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Wells Hastings and Brian Hooker
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Title: The Professor's Mystery
Author: Wells Hastings
Brian Hooker
Illustrator: Hanson Booth
Release Date: January 17, 2011 [EBook #34988]
Language: English
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THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY
[Illustration: No good ever comes of half understandings]
THE PROFESSOR'S
MYSTERY
BY
WELLS HASTINGS
AND
BRIAN HOOKER
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HANSON BOOTH
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1911
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I IN WHICH THINGS ARE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN 1
II THE MEADOW OF ILLUSION 17
III AN ALARM IN THE NIGHT 26
IV AN INSULT IN THE MORNING 41
V BESIDE THE SUMMER SEA: AN INTERLUDE 51
VI A RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL THEME 65
VII SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT CONFIRMED WITH COSTS 77
VIII HOW WE MADE AN UNCONVENTIONAL JOURNEY TO TOWN 90
IX HOW WE ESCAPED FROM WHAT WE FOUND THERE 104
X AND HOW WE BROUGHT HOME A DIFFICULTY 116
XI EXPRESSIONS OF THE FAMILY AND IMPRESSIONS OF THE PRESS 127
XII AN AMATEUR MAN-HUNT WHEREIN MY OWN POSITION IS SOMEWHAT
ANXIOUS 143
XIII THE PRESENCE IN THE ROOM 161
XIV A DISAPPEARANCE AND AN ENCOUNTER 172
XV MENTAL RESERVATIONS 187
XVI MEAGER REVELATIONS 197
XVII THE BORDERLAND AND A NAME 212
XVIII DOCTOR REID REMOVES A SOURCE OF INFORMATION 223
XIX IN WHICH I CAN NOT BELIEVE HALF I HEAR 235
XX NOR UNDERSTAND ALL I SEE 247
XXI CONCERNING THE IDENTITY OF THE MAN WITH THE HIGH VOICE 258
XXII I LEARN WHAT I HAVE TO DO 271
XXIII I STAND BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 284
XXIV THE CONSULTATION OF AN EXPERT AND A LAYMAN 302
XXV FIGHTING WITH SHADOWS 317
XXVI AND REDISCOVERING REALITIES 332
THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH THINGS ARE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
"Has the two-forty-five for Boston gone yet?"
The train announcer looked at me a long time; then he shifted his plug
of tobacco to the other cheek and drawled:
"Naouw. Reported forty minutes late."
At this point I believe I swore. At least I have no recollection of not
doing so, and I should hardly have forgotten so eminent an act of virtue
under such difficult circumstances. It was not only that I had worked
myself into a heat for nothing. But the train could hardly fail of
losing yet more time on its way to Boston, and my chances of making the
steamer were about one in three. My trunk would go to Liverpool without
me, a prey to the inquisitive alien; and as for me I was at the mercy of
the steamship company. For a moment I wondered how I could possibly
have doubted my desire to go abroad that summer and to go on that boat
though the heavens fell. I thought insanely of automobiles and special
trains. Then came the reaction and I settled back comfortably hopeless
into the hands of fate. After all I did not care an improper fraction
whether I stayed or went: let the gods decide. Only I wished something
would happen. The shining rails reached away to lose themselves in a
haze of heat. Somewhere a switching engine was puffing like a tired dog.
Knots of listless humanity stood about under the dingy roof of the
platform; and the wind across the harbor brought a refreshing aroma of
tidal mud and dead clams. It occurred to me that my collar was rather
sticky on the inside.
I walked the platform fanning myself with my hat. I bought cigarettes,
magazines and a shine. I explored the station, scrutinizing faces and
searching vainly for matters of interest. I exhausted my resources in
filling up fifteen minutes, and the hand of the electric clock seemed as
tremulous with indecision as it had before been jerky with haste.
Nothing happened. Nothing would happen or could happen anywhere. Romance
was dead.
Feet scraped; a bell chattered; then breathing flame and smoke, and
with a shriek that would have put Saint George to utter rout, the down
express rumbled between me and the sky, and ground heavily to a
standstill. And there, framed in the wide Pullman window, was a face
that altered all the colors of the day, and sent me back among
sleigh-bells and holly. Not that I had known her well; but the week of
intimate gaiety at a Christmas house party had shown her so sweetly
merry, so well fashioned in heart and brain and body that the sight of
her renewed pleasant memories, like the reopening of a familiar book.
She was smiling now; not at me, but with the same humorously pensive
little smile that I remembered, that seemed to come wholly from within
and to summarize her outlook upon the world. Her dark brows were lifted
in cool and friendly interest as she glanced over the comfortless crowd;
and although I was now somewhat more at peace with the world, and no
longer hot nor hurried, she seemed to me to sit there in the window of
her sweltering car a thing aloof and apart, the embodiment of all
unruffled daintiness.
Her eyes found me and she nodded, smiling. I went forward eagerly. Here,
at least, in a stuffy and uninteresting world was somebody cool,
somebody amusing, somebody I knew. I picked up my bag and ran up the
steps of her car. As I came down the aisle she half rose and stretched
out a welcoming slim hand. I dropped into the chair beside her.
"Well, this is luck," I said. "But what are you doing here in the world
in July? You belong to Christmas in a setting of frosty white and green.
You're out of season now."
She laughed. "Surely I have as much right in July as you have, Mr.
Crosby. You are only a sort of yule-tide phantom yourself."
"Wasn't it a jolly week?" I asked.
Miss Tabor's smile answered me. Then turning half away with a face grown
suddenly and strangely bleak: "I think it was the best Christmas of my
life," she said mechanically. And then with a sudden return to sunshine:
"I suppose I see the professor starting on his learned pilgrimage. Is it
Europe this summer, or the great libraries of America?"
She had twitted me before upon my lack of scholarly bearing which, as I
had always explained, was but a mask to unsuspected profundity.
"Well,"--I began, deliberately groping for a decision among the tangled
fates of the afternoon, my doubtful steamer and my grudging plans, "to
tell you the truth, Miss Tabor--"
She touched my arm and pointed out of the window. "Look," she said, "you
haven't nearly time enough for that now. Do hurry--you mustn't take
chances."
The platform was slipping by faster and faster, and with it sobriety and
common sense and the wisdom of the beaten path. On the other hand lay
the comedy of the present and that flouting of one's own arrangements
which is the last word of freedom. I glanced down at her ticket, where
it lay face upward on the window-sill.
"To tell you the truth, Miss Tabor," I finished, "I am on my way to
Stamford," and I settled back comfortably into my seat.
Miss Tabor regarded me tolerantly, with the air of a collector examining
a doubtful specimen: one eyebrow a trifle raised, and an adorable twist
at the corners of her mouth. As for me, I tried to look innocently
unconcerned. It may be possible to do this; but no one is ever conscious
of success at the time.
"I'm going there myself," she said suddenly. "Isn't this a
coincidence?"
"Easily that. Let me amend the word and call it a dispensation. But
appearances are against you. You ought to be going to a lawn party--in a
dog-cart."
"I wonder where you ought to be going," she mused. "Probably to the
British museum to dig up a lot of dead authors that everybody ought to
know about and nobody reads."
This was altogether too near the truth. "I didn't know you lived in
Stamford," I said. "You appeared last Christmas in a character of the
daughter of Gotham. Wasn't there an ancestor of yours who went to sea in
a bowl?"
Her smile faded as if a light had gone out in her. After a pause she
answered rather wearily, "We've only been in Stamford a few months. We
had always lived in town before."
We looked out of the window for a few moments in silence, while I
formulated a hasty hypothesis of financial reverses which had driven the
family from their city home, and registered a resolution to avoid the
uncomfortable subject. Still, I reflected, the lower shore of the Sound
is not precisely the resort of impoverished pride. Had I touched upon
some personal sorrow of her own? She was not in mourning. Yet as she
lay back in the green chair, one hand listless in her lap, the other
twisting at the slender chain that ran about her neck and lost itself in
the bosom of her gown, the fringe of her eyelid clear against the soft
shadows of her profile, I imagined in her something of the enchanted
princess bound by evil spells in some dark castle of despair. And
immediately, with a surge of absurd valor, I saw myself striding, sword
in hand, across the drawbridge to blow the brazen horn and do battle
with the enchanter. The next moment she routed my imagination by
returning lightly to the subject.
"It's a lovely place. I'm out of doors the whole time, and I'm so well I
get positively bored trying to work off energy. I can't get tired enough
to sit still and improve my uneducated mind. Ever so many nice people,
too. By the way, whom do you know there?"
I was on the defensive again. "Why--I don't know anybody exactly
there--but there are some friends of mine down at one of those
beach-places in the neighborhood--the Ainslies. Bob was in my class."
She resumed the air of the connoisseur. "Why, I know them. I'm going to
visit Mrs. Ainslie myself over the week-end. Do they know you're
coming?"
"I'm not going to them," I said desperately. "That is, I may while I'm
near by, but I haven't any definite plans. For once in my life I'm not
going to have any definite plans, but just start out and see what
happens to me. For six months I've been telling things I care about to a
lot of kids that aren't old enough to care about anything; and now I
want adventures. I went down to the station to take the first train that
came along, go wherever it took me and let things happen."
"You might have gone to some romantic place," she suggested. "Three
months would hardly be time enough for the Far East, but you might have
tried Russia or the Mediterranean."
"That's just the point," I returned. "Romance and adventure don't depend
on time; they only depend on people. If you're the kind of person things
happen to you can have adventures on Fifth Avenue. If you're not, you
might walk through all the Arabian Nights and only feel bored and
uncomfortable. It all depends upon turning out of your way to pick up
surprises. You're walking in the wood and you see something that looks
like a root peeping out from between the rocks. Well, if you're the
right kind of person you'll catch hold of it and pull. It may be only a
root; or it may be the tail of a dragon. And in that case you ought to
thank Heaven for excitement, even if you're scared to death."
By this time I almost believed in my own explanation. But Miss Tabor did
not seem particularly impressed.
She put on the voice and manner of a child of ten. "You must be awfully
brave to like being afraid of things," she lisped; then with a sudden
change of tone, "Mr. Crosby, suppose--only for the sake of
argument--that you're making this up as you go along and that you did
know perfectly well where you were going, where do you think you would
have gone?"
Then I gave up and explained, "I was going to Europe to study," I said,
"for no better reason than that I had nothing more interesting to do.
Then my train was late and I should have missed my steamer anyway
and--and then you came along and I thought I might just as well make the
most of the situation. Now I can go down and tell the Ainslies they want
to see me and all will be well."
After some meditating she said, "Are you as irresponsible as that about
everything?"
"I don't see where all the irresponsibility comes in," I protested. "It
isn't a sacred and solemn duty to follow out one's own plans, especially
when they were only made to fill up the want of anything more worth
while, and have fallen through already. I didn't care about going to
Europe in the first place; then I couldn't--at least not at once; then I
found something else that I did care about doing."
"Men," said Miss Tabor, "usually find a logical reason for what they do
on impulse, without any reason at all."
"And the proof that women always act reasonably," I retorted, "is that
they never give you the reason."
Instead of taking that for the flippancy it was, she thought about it
for some minutes; or else it reminded her of something.
"Besides," I went on, "this is an adventure, as far as it goes; a little
one, if you like, but still with all the earmarks of romance. It was
unexpected, and it fits into itself perfectly--all the parts of the
scene match like a picture-puzzle--and it happened through a mixture of
chance and the taking of chances. It's just that snatching at casual
excitement that makes things happen to people."
"Don't things enough happen to people without their seeking them out?"
she asked.
"Not to most people; and not nowadays, if they ever did. Do you remember
Humpty Dumpty's objection to Alice's face, that it was just like other
faces--two eyes above, nose in the middle, mouth under? Well, that's the
only objection I have to life; days and doings are too regular, too much
according to schedule. Why is a train less romantic than a stage-coach?
Because it runs on time and on a track; it can't do anything but be
late. But the stage-coach dallies along through the countryside, with
inns and highwaymen, and pretty girls driving geese to market, and all
the chances of the open road. The horse of the knight-errant was better
still, and for the same reason."
"I don't think anything very much has ever happened to you," she said
slowly.
"Well," said I, "I'm not pretending to be Ulysses; and you've reminded
me of my tender age so often that I can hardly forget it in your
presence. But I have had a few exciting moments, and I want more. I
don't care whether they are pleasant or not, so long as I come safe out
of them somehow. They'll pay for themselves with the gold of memory."
"That's just what I mean," she returned. "You talk about things as if
the only question of importance were whether they are exciting. One
looks at books that way, and pictures, and things that are not real. A
moment ago, you put highwaymen in the same class with inns and
goose-girls. Do you suppose any one that was actually held up and robbed
of his fortune would think of the robber as merely a pleasant thrill?"
"I'd rather be robbed by a highwayman than by a railroad, anyway. At the
worst, I'd have had a run for my money."
She went on without smiling: "And even trains run off the track
sometimes. Do you think you would enjoy the memory of a railroad
accident--even if you weren't hurt yourself?"
"Perhaps not. But there's another disadvantage of the train. It's so
regular and mechanical that if anything does go wrong there is an ugly
smash. It's the same way with modern people. Most of us live such an
ordinary habitual life that if we get thrown off the track we're likely
to break up altogether."
I had struck the wrong note again. The light went out in her face, as a
cloud-shadow darkens a sunny field, and she looked away without
answering. Not to make my mistake worse by taking notice of it, I said,
"After all, what should we do if things always went smoothly and there
weren't any adventures?"
She said quietly, "We might be normal and wholesome and comfortable,"
and continued looking out of the window and toying with her chain, while
I cursed myself for a tactless clodhopper without the sense to avoid a
danger sign. Then I found myself wondering what this trouble could be
that by the mere touch of an accidental allusion could strike the joy
out of a creature so naturally radiant. Whatever it was, it had come
upon her within the last six months, or the chances of our Christmas
week had been singularly free from reminders of it. Could there be
possibly any connection between it and that chain with its hidden
pendant? Or was it only by accident that her hand went to it in her
moments of brooding? I seemed to have noticed the chain before, and her
habit of playing with it in idleness, but I could not be sure.
She roused herself presently, and the talk went on, though with an
undercurrent of discomfort. For my part, I was still repenting my
clumsiness; and she, I suppose, felt annoyed at having shown so palpably
an emotion which she had not intended for my eyes. So that, in spite of
regret for the approaching end of the adventure, I was hardly sorry when
our arrival at Stamford supplemented speech with action.
"Are you expecting any one to meet you?" I asked, as the platform
emptied and left us standing alone.
"No, they didn't know what train I was coming on. But there's the
trolley now. And it's your car, too, that is, if you're still going to
the Ainslies'."
A short open car, with an air of putting its wheels close together in
order to buck, squeaked around the curve and took us aboard. When we
were well under way a short, heavy man came around the corner of the
station on an unsteady run and pursued a little distance with
inarticulate shoutings and violent gestures. We were too far off to see
him very distinctly, but I thought he had somehow a foreign look; and
unless my ears were at fault he was cursing us in Italian. We left him
standing in the middle of the road, shaking his fist and mopping his
face with a red handkerchief.
There was only one other passenger on the car, a fattish woman with
blonde hair, who sat at the farther end; but for all that, it could
hardly be called either a private or a comfortable conveyance. There was
a badly flattened wheel forward, which banged and jolted abominably; and
the motorman, instead of running slowly on that account, seemed
possessed of a speed mania induced by artificial happiness. He bumped
over crossings and rocked around curves at an alarming rate,
accompanying the performance with occasional snatches of song; while the
conductor, balanced on the back platform, read a newspaper and chewed a
toothpick without paying the slightest attention. Where we ran for a
long stretch along the highway, an automobile came along and proceeded
to have fun with us after the manner of joyous automobiles. It ran
languidly beside us until we were at our best speed; then with a
derisive toot, buzzed half a mile ahead. Then it waited for us to come
up, and repeated the evolution, "barking" at us with the engine. The
motorman's songs turned to muttered anathemas. And as we turned from the
roadside along a low embankment of sand across the meadows we held to a
rate of speed that was really exciting.
"Are we making up time?" I asked. "Or is it only the festive motorman?"
Miss Tabor shook her head. "I never went so fast before. The man must
be--"
Just then we struck a curve. I had one instant's sickening sense of
danger as the front wheels bumped and thudded over the ties. Miss Tabor
caught at my arm with a smothered cry. Then the car lurched drunkenly to
the edge of the embankment and slowly rolled over.
CHAPTER II
THE MEADOW OF ILLUSION
I lay for a moment half stunned, my face buried in the moist depths of
the grass. It was as if Earth had been suddenly engulfed in a wandering
star, as if all known and familiar things had come to an instant end and
I must gather my vague soul to face unimagined eternities.
Cautiously I raised my head and looked about. A meadow stretched
blooming before me. To my left loomed the absurd bulk of the upturned
trolley, on its back with wheels in air, looking for all the world a
stupid mastodon puppy. A very much frightened conductor stood near by.
"Say," he asked hoarsely, "is yous all right? Kin you look after things
till Joe an' me git back?"
"Look after things?" I repeated dully.
"Sure, the lydies, I mean. Sure you kin. We'll beat it right off, an' I
hope to gosh Joe sobers up on the way! So long."
He was gone before I could gather my wits for a question, and
uncomprehendingly I watched the two blue-coated figures scrambling up
the steep, scarred sides of the viaduct. Frantically they scaled the top
and made off down the tracks without so much as another glance in my
direction.
Then of a sudden memory came upon me, and my heart contracted with a
greatness of fear that I had never known.
For a moment I could see her nowhere, then as I staggered to uncertain
feet I found her. She lay behind me, her hand pillowing her cheek as if
she slept. And as I knelt beside her to listen fearfully at her heart I
laughed with half a sob, for the beat came surely and with growing
strength.
The sudden easing of my fear came over me drowsily until it seemed as if
all the world lay in the hollow of the meadow about me and time had been
blotted out. In the grass beside her I sat down to wait.
To my bewildered sense we were two shadowy people in an impossible
dream. A wayward tendril of dark hair had fallen across her eyes. I
smoothed it softly back and my fingers brushed her hair lightly and
strayingly, as my mother's had mine in bygone days, tenderly and as if
we shared in the secret of sleep.
I do not know when her eyes opened, but looking down I found them turned
to mine. She smiled, sighed softly, and closed them. Then again they
opened.
"I think that I should like to sit up," she said.
I helped her carefully. "Are you all right?" I asked.
She smiled uncertainly. "I think so. I am very dizzy."
My arm was half about her, and for a long moment her head rested against
me. Then she sat up very straight and a little apart, busying herself
about her dress, giving a practised touch to her hair and the laces at
her neck, and smoothing the scarcely ruffled breadths of her skirt.
I gazed out across our meadow to where three black and white cows stood
sleepily knee-deep in a small pool. A meadow-lark rose and crossed the
field in erratic, wavering flight. A little cloud tempered the
brightness and passed.
"What happened?" she asked softly at last.
I pointed to where the trolley lay towering behind her.
She lost color a little and sprang to her feet, then she turned to me
laughing.
"I never saw anything look so ashamed of itself in my life," she said.
"Speak to it kindly, Mr. Crosby; it can't lie there with its feet in the
air for ever."
I shook my head ruefully. "I am afraid that it will have to stay there
for the afternoon, at least."
"But how are we--how am I--going to get home? Where are the crew, and
wasn't there another passenger?"
I gasped. I had absolutely forgotten the other woman.
She was lying not far from us in a little hollow of the long grass, and
for the moment I thought that she was dead. The sallow, foreign face was
yellow white, the plump hands were gripped, as if in some past
convulsive agony, above her head, and this same muscular rigidity seemed
to underlie incongruously every formless line of the flabby body.
Miss Tabor's hand trembled upon my arm. "Do you think that she--that she
is dead?" she whispered.
I stooped to the woman's wrist. The pulse came faintly with a dull throb
that was unbelievably slow. But as I still fumbled the pulpy hand
caught mine in a grip that made me wince, the bloodless lips stirred in
a shuddering moan, and without opening her eyes she spoke.
"It is hard, hard," she said, "there is too much light. Will some one
turn down the light?" A long convulsive tremor ran over the entire body
and the hand in mine struggled in anguish.
Miss Tabor shivered.
"I am afraid that she is very much hurt," I said as gently as I could. I
was ashamed of myself, but fear seemed to clutch me. Then I gave myself
a mental shake and caught my hat from the ground. "You will have to stay
with her, I suppose, while I get some water. You might loosen her
dress." It was all that I could think of.
Miss Tabor knelt to the work without a word, and I made off across the
meadow to the pool, running at my best speed.
In a moment I was back again and dashed what little water my hat still
held over the twitching, yellow face.
The eyelids fluttered and lack-luster eyes looked into mine. The woman
gasped and sat up.
"That is a very dangerous thing to do, young man." The voice beneath
its severity of tone was softly unctuous and vaguely Latin. "A very
dangerous thing, indeed. Sudden shock has killed us many times. That is
well known."
Miss Tabor looked at her with pity. Evidently the woman was still out of
her head.
"If you will sit quietly for a little while you will be better," I said.
She nodded, looking curiously about her. Comprehension was coming back.
She took out a crumpled handkerchief and wiped the water from her face.
"What on earth are we to do now?" Miss Tabor whispered. "We must do
something, for they are expecting me home already." She glanced
anxiously at the little watch at her wrist. "But I don't see how we can
leave this poor woman here all by herself."
"No, I don't see how we can," I answered, "but perhaps she can walk. Do
you think that she could climb that bank, even if you could?"
Miss Tabor shook her head. "We must walk back and look for an easier
place. But I am afraid that the car will come before we can find one."
We had spoken in very low voices, but the woman looked up.
"You have ten minutes before the car will arrive. I will be myself by
then."
"Are you sure?" I asked, for I had not seen her look at a watch.
She smiled scornfully. "You have ten minutes. The car will arrive then.
Have you lost anything in your fall?"
Mechanically I put my hand in my pocket, to find it empty. For a second
I was thunderstruck, then I stepped over to the place where I had fallen
and poked about in the grass. My pocketbook, I found immediately, and
after a moment came upon my keys and change in a scarcely scattered
pile.
Miss Tabor was watching me. "Nothing missing," I said. "How about you?"
"Oh, all my things are in my bag." And she pointed to where it lay near
mine, in a tangle of blackberry vines.
But when I turned from rescuing them I found her standing with her hand
at her neck, searching distractedly among her laces.
"What! you have lost something?" I cried.
"Yes," she said, and it seemed to me that her eyes were afraid, "there
was a little gold chain that I wore. Oh, it can't be lost, it can't
be!"
Her manner surprised me. To all my knowledge she had been so unruffled,
had borne herself with such a certain serenity, that to see her now,
with frightened eyes staring and full of tears, pain written clear
between the lovely brows, and with hands that trembled at her breast,
startled me out of my own composure.
"Certainly it's not lost," I said harshly, for I was puzzled. After all,
there was nothing so tragic in the loss of a little chain. Then I knew
better, knew that if she valued it so I would find it if it took me my
vacation. "Come," I said more gently, "we will look."
She had gained some control over herself, and now began to search the
ground where we had fallen, carefully and on her knees. I thought that
she was crying softly and glanced to see if the other woman noticed.
Her back was turned to us and her face seemed buried in her hands. As I
looked at her she spoke.
"If you seek a small chain," she said listlessly, "you will find it
close beside the fallen car."
And there as I walked directly to it I saw the glimmer of a strand of
gold straggling from beneath the upturned roof.
"Here it is," I cried wonderingly and drew it forth. Then I stood
dumbly, the thing in my hands, my mind reeling. For from the mangled
clasp hung a woman's wedding-ring.
CHAPTER III
AN ALARM IN THE NIGHT
There was nothing that I could ask, nothing that I could say, and aside
from her thanks she was silent. So without a word I turned and helped
the other woman to her feet, and still in silence the three of us walked
along until we came to an easy rise where I helped them both to the
track. We were just in time, for as we gained the track our trolley
rounded the curve and took us aboard.
So for a mile or so Miss Tabor and I sat in intimate aloofness, while
the car bore us through the beauty of the fading summer day. Everywhere
birds were chanting the evening, and ever and again with growing
insistence the vivid breath of the nearing sea blew past us. All my life
this first summer tang of salt air had never failed to stir me. It had
meant vacation and the vague trumpet call of the unknown. But now I sat
unheeding, burning with an unreasoning and sullen resentment. I knew
that I was a fool. What possible difference could it make to me if the
acquaintance of a merry week and a few more intimate hours chose to hide
a wedding-ring in her breast. It certainly was no business of mine, nor
could she owe me any explanation. Yet I wanted explanation more than
anything else in the world. It certainly could not be her own and
yet--whose was it, anyway? Certainly not her mother's, for her mother I
knew was alive. But then, whose could it be? And why did it matter so
much? Why should such a patent terror fill her at the thought of its
loss? Why was it again so finally and so quickly hidden away? It was
even strange, I thought, that she should let the emotion that she must
know I had seen, pass with no effort of explanation.
I glanced at her. She was sitting, looking wearily ahead, distress was
in her eyes, and every little line of her body spoke fatigue without
hope; only her hands, tightly clasped in her lap, showed the
determination of some hidden thought. The blue of a little bruise had
begun to show near her temple. A wave of tenderness swept over me, the
pity of a man for a woman tired and in unvoiced distress. Who was I that
I should question her? What possible claim had I upon even the least of
her thoughts? She was pathetically weary and disturbed, and I was a
sullen brute.
I spoke to her as if conversation had been unbroken. "Of course I am to
take you home."
She shook her head.
"That's perfectly absurd," I said. "There must be some inn or other near
you. I can put up there for the night and go on in the morning. In fact,
I am pretty tired, myself; the nearest place that I can get supper and a
bed is the best place for me."
She considered for a long moment. "Very well," she said at last, "I am
tired and still a little dizzy; it would be nice to be taken all the way
home. I don't generally mind the dark, but I suppose that we were a good
deal shaken up. There is an inn, too, but it would be very silly of you
to go there, unless--unless for some reason we could not put you up."
"Oh, come," I said, "you probably have a houseful at the present moment,
and you know it. Nothing is more upsetting in the world than the
unexpected guest."
"Well, we shall see," she answered. "I am pretty sure that nobody but
the family is at home, and father will want to see you and thank you.
Knight-errantry appeals to him. We will leave the asking to mother. If
she can she will want you to stay. If she can't, well the inn is not so
bad after all. There it is, by the way, on that little hill. I had no
idea that we were so near home. We get off at that next electric light.
Will you please signal to the conductor?"
The car stopped and I helped her down, taking our two bags with the
strange feeling that I was suddenly coming to the end of a brief
sentimental journey. Our companion in misfortune, who had chosen a seat
by herself, scarcely looked up. It was no great walk to the house and
presently Miss Tabor pointed it out to me. It was large and low, set
well back upon a great lawn that a tall, dark hedge divided from the
outer world.
As we neared the pillared gate a high-shouldered man stepped out
nervously from the shadow. Miss Tabor put her hand upon my arm. "Just
wait here a moment, please," she said and ran forward to him.
It had grown almost dark, but I could see that she leaned toward him,
placing both hands upon his shoulders. The soft sibilance of her
whispered words and the startling rumble of his bass came to me
indistinctly, merely wordless tones. I grew red in the darkness and
turned my back, for I had caught myself trying to listen.
Presently Miss Tabor came to me. "I didn't mean to keep you so long,"
she apologized, "but you see--"
"It wasn't long," I said shortly, surprised to find myself angry. So as
we climbed the steps the shadow had dropped between us again.
For a moment I stood blinking when the door had shut behind us. The
large, low room in which we stood was not brilliantly lighted, but the
sudden change from the soft outdoor gloom dazzled me. The room was very
large indeed, floored with dull red tile, paneled in dark oak; a great
Dutch fireplace, filled with flowers, breathed fragrance. Opening from
the room's far end, and raised three steps above its level, was a
dining-room. On our entrance two chairs had been pushed back from the
table, and now a slim, pretty little woman came running down the steps
and across the big room.
"Lady, dear," she cried, "what on earth has made you so late?" She flung
herself into Miss Tabor's arms, hugging her as a child would.
Miss Tabor kissed her gaily. "We will tell you all about it, mother,
dear," she laughed. "Let me introduce Mr. Crosby, without whose help I
should have probably been much later. And, Mr. Crosby, this is my
mother."
She greeted me graciously, turning to introduce me to her husband, who
had followed her more slowly. He was a florid man and rather tall, his
gray eyes being level with my own.
When places had been made for us at the table, and we were gathered in
the close radius of the table lights, I found myself surprised that the
daughter looked so little like either. Her mother was much smaller than
she, one of those women who never grow thin or fat, but whose age comes
upon them only as sort of dimming of color and outline. And indeed, in
the more intimate light I found her looking more her years, pretty and
soft and doll-like, but too delicate a vessel for any great strength of
spirit, a sweet little woman, affectionate and inconsequent. Her words
came quickly and with a certain merry insistence, but with little
nervous pauses that were almost sad in their intensity; and once when a
bicycle sounded faintly from the street she stopped altogether, her hand
at her heart, her head turned and listening, until her husband's quick
laugh brought her blue eyes questioningly to him. Then we all plunged
into conversation at once as if ashamed of the sudden pause it had given
us.
Miss Tabor and I were made to give an account of our accident, or rather
she gave it, and a very nicely tempered account it was, too. I was kept
busy devising plausible confirmation of surprising understatements. She
seemed for some reason very anxious to hide a possible seriousness in
the matter, and her first brief, pleading glance bound me to her, freely
accepting the judgment of her conscience for my own. Under these
circumstances I expected no mention of the loss and finding of the ring
and there was none.
Both mother and father called Miss Tabor "Lady"; so, I remembered, had
all her intimates at the Christmas house party. Yet her bag had been
initialed "M. B. T." I thought the nickname a gracious one and well
suited to all the manner of her bearing. I wondered idly as they talked
what the M. stood for, sure in my heart that it, too, was graceful and
fitting. And as "Lady" told of the beauty of the meadow where we had
been delayed "almost two hours by an old flat wheel, or something like
that--isn't that the term, Mr. Crosby?" I decided that if the rest of my
three months were spent in the most humdrum of ways, my vacation as a
whole would not have been a barren one.
There was little conversation after we had left the table. Miss Tabor
said that she was too sleepy to sit up--and, indeed, the strain that she
had been under was already beginning to show through even the vivacity
of her acting. For my part, I had no inclination to sit in the family
circle that she left. I, too, was tired, and I had many things to think
and little to say. So that as she got up I, too, pleaded fatigue, and my
need of finding my room at the inn.
"The inn! Indeed you will do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Tabor.
"There is a bed just waiting for tired young men here." She glanced for
confirmation at her daughter.
Miss Tabor said nothing but looked across to her father. He paused an
uncomfortable second, then turned to me with a smile.
"Of course you are to stay here," he said.
His pause had troubled me, and I hesitated, but Mrs. Tabor would hear no
arguments or excuses, and overwhelmed my stammering in a rippling
torrent of proof that I was a very silly young man, and that she would
not hear another word about any such an absurdity as my going; and as I
stood embarrassed, Mr. Tabor, with another glance at his daughter, took
my bag himself, and, his hand upon my shoulder, fairly bore me off to my
room. I was too comfortably tired to lie long awake, even with so
eventful a day to turn over in retrospect. As I floated downward into
the dark through a flood of incongruous images, green meadows and
roaring trains, clamorous streets and calm rooms, delicate with white
and silver, I distinctly heard a step upon the porch, the click and
closure of the front door, and the deep voice of the man we had met at
the gate. But even my angry interest in him was weaker than the waves of
drowsiness.
I roused into that dubious half-consciousness which is the territory of
the powers of darkness; in which the senses are vaguely alive, while no
judgment restrains or questions the vagaries of imagination; the place
of evil memories and needless fears, of sweeping reforms whose vanity
appears with the new light, and of remembered dreams whose beauty faints
upon the threshold of the day. It was still so dark that before I could
place myself amid my unfamiliar surroundings, I was aware of smothered
commotion. People were awake and in trouble; the house was full of
swishing garments and the hurry of uncomfortable feet. Some one passed
my door swiftly, carrying a light, whose rays swept through the cracks
and swung uncannily across the ceiling. Another door opened somewhere,
letting out a blur of voices, among which I seemed to distinguish the
bass growl of the man at the gate. My first thought was of fire; and
with the shock of that I sprang up and across the room, groping for the
handle of the door. It would not open. I pulled and tugged at it,
feeling above and below for a bolt. There was none, nor was any key in
the keyhole. After some stumbling, I found the switch of the electric
light, and in the sudden radiance explored the floor for the fallen key.
It was not there; and a hurried examination of the crack showed me that
the lock had been turned from the outside.
I sat down on the bed and tried to gather my common sense. I remembered
perfectly having left the door unlocked and the key in its place within.
By what conceivable design or accident had I been made a prisoner? The
melodramatic suggestions born of the hour and my excited fancy were
simply absurd in such a place. I was in a Connecticut suburb, a home of
lawn parties and electric lights, and this was the Twentieth Century;
yet I could find no explanation more reasonable. Fire was by this time
out of the question; and an accident or practical joke would have been
evident by now. Meanwhile, the muffled turmoil of the house continued. A
man's voice and a woman's broke into inarticulate altercation, and
presently I thought I heard a cry and a sound like the fall of something
soft and heavy. I sprang to the door again and shook it with all my
strength, but it was so solidly fitted that it did not even rattle. Then
some one ran softly down-stairs; the front door banged sharply; and,
looking out, I saw the figure of a man, his shoulders raised and his
elbows bent with haste, run swiftly across the bar of light that
streamed from my window and disappear in the dark. Could he have broken
into the house, locking the bedrooms against interruption, and fled upon
being discovered? I was opening my window to shout for help when I was
arrested by a voice that there was no mistaking.
"I can't! We mustn't!" she wailed. "What will he think of us?"
An angry whisper answered, and of the rest I could distinguish only the
tone. The whisper grew more volubly urgent, while her replies hesitated.
At last she came quietly down the hall and knocked at my door.
"Mr. Crosby--are you awake?"
"I should think so," I answered. "What has happened? I'm locked in."
"Nothing. It's all right--really. Will you come down-stairs as soon as
you can, very quietly?"
"Certainly. Half a minute. What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she said. "Hurry!" The key turned in the lock and she was
gone. I dressed with a haste that made my fingers clumsy, and ran
down-stairs. The bustle in the house had quieted into an irregular
murmur.
Miss Tabor was waiting for me in the hall below. The lights were not on,
and I could see only that she was wrapped in something long and dark,
her hair gathered into a loose knot above her head. Perhaps only the dim
light made me imagine traces of tears.
"Thank you for being so ready," she began in a quick undertone. "Now,
listen! you must--"
"Tell me what's the trouble," I broke in. "Is it burglary, or is
somebody taken suddenly ill?"
"There isn't any trouble," she repeated. "You must believe that, and you
must do as I tell you. I'm terribly sorry, but it's impossible for you
to remain here any longer. You must go away--now, at once, and without
knowing or asking anything. Of course there's a good reason, and of
course you can be trusted not to talk or inquire. That's all. It's
perfectly simple; there's nothing really surprising about it."
"You mean I'm to leave this minute--in the middle of the night?"
"Yes; now. Don't wonder or worry. Think as well of us as you can--don't
think about us at all! There's nothing the matter. I ought to have
known. Accept my apologies for all of us, and--good-by." She held out
her hand.
"That's all very well," I said. "Of course I'll go if you wish it, and
ask no questions. Only tell me when I can see you again, and if there's
anything in the world I can do for you. I'll be staying at the inn."
A latch-key clicked behind us, and the man I had seen at the gate
tiptoed in. "All right?" he whispered.
"I think so; hurry," she replied, and he passed swiftly and quietly
up-stairs. She turned to me a drawn face, speaking in strained
monotone.
"You must never see me again. You mustn't stay in town, nor try to do
anything. Oh, can't you understand? The only help you can give is to
go--go away utterly and forget all about it as if you had never met me.
Honestly I'm grateful, and I think everything good of you, but--oh, go
away!"
"As you please," I said. "What about my things?"
"Wait a minute." She ran lightly up to the landing and returned with my
suit-case, closed and strapped. I took my hat from the table by the
door.
"Good-by," she said. "Promise me not to try to come back."
What is there in darkness and the sense of night to make even the
plainest woman so lovely? She was close before me as I turned, the
mysterious oval of her face wavering upward as though rising through dim
water; her hair a heavier shadow against the gloom, her lips a living
blossom, and her eyes luminous out of undiscoverable depths. The dark
wrap she wore lost itself downward in long, fading lines; and all the
hidden form and the nameless fragrance of her were wonderfully the same,
one with midnight and midsummer. As I took her hand, I do not know what
agony of restraint held my arms from around her; only I kept repeating
over and over to myself, "I have no right--I have no right"--and because
of that I could not for a moment answer her in words. Suddenly from
above came a sharp shock and the metallic splash of broken glass. The
voices broke out in a quick murmur, and she shrank and shook as if
cringing away from a blow.
"Oh, go quickly!" she cried. "They need me!"
I opened the door. "Good-by," I said weakly, "and--God bless you!" And
even as I turned on the threshold to lift my hat the latch clicked
behind me.
CHAPTER IV
AN INSULT IN THE MORNING
I paused at the gate and looked back. In the upper windows lights were
showing behind the shades, and now and then a swift shadow passed across
the pane. Yet the house was altogether quiet, free within and without
from any evidence of the unusual. A waning moon glowed large and
distorted through the shrubbery, and from all about rose the sweet
breath and innumerable tiny voices of the night, comfortable chirps and
rustlings, the creak of frogs and the rasp of an occasional katydid;
accentuating by their multiety and smallness the sense of overwhelming
peace. As I went on, a quick movement at my feet made me start; then I
smiled to recognize the clumsy hurry of a toad; and the incident seemed
to point the contrast between the human tension of the last half-hour
and the huge normality of the outer world. With every step it grew more
difficult for me to believe in the turmoil from which I had come; the
strain and secrecy, the troubled voices and the moving lights became
fictitious; as the scenes of a sensational story, plausible in the
reading, turn to pasteboard and tinsel when we have closed the book.
Only the quiet gloom was real, the hush and fresh aroma of ordinary
night.
I had anticipated some difficulty in gaining admission to a country inn
at such an hour, but as I climbed the hill I was surprised to see it
still open and alight; and a glance at my watch deepened my surprise
into astonishment. It was not yet midnight, and I had felt that it was
at least two or three in the morning. So here was another contrast to
add to the sense of unreality; and I entered the low-ceiled and dingy
little office feeling like Tennyson's Prince returning from a fight with
shadows.
