 
Transcriber's Notes:
The Red House on Rowan Street
frontispiece
THE RED HOUSE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CONTENTS | |
| CHAPTER | |
| I. | Burton Becomes an Ambassador. |
| II. | At the Red House. |
| III. | The Highwayman's Mask Is Found. |
| IV. | The Curious Experiences of the Underwood Family. |
| V. | The Investigating Committee. |
| VI. | A Midnight Watch. |
| VII. | The Work of the Incendiary. |
| VIII. | The Baby That Was Tied in. |
| IX. | A Pointed Warning. |
| X. | Mr. Hadley Proves a True Prophet. |
| XI. | Henry Underwood Is Arrested. |
| XII. | An Unstable Sweetheart. |
| XIII. | Henry Is Hard to Handle. |
| XIV. | Burton's Turn. |
| XV. | An Odd Knot. |
| XVI. | The Trail to Yesteryear. |
| XVII. | A Temporary Aberration. |
| XVIII. | Burton Thinks He Is Mending Matters. |
| XIX. | Burton Goes To The Reservation. |
| XX. | Ground Bait. |
| XXI. | Rachel Appears on the Scene. |
| XXII. | Henry Takes to His Heels. |
| XXIII. | The Trap Is Sprung. |
| XXIV. | Burton's Last Appearance as an Ambassador. |
Illustrations | |
| "'Mr. Underwood has enemies,' he said calmly." | Frontispiece. See p. 176. |
| "'Well, perhaps this can be explained away, too!'" | Page 71 |
| "He found Ben Bussey in a wheeled chair near a window" | Page 200 |
| "He stopped for a moment at the gate to enjoy the picture she made" | Page 250 |
The
Red House on Rowan Street
CHAPTER I
BURTON BECOMES AN AMBASSADOR
When Hugh Burton stepped from the train at High Ridge, he wondered (in his ignorance of the events that were about to engage him) whether he would be able to catch a return train that evening. He had no desire to linger in this half-grown town on the western edge of civilization one minute longer than his fool errand demanded. He called it a "fool errand" every time he thought of his mission. That he, who had secretly prided himself on the "disengaged" attitude which he had always maintained toward life, should have consented to come halfway across the continent to hunt up a Miss Leslie Underwood whom he had never met, and ask her if she would not be so kind as to reconsider her refusal to marry Philip Overman, because Philip was really taking it very hard, don't you know, and particularly because Philip's mother would be quite distracted if the boy should carry out his threat to enlist and go to the Philippines,--oh, Lord! he must have had some unsuspected idiot among his ancestors. Did Rachel Overman know how heavily she was drawing on his friendship?
An Indian woman sitting on the stone steps of the railway station made him realize how near the edge of civilization, in very truth, he had come. There was, he remembered, a Reservation for Indians on the northern border of the State. It could not be very far from High Ridge.
With her bright shawl about her shoulders and her beadwork and baskets spread about her, the woman made a picturesque spot in the sunshine. At another time Burton would have stopped to examine her wares, for among his other dilettante pursuits was an interest in Indian basketry; but in his present impatient mood he would have pushed past with a mere glance but for one of those queer little incidents that we call accidental. A man who was coming down the steps that Burton was about to ascend passed near the black-eyed squaw, and she looked up with smiling recognition and laid her hand arrestingly upon his coat. But he was not in a responsive mood. He gave her a black look and struck her hand away with such impatience and violence that a pile of her upset baskets rolled down the steps and over the platform at Burton's feet. At once he stepped in front of the man, who was hurrying heedlessly on.
"Pick them up. You knocked them over," he said quietly.
The man gathered up one or two with instinctive obedience to a positive order, before he realized what he was doing. Then he straightened up and glared wrathfully at his self-appointed overseer.
"What the devil have you got to say about it?" he asked.
"What I did say."
"You mind your own infernal business," the man cried, and flinging the baskets in his hand at Burton's feet he rushed on.
Burton beckoned a porter, who gathered up and restored the woman's scattered merchandise. For himself, he walked on toward the booth marked "Bureau of Information," and wondered what had possessed him to make him act so out of character. Why hadn't he called the porter in the first instance, if he felt it his affair? Something in the man's brutality had aroused a corresponding passion in himself. It was a case of hate at first sight, and he rejoiced that at any rate he had declared himself, and had put the uncivilized pale face into a humiliating rage!
The particular information of which he stood in immediate need was Leslie Underwood's address. He opened the city directory and turned to the U's. There were a dozen Underwoods,--a baker, a banker, a coal heaver, a doctor, a merchant,--where did Miss Leslie belong?
"Have you a Blue Book?" he asked the lazy-looking attendant.
"Naw."
"Anything with ladies' addresses?--a society list, you know."
"Naw."
"I want to get the address of Miss Leslie Underwood," Burton went on, with grim patience. "And I don't want to waste time. Can you suggest how I can find it?"
The attendant had tipped down his uptilted chair so abruptly that it cracked. He was looking at Burton with lively curiosity and amusement.
"You a friend of Dr. Underwood's?"
"Miss Underwood belongs to the doctor's family then, does she?"
"Sure. You coming to visit, or are you going to write him up?"
"I didn't know this was a bureau to extract information," Burton remarked, as he made a note of the doctor's home address from the directory. "What is there to write up about Dr. Underwood?"
"Aw, you think I'm green."
"No, merely ill-mannered," said Burton politely, as he turned away.
Outside, a row of cabmen, toeing an imaginary line, waved their whips frantically over it to attract his attention. He selected the nearest.
"Do you know where Dr. Underwood lives?"
The man held Burton's suitcase suspended in mid-air while he honored its owner with the same look of amused curiosity.
"Sure! The Red House, they call it, on Rowan street. Take you there?"
"No. Take me to the best hotel in town," Burton said coolly, stepping into the cab.
