Riddles (Bacheller)/Chapter 4
A TWO-PART STORY—PART TWO
Chapter Four
The Distinguished Millionaire Gets the Gossip of the War Village and Learns of the Perils which Threaten His Employers—Especially Miss Harriet, in Whom He is Deeply Interested. He Warns Her and is Presently Arrested for Murder. In the Midst of this He Meets Travers and Hears an Astonishing Confession and Loses His Job on Suspicion.
AS THE days passed Mrs. Martin and her daughter relied more and more on the wisdom and efficiency of their new hired man. He had sold the crops and a part of the stock; he had hired a faithful man and wife—the latter to do the cooking. His droll talk was a source of interest and delight to the ladies so that they were glad to make occasion for it.
Late in the week Miss Martin came to Riddles with a circular in her hands. He sat on the kitchen steps grinding a meat knife.
“Here is good news,” said she. “Some one has opened a new store in Coulterville. They say it's some millionaire who's trying to kill the profiteers. Just read the program.”
Riddles read the circular aloud as follows:
The Rescue Mercantile Company unlimited (in scope and capital) will open its store in Coulterville July 20th. It will sell for cash only the best meats and groceries at a reasonable margin of profit.
Its purpose is to grapple with the noted highwayman H.C.L. and throw him down and hold and bind him. No commissions to butlers or farm superintendents will be paid, directly or indirectly, by this company. The householders of the community are requested to assist us in this worthy and patriotic service by doing their own shopping. In this fight with new enemies don't be a slacker. All lines of trade and industry are hereby warned that profiteering must stop in Coultersille.
A long list of prices on meats and staple groceries followed and the circular was signed “Henry Bradshaw, Manager.”
“I wonder who's doing that,” said Miss Harriet. “It's real patriotism.”
“It's going over the top, in a way,” said Riddles. “I wonder what Erastus Waters will say to that?”
“I'm afraid that his profits have been rather large,” the young lady answered.
“I guess they're about as big as the troubles of the rest of us an' if you don't look out you're going to be figured in with the profits,” said Riddles as he thoughtfully whetted his knife. “Say, I'm kind o' sorry for you.”
“Uncle Sam, Jr., what do you mean?” she asked.
Riddles felt the edge of the knife as he answered:
“Well, ye know, there's some things that ought to be said to you, an' you ain't got no father or brother to say 'em as far as I can see.”
“If you know what they are, why don't you say 'em?” Miss Harriet asked.
“May I?”
“O course you may, Uncle Sam, Jr. I have the greatest confidence in your good sense and in your friendly feeling toward us.”
Riddles went on with his grinding as he said: “Well, my first subject will be Perry. He's a little like Cawkins. His education has been neglected. He may know a lot o' Greek an' Latin, but he's terrible ignorant about—” Riddles paused as he felt the edge of the knife—“Percy,” he went on. “I suppose there's been nobody who has dared to give him any schoolin' in that subject. Some day I'm likely to do it.”
“We don't know much about his character, and I have told my mother that I thought we needed instruction,” Miss Harriet said very soberly.
“Everybody has it but you. Percy is as well known here as the multiplication table There isn't a grocer's clerk or a scrub-woman in Coulterville that couldn't tell you all about Percy, if they dared to do it. I'm not terribly afraid o' Percy or his father, so if you want it, you'll get instruction, and it'll be as free as the air ye breathe.”
“We shall think it a great favor and treat it in confidence.”
“I wouldn't do that,” Riddles went on. “As I said before, Percy ought to know these things. I told him the other evening that he ought not to be drivin' around half-drunk with kalsomined women, and then be comin' here to see a girl like you. So he knows that much, if he can learn. But he has done worse things. You see, Erastus is kind o' worried about him. He wants to get him off the kalsomine level, an' you are the first step. He's made up bis mind that you could take Percy and make a man o' him. His mother tried it and failed. He wants you to be mother number two. Now the fact is, a man that needs a second mother will need several wives. The plan is to buy you for an educator an' pleader an' weeper an' nurse an' general superintendent. There's more to be said, but I guess I've gone far enough.”
“Go on, I want to hear it all,” said Miss Martin as she sat with her chin upon her bands, a look of interest in her face.
“Why, if Erastus Waters buys this place and you an' your mother live here under his roof, more or less dependent on him, I can see your finish. You don't know what it is to be poor, and I fear that you're likely to know, an' you've never learned how to take care of yourself.”
“Uncle Sam, you are a very wise man. but I am sure you are wrong this time,” said Miss Harriet. “Mr. Waters used to go to school with my mother. They have been friends for thirty years. His motives are unselfish.”
