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Title: Special Detective (Ashton-Kirk)
Author: John T. McIntyre
Release Date: August 29, 2021 [eBook #66161]
Language: English
Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPECIAL DETECTIVE
(ASHTON-KIRK) ***
SPECIAL DETECTIVE
(ASHTON-KIRK)
THE NEW LONDON LIBRARY
Uniform with this Volume:
ASHTON-KIRK, INVESTIGATOR
By John T. McIntyre.
SECRET AGENT (ASHTON-KIRK)
By John T. McIntyre.
ASHTON-KIRK, CRIMINOLOGIST
By John T. McIntyre.
PENITENTIARY POST
By K. and R. Pinkerton.
THE LONG TRAVERSE
By K. and R. Pinkerton.
THE LURE OF THE HONEY BIRD
By J. Weedon Birch.
AT THE KRAAL OF THE KING
By J. Weedon Birch.
THE RIGHT TO LIVE
By Ermine Allingham and A. E. Coleby.
THE CALL OF THE ROAD
By Herbert Allingham and A. E. Coleby.
THE SHADOW OF THE YAMEN
By Ben Bolt.
DIANA OF THE ISLANDS
By Ben Bolt.
THE DIAMOND-BUCKLED SHOE
By Ben Bolt.
THE PRIDE OF THE RING
By Ben Bolt.
THE IMPOSSIBLE LOVER
By Ben Bolt.
MARRIAGES OF ADVENTURE
By Emile Gaboriau.
AN ADVENTURESS OF FRANCE
By Emile Gaboriau.
THE LEROUGE CASE
By Emile Gaboriau.
PLUCKY POLLY PERKINS
By Herbert Allingham.
SPECIAL
DETECTIVE
(ASHTON-KIRK)
BY
JOHN T. McINTYRE
_Author of “Ashton-Kirk Investigator,”
“Secret Agent (Ashton-Kirk),” etc._
[Illustration]
LONDON:
G. HEATH ROBINSON & J. BIRCH, LTD.
17-18, TOOK’S COURT, CURSITOR STREET, E.C.4
FIRST PUBLISHED AT HALF-A-CROWN - FEBRUARY, 1922.
_All rights reserved._
_Printed in Great Britain by Miller, Son & Compy.,
Fakenham and London_
INTRODUCTION
Ashton-Kirk is a young man of means and position. The unusual has a
sort of fascination for him; his subtle perception, and keen, direct
habit of mind cause him to delight in the investigation of those crimes
which have proved too shadowy for the police.
In “Ashton-Kirk, Investigator,” another book dealing with his
experiences, he was concerned with the strange case of the murder of
the numismatist, Hume. In “Secret Agent,” he was involved in a crisis
between two nations; and a great war was averted by his skill and ready
courage.
In this volume, he is called upon by an ancient friend who has been
plunged into an appalling series of circumstances of which he can make
nothing, except that all concerned are in immediate and deadly peril.
And it is here shown how the special detective’s acute mind, deft
manipulation and resourcefulness warded off a terrible danger.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MR. SCANLON RELATES SOME PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES 9
II. SHOWS HOW MATTERS STOOD AT SCHWARTZBERG 17
III. IN WHICH THE SPECIAL DETECTIVE TAKES UP THE HUNT 28
IV. TELLS SOMETHING OF THE MAN IN THE ROLLING CHAIR 35
V. SPEAKS OF ASHTON-KIRK’S FIRST VISIT TO SCHWARTZBERG 45
VI. IN WHICH ASHTON-KIRK INDICATES MUCH BUT SAYS LITTLE 62
VII. SHOWS HOW MR. SCANLON MET THE MAN WITH THE SOFT VOICE 80
VIII. TELLS HOW THE NIGHT BREEZE BLEW FROM THE NORTHWEST 88
IX. IN WHICH SOME THINGS ARE DONE AND SOME OTHERS ARE SAID 97
X. SHOWS HOW MRS. KRETZ SPOKE HER MIND 103
XI. TELLS SOMETHING OF TWO GENTLEMEN WHO WERE ENCOUNTERED
UNEXPECTEDLY 112
XII. SPEAKS OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE GATES OF SCHWARTZBERG
WERE OPENED 122
XIII. DEALS WITH SOME HAPPENINGS OF THE NEXT DAY 127
XIV. IN WHICH ASHTON-KIRK HEARS MATTERS OF INTEREST 143
XV. TELLS HOW AMAZEMENT FILLED THE MIND OF MR. SCANLON 151
XVI. SHOWS HOW THE GREAT SWORD WAS MISSED FROM THE WALL 162
XVII. SPEAKS OF A HARP WHICH WAS PLAYED IN SILENCE 174
XVIII. DEALS MAINLY WITH SOME NEWS FROM MEXICO 187
XIX. IN WHICH ASHTON-KIRK PAYS HIS SECOND VISIT TO
SCHWARTZBERG 197
XX. TELLS HOW ASHTON-KIRK POINTED OUT CERTAIN MATTERS
OF INTEREST 205
XXI. SHOWS HOW THE GREAT SWORD SPOKE TO SCANLON 222
XXII. IN WHICH A MATTER OF MUCH INGENUITY IS CONSIDERED 234
XXIII. CONCLUSION 241
SPECIAL DETECTIVE
(ASHTON-KIRK)
CHAPTER I
MR. SCANLON RELATES SOME PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES
Ashton-Kirk, student of crime, sat cross-legged upon a rug;
thoughtfully he drew at the big pipe; the wreaths of smoke drifted over
the tottering towers of books with which he was surrounded, and eddied
out at an open window.
“Fuller,” said he, “get me the name Campe.”
The nimble fingered assistant ran through the cards of a filing system.
“Campe--Mexico--financiers?” said he, at length, turning his head.
“Right,” spoke Ashton-Kirk.
“Volume II,” said Fuller, closing the drawer. “Shall I have it sent up?”
“Yes.”
In a few moments, Stumph, gravest of men servants, entered, bearing a
bulky folio which he placed before his employer.
“In a short time,” said Ashton-Kirk, “Mr. Scanlon will call. Bring him
up as soon as he arrives.”
Stumph silently withdrew; the special detective puffed at the
meerschaum and nodded to Fuller.
“Let’s see what we have about the Campes,” requested he.
Fuller took the book, opened it at the index, and then turned over
until he came to a certain page. He read:
“This family came, originally, from Bavaria, their forbears residing
in the city of Munich. The name was then Von Campe. A Frederich Ernest
Von Campe made a fortune as a brewer before the French Revolution. His
three sons trebled this by lending it at a high rate of interest to the
various needy German states during the Napoleonic wars.
“When Maximilian entered Mexico, the Von Campes helped to finance
the venture. When he fell, they very cleverly managed to save their
money by coming to an understanding with the succeeding republican
government. For more than fifty years the family has been in Mexico,
financing government and private enterprises.
“Some twenty-five years ago they dropped the ‘Von,’ becoming simply
known as Campe.”
Fuller then went on to read the doings of the Campes as contained in
the record; it was merely a series of “high spots” such as might be
gathered about a family of the same consequence anywhere. When he had
finished, Ashton-Kirk looked dissatisfied.
“I find, from time to time,” said he, “that this record is badly kept.
It is loaded with the usual, when, as a matter of fact, it is intended
solely for the unusual.” He drew at his pipe for a moment, and then
added: “I want intimate information regarding this family--especially
of their doings during the last few years.”
“Very well,” said Fuller, briskly. “I’ll start with the
Mexican-Pacific Bank. They ought to know a deal about the Campes
because they did a lot of business with them, according to what we have
here.”
As Fuller opened the door to leave the study, Stumph appeared with a
big, fresh-faced man who clutched a hard-rimmed hat in his nervous grip.
“Mr. Scanlon,” said Stumph; and then he followed Fuller out of the room.
“Glad to see you, Kirk,” said Mr. Scanlon, in a voice which suited his
proportions. “I hope I haven’t come butting in.”
“Not a bit of it,” the crime student assured him. “Here, have a chair;
also have a cigar.”
Mr. Scanlon sat in the chair, and pinched the tip off the cigar. He had
blue, good-natured eyes, the sort accustomed to laugh; but now they
were grave enough, and little troubled wrinkles showed at their corners.
“You look up to your ears in work,” said he, his eyes upon the books.
Ashton-Kirk smiled.
“On the contrary, I’ve been resting,” he answered, his gaze also upon
the books, and filled with the mist which comes of deep plunges into
the past, or into the annals of lands that never were. “When I’m
overtaxed or too tightly strung there’s nothing so relaxes me as the
ancient romances; there’s nothing near so quieting as the sayings of
the wise old monks, spoken in the cool of the cloisters.”
Mr. Scanlon nodded appreciatively.
“Personally, I’m very strong for all those old fellows,” said he. “They
had speed, control and change of pace.”
“Their greatest charm is their simplicity,” said Ashton-Kirk, as he
refilled his pipe. “They believed things as children believe them.
Their days were rare with faith; their nights with wonders. But,” and
there was regret in the speaker’s voice, “the world has turned many
times since then. There are no more wonders; and surprise, as they knew
it, has ceased to exist.”
Mr. Bat Scanlon, one time athlete and gambler, but now a handler of
champions, brushed the first short plume of ash from his cigar. He
shook his head.
“Wrong!” stated he, confidently. “Altogether wrong. You get behind the
scenes too much; you see the insides of things too often. Wonder is
as thick as ever it was; and surprise is still on the job. If there’s
any falling off, it’s in ourselves. We’ve grown cross-eyed looking at
fakes; we haven’t the vision to know a wonder when we see it.”
A volume of Burton lay upon the table at his hand. He picked it up.
“Here’s Bagdad,” said he, riffling the pages, sharply. “Bagdad, a
city stuffed with strangeness. But,” and he looked at Ashton-Kirk,
earnestly, “had it really anything on this town of ours? Were its
nights deeper? its silences more mysterious? I think not. Let any
man--with his eyes open--mind you--go out into one of our nights, and
he’ll meet with as many astonishments as Haroun Al Raschid, the best
prowler of them all.”
Ashton-Kirk smiled through the thickening smoke. It were as though he
had convinced himself of something.
“Your defence of present day interests is so keen,” said he, “that I’m
inclined to hope this case you have holds some exceptional features.”
Scanlon nodded.
“And yet,” with a gesture, “I’m not so sure. I can’t put my fingers on
a single thing, or even give it a name.”
“It has something to do with this young fellow Campe, I think you said.”
“It has all to do with him,” stated Mr. Scanlon. “And that’s one of
the things that makes it so queer. He’s the last one I’d expected to
get mixed up with anything of the kind; and he’s a gone youngster if
somebody with more stuff than I have don’t step in and take a swing at
it.”
There was a short silence; the smoke from the cigar mingled with that
of the pipe; eddying in the draught from the window they wove in and
out intricately, finally mingled and drifted out into the big world.
“Suppose you go carefully over the affair as you know it,” suggested
Ashton-Kirk. “I got very little of it over the telephone.”
Scanlon drew at the cigar and gazed at the opposite wall where there
hung that Maxfield Parrish print of the wonder-stricken brown sailors,
peering into the unknown from the bow of their ship.
“If this was my own matter,” said he, “I could take every individual
happening by the neck and shake the information right out of it. But as
it stands, I’ve only got a good straight look at one thing that’s at
all plain to me.”
“What’s that?” asked Ashton-Kirk.
“Fear,” replied Scanlon, in a low-pitched voice, his mouth twisting
wrily as he shaped the word. “Stark, white-faced fear; the kind that
turns a man sick just at the sight of it.”
The big man frowned for a moment at the brown sailors peering out over
their mystic sea. Then he resumed.
“As I said a few moments ago, I was surprised at a young fellow like
Campe indulging in a recreation like being afraid; for in him we have
a wide-awake chap, graduate of one of the big colleges, holder of a
middle distance record and known for his pluck. And for such a one to
lock himself up in a big country house and go to shaking at every sound
he hears is not quite pleasant.”
“Fear, when properly planted, sinks deep and lasts long,” said
Ashton-Kirk. “I’ve seen strong men quite like rabbits, in the grip of
something they didn’t understand.”
“I got acquainted with young Campe a couple of years ago when he sprung
a tendon and they thought a big race was lost for his college. They
sent for me as old Doc. Emergency and I tinkered him up enough to go
the distance. After that he got friendly. When he graduated, every one
expected he’d go back to Mexico. But he didn’t. He went into a German
importing house here--a kind of partner, I think.
“I’d always taken him for a casual kind of chap; he never seemed to
take things very seriously, and had a very frequent laugh. But about a
year ago I noticed a change. He didn’t talk so much; if he laughed at
all it didn’t have the old-time colour; and he got to sitting staring
at the ground. When I’d talk, he’d listen for a while; then he’d sort
of drift away. I could tell by his expression that he wasn’t getting a
thing I was saying. Finally he took to walking the floor, biting his
nails and whispering to himself.”
Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
“Pretty bad,” said he.
“That’s what I thought. And I mentioned the fact to him. But he tried
to laugh--it was a complete failure--and said there was nothing wrong.
He was a little nervous; and even that, so he said, would wear off
after a while.
“The day I spoke to him in this way was the last I saw of him until
about two weeks ago. Then I got a letter, asking me to pack a bag and
run up to Marlowe Furnace for a visit. ‘The shooting’s good,’ says he,
‘and I’ve got a brace of dogs that’ll give you some excitement.’
“‘This,’ says I, to myself, ‘is just about the right thing. Nothing’d
suit me better now than to fuss with a dog and a gun.’
“So I wrote him I’d come at once. Marlowe Furnace, if you don’t know
the place, is about twenty miles out, tucked away among the hills. It
was quite a place in revolutionary times; they beat out sword blades
and bayonets there, and cast cannon, and the round shot to stuff them
with.
“There’s only a few houses, with an inn for summer visitors; and
there’s a little covered bridge crosses the river, just like a
picture on a plate. Campe was holding out at Schwartzberg, or Castle
Schwartzberg, as the people of the town call it. The castle is a
regular robber-baron kind of a place, with a wall around it, towers,
battlements, little windows with heavy bars, and all the rest of the
fixings.”
“I know it,” said Ashton-Kirk. “It was built by a German officer who
came over with Baron Steuben during the Revolution. When peace came,
he decided he liked the section well enough to stay. He was rich, and
built Schwartzberg in the effort to get some of the colour of the old
land into the new.”
“It was something like that,” said Mr. Scanlon, nodding. “And the
builder must have been related, in a way, to the Campes. Anyhow, they
came into the castle some years ago. Well, to be invited to a place
like that was not usual with me; and I felt a little swelled up about
it.
“‘You’ve been asked because of your qualities as a sportsman and boon
companion,’ says I to myself; ‘the discriminating always pick you for
an ace.’
“But twenty-four hours later I had learned my true status,” said
Scanlon, his brows corrugating, and his thick forefinger tapping the
table. “I had been asked to Schwartzberg to act as a body-guard, and
for nothing else in the world.”
“I see,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“Mind you, the situation has never been put into plain words. In fact,
it’s never been even hinted at. But things happened, queer things, with
no meanings attached, and so I gradually understood. A body-guard I
was; and my job was to protect young Campe from something out among the
hills.”
CHAPTER II
SHOWS HOW MATTERS STOOD AT SCHWARTZBERG
Scanlon paused for a space; he examined a loose place in the wrapper
of his cigar, while Ashton-Kirk sat waiting, upon his rug, his hands
clasping his knees.
“When I first grabbed at this fact,” said the big man at length, “I
gave it a good looking-over. But I kept still, mind you; I said no more
than the folks at the castle--and they were saying nothing at all. I
tackled the thing from every angle, but nothing come out of it. And
yet, all the time, young Campe shivered; and, somehow, I felt that he
had cause to do so. I could feel the thing, whatever it was, at every
turn, in every shadow, in every sound.”
“The condition of Campe probably had its effect upon you,” said
Ashton-Kirk. “He communicated his state of mind to you.”
“In other words,” said Mr. Scanlon, “I was stuck full of suggestion.
Well, don’t burden yourself with that notion any longer. I’ve had some
brisk experiences of my own from time to time; and a man with a murky
past doesn’t go in for mental influences, not even a little bit. But be
that as it may, I hadn’t been at Schwartzberg five days before I, too,
began to feel like sending out an S.O.S. for help. And now, in a little
more than twice that time, I come knocking at your door and urging you
to do something.”
“I get a general atmosphere of fear--of an impending something--of an
invisible danger,” said Ashton-Kirk. “But there’s nothing in what
you’ve told me which permits of a hand-grip, so to speak.”
“I told you,” began Scanlon, “there isn’t a single thing which----”
“I don’t expect anything definite,” said the special detective. “Give
me the details of your stay at Schwartzberg. Perhaps we can draw
something from those.”
“Right,” said Mr. Scanlon. “Well, as soon as I put my foot on the
station platform at Marlowe Furnace, the thing began. The station man
said to me:
“‘You going to Schwartzberg?’
“‘Yes,’ says I.
“‘A party’s been asking about you,’ says he.
“‘One of Campe’s people, I suppose.’
“‘No,’ says he. ‘I know all them. The party was a stranger.’
“I thought this a little queer, but I had my getting out to Campe’s
place to think of; and as it was late and very dark, I said nothing
more except to ask my way.
“‘Take the road down to the river,’ says the station man. ‘Then cross
the bridge and turn to your right. You’ll see a lot of lights that look
as if they were hanging away up in the air. That’s the castle.’
“So, bag in hand, I started off. It was a starry night; but there was
no moon and starlight isn’t much good on a road where the tree branches
meet on either side. But I was in the right direction and in a little
while I made out the outlines of the covered bridge.
“‘Like a Noah’s Ark,’ says I, as I started across. Footsteps inside
covered bridges on a still, dark night are apt to stir up a lot of
other sounds; so when I began to hear a kind of shuffling alongside of
me, I wasn’t surprised. ‘An echo,’ says I, and didn’t even turn.
“But when an electric hand torch shot a little tunnel of light through
the darkness and hit me in the ear, I came about, quick enough.
“‘I ask your pardon,’ says a smooth kind of a voice.
“‘That I grant you, willingly,’ says I. ‘But, believe me, friend,
you’ll have to be sharp to get anything else.’
“The worst of an electric torch in a dark place,” complained Mr.
Scanlon, “is that the party holding it has a good sight of you; but all
you can do to him is wink and look foolish. These being the conditions
I didn’t lash out at the party as I felt like doing, not knowing just
what he was; so I waited for him to show his hand.
“‘You are on your way to Schwartzberg, I think,’ says the voice.
“‘On my way is right,’ says I, as confidently as I could. ‘And I count
on getting there all safe and sound.’
“The party with the torch appeared to be tickled at this; for he began
to chuckle.
“‘I’m very fortunate in meeting you,’ says he.
“‘Good,’ says I. ‘I always like to find people in luck. And now, if
it’s no trouble, suppose you explain your reason for stopping me.’
“‘Of course,’ says he. ‘To be sure. I’ve a small favour to ask of you,’
he says. ‘If you’ll be so kind, I’ll have you carry this to young Mr.
Campe.’
“And like that,” here Scanlon snapped his fingers, “the light went out,
and I felt the party put something into my hand.
“‘No explanation will be needed,’ says the voice, if anything a little
smoother than before.
“‘What I have given you will tell its own story.’
“Then I heard the pit-pit-pat of careful feet going back across the
bridge. I waited for a little to see if there was to be anything
further; but as there wasn’t I put the thing the stranger had given me
into my pocket, and took up the journey once more. At the end of the
bridge I looked up the river; there was a sort of mist lifting from the
water, but high above this a battery of lights twinkled and blinked in
the distance.
“‘If that’s Schwartzberg,’ says I, ‘Campe’s got her well lit up.’
“I struck along a road which led over the hills; and in half an hour I
was thumping at the gate of the castle.
“There was a little empty space after my knock,” said Scanlon. “Then I
heard footsteps and the sound of whispering. Suddenly I was flooded by
a light from somewhere over the gate; I heard a man mention my name in
a kind of a shout; then the gate opened, I was dragged in, and it swung
shut after me, the bolts and things falling into place with a great
racket. Young Campe had me by the hand and was shaking away for dear
life.
“‘I’m glad to see you, old chap!’ says he. ‘Glad as I can be. But I
never expected you on a train as late as this!’ He left off shaking my
hand and took to slapping my back; it all seemed feverish to me; but
like a dud, I took it all for just plain delight in seeing me. ‘You
see,’ says he, ‘it’s a pretty quiet kind of a place out here; and when
you came a-knocking, we couldn’t imagine who it could be.’
“After which,” continued Mr. Scanlon, “I was led across a courtyard and
through a high narrow doorway like a slit in the wall. A few steps down
a stone paved corridor and we turned into a room that was a ringer for
Weisebrode’s Rathskellar. And while I was looking around at the place,
Campe went on talking as if he’d never stop. This wasn’t usual, and as
I now had a good view of him under the light, I noticed that he was
pinched looking; there were hollows in his face and neck that I’d never
seen there before.
“‘Well,’ says he, ‘here you are, old man, and there never was a person
so welcome anywhere before. You see,’ and his voice sank a little,
‘there’s been things about here that----’
“‘Take care,’ says some one. And as I looked around I saw a short,
blocky German standing beside us, his hand at a salute. He was sort of
grey around the temples and he had as grim a face as I ever saw.
“Young Campe gave a sort of gulp. ‘Quite right, sergeant,’ says he.
Then, to me, he goes on: ‘This is Sergeant-Major Kretz, once of the
Kaiser’s army, and an old friend of my father’s.’
“The sergeant-major saluted once more, but his face was like granite.
“‘I will take your hat and coat,’ says he; and then a thing happened
which, for suddenness, has got anything I ever saw licked to a
standstill; and I’ve seen some sudden doings in my day. I pulled off
my overcoat and gave it to the sergeant-major. He took it kind of
awkwardly; something dropped from one of the pockets and slid across
the sanded floor.
“‘Don’t be so confoundedly clumsy, Kretz,’ says Campe, and he stooped
and picked the thing up. But when he got it in his hands and gave it
one look, he threw it from him and gave a gurgling sort of cry. Then he
swung around and leaped on me like a madman, both hands digging into my
throat.”
Ashton-Kirk shook the ash from the meerschaum and nodded at his visitor.
“Rather impulsive,” said he.
The big man’s hand caressed his throat; it was as though he still felt
the clasp of the young fellow’s fingers.
“It was no easy job tearing him loose,” said he. “He stuck to me like a
wildcat; his intention was to do for me on the spot.”
“What was the thing that set him off?” asked the crime specialist.
“After I’d got him into a chair with the sergeant-major holding him,”
answered Scanlon, “I had a look at it. It was a smooth stone about the
size of an egg, though not that shape, green in colour, and with a
humped up place on one side of it. I had no recollection of ever having
seen it before, and I was puzzled about how it got into my pocket. But
while I was puzzling, it flashed on me.
“‘It’s the thing that fellow gave me while I was crossing the bridge,’
says I.
“‘Let me up,’ says young Campe to the German. There was something
nearer sanity in his eyes than there had been a few moments before; so
the sergeant-major let go of him.
“‘What fellow?’ says Campe.
“‘I didn’t know him; it was dark and I didn’t even see him. He spoke
to me on the bridge coming from the station. He gave me this thing
for you. He said you’d ask no questions, but he didn’t mention,’ I
couldn’t help adding, ‘the other thing you’d do.’
“Campe grabbed my arm with both hands.
“‘If you can,’ says he, ‘try and forget that I lost my head just now.
If you knew what a bedeviled man I am, you’d only wonder why I don’t go
permanently mad.’
“Then he stood looking at the green stone, which the sergeant-major had
put upon the table; his lips twitched, his face was white.
“‘Oh, they are cunning,’ says he. ‘They know the nature and substance
of fear. They play upon it with the expertness of devils. But,’ and he
lifted one clenched fist, ‘they’ll never break my nerve; I’ll hold out
against them, no matter what they do.’”
“That was pretty direct,” spoke Ashton-Kirk. “What followed? Did he say
anything more?”
“The German sergeant-major took him away before he could indulge in
any further remarks; I didn’t see him again until next morning; and
then nothing at all was said about the doings of the night. A couple of
times I was on the point of asking him to put me up in the reason for
his goings on; but something in his manner and expression kept me back.
“In the late afternoon we all went out for a breather among the hills.
But it was more like an expedition into the enemy’s country than an
exercise. They put a couple of Colt automatics in my pocket, and each
of them took one. Also the sergeant-major carried a Mauser rifle with
kick enough to have killed at a couple of miles.
“‘Sometimes there are vagrants who get impudent,’ said Campe. ‘I’ve
known them to attempt robbery; so we may as well be prepared.’
“Next day we took the dogs and guns and tried for some birds; at night
we locked the place up like a prison. The days that followed were about
the same; I never felt so thick a depression anywhere as there was in
Schwartzberg. For hours no one would speak; our meals would go through
like a funeral rite; sometimes I’d catch myself chewing my food to the
tune of a dead march. After dinner we’d have a gloomy game of cards; at
about ten we’d all go off to bed, one by one, and seem glad to do it.”
“Your first visit wasn’t pleasant,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“I got no fun out of it except the tramping around, and then only when
I’d go off by myself. I’d have cleared out as soon as I’d sized matters
up, but there were two things kept me back. First, I like young Campe,
and I wanted to help him out; second, something was doing of a piquant
nature, and I had a curiosity to know what it was.
“Several times, from my bedroom windows, I saw Kretz prowling about
the courtyard or upon the wall. Once I fancied I caught the creeping
of a couple of figures beyond the wall. I went out to look up the
nature of the stunt, and almost got myself shot by what Campe afterward
called prowling tramps. On the following night as I sat reading in my
room, I heard a woman’s scream--sudden and high with fear. There was
a rush of feet along empty corridors, sharp voices and the slamming
of doors. I grabbed up my automatic and, all in disarray, I broke for
the scene of excitement. But half-way down a flight of stairs I came
upon Sergeant-Major Kretz, quite calm, but looking a little grimmer, if
anything, than I’d ever seen him before.
“‘It’s nothing,’ he tells me. ‘The Fräulein was frightened. All is
right. You need not bother.’”
“There’s a woman, then, at Schwartzberg?” said Ashton-Kirk.
“Two of them, to be exact,” returned Scanlon. “One’s an aunt of
Campe’s; the other is a companion, or something of the kind. The girl I
see often, but the aunt very rarely. But I never did more than nod to
either of them until the night Campe was cut.”
“Cut!”
“In the body,” said Scanlon. “That was two nights ago. I had gone to
bed rather later than usual and had, I think, been asleep only a few
minutes when I was awakened by a sound. I sat up and listened. Then
it came again. Far off, as though among the hills, came a roaring; it
started like a murmur at first, and grew in volume until it rumbled
like nothing I’d ever heard before. Then it died away, and only its
echo remained, drifting above the hillsides.
“‘Thunder,’ says I.
“But the sky was filled with stars, and they shone as brilliantly as
stars ever shone before. Once more came the roaring in the night; with
my head thrust far out at the window, I listened. A door opening on the
courtyard slapped to, suddenly; quick footsteps sounded and Campe’s
voice, high and angry, came to my ears. The gate opened before him; I
could see him, a revolver in his hand and with all the appearance of
madness, rush away in the direction of the great sound.
“I commenced jumping into my clothes, a garment at a jump; a brilliant
tongue of light shot from the top of Schwartzberg, and began to sweep
the country round about much like the searchlight of a battleship.
“‘They are strong on equipment,’ says I to myself, as I grabbed my gun
and made for the door. This time I met no one on the stairs, nor in
the courtyard, when I reached it, nor yet at the gate. Once outside
I looked up; the light was streaming out over the hills from the
tallest turret of the castle; and in the gloom beside the reflector I
saw Kretz, his Mauser in his hands, his face turned as though he were
grimly picking up each detail as the light brought it out.
“I had noted the direction which Campe had taken; so I struck after
him. Two hundred yards away from the castle I heard his revolver begin
to speak; then there came the eager straining breaths of men engaged
in a struggle, the grinding of feet, and a heavy fall. I had all but
reached the spot when the great ray swept round and held fast. I saw
young Campe stretched out upon the ground; and over him stood the girl,
all in white, with her face upturned, her arms outstretched toward the
high turret as though imploring the grim rifleman to hold his fire.”
“Well?” asked Ashton-Kirk.
“She was a peach; and Campe was nearly done. I lifted him, and with my
automatic held ready, and the girl trailing behind, I got back to the
castle where I heard the gate closed and locked behind me with some
thankfulness.”
“Was Campe badly hurt?”
“He had a long, peculiar cut down his chest and stomach, not deep,
but ugly looking. It was just as though some one had made a sweep at
him with something big and heavy and keen, and he had pulled back in
time to escape most of it. But he was about next day; he thanked me
for going out after him, but would explain nothing. It was after this
that I tried to reason it out for the last time. But it’s no use--the
thing’s beyond yours truly. So here I am.”
The singular eyes of Ashton-Kirk were full of interest; he arose from
his rug and took a couple of turns up and down the room; then he threw
open a bulky railroad guide and his searching finger began to run in
and out among the figures.
“There’s a train for Marlowe Furnace at 8.4,” said he.
Then he pressed one of a series of bells in the wall, and, through a
tube, said to some one below:
“Have dinner half an hour earlier. And set places for two.”
“I didn’t think you’d jump into the thing with any such speed as this,”
remarked Mr. Scanlon, highly gratified.
“It looks like a case which will admit of no delay,” replied
Ashton-Kirk. “Something of a deadly nature is lowering over
Schwartzberg; that’s plain enough. And that young Campe is so secretive
about it is an indication that it’s one of those things which cannot
well be spoken of to the police.”
CHAPTER III
IN WHICH THE SPECIAL DETECTIVE TAKES UP THE HUNT
After dinner, Ashton-Kirk smoked a cigar with his friend; then he
retired to dress for the journey to Marlowe Furnace. When he reappeared
he wore a rough, well-fitting grey suit, a grey flannel shirt, a cloth
cap and a pair of springy tan shoes. In his hand he held a heavy
hickory stick, which he balanced like a swordsman.
“You looked primed for work,” approved Bat Scanlon, as he stood up and
buttoned his coat across his big chest.
“Your story of the doings in and about Schwartzberg holds out a promise
of entertainment,” smiled Ashton-Kirk. “And I’ve noticed that things of
that sort are always more appreciated if they are prepared for and met
half-way.”
“Good!” praised Mr. Scanlon, who was in high good humour at his success
in gaining the interest of the specialist in the unusual. “Fine! That’s
the kind of talk I like to hear. It puts a man somewhere. Locking
himself up and shivering never got anybody anything yet. And then
going mad and rushing out to have unseen parties chop at him is even
worse. When I taught boxing to the boys out at Shaweegan College I used
to hand them this advice: ‘Always keep after your man--don’t let him
get settled. And the best guard for a blow is another blow--started
sooner.’”
“Excellent,” agreed Ashton-Kirk. “And it’s a thousand pities you
didn’t impress it upon young Campe. If you had, he’d never have been in
his present state of mind and body.”
The huge shoulders of Scanlon shrugged in disbelief.
“Campe was past all reason when I got to him,” maintained he. “To talk
candidly would only have spoilt any chance I had of doing him a good
turn.”
The 8.4 was a dusty ill-kept train, which started and stopped with
a series of jerks. After an hour on board of it, among a lot of
uncomfortable, sour-looking passengers, the two got off at Marlowe
Furnace. The station was a shed-like structure with a platform of
hard-packed earth, and a brace of flaring oil lamps. An ancient, with
a wisp of beard and thumbs tucked under a pair of braces, watched them
get off.
“The station agent,” said Scanlon.
The train went panting and glaring away into the darkness; it had
disappeared around a bend when the station official nodded to Scanlon.
“Evening,” greeted he.
“Hello,” said Scanlon.
“Back again, I see.”
“Yes--once more.”
“Nobody asked for you to-night.”
“That so?” said Scanlon, his glance going to Ashton-Kirk.
The detective dug carelessly at the hard-packed earth of the platform
with the tip of the hickory stick.
“The person who asked for my friend the last time he stopped off here
was a stranger to you, I understand.”
The ancient official took one of the thumbs from under a brace and
raked it thoughtfully through the wisp of beard.
“Don’t remember ever seeing him before,” stated he.
“I suppose you couldn’t recall what he looked like?”
The ancient looked injured.
“I’m sixty-seven year old,” said he, “but I got good eyesight, and a
better memory than most. That man I talked to that night was a stranger
at the Furnace. If I’d ever set an eye on him before I’d remembered
him. He was fat and white and soft looking. And he talked soft and
walked soft. When he went away, I’d kind of a feeling that I’d been
talking to a batter pudding.”
“Have you seen him since?” asked the crime student.
The old man shook his head.
“No. And I don’t know how he got here or went away, unless he drove or
come in a motor. He didn’t use the trains.”
The road down toward the river was steep, and lined with trees
upon each side; their interwoven branches overhead, as Scanlon had
explained, were dense enough to keep out most of the light. “It’s
pretty much the same kind of a night as the one I used when I first
came here,” said Bat. “Stars, but no moon.”
The wooden bridge, with a peaked roof over it, crossed the river at the
foot of the road; the square openings upon either side showed the dark
water flowing sullenly along.
“Look,” and Bat Scanlon pointed out at one of the windows of the
bridge. “There are the lights of Schwartzberg.”
Some distance away--perhaps a mile--and high above the west bank of
the river, hung a cluster of lights. So lonely were these, and so
pale and cold that they might well have marked the retreat of some
necromancer, in which he pored over his dark books of magic.
“It’s a peculiar thing,” said Ashton-Kirk, his eyes upon the far-off
lights, “what various forms fear takes. Here is a man who, apparently,
is in constant terror of some one, or something, and yet we find him
lodged stubbornly in a place where a secret blow might be levelled at
him with the greatest ease.”
“That struck me more than once,” spoke Mr. Scanlon. “And I felt like
putting it to him as a question shaped something like: ‘Why stay here
when there’s places where there’s more folks? Why stick around a spot
where there’s always some one cutting in with an unwelcome surprise,
when you can get good house-room in places where there’s plenty of
burglar alarms?’”
Their feet sounded drearily upon the loose planks of the bridge; and
when they emerged at the far end they found themselves upon a narrow
road which ran off into the darkness.
“On, over the hills, in and out, and up and down, until it lands you at
Schwartzberg gate,” said Scanlon.
They climbed to the top of a hill; the sky was thick with stars, and
the light from them touched the high places with pale hands. But the
hollows were black and deep looking; mystery followed the course of the
slowly running river.
“What is there round about Campe’s place?” asked the crime specialist.
“Is this the only road that leads there? What are his neighbours like?”
“To the first of those questions,” said Mr. Scanlon, “I reply,
fields--also hills--also woods. There are roads passing Schwartzberg
upon either side. As to neighbours, there’s a few farmers, and their
help. And then there’s the man who flags the bad crossing down by the
river, and the inn.”
“Ah, yes, you mentioned the inn before,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“A big, old-fashioned place--built back in the old days.”
“With a wide hearth and a hearty old landlord, whose father and
grandfather owned the house before him.”
“Well, that’s how it ought to be, to be in the picture; but it happens
that this landlord has been here for only about six months.”
Scanlon heard the hickory stick slashing at a clump of dried brush;
then the crime specialist spoke:
“How far away is it?”
“A couple of miles.”
“Maybe it’d be as well if we went there and bespoke a bed, if they’ll
take us in,” said Ashton-Kirk.
Scanlon seemed surprised.
“I guess they’ve got room,” said he. “But I had it in my mind you were
going to Schwartzberg.”
“I will pay it a visit, if I’m permitted, when I’ve had a chance to see
something of its surroundings. Your story, you see, shows plainly that,
whatever the nature of Campe’s danger, it comes from the outside.”
Scanlon seemed struck by this; then he nodded and said:
“I guess that’s right. But don’t you think a good chance to pump Campe
for some inside information would be better than anything else?”
“In its proper place, perhaps. But I want to look over the outside,
uninfluenced. Five minutes’ talk with a man in Campe’s state of
mind might colour one’s thoughts to such an extent that it would be
difficult to see anything except with his eyes.”
“That sounds sensible enough,” agreed Bat. “And if there’s anything in
the world you don’t want to get doing, it’s seeing things as he sees
them.”
They followed the narrow road for some distance, and then the big man
turned off into a path which led through a stretch of farm land.
“This is a short cut,” said he. “I followed it frequently when I was
out with the gun. It’ll bring us to a road a bit beyond this wood; and
the road leads on to the inn.”
A hundred yards further on they topped the crest of a hill; before them
loomed a dense growth of trees which covered the slopes round about.
“It’s a fine kind of a place in summer, I should think,” said Scanlon,
as they halted. “But of an autumn night when the air gets chill, the
stars look far away, and there’s a pretty well settled belief that some
queer things are about, it’s got its weak side. When I was staying in
Canyon, I swore in as a deputy one night and started out into the hills
with the magistrate to look for two lads who’d held up a train and got
away with a bag full of money. That country was much wilder than this,
and was further away from anywhere; but,” with a look at the gloomy
wooded slopes, “believe me, it couldn’t compare with this for that
uncertain feeling.”
As they stood gazing about, Ashton-Kirk’s head suddenly went up. He
bent forward in the attitude of listening.
“What is it?” asked the big man.
“Hark!”
Far away, among the hills to the north, came a deep muttering, Scanlon
clutched the crime specialist’s arm.
“That’s it!” he cried. “Listen to it lift. It’s the thing I heard
roaring in the night.”
Low, growling, ominous at first, the sound grew in volume. Then it
pealed like a mighty voice, rolling and echoing from hill to hill,
finally subsiding and dying in the muttering with which it began.
“According to custom,” remarked Scanlon, in an uneasy tone, “Campe is
now due to take his gun in hand and dash for the gate. And, if he does,
they’ll do more than slash him. I’ve got an idea they’ll get him this
time.”
As he said the last word, a shaft of brilliant light shot from the
tower of Schwartzberg, and flashed to and fro across the countryside.
Then came the quick, far-off pulsation of a rifle; in the widening beam
of white light they saw a woman crouching down as though in fear; and
then they caught the figure of a man, running as though for his life.
CHAPTER IV
TELLS SOMETHING OF THE MAN IN THE ROLLING CHAIR
“Campe!” cried Bat Scanlon, his eyes upon the fleeing man, and his hand
going, with the instinctive movement of an old gun man, to his hip.
“And giving his little performance outside once more.”
But the keen eyes of the crime specialist had picked up details which
the other had missed. He shook his head.
“No,” said he. “Campe is a young man, you say. This is one past middle
life. And also he seems sadly out of condition, and does not run at all
like a man who once took middle distance honours.”
