The sinister mark

Peter Clancy Changes His Plans—

And again, as Peter made his swift way to the station, the question which had been hammering in his brain took another form—"How much can I keep from telling Morris? How much can I keep to myself till I can think things out? It's absurd, Pete! It can't be, and yet—if—if——" And again: "How much can I keep from telling Morris?"

The answer to the question which was uppermost in Peter's rapid thoughts was destined, within the next few minutes, to be influenced in a most unexpected manner. He had scarcely entered the little old smelly waiting room of the Hobart Falls station, when, at the sound of his footsteps on the bare boards, a man looked out of the little grated ticket-window, the same man who had replied to his inquiry as to telegrams on the previous evening.

"There's a wire here for you now, if your name's Clancy, Peter Clancy," the agent said, turning back to refer to a yellow sheet of paper which lay beside the telegraph instrument. "That was the name you said last night, wasn't it? It's just come in, not five minutes ago. Night letter. Sign here, please."

He slipped the telegram and a thumbed pad through below the grating, watching Peter curiously the while. Evidently the residents of Hobart Falls were not used to receiving night letters.

Peter scrawled his name on the pad, and hastily catching up the telegram, he went swiftly over to the window. What had happened? What new complication——

The telegram was written out in the operator's none too legible hand. It was maddening, for, not very far away, Peter could hear his train, whistling for a crossing. And he wanted to get back to town—to talk to O'Malley—to think.

Slowly, perforce, he puzzled out the unpunctuated sentences:

The train thundered into the station and out again, but Peter took no notice. His plans had undergone a complete change. The agent, who was also the expressman as well as the telegraph operator, was surprised to find the intending passenger still there though not so much so as he would have been if he, himself, had not received the queer telegram. He was somewhat prepared for the question with which the stranger greeted his reappearance.

"What's the next train for Fennimore Park?" Peter asked, quickly.

"Ain't no train for there on this line," answered the agent, helpfully. "Ye have t' go back to the junction and ketch the Mountain Express there. Ye should have taken number fifty-three down," he jerked his head in the direction of the rapidly receding rumble.

Peter's silence was more profane than any speech. Then a sudden thought struck him. He threw a withering glance at the indifferent agent, and jumped to the door opposite to the one on the platform. He was just in time to see a tired flivver strolling slowly down the dusty road.

"Josh!" he yelled, at the top of his voice. "Josh!"

His lungs were strong, and his intent was sincere. Slowly the old car came to a standstill and the driver, craning his long neck, looked back down the road.

"Ye want me?" he bellowed.

Peter answered with a peremptory wave of the hand. The creaking car turned in a cloud of dust, and came slowly back.

"How far is it to Fennimore Park from here?" Peter asked, as soon as it came within reasonable calling distance.

"Pretty clost to twenty mile," said Josh, promptly. "Why?"

"Is the old boat good for it?" Peter eyed the poor old car with some disfavour.

"Ye betcha she is," said Josh, enthusiastically. "I told ye, she's the best car in town. Want I should take ye there? I'll do it fer five."

Peter wasted no more time. He jumped, bag and all, into the back seat. "Shoot!" was all he said.

He was silent for almost the entire way—thinking—thinking—thinking——

The old car bumped and skidded over the mountain roads, and groaned and laboured up the long, rough hills. Peter kept himself in by clinging to the iron braces of the top, but aside from these automatic efforts at self-preservation he was practically unconscious of the way they went.

A strange thought had come to him in Walter Lord's old photograph studio. A thought so odd and bizarre that at first it seemed absolutely impossible and insane. And then he began piecing things together. Bit by bit, apparently unconnected scraps of information were fitted together, now this way and now that. Once, making sure that the driver was completely occupied with the difficulties of the winding road, Peter took from his pocket the letter he had appropriated. ("Stolen, dammit!" he thought, disgustedly. "Mine's a hell of a job for a decent man. But if I could prove, even to myself——") He looked long and wonderingly at the letter before he slipped it back into an inner pocket.

"Mary, apparently, took no clothes at all," he thought, going back for the thousandth time over the old ground, "and Anne took a big trunk.... Well, that would fit—either way.... The large sum of money, left at the bank, subject to Anne's order as well as Mary's.... Yes—either way.... But the blood on the scarf—and on the floor.... I don't see—unless.... By George! I'll bet——"

The driver heard his passenger slap his leg with a resounding thwack. He turned his head slightly. "Mosquito?" he threw over his shoulder. "Did ye git him?"

"No. Yes—I'm not sure," said Peter, coming, confusedly, back to the present. "How far are we now from Fennimore Park? And do we pass through any town on the way?" he added, his mind reverting to immediate necessities.

"We'll be there inside of twenty minutes," Josh answered the questions in order, "and we pass through Tollenville about a mile this side. 'S quite a big place. Why?"

"Think I could get yesterday's New York papers anywhere there?" asked Peter. "Must keep up with the times, you know."

"Oh, sure ye can," said Josh, easily. "Must have 'em at the Tollen House, I should think. I'd like t' stop there, anyway," and he drew the back of his hand, in a suggestive gesture, across his mouth.

"All right," said Peter, with a comprehending grin. "If it's that kind of a place I may get the paper I want. So don't forget to stop."

"I won't," said Josh, with evident sincerity, and Peter retired again into his thoughts.

It seemed to him not many minutes later when they pulled up in front of a big, ugly red brick hotel with many wooden porches and gay, striped awnings.

"Tollen House," remarked Josh, briefly, and disappeared around the corner of the building.

Peter entered the lobby and anxiously enquired for the New York Evening Earth of yesterday's date. One was found for him, much to his satisfaction. He gave the porter, who brought it to him, a generous tip, and dashed out to the poor old waiting "Lizzie," which looked more weary and woebegone than ever.

Josh was nowhere in sight, and while Peter waited he ran a quick and practised eye over the paper.

"No wonder Donald Morris was in the devil of a stew," he thought, as he absorbed the principal article on the front page, with its blatant headlines and its large half-tone picture of Mary Blake. "Wonder if he could think our office would be guilty of letting his name appear! Gee! that would be a rotten thing for a client. 'Absence first discovered by Donald Morris, son of Steven Morris, and heir to the Morris millions'," he read, disgustedly. "Dammit all! It's a beastly shame. I'll bet his house was besieged by reporters before the story had been on the street ten minutes. Nobody could have leaked but Jones, confound him! Bound to get some publicity for his leading lady, whether she liked it or not, and a lot for himself into the bargain. 'Frederick Jones, Miss Blake's manager, interviewed,' and in pretty good-sized type, too. Oh, damn!"

At that moment Josh returned. Wiping his mouth with a soiled red handkerchief, he took his place at the wheel. "Some hooch!" he remarked, with a wise, sidelong wink, and the car started laboriously up the road.

Peter, still looking at the offending paper, rapidly formulated his defence as they crawled up the steep mountain side. The roadbed here was of red shale, smooth and well tended, a strong contrast to the back roads they had been traversing. Soon they came to a great rough stone gateway and a lodge. They were held up here, while the lodge keeper telephoned the Atterbury cottage, where, he said, Mr. Donald Morris was stopping.

"It's all right. You can go right up, sir," he said, returning after a moment. "Do you know where it is? Well, you take the first turn to the right after you pass the inn, and it's the last house before you come to the church. You can't miss it. Thank you, sir."

"Some style," grumbled Josh, as the car moved away. "Would ye think this was once a free country?" He addressed the world at large, and Peter did not trouble to answer. He had too much to think about even to notice the exquisite woodland park through which they were passing; the great old mossy trees, the broad red road, the ferns and wild flowers, the primitive forest, broken here and there by wide velvet lawns and low, broad, picturesque cottages. He was the first, however, to realize that they had reached their journey's end.

"There's the church, Josh," he said, "and this will be the house. Drive in and wait a minute till I make sure."

He sprang up the two low steps almost before the old car had stopped, and in a second returned and slipped a bill and some jingling coins into Josh's outstretched hand. "More hooch," he explained the coins with a wink, and Josh trundled away with a large admiration of his "fare" in his leathery old heart.

