Part 12

“The Bible also tells us not to judge one another!” he replied quickly. “Mr. Joyce, you are a stranger here, but I am not. They have known me since childhood. Also there are some items that might be of interest to you. Cherry Fenner five years ago was a little girl in this Sunday School. She stood up in that pulpit out there one Children's Sunday and sang in a sweet little voice, 'Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.' She was an innocent little child then, and everybody praised her. Now, because she has been talked about you are all ready to condemn her. And who is going to help her? I tell you if that is the kind of Christ you have, and the kind of Bible you are following I want no more of it and I am ready to have my name taken off the roll at once.”

Harricutt rose in his excitement pointing his long-flapping forefinger:

“You see, gentlemen, you see! He defies us! He goes farther! He defies his God!”

Suddenly the minister rose with uplifted hand, and the voice that never failed to command attention, spoke:

“Let us pray!”

With sudden startled indrawing of breath, and half obedient bowing of the heads, the elders paused, standing or sitting as they were, and Mark with high defiant head stood looking straight at his old friend.

“Oh, God, our Father, O Jesus Christ our Saviour,” prayed the minister in a voice that showed he felt the Presence near, “Save us in this trying moment from committing further sin. Give us Thy wisdom, and Thy loving-kindness. Show us that only he that is without sin among us may cast the first stone. Put thy love about us all. We are all Thy children. Amen.”

Into the silence that followed this prayer his voice continued quietly:

“I will ask Mr. Harricutt to take the chair for a moment. I would like to make a motion.”

The elders looked abashed.

“Why,--I,--” began Harricutt, and then saw there was nothing else for him to do, and stepped excitedly over to the minister's seat behind the table, and sank reluctantly down, trying to think how he could best make use of his present position to further his side of the question.

The minister was still standing, seeming to hold within his gaze the eyes of every one in the room including Mark.

“I wish to make a motion,” said the minister, “I move that we have a rising vote, expressing our utmost confidence in Mr. Carter, and leaving it to his discretion to explain his conduct or not as he pleases! I have known this dear young brother since he was a boy, and I would trust him always, anywhere, with anything!”

A wonderful shiny look of startled wonder, and deep joy came into the eyes of the young man, followed by a stabbing cloud of anguish, and then the hard controlled face once more, with the exception of a certain tenderness as he looked toward the minister.

“Mr. Duncannon, will you second my motion?” finished Severn.

The long gaunt dark elder was on his feet instantly:

“Sure, Brother Severn, I second that motion. If you hadn't got ahead of me I'd have firsted it myself. I know Mark. He's _all right!_” and he put out a hairy hand and grasped Mark's young strong fingers, that gripped his warmly.

Harricutt was on his feet, tapping on the table with his pencil:

“I think this motion is out of order,” he cried excitedly--but no one listened, and the minister said calmly, “Will the chair put the question?”

Baffled, angry, bitter, the old stickler went through the hated words: “It is moved and seconded that we express our confidence--”

“Utmost confidence, Brother Harricutt--” broke in the minister's voice. The red came up in the elder's face, but he choked out the words “utmost confidence,” on through the whole motion, and by the time it was out four elders were on their feet, Duncannon and Joyce first, thank God, Gibson, more slowly, Fowler pulled up by the strong wiry hand of Duncannon who sat next him.

“Stop!” suddenly spoke Mark's clear incisive voice, “I cannot let you do this. I deeply appreciate the confidence of Mr. Severn and Mr. Duncannon,” he paused looking straight into the eyes of the new elder and added--“and Mr. Joyce, who does not know me. But I am not worthy of so deep a trust. I ask you to remove my name from your church roll that in future my actions shall not be your responsibility!” With that he gave one lingering tender look toward the minister, pressed hard the hairy hand of the old Scotch elder, and went out of the room before anyone realized he was going.

Billy, with a gasp, and a look after his beloved idol, hesitated, then pulled himself together and made a dash into the session room, like a catapult landing straight in the spot where Mark had stood, but ignoring all the rest he looked up at the minister and spoke rapidly:

“Mr. Severn, please sir. Mark was with me last night from twelve o'clock on. Me an' him passed the Pleasant View Station in a car going over to Stark's Mountain, just as the bells was ringing over here fer midnight, cause I counted 'em, and Mark was over to Stark's Mountain till most noon to-day, and I come home with him!”

The minister's face was blazing with glory, and old Duncannon patted Billy on the shoulder, and beamed, but Harricutt arose with menace in his eye and advanced on the young intruder. However, before anyone could do anything about it a strong firm hand reached out from the doorway and plucked Billy by the collar:

“That'll do, Kid, Keep your mouth shut and don't say another word!” It was Mark and he promptly removed Billy from the picture.

“I move we adjourn,” said Elder Duncannon, but the minister did not even wait for the motion to be seconded. He followed Mark out into the moonlight, and drew him, Billy and all, across the lawn toward the parsonage, one arm thrown lovingly across Mark's shoulder. He had forgotten entirely the two guests parked on the piazza smoking cigarettes!