Why the mischief did everybody grin at the mention of Dr. Underwood's name? Burton was conscious of being in an irritable state of mind, but still it could not be altogether his sensitiveness that made him hear innuendoes everywhere. What sort of people were the Underwoods, anyhow? Philip had met Miss Underwood in Washington and fallen crazily in love,--after a fashion he had. (Hadn't he been crazy about Ellice Avery a year before?) But this time he had emphasized the depths of his despair by falling ill of a low fever when his suit failed to prosper. Beyond the fact that the girl was "an angel," "a dream," and other things of the same insubstantial order, Burton had little knowledge to go upon. The family might be the laughing stock of High Ridge, for all he knew. When a boy of twenty-two fell crazily in love, he didn't think about such matters; but Rachel, who, in a panic over her boy, had hurried him off to intercede with the cold-hearted damsel, would, as he well knew, hold him personally responsible for the consequences of his unwelcome mission, if they should prove to be unpleasant. Well, he would have to put in his time thinking up something to demand of Rachel that would be hard enough to even up scores a little.
It was with deliberate intention that he said to the hotel clerk, after he had registered: "How far is it to Dr. Underwood's house?"
The clerk looked up with the sudden awakening of curiosity that Burton had expected, then glanced at the registered name.
"You want his office?"
"No. His home."
"It's out on Rowan street, not very far from here. Know the doctor?"
"No. I'm a stranger here. Is he a regular physician?"
"Oh, yes."
"In practice?"
"When he gets any."
"Is there anything peculiar about him?"
The clerk permitted himself a languid smile. "There is nothing about him that isn't peculiar. Have you seen the morning paper?"
"Not any of your local papers."
"I'll find one for you. Did you want lunch?"
"Yes." Burton gave his order and went to the room assigned to him, where he made himself as presentable as possible for his proposed call on Miss Underwood.
When he returned to the dining-room he found a newspaper by his plate, folded so as to bring out the headline:
"DR. UNDERWOOD DENIES."
Under this appeared the following card:
"To Whom it may Concern: Having been informed that there is a report abroad to the effect that, as a masked highwayman, I robbed Mr. Orton Selby on Crescent Terrace last Friday evening, I beg to state to my friends and the public that the report is without foundation in fact. I never robbed Mr. Selby or any one else, either as a masked highwayman or as an attending physician, and I defy anybody and everybody to prove anything to the contrary.
"Roger Underwood, M. D."
Burton read the card several times while the waiter was placing his order before him. The hour was late and the dining-room was practically deserted, but Burton saw the clerk through the doorway, and beckoned to him. He sauntered in with an amused smile and leaned against the window while Burton questioned him.
"This is the most extraordinary announcement I ever saw in my life. Are people in High Ridge in the habit of publishing cards of this sort?"
"Dr. Underwood is rather original in his methods."
"I should judge so. What does he mean by this? Surely there is nothing to connect him with a highway robbery?"
"Well,--there has been some gossip."
"You really mean that? Why, what sort of a man is Dr. Underwood? I wish you would tell me about him. I am entirely ignorant, but I have some business in hand involving some friends of mine and of his, and I'd like to know what I am up against."
"Well, there's a good deal of talk about the Doctor and Henry Underwood, both. People are ready to believe anything."
"How old a man is the doctor?"
"Between fifty and sixty."
"And his family consists of--?"
"His wife, who is very pious, his son Henry, who is rather less liked than the doctor, if any thing, and a daughter."
"Anything queer about her?"
"Oh, no! She's rather pretty."
Burton recognized the point of view, but he did not feel that it solved his own problem. Miss Underwood would have to be very pretty indeed, if her personal charms were to cover the multitude of her family's sins.
"Are there any specific charges against them?" he asked.
"Not exactly. It's more a feeling in the air. There's a good deal of talk about his keeping a cripple shut up upstairs in his house. He's the son of the housekeeper,--Ben Bussey is his name. Kept him there for years. Mrs. Bussey says he ain't treated right."
"That might be investigated, I should think. Anything else?"
"A few months ago an old man died while the doctor was attending him. There was some talk about poison in his medicine."
"Was anything done about investigating it?"
"No, it just dropped. Nobody exactly likes to tackle the doctor. They're afraid. That old man had been complaining about his treatment, and then he died, and there are people who say that something is sure to happen to anybody that says anything against the doctor. This Orton Selby, now, had been making a lot of talk about old man Means' death, saying it was malpractice, if nothing worse, and that something ought to be done about it; and then last Friday he was held up. Somehow it always seems to happen the same way. That's what makes people talk."
"What specific reason is there for connecting the doctor with the robbery?"
"Well, it is known that the doctor was not far from Crescent Terrace at the time, for some one saw him driving very fast from that locality a few minutes later. It was in the dusk of evening. The man that held Selby up was masked by having a handkerchief tied over his face, with slits cut in it to see through, but Selby says he was the size and height of the doctor, and walked like him. But the closest point is that after he left Selby, with his hands tied above his head to the railing that runs along the Terrace, Selby saw him pick up a gray cloak from the ground and throw it over his arm as he walked off."
"Well?"
"The doctor commonly wears a gray cloak, something like a military cape. Nobody ever saw any one else wear another just like it. Everybody knows him at sight by his gray cloak."
"But he wasn't wearing it."
"That's the point. It looks as though he had thrown it down on the ground so as to conceal it. Selby swears it was a gray cape or cloak, not a coat, because he saw a corner fall down over the man's arm as he hurried away."
"What sort of a man is Selby?"
"Why,--his word is considered good. He's a builder and contractor. Worked himself up from a common workman, and is very successful. He's built some of our best houses. Ben Bussey, the young man I told you about who lives at the doctor's, does woodcarving for him."
"I thought you said he was a cripple."
"Oh, his hands are all right."
"Do the people consider that Selby is justified in his charges?"
"Well, they don't know just what to think. I guess most of them would rather like to have Selby prove something against the doctor, for the sake of justifying all the talk that has gone before. But I think it's mostly Henry that makes the family unpopular."
"How does he do it?"
The clerk shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know all the stories, but they say there was something queer about the things he did when he was a boy. Anyhow, he got the town down on him, and that's the way it has been ever since."
