Now, as a matter of fact, I had no part in the affair of the opal
button; for on the very next day following our meeting with Estes I
came down with typhoid and spent the next two months in the hospital. I
saw little of Indiman during that time, but his seeming neglect was
fully explained by the story he told me the night I was well enough to
get back to 4020 Madison Avenue.
"You remember, of course," began Indiman, "that I went off with Estes
that May evening with just an apology to you about a family affair.
Really, I knew nothing; but the boy's manner struck me as peculiar,
and, while the incident of the opal button was trifling in itself, I
was sure that there was something behind it. But when I plumped the
question squarely at Estes he had nothing to say except that the jewel
had been slipped into his hand while he stood looking into a
shop-window. Where it came from he did not know; what it meant he
either could not or would not tell. So I had to drop the subject for
the time. But it came up again of its own accord four days later, the
exact date being May 15th. So much by way of preamble; the story proper
I will read from my notes.
"'De Quincey was right, and murder should be a fine art. But the
Borgias--only amateurs! The far-famed Aqua Tofana--pooh! Any chemist
will put it up for ten cents. Only be careful how you use it. Chemical
analysis has advanced somewhat since the day of the divine Lucrezia,
and a jury would convict without leaving their seats.'
"'Rather rough on your business, I should think,' said Estes, speaking
somewhat thickly, for the port had stopped with him overfrequently of
late. 'Is poisoning really out of date?' he continued.
"'As absolutely as crinoline and the novels of G. P. R. James,'
answered our host, lightly. But I, who was watching him closely, saw
his eyes harden. Estes had said more than one imprudent thing that
evening, and this time he had gone too far. I would have to get the boy
away somehow.
"There were three of us dining with Balencourt that evening at his
chambers in the Argyle--Estes, Crawfurd, and myself; and as usual we
had had an excellent dinner, for Balencourt knew how to live. Who was
Balencourt? Well, nobody could answer that precisely, but his letters
of introduction had been unexceptionable and his checks were always
honored at Brown Brothers. Moreover, Crawfurd had met him frequently at
the Jockey Club in Paris, and there was his name on White's books for
any one to read. A man of forty-five perhaps, clean-shaven, well set
up, an inveterate globe-trotter, a prince among raconteurs, and the
most astounding polyglot I have ever met. I myself have heard him talk
Eskimo with one of Peary's natives, and he had collated some of his
researches into Iranic-Turanian root-forms for the Philological
Society. But let us go back to our walnuts.
"Crawfurd picked up the thread. 'Then the science of assassination is a
lost art,' he said, tentatively.
"'Oh, I did not say that,' replied Balencourt, carelessly. 'There are
other ways--better ones.'
"'You mean beyond the risk of detection?'
"'Perfectly.'
"'Eliminating the toxic poisons of all kinds?'
"'If you like.'
"'I doubt it.' said Crawfurd, with a little hesitation.
"'And I deny it,' interrupted Estes, rudely, and stared straight at
Balencourt. A quick glance answered his challenge; it was like the
engaging of rapiers.
"'Perhaps Mr. Estes desires proof,' said Balencourt, slowly.
"'I do.'
"'Let us say between--'
"'To-night and the 1st of August.'
"'That will suit me perfectly. My passage is booked on the Teutoninc
for the following Wednesday.'
"'It is also the day set for my wedding to Miss Catherwood,' said
Estes, quietly.
"Balencourt took it admirably. 'So you have obtained the decision at
last,' he said, smiling lightly. 'My felicitations.'
"Crawfurd rose to his feet. The jovial flush had strained away from his
fat cheeks, and his jaw hung loose and pendulous. 'For God's sake,
fellows--' he began, but Balencourt stopped him with a gesture.
"'This is a private matter between Mr. Estes and myself, as he knows
full well. So far as you and Mr. Indiman are concerned, call it what
you like--a duel, or, better yet, a sporting proposition.'
"'The stakes?' put in Crawfurd, feebly, for, shaken as he was, he could
still grasp at the definite idea included in the last-named
alternative. Sport and a wager--now he understood.
"'The stakes?' repeated Balencourt. 'Well, they are hardly of a nature
that either Mr. Estes or myself can intrust them to the keeping of a
third party. But rest assured that the loser will pay; it is a debt of
honor.'
