Captivating Mary Carstairs

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"Why," interrupted Varney, "I thought you were the correspondent of the
_Daily_?"

"So I am. But this time it was only nominal. He's pretty fond of doing
it himself, Smith is. Well, as soon as I got down this morning, he
called me in and showed me the _Daily_. You've seen it, I suppose? Of
course, we were struck with the way our story had caught on, and
particularly with the postscript about Elbert Carstairs and the mystery
idea. Smith said: 'There appears to be more in this than meets the eye,
Charles. Hustle you down to the _Cypriani_, or ever the birds be flown.'
So I hustled. But then I did a fool thing that nearly gummed the game
entirely. Just at the edge of the woods, I met a boy coming up the hill.

"Maybe you remember that kid, Mr. Varney--the telegraph boy? He was just
on his way back from the yacht when I ran into him."

"Come to think of it, I believe I did see that boy hanging around here."

"As hard a little nut," said Hammerton, "as you ever saw in your life.
When he saw me, he stopped short and asked where I was going. I told him
to the yacht. ''T ain't no use,' he said--I won't try to give his
lingo--'they've gone.' And the little devil actually went on to tell me
how he had overheard the two gentlemen talking--guys he called you--and
how you had decided to return to New York at once, and how he had looked
back from the shore and seen the yacht already steaming away."

Thus Varney learned that he had one friend in Hunston who was true to
him, according to his poor little lights; and he felt that that kindly
lie of Tommy Orrick's, if it was ever set down against him anywhere,
must be the kind that is blotted out again in tears.

"Why, I've been good to that kid," said Hammerton, "giving him
cigar-ends nearly every time I see him and that sort of thing. I never
thought he had so much pure _malice_ in him. Well, like a fool, I turned
right around and went back. I felt so pleased about it--for of course
that was just what the _Gazette_ wanted--that I dropped in at the
Ottoman for an eye-opener, and by Jove! it was nearly an hour before I
got back to the office."

He laughed, at first ruefully, then merrily--for had not everything
turned out in the most satisfactory way in the world?

"Smith's a beaut," he said, shaking his head reminiscently. "I don't
believe anything ever got away from him since he was big enough to sit
in front of a desk. When I told him that you fellows had gone back to
New York, he never batted an eye. He just pulled a telescope out of the
bottom drawer of his desk and went up to the roof. In two minutes he was
down again. 'Charles,' he said in that quiet biting way of his, 'God may
have put bigger fools than you into this world, but in his great mercy
he has not sent them to retard the work of the _Gazette_. The yacht lies
precisely where she has lain for these two days. Will it be quite
convenient for you to drop down there and have a talk, or do you design
to wait until the gentlemen call at your desk and beg the privilege of
telling you all?'"

He laughed again, this time without a trace of resentment; and so merry
and spontaneous was this laugh that Varney could not help joining in.

"I suppose old Smith can tell you to go-to-hell more politely, yet more
thoroughly, than any man that ever lived. I _ran_--and I was just in
time at that, hey? Well, when you fellows steamed off, I kind of
suspected that you weren't going very far. So I got a boy and had him
trail you down the old River road on a wheel. By the time he got back
and told me that I had sized it up about right, I had my plans arranged
and my make-up all ready. That make-up was rather neat, I thought, what?
Meantime, a long wire had come in from the _Daily_ office, which made me
keener than ever to see you. So I hired another wheel, ran on down,
borrowed a canoe from a man I know here, and I guess you know the rest."

"I should say I did," said Varney. "Ha, ha! I should rather say I did."

One reason why it was so advantageous to make the boy talk was that it
gave one a chance to think. All the time that he had listened so
pleasantly to this garrulous chatter, Varney had been swiftly planning.
Now he had the situation pretty well analyzed and saw all the ways that
there were.

He might send the reporter away convinced that there was nothing in this
new theory, after all, that the _Gazette's_ trump card in fighting
Maginnis and Reform was still his own unhappy resemblance to the
outlawed author. Or he might send him off with enough of a new theory to
make him think it unnecessary to go to Mrs. Carstairs or her
daughter--the fatal possibility. Or, if both of these proved
impracticable as they almost certainly would, there was only one course
left: he would not let Hammerton go away at all.

"But have another little drop or two, won't you? Those dips with your
clothes on aren't a bit good for the health."

"Well, just a little tickler," said Charlie Hammerton. But he permitted
himself to be helped quite liberally, with no protesting "when." "My
regards, Mr. Varney! Also my compliments and thanks for accepting the
situation like such a genuine game one."

