“It seems Kim has had a number of queer experiences happen to him while he slept. For instance, clothing that he left on one chair when he went to bed he found in the morning on another chair.”
“Pooh, he might have forgotten which chair he left the things on!”
“But it happened three times in succession. And his door was carefully locked each night. In fact, he said that’s why he formed the habit of locking and bolting it. He was not at all afraid, but his mother had talked about spirit performances and he wanted to know what it all meant.”
“Is there any more of this rubbish?” Elsie asked.
“There is. The night I speak of, two nights before the dinner,—he told us this tale. He was lying in bed with the bedclothing drawn smoothly over him. He felt it slipping down as if it were being drawn off. He made no effort to hold it, nor to rise, as he was bent on waiting to see what would happen. Well, the sheet, blanket and counterpane, all, were drawn slowly, steadily and entirely off the bed and they fell in a heap on the floor.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Elsie, simply.
“You don’t have to. I’m merely repeating the story Kim told. Half a dozen fellows heard it, they’ll all tell you the same. Want their names?”
“Not now. I may ask for them some time.”
“All right. As soon as the clothes were all off, Kim sprang up, made a light, and investigated. There was no sign of any one about,—the door was locked as he had left it, and, he said, there was no other possible access to the room. Kim wasn’t afraid, but he was flabbergasted. He asked us our opinion. You know what Poltergeist means?”
“Oh, I know it’s some foolishness the Spiritualists babble about,—that snatches bedclothes off and clatters tin pans and that.”
“Yes; well, several of the men said it was Poltergeist.”
“Polter—fiddlesticks! It was a nightmare, and you only tell the story to get me off the track.”
“Meaning the track of my own participation in the crime?”
“Meaning just that!”
“Well, listen to this, then. One night about a week before the bedclothes affair, a diamond pin was stolen from Kimball Webb’s room.”
“A diamond pin!”
“Yes, a scarf pin. Small diamonds, set round a cat’s-eye. Not of great value, but an expensive little trinket. In that case, too, the door was locked and bolted on the inside.”
“Servants, I suppose. Why didn’t Kim report the theft to the police?”
“He said he was too curious to find out how it was done.”
“Poltergeist don’t steal things.”
“Oh, yes, they do; well, anyway, I wanted you to know that there have been queer doings and they are not explicable by natural means. Kimball told of strange sounds,—groans and moans,—”
“The same old stuff!”
“Yes, but Kim told it all as fact. I’ve no reason to doubt his word,—he’s never been a man given to big yarns, and he has a reputation for veracity. Do you doubt him?”
“Kimball? No! But I believe these stories are embroidered, if not made up out of whole cloth! And I don’t want to hear any more of them.”
But Elsie was not allowed to forget the stories.
For, her next stopping place was at the Webb house, and she found the family there in a state of turmoil.
Mrs. Webb’s declaration of her belief in the supernatural disappearance of Kimball, having been overheard by the chambermaid, the girl begged permission to tell what she knew about the room.
“It’s haunted,” she had told the Webb ladies. “I know it is, for I’ve seen things the haunt done!”
“Tell what you know, Janet,” Henrietta said, severely, “but don’t exaggerate or colour your story in any way.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t need to. It’s this way. A few weeks ago, I went up to make up Mr. Kimball’s room, and when I opened the door, the room was full of smoke—”
“Cigar smoke?” asked Henrietta.
“Oh, no, ma’am. Smoke like from a fire.”
“Was there a fire in the grate?”
“No, ma’am, and no sign of one. Why, there hasn’t been a fire there since winter time. But the smoke didn’t come from the fireplace, exactly,—it was sort of around the room,—and a smell like that of fresh kindled wood.”
“You could imagine the odour, Janet,” demurred Henrietta.
“No, ma’am, I didn’t. It was too strong for that. You know, ma’am, there’s no smell like that of a fresh wood fire.”
“And no ashes or burnt wood in the fireplace?”
“No, ma’am; it was clean as clean.”
“You see, Henrietta,” said her mother; “Poltergeist is the only thing that explains that. They carry fire about as easily as we carry water.”
