The Millionth Chance/Chapter 5

UPPER that night, at the Folly Cove Inn, was a dreary enough affair. We four who had been conveyed to the inn, half a mile from the village of Folly Cove, in the hotel’s huge sleigh, were, so far as I noticed that night, the only guests in the place. We ate at the same table, but Ravenell wasn’t speaking to me, I wasn’t speaking to the major and his niece, and this last pair were evidently tired from their journey and exchanged only the ordinary courtesies of table-talk.

Immediately after the meal—and it was a good one, with broiled live lobsters as the pièce de résistance, and some mince pie that would have tempted the most crabbed old dyspeptic to remember that we live but once—I went to my room, leaving Rayenell engaged in easy gossip with the landlord, Captain Noah Perkins. The major and his niece had preceded me up the flight of stairs that led from the hotel office, and I could not but notice that they had adjoining rooms at the end of the second-floor corridor midway of which was my room.

I did not go to sleep for some time. Yet, though my brain puzzled over the mystery surrounding the major and the girl, and Ravenell’s connection with it, and though I flushed with angry shame every time I remembered the major’s final words to me, and the look in the eyes of the girl at that moment, I did not, as I noted just before falling to sleep, have any recurrence of the mental symptoms that had driven me away from the city.

The train-ride from Portland had not alarmed me in the slightest, although twenty-four hours ago it would have bothered me considerably. Perhaps, I thought, the fact that I had given my trouble a name, had recognized being troubled, and had started away in search of a cure, had had its good effect already. I hoped so, and that it would continue. Anyway, I had the best sleep, natural sleep, that night that I had had in months, and felt fresh as a trout when I went down-stairs in the morning.

The major and the girl were already at breakfast. But I noticed, with a chagrin that I trust was concealed, that they were at a smaller side table. Ravenell came into the dining-room a moment after me. He grinned covertly as he noticed the transference of the other two.

“You didn’t make such a hit after all, did you?” he said, as he sat down at the long table, across from me. “Shook you right off, eh? Well, that gives me a chance to make a hit. What happened, anyway? How’d you gum the game?”

“Captain Perkins says it’s going to be a cold day,” I answered.

He stared at me.

“Still the little josher, eh? Oh, well, keep it up! I guess when I’ve taken the lady skating once or twice she’ll tell me how you happened to put your foot in it.”

I smiled bitterly.

“You take her skating? My dear Mr. Number Eight, don’t you realize that she’s a lady?”

“Well, what of— Oh, I get your meaning! I ain’t good enough for her, you think. Well, I won’t rush into a throw-down the way you seem to have done, anyway. And as for being good enough for her, why, I guess she ain’t so”

He caught my eye and stopped short.

“Yes?” I encouraged gently. “She isn’t”

“Oh, shush!” he growled, averting his eye.

He spoke no more to me at breakfast. Afterward he disappeared. I did not see him again until luncheon or, dinner, as it was at the Folly Cove Inn.

Major Penrose, vouchsafing me not a glance, mounted the stairs to his room immediately after breakfast, accompanied by his niece. And even though I had hoped for no social intercourse with them, their departure from the down-stairs precincts, leaving the place devoid of guests, threw a pall of gloom over me. For lack of anything else to do I engaged wheezy old Captain Perkins, our host, in conversation.

The captain was as ready to impart information as he was anxious to acquire it. After I had answered all his questions, telling him that I was a quasi-invalid and had come down to his place on hearing of it from friends, naming, when he pressed the point, Billy Odlin as one of them, that I had formerly been a newspaperman but was at present doing nothing—that was true; was I not refraining from work?—and that I expected to remain with him several weeks, if not months, I got him to talk. But not, I was happy to note, about the Great War. Captain Perkins, while not really conceited, thought himself more interesting than the war in Europe.

He was a retired ship-master and had been all over the world. His savings he had invested in the Folly Cove Inn. He had hoped to make a Winter resort of it as well as a Summer resort, believing that the place had as many natural advantages as Poland Springs, or other places where city people go for Winter sports. But somehow the tide of Winter travel had never set in toward Folly Cove Inn.

