THE CHOSEN INSTRUMENT OF FATE
Mr. Banks and Timothy Fletcher stood in Captain Wigmore's hall,
breathing quietly and straining eyes and ears. All was silent. All
seemed safe. Banks opened the door. The little porch was empty. He
stepped across the threshold, followed closely by the staggering
Fletcher. They pushed open the door of the porch, and stumbled out of
that horrible house, into the frosty moonshine, onto the crisp snow. No
lurking danger confronted them. They were free.
"Thank God!" cried Harvey P. Banks, hysterically.
The air was bitterly cold, and the two fugitives were without overcoats.
They were so overjoyed to find themselves free men again, however, that
they felt no discomfort from the gnawing of the frozen air. The little
servant clung to the big sportsman; and so they moved down the narrow
path and through the gate onto the highway.
"He's played his last dirty trick on me--or any one else," mumbled
Fletcher. "I've stood 'im too long--too long! Now, he'll go back where
he come from--the grinnin' snake!"
He leaned heavily on Banks' arm and laughed shrilly.
"Which way?" asked Banks.
"Don't care," replied Fletcher.
"We'll head straight for Rayton's, then," said Banks. "It seems a month
since I've seen Reginald. Then we'll smoke a cigar. Then we'll hunt up
our friend--and put the boots to him."
The cold, clean air strengthened them, and they were soon stepping out
at quite a respectable pace. They even crawled over fences and took
short cuts across snow-drifted meadows and pastures. They did not meet
or see a human being, for by this time the searchers were all miles away
from the settlement. They rested for a minute against Rayton's front
gate, then went quickly up the long, twisting road toward the low house
and glowing windows.
"There's company," said Timothy. "Maybe they're havin' another game o'
poker." He grinned at Banks. "Oh, you're easy! A baby could fool the lot
o' you," he added.
"Right you are. That is the sitting-room window. The curtains are not
drawn tight. Let's look in and see who's there," said Banks.
Banks took the first look.
"Reginald and Nash," he whispered. "And the girl--yes, and Jim and Dick.
And who's that sitting with his back to the window?"
Old Fletcher edged himself into the place of vantage.
"It's _him_!" he whispered. "It's that snake!"
"Quiet!" cautioned the other. "Look! He's on his feet. He's wiping his
eyes. There's been trouble. They have hurt his feelings, the poor, dear
old saint!"
Old Timothy Fletcher trembled like a wet dog.
"I'll saint 'im!" he hissed. "Come on! Come on!"
They left the window, opened the back door noiselessly, crossed the
kitchen on tiptoes, and threw open the door of the sitting room.
Fletcher pushed past Banks, and darted up to within a foot of Captain
Wigmore.
"You lyin', murderin', stinkin' old lunatic!" he screamed. "You thought
you'd leave me to starve, did you? It's back to the mad-house for
you--damn you!"
Every one in the room was standing, staring breathlessly. For a moment
Wigmore gaped at his old servant, his mouth open, his eyes like stones.
Then, with a choking cry, he reeled aside. Mr. Banks gripped him by the
shoulder, and shook him furiously.
"You devil!" he roared. "You smirking hypocrite! You've come to the end
of your deviltries!"
Wigmore made a dash for the door. Timothy Fletcher sprang in front of
him, and was hurled to the floor. Then Mr. Banks jumped after Wigmore,
caught the back of his coat, and at the same moment tripped over the
prostrate Timothy and crashed to earth. The little room was now in
tumult and confusion. Nell Harley crouched in a corner. Rayton stood
guard in front of her, his sound arm extended. Jim Harley sat upon the
shoulders of the big New Yorker, crying: "No murder here! No murder
here! What d'ye mean by it?"
Timothy, lying flat, clung to Wigmore's right leg.
"Stop him!" he yelled. "Stop him! He's mad--a ravin' lunatic!"
Wigmore kicked his old servant in the face, and wrenched himself clear.
In another second he would have been out of the room and away--but just
then Dick Goodine and Doctor Nash closed with the terrible old man,
crushed him to the floor, and held him there. They had their hands full,
but they continued to hold him down.
There came a brief lull in the terrific tumult--but the excitement was
not yet over. Mr. Harvey P. Banks was indignant. A madman had tried to
starve him to death, and now a presumably sane man sat upon his back and
called him a murderer. All his natural blandness was burned
out--scorched to a flake of ash. The passions of fur-clad, pit-dwelling
ancestors flamed within him. He arose furiously, twisted around, and
flung Jim Harley aside. He gripped him by the breast with his left hand,
by the right wrist with his right. He was quick as a lizard and strong
as a lion. The lumberman was like a child in his hands.
"You fool!" he cried, glaring. "What d'you mean by it? So you are on
Wigmore's side, are you?--on the side of the man who tried to murder his
servant and me--yes, and who marked and dealt those cursed cards! You'd
sit on _my_ back, would you? For two pins I'd pick you up and heave you
against the wall. Tell me--were you in league with this old devil? Tell
me quick--or I'll finish you! Did you know Wigmore was marking those
cards?"
"The cards!" cried poor Jim. "No, no! On my soul, I didn't know it! So
help me God, I thought it was the family curse!"
"You fool!" exclaimed Banks, loosening his grip and turning away. His
rage had also fallen to ashes, leaving his big face drawn and gray, and
his great limbs trembling. His eyes were dim.
