A FIGHT IN THE DARK
After the cell door closed upon Royal Maillot I returned at once to the
house of tragedy, whose evil genius was promising to play havoc with
the lives of so many of the living; and as I approached the bleak,
austere old mansion something in its silent and inanimate exterior
seemed to repulse my advance up the gravel walk. My steps lagged, and
at last I drew to a halt.
Cold and clear and snappy as the day was, still there was something
oppressive in the air that hung about the house of death. I looked at
the lifeless windows. Staring vacantly, utterly expressionless of the
swift-moving tragic drama that had been enacted behind them, failing to
foreshadow what was yet to transpire here, they all at once brought
forcibly to my mind Alexander Burke. Thus did his eyes hide, instead
of disclose, the workings within.
That the mind of this man was secret and evil I could now no longer
doubt. Felix Page had been a powerful man, physically and mentally;
yet Alexander Burke, sly and impassive, soft-spoken and soft-footed,
ever alert and observant and burrowing, like a mole, in darkness, had
undermined him, and--the conviction grew--had brought about his cruel
death.
In what way? What far-reaching machination was he so laboriously
evolving? What snare was he casting unseen to bring down in ruin the
lives of others? And why? Coward that he was, had he at no time
worked in the broad light of day?
An unwelcome sense of depression was slowly weighing me down. It was
as if the silent house were haunted. At the time, I was convinced that
I was merely making a hodge-podge of the hundred and one clews that had
come to my hands, though now I know that the whole vast scheme was
gradually taking shape in my mind. I was bewildered by the wide
diversity of the opposed interests, left powerless by failure to light
upon a sure point of common interest defining the attitudes of the
different actors. For to say that it was the ruby did not clear the
fog any--unless I accepted the growing assurance that Alfred Fluette
was the active instrument of death.
Still, every detail I had gathered was necessary to complete the
circle. When finally I did have my case all in hand there was no
single point that remained obscure.
My brooding inertia was dispelled by a shout from Stodger. He was
standing on the front porch, regarding me with considerable curiosity.
"Hi! What you doing down there, Swift? Come here!"
I soon learned that he had something of interest to report.
"D' ye know, Swift," said he, with much seriousness, extending his
chubby hands to the welcome warmth of the library fire, "it's an
outrage--damme, if it is n't--that I 'm so fat. H'm! Believe in
ghosts?"
I was instantly all attention. Genevieve's terrifying experience was
too recent and real for me to scout any supernatural suggestion of my
colleague.
I quickly asked:
"Seen anything about the house?"
"Not in here. Outside. Could n't chase 'em."
"I'm glad you are fat, then; who would have watched the house while you
were chasing whatever it was you thought you saw?"
He clapped one hand on top of his bullet of a head, and stared at me in
comical surprise.
"Say! You're right, Swift! You are, by George! First time I ever
found a--ah--you know--a consolation for my--er m--my stoutness.
"Two shadows. Didn't get to see 'em plain. All the time you were gone
I could glimpse 'em now and then--first one place, then
another--slipping and sliding through the bushes, trying to keep hid,
y' know."
As may be imagined, I was profoundly interested.
"What did they look like?" I asked.
Stodger shook his head. "Bushes too thick. No leaves; but they would
n't come close enough for me to get a good look. H'm. Watching the
house, all right."
The matter was serious enough, in all conscience. Our incessant
vigilance was most certainly justified by the pertinacity of these
mysterious prowlers, for as long as they surreptitiously sought to
enter the house, my belief that the ruby lay hid somewhere beneath its
roof was in a way confirmed.
Stodger was sagely nodding his head at me.
"To-night," he said, with meaning. "Bet anything you like."
"To-night," I thoughtfully echoed. "It would not surprise me in the
least."
Although a close watch was maintained throughout the remainder of the
day, we saw no more of the elusive "shadows." My arrival, manifestly,
had frightened them away.
I put in a portion of the time until nightfall going carefully over the
old house again, from cellar to roof. My purpose now was to ascertain
whether there were any secret passages or concealed openings whereby we
might be surprised; and my labors convinced me that there were none.
