Daphne Deane (20 page)

 

Then he went grimly about the day's work with set lips. He would have to write that man Knox a letter sometime during the day when he had time and tell him he did not need his services further. Even if he changed his mind sometime and decided to rent, he would not bother with this agent.

But later in the morning came another telegram from Knox.

 

Buyer away for several days. Cannot cancel till he returns.

 

Keith felt vaguely uneasy about it all the morning. He didn't like the situation at all. A large sum had been paid down, and he did not know what the law was in such cases. He might have trouble about it. And more and more he was determined not to sell the old home on any account. It had begun to seem nothing short of a catastrophe to lose the property, at any price. Of course, the extra ten thousand offered would make it entirely possible for him to buy a partnership and really establish himself in his profession. But he wasn't so sure that he wanted that keenly anymore. His whole attitude toward life and his work here in New York had changed.

As the day went on, the senior partner in the firm spoke to him about the nice work he had done in Boston, but the commendation no longer had the power to fill him with the elation that it would have had a few weeks ago. He wondered what was the matter with him. He wasn't grieving over Anne Casper, surely! If he was, it was entirely possible to go back to her. It was he who had walked away from her.

But he found he did not want to go back. All life as he had been living it had grown flat and stale to him. Even his ambitions were on a different basis, a more wholesome foundation. Mr. Casper's talk about wealth and success, instead of urging him on, had filled him with a fine disgust for this sort of standard. He had a feeling that he would rather swing far to the other extreme and live where tension was not so high and one had a human, kindly outlook on life. He could never rise by using others as human stepping-stones.

Emily Lynd's letter did not reach him until late in the afternoon. He looked at the delicate script in perplexity. He had never had a letter from her before and did not recognize her writing. It couldn't be Knox writing him again so soon! It wasn't his hand. He tore open the envelope hurriedly. He was just about to leave the office for the day.

 

Dear Keith:

I've been a little worried about something I've seen and thought I ought to tell you.

I've been seeing a light at night over by your house, or perhaps it is in the house, I'm not sure. It is a low light about the level of the cellar window, and I would have thought you or somebody had been in and forgotten to turn it out, only it isn't always there.

At first I thought I would let the police know, and then I thought perhaps that might make unnecessary publicity, for it may be just some silly little thing that is perfectly explainable if I only understood. If I had my two good feet I would go over there and try to investigate, but as I can't I thought I would let you know, and if there is anything I could possibly do for you in the matter I'll be glad to serve you as well as I can from my bed.

Of course, I'm an old, bedridden woman, and it may be I'm just seeing visions at night, for the house seems to be standing there as natural as ever in the morning, quite intact. But as I heard that one or two other people have seen a light (though one of them was Mrs. Gassner!), and as Daphne Deane told me that twice she had heard a car with a muffled engine and no lights driving into the back driveway, I thought I had better tell you.

I look back to your brief call a few days ago with great pleasure. I hope you will be coming this way soon again and will remember to give me a good visit with you next time. I'll have Rena bake you some of the cookies you used to love so when you were a little boy, if you will come.

Very lovingly,

Emily Lynd

 

Keith read this letter with increasing anxiety. What in the world was going on in Rosedale? Had Knox really given possession to somebody in spite of his commands?

His first thought was to telephone the police and put it all in their hands, and then it occurred to him that it would be better if he could go down himself and see what it was all about, though he didn't like to ask for time off again so soon. But while he was thinking over the matter the senior Sawyer came out of his office, hat in hand, and crossed to the hall door.

"What's the matter, Morrell?" he asked teasingly. "You look as if the affairs of the nation rested on your shoulders."

Keith looked up, his stern young face relaxing into a smile.

"Just a little complication about my property in my hometown. I suppose it will straighten itself out somehow, though I really ought to run down there tonight and see what's the matter."

"Why not?" said the older man kindly. "You've had some strenuous days lately. Go ahead. We can get along all right for a few days without you, now the Boston work is all straightened out. Run along and take a holiday."

