The trouble at Pinelands A detective story
Rather grateful to him than otherwise, because Gaskell was due to die
anyhow. But he had to stir up the mob, just the same. ‘Couldn’t git outa
that,’ he told me. ‘Things bein’ as they were, w’y, I just hadda start
somepin that a way. So I passed round some white liquor I had. Have
’nother drink, doc! Lots more where that come f’om. I give th’ boys s’m’
corn liquor and talked it up, and I got ’em all goin’ till they was jus’
wild and r’arin’ to lynch ’im. I just hadda do it, doc!’ Now that was a
queer way to put it, I thought. Why did he have to start a lynching bee?
And who put him up to it? For, from the way he talked, I’m quite sure it
wasn’t his own plan. I’m as sure as I can be that he stirred up that mob
because somebody else, somebody in the background, somebody we know
nothing about--yet, ordered him to do it. Or, at least, because he
thought the lynching would please this mysterious somebody.”
Somers sighed and rubbed his head, which ached furiously, no doubt.
“It’s all so confoundedly vague,” he went on, scowling around at our
blank faces. “Can’t you think of something, any of you? Miss Christie,
what’s your idea? Hello! What’s become of her?”
We all turned, but the couch was vacant. Some time during our talk,
while we were all absorbed in Somers’ narrative, perhaps, the nurse had
slipped unobtrusively out.
“She’s gone to bed, I suppose,” said Dorothy. “You know, she’s an awful
sleepyhead.”
Somers nodded. “Just wait till she begins to get the effect of those
tablets,” he declared confidently. “She won’t be then. She was mighty
good to help me out, a little while ago, and I was beastly drunk, too.”
He rose and stretched his long, emaciated arms above his head, groaning.
“I’ll go to bed, too. I’m about done up. But I’m going on with this
thing; I’m going to find out what’s behind it all, what mysterious
person planned Gaskell’s death. For I’m sure his death was planned and
ordered. Satterfield thinks so, anyhow. And I’ll have it out of him yet;
I’ll find out all he knows, even if I have to get drunk on his moonshine
seven nights in the week!”
He paused, fingering his chin, and looked half humorously, half
apprehensively, at the new Mrs. C. Lewis Parker. “I forgot,” he drawled.
“After all I’m here, officially, only as Parker’s best man. Now the
wedding’s over I ought to be going. Besides, it’ll be unpleasant for
you, to say the least, if I have to come back half-seas-over every
night. I’ll go to the hotel, or perhaps Uncle George will let me bach in
with him for a while?”
But Dorothy would have none of that. “You’re being mean,” she declared,
“and you needn’t be horrid, just because I was. You’ll stay right here
at Fort House, both of you! We’ve got lots of room, and I don’t care
what Aunt Mary says, either! I’m a married woman now; and, besides,
Peter’s here; and I guess I can have company if I want to! And I’ll be
so l-lonesome until Lewis comes back, and s-scared, too, with that nasty
Poltergeist, and thinking of Doctor Gaskell killed right under my
windows, almost, and--and everything!” She dabbed at her eyes, and
patted her brother’s hand, as he murmured something. “Oh, you’re good,
Peter, dear, and it’s a comfort to have you, but Floyd would be just
miserable over there, with nobody but an old colored woman to look after
him. You’ll stay here, won’t you, Floyd, and you, Uncle George?”
We promised, of course; who would not?
CHAPTER XX
A FLIRTATION
Next morning Doctor Somers rose early. I heard him splashing in the
bathroom, slapping his razor against its strop, whistling louder and
shriller than the ubiquitous quail outside. I was fagged out and
irritable; his cheerfulness annoyed me. A man who had been drunk last
night should be more subdued, I thought.
I pounded on the bathroom door. “Shut up, man!” I called. “You’re worse
than the bobwhites!”
I heard a chuckle from within. “’Smatter, unk? Get up on the wrong side?
Cheer-i-o, old thing! So you prefer the birds, do you?”
And straightway he fell to imitating the shrill call of the quail:
“Bob_white_! Bob_white_!”
I grinned helplessly. What could be done with such a man? “Better cut
that out,” I warned him. “You’ll catch it at breakfast, if Aunt Mary
hears you.”
That silenced him. Presently he emerged, shaved to a miracle, the heavy
beard showing blue beneath his dark skin. “Aren’t I pretty, unk? Going
out in society to-day!”
He came down to breakfast in a gorgeous pongee silk suit, whose fitted
coat and tight, creased trousers made him more incredibly thin and
angular than usual. He bowed grotesquely, struck an attitude, knuckles
on hip, looking rather like those tiny figures of some cartoonist, whose
bodies are made of one straight line; he was almost as thin as that. The
slender Malacca cane, which he brandished, seemed as thick as his long
legs.
“Uncle George, I want the flivver to-day,” he announced. “I’m going for
a drive with my best girl.”
“Humph!” said I. “Is she blind?”
“Not yet, but this rig may put her eye out.”
“Very likely,” I told him grimly. “All right; take the car.”
“Who’s going with you?” asked Dorothy curiously.
Aunt Mary had not appeared; she was taking breakfast in bed, it seemed.
But the nurse was there, quiet and unobtrusive as always, eyes on her
plate. At our hostess’ question I fancied that the color rose in her
cheeks.
“Miss Minnie Satterfield,” said Somers. “She works at night,
unfortunately; but she’s going to get up early this morning, and we’re
driving to Jackson Springs for lunch.”
He ate hurriedly and pushed back his chair. “Excuse me? I’ve got a lot
of running round to do; I want to drop in and see Parker, too. It would
never do to keep Miss Satterfield waiting. She’s a very pretty girl.”
