WHAT MATTERED MOST
With that scream Harry's every nerve had become as tense as wire. In
his mind's eye he saw her innocency tangled in this hideous web of
burglary--perhaps of murder, her name on every lip, her face blazoned
in every yellow extra, as the "woman in the case!" The crisis spelled
_now_ and he acted with swift instinct.
He snatched the black mask from the floor and adjusted it to his own
face, then darted to the safe and jerked open its heavy door. While
the retreating servant's alarm still echoed from the hallway of the
empty wing, his fingers, with the swiftness of desperation, went
searching the papers in the safe. He came almost instantly upon what
he sought--a thin packet of letters, tied together with a small
photographic plate, ticketed with the name "Beverly Allen."
Echo had shrunk back, was leaning now against the wall, thriving terror
of him in her eyes. He came toward her.
"Here!" he said, his voice muffled by the mask. "The letters! Take
them and go--go instantly!"
"He has--killed him!" she gasped. "Why do you--"
Harry was sick with apprehension. As in the instant of drowning the
smothering intelligence sees pass in vivid review before it the
innumerable mosaic of a busy life-time, so he saw, swiftly arrayed in
the imminent climax, the perilous hazards by which she was surrounded.
Suppose Craig was dead, and she were apprehended, the letters put in
evidence, and she told the truth, word for word, as she knew it. If
her own estimate of their significance was a correct one, might not the
most sinister suspicion then rest upon her? And if, as seemed likely,
she was wrong in that surmise--even were the presence of accidental
burglars proven--what could explain her presence there, alone in
Craig's midnight library? Would it not seem to the great sceptical,
sophisticated world only a tale invented to cover the old hackneyed
story of a woman's infatuation? Would it not ruin her? He thrust the
packet into her shaking hands, seized her arm and dragged her to the
hall.
"Quick!" he said, roughly. "The house is roused! Hurry--for heaven's
sake!" He thrust her through the outer door. "Down the path to the
gate! Go!"
She looked at him a breathless instant. On the floor above them a
window was flung open and a shout rang out. Then, drawing a breath
that was a sob, she caught the letters to her breast, turned, and fled
in an anguish of speed through the misty shrubbery.
In the bluntness of the dilemma Harry's only thought had been to get
her away and speedily--then to make his own escape. For he himself
stood also in evil case. If Echo's presence there would be difficult
to explain, what could be said of his own? To whom, save perhaps the
occasional student of aberrant mental phenomena, would the true story
of his blind and besotted adventuring seem credible? It came to him
instantly now, however, that to insure her safe retreat, he must
jeopardise, perhaps fatally, his own. The two house-breakers had no
doubt planned their flitting--possibly a handy ladder in some hidden
angle of the wall; but the open gate was the only route he knew, and he
had sent Echo by this way. For him to follow in her footsteps would
draw the damnable hue and cry and double the odds against her. She
needed, perhaps, only minutes, but the stir of frightened awakening
that sounded through the upper floor told him that for him even seconds
might be fatal. Great beads of sweat broke on his forehead.
And what an alternative! He, Harry Sevier, of position and clean
honour, to be arrested red-handed, in apparent comradeship with
criminals, a partner in a desperate attempt at robbery under arms! To
be haled to court, to sit as he had seen men sit so often, under a
perilous judgment! For with the logic of the legal mind perilous
indeed Harry knew it would be. If Craig lay dead in the room behind
him, he would be charged with his murder! A chill ran over him.
As these thoughts rushed through his mind, Harry passed through a
crucial episode of his mental life--its first vital and supreme moment.
It was not of himself he thought now. It was only of Echo. What
became of him mattered little. It was she who mattered most! At
whatever risk to himself he must turn the pursuit from her!
A burly man-servant, bareheaded and coatless, came panting from the
rear between the trees. Lest he take the path toward the gate, Harry
blundered, in his view, across the lighted porch and dashed around the
wing, the other giving instant cry. Harry led him on, doubling about
the shrubbery. Near at hand the wall reared, hopelessly high and
without a break. He skirted a huddle of servants' quarters, rounded
the main building and came again to the front. And then, approaching
at a double-quick across the lawn, he caught the flash of a bull's-eye.
With a wave of thankfulness he realised that the helmeted figure who
carried it was coming from the gate. Echo had passed through safely!
Unseen he slipped again into the shadow of the great open door from
which he had come. Until that moment he had not realised that he still
held in his hand the black mask. There was nothing to do now--his own
escape was impossible, but he had saved her!
Suddenly the hall light went up, and with it a brusque voice spoke from
the stairway.
"Hands up! I'm covering you. He's here, lads--we've got him cornered.
Tell that silly maid to quit screaming and ring up the police."
Harry had lifted his hands above his head. The black mask fell at his
feet. "All right," he said.