The Waddington cipher

Front matter

Class

~PZ 3

Book—_i5 ^ _

Chapter I

F ATE’S Messenger, disguised as a halfgrown boy from the telegraph office, ar¬ riving at the Studios Building at three o’clock in the morning, found nothing to stop his progress or to hinder the carrying out of his por¬ tentous mission. The elevator attendant, long habituated to the tenants’ custom of turning night into early morning, after a mere casual glance at the address on the yellow envelope, sleepily took the urchin to the twelfth floor and silently pointed to a door on the left.

The boy, a cigarette butt in his yellowed teeth, the envelope clutched in one grimy hand, rang the bell once, twice. He could hear from within the babel of many voices, the laughter of women, the tinkling of ice in glasses, and the notes of a piano. As his ring brought no answer, and noting that the door was slightly ajar, he pushed it boldly open.

Hardened though the youngster had become by night service, the scene of hilarious revelry he saw through the entry hall in the great room beyond so shook him from his blase stoicism that he stood there for a moment gaping.

“Some party!” he muttered.

In one corner stood a table littered with a pro¬ fusion of what had an hour or two before been a variety of good things to eat. A ragged quarter of a great birthday cake, its guttering candles now carelessly heaped beside it, symbolized the occa¬ sion of the merriment. Bottles and glasses were everywhere. At the piano sat a somewhat wabbly youth pounding out the latest jazz while half-adozen couples in evening dress wriggled and jigged about the room. Others, already exhausted by the strenuous revelry, most of both sexes mani¬ festly affected by the profusion of stimulants, sat about in too intimate groupings, laughing shrilly at inane jokes, talking thickly, bantering each other, aiming many shafts of early morning wit at their host.

“Mix us another one, Waddy,” a girl from the Follies called out. “It’s your twenty-fifth birth¬ day. Let’s have twenty-five apiece and make a night of it.”

As the boy stood taking in the scene a tall blond chap scrambled up from the hassock on which, he had been sprawled, revealing as he did so a height of fully six feet. His face, handsome enough in its way, at the moment had a bored, world-weary expression, and while his well-cut clothes revealed a vigorous frame, there were dark circles under his eyes that told plainly of far too many other nights spent as this one had been.

“Here, boy,” he called out. “What is it?”

“Mr. Hurd,” said the messenger, extending his telegram.

“I’m Mr. Hurd,” he answered as he carelessly tore open the envelope.

As he glanced at the yellow slip it had contained a puzzled look crept into his face. He stood looking at the bit of paper as if trying to comprehend its meaning. The music had stopped and the dancers, as they paused, caught sight of their host’s face and noted his apparent confusion.

“What’s it all about, Waddy?” one of the girls cried out, as she did so snatching the telegram from his hand. “Why such a gloom?”

Thinking it merely some belated message of birthday congratulation, the rest of the party came crowding around.

“Read it out loud,” someone called.

“Yes, go on. Read it,” came in chorus from the rest of the merry-makers.

Her forehead puckering into a puzzled frown the girl obeyed, reading it slowly, word by word, as if trying to decipher its meaning.

James Waddington Hurd

If you would prevent murder being done come at once to Ortonville.

Henry T. Jessup.

“Why, Waddy,” she exclaimed as she finished reading it. “What a funny message to get! What does it mean? ”

“Yeh, what’s all the shooting for?” gurgled the youth at the piano, laughing inanely as if it was something original and witty that he had said.

For a moment Hurd did not answer. Puzzled as he had been on his first reading of the message, he had been even more perplexed to account for the amazing effect its reading aloud had produced on one of his guests. She had happened to be sitting in a corner just within the line of his vision as Jessie Bray had read it. As Jessie had neared the end of the message—he thought it was at the word Ortonville, perhaps at the signature, he couldn’t be sure which—a startled look, almost of fear, had sprung into this one girl’s eyes. With a quick motion she had crushed her handkerchief against her lips as if to stifle a scream, and now white-faced, plainly terrified, she was sitting there in the corner, bolt upright, watching him intently.

