The Scarlet Car
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Richard Harding Davis >> The Scarlet Car
So he whirled upon the chief of police:
"Take your hand off that gun!" he growled. "How dare you
threaten me?"
Amazed, the chief of police dropped from the step and advanced
indignantly.
"Me?" he demanded. "I ain't got a gun. What you mean by----"
With sudden intelligence, the chauffeur precipitated himself
upon the scene.
"It's the other one," he shouted. He shook an accusing finger
at the selectman. "He pointed it at the lady."
To Miss Forbes the realism of Fred's acting was too
convincing. To learn that one is covered with a loaded
revolver is disconcerting. Miss Forbes gave a startled
squeak, and ducked her head.
Winthrop roared aloud at the selectman.
"How dare you frighten the lady!" he cried. "Take your hand
off that gun."
"What you talkin' about?" shouted the selectman. "The idea of
my havin' a gun! I haven't got a----"
"All right, Fred!" cried Winthrop. "Low bridge."
There was a crash of shattered glass and brass, of scattered
barrel staves, the smell of escaping gas, and the Scarlet Car
was flying drunkenly down the main street.
"What are they doing now, Fred?" called the owner.
Fred peered over the stern of the flying car.
"The constable's jumping around the road," he replied, "and
the long one's leaning against a tree. No, he's climbing the
tree. I can't make out WHAT he's doing."
"_I_ know!" cried Miss Forbes; her voice vibrated with
excitement. Defiance of the law had thrilled her with
unsuspected satisfaction; her eyes were dancing. "There was a
telephone fastened to the tree, a hand telephone. They are
sending word to some one. They're trying to head us off."
Winthrop brought the car to a quick halt.
"We're in a police trap!" he said. Fred leaned forward and
whispered to his employer. His voice also vibrated with the
joy of the chase.
"This'll be our THIRD arrest," he said. "That means----"
"I know what it means," snapped Winthrop. "Tell me how we can
get out of here."
"We can't get out of here, sir, unless we go back. Going
south, the bridge is the only way out."
"The bridge!" Winthrop struck the wheel savagely with his
knuckles. "I forgot their confounded bridge!" He turned to
Miss Forbes. "Fairport is a sort of island," he explained.
"But after we're across the bridge," urged the chauffeur, "we
needn't keep to the post road no more. We can turn into Stone
Ridge, and strike south to White Plains. Then----"
"We haven't crossed the bridge yet," growled Winthrop. His
voice had none of the joy of the others; he was greatly
perturbed. "Look back," he commanded, "and see if there is
any sign of those boys."
He was now quite willing to share responsibility. But there
was no sign of the Yale men, and, unattended, the Scarlet Car
crept warily forward. Ahead of it, across the little
reed-grown inlet, stretched their road of escape, a long
wooden bridge, lying white in the moonlight.
"I don't see a soul," whispered Miss Forbes.
"Anybody at that draw?" asked Winthrop. Unconsciously his
voice also had sunk to a whisper.
"No," returned Fred. "I think the man that tends the draw
goes home at night; there is no light there."
"Well then," said Winthrop, with an anxious sigh, "we've got
to make a dash for it."
The car shot forward, and, as it leaped lightly upon the
bridge, there was a rapid rumble of creaking boards.
Between it and the highway to New York lay only two hundred
yards of track, straight and empty.
In his excitement the chauffeur rose from the rear seat.
"They'll never catch us now," he muttered. "They'll never
catch us!"
But even as he spoke there grated harshly the creak of rusty
chains on a cogged wheel, the rattle of a brake. The black
figure of a man with waving arms ran out upon the draw, and
the draw gaped slowly open.
When the car halted there was between it and the broken edge
of the bridge twenty feet of running water.
At the same moment from behind it came a patter of feet, and
Winthrop turned to see racing toward them some dozen young men
of Fairport. They surrounded him with noisy, raucous,
belligerent cries. They were, as they proudly informed him,
members of the Fairport "Volunteer Fire Department." That
they might purchase new uniforms, they had arranged a trap for
the automobiles returning in illegal haste from New Haven. In
fines they had collected $300, and it was evident that already
some of that money had been expended in bad whiskey. As many
as could do so crowded into the car, others hung to the
running boards and step, others ran beside it. They rejoiced
over Winthrop's unsuccessful flight and capture with violent
and humiliating laughter.
