The furthest fury : a Fleming Stone story

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Stanhope Starts . 9

II. The Tragedy . 26

Chapter I

When David Stanhope entered the Grand Central Station and walked down the broad and beautiful stone steps, he went slowly, and his observant eyes browsed happily over the vast concourse and its undulating pageant of humanity. Orderly but rest¬ less lines stretched away from each ticket window, more bustling groups surrounded the information pagoda in the centre, and recurrent tides ebbed and flowed through the wide doorways.

He loved the scene and never tired of it, and as he reached the floor himself, and followed his own porter through the maelstrom, he noticed swiftly the faces and forms of those who passed him, and his retentive memory snapped and preserved many mental photographs.

He was happy because he was started on a rest¬ ful and pleasant summer vacation which held all the elements of comfort and enjoyment that he liked best and none of the annoyance or boredom that he de¬ tested.

Not for him the big summer hotels, or the small summer boarding houses; not for him a camp or cabin wherein to “ rough it,” or a pretentious bunga¬ low with elaborate appointments for “ the sim¬ ple life.”

His objective point was the home of an old friend, and his pursuits were to be entirely of his own election.

But Dave Stanhope was of the temperament that enjoys little things and finds pleasure in physical comfort or even the mere absence of physical dis¬ comfort.

So his pleasantly blue eyes beamed kindly on his fellow mortals as he strode through the gate and .boarded the train that would take him up into the green hill country of Connecticut.

His striding through the gate was delayed, even impeded by a number of the more highly-favored sex, whom he allowed to precede him, at their own insistence, until his patience gave out and he stepped between two ladies, evidently cronies, who gave him scornful glances as he hurried ahead.

But Stanhope liked to board the train in time to get his impedimenta all in place before they left the station, and he watched with interest while the porter stowed away his bags and coat and reading matter in such wise as he directed.

Then, with a little grunt of satisfaction, he settled himself into the hollow of rather prickery mohair plush assigned to him, and closed his eyes for a moment in sheer joy of inaction.

He quickly opened them again, for though a tired business man off on a holiday, David Stanhope was always alert unless really asleep.

In the absence of anything else of interest, he noted his fellow passengers. There seemed to be mostly women at his end of the car, and two of them, he saw, were the two he had inadvertently separated as he came through the gate.

They were not sisters, he concluded, after a brief survey, but friends, perhaps office workers off for their own holiday. Next them sat an older woman, with a large, rather handsome face, and next her, a pretty young girl, not quite of the flapper type, but a modified version of it.

Not strangely, perhaps, Stanhope bent his atten¬ tion on this girl, and concluded she was a college girl or very recent graduate, perhaps of the class of that very year. It was mid July now, and the girl, in smart togs, was evidently on pleas¬ ure bent.

She glanced round the car, favored Stanhope with a fleeting, impersonal inspection and after a few more wide-eyed contemplations of the women near her, she immersed herself in a book.

Now David Stanhope had one pet hallucination. He firmly believed that he was a bom detective. Never had he had a chance to try himself out, but he was none the less sure of his ability.

Of course a perspicacious reader will see at once that this was a hallucination, for no real detective could have had an hallucination about anything. Mis¬ takes they may make, wrong opinions they may hold, even mistaken theories they may put forth, but hallucinations cannot be theirs. For real, true, heaven-bom detectives are logical, rational and math¬ ematically accurate, and they realize their limitations.

Yet it was Stanhope’s optimism and self-con¬ fidence that gave him his belief in his own powers, and optimism and self-confidence are good things for a detective, or anyone else, to possess.

So he looked happily about him, through the car, out of the windows, at the other passengers, but always his eyes came back to rest on the girl in the sport clothes.

Not bizarre or conspicuous clothes. Her frock was of tailored lines, with a cape of knitted wool and a saucy hat of some embroidered fabric, all of a soft shade of tan brown. The girl’s hair and eyes were brown, too, which Stanhope concluded was the rea¬ son she had selected those clothes.

But his interest in the girl was purely artistic, for Stanhope was a confirmed widower of many years standing, and present-day young people appealed to him as little as he did to them.