My room was cool and pleasant enough, but sleep and excitement had
evaporated my drowsiness and I lay thinking in reminiscent circles,
trying in vain to puzzle out some theory that would fit the
circumstances of the night. The more I reviewed details, the more they
seemed to fly apart from any reasonable association, charged as they
were with one mysterious electricity. If some accident or sudden trouble
had befallen the house, the nocturnal alarm would be motivated; but
what motive would that furnish for driving out the guest? Some unwitting
provocation of my own (though I could imagine nothing of the sort) might
have made my further presence unbearable; but what of the anxious
bustle, the hasty conferences, the errands of the man we had met at the
gate? And who was he, by the way, that he should have a latch-key and
the airs of intimacy, without being, from what I had observed, an inmate
of the house? The fear of infectious disease was the only thing that I
could imagine that would explain the immediacy of my expulsion. But if I
was the bearer of a plague, why had Lady been allowed to talk with me in
the hall? Or if one of themselves had been stricken, why had she denied
me for all time, or indeed made any mystery of the matter? Then I
remembered her silences during the day, the ring, hidden in her breast,
and her hesitation and doubt over asking me to stay the night. Whatever
the trouble was, it had cast its shadow before: and I could not rid my
mind of the conviction that all these matters must be fitted in, that
they must all ultimately find their places in the explanation. At any
rate, an explanation was due me, and I meant to have it. Either there
had been some foolish mistake or I had been treated outrageously. It
was not curiosity, I told myself; the sorrows or the skeletons of this
family were no business of mine; but I would know by what right they had
ejected me.
Over the telephone next morning, Mr. Tabor was ominously agreeable.
"Certainly," he said. "You have a perfect right to the reason. When you
have it, I think you will agree that you have no more cause for
complaint than you have for remaining in the neighborhood. I will be
down at once."
Half an hour later he was seated in my room, polished, choleric,
aquiline, a man to be a fierce friend or a difficult enemy. He wasted no
time in approaches.
"You ask why you were sent from the house last night. Well, here it is:
You have arranged to go to Europe, and are actually on your way there.
You see my daughter on a train. You force yourself into her company,
presuming upon a very slight acquaintance, and follow her home. You come
upon us in such a way that we can hardly avoid receiving you as a guest.
Then it develops that you spent two or three hours between here and the
station instead of coming straight over; and you arrive after dark. Now,
in any case--"
"That's distorted and unjust," I interrupted, "I haven't forced myself
upon anybody. Besides, we came home as quickly as possible. The
trolley--"
"Well?" he asked, drawing his white brows together.
I had remembered Miss Tabor's version of the accident. "Go on," I said,
"let me hear the whole of this first."
"We needn't discuss terms; the facts are that you throw aside your
arrangements very conspicuously; that you follow a young lady entirely
out of your way; and that you bring her home at an unreasonable hour,
after wandering or loitering about the country. In any case this would
have been officious and inconsiderate. But in the case of a man with
such a past as yours, it might compromise her seriously. To have you
staying at the house afterward was out of the question."
This was too much. "What do you mean?" I said. "There's nothing the
matter with my past. I've nothing whatever to be ashamed of, and this is
the first time in my life I've been accused of any such thing. My
university position is proof enough of that. It's a mistake or an
infernal slander."
He looked me straight in the eye. "I know more about you, Mr. Crosby,
than you were prepared for," he said quietly. "Don't waste time in
posturing."
"I beg your pardon," I retorted; "you know nothing about me, but you've
said decidedly more than one gentleman can say to another without
explaining himself. We're two men together. Be so good as to tell me
just what you charge me with."
I had risen from my chair, struggling hard for enough self-control to
make my words carry conviction. Mr. Tabor sat unmoved while he
deliberately lighted a cigar, watching me over the end of it.
"I have no desire to dig over your life with you," he said, "any more
than I have to continue your acquaintance. I came here to tell you why
our invitation to you was withdrawn. Well, I've done so; you have an
evil reputation. That's all."
"Excuse me, but that isn't all. It isn't true, and--"
"There is just one more point," he went on; "when you arrived, of course
none of us realized who you were or how you had come. Later, when we
understood the facts, you would not, under ordinary circumstances, have
left until this morning. But Mrs. Tabor was so much excited over the
matter that I saw fit to relieve her immediately, at the cost of
disturbing your sleep. I owe you an apology for that, and for that
only."
"Look here, Mr. Tabor," said I, more calmly, "I don't know what you have
been told about me, but if it's dishonorable it's a damned lie. Now,
I'll wait here while you make any inquiries you like. I'll put you in
communication with anybody you choose. And when you've looked me up and
are satisfied, I shall expect a very complete apology for this whole
matter."
"Thank you," he answered, "I am quite satisfied with my present
information. I have no further curiosity. And now perhaps I have taken
enough of your time." He rose.
Then I lost my temper. "That's altogether too thin!" I cried. "I'm
received as your guest, and then I'm locked into my room. I'm sent away
in the middle of the night, and told not to ask why. You explain it on
the absurd ground that I'm a disreputable character, and then you won't
either specify your charges or investigate them. I believe you are
making up the whole story to cover something in your own house; and if
you were a younger man I'd have it out of you."
While I was speaking he had turned composedly to pick up his hat and
stick. He faced me now without a quiver of the eyes.
"Don't bluster, Mr. Crosby," he said slowly, uncovering the tip of one
yellow tooth in the faintest suspicion of a smile, "it isn't any real
use. Well, I won't offer to shake hands, but I'll wish you a pleasant
summer after you've forgotten this row. Shall I go first?"
If there was anything more to say, I was too angry to think of it.
"After you," I said through shut jaws. "Good morning."
I followed him down to the veranda where we went through a comedy of
leave-taking for the benefit of the people in the wicker chairs. At the
corner of the building, discreet swinging doors gave entrance to the
bar; and as Mr. Tabor started down the drive, there came from within a
stream of savage gutturals and the squeak and clatter of an over-tilted
chair. A stocky fellow in a flannel shirt lurched through the swinging
doors and followed him at a clumsy run, cursing in a tangle of English
and Italian so rapid and furious that by the ear alone I should have
thought half a dozen people were involved. It had the multiplied
brilliancy of a virtuoso's piano playing. Of the dispute which
followed, the words were indistinguishable; but there was no question
that each was threatening the other. The Italian danced and raved and
gesticulated, while Mr. Tabor pointed a steady forefinger and retorted
in low and frosty monosyllables. And presently the foreigner slouched
back into the bar, which immediately filled with babbling bystanders. I
followed to find him standing physically with his foot upon the low
rail, and metaphorically with his back against the wall. He was the same
man that had pursued our trolley-car on the day previous; a
medium-sized, stocky, leather-colored rascal in a shiny black suit and
blue flannel shirt, with a blue fur upon his face, and blue tattoo-marks
on his hairy hands.
Public opinion, led by the bartender, was against him to the point of
throwing him out or sending for the police; and his attempts at a
defense were rendered unintelligible by volubility and by the strangest
mixture of languages I ever heard in my life. Imagine a slightly drunk
and thoroughly excited Neapolitan speaking broken English with an Irish
brogue, and you may have some faint impression of the effect. His muddy
blur of intonations was impossible to follow; and I tried him in
Italian, becoming thereby a person of authority and interest. He
understood me readily enough, but his own spattering patois gave me a
good deal of trouble. By what I could make out, he was a sailor,
formerly on ships owned by Mr. Tabor; and Mr. Tabor had discharged him
and had kidnapped his wife. This sounded puzzling enough; but I could
get nothing else out of him; and my further questions brought forth only
angry reiterations and indefinite vows to have justice at any price.
Finally I persuaded the bartender to give him one more drink on
condition that he went away immediately, and satisfied the crowd with
some patched-up story of a hated employer whose resemblance to Mr. Tabor
had caused an unfortunate mistake.
CHAPTER V
BESIDE THE SUMMER SEA: AN INTERLUDE
If I had been at my wits' end before, I was now beyond it, in such a
chaos of puzzled anger that I could not even think reasonably, much less
come to sensible conclusions. The Italian sailor with his impossible
charge against Mr. Tabor's own impossible charge against me, were new
elements which might or might not work into the situation; but at least
I could not place them now; nor, for want of a motive that would bear
dissection, was I ready to confess my own desire to stay on the ground
until I had seen the matter through. I would go away to the sanity of
the seaside, and give the vexations of the last few days time to clear.
The whole experience had been so strange that I must have more
perspective through which to view it clearly; and I could see nothing to
gain by haste. For all that, I was perfectly clear that at length
everything must come out right. Not that I could define to myself
exactly what "coming out right" would mean, except making Mr. Tabor
admit himself outrageously mistaken, and his daughter--but it was better
not to think about his daughter; unless I was ready to risk thinking too
much about her. The very memory of her vivid face in the car-window, of
her quizzical impertinences on the way, the sight of her lying
motionless in the unnatural meadow, and most poignant of all, her
distressed and shrouded beauty in the dim hall, lit up the last few
hours as with the glamour of a dream broken suddenly by a nightmare
monstrous and unconvincing. She must be put aside if possible with the
rest until I could see clearly. Bob Ainslie and Mrs. Bob, boating,
bathing, golf, and tennis, should be my devouring interests for the next
week. After that--we should see.
For a couple of miles my car traveled through open country; then with
the Sound on its left, passed through small wooded patches that gave way
continually to open glades where lawns from little cottages and great
ran down to the water's edge. My destined hostelry, I remembered,
flourished under the original name of "Bellevue." I did not especially
pine for it, with its green-lined matting, white enameled furniture, and
chattering piazzas; but it had the unquestionable advantage of being
only a couple of hundred yards from the Ainslies' cottage. There I
hurried into my flannels and set forth in search of Bob, whom I found
playing the gentle game of croquet with himself, the pink ball against
the green. When he saw me, he gave a viking whoop that brought Mrs.
Ainslie from her chair upon the veranda, while he executed a solemn
war-dance around me.
"Where, O where are the Hebrew children?" he chanted, "Safe now in the
promised land--where's your bag?"
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Crosby?" said Mrs. Ainslie. "Bob, what on earth
will the neighbors think of you? And Mr. Crosby will hardly like being
called a Hebrew--not that I have anything against the Hebrews. They are
really a very fine people, but--"
"But, my dear, you are talking nonsense. Laurie, where is that bag? Or
Heaven grant it be a trunk."
"It's a bag," I said, "and I left it in my room at the Bellevue, and a
very good room it is."
"Bellefiddlesticks," Bob snorted. "You go back to that whited
caravansary and wrest away your belongings and come over here. We are
going to house-party in a couple of days, and we need you in our
business. Your room is now southeast corner second floor, beautiful view
of the Sound or within sound of the view--whichever you please."
"You are an idiot, but I love you," said I. "Nevertheless, I'm going to
stay where I am. Can't be bothered with house parties. I came down here
for some exercise."
"I think you look tired," Mrs. Ainslie put in thoughtfully.
"He looks sulky to me," said Bob. "All right, stay where you are until
you feel the need of a decent bed. Bet I can beat you at croquet and
give you two wickets."
"You are a fattening, indolent person," I said. "What I want, and what
you stand in crying need of, is exercise," and I dragged him off to the
hotel tennis-courts.
I was very sure in my own mind that I wanted the scuffling solitude of a
hotel. My temper felt unsettled, and the last people in the world I
wanted to meet were a lot of conversational visitors. Bob had a hard
future cut out for him, and indeed for three days I led him a life that
must have nearly killed him. Perhaps he may have scented some trouble
behind my unusual energy, for he stuck to me like a man losing to me at
tennis, beating me in long games of golf, bathing with me in the
morning, and taking an oar as we rowed Mrs. Bob about in the evening.
Miss Tabor had spoken of a coming visit; but of course after the
disturbances in her home she would have abandoned all plans. And I
certainly did not care to start the bantering flood of questions which I
knew Bob could not restrain should I show even the mildest curiosity
about her coming. And yet she came. I had come over prepared to drag Bob
to the altar of another strenuous day, and I found her sitting alone on
the veranda as quietly at ease as though nothing had happened. I was not
even sure that she looked tired; certainly she looked serene. She stood
up and shook hands with me smilingly. I thought the blue veins throbbed
a trifle in her throat, but her manner was frankly free from
embarrassment.
"You are getting a very seaside color, Mr. Crosby," she said. "Your
vacation must be agreeing with you."
I could not answer for a moment; then, as she drew her hand from mine,
"What have I done?" I stammered. "What was it all about? Did you too
really believe--"
I stopped, for she was looking coldly past me, her face blank and her
eyebrows raised.
"I beg your pardon," I said, taken utterly aback. Her silence seemed to
strike across me like a blow. "I beg your pardon, Miss Tabor," and I
swung upon my heel.
When I reached the steps, she called after me.
"Mr. Crosby!" I turned. "Bob wants to know why we shouldn't all play
tennis together. He thinks that he and Mary can beat us."
I stood amazed. She was looking at me gaily, almost provokingly, every
trace of coldness gone from the eyes that looked frankly into mine. She
moved mentally too fast for me. I could read nothing but the end of our
friendship in her look of a moment ago; and now she spoke as if no
shadow of mystery or misunderstanding had ever fallen between us. Of
course, the surface of it was that I had blundered, and that she had
taken the only way of showing me that my memories of her trouble must be
really forgotten. The last few days were never to have been.
The Ainslies came out of the door together. "And you never told us that
you had met Miss Tabor last Christmas," said Bob. "I call that rather
cool. I just mentioned you last night, and she asked all sorts of
questions about how long you had been here and how long you expected to
stay. For my part, I think you must have made quite an impression."
"Indeed he has," laughed Miss Tabor. "Do you know, Mary, Mr. Crosby is
the only thoroughly frivolous institution of learning I ever saw. He
never spoke a word all Christmas that added to the party's fund of
information, except to tell us of a new and a more indigestible way to
make Welsh rarebit."
Evidently Christmas was to be the last and only time that we had met. I
thanked fate and my own discomfiture that I had let fall no word to the
Ainslies and we went off to our tennis. We won our game rather easily.
Miss Tabor played a shade better than the average woman, covering her
court with a forethoughtful ease that did the work without wasting
exertion. She seemed not athletic, but to do outdoor things as some
other woman might move through a ball-room. When we had finished
playing, Bob was a dripping ruin, and Mrs. Ainslie and I vigorously
hot; but Miss Tabor, who had done no less than her share, laid aside her
racquet as coolly as she had taken it up.
All the way down to the beach she kept the three of us in such a shout
of laughter that staider people glanced aside at us. I made the change
into a bathing-suit with abandoned haste, yet I found her waiting. The
sea was evidently a passion with her as it was with me. Her eyes were
shining with excitement, her head thrown a little back, and all her slim
body, tender in every graceful line, was vibrant with the thrill of the
salt air. She gave me her hand as a child might have done, and we turned
up the beach, running lightly until the voices of the bathers died
behind us.
Suddenly she stopped. "Do you feel that way about it, too?" she asked.
"What way? As if the first plunge of the year were a sort of sacred
rite?"
"Yes," she answered. "There is something about it--you feel as if it
were such a splendid thing that after all your waiting for it--now, when
the water is there before you, you must wait a little sacrificial
moment. I didn't feel like going in just at the first among all those
people. Do you understand what I mean? I suppose it's because on the
first day I have always gone in alone early in the morning."
I nodded, for that had been my custom also. Without a word we turned
together and went slowly down into the water. When it reached her waist,
she threw her hands above her head and dived, swimming under water with
long easy strokes. I looked after her a moment, then followed. We came
to the surface together, drawing our breath deep and shaking the salt
water from our eyes. We swam slowly back to the more crowded beach,
mutually glorying in our pagan rite of baptism.
We stretched out lazily in the hot sand, leaning back against a battered
and upturned dory. Lady had shaken down her hair, which her bathing cap
had failed to keep altogether dry; and spread it lustrously dark upon
the clean, sun-bleached planking.
"I think I understand you now a little better, Mr. Crosby," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
"I suppose because of the solemn rite of the first plunge. It somehow
makes you clearer. If that is what you mean by romance, why I can agree
with you."
I had to be honest. "No, that's not all I mean--only part. I want
things to happen to me, not merely sensations. I'm always foolishly
expecting some tilt with fortune at the next turn of the road. I suppose
you were right that nothing much has happened to me, or I shouldn't hunt
so for the physical uplift of the unexpected. I don't want to be merely
selfish--I want to help in the world, not to harm. I know that sounds
crudely sentimental, but it's hard to say. I mean, for instance, that I
don't want distress to prove myself against, but I do want the shock of
battle where distress exists."
"Then people must seem to you merely means to an end."
[Illustration: "I suppose it must look that way to you"]
"I suppose it must look that way to you," I said uncomfortably. "I'm
getting tangled, but I want you to understand--" I hesitated. "When I
asked questions in the hurry of the other night, it wasn't any desire to
force my way into things that didn't concern me, to make an adventure of
what distressed you--you mustn't think that. But it seemed to me that
you were in trouble, and I wanted--"
I stopped, for her face had clouded as I spoke until now I dared speak
no more, blaming myself that the perplexities that possessed me had
again blundered across her pain. Her eyes were upon the ground where
her fingers burrowed absently in the sand. When she raised them to mine
there were tears in them; but they were tears unshed, and eyes that
looked at me kindly.
"Please don't," she said. "I do understand. I would like to let you
help, but--there is nothing you can help about, nothing that I can ask
or tell."
"Forgive me," I said, and looked away from her.
I think that from that morning we were better friends. Neither of us
again made any allusion to the night of alarm; but it was as if both now
felt a share in it, a kind of blindfold sympathy not altogether
comfortless. Once when we were making a long tour of woods and beaches,
she said suddenly: "You don't talk much about yourself, Mr. Crosby."
"Don't I?" I answered. "Well, I don't suppose that what I am or have
done in the world would be particularly interesting. You were right the
other day, after all: nothing much has happened to me, or I shouldn't be
so hungry for adventures."
"Oh, but you must have had some adventure; everybody has."
I launched into a tale of a green parrot confiscated from an itinerant
vendor and sold at auction in a candy store. I stopped suddenly. Was
this her way of verifying her father's opinion of me? She read my
half-formed suspicion like a flash.
"Listen," she said with quick seriousness. "If I had, or could have, the
faintest belief in anything really bad about you, don't you see that I
shouldn't be here? I want you to remember that."
"I ought to have known," I replied. "I'm very sorry."
With that she swung back into gaiety, demanding the conclusion of the
tale; but I was for the moment too deeply touched to follow. We were on
our way home; and before us where the path took a little turn about a
tree larger than its neighbors, a man stepped into our sight. He was
walking fast, covering the ground in long nervous strides. He carried a
bit of stick with which he switched smartly at the bushes along the
path. For a moment we were both silent, then Lady caught her breath in a
long sigh. It was the man we had met at the gate. He saw us then, and
took off his hat.
"Why, Walter," Lady cried; "when did you come?"
"Just now," he said, "just now. Ainslie told me where to look for you.
Good fellow, Ainslie. Said you and Mr. What's-his-name--beg pardon, I
never can remember names--said you had gone for a walk."
She flushed a little. "Mr. Crosby, let me introduce Doctor Reid. His
memory never can catch up with him, but you mustn't mind that. Walter,
Mr. Crosby was a classmate of Bob Ainslie's, you know."
"So he said; so he said." Doctor Reid jerked out the words, frowning and
biting his forefinger. "Excuse me, Lady, but--hold on a second. Got to
go back next car, twelve forty-five." He looked at his watch. "Twelve
seven now. Beg your pardon, Mr.--Mr. Crosby. Beg your pardon."
They spoke together for a moment, and we continued our walk
uncomfortably. Miss Tabor seemed uneasy, and I thought that Doctor Reid
restrained himself to our slower pace as if he resented having to wait
and thought ill of me for my very existence. I caught him frowning
sidelong at me once or twice, and shooting little anxious glances at
Lady that angered me unreasonably.
I left them at the Ainslies' and went on to a hurried luncheon made
tasteless by irritation. Who in Heaven's name was the man? A family
physician would hardly go running about the country in the daughter's
wake--for I could not doubt that it was she that had brought him here.
Why on earth should he be rude to me? I had never met the man. What
business had he to behave as if he resented my being with her--or for
that matter, to resent anything she did? We had planned a game of tennis
for the afternoon, and Doctor Reid, I reflected, with savage
satisfaction, could hardly be expected to make a third.
Bob met me at the door. "Hello, old man," he said, "we have had a bitter
loss; Doctor Reid has carried Lady off with him to his distant lair."
CHAPTER VI
A RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL THEME
For a moment I did not know which feeling was apparent; surprise, anger,
or a new and abominable sensation that combined the sense of personal
injury with an intolerable sense of loss. Then I saw in Bob's face the
reflection of my own astonishment, and tried to pull myself together.
"Brace up, man," he said, pounding me heartily on the shoulder. "Don't
look as if you saw Hamlet's grandmother. She's neither married nor
dead--he's only taken her home in a hurry. Good Lord, if I'd known you
were going to be so tragic I'd have broken it as gently as a sucking
dove."
By that time I found words. "I'm all right," I said, "only you made me
jump with your ornamental way of putting things. Who is he, anyway, and
what the devil right has he to come and drag her away like this in the
middle of her visit?"
"Reid? He's only her brother."
"Her half-brother, you mean."
"I suppose so, since the name's different. Anyhow, he's no relation to
Bluebeard, so you needn't go looking for blood and thunder. I know you.
It's just that somebody wasn't well at home, and they wanted her.
Nothing at all serious, he said; only if Lady was on the ground she
could be useful. Her mother's heart is a little weak, you know. I
suppose it's that."
"Look here, Bob," said I. "There's something mysterious about that
family; and although it's none of my business, I want to know whatever
you can tell me about them. I want to tell you first what I know, and
see if you can help me clear it up."
"Nonsense! You never saw a windmill yet without swearing it was a green
dragon with yellow eyes and a three-pronged tail. They are not half so
mysterious as you are with that hush-hush expression on your innocent
countenance. Tabor's an importer, with a flourishing business in red ink
and spaghetti and other products of Sunny It'. Mrs. Tabor's a dear
little soul with nerves and an occasional palpitation. Lady's a pippin,
and Reid's a strenuous sawbones that lost half a second once in his
youth and has been chasing it ever since. You've been reading too much
classical literature."
"Have you known them long?"
"Why, no, not so very. Oh, come in out of the sun and take a sedative.
You won't be happy till you've relieved your florid mind."
I followed him into his den and accepted a cigarette and something cool
to drink. Then without more preface I told the tale of my adventure,
beginning with my arrival at the Tabors' home.
"Fine!" was his unfeeling comment, "I shall lie awake nights waiting for
your next instalment of confidences. What are you going to do next?"
"That's what I'm trying to decide," I growled. "And I wish you'd give me
a little serious thought, if you can stand the strain. I like
adventures, but my end of this one is getting rather unmanageable."
"My dear man, I'm as serious as a caged owl. You've been treated
outrageously, if that's any comfort to you. Only I fail to see where
your mystery comes in. Of course, it's just as they said: Mr. Tabor has
heard some absurd slander, or got you mixed up with somebody else; and
Mrs. Tabor worried herself into a state about it, and they turned you
out. It's a shame--or it would be if the thought of you as a desperate
character who couldn't be allowed overnight in a decent family were not
so ridiculous. I'll write to Tabor myself and tell him that he's got the
wrong mule by the wrong leg; or if you prefer, we'll delegate the job to
one of your older and wiser friends. That's all there is to it."
"You're leaving out altogether too much. How about my door being locked?
How about the dago sailor at the inn? How about Miss Tabor's warning me
off for all time, and then meeting me here as if she hadn't seen me
since Christmas?"
Bob smoked and frowned a moment, then brushed the difficulty aside.
"Accidents, old fellow, accidents. The locked door was a mistake, unless
somebody thought you were too dangerous a reprobate to leave at large.
The guinea was drunk, on your own showing. As for Lady, she has a better
head than the average, but you can't get me to waste any time figuring
out how any woman's mind works. I've been married three years."
"Well, I'm going to find out what it all means."
"It doesn't all mean anything. That's where your kaleidoscopic
imagination gets to work. There isn't any conceivable connection between
these details! and you talk as if they were veiled and awful hints all
pointing one way. Your dragons are windmills, I tell you, and your
helmet's a copper kettle."
"You'd think differently if you had been there. Besides, I know--" I
stopped short. Bob was my friend, and whatever I chose to tell him was
my own business; but even to him I was not betraying confidences.
"Bob," I said, "I can't prove it, even to you, but I know that there is
something wrong; and I firmly believe that somehow or other all these
things work into it. Now, if you can throw any light at all, help me
out."
"I've told you all I know. I'm not exactly an intimate of these people,
but I've known them off and on for three or four years, and there simply
isn't anything unusual about them. They're just like every one else,
only a little nicer--the last people on earth to act queerly or have a
closet skeleton."
"At any rate, they seem to want to get rid of me," I said. "Well, they
can't do it. If they've got some scandalous idea of me, they're going to
apologize; and if they're in trouble, I'm going to make myself useful.
I've fallen into an adventure, and I'm going through with it."
"I'll tell you one thing," said Bob, very solemnly for him, "if there is
any family secret, it's nothing against Lady. She's about as good and
white and honest--but you don't need to be told that."
"No," said I, "I don't. And perhaps that's the reason."
I waited where I was for the rest of the week; partly because I was
resolved not to put myself in the wrong afresh by following Miss Tabor's
movements too immediately, and partly to give time for Bob's promised
vindication of my character to take effect. I could not, however,
believe that it would, in itself, make any great difference; for the
more I considered, the more it seemed to me that I had been right in my
suspicion, and that the whole empty charge had been merely an excuse for
driving me from the house and a device for terminating the acquaintance.
I discovered during those few days the truth of the saying that to think
is the hardest thing in the world; for my attempts to reason out the
situation persistently resolved themselves into adventurous dreams and
emotional reminiscences until I suspended judgment in despair and put
the whole matter from my mind. And it was with an eager relief at last
that I bade good-by to the Ainslies and retraced my journey. Bob had
received in the meantime no answer to his letter; but by that time I was
not to be surprised.
I took my old room at the inn, got myself into white flannels with
leisurely determination, and set forth to call upon Miss Tabor. It was
not hot, and all the air was clear with that sparkling zest common
enough in autumn but rare in the heat of midsummer; and as I hurried
along, the beauty of the world flowed over me in a great, joyous wave of
hope and resolution. The little distance between the inn and the Tabors'
I covered before I realized it.
"Is Miss Tabor at home?" I asked the maid at the door.
She took my card and hesitated. "I'll go and see, sir," she said finally,
and ushered me into the big living-room.
I was all alone; voices came dimly from other parts of the house, and
the room where I sat was cool and pleasant. I found my heart beating a
little faster, and wondered at myself. Presently the maid returned.
"Miss Tabor is not at home," she said.
Somehow, I had not expected it, and for a moment I stood looking at her
foolishly as she held open the door. "She is in town, is she not?" I
asked clumsily.
"I am not sure, sir; she is not at home, sir," the woman repeated
woodenly.
I trudged back through the glare of the impossibly brilliant day sick
with disappointment, and wondering if she had really been away. Could
there be any reason why my card had not been taken to her? Had some
general order gone out against me? Then I brought my imagination to a
sudden halt. I was getting to be a fool. The probability was that the
maid had simply spoken the truth; and in any case, the whole matter was
easy of determination. At the inn I wrote a short note to Miss Tabor,
saying that I was in town for a few days, regretting that I had missed
her and asking when I should find a convenient hour to call. This
despatched, I found myself in a state of empty hurry with nothing to do;
and after supper and a game or so of erratic pool, I set out to walk off
an incipient and unreasoning attack of blues.
By the time I had tramped through a couple of townships and turned
toward home I was fairly cheerful again. Landmarks had begun to look
unfamiliar in the gathering gloom, and I took my turnings a little
uncertainly; so that it was with a thrill of surprise that I found
myself on a crossroad that ran alongside the Tabor place. The great
house was largely dark and peaceful. Windows below glowed dimly through
the dusk; and above, a single square shone brightly. Two men were coming
slowly up the long driveway in front, which paralleled the road on which
I stood; and as they approached the house, it seemed to me that they
were walking not upon the gravel of the drive, but upon the grass beside
it. When they reached the steps they turned aside, and skirting the
house with a more evident avoidance of paths, crossed a stretch of lawn
to what appeared to be a stable or garage some distance behind it. There
was a furtiveness about the whole proceeding that I did not like, and I
stood still a moment watching. Presently a match was struck in a room
above the garage, and the gas flared on. Then, after a little, one of
the men came out, running quietly across the lawn until he came to a
stop beside the house and directly before me. The light from the upper
window fell upon him and he stepped aside into the shade, but not before
I had plainly seen his face. It was Lady's half-brother, Doctor Reid.
He seemed excited, or perhaps anxious; for his movements were more jerky
than ever, and he moved restlessly and continually as he waited in the
shadow. Once or twice he glanced nervously over his shoulder, and I
instinctively drew back under the bulk of a big maple beside the road.
Then he would move out beyond the edge of the shrubbery where he could
see the lighted room above the garage, then return to his watching under
the window. Once or twice he whistled softly. There was no answer, and
at last I saw his hand go back and a tiny pebble tinkled against the
glass. Then I held my breath, my heart hammering in my ears, for Lady
Tabor had come to the window.
She softly raised it and leaned out, her face very white in the
darkness.
"Is that you, Walter?" she called under her breath.
"Yes," he answered, "I have him in the garage. All clear in there? He
mustn't be seen, you know, mustn't be seen at all."
She laid her finger on her lips and nodded. Then the window closed
silently and she was gone. Reid turned and ran back to the garage. When
he came out again the other man was with him, and they crept past me
among the shrubs, talking softly. The other man was tall, with a breadth
of shoulder and thickness of chest that would have done credit to a
professional strong man; yet his voice came in an absurd treble squeak,
with an odd precision of articulation and phrasing.
"It is very important that we shall go quietly," he was saying.
"Of course, of course," Reid whispered. Then they passed beyond hearing
under the shadow of the house. Presently I saw them again, silhouetted
against the gray wall. They were standing close together upon the narrow
terrace that ran between the driveway and the side of the house, and
Reid was fumbling at a pair of French windows. They opened with a faint
click; and motioning the other man before him, he stepped in, closing
the windows after them.
I walked on, full of an impatient wonder at this new mystery, which,
like its predecessors, would neither fit into any reasonable explanation
nor suffer itself to be put aside as unmeaning. In front of the house I
passed a big limousine, drawn up by the roadside, its engine purring
softly and its lamps boring bright tunnels through the gloom. I knew it
for the Tabors' by the monogram on the panels; and as I went by, I
noticed the chauffeur lying sleepily back in his seat puffing at a
cigar. Of course it had brought the stranger, and was waiting to take
him back; but on what errand a man could be brought to the house like a
guest and sneak in at a window like a thief was a question beyond me to
fathom.
After all, I thought, as I reached my room, what business was it of
mine? By every canon of custom and good taste I should accept my rebuke
and drop quietly out of the lives of the Tabors. By staying I was
forcing myself upon them, certainly against the wishes of Doctor Reid
and Mr. Tabor, and possibly even against those of Miss Tabor, herself.
Nevertheless, I made up my mind perversely. Of course, if Miss Tabor
wished it, I should go, but unless she told me to go herself and of her
own free will, canons of politeness might go hang; rightly or wrongly, I
would see the thing to a finish.
CHAPTER VII
SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT CONFIRMED WITH COSTS
I went to bed with my natural pleasure in the unexpected surfeited into
a baffled irritation. I was the more annoyed when the morning brought no
answer to my note; nor did the arrival of Doctor Reid about the middle
of the forenoon tend to improve my state of mind. I found him fidgeting
on the veranda, winding his watch and frowning at the furniture.
"Good morning, Mr. Crosby, good morning," he began. "I came down to have
a few minutes' talk with you, but," he looked again at his watch, "I'm
on my way down to my office and I find I'm a little late. Would it
trouble you too much to walk along with me? Sorry to ask you, but I'm
late already."
I got my hat, and we hurried out into the glaring sunshine. Reid gave
the impression, I discovered, of being a much faster walker than he
actually was; I had no difficulty in keeping up with him. Something of
the same quality was noticeable in his conversation.
"Beautiful morning. I always like to get in a little exercise before
work. Beautiful morning for a walk. Fine. Fine. Now about that note of
yours. No reason at all for your coming back here, you know.
Acquaintance must be entirely broken off. No excuse whatever for going
on with it. Impossible. Perfectly impossible."
I bristled at once. "Is that a message from Miss Tabor or an objection
on the part of the family? I'd like to understand this."
"By my--Miss Tabor's authority, of course. Certainly. She regrets the
necessity you impose on her of telling you that she can't receive your
call. Maid told you yesterday she was not at home. Civil answer. No
occasion for carrying the matter any further. Nothing more to be said.
Nothing." He looked at his watch again and kicked the head off a
feathery dandelion.
"Mr. Tabor told me," I said, made deliberate by his jerkiness, "that I
was not a fit acquaintance for his family. That was absurd, and by this
time he knows it. If I'm forbidden to call, that settles the matter; but
there's got to be some sensible reason."
"Certainly that settles the matter. Nothing more to be said. Nothing at
all against your character. I don't know anything about that. Haven't
heard a word about it. Nothing against you. Mrs.--Miss Tabor doesn't
wish to see you, that's all. Very unpleasant position for you. I see
that. Very unpleasant for me to say so. But you bring it on yourself.
Ought to have stayed away. Nothing else to do."
"Do you mean to say," I demanded, "that now that my reputation is
cleared that makes no difference?"
"Exactly. No objection to you, whatever. Must have been all a mistake.
Very unfortunate. Very much to be regretted. Simply, you aren't wanted.
Very distressing to have to say this. You ought to have seen it. Nothing
for you to come back for. Nothing to do but to drop it. Drop it right
where it is. Nothing to be done."
The situation opened under me. Indefinite slander had been at least
something to fight about, but to this there was simply no answer. I felt
like a fool, and what was worse, like an intrusive fool; and I had a
sickening sense that all the delightful kindliness of the days at the
beach might have been the exaggeration of unwilling courtesy. But
another moment of that memory brought back my faith. For me, I was
certainly in the wrong, and probably an officious idiot. Yet the one
thing of which I could be sure was Lady's honesty. I was not running
from my guns just yet.
"You make me out an intruder," I retorted. "Well, that's been the whole
case from the first. All along, I've done nothing out of the ordinary
course of acquaintance with an ordinary family. But your family isn't
ordinary. You put up invisible fences and then accuse me of trespassing.
I don't want to drag your skeleton out of the closet; but a blind man
can see that it's there. If you had a counterfeiting plant in the house,
for instance, I could understand all this nonsense. It's too palpably
manufactured."
I could see that I had hit him, for he grew jerkier than ever.
"Counterfeiting, nonsense. Absolutely absurd. Insult to suggest such a
thing. Now, let's drop this and come right down to the facts. May as
well be practical. Nothing more to say. You're not to call. Told you so
already. Very disagreeable business. But, of course, you won't make any
further trouble. Absolutely impossible. Hard on you, of course, but
nothing to be done."
"Very well," said I, "you tell me this matter is between Miss Tabor and
myself. We'll keep it so, and the rest of you may toast in Tophet. I
tell you plainly I don't doubt your literal word, but I do doubt your
motives and your authority. If Miss Tabor herself tells me to go, I'll
go. Otherwise, I'll await my chance to see her; and if that's intruding,
why, I'll intrude. Now, be as practical as you please."
He gave way with a suddenness that astonished me. "Just as you say, Mr.
Crosby, just as you say. No difference whatever to me. Glad to be
relieved of the business. Better call this afternoon, and have it over
with. Always best to settle things at once. She'll be in all day.
Quickest way of ending the whole trouble."
"I'll call this afternoon."
"Right. Say about three-thirty. I go in here. Sorry to have brought you
so far. Sorry to have had this to do at all. Very unpleasant for both of
us, but life's full of unpleasantness. Sorry I shan't see you again.
Can't be helped. Good-by."
I made the best of my way back, with an indistinct sense of having
fought with a small tornado, and wondering whether I had won a minor
victory or sealed an irrevocable defeat. True, I had gained the point
of receiving my dismissal in person, but Reid's very readiness of
acquiescence indicated the completeness of his confidence in my
discomfiture. I spent the interim planning things to say which I knew I
should miserably forget when the time came to say them; and I went to
keep my appointment with Miss Tabor feeling illogically like a
malefactor going up for trial, and remembering with sickly lucidity
every word of the skeptical common sense that I had been flouting from
the first.
She was sitting near the great Dutch fireplace, and as I crossed the
room she slid her book upon the table and stood up. She did not offer me
her hand, nor did she notice mine.
"How do you do, Mr. Crosby?" she said.
There was an acid formality about the meaningless little sentence that
took the color out of all I had intended to say. There was no answer
except that I was very well; and the hollow inanity of that under the
circumstances left me standing speechless, defeated before the
beginning. She was standing very straight, and her eyes looked beyond me
blankly, as they had on the Ainslies' veranda. Now she brought them to
mine for an instant, and motioned me to a chair that faced hers at a
little distance as if it had been placed there beforehand.
"We had better sit down," she said. "I want to talk quietly to you, Mr.
Crosby."
"Your brother told me that this would be a good time for me to come,"
said I unmeaningly.
For a long time she was silent, turning over and over with reflective
fingers a little ivory paper cutter. The handle of it was carved to
represent a fish with its mouth open grasping the blade. Somewhere in
the room a clock ticked twice to every three of my heart-beats. Finally
she looked up decisively.
"You wanted to see me, Mr. Crosby. I suppose it is about something in
particular. Please tell me what it is."
"You must know as well as I do," I answered, trying to steady my tone.
"I have been told that my attempt to call is an intrusion, and that you
do not wish to see me again. I preferred to be told that by you,
yourself."
Her eyes rested steadily upon mine. "Well," she said, "I tell you now
that it is perfectly true."
There was the same formality about it all, the same sense of mechanical
arrangement; not as if she were playing a part, but as if she were
going through with an unpleasant purpose according to a preconceived
plan. I tried to shift the burden of the situation.
"Why?" I asked. "It seems to me that this part of intruder has been made
up and put upon me. Except for crossing lines that need never have been
drawn, I don't understand what I have done."
"Perhaps not. If you think a little, you will remember that when I asked
you to go that night when--when you brought me here, I told you to
forget us--that you were not to ask questions, nor try to see me again.
I thought I made it very clear at that time. Are you the judge of my
right to close my own door?"
For a moment I was too much bewildered to answer. "When we met at the
Ainslies'," I blurted, "you met me as a friend, as though nothing had
broken what we began in the holidays. I can't believe that you were only
playing a courteous part. You were your own open self. Everything was
all right, I am very sure, until--until this man, this--your brother
came for you."
She gave a scornful little laugh, leaning back indolently in her chair.
"Really, Mr. Crosby, aren't you rather overstating the case? Have we
been such very great friends? I have known you ten days--twelve days."
I nodded dumbly.
"I have no wish to hurt you," she went on more gently, "but we have
really nothing like a friendship to appeal to. I am not breaking
anything, because there is nothing to break. When you left here--I
thought that you understood me. I don't know what my family disliked in
you, and I don't think I care to know. It has nothing to do with me. But
this is what I dislike. You called up my father the next morning, and
demanded reasons. You went to the beach, where you knew I was invited.
Was I to cut you there? Was I to explain to mutual friends that I didn't
want to meet you? I don't think you have treated our acquaintanceship
particularly well, or that you have shown much regard for my plain
request."
I sat stunned, the bulk of my offense looming stark before me. Then,
with a great surge, the memory came back of the girl who had stood with
me by the water's edge, who had run childishly hand in hand with me upon
the beach, who had walked with me and talked with me, who had shown me
unembarrassed her gay and sweet imaginings. These things had been the
truth; this was the unreality.
