Part 27 (1/2)
”And you are Colonel Craigmiles's guest. Go on,” said Ballard, straightening the path of hesitation for him.
”That's it,” nodded Wingfield. ”As you say, I am his guest; and--er--well, there is another reason why I should be the last person in the world to make or meddle. At first, I was brashly incredulous, as anyone would be who was mixing and mingling with the colonel in the daily amenities. Later, when the ugly fact persisted and I was obliged to admit it, the personal factor entered the equation. It's bad medicine, any way you decide to take it.”
”Still you are not telling us what you mean to do, Mr. Wingfield,”
Bromley reminded him gently.
”No; but I don't mind telling you. I have about decided upon a weak sort of compromise. This thing will come out--it's bound to come out in the pretty immediate hence; and I don't want to be here when the sheriff arrives. I think I shall have a very urgent call to go back to New York.”
Bromley laid hold of the table and pulled himself to his feet; but it was Ballard who said, slowly, as one who weighs his words and the full import of them: ”Mr. Wingfield, you are more different kinds of an a.s.s than I took you to be, and that is saying a great deal. Out of a ma.s.s of hearsay, the idle stories of a lot of workmen whose idea of humour has been to make a b.u.t.t of you, you have built up this fantastic fairy tale.
I am charitable enough to believe that you couldn't help it; it is a part of your equipment as a professional maker of fairy tales. But there are two things for which I shall take it upon myself to answer personally. You will not leave Castle 'Cadia until your time is out; and you'll not leave this room until you have promised the three of us that this c.o.c.k-and-bull story of yours stops right here with its first telling.”
”That's so,” added Bromley, with a quiet menace in his tone.
It was the playwright's turn to gasp, and he did it, very realistically.
”You--you don't believe it? with all the three-sheet-poster evidence staring you in the face? Why, great Joas.h.!.+ you must be stark, staring mad--both of you!” he raved. And then to Blacklock: ”Are you in it, too, Jerry?”
”I guess I am,” returned the collegian, meaning no more than that he felt constrained to stand with the men of his chosen profession.
Wingfield drew a long breath and with it regained the impersonal heights of the unemotional observer. ”Of course, it is just as you please,” he said, carelessly. ”I had a foolish notion I was doing you two a good turn; but if you choose to take the other view of it--well, there is no accounting for tastes. Drink your own liquor and give the house a good name. I'll dig up my day-pay later on: it's cracking good material, you know.”
”That is another thing,” Ballard went on, still more decisively. ”If you ever put pen to paper with these crazy theories of yours for a basis, I shall make it my business to hunt you down as I would a wild beast.”
”So shall I,” echoed Bromley.
Wingfield rose and put the long-stemmed pipe carefully aside.
”You are a precious pair of bally idiots,” he remarked, quite without heat. Then he looked at his watch and spoke pointedly to Blacklock.
”You're forgetting Miss Elsa's fis.h.i.+ng party to the upper canyon, aren't you? Suppose we drive around to Castle 'Cadia in the car. You can send Otto back after Mr. Bromley later on.” And young Blacklock was so blankly dazed by the cool impudence of the suggestion that he consented and left the bungalow with the playwright.
For some little time after the stuttering purr of the motor-car had died away the two men sat as Wingfield had left them, each busy with his own thoughts. Bromley was absently fingering the cartridges from Sanderson's rifle, mute proofs of the truth of the playwright's theories, and Ballard seemed to have forgotten that he had promised Fitzpatrick to run a line for an additional side-track in the railroad yard.
”Do you blame me, Loudon?” he asked, after the silence had wrought its perfect work.
”No; there was nothing else to do. But I couldn't help being sorry for him.”
”So was I,” was the instant rejoinder. ”Wingfield is all kinds of a decent fellow; and the way he has untangled the thing is nothing short of masterly. But I had to tie his tongue; you know I had to do that, Loudon.”
”Of course, you had to.”
Silence again for a little s.p.a.ce; and then:
”There is no doubt in your mind that he has. .h.i.t upon the true solution of all the little mysteries?”
Bromley shook his head slowly. ”None at all, I am sorry to say. I have suspected it, in part, at least, for a good while. And I had proof positive before Wingfield gave it to us.”
”How?” queried Ballard.
Bromley was still fingering the cartridges. ”I hate to tell you, Breckenridge. And yet you ought to know,” he added. ”It concerns you vitally.”