Chapter XXII Footsteps Above
As the door was flung open Rosalind stood with her back against the newel-post of the staircase, braced for defense against an army. Her brain was in a tumult of activity.
“Rosalind!”
It was Polly’s shriek. With it she sprang forward. The lady at the foot of the staircase waved her back with a gesture.
“I’m quite all right, thanks,” she said coolly.
“You’re half drowned!”
“Not in the least; merely a little wet. Don’t bother, Polly.”
The men were staring as if at an apparition.
“Well, I’ll be—”
Mr. Davidson left the sentence unfinished and resumed his incredulous scrutiny.
It was Reggy Williams’s turn to make a rush; but, as in the case of Polly, Rosalind wafted him away with a motion of her hand.
“Please don’t make a fuss,” she said. “No damage has been done whatever—except to a window. I broke it to get in.”
“But how? Where did you come from? What brought you—”
The chorus of voices brought a frown of annoyance to her brow.
“I was rowing when the squall came,” she observed quietly. “This was the nearest place to land, so I came here. Apparently nobody was at home, so I had to force my way in in order to get out of the storm.”
“We—we didn’t know what had happened!” exclaimed Polly, her voice trembling. “We thought you might be—lost.”
“I took care of myself quite nicely, thank you. I’ve had tea and bread and butter, and I lighted a fire.”
Rosalind’s glance scanned the group and rested upon the stout young man. He stood limp and unresisting in the grasp of Mr. Davidson’s butler. In the surprise of the meeting he had been forgotten. He seemed quite contented to have it so.
“Well, thank the Lord, you’re safe!” said Mr. Davidson heartily. “Glad you made yourself at home; the house is yours. I got your telegram, you see.”
He turned to glare at the prisoner, who was bestowing upon Rosalind a look of gloomy reproach. She eyed the young man coldly.
“I thought it was best to send for you,” she said.
“Best! I should say it was! You—you impostor!”
The master of the house shook his fist under the nose of the prisoner, who retreated a pace.
“Of course he isn’t your nephew?”
“That! My nephew? I should say not!”
The stout young man shifted his feet.
“Once more I’ll give you a chance to tell who you are,” said Mr. Davidson as he whirled upon the fellow.
The captive remained dumb.
“See that!” exclaimed Mr. Davidson. “He won’t say a word. Hasn’t said a word since I got here. We’ve searched him. And, by George, he’s got letters on him addressed to my nephew, Billy Kellogg! And letterheads with the name of ‘Hastings & Hatch’! I tell you there’s something bad here.”
“You think—”
“That maybe it’s—murder!”
Polly suppressed a little shriek, while the stout and speechless young man shook his head miserably.
“Yes—murder! Why not?” demanded Mr. Davidson. “He’s probably done away with my nephew, taken his place in New York, and all that sort of thing. I’m wiring for more news now. The scoundrel—”
“But if that’s the case,” broke in Reggy Williams, “I don’t see why he’d want to come up here.”
“Perhaps to finish his bloody work—to kill me!”
The prisoner sagged into the arms of the butler.
“That seems rather incredible,” mused Rosalind.
Her observation of the captive had long ago driven her to the conclusion that he was quite harmless.
“Incredible!” echoed Mr. Davidson. “Everything’s incredible here lately. If it’s not murder, what is it? Where’s my nephew? This man won’t tell. He knows; he’s simply got to know! He hears I’m away and he comes up here posing as Billy. If it hadn’t been for Polly here or Morton he’d have fooled you all.”
“But Mr. Morton—”
Rosalind checked herself and glanced at the Englishman. He chewed one end of his mustache, but remained silent. Morton had taken no part in the exposure; on the contrary, he had accepted the impostor.
“Oh, Morton pretended to know him, just so as to be able to watch him better,” said Mr. Davidson. “I understand all about that. But what I want to know is, who is this scoundrel? Are you going to tell, sir? Who are you?”
The young man remained steadfastly silent.
