"I don"t wholly care for it," he observed mournfully. "Think it over and see if you can"t do better. I"m not sure that I"m going to grow fond of you. What"s your business with me, anyhow?"
"My business, Mr. Gillespie, is to see that you leave this lake by the first and fastest train."
"Is it possible?" he drawled mockingly.
"More than that," I replied in his own key; "it is decidedly probable."
"Meanwhile, it would be diverting to know where you"re taking me. I thought the other chap was the constable."
"I"m taking you to the house of a friend where I"m visiting. I"m going to row you in your boat. It"s only a short distance; and when we get there I shall have something to say to you."
He made no reply, but got into the boat without ado. He found a light flannel coat and I flung it over his shoulders and pulled for Glenarm pier, telling the j.a.panese boy to follow with the canoe. I turned over in my mind the few items of information that I had gained from Miss Pat and her niece touching the young man who was now my prisoner, and found that I knew little enough about him. He was the unwelcome and annoying suitor of Miss Helen Holbrook, and I had caught him prowling about St.
Agatha"s in a manner that was indefensible.
He sat huddled in the stern, nursing his swathed arms on his knees and whistling dolefully. The lake was a broad pool of silver. Save for the soft splash of Ijima"s paddle behind me and the slight wash of water on the near sh.o.r.e, silence possessed the world. Gillespie looked about with some curiosity, but said nothing, and when I drove the boat to the Glenarm landing he crawled out and followed me through the wood without a word.
I flashed on the lights in the library and after a short inspection of his wounds we went to my room and found sponges, plasters and ointments in the family medicine chest and cared for his injuries.
"There"s no honor in tumbling into a greenhouse, but such is R.
Gillespie"s luck. My shins look like scarlet fever, and without sound legs a man"s better dead."
"Your legs seem to have got you into trouble; don"t mourn the loss of them!" And I twisted a bandage under his left knee-cap where the gla.s.s had cut savagely.
"It"s my poor wits, if we must fix the blame. It"s an awful thing, sir, to be born with weak intellectuals. As man"s legs carry him on orders from his head, there lies the seat of the difficulty. A weak mind, obedient legs, and there you go, plump into the bosom of a blooming asparagus bed, and the enemy lays violent hands on you. If you put any more of that sting-y pudding on that cut I shall undoubtedly hit you, Mr. Donovan. Ah, thank you, thank you so much!"
As I finished with the vaseline he lay back on the couch and sighed deeply and I rose and sent Ijima away with the basin and towels.
"Will you drink? There are twelve kinds of whisky--"
"My dear Mr. Donovan, the thought of strong drink saddens me. Such poor wits as mine are not helped by alcoholic stimulants. I was drunk once--beautifully, marvelously, n.o.bly drunk, so that antiquity came up to date with the thud of a motor-car hitting an orphan asylum; and I saw Julius Caesar driving a chariot up Fifth Avenue and Cromwell poised on one foot on the shorter spire of St. Patrick"s Cathedral. Are you aware, my dear sir, that one of those spires is shorter than the other?"
"I certainly am not," I replied bluntly, wondering what species of madman I had on my hands.
"It"s a fact, confided to me by a prominent engineer of New York, who has studied those spires daily since they were put up. He told me that when he had surrounded five high-b.a.l.l.s the north spire was higher; but that the sixth tumblerful always raised the south spire about eleven feet above it. Now, wouldn"t that doddle you?"
"It would, Mr. Gillespie; but may I ask you to cut out this rot--"
"My dear Mr. Donovan, it"s indelicate of you to speak of cutting anything--and me with my legs. But I"m at your service. You have tended my grievous wounds like a gentleman and now do you wish me to unfold my past, present and future?"
"I want you to get out of this and be quick about it. Your biography doesn"t amuse me; I caught you prowling disgracefully about St.
Agatha"s. Two ladies are domiciled there who came here to escape your annoying attentions. Those ladies were put in my charge by an old friend, and I don"t propose to stand any nonsense from you, Mr.
Gillespie. You seem to be at least half sane--"
Reginald Gillespie raised himself on the couch and grinned joyously.
"Thank you--thank you for that word! That"s just twice as high as anybody ever rated me before."
"I was trying to be generous," I said. "There"s a point at which I begin to be bored, and when that"s reached I"m likely to grow quarrelsome. Are there any moments of the day or night when you are less a fool than others?"
"Well, Donovan, I"ve often speculated about that, and my conclusion is that my mind is at its best when I"m asleep and enjoying a nightmare.
I find the Welsh rabbit most stimulating to my thought voltage. Then I am, you may say, detached from myself; another mind not my own is building towers and palaces, and spiders as large as the far-famed though extinct ichthyosaurus are waltzing on the moon. Then, I have sometimes thought, my intellectual parts are most intelligently employed."
"I may well believe you," I declared with asperity. "Now I hope I can pound it into you in some way that your presence in this neighborhood is offensive--to me--personally."
He stared at the ceiling, silent, imperturbable.
"And I"m going to give you safe conduct through the lines--or if necessary I"ll buy your ticket and start you for New York. And if there"s an atom of honor in you, you"ll go peaceably and not publish the fact that you know the whereabouts of these ladies."
He reflected gravely for a moment.
"I think," he said, "that on the whole that"s a fair proposition. But you seem to have the impression that I wish to annoy these ladies."
"You don"t for a moment imagine that you are likely to entertain them, do you? You haven"t got the idea that you are necessary to their happiness, have you?"
He raised himself on his elbow with some difficulty; flinched as he tried to make himself comfortable and began:
"The trouble with Miss Pat is--"
"There is no trouble with Miss Pat," I snapped.
"The trouble between Miss Pat and me is the same old trouble of the b.u.t.tons," he remarked dolorously.
"b.u.t.tons, you idiot?"
"Quite so. b.u.t.tons, just plain every-day b.u.t.tons; b.u.t.tons for b.u.t.toning purposes. Now I shall be grateful to you if you will refrain from saying
""b.u.t.ton, b.u.t.ton, Who"s got the b.u.t.ton?""
The fellow was undoubtedly mad. I looked about for a weapon; but he went on gravely.
"What does the name Gillespie mean? Of what is it the sign and symbol wherever man hides his nakedness? b.u.t.ton, b.u.t.ton, who"ll buy my b.u.t.tons? It can"t be possible that you never heard of the Gillespie b.u.t.tons? Where have you lived, my dear sir?"
"Will you please stop talking rot and explain what you want here?" I demanded with growing heat.
"That, my dear sir, is exactly what I"m doing. I"m a suitor for the hand of Miss Patricia"s niece. Miss Patricia scorns me; she says I"m a mere child of the Philistine rich and declines an alliance without thanks, if you must know the truth. And it"s all on account of the fact, shameful enough I admit, that my father died and left me a large and prosperous b.u.t.ton factory."
"Why don"t you give the infernal thing away--sell it out to a trust--"
"Ah! ah!"--and he raised himself again and pointed a bandaged hand at me. "I see that you are a man of penetration! You have a keen notion of business! You antic.i.p.ate me! I did sell the infernal thing to a trust, but there was no shaking it! They made me president of the combination, and I control more b.u.t.tons than any other living man! My dear sir, I dictate the b.u.t.ton prices of the world. I can tell you to a nicety how many b.u.t.tons are swallowed annually by the babies of the universe. But I hope, sir, that I use my power wisely and without oppressing the people."
Gillespie lay on his back, wrapped in my dressing-gown, his knees raised, his bandaged arms folded across his chest. Since bringing him into the house I had studied him carefully and, I must confess, with increasing mystification. He was splendidly put up, the best-muscled man I had ever seen who was not a professional athlete. His forearms and clean-shaven face were brown from prolonged tanning by the sun, but otherwise his skin was the pink and white of a healthy baby. His short light hair was combed smoothly away from a broad forehead; his blue eyes were perfectly steady--they even invited and held scrutiny; when he was not speaking he closed his lips tightly. He appeared in nowise annoyed by his predicament; the house itself seemed to have no interest for him, and he accepted my ministrations in murmurs of well-bred grat.i.tude.
I half believed the fellow to be amusing himself at my expense; but he met my eyes calmly. If I had not caught a lunatic I had certainly captured an odd specimen of humanity. He was the picture of wholesome living and sound health; but he talked like a fool. The idea of a young woman like Helen Holbrook giving two thoughts to a silly youngster like this was preposterous, and my heart hardened against him.
"You are flippant, Mr. Gillespie, and my errand with you is serious.
There are places in this house where I could lock you up and you would never see your b.u.t.ton factory again. You seem to have had some education--"