THE SECRET OF THE COURTYARD
The gray walls of the Turber Sanatorium were painted red by the falling
sun when we departed in our waiting taxi. The episode with the girl
had taken only a moment. I had spoken to her; I said fatuously:
"Don't you know us?"
She did not seem to try to answer. Her gaze swung from Alan to me. She
took a step backward; as though the sound of my voice were frightening;
but I could have sworn she was watching Turber; it was Turber of whom
she was afraid, not us.
"Come," he said. "That's enough." We had not crossed the threshold. He
closed the door upon the girl; her gaze seemed still searching Alan's
face as it closed.
Turber led us back downstairs. He chatted pleasantly about the girl's
case; he accompanied us to the door and smilingly bowed us out.
"I shall hope to see you again, Tremont. Bring Nanette when you come
next time, will you?" He said it sardonically. But more than that, for
beneath his banter there was an intensity that made me shudder. And a
pang of fear for Nanette swept me. We had left her home alone.
Turber stood gazing after us as we drove away. I recall him, standing
there on the steps of the porte-cochere; hunched forward; his gorilla
figure so immaculately garbed, fingers toying with his black eyeglass
ribbon, his mouth twisted with a faint sardonic smile. Sinister
figure! Satanic! A very modern Mephistopheles, this fellow Turber. A
genius--for evil; of that, at least, I was now convinced.
We were silent on the way back in the taxi. My mind was on Nanette. It
seemed suddenly that she must be in danger; my greatest desire was to
get back as quickly as we could.
We dismissed the taxi. At the ferryhouse I said abruptly: "Alan, let's
telephone Nanette."
"Why?"
"I'm worried about her," I stammered. "Alan, that fellow Turber--"
We called the apartment. She answered promptly.
"You all right, Nanette?" I demanded.
"Why, yes, of course, Edward. When will you be back? I've been worried
about you."
"We'll be there in an hour."
I hung up. I felt unutterably relieved. We boarded the ferry.
"What do you propose to do next?" I asked Alan.
"Get our car--come back tonight."
"With Nanette?"
"Yes. I know how you feel. That fellow Turber--this weird thing--"
"No time to leave Nanette alone. I wish she weren't there now."
"We'll be there shortly. When we come back, you'll stay in the car with
her," Alan directed.
While he was meeting Charlie at the tennis court gate? I did not fancy
so inactive a role.
"It's best, Ed. Only one of us should go in. With both of us, the
chance of being discovered would be greater. Besides, we daren't leave
Nanette."
"You think he'll let you in?"
"Charlie? I think so. They're very cunning, fellows like that. He said
he would hide me in his room."
We discussed it. There was so much--and yet so little that was
tangible--to discuss! But I realize now that Alan, with his greater
knowledge of what all this might mean, had formed fairly definite
plans. To discuss them with me then, was futile. He did not do it.
* * * * *
We got home to Nanette, and had supper. My own reticence matched Alan's
when it came to going into details with Nanette. It would have led us
far afield in fantastic, meaningless theory. But the girl was there,
held virtually a prisoner; we wanted to release her. That we told
Nanette, but nothing more. It was, indeed, as definite a plan as I
could form myself.
It was a hurried supper. Nanette had it ready for us when we came in.
It was eight o'clock when, after hurried preparations, we started.
Alan brought his car from the near-by garage. Nanette, with her hair
braided and piled upon her head, was ready. We all wore outer coats.
The evening was cooling; the sky was overcast.
Alan went into his workshop; came out with a small cloth bag. "Nanette,
get your black cloak--I couldn't find it."
"I thought I'd wear this coat and hat, Alan. Don't I look all right?"
Eternal feminine! The subconscious strain under which we were laboring
made us laugh.
"Of course you do! We're not going to the opera! I want your cloak--for
something else."
She went and got it. The car was a big sedan. Alan put on the back seat
the cloak and his cloth bag--they were tools from the workshop, he had
told me briefly when I questioned. We all three sat in front, as was
our custom. Alan drove.
I recall as we left the apartment that I vaguely gazed ahead those few
hours to when we would return. The futility of gazing ahead!
"We've got to hurry," said Alan. "Hope we can catch a ferry, without
too long a wait."
He threaded us skillfully south through the crowded city streets. I
gazed around. This was New York of 1945. I suddenly felt wholly apart
from it.
We just made the ferry. The sky continued overcast. It rained a little,
and then stopped. We left the ferry, drove into Staten Island toward
Turber's.
"I think I know a secluded place," Alan had told us.
