Partners (27 page)

"Gone? Where has she gone?" said the wicked old uncle.

"Well, I really couldn't say," said Aunt Ettie innocently.

"But do you mean she has left your employ?"

"Oh, she was never in my employ!" said Aunt Ettie crisply. "She was just--visiting--me--awhile."

"Well, but surely you know where she has gone."

"No," snapped Aunt Ettie, "I don't! Excuse me, I have to make a phone call before it's too late."

She stepped to the telephone on a little table just inside the living room, while the man stood watching her, annoyed.

She called the number the policeman had given her.

"That you, Sam?" she asked nonchalantly. "This is Aunt Ettie. Did you hear? Okay, Sam, it's just as you said. And you might tell them I'll need two pounds more of that nice butter and a pound of good old-fashioned cheese."

"Okay, I getcha, Aunt Ettie! I'll send 'em right up!" chuckled Sam and hung up. His voice was clear and altogether disarming to any criminal that might have been waiting around escaping arrest, but Aunt Ettie had her poise by this time.

"What did you say that girl's name was?" she said as she returned to the former conversation, realizing that it was up to her to keep the suspect around till Sam got here.

"Why, her name was Gillie. That's what we called her. Little runt of a thing. But if she's gone and you don't know where, you can't do me much good. I suppose I've got to go on searching. I've walked miles hunting her. I'm just about all in. I thought surely I'd find her here. I was told very decidedly that I would find her here. I got it from her hospital nurse."

"Oh, had she been in the hospital?" said Aunt Ettie with utmost innocence in her face. "Well, I don't think it could possibly be the same one. But anyway, she's gone."

"How long has she been gone?"

"Well, it's quite awhile. I couldn't exactly say just when."

"Did she go in a taxi or walk? And which direction did she go?"

"Well, there you've got me again. You see, I wasn't right here when she left. I didn't see her go. I was pretty busy with a caller. A taxi maybe, if she went by train, though she's awful fond of walking and she mighta went afoot and tuck a bus from the public square. I'm sure I can't tell ya."

The man sighed dejectedly.

"You said you had a caller here when she went? Does she live nearby? Maybe she would remember how she went. You see, it's very important that I find her. It has to do with some money, and I'm afraid she needs it."

"Oh, what a shame," said the false voice of Aunt Ettie. "But, no, my caller was a stranger come to see me on business. He doesn't live near here, not to my knowledge."

"Well, could you direct me to a place where I could get a cup of coffee around here? Is that house next door a boardinghouse?"

"No, not to my knowledge," said Aunt Ettie, wondering how she was going to detain this person long enough for Sam to get here. "But say, if it's only a cup of coffee you want, I can give you a cup. I've got the pot on the stove now."

"Oh, thank you, that's good, my good woman!" said Uncle Albee. "I'll be glad to pay you!"

"I don't keep a boardinghouse nor a rest'rant, either," said Aunt Ettie and sailed away to the kitchen with her head in the air, hoping and praying that Gillian and Noel wouldn't turn up from their walk right in the middle of this and spoil it all before Sam got here.

She gave the man her cheapest spoon--you never could tell what a man like that might do--and she handed him a tray with three hard cookies and a cup of coffee. That ought to keep him busy a few minutes. And then she retired to the kitchen and clattered pans and rattled dishes to keep up with the thudding of her heart. She had never actually been an accomplice in arresting a man before, and it filled her with excitement. Also she was still worried about Gillian and Noel, and yet she hoped they wouldn't come until this criminal was out of the way. Of course, he didn't look much like a criminal, though his eyes were "some shifty."

And then she got in a panic lest the man might leave while she was making all this clatter out in the kitchen and she wouldn't see which way he went. Maybe he would find the children and spirit them off!

So she came quickly into the living room, and she saw the visitor just taking the final swallow of coffee and slipping the last cookie into his pocket. And just then she heard a step outside, and there stood her policeman as large as life and quite near to the caller.

"You Mason Albee?" The policeman asked in a sharp businesslike tone.

The caller rose precipitately and set down his cup on the little porch table.

