XXVII
Two Witnesses
Driven by Starbuck in the brand-new car, Smith reached the dam athalf-past ten and was in time to see the swarming carpenters begin theplacing of the forms for the pouring of the final section of the greatwall. Though the high water was lapping at the foot timbers of theforming, and the weather reports were still portentous, Williams was infine fettle. There had been no further interferences on the part of therailroad people, every man on the job was spurting for the finish, andthe successful end was now fairly in sight.
"We'll be pouring this afternoon," he told Smith, "and with atwenty-four-hour set for the concrete, and the forms left in place foradditional security, we can shut the spillway gates and back the waterinto the main ditch. Instead of being a hindrance then, the flood-tidewill help. Under slack-water conditions it would take a day or two tofinish filling the reservoir lake, but now we'll get the few feet ofrise needed to fill the sluices almost while you wait."
"You have your guards out, as we planned?" Smith inquired.
"Twenty of the best men I could find. They are patrolling on both sidesof the river, with instructions to report if they see so much as arabbit jump up."
"Good. I'm going to let Starbuck drive me around the lake limits to seeto it personally that your pickets are on the job. But first, I'd liketo use your 'phone for a minute or two," and with that Smith shuthimself up in the small field-office and called Martin, the bookkeeper,at the town headquarters.
The result of the brief talk with Martin seemed satisfactory, for whenit was concluded, Smith rang off and asked for the Hophra House. Beinggiven the hotel exchange, he called the number of Miss Richlander'ssuite, and the answer came promptly in the full, throaty voice of theOlympian beauty.
"Is that you, Montague?"
"Yes. I'm out at the dam. Nothing has been done yet. No telegraphing, Imean. You understand?"
"Perfectly. But something is going to be done. Mr. K. has had ColonelB. with him in the bank. I saw the colonel go in while I was atbreakfast. When are you coming back to town?"
"Not for some time; I have a drive to make that will keep me out untilafternoon."
"Very well; you'd better stay away as long as you can, and then you'dbetter communicate with me before you show yourself much in public. I'llhave Jibbey looking out for you."
Smith said "good-by" and hung up the receiver with a fresh twinge ofdissatisfaction. Every step made his dependence upon Verda Richlandermore complete. To be sure, he told himself, they had both forswornsentiment in the old days, but was that any guaranty that it was not nowawakening in Josiah Richlander's daughter? And Corona Baldwin: whatwould she say to this newest alliance? Would she not say again, and thistime with greater truth, that he was a coward of the basest sort; of thetype that makes no scruple of hiding behind a woman's skirts?
Happily, there was work to do, and he went out and did it. With the newcar to cover the longer interspaces, a complete round of Williams'ssentries was made, with detours up and down the line of the abandonedRed Butte Southwestern, whose right-of-way claims had been so recentlyrevived. Smith tried to tell himself that he was only making a necessaryreconnaissance thoroughly; that he was not delaying his return to townbecause Verda had told him to. But when the real motive could no longerbe denied, he brought himself up with a jerk. If it had come to this,that he was afraid to face whatever might be awaiting him in Brewster,it was time to take counsel once more of the elemental things.
"Back to Brewster, Billy, by way of the camp," he directed, and theoverworked car was turned and headed accordingly.
It was some little time before this, between the noon-hour and theone-o'clock Hophra House luncheon, to be exact, that Mr. David Kinzie,still halting between two opinions, left his desk and the bank andcrossed the street to the hotel. Inquiry at the lobby counter revealingthe fact that Miss Richlander was in her rooms, Kinzie wrote his name ona card and let the clerk send it up. The boy came back almostimmediately with word that Miss Richlander was waiting in the mezzanineparlors.
The banker tipped the call-boy and went up alone. He had seen MissRichlander, once when she was driving with Smith and again at thetheatre in the same company. So he knew what to expect when he trampedheavily into the parlor overlooking the street. None the less, thedazzling beauty of the young woman who rose to shake hands with him andcall him by name rather took him off his feet. David Kinzie was ahopeless bachelor, from choice, but there are women, and women.
"Do you know, Mr. Kinzie, I have been expecting you all day," she saidsweetly, making him sit down beside her on one of the flaming redmonstrosities billed in the hotel inventories as "Louis Quinze sofas"."My father sent me a note by one of your young men, and he said thatperhaps you would--that perhaps you might want to--" Her rich voice wasat its fruitiest, and the hesitation was of exactly the proper shade.
Kinzie, cold-blooded as a fish with despondent debtors, felt himselfsuddenly warmed and moved to be gentle with this gracious young woman.
"Er--yes, Miss Richlander--er--a disagreeable duty, you know. I wantedto ask about this young man, Smith. We don't know him very well here inBrewster, and as he has considerable business dealings with the bank,we--that is, I thought your father might be able to tell us somethingabout his standing in his home town."
