Coming Through the Rye (2 page)

Thinking these thoughts, she reached the station, claimed her baggage, and signaled the taxi that had finally appeared on the scene.

“I thought there were always taxis here by the station?” she said to the man. “I waited for fifteen minutes a little while ago.”

“Well, there usually is,” said the man apologetically, “but you see we all ben down the commissioner's office trying to get our rights.”

“Your rights?” said Romayne faintly, wishing she had said nothing to the man, and reproaching herself for giving him opportunity to talk with her. Isabel Worrell would never have done that. It was because she was not accustomed to riding in taxis.

“Yes, miss,” said the man as if he had just been looking for someone to whom he could tell his troubles. “You see, us fellers has pay fifteen dollars a week to the commissioner to get our licenses, and we ben herin' there's a guy in the city ben makin' it hot fer everybody what's in this here graft game, so jest kinda got together and decided we'd tell the commissioner we was going to give evidence ‘gainst him he didn't do somepin about it. So we went together, a gang of us, an' we give him a line of talk, and wddaya think? He give us money back! Sorry to keep ya waitin', miss, but you see how ‘twas. I jest had to have that money. I got a sick kid, and she has to go to the hospital fer an operation, an' I needed that money.”

Romayne was all sympathy now. She asked questions about the child and promised to send her a doll and a picture book. How much trouble there was in the world, and she had been fretting for years just because she had to make over her dresses and they couldn't ride in taxis. And now money had come to the Ransoms, but here were the Judsons, and the taxi drivers, and a lot of other poor people who were still in trouble. It really spoiled much of her own pleasure in her good fortune to know that there were so many people in such deep trouble. And it all seemed to be the fault of a few rich politicians who were trying to get richer than anybody else without doing anything. At least that was the way it looked. Or, perhaps, it was the fault of the people who voted to put men who would do such things into these offices of trust. Fancy a commissioner trying to live off a poor taxi driver whose little girl was waiting to have a much-needed operation until her father could scrape the money together to pay the doctor and the hospital! Something ought to be done about it. She meant to ask Lawrence and Father to start at once organizing some kind of a society to look into these things. They could do it. Now that they were going to have a little money, they would have a real chance to do good in the world.

She gave the driver a generous tip, took down his address, and promised not to forget the doll. Then the car drew up in front of the old respectable brownstone house into which they had moved but the month before.

She glanced up at the house with a thrill of pride and pleasure. To think that was their home after all these years in a little cramped apartment! And she was presently to have a good sum of money put into her hands with which to furnish it with fine old furniture such as belonged in a respectable old family mansion. Of course, it wasn't one of the newer houses. But it had an air of ancient grandeur about it that pleased her. She liked the high ceilings and the big rooms.

As she looked toward the front windows where now her father had his office, she saw the curtain stir and a hand draw back. It must be her father had come home and he would be coming to the door to meet her!

She paid the taxi fare and hurried up the steps, wondering what Father would say when he heard her story, and wouldn't he be glad after all that she had come back? She knew he had been going to be lonesome without her in spite of all his joy in her holiday.

Inside that stately old front parlor thick rough silk curtained the windows in a deep amber shade. A great walnut roll-top desk occupied the center of the room. In the wall opposite the hall archway was set an old mantel with cupboards on each side, and two tall graceful urns of alabaster stood upon the mantel. A large old Kerminshah rug, worn but still beautiful, in rose and amber covered the floor. A few walnut chairs and a desk chair completed the furnishings. On the desk were several specimens of ore and some tubes of oil in various stages of refinement.

“Oh gee!” said a thick-set youth in knickerbockers and golf stockings, peering from between the curtains. “That girl's come back! I thought you said she was safe in Jersey for a week!
Now
what are we going to do? She'll be in here in a minute.”

“We're going to do just what we planned to do, Chris,” said a quiet, grave young man in a plain business suit with a face that had a rugged look of determined strength about it.

“But—why say—Sherwood—she's a peach of a girl! I went to school with her.”

“Sorry for the girl, Chris, but it can't be helped! This is the only time this could be done, and the stage is set. We can't afford to let the opportunity slip. We may never get it again. We're not fighting for one person's feelings, kid! This is righteousness! You get into your corner, Chris, and let me manage this thing.”

“But, Sherrey, you can't—”

There was the sound of a key turning in the lock, and a lifted hand of caution silenced the youth at the window.

The other three men, two of them in policeman's garb, and one a plainclothes man, showed no interest in the incident save by quick, alert gleams of the eye. They maintained a grave aloof bearing and seemed to study to obliterate themselves as far as possible from the scene. Their time of action was not yet come.

The man they called Sherwood was seated just inside the arch from the hallway.

Romayne flung open the door and stepped inside, closing it after her before she saw him. Then she took a step forward, and all the others were visible to her view, not excepting her old schoolmate, who had turned his back to the room in the hope of not being recognized.

The girl stood still for a moment, eyeing each of the five men questioningly, then turned toward the young man who obviously dominated the scene.

“Where is my father?” she asked coldly, as if she felt he were somehow to blame for the presence of these uniformed men.

“That is what we hoped you might be able to tell us, Miss Ransom,” said Sherwood courteously. He had risen as she entered the doorway.

She looked around at them intently once more.

“Then if my father has not been here,” she asked crisply, “how did you get in here?”

For just an instant she stood facing the five men, and then she stepped quickly over to the desk and laid her hand on the telephone.

Just as quickly another hand, firm and strong and determined, was laid upon hers, and the man called Sherwood looked sternly down at her.

“I'm sorry, Miss Ransom, but we can't let you do that—not now.”

R
omanye cast a frightened glance from one stern face to the other, her eyes lingering with sudden recognition on the broad shoulders of the boy.

