CHAPTER XV UNRAVELING

AT the Grand Central Station Mr. Fenton and Tory found not only Dr. McClain and Dorothy awaiting them, but Mr. Jeremy Hammond.

Tory’s first impression was surprise at his unexpected presence. She had not seen him since the summer before in Beechwood Forest, when he had insisted upon investigating more thoroughly the evergreen cabin in quest of information with regard to Katherine Moore. Nothing had come of the search save a package of letters apparently of no importance.

During the winter Kara had written that Mr. and Mrs. Hammond had come frequently to see her, bringing the small girl whom they had adopted from the Gray House on the Hill.

Not the faintest envy had ever influenced Kara. Tory had never been able to dispel a slight resentment that Mr. Hammond’s choice had fallen upon the exquisite wilful little girl rather than upon Kara.

Mr. Hammond had come to the Gray House to seek for Kara. She was the child he had167 discovered in the deserted cabin years before. His sudden fascination with Lucy’s youth and beauty caused him to disregard Kara’s finer possibilities. However, he had afterwards proved himself Kara’s friend and been deeply interested in her recovery. Tory concluded that she had no right to harbor any grievance. Assuredly Kara would seriously object to such an emotion.

The instant after greetings had been exchanged, Dorothy slipped her arm through the newcomer’s and drew her apart from the others.

Tory found herself afraid to look closely at her friend.

Would Dorothy’s face reveal strain and unhappiness from the past few days.

“Lance?” she queried with the first glance, and felt a sense of relief before the reply.

Dorothy appeared grave, even disturbed, but not unhappy.

“No, there is nothing the matter with Lance. In fact, he has had a piece of rare good fortune. We are to go to Mr. Hammond’s office as soon as you and Mr. Fenton have left your bags at a hotel. Father must return to Westhaven as soon as possible and wants to talk to you first. Please don’t ask questions.168 It is all too involved and mysterious to make you understand anything. I don’t understand, although I have heard every detail.”

“One thing I must ask: Has the mystery to do with Kara?”

Dorothy nodded.

“Yes, but not what you think!” which was something of a triumph as an answer that was valueless.

To save time, Mr. Fenton and Tory agreed to go directly to Mr. Hammond’s place of business, which was not far away. He had a private office and their interview, that appeared to be secret, would not be interrupted. A telephone message secured the necessary hotel accommodations.

Tory’s surroundings made a vivid impression upon her, although she was scarcely aware of having done more than glance about her in the hour that followed.

On one of the highest floors in a tall building Mr. Hammond’s office windows commanded a magnificent view of the city—the broken skyline, the matchless harbor, dotted with ships from the seven seas, the network of fairy-like bridges crossing to Long Island.

Tory sat in a small, straight-backed chair near one of the windows, with Dorothy close169 beside her. Their faces were turned away from the distant vista and their eyes upon the central figure in the group of three men.

Mr. Hammond was in his office chair near his roll-top desk.

His usual somewhat careless, debonair expression had altered to one of concern.

“I am going to ask Hammond to tell you the story,” Dr. McClain explained. “He has more experience with this sort of thing. I confess a country doctor comes in touch with more curious and romantic circumstances than most people imagine. This is a more complicated situation than I am accustomed to handling. Personally, I am disturbed; I don’t know what to believe or the next step to take.”

“You are not making the reason for our unexpected summons to New York any plainer,” Mr. Fenton returned, smiling at his older friend’s preoccupation.

Tory gave a suppressed sigh to suggest the eagerness of her own interest, but managed to make no remark.

“It is difficult to know just where to start,” Mr. Hammond added. “Dr. McClain is right. The story contains a number of puzzling details that make it hard to accept. Yet170 there is no point in Moore’s telling anything that is not the truth. He has nothing to gain except added responsibility. And in a day or so he claims he will be able to offer more definite proof. In the interval, Mr. Fenton, Dr. McClain and I decided to ask not only your advice but your niece’s. Had we best go on, or let the affair drop here.”

“Yes; but oh, what is it you are talking about?” Tory demanded, unable to keep silence longer.

Mr. Hammond smiled.

“I don’t wonder you are growing restless, but please listen carefully. There are so many circumstances and chance meetings that have to be interwoven.

“In the first place, Lance McClain tells his father and sister that quite by accident he came in contact with a Mr. Moore. It seems that he is a musical chap and appears to be rich and cultivated. Well, he took an interest in Lance. He confided to me he thinks the boy a kind of a genius and wants to help him.

