Dead Birds (Saturday Evening Post serial)/Part 2

by Henry C. Rowland

[ PART 2 ]

 

He Picked Up the Dead Birds, Remarking, a Little to His Surprise, How Quickly They Had Commenced to Stiffen

 

IV

DRESSING for dinner, Marsh reflected on the Oriental philosophy by which Iona was under obligation to him instead of he to her. It struck him that his debt might still prove irksome enough, without thus cutting both ways. If Iona assumed responsibility for his future troubles, then must she consider his happiness also, when their ideas might not coincide. The situation appeared to be involved, Cicely sore and Iona starting something with him. A beastly mess, just when he and Old Man Good Cheer seemed to be going along together. Dodge also had seemed a little crisp on coming out of the water. In a word, Marsh felt that through no fault of his he was in all wrong.

This uncomfortable impression was not removed throughout the evening. Neither, for that matter, was it confirmed, There was not much opportunity, as two tables of bridge were made up, Cicely and Captain Peuplier, who was musical and had brought his violin, trying various selections of modern composers. They had met in Washington the previous winter, become friendly, and the fact that the gallant Frenchman made no secret of his matrimonial ambitions gave Marsh a stab of jealousy as the various efforts, with frequent murmurs of conversation, drifted in from the music room.

At eleven the bridge players settled their scores, Major Smith-Curran, who, to Marsh's surprise, had shown himself something of a bungler, being most in arrears. Marsh would have said that cards of any sort would be the man's forte.

The butler brought in trays of refreshment—sandwiches, savories, beverages—and Marsh noted that Cicely shook her head at her father, who confessed that he was breaking his régime. He would not have thought any régime required by so vigorous and temperate a man. Sherrill Dodge had always impressed him as singularly young for his years.

They all retired at about midnight; and despite the vexations of the day, Marsh enjoyed the first good sleep for weeks. He woke refreshed at about eight o'clock, and had nearly finished dressing when the valet rapped on his door with a request that he look in on Mr. Dodge before going down.

A few minutes later Marsh complied, to find his host in dressing gown and slippers, glancing through the morning paper.

“Good morning, Marsh. Hope you had a good sleep.”

“The best for many nights, sir.”

“Well, so did I. Been rather off it lately for some reason. Last night for the first time I broke training and ate what I liked before turning in. The doctors don't always hit it right.”

Marsh glanced at his night table, on which were standing a small bottle of buttermilk and what appeared to be a jam sandwich. Dodge followed his eyes and smiled.

“That's what's been prescribed for me before going to bed. Last night I disobeyed orders.” He tapped his newspaper. “I see there's a golf tournament over at Syosset today. What if we sail across to Cold Spring Harbor and take it in?”

Marsh naturally agreed. Dodge rose, stepped to the window, threw open the screen and let in the sweet soft air.

“Northwest breeze. Look at those starlings on the lawn. They're getting to be in the nature of a pest.”

Marsh looked out. On the lawn, just beneath the window, a big flock of what many people mistake for blackbirds had alighted. They were walking rapidly about in the manner peculiar to their species, one foot before the other instead of hopping. Mr. Dodge stepped to the night table, took the sandwich, and breaking it in morsels began to toss them out. Some of the starlings fluttered, but they did not fly away.

“When I was a boy,” said Mr. Dodge, “I had a Flobert rifle and used to go round potting at everything that ran and flew; squirrels and robins and meadow larks. All was game that came to my bag. The kids are taught differently now; encouraged to befriend fur and feathers, and it's right.”

Marsh thoroughly agreed with this. They talked about the golf tournament, but Marsh had a vague impression that this was not the reason for his host having asked that he look in.

That came out presently, when Mr. Dodge, after a turn about the room, said abruptly, “You don't know Barclay very well, do you?”

“Not so well as I hope to some day, sir.”

“Did you ever hear any gossip about his habits—or, to be more explicit, about his gambling?”

Marsh was about to answer in the negative, when he suddenly remembered some random chatter in a yacht club that had not impressed him at the time, but had to do with a stiff poker game in which Barclay had been a heavy loser.

“Only once,” he answered. “But I never thought of it again.”

“Races?”

“No; a poker game.”

Mr. Dodge nodded.

“Every man has got to have his fault or faults, I suppose, and gambling is Barclay's. Like most such things, it is apt to reach the ears of the parent last. I've given the boy a good allowance since he's been in the diplomatic service, and two or three times I've had to fish him out of a jam. He inherited a lot of money when he came of age and I'm life trustee, and I suppose that makes him feel a certain right to indulge his folly. Sheer idiocy in Barclay's case on two counts. He doesn't need the money and he is a rotten poor gambler.”

Marsh was surprised. Only the day before he had given Barclay a clean slate so far as his habits were concerned.

“Found a Four-Leaf Clever” “The boy comes by it fairly enough,” Mr. Dodge said. “His mother's father was a terrific old plunger. I saw the writing on the wall with Barclay when he was a little chap and I've tried hard to smother it out. Six months ago I gave him an ultimatum—told him the next big gambling debt I had to pay would mean his quitting diplomacy for real work.”

“Has he toed over?” Marsh asked.

“Not to my knowledge, but I'm wondering.” He checked abruptly.

Marsh did not need to be told what was the association of ideas in Dodge's mind. Thinking of Barclay suggested the Smith-Currans, who were guests at the house in accordance with an urgent appeal from the son and heir that his friends be shown every hospitality. This would have been all right enough had Major Smith-Curran and his daughter possessed any background of social position that Dodge knew anything about. But, as Marsh had learned from Cicely, Barclay's letter had been received only three days before their landing, and had confined itself to the very friendly relations existing between these people and Barclay, with scarcely any description of just who and what the Smith-Currans were. Dodge now touched lightly on this fact.

“I can't help but wonder why Barclay should have written me so urgently to ask Major Smith-Curran and his daughter here. It's not like the boy. He's even more particular about his choice of intimate friends than I am. Naturally I haven't made any special effort to place them; but two or three men I know who are sort of British social registers weren't able to give me any information, and they haven't volunteered anything themselves.”

“Why bother?” Marsh asked. “Since Barclay's so particular, they must be all right.”

“I'm not bothering about them,” Dodge said, “but about the boy himself. It's got into my head that he may be tangled up with them some way, under an obligation of sorts, and that his letter and the conventional one of introduction Smith-Curran sent me with their cards may have been written under pressure.” He looked meaningly at Marsh. “To square a debt, in part, if not in whole.”

“Have you any distinct reason for thinking that, sir?”

“Well, yes, I believe I have. Otherwise I shouldn't say anything about it. Nothing more unpleasant than to question the character of one's guests. But something has happened, or at least I think it's happened, to make me believe they're here for other reasons than merely to meet Barclay's family. You were seated next to Miss Smith-Curran at bridge last night when I was on her other side. Did you notice the peculiar scent she uses?”

“Why, yes, now you speak of it. I seemed to catch a faint, spicy perfume, rather different from the usual French sort—more exotic. Not precisely a joss-stick odor, but approaching it.”

“That describes it. Well, I was the last to come up last night. Took my usual turn outdoors for deep-breathing exercise and to look at the weather prospects. When I had entered this room and closed the door I noticed distinctly that same Oriental aroma—faint and elusive, but fragrant.”

“You think that she had been in the room?”

“I'm sure of it,” Dodge said, and frowned. “Why?”

“There can be only one explanation, Mr. Dodge,” Marsh said. “She must have had a pressing reason for wanting to speak to you alone—if she did go into your room.”

“I don't think there's any doubt about that, Marsh. I'd already noticed that peculiar perfume, and I noticed it again when I went in and shut the door. Her room is farther down the hall, next to her father's. She and Cicely went up together, and she'd scarcely leave a scent merely going past. Smith-Curran and I finished our cigars after the others had retired; then he said good night and went upstairs.”

“Then you think she went first to her room, and after hearing her father enter his, she slipped out and went into yours?”

“It looks that way,” Dodge admitted reluctantly. “The odor I got was very faint, but my olfactory sense is keen and I don't think I could have been mistaken.”

“Then why didn't she wait for you?”

“I don't know. Perhaps she lost her nerve. She might have acted on impulse, then changed her mind about it.” Dodge stood for a moment with a look of extreme annoyance on his handsome high-bred face. “It's rotten to feel this way about a guest in my house, especially a woman guest, but there are the facts. And I've got a hunch that whatever the motive may have been, it had something to do with Barclay.”

“Why so, Mr. Dodge?”

“Well, Barclay's letter about these people was so warm; in the nature of an appeal that we show them particular kindness and hospitality. He didn't say so much about the girl, but dwelt on her father's distinguished military record—Boer War, Mesopotamia and at Gallipoli. He also said that they'd entertained him a lot at their place on the river. All that isn't like Barclay.”

