The Four Pools Mystery - Jean Webster (uplifting book club books .TXT) 📗

and inquired reassuringly, "Well, Polly, what's the trouble?"

"You tell him," said Polly to Terry, as she settled herself to cry again.

"I'll tell you," said Terry, glancing warily at me, "but it's a secret, remember. You mustn't let any of those horrid newspaper men get hold of it. Miss Mathers would hate awfully to have anything like this get into the papers."

"Oh, go on, Terry," said I, crossly, "if you've got anything to tell, for heaven's sake tell it!"

"Well, as far as we'd got when you interrupted, was that that afternoon in the cave she and Radnor had somehow got separated from the rest of the party and gone on ahead. They sat down to wait for the others on the fallen column, and while they were waiting Radnor asked her to marry him, for the seventh—or was it the eighth time?"

"The seventh, I think," said Polly.

"It's happened so often that, she's sort of lost track; but anyway, she replied by asking him if he knew the truth about the ghost. He said, yes, he did, but he couldn't tell her; it was somebody else's secret. On his word of honor though there was nothing that he was to blame for. She said she wouldn't marry a man who had secrets. He said that unless she took him now, she would never have the chance again; it was the last time he was going to ask her—is that straight, Miss Mathers?"

"Y-yes," sobbed Polly from the depths of her cushion.

Terry proceeded with a fast broadening smile; it was evident that he enjoyed the recital.

"And then being naturally angry that any man should presume to propose for the last time, she proceeded to be 'perfectly horrid' to him.—Go on, Miss Mathers. That's as far as you'd got."

"I—I told him—you won't tell anyone?"

"No."

"I told him I'd decided to marry Jim Mattison."

"Ah—" said Terry. "Now we're getting at it! If you don't mind my asking, Miss Mathers, was that just a bluff on your part, or had Mr. Mattison really asked you?"

Polly sat up and eyed him with a sparkle of resentment.

"Certainly, he'd asked me—a dozen times."

"I beg pardon!" murmured Terry. "So now you're engaged to Mr. Mattison?"

"Oh, no!" cried Polly. "Jim doesn't know I said it—I didn't mean it; I just wanted to make Radnor mad."

"I see! So it was a bluff after all? Were you successful in making him mad?"

She nodded dismally.

"What did he say?"

"Oh, he was awfully angry! He said that if he never amounted to anything it would be my fault."

"And then what?"

"We heard the others coming and he started off. I called after him and asked him where he was going, and he said he was going to the d—devil."

Polly began to cry again, and Terry chuckled slightly.

"As a good many other young men have said under similar circumstances. But where he did go, was to the hotel; and there, it appears, he drank two glasses of brandy and swore at the stable boy.—Is that all, Miss Mathers?"

"Yes; it's the last time I ever saw him and he thinks I'm engaged to Jim Mattison."

"See here, Polly," said I with some excusable heat, "now why in thunder didn't you tell me all this before?"

"You didn't ask me."

"She was afraid that it would get into the papers," said Terry, soothingly. "It would be a terrible scandal to have anything like that get out. The fact that Radnor Gaylord was likely to be hanged for a murder he never committed, was in comparison a minor affair."

Polly turned upon him with a flash of gray eyes.

"I was going to tell before the trial. I didn't know the inquest made any difference. I would have told the coroner the morning he came to take my testimony, only he brought Jim Mattison with him as a witness, and I couldn't explain before Jim."

"That would have been awkward," Terry agreed.

"Polly," said I, severely. "This is inexcusable! If you had explained to me in the first place, the jury would never have remanded Radnor for trial."

"But I thought you would find the real murderer, and then Radnor would be set free. It would be awful to tell that story before a whole room full of people and have Jim Mattison hear it. I detest Jim Mattison!"

"Be careful what you say," said Terry. "You may have to take Jim Mattison after all. Radnor Gaylord will never ask you again."

"Then I'll ask him!" said Polly.

Terry laughed and rose.

"He's in a bad hole, Miss Mathers, but I'm not sure but that I envy him after all."

Polly dimpled through her tears; this was the language she understood.

"Good by," she said. "You'll remember your promise?"

"Never a syllable will I breathe," said Terry, and he put a hand on my shoulder and marched me off.

"She's a fascinating young person," he observed, as we turned into the road.

"You are not the first to discover that," said I.

"I fancy I'm not!" he retorted with a sidewise glance at me.

Terry gazed at the landscape a few moments with a pensive light in his eyes, then he threw back his head and laughed.

"Thank heaven, women don't go in for crime to any great extent! You're never safe in forming any theory about 'em—their motives and their actions don't match."

He paused to light a cigar and as soon as he got it well started took up the conversation again.

