"I called you up to relieve your mind regarding the young woman who came last night," he said. "You observe that I say 'came.' She's quite all right, safe and sound, and no cause for uneasiness. I thought you meant that she was coming here as a guest, and so I made the very natural mistake of saying she hadn't come at all, at all. The young woman in question is Mrs. Van d.y.k.e's maid. But bless me soul, how was I to know she was even in existence, much less expected by train or motor or Shanks' mare? Well, she's here, so there's the end of our mystery.

We sha'n't have to follow your gay plan of searching the wilderness for beauty in distress. Our romance is spoiled, and I am sorry to say it to you. You were so full of it this morning that you had me all stirred up meself."

Barnes was slow in replying. He was doubting his own ears. It was not conceivable that an ordinary--or even an extraordinary--lady's maid could have possessed the exquisite voice and manner of his chance acquaintance of the day before, or the temerity to order that sour-faced chauffeur about as if--The chauffeur!

"But I thought you said that Mr. Curtis's chauffeur was moon-faced and--"

"He is, bedad," broke in Mr. O'Dowd, chuckling. "That's what deceived me entirely, and no wonder. It wasn't Peter at all, but the rapscallion washer who went after her. He was instructed to tell Peter to meet the four o'clock train, and the blockhead forgot to give the order. Bedad, what does he do but sneak out after her himself, scared out of his boots for fear of what he was to get from Peter. I had the whole story from Mrs. Van d.y.k.e."

"Well, I'm tremendously relieved," said Barnes slowly.

"And so am I," said O'Dowd, with conviction. "I have seen the heroine of our busted romance. She's a good-looking girl. I'm not surprised that she kept her veil down. If you were to leave it to me, though, I'd say that it's a sin to carry discretion so far as all that. I thought I'd take the liberty of calling you up as soon as I had the facts, so that you wouldn't go forth in knightly ardour--You see what I mean, don't you?" His rich laugh came over the wire.

"Perfectly. Thank you for letting me know. My mind is at rest."

"Will you be staying on for some days at the Tavern?"

"I think so."

"Well, I shall give myself the pleasure of running over to see you in a day or so."

"Do," said Barnes. "Good by." As he hung up the receiver he said to himself, "You are a most affable, convincing chap, Mr. O'Dowd, but I don't believe a word you say. That woman is no lady's maid, and you've known all the time that she was there."

At four o'clock he set out alone for a tramp up the mountain road in which the two men had been shot down. A number of men under the direction of the sheriff were scouring the lofty timberland for the deadly marksmen. He knew it would turn out to be as futile as the proverbial effort to find the needle in the haystack.

His mind was quite clear on the subject. Roon and Paul were not ordinary robbers. They were, no doubt, honest men. He would have said that they were thieves bent on burglarising Green Fancy were it not for the disclosures of Miss Thackeray and the very convincing proof that they were not shot by the same man. Detected on the grounds about Green Fancy by a watchman, they would have had an encounter with him there and then. Moreover, they would have taken an active part in the play of firearms. Desperadoes would not have succ.u.mbed so tamely.

It was not beyond reason,--indeed, it was quite probable,--that they were trying to cross the border; in that event, their real operations would be confined to the Canadian side of the line. They were unmistakably foreigners. That fact, in itself, went far toward establishing in his mind the conviction that they were not attempting to intercept any one coming from the other side. Equally as strong was the belief that the Canadian authorities would not have entered upon United States territory for the purpose of apprehending these suspects, no matter how thoroughly the movements and motives of the two men might have been known to them.

He could not free himself of the suspicion that Green Fancy possessed the key to the situation. Roon and his companion could not have had the slightest interest in his movements up to the instant he encountered the young woman at the cross-roads. It was ridiculous to even consider himself an object of concern to these men who had been haunting the border for days prior to his appearance on the scene. They were interested only in the advent of the woman, and as her destination confessedly was Green Fancy, what could be more natural than the conclusion that their plans, evil or otherwise, depended entirely upon her arrival at the strange house on the mountainside? They had been awaiting her appearance for days. The instant it became known to them that she was installed at Green Fancy, their plans went forward with a swiftness that bespoke complete understanding.

His busy brain suddenly suffered the shock of a distinct conclusion. So startling was the thought that he stopped abruptly in his walk and uttered an exclamation of dismay. Was she a fellow-conspirator? Was she the inside worker at Green Fancy in a well-laid plan to rifle the place? She too was unmistakably a foreigner.

Could it be possible that she was the confederate of these painstaking agents who lurked with sinister patience outside the very gates of the place called Green Fancy?

In support of this theory was the supposition that O'Dowd may have been perfectly sincere in his declarations over the telephone. Opposed to it, however, was the absolute certainty that Roon and Paul were waylaid and killed at widely separated points, and not while actively employed in raiding the house. That was the rock over which all of his theories stumbled.

His ramble carried him far beyond the spot where Roon's body was found and where young Conley had come upon the tethered horses. His eager, curious gaze swept the forest to the left of the road in search of Green Fancy. Overcome by a rash, daring impulse, he climbed over the stake and rider fence and sauntered among the big trees which so far had obscured the house from view. He had looked in vain for the lane or avenue leading from the road up to Mr. Curtis's house. He could not have pa.s.sed it in his stroll, of that he was sure, and yet he remembered distinctly seeing O'Dowd and De Soto turn their horses into the forest at a point far back of the place where he now entered the grounds.

The trees grew very thickly on the slope, and they were unusually large. Virgin timber, he decided, on which the woodman's axe had made no inroads. The foliage was dense. Tree tops seemed to intermingle in one vast canopy through which the sun but rarely penetrated. The bright green of the gra.s.s, the sponginess of the soil, the presence of great stretches of ferns and beds of moss told of almost perpetual moisture.

