Dorothy Dixon and the Double Cousin

For some reason of her own, Laura Lawson had become affability itself. And for this Dorothy gave thanks. That she disliked this truly beautiful creature was only natural. But it is much more pleasant to lunch with a person who puts herself out to be charming and affable, no matter what your private opinion of the other’s character may be.

The dining room proved to be a low-ceiled apartment paneled in white pine; heavy beams of the satin-finished wood overhead, and on the walls several colorful landscapes in oils, evidently the works of artists who knew and loved this Ridge country. A cheerful log fire burned brightly on the open hearth beneath a high mantelpiece. Outside, the heavy snow continued to drive past frosted window-panes, but within all was warmth and coziness.

Dorothy enjoyed the meal thoroughly. Like most girls, she revelled in luxury when it came her way. Not only was her hostess an interesting and entertaining conversationalist, the delicious food served by Tunbridge and a second man in plum-colored knee breeches, added materially to her pleasure. She was really sorry when the butler lighted his mistress’ cigarette and Mrs. Lawson rose from the table.

“I have no work for you this afternoon, Janet,” said the lady, as they strolled into the spacious hall with its suits of polished armor and trophies of war and the chase decorating the walls. “I have some work to complete with Doctor Winn, so I won’t be free to entertain you. There are periodicals and novels in the library. If it weren’t such a beastly day, I would suggest a walk.”

“Oh, I don’t mind a snowstorm!” Dorothy smiled at her. “I’d love to be out in it for a while.”

“But I’m afraid you might get lost. The blizzard is driving out of the northeast – and that means something in this country. You’ll find it more disagreeable than you think.”

“I’m not afraid to walk in a blizzard,” Dorothy argued, “we used to do it a lot at school – I love it.”

“Oh, very well, then,” went on Mrs. Lawson. “I used to enjoy that sort of thing myself. Somebody had better go with you, though. Let me see – ” She hesitated. “Oh, yes – Gretchen will be just the person. She’s a nice little thing – a native of Ridgefield, you know. Gretchen can show you round the place, and there’ll be no chance of your getting lost.”

Dorothy was amused by this pretended concern for her safety. She knew that Mrs. Lawson feared she might take it into her head to walk to the railroad station and board the first train back to town. Gretchen as guide and chaperone would be able to forestall anything like that. Mrs. Lawson was not yet sure of the new secretary!

Dorothy’s features betrayed no sign of her thoughts. “That will be ever so much pleasanter than going alone,” she agreed. “Gretchen seems to be a sweet girl. I saw her this morning when she brought my breakfast and unpacked my clothes. I’m sorry, though, that you can’t come too.” Deception, she found, was becoming a habit when treating with her hostess.

“Thank you, my dear – I’m sorry, too.” Mrs. Lawson went toward the tasselled bell rope that hung beside the fireplace. “Run upstairs now and get into warm things. I’ll ring for Gretchen and have her meet you down here in quarter of an hour.”

Fifteen minutes afterward, warmly dressed in whipcord jodhpurs, a heavy sweater and knee-length leather coat of dark green, Dorothy came out of her room onto the gallery, pulling a white wool skating cap well down over her ears. With a white wool scarf twisted about her throat, the long ends thrown back over her shoulders, she looked ready for any winter sport as she ran lightly down the stairs, the rubber soles of her high arctics making no sound on the broad oaken steps.

Gretchen, well bundled up in sweater and heavy tweed skirt was waiting for her.

“You certainly do look like a picture on a Christmas magazine cover, Miss Jordan,” the girl exclaimed, while they walked to the front door. “I’m glad you’ve got warm gauntlets. It’s mighty cold out – you’ll need them.”

Dorothy laughed gaily and swung open the door. “Nothing could be more becoming than your own costume, Gretchen. That light blue skating set is just the color of your eyes.”

“That,” chuckled Gretchen, “is the real reason I bought it.”

They were outside now and standing under the wide porte-cochere of glass and wrought iron.

“It’s glorious out here, and not too cold, either.” Dorothy sniffed the sharp air enthusiastically. “I hate staying indoors on a wild day like this. Look at those big flakes spinning down and sideslipping into the drifts. It makes one glad to be alive.”

“You said it, Miss Jordan. I love it myself – though I never thought of snowflakes being like airplanes before. Which way do you want to go?”

“You’re the leader, Gretchen. Anywhere you say suits me.”

“Then let’s tramp over to the pond, Miss Jordan. The ice ought to be holding. We’ll stop at the garage and fetch a broom along. There’s too much snow for skating, but we might make a slide.”