Marsh nodded. He had once or twice heard somewhat guarded intimations that Barclay Dodge was rather less democratic in his social relations than some royalties—exclusive to the point of snobbery. This fervent recommendation of a hard-bitted British type like Smith-Curran and his uncommunicative daughter did not fit into the picture Marsh had formed of the heir to both the Van Varick and Dodge millions.

“What I'm rather dreading now,” Dodge went on, “is that Barclay may have got into some sort of a jam through gambling, and that this young woman knows about it and wants to intercede for him with me. That's all I can think of to account for her looking into my room.”

“She'd hardly choose such a time and place, would she?” Marsh objected.

“Not unless pressed for time, I should say. Maybe she's in love with the boy and is afraid that he may do something desperate. But that doesn't sound like Barclay either. After all, it is his own money, even if I am life trustee.”

“Why not ask her point-blank, Mr. Dodge? Tell her you noticed that she had stepped into your room just before you came up and would like to know what she wanted to speak to you about.”

“I've thought of that, but there's another thing to consider. What if she were to deny indignantly that she had done anything of the sort? That would put me in a nice position as host—to accuse a young woman guest of seeing fit to pay me a little call in my room after everybody had gone to bed.”

Marsh was unable to suppress a smile. Even Dodge gave a wry one, then began to pace up and down, snapping his fingers with vexation.

“If it hadn't been that I was entirely aware of this cursed failing of Barclay's, I'd have assigned him control of his inheritance long ago. But I've known his sort of gambler. It's a mental defect, a streak of irrationality that borders on a monomania; especially where the subject is entirely sane in all other respects, and doesn't drink or run after women and has actually a bigger income than he needs. So far as his fortune is concerned, and no matter what its amount, such a person is absolutely insecure—needs a conservator more even than a drunkard or profligate. You can never tell what might happen. Until I am convinced that Barclay is cured, and that will take some showing, I shall continue to safeguard his estate.”

“And in the event of your death, sir?” Marsh asked.

“In that case he gets control of it; his share from his mother, I mean. That amounts to something more than five millions, and according to the terms of the will the trusteeship ceases with my demise. Barclay's inheritance from me will continue to be held in trust.”

Marsh had listened to all this with a good deal of astonishment. He had never imagined that so uniformly correct a young man as Barclay Dodge was generally admitted to be possessed any such grave mental defect, for it was really nothing less. Nor anything more, for that matter, as it can scarcely be called a vice for a man to throw away, if he sees fit, what is legally his own.

But with his surprise at what he had just been told, Marsh felt also extremely complimented that Sherrill Dodge should have seen fit to honor him by this intimate confidence, as though talking to one of the family. The act aroused in Marsh an intense desire to be of service. And he was inclined to agree with his host that Iona Smith-Curran's indiscretion must have something to do with Barclay Dodge. Dodge now paused and stared at him with an expression of troubled perplexity.

“What do you think I'd better do? You're a clear-headed chap, Marsh. Otherwise you wouldn't have got where you are in so short a time. Would you cable Barclay, on the off chance? I might say 'Let me know precisely how things are with you,' or something of the sort. Perhaps a wire—'Just what are your obligations to the C-Smiths?'—might get something.”

Marsh shook his head.

“I don't know Barclay well enough to advise you about that, Mr. Dodge. But so far as concerns Miss Smith-Curran, I think I'd wait a bit. If she wanted to speak to you in private so pressingly as to come into your room when everybody had gone to bed, the chances are that she will manage to get you by yourself within the next few hours. You might help her out by making an opportunity—ask her to walk round the grounds, show her your garden, or tell her point-blank that as she saw Barclay so recently you want to hear as much of his news in detail as she can give you.”

“Well, Can't You Imagine a Person's Performing a Service Gratuitously, From a Disinterested Motive of Friendship?”

“Well, that's sound advice, I should say. This thing has upset me a bit. I thought of speaking to the bishop about it; but though John Starr is my best friend and the salt of the earth, he likes to build mountains out of molehills, and I can do that for myself. Just now, I'd rather have somebody reduce the mountain to the molehill dimensions—and prove it.”

Marsh smiled.

“That's what happens more often, sir.”

“So I've discovered. Most of our vague fears are bogies. Nine-tenths of the worry in this world is apprehension unjustified by facts. But John has one silly conceit—he fancies himself a brilliant detective, master of deduction, and all that. Sometimes it carries him away, and I've known him to make a good deal of a fool of himself. As a very wealthy churchman, he has got by with one or two things that would have landed another man in trouble. Well let's forget it for the moment.... What a gorgeous day!”

He step to the window and looked out. Marsh joined him. During the night the wind had hauled northwest and was now blowing « clear fresh gale, bundling along rounded masses of white cumulus cloud beneath which brown shadows raced across the Sound. It was, to honor an interpreter of such, what might be called a Maxfield Parrish day. The water alternated vivid patches of brilliant blue, flecked out in snowy splashes with areas that might have been mistaken for kelp-covered shoals, had they not been keeping pace with the massy flying clouds.

The sweep of lawn, well kept, of Bermuda grass rather than the fine English turf that requires not only centuries of care but drizzle for its velvet sheen, stretched from the path round the house to the low rocky edging to protect against inroads of wind and wave a tract that only fifty years before might have been appraised at one hundred dollars an acre, and now could not be purchased for one hundred times that price. Looking down, Marsh and his host perceived that the flock of starlings were still strutting about directly under the window. Dodge commented on them.

“Though a bird lover, I fail to see where that species contributes much to our good. They're not decorative and they don't sing, and I've an idea they preëmpt the premises of our native birds. Still, I suppose they may perform some service we don't know much about.... Shoo! Shoo!” He flung out his arms.

The flock took wing, flying to a big bowlder some hundred yards out on the lawn, around which a clump of rhododendron had been planted, this bordered by a zone of pansy bed. Then, glancing at where they had been, Marsh discovered four starlings that had not gone with the rest of the flock, but remained apparently crouching down. They were close to the house, only ten or fifteen feet out from the gravel path, and something in their drooping attitude caught and held his attention.

“Look at those four starlings down there, Mr. Dodge.”

His host, who had turned away from the window, glanced down again. Then he examined the birds more intently.

“That's curious. They look to be hurt, or sick.” He picked up a pair of binoculars that were on a stand by the window and focused on the wilted birds. “Why, bless my soul, those birds are dead!”

V

THE two men exchanged a glance of extreme surprise. Here was a large flock of starlings busily foraging on the lawn just under the window, and now when shooed away had flown off to leave four of its number dead. Such episodes do not happen in vigorous bird life. Dodge locked puzzled for a moment, then a flush of anger rose in his face.

“I've got it, Marsh. That confounded head gardener of mine has been disobeying orders. Those birds are poisoned.”

“Poisoned?”

“Yes; not purposely, so far as concerns the starlings, but poisoned none the less. We've been troubled a lot by cutworms in the vegetable and flower gardens. An exasperating pest that doesn't seem to have any reason or excuse for its mischief. Bores through the shoot of a plant and goes on its merry way without seeming to profit by the destruction. Sometimes you go out on the morning after a rain to see your finest dahlia sprouts ruined. We lost several that cost fifty dollars a bulb.”

“Don't blame the gardener for being sore,” Marsh said.

“He was raving. McGinty's a crusty old mick but an uncommon good gardener. He said he'd make a mixture of arsenic and flour and sift it into the surface soil where they work, and that would fix 'em. Or maybe it was corn meal. But I spoke to a neighbor about it that morning. He had suffered from the same pest, but he told me that McGinty's plan would fix the birds too; especially the robins and thrushes. We've got some vesper thrushes we wouldn't spare for any amount of plants, especially as there are plenty of the latter to go round, so I told McGinty not to use any poison destructive to birds. He got a bit stubborn, tried to tell me that the birds were a pest too. I called him down pretty sharply and said he would obey orders or get out. Now here's proof that he has disobeyed orders, so out he goes.”

Here, to Marsh, was a new aspect of the easy-going genial Sherrill Dodge. The face of his host was flushed with anger and there was a hard gleam in his clear blue eyes. Marsh had heard it said that for all his good humor Dodge was no lax disciplinarian, either in his business or domestic affairs. Certain persons, presuming on an invariable courtesy and kindliness, had discovered this fact to their cost. It struck Marsh now that the smooth and frictionless fashion in which ran the domestic service and that of the yacht might not be entirely due to respectful affection and esteem. Also that Barclay Dodge might have sound reasons besides those filial for keeping his one serious fault from his father's knowledge.

Dodge stepped to the head of his bed and pushed a button.

“I'll fire that disobedient Irishman here and now. My orders were unqualified, and I've got the goods on him. The starlings must have been feeding in the garden and when flushed flew over here. Will you go down and get those birds, Marsh?”

“Yes, sir.”

Marsh went out, and on his way to the spot where lay the little feathered victims of an offense not their own came on Cicely and Iona, the former with a flower basket and a pair of shears. He paused to greet them.

