The Last Woman Part 23

"It will be something of a shock, sir. Brace yourself for it. I don't think that a soul in the world except me, guesses at the truth."

"Guesses at what truth? What the devil is the matter with you? What are you trying to tell me? Out with it, whatever it is!"

"Patricia has run away with Richard Morton. He was hurt last night.

She was in love with him, and--"

"Stop! Stop where you are, Rod. You're crazy. You're stark, staring, raving crazy! Why in heaven's name should Patricia want to run away with Morton? It is true that I have always wanted her to marry you, but, if she wanted _him_, she knows mighty well she could have him. I wouldn't put out a finger to stop her from marrying anybody of her choice, so long as the man was morally and mentally fit. Sit down over there; take a drink. You look as if you needed one. Don't utter a word for five minutes, and then begin at the beginning and tell me all about it."

But Duncan would listen to neither request. He began at once and told of the occurrences of the night, from the moment when Patricia had arrived at Cedarcrest alone, till the receipt of the telephonic messages from Gardner; and he concluded by saying:

"There is no mystery in the affair, at all, as I regard it. Patricia left the house, at Cedarcrest, half an hour after Morton left it. She found the wrecked car, near the derrick, as Thompson and I found it, later on. But she found Morton, too. Patrick was with her, and Patrick is devoted to Patricia. He wouldn't consider the fact that he is, or was, in Jack's employ, if it came to a question of obedience to her wishes; he would serve her. You see, Patricia found out that she loved Morton, when he got his calling-down; only, I suppose, even then, she wasn't quite sure. But, when the time came for him to go away entirely, she had no more doubts about it! She didn't remain long at Cedarcrest, after that; she followed him. She knew that Patrick was there, and that he would go with her. Well, they found the wreck of Morton's car, along the road; then, they found Morton. Probably, he wasn't much hurt; chaps like him don't mind the loss of a little blood. Patricia and the man helped him into the car. It was just the proper scene, with all the best kind of setting for a mutual confession of their love, and--there you are."

"Go on, Roderick. Finish all you have to say, before I begin. What next?"

"Why--oh, what's the use? There isn't any more to say. Morton probably asked her to go away with him, and she went. That's all. I thought you ought to know it."

"You don't know it yourself, do you?"

"No--not positively, of course."

"You have just guessed it."

"I suppose that's true, too."

"I wonder if your guessing has gone far enough to enlighten me on two important points."

"What do you mean?"

"I'd like to know why Morton would want her to run away with him at all, and why she should think of consenting to such a thing, if he did. Patricia isn't one of the run-away kind. I should think you would know that. And they didn't have to run."

"Why, Morton had just been virtually kicked out of Jack Gardner's house. He was--"

"Well? Well? Couldn't Stephen Langdon's daughter kick him into it again? Or into any other house on G.o.d's green earth, for that matter, if she tried to do so? Do you suppose he'd have to pay any attention to a little, petty ostracism, on the part of such puppets of society as gathered out there, if he became the husband of Patricia Langdon?

Don't be an a.s.s, Roderick! You are just plain jealous, and I don't know that I blame you--for that."

"I'm not jealous."

"Then, you're a fool, and that's a heap worse."

CHAPTER XIX

RODERICK DUNCAN SEES LIGHT

The police department of the city of New York did not earn the thousand dollars reward offered by Roderick Duncan. The mystery of the abandoned car, owned by Jack Gardner, was not explained. Patrick O'Toole did not return to his duties at Cedarcrest. The story of the wreck of the White Steamer on the rocks under the derrick remained untold. Patricia Langdon did not reappear among her friends and acquaintances in the city. The mysteries born of that party at Cedarcrest continued unsolved.

Roderick Duncan, having arrived at a conclusion about all those matters which was quite satisfactory to himself, declined to concern himself farther about them; he believed that he perfectly understood the situation, and he let it go at that--although he engaged the services of every clipping-bureau in the city, in an effort to find announcement somewhere of the marriage of Patricia Langdon to Richard Morton. But no such record was discovered, nor was any evidence found that suggested such a possibility. He withdrew very much into himself, shunned his clubs, avoided his friends, and could not himself tell why he did not go away somewhere, to the other side of the world, seeking to forget what he had lost. He went so far in his studied aloofness as to keep entirely away from Stephen Langdon, and was perhaps all the more surprised when, as time elapsed, Patricia's father did not send for him. The utter silence of Stephen Langdon, and his entire inactivity concerning the absence of his daughter convinced Duncan, as it did also Patricia's, friends, generally, that he knew perfectly well where she was. It was a logical conclusion, too, for, if Stephen Langdon had not known, it is safe to say that he would have moved heaven and earth to find his daughter.

Jack and Sally Gardner went to Europe and took Beatrice with them.