The face which Genevieve saw at the alcove curtains could be easily
accounted for, since, with the exception of Stodger, who was in the
second story, and the officer in the lower hall, everybody in the house
was assembled in the library, and, of course, completely absorbed in
the inquest. It had been an easy matter to open one of the lower
windows, or even one of the rear or side doors, and enter the house.
I found that the walls were all of an even, normal thickness, and there
were no spaces between floors or walls for which I did not
satisfactorily account. I also kept a watchful eye for the prototype
of the designs on the cipher, but discovered nothing that was at all
like them.
Otherwise the day proved to be wholly uneventful. I spent much time in
consideration of my case, naturally; but this exercise yielded nothing
more conclusive than that Alfred Fluette's place in it was assuming
larger and larger proportions as time went by.
I was much impressed with Maillot's charge to watch Burke. But here
again I was offered no new light. It was satisfying to know that
another than myself was distrustful of the erstwhile secretary; but as
for watching him--well, I knew that he was being subjected to a
constant espionage that left nothing to be desired.
It was, doubtless, the emphasis which Maillot had laid upon Burke's
secret visits to Fluette that engaged my interest. I would have liked
very much to know what they portended. If the slippery secretary had
been carrying on negotiations with the millionaire for the Paternoster
ruby, then the latter's position relative to the murder stood out quite
clearly. With knowledge of those interviews in my possession I would
be in a position to lay my case before the State's Attorney, who,
beyond question, would procure a warrant for Fluette's immediate arrest.
What a sensation that would create!--Alfred Fluette charged with the
murder of his rival and bitter enemy, Felix Page! It would be
particularly startling inasmuch as a coroner's jury had already
fastened the crime upon another man. I believe the reader will
unhesitatingly admit, by this time, that the Page affair presented many
remarkable aspects.
There was one discordant element in such a theory, however: namely, how
could Fluette hope to retain possession of the gem, once he had secured
it? How could he defend his title to it? Although the stone was
immensely valuable, any person save the rightful owner would have an
exceedingly difficult time disposing of it.
But this objection was in turn offset by the possibility that Page,
although he had purchased the ruby openly, _had actually acquired no
just title to it_. I admit, considering that Felix Page was never the
sort of man to buy a pig in a poke, that the possibility was rather
far-fetched; still, it was a possibility, and a very pregnant one, too.
For if such were the case, Burke might have obtained, in some underhand
manner, authority to dispose of it.
And this brought me to the, as yet, unaccounted-for Japanese--I call
them such for lack of a more definite characterization. How otherwise
was their obscure connection with the case to be explained? Why, the
very word "ruby" instantly calls up a picture of the East. How often
have priceless gems been filched from Oriental potentates! How often
have mysterious murders been committed to recover some jewel stolen
from an Eastern temple, the murderer driven forth by religious zeal--or
fanaticism, call it what you will--to a relentless search for the
fetich, and to wreak a dire vengeance on the plunderer! Admitting that
the present intricate problem involved a similar instance, I could not
see how the fact might tend to aid me any.
After supper, which was brought in to us, Stodger and I divided the
night into two watches--I taking the first until two o'clock in the
morning, and he assuming responsibility from that time on until he
chose to awaken me.
I arranged the two watches thus because I imagined that if an attempt
should be made to enter the house during the night, it would occur at
some time near the hour mentioned when both of us would more than
likely be awake. My guess, you will see, was a poor one.
I also wanted to devote the fore part of the night, when my brain is
always clearest, to an exhaustive study of the cipher found by
Genevieve in the jewel-box. Until Stodger was ready to retire I could
concentrate my whole mind upon it, I told myself, without fear of being
disturbed. After my companion turned in I would have to remain alert,
keeping pretty constantly on the move so that no marauder might steal
in upon us unawares, or from an unexpected quarter.