Strangely enough there was no suggestion of dankness in these shadowy glades, rich with the fulness of early Spring.

He progressed deeper into the wood. At the end of what must have been a mile, he halted. There was no sign of habitation, no indication that man had ever penetrated so far into the forest. As he was on the point of retracing his steps toward the road, his gaze fell upon a huge moss-covered rock less than a hundred yards away. He stared, and gradually it began to take on angles and planes and recesses of the most astounding symmetry. Under his widening gaze it was transformed into a substantial object of cubes and gables and--yes, windows.

He was looking upon the strange home of the even stranger Mr. Curtis: Green Fancy.

Now he understood why it was called Green Fancy. Its surroundings were no greener than itself; it seemed to melt into the foliage, to become a part of the natural landscape. For a long time he stood stock-still, studying the curious structure. Mountain ivy literally enveloped it.

Exposed sections of the house were painted green,--a mottled green that seemed to indicate flickering sunbeams against an emerald wall. The doors were green; the leafy porches and their columns, the chimney pots, the window hangings,--all were the colour of the unchanging forest. And it was a place of huge dimensions, low and long and rambling. It seemed to have been forcibly jammed into the steep slope that shot high above its chimneys; the mountain hung over its vine clad roof, an ominous threat of oblivion.

There was no lawn, no indication of landscape gardening, and yet Barnes was singularly impressed by the arrangement of the shrubbery that surrounded the place. There was no visible approach to the house through the thick, unbroken sea of green; everywhere was dense underbrush, standing higher than the head of the tallest of men,--clean, bright bushes, revealing the most astonishing uniformity in size and character.

"'Gad," he said to himself, "what manner of crank is he who would bury himself like this? Of all the crazy ideas I ever--"

His reflections ended there. A woman crossed his vision; a woman strolling slowly toward him through the intricate avenues of the wildwood.

CHAPTER VII

SPUN-GOLD HAIR, BLUE EYES, AND VARIOUS ENCOUNTERS

She was quite unaware of his presence, and yet he was directly in her path, though some distance away. Her head was bent; her mien was thoughtful, her stride slow and aimless.

The azure blue of the sweater she wore presented an inharmonious note on the field of velvety green;--it was strangely out of place, he thought,--almost an offence to the eye. He was conscious of an instant protest against this profanation.

She was slender, graceful and evidently quite tall, although she seemed a pigmy among the towering giants that attended her stroll. Her hands were thrust deep into the pockets of a white duck skirt. A glance revealed white shoes and trim ankles in blue. She wore no hat. Her hair was like spun gold, thick, wavy and shimmering in the subdued light.

Suddenly she stopped, and looked up. He had a full view of her face as she gazed about as if startled by some unexpected, even alarming, sound. For a second or two he held his breath, stunned by the amazing loveliness that was revealed to him. Then she discovered him standing there.

He was never to forget the expression that came into her eyes; nor had he ever seen eyes so blue. Alarm gave way to bewilderment as she stared at the motionless intruder not thirty feet away. Then, to his utter astonishment, her lips parted and a faint, wondering smile came into her eyes. His heart leaped. She recognised him!

In a flash he realised that he was face to face with the stranger of the day before,--she of the veil, the alluring voice, the unfaltering spirits, and the weighty handbag!

He took two or three impulsive steps forward, his hand going to his hat,--and then halted. Evidently his senses had deceived him. There was no smile in her eyes,--and yet he could have sworn that it was there an instant before. Instead, there was a level stare.

"I am sorry if I startled--" he began.

The figure of a man appeared, as if discharged bodily from some magic tree-trunk, and stood directly in his path: A tall, rugged man in overalls was he, who held a spade in his hand and eyed him inimically.

Without another glance in his direction, the first and more pleasing vision turned on her heel and continued her stroll, sauntering off to the right, her fair head once more bent in study, her back eloquently indifferent to the gaze that followed her.

"Who do you want to see?" inquired the man with the spade.

Before Barnes could reply, a hearty voice accosted him from behind. He whirled and saw O'Dowd approaching, not twenty yards away. The Irishman's face was aglow with pleasure.

"I knew I couldn't be mistaken in the shape of you," he cried, advancing with outstretched hand. "You've got the breadth of a dock-hand in your shoulders, and the trimness of a prize-fighter in your waist."

They shook hands. "I fear I am trespa.s.sing," said Barnes. His glance went over his shoulder as he spoke. The man with the spade had been swallowed up by the earth! He could not have vanished more quickly in any other way. Off among the trees there were intermittent flashes of blue and white.

"I am quite sure you are," said O'Dowd promptly, but without a trace of unfriendliness in his manner. "Bedad, loving him as I do, I can't help saying that Curtis is a bally old crank. Mind ye, I'd say it to his face,--I often do, for the matter of that. Of course," he went on seriously, "he is a sick man, poor devil. I have the unholy courage to call him a chronic crank every once in awhile, and the best thing I can say for his health is that he grins when I say it to him. You see, I've known him for a dozen years and more, and he likes me, though G.o.d knows why, unless it may be that I once did his son a good turn in London."

"Sufficient excuse for reparation, I should say," smiled Barnes.

"I introduced the lad to me only sister," said O'Dowd, "and she kept him happy for the next ten years. No doubt, I also provided Mr. Curtis with three grandchildren he might never have had but for my graciousness. As for that, I let meself in for three of the most prodigious nephews a man ever had, G.o.d bless them. I'll show you a photograph of them if ye'd care to look." He opened the back of his watch and held it out to Barnes. "Nine, seven and five, and all of them as bright as Gladstone."

"They must be stunning," said Barnes warmly.

"They'll make a beggar of me, if I live long enough," groaned O'Dowd.