"Yes. Y–y–y–e––s," he answered. "That is, I'm from out West and I'm in search of a niece who has run away. Her mother is nearly crazy about it, and I came in search of her."

The policeman's eyes were looking straight into Uncle Albee's eyes, and somehow he got to stuttering and stammering.

"Oh yeah?" said Sam. "That makes a nice story, but it don't go down here. I happen to know the facts, and you can come along with me and answer the charges made. And while you are about it, you might put on these handcuffs before you start."

"But, look here, you can't do that to me!" said Uncle Albee with great pain in his voice. "I'm from another state. You can't arrest me here."

"That's all right," said Sam. "We thought of all that before you came, and we have the papers all fixed up. The National Trust Company of Westbrook, Wisconsin, is suing you for obtaining funds illegally from your niece's inheritance."

"But, look here, my good man," said Uncle Albee. "I can prove to you that's not so. I have papers with me that will show you. I can prove to you--"

"No, you can't, not to me. You come along and prove it to the court if you can, but I haven't any time to talk it over with you now. Here comes our car!" With a flourish and a clang of gong the police patrol car drew up in front of the door, and Sam hustled his prisoner away.

"But--I wanted to tell you something--" pleaded Aunt Ettie as he went down the steps.

"Okay with me," Sam said, smiling. "See you later, Aunt Ettie." And he was gone in a perfect tumult of noise. For Sandy Haven didn't have many chances for dramatic incidents like this, and they wanted to make the most of it. Especially as the police car was new only a few days ago.

So Aunt Ettie turned the heat down under her coffeepot, and under her depressed-looking soufflé, and then went to the back door and surveyed the beach as far as her eye could reach. After that she sat down with her kitchen apron over her head and cried.

Aunt Ettie waited an hour for Sam's return, and when he didn't come and she could see no sign of him on the street, she started out on the beach and walked south a long distance, until she came to a point of land that jutted out as far as she could see, with water on the other side of it glimmering in the distance. Then she turned around and went as far in the other direction. But there also there seemed to be irregularities in the shoreline that bewildered her, so she turned about and dragged wearily back to the cottage, trying to persuade herself on the way that she would probably find Noel and Gillian waiting for her on the front porch. The tears were streaming down her hard, self-sufficient face again. Never in the whole of her eventful life had Aunt Ettie found anything quite so daunting that she couldn't meet efficiently.

But when she reached the cottage, there wasn't a sign of the Guthries anywhere about. She put on the kettle to make herself a cup of tea because she felt as if she would collapse, and just as she was getting out her cup and saucer, a brisk determined step came on the front porch and there sounded a peremptory knock. Her heart was in her mouth as she hurried to the door. That wouldn't be either Noel or Gillian, not walking and knocking like that. But maybe they had been drowned and someone was coming to tell her. But it was only a young policeman in full uniform trying to act important and severe. He had a hard young face and no light in his eyes.

"This Aunt Ettie?" he asked sourly.

She nodded, too out of breath from excitement to speak.

"Well, Sam asked me to stop by and tell you he couldn't come back taday. He was assigned to take that there man back ta Wisconsin. He expects ta be back sometime tamorra ur next day, an' he'll stop by an' tell ya all about it. I can't tell ya much. I'm new on this beat and haven't heard the details. Okay?"

"Okay," assented Aunt Ettie, choked between fury and contempt. Think she was going to tell that young squirt about Gillian and Noel? Not she! A lot he could do about it. He was nothing but a tough kid.

So at last as early evening dragged along and it got too dark to see up the beach any longer from the kitchen window, she went to the telephone and tried to get Reuben.

But Aunt Ettie was not very well versed in the art of long-distance telephoning. It seemed to take a long time to get that Illinois number, and longer still to find somebody who could tell her that Reuben Remington had gone, already started home as far as they could find out. At last she hung up, thoroughly disgusted with all inventions in general and the telephone system in particular. Things were going very wrong for Aunt Ettie today, and she was fast losing confidence in her ability that had so long stood her in good stead.

