Red Pepper Burns Part 18

He seized the letter, ran into the inner office, looked in at the dimly-lighted room where the boy was sleeping, took up a soft hat and, out of sight of Miss Mathewson, crammed the typewritten sheet into his pocket in a crumpled condition. Pulling the soft hat well down over his eyes he followed Chester out into the fresh November night, drawing a long breath of satisfaction as the chill wind struck him.

"You were just in time to save me from an awful sc.r.a.pe I'd got myself into," he remarked as they tramped away.

"I thought you looked hot and unhappy. Were you proposing to Miss Mathewson by letter? It's always best to say those things right out: letters are liable to misinterpretation," jeered Chester.

"You're right there. I was riding for a fall fast enough when you reined up alongside. But what's a fellow to do when he can't write himself, except in flytracks?"

"I presume the lady would prefer the fly-track to a typewritten doc.u.ment executed by another woman."

"How do you know the thing was to a lady?" Burns demanded.

"That's easy. No man looks as upset as you did over a communication to another man. What do you write to her for, anyhow, when she's as near as Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"What?"

"Doesn't she keep you informed? Winifred says Martha says Ellen came back up to Was.h.i.+ngton yesterday for the wedding of a friend--hastily arranged--to an army officer suddenly ordered somewhere--old friend of Ellen's--former bridesmaid of hers, I believe. She--"

Burns had stopped short in the middle of the hubbly, half-frozen street they were crossing. "How long does she stay in Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"I don't know. Ask Win. Probably not long, since she only came for this wedding. It's tonight, I think she said. Aren't you coming?"

Burns walked on at a rapid stride with which Chester, shorter-legged and narrower-chested, found it difficult to keep up. They had their tramp, a four-mile course which they were accustomed to cover frequently together at varying paces. Chester thought they had never covered it quite so quickly nor so silently before. For Burns, from the moment of receiving Chester's news, appeared to fall into a reverie from which it was impossible to draw him, and the subject of which his companion found it not difficult to guess. After the first half mile, Chester, than whom few men were more adaptable to a friend's mood, accepted the situation and paced along as silently as Burns, until the round was made and the two were at Burns's door.

"Good night. Afraid I've been dumb as an oyster," was Burns's curt farewell, and Chester chuckled as he walked away.

"Something'll come of the dumbness," he prophesied to himself.

Something did. It was a telegram, telephoned to the office by a sender who rejoiced that having one's left arm in a sling did not obstruct one's capacity to send pregnant messages by wire. He had obtained the address from Martha Macauley, also over the telephone:

"Mrs. E. F. Lessing, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. Am leaving Was.h.i.+ngton to-night.

Hope to have drive with you to-morrow morning in place of letters impossible to write. R. P. BURNS."

"I suppose that's a fool telegram," he admitted to himself as he hung up the receiver, "but after that typing mess I had to express myself somehow except by signs. Now to get off. Luckily, this suit'll do. No time to change, anyhow."

He telephoned for a sleeper berth; he called up a village physician and the house surgeon at the city hospital, and made arrangements with each for seeing his patients during the two nights and a day of his absence.

He had no serious case on hand and, of course, no surgical work, so that it was easier to get away than it might be again for a year after his arm should be once more to be counted on. Then he interviewed Cynthia on the subject of Bob; after which he packed a small bag, speculating with some amus.e.m.e.nt, as he did so, on the succession of porters, bell-boys, waiters and hotel valets he should have to fee during the next thirty-six hours to secure their necessary a.s.sistance, from the fastening of his shoes to the tying of his scarfs, the cutting up of his food, and the rest of the hundred little services which must be rendered the man with his right arm in a sling.

"I may not look a subject for travel, Miss Mathewson," he announced with a brilliant smile, appearing once more in the outer office, where the bill-copying was just coming to a finish, "but I'm off, nevertheless.

Thank you for your struggle with my schoolboy composition. We won't need to finish it. I'm--Oh, thunder!"

