Coming Through the Rye (35 page)

The steps were coming on uncertainly behind her, but she slid through the door and closed it softly and quickly got inside her own door and locked it before the hall door opened again. If it were Kearney, and she knew it was, he would not know which door she had entered.

She did not switch on the light nor stir from her first position by the door. There should be no sound to guide him.

She could hear him now in the hall, and he was coming on toward her door, walking more certainly now in the lighted hall.

She held her breath, every nerve tense, and waited what seemed like centuries while he stood before her door and listened. Then he seemed to go on to the other doors on that same corridor and listen once more. She thought she heard a knob turn, then another. He was trying the doors. Some of them opened, and he paused to investigate, then went on. Finally his steps came back again toward her door, and she felt the knob turn slowly in her door. By an almost superhuman effort she held herself rigid against the wall, not daring even to breathe.

Then she heard his voice.

“Romayne!” he said in a tone with all the disguises gone. “Romayne! I know you are there. It is no use to hide! I'll get you yet, my baby! You might as well come out!”

She closed her eyes, and it seemed to her that he could hear even that movement. How hateful it was to hear her name on his lips in that familiar way! Oh, if she might just die right here and now!

Oh, wouldn't God help her? Wouldn't He? She felt as if she dared not lift her heart in prayer lest that, too, might be heard.

There were footsteps at the far end of the hall. Someone must have come upstairs.

In a moment more she heard her enemy walk away from the door and call out a pleasant word to someone and a girl's voice answer.

Was it Alida? She listened till it seemed to hurt her head to listen anymore. There was silence. He must have gone down, and yet she hardly dared stir. She did not dare turn on her light.

After a long time she moved a step at a time across the room and sat down by her bureau, very softly. If he should come back, he must not know she was there.

She began to think about getting away in the morning. She wished she dared to go tonight, but he would somehow find it out and follow her. He was a human serpent weaving a spell around her, and presently he would strike. She knew it now—perhaps she had been afraid of that all the time. She should have gone to someone and asked for protection. But who would have thought he would have come up here in the wilderness!

The memory of her dream the first night came back, someone calling across the hall, “When is Kearney coming?” She should have taken warning then and fled.

She sat a long time by the window; it seemed hours. The music was rioting downstairs. The voices grew louder in waves and then receded. Now and then some people would go out on the balcony, and laughter and wild singing would float up like stench from a stagnant pool. It seemed that she was watching the effect of what her father had done. These people were scarcely sane. They had all been drinking until they were wild with mirth. They were not caring about life in any true sense. They were killing the true things in their souls and trying to live on froth and forget that there were any grave things in the world, any responsibilities, any punishments.

And this was the kind of thing her father had been ministering to in the illegal business he had undertaken for her sake—that she, too, might shine in the unreal world of which they all were a part.

Well, if there was anything in life for her, it suddenly came to her that she must devote her whole existence to trying to undo what her father had helped to do. The thing became a vow to her and entered into her soul.

She did not think of going to bed. It seemed to her she must just sit perfectly still. She was calmer now, and she felt that somehow God was going to help her. When morning came, she knew now that she must go. It would be better to starve or to work at very menial tasks than to stay in an unwholesome atmosphere like this. She thought it over carefully, whether she should try to steal away alone at dawn, or go openly, and decided on the latter. Probably they would give her protection and transportation to some railway station. She would tell them that she would try to send them someone else in her place. Thinking this out and making her decision gave her more assurance and calmed the wild beating of her heart and the trembling of her lips. She rested her head against the window frame, looking out into the cool, quiet darkness, wishing she dared climb out there and wander off alone. It would be easy to do it. The roof was a long, low sweep down over the lower balcony. A trellis below, where a great trumpet-vine flared, gave easy access to the ground. But out there she would have no protection at all if Kearney Krupper should discover her flight. So she sat with her head resting against the window frame, sadly watching a single great star that burned in the patch of sky she could see between the pines.

She must have fallen asleep for a few moments, for she was awakened suddenly by the sound of her key rattling in the lock and then falling to the floor. There was someone outside in the hall working at her lock! It was Kearney Krupper, of course, and he must have another key. She could hear it slipping in the lock as if it fitted smoothly. It was turning! She was trapped!

Without a second's hesitation, she sprang to the windowsill and clambered out, a sudden strength coming to her aid, and stepped fearlessly out in the dark upon the balcony roof. It was slippery, but she did not hesitate and plunged down to the edge, where the trumpet-vine curled up and ran along the eaves. Back in the room the door had been flung open, and someone had switched on the light. She could see Kearney Krupper's outline as he stood in the light looking for her. Then she took hold of the trellis and swung over, gripping her shaking hands to the light framework and wondering what it would be like if she fell. He was coming to the window now. She caught one glimpse of him looking out as she reached her foot for a holding below. He had seen her. What would he do? Would he follow and grasp her hands before she would let go? Would it do any good to scream? Would anyone hear her above the jazzy din?

Then she took another step down, put down her foot for another and missed it, and fell, down, down. It was farther than she had thought, but the branches made no noise at all as she crashed past them. She lay on the ground, stunned and dizzy, and wondered dazedly what she ought to do next. Then she heard steps come out on the balcony, swift steps, and she was stung back to fear again. She struggled to her feet and fled, off into the darkness of the forest, not knowing which direction she was taking, unable to think, only to flee.

