Without replying, Mr. Bland rose and ran up the stair. In his absence the Hermit of Baldpate spoke into Magee's ear.

"I ain't one to complain," he said; "livin' alone as much as I do I've sort of got out of the habit, having n.o.body to complain to. But if folks keep coming and coming to this hotel, I've got to resign as cook. Seems as though every few minutes there's a new face at the table, and it's a vital matter to me."

"Cheer up, Peters," whispered Mr. Magee. "There are only two more keys to the inn. There will be a limit to our guests."

"What I'm getting at is," replied Mr. Peters, "there's a limit to my endurance."

Mr. Bland came down-stairs. His face was very pale as he took his seat, but in reply to Cargan's question he remarked that he must have been mistaken.

"It was the wind, I guess," he said.

The mayor made facetious comment on Mr. Bland's "skittishness", and Mr.

Max also indulged in a gibe or two. These the haberdasher met with a wan smile. So the dinner came to an end, and the guests of Baldpate sat about while Mr. Peters removed all traces of it from the table. Mr.

Magee sought to talk to Miss Norton, but found her nervous and distrait.

"Has Mr. Bland frightened you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I have other things to think of," she replied.

Mr. Peters shortly bade the company good-by for the night, with the warmly expressed hope in Mr. Magee's ear that there would be no further additions to the circle in the near future. When he had started off through the snow for his shack, Mr. Cargan took out his watch.

"You've been pretty kind to us poor wanderers already," he said. "I got one more favor to ask. I come up here to see Mr. Bland. We got some business to transact, and we'd consider it a great kindness if you was to leave us alone here in the office."

Mr. Magee hesitated. He saw the girl nod her head slightly, and move toward the stairs.

"Certainly, if you wish," he said. "I hope you won't go without saying good-by, Mr. Cargan."

"That all depends," replied the mayor. "I've enjoyed knowing you, one and all. Good night."

The women, the professor and Mr. Magee moved up the broad stairway. On the landing Mr. Magee heard the voice of Mrs. Norton, somewhere in the darkness ahead.

"I'm worried, dearie--real worried."

"Hush," came the girl's voice. "Mr. Magee-we'll meet again--soon."

Mr. Magee seized the professor's arm, and together they stood in the shadows.

"I don't like the looks of things," came Bland's hoa.r.s.e complaint from below. "What time is it?"

"Seven-thirty." Cargan answered. "A good half-hour yet."

"There was somebody on the second floor when I went up," Bland continued. "I saw him run into one of the rooms and lock the door."

"I've got charge now," the mayor rea.s.sured him, "don't you worry."

"There's something doing." This seemed to be Max's voice.

"There sure is," laughed Cargan. "But what do I care? I own young Drayton. I put him where he is. I ain't afraid. Let them gumshoe round as much as they want to. They can't touch me."

"Maybe not," said Bland. "But Baldpate Inn ain't the grand idea it looked at first, is it?"

"It's a h.e.l.l of an idea," answered Cargan. "There wasn't any need of all this folderol. I told Hayden so. Does that phone ring?"

"No--it'll just flash a light, when they want us," Bland told him.

Mr. Magee and Professor Bolton continued softly up the stairs, and in answer to the former's invitation, the old man entered number seven and took a chair by the fire.

"It is an amazing tangle," he remarked, "in which we are involved. I have no idea what your place is in the scheme of things up here. But I a.s.sume you grasp what is going on, if I do not. I am not so keen of wit as I once was."

"If you think," answered Mr. Magee, proffering a cigar, "that I am in on this little game of 'Who's Who', then you are vastly mistaken. As a matter of fact, I am as much in the dark as you are."

The professor smiled.

"Indeed," he said in a tone that showed his unbelief. "Indeed."

He was deep in a discussion of the meters of the poet Chaucer when there came a knock at the door, and Mr. Lou Max's unpleasant head was thrust inside.

"I been a.s.signed," he said, "to sit up here in the hall and keep an eye out for the ghost Bland heard tramping about. And being of a sociable nature, I'd like to sit in your doorway, if you don't mind."

"By all means," replied Magee. "Here's a chair. Do you smoke?"

"Thanks." Mr. Max placed the chair sidewise in the doorway of number seven, and sat down. From his place he commanded a view of Mr. Magee's apartments and of the head of the stairs. With his yellow teeth he viciously bit the end from the cigar. "Don't let me interrupt the conversation, gentlemen," he pleaded.

"We were speaking," said the professor calmly, "of the versification of Chaucer. Mr. Magee--"

He continued his discussion in an even voice, Mr. Magee leaned back in his chair and smiled in a pleased way at the settings of the stage: Mr.

Max in a cloud of smoke on guard at his door; the mayor and Mr. Bland keeping vigil by a telephone switchboard in the office below, watching for the flash of light that should tell them some one in the outside world wanted to speak to Baldpate Inn; a mysterious figure who flitted about in the dark; a beautiful girl who was going to ask Mr. Magee to do her a service, blindly trusting her.

The professor droned on monotonously. Once Mr. Magee interrupted to engage Lou Max in spirited conversation. For, through the squares of light outside the windows, he had seen the girl of the station pa.s.s hurriedly down the balcony, the snowflakes falling white on her yellow hair.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. MAX TELLS A TALE OF SUSPICION

An hour pa.s.sed. Mr. Max admitted when pressed that a good cigar soothed the soul, and accepted another from Magee's stock. The professor continued to talk. Obviously it was his favorite diversion. He seemed to be quoting from addresses; Mr. Magee pictured him on a Chautauqua platform, the white water pitcher by his side.

As he talked, Mr. Magee studied that portion of his delicate scholarly face that the beard left exposed to the world. What part had Thaddeus Bolton, holder of the Crandall Chair of Comparative Literature, in this network of odd alarms? Why was he at Baldpate? And why was he so little moved by the rapid changes in the make-up of the inn colony--changes that left Mr. Magee gasping? He took them as calmly as he would take his grapefruit at the breakfast-table. Only that morning Mr. Magee, by way of experiment, had fastened upon him the suspicion of murder, and the old man had not flickered an eyelash. Not the least strange of all the strange figures that floated about Baldpate, Mr. Magee reflected, was this man who fiddled now with Chaucer while, metaphorically, Rome burned. He could not make it out.

Mr. Max inserted a loud yawn into the professor's discourse.

"Once I played chess with a German," he said, "and another time I went to a lecture on purifying politics, but I never struck anything so monotonous as this job I got now."

"So sorry," replied Magee, "that our company bores you."