“That will be fun,” agreed Dorothy, as they came down the steps and swung along the white expanse of driveway. “I haven’t done anything like that since I was a kid. How far’s the pond from here?”

“About half a mile. Doctor Winn owns several hundred acres. It’s down yonder in a hollow. This time of year when the trees are bare, you can see it plainly from the house. Today there’s too much snow.”

“There certainly is plenty of it!” Dorothy was ploughing through the fluffy white mass nearly up to her knees. “A good eighteen inches must have fallen already and it’s drifting fast. If it doesn’t stop by tonight, Winncote will be snowed in for a while. What’s that building over there, Gretchen – gray stone, isn’t it?”

“That’s the laboratory, miss. It’s really a wing of the house. The stables are just beyond, but this storm’s so thick, it blots them out. Well, here we are at the garage. If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll step inside and get a broom.”

“Get two if you can,” suggested Dorothy. “Then we’ll both get some exercise, and they’ll come in handy while we’re getting through the drifts.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Gretchen. She disappeared through a door in the side of the building.

Dorothy looked about her. Rolling clouds of windswept snowflakes made it impossible to see objects more than a few yards away with any distinctness. The dark shadow of low clouds painted the white of her landscape a cold, dull gray. But she noticed, as she waited, that the storm was driving in gusts, that occasionally there would be a short lull when the sun, tinging the sky with rose and yellow, seemed fighting to break its way through to this white-blanketed world. Then Gretchen, a broom in each hand, joined her.

“Whew! that place was stuffy,” she said, handing one of the brooms to Dorothy, and starting ahead at right angles from the way they had come. “Hanley made a fuss giving me two – he would! It’s a wonder the cars don’t melt in there. He keeps the place like an oven. All the help from the city is like that. They can’t seem to get warm enough, and the way they hate fresh air is a caution! I roomed with Sadie, the other chambermaid, when I first came, and you won’t believe it, but that girl had nailed our window shut so it couldn’t be opened! I spoke to Mr. Tunbridge next morning, and he gave me a room of my own. I always did like Mr. Tunbridge. He’s a real gentleman, he is.”

They forged ahead through the drifts to the crossfire of Gretchen’s light chatter, and Dorothy was given a series of entertaining stories concerning the habits of the Winncote servants and their life below-stairs. It was rough going with the storm in their faces, and Gretchen eventually ceased her gossiping from sheer lack of breath. The ground began to slope gently downward, and finally they came to a belt of trees in a hollow. Fifty yards farther on, a broad expanse of white marked the extent of Winncote Pond beneath its thick, flat quilt of snow.

“Think the ice will hold?” Dorothy walked to the brink of the little lake. “I’d hate to go in on a day like this.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I was down here for an hour yesterday afternoon with my skates before the snow began, and it was much warmer then. The ice was wonderful – slick as glass and solid as a rock.”

By dint of considerable exercise they cleared two narrow paths that ran parallel across the ice. Then they commenced a series of sliding contests, each girl on her own ice track. Starting at a line in the snow a few yards above the low bank, they would race forward to the brink and shoot out on the ice, vying with each other to see who could slide the farthest. There were several tumbles at first, but the deep snow along the sides of the tracks prevented bad bumps. Soon, however, they both became adepts at the sport. Dorothy, aided by her extra weight, for she was at least twenty pounds heavier than little Gretchen, invariably won.

After a half an hour of this rather violent sport, they cleared the snow from a fallen tree trunk and sat down for a rest. Here in the hollow, surrounded by trees, the wind lost a great deal of its force. But the snow continued to fall unabated, and their hot breath clouded like steam in the cold air. Their cheeks were tingling crimson from the racing, and both felt in high good spirits.

“I can’t understand why so many rich people go south every winter,” Gretchen said earnestly. “I wouldn’t miss out on this fun – the snow and the skating, tobogganing – for anything in the world.”

“People like that,” decreed Dorothy, “just don’t know how to live. You can have lots of fun in summer, of course. I don’t know which I love the best. But this sort of thing makes you feel just grand. It certainly put the pep into – .” She stopped short and sprang to her feet. From somewhere close by and seemingly below her, had come a low, moaning sound.

Gretchen jumped up. Her doll-like face with its round, blue eyes took on a look of startled wonder. “What was that?” she cried. “It sounded as if I – as if I was sitting on it!”

Again came the low cry in a weird, minor key.