"Up to this moment I had kept silence, but now I must make my one try.
'He is but a boy,' I said, leaning my elbows on the table and seeking
to plumb the soul-depths in the cold, gray eyes of the man who sat
opposite to me. But Balencourt only laughed amusedly.
"'Then he should not assume a man's--'
"'Will you come now, Cousin Esper?' interrupted Estes. He pushed his
chair noisily back, and we all rose.
"'You won't wait for coffee?' said our host. 'Just as you please.' He
touched the call-button, and Jarman entered to help us on with our
top-coats. Par parenthese, how account for the anomaly of this
scoundrel of a Balencourt possessing the most perfect of serving-men?
There never was anybody who could roll an umbrella like Jarman, and I
have been around a lot in my time. After the catastrophe I tried my
best to locate him, but without success. He was gone; the pearl had
dropped back into the unfathomable depths of ocean. Perhaps he followed
his master.
"The door closed behind us, and we three stood in the street. 'A cab?'
I queried, and a passing hansom swung in towards the curb.
"'I'd rather walk along with you, Cousin Esper,' said Estes. 'Jump in,
Mr. Crawfurd, and we'll pick you up later at the club.'
"Crawfurd nodded and was forthwith driven away. I turned to Estes.
"'What is it, George?' I asked. 'Remember, there's Elizabeth to be
considered in this.'
"Now, while Estes is a second cousin of mine, 'Betty' Catherwood is my
niece, and so I considered that I had a double right to stick in my
oar. But I wasn't prepared for the depth of trouble that I encountered
in the glance George Estes turned on me. 'So bad as that!' I finished,
lamely.
"'It won't take long in the telling,' began the boy, desperately. 'You
remember that after I left Princeton I went to Germany for a two years'
course in international law under Langlotz; it was a pet idea of the
pater's.'
"I nodded.
"'Well, we all make fools of ourselves at one time or another, and here
is where I donned the cap and bells. You have heard'--here he lowered
his voice--'of the "Dawn."'
"'The revolutionary society?'
"'Yes; it's the active branch of the "Sunrise League"--the practical
work, you know. I joined it.'
"I had nothing to say. George laughed a little dismally and went on:
"'Absurd, wasn't it? I, a citizen of the best and freest country on
earth to be making common cause with a lot of crack-brained theorists
who would replace constitutional government by the "Lion's Mouth" and
the "Council of Ten"--a world ruled by a secret terror. But it seemed
all right at the time. What was my life or any one man's life to the
progress of civilization? It was only when I came to look at the means
apart from the end that I realized the horrible fallacy of it all.'
"'You withdrew, of course.'
"'You don't quite understand. One doesn't withdraw from the "Dawn." He
may cease to be identified actively with the propaganda, but he is
still subject to be called upon for a term of "service"--that's the
ghastly euphemism they use. You remember this and the night I received
it?'
"He took a pasteboard box from his pocket and handed it to me. It
contained a small, red button, fashioned out of some semiprecious stone
resembling Mexican opal.
"'It was the first summons,' continued Estes, 'and within three days I
should have been on my way to Berlin--to receive my instructions.'
"'You refused, then?'
"'There was Betty,' said the boy, simply.
"'You must understand,' he went on, 'that this "service" can only be
demanded once of a member. He may refuse compliance, if he chooses, but
in that case there is a forfeit to be paid, and it becomes due after
the third warning.'
"'Well?'
"'Must be paid, you understand. If not by the recalcitrant himself,
then by the agent of the "Forty" through whom the summons comes. That
makes it clear, doesn't it--Balencourt and his debt of honor?'
"'When did you know--about him, I mean?'
"'Here is the second button. Balencourt slipped it into my hand just
before we went out to dinner to-night.'
"'It is incredible. Balencourt is a man and you are but a boy. To take
advantage of an act of youthful folly--'
"'You forget that it is his life or mine,' interrupted Estes, quietly.
"'But, George, it is unthinkable. When he knows--but you did tell
him--about Betty--'
"'That's just it, old chap. Balencourt asked her to marry him a week
ago, just before I received the first red button.'
"The monstrousness of the thing struck me all of a heap. 'The police,'
I said, vaguely, but Estes shook his head.