The searching column of light still clung to the running man; again and
again came the light shocks of the distant rifle.
“The woman has faded out of the lime-light,” observed Scanlon.
“And the man is trying his best to duplicate the feat. Look--there he
goes!”
With a wild side leap, the fugitive vanished into a shallow ravine, out
of range of both the ray and the rifle. At this the searchlight was
snapped off and darkness once more settled over the hills.
“Your German sergeant-major is a poor shot,” commented Ashton-Kirk. “He
had his man in full view and missed him repeatedly.”
Scanlon shook his head.
“It must have been the light,” said he. “Kretz can shoot. I’ve seen him
at it.”
They stood in silence for a few moments; the country road about seemed
heavier with shadows than it had been before the appearance of the
shifting beam of light; the stars looked fainter.
“That’s the second time I’ve seen that girl out here in the night,”
continued the big man. “And each time the noise came, and things
started doing. I wonder what’s the idea?”
“I fancy it’s a trifle early to venture an opinion upon anything having
to do with this most interesting affair,” said his companion. “But,”
quietly, “we may stumble upon an explanation as we go further into it.”
“I hope so,” said Scanlon, fervently. Then, in the tone of a man who
had placed himself unreservedly in the hands of another, “What next?”
“I think we’d better go on to the inn.”
If the other thought the crime specialist’s wish would have been to
take up their course in the direction of the recently enacted drama,
he said nothing. He led the way along the narrow path, and through the
gloomy growth of wood. They emerged after a space into a well-kept
road, and holding to this, approached a rambling, many gabled old house
which twinkled with lighted windows and gave out an atmosphere of
cheer. A huge porch ran all around it; an immense barn stood upon one
side; and half-a-dozen giant sycamores towered above all.
“There it is,” said Scanlon. “And it looks as though it had been there
for some time, eh?”
“A fine, cheery old place,” commented Ashton-Kirk, his eyes upon the
erratic gables, the twinkling windows and the welcoming porch. “Many a
red fire has burned upon its snug hearths of a winter night; and many a
savoury dish has come out of its kitchen. Travelling in the old days
was not nearly so comfortable as now; but it had its recompenses.”
Their feet crunched upon the gravel walk, and then sounded hollowly in
the empty spaces of the porch. Scanlon pushed open a heavy door which
admitted them to a great room with a low ceiling, beamed massively,
and coloured as with smoke. The floor was sanded; a fire of pine logs
roared up a wide-throated chimney; brass lamps, fixed in sockets in the
walls, threw a warm yellowish glow upon polished pewter tankards and
painted china plates. The tables and chairs were of oak, scrubbed white
by much attentive labour; prim half curtains graced the small-paned
windows.
A short man with a comfortable presence, a white apron and a red face
came forward to greet them.
“Good-evening, Mr. Scanlon,” said he, cordially. “I’m pleased to see
you, sir. I’d been told you’d given us up and gone off to the city.”
“Just for a breather, that’s all,” Scanlon informed him, as he and the
crime specialist sat at a table near to the blazing hearth. It was
still autumn, but there had been a dampness and a chill in the night
air which made the snugness of the inn very comfortable.
The red-faced landlord smiled genially.
“I might have known that, even if the shooting is none too good, the
bracing air would bring you back.”
Ashton-Kirk glanced about the public room. A small, cramped-looking man
sat at a table with a draught board before him, studying a complex move
of the pieces through a pair of thick-lensed glasses. A polished crutch
stood at one side of his chair, and a heavy walking stick at the
other. Deeply absorbed in the problem and its working out was another
man, younger, but drawn-looking, who coughed and applied a handkerchief
to his lips with great frequency.
The hearty looking landlord caught the glances of the crime specialist,
and smiled.
“My customers are a fragile lot,” said he in a low voice. “The inns get
only that kind in the winter,” as though in explanation, “and some of
them are worse than these. It’s the air that does it.”
“Makes them ill?” smiled Ashton-Kirk.
“Bless you, no!” The landlord placed a broad hand to his mouth to
restrain the great responsive laugh which seemed struggling in his
chest. “The air does ’em good, so the doctors say. Well, anyway,” his
humorous eyes twinkling, “it does _me_ good by getting me over the slow
season. If it wasn’t for them, I’d have to close up after September’s
done.”
Scanlon ordered some cigars and coffee, and as the host moved away to
procure these, he said:
“The doctors are a great lot, eh? Once they piled all the high-coloured
drugs into you that you’d hold; and now they talk fresh air until you’d
almost believe you could live on that alone. There’s one old codger
who’s got a pet patient here--some sort of a rare and costly complaint,
I believe--and he insists on fresh air at all stages of the game. The
patient, it seems, likes an occasional change; but the doc. is as deaf
as a post to everything except the sighing of the wind.”
Coffee and cigars were served.
“Both black and strong,” said Ashton-Kirk, as he tested one after the
other.
“The coffee, sir, as Mr. Scanlon knows, is made after my own recipe,”
stated the landlord. “I’d not recommend it to one of my invalid guests,
sir, nor to a well one as a regular tipple. But it has the quality and
the touch, if you know what I mean.”
“White is to move and win,” stated the cramped-looking man. He rubbed
one side of his nose with a hand that shook, and there was complaint
in the gaze with which he fixed the pieces. “But I can’t see how it’s
going to do it.”
“White is to move, and win in four other moves,” said the drawn-looking
man, coughing into the handkerchief.
“Which makes it all the more difficult,” said the other. His palsied
hand fumbled purposelessly with the pieces; and the look of complaint
deepened. The man with the handkerchief coughed once more, and looked
mildly triumphant.
“They seem to be constantly engaged in these mad diversions,” said
Scanlon, his eyes upon the two. “At times, when I’ve been here, I’ve
seen the excitement rise to that degree that I’ve considered calling
out the fire department.”
Just then there came a strident voice from another apartment.
“Who the devil is it?” it demanded. “If matters of importance are to be
interfered with in this way, it’s time that something was done----”
Here the man with the cough reached out and clapped to a door, shutting
out the voice. The landlord looked discomfited.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shaw,” said he. “I know it’s annoying to you;
but Mr. Alva must be worse to-day, and so is very impatient.”
The drawn-looking man coughed hollowly.
“I’m very sorry for the gentleman’s condition,” spoke he, huskily. “But
he should remember that there are others here who are equally ill in
their own way; and that his outbursts are not at all agreeable.”
The strident voice was lifted once more, this time muffled by the door;
then another voice was heard remonstrating and apparently advising.
Then there followed a soft rolling sound, the door opened once more
and an invalid’s chair made its appearance, propelled by a squat, dark
servant, whose flat nose and coarse straight hair gave him the look of
an Indian.
Beside the chair hopped a peppery little man with white hair and
eye-glasses from which hung a wide black string.
“It makes no difference who he is,” declared the peppery little man,
fixing the glasses more firmly upon his nose and speaking to the
occupant of the chair. “The facts remain as I have said. But, Mr. Alva,
there seems to be very little use in advising you. In spite of all I
can say you’ll keep indoors. Suppose it is dark? The darkness can’t
hurt you. Suppose it is damp? You can protect yourself against that.
Air is what you want--fresh air--billions of gallons of it.”
The man in the chair was wasted and pale; his almost fleshless hands
lay upon the chair arms; his limbs seemed shrunken to the bone.
Bat Scanlon looked at Ashton-Kirk and nodded.
“Whatever it is that’s got _him_ has got him for good,” spoke he, in a
low tone. “I never saw any man’s body so close to death without being
dead.”
The eyes of Ashton-Kirk were fixed upon the sick man with singular
interest.
“And yet,” said he, in the same low-pitched way, “his head is very much
alive. It probably would not be too much to say that it is the most
vital thing in the room.”
Scanlon looked at the invalid with fresh interest. He saw a dark face,
not at all that of a sick man, and a pair of burning, searching black
eyes. There seemed to be something unusual about the upper part of the
head, but the man was so muffled up, apparently about to be taken out,
that the nature of this was not quite clear.
“Drugs,” stated the peppery little man, “are useless; time has no
effect. To reach a case of your kind, air must be supplied--clear
air--air containing all the elements of life. If I am to make a well
man of you where others have failed, you must do as I say.”
“He’s the fresh-air crank I was telling you about a while ago,” Scanlon
informed the crime specialist, softly.
“If I must go out,” spoke the invalid in a surprisingly strong voice,
“wrap me up well. I feel the cold easily.”
The little doctor began arranging the blankets about the shrunken
limbs; and while he was doing so, Ashton-Kirk arose.
“Let me assist you,” said he, with that calm assurance which is seldom
denied.
Deftly he tucked in the coverlets upon the opposite side, and buttoned
up the heavy coat. But when he reached for the muffling folds about the
sick man’s head, all the sureness seemed to leave his fingers; Scanlon
was astonished to see him bungle the matter most disgracefully;
instead of accomplishing what he set out to do, he succeeded in
knocking the covering off altogether.
“Pardon me,” he said, smoothly enough.
The invalid returned some commonplace answer; and the doctor set about
repairing the result of the volunteer’s awkwardness.
“Your intentions are the best in the world,” smiled he, “but I can see
that you have spent very little of your time about sick beds.”
Then he opened the door, and beckoned the Indian. The chair rolled out
upon the porch, and a moment later could be heard crunching along the
gravel walk.
Ashton-Kirk smoked his black cigar with much silent deliberation,
and sipped at the strong coffee. Several times during the next half
hour Scanlon attempted to bring him out of this state by remarks as
to the inn and its population. But he received replies of the most
discouraging nature, and so gave it up. When the cigar was done, the
crime specialist arose and stretched his arms wide in a yawn.
“I think I’m for bed,” said he.
Scanlon looked his astonishment, but said nothing. His imagination had
pictured some hours of looking about among the darkened hills--just
how and what for he had little idea; and this announcement suddenly
bringing the night to a close was not in the least what he had expected.
“All right,” was his reply. “That’ll do for me, too.”
Rooms were assigned them, and each was provided with a candle in a
copper candlestick; and so they went off up the wide staircase. From
the adjoining room, Bat Scanlon heard the sound of pacing feet for
some time; after a little they stopped, but for all that he had no
assurance that the special detective had gone to bed. So he stepped out
and knocked at his door.
Entering, he found Ashton-Kirk, his hands deep in his trousers pockets,
standing staring at the grotesque flare of the candle.
“Hello,” said the big man, “I thought you were regularly sleepy.”
“I am--a little. But an idea occurred to me downstairs, and I’ve been
trying to follow it out.”
Once more he resumed his pacing, his hands behind him, his eyes upon
the floor.
“Imagination is, perhaps, man’s greatest gift,” said he. “Without it
there would be little accomplished in the world. But there are times
when one is forced to put the brakes upon it, or it would lead one
astray.”
Scanlon looked at him curiously.
“What’s set you off on that?” asked he.
Ashton-Kirk stopped in his pacing, and lifted his head.
“That object he had given you on the bridge upon the occasion of your
first visit, and which afterward had such a startling effect upon young
Campe--what did you say it was like?”
“It was a stone--not very big--dark green in colour--and with a kind of
hump upon one side of it.”
The crime student nodded; there was a look in the singular eyes which
Bat Scanlon had seen there only upon rare occasions.
“I remembered it as being something like that,” said Ashton-Kirk. He
took up the interrupted pacing for a moment; then paused once more.
“What do you make of that sound we heard out on the hills to-night?”
Scanlon shook his head.
“You’ve got me,” said he. “That’s one of the things I put up to you
when I called you in as a consultant.”
Ashton-Kirk stood looking at him, nodding his head.
“Ah, yes, to be sure. Well, we’ll see what can be done. And now,” with
a look at his watch, “if you don’t mind being turned out, I think I’ll
go to bed.”
“You mean to have a try at the Schwartzberg folks in the morning?”
“Yes.”
Scanlon turned and had his hand upon the door-knob when the crime
specialist spoke again.
“Rather a peculiarly shaped head that man in the chair has.”
“I noticed it,” replied Scanlon. “It seems to slant back from just
above the nose. Gives him an unusual look.”
“Unusual--yes. I don’t think I ever saw that exact conformation except
in----” here he stopped short. “Well,” with another nod, “good-night.
See you in the morning.”
CHAPTER V
SPEAKS OF ASHTON-KIRK’S FIRST VISIT TO SCHWARTZBERG
On the following morning, Ashton-Kirk and Scanlon breakfasted at the
inn; then they each smoked another of the black cigars. At about nine
o’clock they paid their bill and left.
“This road,” said Bat Scanlon, as they trudged along, “is rather
direct; it leads on to an old mill built years ago, and now abandoned,
and then down to the river.”
“All things considered,” spoke Ashton-Kirk, twirling his hickory
stick, his keen eyes searching the ground, “we’d better get away from
the roads and paths this morning, and head for Campe’s place, across
country.”
Without any comment, Scanlon followed his lead. Down one slope and up
another they went, skirting ravines and gullys, but always keeping
the towers of Schwartzberg in sight. The crime specialist seemed in
excellent humour; he whistled little airs, and cut at the stubble and
withered stalks with his stick. But always were the keen, observant
eyes travelling here and there; once or twice he left his companion and
darted away; but he always returned in a very short time, smiling and
shaking his head.
“An interesting place,” said he. “There are many indications of
enterprise and thought. I shall have to go over it carefully; it
promises to repay even a great deal of labour.”
“Look there,” said Scanlon.
Ashton-Kirk’s eyes followed the pointing finger. Upon the wall of
Schwartzberg even at that distance could be seen a human figure.
“It’s Campe,” said Scanlon. “He’s just noticed us.”
As he spoke, the man on the wall drew out a field-glass and trained it
upon them. Long and earnestly he looked; then without making a sign, he
lowered the glass, turned and disappeared.
“Gone to tell Kretz that I’ve hove in sight and am bringing a
stranger,” said Scanlon.
As they approached the building its details became more distinct. The
grey stone, the narrow windows, the massive wall, the towers, indeed,
all about the edifice, called up memories of those old feudal keeps in
the Rhine country.
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see the gates swing wide,
and the Baron and his men, with bows and bills, ride forth to bid us
stand,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“Well, there goes the gate,” said Scanlon, shading his eyes from the
sun. “And here come Campe and the sergeant-major. I don’t see any bows
nor bills; but it wouldn’t surprise me if both packed a perfectly
competent ‘gat’ somewhere about his person, ready to bring into action
should you demonstrate anything but friendship and good will.”
“I shall be careful to put nothing else on display,” smiled
Ashton-Kirk. “And now,” with seriousness, “one word before they get too
near. I am simply a friend of yours. You saw me in the city, and as I
professed an interest in Schwartzberg, you brought me out to put in an
hour showing me over the place if the owner does not consider it too
great a liberty.”
“I get you,” said Mr. Scanlon, briefly.
Here the two advancing men came up. Young Campe was a well-built fellow
and of good height. But his face was pale; there was a wild look in
his eyes, and his manner indicated extreme nervousness. Scanlon’s
description of the German sergeant-major was quite accurate; he was
square built and grim-faced; there was a thick greyish patch in the
hair above each ear; and he carried himself with the stiff precision of
a man trained in a European barrack.
“How are you?” cried Scanlon, shaking Campe by the hand. “Would have
got here last night, but I had a friend with me, and we stopped at
the inn. Mr. Ashton-Kirk,” nodding toward that gentleman, by way of
introduction.
Campe shook hands with the specialist in crimes, and Kretz saluted
after his military fashion.
“Mr. Ashton-Kirk listened to me tell about Schwartzberg until he felt
that he couldn’t live another day without taking it in,” Scanlon
informed them. “So he’s come over this morning, hoping it wouldn’t be
asking too much.”
Campe’s haunted eyes searched Ashton-Kirk; it was on his lips to refuse
the request, when the other stopped him by saying:
“I hope you’ll pardon me; but the fact is, I am something of a
student of the period in which your house was built, and its absolute
following, line for line, of the ancient plan, is of great interest.
The Count Hohenlo, builder of the place, was related to you, I
understand.”
“An ancestor of my mother’s.”
“Indeed. That’s very charming. The Count’s career in this country was a
most romantic one. The part he played in the history of the republic
in its infancy has been obscured by the fanfare made in behalf of men
not nearly so notable. His duel with the Frenchman, De La Place, was an
exquisite piece of knight errantry; and his defence of the ford below
here, while the British occupied the city, was an act of daring which
the historians do not make the most of.”
A faint flush came into the cheeks of young Campe.
“It’s an unusual thing to come upon one who knows anything of the
Count’s life or doings,” said he. “I agree with you that the historians
do not make the most of the exploit of the ford, nor do they give him
any of the credit that is his due in other matters. It is my intention
to write his biography some day; and I hope in that way to give him, in
some small part at least, the place among the great outlanders which is
rightfully his.”
“Splendid!” applauded the crime specialist, while Bat Scanlon stood by
and looked and listened in amazement. “That’s a fine idea. The romance
of two periods, and of three countries is in your hands. Such things
are done too seldom in this day; in our hurry and bustle we have no
time for the heroes of the past.”
Young Campe looked at Sergeant-Major Kretz. But the grim face of the
German was turned away; it was as though he knew what was to be asked
in the look, and so saved himself the mortification of giving advice
which he felt would not be taken.
“I am living a more or less retired life just now, Mr. Ashton-Kirk,”
said Campe, “and make it a rule to receive no one. But,” and here his
gaze went to Scanlon, “since you are a friend of Mr. Scanlon’s, and
are on the ground, it would hardly do,” and here he smiled, though
faintly, “to turn you away.”
“Kirk,” said Scanlon, “has been my friend for years. He’s quite a
fellow in his way and has been of service to many folks, who were
ready to put up their hands and quit. Now, here’s your little matter,”
eagerly: “he could take hold of that, and----”
But the voice of Ashton-Kirk broke in on him swiftly, but with a
smoothness that covered its haste.
“Our friend Scanlon,” said he, smilingly, “is something of an
enthusiast. He has too much confidence in my little array of historical
incident. But,” and his singular eyes looked steadily into those of
Campe, “if I can be of any assistance to you in the memoirs which you
mean to prepare, you may command me. I shall be only too glad.”
“That’s what I thought,” stated Scanlon, blowing his nose and growing
very red. “I know you’ve got this historical stuff stuffed in till it’s
over your ears; so what’s more natural than that you should give Campe
a lift?”
“It may be that at some future time, when I am in the frame of mind for
quiet study, I shall avail myself of your knowledge, sir,” said Campe,
as they walked toward the castle. “But at the present time,” and once
more the smile, though even fainter than before, showed itself, “I am
much taken up with more active matters, and have not the leisure.”
Kretz took a huge key from his pocket and unlocked the gate; then he
stood aside and the others passed in. The gate was at once relocked.
“This,” said Ashton-Kirk, as he looked about, “would resist a
considerable force, even in these days.”
The high grey wall towered above their heads; it was a great thickness
and its strength was evident.
Young Campe looked up at it and shook his head.
“It’s strong enough,” said he. “But for all that, Mr. Ashton-Kirk, it
cannot keep out thoughts; and thoughts, if they are strongly marked and
along a definite line, are more to be feared than armies.”
They crossed the flagged court of which Scanlon had spoken and entered
by the high, narrow door. A gloomy passage brought them to a room, the
same, evidently, in which Bat had been received, for it was furnished
with heavy oaken tables and chairs of ancient design, had a vaulted
ceiling and was ornamented with the heads of huge stags and boars, and
with trophies of arms, all of a day far past.
A girl stood at one side feeding a thrush through the bars of a basket
cage; she was attired in a gown flowing and white, her hair was the
colour of yellow silk, parted in the centre, and hanging down over her
breast in two thick braids.
“Miss Knowles,” said Campe, and the girl turned. “A friend of Mr.
Scanlon,” continued the young man, “Mr. Ashton-Kirk.”
The girl was very beautiful; her skin was like velvet, and her colour
like roses. She was smiling as the crime specialist bowed to her; but
upon the instant that his name was mentioned, the receptacle which held
the grain she had been offering the bird fell to the stone floor and
smashed; the delicate colour left her cheeks; she stood staring, her
blue eyes full of consternation.
“Grace!” cried Campe, in alarm.
But in a single instant she had recovered herself; the colour rushed
back to her face, the smile returned to the lips.
“It is nothing at all,” she said. “That headache of which I complained
yesterday seems not to have all gone. I’ve felt a little faint several
times this morning.”
“You should not be about,” said Campe, anxiously. “And perhaps it would
be best if a doctor saw you.”
The girl smiled sweetly. Her teeth were magnificent; and her lips were
scarlet.
“Some stunner, eh?” whispered Bat Scanlon to Ashton-Kirk.
“To be about is the best thing I can do,” said Miss Knowles. Then with
a mischievous look, “Mr. Kirk will think I’m quite an invalid.”
She was really a splendid creature, large and beautifully formed; her
complexion, her eyes, the great crown of yellow hair and the flowing
white gown gave her the appearance, backed as she was by the grey
trophy-hung wall, of having stepped out of a mediæval picture--the
stately lady of some great baron, or the daughter of a belted earl.
“Invalids seem rather plenty hereabouts,” said Ashton-Kirk with a quiet
smile. “But none of them at all resembled you, Miss Knowles.”
It seemed, to the eyes of Bat Scanlon, that a change came into
the beautiful face--a subtle something, swift as the thought that
occasioned it, and gone as quickly.
“You’ve been to the inn,” she said with a gesture of dismay. “Poor
things; isn’t it dreadful? Some of them are really heart-breaking,
they seem so helpless.”
“You’ve visited the inn yourself, then?” and there was a mild note of
inquiry in the pleasant voice.
“Oh, no; but I ride sometimes among the hills of a morning. It’s a
glorious place for that; and I meet them stalking slowly along, or
being wheeled in their chairs. Perhaps it is the contrast between the
vigour of the season and their wretched state, but at any rate I feel
very bad about it all.”
“Mr. Kirk is a student of American history, and is interested in
Schwartzberg and the builder,” Campe informed the girl. “I am about to
show him over the place. Will you go along?”
“Indeed, yes.” Then to Ashton-Kirk, “I never get tired of the splendid
old building; most of my time is spent in wandering about from room to
room, imagining the history it does not possess,” with a smile which
once more showed her beautiful teeth. “Oh, if it were only as rich in
romance as it seems to be! If the good Count Hohenlo had only performed
some of his deeds here.”
“Who knows,” smiled Ashton-Kirk, “but that it has been left to a later
time to give the old place the needed touch.”
“But,” said Miss Knowles, lightly, as she followed Campe out of the
room and along a passage, “there are no strange knights to beat upon
the portals with the handles of their swords; there are no arquebuseers
to swarm over the wall.”
“No; that’s gone for good; but,” and Bat Scanlon thought he detected
an undercurrent of something in the crime specialist’s voice, “as Mr.
Campe suggested a while ago, high walls cannot keep out thoughts. Peril
in these later days is not as candid as in feudal times--it has a
mysterious quality--we can neither hear nor see it, at times, but it is
there, nevertheless.”
The girl looked at the speaker; and there was a smile in her blue eyes.
“And you think a place like Schwartzberg might get its romance in such
a very modern manner! I’ll not believe it. Nothing but the clash of
arms will satisfy me!”
Young Campe laughed, but there was very little of mirth in the sound.
“Why,” said he, “it may come to that in the end.”
But Miss Knowles made a pretty gesture of protest.
“Please don’t make game of me, Frederic,” she said. “You mean the tramp
scoundrels who have been giving you so much trouble. They make very
poor substitutes for men in armour, and I refuse to consider them.”
Room after room was visited and admired; each was in keeping, both
in furnishing and decoration, with the period of the building’s
architecture.
“It is really tremendous,” said Ashton-Kirk, “and must require a horde
of servants to keep it in order.”
“We have only two besides Kretz--and they are his wife and daughter.”
“I should like to see the kitchen,” said the crime specialist. “Very
different, I suppose, from our present compact institutions.”
The kitchen was as huge as imagined; its bricked floor was scrubbed
clean; its copper utensils gleamed upon the walls; the great fireplace
held a turnspit upon which hung a goose, attended by a stolid-looking
girl.
“The sergeant-major’s daughter?” asked Ashton-Kirk.
“Yes, and here is her mother.”
A heavy, vacant-looking woman entered the kitchen with some vegetables;
she gave but a passing glance at the visitors, and tucking up her
sleeves, proceeded indifferently about her duties.
As they reached the roof of Schwartzberg, Ashton-Kirk saw the
searchlight, which he had witnessed in operation the night before,
mounted on one of the towers. It was a powerful affair, and seemed in
perfect order. But as to its uses Campe said nothing; he passed it by
as though it did not exist.
Away in every direction stretched the faded countryside; the hills
swelled, the tops of the denuded trees waved starkly in the breeze.
“The prospect is sober at this time of the year,” said Ashton-Kirk, as
he gazed out over the hills. “But the summer at Schwartzberg, I should
say, is very beautiful.”
Young Campe nodded.
“Yes,” said he, “it is. I have not spent such time here before now; but
the pleasant months would be well enough--if there were nothing else.”
“Ah!” said Ashton-Kirk, “there are drawbacks, then. Nothing serious, I
hope?”
He looked at the young man with a smile.
“The plumbing, perhaps,” said he. “It seldom is what it should be in
houses like this.”
But Campe shook his head, and made no reply. His eyes, still with the
old haunted look lurking in them, went out over the country, and one
hand stroked his chin.
There was very little conversation while they remained upon the roof.
Descending, they were passing along a broad corridor when the sound of
a harp, waveringly played, was heard and a voice singing a _lied_.
Ashton-Kirk, trailing observantly along in the rear, saw the girl start
at this and pause. A strange look came into her face; her hand went to
her lips as though to prevent the words she was already speaking.
“Surely,” she said, sweetly, “Mr. Kirk should not go without a view of
the tapestries.”
Young Campe looked perplexed.
“You see,” said he to Ashton-Kirk, “there are some rare hangings--some
six or seven centuries old, I understand. And they are quite well worth
seeing. But my aunt is there,” and he gestured toward a door, “and I’m
not at all sure that she----”
He hesitated; and the girl spoke quickly.
“She’ll be pleased to see a visitor.”
Then without waiting for a reply, she knocked upon the door and went
in. In a moment she held the door wide and smiled out at the three men.
“You may come in,” she said.
Upon entering the apartment Ashton-Kirk noted that it was much more
elaborately furnished than the other portions of the castle. Various
periods had been called upon for luxurious fittings; costly rugs
were upon the floor; magnificent paintings covered the walls; small
carvings, very miracles of workmanship, were many; and the tapestries,
which hung against and covered the far wall, were gorgeous examples of
that ancient mystery.
“My aunt, Miss Hohenlo,” said Campe, “Mr. Ashton-Kirk.”
“I hope you’ll pardon the intrusion,” said the crime specialist.
Miss Hohenlo smiled graciously. She was a small woman, and thin, with
faded brown hair and dull grey eyes. She was elaborately dressed and
rather showily; about her neck hung a string of splendid jewels. Her
hands were remarkably small and white and well kept; she fingered the
strings of a gilt harp, and showed them delicately and to advantage.
“Indeed,” said she, “it is no intrusion. Any friends of Frederic are my
friends; I try to impress that upon him. The tapestries are, of course,
wonderful, and that lovers of beauty should desire to see them is, of
course, to be expected.”
She had a mincing, artificial manner of speech, much after the way of
a lady in a mid-Victorian novel; not once did she forget her hands;
carefully she touched the strings of the harp; with many little turns
and flourishes she showed their whiteness, their smallness, their
delicacy.
She spoke of the tapestry and not of her hands, but it was plain to
be seen which of the two she thought the more worthy of attention; so
Ashton-Kirk conversed with her and admired the caresses she bestowed
upon the strings.
“The harp,” said Miss Hohenlo, “is a beautiful instrument; in fact,
I will say it is the most graceful of instruments. The Romans and
the Greeks, also, preferred it to the lyre and other forms of string
arrangement.”
“It is perhaps the most ancient of instruments,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“We trace it back to the Egyptians, and have no assurance that it was
not known even before the time of that astonishing people. That the
tight-drawn string of some warrior’s bow first suggested the musical
possibility of the form is more than likely true. Can you not imagine
the earliest minstrel chanting his song of victory to the twanging of
the bowstring which helped to bring that victory about?”
Never once since they entered the room had the golden-haired Miss
Knowles taken her eyes from the face of the woman with the harp; and
she wore a curiously expectant expression which Ashton-Kirk did not
fail to note.
“Miss Hohenlo is devoted to her instrument,” she said. “And such
attachment is always charming.”
Miss Hohenlo simpered, colourlessly.
“To me it is but a toy,” she said.
Miss Knowles laughed. It was a light laugh and had a musical sound; but
there was something behind it which caused the crime specialist’s eyes
to narrow and grow eager.
“A toy,” said Miss Knowles. “Oh, surely you don’t mean that--after the
nights you’ve shut yourself up with it in your hands.”
The dull eyes of Miss Hohenlo, so it seemed, grew duller than ever; she
looked into the beautiful face before her, and lifted one slim hand to
her faded hair.
“My dear Grace,” she said, “you are such an observant creature.” The
eyes turned upon Ashton-Kirk, and she went on: “And I had hoped that my
poor studies were unnoticed. One can never be sure of anything.”
Here young Campe, who had been impatiently intent upon the tapestries,
now turned to Ashton-Kirk.
“These are, perhaps, as early examples of Flemish weaving as one would
be likely to find. They came into the possession of my family about the
time of the French Revolution, a period when much that was rare and
costly was kicking about, helter-skelter.”
Ashton-Kirk examined the hangings with admiration.
“From the design,” said he, “I’d venture that they came from the looms
of either Bruges or Arras. The hand of Van Eyck--or a follower of Van
Eyck, is unmistakable; and the greater part of their designs went to
the weavers of those two cities.”
Between two windows was a narrow strip of the tapestry, and in
examining this the attention of Ashton-Kirk was drawn to a huge,
two-handed sword which hung against it.
“A rather competent looking weapon,” said he; “and one which, no doubt,
has seen excellent service.”
Miss Knowles came nearer.
“And who can be sure that its days of service are over?” said she, with
a smile.
A few moments before the crime specialist had caught something behind
her laugh; now he fancied a still more subtle something was hidden
behind the smile.
“This blade was carried in the army of Barbarossa, at the siege of
Milan,” said young Campe.
“And by one of Miss Hohenlo’s remote ancestors,” added Miss Knowles,
and again came the enigmatic smile. “You should hear her tell the
story. It’s really delightful. Sometimes I think she cares more for the
sword than she does for the harp.”
Miss Hohenlo advanced gingerly; there was something so mincing in her
manner, so entirely like the old maid of tradition, that Mr. Scanlon
winked very rapidly and watched her with something like fascination.
She stroked the bare blade with one small hand.
“It’s ugly,” she said. “It is rough and uncouth, much like a great
mastiff reared outdoors and having no place in the house. But it has
done much for the Hohenlos; it has gained them fortunes in the past; so
why should I not cherish it?”
“Why not, indeed?” said Miss Knowles.
Scanlon noted that this apartment seemed of great interest to
Ashton-Kirk; the tapestries were exclaimed over and talked about; the
paintings were reviewed; the carvings were gone over minutely; the
curious qualities and periods of various pieces of furniture were
discussed.
“But the harp,” mused the watchful Bat. “The harp seems to be the extra
added attraction. It’s got something that puzzles him, and he keeps
going back to it again and again.”
But it was not only the harp. The great naked sword hanging between
the windows, backed by the bit of ancient tapestry, also seemed of
continued interest. With a casual air, Ashton-Kirk more than once
examined it; and his eyes, as Scanlon alone saw, were darting interest
for all his seeming nonchalance. Once he took the weapon down and
tested its weight in a sweeping stroke.
“It would take a person of some strength to use this with any effect,”
said he, and his eyes were upon Miss Knowles.
“I hope,” said she, “that you are not one of those who believe that all
the power has gone out of the race--that those of old times could do
more than those of to-day.” She took the great weapon in her hands and
raised it aloft with ease. “See, even a woman could use it,” she said.
And then with a smile she lowered the weapon and Campe replaced it upon
the wall.
“I don’t think,” said the young man, “there’s anything else of
interest.”
But Miss Knowles held up a protesting finger.
“The vaults!” she said. “No one could say he had seen a castle without
visiting those parts of it that are underground.”
But Campe did not at all take to the suggestion.
“They are damp and gloomy,” he said. “We seldom go into them.” He
turned to Ashton-Kirk. “However, if you care to see them, I’ll be only
too glad.”
“If it is no trouble,” said the crime specialist, his singular eyes
upon the beautiful face of Miss Knowles, “I’d be pleased to explore
them.”
With Kretz carrying a lamp, the three men descended into the regions
beneath Schwartzberg. The damp from the near-by river had stained
the walls and the stones of the pavement, the heavy arches hung with
growths of fungus. The place was vast and gloomy; the radius of the
lamp was small and beyond it the shadows thickened away into absolute
blackness. The whole progress through the place seemed a bore to
Scanlon.
“Cellars,” commented he, “are fine places to keep coal in. Men who
believe in encouraging industry have also been known to store wine in
their cellars, so that the spiders could have something to spin their
nets around. But for the purposes of exercise or for mild morning
strolls they have their drawbacks. As for myself, I should prefer----”
Suddenly there was a smash of glass, the lamp fell into fragments
and the place was plunged into darkness. Scanlon, who was next to
Ashton-Kirk, felt him spring forward like a tiger; then came a sharp
pistol shot, followed by another and still another.
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH ASHTON-KIRK INDICATES MUCH BUT SAYS LITTLE
“A light!” cried Campe. “Strike a light, Kretz.”
“No light,” said Bat Scanlon, softly. “It is no time for such things
when an unknown gentleman is about with a gun! And keep still.”
The sergeant-major grunted something in German, apparently in approval
of this advice. At any rate, Campe subsided. There was a space of
silence. Then a footstep sounded; and Bat arose.
“That you, Kirk?” asked he.
“Yes,” came the quiet voice of the crime specialist. “I think it’s all
right now. Is there any way of getting a light?”
A match crackled, then Kretz produced a candle stump from a niche in
the wall. This he ignited. Ashton-Kirk came into the dim circle of
radiance.
“I’ll not ask whether you saw anybody,” said Scanlon. “But,” anxiously,
“did you feel anything of him?”
“It’s rather wild firing in the dark,” returned the crime specialist.
“And, perhaps,” here there was a dryness in his tone, “that’s what kept
us from being more or less shot up.”
“Let’s go over the place,” suggested Scanlon. “Whoever it was must be
still here. Get some more light, sergeant.”
In a few minutes Kretz had a brace of stable lanterns; and with these
throwing their rays about, and revolvers held ready, the four men
made their way slowly through the cellars. There was no rubbish, nor
lumber; everything was open to the lamp-light. And no one was to be
found.
“Hello!” said Scanlon, amazed at this. “Here’s a state of affairs. A
while ago I wondered how they got in; now I wonder how they got out.”
Ashton-Kirk had gone over the place keenly; nothing, even the smallest,
seemed to escape him. Two small openings, heavily barred, allowed the
daylight to drift in, and with his eyes on these, he asked:
“Are these the only means of ventilation?”
“Yes,” answered Kretz.
The crime specialist tested the bars; as he wiped his fingers upon
a handkerchief, he asked: “How many ways are there of entering the
vaults--from inside?”
“One,” replied Kretz. “The way we came down.”
“This sort of thing happened once before,” said young Campe. His manner
was quiet, but his voice was cold with dread. “The only difference was
that it was in the night, and----”
The grim-faced Kretz, looking more granite-faced than ever in the
flickering light of the lanterns, growled something in a low tone; and
the young man stopped instantly.
“It’s the tramps,” he added hastily. “We are greatly troubled by them.
Scanlon,” with a glance at the big man, “has seen something of their
work.”
Taking one of the lights, Ashton-Kirk went over the place once more.
This time he gave much attention to the floor, and showed considerable
curiosity as to the walls.
“You see,” said he, laughingly, but not once relaxing his attention,
“it is possible that the Count in his building of this place might
have contrived the secret passage which legend tells us went with such
buildings.”
“No,” said Kretz. “There is a plan of the house. All is marked there.
Nothing is secret.”
Much to Scanlon’s surprise, the crime specialist seemed to take this as
final.
“It is a thing which should be brought to the attention of the police,”
suggested Ashton-Kirk. “Prowlers who have secret means of entering
cellars can’t be comfortable neighbours.”
“It might come to that in the end,” said Campe as they climbed the
stone steps. He had a smile upon his lips, a wan hopeless sort of
thing, and in the lantern light his eyes looked sunken. “But the police
are sometimes very troublesome themselves.”
They reached the upper hall, and Ashton-Kirk looked at his watch and a
time-table.
“I have thirty minutes to reach the station,” said he.
“I had hoped,” said Campe, “to have you for luncheon.”
“Some other time I shall be delighted. But to-day there are some small
matters which must have my attention. Good-bye, and thank you.”
Kretz swung open the outer door; they crossed the courtyard, and he
shot back the great bolts of the gate. The detective shook hands with
Campe; to Scanlon he said:
“If it is at all possible, call upon me at ten o’clock to-morrow. I
think I shall then have something to tell you in regard to the affair
you spoke to me of yesterday.”
“I’ll be on hand,” said Bat, with a nod of assurance. “Count on me.”
From a window the beautiful, smiling face of Miss Knowles looked down
upon them. Ashton-Kirk took off his cap, and with a nod and a little
flourish he was off down the road, swinging with a long stride, and
twirling his hickory stick gaily.
Next day the bell in the tower of the church next door was striking
ten when the punctual Bat Scanlon presented himself at the crime
specialist’s door.
“Come in,” said that gentleman. “You are as sharp as time itself.”
As usual, he had a pile of books about him; and the meerschaum pipe
was sending its pale vapours into the room. But these were a different
kind of books. Those which had been heaped about on the occasion of Mr.
Scanlon’s last visit were things of dreams and fanciful speculation;
but these, this morning, were keen and practical looking. The sheep
binding seemed to warn off triflers; the type seemed sharply cut and
decisive. And the very pipe itself seemed to wear a purposeful air;
instead of the leisurely drawing at it that had marked the other visit,
the puffs were now curt and contained a promise of other things.
Bat Scanlon seated himself in the chair he had occupied before; and
while he lighted the cigar which was presented to him, his eyes went to
the print of the brown sailors peering away into the heart of the sea’s
mystery. And now, somehow, their attitude was changed. The mystery
ahead was as complete as before; indeed, it was, perhaps, more so; but
the brown men now seemed at ease; to-day they did not fear the unknown;
and, as he looked closely, it even seemed that they were pleased with
the unusualness of their situation.
