CHAPTER XXVIII
"WHERE IS BEATRICE?"
UNDER the circumstances there could have been nothing more natural than Beatrice's turning to Embry, knowing that Steele's eyes were upon her. And yet, wishing to anger him, she could little understand how her act was to bring fulfilment to her desire far beyond her expectation. The very word, angry, became pale and insufficient; in thorough going Anglo-Saxon way and phrase, she had made him mad.
Mad, with the yearning to seize her away from Embry, to hold her back from the contamination of the man's very presence, once and for all to wipe the man he hated from her path. That Embry had been the cause of Hurley's and Turk's injuries, that he had fired Indian City through his agents, that he had in the same manner brutally beaten Wendall and robbed him in Selby Flat, of all this Bill Steele was very sure. And yet for a little he held himself in check and watched Embry and Beatrice pass down through the checker-board of light and shadow on the long veranda until they disappeared at the far corner of the house.
For he knew, even with the rush of hot blood along his arteries, that that man who hopes to handle a difficult situation must first have himself in hand. What things might he cry out now to regret afterward if he followed where his heart went?
"The night is young," he told himself, striving for utter calm. "Unless Embry urges her to seek to have me thrown out bodily I'd better go slow for a little."
In order to "go slow" he withdrew through the shrubbery, found a bench set apart in the shadows, sat down and filled his pipe. With the first puff of smoke his brows relaxed a bit soon he was smiling grimly.
"She doesn't care for him," he assured himself. "Being what she is, with him what he is, she couldn't. She just couldn't."
But could she care for such as Bill Steele? There was the rub and his smile faded as completely and left as little trace behind it as the smoke rising from the glowing bowl of his pipe.
What next? Should he again enter the ball room, seeking her out? Unless he meant to go with no further word, that was what he must do; for, obviously, Beatrice would not come out to him. That matter then was settled with no great consideration; come what might of it, he'd go back and …
"Get my face slapped, most likely!" he grunted. "Serve me good and right."
For he was thinking of his lips upon the lips of Beatrice Corliss, of Beatrice Corliss in his arms … Fifteen minutes later Steele knocked out his pipe and went to the veranda, standing at the side of the door looking in on the dancers. With eyes only for the trim little figure of the buckskin clad mountain girl he sought her everywhere, found her nowhere. Nor Embry. The two were loitering an unconscionably long time outside.
As other minutes passed, five, ten, fifteen, and neither Beatrice nor Embry came back to the call of the music's invitation, he shifted uneasily and impatiently where he stood, turning with eager expectation at every step on the veranda behind him, at every laughing voice out in the open court. Twenty minutes … and he swung about with a little grunt and went to look for them.
But, apart from the house, it was very dark upon the mountainside. They might be out in the little pavilion, anywhere in the gardens, even in the higher pavilion at the rear and above the house. From one spot to another he went, seeking them. Many a whispering couple wondered at the big silent man who bore down upon a quiet tête-à-tête, stooped toward them, went on. And nowhere did he find Beatrice or Joe Embry.
He had been so very sure that she could not care for this man; then why was she alone with him so long? In spite of him he began to picture a tender intimacy between them, even visualized Beatrice in Embry's arms. At the thought, which he sought to banish abruptly, he hurried on, looking for them.
By now they must have returned to the house. He turned back, passed through the rooms where the dance was in full swing, visited the refreshment room, scanned the library where a number of maskers sat and chatted and smoked. But nowhere did he see either Beatrice or Embry.
The remainder of that night was as near hell for Bill Steele as any night he could remember. He would not go without again seeing Beatrice; of that he was stubbornly determined. And yet, since there are times when man's will is shoved aside and set at naught by passing events, he was not to see her.
Until after midnight the dance went gaily on. Staring moodily at the dancers, guessing the identities of none of them save that of a negligible and insignificant little widow who bored him, he shaped and discarded a score of explanations of Beatrice's absence. He would wait until the end, when the unmasking came ...
And then, at last, it was the negligible and insignificant little widow who bored him who announced that there was to be no unmasking! Just to make this dance different from others, she cried out gaily in the last lull before the good night valse; just so that to-morrow there might be those who wondered if they had blundered ...