It was after that that she remembered to go and get her cup of tea, which she had poured out just before the inadequate policeman had arrived, and she found it stone cold. Well, she was too stubborn and too economical to throw it away and begin over again, so she drank it anyway and made a face after the last cheerless swallow. Then she sat down in despair and stared about her at the dark windows.

Little lights were twinkling outside, from the cottages about and occasionally here and there far apart down near the beach. There was no boardwalk; that had been the charm of the place to them all that there was no boardwalk to make the place a fashionable resort, just plain and simple sand and water and nature's own setting. But now it all looked desolate and dreary to the lonely watcher, who did not know what to do. And when would Reuben get here? Would it be too late to find out anything about the lost ones? Would he be very angry with her for letting this happen? Yet what could she have done that she had not done? Telephone the police? Bah! What could they do? If that Sam were home, maybe he would accomplish something, sharp as he was; but this little whippersnapper of a kid, he wouldn't know how to find a lost one, not at night in the dark. And anyway, she wouldn't like to send a little squirt like that after her; he might get fresh with her, and Gillian would never stand for that. She would run away. Aunt Ettie had heard a little of Gillian's running away from that uncle after her mother died, and she didn't want to frighten her away again.

And just then she heard a car drive up and a familiar step on the front porch, and there was Reuben at last!

But, oh, what would he say when she told him Gillian was gone? And his dear little boy?

 

 

 

 

 

Reuben walked in smiling and found Aunt Ettie in the big chair weeping. His heart contracted in fear. He had never seen Aunt Ettie in tears before.

"Why, Aunt Ettie! What's the matter?" he said. "Has something terrible happened?"

Aunt Ettie lifted her tearstained face and nodded.

"Yes," she sobbed. "They're gone! They're both gone!"

"Gone? Who? What do you mean?"

"Gillian and Noel!" she sobbed.

"But how? Why? What happened? Quick! Tell me! Don't waste time!"

"It happened this morning," said Aunt Ettie, all business now as she mopped her excited face. "A policeman came and asked did I have a caller named Albee. I said no. I didn't know him. He told me I'd see him pretty soon, he was coming to hunt for his niece, and he said for me to phone him when he came, an' say 'okay,' an' then I went to tell Gillian, an' she wasn't there! She musta heard the policeman talk and skipped out. I looked all around and couldn't find her nor Noel, and then pretty soon that old uncle came, an' I had my hands full, what with phoning that fool police and trying to keep Albee from gettin' away before the police got here. And then Sam--the police came, an' a red car, an' they took that old uncle away, an' I ain't seen hide nor hair of either of 'em since, though the police said he'd come back, but he didn't; and then I didn't know what ta do, so I tried to phone you like you said, and they said you'd gone home. So then by 'n' by another police came an' said Sam had ta take that old uncle ta Wisconsin. An' I couldn't tell this young feller, he was too fresh. So I didn't know what ta do. You see, I went already up an' down the beach callin' and couldn't find either of 'em anywhere, an' I was wondering what else there was to do when I heard your car--" And then she melted into tears again.

"Hush!" said Reuben sharply and strode to the telephone. He called up the police headquarters and told his story briefly. A girl and boy lost. Been gone since morning. He must have help at once. They were the niece and nephew of the old man who had been extradited to Wisconsin this morning. Did Sam really take him? Or was that a cock-and-bull story? Yes, they were terribly afraid of the uncle who had made such trouble for them in the past. Would the police please check up on the exact time that Sam had gone to the cottage? Yes, the girl was in another room when he came, must have overheard him talking. What trains were there leaving Sandy Haven about that time or after? What buses? Going where? What about the next stations above, and below? What other likelihood was there of escape? What? The beach? Yes, they knew the beach pretty well. They had often walked there. Where down the inlet? Oh, you mean that little sort of island that humps up beyond the beach at low tide? Oh! How about the tide there? Does it ever cover the highest land? Sometimes, you say?
Oh, man!
What time was high tide? Now? Oh, no, he didn't think they knew anything about high and low tide over there. They hadn't been near there but once. Yes, I'll go at once. Yes, I have a flashlight, but it's still full moon, isn't it? Yes, I'll take my flashlight of course. What? What baggage, you say?