CRIMSON MOUNTAIN (9 page)

It was not until an hour later, when they were coming back from their walk to the moonlit lake, that Tom thought he saw Winter again, walking up the hill side by side with the stranger and entering the door of the great log clubhouse, the firelight dancing out and meeting the moonlight like clashing cymbals. Then the door closed quickly and it was gone, and the soft moonlight washed away its memory.

But when he and Anice went into the big, warm room where there was still plenty of drinking and dancing, and many guests sitting about talking with the intimate freedom that comes at the end of an extended night of festivity, Tom could find no trace of either Winter or the sulky stranger, and he wondered with a passing thought what had become of them. Had they gone outside once more, or had they already gone to bed?

But when at last the company finally broke up and drifted away to their night quarters, he was surprised to find Winter in the room they shared sound asleep, so profoundly asleep that it seemed as if it might have been going on for hours.

As he crept into the bed beside his companion, he had a sense of self-condemnation. Maybe he should have stayed by and helped search out a reason for being here.

But in the morning when Rainey awoke, his mind immediately went to the thought that had troubled him before he slept.

“Well, how did ya make out last night?” he asked nonchalantly, yawning slowly.

“Make out?” asked Winter, fastening the last button of his vest. “How do you mean?”

“Did you find any mysterious reason for our presence in this place?”

Winter hesitated for an instant, adjusting his tie, and then answered quietly, “Yes, I think I did.”

“You
did!”
exclaimed Rainey, snapping the yawn to a brisk close. “What did you find? Was it the chump we were looking at?”

The silence this time was even longer, and then Winter answered even more quietly, “I think I’ll let you find that out for yourself, Rainey. After all, when it comes right down to fundamental facts, it has to be each man for himself.”

“Now, Reds, that doesn’t sound like you! Did you really think you had found something?”

“That’s right.”

“And you aren’t going to put me wise?”

“No,” said Winter. “I don’t see that that is my business. It’s something you should see for yourself if it is going to do you any good. Good-bye. I’m getting back to the city. See you later!” And he walked out of the room and down the stairs. Rainey stared after him for a minute, and then he suddenly sprang up and began dressing hurriedly. What did Winter mean? Had he missed out on something? Was this going to hurt his reputation with the boss? Would Dexter find out that he had simply given himself to the pleasure of the moment? But no, surely Winter wasn’t like that. He wouldn’t give him away. And maybe, too, it was all a big bluff. Winter thought he knew it all.

He dressed quickly and plunged downstairs, but when he got there, there wasn’t a sign of Bruce Winter, and nobody knew where he had gone.

In due time, certain groups of guests assembled at a late breakfast and discussed the matter of returning to the city, but Winter was not one of them, and neither could he anywhere discover the stolid-looking man who had sat in the shadows of the opposite corner last night.

Uneasily, Tom Rainey hurried through his breakfast and excused himself, hurrying up to his room to look for signs of his former roommate. But there were none.

Winter and he had both brought along suitcases and had worn overcoats, but only his own coat and suitcase remained. Winter’s were gone.

He tossed his things into his case and went down hurriedly, meeting Faber at the foot of the stairs.

“Mr. Faber, have you seen Winter?” he asked. “I seem to have missed him somehow.”

“Why, no, I haven’t seen him this morning,” said Faber, “but he told me last night, or rather this morning, before he retired, that he was leaving early, driving down in his own car. I believe he took a couple of my guests with him who had early engagements. Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Gratz. He said he thought you would find plenty to give you a ride in case you decided not to get up quite so early. I believe Mr. Byrger agreed to look after you. Isn’t that so, Byrger?”

“Yes,” said a tall, stolid, blond man with a countenance that was so unreadable at first sight that instinctively Rainey felt indisposed to go with him. “I was just about to ask where Mr. Rainey was. I’m in somewhat of a hurry.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Tom Rainey, stepping forward. “Greatly obliged, I’m sure, if you don’t mind. I’m all ready.” And he caught up his suitcase, made hasty adieus, and followed the stranger, wondering what in the world this all meant and why Winter had deserted him without explanation.

