Langdon was rather thin; he glanced sideways at Sayre, who wore glasses and whose locks were prematurely scant.
“Go on, William,” he said, with a crisp precision of diction which betrayed irritation and Harvard.
Sayre examined his notes, and presently read from them:
“The fourth and last victim of the Adirondack wilderness disappeared very recently — May 24th. His name was Alphonso W. Green, a wealthy amateur artist. When last seen he was followed by his valet, who carried a white umbrella, a folding stool, a box of colours, and several canvases. After luncheon the valet went back to the Gilded Dome Hotel to fetch some cigarettes. When he returned to where he had left his master painting a picture of something, which he thinks was a tree, but which may have been cows in bathing, Mr. Green had vanished. . . . Hum — hum! — ahem! He was young, well built, handsome, and — —”
“Kill it!” thundered the city editor, purple with passion.
“But it’s the official descrip — —”
“I don’t believe it! I won’t! I can’t! How the devil can a whole bunch of perfect Apollos disappear that way? There are not four such men in this State, anyway — outside of fiction and the stage — —”
“I’m only reading you the official — —”
Mr. Trinkle gulped; the chewing muscles worked in his cheeks, then calmness came, and his low and anxiously lined brow cleared.
“All right,” he said. “Show me, that’s all I ask. Go ahead and find just one of these disappearing Apollos. That’s all I ask.”
He shook an inky finger at them impressively, timing its wagging to his parting admonition:
“We want two things, do you understand? We want a story, and we want to print it before any other paper. Never mind reporting progress and the natural scenery; never mind telegraphing the condition of the local colour or the dialect of northern New York, or your adventures with nature, or how you went up against big game, or any other kind of game. I don’t want to hear from you until you’ve got something to say. All you’re to do is to prowl and mouse and slink and lurk and hunt and snoop and explore those woods until you find one or more of these Adonises; and then get the story to us by chain-lightning, if,” he added indifferently, “it breaks both your silly necks to do it.”
They passed out with calm dignity, saying “Good-bye, sir,” in haughtily modulated voices.
As they closed the door they heard him grunt a parting injury.
“What an animal!” observed Sayre. “If it wasn’t for the glory of being on the N. Y. Star — —”
“Sure,” said Langdon, “it’s a great paper; besides, we’ve got to — if we want to remain next to Uncle Augustus.”
It was a great newspaper; for ethical authority its editorials might be compared only to the Herald’s; for disinterested principle the Sun alone could compare with it; it had all the lively enterprise and virile, restless energy of the Tribune; all the gay, inconsequent, and frothy sparkle of the Evening Post; all the risky popularity of the Outlook. It was a very, very great New York daily. What on earth has become of it!
II
Langdon, very greasy with fly ointment, very sleepy from a mosquitoful night, squatted cross-legged by the camp fire, nodding drowsily. Sayre fought off mosquitoes with one grimy hand; with the other he turned flapjacks on the blade of his hunting-knife. All around them lay the desolate Adirondack wilderness. The wire fence of a game preserve obstructed their advance. It was almost three-quarters of a mile to the nearest hotel. Here and there in the forest immense boulders reared their prehistoric bulk. Many bore the inscription: “Votes for Women!”
“I tell you I did see her,” repeated Sayre, setting the coffee-pot on the ashes and inspecting the frying pork.
“The chances are,” yawned Langdon, rousing himself and feebly sucking at his empty pipe, “that you fell asleep waiting for a bite — as I did just now. Now I’ve got my bite and I’m awake. It was a horse-fly. Aren’t those flapjacks ready?”
“If you’re so hungry, help yourself to a ream of fish-wafer,” snapped Sayre. “I’m not a Hindoo god, so I can’t cook everything at once.”
Langdon waked up still more.
“I want to tell you,” he said fiercely, “that I’d rather gnaw circles in a daisy field than eat any more of your accursed fish-wafer. Do you realise that I’ve already consumed six entire pads, one ledger, and two note-books?”