Nesbit Farnham followed them, on the next steamer. The Misses Houston, also, disappeared. The newspapers had contained merely a mention of the wreck, nothing more of consequence. The destruction of the machine was told, and it was hinted that the chauffeur was slightly injured; nothing was said to suggest that Richard Morton had been hurt at all.

The police, to whom Duncan had telephoned, made no bones of pooh-poohing the entire matter, and laughing in their sleeves about it. The police had their own ideas about the whole thing--and speedily forgot them all.

Stephen Langdon was strangely grim and silent, those days; he was also unusually dangerous to his rivals in "the street." Every energy that he possessed seemed bent upon ruining somebody, anybody. It did not occur to Duncan that the old man avoided him, because he was guilty of the like avoidance himself; but, had he been less concerned with his own sorrows, and given some thought to Stephen Langdon's, he would have been quick enough to discover that the old financier dodged him, studiously.

There was no gossip about the disappearance of Patricia, because nothing was known about it. She was out of town, as were most of her a.s.sociates; traveling somewhere, doubtless, or was pa.s.sing the time among her numerous friends.

The first week after the beginning of the mystery was lived through in a state of unrest by Duncan, and the second and third weeks brought no change to him. With the beginning of the fourth week, he encountered Burke Radnor, and the mere sight of the newspaper man recalled to the young millionaire that bitterly unpleasant episode in which his name and that of Beatrice Brunswick were coupled. Radnor was seated in the lobby of the Hotel Astor, when Duncan entered the place. The man had been drinking just enough to render him a bit boisterous and a trifle loud in his talk and demeanor, when Duncan saw him. He was seated with several other men, and all of them were talking and laughing together at the moment when Duncan pa.s.sed them on his way to the desk to inquire for a guest whom he desired to see. He took no notice whatever of Radnor, and was pa.s.sing on, when a remark dropped noisily by the newspaper writer arrested him. It brought him to a halt so suddenly, that he sank at once upon a chair near at hand, and remained there without realizing that he did so, for the sole purpose of hearing what else Radnor might have to say upon this particular subject. He would have pa.s.sed on, even then, had he not been convinced that Radnor had not seen him, and did not suspect his nearness. As he listened, he gathered that Radnor was boasting of a prospective news story which he had in prospect, and for the publication of which he needed only a few additional facts.

"--elopement in high life, with an automobile wreck, a broken head--a broken heart also, only that was quickly mended--and a bunch of other little details thrown in, you know," was the remark that was overheard by Duncan, as he strolled past the group; was his reason for dropping down upon a convenient chair and remaining there, to listen. "The lady in the case is a swell who is away up in the top rank of the 'two-hundred-and-fifty;' and the man--well, he is up in high C, too, for that matter. One of the newly-rich, you know, lately materialized out of the wild and woolly. Fine stunt, that story; only, I can't seem to nail the few additional facts I need," Radnor continued, while Duncan listened with all his ears. "There are certain elements connected with the story that make it especially attractive to me, for, in addition to getting a clear scoop in the biggest sensation of the year, I can clean up an old grudge of mine, bee-eautifully. And won't I clean it up, when I get my hooks fairly into it! Well! You can take it from me."

"Oh, go on, Radnor, and tell us about it!" urged one of his companions--another newspaper writer, evidently. "How'd you get next to it in the first place?"

"Oh, that was an accident--a series of accidents, it might be called.

I don't mind telling you that part of it, without names. I mentioned a broken head, just now. Well, I had a line on a dandy story that was located out of town, and so I borrowed Tony Brokaw's automobile to go after it, because the story was located some distance off of the main line of travel. I was bowling along quite merrily, all alone in a car that is made to carry seven. It was just in the shank of the evening, and--"

"All this happened out of town, didn't it, Radnor?"

