Part 36 (2/2)
”You were fired from your last job. You're in wrong with the police. You adopted a disguise and told lies about Winifred to those who would employ her. What chance have you of getting back into your trade, even if you'd be satisfied with it after having lived like a plute for weeks?”
”That goes,” said Fowle, waving his pipe.
”You'd like to hand one to that fellow Carshaw?”
”Wouldn't I!”
”Yet you kick like a steer when I offer you the girl, a soft, well-paid job, and the worst revenge you can take on Carshaw.”
”Yes, all d.a.m.n fine. But the risk--the infernal risk!”
”That's where I don't agree with you. You go away with her and her father--”
”Father! You're not her father!”
”You should be the first to believe it. Her aunt will swear it to you or to any judge in the country. Once out of the United States, she will be only too glad to avail herself of the protection matrimony is supposed to offer. What are you afraid of?”
”You talked of puttin' up some guy to pretend to marry us.”
”Forget it. We can't keep her insensible or dumb for days. But, in the company of her loving father and her devoted husband, what can she do?
Who will believe her? Depend on me to have the right sort of boys on the s.h.i.+p. They'll just grin at her. By the time she reaches Costa Rica she'll be howling for a missionary to come aboard in order to satisfy her scruples. You can suggest it yourself.”
”I believe she'd die sooner.”
”What matter? You only lose a pretty wife. There's lots more of the same sort when your wad is thick enough. Why, man, it means a three-months'
trip and a fortune for life, however things turn out. You're tossing against luck with an eagle on both sides of the quarter.”
Fowle hesitated. The other suppressed a smile. He knew his man.
”Don't decide in a minute,” he said seriously. ”But, once settled, there must be no s.h.i.+rking. Make up your mind either to go straight ahead by my orders or clear out to-night. I'll give you a ten-spot to begin life again. After that don't come near me.”
”I'll do it,” said Fowle, and they shook hands on their compact.
It was not in Winifred's nature to remain long in a state of active resentment with any human being. A prisoner, watched diligently during the day, locked into her room at night, she met Rachel Craik's grim espionage and Mick the Wolf's evil temper with an equable cheerfulness that exasperated the one while mollifying the other.
She wondered greatly what they meant to do with her. It was impossible to believe that in the State of New Jersey, within a few miles of New York, they could keep her indefinitely in close confinement. She knew that her Rex would move heaven and earth to rescue her. She knew that the authorities, in the person of Mr. Steingall, would take up the hunt with unwearying diligence, and she reasoned, acutely enough, that a plot which embraced in its scope so many different individuals could not long defy the efforts made to elucidate it.
How thankful she was now that she had at last written and posted that long-deferred letter to the agent. Here, surely, was a clue to be followed--she had quite forgotten, in the first whirlwind of her distress, the second letter which reached her in the Twenty-seventh Street lodgings, but pinned her faith to the fact that her own note concerning the appointment ”near East Orange” was in existence.
Perhaps her sweetheart was already rus.h.i.+ng over every road in the place and making exhaustive inquiries about her. It was possible that he had pa.s.sed Gateway House more than once. He might have seen amid the trees the tall chimneys of the very jail against whose iron bars her spirit was fluttering in fearful hope. Oh, why was she not endowed with that power she had read of, whose fortunate possessors could leap time and s.p.a.ce in their astral subconsciousness and make known their thoughts and wishes to those dear to them?
She even smiled at the conceit that a true wireless telegraphy did exist between Carshaw and herself. Daily, nightly, she thought of him and he of her. But their alphabet was lacking; they could utter only the thrilling language of love, which is not bound by such earthly things as signs and symbols.
Yet was she utterly confident, and her demeanor rendered Rachel Craik more and more suspicious. Since the girl had scornfully disowned her kins.h.i.+p, the elder woman had not made further protest on that score. She frankly behaved as a wardress in a prison, and Winifred as frankly accepted the role of prisoner. There remained Mick the Wolf. Under the circ.u.mstances, no doctor or professional nurse could be brought to attend his injured arm. The broken limb had of course been properly set after the accident, but it required skilled dressing daily, and this Winifred undertook. She had no real knowledge of the subject, but her willingness to help, joined to the instruction given by the man himself, achieved her object.
<script>