and a little midget came in late. I saw 'em. No, madam, there's no
fire. This gentleman thought a thief had slipped into one of your
rooms."
"Indeed, he is mistaken," the young woman assured us. "We haven't
finished undressing yet. I'm the child's nurse. If necessary, I can
call my mistress, but she's very nervous." As she glanced back into
the room I caught a glimpse of a woman in grey who hadn't taken off her
hat. A sort of motor bonnet it seemed to be, with a long veil
attached. I got no sight of her face, for the nurse hastily shut the
door, all but a crack which scarcely showed her rather piquant nose.
"That's enough, I guess, sir?" suggested the watchman. "These ladies
mustn't be disturbed. All the rooms along here are occupied by old
clients. You go back to your suite and if there's any thief we'll find
him. But maybe you was dreamin'?"
I heard the key turn again in the lock; but I realised that unless I
wanted to risk a row and perhaps arrest for "disorderly conduct," I
must bow to circumstances. For a moment I was tempted to persist, but
I thought how much more important than anything it was to be free from
entanglements, and able to reach Jamaica before seven o'clock. "Spilt
milk," I said to myself, and took the watchman's advice. But outside
the forbidden door, I picked up a tiny rosetted slipper.
In my own rooms, I searched again for traces of a hostile presence.
The collapsible box was a strange thing to find under a bed, but I
couldn't prove that Little Red Riding Hood had been in it. Neither
could I prove that a small pile of silver that I had poured out of my
pockets on to the dressing-table had diminished, or that two letters
which I had received--one from my brother Haslemere, one from Grace
Odell--had been stolen. Nevertheless, while putting off my principal
researches, I did telephone down to inquire who occupied rooms 212,
214. The man who answered from the office had "come on" since the
people arrived, but, the name in the hotel register was "Mrs. W. Smith,
nurse and child, Sayville, Long Island." Nothing could sound less
offensive; but next morning when I descended at an unearthly hour it
seemed that "the party" had already gone, by motor; and the man at the
door "hadn't noticed no child." All I could do then was to reserve
those rooms for myself, for two days, with orders that they should not
be touched until investigated by me.
It lacked twenty minutes of train time when my chauffeur got me to
Jamaica. This made me feel almost cheerful, but my heart sank as I
reached the arrival platform. There were not many passengers, and even
if there had been a crowd one figure would have stood out
conspicuously--that of a tall woman in a grey dress, a long grey cloak,
and a close-fitting grey bonnet with a thick grey veil falling over the
face and breast. There was not a doubt in my mind but this was the
formidable directress of the Grey Sisterhood, come in person to meet--I
had almost said "her victim." If the woman had known of my plan she
could hardly have found a better way of thwarting it.
As I glowered at the figure stalking up and down, I hated it. And I
wondered if there were more than a coincidence in the fact that this
was the third grey-veiled woman I had seen since last night. In the
car at the theatre there had been too brief a glimpse to be sure of a
resemblance, and the woman in 212 had left on my mind an impression of
comparative shortness. But then, it is easy to stoop and disguise
one's height, I told myself viciously, eager to find a connection
between this woman and the others.
I could see nothing of her face, as we passed and repassed on the
platform; but she was hovering not far off when I learned that the
train from New York would be late. It was "hung up," a few miles away,
owing to the breakdown of a "freighter." Instead of regret at this
news, I felt joy. It gave me--with luck--a way out of my difficulty.
Here was the Head Sister, waiting for Maida Odell; but if my car could
get me to the delayed train before it was restarted only Maida herself
could keep me from saying what I had come to say.
There wasn't a moment to waste, and I didn't waste one. Thinking I had
won the first point in the game, I hurried to my car without glancing
back at the veiled woman. I gave directions to West and was about to
get into the auto, when a look in the chauffeur's eye made me turn.
Close behind stood the grey lady. There was no doubt that her purpose
was to speak to me. I took off my hat and faced her; but it was like
trying to look at the moon through a thick London fog.
"You are Lord John Hasle, I believe?" she said, in a resonant contralto
voice, with a slight suggestion of foreign accent. "I have heard of
you," she went on. "You have been pointed out to me, and I know of
your acquaintance with the Odells. You are going to motor back along
the line. Your inquiries told me that. I would thank you, and so
would Miss Odell, for taking me to her in your car."
