The Vagrant Duke Part 63

"He was tied to a chair in the kitchen. We let him loose. He's outside somewhere."

"And Mrs. Bergen and Sarah?"

"I don't know, sir."

Peter went to the door and called Stryker and that bewildered person appeared at the foot of the steps with Mrs. Bergen and Sarah who had been locked in the cellar. Peter called them up and they all began screaming their tale at once. But at last Peter got at the facts. Hawk Kennedy had come suddenly into the kitchen where the two women were and, brandis.h.i.+ng a revolver, commanding silence, threatening death if they made a sound. He had surprised the valet in the lower hall and had marched him back into the kitchen, where he had bound him to a chair with a clothes-line and then gagged him.

McGuire waved the trio out of the room when their story was told, and signaled to Peter to close the door again, when he took up his interrupted tale.

"I was at the window, looking out, Nichols. I didn't expect him for a couple of weeks anyway. I'd just about gotten my nerve back. But he got the drop on me, Nichols. How he ever got into the room without my hearin' him! I must have been in a trance. His shoes were off. The first thing I know is a voice close at my ear and a gun in my ribs. I turned quick--but my gun was in the table drawer. His face was close to mine and I knew he meant business. If I'd 'a' moved he'd 'a' killed me. So I put my hands up. There wasn't anything else to do. I thought I'd play for time but he caught my glance toward the door and only laughed.

"'There ain't anybody comin', Mike,' he says. 'It's just you an' me.' I asked him what he wanted and he grinned. 'You know,' he says. And with his left hand he brought out a rope he had stuffed in his pocket. 'I'll fix _you_ first. Then we'll talk,' he says. He was cool like he always was. He caught a slip noose around my wrists before I knew it, twisted the rope around me and threw me over on the floor. I tell you that man is the devil himself."

"What then?"

"He made me give up the keys to the drawers in the safe--it was open just like it is now. I wouldn't speak at first but he kicked me and then put the gun at my head. I still hoped some one would come. I gave in at last. He found it. My G.o.d!" The old man aroused himself with an effort and rose to his feet. "But we've got to catch him--just you and I. He can't have gone far. We've got the right to shoot him now--to shoot on sight----"

"Yes--yes. I'm getting the Sheriff at May's Landing now----"

"The Sheriff!" The Irishman's small eyes stared and then became alive in sudden comprehension. "Not the Sheriff, Nichols. I won't have him."

"You've got to--at once." And then rapidly Peter gave an account of what had happened at the logging camp. But it seemed to have no effect upon McGuire, who listened with gla.s.sy eyes. He was obsessed with the other--the graver danger.

"We'll keep this thing quiet if you like--the real meaning of this visit, and we've got to pick up his trail. But we can't let those men at the camp have the run of the place. They'll be looting this house next."

And then, as McGuire seemed to agree, Peter went to the door and found Brierly still on the 'phone. He was talking to the Sheriff and had told the whole story. The Sheriff had already heard something about the Black Rock camp trouble and would be ready to move in an hour.

"Tell him to move fast and to come to McGuire's first," said Peter. "And you'll be here to show him the way."

Brierly nodded and finished the message, while Peter returned to McGuire.

"What else did Kennedy say?" Peter asked him.

"He asked a lot of questions--about you and Beth Cameron--about the money--about what I'd promised you. He's the very devil, I tell you. He knows everything. He said he'd 'get' you and that he'd 'get' Beth Cameron."

Peter caught McGuire fiercely by the shoulder. "What did you say? Are you sure?"

With all of his other troubles Peter had forgotten Beth and now thought guiltily of the possible danger to which she might have been subjected.

How could Hawk have found out about Beth Cameron?

"What I told you," muttered McGuire wearily, "he said he'd 'get'

her----"

Sick with anxiety, Peter flung away from his protesting employer and made for the door, rus.h.i.+ng past the astonished Brierly in the hall, down the stairs and out at a run over the bridge and through the village to the Bergen house. The door was open and he rushed in, calling Beth's name. There was no response. Now desperate and fearing the worst, he ran from room to room, downstairs and up. There were signs of her--a towel on a chair, a broom leaning against a door upstairs, the neatly made beds, the orderly kitchen, giving evidence of the morning cleaning, but no supper cooking on the stove, the fire of which had burned to cinders.

She had not been here for a long while--since early morning possibly.