“But I make a good living off it in the Summer,” he stated. “And I got no home besides this. Why not keep it open? I lose a bit of money, a-course, but I give work to a few people, and them what comes down here to board acts as society-like, for me. Why shouldn’t I keep it open? If those gossips in the village say I’m foolish, well, it ain’t no skin off their noses what I do, is it?” he wheezed.

As I could not see how the nasal cuticle of the Folly Covers was affected by his action, I said so.

He knew nothing about the major or the girl, I soon learned, save that the old gentleman had stated that he was not in good health, and the doctor had recommended a bracing climate for him. As for Ravenell, the captain guessed that that worthy was a sportsman, come down to Folly Cove for some fishing through the ice.

“Leastwise, he says so,” stated Captain Perkins.

I did not enlighten him, but let the captain ramble on about the natural advantages of Folly Cove for both Summer and Winter sports. And they were many.

Fronting the hotel was the “Head,” a sort of promontory that jutted into the sea. It was heavily covered with pine growth, through which ran the “Indian trails” to be found at every Maine resort. At the base of its steep sides were great rocks against which, at high tide, the waters pounded in a fury that cast the spray scores of feet in the air. And at low tide the swirling currents made it dangerous for a boat to come too near.

At the left of the promontory the land ran almost straight for miles, affording little protection for storm-tossed ships, of which there were many at this time of year. But at the right of the promontory was the deep cove which gave the village and the hotel their name. This cove, according to the captain, was a favorite boating, bathing, and salt-water fishing place in Summer.

At its head stood the little village, in the center of which a little bridge spanned the creek that emptied from Rider’s Pond. This Rider’s Pond was quite a large body of water, in places not much more than a quarter of a mile from the sea, yet so much higher that its water was absolutely fresh. It was four or five miles long, and somewhat over half a mile broad, slightly winding, but, on the whole, running fairly parallel with the sea. In places its shores were covered with a reedy growth that extended into the water, forming a favorite place for the village duck-hunters. It was here, too, that fine pickerel could be hauled through the ice, and at other seasons it was supposed to teem with game fish. Several unpretentious camps and bungalows were to be found around it, but none of these, complained the landlord, were occupied in Winter.

Indeed, judging from what the captain told me, and from what I observed myself, Folly Cove must be an ideal Summer resort. But I do not know, for I have never been there in the warm months. But as a Winter resort I am forced to confess that it is decidedly dull. With the right crowd, and with toboggan slides and all the other outdoor things that make Winter pleasant, I imagine it would be all right. But Captain Perkins had delayed erecting toboggan slides until the register of his hotel justified such an expenditure. And it never had.

Indeed, it seemed to me that the place was to prove frightfully dull. I knew, of course, that Billy Odlin did not consider Folly Cove the only place for me to go, and I think I should have left the Inn on the day after I arrived were it not for the fact that my interest had been so tremendously intrigued by the major and his niece and Jim Ravenell.

Certainly there was nothing or no one else to entertain me. The captain was a good-natured old gossip, but he failed to interest me deeply. There were no other guests besides those with whom my relations were strained. And among the “help” was one who played the violin.

Now I am willing to admit that properly played the violin is the most wonderful of instruments. But I insist that improperly played, it is likewise the most wonderful of instruments. As I chatted with the captain a wailing, eerie, almost incredible moan came from the second floor. I almost leaped from my chair.

“What’s that?” I gasped.

“Ain’t it wonderful?” cried the captain. “Don’t he make that fiddle sound just like a lost soul? That’s Tony Larue, my Portygee. He—he’s a puffick wonder on that fiddle. You don’t object to him playing, do you?”

“Why, no,” I said reluctantly. “But does he have to murder it? Can’t he play something cheerful?”

“He can do anything with it,” said the captain proudly, “but just now he’s tuning up, I guess. Want he should come down and play ‘Turkey in the Straw?’”

“Oh, no” I said hastily. “I wouldn’t disturb his practise for anything. Tell me, does he practise often?”

“Not much so folks can hear it,” said the captain. “Usually he keeps his door closed. You can’t hear it, then. But if it annoys you”

There was such an appeal in his voice and eyes that I assured him I loved the violin. Which was true enough. I do. I didn’t necessarily mean that I would enjoy the playing of Tony Larue. But the captain evidently thought that I did, and after he had discoursed a while on Tony I had not the heart to do otherwise than express great delight at the prospect of hearing Tony later on.

