Free and Other Stories

FREE AND OTHER STORIES

“Not a thing, that I can see,” replied Gregory. “She seems to be simple enough. She’s only been here about three weeks.”

“Well, we’d better see what we can find out about her. I have a hunch that she’s in on this, but I can’t be sure. It looks as though she might be one of Tilney’s stool pigeons. But let’s play the game and see how it comes out. I’ll be nice to her for your sake, and you do the same for mine.”

Under the warming influence of this companionship, things seemed to develop fairly rapidly. It was only a day or two later, and after Gregory had seated himself at Mrs. Skelton’s table, that she announced with a great air of secrecy and as though it were hidden and rather important information, that a friend of hers, a very clever Western girl of some position and money, one Imogene Carle of Cincinnati, no less, a daughter of the very wealthy Brayton Carle’s of that city, was coming to this place to stay for a little while. Mrs. Skelton, it appeared, had known her parents in that city fifteen years before. Imogene was her owny ownest pet. She was now visiting the Wilson Fletchers at Gray’s Cove, on the Sound, but Mrs. Skelton had prevailed upon her parents to let her visit her here for a while. She was only twenty, and from now on she, Mrs. Skelton, was to be a really, truly chaperone. Didn’t they sympathize with her? And if they were all very nice – and with this a sweeping glance included them all – they might help entertain her. Wouldn’t that be fine? She was a darling of a girl, clever, magnetic, a good dancer, a pianist – in short, various and sundry things almost too good to be true. But, above all other things, she was really very beautiful, with a wealth of brown hair, brown eyes, a perfect skin, and the like. Neither Blount nor Gregory offered the other a single look during this

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recital, but later on, meeting on the great veranda which faced the sea, Blount said to him, “Well, what do you think?”

“Yes, I suppose it’s the one. Well, she tells it well. It’s interesting to think that she is to be so perfect, isn’t it?” he laughed.

A few days later the fair visitor put in an appearance, and she was all that Mrs. Skelton had promised, and more. She was beautiful. Gregory saw her for the first time as he entered the large dining room at seven. She was, as Mrs. Skelton had described her, young, certainly not more than twenty-one at most. Her eyes were a light gray-brown, and her hair and skin and hands were full of light. She seemed simple and unpretentious, laughing, gay, not altogether fine or perfect, but fairly intelligent, and good to look at – very. She was at Mrs. Skelton’s table, the brokers paying her marked attention, and, at sight, Blount liked her, too.

“Say,” he began, “some beauty, eh? I’ll have to save you from yourself, I fancy. I’ll tell you how we’ll work it. You save me, and I’ll save you. The old lady certainly knows how to select ‘em, apparently, and so does Tilney. Well now, my boy, look out!” and he approached with the air of one who was anxious to be a poor stricken victim himself.

Gregory had to laugh. However much he might be on his guard, he was interested, and as if to heighten this she paid more attention to Mrs. Skelton and her two friends than she did to Gregory or Blount. She was, or pretended to be absolutely sincere, and ignorant of her possible role as a siren, and they in turn pretended to accept her at her own valuation, only Blount announced after dinner very gaily that she might siren him all she blanked pleased. He was ready. By degrees, how-

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ever, even during this first and second evening, Gregory began to feel that he was the one. He caught her looking at him slyly or shyly, or both, and he insisted to himself stubbornly and even vainly enough that he was her intended victim. When he suggested as much to Blount the other merely laughed.

“Don’t be so vain,” he said. “You may not be. I wish I were in your place. I’ll see if I can’t help take her attention from you,” and he paid as much attention to her as any one.

However, Gregory’s mind was not to be disabused. He watched her narrowly, while she on her part chattered gaily of many things – her life the winter before in Cincinnati, the bathing at Beachampton where she had recently been, a yachting trip she had been promised, tennis, golf. She was an expert at tennis, as she later proved, putting Gregory in a heavy perspiration whenever he played with her, and keeping him on the jump. He tried to decide for himself at this time whether she was making any advances, but could not detect any. She was very equitable in the distribution of her favors, and whenever the dancing began in the East room took as her first choice one of the brokers, and then Blount.

The former, as did Mrs. Skelton and the brokers, had machines, and by her and them, in spite of the almost ever-pres- ent Blount, Gregory was invited to be one of a party in one or the other of their cars whenever they were going anywhere of an afternoon or evening. He was suspicious of them, however, and refused their invitations except when Blount was on the scene and invited, when he was willing enough to accept. Then there were whist, pinochle, or poker games in the hotel occasionally, and in these Gregory as well as Blount, when he was there, were wont to join, being persistently invited. Greg-

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ory did not dance, and Imogene ragged him as to this. Why didn’t he learn? It was wonderful! She would teach him! As she passed amid the maze of dancers at times he could not help thinking how graceful she was, how full of life and animal spirits. Blount saw this and teased him, at the same time finding her very companionable and interesting himself. Gregory could not help thinking what a fascinating, what an amazing thing, really, it was (providing it were true) that so dark a personality as Tilney could secure such an attractive girl to do his vile work. Think of it, only twenty-one, beautiful, able to further herself in many ways no doubt, and yet here she was under suspicion of him, a trickster possibly. What could be the compulsion, the reward?