"Thanks," said Keith, lifting troubled eyes thoughtfully. "Perhaps I will, if you don't mind. I might be able to get back by late tomorrow morning if everything goes all right."

"Don't try," said his chief. "You deserve a few days' rest. I'm more than pleased with the way you handled that fellow Phelps up in Boston. He was all set to make us trouble, and we might have lost thousands of dollars. Go on. I'll answer for you with the office staff. Good night!"

And so it turned out that in a few minutes Keith was seated in a Pullman diner ordering his dinner, a warm feeling at his heart for the elder Sawyer's kindness and a strange elation at the thought that he was going back home again so soon. He hadn't analyzed that elation yet. He suspected that it might have something to do with the possibility of seeing Daphne Deane again, who was "as good as engaged to the new minister," and of course that wasn't quite right, especially not so soon after the severance of his interest in Anne Casper.

But he wasn't going into motives just now. He had enough to do to plan the campaign ahead of him, and of course, though he appreciated Mr. Sawyer's kindness, he did not intend to abuse it. He must rush this business through and get back as soon as possible.

 

Keith Morrell had had just time to stop at his room, fling a few things into a traveling bag, and catch his train. He was glad he had thought to bring his flashlight. He would go at once to the house and look carefully around to see if there was any possible explanation of the light that Emily Lynd had seen. It was likely explainable, but still he was taking no chances. It might be that tramps had dared to encroach upon the premises. He ought long ago to have put someone in charge, had them sleep in the old stable loft, and let it be known that the house was guarded. With all those valuable pictures and rugs and that wonderful old furniture, he ought to have protected it. Of course, it was insured, but even so, some of those things could never be replaced. He began to realize that everything connected with the old days was infinitely dear to him. Why hadn't he realized it before?

When Keith reached the Knox house, Martha said her husband had gone out awhile ago. She thought he went to see if Mr. Gowney had returned from the West. He might be here any minute now.

Keith wasted a whole hour waiting for him and then, impatient at the delay, started out to try and find either Knox or Gowney.

"You say you think he had gone after Mr. Gowney?" he asked Martha, trying for the third time to fix her shifting eyes and make her commit herself.

"He
might
uv," said Martha, unwilling to be any more definite. "William doesn't tell me his business affairs, but I know he
was
trying to find him."

"And you are quite sure he hadn't found him earlier in the day, after he received my telegram?"

"I really couldn't say!" said Martha stiffly, as if she were offended. Martha congratulated herself in her heart that none of the statements she had made were actual lies. Martha had a terror of untruth and sometimes quite ingeniously avoided it by an irrelevant remark that had little bearing on the subject, for she would never tell an out-and-out lie. But after Keith had taken himself away, saying that he would be back early in the morning, or call up, she waited until his footsteps had passed out of hearing, and then she went to the foot of the attic stairs and called: "William! He's gone! But you better not turn on the light. He might see it and come back." But William lying on an old mattress in the attic, covered with a horse blanket, a relic of former days, that he had rummaged out of an old trunk, was sound asleep and snoring peacefully. Martha had to creep up the stairs with a candle in her hand to rouse him. She was afraid to go to bed alone down in the second story, with all that money in the house and William so sound asleep he wouldn't hear if a bomb went off beside him. Moreover she wanted the immediate pleasure of telling all that had passed between her caller and herself, and giving William more sound advice while her tongue was whetted for it. So she laboriously climbed up the steep attic stairs and shook William till he came to himself and followed her down.

But Keith Morrell was out under the far stars walking toward his old home, sleepy and cross and wishing he hadn't come till morning. He was puzzling over why William Knox should be out all this time hunting Gowney and decided that was improbable, for the neighborhood where Gowney lived was not a very savory one if he judged by his brief excursion there with young Ransom Deane in search of the Gowney boy. And it did not seem to him that timid little William Knox was a man who would choose midnight for a visit to the haunts of possible semi-gangsters.

