Blacksheep! Blacksheep! - Meredith Nicholson (freenovel24 .txt) 📗

it while the weight prevented its escape. A gust of wind caught it as Archie passed and drove it across his path, while the children with screams of glee pursued it. The string caught under his hat brim and he seized it just as the girl, outdistancing her brother, plunged into him.

"Edith!" called the mother, rising quickly. "Children, you mustn't go into the path. There's plenty of room here for you to play."

"The wind was a little too much for you that time!" laughed Archie, as the children, panting from their run, waited for the restoration of their plaything. He measured the buoyancy of the balloon against the ballast, and let go of it with a little toss that seemed to free it, then he sprang up and caught it amid their excited cries.

The little girl curtsied as he put the string in her hand.

"Thank you very much!" they chorused.

Mrs. Congdon had walked a little way toward the path but now that the children were again scampering over the lawn she paused and made a slight, the slightest, inclination of the head as Archie lifted his hat and continued on his way.

Edith was the name used in the telegram he had found in the Bailey Harbor house, and this coupled with his closer view of the child disposed of Archie's last hope that after all it might not be Mrs. Congdon and her children he had stumbled upon. She had no business to throw herself across his path, he fumed. The appearance of Putney Congdon's father at Cornford had shaken him sufficiently, but that he should be haunted by the man's wife and children angered him. He wanted to fly from the park and hide himself again in his room at the Governor's house, but he was without will to leave. The decent thing for him to do was to take the first train for Bailey, and begin diligent search for Putney Congdon, dead or alive. He had no right to assume that the man's serious injury or death would be any consolation to the wife and children. And the quarrel between husband and wife might have been only a tiff, something that would have been adjusted without further bitterness but for his interference. There was no joy in the fate that kept continually bringing his crime to his attention. Thoroughly miserable, he threw himself upon a bench and lapsed into gloomy meditations. The light-hearted laughter of the children—Putney Congdon's children—was borne to him fitfully to add to his discomfiture, but he was held to the spot. There was something weirdly fascinating in their propinquity, and in the thought that he alone of all men on earth could ever tell them just what had happened in their house when their father went there to search for them.

He sat half an hour pensively, noting an occasional pedestrian or the flash of a motor that rolled through the unfrequented driveway. But for the hum of the cars the deep calm of a June afternoon lay upon the landscape.

Then a piercing scream, the shrill cry of a child in terror, brought him to his feet.

"Help! Help! Oh, Edith! Edith!"

The cries sent him at a run toward the place in which he had left the Congdons.

Rounding a curve in the path he saw a man rushing down the road with Edith in his arms. The mother was racing after him, while the little boy lay wailing where he had fallen in his frantic effort to follow. In the distance stood a car, with a woman waiting beside the open door.

Archie redoubled his pace, passed Mrs. Congdon and gained the car as the man with the child in his arms jumped into it. The woman, who had evidently been acting as watcher, stumbled as she attempted to spring in after them and delayed flight for an instant. The door slammed viciously on Archie's arm as he landed on the running board. The car was moving rapidly and a man's voice bade the driver hurry. Within the child's screams were suddenly stifled, the door swung open for an instant and a blow, delivered full in the face, sent Archie reeling into the road.

When he gained his feet Mrs. Congdon stood beside him moaning and wringing her hands. A mounted policeman rode upon the scene, listened for an instant to Archie's explanations and, sounding his whistle, set off after the car at a gallop. A dozen of the park police were on the spot immediately, followed by a crowd of excited spectators. Mrs. Congdon had fainted and several women were ministering to her. The little boy, sobbing plaintively, tried to answer the questions of the sergeant who took charge and despatched men in every direction to search for the kidnapers and send the alarm through the city.

Archie's nose bled from the rap in the face and his back ached where he had struck the earth. The sergeant plied him with questions which he answered carefully, knowing that in all the circumstances of his having loitered in the vicinity he might not unnaturally be suspected of complicity. When his name was asked, he answered promptly.

"John B. Wright, Boston; stopping at the Hotel Ganymede."

"Business?"

"Broker, Nanonet Building, Boston."

These items officially written down, he described truthfully how he had first seen the woman and her children in the pavilion, the subsequent walk, and the episode of the balloon. He pointed out just where he had been sitting when the screams attracted his attention.

"This is a serious case and you will be wanted as a witness," said the officer. "You didn't know these people—never saw them before?"

"No. I had come to the park to kill time until four o'clock, when I have an engagement at the Plaza Hotel."

