Читать книгу: «Dangerous Ground: or, The Rival Detectives», страница 24
CHAPTER LIX.
AND LAST
“But,” queried Walter Parks, when question and comment had been exhausted, “are you sure that we have, even now, evidence enough to convict Krutzer, or Francoise, as you call him?”
“He has called himself Francoise from the day he and his worthy wife left the wagon-train,” rejoined Stanhope. “He has never been Krutzer since. As for proof, we shall not lack that; but I think the old villain, if he lives to come to trial, will plead guilty. His wife possesses all the courage; he is cunning enough, but cowardly. He will not be allowed to see or consult with her; and free from her influence, he can be made to confess. Besides, the old woman has been wearing about her person a belt, which, if I am not mistaken, is the one stolen from the body of Arthur Pearson. It is of peculiar workmanship, and evidently very old. It contains papers and money.”
“If it is Pearson’s belt,” interposed Walter Parks, “I can identify it, and so could some others of the party if – ”
“Was a certain Joe Blakesley a member of your band?” asked the Chief quickly.
“Yes.”
“And could he identify this belt?”
“He could.”
“Then Vernet has done something; he has found this Blakesley.”
“Where?” asked the Englishman, eagerly.
“In California.”
“Good!” cried Stanhope; “Van shall have the full benefit of his discovery.”
And in the final summing-up, he did have the benefit, not only of this, his one useful exploit, but of all Stanhope’s magnanimity. Through his intercession, Vernet was retained in the service he had abused; but he was never again admitted to the full confidence of his Chief, nor trusted with unlimited power, as of old. The question of supremacy was decided, and to all who knew the true inwardness of their drawn battle Richard Stanhope was “the Star of the force.”
In regard to Papa Francoise, as we will still call him, Stanhope had judged aright.
He was possessed of wondrous cunning, and all his instincts were evil, but he lacked the one element that, sometimes, makes a successful villain: he was an utter coward. Deprived of the stimulus of the old woman’s fierce temper and piercing tongue, he cowered in his cell, and fell an easy victim to his inquisitors. He was wild with terror when confronted by the girl Nance, risen, as it seemed to him, from the grave to denounce him. And when, after Nance had withdrawn, he faced Stanhope and his Chief, Walter Parks and John Ainsworth, he was as wax in their hands.
Up to that moment the name of Arthur Pearson, and that long-ago tragedy of the prairies, had not been mentioned, and Papa believed that the killing of Siebel, with, perhaps, the stealing of little Daisy, were, in the eyes of the law, his only crimes. But when Walter Parks stood forth and pierced him through and through with his searching eyes, Papa recognized him at once, and fairly shrieked with fear.
And when he learned from Richard Stanhope, how Franz Francoise met his death, and that it was his son’s dying words which condemned him, he threw himself before his accusers in a paroxysm of abject terror, and confessed himself the murderer they already knew him to be.
But Mamma was made of other timber. When consigned to her cell, she was silent and sullen until, in compliance with Stanhope’s instructions, they attempted to take from her the belt she wore. Then her rage was terrible, and her resistance damaging to the countenances and garments of those who sought to control her.
She received Richard Stanhope with such a burst of fury, that restraint became necessary; and even when she sat bound and helpless before her accusers, her struggles were furious, and her imprecations, shrieked out between frothing lips, were horrible to hear.
When she saw Walter Parks, she seemed to guess why he was there. And when she knew all: that Franz Francoise was surely dead, and how he died; that Papa had confessed everything; that John Ainsworth had come back to claim his daughter, and lavish upon her his love and fortune – her ravings broke out afresh. She was frightful to see, and dangerous to all who ventured to approach. So they treated her as a mad woman, and for many days Mamma hurled unheard imprecations at her cowardly spouse, and cursed Richard Stanhope, arrayed in a strait-jacket.
But she was non-committal, baffling, from first to last. She would admit nothing, explain nothing, confess nothing. She defied them all.
