The on the Farm Part 4 (1/2)

”But the ribbon--why should that be in his car?”

”Let me see it.”

She handed him the ribbon, and he looked at it carefully.

”Why, that doesn't seem to be very promising evidence, Bessie,” he said. ”I suppose you could find ribbon like that in any dry goods store almost anywhere. Thousands of girls must have pieces just like it. Even if it is just the same as the one Zara wore, that doesn't prove anything. You'd have to have more evidence than that. However, I'll keep it in mind. You never can tell what's going to turn up, and I suppose it's easily possible to imagine stranger things than Mr. Holmes being mixed up in this affair. Well, you can depend upon it that everything possible is being done, and no one could do more than that. I wish I knew more, that's all.”

So did Bessie, and she was thinking hard as they left his office and made their way toward some of the shops in which, the day before, she had so longed to be. Feminine instinct has more than once proved itself superior to masculine logic, and although both Jamieson and Eleanor seemed inclined to laugh at her, Bessie felt that she was right--that Mr. Holmes, in some queer way, was intimately concerned in the web in which she and Zara seemed to be caught.

She couldn't pretend to explain, even to herself, the manner in which he might be affected, but of the main fact she was sure. She knew that her memory had not deceived her; she had seen the man in Hedgeville. And the fact that he had deliberately lied about that seemed to her good evidence that he had something to conceal.

He knew Farmer Weeks. And in some fas.h.i.+on Farmer Weeks was intimately bound up with the affairs of Zara and her father. Everything that had happened since their flight from Hedgeville proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt. He had run great risks to get Zara back; although he was such a notorious miser, he had spent a good deal of money. And he was mixed up with Brack.

Suddenly a thought came to Bessie. Zara's father! He must know. And if he did, wasn't there a chance that he might be willing to talk to her, if she could only manage to see him? He distrusted Charlie Jamieson evidently, since he had refused to talk to him just when the lawyer had been sure that he was going to get some facts that would throw light on the mystery. But with Bessie he might well take a different stand. He had seen her in the country; he knew that she was a friend of Zara.

”Miss Eleanor,” said Bessie, quickly, ”I've got an idea and I wish you would let me talk to Mr. Jamieson about it. Will you, please--and by myself? You're angry still at Zara and her father, and perhaps you'd think I was all wrong.”

”I'm not exactly angry, Bessie,” said Eleanor. ”I was hurt, but I'm beginning to see that very likely I am wrong, and that they were honestly mistaken, not deliberately ungrateful. At any rate, if Charlie Jamieson can stand the way Zara's father treats him, I guess I don't need to worry about it.”

”Then may I go?”

”Yes, and hurry, or you'll find that he's left his office. You won't be long, will you?”

”No, indeed; only a few minutes. Will you be here in this store, Miss Eleanor, when I come back?”

”Yes, I'll meet you at the ribbon counter.”

”Thank you, thank you ever so much, Miss Eleanor! I'll hurry just as much as I can, and I certainly won't be long.”

Then she was off, and luckily enough she found that the lawyer had not yet gone. He listened to her suggestion with a smile.

”By George,” he said, when she had finished, ”maybe you've hit the right idea, Bessie, at that! I'm afraid I can't manage it today, but I'll take you to the jail myself in the morning, and see that you get a chance to talk to him. I doubt if he'll say anything, he's either obstinate or badly frightened. But it's worth the chance, if you don't mind going to the jail to see him. It's not a very nice place, you know.”

Bessie laughed.

”I'd do worse than that if I thought I could help Zara, Mr. Jamieson,” she said. ”Do you know I've got the strangest feeling that she's in trouble? It's just as if I could hear her calling me and as if she were sorry for leaving us, and wanted to be back.”

Jamieson smiled grimly.

”I think the chances are that she's feeling just about that way,” he said. ”She certainly ought to be--if we're at all near to guessing the people she's gone with. They won't treat her as well as the Mercers, I'll be bound.”

”That's what I'm afraid of, too,” said Bessie.

Then thanking him for his promise she made her way to the street, and started to go back to the store where she had left Eleanor. But she was intercepted. And, to her amazement, the person who checked her, as she was walking swiftly along the crowded street, was Jake Hoover.

”'Lo, Bessie,” he said shamefacedly, as she started with surprise at the sight of him. ”Say, you're pretty in them new clothes of your'n. I'd never 'a' known you.”

”I wish you hadn't, then,” said Bessie, with spirit. ”I'm through with you, Jake Hoover! You won't have me around home any more, to take the blame for all your wickedness. When things happen now they'll know whose fault it is--and maybe they'll begin to think that you may have done some of the things I used to get punished for, too.”

”Aw, now, don't get mad, Bessie,” he said, trying to pacify her. ”This here's the city--'tain't Hedgeville! Maybe I was mean to you sometimes back home, Bessie, but I was jest jokin'. Say, Bess, here's a gentleman wants to talk to you. He's a lawyer an' a mighty smart man. An' he thinks he knows somethin' about your father and mother.”

Another figure had loomed up beside that of Jake, and Bessie was hardly surprised to find that it was Brack who was leering at her.

”He's right. I know something about them,” he said. ”There's precious little old Brack don't know, my dear--an' that's a fact you can bet your last dollar on.”

He chuckled, and made a movement as if he intended to take Bessie's hand, but she brushed his claw-like hand away with a motion of disgust.

”I haven't got time to be talking to you now,” she said, decisively. ”If you know anything you think I ought to be told, tell it to Mr. Jamieson.”

”Oh, ho, tell it to him, eh!” he said. ”Maybe you'd better be careful, girl! Maybe you wouldn't like everyone to know why your parents had to run away and leave you in such a hurry. Maybe they're in prison, and deserve to be. How'd you like to have people hear that, eh!”

”I wouldn't like it, but I don't believe it's true!” said Bessie, scornfully. ”Not for a minute!” And she pressed on, but Brack followed and walked close beside her.

”Remember this--you'll never see them again, except through me,” he said, malevolently.

CHAPTER VII.

OFF TO THE FARM.

The next morning Bessie was doomed to be disappointed. She had looked forward confidently to seeing Zara's father, and had come to believe that there was a good chance for her to clear away some of the mystery that hung so heavily over Zara's affairs, even though she made no great progress toward straightening out her own confused ideas regarding herself and the reason for the disappearance of her parents. But, instead of the telephone call to Jamieson's office, for which she had waited with poorly concealed impatience from breakfast until nearly noon, she had a visit from Jamieson himself. The lawyer looked discouraged.

”Bad news, Bessie,” he said, as soon as he saw her. She was waiting for him on the porch, and her eyes lighted with eagerness as soon as she saw him coming. ”They've stolen a march on me.”

”Why, how do you mean? Won't I be able to see Zara's father, after all?”

”Not just yet. Brack is cleverer than I thought. He's got a lot of political pull, and he got hold of a judge I thought was above stooping to anything wrong. So he was able to get this judge to sign an order putting him in my place as lawyer for Zara's father. The only way you can see the prisoner now is for Brack to give you permission, and if I know Brack, that's the last thing he'll do.”

Bessie showed her discouragement.

”I'm afraid you're right there,” she said. ”I saw him yesterday, after I left you.”

”You did? Whew! There's something queer here, Bessie. Now, try to remember just what was said and tell me all about it.”

It was not hard for Bessie, guided by a few questions from Jamieson, to do that, and in a few moments she had supplied him with a complete review of her interview with the shyster, Brack, He nodded approvingly when she had finished.

”You did just right,” he said, cheerfully. ”I guess Mr. Brack won't get much change out of you, Bessie. There's one thing sure, you managed to acquire a lot of sense while you lived in Hedgeville. The sort we call common sense, though I don't know why, because it's the rarest sort of sense there is. Keep on acting just like that when people ask you questions and try to get you to tell them things.”

”Do you think anyone else is likely to do that, Mr. Jamieson?”

”You can't tell. I'm all in the dark, you see. This thing acts just like a Chinese puzzle. They're simple enough when you know how to fit the pieces together, and you wonder why they ever stumped you. But until you do guess them--” He stopped, with a comical shrug of his shoulders to indicate his helplessness and his bewilderment, and Bessie laughed.

Then Eleanor came out, and the story of Brack's shrewdness had to be told to her.

”What are you going to do now?” she asked.