The Lightning Conductor Discovers America Part 21

I was wis.h.i.+ng for a surprise, and it came. But it hasn't explained anything. It has only thickened the plot--thickened it like porridge made of Boston beans.

I didn't mean to inflict another letter upon you quite so soon; but I'm so full of the surprise--and "beans," too--heavenly Boston ones, very brown, and crisp on top--that I can't wait.

My last night's budget was posted to you only this morning early, when Jack and I were going out to discover what every (other) man and woman knows about the Hub of the Universe. All day long we were so busy seeing and doing things in this delightful, intimate personality that I lost my Stormy Petrel emotion in a crowd of other emotions. Usually when we stop anywhere, and are not in the car most of the day, Mrs. Shuster finds work for Peter to do. She and ex-Senator Collinge give him sheafs of notes to elaborate into letters or articles for the papers which propagate their ideas. I think--and have thought from the first--that this plan of campaign is more to please the Ally (Caspian) than from any pressing need for such work to be done _en route_. Mrs. Shuster impulsively engaged Storm before Caspian met him, and very likely made some sort of contract to which he can hold her if he chooses. Besides, she admires him as much as ever, though she admires Larry more, and in her silly, blundering way, she plays a double game. All sweetness and light to Storm when she's with him, and immense pride in him as an employe--the pride a small, dull comet might feel in attracting attention to itself by trailing a disproportionately brilliant tail across the sky. All specious promises and excuses to Caspian when she's with him and _not_ with Peter. Caspian, you remember, _used_ to be a protege of hers when he was a rising young socialist, and she was the widow of a quaint genius who'd made a fortune in some weird patent to keep your hair from decaying, or your teeth from falling out. Now, he's a rising young millionaire, accepted by People Who Matter; and he can do more for her than she for him, socially. So she has to be nice to him, no matter how she feels, and "keep him sweet," anyhow until she's _quite_ sure of Larry and his ancestors to back her up. That's the way I account for Peter's being kept on, though of course there's the fact that Caspian enjoys bullying him now that he's down.

Anyhow, that's the situation on the surface. When we motor, the Stormy Petrel submits himself for the present to the boot of the tyrant in the Grayles-Grice. When we leave the motor, Peter is left, too, and chained to his duties. But, so long as he gets through his tasks at the appointed time, no questions can be asked as to how he spends the extra hours. And the speed with which he does get through those tasks is miraculous as that of Psyche sorting the grains of wheat at the order of mother-in-law Venus! Psyche had all the kingdom of ants to help her.

But _who_ helps Peter? One can't suppose that he's rich enough to fling all his salary to an understudy while he gads. Yet I've seen him going to his room with a _sheaf_ of papers which would keep the nose of a common secretary at the grindstone for six or seven hours, whereas P. S.

is free to do as he pleases in less than half that time.

This long preamble explains why Peter Storm didn't start out with us this morning, though we picked him up at Fall River and brought him on to Boston, as I told you, and why he was nevertheless able to appear casually in Cambridge. We came across him in the college yard, just as we were "processing" through the big gateway, guided by the Boys, proud, happy Boys, showing off their Alma Mater to their Best Girl and her satellites!

"If I'd had an education, here's where I should like to have got it,"

Peter remarked, calmly joining our forces, unabashed by Caspian's stare.

"You haven't finished all that stuff the Senator and I gave you!" gasped Lily, knowing that the eye of Ed had travelled reproachfully to her.

"That's all right, Mrs. Shuster," was Peter's airy reply. "When you get home, you'll find that everything has been duly posted."

There was nothing more to be said on the subject. And though Peter referred to himself as a person of no education, he seemed to know more about Cambridge than the Boys themselves--quite as much as Jack, who has been studying up the place as if for an exam!