He found it, an unlighted country road. He stopped and switched off the
headlights. The darkness leaped at us.
"Where are we?" I demanded.
"A mile from Turber's--not much more. You can see it off there."
We climbed to the road. The sky was solid gray. We were in a lonely
neighborhood; a fence was here, bordering a field; but no house was in
sight. The road went up a rise here through a cut. Alan had drawn the
car to one side; a spreading tree hung over it. Beyond the trees, I
could see the lights of a near-by settlement; a trolley car--a lighted
roadway winding off there; and the hill with the lights of Turber's.
The searchlight was not lighted.
"Hadn't we better get closer, Alan?"
"No, this is all right. It's barely a mile."
"You know where we are? You'll be able to find us, coming back?"
"Yes. Just keep your lights out and wait."
"How long, Alan?" Anxiety flooded me. "If you don't come back--say by
midnight--what shall I do?"
"I will come back. You just wait, Ed."
He kissed Nanette. I sat at the wheel with her beside me. Alan's
figure, carrying his small bag and the black cloak, showed dimly down
the road for a moment, then was gone.
It was nine forty. With all the lights of the car extinguished, we sat
in the darkness, waiting. Alan had taken a small revolver, and I had
one also.
* * * * *
Ten o'clock. A distant bell marked it; I snapped on the dash light to
verify it. Nanette felt me move.
"What is it, Ed?"
"Nothing. I was looking at the time."
"Ten o'clock?"
"Yes."
We fell silent. Alan would be at the gate of Turber's by now. But what
reliance could we place upon that boy Charlie's word for what he would
do? Perhaps he had no key to the tennis court gate at all. Or even if
he had, he would forget to come. Or Turber would see him and stop him.
Or worse, follow him and trap Alan. A thousand doubts and fears for
Alan's safety rose to beset me.
Ten thirty. Eleven o'clock. What was Alan doing now? But I told myself:
"This is 1945--not the dark ages of the past. This is civilized New
York." If Turber caught Alan prowling on the premises, what of it? He
wouldn't dare murder Alan. Or would he?
Waiting is a difficult thing to do. The mind grows too active. I began
to think that Alan wasn't coming back. Nanette crept against me in the
darkness.
"Ed, what time is it?"
"Nearly midnight."
"Ed, I'm so frightened--"
I began to plan what I would do. Wait here until midnight, or one
o'clock perhaps. Then drive up to Turber's and boldly ask for Alan. At
worst, they would have caught him--arrested him as a marauder. I set my
teeth. Why, before morning, if I couldn't locate Alan I'd have all the
police of Staten Island up at Turber's looking for him!
"Don't be frightened, Nanette--he'll be back presently."
No one had passed along this road; we seemed wholly secluded. The sky
remained overcast; there was not a star showing; off in the distance
lightning had flared for a time and we heard the distant thunder,
but the storm had now receded. There had been a cool wind, but it
died. The night was black and dark. Breathless. And I think it was my
apprehension, too, that made me breathless. I sat, with Nanette huddled
against me; and stared, straining my eyes in the darkness for Alan's
coming.
Midnight passed.
From the roof of the Turber Hospital the searchlight beam abruptly
flashed into the sky! It hung motionless.
I told Nanette.
"What does it mean? What could--"
"I don't know."
We sat tense, every faculty alert. Nanette, with sharpened fancy and a
hearing always keener than normal, cried out suddenly:
"There was a shot! Listen! There's another!"
I seemed, myself, to hear the sound of distant shots. At Turber's?
"An automobile tire blowing out," I said. "Or a car back-firing."
But she insisted: "I thought I heard screams--some one screaming--"
"Nonsense!"
Another interval. The searchlight off there hung steady.
"Ed, what is that? Don't you hear?"
I heard nothing; but Nanette did, quite evidently.
"Someone coming! Can't you hear them?"
Then I heard it. Running, approaching footsteps, clattering faintly in
the darkness on the stony road!
* * * * *
Alan crept up to the Turber place. He heard the clock chime ten. An
Italian settlement lay in a fringe along the east side of the hospital
grounds. The main gateway was there. Alan skirted to the west. A
cemetery lay on the west slope of the hill, with a narrow road like
a trail bordering the high iron fence. It was all dark along here;
but Alan remembered that the tennis courts were in this far corner.
According to Charlie there should be a small gate somewhere here in the
fence.
Would Charlie keep his word? Alan, in talking to me, had seemed
confident. But he was hardly that. Everything that Charlie had said
might be the wanderings of an unhinged mind; the boy might have
forgotten it all by now.
