Chapter XIX: A Recognition

The masqueraders had separated for the night; Bab, however, had asked to speak with the major before he went to his room. For half an hour she was closeted with him in his library. The time had arrived to tell him everything she knew about José.

The major had listened to her attentively. He had felt reluctance to believe anything against a guest, just on a mere chance resemblance, but certainly the circle was closing in around José.

"Do you think we had better do anything about it to-night?" he asked the girl, almost childishly. He felt obliged to ask advice in this very difficult situation, and who could give any better counsel than this fine, young woman, who had been able to keep a secret, and who was so wholesome and sweet with all her reserve?

"I don't see what you could do, Major, in case he admitted he was guilty. You couldn't arrest him very well to-night, unless you wanted to bind his arms and feet and take him to the nearest town. I don't believe he has any idea of running away, because he doesn't know we suspect him. At least he only vaguely knows it."

"And, after all," said the kindly old major, "it's a pity to rout him out of his comfortable bed to-night. We will give the poor fellow another good night's rest, and take one ourselves, too. Shall we not, little woman?"

"Yes, indeed, Major," agreed Barbara, looking into his kindly, troubled eyes with respect and admiration. "And who knows? Maybe, in the morning, he can explain everything."

"Indeed, my dear, I hope so," he replied, opening the door for her and bowing good-night as if she had been Miss Sallie herself.

As Barbara started up the long staircase she felt lonely. The hall below looked vast and dark. Only a dim light was burning and every door was closed. Emerging from the shadows around the staircase she might have been a ghost of one of the early Ten Eycks in her old-fashioned peach-colored silk, with its full trailing skirt and pointed bodice. She hurried a little and wished she had got over the long space of hall which lay between her and her room; but she had scarcely taken a dozen steps before the door behind her opened. She stopped and looked back, thinking perhaps it was one of the servants waiting to put out the lights.

Standing in the doorway was a very old man. He carried a candle in one hand, and was peering at her in the darkness with that same expression of wonder and surprise on his face that she had remembered to have seen before, for this was their third encounter, once in the woods, once in the library, and now.

"Barbara! Barbara Thurston!" he called in a quavering voice. "I have been waiting for you so long, so many years. I am old now and you are still young." He stretched out his arms and came toward her.

Bab flew and almost ran into José, who opened his door at that moment. When they recovered themselves the old man was gone.

"Which way did he go?" asked José.

Bab pointed to the door without speaking, and, still trembling from fright, burst into her own room, where a strange scene was taking place. Three high-backed chairs were arranged in a row. Ruth in a dressing gown was crouching behind them, while Mollie and Grace sat hand in hand on the bed, giving little gasps of excitement and horror.

"This is the clump of bushes," Ruth was saying, "and the three fights took place here and here, and here," she went on, marking the spots with her toe. "Stephen and his man, who was none other than the giant tramp, fought straight out from the shoulder like this," and she hit the air furiously with her doubled fists. "Then came Alfred and his friend. They didn't hit. They gripped and rolled over and over in the dust. And last of all, poor Jimmie, who, in five minutes, lay like a warrior taking his rest."

"Why, Ruth Stuart," interrupted Bab, "I thought we were not to tell."

"Sh-h! Don't make so much noise, Bab. Aunt Sallie thinks we were safe in bed long ago. I'm not betraying confidence. Stephen told me I could tell Mollie and Grace if he could tell Martin. But, Bab, dear, what is the matter? Have you seen a ghost?"

"Yes," replied Bab, "or rather the next thing to one. Really, girls, I'm getting more than my fair share this time. Ruth was in the fight, of course, but none of you have seen the old man who haunts the place, and I have seen him three times. He seems to be a perfectly harmless old man, but it does give one a start to meet him at midnight in a dark hall."

"Why, Barbara, are you dreaming? What does it mean?" cried Mollie, seizing her sister's hand and pulling her over on the bed beside them. "Why haven't you told us before?" she added with a sisterly reproach. "It's no fair keeping secrets all the time."

"I am tired of secrets, too," said Bab, "I started with major and I'll just finish the thing before I lay me down this night to rest."

When Bab had concluded her ghostly tale the girls were really frightened. They tried the doors, opened all the closets and wardrobes and peered under the beds of both rooms.

"No one could climb up to these windows," exclaimed Mollie. "But suppose there should be a secret door into one of these rooms?"

