Chapter XX: Monsieur Chatelard Takes the Wheel

Sallie Kingsbury would have given up the ghost without more ado, had she known what secular and unministerial passions were converging about Parson Thayer's peaceful library. As it was, she had a distinct feeling that life wasn't as simple as it had been heretofore, and that there were puzzling problems to solve. She was almost certain that she had caught Mr. Hand using an oath; though when she charged him with it, he had said that he had been talking Spanish to himself--he always did when he was alone. Sallie didn't exactly know the answer to that, but told him that she hoped he would remember that she was a professor. "What's that?" inquired Hand.

"It's a Christian in good and regular standing, and it's what you ought to be," said Sallie.

And now that nice Mr. Chamberlain, whom she had fed in the early morning, had dashed up to the kitchen door behind Little Simon's best horse, deposited a man from Charlesport, and then had disappeared. The man had also unceremoniously left her kitchen. He might be a minister brought there to officiate at the church on the following Sabbath, Sallie surmised; but on second thought she dismissed the idea. He didn't look like any minister she had ever seen, and was very far indeed from the Parson Thayer type.

Hercules Thayer's business, including his ministerial duties, had formed the basis and staple of Sallie's affectionate interest for seventeen years, and it wasn't her nature to give up that interest, now that the chief actor had stepped from the stage. So she speculated and wondered, while she did more than her share of the work.

She picked radishes from the garden for supper, threw white screening over the imposing loaves of bread still cooling on the side table, and was sharpening a knife on a whetstone, preparatory to carving thin slices from a veal loaf that stood near by, when she was accosted by some one appearing suddenly in the doorway.

"Is this the Red House?" It was a cool, sharp voice, sounding even more outlandish than Mr. Hand's. Sallie turned deliberately toward the door and surveyed the new-comer.

"Well, yes; I guess so. But you don't need to scare the daylights outer me, that way."

The stranger entered the kitchen and pulled out a chair from the table.

"Give me something to eat and drink--the best you have, and be quick about it, too."

Sallie paused, carving-knife in hand, looking at him with frank curiosity. "Well, I snum! You ain't the new minister either, now, are you?"

The stranger made no answer. He had thrown himself into the chair, as if tired. Suddenly he sat up and looked around alertly, then at Sallie, who was returning his gaze with interest.

"Where are you from, anyway?" she inquired. "We don't see people like you around these parts very often."

"I dare say," he snarled. "Are you going to get me a meal, or must I tramp over these confounded hills all day before I can eat?"

"Oh, I'll get you up a bite, if that's all you want. I never turned anybody away hungry from this door yet, and we've had many a worse looking tramp than you. I guess Miss Redmond won't mind."

"Miss Redmond!" The stranger started to his feet, glowering on Sallie. "Look here! Is this place a hotel, or isn't it?"

"Well, anybody'd think it was, the way I've been driven from pillar to post for the last ten days! But you can stay; I'll get you a meal, and a good one, too."

Sallie's good nature was rewarded by a convulsion of anger on the part of the guest. "Fool! Idiot!" he screamed. "You trick me in here! You lie to me!"

"Oh, set down, set down!" interrupted Sallie. "You don't need to get so het up as all that! I'll get you something to eat. There ain't any hotel within five miles of here--and a poor one at that!" Thus protesting and attempting to soothe, Sallie saw the stranger make a grab for his hat and start for the door, only to find it suddenly shut and locked in his face. Mr. Chamberlain, moreover, was on the inside, facing the foreigner.

"If you will step through the house and go out the other way," Mr. Chamberlain remarked coolly, "it will oblige me. My horse is loose in the yard, and I'm afraid you'll scare him off. He's shy with strangers."

The two men measured glances.

"I thought you traveled afoot when pursuing your real estate business," sneered the stranger.

"I do, when it suits my purposes," replied Chamberlain.

"What game are you up to, anyway, in this disgusting country?" inquired the other.

"Ridding it of rascals. This way, please;" and Chamberlain pointed before him toward the door leading into the hall. As the stranger turned, his glance fell on Sallie, still carving her veal loaf. "Idiot!" he said disgustedly.

