CHAPTER XIV TANGLED HEART-STRINGS

There was racing and chasing on Saintsbury lea the next morning. The office of the Samovar was besieged by people who wanted to know whether the charge against Clyde was a campaign lie, a poor joke, or a startling truth. Reporters and inquiring friends camped on Clyde's doorstep, blockaded his office,--and insisted on extracting some information from his lawyer! Information is a valuable commodity which a lawyer is trained not to give away for nothing, so my visitors went away not much wiser than they came.

"Has Clyde been arrested?" was asked everywhere.

Apparently not.

"But why didn't Burleigh, in the interests of justice, give his information to the police before publishing it broadcast and giving Clyde a chance to get away?"

Probably Burleigh cared more for a Samovar scoop than for the interests of justice, and more for helping the campaign against Clyde than for either. Possibly, also, he did not care to take upon himself the responsibility of lodging a formal accusation against Clyde. He might, in that case, be held responsible for it.

"But how had Clyde got the warning?"

Nobody knew. He had simply disappeared.

Of course his disappearance was considered equivalent to a confession of guilt. The wires were hot with his description, and the noon editions had columns of conjecture and reassuring reports that the police were in possession of valuable clues which could not be made public.

I could barely get time to run through my accumulated mail. A good part of this related to Alfred Barker. I had started inquiries backward along the shadowy track of that slippery gentleman's career, hoping that I might come across some trail of Diavolo's in that direction. So far as results went, Mr. Barker might have been the most commonplace and harmless of mortals. He had lived here, he had done business there, he had been through bankruptcy and he had been promoter of several business schemes that were little better than bankruptcy, but chiefly he had managed to be unknown for long intervals. How some of those intervals were filled, I could in a manner guess. Probably his venture as business manager for Diavolo was an instance. And that one had not been particularly successful financially, except in the deal with Jordan, if I might regard Barker's note-book as an accounting of the profits.

I was busy in an inner office, trying to assimilate my mail, when Fellows, my clerk, brought me word that Miss Thurston was waiting to see me. As I knew we should be liable to interruptions in the outer office, I had him bring her in.

I saw at a glance that this was a different woman from the self-possessed woman of the world I had known. She was human, womanly. Her eyes met mine with a shy appeal for sympathy.

"We all come to you for advice," she said with a deprecating smile.

"That is the chief compensation of my profession."

"There are three things that I want to speak to you about," she continued. "First, Mr. Clyde's safety. I have been thinking about things all night, turning them in my mind one way and another, and that is the point that must be considered first. If he is taken, or gives himself up, what prospect is there that he will ever be cleared?"

"Very little, Miss Thurston. You wish me to be frank."

"I want to know the exact truth. In the eyes of the law, he is merely an escaped convict?"

"Yes."

She was perfectly quiet and self-controlled. I could see that she merely expected me to confirm the impression which her intelligence had already discerned. She did not hesitate in her quiet speech.

"Then the second thing is to get word to him. I have written him a letter." (She laid it on my table,--a nice, thick letter it was, too!) "I have told him in this letter that I am ready to go with him to any island of the sea or desert jungle where he will be safe. I want you to know, because it may happen that you will get word to him only by telegraphing. But tell him what I have told you, if you cannot give him my letter. If you should see him, the letter will be enough to make him understand. And if he should hesitate on my account, and talk about not letting me sacrifice myself,--he may, you know,--will you make him--understand?" There was a mist in her eyes as she finished. If she looked at Clyde with that look, he would have to be a man of iron not to yield!

"Trust me to do the very best I can to deliver your commission. But Clyde has disappeared, as you know. I may not hear from him before you do."

"Yes, I know. I am only providing for the chance,--in case you do. I have been thinking of everything, trying to put myself into his mind, and I think he will come or send to you."

She spoke with quiet assurance.

"I shall be only too glad to serve you--or him."

"Then there is another matter." A slightly embarrassed air replaced the fine lack of self-consciousness which I had been admiring. "I wish that you would tell Eugene Benbow."

I felt myself stiffen. Unconsciously I was politely obtuse.

"Tell him what? I beg pardon!"

"Tell him about Mr. Clyde's escape and--everything that has gone before."