"That snake poisons the air," he muttered.
He stepped across to where Goodine and Nash held down the squirming
captain.
"Let him get up. He has a good many things to explain to us," he said
quietly.
Just then poor old Fletcher raised his head, showing a cut and bleeding
mouth. Banks lifted him in his arms, and laid him on the couch.
"Don't stand there like a wooden image!" he said to Jim Harley. "Your
inactivity has done quite enough harm already. This old man has been
gagged, bound, and starved for days. Get him some brandy."
As Nash and Goodine removed their knees and hands from Captain Wigmore,
that old sinner began to laugh immoderately. Still laughing, he got
nimbly to his feet, bowed to right and left, and sat down in an
armchair.
"Mad as a dog," mumbled Fletcher, with his bleeding lips. "He never was
rightly cured, anyhow!"
"Mad?" queried the captain. "If you mean insane, my good fellow, you are
very much mistaken. That's right, Jim. Give him a drink--but first wipe
the blood off his lips. Don't spoil the flavor of good whisky with bad
blood."
"If you are not insane," said Banks, "then you are utterly evil--a thing
to crush out like a poisonous snake. But to look you in the eyes is to
read the proof of your insanity."
Wigmore frowned. "Banks," he said, "you are feeble. You have the mind
and outlook upon life of a boy of ten--of a backward boy of ten. But
even so, I believe you have more intelligence than our friends here.
However that may be, you managed to blunder across the right trail at
last. That's why I took you in hand."
"You seem to forget that I have escaped you," said Banks.
Wigmore nodded. "I made the mistake of underestimating your bodily
strength," he admitted. "I don't understand even now, how you managed
to get out of that closet. You couldn't kick down the door--even with
those boots."
"Never mind about that!" exclaimed Jim Harley, white with excitement.
"Tell me about the cards! What do you know about the cards?"
The old man gazed at him for a second or two with a face of derisive
inquiry, and then burst again into furious laughter.
"Absolutely cracked," said Doctor Nash. "Absolutely, utterly, hopelessly
off his chump!"
Wigmore ceased his wild laughter so suddenly that every one was
startled.
"Jim," he said, with a bland leer, "you are so simple and unsuspecting
that I hate to tell you the truth. But I have to do it, Jim, just to
prove to Banks and the rest that I am not insane. Jim, my boy, _I am the
chosen instrument of Fate_."
A brief, puzzled silence followed, which was broken by the croaking
voice of old Timothy Fletcher.
"Forget it!" snarled Timothy. "D'you mind the time you was the Sultan of
Turkey?"
Wigmore smiled at his servant, then glanced around the room, and tapped
his forehead suggestively with a finger.
"Instrument of Fate? Sultan of Turkey?" queried Banks.
Jim Harley leaned forward, clutched the old man's shoulder, and shook it
violently.
"What do you know about those cards?" he cried. "Tell me that--quick!"
"You seem to be in a terrible hurry, all of a sudden," replied the
captain. "Oh, well, it does not matter; but if you really knew just who
I am--if you fully realized who I am--you'd treat me with more
consideration. I am the chosen husband of your sister. I am her
_destiny_."
"Who _are_ you?" asked Harley, scarcely above a whisper.
"I am the instrument of the Fate that haunts the steps of your mother's
daughter," replied Wigmore. "I am the chosen instrument. I deal the
cards--and the blow falls. I do not have to soil my hands--to strike the
blows. I mark the cards, and deal them--and Fate does the rest, through
such tools as come to her hand."
He leered at Dick Goodine.
"Then you admit that you marked and dealt the cards!" cried Harley.
"Certainly, my dear boy. It was my duty to do so--just as it was my duty
to quiet Banks when he came blundering into my affairs. I am the keeper
of the curse--the instrument of Fate--the--the----"
He pressed both hands to his forehead, and sighed.
"The star boarder at the Fairville Insane Asylum," snarled Timothy
Fletcher, "an' may the devil catch that fool doctor who said you was
cured!" he added.
Wigmore lifted his face.
"I am John Edward Jackson," he said pleasantly, as if introducing
himself to strangers, "Captain Jackson--the exile."
"Jackson!" cried Jim Harley. "Jackson? What do you mean? Not _the_
Jackson?"
The old man nodded. "That's right, Jim. That's why I marked the cards. I
came here on purpose to look after Nell, you know. It was my duty."
"He is mad," said Banks. "He is not responsible for what he says or
does. He must be taken back to Fairville."
"Yes, I am Captain Jackson," continued old Wigmore. "I had to go away
from my home, so I took to seafaring for a while. What was the trouble?
Sometimes I remember and sometimes I forget. I got hold of a mine and
made money. Then I made a voyage back to my own country, on very
important business."
"That's one of the stories he used to tell me when I was his keeper in
the lunatic asylum," said Timothy Fletcher. "Sometimes he was Jackson
an' sometimes he was the Grand Turk."
"_You_ keep your mouth shut till you are spoken to," screamed Wigmore,
in sudden fury.
Harley stooped and gazed anxiously at the old man.
"Did you murder my father?" he asked, his voice shaking.
For a second the other stared at him blankly.
"Certainly not!" he cried indignantly. "All I have to do is place the
card! I engaged an old sailor, or something of the kind, to dispatch
your father. I indicate. Fate destroys."
Then he leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily.