Black headlines in the morning papers told of the strange postponement
of the Raelton reception. Black type told eager readers of the scene in
front of the Raelton home when arriving guests were met at the door with
a startling announcement: “Mrs. Raelton is ill. The reception has been
postponed indefinitely.” And the door had been closed in their faces!
Eager readers learned of the silent line of servants that had filed from
the rear entrance of the darkened house; the fifty thousand dollars’
worth of flowers left to wilt unseen; the caterers’ elaborate
preparations--estimated to have cost thousands--left to spoil untasted.
Much was made of the fact that Jimmy Raelton refused even to see a
reporter, and all the papers, yellow and conservative alike, hinted at a
sinister something that would explain a thing so unprecedented in the
annals of New York society. Two of the most progressive sheets learned
that Doctor Henry, the young physician who had made such rapid strides
in his practice among the social leaders, had not been called, and knew
nothing of Mrs. Raelton’s reported illness until told by the reporters.
In the library of his old-fashioned up-town house Thornley Colton sat
with bowed head. At his feet were the crumpled papers Sydney had read to
him.
“This is the saddest day of my life, Sydney,” the blind man said slowly.
“I promised Colonel Calvin that I would watch over his daughters. His
father died an opium fiend.”
Sydney’s eyes widened. “I never knew that!”
“Few did. I have zealously guarded the secret all my life. Not even the
girls knew it, though I told Jimmy when he married Dorothy. Colonel
Calvin was always afraid of the stain being in the blood. He had fought
the craving, but he feared for his daughters. I laughed at him, for
atavism, to me, has always seemed merely a cloak for weakness. Now I am
reaping my whirlwind. One is dead by her own hand, the other an opium
fiend. I can never forget my feelings when I caught the unmistakable
smell of opium smoke before we opened that door.”
Silence came again, to be broken by The Fee, a red-haired, freckle-faced
blue-eyed boy, who had become a part of the Colton household at the
conclusion of a particularly baffling murder case.
“Dere’s a feller an’ goil downstairs wants to see yuh. Looks like
soivents, and says dere name’s Rayton.”
Only for an instant was the expression of surprise on the blind man’s
face. “Send them up,” he said quietly, and he rose to meet Jimmy Raelton
and his wife.
A cry of pity came to Sydney Thames’s lips as the man and woman entered.
Jimmy Raelton, in an ill-fitting suit of blue, a plaid cap pulled down
over his eyes, had grown an old man in a night. Mrs. Raelton, in a
tawdry dress, leaned heavily on the arm of her husband, as she had
leaned when their disguises took them safely past the cordon of
newspaper men.
Silently Thornley Colton took a hand in each of his, the mobile face
telling them what his tongue could not; silently he lead them to chairs.
Not until they were seated did Jimmy Raelton speak.
“We are going away,” he said, and his tone was dead, hopeless. “We are
going to fight the fight together. Dorothy wanted to say good-bye--and
tell you.”
“I couldn’t go without seeing you,” Dorothy Raelton sobbed chokingly.
“It will make it easier--to know that you understand. I’m glad--that
Jimmy knows at last.” Her voice steadied, and she went on simply,
bravely: “If it hadn’t been for little Jimmy and Dorothy, I would have
done as Marjorie did--ended it all. Marjorie, too, had the curse, though
I didn’t know it until that hideous morning I waked with a terrible
headache and the opium pipe on the floor beside me. I screamed for my
maid. Then she told me why Marjorie had written that pitiful, pleading
note, begging me to take Dora because she could be trusted if anything
happened. Dora was the only one who even suspected that my sister was an
opium fiend, just as my grandfather was. Marjorie had told her that.
Dora said that she had heard me going downstairs in the night, and in a
dream I seem to remember going to the Chinese room and taking the opium
set and small glass jar of the drug we kept as curiosities; but it seems
hazy, unreal.
“I hid the set in my room; I didn’t dare risk getting it out. Every week
the longing would come. I’d go blind, insane with craving, and in the
morning I would wake, with the opium pipe beside me, and the little lamp
still burning. Time after time I tried to hide the things, but in my
blind delirium I always found them. One day I gave them to Dora for her
to destroy, and that night I went and choked her until she gave them
back. She had not had time to carry out my orders. I don’t remember
going to her at all, but in the morning I waked with the pipe beside me,
and on Dora’s throat were the marks of my fingers.”
She stopped, sobs racking her slender frame. Beside her Jimmy Raelton’s
head was in his hands, his body quivering. She went on: “Jimmy thought
it was nervous break-down. He insisted on a long cruise in the yacht.