“In the early part of their acquaintance they talked of nothing but music and Lance’s ambition to set the world on fire by to-morrow or next day, also the fact that his family had not the proper faith in him. By and by171 Lance seems to have announced that his father was a fairly good sort, except for this weakness, and was a physician in the town of Westhaven.

“Lance tells me Westhaven awakened Mr. Moore’s interest at once. Moore wanted to know the size of the place and its exact position, who the prominent people were and what towns were nearby. With the aid of a railroad map and time-table the questions were not difficult to answer. Afterwards Lance could supply him with the town’s social history. The boy declares he was puzzled to understand any cause for his new friend’s interest in Westhaven, but for some reason felt in honor bound not to inquire.

“This is where I enter the mystery story.”

At this instant Tory leaned forward, her lips parted. Would Mr. Hammond at last reveal the point in all his past ten minutes’ conversation? What possible difference could it make to any of them whether a complete stranger happened to care to hear unimportant facts concerning the town of Westhaven? Once more it occurred to Tory that the village was not of such supreme moment as its inhabitants considered it.

“I was reading the paper one morning when idly my eyes fell upon an advertisement172 signed Moore, asking that some one from Westhaven communicate with the writer. I recalled the fact that one or two of the letters we discovered in the evergreen cabin were signed ‘Moore.’

“If I had not been going to see Kara at the time and felt tremendously concerned over her misfortune, I don’t believe I would have paid any attention to the notice. I chanced to see Kara that same afternoon. We laughed over it and I promised to reply to the advertisement, hoping it might be entertainment for her. The child was having such a hopelessly dull and trying time!”

She had not intended to speak, but Tory was given to impetuous utterance of her opinions and emotions.

“I am so sorry, Mr. Hammond. I thought you were not in the least interested in Kara, that you cared only for Lucy. I hoped you would have chosen to adopt Kara when you came for the purpose to the Gray House on the Hill.”

Tory abruptly stopped, feeling, rather than seeing, that her uncle’s eyes were upon her, reproving her for the interruption.

Mr. Hammond did not appear seriously annoyed.

173 “Perhaps I should, Tory, but there is no accounting for other people’s wishes and tastes. I wanted a younger child than Kara, and Lucy fascinated me. You are mistaken, however; if I was not interested by Kara at that first meeting, afterwards I learned to admire and care for her. If you will try and wait for the end of my story, perhaps you may find that Kara had a better fortune in store for her than I could bestow.”

“I have always known something wonderful would happen for Kara,” Tory murmured, and then flushed and bit her lips.

“Do please be still and wait, can’t you, Tory?” Dorothy whispered with an impatience she rarely showed.

“Don’t you think you are going too far, Hammond?” Dr. McClain interposed. “You are giving Richard Fenton and Tory the impression that we have actual information when neither of us is completely convinced.”

Having the same sanguine and ardent temperament that Tory Drew possessed, Mr. Hammond appeared a little nonplussed.

“Yes? Well, perhaps you are right, Dr. McClain, although I might as well confess right here that personally I am convinced. It is getting on toward lunch time. Will you174 have lunch with me and allow me to end my story afterwards?”

Not daring to speak again, Tory’s imploring gaze at her uncle would have influenced his decision had he not been of the same mind.

“No, we are in no hurry for lunch and considerably impatient to discover how Lance McClain’s new-found friend has any connection with Katherine Moore. I recall the child was brought to the Gray House on the Hill when she was little more than a baby, with nothing known of her parentage or history save the name written on a slip of paper pinned to her dress.”

“Why, this Mr. Owen Moore claims to be her—”

“Father?” Mr. Fenton finished.

Tory glanced at him in an amused fashion in spite of the intensity of her excitement, so rarely did Mr. Fenton forget to be perfectly courteous.

The other man shook his head.

“No, not so simple as that! The story is more involved and a good deal more sentimental, romantic, whatever you wish to call it.”

“I don’t see any reason why one should not believe what Mr. Moore says,” Dorothy175 McClain declared, breaking into the conversation for the first time. The color was coming and going swiftly in her clear skin, her gray-blue eyes were calm and untroubled. “He is a gentleman and has any number of friends willing to guarantee the truth of what he says. Lance declares he is the kindest and sincerest human being he has ever known.”

“Well, here is what Mr. Moore told me at our original interview! Later we decided to send for Dr. McClain and Dorothy for two reasons; Mr. Moore wished to have some one else judge of his statement. He also wished some one else to verify the account I gave of discovering a baby, deserted in a cabin on the outskirts of Westhaven more than ten years ago. Moreover, Mr. Moore had an added interest in seeing Dr. McClain and Dorothy in that he wished to propose a plan concerning Lance,” Mr. Hammond continued.