“Just the way I feel,” Bat told himself. “Kirk’s on the job and he’ll
fix it up as it should be. So why worry?”
Ashton-Kirk opened a drawer and took out a folded paper.
“When you called me on the telephone the other day,” said he, “I at
once set about looking up the Campe family history. My records had the
facts up to a few years ago. But I wanted complete information, so I
sent one of my men out to look them up. This is his report, brought in
to me this morning.”
He seated himself upon a corner of the table and unfolded the paper.
Then he read:
“_Report of Later Proceedings of the Campes._
“The family of Campe, as shown by such information as it is possible
to secure from banks doing business with them, contracting firms who
undertook their various enterprises and importing houses who have come
into financial contact with them, have been very clever and able. They
slipped naturally from the wreckage of one government into the favour
of the next without loss of any sort. Their interests grew; and they
seemed in a fair way to become to Central America what the Rothschilds
are to Europe, when suddenly about three years ago, things took a
change. Frederic Campe, Sr., head of the house, at about that time,
met his death while on board his yacht _Conquistador_, at Vera Cruz.
Something went wrong--just what it was will never be known, for no
one on board escaped--and the vessel was blown to atoms. Less than six
months later, William Campe, brother to the one lately dead, also met
a sudden and violent end. He was attending the ceremonies held at the
opening of a great concrete bridge which the family had provided the
money to build, when he in some unaccountable manner fell from it and
was killed.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Scanlon, and knocked the ash from his cigar.
“Henry, eldest son of Frederic, was the next to go,” read the crime
specialist. “One morning, not a great while after the affair at the
bridge, he was found stabbed to death in his own hall-way. The nature
of the wound which let out his life showed that the attack was a
particularly vicious one. Some very keen and very heavy weapon must
have been used, as the young man was cut open from his chest to his
waist line.”
Bat Scanlon sat suddenly erect in his chair.
“Hello!” said he, in surprise. “Hello! What’s this!”
“The nature of the wound has a rather familiar sound, I think,” said
Ashton-Kirk.
“A slash down the front with some very heavy and very sharp weapon,”
said the big man, slowly. “That’s what young Campe got a few nights
ago. Not deep,” and Bat shook his head, “but it was just such a slash
as put this other one out of the running.”
Ashton-Kirk resumed his reading.
“At the death of Henry, Mexico had run out of male Campes. There only
remained a younger son who was then attending a university in the
United States. There were several daughters, but these have resided
for some years in Berlin. The greater part of the family interests in
Mexico and Central America have been disposed of, and what’s left is
being offered for sale. From this, it seems that what remains of the
family have no intention of returning south of the Rio Grande.”
Here the crime specialist folded up the paper, and threw it upon the
table.
“Is that all?” asked the big man.
“Yes.”
“Well,” declared Bat, “to my way of looking at it, it’s plenty. In view
of the way that man met his death in the hall-way, can you figure the
matters of the yacht and the bridge as accidents?”
Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
“At this distance we can’t say,” said he. “But the deaths of the three
have a stamp upon them which suggest----”
“They were murdered,” said Bat. And then, with his eyes upon the other,
he added: “But why?”
The crime specialist slipped from the table. With the big pipe laid
aside, he began to pace up and down the study.
“This matter has some very curious and interesting aspects,” said he.
“It is more than likely as you suggest, that the three Campes of whom
you have just heard met their deaths at the hands of assassins. But, as
you also suggest, why?”
He threw up the curtains and allowed the sun to fill the room; the
opening of the windows themselves permitted the air to rush in and
pursue the smoke clouds furiously about the place. The drone of the
crowds in the street, the roll of wheels, the cries of drivers to their
horses and to each other lifted to them in a confused movement of sound.
“Murder,” said Ashton-Kirk, “is seldom undertaken without cause.” He
resumed his pacing, his hands deep in his trousers pockets. “Even
the lowest type of thug, waylaying his victim in a lonely place, has
the desire for money as his motive. The drunken loafer of the slums
beats his wife to death because she refuses him food which he has not
earned, or the price of more liquor which dulls his mind to the barest
requirements of life. The masked burglar does not take life wantonly,
but only when hard pressed and with the jail staring him in the face.
The poisoner is actuated by jealousy, or by the desire to remove
some one who bars his way to happiness or wealth. If the Campes were
murdered, there was a reason for it. And the fact that three of them
have so died, and a systematic effort seems to be proceeding to bring
about the death of a fourth, shows that the reason is not an individual
one.”
“No,” agreed Bat Scanlon. “It’s a family matter. It’s something that
has to do with them as a bunch.”
“The attention of the murderer,” said Ashton-Kirk, “was apparently
first fixed upon the head of the house, the elder Frederic. He was
blown up with his yacht. His brother William was the succeeding head.
He died in a fall from a bridge. Next, the eldest son of Frederic came
into control of the family finances. He was stabbed to death. The
last of them all, and the present head of the house, is your friend at
Schwartzberg. Beyond a doubt the eyes of the monster are now fixed upon
him.”
“Well?”
“It is possible,” said the crime specialist, “that some sort of demand
was made upon the elder Frederic. This was refused and murder followed.
Again the demand was made--again upon the head of the house--and again
was refused. Once more death made its grisly appearance. For the third
time the request was repeated to the person in control of the family’s
affairs; for the third time it was denied; and again death followed
swiftly.”
“A request,” said Bat Scanlon. “For what?”
Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
“I don’t know,” said he. “And I merely mention this as a thing which
might be true, understand me. I do not know that it is. But, supposing
it is, perhaps your question can be answered. The business of the
Campes, as a family, was money. And as the family seems to have been
struck at, and not any individual, is it carrying the thing too far to
think that money may form the basis of the request?”
“Not to me,” replied Mr. Scanlon, promptly. “In fact, it seems very
likely, indeed.”
Ashton-Kirk continued his pacing up and down. For the most part he was
silent and intent, apparently thinking hard. Now and then, however,
his thoughts took form in muttered words, altogether unintelligible to
Scanlon, although that gentleman listened eagerly. After a time the
crime specialist pressed one of the series of bell calls, and Fuller
made his appearance.
“Begin at once,” said Ashton-Kirk, “and put Burgess and O’Neil on the
job if you need help. Get together any facts as to the dealings of
the house of Campe during the time Frederic Campe--the one who your
report says died aboard his yacht--was at the head of the concern. Go
into this to the limit--don’t spare trouble, as it is important. Also
try and get some data as to this same Frederic Campe personally. Who
were his friends? what were his habits?--what interests, financial or
otherwise, did he oppose?”
“It looks like a large order,” said Fuller. “I’ll have to get on the
ground.”
“Take the next train south,” directed the crime specialist. “As soon as
you get anything, wire it in our private code.”
“Right,” said the assistant. “Anything more?”
“No.”
Fuller left the room with hasty step; and Bat Scanlon nodded his
admiration.
“You go after things with both hands in this shop,” said he. “And, as
I’ve always claimed, that’s the only way to get them done.”
“Our little run out of town,” said Ashton-Kirk, “brought several things
to my notice which singly would, perhaps, have suggested nothing; but
collectively they indicated a possible condition, both picturesque and
dangerous.”
“We ran into a small herd of things,” said Mr. Scanlon. “Just which of
them do you mean?”
But Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
“The indications may prove erroneous,” said he. “The hour we spent
among the hills around Schwartzberg was of the sort in which the
imagination operates vividly; and in such work as we are now on, care
must be taken as to what is fact and what fancy. Under such influences
as were then abroad, the mind strings thoughts much as a child strings
beads.”
He paused in his pacing and stood by the window, looking down into the
shabby street. There was a tight look about the corners of his mouth;
the eyes glittered a bit feverishly.
Up and down swarmed the alien horde in the street. The children seemed
countless; the sounds and smells were thick, and of the near East.
The stands at the curbs, and at the walls of buildings were piled with
wares of strange make, and with food that was questionable. Merchants
in long coats, and with the inevitable cigarette between their fingers,
pleaded eloquently with hedging customers.
Women in bright shawls, which were pulled up about their heads and
faces, huddled upon steps and peered out at the turmoil about them;
the dull red walls of the buildings and their dirty windows were
unpleasantly prominent in the morning sun.
Suddenly Ashton-Kirk turned upon Scanlon.
“What do you think of the Campe household?” he asked. “Take them one at
a time, beginning with the lowest in importance--how do they stand in
the light of your two weeks’ acquaintance with them?”
“The lowest in importance,” said the big man, “would be Kretz’s
daughter. She’s got a head that was made to forget with, and about
as much character as a kitten. I’ve seen things duller than she is,
but they were not human things. As for her mother, I’ve heard her
speak twice--possibly three times. Each observation was pointed at her
daughter, was in German, and was, from the general sound, meant to tell
her exactly where she was wrong. But, though she might be economical as
a conversationalist, she does not stint her talent as a cook. For she
can and does cook with an abandon and fancy that would take the creases
out of the most crumpled appetite. Mrs. Kretz is the sort of a woman
who would greet a broken dish and the falling in of the roof with about
the same display of emotion.
“Kretz himself is almost as eloquent as his wife. But though he talks
little, he sees everything. Campe tells me he’s been in the family for
ten years or more, and he has a lot of confidence in him. As far as I
can see--Kretz--I don’t know. There are some things about him and his
doings that I don’t understand; but then I can say the same for most of
the folks at the castle, if it comes to that.”
“And the next?” asked Ashton-Kirk.
“Well, I suppose it’s a matter of taste just who is next,” proceeded
Scanlon. “But to save any lengthy argument, suppose we say it’s Campe’s
aunt, Miss Hohenlo. I don’t see much of either of the ladies of the
castle, but Miss Hohenlo is the closest in that respect. As her name
shows, Miss Hohenlo is a maiden; and after one look at her face and
another at her figure I don’t wonder at it. Nature seems to have jumped
in between her and any chance she ever had of changing her condition;
for she’s got the finest little lot of spinster manners and ideas I
ever saw in one collection. In character she’s about as colourless
as water; and she counts about as much as a grain of rice powder on a
chorus girl’s nose.
“But the other lady is different; you’ve seen her, and so I’ll say
nothing about her looks except what I said once before, and that is,
she’s a pippin! However,” and the big man bent his brows at the crime
specialist, “she has a way with her. As a matter of fact, she has
several ways, and I don’t understand any of them. Why did she drop the
dish when she first heard your name? and look as if she’d got the shock
of her life? What’s the idea of her wandering out among the hills at
night? The searchlight caught her standing over Campe’s senseless body
the night he was cut. And only the other night you and I saw the light
pick her up once more.”
“I did not give much attention to the woman on that occasion,” said
Ashton-Kirk. “And so you think it was Miss Grace Knowles, do you?”
“Who else could it have been?” demanded Bat. “And who else screamed on
the night Kretz met me on the stairs? And that’s not all.” Here the
speaker leaned toward the special detective, and his voice sank lower,
as though he feared to be overheard. “Last night I got a fresh slant
at her. Eh? With a candle, and hesitating along the hall-way. When she
got to the door of the room where you saw Miss Hohenlo, she stopped and
listened at the edges of it, as if she was making sure that no one was
there. I guess there wasn’t, for she opened the door and went in.
“I was at the end of the hall when I saw this and I waited; for somehow
the thing didn’t look good. Then I heard footsteps coming along the
lower corridor and some one started up the lower flight of steps. Like
a flash the door of the room into which Miss Knowles had gone opened; I
didn’t see it--I heard it; for the young lady had blown out her candle.
It was Campe coming up, and he had a light. She was standing by the
door with as sweet a smile on her face as you ever saw anywhere, and
she gave him a lot of little nods. He was surprised to see her, but she
said:
“‘I’ve just come to see if your aunt is awake. I did _so_ want some one
to talk to.’
“And so,” said Bat, “she knocked on the door, very gently, just as if
she wasn’t already sure that no one was there. And she seemed greatly
disappointed when no one answered.
“‘Talk to me,’ says Campe. You see he fell for the bunk just as easy as
that. ‘Talk to me,’ says he. For when a man’s in love with a woman,”
continued Mr. Scanlon, sagely, “she can put anything across on him.”
“And so you think Campe is in love with Miss Knowles?”
“Up to his eyes.”
The big man laid the end of his cigar in an ash tray, and put a hand
upon each knee.
“I don’t know whether you noticed it,” resumed he, “but this same Miss
Knowles was peddling around a queer little line of samples yesterday
while you were there. What was she hinting about? Eh? What was she
saying one thing for, and meaning something else? She’s jollying Campe,
that’s plain to me; but what’s this thing she’s trying to shoulder on
to the little old maid?”
“It’s a peculiar household,” said Ashton-Kirk. He went to the table
and began turning the leaves of one of the books carelessly. Scanlon,
glancing at it, saw an array of skulls of differing formations, all
down one of the pages. “And,” resumed the crime specialist, “it will
probably take some weighing and judging before we get them properly
placed.”
Leaving the book open, he once more thrust his hands into his pockets
and resumed the pacing.
“Music,” said he, “is a delightful thing. Its powers to quiet and to
uplift are tremendous.” There was a short pause, and then he added:
“What’s your opinion of the harp as an instrument?”
Mr. Scanlon was very frank.
“Now you’ve got me bad,” said he. “All I know about it is what I heard
a Sicilian do to it one season in Tucson. He was the orchestra in
‘File’ Brady’s saloon, and picked melody out of it to accompany the
ballad singers. And,” here he looked shrewdly at Ashton-Kirk, “I know
less about swords that you operate with both hands. As a weapon, this
style of thing had gone out before I came into the desire to mix it
with my fellow man.”
Ashton-Kirk smiled and nodded.
“I repeat,” said he, “that some of the things we heard and saw held a
great deal of interest. But how are we to associate them? What possible
connection has a delicate gilt harp with a mysterious noise in the
night? What has a green stone in common with a sword that was carried
in the siege of Milan? And what can there be between a beautiful woman,
radiant with life, and a creature three-quarters dead, who is wheeled
about in a chair?”
The big, candid face of Scanlon grew stiff with amazement.
“Why, look here!” said he. “Just where does that fellow----”
But at a gesture from the crime specialist he stopped. And once more
Ashton-Kirk paused at the table; and again he began turning the leaves
of the book.
“The studies of that ingenious old empiric of Antwerp, Gall, are most
amusing,” said he, as his eyes began to run from one pictured skull to
another. “The system he worked out and which he called ‘Zoonomy’ is
rich in suggestion, and,” nodding his head, “may contain more truths
than is generally supposed.”
“He had something to do with skulls, I take it,” said Mr. Scanlon.
“He had all to do with them in this particular regard, though his
system was afterward much amplified by Spurzheim, and the Englishmen,
George and Andrew Combe. His idea was that the skull’s development
followed that of the brain; that certain parts of the brain stood for
certain faculties; if the brain were large in this faculty the skull
would show it. And in that way we were to have a very convenient method
of judging the character of any particular person.”
“I’ve heard of it,” said Mr. Scanlon. “A fellow I roomed with once used
to turn that trick at a bob a time. It was a fairly easy way of getting
money, but I couldn’t see very much more to it.”
“You saw it practised by a fakir,” said the special detective, his eyes
still upon the turning pages. “And such things offer many opportunities
for crooked practitioners. But, after all, I don’t think it would
be at all difficult to prove that it has its basis in truth. It is a
well-known fact that nations, for example, have one general type of
head; and it is equally well known that the individuals of a nation
have the same general tendencies.”
Here he pushed the book aside and his hand went to a brace of volumes
at the end of the table.
“I put in some little time last night,” said he, “dipping into
Humboldt and Vater. There is a vast difference between their keen,
uncompromising intellects and the credulous minds of Gall and his
followers. And yet it is a bit startling to trace a line between them
which runs----”
But here he looked up and met the inquiring look of the big man with a
smile.
“You’re having a peep behind the scenes,” he said. “You’re seeing me
deep in a mass of preliminary speculations, and not at all sure as to
where they are to lead.”
“But,” said Mr. Scanlon, with confidence, “you see something.”
“Not very clearly,” and the keen eyes glittered with interest, “but I
think I see the mist breaking away at some points, and before to-day is
done I may be able to get my ranges. Perhaps by the time I get Fuller’s
second report I’ll have enough data to finish the case at a blow.”
“Good,” said Mr. Scanlon. He got up and shook the crime specialist by
the hand. “That cheers me up. You see,” earnestly, “I’m as keen on this
thing as if it were my own--maybe more so. This boy is hard pressed,
and has called on me for help. I don’t want to fail him. I don’t want
it proved that he’s made a mistake.”
“We’ll do our best,” said Ashton-Kirk, “to pull him through.”
The big man’s face wore an anxious look.
“But just where do I come in?” he asked. “While you are deep in the
struggle to put this thing right, what am I to do?”
“That,” said Ashton-Kirk, “is exactly what I wanted to speak of. Your
part in this affair is to be important. Watch! Sleep--as some of the
naturalists say the wild things do--with your eyes open. Things are apt
to happen inside Schwartzberg.”
“Inside,” said Scanlon. “But what about outside?”
The other smiled.
“Why, as to that,” said he, “suppose you leave the outside to me.”
CHAPTER VII
SHOWS HOW MR. SCANLON MET THE MAN WITH THE SOFT VOICE
It was late in the afternoon when Bat Scanlon got off the train at
Marlowe Furnace and struck down the little road toward the covered
bridge.
Upon the west bank he held to the regular road toward Schwartzberg; and
he had gone perhaps half the distance when he heard hoof beats behind
him; turning, he recognized Grace Knowles, mounted upon a powerful grey
horse.
She waved her whip to him, smilingly, and as she came up, drew in her
mount.
“It’s a very pleasant afternoon,” said she.
Bat cast his eyes first at one point and then at another. The question,
it would appear, was a weighty one and must be carefully considered.
The sun touched the hilltops with a dull gold; the sky was filled with
sailing ribbons of white; and the breeze was bracing and free.
He nodded.
“Pretty good,” said he. “Reminds me of some of the afternoons we used
to have in the foot-hills when they were dragging the railroads over
them, and through them, and alongside of them.”
“Mr. Campe has been telling me of some of your experiences,” said she,
her beautiful face filled with interest. “It must have been a very wild
life, there in the West in those days.”
“It was all of that,” replied Bat, as he trudged along beside the grey.
“Wild is the word that just fits it. A fellow had to sleep with his
guns in his hands and a call for help in his mouth. We had some fine,
enterprising lads out that way. They’d go for anything, and stop at
nothing. But,” with a sigh, “it was tame enough before I pulled out.
Things seemed to have shifted, somehow.”
“In what way?” asked Miss Knowles.
“The West having taken to growing grain and feeding sheep, the East
seems to be providing the excitement necessary for the country’s
good,” stated the big man, calmly. “For example: I’ve see more little
proceedings around this village of Marlowe Furnace than I’ve seen in
some frontier towns with the hardest kind of names.”
“You refer to what happened yesterday in the vaults,” said Miss
Knowles. “Yes, that must have been quite thrilling.”
“It was also a bit dangerous,” said Bat, stoically. “I don’t object to
being shot at, mind you; but I do want to see the party that’s got the
matter in hand. This having surprise packages dealt one in the dark is
carrying the matter too far.”
Miss Knowles smiled.
“No doubt,” she said, very calmly, “it seems rather awkward.” There was
a pause, and she stroked the horse’s neck with her whip. “I suppose
your friend was also startled,” she said.
“Almost into fits,” stated Bat. “He’s a fellow, you see, who’s not used
to such attentions; and to have them forced on him suddenly in that way
was too much for him.”
Miss Knowles still smiled.
“That is really too bad,” she said. “Being so abruptly treated,”
inquiringly, “I suppose he will not come again?”
“You never can tell,” replied Scanlon. “Sometimes people take things
to heart; and again they laugh them off, like a pine-snake does
his worn-out jacket. You might never catch him within ten miles of
Schwartzberg again; and then he might walk in on us this very night.”
The smile vanished from the beautiful face; and the blue eyes looked at
the big man steadily.
“To-night,” she said, and there was a catch in her voice. Then, quietly
enough, “I don’t think Mr. Campe expects him.”
“Mr. Ashton-Kirk is not the fellow to stand back for a little thing
like that,” remarked Bat Scanlon. “As a matter of fact, the time that
he’s not expected is more than likely to be the time he’d pick.”
From somewhere over the rolling country a bell struck the hour. At once
the girl gathered her reins tighter.
“I must hurry on,” she said. She waved her whip as the grey struck
into a long, easy gallop; and away they went down the road toward the
castle. The thoughtful eyes of Mr. Scanlon followed her until both
horse and rider were hidden behind the next rise of ground.
“She knows Kirk,” thought he with a twist at the corner of his mouth,
and a sharp nod of the head. “She knew his name as soon as she heard
it, and she guessed what he came for. And now she’s anxious to know
when he’s coming again, is she? When I hint that he might bob up
to-night she takes fire, and goes off like a shot.” Here his eyes
snapped sharply and he went on: “And what is the answer to so much
agitation? Is something doing for this P.M.? Does the beautiful Miss
Knowles know it; does she think the horning in of a party of A-K.’s
intelligence might have awkward results?”
As he proceeded along the road, Mr. Scanlon drew a tobacco pouch from
his pocket, also a packet of small papers, and formally rolled himself
a cigarette. With this properly lighted, he went calmly on, his brows
level and his expectations at their highest.
“At first,” meditated he, “I took this thing in another way. It was
all worry. But now that I’ve shifted the responsibility to Kirk, I see
it differently. It’s an experience--an adventure. And, believe me, I’m
going to get out of it all there is in it.”
When he reached the rise which the girl had ridden over, he sighted a
small road which his tramping trips had told him led down to the river.
By the side of this road, writing in a leather-covered book, was a man.
He was a fat man and soft-looking.
“Hello,” said Mr. Scanlon, “Who’s this?”
With much industry, the stranger wrote in the little book; and never
once did he lift his head. Scanlon halted.
“There is something tells me,” was his thought, “that I have met with
this gentleman upon some past occasion. But where?”
The little lane was one of the retiring sort; it had fallen oak leaves
covering it to the depth of one’s shoe tops; the crooked rail fences
gave it a homely look.
The man with the book paused in his writing, and then went carefully
over what had been done; it did not seem to please him, and so he began
some alterations in the entry.
Then, glancing up, he sighted Scanlon, and moved toward him softly.
When he spoke his voice was also soft.
“I am a stranger,” said he. “And I fear I’ve lost my way. Can you
direct me to the station at Marlowe Furnace?”
And with that Bat had him placed! There was something reminiscent in
the combination of softness, even at first glance; but the mention of
the railway station placed the tag upon him. It was the man whom the
old station agent had described--the man of the bridge--the man who had
given him the queer green stone.
Quietly the big man blew out a thin spiral of smoke.
“You go down this road,” said he, “until you come to a bridge. This you
cross. Ten minutes further on, and there you are.”
The soft-looking man closed the leather-covered book; then he put it
away carefully in one pocket, and the pencil in another.
“I am extremely obliged to you,” he said, gently. “Your directions, I
think, will be very easy to follow.” He stroked his white soft chin
with a hand that was equally thick and soft and white; and his eyes
searched Scanlon’s face. “You live hereabouts, I suppose?”
“For the time being,” replied Bat, evenly. “It’s a nice kind of a
place, and I’m sticking around a while.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure,” observed the soft man. “You are right. It is a
nice place. Very picturesque, and also very historical, I understand.”
He waved one hand in a stubby gesture toward the north. “I came that
way. And just above I saw a most astonishing house.”
“Big one?” asked Bat. “Things on top?”
“A very big one,” agreed the other. “Very big, indeed; and, as you say,
with things on the top.”
“That’s Schwartzberg,” said Bat. “A German castle, only not in Germany.
The rule is to plant them along the Rhine, I believe, but the fellow
who put this one in must have thought one river as good as another. And
I agree with him.”
The soft man laughed. If anything, his laugh was the softest thing
about him. As Bat listened to the laugh, and looked at the man’s eyes,
which were green and cold and steady, he felt his scalp prickle with
something like dread. But he puffed quietly at his cigarette; and, from
his manner, such a feeling was no nearer to him than the poles.
“Oh, yes, to be sure,” said the soft-looking man. “He was quite right.
It is very stately--most charming, and adds to the picturesqueness of
the locality.” From where they stood the towers of Schwartzberg were to
be seen through the naked trees; and one fat, white finger pointed to
them. “The moon, now,” said the man, “must play about those portions of
the building very strikingly when it is at its full.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Bat.
“In fact,” said the other, “night hereabouts must be very different in
many ways.”
Bat agreed.
“As to that,” said he, “I don’t know but what I agree with you. It _is_
different.”
The soft man moved softly nearer; there was an eagerness under his
smooth manner that was not lost upon Scanlon.
“I love the night,” said he. “It is rather an old-fashioned thing to
do, I admit; but I love it, for all that. In these times when the
electric lights have robbed the heavens of their stars, and put out the
very moon, there are few who admire the night. But I love to walk in
it, to watch the canopy, to reflect upon the vastness of the universe.”
“I was brought up in Kansas,” said Bat, “and in the days when there was
no end of stars, plenty of moon, and lots of chance for them to show
themselves. But to me, night was made to sleep in, and the only use I
had for either moon or stars was to see my way home by, if I happened
to be out after hours.”
“Is it possible that you never walk out--here?” The soft man seemed
appalled, but the cold green eyes were as watchful as those of a cat.
“Is it possible that you never hear--from your window, perhaps--the
whispering of the night?”
Bat laughed.
“Whispering,” said he. “Well, if that’s whispering, let me say that
the night has some well developed voice. Up here,” he added, “it’s the
greatest place for thunder you ever saw. It comes up when you never
expect it.”
“Thunder!” said the soft man; and the cold eyes seemed to smile.
Bat nodded.
“Pretty loud, too,” said he. “And as for taking little walks at
night--well, that’s hardly the thing to do hereabouts. You see, there’s
a lot of tramps about; and they make it a little dangerous. A friend
of mine up at the big place you were just talking about,” and Scanlon
gestured toward the castle, “is kept on the jump all the time by them.
They’re very forward; even undertake a little housebreaking now and
then, he says.”
The soft man caressed one hand with the other.
“Ah, well,” he sighed, “everything has its drawbacks. I suppose it’s
too much to hope for complete tranquillity. I thank you, sir, for your
courtesy. Straight on, did you say? and then across the bridge? Again,
thank you. You are very kind.”
And so the soft-looking man moved softly down the road, and Bat stood
looking after him from beneath puckered brows.
CHAPTER VIII
TELLS HOW THE NIGHT BREEZE BLEW FROM THE NORTHWEST
At dinner that evening Scanlon was surprised to find Miss Hohenlo. She
wore a faded little smile and nodded girlishly to the trainer.
“It is such a task for me to dress,” she told him. “That’s why I
so seldom come down of an evening. But the coming of your friend
yesterday, and what Frederic has been telling me about him is quite
exciting.”
Bat raised his brows inquiringly.
“Telling you about him?” said he.
“You know he mentioned his interest in old Count Hohenlo,” said Campe.
“My aunt is pleased with that.”
“I see,” said Bat, and felt more at ease. Happening to turn his eyes in
the midst of his complacency, he found those of Miss Knowles fixed upon
him observantly.
“Your friend, Mr. Ashton-Kirk, must be a man of much learning,” said
she.
“He has so many books that it’d give you a headache just to look at
them,” said Bat. “As a child, they fed him learning with a spoon. He
knows more inside stuff about people whom ordinary people never heard
of than you’d think could be found out in half-a-dozen lifetimes.”
“How very interesting,” said Miss Knowles.
“Only to-day he was overhauling a group of musty old fellows who, so it
would seem, put in their lives poking around among skulls.”
“Oh!” Miss Knowles said this, and her hands went up in a pretty
gesture, apparently of dismay. But Bat, somehow, was quite sure it was
to hide the expression that swept across her face. However, he went on,
calmly:
“To find a dome that was fore and aft, or to put the tape around one
that leaned to one side, was life’s extreme limit for those chaps. They
even seem to have written books about bumps which any fairly strong man
could pack into the thumb of a lady’s glove.”
“And is your friend also interested in this study?” asked the girl.
“Only a little,” replied Scanlon. “He does not make a practice of any
one thing, as a matter of fact. He’s the kind of a fellow who has a
great many cards up his sleeve; and so he always has one to play when
it’s wanted.”
“That,” said Miss Knowles, “is clever of him.”
“And it’s so unusual to find a man interested in biographical bypaths,”
said Miss Hohenlo. “The Count, you know, figured largely in the court
of Frederic the Great; he was a friend to Voltaire and other men of
note, and gave his sword and his genius for the freedom of these
states.”
“Sure,” said Bat. “He’s one that I missed, but I can appreciate him for
all that.”
The delicate hands went out in a gesture extremely girlish; the
spinster’s faded face was full of rapture.
“It is really remarkable how things come about,” she said, “and,
somehow, I feel that the visit of Mr. Ashton-Kirk will result in
something.”
“I’m sure it will,” said Bat, calmly.
“Frederic has been gathering documents for a long time,” she went on.
“I have a number of journals containing data of a most interesting
character, and there are letters without number from historical
personages. These together will show the beautiful fulness of the
Count’s life. When your friend comes again, we must not fail to call
his attention to them.”
“On the next visit he’ll not miss a thing,” stated Scanlon, confidently.
As they arose from the table Miss Hohenlo went to a window, raised it
and looked out over the country, now dimming under the hand of dusk.
“If Schwartzberg had nothing else in its favour,” she said,
vivaciously, “we could always fall back upon the glorious weather. And
to-night,” with a gesture of the beautiful hands, “is more than usually
splendid.”
As she stood there, framed in the high window, the spinster looked
even more angular than Scanlon had supposed her to be. Her faded hair
threw back nothing that the lamp-light gave it; her neck was thin, her
arms were long and awkward. Near her stood the stately Miss Knowles,
magnificent in her youth, her height, her long soft lines. The girl’s
complexion was more like cream and roses than ever; the splendid crown
of yellow hair was built up in a shining mass.
Striking as was her beauty, and much as he would have liked to stand
and admire it, Bat Scanlon’s interest was called to something else.
The actions of Miss Hohenlo at the window were commonplace enough,
and yet, somehow, Miss Knowles seemed to attach much importance to
them. The girl stood talking with Campe. Their tones were low; and the
young man’s face had lost the strained look. The fear, which usually
held its place so fixedly in his eyes, was gone for the time, and an
eagerness had replaced it.
“Fine for him!” was Bat’s mental comment. “If it don’t do anything
else, the entertainment will rest him up for a little, and that’s
something. And,” here his mouth twisted slightly at the corner, “the
lady is as interested as he is, but not at the same thing.”
There was a subtle something going on which the big man did not grasp;
that it was proceeding was plain enough; but its meaning was lost upon
him.
“I’m muffing it,” was his thought. “Right under it, too. It must be,”
sadly, “that the grand stand’s too big; a minor leaguer never does get
a right slant at anything until he’s out of the bush for a season. Kirk
ought to be here.”
“How deep the shadows grow on the east of the hills,” remarked Miss
Hohenlo, sentimentally. “I love to watch them as they thicken and
lengthen in the evening.” She leaned farther from the window, a hand
outstretched. “There is only the faintest of breezes,” she continued,
“so little that one can scarcely detect its direction.”
At this, the watching Scanlon saw the blue eyes of Miss Knowles narrow;
the look of interest upon her face deepened.
“Now it’s the wind,” said Bat, to himself. “And I am up to my eyebrows
for sure.”
“Frederic,” and Miss Hohenlo turned to her nephew, “see if you can
catch the wind’s direction.”
Obediently the young man left the side of Miss Knowles.
“It’s from the northwest, I think,” said he. “Yes, look there. Those
tall birches are stirring; you can see their tops against the sky.”
“What wonderful sight you have, my dear,” said his aunt, as she fixed
her eye-glasses upon her insignificant nose, and strove to see the tree
tops he mentioned. “You must inherit it from your father’s family, for
ours have never seen very clearly.” She looked out into the dusk with
much affectation of fear. “Oh, dear, isn’t it very lonely out there?”
she said. “Darkness does make such a change, doesn’t it, Mr. Scanlon?”
“One time,” said Mr. Scanlon, “when I had nothing else to do, I took a
short whirl at a theatrical enterprise in Dodge City. And that showed
me something fresh about the effects of darkness. Flood the stage with
light and you couldn’t stir a thrill in the audience, no matter to what
histrionic lengths you went. But put on the shadows and you began to
get them; shut off the lights altogether, and you could feel things
creeping right over the footlights.”
“Could you really?” Miss Hohenlo was extremely juvenile in her gestures
of terror. “It must have been dreadful!” Then to her nephew: “You are
quite sure it’s from the northwest, Frederic?”
“Yes, quite sure,” replied the young man a trifle impatiently. He
had gone back to the girl once more and taken up the low-pitched
conversation.
“Perhaps,” said Miss Hohenlo, “it might change.”
Young Campe did not hear this, so Mr. Scanlon said, reassuringly:
“Not to-night it won’t. It’ll stick around that quarter till sunrise,
anyway.”
“Isn’t it delightful to understand the laws of Nature?” said Miss
Hohenlo. “I never had a head for it, really.”
A very few moments later she moved out of the room; Scanlon, with a nod
and a half-spoken excuse, left the girl and Campe together. Descending
the stone stairs, he let himself out into the courtyard, and lighting a
cigar he began walking up and down.
The square figure of the German sergeant-major was to be seen upon the
wall; there was something intent in his attitude, indistinct though he
was.
“A good watch-dog,” mused Bat, as he puffed away. “But, dash it, I
don’t get him! A fellow like that is useful if you know he belongs to
you; but when you get to thinking that he might----” Here the big man
paused and took the cigar from his mouth. “What happened to that lamp
in the vaults yesterday?” he demanded of himself. “What did it smash
for? It wasn’t till afterward that there were any pistol shots.” He
snapped his finger and thumb with a sharp popping sound. “I wonder if
Kirk thought of that,” he said in a low tone. “I’ll mention it to him
when I see him.”
With the cigar burning freely, and his hands clasped behind him,
Scanlon trudged up and down.
“Wind from the northwest, eh?” thought he. “That’s a funny kind of
thing. There was something to it, though. I could read it in that
girl’s face as plainly as I can read print. The old one seemed to want
to be sure just how the wind blew; and the young one seemed interested
in the desire. Wonder what kind of a little game it is, and how does
it work into the bigger one that’s going on?”
He mused and smoked and paced, but the affair presented no aspects at
all understandable. Finally, in exasperation, Bat began a conversation
with the man on the wall.
“Nice night,” he called.
“Yes,” came the brief reply.
“Think it’ll rain?” asked Bat.
“The wind’s from the northwest,” stated the sergeant-major.
Bat bit at his cigar viciously. Though not able to give any good reason
for it, he wished it would select some other quarter.
“The northwest!” said he, to himself. “What the dickens is there about
the northwest that----” here he stopped, a thought taking shape in his
mind. “I’ll go out,” said he, gravely. “There might be something doing,
out that way; and if no one’s there it might break out.”
He called once more to Kretz.
“Hello,” answered the man.
“Come down,” requested Bat, “and open the gate. I want to go out.”
The sergeant-major descended from the wall.
“To go out,” stated he, “is not wise. Outside there is danger--from the
tramps.”
“Unbolt the gate,” said Bat, serenely. “I rather like tramps. In fact,
one of the regrets of my young life is that I’ve met so few of them.”
“In the cellar,” said Kretz, as he shot back a bolt, “they fired at us.”
“Maybe,” suggested Bat, “that volley ran them out of ammunition.”
“You do not know how much they are to be feared,” said the German,
stubbornly. “I have served. I have seen danger. But,” and Bat saw his
head shake, “never any like this.”
“To-night,” said the big man, “I feel like taking a chance. Stick
around, will you, so you can let me in when I get back.”
Reluctantly the sergeant-major opened the gate; then he closed it
promptly and Bat, from the outside, heard him refastening it.
“Is it that he is anxious that nothing should happen to me; or is it
that he wants nothing to happen to something else?” reflected Bat, as
he threw away the cigar, and stood by the gate looking away into the
night. “Little anxieties like that might work both ways, as I’ve seen
to my cost.”
Slowly and quietly he passed around the wall, and at a point
overlooking the northwest he paused.
“The Potomac at its quietest could never compare with this,” said he,
gently. “It’s as peaceful, apparently, as a pastoral on a post-card.
All it needs is a glint of moon, a fleecy cloud, and a happy pair of
lovers.”
It was a serene, quiet night; the wind from the northwest was but the
merest puff; the shadowy hills lay long and looming on every side; the
stars were few and seemed very far away.
“It’s on these still nights, though,” ruminated Bat, “that things that
make a noise usually have their beginnings. Some wise old lad, in the
days gone by, came through with a remark about the calm before the
storm; and as an observer, I’ll say that he held aces. Because it’s
always been my experience that your man always takes his longest rest
before he comes at you with both hands swinging. So the right rule
must be: the quieter the night, the wider you should keep your eyes
open.”
Just then he turned his head and looked up at the castle. At an open
window he saw something move. It was a woman in white--a tall woman.
Bat’s straining eyes made her out.
“The young one,” said he, softly.
The window was dark, but the white of the gown was distinct; and the
outlines, vague though they were, were unmistakable. And she seemed to
be looking out over the swelling country toward the northwest.
“There are events to be looked for, as I thought,” murmured Mr.
Scanlon. “Doings are being started just as sure as she stands in that
window.”
He turned his eyes away from the shadowy window and toward the equally
shadowy quarter which held the girl’s attention. For a space all was
alike; it seemed evenly dark. Then he began to perceive points of light
between the hills; these were low places in the western sky which the
night had not stained completely black. Against one of these, Bat, as
he looked, caught a movement; some slinking, peculiar figures crossed
it and were at once swallowed up.
“Right,” muttered Mr. Scanlon, grimly. “Just stay still for a little,
and I’ll be with you.”
And with that he quietly descended the slope of the hill upon which
Schwartzberg stood, and made off into the darkness.
CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH SOME THINGS ARE DONE AND SOME OTHERS ARE SAID
As Bat went cautiously onward, the place where he had seen the movement
marked in his mind, he was aware of a glimmering of light over his
shoulder. Turning his head he saw the rim of the moon pushing its way
above the trees behind him.
“Hello!” said he. “Here’s our friend with the smiling face, and I
don’t know whether I’m glad to see him or not.” He stood gazing at the
disc, which mounted rapidly, throwing its cold rays along the hills.
“Anyway,” continued Bat, philosophically, “I caught him over my right
shoulder, and that means a run of luck. So with things fixed in my
favour, I’d better go on.”
