“Oh yes, certainly,” Hatch assured her.
And saying that, he knew he had never seen her before.
“I suppose you thought it perfectly horrid of me to keep you with your hands up like that all the time; but I was dreadfully frightened,” the woman went on, and she smiled a little uncertainly. “But there wasn’t anything else to do.”
“It was the only thing,” Hatch agreed.
“Now I’m going to ask you to write and tell him just what happened,” she resumed. “And tell him, too, that the other matter must be arranged immediately. I’ll see that your letter is delivered. Sit here!”
She picked up the revolver from the table beside her and placed a chair in position. Hatch walked to the table and sat down. Pen and ink lay before him. He knew now he was trapped. He couldn’t write a letter to that vague “him” of whom he had talked so glibly, about that still more vague “it”—whatever that might be. He sat dumbly staring at the paper.
“Well?” she demanded suspiciously.
“I—I can’t write it,” he confessed suddenly.
She stared at him coldly for a moment as if she had suspected just that, and he in turn stared at the revolver with a new and vital interest. He felt the tension, but saw no way to relieve it.
“You are an imposter!” she blurted out at last. “A detective?”
Hatch didn’t deny it. She backed away toward a bell call near the door, watching him closely, and rang vigorously several times. After a little pause the door opened, and two men, evidently servants, entered.
“Take this gentleman to the rear room up stairs,” she commanded without giving them a glance, “and lock him up. Keep him under close guard. If he attempts to escape, stop him! That’s all.”
Here was another page from a Dumas romance. The reporter started to explain; but there was a merciless gleam, danger even, in the woman’s eyes, and he submitted to orders. So, he was led up stairs a captive, and one of the men took a place on guard inside the room.
The dawn was creeping on when Hatch fell asleep. It was about ten o’clock when he awoke, and the sun was high. His guard, wide eyed and alert, still sat beside the door. For several minutes the reporter lay still, seeking vainly some sort of explanation of what was happening. Then, cheerfully:
“Good-morning.”
The guard merely glared at him.
“May I inquire your name?” the reporter asked.
There was no answer.
“Or the lady’s name?”
No answer.
“Or why I am where I am?”
Still no answer.
“What would you do,” Hatch went on casually, “if I should try to get out of here?”
The guard handled his revolver carelessly. The reporter was satisfied. “He is not deaf, that’s certain,” he told himself.
He spent the remainder of the morning yawning and wondering what The Thinking Machine was about; also he had a few casual reflections as to the mental state of his city editor at his failure to appear and follow up the kidnapping story. He finally dismissed all these ideas with a shrug of his shoulders, and sat down to wait for whatever was coming.
It was in the early afternoon that he heard laughter in the next room. First there was a woman’s voice, then the shrill cackle of a child. Finally he distinguished some words.
“You ticky!” exclaimed the child, and again there was the laugh.
The reporter understood “you ticky,” coupled with the subsequent peal, to be a sort of abbreviated English for “you tickle.” After awhile the merriment died away and he heard the child’s insistent demand for something else.
“You be hossie.”
“No, no,” the woman expostulated.
“Yes, you be hossie.”
“No, let Morris be hossie.”
“No, no. You be hossie.”
That was all. Evidently some one was “hossie,” because there was a sound of romping; but finally even that died away. Hatch yawned away another hour or so under the constant eye of his guard, and then began to grow restless. He turned on the guard savagely.
“Isn’t anything ever going to happen?” he demanded.
The guard didn’t say.
“You’ll never convict yourself on your own statement,” Hatch burst out again in disgust.
He stretched out on a couch, bored by the sameness which had characterized the last few hours of his adventure. His attention was attracted by some movement at the door, and he looked up. His guard heard, too, and with revolver in hand went to the door, carefully unlocking it. After a few hurriedly whispered words he left the room, and Hatch was meditating an instant rush for a window, when the woman entered. She had the revolver now. She was deathly white and gripped the weapon menacingly. She did not lock the door—only closed it—but with her own person and the attention compelling revolver she blocked the way.
“What is it now?” asked Hatch wearily.
“You must not speak or call, or make the slightest sound,” she whispered tensely. “If you do, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”
Hatch confessed by a nod that he understood. He also imagined that he understood this sudden change in guard, and the warning. It was because some one was about to enter or had entered the house. His conjecture was partially confirmed instantly by a distant rapping on a door.
“Not a sound, now!” whispered the woman.
From somewhere below he heard the sound of steps as one of the servants answered the knock. After a short wait he heard two voices mumbling. Suddenly one was raised clearly.
“Why, Worcester can’t be that far,” it protested irritably.
Hatch knew. It was The Thinking Machine. The woman noted a change in his manner and drew back the hammer of the revolver. The reporter saw the idea. He didn’t dare call. That would be suicide. Perhaps he could attract attention, though; drop a key, for instance. The sound might reach The Thinking Machine and be interpreted aright. One hand was in a pocket, and slowly he was drawing out a key. He would risk it. Maybe—
Then came a new sound. It was the patter of small feet. The guarded door was pushed open and a tousle-headed child, a boy, ran in.
“Mama, mama!” he called loudly. He ran to the woman and clutched at her skirts.
“Oh, my baby! what have you done?” she asked piteously. “We are lost, lost!”
“Me ‘faid,” the child went on.
With the door—his avenue of possible escape—open, Hatch did not drop the key. Instead, he gazed at the woman, then down at the child. From below he again heard The Thinking Machine.
“How far is the car track, then?”
The servant answered something. There was a sound of steps, and the front door closed. Hatch knew that The Thinking Machine had come and gone; yet he was strangely calm about it, quite himself, despite the fact that a nervous finger still lay on the trigger of the pistol.
From his refuge behind his mother’s skirts the boy peered around at Hatch shyly. The reporter gazed, gazed, all eyes, and then was convinced. The boy was Walter Francis, the kidnapped boy whose pictures were being published in every newspaper of a dozen cities. Here was a story—the story—the superlative story.
“Mrs. Francis, if you wouldn’t mind letting down that