The stranger was close-mouthed and during the long ride said very little, enabling Tom Rainey to reflect on some of the quiet, caustic sentences that Winter had let fall while they were sitting watching the “chump” in the opposite corner of the room last night, also the cryptic responses to his questions that morning when he first awoke. Could it be that Winter was trying to teach him a lesson? Or to give him a hint that there were enemies in the camp? Why was it that Bruce Winter could always manage to make one feel so ignorant and that he knew it all? Well, he would show him that he could be as cautious as the next one when work really began. But why should he go around spoiling all the fun beforehand?

It was about that time that his silent companion turned to him with evident purpose and looked him over carefully. “You were over in the old country with Winter?” he queried, scanning his features as if obtaining a photographic impression.

Rainey narrowed his eyelids and put on indifference. So! The man was going to own he was a German or something near to that, was he? Well, he wouldn’t get much out of him.

“Winter tell you that?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows and scanning the other’s face amusedly.

“Yes, he mentioned it just before he left this morning.”

“It must be so then,” said Rainey. “I have a great respect for Winter’s devotion to the truth. You knew him over there, I suppose?”

“No, I never met him until this morning.”

“By the way, I don’t remember seeing you at the dinner and dance last night.” Rainey’s air was of one who had felt very much at home on the expedition.

Byrger answered in a colorless voice, “No. I didn’t get here until late. Wouldn’t have been here now if I hadn’t come on an urgent errand.” And then Byrger lapsed into another extended silence.

Rainey, sitting there thinking, with the sound of the other man’s colorless tones still echoing in his ears, tried to figure out whether in this man’s smooth, brief words there had been a distinct German accent or whether there was another nationality blended with it. Byrger! That wasn’t a German name, was it? Or Austrian? He couldn’t be sure. During his stay abroad, he had grown fairly familiar with different accents and considered himself able to detect and recognize the origin of each speech he heard. Yet this man’s speech puzzled him. Certainly he had been much in the United States, for he spoke like an American-born.

And yet why should it matter so much? Was he being put on the spot to test him?

Suddenly Byrger spoke again, watching him closely the while. “Have you been to Crimson Mountain?”

The question was so abrupt, so unexpected, that he barely controlled his features, barely restrained a start. So! Was this man one of their company? Or perhaps one whom they were supposed to search out and guard against? In any case, Rainey was a good actor, and he assumed a highly creditable drawl. “Crimson Mountain,” he repeated meditatively. “Is that someplace I should have been? Certainly is a colorful name! Sounds interesting. Any reason why I should have been there?”

The other watched him speculatively, then with a slight shrug said, “Could be.”

As they drew nearer to the city, it was Rainey who spoke. “You are in defense work?”

The other bowed gravely. “In a way,” he said. “I’m an inventor by trade.”

“Yes?” said Rainey with a grave air. “I should suppose that is a wide field just now in which to work.”

The other made no reply, and for some time there was silence. Then Byrger asked, “What line are you in?”

“Oh, I’m a writer by trade,” said Rainey, indifferently. “Plenty to write about in these days, of course.”

Byrger bowed. “Plenty.”

That was the end of the conversation until they entered the city. Then Rainey asked to be let out in front of a large printing establishment where a number of magazines and newspapers were published, and quite at a distance from the room where he and Winter made their home.

“Thanks so much for the lift,” he said to Byrger. “It’s been so pleasant. Perhaps we shall soon meet again.”

“Well—yes,” said the other. And then with an unexpected gleam in his fishy eyes, he added, “Could be!”

As Rainey climbed the stairs to the office of a magazine on the fourth floor where he had at different times sold some of his articles and stories, he reflected how little he had been able to learn of his companion on that ride. Just cryptic phrases, uncanny questions, knowing looks, inscrutable silences, and a sense that the man had not only been studying him, analyzing his very soul, and accurately reading him, but also that he had been belittling him and despising him. This was no very good report to make to Winter when he should have to account for himself to his colleague. There was no alternative but to be mysterious, as indeed Winter had been with him the night before. He would not have to tell all he had discovered about the man, nor indeed to let it be known how very little he was really wiser for that drive to the city.