“We are going to get a few roses for the table and then we will have breakfast,” Cicely said. “Have you seen father about?”

“Just left him,” Marsh answered, “and he's in Jovian wrath.”

She looked puzzled.

“Mercy, what about? Another sleepless night? Or something in the paper?”

“Neither. Some Borgia or Medici on the premises has been at his sinister work.”

He checked himself to fling out a quick arm toward Iona, who appeared to have slipped. His prompt support saved her a possible fall.

“Snappy work, Marsh,” Cicely said. “I'm going to have these rugs on the stairs tacked down. They are worse traps than banana peels, because you're on the lookout for banana peels.... What's that stuff about Borgias and Medicis. Don't quite get you. Dad's got up with indigestion. I told him last night he oughtn't to wolf that relish.”

“A fatal indigestion,'” Marsh said, “but happily your father was not the victim. Four starlings paid the price.”

He looked at Iona, whom the shock of her slip on the stair-landing rug had left a little pale.

“Whatever are you driving at?” Cicely demanded. “Borgias and Medicis and four starlings—sounds a little barmy to me.”

“Well, it looks as if the head of your horticultural department had defied strict orders from headquarters not to spread cutworm poison, and the starlings beat the borers to it. There are four dead ones under your father's window on the lawn, and I'm on my way to collect the corpus delicti.”

“Oh dear”—Cicely looked distressed—“I remember father speaking about that. It means down and out goes 5old McGinty, and he's a treasure. We shall never get another gardener like him, and he has been with us seven years.”

“Let's hope Mr. Dodge may just bawl him out and send him back to work,” Marsh said.

Cicely shook her head.

“Dad never bawls servants out. He fires them out. You've quite a lot to learn about him, Marsh. The rest of us have learned it. When Barclay was a little kid of ten dad caught him shooting craps with one of the stable boys. The boy was discharged on the spot and dad told Barclay that if he did it again he would send him off to school. That happened, and as none of the big boarding schools in this country would take such a little boy, dad sent him to one in England—and he adores Barclay.”

This information furnished Marsh fresh food for thought, also suggested that he had better not stand there chattering but proceed on his errand. The two girls went out with him. Cicely shook her head sadly at sight of the birds, but Iona said nothing. She looked, Marsh thought, rather upset at this glimpse of rigid domestic discipline.

He picked up the dead birds, remarking, a little to his surprise, how quickly they had commenced to stiffen. Turning to Dodge's room, he found that disciplinarian seated at his desk, grimly writing a check—to the order of one McGinty, head gardener, Marsh correctly surmised. Dodge laid down his pen, blotted the check, then took the dead starlings from Marsh's hand and examined them.

“H'm—that's a bit odd.”

“Their stiffening so quickly, sir?”

“Why, yes. I don't know how long it takes rigor mortis to set in with a dead starling, but then they might have been there some time.” He laid the little corpses on the table and looked thoughtfully at Marsh. “If McGinty denies the charge shouldn't you say this evidence was strong enough to convict him?”

“It's purely circumstantial, sir. They might have flown here from some adjoining estate.”

He picked up one of the birds, and parting its feathers examined the body closely. There was no evidence of the slightest bruise.

“I've thought of that. But neither of my next neighbors uses the stuff. We discussed it one day on the train. And I scarcely think a poisoned bird could fly that far.”

There ran through Marsh's mind the regret Cicely had expressed at prospect of McGinty's dismissal, though it apparently had never occurred to her that any intercession of her own could avail. Another commentary on Dodge's inflexible administration of his affairs.

It was now in the hope of pleasing Cicely that Marsh observed, “I believe that arsenic is rather slow to act, sir. In the case of a bird, where the food stays in the crop for a while, it might be still slower.”

“That's so. All the same, I don't believe that anybody hereabouts is using the stuff. Everybody I've talked to had heard that it was destructive to bird life. Market gardeners wouldn't care a hang, but there are no market gardens near by.”

Marsh suggested a little diffidently, “Why not wait until you hear what McGinty says before dismissing him, Mr. Dodge? Of course, if he admits flat disobedience of orders there's nothing else to be done.”

Dodge frowned.

“I fully expect the old rascal to deny it. I wouldn't hesitate to trust McGinty with anything I require, unless it's the key to my prewar liquor. But he's the type that would lie out of a scrape from a sense of self-respect. It would shame him more to own up. More than that, he would lie to save somebody else he felt a friendliness for.”

“He seems a generous fault,” Marsh said.

“Yes, I suppose so; but I'm not much in sympathy with any sort of liar. My servants are highly paid and well treated, and I require absolute honesty from them. When my wife was living they were not instructed to say 'Mrs. Dodge is not at home' when she was in the house, but 'Mrs. Dodge is not receiving.' Callers had permission to be sore if they liked. This old Irishman lied to me two days ago, also about borers.” He smiled unwillingly.

“Oh, well,” said Marsh, “in that case ——”

“This wasn't a cutworm. It was what might be called a gun worm. I had plucked a prime hothouse melon on my way through the garden and set it on a bench to take to the house on my way back from the stable. When I came to pick it up I found two small round holes plumb through the middle of it. McGinty had been there all the time, and I called him over and asked how come. He scratched his grizzled old shillalah mat and said that they must have been made by a melon-boring worm, where it rests on the ground. 'How about an air-gun worm?' I asked, having seen my little scalawag of a grandson beating it across the lawn as I came from the stables. McGinty had the cheek to swear he hadn't seen the boy since breakfast time.”

The gardener, Marsh reflected, would be a man of heart if not of strict truthfulness. He was the more surprised that Dodge should see fit to mete him out such summary justice. It did not go with Marsh's previous estimate of his host. Well, Marsh had just learned a good deal that surprised him about the son, and now he was getting a corrected observation on the altitude of the father. He had never guessed at the flintiness of Dodge's composition. It was necessary to live with a person a little to know that one really, Marsh decided.

There came at this moment a rap at the door. “Come in,” Dodge called, and McGinty, the gardener, entered. The old fellow was far from being the tidy and superior sort of person one might expect to find the head gardener of a rich American or British estate, in which he differed distinctly from all other members of the Dodge personnel that Marsh had seen. McGinty, in fact, with his enormous stooped shoulders, bent middle and short thick legs that showed a bow even in his loose corduroy trousers, looked more like some toiler underground than on the surface of it, a gnome or troll.

Marsh also perceived immediately sufficient reason for Dodge's distrust of his veracity. McGinty's face, under a grizzled thatch of thick curly hair that grew down nearly to his grizzled eyebrows, was as full of crafty cunning as that of the gray old ape it suggested, creased with many lines and wrinkles that gave its expression a sort of humorous malice. Looking more closely, there was a good deal of wisdom in the slaty, restless eyes. One would have said that the gardener, in his close intimate touch with Nature, aid and servant and helper of fragile growing things, had listened to a great many of Nature's whispered secrets and noted them, watched fairies and pixies and other Nature spirits at their work and play, and was ally to them.

He tugged now at his forelock in an old-time respectful fashion, unbent a kink or two in a frame creased to fit his needs and waited for the master to speak. Then, as Dodge surveyed him thoughtfully and with some regret, for he had never known McGinty's like in the matter of professional skill, Marsh saw the gardener's eyes go to the dead starlings on the table. The gleam of recognition as to their significance was unmistakable, for McGinty's guile was not of the blank immobile Oriental sort. It would be rather in quick-witted and ready explanations, voluble instead of mute, and with an appeal to the drollery of his accuser. But Marsh knew that McGinty was entirely aware of the reason for his summons. So also did Dodge, intently watching the man's face.

He now said briefly, “I see you've guessed why I sent for you, McGinty.”

McGinty shook his head.

“Thin I do not, sor, 'less 'tis about thim burruds.”

“Right. You ought to have learned by this time that when I give a positive order to one of my employes I mean to have it obeyed.

McGinty's face puckered.

“Sure, 'twas not my fault, sor. And have I not always carried out the masther's orders to the letther?”

“Yes, I believe so, otherwise you wouldn't still be here. In this case there was no room at all for error. You remember that I distinctly forbade you to use any poison whatever in the vegetable or flower beds that could be destructive to birds.” He turned to his desk. “Since you have seen fit to disobey my orders the best I can do is to pay you up to the first and give you a better letter of recommendation than I feel that you deserve.”

Marsh, watching McGinty's face, was now puzzled to observe that its first expression was one of genuine surprise, as if the man had expected quite a different charge, and one that he had felt equal to answering. But this look vanished at the master's curt final words, gave place to one of startled dismay. The face presented was now that of a scared old ape.

“Holy saints, savin' your prisince, sor, but sure 'tis not mesilf has been afther puttin' down a dhrop of any sort of pizen! Not a grain, sor, as I hope to die in grace!”

Dodge wheeled, frowning.

“That will do, McGinty. Here's the proof. These birds were in a flock under my window half an hour ago. When I scared them away, these four stayed there, dead. My neighbors do not use the stuff for this very reason.”