XII

As the shades of evening had drawn down two figures that had been lurking all day in the fastnesses of Lone Valley over beyond the state Highway, stole forth and crept stealthily under cover to Stark Mountain.

A long time they lingered in the edge of the woods till the dark was velvet black around them, before the moon arose. Then slowly, cautiously they drew near the haunted house, observing it long and silently from every possible angle, till satisfied that no enemy was about. Yet taking no chances even then, the taller one crept forth from shelter while the other watched. So stealthily he went that even his companion heard no stir.

It was some ten minutes that Shorty waited there in the bushes scarcely daring to breathe, while Link painfully quiet, inch by inch encircled the house, and listened, trying the front door first and finding it fast; softly testing the cellar windows one by one, beginning from the eastern end, going toward the front first, and so missing the window by which Billy had entered. A hundred times his operation was halted by the sound of a rat scuttling across the floor, or racketing in the wall, but the hollow echoes assured him over and over again that the house was not occupied, at least not by anyone awake and in his senses. Link had been in the business so long that he “felt” when there was an enemy near. That was what vexed him now. He had “felt” that morning that someone was near, but he had laid it to nerves and the reported ghost, and had not heeded his trained faculties. He was back now doubly alert to discover the cause and make good his failure in the morning. He had undertaken to look after this guy and see this job through and there was big money in it. He was heavily armed and prepared for any reasonable surprise. He meant to get this matter straight before morning. So, feeling his way along in the blackness, listening, halting at every moment with bated breath, he came at last to the back door, and drawing himself up to the steps, took the knob in his hand and turned it. To his surprise it yielded to his touch, and the door came open. And yet it was some seconds of tense listening before he let himself down to the ground again, and with his hand in the grass let out a tiny winking flashlight, no more than a firefly would flicker, and out again.

This was answered by a wink from the bushes, as if the same firefly or its mate might be glowing, and after an instant another wink from the ground near the house. Slowly Shorty arrived without noise, his big bulk muffling in fat the muscles of velvet. It was incredible how light his step could be--_professionally._ It was as if he had been wafted there like down. Silently still and without communication the two drifted into the open door, sent a searching glowworm ahead into the crannies of the dusty, musty kitchen, surprising a mouse that had stolen forth domestically. The door being shut and fastened cautiously, the key in Link's pocket, they drifted through the swing door, as air might have circulated, identifying the mouse's scuttle, the rattle of a rat among the loose coal in the cellar bin, the throaty chirp of a cricket outside in the grass, and drifting on.

Thus they searched the lower floor, even as Billy had done, though more thoroughly, and mounted to the landing above, here they divided, Shorty at watch in the hall, while Link went to the front rooms first and searched each hastily, not omitting closets, ending at the back room where the prisoner had been.

“He's gone!” said Link in a hoarse whisper, speaking for the first time after a hasty scanning of the shadowy place.

Shorty took the precaution to turn the key of the door leading to the third story before he entered to investigate.

“Do you think it was him fired that shot?”

Link shook his head.

“Couldn't! I had him lifted up in my arms and was just handing him some more dope when the sound come. It seemed it was out front. It must a been somebody in the front room. Sure! That guy never coulda got them bracelets off hisself. Looka here! Them was filed off!” They stood with the flash light between them examining the handcuffs, and then turned their attention to the rest of the room, studying the bed and floors carefully for any traces of the possible assistant to the runaway but finding none. Then they went in the front room again, and this time discovered the lowered window and the little half moon aperture in the shutter.

“How do you figger it?” asked Shorty turning a ghastly face toward Link in the plaided darkness of the flash light.

“Pat!” said Link laconically.

“Pat?”

“Pat. He's yella! I told Sam, but he would have him! I ain't sure but Sam's yella! I think I'm about done with this outfit!”

“But Pat? What would he do it for?”

“Goin to run the whole game hisself, perhaps, or then again he might be in with Sam, so they won't have to divvy up. He could say we hadn't kept out contrac' you know, runnin' away like that.”

“We ain't to blame. How'd we know it want the police? We had a mighty close shave over that state line this A.M.”

“Well, that's what he could say, an' refuse to divvy up. But b'lieve me, Shorty! Nobody's goin' to do me dirty like that! Somebody's been doing us dirty, you and me, and it's good and right we beat 'em to it.”

“Yes, but how ya goin' to do it?”

“I ain't sure yet, but I'm goin' to do it. The first thing, Shorty, is fer us to get outta here mighty good an' quick. Ef anybody's watchin' round, we better not be here. We'll fade away. See?”

Without flash or noise they faded, going cautiously out by the front door this time and disappearing into the dark of the woods just as the horizon over Lone Valley began to show luminous in the path of the oncoming moon.

They walked several miles, stealthily, and a mile or two more naturally, before they ventured on a word, and then Shorty impatiently:

“I don't see what you can do. Whattirya goin' ta do?”