"What a horrible idea, Mollie Thurston!" exclaimed Ruth.

There was a sharp tap on the door. The four girls jumped as if they had been shot, and rushed together like frightened chickens.

"Girls," said Miss Sallie's voice, "go to bed this instant!"

"Right away, Aunt Sallie, dear," answered her niece. When they were comfortably tucked in for the night, Ruth said to Bab:

"How do you suppose he knew your name?"

"I don't know," replied her friend, "unless I had a twin ancestor."

At eleven o'clock the next morning the major's guests assembled for a late breakfast. The boys were stiff from their encounters with the tramps, and Jimmie, especially, was an object of pity. The major looked serious. He had a disagreeable duty to perform, and he wished to avoid it as long as possible. Miss Sallie, alone, was animated and talkative. She had been entrusted with no confidences, and she felt the burden of no secrets. Neither did she guess that something was impending that was bound to surprise and horrify her.

José had not made his appearance and the major was relieved. The hour of reckoning was at hand, and he wished it over and done with. His old friend's son! Was it possible that a child of José Martinez could have so far forgotten the laws of hospitality as to rob and intrigue, and play tricks on his fellow guests?

"What a quiet, dull lot of people you are," exclaimed Miss Sallie, who at last began to notice the gloom that had settled on the party. "What is the matter?"

"I think it must be the weather, Miss Stuart," replied Stephen, coming to the rescue of the others. "It's a very oppressively warm day, and the air is so dry it makes me thirsty."

"It's the sort of weather, I imagine, they must have in plague-stricken southern countries," observed Ruth, "where there's no water," she continued drawing the picture which held her imagination, "and people are dropping around with cholera or the bubonic plague."

"Cheerful!" exclaimed Jimmie.

"I wonder where José is this morning," said Stephen, voicing the thought of everybody in the room except the unconscious Miss Sallie.

"Suppose you run up and see," suggested the major. "Tell him, Steenie," he added, patting his nephew affectionately on the shoulder, "that I wish to see him in the morning room when he finishes his breakfast. And, Stephen, my boy, don't be rough with him. Remember what an ordeal we'll have to put him through later. Good heavens!" he groaned, "such a lovely boy! If it only had not happened in my house!"

"Perhaps he can explain, in spite of everything," replied Stephen.

Presently he returned to the library.

"José is not in his room. He didn't sleep there last night. His bed is made up and there's not a wrinkle on it."

"Why, where can he be?" cried the major. "He couldn't have run away, could he?"

"Perhaps he is taking a morning walk," suggested Martin.

"Did he take anything with him!" asked Jimmie. "I mean are his things in his room?"

"I didn't notice," replied Stephen. "We'd better ask some of the servants, first, if they have seen him this morning, and then go back and have a look for ourselves."

But the servants could give no information. On examining José's room they found everything just as he had left it. He had taken nothing in his flight, not even a comb and brush.

"Even his pearl shirt studs are here," said Jimmie.

"How about his leather motor clothes?" asked Stephen.

"Here they are," replied his friend.

"How about his motor cycle?" asked the major with a sudden thought.

They ran down stairs and through the open door, followed by "The Automobile Girls," who were filled with excitement. At the garage the chauffeur was busy cleaning the motor cars.

"Is Mr. Martinez's motor cycle here, Josef?" demanded the major.

"Yes, sir," answered the chauffeur looking up from his work, surprised at the visit of so many people at once.

"Have you see him this morning?"

"No, sir."

"Strange," said the major. "I can't understand it. He must simply have slipped out of the house and gone for a long walk."

"Uncle," said Stephen, "suppose we wait until after lunch."

"Wait for what, my boy?"

"Why, for José, I mean. And then, if he doesn't turn up, we had better search for him."

The party sat about listlessly until lunch time. It was too hot to talk and the oppressiveness of the atmosphere gave them an uneasy feeling. José had not taken even a hat, so Stephen said, and it turned out that only the day before the Spaniard had entrusted the major with a large sum of money to be locked in the family strong box until his visit was over.

"Stephen," exclaimed the major, finally, as the afternoon began to wane, "I can't stand this any longer. The boy may have wandered into the woods and been attacked by some of those tramp ruffians. Order the horses. We'll ride to the Gypsy camp and take the road to town. Tell the girls to explain the situation to Miss Sallie while we are gone."