Ward had risen. He towered far above Elinor. Because of his heavy shoulders, he never looked his full height. Boroday, in the corridor, stole a moment from his anxieties to find the young clergyman every inch of a man, and to throw him the grudging admiration of defeated middle-age for youth and vibrant life.
"Then I shall not send for the rector?"
"Please, no."
"Is there anything at all that I can do?"
"Do the—the police know about this?"
"Surely. I suppose you have been told what happened."
"They will tell ms nothing."
There was a car coming up the hill. That would be it. Boroday eased his aching arm. He did not dare a sling, but the hand was thrust in the pocket of his coat. If only the hemorrhage did not start again! He braced himself and watched.
"It was a rubbery, you know that?" said Ward, in the library. He picked his words carefully. "As I got the story, a taxicab on its way to the bank was held up near the Record office. Your father had stepped to the curb to hail the taxi, and—it happened then, a—a stray bullet from one of the bandits' guns."
Boroday, eyes on the car, heard the statement, and, with the chief coming up the steps from the road to the garden, took the time to repudiate it.
"Pardon!" he said, "it was not a weapon in the hands of the bandits. It was the revolver of the bank messenger."
Ward turned in surprise. Boroday's eyes were fixed on Elinor's, with reassurance in their depths. The assistant rector was not subtle, but he had a curious feeling of something behind all this. He was uncomfortable.
"I trust," he said earnestly, "that these various outrages will be at an end now. Surely the police—"
"Possibly." The anarchist's gaze wandered to the garden, where even then the chief was making his way toward the house. "Of course, the bandits are trained men of unusual intelligence. If the police were of intelligence to cope with them—"
"Yes?"
"They would not be on the force, at meager salaries and petty graft. They would be"—he shrugged his shoulders—"bandits themselves, very possibly."
Ward left after that—left with an uncomfortable feeling of having got nowhere. He was convinced of one thing, death, which for him was an open gateway, was for this girl a closed and fastened door. And he knew something else. No other woman had ever so profoundly impressed him as this girl who without hope in her grief met it with a high head and courageous eyes.
He felt a certain comfort in one thing. Elinor had made a concession, and Hilary Kingston, lavish giver to the parish poor, was to be buried from Saint Jude's.
The chief met Mr Ward on the terrace and took off his hat. Boroday, in the dim hall, felt a certain sense of content. Nothing could have been more auspicious, could have set his stage better for his little drama, than the presence of the young clergyman. The whole scene gained tone, decorum.
The chiefs visit was short. They had followed the bandit's car and lost it, and finding himself in the neighborhood—
"Be assured," he said to Elinor, in his best manner, "that we'll not rest until this thing is cleared up. The community"—he cleared his throat—"the community will not lose one of its best citizens without a violent protest"
With the coroner he went up the stairs and into old Hilary's room. The chief glanced about while the hasty examination was being made.
"Nice room," he said. "But a jolly lot of good it does the old gentleman now! Nice little girl downstairs, too. I've seen that chap in the hall somewhere."
The coroner drew the sheet over old Hilary's peaceful face.
"The preacher? They all look alike. It's the vest and the collar."
"The other man, with the accent. German, I take it, or—Russian."
Boroday was waiting for them at the foot of the staircase. in the library was a tray, with drinks and sandwiches. The shades had been lowered.
The chief ate and drank. And as often as he raised his glass he looked at the Russian over it. At last:
"Haven't we met somewhere, Mr."
"Boroday. I rather think not."
"You remind me of someone—I'll place you, or the person you resemble, pretty soon. I have a slow mind. It's like an Airedale dog; it's a long time getting started, but when it begins it hangs on like the devil."
The drinks were cold, and the house cool. The prospect of starting out in the heat and dust did not allure the two men. Sitting there at his ease, the chief ran over the points of the outrage.
"In several ways," he observed comfortably, "the affair resembles one that happened in St. Louis several years ago. There's the same quality of audacity—and there are other things."