Perhaps she saw something of what was passing in my mind, for she shook
her head. "Don't think that because I had no heart to mar your outing, I
did not mean what I had said. It was easier to be friends for a
little--easier for us both. But surely you should have played your part.
At the Ainslies' I wanted to treat you as I should have treated anybody.
Do you think that you have been fair? Do you think you should have
risked following me? For it was a risk. You have come back here where we
are the only people you know, and as soon as you come you ask for me. I
don't like to say it, Mr. Crosby, but you have acted inconsiderately. I
am very anxious that this time you should clearly understand."
I got to my feet in silence. Something had happened that I could not
help; and as I stood there, I knew that my world had come to an end, and
as in the first shock of a physical injury, felt numbly conscious of the
deliberate suffering that was to follow. She had risen too, looking
somehow curiously small and frail. Then, of a sudden, my manhood caught
at me. The wall was without seam or crevice, darkening the sky; and I
knew that I could break it with a breath.
"I will go," I said, "when I am sure. Look at me, Lady, for you know
that I know."
There was a sharp snap. She glanced at her hands, then dropped the
broken paper knife at her feet and faced me haughtily. "Know?" she said,
with a dry tension in her voice, "I only know that this is to be
good-by." She held out a rigid hand.
I took it and stood looking soberly down at her.
"Is that all?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered. "Don't make it hard for me." Then her eyes grew
suddenly afraid. She caught away her hand and shrank back a step,
catching at the chain about her throat.
"Oh, don't, don't," she begged. "Please, please go--you don't
understand."
I held myself with all my strength. "No, I don't understand," I
whispered.
She caught her breath with half a sob, forlornly and as a child might.
"You must not understand. You are never to see me again."
"You know I can't do that," I said.
"You must do it," she answered very gravely. "Be kind to me--" she
paused, "because it's hard for me to send you away."
"You must tell me one thing more than that," said I; "is there--is there
any one else?"
Her eyes fell. "That is it," she said at last, "there is somebody else."
"That is all, then," I said quietly. "I shall stay away until you send
for me;" and I left her.
I have no remembrance of the walk back to the inn; but I closed my door
behind me softly, as if I were shutting a door upon my dreams. Now I
knew that the dull round of daily life, of little happenings and usual
days, stretched before me, weary and indefinite. It made little
difference to think that I might some day be sent for. Evidently it was
to be Europe this summer after all. My only desire was to make my going
a thing immediate and complete; to rupture so absolutely the threads of
the woof that we had woven that I could feel myself separated from all,
enough aloof from love to think of life. I did not stop to ask myself
questions or to wonder precisely what was the nature of the
impossibility that was driving me away. There would be time enough for
that.
I began to pack feverishly, gathering my belongings from their
disposition about the room. I felt tired, as a man feels tired who has
lost a battle; so that after I had packed a little I sank wearily into
the chair before my bureau. Then after what may have been a minute or an
hour of dull unconscious thought, I fell again to my task; pulling open
the drawers from where I sat, and searching their depths for little odds
and ends which I piled upon the bureau top. The bottom of the second
drawer was covered with an old newspaper; and I smiled as I noticed that
its fabric was already turning brittle and yellowish, and read the
obsolete violence of the head-lines. Then a name half-way down the page
caught me with a shock, and I slowly read and re-read the lines of tiny
print, forming the empty phrases in my mind with no clear sense of their
meaning. They were like the streams of silly words that run through
one's head in a fever, or half-way along the road to sleep; and it was
an eternity before they meant anything.
"REID-TABOR. On May 24, at the home of the bride's parents,
Miriam, daughter of George and Charlotte Bennett Tabor, to
Doctor Walter Reid."
CHAPTER VIII
HOW WE MADE AN UNCONVENTIONAL JOURNEY TO TOWN
Very carefully, and wondering the while in a listless fashion why I
should do so at all, I tore out the notice and put it carefully away in
my pocketbook. I had the explanation now; I understood it all--the
hidden ring at the end of the chain, and the shadow of which it was the
symbol, the mystery and disturbance of the house, the continual pretexts
to get rid of me, the effort to disguise any strangeness of appearance
in the life of the family. And I understood why it was true that I must
go away and utterly forget. And yet--was the explanation so perfect,
after all? Mechanically I pulled the paper out of the drawer, and
searched for the date. It was only three years back; but even that
length of time would have made Lady a mere child when she was married.
She could not be very far beyond twenty now, certainly not more than
twenty-two or three. And in any case, why should the marriage be
concealed and the husband retained as a member of the family,
masquerading as a brother? And how, after the ordinary announcement in
the press, could the marriage have become a secret at all? Then once
more the whispers and pointings of a score of abnormal circumstances,
uncertain, suggestive, indefinite, crowded in upon my understanding,
like the confusion of simultaneous voices. It was no use. I could not
imagine what it all meant, and for the moment I was too sick and weary
to wonder. The bare fact was more than enough; she was married and
beyond my reach, and I must go away.
I went through a pantomime of supper, making the discovery that my
appetite was supplemented by an unquenchable thirst and an immeasurable
desire for tobacco. After that I walked, read, made dull conversation
with casual acquaintances--anything to kill the interminable time, and
quiet for the moment that weary spirit of unrest which kept urging me to
useless thought and unprofitable action, to examine my trouble as one
irritates a trivial wound, to decide or do something where nothing was
to be decided or to be done. An inhabitant of the nearest comfortless
piazza chair contributed the only episode worth remembering.
"Say," he began, "do you remember that guinea that was here the other
day and started the argument with the old gent out in front? Well, what
did you make of that feller, anyway?"
"I don't know. He was drunk, I suppose, and got the wrong man."
"Well, now, you take it from me, there was more to it than that. Yes,
sir, there's a shady story around there somewhere. You hear what I say."
"Is the man still around here?" I asked.
"Well, not now, he ain't. That's what I'm telling you. He hung about
town for two or three days, I guess. Maybe he got after the old man some
more. He was in here after a drink once, and the barkeep threw him out.
He's a good mixer, Harry is, men or drinks; but he don't like guineas.
Well, I don't go much on them foreigners, myself."
"Where does your shady story come in?"
"Well, now, that's just it. You listen. I was coming along the street
the other night, and I passed this guinea standing under a street lamp,
talking to that Reid feller that lives up to Tabors'. Doc Reid, you know
whom I mean? Well, I was going past and I heard Reid say: 'Now, you
understand what you got to do,' he says, 'keep quiet and keep away. The
minute you show up here again or give any trouble,' he says, 'the money
stops. You understand that?' he says. And you can call me a liar if you
like, but I swear I saw him slip the guinea a roll. Now, what do you
know about that?"
I put him off as well as I could. Here was another point in the
labyrinth, but I had no energy to think about it. I got away from the
gossip at last only by taking refuge in my room. And the rest of the
evening was a dreary nightmare of unreality which only expanded without
changing when I tried to sleep. I tossed about endlessly, thinking
thoughts that were not thoughts, dreaming evil dreams even while I
watched the swollen shadows about the room and listened to the unmeaning
voices and footsteps in the hallways. It seemed so much a part of this
when some one pounded on my door and told me that I was wanted on the
telephone, that it was a troublesome task to make me understand.
I pulled on a sweater and ran down-stairs, wondering who could have
called me up at one in the morning. I was not left long in doubt.
"Hello! This Mr. Crosby? Hello! Hello there! Mr. Crosby? Hello!"
"Yes!" I said savagely, "what is it?"
"Doctor Reid talking. Can you--what? All right--hold the line a second."
Then Lady's voice: "Mr. Crosby? Listen: I have to go to New York in the
machine now, right away. Can you come with me?"
"Can I--? Why, of course; but why doesn't--why don't you take some one
else?"
"No one else can go. If you're not willing--"
"Of course I'm willing," I said, "if I can be of use."
"I knew you would. The car will be there for you in five minutes,
or--wait: there's no need of waking up the whole inn. Walk up to the
first street corner this way, and the car will meet you there."
Five minutes later I was standing on the corner, shivering with
interrupted sleep, while four flaming yellow eyes swung toward me down
the hill. It was the same big limousine I had noticed the night before.
I climbed in beside the chauffeur. With a clash and a grinding lurch the
car swung around and pointed up the hill again, toward the Tabors'.
There was power and to spare, but I noticed that one cylinder was
missing now and again.
"Your ignition isn't very steady," I said to the chauffeur. "What is
it--valves?"
He turned and looked at me with supercilious respect. "Poor petrol, sir.
I fancy she'll run well enough, sir."
Lady came running out, veiled and muffled. "Come inside," she said, as I
sprang down to help her in, "I'd rather have you with me." The door
slammed, and we were off with a jerk that threw us back against the deep
leather cushions. For a few moments we flashed under lamps and sidled
around corners to an accompaniment of growling brakes and squeaking
springs; then we ran out upon the smooth macadam of the highway, and
settled into our speed with a steady purr. Lady sat up in her corner and
patted at her veil.
"It was very good of you to come," she said, "but I knew we could count
on you. Here, take this thing--I don't want it."
It was a very serviceable revolver, cold and smooth as I slipped it out
of its leather holster. I made sure that it was ready for use.
"It's perfectly ridiculous taking it along," she added. "We're not going
on any desperate midnight errand. The mere time of night is the only
thing that's even unconventional. But Walter wouldn't let me come
without it."
I asked no questions. By this time I had learned better; and besides I
did not greatly care what we were doing, or what was to happen next. I
would be of service if I could, that was all. Since it was to be
hopelessly, it might as well be blindly, too; and the sense of adventure
was gone out of me. The car swayed and sidled gently to the irregular
mutter of the engine and the drowsy whining of the gears. We might
almost have been motionless, except when the flare of some passing light
swept across us, filling with an uncanny and sudden illumination the
polished interior of the limousine, and showing me as by the glimpse of
a lightning-flash the veiled and silent figure by my side. Here was
romance beyond my wildest imagination: night, and hurry and mysterious
need, the swift rush onward through the warm gloom, the womanhood of the
breathing shadow so close to me, whose thought I could not know, whose
anxiety I could not seek to fathom, whose trouble I could only help by
doing ignorantly what she asked of me and then leaving her in other
hands. And all this that should have stirred me to chivalry seemed only
dull and weary, a thankless task. The lines of _The Last Ride Together_
began running in my mind, and I turned them over and over, trying
vaguely to fill in forgotten phrases, until the rocking of the car
reminded me where I was, and the sardonic incongruity of it jarred me
back to earth. It was always like that: the deed a parody of the dream,
the details of actual happenings making mouths at the truth that lay
behind them, life sneering at itself. Here were two lovers hurrying
together through the night, held silent by a secret and bound by a blind
trust. And they were riding through Westchester in a motor-car, and the
thought of a fussy medical man with a bass voice was the naked sword
which lay between them.
A trolley car, looking like a huge and luminous caterpillar, hung
alongside us for a moment, then fell behind. Our engine had not been
running perfectly from the first; and now as we jolted over a section of
newly mended road and began to climb a bumpy hill, the trouble suddenly
became so much worse that it looked as though it meant delay. Impure
gasolene does not make one cylinder miss fire regularly for many
revolutions and then explode once or twice with a croupy grunt.
"There's something the matter with the car," said Lady nervously. "I
hope we're not going to break down. We mustn't break down."
"The chauffeur says it's the gasolene," I answered, "but I don't believe
it. It's ignition by the sound."
"Do you know anything about a car?"
"A little," I said; and as we drew up at the side of the road, I was out
and in front of the machine almost before the chauffeur had lumbered
from his seat. He got out his electric lamp, and began tinkering with
the carburetor.
"Hold on a minute," I said. "If you ball up that adjustment, it may take
half an hour to get it right again. Are you sure it isn't ignition?"
"Ignition's all right, sir," he grunted; "she's getting too much gas."
"Then why are three of your cylinders all right and one all wrong?" I
snapped. "Come around here with that lamp."
Once the bonnet was open it was not hard to find the trouble. The nut
which held one of the wires to its connection on the magneto had dropped
off, and the end of the wire was hanging loose, connecting only when the
vibration of the car swung it against the binding-post. The chauffeur
did not appear grieved.
"We're dished," he remarked cheerfully. "I've no other nut like that."
"It's probably in the underpan," I retorted. We got the pan off, and
after some search in the puddle of grimy grease, were fortunate enough
to find it. A moment later we were throbbing steadily on our way.
"That man of yours isn't exactly delighted with his work," I commented.
"I don't blame him. He isn't supposed to be waked up for forty-mile
trips in the middle of the night, and he's English and worships his
habits. Are we all right now?"
"Yes; it wasn't anything. We're nearly there now; there's Woodlawn."
She did not speak again for some time, and I began to wonder if I had
again trodden upon trouble. I seemed fated to do so at every turn. But
presently she broke in with a comfortable triviality.
"Look here, why don't you smoke if you want to? I forgot all about it,
but of course you may. I don't mind."
I had not noticed it before, but the cigarette was exactly what I
wanted. The bodily comfort balanced things again, and made me feel at
home with the situation. We ran down Riverside Drive, the dark bulk of
the city on our left, and on our right the glimmering breadth of the
Hudson, streaked with yellow gleams. Thence we crossed over and
continued on down Fifth Avenue, between blank houses and unnatural
lights, the occasional clack of hoofs and hollow growl of wheels
accentuating the unwonted stillness. I had somehow taken it for granted
that we were going for a doctor. But when we passed Madison Square and
kept on south along Broadway, that errand became unlikely; and when we
turned eastward over the rough cobbles of narrow side streets, I was in
a state of blank wonder. We ran slowly, lurching and bumping, through
interminable chasms of squalor where iron railings mounted to the doors
and clots of bedding hung from open windows; where evil odors hung and
drifted like clouds, and a sick heat lay prisoned between wall and
pavement, and stragglers turned to stare after us as we went by. Now and
then we crossed some wider thoroughfare with its noise of cars and
tangle of sagging wires overhead, and signs in foreign tongues under the
corner lights. And at last we came into a city of dreadful sleep, dim
and deserted and still. The scattered lamps were only yellow splotches
in the dusk, the stores were barred and bared, and there was no human
thing in sight save here and there a huddle of grimy clothes under the
half shelter of a doorway. Puffs of salt air from the river troubled the
stagnant mixture of fish, leather and stale beer.
We stopped before a narrow doorway pinched sidewise between two shop
windows like a fish's mouth. Lady leaned across me to scan the bleak
windows above.
"There should be a light on the top floor," she said, "yes, there it is.
Ask Thomas to make sure of the number."
He was back in a moment to say that the number was right: "And all
asleep, Miss, by the look of it. Shall I knock somebody up? There's no
bell."
"No, not yet. What time is it, Mr. Crosby?"
"Twenty minutes of three," I told her.
"She must have got the message before now," she said, half to herself.
Then, after a little thought, "Stay here with the car, Thomas. Mr.
Crosby and I are going in."
"You're not going into such a place at this hour!" I protested. "Tell me
what it is and let me go."
"No, I'm coming too. Don't stop to talk about it, please."
The door yielded and let us into a stained and choking hallway, faintly
lighted by a blue flicker of gas at the far end. The stairs were worn
into creaking hollows, and the noise of our passing, though
instinctively we crept upward like thieves, awakened a multitude of
squeaks and scufflings behind the plaster. The banisters were everywhere
loose and shaky, and in places they were entirely broken away, so that
we went close along the filthy wall rather than trust to them. Each
hallway was like the one below; narrow, dusty and airless, with its blue
spurt of gas giving us just light enough to find our way without
groping. At last we reached the top, and Lady knocked softly on the door
at the end of the hall.
There was no answer. She knocked again. I turned up the gas, and as I
did so a fat beetle ran from under my feet. I stepped on it, and wished
that I had not done so.
"Are you sure this is the place?" I whispered.
"Yes; I've been here before. But I don't understand. Sheila knew that we
were coming."
"Look," said I, "the door is unlatched. Shall I go in?"
For an instant the oppression of the place was too much for her, and she
clung to my arm whispering, "I'm afraid--I'm afraid!" Then before I
could speak, she had caught up her courage.
"Yes," she said. "Open it if you can."
The door swung a few inches, then resisted. Something soft and heavy,
like a mattress, seemed to be braced against the bottom of it. I felt
for the revolver in my pocket, then put my weight against the panel. The
thing inside moved a little, then rolled over with a thud, and the door
swung wide. What had lain against it, and now lay across the opening
clearly visible in the light from behind us was the body of a woman with
blood soaking into her hair.
CHAPTER IX
HOW WE ESCAPED FROM WHAT WE FOUND THERE
We stood looking down upon her without speech. She was a tall, rather
thin woman of about fifty; Irish by the look of her, and still with some
share of earlier good looks. The hair that fell away loosely from her
broad forehead was black and straight, showing only here and there a
thread of silver. The large hands lay limply open, and the face was
deathly white. She had fallen away from the door with her knees pressed
closely against it, as though she had been trying to open it when the
blow came.
"Do you think she is dead?" Lady breathed at last.
"Of course not," I answered, but I was very much afraid. I knelt down
beside her and listened to her heart. I was not sure, but it seemed to
me that it beat faintly; so faintly that it might have been only the
drumming of my own pulses in my ears.
"Can you find a mirror?" I asked from the floor.
Lady glanced vaguely about the room, then came back to me with
uncomprehending eyes. "No, I can't see any. What for?" she said dully.
I sprang quickly to my feet. A chair lay overturned on the bare white
boards of the floor, and I picked it up, setting it near the window.
"Sit there," I said, "while I rummage," and I drew her to it, half
forcing her down into it. She sat very still, mechanically obedient,
while I looked around me.
It was a strange little room to find in this decaying tenement. On the
sill of the single window that gave upon the street blossomed an uneven
row of geraniums. One pot had fallen to the floor and lay shattered, the
fresh green of its broken plant piteous in a sprawl of scattered earth.
The whole place bore evidence of an insistent struggle for the
cheerfulness of a home. White, starchy curtains were at the windows; the
walls were fairly covered with pictures, colored prints for the most
part, and supplements of Sunday papers. A bird-cage had hung in one
corner, and now lay, cage and bottom fallen apart, upon a muddle of seed
and water; and a frightened canary perched upon the leg of a fallen
table, blinking in the unsteady flare of the gas. The floor was
spotlessly clean, its worn boards white with scrubbing, save where the
flower-pot and bird-cage had been overturned, and the dark stain spread
from beneath the woman's hair. The whole scene was unnaturally and
strangely vivid, all its little details leaping to the eye with the
stark brilliance of a flashlight.
To the right of the door by which the woman lay was another door, and I
crossed over to it. It opened with a squeak, and for a moment I stood
looking in. This was evidently the sleeping-room. It held only a
washstand, a chest and an iron bedstead; and here, too, an
unextinguished gas-jet flared. I stepped in and closed the door behind
me, for upon the bed lay another huddled figure. It was a man lying face
downward, breathing heavily and evidently very drunk; for the whole
place reeked sourly of alcohol. I pulled at his shoulder, turning him
half over. For half a minute I held him so, then let him fall back as I
had found him. I glanced behind me to be sure that the door was shut.
The man on the bed muttered thickly, shifting his position; and
something thudded upon the floor, and rolled to my feet. It was a short
bit of iron, rather more thick at one end than at the other; and as I
turned it over in my hands, it left a stain. Somewhere I had seen such
an instrument before, but I could not at the moment recall where; and I
dropped the thing into my pocket not without some feeling of disgust. A
small mirror hung over the washstand. This I hurriedly took down, and as
hurriedly left the room, closing the door behind me. Lady was still
sitting where I had left her, but as I came across the room she got up.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. "I'm sure I can help in some way.
You were gone a long time, but I waited."
"I'll show you in a moment," I said. We talked in whispers as if in the
presence of death; and yet I was almost sure that the woman was alive.
Nevertheless, it was with a great deal of relief that I saw the mirror
softly cloud before her lips.
"It's all right," I cried. "She's alive."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Oh, thank God!" Lady breathed
"Amen," said I. "What are we to do now?"
"What do you think we had better do? Is there any water in there?"
"There's nothing in there that's of any use," I said quickly. "I should
say the first thing would be to send for an ambulance, and the next for
the police."
"No, no!" Lady cried. "Whatever is to be done we must do ourselves. I
came here to take her away. Can't we take her as she is?"
"She could be carried down-stairs easily enough," said I, surprised,
"but somebody ought to be arrested for this thing. Have you any notion
who did it?"
"Her husband, I suppose," answered Lady bitterly. "He is like that when
he has been drinking. Sheila was afraid something would happen when he
came back."
"Sheila?"
Lady glanced at the figure before us. "That is Sheila," she said. "She
used to be my nurse."
I picked the woman up in my arms. She was heavier than I had thought;
not beyond my strength, but more than I could walk with safely down
those crazy stairs.
"I'll call the chauffeur," I said. "He can help carry her down."
"Yes; but I'd rather he didn't see this."
"He'd see her anyhow, when we brought her down; and we can't do
anything for her here. Where shall I put her?"
"Wasn't there a bed in that room?" she asked.
"Slip off your coat; she will be all right on the floor for a minute."
Lady took off the long coat and spread it upon the boards, taking
Sheila's hand in her lap as I laid her down upon it. I raised the little
window, and looked down into the street. The car stood there, its lights
glaring monstrously down the empty street.
"Hi!" I called. "You chauffeur! Leave the car and come up here."
Below, a figure detached itself from the shadow of the car. "What, sir?"
he shouted up.
"Come up here; we want you."
The man did not answer, and turned back to his car. I watched him
angrily, but after a moment he crossed the sidewalk and disappeared in
the hall doorway.
"I wouldn't blame her husband too surely," I said, as I turned from the
window. "I think the man who struck her was an Italian."
Lady started. "What makes you think so?" she asked in a whisper.
I shook my head, but did not answer.
"Never mind," said Lady, "but you are right. Her husband is an Italian."
It was my turn to start. "What?" I cried. "Was he by any chance also a
sailor?"
She nodded, frightened eyes upon me. And I wondered what it was all
about, for the man lying upon the bed in the inner room was the man whom
I had seen at the inn bar, the man who had threatened her father, the
man to whom her--her husband had given money.
I met the chauffeur in the hall, puffing and evidently disgusted.
"A very low quarter, sir. I was afraid for my life below; and this is a
dirty, bad-smelling 'ouse, sir."
"Well," I said, "there is a woman who is sick in here, and Miss Tabor
has come to take her away in the car. You are to help me to carry her
down."
He sniffed dolefully, and I opened the door, closing it quickly behind
him.
"Mrs. Carucci has been hurt," said Miss Tabor. "You are to help Mr.
Crosby carry her down to the car."
The man stared at the woman on the floor. "Hurt?" he cried. "Mr. Crosby
said she was ill." He glanced about the clean little room, disordered
by the violence that had passed, and shrank back against the wall,
white and staring.
"What's that?" He pointed to the dark stain near the door.
"That," I answered lightly, "is none of your business. Suppose you take
her feet."
The man turned a sick green. "It's blood," he whispered. "It's murder."
"Nonsense, man; the woman is alive. She fell and hurt her head, that's
all. At any rate, we are going to take her where she can be cared for.
Take her feet. We ought not to leave the car too long."
The fellow shook his head.
"She is dead," he repeated sullenly. "There has been murder done. I'll
have nothing to do with it."
Miss Tabor broke in: "Thomas, you heard what Mr. Crosby said. You are to
help him this instant."
"I am not," he said. "I have done more and seen more than a decent man
should, already. A fine district this is for this hour of the night,
with cut-throats asleep in the street and a dead woman lying above. I
give notice now, and I go now."
"You'll do nothing of the kind," I retorted. "Have you no loyalty?"
"I am as honest as the next," he answered, "too honest, or I should
have gone a month ago. 'Tis no place for a decent, quiet man, what with
a fly-by-night sawbones living in my garage, and all sorts of strange
folks going and coming at the house, and calls at all hours, and Lord
knows what going on. 'Tis no decent place. I'm through right now! For
the love of God, what's that?"
The sound had startled us all, and it was repeated--a sound betwixt a
groan and a growl. I glanced toward the door of the inner room.
"My God!" cried Thomas. "There's another of them!" He started across the
room, but I was before him. I turned the key in the door, and placed my
back against it. From within the growls came with greater frequency. The
chauffeur stood before me, shaking with the anger of terror.
"Very well," I said, "you go down to your car and start the engine. I
will carry the woman down without you."
The man hesitated.
"Go!" I cried, and took a step forward. He whimpered out an oath, and
turning, clattered down the stairs as if the devil were after him. I
turned to find Lady on her feet, staring at the closed door.
"Carucci?" she whispered.
I nodded, and went over to take up the woman.
"Wait a minute," cried Lady. "We can't leave the bird loose. She thinks
everything of him."
Somehow I did not laugh. "Very well," I said, "but be quick," and even
as I spoke there came a muttering of Italian; the bed creaked, the feet
came heavily to the floor. Lady stretched out her hand for the bird, but
it fluttered off frightened to the geranium plants. A thud came against
the locked door, and another drunken mutter of Italian. But now Lady had
the bird safe, and I latched the cage top to its flooring, and held open
the door for her capture.
"You carry it," I said. "I'll take the woman."
We were just in time; for Carucci began to realize that he was locked
in, and the door shook under his fury. It was a weak-looking door at
best, and as we left the room, a lower panel splintered. We fairly ran
down-stairs, fearful every moment that the door would not hold long
enough; for the whole building seemed to vibrate with the savage uproar
above. Here and there, as we turned down the dark hall, doors opened,
and frightened faces, dull with sleep, looked out.
Once in the street, I pushed hurriedly through the knot of roughs that
had gathered peering and jeering around the car, and tore open the door.
"Quick! Get in!" I cried. Lady slipped past me and up the step.
"Give her to me," she said.
I put the woman in gently upon the seat, where Lady held her close. Then
I turned to the chauffeur in a fury, for the engine was not running. He
was fumbling at the dash, while the onlookers jostled about him. I shook
him angrily.
"Start it, you fool!" I growled.
He shrank away from me. "I'm through, I told you. I'll have nothing to
do with mur--" I slapped the word short with a swing of my open hand
across his mouth. Without a word he turned and elbowed his way through
the press behind us. I caught him by the arm.
"Give me that plug," I said, twisting it from his hand. And as I jammed
it into its socket, I heard Lady's voice at my shoulder. She was
standing on the curb, one hand upon the open door of the car.
"Can't you make it go?"
"It's all right," I shouted, reaching for the spark, "get inside!" and
the engine started with a snort and a howl. The crowd had begun to
mutter threateningly, and as I sprang for the other side of the car
they jostled me back.
"Murder!" some one shouted hoarsely. "Police! police! police!"
From far down the block came the regular thud of running feet, and the
shrill blast of a whistle; and along with it, a stumbling clatter from
the tenement hallway, and Carucci, a great smear of blood across his
convulsed and swollen face, lurched drunkenly to the sidewalk.
CHAPTER X
AND HOW WE BROUGHT HOME A DIFFICULTY
It was a matter of seconds. I vaulted over the spare tires into the
chauffeur's seat, pulling the throttle open while I felt for my pedals;
and as I did so, I heard the door of the limousine slam behind me. A
hasty glance over my shoulder showed me that the back of the car was
clear. I jerked in the reverse and raised my feet; and with a roar and a
stream of blue smoke, the machine swung backward across the street,
while I twisted furiously at the wheel. One of the men caught at me as
we began to move, but the suddenness of our starting helped the push I
gave him to throw him off his balance. He sprawled on his back in the
gutter, and an instant later I was in my second speed and half-way up
the block. The policeman behind us was firing his revolver; whether at
us or our tires or the sky I had no time to guess. And I took the first
corner with my heart in my mouth and an empty feeling in my stomach,
praying that we might get around it right side up. A shadow ran out from
the curb and sprang for the running-board; but my hands and eyes were so
busy in front of me that I did not know whether we missed him or ran him
down.
Speed was impossible over the cobbles; our only chance was to take as
many turnings as possible to avoid being headed, and for the next few
minutes we swayed and slid around treacherous corners through a darkness
that was full of shouts and whistlings and gesticulating enemies. I
wondered that every blue-coated figure running blindly up the lane of
our lights did not stop us, and that at every turning we had neither
upset nor skidded into the opposite curb. It was wild work at the best;
and considering that I was driving a heavy and unfamiliar car over slimy
pavements, I can not understand now how we avoided either accident or
capture. But presently the headlights showed a long, dark street, clear
of interference. We raced up it at a rate that seemed to loosen every
tooth in my head, and numbed my fingers upon the rattling wheel. The
noise was fairly behind us. After a couple more turns, it had grown
fainter; and I slowed to a saner speed, watching the street lamps for
knowledge of my whereabouts. Then I became conscious that there was a
man beside me in the car.
He was huddled in a heap on the floor, between the seat and the dash,
hanging on desperately, and crowding himself into the least possible
space as if to keep out of sight. As soon as I could spare a hand, I
began to pound him over the head and neck. I was in no mood for half
measures. He cowered back on to the running-board, shielding himself
with an arm and turning up an absurd and ugly face of terror. It was our
highly respectable chauffeur.
"Oh, for God's sake, don't, sir!" he croaked, shrinking back out of
reach. "I won't interfere with you nor nothing. I'll get out as soon as
we get fair away. Only I'd ha' been took up sure, sir, and there's me
character gone."
"Get into that seat and keep still," I said, "or you'll have us all
taken up. Get in, I tell you."
He crawled into the seat, shaking and protesting. There were tears in
his voice, and I think actually in his eyes.
"Do you know your way out of this?" I demanded.
"No, sir. I haven't a notion. I'll get out and ask." He was apparently
too frightened to know his own mind, but I had made up mine. He was
better with us than wandering about the city, telling murder stories.
"Stay where you are," I snapped, "you'll go home with us, and keep your
head shut."
"Oh, I can't think of it, sir. We'll never get home after this. I'll get
out here. It's murder and resisting arrest and endangering traffic.
They'll have me an accomplice."
I caught at his collar as he tried to stand up, and jerked him back into
the seat. Before he could make another move, I had shut off and got my
right hand on the revolver. I held it across my knees under the wheel,
and slipped the holster off it.
"You're going to sit still and keep quiet," I said, "and you're going
wherever we go. Do you understand?"
He sat like a graven image after that, with no sound but an occasional
sniff. I slid the revolver between me and the edge of the seat, and we
went on. He might have known that I should never have dared to use it;
but either he was too shaken and stupid to put himself in my place, or
he lacked the nerve to try me. All this time we had been working
westward as fast as the rough going and my divided attention would
allow. Now and then some one shouted after us. But it was still dark and
we were soon out of sight around a corner, and the few policemen who
concerned themselves with us at all did not trouble themselves to
whistle up a hue and cry. Presently the black bulk of the elevated gave
me my bearings, and I turned north under it, running along the car
tracks. The lights and the scattered traffic, and the occasional roaring
of a train overhead, seemed curiously homelike and comfortable. I felt
as if I were waking out of a nightmare.
We crossed over to Union Square and hurried carefully through
civilization. I was afraid of Fifth Avenue; even at this hour, too many
of the guardians of the peace there were provided with better means of
speed than their own feet; and I did not like the attention we still
seemed to attract, now that we were safe away from our original trouble
and running at an ordinary rate. Madison Avenue was decently asleep; and
its empty length must have tempted me to unreasonable speed, for the few
people we passed stopped to stare, and call after us unmeaningly. I
expected every moment to meet a mounted policeman, and held myself ready
to slow down or take a sudden corner; but none appeared, and I turned
into the leafy darkness of Central Park with a sigh of relief. I was
more than a little anxious for the safety of my passengers within.
I stopped in the deepest shade I could find, and clambered out. Lady's
face was at the door almost before I could open it.
"Are you all right?" she panted. I could see only her eyes and the
outline of her face like a white shadow.
"Yes; are you?"
She laughed nervously. "I'm as well as when we started, and Sheila is
better. She has come to herself now. Can you find some water? I have a
flask here."
"There are fountains all along these drives. We'll run ahead until we
come to one of them."
As I spoke, there was a thud behind me, and a quick patter of running
feet. The excellent Thomas had taken advantage of my forgetfulness to
break for liberty. He was out of sight almost before I turned; and he
had been thoughtful enough to throw the revolver away as he jumped.
"I'm a clever idiot," I said ruefully, "your chauffeur has been trying
to desert all along, and now he's done it."
"But you were driving, yourself. What difference does it make?"
"I was thinking of what he might say," said I. "But for that matter, I
suppose I have got you into a newspaper scrape anyhow, if nothing worse.
Every policeman on the East Side must have our number."
"I was just going to ask you about that," said Lady, with a queer little
crow in her voice. "Perhaps we had better carry this outside now." She
felt about her feet and handed me a muddy strip of metal. "I took this
off while you were starting the car. And I put out that red lantern
thing, too."
For an instant I forgot Doctor Reid and all the mountain of
impossibility that lay between us. She had always been more than other
women. And now she was that rarest thing of all, a comrade ready in a
moment of need. I reached out my hand, as if she had been a man.
"You're a miracle," I said, "and I'm not half good enough to be your
lieutenant. Good work."
There was a broken whisper from the darkness within.
"The water," said Lady, "we're forgetting Sheila."
I replaced our number, lighted the tail-lamp, and a little farther on
found a drinking fountain and got the water. Mrs. Carucci was able to
speak only a few words of unsteady thanks; but that was enough to make
me fall in love with the crooning voice of her. We pushed on out of town
without any further adventure; and on the open roads off to the
northward were free to make the most of our speed.
The night slowly faded, not as if any light were coming, but as if the
darkness itself were growing faint and weak. The roadside trees were
still mysterious bulks against remoter gloom, but their blackness now
gave a dull hint of green and the yellow glare of our lamps grew washed
out and lifeless. The crowing of cocks, reiterated from place to place,
sounded fictitious and unnatural. The air chilled a little and here and
there we ran through a momentary blindness of mist, as if a small cloud
had fallen to drift along the surface of the earth. I sat back half
drowsily, with relaxed nerves; and although I had no desire for sleep,
although I never loosened my hands upon the wheel, nor took my eyes for
a second from the wavering end of the ribbon of light that unwound
itself continually toward me, yet I felt somehow unreal and very
peaceful, without will or memory, like a person in a dream. The car
obeyed me without my being conscious of any movement, as if I guided it
by my mere volition. Slowly the pallor around me changed from green to
gray; the air freshened as the stars went out; and the twitter of birds
and the scattered barking of dogs underran the unvarying, inevitable
drumming of the engine. That sound itself dried and hardened in the
keener atmosphere. And in the pleasure of the perfect power under me, I
let the car out nearly to the limit of its speed, until the sidelong
sway of the body warned me that I was driving too fast for the road. We
passed a milk wagon or two and an occasional early trolley. Then came
the dawn, so swiftly that it was full day of sunlight and shadow before
I thought to look for color in the east. Somehow it did not seem like
morning, but like coming out of a curtained house into the midst of
afternoon.
It was part of this same strangeness that I only felt the exhilaration
of the present without any thought of trouble that lay before me and
behind. I was a conquering hero, carrying my princess home in triumph
out of the castle of the enchanter. I had overcome desperate accidents
and won my spurs; this page of the fairy-tale bore a picture in shining
colors, and I knew of neither the last page nor the next. It was in this
mood that I passed, unheeding, through the gathering familiarity of
nearer landmarks, past the inn and up the winding hill, and drew up at
last before the Tabors' door with some vague fancy that I should hear a
trumpet blown. I suppose that I was unconsciously very tired and in part
asleep, so that it came upon me with the shock of a violent awakening
when the front door swung open and Mr. Tabor hurried out to meet us,
followed by Doctor Reid.
The fairy-tale burst like a bubble, and the actuality of all that those
two men stood for in my last few days and all the days to come drowned
me in a breath. I got down mechanically to help them. I suppose we must
have spoken a few words while Lady was getting out of the car and Mrs.
Carucci was helped down and half-carried into the house between the two
men. But I do not remember. I remember only the three figures in the
doorway, the drooping woman, with their arms about her. Then the door
closed, and Lady stood alone upon the steps above me. Her eyes were
larger for the shadows under them; but there was no bloom upon her, and
I wondered why I had thought her really beautiful.
"I'll take the car around and leave it," I said. "Good-by."
"You're a strange man," she muttered; then with her sudden smile,
"Aren't you coming in to breakfast? You've had an adventure, and you
ought to be hungry."
Her tone jarred. "Never mind that," I said bitterly. "I was to go this
morning, and I'm going. There's still plenty of time for my train. The
sooner it's over with, the better."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Mean? I mean what you told me--and one thing more, I understand now
what you meant yesterday, because I found your marriage notice in an old
paper."
"What marriage notice? I don't understand."
"Yours; on the twenty-sixth of May three years ago, to Doctor Reid.
That's all. I beg your pardon."
The color came back into her face; and under the trouble of her brows I
thought she almost smiled.
"That was my sister," she said quietly. "My name's Margaret; I thought
you knew."
CHAPTER XI
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FAMILY AND IMPRESSIONS OF THE PRESS
With that, all the strangeness of the day, all the feeling of moving in
an unnatural world which had hung about me since the dawn, blew away
like the shadow of smoke. It was a summer morning of breezes and cool
lights, garrulous with innumerable birds; and I was standing with my
feet upon solid earth, glad beyond measure for the knowledge that I was
a fool. The very idea of it had been absurd; and best of all, there were
still things to be done.
"God be thanked," said I to Lady.
She smiled down at me very sweetly. "So much as that? It doesn't sound
as if you appreciated Walter, Mr. Crosby. I can easily imagine a worse
husband myself."
"I don't mean that," said I hastily. "At least--"
"At least you may as well come in to breakfast."
"I should say he might," Mr. Tabor cried behind her. "I have Sheila
safely stowed away, and now I must make sure of you."
I must have looked nearly as puzzled as I felt.
"You see, Mr. Crosby, I owe you an apology. You helped us out of a tight
place last night, and we are deeply in your debt; your coals of fire are
upon all our heads."
"But--" I said, and hesitated.
"'But;' but that's what I say. I owe you an apology. We fired you out
the other night because we had to. We had something going on here then
which we did not care to have a stranger mixed up in. We had every
regard for you--but, after all, you were an outsider, and we simply
could not risk you. So we threw you out. You understand that I am
speaking to you now in confidence, and because I take you to be a
gallant gentleman. Neither can I explain. Of course, the explanation I
did give you was a sheer bit of bluff. I know nothing against you
whatever; but you forced me into saying something, and that was the most
effective thing I could think of to say to a man of your kind. Believe
me, I hated to do it. Will you shake hands?"
By that time I had got my breath again. "I will do more," I said
laughingly. "I will congratulate you. You are one of the ablest and most
convincingly finished--a--"
"Liars," he prompted.
"That I ever had the privilege of meeting," I concluded unblushingly.
Mr. Tabor clapped me on the shoulder. "Thank you. I am honored. We shall
get along very well, I promise you. Lady, lead the way where breakfast
waits; this low fellow and I will follow."
So the three of us made a very comfortable meal. Mrs. Tabor was not at
table, and I supposed her breakfasting in bed, if indeed she were awake;
and Doctor Reid, it appeared, was yet busy with his patient. We told Mr.
