort of row about the children. The old boy we struck at Cornford will probably be charging the absconding wife with killing Putney the first thing we know!"

"Charge Mrs. Congdon with killing her husband! O my G.o.d!" wailed Archie.

"Control yourself, my dear boy! One would infer from that item that Mrs.

Congdon dropped off the earth after she left Bailey Harbor. She and her children motored out of Bailey and haven't yet reached their house in New York, for which she was presumably bound. By Jove, it's woozzy the way these Congdons keep bobbing up! I'd give something handsome to know how the old chap and Seebrook came out at Cornford. I learn that they're holding Silent Tim, the chap I told you would be arrested, and our part in the delicate transaction is already obscured."

Archie was giving the Governor only half attention. His nerves were unstrung by the bald, colorless report of Putney Congdon's disappearance, which shocked him all the more from the fact that it was so hideously commonplace, merely a bit of journalistic routine. He wished the Governor would stop reading newspapers. Now that the man's disappearance had been heralded the police of the entire country would be searching for him dead or alive and if his body were found there would be a great hue and cry until his murderer was apprehended.

The Governor was unconcernedly sketching one of the diagrams with which he seemed to visualize his plans. These he made in small compa.s.s, any sc.r.a.p of paper serving his purpose. Archie had supposed this was a means of recalling places and highways and determining the time required to reach a certain point, but the Governor was always at pains to conceal these calculations or memoranda. Archie was startled now to hear his companion muttering to himself:

"Aries, the Lamb, the Fishes! For a time I stumbled and walked in darkness but the leading light is clearer now. The moving finger writes--writes!" He dropped his pencil and gazed blankly into s.p.a.ce.

Archie had caught one day a glimpse of several of the zodiacal signs drawn on the margin of a newspaper where the Governor had neglected to erase them; but he was astounded to find that he was in the company of a man who took counsel of the stars.

"_Ne sous une mauvaise etoile!_ You catch the sense admirably. Yes, I was born under an evil star; just that! But if I haven't pondered the mysteries unprofitably I shall emerge from the shadow in due season.

When you see me scribbling I am calculating the potency of the dark fate that overhangs me and trying to estimate when if ever the cloud will pa.s.s. Don't trouble your head with those fancies; leave them to me. Hope is buoyed in me by the fact that never yet have my figures erred. The night before I picked you up in the road I knew that you were walking toward me out of nowhere, and I was charged by the planets to befriend you. So here we are, pilgrims under heavenly protection!"

"I'm sorry; I don't want to leave you; I couldn't make it alone," Archie answered, awed and meek under these revelations.

"It's very curious, Archie," the Governor resumed, making a little pile of the sc.r.a.ps to which he had already reduced the sketch; "it's quite remarkable that the light still hangs in the west for us. Since you joined me it has been more brilliant. It may be that after all you are destined to bring me good luck!" He paced the floor for several minutes, then struck his hands together sharply. "All right!" he exclaimed. "It has never failed me! The light is mild, feminine, we shall say, gentle, persuasive, encouraging. It would be fatal to ignore its message."

Archie watched him for some gleam of humor, but the Governor had never been more serious. His face lighted as he found Archie's eyes fixed upon him.

"You were thinking just then that I've gone crazy; but I a.s.sure you that I'm perfectly able to give myself all the tests for insanity; I should recognize the symptoms immediately, from my ability to look into myself with the detachment of a man who stands at a window and peers into a lighted room. To return to practical affairs, we shall abandon Collins'

machine and I'll wire him where to pick it up. Then we'll entrain at our leisure."

"If you don't mind my asking, I'd like to know where we're bound for?"

"New York, my dear boy; but you needn't be alarmed. It will be hot there and we'll only pause for a day or so. We both need to freshen up our wardrobe a bit."

Archie shook his head stubbornly.

"I haven't told you this, but I'm supposed to be in the Canadian Rockies. It would be a risky business for me to show up in town! I might at any turn run into relatives or friends who know I left for a two months' absence in the Rockies. And incidentally, the same people _might_ know I had been to Bailey Harbor."

"You're a frightful egotist, Archie! This is a large world and man's memory is short. The man you dine with most frequently at your club wouldn't remember in a week whether you told him you were going to the Rockies or the Himalayas and if you met him on the Avenue he'd merely nod and pa.s.s on trying to remember who the devil you were. But I renew my sacred promise to take care of you; you may rely on me, Archie. Now as always we invite the most searching scrutiny! If you see any old friends I beg of you do not attempt to dodge them; shake one and all heartily by the hand. We'll pretend that our black wool is as white as the drifted snow, and no one will run after us shouting, 'Blacksheep, blacksheep!'"