On the following morning, at the Warburton Mansion, a happy group assembled to hear, from Mr. Follingsbee, all that was not already known to them of Stanhope’s story.
How it was told, let the reader, who knows all, and knows Mr. Follingsbee, imagine.
Leslie was there, fair and pale, robed once more in the soft, rich garments that so well became her. Alan was there, handsome and humble. He had made, so far as he could in words, manly amends to Leslie, and she had forgiven him freely at last. Winnie too, was there, obstinately avoiding Alan’s glance, and keeping close to Leslie. Mrs. French was there, smiling and motherly. And little Daisy was there, the centre of their loving glances.
In her childish way, the little one had told all that she could of her captivity.
She had gone to sleep upon the balcony of her Papa’s house and in the arms of “Mother Goose.” She had awakened in a big, dark room, whose windows were tightly shuttered, and where she could see nothing but a tiny bit of sky. A negress, who frightened her very much, had brought her food, and sat in the room sometimes. She had been lonely, terrified, desolate.
The little that she could tell threw no light upon the mystery of her hiding-place, but it was all that they ever knew.
“I used to pray and pray,” said Daisy, “but God didn’t seem to hear me at all. And when I woke in that little room that smelled so bad – it was worse than the other – I just felt I must make God hear, so I prayed, oh, so loud, and then the door broke in, and that nice, funny man picked me up, and there was Mamma; and only think! God might have let me out long before if I had only prayed loud enough.”
When Leslie learned her own story, and was brought face to face with her father, her cup of joy was full indeed. She was at anchor at last, with some one to love her beyond all others; with some one to love and to render happy.
“Oh,” she said, “to know that my dear adopted parents were after all my own kindred; my uncle and my aunt! What caprice of their evil natures prompted those wretches to do me this one kindness?”
“They knew where to find the Ulimans,” said her father, “and knew that they were wealthy. It was the easiest way to dispose of you.”
“I suppose so,” she assented, sighing as she thought of those dear ones dead; smiling again as she looked in the face of her new-found father.
In the present confidence, the happiness and peace, that surrounded her, Winnie French could not continue her perverse role, nor, indeed, was Alan the man to permit it. She had let him see into her heart, in that moment when he had seemed in such deadly peril, and he smiled down her pretty after-defiance.
“You shall not recant,” he said laughingly; “for your own sake, I dare not allow it. A young woman who so rashly espouses the cause of a swain, simply because he has the prospect of a pair of handcuffs staring him in the face, is unreliable, sadly out of balance. She needs a guardian and I – ”
“Need an occupation,” retorted Winnie, maliciously. “Don’t doom yourself to gray hairs, sir; repent.”
“It’s too late,” he declared; and they ceased to argue the question.
They would have feted Stanhope and made much of him at Warburton Place, for Alan did not hesitate to pronounce such a man the peer of any. But the young detective was perversely shy.
He came one day, and received Leslie’s thanks and praises, blushing furiously the while, and conducting himself in anything but a courageous manner. Once he accepted Alan’s invitation to a dinner, in which the Follingsbees, Mr. Parks and Mr. Ainsworth participated. But he took no further advantages of their cordially-extended hospitality, and he went about his duties, not quite the same Dick Stanhope as of yore.
On her part, Leslie was very reticent when Stanhope and his exploits were the subject of discussion, although, when she spoke of him, it was always as the best and bravest of men.
“Parks talks of returning to England,” said her father one day at luncheon, “and he wants Stanhope to go with him.”
“Will he go?” asked Alan, in a tone of interest.
“I hope not; at least not until I have time to bring him to his senses.”
“Why, Papa!” ejaculates Leslie.
“Has our Mr. Stanhope lost his senses, uncle?” queries little Daisy anxiously.
“You shall judge, my dear. He has refused, with unyielding firmness, to accept from me anything in token of my gratitude for the magnificent service he has rendered us.”
“And,” added Alan, “he has refused my overtures with equal stubbornness.”