Tabor our adventure, turn and turn about, and I found myself listening
to Lady's warm praise of what she was pleased to call my resource, with
a tingling at the heart-strings. When we had done, and Mr. Tabor had
listened very carefully, he sat frowning before him for a while; and I
thought that he saw more in the recital than did we ourselves.
"Well," he said at last. "I suppose all's well that ends well; but I do
hope that it has all ended. Are you quite sure, Mr. Crosby, that nobody
got a look at you or Lady or the car who would be likely to have mind
enough to give the affair clearly to the newspapers?"
"I'm pretty sure of it, sir," I answered. "The only people who got a
good look at anything were the little group of the usual slum roughs;
and from their general air and the hour of the night, the probability is
that there wasn't one of them that was not pretty well befuddled."
"How about the police?"
"I didn't get a good look at the police myself; but I think that we were
too fast for them. You see, Miss Tabor had the number off, and we
started with considerable speed. They may have a general idea of the
car, but I think that is about all."
"I wonder what Carucci will do?" mused Miss Tabor. "He looked rather
unpleasant on the sidewalk."
"He will have to say something," I said uneasily. "He couldn't have
careened around there very long without falling into the hands of the
police; and they would certainly arrest him. They usually arrest
everybody in sight when one person has got away and they don't know
quite what the trouble is."
Mr. Tabor nodded. "Yes, they doubtless have him safe behind the bars by
now; but I don't think that will hurt us any. Personally, I can imagine
no place where I should rather have him, unless it were far upon or
under the deep blue sea."
"But, father dear, that is terrible. If they have him in jail, he will
have to talk, and he will be blamed for that poor wrecked room and
everything. He'll have to give some explanation to save himself; and he
must know that we are the only people that would be likely to come for
Sheila in an automobile."
"The Italian, my dear, is not that breed of man. We may be very glad for
once that he is an Italian. There is only about one thing in the world
that a man of his race and class will not do--and that is, talk to the
police. It is part of his faith not to. He will either invent some
all-enfolding lie that tells nothing whatsoever, or else he will not say
a word."
"But he must have struck her _with_ something," said Lady. "Suppose they
should find _that_, father. He'd have to tell them to save himself."
I slipped my hand into my pocket. "I don't think they will find it,"
said I, and showed the thing above the table. Lady shuddered, and I
quickly returned it to my pocket.
"Just what you would expect," said Mr. Tabor, "and if you had left it, I
am afraid Carucci would have had some difficulty in explaining things. A
marlinespike, isn't it? Poor Sheila was really very fortunate that he
didn't stab her with the sharp end. A stab would have been more in his
line--the beast. As it is, I don't believe the police will ever find out
any of the truth of the matter."
"Well, even if they do," said I, "it won't do any great amount of harm.
They might arrest me for speeding, but that would be about all. No one
in his senses would be likely to accuse us of murder."
"My good young man," Mr. Tabor answered, "they absolutely mustn't dream
that we had any hand in it at all. They mustn't even hear of us. And
neither must anybody else."
Lady sighed wearily. "I'm sure that it will be all right, father," she
said.
"The chauffeur will be quiet for the sake of his own character," I
added. "He's as anxious to avoid any connection with it as we are. And
as for me, sir, you may be sure that nothing shall leak out through any
indiscretion of mine."
Mr. Tabor pushed aside his finger-bowl. "I understand that, Mr.
Crosby--and I appreciate how uncomfortable it must be for you to act in
the dark. Believe me, I regret very much the necessity for it, and
appreciate your generosity."
Lady was looking at us, and I colored. "I'm very much at your service,
Mr. Tabor," I said.
"You may perhaps wonder what this Italian has to do with us at all.
That, at least, I can tell you. He was a sailor on one of my ships in
years past, and when the girls were--" He paused. "When Lady was a
little girl, you understand, we took quite a voyage for Mrs. Tabor's
health. Sheila was Lady's nurse--and a very pretty slip of an Irish lass
she was. Naturally we took her along, and the rest is one of those
whimsies of fate that you can never explain. This Carucci fell in love
with her; what attracted _her_ was more than any one of us could
imagine, but at any rate she married him. Married him as soon as we got
back to New York. Well, after that things gradually went wrong. The man
got a taste for drink, which is unusual--the Italians aren't a drunken
people--and although I kept him on against my captain's advice for
Sheila's sake, in the end I had to let him go. From time to time, when
there has been trouble, we have taken Sheila into our family to give the
poor woman some protection, though her loyalty makes it pretty hard to
do much for her. Carucci, however, resents our interference, and
pretends that we force her from him. He is becoming very troublesome."
Mr. Tabor had lighted a cigar, puffing it slowly throughout his story.
He talked very easily; and I was ashamed of myself for wondering whether
he was telling all the truth. Perhaps my encounter with him had made me
suspicious, but I could not forget that Doctor Reid had given Carucci
money. I felt uncomfortable; and with the mental discomfort, I realized
that I had been through a sleepless and violent night, and that I was
very tired. I must have shown some shadow of this sudden weariness, for
Lady rose from her chair decidedly and stretched out her hand.
"Now you must go back to your room and get some sleep, Mr. Crosby. You
can come back this evening if you like--we should have the evening
papers by then, and we shall see how much notice has been taken of us."
"Oh, I'm all right," I protested.
"You are tired out," said Lady, "I know. I'm tired myself, and I--" she
stopped, flushing.
Her father was looking at us with half a frown, and it was to him that
I turned. "Well, then, I'm off," said I, "but I'll be back to help you
dissect the associated press."
I had not thought that I could sleep during the day, or even rest,
except from worry. But the strain, and perhaps even more, the relief of
the last twenty-four hours, must have relaxed me more than I knew; for I
did sleep soundly until late in the afternoon. When I returned to the
Tabors in the evening, Mrs. Tabor was still invisible; and the others
were seated about the big lamp in the living-room, busy over a bale of
last editions. The floor was strewn with open sheets from which wild
pictures and wilder words stared upward.
"Come in and be thrilled," was Lady's greeting. "You're an unknown
slayer and a mysterious criminal. We seem to be sufficiently notorious,
but thus far we remain unidentified."
"Outrageous, the tone of these things," growled her father. "I never
realized it before. They haven't got our names, though."
As for Doctor Reid, his mind was so concentrated upon the matter in hand
that he barely looked up for a mechanical salutation and plunged again
into the abyss of journalism.
"How is Mrs. Tabor?" I said, "and Mrs. Carucci--is she badly hurt?"
"Oh, mother's perfectly well. She was tired a little after sitting up
for us, and went to bed early, that's all. And Sheila is doing
splendidly."
Doctor Reid came abruptly to the surface. "Fine. Fine. Very rapid
recovery. Blow only glanced along the bone. No fracture, no concussion.
Strong vitality, too. Astonishing what resistance those unhygienic
people have. Soon be all over it."
"Look here," Lady broke in, "here's a bird's-eye view of the tenement
house, with--no, it's an X-ray view, the walls are transparent. 'Arrow
points to room in which Mrs. Carucci was discovered; cross marks
location of blood-stain; inner room with disordered bed; dotted line
shows how the body was carried down-stairs.' See, they've got little
pictures of us carrying her down, on each floor. And here's the
automobile starting away with me leaning out of the window."
"And vignettes of Carucci and the policeman, and a fancy sketch of
Sheila," said I. "Like those early Italian paintings, where they have
two or three successive scenes on one canvas."
"This is about the fullest account, too. It's pretty nearly all here,
except who we are. 'Carucci is in custody.' Do you suppose they
interviewed him?"
"I doubt it," said her father. "It was probably the tenants and the men
in the street."
"Listen to this," put in Doctor Reid, with an indignant snort.
"Outrageous, the flippant way this sheet takes everything. Send a clever
young ignoramus to write up important surgical cases. Poke fun at every
thing. Listen:
"'Antonio Carucci is a true son of Neptune, born, as his name implies,
under the shadow of Vesuvius. He goes down to the sea in ships; and,
like all good mariners since old Noah himself, returns with a throat
parched by many days of briny breezes. Last night, being new landed from
a long cruise, Giuseppe sought solace in flowing flagons of Chianti,
until, when he tacked through the breakers of River Street toward the
beacon light which his lass kept ever burning in her wifely window, he
had almost forgotten his own name amid the rosy aromas of his national
potation. Arrived at his domicil, Geronimo fell into a deep sleep, with
a sinuous string of spaghetti clasped firmly in his corded hand; and as
he slept, he dreamed a dream,' Then it goes on to treat the whole affair
as a hallucination, distorting or evading all the facts. Ridiculous
account. Rubbish. Perfect rubbish."
"At least, it can do us no harm," said Mr. Tabor, while Lady and I
exchanged mirthful glances. "The more the whole affair is belittled, the
less danger there is of any serious gossip or investigation. What I
don't like is this sort of thing." He crumpled a red and black page
across his knee. "There is no substance in it, but it might stir up
trouble.
"'Last night the perpetrators of a brutal and mysterious crime escaped
without a struggle.
"'They abducted a poor woman, a wife and mother, from her home. They
left behind them destruction and a red stain upon the threshold.
"'How did these wretches escape? Why were they not apprehended?
"'The answer is simple: They were rich.
"'A swift automobile awaited them. The police were powerless to stop
them as they sped away.
"'If a poor laboring man, crazed by sorrow, commits a crime, the utmost
rigor of the law awaits him. He can not purchase a great machine to
speed his flight.
"'Neither can he purchase the machinery of justice, the skill of
eminent lawyers, the shifts and delays of appeal. He must pay the
penalty.
"'But the rich man pays only his myrmidons. The dastards who committed
last night's atrocity vanished behind a cloud of gold.
"'Shall we permit these things to be so? Shall we allow the wealthy to
avoid those punishments which we impose upon the poor? _This means you._
"'They deem themselves already secure; but though they exhaust every
device of plutocracy, they shall be brought to justice in the end.
"'We say to them, _We know you, and we will find you yet_.'"
"That sounds threatening," I said. "But, after all, isn't it just as
empty as the rest? People read that same shriek three hundred and
sixty-five days in the year, and nothing much ever happens. Do you think
there will actually be any extra search because of that?"
"I'm not so sure," Mr. Tabor answered. "It may not matter to the police,
but the paper itself is quite capable of seeking us out. Indeed, I think
we are really most likely to have trouble, not from the authorities, but
from reporters."
"That's it," Reid added. "You've put your finger on it. That's what
we've got to look out for. Reporters."
"But what can they do?" asked Lady. "Suppose some reporter comes here;
we won't tell him anything, and nobody else has anything to tell."
"My dear child, you haven't the slightest idea what a newspaper
investigation means. If they once get a hint of who we are we shall have
a dozen men and women here, questioning everybody in sight--the
neighbors, the servants--trying in every possible way to get at
something which can be made to look sensational, and printing
conjectures if they can't find facts."
"Besides," said Doctor Reid, "the poking and prying would be just as bad
as the publicity. Let's look at the case: 'Tisn't that we're trying to
conceal a specific fact; we're trying to avoid gossip, trying to avoid
appearing in any way unusual, trying to seem like other people. We are
like other people, except--well, now, here's the situation. Three
points: First, we mustn't be bothered by the police; secondly, we
mustn't get into the papers; thirdly, we mustn't be investigated or
talked about."
"We're tolerably safe from the first," said I, "if Mr. Tabor is right."
"Good. Safe from the first. Then we'll pass right on to the next. Now
let's see what the papers will try to do. Their whole purpose--"
The tiny tinkle of a bell rippled from overhead. Reid was on his feet in
a flash and started for the door, Lady following. I had risen, too,
startled at the tense faces of the rest.
"Don't you come, father dear," she said, turning for an instant in the
doorway. "It's probably only for Sheila. We'll call if we need you." I
heard their careful footsteps on the stairs.
Mr. Tabor had settled back into his chair, the paper lying on his knee,
his head forward, and the muscles of his neck rigid with listening.
Somehow in the sharp sidelong light he looked much older than I had seen
him: more conquerable, more marked by time and trial; and with the
listless hands and deep eyes of his night's unrest went a strange look
of being physically lighted and less virile than the formidable old man
I had begun to know. And as the noiseless minutes went by I grew
presumptuously sorry for him.
After a little he relaxed himself with an evident effort and turned to
me with his careful smile.
"A family man gets very fussy, Mr. Crosby," he said. "You learn so many
things outside yourself to worry about."
"Hadn't I better go and leave you all free?" I asked. "It's getting
time, anyway."
"I wish you'd stay," he growled, "it's easier to wait when there are
two."
I sat down again and tried to talk; but neither of us could keep any
movement in the conversation. We fell into long silences, through which
the weight of the silent anxiety above pressed down like a palpable
thing. At last Lady's voice called softly, and we rose.
"Don't tell me anything," I said, as I opened the front door, "but if I
can be of any earthly use, I will."
"Thank you, Mr. Crosby," he answered, shaking my hand slowly, "I know
that."
CHAPTER XII
AN AMATEUR MAN-HUNT WHEREIN MY OWN POSITION IS SOMEWHAT ANXIOUS
Sheila herself opened the door for me.
"You're Mr. Crosby, I suppose," she said, with that elusive reminiscence
of a brogue that may not be put into words. "Sure, I'm obliged to you.
An awful weight I must have been."
"You were no feather," I grinned. "Where is Miss Tabor?"
"She's in the library, sir, with a young gentleman. There's a letter
here for you, sir." She pointed to a mail-strewn table near the door.
Sure enough there was one--from Bob Ainslie, I judged, by the scrawled
address.
A young gentleman in the library--who on earth could he be, and what did
the fellow want?
"I've been three days finding you, you see," he was saying, "but I guess
there's no doubt I've got you right. Now, I don't want to make any
trouble--"
The rest of the sentence was too low to hear. I had been ripping
absently at the letter, and now I glanced down at it. Then I stared with
startled eyes and turned over the envelop to re-read the address. It was
a dirty envelop, of the same shape as my own which still lay upon the
table, and addressed not to me, but to Mr. Tabor. I carefully replaced
the single sheet and as carefully stowed the whole in an inner pocket.
It seemed a matter for Mr. Tabor's eyes alone.
Lady's voice came clearly through the curtained door. I thought it
sounded a little strained.
"Mr. Maclean, I don't see why you should come to me at all about this
matter. If we have a dark green automobile, so have ten thousand people.
And your story of millionaire kidnappers on an errand of violence is
hardly the kind of thing--if this is a joke, it seems to me in very poor
taste."
"It won't quite do, Miss Tabor," the man answered. "'Tisn't a joke, and
maybe the best thing you can do is to be frank with me."
"What am I to be frank about? You see, Mr. Maclean, the last man that
came in to talk frankly wanted to sell us silver polish. Excuse me, but
you have really nothing to sell, have you?"
He laughed, humorously embarrassed. "Why, no. At least, I don't want to
sell you anythin'. Don't you sometimes call yourself Lady?"
"Mr. Maclean!"
"I only mean," he hurried on, "that I found your telegram on the floor.
'Coming for you in the car,' you said. Honestly, don't you think we're
wastin' time?"
Lady gave a little cry, and with two strides I was at the door and had
jerked aside the curtain. "If this fellow is annoying you--" I began.
The two were standing before me, Lady leaning back against the table as
if at bay. The man was taller than I, and thin with vibrant energy. He
turned half about at my voice.
"Jumping June-bugs!" he cried airily. "It's Crosby!"
"No other, Mac," I laughed. "What in the world are you ragging Miss
Tabor about?"
Maclean blushed. "See here, Laurie," he stammered, "I'm a newspaper man,
you see? What's more, I'm thought by some to be a good one. I've got the
goods on this story, and you people ought to come across. It won't hurt
you any. Were you the cheese that lugged the murdered scrubess down
three flights of stairs?"
Lady looked at me imploringly. But the cat was so far out of the bag by
now that I had to use my judgment. "I was," I answered. "What are you
going to make out of it?"
"Now you're talkin'. Tell me the story."
"Not for publication," said I, with a glance at Lady, "because there's
no story to publish. In the first place, you're barking up the right
tree, but it's a mighty little one. In the second place, I've fallen so
low as to be an assistant professor with a dignified reputation. Neither
Miss Tabor nor I is going to be head-lined to make a journalistic
holiday; and if we were, you wouldn't write it."
Maclean gnawed a bony knuckle, and pondered. "Darn you," he said. "Beg
your pardon, Miss Tabor--I s'pose I can't, after that. But you'll admit
I had the goods. I don't see how I can go back with nothing. They send
me out on these things because I generally make good, you see?"
"Your imagination always was your greatest charm. Get to work, and use
it. Miss Tabor, this human gimlet is 'Stride' Maclean. Let me give him
a decent introduction: he probably slighted the matter. This gentleman,
for he was a gentleman before he became a star reporter, had the honor
to belong to my class, and he sings a beautiful tenor. Naturally he was
popular; he may even have friends yet. We'll tell him all about it, and
then perhaps we'll drown him. One crime more or less matters little to
people of our dye."
Maclean scowled at me and laughed.
"Well, it all amounts to this. First, nobody has been murdered--as yet!"
and I frowned at him. "Secondly, nobody has been kidnapped; lastly, it
isn't a story, unless you are on the comic supplement. This Mrs. Carucci
used to be Miss Tabor's nurse, and when Antonio beats her up too
frequent, she comes up here for a vacation. Well, we were late going for
her because the car broke down; so when we got there, he had just
smitten her over the brow and retired to a well-earned slumber. Then the
neighbors got inquisitive, and we ran away to escape precisely that
immediate fame you were planning to give us. That's all. I will only add
that branderine revived this wash-lady and we can prove it."
"Oh, fudge," said Maclean, "I can't write anything out of that at all.
We had it before, all but you people. I hate to go back without a story,
too."
The front door clicked, and I heard Mr Tabor's voice in the hall.
"Wait a minute," I said, with a sudden inspiration, "perhaps I can dig
up another story for you. But I'll have to see Mr. Tabor first."
I found Mr. Tabor in his study, glooming over a paper. "What is it?" he
asked, half rising. "Is anything the matter?"
"I don't know," I said. "I opened a letter of yours by mistake, and it
looked as if I had better bring it to you myself."
He took the dirty envelop gingerly, and drew out the inclosure. Across
the top was a badly drawn human hand smudged in with lead-pencil. Below
this ran an almost illegible scrawl.
"_If yu dont giv her back she wil be taken._"
"What on earth does that mean?" I asked.
Mr. Tabor knit his white brows. "It begins to look as though Carucci had
been let out of jail for want of proof against him. Evidently he is
going into the black hand business. I suppose a demand for money will
come next."
"But who is 'her'--his wife?"
"Of course," he answered quickly. "Who else could it possibly be?" Then,
more thoughtfully, "I don't like the fellow around, but I hardly see how
to get rid of him. We can't appear in court against him; and money would
only make him want more."
"Mr. Tabor," I said, "there's a man named Maclean in the other room, who
went to college with me. He is a reporter--"
"A _what_?"
"A reporter. He found Miss Tabor's telegram--we were careless not to
have looked for it--and that gave him enough to work on until he found
us. However, you needn't have any uneasiness about him. He has promised
me not to use the story."
"Good, Crosby, very good. Well, what about him?"
"I only thought, sir, that if he would help me, we might be able to find
Carucci, and scare the life out of him so that he will keep away. He
can't be certain that he hasn't killed his wife, and we can threaten him
with that. If he's out of jail, you certainly don't want him about. And
Maclean would help, I think, for the story in it. I'm sure that we could
trust him not to bring us in."
"Very well. Suppose that you try your hand at it. Only you mustn't go
to making inquiries that will mix us up in the matter."
"I'll be careful, sir," I answered.
When I spread the note out before Mac he sniffed and wrinkled his nose.
"Well?" I said.
"Nothin'. There ain't any black hand. It's all dope. Just a signature
that any dago uses, like 'unknown friend.'"
"You ought to know," said I, "but here we are with this man hanging
around. Take it or leave it. I should think there might be a story in it
merely from his side, now that you can really connect him with the
assault. Anyhow, I'm going after him."
"All right," Mac said, "I'm with you. Good afternoon, Miss Tabor."
"Good-by," she called after us; and I thought that she watched us from
the window.
We pursued a trolley car and settled down panting on the rear seat.
Maclean lay back in a meditative silence, his hands thrust deep into his
trousers pockets, his shoulders hunched forward and his hat on the back
of his head, staring before him where his feet loomed up in the
distance. At the inn he suddenly straightened himself and slid off the
car.
"I thought we were going up to town?" I said as I followed.
He glowered hollowly at me above a cavernous grin. "We are. But not in
those flannels or that nice new college rah-rah shirt. We'd have the
whole place wonderin' what you wanted, and the mothers showin' their
little ones how a real gentleman ought to look."
"But you're respectable enough," I protested, laughing. "Are we both
going to be disguised?"
"Disguise nothin'. You just want to cut out the comedy-chorus-man, you
see? Put on a jersey, or anyhow a collar that don't meet in the middle,
an' old shoes. Me, I look low-life anyway."
I rebelled when he rolled my gray suit into a ball and jumped on it, in
the interest of realism. But at last we got started. On the car, Mac
unfolded his plan of campaign.
"This guinea didn't put the cops on, because he wanted to get you
himself, you see? He's out for the money--the mazume. So he beats it up
here and drops Tabor a love-letter. _But_, he's just out of the jug, you
see? An' he knows the force'll watch out for him. So he'll mix up with a
lot of other dagoes, an' maybe get a job daytimes, so's to have an
excuse for bein' here. Well, he don't love work, but he does love
booze; an' he gets through at five P. M. with an awful thirst. So we'll
hunt for him first where they sell the demon rum."
He dived into the police station, leaving me standing outside, and
presently emerged with the lust of the hunter in his eye.
"I've located every cheap red-eye emporium in our beautiful little city.
Now you spot all the fruit stores an' shoeblacks an' guinea grocers we
pass, an' we'll take them later."
"You'll have to be careful how you inquire after him," I said.
"I ain't. I'm lookin' for his cousin, Giuseppe, that looks like him.
Blue, an' hairy, an' tattoo-marks on his hands, you said. Come on."
We went through two or three saloons, where Maclean loitered what seemed
to me an unconscionable time, weaving into an elaborate discussion of
things in general, some curiosity as to the whereabouts of an Italian
debtor whose name and personal affairs varied surprisingly without in
the least altering his description. I knew that Mac had an inventive
genius, but I was astonished at its fertility of detail.
"I didn't expect anythin' in those joints," he confided, as we pushed
through a swinging door. "They're a peg too good for him. I just wanted
to hear myself talk, an' get up my speed. Now, this place looks better.
You take seltzer after this, or a cigar. Their snake-medicine'd poison
you. Me, I'm immune."
It was low-ceiled and smoky, and full of large cuspidors and small
tables. The bottles were fewer, and glittered with gilt ornamentation,
like the bottles in a barber shop. A veil of dingy mosquito netting
protected the mirrors. The bartender was blue-shaven and deliberate,
with a neat trick of sliding bottles and glasses, without upsetting
them, several feet along the dark, dull surface of the bar.
"Giovanni Scalpiccio been in to-night?" Mac asked casually, after ten
minutes of excise problems and the pure food law.
"If he has, he ain't left his visiting-card," returned the bartender.
"What do you think I am--delegate from the organ-grinders' union? I
don't keep tab on every I-talian dago that comes into the place. What
kind of a lookin' feller is he?"
"I don't know. They all look alike to me. Oh, a monkey-faced guy, all
tattooed--works up the line here a little. His wife owes me on a
sewin'-machine. Told me he was down here."
"Seems to me I seen that feller," the bartender reflected. "Talks all
chokey, don't he? Yes, he was in to-night, about half an hour ago. Made
an argument becuz I wouldn't hang him up--if that's him."
I waited, shuffling with impatience, while Maclean bought cigars and
slowly changed the subject. Then I burst out of doors so hurriedly that
I collided with two harmless-looking individuals who were coming in.
"What shall we do now?" I demanded.
"Take a cigarette instead o' that Simsbury cabbage, an' cool off. If
it's our guinea, he's huntin' free drinks all up the street. We'll run
into him the next two or three places, somewhere."
In the next we drew a blank, but in the one after that we learned that
our man had just left; and to my disgust, were forced to listen to a
circumstantial account of his pleas and expedients in quest of liquor on
credit. I was more certain than ever that it was Carucci himself, and
hurried Mac on to the next saloon. To my surprise, he led the way to a
table in the farthest corner and sat down with his back to the door.
"You look here, Laurie," he muttered, leaning across the table as the
bartender went back for our order. "There's more doing in this than
we're wise to. Did you see those two ginks that we ran into in the door
back there?"
"No," said I, "what about them?"
"Well, that's what little Mac wants to know, the first thing he does.
They're after the same dago, or else they're after us, you see? Every
joint we've been in, those two float along after a couple of minutes,
all cagey, not seein' anybody. An' they look like guineas themselves.
There they come now."
He spoke without turning his head, and I looked past him at the two men
entering the room. They were small, sallow, and respectable, one of them
decidedly fat; and they looked to me like small Italian tradesmen in
their Sunday or traveling clothes. They stood at the bar, talking
between themselves with rapid speech and gesture, and paying not the
smallest attention to us. They did not even glance around the room, so
absorbed were they in their own conversation.
"You're crazy," said I, "they don't even know we're here."
"All right. Maybe you think I've covered police stuff five years without
knowin' when I'm being gum-shoed. I've seen that fat bologna before,
somewhere, too. I ain't after a martyr's crown. Now, I tell you what you
do. You pike out an' go back to that first place where we got the scent,
an' wait around till I come. If they follow you there, you duck for the
busy street, an' go home. If they don't I'll be along myself pretty
quick. I want to know who they're after, you see?"
"What do you think they are?"
"I don't think yet: I'm goin' to know. Now you beat it--an' for Heaven's
sake, jolly the barkeep for all you know how, an' try not to look as if
you were wanted for arson."
I obeyed, wondering if Maclean's instinct for sensation had got the
better of him. The two men took no notice whatever as I passed them, but
went on with their talk. I heard enough to gather that they were
discussing the price of butter. Yet, despite my skepticism, I walked up
the street with something the sensation of having just passed a small
boy with an ominous snowball. The other saloon was fairly crowded, and
it was some minutes before I found myself drinking a very evil beer.
"Say," said the bartender, sliding my change down to me, "you're the guy
that asked about the guinea, ain't yer?"
"Why, my friend was," I said carelessly. "Has he been back? He owes him
for a--"
"That'll do all right to tell." He leaned across the bar, dropping his
voice, "The reason I asked yer's because there's two other fellers after
him, too. Guess _they_ sold him a grand piano, likely."
He moved along to attend to other customers, leaving me staring
excitedly about the room. A moment later, he came back again, swabbing
the bespattered bar with a towel. As he passed me without a look, he
turned his thumb over and motioned, as if the gesture were part of his
work, toward the corner by the door. There sat the two little men at a
table, still absorbed in discussion.
My throat became suddenly dry. I had started out hunting with the hounds
to find myself running with the hare; and the notion of being shadowed
by unknown Italians was more melodramatic than agreeable. With a
confused memory of all the detective stories I had ever read seething in
my mind I lounged toward the door, gained the street, and started off
on a run. I turned the first corner, ran half way down the block, then
walked quietly back. The two men were nowhere to be seen. As I stood on
the corner, one of them, the thinner one, came slowly out of the saloon,
pausing to light a cigarette, and strolled casually away from me up the
street. It seemed impossible that he had any interest in me, but I would
be sure. I followed carefully after him for half a dozen blocks. He
neither looked around nor altered his pace in the least; and where we
crossed the car tracks, I stood and watched him go steadily on out of
sight. Then I jumped on a passing car, congratulating myself on having
carried out my instructions, even though they had been rather
unnecessary. And on the outskirts of the town, I stepped off to wait for
my own car. Just as it turned the corner, some one touched me on the
arm.
"Pardon; have you a match?"
I swallowed my heart down again with a gulp. The fat Italian scratched
the match on his shoe, and breathed a soft cloud of smoke.
"Thank you, sare. Now tell me," he took me confidentially by the elbow,
"w'at is it you want with Antonio Carucci?"
My car was passing. "I never heard of him," said I as blankly as I
could. "You've got the wrong man."
"Excuse me, sare. No mistake at all." He smiled deprecatingly.
The car was almost beyond reach. "All right," I said. "Come in here, and
if you can show any right to ask, I'll tell you." Then, as we turned
together toward the hotel behind us, I flung him on his face with a
sudden wrench, and sprinted after the car. As I clung gasping on the
back platform, I heard a shout, and saw him following at a waddling run,
waving his arm angrily. The car stopped; and for a sickening instant, I
thought that my last device had been in vain. But at that moment a
couple of men ran from the sidewalk behind my pursuer and caught him by
the coat. The three stood in the middle of the street, wrangling and
gesticulating; and the conductor, with a disgusted jerk of the bell,
started the car again.
Later in the evening, Maclean called me up on the telephone.
"Say, you made a pretty good getaway for an amateur. Did you see us stop
your fat friend?"
"What? Was that you?"
"Sure was it; me and the other one. Now listen. Hello! Can you hear?
Those two parties are plain-clothes men after the other party. That's
what they let him out for, to watch him, you see? I'm with 'em now. You
people better just lie as low as you can, and do nothin' at all, if you
want to keep out of it. And if I get wise to anythin' I'll call you up.
Good-by."
And his receiver went up with a cluck.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PRESENCE IN THE ROOM
"I wonder how we shall come out of it all," said Lady.
She was sitting at the big dining-table before a treasury of bowls and
vases, with a many-colored heap of cut flowers reflected from the
polished wood and the drops and splashes of spilled water. In the open
window, Sheila's canary was whistling merrily down a deep shaft of
sunlight; and from the garden outside came the purr of a lawn-mower and
the cool freshness of new-cut grass. Across the still dimness of the
house behind us, the further windows gave upon squares of blinding
green. Mr. Tabor and the doctor had gone to the city upon some business
of our common defense. The house hung sleepily at the heart of the hot
forenoon, very quiet and open; overhead, Sheila was shuffling about,
with a crooning of soft Irish minors.
"It seems to be just a case of waiting," said I, "but the newspaper
excitement is blowing over already, and we can trust Maclean to keep us
clear. As for the detectives, if they arrest Carucci again so much the
better, provided we don't appear in it. He'd be no more likely to talk
then, than before."
"I wonder if we can trust Mr. Maclean."
"I'm rather sure of Mac," I said.
"It isn't that exactly; I'm not doubting your friend; but even so, he
knows--knows absolutely that we were involved in that New York
disturbance the other night. Think of all we did to keep you from even
suspecting something far less exciting. And he's a reporter after all,
and in no way one of us. Of course he's honorable, but--he's working up
the Carucci side of it. I'm afraid of what he may bring out, perfectly
removed from us in itself, but that might suggest-- Oh, you see what I
mean."
"I wish I could hear from him," I said. "I want to know what's
happening. But honestly, I think I took the safe way with him, whatever
happens. It's much better to have him know what he mustn't say than to
have him guessing all sorts of things with no reason for not airing
them."
"Yes; but I wish nobody knew anything. We took a terrible risk."
"I did, you mean. If I spoke beyond my authority, the fault is certainly
mine. Still, I'm not sure that I'm sorry, and I won't plead that I meant
well."
She searched carefully through the heap of flowers. "No, you're one of
us now--in a way. What you did was ours, not your own-- Oh, I'm sure
it's all right anyway, and you acted wisely. Only I'm nervous about it,
I suppose." She leaned back wearily. "I do get so tired of all this
unnaturalness. Why can't God let us live like other people?"
It was the first time I had ever heard her complain; the first open
confession of the weary weight that had lain so long upon her eyes; and
it shook me so that for a little I did not trust myself to speak, for
fear I should not speak quietly enough. She sat silent, the light gone
out of her as I had seen it go on that first day, her hand twisting
listlessly at her chain.
"I only wish I could be more use," I said at last.
She turned half toward me: "Sometimes I wish you could know," she said
and her eyes of a sudden glimmered and grew wet.
That was more than I could bear. "Lady," I cried, "why can't I know?
What difference does it make? Oh, I'm not questioning you; I don't want
to satisfy my mere mind with your mystery. I don't care what the
explanation is; I'm not after answers to questions. But it can't matter
to us, whatever it is. Nothing can. When I thought you were married,
that didn't change anything really. It meant that I must go away, that I
must never come back to you perhaps--but even that was a little thing.
And nothing else in the world could be as bad as that even."
"Don't. Please don't make it any worse--oh, stop telling me--_listen_!"
She caught herself suddenly, holding up her hand. The canary poured out
a long trill that sounded like tiny laughter.
"Sheila," I said. "She's been walking about up there all the morning.
You've got so that this nightmare doesn't give you an hour's peace. I
don't care what it is. You know that. You know that I couldn't be
troubled by anything behind you or about you. I never shall want to
know. But I want the whole right to stand in front of you and fight it,
to take you away from this place and make you forget and be alive. And
you know that no reason--"
I do not know what stopped me. The canary was silent, and the clock
ticked twice across the hush. Then from the floor above a horrible
scream cut through me like a frozen knife; then another, mixed with a
heavy clatter of feet.
We both sprang for the stairs, Lady a little before me. As I tried to
pass her at the foot, she caught me by the arm and clung desperately to
me, her breath coming hard and fast.
"No, you mustn't. Don't come, do you hear? Wait until I call you." The
dry tension in her voice was not a thing to disregard blindly. I waited
with my foot on the lowest step, my heart staggering in my ears, while
she sped above out of sight. The screams had broken into a choking wail
of utter terror. A door slammed. Sheila's strong voice rang out angrily,
then sank under a broken clamor of stumbling steps. A man leaped roughly
down the first few stairs, stopped and turned as I bent forward just
enough to get a half glimpse of coarse clothes and clumsy feet, and
sprang back again, trampling across the upper hall. I hesitated an
instant, then followed him three steps at a stride. Whatever happened, I
would not leave the three women alone with him.
In the hall I paused, for it was empty. From the front room which I took
to be Mrs. Tabor's came voices, Lady's full and sweet, her mother's
frightened and childish, and the resonant whisper of Mrs. Carucci.
"He was here, I tell you, Lady." Mrs. Tabor's treble rose above the
murmur, and as suddenly ceased. I looked about me, uncertain. I had only
been above stairs once before, and then at night. My room then had been
at the rear of the house, with the whole length of hall between it and
Mrs. Tabor's; and the stair-head where I now stood was an even midway
between the two. I felt vaguely ill at ease. I knew that I should look
for the intruder, and look for him upon the instant; but something held
me back--perhaps a feeling that I had little right to blunder about upon
this floor, to stumble perhaps into Lady's own room, an intruder upon
her intimate privacy. This, however, was no time for doubtful sentiment.
Minutes were passing, and the man must be found. I was sure that he was
still in the house. Very carefully I tiptoed down the hall toward the
room that I had occupied. Fate might grant that he was hidden there, and
so I should have to search only where I had already seen. But before I
reached my door, I paused before another. It was slightly ajar; and half
instinctively I pushed it open.
In the doorway I stood looking about me. This was Lady's room, after
all. A deep bed stood in the corner against the outer wall to my left;
and close by, a little table with a book face-down upon it. A dress of
some filmy blue stuff lay across the foot of the bed, and from beneath
peeped a pair of little slippers. My face burned at my intrusion, but I
held my ground. The sunlight fell heavily through the two closed
windows, across the wide rug, and almost to my feet. In the outer
right-hand corner was a small desk. A low table, piled with dainty
feminine miscellany, stood in the center of the room. A riding-crop lay
carelessly across it; and I remembered absently that the Tabors had no
horses. I stepped within, and cautiously closed the door behind me. Then
I knew. There was some one in the room. It was unmistakable, this
feeling of a presence. I listened closely, but there was not a sound.
The skin crawled at my temples, and I could feel the stir of hair upon
my scalp, the strange primal bristling that has stirred man conscious of
the unseen, since the beginning of time. For a heartbeat, I stood there
with much of the clutching terror of a child, a child willing enough to
face a fight, but hesitating before the sudden mystery of a place that
he must pass. Then I got hold of myself, and crossed over to the bed. I
knew that he was not under it; but I looked to see. Behind me something
tinkled sweetly, and I sprang to my feet with every muscle tense. Across
the room and above the little desk, hung a circle of bronze with tiny
bronze pendants shaped like birds and fish and leaves swinging from it
on silken threads--such a thing as the Japanese hang above the bed of a
child to ward off evil and to chime with every breath of air. I glanced
uneasily at closed door and windows as I started across the room. Upon
the big central table before me lay a thin film of dust, invisible save
for the contrast of a streak across its edge where something had brushed
along. Tiptoeing around it, I glanced down at the little desk and the
half-written sheet upon it. "Lady, dearest," it began; and I gripped my
hands at my sides. This was not Lady's room, but-- One of the long outer
curtains of the window shivered--shivered humanly with a trembling
behind it; and I reached out my hand to grip through the fold the solid
shoulder of a man.
In a sudden warm rush of relief, I struck at him savagely through the
curtain, shouting as I struck. Then I gripped the curtain about,
throwing all my weight against him and crushing him back against the
side of the embrasure. He grunted, and an arm tore itself free from the
folds above my bent head. Then there was a splash of light and a curious
sharp smell that seemed to come from inside my own brain. And then
nothing.
I knew that I had not lain there long, when I opened my eyes. Lady was
kneeling on the floor beside me, very white and piteously lovely. As my
mind grew clearer, the color seemed to come back into her face.
"Mr. Crosby," she said, "I asked you not to come up-stairs at all. I
want to be able to trust you. What has happened?"
"Happened?" I repeated dizzily. "Why, I had to come up. I chased the man
up here, and then I saw this door open and came in, and felt as if there
was some one in here--and there was some one, there behind that curtain.
I tackled him, and he hit me." I raised my head sharply: "Listen--the
fellow is here yet."
Lady pointed to the window behind me. "I think not," she said.
"But I tell you he's still in the room."
She smiled a little. "You are dizzy yet. Come here and look, and you
will see what I mean." The window was flung wide, and beneath at the
foot of the wall a syringa bush lay broken.
"It looks as if you were right," I said, as she carefully closed the
window. "I think I'll scout around a little outside; he may not have
gone clear away." I noticed that she locked the door behind us.
My ideas were rather indefinite as I examined the syringa bush after the
most approved fashion, and discovered no more than that somebody had
broken it by dropping from above, and had gone away. So I started
vaguely across the lawn toward the road. At the gate, I ran into the men
who followed us on our man-hunt.
"He did not come this way," said the fat one, catching me by the arm.
"How do you know?" I asked.
The thin Italian smiled. "Then you are after Antonio Carucci?"
I had been almost trapped. "Carucci?" said I. "No, I was looking for
Doctor Reid. Some one wants him on the 'phone."
"Why did you search the side of the house, then?"
"Look here," said I, "I haven't the slightest idea what you people are
getting at, and I doubt if you have, either. But if you've seen Doctor
Reid--a stocky man with a jerky walk--I wish you'd say so. They won't
hold that line for ever."
"We might take a look about the place for him," the fat one smiled,
"while you go back to the telephone."
"I won't trouble you," I retorted. "If you have any errand inside, go
straight to the door. Mr. Tabor doesn't like his lawns trampled. Good
morning."
I stood at the gate while they moved unwillingly away, and then went
back to the house.
