The at the Seashore Part 9 (1/2)
”Where to, Dolly? This is an island, remember, and we don't know anything about it at all. We wouldn't know where to run, if we did have luck enough to get a good start--and we wouldn't get very far.”
”I suppose that's so,” said Dolly, her face falling. ”Oh, what a horrid shame! Just when everything seemed so nice and peaceful!”
”There's one thing,” said Eleanor, her face set and stern. ”They can't hold me forever--or, at least, I don't suppose they can. And someone is going to be sorry for this or my name's not Eleanor Mercer!”
”I don't understand it yet,” said Bessie, who, although the capture meant more to her than it did to any of the others, had not given way to her emotions, and seemed as cool and calm as if she had been safely back on Plum Beach.
”It's only too easy to understand,” said Eleanor, bitterly. ”Charlie was deceived in his friend, Mr. Trenwith. He's just as easy to bribe as Jake Hoover. That's all. He cares more for money and success than he does for his reputation as an honorable man. I'm disappointed in him--but I suppose I ought not to be surprised.”
”Well, I am surprised,” said Dolly, defiantly. ”And I'm sure, somehow, that he's all right. I think he was just as badly fooled as the rest of us. Mr. Holmes probably wants us to think as badly of him as possible, so that, if he should try to help us, we wouldn't trust him.”
”I wish I could believe that, Dolly. But the evidence against him is too strong, I'm afraid. Hush, we musn't talk. Here is Mr. Holmes coming back. I don't want him to think that we're afraid--it would please him too much.”
With Mr. Holmes, as he came toward them, was a woman in servant's garb, middle aged, and sour in her appearance.
”This woman will attend to you, Miss Mercer,” he said. ”She will do whatever you tell her--unless it should happen to conflict with the orders she has from me. But she won't talk to you about me, or about this place because she knows that if she does I will find out about it, and she will have reason to regret it.”
”I'm very much pleased by one thing, Mr. Holmes,” said Eleanor. ”You've shown yourself in your true colors at last. I suppose you understand that when I get back to the city I shall see to it that everyone knows the truth about you. I don't think you will find yourself welcome in the homes of any decent people after I tell what I know.”
”I'm sorry, Miss Mercer,” he said. ”Of course you must do what you think best. But it really won't do any good. I could do things a great deal worse than this, and still, with the money I happen to have, people would keep on fawning on me, and pestering me with their attentions and their invitations as much as ever.”
”Perhaps you're right, but I intend to find out. May I ask how long you intend to keep me here as a prisoner?”
”You are my guest, Miss Mercer, not my prisoner. Please don't act as if I were as great a villain as that. Losing your temper will not improve matters in any way, you know--really it won't. As for your question, I think Bessie and Zara will be in the quite competent care of their old friend Silas Weeks by noon to-morrow and then there will be no further reason for keeping you here.”
”Then, unless you are remarkably quick in getting out of the country, Mr. Holmes, you ought to be under arrest for kidnapping by to-morrow night.”
Holmes laughed.
”Oh, do let's be friends!” he said. ”You and your friends have really given me a lot of trouble. But do I bear you any malice? Not I! If you hadn't taken care of those misguided girls after they ran away from Hedgeville, none of this would have come about.”
”I suppose you think you have some excuse for acting in this fas.h.i.+on?”
”I certainly have, Miss Mercer. The very best. After all, why shouldn't I tell you? It's too late for you to do me any harm now--I have won the game.”
”But there will be a return match. Don't forget that! My father is as rich as you are, Mr. Holmes, and when he hears of the way I have been treated, he will spend his last cent, if necessary, to get his revenge on you.”
”Dear me, I hope he won't do anything so foolish, Miss Mercer! It would be a dreadful waste of money--and he wouldn't get it, in any case. However, I don't want you to be needlessly worried. Zara will soon be safe with her father. She won't have to stay very long with the estimable Farmer Weeks. You know, I really don't blame her for disliking him.”
Zara gave a little cry of joy.
”Will I see my father? Is he well?” she cried.
”Quite well--but very obstinate,” said Holmes. ”That's your fault, too, Miss Mercer. I'm sorry to say that lately he has seemed to be inclined to listen to your cousin, Mr. Jamieson. He is willing, you see, to deal with whoever happens to be in charge of his daughter. He knows our friend Silas very well--too well, I think. And so, when he knows that Zara is being looked after by him, I think he will be glad to meet my terms, and so secure his freedom.”
”You brute!” said Eleanor, hotly. ”What are your terms?”
”Ah, that would be telling! You will have to wait to discover that. You see, Silas Weeks wasn't quite as stupid as the rest of the people at Hedgeville, and when he couldn't find out what old Slavin was doing there, he came to me--because he thought I probably could.”
”Slavin!” said Eleanor, in an amazed tone. ”Is that your father's name, Zara? Why didn't you tell us?”
”He told me not to,” said Zara, nervously.
”Zara's father had one bad fault; he wasn't at all ready to trust people,” Holmes went on, easily. ”He didn't even trust me as he should have done, and he's been positively insulting to Weeks. It's made a lot of trouble for him.”
He looked at his watch, then turned to the servant.
”Go upstairs and make the rooms comfortable for Miss Mercer at once,” he said. ”It's getting late.” Then he turned to the men who had accompanied him to the Columbia. ”It's all right, boys,” he said. ”You needn't wait.”
”These people keep their ears entirely too wide open,” he explained to Eleanor. ”I have to be rather careful with them, though they probably wouldn't understand much if they did hear. Well, that is about all I've got to tell you, anyhow. You see, you needn't worry about your friend Zara. As to Bessie--well, that's different.”
He looked at Bessie malevolently.
”I don't think I care to tell you anything more about her,” he said. ”Weeks will look after her all right--as well as she deserves to be looked after.”
Bessie seemed to be nervous as he looked at her, and edged away from him.
”If you think you can keep Bessie in the care of that man Weeks,” said Eleanor, ”you are going to find yourself decidedly mistaken. He won't treat her properly, and if he doesn't, the courts won't compel her to stay there. I know enough law for that, and I tell you now, that, even though you may have some sort of law on your side just now, because you have played this trick, you won't be able to count on the law much longer. It will be as powerful against you, properly used, as it has been for you, improperly used.”
”Oh!” Holmes laughed, unpleasantly. There was no mirth in the laugh, only mockery and contempt. ”Really, Miss Mercer--why, where has that little baggage gone to?”
He stared wildly about the room, and Eleanor, startled, looked about her also. Bessie had disappeared; vanished into thin air. In a rage, Holmes darted here and there about the great hall of the house in which they had been standing. But, though he looked behind curtains and all the larger pieces of furniture, and made a great fuss, he found no sign of her. For a moment he was completely baffled, and almost beside himself with rage.
”I always thought villains were clever,” said Dolly, as he stood still. Her voice was scornful. ”Why, even a girl like Bessie can fool you! She's done it plenty of times before now--you didn't think you could keep her from doing it this time, too, did you?”
”What do you mean?” stormed Holmes, moving toward her, his hand raised as if he meant to strike her. But if he thought he could frighten Dolly he was much mistaken. She faced him calmly.
”You can't make me tell you anything, even if you do hit me,” she said. ”And you won't find Bessie, either, unless she wants you to. I saw her go--but I'm not going to tell you how she managed it.”
”Oh, I'm not going to hit her,” yelled Holmes. ”What good would that do?”
He sprang to a bell, and pushed it violently. In a moment two or three of the men he had dismissed, thus giving Bessie her chance to escape, answered his summons, and he ordered them to start in search of her at once.
”Find her, and you'll be rewarded,” he shouted. ”But if you don't, I'll make you pay for it!”
Eleanor had never seen a man in such a furious rage. It was plain that his plan, successful as it seemed to be, was still in danger of being upset, and the knowledge gave Eleanor new hope. It had seemed to her that, with Trenwith turned traitor, there was not one chance in a million to foil Holmes this time. But now everything was changed. He stayed with them only long enough to give them into the keeping of the servant, who came down the stairs just as he finished giving his orders to the men for the pursuit of Bessie.
”If any of them get out, I'll know it's your fault,” he said to her. ”And you know what I can do to you. You wouldn't like to go to jail for a few years, I guess. You will, if anyone else gets away from this house to-night.”
Then he followed the men he had sent out in search of Bessie.
And all the time Bessie herself had heard every word, and seen every action of the scene that followed the discovery of her escape. While Holmes was talking to Eleanor she had seized the chance to slip over to a heavily curtained window, which, she guessed, must open right on the ground.
She took the chance of it being open, and fortune favored her. Concealed by the curtain, she was able to slip out, and then, instead of running as fast and as far as she could, as nine people out of ten would have done, she stayed where she was. She reasoned that there, so close to the house, was the last place where search would be made.
And she was right. She saw Holmes dash from the room; she saw Eleanor and the other girls being led upstairs. And then she not only heard, but saw, the pursuit of her that was begun. Men with lanterns searched the grounds; they looked behind every bush. But, though a single glance, almost, would have revealed her had anything like a careful search of the flower beds close to the house been made, no one came near her hiding-place. Between her and the open garden was only a flimsy screen of rose bushes, but it proved enough.