“Don't get excited, Shorty, I see my way out,” said Link affably, “I didn't come off here half cocked. I investigated before I took on the job.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Well, I just looked up the parties in the blue book before I come off. Didn't have much time, but I just looked 'em up. Great thing that blue book. Gives ya lots of information. Then I got another thing, a magazine I always buy and keep on hand. It's called The House Lovely, an' it has all these grand gentlemen's places put down in pictures, with plans and everything. It's real handy when you wantta find out how to visit 'em sort of intimate like, and it kind of broadens yer mind. It's a real pity you never learned to read, Shorty. There's nothing like it fer getting valuable information. I read a lot and I always remember anything that's worth while.”

“I don't see how that's doin' us any good now,” growled Shorty.

“Don't get hasty, Shorty, I'm comin' to it. You see these here Shaftons have been on my mind fer some while back. I make it a point to know about guys like that. I read the society columns and keep posted about little details. It pays, Shorty. Now see! I happen to know that these here Shaftons have several summer homes, one in the mountains, one at the seashore, one up at an island out in the ocean, and a farm down in Jersey, where they go at Christmas fer the holidays sometimes. Well, just now I happen to know Mrs. Shafton--that's this guy's mother, is down at the Jersey house all alone with the servants. Real handy fer our purposes, ain't it? Not so far we can't get there by mornin' if we half try, and the old man is off out West on a business trip.”

“What you gonta do?” asked Shorty.

“Well, I haven't exactly got it all doped out yet, but I reckon our business is with the old lady. Let's beat it as fast as we can to a trolley and dope it out as we go. You see this here old woman is nuts on her son, and she's lousy with money and don't care how she spends it, so her baby boy is pleased. Now, I figger if we could come off with five thousand apiece, you'n I we'd be doin' a good night's work and no mistake. Whaddayou say?”

“Sure thing,” grumped Shorty unbelievingly.

“You see,” continued Link, “We're in bad, this guy escaping and all, and like as not Pat swiping all the boodle and layin' the blame onto us. You can't tell what might happen with Pat an' Sam, the dirty devils. They might even let it come to a trial and testify against us. Sam has it in fer me an' you this long time, 'count of that last pretty little safe blow-out that didn't materialize. See?”

Shorty growled gloomily.

“Now on the other hand if we can step in before it is too late, or before the news of his havin' escaped gets to his fond parents, and get in our little work, we might at least make expenses out of it and beat it out of the country fer a while. I been thinkin' of South America fer my health fer some time past. How 'bout you?”

“Suits me. But how you gonta work it?”

“Well, you see I know a little bit about wimmen. An' I seen this woman oncet. If she was one of these here newfangled political kind you couldn't do nothin' with her, she'd be onta you in no time an' have you up before the supreme court 'fore she goddone, but this here woman is one o' them old fashioned, useless kind that's afraid of everything and cries easy, and gets scairt at her shadder. I seen her on the board walk once with her husband, took notice to her, thought I might need it sometime. She has gray hair but she ain't never growed up. She was ridin' in a wheeled chair, an' him walkin' beside her an' a man behind pushin' her, an' a maid comin' along with a fur coat. She never done a thing fer herself, not even think, an' that's the kind you can put anything over on from a teaparty to a blizzard without her suspectin' a thing. Shorty, I'm gonta make up to Mrs. Shafton an' see what I can get out of her. But we gotta get a trolley line down to Unity an' catch that evenin' train. See?”

About half-past ten that night, with the moon at full sail, Shorty and Link, keeping the shady side of the street, slunk into a little obscure, and as yet unsuppressed saloon in a back street in a dirty little manufacturing city not many miles from Unity. Just off the side entrance was a back hall in which lurked a dark smelly little telephone booth under a staircase, too far removed from the noisy crowd that frequented the place to be heard. Here Link took instant refuge with Shorty bulking largely in front of the door, smoking a thin black twisted cigar, and looking anything but happy. He had figured greatly on getting his share of a million, and now at a single shot he had let it go through his fingers. There were reasons why he needed that part of a million at once. Link had all sorts of nerve. He called up the Shafton home in New Jersey and jollied the maid, calling her girlie, and saying he was in the employ of young Laurie Shafton and had a special private message from the young man to his mother. It was not long before a peevish elderly voice in his ear said:

“Well? Mrs. Shafton at the phone.”

And Link sailed in:

“Mrs. Shafton, I got a message from your son, a very private message. He said, would you please send your maid out of the room first before I told you?”

She seemed annoyed and hesitant at this, but finally complied:

“Now, Mrs. Shafton, you don't need to get worried at what I'm tellin' you. Your son ain't dead, nor nothing like that you know, but he's just met with a little accident. No, now, wait a minute till I tell you. You don't need to get excited ner nothing. If you just keep calm an' do as I tell you it'll all come out right in the end--”

He could tell by her voice that she was much excited and that so far his scheme was working well. If he could only pull the rest off! He winked one eye jauntily at Shorty who was standing wide-mouthed, bulging-eyed listening, and went on: