VI
DOCTOR POOL
It was a direct attack and for a minute I doubted if I had not made amistake in making it so suddenly and without gloves. His face purpled,the veins on his forehead started out, his great form shook with an irethat in such domineering natures as his can only find relief in a blow.But the right hand did not rise nor the heavy fist fall. With admirableself-restraint he faced me for a moment, without attempting eitherprotest or denial. Then his blazing eyes cooled down, and with a suddengesture which at once relaxed his extreme tension of nerve and muscle,he pointed toward the end of the hall and remarked with studiedpoliteness:
"My office is below, as you know. Will you oblige me by following methere?"
I feared him, for I saw that studiously as he sought to hide hisimpressions, he too regarded the moment as one of criticalsignificance. But I assumed an air of perfect confidence, merelyobserving as I left the neighborhood of the front door and the proximityof Jupp:
"I have friends on the outside who are waiting for me; so you must notkeep me too long."
He was bending to take up the lamp from a small table near the basementstair as I threw out these words in apparent carelessness, and the flashwhich shot from under his shaggy brows was thus necessarily heightenedby the glare in which he stood. Yet with all allowances made I markedhim down in my own mind as dangerous, and was correspondingly surprisedwhen he turned on the top step of the narrow staircase I remembered sovividly from the experience I have before named, and in the mildest ofaccents remarked:
"These stairs are a trifle treacherous. Be careful to grasp thehand-rail as you come down."
Was the game deeper than I thought? In all my remembrance of him I hadnever before seen him look benevolent, and it alarmed me, coming as itdid after the accusation I had made. I felt tempted to make a stand anddemand that the interview be held then and there. For I knew hissubterranean office very well, and how difficult it would be to raise acry there which could be heard by any one outside. Still, with amuttered, "Thank you," I proceeded to follow him down, only stoppingonce in the descent to listen for some sound by which I could determinein which room of the many I knew to be on this floor the little one lay,on whose behalf I was incurring a possible bullet from the pistol I oncesaw lurking amongst bottles and corks in one of the innumerable drawersof the doctor's table. But all was still around and overhead; too stillfor my peace of mind, in which dreadful visions began to rise of adrugged or dying child, panting out its innocent breath in darkness andsolitude. Yet no. With those thousands to be had for the asking, any manwould be a fool to injure or even seriously to frighten a child uponwhose good condition they depended; much less a miser whose whole heartwas fixed on money.
The clock struck as I put foot on the landing; so much can happen intwenty minutes when events crowd and the passions of men reach theirboiling-point! I expected to see the old man try that door, even todouble bolt it as in the years gone by. But he merely threw a look thatway and proceeded on down the three or four steps which led into thespecies of basement where he had chosen to fix his office. In anothermoment that dim and dismal room broke upon my view under the vague lightof the small and poorly-trimmed lamp he carried. I saw again its mustywalls covered with books, where there were shelves laden with bottlesand a loose array of miscellaneous objects I had often handled but outof which I never could make any meaning. I recognized it all anddetected but few changes. But these were startling ones. The old loungestanding under the two barred windows which I had often likened in myown mind to those of a jail, had been recovered; and lying on the table,which I had always regarded with a mixture of awe and apprehension, Iperceived something which I had never seen there before: a Bible, withits edges worn and its leaves rumpled as if often and eagerly handled.
I was so struck by this last discovery that I stopped, staring, in thedoorway, looking from the sacred volume to his worn but vigorous figuredrawn up in the middle of the room, with the lamp still in his hand andhis small but brilliant eyes fixed upon mine with a certain ironicalglitter in them, which gave me my first distrust of the part I had comethere to play.
"We will waste no words," said he, setting down the lamp, and seizingwith his disengaged hand the long locks of his flowing beard. "In whatrespect are you a messenger from Mrs. Ocumpaugh, and what makes youthink I have her child in this house?"
I found it easier to answer the last question first.
"I know the child is here," I replied, "because my partner saw you bringher in. I have gone into the detective business since leaving you."
"Ah!"
There was an astonishing edge to his smile and I felt that I should haveto make the most of that old discovery of mine, if I were to hold my ownwith this man.