The rest of the crowd came thronging about him, their curiosity aroused, plying him with eager questions, but still Hurd stood there paying little heed to them, wondering about that girl and why the reading of the telegram had so startled her.

Who was she?

Someone—he could not remember who—had brought her to the party. There was nothing un¬ usual about that. Informality was the rule at these affairs. It was not at all uncommon for a dozen guests to be present who had never even seen the host before. Any group or groups that might have accidentally assembled at any one of the supper clubs was just as likely as not to have someone say:

“Come on, let’s all go over to Waddy Hurd’s place,” and that was all there was to it. Most of the time nobody even bothered with introduc¬ tions after they arrived. If any one had presented him to this girl or had told him her name he had failed to remember it.

Several times during the evening he had found himself studying her curiously and wondering about her. In some way she had seemed to him different, out of place.

A slender little dark creature, with brilliant brown eyes, more distinctively dressed than most of the others, he had noticed that practically all of the time she had sat shyly alone in her corner taking nothing to drink as various liquors were passed around. Once, though, he had glimpsed her dancing with one of the men, and seeming to be vivaciously enjoying it.

There was something different about her. It was nothing she had done or said that had im¬ pressed him, for he was certain he had not talked with her. Just looking at her made him think of outdoors, of the woods, of the clean, bracing air of the open. Her very presence there seemed to have aroused in him a vague but growing distaste for the company, its conduct and the sort of life it typified. Were revels like this, he found him¬ self wondering, really worth while? Were they even amusing? He told himself that he was sick of it all, night after night the same senseless rep¬ etition of many other nights—dinner with some of “the bunch,” an evening at some silly musical show, a supper party afterward, dancing and gen¬ erally too much to drink, and the next morning— or more often noon—nothing left of it but a bad taste in the mouth.

Meanwhile inquiries were being flung at him:

“Who’s it from?”

“ Where’s Ortonville? ”

“What’s it all about?”

“Who’s Henry T. Jessup?”

At last Hurd raised his hand for silence and a hush fell over the group, broken only by the crash of a glass knocked over by the pianist.

“Fm just as much puzzled as any of you,” he announced. “I have no idea who Henry T. Jessup is and I have never been in Ortonville. I haven’t the slightest notion whose life it is that is in danger. I hope it isn’t mine.”

“It’s a joke someone is trying to pull on you. That’s what it is,” the pianist announced. “We should worry. Come on, gang, hit it up.”

But somehow the message—perhaps it was the sinister hint of murder that it mentioned—had put a damper on the merriment. No one responded to the pianist’s invitation and presently the girls began slipping away to the dressing room for their wraps. A few minutes later the party was all over and Hurd found himself at the door, absentmindedly receiving the adieus of his departing guests. As by twos and threes they slipped out with the conventional words of parting, he found the little dark-eyed stranger at his side.

For just one instant her hand was slipped into his as she looked up into his face.

“You’re going there—to Ortonville, of course?” she questioned in a tense whisper.

Utterly taken back at the unexpected query, Hurd stammered confusedly as he gazed down into her upturned face, looked into those wonder¬ ful brown eyes of hers just now lighted up with eager interest.

“Why—why—” he began—“you see—I don’t understand—I don’t know—I haven’t thought anything about it. I don’t know whom the tele¬ gram came from nor what it means.”

Steadily her eyes held his—held them challengingly, almost tauntingly.

“If I were a man-” she breathed.

“I’m going,” Waddy blurted out hastily, much to his own surprise, his decision hardly forming be¬ fore it was on his lips. “Of course I’m going.”

IO

Before he realized it, she had freed her hand quickly from his and had vanished into the hall, slipping away quickly as another group of depart¬ ing guests descended on him with their good-nights. Rudely disregarding everything they were saying, he stood for an instant stupidly staring in the di¬ rection in which the girl had gone, then crushing through the throng about him he ran to the ele¬ vator with the intention of intercepting her.

He was too late.

She had gone. The car already had descended, carrying her away from him. Impetuously he started back to his rooms with the intention of telephoning down to have her stopped in the lower hall. He must speak further with her. He must find out what she meant. Then all at once it came to him how ridiculous such a proceeding as he had contemplated would be. He did not even know her name. With difficulty recovering his com¬ posure he turned again to his duties as host, though all the while he was thinking of her. He must find out who she was. He must ascertain in what way she was concerned in the strange telegram that ii had come to him. He must discover why she had been so eager, insistent even, that he should obey the mysterious summons.

Impatiently he waited for the departure of the two or three who lingered after the others. He wanted to be alone, to be rid of them all. He wanted to have time to think what it all might mean. A sense of relief, of freedom came to him. As the door closed on the last of them, with a quick, disgusted glance at the reeking disorder his guests had left behind them, he hastily turned off the lights as if to shut out the unpleasant sight and entered his bedroom.

Throwing off his coat and freeing his tired feet from his pumps, Hurd dropped down on the edge of the bed and sat there for many minutes ponder¬ ing over the last hour’s strange occurrences. He had been entirely truthful when he had told his guests that the name of Henry T. Jessup was nothing to him and that he had no idea what the telegram meant. The suggestion that it might be an attempt at a joke he dismissed as unworthy of consideration. The very brevity of the message and its simple wording seemed evidence of its sincerity.

“ Ortonville! ”

As he repeated the name aloud it seemed to him somehow vaguely reminiscent, as if years and years ago he might have heard it occasionally in some rather intimate connection. He could not for the life of him have told where the place was, whether East or West. He had no idea in what state it might be located, though his impression persisted that at some time he had heard the 1 place mentioned, heard it often, in conversation. It seemed to be associated in some dim way with his long-distant early boyhood, when both his parents were still alive, when their home had been a brown-stone house just off the Avenue. The longer he pondered the more active seemed the little tracers that his brain began sending out to scour the shelves of memory. Two or three times he thought he remembered, but always it escaped him.

But even more important than this quest, there loomed up in his mind another, a still more difficult one, in which memory seemed powerless to aid him. Who was this strange girl whose per¬ sonality had so insistently impressed itself upon him? How was he to find her again?

Mentally he began listing all the men of his ac¬ quaintance who had been present at the party. Surely some one of them must know her, some one of them must have brought her. The first thing in the morning, he decided, he would begin calling them all up and keep at it until he succeeded in locating her. Discussing with himself in what manner he might best describe her, he found him¬ self delighting in the vision that the memory of her presented. She had seemed so wholesome, so dif¬ ferent from the rest, not exactly pretty, but with wonderful, compelling, interesting eyes, and the blackest hair he ever had seen. There was some¬ thing, too, reminiscently familiar, in her looks, as if he might at some time or other have seen a picture of her.

But more puzzling still did he find it to account for her perturbation when the telegram was read aloud and for her eagerness to learn his intentions.

It seemed incredible—yet she must have compre¬ hended the significance of that message. Could it be possible, he wondered, that it was she who had contrived to have it sent? Had she managed to get included in his party in order to observe what effect it might have on him? Certainly she had been anxious to learn what he was going to do. She had all but challenged him to go to-

“Ortonville!”

In a flash it came back to him. No wonder the name had seemed familiar to him. He had heard it on many occasions in his childhood. That was the town from which his maternal grandmother had come. She had been Anne Waddington of Ortonville. It had been for her father, his own great-grandfather, that he had been named—James Waddington Hurd. It was this grandmother’s money, he recalled gratefully, that had been the basis of the family fortune, the fortune that en¬ abled him now to maintain his life of luxurious idleness in this comfortable apartment.