“My boy, you don’t know these people,” Blount was always telling him. “They’re the limit. In politics you can get people to do anything – anything. It isn’t like the rest of life or business, it’s just politics, that’s all. It seems a cynical thing to say, but it’s true. Look at your own investigations! What do they show?”

“I know, but a girl like that now – “ replied Gregory solemnly.

But after all, as he insisted to Blount, they did not know that there was anything to all this. She might and she might not be a siren. It might be possible that both of them were grossly misjudging her and other absolutely innocent people.

So far, all that they had been able to find out concerning Mrs. Skelton was that she was, as she represented herself to be, the successful owner and manager of a theatrical agency. She might have known the better days and connections which she boasted. Gregory felt at times as though his brain were whirling, like a man confronted by enemies in the dark, fumbling

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and uncertain, but he and Blount both agreed that the best thing was to stay here and see it through, come what might. It was a good game even as it stood, interesting, very. It showed, as Blount pointed out to him, a depth to this political mess which he was attempting to expose which previously even he had not suspected.

“Stick by,” the other insisted sport-lovingly. “You don’t know what may come of this. It may provide you the very club you’re looking for. Win her over to your side if you can. Why not? She might really fall for you. Then see what comes of it. You can’t be led into any especial trap with your eyes open.”

Gregory agreed to all this after a time. Besides, this very attractive girl was beginning to appeal to him in a very subtle way. He had never known a woman like this before – never even seen one. It was a very new and attractive game, of sorts. He began to spruce up and attempt to appear a little gallant himself. A daily report of his movements was being filed each morning, though. Every night he returned with Blount in his car, or on an early train. There was scarcely a chance for a compromising situation, and still there might be – who knows?

On other evenings, after the fashion of seaside hotel life, Gregory and Imogene grew a little more familiar. Gregory learned that she played and sang, and, listening to her, that she was of a warm and even sensuous disposition. She was much more sophisticated than she had seemed at first, as he could now see, fixing her lips in an odd inviting pout at times and looking alluringly at one and another, himself included. Both Blount and himself, once the novelty of the supposed secret attack had worn off, ventured to jest with her about it, or rather to hint vaguely as to her mission.

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“Well, how goes the great game to-night?” Blount once asked her during her second or third week, coming up to where she and Gregory were sitting amid the throng on the general veranda, and eyeing her in a sophisticated or smilingly cynical way.

“What game?” She looked up in seemingly complete innocence.

“Oh, snaring the appointed victim. Isn’t that what all attractive young women do?”

“Are you referring to me?” she inquired with considerable hauteur and an air of injured innocence. “I’d have you know that I don’t have to snare any one, and particularly not a married man.” Her teeth gleamed maliciously.

Both Gregory and Blount were watching her closely.

“Oh, of course not. Not a married man, to be sure. And I wasn’t referring to you exactly – just life, you know, the game.”

“Yes, I know,” she replied sweetly. “I’m jesting, too.” Both Gregory and Blount laughed.

“Well, she got away with it without the tremor of an eyelash, didn’t she?” Blount afterward observed, and Gregory had to agree that she had.

Again, it was Gregory who attempted a reference of this kind. She had come out after a short instrumental interpretation at the piano, where, it seemed to him, she had been posing in a graceful statuesque way – for whose benefit? He knew that she knew he could see her from where he sat.

“It’s pretty hard work, without much reward,” he suggested seemingly idly.

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“What is? I don’t quite understand,” and she looked at him questioningly.

“No?” he smiled in a light laughing manner. “Well, that’s a cryptic way I have. I say things like that. Just a light hint at a dark plot, possibly. You mustn’t mind me. You wouldn’t understand unless you know what I know.”

“Well, what is it you know, then, that I don’t?” she inquired.

“Nothing definite yet. Just an idea. Don’t mind me.” “Really, you are very odd, both you and Mr. Blount. You are

always saying such odd things and then adding that you don’t mean anything. And what’s cryptic?”

Gregory, still laughing at her, explained.

“Do you know, you’re exceedingly interesting to me as a type. I’m watching you all the while.”

“Yes?” she commented, with a lifting of the eyebrows and a slight distention of the eyes. “That’s interesting. Have you made up your mind as to what type I am?”

