Bright Arrows (10 page)

Tabor did not wait to convey the intelligence. He vanished toward the kitchen. But Eden and her caller had heard enough to understand.

"Oh!" said Eden. "How terrible Daddy would have felt if he had known we were to have a thing like this to go through!"

"Well, it's a mercy he didn't know. It would have distressed him, of course, but we'll take care of you and your interests, child!"

"Of course! I know," said Eden, smiling. "Only it seems so awful that two people we have known, no matter how disagreeable we thought them, should turn out to do things like this. Do you know, Uncle Worden, I never realized what sin was before, nor how much of it there could be all about us when we didn't see it ourselves."

"Yes, that is certainly true," said the man thoughtfully. "But you, kitten, ought not to have to think about sin. It will never touch you. You are not a sinner."

"Oh, but I am, Uncle Worden, and I've just found it out!" exclaimed Eden. "I found a book of Daddy's, one he had just sent for, and I got to reading it. I think it is a theological book. Father was interested in such things, you know, and I've been very much interested in it myself. I find that the Bible says that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that nobody is able, in themselves, to please a just and righteous God. That Jesus Christ was the only one who never sinned. Of course, in a way I knew that from Sunday school when I was a child, but I never realized it before. But the thing I can't understand is why people, when they get old enough to understand, should deliberately choose to be sinners instead of wanting to follow God and be saved. Why, for instance, should Mrs. Fane start out to do what she must know is wrong, instead of teaching her boy to do right and doing right herself?"

"Well," said Mr. Worden, somewhat perplexed and very much embarrassed over her questions, "I don't know that I can answer that. Your father was always one who could study up deep problems like that and find the answers, but I always had to be content with just following out the line the church has marked out for us. That seemed easiest and best. But maybe this Mrs. Fane did this because she loved her son and wanted to save him. Or maybe he and she both wanted things they couldn't afford to buy and so they took the dishonest way to get them. That must be the explanation. However, don't you think maybe we ought to call up and see if there is anything more we can do to help find these people? We certainly don't want them hiding around this house all night. I wouldn't think of allowing you to stay here under any such circumstances. There! There goes the phone again. Perhaps that is my man Lorrimer again. Shall I answer?"

It was Lorrimer. He had been to police headquarters and had a bit of news. It seemed that Ellery Fane had somehow possessed himself of a knife brought with his dinner. It was dull and not very effectual as a weapon, but he had managed to pry up a stone from the corner of his cell, and he had worked away carefully and cautiously until it had assumed an alarming sharpness. That wasn't the first knife that Ellery had practiced the same act upon, and he had developed some skill in the art. Ellery was still missing and so was the knife, but one of the guards left behind unconscious on the floor in front of the empty cell had a deep slash scientifically placed that testified to the ugliness of the knife, and now that the guard was being brought back to consciousness he would more than likely be able to add details to the story of the escape. But in the meantime, just before the incident took place, the prison authorities had discovered another jewel sewn cleverly into the lining of the prisoner's coat, which had, of course, been taken from him. Naturally, the young man had fled without his coat, and the jewel was still in possession of the prison authorities. But the peculiar thing about it was that this jewel was not one listed among the Thurston list. It seemed to be a rare diamond, probably guarded carefully and possibly stolen from some other person, unless Mr. Worden could remember or find some record of such a stone.

Eden as she listened began to feel that she was living in a wicked fairy tale. And then Mr. Worden came in with a troubled face.

"Tabor has been hurt," he said, and his voice was much troubled, for he had known Tabor for many years and knew how they all regarded him. "They are bringing him in. They found him lying unconscious in front of the toolhouse with a knife in his back. Eden, can you telephone for the doctor quickly while I bring a mattress down for him to be laid on? I'm afraid this is serious."

Eden flew to the telephone and fortunately got the doctor, who promised to come at once.

