Captivating Mary Carstairs Part 8

"By the way," he added casually, struck by a thought, "Mrs. Carstairs must live on this street somewhere, doesn't she? Which way?"

"Same way as yer party went. Last house on de street--Remsen Street. Big white one, up on a hill like."

Varney hurried off on the trail of his elusive friend. He was puzzled in the last degree to know why Peter, having just entered Hare's house, should have left it at once and gone racing off, with Hare, down this empty street toward the open country. The one explanation that occurred to him was on the whole an unwelcome one. This was that he had made an opening to introduce the subject of Mary Carstairs, and the grateful candidate had volunteered his friendly offices--perhaps to show Peter the house, perhaps actually to take him up and present him.

In the light of a depressed corner-lamp he glanced at his watch. Having supposed that it must be nearly nine o'clock, he was surprised to find that it was only a few minutes after eight. He had the handsome street to himself. The night had grown very dark, and the faint but continuous rumble of thunder was a warning to all pedestrians to seek shelter without delay. Varney's stride was swift. Whatever Peter meant to do, he wanted to overtake him before he did it, and gently lead him to understand, here at the outset, that he was a subordinate in this expedition, expected to do nothing without orders from above.

But he found himself at the end of the street, and saw the country road dimly winding on beyond, without having found a trace of Peter, or seen any other human being. Here, for all his hurry, he was checked for a moment by a sudden new interest. Mindful of the boy's succinct directions, he paused in the shadow of the wood, which here came to the sidewalk's edge, and looked across the street for the residence of Mrs.

Carstairs.

Through the trees of a sloping lawn, his gaze fell at once upon a wide rambling white house, directly opposite, well back from the street and approached by a winding white driveway. The house was well lighted; there was a porch-lamp lit; over the carriage-gate hung a large electric globe. Despite the darkness of the night, Varney had a first-rate view.

The house was big; it was white; unquestionably it was up on a hill like. In fact there could be no doubt in the world that this was the house he had come from New York to find.

The sight drew and interested him beyond all expectation. Presently, by a curious coincidence, something happened which increased his interest tenfold. His eye had run over the house, about the lawn, even up at the windows, taking in every detail. There was no sign of life anywhere. But now as he stood and watched, the swing front-door was unexpectedly pushed open, and, like some feat in mental telepathy, a girl stepped out upon the piazza.

Involuntarily Varney shrank back into the shadows, a.s.suming by instinct the best conspirators' style, and glued his eyes upon the impelling sight. Not that the girl herself was peculiarly fascinating to the eye.

The porch-light revealed her perfectly: a small, dark, nondescript child, not above thirteen years old, rather badly dressed and, to say truth, not attractive-looking in any way. But to Varney, at the moment, she was the most irresistibly interesting figure in the six continents.

She came to the top of the step and stood there, peering out into the darkness as though looking for some one. Varney, from his dark retreat stared back at her. There they stood unexpectedly face to face, the kidnapper and his quarry. A sudden wild impulse seized the young man to act immediately: to make a dash from his cover, bind the girl's mouth with his handkerchief, toss her over his shoulder, and fly with her to the yacht. That was the way these things ought to be done, not by the tedious and furtive methods of chicanery. But, since this man-like method was forbidden him, why should he not at least cross boldly and go in--a lost wayfarer inquiring for directions--anything to start up the vitally necessary acquaintance? Would he ever have a better chance?

The thought had hardly come to him before the child herself killed it.

She turned as suddenly as she had come and disappeared into the house.

That broke the spell; and Varney, interested by the discovery that his heart was beating above normal, slipped unseen from his lurking-place, and resumed his interrupted progress after Peter and Hare.

Beyond the Carstairs's fence of hedge, the houses stopped with the sidewalk. The highway, having no longer anything to keep up appearances for, dwindled into an ordinary country road, meandering through an ordinary country wood. What could have carried Peter out here it was impossible to conceive; but clearly something had, and Varney raced on, hoping at every moment to descry his great form looming up ahead of him out of the blackness.

What luck--what beautiful luck--to have found her in his very first hour in Hunston! It was half his work done in the wink of an eye. To-morrow morning, the first thing, he would return to this quiet street, watch at his ease for the child to come outdoors, saunter calmly from his hiding-place, make friends with her. By this time to-morrow night, in all human probability, he would be back in New York, his errand safely accomplished. That done, Peter could play politics to his heart's content. Meantime, it was more desirable than ever to tell him of these unexpected developments and deter him from taking any step which might complicate the game....

A loud thunderclap crashed across the train of his thought. Another and a worse one crowded close upon it. He glanced up through the trees into the inky cavern of the skies, and a single large drop of water spattered upon his upturned forehead.

