The Vagrant Duke

"No. No," cried McGuire. "And have him set loose after a trivial examination? Little good that would do. This man who is trying to reach me – "

McGuire stopped suddenly, glaring at his superintendent with bloodshot eyes, and Peter very politely waited for him to go on. But he brought his empty glass down on the table with a crash which shattered it.

"He mustn't reach me," he roared. "I won't see him. That's understood. He's a man I'd have no more compunction about shooting than – "

McGuire, with a curious suddenness, stopped again. Then rose and resumed his habit of pacing the floor. For a moment it had almost seemed as if he were on the point of a revelation. But the mood passed. Instead of speaking further he threw out his arms in a wide gesture.

"I've said enough," he growled, "more than enough. You know your duty." And he gestured toward the door. "Do it!" he finished brusquely.

Peter had already risen, and Stryker unemotionally opened the door for him.

"I'll stay on duty all night, Mr. McGuire," he said quietly. "I'd advise you to turn in and get some sleep. You need it."

"Yes. Yes, I will. Thanks, Nichols," said McGuire, following him to the door and offering a flabby hand. "Don't mind what I've said to-night. I think we understand each other. Stryker will see that the house is locked when the young people come up. Keep your men to the mark and take no chances."

"Good-night."

The remainder of the night, as Mrs. Bergen had predicted, proved uneventful, and at daylight Peter went to his cabin and tumbled into bed, too tired to think further of McGuire's visitors – or even of the man with the black mustache.

The next day he lay abed luxuriously for a while after he had awakened, but no amount of quiet thinking availed to clarify the mystery. There were two men, one bearded, interested in watching McGuire, another with a black mustache, interested in Peter. And so, after wondering again for some puzzling moments as to how Mrs. Bergen, the housekeeper, had come to be involved in McGuire's fortunes, he gave the problem up.

Foreseeing difficulties over breakfast at the house, he had arranged to make his own coffee on a small oil stove which happened to be available, and so Peter set the pot on to boil and while he dressed turned over in his mind the possibilities of the future. It seemed quite certain that the antagonism, whatever its nature, between his employer and the prowling stranger must come to an issue of some sort almost at once. The intruder, if he were the sort of man who could inspire terror, would not remain content merely to prowl fruitlessly about with every danger of being shot for his pains, and McGuire could hardly remain long in his present situation without a physical or mental collapse.

Why hadn't McGuire taken flight? Why indeed had he come to Black Rock House when it seemed that he would have been much safer amongst the crowds of the city, where he could fall back upon the protection of the police and their courts for immunity from this kind of persecution?

Pieced together, the phrases his employer had let slip suggested the thought that he had come to Black Rock to escape publicity in anything that might happen. And McGuire's insistence upon the orders that the guards should shoot to kill also suggested, rather unpleasantly, the thought that McGuire knew who the visitor was and earnestly desired his death.

But Mrs. Bergen could have no such wish, for, unlike McGuire, she had shown a reticence in her fears, as though her silence had been intended to protect rather than to accuse. Beth Cameron, too, was in some way unconsciously involved in the adventure. But how? He drank his coffee and ate his roll, a prey to a very lively curiosity. Beth interested him. And if Aunt Tillie Bergen, her only near relative, showed signs of inquietude on the girl's account, the mysterious visitor surely had it in his power to make her unhappy. As he washed up the dishes and made his bed, Peter decided that he would find Beth to-night when she came back from work and ask her some questions about her Aunt Tillie.

Beth Cameron saved him that trouble. He was sitting at the piano, awaiting a telephone call to Black Rock House, where he was to have a conference with his employer on the forestry situation. He was so deeply absorbed in his music that he was unaware of the figure that had stolen through the underbrush and was now hidden just outside the door. It was Beth. She stood with the fingers of one hand lightly touching the edge of the door-jamb, the other hand at her breast, while she listened, poised lightly as though for flight. But a playful breeze twitched at the hem of her skirt, flicking it out into the patch of sunlight by the doorsill, and Peter caught the glint of white from the tail of his eye.

The music ceased suddenly and before Beth could flee into the bushes Peter had caught her by the hand.

Now that she was discovered she made no effort to escape him.

"I – I was listening," she gasped.