If the place was bleak and dreary in the daytime, what words will
describe its dispiriting influence at night? There is a silence that
is soothing and restful, which imbues one with a sense of comfort and a
pleasant desire for sleep. Then there is another sort of silence; one
that magnifies every trifling sound, sounds that could not even be
detected during the day; the sort of silence that hints at uneasy
stirrings and movements all about one. The distant cockcrow rings
clear and high, floors creak, the very timbers of the house complain,
and mice scurry in the walls.
It was such a stillness that enveloped us. Even Stodger's
irrepressible good-humor failed to cheer. The old mansion was
possessed of a thousand voices, strange, indefinable noises that kept
our attention constantly divided; yet the night was so still that I
could hear our watches ticking in our pockets.
The result was that the cipher received only scant attention from me.
I would get only fairly absorbed in my task when Stodger would startle
me with a sudden "Ssh!" or a no less startling command to "Listen!"
Whereupon we would both sit straining our ears to hear--nothing.
Every few minutes one or the other of us, or both together, would go
over the entire house, examining doors and windows and making sure that
no one had entered since the last tour of inspection.
This was repeated so many times that Stodger himself grew glum, and at
last signified a determination to turn in. He made himself comfortable
on the big library divan,--the same divan which had held Belle
Fluette's motionless form only a few hours previous,--wrapped himself
in a heavy blanket from Felix Page's bed, and was soon fast asleep; or,
at least, he offered audible evidence that he was.
Again I tried to fasten my attention upon the cryptic parchment; but it
was of no use. In spite of myself, my head would jerk up to a
listening attitude every time a board creaked or I fancied I heard a
door somewhere in the house being cautiously opened. Time after time I
would be sent stealthily to some remote corridor or chamber, only to
return again to the library no wiser than before.
I finally thrust the cipher back into my pocketbook and resigned myself
to a lonely vigil. The great library was a place of shadows and dark
recesses, as well as of silence; and had it not been for the regular,
stertorous breathing of the sleeper, I might have wished myself well
out of it.
The hours dragged along--midnight, one o'clock, two, half-past, and
still I did not rouse Stodger; I never had less desire to sleep.
During one of my excursions through the empty, echoing rooms I set down
my lantern--we had provided ourselves with this convenience--and looked
out into the night. The pleasant weather of the past few days had
ended; it was dark--very dark--and an occasional flake of snow,
materializing ghostlike within the square of light from the lantern,
scraped along the small diamond panes with a feathery touch.
Presently I entered Felix Page's bedroom. And here, for the first time
that night, I was sensible of an absolute stillness. Not even a board
creaked. Not a breath stirred the leafless boughs outside, nor rattled
the withered vines on the walls. Then of a sudden I grew rigid,
tensely alert, and watchful. From somewhere a breath of icy outdoor
air struck upon my face and hands.
Now whatever else might be said of this old house, it was not a place
of drafts. Its walls were thick and solid, its doors massive, and the
doors and windows were snug-fitting; therefore, the fact that I now
felt a perceptible rush of air could signify but one thing--that an
outside door or window had been opened.
During a brief pause I hesitated over whether I should rouse Stodger;
but so slight a warrant decided me not to. A shout from any part of
the house, should he be needed, would accomplish the purpose quite as
well.
So I merely stood motionless and listened. The circumstance that my
straining ears could now hear nothing whatever was in itself ominous.
The hush which had fallen upon the place was the sort that heralds an
advance through a forest of the most cautious of hunters. Danger might
be creeping upon me from every side and in any imaginable guise; if so,
here was my warning.
Then it was that I smiled and reached a decision. With infinite
caution I sank to the floor, removed my shoes, and draped a rug over
the lantern. Only the dimmest points of light showed through the weave
of the fabric; merely enough to serve as a guiding beacon in case I
wanted to find it in a hurry. Next, with my revolver in hand, I stole
to the hall door, which had been left ajar purposely, and peered out.
The darkness was fathomless, the silence complete. The spacious lower
hall was the Dionysius' ear of the house; if there was any movement
about the place, here if anywhere it would be detected and its source
determined.