For the day, Judge Allen had made a temporary court in the
clubroom of the fire department, which was over the engine
house; and the proceedings were brief and decisive. The
selectman told how Winthrop, after first breaking the speed
law, had broken arrest and Judge Allen, refusing to fine him
and let him go, held him and his companions for a hearing the
following morning. He fixed the amount of bail at $500 each;
failing to pay this, they would for the night be locked up in
different parts of the engine house, which, it developed,
contained on the ground floor the home of the fire engine, on
the second floor the clubroom, on alternate nights, of the
firemen, the local G. A. R., and the Knights of Pythias, and
in its cellar the town jail.
Winthrop and the chauffeur the learned judge condemned to the
cells in the basement. As a concession, he granted Miss
Forbes the freedom of the entire clubroom to herself.
The objections raised by Winthrop to this arrangement were of
a nature so violent, so vigorous, at one moment so specious
and conciliatory, and the next so abusive, that his listeners
were moved by awe, but not to pity.
In his indignation, Judge Allen rose to reply, and as, the
better to hear him, the crowd pushed forward, Fred gave way
before it, until he was left standing in sullen gloom upon its
outer edge. In imitation of the real firemen of the great
cities, the vamps of Fairport had cut a circular hole in the
floor of their clubroom, and from the engine room below had
reared a sliding pole of shining brass. When leaving their
clubroom, it was always their pleasure to scorn the stairs
and, like real firemen, slide down this pole. It had not
escaped the notice of Fred, and since his entrance he had been
gravitating toward it.
As the voice of the judge rose in violent objurgation, and all
eyes were fixed upon him, the chauffeur crooked his leg
tightly about the brass pole, and, like the devil in the
pantomime, sank softly and swiftly through the floor.
The irate judge was shaking his finger in Winthrop's face.
"Don't you try to teach me no law," he shouted; "I know what I
can do. Ef MY darter went gallivantin' around nights in one
of them automobiles, it would serve her right to get locked
up. Maybe this young woman will learn to stay at home nights
with her folks. She ain't goin' to take no harm here. The
constable sits up all night downstairs in the fire engine
room, and that sofa's as good a place to sleep as the hotel.
If you want me to let her go to the hotel, why don't you send
to your folks and bail her out?"
"You know damn well why I don't," returned Winthrop. "I don't
intend to give the newspapers and you and these other idiots
the chance to annoy her further. This young lady's brother
has been with us all day; he left us only by accident, and by
forcing her to remain here alone you are acting outrageously.
If you knew anything of decency, or law, you'd----"
"I know this much!" roared the justice triumphantly, pointing
his spectacle-case at Miss Forbes. "I know her name ain't
Lizzie Borden and yours ain't Charley Ross."
Winthrop crossed to where Miss Forbes stood in a corner. She
still wore her veil, but through it, though her face was pale,
she smiled at him.
His own distress was undisguised.
"I can never forgive myself," he said.
"Nonsense!" replied Miss Forbes briskly. "You were perfectly
right. If we had sent for any one, it would have had to come
out. Now, we'll pay the fine in the morning and get home, and
no one will know anything of it excepting the family and Mr.
Peabody, and they'll understand. But if I ever lay hands on
my brother Sam!"--she clasped her fingers together helplessly.
"To think of his leaving you to spend the night in a cell----"
Winthrop interrupted her.
"I will get one of these men to send his wife or sister over
to stay with you," he said.
But Miss Forbes protested that she did not want a companion.
The constable would protect her, she said, and she would sit
up all night and read. She nodded at the periodicals on the
club table.
"This is the only chance I may ever have," she said, "to read
the `Police Gazette'!"
"You ready there?" called the constable.
"Good-night," said Winthrop.
Under the eyes of the grinning yokels, they shook hands.
"Good-night," said the girl.
"Where's your young man?" demanded the chief of police.
"My what?" inquired Winthrop.
"The young fellow that was with you when we held you up that
first time."
The constable, or the chief of police as he called himself, on
the principle that if there were only one policeman he must
necessarily be the chief, glanced hastily over the heads of
the crowd.
"Any of you holding that shoffer?" he called.
No one was holding the chauffeur.
The chauffeur had vanished.
The cell to which the constable led Winthrop was in a corner
of the cellar in which formerly coal had been stored. This
corner was now fenced off with boards, and a wooden door with
chain and padlock.
High in the wall, on a level with the ground, was the opening,
or window, through which the coal had been dumped. This
window now was barricaded with iron bars. Winthrop tested the
door by shaking it, and landed a heavy kick on one of the
hinges. It gave slightly, and emitted a feeble groan.
"What you tryin' to do?" demanded the constable. "That's town
property."
