CHAPTER XXII. THE LARGE BLONDE AGAIN
The trail was not a difficult one to follow. The night was particularlyblack, with low-hanging clouds which seemed to hold a threat of rain,and the wind sighed dolefully through the scrub pines. Against this dimmurkiness the figure of the woman in white stood out ghostily.
"Poor Minnie Webb!" mused Colonel Ashley, as he hurried on after her."She must be desperate now--after what she heard. I wonder--"
He did not put his wonder into words then, but his suspicion wasconfirmed as he saw her head for the bridge that spanned a creek, notfar from where the ferry ran over to Loch Harbor.
At certain times this creek was not deep enough to afford passage forsmall rowboats, but when the tide was in there was draught enough formotor launches.
"And the tide is in now," mused the colonel, as he remembered passingamong the sand dunes late that afternoon, and noting the state of thesea. "Too bad, poor little woman!" he added gently, as he followed her."Not so fast! Not so fast! There is no need of rushing to destruction.It comes soon enough without our going out to meet it. Poor girl!"
He went on through the darkness, following, following, followingdistracted Minnie, who, with the fateful words still ringing in herears, hardly knew whither she hurried.
Colonel Ashley, in spite of the desperate manner in which the chase hadbegun, felt that he was safe from observation. He had on dark clothes,which did not contrast so strongly with the night as did the light andfilmy dress of Minnie Webb. Besides, she was too distracted to noticethat she was being followed.
"She is going to the bridge, and the tide is in," mused the detective."I didn't think she had that much spunk--for it does take spunk toattempt anything like this in the dark. However, I'll try to get thereas soon as she does."
The fleeing girl in white passed over an open moor, fleeced here andthere with scanty bushes, which gave the detective all the cover heneeded. But the girl did not look back, and the night was dark. Theclouds were thicker too, and the very air seemed so full of rain thatan incautious movement would bring it spattering about one's head, as ashake of a tree, after a shower, precipitates the drops.
And then there suddenly loomed, like grotesque shadows on the night, twoother figures at the very end of the bridge that Minnie Webb sought tocross. They seemed to bar her way, and yet they were as much startled asshe, for they drew back on her approach.
And Colonel Ashley, stealing his way up unseen, heard from Minnie Webbthe startled ejaculation:
"LeGrand! You here? And who--who is this?"
Then, as if in defiance, or perhaps to see who the challenger was, thefigure standing beside that of LeGrand Blossom flashed a little pocketelectric torch. And by the gleam of it Colonel Ashley saw the largeblonde woman again.
"Morocco Kate!" he murmured. "So she is mixed up in it after all! Ithink I begin to see daylight in spite of the darkness. Morocco Kate!"
Then, crouching down behind some bushes, he waited and listened andthought swiftly.
"Speak to me!" implored Minnie of the young man. "What does it mean,LeGrand? Why are you here with--with--"
"He knows my name well enough, if he wants to tell it," broke in theother. "I'm not ashamed of it, either. But who are you, I'd like toknow? I never saw you before!" and the blonde woman flashed her lightfull on Minnie's white face.
And as the girl shrank back, Morocco Kate, so called, sneered:
"Some one else he's got on a string, I suppose! Ho! It's a merry lifeyou lead, LeGrand Blossom!"
"Stop!" the young man exclaimed. "I can't let you go on this way.Minnie, please leave us for a moment. I'll come to you as soon as Ican."
"Oh, yes! Of course!" sneered the other. "She's younger and prettierthan I--quite a flapper. I was that way--once. And I suppose you saidthe same thing to some one else you wanted to get rid of before you tookme on. Oh, to the devil with the men, anyhow!"
Minnie gasped.
"Shocked you, did I, kid? Well, you'll hear worse than that, believe me.If I was to tell--"
"Stop!" and LeGrand Blossom snapped out the words in such a manner thatthe desperate woman did stop.
"Minnie, go away," he pleaded, more gently. "I'll come to you as soon asI can, and explain everything. Please believe in me!"
"I--I don't believe I can--again, LeGrand," faltered Minnie. "I--I heardwhat you said to her just now--that you couldn't do anything more forher. Oh, what have you been doing for her? Who is she? Tell me! Oh, Imust hear it, though I dread it!"
"Yes, you shall hear it!" cried LeGrand Blossom, and there wasdesperation in his voice. "I was going to tell you, anyhow, before Imarried you--"
"Oh, you're really going to marry her, are you?" sneered the blonde."Really? How interesting!"
"Will you be quiet?" said LeGrand, and there was that in his voice whichseemed to cow the blonde woman.
"Minnie," went on LeGrand Blossom, "its a hard thing for a man to talkabout a woman, but sometimes it has to be done. And it's doubly hardwhen it's about a woman a man once cared for. But I'm going to take mymedicine, and she's got to take hers."
"I'm no quitter! I'm a sport, I am!" was the defiant remark. "So was Mr.Carwell--Old Carwell we used to call him. But he had more pep than someof you younger chaps.
"Leave his name out of this!" growled LeGrand, like some dog trying tokeep his temper against the attacks of a cur.
"This woman--I needn't tell you her name now, for she has several," hewent on to Minnie. "This woman and I were once engaged to be married.She was younger then--and--different. But she began drinking and--well,she became impossible. Believe me," he said, turning to the figurebeside him, "I don't want to tell this, but I've got to square myself."
"Yes," and the other's voice was broken. "I may as well give up now aslater. If anything can be saved out of the wreck--my wreck--go to it!Shoot, kid! Tell the worst! I'll stand the gaff!"
"Well, that makes it easier," resumed Blossom. "We were going to bemarried, but she got in with a fast crowd, and I couldn't stand thepace. I admit, I wasn't sport enough."
"I'm glad you weren't," murmured Minnie, her breast heaving.
"The result was," went on Blossom, "that she and I separated. It was asmuch her wish as mine--toward the end. And she married a Frenchman withwhom she seemed to be fascinated."
"Yes, he sure had me hypnotized," agreed the blonde woman. "It was moremy fault than yours, Lee. Perhaps if you'd taken a whip to me, and mademe behave--Some of us women need a beating now and then. But it's toolate now." Of a sudden she seemed strangely subdued.
LeGrand Blossom went on with the sordid tale.
"Well, the marriage didn't turn out happily. It was--"
"It was hell! I'm not afraid to use the word!" interrupted the blonde."It was just plain, unadulterated hell! And I went into it with my eyesopen. That's what it was--hell! I've had such a lot here on earth thatmaybe they'll give me a discount when I get--well, when I get where I'mgoing!" and she laughed, but there was no mirth in it.
Minnie shuddered, and drew nearer to LeGrand. And it did not seem to bebecause of the chill night wind, either.
"It was the same old story," went on the clerk. "No need of goingover that, Minnie. It doesn't concern the question now. In the end theFrenchman cast her off, and she had to live, somehow. She came to me,and I, for the sake of old times, agreed to help her. I didn't thinkI was doing anything wrong; but it seems I was. I thought the rare andexpensive book publishing business she said she was in was legitimate.Instead it was--"
"Yes, it was a blackmailing scheme!" interrupted Morocco Kate, notwithout some curious and perverted sense of pride. "I admit that. I gotyou in wrong, LeGrand, but it wasn't because I hated you, for I didn't.I really loved you, and I was a fool to take up with Jean. But that'spast and gone. Only I didn't really mean to make trouble for you. Ithought you might be able to wiggle out, knowing business men as youdid."
"Instead," said the clerk, "I only became the more involved. It beganto look as though I was a p
artner in the infernal schemes, and she andthose she worked with held the threat over my head to extort money fromme."
"Believe me, LeGrand, I didn't do that willingly," interrupted MoroccoKate. "The others had a hold over me, and they forced me to use youas their tool. They bled me, as I, in turn, bled you. Oh, it was all arotten game, and I'm glad the end's at hand. I suppose it's all up now?"she asked Blossom.
"The end is, as far as it concerns you and me," he said. "I'm goingto confess, and take my medicine. Minnie, I've lied to give this womanmoney to prevent her exposing me. Now I'm through. I've told my lastlie, and given my last dollar. Thank God--who has been better to me thanI deserve--thank God! I'm still young enough to make good the moneyI've lost. The lies I can't undo, but I can tell the truth. I'm going toconfess everything!"
"Oh, LeGrand!" cried Minnie, and she held out her hands to him."Not--not everything!"
"Yes, the whole rotten business. That's the only way to begin overagain, and begin clean. I'll come through clean!"
"Oh!" murmured Minnie. "It will be so--so hard!"
"Yes," and LeGrand gritted his teeth, "it isn't going to be easy; butit'll be a bed of roses compared to what I've been lying on the lastyear. This woman had such a hold on me that I couldn't clear myselfbefore--that is, clear myself of grave charges. But now I can. This isthe end. I can prove that I wasn't mixed up in the Roswell de luxe bookcase, and that's what she's been holding over me."
"The Roswell case!" faltered Minnie.
"Yes, you don't know about it, but I'll tell you, later. Now I'm free.This is the end. I came here to-night to tell her so. How you happenedto follow me I don't know."
"I didn't follow, LeGrand. It was all an accident."
"Then it's a lucky accident, Minnie. This is the end. From now on--"
"Yes, it's the end!" bitterly cried the other woman. "It's the end ofeverything. Oh, if I could only make it the end for Jean Carnot, I'd besatisfied. He made me what I am--an outcast from the world. If I couldfind Jean Carnot--"
And then, with the suddenness of a bird wheeling in mid air, the blondewoman turned and rushed away in the darkness.
For an instant Colonel Ashley hesitated in his hiding place. And then hemurmured:
"I guess you'll keep, LeGrand Blossom, and you, too, Minnie Webb.Morocco Kate needs watching. And I think, now, she'll lead me rightwhere I've been wanting to go for a long time. The darkness is fastfading away," which was a strange thing to say, seeing that the nightwas blacker than ever.
Back on the desolate moor, near the bridge under which the black tidewas now hurrying, murmuring and whispering to the rushes tales of thedeep and distant sea, stood two figures.
"Do you believe in me, Minnie?" asked the man brokenly.
There was a pause. The murmuring of the tide grew louder, and it seemedto sing now, as it rose higher and higher.
"Do you?" he repeated, wistfully.
"Yes," was the whispered reply. "And, Lee, I'll help you to comethrough--clean! I believe in you!"
And the tide washed up the shores of the creek so that, even in thedarkness, the white sands seemed to gleam.