At the last moment before leaving, Laurie took from his pocket the tiny revolver he had brought with him, and holding it in his palm, studied it in silence. Should he take it, or shouldn"t he? He hesitated. Then habit mastered caution. He dropped it among the discarded heap of clothes, and picked up in its stead a small screw-driver, which he put into his ragged pocket. That particular tool looked as if it might be useful.
Lounging up the country road, with his cold, bare, dirty hands in the pockets of the borrowed reefer, he looked about with a.s.surance. He believed that in this unexpected guise, he could meet even Shaw and get away with it; but he meant to be very careful and take no unnecessary chances.
He cut across half a dozen fields, climbed half a dozen fences, was fiercely barked at by a dozen dogs, more or less, and finally reaching the grounds of the house in the cedars, approached it from the rear in exactly the half-sneaking, half-c.o.c.ky manner in which the average tramp would have drawn near a shuttered house from one of whose chimneys smoke was rising. It was a manner that nicely blended the hope of a hand-out with the fear of a rebuff. Once he fancied he saw something moving among the trees. He ducked back and remained quiet for some time. Then, rea.s.sured by the continued silence, he emerged, sauntered to the back entrance, and after a brief preliminary study of the shuttered windows, a.s.sailed the door with a pair of grimy knuckles.
He had expected a long delay, possibly no response at all. But the door opened as promptly as if some one had been standing there awaiting his signal, and on its threshold a forbidding-looking woman, haglike as to hair and features but cleanly dressed, stood regarding him with strong disapproval. In the kitchen range back of her a coal fire was burning. A tea-kettle bubbled domestically on its top, and cheek by jowl with this a big-bellied coffee-pot exhaled a delicious aroma.
The entire tableau was so different from anything Laurie had expected that for an instant he stared at the woman, speechless and almost open-mouthed. Then the smell of the coffee gave him his cue. He suddenly remembered that he had eaten nothing that day, and the fact gave a thrill of sincerity to the professional whine in which he made his request.
"Say, lady," he begged urgently, "I"m down an" out. Gimme a cup o"
cawfee, will yuh?"
Her impulse, he saw clearly, had been to close the door in his face.
Already her hand was automatically responding to it. But he whipped off his dirty cap and, shivering on the door-step, looked at her with Laurie"s eyes, whose beauty no amount of disguise could wholly conceal.
There was real appeal in them now. Much, indeed almost everything, depended on what this creature would do in the next minute. She hesitated.
"I ain"t had a mouthful since yesterday," croaked the visitor, pleadingly and truthfully.
"Well, wait there a minute. I"ll bring you a cup of coffee."
She turned from the door and started to close it, evidently expecting him to remain outside, but he promptly followed her in, and her face, hardening into quick anger, softened a little as she saw him cowering over the big hot stove and warming his dirty hands. In silence she filled a cup with coffee, cut a thick slice from a loaf of bread, b.u.t.tered it, and set the collation on the kitchen table.
"Hurry up and eat that," she muttered, "and then clear out. If any one saw you here, I"d get into trouble."
Laurie grunted acquiescence and wolfed the food. He had not sat down, and now, as he ate, his black eyes swept the room while he planned his next move. Drying on a stout cord back of the stove were several dish-towels. They gave him his first suggestion. His second came when he observed that his hostess, evidently rea.s.sured by his haste, had turned her back to him, and, bending a little, was examining the oven.
Noiselessly setting down the cup and the bread, he crept behind her, and, seizing her in one powerful arm, covered her mouth with his free hand. He could not wholly stifle the smothered shriek she gave.
For the next moment he had his hands full. Despite her wrinkles and her gray hair, she was a strong woman, and she fought with a violence and a false strength due to overwhelming fury and terror. It was so difficult to control her without hurting her that all his strength was taxed. But at last he brought her slowly down into a chair under the row of dish-towels, and seizing two of these useful articles, as well as the cord that held them, securely bound and gagged her. As he did so he dropped his role and looked soberly into her furious eyes.
"Look here," he told her. "I"m not going to hurt you; be sure of that.
