Green Fancy

“ No such person arrived at Green Fancy last night."
"Did you get a square look at the driver's face?" demanded De Soto.
"It was almost too dark to see, but he was old, hatchet-faced, and spoke with an accent."
"Then it couldn't have been Peter," said De Soto positively. "He's old, right enough, but he is as big as the side of a house, with a face like a full moon, and he is Yankee to his toes. By gad, Barnes, the plot thickens! A woman has been added to the mystery. Now, who the devil is she and what has become of her?" ”

“ With one exception, he decided, the entire company at Green Fancy was involved in the conspiracy. The exception was Miss Cameron. It was quite clear to him that she had been misled or betrayed into her present position; that a trap had been set for her and she had walked into it blindly, trustingly. This would seem to establish, beyond question, that her capture and detention was vital to the interests of the plotters; otherwise she would not have been lured to Green Fancy under the impression that she was to find herself among friends and supporters. Supporters! ”

“ Curtis's chauffeur, I think it was, said the killing occurred just above this house," said he, visibly excited. "Green Fancy is at least a mile from here, isn't it? You don't shoot burglars a mile from the place they are planning to rob, do you? Is the man a native of this community?"
"No," said Barnes, on whom devolved the duties of spokesman. "By the way, his companion lies dead at Hart's Tavern. He was shot from his horse at the cross-roads."
"God bless me soul," gasped O'Dowd. "The chauffeur didn't mention a second one. ”

“ Then she was gone.
"Where ignorance is bliss," he muttered to himself, and then looked at his watch. Ten minutes later he was in Sprouse's room, calling for Green Fancy over an extension wire that had cost the company nothing and yielded nothing in return. After some delay, O'Dowd's mellow voice sang out:
"Hello! How are you this morning?"
"Grievously lonesome," replied Barnes, and wound up a doleful account of himself by imploring O'Dowd to save his life by bringing the entire Green Fancy party over to dinner that night. ”

“ Taking O'Dowd's hint, Barnes directed his steps straight out from the mouth of the quarry and pressed confidently onward. Their progress was swifter than before and less cautious. The thought had come to him that the men from Green Fancy would rush to the outer edges of the Curtis land and seek to intercept, rather than to overtake, the fugitive. In answer to a question she informed him that there were no fewer than twenty-five men on the place, all of them shrewd, resolute and formidable. ”

“ Now, I must be off to discuss literature with Mrs. Jim Conley. I've been working on her for two weeks. The hardest part of my job is to keep her from subscribing for a set of Dickens. She has been on the point of signing the contract at least a half dozen times, and I've been fearfully hard put to head her off. Conley's house is not far from Green Fancy. Savvy?"
Barnes, left to his own devices, wandered from tap-room to porch, from porch to forge, from forge to tap-room, his brain far more active than his legs, his heart as heavy as lead and as light as air by turns. ”

“ And I don't know what kind of heroism goes with a poetic nature. I'm afraid Mr. Bacon—"
He laughed. "I am sure he would have acted like a man."
"If you were to ask father, he'd say that Mr. Bacon can't act like a man to save his soul. He says he acts like a fence-post."
Shortly before the noon hour, Peter Ames halted the old automobile from Green Fancy in front of the Tavern and out stepped O'Dowd, followed by no less a personage than the pseudo Mr. Loeb. There were a number of travelling bags in the tonneau of the car.
Catching sight of Barnes, the Irishman shouted a genial greeting. ”

“ Barnes; our courts are another. Need I be more explicit?"
"I think I understand," he said slowly. "Poor wretches!"
"Prince Ugo is of royal blood. I am not too far beneath him. In my country his word is the law. The marriage that was to have been celebrated to-day at Green Fancy would have bound me to him forever. It would have been recognised in my country as legal. I have not the right of appeal. I would not even be permitted to question his right to make me his wife against my will. He is a prince. His will is law."
"Isn't love allowed to enter into a—"
"Love?" she scorned. ”