Keeping as much in the shadow as possible, he went his way. After a
time he drew near to a hill, higher than any of those about it, from
which he had more than once admired the ancient looking towers of
Schwartzberg.
“I think I’d better top that,” he muttered, “and take an observation.
If there’s any one moving around out here I’ll be able to spot him in
the moonshine.”
Carefully he ascended the rather steep side of the hill; the lessons
of his youth, when he trailed a Geronimo in the southwest or stalked
“Billy-the-Kid” were as clear in his mind as ever.
“But the joints don’t work the same,” was the big man’s mental
complaint. “They creak enough to waken any fairly light sleeper, if
there were such camped in this vicinity.”
He came to the top of the hill, and standing in the shadow of a tree,
looked about. The long, trailing moonbeams and the dusky shadows lay
side by side, as far as he could see. There was a path which wound up
the west side of the hill, down on the east and away toward the river;
as Bat looked westward along this it disappeared in the shadows which
clung to the slope. And he heard a sound.
“Voices,” said he. Then, after a moment, “Voices and wheels.”
Quietly he waited and listened. Away to the east he saw the ghostlike
loom of Schwartzberg in the moonlight; the breeze stirred the bare
limbs of the trees under which he stood.
Bat smiled as he looked up at the branches.
“Still from the northwest,” said he. “Well, hold to it. Maybe you’ll
bring us something.”
Nearer and nearer came the sound of wheels--singularly light wheels.
And the stumbling hoofs of the usual horse were absent.
“Can it be some one doing a little hill climbing on a bicycle?” was the
big man’s silent question. “If so, he has an original turn of mind.”
But in a few moments more a shape emerged from the shadows, coming up
the hill. It was a rolling chair; in it was a muffled figure and behind
it laboured a squat, strong-looking servant.
“By Jove!” was Bat’s mental exclamation. “It’s the sick fellow from the
inn.”
Upon reaching the crest of the hill the chair stopped. The squat
servant spoke to the invalid inquiringly, but in a strange tongue.
“Lift me up,” directed the man in the chair.
The stocky one did as directed; the patient turned his face toward
the castle, and his eyes remained fixed upon it for a long time. The
breeze moved softly; there was scarcely a sound to be heard.
“He’s been here before,” mused Bat, from the shadow of the tree. “And
it’s not been for air, either.” Then Ashton-Kirk and his array of
pictured skulls occurred to the watcher, and he gazed at the peculiar
frontal formation of the sick man with attention. “I wonder,” was his
next thought, “how Kirk doped it out that this fellow was in on our
affair? and I also wonder what a skull with a flat place in front’s got
to do with it?”
After a time Bat saw that the pale hands of the invalid were moving
as though he were fumbling impatiently with his wrappings. Then, for
a space, he’d remain perfectly still; as the pale moon shone directly
upon his face, Bat noted that his eyes during these periods of
stillness were closed. But once more they’d open and again the wasted
hands would begin to stir in the same impatient way. During the spaces
in which the sick man sat with closed eyes, the watcher often saw his
face twitch suddenly; and once he laughed out, clear and loud.
For the space of half an hour this continued; then there was a long
period during which the sick one sat as though he were thinking. Then
he spoke quietly to his servant; promptly the man lowered him to a
reclining position, turned the chair about and wheeled it carefully
away in the direction from which they came.
Amazed, Bat stood beneath the friendly tree.
“Well,” said he, “I wonder what’s all that? There is something on the
range, that’s sure; but as far as my memory goes it’s the queerest bit
of business I ever witnessed. There he sits with his eyes shut, and
makes faces at the moon. And the lad that pushes him around instead
of calling for an ambulance seems to think it a perfectly natural
proceeding.”
Scanlon gazed once more in the direction of Schwartzberg; a spot of
yellow light winked here and there from a window; but otherwise the
great place, lit as it was by the moon, seemed paler and more ghostly
than ever.
“If that was a winter moon, and there was snow on the ground, and
the Christmas bells were ringing in the distance,” mused Bat, “I’d
understand why I feel as I do. Those trees over there would be the
Black Forest; there would be a small bright place among them showing
the charcoal burners at work; and in a couple of minutes along would
come a little old man with a white beard and a bundle of faggots on his
back. Then I’d know I was six years old and reading a story-book. But
being a man and grown to some size, I’m up in the air.”
He stepped out from the shadow of the tree, and throwing his arms wide,
yawned luxuriously. Then he realized that several men stood beside him.
“Hello!” said Bat, and brought the yawn to an abrupt termination. “How
are you?”
One was the drawn-looking man whom he and Ashton-Kirk had seen at the
inn; the other was the brisk little physician whom they had seen upon
the same occasion.
The drawn-looking man stood with stooped shoulders and regarded Bat
with wondering eyes. Then he coughed into a handkerchief.
“It’s a very brilliant night,” suggested he.
“Great!” replied Bat.
The little physician fixed his eye-glasses firmly upon his nose.
“It is a night,” stated he, “for being outdoors. As a matter of fact,
any night, or any day, are excellent for that purpose. The warm-blooded
animal requires great quantities of those forces which the air holds
for his use; and to get them he must go where it is. Otherwise he’ll be
ill.”
“That sounds like a very good argument,” observed Bat, calmly.
“As a rule,” stated the doctor, and he regarded Bat through his lenses,
“my patients resent the idea of outdoors. They look at it askance.
There is the suggestion of hardship in the mere idea. They want to be
coddled in a room full of poisonous vapours.” Still he looked at the
big man fixedly; then he continued, “You are not of sickly habit, I
think, and so you require no urging to take the air.”
“Not a bit,” replied Scanlon. “To-night, as a matter of fact,” his
mind running back to the words of Kretz, “I was strongly urged to stay
indoors.”
The drawn man coughed; he looked extremely fragile in the pale light;
his face was bloodless, and his eyes had a feverish glint.
“In the main, the doctor is correct in his observations,” said he. “But
for all, I can’t help thinking there _are_ times when one should stay
inside.”
Bat waited a moment, expecting a protest from the physician; but none
came; that gentleman was engaged with the moonlit landscape.
“And such times?” asked Bat. “Just what are they like?”
The drawn man wiped his lips, and his thin, bowed shoulders shrugged.
“Perhaps one’s own discretion is best as to that,” said he, mildly.
“But, for the sake of an example, a skipper does not venture to sea in
the face of a storm; a mountaineer keeps from the passes in the season
of snows; a careful man does not force his way into those things which
do not concern him.”
“I get you,” said Bat, thoughtfully. “But I also see some holes in your
argument. It’s not nearly so good as the doctor’s spiel for fresh air.
The skipper, if he’s on his job and has the craft, has no right to let
a blow keep him in bed; and I’ve seen real two-handed lads hold to the
passes in all weathers. So far as the careful man is concerned--well,
different people have different ideas about what makes up a man of that
kind. Your notion of one seems to be a man who wouldn’t take a chance
except in his own affairs. But, in my little book, he’s written down as
one who’d think his friend’s affair just as important--and he’d be just
as anxious to set it right.”
“I think,” said the doctor, turning, “we’d better make our way down to
the road. The moon, in a few moments, will be under the clouds, and the
path is rather steep.”
The drawn man coughed and nodded to Mr. Scanlon.
“Good-night,” said he. “Now that you _are_ out,” and he smiled
disagreeably, “I trust you’ll enjoy yourself.”
“Thanks,” replied the big man, coolly. “I’ve always had kind of a knack
of doing that; so I shouldn’t wonder if I did.”
CHAPTER X
SHOWS HOW MRS. KRETZ SPOKE HER MIND
Bat Scanlon stood for a space under the neighbourly tree; he could hear
the drawn man coughing away into the gloom at the foot of the hill.
“Now,” observed he, “am I indeed over my head. Not only have we one
man in this little matter who is so far through that he must be shoved
along in a chair, but here comes another who goes wheezing around on
one lung and throwing hints of a threatening nature.”
He slipped an automatic pistol from his hip pocket--a black, bulky,
deadly thing; and he smoothed it with a feeling of satisfaction.
“Hints are all very well,” he went on; “but they never did any harm,
and they never got anybody anything. Doing’s what counts; and all I’ve
got to say is, let somebody start doing something I don’t like.”
Thinking it just as well to move from the spot he then occupied, Bat,
pistol in hand, made his way along the crest of the hill and struck
into a path which was to some extent shaded from the moon’s rays. He
had a very clear recollection of the brisk rattle of shots in the
vaults on the day before, and he had no desire to court another such.
But he picked his way along through the rising ground without
mischance; the river gleamed coldly and smoothly; the walls and towers
of Schwartzberg looked darker at close hand, and lost the ghostly,
transparent quality which they had taken from the distance. Bat was
somewhat disappointed.
“Here I take a gentleman’s promise--for that’s what it really was--of
some entertainment. I even think enough of it to draw a gun, and pick
the covered spots. And now there’s nothing doing. What the dickens is
the world coming to when a fellow can’t----”
There was a loud splash from the river close by; looking quickly in
that direction Bat saw a bulky form stumbling about in the shallows
under a bank. Two other forms instantly appeared and steadied the burly
one; then all disappeared like a flash.
“The curtain,” observed Bat, grimly, “is a little late in rising; but
it seems we’re going to have a show after all.”
Holding to the shadow thrown by the high wall, he made his way
cautiously toward the spot. On the edge of the shadow he paused, but
there was no sound; so, with his automatic held ready, he stepped out
into the light and advanced toward the bank. A broken place was plain;
but no one was in sight.
“The big fellow stood too close to the edge; then the thing caved in
and let him down into the water,” reasoned Bat. “But,” and his gaze
went about, “what’s become of him and the parties who offered the
helping hand in his time of need?”
The river bank was clear of all obstructions for some distance above
and below Schwartzberg; the moonlight flooded it; there was no place
where any one could hide.
“That being the case, and the prowling parties not being in sight, I
think I’ll step back where I can’t be so readily seen,” said the big
man.
He had turned about and was moving away from the river when a rifle
sounded; clear against the moonlit sky he made out Kretz upon the wall.
“Hello!” said Scanlon, his hands at his mouth like a megaphone.
“That’ll be about all of that.”
The sergeant-major lowered his gun, and stood looking down; and within
a few minutes the big man was at the gate and hammering to be let in.
Kretz admitted him, sullen-faced and silent.
“Suppose you always take a look,” spoke Scanlon, after the gate had
been closed and fastened, “a good look, mind you, before you cut loose
with that gun of yours. And let this be especially the case when I’m
known to be outside.”
“Twice to-night have I seen people near the river before I saw you.
Each time I called, but they said nothing. The third time I fired.”
“And _I_ just happened along in time to be the goat,” grumbled Bat.
Then, with a sharp side glance at the sergeant-major’s grim face, he
added mentally, as he turned away, “That is, if you _didn’t know_ who
it was.”
Inside he found the room where he usually spent the evenings with Campe
deserted. But from another apartment the voice of Miss Knowles was
heard laughing, and that of Campe answered with much animation.
“Oh, come now,” said Mr. Scanlon, “if it was somebody other than that
blonde girl who was with him I’d say that this wasn’t half bad.”
An atmosphere of change was about the rooms which had been so gloomy;
for the first time since he had been there, fear was sharing the centre
of the stage with something else.
“If I’d only thought of Ashton-Kirk sooner,” said Bat, “the whole thing
might have been straightened out by now. His just coming here for an
hour, and Campe not even knowing who he was, has put a new face on
things.”
He wandered about among the lower rooms for a time, and finally began
to run through the books in the library.
But none of them pleased him, for it seemed a time for action; so
shutting the bookcase door, he turned away; and then he saw Kretz’s
daughter beckoning to him.
“Eh?” said he, staring.
“My mother,” said the girl, stolidly. “She is in the kitchen. She wants
you.”
Then she vanished. For a few moments Mr. Scanlon continued his
stare--but now at the empty doorway. Then with the little twist at the
corner of his mouth, and with something like interest in his eyes, he
made his way toward the kitchen.
The lamps, hanging from the beamed ceiling, threw but a dim light
about the huge room; a sullen fire burned in the fireplace; the copper
vessels gleamed dully. Upon a rush-bottomed chair near the blaze sat
Mrs. Kretz. In her strong hands were some long steel needles, and she
was knitting a stocking of blue wool. She nodded to Scanlon as he
entered.
“Lena,” she said to the girl, “get a chair.”
A second rush-bottomed chair was brought forward by the girl, who
then retired to a little distance and also took up the knitting of a
stocking of blue yarn--evidently the fellow to the one her mother was
engaged upon.
“My husband,” spoke Mrs. Kretz, “is outside. He is watching. He will
not be in for some time.”
Bat nodded.
“And,” continued the woman, “while he is not here, I will have some
talk with you.”
“Right,” said Mr. Scanlon.
“In this house I have been since spring,” said Mrs. Kretz. “Was it in
April, Lena?”
“It was in April,” agreed Lena.
“Since spring,” said Mrs. Kretz. “And I am afraid.”
The interest in Mr. Scanlon’s eyes deepened.
“Of what?” he asked.
But the woman gazed at him with an expression even more wooden than her
daughter.
“I don’t know.” She laid the knitting on the hearth beside her and
folded her hands in her lap. “My husband knows. But my husband never
speaks of things to me. He does not trust women,” simply. “But I am
afraid. And Lena is afraid.”
Mr. Scanlon leaned forward.
“It isn’t only that something is going on which you don’t understand
that makes you afraid.”
The woman considered this word by word and then shook her head.
“No,” she said, “there is more.”
“Something has happened--you’ve seen it--maybe more than once,”
suggested Bat.
The big man had a pretty clear belief that for a guest to endeavour to
worm things out of his host’s servants was not altogether decent; but
in the present case he felt that the attempt was justified.
“There have been many things happened,” spoke the woman. “They began
when we first came, and they have never stopped.”
She sat looking at Bat for a moment, then she proceeded:
“Do you know why you are here?”
Bat nodded.
“I never been told, but I’ve kind of guessed my way through it.”
“They are afraid to tell,” said Mrs. Kretz. “They fear those outside
there; and they also fear the police.”
“Huh!” said Mr. Scanlon.
There was a long period of silence, for he felt that it were best to
let her go her own way.
“For the people outside they watch,” said Mrs. Kretz, at length.
“Always outside. But,” and the strong hands knotted together suddenly
and her voice sank to a whisper, “who watches inside?”
“Inside?” said Bat quietly. “Do we need a watch inside? Are we not all
friends in Schwartzberg?”
Here the girl laughed, though she did not look up from her work. And
the laugh was one not pleasant to hear.
“You do not know,” said Mrs. Kretz, and she shook her head. “You do not
see. One night since you came,” and here her voice was lowered once
more, “a woman screamed. And a shot was fired. Do you remember?”
“I heard both,” said Bat. “But I don’t know the reason for either.”
“Lena was sick--with her tooth,” said Mrs. Kretz. “I went to speak to
my husband. I saw the door of the vault standing open. And beside it
was Miss Knowles, the key in her hand. I knew something was about to
happen; I ran to the door to close it. Then the shot came--from below;
she screamed; I closed and made fast the door.”
“Well?”
“She is of the family,” said Mrs. Kretz, “and so I never knew how she
lied herself out of it.”
“You feel sure she opened the door, eh?” The woman nodded. “What for,
do you suppose?”
“To allow some one below to come up. But that thing is not all. Why
does she walk about in the corridors at night? What does she do outside
when all should be asleep but the dogs?”
“You saw her one night,” said Lena, speaking suddenly. “The night Mr.
Campe was hurt.”
“Yes,” said Bat.
“On that same night,” spoke Mrs. Kretz, “I was arranging something in
the large room where the pictures are. There was only one small light
burning. I finished my work, and stood by a window, looking out. There
are long curtains at the window, and these hid me. I felt them stir, as
if in a draught; and I knew the door of the room had opened. I turned
and looked. Miss Knowles had come in. She crossed the floor very softly
and carefully, and stooped quite near to me where the great sword hangs
between the windows. She stood looking at this strangely; then she
reached up and took it down. And with it hidden as much as her wraps
would hide it, she went away.”
“Well?” asked Bat, quietly. But there was eagerness in his eyes.
“It was some hours after that when the great light flashed and we saw
you come staggering along with Mr. Campe on your back.” There was a
pause and the woman’s head rocked from side to side. “When he lay
wounded out there in the darkness, she stood beside him. Didn’t you
find them so?”
“Yes.”
“I saw the wound. It was I that washed and dressed it. A great long
one, not deep, but fearful when you thought what it might have been.”
Again she paused, and looked steadily at Scanlon. “It was just such
a cut as one could make with a very long and very heavy weapon,” she
said. “A weapon like the sword which hangs between the windows.”
Bat caught his breath.
“No!” said he, appalled. “No!”
“You think a woman couldn’t do it? Well, don’t forget that this one is
tall and strong.”
Bat gestured the idea away. He, himself, had spoken of Miss Knowles and
her doings suspiciously. But now that these suspicions were voiced by
another, and raised to a pitch of unthought horror, he almost sickened
at them.
“Why,” said he, the recollection of many little glances and accents
rushing to his mind, “she might even be in love with him.”
“He is with her,” corrected the woman. “And that, you know, is
different.”
She once more took up the blue stocking and began to move the needles
in and out among the loops. Lena was stolidly engaged in a like manner,
never having lifted her head since she began, not even when she herself
had spoken.
“Neither of them has any great width between the hair line and the
eyebrows,” said Bat mentally, as he looked from one to the other. “It’s
the sort of calm that passes all understanding; and those persons
gifted with it usually live blameless lives.”
The kitchen clock tick-tocked away in its long, wooden case, as
drowsily as need be; the wooden kitchen things which were in view
looked heavy and commonplace.
“But, for all they don’t seem very ready to grab a thing,” said Bat, to
himself, “these women have realized something. And that’s promising.
Things have happened here, and that’s the surest sign that things will
continue to happen. And this pair may turn out to be of use--if I don’t
expect too much of them.”
The great fireplace faced the open door of the kitchen; they all sat
facing the fire, and so with their backs to the door. Bat, with a
tight, strained feeling in his brain, clasped his hands behind his head
and leaned back in his chair.
“To you, who are a stranger, I say all these things,” said Mrs.
Kretz, busy with her needles. “And it is for this: You have been told
nothing--because they are afraid. You are Mr. Campe’s friend, and went
to help him. But how can you give help where you do not understand?”
But agreed with this.
“But,” said he, his eyes upon a great copper vessel which stood shining
dully from the chimney piece, “I could have wished you’d have some
other sort of information for me. For this puts me up against something
that’ll be pretty hard to do.”
The kitchen doorway was reflected in the sheen of the copper vessel;
and, framed in this, his brooding eyes saw a man. It was a soft,
bulky figure, with white, fat hands and a round face with small
light-coloured eyes. And while he looked, it moved softly past the
doorway and was gone.
CHAPTER XI
TELLS SOMETHING OF TWO GENTLEMEN WHO WERE ENCOUNTERED UNEXPECTEDLY
Mr. Bartholomew Scanlon stood up with much calmness.
“I’m obliged to you,” said he nodding first to Mrs. Kretz and then to
her daughter. “And I’ll think over what you’ve said. It might lead to
something.”
“There is my husband,” said the elder woman. “He thinks women are
foolish. You’ll not speak to him?”
“About this? No. I’ll mention it to no one. And,” pausing in his
movement toward the door, “if you hear or see anything else which may
be useful to Mr. Campe, don’t make me wait for it.”
“I will speak to you at once,” promised Mrs. Kretz, intent upon the
blue stocking.
In the hall, outside the kitchen door, Bat Scanlon’s manner changed.
Bulky as he was and with forty years resting upon him, he was still a
well-conditioned athlete. Slower than he was at twenty, he was supple
enough when he set himself to it; and now he moved down the hall
swiftly and with the lightness of a boy.
No one was in sight; the first door he came to stood open; it was a
sort of storage room for the servants, and no one was there. The next
door led to the vaults under the castle; this was closed. But a turn of
the knob showed that it was not locked.
“The soft one oozed in by this route,” thought Bat, as he closed the
door. “And some thoughtful friend prepared the way for him, for
witness the fact that there are bolts on the door, as well as a lock.”
Silently he rebolted the door; with some slivers of wood from the
storage room, pointed with his pocket-knife, he so jammed the bolts
that it would be no easy task to shoot them back.
“In this way,” murmured Bat, putting away the knife, “I place some
small impediment in the path of the soft party should he desire to back
out of the premises in a hurry.”
Quietly the big man went through the lower floor; each room was visited
and examined narrowly. But he found no one; there were no traces of any
one. At the foot of the stairs he paused; from above came the voice of
Campe, and in it there was lightness and ease.
“The billiard ball is also merrily clicking,” said Mr. Scanlon.
“Evidently he is still engaged with the golden-haired Helen, and she
is making him forget his troubles.” He began quietly to ascend the
stairs. “But it might pay him to keep an eye open; for who knows when
her ambition might break out afresh, and she might take another swing
at him with the sword.”
As his head appeared above the landing, he came in sight of the
billiard room door. This was open and a stream of light flowed out into
the hall. Standing flat against the wall, his back to the staircase,
and peering around the door-frame into the billiard room was the
soft-looking man.
Gently Mr. Scanlon advanced; quietly he touched the man upon the
shoulder; then, as the head turned, skilfully he chipped him upon the
jaw. The body buckled, and crumpled into a soft mass in Scanlon’s arms.
Lowering it to the floor the big man stepped into the doorway. In the
billiard room were Campe and Miss Hohenlo.
“Hello,” said the former with a startled look, but a manner expressive
of relief. “I _thought_ I heard somebody shuffling around out there.”
“I’d like to speak to you a moment,” said the big man, “if,” with a
glance at the spinster, “Miss Hohenlo will pardon us.”
Miss Hohenlo shook her faded hair and gestured prettily with her
beautiful hands.
“Frederic has so many little secrets of late, and so many matters he
seems anxious to keep from me, that one, more or less, will make no
difference. I’ll rehearse my next play while you are gone.”
Campe came out into the hall. Scanlon stood between him and the body
until he closed the door.
“Now, sit tight,” admonished the big man, “and give me a lift.”
With a face as grey as ashes, Campe looked at the senseless man.
“Who is it?” he asked. “And how did he get here?”
“As an answer to the first question, I’ll say I don’t know,” said
Scanlon. “To the second, he came in by way of the cellar; and the door
leading therefrom was unfastened by some one in the house.”
“Again!” Campe looked as though death itself had clutched him. “Again!”
“You’ve never thought it wise to put me up in these affairs of yours,”
said Scanlon, “so I’ll now have nothing to say in them. However,
that’ll not stop me from doing any little thing that I think needs
doing.”
Campe put a trembling hand upon the big man’s arm.
“Bat,” said he, quietly enough, “no man was ever more bedeviled than I
am, and I’ve not been exactly frank with you----”
But Scanlon stopped him.
“Some time we’ll both be in a humour for a talk,” said he, “and we’ll
save the matter till then. Just now there is another bit of business to
work off. Get hold of it by the legs.”
Together they took up the heavy body and carried it down the hall to
Scanlon’s room, where they laid it upon the floor.
“He looks,” observed Bat, “as if he’d got his last jolt; but he’ll live
to get many more, so don’t worry. What I want you to do, as a kind of
addition to your burden bearing, is to sit here and watch him. Got your
gun?”
“Yes,” said young Campe.
“If he comes to, advise him to keep still; if he refuses, poke the
barrel in his face. If he insists, hammer him over the head until he
grows peaceful.”
“But,” said Campe, “what are _you_ going to do?”
“Look around a little,” replied Bat, who had moved toward the door.
“I’ll not be gone long. Don’t say a word now, and watch your man.”
Bat softly opened the door and stepped out into the hall. There was
nothing definite in his mind; but, vaguely, he felt that there were
more experiences to come.
“If one man came out of the vaults, why not more?” he asked himself.
“If some one opened the door leading to those same vaults, how do I
know that he is not now opening another, leading somewhere else?”
Quietly he slipped down the hall; the lights were only half up, and
the recesses were dim; but there was sufficient illumination for him to
see that no one was lurking in its length. Further on the corridor took
a sharp turn, and it was in this angle that young Campe’s rooms were
located.
“Better luck there, maybe,” breathed Bat, as he stole along.
But, when he turned the corner, he found that particular portion of the
hall in darkness. Instantly he realized that if any one were in hiding
there, he offered a fair mark; stepping quickly back around the angle
he turned out the nearest lights, so that he was as much in the dark as
the possible prowler. Again he moved forward; but he had not gone more
than half-a-dozen steps when he heard a slight sound ahead. He paused
and bent forward to listen. The sound continued, creaking, rasping,
complaining.
“A door,” thought Bat. “A door with unoiled hinges--it’s being opened.”
His hand went to his hip, and once more the thick automatic was out and
ready. The sound stopped; there was a silence for a time; then began a
rustling which was unmistakable--the rustle of a woman’s skirt.
“The golden Helen!” was Scanlon’s next thought. “And promptly on the
job!”
The rustling stopped; then a whisper came.
“Paul!”
There was no reply and again came the whisper.
“Paul!”
Once more came the creaking of hinges; another door had opened.
“What is it?” came the answer.
“Hush! Not so loud!” The whisper seemed filled with fear.
Then Bat heard the woman move further forward; she spoke again, but
this time so low that he could not catch the words.
“The deuce,” said the man, startled. “How do you know?”
“I feel sure of it,” was the whispered reply.
“Don’t lose your nerve,” said the man, swiftly. “This is the first good
chance we’ve had, and we must make the best of it.”
“Be careful,” pleaded the woman.
“I’ll be sure to,” said the man. “And now keep a lookout. If you hear
or see anything, give me the signal.”
The hinges of the invisible door creaked as it closed; then the
rustling of the skirts began once more. As it approached Bat flattened
himself against the wall. Slowly the woman drew nearer; then she was
beside him, her skirts brushing him; but that she was unaware of his
presence was proved by her continuing in silence and without a pause.
But after a few moments Bat heard a slight sound as though she had
caught her breath suddenly, and she came to a halt.
“She’s got to the turn in the hall,” said the big man, mentally, “and
she’s found the two lights off duty.”
But the fact did not detain the woman, for once more the rustling began
and finally the listener heard it die away.
“And now I may as well get on with my scouting,” was Scanlon’s
soundless resolution. “The man inside there may be engaged in a matter
that would interest me a great deal.”
But he had barely got under way when he halted.
“The skirts!” said he. “And coming back!”
Sure enough they were. _Frou-frou, frou-frou_, they came, more sharply
than before, for the wearer was evidently moving at a brisker pace.
“Something new!” said Scanlon. “Maybe she’s dropped to my doings, and
she’s going to put the party in the room on to it.”
He felt that he could not chance the passage of the hall once more; his
groping hand had touched the wood of a door; now he found the knob,
opened the door silently as possible, slipped inside and partially
closed it. It was fortunate that he did so; for immediately afterward
came a short, snapping sound, and a flare of light filled the hall.
Scanlon stooped cautiously to the key-hole, and peered through it;
there, holding a lighted match above her golden head, stood Miss
Knowles.
“Came back looking for little me,” was Mr. Scanlon’s conclusion. “Well,
look away, Helen of the crown of gold; for behind the door I’m going to
stick.”
The match burned out; there followed the sound of some one moving along
the hall, and when silence had fallen once more, Scanlon began to stir.
But as he came from behind the door he caught a trickle of light in the
room. He stood staring at it for a moment; and then it dawned upon him
what it was.
“Still another door,” murmured he.
Gently he approached the light; it came, as he judged, from under a
door and through its key-hole. He listened; from the adjoining room he
caught the sound of rustling paper, and now and then the closing of a
drawer.
“Isn’t he the thorough little ransacker, though?” continued Mr.
Scanlon, immediately interpreting these sounds. “Well, there’s no use
in putting him to needless trouble; I’d better go in and have a few
words with him--if I can open the door.”
Fortunately he found that he could; the door swung in, and a man, who
stood under a light examining some papers at a table, lifted his head.
He put a handkerchief to his lips and coughed; then he nodded.
“How do you do?” said he.
Mr. Scanlon was equally polite.
“I felt that I’d see you again,” stated he. “But I had no idea it would
be to-night.”
The drawn-looking man turned over a few of the papers; then gathered up
the lot and threw them into a drawer.
“Unexpected little things have a way of happening,” said he. “And it’s
as well that they do; for they are really of that elemental spice which
makes life worth while.” He dumped the contents of another drawer upon
the table, and nodded toward a chair. “Won’t you sit down?” he asked.
“I don’t mind if I do,” said Mr. Scanlon, sociably.
And so he sat down in the chair. And while the drawn man busied himself
with the fresh batch of papers, Bat took out the tobacco pouch and
the little packet of papers and rolled himself a cigarette. This he
lighted, and puffed away comfortably.
“You seem to be hard at it,” commented he, after a pause, during which
he watched the labours of the other.
The drawn man admitted that this was so by a gesture.
“It’s a more or less difficult proposition,” said he. “This room is a
regular dumping-place for documents. They seem to have been snatched up
and brought here in barrels. Not the slightest care has been taken to
keep them properly classed.”
“Tut, tut!” observed Mr. Scanlon. “That’s what I call just common
carelessness. They might have known that you’d call.”
The drawn man coughed.
“As to that,” said he, “I’m not so sure. We’ve made an effort to avoid
any extreme of publicity, you see.”
“Quite, quite!” remarked Bat, understandingly. “Advertising’s a fine
thing, but not in all lines of endeavour.”
The other raked over the papers impatiently.
“Here,” said he, “we have an old will, a contract for hauling stone,
a marriage certificate, a receipt from the Mexican government for the
loan of ten millions of dollars, an estimate for steel rails, and a
laundry bill.”
“That’s rather mixing them,” said Bat, framed in cigarette smoke. “But
keep at it; better luck next time.”
Returning the papers to the drawer, the drawn man next opened a heavy
chest. He threw an armful of documents upon the table, and plunged into
them with covetous hands.
“I would say that’s a promising lot, from its general appearance,”
commented Scanlon. “Of course,” casually, “I haven’t the least idea
what you’re looking for, but here there seems to be a holding to one
thing, a kind of a tight, official, important look, as it were.”
The covetous hands became eager; Bat noticed this; he threw down his
cigarette; his muscles tightened; the automatic thrilled in his grip.
“So you are short of ideas about what we want,” spoke the other, still
searching. “Has it never occurred to you to ask?”
“Once or twice,” replied Scanlon. “But I never got down to it. For
instance, I met a friend of yours downstairs a while ago”--here the
drawn man coughed, his eyes lifting for an instant--“and I thought of
putting the question to him.”
“Why didn’t you?” asked the drawn man, deep in the papers again.
“He hadn’t come to, up to the time I left,” replied Bat. “I suppose I
must have hit him harder than I meant to do.”
“Oh, well,” said the drawn man, tolerantly, “things of that sort _will_
happen. They are hardly to be avoided, in fact.”
He yawned and stretched his arms wide; the light over his head smashed
as he struck it and went out. There came the rattle of the automatic,
and the splintering of window glass; the dogs, always at large in the
courtyard at night, barked furiously. Bat heard the voice of Kretz from
the wall; the rifle sounded sharply, and then silence, broken only by
the sound of running feet beyond the wall.
CHAPTER XII
SPEAKS OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE GATES OF SCHWARTZBERG WERE OPENED
Through the fragments of the window sash and the shreds of the blind,
Bat Scanlon looked out upon the moonlit night. Directly under the
window was a roof, as near as he could judge, that of the stable.
Between this and the top of the wall there was a space of some twelve
feet.
“And the fellow with the cough took it like a broad jumper,” commented
Bat. “Well, well, we live and learn.”
Then a light illuminated the room behind him; he turned and met the
wondering face of Miss Knowles.
“What has happened?” she asked, rather breathlessly.
Bat surveyed her with much composure. He had been right in his estimate
of her beauty; that wasn’t to be denied. He was sure he’d never seen
a more splendid example of her type. Her figure was like that of the
queen in a story-book. Her complexion was like snow and rose petals;
her eyes were as deep and as blue as the sea.
“If I hadn’t regular good reasons for believing what I do, one look at
her would scatter the whole fleet of suspicion,” was Bat’s thought as
he gazed. “She does it well. I never saw a better attempt at bluff. Ten
minutes ago she was talking to the crook; now here she is, asking as
innocently as you please: ‘What has happened?’”
“I heard a noise as I sat in my room,” said Miss Knowles. “I heard
shots,” her face a trifle paler. “Has any one been hurt?”
“No such luck,” replied Mr. Scanlon. He replaced the automatic in his
pocket and his broad back against the wall. “Fellow was just here
making free with some papers. I chanced to catch him, and he headed for
the window.”
The girl approached the table and looked at the papers curiously; her
hands wandered among them and her eyes scanned one after another.
“Did he take any of them?” she asked.
A shock ran through the large frame of Mr. Scanlon; for it occurred
to him that he did not know. He was busy wrestling with this somewhat
unpleasant thought when hasty feet were heard tramping along the hall;
and in another moment Campe and the sergeant-major were in the room.
“Who was it?” asked Campe. “Did you see him, Scanlon?”
“I did,” replied Bat. “And I let fly at him.”
Then in as few words as possible he related his experiences since
leaving Campe on guard over the unconscious prowler; he was careful,
however, to omit that part of it which dealt with the whispering and
the rustling of skirts in the hall-way.
“Whatever his game is,” concluded the big man, “he was a pal of the
fellow you’ve got down the hall.” Here he caught the expression that
came into Campe’s face; at the same instant he noted that Miss Knowles
had left the room. How long she had been gone he did not know; but it
must have been while he was deep in his narrative. “The man’s still
there, ain’t he?” he asked Campe.
“When I heard the shots I left the room,” said the young man. “Then
Kretz ran upstairs, and we came hunting you.”
Without a word Bat rushed along the hall; the door of his room was
open, and the soft man was gone. Then down the stairs went Bat, three
at a leap. The plug still held in the bolt of the cellar door, so
he was sure that the prowler had not gone that way. There was only
one other way of escape. The gate! And when he reached the courtyard
the gate stood wide; the watch dogs were running in and out, whining
uncertainly and apparently still much excited.
Both Campe and the German soldier had pressed hard after Scanlon; and
the young master of Schwartzberg was aware of the truth as soon as the
big man.
“He’s gone,” said he, in a husky kind of way. “Gone!”
“Well, if he’ll only stay gone, it’ll be all right,” spoke Mr. Scanlon.
“And while we’re thinking over the possibilities of that,” to Kretz,
“suppose you shut the gate.”
The sergeant-major did as requested; at the order of young Campe, he
mounted guard upon the wall once more, and then both Campe and Scanlon
made a complete search of the castle; every nook and crevice was
examined, but evidently if there had been others they had also taken
occasion to depart with the opening of the portal.
“The gentlemen who are in the habit of visiting you,” remarked Mr.
Scanlon to the master of Schwartzberg, “are very self-possessed, and
have more than the usual share of grey matter. I never saw any one
collection of persons with more up their sleeves than this lot appears
to have.”
“They are cunning enough,” said the other; and there was a hopeless
note in his voice. “Sufficiently so to get the better of me, at all
events.”
“In a fight like this,” advised Mr. Scanlon, “never admit, even to
yourself, that the opposition is on top of you. It has a bad effect.
Even the best of us has no real liking for a bruising battle, if we get
the bruising; and we’re only looking for an excuse to side step. And
thoughts like those provide the excuse.”
At the cellar door Campe stopped.
“We’ll not venture into the vaults,” said he, in a tired way. His face
had the sagged look which hopelessness brings, and his eyes were dull
and weary. “It may not be safe.”
“It’s clear enough to me,” said Scanlon, bluntly, “that some one
has pretty plain sailing into these cellars of yours. They seem to
come piling in whenever the spirit moves them. I’d do something in
the matter if I were you, even if it was only to post a warning to
trespassers.”
“There must be a way of getting in,” admitted Campe, dully. “I made
up my mind to that some time ago. But,” and his voice broke into a
sharpness that startled Scanlon, “a man whose life is in danger every
moment of it can’t take too many chances.”
Bat put his hands on the young man’s shoulders and looked steadily into
his face.
“Hold up!” said he, “Hold up! You’re up against something raw and hard.
But don’t let them stop you. No matter what the thing is--sit tight.
You’re going to win out.”
“Win!” Campe threw up his hands and laughed mirthlessly. “You don’t
know the facts or you wouldn’t say that.”
“Maybe I’m not on to _all_ the facts,” said Bat, stuffing his hands
into his pockets, “but I’m on to the very worst of the lot. And even in
spite of that, I say you’ll win.”
“The worst!” said Campe, and his eyes searched Bat’s face. “What do you
mean?”
“I mean just that--the worst! Listen. One time when I was a youngster
I was out with old Dick Bunder, packing stuff out to Gabriel City. Now
Gabriel was out on the desert and was made up of a half dozen houses
and a few tents around a water-hole. The first night I spent in the
place it was attacked by Apaches, and the thing went on for days.
Bitter, cruel work it was in the heat, with no sleep, and death barking
always from across the sands. The Apaches were bad, but,” and Bat shook
his head, “there was something worse.”
“Yes?” said young Campe.
“Much worse,” affirmed Bat. “And it was inside. Somebody was calling
off our hands to the enemy.”
Campe’s face grew rigid; his mouth twitched and one shaking hand went
to it as though to hide his weakness.
“Some one inside,” said he. “Inside! Yes, that’s a fearful thing.
Outside’s bad enough. But the other.” He stood, his fingers pressing
against his lips for a moment; then he asked, suddenly, “Did you find
the person out?”
“I did,” answered the big man. “And I have found out the one in
Schwartzberg.”
Campe stretched out the shaking hand and laid it against Scanlon’s
chest.
“Don’t say anything more,” said he. “Not her name, for God’s sake! I
couldn’t stand that!”
CHAPTER XIII
DEALS WITH SOME HAPPENINGS OF THE NEXT DAY
The remainder of the night passed without incident; and next morning,
Scanlon accompanied by Kretz, who carried the light, made a complete
tour of the regions beneath the castle. No one was hidden there; there
were only the massive walls and arches, the damp and the echo.
“Locks and bolts seem to offer no hindrance to housebreakers,” said
Bat, speaking to Campe who met them when they came up. “So, with your
permission, we’ll have a few additional precautions.”
Procuring a hammer and some heavy nails, the door to the vaults was
made fast.
“Now,” Bat proceeded, “we are in a position to offer some defence
against another invasion. But,” and he glanced from Campe to the silent
German, and back again, “how the dickens they got into the cellar
puzzles me. I looked all around; but not a way could I see.”
“If we can prevent any further entrances into the house itself, for the
present, we’ll be satisfied,” said Campe.