"Hang it!" he thought disgustedly. "Here comes the rain."

It came as though at his word, and with unbelievable suddenness. Thunder rolled; the breeze stiffened into a gale. Another drop fell upon his hat, and then another, and another. The young man came to an unwilling halt.

But he immediately saw that further pursuit was, for the moment at least, out of the question. The storm broke with a violence strangely at variance with the calm of the earlier evening. The heavens opened and the floods descended. Shelter was to be found at once, if at all, but as he hesitated, he remembered suddenly that he had not pa.s.sed a house in five minutes. In the same moment his eye fell upon a little cottage just ahead of him, unlighted and barely perceptible in the thick darkness, standing off the road not a hundred feet away. He made for it through the driving rain and wind, stepped upon the narrow porch, discovered immediately that it gave him no protection at all, and knocked loudly upon the shut door. He got no answer. Trying it with a wet hand he perceived that it was unlocked; and without more ado, he opened it and stepped inside.

It was evidently, as he had surmised, an empty house. The hall was dark and very quiet. He leaned against the closed front door and dipped into his pockets for a match. Behind him the rain fell in torrents, and the turbulent wind dashed after it and hurled it against the streaming windows. It had turned in half an hour from a peaceful evening to a wild night, a night when all men of good sense and good fortune should be sitting secure and snug by their own firesides. And where, oh where, was Peter?

Speculating gloomily on this and still exploring his pockets for a match, he heard a noise not far away in the dark, and knew suddenly that he was not alone. The next moment a voice floated to him out of the blackness near at hand, clear, but a little irresolute, faintly frightened.

"Didn't some one come in? Who is there?"

It was a woman's voice and a wholly charming one. There could hardly have been its match in Hunston.

"What a very interesting town!" the young man thought. "People to talk to every way you turn."

CHAPTER VI

THE HERO TALKS WITH A LADY IN THE DARK

Varney called rea.s.suringly into the gloom: "I sincerely beg your pardon for bursting in like that. I--had no idea there was any one here."

There was a second's pause.

"N--no," said the pretty voice, hesitatingly. "You--you couldn't--of course."

"But please tell me at once," he said, puzzled by this--"have I taken the unforgivable liberty of breaking into your house?"

"My house?" And he caught something like bewildered relief in her voice.

"Why--I--was thinking that I had broken into yours."

Varney laughed, his back against the door.

"If it were, I'm sure I should be able to offer you a light at the least. If it were yours, now that I stop to think--well, perhaps it _would_ be a little eccentric for you to be sitting there in your parlor in the inky dark."

To this there came no reply.

"I suppose you, like me," he continued courteously, "are an unlucky wayfarer who had to choose hastily between trespa.s.sing and being drowned."

"Yes."

Inevitably he found himself wondering what this lady who shared his stolen refuge could be like. That she was a lady her voice left no doubt. His eye strained off into the Ethiopian blackness, but could make neither heads nor tails of it.

"Voices always go by contraries," he thought. "She's fifty-two and wears gla.s.ses."

Aloud he said: "But please tell me quite frankly--am I intruding?"

"Not at all," said the lady, only that and nothing more.

"Perhaps then you won't object if I find a seat? Leaning against a door is so dull, don't you think?"

He groped forward, hands outstretched before him, stumbled against the stairway which he sought, and sat down uncomfortably on the next-to-the-bottom step. Then suddenly the oddness of his situation rushed over him, and, vexed though he was with the chain of needless circ.u.mstances which had brought him into it, he with difficulty repressed a laugh.

An hour ago he had been lounging at peace upon the yacht, looking forward to nothing more t.i.tillating than bed at the earliest respectable hour. Now he was sitting with a strange lady of uncertain age in an unlighted cottage on a lonely country road, while a howling thunderstorm raved outside imprisoning him for n.o.body could say how long. In the interval between these two extremes, he had discovered that he was a "double," been threatened with violence, hopelessly lost Peter, and found Mary Carstairs. Surely and in truth, a pretty active hour's work!

On the tin roof of the cottage the rain beat a wild tattoo. Within, the silence lengthened. Under the circ.u.mstances, Varney considered reserve on the lady's part not unnatural; but a little talk, as he viewed the matter, would tend to help the dreary evening through.

He cleared his throat for due notice and began with a laugh.

"I was industriously chasing two men from town when the storm caught me.

You know what I mean--not drumming them out of the city, but merely pursuing them in this general direction. I wonder if by any chance you happened to pa.s.s them on the road?"

"N-no, I believe not."

"A very small man, very well-dressed, and a very large man, very badly dressed, wearing a kind of curious, rococo straw hat. I know," he mused, "that you could not have forgotten that hat. Once seen--"