“ He was confident that O'Dowd's system of espionage would quickly absolve him of all interest in or connection with the plans of Albert Roon; it remained therefore for him to convince the Irishman that he had no notions or vagaries inimical to the well-being of Green Fancy or its occupants. With that result achieved, he need have no fear of meeting the fate that had befallen Roon and his lieutenant; nothing worse could happen than an arrest and fine for trespass. ”

“ The Lord only knows what we might blunder into."
"I think the only sensible thing to do, Mr. Barnes, is to make ourselves as snug and comfortable as we can and wait for the first signs of daybreak."
He scowled,—and was glad that it was too dark for her to see his face. He wondered if she fully appreciated what would happen to him if the pursuers came upon him in this forbidding spot. He could almost picture his own body lying there among the rocks and rotting, while she—well, she would merely go back to Green Fancy. ”

“ She was standing quite still in front of the sign-post, peering up the road toward Frogg's Corner,—confronted by a steep climb that led into black and sinister timberlands above the narrow strip of pasture bordering the pike.
The fierce wind pinned her skirts to her slender body as she leaned against the gale, gripping her hat tightly with one hand and straining under the weight of the bag in the other. The ends of a veil whipped furiously about her head, and, even in the gathering darkness, he could see a strand or two of hair keeping them company. ”

“ Something like that invariably happens when a sentinel sleeps at his post, or an engineer drowses in his cab. But nothing of the sort had happened.
Mr. Bacon, sweeping the front stairs, assured him between yawns that he hadn't heard a sound in the Tavern after half-past ten,—at which hour he went to bed and to sleep.
Barnes was at breakfast when Peter Ames called up. An inspiration seized him when the chauffeur mentioned the wholesale exodus: he hired Peter forthwith and ordered him to report immediately,—with the car. He was going up to Green Fancy for Miss Cameron's "boxes." ”

“ You may have observed that I did not accompany the sheriff's posse to-day. I was up in Hornville getting the final word from New York that you were on the level. You have a document from the police, I hear, but I hadn't seen it. Time is precious. I telephoned to New York. Eleven dollars and sixty cents. You were under suspicion until I hung up the receiver, I may say."
"Jones has been talking to you," said Barnes. "But you said a moment ago that you were up at Green Fancy last night. Not by invitation, I take it."
"I invited myself," said Sprouse succinctly. ”

“ More than one painter of portraits has said that she is the most beautiful woman in the world. I don't take much stock in portrait painters, but I'm always fair to the lords of creation when their opinions coincide with mine. Mayhap you have heard of her. She is Miss Cameron of New Orleans, a friend of Mrs. Van Dyke. We have quite an enchanting house-party, Mr. Barnes, if you consider no more than the feminine side of it. Unfortunate creatures! To be saddled with such ungainly lummixes as De Soto and me! By the way, have you heard when the coroner is to hold his inquests? ”

“ I—"
"Just what do you mean by 'the world,' Sprouse?"
"My world," he replied succinctly. "I'm not a piker, you know," he went on, cocking one eye in a somewhat supercilious manner. "The stakes are always high in my game. I don't play for pennies."
"Get in the car," said Barnes suddenly. He had decided to take a chance with the resourceful, indefatigable rascal. There was nothing to be lost by setting him on the track of Prince Ugo, who, if the man's story was true, had betrayed his best friends. There was something convincing about Sprouse's version of the affair at Green Fancy. ”

“ Oh, you will never know what it is to have your heart lighten as mine—But I must control myself. We are not to waste words."
"You have only to command me, Miss Cameron. No more than a dozen words are necessary."
"I knew it,—I felt it," she cried eagerly. "Nothing can be done to-night. The slightest untoward action on your part would send you after—the other two. There is one man here who, I think, will stand between me and actual peril. Mr. O'Dowd. He is—"
"He is the liveliest liar I've ever known," broke in Barnes quickly. "Don't trust him." ”

“ There was no lawn, no indication of landscape gardening, and yet Barnes was singularly impressed by the arrangement of the shrubbery that surrounded the place. There was no visible approach to the house through the thick, unbroken sea of green; everywhere was dense underbrush, standing higher than the head of the tallest of men,—clean, bright bushes, revealing the most astonishing uniformity in size and character.
"'Gad," he said to himself, "what manner of crank is he who would bury himself like this? ”