It really is charming, that college yard, you know, Mercedes--just as charming in its way, Jack admits, as bits of Oxford, or the old Cambridge for which this darling place was named. Once it was called Newton, but after the great event in 1636--the granting by the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay of _four hundred pounds_ "towards a schoole or colledge"--they decided that it ought to be called Cambridge. Nearly all the buildings contrive to look rather venerable (they cloak themselves with creepers), but some, like Ma.s.sachusetts Hall and Harvard Hall, and several houses, are really old. Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry put on the air of graybeards returning, after a half-century of adventure, to their childhood's home, though they left college only last year to go abroad. It was funny to see the patronizing looks they cast on the undergrads we saw; but they were the life of the place for us, all the same, and we felt truly _in_ it, chaperoned by them. Outside college bounds, however, they lost interest. It was Jack who had to tell us about "Brattle." As far as the Boys were concerned, it might have been any ordinary street, instead of _the street_ of the world, as it is to true hearts of Cambridge. In Cambridge the smart thing is to be rather dowdy, just as it is at Oxford, and in Cambridge of England; and so, as we had got ourselves up to dazzle Boston (a difficult task, I must say!), we were conspicuously, ignominiously tourists as we gazed in reverence at Was.h.i.+ngton's Elm, at Longfellow's exquisite old primrose yellow house, and the other historic incarnations of Cambridge's past.

Only the Boys were not subject to the pitying scorn of Society. They didn't have on their _worst_ clothes, because they have neither best nor worst, but what they had on was _it_. And possessing no hats was greatly in their favour. By the way, did you know that Cambridge is the first place where a printing press was set up in America? I didn't. It remained for my English Jack to inform me of the fact.

This Cambridge expedition was in the afternoon I neglected to mention.

Our morning (while Peter doubtless toiled) had been spent in the wonderful Public Library of Boston itself. We'd meant to do more and other things, but one could stay a week in that library, which I believe started with just _ten thousand_ books! Everything is beautiful about it, from the pale-pink granites and brown Spanish tiles without to the St. Gauden lions who guard the great marble staircase within. Sargent's "Religions of the World" is a n.o.ble decoration, and Abbey's frieze of the Holy Grail is beautiful, but the panel paintings of Puvis de Chavannes--"The Muses Greeting the Genius of Enlightenment"--are worth while coming from London or Paris to Boston to see.

After we motored back from Cambridge we wandered about here and there, seeing the "Cradle of American Liberty," the "Sanctuary of Freedom," and the place "where Independence was born." Unless you have the key, you won't be able to unlock this saying, so I'll do it for you. Why, they call Faneuil Hall the "Cradle of Liberty" because they used to hold all the town meetings there to discuss whether they should revolt against British rule or no; so Liberty must have rocked to and fro a lot! The Old South Meeting House is the "Sanctuary of Freedom," for there it was prayed for and blessed. And of course Independence was born in the Old State House. I wonder if anything half as epoch-making will ever come to pa.s.s under the great gold dome of the new one? It's very fine, but it can never be quite so thrilling, I think. And _it_ wasn't built where the pillory and scaffold used to stand! Jack would see the Bunker Hill Monument, too, though I think monuments, even the finest, seem to chill your glorious visions of what really happened on the spot.

Jack, and Pat, and Peter, and I then made a secret pact that we'd devote part of to-morrow to Hawthorne's Boston; that we'd _pretend_ to find the house of "The Blythedale Romance" in Tremont Street; that we'd poke about for the lost site of Hester Prynne's lonely hut on the Back Bay (huts there are neither cheap nor lonely now), and search for various other story landmarks. With this happy prospect before us, and having slyly shaken off all other companions, we went unsuspectingly back to the hotel, not dreaming of a _guet-apens_, as the French so expressively say.

Peter doesn't live at our hotel, not being able to afford gorgeousness.

Marble-walled, gilded-ceilinged rotundas and restaurants are not for humble secretaries, alas, even if they do look like banished princes! We invited him, however (also Pat), to have tea with us in our own sitting-room, and he accepted.

