But the knocking continued, and he was about to tell the person at the door what he thought of him in most forcible language, when he opened his eyes again with his face the other way and saw the old rough coat he had been wearing for the past three weeks lying across the nice comfortable chair by the side of the fireplace awaiting him. Then it all came back to him like a slap in the face.
He sprang to a sitting posture and gazed hurriedly about him, a growing alarm in his eyes.
“Mr. Murray! Mr. Murray! Are you awake? Breakfast is ready. It’s very late!” reiterated the pleasant but firm voice. “I’m afraid Mr. Harper will think—are you almost ready?”
“Oh—I—why, yes, Mrs. Summers,” he answered then, half abashed, with a growing comprehension in his tone. “Why, yes,” crisply, “I’ll be with you in just a moment. I’m nearly dressed. I must have overslept.”
Mrs. Summers, relieved, retired from the door, and Murray slid cautiously from the bed and grasped what garments came to hand, which proved to be the suit he had worn the night before. He couldn’t go down in those old rags in broad daylight, of course. He had to make a getaway the best way possible, now that he hadmessed all his plans by falling asleep. Poor old guy, he would miss a suit also, but what’s a suit of clothes in an emergency!
Murray dressed at lightning speed, giving little time to the brushing of hair or arrangement of tie, and was soon hurrying downstairs.
She had his coffee all poured, and there was oatmeal with cream and granulated sugar. There was half a grapefruit, too, all cut and ready for eating, and he was hungry as a bear. Yet in spite of all her talk about hurrying, she stopped to say that prayer before eating. Odd. It seemed to be a matter of course, like breathing—a habit that one couldn’t stop. He almost bungled things by beginning a bite of his fruit in the middle of it. But she didn’t seem to notice. She was bringing hot buttered toast and scrambled eggs and wonderful-looking fried potatoes. He could have hugged her, they all looked so good, and he had been hungry, hungry, hungry so many days before that!
Then right into the middle of that wonderful breakfast there came a sharp ring at the door. He became conscious that he had heard a high-power car drive by and stop, and panic seized him. He was caught at last, caught in his own trap, baited by sleep. What a fool he had been! He set down his cup of coffee and sprang to his feet, looking wildly about him.
“I must go!” he murmured vaguely, feeling he must say something to his hostess.
But she was already on her feet, going swiftly to the door.
“Get your coat and hat,” she said in a low tone as she went. “Too bad, right in the middle of your breakfast. But he won’t want to wait—”
He dashed toward the stairs, thinking to make his escape out of a window from above somewhere while the officers entered below, but almost ran into the arms of Mr. Elliot Harper, smiling and affable, with extended hand.
“Sorry to have to hurry you the first day,” he said pleasantly, “but I didn’t think to mention it last night. There’s a conference this morning, and I thought I’d like to have you attend. I drove around in the car to pick you up. Don’t let me take you away till you’ve finished breakfast, however—!”
“Oh, I’ve finished,” said the young man, uneasily glancing up the stairs and wondering if his best chance lay up there or through the kitchen door. He seemed to be always just about to make a dash and escape. It was amusing when one stopped to think of it, how he got more and more tangled in a web. Hang it all! If he only hadn’t fallen asleep last night! If he only could think of a reasonable excuse to get away! It wouldn’t do to just bolt with this keen-eyed businessman watching him. He was the kind to set the machinery of the law moving swiftly. He must use guile.
“I meant to go back and polish my shoes,” he said deprecatingly. “If you can wait just a moment—”
“Oh, let that go till we get to the bank!” said the president genially. “There’s a boy down there just dotes on polishing shoes. Save your strength, and let him do it. This your hat? I’m sorry to hurry you, but I promised to see a man before the conference, andthe time’s getting short. If you can just as well come now, I’ll take it as a favor….”
He went. How could he do otherwise with Mrs. Summers smilingly blocking the way of escape upstairs, and the determined bank president urging him toward the door? He would just ride down to the bank. There could be no danger in that, and then while Harper was seeing his man he would melt away quietly into the landscape and be seen no more.
He climbed into the luxurious car with a sense of pleasure as of coming to his own surroundings once more and rode down the pretty village street, his companion meanwhile drawing his attention to the buildings they were passing.
