Marjorie Dean at Hamilton Arms

Leslie copied the address from her father’s very private directory into a note book of her own. She replaced the little black book, closed and locked the safe and made business-like preparations to depart. She purposed to call at the address she had obtained that same afternoon. It was not yet four o’clock. She could reach Anton Lavigne at the Central Park West address in good season if she started promptly. If he were not at home she would leave a note of appointment with him for ten o’clock the next morning.

She let herself out of Peter the Great’s den by a curtained door at the back of the room. It also had a spring lock, its key was also in the financier’s possession. The stairway was in darkness but Leslie knew her way without switching on a light at the head of the stairs. Sure-footed, she quickly made the descent and went cautiously onto the veranda. Still no one in sight.

Leslie kept as close to the house as she could until she reached its front. There she crossed a strip of frozen lawn to the drive and hurriedly followed it to the gates. She could hardly believe as she got back into the car that she had spent over an hour in the show shop without having seen sign of a servant. The house was in perfect order. She was confident that Parsons was still caretaker. She had seen signs of the steward’s expert domestic management as soon as she stepped inside. She moodily wondered when she would see home again. She afterward brightened a little under the dogged determination to “make things come her way.”

When she reached the somewhat garish apartment hotel which housed Anton Lavigne she was of the opinion that her good fortune had held. She received the cheering information that Mr. Lavigne was in and was soon shaking hands with the dark-faced, suave, but keen-eyed foreigner. He came downstairs to the lounge to greet her and conduct her to the family apartment on the fifth floor. He inquired with the courtliness Leslie so well remembered in him for her father. He had not seen or heard from him in some time. He waited with admirable reserve for Leslie to state her errand.

“My father is away from New York at present,” Leslie began when he had ushered her into a small reception hall furnished in a manner which suggested its use as office as well. “I am through college now and starting a business career for myself.”

“Indeed,” Lavigne raised polite commendatory brows. “May I ask, how long you have been engaged in such an enterprise. You American girls are so amazing. The English girls, too, for that matter. In France every woman is a business woman, so we say, but American girls are the business adventurers. They plan business on a large scale, and really accomplish what they plan.”

“I hope I shall,” was Leslie’s fervent reply. “My father isn’t helping me at all. I don’t wish him to do so. I am using my own money, and he isn’t giving me a word of advice. All I claim from him is a free use of some of his most private successful methods. That is why I am here. I know you can be as useful to me as you have been to him.” She suddenly fixed her eyes on Lavigne with an expression startlingly like that of Peter Cairns, though she bore small physical resemblance to him.

“You speak with great confidence – with frankness.” Lavigne’s thick dark brows drew together. “I knew when you were announced that you wished something out of the usual. Only your father, Mr. Peter Cairns, and a few of my special friends have this address.” He gazed steadily at her as though waiting to hear a certain assurance from her which his foreign mind toward caution demanded.

“I have just come from the house on Riverside Drive. I took your address from its usual place. Do you get me?” Leslie spoke in the best imitation of her father she could muster.

“Ah, yes.” There was relief in the response. “I understand the situation, I believe. What can I do for you, Miss Cairns?” It had long been known to Lavigne that Peter Cairns’s greatest interest in life was his daughter. Such a calamity as an estrangement between the two would have seemed impossible to this man who had been one of the financier’s ablest allies for many years. He now believed that his best interests lay in serving Leslie.

Leslie could tell nothing of the man’s thoughts by watching his face. No expression or emotion contrary to Lavigne’s will was allowed to appear on his dark features.

“My business operation is the building of a garage not far from the campus of Hamilton College. Hamilton is my – er – the college I went to.” Leslie always stuck at the words “Alma Mater.” “I had a good deal of trouble obtaining the site, due to the underhandedness of a crowd of would-be welfare students who tried to make me give it up to them. They wanted it for a dormitory.”

Lavigne smiled with heartening sympathy and made a gesture of understanding regret for Leslie’s troubles.

“I found out what their scheme was and managed to get into touch with the owner of the property before they did. Before he closed with me they let him know they wanted the site and he charged me sixty thousand dollars for what I should have paid not more than thirty-five or forty thousand. When they discovered I had won out over them they made a great fuss. They circulated very hateful gossip about how dishonorable I was, and so forth. A rich old crank at Hamilton, the last of the Hamilton family, sided with these students against me, though she’d never met me, and presented them with a dormitory site right next to the property I had bought. Can you beat that?” Leslie had forgotten dignity in slangy disgust for the way the matter had turned out.

