The Millionth Chance/Chapter 12
XII
SHE seemed to know the way to wherever she was bound. When we reached the farther shore of the lake she turned to the left and skirted the shore for fully half a mile. Before a huge boulder that looked as if it belonged over at the “Head,” instead of on the shores of this fresh-water pond—I suppose some convulsion of nature in earlier days had lifted it from the ocean’s shore and deposited it here—she paused.
It had ceased to snow now and in the darkness the great bulk of the monster rock loomed larger than it had seemed when I had viewed it when skating. It was a guide-post that could hardly be missed in anything short of a dense fog, and her pause was only for the purpose of regaining her breath.
“It’s stopped snowing,” she gasped. “Do you think they’ll follow?”
“Suppose they do,” I laughed. “What man—and a woman—have done, they can do again. But I rather think they’ve had enough. Even though they can trace us, I hardly think they’ll want to. Got your wind?”
“I’m all right,” she replied. “But you—I’ve not even asked if you were hurt.”
“I’m not,” I told her.
My head still rang from the deflected blow of Minot’s revolver, but I saw no reason why I should excite her alarm over a trifle, sweet though such alarm would be to me.
“Where now?” I asked her.
For answer she turned off the ice and up the bank of the lake, not very steep here. There was a path through the trees and she took it unhesitatingly. For a moment I trailed behind, wondering how she knew her way so well. Then I passed her.
“Better let me break the trail,” I suggested. “The snow is deep.”
It was, but the path through the trees, even in the darkness, was pretty well defined.
“No, we’ll walk together,” she said.
She swung into stride with me, and we plunged forwardly silently.
After a hundred yards, she spoke again.
“You don’t ask me where we’re going,” she said.
“I thought I’d wait until you chose to tell me,” I answered.
“You aren’t curious?”
“Slightly,” I laughed. “Curious about everything. But my curiosity can wait.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I really trust you, Mr. Wrenham—I ought to. You saved me from them twice, now. But I can’t explain yet. I—I haven’t the right.”
“And I trust you,” I told her. “So we’re both of one mind, and let explanation wait. Where now?”
For we had descended the farther side of the hill that rose from the lake’s edge, and before us stretched open country for as far as I could see in the darkness.
“Straight across this meadow,” she answered.
I offered her my arm, but she took my hand and together we plunged through the deep snow, impeded by the light crust that broke beneath our combined weights. It was hard work, but I don’t suppose it lasted over quarter of an hour. Then we reached a fringe of trees again, and the girl insisted on taking the lead.
There was no path, but there was little underbrush between the trees, and not so much snow had sifted down here, between the branches, and our progress was easier than it had been in the meadow. Again I wondered that she seemed so certain of her direction. But I had told her that I could wait, and the matter of her knowledge of the ground was a slight thing in comparison with the other things I wanted to know.
The trees suddenly ceased again, that is, directly ahead of us. A clearing, not over forty yards wide, spread before us, and in its center stood a little log cabin. From the window nearest us, the only one in that side, gleamed a light. I needed not the little gasping sigh of relief from Miss Gilman to know that we were at our journey’s end.
Swiftly, my hand relinquished now, she sped across the clearing and knocked upon the cabin’s door. There came to my acutely listening ears the sound of a chair being moved, as though its owner pushed it back as he arose. Then some one fumbled at the latch of the door. It was thrown swiftly open and the blaze of an electric torch flashed in our eyes, blinding us. We—myself, at any rate—could see nothing.
There was a moment’s pause, while the holder of the torch surveyed us.
“A girl—and a man. Right enough! Where from?” he asked coolly.
“I am Ruth Gilman, Major Penrose’s niece,” said the girl quickly. “This is Mr. Wrenham who has brought me here. Are you Lieutenant Carey?”
“Come in,” he said.
He turned off his torch and the flames of an open fire behind him showed his figure, tall and slim. I did not see his face until we were inside. He was a handsome chap, with an imperturbable-looking face, of that British type that seems incapable of any astonishment. Not stupid, but extremely self-controlled.
He placed a chair for Miss Gilman and waved me to one. He stood by the open fire, looking at us.
“Your uncle sent you, Miss Gilman?”
“He is dead.”
For a moment the immobile face showed expression. Then it fell into its inscrutable lines again.
“I am sorry, Miss Gilman. When?”
For all he cared, I thought, she might have been talking about a pet dog.
“Yesterday at the Inn—murdered!”
“And robbed?” he asked.
I flushed at the cold-bloodedness of the man.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It may have been accident, but I don’t see how it could have been. Men have been following him. Retained by a detective agency. They followed me just now on the ice. Mr. Wrenham beat them off.”
His eyes looked eager.
“Then your uncle wasn’t robbed, Miss Gilman?” he asked anxiously.
“I have them here.”
She opened her jacket; we could see that the end of an envelope protruded from a pocket and that it was fastened with pins. She drew them out and handed the envelope to the man whose manner and accent proved him to be English, and an English officer, according to the title she gave him. Faint glimmerings of understanding began to come to me. Understanding, at least, of what that envelope might contain.
