The Professor's Mystery Part 14

"I've been three days finding you, you see," he was saying, "but I guess there's no doubt I've got you right. Now, I don't want to make any trouble--"

The rest of the sentence was too low to hear. I had been ripping absently at the letter, and now I glanced down at it. Then I stared with startled eyes and turned over the envelop to re-read the address. It was a dirty envelop, of the same shape as my own which still lay upon the table, and addressed not to me, but to Mr. Tabor. I carefully replaced the single sheet and as carefully stowed the whole in an inner pocket.

It seemed a matter for Mr. Tabor's eyes alone.

Lady's voice came clearly through the curtained door. I thought it sounded a little strained.

"Mr. Maclean, I don't see why you should come to me at all about this matter. If we have a dark green automobile, so have ten thousand people.

And your story of millionaire kidnappers on an errand of violence is hardly the kind of thing--if this is a joke, it seems to me in very poor taste."

"It won't quite do, Miss Tabor," the man answered. "'Tisn't a joke, and maybe the best thing you can do is to be frank with me."

"What am I to be frank about? You see, Mr. Maclean, the last man that came in to talk frankly wanted to sell us silver polish. Excuse me, but you have really nothing to sell, have you?"

He laughed, humorously embarra.s.sed. "Why, no. At least, I don't want to sell you anythin'. Don't you sometimes call yourself Lady?"

"Mr. Maclean!"

"I only mean," he hurried on, "that I found your telegram on the floor.

'Coming for you in the car,' you said. Honestly, don't you think we're wastin' time?"

Lady gave a little cry, and with two strides I was at the door and had jerked aside the curtain. "If this fellow is annoying you--" I began.

The two were standing before me, Lady leaning back against the table as if at bay. The man was taller than I, and thin with vibrant energy. He turned half about at my voice.

"Jumping June-bugs!" he cried airily. "It's Crosby!"

"No other, Mac," I laughed. "What in the world are you ragging Miss Tabor about?"

Maclean blushed. "See here, Laurie," he stammered, "I'm a newspaper man, you see? What's more, I'm thought by some to be a good one. I've got the goods on this story, and you people ought to come across. It won't hurt you any. Were you the cheese that lugged the murdered scrubess down three flights of stairs?"

Lady looked at me imploringly. But the cat was so far out of the bag by now that I had to use my judgment. "I was," I answered. "What are you going to make out of it?"

"Now you're talkin'. Tell me the story."

"Not for publication," said I, with a glance at Lady, "because there's no story to publish. In the first place, you're barking up the right tree, but it's a mighty little one. In the second place, I've fallen so low as to be an a.s.sistant professor with a dignified reputation. Neither Miss Tabor nor I is going to be head-lined to make a journalistic holiday; and if we were, you wouldn't write it."

Maclean gnawed a bony knuckle, and pondered. "Darn you," he said. "Beg your pardon, Miss Tabor--I s'pose I can't, after that. But you'll admit I had the goods. I don't see how I can go back with nothing. They send me out on these things because I generally make good, you see?"

"Your imagination always was your greatest charm. Get to work, and use it. Miss Tabor, this human gimlet is 'Stride' Maclean. Let me give him a decent introduction: he probably slighted the matter. This gentleman, for he was a gentleman before he became a star reporter, had the honor to belong to my cla.s.s, and he sings a beautiful tenor. Naturally he was popular; he may even have friends yet. We'll tell him all about it, and then perhaps we'll drown him. One crime more or less matters little to people of our dye."

Maclean scowled at me and laughed.

"Well, it all amounts to this. First, n.o.body has been murdered--as yet!"

and I frowned at him. "Secondly, n.o.body has been kidnapped; lastly, it isn't a story, unless you are on the comic supplement. This Mrs. Carucci used to be Miss Tabor's nurse, and when Antonio beats her up too frequent, she comes up here for a vacation. Well, we were late going for her because the car broke down; so when we got there, he had just smitten her over the brow and retired to a well-earned slumber. Then the neighbors got inquisitive, and we ran away to escape precisely that immediate fame you were planning to give us. That's all. I will only add that branderine revived this wash-lady and we can prove it."

"Oh, fudge," said Maclean, "I can't write anything out of that at all.

We had it before, all but you people. I hate to go back without a story, too."

The front door clicked, and I heard Mr Tabor's voice in the hall.

"Wait a minute," I said, with a sudden inspiration, "perhaps I can dig up another story for you. But I'll have to see Mr. Tabor first."

I found Mr. Tabor in his study, glooming over a paper. "What is it?" he asked, half rising. "Is anything the matter?"

"I don't know," I said. "I opened a letter of yours by mistake, and it looked as if I had better bring it to you myself."

He took the dirty envelop gingerly, and drew out the inclosure. Across the top was a badly drawn human hand smudged in with lead-pencil. Below this ran an almost illegible scrawl.

"_If yu dont giv her back she wil be taken._"

"What on earth does that mean?" I asked.

Mr. Tabor knit his white brows. "It begins to look as though Carucci had been let out of jail for want of proof against him. Evidently he is going into the black hand business. I suppose a demand for money will come next."

"But who is 'her'--his wife?"

"Of course," he answered quickly. "Who else could it possibly be?" Then, more thoughtfully, "I don't like the fellow around, but I hardly see how to get rid of him. We can't appear in court against him; and money would only make him want more."

"Mr. Tabor," I said, "there's a man named Maclean in the other room, who went to college with me. He is a reporter--"

"A _what_?"

"A reporter. He found Miss Tabor's telegram--we were careless not to have looked for it--and that gave him enough to work on until he found us. However, you needn't have any uneasiness about him. He has promised me not to use the story."

"Good, Crosby, very good. Well, what about him?"

"I only thought, sir, that if he would help me, we might be able to find Carucci, and scare the life out of him so that he will keep away. He can't be certain that he hasn't killed his wife, and we can threaten him with that. If he's out of jail, you certainly don't want him about. And Maclean would help, I think, for the story in it. I'm sure that we could trust him not to bring us in."

"Very well. Suppose that you try your hand at it. Only you mustn't go to making inquiries that will mix us up in the matter."

"I'll be careful, sir," I answered.

When I spread the note out before Mac he sniffed and wrinkled his nose.

"Well?" I said.

"Nothin'. There ain't any black hand. It's all dope. Just a signature that any dago uses, like 'unknown friend.'"

"You ought to know," said I, "but here we are with this man hanging around. Take it or leave it. I should think there might be a story in it merely from his side, now that you can really connect him with the a.s.sault. Anyhow, I'm going after him."

"All right," Mac said, "I'm with you. Good afternoon, Miss Tabor."

"Good-by," she called after us; and I thought that she watched us from the window.

We pursued a trolley car and settled down panting on the rear seat.

Maclean lay back in a meditative silence, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets, his shoulders hunched forward and his hat on the back of his head, staring before him where his feet loomed up in the distance. At the inn he suddenly straightened himself and slid off the car.

"I thought we were going up to town?" I said as I followed.