“Incredible, yet true.” Lavigne lightly raised a hand. “But proceed, Miss Cairns. I am deeply interested.”

Leslie went on to explain regarding the old houses standing on both pieces of property. “These students have the advantage of the services of the only builder and architect of ability in that part of the country. He knows the labor situation there. He has had plenty of men since the start. I have a New York firm on the job and they are slackers. They claim they can’t get the laborers. My ground hasn’t been cleared off yet. My garage building isn’t started. The old dormitory is half up. I must do something about it. Two-thirds of those laborers are Italians, from an Italian colony outside Hamilton. I want them to work for me. I’ll pay them double, triple, if necessary, to quit the other operation.”

She stopped. Not for an instant did her gaze leave Lavigne’s face. He was now looking at her very shrewdly, an odd gleam in his black eyes. Leslie thought they twinkled. It put her on her mettle.

“This isn’t a schoolgirl quarrel I’ve had with these other students, Mr. Lavigne,” she said a trifle sullenly. “If you want to know the secret truth it’s a fight between another student and myself for – to bring about a certain result. I have as much right to the use of these men as she – as they – these students have. I don’t care what I pay you to have you help me. I have a large fortune in my own right. I can soon prove it to you. This business is really a race to see which side wins. I’ll win, if you’ll help me. No one need even suspect you of being concerned in the matter. I want you to engineer it. That’s the way you’ve always worked for my father, isn’t it?” Leslie asked the question with innocent ingenuousness. She understood, however, precisely how much depended upon it.

“Your father’s and my transactions have always been conducted with great discretion,” was the indirect admission.

“I know that. I know all about certain deals between you and him in the past. If I didn’t, would I be here now? It’s not simply a question of the garage operation with me. I’m fighting to assert myself. I’m going to follow my father’s methods. They’ve been absolutely successful. What I want I intend to get, if those who can give it to me are willing to sell out.” Leslie asserted boldly.

“Of course, of course. You are like your father. You are not a minor, Miss Cairns?” Lavigne inquired tentatively.

“Hardly.” Leslie smiled. “And you don’t have to consult my father. He has told me to do as I pleased with my own money. I’ll ask you to observe absolute secrecy in the matter. When the battle is won, then he is to be told.”

“You may trust me to serve you as best I can, Miss Cairns,” Lavigne declared with flattering sincerity. “In a few days I will go to Hamilton and look over the situation. I can tell you then what ought to be done. Where shall I address you?”

“At the Essenden until day after tomorrow. Then I’m going back to Hamilton. My address there is the Hamilton House.” Leslie rose to conclude her call. She was reminded that her father’s interviews with others were always brief. She was experiencing all the sweetness of vengeful exultation. At last she was going to “get back at Bean.”

CHAPTER XX

MARJORIE’S CALLER

“I thought you were never coming back, Jerry Macy!” Marjorie dropped into the depths of the near-by arm chair with a weary little flop. “I’ve worked like mad for as much as an hour getting up my share of the eats for Ronny’s birthday spread.” She poked out her red under lip and tried hard to look aggrieved. The sparkle in her eyes contradicted the pretence.

“How could you harbor such disloyal thoughts of me, Beautiful Bean? You are beautiful, even if your lip is away out of place,” Jerry tenderly assured.

“Being beautiful doesn’t make me feel rested.” Marjorie still searched for cause to complain. “For why did you stay away so long, Jurry-miar?”

“There’s the cause of my lingering longering.” Jerry held up a good-sized pasteboard box tied with stout string. “Just wait till you see it. I had to toddle all around Hamilton in search of a cake. When all seemed lost we bumped into this glorious, scrumptious cocoanut layer cake.” She set the box on the table and untied the string.

“It’s a white splendor.” Marjorie stood beside Jerry peeping at the cake as her chum removed the box lid. “I’ve made the sandwiches.” She nodded toward a side table carefully covered with a snowy lunch cloth. “I cracked the walnuts for the brown bread ones and also my thumb.” She ruefully put the injured member in her mouth.

“How you must have suffered!” Jerry solemnly exclaimed. Both girls began to laugh. “Leila was in one of her fine frenzies because we couldn’t find a real cake or any stuffed dates.”

“I was that,” notified an affable agreeing voice from the opened door. “Did not the people of Hamilton all have their mouths set for sweet cakes today?” Leila closed the door and joined her chums. “We could find nothing we wanted.”

“Until in despair we went over to a new bakery on Gorman Street that just opened yesterday. The woman who keeps it is German. She has yellow hair and looks just like a pound cake,” Jerry described with enthusiasm.

“And our dream of a cake was in the window!” exclaimed Leila. “We thought we would eat it ourselves and tell no one, but we have such honor about us. We could not bear to think of those who would have no cake.” She smiled broadly upon Marjorie.

“You are a pair of fakes. You’ve been out having a fine spin while I’ve been in working hard. The minute dinner’s over you two may make the fruit salad. That will be your job,” Marjorie sternly pronounced sentence on the buoyant, hilarious pair.

“I will make forty fruit salads to please you, Beauty, though I do not know how to make one. Behold in me a helpful Harper.”

“You mean a harpful helper,” corrected Jerry.

“If you mean I am a harp, then I must tell you you are right. I do not know how you guessed it.” Leila gazed at Jerry in mock admiration.

“Dinner won’t mean much to us tonight,” commented Marjorie as she proudly raised the lunch cloth to allow the girls to see the tempting generous stacks of small, three-cornered sandwiches, the relishes and various other toothsome viands always welcomed by girlhood at a spread. “Remember, we are to take nothing but soup at dinner. It’s to be cream of celery. I asked Ellen.”

“Oh, Marjorie, I almost forgot to tell you,” Jerry suddenly cried out. “Something has happened to the Hob-goblin’s Folly.” This was Jerry’s pet name for Leslie’s garage enterprise.

“Happened?” Marjorie’s question contained little interest.

“Yep. There’s a new gang of men at work on the garage. Leila and I noticed them when we went to town. They were gone when we came back, but it was after five-thirty. There were as many as your gang on the dormitory. I think they were Italians. Don’t you, Leila?”

Leila nodded. “They must be a new addition to the Italian quarter,” she surmised. “Signor Baretti said last fall that nearly all the men of the quarter were working on the dormitory. He said they had refused to work for Leslie Cairns’s builders. They would not pay them enough by the day. Perhaps the new ones are glad of the work. But how can I judge when I am no boss of Italians, or of any one but Midget. I shall certainly give her a tart and terrible lecture when I see her again. I left her entertaining Gentleman Gus. Now I believe they have eloped.”

Leila’s dark suspicion of Vera set the three girls laughing. Gussie was the tallest girl at Wayland Hall and Vera the tiniest. The elopement of the pair was a joy to contemplate.

“I haven’t been near the dormitory for three whole days,” Marjorie confessed ruefully. “I’ve been so busy since we came back from Sanford trying to make up for a lot of things I let slide before I went that I’m a no good manager. Robin is coming early tonight, so she’ll know what has been going on over there. We may thank our stars we have such a splendid manager as Mr. Graham to look after the dormitory for us.”

“And such a Marvelous Manager as Bean to look after the sandwiches for us,” supplemented Jerry, imitating Marjorie’s tone.

“I thank my stars they’re made, and made without your help, Jeremiah Macy.” Marjorie waved a finger before Jerry’s face. “There’s Robin now, I’m sure.” She sprang from her chair and ran to the door.

“Were you at the dormitory today?” Her lips framed the question before Robin had more than stepped into the room.

“No-o.” Robin’s tone was one of self-accusation. “It’s neglectful in me, but I’ve not been there since day before yesterday. I must turn over a new leaf tomorrow. What about you, Dean? I know you’ve done better than I.”

“But I haven’t,” Marjorie protested. “I’m a day behind you, Pagie. Jerry and Leila saw Leslie Cairns’s builders have at last gathered up a supply of workmen. The girls noticed them today when they drove to town.”

“Her garage will be about as successful there as it would be in Thibet,” predicted Robin scornfully. “It’s too far from the campus to be convenient.”

“I wonder if she intends to run it herself?” remarked Jerry. “I can see the Hob-goblin proudly marching around her own car roost.”

Conversation about Leslie Cairns came to a halt with Jerry’s remarks. None of the Travelers liked to discuss her. When they did it was because of some way in which her affairs chanced to touch theirs.