“Sure now, Misther Dodge”—McGinty raised a trembling hand—“not wan dhrop av pizen have I bought or have I put down, be all that's holy!”

“Sorry I can't believe you, McGinty, but you've lied to me before—about my grandson, in the garden. You knew perfectly well that he had peppered that melon. You couldn't have helped but see him.”

“Oh, lave be, masther dear. 'Twas but a little bye's joke and no great harrum, and him such a rare shot. Could I tattle on the little felly, and ould McGinty his frind that tells him stories av the ould counthry and the little paypul? Sure he'd have held it harrud agin me. And the melon done no hurt.”

“I considered that, McGinty. But this is different; a direct infraction of orders positively given you by word of mouth from me. I'm sorry, but I have made it a fixed point never to tolerate that.”

“But I did not, sor!'” McGinty's voice rose almost to a squeal on the “not.” “Sure, if not belavin' me, and small wonder, sor, y'have only to look through the plants cut by the wurrums, bad cess til the bastes, and see can ye discover wan grain av pizen. Take some specimens of ear-ruth to the labaratory, sor. I am tellin' ye the truth, sor.”

Dodge looked puzzled. Just as at first McGinty's story had seemed to convict him, so now did his earnest voice carry the ring cf truth.

It was impossible for his master to disbelieve him. Marsh also was bewildered. He had been at first so sure of the gardener's guilt, and now believed him to be telling the truth.

“Then what the devil did kill those birds?” Dodge demanded.

McGinty's face puckered into fine lines. He shook his head. Dodge reached suddenly for the check on his table and shoved it into a pigeonhole.

“Very well, McGinty, then I'll take your word for it.” He stared at the man with a perplexed frown. “What made you look so knowing, though, when you first caught sight of these birds?”

McGinty gave a little cough.

“Sure I was thinkin' y' had changed yer moind about thim trashy burruds, sor, and was be way of givin' me orhders to be killin' 'em off. They are no good, and dhirty the lawns and terrace, and do be dhrivin' off the song burruds. At laste, so it seems to me, sor.”

Dodge nodded moodily. McGinty, Marsh thought, whether honestly or not, had established an alibi for that first incriminating glance.

“That's all, McGinty,” Dodge said, and when the curious type had tugged again at his forelock and gone out, turned to Marsh with a baffled look. “Damn it, then what did kill those beastly birds?”

Marsh did not immediately answer. Standing by the window, he was staring down at Iona. She was standing on the lawn, where the starlings had been, stooping slightly as if to look for something in the close-cropped turf. He turned now to his host.

“Search me, sir.”

“What's the matter? You look rather badly, sort of green around the gills. You looked like that yesterday after your swim.” His voice was solicitous, kindly. “Aren't you feeling well?”

“I've been a little ragged for the last few weeks. Silly-acting heart. My doctor says it's merely functional. Nothing to bother about.”

“And here I've been keeping you from your breakfast.”

“No hurry about that, Mr. Dodge.”

Marsh walked to the window and looked out. Cicely, over by the big bowlder, was pinching off pansies and laying them in her basket. Iona stooped down, reached for something on the ground, then straightened up again and called to Cicely, “Found a four-leaf clover.”

“Good luck,” Cicely called back.

Dodge, hearing their voices, stepped to the window.

“Better come in and give Marsh some breakfast, Cicely.”

“Coming, daddy dear.” She blew him a kiss.

“Don't wait for me, Marsh,” Dodge said. “I think I'll forgo the golf match and run into town. What that old scamp said about having the earth analyzed has given me an idea.”

“You're going to take a specimen to the laboratory?”

“No. After telling McGinty that I'd accept his word, it would hardly do for me to appear trying to prove him a liar. Besides, I believe he was telling the truth. But I should like to know if anybody else is spreading cutworm poison. I'm going to have the crops and gizzards of these birds analyzed for arsenic, just to satisfy my mind. Besides, there are some other errands I ought to do.”

“Are you going in the car, sir?”

“Yes; and it occurs to me that I might ask Miss Smith-Curran to ride in with me. I'll take the limousine and that will give me a chance to talk to her about Barclay. I can't help but wonder if there's anything between them. She's not at all the sort I'd expect my boy to fall for, but you never can tell. And after all, she's got something besides the mere beauty props. I didn't quite get it at first, but she unquestionably has.”

Marsh revisualized Iona at the wheel of the Trilby, then later in her swimming suit. He nodded.

“Yes, she's quite a lot in reserve,” he muttered. “Then I'll go down.”

VI

THE Dodge fashion of entertaining was like that of a British country house, the breakfast hour being elastic; and unless some special diversion offered itself guests were left to their own resources and those of the establishment during the forenoon.

Iona was pleased to accept the invitation of her host and the two left for town immediately after breakfast. The bishop was up and stirring, but neither Mrs. Aussy or the senator, nor Major Smith-Curran or Captain Peuplier had come down.

Cicely, Marsh perceived, had decided to discard her vexation of the day before. The reason for this became apparent when a little later, as they strolled out on the lawn, Marsh described humorously the summary court-martial of McGinty.

“It was dear of you to stick up for the old scalawag, Marsh, pointing out to father that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and that the birds might have got the poison somewhere else. Daddy always gives a square deal and the benefit of any doubt.”

“It was a surprise to me,” Marsh said. “His rigid discipline, I mean.”

“Yes, not many people get that side of him. We know it in the family though. I'll say I inherit a slice of it myself. Yesterday I had you all tried and convicted of bad manners and worse taste when you came paddling alongside with Iona.”

“Why the present clemency?” Marsh asked.

“Well, it struck me later that perhaps you really couldn't hold the pace I set. That big idea never occurred to me at the time. Even though you've never beaten me to anything in the water, I've always had a sneaking notion that you could forge past me like a launch past a rowboat if you liked. So this morning I asked Iona if you had seemed fagged when she caught you up. She said that for a moment or two you were all in. I'm sorry, Marsh.”

“Oh, it's all right, Cicely. I'm glad you understand though. Ordinarily I might have made the grade. But I'm in poor training just now and my motor began to miss. It was my own fault for not singing out.”

“No, mine for jumping at conclusions like daddy with his starlings. Cocksureness is a family fault. Daddy with his executive ideas and Lili—Mrs. Williams—in believing that little imp of a Dodge may sprout wings any moment and fly off to heaven, and Barclay believing when he holds four kings and a pair of deuces there's no authentic record of their ever having been beaten. My own trouble is apt to be a chip on my shoulder, because I've never yet been handed a real wallop, I suppose.”

“Let's hope you never will be,” Marsh said, and paused to study the turf at his feet. He had guided their random steps to where the starlings had been.

“What are you looking for?” Cicely asked.

“A four-leafed clover.”

Cicely glanced down.

“But there's no clover here. It doesn't grow in this Bermuda grass.”

“Isn't this about where Iona found hers, just before your father called to you to take me in and feed me?”

“Well, it couldn't have been here, because there's no clover of any sort, as you can plainly see. There's a little patch, though, back where we came out of the house. She must have found it there. I'm beginning to like her better, Marsh. This morning she was really human. Yesterday she struck me as pure kitty-cat, the jungle sort. Hope she doesn't vamp dad though. It's a bête noire of mine that at any moment some woman may.”

“Don't call up trouble, Cicely. It's the only thing on the line you're sure to get the right number for.”

Cicely stared at him in dismay.

“Are you trying to make me cry out loud, Marsh? You don't think——”

“I don't think your dear dad's in any danger.”

“Who then—Barclay? We should worry, Marsh. Between you and me and that big rock my big brother is just a bit of a snob. Besides, he's between the dangerous ages. Dad's sitting on the meridian of his.”

“And where am I?” Marsh asked.

“I'm not so sure.” She slanted her pretty head at him critically. “I'd say your dangerous age had been sidetracked to let the working train go through. Sort of arrested development romance. I don't believe you've ever taken even a correspondence course in a sentimental education.”

“That's true enough. On what do you base your theory?”

“On what you've accomplished mostly. That wouldn't leave time for philandering, sincere or insincere. But now that you're sitting pretty on the highroad to success. You'll have to watch out. Some bob-haired bandit is sure to hold you up.”

Marsh shook his head.

“No, I insist on my full quota of girl—all the accessories, including hair.”

He glanced at Cicely's heavy coils of new manila coiffed snugly about tar head—an early Dutch inheritance, perhaps, and one that went strikingly with the Dodge gray eyes with their black lambrequins.

Cicely laughed.

“Well then, when you start in to sum up your specifications, don't do it on the deck of a yacht in earshot of three philosophizing phonographs and a six-tube radio tuned in. If you'd had that correspondence course you'd have known, to start with, you couldn't laugh off that big noise.”

“But where did you take lessons?” Marsh asked.

“I've had a series of tutors—old, young and even married. In that last handicap class they offer to divorce their wives. What do you know about that?”

