Part 26 (2/2)

”What about the _Daily?_”

”That's what I've got to do right now--settle the _Daily_ and dictate a strong _Gazette_ story for to-morrow's issue, stripping the socks off the Stanhope lie and all that. I've got to show the boys upstairs exactly how we want the whole thing, handled.”

”Fire away, old top.”

”It's all sketched out in my mind,” continued Peter, rising. ”Did it at the hotel over my chuck-steak. I won't be long. You wait here for me, will you? I've chartered an automobile for a week and I'll run you up to the Carstairs house and wait outside till you're ready to go back to the yacht.”

”Why these civilities, my son?”

”The fact is,” said Peter, a little reluctantly, ”that story this morning seems to have pulled open a lot of old sores, just as it was meant to. Hare's picked up some loose odds and ends of talk about town to-day. I noticed two men hanging around here as we came in just now who didn't look right to me. I can't get it out of my head that there's something in the wind to-night, and Higginson's back of it. Anyway, there's no use of running needless risks, now that we've practically got a strangle-hold on the whole proposition.”

Varney glanced at his watch. ”Right for you. It's too early to call yet, anyway. I'll wait.”

”Correct,” said Peter at the door. ”One last item of news. Stanhope himself, the real one, is coming to-morrow.”

”Here--to stay?”

Peter nodded. ”The caretaker of his cottage told Hare--told him not to tell a soul. But I don't believe he'll stay long. The fellow's clearly a fool as well as a dog.”

”We ought to warn him how things stand here,” said Varney, ”no matter what kind of person he is. You and I know that we 've made matters a good deal worse for him.”

”He's made them a good deal worse for us, also. But I'll see that he's promptly advised to leave while the leaving's good. Back in an hour at the farthest.”

Peter tramped off down the pa.s.sageway, banging the front door behind him; and Varney was left alone in the little office to attend his return. At once it came to him that this was exactly what he had been doing ever since he had been in Hunston,--waiting for Peter.

”I am the greatest waiter that the human race has yet produced,” he thought, despondently, and dropping down into a chair, stared long at the shut door.

What a day it had been!--beginning with cut-and-dried little plans that seemed sure, running off in the middle into black depths of hopeless complications, blossoming suddenly into unlooked-for triumph. Yes, complete triumph at last. The visit that he meant to pay a little later was merely an added precaution; he felt no doubts as to how matters would turn out now. To-morrow, the _Gazette_, Peter's paper, would set him square before all Hunston, and Mary Carstairs, sorry for the wrong she had done him, would come to the yacht as she had engaged to do. With the clairvoyance born of his swift revulsion of feeling, he knew that his victory was already won. Yet he did not feel now as a conqueror feels. In the loneliness of the tight-shut little office, he confronted the knowledge that he did not think of Uncle Elbert's daughter as his enemy, and that it mattered to him that she was to hate him and worse....

Suddenly in the entire stillness, he heard a sound close by, and straightened up sharply. Some one was gently trying the front door. He felt quite sure of it. He got up quickly and quietly, and hurried down the pa.s.sageway to the front; but there was nothing to be seen.

Outside, the street, from the brilliantly-lighted room, looked inky black. He stood a moment listening intently. He thought he heard footsteps not far away, swiftly receding, but he could not be sure. Then he remembered the men that Peter had seen in the street a little while before, and understood.

Somebody was watching him, apparently waiting for a chance. Those whom Stanhope had wronged had been spurred to square the old account, and the _Gazette's_ canard had not been undone yet. He yearned to dash after those retreating footsteps and find out who was the prudent proprietor of them. But even to stand here was hardly fair to Elbert Carstairs.

”How can I go sailing to-morrow,” he said aloud, musingly, ”if I'm laid up in a hospital, or laid out in the morgue?”

He went back to his office, shut himself in again; and with the closing of the door he shut out all thought of the enemies of Ferris Stanhope.

Soon his mind broke away from him, and went galloping off to the morrow.

Great vividness marked the pictures that danced before the eye of his thought. Now the luncheon, the planned and fought for, was over. They were there, strung out gayly along deck,--Mrs. Marne, Hare, Peter, Mary Carstairs, and he. Then, by some deft stratagem, the others were gone and he was sitting alone by Mary at the rail. The _Cypriani_ was slowly moving, as though for a ten-minute spin down the river. And then, as she gathered headway, he turned suddenly to Mary and told her everything: how he had deceived and tricked her, and how she would not go back to Hunston that afternoon....

It might have been ten minutes that he sat like this. It might have been half an hour. But after a time he heard, suddenly and distinctly, that noise at the door again.

There was the less doubt about it this time, in that the shutting of the door was now clearly audible, and there followed the distinct sound of some one moving in the main office. Then the door in the pa.s.sageway swung open and footsteps pattered, coming nearer. The light firm steps drew nearer, halted; and there came a small rap upon his door.

”Come in,” he called loudly, encouragingly. ”I'm here, all right. Come in.”

The door opened, a little slowly, as though not quite certain whether it was going to open or not, and Mary Carstairs stood upon the threshold, silhouetted in the sudden frame.

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