Читать книгу The Bartlett Mystery - Tracy Louis, Louis Tracy - Страница 5

During the brief run up-town Winifred managed to dry her tears, yet the mystery and terror of the circumstances into which she was so suddenly plunged seemed to become more distressful the longer she puzzled over them. She could not find any outlet from a labyrinth of doubt and uncertainty. She strove again to read the printed accounts of the crime, in order to wrest from them some explanation of the extraordinary charge brought against her aunt, but the words danced before her eyes. At last, with an effort, she threw the paper away and bravely resolved to follow Steingall’s parting advice.

When she reached the warehouse she was naturally the object of much covert observation. Neither Miss Sugg nor Mr. Fowle spoke to her, but Winifred thought she saw a malicious smile on the forewoman’s face. The hours passed wearily until six o’clock. She was about to quit the building with her companions – many of whom meant bombarding her with questions at the first opportunity – when she was again requested to report at the office.

A clerk handed her one of the firm’s pay envelopes.

“What’s comin’ to you up to date,” he blurted out, “and a week’s salary instead of notice.”

She was dismissed!

Some girls might have collapsed under this final blow, but not so Winifred Bartlett. Knowing it was useless to say anything to the clerk, she spiritedly demanded an interview with the manager. This was refused. She insisted, and sent Steingall’s letter to the inner sanctum, having concluded that the dismissal was in some way due to her visit to the detective bureau.

The clerk came back with the note and a message: “The firm desire me to tell you,” he said, “that they quite accept your explanation, but they have no further need of your services.”

Explanation! How could a humble employee explain away the unsavory fact that the smug respectability of Brown, Son & Brown had been outraged by the name of the firm appearing in the evening papers as connected, even in the remotest way, with the sensational crime now engaging the attention of all New York?

Winifred walked into the street. Something in her face warned even the most inquisitive of her fellow-workers to leave her alone. Besides, the poor always evince a lively sympathy with others in misfortune. These working-class girls were consumed with curiosity, yet they respected Winifred’s feelings, and did not seek to intrude on her very apparent misery by inquiry or sympathetic condolence. A few among them watched, and even followed her a little way as she turned the corner into Fourteenth Street.

“She goes home by the Third Avenue L,” said Carlotta. “Sometimes I’ve walked with her that far. H’lo! Why’s Fowle goin’ east in a taxi! He lives on West Seventeenth. Betcher a dime he’s after Winnie.”

“Whadda ya mean – after her?” cried another girl.

“Why, didn’t you hear how he spoke up for her this mornin’ when Ole Mother Sugg handed her the lemon about bein’ late?”

“But he got her fired.”

“G’wan!”

“He did, I tell you. I heard him phonin’ a newspaper. He made ’em wise about Winnie’s bein’ pinched, and then took the paper to the boss. I was below with a packin’ check when he went in, so I saw that with my own eyes, an’ that’s just as far as I’d trust Fowle.”

The cynic’s shrewd surmise was strictly accurate. Fowle had, indeed, secured Winifred’s dismissal. Her beauty and disdain had stirred his lewd impulses to their depths. His plan now was to intercept her before she reached her home, and pose as the friend in need who is the most welcome of all friends. Knowing nothing whatsoever of her domestic surroundings he deemed it advisable to make inquiries on the spot. His crafty and vulpine nature warned him against running his head into a noose, since Winifred might own a strong-armed father or brother, but no one could possibly resent a well-meant effort at assistance.

The mere sight of her graceful figure as she hurried along with pale face and downcast eyes inflamed him anew when his taxi sped by. She could not avoid him now. He would go up-town by an earlier train, and await her at the corner of One Hundred and Twelfth Street.

But the wariest fox is apt to find his paw in a trap, and Fowle, though foxy, was by no means so astute as he imagined himself. Once again that day Fate was preparing a surprise for Winifred, and not the least dramatic feature thereof connoted the utter frustration and undoing of Fowle.

About the time that Winifred caught her train it befell that Rex Carshaw, gentleman of leisure, the most industrious idler who ever extracted dividends from a business he cared little about, drove a high-powered car across the Harlem River by the Willis Avenue Bridge, and entered that part of Manhattan which lies opposite Randall’s Island.

This was a new world to the eyes of the young millionaire. Nor was it much to his liking. The mixed citizenry of New York must live somewhere, but Carshaw saw no reason why he and his dainty car should loiter in a district which seemed highly popular with all sorts of undesirable folks; so, after skirting Thomas Jefferson Park he turned west, meaning to reach the better roadway and more open stretches of Fifth Avenue.

