CHAPTER XXI
—And Asks a Question
Peter found his client comfortably ensconced in a long, swinging couch on a wide porch on the second floor. He looked pale and worn and appeared nervously exhausted, but his tired eyes lighted a little as Peter came through the bedroom door.
Helena Atterbury tactfully left them alone at once, and Peter was glad to find that there was little difficulty in convincing Donald Morris that he and his staff were in no way responsible for the newspaper article which had caused so much pain and annoyance.
"I wouldn't have had it leak out for the world," said Donald, anxiously. "Mrs. Atterbury was furious about the reporters coming to the house, but I wouldn't have minded that so much. What knocked me up completely was the thought of how it would affect Mary. Somehow, that just bowled me over, Clancy. I'm ashamed to say I went all to pieces. You see, her letter to me—well, I'm sure, no matter what happened, she wanted me to wait—to wait till I heard from her."
"By the way," said Peter, leaning suddenly forward in his low wicker chair, "that letter—have you got it with you? or anywhere handy? I'd like to look at it again. There's something I want to make sure of——"
A quality in Peter's voice caused Morris to look up at him quickly.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Have you found out something new? Did you get hold of anything at Hobart Falls yesterday? It seems the most unlikely place in the world, and I haven't the least idea why you went there."
"I did—and I didn't," answered Peter, non-committally. "As I just told your sister, I don't know, any more than I did before, where Miss Blake has gone. But I did come across something—something that may help. Have you got the letter?"
Morris, regarding him with serious, puzzled eyes, put his hand into an inner pocket and drew out a leather case. Silently he opened it, extracted a letter and handed it to Peter, intently watching the face of the young detective.
Peter looked at the letter long and earnestly. He read it through carefully, from the folded page at the beginning to the end. Neither of them spoke. In the silence, a low murmur of voices came up to them from the porch beneath, a question in a servant's controlled tone, and a slightly louder answer from Mrs. Atterbury, but neither of the men heard or heeded.
Peter folded the letter and handed it back to Donald.
"You'd better keep it," he said, slowly. "I'll ask you for it again, later."
"Very well," said Donald, carefully replacing the letter. "And now, tell me, Clancy, for God's sake, what it was you discovered at Hobart Falls?"
"Well," said Peter, deliberately, "it wasn't so much, you may say. But there's one thing I know you will be interested to learn: I have found out positively what Miss Blake's own name really is."
"Her own name?" repeated Morris. "And in such an unlikely place?"
"Yes," answered Peter. "It does seem strange, but I can assure you that I'm correct. Her name is Curwood."
"Curwood," Donald echoed. "Curwood."
"Yes," said Peter. "That's the name. I verified it carefully, and you may be sure——" Suddenly he started violently, and his hand shot up in a warning gesture. He leaned close to Morris, and whispered in his ear: "What——Who is that?"
A voice had come up to them from the porch below. What it said was commonplace to a degree. Donald could see no possible reason for the detective's evident excitement.
"Good morning, Helena, dear," the voice said. "I'm so glad you're here once more. I only just heard——"
There was the sound of a chair scraping on the tiled floor, and Mrs. Atterbury said something in a cordial tone.
"Who is it?" Peter repeated, insistently. "Who is that down there?"
"Why," said Morris, looking at Peter in astonishment, "why, that must be Aunt Kate. Nobody else has a voice like that," and he shook his head with a whimsical half smile. "What in the world——"
"Speak low," said Peter, anxiously. "I don't want to miss——"
Again the voice came up to them:
"Did Donald come up with you, Helena? I saw that thing in the paper, and somebody told me——"
Followed a low murmur in reply from Mrs. Atterbury.
"Who is it?" Peter asked again, excitement apparent in every line of his face. "A relative? What is her name? Her full name?"
"No, not a relative," Donald answered, bewildered by Peter's obvious agitation. "We've always called her that. Her name is Rutherford, Kate Rutherford."
"Good God!" said Peter, starting to his feet. "Rutherford!" Under his breath he whispered to himself—"The voice! The voice over the wire. I'm sure, certain. There can be no mistake. I knew I'd recognize it if ever——"
"What is the matter, Clancy?" Donald had thrown aside the rug under which he had been lying, and had dropped his feet to the floor. "What do you know of——"
Peter interrupted sharply with:
"I want to meet her. I must meet her, Morris. Fix it for me. It's essential I should meet her at once. There's no time to explain. She may go—oh, for the love of——Mr. Morris, I give you my word that I'm not crazy—and I must see and talk to Mrs. Rutherford!"