“HE MAY have the motives of an angel; but his history is a little off color. It don't inspire my confidence. Anyhow, before you fall into his hands, it will do ye no harm to have one piece of information that comes purty nigh bein' awful important to you. But I guess I better stop talkin' an' cut some meat for dinner.”
“You stay right where you are an' tell me,” Miss Harriet commanded. “Dinner can wait. I can't.”
“Why the fact is. I'm wearin' your knife out,” said Riddles as he went on with the grinding.
“Is that all you have to say!” she exclaimed impatiently.
“No; there's a lot more sayin' to be done, but just now this is all the corn I'm goin' to husk. I know a feller that's in love with ye. He's rich an' good-lookin' an' well broke an' intelligent an' stylish an' sound an' kind an' sixteen hands high—good head an' neck, too. Got more friends than you could shake a stick at. You wouldn't know him from a side o' sole leather; but he's seen ye an' knows all about ye. I used to work for his father an' I know him down to the ground. He's all right. He's crazy to show himself here, but I've kep' him away.”
“Kept him away! For goodness sake! Why don't you let me have a look at him? But, of course, he's one of your jokes.”
“Look here. Miss Martin, I ain't as smart as some folks, but I come purty nigh knowin' when a joke is a crime. It wouldn't do any harm for ye to take a look at him an' then, if you care to know him better, he can give ye his pedigree an' references. If not, why you can trust him to go about his business. He won't bother ye—none! I'll see to that.”
“And you say he's well educated and young and good-looking, and—and rich?” Miss Harriet asked with a smile of amusement.
“THAT'S what I say. Got a sheepskin from Yale. That ought to mean a good education. As to looks, he'll have to show the goods, and as to character an' riches, they can be proved easy.”
“How romantic!—like the tale of a fairy prince,” the young lady exclaimed with a glow of enthusiasm in her eyes.
Their talk was interrupt by the honk and rush of an automobile. Percy's big racing runabout stopped with a loud snort on the drive opposite the kitchen veranda where Miss Harriet sat with the late Mr. Riddles. Young Mr. Waters and a stout, red-faced, rugged-looking man of middle age in a pair of spectacles that seemed to magnify the size of his eyes stepped from the car and approached the little veranda.
“Miss Martin—this is Mr. Simpson, the constable,” said Percy. “We have come to arrest your hired man—Reuben Smith.”
Mr. Simpson bowed and lifting his gray felt hat mopped his perspiring brow with his handkerchief.
“You—you have come to arrest Reuben Smith?” said the young lady as her face began to turn pale. “What for?”
Simpson cleared his throat and readjusted his spectacles. There was a slight tremor in his hands as he took a document from his pocket, opened the same and began to read in a voice much louder than was necessary:
“The complainant, Robert Fosdick, manufacturer, of said village of Conners, deposes and says that in the course of a strike which began in his works on the first of May, 1918, one Reuben Smith, an employee in said works, had incited his men to sundry acts of violence and that on the tenth of May of the same year, he hurled a brick at one Henry Taylor, an elderly man, going peacefully to his work, inflicting injuries as a result of which Taylor died on the first day of June, 1918.”
Mr. Simpson paused.
“I do not believe it,” said Miss Harriet Martin.
Then Percy spoke out, saying: “Do you remember on the evening of the picnic at Pine Grove, Mr. Travers told us that he had bought clothes for this man from a traveling pedler and induced him to take a bath and to leave his tramp garments on the river-bank?”
Miss Martin nodded.
“Those clothes are now on a scarecrow in our corn-field near the road. In driving by the scarecrow Mr. Fosdick recognized the hat and clothes, and we were able to tell him the name of their owner, who is undoubtedly this man.”
“Say, boy, did you ever see me wearin' that suit o' clothes?” Riddles asked very calmly.
“No,” Percy answered.
“Did your father ever see me wearin' 'em?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know they was my clothes?”
“By what Mr. Travers said.”
“Oh, it's Mr. Travers that knows and not you. Did he go an' point 'em out to ye an' tell ye they was my clothes?”
“No.”
“All right. Now I'm ready to be arrested,” said Riddles as he continued to whet the knife.
“If you'll get in with us, we'll take ye over to the county seat,” said the constable.
“I'll take him in my car, if you please,” said Miss Martin. “You can come along with us if you like.” Turning to Riddles she added, “I'll get some clothes for you, and be ready in five minutes.”
“I shall not need 'em,” said Riddles. “I shall return before night.”