Sayre struck frantically at a mosquito.
“I wonder,” he said, “whether it might help matters to fry it?”
“That mosquito?”
“No, you idiot! A fish-wafer.”
“You’d better get busy and fry a few trout.”
“Where are they?”
“In some of these devilish brooks. It’s up to you to catch a few.”
“Didn’t I try?” demanded Sayre; “didn’t I fish all the afternoon?”
“All I know about it is that you came back here last night with a farthest north story and no fish. You’re an explorer, all right.”
“Look here, Curtis! Don’t you believe I saw her?”
“Sure. When I fall asleep I sometimes see the same kind — all winners, too.”
“I was not asleep!”
“You said yourself that you were dead tired of waiting for a trout to become peevish and bite.”
“I was. But I didn’t fall asleep. I did see that girl. I watched her for several minutes. . . . Breakfast’s ready.”
Langdon looked mournfully at the flapjacks. He picked up one which was only half scorched, buttered it, poured himself a cup of sickly coffee, and began to eat with an effort.
“You say,” he began, “that you first noticed her when you were talking out loud to yourself to keep yourself awake?”
“While waiting for a trout to bite,” said Sayre, swallowing a lump of food violently. “I was amusing myself by repeating aloud my poem, Amourette:
“Where is the girl of yesterday?
The kind that snuggled up?
In vain I walk along Broadway —
Where is the girl of yesterday,
Whose pretty — —”
“All right! Go on with the facts!”
“Well, that’s what I was repeating,” said Sayre, tartly, “and it’s as good verse as you can do!”
Langdon bit into another flapjack with resignation. Sayre swallowed a cup of coffee, dodging an immersed June-beetle.
“I was just repeating that poem aloud,” he said, shuddering. “The woods were very still — except for the flies and mosquitoes; sunlight lay warm and golden on the mossy tree-trunks — —”
“Cut it. You’re not on space rates.”
“I was trying to give you a picture of the scene — —”
“You did; the local colour about the mosquitoes convinced me. Go on about the girl.”
An obstinate expression hardened Sayre’s face; the breeze stirred a lock on his handsome but prematurely bald forehead; he gazed menacingly at his companion through his gold pince-nez.
“I’ll blue-pencil my own stuff,” he said. “If you want to hear how it happened you’ll listen to the literary part, too.”
“Go on, then,” said Langdon, sullenly.
“I will. . . . The sunlight fell softly upon the trees of the ancient wood; bosky depths cast velvety shadows — —”
“What is a bosky depth? What is boskiness? By heaven, I’ve waited years to ask; and now’s my chance? You tell me what ‘bosky’ is, or — —”
“Do you want to hear about that girl?”
“Yes, but — —”
“Then you fill your face full of flapjack and shut up.”
Langdon bit rabidly at a flapjack and beat the earth with his heels.
“The stream,” continued Sayre, “purled.” He coldly watched the literary effect upon Langdon, then went on:
“Now, there’s enough descriptive colour to give you a proper mental picture. If you had left me alone I’d have finished it ten minutes ag
o. The rest moves with accelerated rhythm. It begins with the cracking of a stick in the forest. Hark! A sharp crack is — —”
“Every bum novel begins that way.”
“Well, the real thing did, too! And it startled me. How did I know what it might have been? It might have been a bear — —”
“Or a cow.”
“You talk,” said Sayre angrily, “like William Dean Howells! Haven’t you any romance in you?”
“Not what you call romance. Pass the flapjacks.”
Sayre passed them.
“My attention,” he said, “instantly became riveted upon the bushes. I strove to pierce them with a piercing glance. Suddenly — —”
“Sure! ‘Suddenly’ always comes next.”
“Suddenly the thicket stirred; the leaves were stealthily parted; and — —”
“A naked savage in full war paint — —”
“Naked nothing! A young girl in full war paint and a perfectly fitting gown stepped noiselessly out.”
“Out of what? you gink!”