Staggered by the other's impetuosity, Donald got slowly to his feet.
"Wait, wait just a moment," he said, passing his hand over his forehead. "I don't understand, but of course—what shall I tell her?"
"Just say you heard her voice and came down to see her," whispered Peter. "Introduce me as a friend—if," he added, with an anxious, questioning look, "if you think you can go that far."
Morris looked him steadily in the eyes. Then he nodded slightly. Placing his hand on Peter's shoulder, he said, "I think I can go that far, Clancy. Come on."
Peter felt Morris's weight on his shoulder as they descended the stairs, but by the time they had reached the lower porch he was erect and master of himself.
Mrs. Atterbury started up in surprise as the two men came through the door, but her brother gave her a warning look, and she subsided into her chair without a word, though her eyes said plainly, "What in the world is Don bringing that detective here for?"
He ignored their puzzled question, and advanced with a smile to the visitor.
"Good to see you again, Aunt Kate," he said, cordially, as he took her hand, and leaning over, kissed her on the cheek. "It was bully of you to come down so soon."
Peter, who was directly behind him, did not see the visitor until Donald stepped back, and said:
"Will you let me present my friend, Mr. Peter Clancy—Mrs. Rutherford."
Then Peter saw, seated in a high-backed Indian chair, as on a throne, a magnificent old lady whose impressive presence and mien were scarcely affected by the great weight of flesh which seemed to billow all about her.
She spoke to him at once, in a voice deep, clear, and resonant. "I'm glad to meet any friend of Donald's," was all she said, but her exquisite enunciation made of the commonplace sentence a thing of beauty.
Morris, observantly following Peter's lead, sat down and joined in the quiet, ordinary, everyday conversation. The weather and everybody's health came in for their stereotyped share. Peter, watching, was quite sure they had interrupted a more intimate talk between the two women. He guessed what its subject had been but knew that it would not be resumed in the presence of a stranger.
How was he, himself, to get an opportunity for a private conversation with Mrs. Rutherford, the necessity for which was uppermost in his thoughts? And who was she, anyway? That she was a personage there could be no doubt. Peter racked his brains to remember if he had ever heard of her, to no purpose. She was of a previous generation, but a personality like that——
Unconsciously, Mrs. Rutherford proceeded to enlighten him. He was so preoccupied that he only caught his own name in the middle of a sentence:
"And Mr. Clancy, judging by his name and appearance," she was saying, "ought to enjoy the story as much as I did. We're both Irish, aren't we, Mr. Clancy? As you may possibly know, my name was Rohan once upon a time, and——"
Rohan. Kate Rohan! Something clicked in Peter's brain. Who, even of his comparative youth, had not heard of the old Athenæum Company, and of Kate Rohan, its planet among stars? So! That accounted for—much—the gracious presence, the wonderful voice—and many, many things besides, Peter thought.
He missed, almost completely, the amusing Irish story, told with a delicate, subtle brogue and a perfect inflection, but he heard just enough to join spontaneously in the laugh which irresistibly followed.
At the end of the story Mrs. Rutherford rose majestically, and like a great ship getting under way, started toward the door.
"I must be going, Helena," she said, holding out her still beautiful hand. "I'm coming to see you and Don very soon again. Take care of yourself, Don, and," with a little quick shake of the head as she put her hand in his, "don't worry about things, my dear. There's nothing really worth wasting a lot of expensive worry upon."
"I'll see you to your car, Aunt Kate," said Morris, placing his hand under her elbow.
She turned on him at that, and drew herself up with a little laugh. "I'd have you know, Donald, that I walked down here and intend to walk back," she said, proudly.
"But, Aunt Kate!"
"Yes, my dear. The doctor says that if I don't take some gentle exercise I'll spoil my figure" (she pronounced it "figgah"), "to say nothing of having another heart attack. And he calls walking up the mountain 'gentle exercise'! To be sure, I take it slowly, but whu-u-u——!" She drew a long breath and let it go in a tragic sigh, but her eyes were full of an inextinguishable humour.