“But he has accepted the splendid reward promise by Mr. Parks, has he not?” queries Mrs. French.
“That, of course; he was bound to do that,” said Mr. Ainsworth, discontentedly. “And in some way I must make him accept something from me. Leslie, my dear, can’t you manage him?”
“I fear not, Papa.” And Leslie blushed as she caught Winnie’s laughing eye fixed upon her. “I don’t think Mr. Stanhope is a man to be managed.”
“Nonsense, Leslie,” cries Winnie. “He’s afraid of a woman; he blushes when you speak to him.”
“Did he blush,” queried Leslie maliciously, “when you embraced him that night of the masquerade?”
In the midst of their laughter, Winnie was mute.
One day, some weeks after the denouement, Stanhope, sauntering down a quiet street, met Van Vernet.
“Stop, Van,” he said, as the other was about to pass; “don’t go by me in this unfriendly fashion, if only for appearance’s sake. How do you get on?”
“As usual,” replied Vernet indifferently, and looking Stanhope steadily in the face. “And you? somehow you look too sober for a man who holds all the winning-cards.”
“I don’t hold all the winning-cards, Van. Indeed, I’m inclined to think that I’ve lost more than I’ve won.”
Vernet continued to regard him steadily and after a moment of silence, he said quietly:
“Look here, Dick, I’m not prepared to say that I quite forgive you for outwitting me – I don’t forgive myself for being beaten – but one good turn deserves another, and you did me a very good turn at the end. You’ve won a great game, but I’m afraid you are going to close it with a blunder.”
“A blunder, Van?”
“Yes, a blunder. You have devoted yourself, heart and soul, to a pretty woman, and you are just the man to fall in love with her.”
“Take care, Van.”
“Oh, I know what I am saying. On the day of our meeting at Warburton Place – the last meeting, I mean, when you figured as Franz Francoise – I saw what you missed. You may think that I was hardly in a state of mind for taking observations, but, in truth, my senses were never more intensely alert than while I stood there dumbly realizing the overthrow of all my plans. And I saw love, unmistakable love, shining upon you from a woman’s eyes.”
“Van, you are mad!”
“Not at all. It’s a natural termination to such an affair. Why, man, you are deservedly a hero in her eyes. Don’t be overmodest, Dick. If you care for this woman, you can win her.”
He turned with these words, passed his amazed listener, and walked on. And Stanhope resumed his saunter, looking like a man in a dream.
That evening he made his first voluntary call at Warburton place.
Alan and Winnie, two months later, were married, and Stanhope was among the wedding-guests.
“Warburton Place will have a new mistress, Mr. Stanhope,” Leslie said to him. “I am going to abdicate in Winnie’s favor.”
“Entirely, Mrs. Warburton?”
“Entirely; I have fought it out, and I have conquered, after a hard struggle. Alan and Winnie, when they return, will reign here. Papa and I are already preparing our new home. We shall not be far away, and we will divide Daisy between us.”
Later in the evening, Mrs. Follingsbee captured him and inquired:
“Have you heard Leslie’s last bit of Quixotism?”
“No, madam.”
“She has made this house over to Winnie as a bridal gift. And every dollar of her husband’s legacy she has set aside for Daisy Warburton.”
“I’m glad of it,” blurted out Stanhope; and then he colored hotly and bit his lips.
When Alan and his fair little bride were installed as master and mistress of Warburton Place, Leslie and her father received their friends in a new home. It was not so large as the mansion Leslie had “abdicated;” not so grand and stately; but it was elegant, dainty, homelike.
“It suits me better,” said Leslie to Stanhope. “The other was too grand. Winnie can throw upon her mother the burden of its stateliness, and Mrs. French will make a charming dowager. I am going to leave my past behind in the old home; and begin a new life in this.”
“Are you going to leave me behind, with the rest of your past?” he asked.
“No,” she said smilingly, “you have not lost your value; and if I should turn you out, fresh troubles would arise. I should have to contend with Daisy, and Papa too.”
