Chapter II: Miss Charlotte Entertains a Caller

It will be remembered that when Mr. Converse's last _tête-à-tête_ with Mr. Follett was interrupted by the summons to appear at headquarters, he had just terminated a long period of reflection with the announcement that he at last knew the means of finding young Mr. Fairchild. Despite the night's turbulent events, when he left the Westbrook home in charge of McCaleb and another plain-clothes man detailed from headquarters, it was in pursuance of a plan that had been incubating in his mind during the hours when other matters were apparently occupying his exclusive attention. Immediately after his unsatisfactory interview with Joyce and her brother, he went as directly to the Fairchild cottage as the street cars would carry him.

The humble abode of the Fairchilds nestled snugly in a covering of climbing roses, honeysuckle, and feathery-fronded cypress. Flowers bloomed everywhere; for upon her garden Charlotte lavished a love otherwise denied expression, and Mr. Converse's eyes kindled when they caught this riot of blossom. Should a human analyst attempt a dissection of this man's character, he would be very much astonished to find an inborn love for beautiful flowers among its other unusual traits.

A certain aged fragment of the old family _ménage_, known familiarly as Polly Ann, ushered the Captain into the tiny entrance-hall; and when Miss Charlotte appeared he seemed somewhat startled. He had never seen her, that he knew of, and from the account the man Adams had given of his experience on the night of the De Sanchez affair, while trying to find Clay, he had come prepared to deal with a sour, crabbed female of uncertain age and an uncompromising manner. The quiet entrance of this handsome, graceful woman left him disconcerted for an instant. A woman with such an air, with such remarkable eyes, was no ordinary woman, and she could not be dealt with in an ordinary way. One might as well try to move a mountain as to intimidate a person who regarded one so fearlessly; who met the sharp, compelling glance with a look of polite inquiry which clearly indicated that it knew not how to falter.

Converse's plans to find the young man suddenly evaporated; but another idea, vastly farther reaching, arose in his mind instead.

"Converse?" Charlotte repeated when he had announced his identity; and after a slight hesitation she asked, "The detective engaged in the De Sanchez case, are you not?" Her dark eyes continued to regard him steadily; there was not the faintest play of expression in her face, which seemed merely sad and worn and white; but during the brief hesitation he noticed that she laid one hand above her heart.

"I am either going to have plain sailing here," the caller mentally observed, "or in about two minutes there begins the devil's own time for John Converse." To her question he answered:

"Yes, Miss Fairchild; and I hope my unceremonious call does not startle you. While you must grant me your indulgence, let me assure you at the outset that there is not the slightest occasion for alarm." The keen gray eyes became all at once fixed and compelling, giving a forceful meaning to the concluding words. "I have come here to give you an opportunity to help a friend out of a very serious trouble."

For an instant she regarded him blankly; then quickly her countenance, her glance, became fairly electrified.

"A friend?--trouble?--whom?" she demanded, briefly and directly.

As we know, it was not Mr. Converse's custom to take strangers into his confidence, to express theories, nor to yield up motives; but if he was certain of anything at this moment, it was a conviction that whatever success was to come from this meeting depended entirely upon his sincerity and absolute frankness. If such eyes and such a manner did not mean constancy and unshakable loyalty to friends, then these virtues did not exist. If he concealed anything at all, it would be to spare her feelings.

There was a pause after her question. The cold, masterful gray eyes returned the look of the fearless, lovely dark eyes during a silence wherein each sought to read the other's purpose. Then he replied:

"Miss Fairchild, it will take some time to answer your question; it involves so much, and I shall have to tell you so much before you can understand, that I fear your patience will--"

"But a friend," she interrupted; "you said a friend was in trouble. Who? I do not understand."

He bowed. "That is what I wish to tell you. Am I to take it that you will hear me; that I may tell it in my own way?"

Charlotte contemplated him a moment longer, while he returned the look earnestly and gravely; then, apparently satisfied, she indicated by a gesture the front room.

And suddenly he fell to scratching his head with an air of comical embarrassment.

"If you will pardon me, Miss Fairchild," said he, "allow me to suggest the porch this pleasant morning. I want to enjoy those lovely flowers while I may. I declare, I never saw anything like them in my life. I noticed a variegated chrysanthemum--very large bloom--remarkable! Some time--that is, if the occasion ever presents itself--I should like to ask--to ask you--" He stopped, as if overcome by the smile which all at once illumined her features. He had struck a responsive chord; for Charlotte was undisguisedly, girlishly pleased at any honest admiration of her cherished possession. To the porch, by all means.

The Captain filled his prodigious chest with the sweet air. "It is like wine, Miss Fairchild," he said, quietly; "you can't imagine what this means to a city man like me. It's hard to think of evil at such a time."

"Oh--don't!" she protested, still smiling; "think of the flowers instead. I am glad you like them. Any one who loves flowers sincerely can think of evil only to hate it."

"Very true," he returned, looking gravely at her; "very true. But hating the evil does not affect it.... Ah! a mocking-bird!"