“Kind of them to go to all that trouble,” Marsh said, “when they might just carry on, hoping that Nature would take its course. But I suppose they foresee possible interference with a clause they interpret—and with all thy worldly goods I me endow.”

Cicely laughed.

“We're living in a comic-supplement world, Marsh, when it isn't the crime-wave sort. A Jack-Horner-pie world. Put in your thumb and pull out a plum fool and say what a bad girl am I.”

“For a girl in your position, Cicely, the comic part must be what these birds want to exchange for what they try to get.”

“Yes, that's funny. But all the same, there's such a thing as taking stock of your assets in terms of dollars and stopping there. That has its silly side too.”

“Well, a man sees so much of the other stuff that it makes him disgusted, and wary about getting tagged in the same class.” And he added imprudently, “Especially after he's been handed a jolt.”

“What sort of a jolt?”

Marsh quoted from Alice in Wonderland: “'I'll be judge, I'll be jury,” said cunning old Fury. 'I'll try the whole case and condemn you to death.”'”

“What are you driving at, Marsh?”

“The way you jumped at a wrong conclusion yesterday. You had me all wrong. I was sinking for the first and last time when Iona came along. She held me up until the old circulating pump got going again. I hadn't meant to wait for her.”

“Who said you had?”

“You don't always have to spell it out. I'd have told you then and there if Iona hadn't made me promise not to. Then she let me off that, but advised me not to.”

“But why?” Cicely demanded.

“She gave several reasons—that it wasn't worth making a fuss about and that she would prefer not to be bothered with kind words from anybody, myself included, when she had run no more risk in my rescue than if she'd been standing on the bank and fished me out with a pole. All the same, I can't ignore the fact that if it had not been for her, I'd be a water baby now.”

“What seemed to be the trouble?” Cicely's tone was indifferent, but there was an evenness to it that should have warned Marsh. “We've often hit up the pace for three times that distance in Florida, and you swam in from the yacht at a good clip.”

Marsh, having been let off his promise to Iona, now went ahead regardless of Iona's warning, blind to the storm signals flying in Cicely's face.

“It was a heart spasm. Been having them for the past few weeks. The doctor says it's only functional and will pass if I cut down coffee and smokes and take regular exercise. But yesterday it got me in a soft spot; everything went black.”

“Why didn't you call out to me?”

“I didn't want to risk dragging you down. A man might grab as he loses consciousness, just as he would struggle when going under anesthesia.”

“How interesting!” Cicely's voice suddenly reminded Marsh of her father's when Dodge had first discovered the dead starlings. “Couldn't you give me credit for being as strong a swimmer as Iona?”

“I didn't call to her. She saw my fix and swung onto me. Somehow I didn't seem to care whether she went down with me or not.”

“Oh, really? Then I take it that when it comes to the rough stuff, the great adventure, I don't make the grade. I'm all right to swim along in this world with, but you would prefer to step off it with Iona.”

“Oh, be yourself, Cicely. How would I look to all the sports across the Styx if I'd swum out and drowned the daughter of a friend and host I owe as much to as I do to your father? It isn't done.”

“Really? How noble! So it was manly pride and duty to your host. Screen imprint: 'Rather than draw to destruction the daughter of the man who has so befriended him, Marsh sinks without a cry for help.' Loud applause from the mezzanine.”

Marsh's temper slipped a cog.

“Iona was right.”

“How, right?”

“She warned me to keep my mouth shut. She said you would be more peeved at knowing that she had saved my life than at thinking I had waited for her.”

“Oh, did she? Well, guest or no guest, Iona is a cat, the original sea puss; and you seem to have got caught in the undertow all right. That girl was just waiting for a chance to start something, and she grabbed it off.”

“Why should she have wanted to do that?”

“How do I know? What is she here for anyhow? All she does is to sulk. Perhaps she needs a backer for her little game, and now she's gone and got a lien on you.”

“I'll say she has,” Marsh declared imprudently. “Any court of admiralty would admit her salvage claim. Vessel broken down and foundering and nobody aboard.”

“You've only said the half of it.” Cicely's anger mounted as Marsh fed its flames. “'No assistance asked from a vessel of the same line.' That's the part that gets my goat. You knew that I swim like a seal, and you didn't know what Iona might have in her box of tricks. You make me tired, Marsh.”

Marsh felt tired too. Here was what came of not keeping his mouth shut, of not leaving well enough alone; Cicely choosing to put her own wrong interpretation on the affair, just as her father had done with McGinty; the same self-willed autocratic finding of a case that chose to ignore the defense. But Marsh was no barrel-chested, bandy-legged old grubber of the soil, afraid of losing a life job that was entirely to his taste. If this was a sample of the sort of thing he might expect throughout the course of a life partnership with Cicely, then he could do without.

He now regretted having lost his temper, less because it had made things worse than because his going into details had been such a foolish and unnecessary bid for trouble, not only for himself but for Iona. Why couldn't he have been content to let the case rest with what Cicely had told him about Iona's remark to her that he had been all in when she had overtaken him on her way to the yacht? Cicely had said that she was sorry. And like a fool he had stirred up this mare's-nest, antagonized Cicely against this girl who, when all was said and done, had saved his life and asked no credit for it.

Well, at least there was no good in going on with it, Marsh decided. Cicely, he thought, was after all fair-minded when not exasperated and after a little cool reflection would probably get the right slant on the business.

So, after a moment's silence, Marsh said quietly, “Let's drop this stuff for something more important, Cicely. Before breakfast your father paid me the compliment to tell quite a lot that I never knew about Barclay. He's worried about him.”

Cicely hesitated for a moment, evidently not pleased at this shifting of the wind, then asked irritably, “Well, what's worrying him now?”

“The same old thing, I imagine. He's afraid that Barclay has been gambling again.”

“What's put that in his head?”

“Your brother's urgent letter that you show hospitality to the Smith-Currans. Your father seems to think they're not the sort of people Barclay would be apt to sponsor unless they had some sort of claim on him.”

“Well, I'd thought of that myself. It's rotten bad form to knock guests, I suppose, but they certainly don't strike me as being our sort—or Barclay's sort. So that's why dad asked Iona to ride into town with him?”

“Partly. To give her a chance to get anything off her mind that might be weighing on it.”

“I see. At least it's a relief to know he didn't ask her for the sake of having a tête-à-tête. I've been wondering myself if they mightn't have some sort of edge on Barclay.”

“What your father seemed to think was that Iona might want to play mediator in some way. He had reason to think she was looking or a chance for a private talk with him.”

“What sort of reason?”

“I didn't ask him,” Marsh answered truthfully. Even without their previous stormy passage, he would not have told anybody about Iona's suspected entrance to Dodge's room. “But he reasoned that if this was so, then whatever Iona might want to say was probably about Barclay. So he made her this opportunity.”

“Dad always has Barclay on his mind,” Cicely said. “Lately it's been worse. Vague rumors, I should say. That's what's been giving him insomnia. The trouble is that dad's official purse holder of Barclay's own inherited fortune, and it's likely that Barclay has a chronic sore spot at having his big heap held out on him, as if he were a rum or dope or girl hound, which he is anything but. Dad claims that from the money angle gambling is worse, and I shouldn't wonder but what he's right. Barclay has proved himself such a rotten poor gambler.”

There came just now as a diversion in the sort of armistice that was patching itself up, a little boy, walking toward them across the lawn from the direction of the garden. This was the only Dodge grandchild, the sauveur de race, as the French aptly express it, Dodge Van Varick Williams, a formidable triad of family surnames with which to saddle an urchin. Perhaps the virtues therein represented did not mix, were as oil and water, or perhaps sulphuric acid and water, as no person but his mother had so far been able to discover any distinguished virtue in their small bearer.

The child had been presented to Marsh with the other guests the afternoon of his arrival, but the occasion had left Marsh unimpressed. Dodge Van Varick Williams, in the throes of a briefly transient spotlessness it had taken time and the infinite patience of a mother to achieve, made the audience snappy. He passed from hand to hand like a bean bag, just as limp. Sulks at the ordeal rather than modesty kept his face down, so that Marsh had not observed its real boyish charm,

He got it now, however, as Dodge Van V. Williams came up blithely and of free accord, holding his inseparable air gun, which was of a type and model new to Marsh, more of a real repeating rifle than a toy one. The boy's greeting was eager and to the point. “Hello Aunt Cis. Has grandfather gone to town?”

“Yes, Doddy.”

“Gee, then that's all right!”

“What's all right?”

“McGinty tipped me off to steer clear of him when I had my gun.”

Marsh thought of the melon episode. He asked to see the gun. Dodge, or Doddy, as the family call him, gave the young man a keen look, then decided to take a chance. Guests were creatures not endowed with authority. Marsh, glancing down at the boy's face, thought that he had never seen a child so charged with elfin mischief. He discovered also a quality of manliness that may so far have escaped his tried aunt and grandfather.

