Part 17 (1/2)
Candace c.o.c.ked a glance toward the elderly back at the door; and then returned her look to Mr. George:
”You'll maybe be knowing Mr. Charles Stanhope?” she propounded, as if she were giving him a riddle, and her blue eyes looked him through and through:
”Oh, surely, surely! He was a very close friend! You--knew him?”
”I was Miss Betty's nurse who cooked the griddle cakes for you the morning after the funeral----” she said, and waited with breathless dignity to see how he would take it.
”Oh! Is that so!” He beamed on her kindly. ”Yes, yes, I remember those cakes. They were delicious! And what can I do for you? Just sit down.
Why, bless me, I don't know but that your coming may be very opportune!
Can you tell me anything of Miss Betty?”
Candace pressed her lips together with a knowing smile as much as to say she might tell volumes if it were wise, and she cast a glance at the other brother who was shaking hands now with his visitor and promising to meet him a little later:
”Yon man'll be knowing a bit, too, I'll be thinking,” she hazarded nodding toward Reyburn as he left. ”He was at the wedding, I'm most sure----!”
The elder McIntyre gave her a quick glance and signalled to his brother to come near:
”This is Miss Stanhope's nurse, the one who cooked breakfast for us at the time of the funeral,” he said, and to Candace, ”This is Mr. James McIntyre.”
Candace fixed him with another of her inquisitive little glances:
”I've some bit papers put by that I thought ye might like to see,” she said with a cautious air. ”I've kept them fer long because I thought they might be wanted sometime, yet I've never dared bring them to your notice before lest I would be considered meddlin', and indeed I wasn't sure but you had them already. Will you please to look over them papers and see if you've ever seen them before?” She drew forth an envelope from her bag and handed it to them. ”It's a bit letter that Mr. Stanhope wrote the day he was dyin' an' then copied and give to me to mail, and his lady took it away, sayin' she would attend to it. What I want to know is, did ye ever get the letter? If ye did it's all right and none of my business further, an' I'll go on my way back home again and think no more about it; but if ye didn't then there it is, an' you ought to see it, that's sure!”
The two men drew eagerly together and studied the trembling lines:
”It's his writing all right,” murmured one, under his breath, and the brother nodded gravely:
”You say that this was the original of a letter that was given to you to mail to us?”
Candace nodded.
”It's what he wrote first, and got ink on it, an' then wrote it over. I can't say what changes he made, as I didn't read it, but this he gave to me to burn, and before I gets it burned my lady comes in and takes the letter from me while he was sleepin'; and so I hid the bit papers, thinkin' they might be a help to wee Betty sometime. And oh, can ye tell me anything of my little Lady Betty? Is she safe? Did she come to you for refuge? You needn't be afraid to tell me. I'll never breathe a word----!”
The two brothers exchanged quick glances of warning and the elder man spoke:
”My good woman, we appreciate your coming, and these papers may prove very useful to us. We hope to be able to clear up this matter of Miss Stanhope's disappearance very soon. She did not come to us, however, and she is not here. But if you will step into the room just beyond and wait for a little while we may be able to talk this matter over with you.”
Very courteously he ushered the plump, apprehensive little woman into the next room and established her in an easy leather chair with a quant.i.ty of magazines and newspapers about her, but she kept her little head c.o.c.ked anxiously on one side, and watched the door like a dog whose master has gone in and shut the way behind him; and she never sat back in her chair nor relaxed one iota during the whole of the two hours that she had to wait before she was called at last to the inner office where she found the handsome young man whom she remembered seeing at the wedding.
She presently found that Reyburn was as keen as he was handsome, but if she hadn't remembered him at the wedding as a friend of that nice Mrs.
Cochrane, she never would have made it as easy as she did for him to find out things from her, for she could be canny herself on occasion if she tried, and she did not trust everybody.
CHAPTER XVI
THE mysterious disappearance of Candace from the Stanhope house caused nothing short of a panic. Herbert and his mother held hourly wrangles, and frantically tried one thing and then another. Day after day the responses came in from the advertis.e.m.e.nts they had caused to be put forth. Everyone was hot-foot for the reward, but so far little of encouragement had been brought out. More and more the young man was fixing his mind on the idea that Candace had something to do with Betty's disappearance, so he was leaving no stone unturned to find the nurse as well as the girl. To this end he insisted on seeing personally and cross-examining every person who came claiming to have a clue to the lost girl.
That morning, at about the same hour when Candace walked into the office of the McIntyre Brothers in Boston, James, the butler, much against his dignity, was ushering a curious person into the presence of the son of the house. James showed by every line of his n.o.ble figure that he considered this duty beneath his dignity, and that it was only because the occasion was unusual that he tolerated it for a moment, but the man who ambled observantly behind him, stretching his neck to see everything that was to be seen in this part of the great house, that he might tell about it at the fire-house, failed to get the effect. He was wondering why in thunder such rich people as these seemed to be, couldn't afford carpets big enough to cover their whole floors, instead of just having skimpy little bits of pieces dropped around here and there, that made you liable to skid all over the place if you stepped on one of them biasly.
Herbert Hutton lifted his head and watched Abijah Gage slouch into the room. He measured him keenly and remained silent while Abijah opened up.
There had been many other applicants for that reward that day, with stories cunningly woven, and facts, substantiated by witnesses, in one case a whole family brought along to swear to the fabrication; but as yet Herbert had not found a promising clue to his missing bride, and the time was going by. In a few days it would be too late, and his undisciplined spirit raged within him. It was not only his bride he wanted, it was her fortune, which was worth any trouble he might take; and every day, every hour, every minute now, it was slipping, slipping, slipping from his eager grasp.