The Incendiary Part 30

"b.u.t.ton it tightly," said the Spaniard. "Do you remember where you wore this glove last?"

"I do."

"Can you see the side door opening from the pa.s.sageway?"

"I can."

"Do you recognize the youth who is entering?"

"I do."

"Is it Harry Arnold?"

"It is Harry Arnold."

"Does he listen cautiously?"

"He listens cautiously."

"Does he climb the stairs softly?"

"He climbs the stairs softly."

"Does he enter the study?"

The young man's face twitched and convulsed. His eyes started from their sockets. The foam rose to his lips as they worked.

"Harry!"

It was the agonized cry of Rosalie March, throwing herself upon her lover and turning defiantly at Count L'Alienado, whose fierce insistence had amazed the onlookers. The spell seemed to be broken, for Harry sunk from his chair, supported by Rosalie's arms.

"Some wine," cried Tristram, chafing Harry's forehead and gently striving to unclasp his sister's arms. But she clung to her sweetheart with love in her eyes.

Count L'Alienado approached the unconscious man, the crowd parting before him.

"Wake!" he said, "and forget!" Harry's eyes shut naturally and then opened. He drank the wine which Rosalie pressed to his lips. In a few minutes he was erect, eagerly questioning the company.

"Call it a faint," said Count L'Alienado, quietly. "It is better that he should not know."

"But what was it all about?" asked Miss Milly Mills, on tiptoe with curiosity.

"Only an experiment in clairvoyance," answered Count L'Alienado.

CHAPTER XL.

THREE TIMES RUNNING.

s.h.a.garach's office was a hive of industry the next time Emily Barlow called. Walter Riley, installed in Jacob's place, looked smartly clerical, with a pen over one ear, docketing some papers, and Aronson was knitting his brows over a decision in the digest. But the lawyer himself, she thought, did not appear to have profited greatly by his fortnight's vacation. His cheek was worn and his manner betrayed an unusual aberration at times.

He had returned only the evening before. When she entered the parlor to greet him his mother found the padlock chain of the Persian poets torn through their edges, and her son face down on the carpet buried in a volume of Hafiz, with Sadi and Firdusi scattered near. She trembled, but she did not disturb him.

"Our cause progresses," he said, in answer to Emily's query. "Important links have been discovered since we last conferred."

The sweet girl lifted her eyebrows and waited.

"In the first place we shall put Harry Arnold on the stand. I have traced him to the door of the study a moment before the fire was set."

Emily bit her lip just a trifle in disappointment, for her own cherished theory would only be embarra.s.sed by the presence of Harry Arnold there.

"The other points?" she asked.

"You remember the peddler in the green cart, alluded to in Ellen Greeley's letter, who carried messages to some person unknown?"

"Perfectly."

"Three witnesses stand ready to swear that a peddler in a green cart cried his wares through the roads of Woodlawn about the time of the fire and frequently stopped at the house of the Arnolds."

"That connects them legally," said Emily, still more discontented. "How soon do you expect a trial?"

"In less than two weeks. I am sorry you will have to shorten your vacation."

"Oh, it is better over; the suspense is agony."

"The door, Walter," said s.h.a.garach, as she pa.s.sed out. Pretty soon he went home to his own midday meal. Aronson was called away to look up a t.i.tle and left the Whistler in charge.

Walter had already caught just a little of his employer's decision of manner, which sat oddly on his rosy face, but was no more, after all, than a laudable aspiration toward manfulness. The lawyer had discovered his skill with the pencil and his mechanical interests, and had set him to work evenings copying the designs in a drawing manual. Meanwhile, his gamesome impulses had quieted a good deal, and it was only when the office was empty, as now, that the old rich whistle was heard. s.h.a.garach and s.h.a.garach's suggestions seemed to consume that whole fund of adolescent energy which formerly had overleaped all bounds in its search for an outlet.

He was just in the middle of a skylark solo, interrupted by bites at the contents of his lunch-box, when a white-bearded old man entered. At first Walter, hearing the limp on the stairs, took it for old Diebold, the pensioner, one of s.h.a.garach's clients. The lunch-box vanished like magic and there was a hasty brus.h.i.+ng of crumbs and swallowing of a half-masticated mouthful before he turned the k.n.o.b.

"Is Mr. s.h.a.garach in?" asked the stranger, glancing around with a senile leer.

"Not now, sir, but I expect him soon," answered Walter. "He's gone to dinner. Won't you be seated while you wait for him?"

"How long?" said the old man, mumbling his words, as if he were toothless, and nodding at the boy over and over again.

"How long before he comes back? Oh, he never stays away long. He'll be here in five minutes, I guess."

The old man sat down feebly in the chair. Such a strange old man, thought Walter. His white beard almost covering his face and reaching down on his bosom, and long white curls coming out from under his hat. He must be almost a hundred, said the boy to himself. Yet his eyes rolled around quickly and his skin wasn't wrinkled at the corners of the eyes, nor did he have those time-scored furrows in the neck that soldiers call saber cuts.

"Buy a pencil," he said to Walter, taking out a bunch from his pocket.

Walter shook his head in some disappointment. It was only a peddler, after all.

"Two for five," persisted the visitor.

Should he show him the door? Mr. s.h.a.garach did not like to be troubled with peddlers, but this one was so very old. Walter hesitated about dismissing him. Besides he had asked for the lawyer. Perhaps he had some business, too.

Just then s.h.a.garach's brisk step was heard in the entry, and the little man came flying across the room to his desk in the inner office.

"That is Mr. s.h.a.garach?" asked the gray-beard, jerking his thumb and leering again.

"Walter," said s.h.a.garach. Walter jumped and was preceding the visitor in when a terrible snarl of rage caused him to turn. The white-bearded old man seemed to have been transformed into a beast, glaring with his wild blue eyes and gritting his great teeth at s.h.a.garach. He raised a bottle in his hand and hurled its contents at the lawyer. But Walter had caught his arm and pulled it down with all the might in his bourgeoning muscles. The liquor hissed where it fell, and several drops spattered on his neck and bosom, causing him to shrink as if touched with a caustic. Still he tore at the old man's face, and covered the mouth of the bottle with his palm so as to intercept the hot shower.

s.h.a.garach had been looking down at some papers when he first heard the sound of the old man's breath forced between his teeth. As quick as thought he reached for the paper-weight and hurled it with all his force. It struck the stranger full in the forehead, cutting a ragged gash with its edge. Then the lawyer sprung from his chair, following up his missile with the quickness of a cat. But just as he reached across Walter's body the boy fell back in his arms with a shriek of pain, the stranger's white beard coming away in his fingers.

"The oaf!" cried s.h.a.garach, but the a.s.sailant was gone in a flash.

"Water! Water!" shrieked the office boy, writhing in his arms.

The lawyer glanced around. The wainscoting was charred where the liquor had fallen. The boy's jacket was eaten away in holes. It was vitriol that had been thrown.

"A quart of lime-water at the nearest apothecary's," he shouted to Aronson, who had just come back. "And the first physician you can fetch. Don't lose a second."

Aronson was off like the wind, while s.h.a.garach unb.u.t.toned the boy's vest and tore away the saturated portions of his undergarments that were clinging to his shriveled skin. Already great blisters rose under the action of the acid.

"Will you telephone central 431, Inspector McCausland," he said to the tenant opposite who had been attracted in by the noise. "Ask him to call at once, and state that I have been attacked again."

It was the physician who arrived first, then Aronson. Walter's burns were bathed profusely with the lime-water, and the blisters p.r.i.c.ked open by the doctor's needle. After the first agony he bore the pain without a groan. His breast and palm would be scarred for life, but the only wound on the visible parts was a long, pear-shaped corrosion extending along the side of his neck. You may imagine how tenderly s.h.a.garach nursed him and how excitedly Aronson ran to and fro fetching whatever was asked for.

"It is time this should be stopped," said McCausland, entering. But he was not alone. He held a great bloodhound in leash. "It was the same customer, I suppose? Can you give me any article belonging to the man? I picked up this in the doorway."

He held up a white wig.

"The false beard," cried Walter, holding it out from the stretcher on which they were bundling him.

"Better the blood drops," said s.h.a.garach. "Search the stairs. He was wounded."

McCausland rushed out, his hound tugging strongly at the leash.

"Smell, Wolf, smell," they could hear him saying, and then a half-trip and a clatter down the stairs told that the dog had caught the scent and nearly pulled the inspector off his feet.

"I am glad it is no worse, Walter. The doctor will do all that skill can to soothe your pain. You have saved my life twice," said s.h.a.garach, pressing the boy's hands, which were clasped over his bosom, where the lint lay on his burns. Gently the ambulance men carried him down the stairs, with never a cry from his brave lips tightened over the sound.

"I will call to-night, Walter. May you be better then," said the lawyer, giving the driver Mrs. Riley's address. The physician climbed into the spare seat and the wagon drove off with its suffering pa.s.senger.

"A cap, a coat b.u.t.ton and a false beard," said s.h.a.garach. "And still we grope in the dark. Yet an anatomist will reconstruct a mastodon from a fragment of his tooth!"

"Lost again," said McCausland, re-entering with his bloodhound, which nosed about in corners of the room. The inspector sat down, puffing and looked thoroughly disgusted.

"You lost the trail?"

"Never fear Wolf for that. Lie down, Wolf! No; the hound kept his track through all the cross-scents of the city--something to boast of, that--there was blood dripping here and there, that I knew by his yelping. By the way, you must have struck him hard."

"The paper-weight is heavy," said s.h.a.garach, picking it up from under the desk where it had rolled. As he did so the hound gave a roar and a bound, and stood up to reach it with his forepaws.

"Down, Wolf! Lie down!" cried McCausland, sternly. "There is blood on the edge. That may help us another time."

"Take it," said s.h.a.garach. "But you lost the trail, you said."

"It vanished into the air. Wolf took us to the northern station, running me off my feet all the way--through the waiting-room, up and down the platform twice, inside track gate No. 5, and then--flatted fair and square. You know the random way he runs about when he's lost the scent? Our man had taken a train."

"The western express, 12:59," said s.h.a.garach.

"How did you know?"

"I have had occasion to take the same train at track No. 5 on a visit to Woodlawn. Had he purchased a ticket?"

"No man with a cut on his face, or of our description."

"Then he has a trip ticket and lives there."

"Where?"

"At Woodlawn," said the lawyer. "Near Harry Arnold."

McCausland smiled incredulously.

"Is Woodlawn the only station between here and Albany?" he asked. "However, I telegraphed along the route to have the runaway stopped."

"What time did you send the telegram?" asked s.h.a.garach.

"At 1:19 by the station clock."

"Just a minute too late. The express reaches Woodlawn at 1:18. It is the first station."

"Heigho! Here's a to-do. What about Woodlawn?" asked a cheerful voice. It was Dr. Jonas Silsby, brown as a berry, with a broad-brimmed straw hat and a basketful of botanical specimens under one arm. The casual observer would have taken him for an uncommonly good-looking farmer, bringing some choice greens to market.

CHAPTER XLI.

A HUT IN THE FOREST.

"Who's talking of Woodlawn? Just where I came from, and if the fronds of those ferns aren't as fine-cut as petals, then I don't know an oak from a gooseberry bush."