Scanlon did not approve of this. It indicated a willingness to share
something with the enemy.
“Which is always wrong,” he told himself, later, as he trudged along
the road on his way to Marlowe Furnace. “If it was my affair, I’d shake
it up till I had those crooks headed for the next county.”
Campe had abruptly closed the conversation of the night before with
the request that no names be mentioned, and so Scanlon had been left in
a state of doubt.
“He knows, or suspects about the girl,” thought the big man, “but what
about these other people? Has he got them placed? I’d ’a told him all
I’d seen and heard last night, but as he wanted silence, silence it is.
Anyway,” as an afterthought, “it might have been a wrong move to say
anything more than I did. Maybe Ashton-Kirk doesn’t want him told.”
There were no letters for him at the village post-office, and he was
much disappointed. So much had happened to him in the last twenty-four
hours that he had the feeling that Ashton-Kirk must also have had some
exciting experiences which he would report at once.
“But he hasn’t had time to say anything,” reasoned the big man. “Maybe
I’ll get something in the mail to-night.”
He stood upon the post-office steps and lighted a cigar; while he was
puffing thoughtfully at this, he felt his arm jostled gently. Turning
he saw an old man with a basket on his arm, and a hand tangled in a
chin beard.
“How d’ye do?” asked the old man.
“Pretty fair,” said Bat.
“Stopping up at Schwartzberg, ain’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Thought so. My name’s Henry; got a brother over at the station.”
“Oh, yes,” said Bat. “I detect the family resemblance. How is he?”
“Doing tolerable.” There was a slight pause, then the old man
disentangled the hand and jostled Scanlon’s arm once more. “Remember a
man that asked for you one night at the station--fat kind of a fellow?”
“Yes,” said Bat.
“Saw him last night.”
“That so?” Bat was unmoved, smoking calmly.
“Helped to take him to Doc. Sharpless’s. Found him in the road, not far
from Schwartzberg. Was coming along in a waggon with my brother when I
seen him. Only for the moon we’d run over him.”
“What was wrong?” asked Scanlon, carelessly.
“Don’t know. He told Doc. Sharpless he fell somehow. Doc. says he’d got
a bad bump.”
The old fellow looked at Bat as though he expected him to say
something. But the big man examined the wrapper of his cigar in silence.
“I’d never knowed who the fellow was,” said the man with the basket,
“only my brother was along. He told me.”
Still Bat was silent, and the greater grew the old chap’s
disappointment.
“We reckoned you’d like to hear about him,” resumed he. “Of course we
thought he must be a friend of yours.”
“Entire stranger,” replied Bat, briefly.
“Funny, aint it, how he should come asking after you like that, and you
not know him? And then to find him unconscious in the road out by the
castle, too. We thought that was very queer.”
It occurred to Scanlon that the tone of the old man’s remarks was not
desirable. So he attempted to shift it about.
“When a person feels that he must fall,” remarked Bat, “he should be
very careful in the selection of a place to fall in. Now the middle of
a roadway as a site shows carelessness don’t you think?”
But the ancient refused to be side-tracked. He clung to his theme like
a terrier.
“Yes, we thought it was kind of queer,” he re-affirmed. “But then,”
with a shake of his head, “I don’t know as we should, after all. For
there’s such a lot of queer things going on around Schwartzberg that we
shouldn’t be surprised at one more. What between some kind of thunder,
and gun shots and people running and racing about in the night, that
house has given this village something to think about.”
Bat grinned, and smoked away.
“So they think the castle’s a place of interest, do they?” he asked.
“It’s a place they’re afraid of,” said the old man. Since he had failed
to get Scanlon to talk, he seemed determined to do the next best
thing--talk himself. “Tom Gould’s constable here, and he’s thinking of
looking into things.”
“Oh, well,” said Bat, “we can’t blame Tom for showing a little
enterprise.”
“There ain’t never been any such goings on at Marlowe Furnace before,”
stated the man with the basket. “And I don’t think folks’ll put up with
it much longer. Shots and strange noises and finding people hurt in the
middle of the road’ll never do. It ought to be seen into.”
“Why don’t you speak to Campe?” suggested Bat.
“How could I--or anybody else, if it comes to that?” demanded the
ancient. “How often is he seen? And when he does come out, why does he
look as if he was running away when he gits sight of anybody? What’s
wrong with him? What’s he afraid of? What’s he done--him with his dogs,
and his man on the wall, and his searchlight, frightening the women and
kids?”
“I think,” said Bat, “you’re imagining a good deal of this. Anyway,
it’s Campe’s own place, and I suppose he can do as he likes on it.”
He nodded to the old man with a smile, but as he walked away from the
post-office he was thoughtful enough.
“Getting on the nerves of the population, eh?” said he. “Well, I don’t
wonder. A fellow can’t go slam-hanging around like that and not attract
attention.”
He noticed, as he went along, that more than one person regarded him
curiously; little knots of people gathered behind him, their heads
together and no doubt deep in the discussion of the odd doings about
Schwartzberg. He had left Marlowe Furnace some distance behind when an
idea occurred to him.
“I’ll just top a few of these hills to the left,” said he, “and stop
off at the inn. It wouldn’t surprise me if I saw or heard some little
thing of interest. These fellows with the lame lungs and the lame legs
seem to have more to them than a first glance shows.”
So Mr. Scanlon confidently took the path across the hills. As a rule a
criminal caught in the act of housebreaking would not be expected to
linger in the neighbourhood of his exploit; but that the man with the
cough had departed was not at all in the calculations of Bat.
“According to the dope of both Kirk and Mrs. Kretz, Campe is afraid of
the police,” was the way the big man reasoned it out. “Knowing the
nature of the thing which makes Campe afraid, the housebreaker knows
that the police won’t be called in. So, then, he’ll stick around,
waiting for another chance.”
In the road which led to the inn Bat heard the sound of wheels; it was
the rolling chair containing the man with the flattened skull. The
black, glittering eyes of the invalid fixed themselves upon Bat as he
came up with the chair. The big man noted this and nodded.
“Nice day,” said he.
“Splendid,” replied the invalid, in his peculiarly strong voice. “In
fact there has been a succession of fine days. This district seems
specially favoured.”
Bat nodded his head many times.
“I’ve been thinking something like that myself,” he said. “There
seem to be things here which a fellow wouldn’t be likely to run into
anywhere else.”
“I’ve noticed you a number of times with your dogs and gun,” said the
sick man. “The game is none too plentiful hereabouts, I should say.”
“It depends a good bit on what you’re after,” stated Mr. Scanlon.
“Yes, I suppose that is true.”
The tone of the man in the chair was quieter than usual; his manner,
too seemed mild. But the expression of his full-lipped mouth was one of
infinite savagery; his eyes shone like those of a caged beast.
“Doctor sent you out here, I suppose,” said Scanlon, as they went on
toward the inn.
The invalid gestured with one wasted hand.
“We who have no health,” said he, “are for ever under a doctor’s
directions. We can never follow our own desires.”
Bat regarded the speaker attentively.
“Any one,” was his thought, “who could make you do what you didn’t want
to do would be a good one.”
But aloud he said:
“So I fancy! The doc. who has you in charge, I’ve noticed, seems to
have some confidence in fresh air. I suppose that’s why you keep so
much to the roads?”
“Yes,” replied the invalid.
“Outdoors,” said Scanlon, “is a fine thing. I guess that’s why there is
so much of it. It’s full of benefits, night and day. Moonlight nights,”
sagely, “are especially good. Then you not only get the air, but you
get a view of things, which helps the mind. Last night was as bright as
day, and Schwartzberg looks well with the moon on it.”
The beast in the man glared out more than ever from the black eyes, and
the teeth gleamed between the full lips. But he said, quietly:
“Ah, yes; I can believe that Schwartzberg is an interesting place. I
have given it some attention since I have been here.”
Bat nodded.
“A number of people have,” said he. “We have visitors dropping in every
now and then.”
“Some time _I_ shall go,” said the invalid. “I have been promising
myself that for a long while.”
“Quite,” said the big man, easily; “of course. But the others only
stayed a little while. When you come, we’ll keep you longer.”
“Thank you,” said the sick man. “You are very kind.”
Here his chair turned into the gravel path leading to the inn door, and
Scanlon followed it. The cramped-looking man with the crutch and the
walking stick was stamping up and down.
“The blood,” declared the cramped-looking man, “is the most important
thing in the body. It is meant to carry vigour to all our outlying
parts; but, sir, it carries other things at times--other things not so
desirable.”
A tall man with a saffron complexion and a pair of thick blue
spectacles sat in a cane chair; his clothes hung about him as if he
had shrunken a half-hundredweight in a short time; his long hands, as
yellow as his face, were clasped before him.
“I will not try to belittle the function of the blood,” said he in a
husky voice. “It would be foolish in me to do so. But you exaggerate
it, sir. And why? Your joints are solidifying through deposits of lime;
this is carried to the joints by the blood, and therefore you give
undue importance to that fluid.”
“Undue importance!” The cramped man paused in his stumping and seemed
astounded. “Undue! But, my good sir, how can that be? It is life
itself.”
The yellow-faced man jeered at this.
“Fiddlesticks!” said he. “Fiddlesticks, Mr. Hirst. Since the time
Harvey discovered its circulation, sentimentalists have overpraised
this corpuscle-carrying agent. They have given it credit which it
in no way deserves. In much the same way poets and novelists have
misrepresented the heart. To them, this is the seat of affection--of
every noble impulse--where, as a matter of fact, it is nothing more
than a pump.”
The cramped-looking man cast a look of complaint at every one on the
porch; then he was about to put it into words, but the yellow man
stopped him.
“You spoke of the blood as ‘carrying vigour,’” said the latter.
“‘Carrying,’ mind you. And that’s all it does--carry. It remains for
other and more important things to make and introduce both that vigour
of which you speak and that lack of vigour. The liver, now; take that!
There’s a piece of machinery for you. There’s an organ which means
something.”
The cramped man seemed amused. He cackled and hammered with his cane
upon the floor.
“The liver,” said he; “why, I’ve known men to go on forty years who had
no livers at all. Because yours has refused to secrete and has painted
you up with jaundice, you put it in front, and belittle more important
things. With good blood, sir, a man need have no liver.”
“Without a liver,” maintained the saffron-hued man, “he could not have
good blood.”
Mr. Scanlon nodded to the landlord.
“It’s a fine, uplifting conversation,” said he, in a low tone. “Do you
have to listen to them often?”
The innkeeper smiled.
“About two-thirds of the talk here is of symptoms,” answered he.
“I once stopped at a hotel in Colorado,” said Bat, “where they were
loaded up with a gang something like this one of yours. They’d sit
around and draw diagrams of each other, and stick pins in the places
where their ailments were located. And I never saw one of them back out
when it came to the possession of the most deadly complaint. They were
as keen for the championship as a crowd of golfers round a green.”
“These are about like that,” said the landlord.
“It’s funny the way the thing works,” commented Bat. “A man can go
along all his life with no one paying the slightest attention to him;
then he accumulates a rare disease, and at once becomes an object of
interest. Can you blame him if he cherishes his aches and makes much of
his pains? They’ve lifted him out of the rut for the first time in his
life, and given him something to brag about.”
The wheels of the rolling chair sounded upon the porch floor, and the
squat servant pushed it out into the hotel. Scanlon glanced about.
“I don’t see the man with the cough,” said he to the landlord.
“Mr. Shaw, I suppose you mean.”
“Sort of a worn-out looking fellow,” said Bat, carelessly.
“Mr. Shaw met with a small but rather painful accident,” said the
landlord. “It happened last night; he scratched and bruised himself by
falling into one of my hot-bed glasses, which some one left carelessly
in the way.”
“I see,” said Bat. “Glass hurt much?”
“About all broken,” said the innkeeper laconically. “But I can’t
understand who could have been touching it, and why.”
Mr. Scanlon felt that he could enlighten the hotel man upon both these
points, but he judged it best to keep the matter to himself. Here the
man with the crutch stumped away into the hotel, and in a few moments
the landlord followed. The saffron-hued man turned his dark glasses
upon Scanlon.
“I beg your pardon,” said he, “but I had not noticed you before. Are
you a guest of the house?”
“No,” replied Bat. “Not yet.”
“I was recommended here,” said the man. “Just came yesterday. I find
that most of the guests are here for a purpose.”
“So _I’ve_ noticed,” replied Scanlon, agreeably.
The jaundiced man shook his head.
“Ah, the doctors,” said he. “If I could control my liver without their
attention, I’d be satisfied never to lay eyes upon another one of
them.” He studied Bat for a space, and then said in an awed tone, “The
liver, sir, is a most tremendous thing.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Scanlon, cheerfully. “I suppose I’ve got one
myself, but it’s never introduced itself to me, and so I haven’t given
it much attention.”
The saffron-hued man seemed appalled at this last.
“Sir,” said he, “I am a stranger, and I know it is a very great liberty
to take, but I cannot help a word to you, now that I see it is needed.”
“Sure,” said Bat, “go ahead!”
“Some one--and a very wise person it must have been--has said: ‘In time
of peace, prepare for war.’ That, sir, should be the duty of every man;
he should not procrastinate; he should, so to speak, take his liver by
the forelock, and tame it--tame it, sir, completely.”
“But,” protested Mr. Scanlon, “a liver that’s never, in its career as
such, said anything to its owner, seems to me to be tame enough.”
The jaundiced one grew more agitated than ever.
“Don’t be deceived,” begged he. “Don’t be imposed upon. They are things
given to the most deplorable treachery. One can place no faith in them
whatever; they are worthy of not the lightest confidence. They have
been known,” and here his voice shook a little, “to stop short in their
functions at an instant’s notice--and this after years of apparent
devotion.”
“Well,” said Scanlon, “that does sound like a dirty trick, that’s a
fact. But what’s a fellow unaccustomed to such things to do? How is he
to know when to jump in with his corrective measures?”
“Any time will do before the thing asserts its independence of you. If
it is mild, beware of it; for like as not it will eventually become
like an old man of the sea and rule you completely. Scourge it; drench
it with compelling draughts; submerge it completely; bombard it with
bitter pills.”
“I suppose,” said Bat, “you speak as a man who neglected all these
measures.”
“Utterly, sir, utterly!” The saffron-hued man shook his head sadly. “I
had no voice to speak a warning word; I was unlearned in the wiles of
the thing. Even after it had secured the whip hand of me, I could have
defeated it if I had been told how by a person of experience in such
struggles. With a few dozen bottles of ‘Seaweed Tonic’ I could have
stopped its assaults; and with a handful of ‘Grady’s Grey Granules’ I
could have put it to flight.”
“Maybe,” said Mr. Scanlon, “I’ll lay in a stock of those some time.”
“They are the only permanent hope of man,” declared the yellow
gentleman. “Behind a stockade made of the ‘Tonic’ and the ‘Granules’
he can defy the encroachments of even the most evilly disposed of
livers.”
Bat went inside, smoked a second cigar, and chatted with the landlord.
None of the guests was to be seen, and so the big man gradually drifted
into a conversation concerning them. But the landlord was apparently
without any information.
“They come and they go,” said he, “and, as I said, I’m glad to have
them, to get over the autumn and the winter months. But I don’t know
anything about them except that they are sick.”
After a time Scanlon, seeing that little was to be gained by lingering
about the inn, departed. He noted that the jaundiced man was not upon
the porch as he crossed it; but beyond that he never gave him a thought.
However, when he saw him, small and far away on a hilltop, stooping,
studying and moving here and there, the big man manifested some
interest.
“Hello!” said he; “what’s this?”
Cautiously he made his way toward the spot, moving along fences and
keeping trees between himself and the other where it was possible.
Finally he was able to make out the man and his doings with little
difficulty.
The saffron-coloured one had a glass in his hand and was examining the
hole of an oak tree which grew on the crest of the hill.
“Same tree I stood under last night when I watched the fellow in the
rolling chair,” murmured Bat. “Wonder what he finds wrong with it?”
From the tree the yellow man fell to carefully noting the dried stems
of some stunted bushes; then he studied something here and there upon
the ground, sometimes using the glass, but more often not.
“If I didn’t have a first-class reason for suspecting invalids,” said
Mr. Scanlon, “I’d say this fellow was a botanist--maybe hunting a plant
which, when cooked, would have some sort of a discouraging effect on
the liver.”
He watched the man for some time; carefully the saffron-hued one
went from place to place, from tree to tree, from one clump of dried
brush to another. Gradually he moved down one hill and up the side of
another. From the top of this a good view was to be had of Schwartzberg
through the trees, and stationing himself behind one of these, the
stranger looked long and searchingly toward the castle.
Kretz was not to be seen upon the walls; but at one of the windows Bat
made out a woman’s figure. Apparently the saffron-hued man also saw
her; but apparently he desired a better view. So taking a field-glass
from a case which hung at his side, he trained it upon the window.
He spent some little time in watching the woman; then putting the glass
away he moved along a road that ran between the hills at a sharp angle
from Schwartzberg. Much interested, Bat followed. Again the stranger
turned sharply, this time toward the river. And now Scanlon understood
his movements.
“He’s been making for the waterside all along,” reasoned the big man.
“And he came this way so as not to be seen from the castle.”
Evidently this was correct. The stranger, when he gained the river,
began walking along its margin in the direction of Schwartzberg,
concealed by a sharp rise in the ground. But his searching glances
seemed not to gain him the satisfaction he sought; and so, finally,
though he did not seem at all eager to do so, he approached that
portion of the riverside in full view of the castle.
The river was fairly broad at this point, and its placid waters flowed
by with scarcely a ripple; a great mass of soft reddish rocks ran from
the walls of the castle down to the water’s edge.
“He seems somewhat backward about putting himself on display,” said
Scanlon, as he watched the doings of the jaundiced man with keen
attention. “But, then, he may have the most urgent reasons for it, so
I’ll not pick on him for that.”
From across the river came the sounds of laughing; some boys were
fishing from a boat, and were shouting to each other over some comic
misadventure. The saffron-hued man lifted his head and looked out
across the slowly flowing water; but the pause was for an instant only;
for he proceeded with the matter in hand.
A dozen yards further on he stooped, and seemed to grow intent and
eager. Out came the lens which Bat had seen him use on the top of the
tall hill, and down on his knees he went to examine something on the
ground.
“And right there,” said Bat, “is the place where the soft-looking party
broke through the edge of the bank and flopped into the water.” He
stood watching for a space, and then, unable to restrain his curiosity,
he pulled his hat firmly down upon his head and said: “I think I’ll
have a closer view of those proceedings. They may contain something I
ought to know.”
With a light step he moved along the river bank until he was within a
half dozen paces of the stooping yellow man. Then he paused, and said:
“Hello! What’s the idea? Lost something?”
The yellow man replied promptly, without turning or lifting his head,
and in a voice from which every vestige of huskiness was gone.
“Just working out a little idea, that’s all.”
At the voice Mr. Scanlon gasped. Then the man’s head lifted without the
blue glasses. Even the yellow stain was no disguise.
“Kirk!” said the big man. “Kirk, by George!”
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH ASHTON-KIRK HEARS MATTERS OF INTEREST
The special detective smiled and nodded.
“Just a moment,” said he; “there are a few little indications which I
want to make sure of, then I’ll talk to you.” Swiftly he worked with
the glass and a small ivory rule; then pocketing these he resumed the
blue glasses and arose to his feet. “I gather from your words and your
expression of face that you’re a trifle surprised!”
“It’s a clean knock-out,” announced Bat. He looked closely at the other
and then shook his head. “I never understood before how much a man’s
eyes had to do with his appearance,” said he.
“Hide the eyes,” said Ashton-Kirk, “and you are half disguised already.
Then a change in the voice and the dress and you are complete, only
needing some acting along the line of your assumed character. The rôle
of a sick man is one of the easiest to assume, as perhaps any physician
could tell you. The blue glasses are natural, then; also the tinted
skin and the huskiness of voice. A suit of clothes three or four sizes
too large at once sets you down as having lost a great deal of weight;
and then some intimate conversation regarding your particular complaint
places you above suspicion.”
“Intimate conversation is good,” said Mr. Scanlon. “You talked about
yours with the freedom and knowledge of a man who had bred one for
years. But without that I’d not have recognized you; you fitted so
well into place among that outfit of crooks that I never thought of you
being something else.”
“Crooks!” said Ashton-Kirk. “So you have found that out.”
“Well, I should say yes. Since I’ve come here I’ve found out two things
at least; and they are that a man might be rolled in a chair and still
be a fairly competent criminal; and also that a man might cough and
cough, and be a villain still.”
“I think you might go further than Alva and Shaw,” said Ashton-Kirk,
“and still be fairly safe.”
“You mean the man with the crutch?”
The crime specialist nodded.
“Also the landlord,” said he.
Bat whistled at this and stared. The other went on:
“On our first visit there I fancied I caught a certain undertone of
insincerity; an indefinite air of pre-arrangement pervaded the place;
there were moments when I had the feeling that a sort of stage play had
been arranged for our benefit. This, with some other things, made me
somewhat curious, and yesterday I made a few queries at a small hotel
some miles away. As I expected, the proprietor was perfectly willing to
talk. He told me, as you did, that the innkeeper over yonder had only
had the place for about six months, and that his present guests came at
practically the same time.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Scanlon.
“Other guests had gone there from time to time, but things were very
unpleasant, and as no attempt was made to put them right, the newcomers
had never remained long.”
“The unpleasantness was made to order, eh?” observed Bat. “The new
guests were not wanted.” He looked at the detective for a moment, then
he added: “That house is headquarters for the whole movement against
Campe.”
“I have taken the liberty of learning the size and peculiarities of
the footprints made by the various gentlemen holding forth there, and
I find they correspond exactly with those of persons whose movements
hereabouts show an intense interest in Schwartzberg.”
“Well,” said Bat, “I see there are various ways of coming at a fact.
You began with a mental impression and ended with the impression of a
foot; and I started with the expression of a lady’s face, and finished
with an expression of amazement.”
“You’ve also been having some experiences then,” said Ashton-Kirk,
interest in his voice. “I rather fancied you would. And as there will
be no better time than the present, suppose you tell me just what they
were.”
They seated themselves upon a flat rock out of eyeshot of Schwartzberg,
and Bat began a report of his adventures. He told of his meeting with
Miss Knowles on the road and her agitation at the thought of a fresh
visit from the crime specialist; of the soft-looking man who stood in
the lane writing in a leather-covered book; of Miss Knowles and her
interest in the direction of the wind; of his seeing her at the window
overlooking that point afterward; of the man in the chair and his
strange actions; of the meeting with the man with the cough and the
peppery little doctor; of the happening on the river bank; of his talk
with Mrs. Kretz; of the laying low of the soft man; of the whispered
conversation between the housebreaker and the woman in the darkened
hall; of the escape of the latter; of the disappearance of Miss Knowles
from the room, followed by the liberation of the prisoner.
When Bat had finished--and he did not slight a detail--his friend
laughed softly.
“Experiences--yes,” said he. “And you have a most excellent memory.
When you came to me the other day you complained of everything being
elusive and difficult to make head or tail of. It would seem, from what
you have told me now, that this had changed.”
“Altogether,” said Scanlon. “I don’t know a great deal more of the
truth, but there’s no end to the happenings. As a matter of fact, I
seem to be squaring up to something all the time.”
“And something of undoubted interest,” said Ashton-Kirk. He looked
toward the river and added, “That, I suppose, is the place where you
heard the man tumble into the water last night?”
“Yes,” replied Bat; “there where the bank is broken.”
“I’ll remember that,” said the other. “Indeed, it was in the hope of
coming upon something of the sort that I came this way.”
Bat looked at him in surprise, but before he could speak the other went
on:
“The matter of the northwest wind has a rare sound, and the affair of
the sword will in the end, I have no doubt, prove of much interest.” He
was silent for a space as though thinking, and then proceeded: “And so
Mrs. Kretz is inclined to suspect the girl of foul work?”
Bat nodded.
“She is,” said he. “And, much against my will, I’m inclined to do the
same.”
“You say you heard her talk to Shaw in the dark hall; and afterwards
when she had suspected something wrong because of the lights further
along being turned off, she came back to learn who had done it.”
“She did,” said Bat. “I saw her as plainly as I see you.”
“Things fall together very oddly at times,” said the crime specialist,
more to himself than to Bat. “Very oddly.” Then to Scanlon: “Miss
Knowles, you say, was interested to know if Shaw had taken any of the
papers at which he was looking?”
“Yes,” replied Bat.
“I, also, am a trifle curious as to that.” The soulless blue glasses
were fixed upon the big man steadily. “What did Campe have to say in
the matter?”
“Nothing,” replied Bat. “At least nothing that I heard.”
“It’s curious,” said Ashton-Kirk, “how a man will hold to silence
regarding some things. In the midst of happenings which sap his courage
and weaken his will in everything else, this young man keeps his mouth
shut as to the cause of it.”
“If it’s something which began with his father,” said Bat, “and you
think it might be, as your sending your man to Mexico shows--isn’t it
possible that Campe doesn’t know what it is?”
But the crime specialist shook his head.
“No,” said he. “If this were so, he would not hesitate to call in the
police.”
“That’s true,” said Bat. “It never occurred to me.”
“Your crippled man, in his chair on the hilltop, watching the moon on
the towers of Schwartzberg, is a pleasing thought,” said Ashton-Kirk.
The keen, complete form which he gave every word showed intense
interest. “He smiled, you say, and closed his eyes?”
“And a couple of times he laughed,” answered Scanlon.
“The hill is northwest of the castle, is it?”
“Almost exactly, as far as I can make out.”
“And Miss Knowles stood in a window facing in that direction?”
“Yes.”
“A little while before she had expressed, by certain mannerisms, an odd
sort of interest in that particular point of the compass?”
“That was plain enough,” stated Bat. “Anybody who was there could see
it.”
“It looks,” and again the vacant blue glasses fixed themselves upon Mr.
Scanlon, “it looks quite a bit like something pre-arranged. A signal,
perhaps.”
But Scanlon shook his head.
“No,” said he. “The hill is too far away. And another thing: moonlight,
no matter how bright, is uncertain. You can’t be dead sure of getting
an eye full of anything.”
Ashton-Kirk nodded; the blue glasses looked rounder and more vacant
than before. But there was a deep wrinkle at the top of the nose
between them which told Scanlon that the detective had marked the
incident well.
“It means something,” the big man told himself. “And he’ll hit on it
before he’s through. But _what_ it means and how he’s going to work on
it is too much for me.”
After a little Ashton-Kirk arose.
“Stay here,” said he. “I’ll not be more than a few minutes.”
But he was gone a good half hour, and in that time Bat could see him
prowling up and down along the river bank, the blue glasses off and
the magnifying lens in his hands. The rocks in particular seemed to
interest him; and when he returned he carried a bit of one in his hand.
“Soft, and almost crying its age aloud,” said he. “I know of no region
of such little interest to a geologist.”
He stood for a space, the long yellow fingers crumbling the surface of
the soft stone; then he said:
“The recent activity around here seems to prove one thing to me; and
that is that Campe’s enemies have made up their minds to end what might
very well be called the siege of Schwartzberg.”
“Right,” said Mr. Scanlon. “They are pushing the job to its finish. And
I can tell you why. The girl has tipped them off that you are here, and
has handed them your record. They mean to rush the fight from now on,
afraid that you’re coming back.”
“As you are not quite sure as to the people inside the castle,” said
the detective, “I will recommend that you keep even a keener watch than
before. But do so in such a way as not to attract attention. Especially
watch for small events; they are more apt to be of value to us than
showier ones; people as a rule are guarded as to the big things, while
the small ones are gone through often with no care.”
“When do you hope to hear from Fuller?” asked Scanlon.
“It will take the greater part of a week for him to reach the place
of operation, and with the best of luck two days will be taken up in
gathering the facts I want.”
“A lot of things may happen in that time,” remarked the big man. “It
might be that before you get his report we’ll meet the rush of the
invalid corps in such a way that we’ll put them down for the count.”
Ashton-Kirk made no reply; the big man waited for a moment or two; the
vacant blue glasses were fixed upon a point some little distance away.
Scanlon turned and looked in the same direction.
“Hello!” said he, in a low tone. “Who’s that?”
A man walked along the river bank, his head bent, his eyes upon the
ground. But as the two looked the head lifted and he saw them. He
started and stiffened suddenly. Then his hand went up in a salute, and
he moved toward them.
It was the German sergeant-major, Kretz.
CHAPTER XV
TELLS HOW AMAZEMENT FILLED THE MIND OF MR. SCANLON
There was something in the manner of Kretz as he approached that drew
Bat Scanlon’s attention.
“I should say that he was somewhat peevish,” said the big man to
Ashton-Kirk. “But why I can’t say.”
Indeed, the face of the German was grimmer than ever; his small grey
eyes looked from under their thick, overhanging brows in a way that
showed open hostility.
“Hello!” said Scanlon. “Having a little exercise?”
But the man ignored this.
“Who is this?” asked he, and his angry eyes were fixed upon Ashton-Kirk.
“A friend of mine,” replied Bat. “He’s stopping over at the inn. Only
had the pleasure of meeting him this morning, but I will say for him
that he has one of the most picturesque livers in captivity.”
The German only looked grim.
“This,” said he, “is private property.”
“My name is Flood,” said Ashton-Kirk, huskily. “And I am sorry to
trespass.”
“When you reach the edge of our domain in going back, be sure to wipe
your shoes,” admonished Scanlon. “We wouldn’t care to have you take any
of it away with you.”
The man with a yellow face smiled.
“Well, good-day, Mr. Scanlon,” said he. “I think I’ll make my way back
to the inn. You have been very kind.”
“Not at all,” said Bat, with a wave of the hand. “Glad to do any little
thing I can for you at any time.”
The fictitious Mr. Flood, saffron-hued, blue-spectacled and
stiff-gaited, moved away, taking a path which soon hid him from view
behind the rising ground.
Kretz now turned to Scanlon.
“You,” said he, “are a friend of Mr. Campe’s. Good! I am but a servant.
Good! It is not my place to say what you must not do. Is it not so?”
“I think that statement would stand in most instances,” replied Bat.
“I have the excuse,” said Kretz. “Herr Campe is now like a man who is
sick. He can’t help himself. You have seen that. And so his people must
be his eyes and his ears. They must also,” and here the square-cut
face tightened more than ever, “be his tongue. They must speak when he
cannot.”
“I see,” said Bat. “And so you accordingly seized upon this occasion to
lift up your voice in his behalf.”
“You are a stranger here,” said the German, who did not seem to listen
to what Bat said, much less understand it. “You do not know some things
which are known to me.”
Bat blinked solemnly.
“It seems to me I’ve heard that, or something like it, before,” said
he. “But don’t take so much credit for your exclusive information. You
might not have it as safely cornered as you think.”
“The tramps----” began Kretz, but the big man stopped him impatiently.
“Tramps grandmothers!” said he bluntly. “Don’t go on with that kind of
thing. I’m not an infant in arms to be fed with a bottle. If you have
no real out-in-the-open talk on this subject, keep quiet about it. I
passed the point where the tramps were long ago.”
Kretz stood, with frowning brows, looking at the other. Then his right
hand went up in a salute.
“Excuse!” said he.
He regarded Bat for still another moment; then he came a step nearer.
“You have known Herr Campe for a long time?”
“Quite a while.”
“Before you come he spoke much of you,” said the German. “He asked me
what I thought of sending for you. I said,” candidly, the hand lifting
to another salute, “not to do it.”
“Why?”
“I was not sure. It was a time when a man could _not_ be sure. All
strangers were dangerous.”
“But I was a stranger to you only. Didn’t you give Mr. Campe any credit
for judgment, or knowledge of people?”
“Herr Campe,” said Kretz, “as I have said, is like a man who is sick.
He does not know who his friends are. That, sir, was plain to me
when----” But he stopped shortly at this, his jaws snapping as though
to shut in any words which might complete the sentence. Then, after a
moment, he said: “You will be careful of the strangers?”
Bat nodded.
“Excuse,” said the man, and with another salute he turned and went on
his way along the river.
Scanlon returned to the castle and was admitted, much to his surprise,
by Miss Knowles.
“You must have gone a great way to-day,” she said, with a smile which
showed her beautiful teeth.
“Quite a bit of a stride,” acknowledged the big man. “But then it’s a
bracing morning, and a fellow should put such days to good use.”
“Kretz seems to think the same,” said she. “He asked leave to go, and I
promised to keep the gate. But,” and her head shook slowly, “he didn’t
cross the hills, as you did; he seemed to prefer to take the path along
the river.”
“That so?” said Bat. And, mentally, he added: “Oh, golden Helen, what
makes you always speak in double meanings? This is the first time I’ve
seen you to-day, and you are at it already.”
“But then Kretz has shown a preference for the river of late,” the girl
went on. “I’ve noticed that he likes to stand upon the wall overlooking
it.”
“Every man to his own fancy,” spoke Mr. Scanlon.
“It may be that it has reminded him of some stream he knew at home in
Germany. The banks are rather picturesque, don’t you think? At places
they are really wonderful!”
The big man rolled himself a cigarette and considered. The river bank,
eh? What was all this talk about it--this talk, and other things? He
had noticed when he first came to Schwartzberg that the river had a
bank; as a matter of fact, it had two of them. But that’s all it, or
they, had been--just bank, or banks.
“However,” his thought continued, as he proceeded with his cigarette,
“lately the thing’s been getting a whole raft of little attentions.
Last night I heard a fellow fall off of it; this morning it attracted
Ashton-Kirk greatly. The German, so it seems, likes little walks along
and little observations of it from the wall. And, last, the golden one
is at great pains to put me up in the facts as she sees them. ‘The
river bank,’ says she, as plain as day. ‘Take a good, long, sweeping
look at the river bank. And, once seen, do not forget.’”
“I suppose, though,” said the girl, “to one who has, like you, Mr.
Scanlon, spent a great deal of his life in the wild places, a tame
little river like this has no charm.”
Bat lit the cigarette and smoked peacefully.
“As you say, the river is tame,” said he. “It has a way of slipping by
without forcing your notice; and in these days a river, like anything
else, if it wants attention, must speak out good and loud. But though
I never have been keen on bashful rivers, still river banks, of any
denomination whatsoever, have always been a strong point with me.”
The girl’s eyes as she gazed at him were half smiling, half wondering.
She said:
“One can never be altogether sure of what you mean.”
Bat nodded, sorrowfully
“Too bad, isn’t it?” remarked he. “When a fellow’s exposed to a thing
like that, he’s sure to catch it.”
Here there was the sound of wheels without; a bell, evidently in
the kitchen, rang loudly. Miss Knowles and Scanlon were still in the
courtyard when Mrs. Kretz made her appearance in answer. While the
woman was opening the gate the girl said:
“Your friend, Mr. Ashton-Kirk, did not arrive last night, after all?”
“No,” replied Bat. “But then, as I said, you never know when to expect
him. He’s one of those fellows who have their own ideas about things.”
The opened gate showed a waggon outside, one which Scanlon had noticed
more than once before. A package was handed to Mrs. Kretz, who at once
came in and relocked the gate.
Miss Knowles held out her hand as though to take the package. There was
a sweet smile upon her face, but in the movement there was a swiftness,
an eagerness which Scanlon could not help but notice.
“Not for me!” she said.
“No,” replied the woman, sullenly.
“For Miss Hohenlo, then. Give it to me. I will take it to her.”
Reluctantly Mrs. Kretz handed her the parcel, and the girl, with a
smile and a nod to Scanlon, crossed the courtyard and disappeared.
The woman fumbled at the bolts of the gate for a few moments; it was
plain to Bat that she desired to say something but was at a loss as to
how to begin.
“You don’t care to have any of your work taken off your hands, I see,”
said he.
The woman shook her head; her heavy face still wore the sullen look.
“Always,” she said, “she does that.”
“Well,” asked Bat, “what of it? I don’t see much in her carrying a
small package upstairs. It’ll not tire her.”
Mrs. Kretz folded her strong, thick-fingered hands in her apron, and
again she shook her head in a stubborn sort of way.
“It is not that,” she said. “It is not what you see. It is never what
you see in Schwartzberg, but always something else.”
“Agreed,” said Mr. Scanlon. “That’s exactly how I feel about it myself.
But,” and he looked at her with the interest of a prospector who is
about to turn over some fresh soil, “just what is the idea this time?”
“Always,” said Mrs. Kretz, “when a parcel comes by the waggon, she is
here to see. Never once does she let me take it in myself. And never
once does she take it where it belongs until she has looked inside.”
“Ah!” said Scanlon. “I see.”
“More than once I have watched,” said the woman. “It is not my place,
but I want to keep trouble from the house. Hours she will spend looking
and searching. Then she will tie the bundle up as it was, and take it
to whomever it is for.”
Bat considered this for a space.
“The mail now, does she do the same with that?”
“Sometimes,” replied the woman, “when it is a package.”
“Oh,” said Scanlon. “When it’s a package, eh? Never when it is anything
else?”
“No.”
Once more Mr. Scanlon considered.
“That looks,” said he, “as if Miss Knowles were interested in the
coming of something of some little bulk.” He stroked his shaven jaw and
looked at the woman. “Now I wonder what it is she’s looking for?”
The woman returned the look, and again Scanlon saw she desired to say
something, but did not know how to begin.
“What is it?” he asked. “If you’ve got any suggestions to make, don’t
be backward.”
“If you would see her searching and looking,” said the woman, “there is
a window near the stable. She always locks herself in that room.”
Mrs. Kretz then returned to her kitchen, and Scanlon leaned with his
back against the wall and pondered. That he might the better do this,
he took out his tobacco pouch and the little sheaf of papers; then he
carefully shaped another cigarette. With the pale smoke hovering about
him, he turned the question over carefully.
“It stands like this,” he told himself. “Something is doing that
threatens to knock out a friend of mine. Said friend asks me to give
him help. This I do. In the process of helping I run smack into the
fact that the girl he’s in love with is on the cross. She stands in
with the parties who are trying to get him. Mixed up in her efforts in
his direction is a desire to see what’s inside all the packages which
come to the house. I have a chance, maybe, to find our what the reason
is--by peeping in at a window. Question before the committee on morals:
Is it permissible to peep under such circumstances?”
Evidently the said committee went into session at once, and a great
cloud of smoke arose above its meeting place. Mr. Scanlon, after a
space, threw the cigarette away with decision.
“As it’s a case of out and out crookedness, the thing can be done
without sacrifice to the finer feelings. Therefore I’ll go and take a
peep at the lady with the package.”
So down the courtyard went Mr. Scanlon; at the near end of the stable
was a grated window some dozen feet from the ground; a ladder stood
under it.
“The Frau Kretz, I suppose, got up this way,” said Bat. “Therefore, so
shall I.”