“Chris Hollister!” she said sharply. “What are you doing here? Why don't you tell these men that they have no right to come in here and tell me what I can do and what I cannot do?”

The boy turned shamefacedly.

“I'm sorry, Romayne, I didn't know you would be here—I understood you were to be away—”

“Oh!” said Romayne haughtily. “So you knew what my movements were, did you? And you were in some plot against my father in his absence, it seems. Well, I thought better of you than that. I've always supposed you were a very nice boy—that is, in the days when we used to go to school together.”

Her tone was as if she had finished with him forever. Then she turned toward Sherwood.

“I don't know who you are, but I'm sure you look as if you might have been a gentleman once. Will you please let go of my hand?”

“Not until you give me your word of honor that you will go over and sit down in that chair and not go near this telephone again,” said Sherwood gently but firmly. “I'm in command here, and I can't run the risk of your messing things.”

“You're not in command of me!” said Romayne, giving her lithe hand a quick twist and jerking it from his hold. It hurt her cruelly, but she did not wince. With a quick motion she turned toward the front door, but to her dismay she was suddenly confronted by the two men in uniform, standing like an impassable wall before her.

With a dazed look she stopped, gave each a frightened glance, and turning back to Sherwood, she drew herself up proudly.

“What does this mean?” she asked indignantly. “Do I understand that I am a prisoner in my father's house?”

“I'm afraid you are, Miss Ransom,” answered Sherwood gravely. “I hope it will not be for long. You need not be troubled. No harm will come to you. If you will sit down, I will see that no harm comes to you.”

“Thank you. I prefer to stand,” she said frigidly.

“Just as you please,” answered her captor, “only I advise you to stand right where you are if you do not wish to be interfered with again.”

Romayne caught her underlip between her white teeth to steady its trembling. She could feel the tears smarting in her eyes. Slim and straight she stood in her pretty spring outfit, looking like a frightened child. Chris Hollister could not stand it and turned his back, pretending to be looking out from between the curtains again.

The girl had wonderful self-control. She was trying to think what she should do. It was unthinkable that she should submit to such a situation.

“What is the meaning of all this anyway? What right have you to order me about in this way in my own house?” she said, trying to hold her temper and see if she could find out what it was all about. “There certainly must be some explanation. You don't look like a bandit!”

There was just the least trace of contempt in her voice.

“Aw gee!” breathed the boy, Chris, under his breath.

“I can explain,” said the young man gravely, “but I would rather not. I hoped perhaps that you might be spared the pain—”

“Oh!” interrupted Romayne. “Don't trouble yourself about that. You haven't seemed to care how much pain you inflicted. I beg you will inform me at once what all this means! It isn't necessary to use any oratory or false friendliness. I want the facts. I'll bear the pain!”

Her face was haughtiness itself. Her tone stung the young man and brought a flush of indignation to his cheek, but he kept his quiet voice.

“Very well, then. I will tell you. This house is under suspicion, and we have been ordered to investigate. I am sorry our duty brought us here while you were at home, but if you will consent to be seated quietly in that chair where the guard can watch every movement, I give you my word you shall not be personally disturbed.”

Romayne stared wide-eyed.

“This house! Under suspicion? But for what?” she demanded angrily.

“For illicit dealing in intoxicating liquor.”

“Oh!” unexpectedly laughed out the girl with a relieved hysterical giggle. “Is that all? Isn't that funny!”

She dropped into a chair still laughing, her eyes dancing merrily.

“But,” she said, looking into the young man's face, “you surely didn't mean that seriously?”

“I surely do,” said the young man sadly. “I'm sorry, but we have all evidence—”

Romayne turned toward the boy.

“Chris, why in the world don't you tell him we're not that kind of people? What do you get out of this farce that you can let it go on? You surely know how absurd this charge is!”

Chris turned earnestly toward the girl.

“I did, Romayne; I told them all about you. I said you were a peach of a girl! I wanted to put this off when I found you were home—”

“Put it off!” said Romayne, scornfully turning back to Sherwood. “If you would allow me to call up my father's friend, Judge Freeman,” she said with an edge of haughtiness in her voice again, “he will be able to explain how impossible this all is,” she said loftily.

A quick meaningful look passed from one man to another around the group.

“I have no doubt he would,” said Sherwood meaningfully, “but we will not call the judge at present.”

“Or if you will call my brother,” she went on more soberly, trying to realize that it was not going to be as easy to convince these determined men as she had expected. “He is probably still in the office—I can give you his number. He never gets out till a quarter past six.”

Another lightning glance went around the circle. She could not tell what it was about, that quick motionless look. It seemed to be more of a light coming out of the eye, like a signal flash in the night, than anything tangible, but it gave her a chill of foreboding.

She suddenly turned to Sherwood quite gravely, as one would speak to a naughty child in a tantrum who needed quieting, speaking slowly and distinctly as if to bring him to reason.

“I should think it would be easy enough to prove that your suspicions are absurd,” she said. “Why don't you look around and see that this is nothing but a plain everyday home?”

“Are you willing to take me over the house, Miss Ransom?”

“Certainly, if you insist on being so absurd,” she said freezingly.

“Very well. We will begin in this room.”

“In this room?” She lifted her eyebrows amusedly. “I should say everything was perfectly obvious here.”

“What is behind those doors, for instance? Can you open them for me?”

Romayne laughed.

“Some old dusty papers. Files of sales of Father's business. It's nothing but a shallow cupboard. Father had to have a carpenter come here and make it deeper to get his papers in. Did you think it was a wine closet?”

Another of those quick lightning glances went round the circle of men, though when she looked again, no one seemed to have paid the least attention to her words. Their eyes were thoughtfully on space.