"Why, Beth," he exclaimed, voicing the name in his thoughts. "How long have you been here?"

"I – I don't know. Not long."

"I'm so glad."

She was coloring very prettily.

"You – you told me you – you'd play for me sometime," she said demurely.

"Of course. Won't you come in? It's rather a mess here, but – "

He led her in, glancing at her gingham dress, a little puzzled.

"I thought you'd be farmeretting," he said.

But she shook her head.

"I quit – yesterday."

He didn't ask the reason. He was really enjoying the sight of her. Few women are comely in the morning hours, which have a merciless way of exaggerating minute imperfections. Beth hadn't any minute imperfections except her freckles, which were merely Nature's colorings upon a woodland flower. She seemed to fill the cabin with morning fragrance, like a bud just brought in from the garden.

"I'm very glad you've come," he said gallantly, leading her over to the double window where there was a chintz-covered seat. "I've wanted very much to talk to you."

She followed him protestingly.

"But I didn't come to be talked to. I came to listen to you play."

"You always arrive in the midst of music," he laughed. "I played you in, without knowing it. That was an Elfentanz – "

"What's that?"

"A dance of the Elves – the fairies." And then, with a laugh, "And the little devils."

"The little devils? You mean me!"

"Elf – fairy and devil too – but mostly elf."

"I'm not sure I like that – but I do like the music. Please play it again."

She was so lovely in her eagerness that he couldn't refuse, his fingers straying from the dance by slow transitions into something more quiet, the "Romance" of Sibelius, and then after that into a gay little scherzo, at the end of which he turned suddenly to find her flushed and breathless, regarding him in a kind of awe.

"How lovely!" she whispered. "There were no devils in that."

"No, only fairies."

"Angels too – but somethin' else – that quiet piece – like the – the memory of a – a – sorrow."

"'Romance,' it's called," he explained gently.

"Oh!"

"The things we dream. The things that ought to be, but aren't."

She took a deep breath. "Yes, that's it. That's what it meant. I felt it." And then, as though with a sudden shyness at her self-revelation, she glanced about. "What a pretty place! I've never been here before."

"How did you find your way?"

"Oh, I knew where the cabin was. I came through the woods and across the log-jam below the pool. Then I heard the music. I didn't think you'd mind."

"Mind! Oh, I say. I don't know when I've been so pleased."

"Are you really? You say a lot."

"Didn't I play it?"

That confused her a little.

"Oh!" she said demurely.

"And now, will you talk to me?"

"Yes, of course. But – "

"But what – ?"

"I – I'm not sure that I ought to be here."

"Why not?"

"It's kind of – unusual."

He laughed. "You wouldn't be you, if you weren't unusual."

She glanced at him uneasily.

"You see, I don't know you very well."

"You're very exclusive in Black Rock!" he laughed.

"I guess we have to be exclusive whether we want to or not," she replied.

"Don't you think I'll do?"

"Maybe. I oughtn't to have come, but I just couldn't keep away."

"I'm glad you did. I wanted to see you."

"It wasn't that," she put in hastily. "I had to hear you play again. That's what I mean."

"I'll play for you whenever you like."

"Will you? Then play again, now. It makes me feel all queer inside."

Peter laughed. "Do you feel that way when you sing?"

"No. It all comes out of me then."

"Would you mind singing for me, Beth?" he asked after a moment.

"I – I don't think I dare."

He got up and went to the piano.

"What do you sing?"

But she hadn't moved and she didn't reply. So he urged her.

"In the woods when you're coming home – ?"

"Oh, I don't know – It just comes out – things I've heard – things I make up – "

"What have you heard? I don't know that I can accompany you, but I'll try."

She was flushing painfully. He could see that she wanted to sing for him – to be a part of this wonderful dream-world in which he belonged, and yet she did not dare.

"What have you heard?" he repeated softly, encouraging her by running his fingers slowly over the simple chords of a major key.

Suddenly she started up and joined him by the piano.

"That's it – 'The long, long trail a-windin' – " and in a moment was singing softly. He had heard the air and fell in with her almost at once.