But where had she gone--where? Hawk Kennedy would hardly have dared to come here--to the village--hardly have succeeded in enticing her away from this house, surrounded by neighbors--still less have succeeded in carrying her off without their knowledge. He rushed out into the road and questioned. No one seemed to have seen her. The eagerness and suppressed anxiety of Peter's manner quickly drew a crowd which felt the contagion of his excitement. A man joined the group. Yes. He had seen Beth in the morning early. She was hurrying down the path which led into the pines. He had not seen her since.

Peter glanced at him just once more to be sure that he was speaking the truth and then, without a thought as to the impression he had created in the minds of the villagers, set off running through the path toward his cabin.

Fool that he had been! To leave Beth unguarded--unwarned even--with Hawk within a quarter of a mile of her. Why had he not seen the hand of fate in Beth's presence here at Black Rock near McGuire, the man who had wronged her father--the hand of fate, which with unerring definiteness was guiding the princ.i.p.als in this sordid tragedy together from the ends of the earth for a reckoning? And what was this reckoning to be? McGuire had already fallen a victim to the man's devilish skill and audacity.

And Beth----? What match was she for a clever desperate rogue who balked at nothing? How had he learned of Beth's existence and how, knowing of it, had he managed to beguile her away from the village? Peter was beginning to believe with McGuire that Hawk Kennedy was indeed in league with the devil.

Peter was not now aware of any pain or even of bodily fatigue, for there was no room in his mind for any thought of self. Scarcely conscious of his new exertions, he ran across the log-jam below the pool and up the path to the Cabin. What he expected to find there he did not know, but it seemed clear that Beth had come this way in the morning and if not to the Cabin, where else? Hawk had been here when she had come into the woodland path. That was enough. As he reached the turn in the path, he saw that the door of the Cabin was open and when he rushed in, prepared for anything, he saw that the room was unoccupied. He stood aghast for a moment, trying to adjust his mind to take in logically the evidence he found there--the overturned chair, the blankets dragging on the floor by the bed, the broken water pitcher, the opened bureau drawers, the torn bits of linen--parts of his own handkerchiefs--upon the floor--all visible signs' of a commotion, perhaps of a struggle, that had taken place. And then under the table he espied a square of heliotrope paper.

He picked it up quickly and took it to the light of the window. It was the envelope of the letter he had received from Anastasie Galitzin. And what was this----? A scrawl in Beth's hand, "You left _this_ last night.

You'd better go back to Anastasie."

Bewildered for a moment, Peter stared at the forceful characters of the handwriting, written hurriedly in a scrawl of lead pencil, and then the probable sequence of events came to him with a rush. She had opened the note of Anastasie Galitzin and read it. What had it said? He had forgotten details. But there were phrases that might have been misconstrued. And Beth----. He could see her now coming up the path, her head high, seeking explanations--and meeting Hawk!

But where was the letter itself? He searched for it without success.

Hawk! The answer to all of his questions was in the personality of the man as Peter knew him. The bits of torn linen and Beth's own handkerchief, which he found in the corner of the bed against the wall, crumpled into a ball and still moist with her tears, were mute but eloquent evidences of her suffering and torture in the presence of this man who had not been too delicate in the means by which he had accomplished her subjugation.

Peter raged up and down the floor of the Cabin like a caged animal. What must he do--which way turn? That Hawk had gagged and bound her was obvious. But what then? He rushed outside and examined the shrubbery around the Cabin. There was nothing to indicate the direction in which he had taken her--and the forest at his very elbow stretched for miles in all directions, a hiding place that had served other guilty ones before Hawk--the New Jersey pines that he had learned to love, now wrapped in a conspiracy of silence. It would be dusk very soon. A search of the pine barrens at night would be hopeless. Besides, Hawk had had the whole of the morning and most of the afternoon in which to carry out his purpose.... What was that purpose? Where had he taken Beth? Where had he left her when he had returned to Black Rock House to rob McGuire?

Or had he...? Impossible! Even Hawk wouldn't have dared.... Peter clenched his fists in agony and rage at the terrible thoughts that came swarming into his brain, driving out all reason.

His Highness had suffered greatly the last few years of his life, the physical pain of wounds received in battle, the mental pain of falling hopes, of fallen pride, of disillusionment, but he could not remember any pain that had seemed to matter like the anguish of the present moment. The other sufferings were those of the Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch, material sufferings born of his high estate. But this present suffering was primitive. It wrenched at the very fibers of the heart, for the love that he had found was a finer thing than had ever happened in his life, a love which asked nothing and only craved the joy of giving. And this woman--this mate that he had chosen out of all the women that he had known in the world...!

