Part 6 (2/2)
Yes, it was she.
”So you have come?” There was welcome neither in her tone nor face, nor was there the suggestion of any other sentiment.
”Yes. I am not sure that I gave you my name, Miss Killigrew.” He was secretly confused over this enigmatical reception.
She nodded. She had been certain that, did he come at all, he would come in the knowledge of who she was.
”I am John Fitzgerald,” he said.
She thought for a s.p.a.ce. ”Are you the Mr. Fitzgerald who wrote the long article recently on the piracy in the Chinese Seas?”
”Yes,” full of wonder.
Interest began to stir her face. ”It turns out, then, rather better than I expected. I can see that you are puzzled. I picked you out of many yesterday, on impulse, because you had the sang-froid necessary to carry out your jest to the end.”
”I am glad that I am not here under false colors. What I did yesterday was, as you say, a jest. But, on the other hand, are you not playing me one in kind? I have much curiosity.”
”I shall proceed to allay it, somewhat. This will be no jest. Did you come armed?”
”Oh, indeed, no!” smiling.
She rather liked that. ”I was wondering if you did not believe this to be some silly intrigue.”
”I gave thought to but two things: that you were jesting, or that you were in need of a gentleman as well as a man of courage. Tell me, what is the danger, and why do you ask me if I am armed?” It occurred to him that her own charm and beauty might be the greatest danger he could possibly face. More and more grew the certainty that he had seen her somewhere in the past.
”Ah, if I only knew what the danger was. But that it exists I am positive. Within the past two weeks, on odd nights, there have been strange noises here and there about the house, especially in the chimney. My father, being slightly deaf, believes that these sounds are wholly imaginative on my part. This is the first spring in years we have resided here. It is really our summer home. I am not more than normally timorous. Some one we do not know enters the house at will. How or why I can't unravel. Nothing has ever disappeared, either money, jewels, or silver, though I have laid many traps. There is the huge fireplace in the library, and my room is above. I have heard a tapping, like some one hammering gently on stone. I have examined the bricks and so has my father, but neither of us has discovered anything. Three days ago I placed flour thinly on the flagstone before the fireplace. There were footprints in the morning--of rubber shoes. When I called in my father, the maid had unfortunately cleaned the stone without observing anything. So my father still holds that I am subject to dreams. His secretary, whom he had for three years, has left him. The butler's and servants' quarters are in the rear of the other wing. They have never been disturbed.”
”I am not a detective, Miss Killigrew,” he remarked, as she paused.
”No, but you seem to be a man of invention and of good spirit. Will you help me?”
”In whatever way I can.” His opinion at that moment perhaps agreed with that of her father. Still, a test could be of no harm. She was a charming young woman, and he was a.s.sured that beneath this present concern there was a lively, humorous disposition. He had a month for idleness, and why not play detective for a change? Then he recalled the trespa.s.ser in the park. By George, she might be right!
”Come, then, and I will present you to my father. His deafness is not so bad that one has to speak loudly. To speak distinctly will be simplest.”
She thereupon conducted him into the library. His quick glance, thrown here and there absorbingly, convinced him that there were at least five thousand volumes in the cases, a magnificent private collection, considering that the owner was not a lawyer, and that these books were not dry and musty precedents from the courts of appeals and supreme.
He was glad to see that some of his old friends were here, too, and that the shelves were not wholly given over to piracy. What a hobby to follow! What adventures all within thirty square feet! And a s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed over his spine as he saw several tattered black flags hanging from the walls; the real articles, too, now faded to a rusty brown.
Over what smart and lively heeled brigs had they floated, these sinister jolly rogers? For in a room like this they could not be other than genuine. All his journalistic craving for stories awakened.
Behind a broad, flat, mahogany desk, with a green-shaded student lamp at his elbow, sat a bright-cheeked, white-haired man, writing.
Fitzgerald instantly recognized him. Abruptly his gaze returned to the girl. Yes, now he knew. It was stupid of him not to have remembered at once. Why, it was she who had given the bunch of violets that day to the old veteran in Napoleon's tomb. To have remembered the father and to have forgotten the daughter!
”I was wondering where I had seen you,” he said lowly.
”Where was that?”
”In Napoleon's tomb, nearly a year ago. You gave an old French soldier a bouquet of violets. I was there.”
”Were you?” As a matter of fact his face was absolutely new to her.
”I am not very good at recalling faces. And in traveling one sees so many.”
”That is true.” Queer sort of girl, not to show just a little more interest. The moment was not ordinary by any means. He was disappointed.
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