If this one touch of nature did not quite make the whole world kin, it at least brought the spirits of these two into so much closer harmony that it was comparatively easy to plunge into confidences.

"Hating evil does not affect it," Converse went on, after a bit. "When it encompasses and threatens our friends, we must even step forward and tackle it--that is, of course, if we wish to aid them."

"Ah, to be sure," she said, in her tranquil way, which nevertheless had become serious. "You said that a friend was in trouble. I suppose you mean to tell it, as you say, in your own way; that it has to do with this dreadful murder--or with my brother. Very well, I will hear you; go on."

Covertly, he studied the stately woman who sat so few paces from him. She was beautiful this morning; a tinge of color had crept into her cheeks since his coming; the expressive eyes, now half veiled by abundant curling lashes, glowed with a look of tenderness in their depths as they turned again and again toward the vista of roadway which led to the city. If she was expecting somebody, it behooved him to hasten.

"Miss Fairchild," he began, with a concentration of purpose, the unexpectedness of which made her turn to him with a little start, "I have endeavored to reassure you regarding my call here this morning, and I wish to repeat that there is no reason why you should feel any alarm. But what I have to say will distress you; it will fill you with anxiety, for I know you are quick to feel for your friends and those dear to you, and that you feel strongly. Yet, if you will hear me out--if you will lend me your aid--if we put our two heads together, I am confident we can evolve some sort of plan that will work for the good of more than one person in whom you are interested." He looked at her intently while speaking, and before he had done her cheeks went white again; her eyes dropped, and the slim fingers began plucking at a spray of honeysuckle. But her voice was steady when she rejoined:

"I suppose your coming here has to do with my brother," she said without looking up,--"with Clay?"

"Primarily, yes. But my errand involves a deal more.... However, before I begin I want to make a confession. When I started here it was with a determination to resort to every method known to my calling to secure the information I am seeking; to bully you if necessary; to frighten you if I could--in short, to use every art and device that expediency might justify. Those methods are often cruel; they are not always honest--but in my calling you have to meet craft with craft, Miss Fairchild; cunning with cunning--and they are not such as you would associate with the word 'gentleman.'"

"And now?" She looked at him inquiringly.

"Well, now--I have considerably revised that determination."

"Thank you." Once more her face was illumined by the winning smile.

"No, no; don't thank me; thank yourself. If more of the people who are tangled up in this business considered it less a game the object of which is to conceal as much as possible, and, instead, exercised a grain or two of common sense, we might have been out of the woods before this. As it is--" He paused and frowned at the denuded spray of honeysuckle.

"Well?" queried Charlotte, looking up once more and casting the spray from her. He faced her abruptly.

"Well," he went on, "as it is, there are one or two individuals who are well on the way to losing themselves entirely--that is, if some well-intentioned person doesn't step in and show them the road out." Again he paused.

"And so you have come to me?" she asked.

He nodded. "But before we can show them the way out we have to be pretty sure of it ourselves. As a game of hide-and-seek, you would be surprised at the ingenuity displayed in keeping things hid from me.... Miss Fairchild, I am going to be blunt. Your brother has acted very foolishly. The different factors in this game have been suddenly thrown into a panic; like a crowd at a theatre when the cry of fire is raised, they impede each other, and do not help themselves. Mr. Fairchild's move was as silly and uncalled for as any I have yet encountered."

"You do indeed make me anxious," said Charlotte; "but I am very ignorant of this wretched affair."

"Yes; I do not doubt that now," he quietly interposed. "But I also know that you can be a very powerful factor in clearing up the mystery."

She regarded him incredulously. "Oh, no," she protested; "what can I do?" Then, after waiting a moment, she faltered: "But tell me, Mr. Converse, do--do you believe him--my brother--"

He laughed. "Do you?"

"Mr. Converse," her dignity was impressive, "I have his word."

Again he laughed. "Miss Fairchild," said he with an abrupt transition to seriousness, "at this moment the idea of bullying or frightening you would strike me as being absurd were I not humbly contrite for ever having entertained such a thought; but the emergency is so urgent--a certain person is threatened by so lively a peril--that it is really imperative that something be done for that person immediately. If you and I should get at cross-purposes--why, I believe now that I could only step to one side and let events take their own way. To prove that I am contrite, I am going to warn you against myself."

Charlotte said nothing.

"You have been in communication with your brother since he disappeared. No," he went on hastily, as she seemed about to speak, "I am not going to take any unfair advantage of you. Instead, with your permission, I intend taking you into my confidence; go over the ground from my knowledge of the facts; and then lay before you my deductions therefrom, together with the immediate motives for my intrusion. Afterward I shall ask you what I wish to know."

He waited with his gaze fixed sharply upon her. She sat for some time thoughtful.

