Tomorrow About This Time (27 page)

He sauntered into the drugstore and bought a toothbrush taking plenty of time in the selection, and the soda clerk was relating a tale about the “jane who took two chocolate fizzes and a banana split that afternoon. Some red bird!”

He dropped in at the firehouse to ask the chief if the first of the month would suit the fire company to have their annual service in the church, and keeping his ears open, gathered another straw or two more of evidence.

“An ankle like a square piano!” Uri Weldon was saying with his coarse laugh.

“I wonder she didn’t scare the birds!” said another. “Some bathin’ suit for a country walk!” Then the front legs of the respective chairs came down reluctantly, and the men straightened up to greet Bannard gravely. Everybody liked Bannard. There was nowhere in the town he might not go, nowhere that he would be unwelcome. Young though he was he had that Pauline trait of being all things to all men, though it must be owned that the men at the firehouse were all just a trifle afraid every time he came that he was somehow going to save some of them and take them away from all that life held dear. They had no doubt in their minds but that he could “save” them if he once got them in his clutches.

Slowly progressing up the street, stopping at Mrs. Hoskins to inquire if her nephew in the city had received the letter of introduction he had procured for him, he learned incidentally, as he had thought he would, that Athalie Greeves had passed there that afternoon about half past four “in a scandalous rig,” had gone to the drugstore—”and it’s the second time, Mr. Bannard, the second time in two days, and all those young boys always hanging around the drugstore”—had gone on from the drugstore down the village street as far as she could see from the gate, and passed out of sight without returning.

“And I threw my apern over my head and ran out to look,” added the good woman, showing that she always did her duty by whoever passed, that nothing should be missing out of the general report of the day.

“And I think her father ought to look after her better’n that, don’t you, Mr. Bannard? A young girl like that! And a stranger in town. Folks might misunderstand her. Don’t you think it’s strange we never heard that he had any daughters before?”

Bannard finally reached the Truman’s, but he had little to tell Greeves about his daughter, except that she had not gone on either train to the city and that she had been seen walking down the village street and had bought a soda at the drugstore.

“I wouldn’t be in the least alarmed, though,” he added in a low tone. “There really isn’t anything much can happen in the town. They’re a friendly lot, even the pryingest of them. She’ll probably turn up at home before long.”

Just at that moment the dining room door opened and in came the next act of the charade that was in progress, led by Silver who seemed to be the prime mover in every feature of the evening. The girls simply surrounded her and adored her from the start. Bannard watched her, and his eyes lit up with that strange wonder he had felt when first he saw her the day before. A wonderful girl! A real unspoiled girl in the modern world. He thought of how she had gone into that sorrowing home in the afternoon and entered into the need; and now here she was the center of all this merriment, and just as much at home, and just as self-forgetful.

It was remarkable that part she was taking in the act, playing her delicate features into the contortion of a haughty woman of the world. She was talented! But of course she would be. With such a father! And that spirituelle look must have come from the mother. He remembered the exquisite painted face.

Then eager voices claimed him to come and join the group for the next word, and he was drawn away to the other room.

“Oh, have you heard how the baby is?” a low, vibrant voice asked as he passed her in the hall.

So she hadn’t forgotten! She was in all this, a part of it, but she had thoughts for the anxious home.

“She is holding her own,” he said. “I took Barry’s mother down there a little while ago. She will stay all night. You don’t know Barry’s mother yet. She is a strong arm to lean upon, a cool hand on a fevered brow. She knows how to do things without seeming to, and she loves people.”

“Oh, that is good!” said Silver. “Tomorrow I will go and take her place awhile if I may.”

“It will not be necessary,” he said, looking his thanks, “but—you may if your father does not object.”

“Object?” she looked surprised. “Oh, he could not object to that. Of course I will go.”

The company clamored for Silver, and she was swept laughingly into the other room, but the minister felt that somehow between them a bond had been established that was very good to think upon. Only two days and he felt this way about her! But she was an unusual girl. Then he heard her ringing laugh, smiled into the eyes of the boys who were pummeling him to tell them the best way to act the word “penitentiary,” and plunged into the matter before him.

At half past ten they all went home, most of the company being of high school age and not allowed late hours. The half-past was a special dispensation on account of its being Friday night and no lessons tomorrow. The minister walked down the street with Greeves and his daughter and stepped in a moment to learn if the prodigal had returned or if his further services as detective would be required.

They found Anne Truesdale sitting in the dark drawing room watching the street. She would not have owned to anybody, least of all her master, that she was praying for “that huzzy,” but she was. Somehow Anne’s sense of justice wouldn’t allow her to let even a girl like that be wandering along in the world in the darkening night without even a prayer to guide her. She deserved all she might get, but, oh, think of the disgrace of it all in the town. Anne didn’t know that she really cared more for the disgrace in the town than she did for the young girl’s soul in the dark.

But there! See how all our motives are mixed! Anne was praying for her! That was something gained. Anne had begun to feel her responsibility, and leaven of that kind always works. It may take time on a cold day, but it always works at last.

When the three discovered that the missing one was still absent they stood and looked at one another in dismay, with that helpless air that always says: “What is there that I can do next?”

Then sharply into the silence of their anxiety there rippled out the insistent ring of the telephone.

Greeves hurried into the library to answer it, and the others stood breathless, listening to his voice: “Hello!”

It was a man’s voice that answered: “I want to speak to Miss Athalie Greeves.”

“Who
is
this?” asked Athalie Greeves’s father sternly.

“Well, who are
you?”
The voice was insolent.

“I am Athalie’s father, and I insist upon knowing to whom I am speaking.”

“I’m one of her mother’s friends. You wouldn’t know me. Call Athalie. She’ll tell you who I am. I want to speak to her!” “It will be necessary for you to explain to me first.” “Why? Isn’t she there?” “What is your business with her, sir?” “Is she there or not?” said the ugly voice. “She is
not,”
said the father coldly.

“Oh, well, I’ll call up again!” said the voice, and immediately the line was cut off.

Patterson Greeves turned toward the two who stood in the doorway and looked with a helpless dazed expression for a moment then hung up the receiver with a troubled air.

“That is very strange!” he said. “Somehow I get the impression that that man knew Athalie was away—or was trying to find out—”

“It is strange,” said Bannard. He made no pretense of not having heard. The voice on the telephone had been loud enough to be heard out in the hall. “I wish Barry were here. I’ll go out and look for him. If she isn’t heard from by the time I get back we’ll begin to do something. Don’t get frightened. It’s probably only some schoolgirl prank. Barry will very likely be able to find out where she has gone. He’s a regular ferret. I never saw a boy like him.”

Meantime, Barry, out in the night, was having troubles of his own.

Chapter 20

W
hen Barry Lincoln left Sam in the side street with the roadster and darted across the trolley track and around the back of the stranger’s car, the big man with the heavy moustache was visible in the brightly lit drugstore talking with the clerk at the back of the store. He was handing out some money and lighting a big black cigar at the taper on the desk.

Barry drew himself up for one glimpse and saw that the girl was now seated in the front, left hand, away from the curb.

He swept the street either way with a quick glance, saw no one coming in his immediate vicinity, gave another glance to the man in the drugstore, and made a dash for the door of the driver’s seat.

Barry had grown up as it were in the garage, that is, he had spent every available minute there since he was a small child, hovering over every car that came within its doorway, watching the men at work, as he grew older, helping with the repairs himself, and finally becoming so expert that they were always ready to give him a job on Saturdays and half holidays and often even sent for him to help them discover what made the trouble in some stubborn engine or carburetor. There was no car rolling that Barry didn’t know by name and sight and wasn’t able to describe its characteristics and comparative worth. He was a judge of cars as some men are a judge of their fellowmen. Also, he had a way with cars. When he put his hand to a wheel it obeyed him. He was a perfect, natural driver, knowing how to get the best out of every piece of machinery.

