CHAPTER XVII
JACK TELLS THE STORY
That night when I left Molly there was only one thought in my mind--toreach Carol and help her get away. If the figure of Barker had not stoodbetween us I would have then and there implored her to marry me and giveme the right to fight for her. But I knew that was hopeless. As thingsstood, all I could do was to tell her the situation and give her achance to escape.
I suppose it's a pretty damaging confession but the office, my duty tomy work and my associates, cut no ice at all. Heretofore I'd ratherpatted myself on the back as a man who stood by his obligations. Thatnight only one obligation existed for me--to protect from disgrace thewoman I loved.
I knew the trains to Azalea--it was on the road to Firehill--and thoughone left at midnight, the last train on the branch line to the AzaleaWoods Estates had long gone. The shortest and quickest way for me to getthere was to take out my own car. This would also insure the necessarysecrecy. I could bring her back with me and let her slip away in thecrowds at one of the big stations.
It was a wild, windy night, a waning moon showing between long streamersof clouds. By the time I struck the New Jersey shore--after maddeningdelays in the garage and at the ferry--it was getting on for one, andthe clouds had spread black over the sky. It was a fiendish ride for aman on fire as I was. For miles the road looped through a country asdark as a pocket, broken with ice-skimmed pools and deep-driven ruts. Inthe daylight I could have made the whole distance inside an hour, but itwas after two when I came to the branch line junction and turned up thelong winding road that led over the hills to the Azalea Woods Estates.
As I sighted the little red-roofed station and the houses dotted overthe tract, the moon came out and I slowed up, having no idea where thecottage was or what it looked like. The place was quiet as the grave,the light sleeping on the pale walls of the stucco villas backed by thewooded darkness of the hills.
I was preparing to get out and rouse one of the slumbering inhabitantswhen I heard the voices of women. They were coming down a side road andlooking up it I saw three figures moving toward me, their shadowsslanting black in front of them. At the gate of a large, white-walledhouse, two of them turned in, their good-nights clear on the frosty air,and the third advanced in my direction. I could see her skirts,light-colored below her long dark coat, and her head tied up in somesort of scarf. By their clothes and voices I judged them to be servantgirls coming back from a party.
As she approached I hailed her with a careful question:
"I beg your pardon, but I think I'm lost. Can you tell me where I am?"
"I can," she said, drawing up by the car. "You're in the Azalea WoodsEstates."
"Oh, I _am_ a bit out of my way. The Azalea Woods Estates," I surveyedthe scattered houses and wide-cut avenues, "I've heard of them but neverseen them before. Doesn't a Mrs. Whitehall live here?"
The girl smiled; she had a pleasant, good-natured face.
"She surely does--in the Regan cottage over beyond the crest there. I'mliving with her, doing the heavy work, until she gets settled. I belongon the big farm, but as she was lonesome and had no girl I said I'd comeover and stay till her daughter joined her."
I smothered a start--_could_ Molly have made a mistake?
"Her daughter, eh? Isn't her daughter with her now?"
"No, sir. She's coming tomorrow afternoon, then I'm going home. We'llhave the cottage all ready for her. She's not expected till the 2.40from town. Do you know the ladies?"
I bent over the wheel, afraid even by that pale light my face might showtoo much. Molly _had_ made a mistake, sent me out here on a fruitlessquest, wasted three or four precious hours. I could have wrung her neck.I heard my voice veiled and husky as I answered:
"Only by hearsay. I knew Miss Whitehall was the head of the enterprise,that's all. Er--er--it's Azalea I'm aiming for. How do I get there?"
She laughed.
"Well you _are_ out of your way. You'll have to go back to the Junctionon the main line. Then follow the road straight ahead and you'll strikeAzalea--about twenty miles farther on."
"Thank you," I said and began to back the car for the turn.
"No thanks," she answered and as I swung around called out a cheery"Good night."
That ride back--shall I ever forget it! It was as if an evil genius washalting me by every means malevolence could devise. Before I reached thehighway the moon disappeared and the darkness settled down like ablanket. The wind was in my face this way and it stung till the waterran out of my eyes. Squinting through tears I had to make out the lineof the road, black between black hedges and blacker fields. I went asfast as I dared--nothing must happen to me that night for if _I_ failedher, Carol was lost. With the desire to let the car out as if I wascompeting in the Vanderbilt Cup Race, I had to slow down for corners andcreep through the long winding ways that threaded the woods.
And finally--in a barren stretch without a light or a house in sight atire blew out! I won't write about it--what's the use? It's enough tosay it was nearly six, and the East pale with the new day, when I rushedinto Jersey City. I was desperate then, and police or no police, flashedlike a gray streak through the town to the ferry.
On the boat I had time to think. I decided to phone her, tell her I wascoming and to be dressed and ready. I could still get her off three orfour hours ahead of them. I stopped at the first drug store and calledher up. The wait seemed endless, then a drawling, nasal voice said, "Ican't raise the number. Lenox 1360 don't answer." I got back in the carwith my teeth set--sleeping so sound on this morning of all mornings!Poor, unsuspecting Carol!
The day was bright, the slanting sun rays touching roofs and chimneys,when I ran up along the curb at her door. An old man in a dirty jumperwho was sweeping the sidewalk, stopped as he saw me leap out and run upthe steps. The outer door was shut and as I turned I almost ran intohim, standing at my heels with his broom in his hand. He said he was thejanitor, took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door,fastening the two leaves back as I pressed her bell.
There was no answering click of the latch and I tried the innerdoor--fast, and all my shaking failed to budge it.
"Isn't Miss Whitehall here?" I said, turning on the man who was watchingme interestedly.
"Sure," he answered. "Anyways she was last night. She talked to me downthe dumbwaiter at seven and told me she wasn't going till thisafternoon."
"Open the door," I ordered, speaking as quietly as I could. "She'sprobably asleep--I've an important message for her, and I want to giveit now before I go downtown."
He did as I told him and I ran up the stairs, and pressed the electricbutton at her door. As I waited I heard the janitor's slow stepspounding up behind me, but from the closed apartment there was not asound.
"She ain't there, I guess," he said as he gained the landing. "She musthave gone last night."
I turned on him:
"Have you a key for this apartment?"
"I've a key for every apartment," he answered, holding out the bunch inhis hand.
"Then open the door. If she's not here I've got to know it."
He inserted a key in the lock and in a minute we were inside. Themorning light filtered in through drawn blinds, showing a desertedplace, left in the chaos of a hasty move. Everything was in disorder,trunks open, furniture stacked and covered. The curtains to the frontbedroom that I'd always seen closed were pulled back, revealing theevidences of a hurried packing, clothes on the bed, bureau drawers halfout, a purple silk thing lying in a heap on the floor.
She was gone, gone in wild haste, gone like one who leaves on a summonsas imperative as the call of death--or love!
"She's evidently gone to her mother or some friend for the night," Isaid carelessly. "She'll be back again to finish it up."
The janitor agreed and asked if I'd leave a message. No, I'd phone uplater. I cautioned him to keep my visit quiet and he noddedunderstandingly--took me for a desperate lover, which Heaven knows Iwas. But in order to run no r
isks of his speaking to those who wouldfollow me, I sealed his lips with a bill that left him speechless andbowing to the ground.
I was in my own apartment before Joanna and David were up, ready to becalled to breakfast from what they, in their fond old hearts, thoughtwas a good night's rest. Sitting on the side of my bed, with my head inmy hands, I struggled for the coolness that day would need. Of courseshe'd gone to Barker--nothing else explained it. The state of theapartment proved she had intended leaving for the cottage, her motherhad unquestionably expected her, not a soul in the world but myselfcould have warned her. Only another command from the man who ruled herlife could account for her disappearance. Some time that night she hadheard from him, and once again had gone to join him. I tried to dull mypain with the thought that she was safe, kept whispering it over andover, and through it and under it like the unspoken anguish of anightmare went the other, "She's with him, flown to him, in his arms."
There was fury in me against every man in the Whitney office, but Icould no more have kept away from it than I could have from her if she'dbeen near me. At nine o'clock I was there and found the chief, Georgeand O'Mally already assembled. The air was charged with excitement, thelong, slow work had reached its climax, the bloodhounds were in sight ofthe quarry. I could see the assurance of victory in their faces, hear itin the triumphant note of their voices. I don't think any man has everstood higher in my esteem than Wilbur Whitney, but that morning, withthe machinery of his devising ready to close on his victim, I hated him.
Immediately after I arrived they sent a phone message to her. I sat backnear the window, to all intents and purposes a quiet, unobtrusive memberof the quartette. When the reply came that the number didn't answer theyconcluded she was out, arranging for her departure that afternoon. Thesecond message went at 9.30, and on the receipt of the same answer, aslight, premonitory uneasiness was visible. A third call was sent a fewminutes before ten and this time central volunteered the informationthat "Lenox 1360 wasn't answering at all that morning."
The chief and O'Mally kept their pose of an unruffled confidence, butGeorge couldn't fake it--he was wild-eyed with alarm. After a fewminutes' consultation O'Mally was sent off to find out what was up,leaving the chief musing in his big chair and George swinging like apendulum from room to room. I had to listen to him--he only got gruntsfrom his father--and it took pretty nearly all the control I had toanswer the stream of questions and surmises he deluged me with.
