Cordelia Underwood, or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  Now he stared from his mount at the uninhabited brow of a hill and thought of a young woman who once had stood there. The strangest thing about this longing was that he had known the object of his thoughts for hardly more than a day, and had spent a good deal of that time feeling irritated with her—or at least he had spent a good deal of that time fearing that she was irritated with him, which was not quite the same thing.

  He thought again (for the thousandth time) of his abrupt departure, of how he had told James that he was leaving them, and how Cordelia—Miss Underwood—had looked regretful and had reached out for him as he turned his horse’s head, though she was too far away, and of how he regretted that there was no graceful way to change his mind or take back his words.

  It had been more than two weeks since he parted company with the Underwoods on the road to Millinocket, and the rush of longing and regret whenever he thought of that moment (which was often) was as strong as that very night after leaving her, when he sat at a lonely campfire with the great back of Mount Katahdin masking an entire quadrant of stars.

  She wasn’t the first pretty woman he had ever met, but she was the first something that he had ever met, and he had a great desire to understand what that something was, and he certainly couldn’t understand it without her being close at hand. It wasn’t the act of rescuing her, he knew; she had half-rescued herself, which, when he thought of it, made him long for her the more.

  Dresden Scott did not dislike people, though he seldom felt a great need for their company. People came and he appreciated their talk and their presence; people went away and he appreciated the quiet that returned. But Scott sat on his horse and looked about Cordelia Underwood’s land, wondered if she would come back someday, and finally came to the conclusion that he was in need of distraction. From a stand of birches, the crow cawed.

  With one last glance toward the Cordelia in his mind who stood at the edge of the rise, he turned his horse’s head in the direction of Millinocket.

  Mr. Kelleher had the look of a once handsome man long gone to seed, rather like the establishment he ran in the city of Bangor, in the midst of the Devil’s Half-Acre. He ushered John Benning and Ben Hasson past the small tables and chairs and the bar and the stools to the back room, which smelled even more of stale beer and tobacco smoke. “Come in. Come in. Sit down. Sit down,” chanted the proprietor of the Sleeping Dog. “Please, tell me your business and to what I owe the pleasure.”

  John Benning did not flinch at the dirty accommodations, but chose a chair that looked the least ready to fall apart, folded his arms, and sat back. Ben Hasson eased into a creakier seat. Behind a wide-topped desk, which might have seen legitimate business in its day, Mr. Kelleher gave his best impression (and a somewhat unsettling one) of a friendly smile. “Please,” he said again, “tell me what I can do for you.”

  “You may remember,” said Benning, with no preamble, “the incident of the runaway wagon . . .”

  “Oh, yes,” said Kelleher. He ran a hand over his pink pate, as if he had hair to smooth back. “I read of it in the papers.” He gave Ben Hasson a moment of polite attention. “All the papers, you know, remarked upon it.”

  “The wagon was discovered just outside your tavern here,” continued Benning.

  “Imagine my surprise,” said the proprietor. “Was that really a week ago? Tempus fugit, gentlemen, tempus fugit,”

  “And in the space of five minutes,” said Benning, “an item in the back of that wagon was spirited away.”

  “Just the phrase the newspapers used—spirited.”

  “I could make it worth someone’s while to find that item.”

  “That’s very generous of course, but you know I told the chief of constables everything I know, which I’m afraid amounts to very little.”

  “I see.” Benning’s expression (or lack thereof) remained unchanged. “There is another possible course of action.”

  “Yes?”

  “If pleasure can be demonstrated, Mr. Kelleher, so can displeasure.”

  “That would be in the nature of a threat, wouldn’t it?” said Kelleher, never losing the lilt of polite conversation.

  “It would.”

  “It’s very good of you to be so straightforward.”

  “I find it the best way.”

  “Of course, you’re right. It certainly is.” Kelleher continued to smile agreeably upon them. “Are you sure that there is nothing I can do for you, then?”

  Benning rose and gave the slightest bow of the head. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Kelleher.”