"Oh, yes, certainly. He will be interested."

"And tell him--about my message."

"You wish him to know?" I asked, in a matter-of-fact manner.

"Yes, I wish him to know,--but I don't want to be the one to tell him."

"You think it will hurt him?" I asked, determined to draw her out, since she had given me the opening. I realized that to women emotions are facts, and that impressions, attitudes and relations are quite as substantial as any of the more material things of which the law takes notice. It might be that the key to Gene's mysteriousness lay in emotions rather than in facts.

She lifted her eyes with something of an effort, but I saw that she had determined to treat me with frankness.

"It probably will hurt him," she said, "but it will be salutary."

"In the long run, yes. But--poor fellow!"

"I know! But it wasn't my fault. You know a boy of his poetic and romantic sort simply has to adore someone, and I even thought it was better for him to waste his emotional efflorescence on me than on some woman who might not have understood."

"I am quite sure you are right," I said. But at the same time I could not help a feeling of dumb sympathy with poor Gene, and a certain impatience with her philosophic view of the situation. As Kipling says, it is easy for the butterfly upon the load to preach contentment to the toad. The toad, too, has some rights.

"Besides, he knew always--or, at least, for a long time--that Mr. Clyde was more to me than anyone else. He always was," she continued bravely, "even in the old times, before--anything happened. And I knew, as a girl does, that I was more to him than anyone else. Then, when he drew away and would not say what I had expected, of course I was hurt and angry and very, very unhappy. But when years and years had gone by, and I saw that what I wanted was not coming, I determined to keep him as a friend. I knew that something had happened, something against his will. So I realized that it was wrong to blame him, and that I must keep what I could have, on the best terms possible. It was really Eugene that made me come to this understanding of myself."

"I see."

"Of course Gene knew from the beginning that it was a case of the moth and the star,--don't smile! I mean simply on account of our respective ages, of course. But to make sure that he should not misunderstand, I--told him something about Mr. Clyde."

"That was fine and generous of you," I cried warmly, ashamed of my momentary reproach.

She flushed with sensitive appreciation of my change of attitude. "I even told him that if he could ever render a service to Mr. Clyde, it would be the same as if he did it for me. I thought it would be a good thing to awaken his chivalry in that way."

"But you had no reason at that time to suppose that Mr. Clyde was in danger?"

"No specific reason," she said, with some hesitation. "But I felt that something overshadowed him. A woman knows things without reason, sometimes."

"And you told Eugene?"

"Yes. Partly I wanted to let him feel there was something he could do for me,--you understand. And partly, too, I wanted to enlist his interest for Mr. Clyde, if an opportunity should ever come up where he needed help that Eugene could give. You never can tell."

"You can't ordinarily," I admitted. "But at present poor Gene has put himself out of the way of doing a service for anyone. His hands will be tied for a long time."

"But--you do think there is a possibility of getting him off, don't you? He is so young!" Miss Thurston rose as she spoke, and in spite of her kindly tone in regard to Gene, I could see that the important part of the interview was over when Clyde passed out of our conversation.

"Of course I should not admit anything else," I answered, and she departed, leaving me impressed anew with the important part which women play in the affairs of men. Truly, sentiments may be stronger than ropes, and emotions more devastating than floods. And the woman who is all tenderness and quivering watchfulness for one man will be as indifferent as Nature to the sufferings of another. I was sorry for Gene. Prison was not the worst of his trials.

It was not a particularly pleasant mission on which Miss Thurston had sent me. I went to the jail for an interview with Gene with very uncomfortable anticipations. It isn't pleasant to hit a man whose hands are tied,--and that my communication would be in the nature of a blow to him I could not doubt.

He looked nervous and harassed, and the innate courtesy which characterized him was, I felt, the only thing that kept him from resenting my visit.

"I hope you haven't come to talk about that wretched Barker," he said at once, trying to smile, but betraying the effort in the attempt.

"Not unless you wish to."

He shook his head. "No. I told you all about it once. I don't want to think about it any more. It makes me--ill."

"Very well. We'll gossip about our friends instead. Have you heard about Clyde?"

He half turned aside, but answered with apparent indifference. "Yes, they let me see the papers."

