“I’ve been remembering that story all this afternoon,” answered Miss Smith with a shudder.
“Agreeable little tale,” said Aunt Rebecca dryly. “Archie, you must have had a right nasty quarter of an hour; what stopped it?”
“Why, a Chink came and called the little man off; and there was a lot of talking which I couldn’t hear, and the cop was swearing; I think they didn’t like it. But, in a minute the Chinaman—he was an awful nice little feller—he came up to me and took me out, led me all sorts of ways, not a bit like the way I came in, and got me out to the street. The other fellows were very polite; they told me that they were my friends and only wanted to find a clue to my kidnappers; and the burning holes in me was only a joke to give me an excuse to break my word under compulsion—why, they wouldn’t hurt me for the world! I pretended to be fooled, and said it was all right, and looked pleasant; but—I’d like to scare them the same way, once, all the same.”
The boy caught at his lip which was trembling, and ended with a shaky laugh. Miss Smith clenched the fist by her side; but she dropped the arm near Archie, and said in a matter-of-fact, sprightly tone: “Archie, you really ought to go dress—and wash for dinner; excuse me for mentioning it, but you have no idea how grimy you are.”
The commonplace turn of thought did its errand. Archie, who had been bracing himself anew against the horror which he remembered, dropped back into his familiar habits and jumped up consciously. “It’s the dust, motoring,” he offered bashfully. “I ought to have washed before I came up. Well, that’s all; we came straight here. Now, may I go take a bath?”
Aunt Rebecca was fingering a curious jade locket on her neck. She watched the boy run to the open door.
“I wish you’d go into your room, Colonel,” said Miss Smith, “and see that nothing happens to him. It’s silly, but I am expecting to see him vanish again!”
The sentence affected the colonel unpleasantly; why need she be posing before him, as if that first disappearance had had any real fright in it? Of course she didn’t know yet (although Aunt Rebecca might have told her—she ought to have told her and stopped this unnecessary deceit) that he was on to the game; but—he didn’t like it. Unconsciously, his inward criticism made his tone drier as he replied with a little bow that he imagined Archie was quite safe, now, and he would ask to be excused, as he had to attend to something before dinner.
Was it his fancy that her face changed and her eyes looked wistful? It must have been. He walked stiffly away. Hardly had he entered his room and turned his mind on the changed situation before the telephone apprised him that a gentleman, Mr. Gardiner, who represented the Fireless Cook Stove, said that he had an appointment with Colonel Winter to explain the stove; should he be sent up?
Directly, Endicott Tracy entered, smiling. “Where’s the kid? I know he’s back,” were his first words; and he explained that he had been hunting the kidnappers to no purpose. “Except that I learned enough to know they put up a job with the justice, all right; I got next to that game without any Machiavellian exertions. But they got away. Who is it? Any of Keatcham’s gang?”