“The bushes, dammit! She held in her hand a curious contrivance which I could not absolutely identify. It might have been a hammock; it might have been a fish-net.”
“Perhaps it was a combination,” suggested Langdon cheerfully. “Good idea; she to help you catch a trout; you to help her sit in the hammock; afterward — —”
Sayre, absorbed in retrospection, squatted beside the fire, a burnt flapjack suspended below his lips, which were slightly touched with a tenderly reminiscent smile.
“What are you smirking about now?” demanded Langdon.
“She was such a pretty girl,” mused Sayre, dreamily.
“Did you sit in the hammock with her?”
“No, I didn’t. I’m not sure it was a hammock. I don’t know what it was. She remained in sight only a moment.”
“Didn’t you speak to her?”
“No. . . . We just looked. She looked at me; I gazed at her. She was so unusually pretty, Curtis; and her grave, grey eyes seemed to meet mine and melt deep into me. Somehow — —”
“In plainer terms,” suggested Langdon, “she gave you the eye. What?”
“That’s a peculiarly coarse observation.”
“Then tell it your own way.”
“I will. The sunlight fell softly upon the trees of the ancient wood — —”
“Woodn’t that bark you!” shouted Langdon, furious. “Go on with the dolly dialogue or I’ll punch your head, you third-rate best seller!”
“But there was no dialogue, Curt. It began and ended in a duet of silence,” he added sentimentally.
“Didn’t you say anything? Didn’t you try to make a date? Aren’t you going to see her again?”
“I don’t know. I am not sure what sweet occult telepathy might have passed between us, Curtis. . . . Somehow I believe that all is not yet ended. . . . . Pass the pork! . . . I like to think that somehow, some day, somewhere — —”
“Stop that! You’re ending it the way women end short stories in the thirty-five-centers. What I want to know is, why you think that your encounter with this girl has anything to do with our finding Reginald Willett.”
There was a basin of warm water simmering on the ashes; Sayre used it as a finger-bowl, dried his hands on his shirt, lighted his pipe, and then slowly drew from his hip pocket a flat leather pocket-book. “Curt,” he said, “I’m not selfish. I’m perfectly willing to share glory with you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sure,” muttered Langdon. “You’re a bum cook, but otherwise moral enough.”
Sayre opened the pocket-book and produced a photograph.
“Everybody who is searching for Willett,” he said, “examined the few clues he left. Like hundreds of others, you and I, when we first entered these woods, went to his camp on Gilded Dome, prowled all over it, and examined the camera which had been picked up in the trail, didn’t we?”
“We did. It was a sad scene — his distracted old father — —”
“H’m! Did you see his distracted old father, Curt?”
“I? No, of course not. Like everybody else, I respected the grief of that aged and stricken gentleman — —”
“I didn’t.”
“Hey? Why, you yellow dingo — —”
“Curt, as I was snooping about the Italian Garden I happened to glance up at the mansion — I mean the camp — and I saw by the window a rather jolly old buck with a waxed moustache and a monocle, smoking a good cigar and perusing his after-breakfast newspaper. A gardener told me that this tranquil old bird was Willett Senior, who had arrived the evening before from Europe via New York. So I went straight into that house and I disregarded the butler, second man, valet, and seven assorted servants; and Mr. Willett Senior heard the noise and came to the dining-room door. ‘Well, what the devil’s the matter?’ he said. I said: ‘I only want to ask you one question, sir. Why are you not in a state of terrible mental agitation over the tragic disappearance of your son?’
“‘Because,’ he replied, coolly, ‘I know my son, Reginald. If the newspapers and the public will let him alone he’ll come back when he gets ready.’
“‘Are you not alarmed?’
“‘Not in the least.’
“‘Then why did you return from Europe and hasten up here?’
“‘Too many newspaper men hanging around.’ He glanced insultingly at the silver.
“I let that go. ‘Mr. Willett,’ I said, ‘they found your son’s camera on the trail. Your butler exhibits it to the police and reporters and tells them a glib story. He told it to me, also. But what I want to know is, why nobody has thought of developing the films.’
“‘My butler,’ said Mr. Willett, eyeing me, ‘did develop the films.’
“‘Was there anything on them?’
“‘Some trees.’
“‘May I see them?’
“He scrutinised me.
“‘After you’ve seen them will you take your friend and go away and remain?’ he asked wearily.
“‘Yes,’ I said.
“He walked into the breakfast room, opened a silver box, and returned with half a dozen photographs. The first five presented as many views of foliage; I used a jeweller’s glass on them, but discovered nothing else.”
“Was there anything to jar you on the sixth photograph?” inquired Langdon, interested.
Sayre made an impressive gesture; he was a trifle inclined toward the picturesque and histrionic.
“Curt, on the ground under a tree in the sixth photograph lay something which, until last evening, did not seem to me important.” He paused dramatically.
“Well, what was it? A bandersnatch?” asked Langdon irritably.
“Examine it!”
Langdon took the photograph. “It looks like a — a hammock.”
“What that girl held in her hand last night resembled a hammock.”
“Hey?”
Sayre leaned over his shoulder and laid the stem of his pipe on the extreme edge of the photograph.
“If you look long enough and hard enough,” he said, “you will just be able to make out the vague outline of a slender human hand among the leaves, holding the end of the hammock. See it?”
Langdon looked long and steadily. Presently he fished out a jeweller’s glass, screwed it into his eye, and looked again.
“Do you think that’s a human hand?”
“I do.”
“It’s a slim one — a child’s, or a young girl’s.”
“It is. She had be-u-tiful hands.”
“Who?”
“That girl I saw last evening.”
Langdon slowly turned and looked at Sayre.
“Well, what do you make of it?”
“Nothing yet — except a million different little romances.”
“Of course, you’d do that anyway. But what scientific inference do you draw? Here’s a thing that looks like a hammock lying on the ground. One end seems to be lifted; perhaps that is a hand. Well
, what about it?”
“I’m going to find out.”
“How?”
“By — fishing,” said Sayre quietly, rising and picking up his rod.
“You’re going back there in hopes of — —”
“In hopes.”
After a silence Langdon said: “You say she was unusually pretty?”
“Unusually.”
“Shall I — go with you, William?”
“No,” said Sayre coldly.
III
Sayre had been fishing for some time with the usual result when the slightest rustle of foliage caught his ear. He looked up. She was standing directly behind him.
He got to his feet immediately and pulled off his cap. That was too bad; he was better looking with it on his head.
“I wondered whether you’d come again,” he said, so simply and naturally that the girl, whose grey eyes had become intent on his scanty hair with a surprised and pained expression, looked directly into his smiling and agreeable face.
“Did you come to fish this pool?” he asked. “You are very welcome to. I can’t catch anything.”
“Why do you think that I am out fishing?” she asked in a curiously clear, still voice — very sweet and young — but a voice that seemed to grow out of the silence instead of to interrupt it.
“You are fishing, are you not? or at least you came here to fish last evening?” he said.
“Why do you think so?”
“You had a net.”
He expected her to say that it was a hammock which she was trailing through the woods in search of two convenient saplings on which to hang it.
She said: “Yes, it was a net.”
“Did my being here drive you away from your favourite pool?”
She looked at him candidly. “You are not a sportsman, are you?”
“N — no,” he admitted, turning red. “Why?”
“People who take trout in nets are fined and imprisoned.”
“Oh! But you said you had a net.”
“It wasn’t a fish net.”
He waited. She offered no further explanation. Sometimes she looked at him, rather gravely, he thought; sometimes she looked at the stream. There was not the slightest hint of embarrassment in her manner as she stood there — a straight, tall, young thing, grey-eyed, red-lipped, slim, with that fresh slender smoothness of youth; clad in grey wool, hatless, thick burnished hair rippling into a heavy knot at the nape of the whitest neck he had ever seen.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 618