Captain Perkins had picked up Tony Larue in the Madeira Islands on his last voyage. The boy was an orphan and the captain had taken a fancy to him. He had brought him to America and had brought him up as a son. But Tony—and the captain’s eyes were misty as he told me this—had not developed as his youth had promised. There was something wrong with his brain. What it was the captain did not know. Some fall, possibly the typhoid fever the boy had undergone at twelve, something at any rate had dulled the lad’s intellect during adolescence. Now, a grown man of thirty, he had the brain of a boy of sixteen.

“As good a boy as ever breathed, too,” said the captain. “I’ve left him all I got, in trust so he can’t be robbed of it, and I do my best to see that he has a good time. I don’t ask him to do no work less’n he feels like it. But he’s a good boy and likes to help around. Here he is, now,” he added in an undertone.

The wailing of the violin had died away while we talked and its owner now descended the stairs, carrying the instrument under his arm. He approached us with a flash of white teeth, but as he came nearer I noted that his eyes were dull. I felt a great pity for the handsome young man for whom, so the captain said, the best doctors in Portland had been able to do nothing.

Captain Perkins presented him to me and he shook my hand cordially. But as he opened his mouth to say something, Major Penrose’s voice, raised and irascible, floated down from the top of the stairs.

“Landlord!” he cried angrily. “Has that caterwauling ended for good? In the name of all things how may a man work with that noise?”

I saw the eyes of Tony fill with tears, child-like. He turned appealingly to Captain Perkins. The landlord’s lips tightened.

“Sorry, Major Penrose,” he said coldly. “The—the person playing forgot to close his door. It won’t happen again.”

“I hope not,” growled the major, and we heard him walk along the corridor.

Tony Larue brushed his hand across his eyes. “I—I didn’t mean to forget, Captain,” he said. “I—should have closed the door, but”

He spoke without dialect.

“It’s all right, Tony,” said the captain. “Some people ain’t got no musical ear, Tony. I wouldn’t pay no attention to them. But I’d try and keep the door closed when you’re practising.”

“I will,” promised Tony.

It was pathetic to hear a grown man promise obedience as might a child. Then a flash of his Portuguese blood showed. His lips curled back from his white, even teeth. His fists clenched and he shook one at the stairs.

“He called it caterwauling,” he said with a snarl. “I’ll kill him!” He lost the correctness of his pronunciation. “I’ll keel heem!” he cried.

The captain shot a glance of alarm at me.

“Now, now, Tony, you mustn’t talk that way. The gentleman here won’t think you’re a good boy.”

“But I am a good boy,” cried Tony; contrition was in his voice and eyes now as he looked at the captain.

“’Course you are, and you didn’t mean that killing talk, did you?” said the captain.

Again the Portuguese’s eyes flashed anger. But they softened quickly.

“No, Captain, I did not mean it.”

He walked behind the desk and placed his violin inside the heavy, old-fashioned safe that held the Folly Cove Inn valuables.

“I’m going down for the mail now, Captain,” he said.

With no more words he left the office. The captain turned apologetically to me.

“He’s queer, like I told you, and he’s a genius, too, at the violin, which accounts, mebbe, for his temper. But he don’t mean nothing. He wouldn’t harm a fly, Tony Larue wouldn’t.”

He made the statement with a certain anxiety in his voice, as if he would like my reassurance on this point.

“Of course he wouldn’t,” I said encouragingly, though, as a matter of fact, it seemed to me that the half-witted Portuguese might prove a very dangerous person if his mood were right. Or wrong.

I went up-stairs shortly after that, to remain there until luncheon. It was not a long wait, but, in addition to my other puzzlement, I had time to wonder what work Major Penrose was engaged upon.

I lunched alone. I overheard the waitress say that the major and the girl would eat in their rooms; that the old gentleman was not feeling well. And Ravenell did not come back from wherever he had been until I was pushing back my chair from the table.

Afterward., in the office. Captain Perkins told me that the wind had blown the dry snow away from a considerable area of Rider’s Pond and that if I cared for skating I had a fine opportunity. He offered me a pair of skates, but I found that they would not fit, so I went down to the village. There I bought skates, and spent most of the afternoon upon the smooth ice.