“You're going to be put in jail,” said Percy.
“Am I!” Riddles exclaimed. “Say, boy, if you stop growin' till you see me in jail, you'll be a jack-rabbit as long as you live.”
The chauffeur had brought up the car, and the young lady got in with the constable and his prisoner. They rode to Coulterville.
“NOW, Miss Harriet, this is goin' to be a kind of a trial o' your faith in me,” said Riddles as he dismounted with the constable at the county seat and bade her good-by. “Ye can give up meat an' drink an' hope an' charity an' life; but faith—if it has a good solid foundation—is a thing to be clung to. If you'll hang onto your faith in me, I'll promise to prove that it's worth havin'.”
“I do not expect to lose it,” she answered, as she offered him her hand. “But, Smith, we—we have grown rather fond of you. We like you and—and I can't help being worried.”
“Don't worry. My record is clean,” he assured her. “I'll be back at the farm this evening an' then there'll be some things said.”
“I'll wait and take you back with me,” said the young lady.
“Don't do that,” said Riddles. “I don't want you to get mixed up in this matter. Just leave it to me. I ask it as a favor.”
So they parted, and Riddles went with Percy and the constable.
The justice fixed a day for the examination of the prisoner and his bail at five thousand dollars. To the astonishment of the official Mr. Reuben Smith was in no way embarrassed by the amount of the bail demanded. He had the money in his wallet.
“I ain't apt to carry that amount in my pocket,” he said. “But I've been too busy to take it to a bank an' so here it is.”
The justice went over to the bank with the bills and learned that they were perfectly good, whereupon the amount was deposited with the county treasurer and the prisoner released.
Riddles got a ride back to the Martin farm, reaching there about four o'clock. A large new motor-car stood in the drive. Its chauffeur moved the car out of their way. Miss Martin and her mother sat on the veranda with a handsomely dressed gentleman. Miss Harriet came to the kitchen door where Riddles had alighted and shook hands with him.
“Glad to welcome you back home,” she said. “How did you get along?”
“I'm out on bail, until the day of my examination, when I shall prove an alibi.”
“A friend of yours is on the veranda. Will you come and meet him?”
The friend was J. Reginald Travers who rose and gave his hand to the hired man.
“My good fellow, I am quite surprised by the news of you!” said Travers. “It is—all I say?—natural that the best of men should have a bit of a fling now and then; but, really, I am astonished that you should have flung a brick at the dear old gentleman.”
“I like a little excitement once in a while, but I have never tried to build it out of bricks,” said Riddles with a smile.
“Quite so—of course,” Travers agreed. “One has only to look into your face to be assured of that. I have heard of your good behavior here, and I need not say how much it has pleased me. If we may have the permission of these ladies I should like you to ride with me to the nearest village.” Turning to the ladies he added: “I shall not keep him long.”
“Indeed, we are glad that you feel such an interest in him,” said Mrs. Martin.
Riddles sat on the top step of the veranda. Evidently Travers was getting along. He was dressed in new and well-tailored garments. Doubtless he wished to make a report and Riddles was eager to learn the nature of it. He had not answered the suggestion of Travers.
“Uncle Sam, Jr., why don't you go with the gentleman?” said Mrs. Martin. “It's getting cool and you had better put on the overcoat that hangs in your closet.”
“Thank you,” said the hired man as he left them.
“I wish to have a talk with him,” said Travers to the ladies. “Perhaps I could add to his comfort by some—trifling gift. I am really quite interested in the fellow. For one of his class he is—I should say—most remarkable.”
“WE CAN give him all the clothes he will need,” said Mrs. Martin. “I suppose he will talk to you more freely. He is a little shy with us. I wish you could learn where he comes from and something about him. He has a clever way of dodging our questions and we're awfully anxious to know of his past. I think he must be a man of good connections.”
“Anyhow, he's a man of very good sense,” said Travers. “I confess that I, as well as you, am anxious to know of his pahst. You may be sure I will do my best to enlighten you.”
Riddles returned and, with Travers, entered the handsome limousine upholstered with purple velvet waiting in the drive, and drove away.
“Well, old man, what has happened to you?” Riddles asked.
Travers slapped his thigh and laughed. “Really, you know. I'm the luckiest man!”
“Say, please stop this J. Reginald business and get down to straight talk,” said Riddles.
“The fact is I don't dare—I've got to keep it up or I shall be ruined. I've married the dear old girl!”
“What dear old girl?”
“Mrs. Pulsifer!”
