Chandler

“ There was an interval of suspense that seemed an age.
"Is there any one in the house?" was the first question of Patrolman Chandler, when he galloped up to the scene. He had been attracted at once by the barking of Sire.
"Mr. Robert," cried Bertha, wringing her hands. "Mr. Robert was in the study." The crowd looked up and measured the swift gains of the destructive element.
"Young Floyd?" said Chandler. Then he rushed into the house and up the first flight of winding stairs, the dog, as he did so, following him with a great fusillade of delighted barks. ”

“ If Miss Chandler goes there, I might follow her and thereby put myself in possession of the papers with which that man has so often threatened me. Let me see. Why, this is the address of Leonard Chandler, one of the wealthiest men in the city. It can't be that this is his daughter to whom Ben Mauprat has sent a message. It seems to me that there is the promise of something sensational here. At all events it is worth following up. I most decidedly shall keep my promise to Ben and call upon the young lady. ”

“ And Joe Chandler’s friend nodded. "I should think they did!" he exclaimed. "There’s no such thing as justice here in England. ’Tis odds on the murderer every time. ’Tisn’t one in ten that come to the end he should do—to the gallows, that is."
"And what d’you think about what’s going on now—I mean about those Avenger murders?"
Bunting lowered his voice, but Daisy and Chandler were already moving towards the door.
"I don’t believe he’ll ever be caught," said the other confidentially. "In some ways ’tis a lot more of a job to catch a madman than ’tis to run down just an ordinary criminal. ”

“ I entered Chandler School without money but happy. For the first time I wrote to my old Miss telling her I was in Lexington in Chandler School. She answered with sweet words about my going to school, and said the boss had spoken kind things about me before he passed away.
The kind teachers of Chandler did their best to unfold those twenty-seven years of ignorance. I had almost to bite the dust to stay in school but I stayed there. I have studied many days hungry—walking the streets afternoons trying to find work for a little to eat. ”

“ The business, what with the land agencies and other things, increased so much that it required better offices: and so Mr. Chandler, who had always lived on the premises, moved into a larger and a handsomer house some doors further up the street. Jacob Chandler had a pretty little place called North Villa, just outside Crabb, and walked to and fro night and morning. Both [146] were married and had children. Their only sister, Mary Ann Chandler, had married a farmer in Gloucestershire, Stephen Cramp. ”

“ Chandler looked at him, surprised. “No,” he said deliberately. “I’ve made up my mind that’s quite a wrong tack, though I knows that some of our fellows—big pots, too—are quite sure that the fellow what gave the girl the sovereign is the man we’re looking for. You see, Mr. Bunting, if that’s the fact—well, it stands to reason the fellow’s an escaped lunatic; and if he’s an escaped lunatic he’s got a keeper, and they’d be raising a hue and cry after him ”

“ Miss Chandler was lonely sometimes. Her duties kept her occupied all day. On Sundays she taught a Bible class in the schoolroom. Correspondence with bureau officials and friends at home furnished her with additional occupation. At times, nevertheless, she felt a longing for the company of women of her own race; but the white ladies of the town did not call, even in the most formal way, upon the Yankee school-teacher. Miss Chandler was therefore fain to do the best she could with such companionship as was available. She took Cicely to her home occasionally, and asked her once to stay all night. ”

“ But her Uncle Chandler, who was a staunch Republican, beheld that alliance with the treacherous enemy and rescued the royal-blue limousine from ignominy while Teddie was regaling herself on three ice-cream sodas in a corner drug store. Being less expert at such things than he imagined, however, Uncle Chandler steered the big car into a box-pillar, and broke the lamps, and dolorously entered into a compact with his niece to the end that the doings of the day in question might remain a sealed book to the rest of the family. ”

“ Now that the country was beginning to settle down a little and a man could fare forth without the expectation of meeting marauders, red or white, at any turn; now that his life was drifting into milder channels, it was different. He was trying to make up for the lost time, trying to snatch some of the sweetness which he had passed by in other days. Twice every week and sometimes oftener he had been riding over to Chandler's in the evening, with his lips in a straight line and his eyes narrowed as if he were setting out for gun fighting instead of courting. ”

