CHAPTER IV.

SHADED WINDOWS

In the days that followed, Barry Cumberland resigned himself to waiting. He was soon practically fit again, however, and he made up his mind to employ his first morning of freedom in a methodical search for the scene of his accident.

Working from the nearest base where he could garage the convalescent Rolls, he set out on foot; and in something less than half an hour had reached the barricaded road. He had come alone. Jim Sakers’s open scepticism upon the subject to which he usually alluded as “Barry’s princess” had begun to jar upon the victim’s sensitiveness.

He made a slight detour through close-set trees and came out upon the private road twenty yards beyond. There was nothing to show that anything in the nature of repairs was taking place, and he proceeded confidently, looking about him in quest of some landmark. He found none. But presently an opening appeared on the left. Barry turned into it, pulled up, and suppressed a cry of triumph.

Hitherto completely hidden by embracing woods, a house lay forty yards back from the road. Its grounds were surrounded by a high wall, and its construction was memorable because of a turret which crowned the easterly wing of the building.

Barry stood watching it for a time, and groping for another memory which the sight of the house provoked, but which nevertheless eluded him. He realized from its situation that upon the southeast it must look sheerly down into a valley. When, and where, before, had he seen such a house? Try how he might he could not remember. Had he seen it in a dream? Surely he had looked down upon it from a great height! But when? Had the vision been prophetic--an omen? If so, an omen of what?

He advanced slowly. He bent, studying the road and the unkempt shrubbery on his left. The track was altogether too deeply rutted to have retained any imprint by which the passage of his own tires could be identified.

But now, in the very shadow of the building, he pulled up sharply, staring. There was a tree stump some four feet out from the wall, its bark newly gashed in a rather peculiar manner. The undergrowth about here, too, had an odd appearance. It was dying in patches.

Stepping back to the middle of the road, he looked up across the wall. He found that he was staring directly at a window of the house beyond--a window before which a small balcony projected!

He had made no mistake! Here it was--at this very spot--that he had crashed! Dr. Barton had been nearer to the truth than he knew when he had declared, “You seem to have tried to climb a tree.”

Exhilaration came. This provoking mystery was about to be solved.

Passing along the entire length of the wall without coming to any gate, Barry reached the corner and looked across a sloping lawn beyond which stone steps led down to a sunken garden. Far below lay the bowl of the valley through which ran the high road to New York. A semicircular path swept around before the long, low porch of the house, which, as he immediately noted, appeared to be deserted. All visible windows were shaded. There was no evidence of life whatever about the premises. His hopes fell to zero.

Stepping onto the porch, which looked very dusty and unswept, he pressed the bell and waited, lighting a cigarette.

There was no response; not even the barking of a dog. A second and a third time he rang with equally negative results. The thing was growing more and more extraordinary.

Since this road, now closed, clearly led to nowhere but the house, if he had imagined that figure of a girl at the window, by whom had he been taken to the hospital?

Baffled, but not beaten, he walked down the steps again. He had noted a path which clearly led to a garden at the back--a garden concealed behind that high wall against which he had crashed. He turned into it, passed under the very window in which the girl had stood, and came out at the rear of this house of mystery.

He paused in sight of the garden. Beside him was a door. It was partly open--and from beyond came an unmistakable sound of clattering pots and pans!

Barry raised his hand and rapped sharply. The sounds ceased. A minute passed in silence. Barry rapped again, more loudly.

The door was suddenly opened--so suddenly, he realized, that the woman who now stood before him must have crept forward to peep at the intruder. He found himself confronted by a truly formidable female, built for cargo rather than for speed. Her arms appeared to be wet to the elbows, and were, in the words of Jim Sakers, to whom Barry later gave an account of the interview, “as per specification. See ‘Village Blacksmith,’ page 1.” Her muscular hands rested upon her hips. She was iron-jawed, and her regard was a challenge.

“Good-morning,” he began. “My name is Barry Cumberland.”

The woman did not reply.

“I could get no answer to the bell,” he went on, “and came around in the hope of finding someone at home.”

“There’s no one home but me.”

“Can you tell me when they will be back?”

“Who?”

“Well--particularly the lady. The lady whom I really came to thank for her service----”

“Say it again.”

“The lady who witnessed an accident which took place outside this house two weeks ago.”

The Amazon stared in silence, until:

“Forgive me,” said Barry patiently, “but did you hear what I said?”

“I heard.”

“Then why don’t you answer?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But a lady _does_ live here.”

“Does she?”

Barry was torn between laughter and indignation, but he feared an assault might follow any manifestation of either; therefore:

“I think I told you that my name was Barry Cumberland?” he said in his most amiable manner.

“You surely did.”

“You may have heard the name?”

“You said it twice.”

“Hang it all! At least you must know I mean no harm. I want to thank the owner of the house for taking care of me when otherwise I might have died on the roadside.”

“There’s no one home.”

“So you have told me! But surely I can communicate with him somewhere? What is his name?”

“Brown.”

“But there are so many Browns! What is his first name?”

“John.”

Barry, stifling his rising anger, drew out a pocket case and pencil. Solemnly he noted the name “John Brown”; then:

“And at what address can I write to Mr. Brown?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, is it anywhere in America, or has Mr. Brown gone to Europe?”

“I don’t know.”

Apparently by accident, a ten-dollar bill dropped from the case, and Barry held it out insinuatingly. Thereupon, with suddenly dilated nostrils, the formidable guardian of the empty mansion slammed the door in his face! He distinctly heard a bolt being shot.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” said he.

There are some situations from which retirement in good order is the only possible course; and Barry Cumberland recognized the fact that this was one of them. Returning his wallet to his pocket, he began to retrace his steps.

“What the devil does it mean?” he muttered.

Of the woman’s antagonism there could be no doubt, nor of her loyalty to her employer. “John Brown!” Of course, it was a fabrication. She was lying, deliberately. Her instructions plainly were to give no information--and she had followed them to the letter.

The object of it all defied his imagination, but he was more than ever certain that the girl at the window overlooking the garden had been real and no figment of delirium.

As he walked slowly out to the road again, his mind was busy with possible theories. He had learned much but little. Suspicion created by the barred road was strengthened by what he had found at the house. For some unfathomable reason, the girl at the window and those associated with her were peculiarly anxious to avoid meeting him.

But the longer he considered the problem, the more hopeless it became. He determined to consult the local real estate people, to endeavour to trace the ownership of the place, and to identify this “John Brown” who was so pointedly anxious to avoid him.