Peering in through the grating he saw that the room was the one the
servants used for storage. At a table stood Miss Knowles, and the
parcel, opened, lay before her.
The room was a dark one, but the girl had lighted a large swinging lamp
and the rays fell downward upon the table.
The observant eyes of Mr. Scanlon went all about the place; nothing in
the room was missed.
“For you see,” mused he, “a fellow, in a case like this, never knows
just what belongs to the game being played, and what doesn’t.”
It was a high ceilinged room, narrow, but long; shelves were upon two
sides of it, shelves loaded with packets and jars and labeled boxes.
“How many of them are in on this business of the packet?” was Bat’s
mental query. “They all look innocent enough, of course; they seem to
be simple things having to do with the kitchen and the preparation of
meals. But are they what they seem to be? Or are they like a good many
things about this house--putting up an innocent front, but, in reality,
working as something else.”
The big man had come to a mental state in which he took nothing for
granted. His stay at Schwartzberg had been one which shook his
confidence in his own judgment; there was nothing his senses told him
that he could accept without investigation.
“The good old days when a fellow could take a glance at a thing, and
then pass it on, are gone by,” he’d sadly told himself more than once.
“And they may never come again.”
The parcel contained papers, small rolls, each tied with a tape.
Carefully the girl undid the fastenings of one of these; slowly the
sheets were unrolled and separated. Then, one at a time, they passed
under the eye of Miss Knowles; one at a time they were laid aside; and
when the little packet was examined, it was re-rolled and tied with
the tape once more. Profound was the amazement of Mr. Scanlon, perched
upon the ladder outside; he felt almost like rubbing his eyes: he could
scarcely believe his senses. For each sheet of the paper was absolutely
blank.
Another and still another of the rolls was gone over in a like manner;
each blank sheet was studied; each little packet was faithfully
re-tied; and when all were done, the girl stood looking down at them
thoughtfully. The yellow lamp-light glinted in her hair; her smooth
skin looked inexpressibly fair; the pink in her cheeks was like the
softly-sunned side of a peach. For a long time she stood without
moving; then she assembled the rolls of blank paper and carefully
wrapped them as they had been when she received them from Mrs. Kretz.
After this she turned off the light, and with the package in her hand
she left the room.
Mr. Scanlon stepped down from the ladder, his face a study. Walking the
length of the courtyard, his hands in his pockets, his cheeks puffed
out like small balloons, he fell once more to pondering. But evidently
his cogitations did not bring any enlightenment, for after a while he
removed his hands from his pockets and elevated them above his head.
“I’m done,” stated he. “I am completely and absolutely beat. Every
minute I spend in this place puts it up to me more and more plainly
that I was never meant for anything but elementary purposes. After this
I will gaze and not even try to think. I will record like the camera
and the phonograph and leave the developing for a professional. I could
stand this stuff about the northwest and also the play of the sick man
in the moonlight. But when it comes to otherwise competent young ladies
displaying intense interest in sheets of blank paper, I’m done!”
And once again Mr. Scanlon had recourse to his tobacco pouch; once
again he rolled himself a comforting smoke; and once again he fell into
amazement after amazement regarding the things which were going on
about him.
CHAPTER XVI
SHOWS HOW THE GREAT SWORD WAS MISSED FROM THE WALL
The day passed slowly for Scanlon; he put in a few hours with the
newspapers, which were always brought to Schwartzberg about noon; then
he selected an armful of likely looking books and took them to his room.
But the adventures therein related were not to his taste. He was in no
humour for the accumulation of unexplained incident; what he wanted at
that particular time was clarity--a breeze which would blow through the
castle of intrigue and drive out the obscuring vapours.
“This fellow,” remarked he, turning the leaves of one of the books, “is
too much like myself. Here he starts out under a cloud; and as he goes
along, instead of getting rid of it, he adds to it. At page one hundred
he has a collection of clouds the like of which I never saw in a book
before. Then they proceed to break, and he has a fine little storm on
his hands, with thunder and lightning and wind. If it only cleared up
then, all right. But it doesn’t. The clouds still stick around; the
fellow never gets a chance to do anything, for he can’t see far enough
ahead.”
He threw the book upon the table and yawned. Then he proceeded to dress
for dinner.
Once more he was surprised to find that Miss Hohenlo would dine with
them.
“Really,” she declared, girlishly, “I seem to be in splendid spirits.
I haven’t been well enough to come down to dinner for ever so long
before last night. I don’t understand it. There must be something in
the air.”
“It is very possible,” spoke Miss Knowles, smilingly. “I think I have
detected it myself.”
While the two women talked, Campe engaged his guest in conversation.
“Kretz tells me that there was a stranger about the place to-day,” said
he, with an assumption of carelessness, but with a troubled look in his
eyes.
Scanlon nodded easily.
“A sick fellow,” said he. “From the inn over yonder. Something of a
botanist, I think. He said he was looking for specimens.”
“Botanists don’t usually select November as a time for their work,”
observed Campe. “That was a subterfuge, and that he thought it
necessary to use one shows his intentions to be at least open to
question.”
Bat acknowledged this with a nod.
“Only a few of us ever lie without a reason,” said he.
Miss Hohenlo, who had turned to listen, gesticulated admiringly and in
such a way that her small white hands were well displayed.
“You have such a delightfully straightforward way with you, Mr.
Scanlon,” she said. “I think it’s so refreshing. I suppose it comes of
living so long in the West among people who have none of the subtleties
of over-civilization, and among the grand wild scenery.”
“Maybe,” said Bat, “or it might be something else. You can’t always
put the brand on a straightforward talker, and his reasons for being
such, any more than you can on a botanist who picks the wrong time of
the year to carry on his researches. I knew a fellow named Cameron
once who kept the ‘Deuce High’ at Cripple Creek, and was the most civil
fellow I ever met. His next best thing was straightforward talk, and he
used to reel it off by the mile. Everybody took it in until one night,
in the middle of a speech, somebody caught him slipping cards from the
bottom of the pack. After that they sort of lost confidence.”
“Such a wild, reckless life,” sighed Miss Hohenlo, her pretty hands
before her face, as though to shut it out. “And yet,” with an air, “I
could almost wish I were a man so that I might take part in it.”
“You don’t have to be a man to do a little thing like that,” said
Scanlon. He addressed Miss Hohenlo, but as he spoke his eyes were upon
Miss Knowles. “Some women run a dead heat with the speediest of men.”
“Oh, not really!” exclaimed the spinster. “You can’t mean it.”
“It’s been my experience,” said Bat, “that the ladies are not a bit
different from men in their undertakings. They just go about it
differently.”
Miss Knowles laughed a little.
“I’m not quite sure whether you are complimenting us or no,” said she.
“But I don’t agree with you at any rate. No woman, for instance, could
have done what you did last night.”
Bat shook his head.
“She could,” stated he. “What is there to walking quietly down a dark
hall? Don’t you think a woman would have the nerve to do that?”
Calmly he studied the beautiful face before him, and he saw a deeper
tint creep into the pink of her cheeks.
“Oh, perhaps that,” said she.
“And more,” insisted Bat. “Much more. What did I do but hold a quiet
conversation with the burglar as he went about his work. Is that too
much for a woman to do? I’ll venture that one of them has talked just
as quietly with a housebreaker, and almost under the same conditions,
before now.”
The blue eyes of Miss Knowles fixed themselves upon him in a wide open
stare. There was a smile upon her lips, but in the eyes he could see
something else--something very like fear.
Campe, as was usual with him, had grown absent-minded, and brooding;
apparently his mind was filled with suspicions as to the purpose of the
supposed prowler of the morning; at any rate he took no part in the
conversation; indeed, he did not seem to hear it.
It was the voice of Miss Hohenlo which broke the silence.
“My dear Grace,” said she, “you look frightened. You are really growing
nervy. And once I thought you were, as you look, a Brunhilde.” She
leaned toward the girl, looking at her curiously. “And the mere idea of
a woman engaging in such an adventure has frightened you.”
Miss Knowles shook her golden head and laughed. Her blue eyes were
filled with amusement and the fear had vanished.
“I was trying to imagine myself in such a position. And I think the
result was too vivid.”
But Mr. Scanlon seemed doubtful.
“I don’t think it was that,” spoke he, confidently. “It must have been
something else. You’d go through such an adventure and never wink an
eye.”
Miss Hohenlo clasped her hands with delicate satisfaction.
“Oh, Mr. Scanlon,” said she, “I’m delighted that you won’t permit Grace
to think meanly of herself. For, when you’ve come to know her as I do,
she is really a wonderful person.” Here the eyes of the two women met
in a look so rapid that Scanlon was unable to interpret it. “You are
quite right. I have the greatest faith in her courage, and what I said
a few moments ago in doubt of it was merely a jest. Grace, you know,
would really dare anything.”
“Oh, please, Miss Hohenlo,” said the girl, in protest.
“You would, my dear; you know you would. It would only require,” and
here the faded eyes went from the beautiful face of Miss Knowles to the
attentive one of Mr. Scanlon, “it would only require the necessity. Let
that be sufficient,” said Miss Hohenlo, nodding quite positively, “and
Grace would be equal to anything.”
“I wish,” said the girl, “what you say were true. For there are many
such occasions,” and she smiled at Scanlon, “which arise and demand to
be met. And I’m afraid I don’t do the work very well.”
After this Scanlon fell into a silence, not an absent one such as Campe
seemed plunged in, but alert and observant. When appealed to he replied
briefly, but he did not lose a word or miss an expression of either
face.
“Here,” said he, mentally, “is where I break my new-made resolution.
For the time being I am not a non-reasoning recorder. I must reason,
or I’ll sink. And as something seems on the move between the ladies, I
don’t want to do that.”
“You would do anything well, my dear Grace.” Here Miss Hohenlo’s white
hand smoothed her faded hair. “Anything in the world. But being clever
and ingenious and persistent, I am sorry to say, does not always bring
success. And if you have failed in any of your undertakings it is this,
and not yourself, that is to blame.”
“I wish I could think so,” said the girl. “Perhaps I would then have
the energy to go on.”
“Energy!” Miss Hohenlo laughed gently. “Oh, Grace, as if you could ever
lack that--you who are energy itself. Mr. Scanlon, please speak to her
again; she will insist upon doing herself these little injustices.”
The tones of the two women were mild, their looks were kind, their
words were inconsequent; and yet underneath all these things the big
man seemed to detect a rapid play of meaning.
“It’s there,” said he, to himself, “but, as usual, I am not getting it.
However, one thing is plain--the elderly lady is on top of the younger
one; and if it is at all possible, I’m going to find out how it is
before the night is done.”
In this purpose events seemed to favour Scanlon. Miss Knowles proposed
a game of billiards with Campe after dinner, and as Miss Hohenlo
declined, Bat declined also; and so he was left alone with her in the
great room where the tapestries hung.
The spinster caressed the strings of the gilt harp gently; Bat lounged
in a deep chair and talked to her.
“Have you lived in this country very long?” he asked her, finally.
“Only two years,” said she.
Bat expressed his astonishment.
“But you speak the language so well,” he said.
She laughed, and the harp murmured under her touch.
“You are thinking of my having lived in Mexico, or in Germany, before
that,” she said. “Well, I have. But, you see, I was educated in England
and the United States.”
“Oh, yes,” said the big man; “that accounts for it then.” He watched
her for a little and listened to the soft sounds she drew from the
strings. “But Miss Knowles,” he said, “she speaks the language very
well also.”
“She should,” replied Miss Hohenlo calmly, “seeing that she is
American.”
“No,” said Bat, apparently much amazed. “I was sure she was German.”
Miss Hohenlo laughed quietly.
“It is very easy for Grace to create impressions,” she said. “She has
talent in that direction.”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she had a lot of it,” agreed Mr.
Scanlon. “But it was the yellow hair and so on, I guess, that made me
think her a German.”
“She dresses to conform with the background,” said Miss Hohenlo gently.
“Dear Grace, she is such a beauty. The braids of yellow hair and the
strength of her outline go very well with a place like Schwartzberg.”
“You’ve been together a long time,” said Mr. Scanlon, “and you think a
lot of her, I know.”
“She’s been with me since Frederic’s father died,” said Miss Hohenlo.
“She was the daughter of a friend and business partner. I am very fond
of her.”
“I think,” said Mr. Scanlon, carefully, “your nephew is, also.”
“Frederic!” Miss Hohenlo struck the strings and they reverberated
thrillingly. “He loves her.”
“I had supposed something like that was the case,” admitted Bat. “He
never said anything, you know, but a fellow can usually size up these
matters.” There was a pause during which the harp spoke murmuringly,
and Bat kept the time upon the arms of his chair with his fingers. “And
do you know, when I did finally size it up,” he added, “it gave me
quite a start.”
The beautiful hands left the strings and clasped themselves together;
Miss Hohenlo turned an incredulous face toward the speaker.
“Gave _you_ a start!” she said. “Oh, Mr. Scanlon, one can’t imagine
anything like that.”
“Well,” said Bat, “maybe you wouldn’t think so, seeing I turn the
scales at about fourteen stone, and was brought up in the open. But
start I did on that occasion.”
“But why?” and the dull eyes of the spinster were full of wonder. “Why?”
“Your nephew,” said the big man, “is a friend of mine. And a fellow
never likes to see a friend venturing into a thing which might not be
right.”
Miss Hohenlo shook one pretty finger at him girlishly.
“Oh, you bachelors,” she said; “you have such a dread of marriage.”
“Nature always helps its own,” said Bat. “If it can’t provide you
with a courage to meet a thing, it supplies a fear which makes you
duck and in that way save yourself. But,” he frowned at a rug on the
floor before him, and stroked his chin, “it wasn’t of marriage I was
thinking.”
“No?”
“No,” said Bat, “it was the girl.”
His eyes were still on the rug, but for all that he caught the sudden
tenseness of her attitude.
“Grace!” she said, and there was a sharpness in her voice which was new
to him. “What do you mean?”
The big man studied the rug under his bent brows. He felt that the
situation, now that he had brought it to this point, was a delicate
one, and knew that he must be careful. Indeed, it was so exceedingly
delicate and required so much care that under other circumstances he
would not have ventured to tackle it. But he wanted to help Campe; his
curiosity was aroused, and he felt convinced that there was something
hostile between the two women. And so he launched himself upon waters
which might prove a mill pond or a whirlpool.
“Miss Knowles,” stated he, “is a good looker. She’s got a figure that
makes the best of them look like cripples, and I never want to see a
nicer smile. Along these lines she’s a winner, and I have nothing but
praise for her.”
“But,” said Miss Hohenlo, attentively, “along some others you feel that
you can _not_ praise her.”
Bat acknowledged this by a gesture.
“Not that I am very definite in the matter,” said he, “for I’m not. You
see----” but he stopped short as he was about to add something else,
and after looking into the dull, uninteresting face before him, he
said: “You’ve been here at Schwartzberg for some time, I suppose.”
“Since early summer. When Frederic wrote that he was here and meant to
stay for a time, I was overjoyed. You see, I love the memory of the old
count, my ancestor, and this place is so full of him.”
“Being given to staying indoors and to music and such,” said Bat,
“you’d not be likely to see as much or notice as many things as some
one who goes about more; but, for all that, you must have seen that
there’s something the matter here in Schwartzberg.”
Miss Hohenlo arose; leaving the harp, she walked to a window and stood
for a moment looking out into the darkness. When she turned, the dull
eyes were filled with tears; the small face was piteous with pleading.
All the affectation had vanished; her manner was simple and direct.
“Mr. Scanlon,” she said, “you are a friend of Frederic’s, and I am glad
of the chance to talk with you upon this subject. As you say, there is
something amiss in Schwartzberg; I’ve been aware of it for months. But
my nephew is unapproachable upon the subject; I am ashamed to say he
is more like a frightened child than a man whose life has been put in
danger.”
“Deep waters,” acknowledged Bat. “And they may even run deeper still.”
The beautiful hands went out in a despairing gesture at this.
“Oh, I hope not!” she exclaimed. “For his sake I hope not. And it’s a
torture to me to see him so.” She was silent for a moment, and then
went on: “I have given him every opportunity to confide in me, but
he will not. And so, Mr. Scanlon, I am like a stranger. Danger, even
death, perhaps, is hovering over the house, and I know nothing except
the little that comes to me by chance.”
“Since I’ve been here I’ve felt about the same way,” said Scanlon,
“though, of course, I haven’t so much reason as you.”
“I could not speak to Frederic, and I must not speak to the servants.
So,” said Miss Hohenlo, “there was left only--Grace.”
Again there came the pause, this time longer than before. Finally
Scanlon said:
“Well?”
She came nearer to him. Never had she looked plainer or more angular;
never had her eyes seemed duller or her hair with less life.
“But I could not speak to her. There was a something which stood
between us--perhaps the same feeling which you had--and it held me
back.” One of the delicate hands went out and rested on Scanlon’s
sleeve. “What is it?” she asked.
But the big man could only shake his head.
“At times,” said Miss Hohenlo, “she comes to me with the strangest
requests. They seem to be without meaning, and yet, somehow, I am
afraid of them.”
“Requests?”
“They seem silly,” said the spinster, a dazed look in the dull eyes.
“I’ve tried to give a meaning to them, but never could. For example,
she’ll often, of an evening, ask me to go to a window and pretend to be
interested in the direction of the wind. And she makes me promise not
to tell.”
“Jove!” said Mr. Scanlon.
“Then she has a way of jesting about my playing of the harp, and of
other things which seem to be odd in tone and in meaning. I’ve never
been able to understand them.”
Scanlon nodded; he could readily see this as the things had made the
same impression upon himself. Then, guardedly, he began to speak.
Little by little he told Miss Hohenlo of the numerous things which
had attracted his attention to Miss Knowles since his arrival at
Schwartzberg. And when he had done, she stood staring at him like a
small scared animal.
“It’s dreadful!” she said. “Who would ever have dreamed of such a
thing?”
From the courtyard there came a dull complaining sound.
“Hello,” said Scanlon, in surprise; “what’s that?”
“It’s the gate,” spoke Miss Hohenlo. “Some one is opening it.”
The night, though the month was November, was an exceedingly mild one,
and the windows were partly open. Through one of these they looked down
into the courtyard. Kretz was at the gate drawing the bolts, and beside
him stood Miss Knowles, a long, muffling wrap hanging to her feet.
“She is going out,” breathed Miss Hohenlo.
The big gate creaked open, and for a moment the girl and the grim-faced
German spoke in low tones. He seemed expostulating, but she appeared to
brush his words aside as being of no consequence. Suddenly their talk
ceased. Campe appeared, a cap upon his head, a stick in his hand.
“Frederic!” Miss Hohenlo was amazed. “He, too, is going!”
The gate swung to behind them, and the sergeant-major shot the bolts.
“The last night those two were out there among the hills,” said
Scanlon, “he was slashed--and maybe with the sword which she had taken
out of this room.”
At this a cry came from the woman.
“Look!” she gasped, and pointed toward the narrow strip of tapestry
between the windows, the place where the great sword usually hung.
“By Jingo!” cried Scanlon. “It’s gone!”
CHAPTER XVII
SPEAKS OF A HARP WHICH WAS PLAYED IN SILENCE
There hung the long strip of tapestry between the two windows, but the
huge naked blade which usually rested against it was missing. For a
moment or two Scanlon could not take his eyes from the spot; he was
fascinated by the possibilities of the discovery.
“Where can it be?” asked Miss Hohenlo. “What could it have been taken
for?”
Bat took his eyes from the place where the sword had hung, and they
fixed themselves upon the speaker.
“Under the circumstances,” said he, “and in the face of what I’ve just
told you, can’t you imagine what it _might_ have been taken for?”
She put her hands before her face as if to shut out the idea.
“Oh, no!” she said, helplessly. “No! Surely not that!”
“Well,” said Scanlon, and he drew a deep breath as he said it, “maybe
not. But I’ve caught the notion so strongly that I don’t think I’ll
take a chance.”
“You mean----” and she looked at him fearfully.
“I’m going to find out whatever is fixed to take place. And, if you’ll
excuse me, I’m going to do it now.”
Swiftly the big man left the room and lightly he ran down the stairs.
“The gate!” said he to Kretz, who stood in the courtyard. “Open it!”
The man stood looking at him, a curious expression upon his face; for a
moment it seemed to Scanlon that he was about to refuse.
“Quick!” said Scanlon. All the suspicions that he’d had of the German
since coming to Schwartzberg were brought to a head in an instant. His
strong jaw grew rigid and his tone was almost menacing.
The sergeant-major threw the bolts and turned the keys sullenly. As the
gate opened, Scanlon passed out.
The big man looked about. The moon lurked behind the heavy mass of
clouds which covered the sky, but some of its radiance trickled through
and made things visible in a dim sort of way. Along the path leading
west from the castle he detected a movement, and at once he set out in
that direction.
“I’ve heard of something like this once or twice before,” murmured he.
“Decoys have been used since men began to find it was surer to hit when
the punch wasn’t expected. Though,” and he shoved out his chin, “I
can’t say the facts make her that sort of a decoy. If there’s a blow to
be struck, it seems to me, she’ll strike it herself.”
Scanlon’s stride was long and quiet; the path was of well-beaten earth
and free of stones, so he stepped out freely without fear of detection.
Finally he began to make out the figures ahead of him.
“There they are,” said he, “and going along very contentedly.” He put a
hand to each side of his mouth and lifted his voice. “Hello!” he called.
Young Campe wheeled like a flash, his hand going to his hip.
“All right,” said Scanlon. “You needn’t trouble about that.”
He approached hastily, his hands upraised.
“Bat!” said Campe, in surprise.
“We hadn’t expected you, Mr. Scanlon,” spoke Miss Knowles, sweetly.
“No, I suppose not,” said the big man, and his tone was dry. “I just
thought I’d take a stretch along the path.”
“It’s such a splendid night for that,” said Miss Knowles.
“Not too bright,” exclaimed Campe. “A fellow doesn’t make such a target
as he would on a moonlit night. And yet with plenty of light to see by.”
“Moonlight has its disadvantages, of course,” admitted Mr. Scanlon.
“And with matters as they now seem to be, you can’t do better than take
everything into account.”
The girl and the young man went along on the path, and doggedly Scanlon
followed.
“It always pays,” he continued, “not to slip anything when it comes to
a calculation. Doing that has cost many a man his life--and even more.
I recall one time out in the Black Hills country--but,” inquiringly,
“Maybe you don’t care to hear about that just now.”
“Oh, yes, please,” said Miss Knowles.
“I was riding with Captain Marsh’s troop in chase of some Sioux who’d
raided a little place called ‘Soldier Hat.’ They’d taken all the
fire-water they could lug--this, like as not, being the principal
object of the raid--and then headed for a camp they had among the
rocks. We got word six hours later, and made good time after them.”
“In the night?” asked Miss Knowles.
“It was night when we pulled up about half a mile from their camp.
Marsh wanted to see just how things lay for a rush on them; he
didn’t ask any of his men to go, but went himself. He’d reckoned
on everything, so he thought, but when he’d crept within fifty
feet of where the Sioux lay asleep something began to strike the
stones--chink--chank--chink--chank!”
“His spurs,” said Miss Knowles.
“He’d remembered his spurs, and taken them off. But his sword had
slipped and began to trail; before he could snatch it up the camp was
awake, and in two minutes the reds were off. The one thing he hadn’t
taken into his calculations,” said the big man, slowly, “was the sword.
And that’s what gave him away.”
“Oh, what a pity,” said the girl. She turned her head and looked over
her shoulder at Scanlon as she spoke; it was too shadowy to catch the
expression in her face, but in her voice was that little break which is
apt to appear when one’s breath is short and quickly taken. “Success
meant so much to him, too, I suppose.”
“He’d had his chance and missed it,” said Bat. “And,” shaking his head,
“who’d ever have thought of such a thing as that giving him away?”
The girl drew the long muffling wrap about her carefully; she shivered
a little.
“I had no idea it would be so cold,” she said.
“Perhaps we’d better return,” said Campe, solicitously.
“If you don’t mind,” she said. “I’m really chilled.”
The big man smiled satirically through the gloom as he trailed along
behind, but now in the direction of the castle.
“She’s pretty clever,” he thought, “and got plenty of nerve, but it
takes long experience in any game to stand up under the unexpected
little shock. That’s the thing that usually gets them when they’re off
their balance, and spills the beans all over the place.”
Kretz seemed surprised when he opened the gate for them; his eyes
sought out those of the girl, but she passed into the house quickly.
“You did not stay,” said the sergeant-major to Campe.
“No; it was not so pleasant as it seemed.”
Kretz shook his head and muttered something, and Scanlon felt his eyes
still upon them as they entered the narrow doorway.
Miss Knowles had gone on up the stairs; they could hear her feet
pat-patting quickly on the stones. Campe seemed about to follow when
Scanlon said:
“If you are not doing anything particular for the next half hour, I’d
like to speak to you.”
“Certainly,” said Campe.
They entered the big room hung with the heads of boars and stags and
the trophies of arms.
“I am going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle,” remarked Mr. Scanlon,
calmly, as he stood beside one of the massive oaken tables. “Sit down,
light a pipe, and listen.”
From a shelf he took a stone jar and a brace of pipes, with bowls of
baked clay and long reed stems. The pipes were filled with tobacco from
the jar and lighted; then they sat down at the table facing each other.
Campe smoked quietly, tilted back in his chair, his eyes upon the
floor. Scanlon examined him keenly, with the manner of a man who had
something of a job before him, and meant to go about it as carefully as
he could.
“It was pretty close to three weeks ago that I first came here,” said
he. “And in those three weeks I’ve had a sort of miscellaneous time.”
“I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself,” spoke Campe. “I’m afraid I’ve been
rather lacking in many ways, but things are in such shape with me just
now that----”
Here Bat stopped him with a wave of the hand.
“The shape that things are in with you just now,” said the big man,
“is what this talk is going to be about. You couldn’t have brought the
thing forward at a better moment.”
Campe’s fingers tapped nervously upon the edge of the table; Scanlon
blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling and watched it curl and shift
formlessly.
“You’ve never told me why you asked me here,” said the big man. “And
I never asked. But just the same I dropped to the facts in the first
couple of days.”
Campe placed his pipe upon the table, and stared at the speaker with
frightened eyes.
“Do you mean----” he began.
“No,” said Bat, interrupting him, “I _don’t_ mean that. What the inside
of this affair of yours is--the real reason for it all--I don’t know.
But in the outside I am pretty well informed. You are cooped up here
with enemies all about you. Now at a single glance, a fellow wouldn’t
say they were a very dangerous lot; but,” wrinkling his forehead, “I’ve
seen them work a little, and I’ll say for them that they’ve got stuff I
can’t hit; and from all appearances, it’s the same way with you.”
Here Scanlon paused and took a few pulls at the pipe to assure himself
that the tobacco was still burning. Campe said nothing during the
silence, and the big man took occasion to go on.
“As you never volunteered anything,” said he, “I didn’t think it was my
place to ask questions. So I’ve watched the thing move along, and all
the time it got tighter and tighter, and sharper and sharper; and now,
to-night, I feel that I can’t draw another full breath until I tell you
what I think, and what you ought to do.”
“Well?” said Campe.
“In a civilized community,” said Scanlon, “the first thing a man does,
when pestered as you’re being, is to call in the police. That you’ve
kept so close, both with me and the police, shows that you’ve got a
secret on your hands--something that you’re not anxious to spread
around.”
“Well?” asked the young man once more.
“I’m not trying to pry into your affairs,” spoke Scanlon. “I don’t want
to know the object of the parties at the inn. And I’m not advising
you to consult the police, if you think you ought not to do so. But
what I am wanting you to do is to carry your idea regarding me a step
further.”
“I hardly think I understand you,” said the other, looking at Scanlon
searchingly.
“You will in a minute,” spoke the big man. “I was called in to help,
wasn’t I? Good! But, willing and all as I was, I wasn’t the right
party. I can handle small matters that are set down plainly for the eye
to see, but what you really want is a man that’s capable of putting the
hook into those that the eye can’t see, and one, at the same time, not
having anything to do with the police.”
Campe smiled faintly.
“That is an ideal combination,” said he. “But where is such a person to
be found?”
“I think,” said Scanlon, “that I could provide such a one if you feel
inclined to talk to him--a fellow who is naturally put together for
getting to the bottom of things. I’ve seen him do one or two stunts
since I’ve known him that were fancy bits of reasoning, and I’ve been
told of some others that made my eyebrows curl.”
There was a silence of some duration. The young man took up the pipe
once more and relighted it. Finally he spoke.
“There is no use in my attempting to deny the situation here at
Schwartzberg,” said he, slowly. “I had hoped to keep it hidden, but
the last few days have shown me that such a thing is impossible. Your
judgment that the thing behind it all is one which I hesitate to make
public is correct. At first I wanted to fight it out--alone, but I see
that this, also, cannot be done.”
He leaned toward Scanlon, his hands upon the edge of the table,
desperation in his eyes.
“I need help,” he said. “I need it perhaps as badly as it was ever
needed before. For not only is my life in danger, but my sanity as
well.”
“Tut! tut!” said the big man. “Hold tight! We’ll get you out of this
with everything standing.”
“That there is some one whom you know--a private person--who has
shown cleverness in entanglements brought to his notice is, perhaps,
fortunate.” The young man looked at Scanlon, his face twitching
nervously. “But I’ll have to give the matter some consideration. I am
not sure that I can take any one into my confidence without doing an
injustice.”
He got up and stood for some time troubled of face and with the
pinched, hollow look which Scanlon had watched since coming to the
castle. Then he said, simply:
“I think I’m tired, now Bat, and I’ll go to bed. Somehow,” and his
smile was wan and a little piteous, “I don’t seem as able as I was a
short time ago. This thing has taken some of the snap out of me.” He
shook the big man by the hand, adding, “Thanks, old man, for the way
you’ve taken this thing, and also for the offer regarding your friend.
I’ll turn him over in my mind for a little, and then I’ll tell you just
what I’ve concluded to do.”
After he had gone Bat sat at the oaken table and smoked. Three times he
refilled the pipe with the reed stem, and three times he knocked out
the ash. Then he also arose to his feet.
“I think he’s about ripe for a consultation with Kirk,” he told
himself. “And the quicker he makes up his mind to it, the better. For
this little game is getting so close that I’m beginning to feel it
pinch.”
He yawned widely and started for his room.
Now, after the way of most big outdoor men, Mr. Scanlon, in his moments
of relaxation, was not at all light footed. Neither was he naturally
given to stealthy ways. But since coming to Schwartzberg he had
acquired both.
“They have fallen upon me like a couple of garments,” he had
acknowledged to himself more than once. “And I’ve got to going around
as softly as a pair of gum shoes shot through a Maxim silencer.”
It was in the hall, not far from the head of the stairs, that he
had seen the soft man on the night before; this fact must have been
subconsciously active, for he now slowly lifted his head above the
level of the floor, his eyes, as he did so, glancing swiftly ahead.
Both the hall and the stairway were dim; and before his eye had caught
anything, his ear got a soft step and the gentle closing of a door.
“The golden Helen,” he said, a moment later, as he caught the outlines
of Miss Knowles. “What now, I wonder?”
With the light foot and the stealthy manner, Bat had acquired the habit
of suspicion. He had reached the state where every movement which
he did not understand was an occasion for inquiry; each unexplained
sound caused him to prick up his ears. Under ordinary circumstances
the gentle closing of the door and the quiet movements of Miss Knowles
would have passed unnoticed.
“But these are no ordinary times,” he told himself. “The golden one is
a very busy person, and so, when she goes pit-patting around, there’s
no harm in looking after her.”
The girl flitted down the hall, and Scanlon quietly followed. But in
the dusk he lost sight of her. Reaching the place where he had last
seen her, he stared around; but nothing but shadows met his eye.
“Gone into one of the rooms,” said he to himself. “But which, and why?”
As he could think of nothing to do in the matter, he was turning away;
but just then a thought struck him. At the next turn in the hall was
the staircase leading to the next floor.
“Suppose she has gone up there?” said he.
The floor above was not used by any of the members of the household,
though all the rooms were completely furnished and open. Why any one
should go up there Mr. Scanlon could not think.
“But,” reasoned he, “in Schwartzberg you can never tell. So I’ll climb
the stairs just for luck.”
He proceeded to do so, not neglecting his light step. The upper hall
was in complete darkness, save for what faint light the windows
admitted, and he stood at the head of the stairs, looking carefully up
and down. After a pause he started along the passage; half-way to its
end he stopped suddenly.
A dozen steps away was an alcove, about which were some partly drawn
hangings. These stirred gently as though moved by a breeze.
“A window is open,” said Scanlon, mentally. “And some one is sitting by
it.”
He remained motionless in the shadow and watched. Yes; some one was
there. A moment or two told him more.
“I’m sure those are the folds of a white gown,” he told himself. “The
golden Helen is in the alcove. But what’s the idea?”
Now Mr. Scanlon was quite sure of one thing. And that was that no one
would seek this unusual place and at such an hour without some purpose.
He fancied he caught a glint of a polished surface at those points
where the dim light caught it; then he became aware of a curious shape
which he could not altogether make out. Cautiously he shortened the
distance between himself and the alcove. And now he saw something else.
Between him and the patch of sky which showed through the window was a
series of perpendicular bars--very fine, and very close together. As he
followed these up and down he gradually began to sense the shape of the
other thing which had puzzled him. Then like a flash he got it all. The
thing was a harp--a gilt harp--upon which the faint light was glancing,
and the fine bars between him and the sky were its strings.
Motionless, Bat stood and looked. The harp! Well, and then what? Firmly
fixed in the back of his mind for some days was the idea that he’d hear
more of the harp before the matter in hand was done.
“And not in a musical way, either,” was his thought. “That instrument
means something else, and I’ll gamble that, when it comes out, it’ll be
something of interest.”
Again he stood watching. He had a feeling of movement behind the
hangings; to be sure the breeze stirred them now and then; but it was
not that.
“It’s the girl,” he said, mentally. “And she’s putting something over.
But what?”
Across the strings of the harp stole a shadowy hand. Bat listened for
a sound, but none came. Again came the hand, and still again, but no
sound followed.
“She’s playing,” he told himself. “Playing, and yet the strings are
silent.”
Amazed, he stood and watched the shadowy flitting, but the strings
were still mute. And then, somehow, there came to the watcher’s mind
the scene on the moonlit hilltop the night before when the invalid sat
mutely in his chair and gazed at Schwartzberg.
And with this Mr. Scanlon gave it up. As softly as he had come, just
so softly did he go; and when he reached his own room, he said,
bewilderedly:
“This is what comes of breaking a resolution! I said I’d not try
to reason out any more of these things, but I broke the vow and am
punished. But here, on this spot, I renew it. Come what will, or go
what may, I’m finished!”
And with that Mr. Scanlon went to bed.
CHAPTER XVIII
DEALS MAINLY WITH SOME NEWS FROM MEXICO
The next day at Schwartzberg was uneventful. Scanlon saw very little of
Campe, and nothing at all of either of the ladies. Kretz was silent and
in no way interesting.
Once, about the middle of the afternoon, Bat took a walk along the
river bank, but he saw nothing which caught his attention, and he did
not go far. The remainder of the day he lounged about, smoking and
reading. The day following was even more dull; except for a gallop in
the morning with Campe on a pair of well-conditioned horses, the time
was altogether unprofitable. Then two more days passed, one duller than
the other.
“Even some light reasoning would be welcome,” complained the big man,
“but there’s nothing new to reason about.”
Upon the fifth day, having seen nothing of the crime specialist,
Scanlon made up his mind to pay a casual visit to the inn.
“It may be,” said he, “that he’s just curling up for a sight of me. And
there may be important news to pass on.”
But he got no sight of the jaundiced man at the hostelry; indeed, there
was no one in view but the round bodied landlord, who laughed at Mr.
Scanlon’s jokes and was as affable as ever.
Bat tramped back to Schwartzberg in a thoughtful mood.
“A dead calm,” said he. “Complete and absolute. And not a sail in
sight. But,” with a lift of the eyebrows, “maybe it’s that thing I’ve
so often heard of--the calm before the storm.”
In the middle of the afternoon the bell at the gate rang, and a little
later Kretz came in with a telegram.
“For Mr. Scanlon,” said the German.
The big man tore open the envelope. As he expected, it was from
Ashton-Kirk, and read:
“‘See me in the city at nine o’clock to-night.’”
“Anything important?” asked Campe who was watching him.
“I’m called to the city,” replied Bat. He glanced at a time-table, and
added: “However, I’ll not leave until after dinner.”
“Back to-morrow?”
“More than likely.”
During the time that had passed since his talk with Scanlon as to
the danger which threatened him, Campe had not once recurred to the
subject. But that he bore it well in mind Scanlon was confident.
“He’s thinking it over,” the big man had concluded. “He’ll come to it
when he’s ready.”
But the telegram from the special detective was almost an assurance
that Fuller’s report had been received; and if this were so,
Ashton-Kirk would, in all probability, soon be ready to take some step,
no matter what Campe’s attitude.
At seven-thirty Scanlon entered a train, and an hour later he was in
the city; a taxi took him to Ashton-Kirk’s door, and Stumph showed him
at once to his friend’s study.
“How are you,” said Ashton-Kirk, as he shook Scanlon, smilingly, by the
hand, “and how did you leave every one at Schwartzberg?”
“I’m fine,” said Bat. “But there’s not much stirring at the castle.
After one mad outburst of enthusiasm, everything seems to have come to
a stand.”
The crime specialist nodded.
“The besieging army has not been very active, then,” said he. “I rather
expected that.”
“You’d know more about the folks at the inn than I would,” said Bat. “I
went over there yesterday for the first time in days. But no one was
around. When did you leave?”
“If I had taken the hints the landlord and help gave me,” said
Ashton-Kirk, grimly, “I’d have left the first day. I understand the
statement of the other hotel keeper very well now; you know he told me
that new guests never stayed long at the inn.”
“They didn’t want you, eh?” Scanlon chuckled. “Well, what could they
do with a perfect stranger around, and all of them up to their ears in
important private business?”
“But for once, anyhow, they failed,” said the special detective. “I
needed a certain length of time to collect what facts I was after, and
that time I was bound to stay. They did everything short to burn the
place about my ears, but I ignored their efforts and talked about my
liver. I got all the information I wanted by last night, and as Burgess
wired me that Fuller’s report had arrived, I left this morning.”
“I sort of thought you’d had word from Mexico,” said Bat. “But before
you tell me what it is, maybe I’d better unload my further experiences
as Schwartzberg.”
“Very well,” agreed the other, quietly.
