Persons Unknown

  CHAPTER VIII

  JILL-IN-THE-BOX! THE LAST OF THE GRAY TOURING CAR

  They listened, incredulous, straining their eyes among the black poolsand bright patches of wooded, winding way up from the river anddiscerned--almost on the instant close at hand--a gray ghost dipped inmoonshine; lost under the trees and then springing out upon them, ablack shape against the darkness, heralded by no sound of voice or horn,speeding as if with its head down like some sullen thunderbolt.

  With their lights blazing defiance Herrick, catching out his revolver,attempted to cross the junction in time to throw their own car acrossthe narrow road. He was too late; she grazed them as she passed; theyfell in behind her, shouting threats which were lost in the wind of thatflight; the road fell away before them; the hilled and wooded earth torepast; the noise, as of blowing forests, of multitudinous crowds and theroaring of the sea, surged in their ears; great waves and solid hills ofair rose up and moved upon them, and, as they passed through, split intostinging, icy shreds that whipped their faces; the car rocked in thewild tide of its own speed, and in a world where they had gone blind toeverything but one crazy whirl, they yet saw their lights fall evernearer and brighter upon the fugitive.

  It was now nearing three o'clock, the moon wholly victorious and thecars leaping through a world of molten silver. Herrick said to the boybeside him, "Can you shoot?"

  "Not so that you can tell it!"

  "Take the wheel, then!"

  He could not make out her figure in the car. But in such thickly loomingdangers, what must be, must be.

  The men ahead heard him call to them to stop before he fired. In answerthey merely leaned forward shielding themselves, and Herrick let fly twoshots, aiming for the back tires; but, in that swaying speed, he missed.With a kind of harsh gaiety he answered Stanley, "No more can I!" andwith the words the man beside Nicola turned and fired straight atHerrick's head. The wind-shield shattered in their faces; as the bulletpassed between them Stanley felt a little sting, like the scorch of aquick, hot iron, on his cheek. "Slide down," Herrick said to him, "wayunder the wheel! Keep your head to one side." He himself was kneeling,resting his revolver on the frame of the broken wind-shield. At histhird bullet they heard Nicola cry out and clap his hand to the back ofhis neck; the touring-car swerved and gave a kind of bounce; the manbeside Nicola fired again and put a hole through Herrick's cap. The nextminute the revolver dropped out of his hand; Herrick's fourth shot hadbroken his wrist. And now the road broadened a little, and the Inghamcar was drawing on a level with its opponent. The touring-car did notcarry Christina.

  "Get as far forward as you can," Herrick said, "I'm after the fronttires."

  Their own front tires passed the rear of the first car; as they cameabreast the man with the broken wrist, using his left hand, emptied hispistol almost in their faces; a shot from the man in the body of the carstruck their steering-wheel; there was a cloud now between the two cars,smelling so thick of powder that Stanley seemed to himself to eat it. Hewas aware of Herrick suddenly casting aside all defenses, leaningforward into this cloud, his brows knotted and his arm outstretched.There came the quick Ping!--Ping! of his last two shots and as if inthe same breath, the earthquake! The black touring-car seemed to springinto the air; then her fore wheels collapsed and she sank forward, stillsliding a little as if on her nose, and, running quietly over the edgeof the road into the shallow ditch that edged it, turned on her side.

  They were well passed by this time, and despite the jerk with whichStanley brought up, Herrick had leaped out before they were stopped, andat the same moment a figure scrambled from the fallen hulk and, withouta glance behind, made off across the fields. Herrick, shifting his emptyrevolver as he ran, till he carried it by the barrel, swung into fullpursuit.

  This was the more foolhardy because on getting to his feet Nicola haddrawn his own revolver, from which Herrick had to dodge as he ran, andat length indeed to throw himself down, and get forward only by hishands and knees. They were now in a broken, stony lot, spotted withunderbrush; a brook running through it, and here and there tall chestnuttrees. By screening himself with these, and making a run for it in anypatch of shadow, he kept his man in sight and even gained upon him; hewas waiting till Nicola's gun should be as empty as his own before hecame to closer quarters. For this he knelt and rose and ran and crawled,now showing himself, to draw--and waste!--a bullet; and now plumpingdown among bushes. It was at one of these moments that he heard a shotbehind him and, peering through the screen of twigs, saw that Nicola'scomrades had freed themselves from the ditch and were advancing,apparently full-armed, and he of the uninjured hand beating the covertsas they came. They called to each other, and in Italian sure enough; andthey carried a lantern from Stanley's car. What had become of Stanley?And what now was he himself to do?

  He crept forward to the edge of his thicket and could just make out afigure, not very far off, running heavily across a cleared space. Then,in a blanket of darkness, the figure disappeared as though through atrap-door, and Herrick, for all his listening, could hear only thecalling and trampling of the men with the lamp. He told himself thatNicola had taken a leaf from his own book and was perhaps lyingflattened to the earth--there came a disturbance in the bushes, a jaralong the ground, as of some one plunging back from that cleared spacetoward the road; it appeared to him that a bulk of blacker blacknessappeared and disappeared where those sounds rose. But the moon had sogone under a cloud that he could not be sure. So he thought; and thenhis heart leaped to admit the blessed truth--the moon had set! Heslipped to his feet and fled, swift as a shadow and strong as a hound,after the heavier runner. He had guessed the truth, that Nicola wasreturning to the road. He had been led out across the fields on a falsescent, but now Nicola, thinking to have doubled and shaken him off, wason the home trail straight for the high road. They came out upon itperhaps two hundred feet to the south of their empty motors; Herricksteadily gaining, and surprised cries and lantern-flashes piercing thefield they had left behind. But as Herrick lifted his gun to let thelagging quarry have its butt-end, suddenly Nicola pitched forward andlay at his feet. He brought up short, suspicious of a trick. And then heremembered how Nicola had clapped his hand to the back of his neck.Holding the gun ready, he stooped and put his own hand to the same spot.It was covered with something hot and wet, which Herrick, with asurprising lack of sentiment, wiped off on the man's coat; he tried tolift the senseless figure and get it back to his own car. Something fellout of Nicola's breast with a little silver tinkle. The sound, as ofsome woman's trinket, drove the sense out of Herrick's head. Though hemight as well have run up an electric target, he struck a match. Asilver locket lay in his hand. It had been violently wrested from aneck-chain in whose wrenched links a thread or two of lace still clung.In one broken side the glass had been ground to fragments, as thoughunder a man's heel, but the marred lines of a likeness were still there.The likeness, cut from an old kodak picture, was of Will Denny. Someone, like Signor Gabrielli, had never voluntarily parted with thefeatures of her love! Out of the locket's other side, warm from Nicola'sbreast and unmarred but by the trickling of his blood, cried mutely,eagerly, to Herrick the fresh youth of Nancy Cornish.

  Almost as he saw the bullets sang about him, as if he had charged into abee hive. The lamp the Italians carried swallowed up his little matchand picked him out with brightness, holding him in the circle of itslight. He snatched up Nicola's gun and pulled the trigger, but thebarrel was empty as that of his own; he might have flung himself downand taken his chance to crawl off in the ditch, but he had no mind todie like that; and what he did was to snatch off his coat and hold itbefore him, back and forth like a moving screen, as he ran forward intothe mouth of the revolvers to crack at least one man on the head withhis cold weapon before he fell. Just then from down the road a freshvolley of bullets shattered the night, and the voice of Stanley and thesheriff came to him like music.

  The rescue which so much firing had helped Stanley to summon swept infull chase a
fter the Pascoes and the tables were completely turned. Butthe shouts of the sheriff's party--"Got one?" "No; haven't you?" "Hi,Williams, they must have got over the wall of the Hoover place!" "We'llscramble over from the hood and see if they've struck down to theriver!" "Blake, you and Cobbett drive round and ring up the lodge. Themold folks are easy a million, but get 'em up!"--warned Herrick of ablank in the sequel. And sure enough when the conquerors foregathered,the escape of the Pascoes, presumably by the river, was the end oftheir conquest.

  For this had they fought and ridden, crawled and run! No wonder theyfelt a certain need of cheering each other with what gains they had.There was the yellow house; the home of the Pascoes and their Arm ofJustice, the rainbow end of Kane's dream! And there, in the ditch besidethem was a vague tumble of wreckage. "Hail, and farewell!" Herrickwhistled, with a curious laugh. "We've met once too often!" For there,at least, was the end of his acquaintance, the gray touring-car.

  As the two young men reentered New York with the milk wagons and drovesoberly through the Park, a cool gray light, more like darkness thanlight and yet perfectly and strangely clear like shadowed water, hadbegun to break above the sleeping town. Then Herrick drew from hispocket his paper puzzle and spread it out beside him on the rear seat ofthe car.

