The Silver Horde Part 32

"I see." Boyd detected a note hitherto strange in his own voice. "I am going to try the Tacoma banks to-morrow. Would you like to run over with me in the morning. The Sound trip is beautiful."

"I would love to," she exclaimed. "I may have something to report if I can make Mr. Hilliard talk."

"Out of curiosity, I should like to know what influenced him." All women were more or less suspicious, he reflected, and some of them were highly intuitive; still, he could not believe that this was all Willis Marsh's doing. As he mused he idly thumbed the pages of a magazine. He was about to lay it down when his eye caught a well-known face, and he started, then glanced at the date of issue. It was a duplicate of that copy which had affected him so deeply in Cherry's house at Kalvik. He lifted his eyes to find her scrutinizing him.

"No, you can't cut out that page," she said, with a slightly embarra.s.sed laugh.

"Where did you run across this?"

"I didn't run across it" she admitted; "I scoured the book-stalls for it all the morning. Curiosity is a feminine trait, you know."

"I don't quite understand."

"That missing page has caused me insomnia for months. But now I'm as puzzled as ever, for there are two pictures, one on either side of the leaf, and each has possibilities. Which is it--the society bud or the prima donna?"

"I don't know what you mean," he answered, somewhat stiffly. His love for Mildred Wayland had always been so sacred and inviolable a thing that even Cherry's frank inquisitiveness seemed an intrusion.

"I'll call for you in time for the nine-o'clock boat," he added, as he arose to go. "Meanwhile, if you get a hint from Hilliard, it may be useful."

Left to his own devices, Boyd spent the evening in gloomy solitude, vainly seeking for some way out of his difficulties. But, despite his preoccupation with his own affairs, a vague feeling of resentment at the thought of Cherry and Hilliard kept forcing itself upon his mind. Perhaps the girl's indiscretion was of no very serious nature; yet he found it hard to excuse even a small breach of propriety upon her part. Surely, she must understand the imprudence of dining alone with the banker. His attentions to her could have but one interpretation. And she was too nice a girl to compromise herself in the slightest degree. Although he told himself that a business reason had prompted her, and reflected that the business methods of women are baffling to the mind of mere man, his reasoning quite failed to reconcile him to the situation. In the end he had to acknowledge that he did not like the look of it in the least.

But in the morning he found it impossible to maintain a critical att.i.tude in Cherry's presence. She had finished her breakfast when he called, and was awaiting him, clad in a brown velvet suit which set off her trim figure with all the effectiveness of skilful tailoring. Brown boots and gloves to match, with a dainty turban in which lay the golden gleam of a pheasant's plumage, completed the picture. She was as perfect to the eye as the morning itself.

"Well, did Hilliard expose the hidden mysteries of the banking system?" he questioned, as they walked down toward the water front.

"He did. It is no mystery at all now."

"Then it was that newspaper story that frightened him."

"Indirectly, perhaps. He didn't mention it."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing! Then how--?",

"He informed me that you are in love with the society girl and not with the actress. He said you are engaged to marry Miss Wayland."

"Yes. But what did he say about the loan?"

"Only what I have told you. The rest is easy. Had you been less secretive, I would have known instantly whom to blame for this trouble. Wayne Wayland and Willis Marsh are working double, and inasmuch as you are _persona non grata--"_

"Who told you I am _persona non grata?"_

"You told me yourself without intending to. Please give me credit for some shrewdness. If you had been a welcome suitor, you would have had no difficulty in raising twice two hundred thousand dollars in Chicago. Then, too, I remember the story you told me at Kalvik, your mental att.i.tude-- many things, in fact. Oh, it was very simple."

"Well, what of it? What has all that got to do with my present difficulty?"

"Listen! You want to marry the daughter of the greatest trust-builder in the country, and he doesn't want you for a son-in-law. You undertake an enterprise which seriously threatens his financial interests, and if successful in that, you could defy his opposition in the other matter. Now all goes well until he learns of your plans, then he strikes with his own weapons. A word here and there, a hint to the banks, and your fine castle comes tumbling down about your ears. I thought you had more perception."