CHAPTER XIV
A DISAPPEARANCE AND AN ENCOUNTER
The next few days passed by without event; and the absence of excitement
was a welcome enough relief, even to me. Adventures in themselves are
all very well, but I prefer mine uncomplicated with nervous anxiety; and
although my enlistment in the family garrison had relieved me in some
measure from that torment of personal worry which had hounded me before,
yet the trouble had only taken another form, the more heavy for being
less selfish. I was inside the mystery now, in action if not in
knowledge. What the root of the matter might be, I knew no better than
before; but somehow, I had been quite sincere in saying that I did not
really care. It was as if the nerve of curiosity had been blunted in me
through overstrain. And I knew now that come what might, Lady had begun
to care for me, and that left little in the world which for myself I
could fear. Only for her I feared everything; and the necessity of her
remaining here at the mercy of dangers which I could neither dispel nor
understand was too heavy a burden for my frivolous enjoyment of
adventure. I could not say so, nor try again to persuade her away from
the fight. As her way was, she had dropped my interrupted protest into
nothingness, as though it had never been; and my only comfort was the
hope that, knowing how wholly my blindfold loyalty to them all was for
her sake, might be a secret help to her.
Beyond taking care that one of us three men should be always in the
house, we did nothing, so far as I knew, except to await events
passively. Doctor Reid, of course, went daily to his office, where he
remained often until late in the afternoon; and Mr. Tabor, though I
understood that he was retired from active business, made two or three
all-day trips to the city. What they might be doing to safeguard us from
Carucci or in affairs more intimate to the situation, I could not guess.
At any rate, my own periods of guardianship were generally lonely; for
Mrs. Tabor was still too shaken by our recent alarm to be much out of
her room, and Lady made occasion of shopping to accompany her father.
Perhaps I was touchy; but it seemed that she avoided the strain of
being long alone with me, skating on thin ice above emotion.
Mrs. Tabor had gone to lie down after luncheon, and I was trying to
forget in a book the prospect of a long uninteresting afternoon within
doors, when the telephone in the den across the hall began to ring. I
hurried across, with an irritable impulse to shout, "Yes, I'm coming,"
and picked it up.
"Hello!" drawled the little voice. "Who is this?"
I gave the number, with a mental reservation concerning some unknown
person's telephone manners.
"Yes, I know; but who's there? Who is this speaking?"
"This is Mr. Tabor's house," said I sharply. "Do you want some one in
particular, or will you leave a message?" It may have been partly the
voice which annoyed me: a thick, soft voice unnaturally sweet in its
inflection, a voice like the caress of a fat hand. I thought there was a
trace of foreign accent, but that might be imagination.
"Oh--might I speak with Mrs. Tabor, please?"
"Hold the line a moment," said I; and as I turned, there was Mrs. Tabor
herself in the doorway.
"Is it for me?" she asked. "You know, I'm sure it's the very same
person I was going to call. Telephone calls cross that way all the time,
just like letters."
I left her, and went back to my book. A few minutes later Sheila came
in.
"Mrs. Tabor"--she began. Then with an astonished look about the room,
"Why, where is she?"
"She was in Mr. Tabor's study, telephoning, a moment ago," I said. "Is
anything the matter?"
"She never came up-stairs again at all. Will she be out around the
garden anywhere, I wonder? Would you mind looking, sir, while I'll be
seeing if she's in the house?"
I searched not only the garden, but the entire grounds; and I did it
with hurried thoroughness and a growing anxiety. Sheila's alarm when I
returned put an edge upon my own.
"Ah, the Saints preserve us, what'll we do now, with Mr. Tabor away in
the city an' that black villain of mine runnin' around the country after
us? If it's him has anything to do with her--"
"Nonsense!" I said uneasily. "She's probably only gone over to one of
the neighbors. You'd better telephone Doctor Reid, while I go and see."
But Sheila refused absolutely to use the telephone. "I never did like
them things," she said, "a little ugly voice in your ear out of nowhere,
like a ghost. Ah, I know they're all right, but I wouldn't touch it."
So I called up Reid myself. He plunged in and took immediate command of
the situation with his usual busy efficiency; but I could see that he
was alarmed.
"Probably just gone to one of the neighbors. Certainly. No occasion for
any uneasiness. None at all. I'll just call up the people she might be
with, and be sure. Glad you told me. Quite right. Glad you told me."
"You don't think there's any chance that Carucci--?"
"Not the least. No chance at all. Still, you might scout around the
neighborhood a bit, and see if you see anything of him. And tell Sheila
to go to Stamford and go through all the stores. Might have gone
shopping. I'll come right up and stay at the house myself."
"How about Mr. Tabor?" I asked.
"All right. No need to alarm him. Not a bit. I'll call him up later, if
necessary. But, of course, we'll find her at once. Hurry up and get
started. Always best to act at once. Sure to be all right. Don't wait
for me."
It occurred to me as I started out that Doctor Reid did not have a very
high opinion of my ability. He was one of those cocksure men who confine
their sureness mostly to their own mental processes. Well, we should
see; and if I found myself right, I promised Carucci a beating that
would dampen his black hand imaginings for some time to come.
My first move on leaving the house was to call up New York from the
telephone booth at the inn. I was lucky enough to find Maclean at the
office of his paper.
"Say, Mac," I asked him, "what did you make of that dago story?"
"Nothin'," Mac sniffed. "Nothin' at all. The gum-shoes think he croaked
his old woman, an' they're waitin' for him to give himself or somebody
else away, you see? Then they'll grab him. Course, I could have told 'em
she was alive; but then that might have brought you people in, an'
besides, those fellows wouldn't come across for me. Reciprocity's my
cry, an' always has been."
"Well, do you know where I can find our friend? I want to talk to him?"
"Sure. I found him myself, but he wouldn't scare for a darn. Said Tabor
had his wife all right, and not one of you dared touch him. You'll find
Mr. Giuseppe workin' on the railroad, all the live-long day--that new
trolley embankment we passed on the line. They have a guinea camp back
in the woods a piece. Say, Laurie, course your friends are all right,
an' it's none o' my business; but they smell fishy to me a mile off. If
I was you, I'd duck out right now. There's some nigger in this wood-pile
that we don't know anythin' about, you see?"
"Thanks, Mac," I said. "I know better than that, though. There's no
trouble."
"Well, I'm only tellin' you what I think. That guinea put up a long howl
to me about the old man that I wouldn't use and didn't more'n half
believe; but I want to see you about it when you come in town, all the
same. Say, you ain't sore, are you?"
"All right, old man," said I; and I hung up the receiver.
Maclean's warning came too patently from his point of view on the
sinister surface of the situation to give me the slightest additional
uneasiness; but it made me all the more determined to talk with Carucci
and at least learn whatever he thought, he knew, even though he should
prove innocent of Mrs. Tabor's disappearance. I took the trolley to the
nearest switch, and walked the couple of hundred yards between it and
the new embankment. Construction was in full blast, and about
seventy-five Italians swarmed over the work under the direction of
lordly Irish foremen. I sauntered about the place with as much idle
curiosity as I could assume, stopping to watch little groups, going from
place to place, even making a second round; but no Carucci was to be
seen. One or two of the men glanced at me with what I imagined was a
certain sullen suspicion; but that may have been purely imaginary. From
the embankment I cast about for the construction camp. The nearest
wooded spot that I could see was half a mile or so across country, and I
made toward this, skirting a little swamp or so, and climbing an
occasional fence. As I went along, I made more and more sure that I was
right; for a trodden path developed, and fence-rails were broken or left
carelessly out of place.
With the ugly huddle of tin-roofed huts in sight, I came upon Carucci;
or perhaps I should say that he came upon me. He came running to meet me
down the pathway, with a sort of rolling, dancing gait that would have
been very funny had I not known him.
"Whata you want?" he shouted. "Go-a da 'way!"
"That is what I am asking you," I said in Italian. "You know well enough
that your wife can come to you whenever she pleases. What do you want of
Mr. Tabor?"
He had stopped a little way from me, pulling off his jacket, and
throwing it over his left arm. Now he showed his teeth in a mechanical
grin.
"Come-a here," he grunted, "I show you."
He must have been drunk to imagine that I had not seen the knife. I took
half a dozen quick steps, my hands opening and shutting, and as soon as
I was within reach, I dived. I had him by the knees with a shock that
reminded me that I was growing older; and as he sprawled on his back, I
sprang away from him, and with a kick that must have nearly broken his
fingers, sent the knife spinning away behind him. He was upon his feet
in a second, and I looked for him at my throat. Instead, he threw his
jacket full in my face, and leaped after it. I could feel his teeth
gripping at the muscles of my upper arm. It was fighting of a new kind
for me, and I kneed him joyfully in the stomach, tearing with my free
arm at the jacket which blinded me. For a moment he fell away, and I
hurled the coat from me, and struck him in the mouth; then again, my
shoulder behind it; and he went down with a grunt. I flung myself
promptly on top of him, clutching him by the throat. Then an arm was
thrown about my neck from behind, while a strong hand ripped at my hair.
"Ye murtherin' baste, ye black scun, lave him alone, ye limb av hell,
come out av it!"
I shook myself roughly free, and whirled about to face the unexpected.
"Why, Sheila!" I cried, "how in the world did you get here?"
"Oi had me rasons, an' 'twas hoigh toime." She was very angry, and her
brogue was faint no longer. "'Tis a swate blayguard ye are, an' bad cess
to ye, sthrikin' a bit av a lad half the soize av yersilf."
I glanced at the burly Carucci, and laughed. The murder had died out of
his eyes, and he scrambled to his feet, looking sheepish.
"This seems to be rather a family meeting," I said, and pointed behind
him to the shanties. "Perhaps we had better be going."
Carucci turned to see the fat central office man trotting down the path,
for all the world as if he were taking a little cross-country scamper to
reduce his weight. He came on with such an inevitable matter-of-factness
that it all seemed suddenly funny, like the conclusion of a farce; and
when I looked around to see the other Italian coming up from behind, it
was quite what I expected. The fat one in front of us stooped a second
in the long grass, and picked up the knife that I had kicked away. He
turned it over thoughtfully, and dropped it into his pocket.
"Antonio Carucci," he said calmly, "I arrest you for this assault with
intent to kill, and for the murder of Sheila Carucci, your wife. And I
arrest you, Laurence Crosby, as accessory after the fact."
"What!" I cried.
"Anything that either of you say," put in the thin Italian, "will be
used against you."
[Illustration: "Do ye think I look like a dead woman?"]
Sheila broke into a peal of laughter. "'Tis fine countrymen ye have,
Antonio, an' fine bloodhounds they make, to be sure! Ye poor, ignorant
little men, open your mouths an' shut your eyes. 'Tis a miracle I'll be
showin' ye. Look here--Sheila Macnamara, for her sins called Carucci,
stands before ye--an' ye say I'm murdered! Ye little black, beady-eyed
divils, 'tis the likes av ye that goes makin' trouble for my man. Take
off your dhirty little fat paws; I'll have none av it. Take thim off, ye
thief, ye zany loon! Do ye think I look like a dead woman?"
The fat Italian dangled his handcuffs as if they had been eye-glasses.
"It is true," he said, "she is like the description; but then, how did
she come here?"
"Whisper!" said Sheila, "I do not love me husband," Antonio glared. "So
while he was asleep I eloped with this other handsome young gentleman
here."
The two little men grew very red.
"Look here," I said, "you can see there has been a mistake. Mrs. Carucci
is as well as ever, and she isn't going to make any charge against her
husband. The only thing you've got on me is breaking the speed law. Five
dollars apiece would about cover my fine, wouldn't it?"
Two gravely beautiful Italian smiles answered me. We watched them well
out of sight; then Sheila turned to her crestfallen lord and master.
"Out with it, ye dhrunken beast," she said, "where is she?"
So that was why Sheila had come here.
"Who?" Carucci asked blankly.
"Who? You look innocent, don't ye, standin' there askin' me who! What
have ye done with her, you an' your silly revenges? I'll teach ye to
keep out av things that're none av your business, ye leather-headed,
garlic-eatin' baboon, ye!" She grasped him solidly by both ears, and
shook him till his greasy hair flapped.
All the fight seemed to have gone out of Carucci, and he squirmed away,
appealing and protesting in a torrent of Italian too fast and mutilated
for my ear. Sheila answered incongruously in the same language.
"He says he don't know anything about it," she told me finally, "and for
once I believe him, sir. He can lie well enough to some folks, but he
can't lie to me."
"Well," said I, "if you believe him, you ought to know. But I wish you'd
get him away from here, Sheila. He's been sending black hand letters to
Mr. Tabor."
"He has, has he, the sphalpeen!" and again came the dual and ludicrous
torrent of Neapolitan.
"'Twas just the lovin' heart of him, sir. He's that impetuous. But
I'll learn him manners. You go on back to the house, an' you'll hear no
more from Antonio. It's a beast he is sometimes when he is drunk, but
he's sober enough now, sir, and when sober he has the sense to be afraid
of me. Have no fear, I'll send him packin'. Leave him to me."
I laughed. "All right, Sheila," I said. "If you use the same persuasion
with him that you've been using, I think you can teach him almost
anything."
I reached the Tabors' out of breath, and stumbled panting up the steps;
and at the door I stood a moment to gather my breath and thoughts,
wondering if Lady and Mr. Tabor had returned. Mr. Tabor's hat was still
missing from the rack; and I lit a cigarette as I strolled into the
living-room to wait. Mrs. Tabor was sitting over a piece of embroidery
by the window.
"You look hot," she said, glancing up, "what is the matter? Have you
been running?"
"I've been looking for you," I stammered. "Sheila thought you were lost
or something." The words were out before I could stop them.
"Lost?" Mrs. Tabor repeated, raising her brows, "lost? What should make
you think I was lost?"
"Why, Sheila said you hadn't told her you were going, and she couldn't
find you anywhere, and--"
"You are all the strangest people," said Mrs. Tabor. "I have been out of
town at an afternoon tea with friends at Greenwich. It was the shortest
little trip imaginable. Has Lady got back yet?"
CHAPTER XV
MENTAL RESERVATIONS
I sat down rather uncomfortably. We had all of us been made to look
foolish, and I was here to bear the brunt of it alone. What had become
of Reid, I did not know; but I was much mistaken in him if he had not
gone off upon some highly efficient search of his own, after alarming
Lady and her father. So the whole family had been upset because a rather
thoughtless little woman had gone out without thinking to give notice of
her intended absence, and because an officious young son-in-law had
jumped at the chance to exploit his executive ability. If Sheila and I
had been disturbed, we had at least only acted under his direction; and
the whole foolish flurry, with its risk of attracting public attention,
had emanated from the jerky mind of Reid.
"I must plead guilty," I said, "of giving the first alarm. Sheila seemed
worried, and I called up Doctor Reid on the telephone."
Mrs. Tabor's face clouded, and it seemed to me that something like anger
gathered in her eyes. "It was very like him," she said, "he is the most
selfish man in the world." She paused. "If you don't mind, Mr. Crosby,
we will not talk about him. I am tired."
I got to my feet, feeling as if I had heard something to which I had no
right.
"Mrs. Tabor," said I, "you must forgive me for having troubled you with
the matter at all. I am stupid sometimes, and forgot that we had been
officious and that you might be tired."
She flashed forth an appealing little hand. "No, you are not to go; I
didn't mean that. I'm not so truly tired that I want to be alone. In
fact, I shall rest much better if you stay and keep me company."
"I shall be very glad to," I answered. "I've regretted all along that I
haven't been able to see you more often. Besides, I'm the only man in
the house for the moment, and I suppose I oughtn't to leave my post
until the others come home."
She raised her brows. "Why, what do you mean? That sounds as if we were
in a state of siege. You're a guest, Mr. Crosby, not a sentry on duty."
I had said too much, evidently, and I felt angrily that if Mrs. Tabor
knew nothing of affairs I should have been warned of the fact. "I didn't
mean that," I said, as easily as I could manage. "Only that the others
are still looking for you, and I ought to let them know as soon as may
be that I've been more fortunate. I'd telephone if I knew where they
were."
"But it's all so ridiculous. I'm not a child, you know." Her petulance
was rising again. "Because a tramp came into the house the other day is
no reason for hedging me about as if we were all back in the dark ages.
It's never likely to happen again; and besides, there was no danger at
the time of anything worse than losing some of the silver. I can't see
the least excuse for all this mysterious caution. And it's been going on
so for months--long before there was even that shadow of a reason."
I tried to play up to the situation. "It's just the exaggeration of
their care for you, I suppose. You haven't been quite well, and they
worry needlessly because it matters so much. Didn't you used to feel the
same way about Lady when she was little and getting over the measles?"
The next instant I realized that I should hardly have used the nickname;
but Mrs. Tabor did not seem to have noticed my slip. She was looking
fixedly out through the parted curtains as though there were some one in
the hall, and I instinctively glanced in the same direction. When I
looked back again, she was still distrait, and I went on; "And anyway,
it's splendid to see you so well at last."
She smiled. "I haven't really been much laid up at all. I've only been a
little overtired. People worry about me too much, Mr. Crosby. I have a
poor heart, but I'm always pretty careful of myself; yet neither Mr.
Tabor nor Lady can seem to let me out of their sight. I don't like it."
She brushed the hair from her forehead with a weary little gesture of
impatience. She looked very much as a pretty spoiled child might have.
Yet I felt rather disloyal to the rest of them in listening. Of course,
Mrs. Tabor meant nothing; she was merely tired and fretful; but still, I
did not like being made the confident of these family petulances. Lady,
I knew, loved her mother devotedly, and so did Mr. Tabor--at least, he
had given every evidence of affection.
"How would you like it, Mr. Crosby," she added, "if you could never go
out for even a walk all alone? And Mr. Tabor has been acting so
strangely all this while--as if he and Lady shared some secret that
they were anxious to keep from me of all people."
I was by now frankly embarrassed, and I must have shown it. "I don't
quite see why--" I began.
"Are you in the secret too?" she asked suddenly.
My hair prickled. "No, of course not," I stammered. "And I don't really
think that there can be any secret, Mrs. Tabor, or anything they would
keep from you." Yet I began to wonder whether she were acting cleverly
in ignorance of how much I really did know, or were actually guarded
from all knowledge of the admitted mystery. While I scrambled after a
safe word, I heard the crunch of wheels upon the gravel.
"There they are now," I said.
Lady and her father came hurrying into the room with all the air of
having come home merely to touch base, as the children say; as if they
but wished to inform themselves of developments before starting out upon
another quest. Lady saw her mother first.
"Why, mother dear!" she cried. "We--" she stopped.
Mr. Tabor coughed. "Where is Walter?" he asked.
"Indeed, I don't know," Mrs. Tabor answered rather sharply. "What on
earth do you want of him?"
Mr. Tabor smiled slowly and expansively. "I don't want him at all, my
dear; but I do very much want my dinner. Do you think it is nearly
ready? Lady, suppose you poke things up in the kitchen a little, if you
can. I am nearly famished."
"Well," said I, "I had nearly forgotten about supper, and I believe we
are to have waffles at the inn to-night," and I got to my feet.
"Mr. Crosby, waffles or no waffles, you are not to go," said Mrs. Tabor.
"Here we are just started upon a nice little visit, and these ravenous
people of mine come bursting in from goodness knows where or what, and
begin clamoring for food. Since we must eat, you are to eat with us."
I said something conventional, with an apologetic glance at Mr. Tabor.
He was frowning at the ceiling as if he had not heard.
It was hardly a comfortable meal. I felt that I should not be there, and
that the others, though for no personal fault of mine, were wishing me
out of the way; while Mrs. Tabor confined her conversation almost
entirely to me in a way that made me obviously a bulwark against them.
She was bright and chatty enough, but I could plainly feel the
uneasiness under it; and as the meal progressed she became more uneasy
still, now and then turning suddenly in her chair or laying down her
fork with little abrupt decisions that came to nothing, as if she were
hesitating on the brink of a plunge. Twice she stretched out a hand for
silence, listening over her shoulder a moment, and then hurrying back
into the meaningless and disrupted conversation.
As we were eating dessert, Doctor Reid came in for a moment. That is, he
came as far as the door, and I thought Mr. Tabor made some sort of
gesture to him below the table-top. At any rate, he turned on his heel
and left, after a nervous word or two. I looked around to see Mrs.
Tabor's face set and stern, every little prettiness of expression fled.
I must have stared, for she smiled after a moment, and nodded at me
mysteriously as if I alone shared the secret of the dislike she had
voiced in the afternoon.
"Come, mother dear," Lady said softly. "Here are the rest of us nearly
through, and you've hardly touched your ice."
Mrs. Tabor looked up, vaguely apologetic. "Why, Miriam, I'm sure I beg
your pardon," she said. And very meekly she took up her spoon.
Of course it was the most natural slip in the world, and meant
absolutely nothing; but I could not put out of my mind the feeling that
some unrecognized bomb had been exploded in our midst. I could not be
merely imagining Lady's deepening color, nor the nervous hurry with
which she forced the conversation; Mr. Tabor and I helping as best we
might, and at best ungracefully. I could not shake off that sense of a
common consciousness whose existence none of us admitted, of something
vividly present in all our minds but not to be noticed in words, which
makes it so difficult for a whole company to keep their countenance in
the face of an untactful situation; the strain which people feel when
one unconscious bore afflicts the rest, when a stranger rushes in upon
the heels of an unfinished intimacy, or when somebody makes an
unmentionable slip of the tongue. I knew that Lady and her father were
embarrassed by the same trifle which embarrassed me; and through the
laborious unconsciousness of the next few minutes, the name of Miriam
rang in all our ears until the very air seemed as it were to grow heavy
with the weight of her invisible presence. The tension grew minute by
minute as we talked, until I felt as if I could hardly keep on. And Mrs.
Tabor, looking up in a comfortless pause and finding us all at gaze,
broke down entirely. Her eyes filled, and she pushed back her chair.
"George, dear," she asked piteously, "what is the matter? What has come
to you all?" Then as Mr. Tabor hesitated for an answer, she turned with
a despairing little gesture to her daughter. "You tell me what it is,
Miriam," she cried.
Mr. Tabor rose from the table. "With your permission, my dear, Crosby
and I will go out and smoke," he said. "There isn't anything the matter.
You only imagine it, and you need Lady to tell you so."
Mrs. Tabor turned to me quickly. "You can smoke here just as well," she
said hurriedly, "I like it. And besides, you are the only one who seems
to have anything to say this evening. These other dear stupid people are
both acting as if we were sitting at baked meats instead of a pleasant
ice. I can't imagine what has got into them, unless they have some dark
secret of their own." She was cheering visibly as she spoke, but with
the last words her face clouded again. I did my best to keep the talk
moving after that, though Heaven knows what I found to say. And at last
the meal was over.
As soon as we left the table, Mr. Tabor suggested that his wife was very
tired, and that she should be off to bed. She agreed reluctantly enough
only when Lady joined her father in his importunity and said that she
would go up with her. At last she rose and bade us all good night; but
when she and Lady were at the very door, she turned and looked back at
us. Then, of a sudden she ran lightly across the room and stooped to my
ear. "I have a little secret of my own," she laughed across at her
husband. Then very swiftly, and with a catch in her voice, she
whispered, "They are trying to take Miriam away from me!"
CHAPTER XVI
MEAGER REVELATIONS
I glanced instinctively across at Mr. Tabor, to see if he had overheard;
but he gave no sign of having done so. He stood with one broad hand
slowly tightening and relaxing over the back of his chair, his eyes
following unwaveringly the slight figure as it paused beyond the
curtains and Lady let them fall into place, then he sat wearily down
again, with a smile that did not smooth the white bristle of his brows.
"That shows how tired Mrs. Tabor is," he said casually. "I never knew
her to confuse the names in that way before."
My first shock changed unreasonably into the feeling of a suspected
conspirator. I was sure that he had not heard; his reference was only to
his wife's calling Lady "Miriam," not to her whispered words; but what
could those words mean? Where was Miriam? And if this house were in
some way divided against itself, on what side was I? Then I became
suddenly conscious of my silence.
"Surely there is nothing at all strange in that," I answered. "For a
mother to call her children by one another's names is the commonest
thing in the world; especially when--" I stopped, wondering whether I
were quite sure that Miriam was dead.
"Yes, natural enough, of course." He spoke absently; then went on as if
answering my thought; "And then, Mrs. Tabor was greatly shaken by our
first daughter's death: so much so that she has never quite recovered
herself physically. Sometimes, even now, she hardly realizes, I think,
that Miriam is not here." He looked down at his hand, then raised his
eyes steadily to mine.
"That was several years ago?" I said, to say something.
"Two years. We have to keep Walter Reid out of her sight, although she
is very fond of him, because his actual words and ways make her
remember." Perhaps it was the effort to convince himself which made him
seem needlessly eager to explain.
"She must be growing stronger though, all the while," I suggested. "And
from now on, we shall have peace from Carucci and all the other
disturbances he brings in his train."
He did not answer, and the discomfort of silence settled heavily down. I
began to hear the clock ticking, and to be half conscious of my own
breathing. Some one crossed the room above us and went quietly down the
upper hall toward the rear of the house. Had that been Miriam's room in
which I found the intruder; and if so, why was it kept uncannily the
same when all the family were striving to guard the mother from
remembrance? Presently Mr. Tabor roused himself with the decision of a
man putting a thought away.
"I meant to ask you about that," he said. "Somehow or other, this black
hand business must stop. I can't have reporters and detectives and
blackmailing Italians lurking about to cause gossip and disturb Mrs.
Tabor, and I won't have it. We've done no more than merely to hold off
the spies, and that necessity in itself was bad enough. But when it
comes to having Carucci break into the house and alarm the family--" He
looked sharply at me. "Have you heard anything further from your
friend?"
"Nothing more than you know; but I ran across Carucci this afternoon,
and I think that incident is closed." I went over the afternoon's
events, adding: "So there's no murder mystery now, no newspaper story,
and unless Sheila is very much mistaken in herself, we've heard the last
of Carucci. That clears the atmosphere pretty thoroughly, doesn't it?"
He did not seem to be much relieved. "Yes if Sheila could or would
really send him away. I don't doubt her loyalty to us, but she's too
fond of her brute of a husband." Then abruptly, after some pondering,
"You answered the telephone for Mrs. Tabor, as I understand. Did you
hear the name, or recognize the voice?"
"No, sir," said I uncomfortably; for it sounded very much as if he were
questioning his wife's word.
"It couldn't have been either of your Italian detectives, for instance?"
"I'm quite sure that it wasn't--that is, as sure as one can be of a
voice over the 'phone. It was entirely different, a cooing, syrupy voice
that seemed to be a woman's."
"Well," he said finally, "Carucci is the storm-center, in any case." He
rose, and pressed the button by the door. "Ask Mrs. Carucci to step down
to my study for a moment," he said to the maid. Then he turned to me.
"Come in here, Crosby, and we'll settle this thing."
Sheila appeared, bubbling with triumph, and volubly eager to recount her
experiences. Antonio would never dare to show the face of him to any of
us again. Indeed, he had promised to take the first ship he could find
and be off to sea, out of mischief. His black hand bother was all
nonsense anyway; he was nothing to be afraid of, more than a black-faced
bogey to frighten children. "An' he'll keep his promise, sir, to me,"
she wound up, "for he knows well what I'll be givin' him if he don't.
He's only waitin' till his week's out, so he can draw his pay; then off
he goes to New York, an' away on the first steamer that'll take him.
'An' good riddance to ye, too,' says I, 'an' if ever ye bring trouble on
my people again, I'll make ye wish ye'd died a bachelor,' I says to
him."
"He's going before that," said Mr. Tabor decidedly. "This is Tuesday;
the _Catalonia_ sails on Thursday, and I'll get him a berth on her.
What's more, I'll see that he takes it. You know where to find him,
Sheila, I suppose?"
"Sure I do, sir. He'll be right where I saw him, workin' on the trolley.
But it's hard on him, sir, losin' his week's pay, and bein' shipped off
like a thief. Leave him find his own ship like a man."
"He's not being shipped off. I'm finding a good berth for him, which is
more than he deserves, and you both ought to be grateful. Now listen, I
want you to go to New York with him to-morrow. Take him to your own
place, and don't lose sight of him until he is safe aboard and away. If
he leaves you, notify me at once. I intend to be certain that he has
left the country; do you understand?"
"An' who's to be takin' care av me poor lamb up-stairs all the while?"
Sheila demanded, her brogue broadening, and her hands braced
aggressively against her hips.
Mr. Tabor glanced quickly at me. "We can do that very well, as we have
done. Of course your husband can be sent to prison for blackmail, if I
can't otherwise be rid of him, but for your sake I should rather have
him simply go away. If you are not willing to help, Sheila, you need
only say so."
For a moment I thought she was going to refuse. But after a vain appeal
or two, she gave way rather sullenly, and agreed to leave early in the
morning.
"That's the pity of those people," Mr. Tabor said to me, as he closed
the door after her. "Let the man do or be what he will, the woman he
has possessed will hold of him to the end of her days; he can't quite
lie away her faith or kick away her tenderness. I suppose it's beautiful
in its way, but it gives a foothold to a lot of misery--well, now,
Crosby, the rest is your part. I believe Sheila will keep her word; but
it's against her husband, after all, and I want to make sure. Will you
go to New York, too, and keep an eye on them until Carucci has gone?
It's an unpleasant service to ask, but I can't do it for myself.
And--since your vacation trip would naturally start from New York, it
won't be far out of your way." I looked full at him to be sure that I
understood, but I knew already that he had weighed his words.
"I see," I said slowly. "Is that all, or do you really want me to watch
the Caruccis?"
"Certainly I do, if you will. I'm going to be very frank with you,
Crosby, because you've deserved it. I did feel at one time that your
former trip was managed with a little too much gallantry--that you had
with the best intentions involved us in a melodrama, been the means of
bringing these people down on us. But that wasn't just. Nobody could
have done better in your place; and if any one was to blame, it was
Reid, for allowing you to go at that time of night. Of course, I was
away from home when you started. Well, you've helped us and been loyal
to us, though we had no claim upon you. It all comes down to this: Mrs.
Tabor's health is a cause of great concern to me, and has been for a
long time. I feel that she must be guarded from every possible shock. As
I told you, there is a condition here which we are keeping to ourselves,
which is dangerous to her, and which--you must take my word for it--may
be aggravated by your continual presence. I'm eliminating, so far as I
can, every disturbing element, and you are such an element, through no
fault of yours. I'm not banishing you, I only ask that your visits to us
be no more than occasional. Once in a while, a little later, we shall be
very glad to see you, I hope; but not just now. Is that clear?"
"All but the reason for it," I said, "and I won't ask that."
"I won't make any protestations or apologies," he added very
deliberately. "I think you trust us. And I prove that I trust you more
than you know, in telling you as much as I have."
I suppose that a more sensible man in my place would have done very
differently. On his own confession, Mr. Tabor was telling me only a part
of the truth; accident and warning had combined to make me suspicious of
him; and I knew by my own experience how plausibly he could lie. But
whether it was his age, or his deference, or the fact that he was Lady's
father, all the Don Quixote in me came suddenly to the surface.
"I'll do as you say, sir," I said. "Let me know when I can do anything
more," and I held out my hand.
His own was moist and hot; and I noticed under the stronger light of the
hall, that the veins in his temples were swollen and throbbing and that
he moved listlessly, as though he had been under a great strain. Before
I could think about it, Lady parted the curtains of the living-room.
"What is it?" she asked quickly. "Has anything happened?"
"Only that I am going to New York to see Carucci sail away," I answered,
"and I don't know just when I shall be back." It was plain that Mr.
Tabor had not meant me to say so much; but that was my own affair.
She followed me outside the front door. "That means that you are going
away-- I knew it must come to that." She was twisting nervously at her
chain.
"One word from you, and I won't go."
She shook her head. "No, I want you to--good-by."
"Promise me one thing," I said. "That you'll send me word if you want
me."
"I promise," she answered quietly, "but I shall never have to keep that
promise."
As I went out of the gate, Doctor Reid was coming in, and stopped to
speak to me. His companion stood meanwhile some distance away; but it
was not too dark for me to recognize the big man with the shrill
precision of speech whom I had seen him bring secretly to the house
before.
I set out the next morning in a humor of suspicious disillusion, all my
quixotism turned sour under the dry sun. Put it how I would, I was
playing the part of a spy: if Carucci himself was no better, the honest
Irish eyes of his wife made me vaguely ashamed of my task. Having
nevertheless undertaken it, I must put it through as well as might be.
To follow the pair about would be futile, since I must presently be seen
and recognized; but I conceived that merely by making sure of them at
intervals during the next forty-eight hours I should be fulfilling my
mission. I saw them safely on the train, and established myself in
another car; and when we reached the Grand Central, I made straight for
the scene of my midnight adventure. It was no less ugly by day than by
night, and if possible even more malodorous. Push-carts vended
unimaginable sweetmeats along the curb to a floating population of
besmeared and screaming children; bleared slatterns, flabbily
overflowing their bulging garments, jabbered in window and doorway; and
the squat and dingy little saloon on the corner leered beerily at all. I
waited half an hour before the Caruccis appeared. Then I made for a
telephone in a state of disgusted relief, and called up Maclean.
"So you're in town now for a while," he said, in answer to my expurgated
account of myself. "Well, I tell you how it is, Laurie, I'm pretty busy
to-day. Let's have your number, an' I'll call you up later when I'm
loose. You'll hang out at the Club, won't you?"
"I thought you wanted to see me about something."
"Oh, _that_. That wasn't anythin'-- Why, yes, I'll lunch with you if
you're in such a hurry, but I'll have to beat it right afterwards,
'cause I've got an assignment this afternoon."
At the Club, he plunged immediately into the irrelevant subject.
"Say, I've got to slide out after grub, an' go on a spook-hunt. There's
this gang of Psychics or Spiritualists or whatever they are, up the line
here, you see? And I'm coverin' one of their séances. Hamlet's old
grandfather comes in an' rough-houses the furniture, an' Little Eva says
a lot more than her prayers, an' you sit in a circle holdin' hands to
get a line on the higher life. Don't you want to come along? You'll get
some thrillin' moments."
"Is it a fake, then?" I asked.
"Oh, they're all fakes, I guess. All I ever ran across, anyway. But this
death-fancier's the real squeeze--only raises the graveyard in private
an' don't take any money, an' a whole lot of big doctors an' psychology
profs are nutty about her, you see? It's the big show, the original New
York company. You better come."
"All right," I said, "bring on your mysteries. I always thought there
was something in that business, really; and here's a good chance. But
look here, Mac, I want you to tell me what you heard from Carucci."
"Tell you the truth," said Maclean, "I'm a little bit afraid there may
be something in spookery, myself. That's why I'd just as soon have you
along."
"It won't do, old fellow," said I; "let's have the dago story."
Maclean fidgeted and glowered at the table. "It's like this, Laurie, you
see? Those folks are friends of yours, an' this yarn of the guinea's is
just a dirty bit of scandal, that's all over an' done with. An' I told
you I didn't believe it anyhow. I hadn't ought to have said anythin' to
you in the first place; and I'd rather not say anythin' about it now
unless you want. 'Tain't anythin'."
"Mac, I've gone so far with the Tabors that I need to know all I can. If
it's a lie, why all right. If it's true, why you can trust me and so can
they. I wasn't born last week."
"Well," Mac grunted after a pause, "I'd better tell you, I guess, than
let you go it blind--here you are. You know that Doctor Reid that's in
with the Tabors?" He lowered his voice, leaning across the table.
"Accordin' to the dago, he got mixed up with some woman abroad, an'
married her. Then he leaves her, an' comes back, an' maybe he thinks
she's dead. So he marries the Tabor girl, you see? Then the family get
wise about the other woman, an' there's an awful row, an' finally they
fix it up among them to move away, an' let on that Reid an' the daughter
ain't married at all, not until this other woman dies, you see? An'
that's what they're all keepin' so quiet about. Mind you, I don't
believe it, myself."
"Why, it's impossible," I said. "It doesn't fit together. Miriam Tabor
died a year after Reid married her, and why should they--"
"Sure, that's just it. Sure. I told you it was all over, an' anyhow it
couldn't be so." He looked at his watch, and I noticed that the monogram
on the back was cut in a quaint, antique fashion. "Come ahead--we've
just got time."
I found his eyes and held them. "One minute, Mac. You're keeping back
the point, so that I won't understand the story. It's no use."
"No, I ain't--honest--it's all over--well, damn it, Carucci says the
Tabor girl didn't die. He says that's only the fake they put up, an'
she's alive an' around the same as ever."
For a moment the words did not mean anything. I was groping madly among
a mass of reminiscences, the noises in the house, the room with the
presence in it, into which Carucci had broken, the tangled
half-confidences of the family. Then the picture of Lady twisting
nervously at the slender chain came uppermost in imagination, and
through the eddying fog of my mind the whole nightmare leaped forth in a
flash of horrible clearness, a score of interwoven circumstances
outlining it as with threads of fire: the wedding-ring worn hidden at
her breast, her raising of unaccountable barriers, her hopelessness, the
family's fear of publicity and growing anxiety over my intimate presence
among them, the cloud upon Mrs. Tabor, her aversion to Reid and the
elaborate explanation of her slip in calling her daughter Miriam--I
leaned my forehead on my hands.
Maclean had me by the shoulder: "Brace up, man," he muttered; "here,
drink your drink. You'll have everybody looking at you."
CHAPTER XVII
THE BORDERLAND, AND A NAME
"It's an infernal lie," I said dully.
"Sure it is." Maclean was thoroughly embarrassed and uncomfortable. "The
way I work it out is, there's probably just enough in it somewhere for
Carucci to build on. Maybe Reid did get into some mess or other 'way
back before he was married, an' Carucci works that in with what he
thinks he knows about the family now, an' dopes out this scandal in high
life business. Or maybe he don't believe it himself, an' just has it in
for the old man. You can't tell whether it's muck-rakin' or
mud-slingin', but it's bound to be partly both, you see? I only told you
so you'd know what was around. Well, are you comin'?"
I got my hat mechanically, and went out with him into the dust and the
heat. The sense of unreality that had been upon me that early morning in
the automobile was returned now in the breathless afternoon. The hazy
slit of sky overhead, the stark light and shadow of the street, had the
tones of a cheap colored photograph. The very smell of the air was like
a memory of itself. The roar and jangle of the traffic seemed to come
from a distance through a stillness that listened; and the wail of a
hand-organ on the corner somehow completed and enhanced it all. I had
only had one serious illness in my life, and that had been long ago; but
I remembered that upon my first venturing out of doors after it, things
had looked so; and I wondered for a moment whether I were going to be
ill again. But that was nonsense. I was not a person to collapse upon
the hearing of bad news; and besides, this news, I did not believe.
Maclean had not believed it himself, in telling it to me. Only, he had
so much less knowledge than I of its consistency. Grant for once that
Lady was Miriam, that she was an only daughter--and they all would have
done even as I had seen them doing. So Lady would have worn her ring, so
feared our growing intimacy, so felt the burden of an abnormality not
her own, so confessed to me the barrier and in extremity lied about her
name, so the family would have shrunk from any notice, and striven to
rid themselves of Carucci and of me. Straight this way pointed every
line of mystery since the beginning; here was one logical motive for
all. The explanation fitted every fact; only, I could not believe it of
the people. A small cloud covered the sun, and the hot street turned
suddenly gray. A horse clocked heavily around the corner, the rumble of
the wheels behind him suddenly muffled as they struck the asphalt of the
avenue. We were going up the steps of a house, a house closed for the
summer with lead-colored board shutters over the lower windows, and an
outer door of the same, on which the bright brass disk of a spring lock
took the place of a knob. Maclean glanced again up at the number as he
pressed the bell.