For two whole months I never once felt the craving! I thought it was
gone! I romped and played with the children; I laughed and joked with my
husband. Then we planned last night’s reception. My God! The discovery
by Jimmy of the substitute diamonds in my necklace overwrought me. I
went upstairs, took a headache powder, and I waked----”
She broke down utterly. Jimmy Raelton raised his bowed head. “Now you
know the whole pitiful story. Will you keep our secret till we win the
fight?”
“Always,” assured Thornley Colton softly. He laid a gentle hand on
Dorothy’s shoulder. “You may need help, little goddaughter; will you
call on me?”
A nod answered him; she could not speak.
“The fight will be short; such faith cannot help but win quickly,” he
added. His voice brought a look that was almost hopeful into the woman’s
eyes, so full of assurance was it. Some subtle special sense seemed to
tell him, for his thin lips curved in one of their rare smiles of
encouragement. “I know you will win,” he repeated. Then, to change the
subject: “I will investigate the necklace substitution while you are
gone. We’ve forgotten it completely.”
Only the silent Sydney Thames saw the startled look leap to the eyes of
the man and woman. Dorothy Raelton found her voice first. “Don’t!” she
cried brokenly. “I took the stones. They--were all--I had--to pay some
one.”
“What!” The tone of Colton’s voice startled them. In it was amazement;
under it was anguish, the anguish of a man who has made a horrible
mistake. “You have been paying blackmail?” His voice was almost harsh.
“Yes.” She scarcely breathed it.
“How long? To whom?” He was standing over her now; his attitude half
menacing. His voice compelled an answer.
“For six months,” she whispered, “the letters have been coming. They
said I must pay, or the world would be told of the curse. I could do
nothing else. I burned the letters as fast as they came, and I’ve sent
fifty thousand dollars to a lock-box in Philadelphia. I had to sell my
diamonds, and have them replaced by imitations to make the last
payment.”
“My God, what a fool I’ve been!” There was only anguish in the blind
man’s voice now. He paced the floor with tigerish strides.
“Do you ever remember cooking the opium pill?” It came like a
pistol-shot.
“Cooking----” He gave her no chance to finish.
“Where did you get the headache powders you take?”
“Doctor Grayton gave me the prescription, just before he died. I have
never taken any others.”
“How often do you take them?”
“Several times a week. They quiet my nerves. I have been taking them for
years, renewing the prescription when necessary.”
“Did you take any on the cruise?”
“Perhaps a dozen. They prevent sea-sickness.”
“You never felt the craving for that two months?”
“Never.”
“They put you to sleep?”
“A light sleep that comes of quieted nerves.” She was answering the
questions automatically, staring at him. Her husband listened, lips
parted, breath coming fast. Sydney Thames was leaning forward, tense,
expectant.
The blind problemist whirled from her and continued his pacing. Twice he
made the length of the room.
“The inhuman devils!” they heard him mutter. “God, what devils there
are!”
Jimmy Raelton could stand it no longer. “What do you mean?” he cried.
The blind man stopped before him, sightless eyes behind the round, dark
glasses apparently staring deep into his. “I mean that my neglect is
responsible for this.” There was terrible bitterness in his voice. “_Not
a breath of opium smoke has ever passed Dorothy Raelton’s lips!_”
Dumb, stupefied, they could only stare; then, as though moved by hidden
springs, the man and woman leaped to their feet. But as quickly as it
came the look of hope died in Dorothy Raelton’s eyes. She fell back into
the chair.
“Don’t!” she sobbed. “I can’t bear it! I’ve used the horrible stuff a
hundred times. I couldn’t fight against it!”
The man still stood, swaying ever so slightly, finger-nails biting into
his palms, as his hands clenched convulsively.
Gently the blind man forced him down into his chair. “It is true,
Jimmy,” he said, and his voice was normal once more. “I should have
known it last night when the whole game was in my hands. Now I must
start at the beginning. The mind I have trained for years to be purely
eliminative, that I have thought impervious to outside influences, is
only human, after all. Last night I believed the evidence of my four
senses and did not use my brain.”
Only Sydney Thames realized what this confession cost the man who had so
prided himself on his infallibility.
“I don’t understand,” came dully from Jimmy Raelton.
The blind man resumed his pacing of the room. “Dorothy doesn’t even know
that the opium pill must be ‘cooked’ over the sweet-oil lamp! She
doesn’t know the first thing about opium smoking! And last night there
was no key on the inside of the door. _It was locked from the outside!_
I remember distinctly that my fumbling fingers felt no key as I went
out. I know--now--that none fell. Someone wanted you”--his finger
pointed at Jimmy Raelton--“to see your wife!” He paused for an instant,
then continued, rapidly, crisply: “The whole thing is the most devilish
blackmail I have ever heard of. It is based on the one thing that all
the past dead centuries have taught us to fear--atavism. When Dorothy’s
money had gone, and the selling of the necklace stones told the
blackmailers so, the husband must be the next victim of the vampire. The
scene of last night was arranged so that only a touch would be needed to
explode the powder-magazine the reception postponement had started if
Jimmy refused to pay. The fiendish simplicity of it!”