Chris Hollister had a strange-looking upstart of a car that was little more than a skeleton that he had rigged up himself out of an old racing body and an engine that he had made as perfect as an engine could be. He was of a mechanical turn of mind, and this car had been his toy, which he worked over in every spare moment and loved as some men love their horse or dog. It was as perfect a piece of speed as one could find anywhere, and the little boys in the street where Hollister lived called it admiringly “the Humdinger.”

For several days before election, whenever Chris had a moment of leisure, he had spent it working over this car, oiling it and putting it in absolutely perfect order.

There was little more to the Humdinger than four wheels, an engine, and a couple of bucket seats. Everything that could possibly be dispensed with in a car was gone. There was nothing to commend it to the eye, no luxury to allure one to ride therein, but it could beat anything on the road, Chris claimed, and no one had ever disputed the fact.

It was this car that Chris had chosen to ride in the morning of the primary election, instead of his little old roadster in which he usually went about town.

He had parked it in the area behind the office buildings, quite near to the janitor's entrance, out of sight, and he had come down early before any of the committee had arrived, before even Sherwood was in the office.

When Sherwood started out of his office with the declared intention of following Kearney Krupper, Chris was only a step behind him all the way down the three flights of stairs. And at the bottom of the third he touched Sherwood on the shoulder.

“This way, Chief; I've got my racer here.”

They sped out the back way, and the Humdinger caught its breath with a silken sound and flew out on its way almost silently and out of sight before the committeemen on the fourth floor had begun to realize they must go after the two.

No one knew the wisest way to worm oneself out of traffic and into the open highway better and quicker than Chris. By the time Johnson was in his car and chasing after a shabby Ford, Chris and Sherwood were well on their way toward the park.

Out along the smooth ribbon of highway they shot like a rocket going on its way. Travelers saw them approach like a speck in the sunshine, and lo, they were gone! People stopped on the wayside to stare and wonder but found they were staring at space. Cars slowed up and swayed to the curb to let them pass, and children scurried out of the road.

Before three hours had passed, they got trace of their quarry at a roadside inn, where he had stopped for gas in his car. There could be no mistake. Kearney's yellow sporting roadster was too noticeable. There were not two cars like that.

In five hours they saw a speck ahead that they were sure was Krupper, and then suddenly they lost sight of him and could not puzzle it out.

Chris had a crude map that the detective who took the photographs at the Whitman forest lodge had made for him. He got it out, and they studied over it for some time, going back twice to make sure they had not missed the way, for it was lonely wilderness, and there was no one to ask the way, and their difficulties were increased by the coming of darkness utter and deep and the fact that the moon would not rise until late that night. The forest was all about them, and shadows lay thick like black velvet all along the road.

“Well, it's somewhere along this two miles and on the right-hand side,” said Chris at last, turning the flashlight away from the paper in his hand and jabbing it into the inky blackness of the woods. “You stay here a minute, Chief; this road's gotta be hand-picked.”

Chris walked away into the darkness. Sherwood could see the flashlight splashing into the night like a sprite, dancing here and there. The lights of the car were turned off, and the engine was stopped. It was very still in the forest, and a single star burned above the chief's head. He looked at it and wondered if this had been a fool's errand. Were they going to be balked by a mere trifle like getting lost in the dark? Then he saw the light pause and flicker and blink out. For a long moment it was all darkness. He began to wonder if something had happened to Chris and whether he ought not to start the car and go after him. Then the light appeared again with a single wink, at intervals, and soon Chris loomed out of the shadows.

“All right, Chief! Found her!”

He climbed into the bucket at the wheel and started the car softly. “What's your idea?” asked Sherwood. “Someone about?”

“Might be. We're not far off. Heard music, I thought. Mighta been the wind in the branches.”

They came to the road, a mere trail into the woods, and no sign but a P
RIVATE
P
ROPERTY
, No T
RESPASSING
.

As they bumped more slowly along the ruts, Chris spoke. They had come thus far from the city almost in silence.

“Chief, what you figuring to do when you get there?”

“I'm not figuring. I'm expecting to be led.”

“Oh!” Chris looked at him furtively with the kind of awe he always felt when the chief spoke that way. It reminded him of what Romayne had said about God wanting her to be in that situation.

“Well, I brought the warrant we had made out the other day for his arrest, anyhow. I just thought I'd let you know.”

“I was depending on you for that, Chris.”

Chris was silent a moment. Then he was supposed to be working out God's plans, without even being aware of it! Things were strange.

“You know it's just this side the borderline of the state; it'll be legal all right,” he added, embarrassed. “I looked that up. There's just a half a mile leeway.”

“That's good,” said Sherwood. “We might have had to kidnap him and carry him into the state to use it.”

“How you figuring to carry him home after you've got him?” queried Chris after another mile.

“There's his car,” suggested Sherwood.

“I see,” said Chris. “How'll we handle it? Will we take him in this car or his own?”

“Better use his own, Chris; then we shan't be accused of stealing a car,” laughed Sherwood grimly. “Then you'll have to drive this car, Chief. For I don't see letting you handle a prisoner with that lame shoulder of yours.”

“We'll see how it comes out, kid!” said Sherwood with his arm thrown lovingly around Chris's shoulder.