Hawk Kennedy would have fared badly if Peter could have had him within arm's reach at that moment. But after a time, as Peter went into the Cabin, he grew calmer, and pacing the floor for a while, began to think more lucidly. Less than an hour ago Hawk Kennedy had been at Black Rock House giving Jonathan McGuire and Stryker their unpleasant half-hour. He wouldn't have dared to return and accomplish what he had done after a deed so terrible as that which had entered Peter's thoughts. He was still a human being and Beth.... He couldn't have killed Beth out of hand. The thought was monstrous--even of Hawk.

He had taken her somewhere--to one of his hiding-places in the woods, and proposed keeping her, the legal heir of Ben Cameron, for ransom, as a part of his plot to win his share of the McGuire fortune. He had stolen the telltale agreement too and now held all the cards--all of them.

Peter paused standing by the window seat, looking out at the leaves falling in the rising wind, his mind already resolved on a plan. He was about to turn toward the telephone, when he noted a commotion in the bushes opposite his window. A flash of fire almost at the same moment, a crash of broken gla.s.s, and the hair on his head twitched violently.

Instinctively Peter dropped to the floor.

Close shooting! His scalp stung uncomfortably--but aside from that he knew that he was not hurt. A fraction of an inch lower----

Hawk----! His first impulse had been to rush to the door--but the events of the day had taught him caution and so he crouched, drawing his revolver. Too much depended upon his existence at the present moment to take a chance in the open with a hidden enemy--especially if that enemy were Hawk Kennedy. He listened intently. No sound. Then the breaking of a twig and the sibilance of whispering voices--two of them--perhaps more. And still Peter did not move. His quick thinking had done him a service. It was clear that the men outside had decided that the shot had taken effect.

And now, instead of creeping to the doorway, Peter settled back upon the floor again, prostrate, but in such a position that his eyes and his revolver commanded the entrance to the Cabin. He waited. It was a nerve-racking business but the thought of all that depended upon his safety steadied him into a preternatural calm like that which falls at the presence of death. Death was imminent here for some one. It lurked just outside. It lurked in the finger that Peter held against the trigger. And Peter meant that the adventure should end at the doorway.

Presently he heard a gentle shuffling of feet outside and the whisper again, this time quite distinctly, "You got him, I reckon."

Whose voice was that? Not Hawk Kennedy's ... Peter lowered his head to his arm and closed his eyes, watching the door-jamb through his eyelashes, his revolver hidden but its muzzle in line. A bulky shadow on the step, a foot and then a head cautiously protruded--that of Shad Wells, followed immediately by another, swathed in a bandage which only partially concealed the dark eyes and beard of Yakimov the Russian. It took considerable exercise of will on Peter's part to remain quiescent with the stare of those four eyes upon him, especially when he noted the weapon in the fingers of the Russian. But he waited until the two men got into the room.

"There he is. You got him, Yakimov," said Shad with a laugh.

"Perhaps----" Peter heard, "but I'll make sure of it----"

Yakimov's pistol rose slowly, halfway to the level of his eyes. But it was never fired, for Peter's revolver flashed fire, twice--three times, and Yakimov with a sudden wide stare at vacancy pitched forward and crashed down. The surprise was complete, for a fourth shot went into the right arm of Shad Wells, which ruined his shot and sent his weapon clattering to the floor.

Peter had taken Shad's measure once before and the memory of the blow from the axhandle earlier in the day did nothing to soften Peter's intent. The quick command as he scrambled to his feet and the sight of the imminent weapon caused Shad suddenly to forget everything but the desire, whatever else happened, not to die as Yakimov had done. And so he put his hands up--staggering back against the wall. Peter, with his weapon still covering Shad, put his fingers over Yakimov's heart. The man was dead. Then he rose soberly and faced Shad.

"I ought to kill you like the dog that you are," he said tensely, "but I want to question you first. Stand over by the bed."

Shad obeyed and Peter, watching him closely, picked up his weapon and Yakimov's and examined them carefully, putting one in his pocket and laying the other beside him on the mantel. But all the fight was out of Shad, who stood stupidly while Peter bound his wrists behind him. The man was badly hurt, but it was no time for Peter to be playing the good Samaritan.

"So much for keeping bad company," said Peter coolly. "You'll find more of the same sort in the lock-up at May's Landing."

"You daresn't send me there," muttered Shad, with a feeble attempt at bravado.