Many acclaimed the suggestion with clapping hands; Steele's greeting to it was a disgusted "Damn!" Was this some of Beatrice's work? Had she told the exasperating Mrs. Denham what to say? Had she again changed her costume, coming back long ago, dancing with the rest, laughing behind a new mask at Steele's idiocy? And Embry, had she taken him in with her on her stroke of retaliation, had he, too, simply changed and come back to the others?
For an instant he wondered; then he knew. Beatrice could not hide herself from him like this. He would know her in any garb. And he'd know Joe Embry, too.
The dance was over. Couples strolled, loitered, said lingering or sleepy good nights and disappeared, going to their rooms. And Steele knew, as well as he knew anything in the world, that Beatrice had not returned.
Maybe she had slipped in at the rear and gone quietly to her own room? Yes, maybe. But he did not believe it. It was not like Beatrice; she was not the one to run away like that. He began to be uneasy, to fear for her. She had been last with Embry, and Embry of all men in the world he distrusted the most. And where was Embry?
He, too, might have gone home. But where was the sense of it all?
The servants were putting out the lights. Bradford came and went in his quiet way, seeing that doors were closed and locked. The big house was slowly surrendering to the utter blackness of the night. Only here and there were thin lines of light about the edges of drawn window shades where tired guests were hastening to bed. Steele turned and went slowly for his horse. Obviously there was no need, no reason in his lingering here longer.
His heart was troubled with vague dread for Beatrice. As he rode toward his cabin at the Goblet he turned over and over in his thoughts the many explanations which had offered themselves. In turn each one was abandoned as unconvincing and insufficient. And, with every yard flung behind him, his fear for Beatrice grew. He told himself that he was suddenly grown fanciful, that in sober truth his paraphrase of the other day had been truer than he knew, that his love was making a coward of him. But for all that his anxiety was not dispelled.
Suddenly when some two or three miles from the ranch house he jerked in his horse with a sharp exclamation, sitting rigid in his saddle. After the brief indecision and mental uncertainty which is the first growth of dread such as was his there comes a quickening of the brain, a lightninglike surety of suspicion. Thoughts which dovetailed now and led in perfected order to an inevitable conclusion ticked through his mind. He had come tonight because Mrs. Denham had suggested it to him; she had gone out of her way to speak of the ball; she had pretended at an intimacy with Beatrice which he could not believe in; tonight he had seen her talking with Embry; and finally, it had been Mrs. Denham who in her gayest manner had suggested that there he no unmasking!
Steele swung his horse about with a savage jerk, crying out aloud wrathfully, touched his spurs to the animal's flanks and with reckless disregard of the uneven trail underfoot blotted out by the darkness raced back toward the ranch house. Mrs. Denham knew where Beatrice was; Mrs. Denham had wanted her disappearance to pass unnoticed; and Mrs. Denham was going to tell him everything she knew.
He had left the ranch house being drawn into the embrace of the darkness; he returned to it to find that lights blazed everywhere. Riding at a gallop into the courtyard where he was afoot before his horse had fairly come to a standstill, he was greeted by an obvious atmosphere of alarm. He saw through an open door some two or three women, hastily covered with kimonos drawn loosely about them, all talking excitedly. Men's voices rose above the sharp exclamations of the women, men, also hurriedly dressed and plainly concerned, were to be seen on the verandas, in the yards and at the doors.
As Steele appeared among them unexpectedly out of the outer darkness he was greeted by a sharp, wondering cry here, a muttered exclamation there; the women near the door drew back from him, staring curiously.
"Where is Mrs. Denham?" he demanded loudly. He had come straight on and into the room where fully a dozen of Beatrice's guests were grouped and talking rapidly. Then he discovered her across the room, her hair down but not in the unbecoming confusion he had noted on every hand, her petite figure clothed in a vivid green kimono. He came on to her swiftly, with eyes for no one else.
"I want to talk with you," he told her, an ominous sternness in voice and eyes alike. "Alone. Come with me into the library."