“No, not quite yet. But if you’re the type I think you are, you’re very clever. I’ll have to hand you the palm on that score.”

“Really, you puzzle me,” she said seriously. “Truly, you do. I don’t understand you at all. What is it you are talking about? If it’s anything that has any sense in it I wish you’d say it out plain, and if not I wish you wouldn’t say it at all.”

Gregory stared. There was an odd ring of defiance in her voice.

“Please don’t be angry, will you?” he said, slightly disconcerted. “I’m just teasing, not talking sense.”

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She arose and walked off, while he strolled up and down the veranda looking for Blount. When he found him, he narrated his experience.

“Well, it’s just possible that we are mistaken. You never can tell. Give her a little more rope. Something’s sure to develop soon.”

And thereafter it seemed as if Mrs. Skelton and some others might be helping her in some subtle way about something, the end or aim of which he could not be quite sure. He was in no way disposed to flatter himself, and yet it seemed at times as if he were the object of almost invisible machinations. In spite of what had gone before, she still addressed him in a friendly way, and seemed not to wish to avoid him, but rather to be in his vicinity at all times.

A smug, dressy, crafty Jew of almost minute dimensions arrived on the scene and took quarters somewhere in the building, coming and going and seeming never to know Mrs. Skelton or her friends, and yet one day, idling across some sand dunes which skirted an adjacent inlet, he saw them, Imogene and the antlike Jew, walking along together. He was so astounded that he stopped in amazement. His first thought was to draw a little nearer and to make very sure, but realizing, as they walked slowly in his direction, that he could not be mistaken, he beat a hasty retreat. That evening Blount was taken in on the mystery, and at dinner time, seeing the Hebrew enter and seat himself in state at a distant table, he asked casually, “A newcomer, isn’t he?”

Mrs. Skelton, Imogene, and the one broker present, surveyed the stranger with curious but unacquainted indifference.

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“Haven’t the slightest idea,” answered the broker.

“Never saw him before. Cloaks and suits, I’ll lay a thousand.”

“He looks as though he might be rich, whoever he is,” innocently commented Imogene.

“I think he came Thursday. He doesn’t seem to be any one in particular, that’s sure,” added Mrs. Skelton distantly, and the subject was dropped.

Gregory was tempted to accuse the young woman and her friends then and there of falsehood, but he decided to wait and study her. This was certainly becoming interesting. If they could lie like that, then something was surely in the air. So she was a trickster, after all, and she was so charming. His interest in her and Mrs. Skelton and their friends grew apace.

And then came the matter of the mysterious blue racer, or “trailer,” as Gregory afterward came to call it, a great hulking brute of a car, beautifully, even showily, made, and with an engine that talked like no other. There was a metallic ring about it which seemed to carry a long way through the clear air and over the sands which adjoined the sea. It was the possession, so he learned later through Mrs. Skelton, of one of four fortunate youths who were summering at the next hotel west, about a mile away. The owner, one Castleman by name, the son and heir to a very wealthy family, was a friend of hers whom she had first met in a commercial way in the city. They came over after Imogene’s arrival, she explained, to help entertain, and they invariably came in this car. Castleman and his friends, smart, showy youths all, played tennis and bridge, and knew all the latest shows and dances and drinks. They were very gay looking, at least three of them, and were inclined to make

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much of Imogene, though, as Mrs. Skelton cautiously confided to Gregory after a time, she did not propose to allow it. Imogene’s parents might not like it. On the other hand, Gregory and Blount, being sober men both and of excellent discretion, were much more welcome!

Almost every day thereafter Mrs. Skelton would go for a ride in her own car or that of Castleman, taking Gregory if he would, and Imogene for companions. Blount, however, as he explicitly made clear at the very beginning, was opposed to this.

“Don’t ever be alone with her, I tell you, or just in the company of her and her friends anywhere except on this veranda. They’re after you, and they’re not finding it easy, and they’re beginning to work hard. They’ll give themselves away in some way pretty soon, just as sure as you’re sitting there. They want to cut me out, but don’t let them do it – or if you do, get some one in my place. You don’t know where they’ll take you. That’s the way people are framed. Take me, or get them to use my machine and you take some other man. Then you can regulate the conditions partially, anyhow.”

Gregory insisted that he had no desire to make any other arrangements, and so, thereafter, whenever an invitation was extended to him, Blount was always somehow included, although, as he could see, they did not like it. Not that Imogene seemed to mind, but Mrs. Skelton always complained, “Must we wait for him?” or “Isn’t it possible, ever, to go anywhere without him?”

Gregory explained how it was. Blount was an old and dear friend of his. They were practically spending the summer together. Blount had nothing to do just now. . . . They seemed to

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