“Ghosht'almighty!” Riddles exclaimed. “I didn't intend to set a trap for the widow Pulsifer when I gave you that suit of clothes.”
“Deah Smith—don't worry! It's a great thing for the both of us. You see she took to me at once. She loves the English.” Travers interrupted himself with laughter. “A rahther rusty old dame, but a good heart,” he went on. “She owns two big mills—cotton goods. I know something about the game. Made a few suggestions that she liked. We agreed perfectly on the subject of etherial substances. I got a friend of mine to come on from Boston in glad rags. He had a talk with the dear old girl about me. We were married, privately, next day. I have taken hold of the plahnts. They needed me. I shall make good. No more poverty in mine.”
“I'm afraid I can not congratulate you,” said Riddles. “I fear it will be a short happiness.”
“Why?”
“BECAUSE the only safe foundation for happiness is the truth. You have a false name and a false accent.”
“Dear Smith, so have you.”
“But I'm not using mine for the purpose of catching a wife.”
“Are you sure about that?” Travers asked. “If I'm any judge the girl is rather interested.”
“Well, if I should ever have the good fortune to marry any one, I should do it under my own name,” said Riddles.
“So should I have done; but the name and the accent were assumed, as you know, on the spur of the moment to satisfy my whim, and circumstances have compelled me to keep them. Of course, I shall have to make a clean breast of it one of these days.”
“But that friend from Boston!” Riddles exclaimed. “It looks as if you had buncoed the old lady.”
“Deah Smith! It's not so bad as it looks. It was only a piece of good advertising. I am aware that my history is not all that it should have been, but my prospects are dazzling. I advertised the prospects. I did it with no intention of deceiving the old lady. I am really trying to be just what I pretend to be—a gentleman. I hope you do not think it so impossible that I have no right to count upon it. As you know, I slipped into the job by accident and I find it most agreeable. I'm going to stick to it. If you will help me, I shall succeed.”
“But Travers! It's some contract,” said Riddles. “You are wanted for murder, and in the same county where your wife is living.”
“Deah Smith! As long as I can keep my courage I am in no danger. Nobody would know me. Anyhow, I have a wall of friends around my sacred form. I have played many parts, but this one of gentleman is my masterpiece because I love the part. You are the only critic I fear. You could ruin the play.”
“First, I want to know if you have any other wife,” Riddles demanded.
“She is my one and only wife.”
“Just what do you intend to do?”
“I'm going to work and I shall make the old lady as happy as I can. She is a good soul. I like her. I've tried all the found there are, deah Smith, but don't think that I have lost the power to appreciate a fined and decent woman. My mother was just that kind of woman.”
In the talk of Travers there was no trace of the playful irony which had flavored his conversation when he and Riddles had first met. There were signs of a rather deep change in him. He was serious. He jumped in and out of his dialect as if, in his earnestness, he were, now and then, forgetting it. Riddles sat thinking as he smoked the cigaret which Travers had given him.
“You're a clever man, but I wonder if you can put this over,” said he. “You're in wrong so far—you've built on the sand—but if you really want to be square, I suppose you can move the structure to firm ground. Now I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep watch on you. If you go to work and do the right thing by the old lady. I'll do what I can to help you. If you don't—you will find yourself in the hands of the law.”
“Deah Smith, I thank you!” Travers exclaimed. “You will see that I have a real gift for the art of being a gentleman."”
“There's a little too much art about you, my boy,” said Riddles. “Show me the heart of a gentleman and I'm with you.”
“My heart might be better, deah friend—I do not need to be reminded of that,” said Travers. “Still it is improving. You will acknowledge that, deah Smith, when you know the truth. This morning I saw my brother-in-law, Mr. David Galt, and we had some talk about you.”
A sudden, penetrating flash of light fell into the consciousness of the late Mr. Riddles, sweeping every shadow from its remote reaches. In the startling surprises of that conversation he had failed to recall the fact that the impressionable Mrs. Pulsifer was the sister of David Galt. Travers had been quite right in thinking himself lucky.
“YOU are a clever man,” said Riddles. “I wonder what was said about me.”
“Deah Smith, he told me of the suspicions that were entertained of you. I told him the truth, that I had known you for some time, and had the highest regard for you, and that they were barking up the wrong tree.”
“But what am I to do under examination?” Riddles asked. “I shall have to”
“Tell the truth, I suppose,” Travers interrupted. “I'll see that the examination is adjourned for a month. Then it may never have to come off.”
Riddles sat in silence while Travers returned the sums he had borrowed.
They were nearing the gate of Mrs. Martin.