Varney nodded. "The fortunes of war, Mr. Hammerton. But do go on. You
have no idea how interesting the newspaper game is to an outsider,
particularly--ha, ha!--when it walks right across his own quiet career.
As I understand it, you're on the regular staff of the _Gazette_, and
then are a special correspondent of the _Daily_, besides?"

Hammerton, cocksure of his game and pleasantly cheered by the potent
draught, thought that he had never interviewed so agreeable a man.

"That's it exactly. Then, besides, we run a little news-bureau at the
_Gazette_, you know--sell special stuff, whenever there's anything
doing, to papers all over the country. The bureau didn't touch this
story last night--why, I thought it was too 'it-is-understood' and
'rumor-has-it' and all that, to go even with the _Daily_--in your old
own town. It'll be different to-night, all right. We'll query our whole
string on it now--unless," he added with frank despondency, "the darned
old Associated Press decides to pinch it."

"Query them, Mr. Hammerton?"

"Yes, wire them a brief, kind of piquant outline of the story, you know,
and ask them if they don't want it. And I sort of guess they'll all want
it, all right!"

"We'll see about that in a minute," laughed Varney. "There's lots of
time. Tell me about that brilliant young editor of yours, Mr. Smith. The
men in the office all like him and sympathize with his policies, I
suppose?"

Hammerton laughed, doubtfully. "Well, they all look up to him and
respect him as one of the cleverest newspaper men in the country.
Personally, I like old Smith fine, though nobody ever gets close to him
a bit. He's mighty good to me--lets me write little editorials two or
three times a week, and says I'm not so awful at it. As for sympathizing
with his policies--well, you know I'm not sure Smith sympathizes with
'em much himself. I have a kind of private hunch that he's gotten sore
on his job and would sell out if somebody--well, suppose we say our
friend Ryan--would offer him his price. No, I'm not so keen for these
indirect methods, Mr. Varney. At the same time, it's part of the game, I
suppose, and I always believe in playing a game right out to the end,
for everything there is in it."

At the unmistakable significance in his tone, Varney looked up and found
the reporter's eyes fixed upon him in an odd gaze which made him look
all at once ten years older and infinitely difficult to baffle: a gaze
which made it plain, in fact, that the wearer of it was not to be put
off with anything short of the whole truth. The next second that look
broke into an easy laugh, and Hammerton was a chattering boy again.

But Varney's mood rose instantly to meet the antagonism of the
reporter's look, and hung there. He pulled a silver case from his
pocket, selected a cigarette with care and lit it with deliberation. He
had learned everything that he wanted to know; the conversation was
beginning to grow tiresome; and he found the boy's careless
self-confidence increasingly exasperating.

"But as for undercutting Hare," laughed Hammerton, "I don't like it a--"

"Tell me this," Varney interrupted coolly. "When the _Gazette_ prepared
its story about me last night, did it believe for one moment that I was
this man Stanhope?"

"Why, I'm not the _Gazette_, of course," said Hammerton, a little taken
aback by the cool change of both topic and manner, "but my private
suspicion is that it entertained a few doubts on the subject. What do we
think now? Look here, Mr. Varney," the boy said amiably, "you've been
white about this business, and I do really want to show that I
appreciate it."

He fumbled in the side-pocket of his wet coat, which hung on a near-by
chair, produced a damp paper of the familiar yellow, smoothed it out and
handed it across the table.

"I guess I won't keep any secrets from you, Mr. Varney."

Varney, taking the telegram with a nod, read the following:

_Gazette_, HUNSTON:

Varney-Stanhope story good stuff, but lacking details,
vague and inaccurate. Stanhope located in Adirondacks,
though not reached. See _Daily_ to-day. Man on yacht
Varney. Apparent secrecy surrounding departure from
here. Interview him sure and secure full statement as
to business which brought him to Hunston. Also interview
Mrs. Elbert Carstairs in Hunston. She separated
from husband years ago. His yacht there with name
erased suggests mystery. Rush fullest details day-rate if
necessary. Pictures made. Expect complete story and
interviews early to-night sure.
S. P. STOKES.

"Now," said Charlie Hammerton, when Varney looked up, "you see why I
went to such a lot of trouble to get hold of you."

"Yes," said Varney, slowly, his eye upon him, "I see."