“ But she held to her own opinion. And when a fit of desperate obstinacy takes possession of a woman without rhyme or reason, you cannot shake it. As good try to argue with the whistling wind. She did not pretend to see how it could have been, she said, but Sir Dace was guilty. And she haunted Paul and Chandler’s office at Islip, praying them to take the matter up.
At length, to soothe her, and perhaps to prevent her carrying it elsewhere, they promised they would. And of course they had to make some show of doing it.
One evening Tom Chandler came to Crabb Cot and asked to see me alone. ”

“ He foresees his own course of escape. His heed is for the day and for his own skin. His mind's eye will not stay behind upon his gruesome handiwork. Yet here Rowland Chandler was notably above the average of his inhuman kind. It was the body in the train that he most probably saw most clearly of all: the evidence of his own revolver, his own clothes, his own linen, at the inquest which should establish the murderer's death and remove him from the minds of men. ”

“ His life was like a full five-act play—prophetic prologue and stately epilogue, and swelling scene imposed upon swelling scene, until the tallow chandler's son, rising from the humblest levels of human fortune to the highest by uninterrupted gradations of invincible success, finally becomes the recipient of such a degree of impressive homage as has rarely been paid to anyone by the admiration and curiosity of mankind. ”

“ With inward maledictions on their slowness, he departed, resolving in his own mind that nothing should keep him much longer from Nassau, come what would.
As he went out, Mr. Chandler remarked: "It's very much like him. He's always ready to gamble in anything."
"After all, I have my suspicion that he's got a clew to the mystery somehow, and that he expects to find those handsome wenches," said Mr. Bruteman. "I'd give a good deal to baffle him."
"It seems pretty certain that we cannot obtain any clew," rejoined
Mr. Ammidon, "and we have already expended considerable in the effort. ”

“ How is it that whispers get about! Do the birds in the air carry them?—or the winds of heaven? In some cases it seems impossible that anything else can have done it. Paul and Chandler, John Tanerton and his wife, the Squire and myself: we were the only people cognizant of the new suspicion that Alice was striving to cast on Sir Dace, one and all of us had kept silent lips: and yet, the rumour got abroad. Sir Dace Fontaine was accused of knowing more about Pym’s death than he ought to know, and Tom Chandler was in London for the purpose of investigating it. ”

“ I don’t want to have no nightmares to-night. It’s dreadful to think there are so many wicked people in the world. Why, we might knock up against some murderer any minute without knowing it, mightn’t we?”
“Not you, Miss Daisy,” said Chandler smilingly. “I don’t suppose you’ll ever come across even a common swindler, let alone anyone who’s committed a murder—not one in a million does that. Why, even I have never had anything to do with a proper murder case!”
But Bunting was in no hurry. He was thoroughly enjoying every moment of the time. ”

“ Teddie's head was much clearer by the time she had motored out to Tuxedo. Her head was clearer, but the contradictory tides of feeling that eddied about her troubled young heart seemed as muddled up as ever. Even her Uncle Chandler was not entirely oblivious of the fact that some newer ferment was working in the depths of that bottled-up young soul. ”

“ I sat on the opposite side, wondering what was coming.
“That suspicion of Alice Tanerton’s—that Sir Dace killed Pym,” went on Chandler, his left hand resting on the papers, his eyes on the Squire’s. “I think it was a true one.”
“A what?” cried the pater.
“A true one. That Sir Dace did kill him.”
“Goodness bless me!” gasped the Squire, his good old face taking a lighter tint. “What on earth do you mean, man?”
“Well, I mean just that,” answered Chandler. “And I feel myself to be, in consequence, in an uncommonly awkward position. One can’t well accuse Sir Dace, a man close upon the grave ”

