Читать книгу Who Killed Caldwell? - Carolyn Wells - Страница 4

Table of Contents

“Heaven be praised!” exclaimed Irving Caldwell, as he sat staring at a letter he had just read.

“But I can’t believe it,” he went on, again scanning the page. “Come, children, come into the library and hear my news.”

The family were at the breakfast table in the dining room; and in front of it was the library, really the living room of the family. Across the wide hall was the great drawing room, and back of it a smoking and amusement room, for there were five young people in the house.

New York City cannot today boast of many of those old double-front brownstone houses that gave dignity to the social life of the last century.

But there was one fine specimen on an uptown cross street, just off Fifth Avenue, that was still a home.

The Caldwell house was a delightful combination of the old original dwelling and modern improvements. Its large rooms, high ceilings, old-fashioned windows and heavy doors did not prevent its being air-conditioned, electric-lighted and possessed of every comfort and convenience recent invention could give.

And Irving Caldwell’s family was, in the main, a happy one. His sons, Vincent and Bruce, his daughter Marcia and her husband, Perry Gibbs, and his adopted daughter, Lorraine Crosby, made up the circle, and they all rose from the table and went with him to the library as he had asked.

Caldwell was a distinguished looking man. Tall and straight, he had always been of forceful effect, until of late years he had become a victim of a form of angina pectoris which had made it necessary for him to be careful of himself and being careful irked him sore.

At sixty, he was impressive in manner and bearing yet gentle and friendly in all his relationships.

Seated in his big armchair, he looked again at the letter, as if to reassure himself that it was so, and said: “Archer is coming home.”

Then Vincent said, in an awed tone, “Archer!”

And Bruce said, eagerly, “When?”

And Perry said, indifferently, “Really?”

And Marcia said, in a low tone, “Dear Archer,” and Lorraine just stared, wide-eyed.

“Yes,” Caldwell went on, “he will come this afternoon. This letter is just to announce his arrival. I will read it to you.

“Dear Father:

I am coming home. I wonder if you will be glad to see me. If not, I shall go right away again. But I am tired of wandering, and I want my own home and my own people. Look for me about midafternoon of January 12th. From your son, Archer.”

“I am overjoyed,” Caldwell went on. “I can scarcely take it in, as yet.”

“Take it calmly, dear,” Marcia said, warningly. “You don’t want to have an attack when he comes in.”

“No fear.” But there was a light in his eyes and a tremor in his voice that told of his intense excitement.

“Then I shall have a new brother,” Perry Gibbs smiled. “I hope to goodness he will like me. Stand up for me, you fellows.”

“I hardly remember him at all,” Bruce spoke wonderingly. “I was only eight when he went away!”

A silence fell on them all, for each was busy with memories and thoughts of this long absent son and brother.

Archer Caldwell, the oldest son of the family, was little more than a name to the other children. For a tragedy had wiped him out of existence so far as they were concerned, and for fourteen years he had neither been seen nor heard from.

It happened in 1926, on Archer’s birthday.

The Caldwells were at their summer home in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and as Archer had been promised a rifle on reaching his fourteenth year, the gift was forthcoming. There was a rifle range near by, but before going there Irving Caldwell taught his son as to loading and firing the gun.

They were out in a field, and were shooting at a mark.

A neighbor, passing by, paused to look on, and another man joined the group. Caldwell was called away, for a moment, and bidding the lad do nothing till his return, the father hastened away.

The stranger who had joined them took the gun up and examined it, and suddenly turning to the neighbor, one Morton, shot him in the head.

Morton fell, and the man who shot him turned to Archer and said:

“Run, run for your life! You shot him. If you are caught here you will be hanged! Run! and never come back. It is death for you if you do!”

Archer doubted no word of this, and the murderer, brandishing the rifle at him, declared he would shoot him too, unless he disappeared forever.