So after a brief call on his editor friend and a briefer discussion of the article he was to write for the paper in the near future, Rainey betook himself to his room in search of Winter. And not finding him, he went on to find Dexter and see if there were further orders in the future.

L
aurel was done early that morning. She had been too excited to do much sleeping after her extensive packing was done, and she was ready to step out at a moment’s notice from the cousin’s home where she had been visiting.

She knew that her cousin would not be down early after her late bridge party, and it might just happen that it would be so late that she would have to be on her way before Carolyn awoke, for she still was holding to her purpose of going whenever Pilgrim should call her. So she slipped out to the kitchen and coaxed the servant who was getting breakfast to let her have some toast and coffee at once, saying she didn’t know but she might have to go away in a very few minutes in case she got a phone call.

It was while she was finishing the hasty breakfast that the telephone rang, and then she heard Pilgrim’s voice say, “Is that you, Laurel?” Strangely, delightedly her heart throbbed with happiness.

“Yes, Phil!” There was a pleasant eager friendliness in her voice that did things to Phil’s heart in spite of his best resolves.

“Well, listen,” he said. “I found my lawyer. He’s willing to go over to Carrollton this afternoon and fix things up. I phoned Banfield, and he understands it all and will have his man on hand when I get there.”

“Good!” said Laurel. “That’s the way you wanted it, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s the best way, of course. But see, I’ve got to either be there before my lawyer arrives on the afternoon train and meet him and take him to Banfield’s house, or else I’ve got to stay here till the noon train and ride over with him. He’s going to look up all the papers and get everything in shape, and he wants to ask me a few more questions after he gets hold of my grandfather’s will and the deed to the property, which is in the bank. So I guess that lets you out of a heavy burden you put upon yourself and relieves you of my company. I shall be the loser of course, but I fancy that will greatly simplify the situation as far as you are concerned.”

“No,” said Laurel firmly, “it won’t simplify the situation at all. There are a lot of questions I have thought up during the night I want to ask you. I
mean
it,
really!
And why can’t we take that lawyer over with us? Then he can come back on the train, can’t he? I’m quite all ready to leave within a half hour.”

“Well, that’s great of you, of course, but I’m ashamed to put a strange lawyer upon you.”

“That’s silly. I’ll be glad to take him, too. There is plenty of room in my car. I’m having my baggage put in the trunk at the back right now, and I’ll meet you downtown wherever will be convenient for you, whenever you say.”

“All right, partner. Suppose I call the lawyer and let you know in half an hour what his reaction is. Will that be all right?”

“Quite all right,” said Laurel with a lilt in her voice. Of course it wasn’t going to be quite as pleasant with a strange lawyer along, but she wouldn’t let a little thing like that spoil her day.

So she called the house man and got him to carry her baggage down and put it in the trunk of her car, and she carried out her wraps and some small articles to stow in the pockets of the car. Then, just as she came into the house, the telephone rang again.

“Yes?” she answered eagerly.

“Well, it’s all right, Laurel. The lawyer can’t go until the noon train on account of an appointment with a man from Chicago this morning, but he’ll come over on the noon train by himself. He wants me to go on this morning and get some papers from the Carrollton bank before it closes at noon and have everything ready for him so he can get done and catch the four thirty back to the city. So, if you really are ready to start soon, suppose you meet me down in front of the new post office at nine. That will give me time to do an errand and get everything in shape, and we’ll have plenty of time to talk on the way back. Okay?”

“Okay!” said Laurel. “I’ll be there.”

She hung up the receiver and, turning, saw her cousin coming into the dining room in a pretty robe and smiled good morning.

“Oh, Laurel, my dear! So glad you’re back,” said the cousin. “I’m having some friends to dinner tonight, and I needed you so much I didn’t know what I was going to do without you.”