Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Wahl strolled out, not hurrying until he thought himself out of Sherry’s sight. Then he moved swiftly. But the sentry had been relieved, and another man stood in his place.

  “Where’s the other fellow gone?” Wahl demanded.

  “Search me! He’d be turnin’ in, only they wanted men to go an’ round up stray cows or somethin’. Bill knows cows, so the sergeant ordered him to volunteer.”

  Wahl returned to the tent in disgust. The tin cup, half full of coffee yet, stood exactly in the middle of the box, on which Sherry had been sitting. Sherry was missing. Wahl went to the tent-door and shouted. Another reporter came hurrying, eager to know what the great Clinton Wahl could be in so much stew about.

  “Harris — Look here: There’s a launch starting before daylight to make connections with the train above where the levee broke. I’m off for San Francisco; here’s a chance for you. You know who Jacqueline Lanier is!”

  You bet! You’ve told the world that all right!”

  “She’s around here somewhere!”

  “Hell, no! She was drowned — they found the horses and buggy.”

  “Don’t you believe it! She’s been rescued. She’s hiding somewhere probably under a false name. Now listen: you find her, and wire the San Francisco Tribune. Bet on me to make it worth your while. Get her story if you can, and if you do, wire that. But let’s know the minute you’ve found her. It’ll be the biggest thing you’ve ever done, and I’ll see you get credit.”

  “Say, that’s mighty decent of you! Say—”

  “Get busy!” Wahl interrupted.

  Wahl himself went in search of the launch that had rescued Sherry, and found it after a while nosing into the bank lower down. Again he was too late; the inspector and engineer had been relieved, and had gone away to sleep, nobody knew where. So he went in search of Sherry, but might as well have hunted for a needle in a haystack.

  Sherry Mansfield’s brain was working with a kind of cold frenzy. He never wavered once. He faced the possibility that that girl was Jacqueline Lanier, and that some one of her actions might have justified Wahl in mistaking her for an adventuress, and he did not care. Wahl presumably had all the evidence, and he, Sherry Mansfield, had none. He needed none. He would back one look into her eyes against all Wahl’s reasoning and experience. She was good. She was pure and innocent. What was more — and he said it again and again, for the sheer joy of stabbing at his own dead misconceptions — he, Sherry, loved her.

  “God, I’ll prove it too!” he muttered.

  But to begin to prove it, he must find her. He thought at first that the dog might recognize her scent, but either Nut was no sort of bloodhound, or else too many other folk had crossed the trail. Nut’s chief ambition seemed to be not to lose sight of his new owner. Urging was sheer waste of time.

  Then he thought of Consuelo Martinez; but she had been marked with three stars, and though he went to the tent inquire for her, all that the woman in charge could tell him was that Consuelo had recognized some friends and had gone away with them.

  “I seem to remember they were foreigners, but I’m not sure. The poor woman was distracted, but she suddenly saw people she knew and ran to them. They said they had somewhere to go, and some money, and agreed to look after her. At least, I think that’s right. There’s been much—”

  But Sherry had gone already, and she found herself talking to the night.

  “Funny!” he told himself. “Two days ago I’d have been cynical about that. Another case of a mother deserting her child! Makes me feel sure now that that fat old thing wasn’t her mother after all. God! I hope her name is Jacqueline; I like it.”

  More systematically than he ever rooted at a story Sherry searched the camp all night in widening rings, and when dawn came he met Harris in the mouth of the porters’ tent — both men in search of food.

  “Doing anything?” asked Harris, with his mouth full of bread and cocoa. “Tell you why. I’ve been tipped off that Jacqueline Lanier’s somewhere about. Like to help me find her?”

  Sherry nodded, looking over the edge of a tin mug, sizing up his man. He could lick him; he was sure of it. If they two should find Jacqueline, there would only be one who would identify her!

  “Saw you talking to Clinton Wahl,” said Harris. “Know him well?”

  “Only slightly.”

  “What paper are you for?”

  “None just now.”