Frightened almost out of his senses, and believing what he was told, the boy had run as fast as he could, taking no heed where he went. Seeing a trolley car headed for Bridgeport he jumped aboard and went on.

Reaching Bridgeport, and having no thought but to get away, he bought a railroad ticket to New York and went there by train. He had some birthday money in his pocket, and by the time he reached the city he had made up his mind.

He knew the docks and piers, and he went straight to where he knew a freight ship would be leaving for Africa. Cleverly, he managed to get on board unseen, and after they were well out to sea he went to the cook, said he was a stowaway and asked to work his way.

His engaging manners, combined with the fact that it was most inconvenient to turn around and take him ashore, gained his point for him, and he worked his way easily enough and landed at Capetown.

Fourteen years had passed, with no news of him whatever, and now Irving Caldwell had received a surprising and very welcome letter.

The letter had been mailed the day before, in New York City, so that gave no information as to where he had lived or what he had done in his long absence. While the others talked busily, the father sat in a deep revery, thinking about the boy he had lost.

And now the boy was coming home.

Boy he would not be, after all these years, but a man of twenty-eight, and—a stranger, oh, surely a stranger!

Where had he lived these fourteen years? What had he done? What sort of man had he become?

The father had come to look upon his son as dead, for it seemed to him nothing else could explain the long silence.

Archer’s mother had tried bravely to face the tragedy, but had succumbed to her grief and had died within two years.

Time and a busy life had made Caldwell accustomed to the burden, and he bore it more easily as the years went by.

But now, the sudden revelation that Archer was alive and was coming home was a shock that might well have proved dangerous to his weak heart, but it seemingly proved beneficial, for instead of wondering or showing signs of apprehension about Archer or about his arrival he was placidly happy in the memory of his childhood days and ways.

“Do you remember the day he fell in the river?” he said. “You were with us, Vincent, we were in a rowboat, fishing.”

But Vincent didn’t remember and didn’t try to.

“A queer thing,” he said, “Archer coming along like this. If he’s alive and well, why hasn’t he made it known before?”

“Lots of answers to that,” Marcia told him. “I wonder what he will look like. He was a beautiful boy.”

“No two of you look alike,” her father said, “but your mother thought Archer the best looking of you all.”

“That’s only because he was the first one,” declared Bruce. “Of course, Marcia is the prettiest, unless we count in Lorraine.”

“Lorraine was Archer’s sweetheart,” Vincent looked at the girl with an air of ownership; “now she’s mine, aren’t you, Lorry?”

“I am not. I’ve never seen the man I wanted to be sweetheart to.”

“Fie, fie,” Perry Gibbs frowned at her; “did you never learn you must not use a preposition to end a sentence with? I say, I’ll bet Archer has been right here in New York all the time.”

“Never!” said Bruce. “He went West, most likely, and has by now a wife and a couple of children. Maybe he’ll bring them with him. If they want a home, Dad, will you take them all in here?”

“Of course; though it may mean turning out some of you present incumbents. But you’ve had your turn.”

“Oho! A usurper, eh?”

“No, Bruce; the king comes into his own.”

Seeing a stormy look in Vincent’s eyes, Marcia said, in her decisive way, “Now, Father, no favoritism. Archer is the prodigal son. He has been lost and is found, we will all welcome him, but he is no better than the rest of us and has no special claim to your affection.”

“No, no, Marcia, of course not. Dear boy, I wonder if he has suffered privation or danger.”

“Not he!” cried Bruce, who worshiped his brother’s memory, “I bet he comes home a rich nabob.”

“All nabobs are rich. But I bet he comes home a pauper; why else would he come?” This from Vincent.

His father looked at him a little sternly, then said, with an air of calm authority, “If Archer comes home manly and honest, no matter what his finances may be, he is my eldest son.”

“Great Scott, Dad, this isn’t England! Your property isn’t entailed, is it? I have always assumed we should share and share alike, when you are through with it.”