"And may I ask," he coldly continued, "how you have succeeded inconnecting me with this young child's disappearance?"
"It's straight as a string," I retorted. "You threatened the child toits face in the hearing of its nurse some two weeks ago, on a certainbridge where you stopped them. You even set the day when the littleGwendolen should pass from luxury to poverty." Here I cast aninvoluntary glance about the room where the only sign of comfort was thenewly upholstered lounge. "That day was the sixteenth, and we all knowwhat happened on that date. If this is not plain enough--" I had seenhis lip curl--"allow me to add, by way of explanation, that you haveseen fit to threaten Mrs. Ocumpaugh herself with this date, for I knowwell the hand which wrote _August 16_ on the bungalow floor and invarious other places about Homewood where her eye was likely to fall."And I let my own fall on a sort of manuscript lying open not far fromthe Bible, which still looked so out of place to me on thispagan-hearted old miser's table. "Such chirography as yours is not to bemistaken," I completed, with a short gesture toward the disorderedsheets he had left spread out to every eye.
"I see. A detective without doubt. Did you play the detective here?"
The last question leaped like a shot from his lips.
"You have not denied the threats to which I have just called yourattention," was my cautious reply.
"What need of that?" he retorted. "Are you not a--_detective_?"
There was sarcasm, as well as taunt in the way he uttered that lastword. I was conscious of being at a loss, but put a bold front on thematter and proceeded as if conscious of no secret misgiving.
"Can you deny as well that you have been gone two days from this place?That during this time a doctor's buggy, drawn by a horse I should knowby description, having harnessed him three times a day for two years,was seen by more than one observer in the wake of a mysterious wagonfrom the interior of which a child's crying could be heard? The wagondid not drive up to this house to-night, but the buggy did, and from ityou carried a child which you brought with you into this house."
With a sudden down-bringing of his old but powerful hand on the top ofthe table before him, he seemed about to utter an oath or some angryinvective. But again he controlled himself, and eying me without anyshow of shame or even of desire to contradict any of my assertions, hequietly declared:
"You are after that reward, I observe. Well, you won't get it. Like manyothers of your class you can follow a trail, but the insight to startright and to end in triumphant success is given only to a genius, andyou are not a genius."
With a blush I could not control, I advanced upon him, crying:
"You have forestalled me. You have telegraphed or telephoned to Mr.Atwater--"
"I have not left my house since I came in here three hours ago."
"Then--" I began.
But he hushed me with a look.
"It is not a matter of money," he declared almost with dignity. "Thosewho think to reap dollars from the distress which has come upon theOcumpaugh family will eat ashes for their pains. Money will be spent,but none of it earned, unless you, or such as you, are hired at so muchan hour to--follow trails."
Greatly astounded not only by the attitude he took, but by the calm andalmost indifferent way in which he me
ntioned what I had every reason tobelieve to be the one burning object of his existence, I surveyed himwith undisguised astonishment till another thought, growing out of thesilence of the many-roomed house above us, gripped me with secret dread;and I exclaimed aloud and without any attempt at subterfuge:
"She is dead, then! the child is dead!"
"I do not know," was his reply.
The four words were uttered with undeniable gloom.
"You do not know?" I echoed, conscious that my jaw had fallen, and thatI was staring at him with fright in my eyes.
"No. I wish I did. I would give half of my small savings to know wherethat innocent baby is to-night. Sit down!" he vehemently commanded. "Youdo not understand me, I see. You confound the old Doctor Pool with thenew."
"I confound nothing," I violently retorted in strong revulsion againstwhat I had now come to look upon as the attempt of a subtile actor toturn aside my suspicions and brave out a dangerous situation by aridiculous subterfuge. "I understand the miser whom I have beheldgloating over his hoard in the room above, and I understand the doctorwho for money could lend himself to a fraud, the secret results of whichare agitating the whole country at this moment."
"So!" The word came with difficulty. "So you _did_ play the detective,even as a boy. Pity I had not recognized your talents at the time. Butno--" he contradicted himself with great rapidity; "I was not a redeemedsoul then; I might have done you harm. I might have had more if notworse sins to atone for than I have now." And with scant appearance ofhaving noted the doubtful manner in which I had received thisastonishing outburst, he proceeded to cry aloud and with a commandinggesture: "Quit this. You have undertaken more than you can handle. You,a messenger from Mrs. Ocumpaugh? Never. You are but the messenger ofyour own cupidity; and cupidity leads by the straightest of roadsdirectly down to hell."
"This you proved six long years ago. Lead me to the child I believe tobe in this house or I will proclaim aloud the pact you entered intothen--a pact to which I was an involuntary witness whose word, however,will not go for less on that account. Behind the curtain still hangingover that old closet I stood while--"
His hand had seized my arm with a grip few could have proceeded under.
"Do you mean--"
The rest was whispered in my ear.
"DO YOU MEAN"--THE REST WAS WHISPERED IN MY EAR.]
I nodded and felt that he was mine now. But the laugh which the nextminute broke from his lips dashed my assurance.
"Oh, the ways of the world!" he cried. Then in a different tone and notwithout reverence: "Oh, the ways of God!"
I made no reply. For every reason I felt that the next word must comefrom him.
It was an unexpected one.
"That was Doctor Pool unregenerate and more heedful of the things ofthis world than of those of the world to come. You have to deal withquite a different man now. It is of that very sin I am now repenting insackcloth and ashes. I live but to expiate it. Something has been donetoward accomplishing this, but not enough. I have been played upon,used. This I will avenge. New sin is a poor apology for an old one."
I scarcely heeded him. I was again straining my ears to catch asmothered sob or a frightened moan.
"What are you listening for?" he asked.
"For the sound of little Gwendolen's voice. It is worth fifty thousanddollars, you remember. Why shouldn't I listen for it? Besides, I have areal and uncontrollable sympathy for the child. I am determined torestore her to her home. Your blasphemous babble of a changed heart doesnot affect me. You are after a larger haul than the sum offered by Mr.Ocumpaugh. You want some of Mrs. Ocumpaugh's fortune. I have suspectedit from the first."
"I want? Little you know what I want"--then quickly, convincingly: "Youare strangely deceived. Little Miss Ocumpaugh is not here."
"What is that I hear, then?" was the quick retort with which I hailedthe sigh, unmistakably from infantile lips, which now rose from someplace very much nearer us than the hollow regions overhead toward whichmy ears had been so long turned.
"That!" He flashed with uncontrollable passion, and if I am not mistakenclenched his hands so violently as to bury his nails in his flesh."Would you like to see what that is? Come!"--and taking up the lamp, hemoved, much to my surprise as well as to my intense interest, toward thedoor of the small cupboard where I had myself slept when in his service.
That he still meditated some deviltry which would call for my fullpresence of mind to combat successfully, I did not in the least doubt.Yet the agitation under which I crossed the floor was more the result ofan immediate anticipation of seeing--and in this place of all others inthe world--the child about whom my thoughts had clung so persistentlyfor forty-two hours, than of any results to myself in the way of injuryor misfortune. Though the room was small and my passage across itnecessarily short, I had time to remember Mrs. Ocumpaugh's pitifulcountenance as I saw it gazing in agony of expectation from her windowoverlooking the river, and to catch again the sounds, less true and yetstrangely thrilling, of Mrs. Carew's voice as she said: "A tragedy at mydoors and I occupied with my own affairs!" Nor was this all. Arecollection of Miss Graham's sorrow came up before my eyes also, and,truest of all, most penetrating to me of all the loves which seemed toencompass this rare and winsome infant, the infinite tenderness withwhich I once saw Mr. Ocumpaugh lift her to his breast, during one of myinterviews with him at Homewood.
All this before the door had swung open. Afterward, I saw nothing andthought of nothing but the small figure lying in the spot where I hadonce pillowed my own head, and with no more luxuries or even comfortsabout her than had been my lot under this broad but by no meanshospitable roof.