"Well, I haven't been caught yet, anyhow," said Sallie grimly.

Chamberlain's voice interrupted her. "This way, and then the first door on the right. Make haste, if you please, Monsieur Chatelard."

At the name, the stranger turned, standing at bay, but Chamberlain was at his heels. "You see, I know your name. It was supplied me at the Reading-room. Here--on the right--quickly!"

The hall was dim, almost dark, the only light coming from the open doorway on the right. Whether he wished or no, Monsieur Chatelard was forced to advance into the range of the doorway; and once there, he found himself pushed unceremoniously into the room.

It was a large, cool room, lined with bookcases. Near the middle stood an oblong table covered with green felt and supporting an old brass lamp. Four people were in the room, besides the two new-comers. Aleck Van Camp was on a low step-ladder, just in the act of handing down a book from the top shelf. Near the step-ladder two women were standing, with their backs toward the door. Both were in white, both were tall, and both had abundant dark hair. One of the French windows leading out on to the porch was open, and just within the sill stood the man from Charlesport.

"Here's a wonderful book--a rare one--the record of that famous Latin controversy," Aleck was saying, when he became conscious of the entrance of Chamberlain and a stranger.

"Ah, hello, Chamberlain, that you?" he cried. Agatha and Mélanie, turning suddenly to greet Chamberlain, simultaneously encountered the gimlet-gaze of Chatelard. It was fixed first on Mélanie, then on Agatha, then returned to Mélanie with an added increment of rage and bafflement. But he was first to find tongue.

"So!" he sneered. "I find you after all, Princess Auguste Stéphanie of Krolvetz! Consorting with these--these swine!"

Mélanie looked at him keenly, with hesitating suspicions. "Ah! Duke Stephen's cat's-paw! I remember you--well!" But before the words were fairly out of her mouth, Agatha's voice had cut in:

"Mr. Van Camp, that is he! That is he! The man on the _Jeanne D'Arc_!"

"We thought as much," answered Chamberlain. "That's why he is here."

"We only wanted your confirmation of his identity," said the man who had been standing by the window, as he came forward. "Monsieur Chatelard, you are to come with me. I am the sheriff of Charlesport County, and have a warrant for your arrest."

As the sheriff advanced toward Chatelard, the cornered man turned on him with a sound that was half hiss, half an oath. He was like a panther standing at bay. Aleck turned toward Mélanie.

"It seems that you know this man, Mélanie?"

"Yes, I know him--to my sorrow."

"What do you know of him?"

"He is the paid spy of the Duke Stephen, my cousin. He does all his dirty work." Mélanie laughed a bit nervously as she added, turning to Chatelard: "But you are the last man I expected to see here. I suppose you are come from my excellent cousin to find me, eh? Is that the case?"

Chatelard's eyes, resting on her, burned with hate. "Yes, your Highness. I am the humble bearer of a message from Duke Stephen to yourself."

"And that message is--?"

"A command for your immediate return to Krolvetz. Matters of importance await you there."

"And if I refuse to return?"

Chatelard's shoulders went up and his hands spread out in that insolent gesture affected by certain Europeans. Chamberlain stepped forward impatiently.

"Look here, you people," he began, "you told me this chap was a bloomin' kidnapper, and so I rounded him up--I nabbed him. And here you are exchangin' howdy-do. What's the meaning of it all?"

As he spoke, Chamberlain's eyes rested first on Mélanie, then on Agatha, whom he had not seen before. "By Jove!" he ejaculated.

"Whom did he kidnap?" questioned Mélanie.

"Why, _me_, Miss Reynier," cried Agatha. "He stole my car and drugged me and got me into his yacht--Heaven knows why!"

"Kidnapped! You!" cried Mélanie.

"Just so," agreed Aleck. "And now I see why--you scoundrel!" He turned upon Chatelard with contemptuous fury. "For once you were caught, eh? These ladies _are_ much alike--that is true. So much so that I myself was taken aback the first time I saw Miss Redmond. You thought Miss Redmond was the princess--masquerading as an opera singer."

"Her Highness has always been admired as a singer!" cut in Chatelard.

"No doubt! And even you were deceived!" Aleck laughed in derision. "But when you take so serious a step as an abduction, my dear man, be sure you get hold of the right victim."

"She was even singing the very song that used to be a favorite of her Highness!" remarked Chatelard.

"Your memory serves you too well."

But Chatelard turned scoffingly toward Agatha. "You sang it well, Mademoiselle, very well. And, as this gentleman asserts, you deceived even me. But you are indiscreet to walk unattended in the park."

Agatha, unnerved and weak, had grown pale with fear.

"Don't talk with him, Mr. Van Camp, he is dangerous. Get him away," she pleaded.

"True, Miss Redmond. We only waste time. Sheriff--"

Again the sheriff advanced toward Chatelard, and again he was warned off with a hissing oath. At the same moment a shadow fell within the other doorway. As Chatelard's glance rested on the figure standing there, his face gleamed. He pointed an accusing forefinger.

"There is the abductor, if any such person is present at all," said he. "That is the man who stole the lady's car and ran it to the dock. He is your man, Mister Sheriff, not I."

The accusation came with such a tone of conviction on the part of the speaker, that for an instant it confused the mind of every one present. In the pause that followed, Chatelard turned with an insolent shrug toward Agatha. "This lady--" and every word had a sneer in it--"this lady will testify that I am right."

Agatha stared with a face of alarm toward the doorway, where Hand stood silent.

"If that is true, Miss Redmond," began the sheriff.

"No--no!" cried Agatha.

"He had nothing to do with it?" questioned the sheriff.

As he waited for her answer, Agatha suddenly came to herself. Her trembling ceased; she looked about upon them all with her truthful eyes; looked upon Hand standing unconcernedly in the doorway, upon Chatelard in the corner gleaming like an oily devil.

"No--he had nothing to do with it," she said.

Chatelard's laugh beat back her words like a bludgeon.

"Liars, all liars!" he cried. "I might have known!"

But Chamberlain was impatient of all this. "And now, Monsieur Kidnapper, you can walk off with this gentleman here. And you can't go one minute too soon. The penitentiary's the place for you."

Chatelard turned on him with another laugh. "You need not feel obliged to hold on to me, Mister Land-Agent. I know when I'm beaten--which you Englishmen never do. Got another of those pears you offered me this morning?"

Before Chamberlain could make reply, or before the sheriff and his prisoner could get to the door, there was the chug of an automobile. A second later urgent and loud voices penetrated the room, first from the steps, then from the hall. One was the hearty voice of a man, the other was Lizzie's.

"Can't see her! Tell me I can't see her after I've run a hundred miles a day into the jungle on purpose to see her! The idea! Where is she? In here?" And in stalked Mr. Straker, with cap, linen duster, and high gaitered boots. He was pulling off his goggles. "Well, what's this? A family party? Where's Miss Redmond?"

"Mr. Straker--" cried Agatha.

"That's me! Oh, there you are! Why don't you open up and get some light? I can't see a thing."

"Wait a minute, Mr. Straker--" Agatha was saying, when suddenly the attention of everybody in the room was drawn outside.

When Chamberlain had told Chatelard that his horse was loose in the yard, it happened to be the truth; now, excited by fear of the strange machine that had just arrived, the horse, with flying bridle-rein, was snorting and prancing on his way to the vegetable garden. It was almost beyond masculine power to resist the impulse of pursuit. Aleck and Chamberlain sprang through the window, the sheriff went as far as the lawn after them, and in that instant Chatelard slipped like an eel through the open door and out to the gate to Straker's machine, still chugging. The sheriff saw him as he jumped in.

"Hey, there!" he shouted, and made a lively run for the gate. But before he reached it, Chatelard had jerked open the lever, loosened the brake, and was passing the church at half speed.

"Hey, there, quick!" called the sheriff. "He's got away!"

But Mr. Hand had already thought what was best to be done.

"Come on, here's another machine. We'll chase him!" he cried, as he went for the white motorcar, standing farther back under the trees. It had to be cranked, which required some seconds, but presently they were off--Hand and the sheriff, in hot pursuit after Straker's car.