In the light of the constable's lantern, Winthrop surveyed his
cell with extreme dissatisfaction.
"I call this a cheap cell," he said.
"It's good enough for a cheap sport," returned the constable.
It was so overwhelming a retort that after the constable had
turned the key in the padlock, and taken himself and his
lantern to the floor above, Winthrop could hear him repeating
it to the volunteer firemen. They received it with delighted
howls.
For an hour, on the three empty boxes that formed his bed,
Winthrop sat, with his chin on his fists, planning the
nameless atrocities he would inflict upon the village of
Fairport. Compared to his tortures, those of Neuremberg were
merely reprimands. Also he considered the particular
punishment he would mete out to Sam Forbes for his desertion
of his sister, and to Fred. He could not understand Fred. It
was not like the chauffeur to think only of himself.
Nevertheless, for abandoning Miss Forbes in the hour of need,
Fred must be discharged. He had, with some regret, determined
upon this discipline, when from directly over his head the
voice of Fred hailed him cautiously.
"Mr. Winthrop," the voice called, "are you there?"
To Winthrop the question seemed superfluous. He jumped to his
feet, and peered up into the darkness.
"Where are YOU?" he demanded.
"At the window," came the answer. "We're in the back yard.
Mr. Sam wants to speak to you."
On Miss Forbes's account, Winthrop gave a gasp of relief. On
his own, one of savage satisfaction.
"And _I_ want to speak to HIM!" he whispered.
The moonlight, which had been faintly shining through the iron
bars of the coal chute, was eclipsed by a head and shoulders.
The comfortable voice of Sam Forbes greeted him in a playful
whisper.
"Hullo, Billy! You down there?"
"Where the devil did you think I was?" Winthrop answered at
white heat. "Let me tell you if I was not down here I'd be
punching your head."
"That's all right, Billy," Sam answered soothingly. "But I'll
save you just the same. It shall never be said of Sam Forbes
he deserted a comrade----"
"Stop that! Do you know," Winthrop demanded fiercely, "that
your sister is a prisoner upstairs?"
"I do," replied the unfeeling brother, "but she won't be long.
All the low-comedy parts are out now arranging a rescue."
"Who are? Todd and those boys?" demanded Winthrop. "They
mustn't think of it! They'll only make it worse. It is
impossible to get your sister out of here with those drunken
firemen in the building. You must wait till they've gone
home. Do you hear me?"
"Pardon ME!" returned Sam stiffly, "but this is MY relief
expedition. I have sent two of the boys to hold the bridge,
like Horatius, and two to guard the motors, and the others are
going to entice the firemen away from the engine house."
"Entice them? How?" demanded Winthrop. "They're drunk, and
they won't leave here till morning."
Outside the engine house, suspended from a heavy cross-bar,
was a steel rail borrowed from a railroad track, and bent into
a hoop. When hit with a sledge-hammer it proclaimed to
Fairport that the "consuming element" was at large.
At the moment Winthrop asked his question, over the village of
Fairport and over the bay and marshes, and far out across the
Sound, the great steel bar sent forth a shuddering boom of
warning.
From the room above came a wild tumult of joyous yells.
"Fire!" shrieked the vamps, "fire!"
The two men crouching by the cellar window heard the rush of
feet, the engine banging and bumping across the sidewalk, its
brass bell clanking crazily, the happy vamps shouting hoarse,
incoherent orders.
Through the window Sam lowered a bag of tools he had taken
from Winthrop's car.
"Can you open the lock with any of these?" he asked.
"I can kick it open!" yelled Winthrop joyfully. "Get to your
sister, quick!"
He threw his shoulder against the door, and the staples flying
before him sent him sprawling in the coal-dust. When he
reached the head of the stairs, Beatrice Forbes was descending
from the clubroom, and in front of the door the two cars, with
their lamps unlit and numbers hidden, were panting to be free.
And in the North, reaching to the sky, rose a roaring column
of flame, shameless in the pale moonlight, dragging into naked
day the sleeping village, the shingled houses, the clock-face
in the church steeple.
"What the devil have you done?" gasped Winthrop.
Before he answered, Sam waited until the cars were rattling to
safety across the bridge.
"We have been protecting the face of nature," he shouted. "The
only way to get that gang out of the engine house was to set
fire to something. Tommy wanted to burn up the railroad
station, because he doesn't like the New York and New Haven,
and Fred was for setting fire to Judge Allen's house, because
he was rude to Beatrice. But we finally formed the Village
Improvement Society, organized to burn all advertising signs.