"Admit one gent and phantoms," he said sniffing. "Now you put your soul
in a safe pocket, an' button it in. This gang, they'd snitch it in a
second."
A low-voiced man in a cutaway coat opened the door, and we stood for a
moment in a dark hallway smelling of cloth and furniture, while he and
Maclean talked together in a half-whisper, I suppose explaining my
presence. Then he opened another door at the side of the hall, and
ushered us into the front room, where we half groped our way to a seat
on the farther side, amid a low rustle of whispers. A grayish twilight
filtered through the bright cracks of the shutters and between the
closed folding doors at the rear. At first, the contrast with the glare
of the street made it seem almost absolutely dark; and as my eyes
gradually became adapted to the dimness, I remembered being shut in the
closet when I was a child, and how the pale streaks from door-casing and
keyhole had gradually diluted the gloom in just the same way. The
recollection was so vivid that I half imagined here the same rustle and
stuffiness of hanging clothes, and the sense of outrage at the shutting
out of daylight. Then slowly the room formed itself out of darkness into
grayness: the white ceiling, with its moving shadows and bulbous
cloth-enfolded chandelier; the floor and furniture, all shrouded in
summer covers of grayish denim; and the indefinite shade of the walls,
lightened here and there by the square of a picture turned back outward,
and darkened by the gloom of the corners and the blurred figures of the
dozen people or so who sat about in twos and threes talking in whispers
and mutterings. At the back of the room were large folding-doors, now
tightly closed. In the corner on the side toward the hall stood a grand
piano, enormous and bare under its pale covering; and the outer wall
was broken by a marble chimneypiece of the fifties whereupon stood lumps
of bric-à-brac tied up in bags. Most of the furniture was ranged rigidly
against the wall; but in the center of the floor glimmered dully the
uncovered mahogany of a heavy round table. In spite of the dark and the
coolness, the air was close and stuffy, as if with the presence of a
multitude; and I was a trifle surprised to find that we were actually so
few.
"What sort of a crowd is this?" I asked Maclean in an undertone. "I
can't make them out."
"Every sort. I mean every sort that's got the social drag or the
prominence in this business to get in with the crowd. But inside of
that, you get 'em all kinds, you see? The chap that let us in is a
philosophy prof, an' a psychic researcher--Shelburgh, his name is. That
old gink over there alone by himself is some other pioneer o' modern
thought. I've got to find out about him later. The rest are mostly
social lights, I guess. This is the Emmet Langdons' house, an' they're
here somewhere. I can't see faces yet, can you?"
I shook my head. "We seem to be in Sunday edition company, anyway."
"Sure. All head-liners. Faces on file in every office. Hullo, here's the
spookstress. They're off in a bunch!"
A rather heavy woman in a long drab dust-coat had come in, followed by
Professor Shelburgh, who closed the door behind them. I gathered a vague
impression, only half visual, that she was middle-aged and of that
plumply blond type which ages by imperceptible degrees. She made me
think, somehow, of a mass of molasses candy after it has been pulled
into paleness and before it has hardened; but I could not tell whether
this suggestion came from her voice or from her sleepily effusive manner
or was a mere fancy about a physical presence which I could hardly see.
She took off her hat and coat, and sat down at the center-table, pushing
back her hair and rubbing her hands over her face as if to shake off
drowsiness; while the others, except Maclean and myself and the
gentleman in the corner, drew up their seats in a circle about the
table, and placed their hands upon it. The professor counted the hands
aloud in a perfunctory tone, and they all leaned forward, hand touching
hand around the circle.
"Are we all right, Mrs. Mahl?" the professor asked.
"All right--all right--" cooed the medium; "conditions are good
to-day--I can feel 'em comin' already--sing to me, somebody."
The old gentleman in the corner made a dull sound that might have been a
snort or a suppressed cough. One of the women began to sing Suwanee
River just above her breath, and the others joined in, half-humming,
half-crooning. It was like the singing of children in its toneless
unison, in its dragged rhythms and slurring from note to note; and the
absurd resemblance of the scene to a game of Jenkins-Up gave the final
touch of incongruity. These people, or some of them at least, awaited
the very presence of the dead; all were in quest of the supernatural or
the unknown. Here were the dimness, the fragile tension, the impalpable
weight of mutuality, the atmosphere of a coming crisis; and this in the
commonplace room, closed up for the summer, with the traffic of the
avenue outside and the commonplace people within, incongruous in their
ordinary clothes, sitting with their hands upon a table and humming a
hackneyed melody a little off the key. There was an unreality about it
all, a touch of theatrical tawdriness, of mummery and tinsel gold and
canvas distances, an acuteness of that feeling which one always has in
the climaxes of actual life that they can not be quite real because the
setting is not strange enough. The monotonous sound and the close air
made me drowsy, thinking with the hurried vividness of a doze. It was
unnatural for mysteries to happen in a drawing-room; but then, mysteries
were themselves unnatural, and must happen if at all in the world of
there and then. Though it seemed somehow that a ghost should appear only
upon the storied battlements of Elsinore to people in archaic dress, yet
to Hamlet himself those surroundings were the scene of ordinary days;
and the persons of all the wonder-stories had been in their own sight
contemporary citizens. Macbeth saw Banquo at the dinner-table, and it
was the people in the street who crowded to look upon the miracles.
The eventless waiting drew out interminably. There were long silences,
then the humming of some other tune; and it was an episode when some one
coughed or stirred. Yet the monotony, despite boredom and drowsiness,
did not relax the nervous tension. I still felt that something was going
to happen the next minute; the air grew closer and closer, and the odd
sense of crowded human intimacy was more oppressive than at first; and
the rigid regularity of Maclean's audible breathing was enough to tell
me that even his skepticism was not proof against the same influence.
The circle about the table were swaying their heads a little in time
with their singing, while the old gentleman in the corner fidgeted
uneasily. In the street outside, a child began to cry loudly, and was
taken away still wailing around the corner. Surely, I thought, I of all
people ought to understand that incongruous look of strange things
happening in actual life: my own had been for weeks a nightmare and a
romance; and even now I was groping mentally in the maze of a revelation
that had the lurid logic of a melodrama, flawlessly plausible and
incredible only because I was unwilling to believe. Carucci's story was
a fabrication, because tangled marriages and family mysteries happen in
books and newspapers, among printed people, not among those we know; yet
melodrama itself builds with the material of actuality, and I had been
living amid family mysteries. Such things do happen to some one; and
that one must be to--to others--the reality that Lady was to me.
I started violently, and sat bolt upright, my hair tingling and every
muscle tightened. A dull rapping, like the sound of a hammer upon wood
covered with cloth, came from the table. The circle were silent, leaning
back in their seats, their hands still joined before them. The medium
had sunk down in her chair, her arms extended along the arms of it, so
that those next her had to reach out to keep hold of her hands. And
above the group I saw, or imagined that I saw, the vaguest conceivable
cloudiness in mid-air, like mist on a foggy night or the glimmer seen
inside closed eyelids after looking at a brightly lighted window. The
more I tried to make sure that I saw it, the more I doubted whether it
were not merely imagination. If you hold your spread hand before a dark
background, you will seem to see a cloudy blur outlining the fingers; it
was like that. The rapping was repeated more loudly, and through the
throbbing in my ears and the almost suffocating oppression, I caught
myself remembering the scene of the knocking at the gate in Macbeth.
Then a voice began to speak: a querulous, throaty contralto that came in
jerks and pauses. "Here you are again," it said; "I don't--want to
talk--to any of you--I feel trouble--somewhere. Where's mother?"
"That's Miriam," said Professor Shelburgh, in the tone of casual
recognition.
I do not know whether it was the shock of the coincident name, or only
that the heat and the excitement of the day had reached their natural
climax. But I grew suddenly hot and cold in waves; my skin crawled, and
I felt at once a strangling hurry of heart-beats and a hollow nausea.
For an instant, I set my teeth and tried to master it; but it was no
use. I must get out into the open light and air, or I should make an
exhibition of myself. I rose and tiptoed hurriedly across the room
through an atmosphere that seemed like a heavy liquid, dizzily aware
that Maclean had followed me a step or two and that the group around the
table looked after me in surprise. Somehow, I found the door-handle.
While I groped for my hat in the hallway, I heard the querulous jerky
voices speaking again inside the room. And the next moment I was
standing on the sun-baked sidewalk, blinking my eyes against the glare,
and breathing in deep gulps. A flower-vendor called on the corner, above
the distant drone of a hand-organ. Horses clumped heavily past. And a
sparrow sat for a second upon the green top of a hydrant, then fluttered
away, chattering.
CHAPTER XVIII
DOCTOR REID REMOVES A SOURCE OF INFORMATION
For a block or so I still felt a little queer and giddy; but air and
movement soon set all to rights; and after a walk back to the Club and a
comfortable bath, I felt as well as ever, and rather wondered at my
sudden upset. Evidently it had been only the heat and the nervous
excitement of the day; and I had been foolish to take Scotch with my
luncheon in such weather. I remembered that I had been out of gear a bit
since the morning; Maclean's revelation must have shaken me more than I
had admitted to myself; and it only wanted the startling coincidence of
a "spirit" called Miriam to cap the climax. Besides, if you sit for two
hours in a dark and stuffy room waiting for something strange to happen,
something usually will. At any rate I had had an interesting experience.
For a moment, it occurred to me that the episode might have been
prearranged by Mac, with the idea of conveying to me in that way
something which he did not wish to tell; but that was not like him, and
was absurdly far-fetched besides. If the name had been taken somehow
from my own thoughts, it was a remarkable case of telepathy; but no, it
had been the professor, not the medium, who had named the voice; and by
his tone, this had been a familiar one often heard before. If the name
had any other than a chance connection with my affair, I could not
fathom it.
There must be in all of us an instinct for the occult, an affinity for
illicit short-cuts through difficulty that comes of mental and moral
indolence--the instinct that causes the school-boy to look up the answer
to his problem in the back of the book, and sends ignorance running to
the soothsayer. Here was I, an educated man with what I hoped was not
less than ordinary intelligence, in the grip of a crushing question; and
instead of seeking certainty through rational search, I was mulling over
a mummery which purported to be a communication from another world. I
was no better than a kitchen-maid at her dream-book and fortune-teller.
Carucci had said that Lady was secretly Reid's wife--or rather that he
had gone through a false form of marriage with her, having already a
wife or an entanglement abroad. It was too horrible and too ruinous to
all that I most hoped for to be true; it was not like the people
concerned; but it was unbearably like all that I knew them to have said
and done. I must know what the truth was; and the more I shrank from
knowing, the more need for me to understand fully and at once. To sit
still and wonder was mere cowardice. I was here to watch Carucci on Mr.
Tabor's account: before he should leave the country, I would make it my
business to question him on my own.
By the time I had shaken myself into so much common sense, the afternoon
was far gone; and after a very early meal, I set out again for the East
Side with the strained calmness of a man who walks into the jaws of a
crisis to escape the devils that dance with their shadows behind him.
There was a mockery of evening freshness in the air, though the heat
still poured upward relentlessly from the sun-baked uncleanliness
underfoot. The streets were so crowded with the weary turmoil of
released workers, that I made my way against the stream with some
difficulty; and as I neared my destination the difficulty increased. An
eddying mass of humanity filled the narrow sidewalks and overflowed into
the street among rumbling drays and trampling, scrambling horses: gangs
of workmen with their tools, nervous and preoccupied business men,
pallid clerks and stenographers, and droves of factory hands, men and
women together, clamoring in a very Babel of languages. I noticed but
one other man going toward the waterside--a heavily built fellow with a
red handkerchief about his neck, some yards in front of me; and
presently, as he turned sidewise to avoid being jostled into a
lamp-post, I saw that it was Carucci. There could be no mistake: it was
he, in his best clothes apparently, and alone, a dozen blocks from his
own street. Sheila was nowhere in sight: however he had become separated
from her, with or against her will, it was my business to follow him.
Here was my chance for a talk with him alone; and as he passed his own
corner and still kept on his way southward, it began to look as if I
should be killing two birds with one stone.
I found it no very hard matter to keep him in sight; for the peculiar
brightness of the handkerchief at his neck marked him a block away.
There were other Italians, to be sure, but none so gorgeously bedecked,
nor whose gait was so wondrous a combination of a roll, a stagger, and a
strut. To overtake him, however, among that crowd was not so easy; and
I was afraid besides that coming suddenly upon him from behind might
spoil my whole opportunity by making him angrily suspicious. I followed,
accordingly, as best I might, for some distance; and when at last, with
a swagger of grimy magnificence, he pushed through a pair of swinging
doors, I thought that my chance had arrived. I waited a moment outside,
that I might not seem too patently to have followed him; and as I stood
there, a precocious small boy came up and looked me over.
"Yu're a fly cop, ain't yu?" he ventured, after a familiar inspection.
I smiled, and shook my head, somehow vaguely flattered.
"Aw come off, y'are too. I watched yu trailin' de guinea fer de las'
four blocks."
"Shhh!" I whispered melodramatically.
"Sure t'ing. Yu can't fool me. Wot's de game, havin' yu're pal chase
along so far behind?"
"You can search me," I said, frankly puzzled. "Is some one else
following?"
"Surest t'ing you know. He's right on de job."
I looked the youngster over; he seemed to be telling the truth. But the
detectives, I knew, were off the case; and besides them and Sheila, who
could have the slightest interest in Carucci? He might, to be sure, have
committed crimes of which I knew nothing; but then, the police could
have known nothing further against him at the time of our encounter in
the field, and he could hardly have done anything since. I glanced in
the direction in which I had come, and saw the unmistakable jerky figure
of Doctor Reid coming around the corner.
Without stopping for a second look, I plunged inside. It was one of
these really enormous halls which are scattered through the lower East
Side, places half saloon, half music-hall, where tables fill a great
floor space, where dusty, dyed palm trees vaunt a degraded splendor
about the walls, and upon a low stage at the far end of the room,
rouge-smeared slatterns dance in dreary simulation of a long-departed
youth and mirth. A very fat and flabby woman was upon the stage as I
entered, and the smoky air quivered to her raucous singsong and the
jangle of a battered piano. Carucci was seated near by, watching the
stumbling fingers of the pianist with the greatest interest and
amiability. It pleased me vaguely that the woman did not interest him.
Even when she had finished her crime against harmony, and clambered
from the stage to beg for treats about the room and so swell the bar
receipts of the house, she only received a grinning and good-natured
negative from Carucci. He seemed much pleased with the place, nodding
and marking time to the music, and plainly puffed up at the grudging
attentions of the waiter.
I had seated myself in an obscure corner near the door, where a person
entering would pass me by unnoticed and where Carucci must have turned
full about to see me. If Reid had really been following me, he would
have appeared by this time; yet I could hardly imagine what other errand
might have brought him to this part of town. If he had been following
me, instead of Carucci--the very possibility made me angry. And just
then Doctor Reid walked in at the door. There was another man with him,
a very large man with a broken nose and what is known among the sporting
fraternity as a cauliflower ear. They stood together, looking about them
for a moment; and I bowed my head upon my folded arms. I did not want to
talk to Doctor Reid in that place--or in any place, for that matter.
When I looked up again, they were seated at Carucci's table, and the
waiter was bringing up drinks for all three. They seemed to be talking
with the greatest good fellowship. Reid, I noticed, barely tasted his
drink, and watched his chance to pour the rest with a certain medical
accuracy into the cuspidor beneath the table. I smiled to see how
pleased he was with the way he was carrying off a perfectly evident
part. Every minute or so he would reach forth his hand and give the
Italian a couple of staccato pats in the region of his shoulder, pulling
back his hand as quickly, and beaming the while with a radiance of stagy
friendliness. The giant with him took things more as a matter of course.
He wasted none of his drink, but drained each glass as soon as it was
set before him, leaning between whiles with mighty elbows upon the
table, his great disfigured hands cradling his brutal face. He seemed
the last person in the world that a man of Reid's type would sit at
table with. Perhaps Reid had reason to be afraid of Carucci and had
employed this fellow as a sort of bodyguard.
Another human mockery was upon the stage; a tall, scrawny creature with
some remnant of good looks and a voice that retained a surprising
sweetness and charm. She sang unhappily, with an occasional scowl at the
piano, where the sot on the stool jangled his notes tirelessly. Carucci
was getting very drunk; he was commencing to wave his arms about, and
now and then the splutter of his words reached even my far corner. As
for Reid, he was plainly embarrassed and somewhat frightened. His hand
rested beseechingly upon the Italian's arm, and he looked at his burly
companion with evident appeal.
The big man grinned, and gave his order to the waiter with a leer that
ended with thrown-back head and closed eyes. The waiter grinned in his
turn and hurried off. I was getting more than a little interested.
Carucci tossed off the fresh drink at a gulp, and pushed back his chair.
"I know," he shouted. "I knowa da troub' with all you. You can'ta fool
Antonio, _non cio-è_?"
Reid had grown suddenly rigid in his seat. I got up from my table, and
hurried across to them.
"Sit down," said the giant, and pushed Carucci back into his chair with
a thud.
Carucci scowled sullenly. "Well, gimme da mon'. Gimme da mon'," he
growled. "I needa da mon'," and he poured forth a torrent of Italian,
threats for the most part about a secret he knew which he proposed to
shout to the world unless somebody paid him well. The room was fairly
empty, but here and there people at the tables had begun to stare. The
woman on the stage stumbled in her song, and paused wearily. Reid
glanced again at his companion.
"Ah, give it to him, he's a good feller," laughed the giant. "Just play
he's a bank, an' make a deposit."
Reid drew a roll of bills from his pocket, and began slowly counting
them off. The giant grew impatient.
"Ah, hell," he said, "here, give 'em to me," and he snatched the roll
from Reid's hand and gathered up the money from the table, crushing the
whole into a bulging wad. "Here, you; take it all. That'll hold you for
a while."
Reid got up in protest.
"Sit down, you dope," the other growled, "let him have it for a while."
Carucci grinned drunkenly, and crammed the handful carelessly into a
deep pocket, swaying to his feet.
"Graz'. Alia ri'." His mouth opened loosely, and he slumped to the floor
in a heap.
The waiter had come up, and with the giant's help lifted Carucci; and
between them they half carried him to a doorway at the side of the room.
They moved for all the world like three boon companions, arm in arm. The
door closed behind them, and I glanced around. Nobody appeared to be
concerned in the least; and even Reid, almost dancing with nervousness,
no longer attracted attention.
"See here," I said, "did you people drug that fellow, Reid?"
He whirled upon me. "You keep out of this, Crosby," he stuttered;
"nothing to do with you, nothing whatever."
"Well," I answered, "Mr. Tabor asked me to keep an eye on him, that's
all. What am I to report? What are you going to do with him?"
"Um, humph! That's why you're here, then. Beg pardon, I'm sure, but you
startled me. Bad business. Bad business. But the man had to be made sure
of. Getting dangerous. Man with me drugged him. Chloral, you know. Won't
harm him. Not at all."
The giant was coming back. "Here's your roll, mister," he said, with an
unfriendly glance at me. "Count 'em. I took out my twenty."
"Is he all right?" Reid asked.
"Sure!" grinned the other. "He won't wake up till morning, and then
he'll be out o' sight o' land. I got a nice ship picked out fer him."
CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH I CAN NOT BELIEVE HALF I HEAR
We were all upon our feet, and now Reid, with a curt nod of farewell,
turned away with his companion. I stepped to his other side.
"One moment," I said. "I want to know a little more about this before I
drop it; and right here is as good a place as any."
"Can't just now, Crosby." He motioned me away nervously. "Not possible.
See you up in the country any time, and tell you all you want. Not
here," and he moved toward the door.
"You can't help yourself," said I, "and I won't keep you long. Sit down
again, please." He had lugged out his watch. "You'll have to miss your
train, but there are plenty more."
The giant scowled at me with obvious willingness to begin a disturbance
then and there; and Reid glanced hesitatingly from the one to the other
of us, his impulse printed plain upon his face.
"Certainly," I put in, "you can get rid of me in that way, for the
moment, if it's worth your while. Make up your mind--you're the doctor."
He started angrily, flushing to the roots of his close-cropped hair; and
I thought for an instant that I had mistaken my man. Then the melodrama
oozed out of him. He dismissed the unwilling bully with a whispered word
or two, and sat sullenly down across the table.
"I'll make it as short as you please," I retorted. "Carucci's wife is
sent down to see that he sails. I'm sent down to see that she makes
good. Now you come down and have him shanghaied. Was this your own idea,
or were you--"
"No. My own initiative entirely. Only practical way of making sure that
he went. Best to see to it personally. Always better to do the thing
yourself, and then you know it's done."
"I understand, then, that Mr. Tabor didn't suggest this to you?"
"Exactly. Tabor knows nothing about it. My own idea altogether." His
triumph in his own efficiency was overriding his annoyance. "Better say
nothing to him whatever. He has enough to think of. Always best to avoid
trouble. The man's gone, and there's an end to it. Is that all?"
So Reid's own fear of Carucci had been intense enough to drive him to
this dirty alternative rather than trust to our sending the man safely
away. There was something unnatural here.
"Not quite," I said. "Of course, you know the exact nature of the
fellow's blackmailing story?"
"Certainly. Pack of lies. Won't discuss it. Utterly absurd, the whole
thing, but we can't have it go any further."
"Precisely, and it won't go any further, now. What I want to know is the
foundation for it. You must see the reason for my knowing that much of
the facts, and for trusting me with them. If there is any
entanglement--"
"Look here, Crosby," Reid leaned forward across the table, his face
scarlet and working, "that'll do. I don't propose to sift over my life
with you. Not for a minute. What's more, if we could afford a row, I'd
punch your head for having the assurance to repeat that infernal slander
to my face. That's all, you understand? That's all."
"There's plenty of time for that," I said, lowering my voice
instinctively, as I felt my own temper slipping. "I'll ask you just one
more question. On your word, is Miriam Tabor alive, or not?"
I never saw a man so broken by a word. He turned from red to greenish
white, the perspiration shining on his forehead; and for a moment it
seemed that he could not speak. Then he dragged the words out hoarsely
and unnaturally.
"You've taken a damned cowardly advantage--Miriam Tabor was my wife, and
she's dead. Now are you satisfied? Because I'm not."
There was nothing to add. I rose in silence, and we made our way to the
door. On the sidewalk, he waited for me to choose my direction; then
without a word, turned pointedly in the opposite one, and walked quickly
away.
I set out for the Carucci tenement in a state of no great comfort. By
forcing a scene I had gained nothing; and I had made an overt enemy of
Doctor Reid. Not that I was particularly concerned over that
development; I had never liked the man from the first; and I was
impressed not so much by what he had said as by his open and
disproportionate confusion. Think what I might of my own side of the
affair, Reid had confessed to a personal concern with Carucci; he had
flown into a rage upon my asking for an explanation; and the name of
Miriam had stricken him like a blow. He had told me nothing, after all,
and had made me the more anxious over what he refused to tell. If he had
been absolutely in the right, I had done nothing worse than to touch
upon a grief brutally; and he would have said precisely what he did say
if I had been justified and he had been lying. Well, Carucci was out of
reach, and Reid worse than silenced. What chance remained to me of an
answer to my problem depended upon Sheila.
I had no time to doubt if I should find her; for her window was lighted
up, and she herself plainly to be seen, leaning far out to watch the
street below as I turned the corner. When I was still half way up the
block, she called to me by name, bidding me come up at once; and I
answered as I picked my way along, trying to reassure her. The scene for
a moment resembled a ludicrous burlesque of a serenade; nor did the
street miss anything of its humor. With one accord the women in the
doorways, the lounging men about the lamps and the scurrying screaming
groups of youngsters underfoot caught up the implication, and began a
babel of jocose advice and criticism in a dozen languages. And although
I understood but little of it, and was somewhat preoccupied with graver
matters, yet I was fain to dive hurriedly into the doorway with a
heated and tingling countenance. The little room was itself again, save
for a dull spot upon the clean-scrubbed boards; and the canary in the
window paused in a burst of singing as I entered.
"Sheila," I said, "I am very much afraid you won't like my news."
"Well, sir, what's happened him?" she asked briefly.
"You're right," I answered. "It's your husband, but it's nothing to be
alarmed about, nothing at all dangerous. You must--"
"For the love av God, don't thry to break things to me, sir. Speak right
out. He's not hurt, ye say; well, he's pinched then, I suppose."
"No, it's not the police. He's been shanghaied, if you know what that
means."
"Crimped? It's thrue for ye, I know; 'tis twice before he's been, but
who done it I never could tell. Av I thought anny av my folk that's
afraid av his silly tongue wud do that dhirty thrick--" she stopped
short, her strong face working.
I was rather angry myself. "Well, Sheila, I don't believe they had
anything to do with it before; but it was Doctor Reid who had it done
to-day. I was there, but it was over before I understood what was going
on."
"Reid? I shud ha' known 'twas Reid, the shamblin' scun he is, an' small
good them that loved him best ever had av him! Now, the divil hould his
dhirty little pinch av a soul! For why shud he harm my man?"
"That's what I want to know," I said. "He's afraid of what Antonio says
about him, and you know--"
"As far as his story ever goes it'll harm no man," she burst out, "they
know well he's all bark an' no bite, if they weren't all crazy-afraid
together, an' a truer man anny day than that blagyard body-snatchin'
pill-roller. His own guilty heart it is, whisperin' over his shoulder,
an' me poor lamb that he married an' murthered, and the child av his own
body on the one day! An' the poor mother they're callin' crazy, with the
soul av the daughter she cudn't let free standin' between her an' the
sunshine. Crazy she'll never be until they make her so, with their
doctors an' questions an' whispers, an' that death-fetch Reid grinnin'
before her face, with the blood not dhry on him!" She paused for breath,
walking up and down the room and twisting her hands.
"Sit down, Sheila," I said, "you know this is absurd. I'm trying to get
a little truth about people we both care for; and if you say things like
that, how can you expect me to believe anything?" But my knees were
trembling as I spoke.
"Mudhered it was all the same," she said sullenly, dropping back into a
chair nevertheless. "When a docthor with all the learnin' that goes
beyond the knowledge av a woman lets his wife die an' an innocent mite
av a new-born baby go down to the grave with her, 'tis black murder it
is, no less. How could she rest quiet after that, an' half her life
callin' to her, an' the mother that wouldn't let her go, an' had the
power to see? 'Tis no docthor she wants, but a priest, an' no medicine
but a handful av holy wather, like my own sister's cousin Nora that used
to sit an' talk with her lad that was dead evenin's by the byre wall,
an' Father Tracy came behind an' sprinkled the two av thim, the one he
could see an' the one he could not see."
"Who was it that died?" I asked sharply. "Was it Miriam? Did Reid lie to
me when he said so, or did Carucci lie when he said that Reid was
married to Lady?"
She grew suddenly quiet and cautious, as if she had said too much
already, and must weigh her words.
"Reid told ye the truth for once," she muttered. "'Twas Antonio lied."
"Then Miriam was his wife, and Lady--"
"Yes," she answered, "it was Miriam," but she did not meet my eyes. Then
she went on hastily, before I could speak again.
"Ye see, sir, 'twas like this: When Miriam died, her mother's heart
nearly went with her, an' so because the poor dear loved her more than
enough, she did not go quite away. 'Tis so some whiles, when the livin'
holds too close by the dead. She used to talk to her, an' when the
villain that let her die got doctors an' looked like judgment, an' said
my poor soul was wrong in her head, an' ought to be taken away, an' they
moved her out there in the counthry where they had no friends, an' kept
her hidden as if there was a shame upon her, sure the lovin' soul of the
dead girl followed her mother. They said she was crazy when she made
them move her daughter's room, an' keep it up in the new house as it had
been in the old, an' would sit an' talk to her there. Sure, 'twas no
sign at all, an' a black lie in Reid's black heart to set the husband
an' the daughter again' her. Some folks are that way, that can see the
fairy folk an' the goblins, an' speak with the wandherin' dead. A good
priest Mrs. Tabor should have when the power tires her, an' not a lyin'
schemin' brute av a docthor that wants to put her away. 'Twas not much
at first anyhow. But he turned their heads with his talk av asylums an'
horrors to lead them away from his own wickedness."
"Is that the secret, then?" I asked. "Is the trouble no more than their
fear that Mrs. Tabor is insane?"
"Secret? What secret? There's no secret they have at all, only a wicked
lie." She was growing careful again. "'Tis all that docthor that's never
happy but doin' harm. She's no more crazy than meself, an' no one thinks
nor fears it, not even him. They only say so, because--" She stopped
herself again.
"Sheila," I said, "tell me just one thing. How much truth is there in
what your husband says?"
"How do I know what he says?" She was watching me closely, as if to see
that I followed her words. "He's dhrunk half the time, poor divil, an'
he says one thing to-day an' one to-morrow. Never ye mind him, sir."
"But there must have been something for him to go on," I persisted.
"Did Reid have some affair abroad before his marriage, or not?"
She hesitated, her apparent hatred of Reid struggling with her loyalty
to the family and her recovered caution.
"There was some matther av a woman in Germany," she said at last,
reluctantly, "but I never rightly knew about it, nor Antonio either."
Then more rapidly: "An' it's angry I've been, Mr. Crosby, an' 'tis like
I've said more meself than I mean." She paused.
"Has that nothing to do with the trouble in the family? Sheila, you know
I'm their good friend, and I'm not merely gossiping. You must have
seen--" for the life of me I could not go on.
"I'll say no more," she answered obstinately. "It's weary I am for you,
an' the poor darlin' that's bewitched ye, but--" her eyes filled, and
she shut her mouth with a snap. Say what I would after that, I could not
move her. She had said enough already, and she trusted a gentleman like
me that it should go no further. That was all.
"Sheila," I said, as I rose to go, "is all you have told me true?"
"Thrue?" she started as if I had struck her. "Yes, it's thrue--an'
sorrow fell them that made it so."
I took up my hat and stick from the table.
"We will have another talk about this some day, Sheila," I said. And I
closed the door behind me.
CHAPTER XX
NOR UNDERSTAND ALL I SEE
For the next few days I think I must have been nearer to a nervous
breakdown than I am ever likely to be again. All the strain and the
anxiety of the whole summer seemed to fall upon me in a mass; I had not
the relief of taking arms against my trouble, nor of any better business
than to brood and to remember, sifting misery by the hour in hopeless
search after some grain of decision; and the heat and hurry of the city
broke my natural sleep, and went to make a nightmare of my days. Maclean
was with me a good deal, taking me with him into strange corners of the
town, and trying his best to bring me out of myself; but I could not
talk to him of what was on my mind, and the irritation of constant
pretense to carelessness vitiated much of the relief he tried to give.
Wherever I might be to appearance, the same Spartan Fox was at my
breast--Carucci's story and Sheila's attempted contradiction, and the
ambiguous trouble that overhung Lady and shut me out from her. I could
not fathom it; and I dared not take dangerous action in the dark. Reid
had passed through some scandal before his marriage; Sheila had admitted
so much; and her denial that Miriam and Lady were the same had been
involved in such a maze of surmise and superstition, so evidently and
angrily put forward as a defense, that I could not believe what I would
of it. It might well be that Mrs. Tabor was oppressed even to insanity
by the situation. But what was the situation? If the mother's madness of
bereavement were at the root of all, what had the family to conceal? Or
why should not the remaining daughter marry whom she chose? Sheila's
explanation of the first was absurdly tenuous; and the last she had not
attempted to explain. No, there was one shadow over them all: the cause
of the mother's grief was the cause of the daughter's terror, and of the
irrational behavior of the sane and practical men of the family. I could
find no alternative; either Mrs. Tabor was haunted by mediæval ghosts,
or some part of the scandal must be true.
At last, one unbearably humid morning, when I was almost on the point of
going blindly out to Stamford on the chance of any happening that might
let my anxiety escape into action, of any opportunity that might force a
climax, Mr. Tabor called me on the telephone.
"Hello, Mr. Crosby? Mr. Laurence Crosby?--Well, Crosby, this is Mr.
Tabor talking. Are you free this morning, so that you can give us a few
hours of your time? You can help us very much if you will."
"Certainly; I'll be out as soon as I can get a train." The idea of
seeing Lady again was a compensation under any circumstances; but the
next words destroyed that hope.
"No, don't do that. What I want of you is right there in New York." He
hesitated a moment. "Hello--that--that same situation which occurred the
other day, when you were alone in the house, and we were in town, has
arisen again. You understand me?--We're looking after this neighborhood.
The person in question has been gone an hour, leaving no word; may have
gone to New York. Now, will you meet all trains until further notice,
and keep your eyes open? Call us up about every half hour. In case of
success, use your own judgment--don't excite any one, don't be left
behind, and telephone as soon as possible. Am I making this explicit
enough?"
"Yes, perfectly. I'm to meet trains, let matters take their own course
as far as possible, keep in touch, and let you know."
"That's it exactly. I knew we could count on you."
I was not many minutes in getting to the Grand Central, laying my plan
of action on the way. To be sure that no one arrived unobserved in that
great labyrinth of tracks and exits was no such easy matter, even though
I knew the point of departure. I began by a thorough search of the
waiting-rooms. Then, finding, as I had expected, no trace of Mrs. Tabor,
I learned the times and positions of all the Stamford trains, and set
myself to meet each one as it arrived. I had to make certain of seeing
every passenger, and at the same time to keep out of the expectant
throng that crowded close to the restraining ropes on a similar errand;
for if Mrs. Tabor should appear I must not seem to be watching for her.
The next hour and a half was divided between studying the clock, running
my eyes dizzily over streams of hurrying humanity, racing anxiously from
place to place when a late train crowded close upon its successor, and
snatching a moment at the telephone in the intervals of nervous waiting.
Even so, I could not be morally sure that she might not slip by me
somewhere unnoticed. And when at last I recognized her fragile figure
far down the long platform, I was less excited than relieved.
She came on quickly, carrying a little shopping-bag, and stepping with a
certain bird-like alertness. It was hard to imagine that this eager,
pretty lady, with her spun-glass hair and her bright eyes, could be
either ill or in trouble. I let her pass me, and followed at a little
distance into the waiting-room; then crossed over and met her face to
face by the telephone booths on the west side. Her greeting was a fresh
surprise.
"Why, Mr. Crosby, this is delightfully fortunate! I was just going to
call you up, and here you spring from the earth as if I had rubbed a
magic ring. You must have known that I was thinking about you. You're
not going away, are you? Or meeting any one?"
If she meant anything in particular, I had reason to feel embarrassed;
but the big, childish eyes that smiled into my own seemed wholly
innocent of suspicion.
"No," I said. "I've been seeing somebody off, and I'm very gladly at
your service for as long as you like." I was praying Heaven to inspire
me with mendacity.
"Well, that's the best that could have happened. I came in town to see
some friends, and I promised myself to see you at the same time. Excuse
me just half a minute, while I telephone them."
She slipped into the booth, leaving me hesitating outside. Evidently
here was my chance to call up Mr. Tabor, and report; but she kept
glancing out at me through the glass doors as she talked, quite
casually, but still with observant interest; and I dared not shut myself
in a booth lest she should either suspect or escape. She was out again
before I could make up my mind.
"Now take me to lunch," she said gaily, "and after that, if you haven't
grown tired of such a frivolous old creature, you may take me where I am
going. I'll set you free by two or three o'clock, at the latest."
I took her to the Waldorf, for no better reason than that it was cool
and close at hand; wondering all the way how in the world I was to get
word to the family, and keeping up my end rather absently in a
conversation, which with a younger woman would have been merrily
flirtatious, and wanted only relief from preoccupied anxiety to be very
delightful fencing. Mrs. Tabor was in that state of fluffy exhilaration,
that heightening and brightening of spirit which in a man would have
been hilarity, and which in a woman may equally well mean the excitement
of pleasure or the tension of imprisoned pain. She was a little above
herself, but there was absolutely nothing to tell me why. And she kept
me too busy in finding the next answer to plan what I should do the
minute afterward.
"Of course, Mr. Crosby," she began when we were settled at our table,
"this is another of my horrible and mysterious disappearances. I've
actually come to the great city, in broad daylight, without a chaperon.
Isn't it reckless of me?"
"Desperately," I answered. "And not a soul knows where you are? Won't
they be shocked and surprised when they miss you?"
She shook out a little laugh. "Let them; it's their own fault. If I'm to
be treated like an European school-girl, I shall at least have the
pleasure of acting like one. They need imagination enough to conceive of
my being able to take care of myself now and then. I'm not in my second
childhood yet--only in my second girlhood."
"At least let me telephone them that you're with me. I won't say why or
where, and we can make a mystery of that."
"Not a bit of it." Her voice sharpened just a trifle. "That would spoil
the whole lesson. They needn't worry unless they choose. Then when I
come home, if they make a fuss over me I shall say: 'Now see how silly
you've been. I've been having luncheon with Mr. Crosby,' You wouldn't
take the edge off of that disclosure?" She tilted her head on one side.
"But they ought to know merely that you're safe," I ventured.
"Safe? What should I be but safe? No--" She put out an emphatic little
hand. "I'm free from the convent, and I'm not going to be taken to task
by so young and good-looking a confessor. Besides, I'm ashamed of you.
Where's your gallantry? You don't seem to appreciate the honor of our
secret at all."
"Perhaps the trouble is," I said cautiously, "that I don't understand
the secret myself. What did you mean when you said--"
"Oh, _that_!" she laughed. "Why, I meant the hardest thing in the world
for a man to understand, and that is--just nothing at all. You had all
of you been so stupid and serious and uncomfortable that night that I
felt it would serve you right to make you jump. So I made a little
mystery of my own, and it worked beautifully. It sounded every bit as
sensible as yours, too."
She was beyond me. Two or three times after that I worked around to the
same subject, but she evaded me so deftly that I could not for the life
of me be sure whether it was evasion or unconsciousness; and my attempts
to communicate with the family met with no better fortune. At last I
tried to leave her for a moment on the plea of calling a taxicab.
"You live on Table Mountain, and your name is Truthful James," was her
comment. "Taxicabs are scarce in Stamford, Mr. Crosby, and it would take
too long to get one here. Let the waiter call one of those outside."
At that, I gave up with a good grace. I should be free to report as soon
as I had left her with her friends, and a few minutes more or less could
not matter much by now. She gave the chauffeur an address in the
sixties and we were presently there: one of these new American basement
houses sandwiched in among the older brownstone fronts of the more
conservative blocks. During the short drive, she had been silent and I
thought a little disturbed; but her farewell was bright with reawakened
gaiety.
"I shall measure your enjoyment by your secrecy, Mr. Confessor," she
purred, with tilted head and raised forefinger. "You may tell my anxious
warders just as much as you please, and the less you confide in them the
more I shall flatter myself of your confidence in me. Now I leave you to
your conscience."