“I don’t want to believe it,” said Henrietta, slowly,—“it’s too absurd,—but Janet has always been a truthful girl—”
“Oh, it’s the truth I’m telling, miss,” Janet avowed, “and I was that scared I never mentioned it to nobody.”
“That’s like Janet, too,” observed Mrs. Webb; “she’s very close-mouthed. But you should have told us.”
“I thought I would, ma’am, and I feared you’d laugh at me. I never supposed any harm would come of it. And now the little men have carried off Mr. Kimball!” The girl broke into tears and ran from the room.
“The little men?” said Mrs. Webb, wonderingly.
“That’s what they call any supernatural force,” said Henrietta; “here comes Elsie, let’s tell her about it.”
It was at that juncture that Elsie appeared, and as the Webbs told the story of Janet’s experiences, she told what Wallace Courtney had told her.
“There’s no doubt at all,” said Mrs. Webb, with a strange mixed feeling of satisfaction at having her own theory gain ground, and a shock of desolation at the loss of her son.
Elsie looked at her in amazement.
“Mrs. Webb,” she said, slowly, “do you really mean that you think Poltergeist, or any supernormal power removed him bodily, and took him out of his locked room, and is keeping him concealed somewhere?”
“Of course I do!”
“How are they keeping him alive?”
“I don’t know that he is alive.”
“And you are willing to believe such rubbish? You—”
“It does no good, Elsie,” interrupted Henrietta, “to talk to mother like that. You’ve no right to scorn her beliefs,—she is a confirmed spiritualist, and as such, she is entitled to a respectful consideration, whether or not you agree with her beliefs.”
“That’s so, Henrietta, and I apologize. But it seems incredible that a sensible woman can stand for that sort of foolishness! Dear Mrs. Webb, I beg you to forgive me, I don’t mean to be rude, but—oh, I’m so crazy to find Kimball, I’m not myself! I’m going to devote my life to it, I’m going to try every means I can think of and then make up more, but I’ll find him yet! You see, I start out by assuming that he didn’t go away voluntarily,—you know he wouldn’t do that! On our wedding day!”
Henrietta said no word, but a slight sound of disagreement that could be faintly heard made Elsie turn to her. She was amazed at the look of hatred on Henrietta’s face.
“Why,” she cried, “you look as if you could eat me, Henrietta! Now, look here, even if you don’t like me very much, I’m your brother’s promised wife, and so I shall remain until I’m his wife in fact. You can’t change that,—and though I don’t think,—now,—that you spirited Kim away,—yet I did think so,—and if you look like that, I may come back to that opinion!”
“Your opinions don’t interest me, Elsie, and though I shouldn’t have chosen you for Kimball’s wife, yet I am just enough to treat properly the woman he himself selected for that honour.”
“All right, why don’t you begin to treat me properly, then? For, if you ask me, I don’t think you’ve done so yet!”
Henrietta scorned to reply, save by a disdainful look.
“And now,” Elsie went on, “I’m going up in Kimball’s room to look around a bit. I’m no detective, but then Hanley isn’t one, either, not a real one. I suppose he does all he can, but I’ve been told that hunting a ‘missing person,’ is about as slow a process as that of ward in chancery. Sometimes I think I’ll get a private detective, a big one, who will find my Kimball and give him back to me.”
“My son will never be seen again,” declared Mrs. Webb, solemnly.
“I’m glad I’m not impressed by your dark views about it,” Elsie said, smiling at the old lady, whom she really liked, in spite of her absurd beliefs.
Mrs. Webb was more kindly disposed toward Elsie than Henrietta, and Elsie responded gratefully.
“You’ll change your mind,” she went on, to Mrs. Webb, “when I make a triumphant rescue of my beloved. Oh,” she burst out, suddenly, “don’t you feel sorry for me? Think, a bride, left alone on her wedding day!”
“A deserted—” began Henrietta, but Elsie turned on her like a young tempest.
“No! Not a deserted wife! My Kimball didn’t desert me,—and this minute, wherever he is, he is planning and striving to get back to me. That is, if he’s conscious,—and, I know he is! I’d die if I didn’t believe that!”
She ran from the room and made her way up to Kimball’s room.
It was no longer kept locked, and it had been swept and garnished, so that any clues, if there ever had been any, had been removed.
“But,” Elsie mused, sadly, “how could there have been any clues? Clues to what?” She couldn’t believe an intruder had carried Kim off, for there was no possible way for an intruder to get in or out. What she really thought was that he had been lured away; say somebody had telephoned him and he had gone off suddenly, or something like that. How he locked the door after him and the hall door, too, was a stumbling block, but she didn’t try to get over it.
She wandered about the large, pleasant room. On the chiffonier was her own photograph in a silver frame. Scattered about were several trifles she had given him; a paper-knife, a single flower vase, a calendar.
She looked in the scrap-basket,—it was empty.
“What am I looking for?” she said, smiling to herself. “I’ve read in detective stories how the sleuth ran about a room, like a hound on the scent,—always like a hound on the scent. But he had something to detect,—some criminal of whom to hunt traces. I don’t believe the criminal was here in this room, so there can be no clues. Unless a note called Kim away,—that might be!”
She looked through the small writing case that lay on a table. But it held nothing but fresh stationery, stamps and so forth. It looked as if it had never been used.
“A present from somebody,” Elsie decided. “Nobody ever uses ’em!”
She glanced through some dresser drawers, but there was nothing out of order, nothing unusual, only the appointments of a man’s wardrobe.
Idly, Elsie tapped at the walls. She had no knowledge as to what sort of a sound revealed a secret passage and what sort meant a solid wall. But other and wiser people had thoroughly tested that point, and one and all declared there wasn’t a chance of a secret or concealed exit from the room.
And yet, Kimball had gone out of it, and had fastened the door behind him. Whether alone or accompanied, whether of his own volition or not, he had left the room that night, and had never been seen or heard of since.
The very impossibility of the case made it weird. But no belief in supernatural forces took root in Elsie’s brain.
“A clue,” she said to herself, over and over again. “I must find a clue! In books they search the floor,—I’ll search the floor.”
She did, going over it on her hands and knees. But the careful sweeping it had received had obliterated any footprints,—so beloved of writers of detective fiction! and had also removed any of the conventional shreds of cloth, ravellings or any such oft found bits of evidence.
However, the maid who did the sweeping was not entirely unique among her sort, for she had slighted her work when sweeping under the bed. There Elsie found some rolls of dust that would have roused Mrs. Webb’s ire had she known of their existence.
Elsie smiled at the thought that not even New England aristocrats can always command service beyond reproach, and after scanning the rug, as far as she could see, she rose from her knees.
One scrap caught her attention, and from beneath the bed she picked up a tiny twisted thing.
She carefully unfolded it, but it proved to be only a paper that had once contained a quill toothpick and that bore printed on it the name of a city restaurant.
Mechanically she twirled it in her fingers until the flimsy thing was a mere wad, and then she threw it into the waste-basket.
She lingered a moment at the chiffonier, sadness stealing over her heart as she looked at the prosaic, commonplace array of brushes and trays, and she felt a fresh pang as she noted the absence of Kimball’s best things, which, like her own ivory set, were packed for the wedding trip!
“And we’ll go on that wedding trip yet!” Elsie vowed in her heart. “I’m determined to find that man! He never left me voluntarily,—either Henrietta or Wallace Courtney hid him somewhere,—somehow! But I’ll find out where, and I’ll get him back. He’s mine,—my love, my own, and nobody shall take him from me!”
She went down stairs, slowly, thinking deeply as she went.
“I’ve decided,” she announced, as she rejoined the Webb ladies, “I’m going to get a detective,—the best one I can hear of, anywhere.”
“They’re very expensive,” Henrietta reminded her.
“I suppose that means you won’t shoulder any of the expense. Well, I’ll do it, then. My income will remain unchanged until my birthday, anyway, and I’ll use it all, if necessary, to get him back,—but I’ll get him back!”
CHAPTER IX
GERTY’S PLEA
But Elsie’s determination to get a special detective was not easily carried out. She visited several who were recommended to her by agencies, but none seemed sufficiently sure of success to make her willing to pay the large fees they demanded, irrespective of the outcome of their efforts.
In fact none seemed anxious to take up the case. They deemed it too difficult to locate the missing man, for they held the opinion, that he had been hidden with his own consent or at his own request.
One detective told Elsie plainly, that he had learned that Mr. Webb was entirely amenable to the advices of his mother and sister, and that as they so thoroughly disapproved of the marriage he contemplated, he had at last agreed to their views and had vanished the day of the projected wedding. He politely expressed his personal surprise at this state of things, and with an admiring glance at his would-be client, implied that, for his part, he didn’t see how Mr. Webb could have chosen more happily.
Disgusted at his impertinence, Elsie left him, and after a few more trials to find a detective who would take a real interest, aside from his financial reward, she gave up in despair.
“I thought it would be an easy matter to get a detective like they have in the stories,” she said to Gerty; “but they’re most of them stupid and indifferent.”
“Give up the idea that you’ll ever see Kimball again,” Gerty urged, “that is, before your birthday. There’s not the slightest doubt that Henrietta is at the bottom of the whole affair. Nobody else could be. Nobody from outside could get into the house and get Kim away. Henrietta could, of course, and then all the mysteries are explainable.”
“Explainable, how?”
“Why, after he left the house,—to go wherever they planned for him to go,—Henrietta could lock the street door for him.”
“And his room door,—locked from the inside?”
“Oh, that yarn isn’t true. Henrietta made it all up. She bribed the servants to keep it quiet, and she made up the whole story. It couldn’t be, you know, that he really got out of those locked doors. Unless you’re going over to Mrs. Webb’s Spirit theory!”
“Good gracious, no! But, she says she’s going to see a clairvoyant about Kimball, and she’ll find out the truth that way.”
“Poppycock! Of course she could learn nothing, but if she could, she would have done so long ago. It’s nearly three weeks now since that he’s been gone, and nobody has done one thing toward finding him. That proves the Webbs did it. If he had been kidnapped or killed, the police would have found it out. But the Webbs can keep him hidden indefinitely; and they’re going to do it, until after your birthday.”
“If they’ll give him back to me then,—I’ll be glad!”
“Elsie, don’t talk like that. And, dear, I wish you would look at the matter sensibly. You can’t mean to give up five million dollars—for a mere bit of sentiment—”
“Don’t call my love for Kimball a mere bit of sentiment! You don’t know what love means—”
“Don’t say that! I guess if your husband had been killed in the war, you’d—”
“Killed in the war! That’s a glorious fate! Philip died honourably, fighting for his country, and you can be proud of him! While I am not only deprived of my love, my mate, but I’ve no notion where he is, or what suffering he’s undergoing! Oh, Gerty, your sorrow is a great one, I know, but it’s nothing to mine!”
“You talk like a silly girl! You can’t feel the same about a lover as I do about a husband and the father of my children! And you can marry some one else,—you can look on Kimball merely as a dear memory—”
“You can marry some one else, too!”
“No; my heart is buried in my husband’s grave. Elsie, dear sister, try to look at these things from a rational point of view. Try to realize that sad as your lot seems at present, there’s happiness ahead, if you choose to accept it. No young girl can so love a man to whom she’s not married as to be inconsolable at his loss.”
“I can,” Elsie persisted, “and I do. And you can talk as long as you like, you’ll never persuade me that I could know a happy moment if I married any one else!”
“Then, dear, don’t you think you ought to sacrifice yourself for mother’s sake? She is so ill,—”
“One word for mother and two for yourself! You don’t fool me, Gerty, not for a minute! You want me to marry because if I don’t we’ll lose Aunt Elizabeth’s money! Why not speak out and say so!”
“Very well, I do, then! And it’s quite as much for your sake as for mine! You don’t know what it will mean to leave this place to live in some little cramped flat, and to work for your living,—unless, indeed, you think of depending on Joe Allison for charity?”
“I don’t,—you know I don’t! But I’d work myself into my grave before I’d marry a man I didn’t love! I can’t even think about it—it makes me so indignant that you can suggest it!”
“That’s the natural feeling, dear, but your case is so different from most girls’. Try to see it clearly. The income of five millions and all the comfort that means, against the sufferings and discomforts that poverty brings. And think not only of yourself, but of mother—”
“Yes! and Gerty; Gerty first, last and all the time!”
“Then, all I have to say is,—you’re a very selfish girl.”
The discussions always wound up like this. Gerty took occasion nearly every day to repeat her accusations of selfishness, to impress on Elsie her duty to her invalid mother; to refer to her own two little children and her own inability to do any work, having the care of them; and eternally did she harp on the fact that since Elsie had not been married to Webb, her grief was merely a temporary regret for a man to whom she had been engaged, which, Gerty held, was an episode that might occur in any girl’s life.
None of the arguments had any weight with Elsie, except the charge of selfishness. She was not selfish: she had always given lavishly of her wealth to her family and to her friends and to various charities. There was not a selfish impulse in Elsie Powell’s soul. And here was a very strong sense of duty and of obligation to her own people.
She did not go so far as to think of marrying any one but Kimball,—that determination was, as yet, unshakable,—but she tried with all her might to think of some other way out.
Yet there was none. She had been to see one of the trustees, who had her aunt’s estate in charge, and he had declared there was no possible loophole. If Elsie was not married when she became twenty-four years old, the entire property would revert to Joe Allison.
“A pretty hard place that young man’s in!” said Mr. Thorne, the trustee; “he naturally has no ill feelings toward you, but if he’s human he can’t help wishing he might inherit all the money. So, he’s doubtless breathlessly awaiting developments, and every day that passes without any word from Kimball Webb brings Allison one day nearer to his inheritance. I suppose you’ve told him of your decision not to marry any one else?”
“Oh, yes,” said Elsie, “I’ve told everybody of that. I thought if the Webbs were made to believe that, they might give up and let Kimball come back.”
“Why do you think they know where he is?”
“Who else could know? And if they find out that I shall marry him when he does return, they may think that he might better marry a rich girl than a poor one.”
“They have no desire for money,” Mr. Thorne remarked. “I live next door to the Webbs, I’ve known them for years, and they’re among the few people I know who really and honestly scorn money. They think great wealth is vulgar, and though they require and have enough to live very comfortably, they’ve absolutely no desire for more.”
“I know that,” Elsie sighed. “And I’m not so awfully keen for money myself,—not at all, compared to love and happiness! But I’ve people dependent on me. That is, my mother and my sister and her children have no home except what I give them from my inheritance. And if I give that up, what can we all do?”
“That’s a grave question, my dear, and if you’ll listen to my advice, I suggest that you marry before your birthday. You’ll be glad in after years that you did so, even though you dread the idea just now.”
“Everybody says the same thing,” Elsie rose to go; “but I’m not obliged to take the advice. I think I can trust Mr. Allison to provide for my mother, and Gerty can marry again. There’s no reason she shouldn’t marry for money, if it’s the thing for me to do!”
“That’s quite different, my dear. Mrs. Seaman is a widow, and her husband’s memory is too dear to her—”
“Oh, hush! I get so tired of that argument! Let me tell you, Kimball Webb’s memory is as dear to me as if he had been my husband for a thousand years! And I shall never marry any one else,—never!”
Fenn Whiting continued to interest himself in the search for the missing Webb. He followed up the proceedings of the detective, Hanley, and brought reports, unsatisfactory as they were, to the Powell family.
“I feel embarrassed about it all,” Whiting said to Gerty, in Elsie’s absence, “for, truly, I love Elsie enough to want her to get Webb back and marry him. But if he never turns up,—and I don’t believe he ever will,—I don’t mind telling you that I haven’t given up hope of yet winning Elsie for myself. But not before her birthday. I’m not a fortune-hunter, and rather than be thought so, I’d really rather take her without the money, than with it.”
“But it would mean so much to her,” demurred Gerty.
“Yes, and to all of you. I’ve a good income, and it would be entirely at Elsie’s disposal, and I know her well enough to know how she would feel toward her family. But, my income isn’t a princely one, and so, the matter of the inheritance would be up to Elsie herself. I’d be thankful if she’d marry me, say in a year, or after she gives up her last hope of ever seeing Kimball again. Do you think she’d do that, Gerty? do you?”
Whiting was very much in earnest, and indeed, it was easy to believe in his great love for Elsie. He said little to her about it, but when in her presence he watched her with an expression of devotion that seemed all the greater for being untold.
He was at the house one afternoon, when Elsie came in, bringing Joe Allison with her.
Gerty opened the subject of the inheritance, making no secret of her opinion that Elsie ought to marry before her birthday.
“It’s hard on you, Joe,” she said, for they had all learned to like young Allison. “But the fortune is rightfully Elsie’s,—Aunt Powell merely put in that alternative clause to make sure Elsie married. And but for Kimball’s strange absence all would have gone well, you wouldn’t even have thought about being a millionaire.”
“That’s so,” and Joe smiled, grimly. “But, I say, the thought that I may be one, has taken hold of me. I’m only human, after all, and I’d like a fortune as well as the next one! Oh, I suppose it would be more noble to say I don’t want it,—and all that,—but I do. That is, if it comes to me squarely. I want Elsie to get her man back, and be happy. Or, I want her to marry some other man—if she wants to. But, if Elsie, of her own free will, gives up that bunch of ducats, I’m mighty glad that it will then come my way! There, honesty is the worst policy, I daresay, but it’s mine.”
“Good for you, Joe,” Elsie smiled at him. “I like your frank statement, and it is, as you say, only human nature to feel that way.”
“But, Joe,” Gerty began, “how about some kind of a compromise? Why can’t you and Elsie make a compact, that if Elsie gets the money she’ll give you a good slice, and if you get it, you’ll give her—”
“Nothing doing!” Allison cried; “that isn’t cricket, and, besides, I know Elsie well enough to know that she doesn’t want charity.”
“Not for herself, maybe—” but Elsie interrupted her sister:
“No, nor for any one else. You’ve proposed all sorts of plans, Gert, but this last is about the worst of all! I may ask you, Joe, to look after mother a bit, but not unless you’re glad to do it!”
“Oh, pshaw, Elsie, you know I’ll do the right thing by her. But, here’s the truth: I don’t suppose it’s the time to say it,—but I do want you all to know it,—and Mr. Whiting, too.”
Joe looked at Whiting with a glance of hesitation and then proceeded.
“It’s this way: if Elsie doesn’t marry by her birthday,—the thirtieth of next month, the money comes to me. Well, suppose Elsie marries me, the day after her birthday!”
Elsie gasped; Fenn Whiting laughed outright, and Gerty exclaimed quickly, “Why not the day before?”
“No, sir!” retorted Joe. “I love Elsie. I want her for my wife, and I’ll be glad to share the fortune with her, if she marries me. But my independence, my manhood, my whole better judgment calls out for the ownership of the fortune myself. I’ll gladly settle a big sum on her, she shall have all the allowance she wants, she shall do as she pleases, unquestioned and unconditionally, but I think I don’t care to be dependent on a rich wife! Any man worth his salt, would feel that way about it.”
“Joe, you are too funny for anything!” and Elsie laughed in spite of her shocked amazement.
“I am, am I? Well, I don’t care what you think I am, Elsie, if you’ll marry me. This is a queer way to propose, I know, but it’s a queer situation.”
“It’s all that!” agreed Whiting. “And, as I’ve proposed to Elsie many times in the past, and in more appropriate circumstances, I’ll also take this occasion to renew my plea that she’ll marry me,—the day after her birthday.”
“Why, then she’d lose the money!” cried Gerty.
“Yes, but I can’t ask her to marry me in time to save the money! That would stamp me a fortune-seeker. I love Elsie for herself alone, and she knows it. This proposal, here and now, is so that you others will understand the situation.”
“Well, I’m the most proposed to girl in the city, I do believe,” and Elsie smiled at both her suitors as at two blundering children. “But you see, gentlemen, I’ve no intention of marrying anybody. As Joe has tacitly agreed to look after mother, and as I can look after myself, I propose to live in single blessedness till Kimball comes home, if it’s my whole lifetime. I’m sorry, Gerty, that I can’t sacrifice myself for you and the babies—but—oh, Gerty, dearest, don’t!”
For Gerty had dropped her face in her hands and was crying silently.
“You must forgive me,” she sobbed; “I’m not mercenary, but when I think of those two dear little innocent children, with no home, no means,—oh, Elsie, how can you?”
“I can’t!” declared Elsie, her arms round her sister. “But, what can I do? I wish I knew,—Oh, I am the most miserable girl in the world!”
She ran from the room, and after a few minutes Joe Allison went away.
“I thought he’d prove more generous,” Whiting said to Gerty.
“I understand him,” Gerty replied. “He thinks if he offers to settle a large sum on us, Elsie won’t marry him. And if he holds off, she may.”
“Yes, I see that, but I say, Gerty, I don’t want him to marry Elsie!”
“Well, I do! It would fix everything all right, and everybody’d be happy.”
“Except Elsie! She couldn’t stand a life with that kid!”
“Oh, he’s as old as she is. He’s not quite our sort, but he’s a nice chap, and Elsie could twist him round her finger.”
“But I want Elsie myself. She’d be happy with me—I could make her forget Kim. Allison never could do that.”
“Well, marry her before the birthday, and it will be all right.”
“If I can get her to consent, I will. But before or after her birthday, I want her just the same. I’ll tell you what, Gerty, you marry young Allison, and let him have the money, and after that,—I mean after the birthday is past, I’ll hope to get Elsie to take me.”
“You don’t think Kimball will ever come back, then?”
“Not till after Elsie is married. There’s no solution, Gerty, but that the Webbs know where he is. Doubtless, tucked away in some comfortable place, working on his play. They’re so sure Elsie will marry, to get the money, they expect he’ll be ready to return right after her birthday.”
“You think he went willingly?”
“I think he let Henrietta and his mother persuade him. He’s under Henrietta’s thumb, you know, and always has been.”
“That’s not fair, Fenn. Kimball’s a strong character.”
“So’s Henrietta. She’s the only one in the world who can rule him.”
It was the day after this confab, that a stranger called on Elsie.
She willingly saw him, for she had always a lurking hope that news of Kimball might come from some unexpected quarter.
So she entered the little reception room, where strangers were entertained, and saw what seemed at first to be a shy, shock-headed youth.
But a second glance revealed that the apparent shyness was merely the quiet air of a thoughtful man, and the shock-headedness resolved itself into a peculiar way of wearing his hair.
The unusually thick crop of light brown was cut short behind and at the sides, but over the man’s brow the long locks stood out straight and then fell over, not like a thatch, but like a long marquise over a doorway! Elsie was fascinated by the effect. The thick tresses waved and bobbed as the owner of them smiled at her.
“May I have a talk with you?” he said, impulsively.
“Certainly,” she said, smiling in spite of her amazement. “May I ask your business?”
“Yes, indeed; that’s what I came to tell you. I’m a Stirrer Up of Sleeping Dogs.”
“I—I beg your pardon?”
“Unusual profession, yes. But I’m a whale at it! Now, it’s this way, Miss Powell. I read the papers, and I see a lot of funny things; I don’t mean humorous, but queer,—inexplicable,—questionable. And, often they’re things that ought to be investigated,—and aren’t. Aren’t,—because somebody doesn’t want them to be,—although they should be! Well, I don’t believe in letting sleeping dogs lie. So, I go around and stir them up. See? Simple enough!”
“A detective?”
“I don’t call myself that,—for I’m not at the beck and call of the populace. I don’t accept invitations to stir up the dogs, but when I feel enough interest, I go and ask permission to do so.”
“Oh, I’m glad you came!” cried Elsie, fervently. “I believe you’re the right man at last.”
“I’m the right man, all right. And, if I may, I’ll begin to stir at once.”
“Oh, do! But, wait a minute,—Mr.—Mr.?”
“Coe, Miss Powell. Coleman Coe,—called Coley Coe, of course.”
“I was going to say, Mr. Coe, are your services very expensive?”
“Depends on time, place, degree and manner of the work, and more than that, on the results. No results, no pay. Results,—pay accordingly.”
“Begin to stir, then,” said Elsie, with a straight glance into the honest eyes that had already gained her trust. “You know the case.”
“I know all that has been in the papers; all I could glean from gunning around among people; and I’ve a few stirring ideas of my own. Let’s work together, shall us?” And the brown marquise shook eagerly.
“To a finish!” exclaimed Elsie.
CHAPTER X
COLEY COE
Nearly every evening Coley Coe came to report to Elsie.
The first time that he met the other members of the Powell family he quite took them by storm. His big, blue eyes had a frank, even impudent stare, but his smile was so winning and his laugh so spontaneous that it was impossible to be otherwise than friendly toward him.
