Louis Tracy

A telegram reached Carshaw before he left Burlington with Clancy. He hoped it contained news of Winifred, but it was of a nature that imposed one more difficulty in his path.

“Not later than the twentieth,” wired the manager of the Carshaw Mills in Massachusetts. Carshaw himself had inquired the latest date on which he would be expected to start work.

The offer was his own, and he could not in honor begin the new era by breaking his pledge. The day was Saturday, November 11. On the following Monday week he must begin to learn the rudiments of cotton-spinning.

“What’s up?” demanded Clancy, eying the telegram, for Carshaw’s face had hardened at the thought that, perhaps, in the limited time at his disposal his quest might fail. He passed the typed slip to the detective.

“Meaning?” said the latter, after a quick glance.

Carshaw explained. “I’ll find her,” he added, with a catch of the breath. “I must find her. God in Heaven, man, I’ll go mad if I don’t!”

“Cut out the stage stuff,” said Clancy. “By this day week the Bureau will find a bunch of girls who’re not lost yet—only planning it.”

Touched by the misery in Carshaw’s eyes, he added:

“What you really want is a marriage license. The minute you set eyes on Winifred rush her to the City Hall.”

“Once we meet we’ll not part again,” came the earnest vow. Somehow, the pert little man’s overweening egotism was soothing, and Carshaw allowed his mind to dwell on the happiness of holding Winifred in his arms once more rather than the uncertain prospect of attaining such bliss.

Indeed, he was almost surprised by the ardor of his love for her. When he could see her each day, and amuse himself by playing at the pretense that she was to earn her own living, there was a definite satisfaction in the thought that soon they would be married, when all this pleasant make-believe would vanish. But now that she was lost to him, and probably enduring no common misery, the complacency of life had suddenly given place to a fierce longing for a glimpse of her, for the sound of her voice, for the shy glance of her beautiful eyes.

“Now, let’s play ball,” said Clancy when they were in a train speeding south. “Has any complete search of Winifred’s rooms been made?”

“How do you mean?”

“Did you look in every hole and corner for a torn envelope, a twisted scrap of paper, a car transfer, any mortal thing that might reveal why she went out and did not return?”

“I told you of the bookbinder’s note—”

“You sure did,” broke in Clancy. “You also went to the bookbinder s’teen times. Are you certain there was nothing else?”

“No—I didn’t like—how could I peer and pry—”

“You’d make a bum detective. Imagine that poor girl crying her eyes out in a cold dark cell all because you were too squeamish to give her belongings the once over!”

Carshaw was not misled by Clancy’s manner. He knew that his friend was only consumed by impatience to be on the trail.

“You’ve fired plenty of questions at me,” he said quietly. “Now it’s my turn. I understand why you came to Burlington, but where is Steingall all this time?”

“That big stiff! How do I know?”

In a word, Clancy was uncommunicative during a whole hour. When the mood passed he spoke of other things, but, although it was ten at night when they reached New York, he raced Carshaw straight to East Twenty-seventh Street and Miss Goodman.

There, in a few seconds, he was reading the agent’s genuine note to Winifred—that containing the assurance that no appointment had been made for “East Orange.”

The letter concluded:

“At first I assumed that a message intended for some other correspondent had been sent to me by error. Now, on reperusal, I am almost convinced that you wrote me under some misapprehension. Will you kindly explain how it arose?”

Clancy, great as ever on such occasions, refrained from saying: “I told you so.”

“We’ll call up the agent Monday, just for the sake of thoroughness,” he said. “Meanwhile, be ready to come with me to East Orange to-morrow at 8 A.M.”

“Why not to-night?” urged Carshaw, afire with a rage to be up and doing.

“What? To sleep there? Young man, you don’t know East Orange. Run away home to your ma!”

“Where have you been?” inquired Mrs. Carshaw when her son entered. Her air was subdued. She had suffered a good deal these later days.

“To Vermont.”

“Still pursuing that girl?”

“Yes, mother.”

“Have you found her?”

“No, mother.”

“Rex, have you driven me wholly from your heart?”

“No; that would be impossible. Winifred would not wish it, callous as you were to her.”

“Do not be too hard on me. I am sore wounded. It is a great deal for a woman to be cast into the outer darkness.”

“Nonsense, mother, you are emerging into light. If your friends are so ready to drop you because you are poor—with the exceeding poverty of twenty-five hundred a year—of what value were they as friends? When you know Winifred you will be glad. You will feel as Dante felt when he emerged from the Inferno.”

“So you are determined to marry her?”

“Unquestionably. And mark you, mother, when the clouds pass, and we are rich again, you will be proud of your daughter-in-law. She will bear all your skill in dressing. Gad! how the women of your set will envy her complexion.”

Mrs. Carshaw smiled wanly at that. She knew her “set,” as Rex termed the Four Hundred.

“Why is she called Bartlett?” she inquired after a pause, and Rex looked at her in surprise. “I have a reason,” she continued. “Is that her real name?”

“Now,” he cried, “I admit you are showing some of your wonted cleverness.”

“Ah! Then I am right. I have been thinking. Cessation from society duties is at least restful. Last night, lying awake and wondering where you were, my thoughts reverted to that girl. I remembered her face. All at once a long-forgotten chord of memory hummed its note. Twenty years ago, when you were a little boy, Rex, I met a Mrs. Marchbanks. She was a sweet singer. Does your Winifred sing?”

Carshaw drew his chair closer to his mother and placed an arm around her shoulder.

“Yes,” he said.

“Rex,” she murmured brokenly, hiding her face, “do you forgive me?”

“Mother, I ask you to forgive me if I said harsh things.”

There was silence for a while. Then she raised her eyes. They were wet, but smiling.

“This Mrs. Marchbanks,” she went on bravely, “had your Winifred’s face. She was wealthy and altogether charming. Her husband, too, was a gentleman. She was a ward of the elder Meiklejohn, the present Senator’s father. My recollection of events is vague, but there was some scandal in Burlington.”

“I know all, or nearly all, about it. That is why I was called to Vermont. Mother, in future, you will work with me, not against me?”

“I will—indeed I will,” she sobbed.

“Then you must not drop your car. I have money to pay for that. Keep in with Helen Tower, and find out what hold she has on Meiklejohn. You are good at that, you know. You understand your quarry. You will be worth twenty detectives. First, discover where Meiklejohn is. He has bolted, or shut himself up.”

“You must trust me fully, or I shall not see the pitfalls. Tell me everything.”

He obeyed. Before he had ended, Mrs. Carshaw was weeping again, but this time it was out of sympathy with Winifred. Next morning, although it was Sunday, her smart limousine took her to the Tower’s house. Mrs. Tower was at home.

“I have heard dreadful things about you, Sarah,” she purred. “What on earth is the matter? Why have you given up your place on Long Island?”

“A whim of Rex’s, my dear. He is still infatuated over that girl.”

“She must have played her cards well.”

“Yes, indeed. One does not look for such skill in the lower orders. And how she deceived me! I went to see her, and she promised better behavior. Now I find she has gone again, and Rex will not tell me where she is. Do you know?”

“I? The creature never enters my mind.”

“Of course not. She does not interest you, but I am the boy’s mother, and you cannot imagine, Helen, how this affair worries me.”

“My poor Sarah! It is too bad.”

“Such a misfortune could not have happened had his father lived. We women are of no use where a headstrong man is concerned. I am thinking of consulting Senator Meiklejohn. He is discreet and experienced.”

“But he is not in town.”

“What a calamity! Do tell me where I can find him.”

“I have reason to know that Rex would not brook any interference from him.”

“Oh, no, of course not. It would never do to permit his influence to appear. I was thinking that the Senator might act with the girl, this wonderful Winifred. He might frighten her, or bribe her, or something of the sort.”

Now, Helen Tower was not in Meiklejohn’s confidence. He was compelled to trust her in the matter of the Costa Rica concession, but he was far too wise to let her into any secret where Winifred was concerned. Anxious to stab with another’s hand, she thought that Mrs. Carshaw might be used to punish her wayward son.

“I’m not sure—” She paused doubtfully. “I do happen to know Mr. Meiklejohn’s whereabouts, but it is most important he should not be troubled.”

“Helen, you used to like Rex more than a little. With an effort, I can save him still.”

“But he may suspect you, have you watched, your movements tracked.”

Mrs. Carshaw laughed. “My dear, he is far too much taken up with his Winifred.”

“Has he found her, then?”

“Does he not see her daily?”

Here were cross purposes. Mrs. Tower was puzzled.

“If I tell you where the Senator is, you are sure Rex will not follow you?”

“Quite certain.”

“His address is the Marlborough-Blenheim, Atlantic City.”

“Helen, you’re a dear! I shall go there to-morrow, if necessary. But it will be best to write him first.”

“Don’t say I told you.”

“Above all things, Helen, I am discreet.”

“I fear he cannot do much. Your son is so wilful.”

“Don’t you understand? Rex is quite unmanageable. I depend wholly on the girl—and Senator Meiklejohn is just the man to deal with her.”

They kissed farewell—alas, those Judas kisses of women! Both were satisfied, each believing she had hoodwinked the other. Mrs. Carshaw returned to her flat to await her son’s arrival. If the trail at East Orange proved difficult he promised to be home for dinner.

“There will be a row if Rex meets Meiklejohn,” she communed. “Helen will be furious with me. What do I care? I have won back my son’s love. I have not many years to live. What else have I to work for if not for his happiness?”

So one woman in New York that night was fairly well content. There may be, as the Chinese proverb has it, thirty-six different kinds of mothers-in-law, but there is only one mother.