In vain he argued, pleaded, commanded. She was firm and she felt she was right if not just. Underneath it all lurked the fear, the dreadful fear that she may have been a child of love, the illegitimate offspring of pa.s.sion. It was the weight that crushed her almost to lifelessness; it was the bar sinister.
"No, Wicker, I mean it," she said in the end resolutely. "Not until I can give you a name in exchange for your own."
"Your name shall one day be Bonner if I have to wreck the social system of the whole universe to uncover another one for you."
The automobile had been standing, by some extraordinary chance, in the cool shade of a great oak for ten minutes or more, but it was a wise, discreet old oak.
CHAPTER x.x.x
The Hemisphere Train Robbery
Anderson Crow lived at the extreme south end of Tinkletown"s princ.i.p.al thoroughfare. The "calaboose" was situated at the far end of Main Street, at least half a mile separating the home of the law and the home of the lawless. Marshal Crow"s innate love for the spectacular alone explains the unneighbourliness of the two establishments. He felt an inward glory in riding or walking the full length of the street, and he certainly had no reason to suspect the populace of disregarding the outward glory he presented.
The original plan of the merchantry comprehended the erection of the jail in close proximity to the home of its chief official, but Mr. Crow put his foot flatly and ponderously upon the scheme. With the dignity which made him noticeable, he said he"d "be doggoned ef he wanted to have people come to his own dooryard to be arrested." By which, it may be inferred, that he expected the evil-doer to choose his own arresting place.
Mr. and Mrs. Crow were becoming thrifty, in view of the prospect that confronted them, to wit: The possible marriage of Rosalie and the cutting off of the yearly payments. As she was to be absent for a full month or more, Anderson conceived the idea of advertising for a lodger and boarder. By turning Roscoe out of his bed, they obtained a spare room that looked down upon the peony beds beyond the side "portico."
Mr. Crow was lazily twisting his meagre chin whiskers one morning soon after Rosalie"s departure. He was leaning against the town pump in front of the post-office, the sun glancing impotently off the bright badge on the lapel of his alpaca coat. A stranger came forth from the post-office and approached the marshal.
"Is this Mr. Crow?" he asked, with considerable deference.
"It is, sir."
"They tell me you take lodgers."
"Depends."
"My name is Gregory, Andrew Gregory, and I am here to canva.s.s the neighbourhood in the interest of the Human Life Insurance Company of Pen.o.bscot. If you need references, I can procure them from New York or Boston."
The stranger was a tall, lean-faced man of forty or forty-five, well dressed, with a brusque yet pleasant manner of speech. His moustache and beard were black and quite heavy. Mr. Crow eyed him quietly for a moment.
"I don"t reckon I"ll ask fer references. Our rates are six dollars a week, board an" room. Childern bother you?"
"Not at all. Have you any?"
"Some, more or less. They"re mostly grown."
"I will take board and room for two weeks, at least," said Mr. Gregory, who seemed to be a man of action.
For almost a week the insurance agent plied his vocation a.s.siduously but fruitlessly. The farmers and the citizens of Tinkletown were slow to take up insurance. They would talk crops and politics with the obliging Mr. Gregory, but that was all. And yet, his suavity won for him many admirers. There were not a few who promised to give him their insurance if they concluded to "take any out." Only one man in town was willing to be insured, and he was too old to be comforting. Mr. Calligan was reputed to be one hundred and three years of age; and he wanted the twenty-year endowment plan. Gregory popularised himself at the Crow home by paying for his room in advance. Moreover, he was an affable chap with a fund of good stories straight from Broadway. At the post-office and in Lamson"s store he was soon established as a mighty favourite. Even the women who came to make purchases in the evening,--a hitherto unknown custom,--lingered outside the circle on the porch, revelling in the second edition of the "Arabian Nights."
"Our friend, the detective here," he said, one night at the close of the first week, "tells me that we are to have a show in town next week. I haven"t seen any posters."
"Mark Riley"s been goin" to put up them bills sence day "fore yesterday," said Anderson Crow, with exasperation in his voice, "an he ain"t done it yet. The agent fer the troupe left "em here an" hired Mark, but he"s so thunderation slow that he won"t paste "em up "til after the show"s been an" gone. I"ll give him a talkin" to to-morrer."
"What-fer show is it?" asked Jim Borum.
"Somethin" like a circus on"y "tain"t one," said Anderson. "They don"t pertend to have animals."
"Don"t carry a menagerie, I see," remarked Gregory.
""Pears that way," said Anderson, slowly a.n.a.lysing the word.
"I understand it is a stage performance under a tent," volunteered the postmaster.