"The latest about Dr. Underwood," a boy called at the door. He tossed a crumpled sheet of paper to the clerk, who read it and then smilingly laid it before Burton. The sheet was typewritten, not printed, and it bore the following legend:
"Search Dr. Underwood's house. You will find evidence of his guilt."
Burton frowned. "It strikes me that there is either too much or too little said about all this business. If there is any substantial evidence against the man, he ought to be arrested. If there isn't, his accusers ought to be. Why don't the parties who send out a bill like this sign it?"
The clerk smiled his disinterested smile. "They're afraid to. I told you it wasn't considered healthy to oppose Dr. Underwood. Something is bound to happen to them."
"Nonsense," said Burton impatiently.
"Of course," agreed the smiling clerk, and sauntered away.
Burton sat still and considered. His personal irritation was swallowed up in this more serious complication. How did this curious and unexpected situation affect the commission with which he was charged? He thought of Rachel Overman, fastidious, critical, ultra refined, and in spite of his preoccupation he smiled to himself. The idea of an alliance between her house and that of a man who was popularly supposed to indulge on occasion in highway robbery struck him as incongruous enough to be called humorous. At any rate, he now had a reasonable excuse for going no further with his "fool errand." The role of Lancelot, wooing as a proxy for the absent prince, had by no means pleased him, and it was with a guilty sense of relief at the idea of dropping it right here that he called for a time-table.
He figured out his railway connections, and went to the office to give his orders. As he passed the open window his attention was caught by two men who had met on the sidewalk outside. One of them was talking excitedly and flourishing a paper which looked much like the typewritten sheet the clerk had shown him. It was the man with whom Burton had clashed at the station.
"Who is that man,--the smaller one?" he asked.
The clerk glanced out and smiled.
"That's the man I was telling you about,--Orton Selby."
"So that's the man who is bringing this charge against Dr. Underwood! Who's the other?"
"Mr. Hadley. A banker and one of our prominent citizens."
Burton crumpled up his time-table and tossed it into the waste-basket quite as though he had had no intention of taking the next train out of town.
"Will you direct me to Dr. Underwood's house now?" he said.
CHAPTER II
AT THE RED HOUSE
Burton could have found his way to the Red House without any further direction than the clerk had given him, and it was chiefly curiosity that made him try another experiment on the way. He had come by the side street, and half a block away he saw the large red house facing toward Rowan street. At the rear ran a high board fence, separating the grounds belonging to the house from an alley which cut through the middle of the block. As he passed the end of the alley, he noticed a man and a woman talking together by the gate which opened into the house grounds. The woman's excited gestures caught his attention. She was shaking her hands at the man in a way that might have meant anger or impatience or merely dismissal, but which certainly meant something in a superlative and violent degree. Then she darted in through the gate, slamming it shut, and the man came running down the alley toward the street with a curious low lope that covered the ground amazingly, though it seemed effortless.
Burton had stopped, at first to see whether it were a case that called for interference. Now, as the man jumped out just in front of him, he spoke to him,--as much from a desire to see the face of a man who ran so furtively as from curiosity as to the effect the doctor's name would have. "Pardon me," he said. "Can you tell me if this is where Dr. Underwood lives?"
But this time his cast drew nothing. The man stopped a moment, cast a sharp though furtive glance up at his questioner, and shook his head.
"Don't know," he said curtly, and hurried on. Burton took the liberty of believing that the man had lied.
The Red House had a character and quality of its own that set it immediately apart from the rest of this half-baked town. It was a large house, with signs of age that were grateful to him, set back in extensive grounds which were surrounded by high hedges of shrubbery. The house itself was shaded by old trees, and the general effect of the place was one of aloofness, as different as possible from the cheap, new, easy-going publicity of the rest of the street. If it be true that human beings mould their surrounding to reflect their own characters, then the Underwoods were certainly not commonplace people. Burton was sensitive to influences, and as he stepped inside the grounds and let the gate shut behind him, he had an indefinable feeling that he had stepped into an alien territory. He glanced back at the street outside as an adventurer who has strayed into an enchanted land may look back for reassurance to the safe and commonplace country he has left.
A man in the rough dress of a gardener was down on his knees beside a flower-bed in the garden, and Burton approached him.
"Is this Dr. Underwood's house?"
"He lives here," the man said coolly, without glancing up.
"You mean he doesn't own it?" Burton asked, more for the sake of pursuing the conversation than from any special interest in Dr. Underwood's tax list.
"He couldn't own that, could he?" asked the man, pointing dramatically at the tulip about which he had been building up the earth.
"You are a philosopher as well as a gardener."
"I?" The man stood up, and Burton saw that he was young, and that his face, in spite of its somberness, was intelligent and not unattractive. "Oh, I am a human being, like the rest of the impertinent race. I try to forget what I am, but I have no right to. You do well to remind me."
"Why do you wish to forget?" asked Burton curiously.
"Who that is human would not wish to forget? Who that is human would not wish at times that he were a tulip, blooming in perfect beauty, and so doing all that could be asked of him? Or an oak, like that one, fulfilling its nature without blame and without harm?"
"Are you Ben Bussey?" Burton asked on a sudden impulse, remembering the name of the young man whom the hotel clerk had mentioned as being the subject of popular stories. This young man was certainly queer enough to give rise to legends.
He was not prepared for the effect of his question. The young man drew back as though he had been struck, while a look where fear and distaste and reproach were mingled darkened his face.
"Who are you?" he asked harshly. "What do you know about Ben Bussey?"
"I have heard the name mentioned, that's all, as that of a young man living with Dr. Underwood. I assure you I meant nothing offensive." Unconsciously he had adopted the tone of one speaking to an equal. This was no common gardener.
"No, I am not Ben Bussey," the young man said, after a pause in which he obviously struggled to regain his self-control. "I have often wished I were, however. I am Henry Underwood." He looked up with a sharp defiance in his eyes as he spoke the name. It was as though he expected to see some sign of repulsion.