"There's a long, long trail a-windingInto the land of my dreams,Where the nightingale is singingAnd a bright moon beams – "

Like the good musician that he was, Peter submerged himself, playing gently, his gaze on his fingers, while he listened. He had made no mistake. The distances across which he had heard her had not flattered. Her voice was untrained, of course, but it seemed to Peter that it had lost nothing by the neglect, for as she gained confidence, she forgot Peter, as he intended that she should, and sang with the complete abstraction of a thrush in the deep wood. Like the thrush's note, too, Beth's was limpid, clear, and sweet, full of forest sounds – the falling brook, the sigh of night winds…

When the song ended he told her so.

"You do say nice things, don't you?" she said joyously.

"Wouldn't you – if it cost you nothing and was the truth? You must have your voice trained."

"Must! I might jump over the moon if I had a broomstick."

"It's got to be managed somehow."

"Then you're not disappointed in the way it sounds, close up?"

She stood beside him, leaning against the piano, her face flushed, her breath rapid, searching his face eagerly. Peter knew that it was only the dormant artist in her seeking the light, but he thrilled warmly at her nearness, for she was very lovely. Peter's acquaintance with women had been varied, but, curiously enough, each meeting with this girl instead of detracting had only added to her charm.

"No. I'm not disappointed in it," he said quite calmly, every impulse in him urging a stronger expression. But he owed a duty to himself. Noblesse oblige! It was one of the mottoes of his House – (not always followed – alas!). With a more experienced woman he would have said what was in his mind. He would probably have taken her in his arms and kissed her at once, for that was really what he would have liked to do. But Beth…

Perhaps something in the coolness of his tone disconcerted her, for she turned away from the piano.

"You're very kind," she said quietly.

He had a feeling that she was about to slip away from him, so he got up.

"Won't you sing again, Beth?"

But she shook her head. For some reason the current that had run between them was broken. As she moved toward the door, he caught her by the hand.

"Don't go yet. I want to talk to you."

"I don't think I ought." And then, with a whimsical smile, "And you ought to be out makin' the trees grow."

He laughed. "There's a lot of time for that."

She let him lead her to the divan again and sat, her fingers dovetailed around a slender knee.

"I – I'm sorry I made fun of you the other day," she confessed immediately.

"I didn't mind in the least."

"But you did seem to know it all," she said. And then smiled in the direction of the piano. "Now – I'm comin' to think you do. Even Shad says you're a wonder. I – I don't think he likes you, though – " she admitted.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't you care. Shad don't like anybody but himself and Goda'mighty – with God trailin' a little."

Peter smiled. Her singing voice may have been impersonal but one could hardly think that of her conversation.

"And you, Beth – where do you come in?"

She glanced at him quickly.

"Oh, I – ," she said with a laugh, "I just trail along after God."

Her irony meant no irreverence but a vast derogation of Shad Wells. Somehow her point of view was very illuminating.

"I'm afraid you make him very unhappy," he ventured.

"That's his lookout," she finished.

Peter was taking a great delight in watching her profile, the blue eyes shadowed under the mass of her hair, eyes rather deeply set and thoughtful in repose, the straight nose, the rather full underlip ending in a precipitous dent above her chin. He liked that chin. There was courage there and strength, softened at once by the curve of the throat, flowing to where it joined the fine deep breast. Yesterday she had seemed like a boy. To-day she was a woman grown, feminine in every graceful conformation, on tiptoe at the very verge of life.

But there was no "flapper" here. What she lacked in culture was made up in refinement. He had felt that yesterday – the day before. She belonged elsewhere. And yet to Peter it would have seemed a pity to have changed her in any particular. Her lips were now drawn in a firm line and her brows bore a curious frown.

"You don't mind my calling you Beth, do you?"

She flashed a glance at him.

"That's what everybody calls me."

"My name is Peter."

"Yes, I know." And then, "That's funny."

"Funny!"

"You look as if your name ought to be Algernon."

"Why?" he asked, laughing.

"Oh, I don't know. It's the name of a man in a book I read – an Englishman. You're English, you said."

"Half English," said Peter.

"What's the other half?"

"Russian." He knew that he ought to be lying to her, but somehow he couldn't.

"Russian! I thought Russians all had long hair and carried bombs."

"Some of 'em do. I'm not that kind. The half of me that's English is the biggest half, and the safest."