  That was cold truth. There was not a newspaper under heaven that could come just then between Sherry Mansfield and his quest. He had made up his mind to face his father, and if need be, to defy him. There was nothing to argue about; nothing to compromise. Whether or not that girl was Jacqueline Lanier, she was his girl — his forever.

  “Finished? Come on then,” said Harris. “There are some cabins down on the bottoms beyond here. Let’s search them first.”

  At the end of twenty minutes’ rather random walking they crossed a trail where Sherry saw small footprints in the mud, and Nut grew unaccountably excited — not behaving as a hunting dog would, but as the good-for- nothing, cheery mongrel that he was, who recognized something familiar.

  “This way,” said Sherry.

  “That way’s no good, that’s a cow-path.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Sherry took his own line, turning to the right, and Harris followed more for the sake of preventing Sherry from forestalling him than because he thought it a likely trail to follow. It was not very long before the track led down a steep bank, with imprints in the mud below that looked as if someone had fallen there. And two hundred yards beyond that, in a hollow, there was a neat, clean cabin with a faint wisp of smoke emerging from the chimney.

  “Hell! Who’d ha’ thought it?” said Harris.

  But Sherry said nothing; only his clenched fist went into his hip pocket for some reason.

  “This is my story. I’ll go ahead,” said Harris.

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Say — look here—”

  “You heard me!”

  “Who the hell—”

  “You’ll wait here until I see what’s in there. Would you rather fight?”

  That right fist was still in the hip pocket, and Harris suspected a gun.

  “What’s the big idea?” he demanded.

  “If you think you can lick me, go ahead and try!”

  “I’ll watch,” said Harris.

  “Stay right here then!”

  Sherry walked ahead, and Harris, who was awfully tired and sleepy, sat down. Whatever his other argument was, he kept it to himself. The cabin door was latched, but not locked; Sherry opened it, and entered.

  There was nobody there, but the embers of a dying fire were smoking on the hearth and there was plenty of evidence that the place had been occupied quite recently. However, the chair-seats were no longer warm, although mud in several places on the floor was hardly dry. Some one had probably left within the hour; within two hours at the utmost.

  He found a hairpin, and threw it in the fire, lest Harris should find it too, and draw conclusions. Next his eye fell on a scrap of torn lace on the floor not far from the hearth. It was crumpled and mud-stained, but he could almost swear that it tallied with the pattern of the edging and collar of the dress she had worn. No mere man, he admitted, could be quite sure of a thing like that from memory; but he had a strong hunch, and Nut was acting interested.

  There was a rug between mid-room and hearth; it looked as if someone had sat on it, for it was rumpled. Sherry kicked up the rumpled edge and suddenly pounced on a piece of pale blue ribbon.

  “It’s been in the water. It’s knotted and tied the same way. Same color. Same—”

  He held it to the light. Six or eight strands of long dark hair were caught tightly in the knot.

  “I’ll bet my last dollar!”

  He folded the ribbon and hair into the same envelope, and began to look about for further evidence, but there was nothing; and he was presently aware of Harris peeking thr
ough the chink of the half-open door. The key was on the inside.

  “You can come in if you want to,” he called.

  “Found anything?” asked Harris.

  “No. You have a look.”

  They passed each other in the doorway. Sherry took the key with him. The moment Harris was inside Sherry shut the door quietly and locked him in: whereafter he walked around the cabin and observed that the shutters were all in place and fastened on the outside with iron bars.

  So much for Harris. Sherry began quartering the ground in front of the cabin, and presently found footsteps in the mud. There was no doubt of the direction. They were the footprints of three women and a man, and he set out along the muddy track as fast as he could lay foot to the ground.

  But the track turned up a high bank to a road, and on the road he lost all trace of footprints; nor was Nut the least use. It was more than an hour before he found an old darky, who told him the road would lead to a railroad depot if he followed it far enough. But the darky didn’t know how far — couldn’t ‘member.

  Sherry lost more time questioning strangers whom he met; and several times he went far off the road to inquire at cabins, but without result. It was nearly noon before he reached a railroad station, and learned that there would be no more trains northward until evening. He questioned the station agent.