“This is the minister’s house. You’ll like Mr. Harrison, I’m sure. He’s a marvelous, humble, great man. If it weren’t for his humility, he’d be nabbed up by some of the great city churches. Here the senior elder lives. He has two daughters you’ll meet. Nice girls. One’s engaged to my nephew. The big stone house on your right belongs to Earl Atherton, one of our directors. Made his money in oil. Keen man. Next is the Stapletons’. Have a son in Harvard. You must have heard of him in athletics, Norton Stapleton. Fine lad! Good sense of balance. Comes home every year still unspoiled. Says he’s coming back to go in business with his dad. Not many like him. Over there’s the Farrington-Smiths’. You won’t care for them. The girls all smoke cigarettes and drink, and the boys are a speedy lot. The town as a whole disapproves of them. They moved here from the city, but I hear they don’t care for it, call it dull. They’ll probably invite you. They are trying hard to get in with our best people, and the girls are really quite attractive in a dashing, bold sort of way, but you won’t want to accept. Thought it was just as well to let you know how the land lies. There! That’s the bank in the distance, that gray-stone front. We’ve made it on time after all. Now we’ll go right in, and I’ll introduce you to the vice president. He’ll take you to our conference room. Mr. Van Lennup, I wrote you about him, you know. He’s immensely pleased at your coming. He was another one who knew your father, you know. This way. Walk right in this side door!”
There was no escape, though he glanced furtively either way. The street was full of passersby, and the sunlight was broad and clear. A man suddenly dashing away from his companions would excite much attention in the quiet town. He could not hope to make any possible getaway that way. He must bide his time and watch for a side door, a byway somewhere.
They led him across a marble floor down aisles of mahogany partitions, through silently swinging doors to an office beyond, where he was introduced to the vice president. They went down a marble hall to an elevator and shot up several stories to a dim and silent room with thick velvet underfoot and a polished table of noble proportions set about with lordly chairs. He perceived that he was in the inner sanctum of the directors of the bank, and when the heavy door swung back with something like a soft sigh, he felt as if prison walls had closed behind him.
A young man who had been writing at the table rose, went tothe wide plate-glass window, and drew up the shade a little higher. Murray perceived that the window overlooked the street and was too many stories above it to allow climbing out and escaping that way. He was evidently in for a directors’ conference unless there might be a chance when the others were all coming in for him to slip out as they entered and make his way by the stairs to the regions below. Strange, he hadn’t expected this town was large enough to boast of high office buildings for its banks. But then, he had seen it only in the dark. It must be larger than he had supposed.
Then the vice president shoved forward a chair for him to be seated and paralyzed him by remarking: “They tell me you were in college with Emory Hale, and that you two went to France together. That’ll be pleasant for both of you, won’t it? Emory has, I think, decided to remain in Marlborough all winter. He is doing some intensive study along scientific lines, you know, and thinks Marlborough’s quiet wil
l be a favorable atmosphere for his work. He’s going to write a book, you know. Great head he has. By the way, you knew his father was one of our directors? He’ll be here this morning. I met him as I came down. He says Emory wrote home that it had a great deal to do with his decision for the winter, your being here!”
Murray’s brow grew moist with a cold perspiration, and he sidled over to the window as his companion turned to greet a newcomer. Perhaps, after all, the window was his best chance. Perhaps it was the best thing to risk it. They couldn’t arrest a deadman, could they, even if they did recognize him? But yet, if he should break both legs, say, and have to lie in the hospital and have officers visiting him…Hang it all! However did he get into a scrape like this? All for a row of buns and cakes! And a foolish girl who thought she recognized him! If he ever got out of this, he would run so far and so fast that nobody would ever catch up with him again. He would change clothes with the first beggar whom he met and chop wood for a living. He would do something so that he would never again run the risk of being recognized and hauled back to his home for disgrace.
And then the door opened, and half a dozen clean-shaven, successful-looking men entered, followed almost immediately by several more, and the conference convened.