"As I have told you, I am very anxious. From your manner I know the occasion to be serious, and that you are striving to temper its seriousness. You say that a friend is in trouble, Mr. Converse; well, that is enough to spur my interest, were any such spur needed. But I can only repeat that I am very ignorant of this matter. Still, I will say this, in the hope that it will cause you to speak freely. You have somehow inspired my confidence; I feel sure you have come, led by a tender consideration for somebody's feelings, and that now you are governed by a consideration for my own feelings. It would be a poor return, indeed, if I withheld any aid that might lie within my power. I will pledge myself to lend you every assistance I can; but it cannot be much. From what I have heard of you, I consider it quite a compliment that you should thus tender me your confidence."

In scornful deprecation he exclaimed against the attributes with which her words invested him. "I never sincerely complimented anybody in my life,--unless, perhaps, I was after something; so you had better take care. Seriously, though, the things I have told you are merely necessary statements of fact. I am not secretive by nature, Miss Fairchild, though you could find a good many people whom it would be hard to make believe that. That I am at all is far from complimentary to those with whom I daily mingle. The bright spots in my life are when I meet with somebody with whom I can be as open as the day.

"But I haven't answered your question yet: Do I believe your brother guilty of any participation in De Sanchez's death? No. Nor of any participation in last night's affair."

Charlotte stared. "Last night's affair!" she cried. "Do you refer to--to Mr. Slade?"

"Slade?" he repeated,--and reflected. Here was a consideration which, the instant it flashed into his mind, caused him to wonder why it had not occurred to him before; but that everybody who could read or was not stone-deaf knew of the Westbrook tragedy was to be taken as a matter of course. Yet it was impossible that this woman could be so at ease--her manner so tranquil--and at the same time have knowledge of the recent assassination. But Slade--what is this of Slade?

"Miss Fairchild," he asked at length, "don't you get a morning paper here?"

"No. We have never taken one at the house; Clay usually brought the papers home from the office."

"And your relations with the Westbrook family are very close, are they not?"

At first she blushed slightly; then suddenly the last vestige of color ebbed from her cheeks, and for the second time the slender hand rested upon her bosom.

"Yes," she whispered with bated breath. "Why?"

"Then, Miss Fairchild, I am afraid I am the bearer of very sad--"

As a leopardess might have sprung, she stood quivering above him, her eyes tragic, her slim fingers interlocked in a convulsive clasp before her.

"Quick!" she demanded in a tense whisper, "has anything happened to Mobley?"

"No, no; be assured. It was--"

"Oh, not Joyce?"

"General Westbrook."

She caught her breath sharply, and seemed unable to speak; and like a blind person, returned to her seat. But in a moment she was more tranquil and very earnest.

"Tell me plainly, Mr. Converse--is this the--the trouble?"

"It is bad enough, Miss Fairchild; the General is--dead."

"Dead! General Westbrook dead! Oh--" she checked herself, the back of one hand upon her lips, and waited.

"Yes. It looks very much as though he had been--" he hesitated, doubtful whether to tell her; but the plain truth being unavoidable, he concluded, "assassinated."

With an exclamation of horror, she clasped her hands. There was a moment of tense silence, during which she regarded him with wide, startled eyes--a look which told piteously that this abrupt announcement had penetrated her susceptible heart, searching out, with callous cruelty, each tender spot that could be lacerated and hurt.

At last she cried aloud, in blank, utter dismay: "Mr. Converse! Oh, this is awful! Joyce! poor child!--and Mobley!" She buried her face in her hands, and, rising, rushed precipitately into the house.

The Captain sat motionless, in a dilemma whether to depart or to wait; wondering what Charlotte herself wished him to do; deeply moved by her distress, which was so much greater than he could possibly have expected.

But Polly Ann immediately set his doubts at rest. The face she presented to him was both troubled and wrathful.

"Miss Cha'lotte she say fo' you ter wait," she said with unaccountable severity. The announcement had much the nature of a peremptory command.

"All right, Aunty," responded the Captain, absently.

"Don' yer 'aunty' me." Her voice rose rapidly. "I hain't no aunty er yo'n. All yer has ter do is ter des wait--heah." She designated the porch with a stern and accusing finger. "Mon, whut yer do ter Miss Cha'lotte?"

At last the reason for this anger became plain. "I brought her some very sad news," he replied.

"La! is dat whut's de matteh?" Then, in a hoarse whisper, "Anything happen ter Docteh Mobley Wes'brook?" she asked.

"His father was killed last night."

Incredulity and astonishment overspread the black face, and Polly Ann threw aloft her hands. Mr. Converse was obliged, briefly, to detail the particulars. Polly Ann inquired, anxiously:

"Is you a docteh?"

"No, Aunty. Why?"

She advanced nearer and lowered her voice. "Kase I'se worried 'bout Miss Elinor, seh. Miss Cha'lotte done send fo' Docteh Mobley already dis mawnin'; but I don' spec' he come now wid he pa daid."

Polly Ann shook her head dubiously as she moved slowly back into the house. "Hit don' look right," she muttered, "'bout Miss Elinor, an' I'se nowise satisfied in my min'.... An' de General daid! Lawd! Lawd! Hit sho' do look lak er jedgment; hit sho' do!"