A too hasty express wagon, however, heedless of the convenience of wealthy automobilists, bore down on Carshaw like a Juggernaut car, and straightway smashed the differential, besides inflicting other grievous injuries on a complex mechanism. A policeman, the proprietor of a neighboring garage, and a greatly interested crowd provided an impromptu jury for the dispute between Carshaw and the express man.

The latter put up a poor case. It consisted almost entirely of the bitter and oft-repeated plaint:

“What was a car like that doin’ here, anyhow?”

The question sounded foolish. It was nothing of the kind. Only the Goddess of Wisdom could have answered it, and she, being invisible, was necessarily dumb.

At last, when the damaged car was housed for the night, Carshaw set out to walk a couple of blocks to the elevated railway, his main objective being dinner with his mother in their apartment on Madison Avenue. He found himself in a comparatively quiet street, wherein blocks of cheap modern flats alternated with the dingy middle-class houses of a by-gone generation. He halted to light a cigarette, and, at that moment, a girl of remarkable beauty passed, walking quickly, yet without apparent effort. She was pallid and agitated, and her eyes were swimming with ill-repressed tears.

As a matter of fact, Winifred nearly broke down at sight of her empty abode. It was a cheerless place at best, and now the thought of being left there alone had induced a sense of feminine helplessness which overcame her utterly.

Carshaw was distinctly impressed. In the first place, he was young and good-looking, and human enough to try and steal a second glance at such a lovely face, though the steadily decreasing light was not altogether favorable. Secondly, he thought he had never seen any girl who carried herself with such rhythmic grace. Thirdly, here was a woman in distress, and, to one of Carshaw’s temperament and upbringing, that in itself formed a convincing reason why he should wish to help her.

He racked his brain for a fitting excuse to offer his services. He could find none. Above all else, Rex Carshaw was a gentleman.

Of course, he could not tell that the way was being made smooth for knight-errantry by a certain dragon named Fowle. He did not even quicken his pace, and was musing on the curious incongruity of the maid in distress with the rather squalid district in which she had her being when he saw a man bar her path.

This was Fowle, who, with lifted hat, was saying deferentially: “Miss Bartlett, may I have a word?”

Winifred stopped as though she had run into an unseen obstruction. She even recoiled a step or two.

“What do you want?” she said, and there was a quality of scorn, perhaps of fear, in her voice that sent Carshaw, now five yards away, into the open doorway of a block of flats. He was an impulsive young man. He liked the girl’s face, and quite as fixedly disliked Fowle’s. So he adopted the now world-famous policy of watchful waiting, being not devoid of a dim belief that the situation might evolve an overt act.

“I want to tell you how sorry I am for what happened to-day,” said Fowle, trying to speak sympathetically, but not troubling to veil the bold admiration of his stare. “I tried hard to stop unpleasantness, and even risked a row with the boss. But it was no use. I couldn’t do a thing.”

“But why are you here?” demanded Winifred, and those sorrow-laden eyes of hers might have won pity from any but one of Fowle’s order.

“To help, of course,” came the ready assurance. “I can get you a far better job than stitchin’ octavos at Brown’s. You’re not meanin’ to stay home with your folks, I suppose?”

“That is kind of you,” said Winifred. “I may have to depend altogether on my own efforts, so I shall need work. I’ll write to you for a reference, and perhaps for advice.”

She had unwittingly told Fowle just what he was eager to know – that she was friendless and alone. He prided himself on understanding the ways of women, and lost no more time in coming to the point.

“Listen, now, Winnie,” he said, drawing nearer, “I’d like to see you through this worry. Forget it. You can draw down twice or three times the money as a model in Goldberg’s Store. I know Goldberg, an’ can fix things. An’, say, why mope at home evenings? I often get orders for two for the theaters an’ vaudeville shows. What about comin’ along down-town to-night? A bit of dinner an’ a cabaret’d cheer you up after to-day’s unpleasantness.”

Winifred grew scarlet with vexation. The man had always been a repulsive person in her eyes, and, unversed though she was in the world’s wiles, she knew instinctively that his present pretensions were merely a cloak for rascality. One should be fair to Winifred, too. Like every other girl, she had pictured the Prince Charming who would come into her life some day. But – Fowle! Her gorge rose.

“How dare you follow me here and say such vile things?” she cried hysterically.

“What’s up now?” said Fowle in mock surprise. “What have I said that you should fly off the trolley in that way?”

“I take it that this young lady is telling you to quit,” broke in another voice. “Go, now! Go while the going is good.”

Quietly but firmly elbowing Fowle aside, Rex Carshaw raised his hat and spoke to Winifred.