He was given a chair at the far side of the table away from both window and door, and surrounded by strong, able-bodied men, who acknowledged the introductions to him with pleasant courtesy and the right hand of welcome. Before he knew it, he found himself glowing with the warmth of their friendliness and his heart aching almost to bursting that he could not stay and take refuge behind all this genial welcome. If only he were sure that that bird Allan Murray was dead, really dead, so he could never come to life and turn up inconveniently any old time, he believed he would chance it. He would take his name and his place and make a new spot for himself in the world and try to make something of himself worthwhile. A tingle of ambition burned in his veins. It intrigued him to watch all these businessmen whoseemed so keen about their part in the work of the world. He had never touched the world of business much. He had not supposed it would interest him. He found himself wondering what his superior, sarcastic father would think of him if he should succeed in business someday and, having made a fortune, should return home and let him know what he had done. And then it came to him that even if he did make a new name and fortune, he would never dare return. He would only bring shame and disgrace upon his father and mother, because he was a murderer, and even if they tried to protect him, they would have to do it by hustling him off out of the world again where he would be safe.
A wave of shame brought the color into his pale face, and he looked quickly around the group of earnest men to see if any of them had noticed him, but they were intent upon some knotty discussion that seemed to have to be decided at once before they could proceed with the day’s program, and he retired into his own thoughts once more and tried to plan an escape to be put into effect as soon as he should be freed from the zealous watchfulness of these men who thought he was their new teller. There was that Emory Hale, too, they had talked about, who was supposed to have been with him in France. He must get away before he turned up.
Two hours later he thought his moment had come.
They had all just come down in the elevator, and he was about to be shown to the location of his new duties. He came out of the elevator last and noticed an open door at the end of the hall only afew feet away and an alcove with a chair obviously for the comfort of the elevator boy during slow times. Deftly he swung himself back into this alcove till the other men had passed and the boy had clashed the steel door of the elevator shut and whirled away into the upper regions for another load. For a brief instant the coast was clear, and he glided to the doorway and was about to pass out into the sunshine, regardless of the fact that he was hatless. A second more and he could have drawn a full breath of relief, dashed around the corner, and sped up till he was somewhere out of town in the wide-open country.
But in that instant’s passing he came face-to-face with Jane, smartly coated and hatted in green, with brown fur around her neck, the color of her eyes and hair, and unmistakable joy in her eyes.
“Why, Allan Murray!” she cried. “Good morning! Where are you going without your hat? You look as if you were running away from school.”
He came to himself with a click in his heart that reminded him of prison bars and bolts, and turned to greet her.
Somehow he summoned a smile to his ashy lips.
“Not at all,” he answered cheerfully, glancing behind him at the still-empty hallway. “I was—ah—just looking for the postman.” A door opened somewhere up the hall, and footsteps came out briskly.
“Excuse me,” he said to the lingering girl, “I must go back. We’re very busy this morning. I can’t stop!”
He turned and dashed back again, coming suddenly face-to-face with Elliot Harper, who surveyed him in mild surprise.
“Oh, is that you, Murray? I was just going back for you! I must have missed you somehow.”
“Yes,” said nimble Murray, “I just stepped to the door to get my bearings! I always like to know how the land lies, that is, the building I’m in, you know.”
“Well, we’ll go right in now. McCutcheon is ready to show you your duties. We go through this side door.”
Murray followed him because there was nothing else he dared do, and the steel gateway swung to with a click behind him as he entered the inner precincts of the bank itself. And once more he heard dimly the echo of bolts and bars and approaching prison walls about him. He walked to the little grated window that was to be his, so cell-like with its heavy grill, and saw an open drawer with piles of clean money lying ready for his unskilled hand. He felt almost frightened as he stood and listened, but he kept his calm exterior. It was part of his noble heritage that he could be calm under trying circumstances. He was even jaunty with a feeble joke upon his mobile lips and a pleasant grin toward the man who was endeavoring to teach him what he had to do. The trouble was the man seemed to take it for granted that he already knew a great deal about the matter, and he had to assent and act as if he did. Here he was, a new man, new name, new station, new portion in life. Yet the odds were so against him, the chances so great that he would soon be caught and put under lock and key for an impostor, that he would have given anything just then even to be back riding under the freight train and dodging policemen at every turn of his way.