I was exhausted beyond anything since I had rowed on the ’varsity when I finally reached the hotel. So tired, indeed, from the unaccustomed strain I had placed upon legs and lungs, that I stumbled up-stairs to bed as soon as I had finished my evening meal. I noticed however, that the major and Miss Gilman did not come down to the dining-room. Ravenell did, but beyond a sneer in my direction, to which I paid no attention, he did not notice me.

And this night I did not bother about the mystery that was in the air. I only smiled cheerfully at the thought that a few weeks of this would heal my nervous malady, made up my mind to forget all about things that didn’t concern me, and went to sleep.

N PURSUANCE of this laudable intention, next morning, I left the hotel immediately after breakfast, with a pair of skates, an ax, and fishing tackle and bait which Captain Perkins had given me. I skirted the hotel and immediately descended the path through pine woods, not over a hundred yards or so in length, that wound down from the rear of the Inn to Rider’s Pond. Today even more of the ice was visible.

Wet though the snow had been in New York, it had been perfectly dry and powdery in the neighborhood of Folly Cove, and the high wind of last night—through which I had slept but which Captain Perkins had commented on this morning—had blown more of it from the ice.

Of course, there were huge drifts here and there, but there was plenty of room for all the skating I'd care to do.

I made my way, lamely at first, but more easily as the stiffness got worked out of my limbs, across the lake and then southerly along the opposite shore for about a mile and a half to a little cape off which, the captain assured me, the pickerel fishing was good. Here I chopped a hole in the ice with my ax, and here I remained for a couple of hours, until I had gathered a string of six fine pickerel.

Then I skated about the lake for another hour, until I felt that it was time for me to get back to the hotel if I wanted my pickerel for dinner. I came to a stop near the path behind the hotel and took off my skates. As I rose I thought I heard voices in the woods, thought I recognized Miss Gilman’s tones, raised, so it seemed, in expostulation, in fright, perhaps.

I walked swiftly up the path. As I rounded a turn I came upon the girl. I had not been deceived about her tones. She was badly frightened, and with good reason, though now indeed, she no longer cried, but fought for possession of a muff which had been wrenched, partly wrenched, from her grasp.

Indeed, as I dropped my fish and skates, retaining only my ax, the muff was entirely wrenched from her fingers by a man whose back was to me. But the other man, who seized her shoulders and forced her back against a pine tree while the other backed away, bending over the captured fur, was Jim Ravenell. I saw him though he, intent on restraining the girl, did not see me at first. But the girl saw me.

“Don’t mind—me!” she cried, as I advanced upon Ravenell. “Get the muff!”

It was very easily done. Before the stranger had guessed my presence I had torn the muff from him and was facing him, ax in hand. As he sprang forward I took a step toward him, my left fist clenched. He backed away and I recognized him, aided by the checked cap and great-coat like my own. It was the man who had missed the train in New York and for whom I had undoubtedly been mistaken by the precious Ravenell.

Neither he nor Ravenell had as yet uttered a word, but Ravenell released the girl, and his hand dropped to his coat pocket. The stranger did likewise, and in his had gleamed a revolver.

“Hand me that muff,” he demanded harshly.

I took a quick step by him, surprising him who had evidently believed that the sight of his weapon would cow me. I pressed the muff into the girl’s hand and when Ravenell would have snatched at it I drove my left fist against his jaw. As he reeled against the tree to which he had just pinned Miss Gilman, I shoved her up the path.

“Run for it,” I cried.

Without a word she turned and fled up the path, around a turn, and was hidden by the trees.

It all happened very quickly. She was gone, and I stood in the path above them, before they quite realized that she had escaped. Then Ravenell, his eyes glaring, whipped a revolver from his pocket and leveled it at me as I stood there, ax raised, barring pursuit.

“Get out of the way,” he cried thickly, “or I’ll blow”

“And hang for murder?” I sneered. “Or is it life imprisonment down here? With Miss Gilman to testify to what has happened? Put up your gun, Ravenell, and don’t be an ass!”

Beyond a tremor of the nerves, slightly pleasurable if anything, I felt no alarm, even though Ravenell looked angry enough to carry out his threat. I wondered, as I stood there facing them, if this were the sort of crisis which Billy Odlin had said would cure my claustrophobia. (I was to learn later, I may state here in parenthesis, that it was not.)