  “Please,” said the man. “Don’t mention it.”

  Ben Hasson glowered angrily as he followed Benning to the door. The hawk-nosed man let himself be ushered into the hall beyond, but the younger man hesitated, as if remembering something of importance. “Mr. Kelleher,” he said. “In case you do hear something about the missing item, you might warn people that a very ingenious sort of trap has been laid for anyone who doesn’t know how to open it properly.”

  “Really, Mr. Benning?” said the bald fellow. “Aren’t things odd!”

  “I am still not sure what to think,” said Benning, once their carriage was underway. In the opposite seat, Hasson looked worried, though it would have worried him to know it. He had realized, with a sudden and unpleasant shock, just the day before that the boss might ultimately suspect his involvement with the disappearance of the treasure, and it was of great importance to Hasson to avoid even the appearance of guilt.

  The carriage driver brought them out of the Devil’s Half-Acre in the direction of the riverfront. Benning watched, without seeing, the rows of warehouses and wharves. “I still can’t imagine them as anything but the most hopeless of innocents—Misters Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump.”

  “They did seem hopeless at cards,” admitted Hasson. “Perhaps too hopeless. I should have suspected . . .”

  “But it was this other fellow—this Sundry—who offered them up?”

  “He was a sly one, make no mistake.” Then, “Do you want some of the boys and I to visit Mr. Kelleher tonight?”

  “No,” said Benning, tiredly. “He’s right to be unimpressed by our threats. He’s a respected businessman in an illegitimate business, which means his friends and his thugs are one and the same, and he’ll have plenty of them. In the end, of course, he may know as little as he claims. His evasive tactics may simply be a dodge contrived to get something from us.”

  “And everything was coming around so well.”

  “Yes, I suppose we were getting a little too sure of ourselves.” The carriage turned onto a wharfside alley where the bowsprit of a schooner reached over the cobbles like a flagpole, the ship itself looming huge in its close berth. “I would give the treasure itself,” said Benning, “to know what happened to it . . . or simply to know what was in it.”

  Ben, perhaps not feeling so generous, said nothing.

  John Benning turned to the hawk-nosed man. “I wish I was a fly on the wall of Mr. Kelleher’s back room right now, don’t you, Ben?”

  “Yes, boss, it might prove instructive.”

  The carriage came to a halt beneath the bow of the Elaborate, and the two men climbed out, taking glances up and down the alley before moving to the gangplank. Their plans had deteriorated to the point where Benning himself felt anxious, as if the authorities might descend upon them at any moment.

  At the top of the gangplank they were met by the captain, who greeted them with an official air.

  “Captain,” said Benning.

  “Mr. Benning,” said the man. “There’s a gentleman waiting for you in your cabin.”

  “A gentleman?”

  “I didn’t ask his name, sir.”

  There was a fly on the wall of Kelleher’s backroom—several, in fact—and the proprietor of the Sleeping Dog swatted at one of them with a rolled newspaper as he leaned back in his chair.

  “I think they know more than they’re letting on,” said Kelleher to the other man in the r
oom. “But I’m hanged if I know what their dodge is.”

  “Why would they come looking for the chest if they knew where it was?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kelleher. “All I know is that when I came back here that day, it was gone.” He glanced at the floor beneath the other man—some associate, some partner in shady business deals. The other man took the glance to indicate where the chest had been left by the several men who had carried it from the wagon.

  “I don’t know how it could have been moved so quickly,” said the other man.

  Kelleher was actually glancing at the oak floor and thinking of the trap door cleverly built into it.

  “And quietly,” said the other man. It had taken four strong men to maneuver the large box up the side steps of the tavern and into this back room. It had been, in fact, this other man—one Henry Bergen—who first caught sight of the runaway wagon, and who, in less than two minutes, called forth and organized the removal of the chest, once he had corralled the horse and wagon into the alley beside the Sleeping Dog.