“Awful glad to meet you, Mrs. Powell,” he said, shaking hands cordially, “and I want to congratulate you on your daughter. Miss Powell’s a wonder! How? Oh, in every way, but especially in having a sense of humour. So few girls do, nowadays!”
Coley spoke as a man of wide experience, though as a matter of fact, he was only about Elsie’s age himself. “And you have, too,” he went on, seeing the twinkle in Mrs. Powell’s eyes. “I suppose it runs in the family.”
“You’re likely to find out,” said Elsie, as Gerty came into the room and Coleman was presented to her.
Another of the young man’s comprehensive glances seemed to gather Gerty into his acquaintance, and after pleasant greetings he said, “Now, we’re all acquainted, and ready to begin work.”
He trotted around the room, selected the chair he preferred, and pulling out the smallest from a nest of little tables, placed it in front of him, and produced a notebook and pencil.
“I don’t want to know the facts or details of the case, for I know all those,” he said, “I want to find some sleeping dogs to stir up. By which, I mean,” his wavy mop of hair shook over his forehead as he explained, “I want to get sidelights, I want to find out things that you people know of, that others don’t,—I want your opinions, your suspicions, your ideas,—no matter how absurd they may seem.”
Coe’s eyes were of that intense, yet light, China blue, that is said by physiognomists to denote the vagabond character. And vagabond partly describes the boy’s nature. Not that he was one, but his temperament was roving, erratic, receptive and of wide interests. He saw everything that came within the vision of those alert blue eyes, and most things he saw he understood at once; if not, he kept at them until he did.
“Suspects, for instance,” he went on. “Whom do you suspect?” and he turned suddenly to Mrs. Powell.
“Gracious! I don’t know,—” the good lady replied, flustered at his attack.
“But there must be somebody,—that seems to you a possible factor in the removal of Mr. Webb. Somebody, of whom you would say, if that person proved to be the criminal, ‘I thought so!’ Isn’t there, now?”
“No,” said Mrs. Powell, but she spoke hesitantly.
“There! you’ve proved there is, by your tone. Come, now, who is it?”
“The Webbs,” said Mrs. Powell, speaking sharply. “I don’t say I’m right, but I can’t get it out of my head, that they know where Kimball is.”
“That’s the ticket!” Coley smiled at her.
“I’ve got to get a line on this thing. Now, Mrs. Seaman, your suspect is—”
“Wallace Courtney,” Gerty declared. “I’d suspect the Webbs, but I can’t think they’d want all the opprobrium of the cancelled wedding party and all the unpleasant notoriety that it caused—”
“A lot they cared for that!” exclaimed Elsie.
“Go on, Mrs. Seaman,” urged Coe. “You think that Mr. Courtney—”
“I think he somehow arranged to have Kimball Webb kidnapped,” Gerty said, positively; “I don’t know how he accomplished it, but you see, he just learned that very evening, that Mr. Webb’s play was so nearly like his own and much farther along. He realized that Kimball’s play would be done and produced before his own could be finished, and he was desperate. He knew he couldn’t do anything after the wedding, so he made a grand dash and put Kimball out of the way at once.”
“How?” cried Elsie, looking scornful.
“Never mind that side of it for the moment, Miss Powell,” Coley Coe shook his forelock at her and smiled. “I’m going to find out the manner of the exit, but first I want to find the guilty man.”
“The guilty man is a woman,” Mrs. Powell persisted, “two women, in fact.”
A blue-eyed smile from Coe quieted her, and Gerty went on, “I know Wallace Courtney pretty well, and he’s a man who, with all his quiet ways is a firebrand at heart. If he wants a thing, everything else must give way. He is unconventional and lawless. He cares nothing for appearances,—why, look at him! He’s practically living with Lulie Lloyd,—”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Elsie broke in, “he merely took rooms in that same house, to be quiet for his work and to have the services of Lulie. I went there, you know. Mrs. Lloyd lives with Lulie,—and, too, there’s nothing that interests Wallace Courtney but his play. He is bound up in it, and, as Gerty says, he would sacrifice everything,—his reputation, or Lulie’s either,—if it would help him along with his work.”