When O'Mally came back with the news that the bird had flown, the fallof the triumph of Whitney & Whitney was dire and dreadful. Theannouncement was met by dead silence, then George burst out sentences ofsputtering fury, heads would drop in the basket after this. Even thechief was shaken out of his stolidity, rising from his chair, aterrible, old figure, fierce and bristling like an angry lion. I don'tthink in the history of the firm they'd ever had a worse jar, a morecomplete collapse in the moment of victory.
But O'Mally and the old man were too tried and seasoned timber to lettheir rage stand in the way. The detective had hardly finished beforethey were up at the table getting at their next move. All were agreedthat she had had another communication from Barker and had gone to him.They saw it as I had--as anyone who knew the circumstances would. Thefirst message had been by phone, the second might have been, and therewas the shade of a possibility that she might have phoned back. If shehad there would be a record, easily traced. The power of the Whitneyoffice stretched far and through devious channels. In fifteen minutesthe machinery was started to have the records of all out of townmessages sent from Lenox 1360 within the last week turned in to Whitney& Whitney.
It was what I'd feared, but I was powerless, also I thought the chanceswere in her favor. Barker, no matter how he loved her, might not dare totrust her with his telephone number. Judging by the way he hadfrustrated all our efforts to find him, he was taking no risks. It wouldhave been in keeping with his unremitting caution to hold allcommunications with her by letter. That kept me quiet, kept me frombursting out on them as they schemed and plotted close drawn round thetable.
The next move was suggested by the chief--to find Mrs. Whitehall andbring her to the office. In default of the daughter they would try themother. All were of the opinion that the older woman was ignorant of themurder, but it was possible that she might know something of herdaughter's movements. And even if she didn't, that attack by surprisewhich was to have broken down Carol Whitehall might, tried in a lesserdegree, draw forth some illuminating facts from her mother. It wasnearly midday when George and O'Mally set out in a high-powered motorfor the Azalea Woods Estates.
I spent the next few hours in my own office, sitting at the desk. Everynerve was as tight as a violin string, hope and dread changing places inmy mind. Awful hours, now when I look back on them. The whole thing hungon a chance. If her recent communications with Barker had been byletter, if her mother knew nothing, there was a fighting hope for her.But if she knew his number and _had_ phoned--if her flight had beenplanned and Mrs. Whitehall _did_ know! I remembered her as I'd seen herin the country, a fragile, melancholy woman. What chance had she withthe men pitted against her?
I don't know what time it was, but the sun had swung round to thewindow, when I heard steps in the passage and a woman's voice, high andquavering. I leaped up and entered the chief's office by one door asMrs. Whitehall, George and O'Mally came in by the other.
She looked pale and shriveled. I didn't then know what they'd said toher, whether they'd already tried their damnable third degree. But theyhadn't, all they had done was to tell her her daughter had been wantedat the Whitney office and couldn't be found. That scared her, she'd comewith them at once, only insisting that they stop at the flat and let hersee that Carol was not there. This they did, admitting afterward thather surprise and alarm struck them as absolutely genuine.
These emotions were plain on her face; any fool could see she was rackedwith fear and anxiety. It was stamped on her features, it was in herwildly questioning eyes.
"Mr. Whitney," she said, without preamble or greeting, "what does thismean? Where is my daughter?"
The old man was as courteous as ever, but under the studied urbanity ofhis manner, I could feel the knife-edged sharpness that only cut throughwhen his blood was up.
"_That_ is what we want to know from you, Mrs. Whitehall. We needed someinformation from your daughter this morning and we find that she has--Ithink I may say, fled. Where to, surely you, her mother, must know."
"No," she cried, her hollow eyes riveted on his. "No. She was coming tome this afternoon, everything was arranged, ready and waiting. And nowshe's gone, and you, you men here, want to find her. What is it? There'ssomething strange, something I don't know." Her glance moved over thewatching faces. They were ominously unresponsive. Where she looked forhope or help she saw nothing but a veiled menace, every moment growingclearer.
"What is it?" she cried, her voice rising to a higher note, shrill andshaking. "What is the matter? Tell me. You know--you know somethingyou're hiding from me?"
"We think that of you, Mrs. Whitehall," said the chief, ponderous andlowering, "and we want to hear it. The time has come for frankness. Holdnothing back for, as you say, we _know_."
The woman gave a gasp and took a step nearer to him:
"Then for God's sake tell me. Where has she gone?"
His answer came like the spring of an animal on its prey:
"To join her lover, Johnston Barker."
If he expected to have it strike with an impact he was not disappointed.She fell back as if threatened by a blow, and for a second stoodtransfixed, aghast, her lower jaw dropped, staring at him. Amazementisn't the word for the look on her face, it was a stupefaction, aparalysis of astonishment. The shock was so violent it swept away allanxiety for her daughter, but it also snapped the last frail remnant ofher nerve. From her pale lips her voice broke in a wild, hysterical cry:
"Her lover! He was her _father_!"