The girl's voice was sharp, and she wore that expression of unyouthful weariness that Boyd had noted before. He could not help wondering what bitter experience had taught her disillusion, what strange environment had edged her wits with worldly wisdom.

"We haven't figured Marsh in at all," he said, tentatively.

"He figures, nevertheless, as I intend to show you to-day. To begin with, please notice that un.o.btrusive man in the gray suit--not now! Don't look around for a minute. You will see him on the opposite side of the street."

Boyd turned, to observe a rat-faced fellow across the way, evidently bound for the Tacoma boat.

"Is he following us?"

"I see him, everywhere I go."

Boyd's face clouded angrily, at which Cherry exclaimed: "Now, for Heaven's sake, don't mimic Big George, or we'll never learn anything!"

"I won't stand for a spy!" he growled.

"And be arrested?"

"No," he a.s.sured her, grimly. "It may be as you suspect, but you needn't fear that I'll ever go to jail for a.s.saulting one of Willis Marsh's helpers."

She glanced up quickly, as if detecting a double meaning in his words; then, at the smouldering fires she beheld, observed, in a gentler tone: "You care a great deal for Miss Wayland, don't you?"

His only answer was a deep breath and a slow turning of the head, but once she had seen the look in his eyes she needed no other. She could only say: "I hope she is worthy of all she is causing you to suffer, Boyd, so few of us are."

She did not speak again, but in her heart was a great heaviness. They reached the dock and lost sight of the spy, only to have him reappear soon after the boat cleared, and while neither spoke of it, they felt his presence during the whole trip.

Before them Rainier lifted its majestic, snow-crowned head high into the heavens, its serrated slopes softened by a purple haze, its soaring crest limned in blazing glory by the sun. The bay beneath them was like a huge silver s.h.i.+eld, flat-rolled and glittering, inlaid with master cunning between wooded hills that swept away into mysterious distances, there to rise skyward in an ever-changing, ever-charming confusion. It reflected fairy-like islands, overgrown till they bowed to their mirrored likenesses. Now a smiling inlet opened up a perspective of golden sand and whispering s.h.i.+ngle; again a frowning bluff slipped past, lost in lonely contemplation of its own inverted image. The day was gorgeous, inspiring.

Their course lay through an enchanted region, so suggestive of splendid possibilities that Boyd was constrained to observe:

"You know, if the Pilgrim Fathers had landed here in the first place, New England would never have been discovered," a remark at which Cherry nodded in complete agreement.

At Tacoma Boyd left her, to go about his business, but joined her later at lunch, with the joyful announcement:

"I've had better luck, this time. They said there would be no difficulty whatever in handling the matter, and they are to let me know definitely to-morrow."

"Did Hawkshaw hound you to the bank?" she inquired.

"I rather think so."

"Then to-morrow will tell the tale."

"You mean the bank will turn me down?"

"Yes, if I've sized up the situation correctly. I dare say these banks are as cautious as those in Seattle, and a few words over the telephone would do the trick."

"I'm inclined to give that shadow a little personal attention," the young man mused; but when she questioned him, he only smiled and a.s.sured her of his caution.

Again on the return trip they discovered the fellow among the pa.s.sengers, but Boyd made no sign until the boat was landing. Then Cherry found that he had edged her into the crowd ma.s.sed at the gangway, and caught sight of the man in gray immediately ahead of them. She noticed that while Emerson maintained a flow of conversation his eyes were constantly upon the fellow's back, and that he kept a position close to his shoulder, regardless of jostling from the others. She could not tell what this foreboded, nor did she gain a hint of Boyd's purpose, until the gang-plank was in place and they were out upon it. A narrow s.p.a.ce separated the boat from the dock; as they crossed this, Boyd slipped and half fell on the slanting planks. She never knew exactly what happened, except that he released her arm and lunged violently against the man in gray, who was next him. It occurred with the suddenness of pure accident, and the next she saw was the stranger plunging downward along the piling, clutching wildly at the vessel's side, while Boyd clung to the guard-rope as if about to lose his balance.