The floor was of hardwood, and my feet were soon numb with cold. Then,
too, bravery is a relative term when all is said and done. A coward
may be always a coward, but it is not an inevitable corollary that a
brave man is always brave. To know a possible antagonist, to walk
boldly up to him in the broad light of day, is one thing; to stand in a
hyperborean hall in the dead of the night, surrounded by the darkness
of the pit, ignorant alike of the nature of your peril and the point
from which an attack may come--that is quite another.
So I freely own that my jaws ached with the effort of keeping my teeth
from clicking together like castanets.
In the course of a long and not uneventful career, I have been in a
good many tight places and under all sorts of conditions where I had to
hold myself to the matter in hand with every grain of will power that I
could muster; but never since that night in the old Page hall have I
experienced precisely the same unnerving feeling that possessed me
then. I came perilously close to an ignominious retreat--and before
ever I had an idea of what I was running from!
Fortunately for whatever status I may hold in this chronicle, the
movement was checked at its inception. In a flash my momentary panic
was forgotten. I caught a sound that I recognized and, moreover,
located on the instant. It was the long, unmistakable creak of a loose
stair plank such as follows the gradual shifting of a person's weight
from one foot to another. Somebody was slowly and cautiously ascending
the rear stairs.
I could smile once more and breathe normally. Instead of retreating, I
was in the next few seconds stealing up the front stairs. Nor did I
move very slowly, either. I knew by experiment that its steps were all
solid, and that I need not fear the betrayal of any complaining board.
At the stair head I became cautious again; I did n't want to risk a
collision with the _étagère_. What must I do, however, but stumble
against the topmost step and plunge head foremost right into the thing.
The ensuing crash that filled the house was like an explosion. It also
drowned my comments. To make matters worse, in my efforts to keep from
falling, my revolver shot from my hand and through the balusters, and
went clattering down to the landing with the noise of a falling brick.
I recovered myself on the instant, however, and with a final
malediction, darted toward the bath room. There was a sound of
scurrying behind its door; but I paused not for doors. Fortunately it
was a trifle ajar, and it went open before me with a thud. Also from
behind it a most unmistakable human grunt emanated, the sort of
involuntary notice a person gives when he has the wind suddenly knocked
out of him. Then right in my ears there sounded the most weird,
unearthly cry that I ever heard; it was positively uncanny. A cold
chill went through me from head to foot.
Events thereafter moved with such electric swiftness that the details
are all blurred.
I remember that I heard Stodger shouting encouragement, and his
stockinged feet patting the bare floors as he ran. As the bath room
door shot open and the strange cry shrilled forth, some object fell to
the floor near me. There was also a sound of running feet up the rear
stairs; which would indicate that my enemy was a host, and that the
main body was returning to accomplish a rescue.
In a flash I had reached forth my arms and grappled with the unknown
behind the door. That struggle would have been short, for he was like
a child in my grasp. But instantly I was seized from all sides at
once, it seemed. It was as if a dozen hands were feeling over me, to
distinguish friend from foe.
Into what had I rushed so blindly? Who was opposing me? How many were
there?
At least twice I was borne to one knee by sheer weight and the number
of my assailants. Both times I succeeded in shaking myself free and
rising again to my feet. I was warm enough now, heaven knows, and I
had the satisfaction of knowing that I was inflicting far more damage
than I was receiving.
I knew when Stodger unhesitatingly threw himself into the thick of the
fray. Good old Stodger! And there we fought, silently, furiously, in
the restricted space of the bath room, enveloped in a darkness that one
could almost feel. Again and again I collided with the porcelain tub.
More than once when I secured a firm grasp upon one of my unseen
adversaries, I picked him up bodily and hurled him with all the force
of which I was capable toward where I fancied the tub to be. But in
the riot and frenzied confusion of being jerked first this way and then
that, how could mortal distinguish the location of anything!
The struggle ended abruptly. Stodger and I were at a disadvantage, for
he dared not shoot on my account, and I had no weapon but my two bare
hands.
