New Name (25 page)

“I was standing on the corner of the avenue waiting for the trolley at two o’clock, three weeks ago today. I noticed a car coming down the avenue and was admiring it. I did not see who was driving it until Murray stopped the car and spoke to me. I had not seen him for years before then.”

An alert movement of the father showed that he was giving all attention.

“The traffic was congested, and the policeman wanted him to move on, so he asked me to get in and let him take me to wherever I was going. There was no time to hesitate, so I got in, not intending to go but a block or two till I could be polite andmake him let me out. The car seemed to go pretty fast—” She hesitated and looked troubled, as if she thought she were at fault for being in the car at all.

“It does,” said Mr. Van Rensselaer dryly. “It has a habit of going fast.”

Elizabeth lifted troubled eyes to find a shadow of a twinkle in the eyes that met hers. She hurried on:

“I told him I was going to the library, but he asked me to take a spin in the park, just a few minutes, to talk over old school days. He did not really wait for me to say whether I would. He just went—”

She was quite the most conscientious girl the father had met in thirty-five years. He wondered where she was brought up. He wondered if it could be genuine.

“Then when I said I must go back, he asked me if I would just stop at a shop and help him pick out a gift for a friend. Of course I consented. It was on our way from Grevet’s to the library that the truck ran into us. We were overturned.”

“Murray was
hurt
?” There was a sharp ring of pain in the father’s tone, the first evidence of anxiety he had shown.

“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth. “I didn’t think so at first, because they said he took me to the hospital. But after I read
that
in the paper, I thought if he had really disappeared perhaps he was hurt, and was somewhere in a hospital unconscious, and I ought to tell somebody. They say he brought me to the hospital in a taxi, so his car must have been wrecked.”

The father’s jaw hardened.

“What became of him after he brought you to the hospital? Were you hurt?”

“Not much, only shaken up, I guess, but I was some time coming to consciousness, and when they took me downstairs again they couldn’t find him. They said he had been very anxious and impatient to know how I was, so I supposed perhaps he had an appointment and had to go. I went home. I thought probably he would call up to know how I was, but when he didn’t, I decided he must have found out at the hospital that I was all right and hadn’t thought anything more of it.”

“H’m! That would have been a very gentlemanly thing to do, of course, get a girl smashed up and then go off without finding out whether she was dead or alive! I’m sure I hope that’s not what my son did, but there’s no telling!”

“Oh, we were not close at all, you know,” explained the girl. “It was seven years since I had seen him. It was just the ordinary acquaintance of schoolmates.”

“I can’t see that that alters the discourtesy. But go on.”

“Why, that’s all,” said the girl, suddenly feeling as if she had been very foolish indeed to come. “I—just thought—if you didn’t know where he was—that perhaps I was the last one who had seen him, and you would want to make some inquiries if you knew there had been an accident. But of course it was foolish. You probably know all about him, and I beg you won’t say anything to him about me. I’m sorry I have troubled you. I’m always doingsomething impulsive! I hope you will pardon my intrusion—” She turned quickly toward the door with an odd little look of sweet dignity. She felt she was almost on the verge of tears and must get away quickly, or she would break down right here before him.

“Wait a minute!” said the man sharply. “What did you say your name was?”

“Oh, please, it doesn’t matter,” she said with her hand on the doorknob.

“Excuse me, it does matter. I might want to ask some more questions. You’ve guessed right about Murray; I don’t know where he is. I am taking it for granted that he will turn up all right, as he usually does, but at the same time there may be something in what you have suggested, and I’ll look around and make sure. In the meantime, may I ask you to keep this just between ourselves?”

“Certainly,” said the girl.

“And—I wouldn’t try to see Mrs. Van Rensselaer again—she’s—rather excitable—”

“I certainly shall not!” said Elizabeth, her cheeks growing very red at the remembrance of the insult.

“And I’m sorry that you had to endure such impudence from that cat of a maid. She’s insufferable!”

“That doesn’t—matter—” She turned toward the door again, wishing she were out on the sidewalk now in the cool air. Her heart was beating so fast again, and she was sure she was going to cry!