“If this fellow is annoying you he can soon be dealt with,” he said. “Do you live near? If so, he can stop right here. I’ll occupy his mind till you are out of sight.”

The discomfited masher was snarling like a vicious cur. The first swift glance that measured the intruder’s proportions did not warrant any display of active resentment on his part. Out of the tail of his eye, however, he noticed a policeman approaching on the opposite side of the street. The sight lent a confidence which might have been lacking otherwise.

“Why are you buttin’ in?” he cried furiously. “This young lady is a friend of mine. I’m tryin’ to pull her out of a difficulty, but she’s got me all wrong. Anyhow, what business is it of yours?”

Fowle’s anger was wasted, since Carshaw seemed not to hear. Indeed, why should a chivalrous young man pay heed to Fowle when he could gaze his fill into Winifred’s limpid eyes and listen to her tuneful voice?

“I am very greatly obliged to you,” she was saying, “but I hope Mr. Fowle understands now that I do not desire his company and will not seek to force it on me.”

“Sure he understands. Don’t you, Fowle?” and Carshaw gave the disappointed wooer a look of such manifest purpose that something had to happen quickly. Something did happen. Fowle knew the game was up, and behaved after the manner of his kind.

“You’re a cute little thing, Winifred Bartlett,” he sneered, with a malicious glance from the girl to Carshaw, while a coarse guffaw imparted venom to his utterance. “Think you’re taking an easier road to the white lights, I guess?”

“Guess again, Fowle,” said Carshaw.

He spoke so quietly that Fowle was misled, because the pavement rose and struck him violently on the back of his head. At least, that was his first impression. The second and more lasting one was even more disagreeable. When he sat up, and fumbled to recover his hat, he was compelled to apply a handkerchief to his nose, which seemed to have been reduced to a pulp.

“Too bad you should be mixed up in this disturbance,” Carshaw was assuring Winifred, “but a pup of the Fowle species can be taught manners in only one way. Now, suppose you hurry home!”

The advice was well meant, and Winifred acted on it at once. Fowle had scrambled to his feet and the policeman was running up. From east and west a crowd came on the scene like a well-trained stage chorus rushing in from the wings.

“Now, then, what’s the trouble?” demanded the law, with gruff insistency.

“Nothing. A friend of mine met with a slight accident – that’s all,” said Carshaw.

“It’s – it’s – all right,” agreed Fowle thickly. Some glimmer of reason warned him that an exposé in the newspapers would cost him his job with Brown, Son & Brown. The policeman eyed the damaged nose. He grinned.

“If you care to take a wallop like that as a friendly tap it’s your affair, not mine,” he said. “Anyhow, beat it, both of you!”

Carshaw was not interested in Fowle or the policeman. He had been vouchsafed one expressive look by Winifred as she hurried away, and he watched the slim figure darting up half a dozen steps to a small brown-stone house, and opening the door with a latch-key. Oddly enough, the policeman’s attention was drawn by the girl’s movements. His air changed instantly.

“H’lo,” he said, evidently picking on Fowle as the doubtful one of these two. “This must be inquired into. What’s your name?”

“No matter. I make no charge.”

Fowle was turning away, but the policeman grabbed him.

“You come with me to the station-house,” he said determinedly. “An’ you, too,” he added jerking his head at Carshaw.

“Have you gone crazy with the heat?” inquired Carshaw.

“I hold you for fighting in the public street, an’ that’s all there is to it,” was the firm reply. “You can come quietly or be ’cuffed, just as you like. Clear off, the rest of you.”

An awe-stricken mob backed hastily. Fowle was too dazed even to protest, and Carshaw sensed some hidden but definite motive behind the policeman’s strange alternation of moods. He looked again at the brown-stone house, but night was closing in so rapidly that he could not distinguish a face at any of the windows.

“Let us get there quickly – I’ll be late for dinner,” he said, and the three returned by the way Carshaw had come.

Thus it was that Rex Carshaw, eligible young society bachelor, was drawn into the ever-widening vortex of “The Yacht Mystery.” He did not recognize it yet, but was destined soon to feel the force of its swirling currents.

Gazing from a window of the otherwise deserted house Winifred saw both her assailant and her protector marched off by the policeman. It was patent, even to her benumbed wits, that they had been arrested. The tailing-in of the mob behind the trio told her as much.

She was too stunned to do other than sink into a chair. For a while she feared she was going to faint. With lack-lustre eyes she peered into a gulf of loneliness and despair. Then outraged nature came to her aid, and she burst into a storm of tears.