Abruptly Alan came to a small iron door in the fence. A dark figure
stood behind it.
"Charlie?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Let me in."
The door swung inward. Alan slipped through; closed it carefully.
"Where's the key, Charlie?"
"Here."
"You keep it. We'll leave this unlocked--when I'm gone you can lock it
after me."
"Yes."
Alan could just make out Charlie's figure at the edge of the tennis
court.
"No trouble getting out here, Charlie?"
"No."
"Nobody saw you? Sure?"
"Nobody. I'm supposed to be in bed. I was, but I got up--look how I'm
dressed."
He moved to where a yellow glint from a lighted window of the near-by
building fell upon him. He wore a long dark dressing gown.
"And my brown tennis shoes, see? Dark clothes for dark deeds at night!"
Alan seized him. "Come out of that light! Shall we go to your room
first? Wait for the place to get to sleep?"
"Yes. I can get you there. A side door--I know where it is."
They started, along the edge of the court, then under the shadowy trees
of the lawn.
"Won't they lock the side door at night, Charlie?"
"They did, already. It's a spring lock--I opened it from the inside and
left it unlatched."
There seemed, even at this early hour, few lights about the building.
"Almost all in bed," Charlie whispered. "All but the doc. He never goes
to bed."
Charlie knew where the girl's room was. The Indian was on guard there
across the hall. But Alan felt that there was no reason why the girl's
door should be watched too closely. They could not anticipate any one's
trying to get her out. That Indian would relax by midnight; probably
would go to sleep in his own room, with his hall door open so that he
could hear if the girl made any disturbance.
Charlie and Alan came to a small entryway at the ground level.
"Are the halls empty?"
"Yes. Nobody will see us. They're dark, too, at night. If you want to
go to my room first--"
"I do."
There was a dim night light in this small inside hallway. It showed
Charlie with rumpled hair, white face and gleaming eyes. He was shaking
with excitement.
"Come on. What's that you're carrying?" the boy asked.
Alan wore black rubber-soled shoes; his long, lightweight dark overcoat
and a dark cap. The bag was under his arm. In his overcoat pocket he
had the small revolver.
"Tools, Charlie. To open the door of the girl's room--later, when that
Indian gets to sleep--"
The bag contained a chisel, a screw-driver and other implements with
which he might force a lock. And a vial of chloroform and a sponge.
* * * * *
They crept along the hallway, into the main lower corridor. Alan feared
that at any moment they would be discovered. He would make a dash to
get out the way they had come in--
"Here! Come in here." Charlie twitched him suddenly by the arm. Through
an archway, and Alan found himself in a familiar room--the reception
room. It was unlighted. Its furniture showed dimly in the light from
the corridor. Like shadows they slid into the recess behind the
portieres of the windows.
"What is it, Charlie? Some one coming?"
"No. I want to show you--outside here. Big things afoot here
tonight--dark deeds of mystery. I know--I've seen them!"
They cautiously raised one of the shades a trifle. Alan saw that the
main courtyard was dark and silent. The single door of the laboratory
building was closed.
"What, Charlie? Shall we stay here awhile?"
"Yes. Big things going on. You'll see."
"But what? What have you seen?"
"Things you can't see from here. From the roof you can see them because
you're higher than those other walls. Shall we go to the roof? I've got
the key--that's Bluebeard's key--"
"No. Stay here awhile."
They were comparatively safe, here behind the portieres. Alan was
waiting until later, when he could go up to the girl's room.
They crouched at the window. Half an hour passed. An hour. It was
getting toward half past eleven. No lights showed now in any of the
courtyard windows; it was all dark out there.
Once or twice Alan had heard footsteps in the main corridor outside the
reception room. But no one had entered; and for half an hour now there
had been no sound of anyone.
Another interval.
"We've been here long enough," Alan decided.
"All right." The boy was shaking again. "It's midnight, isn't it? 'The
very witching time of night when churchyards yawn, and hell itself
breathes out contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood and
do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on--'"
"Charlie, stop that!"
"It's Hamlet. I'm like Hamlet--a little mad, but though they fool me to
the top of my bent they cannot play upon me!"
"Stop it! Let's go upstairs now."
"Shall we? All right. Go where?"
"To the girl's room. Can you lead me there?"
"Yes. But she isn't there!"
"What?" It electrified Alan. "Not there!" He gripped Charlie. "What do
you mean?"
"Don't! You hurt!" The lad jerked away.