And now as he slid into the driver’s seat with the owner only a few feet away, a strange unwarned girl beside him, a strange unfriendly town around him, a dark unknown way ahead, it was not a strange unknown mechanism to which he put his hand. He had known that car as a man recognizes his friend even when he was up in the tree some hours before and saw it coming down the road.

The girl was evidently startled, but Barry, his face turned half away from her, threw in the clutch and was off in a whirl.

“Why, Bobs! You scared me!” cried Athalie. “I didn’t see you come out; I thought I was watching you light a cigar. It must have been another man who looked just like you. Did you get the chocolates? Hand them over quick! I’m simply dying of starvation.”

Barry began to fumble in his pocket silently with one hand. He brought out a package, half a bar of milk chocolate, and dropped it into her lap. His eye was ahead. He had no time to waste. The owner of the car would be out in a second and raise a rumpus. He whirled around the first corner he came to and fled down a dark side street, passed two blocks, a third that went perceptibly downhill, and darted into an old covered wooden bridge.

It was pitch-dark in there except for their own lights. The noise of the engine echoed and reverberated like an infernal machine.

The girl was leaning forward looking at the package. An instant more and they roared out of the bridge into the quiet starlight.

“Why, Bobs! I think you’re horrid! Was that all you bought for me? And it’s not even a whole bar!” She flung it disgustedly on the floor of the car and looked up angrily. “Do you call that a
joke?”
she asked with a curling lip, and then suddenly she saw his face and was transfixed with horror. For an instant she held her breath, her eyes growing wilder and wider with fright, then she let out one of the most bloodcurdling screams Barry had ever heard.

Just at that second there lumbered into view the lights of a big gasoline truck that was hurrying to the end of its long day’s journey. One instant they saw it, the next they were in its very embrace. Barry curled out of the road just in time and back into it again, while Athalie screamed some more.

They shot into a black road overarched with tall forest trees. The smell of the new earth leaped up to Barry’s taut senses with a soothing touch. The road as far as his lights reached ahead was empty. His woodman’s sense told him there was no one near. But how far in the night had that scream reached? What straggler might have heard it and sent a warning? There! She was beginning it again! He must stop it somehow. A sudden thought came to him. He groped in the pocket of the door by his side. There ought to be one there, in a car like this! A man of that sort would carry one. Yes, there it was! His fingers grasped the cool metal, found their way with confidence and drew it out.

“Bobs! Bobs!” screamed Athalie. The echoes rang through the woods on either side as they raced along. She was leaving the trail behind them for any straggler to report their whereabouts. This must not go on.

Suddenly the dull gleam of the revolver flashed in front of her face.

“Cut that out!’ said the boy sternly.

Athalie opened her mouth to scream again and instead dropped her jaw just as the scream was about to be uttered. She turned wide, horrified eyes to her captor and sat white and still in her seat, cringing away from the weapon.

“Now,” said Barry, still holding the revolver in one hand, “you might as well understand that you aren’t in any danger whatever if you keep your mouth shut, but if you yodel again like that I’ll knock you cold. Do you get me?”

Athalie’s eyes acknowledged that she understood. She cringed still farther away from the revolver, and he lowered it, keeping it still in his hand however. The woods flew by in one long sweet avenue of spring night. Barry settled to his wheel, eyes to the front, with a mind to the back, and a sort of sixth sense keeping tabs on the girl by his side. He could see that the revolver had frightened her terribly. Her face was too much powdered to admit of its turning pale, but there was a sagging droop around her lips and eyelids that showed her whole spirit stricken with fear. She gathered her cloak closer about her and shivered. Her big, dark eyes never left his face except now and then to glance fearfully out as if wondering what were the possibilities of jumping overboard. Barry began to feel sorry for her.

“Nothing but a little kid,” he said to himself. “A foolish little kid!”

Two miles farther on they turned into the highway, and Barry slowed down a bit. There were two cars ahead, he could see their taillights, but nothing coming behind. He turned to the right in the general direction of Silver Sands and then looked at the girl.