But I"ve got something to say, and I want you to stop struggling and listen to it."
Under his quiet tones some of the frenzy died out of the eyes staring up at him.
"I"m here to get Miss Mayo," he went on. "She"s in the house, isn"t she?
If she is, nod." There was a long moment of hesitation. At last the head nodded. "Is there any one else in the house?" The head shook negatively.
"Is there no one here but you and Miss Mayo?" Laurie could hardly take in this good luck, but again the head shook negatively. "Where is she?
Upstairs?"
The head nodded. He stepped back from the bound figure.
"All right," he said cheerfully. "Now I"m going to unbind you and let you take me up to her. As a precaution, I shall leave the bandage on your mouth and hands. But, being a sensible woman, of course you realize that you have absolutely nothing to fear, unless you give us trouble. If you try to do that, I shall have to lock you into a closet for a few hours."
As he spoke he was unfastening the cord.
"Lead on," he invited, buoyantly.
There was an instant when he thought the struggle with her would begin all over. He saw her draw herself together as if to spring. But she was evidently exhausted by her previous contest. She was also subdued. She rose heavily, and, taking her time to it, slowly led the way out of the kitchen and along a hall to the front of the house.
"No tricks, remember," warned Laurie, keeping close behind her. "Play fair, and I"ll give you a year"s salary when I take Miss Mayo out of this."
She turned now and looked at him, and there was venom in the glance.
Violently and negatively, she shook her head.
"Don"t you want the money?" he interrupted, deeply interested in this phenomenon. "I"m glad to have met you," he politely added. "You"re an unexpected and a brand-new type to me."
She was walking forward again, with no sign now that she heard his voice. Reaching a wide colonial staircase that led to the second floor, she started the ascent, but so slowly that the young man behind her uttered another warning.
"No tricks, remember," he repeated, cheerfully. "I"m afraid you"re planning to start something. I believe you"re capable of falling backward, and bowling me over like a ten-pin. But don"t you do it. A dark, musty closet is no place for a kind-hearted, sensible woman to spend twenty-four hours in."
She ignored that, too, but now she moved more quickly, and her companion, close at her heels, found himself in an upper hall, approaching a door at the front of the house. Before this door his guide now planted herself, with much of the effect of a corner-stone settling into place.
Keeping a careful eye on her, he stretched out a long arm and tapped at the panel. There was no answer. He tapped again. Still no answer. He glanced at the enforcedly silent woman beside him, and something in her eyes, a gleam of triumph or sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt, or both, was tinder to his hot spirit.
"Have you led me to the wrong door?" he asked. He spoke very quietly, but the tone impressed the woman. The gleam faded from her eyes. Hastily she shook her head.
"If you have--" He nodded at her thoughtfully. Then he raised his voice.
"Doris," he called. "Doris!"
He heard a movement inside the room, an odd little cry, half exclamation, half sob, and hurried steps approaching. The next minute her voice came to him, in breathless words, with a tremor running through them.
"Is it you?" she gasped. "Oh, is it you?"
"Yes, open the door."
"I can"t. It"s locked."
He stared at the unyielding wood before him.
"You mean they"ve locked you in?"
"Yes. Of course."
It would be, of course, Laurie reflected. That was Shaw"s melodramatic method.
"We"ll change all that, in a minute." He stepped back from the door.
"What are you going to do?" The voice inside was anxious.
"Break it down, if necessary. Breaking down doors to get to you is my specialty. You haven"t forgotten that, I hope." He turned to the woman beside him. "Have you the key to this?" She shook her head. "If you have, you may as well hand it over," he suggested. "I shall certainly break down the door if you don"t; and it"s a perfectly good door, with a nice polish on it."
He saw her hesitate. Then, sullenly, she nodded.
"You have it, after all?" He spoke with the natural relief of an indolent young man spared an arduous job. Again she nodded. "Where is it?" She could make no movement with her bound hands, but with an eye-flash she indicated the side of her gown. "In your pocket? Good.
I"ll get it."
He got it, as he spoke. Holding it in his hand, he again addressed his reluctant companion.