"'It is but postponing the bad quarter of an hour,' he said, gently,
'and I don't think that I could put up with this sort of thing
indefinitely. Moreover, it wouldn't be fair to--to Betty.
"'No,' he went on, 'it's better to have a limit set, just as it is
now--for at least Balencourt will keep his word. Once past the 1st of
August, I am safe.'
"'We'll work within the limit, then,' I said, cheerfully. 'If we
three--Crawfurd, you, and I--can't match wits with one polyglot son of
the "Dawn," we might as well let the bottom drop out of the Monroe
Doctrine and be done with it.'
"We had arrived at the club. For an instant our hands met. 'Not a word
to Betty,' he whispered.
"'Of course.' Then we went up-stairs to the pipe-room, where we found
Crawfurd sitting gloomily over his fourth Scotch-and-soda. The clocks
were striking three when we took Estes back to his apartments, and we
both spent the night with him. The issue had been fairly joined, and it
was exactly two months and a half to the 1st of August.
"The rest of May passed absolutely without incident, and sometimes it
was difficult to believe in the reality of the contest in which we were
engaged. Yet we omitted no precaution, and during the whole fortnight
Estes was never for a moment out of the sight of either Crawfurd or
myself. But no; I'll correct myself there, for we had to allow him an
hour and a half every evening with Betty, and I used to mount guard in
the street outside, measuring the cold and unsympathetic flag-stones.
And no thanks for it, either; indeed, Betty's manner was distinctly
top-loftical whenever we chanced to meet, she being a young person of
discernment, and perfectly well aware that we were keeping her in the
dark about something. But it helped George to forget, and so I counted
it in with the rest of the day's work and held my peace.
"As for the rest, there was nothing to be done except to keep a couple
of 'shadows' on Balencourt, and we had a full account of his movements
by eight o'clock every night--a regular ship's chart worked out with
time-stamps and neat entries in red ink, after the accustomed fashion
of Central Office men. So May and the first two weeks in June dragged
uneventfully along; the period of stress was already half over. Then
came Monday, the 15th of June, and with it a little shock. Our man--I
mean Balencourt--concluded to disappear, and he did it as effectually
as though there were no such thing as a 'shadow' in existence. When the
head-sleuth came that night to report his discomfiture, I cut him short
in his theorizing and asked for the facts. But there was only the
one--Balencourt was certainly non est, and that was all there was to
say. Whereupon we banished the 'shadows' to the outer darkness whence
they had come and convened our original council of war.
"One thing was plain--the danger of remaining longer in the city. There
are so many things that may happen in a crowd, and especially if our
friend Balencourt formed part of that unknown quantity. There is always
a chance of a chimney-pot tumbling about one's ears or of being run
down by some reckless chauffeur. And who is to know the truth?
Accidents will happen; they are wilful things and insist upon keeping
themselves in evidence. Imprimis, then, to get out of town. But where?
"'Hoodman's Ledge,' began Crawfurd, a little doubtfully, but I caught
him up with joyful decision.
"'The very thing,' I said. 'I'll send a wire to the caretaker to-night,
and we'll be off by Thursday. I invite you all--for six weeks. Why, of
course, George, that includes Betty and her mother; they were to come
to me, anyway, in July.'
"Now, Hoodman's Ledge is one of the innumerable small islands that dot
the Maine coast above Portland. A few years ago the fancy had taken me
to buy the island--it was only three acres in area--and later on I had
put up a house, nothing very elegant, but everything for comfort, a
model bachelor's establishment. For our present need no better asylum
could have offered. The island was small and occupied only by my own
domestic establishment. It lay in the bight of Oliver's Bay, quite a
mile from the nearest shore, and there was but one other bit of land
anywhere around--an uninhabited islet known as 'The Thimble,' that lay
a quarter of a mile due east. Surely this isolation promised security.
Here, if anywhere, we might snap our fingers at the machinations of M.
Balencourt and the mysterious 'Forty.' It would be rather cold off the
Maine coast during this unseasonable summer, but there were fireplaces
in plenty and stacks of drift-wood. The only real difficulty lay in
persuading my estimable sister to cut short her Newport visit and come
to me a month earlier than usual.
"Finally, I left it to Betty to manage. 'I can't explain myself any
clearer, my dear,' I ended up, rather lamely, 'but it will be better
for George. Will you do it?'
"'So you won't trust me with the secret? No; you needn't protest--there
is a secret, and I ought to know it. But you have put it so cleverly
that I haven't any choice in the matter. "Better for George" indeed!
Very good, mon oncle; I'll obey orders. But remember that it will be
the worse for you later on, unless you can show good and sufficient
reason for this ridiculous mystery. Poor, dear mamma! how she will hate
to be plucked up--like an early radish.' And thereupon Miss Betty
sailed away with her small head tilted skyward.
"But she did manage it, and by Thursday night the party was actually
assembled at 'The Breakers.' There was a sou'easter on that night, but
the drift-wood burned stoutly in the wide chimney-piece, with now and
then a cheerful sputter as a few stray drops sought to immolate
themselves in the green and purple flames.
"'Not so bad--eh, mamma?' said Betty, as she slipped another pillow
behind Mrs. catherwood's back and handed her the last volume of 'Gyp,'
with the pages neatly cut. And then she actually smiled over at me. I
think I am beginning to understand Betty.
"Again I pass over many uneventful days. 'Nothing doing,' as Crawfurd
put it, and laisser-faire was a good enough motto for our side of the
house. The two children, of course, were blissfully happy.
"Three, four, nearly six weeks, and no sign or sound from M'sieur
Balencourt. Not so surprising, after all, seeing that we were living on
an island surrounded on all sides by deep water and no land within a
mile except that little dot called 'The Thimble.' And while we didn't
make any parade of our precautions, Crawfurd and I kept watch and
watch, just as we used to do in the old Alert, on the China station,
twenty-odd years ago. Moreover, the gardener and my boatman were men
who could keep their eyes open and their mouths shut, and, finally,
there were the four dogs--two Great Danes, a collie, and 'Snap,' the
fox-terrier. It would have been a bold man who sought to visit
Hoodman's Ledge, uninvited, during that particular month and a half.
"It was the morning of the 1st of August, and I was lounging on the
piazza, Crawfurd being on duty at the time. The warm weather had come
at last. The air was so soft and delightful that the scientific review
I had been reading slipped from my hand and I gave myself up to
indolence, gazing lazily at the white pigeons that were trading about
the lawn, between the boat-house and a rustic pavilion overlooking the
tennis-court. One bird I marked in particular, admiring his strong and
graceful sweeps and dips as he circled about, possessed, as it were,
with the pure joy of motion. I followed him as he sank down on a long
slant to the lawn, swift as a bolt from the blue; then I rubbed my eyes
in amaze. It was a pigeon of snowy whiteness that an instant before had
been flying free; it was a coal-black nondescript that now fluttered
feebly once or twice and then lay still on the gravelled path, close to
the stone sun-dial. I ran down the steps and bent over the pitiful
thing. Pfui!--the bird was but a charred and blackened lump of dead
flesh. There was a disagreeable odor of burned feathers in the air.
Mechanically my eye fell on the sun-dial; there was a spot the size of
a silver dollar on the side of the pedestal where the stone had
crumbled and disintegrated, as though it had been placed at the focus
of some immensely powerful burning-glass. I stepped behind the sun-dial
and looked out to sea. And there, in line with the pedestal of the dial
and the dead bird on the path, lay 'The Thimble.'
"Now, as I have said, 'The Thimble' was a rocky islet only a few rods
in extent, but densely wooded with spruce and blue-gum. The general
shape of the rock was that of a lady's thimble; hence the name. Rather
a picturesque object in the seascape, but, of course, utterly valueless
except for occasional picnic uses--a bit of No Man's Land whose purpose
in the economy of nature had hitherto remained unfulfilled. But now?
"I went back to the piazza and caught up a pair of stereo-binoculars
that were lying on the table. There, shining like a star through the
close curtain of green that veiled 'The Thimble,' was the projecting
end of a highly polished tube of steel. And even as I gazed a man's
face peered out as though in the act of sighting--Aram Balencourt!