"He has disappeared, it seems. There has been no trace of him, yet."

There was a hint of youthful scorn in his voice as he answered. "Well, if he likes to live that way. I think on the whole I should prefer to give myself up and have it over with."

"Clyde insists that he is innocent. That would of course make a difference in the feeling about giving oneself up. His conscience is not involved in the question. Besides," I added, seeing my chance to discharge Miss Thurston's commission, "he has to think not alone of himself. Miss Thurston's happiness is bound up in his safety."

The boy did not speak. I could feel, however, that he was holding every nerve tense. I knew what he wanted to know, and I went on, with as casual an air as I could muster.

"It seems that they have been in love with each other for years, but of course with the knowledge that this possibility of exposure was hanging over him, he could not speak. Now that it is out, and the worst is known, they have come to an understanding. It was inevitable, under the circumstances."

"Do you mean she will marry him?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Probably, in time. For the present, of course his whereabouts are unknown. But I should think that probably, in the end, she will go to him. At her age," I added deliberately, "a woman has a right to choose her fate. She will not go to it in ignorance."

He laughed, but without mirth. "As you say, she is old enough to know her own mind," he said, somewhat brutally. Then he added, bitterly, "It seems I did not shoot Barker quite soon enough."

"Why did you shoot him?" I asked.

His eyes fell. "Because he killed my father." Then he turned his shoulder to me with an impatient gesture. "I told you I would not talk about that any more." And he wouldn't. For all his good manners, my client had a vein of obstinacy that was almost as useful, in case of need, as plain rudeness would have been.

When I left Gene, I fell in with some friends who insisted upon having me give an account of myself over a dinner at the club, so it was something after nine when I reached my rooms. I lived at that time, as I think I may have mentioned, in an apartment hotel. My own suite was on the third floor. As I stepped out of the elevator, I saw three men lounging in the neighborhood of my door. They saw me, and set up a shout of "Here he is," which brought in two more who had apparently been taking the air on the fire-escape.

"To what am I indebted,--?" I began. They grinned cheerfully and simultaneously.

"Oh, we just wanted to find out if you couldn't give us a story about Clyde," the foremost explained,--and I recognized the clan. They were reporters on the trail of Breakfast Food for the Great American Public.

"Come in, and tell me what you want to find out," I said resignedly. "If you can extract any information from my subconscious self, I hope you will share it with me."

"You'll read it in the papers to-morrow," said the cheerful tall one. "Have you any idea where Clyde is?"

"Why, yes," I answered thoughtfully,--and they all leaned forward like dogs on a leash. "Of course it is only a guess,--"

"Yes, yes, we understand," they chorused eagerly.

"Well, gentlemen, I figure it out this way. Mr. Clyde did not possess an aeroplane, and it is extremely doubtful that he was able to borrow one before he left. The most rapid means of transportation available to him would therefore be the automobile or the chou chou cars. He has been gone about twenty-four hours. Multiply twenty-four hours by forty miles and you get the radius of a circle of which Saintsbury is the center--"

They interrupted my demonstration with shouts and jeers.

"You trifle with the power of the press," said the tall one. "Wait till to-morrow morning and you will see what happens to your remarks. The public will have reason to understand that we have reason to understand that Mr. Hilton has reason to understand that Mr. Clyde is not a thousand miles distant from Saintsbury at this time!"

While I had been speaking, my eye had fallen upon the stub of a cigar on the mantel. Now, I had not been in my room since morning,--and I do not smoke before luncheon. While I talked nonsense to the men, my mind was engaged with that cigar stub. I had no reason to suppose that the chambermaids on that floor smoked, and nobody else was supposed to have access to my rooms. I sauntered across the room and picked up the stub and tossed it in the grate. It was fresh and moist. My eye went about the room. Half a dozen books from my shelves were lying about,--and it was absurd to suppose that the chambermaids had been indulging in my favorite brands of literature.

"Let me offer you a cigar, gentlemen," I said, and went to the adjoining bedroom, closing the door behind me. My cigars were not in the bedroom, but the excuse served.

There, with his feet on my best embroidered cushions, with my choicest edition de luxe on his knees and a grin on his face, sat Clyde.