He folded the telegram, laid it at Hammerton's elbow, got up and stood
with his hands on the back of his chair, looking down. At the thought
that he had ever hoped to call the reporter off, to stop this deadly
machinery of journalism, once it had been started, he could have
laughed. The _Daily_ telegram showed how impossible that had always
been. Now it was suddenly and overwhelmingly plain that to force a
fight on Hammerton, which had been his favorite purpose from the
beginning, even to seize and lock him up, would be of no avail whatever.
Other reporters in endless procession, waited behind him, ready to step
into his place; and the pitiless machinery, in which he, Varney,
happened to be caught at the moment, would go steadily grinding on till
it had crushed out the heart of the hidden truth.

He saw no way out at all. His mind revolved at fever heat, while he said
calmly: "Go back to your employers, Mr. Hammerton, and report that you
have no story to sell them. Say further that since they knowingly
printed a lying slander about me this morning, you, as an honorable man,
insist upon their making full retractions and apologies to-morrow."

Hammerton, who had taken his interview as a foregone conclusion, looked
momentarily astounded; but on top of that his manner changed again, to
meet Varney's changed one, in the wink of an eye.

"You can't mean," he said briskly, ignoring Varney's last remark
entirely, "that you decline to make a statement for our readers?"

"Why should I encourage your readers to stick their infernal noses into
my business?"

"For your own sake, Mr. Varney--because everybody has started asking
questions. To refuse to answer them, from your point of view, is the
worst thing you could do. As you know, newspapers always have other
sources of information, and also ways of making intelligent guesses.
While these guesses are usually surprisingly accurate, it sometimes
happens that we work out a theory that is a whole lot worse than the
truth."

"Of course," said Varney, with sudden absentness. "That's the way you
sell your dirty papers, is n't it?"

"Mr. Varney, why did you come--?" began Hammerton, but stopped short,
perceiving that the other no longer listened, and quite content to leave
him to a little reflection.

For Varney, struck by a thought so new that it was overwhelming, had
unexpectedly turned away. He leaned upon the rail and looked out over
the blue, sunny water. A brilliant plan had flashed into his mind--a big
daring plan which, far more than anything else he had thought of, might
be effective and final. Instead of making an enemy of Hammerton, which
could accomplish nothing, it would turn him into a champion, which meant
victory.

It was a desperate solution, but it was a solution.

After all, what else remained? To dismiss the boy with nothing would be
to send him straight to the Carstairs house with no one knew what
results. To manhandle him would be simply to start another sleuth on the
trail. But this plan, if it worked, would avoid that, and every other,
risk of trouble. And if it failed, he would be no worse off than he was
now; for in that case he would not allow Hammerton to go back to the
_Gazette_ at all that day.

He dropped his cigarette over the side, turned and found the eye of the
press firmly fastened upon him.

"Mr. Varney," said Hammerton, with swift acuteness, "maybe I'm not as
bad a fellow as you think. Why can't you trust me with this story--of
what brought you to Hunston, and what made you run away this morning and
hide? If it's really something that newspapers haven't got anything to
do with, I'll go straight back to the office and make them leave you
alone. Oh, I have enough influence to do it, all right! And if it's
something different and--well, a little unusual, I'll promise to put you
in the best light possible. Why don't you trust me with it?"

"Well," said Varney with a stormy smile, "suppose I do, then!"

"Good!" cried Hammerton cordially, observing him, however, with some
intentness. "Honestly, it's the very best thing you could do."

Varney rested upon the back of his chair again and stood staring down at
the reporter for some time in silence.

"Mr. Hammerton," he began presently, "I know that the great majority of
newspaper men are fair and honorable and absolutely trustworthy. I know
that it is a part of their capital to be able to keep a secret as well
as to print one. For this reason, I have upon reflection decided to
confide--certain facts to you, feeling sure that they will never go any
further--"

"Of course, Mr. Varney," the reporter interrupted, "you understand that
I can't make any promises in advance."

"Let the risk be mine," said Varney. "I am certain that when you have
heard what I have to tell you, you will report to your papers that my
'mysterious errand' turns out to be simply a matter of personal and
private business, with which the public has no concern, and whose
publication at this time would hopelessly ruin it. Mr. Hammerton, I came
to Hunston to see Miss Mary Carstairs."

A gleam came into Hammerton's eye. Varney, watching that observant
feature, knew that no detail of his story, or of his manner in telling
it, would escape a most critical scrutiny.