“ She sighed. "It was rather nice being Miss Cameron to you, Mr. Barnes. You will not let it make any difference, will you? I mean to say, you will be just the same as if I were still Miss Cameron and not—some one else?"
"I will be just the same," he said, leaning a little closer. "I am not so easily frightened as all that, you know."
She looked into his eyes for a moment, and then turned her own swiftly away. Entranced, he watched the delicate colour steal into her cheek.
"You are just like other women," he said thickly, "and I am like other men. We can't help being what we are, Countess. ”

“ Lighting a cigarette, he strolled outside. He had barely time to take a position at the darkened end of the porch before the sounds of an approaching machine came to his ears. A second or two later the lights swung around the bend in the road a quarter of a mile above Hart's Tavern, and down came the car at a high rate of speed. It dashed past the tavern with a great roar and rattle and shot off into the darkness beyond. As it rushed through the dim circle of light in front of the tavern, Barnes succeeded in obtaining a brief but convincing view of the car. ”

“ Barnes was impressed. "Perhaps you will condescend to tell me who you are, Mr. Sprouse. I am very much in the dark."
"I am a special agent,—but not a spy, sir,—of a government that is friendly to yours. I am known in Washington. My credentials are not to be questioned. At present it would be unwise for me to reveal the name of my government. I dare say if I can afford to trust you, Mr. Barnes, you can afford to trust me. There is too much at stake for me to take the slightest chance with any man. ”

“ Sprouse," said Barnes stiffly.
"If she is as clever as I think she is, she will encourage him tremendously. I would if I were in her place."
"Umph!" was Barnes's only retort to that.
"Is it possible that you have never had the pleasure of being transformed into a perfect ass by the magic of a perfect woman, Mr. Barnes? You've missed a great deal. It happened to me once, and came near to upsetting the destinies of two great nations. Mr. O'Dowd is only human. He isn't immune."
"I catch the point, Mr. Sprouse," said Barnes, rather gloomily. ”

“ The wide green door, set far back in a recess not unlike a kiosk, was opened by a man-servant who might easily have been mistaken for a waiter from Delmonico's or Sherry's. He did not have the air or aplomb of a butler, nor the smartness of a footman. On the contrary, he was a thick-set, rather scrubby sort of person with all the symptoms of cafe servitude about him, including the never-failing doubt as to nationality. He might have been a Greek, a Pole, an Italian or a Turk.
"Say to Mrs. Collier, Nicholas, that Mr. Barnes is here for dinner," said De Soto. ”

“ Do you hear—doesn't that sound like an automobile—Ah!" The hoarse honk of an automobile horn rose above the howling wind, and an instant later two faint lights came rushing toward them around a bend in the mountain road. "Better late than never," she cried, her voice vibrant once more.
He grasped her arm and jerked her out of the path of the on-coming machine, whose driver was sending it along at a mad rate, regardless of ruts and stones and curves. The car careened as it swung into the pike, skidded alarmingly, and then the brakes were jammed down. ”

“ Each of us has his own way of classifying humanity. To me, as a child, men and women fell naturally into two great divisions: those who had gardens and those who had only houses.
Brick walls and pavements hemmed me in and robbed me of one of my birthrights; and to the fancy of childhood a garden was a paradise, and the people who had gardens were happy Adams and Eves walking in a golden mist of sunshine and showers, with green leaves and blue sky overhead, and blossoms springing at their [250] feet; ”

“ CHAPTER XV — LARGE BODIES MOVE SLOWLY,—BUT MR. SPROUSE WAS SMALLER THAN THE AVERAGE
There was not a sound for many seconds. The trapped couple in the stone-cutter's shed scarcely breathed. She was the first to speak.
"I am ready to return with you, Mr. O'Dowd," she said, distinctly. "There must be no struggle, no blood-shed. Anything but that."
She felt Barnes's body stiffen and caught the muttered execration that fell from his lips.
O'Dowd spoke out of the darkness: "You forget that I have your own word for it that ye'll be a dead woman before the day is over. ”