"I am very glad to meet you, then. My name is Burton. Mrs. Overman, of Putney, asked me to bring a message to your sister."
"You will find her in the house, I suppose," the young man answered carelessly. He turned indifferently away, as though he had no further interest in his visitor, and in a few minutes he was bent over another flower-bed, absorbed in his work.
Burton walked up to the house, his pulses curiously atingle. No wonder the Underwoods got themselves talked about in the neighborhood, if this was a sample of the way in which they met the advances of strangers! After ringing the bell, he glanced back at Henry Underwood. He had risen from the ground and stood with bared head looking up into the branches of the oak with an expression that struck Burton even at that distance as inexpressibly sad.
The door was opened by a middle-aged servant, in whom Burton recognized the woman he had seen gesticulating so violently in the back yard. She looked out at him with surprise and caution, and with the obvious intent of not admitting him without cause shown.
"Is Miss Underwood at home?" he asked.
"I don't know. Likely she is," the woman answered, still with that uncomprehending look of wonder at his intrusion.
"Will you take her my card, please?" And with a little more muscular effort than he was in the habit of using when entering a house, he forced the door far enough back to enable him to pass the guarded portal, and with an air of assurance that was largely factitious, walked into a room opening from the hall, which he judged to be a reception room.
The woman followed him to the door and looked dubiously from him to his card, which she still held in her hand.
"I will wait here while you see if Miss Underwood is at home and whether she can see me. Please look her up at once," he said positively. The tone was effective. The woman departed.
The same evidences of old-time dignity and present-day decay that he had noted in the grounds struck Burton in the drawing-room. The room was a stately one, built according to the old ideas of spaciousness and leisure, but the carpet was worn, the upholstery dingy, and a general air of disuse showed that the days of receptions must be long past. Evidently the Underwoods were not living in the heyday of prosperity. To do Rachel justice, she would not care about that except incidentally. But she would care a great deal about the family's social standing. Burton tried, to the best of his masculine ability, to take an inventory of things that would enable him to answer the questions she was sure to pour out upon him,--always supposing his mission were in any degree successful.
He walked to the window and looked out upon the side garden. Not far from the house was a rustic seat, and here a lady was sitting,--a tall, gray-haired lady, reading a ponderous book. The conviction that this must be Mrs. Underwood made him look at her with the liveliest interest. The servant to whom Burton had given his card came out, in obvious haste and excitement, but the reading lady merely lifted a calm hand to check her, and turned her page without raising her eyes. But she shook her head, seemingly in answer to some question, and the messenger returned hastily to the house. The lady continued to read.
Burton smiled to himself over the little scene. Mrs. Underwood, if this were she, would be able to give points in self-possession to Rachel herself.
But the moment that Leslie Underwood entered the room, Burton forgot all his hesitations and reluctances. In the instant while he bowed before her, his mind took a right-about-face. It was not merely that she was unexpectedly beautiful. That would account for Philip's infatuation, but Burton was a keener judge of human nature. Behind the girl's mask of beauty there looked out a spirit so direct, so genuine, that it was like a touchstone to prove those qualities in others. Burton felt something pull him erect as he looked at her. Philip had drawn a prize which he probably neither understood nor deserved,--and the High Ridge tales about Dr. Underwood were preposterous absurdities. All this in the flash of an eye!
"You wished to see me?" she asked. Her voice had a vibrant ring.
"Yes,--though I am merely an ambassador." (No thought now of modifying his commission!) "I come from Philip Overman."
Her face flushed sensitively at the name.
"Philip has been seriously ill," he said.
"I am sorry to hear it."
"Even yet his condition causes keen anxiety to his mother."
A little change passed over her sensitive face,--could it have been a flicker of amusement? The suspicion helped to restore his nerve. Who was this young woman after all, that she should dare to smile at Rachel Overman's anxiety for her boy? People who knew Mrs. Overman were accustomed to treat even her whims with respect. He continued a thought more stiffly.
"His physician, I may say, admits that her fears are justified. He is in an extremely nervous and excitable condition, and it is considered that the best hope for his recovery lies in removing the cause of the mental disturbance which is at the root of his physical overthrow. His unhappiness is sending him into a decline."
She looked at him quizzically. There was no question now about the hidden amusement that brought that gleam into her eyes. And she answered with a rocking, monotonous cadence that flared its mockery in his ears.
"Men have died, and worms have eaten them," she said slowly, "but--not for love."
Burton flushed to the roots of his hair. He knew that he had not been honest in his plea,--that it was for Rachel's sake and not for Philip's (confound the boy!) that he had turned special pleader in the case,--but for heaven's sake, why couldn't the girl have pretended with him for a little while? Couldn't she see that he had to present the best side of his cause?
"I think possibly the matter is more serious than you realize," he said, dropping his eyes. "Philip is a high-strung young man. His disappointment was profound. It has seemingly shattered his ambition and his interest in life."
"Philip is a self-willed young man," she said, in a carefully modulated voice that was so palpable a mimicry of his own that he was torn between a desire to applaud her skill and to box her ears for her impertinence. "He cried for the moon, and when he couldn't have it, he evidently made things uncomfortable for his dear mamma and his self-sacrificing friend. But I believe, speaking under correction, that the best modern authorities, as well as the classic one I have already quoted, agree that the probabilities are highly in favor of a complete recovery,--in time. Don't you agree with me?"
"I am sorry not to be able to do so. In the first place I have been retained as a witness by the other side. In the second place, I can judge, as you cannot, of the rarity of the treasure that he thinks he has lost. I cannot say that his despair is excessive."
She smiled appreciatively.
"That was really very well done, under the circumstances. Well, now that these polite preliminaries have passed, what is the real object of your visit?"
"Allow me to point out that you make an ambassador's task unusually difficult by pressing so immediately to the point, but, since that is your way, I can only meet you in the same direct manner. My object is to ask whether it is not possible for you to reconsider your refusal to marry Philip Overman."
She lifted her head with a look of surprise. There was a sparkle in her eyes and this time it was not amusement.
"Did he send you?" she asked.
"He raved of you in his delirium. He talked of you incessantly. He has begged me times without number to ask you to come and let him see you for a minute,--for an hour. We pulled him through the fever and the rest of it, but his physical recovery has not restored his mental tone. He will not take up his life in the old way. He vows now that as soon as we let go our present surveillance, he will enlist and get himself sent to the Philippines. I think he means it. And it would be rather a pity, for in his state of health, to go to the Philippines as a common soldier would mean a fairly expeditious form of suicide. It would, beyond the slightest question, break his mother's heart. And she has no one else,--her husband died less than a year ago. Philip's death would mean a rather sad end for a good old family that has written its name in its country's history more than once."
She had dropped her eyes when he began, but at the last word she looked up.
"And what of my family?" she asked. There was a vibrant undertone of suppressed feeling in her voice which made Burton look at her questioningly. Exactly what feeling was it that brought such a challenging light into her eyes? He took refuge in a generalization.
"In America, the families of the high contracting parties come in only for secondary consideration, don't they?" he suggested. "But I have discharged my commission very poorly if I have failed to make you understand that Philip's family is waiting to welcome you with entire love and--respect." In spite of himself, he had hesitated before the last word.
She laughed,--a forlorn little laugh that was anything but mirthful; but whatever answer she might have made was interrupted by the sounds of an unusual commotion outside. A woman's excited voice was heard in exclamations that were at first only half distinguishable.
"Oh, doctor, doctor, for the love of heaven what have you been in, now? What have you done to yourself? You're hurt, doctor, I can see that you're hurt!"
"Nonsense, Mrs. Bussey, don't make a fuss," a man's voice answered impatiently.
But the housekeeper who had admitted Burton now rushed into the drawing-room, calling hysterically: "Oh, Miss Leslie, your father is killed!" And thereupon she threw her apron up over her head to render her more effective in the emergency.
She was followed almost immediately by a sufficiently startling apparition,--a powerfully built man of more than middle age, with a keen blue eye and an eager face. But just now the face was disfigured by the blood that flowed freely from a wound on his temple, and he supported himself by the door as though he could not well stand alone.
Leslie ran toward him with a cry.
"Father! Oh, father, what has happened?"
CHAPTER III
THE HIGHWAYMAN'S MASK IS FOUND
Burton had jumped to his feet. "Let me help you to a couch," he said, offering his arm as a support. "Not into this room," Dr. Underwood sputtered, wincing with pain as he spoke. "Good land, man, do you suppose a man with a sprained ankle who isn't going to be able to walk for the rest of his natural life, and then will have to go on crutches for a while, wants to sit down on one of those spindle-legged chairs that break if you look at them? Get me into the surgery. And Leslie, if you have an atom of filial feeling, you might show him the way instead of standing there like a classical figure of despair on a monument smiling at a bloody temple. I'm ashamed of you. Where's your equanimity? Ouch! Jerusalem! Sante Fe! You don't need to try to carry me, man. I can walk. Leslie, if you haven't any religious scruples against really opening the door while you are about it, perhaps this procession could get through without scraping the skin off its elbows,--"
Burton had slipped his shoulder under the doctor's arm, and, guided by Leslie, he got him through a hall which seemed interminably long, and into the room which he had called the surgery. Burton helped him to the leathern couch.
"Get me some hot water," he said in a hasty aside to Leslie, and she quickly left the room.
He stripped off Dr. Underwood's shoe, and began to manipulate the swollen ankle.
"This isn't going to be serious," he said soothingly. "It's merely a strain, not a dislocation. It will be painful for a while,--"
"Will be! Jerusalem, what do you think it is now? You are a doctor."
"No. But I have had some experience with accidents. If you want me to go for a doctor,--"
"You are all I can stand at present, thank you. I know you are a doctor by your confounded nerve. Will be painful! I wish it were your ankle, confound you. And I'll never grumble again when my patients swear at me. I never realized before what a relief it is to swear at your doctor. How did you happen to be here? I suppose it was an accident and not a special dispensation of Providence."
"I was the bearer of a message to your daughter, and so happened to be on hand at the right moment, that's all. My name is Burton,--Hugh Burton, Putney, Massachusetts."
"A message? From whom? What about?"
"There, doesn't that begin to feel more comfortable?"
"Humph! That's a neat way of telling me to mind my own business."
Burton merely laughed. "Let me look at this cut in your temple. So! Any more damages?"
"My little finger was knocked out of joint, but I think I put it back. I guess that's all they had time to get in,--"
"Who?"
The sharp monosyllable made them both start. Leslie had returned with Mrs. Bussey, who was carrying a kettle of hot water; but in her surprise at her father's remark, she was very effectively blocking the way for the timid servant.
"Leslie, your curiosity unfits you for any useful career," her father exclaimed, with a great show of irritation. "Do you suppose Dr. Burton wanted that hot water to meliorate the temperature of the room? If so, it will probably be just as well to keep Mrs. Bussey holding it in the doorway; but if you think he possibly meant to use it as a fomentation,--"
"You needn't think you are going to put me off in that way," said Leslie, making way for Mrs. Bussey. "I am just as sorry as I can be that you are hurt, you know, but that isn't all. I want to know what has happened now."
"Dr. Burton assures me it is merely a strain, though he goes so far as to admit that if I make the worst of it, I may be able to imagine that it hurts. But of course it doesn't really. It will merely be nerves."
"Can I help you with that hot application, Mr. Burton?" Leslie asked.
"Mrs. Bussey can do this. Do you know where to find some court-plaster? And scissors?"
She got the required articles deftly, and watched in silence while he dressed the doctor's temple. Then she asked: "May he talk now?"
"I should not undertake to prevent him."
"Now, father,--"
"Well, those little imps of Satan that live in that tumble-down house on King Street, where you went Friendly Visiting,--"
"The Sprigg children?"
"That's the name. They have heard Aristides called the unjust so long that they thought they would throw a stone or two to mark their ennui, but they misunderstood the use of the stone, and so they threw it at me instead of for me--"
"Do you mean that they stoned you?"