Thereupon the big man proceeded to relate all that had befallen him
since seeing the crime specialist upon the river bank in the guise of
a jaundiced man. Ashton-Kirk listened with interest and with narrowed
eyes, and when the other had finished, he rose to his feet.
“One of the most curious things in all this business of investigation,”
said he, “is the way things have of falling together. At times this is
not only bizarre, but also astounding.”
“Miss Knowles seems to be a fairly industrious lady, doesn’t she?” said
Bat. “Early and late she’s on the job. I couldn’t get anything out of
the business with the harp, though I’m sure she has a pretty well fixed
purpose; but the little game of the sword was plain enough.”
The detective made no reply, but took a cigarette from a box upon the
table, lighted it and began pacing the floor.
“It’s not easy to believe that a woman with a face like Miss Knowles
could put together a little job like that, though,” said Scanlon, also
lighting a cigarette. “If I hadn’t seen the thing working itself out,
I wouldn’t have believed it. And it took some nerve, after she failed
once, to get him out there among the hills so that she could take
another swipe at him.”
Ashton-Kirk nodded and went on with his smoking and his pacing.
“But,” said Bat, inquiringly, “why the sword? If she is leagued with
these people to do away with Campe, why isn’t it enough to do it in the
readiest way? Why must it be done with the big blade from the tapestry
room?”
But the other’s mind seemed to be moving in another channel.
“This parcel,” said he, “which you saw delivered, and which Miss
Knowles at once took charge of--you are quite sure it contained only
blank paper?”
“I didn’t see it opened,” replied Bat. “But I saw it repacked, and
that’s all that went back into it.”
Ashton-Kirk smiled in a dreamy sort of way; the smoke wreathed above
his head and his eyes were half closed.
“Did you notice,” he asked, “how the package was wrapped?”
“Just heavy manilla paper,” said Bat, “and tied with a kind of a mixed
coloured string.”
The dreamy smile deepened; the face of Ashton-Kirk grew out of the
smoke wreaths like a nodding Buddha, so utterly peaceful was it.
“That’s very interesting,” said he, in a pleased tone. “This little
matter of yours shows more and more quality with every step.” He paced
up and down the floor, still smoking and still with the smile upon his
face. “And it was after the receipt of this parcel that the sword was
missed from its place upon the wall?”
“It was,” answered Bat, staring. “But look here! You seem to be
connecting these two things; for my part, I can’t see them even near to
each other.”
“To-morrow, perhaps,” said Ashton-Kirk, “we’ll take a few moments
to explain things. Just now, however, there is work to do of a more
serious nature.”
He went to a cabinet and opening a drawer took out some typed sheets.
“Fuller telegraphed his report in a private cipher,” said he, “and
this is the translation. He was rather fortunate in the matter, for
one of his first queries put him upon the track of exactly the people
he was after--those who knew young Campe’s father both privately and
as a business man, who were Americans and were willing to talk. Within
twenty-four hours he had these facts,” tapping the sheets, “on the
wire.”
He then read:
“‘The Campes in Mexico seem to have been a family that held the
respect and good will of the community. Their business dealings were
always carried on on a high plane, and they were personally affable
and easily approached. For years success marked all their ventures;
their undertakings brought rich returns and seemed constantly
increasing.
“‘The house was seldom for very long out of the public eye. However,
about five years ago, there came a lull in their doings. Their
ventures were few; and in the completion of some large contracts they
were known to have borrowed money.
“‘This lull continued for about the space of a year, and seemed to
grow more and more pronounced. The public was unaware of anything
wrong, but those on the inside knew that the Campes had lost a very
great deal of money; and as time passed it was a question as to
whether they would recover or no.
“‘But, suddenly, recover they did, and brilliantly. Some of their
copper holdings developed amazingly, and in a short time they were
going along at their usual winning pace, just as though nothing had
ever happened. During this commercial halt, if I may so call it, I
find there was also a sort of social one. And as you asked me to pay
special attention to the friends of the head of the house, I looked
into their social sagging with a good deal of interest.
“‘In its efforts to regain its financial footing during the time of
depression, the house of Campe dealt with people with whom it would
have hesitated to associate itself in days more flush. Also it made
acquaintances, possibly through these dealings, with people who were
entirely unknown in those circles in which the family had always
moved. One of these in particular was a man named Alva, who had once
been a professor of physics at Chapultepec. He was, I understand, a
peculiar sort of person, a cripple, who made a boast of his Indian
ancestry. Alva bore a bad reputation, and was considered wonderfully
clever in many ways. There was another of these new-made friends--an
American--named Evans, a fat, smooth individual----’”
“Hello!” exclaimed Mr. Scanlon, in recognition, “do I once more meet my
friend of the covered bridge?”
“‘This American,’” continued Ashton-Kirk, his eyes still upon the
sheets, “‘is known to have been in various sorts of trouble in
Honduras and Guatemala; but just what these offences were I have not
been able to learn. However, the Guatemalan Minister of Police of the
period in which these things took place is now that country’s Minister
at Washington; something might be learned from him. During the period
of the Campe family’s depression, Frederic Campe, father to the
Frederic now in the United States, was quite intimate with both Alva
and Evans. They were received frequently at his house and, apparently,
highly esteemed. But when the financial turn came, this intimacy grew
less apparent; finally it ceased altogether. It was probably a year
after this that Frederic Campe met his death on board his yacht.’”
The special detective laid the sheets upon the table, and looked at
Scanlon.
“Well,” he asked, “what do you think?”
“To me,” replied that gentleman, “it looks as though you’d hit the
thing fair on the point that last day I was here. Some kind of an
understanding was had with this man Alva and the other fellow, Evans.
But the elder Campe broke it off after he got flush again; they hung on
and kept insisting on his doing whatever it was that he’d promised to
do. He refused, and they finally got him.”
The detective laughed.
“Good!” said he. “My theory as to what might possibly have happened and
Fuller’s report you’ve put together very well indeed.”
“But,” ventured Scanlon, “though it might be clever enough, this
guessing at things won’t get us anything unless we carry it further.”
He looked at the crime specialist inquiringly. “What do you think we’d
better do next?”
Ashton-Kirk pressed one of the series of call bells, then he lighted
another cigarette.
“I’d like to have just a little more information about this man Alva,”
said he. “He interests me immensely. Atavism is one of the most
curious and fascinating things in the world,” he continued, as he
rested against one corner of the table, his singular eyes upon the big
man. “One never knows when to expect it, and it sometimes takes the
most peculiar of forms. A strain of blood, a physical peculiarity will
suddenly appear after an absence of generations, and----”
Here there came a knock upon the door, and a small compactly built man
entered the room.
“Burgess,” spoke the crime specialist, “early in the morning go down to
Parker’s and borrow a surveying outfit--a complete one--tell him not to
miss anything, and also to tell you how they’re used.”
“Enough to go through the motions?” said the compact man with a grin.
“Exactly. Then take O’Neil and go out on the first train you can get to
Marlowe Furnace. Find a place called Schwartzberg up along the river on
the west bank, and about a mile above the station. Make that the centre
of your movements for the day; don’t get out of hearing of the usual
signal, and when you do hear it make for the house at once.”
Burgess nodded.
“Right,” said he. “And all the time we are hanging around we’ll be busy
laying off the land with the surveyor’s stuff, eh?”
“Yes,” replied Ashton-Kirk.
“Anything else?” asked the man.
“No.”
Burgess nodded and took his departure.
Ashton-Kirk, in spite of the fact that he had talked freely upon
certain points of the case with Scanlon, had said little or nothing as
to his movements in the immediate future.
Nevertheless there was something in the air of the study which seemed
to promise action--sharp, light-producing action--and the big man was
pleased.
“You seem to be getting ready for a little something,” spoke Mr.
Scanlon.
The other smiled.
“To-morrow, more than likely, will be a busy day,” said he, “and it’s
always best to prepare for such a little ahead.”
“What do you expect to happen?” asked Mr. Scanlon, curiously.
“Anything. But one thing will almost surely take place. And that is:
the Campe matter will be solved for good and all.”
CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH ASHTON-KIRK PAYS HIS SECOND VISIT TO SCHWARTZBERG
Scanlon was not at all an impatient man, but the length of time
consumed by Ashton-Kirk next morning over his toilet and his breakfast
rather put him on edge.
“I like to see a man fussy about his appearance,” said he to himself.
“It’s a sign that he’s in health. Breakfast is also a good sign. The
fellow that can cheerfully face his morning meal is usually all right
inside. But both things can be carried to extremes. When there’s
pressing matters to be carried through what matter how you look; when
a puzzle of weeks’ standing is about to turn over on its edge and give
a last kick, a chop, an egg and a roll shouldn’t be the things to
interfere with its doing.”
But though the big man was in a highly excited state, Ashton-Kirk was
as calm as an August afternoon. He smoked a good-sized cigar after
breakfast and read the newspapers. To the amazement of Mr. Scanlon he
even showed interest in such things as the tariff, the building of a
new cup defender, and the international aspect of canal tolls.
However, at about ten o’clock a long telegram came; when he read this
his inactivity ceased; at once he rang for his car, and when it arrived
he and the big man got in. It was a brisk, sunny November day, and
they sped through the city streets and finally into the country roads
with that smoothness and ease possible to the modern automobile. They
flashed by the little station at Marlowe Furnace and across the covered
bridge; then, as they climbed the first hill on the west bank they
sighted the towers of Schwartzberg.
“And also two very industrious surveyors,” said Ashton-Kirk, his keen
eye picking out two small figures in the distance, who appeared deeply
absorbed in the measuring of some land.
Mr. Scanlon was pleased with the whole idea, and said so.
“It may be,” said he, “that we’ll need a little help. And this is about
as good a way to have a couple of willing lads hanging around as a
fellow could think of.”
Sergeant-Major Kretz was upon the wall; when the car drew up at the
gate he scrambled down inside. A moment or two later the gate was
opened, and Campe, much surprised, made his appearance.
“Back again,” said the big man, cheerfully, as he got out, followed by
the investigator. “Everything all right?”
“Everything,” replied the young man. He shook hands with Ashton-Kirk,
and added: “I’m very glad to see you again.”
Scanlon looked about. There was no one within ear-shot, so he remarked:
“You didn’t say anything further about that matter we talked about the
other night, so I thought I’d help you make up your mind by bringing my
friend to see you.”
If he expected young Campe to show surprise at hearing that
Ashton-Kirk was the person mentioned in that conversation, Scanlon was
disappointed. The young man merely said, quietly:
“It was rather a difficult thing to solve for myself. I’m glad that
you’ve done it for me.” Then addressing the special detective, he
added: “Will you come in?”
The car was driven into the courtyard; then the two men followed Campe
into the house. When they had seated themselves at a table in one
corner of the trophy-hung room, Ashton-Kirk said:
“It is always more or less presumptuous to interfere in the private
affairs of another. However, there are times, and all persons of
experience have encountered them, when this does not hold good. A man
occasionally gets into such deep water that he is helpless; at the same
time there may be reasons, as I understand there are in your case,
which may prevent his asking for help.”
Young Campe regarded the speaker attentively.
“Well?” said he.
The long fingers of Ashton-Kirk pattered upon the edge of the table; he
met the gaze of the other with steady eye.
“In such cases,” said he, “comparison usually figures very strongly.
Some danger threatens a man. But he fears to appeal for help. Why?
Because the thing which threatens is as nothing compared with another
thing which a call for help might expose.”
Scanlon saw the peaked face of young Campe twitch, but the intent look
never left his eyes.
“What more?” asked he.
“And yet it may be,” said Ashton-Kirk, “that this hidden thing may be
none of the endangered person’s doing. A demand may be made upon him by
those threatening him, which he may be unable to meet.”
“Well?” said the young man again, and Scanlon noticed that his voice
trembled a little.
“Suppose,” said the crime specialist, “a wealthy family fell into hard
days. Suppose the head of that family, in a moment of weakness, allowed
himself to be approached by--well, we’ll say--a criminal organization.
Let us further suppose that after he had gone into a shady matter
pretty deeply, his position suddenly and legitimately mended, and in
consequence he washed his hands of all crooked dealing.”
“Go on,” said young Campe, and his face was pale as death.
“Again let us suppose,” continued Ashton-Kirk, calmly, “that in so
leaving the councils of the criminals he took with him something
vitally necessary to their success. They demanded it of him; he
refused; and, to still further suppose, we’ll say that one morning a
yacht called the _Conquistador_ was blown into----”
Here the young master of Schwartzberg came to his feet; his eyes
gleamed like those of an insane person, and his voice was husky and
broken.
“What do you know?” he asked.
“I think,” replied Ashton-Kirk, quietly, “I have a fair idea as to what
_has_ happened in Mexico, and what _is_ happening here. And if you care
to have me proceed in the matter, and will lend me what assistance I
need, there is a good chance that by this time to-morrow you will have
left all your fears and worries behind you.”
For a moment the young man sat staring; then he reached forward one
shaking hand and laid it upon the speaker’s arm.
“Sir,” said he, “if you can do that, you will have saved me from death
or from the madhouse.”
Ashton-Kirk placed his hand upon that of Campe.
“Consider it done then,” said he quietly. “Scanlon has told you,
perhaps, that I have some small talent in matters of this sort. And I
think,” nodding and smiling, “I see a fairly open field before me.”
Bat looked impressively at the master of the castle.
“He’s had this thing cooking only since the day I first brought him
here,” said he. “But he’s got a fire under it as hot as a lower berth
in Hades. And so if he says he’ll serve it to-day, all done, believe
him. For he’s just the kind of a fellow to do it.”
“Mr. Ashton-Kirk’s first visit here was not all chance then,” said
Campe.
“Not quite,” returned Bat, unblushingly. “You see, along about the time
of that visit I had got it fixed fast in my mind that everything was
not just what it ought to be around here; and as I didn’t think myself
man enough for the job, I took a day off and got Kirk.”
“Thank you,” said Campe. “I felt all along that something of the sort
would be the best thing I could do, but I never quite got up the
courage to take the step. If there had been myself only to think of,”
and his glance went from the big man to Ashton-Kirk, “I might have done
it. But there was some one else, and that is what stopped me.”
Now, however, that the time for action seemed to have arrived, there
was a stain of colour in his cheeks, his hand grew steadier, and a look
of purpose came into his eyes.
“You spoke of my giving you assistance,” said he to the crime
specialist. “Give it a name; I am ready.”
“Good!” said Ashton-Kirk, satisfaction in his voice. “Then we’ll begin
at once.” He went to a window and looked out into the courtyard where
the warm sun flooded the stones. “It’s a beautiful day,” said he. Then:
“You have no car here, Mr. Campe?”
“No, we have no use for one, as we seldom go any distance.”
“A run will be a novelty. Take my car. Also my driver, and both Miss
Knowles and your aunt.”
Campe looked at him questioningly.
“I went over the house some days ago,” said Ashton-Kirk, calmly,
meeting the look, “and I should like to go over it again--in my own
way.”
There was a little space of silence; once Scanlon thought the young man
was about to refuse. But when he spoke, “Very well,” he said.
“As the country round about is a fine one, and you have not done it
before, don’t be in a hurry to return,” spoke the special detective.
“Take plenty of time. And say nothing to the ladies as to why I am
here. We don’t want to startle them, you know.”
“I will say nothing,” said young Campe, and then he left the room.
The next half hour was spent by Ashton-Kirk in smoking and talking with
Scanlon upon almost every other subject than the matter in hand. Then
Campe returned, and with him were Miss Hohenlo and Miss Knowles.
The former was all on a flutter, but the younger woman, so Scanlon
noticed, was eager-eyed and watchful.
“She knows that something’s doing,” observed Bat to himself. “And she’s
wondering just what it is.”
“It’s so very kind of you, Mr. Ashton-Kirk, to come again so soon,”
said Miss Hohenlo, girlishly. “It will do Frederic such a great deal
of good to get his mind into some fresh matters. He’s been so very
downcast of late; and I’m quite sure that interesting himself in Count
Hohenlo’s life and times will benefit him greatly.”
“And it’s so kind of you to put your car at our service,” said Miss
Knowles. “We go out so little since we came to Schwartzberg. Frederic
came swooping into the room just now with the news, and we were as
delighted as children.” Her eyes went to Scanlon, and then back to the
crime specialist. “But,” she suggested, “won’t you find it very dull
here while we are gone?”
“Quite the contrary,” replied Ashton-Kirk. “There are many things in
which I can interest myself.”
“There are some of the Count’s journals in the library,” said Miss
Hohenlo. “Please don’t overlook them. His views upon his time are quite
charming.”
“Quite,” said the tall Miss Knowles. “I’ve read one or two of
them--charming, leisurely things, in the most beautiful handwriting.”
“The Count knew so many wonderful people,” said Miss Hohenlo. “His
anecdotes of them are so striking and so characteristic. It was a day
when personal quality told in one’s favour. Nowadays people are so
hopelessly alike.”
Ashton-Kirk smiled. “Don’t you think they only appear to be so?” said
he.
But Miss Hohenlo shook her head.
“No,” she said, “I am quite sure that as time goes on, people grow more
and more alike. We live in such crowds, you see, there is very little
opportunity for us to be different.”
“In the Count’s day, dress had so much to do with the impression
one made,” said the special detective. “Many a man has won fame by
introducing a new periwig, or had himself talked about in the coffee
houses for months because of an elaboration of the buckles of his
shoes.”
When the car containing the two women and young Campe rolled through
the gateway and the gate closed behind them, Scanlon looked at
Ashton-Kirk.
“Well,” said he, “where do we begin?”
CHAPTER XX
TELLS HOW ASHTON-KIRK POINTED OUT CERTAIN MATTERS OF INTEREST
As Ashton-Kirk was about to reply to his friend’s question, the door
opened and Kretz came into the room. He saluted stiffly.
“Herr Campe,” said he, “told me to come to you. He said you would speak
to me.”
“Did he say anything more?”
“He told me to obey your orders.”
Ashton-Kirk nodded.
“Good!” said he. “Well, sergeant, I have a bit of work to do about the
castle, and Mr. Scanlon is to be my guide.”
With not a vestige of expression upon his granite-like face, the
sergeant-major again saluted.
“Now,” went on Ashton-Kirk, “I expect to be engaged for an hour or
more. Keep watch at the gate, if any one approaches--any one, mind
you--report to me before you admit him.”
Kretz nodded stiffly and departed; and then Ashton-Kirk turned to
Scanlon.
“Are your nails still in the door to the vaults?”
“They are,” replied Scanlon, proudly. “Up to their heads, and holding
like grim death.”
“Get a tool of some sort. We’ll have to draw them.”
With a claw hammer Scanlon pulled the nails without much difficulty.
Then the two descended into the regions below. Ashton-Kirk carried an
electric torch, which shot a small, searching column of light ahead
through the gloom.
“It beats a lamp or a lantern,” said Bat, his mind going back to the
morning upon which their visit to the cellars was greeted with a volley
of shots. “If there are any volatile parties hanging around, they can’t
get such a fair slam at us.”
The rays of the torch danced along the floor, the ceiling, the walls
and into corners. Satisfied that there were no prowlers in the vaults,
the light ceased its erratic flashing; it now became intent, and fixed
itself upon some small spaces for quite long periods of time.
“Again the floor seems to attract him,” thought the big man.
“Footprints and such.”
But the crime specialist seemed annoyed.
“There has been a great deal of tramping up and down by all of us,”
said he. “Quite a number of very definite impressions are to be found
in the dust, but----” he stopped suddenly, the beam of light held to a
place in the floor, fixedly, and his breath drew in with a sharpness
that told of a discovery.
“What is it?” asked Bat, anxiously.
“Look!”
The crime specialist pointed to what appeared to be a long streak
in the dust upon the vault floor. It was broken here and there by
footmarks, but seemed to continue for some distance outside the radius
of the light.
“I see it,” said Bat, mildly. “But what is it?”
“Here is another just like it,” spoke Ashton-Kirk, “and running the
same way. And there is still another, but not so heavy, between the
other two.”
Sure enough, as Bat looked, he saw two deeply marked streaks, with
a third not so pronounced between them; they held their relative
positions and ran away in the same direction as far as his eye could
follow.
“I get the three of them,” said Mr. Scanlon. “And once again I ask for
the answer.”
“It looks,” and the glow of the torch began to follow the course of the
lines, “as though our friend Alva, from the inn, had been here.”
“It’s got through,” said Bat, tapping his head dolefully. “It’s got
through at last. These marks were made by the wheels of his chair--two
big ones outside, and one small one in the middle.” There was a silence
as the eyes of the big man followed the spreading rays of the torch.
“Alva, you know, promised to drop in some time,” continued Bat. “And I
can see that he’s a man of his word.”
The detective followed the wheel marks; they led directly across the
vault to the east wall.
“Right slam into it,” spoke Mr. Scanlon from the darkness of a half
dozen yards away. “Looks like they had an accident on the line.”
But Ashton-Kirk did not hear; he was too intent upon what was before
him. Up the wall crept the shaft of light, and about four feet above
the floor it rested upon a heavy iron ring.
“Hello,” said Scanlon, approaching and staring at the ring with
interest. “Was it here that they chained the unhappy captive in the
days of old?”
Ashton-Kirk examined the ring keenly; then the rays of the torch
flashed over the wall, all about it. As it approached the floor once
more he suddenly exclaimed: “Ah!” And down he went on his knees in the
dust.
Scanlon, bending forward, saw a place at the edge of a great block of
stone where a thick, greenish fluid had apparently oozed through.
“From the river, I guess,” he said. “We’re pretty close to it, you
know.”
Ashton-Kirk touched the fluid with a finger tip; then he held out his
hand toward his friend.
“Is the odour at all familiar?” he asked.
Scanlon sniffed, gingerly.
“By George!” exclaimed he. “Crude oil.” He stared at the other. “What’s
it doing here?”
Ashton-Kirk arose to his feet.
“Take hold of the ring,” directed he. Bat did so. “Now pull.”
As Scanlon put his weight to the pull, he felt something give; to his
astonishment the whole mass of stone before him turned smoothly upon an
invisible pivot; before him was a dark opening bricked, and extending
apparently for a long distance underground. For a moment or two Bat was
too dumbfounded to speak, but at length he thrust his hands deep into
his pocket and said:
“Well, I’ve read about them, and I’ve heard about them, but this is the
first I ever saw.” The torch lighted up the passage for some distance,
and as the big man peered into it, he went on: “It’s all properly
mouldy, and it’s got the water trickling between the bricks, the damp
patches and the fungus, just as Sylvanus Cobb and the others used to
write about.”
But, underneath the astonishment, his mind had apparently been moving,
for he went on in another tone:
“The crude oil was put on the working parts by the fellows at the inn
when they found that the stone didn’t move smoothly. And now,” turning
upon Ashton-Kirk, “I am wise to all the interest that’s been taken in
the river bank of late. This passage opens somewhere on the bank, and I
was the only one that didn’t know it.”
But Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
“I didn’t _know_ it,” said he. “But I _did_ suspect. The fact that
certain persons gained entrance to the cellar whenever they felt
disposed to do so pointed very strongly to the existence of just such
a passage as this. That it did not appear in the plan of the castle of
which Kretz spoke meant nothing; such things are never shown in plans.
My attention was attracted toward the river bank as a possible place
for the passage’s outlet, because Schwartzberg is near the bank, and
it has always been a custom to have such secret ways lead down to the
brinks of rivers wherever possible. A river, I suppose, suggested a way
of escape.”
As the crime specialist ceased speaking, he entered the passage, and
Scanlon followed. It was almost circular in shape, and the big man
could walk without bending his head.
“Fortunately for the builder, the stone through which the cut was made
was soft, as I showed you the other day,” said Ashton-Kirk. “If it had
been good solid granite, I think Schwartzberg would have been left
without its secret way.”
At the far end of the tunnel daylight filtered in between some faded
tangled growth. A heap of stones, cement clinging to them, lay in the
way.
“The tunnel was sealed,” said Ashton-Kirk, “and when the criminals laid
siege to the castle they broke it open.”
Bat Scanlon protruded his head; in a few moments he drew it back.
“No wonder no one ever got wise to this,” said he. “It opens right
under that big rock that hangs over the water; and the water runs
directly underneath. They must have had some little time getting the
man of the chair in, unless they have a boat.”
After they had looked about interestedly for a while, they left the
tunnel, and closed the massive stone door. Ashton-Kirk then picked up
the wheel tracks with the torch rays, and this time he followed them in
the opposite direction.
“Trying to find out what the crippled party was up to,” Bat told
himself. “Well, it must have been something important, seeing as he
went to such a lot of trouble to get here.”
Here and there went the special detective, his keen eyes following the
wheel marks. Alva, so it seemed, had been rolled to all parts of the
vaults, and the track was, to Scanlon’s notion, hopelessly tangled. But
Ashton-Kirk seemed to see much that was interesting and of consequence;
at length, however, he straightened up, stretched the tightness which
the stooping posture had produced out of his back and shoulders, and
smiled at his companion in a way that spoke of much satisfaction.
“Our friends were here quite recently,” he said. “In fact, I will
venture to say that they were here last night, and, perhaps, upon
each of the preceding nights. All the indications speak of acute
interest--and failure.”
“Failure!” said Scanlon. “In what?”
Ashton-Kirk smiled once more.
“In what they came for,” said he. “And--having failed--they will come
again.”
His interest in the vaults seemed to have exhausted itself; and so he
ascended to the first floor with Bat at his heels. After making the
door fast, the big man asked:
“Well, where do we give the next look? In the room where the tapestries
are?”
“Ah! You have not forgotten the tapestries!” The crime specialist’s
eyes snapped. “I never saw finer. Campe has a prize in them, indeed.”
“The tapestries are fine--for those folks who are strong for them,”
admitted Bat. “But there are other things in that room that would get
me quicker than they would.”
“As your interest is so keen,” smiled Ashton-Kirk, “we may as well take
the tapestry room first. Who knows what interests we may uncover there?”
Scanlon led the way upstairs and pushed open the door of the room in
question. The sun shone in; the painting, the carvings, the tapestry,
the rare rugs and furniture showed to wonderful advantage.
“They’ve got it a step or two ahead of me,” admitted Mr. Scanlon, “but
for all that, I’ll say it’s some room. Class from every angle.”
The harp stood, muffled, near a window, and the big man was gratified
to see Ashton-Kirk go directly to it and strip off the cover.
“The harp,” said Bat, “is an emblem of Erin, and I have nothing against
it. But there is something about this particular one that I don’t like,
for every time I look at it I feel it’s got something on me.”
Ashton-Kirk examined the instrument with much attention; there was a
pleased look upon his face; his singular eyes shone with interest; and
now and then he uttered a low exclamation. His fingers ran over the
strings. Then, at length, he stepped back and stood nodding and smiling.
“That,” said he, “is exceedingly clever. As a matter of fact I don’t
know when I’ve encountered anything more ingenious.”
“Eh?” said Scanlon, blankly.
But the crime specialist did not seem to hear him, and then, before Bat
could ask a question, he had turned away and was glancing interestedly
about the room once more.
“There’s the sword,” said Bat, desirous that this important feature in
the doings about Schwartzberg should not be overlooked.
“Ah, yes.” The other nodded and glanced at the huge weapon with
appraising eyes. “A very powerful arm. The Hohenlo who carried it at
Milan was a person capable of giving good service, no doubt.”
But after one glance the speaker turned away; evidently it was not
the sword he was looking for. His keen eyes, wandering about, went
from object to object; then a small, beautifully fashioned desk caught
his glance, and he went to it. First one drawer and then another was
opened; they held stationery, letters apparently awaiting answers,
small bills and other matters. At length Bat, who was absorbed in
watching the turning out of the desk, gave an exclamation.
“Hello!” said he. “There we are.”
He pointed to some neatly tied packets in the bottom of a drawer.
“They are the things--the rolls of blank paper I saw Miss Knowles
looking at in the storage room,” said he.
Ashton-Kirk took up one of the packets and untied it. Very carelessly,
as Scanlon thought, he ran over the sheets; then he tossed them back
in the drawer.
“I think,” said the crime specialist, after a moment, “that we have
seen about all we want to see for a space. Inside, that is. But outside
there may be one or two little matters which it would be well to pick
up.” He was about to turn away from the desk; then pausing, he reopened
one of the drawers and took out a tangled mass of strings which lay in
the bottom of it. “Put these in your pocket,” said he, handing them to
Scanlon. “We may need them to tie something together.”
Reluctantly Bat left the house with him, and glumly passed through the
gate which Kretz held open.
“Of course,” said he, to himself, “it’s not for me to kick. But it does
seem to me that the place to get the good going over is the house. And
here we haven’t done any more than look at a few corners of it.”
It was now considerably past noon; the sun was warm and the brown
hills, with here and there a patch of vivid green, stretched away to
the south, the west and the north. To the east the river slipped by
smoothly, and toward the river Ashton-Kirk turned his steps. He paused
upon an overhanging mass of rock and looked over its edge.
“It’s under this, I think, that we found the opening to the secret way.”
“Yes,” replied Bat.
After studying the situation for a little, the special detective moved
on. He held to the river banks for the better part of a mile; then he
paused.
“Just a moment,” said he to Scanlon. He left the path and sprang down
the bank; plunging into a tangle of shrivelled vines and small trees
he disappeared for a few moments, and when he reappeared his face wore
a satisfied look.
“Now, then,” said he, cheerfully, “we’ll take a brisk little walk
across country. And at the end of it I may be able to show you
something that will surprise you.”
So away they went, up-hill and down-hill, and Scanlon noted that their
way was taking them in the general direction of the inn.
“Your life in the West,” said Ashton-Kirk, after a period of silence,
“must have made you acquainted with the various Indian tribes.”
“A good many. I’ve eaten with Pawnees, and hunted with Crows; I’ve
broke horses with the Cheyennes, when I was a youngster, and I’ve
fought the Sioux and the Apache. Another man and I once put in a season
with the Navajos; and one time again, I had a party of Blackfeet chase
me through about a hundred miles of mountain, with never a stop.”
“The Navajos are an interesting tribe,” said the crime specialist.
“Their fabrics and their pottery are picturesque and not without beauty
of design and form.” He was silent for another space, and then asked:
“You are not acquainted with any of the tribes further south?”
“None across the border,” said Bat.
“Mexico has some races of interesting savages. Her hill people are
hardy and independent, and they’ve never been subdued.”
“I’ve heard of them,” replied Bat.
“But ancient Mexico possessed still more noteworthy people. Humboldt,
Vater and others who have studied their remains have written very
interestingly of them. Auahuac was the ancient name of Mexico, and the
first known race to occupy the land was the Quinome.”
“Some time ago!” remarked Mr. Scanlon, as they strode along. “Before
even friend Columbus had a chance to hang up his name.”
“Yes,” replied Ashton-Kirk. “But just how long the Quinomes remained it
is not known, for a number of wandering tribes seemed to have entered
afterward, paused and then took up their way once more. Afterward the
Toltecs came from the west--later more tribes, to the number of seven,
one of whom was the Aztec.”
“I’ve heard of them,” said Scanlon. “Rather queer looking old scouts;
had heads flattened in front, and----” but he paused, his eyes going to
Ashton-Kirk in a curious look. Then he pursed up his mouth, and began
to whistle softly.
The crime specialist’s head was bent, and he stabbed at the stubble and
the brown weeds with his stick; there was an expression upon his face
that told of one deep in speculation.
“The Aztecs, as you suggest, were not a physically beautiful people.
And their civilisation was as deformed as their persons.” There was
a halt as they breasted a hill; then he proceeded: “It has come down
as a sort of tradition that Cortez, when he burned his ships, marched
against a people of mild nature and advanced culture. Nothing could
be more erroneous. They were a savage race who had conquered their
neighbours by superior brutality; their intelligence was inferior to
the North American Indian of the same time; it is true that they had a
written language, but their character was greatly inferior to that of
the Hindoos and other peoples.”
“A popular lecture,” was Mr. Scanlon’s mental observation. “But it
seems to me it’s going to land somewhere.”
“The Aztecs made no roads,” said Ashton-Kirk, lifting his head and
looking about as though searching for a given spot; “and they had no
domestic animals. Both these things speak strongly against them. But
the most fearsome thing about them was their religion.”
He paused in a place between two small hills; in the ground was a
bowl-shaped hollow. Scanlon looked at this and at the surroundings with
interest.
“Some days ago I had occasion to speak to you of the theory of Gall,
the Antwerp empiric, as to the skull and the brain and their effects,
one upon the other. It was the custom of the Aztecs to flatten the
heads of their children by continued pressure; this resulted, finally,
in the altering of their skulls as a people. And who knows what effect
this deformity had upon their inclinations. The horrors of their
religious observances may, perhaps, be traced to it altogether.”
“Like as not,” admitted Mr. Scanlon.
The crime specialist kicked away some brush which lay beside a log
near by, and in this way he disclosed a huge bundle of something like
parchment. With Scanlon’s help he unrolled it; it was made up of a
number of prepared sheepskins, and to the edges ropes were attached.
“Ha!” said Bat, as he looked at it.
“Suppose we were to throw this over the hollow which you see here; then
suppose we were to draw it taut with the ropes after having passed them
around stakes--taut and tauter still until the skins will stretch no
more.” Ashton-Kirk looked at the big man inquiringly. “What should we
have?”
“A drum!” cried Bat. “An immense drum!” He returned the look of the
other, adding, with wonder: “And it’s a drum we’ve heard roaring in the
night.”
“Right,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“You knew it was here,” said Scanlon.
“Yes. I came upon it after a little search one day while prowling
about in the guise of a man with a disobedient liver.” He regarded the
drumhead in silence for a while, and then went on:
“The Aztecs’ places of worship were shaped like pyramids, and were
composed of terraces, one above the other. Here their terrible war god,
Huitzilopochtli, was propitiated by human sacrifice. A great drum was
beaten, notifying all in the city that an offering was to be made. The
pinioned victim was thrown face upward across the sacrificial stone,
which was green in colour and with a humped up place which fitted into
the small of his back; with a blow of a great keen blade his body was
laid open.”
The breath caught in the big man’s throat.
“No!” said he, his wide open eyes upon the other’s face. “No!”
He continued to stare, and, slowly, what he had just heard began to
form in his mind.
“The stone,” said he, “green, and with a hump on it! The roaring of a
great drum! A cut down the front!” His hand closed upon Ashton-Kirk’s
arm. “I’ve seen and heard things like these, and I know a man with a
flattened skull. But what’s the answer?”
“The greater part of the Mexican population is mixed with Indian
blood,” said the crime specialist. “And one of the most curious studies
I know of is the atavistic tendency--that is, the tendency to recur
to an ancestral type or deformity. A thing may lie dormant in ten
generations of men or animals, and then suddenly assert itself in all
its fullness.”
“You think, then----” began Scanlon.
“That the man in the rolling chair, Alva, is a ‘throwback’; that his
deformed head is an assertation of the old Aztec strain; that if this
deformity had anything to do with the fiendish character of the Aztecs,
it might naturally be supposed that it has had some effect upon him.”
“I think I get you,” said Bat Scanlon, slowly. “Check me off, and see
if I’m right. This fellow, Alva, is the leader of the party at the
inn. He’s done for three of the Campe family already, and is reaching
for a fourth. The answer to this, so you tell me, is that his Indian
ancestors loved blood spilling, and that the thing’s broke out in him.”
“That’s a part of the answer. It was only after failing in something
else, remember, that the murder mania took possession of him. And
boasting of his Indian ancestry, as Fuller reports, it is not at all
strange that his murderous tendency should find vent in the ancient
form.”
Bat nodded.
“But why all the frills? Why this?” touching the drumhead with the toe
of his shoe. “Why the execution stone?”
“All part of a system for terrorizing Campe. And you’ve seen how it
succeeded. They knew he would understand; through fear of the death
which overtook his father, his uncle and his brother, they hoped to
bring him to some sort of terms.”
“I see,” said the big man. He stood in silence for a time, apparently
digesting what he’d heard; then he asked, curiously: “But how did you
drop to all this? How did you begin? How did you work it out?”
“My starting point,” said Ashton-Kirk, “was when you told me the
landlord had had the inn only a short time. I knew that if there was a
band working on the Campe affair they would have headquarters in the
neighbourhood; and what you said looked promising.”
“That’s why you wanted to go there before you tried anything else,”
said Mr. Scanlon.
The crime specialist nodded.
“As I told you, the atmosphere of the inn struck me unfavourably as
soon as I had a chance to feel it. I got the impression that there was
an understanding between the people we saw there; and then it occurred
to me that they were fakes; with the exception of Alva there wasn’t a
genuine invalid in the lot.”
“The man with the cough is a fairly lively person,” said Bat.
“The idea of this,” said Ashton-Kirk, “was that as invalids they would
escape attention; it would form a reason for their being at the inn;
and so far as Marlowe Furnace and the country round about is concerned,
they were successful.”
“Count me among the simpletons,” said Bat. “I didn’t fall until they
fell on me.”
“You recall that we heard the voice of Alva that night, off stage, so
to speak, and lifted very high. I at once felt that this was the voice
of authority, and I was curious to see him. The Indian who pushed his
chair first attracted my attention when they came in. I knew he was
not a North American; this, and the fact that the Campe trouble had its
beginning in Mexico, must have started my mind on its course. I had,
also, the rolling of the drum and the green stone stored in the back of
my memory; and when I saw the peculiar indications of Alva’s skull I
felt interested enough to get a less obstructed look.”
“Then your knocking those wrappings from off his head wasn’t an
accident after all.”
“A little subterfuge,” smiled Ashton-Kirk. “And a moment after seeing
it I had the skull, the rolling sound, the green stone and Mexico all
revolving in my mind. Before I slept that night I had them associated.
When I got you to leave the road next morning and cut across country
toward the castle, it was because I saw the wheel marks of Alva’s chair
leave it at the same place; and I was curious to see where he had gone
the night before.”
“And this thing which made you send Fuller to Mexico next day--how did
you get that?”
“It was a theory, built up around what I had already seen.”
Here the crime specialist looked at his watch.
“Do you know,” said he, surprised, “that it’s three o’clock, and I
shouldn’t wonder if the touring party had returned.”
They turned and slowly began the tramp over the hills toward
Schwartzberg.
The afternoon sun lay warm and red on the western slopes of the hills,
and where it fell upon the walls of the castle it had a peculiar effect.
“Even is broad day, Schwartzberg is no easy place for me,” said
Scanlon, his eyes upon the grey pile.
“How is that?” asked the special detective.
“It must be,” said the big man in reply, “that the things that have
happened in and about the castle have so coloured my feelings towards
it that I can see it only in one way.”
“And that is----”
“A place of peril,” answered Scanlon, soberly. “A place where danger is
always waiting to reach out its hand and give you something when you
are not expecting it. As you know, I’m not the kind of a fellow to pick
up impressions of this kind; but Schwartzberg’s put its mark on me deep
and strong, and I can’t shake it off.”