Yet he was far from old. About forty-five or six, he looked younger, and, when interested, he had all the vivacity and enthusiasm of real youth.

Yet to the girl, in her earliest twenties, he ap¬ peared a man of her father’s generation and so of no claim whatsoever to her attention.

Stanhope had a new detective novel with him, as well as a magazine of that same stimulating type of fiction, and he looked forward to a long, delight¬ ful train ride, reading them.

Yet first, he mused, he would give his detective instinct a bit of salutary exercise by trying to deduce from the appearance of those nearest him some facts about themselves which chance might enable him to verify.

He began with the girl.

“ Rich and indulgent parents,” he said to him¬ self, noting her correct costume, worn with the air of one accustomed to fine raiment, and her plain yet expensive bag, vanity case and handkerchief.

“ Not used to travelling alone,” he added, as the conductor coming along just then, the girl grew quite flustered and flurried over the simple matter of her train ticket and Pullman ticket.

But that was as far as he could get. His deduc¬ tive processes could not tell him whether she was going some place or coming home from it; whether she was happy or secretly miserable; whether she was earnest-souled or butterfly-minded.

He turned his attention to the older women nearby.

o

The good-looking matron had removed her hat, showing well dressed and tidy gray hair, that waved back from a high, rather intellectual looking brow.

She wore a gown of black taffeta, made without style or charm, but which seemed to suit her some¬ what severe effect of dignity and reserve.

She met Stanhope’s regard with an indifferent stare and dropped her eyes again to the large-sized magazine she held.

The other two women—and these four were all who came within his range of easy vision—were talking rapidly. So deep in conversation they were that both seemed to talk at once and their accom¬ panying gestures were vivacious and continuous.

Without a qualm of conscience, Stanhope listened, but the incoherent babble gave him no clear idea of their subject.

He heard such scraps as “ And so then I decided-— ” or “Yes, she always was like that— ” but they gave him no information.

These women were intensely alive and alert, wrapped up in themselves and their own interests, and they vouchsafed no glance to the man opposite or the other women beside them.

He glanced at their faces. Intelligent, quick¬ witted they were, yet commonplace, he decided, as he noticed their unespecial black leather handbags and the newspapers they had chosen from the trainboy.

But, he confided to himself, after his inspection, detectives don’t care much about the traits of every¬ day women or pretty young girls. It’s criminal ten¬ dencies we ought to look for, and who could expect to find any in a bunch of women?

So he made for the smokingcar, found a satis¬ factory seat, and after a half hour’s discreet search¬ ing of physiognomies had discovered, at least, to his own conviction, two pickpockets, a potential mur¬ derer and a man whose chief diversion, he felt sure, was arson.

So you see how far David Stanhope was carried by his optimism and self-assurance.

He returned to his Pullman in time to assist the deft porter in his arduous labors of getting him ready to detrain.

In the gathering up of his bits of hand luggage, his reading matter and his golf bag, Stanhope found time to note his opposite neighbors, and was duly regretful, though not disconsolate, when he found that the pretty girl staid on the train, while the three older women got off at his own station stop.

He fell back, giving the ladies full use of the aisle, and his eyes fell on a magazine that had been left behind. Not forgotten, for it was thrown care¬ lessly on the floor. But as it chanced, it was a num¬ ber that Stanhope wanted, and uncertain as to getting another, he hesitated only an instant and then picked it up and tucked it under his arm.

The girl, noticing, smiled a little at what she thought was culpable theft, but Stanhope didn’t see the smile and wouldn’t have cared a straw if he had.

New Midian was the name on the signboard of the little railway station, and in another moment Stanhope’s hand was grasped by his host and a chauffeur was taking his bags and things.

“ Hello, hello, old chap,” came the hearty voice of Amos Hazelton. “ You’re looking fit, I’ll vow! ” Hop in the car—one or two errands in the village and then for Hazel Hill. Glad to see you—mighty glad! ”

The few small errands attended to, Hazelton said to his chauffeur, “ Drive along toward the Golf Club, and pick up Mr. Bark, when you see him.”

Stanhope sensed a note of annoyance in the other’s voice, and said at once, “ what’s the boy up to now ? ”

“ Oh, another girl! ” said the father, impatiently. “ And serious this time. Barker’s a born gallant, but he never picks the right kind of a sweetheart—”

“ From your point of view! ” laughed Stanhope.

“ Don’t be too hard on him, Amos, he’s too young to settle down to one, yet.”

“ That’s just what I tell him—but headstrong cuss that he is—here he comes now, girl and all! ”

Stanhope saw young Hazelton, tall, strong, handsome, and a sweet, pretty little scrap of femininity of the rosebud type, who looked scared to death at the appearance of the Hazelton car.

“ Get in, Barker,” ordered his father.

“ And we’ll set Gladys down as we pass,” said the young man, handing the lovely maiden into the car.

The two sat in the chairs in front of the older men, and Stanhope looked admiringly at the little blonde, bobbed head, that seemed to gravitate natu¬ rally toward the stalwart form beside her.

Amos Hazelton frowned, he looked toward Stan¬ hope and scowled, but he said no word.

“ Your Sweet Auburn of a village is as lovely as ever,” Stanhope said, admiringly, as they swept past the beautiful elm-shaded green that was the long centre of the town.

“ Yes,” Hazelton always warmed to this subject; “ yes, several improvements this year. You haven’t been here for three years, you old scoundrel! you’ll see several changes.”

“ More people, too,” and Stanhope glanced at the frequent groups strolling along the village sidewalks, that ran either side of the green.

“ Yes, more’s the pity. But we’ve some new¬ comers who are real acquisitions. Martin, turn, and go past the Lawrence cottage.”

“ That,” he said, as his chauffeur obeyed and turned into a side road that was really little more than a flowery lane, “ that’s where Nevin Lawrence lives, with his sister. He’s the author, you know. We never had a celebrity here before.”

“ Not so very celebrated,” laughed Stanhope, “ I never heard of him.”

“ Oh, you must have. He writes for the Carni¬ val, that big story paper.”

“ I read that occasionally, I have one here with me—but I don’t remember his name.”

“ He’s in it once in a while—good yarns, too. Next to the Gray place, you see—”

“ But the Gray place is all built over! Quite pretentious—”

“ Oh, yes. Used to be the Gray Bungalow, you remember—now, its Gray Porches, if you please!”

“ Good name, too,” and Stanhope looked admir¬ ingly at the big, rambling house with many porches on all sides, and all painted a fresh, smart gray.

“ Fine boarding house—the best people come up here to it. Ben Gray always knew how to run a boarding house, and his ideas and plans have grown with experience until now his is the show place of the county among the Inns.”

Passing these houses they came to a pretty white cottage, where the car stopped and young Hazelton sprang down to assist the little blonde beauty out.

A few whispered words of farewell passed between the two young people, the girl went through the gate that Barker Hazelton held open for her, and then the youth returned to the car and sat in moody silence.

“ Chirk up, son, and chatter to Dave Stanhope/’ said Hazelton, with an air of would-be gayety.

“ You might at least have said good evening to Gladys,” the boy blurted out, sullenly, and ignoring his father’s speech.

“ Didn’t want to,” the older man returned. “ I don’t approve of her, Bark, and you know it.”

“ You don’t approve of anything or anybody that I like!” and Barker looked around belligerently.

“ There, there,” said Stanhope, “ don’t quarrel before me! What’s this place, the new Club house ? ”

“ Yes, isn’t it a dandy! ” and father and son were at one again as they extolled the merits of the new and beautiful building.

“ Can’t stop now,” Hazelton said, “ too near dinner time, but to-morrow you shall have a sight of the place, inside and out. It’s just about all right.”

Amos Hazelton’s household consisted further of a wife and daughter who were just now up in the White Mountains. This was part of the summer routine, and Stanhope oftener than not, timed his visits to take advantage of the absence of the ladies.

Delightful people both, he thought them, but he and Amos were old friends, and Amos’s wife was a bit exacting, and so, it seemed best all round to visit Hazel Hill when its mistress was elsewhere.

So well established had this habit become that it caused no comment, and though the previous two years Stanhope’s visit had been omitted because the Hazeltons had gone abroad, this summer the old conditions prevailed and so the habit was resumed.

“ Everything is better and finer and handsomer,” said the guest appreciatively, as they drove in at the gateway of Hazel Hill.

“ Two or three years make a difference in any country place,” returned Amos, and then they went into the house.

The great comfortable home, and the easy infor¬ mality, owing to the absence of the ladies, went to make up an atmosphere after Stanhope’s own heart, and after a leisurely toilet he went down to find his host awaiting him in the living room.

A sociable cocktail was served, and Stanhope noticed that while the father sipped one, apparently as a matter of convention, the son indulged in two with every appearance of avid enjoyment.

Dinner was a pleasant and affable affair, and afterward, Barker excused himself and went down to the village for the evening, leaving the two old chums tete-a-tete on the veranda.

“ What about the boy?” said Stanhope, almost before his footsteps had passed beyond heai mg.

“ Lots of things,” and Amos Hazelton turned to his friend with a sober face.

“ First, the girl! ”

“ Oh, first, last and all the time, the girl—that one, or another, Bark always has a girl. But usually they’re all-right girls—daughters of our friends or acquaintances.”

“ And this one? ” prompted Stanhope, helpfully. “ This one—her name is Gladys Lee—is a daugh¬ ter of the village dressmaker—”

“ Respectable? ”

“ Oh, yes—that. But this time Barker’s got mar¬ riage in his head and she’s not the one for that.”

“ Pretty little thing—”

“ In a cheap way—”

“ Oh, come now, Amos, not a cheap way. Friv¬ olous-looking, maybe, lightweight brain—but cheap isn’t the word.”

“ I don’t care what the word is, I don’t propose

my son shall marry the daughter of the village sew-

. v

mg woman.

“ Don’t be snobbish—”

“ It isn’t snobbery, but Barker is my only boy. He’ll carry on my business, inherit my estate, and he must have a wife that can do him credit.”

“ How does Mrs. Hazelton feel about it? ”

“ Just as I do.”

“ Oh, well, it may blow over.”

“ That’s what we hope. Now, here’s another and a worse trouble. Barker is not too fond of wine, it isn’t that, but he has some obstinate notions—”

“ I saw him lap up two cocktails—”

“No, it isn’t that, I tell you. He never takes a drop too much. But—the new clubhouse manage¬ ment has never allowed drinking—”

“ How could it with prohibition? ”

“ I mean, it hasn’t allowed the members to bring their own—not even a flask, or anything. And we older members want to keep it so. Well, there’s an election impending—president, you see—and it all depends on who’s elected whether we can keep the old laws or not.”

“ I see. And Barker wants the wet president.”

“ Yes, and I’m for the dry one. Now, the dry one is Nevin Lawrence, the writer chap, you know. He’s a fine man, he’d make the best possible president, but he wants the club absolutely dry. Barker adores Lawrence, but he can’t stand for the dry plank, so he—”

“ Who’s the other candidate—the wet one ? ” Hazelton gave a queer little wry smile. " Barker himself,” he said.

“That kid!”

“ Well, you see, Bark isn’t such an awful kid. He’s twenty-six. And they want young blood. But I don’t want him to run against Lawrence, and I don’t want to see the club go to the dogs. I may be an old fogy, and all that—”

“ No, Amos, you’re right. Tell me more about this Lawrence. You say Barker likes him? ”

“ Everybody likes him. He came here two years ago, with his sister, one of the sweetest women in the world. She and Mrs. Hazelton are dear friends. She’s a widow—husband killed in the war. Lawrence is a widower and the brother and sister have a pretty cottage—you saw it—next door to Gray Porches.” “ Yes, I remember.”

“ The Grays swear by Mr. Lawrence and Mrs. Sayre—that’s his sister. Why the whole village swears by them. They’re the best people we have here by all odds. And, of course, Lawrence is the very man for president of the club. Wise, just, capable, and a celebrated author beside. Barker would be a silly president! He’s my own son and I love him, but he hasn’t any one single requisite that a president ought to have. Aside from all question of wet or dry, Barker is too immature, too inex¬ perienced for a club president. Twenty-six isn’t so young, but Barker is a headstrong, inconsequent sort, and he’d raise hob with that club! ”

“ I believe you,” said Stanhope. “ What are you going to do about it? ”

“ I don’t know. The election comes off next week, I haven’t a doubt but Lawrence will get it over Barker’s head, but I’m afraid he won’t.”

“ Oh, of course he will, it’ll all be right. I should say the girl complication is really worse than the golf one.”

“ Maybe. I don’t know. The boy is a care to me, I can’t deny that.”

“ Is this Lawrence really much of a celebrity? ”

“ Perhaps not that. But he’s a very popular writer. He has a story in the magazine every once in a while, and he’s beginning to be talked about.”

“ A serial story? ”

“ No, short stories. But mighty good ones.”

“ Is he—er, cocky? ”

“ Not a bit. Simple and pleasant—a fine, all round man. And his sister, Mrs. Sayre, is loved by every woman in the village.”

“ And the men? ”

“ They all admire and respect her. Oh, she isn’t the flirtatious sort. She’s a woman of thirty, I sup¬ pose, and she chums with the women mostly. She and her brother are devoted to each other, and they are both literary.”

“ Does she write? ”

/ “ No, some say she helps him, but I don’t know about that. She’s just a real lady, a fine, pleasant lady. Mrs. Hazelton and Millicent adore her.”

“ And the little blonde Gladys—does she like her? ”

“ Why, I don’t know—I suppose so. But she’d like whoever or whatever Barker likes, and outside of this foolish club business, Bark likes Lawrence and his sister, both very much.”

And then, somehow, the conversation drifted to more personal subjects, and the two men talked over old times and reminiscences of their college days together until, though it was not late, Stanhope declared he was ready for bed.

Chapter II

Stanhope gave a sigh of content and satisfaction as he reached the pleasant rooms always allotted to him during his visits at Hazel Hill.

Everything was in order for his comfort, and after a little further arranging of his personal be¬ longings, Stanhope sat down by his reading table for a solitary smoke.

He picked up first the magazine he had acquired on the train. It was the Carnival, and he had taken it to himself because he knew it contained an article on Auction Bridge that he wanted to read; and he was now further interested, because he wanted to look over the story by Nevin Lawrence.

He hardly expected to read the story through, but he found his attention caught after a paragraph or two, and read on absorbedly to the end.

“ A good writer,” he said to himself. “ Clear headed and of an assured style. Must have travelled a bit—seems well informed on Antiquities, especially Grecian art. The way he handles Tanagra figurines proves first-hand acquaintance with them, not merely a study of the Boston Museum collection. I’ll be glad to meet that chap—and he certainly would seem a better man for a club president than an addle-pated kid of twenty-six! ”

Stanhope rose and went out on a little balcony that opened from his sitting room, to finish his smoke outside.

He was in his element, for he had a touch of the Sybarite in his make-up, and the wicker loungingchair, with a soft rug thrown over it, proved a com¬ fortable nest from which to gaze over the moonlighted landscape.

It was about midnight, and the early August moon was at its full. Obscured now and then by a passing cloud, for the most part it shone with nearly daytime brightness, and Stanhope gazed his fill over the green scenery of the foreground and the black darkness of the distant hills.

Hazel Hill, itself only a slight elevation, was nearly a mile from the village, where only a few lights twinkled at this hour. The villagers were of simple habits, *and most of the city people summering there also kept early hours. The white spires of three churches showed among the clustering trees, and the stone tower of the Public Library could be dimly seen.

A long black oval was, Stanhope knew, the vil¬ lage green, but the houses on either side were hidden in the trees.

His mind wandered back over the day. And from his subconsciousness emerged a mental picture of a man he had seen on the train. A man of no peculiar¬ ity of appearance except his white face. It seemed to Stanhope that he never had seen so white a face on a living being.

Yet it was not from fear or any emotion that the man’s countenance was blanched.