Vivid memories of his grandmother came crowd¬ ing back into his brain, although he had been only i5

seven or eight when she died. He visualized her easily, a commanding figure, erect, white-haired, up to her very last days an imperious grande dame, demanding and receiving respect from all about her. There came to his mind, vaguely at first, and then more vividly, recollections of those dread occasions when, dressed in his best, he would be taken to see her, conducted in state through the long drawing room, stiff and ugly with its horsehair chairs and sofas, with its rows of forbiddinglooking portraits, into a smaller room in the rear where, sitting in state in a rustling gown of depress¬ ing black silk, she would ask him unwelcome ques¬ tions about his progress at school.

On the heels of these memories came others, pleasanter memories, of his mother, adoring and adored, who had died when he was ten; of his father, charming, polished, a man of the world, who on his wife’s death had gone abroad to live, taking his son with him. There had followed school days in Switzerland, in Paris, broken now and then by delightful roamings with his father on all parts of the Continent, a father who indulged him in everything, who treated him always more as a man friend than as a son. Then, while he was in Oxford—had come the war. Commissioned in the British army, he had had five years of it. It was while he was in Mesopotamia that word had reached him of his father’s death in New York whither, after demobilization, he had returned to look after his investments. The death and car¬ nage about him when the message came not only had dulled his grief, but had minimized his loss. By the time the war ended he had become ac¬ customed to the idea of being alone in the world.

Parentless, homeless, “Waddy” Hurd, sum¬ moned by the estate lawyers, had returned to his native city almost a stranger to find himself at least in possession of a comfortable fortune. Naturally enough, after his years of army hard¬ ship, the city’s lures had quickly led him into its gayest circles. From the highway had flocked roystering companions to join him in the pleasure of spending his money. For two years scenes like that of the evening just ended had been his nightly habit. And until now he had been content i7

to take life as it came, almost convinced that he was enjoying it.

Orton ville!

Like a call from the past it came to him now, a compelling call that a man’s duty to his forebears made him obey. As Hurd at last settled himself between the sheets his mind was firmly made up. He was going to start at once for Ortonville, when¬ ever it might be, whatever it might hold in store for him. He was glad, too, that he had told the stranger girl of his intention. He felt in his heart that that was what she had wished him to do, even though he could not comprehend her motive. But who was she? And how was he to find her again?

Chapter II

4 RISING earlier than he had any day for % many weeks, Hurd put into effect his ^ plan for the first step in his adventure. He went downtown to call on his lawyer.

In spite of the habitual air of self-control in which he long had trained himself, Elwood Parsons started and turned a sickly gray when his client’s name was announced. A visit unannounced, in¬ deed without an urgent summons, was an event so unusual that the lawyer could construe it as hav¬ ing only one meaning—trouble.

Yet he asked himself, his scheming mind now doubly alert, how could Hurd have found out? Hurd, so far as his lawyer knew—and he made it his business to know practically everything the young man did—had been devoting himself strictly to a life of riotous pleasures.

!9

Only a moment before, Parsons, at peace with the world, had been sitting contentedly at his desk lay¬ ing plans for the future, reviewing as he did so his career from the time he had entered the law office as its humblest clerk, until to-day when it was his name that led the rest, Parsons, Peck, Blakely & Cohen.

It had been a long, hard, devious climb. Now, in the late fifties, he had reached that position where the arduous details fell to the lot of his as¬ sociates and clerks. This particular morning the subject of his cogitation had been Frieda, his motherless daughter. Looking back he counted as always his early marriage as the one mistake of his career. Attracted by the fresh blonde beauty of a Swedish girl, a mechanic’s daughter, he had married her when he was in the twenties. Had he only waited, he often told himself, he might have wedded much more advantageously, married some girl whose money would have made his climb to the heights of success much less difficult. Fortunately —he could not view it otherwise—his wife had died years ago, leaving as her only heritage a five-yearold golden-haired daughter. Scheming always for the future, Parsons had done his best to obliterate all traces of his daughter’s plebeian origin by sur¬ rounding her with luxury and providing for her the best of training, spending recklessly, extrava¬ gantly, always beyond his growing income. Frieda, at twenty-two, was a haughty, cultured, somewhat spoiled beauty, looking the aristocrat to her slim pink finger-tips.

Frieda, Parsons had decided, was to marry Waddy Hurd, then all would be well. Ever a skilful strategist, he had not tried to force things with either of them. When Hurd had returned to America after the war, and was busy with the settlement of his father’s estate, Parsons frequently had had him to dinner, observing with approval that his daughter seemed much attracted to him. An invitation each summer to his Adirondack camp had further cemented the friendship. That Waddy recently had cast his lot among the wild Broadway crowd rather than among those of better social position had not worried Parsons in the least. When reports of the young man’s all-night revels reached him he only smiled.

“The harder he goes,” he said to himself sagely, “ the sooner he will tire of it and be ready to settle down . ” The comparison Hurd would make sooner or later between the associates of his revels and Frieda assuredly would be in Frieda’s favour.

Frieda! All at once Parsons recalled that she had announced her intention the evening before of dropping in to go to luncheon with him. How fortunate! Glancing at the clock, he saw that she was due in a few minutes. If only she would ar¬ rive while Hurd was there—whatever he might want.

As the young man entered, Parsons saw at once from his face that something was amiss.

“Well, young man,” he greeted him, assuming a manner of friendly joviality, “what brings you down here? Is your bank account overdrawn or are you being sued for breach of promise?”

“Nothing like that,” grinned Waddy cheerfully enough, although the smile quickly vanished. “I’ve just come down here to ask a question or two.”

For a moment the two of them studied each other appraisingly. Parsons, knowing what he did, secretly was aghast at the possibilities of the situation, hardly daring to wonder what the ques¬ tions might be.

Waddy Hurd, looking at Mr. Parsons, was won¬ dering if he dared make a confidant of him. How he wished that there was someone to whom he could tell everything—about the strange girl at his party and the thoughts that she had inspired in him, about the telegram and her peculiar interest in it. He had found himself that morning wishing that his father was alive, or his mother—some one of his own kin to whom he could go and lay bare his heart. Never before had he realized how alone he was. But now, as he studied Mr. Parsons, he did not feel encouraged to self-revelation. After all, there never had been any real intimacy be¬ tween them.

“I understand, then/’ said Mr. Parsons, “that you have come here for some legal advice—our opinion, perhaps.”

“Hardly that.”

‘‘ What, then? ’’ Mr. Parsons’s manner again indicated mystification. He was rapidly running over in his mind all the affairs connected with the Hurd estate.

“ What I wish to ask is this,” explained Waddy. “What do you know about a place called Ortonville? Where is it?”

Amazedly the lawyer inspected his youthful client, wondering what possible occurrence could have sponsored the question, yet feeling greatly relieved at the course the conversation had taken. He could conceive of nothing in Ortonville that should cause him alarm.

“ It is a little village about one hundred miles up¬ state. Why?”

“Have I any kinsfolk living there?”

Slowly the lawyer shook his head, the idea form¬ ing that perhaps someone from Ortonville might have written to Hurd, claiming to be a relative and asking financial aid.

“You have no near relatives that I know of. Your father was an only son of an only son. Your mother had no brothers or sisters and her parents died shortly after her marriage.”

“What about my Grandmother Hurd?”

“She came, I believe, originally from Ortonville. Of course she has been dead for many years, but when she was alive I personally handled her affairs. I used frequently to see her, and in all of our association I do not recall that she ever spoke of any kinsfolk in Ortonville except her father. Your great-grandfather, James Waddington, had an estate there. I do not know whether you are familiar with your family’s history or not.”

“I know nothing whatever about it,” said Hurd almost apologetically. “You see, I have been away from this country so much and Dad never talked about it. I know nothing about it at all.”

Mr. Parsons nodded understandingly. He now had entirely recovered his assurance.