  Kelleher shook his head. “I’d like to know what was in that box,” he said. This was true, though he didn’t dare find out till he was sure that the affair was all but forgotten. “I was only out of the room for a quarter of an hour.”

  “Well, you couldn’t have moved it by yourself,” said Henry Bergen.

  Not very far, thought Kelleher. The trap door was fashioned to work as a chute, and he had had only to shoulder the massive chest a foot or so before it tipped onto the wooden ramp and slid of its own accord into the hole below. There had been a loud scraping and an impressive thump in all this, but Bergen and his cronies had already scattered (most to the front of the tavern to feign interest in what was going on), and the approaching crowd of gang members, club members, and police raised ruckus enough to cover the noise. Kelleher laughed at the notion of moving the chest by himself.

  Bergen chuckled softly. “You can’t trust anyone these days.”

  Kelleher shook his head and laughed more heartily. He felt a twinge in his back from his exertions, which made him laugh the more. Blast, he thought to himself, I’ll have to wait a year before I can open that trap again.

  Bergen continued to laugh, but it was the laugh of a man who knows that he might have been duped; the laugh of a man who has laughed more than once in the face of bad luck—even his own.

  John Benning paused in the companionway, inclining his head slightly so that he could see into the dimmer precincts of the Elaborate’s main cabin. A familiar figure of medium height and portly frame stood at the only window in the small room, unconscious of the young man’s arrival. “Mister Walton,” said Benning; he took the two steps down into the cabin.

  The portly gentleman turned from the window, which afforded a view of little interest, and eyed the younger man sternly.

  Benning put out a hand, but dropped it before Mister Walton actually had the opportunity to refuse it. Benning had experienced several surprising moments in the course of this affair, but none that so very nearly thwarted his ability to appear unsurprised as this one; he could not imagine how the fellow had found him. The presence of Mister Walton altered his perception of an entire chain of events, like the slight push that triggers the trail of falling dominoes.

  “Mr. Benning,” said Mister Walton, his voice even, his hands clasped behind his back. “I have come to ask you only one question.”

  “Please, feel free,” said the younger man. He indicated a chair for his visitor’s comfort, but the offer went unnoticed.

  “Are you the author of all this commotion?” asked Mister Walton. “More importantly, were you behind Miss Underwood’s abduction?”

  “Yes,” said Benning without hesitation, and though caught by surprise he was not caught without his wit. “To both questions.”

  “I feared as much,” said Mister Walton. His head dropped slightly; then he took a breath and renewed his narrowed gaze into Benning’s eyes. “One of your . . . gang . . . struck Miss Underwood.”

  “I am sorry for that,” said Benning. “And he’s not to get away with it.” It was strangely difficult for him to meet the bespectacled gentleman’s gaze.

  “You are right there, I think,” said Mister Walton. “He and two of his associates have been taken by the authorities.”

  “That isn’t what I meant, actually. If you read the newspapers tomorrow, I believe you will discover that they are no longer in custody.”

  Mister Walton thought on this. “So, you shall punish the man for striking Miss Underwood.”

  “I will indeed. And he knows it.”

  “And who will punish you, Mr. Benning?”

  This was the tougher question, and John Benning was not very pleased to hear it. Outwardly he lost none of his composure, unless by his absolute lack of answer—witty or otherwise. There was a soft rap upon the cabin door, and the voice of Ben Hasson calling after him. “It’s all right, Ben,” said the boss.

  “Well,” said Mister Walton. “I’ve asked more than the one question, haven’t I?”

  “Three, actually.”

  “And the chest?”

  Four, thought Benning and was annoyed with himself. The encounter had unsettled him to the point that his mind had divided into several voices, each speaking of its own volition. “I don’t know where the chest is.”

  “Yes, Sundry thought that some third party had made away with it.”

  “Sundry? The man on the train?” A new set of dominoes began to fall in line. How had he misread this seemingly simple fellow so completely?

  “I have said nothing to Miss Underwood concerning your involvement in this unhappy business,” said Mister Walton. “I trust I will not have to.”

