"You still insist that I am not to call on the authorities for help?"

"Yes, yes! That must not even be considered. I have not only myself to consider, Mr. Barnes. I am a very small atom in--"

"All right! We'll get along without them," he said cheerily.

"Afterwards we will discuss the importance of atoms."

"And your reward as well, Mr. Barnes," she said. Her voice trailed off into an indistinct murmur. He heard the receiver click on the hook, and, after calling "h.e.l.lo" twice, hung up his own with a sigh.

Evidently O'Dowd had warned her of the approach of a less considerate person than himself.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SECOND WAYFARER RECEIVES TWO VISITORS AT MIDNIGHT

The hour for the midday dinner approached and there was no sign of Miss Thackeray's return from the woods. Barnes sat for two exasperating hours on the porch and listened to the confident, flamboyant oratory of Mr. Lyndon Rushcroft. His gaze constantly swept the line of trees, and there were times when he failed to hear a word in whole sentences that rolled from the lips of the actor. He was beginning to feel acutely uneasy, when suddenly her figure issued from the woods at a point just above the Tavern. Instead of striking out at once across the meadow, she stopped and for as long as three or four minutes appeared to be carrying on a conversation with some invisible person among the trees she had just left behind. Then she waved her hand and turned her steps homeward. A bent old man came out of the woods and stood watching her progress across the open stretch. She had less than two hundred yards to traverse between the woods and the fence opposite the Tavern. The old man remained where he was until she reached the fence and prepared to mount it. Then, as Barnes ran down from the porch and across the road to a.s.sist her over the fence, he whirled about and disappeared.

"Aha," said Barnes chidingly: "politely escorted from the grounds, I see. If you had asked me I could have told you that trespa.s.sers are not welcome."

"He is a nice old man. I chatted with him for nearly an hour. His business is to shoo gipsy moths away from the trees, or something like that, and not to shoo nice, tender young ladies off the place."

"Does he speak English?"

"Not a word. He speaks nothing but the most awful American I've ever heard. He has lived up there on the mountain for sixty-nine years, and he has eleven grown children, nineteen grandchildren and one wife. I'm hungry."

The coroner's inquest over the bodies of Roon and Paul was held that afternoon at St. Elizabeth. Witnesses from Hart's Tavern were among those to testify. The verdict was "Murder at the hands of parties unknown."

Sprouse did not appear at the Tavern until long after nightfall. His protracted absence was the source of grave uneasiness to Barnes, who, having been summoned to St. Elizabeth, returned at six o'clock primed and eager for the night's adventure.

The secret agent listened somewhat indifferently to the latter's account of his telephonic experiences. At nine o'clock he yawned prodigiously and announced that he was going to bed, much to the disgust of Mr. Rushcroft and greatly to the surprise of Mr. Barnes, who followed him from the tap-room and demanded an explanation.

"People usually go to bed at night, don't they?" said Sprouse patiently. "It is expected, I believe."

"But, my dear man, we are to undertake--"

"There is no reason why we shouldn't go to bed like sensible beings, Mr. Barnes, and get up again when we feel like it, is there? I have some cause for believing that one of those chaps in there is from Green Fancy. Go to bed at ten o'clock, my friend, and put out your light. I don't insist on your taking off your clothes, however. I will rap on your door at eleven o'clock. By the way, don't forget to stick your revolver in your pocket."

A few minutes before eleven there came a gentle tapping on Barnes's door. He sprang to his feet and opened it, presenting himself before Sprouse fully dressed and, as the secret agent said later on, "fit to kill."

They went quietly down a back stairway and let themselves out into the stable-yard. A light, cold drizzle greeted them as they left the lee of the building.

"A fine night for treason, stratagems and spoils," said Sprouse, speaking barely above a whisper. "Follow me and don't ask questions.

You will have to talk if you do, and talking is barred for the present."

He stopped at the corner of the inn and listened for a moment. Then he darted across the road and turned to the left in the ditch that bordered it. The night was as black as pitch. Barnes, trusting to the little man's eyes, and hanging close upon his coat-tails, followed blindly but gallantly in the tracks of the leader. It seemed to him that they stumbled along parallel to the road for miles before Sprouse came to a halt.

"Climb over the fence here, and stick close to me. Are you getting your cats'-eyes?"

"Yes, I can see pretty well now. But, great scot, why should we walk half way to the North Pole, Sprouse, before--"

"We haven't come more than half a mile. The Curtis land ends here. We stay close to this fence till we reach the woods. I was in here to-day taking observations."

"You were?"

"Yes. Didn't that actress friend of yours mention meeting me?"

"No."

"I told her distinctly that I had eleven children, nineteen--"

"By Jove, was that you?" gasped Barnes, falling in beside him.

"If it were light enough you could see a sign on my back which says in large type, 'Silence,'" said the other, and after that not a word pa.s.sed between them for half an hour or more. Then it was Sprouse who spoke. "This is the short cut to Green Fancy," he whispered, laying his hand on Barnes's arm. "We save four or five miles, coming this way. Do you know where we are?"

"I haven't the remotest idea."

"About a quarter of a mile below Curtis's house. Are you all right?"

"Fine as a fiddle, except for a barked knee, a skinned elbow, a couple of more or less busted ribs, something on my cheek that runs hot,--yes, I'm all right."

"Pretty tough going," said Sprouse, sympathetically.

"I've banged into more trees than--"

"Sh!" After a moment of silence, intensified by the mournful squawk of night-birds and the chorus of katydids, Sprouse whispered: "Did you hear that?"

Barnes thrilled. This was real melodrama. "Hear what?" he whispered shrilly.

"Listen!" After a second or two: "There!"

"It's a woodp.e.c.k.e.r hammering on the limb of a--"

"Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs don't hammer at midnight, my lad. Don't stir! Keep your ears open."

"You bet they're open all right," whispered Barnes, his nerves aquiver.

Suddenly the sharp tattoo sounded so close to the spot where they were standing that Barnes caught his breath and with difficulty suppressed an exclamation. It was like the irregular rattle of sticks on the rim of a snare-drum. The tapping ceased and a moment later a similar sound, barely audible, came out of the distance.

Sprouse clutched his companion's arm and, dropping to his knees in the thick underbrush, pulled the other down after him.

Presently heavy footsteps approached. An unseen pedestrian pa.s.sed within ten yards of them. They scarcely breathed until the sounds pa.s.sed entirely out of hearing. Sprouse put his lips close to Barnes's ear.

"Telegraph," he whispered. "It's a system they have of reporting to each other. There are two men patrolling the grounds near the house.

You see what we're up against, Barnes. Do you still want to go on with it? If you are going to funk it, say so, and I'll go alone."

"I'll stay by you," replied Barnes st.u.r.dily.