Part 41 (1/2)

Evelyn came into the parlor with eyes red from weeping. ”Oh, have you no news?” she cried to him. He had kept on his overcoat and held his hat in his hand. Her grief stung him; a great wave of tenderness swept over him, but it was followed by a wave of terror. Evelyn wept as she tried to tell her story.

”It is dreadful, horrible!” he forced himself to say. ”But certainly no harm can come to the boy. No doubt in a few hours--”

”But he isn't strong and father is still weak--”

She threw herself in a chair and her tears broke forth afresh.

Wheaton stood impotently watching her anguish. It is a new and strange sensation which a man experiences when for the first time he sees tears in the eyes of the woman he loves.

Evelyn sprang up suddenly.

”Have you seen Warry?” she asked--”has he come back yet?”

”Nothing had been heard from them when I came up town.” He still stood, watching her pityingly. ”I hope you understand how sorry I am--how dreadful I feel about it.” He walked over to her and she thought he meant to go. She had not heard what he said, but she thought he had been offering help.

”Oh, thank you! Everything is being done, I know. They will find him to-night, won't they? They surely must,” she pleaded. Her father called her in his weakened voice to know who was there and she hurried away to him.

Wheaton's eyes followed her as she went weeping from the room, and he watched her, feeling that he might never see her again. He felt the poignancy of this hour's history,--of his having brought upon this house a hideous wrong. The French clock on the mantel struck seven and then tinkled the three quarters lingeringly. There were roses in a vase on the mantel; he had sent them to her the day before. He stood as one dazed for a minute after she had vanished. He could hear Porter back in the house somewhere, and Evelyn's voice rea.s.suring him. The musical stroke of the bell, the scent of the roses, the familiar surroundings of the room, wrought upon him like a pain. He stared stupidly about, as if amid a ruin that he had brought upon the place; and then he went out of the house and down the slope into the street, like a man in a dream.

While Wheaton swayed between fear and hope, the community was athrill with excitement. The probable fate of the missing boy was the subject of anxious debate in every home in Clarkson, and the whole country eagerly awaited further news of the kidnapping. Raridan and Saxton hearing early of the boy's disappearance had at once placed every known agency at work to find him. Not satisfied with the local police, they had summoned detectives from Chicago, and these were already at work. Rewards for the boy's return were telegraphed in every direction. The only clue was the slight testimony of Mrs. Whipple. She had told and re-told her story to detectives and reporters. There was only too little to tell. Grant had walked with her to the car. She had seen only one of the men that had driven up to the curb,--the one that had inquired about the entrance to Mr. Porter's grounds. She remembered that he had moved his head curiously to one side as he spoke, and there was something unusual about his eyes which she could not describe. Perhaps he had only one eye; she did not know.

Every other man in Clarkson had turned detective, and the whole city had been ransacked. Suspicion fastened itself upon an empty house in a hollow back of the Porter hill, which had been rented by a stranger a few days before Grant Porter's disappearance; it was inspected solemnly by all the detectives but without results.

Raridan and Saxton, acting independently of the authorities in the confusion and excitement, followed a slight clue that led them far countryward. They lost the trail completely at a village fifteen miles away, and after alarming the country drove back to town. Meanwhile another message had been sent to the father of the boy stating that the ransom money could be taken by a single messenger to a certain spot in the country, at midnight, and that within forty-eight hours thereafter the boy would be returned. He was safe from pursuit, the note stated, and an ominous hint was dropped that it would be wise to abandon the idea of procuring the captive's return unharmed without paying the sum asked. Mr. Porter told the detectives that he would pay the money; but the proposed meeting was set for the third night after the abduction; the captors were in no hurry, they wrote. The crime was clearly the work of daring men, and had been carefully planned with a view to quickening the anxiety of the family of the stolen boy. And so twenty-four hours pa.s.sed.

”This is a queer game,” said Raridan, on the second evening, as he and John discussed the subject again in John's room at the club. ”I don't just make it out. If the money was all these fellows wanted, they could make a quick touch of it. Mr. Porter's crazy to pay any sum. But they seem to want to prolong the agony.”

”That looks queer,” said Saxton. ”There may be something back of it; but Porter hasn't any enemies who would try this kind of thing. There are business men here who would like to do him up in a trade, but this is a little out of the usual channels.”

Saxton got up and walked the floor.

”Look here, Warry, did you ever know a one-eyed man?”

”I'm afraid not, except the traditional Cyclops.”

”It has just occurred to me that I have seen such a man since I came to this part of the country; but the circ.u.mstances were peculiar. This thing is queerer than ever as I think of it.”

”Well?”

”It was back at the Poindexter place when I first went there. A fellow named Snyder was in charge. He had made a rats' nest of the house, and resented the idea of doing any work. He seemed to think he was there to stay. Wheaton had given him the job before I came. I remember that I asked Wheaton if it made any difference to him what I did with the fellow. He didn't seem to care and I bounced him. That was two years ago and I haven't heard of him since.”

Raridan drew the smoke of a cigarette into his lungs and blew it out in a cloud.

”Who's at the Poindexter place now?”

”n.o.body; I haven't been there myself for a year or more.”

”Is it likely that fellow is at the bottom of this, and that he has made a break for the ranch house? That must be a good lonesome place out there.”

”Well, it won't take long to find out. The thing to do is to go ourselves without saying a word to any one.”