Then he swung the dining room door shut and strode back to the waiting visitor.
“I am told that Miss Ransom has retired and that she cannot see you tonight. She has, I believe, sent you an answer to your message, and the nurse wishes me to say to you that her answer is final. She cannot possibly accept your suggestions!”
Anger rolled hot in the face of Kearney Krupper.
“Oh!” he jeered. “So you have a date with her, have you? Well, two can play at that game, and my turn comes first. I’m not taking any secondhand messages from a kid like you just out of high school. Miss Ransom understands the importance of my message, and if she knew I was down here, she would come down at once. I don’t believe that wall-eyed woman took my message at all. I want Miss Ransom called down at once, or I’m going up! It’s absolutely necessary to Miss Ransom’s happiness that she know what I have to tell her, and if you don’t know enough to send for her at once, I’ll go and get some real police officers and have you chucked from your fancy job before you know where you’re at! I know you! You’re only one of those fool League men. You haven’t any real authority!”
Then down the stairway came a clear voice from above.
“Chris, please tell Mr. Krupper that I have entire confidence in you, and that he may say whatever is necessary to you. I shall not come down tonight. As for extracting money by threats from any of the people who have caused my father’s downfall, I would rather my brother and I both spent the rest of our lives in prison than touch a cent of such money!”
Then swift steps went into a room, and the door was shut and noticeably locked with a decided click.
There was a moment’s startled hush in the hall below, while the two men faced each other, and the dining room door swung slowly open, revealing Nurse Bronson in her red bathrobe and crimping pins, a light of grim triumph in her eyes.
A wave of pride rolled into Chris’s face, a great light of restored self-respect in his eye. And a new dignity fell upon him like a garment.
By those few words Romayne had lifted a cloud from his honest heart and taken away the blight she had put upon him the night of her father’s arrest. She had, as it were, in the presence of witnesses, handed him a crown of honor. He was her trusted friend again! It was more than he had ever hoped to have, and he accepted it humbly and joyfully.
The face of Kearney was dark with wrath, and in his eyes gleamed something like fear. It was as if Romayne’s clear voice had cut through the secrecy with which he had sought to veil his errand and thrown all open for the enemy to see. He cast about for a way out of his dilemma and smothered his anger in a semblance of condescension.
“Miss Ransom little knows what she has done,” he said haughtily. “I am here to represent the son of this house—”
Chris interrupted him coldly.
“The son of this house is in prison—or ought to be! It is his own rascality that has put him there and left his sister unprotected to face the rottenest situation a girl ever was in. I am here to represent the daughter of this house, who has had enough to bear today without anything else that you have to say. If you wish to discuss this matter any further, we will go down to my office and do so. My car is waiting outside—”
“I have not wish to discuss anything—with you!” he said contemptuously. “There are important things this girl ought to know, and she will be sorry if she lets them go.…” Here he raised his voice louder and looked up the stairs. “But if she refuses to talk with me, she’ll have to take the consequences. I see you have it all framed up to suit your own devices, and I suppose you expect to profit thereby, but the time will come”—here his voice was still louder—“when she will bitterly regret that she turned away her only brother’s confidential friend and put her trust in traitors!”
“We will discuss those matters further at my office!” said Chris authoritatively. “March!”
Kearney Krupper lowered his eyes from the stairs and perceived that Chris held a revolver in his right hand and that his eyes were very stern. Much too stern for a high-school boy’s eyes. Kearney had never realized how stern a recent high school graduate’s eyes could get. He grew a shade whiter around his mouth, but he kept his braggadocio voice.
“Oh now, don’t get funny!” he said with a nervous laugh. “I have no idea of troubling you with any of my confidences. I’m going now, and I’m only sorry for poor Miss Ransom.”
“March!” said Chris. “We’ll finish this in my office! I’ve something very important to say to you if you are Lawrence Ransom’s friend.”
