CRIMSON MOUNTAIN (25 page)

Her eyes were on Sam. He forgot about the assembled family, who were always critical when he tried to talk, and went on with his story. “Why, ya see, they been missin’ dynamite. Whole lots of it. At first it was only a stick or two, and they thought they had miscounted I guess or something like that, and then there was more and more gone, and they tried to check on the men, and at last they thought they had ’em. There’s a guy up there named Winter. It was his business ta keep tabs on that dynamite, and he found how it was disappearing and he bagan ta watch, and now he’s caught some, and he thinks he’s got some others.”

“Who did they arrest, Sam?” asked Laurel. “Did you happen to hear their names? Was it anybody from the village?”

“No, they were all foreigners, I guess. At least the two arrested ones were. A coupla guys came here from somewhere across the water a little while ago. They claim they was born here, but this Winter says not. The names were Gratz and Schmidt. They don’t sound like very American names.”

Suddenly Sam’s father spoke. “Sam, who told you all that stuff?”

“Why it was Joseph Wilmer told me when we were walking down to the newspaper office to get our papers this morning. You know his route is next to mine, and we often go together.”

“How would Joseph Wilmer know anything about what happened at the plant last night?”

“Why, his father works up at the plant, Dad, and he’s on the night shift, ya know. He told Joe this morning just before I met him.”

“Well, Sam, you haven’t any business to repeat things you hear like that. This is war times, you know, and it’s important to keep these things quiet,” said his father. “Now while there’s so much talk about fifth columnists, people ought to keep their mouths shut. You can’t tell who’s an enemy and will report things, and you can’t tell what’s important to the enemy. Just
you don’t repeat
these things anymore, see? And if Joseph Wilmer tries to tell you anything more that happened at the plant, you tell him you don’t want to listen to him. His dad ought to know better than to tell such things out where his kids will hear, and I don’t want my son repeating them. Do you
hear
, Sam? That’s a
command.”

“Yessir,” said Sam, subsiding into his habitual silence.

The two men at the table frowned and bristled. “That ain’t nothing, Gilbert,” said one of them, “everybody in town knows all about that dynamite been missing. I heard it a week ago. They just found out who they think it is taday.”

“It doesn’t make any difference, Hyers,” said Sam’s father. “I don’t want my son telling tales like that. It’s none of his business to report what happens at the plant, especially when he doesn’t work there and hasn’t any right to be hanging around there. You can’t tell how soon something like that might get hanged on some kid that had nothing to do with it.”

“I know,” said Sam, suddenly rousing to the conversation. “I heard Harry Wickers and Joe Landers found a stick of dynamite up in a field across the road from the plant, and they was throwing stones at it and trying to make it explode, and the night watchman at the plant just caught ’em in time and stopped ’em. I think they oughtta tell all the kids how dangerous that is, don’t you?”

The talk merged into a discussion of the rules about the plant and whether they were being carried out carefully, but Laurel heard no more. She was torturing herself with anxiety lest she had not done her duty with regard to what she had overheard on the porch and whether she ought to have reported it to someone at once.

She slept very little that night and in the morning got up with the determination to write a letter to Phil Pilgrim and tell him all about it. She would ask him if there was someone up here she ought to tell and ask him please to telegraph her at once. And then in the meantime, she must tell somebody here, too, if possible. Sam said Bruce Winter was looking after that dynamite, but somehow she didn’t trust Bruce Winter. Was that silly? She might only be giving evidence to the wrong side by giving it to him, and yet, if he was in charge—!

There was more talk the next morning at the table about reporting rumors, and Sam’s father gave him strict instructions not to tell
any
thing he heard outside the family. One of the men brought down a radio from his room that night and turned on a speech about how people ought not to spread rumors and ought to be very careful to find out if stories were officially confirmed before they told them anyway, and Sam wriggled around and at last came out with another story he had heard.