However, I did not know that fact then, and was rather grateful for the opportunity of convincing myself that my nervous fears were not those of a coward. I didn’t fear a weapon held by an angry man.

But it wasn’t held long in Ravenell’s trembling fingers. The stranger turned upon him contemptuously.

“Put it up, Ravenell,” he snapped. “You can’t bluff one of Healy’s men.”

I made a note of that. If my deductions were correct—and this man’s presence seemed to bear them out so far—these men were employed by the Greenhams, inasmuch as they thought me a Healy man, and, as I have said, there were only two big, national detective agencies with branches in Port land: the Greenhams and the Healy agency. So these must be Greenham operatives. The stranger looked at me.

“It’s a wonder to me,” he said slowly, “that you didn’t keep her muff yourself. Say, can’t we do business together?”

“Maybe,” I said cautiously. “If I could learn what the business was! “What do you propose?”

“Aw, don’t listen to him, Minot,” cried Ravenell. “He’s too crooked to do business with! Didn’t he try to kid me into thinking he was you, the liar?”

He rubbed his jaw while he glared venomously at me, and I laughed at him.

“Tried to kid you?” I jeered. “I didn’t have to try! You were too easy.”

Ravenell cursed, but the stranger silenced him with a gesture. He spoke to me.

“What’ll you take to pull out of this?” he asked. “Or will you come in with us and split fifty-fifty? Or maybe, if your people will give more than the people we’re working for”

He eyed me shrewdly.

“You’d sell Greenham out, like your friend, eh?” I asked.

“Huh?” He turned upon Ravenell. “You planning to sell the chief out?” he cried savagely.

“Aw, I was trying to string him along,” protested Ravenell.

“That’s an unhealthy sort of stringing,” snapped the man Minot.

“H’m,” said I, enjoying the situation. “Then you didn’t mean it when you just suggested selling out your chief? You were trying to string me. But go on scrapping with your friend. When thieves fall out, you know”

“Oh, there’s no use getting sore, any of us,” said Minot. “We’re both after the same thing. Though why, when you had it in your hand—I get it! It wasn’t in her muff and you knew it and planned making a hit with her. Very clever!”

He eyed me admiringly.

“Wasn’t it?” I smiled. “And now—suppose you gentlemen retire down this path and get to the village along the lake-front? I’ll have Captain Perkins send your bags down to the station.”

“What’s the big idea?” queried Minot.

“Simple, isn’t it?” I retorted. “Miss Gilman will hardly care to see your faces again. I don’t know whether she’ll have you arrested or not. I hope she does. I’ll cheerfully testify against both of you. But anyway, it will take time to get a sheriff up to the Inn, and I don’t propose to have her annoyed by the knowledge that you’re around. So run along.”

Minot’s eyes widened.

“Say, you don’t really think you can run a blazer like that, do you? She’ll have us arrested? Well, where do you get that from?”

“Well, why won’t she?” I demanded.

“Why won’t she? Oh, this is rich! She’s dead crazy to have us tell in court why we—oh, look here, Brant, if that’s your name. Do they teach you Healy men that we Greenhams are boobs? If they don’t, what makes you act as though you thought we were?”

He turned to Ravenell.

“Come on down the line. I want to talk to you.” Over his shoulder he spoke to me, spoke menacingly, harshly. “We don’t want trouble with you, Brant. But we won’t dodge it! And when trouble comes I guess two Greenham men are worth one Healy.”

“Think so?” I jeered. “I’ll continue to bet on this Healy man.”

Then I shouldered my ax, and with a sudden determination to force some sort of explanation from Miss Gilman—after what I had done for her she could hardly refuse to listen to my explanation of the telegram—I started up the path. Around the first turn I came upon the girl. She held an automatic pistol in her hand. Also she still held her muff, proof enough that she had not gone to the Inn, but had been in hiding, prepared—I thrilled at the thought—prepared to aid me if I needed it.

White-faced, firm-lipped, most determined-looking despite the slight tremors that shook her slim figure, she was pathetically lovely as she stood there. I wondered, with sudden anger, how Major Penrose could drag such a lovely young thing into whatever dangerous mystery they seemed involved.

“Don’t be frightened,” I said, “they’ve gone.”

I held out my hand to assist her into the path, but she ignored it.

“So,” she said, “you are a Healy spy!”