The guard in his own mind decided he would let the other on--too late; the last car dashed past the end of the platform. A faint sigh of relief from Mr. Heatherbloom was drowned in the tumult of the wheels; then he endeavored to appear indifferent, apathetic. It was not easy to do so; the secret-service agent had been heard by many others.
A "fugitive from justice" on the train! Mr. Heatherbloom tried to look as little the part as possible, to simulate by his expression a preoccupied young business man of heavy responsibilities. Fortunately the train was crowded; nevertheless he fancied people glanced especially at him. He wished now he were better dressed; good clothes may cover a mult.i.tude of sins. Still there was no reason why he should be suspected more than sundry other indifferently-dressed people. He would dismiss the thought, tell himself he was going down town on some little errand; he even devised what that errand should be--to procure theater tickets.
But his brain did not seem quite capable of concentrating itself solely on desirable orchestra chairs; it constantly and perversely reverted to that other disagreeable subject--a "fugitive from--"
Whoever could the fellow be? He endeavored by a mental process to eliminate himself and see but a mythical some one else in a mythical background. A short person; a tall one? What kind of person would the imaginary individual be, anyhow? And what had he done, what crime committed? Mr. Heatherbloom tried to think with the minds of all these other people on the train, to put himself figuratively in their shoes.
One young sprig of a girl, about fourteen, with sallow complexion and bead-like black eyes, kept regarding him. He conceived a profound dislike for her, shifted a foot; then straightened and banished her peremptorily from his environment. His princ.i.p.al interest lay now in casual glimpses of windows and speculation as to what was behind them.
He varied this employment in a pa.s.sing endeavor to decipher sundry signs that obtruded incidentally within range of vision.
He had made out only a few when the, train slackened and came to a standstill. Mr. Heatherbloom told himself he would get off as quickly as possible; then changed his mind and remained. People would, of course, argue that, under the circ.u.mstances, the unknown criminal would be among those to leave the train at the first opportunity.
A number got out; Mr. Heatherbloom noted the pa.s.sengers who remained aboard and watched closely the departing ones. A few of the latter seemed slightly self-conscious, notably, an elderly spinster who, having never done anything wrong, was possessed of an unusual sensitiveness.
"See that slouchy chap--By jove, I believe--"
"Does look like a tough customer--"
"On the contrary, he just looks poor." Mr. Heatherbloom turned upon the two speakers warmly.
Why could he not have kept silent; why was he obliged to obtrude his opinion into their conversation?
They stared and he half turned as the train banged itself along once more. Where should he go? Reaching for a paper that some one had discarded, he sank into a vacant seat and opened the sheet with misgiving.
What would the big types say? Nothing! Miss Van Rolsen had managed to keep the strange affair of her niece"s disappearance out of the columns of the papers. They knew nothing about it as yet--Only a single little item in the shipping news, in fine print, which suddenly caught his gaze bore in any way, and that a remote one, upon her niece and her affairs.
Mr. Heatherbloom regarded it with dull glance. The few lines meant nothing to him--then; later he had cause to turn to them with abrupt wondering avidity. Now his eyes swept with simulated interest the general news of the day; he professed to read cable dispatches.
But an odd reaction seemed to have settled on him; the excitement of the chase became, for the moment, forgotten. The scope of his mental visuality no longer included the figure of the agent from the private detective bureau. An anxiety more poignant moved him; his thoughts centered on that other matter--the cause of Miss Van Rolsen"s apprehensions--the while those emotions that had held him a listener behind the curtain in her library again stirred in his breast. He had not played the eavesdropper for any selfish purpose or through a sense of personal apprehension. The sudden realization of his own danger, had, perforce, awakened in him the need for quick action if he would save himself.
If? What chance had he? But for one compelling reason, one consuming purpose, he would not have fled at all; he would have faced them, instead! But he had work to do--he! A fugitive, a logical candidate for the prison cell! Ironical situation! Even now he heard a voice at his elbow.