“They say there’s more fifth column fellas in that gang at the plant than they knew. They say they’re doing all kinds of things to delay the work. They stop to tie their shoes and then go and get drinks of water, and they get fits of coughing, and they pretend something’s the matter with their machines. Anything to hold up the job.”

“Look, Sam, is that official?” asked his father in a severe tone.

“Yes, sir, it sure is, Dad. I heard that Winter telling some men as they came down to the village that it was so. He said he knew pretty well who had instigated it, but he wasn’t arresting him yet. He wanted him to give himself away a little more before he fired him.”

“Son, are you quite sure that was the man named Winter?” asked his father, looking at Sam with a piercing glance.

“Well, I’m
mostly
sure,” said Sam, shifting his gaze to his plate. “He’s the one Joe pointed out.”

“Well, now, look here, Sam. You’re ‘mostly sure,’ that’s all, and You’re not
sure
at all. And even if you were, you had no right to go and tell even your family what a big boss like you say he is said. He didn’t say it for publication. That’s just the kind of thing that is going to make it impossible to win the war if such things go on. And it seems to me a mighty strange thing for a big high-up boss to go gossiping along the highway when he’s supposed to be sworn to secrecy. It sounds kinda funny to me. A real man in an authoritative position would be sworn to keep such things to himself or look out who he told them to. The man you heard talk might even be a fifth column man himself, for all you know. So now I want it distinctly understood that
none
of my family go around telling anything that they have not seen themselves, and even then they might not have understood what it all meant. Do you understand, Sam?”

“Yes, sir!” said Sam with downcast eyes.

“Do you understand, Nannie?”

“Yes, Daddy,” said Nannie, lifting clear, innocent eyes.

Laurel listened thoughtfully. She had all but decided to drive to the Price boardinghouse tonight and ask for Bruce Winter and tell him what she had overheard that night before he arrived. But this decided her. If Winter was as careless as that, he wasn’t trustworthy. Besides, she wasn’t at all sure that he was in such a responsible position as they seemed to think. She would wait another day. Perhaps she would still hear from Phil Pilgrim. If she didn’t, she would go to Mrs. Gray and ask her what wise man she should consult.

It was just then that someone rang the old-fashioned doorbell and Nannie brought in a telegram for Laurel.

Laurel excused herself and went to her room to read it. She found that she was trembling from head to foot, and she certainly did not want to be asked any questions just now.

Up in her room, she locked her door and read the telegram.

Laurel sat for a minute or two in a daze. Why hadn’t she done this before? Evidently the information she had given had been considered important enough for some office to come and inquire into it. Well, she was glad it was going to be taken off her conscience. Would it be an ordeal to be questioned by an officer?

Then she began to try and plan for that interview. Where could she hold it? Not at the school, for the children would hang around and be curious. They would go home and report that she had had a visitor. And if he was a man in uniform, they would get up all sorts of stories and proclaim them over the town. Word might even get to those men at the boardinghouse, and they would find out who had told about them. Also they would most effectually cover up their tracks so that she would be proved a fool and that there was nothing to it all. She must somehow take him away where they could have privacy and nobody would overhear.

She couldn’t bring him here to the house. There was no place to take a caller except the big dining room where any member of the household was liable to walk through at any moment and interrupt. There seemed no way to have privacy except to take him out in the car for a little drive. If it would only be fairly pleasant, perhaps that would not be such a bad idea. Of course Phil would have told him enough to make him understand how she was situated.

She went over and over it, even to arranging the details of the story she had to tell, to make it as brief as possible and yet get in every possible phrase that could have any bearing on the case.

Then there would be the two young Gilberts whom she was in the habit of taking home every night when she left the school. She would have to get rid of them on some pretext that would not make them suspicious. She decided to look after that on her way to school in the morning. So when Mrs. Frisbie was safely landed at her store for the day and she had turned her car toward the school, she spoke.

“Sam! Nannie! I’m not going to be able to take you home today. I’m having a caller this afternoon after school, and I’m taking him driving. I might not even be back in time for dinner, but you tell your mother not to bother saving anything for me if I’m not back on time. I’ll get something on the way if I’m late. Now, can I trust you to go right home and tell your mother that? And
not tell any
body else
any
thing unless they ask where I am, and then you can say I had a guest I took driving. If they ask you more, just say you don’t know. Can I trust you to do that for me? Please? Thank you! So don’t wait for me nor talk about this to
any
of the students.” They promised eagerly, glad to do anything she asked, and so the first worry was out of the way. She was sure Sam and Nannie would be absolutely mum about her affairs.

It was after they were out of the car, waiting for her to lock the door that Nannie said, “But, Miss Sheridan. We’re having
chicken
for supper tonight.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Nannie! That’s just too bad for me, but I’ll tell you what—if I’m late, you and Sam divide my piece between you.”

“No,” said Nannie, “I’m sure Mom’ll save it for you.”

“Don’t let her,” said Laurel and left them smiling.

The day seemed rushing on all too fast, and Laurel was filled with foreboding as the hour for closing approached. But she sat quietly at her desk, working over her class reports until the school was dismissed and had trooped away. Then a little interval, and at last she heard steps coming down the hall.

She looked up, and there stood a man with intense, pleasant eyes and a firm mouth. He was not in uniform.

“Is this Miss Sheridan?” he said crisply.

“Yes,” said Laurel, rising and gathering up her report cards to put in her desk.

“My name is Brown,” said the man. “Is there some quiet place where we could talk a few minutes?”

“I thought perhaps we might take a drive in my car,” said Laurel. “We would be rather liable to interruption either here or at my boarding place, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, I should suppose so. The car would be very good. Is it near here?”

“Just at the back of the school. Come this way.”

Laurel had thought this out step by step and had her wraps on a chair beside her. She put on her hat with one motion and swept up her coat, handbag, and gloves. The man followed her down the hall and out the back door. In a moment more, they had turned into a side street and were riding away from Carrollton at a brisk pace.

“Now,” said the stranger, “tell me please everything that happened, just when and where and how. I have, of course, seen your letter to Captain Pilgrim and shall understand your references. The men’s names are Byrger and Gratz and Schmidt. Is that right? And the other two whom you knew in the city are Winter and Rainey. Now if you will kindly give me details.”

So Laurel began her story, driving slowly up the road where Adrian Faber had taken her that day several weeks ago, choosing that road because it did not go through town nor pass the homes of any of her pupils. She felt they would be all agog if they saw her with a strange man. The little village life was so cognizant and curious about every new happening.

So they drove on, the stranger interrupting now and then with a question. And when the story was told, he said, “Yes, I think I understand. And now, could we go through the town somehow, and could you show me the boardinghouse, Crimson Mountain, the location of the plant, and any other places that seem important, especially that little cemetery lot, without making it too obvious?”

“I think so,” said Laurel, puckering her brows thoughtfully and trying to think quickly. “I’ll do my best.” They went speeding back to town, entering by side streets and going around behind the old railroad junction. Laurel tried to remember all that Pilgrim had told her about the roads that had never been so familiar to her in earlier days.

L
aurel had talked very quietly and quickly. She had told the story just as she had thought it out in the waking hours of the night. She was sure she had not missed a detail.

The man beside her watched her as she talked, interjected a question now and then, which Laurel answered as best she could and sometimes could not answer. She saw at once that this man whom Phil Pilgrim had sent to her knew his business and had no illusions about its being nothing but nonsense. He gave her assurance that the matter would be fully investigated. He told her that cases of this sort were his special business and that she had been very wise in letting Pilgrim know what she had heard. He warned her not to tell anyone else. And then he began to question her about what she knew of Winter and Rainey, how she came to meet them, and what she knew of their history. Of course, though, she knew very little except the world that had currently gone about the city when they had been received freely in the circles where Adrian Faber moved.