"Oh, I shouldn't have minded the little devils, but they threw stones at Dolly, and they might easily have broken her leg. That's what made me jump out of the buggy to go after them, because I thought they needed a lesson, but I jumped on one of their infernal stones and it turned my foot and that's how I twisted my ankle. So I got back into the buggy, and was glad I didn't have far to go to get to it. Then I came on home. I never knew that walk from the street to the front door was so long."
"But your face--?"
"Oh, that was one of the stones that flew wide of the mark. The little heathen don't know how to throw straight. They ought to be kept under an apple-tree with nothing to eat until they learn how to bring down their dinner with the first throw."
Leslie clenched her hands.
"It is outrageous. I don't see how you can treat it so lightly. That they should dare to stone you,--to try deliberately to hurt you, perhaps to kill you! Oh, they would never dare if it were not for this shameful, unendurable, wicked persecution!"
"Leslie, after the example which I have always carefully given you of moderation in language,--"
"It is wicked. It is unendurable. I feel as though I were in a net that was drawing closer and closer about me. It is the secrecy of it that makes me wild. If I could only fight back! But to have some one watching in the dark, and not to know who or what it is,--to suspect everybody,--"
"Leslie, don't you realize that Dr. Burton will think you delirious if you talk like this? If you are jealous of my temporary prominence as an interesting patient,--"
Leslie turned swiftly to Burton.
"My father has been made the object of a most infamous persecution by some unknown person. The most outrageous stories are circulated about him, the most unjustifiable things are done,--like this. Those children don't go around stoning people in general; they have been put up to it by some one who is always watching a chance,--some one who has used them as an instrument for his malice!"
"You must make some allowance for the intemperate zeal of a daughter, Dr. Burton," said Dr. Underwood. A twinge of pain twisted his smile into a grimace. He had a wide, flexible mouth, and when he grinned he looked a caricature. Burton reflected that a man must be sustained by an unusually strong consciousness of virtue to risk his character on such a grin,--or else it was the very mockery of virtue.
"Then you think Miss Underwood overstates the case?" he asked thoughtfully. He was glad to have them talk about the matter. It was a curious situation, even without considering its possible effect on Philip's life.
"Well, I have seen too many queer things that turned out to be mere coincidences to be so sure that there is really a conspiracy against me," Underwood said quietly. "Public opinion is a queer thing. It takes epidemics. At present it seems to have an epidemic of suspicion of me. It will probably run its course and recover."
"What form does it take?"
"The latest and for the time being the most embarrassing form is that it takes me for a highwayman. I have been pretty hard up at times, but I confess I never had the originality to think of that method of relieving my necessities. And yet, confound the sarcasm of the idiots, they are determined to give me the discredit without the cash. If I had only got Selby's money,--I've no doubt he got it by holding up his customers in his turn,--I wouldn't mind these innuendoes so much."
"Oh, well, so long as the Grand Jury doesn't think it worth mentioning, you can probably afford to take it with equal indifference," said Burton lightly.
But Leslie turned upon him with immediate dissent.
"I should much rather have the matter taken up and sifted to the bottom. Then there might be some chance of finding out who is behind all these mysterious happenings. They don't happen of themselves. As it is, there is talk, and suspicion, and sidelong looks, and general ostracism, and I go around hating everybody, because I don't know whom to hate! Oh, if I were only a man! I would do something."
"I have done something now, Leslie," said her father. "I have invited a committee to come here this evening and make a search, as those fool bills suggested."
"This evening?"
"Yes. You will have to do the honors, if I am going to be laid up. I don't suppose your mother will care to see them. And Henry is not exactly the one." A shadow passed over his face, and he fell suddenly silent.
"What do you mean by a search, if I may ask?" Burton put in. They were so frank in their attitude, he felt that his interest would not be regarded as an impertinence.
"Why, ever since this rumor went abroad that I had held up Selby, there have been handbills distributed about town,--posted up on fences and thrust in open doors,--urging that my house be searched. It got on Leslie's nerves. So, just to let her see that something was doing, I told them today to come and search, and be hanged to them."
"And they are coming this evening?"
"Yes. That's the plan."
"Is Selby one of them?" asked Burton with sudden interest.
"Oh, yes. He's the one I spoke to about it. I understand he takes an interest in the matter."
"Well, have you made ready for them?"
"What do you mean?" asked Dr. Underwood.
"Have you searched yourself?" laughed Burton.
"I don't understand you," said Dr. Underwood. His tone was stern, and his manner indicated plainly that he considered it a matter of politeness not to understand.
"Mrs. Bussey, may I trouble you to bring some more hot water? This is getting too cold. Thank you." He closed the door behind her, and came back to Dr. Underwood's couch. "It seems to me my suggestion is perfectly simple and the reason for it perfectly obvious. Some enemy is urging that your house be searched. I say enemy, because it must be clear that no friend would urge it in that manner. Now, if it is an enemy, he is not doing it for your benefit. He must have an idea that a search would injure you. How could he have that idea unless he knew that it would result in discovering something that, we will say for the sake of argument, he had previously concealed where it would be found at the right time? And here you are walking right into the trap, by inviting a public search without taking the precaution to make a preliminary search yourself."
Leslie had listened with breathless eagerness, never moving her eyes from Burton's face. Now she turned with earnest reproach to her father.
"Now, father!" she said.
Dr. Underwood shook his head impatiently. "Do you mean that you would have me ask them to come here to make a search, and then look the place over first and remove anything that they might think incriminating? That would be a farce. I should be ashamed of myself."
Leslie turned her reproachful eyes upon Burton.
"Of course," she said, with that same earnestness.
Burton laughed. "Why, what nonsense! Beautiful nonsense, if you will, but utter nonsense, all the same. According to your own account, you are dealing with some unscrupulous person who is trying to turn suspicion upon you. Why should you help him? He certainly wouldn't be trying to bring about an investigation unless it would help on his purpose,--assuming that he has the purpose Miss Underwood attributes to him."