“You a good shot?” Doddy asked.

“Fair.”

“Bet I can beat you. For a nickel. That's all I got.

“You're on, Doddy.” He glanced at Cicely. “Barclay's not the only one.”

“Uncle Barclay's rotten,” Doddy said, “Wish he was here, though. I'd have more money.”

Even Cicely had to smile.

“What shall we shoot at?” Marsh asked.

“Apples—over here on this tree.” He glanced at Cicely. “Only the wormy nubbins, Aunt Cis. McGinty says they ought to be stripped off.”

They walked over to a big old apple tree that was sparsely hung with green fruit. Doddy loaded the gun and handed it to Marsh.

“Let's have five shots each. Cent a shot. It costs you a cent to miss, I mean.”

“Right! Does she shoot true?”

“The gun does. It's up to you.”

Like most men whose profession entails the precise use of hand implements draftsmen, surgeons, engravers, wood-carvers and the like—Marsh was trained to coördination of hand and eye, good at target shooting, billiards, golf. It was as easy for him to score a bull's-eye as for the expert navigator to catch the sun on his horizon glass where the novice tries in vain. Sighting quickly at an apple the size of a terrapin egg near the end of a topmost bough, he pressed the trigger. Unlike most air rifles, there was a distinct if muffled report, caused perhaps by a much higher pressure than the usual one. It sounded like a target rifle equipped with a silencer. The apple was split.

Doddy's keen eyes noted Marsh's expression of surprise and misinterpreted it.

“Lucky bum,” he murmured politely.

“Maybe so. We shall see. I never thought these toys shot true.”

“This one does.” Doddy snapped the lever and raised his rifle. “The next nubbin,” he said.

There came another report, like the sharp blow-out of a bicycle tire tube, and half the apple flicked into the air. This time Marsh was even more surprised.

“You're a lucky bum too.”

“Maybe so. We will see.” Doddy gave him an impish grin. “Your turn.”

“The one on the limb beneath.” Another apple destined never to ripen. Doddy looked thoughtful. “Say, maybe you can shoot, after all.”

“Maybe. Your turn.”

Ten small nubbins were garnered without a miss. Marsh was astonished. He would not have believed that so young a boy could shoot like that or be so steady under the strain of competition. Even Cicely seemed impressed. Doddy's manner underwent a change.

“I guess you were a sharpshooter in the war, Mr.——”

“Mr. McQuentin,” Cicely prompted, and to her gratification Doddy repeated, “Mr. McQuentin,” giving this expert his due.

“No, I helped build ships.”

“Well, anyhow, you can sure shoot. Any time you want to use my gun——”

“Thanks, Doddy. But take a tip from me, old scout, and lay off melons. Otherwise you might get yourself caught up in the disarmament stuff.”

“Sure. I know. We'd shoot some more, only my ammernition's gettin' low. I want to go down to the shore and see if I can get a shot at a teeter snipe. So long, Mr Quentin.”

Ignoring Aunt Cis, he trotted off. Marsh, looked after him thoughtfully.

“That boy's got personality.”

“Yes, at the cost of manners. I've stopped suggesting that he be taught those. Lili goes up in the air. She thinks him perfect. Now I wonder if he's going to be another Barclay.”

“No fear. That boy won't always lose. He has sure made a hit with me.”

“Then it's mutual, I'll say. You seem to understand boys.” She glanced at him more gently. “You've made a hit with him. He was more surprised than he showed, but I really think he was glad you didn't miss.”

“A good little sport,” Marsh said. “He gets under my ribs. A lonely little rich boy.”

“Yes, I think he is. But incorrigible, disobedient.... I shouldn't care to fight a duel with you, Marsh.”

“Then don't try to start anything, Cicely.“”

She opened her eyes wider at this.

“Who's starting it now? Look here, Mr. Man, let's do as you did with Doddy and call it a draw. And if we can't laugh it off, then let's try to ride it off. Can you ride as well as shoot?”

“I manage to stick on.”

“Then I'll order the horses. Brought riding things?”

“Yes; everything but skates.”

“Well, I'll tell them to saddle the skates. Let's go!”

VII

MARSH returned from his ride with Cicely in a fuming state of mind. All might have gone well if Cicely had been able to keep off the Smith-Currans, the object of their visit and what might be Iona's object in desiring a private interview with Dodge. Then a quarrel was nearly precipitated by Cicely's expressed opinion that unless Iona had some hold on Barclay she would scarcely bother to interest herself in his affairs.

Marsh lost patience, as is apt to happen on returning to a disagreeable topic, once it has been set aside by mutual consent.

“See here, Cicely, you said a while ago that your father was always ready to give a person the benefit of the doubt. Can't you do the same?”

She stiffened in her saddle.

“Yes, I think so, when there seems to be a reasonable doubt.”

“Well, can't you imagine a person's performing a service gratuitously, from a disinterested motive of friendship?”

“I'm afraid I'm not very imaginative. But just what do you mean? Why should she want to holler before anybody's hurt?”

“It might be something that was hushed up so far, but bound sooner or later to reach our father's ears. Iona, out of friendship for Barclay, might want to discount what is coming later by giving him Barclay's side of it, or something in the way of extenuating circumstances.”

“Well, I'll say that if Barclay's got a champion in her, then she's certainly got one in you. But then, of course, she saved your young life.”

Marsh swallowed his rising wrath.

“She certainly did. But that's not why I'm sticking up for her. It's mere common decency. Call it esprit de corps between fellow guests.”

“Why not esprit de cœur—for a pretty feminine guest?”

This, Marsh thought, was going too far.

“Meaning that I've lost heart to her? You ought to be ashamed. Now let's drop it and leave it dropped. Please talk about something else.”

Cicely complied with half this by dropping it and talking not at all. They rode fast, returning with their horses in a lather, even on that cool clear day. Marsh went up feeling half inclined to change into town clothes, pack his luggage and take his leave, offering his apologies to Mrs. Williams on the perfectly frank statement that Cicely and he had fallen out, and that for him to remain longer would, he feared, be unpleasant for them both. Such a measure, he opined, though a little raw, would yet find some sympathy with Mrs. Williams, as he had gathered that clashes between the sisters were not entirely unknown.

But his consideration for Dodge prevented Marsh from taking this radical course. His kindly host would be distressed, blame Cicely, who no doubt would be furious. Marsh could never have suspected the girl of so much temperament. In some perverse way it whetted an interest in her that had previously been mostly for her general attractiveness.

Dodge had telephoned from town to say that they would return for luncheon at half past one, which he suggested be served aboard the yacht, so that if the others so desired they might cross the Sound to take in a part of the golf match at Syosset. This accordingly was done.

Marsh observed that his host looked harassed but asked no questions.

“Tell you all about it later,” Dodge said to him as he came aboard and went below, the others having already gone ahead. Iona, Marsh decided, looked her habitual cool indifferent self, unflustered by whatever had passed, uninspired as to any effort that may have been incumbent on her to contribute to the party's cheer.

At luncheon Dodge gave Marsh the impression of a man who is an awkward actor trying courageously to play the rôle of cheerful entertaining host when his nerves are strained to the point of snapping through some consuming anxiety. Temperamentally Dodge was unfitted for the part, and the result was a sort of spasmodic gayety that alternated with relapses into moments of brief but somber preoccupation. Marsh was aware also that the bishop was conscious of something very wrong in the mind of his old friend, and that the kindly prelate was employing all his tact and savoir-faire to cover any lapses that might have been perceptible, and with success.

The Trilby had been started under power as her owner came over the side, so that they would arrive at their destination on Long Island, Cold Spring, about the time luncheon was over. Dodge had sent his car down there to meet them, he and Iona returning on the one o'clock express. Then, as the yacht came to anchor, he asked to be excused on the plea of fatigue and a headache that might be augmented by any jarring motion. He would do better to remain aboard, he said, and try to take a nap.

As Marsh had expected, the bishop then said that he also would prefer to stop aboard the yacht and take advantage of an opportunity to get off some letters that were in arrears. Mrs. Williams and her little boy had not accompanied the party, so that there were left to go ashore Senator and Mrs. Aussy, Cicely, acting hostess, Captain Peuplier, Iona and her father and Marsh. The seven with the chauffeur would fill the car.

The afternoon was passed as might have been expected and the party returned to find their host apparently restored to his even-tenored self. Evidently the bishop's counsel had done him good, Marsh thought. But the churchman had drawn on his own nervous energy in aid of his friend, so that he in his turn now looked a little fagged. Marsh decided that the affair was more serious even than Dodge had feared.

They dined on their way back, and on arriving made by mutual desire a short evening of it, everybody expressing a readiness for bed after that form of exercise far more fatiguing than active participation in the sport, which is walking and standing at considerable intervals as spectator of it. Marsh lingered, anticipating that his host would have something to tell him about the result of his errand to town after having previously confided in him.

