The Secret Toll

"I don't know," replied Lucy. "In my worship I sometimes commune with the spirits, but they have never told me how they could use money."

"Have you ever tried to commune with this ghost?" asked Forrester.

"No," replied Lucy. "I don't think it belongs to my people."

"Suppose I were to offer you a good sum of money to try to communicate with it?" suggested Forrester.

"I don't need money," she replied.

"Don't you have to work for a living?"

"No."

"How do you manage to live then?"

"I don't need money to live. I can get on."

Forrester glanced around the room once more. The cookstove appeared to be without a fire and there were no signs of food. He wondered.

Turning again to Lucy, Forrester said, "Strange about the ghost that haunts that tree, Lucy. Did you ever hear of anyone being murdered around here?"

"No," she replied. Then added, after a slight pause, as she rose and walked toward the door, "Guess you have found out all I can tell you, Mister. You'd better go now – before my dog comes back."

The uncanny atmosphere of the place, the nearby snakes in their glass prison, and the weird conversation regarding ghosts and singular forms of worship, had given Forrester a very uncomfortable feeling. He knew now why Green had temporarily lost his nerve, for he was quite willing to take the woman's undisguised hint about his own immediate departure. Slipping his notebook into his pocket and putting on his cap, Forrester thanked her for the interview and hurriedly passed through the door, which was slammed on his heels.

CHAPTER X – CROSSED THEORIES

The long drive into the city from the North Shore delayed Forrester so that he did not reach the Nevins' home until the funeral services had ended, and though he joined the cortège which followed the remains of the banker to the cemetery he did not have an opportunity to speak to his mother about the letter which the girl had entrusted to him. At dinner, however, he passed the letter across the table to his mother with the remark:

"There's a note I was requested to bring to you – and in which I am very much interested."

Mrs. Forrester withdrew the letter from its envelope, adjusted her glasses and glanced at the writing. Hastily she turned to the signature and exclaimed, "Why, it's from Helen!" Then, turning to Josephine, added, "You remember Mrs. Lewis, my dear. Her husband was appointed to the vice-presidency of a New York bank about two years ago. She wrote to me several times and then our correspondence gradually dropped off. I was thinking of her only recently, and wondering how she was getting on in New York."

"We remember her perfectly, Mother," broke in Forrester, impatiently. "We want to know what the letter says."

"We!" echoed Josephine, surprised. "I'm sure I'm not especially interested."

Mrs. Forrester glanced through the note. "It is a letter of introduction," she explained, looking over her glasses at Forrester. "How odd! Helen asks me to do what I can to make Miss Mary Sturtevant's stay in Chicago a pleasant one. Strange that she did not write me directly."

"Oh," breathed Josephine, smiling wisely at Forrester.

"Does she say who Miss Sturtevant is?" queried Forrester.

"The daughter of some very dear friends of Helen's. The Sturtevants are an old New York family, she says. I'm quite sure that I have heard of them."

"May I be permitted to inquire," said Josephine, roguishly, "how Mr. Robert Forrester came to be the bearer of this note, and wherefrom springs his intense interest?"

Forrester colored, then frowned severely upon his sister.

"I met the young lady through an accident this morning. When she learned who I was she asked me to bring this letter to you. She had intended presenting it in person, but learned after arriving that we would not be moving to 'Woodmere' for some days."

"My! What a simple and straightforward explanation," smiled Josephine. "Why not tell us all about it, Bob?"

Forrester scowled at his sister, and sipped from his water glass to gain time to collect his thoughts. He was not sure at this time just how much he ought to tell. He set the glass down and briefly related how his car had frightened the girl's horse, leaving it to be assumed that she had at that time given him the letter.

"What an extraordinary coincidence!" exclaimed Mrs. Forrester. At that moment her attention was distracted by a question from the maid, and Josephine, leaning toward Forrester, whispered, "Some time I want to hear the whole story, Bob. It's so romantic!"

