Part 36 (1/2)
”You're not the only one. I say, you'll keep this to yourself, of course, but I've got to tell some one, and you were her friend down there. She told me about that magnificent ride of yours for the troops at the time of the raid, and she just about thought you were ace high.
She's such a plucky little thing herself, confound it? That's what makes it so devilish hard, now.”
”What are you talking about?” Thode looked up with the first gleam of interest he had shown. ”Not Miss Murdaugh?”
Winnie nodded.
”Only she isn't Miss Murdaugh at all, according to Starr Wiley. He's dug up proof that the real Willa Murdaugh died and she is just a trapper's daughter from the wilds somewhere, whom that gambler adopted in order to bilk the estate later. The governor told me all about it, he was so wrought up he couldn't keep it to himself.”
”Not Willa Murdaugh!” repeated Thode in stunned accents. ”And Starr Wiley brought forward the proof? You'd better tell me all about it, Win, now that you've started.”
Nothing loth, Winnie complied and the other heard him through in silence, until he told of Willa's disappearance the morning after the revelation, and the little note she had left behind her.
”I swear I thought the governor would spill over when he read it to me,” Winnie concluded. ”It was sort of fine for her to go away like that. I don't care who she really is, she's the most wonderful girl I know. She wouldn't even sign herself 'Murdaugh' after they questioned her right; she used the name of the gambler chap who'd been so good to her.”
”How did she learn it?” Thode asked quickly. ”He was known only as 'Gentleman Geoff' in Limasito. I'm certain she herself never heard the name there.”
”It was signed to the adoption agreement he and the trapper, Hillery, made out when he took her in place of the real Willa. The governor showed me the paper and there it was in black and white: Geoff Abercrombie.”
”Abercrombie!” Kearn Thode seized the other's arm in a convulsive grip which made the steering-wheel jerk. ”You're sure--you're sure of the name, Win?”
”Dead sure! I'll get the governor to show you the doc.u.ment if you like. But why the excitement? You nearly landed us up against that rock, then.”
”Never mind the rock!” exclaimed Thode. ”I'm going to take you up on that; I'd give a good bit to see that paper and the signature.”
”I'll fix it.” Winnie shot a quick glance at his companion. ”I say, you don't think it's phony, do you? The governor says it is absolutely the straight goods.”
”It isn't that,” Thode hastened to explain cautiously. ”But I knew Gentleman Geoff personally, you know. It isn't etiquette to ask a man for more of a name than he chooses to give below the border, but I had a hazy idea of Gentleman Geoff's ident.i.ty and the name in my mind was not Abercrombie. It was just a suspicion of my own and I had nothing to substantiate it, but the old chap interested me and I've always been curious about him. I wonder if he could possibly have been related to the Abercrombies of the Coast?”
”Whoever he was, he must have been rather a fine old codger himself for he brought Will--his adopted daughter up splendidly,” Winnie observed with enthusiasm. ”There isn't a girl in our set that can come anywhere near her, and I think it is a dashed shame that she's thrown out on her own. She took the whole business like a thoroughbred, walking calmly out like that and leaving them to haggle over the details.”
”And she has utterly disappeared?” asked Thode. ”No one knows where she is?”
”n.o.body but your Uncle Sherlock!” Winnie grinned, and thumped himself upon the chest. ”I did a little detecting on my own and I found her all right. She doesn't know yet that anyone has discovered her whereabouts and I don't mean to pa.s.s it on to the Halsteads or the governor, either. She's her own mistress now and if she wants to go away by herself, it's no one's concern but hers.”
”I can't imagine you in the role of a gumshoe!” The other laughed outright, and it was Winnie's turn to gape in amazement.
The change which had come over his companion was too marked to go unnoted; the listless, disheartened mood was gone and in its place the old eager alertness manifested itself, intensified by a sort of half-suppressed excitement.
”I turned the trick, anyway,” Winnie remarked complacently after a pause. ”You see, old man, I'd heard about the way she'd held on to the money Gentleman Geoff left her and I've caught glimpses of her more than once riding around town in a speedy gray car with a nifty chauffeur. I knew the Halstead bunch didn't know anything about it so I kept quiet. I recognized the chauffeur in the chap she sent to the governor's office for photographic copies of the doc.u.ments Wiley dug up, but the governor sent me away just when things promised to be interesting.
”I scouted around outside the building and there, sure enough, drawn up at the curb across the way, was the gray car. I slipped over and took its number. Later, when we heard about her going away, I didn't say anything, but I looked up the record of the car. The license had been taken out under a man's name; the chauffeur's, maybe, but I traced it to a garage up on the West Side. I took this car up there two days ago, and whenever he took his own out I was right on the job after him.
”He found out that I was shadowing him, of course, and he tried like blazes to shake me off, but I was foxy and beat him at his own game yesterday. He drove up to a certain house and she came out herself, as if she'd been waiting for him. I jotted down the address, and beat it as hard as I could. It's lucky I found her when I did, because the car was moved to another garage this morning and I lost its trail.”
”What are you going to do?” inquired the other. ”Call on her to extend your sympathy? That's about the last thing on earth that Gentleman Geoff's Billie wants, under any circ.u.mstances.”
He uttered the name with an unconscious note of tenderness in his voice which would have been illuminating to Winnie North, but that young man was busied at the moment with embarra.s.sing thoughts of his own. His face at the other's abrupt question had turned a bright pink, but he replied steadily:
”I don't want to intrude upon her, but I'd like to tell her that I'm standing by in case of need.--I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll drop her a line and ask her if I may bring you up to call, shall I? She can tell you all about this thing better than I----”
Thode shook his head decisively.