The servant, from whom Peter had made his inquiries, again met him at the door as he crossed the porch.

"Mrs. Atterbury would like to see you before you go up to Mr. Morris, if you please, sir," he said in a soft, tired voice, and led the way through a living room which seemed endless to Peter, and out on to another wide veranda. "Mr. Clancy, 'm," he announced, in a tone which disclaimed all responsibility for so plebeian a name, and softly vanished, leaving Peter face to face with Mrs. Francis Atterbury.

It was an ill moment for poor Peter, judging by the lady's expression.

"Mr. Clancy," she said, motioning slightly to a chair near the one in which she was seated. "This is a most unfortunate circumstance. My brother is quite overcome. He's really ill, yet I had to drag him up here, almost by force, last night. The reporters were simply besieging the house, and my brother was so nervously unstrung that I had to call in a doctor. I've seen it coming for a long time, and that terrible article in the paper yesterday was the last straw. You've seen it, I suppose?" Her eyes narrowed as she keenly regarded Peter, and there was a drawing together of her handsome eyebrows which boded ill for him if he could not assure her of his innocence in the matter.

"I had a wire from my partner early this morning," Peter replied, with the calm of conscious rectitude, "and I was able to get the paper at Tollenville on my way over. That was absolutely the first I knew that the story had leaked out. You must see, Mrs. Atterbury, from the tone of the entire article, that my office could not possibly have given it to the papers. A firm of detectives couldn't last long, if it was as leaky as that. I will admit," he added, candidly, "that I advised Mr. Morris some time ago that our best bet was to give out the story so as to get the help of the general public in tracing Miss Blake—and her sister. You sometimes get information that way that you can't get by private inquiry. We would have been able, through personal connection with the papers, to keep Mr. Morris's name entirely out of it. I urged it on him several times, but he couldn't see it that way, and I was forced to give it up. We are acting entirely in Mr. Morris's interests"—he said this gravely, and with a dignity which was very convincing—"and my office would not go contrary to his wishes in any particular. I must ask you and Mr. Morris to believe this."

"Well," conceded Helena Atterbury, unbending slightly, "I suppose I must take your word for it, Mr. Clancy. My brother seems to have a great deal of confidence in you. But I can't think—I can't see how Mr. Jones could have done such a thing. I believe your partner told Mr. Morris that the story could only have come from him. Why, I've entertained him at my house. He accepted my hospitality, and——"

"Mrs. Atterbury," Peter interrupted, with a shake of his head, "I'm afraid you don't understand what lengths people will go to for the sake of advertising. They seem to lose all sense of decency sometimes. I knew it was a risk to let Frederick Jones in on the game, but there were certain things we had to know and he was bound, being her manager, to find out sooner or later, probably sooner than later, that she'd disappeared. I hope you can see that we had no choice."

Helena Atterbury, in spite of her annoyance at the contretemps, could not fail to be impressed by the ingenuous sincerity of the young detective's speech and manner. Her voice had lost much of its icy hauteur when she spoke again.

"Well, I won't detain you any longer, Mr. Clancy," she said, rising. "Mr. Morris is anxious to see you. He is in a very bad nervous condition, and I know you will be careful." Her natural, woman's anxiety spoke in her voice and eyes, and her natural, woman's curiosity prompted her to question: "Did you find out anything new yesterday? Can you give my brother any hope that——"

"I don't know, any more than I did before, where Miss Blake is, Mrs. Atterbury," he said, frankly. "But I did find out some things—some things that I hope may prove of value. It was only last night and this morning that I got hold of the information, and I haven't had time really to think it out. But I will say this much to you, Mrs. Atterbury: for almost the first time since I took the case I have hope. I really feel that I have definite hope."

His clear, bright blue Irish eyes looked straight into hers, and Helena Atterbury's distaste and distrust melted slowly away.

"I pray, for my brother's sake, that your hopes are well founded, Mr. Clancy," she said. "Come. I'll take you up to him."