“If you don't mind. I'll drop you at the gate,” said Travers as he signaled the driver. “I'm likely to be late to dinner, and some guests are coming. Deah Smith, I promise that my behavior will give you no cause for regret.”
They parted, and as Riddles entered the gate he met Percy Waters driving out.
“Mrs. Martin wishes to see you at once,” said her maid when Riddles entered the kitchen. “You will find her in the library.”
In a moment the hired man had found her and Miss Harriet. He did not get the pleasant greeting which he had been wont to receive from them. There was a touch of sternness in Mrs. Martin's voice when she said:
“Smith, we must have a frank talk with you. Sit down and tell us where you come from and who you are.”
“Mrs. Martin, I thought you wanted help and not history,” said Riddles.
“We didn't ask for references, but now I think we shall have to do it,” she went on. “I am sure you will agree with me that it is a little unusual for a hired man to be carrying five thousand dollars in his pocket.”
“It's a kind of crime,” said Riddles. “I'm ashamed of it, and I didn't intend for you to know it. But you see, I had to use that money to keep out of jail.”
“IT IS said that you have been a bank robber,” the woman continued. “I am told that the man who wore those tramp clothes was a violent socialist and a dynamiter. We have every reason to believe in you, but if you stay here we must know about you. Now that socialist who killed the man with a brick was known as Reuben Smith—there is said to be no doubt of that. I understand you to claim that the tramp's clothes which were left on the river shore were not the clothes which you had worn when you came there. Is that right?”
“It is,” Riddles answered.
“Do you know to whom they belonged?”
“I would rather not answer that question just now,” said Riddles, and purely out of consideration for Travers.
Mrs. Martin rose from her chair.
“Have you nothing more to say to us?” she asked.
“At present, I've only this to say, I'm about as honest as men average, and if you'll trust me a little while I'll prove it to ye.”
“We can not trust you any longer,” Mrs. Martin answered. “Reuben Smith, I shall have to ask you to go.”
Miss Harriet rose and said, “Mother, no one can make me believe that Uncle Sam. Jr., is not an honest man.”
“Miss Harriet, I thank you for your belief in me. Don't let yourself be robbed of it. I have promised that, some day, you shall know that I am as honest as I pretend to be. I ask you to wait until I am ready to tell you. If you let yourself be fooled by all this silly talk, you will never know the truth. Stick to your faith in me—no matter what they say.”
Turning to Mrs. Martin he added. “I want to thank you both for all your kindness. I'll never forget it. If you'll please send me down to Coulterville, I'll put on the farm suit an' bid ye good-by.”
“Keep the clothes you have on—they'll be more comfortable,” said Mrs. Martin.
“No, I'm goin' just as I came,” Riddles insisted.
“How much shall I pay you?”
“Leave that to you. Only don't make it too much.”
Riddles left them to change his clothes.
“I hate to see him go,” said Miss Harriet while her mother was writing a check to the order of Reuben Smith.
“I don't see what else we can do,” was her mother's answer.
When Riddles was going out of the door Mrs. Martin said, “We want to thank you for all you have done for us.”
“I ain't really had a chance to do much yet," said Riddles. “I'd like to an' maybe I can sometime. We'll see.”
“It's a shame that it should end this way,” said Miss Harriet.
Riddles stood up straight and answered in his own fashion of speech:
“It isn't ended yet. I'm coming back with the young man and a certificate of good character.” With that he left the farm where he had had so many curious adventures.
A mile out of the village the car that conveyed him was stopped by Bradshaw. The latter was in his new delivery truck.
Riddles left the Martin car and got in with Bradshaw, who said:
“I was going out to see you. There's a good deal of excitement in the village. All kinds of wild rumors are dying about and I have heard that they intend to arrest you again to-night. This time it will be for bank robbery. I thought you might be in need of help. What can I do?”
“Thanks. I'm anxious to get home,” said Riddles. “Drive me across country to some town where I can buy clothes and hop into a motor-car. I've had enough of this hired-man game to hold me awhile. How's the store?”
“Crowded to the doors all day. It's going to be a godsend to this community. The profiteers are scared. Waters came to-day with a proposition to buy us out. I told him that he hadn't money enough to buy us out.”
“That's right. Now, Bradshaw, don't do any talking about me. On the day of the examination I'll show up with some witnesses and prove an alibi, and at the same time wipe out the bank-robber theory.”
They drove to Williamstown where Riddles bought a ready-made suit and overcoat. Then, after supper, he hired a motor-car, and set out in the darkness for Belleharbor.