It did not please the young man to ask questions in this, his native
city. He had spent time enough in studying a map of New York, and he
knew his way about pretty well. But there were, naturally, things he did
not know; for instance, he went to the Pennsylvania Station, and learned
that his train for Stamford left from the Grand Central.
It was after one o’clock, then, so he went into a restaurant and had
lunch before going farther--his first meal in the United States. He had
never enjoyed anything more. To walk through these streets, among the
hurrying and indifferent crowds, to be one of them, to feel himself at
home here, filled him with something like elation. It was _his_ city.
A little after three, he boarded the train. And, in spite of his caution
and his native reticence, he would, at that moment, have relished a talk
with one of his fellow countrymen in the smoking car. He was not
disposed to start a conversation without encouragement, though, and
nobody took any notice of him; nobody had, since his landing. A clever
criminal, escaping from justice, could not have been much more
successful in leaving no traces.
When he got out at Stamford, the rain had ceased, but the sky was
menacing and overcast. He stood for a moment on the platform, again
reluctant to ask questions, but there was no help for it this time.
He stopped a grocer’s boy, and asked him where Wygatt Road was. The boy
told him. “But it’s a long way,” he added.
Ross didn’t care how long it was. This was the first suburban town he
had seen, and it charmed him. Such a prosperous, orderly, lively town!
He thought that he might like to live here.
Dusk was closing in early this dismal day; it was almost dark before he
reached the hill he had to climb. The street lights came on, and through
the windows of houses he could see shaded lamps and the shadows of
people, comfortable rooms, bright little glimpses of domestic life. Past
him, along the road, went an endless stream of motor cars, with a rush
and a glare of light; he scarcely realized that he was in the country
until he came to the top of the hill, and saw before him a signpost
marked “Wygatt Road.”
He turned down here, and was at once in another world. It was dark, and
very, very quiet; no motors passed him, no lights shone out; he walked
on, quite alone, under tall old trees, to which clung a few leaves,
trembling in every gust of wind. Overhead, ragged black clouds flew
across the darkening sky; the night was coming fast.
And now he began to think about his extraordinary errand, now he began
to think that he had been a fool to come. But it did not occur to him to
turn back. He never did that. He was sorry he had begun a foolish thing,
but, now that he had begun, he would carry on. If it took him all night,
if it took him a week, he would find “Day’s End,” and do what he had set
out to do.
There was no one to ask questions of here; no human being, no house in
sight. On one side of him was a belt of woodland, on the other an iron
fence which appeared to run on interminably. Well, he also would go on
interminably, and if “Day’s End” was on Wygatt Road, he would certainly
come to it in the course of time.
He did. There was a break in the fence at last, made by a gateway
between stone pillars, and here he saw, by the light of a match, “Day’s
End,” in gilt letters. He opened the gate and went in; a long driveway
stretched before him, tree lined; he went up it briskly.
He saw nothing, and heard nothing, but he had a vague impression that
the grounds through which he passed were somber and forbidding, and he
expected to see a house in keeping with this notion, an old, sinister
house, suitable for people in “terrible trouble.”
It was not like that, though. A turn in the driveway brought him in
sight of a long façade of lighted windows, and a large, substantial,
matter-of-fact house--which made him feel more of a fool than ever. Yet,
still he went on, mounted the steps of a brick terrace, and rang the
doorbell.
The door was opened promptly by a pale and disagreeable young housemaid.
“I want to see Mrs. Jones, the housekeeper,” said Ross.
“You ought to go to the back door!” she remarked sharply. “You ought to
know that much!”
Ross did not like this, but it was not his habit to let his temper
override discretion.
“All right!” he said, and was turning away, ready to go to the back
door, ready to go anywhere, so that he accomplished his mission, when
the housemaid relented.
“As long as you’re here, you can come in,” she said. “This way!”
He followed her across a wide hall, with a polished floor and a fine old
stairway rising from it, to a door at the farther end.
“It’s the room right in front of you when you get to the top,” she
explained.
She opened the door; he went in, she closed the door behind him, and he
found himself in what seemed a pitch-black cupboard. But, as he moved
forward, his foot struck against a step, and he began cautiously to
mount a narrow, boxed-in staircase, until his outstretched hand touched
a door.
He pushed it open, and found himself in a well lighted corridor, and,
facing him, a white painted door. And behind that door he heard some
one sobbing, in a low, wailing voice.
He stopped, rather at a loss. Then, because he would not go back, he
went forward, and knocked.
“Who is it?” cried a voice.
“I came to see Mrs. Jones,” Ross replied casually.
There was a moment’s silence; then the door was opened by the loveliest
creature he had ever seen in his life. He had only a glimpse of her, of
an exquisite face, very white, with dark and delicate brows and great
black eyes, a face childlike in its soft, pure contours, but terribly
unchildlike in its expression of terror and despair.
“Wait!” she said. “Go in and wait!”
She brushed past him, with a flutter of her filmy gray dress and a
breath of some faint fragrance, and vanished down the back stairs.
Ross went in as he was instructed, and stood facing the door, waiting
with a certain uneasiness for some one to come. But nobody did come, and
at last he turned and looked about him.
It was a cozy room, with a cheerful red carpet on the floor, and plenty
of solid, old-fashioned walnut furniture about; it was well warmed by a
steam radiator, and well lighted by an alabaster electrolier in the
ceiling; a clock ticked smartly on the mantelpiece, and on the sofa lay
a big yellow cat, pretending to be asleep, with one gleaming eye half
open.
It was such a thoroughly commonplace and comfortable room that the young
man felt reassured. He decided to ignore the wailing voice he had heard,
and the pallid, lovely creature who had opened the door. For all he
knew, such things might be quite usual in this household, and, anyhow,
it was none of his business. He had come to see Mrs. Jones, and to
explain an error.
He watched the smart little clock for five minutes, and then began to
grow restless. He had walked a good deal this day; he was tired; his
shoes were wet; he wanted to be done with this business and to get away.
Another five minutes--
It seemed to him that this was the quietest room he had ever known. Even
the tick of the clock was muffled, like a tiny pulse. It was altogether
too quiet. He didn’t like it at all.
He frowned uneasily, and turned toward the only other living thing
there, the cat. He laid his hand on its head, and in a sort of drowsy
ecstasy the cat stretched out to a surprising length, opening and
curling up its paws. Its claws caught in the linen cover and pulled it
up a little, and Ross saw something under the sofa.
He doubted the very evidence of his senses. He could not believe that he
saw a hand stretched out on the red carpet. He stared and stared at it,
incredulous.
Then he stooped and lifted up the cover and looked under the sofa. There
lay a man, face downward.
He was very still. It seemed to Ross that it was this man’s stillness
which he had felt in the room; it was the quiet of death.