“But who----” began Dorothy Raelton, and there was almost eagerness in
her voice. Then the hopelessness came back. “But it is impossible. I
know----”
“You know nothing! Where is your maid?”
A terrible expression came to Raelton’s face. “The maid! She----” The
words came like curses before the problemist stopped him.
“The maid is absolutely innocent! Absolutely! Remember that above all
things!” cried Colton. “Where is she?”
“I sent her to mail a letter so that she would be out of the way when we
started. I wouldn’t even trust her,” Jimmy Raelton answered slowly.
“To whom was the letter addressed?”
“To you. I didn’t want to come here, but Dorothy insisted.”
“Did you get a letter from the blackmailer this morning?”
Silently Jimmy Raelton took a letter from his pocket and extended it.
Colton received it eagerly, jerked out the inclosure, laid it face down
on the desk. His hypersensitive finger-tips brushed lightly the
reversed, raised words the typewriter keys had driven through the paper
as he read aloud slowly:
“_Mr. Raelton._
“SIR,--May be you don’t know it, but your wife smokes
hop. If you don’t want the wurld to get wise, send 25
one-thousand-dollar bills to lock-box 117, Philadelphia. Don’t
register. We’ll take a chance they land safe. If you’re too up
in the air to-day give you till to-morrow, but put a personal in
the _Telegram_ saying when. And do it, too!”
The blind man paused an instant, then continued: “The fact that they
want the money in thousand-dollar bills proves that the blackmailers are
persons who can pass them without question, despite the childish attempt
at illiteracy. They also know that the money would arrive safely without
registry, which would necessitate signing a receipt. The fact that they
want the money sent to a place so easily watched as a public lock-box
proves that they have some means of getting their hands on it before it
gets there!”
He grasped the telephone. “Six thousand Greeley. _Telegram?_ Take a
personal for the next edition. Ready? ‘Lock-box 117. Not even
twenty-five cents.--J. R.’ That’s all. On the street in an hour? Charge
it to Thornley Colton. Right.”
They listened, white-faced; he shot a question at Dorothy before a
protest could be voiced:
“Have you ever called in Doctor Henry?”
“There are things one can’t tell even one’s physician,” she said simply.
“Jimmy called him, once, when he thought I was suffering from nervous
break-down. Doctor Henry never suspected, couldn’t suspect. He told
Jimmy that his plans for a two months’ cruise were excellent. That is
the only time I have seen him during this awful six months. He has
dropped in several times to see the children, but I have been out.”
“A curious coincidence,” mused Colton idly; then his questions took a
new turn. “You had no suspicion that your sister was an opium fiend?”
“No--I wouldn’t have believed--if----” The words choked in her throat.
“Didn’t you drift apart after her marriage?”
“Donald Wreye turned out a cad!” blurted Raelton. “You know that as well
as I! He spent every cent of Marjorie’s money. There wasn’t a penny of
the hundred thousand her father left when she died. Wreye tried to
borrow ten thousand from me five months ago, and I ordered him from the
house!”
“Five months ago?” murmured Colton. “He must have got it from someone. I
know he was on the ragged edge about that time.” He turned away from
them and jabbed two desk-buttons. “You are going back home now. I want
you to slip in the way you came. Shrimp will go with you.”
He turned to face The Fee, who had answered one button. “The reporters
will probably hold you up, thinking you servants. Let Mr. and Mrs.
Raelton slip past, then let the newspaper men get the information that
Mrs. Raelton had a serious heart-attack, also that Doctor Henry was
asked not to divulge the fact that he had been called. I’ve rung for the
machine. It will take you within two or three blocks of your home. Walk
the rest of the way, and stay indoors until you hear from me. Now this
is important: I want you to give Shrimp two of the headache powders you
have been taking, without the knowledge of the maid or any one else. Can
you?”
Mrs. Raelton nodded dumbly.
“No one is to know that you have seen me. No one!”
He sat down at the desk and wrote rapidly for a moment.
“Send this telegram on your way back, Shrimp, and tell Michael not to
wait for you. Sydney and I want to use the machine.”
He held out his hands to the man and woman. “Good-bye, for a little
while,” he said. Silently he watched them out, then he turned toward
Sydney.
“Tell John to serve us a cold lunch immediately.”
For the first time in an hour Sydney Thames spoke. “Where are we going?”
he asked curiously.
“To see Donald Wreye.”