“ So much of the hero’s toilet may be intrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble expedient. Our next view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house immaculately and correctly clothed; calm, assured, handsome—in appearance the typical New York young clubman setting out, slightly bored, to inaugurate the pleasures of the evening.
Chandler’s honorarium was $18 per week. He was employed in the office of an architect. He was twenty-two years old; he considered architecture to be truly an art ”

“ Once more Chandler nodded, and gripped the revolver like a vise.
There was not another word said. The two crouched low and stepped out of the shadow of the bushes. Silently as the shadows themselves they sped across the open space. And then suddenly Bull halted again; for the sound of murmuring voices from inside the little building grew audible as they advanced.
“B’gee, it’s a regular Captain Kidd business! I don’t think Bull was a success as a Kidd, that is, if you spell it with two d’s. ”

“ Chandler shook his head despondently. “No,” he said, “I’m inclined to think the Yard was on a wrong tack altogether this time. But one can only do one’s best. I don’t know if Mrs. Bunting told you I’d got to question a barmaid about a man who was in her place just before closing-time. Well, she’s said all she knew, and it’s as clear as daylight to me that the eccentric old gent she talks about was only a harmless luny. He gave her a sovereign just because she told him she was a teetotaller!” ”

“ Sleuth.
There was another reason why Mrs. Bunting was glad that her stepdaughter had gone away for two days. During her absence young Chandler was far less likely to haunt them in the way he had taken to doing lately, the more so that, in spite of what she had said to her husband, Mrs. Bunting felt sure that Daisy would ask Joe Chandler to call at Belgrave Square. ’Twouldn’t be human nature—at any rate, not girlish human nature—not to do so, even if Joe’s coming did anger Aunt Margaret. ”

“ Chandler’s voice had also changed; it was now sombre, menacing. "We’re fair tired of it—beginning to wonder when it’ll end, that we are!"
"Do you ever try and make to yourself a picture of what the master’s like?" asked Bunting. Somehow, he felt he must ask that.
"Yes," said Joe slowly. "I’ve a sort of notion—a savage, fierce-looking devil, the chap must be. It’s that description that was circulated put us wrong. I don’t believe it was the man that knocked up against that woman in the fog—no, not one bit I don’t. ”

“ It isn’t much over a hundred miles from here and Chandler says there ain’t a man left in the village. Pretty soon, he thinks, there’ll be no women and children left. Maybe he’s making a pretty black picture but he says all the men have gone over 196 toward the lake hunting. ”

“ She put out a hand, and hiding herself behind the door, took the telegram from the invisible boy. "You needn’t wait," she said. "If there’s an answer we’ll send it out ourselves." Then she tore the envelope open—"Oh!" she said with a gasp of relief. "It’s only from Joe Chandler, to say he can’t go over to fetch Daisy this morning. Then you’ll have to go."
She walked back into their sitting-room. "There!" she said. "There it is, Bunting. You just read it."
"Am on duty this morning. Cannot fetch Miss Daisy as arranged.—Chandler." ”

“ And Uncle Chandler, in finally taking his departure, experienced at least a qualified relief. The girl was wrong, all wrong. And what was worse, she was much too lovely to the eye to remain unmolested by predaceous man. But she had a will of her own, had Teddie. And, what was more, she might have gone to Paris to “express herself,” as she called it. Or she might have tried to find her soul by going on the stage. And the Major knew well enough what that would have meant. After all, the girl would learn to scratch for herself. ”

“ And about our own business too.”
“Well, you ought to know best, of course, though my impression is that you are wrong,” conceded the Squire. “Put it that it was as you say: don’t you think Tom Chandler is now quite old enough for it to be acted upon?”
“No, I don’t,” replied Jacob. “As I have just told his mother, nothing can be more pernicious for a young man than to be made his own master too early. Nine young fellows out of every ten would get ruined by it.”
“Do you think so?” asked the Squire, dubiously.
“I am sure so, Squire. Tom Chandler is steady now, for aught I know to the contrary ”