"Are you going to be long here, Mr. Clancy?" she asked, turning to say "good-bye" to Peter, who stood close beside her.
"I don't quite know," replied Peter, quietly. "It will depend a good deal on circumstances. I ought to go back to town this afternoon, but I haven't been around the—the Park much yet, and I promised myself I'd see something of it—only Don"—(he referred thus familiarly to his host without the flicker of an eyelash)—"you see, Don doesn't feel quite up to going about with me, and——"
Quick as a flash Donald Morris intuitively caught Peter's intention. He did not know what the reason might be, but he grasped the fact that there was some unknown necessity for Clancy to see Mrs. Rutherford alone. So completely had the young detective won his confidence that this was enough for him.
"I do feel a bit seedy, Aunt Kate, and that's a fact," he said, promptly, "and Peter's just crazy to stretch those long legs of his. Take pity on him, there's a dear, and let him go along with you." Again he ignored the questioning, perplexed glance of his sister, who stood just behind Mrs. Rutherford. "The road up to Mrs. Rutherford's cottage is the loveliest thing in the park, Peter. When you've seen that, you'll agree with me that it's one of the most paintable bits in America."
"Are you a painter, Mr. Clancy?" Mrs. Rutherford asked, a few moments later as they started up the curving road, Peter accommodating his long stride to her stately, ponderous step. "I should hardly have thought——"
"I don't look much like one, do I?" Peter laughed. "Well, frankly, I don't consider myself one, but I'm very fond of nature—and art. It's one of the chief regrets of my life, Mrs. Rutherford, that I never saw you act."
She gave him a quick, almost youthful glance, and smiled. "I think you could hardly have been born when I left the stage, Mr. Clancy. That was over thirty years ago."
"But why, Mrs. Rutherford!" exclaimed Peter, tragically, "why did you leave the stage before I was born?"
She threw back her white head with a hearty, infectious laugh, and pausing in her slow ascent, she turned to him, making a broad, sweeping gesture with both hands.
"The answer is before you," she said. "It was this infernal—I may say infernal to you, Mr. Clancy, may I not?—Well, then, it was this infernal flesh that came upon me like a thief in the night, and nothing I could do would stop it—so I had to stop—to give up my career"—there was bitterness in the beautiful voice now—"all on account of—oh, Mr. Clancy, who could stand a fat 'Portia'! Thank God, I had sense enough to stop when I did. At least there are no grotesque memories of Kate Rohan."
Up to this point in the conversation they had passed several houses and quite a number of people, to whom Mrs. Rutherford had bowed, graciously. Now the road before them lay, for a long way, fairly level and devoid of any sign of life. Unbroken ranks of tall trees threw their leafy shadows across the red shale of the road, and the soft whispering of the wind only served to accentuate the sense of solitude.
In another mood, Peter would have been sensible of the wonderful beauty of the place, but now he saw nothing in it but an opportunity, the opportunity which he must not miss.
Just ahead, in the shadow of a big pine, he saw a low, flat ledge of rock, lichen covered on its face and strewn above with a generous cushion of soft pine needles.
"You're tired, Mrs. Rutherford," he said, gravely. "Let's rest a minute over there."
She assented, with a whimsical nod, and allowed Peter to place her comfortably upon the rock. Peter remained standing just in front of her and regarded her in silence for a moment. There was a seriousness in his pleasant, homely face that caught her attention.
"What is it, Mr. Clancy?" she asked, with a hint of perplexity in her deep voice. "Why do you look at me as if—why, as if you wanted to ask me a question and didn't quite know what to say——"
"That's just it, Mrs. Rutherford," said Peter, eagerly. "That's just my trouble. There's something I want to know—something I must know——"
"And you think I can tell you?" she asked, wonderingly.
"I know you can tell me, Mrs. Rutherford—if you will."
She gazed up at him in sheer bewilderment. "I can't think what it can be," she said, conscious of the gravity of the young face before her, "and I won't promise to answer. But I'm curious to know. Ask your question, Mr. Clancy."
Peter bent his head and said, slowly, with pauses between the words:
"Will you tell me, Mrs. Rutherford, why—on Monday, the twenty-ninth of this May—from a pay booth in the Vanderbilt Hotel—you called Mary Blake's apartment—and asked to speak to her sister, Anne?"