The Millionaire Baby
Page 7
VII
"FIND THE CHILD!"
I could well understand the wrath to which this man had given way, bythe feeling which now took hold of my own breast.
"A boy!" I exclaimed.
"A boy."
Still incredulous, I leaned over the child and lifted into the fulllight of the lamp one of the little hands I saw lying outside of thecoverlet. There was no mistaking it for a girl's hand, let alone alittle lady's.
"So we are both fools!" I vociferated in my unbounded indignation,careful however to lay the small hand gently back on the panting breast.And turning away both from the doctor and his small patient, I strolledback into the office.
The bubble whose gay colors I had followed with such avidity had burstin my face with a vengeance.
But once from under the influence of the doctor's sarcastic eye, mybetter nature reasserted itself. Wheeling about, I threw this questionback:
"If that is a boy and a stranger, where is Gwendolen Ocumpaugh?"
A moan from the bed and a hurried movement on the part of the doctor,who took this opportunity to give the child another dose of medicine,were my sole response. Waiting till the doctor had finished his task anddrawn back from the bedside, I repeated the question and with increasedemphasis:
"Where, then, is Gwendolen Ocumpaugh?"
Still the doctor did not answer, though he turned my way and evenstepped forward; his long visage, cadaverous from fatigue and the shockof his disappointment, growing more and more somber as he advanced.
When he came to a stand by the table, I asked again:
"Where is the child idolized by Mr. Ocumpaugh and mourned to such adegree by his almost maddened wife that they say she will die if thelittle girl is not found?"
The threat in my tones brought a response at last--a response whichastonished me.
"Have I not said that I do not know? Do you not believe me? Do you thinkme as blind to-day to truth and honor as I was six years ago? Have youno idea of repentance and regeneration from sin? You are a detective.Find me that child. You shall have money--hundreds--thousands--if youcan bring me proofs of her being yet alive. If the Hudson has swallowedher--" here his figure rose, dilated and took on a majesty whichimpressed itself upon me through all my doubts--"I will have vengeanceon whoever has thus dared the laws of God and man as I would on thefoulest murderer in the foulest slums of that city which breedswickedness in high places as in low. I lock hands no longer with Belial.Find me the child, or make me at least to know the truth!"
There was no doubting the passion which drove these words hot from hislips. I recognized at last the fanatic whom Miss Graham had sographically described in relating her extraordinary adventure on thebridge; and met him with this one question, which was certainly a vitalone:
"Who dropped a shoe from the little one's closet, into the water underthe dock? Did you?"
"No." His reply came quick and sharp.
"But," I insisted, "you have had something to do with this child'sdisappearance."
He did not answer. A sullen look was displacing the fire of resolve inthe eyes I saw sinking slowly before mine.
"I will not acknowledge it," he muttered; adding, however, in what waslittle short of a growl: "Not yet, not till it becomes my duty to avengeinnocent blood."
"You foretold the date."
"Drop it."
"You were in league with the abductor," I persisted. "I declare to yourface, in spite of all the vaunted scruples with which you seek to blindme to your guilt, that you were in league with the abductor, knowingwhat money Mrs. Ocumpaugh would pay. Only he was too smart for you, andperhaps too unscrupulous. You would stop short of murder, now that youhave got religion. But his conscience is not so nice and so you fear--"
"You do not know what I fear and I am not going to tell you. It isenough that I am conscious of my own uprightness and that I say, Findthe child! You have incentive enough."
It was true and it was growing stronger every minute.
"Confine yourself to such clues as are apparent to every eye," he nowadmonished me with an eagerness that seemed real. "If they are pointedby some special knowledge you believe yourself to have gained, that isall the better--perhaps. I do not propose to say."
I saw that he had uttered his ultimatum.
"Very good," said I. "I have, nevertheless, one more question to askwhich relates to those very clues. You can not refuse to answer it ifyou are really desirous of aiding me in my efforts. Where did you firstcome upon the wagon which you followed so many hours in the belief thatit held Gwendolen Ocumpaugh?"
He mused a moment with downcast head, his nervous frame trembling withthe force with which he threw his whole weight on the hand he heldoutspread on the table before him. Then he calmly replied:
"I will tell you that. At the gate of Mrs. Carew's grounds. You knowthem? They adjoin the Ocumpaughs' on the left."
My surprise made me lower my head but not so quickly that I did notcatch the oblique glint of his eye as he mentioned the name which I wasso little prepared to hear in this connection.
"I was in my buggy on the highroad," he continued. "There was a constantpassing by of all kinds of vehicles on their way to and from theOcumpaugh entertainment, but none that attracted my attention till Icaught sight of the covered wagon I have endeavored to describe, beingdriven out of the adjoining grounds. Then I pricked up my ears, for achild was crying inside in the smothered way that tells of a hand laidheavily over the mouth. I thought I knew what child this was, but youhave been a witness to my disappointment after forty-eight hours oftravel behind that wretched wagon."
"It came out of Mrs. Carew's grounds?" I repeated, ignoring everythingbut the one important fact. "And during the time, you say, when Mrs.Ocumpaugh's guests were assembling? Did you see any other vehicle leaveby the same gate at or before that time?"
"Yes, a carriage. It appeared to have no one in it. Indeed, I know thatit was empty, for I peered into it as it rolled by me down the street.Of course I do not know what might have been under the seats."
"Nothing," was my sharp retort. "That was the carriage in which Mrs.Carew had come up from the train. Did it pass out before the wagon?"
"Yes, by some minutes."
"There is nothing, then, to be gained by that."
"There does not seem to be."
Was his accent in uttering this simple phrase peculiar? I looked up tomake sure. But his face, which had been eloquent with one feeling oranother during every minute of this long interview till the presentinstant, looked strangely impassive, and I did not know how to press thequestion hovering on my lips.
"You have given me a heavy task," I finally remarked, "and you offervery little assistance in the way of conjecture. Yet you must haveformed some."
He toyed with his beard, combing it with his nervous, muscular fingers,and as I watched how he lingered over the tips, caressing them before hedropped them, I felt that he was toying with my perplexities in much thesame fashion and with an equal satisfaction. Angry and out of allpatience with him, I blurted out:
"I will do without your aid. I will solve this mystery and earn yourmoney if not that of Mr. Ocumpaugh, with no assistance save thatafforded by my own wits."
"I expect you will," he retorted; and for the first time since I burstin upon him like one dropping from the clouds through the unapproachabledoorway on the upper floor, he lost that look of extreme tension whichhad nerved his aged figure into something of the aspect of youth. Withit vanished his impressiveness. It was simply a tired old man I nowfollowed upstairs to the side door. As I paused to give him a final nodand an assurance of intended good faith toward him, he made a kindlyenough gesture in the direction of my old room below and said:
"Don't worry about the little fellow down there. He'll come out allright. I shan't visit on him the extravagance of my own folly. I am aChristian now." And with this encouraging remark he closed the door andI found myself alone in the dark alley.
My first sense of relief came
from the coolness of the night air on myflushed forehead and cheeks. After the stifling atmosphere of thisunderground room, reeking with the fumes of the lamp and the heat of astruggle which his dogged confidence in himself had made so unequal, itwas pleasurable just to sense the quiet and the cool of the night andfeel myself released from the bondage of a presence from which I hadfrequently recoiled but had never thoroughly felt the force of tillto-night; my next, from the touch and voice of my partner who at thatmoment rose from before the basement windows where he had evidently beenlying for a long time outstretched.
"What have you two been doing down there?" was his very naturalcomplaint. "I tried to listen, I tried to see; but beyond a fewscattered words when your voices rose to an excited pitch, I havelearned nothing but that you were in no danger save from the overthrowof your scheme. That has failed, has it not? You would have interruptedme long ago if you had found the child."
"Yes," I acknowledged; drawing him down the alley, "I have failed forto-night, but I start afresh to-morrow. Though how I can rest idle fornine hours, not knowing under what roof, if under any, that doomedinnocent may be lying, I do not know."
"You must rest; you are staggering with fatigue now."
"Not a bit of it, only with uncertainty. I don't see my way. Let us godown street and see if any news has come over the wires since I leftHomewood."
"But first, what a spooky old house that is! And what did the oldgentleman have to say of your tumbling in on him from space without a'By your leave' or even an 'Excuse me'? Tell me about it."
I told him enough to allay his curiosity. That was all I thoughtnecessary,--and he seemed satisfied. Jupp is a good fellow, quitewilling to confine himself to his particular end of the business whichdoes not include the thinking end. Why should it?
There was no news--this we soon learned--only some hints of acontemplated move on the part of the police in a district where some lowcharacters had been seen dragging along a resisting child of anunexpectedly refined appearance. As no one could describe this childand as I had refused from the first to look upon this case as one ofordinary abduction, I laid little stress on the report, destined thoughit was to appear under startling head-lines on the morrow, and startledmy more credulous partner quite out of his usual equanimity, by orderinghim on our arrival at the station to buy me a ticket for ----, as I wasgoing back to Homewood.
"To Homewood, so late!"
"Exactly. It will not be late there--or if it is, anxious hearts makelight sleepers."
His shoulders rose a trifle, but he bought the ticket.