“Maybe I can make him talk,” said Reggy Williams grimly, advancing his huge bulk toward the captive.
It was Mr. Witherbee who remembered first Reggy’s heart! Everybody had forgotten it in the turmoil.
“Never mind, old man,” he said anxiously, with a restraining hand on Reggy’s arm. “Take a chair. Sit down.”
Reggy looked at him disgustedly.
“Will somebody kindly explain to me what this take-a-chair game is?” he demanded. “Everybody seems to be crazy on the subject of chairs; everybody wants me to sit down. I don’t want to be disobliging; but, great Scott! a man can’t sit down all his life!”
Rosalind, still on guard at the newel-post, was chewing her lips.
Polly’s eyes were distended with apprehension.
“Well, never mind trying to make him talk now,” said Mr. Witherbee soothingly. “Just leave it to Davidson.”
“I’m going to leave it to the police,” said that gentleman. “I’ve sent for them. We’re going to have a few things explained before I get through. First, there’s my nephew’s murder.”
“But you’re not sure about that,” Rosalind reminded him. “Perhaps he’ll turn up all right.”
“Perhaps.” But Mr. Davidson’s tone was pessimistic. “We’ll know before long, at any rate. Then there’s that boatman who’s been hanging around here. I’ve got men out after him now.”
Rosalind breathed softly. She was eagerly yet fearfully listening for some sound from up-stairs.
“What is he wanted for?” she asked.
“Burglary—almost everything! He is in on this; we feel sure of it. Morton tipped me to get him.”
Rosalind studied the Englishman swiftly, but his face was impassive. So Morton had turned on the boatman at last! She wondered why.
“Don’t forget the smuggling either,” said Mr. Witherbee.
“I haven’t,” answered the master of the house. “I’ve sent for the customs men. I want them to look this chap over, and also that boatman—when we get him.”
“Some of them think the boatman is a spy,” Polly reminded him.
“Likely enough. But that’s none of my affair. He can spy till he’s blind so far as I’m concerned. I want him for housebreaking.”
Rosalind experienced a qualm, not of conscience but of anxiety. She felt that her house of cards was about to topple. If they did get the boatman, what of her?
“Well, no use standing here,” said Mr. Davidson. “We can’t do anything more, I suppose, until the police come. Let’s go into the library.”
“And what’ll I do with him, sir?” asked the butler, indicating his prisoner.
“Take him up-stairs and lock him in the attic.”
Rosalind’s hand went to her throat. Instinctively she moved to bar the stairway.
“I wouldn’t,” she advised hastily. “He might escape.”
“Can’t,” declared Mr. Davidson emphatically. “He’s too big to get through an attic window, and if he did manage it he’d drop about forty feet to the ground. Take him up-stairs, James.”
“No,” said Rosalind firmly.
Mr. Davidson looked at her in surprise.
“I’ve a better plan,” she continued quickly. “Keep him with us. Watch him. Study him. Sometimes they—they betray themselves.”
The prisoner regarded her with appealing eyes.
“All right; watch him if you like,” assented Mr. Davidson. “Bring him into the library, James.”
Not until the last of them had left the hall did Rosalind desert her post at the foot of the staircase. As she moved to follow she gazed swiftly upward, but the boatman was not in sight.
Her mood was a mixture of alarm and irritation. For the life of her she could not understand why Sam committed the folly of seeking a refuge upstairs, when there were easy avenues of escape by the rear of the house. True, he might make his exit by an upper window and across the porch-roof; but it was an extra and a useless hazard. Most amazing was the fact that she did not know whether he was still in the house. She prayed he was not, but feared otherwise. Nobody must go up-stairs until she could be sure.
It did not add to her peace of mind to discover as she followed the prisoner and his captors into the library that she was shoeless. Over by the fire her slippers were still drying. Mr. Morton was staring solemnly at them.
With icy dignity she glided past him and picked them up.
“Ah—allow me,” he said, dropping to one knee.
“Thank you, but I always put on my own shoes,” said Rosalind.