You know those that stood in the marshes, and hid the view
from the trains, so that you could not see the Sound. We
chopped them down and put them in a pile, and poured gasolene
on them, and that fire is all that is left of the pickles,
fly-screens, and pills."
It was midnight when the cars drew up at the door of the house
of Forbes. Anxiously waiting in the library were Mrs. Forbes
and Ernest Peabody.
"At last!" cried Mrs. Forbes, smiling her relief; "we thought
maybe Sam and you had decided to spend the night in New
Haven."
"No," said Miss Forbes, "there WAS some talk about spending
the night at Fairport, but we pushed right on."
II
THE TRESPASSERS
With a long, nervous shudder, the Scarlet Car came to a stop,
and the lamps bored a round hole in the night, leaving the
rest of the encircling world in a chill and silent darkness.
The lamps showed a flickering picture of a country road
between high banks covered with loose stones, and overhead, a
fringe of pine boughs. It looked like a colored photograph
thrown from a stereopticon in a darkened theater.
From the back of the car the voice of the owner said briskly:
"We will now sing that beautiful ballad entitled `He Is
Sleeping in the Yukon Vale To-night.' What are you stopping
for, Fred?" he asked.
The tone of the chauffeur suggested he was again upon the
defensive.
"For water, sir," he mumbled.
Miss Forbes in the front seat laughed, and her brother in the
rear seat, groaned in dismay.
"Oh, for water?" said the owner cordially. "I thought maybe
it was for coal."
Save a dignified silence, there was no answer to this, until
there came a rolling of loose stones and the sound of a heavy
body suddenly precipitated down the bank, and landing with a
thump in the road.
"He didn't get the water," said the owner sadly.
"Are you hurt, Fred?" asked the girl.
The chauffeur limped in front of the lamps, appearing
suddenly, like an actor stepping into the limelight.
"No, ma'am," he said. In the rays of the lamp, he unfolded a
road map and scowled at it. He shook his head aggrievedly.
"There OUGHT to be a house just about here," he explained.
"There OUGHT to be a hotel and a garage, and a cold supper,
just about here," said the girl cheerfully.
"That's the way with those houses," complained the owner.
"They never stay where they're put. At night they go around
and visit each other. Where do you think you are, Fred?"
"I think we're in that long woods, between Loon Lake and
Stoughton on the Boston Pike," said the chauffeur, "and," he
reiterated, "there OUGHT to be a house somewhere about
here--where we get water."
"Well, get there, then, and get the water," commanded the
owner.
"But I can't get there, sir, till I get the water," returned
the chauffeur.
He shook out two collapsible buckets, and started down the
shaft of light.
"I won't be more nor five minutes," he called.
"I'm going with him," said the girl, "I'm cold."
She stepped down from the front seat, and the owner with
sudden alacrity vaulted the door and started after her.
"You coming?" he inquired of Ernest Peabody. But Ernest
Peabody being soundly asleep made no reply. Winthrop turned
to Sam. "Are YOU coming?" he repeated.
The tone of the invitation seemed to suggest that a refusal
would not necessarily lead to a quarrel.
"I am NOT!" said the brother. "You've kept Peabody and me
twelve hours in the open air, and it's past two, and we're
going to sleep. You can take it from me that we are going to
spend the rest of this night here in this road."
He moved his cramped joints cautiously, and stretched his legs
the full width of the car.
"If you can't get plain water," he called, "get club soda."
He buried his nose in the collar of his fur coat, and the
odors of camphor and raccoon skins instantly assailed him, but
he only yawned luxuriously and disappeared into the coat as a
turtle draws into its shell. From the woods about him the
smell of the pine needles pressed upon him like a drug, and
before the footsteps of his companions were lost in the
silence he was asleep. But his sleep was only a review of his
waking hours. Still on either hand rose flying dust clouds
and twirling leaves; still on either side raced gray stone
walls, telegraph poles, hills rich in autumn colors; and
before him a long white road, unending, interminable,
stretching out finally into a darkness lit by flashing
shop-windows, like open fireplaces, by street lamps, by
swinging electric globes, by the blinding searchlights of
hundreds of darting trolley cars with terrifying gongs, and
then a cold white mist, and again on every side, darkness,
except where the four great lamps blazed a path through
stretches of ghostly woods.
As the two young men slumbered, the lamps spluttered and
sizzled like bacon in a frying-pan, a stone rolled noisily
down the bank, a white owl, both appalled and fascinated by
the dazzling eyes of the monster blocking the road, hooted,
and flapped itself away. But the men in the car only shivered
slightly, deep in the sleep of utter weariness.