The lively entrance into the room of the “elopers” who had gone for a ride in Vera’s car, and returned at the last minute before dinner, brought a welcome diversity of subject.

“What do you care whether we have dinner or not? Think of the spread we have for Ronny.” Jerry reminded them. “You may have only soup for dinner. We’re going to have the eats soon after the party begins so that nightmares won’t be popular along the hall tonight.”

“You try to be kind-hearted, don’t you, Jeremiah?” said Vera, with a patronizing smile.

“Oh, yes, I try,” mimicked Jerry. “It’s not my fault if my kindheartedness doesn’t register. Some people are positively thick, and – ”

The ringing of the dinner gong sent Vera and Gussie scurrying to their rooms to remove their wraps. Marjorie, Jerry, Leila and Robin made leisurely way down stairs to the dining room. Dinner began and ended with soup for the Travelers. The ten original Travelers were invited to the spread, as were also Phil Moore and Barbara Severn. Marjorie had invited both of the latter to come over early to “soup.” Both had nobly refused in favor of study so as to be free to spend the evening at Wayland Hall without including “unprepared” in next day’s vocabulary.

“The first thing for us to do to start the party is to move the eats into Ronny’s and Lucy’s room.” was Marjorie’s brisk decision, as she and Jerry returned to Room 15 from the dining room.

Robin had strolled down the hall to see Ronny and give her a birthday present of a curious, vellum-bound book in Spanish, which she had commissioned her dilettante uncle to buy for her in Washington at a fancy price.

“We might all heave-ho and lug the table into the other room with the eats on it,” proposed Jerry dubiously. “On the other hand, there might be a grand heave-ho-ing of eats on the floor. I don’t like to take such a risk, Bean. Think of my goloptious, celostrous cocoanut cake.” Jerry had added “goloptious” to her new vocabulary of one word.

“Think of my scrumptious, splendiferous sandwiches,” retaliated Bean with promptitude.

“I’m thinking about them,” Jerry said mournfully. “I could eat one now, if I had it. So near and yet so far.” She lifted the lunch cloth and made eyes at the stacks of sandwiches. “This is the result of only soup for supper. I yearn to gobble the spread.”

“I’ll feed you a sandwich with my own hand.” Marjorie proffered a nut sandwich, Jerry’s favorite kind, to her hungry roommate.

“Thanks, kind lady. I wasn’t – ”

“I know all about you,” cut in Marjorie with an unsympathetic laugh. “Hurry up, and eat that sandwich. Then help me move the eats; by hand; not by table.”

Marjorie went to the door and opened it. She came back to the table, picked up two plates of sandwiches and started with them for Ronny’s room. Part way to it she encountered Annie, one of the maids.

“Oh, Miss Dean, I was just coming after you.” The maid’s broad good-humored features broke into a pleased smile. “There’s a gentleman down stairs in the living room wants to see you.”

CHAPTER XXI

“WE MUST WORK TOGETHER”

“A gentleman to see me?” Marjorie repeated wonderingly. She turned a look of mild inquiry upon the maid. “Didn’t he give you his name, Annie?” Marjorie’s thoughts at once flashed to her general. Perhaps he had come to Hamilton to give her a surprise. Business might have brought him near the campus. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes sparkled at the fond thought.

“Please, Miss Dean, I asked him his name once and he said it, but I couldn’t understand what he said. He said it kind of low and rumbly. I hated to ask him again,” Annie confessed, looking her confusion.

“Oh, never mind, Annie.” Marjorie smiled away the maid’s discomfiture with winsome good nature. “I’ll go down and see for myself. Please say to the gentleman that I will be down directly.”

Marjorie returned to 15 with the two plates of sandwiches. If she carried them on into Ronny’s room she would not go down stairs for the next ten minutes. Oddly enough she thought also of Hal as a possible visitor.

“Have you changed your mind about letting Ronny have these sandwiches?” Jerry asked humorously as Marjorie hastily re-placed them on the table.

“No, I haven’t, Jeering Jeremiah,” Marjorie laughed. “You are to have the sandwich-moving job. There’s a gentleman downstairs to see me.”

“What?” Jerry showed mild surprise. “A gentleman in this girl-inhabited burg! It takes my breath. I mean to have one call on you at the Hall. Who is he, or is that a secret?”