It was the office bell. Miss Mathewson answered it. Burns, prepared to deny himself to all ordinary pet.i.tioners, saw the man's face and stopped to listen. It was a rough-looking fellow who told him his brief story, but the hearer listened with attention and his face became grave. He turned to Miss Mathewson.

"Call Johnny Caruthers and the Imp, please," he directed. "Telephone the Pullman ticket office and change my berth reservation from the ten-thirty to the one o'clock train."

He went out with the man, and Miss Mathewson heard him say: "You walked in, Joe? You can ride back with us on the running-board."

Ten minutes after he had gone Chester came again. He found Miss Mathewson reading by the office droplight. On the desk stood a travelling bag; beside it lay a light overcoat, not the sort that Red Pepper was accustomed to wear in the car, a dress overcoat with a silk lining. On it reposed a that and a pair of gloves rolled into a ball, man fas.h.i.+on. Chester regarded with interest these unmistakable signs of intended travel.

"Doctor Burns going out of town?" he inquired casually. It must be admitted that he had scented action of some sort on the wind which had taken his friend from his company at the conclusion of the walk.

Ordinarily, Burns would have gone into Chester's den and settled down for an hour of talk before bedtime.

"I believe so," Miss Mathewson replied in the noncommittal manner of the professional man's confidential a.s.sistant. "But he has gone out for a call now."

"Back soon?"

"I don't know, Mr. Chester."

"Did he go in the Imp?"

"Yes."

"Country call, probably--they're the ones that bother a man at night as long as he does country work. I've often told Doctor Burns it was time he gave up this no-'count rural practice. Well, do you know what time his train goes?"

"After midnight, some time." Miss Mathewson knew that Mr. Chester was Doctor Burns's close friend, but she was too accustomed to keep, her lips closed over her employers affairs to give information, even to Chester, except under protest.

"Hm! Well, I believe I'll sit up for him and help him off. A one-armed man needs an attendant. Don't stay up, Miss Mathewson. I'll take any message he may leave for you."

"I'm afraid I ought to wait," replied the faithful nurse doubtfully.

"I don't believe it. Go home and go to bed, like a tired girl, as you no doubt are, and trust me. If he wants you I promise to telephone you.

I'll see him off and like to do it. Come!"

There being no real reason for doing otherwise than follow this most sensible advice, Miss Mathewson went away. Chester, settling himself by the drop-light in the chair she had vacated, fancied she looked a trifle disappointed and wondered why. Surely, he reasoned, the girl must get enough of erratic night work without sitting up merely to hand Burns his overcoat and wish him a pleasant journey.

It was a long wait. Chester enlivened it by telephoning Winifred that he wouldn't be home till morning--or sooner, and elicited a flurry of questioning which he evaded rather clumsily.

It was all right for him to be curious concerning Red's affairs, he considered, but there was no need for the women to get started on inquisitive questions.

He read himself asleep at last over the office magazines, and was awakened by a hurried step on the porch and a gust of November night air on his warm face.

"What are you doing here?" was the question which a.s.saulted him.

"Sitting up for you," was Chester's sleepy reply. He rubbed his eyes.

"Thought you might like to have me see you off:"

"I'm not going anywhere except back to the case I've just left. Go home and go to bed."

Chester sat up. He looked at Burns with awakening interest. He had never seen his friend's face look grimmer than it did now under the gray slouch hat, which he had worn for the tramp, pulled well down over his brows, and which, during all his preparations and his hasty departure in the car, it had not occurred to him to remove or to exchange for the leather cap he usually wore on such trips.

"Back to a country case instead of to Was.h.i.+ngton?" Incredulity was written large on Chester's face.

Burns nodded, growing grimmer than before, if that were possible. He sat down on the arm of a chair, glancing over at the desk where his belongings lay. "How did you know I was going to Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"Inferred it."

"You're mighty quick at inference. Maybe I wasn't. But I was. Now I'm not. That's all there is to it."

"But why not? Can't you turn the case over? I'll bet my hat it's a dead-beat case at that!"