“Your remark is not in the best of taste, Vincent, but your assumption is not far wrong.”

And then Irving Caldwell relapsed into his brown study.

“I wonder what we’d better have for dinner,” said the domestic Marcia. “Do any of you remember what Archer specially liked?”

“Don’t be silly,” Bruce told her; “don’t you think his tastes must have changed? I assure you I shouldn’t enjoy now what I loved to eat fourteen years ago.”

“Bread and milk, probably,” Lorraine smiled at him. “But old Molly will know; she remembers everyone’s tastes.”

“That’s so,” and Marcia rose to leave the room. “I’ll ask her about it. What room shall he have? His old one?”

“He can’t,” Vincent declared. “I have that now, and it’s so stuffed with my things you’d never get it cleaned out. And I don’t want to move.”

“You needn’t,” said his father. “Marcia, put Archer in the best guest room, the one across the hall from my room.”

“Oh, Dad, suppose we have important company!”

“The important company can have a lesser room, or we can shuffle things around when the time comes. And ask Molly what Archer used to like. Even if it’s a childish dish, it might please him. I seem to remember he was fond of fruit batter pudding, with two kinds of sauce.”

“Who isn’t?” exclaimed Bruce. “Tell Molly to make that, Marcia, and plenty of it!”

Marcia went away, and Bruce went on, “At least, we’ll all get our share of the fatted calf that will be continuously prepared.”

Irving Caldwell sat up straighter in his chair, and said:

“I may be wrong, but I seem to perceive an unpleasant note in some of the things you boys say. Do not make it necessary for me to mention this again.”

“It wasn’t necessary that time, Dad,” and Bruce spoke whole-heartedly. “I was only fooling, Molly will make me a fruit pudding whenever I ask her.”

“Yes, of course. All right. Lorraine, child, you are showing no enthusiasm at your brother’s return. Why?”

“I doubt he will remember me at all. And he isn’t my brother.”

“Oh, yes, he is. You are my legally adopted daughter, the boys are all your brothers.”

“Oh, then I can’t marry any of them! And I was just trying to decide which one I love most.”

“Yes, you can marry one of them,” he replied, taking her seriously. “The adoption papers provide for that.”

“Well, you are foresighted!” Lorraine said. “And you are as dear a father as they come!”

“That was my wife’s foresight. You know, your mother was her dearest friend, and Emily was a born matchmaker, and positively looked forward to seeing you marry one of her boys.”

“Yes? Well, so far, I like Bruce the best; but he’s too young to marry.”

“That’s my only fault,” Bruce asserted, “and it is one that time is bound to mend.”

“I am anxious to see our Archer,” said Perry Gibbs. “I’ve never seen him, you know, so I shall be able to form an unbiased opinion. Odd that he should send his letter from New York. If he is in the city and knows your address, why not come unannounced?”

“There’s small use in saying why or why not,” Caldwell told him, “when we know nothing of the circumstances. He will explain it all when he comes. You will be glad to see him, Perry?”

“Yes, Guv’nor, of course. You think he’ll approve of me?”

“Why not?” and the fine head sank back again on the chair cushion, and a silence fell.

Vincent rose, beckoned to Lorraine, and then left the room.

The girl followed him, and found him, as she had expected, sitting on the stairs. This was always their favorite chatting place. From childhood these two had told secrets, had quarreled and made up, on the stairs.

And now, she had a premonition of what was coming, and it was a true one.

“Lorraine,” he said, without preamble, “you must be engaged to me before Archer gets home. I am afraid he will get you away from me.”

“But I am not yours.”

“Yes, you are. But you have never solemnly promised, and you must do it now.”

“Can’t. I don’t feel a bit solemn, and I am not engaged to you, or to anybody else. Sorry, Vincent, but that’s the way it is.”

“You’re just waiting to see what Archer looks like!”

“And isn’t that what we’re all waiting for?”

Then she ran away.