Kearney Krupper turned hastily toward the door, feeling that he suddenly had no further desire to continue the conversation, but in turning he found himself confronted with six more men in uniform and six other revolvers in evidence looking exceedingly handy.
Solemnly they opened ranks, three on a side, while Kearney Krupper, hat in hand, with Chris behind, revolver in hand, walked out the door and down the steps into the car that was waiting to take him to the station house.
During that ride Kearney Krupper endeavored to pull his usual cloak of bravado together and demanded to know why he was being taken against his will and what Chris wanted of him anyway.
“We just want you to tell us what you have done with Lawrence Ransom,” stated Chris briefly, and he would say no more, in spite of all Kearney’s protests that he knew nothing whatever of Lawrence or his movements, that he was only acting for him in response to a note received from the prison. Lawrence was in the prison, of course, where he had been all the time, so far as he knew anything about it.
“Well, we just want you to prove that statement,” said Chris quietly as he drew up before the station house, and Kearney got out to face another cordon of uniforms drawn up to welcome him. “Also,” added Chris, “we’d like to know what you were going to do with that thousand dollars after you had bullied Miss Ransom into giving it to you. If you can explain everything satisfactorily, why, they will probably send you on your way tomorrow morning. If not, you may be detained longer.”
Kearney gave a furtive glance up the street and down as he got out of the car, pulled his hat over his face, and made a hurried dash inside the hall of justice, while the cordon of uniforms closed up behind him. It began to look as if he had made a rather serious mistake. Who would have thought that little delicate girl could have had so much spirit? There must be someone behind it all, or she never would have dared! Evan Sherwood, perhaps. Lawrence had said she was innocent as a lamb. Well, she should pay for this! Kearney Krupper had an ugly streak of vengeance in him, and when anyone did him a bad turn, he never forgot it. He resolved that this girl should cringe and crouch to him before he was done, just to pay for that speech of hers flung down from upstairs as if he were a cur! And it began to look as if it was going to cost him something to get out of this affair, too! Just when he had been expecting to clean up a tidy thousand on the side and nobody the wiser for it!
He began to cast about in his mind for a friend to go bail for him in case this turned out to be a genuine arrest. His father, of course, but he was in mid-ocean and not anxious to be in the limelight just now. So also were most of his father’s accomplices. He was not expected to get into trouble just now. He had been ordered to be most cautious. There were things he had to do for “the gang.” He could not afford to get into the papers!
He was startled out of his meditations by a voice like a steel strap.
“When and where did you last see Lawrence Ransom?”
Chapter 18
Well!” said Nurse Bronson, arriving in Romayne’s room after having double-locked and bolted every door to its utmost capacity. “That settles it! You’ve got to get out of here! You weren’t planning to stay alone in this great house, were you? I hope not!”
