Joan of Arc of the North Woods - Holman Day (best book recommendations .txt) 📗

Latisan's face was illuminated when the drive master was in the room.
"Shaved!" snorted the tyrant. "All duded up and beauing around a table girl. I know all about it. Latisan, you----"
"Just a moment, Mr. Flagg!"
"Shaved, right in the start of the driving season! Shut up! I can see what's happening. I heard you had brought the dynamite. But somebody else told me. Yes, told me other news! I can't depend on you any longer to bring me reports. But you're planting something worse than dynamite under yourself. Parading a girl and keeping me waiting and----"
"Let me warn you, sir. Only my pride in doing a job I have set out to do is keeping me on with you. If you insult that young lady by another word I'll quit you cold, here and now!"
There was a moment of silence.
Rickety Dick, sitting on his stool with a cat in his arms, wriggled as uneasily as did the cat, who had been alarmed by the high voices.
"Talk about dynamite being dangerous!" muttered Flagg. "There's something else----"
But when he looked into Latisan's countenance he lowered the shade of the lamp and did not state what the something else was.
"If you know about the dynamite, sir, there's no need of my saying anything. It's on its way north. I shall start for headwaters at daybreak. I'll be down to report as soon as possible."
"When you get up on the drive, you stay there, Latisan."
"It's my pledged word that I must report to you in person. You insisted on it. I don't propose to give you any chance for come-backs. I shall report, Mr. Flagg."
He walked out.
Soon he heard the pattering of feet behind him on the ledges and he was hailed cautiously by the quavering voice of old Dick.
"Who is she, Mr. Latisan? Who is that girl?" panted Dick; "I saw her when she walked with you. I was side of the road."
"And ran and tattled to Flagg, eh?"
"No--no, sir! It was old Dempsey who came and gossiped. But what's her name?"
"Patsy Jones."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure because she told me so," retorted the drive master. "Her word goes with me."
"But--but----"
"But what?" Latisan's manner was ominous.
"Of course she knows who she is," faltered old Dick. "And my eyesight ain't clear--and it was a long time ago--and my memory ain't good, of course, and----"
"And your wits don't seem to be of the best, either," snapped the young man. "You and Flagg better keep your tongues off that young lady. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mr. Latisan. Yes, sir!"
Latisan stepped back and took hold of Dick by the sleeve of the ragged jacket. "Who did you think she was?"
"I guess I didn't really think--I only dreamed," was the old man's stammering reply. "If you say she's Patsy Jones that's enough for me."
"She says that she is--and that makes it so." Latisan strode on his way.
Rickety Dick lifted his arms, then he lowered them without his "Praise the Lord!"


CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Crowley, shrouded in the evening gloom, tapped on the parlor window the signal tattoo agreed upon between himself and Miss Elsham. The light in the parlor went out promptly and she came and replied to Crowley under the edge of the lifted sash. She had been apprised by her associate of the advent of Miss Kennard on the scene; Crowley had hastened to slip a note under her door.
"You saw 'em start for a walk, did you? Well, you saw me follow 'em, then. Chased 'em to the edge of the falls and hid."
"What sort of talk is she giving him?"
"Talk! I couldn't hear. I don't like water, anyway. I like it less when it bangs down over rocks and stops me from hearing what I want to hear."
"What does she tell you?"
"She has only shot a few words at me like beans out of an air gun. Claims she's here on the case."
"Do you believe that?"
"I don't dare to tell her that I don't believe it--considering the way she stands in with Mern. It may be his afterthought--he's a bird that flies funny sometimes, you know."
"Leave her to me; I'll dredge her to-morrow."
"That'll be good dope; she'll have to bring in your meals as soon as you give orders to Brophy."
"They'll have to be snappy orders to make him stop bringing 'em himself," said Miss Elsham. "The old fool stood around while I was eating supper and told me how much money he has saved and how lonesome he is since his wife died. I have told him to send Latisan to me this evening on a matter of business, no matter how late Latisan comes in. He's too jealous to give the word, I do believe."
"I can't understand the hang of it--her grabbing him so quick," lamented Crowley. "It's a devil of a note when we have to take time off the main job to detect out a mystery right in our own concern! What are you going to say about her when you write up your report to-night?"
He was referring to the inviolable rule of the Vose-Mern office that a daily report must be made by each operative.
"Nothing, Buck. Let's tread easy. We may seem to be trying to tell Mern his business. She's here and he must be perfectly well aware that she's here. Don't you write anything in your report. Leave her to me."
"All right! You handle it."
Then Crowley departed and sat down in his room and put into his report a full statement about Miss Kennard's arrival and actions and his own activity in regard to her. Crowley had elaborate ideas about the art of double-crossing everybody, even his associates in the agency. He figured that it could not hurt anything to give Mern a full report on all matters; and if there was anything peculiar in Kennard's presence there, Crowley's assiduity would contrast to his credit and shame Elsham's negligence. He had frequently made good hits by cajoling fellow operatives to suppress certain matters which he had then reported to his advantage with Mern. And Elsham, in this case, was claiming to be in charge, making him only the watchdog of her safety.
Crowley growled derogatory comments on her temptress qualities when he peered past the edge of his curtain in the morning and looked down on Latisan mounting into his jumper seat. The young man did not seem to be in an amiable or a confident state of mind, and his plain dolor comforted Crowley somewhat, even though Latisan was going back to the drive.
The drive master had not been able to see Miss Patsy Jones that morning, as he had hoped; he had no excuse to hang around the tavern till she did appear. Brophy served the breakfast; he declared that he was going to hang on to that table girl if good treatment could prevail, and he was never going to ask her to wait on early breakfasters.
Crowley got additional comfort out of Latisan's loud proclamation that he would be down in Adonia again very soon. The drive master seemed to be striving to draw somebody's attention to that fact. He cast looks behind him at the upper windows of the tavern when he drove away.
That day, according to the plans he had made in New York, Mr. Crowley took pains to give himself an occupation in Adonia; loafers who were not bashful were quizzing him about the nature of his business up there.
The barber had one corner of the village pool room; Crowley made a trade to occupy another corner. He opened up a case of cheap jewelry and traded it by day and raffled it evenings; he was not molested in his sporting propositions, as he called the procedure, after he had arranged a private talk with the deputy sheriff. Crowley, with his fancy waistcoat and his tip-tilted hat, fitted the role he was playing. He was right in the path of all the gossip that traveled to and fro; therefore, the role suited his needs.
His nightly conferences with Miss Elsham at the parlor window were not pleasant; Miss Elsham was not in a state of mind which conduced to cordial relations.
She had not been able to "dredge" Miss Kennard. That young lady waited on Miss Elsham, but not with a tray. After a talk with Brophy, who agreed with her absolutely and placatingly, begging her to suit herself in all her acts provided she would stay on, Miss Kennard went into the parlor, closed the door carefully, and told Miss Elsham where that young woman got off as an exacting lady of leisure. "Mr. Mern would not allow it--one operative doing menial work for another. If you choose to come into the dining room, that's different."
Miss Kennard then turned and walked out. She refused to stay with Miss Elsham and have a talk. "We are ordered to be very careful up here," she reminded the operative. Miss Elsham was impressed. It was as if Mern were sending new cautions by this latest arrival.
Miss Kennard, in her dabblings in psychoanalysis, had secured some concrete aids for action in addition to the vague abstractions which had come into her mind when Latisan had so naively confessed on the cliff above the cataract. She understood fully the potency of a suggestion which left a lot to the imagination of the other party; only a bit of a suggestion is needed--and it must be left to itself, like yeast, to induce fermentation. For that reason Miss Kennard abruptly walked out and left Miss Elsham alone to reflect--not running away, but retiring with the air of one who had said a sufficient number of words to the wise.
Miss Elsham, in her conference at the window with Crowley that evening, revealed how actively her batch of ponderings had been set to working by that bit of suggestion. Crowley, listening, wished privately that he could call back that report to Mern; Mern had repeatedly warned him to keep to his place as a strong-arm operative, bluntly bearing down on the fact that Crowley's brains were not suited for the finer points of machination. According to Miss Elsham's figuring--and Crowley acknowledged her innate brightness--the plot had thickened and Kennard, known to all operatives as Mern's close confidant, was up there as chief performer.
Several days elapsed before Crowley--perspiring whenever his worries assailed him--got any word from Mern. The chief wrote guardedly, and Crowley read the letter over a dozen times without being exactly sure just what course he was to pursue. The truth was, Mr. Mern himself was doing so much guessing as to Miss Kennard that he was in no state of mind to give clean-cut commands.
Crowley's letter was the first intimation to the chief of the whereabouts of his confidential secretary. She had not resigned, nor had she asked for a leave of absence, nor had she bothered to write or telephone; she did not show up at the office--that was all!
Lida, having discarded ethics, had decided to play her game from an ambuscade, just as the Vose-Mern agency did its business.
To give any information to the foes of Echford Flagg would be giving odds--and she was working single-handed and deserved odds for herself. She resolved to make her game as peculiar as possible--to keep all of them guessing--to oblige them to take the initiative against her if they should find out the secret of her strange actions. The element of time entered largely into her calculations: every day on which she stood between them and Ward Latisan--every day that he devoted to the drive--was a day to be charged to her side of the ledger; and there are not many days in the driving