He snatched them, almost, from her hand.
“Pardon,” he said.
He opened the envelope and drew forth sheets of paper. Swiftly he glanced over the first two or three, then put them all back and buttoned them inside the khaki Norfolk jacket that he wore. He held out his hand to the girl.
“Miss Gilman, you have played cricket! I haven’t the time to go over these now, but I know, from a glance, they’re what I’ve waited for.”
He dropped her hand and stepped back. His hand went, as if unconsciously, to the salute.
“Your uncle was an honorable gentleman who played the game. God rest him. I am sorry that I can not stay. I would like one shot at his murderers—but England is waiting.”
“And you must hurry,” cried the girl. “Suppose they should follow? Mr. Wrenham knocked them out, but they may recover.”
A smile illumined the grave face of the Englishman.
“You knocked them out, Mr. Wrenham? England owes you her thanks, too.”
He held out his hand and I took it, I liked this tall, grave man.
“You haven’t time for thanks—for any thing,” cried Miss Gilman. “They know now—they must be certain. If they don’t dare follow, they’ll arouse the hotel—there’s the sheriff there—if they charged you with my uncle’s murder.”
“Awkward, eh?” His lips tightened. “But there’s no danger, Miss Gilman.”
“No danger? But they know! They must know now. The countryside will be on the lookout for a stranger, any stranger, and if you’re arrested what good will the plans be to you—and England? The men who’ve hired those detectives, if they can’t get the plans for themselves, won’t they protest against England getting them? It’s a violation of neutrality. Germany won’t permit”
“Did you think I walked here? Or came on a train?” He laughed shortly. “Three hundred yards from here is a boat-house, Miss Gilman. It has not contained a boat for a year. But it does contain my Bleriot. I asked no better landing-place than the ice, when I arrived a week ago, I ask no better starting-place. By dawn I’ll be in St. Johns. The Bleriot will make a hundred an hour if I ask her to.
“But look here, Miss Gilman; isn’t there an inquest or something of the sort to be held? Yes? But won’t it be awkward for you, to have assisted in the violation of your country’s neutrality?”
“Before Germany and England went to war,” she answered, “my uncle had a private agreement with General Fenton. That private agreement, he, as a retired officer of the United States Army, was willing to fulfill. Those papers are England’s property equally with the United States. If it is a violation of neutrality to give England what is hers—But it isn’t! My uncle was a retired officer And he is dead. But you—you are an officer of the British Army. If you are caught”
“But I won’t be,” he smiled. He looked at her. “If you were English, and a man, the Victoria Cross would be yours, Miss Gilman. From what you have told me, I can guess the rest. You have risked a great deal to keep your uncle’s pledge. You have come in the night. I’m not much of a speech-maker, Miss Gilman. I can only tell you, once again, that England thanks you—and your uncle, too. I have no doubt that he could have sold this envelope to our enemies for a fortune. He gets nothing from England save England’s thanks. But you, when the war is ended”
“I want nothing,” she said. “I only want—please start.”
I think he must have read her thoughts. I know that I did. Having risked so much, having dared so much at a time when most girls of her age would be stricken with shock, she did not want anything to delay his departure. Even his thanks, the thanks of England, were unwelcome until what she had set out to do was done.
At any rate, with no further words, he began picking up things from a bureau, a rough affair, and putting them into a small satchel. He finished, locked the bag, felt a last time at his breast pocket to be sure the envelope was safe. He patted the pocket.
“God grant it works,” he said. He held out his hand to me again. “In happier times I trust we’ll meet again, sir.”
He walked to the door and threw it open. He stepped back. Against his chest was pressed the muzzle of a revolver, and Minot, his eyes blazing, followed the lieutenant as he walked backward into the room. Behind him appeared the burly figure of Ravenell.
“Now, then, come across,” snarled Minot. “We’ve got you and we’ve got the goods. Come across with them!”
And then, when victory was in his grasp, Minot had to relinquish it. He could not forbear to sneer viciously at me—
“I’ll get even with you for that crack on the head, Brant, before you’re five minutes older.”
I don’t suppose he glanced away from the face of Carey for more than a hundredth of a second, but that was long enough. The Englishman’s right hand came down; the revolver was knocked to the floor of the cabin; Minot went down before a savage left uppercut, and I—well, for a man of peace, with extremely nervous tendencies, I once again surprised myself. Also, I justified the training of three years on a varsity crew once more.
For, as the revolver of Minot clattered to the floor, I lifted a table and plunged for Ravenell. I heard his revolver crack once, and later I discovered that it had bored through the table top, not far, I think, from my head. Then I was upon him and he went down beneath my wooden weapon.
It was all over in a moment. Disarmed, cowed, beaten, Minot and Ravenell stood in a corner of the cabin, while Carey gave it a last glance.
“Haven’t forgotten anything,” he said as coolly as if our subduing of the Greenham men had been an every-day affair. “Come on, Miss Gilman, and you, Wrenham.”
