"How like him!" the girl beamed. "He is so good and kind! Harry, there isn"t another man like him in this whole world! It would kill me to lose him!"
"We had a delightful ride and Mr. Brand seemed to enjoy Bella"s merry talk. She sat with him, and when we came back and he returned to the city he was looking quite himself again."
"Oh!" said Mildred, drawing back and looking at Henrietta with narrowing eyes. She was too absorbed in her own intense emotions to perceive the embarra.s.sment which suddenly gripped her companion.
Henrietta, wildly groping about in her own mind for something to say which would relieve the momentary strain, chanced upon what her employer had said about Hugh Gordon and her own subsequent suspicions, which had been made sharper by the charges in the morning newspapers.
"Mildred, dear!" she exclaimed. "Has Mr. Brand ever said anything to you about a man called Hugh Gordon?"
"Hugh Gordon!" The girl straightened up, her color rising and her eyes flashing with indignation. "Why, he"s that dreadful creature who is responsible for all that horrid mess in the papers this morning, isn"t he?"
"The committee"s report says that he gave them their first information and told them how to get the rest of it."
"Horrid creature! I know it"s all a mess of lies! No, I never heard of him before. Why do you ask? Do you know anything about him? Did Felix ever speak of him to you?"
"Only once--last Sunday," Henrietta hesitated.
"What was it?" the other demanded. "What did he say? Oh, I knew you were keeping something from me! Tell me, Harry!"
"Truly, dear, it wasn"t anything of any consequence. It wasn"t about himself, or his business, so I suppose it"s all right for me to tell you. He only asked me, if any letters should come signed "Hugh Gordon," not to read them but to put them aside for him when he should return, because this man was likely to write confidentially about his own affairs. That"s all Mr. Brand ever said to me about him--the only time he"s ever mentioned the man"s name. But I thought maybe--it was just my own conjecture, you know--that maybe this Gordon is some dissipated relative, some black sheep of his family, whom Mr. Brand is trying to help."
"Oh, I see through it all! It"s as plain as day!" cried Mildred impetuously. "This Gordon is a blackmailer who is trying to force money from Felix! I knew all the time there wasn"t a word of truth in that disgusting story! Felix has been helping him--perhaps he"s a cousin, or something, and he has demanded more and more money, and Felix has refused, and now in revenge he has done this! And he"s got Felix shut up somewhere to make him give in! That"s why I haven"t heard from him! Oh, it"s perfectly plain! The thing to do now is to find this horrible Hugh Gordon and make him tell where Felix is!"
The office boy entered to say that some reporters wanted to see Mr.
Brand"s secretary. Henrietta was about to send back the message that as she knew nothing whatever of any consequence it was not worth while for her to see them, when Miss Annister interposed.
"No, Harry, let them come in," she said. "Perhaps they will know something that we don"t."
While the reporters questioned Henrietta they stole many a covert glance at Mildred Annister, who sat beside her, dignified and beautiful, her cheeks glowing and eyes brilliant with excitement, listening with intense interest.
Henrietta soon told them the little that she knew about the matter.
Mildred waited until they had asked all the questions they could think of and then, leaning forward in her absorption and gazing intently at one of the group, she said: "Now tell us all that you know about this Hugh Gordon. I want to know all you can tell me, because I have a theory about him."
Her intensity and eagerness roused the hope that perhaps here they might find something with which to embellish a story in which, so far, they had uncovered little to add to that of yesterday. But first they must know who this lovely girl was.
"You are a relative of Mr. Brand?" one of them hazarded.
"I am Mildred Annister, Dr. Philip Annister"s daughter, and I am Felix Brand"s promised wife."
The instant ripple of interest among the reporters caused Mildred to shrink back in sudden self-consciousness, her face scarlet.
"But please don"t put that in the papers," she went on. "It"s of no interest to anybody but us, and we don"t want the engagement announced yet. I told you so you would understand how much right I have to be interested. I am perfectly sure this dreadful creature, Hugh Gordon, is at the bottom of the whole business, that these charges in the papers this morning are nothing but revenge for his failure to blackmail Mr. Brand, and it is just as certain as can be that he has got Mr. Brand imprisoned somewhere, maybe drugged, and the thing for you to do now is to find this Gordon and make him tell where Felix is.
Oh, please do!" she ended, with a sudden drop in her manner, her voice choking.
Seasoned news gatherers though they were they could not repress all sign of the gratification they felt at her words. They loosed a battery of questions upon the two young women, but soon discovered upon what a slender basis Miss Annister had based her theory.
They could tell her nothing whatever about the mysterious Hugh Gordon.
But they promised to follow her clue and to hunt him down if he could be found. They went away well pleased, for even if this suggestion should not lead to anything of consequence they had enough already to warrant "scare heads" over tomorrow"s story and to furnish a narrative of even more "human interest" than the one set forth that morning.
Mildred Annister opened the paper the next morning with the greatest eagerness and expectation. But she sank back in horrified dismay as she saw the headlines. "I told them they mustn"t say anything about me or our engagement," she said to her father, "and now just look at that!"