Here was a situation! Rudely to refuse a favour asked by a lady,
or--to lose, for ever, perhaps, my one hope? I chose to be rude. I
stammered that I meant to go at such a pace it would be risking her
life to grant the request. Very sorry; more lifting of the hat; a
sheepish look of feigned regret; and then West, thoroughly ashamed of
me, started the car. The next moment we had shot away, but not without
a startling impression.
"The worst turn you can possibly do Miss Odell will be to prevent her
coming into the Sisterhood House. It is the one place where she can be
safe." Those were the words I heard over the noise of the starting
motor; and as we left the tall statue of a woman, the high wind blew
her thick veil partly aside. Instantly she pulled it into place; but I
had time to see that the face underneath was covered with a grey mask.
The effect on my mind of this revelation was of something so sinister
that I felt physically sick. What could be the motive for such double
precautions of concealment? Was it merely to hide a disfigurement, I
wondered, or was there a more powerful reason? I determined to tell
Miss Odell what I had seen.
Fortunately there was little traffic on the country road at that hour,
and we did the eight miles in about eight minutes. I thanked my lucky
stars that the hold-up train had not moved; and my heart bounded when I
saw Maida among a number of passengers who had descended to wander
about during the delay. She in a grey travelling dress and small
winged toque, walked alone at a distance from the others. Here back
was turned to me, but she was unmistakable, with the morning sun
ringing her hair with a saint's halo. I tried not to frighten her by
appearing too abruptly, but she gave a start, and there was pain rather
than pleasure in her eyes.
"Do forgive me!" I pleaded. "I _had_ to finish what I couldn't say
last night. I wouldn't intrude by travelling in your train from New
York without permission, but I thought if I came to Jamaica, maybe
you'd grant me a few minutes. Won't you let me atone--won't you let me
help? I feel that I can. Roger has hinted of trouble. If you would
trust me, I'd put my whole soul into the fight to save you from it."
So I ran on, with a torrent of arguments and all the force of love
behind them. Something of that force the girl must have felt, for
slowly she yielded and told me this strange story.
Roger Odell's father--Roger senior--had fallen in love with a girl who
afterwards became Maida's mother. He was a widower, and young Roger
was a boy of eight or nine at the time. Old Roger--he was not old
then--had acted as the girl's guardian, and she had promised to marry
him, when suddenly she disappeared, leaving behind a letter saying that
she was going with the only man she could ever love.
Five years passed, and then one day she came back bringing a little
daughter four years old. Both the Rogers were away when she called at
the house in Fifth Avenue; one at his office, the other at school. A
housekeeper received the pair, realising that the mother was
desperately ill. She would say nothing of herself, except that they
had come from England; could not even tell her married name. She had
lived through the voyage, she said, to put her daughter under the
protection of her only friend. Some strange luggage she had brought,
on which were London labels. She forbade the servant to telephone the
master of the house. She would write a letter, and then she would go.
The letter was begun, but before it could be finished the writer fell
into unconsciousness. For a few days she lingered, but never spoke
again, and died in the arms of the man she had jilted.
"If you ever loved me, keep my child as if she were your own," began
the written appeal. "She is Madeleine, named after me. Don't try to
find out her other name. Give her yours, which might have been mine.
Make no inquiries. If you do, the same fate may fall on her which has
fallen on her father and others of his family. It is killing me now.
Save my little Maida. The one legacy I can leave her is a jewel which
I want her to keep; a miniature of myself taken for someone I loved,
and an Egyptian relic which, for a reason I don't know, is immensely
important. I promised her father that this child should never part
with it. The one reward I can offer you is my grat----"
There the letter broke off.
Roger Odell, Senior, had obeyed every one of his dead love's requests.
The "Egyptian relic" was a mummy case, with the human contents
marvellously preserved; the jewel, an opal and crystal eye of Horus.
In taking out the miniature from its frame, to be copied in a large
portrait, Maida found the miniature of a man she supposed to be her
father, and had ordered that enlarged also, to hang in her shrine. Her
memories of the past before coming to America were vague; but her
childhood, happy as it had been in other ways, was cursed by the dream
of a terrible, dark face--a face appearing as a mere brown spot in the
distance, then growing large as it drew nearer, coming close to her
eyes at last in giant size, shutting out all the rest of the world.