So Keith finally put away the thought of Knox and went toward his old home. He might just as well stay there for the night. It was too late to take the train to the city. He could hear the whistle now as it came around the curve, and he was too far from the station to make it in time. Besides, why waste time going back and forth to the city? There were plenty of comfortable couches and beds in his house. He could just drop down on the parlor couch and sleep. Then in the morning he would be on hand, and if there was any funny business going on about the old house he would be able to check up on it. Of course, there was a very nice boardinghouse in the town, and the inn was a half mile down the road, but why bother? He would go home.

His direction led past Emily Lynd's house. If there had been a light there he would have stopped to see her, late as it was, for he knew that she was wakeful and liked late guests to help her through the weary hours of the night. But the little white cottage with its wonderful old fanlight over the front door was dark as a pocket, so he walked on as silently as he could not to waken her.

He did not know that Emily Lynd had been lying in a dark room all the evening the better to watch the Morrell house and make sure if a light appeared there again, and that she had settled it with herself that she would call up the police the minute she saw that light again. But there had been no light so far, and only the distant muffled sound of a car a few minutes before. She was almost dropping off into a doze when Keith's quiet footsteps roused her to alertness once more. But Keith's footsteps, quiet as they were, were not furtive enough for the tramp or gangster for whom she was watching. Her ears were attuned for gangsters. Long years of wakefulness had made her keen to judge people by their walk. She decided that the steps must belong to her neighbor Mr. Galloway who lived at the far end of the street and sometimes came home on the midnight train.

As Keith walked on past Miss Lynd's house intending to enter his own property by the little wicket gate at the side, he was suddenly surrounded by memories of other days, old friends and scenes like a panorama hedging his path. This was the way he used to take on his way home from school all his younger days. Here was the broad stone walk of the Whitman house where the boys used to stop to spin their tops and shoot their marbles when they were just in the primary. Farther on in the road was the place he first learned to mount his bicycle, his mother and father standing at the fence to watch and applaud at his success. There at the corner was the spot in the hedge where his little dog Dash used to come out barking to meet him and later, in high school days, limp down the path to the gate to wag his aged tail. This was the road where he rode his pony, too. And afterward when the pony was exchanged for a horse it was down this road he always rode for his morning exercise when he was at home from college in summertime.

When he came to his own gate, his breath caught in his throat, for it seemed to him, though the night was dark with scrappy clouds hiding most of the stars, that the little old gate stood out from the night and welcomed him and that his mother must be there somewhere in the shadows waiting for him, as she used to do all through the years. Oh, how he suddenly missed his mother! He felt a return of that shrinking from the old house that had kept him away so long. Perhaps he had been wrong to come alone. The dreariness had been somewhat dispelled from his thoughts since he came with Daphne Deane in the brightness of the morning, but now it had returned full force. He cast a wistful eye across the lawn and over the street beyond, to the house where the Deanes lived. Perhaps he had a furtive hope that there would be a light there and he could enlist Donald to come with him. It would be less forlorn. But the Deane house was dark and silent across that wide stretch of night, and he sighed as he put out his hand to open the little gate, half hesitating even then. But for shame! He was a man. What was this womanish dread that was upon him? He opened the gate and went up the grass-grown path of stepping-stones, walking rapidly the familiar way toward the house.

If he had but known it, he was not alone. Quite nearby there were a number of eyes that were not sleeping. Besides the eye of a loving God who was yearning over him and preparing the way that he should walk in the days that should follow, there was Daphne Deane at her window and Emily Lynd at hers, watching, listening, alert to any sound or spark of light. And there was always Mrs. Gassner whenever anything was going on in the neighborhood, no matter how silent and furtive. Ever since she had sighted that light from the coal hole in the Morrell cellar, she had been making a practice of taking an afternoon nap so that she would be fresh to keep vigil and sift this thing down to the bottom of the mystery. Mrs. Gassner loved a mystery, but better than all, her ambition was to be able to unravel it herself and give out the news of its solving to the world.