"I'm glad of that. I'd hate to think of you as bein' a Bolshevik."

"H-m. So would I."

"But Russia's where you get your music from, isn't it? The band leader at Glassboro is a Russian. He can play every instrument. Did you learn music in Russia?"

Beth was now treading dangerous ground and so it was time to turn the tables.

"Yes, a little," he said, "but music has no nationality. Or why would I find a voice like yours out here?"

"Twenty miles from nowhere," she added scornfully.

"How did you come here, Beth? Would you mind telling me? You weren't born here, were you? How did you happen to come to Black Rock?"

"Just bad luck, I guess. Nobody'd ever come to Black Rock just because they want to. We just came. That's all."

"Just you and Aunt Tillie? Is your father dead?" he asked.

She closed her eyes a moment and then clasped her knees again.

"I don't like to talk about family matters."

"Oh, I – "

And then, gently, she added,

"I never talk about them to any one."

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Peter, aware of the undercurrent of sadness in her voice. "I didn't know that there was anything painful to you – "

"I didn't know it myself, until you played it to me, just now, the piece with the sad, low voices, under the melody. It was like somebody dead speakin' to me. I can't talk about the things I feel like that."

"Don't then – Forgive me for asking."

He laid his fingers softly over hers. She withdrew her hand quickly, but the look that she turned him found his face sober, his dark eyes warm with sympathy. And then with a swift inconsequential impulse born of Peter's recantation,

"I don't s'pose there's any reason why I shouldn't tell you," she said more easily. "Everybody around here knows about me – about us. Aunt Tillie and I haven't lived here always. She brought me here when I was a child."

She paused again and Peter remained silent, watching her intently. As she glanced up at him, something in the expression of his face gave her courage to go on.

"Father's dead. His name was Ben Cameron. He came of nice people," she faltered. "But he – he was no good. We lived up near New Lisbon. He used to get drunk on 'Jersey Lightnin'' and tear loose. He was all right between whiles – farmin' – but whisky made him crazy, and then – then he would come home and beat us up."

"Horrible!"

"It was. I was too little to know much, but Aunt Tillie's husband came at last and there was a terrible fight. Uncle Will was hurt – hurt so bad – cut with a knife – that he never was the same again. And my – my father went away cursing us all. Then my mother died – Uncle Will too – and Aunt Tillie and I came down here to live. That's all. Not much to be proud of," she finished ruefully.

Peter was silent. It was a harrowing, sordid story of primitive passion. He was very sorry for her.

Beth made an abrupt graceful movement of an arm across her brows, as though to wipe out the memory.

"I don't know why I've told you," she said. "I never speak of this to any one."

"I'm so sorry."

He meant it. And Beth knew that he did.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PLACARD

The look that she had given him showed her sense of his sympathy. So he ventured,

"Did you hear from your father before he died?"

"Aunt Tillie did, – once. Then we got word he'd been killed in a railway accident out West. I was glad. A man like that has no right to live."

"You and Aunt Tillie have had a pretty hard time – " he mused.

"Yes. She's an angel – and I love her. Why is it that good people have nothin' but trouble? She had an uncle who went bad too – he was younger than she was – my great-uncle – Jack Bray – he forged a check – or somethin' up in Newark – and went to the penitentiary."

"And is he dead too?"

"No – not at last accounts. He's out – somewhere. When I was little he used to come to Aunt Tillie for money – a tall, lantern-jawed man. I saw him once three years ago. He was here. Aunt Tillie tried to keep me out of the kitchen. But I thought he was up to some funny business and stayed. He took a fancy to me. He said he was camera man in the movies. He wanted me to go with him – thought I could be as good as Mary Pickford. I'm glad I didn't go – from what I know now. He was a bad man. Aunt Tillie was scared of him. Poor soul! She gave him all she had – most of what was left from the old farm, I guess."

"Do you think – " began Peter, then paused. And as she glanced at him inquiringly, "Did you notice that your Aunt Tillie seemed – er – frightened last night?" he asked at last.

"I thought so for a while, but she said she was only sick. She never lies to me."

"She seemed very much disturbed."

"Her nerve's not what it used to be – especially since Mr. McGuire's taken to seein' things – "

"You don't believe then that she could have seen John Bray – that he had come back again last night?"