"It's just as I suspected in regard to Rad, though I will say the papers furnished mighty few clues. It was the coat that put me on the track coupled with his behavior at the hotel. You see his emotions when he came out of that cave were mixed. There was probably a good deal of disappointment and grief down below his anger, but that for the moment was decidedly in the lead. He had been badly treated, and he knew it. What's more, he didn't care who else knew it. He was in a thoroughly vicious mood and ready to wreak his anger on the first thing that came to hand. That happened to be his horse. By the time he got home he had expended the most of his temper and his disappointment had come to the top. You found him wrestling with that. By evening he had brought his philosophy into play, and had probably decided to brace up and try again. And that," he finished, "is the whole story of our young gentleman's erratic behavior."

"I wonder I didn't think of it myself," I said.

Terry smiled and said nothing.

"Radnor is naturally not loquacious about the matter," he resumed presently. "For one thing, because he does not wish to drag Polly's name into it, for another, I suppose he feels that if anyone is to do the explaining, she ought to be the one. He supposed that she would be present at the inquest and that her testimony would bring out sufficient facts to clear him. When he found that she was not there, and that her testimony did not touch on any important phase of the matter, he simply shut his mouth and said, 'Very well! If she won't tell, I won't.' Also, the coroner's manner was unfortunate. He showed that his sympathy was on the other side; and Radnor stubbornly determined not to say one word more than was dragged out of him by main force. It is much the attitude of the little boy who has been unfairly punished, and who derives an immense amount of satisfaction from the thought of how sorry his friends will be when he is dead. And now, I think we have Rad's case well in hand. In spite of the fact that he seems bound to be hung, we shall not have much difficulty in getting him off."

"But what I can't understand," I grumbled, "is why that little wretch didn't tell me a word of all this. She came and informed me off-hand that he was innocent and asked me to clear him, with never a hint that she could explain the most suspicious circumstance against him."

"You've got me," Terry laughed. "I give up when it comes to finding out why women do things. If you had asked her, you know, she would have told you; but you never said a word about it."

"How could I ask her when I didn't know anything about it?"

"I managed to ask her," said Terry, "and what's more," he added gloomily, "I promised it shouldn't go any further—that is, than is necessary to get Rad off. Now don't you call that pretty tough luck, after coming 'way down here just to find out the truth, not to be allowed to print it when I've got it? How in the deuce am I to account for Rad's behavior without mentioning her?"

"You needn't have promised," I suggested.

"Oh, well," Terry grinned, "I'm human!"

I let this pass and he added hastily, "We've disposed of Jeff; we've disposed of Radnor, but the real murderer is still to be found."

"And that," I declared, "is Cat-Eye Mose."

"It's possible," agreed Terry with a shrug. "But I have just the tiniest little entering wedge of a suspicion that the real murderer is not Cat-Eye Mose."

CHAPTER XXI MR. TERENCE KIRKWOOD PATTEN OF NEW YORK

"There is Luray," I said, pointing with my whip to the scattered houses of the village as they lay in the valley at our feet.

Terry stretched out a hand and pulled the horses to a standstill.

"Whoa, just a minute till I get my bearings. Now, in which direction is the cave?"

"It extends all along underneath us. The entrance is over there in the undergrowth about a mile to the east."

"And the woods extend straight across the mountain in an unbroken line?"

"Pretty much so. There are a few farms scattered in."

"How about the farmers? Are they well-to-do around here?"

"I think on the whole they are."

"Which do they employ mostly to work in the fields, negroes or white men?"

"As to that I can't say. It depends largely on circumstances. I think the smaller farms are more likely to employ white men."

"Let me see," said Terry, "this is just about planting time. Are the farmers likely to take on extra men at this season?"

"No, I don't think so; harvest time is when they are more likely to need help."

"Farming is new to me," laughed Terry. "East Side problems don't involve it. A man of Mose's habits could hide pretty effectually in those woods if he chose." He scanned the hills again and then brought his eyes back to the village. "I suppose we might as well go on to the hotel first. I should like to interview some of the people there. And by the way," he added, "it's as well not to let them know I'm a friend of yours—or a newspaper man either. I think I'll be a detective. Your young man from Washington seems to have made quite a stir in regard to the robbery; we'll see if I can't beat him. There's nothing that so impresses a rural population as a detective. They look upon him as omnipotent and omniscient, and every man squirms before him in the fear that his own little sins will be brought to light." Terry laughed in prospect. "Introduce me as a detective by all means!"

"Anything you like," I laughed in return. "I'll introduce you as the Pope if you think it will do any good." There was no keeping Terry suppressed, and his exuberance was contagious. I was beginning to feel light-hearted myself.

The hotel at Luray was a long rambling structure which had been casually added to from time to time. It was painted a sickly, mustard yellow (a color which, the landlord assured me, would last forever) but it's brilliancy was somewhat toned