"Mr. Heatherbloom!" Some one spoke suddenly to him and he wheeled with abrupt swift fierceness.
"Well, are you going to eat me up?" the voice laughed.
He looked into the pert face of Jane--the maid with the provoking nose--who had been at Miss Van Rolsen"s. She had got on at the other end of the car at the last station, and after waiting a few moments for him to see her, had moved toward him, or a seat at his side just then vacated by some one preparing to leave. Mr. Heatherbloom"s face cleared; he banished the belligerent expression.
"You look edible enough!" he said with forced jocularity.
"Indeed?" she retorted, surprised at such gallantry from one who had heretofore not deigned to pay her compliments. "I"ll have to tell my husband about you." Playfully. "But how are things at Miss Van Rolsen"s?
Anything new?"
Mr. Heatherbloom murmured something about the customary routine; then, even as he spoke, became conscious of a sudden new disconcerting circ.u.mstance. The tracks for the up and the down trains on the elevated had widely separated and ran now on the extreme sides of the broad thoroughfare. From his side of the car the young man was afforded a view of the pavement below, between the two sustaining iron structures. A chill shot through him and his smile became set. Gazing down he discerned, on the street beneath and a little to one side of them, a motor-car, speeding fast, apparently bent on keeping up with them.
"How--how"s your husband?" he said irrelevantly. The car _was_ keeping up with them.
"Very well, thank you." (Would _it_ reach the next station before them?)
"You--you have a pleasant home?" he asked. (A slight blockade below impeded, momentarily, the "taxi". Mr. Heatherbloom raised his handkerchief to his moist brow.)
"Lovely," she answered. "Are you going far?"
"Brooklyn," he said at random. What _were_ they talking about? (The car was once more under way; fortunately their progress overhead would not be impeded by a press of vehicles.)
"That"s where we live--Brooklyn," she said.
"Is it? Got a nice house?" He had practically asked this question before; but he hardly knew what he was saying. A policeman had stopped the "taxi" and was shaking his head, as at a rather "fishy" story. Mr.
Heatherbloom by a species of telepathy, seemed to overhear the excited talk waging below.
"Oh, yes; lovely!" Jane"s accents were but parenthetical to something else. The "taxi" had been allowed to proceed, in spite of the detaining thought-waves Mr. Heatherbloom had launched toward the officer of the law. The occupant had probably showed a badge; Mr. Heatherbloom stretched his neck out of the window.
"You can come around and see, sometime, if you want to." Pride in her voice. "And meet my husband." Husband was a very substantial baker.
"Charmed, I"m sure! Ha! ha!" He suddenly laughed.
"What is it?" She looked startled.
"Funniest accident!" He waved his hat, as at some one, out of the window. "See that taxi! b.u.mped into a dray. Ha! ha!"
"I don"t see anything so funny in that." Straightening.
"No? You should have seen the expression on his face--"
"His? Whose?"
"The--ah, drayman"s, of course! He--looked so mad."
"I should have thought," she observed, "the man in the car would have been the maddest It couldn"t have hurt the dray much."
"No? Perhaps that"s what made it seem so funny to me."
"Well," she said, "I never noticed before that you had a great sense of humor."
"You never knew me." Jauntily.
They got off at Brooklyn Bridge together. As they made their way through the crowd, Mr. Heatherbloom appeared most care-free and very sedulous of his companion"s welfare, especially when they pa.s.sed one or two loiterers who seemed eying the pa.s.sengers rather closely.
"Two for Brooklyn." Mr. Heatherbloom laid down a dime at the ticket office.
Soon, unmolested, he sped on once more; but as they crossed the busy river all his light-heartedness seemed suddenly to desert him; the questions he had been vainly asking himself earlier that day were reiterated in his brain. Where was she? What had become of her? His hands clasped closely. A red spot burned on his cheek.
CHAPTER X
A NEW-FOUND THEORY
"No; the prince isn"t coming back to America, and she--Miss Dalrymple--isn"t going to marry him!"