The officer noted carefully his description of the woman who had assisted in the kidnaping and such meager facts as he was able to give as to the man who had carried off the little girl under the very eyes of her mother.

The sergeant glanced at Archie's ruddy handkerchief and grinned.

"Guess that let's you out! You didn't get the number of the taxi? That would help a little."

"There wasn't time for that. I was trying to hang on till help came, but this smash in the face spoiled that."

To the jostling crowd anxious to hear his story Archie was a hero, or very nearly one. He heard their murmurs of admiration as he described the manner in which he had attempted to board the car. There were enormous hazards in the whole situation and every consideration of personal security demanded that he leave the park at once, but Mrs. Congdon was now recovering, and he was reluctant to abandon her and the frightened boy to the mercies of the park police and staring spectators.

She had recovered sufficiently to tell her story, and to Archie's relief corroborated his own version in a manner to dispose of any question as to his innocence.

The woman's composure struck Archie as remarkable and her replies to the officer's questions were brief and exact. Several times she appealed to him for confirmation on some point, and he edged closer and stood beside her defensively. Her inquisitor had neglected to ask her name and address in his eagerness for information as to the appearance of the kidnapers. Her reply gave Archie a distinct shock.

"Mrs. George W. Kendall, 117 E. Corning Street, Brooklyn."

"Have you been threatened in any way? Have you any enemy who might have attempted to steal the child?"

"Nothing of the kind. I brought the children to the park just for an outing and with no thought that anything so horrible could happen."

It was incredible that any one could lie with so convincing an air. He was satisfied that she was Mrs. Putney Congdon, and that the child she had called Edith was the original of the photograph he had seen at Bailey Harbor. And the stealing of the child was in itself but the actual carrying out of her husband's threat. He knew far too much about the Congdons for his own peace of mind, but he was unwilling to desert her in her perplexities. When the owners of several machines offered to take her home, she glanced about uncertainly and her eyes falling upon him seemed to invite his assistance.

"Pardon me, but if I can serve you in any way—"

"Thank you," she said with relief. "I must get away from this; it's unbearable."

He put her and the boy into a taxi, whose driver had been early on the scene, and drove away with them, with a final promise to the sergeant to report later at the park station.

"Brooklyn!" he ordered.

For a few minutes she was busy comforting the child and Archie deep in thought turned to meet the searching gaze of her gray eyes.

"You are a gentleman; I am sure of that; and I feel that I can trust you."

That the wife of a man he had tried to kill and possibly had slain should be paving the way for confidences, gave him a bewildered sense of being whisked through some undiscovered country where the impossible had become the real.

"I'm in a strange predicament, and I'm forced to ask your help. The name and address I gave the police were fictitious. I know it has a queer look; but I had to do it. I know perfectly well who carried away my little girl. The man and woman you saw at the car were servants employed by my father-in-law, who cordially dislikes me. There had been trouble—"

With a shrug she expressed her impatience of her troubles, and bent over the boy who was demanding to be taken to Edith.

"You'll see Edith soon, dear, so don't trouble any more," she said kindly.

Having quieted the child, she returned to her own affairs, glancing out to note the direction of the car. She had done some quick thinking in making her decision to hide her identity from the police. There was fight in her eyes and Archie realized that he had to do with a woman of spirit. He waited eagerly for a hint as to her plans.

"Of course I'm not going to Brooklyn," she said, as the taxi swung into Fifth Avenue. "Please tell the man to drive to the Altmore, ladies' entrance. I'll walk through to the main door and take another taxi. I mean to lose myself," she went on, after Archie had given the instructions. "I have every intention of keeping away from policemen and reporters, but there's no reason why you should bother any further. I'm only sorry your name had to be brought into it. The moment they find I've deceived them they'll be after you for further information, and I regret that exceedingly. I wish to avoid publicity and keep my domestic affairs out of the newspapers; but this of course will only center attention the more on you. If there's anything I could do—"

"You needn't bother about that at all," replied Archie with a reassuring smile. "The name and address I gave were both false."

"You mean that really!"

"I mean that; just that! My reasons are of importance to no one but myself, and have nothing to do with the loss of your child, I assure you. I give you my word that neither the police nor the reporters will ever find me. I know nothing about you and of course it is quite unnecessary for me to know."

"Thank you; you are very kind," she murmured.

It struck him as highly amusing that he should be conspiring with the wife of a gentleman he had shot. In every aspect it was ridiculous and not since boyhood had he felt so much like giggling. And Mrs. Congdon was wonderful; it was a delight to be the repository of the confidences of so handsome a young matron and one who met so difficult a situation so courageously.