"Why, no," said Beth, turning in surprise. "I never thought of it – and yet," she paused, "yes, – it might have been – "

She became more thoughtful but didn't go on. Peter was on the trail of a clew to the mystery, but she had already told him so much that further questions seemed like personal intrusion. And so,

"I'd like to tell you, Beth," he said, "that I'm your friend and Mrs. Bergen's. If anything should turn up to make you unhappy or to make your aunt unhappy and I can help you, won't you let me know?"

"Why – do you think anything is goin' to happen?" she asked.

His reply was noncommittal.

"I just wanted you to know you could count on me – " he said soberly. "I think you've had trouble enough."

"But I'm not afraid of Jack Bray," she said with a shrug, "even if Aunt Tillie is. He can't do anything to me. He can't make me go to New York if I don't want to."

She had clenched her brown fists in her excitement and Peter laughed.

"I think I'd be a little sorry for anybody who tried to make you do anything you didn't want to do," he said.

She frowned. "Why, if I thought that bandy-legged, lantern-jawed, old buzzard was comin' around here frightenin' Aunt Tillie, I'd – I'd – "

"What would you do?"

"Never you mind what I'd do. But I'm not afraid of Jack Bray," she finished confidently.

The terrors that had been built up around the house of McGuire, the mystery surrounding the awe-inspiring prowler, the night vigils, the secrecy – all seemed to fade into a piece of hobbledehoy buffoonery at Beth's contemptuous description of her recreant relative. And he smiled at her amusedly.

"But what would you say," he asked seriously, "if I told you that last night Mr. McGuire saw the same person your Aunt Tillie did, and that he was terrified – almost to the verge of collapse?"

Beth had risen, her eyes wide with incredulity.

"Merciful Father! McGuire! Did he have another spell last night? You don't mean – ?"

"I went up to his room. He was done for. He had seen outside the drawing-room window the face of the very man he's been guarding himself against."

"I can't believe – ," she gasped. "And you think Aunt Tillie – ?"

"Your Aunt Tillie talked to a man outside the door of the kitchen. You didn't hear her. I did. The same man who had been frightening Mr. McGuire."

"Aunt Tillie!" she said in astonishment.

"There's not a doubt of it. McGuire saw him. Andy saw him too, – thought he was the chauffeur."

Beth's excitement was growing with the moments.

"Why, Aunt Tillie didn't know anything about what was frightening Mr. McGuire – no more'n I did," she gasped.

"She knows now. She wasn't sick last night, Beth. She was just bewildered – frightened half out of her wits. I spoke to her after you went home. She wouldn't say a word. She was trying to conceal something. But there was a man outside and she knows who he is."

"But what could Jack Bray have to do with Mr. McGuire?" she asked in bewilderment.

Peter shrugged. "You know as much as I do. I wouldn't have told you this if you'd been afraid. But Mrs. Bergen is."

"Well, did you ever?"

"No, I never did," replied Peter, smiling.

"It does beat anything."

"It does. It's most interesting, but as far as I can see, hardly alarming for you, whatever it may be to Mr. McGuire or Mrs. Bergen. If the man is only your great-uncle, there ought to be a way to deal with him – "

"I've just got to talk to Aunt Tillie," Beth broke in, moving toward the door. Peter followed her, taking up his hat.

"I'll go with you," he said.

For a few moments Beth said nothing. She had passed through the stages of surprise, anger and bewilderment, and was now still indignant but quite self-contained. When he thought of Beth's description of the Ghost of Black Rock House, Peter was almost tempted to forget the terrors of the redoubtable McGuire. A man of his type hardly lapses into hysteria at the mere thought of a "bandy-legged buzzard." And yet McGuire's terrors had been so real and were still so real that it was hardly conceivable that Bray could have been the cause of them. Indeed it was hardly conceivable that the person Beth described could be a source of terror to any one. What was the answer?

"Aunt Tillie doesn't know anything about McGuire," Beth said suddenly. "She just couldn't know. She tells me everything."

"But of course it's possible that McGuire and this John Bray could have met in New York – "

"What would Mr. McGuire be doin' with him?" she said scornfully.

Peter laughed.

"It's what he's doing with McGuire that matters."