Dr. Underwood moved restlessly.
"I should feel mighty cheap," he said.
"Do you happen to have one of those handbills you speak of about?" asked Burton.
"There's one on the mantel. Give it to him, Leslie."
Burton crossed to the mantel and picked up the paper. It was a single sheet, typewritten. It read: "Search Underwood's rooms. You will find proof."
"These have been distributed generally?"
"Not many at a time, but a few one place one night and another place the next night. Every day since that damnable hold-up, I have heard directly or indirectly that some one has received or seen some such notice."
Burton's eye wandered around the room. "When they come, I suppose they will begin here. This is the room where you would be most likely to conceal the evidence of your crimes, I take it. Now, let me consider where you would hide it. There might be a hiding place beneath the bricks in front of the fireplace, or behind some of the loose tiles back of the mantel. I see that one book has recently been disturbed in that set of medical encyclopedias,--the dust on the shelf shows it. Did you put something behind it?"
Laughingly he pulled out the volume he had indicated, and with it a handkerchief which had been thrust behind it. He shook it out, and then he laughed no more. There were two holes cut in the handkerchief for eyelets, and the wrinkled corners showed that it had been knotted hard, as a kerchief that had been tied over a man's face would have been.
"Santa Fe!" gasped Dr. Underwood, wrinkling up his face in one of his peculiar grimaces. It served to conceal his emotions as effectively as a mask.
Leslie sprang to her feet and stared hard at the rag, with a fascinated look. She had unconsciously clasped her hands together, and there was a look of fright in her eyes.
"Now do you see?" she cried. "That's the sort of thing we have to expect all the time."
Burton crushed the kerchief in his hand. "A very crude device. Your committee would have to be very special fools to believe that a man would preserve such a damning piece of evidence when there was a fireplace in the room, and matches were presumably within reach. Shall I burn it up?"
"No," said Dr. Underwood suddenly. "Give it to me. I feel in honor bound to show it to the committee and tell them just how and where it was found."
Burton shrugged his shoulders. "I am rather inclined to believe that you need a business manager, my dear Dr. Quixote."
The door opened and the gray-haired woman whom Burton had seen reading in the garden entered the room. Her composure was so insistent that Burton felt suddenly convicted of foolish excitability.
"Mrs. Bussey understood that you had been hurt," she said, going up to the couch and looking down calmly at the doctor.
Dr. Underwood squirmed. "Yes, Angelica, some sin or other has found me out, I suppose, for I have hurt my ankle. This is Mr. Burton, who happened to be on hand to take the place of Providence."
Mrs. Underwood acknowledged Burton's bow with a slight inclination of the head, but with no slightest indication of curiosity. She sat down beside her husband's couch and thoughtfully placed her finger on his pulse.
"Land of the living, Angelica, my ankle hasn't gone to my heart," muttered Dr. Underwood, with some impatience.
Leslie spoke aside to Burton.
"What can we do? It isn't this thing only; this is just an instance. You don't know how horrible it is to have the feeling that some enemy is watching you in the dark. And my father is not practical,--you see that. We have no friends left!"
"That is not so," he said quickly.
"You mean that you will help him?" she asked eagerly. "Oh, if you would! There is no one to whom I can turn for advice."
It was not exactly what he had meant, but he recognized at once that it was what he should have meant. If ever there were two babes in the wood, needing the kind attentions of a worldly and unoccupied robin--! Aside from that, if this girl were going to marry into the Overman family, he certainly owed it to Rachel to see that she came with a clean family record, if any efforts that he could make would establish a fact that should have been beyond question from the first.
"Let me be present this evening, when this committee comes," he said, slowly. "I will consider the matter and tell you what I think I can do, after I have seen and heard them."
"Stay and dine with us, then," she said quickly. "That will give me a chance to tell you some of the other things that have happened,--the things that father would like to call coincidences but that I know are all parts of one iniquitous conspiracy."
"Thank you, I shall be glad to," he answered. "If I am going to undertake this case, I certainly want all the facts that have any bearing upon it."
Leslie turned quickly to her mother.
"Mother, Mr. Burton will stay for dinner."
Mrs. Underwood had risen and she turned her calm eyes from her husband to Leslie. "Will he?" she said placidly. Then she drew her shawl about her shoulders and walked out of the room.
Leslie exchanged a look with her father.
"I'll speak to Mrs. Bussey," she said, and with one of her characteristically swift movements, she crossed the room and threw open the door which led to the rear of the house.
"Why, Mrs. Bussey!" she exclaimed, with surprise and annoyance. That faithful servant, doubtless on the theory that her further attendance might be required, had been crouching so close to the door that the sudden opening of it left her sitting like a blinking mandarin in the open doorway. She rose somewhat stiffly to her feet, and turned a reproachful look upon her young mistress. Leslie shut the door with some emphasis, as she went out to the housekeeper's domain.
Dr. Underwood laughed softly.
"Poor old soul, it's hard on one with such an appetite for news to get nothing but the crumbs that float through the keyhole. I'm mighty glad that you are going to stay, Doctor."
"Thank you. But your giving me that title makes me uncomfortable. I am not a physician. I'm afraid I am not much of anything but a dilettante."
"You are a good Samaritan to come to the rescue of the outcast," said the doctor. "Perhaps you didn't know what an outcast I am,--or did you?" he added keenly, warned by some subtle change in Burton's face.
"On the contrary, I thought when I saw your patience to your servant that you were the good Samaritan," said Burton quickly. This old man was so sharp that it was dangerous to think before him!
The doctor's manner changed. "The poor woman is a fool, but she can't help that," he said. "We keep her for the sake of her son. Ben is a cripple,--paralyzed from a spinal injury. He has no other home. Are you to be in High Ridge for some time?"
"That will depend on circumstances. By the way, Miss Underwood has asked me to be present this evening when the committee comes. If you have any objection--"
Dr. Underwood looked quietly at the young man for a moment before replying. When he spoke, it was with courtesy in his tone, but he made no apology for his hesitation.