Damp as they were, she contrived to squeeze into them. They gave her a sense of security.
“You must have been good and hungry, Rosalind,” remarked Reggy Williams.
He was examining the tea-tray with its two cups and saucers. She did not at first understand.
“Certainly I was hungry.”
“As hungry as two people, evidently.”
She colored faintly, but answered readily enough. “Oh! you mean the two cups and saucers. I did it absent-mindedly. I’m not accustomed to lunching alone.”
Reggy’s finger touched a cigarette-butt that lay on the tray; his glance was accusing.
“I admit it,” said Rosalind coldly. “Is there any reason why I should not?”
Reggy made a disapproving gesture, but answered not.
“There are two more on the hearth,” she added, pointing.
“But, Rosalind—”
“I am exceedingly fond of them. That is sufficient.”
She spoke with a finality that discouraged him, which was exactly what she intended. Mentally she added another mark to the score against the boatman.
The stout young man had been placed in a stiff-backed chair near a window. The butler stood vigilantly at his side, ready to descend upon him if he made a suspicious move. But the prisoner was inert. All volition as well as speech had deserted him.
Mr. Davidson paced the library, talking volubly. Now and then he halted in front of his victim and glowered at him belligerently. That young man was too impassive even to think. He seemed utterly uninterested in his fate.
Mr. Witherbee tried to insinuate a chair under the legs of Reggy Williams, which brought an outraged snort from that gentleman. Rosalind was beginning to feel the tension. Would the boatman never go? Or had he gone?
They pressed her for the story of her own adventures and she supplied it rapidly as she could invent. It was not easy to eliminate Sam from the recital; more than once she checked his name on her lips. Yet she managed a very fair yarn. It filled Polly with thrills of awe and admiration. She could not take her eyes from the narrator.
In fact, so completely did she study the figure of this remarkable young woman that she was moved to a startled exclamation:
“Why, Rosalind!”
Polly was pointing at Rosalind’s left arm. It was too late to hide it; the bracelet was glowing dully in the afternoon light.
“Where on earth did you get it?”
Rosalind flushed with anger and dismay. Reggy was staring, also.
“So you do wear it sometimes,” he said with a sigh.
“But it’s the one we found!” exclaimed Polly, bewildered. “And then we gave it to the sale. And they lost it! And—why, Rosalind!”
The wearer of the telltale ornament was for once speechless. All her resourcefulness was swept away in an instant. Her cheeks were very red, but her eyes were defiant. The look she gave Polly was fairly murderous.
A noise from up-stairs caused abrupt silence in the library. Everybody heard it clearly. It was a footstep!
Rosalind stopped breathing and waited. Mr. Davidson held up a warning finger. The young man in the chair looked expectant.
The first footstep was followed by others. There was nothing stealthy about them; they were frank, careless, and unconcerned. Somebody was walking along the upper hall!
An instant later the footsteps were on the staircase, descending leisurely. The tableau in the library was held without a quiver by its actors. Their eyes were staring toward the doorway that led into the hall. Rosalind was rigid as bronze. She alone knew what the footsteps portended. The game was up!
Very deliberately they came nearer and nearer. She even found herself counting them mechanically. It was like the approach of nemesis. Had the boatman gone mad again?
The footsteps were in the hall now. Mr. Davidson’s stout body began to quiver; he was poised as if for a spring, his eyes ablaze with determination, his hands—
A young man in white flannels walked into the library.
He was slender and tall and immaculate. Under his coat he wore a delicately striped silk shirt. His collar and scarf were beyond criticism. His canvas shoes were spotless.
A casual observer would have noted but one unusual fact; the upper half of his face was deeply tanned, while his cheeks, his lip and his chin were pallid. He was cleanly shaved.
“Hello, folks!” he grinned.
Mr. Davidson made the spring for which he had been poised.
“Billy! You young scoundrel!”
In the same instant he enveloped the intruder with a bearlike embrace.
The young man gazed placidly over Mr. Davidson’s head and straight into the eyes of Rosalind Chalmers.