Kimball Webb

“ There were many men ready and willing to marry Elsie Powell, and not alone for the fortune she would inherit. Elsie had had “shoals of suitors” ever since her school days, and though when she met Kimball Webb, she discarded all serious thought of the others, they did not so easily give her up.
Fenn Whiting was the most zealous and insistent of the lot. He had worshipped Elsie for years. He had been forced to step aside in Webb’s favour, but now, with Webb out of the running, he renewed his suit with all the ardour of his intense nature. ”

“ Courtney’s motive being the sequestration of Kimball Webb, his rival playwright, until his own play is completed.”
“Motive enough in his estimation,” commented Elsie.
“Yes; motive enough for his desire to put the man away, but not enough to explain his accomplishment of what must have been for him a difficult feat. The abduction of Mr. Webb would have been easy enough for his own people but for no one else. That so?” ”

“ There is a lot to be said about Elsie, but that properly comes in the next chapter.
Mrs. Webb and Miss Henrietta Webb sat at their pleasant breakfast table, and while they wait for the son and brother, I’ll describe them.
Every detail of their appearance and manner shrieked Boston,—so you don’t need much more surface description. A mental interior view would show hearts devotedly, even absurdly, fond of Kimball Webb, and minds which reasoned against showing fully that devotion.
The New England repression of feeling is not effaced by life in New York ”

“ Of course she’s been out with him so much she knows his tastes.”
“And this paper was in Webb’s room! When?”
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“Elsie found it the day after or a few days after his disappearance. She threw it away—”
“That doesn’t matter, the fact of its being there is the important thing! You see, the man who got in the room may have dropped it—”
“How could any man get in the room! You’re crazy!”
“’Deed I’m not! Some man did get in that room, and carry off Kimball Webb while Webb was unconscious! Now, you put that away in your mind, and keep it there, for it’s true!” ”

“ Miss Elsie Powell:
We have Kimball Webb hidden and in confinement. Where he is neither you nor your smarty-cat young detective can ever discover. We make no secret of the fact that we abducted him for ransom. How we secured his person, though a clever performance, will never be known by any one,—not even himself. The whole point of this message is, do you want him back enough to pay us fifty thousand dollars,—and no questions asked? ”

“ Courtney. If he is the sort of a man to stop at nothing in the furtherance of his own schemes, I can believe that he has somehow secreted Kimball Webb in order to get his play done first.”
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“How could he?” Elsie cried; “how could he get into the house? How could he get Kimball out?”
“Those questions are unanswerable at present, no matter who the suspect is,” the detective returned, imperturbably. “Now, look here, Miss Powell, I want to know about this will business. I’ve only heard a vague story. Is it true that if you are not married by a certain date, your fortune is taken away from you?” ”

“ Kimball well within the prescribed time.”
“I see; and may we not assume an interest on the part of this young man as to the disposition of the estate, in the event of your not marrying?”
“Hullo!” exclaimed Harbison, “that opens up a new field of conjecture. May not the young man have been sufficiently interested to go to the length of removing Kimball Webb from the field of action altogether?”
“Oh, no,” Elsie said. “You see, it’s this way. Mr. Allison tried to break the will at the time of my aunt’s death, four years ago ”

“ You don’t want to get into deeper trouble than—”
“I can’t be in deeper trouble than I am now! You know that, Fenn. But I’ve got sense enough to know better than to accuse the Webbs openly! I know that would be the very way to spike my own guns! No, Miss Henrietta Webb is a very clever schemer, but I’ll outwit her yet!”
“And if not?” said Gerty, alarmed at the possibilities crowding her mind.
“If not, if Kimball Webb is never restored to me, I shall live and die an old maid,—just as Aunt Elizabeth did.”
“But, Elsie,” Gerty cried, “think of mother! think of me, and the children! ”

“ I’m not a widow, to stay in seclusion. No, ma’am; I’ve thought it all out and I’ve made up my mind.”
Gerty protested no more. She knew from experience, when Elsie’s mind was made up, nothing could shake it.
At the Webb house, Elsie found her prospective relatives-in-law closeted with a detective. He was a City Official, from the Bureau of Missing Persons, and he was deeply interested in the case.
Often missing persons were merely placed on record, and little was done by way of effort to discover their whereabouts. But in the case of Kimball Webb a big story was anticipated. ”