Whether she had ever seen this face in reality, before it obsessed her
dreams, she could not be sure; but the impression was that she had. As
she grew older, the dream came less frequently; but once or twice she
had seen a face in a crowd which reminded her--perhaps morbidly--of the
dream. Such a face had looked up from the audience last night.
This mystery was one of two which had clouded Maida's life. From the
second had come her great trouble; and she did not see that between the
two could exist any connection. When I heard the rest of the history,
however, I differed from her. Some link there might be, I thought; and
if I were to help, it must be my business to find it.
One day, on leaving school for the holidays, when she was seventeen,
Maida, and a woman servant sent to fetch her from Milbrook to New York,
had met with a slight railway accident, much like that of to-day. It
was this coincidence, maybe, which inclined her to confide in me, for
she had been thinking of it, she said, when I came. A young man had
been "kind" to Miss Odell and her maid; had brought them water and
food. Later he had introduced himself. He was Lieutenant Granville,
of the Navy. Also he was an inventor, who believed he could make a
fortune for himself and his mother, if he could patent and get taken up
by some great firm an idea of his, in which he had vainly tried to
interest the heads of the Navy. This concerned a secret means of
throwing a powerful light under water, for the protection of warships
or others threatened by submerged submarines. Granville believed that
experiments would demonstrate immense usefulness for his invention and
so interested was Maida that she tried to induce Roger to finance it.
He refused, and did not like Granville when the girl brought them
together.
This seeming injustice roused Maida's sympathy. She met Granville
occasionally at his mother's house, without Roger's knowledge. It was
the child's first adventure, and appealed to her love of romance. The
natural consequences followed. Granville proposed. She asked to
remain his friend. Then to give her "friend" a glorious surprise, she
worked to interest a great financier, a friend of the Odell family, in
Granville's undersea light.
Unfortunately for her unselfish plan, millionaire Orrin Adriance had a
son, Jim, who had been in love with Maida since she was in the
"flapper" stage. This fact complicated matters. When Granville's
chemical formula, in a sealed envelope, was stolen from a safe in the
Adriance house, before business was completed between financier and
inventor, George Granville--already jealous of Jim Adriance--was mad
enough to believe that Maida had joined in a plot to trick him. He
accused the Adriances of wishing to get his secret without paying for
it, prophesying that a tool of theirs would presently "invent"
something of the kind, after they had refused to take up his
proposition. Pretending illness, he had induced his mother to send for
Maida, and she, only too anxious to defend herself, had gone to the
Granville house. After a cruel scene between her and the sailor, he
had locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and shot himself
through the heart. Mrs. Granville, who had heard a scream from the
girl, before the shot, swore to the belief that Maida had killed the
young man to defend herself against his love-making.
Roger, learning of the tragedy, had stifled the lie as he would have
crushed a snake. How he had done this, Maida was not sure. He had
refused to tell. But her name had not been connected with Granville's
at the inquest. Mrs. Granville, who had been poor and lived poorly,
migrated to France and was reported to have "come into money through a
legacy." In any case she seemed to have been silenced. No word of
scandal could be traced to her, though detectives had been employed by
Roger. Nevertheless, the story had risen from time to time like the
phoenix from its own ashes. Maida's fellow school-mates had whispered;
her debut in society had been blighted by a paragraph in a notorious
paper, afterwards gagged by Roger. Then, last and worse, had come the
cancelling of the girl's presentation to the King and Queen of England.
"You see now," she said, "why I shall be happier out of the world, in a
Sisterhood where I can try to help others even sadder than I have been."
"But," I threw out the bold suggestion, "what if there's a plot to get
you into the Sisterhood--into this old house!"
"Oh, but that's impossible!" she cried. "You wouldn't dream of such a
thing if you could meet the Head Sister and see what a splendid woman
she is!"
There was my opportunity to tell about the mask, and I took it. But it
availed me nothing. The mask, Miss Odell said, was no secret. She
understood that the Head Sister, in saving a child from fire, had so
injured her face that for the sake of others she kept it hidden.