“Why, no—that is—I hadn’t planned!” said Romayne helplessly. “I—why, what can I do? I really haven’t thought! There hasn’t been any chance to think. Of course I’ll have to do something. There won’t be any money left w
hen I’ve paid all these bills. The undertaker alone will be over three hundred dollars. And I haven’t thought to ask you what you get a week. I should have given you a check before you left. You must excuse me—”
“There, there, THERE!” said Nurse Bronson. “Don’t you begin on that! I may as well tell you that the League has paid all those bills! They gave me a check the day I left here, and I happen to know the doctor and undertaker are paid, too. I heard some of ’em say it was their responsibility. But I didn’t intend that fox downstairs should know it. You didn’t know it! As far as you were concerned, your money was spent on those things. It’s time that brother of yours knew it, if he doesn’t know it now. And as for that fox that came here for him, you mark my words! If you’d given him anything, your brother would never have seen a dollar of it! Now don’t you forget what I say, and don’t you ever let him fool you! I know him and his father before him. They’re all alike, and you can’t trust one of them! Why, do you know what he did? The old Krupper, I mean. He’s chairman of a committee to buy things for the schoolhouse, and they had a whole long list of things charged up to twice and three times as much as they really cost. They had a bedroom set for the high school. You know they have a fool thing they call Domestic Science, where they teach the girls how to cook and make beds—all nonsense, I say, because haven’t nine-tenths of all them that goes to school got homes and mothers to teach ’em to make beds? However, they didn’t ask my advice, and they teach them things, and if they want ’em, I s’pose they’ve got a right to ’em. But the taxpayers buy the stuff fer all this carryings on, and one of the things they have is a bedroom. And they bought a solid mahogany bedroom set, exactly like my cousin got for her daughter when she was married, at Blatz’s department store for three hundred and fifty in the August furniture sale, and what do you think they pretended they paid for it? Fifteen hundred and seventy-five dollars! Yes sir! That’s how them politicians live! That’s what that man’s father is. Now, when he asks you fer money fer anything, don’t you give it to him! Not to save your life, don’t you! He’ll take the money, and he won’t lift a finger for you. You put that away and remember it. I know, fer I saw the bedroom set, and I studied my cousin’s daughter’s set before I went, and they’re exactly the same to a keyhole. And I noticed it before I saw it in the papers, or ever heard the League officers talking about it, either!”
“Oh, I’m so thankful you were here!” sighed Romayne, sinking down on her pillow, white and weak. “This has been such an awful day!”
“Yes, and you, child, had better get to sleep right away.”
“I don’t think I can possibly sleep!” said Romayne. “There are so many things to think about. I felt so angry when Mr. Krupper suggested my telegraphing to those people!”
“Yes, wasn’t that the limit?”
“And how did Chris happen to be here? Wasn’t it wonderful that he came in the nick of time?”
“Oh, we had an agreement. Evan—that is, Chris—and I, that if I needed any help in the night I would telephone, so I just gave him the tip, and he was here in the jerk of a lamb’s tail. He certainly kept his agreement.”
“I’m very grateful,” said Romayne. “I can’t thank him enough. I was horrid to him the night Father was taken sick—and”—more thoughtfully—“I was horrid to Mr. Sherwood, too—”
“Oh, well, he didn’t hold it against you. If you only knew—he’s always asked after you the kindest way—”
“Is he any better?” asked the girl half-shyly.
“Yes, he’s getting slowly out of danger. He wanted to get up today. Imagine! He said he must get up and attend to the League. There’s been some big things happening—” Nurse Bronson stopped short, remembering that one of the big things that happened to make Evan Sherwood feel he must get up and get back to business was the news of Lawrence Ransom’s escape, and that two of the members of the League had suggested that perhaps his sister ought to be put into custody lest she, too, were in league with the gang. Nurse Bronson could have told many things if she had not a well-trained mouth that knew when to shut tight. It certainly would not help the worn-out girl on the bed to know that she was an object of suspicion and that Evan Sherwood had stood between her and a good deal of unpleasant publicity.
“Oh, you don’t know what a fine young man he is!” finished Nurse Bronson. “Some day you’ll understand and have a chance to thank him, perhaps. He did a lot of nice things while your father was sick. Wait till he finds out about that old Krupper!”
“Oh, don’t tell him!” begged Romayne, her cheeks flushed with humiliation at once. “I would hate so to have him know about my brother!”
“Child! He knows! And anyhow, Chris will have had to tell him. He makes ’em bring him a report of every little thing every day. Now, you forget it. I’ve talked too much. Tomorrow we’ll set about fixing things so you can’t be annoyed this way.”
“Oh,” cried Romayne, the weak tears running down her white cheeks. “I wish I’d died, too! Why couldn’t I have died? How can I live without anybody? My brother, too! Oh, I wish I could get away from here where nobody knows me!”