  “Refugees? Scores of ’em. Three full train-loads this morning.”

  “Any buy tickets here?”

  “Some. Most had passes from the Relief Committee.”

  Sherry described Jacqueline as accurately as he could. She had two legs, for instance — two arms — was about so high — dark hair — probably no hat —

  “She wore a locket on a gold chain—”

  “Blue eyes, you say? Deep blue? Sure — I guess I ‘member ’em. Pretty little miss, all tired out, layin’ her head on a big fat woman’s shoulder over on the bench there. No, they didn’t buy no tickets. Lemme see.”

  The agent scratched his head.

  “Yeah. There was a — Wop — or a Dago, mebbe— ‘n’ another woman with him, ‘n’ a kid yes, sure there was a kid. Aye,— ‘n’ they had a monkey — or the kid had. Four an’ a half to Frisco, ‘n’ two sections was what they wanted. Told ’em I couldn’t do it. Had to send ’em on to the junction, but I phoned for ’em, I ‘member. Sure — Frisco — that’s it. Yeah — the Wop had the money. It was all one party. I ‘member. N-o-o, son. Six o’clock to the junction’s your first train, ‘n’ you can catch the midnight on from there for Frisco by way o’ St. Louis.”

  Sherry wished now he had kept that newspaper, instead of letting the dog tear it into shreds. At least he could have read Wahl’s story, and have analyzed it; that would be better than pacing the platform and waiting for a damned slow train. He was pretty nearly sure now that Conchita’s name was really Jacqueline; and absolutely sure that by that, or any other name, she was wonderful, and that he loved her.

  But why had she run away from him? The militiaman said she looked scared to death. What suddenly frightened her? Wahl? He wished he knew what Wahl had done to her when he got that story. It was possible she saw Wahl when he came out of the tent.

  Why had he ever liked Wahl, he wondered. Clever devil, certainly; but a devil — a mean devil, with a mean face. And who was this gang she was with? A kid and a monkey sounded like an organ grinder’s outfit. The big fat woman might be Consuelo Martinez. But who were the Wop, or the Dago, and the other woman?

  Sherry was still pacing the platform when two sisters in convent dress approached the station agent, and one of them questioned him so persistently that he scratched his head. Sherry did not pay much attention to them but, once, he saw the station agent jerk a thumb in his direction — heard him address one of the women as Sister Michaela — and saw the sister’s gray eyes focused on himself.

  The next time he passed them his ears caught one sentence, spoken in a voice as level as the gray eyes: “Will you please not give information about this, then, to anybody else?”

  And after that, for fifteen minutes, he was conscious of Sister Michaela’s gray eyes watching him, until the six o’clock train rolled in, and he boarded it and left both sisters standing on the platform.

  CHAPTER 21.

  Bells obey the ears that listen

  No star, however small and distant, leaves its course without a Cosmos feeling it. Convents are small universes. None in the convent spoke openly of Jacqueline, for that was forbidden. Sister Michaela’s duty had been done; the pistol-shots had hardly more than announced a tragedy in Miro’s house before she gathered up her brood of bidden guests, herded them into the bus and hurried them back to safety within convent walls. They knew practically nothing of what had happened, and she instructed them to tell not even that much. But the convent drooped none the less, and even the bell tolled miserably. Bells obey the ears that listen.

  A week went by in silence, emphasized by routine sounds, none naming tragedy, yet everybody conscious of it. Lessons continued, and the silence gradually took effect. The waves on the surface ceased. But there was a ground-swell. The sisters had all read the papers. Don Andres Miro had been lavish with enduring gifts. All had loved Jacqueline.

  Routine — but Sister Michaela absent more than once, and another in her place to toll the bell, not quite successfully. No hint of where she had been on her return, except that it was known that she was closeted for hours with the Sister Superior. And none except the lay sister at the gate knew when John Miro drove up in a muddied car; and when the Sister Superior and Sister Michaela interviewed him in the drawing-room, only they three knew what took place.