A bare wall, a narrow cot, a table with a bottle and glass on it and thechild in the bed--that was all. But God knows, it was enough to me atthat breathless moment; and advancing eagerly, I was about to stoop overthe little head sunk deep in its pillow, when the old man steppedbetween and with a short laugh remarked:
"There's no such hurry. I have something to say first, in explanation ofthe anger you have seen me display; an anger which is unseemly in a manprofessing to have conquered the sins and passions of lost humanity. Idid follow this child. You were right in saying that it was my horseand buggy which were seen in the wake of the wagon which came from theregion of Homewood and lost itself in the crossroads running between theNorth River and the Sound. For two days and a night I followed it,through more difficulties than I could relate in an hour, stopping inlonely woods, or at wretched taverns, watching, waiting for the transferof the child, whose destination I was bound to know even if it cost me aweek of miserable travel without comfortable food or decent lodging. Icould hear the child cry out from time to time--an assurance that I wasnot following a will-o'-the-wisp--but not till to-day, not till verylate to-day, did any words pass between me and the man and woman whodrove the wagon. At Fordham, just as I suspected them of making finalefforts to escape me, they came to a halt and I saw the man get out.
"I immediately got out too. As we faced each other, I demanded what thematter was. He appeared reckless. 'Are you a doctor?' he asked. Iassured him that I was. At which he blurted out: 'I don't know whyyou've been following us so long, and I don't care. I've got a job foryou. A child in our wagon is ill.'"
With a start I attempted to look over the old man's shoulder toward thebed. But the deep, if irregular, breathing of the child reassured me,and I turned to hear the doctor out.
"This gave me my chance. 'Let me see her,' I cried. The man's eyelowered. I did not like his face at all. 'If it's anything serious,' hegrowled, 'I shall cut. It isn't my flesh and blood nor yet my oldwoman's there. You'll have to find some place for the brat besides mywagon if it's anything that won't get cured without nu'ssin'. So comealong and have a look.' I followed him, perfectly determined to take thechild under my own care, sick or well. 'Where were you going to takeher?' I asked. I didn't ask who she was; why should I? 'I don't know asI am obliged to tell,' was his surly reply. 'Where we are goingour
sel's,' he reluctantly added. 'But not to nu'ss. I've no time fornu'ssin' brats, nor my wife neither. We have a journey to make.Sarah!'--this to his wife, for by this time we were beside the wagon,'lift up the flap and hold the youngster's hand out. Here's a doctor whowill tell us if it's fever or not.' A puny hand and wrist were thrustout. I felt the pulse and then held out my arms. 'Give me the child,' Icommanded. 'She's sick enough for a hospital.' A grunt from the womanwithin, an oath from the man, and a bundle was presently put in my arms,from which a little moan escaped as I strode with it toward my buggy. 'Ido not ask your name,' I called back to the man who reluctantly followedme. 'Mine is Doctor Pool and I live in Yonkers.' He muttered somethingabout not peachin' on a poor man who was really doin' an unfortunate akindness, and then slunk hurriedly back and was gone, wagon, wife andall, by the time I had whipped up my tired old nag and turned abouttoward Yonkers. But I had the child safe and sound in my arms, and myfears of its fate were relieved. It was not well, but I anticipatednothing serious. When it moaned I pressed it a little closer to mybreast and that was all. In three-quarters of an hour we were inYonkers. In fifteen minutes I had it on this bed, and had begun tounroll the shawl in which it was closely wrapped. Did you ever see thechild about whom there has been all this coil?"
"Yes, about three years ago."
"Three years! I have seen her within a fortnight; yet I could carrythat young one in my arms for a whole hour without the least suspicionthat I was making a fool of myself."
Quickly slipping aside, he allowed me to approach the bed and take myfirst look at the sleeping child's face. It was a sweet one but I didnot need the hint he had given me to find the features strange, andlacking every characteristic of those of Gwendolen Ocumpaugh. Yet as thecutting off of the hair will often change the whole aspect of theface--and this child's hair was short--I was stooping in greatexcitement to notice more particularly the contour of cheek and chinwhich had given individuality to the little heiress, when the doctortouched me on the arm and drew my attention to a pair of little trousersand a shirt which were hanging on the door behind me.
"Those are the clothes I came upon under that great shawl. The child Ihave been following and whom I have brought into my house under theimpression it was Gwendolen Ocumpaugh is not even a girl."