In silence the girl and Winthrop followed the chauffeur. They
had passed out of the light of the lamps, and in the autumn
mist the electric torch of the owner was as ineffective as a
glow-worm. The mystery of the forest fell heavily upon them.
From their feet the dead leaves sent up a clean, damp odor,
and on either side and overhead the giant pine trees whispered
and rustled in the night wind.
"Take my coat, too," said the young man. "You'll catch cold."
He spoke with authority and began to slip the loops from the
big horn buttons. It was not the habit of the girl to
consider her health. Nor did she permit the members of her
family to show solicitude concerning it. But the anxiety of
the young man, did not seem to offend her. She thanked him
generously. "No; these coats are hard to walk in, and I want
to walk," she exclaimed.
"I like to hear the leaves rustle when you kick them, don't
you? When I was so high, I used to pretend it was wading in
the surf."
The young man moved over to the gutter of the road where the
leaves were deepest and kicked violently. "And the more noise
you make," he said, "the more you frighten away the wild
animals."
The girl shuddered in a most helpless and fascinating fashion.
"Don't!" she whispered. "I didn't mention it, but already I
have seen several lions crouching behind the trees."
"Indeed?" said the young man. His tone was preoccupied. He
had just kicked a rock, hidden by the leaves, and was standing
on one leg.
"Do you mean you don't believe me?" asked the girl, "or is it
that you are merely brave?"
"Merely brave!" exclaimed the young man. "Massachusetts is so
far north for lions," he continued, "that I fancy what you saw
was a grizzly bear. But I have my trusty electric torch with
me, and if there is anything a bear cannot abide, it is to be
pointed at by an electric torch."
"Let us pretend," cried the girl, "that we are the babes in the
wood, and that we are lost."
"We don't have to pretend we're lost," said the man, "and as I
remember it, the babes came to a sad end. Didn't they die,
and didn't the birds bury them with leaves?"
"Sam and Mr. Peabody can be the birds," suggested the girl.
"Sam and Peabody hopping around with leaves in their teeth
would look silly," objected the man, "I doubt if I could keep
from laughing."
"Then," said the girl, "they can be the wicked robbers who
came to kill the babes."
"Very well," said the man with suspicious alacrity, "let us be
babes. If I have to die," he went on heartily, "I would
rather die with you than live with any one else."
When he had spoken, although they were entirely alone in the
world and quite near to each other, it was as though the girl
could not hear him, even as though he had not spoken at all.
After a silence, the girl said: "Perhaps it would be better
for us to go back to the car."
"I won't do it again," begged the man.
"We will pretend," cried the girl, "that the car is a van and
that we are gypsies, and we'll build a campfire, and I will
tell your fortune."
"You are the only woman who can," muttered the young man.
The girl still stood in her tracks.
"You said--" she began.
"I know," interrupted the man, "but you won't let me talk
seriously, so I joke. But some day----"
"Oh, look!" cried the girl. "There's Fred."
She ran from him down the road. The young man followed her
slowly, his fists deep in the pockets of the great-coat, and
kicking at the unoffending leaves.
The chauffeur was peering through a double iron gate hung
between square brick posts. The lower hinge of one gate was
broken, and that gate lurched forward leaving an opening. By
the light of the electric torch they could see the beginning
of a driveway, rough and weed-grown, lined with trees of great
age and bulk, and an unkempt lawn, strewn with bushes, and
beyond, in an open place bare of trees and illuminated faintly
by the stars, the shadow of a house, black, silent, and
forbidding.
"That's it," whispered the chauffeur. "I was here before.
The well is over there."
The young man gave a gasp of astonishment.
"Why," he protested, "this is the Carey place! I should say
we WERE lost. We must have left the road an hour ago.
There's not another house within miles." But he made no
movement to enter. "Of all places!" he muttered.
"Well, then," urged the girl briskly, "if there's no other house,
let's tap Mr. Carey's well and get on."
"Do you know who he is?" asked the man.
The girl laughed. "You don't need a letter of introduction to
take a bucket of water, do you?" she said.
"It's Philip Carey's house. He lives here." He spoke in a
whisper, and insistently, as though the information must carry
some special significance. But the girl showed no sign of
enlightenment. "You remember the Carey boys?" he urged.
"They left Harvard the year I entered. They HAD to leave.
They were quite mad. All the Careys have been mad. The boys
were queer even then, and awfully rich. Henry ran away with a
girl from a shoe factory in Brockton and lives in Paris, and
Philip was sent here."