life was busy for achilles. there were visits to the hospital—where he must not speak to his boy, but only look at him and catch little silent smiles from the bandaged face—and visits to the great house on the lake, where he came and went freely. the doors swung open of themselves, it seemed, as achilles mounted the steps between the lions. all the pretty life and flutter of the place had changed. detectives went in and out; and instead of the halcyon club, the chief of police and assistants held conferences in the big library. but there was no clue to the child!... she had withdrawn, it seemed, into a clear sky. james had been summoned to the library many times, and questioned sharply; but his wooden countenance held no light and the tale did not change by a hair. he had held the horses. yes—there wa’n’t nobody—but little miss harris and him.... she was in the carriage—he held the horses. the horses? they had frisked a bit, maybe, the way horses will—at one o’ them autos that squirted by, and he had quieted ’em down—but there wa’n’t nobody.... and he was the last link between little betty harris and the world—all the bustling, wrestling, interested world of chicago—that shouted extras and stared at the house on the lake and peered in at its life—at the rising and eating and sleeping that went on behind the red-stone walls. the red-stone walls had thinned to a veil and the whole world might look in—because a child had been snatched away; and the heart of a city understood. but no one but james could have told what had happened to the child sitting with her little red cherries in the light; and james was stupid—and in the bottomless abyss of james’s face the clue was lost.
achilles had come in for his share of questioning. the child had been to his shop it seemed... and the papers took it up and made much of it—there were headlines and pictures... the public was interested. the tale grew to a romance, and fathers and mothers and children in boston and new york and london heard how betty had sat in the gay little fruit-shop—and listened to achilles’s stories of athens and greece, and of the acropolis—and of the studies in greek history, and her gods and goddesses and the temples and ruins lying packed in their boxes waiting her return. the daily papers were a thrilling tale—with the quick touch of love and human sympathy that brings the world together.
to achilles it was as if the hand of zeus had reached and touched the child—and she was not. what god sheltered her beneath a magic veil—so that she passed unseen? he lifted his face, seeking in air and sun and cloud, a token. over the lake came the great breeze, speaking to him, and out of the air a thousand hands reached to him—to tell him of the child. but he could not find the place that held her. in the dusky shop, he held his quiet way. no one, looking, would have guessed—“two cen’s, yes,” and his swift fingers made change while his eyes searched every face. but the child, in her shining cloud, was not revealed.
when he was summoned before the detectives and questioned, with swift sternness, it was his own questions that demanded answer—and got it. the men gathered in the library, baffled by the search, and asking futile, dreary questions, learned to wait in amusement for the quick, searching gestures flung at them and the eager face that seemed to drink their words. gradually they came to understand—the greek was learning the science of kidnapping—its methods and devices and the probable plan of approach. but the chief shook his head. “you won’t trace these men by any of the old tricks. it’s a new deal. we shall only get them by a fluke.” and to his own men he said, “try any old chance, boys, run it down—if it takes weeks—harris won’t compromise—and you may stumble on a clue. the man that finds it makes money.” gradually they drew their lines around the city; but still, from the tapped wires, the messages came—to them, sitting in conclave in the library—to philip harris in his bare office and to the mother, waiting alone in her room.
at last she could not bear it. “i cannot hold out, philip,” she said, one day, when he had come in and found her hanging up the receiver with a fixed look. “don’t trust me, dear. take me away.” and that night the big car had borne her swiftly from the city, out to the far-breathing air of the plain and the low hills. in her room in the house on the lake, her little telephone bell tinkled, and waited, and rang again—baffled by long silence and by discreet replies.... the tapped wires concentrated now upon philip harris, working by suggestion, and veiled threat, on his overwrought nerves till his hand shook when he reached out to the receiver—and his voice betrayed him in his denials. they were closing on him, with hints of an ultimatum. he dared not trust himself. he left the house to the detectives and went down to the offices, where he could work and no one could get at him. every message from the outside world came to him sifted, and he breathed more freely as he took up the telephone. the routine of business steadied him. in a week he should be himself—he could return to the attack.
then a message got through to him—up through the offices. the man who delivered it spoke in a clear, straight voice that did not rise or fall. he had agreed to give the message, he said—a hundred thousand paid to-day, or no communication for three months. the child would be taken out of the country. the men behind the deal were getting tired and would drop the whole business. they had been more than fair in the chances they had offered for compromise.... there was a little pause in the message—then the voice went on, “i am one of your own men, harris, inside the works—a man that you killed—in the way of business. i agreed to give you the message—for quits. good-bye.” the voice rang off and philip harris sat alone.
a man that he had killed—in the way of business—! hundreds of them—at work for him—new york—cincinnati—st. louis. it would not be easy—to trace a man that he had killed in business.
so he sat with bent head, in the circle of his own works... the network he had spread over the land—and somewhere, outside that circle, his child, the very heart, was held as hostage—three months. little betty! he shivered a little and got op and reached for a flask of brandy and poured it out, gulping it down. he looked about the room ... inside now. he had shut himself in his citadel... and they were inside. the brandy stayed his hand from shaking—but he knew that he had weakened. his mind went back to the man he had “killed in business”—the straight, clear voice sounding over the ’phone—he had not wanted to ruin him—them, hundreds of them. it was the system—kill or be killed. he took his chance and they took theirs—and they had gone down.