“What about them?” I asked, pointing at Minot and his burly partner.
Carey laughed.
“According to what you tell me, these gentlemen may have been implicated in Major Penrose’s death. In that case, they won’t get far, eh? In fact, they’ll hardly dare run away. But if you think they will, just notify your sheriff where they are. They’ll be here, I should say, for at least three hours. Those windows are too small for a man to crawl through. To make the opening large enough will take them at least three hours. And the door—I know a trick to play on that door.”
He stared icily at the two Greenham men.
“It’s war you two have involved yourself in,” he stated. “Were it not for the fact that I am on neutral soil—even that wouldn’t stop me, I think, were it not that even in times of war there might be some way of stopping me after I reach Canada. And I can’t be stopped. It wouldn’t be enough to give the plans you’ve tried so hard to get to some one else in the service. I want a chance to be present when they’re used. And England needs every man she can get. So I won’t do what I’d like to do.”
Very calmly he said it all, and yet, had I been Ravenell or Minot I would have felt that I had been very near to death that moment. But Carey shrugged his shoulders. He gently urged Miss Gilman from the cabin and followed me out. He pointed to a pile of cordwood near the door.
“If we pile that against it they’ll not remove it soon. The only tools inside are ordinary kitchen knives. Will you help me?”
In ten minutes we had effectually blocked the door, which opened outward, from the assaults of the two Greenham men. Then we started for the lake. We reached the boat-house where his Bleriot was hidden. He unlocked the door and I helped him place planks from the door to the ice. Then we wheeled the air-craft out upon the ice. He tinkered with the engine a moment, then donned a helmet and life-belt which he had taken from a box behind his seat. He turned to us.
“Can’t say much, you know. Not a speech-maker, as you know.”
He climbed into his seat. We stood back. The propeller whirled; the engine barked its staccato bark; the great contrivance quivered. He shut off the engine. He had tested it and found it all right.
“If it’s going to be awkward. Having given this to me, better run for it, to your hotel,” he counseled. “Came in a storm, regular gale, and no one seemed to have heard my arrival. But they may hear me go—may ask questions—those beggars in the cabin will keep their mouths shut, I fancy. But others—awkward questions, you know. And—and I’m not much for making a speech, as you know, but God bless you both, and don’t forget that England tha”
We heard no more. The engine roared; the propeller spun; the wheels moved. With a convulsive jerk the thing of wire and canvas moved; it lurched to one side and righted itself; its wheels slipped on the ice, then gripped it. It seemed to leap; it raced forward; it tilted crazily until one wing scraped the ice; then, like a bird after its starting run, it sprang into the air. We lost it in the gloom long before its engine’s roar ceased to come back to us.
We had stood, staring fascinatedly in the direction whence Carey had vanished, for fully five minutes, I think, before either of us moved. Then I touched the girl gently on the arm.
“Come,” I said.
She turned to me slowly.
“It’s a great thing, to be a man and love your country—and risk death for it. Isn’t it? I wish—I wish I’d been a man, and”
“I’m very glad that you’re not,” I told her with emphasis. “And as to that; I’m in the dark, of course, but it seems to me that you’ve done something mighty fine. Lieutenant Carey seemed to think so, at all events. And I’m sure of it. You’ve risked your life. Why, no man could have done more. Though why, and what it’s all about, is beyond me.”
“Is it? Haven’t you guessed at all?”
“Well,” I admitted, “I suppose you’ve given him plans of some sort of a gun. I don’t know.”
“It never occurred to you that they might be the plans of one of the United States’ fortifications, or battle-ships, or anything like that?”
“Good God, no,” I assured her. “Why, England isn’t at war with us and never will be. But aside from that—why, it’s ab surd! I—well, it’s just too nonsensical an idea to have occurred to me. You—you aren’t the type of woman, Miss Gilman, that betrays her country.”
“You know a great deal about women, being an author, don’t you, Mr. Wrenham?”
“I know absolutely nothing about them, like every other man,” I replied, “except that”
“Except what?”
“Like the explanation you are going to give me of all this, my exception can wait,” I answered.
“Oh,” she said. She began walking across the ice.
“I—I’ll explain tomorrow,” she said. “Tonight I am very tired,” she sighed and we talked no more.
She leaned heavily against me, and for the rest of the journey I half-carried her. Small wonder! Any other woman I knew would have been under a doctor’s care, but she had ventured into the night, had braved its perils.
But this isn’t really a love-story. I shall rhapsodize over Ruth Gilman no more than is absolutely necessary. The reader knows what Ruth Gilman had done and can give her credit.
We reached the hotel in safety. Two minutes later we had tiptoed across the threshold, I had seen Miss Gilman to her room, and had entered my own. And all without discovery, although indeed, discovery wouldn’t have mattered much.
Insomnia didn’t bother me through the little that remained of the night. Indeed, I did not awake until Carney had been shaking me by the shoulder, so he said, for five minutes. But I’d put in a more exhausting and exciting day than ever Weatherbee Jones had. Little wonder that I slept soundly.