"That"s what it is," said Harry Squires, the editor, with a superior air. "They play "As You Like It," by Shakespeare. It"s a swell show. We got out the hand bills over at the office. They"ll be distributed in town to-morrow, and a big batch of them will be sent over to the summer places across the river. The advance agent says it is a high-cla.s.s performance and will appeal particularly to the rich city people up in the mountains. It"s a sort of open-air affair, you know." And then Mr.
Squires was obliged to explain to his fellow-townsmen all the known details in connection with the approaching performance of "As You Like It" by the Boothby Company, set for Tinkletown on the following Thursday night. Hapgood"s Grove had been selected by the agent as the place in which the performance should be given.
"Don"t they give an afternoon show?" asked Mrs. Williams.
"Sure not," said Harry curtly. "It isn"t a museum."
"Of course not," added Anderson Crow reflectively. "It"s a troupe."
The next morning, bright and early, Mark Riley fared forth with paste and brush. Before noon, the board fences, barns and blank walls of Tinkletown flamed with great red and blue letters, twining in and about the portraits of Shakespeare, Manager Boothby, Rosalind, Orlando, and an extra king or two in royal robes. A dozen small boys spread the hand bills from the _Banner_ presses, and Tinkletown was stirred by the excitement of a sensation that had not been experienced since Forepaugh"s circus visited the county seat three years before. It went without saying that Manager Boothby would present "As You Like It" with an "unrivalled cast." He had "an all-star production," direct from "the leading theatres of the universe."
When Mark Riley started out again in the afternoon for a second excursion with paste and brush, "slapping up" small posters with a celerity that bespoke extreme interest on his part, the astonished populace feared that he was announcing a postponement of the performance. Instead of that, however, he was heralding the fact that the Hemisphere Trunk Line and Express Company would gladly pay ten thousand dollars reward for the "apprehension and capture" of the men who robbed one of its richest trains a few nights before, seizing as booty over sixty thousand dollars in money, besides killing two messengers in cold blood. The great train robbery occurred in the western part of the State, hundreds of miles from Tinkletown, but nearly all of its citizens had read accounts of the deed in the weekly paper from Boggs City.
"I seen the item about it in Mr. Gregory"s New York paper," said Anderson Crow to the crowd at Lamson"s.
"Gee whiz, it must "a" been a peach!" said Isaac Porter, open-mouthed and eager for details. Whereupon Marshal Crow related the story of the crime which stupefied the world on the morning of July 31st. The express had been held up in an isolated spot by a half-dozen masked men. A safe had been shattered and the contents confiscated, the perpetrators vanishing as completely as if aided by Satan himself. The authorities were baffled. A huge reward was offered in the hope that it might induce some discontented underling in the band to expose his comrades.
"Are you goin" after "em, Anderson?" asked old Mr. Borton, with unfailing faith in the town"s chief officer.
"Them fellers is in Asia by this time," vouchsafed Mr. Crow scornfully, forgetting that less than a week had elapsed since the robbery. He flecked a fly from his detective"s badge and then struck viciously at the same insect when it straightway attacked his G.A.R. emblem.
"I doubt it," said Mr. Lamson. "Like as not they"re right here in this State, mebby in this county. You can"t tell about them slick desperadoes. h.e.l.lo, Harry! Has anything more been heard from the train robbers?" Harry Squires approached the group with something like news in his face.
"I should say so," he said. "The darned cusses robbed the State Express last night at Vanderskoop and got away with thirteen hundred dollars.
Say, they"re wonders! The engineer says they"re only five of them."
"Why, gosh dern it, Vanderskoop"s only the fourth station west of Boggs City!" exclaimed Anderson Crow, p.r.i.c.king up his official ear. "How in thunder do you reckon they got up here in such a short time?"
"They probably stopped off on their way back from Asia," drily remarked Mr. Lamson; but it pa.s.sed unnoticed.
"Have you heard anything more about the show, Harry?" asked Jim Borum.
"Is she sure to be here?" What did Tinkletown care about the train robbers when a "show" was headed that way?
"Sure. The press comments are very favourable," said Harry. "They all say that Miss Marmaduke, who plays Rosalind, is great. We"ve got a cut of her and, say, she"s a beauty. I can see myself sitting in the front row next Thursday night, good and proper."
"Say, Anderson, I think it"s a dern shame fer Mark Riley to go "round pastin" them reward bills over the show pictures," growled Isaac Porter.
"He ain"t got a bit o" sense."
With one accord the crowd turned to inspect two adjacent bill boards.
Mark had either malignantly or insanely pasted the reward notices over the nether extremities of Rosalind as she was expected to appear in the Forest of Arden. There was a period of reflection on the part of an outraged const.i.tuency.