That ended the conference. Mrs. Janney went to get Suzanne and Molly received her final instructions. She was to return to Grasslands with Miss Maitland, Ferguson could take them in his motor. She was to sit in the back seat with the lady and casually drop the information that she had come to town in answer to a wire from the Whitney office. She might have seen suspicious characters lurking about the grounds or in the woods. On no account was she to let her companion guess that Price was suspected, and any remarks which might place the young woman more completely at her ease, allay all sense of danger, would be valuable.
They left the room and went into the entrance hall where Esther, and presently Mrs. Janney, joined them. Whitney struck the note of a reassuring friendliness in his manner to the girl, and the old people, rather reservedly chimed in. She seemed grateful, thanked them, reiterating her distress. In the elevator, going down, Molly noticed that she fell into a staring abstraction, starting nervously as the iron gate swung back at the ground floor.
Ferguson, waiting on the curb, saw them as they emerged from the doorway. His eyes leaped at the girl, and, as she crossed the sidewalk, were riveted on her. Their expression was plain, yearning and passion no longer disguised. If she saw the look she gave no sign, nodded to him, and, leaving Molly to explain, climbed into the back seat and sunk in a corner. Though the afternoon was hot she picked up the cloak lying on the floor and drew it round her shoulders.
The drive home was very silent. Molly gave the prescribed reasons for her presence and heard them answered with the brief comments of inattention. She also touched on the other matters and found her companion so unresponsive that she desisted. It was evident that Esther Maitland wanted to be left to her own thoughts. Huddled in the cloak, her eyes fixed on the road in front, she sat as silent and enigmatic as a sphinx.
[CHAPTER XVIII—THE HOUSE IN GAYLE STREET]
The Janney party left the office soon after Molly and Esther. They had decided to stay at the St. Boniface hotel where rooms had already been engaged, and, with Suzanne swathed in veils and clinging to her mother's arm, they were escorted to the elevator and cheered on their way by the two Whitneys. When the car slid out of sight the father and the son went back into the old man's room.
It was now late afternoon, the sun, sinking in a fiery glow, glazed the waters of the bay, seen from these high windows like a golden floor. The day, which had opened fresh and cool, had grown unbearably hot; even here, far above the street's stifling level, the air was breathless. The men, starting the electric fans, sat down to talk things over and wait. For the machinery of "the move" spoken of by Wilbur Whitney already had been set in motion.
Immediately after Esther's telephone message O'Malley had been called up and, with an assistant, dispatched to watch the Gayle Street house. As Whitney had told his clients, the news of the child's disappearance had hardly surprised him. Chapman's anger and threats portended some violent action of reprisal, and, even as the lawyer had questioned what form it might take, came the answer. Chapman had stolen his own child and had a hiding place prepared and waiting for her reception. It was undoubtedly only a temporary refuge, he would hardly keep her in such sordid surroundings. The Whitneys saw it as a night's bivouac before a longer flight. And that flight would never take place; every exit was under surveillance, there was no possibility of escape. The two men, smoking tranquilly under the breath of the electric fans, were quietly confident. They would bring Chapman's vengeance to an abrupt end and avert an ignominious family scandal. Meantime they awaited O'Malley—who was to return to the office for George—and as they waited discussed the kidnapping, knowledge supplemented by deductions.
When Chapman had decided on it he had instructed Esther, telling her to inform him when the opportunity offered. This she could do by letter, or, if time pressed, by telephone from a booth in the village. The trip to New York had been planned several days in advance and he had been advised of it, its details probably telephoned in the day before. He—or some one in his pay—had driven the taxi. It had been stationed in the rank near the house, where in the dead season there were few vehicles and from whence the extra one needed by Suzanne would naturally be taken. That Esther, with a long list of commissions to execute, should leave the child in the cab was an entirely natural proceeding. Her explanation of her subsequent actions was also disarmingly plausible, and the minutes thus expended gave the time necessary for the driver to make his get-away. Before she had acquainted Suzanne with the news, the child was hidden in the room at 76 Gayle Street.
Whether the room was taken for this purpose was a question. If it was then the idea had been in Chapman's mind for weeks—it was the "coming back" he had hinted at when he left Grasslands. If, however, it had been hired as a place of rendezvous with his confederate, it had assisted them in the carrying out of their plot—might indeed have suggested it. For as a lair in which to lie low it offered every advantage—secluded, inconspicuous, the rest of the floor untenanted. They could keep the child there without rousing a suspicion, for if Chapman was with her—and they took for granted that he was—she would be contented and make no outcry. She loved him and was happy in his society.