This proved to be the fact, as after all but Dodge, the bishop and Marsh had retired Dodge said briefly, “Let's go into my lair. I've got the habit of taking my problems there.”

The lair, Dodge's private study, or house office, was a medium-size room at the extremity of a wing built out to flank the rear of the big house, if such a building can be said to have a rear. It was on the ground floor, with long French-window doors that opened directly onto a low terrace paved in large square green tiles. Dodge had said that when concentrating he preferred that his thoughts be not abstracted by such escape as was offered in a view of the water and a yacht on which he might be tempted at any moment to flee dull care.

Access to the lair was had through the dining and billiard rooms, or directly from the terrace. It was handsomely if heavily furnished in Empire pieces, with two or three big leather-upholstered chairs of the club sort. A strong modern safe was built into the wall, hidden by a sliding panel in the oak wainscoting. Some fine prints of celebrated yacht races were on the walls.

As the three now seated themselves Dodge lighted a cigar, then said briefly, “I've told Bishop Starr the whole story, Marsh; all that we discussed this morning and what has happened since. It's even more serious than I had feared.”

The bishop gave Marsh a look that puzzled him a little. It seemed to say, “Though I fail to see just where you come in on this, still, now that you have we might as well have your views.” It was not a look of confidence, and Marsh subconsciously resented it. He felt that the prelate was by way of being jealous of him.

Dodge continued: “I was right about Miss Smith-Curran. She had been in my room, but not alone. She went in to persuade her father, who was waiting there to speak to me when I came up, that his choice of time and place for an interview was badly chosen.”

“The man's a fool, or worse,” said the bishop harshly. “I use 'fool' in the early Anglican sense of the word, which implies roguery. That is also the Biblical interpretation.”

“What he wanted to tell me, under the guise of a friendship for Barclay that may or may not be sincere, is that my boy has got himself into the worst gambling scrape in his unfortunate record,” Dodge continued, with a tinge of impatience that might have been partly at the interruption. “A week before the Smith-Currans sailed Barclay lost twelve thousand pounds at baccarat in one of the swagger London night clubs to a well-known British ex-army man, whose name Smith-Curran prefers for the moment not to furnish me with.”

“Why not, sir?” Marsh asked.

“Because the incident is closed. Barclay has paid the debt. But the affair has been noised about so that, as Iona Smith-Curran told me this morning, it can only be a question of time before it reaches my ears. Her alleged reason for telling me herself is that when Barclay came to wish her bon voyage he was in a state of nervous depression that seemed to border on collapse, and she and her father feared that unless I took some immediate action he may do something desperate.”

“Rot!” croaked the bishop.

“Please don't interrupt, John. Iona insisted that Barclay's mental distress was due to his dread of my anger and the action I might take when I learned of this affair, which might be at any hour. She says that his whole ambition is for a brilliant diplomatic career, and that he told her that he would not want to live any longer if this were now to be blighted by me as the result of his own damned foolishness. His words, John, not mine.”

“Words that are less profane than exact, Sherrill.”

“Iona, who by the way now impresses me as truthful and a sincere friend of Barclay's, whatever her father may be, began by exacting my promise that I should take no action of a corrective sort in what she was about to tell me until I had seen and talked to Barclay himself.”

“Clever young woman,” said the bishop ambiguously.

“Yes, and I believe an honest one,” Dodge retorted. “I could see that she was profoundly and sincerely worried about him. So also, she assured me, was her father; but of Smith-Curran I am not so sure. She feared that Barclay, who never drinks, had been taking some hypnotic, whether harmless or dangerous. Bromides or an opiate. She said he was in a pitiful and alarming state, down to the bottom of things. She begged me to do something immediately, and I did. I cabled him one hundred thousand dollars and a message that read:

“'Have learned of your obligation. Am cabling you amount to cover it. Desire you to settle account, then request immediate leave and come over by first ship possible. This need not interfere with your future plans and ambitions on your personal assurance to me that there be no future possibility of same in any degree. Good cheer.

“'Father.'”

Marsh sprang up in his chair.

“Bully for you, sir,” he exploded.

Dodge looked at him somberly.

“Well, after all, he's my only son. And I am trustee of his fortune. But what's bothering me is this: How did Barclay manage to pay that debt? A letter written by him only two days before it was incurred told me that he was nearly flat, and begged for an advance. Where did he raise twelve thousand pounds in a few hours? Who would indorse the note of a young man dependent on what his father sees fit to allow him, even if said young man were known to be due some day to inherit millions? He might die before that day arrived. The most rapacious usurer wouldn't look at such a loan, nor would any close friend, bound to be aware of Barclay's failing, consider it; especially as any such would know also that his father would square it when it came to a pinch.” Dodge's voice broke. “John—Marsh, if I thought——”

“Mr. Dodge,” Marsh interrupted, “may I speak?”

“Well?”

“Stop right there, sir. Hold yourself in hand. I think Bishop Starr and I know what's in your mind, but don't say it. Wait until you see Barclay. Meantime, hope for the best.”

Dodge leaned forward toward his desk, dropped his elbows on its polished surface and buried his face in his hands. Marsh knew what was in his mind—embassy funds. He looked at the bishop, whose luminous eyes, habitually benignant, glared back at him. Sheer jealousy, Marsh decided.

Regardless of the bishop's intolerant glare, possibly goaded by it, Marsh clinched the nail he had driven through the batten he had clapped over Dodge's mouth.

“Let this unfortunate affair rest where it is, sir, for the moment. What about those dead starlings? Did the analysis show arsenic?”

The effect of this diversion was astonishing to Marsh; especially the effect of it on the bishop. The harsh lines of censure were instantly transformed into others, equally hard, but of different character; a sort of stern approval. There seemed even to be a sudden gleam of admiration in the fine eyes of the churchman. But, the next second a cloud of doubt shrouded the eagerness of his expression. He leaned toward Marsh.

“Why do you ask that, young man?”

“Let Mr. Dodge answer my question, sir. At least its object is not merely to change the topic.”

“My word, McQuentin, but you keep your eye on the ball!”

Marsh ignored the remark. Patronage, at this moment, was as distasteful to him as any effort at suppression.

“How about the starlings, Mr. Dodge?” he repeated.

Dodge raised his haggard face.

“The result of the examination was negative. Neither arsenic nor strychnine was discovered.” He gave Marsh a dull but puzzled look. “Now why do you and John both want to know about those confounded birds—bother me about a matter of no importance when I'm in such a beastly state of mind about my son? If it's merely to distract it, then all I can say is that it's no earthly use. What do I care what killed the birds, or when or why?”

“Quite so.” The bishop's voice was dry. “It might have been a Hertzian wave, like the theory of that incident reported in the papers some time ago, where several of a flock of blackbirds were seen to fall to the ground dead while in full flight. Why do you ask about the starlings, McQuentin? Why bother Mr. Dodge about them now?”

Marsh did not answer. Dodge roused himself.

“Oh, well, I suppose where one is not intimately concerned a mystery is more interesting than a lamentable fact, even if it threatens to be a tragic fact. I haven't yet heard from Barclay. But since you want to know about the starlings, Marsh, that's all—nothing.”

“Did they analyze for anything besides arsenic and strychnia?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Where are the birds now?”

“What a——” Dodge checked a burst of impatience. “How do I know? Destroyed, I suppose. Do you think I want to have them mounted?” He stared in angry perplexity from Marsh to the bishop. “Now why should you two have switched right off what's horribly important to ask the same fool questions? You this afternoon, John, and now Marsh. What have you got on your minds?”

he bishop looked grimly at Marsh.

“The same thing, I should say. And it's all of a piece with this business about Barclay, eh, Marsh?”—the first time the bishop had called him by his Christian name.

Marsh, a little pale, muttered, “'Fraid so, sir. But it's mighty wild——”

“Nothing of the sort,” snapped the bishop. “Bizarre, perhaps. Grotesque, incredibly sinister and all that sort of thing, but directly in the line of logical deduction. You have astonished me a good deal, Marsh, on two counts. Even if I had given you credit for the astuteness necessary to follow this singular chain of evidence, I would have been in some fear that you might see fit to suppress your suspicions, through—eh—a personal motive.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Did not Miss Smith-Curran render you a very tremendous service yesterday—save you from drowning, to be exact?”

“So Cicely told you,” Marsh said angrily.

“Cicely did nothing of the sort. I was eyewitness to the incident.”

“The deuce——” Marsh bit his lip in time to check the unbecoming “you were.”

The bishop frowned. He insisted always on the veneration due his cloth. Marsh's slip annoyed him. Then, perceiving that Marsh at this moment did not seem to care a tinker's or other dam whether he were annoyed or not, the bishop let it pass. Dodge, for his part, was looking from one to the other in a sort of daze.

“Yesterday, on coming ashore after our sail, I went to my room and lay down on my window seat to rest a little,” said the bishop. “I saw you bathers go down, and when you and Cicely started to swim off to the yacht I became anxious. The water was rough and it seemed imprudent, too far. Swimming fatalities occur to the strongest, and from reasons other than cramp—fatigue of the heart due to effort or circulatory disturbance. I watched you through a pair of binoculars and saw presently that you were in obvious distress. I was on the point of rushing down to give the alarm when I saw Miss Smith-Curran going to your rescue. Am I not right?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Then if our present logical deduction is soundly based, you might possibly feel under a certain obligation to suppress the advancement of it.” He leaned forward, eying Marsh intently. “Do you?”

Marsh met his gaze squarely, though with some slight effort.

“I do not value my life to such a degree, sir. The saving of it is certainly not worth my silence in regard to any sinister attack on that of Mr. Dodge.”

The bishop leaned forward and clapped him on the shoulder,

“Right, my boy; infinitely, splendidly right. I am tremendously relieved.”

Dodge, who had been listening perplexed, now roused himself.

“Will you tell me what the dickens all this is about,” he demanded, “and what bearing it has on Barclay?”

“Then listen, Sherrill. Prepare yourself for a shock. Here are the links in this singular chain of evidence. Last night you went to your room after everybody had retired. You detect the odor of a perfume which you recognize unmistakably as that used by Miss Smith-Curran. Reason tells you that she must have been there some few minutes to have left a perceptible scent.

“Now you have been already puzzled as to why Barclay, very select in his choice of intimates, should have requested so warmly that you offer the hospitality of your home, which means your social sponsorship, to people of whom you have never heard and who obviously are not quite of your own superior social class. The place and hour chosen by this young woman for her indiscreet visit convince you that she must have something pressing to communicate, and that it probably has to do with Barclay.

“Leaving the mystery to be solved later, you prepare for bed. But as you have taken some refreshment with the rest of us downstairs, you do not as usual drink the buttermilk and eat the peach-jam sandwich left on your night table, as usual.

“The next morning you decide to consult with Marsh, in whose clearness of head you have a great deal of confidence, and warrantably. While telling him about your misgivings you glance through the window and see this flock of starlings on the lawn just beneath, and absently you pick up the jam sandwich, the peach-jam sandwich, break it into morsels and toss it out to the birds. As it contains jam, you step into your bathroom and wash your hands, then continue your conversation.”

Dodge leaned back, his jaw sagging in astonishment.

“Good heavens!” he murmured. “You mean ——”

“Wait, please. A few minutes later you look out of the window again, and in mild vexation with these birds, which are in the nature of a pest, you shoo them away. You and Marsh then perceive to your surprise that four of them have not flown off with the others, and on closer inspection you discover them to be dead. This curious bird tragedy you are quick to ascribe to the disobedience of your gardener in putting down cutworm poison against your distinct personal orders.

“Marsh goes down to retrieve these feathered victims of disobedience, and you partly overhear him describing the incident to Cicely and Iona. You send for McGinty. Marsh returns with the dead birds. McGinty arrives and in great measure convinces you that he is not guilty. You take his word. About this time you hear Iona, just under the window where the starlings were, call to Cicely that she has found a four-leaf clover. Without thinking much about it, you are a little surprised that there should be any clover in that Bermuda-grass turf. But if Iona had said 'I've found a piece of bread and jam,' which might have been more exact——”

“Holy Moses, John——”

“Keep still. That's what she was really looking for, eh, Marsh? And she came within one jump of getting the starlings, too, this morning. I say one jump not in the slang but literal sense. Sherrill did not tell you that just now. I got it only on cross-questioning, being sure that she would have a try for them. When they drove off the car this morning she began to ask him about the birds, when he told her that he had them in his brief case and was going to leave them at the laboratory for examination. He got out first at a cable station, leaving her to do some shopping and meet him later with the car. Then, happening to notice as he crossed the sidewalk that the brief case had come unfastened, he glanced inside it and found no dead birds. Sherrill made the one jump I mentioned and yelled at his chauffeur just as a traffic policeman blew his whistle to let that string through.”

“She hadn't seemed to have noticed them, John, They were on the floor under her feet. But I'll admit it's a little hard to see just how they happened to work out of the brief case.”

“Might have been a sudden jolt, Sherrill, only it was not. Iona was taking no chances on a more exhaustive examination for—well, let us say prussic acid, or any quickly fatal toxic principle with a peach-jam flavor. She must have been considerably relieved when later in the morning you told her that the analysis of the digestive-tract contents showed nothing, was entirely negative.”

“John,” Dodge protested, “this is abominable, outrageous.”

“Of course it is, Sherrill. But we have been destined to live through an abominable and outrageous post-bellum epoch, which God grant may presently improve. After all, what is the mere poisoning of a millionaire to get the use of his own fortune and one held in trust by him, compared with many of the infinitely more sordid and silly, stupid, horrid crimes with which the daily paper serves one's breakfast?”

“But I say, hold on a minute!” Dodge partly rose. “What's that you say about getting the use of my own fortune and the one I hold in trust?”

“I'm coming to that, Sherrill, when we get to the real clou of the filthy business, the motive. Here are these Smith-Currans, intimate friends of Barclay, who may or may not be in love with this young woman. Personally, I think he is, or in some state of glamour. She's more than the ordinary type of siren. She has magnetism, beauty, power. I think that besides, or also, Barclay is in their debt. Now with all his true-born American sense that he is of finer clay than the base British sort—and I'm aware of that because I have made some study of him—Barclay contains also the true-born American sense of obligation to the simple savage, like this Smith-Curran type. He hates an unrequited favor even worse than he may hate unrequited love. Both strike hard at his heritage of power. He would pitch restlessly in bed at thought of the other fellow not getting his share. In spite of his convictions of superiority, or, better, because of them, the passion for paying his debts equals that for incurring them.”

The bishop paused, not breathless, as he was in better training than was Marsh, but to let his winged words sink in, to get the rhetorical effect of them. He got it now in full measure from both his hearers. The good man had always been rather more of a spellbinder than pulpit orator. His delivery was that of a district attorney. Once warmed to his work, he was admirable and convincing. Dodge stared at him in a fascinated way that years of listening had failed to dull, while Marsh, as the bishop proceeded, felt like a cow watching an express train roar by. For the first time admiration of the man stirred him.

With a trick of forensic oratory, the bishop now shifted to a milder note of persuasive conversation:

“The brave major and beautiful Iona are quite clever enough to appreciate Barclay's qualities. They know that were he empowered to write a large check to their orders it would not be hard to get his autograph on it. But for one thing, this might not be so easy the second time; and besides, the chances are that they are out for bigger game—a speculative game that would appeal to a young man of Barclay's inherited gambling instincts.

“The first night Smith-Curran was here he and I pumped each other a little, both being sincere seekers after knowledge of a different sort. I wanted to find out what I politely could about himself, and he wanted some accurate information about his host—specified information.”

Again the bishop paused, This time he beamed at Marsh, as who should say, “Young man, observe my technic and profit by it.” Marsh sat up. There was rather more to this high churchman, in both senses, he opined, than had previously been clear to him.

“Major Smith-Curran told me that his chief object in coming to America this time was to prospect here on the forming of a big international shipping syndicate.”

“That's recently been reported,” Dodge interrupted.

The bishop made a quieting gesture of his shapely pontifical hand.

“Not being entirely obtuse, I began to see the writing on the wall. As I anticipated, he wound up by asking me with soldierly directness if I thought Mr. Dodge could be interested in such a proposition. I hope that you may not think me presumptuous, Sherrill, when I answered that in my opinion, most emphatically expressed, you wouldn't touch any such scheme if you were standing on an insulator and wearing rubber gloves. I told the man that you were a financial conservative compared to whom the buyer of United States Government nontaxable bonds was a giddy gambler, or some simile to that effect. My motive was to discourage any attempt to bother you. The day before you had mentioned to me that you were invested to the ears, and hoped that this friend of Barclay's did not intend to talk promotion schemes before he got through with you.”

“Thanks, John. I rather expected something of the sort.”

“Well, I imagine that I spiked his guns; wet his priming. He looked a little glum, but fairly well convinced. Then he changed the topic. I now believe”—the bishop's voice sank to the impressive organ note—“that the fellow wanted to give you this chance for your life.”

Marsh drew in his breath deeply.

“Barclay had probably told him the same thing.”

“Not a doubt of it.” The bishop's voice briskened. “Barclay is fully aware of his father's conservatism. But this Smith-Curran thought he might at least have a try. He reasons then, as he may have reasoned all along, that with Sherrill Dodge dead and buried, his last will and testament probated and trust funds made over, Barclay is due to inherit all told something in the neighborhood of twenty million dollars. And he has reason to believe that he and Iona between them can do about what they please with Barclay.”

The bishop leaned back in his chair, then looked thoughtfully at the tense face of his old friend.

“There, Sherrill, it's taken some time and a lot of talk, But does it seem to explain the relation between Barclay's affairs and these insignificant dead starlings?”

(TO BE CONTINUED)