"Then I understood. The tube was the means of projecting some
enormously powerful heat-beam whose nature must be akin to that of the
so-called X-ray. The article I had been reading not ten minutes
ago--what was the title?--'Radium, the Wizard Metal'--that
incomprehensible substance, forever sending forth its terrible
emanations, yet never diminished by even the ten-thousandth part of a
grain--a natural force whose properties and functions were but
imperfectly understood, even by the learned men who had succeeded in
isolating it, an agent of such enormous potency that an ounce or two
might serve to put a battle-ship out of commission--a couple of pounds
and the universe itself were endangered. Even now from that steel tube,
sighted so carefully on the pedestal of the sun-dial, billions of ions
might be rushing, invisible to the eye, but certain death to whatever
of animal existence they chanced to encounter. There was the pigeon
lying dead on the walk.
"'Do hurry, George,' called out Betty's thin, sweet treble. She stood
at the entrance to the pavilion and waved a tennis-racquet impatiently.
"'Coming,' was the cheerful response, and Estes turned the corner of
the house. He took the gravelled path at full speed. In an instant or
two at the farthest he would be passing between the sun-dial and the
dead pigeon, in line with those deadly radiations.
"We had been playing a little single-wicket earlier in the day, and a
cricket-ball lay on the wicker table at my hand. I could not have
uttered a word or a cry to save my life--to save his--but instinct held
true. With a full, round-arm sweep the ball left my hand, catching the
boy squarely on the forehead. He fell within his stride.
"Betty was with us on the instant, but I seized and held her despite
her struggles. Naturally, she thought I had gone mad. Then I looked
over again at 'The Thimble,' just in time to see a sheet of
palest-colored flame shoot up from the island. The dense mass of green
foliage seemed to wither and consume away within the tick of a clock.
Through the glass I caught a glimpse of a dark figure that rolled down
to the water's edge, clutching feebly at the shifting shingle. Perhaps
a log, after all--it lay so still.
"An instant later 'The Thimble' disappeared in a cloud of grayish
vapor, the dull sound of an explosion filled the ear, and the ground
under our feet trembled. There was nothing to be seen, even with the
glass, save a light scum covering the water and some fragments of
charred tree branches. But the air about us was full of a fine dust
that powdered Betty's hair, as though for a costume ball, and made me
cough consumedly.
"Naturally, there were quite a number of explanations to make to Miss
Betty after George had been resuscitated--a slightly disfigured hero,
but still in the ring--but I spare you. The dear girl listened quietly,
but at the end she began to tremble, and I won't say but that she cried
a bit. It doesn't matter if she did, and I think we all began to feel a
little queer when we came to think it over. However, it WAS over--no
possible doubt about that.
"'One thing I don't understand,' said Crawfurd. 'There were to be three
warnings, and Estes only received two of the red buttons.' Whereupon
Betty blushed, and drew a little package from her pocket.
"'It came last night directed to George,' she said, 'but I forgot to
give it to him. It broke open in my pocket and it contained this.' She
held out to us the third red button. That was decent of Balencourt--to
have given the last warning.
"There is only one possible hypothesis to account for the catastrophe.
Balencourt was dealing with a terrible force, whose nature was but
partially understood, even by science. He had intended to use it to
fulfil the vengeance of the 'Dawn' but something had happened, and in
an instant the monster had turned and rended its master. That is all
that we can know.
"Two days later George and Betty were married, for they stuck to the
original date in spite of the fact that George, with a lump on his
forehead as big as the cricket-ball itself, did not make a particularly
presentable bridegroom. I carried an umbrella at the function whose
incomparable rolling was remarked upon by all. Need I say that it was
the same umbrella that Balencourt's man, Jarman, had manipulated for me
that fateful evening when we dined at the Argyle. I shall never unroll
that umbrella, even at the cost of a wetting. To me it is a memento."
"There's melodrama for you," said Indiman, a little shamefacedly as he
finished. "But one feels differently, you know, about taking chances
where a nice girl like Betty is concerned. Let me see; it's still
early. Do you feel up to taking that long-deferred ride on a
trolley-car? Good! We'll take the cross-town over to Eighth Avenue and
get into the heart of it at once."
"That's an unlucky number," said Indiman, as we boarded a car. "Sixteen
hundred and twenty-four--the sum of the units is equal to thirteen."
"You're going to lose some money," I suggested.
"The tip points that way," he replied.