“Well, perhaps you can,” said Nurse Bronson cheerily. “But you mustn’t talk that way about dying. I ain’t much of a Christian myself, but I always sorta sized it up that Him that put us here knowed when He wanted us to leave this place, and we hadn’t oughtta fret till our time comes. Likely He’s got something yet fer you to do. Say, how would you like to move to my room in my sister’s house for a few days, till you make up your mind what to do? The room’s there, and it ain’t occupied when I’m on a case. There ain’t many I’d let go into it, but I don’t mind you. You’d be real comfortable. It has a good bed and two big winders, and my mother and my sister would just love to have you. My sister’s husband travels, and he ain’t home much, so they’d like you fer company, and she has two little children. It ain’t a grand street, it’s Maple Street, and only a two-story house, but we got a little garden and some flowers, and there’s a speck of a lawn in front; it ain’t right on the street. You could stay there, and it wouldn’t cost you anything for the room, and then you could look around.”
“That would be wonderful!” said Romayne. “Could I go right away tomorrow?”
“Sure!” said Nurse Bronson. “You needn’t stay here another night. I’ll get you away real early in the morning, and when you decide what you want to do, we’ll come back and pack up in a hurry and wipe the dust off our feet.”
“Oh, that will be good.” Romayne lay back on her pillows. “I can’t really let those people in the League pay my bills, of course, but they will give me time, perhaps—”
“Oh well, you can settle all that better when you’ve had a chance to rest first.…”
“I’ll have to sell the furniture,” said Romayne, looking around the room.
“Is it furniture you’ve had a long time? Do you want to keep it?”
“No; Father picked it up here and there. It’s good stuff, he said. I think he paid a good deal for some of it, but we’ve only had it a short time. There’s only Mother’s old-fashioned rocker and sewing table and a little chest of drawers I’d like to keep. If I could get a room somewhere, I could keep them.”
“Sure you could, and that’s sensible,” responded the nurse heartily. “My sister would let you have house-room for them till you settled where you were going. She’s got a storeroom with lots of empty space—”
“Oh, I wish I could move tonight where that man couldn’t ever find me again!”
“Well, you can move tomorrow, if you want to. Just pack up your clothes early, the things you want with you, and we can get an expressman. Then you can sell the things at your leisure. I know an antique man that has a little shop. They say he pays pretty good prices. Now, you go to sleep!”
But there was little sleep for Romayne that night; her brain was too excited. She lay planning ahead, thinking of possibilities that had not occurred to her during the days of her father’
s illness, realizing as she had not done before what a future would mean in which she must support herself.
She had time to feel grateful to the League for lifting her burden of debt for the moment, to suspect the fact that this Evan Sherwood was likely at the bottom of this kindness also, and to tell herself that she must write him a note the first thing tomorrow thanking him for it and for his other kindnesses. Now that everything was over and she would have no need of help anymore, she could afford to be generous and show her gratitude. He was sick in bed, and she was going to get out of the vicinity as fast as she could and would probably never have to meet him again. She really must be a lady and write that note. But she must pay that debt at once!
Five hundred dollars would probably not be enough, but she could at least send him a check for that amount and ask him to let her know how much more she owed him. Perhaps she could get enough from the furniture to support herself awhile, till she could get a job. But where should she go for a job? She had never learned stenography, although she wrote well on the typewriter, and had written many of her father’s letters for him. She had lived a sheltered life, reading and studying with her invalid mother during her earlier years, and then away much at school after her mother’s death. Never a thought of learning how to earn her living. Her father was old-fashioned and believed in a girl being brought up to be an ornament and to be provided for by the men of her family. She had never thought much about the matter, but if she had visioned any sphere, it was always of the household, making a home. Well, she did not exactly want to go out to service in somebody’s kitchen, and the only other way to use her domestic talents would be to get married, which was of course out of the question and out of her thoughts. It seemed to her that she never wanted to get married, that she had passed through an experience that set her apart from the rest of the girls in the world and unfitted her for the joys of life. If she had ever dreamed the dreams of youth, she put them aside now as over forever.
Coming Through the Rye Page 19