V
As the train flew along the Connecticut shore Archie realized with a new poignancy the tremendous change that had occurred in his life since he left New York, his birthplace and the home of his family for two hundred years. Instead of lounging in clubs and his luxurious apartment he would now go skulking through the streets with a master crook, and his imagination was already intent upon the character of the lair to which the Governor would guide him. He still swayed between the joys of his mad adventure and its perils. He might, he knew, bid the Governor good-by at the Grand Central Station, step into a taxi and walk into the door of one or another of his clubs and bid the world defiance. The serenity of his life as known to his friends would be a sufficient refutation of any charge that might be made against him. No one would believe the mysterious Governor if he were to declare on oath that Archibald Bennett was a criminal who had left a scarlet trail across three states.
It would be an interesting experiment to defy the Governor; but he dismissed this as foolish and hazardous. The Governor had a long arm, and having trifled with his good nature at the Walkers' it would certainly be ungracious and in all likelihood disastrous to offend him a second time. But the Governor's fantastic talk about the joining of their stars in the west had touched his imagination. With all his absurdities, and strange and unaccountable as he was, the Governor did make good his promises. If he wasn't in league with occult powers he at least possessed a baffling sort of prescience; and what was more to the point he had apparently reduced to a fine art the business of keeping clear of the authorities. If he could escape from the Governor it would be to take up his old eventless life, with a recrudescence no doubt of the ills that had so long beset him; and he had utterly forgotten that he had ever been an invalid. He grinned as he reflected that he had been obliged to shoot a man to find a cure for his nerves.
As the train drew out of New Haven the Governor, seemingly absorbed in a magazine, covertly kicked him. A man passed slowly through the car, carelessly eyeing the passengers. When he reached Archie's chair he paused as though steadying himself against the swaying train. For a moment he clung to the back of the Governor's chair, which was turned toward the window, and his eyes surveyed the luggage piled under the windows. The Governor swung round presently and remarked indifferently without changing his position:
"Rawlings, the best man they have in the Department now. He's looking for some one but let us hope it's not us. A very keen eye has Rawlings. Not one of these sleuths in a black derby and false mustache you see in the movies, but a gentleman and a man of education. He's probably looking for that teller who cut a slice out of the surplus of a Massachusetts bank last week. It's not our trouble, Archie. Embezzlers and defaulters are not to my taste; we rather look down on that breed in the brotherhood. A low order of talent; no brains; they're not in our class."
"But it isn't necessary to advertise our sins to the whole train!" whispered Archie, eyeing apprehensively their nearest neighbors in the crowded car. "You haven't convinced me yet that we're not making a serious blunder."
"Cease grumbling! If we wanted to play safe we'd both enter some home for aged and decrepit men and sit among the halt and blind and toothless until we became even as they. Rawlings' defaulter is encumbered, most disgracefully, with the usual blonde, in this case the lily-handed cashier in a motion picture shop; and a man of Rawlings' intelligence would know at a glance that we are not villains of that breed. I haven't traveled by this route for some time and I mean to keep awake to enjoy the pleasant view. My historical sense is always tickled as I cut across Rhode Island and contemplate the state house at Providence. If we were not really upon business bent we might have run down to Narragansett Pier or even to Newport for a breath of air. Newport! Newport is adorable! I am far from being a snob, Archie, but Newport is really the loveliest place in America. I grant you that Bar Harbor has its points and even Bailey Harbor is not so bad—do pardon me, Archie! I forgot for the moment your unhappy memories of that place—but Newport alone is perfection gone to heaven! It would please me enormously to join you in a little excursion to Newport, by yacht preferably; but if it leaked out that we had been flying so high it would injure us with the simple-hearted comrades of the great brotherhood. You can imagine what a man like Red Leary would say if he knew we were dining at tables where the jewels run into millions. And your young friend Abijah, alias Pete Barney, would certainly cut our acquaintance if we failed to take advantage of such glorious opportunities."
"How are you going to know whether we're watched?" asked Archie in a frightened whisper when "Forty-second Street" flashed at him from the wall of the tunnel.
"In a few minutes we'll know the worst," replied the Governor blandly. "I beg of you be confident, be assured, be cheerful!"
At the station gates a man in gray livery stepped up and touched his cap to the Governor.
"Ah, Tom; glad to see you again!"
"Thank you, sir; is this all the luggage?"
"That's all, Tom. Have an eye to Mr. Comly's bag; he's stopping with me."
Archie dragged himself into a handsome limousine that was brought to the curb by a chauffeur as impeccably tailored as the footman.
"Well, George, how are things with you?" asked the Governor pleasantly.
"Very good, sir; things running very smoothly, sir."
"Drive directly home, please.
"We may wander to our hearts' content, Archie, but there's no place like home, particularly when it's little old New York," remarked the Governor, sinking back contentedly.