“I don’t know who he is. I’m going down to see.”

“It might be a book agent who has just heard that you go to college. It might be a tin peddler who suspects we cook in our room and wants us to try his tin dishes. It might be a carpet sweeper pest who has a carpet sweeper that operates in mid air and simply coaxes the dust up from the floor. Only those gentlemen always hunt by day. It might be – ”

“Good-bye. I’m going downstairs. I can’t stop to listen to any more of your weird theories, Jeremiah. I’ll be back soon, I hope.” Smiling over Jerry’s ridiculous suppositions, Marjorie made a hasty start for downstairs.

The man who rose to greet her as she entered the living room bore no resemblance to either her general or Hal. Her caller was Peter Graham.

“Why, good evening, Mr. Graham.” She held out her hand. “This is a surprise, but always a pleasant one. You must have wondered what had become of Miss Page and me.”

“No, I knew you were busy, Miss Marjorie.” Peter Graham’s fine face lighted beautifully at sight of her. “You and Miss Robin have been very faithful. It has been of the greatest assistance to me. Now we must work together, more than ever.”

He ceased speaking and looked at her with an intensity of expression which somehow filled her with vague alarm.

“What is it, Mr. Graham?” Her mind would have instantly formed the conclusion that this call had to do with some serious crisis in his personal affairs if he had not said: “Now we must work together more than ever.”

“The majority of my workers have left me, Miss Marjorie,” he said with a straight simplicity which marked him as a man worth while. “They have gone over to the garage operation. There is no question in my mind as to how the whole thing happened.”

“Leslie Cairns.” The words leaped involuntarily to Marjorie’s lips. Immediately what Leila and Jerry had said before dinner returned to her mind with a rush. How precisely it fitted with that one pertinent sentence: “They have gone over to the garage operation.”

“Yes, Miss Cairns is responsible.” He spoke with quiet surety. “Still, I cannot understand how she managed so cleverly to keep me in the dark about her treacherous work until the mischief was done. Day before yesterday my entire force was at work on the dormitory. Yesterday three or four of my most useful Italians did not come to work. By noon today I was deserted except for four Hamilton carpenters and builders whom I have known and worked with for years. These four stood by me. Every last one of the others went over to the garage.”

“Was there – did these men give their reason for going?” Marjorie asked with admirable composure. “Before you answer, Mr. Graham, may I go upstairs for Miss Page? She happens to be here this evening. It is her right to hear as well as mine.”

“I am glad she is here. It is most fortunate for us. We shall be able to decide what we can do that much the sooner.” The builder bowed abstracted acknowledgment as Marjorie excused herself and hurried upstairs. Peter Graham’s mind had dwelt upon nothing else but what might be done to clear away the ugly situation resulting from Leslie Cairns’s malice.

She found Robin in the midst of the party group in Ronny’s room. Under Jerry’s laughable supervision the eats had been transferred without accident to the immediate scene of the festivity. Ronny, as hostess-guest of honor, was in high feather. She was hospitably concocting a delectable mixture which she called “Encanta Manaña” as she chatted animatedly with her friends. It was a fruit punch founded on lemons and oranges and further improved by a blending of fruit syrups. These syrups had been made from the fruits of her ranch home and put up in the ranch laboratory. They were as welcome at a spread as was Leila’s imported ginger ale.

Her own little coterie of friends had remembered her birthday that morning with lavish giving. The top of her chiffonier was covered with affectionate remembrances, each one selected with a view to Ronny’s peculiarly strong, attractive individuality.

“I can’t stay up here one minute, girls,” Marjorie hastily told the revelers. They had listened in blank silence to her as she acquainted Robin with the dismaying situation. “Go ahead, and have a good time, minus Page and Dean. We’ll be back within an hour, I think; perhaps before then.”

A buzzing murmur arose from the group as the partners exchanged eye messages of undying loyalty, linked arms and marched together from the room. Page and Dean would fight gallantly beside Peter Graham for the good of the dormitory.

Entering the living room Peter Graham shook hands with Robin. The partners seated themselves side by side on a small settee, while Peter Graham drew a wicker rocker close enough to them to permit of low-toned conversation.

The builder then began an account of the chief happenings on the day before the trouble became evident. He followed it with a more detailed description of the desertion, first of the three or four Italians, then the rest of the force, except the four Hamilton carpenters.