“Naturally you have had little opportunity. Well, your great-grandfather, James Waddington, coming to this country from England when he was quite a young man, set himself up in the city here as a silversmith and jeweller. In twenty years he managed to accumulate a large fortune, and, becoming naturalized as a citizen, for a time was quite prominent in municipal affairs and in the city’s social life. He seems, however, to have brought with him the true Briton’s desire for becoming the owner of a landed estate. When he was in the forties he retired from business and purchased five hundred acres in or near the village of Ortonville. He built a mansion and thereafter made his home there, rarely coming to the city.

“As a matter of fact”—Mr. Parsons pressed a button summoning one of his clerks, and pausing, directed him to fetch a certain steel box—“you are still the owner of the mansion in which your great-grandfather lived.”

He paused again for a moment to run through the file of papers that the steel box contained.

“Yes, here it is.” He spread out on his desk for Hurd’s inspection some of the papers he had removed. “Here are copies of the deeds for the property, or at least a remainder of it, some eighty acres on which the old mansion stands. When your grandmother died seventeen years ago she bequeathed all her property, real and personal, to your father. He in turn, on his death more re¬ cently, bequeathed everything to you.”

“ You have never by any chance been in Ortonville, have you? You don’t know what the old place is like?”

“I was there only once, years ago. From these papers it appears, in your grandmother’s time, some local man was appointed as her agent there and we never had occasion to disturb this arrange¬ ment. We are represented there by this same agent, a man named Jessup.”

“Henry T. Jessup?” exclaimed Hurd, excitedly.

Mr. Parsons glanced at him surprisedly, mean¬ while referring to the papers to make sure of the name.

“ Yes, that is the man—Henry T. Jessup.” He had mentally decided now that the occasion for Hurd’s inquiry must have been a letter from this man Jessup. While he could not conceive what purpose Jessup could have in writing, the decision

i

was forming that he must arrange at once to have him replaced. It was unthinkable that an old busybody of an agent should be permitted to communicate direct with Hurd instead of through the office of his attorneys. There was no telling where it would lead. Meanwhile, he continued his in¬ spection of the papers.

“It appears, Mr. Hurd, from these records, that the house has been unoccupied for many years ex¬ cept by caretakers. In these envelopes you will find receipts for sums paid as yearly wage as care¬ takers to ‘Mr. and Mrs. H. Cupps, caretakers,’ and in the last five years, to Mrs. H. Cupps alone, her husband apparently having died. Here, also, are records of the transfer of deeds, tax receipts, and all other expenditures for the property, forwarded to us by Mr. Jessup.”

“What sort of an old bird is this Jessup?”

“I do not recollect that he ever has been in this office. All our business with him has been by correspondence.”

“Do you know,” asked Hurd, explosively, “if he has a daughter?”

A knowing look crept into Mr. Parsons’s face, He thought he understood now. Naturally, if Henry T. Jessup had a daughter she would be more or less informed about James Waddington Hurd and his fortune. The minx must have found some excuse for writing to Hurd and his interest had been stirred.

“It is quite within the range of possibility that Mr. Jessup has a daughter,” said Mr. Parsons, “but I regret to say that I know nothing of his domestic relations. Has his daughter written you?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” said Hurd, quickly. “I don’t even know that he has a daughter. I know nothing about him whatever.”

“I’m afraid,” said the lawyer, “I have told you all I can about Ortonville. It really is very little.”

“ It’s a lot,” said Waddy, enthusiastically. “You have enlightened me on a most important subject. Here was I considering myself as a homeless wan¬ derer on the face of the earth, without kith or kin. You have provided me with a home, a home I never suspected that I had—an ancestral home, if you want to look at it that way.”

“Such appears to be the case.”

“ And what’s more,” Waddy announced, blithely, “Em going up there right away and look it over. It has been years and years since I have had any¬ thing like a home. If you’ll just let me have those papers to establish my identity, and my claim to the place, I’ll run along. What’s a home for if one doesn’t live in it?”