And indeed Daisy had given him a prominent place in her affections.
“Some of my friends,” he said after a pause, “are advising me to abandon the Agency, and embark in some quieter enterprise.”
“Do you mean that they wish you to give up your profession? to cease to be a detective?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you answer?”
“I am seeking advice; give it me.”
“Any man may be a tradesman,” she said slowly. “Nine tenths of mankind can be or are doctors, lawyers, clergymen. The men who possess the skill, the sagacity, and the courage to do what you have done, what you can do again, are very few. To restore lost little ones; to reunite families; to bring criminals to justice, and to defeat injustice, – what occupation can be nobler! If I were such a detective as you, I would never cease to exercise my best gifts.”
“I never will,” he said, taking her hand in his.
Months passed on; winter went and summer came. Walter Parks lingered in America, his society dearly valued by John Ainsworth and Mr. Follingsbee, his presence always a welcome one in Leslie’s dainty parlors, and at Warburton Place. Winnie, who had been a saucy sweetheart and piquant bride, had become a sweetly winsome wife. John Ainsworth was renewing his youth; and Leslie, having passed the period of her widowhood, once more opened her doors to society.
Richard Stanhope had become a frequent and welcome guest at Leslie’s home, and all his visits little Daisy appropriated at once to herself. Indeed she and Stanhope stood upon a wondrously confidential footing.
“Next month comes Mamma’s birthday,” said Daisy to him one day, when she sat upon his knee in Leslie’s pretty flower-decked room. “We’re going to have a festival, and give her lots of presents. Are you going to give her a present, Mr. Stanhope?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking over at Leslie; “your Mamma is such a very particular lady, Daisy, that she might be too proud to accept my offering.”
“Why,” cried the child, “that’s just what Uncle Ainsworth says about you: that you are too proud to take a gift from him, and it vexes him, too.”
“Daisy, Daisy!” cried Leslie, holding up a warning finger.
“Your uncle is a very unreasonable man, Daisy,” laughed Stanhope. “Now tell me, do you think I had better offer your Mamma a birthday present?”
“Why” – and Daisy opened wide her blue eyes – “Uncle Alan says that everybody who loves Mamma will remember her birthday. Don’t you love my Mamma?”
“Yes,” said Stanhope slowly, and fixing his eyes upon Leslie’s face, “I love her very much.”
Leslie’s cheeks were suffused with blushes, and she sat quite silent, with downcast eyes.
“Daisy,” said Stanhope, putting the child down quickly, “go to your uncle Ainsworth, and tell him that I have changed my mind; that I want the best part of his fortune. Run, dear.”
And as the child flew from the room, he rose and stood before Leslie.
“If your father yields to my demand,” he said softly, “what will be your verdict?”
A moment of stillness. Then she lifts her brown eyes to his, a smile breaking through her blushes.
“A man of your calling,” she said, “should have guessed that long ago!”
Papa Francoise never came to trial. His terror overcame his reason, and in his insanity he did what he never would have found the courage to do had he retained his senses. He hanged himself in his prison cell.
But Mamma lived on. Through her trial she raved and cursed; and she went to a life-long imprisonment raving and cursing still. Her viciousness increased with her length of days. She was the black sheep of the prison. Nothing could break her temper or curb her tongue. She was feared and hated even there. Hard labor, solitary confinement, severe punishment, all failed, and she was at last confined in a solitary cell, to rave out her life there and fret the walls with her impotent rage.
Millie, the faithful incompetent, remained in Leslie’s service until she went to a home of her own, bestowed upon her by a good-looking and industrious young mechanic.
Nance, the one-time drunkard, became the object of Leslie’s pitying care, and did not relapse into her former poverty and evil habits.
The Follingsbees, the Warburtons – all these who had been drawn together by trials and afflictions – remained an unbroken coterie of friends, who never ceased to chant Stanhope’s praises.
And little Daisy passed the years of her childhood in the firm belief that,
“God will do anything you want him to, if you only pray loud enough.”
