A Discord in Avalon/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
After lunching, Quentin obtained a room for his charge, and left her at the elevator, in charge of a maid. Then, getting a telephone booth, he called up the club, found that both Tommy Wells and Bunt Green were on the links, and left word that he would arrive about five. Whereupon, with the afternoon before him, he left the hotel and walked down Crescent Avenue with no more worry upon his mind than Enid Elsmere.
She, however, provided worry enough. When he had passed the public gardens and the Greek theater, and had swung aboard the little railway car which would lift him to the park above, he had almost reached the conclusion that her incredible story was a lie.
He had known Dolly Burlington for years, but the intimacy between them had been only a firm friendship. Yet it seemed impossible that he should not have known—hold on! Had not Dolly written him while he was in his senior year at Stanford that her father had been appointed ward of an invalid girl? If she had, the memory was hazy, but once it had lodged the thought could not be shaken off.
He had spent a year in Europe, partly in study, partly in care of a wealthy paralytic, and it was possible that these changes had come about in his absence. In the two years since his return he had been fairly busy establishing himself in Los Angeles, had had little time to spend with the Burlingtons at Long Beach, and Dolly had been too much occupied with her own love affair to do other than accept a situation to which she must have become accustomed—providing Enid Elsmere's story was true.
Upon that the car had stopped. Quentin, who had never visited the Catalinas before, in common with most people who lived close by, obtained his direction from the conductor and made his way along the edge of the Buena Vista grounds.
Presently he came upon the place he sought—a snug home built in Swiss chalet style on the mountainside and having a goodly private garden, even though it was set so near the park grounds that it seemed almost a part of them. Observing that a wide veranda opening off the hillside had as much the appearance of a front entrance to the house as the stone steps which led up from a lower level of walk, Quentin chose the former route, walked the length of the veranda, and rang at the side door.
His ring brought no response, and he pressed the bell again and again. At length he was just turning in disgust when there came a shuffling step, the door was opened, and a wizened old man looked at him curiously.
"Well?"
"I'd like to see Mr. Mathews," answered Quentin.
"Not to hum, sir."
"Mrs. Mathews, then," he said, wondering if there were a Mrs. Mathews.
"No, sir. They ain't nobody to hum, 'cepting me."
"Well, where are they, then? I've got to see Mr. Mathews or one of the family as soon as possible." Quentin felt an absurd impulse to laugh at the little old man, who was plainly impressed with the importance of being left in charge of the place.
"I'm right sorry, sir," and the caretaker scratched his head, "but I ain't sure when they'll be back. Both on 'em went in on the eight-o'clock boat this mornin', and if they stay over in Los Angeles for a show to-night they ain't liable to git hum right sudden. May be back to-night, mebbe to-morrow. Sorry, sir."
Since there was no help for it, Quentin beat a retreat in no little consternation. This unexpected turn of affairs left him somewhat up a tree, he reflected. As planned, the fishing expedition was to leave Avalon that night for a point thirty miles down the coast, where three days would be spent fishing. He decided that he would go up to the club later in the afternoon, arrange to meet the other two men when they came down to embark, and trust to luck that Mathews would be back.
"If he isn't," he thought, "I'll have to chuck the fishing trip, that's all. And I guess I'd better do it anyhow; I'd sooner spend a few hours with that blind girl than with a couple of boozing millionaires, even with the fishing thrown in."
Reaching the Metropole again, he went direct to the girl's room, and the maid admitted him. He reported the issue of his mission briefly.
"Now," he concluded, in his cheeriest professional tone, "would you like to rest this afternoon? Or would a trip to the submarine gardens interest you?"
"Oh, by all means!" Her suddenly eager face fell. "But I must not detain you, Doctor Quentin. It's been very good of you to"
"Nonsense!" he laughed. "My dear Miss Elsmere, I have positively nothing on hand more than a run up to the Country Club later in the afternoon, and we'll be back before three, as the tourists must catch the last boat back to Pedro. So come along, if you're sure you don't need rest."
"Rest!" she cried, a passion of longing in her voice. "Anything rather than this uncertainty! It seems as though I'd done nothing but just rest for years and years, and if you'll tell me about the gardens I'll be perfectly happy!"
That settled it to Quentin's entire satisfaction. Ten minutes later they went down, but as they crossed the lobby to the street stairs, Quentin saw the figure of Osgood leaning against the desk once more. Reflecting that the detective was no doubt waiting for the afternoon boat home, he dismissed the matter altogether.
Together with a crowd of sight-seers, they piled into one of the sunk-bottomed launches, and were soon on their way. Quentin found that his task was a light one, since the spieler called out through his megaphone what the objects were beneath the glass cockpit, and the surgeon had only to amplify what was said. They passed Sugar Loaf and Moonstone Beach, and Quentin realized, to his own surprise, that the intent eagerness of the girl beside him was drawing him on into a color phrasing of words that he had not known he possessed.