"The fewer particulars the better," he said grimly. "I shall tell the
substance because that seems now, after all, the best way to protect the
interests of those concerned. Mr. Hammerton, as the _Daily_ told you,
Mr. Carstairs and his wife have separated, though they are still on
friendly terms with each other. Their only child remains with the
mother. Mr. Carstairs is getting old. He is naturally an affectionate
man, and he is very lonely. In short, he has become most anxious to have
his daughter spend part of her time with him. Mrs. Carstairs entirely
approves of this. The daughter, however, absolutely refuses to leave her
mother, feeling, it appears, that nothing is due her father from her.
Arguments are useless. Well, what is to be done? Mr. Carstairs, because
his great need of his daughter grows upon him, conceives an unusual
plan. He will send an ambassador to Hunston--unaccredited, of course, a
man, young, not married, who--don't think me a coxcomb--but who might
be able to arouse the daughter's interest. This ambassador is to go on
Mr. Carstairs's own yacht, the name, of course, being erased, so that
the daughter may not recognize it. He is to meet the young lady,
cultivate her, make friends with her--all without letting her dream that
he comes from her father, for that would ruin everything. And, then--"

He broke off, paused, considered. In Hammerton's eye he saw a light
which meant sympathy, kindly consideration, human interest. He knew that
the battle was half won. He had only to say: "And then talk to her about
her poor old father, who loves her, and who is growing old in a big
house all by himself; and tell her how he needs her so sorely that old
grudges ought to be forgotten; and ask her, in the name of common
kindness, to come down and pay him a visit before it is too late." He
had only to say that, and he knew, for he read it in Hammerton's whole
softened expression, that the boy would go away with his lips locked.

But he couldn't say that, the reason being that it was not true.

"And then," he said, with a truthfulness so bold that he was sure the
reporter would not follow it, "and then--don't you see? he is to try to
_make_ her go down to New York and pay a visit to that lonely old father
who needs her so badly. Since she is so obstinate about it, he must find
some way to _make_ her go before it is too late. _Now_ do you
understand, Mr. Hammerton? _Now_ do you perceive why the thought of
having all this pitiful story scareheaded in a penny paper is
insufferable to me?"

He towered above Hammerton, crisp words falling like leaden bullets,
stern, insistent, determined to be believed. But he saw a look dawn on
the younger man's face which made him instantly fear that he had told
too much.

And then suddenly Hammerton sprang to his feet, keen eyes shot with
light, ruddy cheek paled a little with excitement, fronting Varney in
startled triumph over the drinks they had shared.

"Make her!" he blurted in a high shrill voice. "Mr. Varney, _you came up
here to kidnap her!_"

The two men stared at each other in a moment of horrified silence.
Something in the reporter's air of victory, in the kind of thrilling joy
with which he pounced upon the carefully guarded little secret and
dragged it out into the light, made him all at once loathsome in
Varney's eyes, a creature unspeakably repellent.

Suddenly he leaned across the little table and struck Hammerton lightly
across the mouth with the back of his hand.

"You cad," he said whitely.

But Hammerton, never to be stopped by details now, ignored both the
insult and the blow. He was on the rail like a cat, ready to swim for
it, hot to take his great scoop to Mrs. Carstairs, to Coligny Smith, to
readers of newspapers all over the land.

The table was between them, and it went over with a crash. Quick as he
was, Varney was barely in time. His hand fell upon the reporter's coat
when another fraction of a second would have been too late. Then he
flung backward with a wrench, and Hammerton came toppling heavily to the
deck.

Smarting with the pain of the fall, hot with anger at last, the
reporter was up in an instant, spitting blood, and they clenched with
the swiftness of lightning. Then they broke away, violently, and went at
it in grim earnest.

It was the fight of a lifetime for each of them and they were splendidly
matched. Hammerton was two inches the shorter, but he had twenty pounds
of solid weight to offset that; and in close work, especially, his
execution was polished. They had it up and down the deck, hammer and
tongs, swinging, landing, rushing, sidestepping. At the first crash of
broken glass on the deck, the crew had begun to appear, unobtrusively
from all directions. Now cabin-hatch, galley-hatch, deck-house, every
coign of vantage along the battlefield held its silent cluster of
wondering figures. But McTosh, familiar old family retainer, slipped
nearer at the first opportunity and whispered, in just that eager tone
with which he pressed a side-dish upon one's notice:

"Can't I give you a little help, sir?"

"Keep away, steward," said Varney, between clenched teeth, "or you'll
get hurt."

Saying which, he received a savage blow on the point of the chin and
struck the deck with a thud.

"Oh, my Gawd, sir!" breathed McTosh.