Happily for Forrester's peace of mind the conversation drifted to other things, and as soon as dinner was over he hurried to his favorite corner in the library. He wanted to think, not alone of Mary Sturtevant and her vague connection with the mystery, but of the negress, Lucy, and the perplexing new aspect she had given to the case. There seemed no apparent alliance between the two, yet both were strangely, though obscurely, associated with it. Forrester had no sooner lighted his pipe, however, when the door-bell rang, and a moment later a servant announced that two men wished to see him. For an instant he was startled, yet it did not seem likely that the "Friends of the Poor" would approach him in this open way.

"Did they give any names?" he asked.

"No, just said they were from the police department, sir," was the reply.

"Oh!" exclaimed Forrester, relieved. "Send them in."

Two heavily built men entered the room. They were strikingly alike in their general appearance; tall, broad shouldered, with big feet, large hands, and smooth-shaven, plump, ruddy faces. Forrester thought as he looked at them that there was small wonder so many criminals escaped. The average city detective was a type! Easily recognized and therefore readily avoided.

"Is this Mr. Forrester?" inquired one of the men.

"Yes," answered Forrester, as he rose from his chair.

"Well," continued the man, "my name's Cahill, and this is my partner, Detective Sergeant O'Connor. We come from the detective bureau."

"I'm glad to know you both," returned Forrester, smiling. "Sit down, please," and he indicated nearby chairs. The two detectives seated themselves and Forrester passed the humidor before returning to his chair. The three men puffed their cigars in silence for a time, the detectives evidently enjoying the flavor and aroma of Forrester's excellent cigars, while he awaited the explanation of their visit.

"We came to see you about this 'Friends of the Poor' matter," began Cahill, who appeared to be the spokesman for the pair. "My partner and me are working on the case."

"Making any progress?" inquired Forrester, fully convinced in his own mind, however, that they were not.

"Well, we are, and we arn't," answered Cahill. "You see, O'Connor and me were in the police auto the other night – the night you tipped us off. We're both some shots, and we felt pretty sure we had hit that car we were chasing. So we've been scouting around the West Side garages looking for a car with bullet holes."

"Why the West Side?" questioned Forrester, inwardly amused as he thought of Humphrey's arraignment of the detectives' methods.

Cahill smiled wisely at O'Connor, and O'Connor smiled significantly back at his partner.

"You see," explained Cahill, "we know crooks' ways pretty well. When anything gets pulled off we can tell from the method used just about where to look for our men. We have felt pretty sure all the time that this was some Black Hand bunch from the Dago settlement on the West Side. It's the same line of approach. The only difference is that they're operating a little higher up than usual, and choking the guys off quietly with some kind of gas, instead of filling them full of lead from a sawed-off shotgun. The idea's the same, only they're getting a little more ambitious – that's all."

"And about the car," prompted Forrester, still amused at the trend of the detectives' theories.

"That's just the point," continued Cahill. "Today we located a car with half a dozen bullet holes in the back in a garage out on Grand Avenue. Grand Avenue, you know, is full of Dagos all the way from the river. The garage man said it was left there late Tuesday night by three young Italians. Now, do you get the idea?"

Forrester did, and he was astounded at the news.

"You mean," he queried, "that you ascribe this whole affair to some West Side Black Hand band, and that this car proves your theory?"

"Sure thing!" assented Cahill. "O'Connor and me have been working on this case for months. Sometimes we thought we had a clue, and then again we didn't. We have suspected Black Handers from the first, but we couldn't exactly get a line on them. That tip you gave us Tuesday night started things right. Now we know where we're at. There's three detectives in overalls in that garage right now, and if those guys come back for their car the whole thing'll be cleared up in a jiffy."

"What makes you think that this is the car you wanted?" persisted Forrester, still doubting the correctness of the detectives' theories.

"Headquarters has no report of any other car being shot at by the police. And this car was left late Tuesday night. Get the idea?"

Forrester pulled reflectively at his cigar. He was overwhelmed. The suspicions he had entertained regarding the weird negress, the girl on the horse and her colored servant, were knocked flat. The half-formed theories he had been building up around them were completely shattered. The growing pride he had felt in his own detective talents was crushed, and the discoveries in which he had exulted were rendered valueless. After all, the hard-headed, plodding, unimaginative city detectives knew their business best. There was really no mystery or romance to crime; no clever men pitting their brains against those of astute detectives. The criminal class was nothing more than the police claimed it to be – just a stunted, unnatural, evil-smelling plant, with its roots buried deep in the sordid, filthy dives and foreign settlements of the West Side. Forrester was disappointed; deeply disappointed. In spite of the danger, worry and uncertainty, the thing had gotten into his blood during the last few days. It had fired his imagination, stirred his latent energies, and awakened his brain. And now the whole elaborate structure which had been slowly building up toward the skies collapsed in one moment to reveal nothing save a few murderous thugs concealed in the cellar.

Forrester heaved a sigh.

"Relieved, eh?" chuckled Cahill. "Thought the police were no good, and that you had to kiss ten thousand bucks good-by?"

Forrester laughed. Now the humor of the situation struck him. Green's long study of the problem, his careful tabulation of information and secretly developed theories, were in the same class with Humphrey's suggested scientific solution, and Forrester's own investigations and conjectures. No wonder the Chief of Detectives had said, "Novices only hamper us."

"No," explained Forrester, in answer to Cahill's comment, "I hadn't exactly lost faith in the police. But I will say this: I have recently made some peculiar and interesting discoveries on my own account, and now you have practically knocked the foundation from under them with your very matter of fact solution of the mystery."

"We ain't solved it yet, remember," objected Cahill. "We've simply got a line on the right people, and in due time we'll get our hands on them. We may still have to ask you to help us. That's what we dropped in for this evening."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Forrester.

"Well, you see it's this way," explained Cahill. "If those Dagos come back to the garage between now and Saturday, we'll have them. But if they get wise that we found the car, they may chuck it and steal another one. In that case we'll sure get them at the oak tree up there on the North Shore Saturday night. What we want you to do is to put that money in the tree at the time we tell you to, so that we will be ready."

"But nobody has ever succeeded in locating these people at the tree," protested Forrester.

"I know," admitted Cahill, grinning, "but O'Connor and me have worked out a plan. We figure that in the past these guys have been able to slip in between the detectives on watch. You see, it's pretty dark in those woods at night. Our plan is going to put a stop to that. It's like this:

"We're going to put a peg in the ground on each side of the tree, back and front. O'Connor will be on one side and me on the other. There'll be a string from each peg running to O'Connor, and the same thing on the other side to me. We'll hold these strings, one in each hand. Now, that completely surrounds the tree, so that anyone approaching will kick into a string. We'll know from the hand the string's in just what direction to look for them in the dark. O'Connor's strings will be A and B, and mine will be C and D. Get the idea?

"If O'Connor feels a tug, he'll yell A or B at me. If I get a feel on one of my strings I'll holler C or D. Get me? Then we'll both make a rush at just the right spot. Believe me, Mr. Forrester, we got them this time. No sneaking up between detectives next Saturday night."

"The idea sounds very good, Cahill," agreed Forrester. "Perhaps it will work. If I don't hear from you in the meantime, what hour do you wish me to approach the tree on Saturday night?"

"We've fixed on ten-thirty, if that is convenient for you, Mr. Forrester," answered Cahill.

"That suits me," declared Forrester.

"And now, we'll be going," announced Cahill, rising. "Thanks for the cigar. As fine a smoke as I've had in a long time."

"Bang up," murmured O'Connor.

"Take another along," suggested Forrester, accepting the hint.

The two detectives each carefully selected another cigar, and then Forrester went with them to the door.

"What will you do if the ghosts supposed to haunt that tree should appear?" inquired Forrester.

"You don't believe that stuff, do you, Mr. Forrester?" asked Cahill, scornfully.

"Well, several people, unknown to one another, have agreed on the details."

Cahill smiled. "Maybe so," he said, "but don't forget that O'Connor and me can shoot, Mr. Forrester. We can lay out any ghost that ever ghosted."

"You certainly have my best wishes for your success," said Forrester.

"Don't worry any more," assured Cahill, as he passed out. "The police have got this gang dead to rights this time. Saturday night will end it!"