[Illustration: And there he stood on the sidewalk]
She was standing in the doorway, her hand upon the bell, and I had
turned back to the waiting taxicab, when a somber and respectable
electric brougham turned the corner and drew slowly up to the curb. I
recognized with an uncomfortable shock that the driver was no other than
the Tabors' former chauffeur, the unworthy Thomas who had deserted Lady
and myself at the crisis of our midnight adventure; and I thought that
under his mask of the impassive servant he recognized me somewhat
uncomfortably. I glanced back to see if Mrs. Tabor had seen him also.
She was leaning against the door of the house, clutching at the handle
as if for support, or in a desperate anxiety to enter; every line of
her face and figure writhing and agonized with unmistakable terror. The
bang of the brougham door behind me and the sound of a shrill precise
voice that I remembered made me turn my eyes to the street--and as I did
so the bang of the front door sounded behind me like an echo. Mrs. Tabor
had disappeared into the house, the brougham was starting rapidly away,
and there on the sidewalk stood the man whom Reid had twice brought
secretly home.
CHAPTER XXI
CONCERNING THE IDENTITY OF THE MAN WITH THE HIGH VOICE
I had my first good look at him while he moved deliberately past me and
up to the door of the house: A man past middle age, in frock-coat and
silk hat in spite of the season, heavy without portliness, a figure of
an elderly athlete. A shock of iron-gray hair brushed the back of his
collar, and his face was a face to ponder over, a face at once square
and aquiline, broad forehead, predatory nose, and the massive lips and
jawbones of a conqueror, clear-cut under a skin of creamy ivory. He
might have been a Roman emperor in time-worn marble. While I stood
irresolute, wondering whether to follow, and on what pretext I should do
so, the door swung open and he passed ponderously within; and the next
instant Mrs. Tabor appeared at the ground-floor window, motioning to me
frantically. I came forward, but she as frantically waved me back, and
seemed to indicate by her gestures that I was to keep the taxicab where
it was. A moment later she slipped out of the door like a fugitive, ran
across the sidewalk, and fell in a heap inside the cab, crying: "Take me
away, quickly! Oh, take me away!"
I directed the astonished driver to the Grand Central, and sprang in
beside her. She was very pale and breathing in sobbing gasps; and
remembering her weak heart, I was alarmed almost for her life. But she
began to recover as soon as we were fairly in motion, and by the time we
had gone a few blocks was apparently beyond the immediate danger of
collapse. She was still, however, pitifully pale and shaken, clutching
unconsciously at my arm, and whispering: "That man--that man--" like a
frightened child.
"Whom do you mean?" I asked. "Not the chauffeur? He went the other way
as soon as you were inside."
"Chauffeur? No, what chauffeur? I mean the old man that came in after
me. He comes after me everywhere. I can't get away from him. Is he
coming now?" She tried to look out of the window.
"There's no one coming," I said blindly. "He sent his car away, and he
couldn't follow us if he tried. It's all right."
"Really? Are you quite sure?" She sat up, and began setting her hair to
rights with little aimless pats and pushes. "You must think me ill or
crazy, Mr. Crosby," she went on with a faint smile, "but if you could
only understand, you would see that I'm not so absurd as I seem."
"But who is he?"
"He's the worst of them all. He's the head of it. My own people would
hear reason if it weren't for him. He knows--oh, he knows all the things
that nobody ought to. He doesn't want me ever to see Miriam-- I can't
get away from him. I can't possibly get away from him." She was growing
hysterical again, and I dared not let her go on, much as I wanted to
hear more.
"He isn't here, anyway," I said. "He isn't anywhere about, and he isn't
coming, and you have got away from him this time. And I'm going to take
you safe home and see that no one troubles you any more."
I felt that I was talking like a fool, but my reassurance, fatuous as it
was, had its suggestive effect. She grew steadier, and I was able to
lead her mind away from its terror, until, as we reached the station,
she had become almost like herself.
"Mr. Crosby," she said as the cab stopped, "you've done me a difficult
service very tactfully, and you are a wonderful nurse; I'm really quite
myself now, and there's no need at all of your coming home with me. But
I want you to understand a little why I had such an absurd shock. That
man is insane, and I'm afraid of him. But I can't make the family
believe it."
I tried to pay the least possible attention. "I'd better come with you
anyhow," I said carelessly, "just to be on hand. There's no harm in
having a man along."
She protested that she was quite well, and that there was not the
slightest occasion for my trouble. And indeed, she was so marvelously
recovered that it was hard for me to believe my own memory of the last
few minutes: the oppression had passed from her as a slate is cleared by
a sponge, and there was hardly a sign of visible nervousness to show
that she had been excited. Nevertheless, I could not leave her so,
though I was racking my brain for an explanation, and raging at the
responsibility which prevented me from hurrying back to seek it. As I
was buying the tickets, a god from the machine appeared in the person of
Sheila, armed for travel and looking more anxious than ourselves. She
took possession of the older woman like a nurse discovering a lost
child.
"Here ye are on your way home again," she cried, "an' me thinkin' I'd
have to go all the way out alone on the hot thrain, with no one better
than meself. That man of mine's off to sea, Mrs. Tabor, an' Miss
Margaret sent me word to come back an' make meself useful. But ye'd be
knowin' that already. Ye're only in the city for the day?"
"Mrs. Tabor and I have been lunching together," I said, "and it seemed
so hot in town that I hardly liked to have her go home alone."
"Ye've been--" Sheila shot a quick glance at me. "Well, there'll be no
need, Mr. Crosby, unless ye were to come to Stamford yourself anyway,"
and she began to inquire volubly after the health of the family.
Mrs. Tabor turned to me. "There really is nothing for you to do, Mr.
Crosby, except to come soon and see me again," she said brightly. "I'm
quite well, and I'm in safe hands, as you see--"
So far as I could tell, she was right; and I had no further need of
overriding dismissal. I saw them both safely on the train, and hurried
back; resolved to reach the bottom of at least this new mystery before I
slept that night. My telephone call was answered by Reid, upon whom I
wasted no unnecessary words, telling him only that Mrs. Tabor had been
continuously with me, and was now on her way home in charge of Sheila.
"Why on earth didn't you 'phone before?" he snapped.
"Couldn't," said I shortly. "Good-by," and I raced for the subway.
A north-bound express was just leaving, and I had barely time to squeeze
inside the door. The nearest station to the house would be Sixty-sixth
Street; but by taking the express to Seventy-second, and running back on
a local, I should save time. I hung on my strap, fidgeting with
impatience while we howled through the clashing darkness and flashed
past the blurred brilliancy of the stations. As we passed Sixty-sixth
Street, a local drew out in the same direction as ourselves, running for
a moment side by side with us before it fell behind. Its rows of lighted
windows balanced almost within reach; and close inside, in one of the
cross-seats amidships of the car, sat the man whose mere presence had
so terrified Mrs. Tabor.
There was no mistaking that face, even if the silk hat and formal
frock-coat had not been at that season almost an identification in
themselves. I could as soon have mistaken Ibsen or Napoleon appearing
before me in the flesh. The massive head was bent forward thoughtfully,
and one broad white hand lay loose along the window-sill. I noticed a
plain gold ring on the little finger. Then, as the express began to
slacken speed, the window moved slowly past me and out of sight ahead. I
had a strong sense of having seen the face many times before, though,
try as I would, I could not fit it to a name. He was either some person
well enough known to have his picture often in print or else the
striking distinction of his features had given me that impression.
The local was standing at the platform as we drew into Seventy-second
Street, and I pushed out and across to it with small regard for the
amenities of the crowded station. A score of people, it seemed, were
possessed of personal designs to block my way. I dodged a chanticleer
hat, caromed off a hot and angry commuter or so, and found myself
scrambling at the tail of the impatient cluster before the
sliding-doors.
"Little lively, please!" roared the guard. "Lennux 'n West Farms, local
train! Both gates!"
I did my best, but there were too many ahead of me. Even as I reached
for that grip on the door-casing, which meant the right to squeeze
inside, the door clicked shut before my face; and two dull clanks of the
gong sealed my disappointment. I ran wildly along the train, trying to
overtake the relay of sliding doors and jangling bells; but it was of no
use. Then for an infuriating minute or two the train stood still, locked
and inviolable, while the station alarm chattered overhead, and through
the gleaming window I could see my man sitting calmly in his place. As
it creaked out into the darkness, another express growled in behind me;
and I had still presence of mind enough to slip aboard. My one chance
was that we might overtake that local in a favorable spot.
Seventy-ninth and Eighty-sixth Streets blurred past without a sign. Then
a little beyond the latter I caught sight of the local, and gradually we
drew alongside. He was still there, drumming idly on the window-pane
with his white fingers, and looking disinterestedly straight across at
me. I had a momentary impulse to conceal my face, until I remembered
that he had never seen me. So for a second we stared at each other,
pursuer and pursued, the one utterly unconscious of the other. My train
passed forward with increasing speed, while I counted the
cars--one--two--three--he was in the fourth. Either he must come into
Ninety-sixth Street or get off at Ninety-first; and the chances were in
favor of my finding him still in the train at Ninety-sixth.
I got out there, crossed over to the local platform, and waited. When
the train came in, I was opposite the fourth car. The center seat was
empty, and I sought in vain among the passengers thronging to the doors.
Then I hurried back ahead of the crowd, and from before the ticket
window ran my eyes again over the platform to make sure. Well, he had
left the train at the last station; it was a question of seconds. I was
in the street above in less time than it takes to tell it, and swung
myself recklessly aboard a passing south-bound surface car; but a stream
of trucks and automobiles blocked the track; and before we passed the
next corner I jumped off and ran. Three blocks I went at the top of my
speed, my breath growing shorter at every stride. And then, nearly a
block away to the westward, I caught sight of the silk hat against the
reddening sky.
It was an easy matter enough to overtake the man. He walked along slowly
and rather heavily, glancing upward at the numbers of the houses; and
presently he paused to verify an address in a pocketbook. I might have
spoken to him then, but I hesitated for a pretext. His name was what I
wanted first; and in my ignorance of the circumstances it would be safer
to settle one thing at a time. While I debated with myself, he went up
the steps of a house near West End Avenue. Since it was evidently not
his home, nothing could be lost by a little patient consideration; so
lighting a cigarette, of which by now I felt considerable need, I
strolled to and fro before the house, while I pondered my next move.
Five or ten minutes went by, and I was on the point of ringing the bell
and asking who it was that had just come in, when the electric brougham
purred around the corner, with my friend Thomas sitting stolidly at the
wheel. At the moment, I happened to be nearly at the other end of the
block, and before I reached the spot where the brougham had drawn up my
man had come out of the house. I could hardly question his servant
before his face. And the next minute he had clambered in and driven
decorously away.
I ran as far as the corner, looking about in all directions for a
taxicab. None was in sight; and to follow afoot for any distance was, of
course, impossible. I should have to be content with the number of the
brougham and such information as inquiries at the two houses I knew the
man to have visited might yield. Then a boy came by on a decrepit
bicycle, and I caught at his handles.
"Let me take your wheel," I panted. He twisted his face into position
for a howl. "Nonsense, kid, I'm not going to steal it. Look at me.
Here," I thrust a bill into his hand. "That's more than your machine's
worth, and I'll send it back to you in an hour. Where do you live?"
He told me in a dazed sort of tone, and I was wavering on my way almost
before he had finished. The wheel ran abominably hard, and was so much
too low for me that my knees barely cleared the handle-bars; still, it
meant all the difference between losing the brougham altogether and
being able to follow it easily. All the way down to the fifties it led
me, and eastward beyond Madison Avenue, halting at last before a
rigid-looking domicile whose lower window displayed a strip of ground
glass with the legend: "Immanuel Paulus, M. D."
Somehow, the name was indefinitely familiar, as the face had been. I
wasted no time in surmise, but went straight up to the door.
"Was that Doctor Paulus who just came in?" I asked the maid. She looked
me over cautiously.
"Who was it wanted to see him, sir?"
"He wouldn't know me," I said, "it's only that I have something which I
think he lost in the street."
The trick worked, as I had expected, and a moment later my man stood
before me identified, even to the shrill precision of his voice with its
tinge of German accent.
"I found this in front of your door, Doctor," said I, "and I thought you
had dropped it as you went in." And I handed him my silver pocket-knife.
Deliberately he produced his own, and with deliberate courtesy pointed
out my mistake. I thought as the door closed behind me that there had
been a glint of recognition in his eyes. But the final step remained to
take; and with an aching swarm of suspicions writhing in my brain, I
sought out a public telephone.
"Mac," I asked, "who and what is Doctor Immanuel Paulus?" and the answer
I had expected set the keystone upon a whole arch of tottering
reminiscences.
"Biggest alienist and nerve-shark in town; biggest in the country, I
guess. He was the old guy sittin' alone in the corner at that
spook-hunt. D'you remember?"
CHAPTER XXII
I LEARN WHAT I HAVE TO DO
I did not sleep very much that night; but it was no longer the frustrate
misery of indecision. I was done with all that, with beating myself
aimlessly against blind bars and running weary circles in the wheel,
with tossing helplessly in a mesh of irresoluble circumstances. I saw
now what I had to do; and the problem was not what the trouble might be,
not even what I must accomplish, but only how I should accomplish it.
The Carucci story might be true wholly, or in part, or practically not
at all; it did not matter. Assuming all of it, if Lady was Miriam, and
Reid had married her when he was not free to do so, she was not his wife
even in law. Whether his wife was now living or dead made no difference.
Lady was not bound to him in theory and certainly not in reality. She
was free to come to me if she chose, and I had only to make her see it.
But I did not for a moment believe that the trouble was so directly her
concern. Mrs. Tabor was insane, or was feared to be: that was beyond a
doubt, and that beyond a doubt was the root and center of it all; that
was what the family had so elaborately striven to conceal, either
because of the nature of her illusion, or because of some scandal in the
events which had brought it about. That was reason enough, granting
their determination to keep it secret, for all that I had seen, from the
midnight alarm, which had driven me out of the house, to Mrs. Tabor's
terror of the alienist; and her absurd suggestion that he himself was
insane clenched the matter. What supported it still more was that if
this were so, then all these honest people had from point to point
spoken the truth; Mr. Tabor had, as he said, trusted me to the edge of
caution; Lady had told the truth in fear, and Reid under pressure;
Sheila had told the truth, only inflated and colored by superstition.
And as I thought over the substance of what she had told me, I wondered
whether by some chance her tale had not been truer than I thought,
nearer than even the others knew to the heart of reality. I would not
take her ghosts too literally; but Mrs. Tabor might have some illusion
of her dead daughter's presence, and I remembered the voice called
Miriam that had spoken in the circle of spirit-seekers. Was there not
surely some connection here?
Yet, however that might be, it all closed round a single need. I cared
nothing, after all, what the shadow might be, except as that concerned
my taking Lady away from it. It would be like her loyalty to feel the
family trouble a bond that she must not selfishly break, and like her
girlhood to dream her mother's delusion a taint that must forbid her
marrying. But she was wrong in both, and to-morrow I should tell her so
and take her away with me. Even if she were right, I should do the same:
I had grown to care for the others, and I was not wholly careless of
humanity; but in the face of this greater matter, family and race and
right itself, if need were, might go to the devil. I was fighting for
her and for myself, and for that wherein we two were one desire.
I fell asleep at last thinking of that, and imagining what I should need
to say and do; and the next morning I went out to Stamford in a curious
mood of deliberation; feeling, on the threshold of crisis, unnaturally
calm and sure; as if I were somehow going with the stream, a small
embodiment of predetermined force, a mouthpiece of the thing which was
to be.
As she had done once before, Sheila opened the door for me. It was very
plain that she was glad of my coming.
"Sure it's Mr. Crosby!" she exclaimed softly. "What's the matter, sir?
You look white and tired like. 'Tis all the world seems upset lately."
"I want to see Miss Tabor, Sheila. Will you tell her that I am here?"
"That's the very thing I'm not to tell her, sir. She said most
particular that she was not to see any one to-day; but--" Sheila frowned
at me forbiddingly, "you sit down an' wait a minute, sir, an' I'll do me
best. I'm a servant-girl no longer--ordhers is nothing to me."
"But, Sheila--" I began nervously.
"But nothin', Mr. Crosby. You sit down an' wait," and she was gone
before I could say another word. I sat in the great room, as if at the
portals of judgment day, every fiber of me keenly alive, and yet my mind
knowing no particular focus of thought. The future gaped before me like
eternity, something too vaguely large for definition or comprehension. I
remember that I kept whispering dryly to myself that man was master of
his fate, and feeling infinitesimally comforted by the sophistry.
The curtains at the door parted, and Lady stood looking into my eyes. I
saw before she spoke that she knew why I had come.
"I was sure that it was you," she said at last. "Sheila told me that a
young man was down-stairs, and that she could not get him to go away."
"She told me," I said, "that you did not wish to see me. Was that true?"
Lady sank wearily into a chair. "Sheila should not have let you in," she
said. "I was afraid that you might come here; and you know that it was
wrong of you to come. You know that as well as I do."
She spoke monotonously, with pauses between the words, leaning back
along the deep chair. The last few days must have been hard ones for
her. She was very pale, the little blue veins in her temples distinct
and clearly lined. It tore me to see her so; and for a moment I wondered
if I had done well to come, and felt a wave of that uncomfortable
reaction which meets one on the threshold of a test; for a moment only,
then I knew that even though I tired her the more, it was a price that
we must pay for her sake as well as mine. No good ever comes of half
understandings.
"No, I don't know that," I said slowly. "You don't believe that I'm
altogether selfish, or that I would come now, when I know that many
things have distressed you, to give you any further reason for
distress."
She leaned forward, one white hand raised. "Please," she said, "I am not
sure--not really sure--why you have come. But I am certain of this, that
you have made a mistake in coming. There's nothing on earth that you can
do to help us just now--there's nothing anybody can do--there's nothing
anybody can do."
"Oh, things aren't so bad as that." I knew that I was only temporizing,
and raged inwardly at myself.
Lady's eyes dropped, and one hand played nervously with a loop of the
chain that hung about her neck.
"I don't believe you can understand just how bad they are. The worst of
it is that I can't tell you--oh, it wasn't fair of you to come
to-day"--her voice broke ever so little, and her eyes brimmed with
unshed tears--"I'm tired and disheartened, and I want advice and
comfort--no, don't come near me--I can't tell you anything--there's
nothing I can tell to anybody in the world."
I was standing before her. "No, I can't comfort you now," I said. "I'm
here to ask you things, and perhaps to hurt you very much. But you
mustn't think I've come carelessly. I came because I had to--because
there are things I have to understand to go on living."
Her eyes were frightened, but she settled herself back as if to meet
whatever blow my questioning might give. "I don't think that you are
very generous to-day," she said; and her voice grew harder than I had
ever heard it. "Neither shall I answer anything that I may not. But--but
perhaps you are right--perhaps there are some things that you should
know. Please say what you have to say and have it done."
"You told me once," I began gently, "that your name was Margaret. Was
that true?"
"True?" she wrinkled her brow. "Of course it was true." It was evidently
not a question that she had expected.
"Then who is Miriam?"
"Oh, I told you the truth then. Do you doubt it? Why should you ask
these things again?"
I paused. Certainly she was not to hear that ugly story if it were not
true and I could in any way prevent it.
"It may seem very strange to you," said I, "but some day I will tell you
all about it. I have to know this now: Do you mean that it is true you
have a sister, that her name is Miriam, and that she is--that she was
Doctor Reid's wife?" The question was out at last, and my heart stopped
for the answer.
"Why, yes," she answered, in the same disinterested tone, as if she were
telling dry facts in distant history--"Miriam married Walter when he
came back from studying abroad. She only lived about a year. They had a
little girl, you know, that lived not more than about an hour. I think
if she had lived, Miriam would have lived too. But it was too much for
her to bear. She died three days after her baby died."
The unshed tears were falling now, falling quietly in the mere physical
relief of tender sorrow. Every rigid line of tragedy and pain had
disappeared, and her trouble came upon her naturally, like sleep, a
relaxation and a rest after hot-eyed days. I did not even feel any
sorrow for her, so full was I of the new certainty that we were free.
Very reverently I came closer to her, and like a child she turned to me
and hid her face against my shoulder. So we rested for a space. I do not
think that either of us had any definite thought--only that peace
wrapped us like a garment and that the tension of the past few weeks had
somehow vanished away. At last Lady drew herself quietly from me, half
smiling as she brushed away her tears.
"I have been very silly," she whispered, "but it's all over now. It was
good of you to let me cry," and she reached her hand toward me with a
gesture so intimately grateful that my love fairly broke its bounds, and
I caught it almost fiercely in my own.
"Lady, Lady dearest," I cried, "can't you see what it all means? Oh, my
dear, you must see. I love you. That is all I know in the world, and
nothing else matters or can matter."
"No, no--you must not--" she drew back from me frightened. "You must not
tell me that. You have no right--and you are spoiling it all."
"Don't you love me?" I persisted.
Lady raised her eyes sadly. "There can be no such thing for you and me.
I have told you why."
"What have you told me?"
"I've told you that even if I did--care for you--that I could not let
myself care--that I can only see you even, when you treat me as a
friend, and only as a friend."
"You told me once, I remember, that there was some one else. I think now
that you were mistaken. There neither is nor can be any one else."
"But there is." The words were scarcely audible, and her eyes were
turned away from me.
"I know perhaps what you mean. I didn't know at the time--but I think I
do now. Do you mean that the some one else, the person who stands
between you and me, is your mother?"
Lady looked past me blankly. "My mother?" she questioned.
"You must see that I have to know the real truth now," I said. "You can
surely trust me; and I am trying for something that means more than
life. Lady, you must answer me fairly. Is it not because of your mother
that you say these things?"
"What do you know of my mother?"
"I know," I answered as gently as I could, "that you all believe she is
temporarily unbalanced; that Doctor Immanuel Paulus has declared her
insane."
Lady had gone very white again.
"Yes, that is the reason," she said.
"But," I cried, "that is no reason at all! If you feared that my
intimacy would betray this trouble you all guard as a secret--why, you
see I know that now; and surely you can not doubt in your heart that I
would guard any secret of yours more sacredly than anything in the
world. Why has it anything to do with us?" I was speaking eagerly, with
that foolish burst of argumentative logic which a lover fondly imagines
potent, hurling breathless words against the impregnability of
conviction.
"No," said Lady softly. "You are wrong, because you still do not know.
There is no taint of insanity in the family; we are not afraid of that.
Mother was taken out of herself by a great shock, not by inheritance."
"Yes," I said, "by the shock of your sister's death. I know that."
"Then you know almost everything," said Lady, "except perhaps--except
the reason that mother gives for my sister's death--her marriage."
We were both of us for a long time silent.
"You see, it is no question of the truth." She went on at last, in that
terribly distant and even voice. "It is true to her--and very
dreadful--so that it is dangerous for her even to remember. That is why
she shrinks from Walter; that is why I keep her wedding-ring." She
touched the chain that hung about her neck. "And that is why--do you
understand now?"
I nodded wordlessly, for the world seemed coming to an end. Then, thank
God, I looked into the eyes of my love; and behind their despair I read
appeal, the ageless call of a woman's heart to the one man of her faith.
And then I had taken her in my arms. I held her close and the fragrance
of her hair was in my nostrils, and soft arms had crept around my neck,
bending my head to meet the upturned face.
"Oh, Laurie, you will be kind to me," she said at last. "I can never do
it all alone. You must help--oh, my dear, I have needed you so."
"It will be right. You know that it is right," I whispered.
"You must find the way, then, dear-- I have thought so long that it was
wrong to tell you that even now I can't tell what is right. Only--God
doesn't let some things be unless He means them--but I can't see the
way. You must find it now, for her and us too."
What feeling I had of another presence I do not know; but half uneasily
I turned. Between the curtains of the doorway stood Mrs. Tabor, her
hands raised above her head gripped the curtains as if for support, so
that she seemed rather to hang there than to stand; her eyes looked
through and beyond us vacantly, and the pretty old-young face was
twisted like a tragic mask. Then the curtains dropped before her, and
from the hall came the gasp of a stifling sob. Lady was out of my arms
and away as if I had not been there. Her cool voice pleaded for a moment
with the rising hysteria without. Then all sound died, and I was left
utterly alone; the silence of the great room about me, and before my
mind the world of reality and the battle still to fight.
CHAPTER XXIII
I STAND BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
After a few empty minutes, I went quietly out of the house, and at the
end of the drive paused to look back over the sunlit lawn with its
bright flower-beds and heavy trees. My work was plain enough before me
now; I saw what I had to do, and the only question was my method of
approach. The impossibility of it somehow did not interest me. I did not
want to think the situation over, but merely to decide at what point I
should first take hold upon it; and I was eager to begin. As I stood
there, I saw Doctor Reid, in loose flannels and with a tennis racket in
his hand, come in the side gate and walk jerkily toward the garage in
the rear. Here was one thing to be done at least, and I might as well
attend to it while I was on the ground.
His springy step was on the stairs as I entered the building after him,
and I overtook him at the top, shuffling from one foot to the other
before an oaken door, while he hunted through his pockets for the key.
He turned sharply at the sound of my coming.
"What are you doing here?" was his greeting.
"Reid," said I, "I have to say to you that I regret forcing that matter
on you the other night; and if you'll give me a little time, I want to
tell you why. It will end in our pulling more or less together, instead
of fighting each other."
His face set for an instant, then he made up his mind. "Very well. I'm
free for a while. Come in. No occasion perhaps for an apology: spoke too
hastily myself. No sense in being emotional." He threw open the door and
stepped back. "My digestion wasn't normal that day, you see.
Fermentation. Generally a physical basis for those things. Alcohol
besides."
I preceded him into a sudden blaze of air and sunlight, a first
impression of wide space and staring cleanliness. While I blinked, Reid
swung a leather covered chair toward me, with a word of hasty excuse.
"Just been exercising, you see, and I've got to take my shower. Great
mistake sitting down without. I'll be with you in half a moment," and he
vanished behind a rubber curtain that ran on a nickeled rod before an
alcove at the back, leaving me to look about the room. It was very
large, occupying the whole breadth of the building, and fitted up with
an astonishing combination of convenience and hygiene. Dull red tiles
covered the floor and rose like a wainscot half way up the walls. Above
that ran a belt of white, glazed paper enameled to represent tiling; and
the ceiling was of corrugated metal, also enameled white. Two large
windows in front, and one on either side, wide open behind wire screens,
and uncurtained, let in a flood of light and air which somehow in
entering seemed to exchange its outdoor freshness for the sterilized,
careful purity of a laboratory. Between the front windows a large
glass-topped table bore a microscope and microtome covered by glass
bells, a Bunsen burner, and a most orderly collection of bottles and
test-tubes. On one side of this was a porcelain sink, and on the other a
heavy oak desk with a telephone and every utensil in place. Steel
sectional bookcases along the walls displayed rows of technical books
and gleaming instruments. In one corner stood an iron bed, with a strip
of green grass matting before it, and in the other a pair of Indian
clubs and a set of chest-weights flanked an anthropometric scale. The
only decorations were a large print of Rembrandt's _Anatomy_, two or
three surprisingly good nudes, and a few glaring French medical
caricatures. And everything possible about the room was covered with
glass--tables, desk, bookcases, the shelves above the sink, and the very
window-sills. If ever a room did so, this one declared the character of
its inhabitant; and looking upon its comfortless convenience, I caught
myself wondering how any normal woman could endure marriage with such an
antiseptic personality. Then as Reid issued from his bath, glowing and
alert with vivid energy and contagiously alive, the idea seemed not
inconceivable after all.
"Pretty comfortable place, eh?" he burst forth. "Fine. Fine. All my own
idea. Fitted it up according to my own notion. Everything I need right
here, nothing useless, plenty of light and ventilation. Have a
cigarette? I don't smoke often myself, but I keep 'em at hand. Best form
to take tobacco, if you don't inhale. Popular idea all rot."
I lit one and settled back. "I've just asked Lady to marry me," I said,
as quietly as I could. "She says that the only reason she won't is her
mother. And I understand why."
His face lighted for a moment. "I told Tabor you'd be at the bottom of
it eventually. As for the other matter--well, it has to be reckoned
with. Strongest motive we have. The race has got to go on." He frowned
suddenly: "How much do you know?"
"I know that Carucci lied; I know that Mrs. Tabor is out of her mind; I
know that her delusion takes the form of a horror of marriage,
because--" I stopped, searching for a softened form of words; but Reid
took up the broken sentence and went evenly on, as impersonally
scientific as if we had been speaking of strangers.
"Because of my wife's death. Hysteria aggravated by introspection. Fixed
idea of Miriam's continual presence--what's that line?--'the wish father
to the thought'-- The psychic element in these things, you know, does
react on the physical. Whole thing moves in a circle. Then paranoia."
"She's got to get well," I said. "What's the best chance? What can we
do?"
"We're doing all we can. We've called the best man in the country. You
can't depend on any prognosis, you know. We don't understand these
things perfectly, at best. There's no rigid line of demarcation between
insanity and hysteria. Nervous and mental diseases run into each other.
You can't tell."
"Just what does Doctor Paulus say?"
"Paranoia. Says if there were continual external suggestions of Miriam
he'd call it only hysterical; but we guard her as far as possible from
anything of the kind. If she originates the hallucinations herself, it's
mental. Nothing to do but keep her quiet, avoid all reminders, avoid
excitement, lead her mind in other directions, suggest normality.
Nothing more possible, unless we take her abroad for hypnotic treatment,
and that doesn't seem advisable. Nothing else to be done. Question of
time."
"Then it's just a question of getting rid of this fixed idea?"
"Well, but that's begging the whole question, Crosby, don't you see? The
fixed idea is the disease. You're a layman, you know, and you look at it
with the simplicity of ignorance. No offense meant, but that's the plain
fact, you know. Paulus doesn't call it hopeless, but Rome wasn't built
in a day. Nothing to do but wait."
"I'm going to find something to do," I said, "because something has got
to be done."
"Right spirit. Right way to face a difficulty. Always best to be
optimistic. But of course, you mustn't risk any private experiments. You
understand that. Might do harm. Hell's paved with good intentions, you
know, and we've got an expert on the case. Where there's any work for
you, we'll count you in, but you mustn't butt in."
I rose from my chair. "Of course I've no idea of putting in my oar
without authority. Give me credit for that much sense--and thank you for
making me understand the facts. Tell Mr. Tabor of this conversation,
will you? I'm off to New York."
"Certainly. Certainly. By the way, Crosby, I suppose I ought to
congratulate you. Fine. Fine. Well, we've all got to be patient and hope
for the best. It's hard, of course. But life's a hard struggle. A hard
struggle. Good-by. Can you see your way down?"
As Reid had intelligently observed, it was hard. And the hardest part of
it was the waiting. I saw Maclean that same night, and without evincing
more than an ordinary curiosity about spiritualism, arranged to be taken
to the next of the séances. After that, there was nothing to do until
one should be held. The slender thread of coincidence between Sheila's
ghost-stories and my experiences at the last one was my single chance
of discovering a remedy of which the doctors did not know. Probably I
should discover nothing of any use; but until I could contribute some
definite help, I would not go back to Stamford. I had made more than
enough trouble there already.
It was another week before the chance came. And I was a little surprised
when Maclean conducted me not to the closed house we had before visited,
but to the house on Ninety-second Street to which I had followed Doctor
Paulus on his way home.
"Oh, they meet around at one another's houses," Mac explained as we went
up the steps. "It's a gang of social lights that's runnin' these stunts
as a fad, you see? An' the psychic researchers, they ring in. Now this
time, see if you can't keep something on your stomach besides your hand.
You missed a pile of fun last performance."
It was a very different sort of house from the other; wide open and full
of the sense of family inhabitance, a house full of silk hangings and
new mahogany and vases of unseasonable flowers, an orchid of a house, a
house where people would be like their own automobile, polished and
expensive and a trifle fast. Professor Shelburgh was there, looking a
little out of his element; and the others, by what I could tell, were
mostly the same people as before; but there were more of them, twenty or
twenty-five all told, chattering in groups about the brilliant room and
giving it almost the air of a reception. It was evening, and the
electric light and the formal dress of most of the guests added to the
impression. I had my first good look at the medium before the
proceedings began; a fattish, fluffy woman with large eyes, pale-haired
and slow-moving, whose voluble trivialities of conversation and dress
exaggerated both vulgarism and convention. For a moment or two, I
wrestled with an uncanny certainty of having seen her somewhere before,
groping about among recollections. Then all at once I remembered; she
was the woman who had been with us in the trolley accident, the woman
who had so curiously discovered the whereabouts of the chain.
As before, the circle formed about the center-table consisted of only a
dozen or so, and the rest of us were left sitting about the walls. The
doors were closed, and the extinguishing of the lights left the room in
almost utter darkness. The greenish pallor about the edges of the
windows made it possible to imagine rather than to see. The gloom had
the solidity of closed eyelids; and perhaps because of the sudden
transition from brilliant light, it had the same fullness of indefinite
color and movement; as when one suddenly buries one's face in the
pillow, with the light still burning. I caught myself unconsciously
straining my eyes to observe these half-imaginary after-images. And
despite the difference of environment, the sitters had hardly begun
their tuneless crooning of old songs before I felt the same breathless
closeness as before, the same saturated oppression, the same feeling of
uncomfortable and even indecent overcrowding.
I steadied myself with long breaths, bracing involuntarily against the
tension. Then all at once, the door opened silently and softly closed;
and as I turned to look some one rustled past me, visible only as a
solid shadow in the gloom, and without a word slipped into a seat at the
table. The others made room, and a chair was moved up quietly, no one
speaking or even pausing in the song. But my heart pounded in my ears
and my hands heated as I clenched them, for somehow I knew as certainly
as if I could have plainly seen that the new-comer was Mrs. Tabor.
And it was as if she brought with her an increase of the already tense
expectancy, as if her own nervous trouble spread out about her like a
deepening of color, like a drop of blood falling into water already
tinged with red. It was my own imagination, of course, the excitement of
being close upon my quest, and the reaction of silence closing over the
interruption of her entrance; but I felt the exertion of breathing, as
if I were immersed up to the chin in water. If the atmosphere had been
like a weight before, it was now like a deliberately closing vise. In
the intervals of the droning hum at the table, the silence took on a
quality of brittleness. Little brushings and rustlings ran in waves
around the room, and I thought how a breeze runs over a field of tall
grass, where each tuft in turn takes up its neighbor's restlessness. It
occurred to me suddenly that most of the people here were women; and the
sense of crowded presence led me to imagining crowds and throngs of
women grouped in pictures or dancing in rows upon the stage. And then I
remembered sharply that I could not see Mrs. Tabor and wondered whether
my certainty that it was she had any more foundation than these other
fantasies. I heard my own breathing, and that of many others. I felt
vaguely irritated that all these breathings were not keeping time, and
instinctively brought my own into the rhythm of the predominating
number.
A chair creaked softly, and I started, while the skin tightened over my
cheeks and my tongue dried and tasted salt. The medium seemed to be
writhing about, making little soft urging noises, like muffled groans or
the nameless sound that goes with lifting a heavy burden or suddenly
exerting the whole strength of the body. Then the peculiar padded
rapping began. The incongruously matter-of-fact voice of the professor
asked: "Are the hands all here?" and the circle counted in a low tone
while the raps went irregularly on. Some woman across the room giggled
nervously. Why these trivial details did not interrupt and relieve the
tension, I do not know; but their very absurdity seemed to intensify it;
I was hot and puffy and a trifle faint. Suddenly Maclean gripped my
knee, and muttered: "Look at the table-- My God, look at the table--!"
I do not know just how to describe it; to say that I saw is not
literally accurate, for it was really too dark to see; the table and the
group around it were no more than a bulk in the midst of darkness. But
as I strained my eyes toward it, that blur of unconvincing cloudiness
which I had seen or fancied before swelled into mid-air, showing against
the dark like black with light upon it against black in shadow. And
illuminated as it were by that visible darkness, the table beneath it
rose up from its place under the circle of hands, wavered as though
afloat upon the rising stream of a fountain, then settled with a thud
and a creak down again upon the floor. There was a momentary silence,
full of crowded breathings. While I was wondering confusedly how much of
it I had only imagined, Professor Shelburgh said calmly: "That's the
best levitation we've had so far. Who did it? Who is there?" And the
throaty, querulous contralto answered: "I did. Miriam. Do you want any
more?"
Another man somewhere in the circle stammered uncomfortably:
"I--well--er--I beg your pardon, but--could you move something quite
beyond our reach? One of those things on the bookcase, for instance?"
"What for?" whined the voice, "you wouldn't believe it anyway-- I don't
want to talk to you-- Is mother there?"
Maclean's hand relaxed upon my knee, and he sniffed audibly. But the
answer brought my heart into my throat, for I knew who made it, beyond
the possibility of mistake.
"Yes, dear," Mrs. Tabor said quietly. "What is it?"
"I wanted--to see you-- Why didn't you come last time?-- I get--lonely
sometimes--"
"I couldn't come before. Aren't you happy?" She might have been speaking
to a child crying in its bed.
"I want to--come back-- I want--you, mother dear-- I'm very happy, but
I--went away too soon."
"But I've seen you every day at home, dear child."
"It isn't the--the same-- I can't talk--to you--there-- You're afraid
of--something-- I see fear--in your heart--and--that frightens me."
"You mustn't be afraid, Miriam--you mustn't. Nobody shall take you
away!"
A flush and a wave of nausea went over me, and I felt my hair bristling,
not with nervousness, but with a kind of anger. The unwholesomeness of
the whole scene was too sickening--the poor mother's hysterical
fondness, the utter sincerity of her emotion, and the sentimentalism
that whined in reply, so perfectly calculated to irritate and control
the crippled mind. And the element of distorted love made it all the
worse, a beauty turned sour. I thought of the dainty little lady that
had fenced with words so deftly; and only the need to understand once
for all made me endure to listen.
"Ask something that no one but yourself can know," the professor put in.
Perhaps even he felt some embarrassment.
Mrs. Tabor hesitated. "I wonder if I ought," she said, half to herself,
"I do so want to know."
The voice grew steadier: "Ask me what you will--mother darling-- I know
already--what you fear."
"Miriam, did I understand what--what I saw the other day?"
I grew suddenly cold, and felt as if the floor were sinking under me.
"The other day--? Fix your mind upon it, mother dear-- I see you now-- I
see you very much frightened-- You thought a new trouble was
coming--Another trouble like the first--not for yourself--but--"
"Oh, it wasn't myself!" The dry terror of the tone was dreadfully like
something I remembered. "It was for her--you know it was for her. They
looked as if-- Does she love him, Miriam? Does she love him?"
That was more than I would bear. The whole unnatural dialogue had been
profane enough; but this new sacrilege-- The switch of the electric
light was in the wall behind me, and before the spirit voice could speak
again, my fingers had found and pressed it.
The medium gave a tearing scream that was horrible to hear, twisted
herself out of her chair, and jerked and wriggled on the floor, choking
and gurgling. In the sharp yellow glare, the whole room was one
hysterical confusion, men and women scrambling to their feet, or sitting
dazed, their hands before their eyes. The professor cried angrily:
"Confound it, man, you're crazy! You're crazy! You may have killed her.
Don't you know how dangerous it is to turn on light that way?" and
stooped over the struggling woman on the floor, with scowling sidelong
glances back at me. A couple of other men came forward threateningly,
and a bejeweled woman, who seemed to be the hostess, cried acidly:
"Mercy on us, who is the fellow? One of those reporters?"