Mrs. Denham shot him a sharp, half frightened look, seemed to hesitate, then as his eyes rested steadily upon her followed him. When the two were alone in the library and Steele had shut the door upon the many interested glances which had followed them, he stood frowning down at her angrily.
"Where is Beatrice?" he demanded.
"Oh, dear!" cried Mrs. Denham. "That's what we are all wondering. We …"
"Where is Joe Embry?" he cut in sharply.
"He has gone to look for her. He left word …"
"Tell me as fast as you can get it out just what has happened."
"Mr. Embry was with poor dear Beatrice in the garden," said Mrs. Denham hastily. "We were all masked … But you know that part, don't you? We didn't miss them. After we'd got to bed Mr. Embry got the ropes off and the gag out of his mouth and gave the alarm. He had been lying out there all that time. Isn't it terrible, Mr. Steele? And Beatrice …"
She broke off with a shudder. Steele's frowning eyes gave no sign that he had been impressed by it.
"Beatrice," continued Mrs. Denham quickly, "was seized by four or five men; Mr. Embry didn't know how many. They carried her off and …"
"Mrs. Denham," said Steele with bright hard anger in his eyes. "Don't lie to me! I want to know what this whole crazy plan means, understand? And you are going to tell me!"
Mrs. Denham drew back from him, a little flurry of fear in her eyes.
"I don't know what you mean …"
"You do know. It's a put up job between you and Joe Embry. You have got her somewhere, why I don't know. But I am going to know just as fast as you can tell me. Where is Beatrice?"
She shrugged.
"If you know so very much …"
He came swiftly to her, towering above her.
"Tell me!" he commanded. Again she shrugged.
"I know only what Mr. Embry told me. That he was overpowered and bound, Beatrice dragged away. That," she added coolly, "he very much suspected it was your work. That you had done everything else to hurt her."
For the first time in his life Steele knew the burning desire to strike a woman. She was lying to him and he knew it. And yet bluster and threat would get him nowhere with her. He strode across the room, paused and regarded her long and searchingly.
"You and Embry are very close friends?" he asked, forcing himself at last to speak quietly. "Is that it, or ..."
"Or what, Mr. Steele?"
"Or," he blurted out, "has he paid you for your part?"
"Haven't you insulted me enough?"
"No," came his crisp rejoinder. "I don't think I have. I think that I know the sort you are, Mrs. Denham. If that be an insult here is an added one: Joe Embry paid you and for the information you can give me I will pay you twice as much!"
He saw that his second "insult" had been coolly received, that Mrs. Denham's bright eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Eagerly he awaited her answer.
"You are a strange sort of man, Mr. Steele," was what she said.
He made no reply, fixing her with a keen regard. Presently she laughed.
"You asked if Mr. Emery and I were very dear friends? I think that I have never known a man to detest more heartily. You say that you know what sort I am? Let us see. I am a widow with no thought of marrying again. I like the pretty things of life. Things one has to pay for. Is that what you thought?"
"Go on," he said curtly. "How much did Embry give you?"
Now she was studying him shrewdly.
"If I said ten thousand dollars?"
"I'd make it another twenty thousand!"
"If I said … let me see. Twenty-five thousand?"
"I'd make it fifty thousand! If you can show me the way to find her."
A bright flush was in her cheeks; she came to him and laid a hand which was suddenly unsteady on his arm.
"Write me a check for fifty thousand dollars," she whispered. "Then have a car ready to take me away immediately. Before Embry knows. And I will tell you where he has taken her. And I'll be glad, glad that you have beat Joe Embry! He has planned to compromise her so that she will have to marry him … oh, he is fool enough to think that she'd do it! But she wouldn't. We know that, don't we, Mr. Steele?"
"Do we?" he asked coldly.
"We do! And, to give you full value for your check, my big foolish friend, let me whisper something into your ear: Beatrice is head over heels in love with you right now! Now, order a car for me and I'll get dressed and meet you at the back door. There'll be no trumpets blaring when I take my departure."
Gathering up her kimono about her she ran out of the room, disappearing through a door opposite the one through which they had entered.