“ The mystery of Kimball’s disappearance was yet to be looked into, but whatever might be revealed regarding that, at least he was not to marry Elsie Powell today.
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The Webbs were honest in their disapproval of the match. They had really nothing against Elsie or her family save that it was not, in their estimation, in the same class with their own. And, too, they didn’t approve of great wealth. A moderate income seemed to them more in keeping with high standards and fine traditions than millions. ”

“ Powell. “I want my child to secure the inheritance that was left to her.”
“At the cost of all my happiness in life!” stormed Elsie. “At the cost of a broken heart and a loveless marriage,—the saddest fate that can befall a woman!”
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“Rubbish!” exclaimed Gerty. “Cut out the histrionics, Elsie. You’re too young to think your heart is for ever bound up in Kimball Webb. There are lots of men as good as he,—and if you’d never met him, you would have been entirely satisfied with Fenn Whiting,—who is really the finer man of the two.” ”

“ Perhaps the reward is not big enough,—”
“Fifty thousand dollars!”
“Maybe the criminal is out for bigger loot. Who would benefit financially by the disappearance of Kimball Webb?”
“Nobody; he is not a rich man by any means,” Elsie informed him.
The mass of brown hair wagged wildly, as Coley Cole shook his head.
“Not from his estate,—the man isn’t dead. But supposing you, Miss Powell, stuck to your resolution not to marry any one else, thereby losing your aunt’s money, who would benefit?” ”

“ She was willing to die for her mother and sister but not to live for them.
“But, Elsie, darling,” Whiting urged, “I can’t marry you that way. You must choose some one else, then. Could you live with Allison?”
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“No! I couldn’t live with any man except Kimball Webb. And I never will! But my people have hounded me about that money, until I can’t stand it another minute. I must marry before my birthday, in order that they may get it,—but I don’t have to live on after that!” The big brown eyes were wide with despair, and the suffering, hunted look on Elsie’s face went to Whiting’s heart. ”

“ You can hear all these details some other time.”
“After we’re married,—you will marry me, won’t you, Elsie,—dearest! you,—you—haven’t married anybody else, have you?”
“No!” she cried, frightened at the grasp on her arm. But her assurance restored his poise.
“Forgive me, dear. I’m weak from being housed and tortured so long. Come, can we go away from this dreadful place?”
“Yes, we will. And I will marry you, of course. Haven’t I waited for you? But, we can’t get the money, Kim, it’s too late. Today’s my birthday, and the time is up.” ”

“ Henrietta Webb looked at Elsie, first with amazed scorn, and then, her face changing to a gentler expression, she said, “You are not quite responsible, dear. I shall not hold your speech against you. And, really, I’m not surprised that you try to grasp at any straw, in this sea of mystery. But,” she turned to Harbison and the detective, “there is no reason to doubt the truth of the story of my brother’s disappearance. Our butler and chauffeur will corroborate it, and will tell you just how much difficulty they had in entering the room.” ”

“ Where is your brother, Miss Webb? Tell me everything,—I refuse to be kept in the dark!”
But after hearing all there was to be told, Gerty took a light view of the situation.
“Nonsense, Elsie,” she said, “of course Miss Webb has nothing to do with it! It’s a joke of some of those horrid men! Some people love to do such things. They’ve kidnapped him for fun, and they’ll let him loose in time for the ceremony, but not much before.”
“I can’t think that,” said Henrietta, musing; “I don’t know all of Kimball’s friends, but those I do know are far above any such uncouth jests as that.” ”

“ Gerty calmly agreed; “and ninety-nine women out of a hundred would do the same.”
“Then I’m the hundredth,” Elsie spoke with a quiet decision, “for I repeat, what you already know, I will never marry any one but Kimball Webb,—money or no money,—family or no family.”
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“That I should live to hear a child of mine talk like that!” wailed Mrs. Powell. “Elsie, have you no heart? Have you no compassion for an invalid mother,—a sorrow-stricken sister,—two helpless little children? What sort of a monster are you?” ”