Another version had it that the motive for wearing the mask was some
"sacred vow." In any case, Maida assured me, it was an honour to the
good and charitable woman; and no arguments would break her resolution
to give the next year to work with the Sisterhood. After that year--if
I could solve the mystery of the stolen formula, and put an end for
ever to scandal--she would come back and face the world again. But how
could I, a stranger, do what Roger had failed to do?
That was the question. Yet I made up my mind that it must be answered
in _one way_, or my life would be a failure. Not only would I solve
that mystery, I told myself--though I dared not boast to the girl--but
I would link together the old one with the new. The way to do this, I
told myself, was to learn whether an enemy of Maida Odell's father had
found her under her borrowed name, and had made the Granvilles and
Adriances his conscious or unconscious tools.
This talk we had while the train stood still. We were sitting on a log
together, out of earshot from the other passengers, when--with the name
of the Grey Sisterhood on our lips--we looked up to see its veiled
directress. She had, she said, been put to much trouble in securing an
automobile to come for Madeleine, and see that she was not persuaded to
break a promise. Maida, embarrassed and protesting, assured her friend
that there was no thought of such disloyalty. Lord John--timidly the
girl introduced us--had come only to try and help her throw off an old
sorrow, as I had helped Roger and Grace. So she tried to "explain" me;
and the Head Sister, having triumphed, could afford to heap coals of
fire on my head by being coldly civil. Her one open revenge she took
by requesting me not to follow them to their automobile. The chauffeur
would fetch Miss Odell's hand luggage out of the train, and my
"kindness would no longer be needed." I was dismissed by the
conqueror; and left by the wayside with but one consolation: Maida had
said "au revoir," not good-bye.
For a moment I stood crushed. Then a thought jumped into my mind:
"What if this woman is the one I saw in the auto outside the theatre?"
I felt that I had been a fool to obey Maida, and took steps to retrieve
my mistake. But the veiled lady had been too clever for me. The car
was gone past recall. If it hadn't been for that viper-thought--and
the thought of what had happened in my rooms last night--I might not
have had the "cheek" to make my next move in the game. But things
being as they were I couldn't stand still and take a rebuff.
Instead of motoring back to New York, I went to Salthaven, and
breakfasted at a small inn there. Of the Sisterhood I could learn
nothing, for it had but lately taken up its quarters near by. Of those
quarters, however, I was able to pick up some queer stories. The place
had been bought, it seemed, for a song, because of its ghostly
reputation, which had frightened tenant after tenant away.
"What a good pitch to choose if any 'accident' were planned, and lay it
to the ghosts!" I thought. And I knew that I couldn't go without
learning more about the Sisterhood House than the landlord at Salthaven
could tell me. I must see for myself if it were the sort of place
where "anything could happen."
I meant to wait until late, when all the Grey Sisters and their
protegees were safely asleep. Then, with a present of meat for a
possible watch dog, I would try a prowl of inspection. I made a vague
excuse of fancying the inn, and of wanting to rest till time to meet a
friend who would motor back with me to New York. I engaged a room in
order to take the alleged rest; but spent long hours in striving to
piece together bits of the most intricate puzzle my wits had ever
worked upon.
"In an hour more now I can start," I said at ten, and composed myself
to forget the slow ticking of my watch. But suddenly it was as if
Maida called. Actually I seemed to hear her voice. I sprang up, and
in five minutes had paid the bill and was off in my car for Pine Cliff.
I left West sitting in the auto at a little distance from the high
wall, which shut the old garden in from the rocks above the Sound.
Then I struck my crutch into a patch of rain-sodden earth, and used it
to help me vault over the wall. Just as I bestrode the top, a dog gave
out a bell-toned note. I saw his dark shape, and threw the meat I had
brought from the inn. He was greedily silent, and I descended, to pat
his head as he ate. Luckily he was an English bull, and perhaps
recognised me as a fellow-countryman. At all events, he gave his
sanction to my presence.
The neglected garden, which I could dimly see, was mysterious in the
night hush. There was no sound except the whisper of water on the
shore outside. The substantial building with its rows of closed blinds
looked common place and comfortable enough. Lights showed faintly in
two or three windows. Not all the household had gone to bed. As I
stood staring at a low balcony not far above the ground, which somehow
attracted and called my eyes, the blinds of a long French window
looking out upon it were opened. I saw Maida herself, and a tall woman
in grey, wearing a short veil. They stood together, talking. Then
with an affectionate touch on the girl's shoulder, the Head Sister--I
knew it must be she--bade her newest recruit good night.
The window was left open, but dark curtains were drawn across, no doubt
by Maida. Presently the long strip of golden light between these
draperies vanished. No scene could be more peaceful than the quiet
garden and the sleeping house. Still, something held me bound. How
long I stood there, I don't know: an hour, maybe; perhaps less, perhaps
more. But suddenly a white figure flashed out upon the balcony. So
dim was it in the darkness, I might have taken it for one of the famous
ghosts, but Maida's voice cried out: "_The face--the face_! God send
me help!"
"He has sent help. I've come, to take you away," I called, and held up
my arms.
Five minutes later she was with me in my car, rushing towards New York
and her brother's house.
* * * * *
"A gilded amateur detective," Roger Odell once called me in a joke.
But I knew he would listen to theories I'd formed concerning this
mystery which, like an evil spirit, had haunted his sister since
childhood. All night I spent in elaborating these theories and
dove-tailing them together. The girl had had a fright in the theatre.
I had seen a man with strange eyes and a scar, looking at her; and
through certain happenings at my hotel, I believed that a link between
him and Maida's "Head Sister" might be found. That, of course, would
free the girl from the promise she thought sacred.
By eight-thirty in the morning I was in touch with Pemberton's Private
Detective Agency, and I had just been assured that a good man, Paul
Teano, would be with me in ten minutes, when my telephone bell rang
shrilly. It was the voice of Grace Odell which answered my "Hello!"
"Oh, Lord John," she called distressfully, "isn't it dreadful? Maida's
going back to the Sisterhood House! The Head Sister has written her a
letter. Maida's answering it. She doesn't blame the woman for
_anything_. She thinks she herself was a coward to take fright at a
bad dream. Do come and argue with her. The child wants to start this
morning. That woman seems to have her hypnotised."
My answer goes without saying. I determined to put off the detective,
but he arrived as I finished talking to Grace, and as his looks
appealed to me I spared him a quarter of an hour. His eyes were as
Italian as his name--with the shadow of tragedy in them.
"Temperamental looking fellow," I said to myself.
My business with Teano had nothing to do directly with Maida. What I
had to tell him was the invasion of my rooms two nights before, but out
it came that I had been helping a woman, and that success in this case
might mean her safety.
"I, too, work for a woman, my lord," the detective said. Though he had
spent years in America, I noticed how little slang of the country he'd
chosen to pick up. He spoke, perhaps in the wish to impress me, with
singular correctness. "Now you have told me this, I shall be the more
anxious to serve you. I turned detective to find her. I've been five
years trying. But every morning I think, 'Perhaps it will be to-day.'"
There was no time then to draw him out as he would have liked to be
drawn out. I showed him what there was to work upon, in my rooms as
well as the two others, and then dashed off to Maida.
As my car stopped in front of Roger Odell's home, out of the house
bounced a small boy--a very small boy indeed, with the eyes of an imp,
and the clothes of a Sunday-school scholar. He looked at me as he
flashed past, and it was as if he said, "So it's _you_, is it?"
I had never seen the boy before, but I thought of the collapsible box;
and leaving a flabbergasted footman at the door, my crutch and I went
after the small legs that twinkled around the corner. The elf was too
quick, however. By the time I had got where he ought to have been, he
had made himself invisible. Whether a taxi had swallowed him, or a
door had opened to receive him, it was useless to wonder. All I could
do was to question the footman. The child had brought a letter to Miss
Odell, and had taken one away. "Meanwhile," the servant added, seeing
my interest, "he has entertained below stairs, making faces and turning
handsprings. Quite a acrobat, your lordship," remarked the man, who
hailed from my country; "and that _sharp_, though dumb as a fish! We
gave 'im cake and jam, but money seemed to please 'im most, an' his
pockets was full of it already. 'E's got enough to go on a most
glorious bust, beggin' your lordship's pardon."