  John Miro was a taller, sprightlier Don Andres, with the least suggestion of more energy well gloved under a cultivated calm. He was about the same age — possessed of the same unchallengeable dignity; but one could imagine that he viewed life humorously, rather than as a procession of pious duties. Both sisters felt a little on guard against him, although they tried not to betray that by their manner. He glanced, perhaps, a mite too keenly at their faces under the deep white bandeaux.

  “I came about Jacqueline Lanier,” he said abruptly, breaking ground at once.

  The Sister Superior bowed in silence. It was Sister Michaela whose eyes seemed to offer a suggestion of encouragement.

  “I don’t propose to believe she was drowned in the flood until that’s proved conclusively,” he went on. “I have fifty men out searching for her, but they’ve found no trace, although the horses, and the carriage she drove away in were found the first day. All the other missing bodies have been found. Hers and Consuelo’s are the only two unaccounted for. Presuming then that she’s alive, can you give me an inkling of what might have happened to her?”

  “You read the newspapers, Mr. Miro?” the Sister Superior asked him.

  He smiled — exactly as Don Andres would have done — like a swordsman.

  “Yes. I have also spoken with Donna Isabella. That is why I am doing everything in my power to find Jacqueline. If ever a poor little woman needed help, I think she does. She shall have it, if I can find her.”

  “If she is alive, she surely needs your help, Mr. Miro. But I don’t think you will find her in Louisiana.”

  “Why not?” he asked abruptly.

  “Sister Michaela believes she has traced her to a railroad station, and there seems to be a possibility that she went to San Francisco with some refugees from the flood whose names are unknown.”

  “Pardon me. Didn’t you follow up that clue? Did you do nothing about it?”

  CHAPTER 22.

  The underworld

  Life in lodgings is only miserable when you are old, or too used to it. At seventeen, all that is new is amusing at first, unless it actually hurts, and it was Consuelo, not Jacqueline, who cried at sight of the dingy back- bedroom they must share between them in a noisy San Francisco back street, not far from the almost equally dingy café where Ramon and Cervanez were booked for a month’s engagement.
r />   They were hardly in the place when Consuelo snorted and rebelled.

  “My word! We’ll soon be out of this, Conchita!”

  “But how, Consuelo, since we have no money?”

  “There’s plenty of money in San Francisco, honey. Mr. John Miro lives here. He’s rich. Just you see what happens when I’ve been to him and—”

  “No, Consuelo! That man was Desmio’s enemy.”

  Because she herself was loyal, Consuelo understood. Almost as much as Jacqueline, she had become imbued with Don Andres Miro’s Old-World notions of fealty and pride.

  “Very well, honey,” she answered meekly. “But I don’t think even Don Andres’ enemy would let you stay in this place, if he knew.”

  “He’ll never know,” said Jacqueline, shutting her mouth tight.

  It was one of those lodging-houses known to the trouping fraternity, where late hours and equally late rising were understood; where you could cook things in your bed room and do more or less as you pleased as long as your bill was paid.

  Down-at-heel, but delightfully gay individuals conversed over stair-rails in shirt-sleeves. The landlady wore slippers and a cotton bath-robe. The blowsy old thing amused Jacqueline; and the things she knew that Jacqueline did not know were like new chapters, with colored illustrations, in the fascinating book of life.

  “Yes, my dear, I was as pretty as you are, and the same age, when I began trouping; but the life soon wears you out. Running this joint is restful compared to it, although you needn’t kid yourself the boys don’t drive me crazy — and the girls are worse! You take my tip and save your money. But, love you, we’re all the same way when we’re young, and you’ll not be guided by me! All the same, you’re pretty and I’m telling you; watch the men! They’re artful. They’ll work you to death, and they’ll spend all you earn — not that I blame ’em if there’s fools enough to fall for it! Let’s hope your head’s screwed on right.”

  Consuelo gasped at that picture of the life, but Jacqueline smiled at it, because it was different from anything she had ever contemplated. It was all rather amusing, and vague, and intriguing; not to be taken seriously.