Perhaps the dewy look about her eyes gave warning of this, for the man suddenly changed his tone toward her:

“Look here, young lady, don’t take this thing too seriously. You’ve done an awfully sporty thing, coming here to tell me this, after the way that young rascal of a son of mine treated you. There’s just a chance that you may be right, and he is unconscious in a hospital somewhere. I shall leave no stone unturned, of course, to make sure. But in the meanwhile we’ll keep this thing quiet. Now please give me your name. I’ll keep it to myself, understand, and I won’t let the kid know you’ve been here either, if you don’t want me to. Chapparelle, you say, Elizabeth Chapparelle? Your father living? I used to know a man in business by that name, but that’s a good many years ago. Fine chap he was, too.”

“My father has been dead a good many years,” said Elizabeth with a delicate withdrawal in her voice.

“You live on Maplewood Avenue? What number? You won’t mind if I drop in perhaps, to ask you a few more questions, in case anything turns up?”

“Of course,” said Elizabeth.

“By the way, what was the name of that hospital? And about what time did the accident occur? You understand, you know, that we’re going to keep this out of the papers. And by the way, who else knows all this?”

“Nobody but my mother.”

“Your mother?” There was speculation in the tone, a rising inflection.

“You needn’t be afraid of my mother!” she said haughtily. “She was quite annoyed with me for having gotten into the car at all, and she is terrified at what might have happened.”

“Too bad!” said the father with sudden sympathy. “I’m sorry you’ve had all this trouble. Wait! I’m going to ring for my car and send you around.”

“Indeed, no!” said the girl firmly. “I should much prefer to walk. It’s only a step anyway.”

He opened the door for her himself and thanked her again most cordially, and she gave him a faint fleeting smile in acknowledgment.

He stood for a moment watching her walk away in the darkness. There was a sweet girl! Why couldn’t Murray get her for a friend, instead of smashing her up! Just like Murray to lose his head over a countess and a dance-hall favorite and let a peach of a girl blossom at his feet and never notice her! Oh well, life was a disappointment anyway, whichever way you turned. Now here was Murray! What a bitter disappointment he was! Just when he might have been a comfort. Of course there was a slight possibility of his being injured somehow, but if he had been able to take a girl to the hospital, he couldn’t have been very badly off. No, he was probably off with the fellows somewhere having a good time, or off with his countess or his latest fancy! What a son! But he must do his duty as a father anyway. So Murray’s new car was wrecked! That was probably the reason Murray did not come home. He was waiting till his father’s fury should blow over. Of course the car was covered by insurance, but what kind of a thing was that to do, wreck a new car all to bits the first week!

So he called up the Blakely Hospital first, and it being about the same hour as the accident, he got the same stiff-arched nurse with double lenses who had been on duty at the desk that day.

“Yes, sir, I was here when they came in. Yes, I remember him. Kind of a snob he was. Good-looking. They always are lookers when they’re that way, but looks aren’t everything. He thought he owned the earth. Said his name was Van something, as if that made any difference here! What’s that? Yes, I guess it was Van Rensselaer. One of those millionaire families that think they come of a different race from the rest of us. Oh yes, I remember him. He pranced around here and got upset because we couldn’t stop the whole hospital for his benefit. And then he got mad and left before his girl came down after all. Yes, she was a pretty little thing. No, I don’t know what the doctor said about her. I guess she was pretty bad at first. They mighta thought she was going to die. I don’t know. But they took her home, and I guess she’s all right. No, I didn’t see the young man go out. There was another patient come in to get a wound dressed, and about that time the nurse come down to report on the case, but she had to call the police station first about a drunk they had brought in, and when she went to say the girl was coming round all right, the young fella was gone.”

The father thanked her and hung up. He sat thoughtfully for a few minutes in his big chair, trying to work it all out. Then he picked up the telephone again and went the rounds of the hospitals, but found no trace of any patient in any of them whofit the description of his son. After more thought he even called up the countess, and a few of the other various stars and favorites, without giving his name of course, but each of them professed not to have seen Murray. So that was that! Of course, if Murray was in hiding, he wouldn’t have let anybody find him, and they would be in league with him. Well!

So he called up a very extra-secret detective, a private one, who frequented fashionable haunts, and was one of the crowd, knew everybody, and was known, but not in his secret capacity except to a few.

“That you, Eddie? Well, I want you to hunt up Murray. He’s off somewhere. Just found out he had a wreck with his new car. Guess he’s lying low till it blows over. We had a few words about some bills the other day, and he got upset. But something has come up I want him to sign. You just look around and get hold of him. Tell him I won’t say anything about the car or the bills. Tell him I’m in need of him. Get me, Eddie? All right. Let me hear from you as early as convenient, even if it’s in the night. The business is important and immediate. All right, Eddie. You understand.”

He hung up with a tolerable feeling of ease. He had done his best, and Murray would likely turn up tonight or in the morning. Of course his mother would rave again if he didn’t come to her bore of a dinner. But then, she always raved about something. It might as well be one thing as another.

He got up and went to the window, looking out into the dark street, and there came to him a vision of the girl as she had walkedaway, slim and proud. He knew what she was thinking. She was afraid that they thought her one of the girls who ran after Murray. But strange to say, he did not. If he had, he would not have taken the trouble to rebuke Marie when she uttered her impudent remark. Girls who ran after boys were fools. They deserved all they got. But this girl was different. One could see that at a glance; one could tell it by the first word from her gentle lips. She was the kind of a girl who grew up in the country and went to church on Sundays. She had eyes that saw birds and flowers in spring and loved them. He had known such a girl once when he was a boy in the country, and he had been the worst kind of a fool that he did not stay on the farm and marry her and have a big happy home full of loving kindness and children’s voices, and a wide hearth with a big log fire and pancakes for supper. Buckwheat pancakes and maple syrup.

Deliberately he turned away from the window and walked upstairs to his own back room, where he switched off the light, drew up the shade, and looked out across the back alley to the bright little kitchen window with the table with the snowy cloth. There was a pie on the table tonight, and it looked like an apple pie, with the crust all dusted over with powdered sugar, the kind his mother used to make. There would be cottage cheese with the pie, perhaps. Oh! Someone had come to the window and was closing the blinds. It was the girl! She had taken her hat off and laid it on the corner of the table, and her bright hair gleamed in the light from the streetlamps as she bent her head to release the fastening of the blind. Then she straightened up, pulled the shutters closed with a slam, and shot the bolt across with a click. As if she knew she was shutting him out, and she wanted to do it!

Chapter 23

B
efore Murray could quite take in all that that letter might mean to him, Mrs. Summers knocked on his door.

“Mr. Murray, Doctor Harrison wants to speak with you on the phone. He tried to get you twice last night before you came in. I forgot to tell you about it—it was so late. Can you come right down? He seems to be in a good deal of a hurry.”

“Sure! I’ll be there in half a second!” said Murray, springing out of bed and drawing on some garments hastily.

He hurried down to the telephone.

The minister’s voice came anxiously to him:

“Murray, is that you? Well, I’ve been trying to get you. You know your church letter came while you were away at the convention.”

“Letter?” said Murray, quite innocently, and thought sharply of the letter upstairs. Things were closing in around him. The minister probably had one, too.

“Yes, your letter. It ought to have reached here sooner, but it seems to have been misdirected and gone around by the dead letter office. However, it got here in time for the season meeting, and I wanted to tell you that we accepted it, of course, and that we are counting you in with the others this morning. There’ll be quite an accession. We would rather have had you present at the session meeting, of course, but it will be all right. There’s really no need. Today is our communion service. You know that, of course. All you need to do is to come forward when your name is called. But I didn’t want to take you unaware.”

Accession! Come forward when your name is called! What the dickens was the man talking about? He could think of nothing but the astounding situation in which he had placed himself, and that letter upstairs. Then the minister hadn’t gotten one yet. But he would soon. He must prevent anything more. At least he could confess before the whole thing was brought down around his ears.