CHAPTER XI – TELEPHONE CALLS

"Son," said Mrs. Forrester at breakfast Friday morning, "Josephine and I have changed our minds."

"About what?" prompted Forrester.

"We are moving out to 'Woodmere' late today instead of tomorrow morning. The Prentices are giving a dinner dance, the first of the summer season, Saturday evening. If we moved tomorrow we would be too tired and upset to attend. We do not want to disappoint the Prentices, especially as we understand the affair is given to introduce Miss Sturtevant."

"Does she know the Prentices?" exclaimed Forrester.

"Only through a letter of introduction, I believe," explained Mrs. Forrester.

"Of course, you will be there, Bob, now that you know who will be the principal guest," laughed Josephine.

"I haven't received an invitation," returned Forrester, gravely.

"Oh, the affair is quite informal," declared Mrs. Forrester. "All the invitations were extended over the telephone, because it was only decided upon at the last moment. Mrs. Prentice told me to be sure to see that you came. She wants you to meet Miss Sturtevant."

"Not realizing that Bob was such a forward young man and attended to his own introductions," interjected Josephine.

"That was only an accidental meeting, Josephine," protested Mrs. Forrester. "They had no opportunity to get really acquainted."

"I wonder?" said Josephine, with a side glance at Forrester. Then added, "Of course, Mrs. Prentice does not realize what a rival Miss Sturtevant will be for Diana."

Forrester glared at Josephine. Until she had taken up his recent meeting with Mary Sturtevant, it had been her custom to tease him about Diana, Prentice's daughter. Josephine had professed to believe that a genuinely serious affair was developing, at least on Diana's part.

"Josephine," remonstrated Mrs Forrester, "you must not make light of Bob's interest in Diana. I should be most pleased to see Bob select her as his life's partner. Miss Sturtevant is here only for a brief visit, and they have met but once; simply by chance. One cannot be so much attracted to a chance acquaintance as to one who has been a friend since childhood."

"Very wisely spoken, Mother," approved Forrester, with a triumphant look at Josephine.

"I am satisfied to await the developments of Saturday evening," returned Josephine, and finished her breakfast in silence, while his mother explained to Forrester the details of the day's plans.

The knowledge that the solution of the case was now practically out of his hands left Forrester with a sensation of loss. Never before had he felt so thoroughly bereft of an object in life. He rather welcomed, therefore, the information that the household moving would take place on Friday instead of Saturday as originally planned. Throughout the morning he was busily engaged in assisting his mother and sister to pack, in the securing of a motor truck to carry their trunks and bags, and the various other little details connected with the removal of the household for the summer season.

Shortly after luncheon his mother, sister and the servants left in the big car. It was a dark, gray day with low-hanging clouds and a chill wind blowing off the lake. As Forrester stood by the curb watching the car disappear down the street, he found that a light, misty rain was falling. The weather affected him strongly under the circumstances and he returned to the house with a feeling of depression. Forrester seemed to find something sinister about the deserted house. The closing of the front door behind him echoed through the lonely rooms, and the thud of his feet was uncannily loud as he passed down the hall to the library.

Forrester laughed, shook himself and hunted up his pipe.

"The truth is," he said, aloud, as the tobacco glowed under the match, "my nerves are getting ragged."

In spite of the fact that the detectives had assured him that the solution of the mystery was close at hand Forrester could not fully convince himself that the matter was to be settled in so commonplace a way. The discoveries which he had made must surely possess some significance. It did not seem possible that a band of West Side Italians, far away from the oak tree on the North Shore, could be back of the so-called ghostly manifestations of which he had heard so many rumors, and which Green claimed to have actually witnessed. If these apparitions had no connection with the "Friends of the Poor," then what was their purpose?

Busily engaged in his amateur detective work, and full of a certain confidence in his own ability, Forrester had half expected to solve, in a few days, a mystery that had baffled experienced detectives for a year. Now, with the final reckoning only one day away, he realized that he had made practically no progress, except, perhaps, to increase the scope of the mystery. Possibly the fact that he felt himself free to come and go in comparative safety until Saturday had blurred his view of the future. Here in the still, deserted house, however, the misgivings that had been dormant beneath his energetic efforts to solve the problem, now came to the surface. The partial doubt which he had felt the previous evening in respect to the detectives' theories, now reasserted itself with increased force.