“You were. It’s coming from the inside of this log. An animal of some kind.”

“Why, I guess you’re right. Whatever it is, the thing gave me the heebie-jeebies for a minute.”

The snow had drifted over the butt of the half-rotted tree. Dorothy took her broom and swept it clear.

“The log’s hollow!” she exclaimed and bent down. “Yes, there’s something in there – I can see its eyes – come here, Gretchen! You can see for yourself.”

“Not me!” declared that young woman. “I don’t want to get bit – I mean, bitten, miss.”

“Oh, never mind the grammar.” Dorothy was almost standing on her head, trying to get a better view. “But do cut out the polite trimmings when we’re alone. You’re Gretchen and I’m Dorothy – savez?”

“All right – Dorothy. But please be careful. That thing may jump out at you.”

“I wish it would. Then I’d know what it is. And whatever it is, the animal in there can’t be much bigger than a rabbit. The hole isn’t wide enough.”

“Maybe it is a rabbit.” Gretchen came nearer.

“Did you ever hear a rabbit make a noise like that?” Dorothy’s tone was disdainful.

“Then – maybe it’s a wildcat!” said Gretchen fearfully.

“Well, if it is, it’s a small one. Here, puss – puss. The silly thing is too far in to reach. She just blinks at me.”

“Perhaps she’s hurt and crawled in there to die, Dorothy.”

“Aren’t you cheerful! She probably crawled in there to get out of the storm, and is half-frozen, poor thing.”

“Well, I don’t know what we’re going to do about it,” sighed Gretchen, still keeping her distance.

Once more the low moan came from the log, but now that the end was free from snow, the sound was much clearer.

“That’s no wildcat, either!” Dorothy twisted her head, first to the right, then to the left, in an attempt to get a better light on the log’s occupant. “There’s too much of a whine in that cry. The thing’s probably a young fox. How does one call a fox, Gretchen? I’m hanged if I know.”

“Nor me, neither, Dorothy. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of anybody wanting to call one.”

They both laughed. “You don’t seem to know much about foxes,” teased Dorothy. “Didn’t you ever see a fox?”

“No. But my father says the way they steal eggs and suck them is a caution.”

“Well,” admitted Dorothy, “we can’t stand around here all day, trying to get frozen foxes out of hollow logs. I’ll try whistling, and you can make a noise like a sucked egg. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to leave him in his lair.” With a wink at the giggling Gretchen, she bent down again and whistled shrilly. “Here, boy!” she called. “Come on out to your mama!”

There was a scrambling noise within the log, and Gretchen started for the pond.

“Oh, be careful, Dorothy! Do be careful!” she cried, as she saw her friend gather a small creature into her arms. “What is it, anyway – is it a fox?”

“No, a first cousin.” Dorothy shook the ends of her wool scarf free from snow and wrapped them around the small animal.

“A first cousin?” Gretchen came nearer. “What in the world do you mean by that?”

“Come and take a look,” her friend invited. “He won’t bite you, will you, boy?”

Gretchen saw her pat a little black nose that poked its way out of the scarf. A long pointed head, brindle and white, in which were set two snapping black eyes, followed the nose. “Why, why, it’s a fox terrier – a fox terrier puppy!” she gasped. “How do you suppose he ever came to crawl into that log?”

Dorothy patted the dog’s head. “Got lost in the storm, I guess. The poor little chap can’t be over three months old. Does he belong up at the house?”

“No, he doesn’t. What’s more, none of the people who live around here have a fox terrier pup that I know of.”

Dorothy examined the pup’s front paws, but did so very gently. “This little man has come a long way.” She covered him again. “The bottom of his feet show it. They’re cut and badly swollen. And he’s half-frozen and starved into the bargain, I’ll bet. Let’s go back to the house and make him comfortable.”

“I’ll carry the brooms,” said Gretchen. “You have an armful, with him. By the way, you’re going to keep him, aren’t you?”

“Surest thing you know! That is, unless someone comes to claim him.”

They trudged off through the trees and up the hill, Gretchen shouldering the brooms.

“What are you going to call him?” she asked, after a while.

“What do you think?”

“Why, I don’t know. Wait a minute, though – there’s a girl who lives over in Silvermine named Dorothea Gutmann. Daddy sometimes does work for her father. Dorothea has a fox terrier pup and she calls him ‘Professor.’ Do you know why?”

“I give up,” said Dorothy, floundering through the snow beside her. “Why does Dorothea Gutmann call her fox terrier pup Professor?”

