The Whisper on the Stair/Chapter 33
The two men stared at each other in puzzlement. This was a development that they had not looked for. Last night—not so early, either—they had left Jessica and the old woman Elizabeth here. Nothing was said about any proposed departure—that is, except the proposed departure of Val, which had been suggested by Jessica, and which he never had any intention of carrying out, even had not Elizabeth stopped them and explained the case.
He knew for certain that Jessica intended to stay here for a time; certainly she had had no intention of leaving last night. If she had left, it had been a sudden affair. Perhaps . . .
“I think this is where the fine Italian mitt of old boy Teck comes in,” put in Eddie, speaking Val’s thought. “What do you think, sir?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” answered Val. “They went awfully quick, it seems to me. The point at issue is—where did she go and where is she now—to say nothing of why did she go?”
They stood in the little living room and discussed the matter from several different angles.
“It seems to me,” said Val, “that if she has gone some place in a hurry—in such a hurry—it must be against her will. The only one who would make her do anything against her will is Teck, of course. That eliminates the rest of the world, Eddie. Now, where is she now?”
“Well, my guess is that she’s where Teck can keep an eye on her—to see that she stays put. Now, last night, as we know, sir, Teck was at the Chamberlin.” He looked significantly at Val.
“My God!” ejaculated Val. “She might⸺”
The rest of it was lost, because he bolted for the flivver and cranked her up violently. Only by making a flying leap for the seat was Eddie able to go along, so quickly did Val do things now.
For the first time there was rage in Val’s heart against Teck. Up to now he had been intrigued by the novelty of the chase, the refreshment of the adventure, just when he had thought that life was drab and stale; and if he had had any feeling against Teck at all—leaving out the resentment at the murder of Mat Masterson—it was one of a rather curious sort of gratitude.
But now Teck had seemingly struck at Val’s most vital place. When an attempt had been made on Val’s life by Teck, he had foiled it and held no rancor; it was just another thing that had happened. But to cause Jessica to disappear—that was another thing entirely, and an important one. Somehow, Val construed it as a direct attack on himself; as a matter of fact it hit him far harder than an attack on himself could ever have done. He was perfectly willing to admit what a tremendous hold Jessica had taken on him. She meant to him all that life held worth while; she meant his future; his present; his Paradise. It was not something he would give up without a memorable struggle.
He was sure that they had hit on the solution. That, if Jessica was gone, she was somewhere in Teck’s power. These things flashed through Val’s mind as he forced the car to its utmost speed over the rough roads back to the Point. They bounced from side to side in the jolting, swaying car, taking the rough spots on high, slowing down for no curves and corners.
Far in front of them a great column of smoke rose to the everlasting skies, and sometimes this black, billowing mass was shot through and through with leaping flames. The Chamberlin was still burning fiercely. Coming from Hampton they had to slow up a bit, because the roads were full of people all bound for the fire, on foot, in horsedrawn vehicles, and in motor cars.
They made the best time they could, however, seeming oblivious to the maledictions that were hurled at them from pedestrians whom they missed narrowly, and drivers of motor cars which missed them narrowly. At last they drew up in front of the great pyre that had been the Chamberlin.
It was mostly all smoke now, though here and there the flames, red, hungry, angry, still licked through the swirling blackness of the smoke. The hotel was almost completely gutted, a great heap of blackened ruins, and the smell of burning wood and cloth filled the air.
A large crowd stood against the sea wall, thousands of spectators. Val looked at them hastily, keenly. He was looking for Teck. This big man would know where Jessica was, he was sure. He would drag the information from him if he had to do it in front of these thousands of people.
Angrily he strode through the crowd, leaving Eddie in the car to keep the engine running. He thought it possible he might have to take another hurried trip. He did not know where, or why—but you never could tell, he told himself. He examined the massed humanity sharply, searching ever for the one face. Teck was large; he should not have been hard to pick out of such a crowd, and Val thought it quite likely that he was there. His fingers itched to be at the big man’s throat; he did not think of him as a cripple, a man without hands. He thought of him as something vicious, something dangerous, something to be shaken like a rat, crushed like a snake.
His eyes were red and bloodshot from lack of sufficient sleep, but they were keen and alert, and his large bulk gained for him ready access into the crowd of people, ready passage through them where a smaller man might have been at a disadvantage. He scrutinized all who came within his vision closely, sharply, but could not see Teck. Once he thought he saw his figure in front of him, looming over the people around. The man’s back was turned, so he could not be sure, and by the time he had forced his way to where he had seen the figure, it had disappeared.
But there were thousands of people there, and it could easily have been that Teck was in the crowd and he had not seen him, Val told himself. The entire population, it seemed to him, of Hampton and Phœbus and a half dozen other smaller towns in the locality, had turned out to the fire, and the crowd was being augmented every minute by arrivals from Newport News and still farther towns that had heard of the fire, and had seen its smoke in the placid Virginia skies.
Once he caught a glimpse of the Rat in the crowd—a few feet ahead of him. He dived for the gangster, plunging through the mass of people, scattering them right and left, but by the time he had arrived at the spot the Rat had slipped away somewhere else, gliding through the throng easily, with city-bred slipperiness.
He pushed his way to the front, and stood for a moment in thought. It was plain that he had little chance of finding Teck in this constantly growing crowd, unless it was by accident.
A hand touched his arm, lightly, and a beloved voice came through the air to him.
“Oh, Val, how glad I am to find you here!”
He whirled swiftly, a great relief in his heart. Jessica was standing next to him.