While his own theories were mere chimerical pictures, based upon a fanciful explanation of the peculiar facts he had unearthed, Forrester nevertheless had a feeling that they possessed more real substance than was apparent at the present time. Again Forrester laughed and tried to shift his thoughts to the seemingly more logical and matter of fact deductions of the detectives.

During these meditations he had been pacing the library floor, several times refilling his pipe. Now he went to the fireplace and lit the gas logs in an effort to dispel the chilly, gloomy atmosphere that pervaded the room. He drew a chair up to the fireplace and sought more cheerful thoughts in recollections of Mary Sturtevant. This did not help. Aside from the girl's attractive personality, Forrester could not but realize that it was the faint element of mystery that seemed to surround her which had stimulated his curiosity and thrown a glamour about her such as no other girl of his acquaintance had ever possessed. Yet that very element of mystery was a disquieting feature. In spite of any arguments he might devise to ease his own mind, Forrester realized that if he were to tell the men at the detective bureau all the details of his acquaintance with Mary Sturtevant he would create a disagreeable stir. While the peculiar effect of her sudden appearance from nowhere had been partly offset by her letter of introduction to his mother, it still remained an odd coincidence that she should select a home so near the blackmailers' tree, and in addition take such a strong interest in the tree itself. And then there was the reprimand which Joshua intimated she had given him for talking about the tree to a stranger. Moreover, what object could a young woman of her undoubted social position have in leaving her family in the East and renting a big house in a Chicago suburb with only a paid companion?

It was no use. In whatever direction he turned his thoughts Forrester's mind reverted to the mystery of the "Friends of the Poor." Glancing at his watch, he found that these thoughts and speculations had consumed a large part of the afternoon and he decided to get away from the dreary surroundings and gloomy inspirations of the empty house by going out to dinner.

—

The slight drizzle of the afternoon had increased to a heavy downpour of rain which beat loudly on the windows, while a strong east wind roared about the house. The inclemency of the weather increased the feeling of loneliness and isolation which had seized upon Forrester since the departure of his family. He sprang up, therefore, with a sensation of pleased anticipation when the door-bell rang, but paused immediately to reconsider his action.

Most of his friends were already at their summer homes. It did not seem likely that even the few stragglers who might have remained in town would be out on a night like this. For the first time since the affair started Forrester felt like arming himself. He opened the drawer of the library table and took out a revolver which had lain there unused for many years, only to discover that it was unloaded, and as he could think of no place where he might find the necessary cartridges for it, the weapon was useless. He reasoned, however, that its appearance in his hand might in itself be a partial protection, so with the revolver apparently ready for instant use, Forrester went to the front door and opened it.

No one was there, and the street lay apparently deserted in the driving rain.

It was a strange incident and when Forrester returned to the library he wondered whether it was a wise step for him to remain alone in the house that night. He was still debating the question when a half-hour later the telephone bell rang. Picking up the receiver Forrester was relieved to recognize the voice of Prentice on the wire.

"I called at your house a little while ago," apprised Prentice, "and was alarmed that the door-bell was not answered. After thinking it over I decided to phone you."

"There is no one here but myself," replied Forrester. "The folks moved to 'Woodmere' today. I stayed in town because I have a little job to attend to in the morning. That must have been you who rang the bell about a half-hour ago. I did answer the bell – and was amazed when I found there was no one at the door."

"You took a thundering long time to answer," said Prentice. "It seemed to me that I stood a long time in the rain. I am at the Drake hotel now. My car is handy and I will be over in a couple of minutes."

"All right," replied Forrester, "I will be watching for you."

Hanging up the receiver, Forrester went to one of the front windows and took up his promised watch. The car arrived promptly and Forrester opened the door. Prentice hung up his hat and raincoat in the hall and Forrester led the way to the library.