Chapter 13
The day that Bessie Chapparelle had met her old playmate, Murray Van Rensselaer, for the first time in seven years had been her birthday. She was twenty-one years old and feeling very staid indeed. It is odd how very old twenty-one can make itself seem when one reaches that milestone in the walk of life. A girl never feels half so grown-up at twenty-five as when she reaches twenty-one. And Bessie was counting back over the years in the way a girl will, thinking of the bright and sad epochs, and looking ahead eagerly to what she still hoped to attain. She was wondering how long it would be before she could give her beloved mother some of the luxuries she longed for her to have, and as she stood on the street corner waiting for a trolley, she watched the shining wheels of a new car come flashing down the street and wished she were well enough off to begin to buy a car. Just a little Ford roadster, of course, or maybe a coupe. A second hand one, too, but therewere plenty of nice, cheap, second hand ones. It would be so nice to take Mother for a ride in the park in the evenings when she got home from her work. They could prepare a lunch and eat it on the way in the long summer twilights. What wonderful times they could have together! Mother needed to get out more. She was just stuck in the house sewing, sewing, sewing all the time. Pretty soon she would be able to earn enough so that Mother would not have to sew so much, perhaps not at all. Mother was getting to the age when she ought to rest more and have leisure for reading. The housework was really all she ought to be doing. If only she could get a raise within a year and manage to buy some kind of a car so they could take rides
!
Bessie Chapparelle had been tremendously busy during those seven years since she and Murray Van Rensselaer used to play games together in the evenings and listen to the books her mother read aloud to them when they grew tired of chess and cards and crokinole. Murray had gone off to prep school, and Bessie had studied hard in high school. She had not even seen him at vacations. He had been away at a camp somewhere in the West or visiting with some schoolmate. He had remembered her graduation day, for they had talked about it before he left, and he had sent back a great sheaf of roses, which were brought up to her on the platform after she read her essay. Everybody wondered and exclaimed over the beauty and quantity of those roses, sent across the continent with a characteristic greeting tied on the card: Hello, Pal, I knew you’d win out.! Murray.
The roses had brought other roses to her cheeks and a starry look to her eyes as she came forward with wonder in her face and received the two tributes of flowers, one of tiny sweetheart rosebuds and forget-me-nots, small and exquisite, and this other great armful of seashell-pink roses with hearts of gold. She was almost smothered behind their lavish glory, and her little white dress, simple and lovely, made by her mother, looked like a princess’s robe as she stood with simple grace and bowed with a gravely pleased smile toward the audience. She took the roses over her arm and looked out from above them, a fitting setting for her happy face, but the little nosegay of sweethearts and forget-me-nots she held close to her lips with a motion of caressing, for she knew they came from her mother. They were like the flowers her mother had received from her father long ago when he was courting her, and they meant much to the girl, who had listened, fascinated by the tales of her mother’s girlhood, and treasured every story and incident as if it had been a part of her very own life story. Oh, she knew who sent the forget-me-nots and sweetheart rosebuds! No one but her dear, toiling mother could have done that, and it filled her heart with tender joy to get them, for she knew they meant much sacrifice, and many hours’ overwork, far into the night, perhaps, to earn the money for those costly little blossoms. She knew how much they cost, too, for she had often wanted to buy some for her mother and had not dared. But she did not know nor guess who had sent the larger mass of roses, not till she got by herself in the dressing room for a second andread the brief inscription on the card and Murray’s name. Then something glowed in her face that had not been there before, a dreamy, lovely wonder, the foreshadowing of something she could not name and did not understand—a great gladness that Murray, her playmate, had not forgotten her after all this time, a revelling in the lavishness of his gift, and the wonder of the rare flowers, which she knew were more costly than anything else she had ever had in her life before. Not that she measured gifts by costliness or prized them more for that, but her life had been full of anxious planning to make a penny go as far as possible for the dear mother who toiled so hard to give her an education and all that she needed, and money to her meant toil and self-sacrifice and love. She would not have been a girl if it had not given her a thrill to know that her flowers were more wonderful than any flowers that had been sent up to that platform that day. Not that she was proud or jealous, but it was so nice to have them all see that somebody cared.