"Yes--a little way out. I came to a place where there had been a wreck, and--well--seated on the ground at the scene of the disaster, was the lady in the case, holding the head of the man in the case, in her lap, and moaning over it to beat the band. Standing beside them, like a big dog on guard, was a 'faithful servant.' It made a picture that couldn't be beaten, for suggestive points, provided the likenesses were made good enough. I took the whole thing in, at a glance, and sized the situation up rather correctly, too. The young woman was rattled clean out of her senses, and kept moaning something about it's being all her fault--I wasn't able to get just the gist of that part of it. She knew me by sight, and remembered my name. I offered my a.s.sistance, and then fell to examining the injured man. I discovered that he wasn't dead by a long shot, although he had been hurt quite badly, and he'd bled a lot. But I've been a war correspondent; I know all about first aid to the injured; I have seen wounds of all kinds, and it didn't take me long to estimate 'mister magusalem's' chances at about a thousand to one, for recovery. I made the chauffeur help me, and together we toted the wounded man to my car, and put him in the tonneau. The lady climbed in beside him--and ordered her chauffeur to follow her, and help her with the injured man. All the time, I was keeping up a devil of a thinking, wondering what it was all about. You see, I knew who the man and the woman were, but I couldn't fix the facts of the case sufficiently clear to satisfy me. I knew it would be a dandy sensation for the morning papers, but there was yet plenty of time to get it in, over a wire--besides, I wanted it to go in late, so that other papers than the one I gave it to, couldn't get a line on it. I got into my car--that is, the one I had borrowed, you understand--wondering where I would take the bunch, when another car stopped alongside of us, and a man, also alone, asked what was the matter. I found out that he was a doctor, and got him to take a look at the wounded man. To make a long story short, he dressed the wound then and there, said there wasn't any immediate danger--and a lot more--and went on his way. That decided me. I knew of a place about twenty miles away where I could take them, where the man would have the best of care, and--best of all--where I could fix things up to keep everything quiet till I found out all the facts. You see, I scented the greatest sensational story of my career--and I wasn't far out, either, if ever I get all of it."

"But, great Scott, man, didn't you have it then?"

"You'd have had it, Sommers; but not I. I knew there was more to it.

When the doctor pulled his freight out of there, I didn't lose any time in getting a move on me, too. And the girl never asked a question; not one; I had told her that I would take them to a place where the man could get well, and she seemed satisfied. The chauffeur never peeped a word. I let the motor skim along at a good rate, and wasn't long in bringing the bunch to the place I had thought of, which happens to be a small, private sanatorium, which isn't known to be one at all, save by those who patronize it and who want to put their loved ones away for a time, secretly. But the doc who runs it, is a good fellow, a good friend of mine, and when I told him that we didn't want a word said about the affair--and particularly when he discovered who the parties were and that there was a heap of dough in it for him--he fell into my plans without a dissenting vote."

"Say, Radnor, that's a long winded yarn, all right, but it's interesting. I wish, though, that you'd open up with the names."

"Not I, Sommers. I haven't got to the real mystery of the affair--yet."

"You don't say! What is it?"

"Well, when I had fixed things to suit me, and had received the thanks of the lady, when I had also satisfied myself that she was just as anxious for secrecy about the thing as I was, although I couldn't tell exactly why she was so, I hiked it back for town. It was too late, then, to get the other story I had been after, and I had ceased to care much about it, anyhow; and then, when I was ready to leave, out came the chauffeur, and he said, if I didn't mind, he'd ride part of the way back with me. He and the woman had been whispering together, just before that, and I sized it up that she had given him certain instructions to carry out. Anyhow, when we arrived at the scene of the accident, the chauffeur got down, and I came on, to the city, alone.

I'm not going to tell you why the chauffeur left me, at the scene of the accident, because that would give you a pointer which I don't wish you to have. He had a certain duty to perform which I did not guess at, just then, but which was all plain to me the next A. M., if anybody should ask you. It amazed me, and it added immensely to the mystery. And now, brace yourself, fellows, for the real mystery--the one I am chasing at the present time."

"We're all ears, Radnor."

"I telephoned to my friend the doc, the next morning. He reported that the man was doing well, and that the lady was hanging over him like a possum over a ripe persimmon. I telephoned again that afternoon, again the next morning, and every day after that, but the doc kept telling me that, although the man was doing well, and the lady was still there with him, I had better not b.u.t.t in until he tipped me the wink--and I'll give you my word that he managed to keep me on the hooks for ten days before I tumbled."

"Tumbled to what?"

"You shall hear. I got leary about things on the tenth day, for this telephoning was getting monotonous, and borrowed Brokaw's car again, but when I got to the little hidden sanatorium, my birds had flown, and--"

"Your birds had flown! What do you mean, Radnor?"

"Just what I say. The man and the woman had gone, and the doc wouldn't tell me when they went away, or anything at all about them. He said he had been well paid for keeping quiet, and I couldn't get any more information out of him than you could dig out of a clam. What is more, that chauffeur hadn't been seen by anybody since I dropped him out of the machine, at the scene of the accident--and that is the story. I don't know whether the doc lied to me, or not. He wouldn't let me go through his place, and, for all I know, the man and the girl were both there when I went back. On the other hand, they might have been gone a week, already. I've been unearthing every clue I could think of, since then, to get trace of them, but you might as well look for saw dust in hades, as for clues about those two--or rather the three of them, for I am satisfied that the chauffeur returned to the sanatorium after he had performed the errand he was sent to do."

"What gets me," said Sommers, "is how people as prominent as you say they were could fade out of sight like that, and leave no trace behind them. I should have thought there would be a hue and cry after them that would have stirred every newspaper in town."