"Madam, I can promise you no publicity," said I, and I strode over to
where Mrs. Tabor had sunk forward on the table, her head motionless upon
her outstretched arms. Maclean came to my rescue just in time.
"One moment, ladies and gentlemen! Look there--the lady had fainted, you
see? Fainted before the lights went on, you see? My friend did exactly
right. Now let's keep this all as quiet as possible--we don't want a
sensation in the papers." Then as he helped me to raise Mrs. Tabor from
her chair, he muttered: "Darn you, Laurie, what in blazes was bitin' you
anyhow?"
Between us, we half carried her from the room, while the others were
attending to the medium and at cross-purposes among themselves. She had
not actually fainted away, and in spite of her shock was able to walk
down-stairs with a little help. The door-bell had been ringing violently
as we came into the upper hall; and we were still upon the stairs when a
flustered maid opened the door upon Mr. Tabor.
"Is Mrs. George Tabor--" he began. Then he caught sight of us and sprang
past the maid with a growl.
"It's I, Mr. Tabor--Crosby. She's been to an entertainment here, and
broken down. I'll tell you later. Have you got the car outside?"
"Yes, thank God. And Sheila's out there too. Come."
"I'm perfectly well," Mrs. Tabor said faintly. "Nothing to worry any
one. Why are you all so nervous about me?"
"I'll go back now," said Maclean, as we reached the front door, "an'
hush up this gang up-stairs. There ain't goin' to be any disturbance
about this. That crowd's more afraid of the leadin' dailies than they
are of the devil, you see?"
I nodded, and the door closed behind us. Mr. Tabor did not say a word as
we led his wife across the sidewalk and into the palpitating car. He
motioned for me to follow her.
"Not if you can spare me, sir," I said. "I'll be out early to-morrow. I
think I've found a key to the whole trouble, and I've got to see about
it."
He turned, frowning into my eyes under the white bristle of his brows.
"Crosby," he growled, "either we've a good deal to thank you for, or
else--or else you'd better not come to-morrow."
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CONSULTATION OF AN EXPERT AND A LAYMAN
It was a situation in which I felt that I needed counsel, and that of an
expert order; so I made my way as fast as a taxicab could carry me to
the home of Doctor Immanuel Paulus. Unless I was very much mistaken, I
had something which would interest him. A messenger boy was running down
his steps as I climbed them, and in the hall stood Doctor Paulus
himself, opening the yellow envelop of a telegram. He nodded without
looking at me, and with some sibilance of excuse, read the message. Then
he thrust it into his pocket.
"Very sorry," he said, "but I can not give any interview this evening. I
am called out of town. Besides, I have not orderly arranged my ideas as
yet. Come around on the Monday, and I will have something for your
paper."
"I'm not a reporter," I interrupted hastily, for already he had found
his gloves and hat. "I want to see you about Mrs. Tabor."
"What is that--Mrs. Tabor? Carefully, carefully, young man. Names are
names. What have you with her to do?"
By this time I had found a card. "I'm a friend of the Tabors," I said,
"and their trouble is no secret from me. You've been looking for a
continual irritating cause of Mrs. Tabor's hysteria. Well, I've just
found one."
"Clever," he shrilled, "diabolically clever. But it will not do, young
man. I have known these your American reporters--"
"If you say that again," I burst out, "you'll have me for a patient.
Call the Tabors on the 'phone--any of them will tell you I'm in their
confidence; and I can identify myself. We're both of us wasting time."
The sculptured face scowled at me for an instant, then relaxed with a
piercing cackle of mirth. "Good. I waste time no more, then, but I
believe you. See," he spread out the telegram. "It is to her I go. Now,
if you come with me--"
"Mrs. Tabor has just started home from New York in the motor," said I.
"Our train leaves in half an hour. Are you ready?"
Doctor Paulus did not say another word until we were safely aboard the
train and out of the tunnel. Then he turned suddenly upon me.
"Have I not seen you at a so-called spiritualistic séance," he chirped.
"Yes," I said, "where we both heard a mysterious voice called familiarly
by the name of Mrs. Tabor's elder daughter. What is more, I have just
seen Mrs. Tabor herself at another séance, where she talked with this
so-called spirit intimately. She has been doing so, unknown to her
family, for a long time; and there is your irritating cause. That's why
she has hallucinations of her daughter's presence."
Doctor Paulus received my revelation with somewhat humiliating calm. He
showed not the least astonishment, nor did he answer for some minutes,
but sat frowning in front of him, and drumming with a large white hand
upon the window-sill. When he spoke again, it was with a smile.
"Mr. Crosby, I find myself--yes--interested somewhat in you. First I see
you at spiritualism; then before a house where another séance is about
to be; next I pass you in the subway, and a few minutes thereafter I
presently behold you riding a child's bicycle after my brougham to
discover me-- Now also, I recall to have seen you in the country, when
I was with the young medical man who sends this impetuous telegram.
Therefore I say, since you are not a reporter, you have a mind either
unbalanced or very well balanced. And you now bring me eagerly this
information, so that you are with the Tabors much interested, which may
prove--you are no relation, is it not so?" He laid his hand upon my
knee. "It is not your mind then, but a heart unbalanced, which produces
often great mental activity."
I was both embarrassed and impatient. "Am I right, then, about Mrs.
Tabor?" I asked. "Isn't there a chance of a permanent cure for her by
removing her from this spiritualism business? If we can only--"
He held up his hand. "Let us not leap to the conclusion. That is what I
tell always to the Doctor Reid. He is a bright young man, but he leaps
too much to the conclusion. So probably he has said to you that Mrs.
Tabor is a paranoiac, which may be so; or perhaps with continual
irritation of the mind, only hysteria that may be aided by removal of
the irritation. I am too old to be quickly sure. Now, I repeat to Reid
that a medical man must save his mental or physical jumps for cases of
extremity. He must not jump all the time; that is how you are
neurasthenic in America. Hysteria, that we can by removing suggestions
and introspections palliate, or perhaps cure. And there may be also
hallucinations and the fixed idea. Therefore it is so like a shadow of
insanity. The daughter's death, we knew of that. And I have said that
some continual suggestion was to be sought for, which might produce this
illusion of her daughter's continual presence, such as you have perhaps
found. So we are ready to consider. Tell me now all that you know,
carefully. Not your own deductions I want, but the facts alone."
When I had finished, he sat silent for a long time, frowning on his hand
as it drummed idly on the window-ledge.
"Why do you conclude that she has for some time been attending
spiritualisms unknown to her family?" he asked abruptly at last.
"They all seemed to know her, and to recognize the voice called Miriam.
She went about it besides in a very accustomed way. And before her first
disappearance this summer--the first I knew of personally--she had a
telephone message from Mrs. Mahl. I answered it, and I recognized her
voice afterward."
After another long silence I ventured: "Hasn't she always been worse
after she has been away?"
He answered in a preoccupied tone, as if I had merely tapped the current
of his own thought: "It seemed at first to me a temporary breakdown
only, which I looked to grow better. I have been much disappointed that
it has not, and she grows periodically worse coincidently with
disappearances of which they do not know in time to control them. So I
tell them that some harmful practice is added to the original cause, and
they assure me that no new thing comes into her life, unless--" he
looked at me quizzically--"a young man whose interest in the remaining
daughter causes him to follow scientists about on bicycles. I recommend
quiet and the removal of reminiscences, and still the irritation goes
on. Now, as to spiritualism, there I have not made up my mind. I
investigate it as a human abnormality, for to me, like the Roman,
nothing human is to be thought foreign. It looks to be trickery, and yet
that is not sure, but there may be scientific interest there. Certainly
so great a man as Lombroso found much to interest. In the end we shall,
as I think, find all manifestations physical, or perhaps there is here
some little known semi-psychic force disengaged from the living persons
present. Of the dead there is little cause to speculate. However it be
of all this, there is without any doubt acute nerve-strain very bad for
the neuropathic, and aggravated by belief. Yes, it is perhaps cause
enough, and perhaps effect only."
The train was pulling into Stamford as he ended, and it was not until
the waiting automobile had carried us nearly to the house that Doctor
Paulus spoke again.
"I think," he said, "that possibly, I say possibly, Mr. Crosby, you have
made a valuable discovery. At least we know now the circumstances
better. But on the one hand these visits to séances may be aggravating
cause of the unbalancement, and on the other mere results of unnatural
cravings in the unbalanced mind. It is a circle, and we seek the
slenderest point where it may be broken."
Mr. Tabor met us at the door, and as we came up the steps Reid slipped
eagerly past him.
"Splendid!" he exclaimed, wringing the great man's hand. "Splendid!
Hoped it would be this train, but I hardly dared think so. I know how
important your time is. Very good of you to come out, very good indeed.
Now as to the case; manifestations unfortunately very clear just now.
Very unfortunate, but I'm afraid we have been right all along. Come out
to my rooms a moment, and I'll give you the whole matter in detail.
Better to run over the whole thing scientifically."
Doctor Paulus smiled at me dryly: "I shall be most happy," he shrilled,
and after a formal word or two with Mr. Tabor, stalked soberly around
the house. Mr. Tabor and I went into the living-room without speaking.
"Has Lady told you--?" I began.
He nodded. "I hardly know what to say to you, Crosby. I feel very sorry
for you both. I am sorry for all of us. Mrs. Tabor has not been herself
at all since the other day, and of course for the time everything else
is secondary to her. But don't think that I'm anything but very glad
personally." He held out his hand.
I took it in silence, and a moment later, Lady came in, greeting me very
quietly, as if my presence at this time were entirely a matter of
course. Father and daughter evidently understood each other. We sat
almost in silence until the two doctors returned, Paulus frowning
downward and Reid more jerkily busy than ever. The scene had the air of
a deliberate family council.
"Mr. Tabor," Doctor Paulus began, "I have thought better not to disturb
our patient by an interview just now, since she is asleep after so long
a wakefulness. Doctor Reid besides has made the conditions very clear.
Only on one point he has not been able to inform me wholly: It appears
that Mrs. Tabor has attended meetings of spiritualists habitually in
secret, which accounts for those excursions of which we know lately. How
long ago may we possibly date the commencement of this practice?"
"She was interested in spiritualism carelessly and as a sort of fad
before Miriam's marriage," Mr. Tabor answered, "but so far as I know,
she never actually attended any sittings then; and she hasn't spoken of
it for years. She might, of course, have kept it secret all along; it's
only within the last few months that we have tried to follow all her
movements."
Doctor Paulus settled heavily into a chair, and fell to drumming on the
arm of it. Lady stood beside her father, her arm resting upon his
shoulder; and Reid paced nervously up and down the room. A chirp and a
rustle made me notice the canary hanging in the farther window. Finally
Paulus looked up.
"Do you prefer to have my opinion in private?" he asked.
Mr. Tabor was looking older than I had ever seen him. "Your opinion
means a great deal to all of us, Doctor," he said. Reid stopped a moment
in his pacing.
"Well, my opinion is not quite positive, because I have not certainly
all the facts. That is the fault with all our opinions, that we never
can base them upon wholly complete data. Mrs. Tabor we have thought
insane, and there was much to bear that out. So if I had been certain
that all her illusions proceeded from within her own mind, I should have
said that it was surely so. But now Mr. Crosby makes known to us this
external suggestion of spirits, with its continual reminding of her
trouble and the unnatural strain. He argues also--and I am not at all
certain but that he argues rightly--that this practice, this
superstition of hers, may be the cause of her deterioration, so that by
removing it she will grow better or perhaps well. Is it so far clear?"
"Quite so, exactly," Reid broke in. "Perfectly clear, Doctor, perfectly.
But why not effect rather than cause? Another symptom, that's all.
Fixed idea, unnatural craving for communication with the other world,
because the mind is unbalanced by loss."
"I think that is to place the horse after the wagon, as we say. It is
certainly a vicious circle, but still--"
"Precisely," exclaimed Reid, "but the impulse comes--"
Doctor Paulus held up a white hand. "Wait a little. I do not come to
conclusions hastily. Now I conclude that Mrs. Tabor is thus far no more
than hysterical, and what we have to do is first to remove entirely from
her this superstitious influence." The shrill voice took suddenly a
sharper edge. "Moreover, Doctor Reid, I will say to you that only two
other men in the world know more than I know of my specialty, and of
those unfortunately neither one is here." He waited until Reid subsided
into a seat, then went slowly on: "Now the question is how this harmful
belief is to be removed, and that is the difficult matter."
"If she were in a sanatorium--" Reid began.
"She'd worry herself to pieces," Lady interrupted; and Doctor Paulus
nodded heavily. "She'd feel imprisoned, and imagine and brood and worry,
and the atmosphere of impersonal restraint would make her worse. We can
at least help to keep her mind off herself and make her cheerful."
"We can prevent from now on, I think, any further communications," said
Mr. Tabor.
"But the trouble's inside her own mind," snapped Reid; and the shrill
voice of his colleague added:
"That is partly true, so far as she has now hallucinations and
re-creates her own harm. Suppose then we held her from seeking harm
elsewhere, that is something; but still even so she feels restraint, and
still her misbelief goes on. If we could reach that--but how to make her
not thus believe?" He fell silent, and the white hand began its drumming
again. I felt irritably that he was the most deliberate man in the
world.
Suddenly I found Lady's eyes upon me. "I think Mr. Crosby has something
to suggest," she said, and with her words a suggestion came to me.
Reid snorted.
Doctor Paulus smiled very gravely. "That busy mind of Mr. Crosby has
before been useful," he said. "What is this idea, then?"
"It sounds pretty wild and theatrical," said I, "but couldn't we reach
the root of the trouble by making the cure come from the same source? We
might tell her for ever that her ideas were false and harmful, and
she'd only feel that we were profane. But if the medium herself denied
them--these visions and voices must be at least partly a fake. Now, if
we can persuade or force her to show Mrs. Tabor how it's done--and I
think I know how to exert pressure upon her--then might not the illusion
be dispelled once for all? I mean, whether Mrs. Mahl is a fake or not,
can't she be made to undo the work she has done, and discredit the
dangerous belief she has taught?"
Mr. Tabor was leaning forward in his chair as I finished. Reid was
walking the floor again and shrugging his shoulders; and Lady was
looking at me with eyes of absolute belief.
"Fake?" asked Doctor Paulus unexpectedly.
"Sham, trick, fraud," I explained, and he nodded, frowning.
"Oh, but this whole thing's absurd," Reid put in. "Crosby's a good
fellow and clever, and all that, but he's a layman and this is a
complicated problem. It's all one if after another. If the woman's
willing to expose herself, and if she does it well, and if mother
believes her, and if all this would have anything to do with the case.
Besides it would be a shock, a violent shock, a dangerous shock. No
sense at all in it. Melodrama isn't medicine."
"I am not so sure," said Doctor Paulus. "It is unusual and what you call
theatrical, but my work is unusual and many times theatrical also. I
have need to act much of the time with my patients. With the individual
mind one must use each time an individual cure. This at least strikes at
the cause of the trouble, and might succeed. With your permission, Mr.
Tabor, we will try it."
"But her heart, man, her heart," objected Reid, "what about her heart,
and the shock?"
"Well, we can dare, I think, to risk that. Every operation is a risk
that we judge wise to take, and this is a malignant misbelief to be
extirpated. There will be no unreasonable danger."
"If we can somehow get this medium out here--" said Mr. Tabor.
"That I shall manage, to bring her to-morrow afternoon, telling her
perhaps of a private sitting in the interest of science. I am not often
so much away, but this case is of importance." He rose, and looked at
his watch. "Is not that the motor-car now at the door?"
On the step he turned to me with his quizzical smile. "It is perhaps
well for us all to have your mind stimulated, Mr. Crosby. That is a
beautiful and intelligent young lady." He looked abruptly from me to the
midnight sky. "It appears, if I do not mistake, that we shall have
rain," he chirped. "Good night," and he stepped gravely into the
limousine and closed the door with a slam.
CHAPTER XXV
FIGHTING WITH SHADOWS
The morning came dark and stormy, with a September gale driving in from
the Sound, and the trees lashing and tossing gustily through gray slants
of rain. It was so dark that until nearly noon we kept the lights
burning; and through the unnatural morning we sat about listlessly,
unwilling to talk about the impending crisis and unable to talk long of
anything else for the unspoken weight of it upon our minds. Mrs. Tabor
kept her room, with Sheila and most of the time Lady busy with her. She
seemed hardly to remember the night before, save as a vague shock; and
physically she was less weakened by it than might have been expected;
but her mind wavered continually, and she confused with her
hallucination of Miriam the identity of those about her. The rest of us
talked and read by snatches, and stared restlessly out of the
rain-flecked windows. Mr. Tabor and I began a game of chess.
It was well on in the afternoon when the automobile came in sight,
swishing through the sodden grayness with curtains drawn and hood and
running-gear splashed with clinging clots of clay. None of us knew who
saw it first; only that we three men were at the door together
encouraging one another with our eyes. The medium greeted us with a gush
of caressing politeness, glancing covertly among us as she removed her
wraps, and bracing herself visibly beneath her unconcern. It was she who
made the first move, after Doctor Paulus had introduced us and we were
seated in Mr. Tabor's study behind closed doors.
"Mr. Crosby is the gentleman who turned the light on me last evening,"
she said. I wish I could express the undulating rise and fall of her
inflection. It was almost as if she sang the words. "Of course with him
present I would not be willing to do anything. It was very painful,
besides the risk, a dreadful shock like that."
"I shall not be in the room," I answered, "and I'm sorry to have caused
you any discomfort, Mrs. Mahl. We needed the light, I thought."
"Oh, it wasn't the pain;" she smiled with lifted eyes. "We grow so used
to it that we don't consider suffering. It was very dangerous, waking
one out of control suddenly. You might have killed me, but of course you
weren't aware." She turned to Doctor Paulus: "You understand, Doctor,
how it is, how it strains the vitality. The gentleman didn't realize."
We had become, at the outset, four strong men leagued against an
appealing and helpless woman. Perhaps I should say three; for Doctor
Paulus did not seem impressed.
"Yes, I know," he chirped. "We need not, however, consider that. You are
here, madam, as I have told you, for a scientific experiment under my
direction. Mr. Crosby will not be in the room. With your permission, I
will now explain the nature of that experiment. There is in this house a
lady, a patient of mine, Mrs. Tabor, who has for some time frequently
sat with you. She has on these occasions habitually conversed, as she
believes, with the spirit of her daughter Miriam that is some years
dead."
"That is our greatest work." She was not looking at Doctor Paulus, but
at the rest of us. "To be able to soften the great separation. You
others hope for a reunion beyond the grave, but we ourselves know. If
you could only believe--if you could realize how wonderful it is to have
communion with your--"
"We shall not go into that," said Doctor Paulus. "Mrs. Tabor, as I said,
believes. She is therefore in a hysterical condition to which you have
largely helped to contribute. I do not say she is insane; she is not.
But I do say she stands on the parting of the ways, and that, to save
her mind, or as it may be, her life, it is necessary that these
unhealthy conversations shall cease."
The medium looked now at Doctor Paulus. "The poor woman! Isn't it
terrible? But you know, I can't believe, Doctor, that the sittings do
anything but soothe and comfort her. It can't be that you think her
insane just because she believes in spiritualism? You believe too much
yourself for that."
Doctor Paulus looked at her steadily. "I have told you plainly that she
is not insane yet," he said.
"See here," snapped Reid. He had been shuffling his feet and fidgeting
in his chair for some minutes. "No use discussing the ethics of your
business with you. Let's come right down to the facts. We're not asking
for advice. We're stating a case. Plain fact is that Mrs. Tabor's going
insane. You can stop it by showing her that these suppressed spirits are
a trick. Will you do it, or not? That's the whole question."
The medium had risen, and was looking for her handkerchief, eying Reid
with meek fearlessness. "Of course, I'm used to this," she murmured,
"but not among educated people. A few centuries ago, Doctor, your
profession was regarded in the same light. I don't imagine we can have
anything in common. Is the car still at the door?"
"Hold on, Walter," Mr. Tabor interrupted quietly. "Mrs. Mahl, you must
allow for our feelings in this matter. Please sit down again. Now, we
make no charges against you. The issue is not whether you are sincere in
your beliefs, nor whether we agree with them." He moved one hand in a
slow, broad gesture. "All that we leave aside. The point is here: Mrs.
Tabor's belief in these things is harmful and dangerous to her. And it
must be done away with, like any other harmful and dangerous thing. We
don't ask whether it is illusion or fact; we ask you, for the sake of
her health, to make her believe that it is an illusion."
"You know, of course, that I have no control over the spirit voice,"
said Mrs. Mahl blandly. "Do you wish me to refuse to sit for her?"
"Here and now, we wish to have you sit for her," Doctor Paulus put in,
"and show her, once for all, how this her daughter's spirit is made. It
is to cure her of all credulousness in it, for with her mind clean of
such poison she shall recover."
"Would you have me lie to her even for her good?" The woman was either a
wonderful actress or a more wonderful self-deceiver. She turned to Mr.
Tabor appealingly: "How can I deny my own faith? Do you think the truth
can ever be wrong?"
Mr. Tabor went suddenly purple: "If it is the truth," he growled, "it's
a truth out of hell, and we're going to fight it. But it isn't."
Not in the least disconcerted by her false move, she turned back to
Doctor Paulus. "Doctor," she said, dropping her air of martyrdom and
speaking more incisively than I had yet heard her, "you are the one who
knows. These gentlemen do not understand. You know that there are
mysteries here that your science can't explain, whatever you think about
them. You know the difference between my powers and the fakes of a
two-dollar clairvoyant. You know it in spite of yourself. Now tell me
how you can reconcile it with your conscience, to bring me up here to
listen to such a proposal as this?"
The alienist's Napoleonic face hardened, and his voice took a shriller
edge.
"We shall not go into that," he said. "And now we will make an end of
this talking. You are partly sincere, but you are charlatan also. I have
seen all the records, and I have attended your sittings, and I have all
the data, you understand. And I have my position, so that people listen
to me. You have done tricks, once, twice, many times, and I have all the
facts and the dates. So. You will do as I say, and I will remember that
you are part honest. Or, otherwise; if you will not, then I expose you
altogether, publicly."
"You can say anything you like," she retorted coolly. "I don't care a
bit. Just because you're a big doctor, you needn't think I care. Folks
are so used to you scientific men denying everything, that when you
support us it helps, and when you attack us it don't matter. You think
your little crowd of wise ones is the whole earth. My clients have faith
in me. Go ahead, and expose all you want to."
"Wouldn't it be wiser to make friends of us?" Mr. Tabor asked slowly.
"We'll make you a by-word," sputtered Reid. "We'll run you out of the
country. That's what we'll do, we'll run you out of the country."
She smiled: "All right, Doctor. Run along." Then rising to her feet
again, with a sweeping gesture, "Say what you will, all of you," she
cried tragically, "I defy you!" And she marched over to the door.
"One moment, Mrs. Mahl," said I. "The man who was with me at your
sittings was a reporter, the only one there. If I say so, he'll
scare-head you as a faker--in letters all across the front page. You
won't be a serious impostor, or have the strength of a weak cause. We
won't attack you and give you a chance to defend yourself, but we'll
make a nationwide mock of you. You'll be a joke, with comic drawings."
"You're trying to bluff me," she sneered. Then all at once, her coolness
gave way, and she flung herself around upon us in a flood of tears:
"You're a nice crowd of men, aren't you?" she sobbed, "to make a dead
set on one woman this way!" She came swiftly up to me, and caught both
my hands, leaning against me with upturned face. "Did you see anything
wrong at my sittings? Have you anything against me, that you'd swear to,
yourself?"
"Not a thing," I answered. "What of that?"
"Then you'd _lie_ about me?" I could feel the hurry of her breathing.
"I would," said I, "with the greatest pleasure, in every paper in New
York." I stepped back. "Excuse me, I'm going to telephone."
She looked around at the others with the eyes of a cornered cat. Then
she dropped back into her chair.
"Very well," she sniffed, "I'll do it. I'll deny my faith to preserve my
usefulness. And God will punish you."
The granite face of Doctor Immanuel Paulus relaxed into a grim smile.
"The press, in America," said he. "That is a fine weapon."
Mrs. Mahl, having finally yielded, was not long in recovering from her
emotion; and while Mr. Tabor went to bring his wife, the two doctors
rapidly discussed the precise needs of the case, and with the medium's
assistance formulated a plan of action. I am bound to say that she
entered into the scheme as unreservedly as though it had been from the
first her own; suggesting eagerly how this and that detail might best be
managed, and showing a familiarity with Mrs. Tabor's trouble, and with
nervous abnormality in general, hardly less complete and practical than
theirs. Presently we heard the voices of the others in the hall, and she
went quietly out to meet them. Then came a confused blur of tones, Mrs.
Tabor's in timid protest and Sheila and Lady in reassurance; then Mr.
Tabor, a little louder than the rest: "Not in the least, my dear. Why
should I? You should have told me all about it from the first." Then the
voices grew quieter, and at last blunted into silence behind the heavy
curtains of the living-room. We waited an interminable five minutes
gazing into one another's rigid faces, and hearing only the restless
movement of Reid. At last, Doctor Paulus nodded at us, and we tiptoed
noiselessly across the hall to where around the edges of the close-drawn
curtains we could hear and see.
At a little card-table, drawn out into the center of the floor, sat Mrs.
Tabor and the medium, face to face. Between them and beyond the table
was Mr. Tabor; Lady sat on her mother's nearer side, and Sheila, with
her back to us, completed the circle. They were all leaning forward
intently, something in the attitude of people saying grace before a
meal. The windows were not covered, but the dull light of the late and
stormy afternoon came inward only as a leaden grayness, in which faces
and the details of the surroundings were heavily and vaguely visible,
like shadows of themselves. In the window at the far end of the room,
the canary hopped carelessly about his cage, with an occasional
cricket-like chirp; and but for this the house was quiet enough for us
to hear the swish of wind along the leaves of the vine-covered veranda
and the ripple of the rain upon the glass.
I knew now that my excited sensations at the previous sittings must have
been imaginary in their origin; for even here, in the presence of this
open and prearranged imposture, I felt the same curious sense of
tension, the same intimacy as of a surrounding crowd, the same
oppressive heaviness of the atmosphere. I could hardly believe in the
airy spaciousness of the high room, or the physical distance between me
and my fellow-watchers. My breath came laboriously, and I wondered how
those within could fail to hear the slow pounding of my heart and the
rustle of our heavy breathing behind the curtain. Out of the corner of
my eye, I saw Reid raise his brows toward his superior, and he answered
by a frowning nod. At last after an interval doubtless far shorter than
before, but interminable to our strained anticipation, the medium
shuddered slightly, and fell back in her chair. Her face twisted
convulsively, and her hands and head made little twitching, aimless
movements, unpleasantly like the reflexive spasms of a dying animal. She
moaned softly once or twice, then relaxed limply; and the voice of
Miriam began to speak.
"Here I am--mother--why did--you--bring me here?"
Mr. Tabor leaned back, his white brows drawn into a savage knot. Sheila
covered her eyes and fell to rocking slowly to and fro. Lady made no
sign; but I knew what sacrilege it was to her, and I could hardly hold
myself. Yet the mother answered without regarding them.
"I like to have you near me, dearest. Does this place trouble you?"
"Why should it--trouble me?-- As well--here--as anywhere-- Nothing
matters--to me."
"That's more like yourself than anything I've heard you say-- George,
did you hear? Can you doubt now after that?"
Her husband answered only with a gesture, and the voice went on.
"Are you--sure you know me, mother?"
The two scientists exchanged glances. Mrs. Tabor began a hurried
protest, but the voice interrupted.
"Because you may be--only imagining--it may not be real."
The querulous throaty tone was the same, but the words came each time
more quickly, and the wail was dying out of them. The comic aspect of
the whole scene struck me suddenly with revolting. It was so terribly
important and at the same time such a tawdry practical joke.
"Miriam, what are you saying?" Mrs. Tabor was leaning forward toward the
sound, her face tense and frightened.
"Oh, anything I please--it's quite easy-- Don't you begin to
understand?"
"Oh, what do you mean? Miriam! Mrs. Mahl, what is happening?"
The medium never stirred, nor moved a muscle of her face, as the
spirit-voice replied: "Just the same thing that's happened right along,
Mrs. Tabor. Don't you see now? You were always so sure that any voice
could do for you to recognize. You've laid yourself open to it."
Mrs. Tabor looked for the first time as one might who listens to the
dead. Her voice frightened me, it was so calm.
"What do you mean?" she said monotonously. I saw Reid move as if to part
the curtain, glancing sharply at Doctor Paulus as he did so; but the
older man's mouth was a bloodless line, and he shook his great head,
whispering: "Not yet, Reid; not yet."
"Listen," said the voice. "Here's what you call Miriam talking." Its
tone changed abruptly: "Now here's me. I'm doing it." The medium rose
quietly from her chair, and stepped out into the room: "The whole
thing's just--a trick," she said, shifting from one voice to the other
in alternate phrases. "You believe in--ghosts--and so I gave you--what
you believe." She came around the table. "Do you understand now?"
Sheila was sobbing aloud, but none of the others seemed to notice her.
Mrs. Tabor sat for an instant as if frozen, staring vacantly in front of
her. Then as the medium approached, she shrank away suddenly with a
childish cry of fear. "It isn't true!" she cried. "It isn't true!" and
she swung limply forward upon the little table, and lay still.
Lady and Mr. Tabor were beside her in an instant, as we three sprang
forward into the room. Sheila was on her feet, muttering, "You've killed
her, ye brute beasts--" But a look from Doctor Paulus silenced her, as
he waved the rest of us back and bent over the unconscious woman, his
broad fingers pressed along the slender wrist. For a moment we watched
his face in silence, as if it were the very face of destiny. Then the
canary gave a sudden shrill scream, and fluttered palpitating into a
corner of its cage, beating so violently against the wires that tiny
feathers floated loosely out and down. The medium whispered: "Oh, my
God!" and cringed sidelong, raising her arms as if one struck at her.
And my hair thrilled and my heart sickened and stopped, for even while
she spoke, a voice came out of the empty air above our heads; a voice
like nothing that I had heard before, a woman's voice thin and
tremulous, with a fragile resonance in it, as though it spoke into a
bell.
"Oh, mother, mother," it wailed. "Why don't you let me go and rest?"
CHAPTER XXVI
AND REDISCOVERING REALITIES
I think Lady clutched at my arm, but I can not remember. The one memory
that remains to me of that moment is the face of Doctor Paulus. His
color had turned from ivory to chalk, his mouth was drawn open in a
snarling square and his eyes shrank back hollowly, glaring into
nothingness. For a second he stood so, clawing in front of him with his
hands, a living horror. Then with an effort that shook him from head to
foot, the strong soul of the man commanded him. "It's nothing," he
whispered, "I understand it. Take hold of yourselves." The hands
dropped, and he bent again over Mrs. Tabor. The next moment Sheila had
sprung out in front of us, and was speaking to the voice that we could
not see.
"Miriam Reid," she cried, in a high chanting cadence between song and
speech, "if it's yourself that's here, lie down to your rest again, an'
leave us. Go back to your place in purgatory, darling till the white
angels come to carry ye higher in their own good time. In the name av
God an' Mary, in the name av the Blessed Saints, go back! Go back to
your home between hell an' Heaven, an' come no more among us here!"
"Get some water, Reid," snapped Doctor Paulus. "Quiet that woman, some
of you."
But Sheila had done before we could move or speak to her. With her last
words, she flung her arms wide apart, above her head, and brought them
inward and downward in some strange formal gesture. Then as swiftly and
certainly as if she had planned it all from the beginning, she caught a
little bottle from her breast, and sprinkled its contents in the
upturned face of Mrs. Tabor. We caught hold of her just as she was
making the sign of the Cross. But she was perfectly quiet now, with
nothing more to say or do, and stood motionless like the rest of us,
breathing deep breaths and watching.
The cool shock of the water did its work. Mrs. Tabor's eyelids quivered,
and she gasped faintly. Reid came hurrying back with a glass of water,
and stood at the side of his superior, looking foolishly disappointed
as he realized the anticipation of his errand.
"She comes out of it all right," Doctor Paulus muttered. "No harm. It is
more the trance condition than an ordinary faint." He looked up at
Sheila with a grim smile. "Superstition is a fine thing--sometimes,
under medical direction. Now I leave her to you, Reid, a few minutes. It
is better that at first she sees only her own." He beckoned to the
medium, and the two went out of the room together. Then as we stood
about, Mrs. Tabor caught another breath, and another. Her hands groped a
moment, and her eyes opened. She looked around at us wonderingly, as we
raised her up in her seat.
"Thank God," said Lady softly. And Sheila answered from the other side:
"The Saints be praised."
She sat very quietly for a little time, looking about her. Lady had
wiped the water from her face, and she seemed her natural self again,
the girlish color returning to her cheeks and a certain bird-like
vivacity in her whole pose. Then, as if memory of a sudden returned to
her, she crumpled over, hiding her tragic little face in her hands. She
began to cry softly at first in little sobbing, heart-broken gasps,
which took on gradually a wailing intensity very dreadful to hear.
"Oh, my dear, my dear, my dear!" she repeated over and over again, in a
desolate and ceaseless iteration that grew into a horror and which alone
we dared not stop. Doctor Paulus, we knew, must be within call and
listening. I think that all of us wondered why he did not return; we
resented this permitted continuance of suffering. Finally it was Lady
who made the first move among us.
She dropped on her knees beside her mother, putting her arm tenderly
about the convulsed little form, and pressing her cheek close against
her mother's own. "Mother, dear," she whispered very softly.
A pause came in Mrs. Tabor's sobbing and she stretched one hand half as
if to push Lady away, half as if to hold her as something real and
tangible.
"Where is the doctor?" she asked.
Evidently Doctor Paulus had been listening, for at the murmured question
he stepped in and came across the room to Mrs. Tabor. She faced him
shrinkingly, but nerved herself for the question.
"Why have you taken her from me?" she asked brokenly, at last.
Doctor Paulus' face was very kind and very serious.
"I know that now it seems so," he answered, "but all that will for you
pass away. It is not that we have taken the daughter that is dead away.
For you see now, and you will understand how all that came only out of
yourself, like a picture that you made of your own sorrow. It was in a
circle, how you made by grieving this grief like a thing from outside
coming to make you grieve the more. A circle that seems as well to begin
at one point as at another, is it not so? And this cruel light so
suddenly has made you see the true beginning. So now it is all gone
because you have known that it was never there at all." He moved his
broad hands suddenly as one waving away smoke. "There is not any longer
for you that other world which never was, which was a burden and a
trouble always to you because it was made out of trouble. But this good
world you have again, and of that only the good part, all your dear ones
here truly returned because that evil nothing is gone from between. Is
it not so?"
She had been facing him like a creature at bay, silent and resisting,
the horror in her strained little by little into desperation as he
spoke. I do not know what held us from interference, for the man was
blindly tottering on toward a precipice, clumsily ignorant of the
condition he must face; and every fatuous word grated like sand between
the teeth. One had a desire to lay physical hands upon him.
"Doctor," Reid broke out, "for God's sake--"
Doctor Paulus never turned his head. "Be still, young man," he said
quietly, and Reid's voice died into a stammer as he went steadily on.
"If it was cruel, this way to show you wholly the truth, so we must hurt
once not to have to hurt more. But it is better to have the truth now,
is it not so? For you have all these that are living, and you will be
well again. Oh, there is no miracle; all does not in a moment change.
Now and then still you will hear the voices and see these things which
are not. But you will know now that they are only of yourself, and so
they will go away. This we understand in the good old story of casting
out devils. And it is good to be sure that the daughter is at rest, from
the beginning. I want you to understand it all very clearly. You have
been sick, but you are going to be well, not well all at once, remember,
but better day by day, and when discouraging days come I want you to
remember this: that even when things seem confused and unhappy and
unreal, yet it does not make any difference. For you have your loved
ones about you and they will help and when things are bad and you are a
little afraid, you can call for Doctor Paulus. I have never given my
word falsely or for encouraging alone. Time and these loved ones will
help, but most of all your own will will make your life what it should
be, will bring you back to happiness."
It is impossible to describe the convincing strength of the man as he
stood towering among us; the very compellent force of his individuality
was reflected in the dawning belief in Mrs. Tabor's eyes. Like a child
she laid her little hand in the doctor's great one.
"I am going to try, Doctor," she said. "I see that I have been sick, but
with all you dear people I shall get well." And for the first time her
eyes left the doctor's face and turned to the rest of us who had drawn a
little apart, but as they met mine their expression changed and a
flicker of the old terror came into them, a terror that was reflected in
my own heart.
"George," she asked sharply, "what is Mr. Crosby doing here?"
"Why, my dear--" Mr. Tabor stammered.
"I know. I remember now." She struggled to her feet, and the old terror
was upon her face. "I meant to tell you about it. Mr. Crosby has not
been honest with us. I came into the room a while ago and found him with
Lady, and--" She broke off suddenly, looking quickly from one to another
of our startled faces. "What is the matter with you all?" she cried;
then in that level, hollow tone we had learned to fear. "I see now. You
know--you have known all along; and that was the secret you were keeping
from me."
No one spoke. She looked downward at her hands, then glanced again in a
puzzled way from one to another of us. Mr. Tabor was the picture of
despair, old and white and worn, his whole strength shaken by the vision
of our final failure. Lady stood erect, her color coming and going,
tragedy in her eyes; and near her Sheila, a gaunt and sturdy comfort,
sure in the inherited wisdom of homely faith. And as I looked at these
two women, each in her own way upheld beyond her strength or her
understanding, I made my resolve. I glanced at Doctor Paulus, but he
made no sign. If I must take the responsibility of an answer upon myself
I determined that at the worst I would leave no issue of the fight
unknown; if we had failed, we must measure the whole depth of our
failure.
"Mrs. Tabor," I said, "there is no secret any more. Lady is going to
marry me."
She gave me one look. "All that I had left," she whispered; and then
again she began to cry, but this time softly, turning away from us
toward the window at the end of the room. Sheila followed and put an arm
about her, and the two stood together apart from us under the fading
light, while above their heads the canary burst out into a mockery of
song. No one knew what to say or do; but after a little, Reid's itch for
efficiency drove him into speech.
"It all comes right down to this, mother--" he began. A look from Lady
dried the words upon his tongue, and the silence fell once more. Then
slowly and confidently Lady came over to me and slipped her dear hand
into mine.
"You are right, Laurence," she said, "the truth is best for all of us
now."
"Mrs. Tabor," said Doctor Paulus, "you do not lose your daughter, but
gain, I think, a very good son. Indeed it is Mr. Crosby who has helped
us much to our knowledge that you were going to be well and strong
again."
The calm strange voice broke in at just the precise instant to relieve
the tension. Mrs. Tabor looked up.
"Oh, you need not be afraid, Doctor," she said, as she wiped away her
tears, "but you do well to remind me. I know--I know there's nothing
really the matter with me except that I'm a little tired. And goodness
gracious, what are you good people standing there so stiff and solemn
for? It's all right! you've made me understand. Turn the lights on,
Sheila--and-- Lady, what have you done with my ring?" She came across to
where we stood together, and took a hand of each in her own. She glanced
over her shoulder at Paulus, "And you mustn't any of you think of going
away this weather. The house is big enough to hold us--and, Mr. Crosby,
I'm going to put you in Miriam's room."
THE END
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