"Not in the least. You will put me under further obligations by staying. Anyhow, if Leslie has asked you to stay, I know my place too well to object. Did you meet Leslie in Washington?"
"I never had the pleasure of meeting Miss Underwood before, but I have heard a great deal of her from my friend, Philip Overman."
"Oh!" said Dr. Underwood, with a keen look. Then he threw his head back, closed his eyes, and murmured: "I am glad you arrived in time to meet the other investigating committee in active operation, Mr. Burton. The theatrical attractions in High Ridge are dull just now."
"I am finding High Ridge anything but dull," said Burton, ignoring the covert thrust of that "other." "And I can see possibilities of much entertainment here. For instance, in investigating your investigating committee, while your investigating committee is investigating you."
He laughed as he spoke, little guessing how far afield the pursuit of that entertainment was going to carry him.
CHAPTER IV
THE CURIOUS EXPERIENCES OF THE UNDERWOOD FAMILY
It was a curious meal, that dinner. Burton often thought afterwards that in all the varied experiences of his life, and he had had a good many, first and last, he had never met at one time, and under circumstances of such sudden and peculiar intimacy, four people so unusual. Dr. Underwood had been helped to a couch in the dining-room, and had his dinner from an invalid's table. His eager face, with its keen blue eyes and flexible mouth, was so vividly alert that no one could forget him for a moment, whether he spoke or was silent. When he laughed, which was often, he wrinkled his face into a mask. For a simple device, it was the most effective means imaginable for concealing an emotion.
Mrs. Underwood presided at her own table with the detached air of a casual guest. "Mistress of herself, though china fall," Burton murmured to himself as he looked at her; and he had an intuition that china would quite frequently be exasperated into falling by her calm. Henry sat mostly silent, with downcast eyes, though occasionally he would look up, under half-lifted lids, with an expression of scorn or secret derision. If he had shown more animation or kindliness, he would have been a handsome man; but the heavy melancholy of his look had drawn bitter lines about his mouth, and his very silence seemed half reproachful, half sullen.
As for Leslie, the only discomposing thing about her was her beauty. Every time that Burton looked at her, it struck him anew as incongruous and distracting that she should hand him the bread or have an eye to his needs. She should have been kept in a case or a frame. She belonged in a palace, where she would have due attendance and ceremony. Well,--Philip had not been such a fool, after all.
"Now I am going to begin my story," said Leslie, "because I want Mr. Burton to understand what lies back of this present persecution. The story goes back six years."
Henry gave his sister one of his slow, curious looks, but dropped his eyes again without putting his silent comment into words.
"Six years ago we were kept in hot water all one summer by some malicious person who played mischievous pranks on us, and wrote anonymous letters to us and about us. For instance, there were letters warning people to be on their guard against papa, saying he had learned from the Indian medicine men how to put spells on people and make them wither away and die."
"If I could have done half the wonders they credited with me with," laughed Dr. Underwood, "I would have out-Hermanned Hermann and out-Kellered Keller. Indian fakirs and black magicians wouldn't have been in it with Roger Underwood, M. D. It was like accusing a man who is shoveling dirt for one-twenty-five a day of having money to pay the national debt concealed in his hatband."
"Then there were a lot of letters about Henry," Leslie went on. "They would say, for instance: 'Henry Underwood is a liar.' 'Henry Underwood is a thief.' 'Henry Underwood ought to be in the penitentiary.' All one summer that kept up."
Henry had dropped his knife and fork and sat silent, without looking at his sister. His face was the face of one who is nerving himself to endure torture.
"Were there any accusations of the other members of the family?"
"No. Only Henry and father.
"Who received the letters? Friends of yours? Or enemies?"
"They were sent to the tradesmen and the more prominent people in town. We heard of them here and there, but probably we didn't know about all that were received. I remember more clearly than anything else how angry I was at some of the tricks."
"There was something more than these anonymous letters, then?"
The doctor frowned but Leslie answered readily.
"Yes. The letters continued at odd times all summer, but there were other things happening at the same time. For instance, one day an advertisement appeared in the paper saying that Dr. Underwood offered fifty cents apiece for all the cats and dogs that would be brought him for the purpose of vivisection. Now, papa does not practise vivisection--"
"He does not now," Mrs. Underwood interrupted, with impressive deliberation, "but I am not at all sure that he never did. And as I have said before, if he was ever guilty of that abominable wickedness, at any time or under any circumstances, he richly deserved all the annoyance that advertisement brought upon him."
Dr. Underwood wrinkled up his face in a grimace, but made no answer.
"Well, he doesn't now, and he didn't six years ago," Leslie resumed pacifically, "but it was hard to convince people of that. You should have seen the place the next day! Farmers, street boys, tramps, all sorts of rough people kept coming here with cats and dogs of all kinds,--oh, the forlorn creatures! And when papa refused to buy them, the people were angry and threatened to have him arrested for not carrying out his agreement. And all the ministers and the women's societies called on him to remonstrate with him for such wickedness, and when he said that he had not had anything to do with the advertisement, they showed plainly that they thought he was trying to crawl out of it because he had been caught. Oh, it was awful."
"Did you make any attempt to find out how the advertisement came to the paper, Doctor?"
Dr. Underwood shrugged his shoulders.
"Yes, they showed me the order. It had come by mail, with stamps enclosed to pay for the insertion. The dunderheaded fools hadn't had sense enough to guess that when a physician wants 'material' he doesn't advertise for it in the morning paper."
"Under the circumstances, Roger," said Mrs. Underwood gravely, "your flippancy is not becoming."
"It certainly was a neat scheme, if the object was to embarrass you, Doctor. What else, Miss Underwood?"
"One day every grocer in town appeared at the door with a big load of household supplies,--enough to provision a regiment for a winter. They had all received the same order,--a very large order, including expensive and unusual things that they had had to send away for. And of course they were angry when we wouldn't take any of the things. They said that after that they would accept no orders unless we paid for them in advance, and that was sometimes embarrassing, also!"