Eden found she was trembling as she went back to the dining room where they had put Tabor down. He was lying on his side on the mattress, and the knife, the crude prison knife, was still sticking in his back, a stream of blood making a crimson stain down his immaculate white linen coat.

"That's a prison dinner knife," said Mike, who had helped to carry Tabor in. "That settles it. He must have been hiding in the toolhouse."

Eden's eyes were wide with horror. To think that all this could happen in their quiet home, and just after her father had gone! She felt unnerved. But quick as a flash she saw something she could do that took her mind off herself and her fright. She slipped down on the floor beside the mattress where Tabor lay and took his still hand in hers, just quietly, and was there when a moment later the doctor arrived and knelt to feel the pulse and listen to the heart.

While this was going on, Janet wasn't missed by any of them at first, till the doctor asked, "Where is Janet? Tell her I need her," and then they looked around and couldn't find Janet, who had always been on hand in any special crisis.

"Where did she go?" they asked, and Eden answered quickly, "Oh, I think she went out the back door. She would think she could find the Fanes. Janet was always like that."

It was Mike who slipped out the back door at once and gave a command to look for her, and then he was back in the house again doing everything he could find to do devotedly.

Meantime Janet had gone out to the little conservatory behind the garage, for that was where some old garments hung that the gardener had been told he might give to a poor family who needed them. It was only a few days ago they were put there, and Janet remembered it, so armed with her flashlight Janet went that way. If the Fanes had come back to the house to hide, these little outbuildings would likely be where they would seek shelter, so reasoned Janet. And though she sighted several policemen near the house, she did not tell them of her suspicions but marched boldly around the end of the garage, and stepping quietly on the grass to drown the sound of her footsteps, she arrived in the doorway, silently turned on her flashlight from the enveloping shelter of her ever-present apron, and plunged it into the darkness where she had hung the garments. Her first object was to find out if they were still there or had been used as a disguise. Janet had a very good mind for reasoning, helped out by the many detective stories she had read in her leisure hours.

Janet did not yet know what had happened to Tabor, or unquestionably she would have been back in the house helping to bring Tabor back to consciousness. But not knowing, she was here, engineering another dramatic scene for herself.

So she stood in the doorway, looking into the familiar little glassed-in room. And at first sight as she let the tiny pencil of light focus on the hook by the opposite door, the garments appeared to be hanging there just as she had left them a few days ago. She was about to turn away and try some other possible hideout when it seemed to her in the wavering light that she saw or heard a slight movement over by those shadowy garments.

Janet was a courageous woman and afraid of nothing, even the uncanny, but the idea of movement over in that corner sent a thrill up her sturdy old backbone, and her ever-alert mind leaped to the thought of what she could do all by herself, if it should prove that one of the Fanes was hiding there. She should have brought a policeman with her of course, but stuff and nonsense! He would only have laughed at her notions, and no real policeman would stand for a woman's idea of course, so she swiftly searched in her mind for a way to catch whoever was there, if they were there, before they could get away. If anyone was there and should get away, she would never hear the last of it from Mike for not telling him what she was going to do. But, of course, she must make sure, so she turned the flashlight full upon the hanging garments, which even now showed a slight movement, as if someone or something were alive inside the clothes. Then the bright pencil of light played full upon the place, and there she saw as plain as day a pair of feet, peeping out from a fold in the long old coat. It took only an instant to recognize a crouching figure, flattened behind those worn old garments, a bony hand clutching the coat across. The rest of the figure was hidden behind the dark green skirt that hung behind the coat. That would be Lavira Fane. Janet was sure of it at once. But how to catch her, that was the question, and there was no time to waste.

Down beside Janet's feet lay a coil of hose, already attached, and at her right hand was a small iron wheel that controlled the water supply. Could she do it? She had used it before at times when the gardener had been sick or away and had asked her to water some special plants. But this, this was something different. She knew she was being watched by a desperate woman, and there was no time to spare.