  This time get rid of her. I say. She but she can't g real dau mother

  et rid do the way een any She can but mebbe of

  she's got to ain't ever b ghter to me

  Some of the connections were obvious enough, but what the torn edgeshelped him still further to form was a purely domestic statement. "Thistime she's got to do the way I say. She ain't ever been any realdaughter to me. But--" Then there was a bit gone. Then, "She can get ridof" word missing, "mebbe, but she can't get rid of her mother--"

  "Well!" cried Stanley in disdainful disappointment. "What's that got todo with anything?"

  "How should I know?"

  He made the scraps into a little pile on the floor of the car, set fireto them, and ground them to ashes with his heel. For he knew only toowell. That gray parrot face, that sharp, ignorant, cold voice in thesunny table d'hote! "I want you should clear out from here, young man.I'd oughta know Dagoes; I married one." Yes, that was it! Wasn't itStanley who wanted to know what hold such people had on Chris? "Mygirl's good Yankee--fair as any one. I brought her up so fine--" As theyturned down still unawakened Broadway to his rooms Herrick looked intothe light that was like darkness with eyes that made nothing of thefirst pale blush of peach blow nor the first hint of vaporous blue.

  Till he heard Stanley say, "And if that Pascoe Arm-of-Justice gang haverun away and yet come back, where did they run to?"

  Through all his preoccupation Herrick was aware of an immense stupidity."You're right. We went over that place inch by inch. And you know, whenthey left, they must have tumbled into their car and off--no time foranything. They packed nothing, they took nothing. Well, then, Stan,where was Justice's typewriter? And in what room or garret or cellar wasthe printing-press?"

  Stanley gaped.

  "Agreed--there wasn't any. And so that never was their real shop. Only ablind. Their real place of business, Stan, their fortress, theirretreat, we've never found at all!"

  This was the net result of town and country in their search for amissing girl, twenty-four hours after Christina had disappeared.

  * * * * *

  The anxiety of her friends would have been scarcely more enlightened, oreven more relieved, had the search not happened to miss one accident ofthat cross-wired night.

  At about eleven o'clock, more than an hour before Herrick had forced anentrance, the since damaged touring-car, returning from its expeditionof the morning, had drawn up before the gate of the yellow house. Thenight world was then still a world of wind and rain; the car wassplashed as though it had passed through a flood, and Nicola, stiff,muddy and drenched, was not in a very good humor when he got no reply tohis knock at the kitchen door. He had driven quietly and knockedquietly, but now he lost control of himself and began to hammer;catching hold of the knob impatiently, he felt it turn in his grasp andentered. The door had not been locked, though the kitchen was lighted.He thought he could hear, somewhere, some one knocking. He took the lampand went up the back stairs; then it seemed to him that the knockingcame from the front of the house. He retraced his steps. Yes, there wasa light in the hall and the knocking came from the closet under thestairs.

  The Pascoes were in desperate straits, and Nicola was alone. He drew hisknife from the capacious foldings of his coat, and stepped a littlebehind the door as he flung it open. There stumbled out, and sank,gasping, at his feet, the figure of a woman. She brought with her, outof the reeking closet, a strong odor of ammonia. Nicola gave a grunt ofamazement. Then, like Herrick afterward, he lifted his lamp, and staredabout the closet. On the floor lay an empty quart bottle which hadrecently been full of household ammonia, a still soaking towel, and alarge silk umbrella, the rod broken and the handle missing. With thepoint of this umbrella a pane of the little window overhead had beenbroken and a slant of the outside shutter forced open for air. Nicolacould make nothing of it; he turned at length, and grouchily pulled thegasping woman to her feet. This woman was the gray-haired housekeeper,Mrs. Pascoe.

  At ten o'clock she said she had gone to get something from the closetand, as she opened the door, she had smelled ammonia. Then a towel,soaking with it, had been pressed on her face. Before she could do morethan struggle with that, she had been pushed into the closet and thedoor had clicked upon her. That was all she knew. She must have beenunconscious part of the time.--At ten o'clock! What an eternity ofdespair, then, had Christina not lived through before she thusruthlessly freed herself! And what, now, had become of her; under a dawnsome seven hours later than when, leaving Nancy behind, she had rushedout of that house and sped away, along the storm-tossed road?