“Owen Moore is a quiet, eccentric man, I should say between thirty and forty years old, who comes originally from Boston.

“Somewhere between ten and eleven years ago he was seriously ill when he received a letter from an old friend asking him to come to her at once. I believe she had been more than a friend when they were younger. They176 had been engaged and the engagement broken off for a reason they afterwards regretted. So, notwithstanding his illness, knowing that the need was urgent, he went at once to the writer of the letter. He found her in a tumble-down farmhouse between twenty and thirty miles from Westhaven. She was deserted and alone save for the kindness of the neighbors, the nearest living more than a mile away. The only human being with her was a little girl of between two and three years of age.

“Very soon after his arrival he saw that his friend was dying. She and a physician left no doubt of the matter in his mind.

“She asked him to take her little girl, to adopt her and give her the name, Katherine Moore.”

Dorothy’s hand reached out and caught Tory’s, calming her excitement by her quiet grasp.

“Mr. Moore gave her his promise. The child’s father had disappeared and there was no one else. He agreed to return later and take the little girl away, and in the meantime intended to arrange that the friend he had once cared for should have every comfort.

“It was not necessary; she died before he177 could leave. After things were over he started away on horseback with the child. There is nothing so extraordinary in this; romantic of course, but life is full of romance! Mr. Moore is perfectly able to prove this portion of his story; people are still living in the neighborhood who remember the circumstances. I took it upon myself to go to the place and inquire soon after my original interview with Mr. Moore. Look here, Dr. McClain, you take the story up here. I have not talked so continuously in years. This is your province, that it has to do with illness.”

Dr. McClain nodded.

“I seem to be the doubting spirit in this matter. I know that Dorothy and Lance and I realize now that Mr. Hammond is equally convinced. Of course Mr. Moore has nothing to gain, and what he tells of taking place afterwards is perfectly plausible.

“Until after he rode away from the farmhouse with the little girl, he scarcely had thought of his own state of health. He had been conscious of exhaustion and headache, but too wholly absorbed by the sorrowful parting to give any thought to himself.

“As he rode on, he became more and more aware that he was suffering from dizziness178 and headache. He repented having brought the child with him. He had thought of nothing else at the time but to get as far away from the scene as possible. He intended taking a train for Boston at a nearby station and sending the horse back to a neighboring farm by some one at the station. He was not familiar with the country and lost his way. He continued riding on, growing less and less responsible for what he was doing. He seems very hazy upon these details, but believes he dismounted and went into a house that he saw along the way to ask for aid. He claims to have known nothing more of what took place for weeks. He awakened in a hospital in Boston, where he had been desperately ill. Not at once did he recall the experience through which he had lately passed, and only by degrees did the knowledge return to him.”

“Well, why did he not come back and find Kara as soon as he remembered?” Tory demanded, torn between anger and rapture.

This was a more thrilling story than her imagination had conceived in days when she used to amuse the practical Kara with the wildest stories of her unknown history.

“I don’t myself see why not, Tory,” Dr. McClain answered. “Mr. Moore says that he179 did make careful inquiries, but had no idea of where he had left the child, not even the name of any nearby town. He must have ridden a good many miles before he reached the vicinity of the evergreen cabin. He has always had some one employed to investigate the matter and always expected eventually to find the child. Some months ago he was told of the Gray House on the Hill in Westhaven, and naturally reached the conclusion that the little girl may have been brought up in an orphan asylum. He sent a lawyer to Westhaven to make inquiries and inserted the advertisement that Mr. Hammond answered. When he learned Lance came from Westhaven, naturally he proved another source of information.”

“Well, has Mr. Moore seen Kara? What does she say? How has she borne the excitement? How amused and surprised Kara must be after always insisting that she was the most prosaic of persons and never would there be any possible interest connected with her history!” Tory exclaimed.

Dr. McClain frowned.

“That is just it, Tory, and the reason we have sent for you. Kara has not seen Mr. Moore, she has been told nothing. If his story180 is not true, or if she should not be the child, I am worried concerning the effect it might have upon her. She is improving slowly and I don’t wish anything to interfere. What is your opinion?”

“Tell Kara at once,” Tory replied. “She has the right to hear. You need not be afraid for Kara in a situation like this. She is one of the sanest people in the world. If nothing comes of it she will be no less happy. All she really cares for is to be well again so that she can make her own future.”

“Then you girls will prepare her?” Dr. McClain asked.

There was nothing for Tory and Dorothy save to agree.