Chamberlain and Aleck, triumphantly leading the horse, came back in time to see the settling cloud of dust.

"Mr. Chamberlain--Mr. Van Camp!" cried Agatha. "They've gone! They've got away!"

"Who's got away?" demanded Chamberlain.

"All of them!" groaned Agatha, as she sank down on the piazza steps.

"Jimminy Christmas!" ejaculated Mr. Straker. "This beats any ten-twenty-thirty I ever saw. Regular Dick Deadwood game! And he's run off with my new racer!"

"What!" yelled Chamberlain. "Did that bloomin' sheriff let that bloomin' rascal get away?"

"He isn't anybody I'd care to keep!" chuckled Straker. "But you know that new racer's worth something."

"Did Chatelard go off in that machine?" again inquired Chamberlain slowly and distinctly of the two women.

"Precisely," said Mélanie, while Agatha's bowed head nodded.

"By Jove, that sheriff's a duffer! Here, Van, give me the horse." And with the words Chamberlain grabbed Little Simon's best roadster, mounted him bareback, and turned his head up the road.

"I'll catch him yet!" he yelled back.

But he didn't. Three miles farther along he came upon the wreck. The racer was lying on its side in a ditch which recent rains had converted into a substantial volume of mire and mud. The white machine was drawn cosily up under a spreading hemlock farther on, but Mr. Hand and the sheriff were nowhere in sight.

As Chamberlain stopped to gaze on the overturned car, he heard the crashing of underbrush in the woods near by. The steps came nearer. It was evident the chase was up; they were off the scent and obliged to return.

"Humph!" grunted Chamberlain, and for once the clear springs of his disposition were made turbid with satire. "We're all a pack of bloomin' asses--that's what we are. What in hell's the matter with us!"

While he was tying the horse to a tree, Hand appeared, silent, with an unfathomable disgust written on his countenance. As usual, he who was the least to blame came in for the hottest of the censure; and yet, there was a sort of fellowship indicated by Chamberlain's extraordinary arraignment of them both. He was scarcely known ever to have been profane, but at this moment he searched for wicked words and interspersed his speech with them recklessly, if not with skill. It is the duty of the historian to expurgate.

"I don't know just how you happen to be in this game," pronounced Chamberlain hotly, "but all I've got to say is you're an ass--an infernal ass."

Hand, rolling up his sleeves, remained silent.

"I suppose if you'd had a perfectly good million-dollar bank-note, you'd have let it blow away--piff! right out of your hands!" he fumed. "Or the title deed to Mount Olympus--or a ticket to a front seat in the New Jerusalem. That's all it amounts to. Catch an eel, only to let him slip through your fingers--eh, you!"

Mr. Hand made no answer. Instead, he waded into the ditch-stream and placed a shoulder under the racing-car. Chamberlain's instinct for doing his share of work caused him to roll up his trousers and wade in, shoulder to shoulder with Hand, even while he was lecturing on the feebleness of man's wits.

"Good horse running loose into barb-wire fences had to be caught, but it didn't need a squadron of men and a forty-acre lot to do it in. Might have known he'd give us the slip if he could--biggest rascal in Europe!" And so on. Chamberlain, usually rather a silent man, blew himself empty for once, conscious all the time that he, himself, was quite as much to blame as Hand could possibly have been. And Hand knew that he knew, but kept his counsel. Hand ought to be prime minister by this time.

When the racing-car was righted, he went swiftly and skilfully to work investigating the damage and putting the machine in order, as far as possible. Chamberlain presently became impressed with his mechanical dexterity.

"By Jove, you can see into her, can't you!" Hand continued silent, and left it to his companion to put on the finishing verbal touches.

"Tow her home and fill her up and she'll be all right, eh?" said Chamberlain, but Hand kept on tinkering. The sudden neighing and plunging of Little Simon's poor tormented horse gave warning of the sheriff, crashing from the underbrush directly into the road.

He was voluble with excuses. The fugitive had escaped, leaving no traces of his flight. He might be in the woods, or he might have run to the railroad track and caught the freight that had just slowly passed. He might be in the next township, or he might be--

"Oh, go to thunder!" said Chamberlain.