Somers disappeared, and Dorothy looked at me askance. “He doesn’t seem
exactly reluctant,” she murmured. “Oh, I know, Uncle George, he’s doing
it to help Lewis, but it does seem as if he could go about it some other
way than getting drunk at night and chasing round with pretty girls all
day. I keep thinking of my poor husband, locked up alone in that horrid
j-jail, and Doctor Somers enjoying himself like this! You needn’t tell
_me_ that he hated so to get drunk,” she went on stubbornly. “And now
it’s that Minnie Satterfield! You’ve seen her, Peter? She’s just awfully
pretty, and you know what her father is!”
My nephew’s bride was rather uncharitably inclined. “My dear,” I told
her mildly, “that’s not the poor girl’s fault.”
Miss Christie rose abruptly and pushed back her chair. “I--I must see to
Miss McGregor,” she murmured. Her plump face was scarlet, her big eyes
flamed.
We saw no more of Doctor Somers that day. The time went slowly enough.
Dorothy and I visited my nephew. The wedding decorations had all been
taken down, but the young lady’s housewifely eye detected dried leaves
and petals in a corner, and straightway she dispatched me after a broom
and dustpan.
“If my very own husband’s _got_ to live in this miserable old jail, I’m
going to keep it clean for him, at least!” she announced.
I brought the required implements, and Dorothy fell to work in a cloud
of dust. “A fine sort of jailer, that man Wakefield,” she declared. “The
place hasn’t been swept out in months!”
While she bustled about, setting things to rights with the prideful,
loving care of the new-made housewife, Lewis watched her slim form with
wistful eyes. Poor boy! Already his confinement was telling on him. His
face was pale and worn, and he seemed thinner, older, more conscious of
his responsibilities. I fancied that, if he were free, my nephew’s hot
temper would be under better control. This experience, however bitterly
bought, was maturing him fast.
I sat back, watching this pitiful bride and groom; and the girl’s happy
activity, her housewifely care, the whole pathetic travesty of a
honeymoon, brought tears to my old eyes. I rose abruptly.
“This dust is too much for me.” Then I blew my nose. “I’ll sit on the
steps a while, children, till you get through.”
On the steps I sat and glowered down at the absurd deputy-sheriff’s star
which I wore. I have no doubt that I was the unhappiest jailer who was
ever forced to sunder loving hearts.
Aunt Mary appeared at luncheon in an unusually subdued, amiable mood.
Indeed the old lady seemed much changed of late; the cloud of trouble,
which had settled over Fort House had left its mark upon her, also. At
times she was more querulous, more irritable and exacting, than I had
ever seen her; and again she was kinder, more thoughtful of others. In
the midst of her sharpest mood she would soften suddenly and be so
kindly, so pathetically sweet, that one could not but pity her and
forgive her the stabs which she inflicted upon us all. Her face had
changed subtly, grown thinner, more sharply lined. Its former expression
of sweetly pathetic resignation, which I had grown to believe,
uncharitably, was assumed for the provoking of sympathy, was in evidence
less often. Now her softly faded countenance wore a look of honest pain,
of mental anguish, not unmixed with human resentment. And I, for one,
fancied it much more than the old expression of strained, angelic
sweetness.
To-day she merely played with her food; though, as a rule, even when she
suffered most from the “knots in her neck,” her appetite was not visibly
affected. She said nothing; and, when Dorothy spoke sadly of Lewis’
lonely meal in the lockup, she burst quite suddenly into broken weeping
and had to be wheeled back to her room.
Dorothy looked at me, then at Peter, almost with awe. “Why,” she
exclaimed, “auntie is really upset! She’s really thinking about somebody
else for once. Oh, Peter, we must be kinder to her.”
And she was, I think, even more thoughtful of her aunt than usual, all
through that long, weary week, though to my mind she had never failed in
forbearance. It was a long week, that one! A tedious, dreary time, that
taxed the patience of us all. Lewis grew somber, depressed, almost
morose. He could see nothing before him but darkness: the meeting time
of the grand jury came closer and closer, and he would not be convinced
but that they would bring in a true bill against him.
“That district attorney, solicitor, as they call him down here, that man
Vanbrugh will see to _that_,” he predicted gloomily. “There’s no
possible chance that they won’t indict me; we might as well make up our
minds to that.”
At once Dorothy would strive to comfort and encourage him; and then she
would break down and cry on his shoulder and beg him indignantly to send
for a lawyer, to hire detectives--anything!
“Because, dearest, that Doctor Somers isn’t doing one thing to help
us--not a single thing! He’s just out riding round all day with that
Satterfield girl, the bold, hard thing! And in your flivver, too! And
out till all hours, every night, and coming in drunk, and everything
like that. He’s a fine friend, I must say!”
Lewis and Peter and I would try to soothe her, pointing out all Somers
had done, reminding her that even this intimacy was carried on in the
hope of extracting further information from Ralph Satterfield. But
Dorothy would shake a stubborn head.
“You needn’t tell _me_ he’s doing it all for Lewis! It’s just because he
_likes_ to get drunk and chase over the country with that--that _thing_!
So there!” A mercurial young person was Dorothy, as I have said, prone
to injustice at times. But she was not too much to blame, perhaps; it
was a terrible situation for any bride.
And Somers’ conduct rather worried me, also. Day after day he rose late,
flattered and cajoled Rosina into preparing him an extra breakfast,
climbed into Lewis’ flivver and disappeared. Sometimes he would be back