“Because,” smiled Gretchen in delight, “he just about ate up a dictionary!”

Dorothy laughed merrily, and hugged the warm little bundle in her arms. “And when you’ve got outside a lot of words like that, even a pup would know as much as the average professor, I s’pose.”

“That’s the way Dorothea thought about it. I’ve been over to the Gutmanns a couple of times with Daddy and her dog looks enough like yours to be a twin!”

“We run into doubles nowadays, every day!” Dorothy chuckled. “First it’s Janet and me who can’t be told apart. Then it’s Dorothea’s dog and mine. I know her, too, by the way. She’s in the New Canaan Junior High. But I haven’t seen her puppy. Our names are almost alike, too, but not quite, thank goodness. If any more of this double identity business comes along, I’ll just have to give up. A girl’s got to have some sort of a personality all her own, you know.”

“I wouldn’t let that worry me,” said Gretchen. “There’s only one Dorothy Dixon, after all.”

“Thanks for those kind words, Gretchen. That’s really very sweet of you, though. If the pup was a lady, I’d call him ‘Gretchen’. Since he isn’t, ‘Professor’ will do very nicely. We’ll try him on a dictionary when we get home, that is, after he’s had some nice warm bread and milk, and a good sleep.”

“If,” smiled Gretchen, “what you said just now was meant for a compliment – well, I’m glad Professor is not a lady. You’d better go on to the house, while I drop these brooms in here at the garage. I’ll come to your room just as soon as I can slip into my uniform, and I’ll bring up the bread and milk.”

“I always knew you were a dear,” said Dorothy, and she continued to push her way on toward the house.

Chapter XV

TEA AND ORDERS

After she had changed her clothes and fed the famished pup with a bowl of warm milk and bread, Dorothy took him down to the library. Gretchen brought a small open basket and a blanket and they made him a bed near the open fire. Professor promptly went to sleep, and his mistress curled up in a deep chair beside him, reading and dozing for the rest of the afternoon. To amuse Gretchen, she had placed a dictionary near the basket, to see if Professor would follow his double’s example and so justify his name. When he awoke, however, about four o’clock, he merely jumped out of his bed on to the book, and up to Dorothy’s lap, where he went to sleep again.

“Good ole pup!” Dorothy rubbed his smooth, warm head between his ears. “You show your intelligence by using the dictionary as a stepping stone to better things, don’t you, Prof!”

She yawned, closed her book, and promptly went to sleep again herself.

She awoke with a start, to find Mrs. Lawson smiling down at her. Tunbridge was laying the tea-things on a table at the other side of the fire. “Well, my dear,” the lady said, her eyes on the fox terrier, “I see you’ve found a new friend.”

“Oh, yes, isn’t he just too darling? I found him out in the blizzard, he was half frozen and almost starved!” She went on to tell Mrs. Lawson about it.

“I’m afraid I’m not very fond of animals, Janet.” Dorothy noticed that she did not attempt to touch the puppy. “I don’t dislike them, you understand, but somehow they never seem to like me.”

“That’s too bad,” said Dorothy. “I do hope you won’t mind my keeping him – at least until we learn who his owner is?”

Laura Lawson looked doubtful. “Well, I don’t mind. But – this is Doctor Winn’s house, you know, and his decision, after all, is the one that counts. You will have to ask him about keeping the dog, Janet.”

“Is Doctor Winn going to have tea with us, Mrs. Lawson?”

“He most certainly is, my dear. That is, if you ladies will pour him a cup.”

Dorothy glanced up, and beside her stood an old gentleman, very tall and spare, but bowed with the weight of his years. She knew that the scientist was well over eighty. Catching up the fox terrier, she rose to her feet.

“How do you do, Doctor Winn?” She smiled and offered him her hand.

The old gentleman bent over it with courtly grace. “Good afternoon, Miss Janet Jordan. Welcome to Winncote.” Merry gray eyes twinkled at her from behind pince-nez attached to a broad black ribbon. An aristocrat of the old school, Dorothy thought, as she studied his handsome, clean shaven face crisscrossed with the tiny wrinkles of advanced age. She had imagined him to be quite a different sort of person. His next words proved that he read her thoughts.

“You expected to see a musty old fellow, with a long white beard, wearing a smock stained by chemicals, eh?” He chuckled softly. “Now, tell me, young lady, isn’t that so? Though I admit these flannel slacks and old Norfolk jacket are hardly fashionable habiliments when one is taking tea with ladies!”

He released her hand and smiled a greeting to Mrs. Lawson. The second footman, he of the plum-colored knee-breeches, set the tea table before that young matron, under the supervision of the stately Tunbridge.

Dorothy liked this gallant old scientist and his courtly ways. Her own eyes sparkled gaily back at him. “Yes, you did surprise me, Doctor Winn,” she confessed. “Please don’t think I’m being forward, but – but you seem much more like the English fox-hunting squires I’ve read about, than the world-renowned chemist you really are, with stacks of letters after your name. But ever so much nicer, and jollier, you know!”

Doctor Winn beamed. “Now that, my dear, is a most charming compliment. Old fellows like me aren’t used to compliments from young ladies, either. Do sit down again, please, and tell me how you like Winncote and our New England snowstorms. We old people need young folks around. I can see that we are going to be good friends.”

He sat down in a chair the butler drew up for him.

“Mrs. Lawson will tell you,” replied Dorothy, “that I love it out here in the country.” She accepted a cup of tea from Tunbridge and added sugar and a slice of lemon. The butler was followed by his liveried assistant, bearing silver platters of hot, buttered scones and tiny iced cakes. Professor immediately began to show interest in the proceedings. Dorothy held him firmly out of harm’s way, and placed her tea and eatables on the broad arm of her chair.

Mrs. Lawson looked up from her place behind the shining silver and old china of the tea table. She smiled graciously. “Oh, yes, Janet loves blizzards, too, Doctor Winn. She went out for a walk this afternoon and acquired a fox terrier puppy, as you see.”

“And naturally, she wants to keep him.” The old gentleman leaned forward in his chair, the better to look at Professor. “You certainly may, Janet. And by the way, I hope you’ll agree that it’s an old man’s privilege to call you by your first name?”

“Oh, that is sweet of you!” Dorothy cried delightedly, and the Doctor’s chuckle echoed her pleasure.

“The dog’s got a fine head – a very fine head, indeed. If anybody advertises for him, or comes to claim him, I’ll take pleasure in buying the puppy for you.”

“Why, you’re nicer every minute,” declared Dorothy. “Isn’t he, Professor?”

The pup yawned with great indifference, which set all three of them laughing. His mistress put him in his blanket where he promptly curled up and fell into slumber once more.

“I sadly fear,” said Doctor Winn, as he polished his pince-nez with a white silk handkerchief, “that you are a good deal of a flirt Janet. But inasmuch as I am old enough to be your grandfather, or great-grandfather, for that matter, you are pardoned with a reprimand.” He chuckled deep in his throat, a habit he had when pleased. “Now tell me, how you happened to find him out in the snow.”

Dorothy recounted the story in detail. When she came to the part about Gretchen’s fear of the wildcat and the fox, even Mrs. Lawson, who was none too sure she liked the turn things were taking, broke into a merry peal of laughter.

“Capital, capital!” Doctor Winn beamed. “I only wish I’d been there to see it. But why, may I ask, do you call him Professor?”

Dorothy explained about the dictionary and Gretchen’s idea of the pup’s resemblance to Dorothea Gutmann’s fox terrier.

“Better and better,” exclaimed the Doctor. “This is the jolliest tea we’ve had in this house for ages. We need young people around us to be really happy. You and I and Martin, Laura, have been working too hard of late. ‘All work and no play’ – We’ve been bothering too much about things scientific, and neglecting things personal. Well now, we can rest a while, and become human beings again.”

Mrs. Lawson leaned forward eagerly. “Then, the formula is complete?” she asked in a low voice, in which Dorothy detected the barely controlled tremor of excitement.

“Yes, indeed. Finished and locked in my safe. I added the final figures and quantities three-quarters of an hour ago. Tomorrow, or if the weather doesn’t clear by then, the next day at latest, I shall take it on to Washington.”

“I congratulate you, Doctor. And I know that once it is in the hands of the government, a great load will be taken off your mind.”

“You’re right, my dear, you are right. I’ve been jumpy as a cat with eight of its lives gone for the past year.” He turned to Dorothy. “Thank goodness, you’re young and without responsibilities, Janet. There are so many unscrupulous people about nowadays. If those papers were lost or stolen, there is no telling what would happen. I dare not think of it. The whole world might suffer if that formula got into the wrong hands!”

Dorothy could not help thinking that the world at large would be much better off if the formula were destroyed. She, therefore, merely nodded and looked impressed. How this gentle, kindly old man could have brought himself to invent such a ghastly menace to life, she found it difficult to understand.