The whole incident now returned vividly to Stan¬ hope’s mind. He had just settled himself finally in his Pullman chair, when he chanced to lift his eyes and saw, just coming in the door, this man, a quiet, ordinary looking citizen, who stopped short as soon as he was fairly inside the car, gazed ahead of him for a moment, regarding Stanhope himself impas¬ sively and then, turning, left the car again. He showed no haste, no recognition of Stanhope or any¬ one else, he just came in and went out. Probably he discovered he was in the wrong car—or perhaps he was not entitled to a Pullman seat at all. But in any case, Stanhope had a distinct recollection of that intensely white face, and he pondered over it.

“ Consumptive, I suppose,” he thought; “yet it wasn’t exactly the pallor of illness—more like a freak of nature in giving anyone such a curiously white skin. Good looking chap in his way—rather fine features, but a nervous, twitchy air—must have been an invalid—coming up this way for mountain air, likely as not.”

Then the thinker’s mind drifted to later memories —of the village as they passed through it in the motor, of the fine effect of the rebuilt Gray Porches —why did people choose such pretentious and ab¬ surd names! of the cottage where the author-man lived, of the cottage where little Gladys lived, and then paused for a time on the glimpse he had had of Love’s Young Dream.

Barker Hazelton, twenty-six, and in love with the dressmaker’s daughter. He realized how it would chagrin Amos Hazelton and his wife, but personally Stanhope felt he wouldn’t care a rap if his son mar¬ ried a sewing woman’s child so long as she was as sweet and dear as that little girl.

He had scarcely heard her speak a dozen words, but her pure, fine face was to him enough guaranty of her desirability.

Well, he would look into all that in the morning; would also get more data as to the business of the golf club presidential election, and use his superior intellect and his infallible judgment and wisdom in adjusting matters and advising his friends, the two Hazelton men.

He put away troublous questions and basked in the moonlight, his whole sensuous nature enthralled by the scenes and sounds and fragrances of the en¬ chanted night. He loved the dank coolness that came from a nearby grove of hemlocks and spruces;

the wafts of perfume from the nearer gardens, and the spell of glamour thrown over it all by the round golden moon.

But when he found himself murmuring “ Lap me in soft Lydian airs,” he laughed at himself for a maudlin idiot and ordered himself to bed.

Undisturbed by Stanhope’s defection, the moon pursued her course across the cloud-sprinkled heavens, and she had scarcely neared the western horizon when the sun, following the same route, began the day’s journey.

A few of the inhabitants of New Midian were up before the sun was, but not many. Only farmers and milkmen and such workers as could not consult their own pleasure.

The pretty village was quiet, placid and serene, the white houses and the green shutters unmoving and motionless as they accepted the kisses of the intrepid sun.

And then the day began. One front door after another was flung wide. One window shade after another was rolled up. Smoke came from the chim¬ neys, dogs began their joyous barking and baker’s carts moved along the roads.

Practically speaking, there were no streets. The road each side of the Green was the residential sec¬ tion, though from it two or three side lanes branched forth. One of these contained the tradesmen’s shops

SI or markets, and another was the one on which stood the rambling, much-added-to structure now known as Gray Porches.

The cottage Nevin Lawrence lived in was next to this, but was perhaps three hundred feet distant, and between the two, but much farther back from the road than either, was the cottage of Miss Lizzie Busby, far better known by her nickname of Busy¬ body Busby.

As an astute reader may surmise, this was because of a certain feeling of intense interest in the affairs and doings of her fellow mortals and unceasing ef¬ forts to gratify that interest.

Miss Busby was a music teacher, and report had it that she didn’t need the money, but pursued that calling because of the insight it gained for her into other people’s homes.

So, on this fine morning, Miss Busby opened her front door and stood out on her tiny front porch to follow the example of a certain renowned lawgiver, and view the country o’er.

She had a good view, too, for her house, though far back from the street was on a slight eminence which gave a satisfying command of the doings at Gray Porches and a fair knowledge of events at the Woodbine, as Lawrence’s cottage was called.

At the larger house, Busybody Busby could see the maids spreading breakfast tables on the verandas, adjusting awnings, and taking rolls from the baker's boy.

Not very thrilling this, but there had been some new boarders arriving last night, and Busybody was alert to watch for their appearance.