"Well, well," he replied, as he glanced over the article, "they"ve been fairly decent, at any rate, in the way they"ve written it up, though it"s not pleasant for you to be thrown into the limelight like this. As for their making known your engagement, it can"t be helped now, so there"s no use worrying about it. But you mustn"t want to be married too soon, daughter."
Mildred welcomed this final grudging half-acquiescence and felt that it was well worth the price. "Now it will be easy to persuade him to let us be married soon, when Felix comes back," she thought.
But the morning"s news had not an atom more of information concerning the architect"s whereabouts than she had known the day before.
Hugh Gordon also had disappeared. Before the publication of the investigating committee"s report several newspaper men had seen him and talked with him about it, but the next day they could not find him anywhere, nor any one who had the least idea whither he had gone. One member of the committee knew Brand very well and, in pursuit of Miss Annister"s idea that Gordon and the missing architect might be relatives, the reporters had questioned him about Gordon"s disappearance.
There was some resemblance, he said, although he had not thought about it at the time. Gordon was a larger man, he thought, and a younger, and his manner was very different. Brand was always affable, very polite, and inclined to be somewhat ceremonious; but Gordon was brusque, rather aggressive, and seemed to be much in earnest. His evident sincerity and honesty had impressed the committee very much.
But, on the whole, he concluded, there was some resemblance between the two men in feature and coloring; enough, perhaps, to indicate that they might be relatives.
Mildred was keenly disappointed to find so little of consequence or of promise in the news of the morning, but the committeeman"s description of Brand"s accuser confirmed her in her conviction.
"If they can only find him," she thought, "it will solve the whole mystery and set Felix right before the public again."
She telephoned to the paper which had seemed most active in the hunt for Gordon, begged that they would continue the search, and made the city editor promise to call her up if they should find out anything new about him or come upon any trace of his movements. For the rest of the day she refused to leave the house and sat all the time in high-strung expectation near the telephone, that she might not lose a moment in responding to its ring. But no call came until late in the evening, when the city editor rang her up to say that his men had discovered absolutely nothing new, and that n.o.body had any more idea what had become of either Brand or Gordon than they had had the day before.
CHAPTER VII
FELIX BRAND READS A LETTER
When Henrietta Marne entered her office on the morning of the second day after the publication of the charges against Felix Brand, she found her employer already there, but sitting moodily at his desk, his head in his hands.
As she came forward, exclaiming joyfully and making anxious inquiries about his welfare, he shrank back for a bare instant, with a slight turning away, as of one who fears observation. But he quickly recovered himself, rose with his usual deferential politeness and gave her cordial greeting. She noted that he looked well, although his face still bore a harrowed expression. A something out of the ordinary in his appearance her eyes soon resolved into the fact that his dark, waving hair, which previously he had always worn rather long and parted in the middle, was so short that it curled closely over his head.
"I"ve seen the papers," he told her, "and I"m quite flattered to find I"m of enough consequence to have such a fuss made over me just because I left the city for a few days. If I had dreamed there would be this sort of an ado I"d have told you where I was going. But my idea was to keep my whereabouts quiet while I went down into West Virginia, in the mountains, to look into the proposition of developing a marble quarry. I expected when I left to return in three or four days, but it was necessary to go so far on horseback that I couldn"t get back that soon and I was so far from the telegraph that I couldn"t communicate with you."
"Every one was very anxious, and, down in my heart, I was, too, but I told everybody that it was all right, that you were just away on business and that I expected you back any minute."
"Yes, I saw what a good face you put on it when the reporters insisted on knowing everything you knew, or guessed, or could make up. I"m grateful to you, Miss Marne, for the very sensible stand you took.
You showed sense and prudence and did all that you could to stop that absurd fuss. If I should happen to go away again unexpectedly,--" he hesitated, wincing ever so little, but quickly went on: "My deal fell through this time, but I may have to go again, although I hope not, for it"s a beastly journey. But if I should, and there should be any disturbance about it, you can say frankly that I"ve gone to look at some land in the West Virginia mountains, away off the railroad, so that it is impossible to get hold of me until I return to civilization again."
He stopped for a moment, as though turning something over in his mind.
"But I don"t want to say just where it is," he proceeded cautiously, "because I don"t want certain parties to know that I am after this property. And if I don"t tell you where it is," and he turned toward her with a pleasant smile and the caressing look in his soft brown eyes that had so much power to stir feminine hearts, "you can truthfully say, if you are asked, that you don"t know where I am or how I can be reached."
"How considerate of me he always is," thought Henrietta as she thanked him.
It was not until she had gone through the acc.u.mulation of mail with him and had explained to him all that she had done during his absence that he mentioned Hugh Gordon. Then he merely asked, with some hesitation at the name, as though he could with difficulty bring himself to speak it, if no letter had come from him.
"Yes," she replied, unlocking a drawer and taking out a bulky envelope, "this came yesterday, but I guessed that it was from him and so did not open it."
Brand"s dark, handsome face turned a trifle paler and his hand trembled as he thrust the letter quickly into his breast pocket.
When the newspapermen came to ask if there were yet any news of him Brand saw them in his own room. He said nothing to Henrietta about the charges made against him by the investigating committee, but in the evening papers and again in those of the next morning she read his defense.