But his young master was on his feet like a tiger, in a whirl of crazy
passion. He had resolved all along that Hammerton would have to kill him
before he should get away with that secret. Now it came to him like a
divine revelation that the way to avoid this was to kill Hammerton. To
that pleasant end, he goaded his adversary with a light blow,
side-stepped his rush, uppercutted and the reporter went down, almost
head first, and cruelly hard.

He came up dazed, game but very wild, and Varney got another chance
promptly, which was just as well. Hammerton went down again, head on
once more, and this time he did not come up at all.

The crew, unable to repress themselves, let out a cheer, and came
crowding on the deck. But Varney, standing over Hammerton's limp body,
waved them back impatiently.

"Hold your noise!" he ordered. "And stand back! I'm attending to this
job!"

He picked Hammerton up in his arms, staggered with him to his own
stateroom, and laid him down on the bunk. The boy did not stir, gave no
visible sign of life. But when Varney put his hand over the other's
heart, he found it beating away quite firmly. His breathing and pulse
were regular--everything was quite as it should be. He would come round
in half an hour, and be as good a man as ever. And he would have a long,
idle time to rest, and look after his bruises and get back his strength
again.

Varney took the key from the door, put it in outside, turned it and came
on deck again. The crew had vanished to their several haunts. Two
deck-hands in blouses and red caps had just completed the rehabilitation
of the deck, and at sight of him discreetly vanished forward.

"Ferguson," called Varney, "a word with you, please."

The grizzled sailing-master came quickly, obviously curious for an
explanation of these strange matters.

Rapidly Varney explained to him that the incarcerated man was a reporter
who thought that he had got hold of a scandalous story about Mr.
Carstairs, and was most anxious to get ashore so that he could publish
this scandal all over the country.

"I am obliged to go to town immediately," he continued. "Rumors of this
ugly story have already been started, and I must do everything I can to
nail them. I am going to trust the responsibility here to you. As soon
as I leave the yacht, I want you to start her down the river. That is to
get the gentleman and the yacht out of the way. Go straight ahead for
two or three hours and then come back. Make your calculations so that
you'll get back here at--say ten o'clock to-night--here, mind you, not
the old anchorage. I'll be ready to come aboard by that time. Have two
men guard that stateroom constantly every minute. Give the gentleman
every possible attention, but don't let him make any noise, and don't
let him get out. No matter what he says or does, _don't let him get
out_. Do you follow me?"

"I do, sir. To the menootest detail."

"If you carry the matter through, you may rely upon Mr. Carstairs's
gratitude. If, on the other hand, you fail--"

"Oh, I'll not fail, sir. Have no fear of that."

"I am speaking to you man to man, Ferguson, when I say, for God's sake
don't."

He walked away to arrange himself a little for the town, seeing clearly
that there was but one possible way out of all this for him now. The
sailing-master stared after him with a very curious expression upon his
weather-beaten face.

At about the same moment, in a tiny room four miles away, an elderly,
melancholy man sat bowed over a telegraph board and drowsily plied his
keys. He was the _Gazette's_ special operator, and, having his orders
from Mr. Parker, who looked after the news bureau when Hammerton was
away, he was methodically going through his list like this:

_Tribune_, PITTSBURG:

Ferris Stanhope or Laurence Varney? Baffling mystery surrounding
prominent men, one of whom now hiding here. Probable scandal, one
thousand words.

_Press_, CINCINNATI:

Ferris Stanhope or Laurence Varney? Baffling mystery--

CHAPTER XIII

VARNEY MEETS HIS ENEMY AND IS DISARMED

Varney crossed the square in the gathering dusk and went slowly up Main
Street, looking about him as he walked. He had wrenched his ankle
slightly in one of his falls upon the _Cypriani's_ deck, and the
four-mile walk over the ruts of the River road to the town had done it
no good. Worse yet, it had made the trip down from the yacht laboriously
slow, and he was harried with the fear that the irreparable damage might
already have been done.

If it had not, if no reporter had yet gone to the Carstairs house, his
one possible hope of escape stood before him like a palm-tree in a
plain. Stiffened and strengthened by all his difficulties, his resolve
to win throbbed and mounted within him; but he faced the knowledge that
the odds now were heavily against him. On the long chance, he had played
a desperate game, had come within an ace of winning, and had lost. His
great secret which, beyond any other purpose, he had meant to guard to
the end, was glaringly out. Now it was the iron heart of his will that
it should go no further. Talkative young Hammerton had given him the
hint how that might be accomplished; and if the method was extreme, it
would be sure. Whatever the cost, it would be a small price to pay for
keeping his name, and Uncle Elbert's, out of ruinous headlines in
to-morrow's papers.

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