“ Not a young woman was Miss Webb, indeed she was three years older than Kimball, who was thirty. But she was what is known as well-preserved, and every detail of her perfect grooming spoke of a determination to look her best at any expense of time, trouble or money.
A tradition in the Webb family was that “haste” is a word unknown to a lady. It may have been the observance of this that caused the lagging footsteps, but to an onlooker it would have appeared that Henrietta Webb was thinking with a rapidity in inverse proportion to her movements. ”

“ I wouldn’t dare even listen to you!”
“Oh,” she said, “you’re afraid of him—” and she whispered,—“the master mind!”
“You said it!” Pike exclaimed. “Nobody dares stand up against him!”
And at that moment a shout rang through the house. The two Pikes turned white and fairly trembled with terror, but Elsie cried out,
“That’s the voice of Kimball Webb!”
250 CHAPTER XVI
A SAFE MAN
There was consternation in the Powell household when Miss Loring arrived without Elsie.
“Where is she?” cried Gerty.
“Here, isn’t she?” returned the bewildered nurse. ”

“ She is a real help in knowing all about Webb’s play. Not that I mean to plagiarize,—on the contrary, Miss Lloyd can tell me his points, and I shall take care to avoid using them.”
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“You are exceedingly clever, Mr. Courtney,” Elsie looked at him curiously, “especially so in the attitude you take regarding Kim! I believe you got him away,—somehow,—and that you will not give him up until you are ready. How you did it, I can’t imagine, but I shall find out, and I shall have you punished! There is,—there must be a law that will reach you, and you’ll have a worse fate than the failure of a play!” ”

“ This naturally turned his mind to Joe Allison. But he had long ago ceased to suspect Joe. He had, at first, but now he knew the chap, and it was impossible to connect him with such a crime as abduction to gain a fortune. Allison was money-mad, that Coe admitted,—but, well, he wouldn’t put it on Joe till he had to.
He decided he’d go to the room of Kimball Webb and once again make those hopeless rounds of walls, ceiling and floor; doors and windows; chimney and bathroom window, which were all the points to be examined. ”

“ Elsie whispered to her, “if you’ll help me out. Can’t you let me get away tonight?”
“Oh, no, I wish I might,—but I daren’t,—I daren’t!”
“Tell me this, then. Isn’t Mr. Webb in this house?”
“Hush, hush, now,—don’t say such things.”
“But isn’t he?”
“I can’t tell you,—I daren’t.”
“I am answered!” cried Elsie, triumphantly. “I know he is! Oh, what a refinement of cruelty. Are you a human being, that you countenance such fiendish cruelty? Please,—please, dear, good Mrs. Pike, let me get away! You needn’t do anything. ”

“ Your theory of Miss Webb’s connivance is more plausible than that!”
“You mix me all up, Fenn! I thought at first you suspected Joe.”
“I suspect no one, because, as yet, I’ve found no real motive. But this Allison can be said to have a motive,—and still, my reason won’t let me suspect him. We’re all of us at sea, Elsie. We all speculate, and wonder and assume,—then, when it comes to a positive suspicion, we can’t find a logical one.” ”

“ Elsie rose to go; “but I’m not obliged to take the advice. I think I can trust Mr. Allison to provide for my mother, and Gerty can marry again. There’s no reason she shouldn’t marry for money, if it’s the thing for me to do!”
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“That’s quite different, my dear. Mrs. Seaman is a widow, and her husband’s memory is too dear to her—”
“Oh, hush! I get so tired of that argument! Let me tell you, Kimball Webb’s memory is as dear to me as if he had been my husband for a thousand years! ”

“ If we only had one more line on him.”
“Maybe he’s the Sherman’s man,” mused Gerty.
“What! What’s that?” said Coe, quickly.
“Why, Elsie picked up a paper in Kim’s room, and it was one of those little toothpick wrappers, tissue, you know, and it was stamped ‘Sherman’s.’”
“Yes, the big restaurant.”
“Yes; now Kimball Webb never went to Sherman’s in his life! I know he didn’t, and Elsie says she knows he didn’t. He isn’t that sort of a man.”
“Why, Sherman’s is all right.”
“Yes, for the class of people that like it. But Kim is fastidious and Elsie says she knows of his prejudice against Sherman’s. ”

“ Though I’m not sure mysteriously disappearing men, as a class, have physical characteristics in common. But one rather imagines them eerie looking, with deep, cavernous eyes and hollow cheeks.
Kimball Webb had nothing of the sort. ”