She impressed him strangely, as she sat with her sightless eyes fixed on the glass square beneath them. The cramp in his own neck as he leaned over the railing was becoming pronounced; why, then, did she assume the same position which was of no value to her? With that, however, he remembered the sensitiveness of the blind, and wondered no longer; she merely wished to attract no attention or comment.
He considerately kept his voice lowered as he leaned beside her, and while a few of the other passengers undoubtedly took them for a honeymoon couple, Quentin's hard gray eye cured them instantly of any knowing smiles that might have lingered.
"What are the abalone shells like?" she asked, as a diver went over the bow.
"Concave shells, iridescent and glittering. They are beautiful enough beneath the water, but lose most of their color. Here, I'll take two of those!" he added, raising his voice as the diver came up, dripping, almost beside him, with four or five shells for sale among the tourists.
Her childlike glee over the wet shells, and the way she clapped one to either ear touched him strangely. She had all the frank gayety of a child, yet she had told him that she was twenty-one; and when he looked at her and saw what little impress her affliction had upon her, Quentin began to feel a slow anger rising against Doctor Hall Burlington. Suddenly, while she kept the shells over her ears, entranced, he became aware of two men talking at his side, and the first words gripped him.
"Yep—blind as a bat if any one catches her. Slick dodge, ain't it? They say she's the slickest dip ever kept out o' court, too. She's been workin' the Catalina boats off and on, but I expect they've put the cops after her too late, as usual. She's prob'ly beat it—by jolly, ain't that pretty now?"
The speaker leaned over, silent for a moment as the boat passed over a vale of feathery, swaying blue sea violets, interwoven with feather-boa kelp and shells and the flicker of darting fish. But Quentin sat motionless, his mind in a whirl, until the second man took up the thread of conversation. The girl still listened to her shells.
"Does the pitiful 'help-the-blind' stunt if she gets caught, eh?"
"Not by a blame sight! Dresses like a lady, they say—if a guy nabs her, she's made a mistake and that's all 'cept the apologies."
"Some class, eh?" commented the other. "Well, there ain't any blind game going to work on me, that's sure. I ain't got much, but I need it more'n other folks"
"Where are we passing now?"
Quentin heard the murmur at his ear, and turned to find the girl waiting for him to continue his talk. With a tremendous effort he forced his mind free of what he had heard, but the beauty of the trip was spoiled for him, and he was glad when at length they turned back to Avalon once more.
None the less, although he managed to maintain his usual attitude, there was an undercurrent running through his brain which it was hard to quell. What had that conversation meant? There was one way to find out, and when they had reached the hotel again he took it. Promising to return for dinner, he left Enid at her room and visited the desk clerk, bluntly asking him if it was a fact that a woman pickpocket was "working" the boats, and if she played blindness when detected. The clerk eyed him a little queerly, he thought, then nodded with a laugh.
"Of course, we're keeping it dark, sir. But I think that there's no more danger. She's not known by sight, but the bulls have a good description, and unless she beats it pretty quick they'll nab her. This is on the quiet, you understand, sir."
"Certainly; thank you," nodded Quentin, and passed out on his way to the Country Club, his mind a whirlwind of conflicting doubts. Was Enid Elsmere the pickpocket?
She had heard that name from his lips, and had promptly related a most incredible story concerning a man of unblemished social and professional standing; what was more, he had swallowed it whole. With but a slight knowledge of Hall Burlington's family she might easily have fabricated the whole thing. And over against this he could only set his knowledge of human nature, the appeal of her blind face and her whole manner—but was she blind?
"By heavens," thought Quentin, his lips tightening, "I'd stake a good deal on that face of hers! And yet"
The doubt crawled and twisted like a maggot, and he could not down it. If she had seen the detective on the boat, she might have played a desperate hand to win; but he was forced to admit that it had been magnificently played, despite the craziness of her story. What would her ultimate intent be in that case?
It was not hard to guess. At present she was vouched for by him—though he was unknown on the islands—and had found shelter at the hotel. If his doubts were well founded, she would remain there until the afternoon boat back to San Pedro, then she would quietly slip off and "beat it."
"All right," decided Quentin, as he swung up the last few yards of Metropole Avenue, passed the tennis courts, and on to the Country Club, "I'll not return until the boat has gone back. It'll be pretty good proof that she's told the truth, if I find her waiting; we'll leave the matter on the knees of the gods until then."
As he turned up the steps of the clubhouse he felt in his hip pocket for his bill fold and cardcase which contained the greater part of his money. Then he stopped suddenly, and went through his other pockets.
The wallet was gone.