"And my father did tell you?"
"Well--yes; he--er--he says Smith is a--a grand rascal; a fugitive fromjustice; and we thought--" David Kinzie, well hardened in all theprocesses of dealing with men, was making difficult weather of it withthis all-too-beautiful young woman.
Miss Richlander's laugh was well restrained. She seemed to be strugglingearnestly to make it appear so.
"You business gentlemen are so funny!" she commented. "You know, ofcourse, Mr. Kinzie, that _this_ Mr. Smith and I are old friends; you'veprobably seen us together enough to be sure of that. Hasn't it occurredto you that however well I might know the Mr. Smith my father haswritten you about, I should hardly care to be seen in public with him?"
"Then there are two of them?" Kinzie demanded.
The young woman was laughing again. "Would that be so verywonderful?--with so many Smiths in the world?"
"But--er--the middle name, Miss Richlander: _that_ isn't so infern--sovery common, I'm sure."
"It is rather remarkable, isn't it? But there are a good many Montaguesin our part of the world, too. The man my father wrote you about alwayssigned himself 'J. Montague', as if he were a little ashamed of the'John'."
"Then this Brewster Smith isn't the one who is wanted in Lawrencevillefor embezzlement and attempted murder?"
"Excuse me," said the beauty, with another very palpable attempt tosmother her amusement. "If you could only know this other Smith; the onemy father wrote you about, and the one he thinks you were asking about:they are not the least bit alike. J. Montague, as I remember him, was atypical society man; a dancing man who was the pet of the youngergirls--and of their mothers, for that matter; you know what I mean--thekind of man who wears dress clothes even when he dines alone, and whowouldn't let his beard grow overnight for a king's ransom. But wait amoment. There is a young gentleman here who came last evening directfrom Lawrenceville. Let me send for him."
She rose and pressed the bell-push, and when the floor boy came, he wassent to the lobby to page Jibbey. During the little wait, David Kinziewas skilfully made to talk about other things. Jibbey was easily found,as it appeared, and he came at once. Miss Richlander did the honorsgraciously.
"Mr. Kinzie, this is Mr. Tucker Jibbey, the son of one of ourLawrenceville bankers. Tucker--Mr. Kinzie; the president of the BrewsterCity National." Then, before Kinzie could begin: "Tucker, I've sent foryou in self-defense. You know both Mr. John Smith, at present ofBrewster, and also J. Montague Smith, sometime of Lawrenceville and nowof goodness only knows where. Mr. Kinzie is trying to make out that theyare one and the same."
Jibbey laughed broadly. He stood in no awe of banks, bankers, or stubblymustaches.
"I'll tell
John, when I see him again--and take a chance on being ableto run faster than he can," he chuckled. "Ripping good joke!"
"Then you know both men?" said Kinzie, glancing at his watch and rising.
"Like a book. They're no more alike than black and white. Our man hereis from Cincinnati; isn't that where you met him, Verda? Yes, I'm sureit is--that night at the Carsons', if you remember. I believe I was theone who introduced him. And I recollect you didn't like him at first,because he wore a beard. They told me, the last time I was over inCinci, that he'd gone West somewhere, but they didn't say where. He wasthe first man I met when I lit down here. Damn' little world, isn't it,Mr. Kinzie?"
David Kinzie was backing away, watch in hand. Business was verypressing, he said, and he must get back to his desk. He was very muchobliged to Miss Richlander, and was only sorry that he had troubled her.When her father should return to Brewster he would be glad to meet him,and so on and so on, to and beyond the portieres which finally blottedhim out, for the two who were left in the Louis Quinze parlor.
"Is that about what you wanted me to say?" queried Jibbey, when theclick of the elevator door-latch told them that Mr. Kinzie wasdescending.
"Tucker, there are times when you are almost lovable," said the beautysoftly, with a hand on Jibbey's shoulder.
"I'm glad it's what you wanted, because it's what I was going to say,anyway," returned the ne'er-do-well soberly, thus showing that he, too,had not yet outlived the influence of the overnight hand-grip.
An hour further along in the afternoon, Starbuck's new car, pausingmomentarily at the construction camp to give its occupants a chance towitness the rapid fulfilment of Williams's prediction in the swiftlypouring streams of concrete, advertised its shining presence to theengineer, who came up for a word with Smith while Starbuck had his headunder the hood of the new-paint-burning motor.
"Somebody's been trying to get you over the wire, John; some woman," hesaid, in tones as low as the thunderings of the rock-crushers wouldsanction. "She wouldn't give me her number, but she wanted me to tellyou, if you came back here, that it was all right; that you had nothingto be afraid of. She said you'd understand."
The Real Man Page 27