Not so our antagonist, however. Of a sudden one side of my face felt
as if some one had quickly drawn the tip of a red-hot poker from the
corner of my eye to my chin. At the same instant a crushing blow
caught me above one ear.
The blow did not render me unconscious, but it more than staggered me.
For an instant such strength as was left me was needed to keep from
tumbling headlong. I was on my knees and one hand, while the other arm
was hooked over the rim of the tub.
The fight had ended. I could hear a patter of feet on the rear stairs;
I could hear some one near me on the floor, breathing heavily; then
fell silence. I tried to yell to Stodger to be up and after them, but
the result was only a painful wheezing in my throat. Then the gasping
form on the floor groaned, and I managed to get dizzily to my feet.
We received the worst of that fight in more ways than one. When I
managed to find a candle and light it, I discovered that Stodger was
the one who had groaned. He was sitting up, not badly hurt, and
staring dazedly at the candle. His mouth hung ludicrously open. But
in a moment he struggled upright.
"Good God, Swift!" he gasped. "You 've been butchered!"
Then I recalled the red-hot poker. I put a hand to my cheek; it came
away covered with blood. From the shoulder down, my clothes were
saturated with it, and I had left a crimson trail to mark each of my
movements since the keen-edged blade had laid my face open.
But enough of the wound. The white pucker of scar which to-day
disfigures my face will be a life-long memento of that spirited combat
in the dark.
After we were in condition to do so, Stodger and I set about an
inspection of the scene.
First of all, we did n't find a trace of our adversaries, or how many
of them there might have been, until we came to the snow outside. An
open dining-room window indicated their method of ingress, the trampled
snow beneath their number. There had been five.
"Why the bath room?" Stodger demanded, in deep perplexity. "Why should
everything that happens in this house be pulled off there?"
Why indeed?
"Let's go back there and try to find out," I returned, stiffly, for my
cheek was paining under the mass of plaster that Stodger had piled upon
it.
Carefully and systematically, we went over every inch of space--I don't
know how many times I had done so since the murder--but found
absolutely nothing that was not already familiar to me. It was
miserably aggravating that every search I undertook in this house of
mystery should prove fruitless. Yet, we could find nothing whatever to
serve as a reply to Stodger's pertinent question.
It was before the bath room door that Felix Page had met his death; it
was the bath room that had been designated on the chart found by me in
the snow; it was to this point that both Alexander Burke and Alfred
Fluette had turned with a glance of ardent eagerness; it was to the
bath room that Genevieve had pursued the mysterious yellow face--always
the bath room. It would seem to be the converging point of the
tragedy's every moving current.
We were about to give it up in despair, when I started forward with a
wordless cry. _The bar of yellow soap was gone!_
On the instant the import of this discovery flashed into my mind. How
blind and dull I had been!
During the struggle Tuesday night, between Page and--shall I say
Fluette?--in the hall, Burke had in some way secured the ruby, and with
diabolical cleverness _had pressed it into the bar of soap_! A bit of
manipulation under the water-tap had removed all traces. Think of the
brain that could light upon a hiding-place like that in the stress of
such a moment! And I had paused by that very bar of soap,
philosophizing and moralizing--it made me sick to think of it. No
wonder they were all so interested in the bath room!
This revelation left my mind blank for a second. Then came a rush of
mingled feelings--bitter chagrin and disappointment, mortification
because I had been outwitted, and a blind, hot resentment against those
who had bested me.
Recalling the object I had heard drop to the floor at the moment I
dashed the door open, I dropped to my hands and knees and began a
feverish search for some sign. Yes, there it was--a small smear of
soap, where the bar had struck.
For a while Stodger thought I was crazy, and perhaps I was. I fumed
and raved at him for not entering into the search with a frenzied zeal
equal to mine. At last he too understood.
But our pawing over the floor and the stairs, and even in the snow
outdoors, availed nothing. We were beaten, confounded, made a
laughing-stock.
The bar of soap was gone.