If we could, we should have sneaked in; but the magnificent entrance-hall of our palatial hotel is not adapted to sneaking purposes.

I'll be hanged if there's a single trapdoor under a conveniently placed Persian rug, or so much as a secret sliding panel, unless you count the elevators as such! However, we were doing our best to look invisible _en ma.s.se_, when up sprang Edward Caspian and crossed our path as we ought to have expected the villain of the piece to do.

He was not alone. With him was a man, not young, yet not looking middle-aged. He had a head rather like Shakespeare's, and eyes like aquamarines with a light burning behind them.

"Jove!" I heard the Stormy Petrel mutter. "Camera-eyed d.i.c.k!"

I knew instantly that Caspian had been as good as his word, and had sent for a detective. The name "Camera-eyed d.i.c.k" was too terribly expressive, and so was the way Peter p.r.o.nounced it, even though he spoke under his breath--to himself, not to me. I felt that here was a man with a fearsome specialty--a man called "camera-eyed," because his eyes photographed on his brain stuff a permanent picture of every face he saw. And Caspian had brought him here, no doubt at large expense, to recognize the face of Peter Storm, alias Some One Else.

Oh, it was an awful moment, and made worse because I felt this stroke was partly our fault. If we hadn't done everything we could to aggravate Caspian and make him more jealous than ever of Storm, just as his jealousy had been simmering down, probably he wouldn't have bothered to carry out his old threat. I thought I should faint, I was so frightened for Peter, and so sick at the idea of having him arrested or something.

"Is there anything I can do?" I stammered out, before I could stop myself from making a bad _faux pas_ and showing that I suspected his danger.

Peter (he and I were walking ahead, Jack and Patsey behind) didn't make the faintest pretense of not understanding. He gave me a glance--I wasn't sure whether it was just bold or whether there was a sense of drama in it--and said in a quiet voice: "No, thank you; nothing at all."

The one way of escaping the encounter would have been to run for it, which would, of course, only have made matters worse; so we marched straight on into the jaws of detection. I would have given much to know whether Jack and Pat had heard Peter's exclamation, and if they guessed in the least what a scene we might be in for. (No, not a _scene_! I couldn't, even then, a.s.sociate Peter with a "scene" in public; despite his temper, he is always so cool in every emergency, and has such a peculiar way of carrying things off!)

Much as I wanted to know, however, I dared not turn. Does a mouse turn to the mice behind it and say, "Here is Mr. Camera-eyed Cat?" No! We walked along, my knees feeling like pats of b.u.t.ter, and presently Ed Caspian and his companion blocked our way, filling the whole horizon. "I want to introduce my friend Mr. Moyle, Mrs. Winston," said Ed. "And Mr.

Moyle, this is Mr. Peter Storm."

Beads of perspiration came out on my nose, which Aunt Mary always used to tell me was most unladylike and ought never to happen. My heart and I just stood still together!

Murmuring something more like a hiccup than a "How do you do?" I saw Peter use his eyes like grappling irons on the camera-eyes of Mr. Moyle.

Then his magnetism, like a band of pirates, swarmed aboard of the other's mentality. He put out his hand and shook the hand of the man, whether Camera eyed d.i.c.k wished to shake hands or not, and with that shake, the lamp seemed suddenly to be s.n.a.t.c.hed away from behind the aquamarines.

"How do you do, Mr. Moyle? Pleased to meet you," Peter said slowly.

"Pleased to meet _you_," echoed Mr. Moyle. His Shakespearean forehead had turned red, and there was a slight gasp in his voice, a tone sliding up instead of down. His queer eyes (rather bald-looking because his light lashes curl right up and away from them, leaving them very wide open) turned off their lights, as I said. But though they were vacant compared to what they had been when professionally on the alert, they had a curious effect as if they would _burst_ if he couldn't laugh. This may have been produced by the lashes turning up so much. I couldn't make it out at all, anyhow. And the whole _affair_ is past my making out.

Now, what should _you_ say Peter did to quell Camera-eyed d.i.c.k? Was it the look, or was it the way he shook hands?

For he _was_ quelled. There's no doubt--or very little doubt--about that. He was _friendly_ with Peter Storm. He and Peter and Caspian talked together, and it was Camera-eyes who went away first. Ed was ready to _cry_, I'm sure.

I asked Jack afterward (of course I breathed not a word to Pat), and he said that she and he had guessed nothing of what was going on under the surface of the introduction. They hadn't heard Peter's give-away words; and without that clue there was no reason to suspect.

I shan't sleep to-night because of that "misunderstood virtue" of mine.

In other words, Curiosity is gnawing my vitals.

Your modern Pandora, alias

MOLLY.

XXIII

PETER STORM TO JAMES STRICKLAND

_Boston._

DEAR STRICKLAND:

Caspian has "let loose the dogs of war" on me, or, rather, the first dog is loose. There will no doubt be others yapping on my track. You'll grin when I tell you the first of the breed was your old henchman, Camera-eyed d.i.c.k!

Hotel halls seem to be fatal to me lately. I shall get jumpy going into one. Caspian was lying in wait for me to appear with Miss Moore and the Winstons, we having "lost" the others and gone for a walk. Camera-eyes was with him, and I thought it was touch and go for me. However, I turned the tables by doing the camera-eye act myself. Also, I gave d.i.c.k's hand a friendly grip. You remember that he's a Mason? Going away, he contrived to palm me a card with a scrawled address: a small hotel where he was spending the night.

Late in the evening I walked round there, taking it for granted that d.i.c.k would be in, and that he had recognized me with certainty despite the lapse of time. I counted on his not giving me away to his employer, so I didn't hurry to pay my respects. And I hadn't trusted the old chap in vain. He was loyal to Caspian, so far as not betraying any instructions he may have had; but he did not mind admitting that he'd come from New York to Boston on receipt of a telegram. I felt I owed him the reward of an explanation, so gave a somewhat garbled one, in which d.i.c.k was intensely interested. He confessed that he was "flabbergasted"

at sight of "the gentleman he'd come to be introduced to" (me) and for once was disinclined to believe his eyes. He promised silence, refused a reward, as near the V.C. as I'm able to bestow, and I told him to call on you. You're sure to hear from him soon.

This is the second narrow escape I've had within a week. I oughtn't to take these risks till I'm ready to face the consequences, whatever they may be. But I'd do more to be in sight of Patricia Moore's profile which is about all I see of her in the car these days when (in every sense of the word) I'm obliged to take "a back seat." Do, for heaven's sake, finish up your end of the business and give me a free hand, since you yourself say I may in honour take it. I probably should take it even if you said the opposite--that I tell you frankly, as I believe I've told you before. But it's good to have your backing.

I've been to Plymouth to-day, thanks to a chap I've hired to do my work for me, and have returned to Boston, which we shall leave to-morrow for good and all. Caspian had an accident just before starting time--had been out in a taxi on a hurried errand to some shop, and the chauffeur, trying to be helpful, banged the door with C.'s finger in it. The finger was in a glove, or the hurt would have been more serious, but even as it was, when he tried to take the wheel of the G.-G. he found the pain unbearable. I was called--like a male Cinderella--from the ashes (those of a cigarette) and ordered to drive. In an instant the secretary had become the chauffeur. I can do these fairy G.o.dmother trick-acts like lightning; and as Miss Moore didn't think it necessary to change her seat, I knew that Fate was going, anyhow, to give me one good day.

I had never been by road from Boston to Plymouth, and as I'd not expected to drive, I hadn't looked up the route. Caspian probably had, but I didn't want help from him, and I determined to die rather than look at a map. You, a Harvard man, no doubt know the way well, though a motor car was a rare if not unknown species of animal when you were an undergrad.