CHAPTER XXI
SHOWS HOW THE GREAT SWORD SPOKE TO SCANLON
But the automobile voyagers had not returned when the two men reached
Schwartzberg.
“Campe is taking plenty of time, as per request,” observed Mr. Scanlon,
as they settled down to wait. “Unless,” and he looked at the other,
“you think something has happened to him.”
But Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
“No,” said he. “Just at this time I think Campe is perfectly safe from
Alva and his crowd. When you first came to me with the story I felt
that the matter was one of life and death--that it would not wait an
hour. But after studying things hereabouts for a little I saw that
in this I had been mistaken. The criminals will not be in a hurry to
murder Campe. He is the last of his family, and they want what he
knows, or can give, more than they want his life.”
It was fully five o’clock, and the dusk was thickening when they heard
the heavy braying of the auto horn outside. A little later the two
ladies whisked past the library door, and then Campe entered, dusty,
and with an eager look.
“You must have had a good run,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“I kept them away as long as I could without attracting their
attention. But,” and the eager look increased, “what news?”
“We’ve looked around a bit,” said Ashton-Kirk, “both inside and
outside; and we saw a number of things which interested us greatly.”
Campe stood looking at the speaker for a moment; then he said:
“I can see that you are not ready to tell me the result of your
investigation. Very well. But when the time comes,” and here his lips
twitched a little, “don’t delay.”
At dinner Miss Knowles was very lovely, and the elder lady was flushed
and animated.
“An automobile trip,” thought Bat, as he listened to the spinster’s
chatter “should be prescribed for the good lady frequently. It’s done
her good.”
“Baron Steuben received no more than his due when Congress granted him
lands and honours,” she was saying to Ashton-Kirk. “But Count Hohenlo
was overlooked disgracefully.”
“He had little popular or official recognition,” replied the crime
specialist. “But he lived in the hearts of those who knew him, and they
wrote him down in their memories as a gallant soldier, a true friend
and a lover of freedom.”
Then Miss Hohenlo talked of the letters written by the old hero; of the
journals he had kept in court and camp; of his plans and intentions; of
his adventures. Her eyes were no longer dull; her plain face was full
of spirit; her gestures, no longer affected, were sharp and stirring.
And while she talked Miss Knowles was very quiet, listening with
attention. And, as she did so, Mr. Scanlon watched her, speculatively.
“Still on the lookout,” mused the big man, “still with her eyes and
ears open. I never saw any one stick closer to a job than she does.
But what she hopes to get out of the talk of the maiden lady I can’t
understand.”
After dinner, as Miss Hohenlo was passing from the room, Scanlon
saw Ashton-Kirk overtake Miss Knowles as she was about to follow.
The singular eyes of the crime specialist were fixed upon her face
intently, and when he spoke his voice was so low-pitched that none but
the girl could hear. But whatever it was he said, she turned pale and
Bat saw her hands tremble. Then without a word of answer she cast a
frightened look about her and disappeared. Ashton-Kirk turned to Campe.
“Perhaps you’d care for a game of billiards,” said he. Then seeing the
young man’s surprised look, he added: “I’d be glad to join you myself,
but I think I’ll have my hands rather full of other things. Your aunt
would, I dare say, be delighted.”
Campe continued to look at the speaker for a moment, then he said
slowly:
“Why, yes, very likely she would. She’s very clever with the cue, you
know.”
Fifteen minutes later, as Ashton-Kirk and Scanlon sat in the library,
the big man patiently awaiting the other’s pleasure, the click of the
balls began to come from the billiard room. Ashton-Kirk stood up.
“Now,” said he, and Scanlon followed him into the hall. Quietly they
went until they reached the door of the room where the tapestries hung.
Here they entered and found Miss Knowles, pale, tall and with the
frightened look still in her eyes, standing in the middle of the floor.
Ashton-Kirk closed the door gently, and turning faced the girl.
“Now,” thought Mr. Scanlon, “for a showdown. Here is where the golden
Helen is to be brought up with a sharp turn.”
“Miss Knowles,” spoke the detective, quietly, “may I ask just how long
you have known what I am?”
“I thought I knew you--when I first saw your face,” answered the girl
in a low voice. “But I did not place you. It was not until I had heard
your name that I knew you. You had been pointed out to me once at a
Departmental reception at Washington.”
“I see,” said the other. Then with a smile: “You seem a trifle startled
that day when you recognized me.”
“I was,” replied the girl, “for your appearance as Schwartzberg meant
only one thing to me: That all that I had suspected was true--that
Frederic was fearfully in danger--and that you had been sent for to
trace out his enemies.”
“Ha!” said Mr. Scanlon, and Ashton-Kirk glanced at him with a smile.
“I rather thought it was something like that,” said the latter
gentleman. “But there are a number of other questions I’d like to have
you answer, so that there will be no mistake as to your position in the
matter. Do you mind my asking them?”
“Why, no,” she said.
“On the night that you heard the thunderous noise out among the hills,
and Mr. Campe madly rushed out to look for his tormentors, how did it
come that you stood beside him when he was discovered, wounded?”
The girl looked surprised.
“I had followed--thinking to help him.”
“How soon after?”
“A moment or two.”
Again Ashton-Kirk looked at Scanlon.
“Between the time you saw Campe without at the gate, and the time you
got downstairs, I think it could have happened.”
“It could,” replied Mr. Scanlon.
“There are a number of little things which Mr. Scanlon could not
understand,” said the crime specialist to the girl. “For example, how
he came to see you in the hall, apparently looking for some one, on the
night he discovered the housebreakers.”
“He saw me?” She looked at Scanlon. “When?”
“When you lighted the match. But I heard you before that--talking to
the fellow who jumped through the window.”
“You heard me talking to----” the girl was amazed; then a sudden
thought seemed to come to her, and she stopped. “And then,” she said,
searching Scanlon’s face, “what did I do?”
“You went away,” replied the big man. “I heard you go down the hall.
But you came back, and it was then you struck the match.”
The girl’s golden head shook slowly.
“I did not go away and return,” she said.
“But I heard----”
“The first woman you heard was not I!”
It was now Mr. Scanlon’s turn to stare.
“Miss Knowles,” said he, “I don’t want you to think I’m trying to
put anything at your door that shouldn’t be there. But you expected
something to happen that night--I saw it in your face in the afternoon.”
The girl did not reply for a moment; she looked at him, steadily.
“I think I know what you mean,” she said, at last. “It was when you
spoke of Mr. Ashton-Kirk coming that night. I was frightened then, as
I was frightened a while ago when I was asked to await him here. I felt
sure that if he were expected something was about to happen.”
Mr. Scanlon frowned.
“You see,” said he, “these are queer times, and when a fellow get mixed
up in such, and sees things that he don’t fathom, about the only way
open to him is to ask to have them explained.”
“I think I can understand that feeling very well,” she said. “There are
many things for which I too have sought an explanation.”
“When you left the room that night of the burglar’s visit,” said Bat,
“and while I was telling Campe and his man what had happened, you did
it very quietly.”
“I had a reason,” said the girl. “I hurried away to find the person
whom I’d been seeking when you saw me strike the match.”
“Well, were you successful?”
“I was. I saw who opened the gate and liberated your prisoner.”
Mr. Scanlon mopped his face, which had grown suddenly heated.
“The wind’s changing,” said he to the crime specialist. “It’s beginning
to blow from a new quarter altogether.”
But Ashton-Kirk was looking at the girl. “You see how it is?” said he.
“Yes,” she replied. “And now that I do, I think it very strange that it
did not occur to me before. But I was so full of the thought of helping
Mr. Campe, even though he did treat me like a child and refused to
confide in me, that I never dreamed any one might suspect me of being
one of those who were threatening him.”
She turned to Scanlon.
“I thought all the time that you would understand. That is why I hinted
at this and that, and called your attention in an indirect way to those
things which excited my suspicions.
“And, oh,” with a gesture, “there were so many of them. I suspected the
people at the inn from the beginning because I once saw a crippled man
there who had been a friend of Mr. Campe’s father in Mexico, and who
afterward, for some reason, became his enemy. The strange footprints
which I’d see of a morning upon the river bank put dread into my heart,
and the stealthy figures that I’d see there sometimes of a night, as
I looked from my window, filled me with fear. I then began to suspect
a traitor in Schwartzberg, and took to searching and prying and
listening; and on the night when I found the door to the vault standing
open and saw a stranger ascending the stairs, I felt sure of it.”
“Was that the night that Mrs. Kretz shut the door, and there was a
pistol shot, and you cried out?” asked Bat.
“Yes,” replied Miss Knowles. “But,” she went on, “I think I had other
reasons to be suspicious. As you say, Mr. Scanlon, these are queer
times. Things here are odd--strange; like yourself, I do not understand
them. What is there about this harp,” and she laid her hand upon the
instrument, “which attracts me so strongly--for what purpose is it
being used other than the melody a player it could strike from its
strings? Take that great blade upon the wall,” here she turned her
face toward the two-handed sword resting against the strip of tapestry
between the windows. “It seems evident enough--there does not look to
be anything about it of a secret nature. And yet there is! But I don’t
know what, though I have tried to discover many and many times; and
I have stolen it away to my room more than once. But it was no use.”
There was a short silence, then she went on, to Scanlon: “On the night
that you followed Mr. Campe and me out along the path, and you told the
story of the officer whose sword trailed upon the ground, I felt sure
that you had discovered something about this weapon, and were, perhaps,
trying to convey it to me secretly. But I saw afterward that this was
not so.”
“Tell me,” said Scanlon, who felt much as if the floor were slipping
from under his feet, “what was the idea of the walk on that night?”
“Mr. Campe was depressed; his spirit was sinking; he shook with fear of
what was outside. I knew that facing a danger was tonic, while cowering
at the mental picture of it was spirit-killing. So I thought it would
do him good if he went out, voluntarily, if only for a few moments--no
matter what the danger. Of course he did not understand why I wanted
him to go; neither did Kretz, who protested very strongly.”
Bat looked at the crime specialist, who smiled in an amused sort of
way; then he said to the girl:
“You say you took the sword to your room to examine it? How about the
harp? Ever take that away with you?”
“I have,” replied Miss Knowles. “Some nights ago I secreted it on the
floor above, and when everything was quiet I went there.”
“You sat in an alcove behind some curtains,” said Bat. “It was dark.
The window was open. You picked at the strings of the harp, but made
no sound.”
“You saw me?” the girl seemed startled.
“I did. What were you doing?”
“What I had seen done more than once before. And I was trying to
understand.”
Once more Scanlon looked toward Ashton-Kirk, and now that gentleman
spoke.
“This interest in Schwartzberg as to the location of the wind of an
evening. You noticed it?”
“Yes.” The girl’s blue eyes went to the speaker, full of interest.
“But, like the other things, I could never understand it.”
“You saw some one strike the harp strings at night at an open window;
was it always the same window?”
“No.”
“It depended upon the direction of the wind--the window selected always
opened in the direction from which the breeze was blowing.”
“Yes.”
“Did that not suggest something to you?”
“It did. A signal. But,” with a gesture, “it could not have been. There
was no sound.”
Ashton-Kirk turned to the harp; his long supple fingers ran over the
strings, and they responded stirringly. Bat Scanlon leaned toward Miss
Knowles.
“I think,” said he, “I’ve got just one more question to ask you, and
here it is: What about that package that came the other day--the one
with the blank paper in it?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” The girl seemed weary with the things which she did
not understand. “It was like the other packages that came here. Always
blank paper; never a single thing which would lead me to even guess at
what they meant.”
“When you saw the man Alva in the moonlight,” spoke Ashton-Kirk,
addressing Scanlon, his fingers still gently plucking at the harp
strings, “did you pay particular attention to the hill he had selected?”
“It was a high one,” said Bat. “But I think that’s all.”
“There was another advantage,” said the special detective. “There were
no intervening trees. From that hilltop to Schwartzberg there is one
clear sweep.”
He ceased strumming at the harp and his eyes went toward the sword upon
the wall. A step or two, and he had it in his hands.
“It brought fortune to the Hohenlos, eh?” said he, and his eyes seemed
dreamy as he gazed at it. “A good blade!” Then the eyes lifted, and he
continued: “Those strings, Scanlon, where are they?”
“Here,” said the big man, taking the tangled mass from his coat pocket,
and offering it to the other.
“Pull one out. That’s it. Thanks.”
Ashton-Kirk took the proffered string; it was quite long, and trailed
upon the floor in a soiled heap. Starting at a point close to the hilt,
he began wrapping the string around the sword blade.
The big man watched his friend narrowly as he worked with the string
and the sword blade. He felt that in this, queer as the proceeding
seemed, there was to be an explanation of some things that had gone
before.
“Kirk’s the fellow to explain them,” he told himself, as he watched.
“He’s never in a hurry to do it, of course; and maybe that’s the reason
why he never makes a mistake. But explain them he does; and don’t let
that get away from you.”
Miss Knowles was also intensely interested; she followed the fingers of
the special detective with the utmost attention. Carefully Ashton-Kirk
wrapped the string about the great blade. Often he paused and inspected
what he had done, as though to make sure that it was what he wanted.
“The romance which might attach to a weapon of this sort,” said he,
“is endless.” Slowly he worked, and carefully. Every moment or two he
paused and surveyed what he had done. “For history, poetry, drama,
all tell us that such blades were forged when romance was thick upon
every hand. What backs has it hung across in journeys through strange
lands? What strong hands have clasped its hilt as the desert’s dust
showed the cohorts of the infidel? What scaling ladders has it mounted?
What castle walls has it topped? What helmets and plates of proof
has it rung upon? What captive damsels has it freed? What number of
the oppressed and helpless has its hiss and its swing released from
tyranny? What stout squires have ridden behind its owner? What brawny
lanz-knechts have cheered to see it flash, and have pressed after it
into the heat of the fight?
“And now,” continued the crime specialist, “to what base uses has it
come. From being the weapon of a hero, it becomes the means of one
criminal communicating with another.”
“What!” exclaimed Scanlon.
“Look!”
Ashton-Kirk held the sword, hilt up, and with the flat of it toward
them. To the amazement of the big man, he saw lettered in black ink,
down the length of the closely wrapped string:
W
A
T
C
H
S
C
A
N
L
O
N
CHAPTER XXII
IN WHICH A MATTER OF MUCH INGENUITY IS CONSIDERED
“Hello!” said Bat, his eyes almost bulging at the sight. “What the
dickens is that?”
For answer the crime specialist unwound the string, drew another from
the many in Scanlon’s hands, and wrapped it around the blade in turn.
Once more he held up the weapon and now they read:
T
O
N
I
G
H
T
“I get it,” said the big man, “not all, but some. Those packages sent
Miss Hohenlo had nothing at all that was worth looking at _inside_; it
was _outside_ that their interest lay. In the string.”
“I think,” said the girl, wonderingly, “I’ve heard of some such a thing
as this before. But it never occurred to me to apply it in this case.”
“Alva has a wooden sword the exact shape and dimensions of this,” said
Ashton-Kirk, tapping the weapon. “When he desired to send a message
to his confederate in Schwartzberg he’d wrap a string about the stick
and carefully ink his communication, letter after letter, down its
length. After this he’d unwind the cord, tie it about a parcel of
blank paper and dispatch it. There was nothing about it that would
excite suspicion; it held its secret until wrapped around the blade of
the sword; then bit by bit the inked portion fell into place, forming
the letters, and the writing was read.”
“All these strings are messages then,” said Scanlon. He frowned
perplexedly, and asked: “But why write this way? Why not a letter, and
a cipher inside?”
“The letter might, in some way, be opened.”
“But it couldn’t be read.”
“Perhaps not; nevertheless a cipher writing would attract notice, and
in the face of such happenings as Schwartzberg has been experiencing,
suspicion would be sure to follow.”
“That’s right,” said Bat. Then with a nod at the strings: “Going to
read them all?”
“No,” said Ashton-Kirk. “It is hardly worth while.” He threw the heavy
sword upon a table and crossed to the harp once more. “They must be
very brief, and little could be got from them at best. They, for the
most part, merely appointed a time for the real communications.”
“The real ones!”
“Yes; and those were received and answered upon the strings of the
harp.”
Scanlon gazed at the girl, and then his eyes went wonderingly back to
the other. Miss Knowles took an eager forward step.
“How?” she said.
“Upon my first visit,” said Ashton-Kirk, “I knew that you were calling
my attention urgently to this instrument. And, in consequence, I took
especial interest in it. I noted some peculiarities, but I did not
form any conclusions until after I’d had Scanlon’s report of what he’d
witnessed, and had another and specialized examination of its parts a
while ago.
“The harp,” he went on, glancing at his two hearers, “is not, as a
rule, a powerfully made thing. This is especially so in the case of
those of this small size. The wood and the metal that go into its
construction are light.” His keen glance now fixed itself upon Miss
Knowles, and he asked: “Do you know whether this instrument has been
sent away at any time recently for repairs?”
“It has. Shortly after we came here,” she answered. “Something was
broken, I understood.”
Ashton-Kirk nodded.
“The gilding is much newer in some places than it is in others,” said
he. “It’s the sign of the repairer of anything that he never does all
over a job with his finishing tool, merely touching up the parts he’s
worked upon.
“More than likely,” he went on, his eyes now upon the harp, “the
sending of the instrument away was for a reason altogether different
from the one given out. For in those parts where the tinker’s hand is
plainest, I find that some very important and unusual departures have
been made.”
“The upper strings are odd,” said the girl, eagerly. “I often noticed
them. They are of metal.”
“And very heavy--of steel I should say; and they are strung to an
astonishing tension--infinitely higher than the customary strings of
the harp. The ‘pull’ of a number of steel strings of this thickness,
and keyed to this pitch, would be too much for a frame of the ordinary
sort. It would be pulled asunder. Consequently this one has been
powerfully re-inforced; the keys are of a special type, and the sockets
in which they turn appear marvellously strong.”
“But why all this?” asked Scanlon, his frowning gaze upon the harp.
“It was found necessary to establish a means of communication between
the inside of Schwartzberg and the outside. Letters or written messages
would not do; signal lights might be seen; secret meetings were almost
impossible, for one could not often steal successfully in and out of a
place watched as this one is.”
“No,” agreed Scanlon, “it couldn’t be depended on. And neither could
the vaults be used as a meeting place. For the door to them is the most
watched thing in the house.”
“A way must be had,” said Ashton-Kirk, “and one that must be silent and
secret. This man, Alva, as Fuller’s report tells, is an able physicist,
and so the method hit upon of bridging this difficulty must be his.” He
looked at them as though asking their particular attention. “The eye,”
said he, “is capable of vision only up to a certain point. It will
follow an object going up into the air; then the object will disappear;
it is ‘out of sight.’ However, though the object can’t be seen, it is
still there, still going upward.
“You’ve heard the yell of the siren, a thing used upon the seagoing
ships?” he proceeded. “You’ve heard its shriek mount and mount, getting
higher and higher, and finally you ceased to hear it? But it had not
stopped. It was still going on, only it had reached a pitch so high
that it was out of ear-shot. It was only when it began to fall and had
reached the point where you had lost it, that you began to hear it
once more.”
Mr. Scanlon drew down one corner of his mouth and blinked a great
number of times.
“What do you know about that!” said he.
“Perhaps the world’s greatest authority upon sound,” Ashton-Kirk
went on as he took some notes from his pocket-book, “is the German,
Helmholtz. In his book ‘On the Sensations of Tone’ he says:
“‘The simple partial tones contained in a composite mass of musical
tones produce peculiar mechanical effects in nature, altogether
independent of the human ear and its sensations, and altogether
independent of merely theoretical considerations. These effects
consequently give a peculiar objective significance to this peculiar
method of analyzing vibrational forms.’
“Then,” continued Ashton-Kirk, “this master of sound goes on to speak
of the phenomenon of sympathetic resonance. He says on this point:
‘When, for example, the strings of two violins are in exact unison, and
one string is bowed, the other will begin to vibrate.’ And in another
place: ‘Gently touch one of the keys of a pianoforte without striking
the string, so as to raise the damper only, and then sing a note of
the corresponding pitch, forcibly directing the voice against the
strings of the instrument. On ceasing to sing the note will be echoed
back from the piano. It is easy to discover that this echo is caused
by the string which is in unison with the note, for directly the hand
is removed from the key, and the damper is allowed to fall, the echo
ceases.’
“We see, in the case of the siren, and in other things, that some tones
are so high that they are not heard. Also we see, by Helmholtz, that
when a string keyed to a certain tone is struck, another string, keyed
to the same tone, will at once take up the sound, or vibration----”
Here Miss Knowles interrupted him, eagerly.
“I think I see what you mean,” she said. “These unusual strings upon
the harp, this great strengthening of the frame, means that it is keyed
to this inaudible pitch. That some one outside has an instrument of
some sort keyed in unison; and when the harp string is touched, the
other vibrated in sympathy.”
“And that these vibrations, made in long or short waves, or in groups,
much, perhaps, as the telegraph code is made, formed a ready means of
communication.”
Mr. Scanlon seemed appalled.
“Well,” said he, after a short pause, “I think I’ve absorbed the most
of it. But I’m not sure. However, there is one thing I _am_ sure of,
and that is that I’ve got a cabinet sized photograph of the party
who’s got the other instrument. That’s what Alva had that night on the
hilltop when I saw him sitting in the moonlight. He was exchanging
silent talk with Schwartzberg.” Then an idea seemed to strike him, and
he frowned again. “There is one thing that I don’t quite get. And that
is: If these vibrations, or tones, or sounds, whatever you call them,
were too high to be heard, how did the receivers of them make them out?”
Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
“As to that,” said he, “I am not prepared to say just now. A further
search into the thing might bring it out, but I’m not sure. But this I
will say: The sense of touch is marvellously sensitive in some people;
one every now and then hears some wonderful story with regard to it.
Fine, delicate hands may be the answer to your question.”
“Another thing,” said the girl. “Why was the wind required to always
be from the direction of the person sending the vibrations to
Schwartzberg? You’ll say to carry them. But what of the answer to them?
Would not the wind which carried the vibrations from one quarter hold
back those sent from the one opposite?”
“Only in part, unless the wind was very strong. And I think if you
can remember the nights upon which this means of communication was
used, they were fairly calm. The fact that the wind at the time of the
signals was always from the direction of the person outside might be
explained by that person’s superior knowledge of the medium in use.
Having a more perfect understanding of it, he was the more able to read
its fainter manifestations.”
Here a small clock hurriedly struck the hour of nine. And Ashton-Kirk
looked at Scanlon.
“And now,” he added, “I think it’s time to drop speculation for a
space. There is some work ahead of us which is going to be sharp and of
the sort that leaves not even a trace of doubt in the mind.”
CHAPTER XXIII
CONCLUSION
Ashton-Kirk, with Miss Knowles and Scanlon, entered the billiard room a
few moments later.
Miss Hohenlo greeted them despairingly.
“Frederic’s game is disgraceful,” she said. “I never saw him play so
badly.”
“In that case,” laughed Ashton-Kirk, “it will be a charity to relieve
you of him. Miss Knowles, I am sure, will take his place with credit.”
The girl gave him a quick glance; then she went to the table and took
the cue from Campe’s hand.
“I don’t think I have much of a chance against Miss Hohenlo,” smiled
she. “She’s always been too clever for me.”
“My dear,” cried the spinster, reproachfully, “you play an excellent
game. Indeed, I am never quite at ease with you.”
“That maiden-lady’s pretty able,” spoke Scanlon to Ashton-Kirk, a few
moments later in the hall; “and in other things besides billiards. She
must be on that something’s happening, that you first put Campe on
guard over her and now the girl, and yet she goes on as if nothing was
to be feared.”
“Calmness in the face of danger usually comes from a lack of
imagination,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“But,” protested Scanlon, “you wouldn’t say she had any shortcoming
like that, would you? I think the way she switched the matter of the
northwest wind on to the shoulders of the girl is a good proof that
she’s all there in that respect. And the way she grabbed, that same
night, the fact that the sword was missing, and pieced the fact on to
my suspicions of Miss Knowles, and the same weapon was rather cute.”
Here Campe came out of the billiard room and joined them.
“What now?” he asked.
“I think,” said Ashton-Kirk, “the last act of this drama of yours is
about to be played.”
“Good!” said Campe, his eyes burning. “Whatever it develops--good!”
“Are you armed?”
“I always am--now,” answered the young man, sadly. “I haven’t taken a
step without a firearm in readiness for months.”
“And you, Scanlon?”
“All right,” replied the big man.
When they reached the lower floor, Ashton-Kirk said to Campe:
“Please call your man. We’ll need him.”
“Wait!” Mr. Scanlon held out one large protesting hand. “What do you
want him to do?”
“We are going into the cellars. I think it best that some one be left
to watch the hall thereabouts, and the cellar stairs.”
Bat nodded.
“Thought it was something like that,” said he. “And that’s why I wanted
to know. Now I want to say this. Kretz may be all right; then, again,
he may not be.”
Campe gazed at the speaker astonished.
“I should as soon distrust myself as Kretz,” said he. “I’ve known him
for years, and he is in every way worthy of confidence.”
“May be so,” admitted Bat. “May be so. But things break the other
way sometimes, you know. So let’s be sure.” He looked at the others
inquiringly. “How about that day when we were shot at in the cellar?”
said he. “How did the lamp come to smash? It happened, remember, before
a shot was fired.”
Ashton-Kirk smiled.
“If that’s all you have against the sergeant-major,” said he, “I think
he will do. As it happens, I know just what caused the smash; some one
from the darkness struck it. I saw the hand that did it, but not the
owner thereof.”
Scanlon was silent for a moment; then he said:
“Well, I don’t set myself up as a judge. I was wrong in some other
matters, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be wrong in this one of
Kretz’s. So, if _you_ think he’s O.K., I’m willing to.”
“There is only one traitor in Schwartzberg,” said young Campe,
mournfully.
“Who’s that?” asked Scanlon.
“I think you know,” replied the young man. “And, as I said to you
before, there’s no need to mention names.” There was a brief silence,
then he added: “Something made me suspect that everything was not
right. But I was never sure of anything,” to Ashton-Kirk, “until the
night before your first visit here.”
“You saw some one picked up by the searchlight while Kretz was firing
at a man who was running away,” said the crime specialist. “We saw her,
too.”
“When she returned,” said Campe in a low tone, “I asked her why she
went, how she got out, and what was her errand. But she couldn’t
answer. And ever since she has avoided the subject.”
“I made one of my customary mistakes that night, too,” said Scanlon.
“I picked the wrong lady, and I thought you meant her, too.” Then to
Ashton-Kirk: “Shall I call the sergeant-major in?”
“Yes,” replied Ashton-Kirk.
In a few moments the German entered, and he listened, grim and
unwinking, to the detective’s instructions.
“Here I shall stand,” said he, “until you tell me--no more.”
“That’s enough--if you keep your eyes open.” Then to Scanlon
Ashton-Kirk said: “Do you think you could find a hatchet?”
“I’ll have one in a minute,” replied the big man.
He produced one from the storeroom. Ashton-Kirk then went to the outer
gate and blew a shrill signal. Almost at once Burgess and his companion
appeared out of the darkness, and followed the special detective into
the castle. Then the electric torch flashed along the vault steps as
the five descended. The door closed and Kretz was heard to shoot the
heavy bolts.
“It’s rather early to expect anything definite,” said the crime
specialist. “But you’d better see that your weapons are ready, for all
that.”
And when they reached the floor of the vault each had a heavy automatic
in his hand. Quickly they went through the place and found it empty.
“No one here,” said Mr. Scanlon, fingering the grip of his weapon
regretfully. Then in another tone he added, to Ashton-Kirk: “But, I
say, what makes you think there will be?”
“Some days ago,” replied the special detective, “in my journeying about
in the guise of an invalid, I came across a boat hidden along the
river bank, and the indications were very strong that it belonged to
the people at the inn.”
“Well?” asked Scanlon.
“When you told me of your experience with the man who went through Mr.
Campe’s papers,” said Ashton-Kirk, “I thought a paper was the object
of the visit. And so it was--but only as a thing that would lead to
something else. This latter fact I suspected from the contents of the
telegram received by me this morning; and I was convinced of it when
we made our search of the vaults a few hours ago. The paper sought was
one which held certain directions; the man with the cough found it that
night before he leaped through the window. The paper could not have
been clear to them; it pointed to something hidden here in the vaults
of Schwartzberg; they searched, but without success. At length, perhaps
last night, Alva came, as we saw by the wheel tracks of his chair. His
superior intelligence at once showed itself, and located what they
sought.”
Young Campe gave a cry.
“So it was in Schwartzberg, as they said!” he exclaimed, despairingly.
“You never knew it, then?” asked Ashton-Kirk.
“I knew nothing, except that I was threatened with death unless I gave
up what I had never seen and knew nothing of. I told them so a hundred
times, but they would not believe me.”
“You could have given them the run of the place,” suggested
Ashton-Kirk, “and let them search for themselves.”
The jaw of the young man set.
“No,” said he. “They asked that, but I refused. You, I think,” and he
looked at the other steadily, “know why.”
“I think I do,” said Ashton-Kirk.
“But,” spoke Mr. Scanlon, “tell me how you know they located what they
were after?”
“In that far corner,” said the crime specialist, “there is a heavy
flag, set in the floor. Very recently, so I noted to-day, some one has
scraped away the cement at its edges. There has been an effort to raise
it, but the attempt has failed because of a lack of tools.”
“I’ve got it,” said Bat. “When you walked me up along the river this
afternoon, that place where you left me to go poking among the tangled
old vine was the place where you discovered the boat. And you saw tools
in it; and that’s what told you they were coming to-night.”
“Well done,” laughed-the detective. “Very well done indeed!”
Then Campe, who had patiently kept himself from asking questions,
seemed unable to contain himself any longer. One query followed another
in rapid succession, and in a few moments Ashton-Kirk found himself
deep in statements and explanations. The torch had been snapped off;
they stood in the darkness of the vaults, talking in low tones.
And when everything had been told him, the young man was silent for a
space. Then he said:
“The way you have gone about this is quite wonderful--I would not have
believed that such a meagre array of detached facts could be so pieced
together, and made into a whole so direct and significant. But even now
I do not understand how you made up your mind as to the nature of the
thing these men seek.”
“When I read Fuller’s statement, contained in his report, that
the former head of the Guatemala police was now that country’s
representative at Washington, I wired at once asking information as to
the man Evans and the nature of his offences in Guatemala. The telegram
I received this morning,” to Scanlon, “was in answer to that, and it
said----”
Here the voice died away; there was silence for a moment.
“Well,” asked Scanlon, “what did it----”
“Hush!”
Again there was silence. Then, little by little, a sound reached the
ears of the big man--a faint scraping--and then a murmur.
“They are coming,” said the crime specialist. “This way.”
For an instant the torch flashed to show them their way; then, safe in
the shadows, they waited. A glimmer of light danced in the darkness,
then it flooded a narrow space; the door to the underground passage had
been opened; a man stepped into the vault. To the surprise of Scanlon
he recognized the soft gentleman.
“Hello!” was Bat’s mental exclamation. “He’s here again, is he? Maybe
we’ll play a return engagement; our act went big last time.”
The newcomer looked carefully about and as he was doing so a second
man entered. This was the drawn man, Shaw. He turned and helped the
Indian servant with the rolling chair, in which lay Alva. After this
came Hirst, who had discarded both his crutch and stick, and then the
landlord of the inn, with the peppery little doctor carrying some heavy
tools.
“What is the time?” asked Alva in his strong voice.
“Almost ten,” replied the soft man.
“We’d better get to work at once,” spoke Alva. “Get the bars.”
“Wait,” said the soft man. “I want to have a look at the door.”
The rays of the lantern came creeping toward the five crouching in the
shadow. But the edge of the illumination did not quite reach them as
the man went by and softly up the step. After a little he returned; the
rays lighted up the inquiring faces of those awaiting him.
“All right,” he reported. “It seems to be still nailed fast.”
“Now,” said Alva, impatiently, “to work. And let us get out of this
hole. I can feel the dampness creeping into my very bones.”
The watchers saw them cluster about the point indicated by Ashton-Kirk
a short time before. The yellow light of the lantern played about them
quaveringly; Alva, with his misshapen head and his burning eyes, sat
propped up in his chair, waiting.
Iron chinked against stone; there came a grinding and a straining as
the men threw their weights on the bars; then followed a panting of
breath, muffled exclamations, and a huge slab of stone from the floor
leaned against the wall.
“The light!” cried Shaw.
The rays shone down on the place which the flag had covered a few
moments before.
“There they are!” came the smothered cry of the soft man.
Shaw snatched at something; in a moment it was out upon the floor.
It was a flat package, wrapped in lead foil and tied with cord. A
knife-blade cut the binding, the foil was torn away, as was layer after
layer of oiled paper; then the rays of the lantern glanced upon the
surface of a number of metal plates.
“They are the plates! It’s Joe’s work!” The soft man was exultant and
waved his arms.
“How many are there?” asked Alva.
“Four,” replied Shaw. “And all in perfect condition.”
“In six months,” babbled the soft man, “there will be some ‘stuff’ in
circulation in Mexico that will never be detected. ‘Stuff,’” and here
he laughed almost hysterically, “that’ll be better than the genuine.
Joe was the workman; he knew how to go over a plate.”
“And he also knew how to wrap one so that the damp wouldn’t get a
chance to work on it,” said Shaw. “Hold the lantern closer.”
Under the light the drawn man inspected the plates closely.
“Great work!” said he, at length. “Never saw better.” Then he looked at
the soft man. “How long did your brother put in on them?”
“I’m not sure. A good many months, though. And it was all done in this
place. Joe worked himself to death over them, he was sick when old
Campe got cold feet, backed out of the job and hurried north. He must
have given Joe some kind of a story to get him to hide his work in
this way; he was a wise old fox, as you know. Anyway, he went back to
Mexico; Joe died before he could get any kind of word to me; and there
we were, up a tree.”
“Well, we are safely down again,” came the strong voice of the cripple;
“but don’t let us wait here. Get the plates together, and we’ll be
off.”
Shaw obeyed; carefully he placed the plates one upon another, the
layers of oiled paper between. He had them all nicely adjusted when
they were snatched from his hand, and a voice said quietly:
“Careful now, gentlemen. Don’t do anything hasty. There are five guns
between you and what you want.”
Startled, amazed, snarling, the seven stared at Ashton-Kirk. Faintly
they saw the burly form of Scanlon in the shadow, and beside him the
master of Schwartzberg and the two detectives; in the polish of the
black automatics which these held there was a silent menace.
Ashton-Kirk nodded to the soft man, and smiled.
“The Guatemala police also admired the work of your brother,” said
he. “They say they never saw better.” Then without turning his head:
“Scanlon!”
“Right here,” answered the big man, promptly.
“How long do you think it would take you to undo the work of Joe Evans,
engraver, upon four plates, counterfeiting the notes of the Mexican
Republic?”
“With a hatchet,” replied the big man, “about once second to each
plate.”
The engraved steel clashed upon the floor at his feet.
“I’ll take the torch, too,” said Bat, “so’s to be sure and make a job
of it.”
“Steady now,” said the detective, as his keen eye noted a movement on
the part of the criminals. “And you, Mr. Shaw, keep away from that
lantern. I understand the sudden extinguishing of lights is a specialty
of yours.”
The light of the torch fell upon the four steel plates; Mr. Scanlon
placed them face up, and with a few sharp cuts from the edge of the
hatchet upon each ruined them for ever. And then, once more, they
clashed upon the floor, this time at the feet of the intruders.
“There they are,” observed the big man, lazily. “Seeing that you were
at so much trouble to get them I’d hate to see you go without them----”
“I suppose,” said Alva, and his full lips drew back and showed his
teeth in a smile, “you will now call the police.”
“I hardly think we’ll go to that extreme,” replied Ashton-Kirk. “The
Mexican government possibly would be interested to know who was guilty
of the murder of three members of the Campe family, but we’ll hold that
in reserve for a while, at least.”
“You couldn’t prove anything,” sneered Alva.
“Don’t be too sure of that, Mr. Alva. The mark of your hand is plain in
your work, and it would not be at all difficult to tie you up in it.”
He nodded to the man, quietly. “But,” said he, “we’ll say nothing about
that now. I’m giving you a chance--not for your sake, nor for the sake
of any of your friends, of course--but to spare an entirely innocent
young man a family scandal.”
He pointed to the underground passage.
“Waste no time in going,” said he. “And let us see no more of you.”
Sullenly the seven, like wild beasts, longing, but not daring to leap
upon their captors, turned to the passage. Alva’s chair was rolled into
it, then the other followed, muttering and with many sidelong glances.
“Good-night,” called Scanlon into the tunnel. “Hope you’ve had a good
time.”
Then the great stone swung shut and closed them out.
“I don’t think you’ll ever be bothered by any of those gentlemen
again,” said Ashton-Kirk, to Campe. “They were interested in the
plates, and not at all in you. However,” as they ascended the steps,
“I’d have that passage filled in, if I were you, and meant to spend
much time at Schwartzberg.”
Kretz opened the door at Campe’s summons. The entire household seemed
gathered in the lower hall about the door.
“The Fräulein Hohenlo,” and the grim German motioned toward that lady,
“would go down to you. But I would not let her.”
“You are not hurt?” asked a voice, and the golden-haired girl came
forward toward young Campe. Her voice was low and trembling, and she
moved unsteadily.
“Take care!” cried Ashton-Kirk, sharply. He was not a moment too soon
in the warning, for Campe had barely time to leap forward and catch the
fainting girl in his arms.
Miss Hohenlo, white, and with a deadened look in her eyes stood looking
at Ashton-Kirk.
“He was not injured?” she asked.
“Who?” said he.
“Alva.” Then, quietly, for she seemed to understand that all was over,
“He is my husband.”
“No,” replied Ashton-Kirk. “He is safe enough.” Then looking at the
woman with narrowing eyes, he continued: “He has just about reached
the river bank. Will you join him there?”
Dumbly she went down the hall, her hands seeming to grope the way.
“Kretz,” said the special detective, “open the door.”
The German moved after the woman, and in a few moments they heard the
great gate open and close.
“Well,” said Mr. Scanlon, with a long breath, “that’s all finished! And
it seems to me,” nodding to Ashton-Kirk, affably, “it’s a pretty fair
kind of a job.”
_The Stories in this Series are_:
ASHTON-KIRK, INVESTIGATOR
ASHTON-KIRK, CRIMINOLOGIST
SECRET AGENT (ASHTON-KIRK)
SPECIAL DETECTIVE (ASHTON-KIRK)
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPECIAL DETECTIVE
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