"Sorry, Charlie! But hush, you make too much noise!"
"All right. But you hurt me. The girl isn't up there."
"Why in Heaven's name didn't you say so long ago? Where is she?"
* * * * *
Charlie gestured to the window. "Over there--in the laboratory. They
took her over there--just before I went to let you in."
"They? Who?"
"The doc. And the Indian. That's Uncas, as we call him. Uncas was a
Mohican--you know that."
"Where are they now?" Alan's heart sank. This changed his plans wholly.
Was it true?
"They? Who? The girl? She's over there now. They locked her in over
there--then they came back."
"Where? When was this?"
"About ten o'clock. I saw them start over here from the laboratory, but
then it was time for me to go and let you in."
"They came over here--to the main building?"
"Yes. They're in the doc's rooms, I guess. They're getting ready for
something. You'll see. That's what I've been waiting for--they'll be
going back over to the laboratory soon."
Alan felt that it was true. There were many things which Charlie had
said that fitted into Alan's own beliefs.
"Charlie, can you get us down there?"
"In the courtyard? Yes. Sure I can. Two or three ways. This isn't a
jail--you can go where you like if you know the way. I've been almost
everywhere, and nobody ever caught me."
They slipped into the dim corridor. A flight of stairs was near at
hand. The lower story was wholly dark. Charlie found a cross hall and
opened a door.
They were on the courtyard pavement. Near by an end of the inner
building was visible as a dark outline; they moved noiselessly across
the open space and crouched against the brick wall of the laboratory.
"How far are we from the door, Charlie?"
"Not far. There's a wheelbarrow there somebody left this afternoon.
Let's hide by it."
They came upon the wheelbarrow. It was standing up against the
laboratory wall. Its shelter was hardly necessary; the yard here was
solid black.
"Where's the door?" Alan whispered.
"Right here. What you going to do?"
* * * * *
Alan stood at the door. His fumbling hands felt of it. There was no
knob; an iron door, set in a brick and iron casement. His fingers felt
a lock, sunk in the metal of the door.
Alan laid his bag at his feet. No chance of forcing this lock. Turber
and the Indian would doubtless be coming presently. Whatever Alan could
do must be done now.
In the solid darkness at his elbow, Charlie's voice whispered again:
"What you going to do?"
Alan acted wholly upon impulse. He thought that the girl was inside,
alone. She might be able to help--
He knocked, very softly on the door.
"What you--" Charlie began.
"Sh!"
He knocked again.
It happened unexpectedly; yet Alan by instinct was ready for it.
The door abruptly opened!
It swung, just a few inches; a guttural voice sounded, speaking
unintelligible words!
Whatever surprise it was to Alan, the Indian within was undoubtedly far
more surprised. Alan stuck his foot into the door opening; he shoved
violently with his powerful body, his shoulder against the door. It
yielded; opened wide with a rush, knocking the Indian backward.
Alan burst into the room. The Indian, unarmed, recovered his balance to
find himself staring at Alan's leveled revolver.
"Don't you move! Put your hands up!"
Behind him, Charlie yelped shrilly: "He can't understand English! He's
a Mohican!"
But Alan's menace was enough; the fellow backed against the wall. His
hands went up.
"You've got him! You've got him!"
"Charlie, shut up!"
A confusion of swift impressions surged upon Alan. A small, bare room
with a vague glow of light. The girl was here! She stood near the
Indian. Frightened, shrinking against the wall; but she saw Alan,
recognized him. She took a step forward.
Charlie was making too much noise. The door through which Alan had
burst was open. If Turber saw the glow of light--or heard Charlie's
voice--or if any one else heard this uproar--
A confusion of instantaneous impressions.
"Charlie, shut up! You'll have the whole place aroused! Take the girl
out--she'll go with you! Grab her arm--we'll make a run for it."
The girl understood. If not Alan's words, at least his swift gestures.
She moved toward Charlie. Alan backed, his weapon leveled upon the
Indian. "Go on! Run, Charlie! Get her out at once! I'll follow. Get us
to the tennis court."
Alan backed, with the two of them behind him. He had been in that room
certainly not over thirty seconds. He left it with Turber's secret laid
bare to him! The room had an archway, opening inward. Alan had stood
facing it. Charlie had seen it and yelped with excitement.
In the inner court stood a large gray-white vehicle--a cabin airplane.
A spread of canvas for a concealing roof was over it. A vehicle for
traveling through Time--like the Time-traveling tower we had seen in
Central Park!