  “I am called away,” said the young man. “I plan on writing to Miss Underwood my regrets, though I fear she may be disappointed.”

  “Not so much, perhaps,” said Mister Walton, and a steely wit glinted briefly in his eyes. “She may be a better judge of character than you suspect.”

  “Nothing would surprise me concerning Cordelia,” came Benning’s honest reply.

  Mister Walton nodded in agreement with this assessment of someone he liked and admired. He had not stirred a foot since he turned around, but stood like an uncompromising rock where Benning had discovered him. “I have a suspicion, Mr. Benning (and perhaps I prove my naïveté), that more than simple greed was involved in this business.”

  “Had I kept possession of the treasure, sir, Cordelia would have come into her share of it.”

  “And you would not have trusted her to do the same?”

  “I didn’t know her, Mister Walton.”

  “Yes, well, naive or not, it’s the only reason that I am here instead of the police.”

  The door to the cabin opened then, without a knock or any other warning, and an exceptionally beautiful woman stepped into the small room. Nearly as tall as Benning himself, she was as dark as he, and in fact bore some resemblance to him. Mister Walton recognized her as the woman who had accompanied Benning upon the wharf at the very beginning of this affair.

  “John,” she said simply and softly, communicating both affection and a certain degree of command.

  “Ann,” said Benning. “This is Mister . . . Tobias Walton. Mister Walton, my cousin, Ann Benning.”

  Cousin Ann slipped a hand into Cousin John’s arms, and though she smiled cordially as she took Mister Walton’s hand in a brief but firm grip, there was a graceful warning in both her smile and her handshake. “I am very pleased to meet you, sir.”

  “Miss Benning,” said Mister Walton. He glanced from the eyes of the young man to those of the young woman, and thought that the remainder of his questions had been answered. “I was just about to say that I must be going,” he added, with no sense of retreat in his voice, but only the authority of having finished his business.

  They followed him onto the deck, and stood together in the slight breeze by the cabin door. At the head of the gangplank he found
he did have one question more.

  “That first day, on the wharf. Clearly your plans had been hatched by then. How did you manage to be there when Cordelia nearly fell overboard?”

  “That, Mister Walton, was a happy accident.”

  “Hmmm,” replied the portly fellow. “Perhaps.” And suddenly a scamp of a breeze swept from the alley, up the gangplank, and picked Mister Walton’s hat from his head. Just as he was turning away, his hat flew off, and John Benning snatched it from the air as it passed him—like a hawk snapping a sparrow from flight.

  “Your hat, sir,” said the handsome young man, when the moment of surprise had passed.

  Mister Walton’s smile was wry as he took the wayward article. “Goodbye, Mr. Benning,” he said, and he trundled with a very real and unpracticed dignity down the plank.

  Late in the afternoon, when Mrs. Cuthbert was taking down her laundry from the line in her backyard, she heard boots on her front porch and a knock on her screen door. The back door was open and she called a “Yes, yes” through it as she picked up the basket, tottery with folded clothes. “Yes, yes.”

  She was almost blind, coming from the sunshine into the shaded house. The front door opened directly to the parlor and, standing in the middle of the room, she considered the silhouette on the other side of the screen.

  “Mr. Scott,” she said, upon recognition. “Good heavens! Don’t stand on ceremony. Come in.”

  Hat in hand, Scott opened the screen door and stepped inside, a looming presence in her low-ceilinged home. He often took a room when waiting in town for clients, or came by with the price of a decent cooked meal and a hot bath. Mrs. Cuthbert was not surprised to see him. “How are you?” he asked.

  “No better,” said the landlady, without indicating if this was a statement of physical or moral condition. “You’ve been scarce,” she said, and when this elicited no explanation for his scarcity, she offered him a cup of tea and a piece of pie. He surprised her by accepting, though she didn’t show it, and she led the way into the kitchen, warning him, “The strawberries were too late and too sweet for my taste, but next to a cup of strong tea the pie goes down easy enough.”