V

As the train flew along the Connecticut sh.o.r.e Archie realized with a new poignancy the tremendous change that had occurred in his life since he left New York, his birthplace and the home of his family for two hundred years. Instead of lounging in clubs and his luxurious apartment he would now go skulking through the streets with a master crook, and his imagination was already intent upon the character of the lair to which the Governor would guide him. He still swayed between the joys of his mad adventure and its perils. He might, he knew, bid the Governor good-by at the Grand Central Station, step into a taxi and walk into the door of one or another of his clubs and bid the world defiance. The serenity of his life as known to his friends would be a sufficient refutation of any charge that might be made against him. No one would believe the mysterious Governor if he were to declare on oath that Archibald Bennett was a criminal who had left a scarlet trail across three states.

It would be an interesting experiment to defy the Governor; but he dismissed this as foolish and hazardous. The Governor had a long arm, and having trifled with his good nature at the Walkers' it would certainly be ungracious and in all likelihood disastrous to offend him a second time. But the Governor's fantastic talk about the joining of their stars in the west had touched his imagination. With all his absurdities, and strange and unaccountable as he was, the Governor did make good his promises. If he wasn't in league with occult powers he at least possessed a baffling sort of prescience; and what was more to the point he had apparently reduced to a fine art the business of keeping clear of the authorities. If he could escape from the Governor it would be to take up his old eventless life, with a recrudescence no doubt of the ills that had so long beset him; and he had utterly forgotten that he had ever been an invalid. He grinned as he reflected that he had been obliged to shoot a man to find a cure for his nerves.

As the train drew out of New Haven the Governor, seemingly absorbed in a magazine, covertly kicked him. A man pa.s.sed slowly through the car, carelessly eyeing the pa.s.sengers. When he reached Archie's chair he paused as though steadying himself against the swaying train. For a moment he clung to the back of the Governor's chair, which was turned toward the window, and his eyes surveyed the luggage piled under the windows. The Governor swung round presently and remarked indifferently without changing his position:

"Rawlings, the best man they have in the Department now. He's looking for some one but let us hope it's not us. A very keen eye has Rawlings.

Not one of these sleuths in a black derby and false mustache you see in the movies, but a gentleman and a man of education. He's probably looking for that teller who cut a slice out of the surplus of a Ma.s.sachusetts bank last week. It's not our trouble, Archie. Embezzlers and defaulters are not to my taste; we rather look down on that breed in the brotherhood. A low order of talent; no brains; they're not in our cla.s.s."

"But it isn't necessary to advertise our sins to the whole train!"

whispered Archie, eyeing apprehensively their nearest neighbors in the crowded car. "You haven't convinced me yet that we're not making a serious blunder."

"Cease grumbling! If we wanted to play safe we'd both enter some home for aged and decrepit men and sit among the halt and blind and toothless until we became even as they. Rawlings' defaulter is enc.u.mbered, most disgracefully, with the usual blonde, in this case the lily-handed cas.h.i.+er in a motion picture shop; and a man of Rawlings' intelligence would know at a glance that we are not villains of that breed. I haven't traveled by this route for some time and I mean to keep awake to enjoy the pleasant view. My historical sense is always tickled as I cut across Rhode Island and contemplate the state house at Providence. If we were not really upon business bent we might have run down to Narragansett Pier or even to Newport for a breath of air. Newport!

Newport is adorable! I am far from being a sn.o.b, Archie, but Newport is really the loveliest place in America. I grant you that Bar Harbor has its points and even Bailey Harbor is not so bad--do pardon me, Archie! I forgot for the moment your unhappy memories of that place--but Newport alone is perfection gone to heaven! It would please me enormously to join you in a little excursion to Newport, by yacht preferably; but if it leaked out that we had been flying so high it would injure us with the simple-hearted comrades of the great brotherhood. You can imagine what a man like Red Leary would say if he knew we were dining at tables where the jewels run into millions. And your young friend Abijah, alias Pete Barney, would certainly cut our acquaintance if we failed to take advantage of such glorious opportunities."

"How are you going to know whether we're watched?" asked Archie in a frightened whisper when "Forty-second Street" flashed at him from the wall of the tunnel.

"In a few minutes we'll know the worst," replied the Governor blandly.

"I beg of you be confident, be a.s.sured, be cheerful!"

At the station gates a man in gray livery stepped up and touched his cap to the Governor.

"Ah, Tom; glad to see you again!"

"Thank you, sir; is this all the luggage?"

"That's all, Tom. Have an eye to Mr. Comly's bag; he's stopping with me."

Archie dragged himself into a handsome limousine that was brought to the curb by a chauffeur as impeccably tailored as the footman.

"Well, George, how are things with you?" asked the Governor pleasantly.

"Very good, sir; things running very smoothly, sir."

"Drive directly home, please.

"We may wander to our hearts' content, Archie, but there's no place like home, particularly when it's little old New York," remarked the Governor, sinking back contentedly.