But Janet was not one to hesitate when she had a job to do; she did it. Quick as a flash she stooped and silently caught up the nozzle of the hose, even while her other hand sought the wheel and gave it a twirl. With relief she heard the quick rush of water, and she gave her swift attention to the flashlight, directing its rays straight at a pair of desperate eyes now peering out, relieved to see the swift stream plunge straight toward its goal. She turned the full force of water toward the gasping prisoner as the woman flung the disguising clothes aside and tried to get away. But Janet had the water turned on in full force now, and it knocked the trapped woman flat to the ground as she groveled and struggled to get her breath and get away from the terrific force.

But now suddenly a great light burst over the place. Someone, perhaps a policeman, had heard the rushing water and turned on the searchlight from the back porch. Then Janet's achievement was revealed, and two policemen came rushing to her assistance.

They lifted the dripping Lavira to her feet, making her fast with handcuffs as they did so, and now she was screaming anathemas to the men and declaring they had no right to touch her, that she was a relative of the family and sent out there to get some garments that were to be given away.

"Anything around here we can put over her to carry her away, Janet?" one of the men asked Janet, wondering how they were to get this dripping woman back to jail.

"There's an old blanket from the master's car back of you in the garage," said Janet crisply. "I'll get it."

She was back in a moment with a heavy blanket, and they wrapped Lavira in it and compelled her to the police car.

"Get you back to the house, Jan," called one of the policemen, as they propelled the reluctant prisoner toward the street where their car waited. "We'll look after this party. You done your work well, an' now you'll be needed in the house. Old Tabor was pretty bad hurt."

"Tabor! Not
Tabor
?" exclaimed Janet aghast, and she sped with all her might back to the house.

 

As the result of the doctor's examination of Tabor it was found that he had been struck on the head and suffered a concussion in addition to the stab from the knife.

At last he had been restored to consciousness and was resting quietly, watched over by the doctor and a hastily summoned nurse. Janet, after a quick consultation with Eden, and afterward with the cook and the chambermaid, hastily transformed the servants' dining room into a comfortable hospital bedroom. Willing, skillful hands helped, the table and most of the chairs vanished as if by magic, a comfortable iron bed from an upstairs servant's bedroom was brought down, and in no time Tabor was tenderly transferred to the other bed, where he promptly fell asleep.

"Bless his heart, he'll sleep comfortable now," meditated Janet, speaking half to Eden, half to the cook who stood near, brushing the tears away. "He wouldna have been happy in the big dining room. He would juist have got richt oop so soon as he kenned whar he was an' whisked awa' tae his ain room. Thet's Tabor. He would niver presoom. But here, he'd feel at hame, an' not thenk he was presoomin' or puttin' aebody oot. He weel kens we would juist as soon eat in the kitchen. He'll be mair tae hame here."

Eden smiled.

"Yes, that's right, Janet. But he'll have to be watched even here, or we'll find him getting up and trying to serve dinner. There never was anybody like Tabor."

"Yes, that's right!" agreed the staff of servants, the doctor included.

A little later the house began to settle down to quietness. Then the telephone rang, and Mike informed Eden, who answered it, that Lavira Fane was safely secure where there could be no further menace from her and that a posse of men were out after her son, following every clue possible, but as yet they had found no trace of him.

The young Lorrimer arrived in company with Mr. Worden, who said he had arranged with Lorrimer to stay in the house all night and keep him informed if there was any change in Tabor's condition, as he himself had to be with his wife who was ill and needed him, and he was worried not to have a responsible person at hand whom Eden could call upon in necessity.

"Oh, that won't be necessary," protested Eden. "It's awfully nice of you to offer, but I'm not at all afraid."

"No, of course you're not afraid," said the young lawyer, "but I want to stay. I shall feel easier in my mind if I can be at hand for possible service, even if you don't think you need me. And I won't be any trouble at all. I'll just drop down on that leather couch in the library, or anywhere else you suggest. I'm used to sleeping in a chair if occasion demands, so don't worry about me."