WHOSE FEET WERE SHOD WITH SILENCE
“Get out your revolver,” ordered the colonel; “look sharp! there may be
some one here.”
But there was not a sign of life revealed by the search. Meanwhile,
Winter was examining the body. His first thought was that Keatcham had
tried to escape and had been struck down in his flight. Kito would not
scruple at such a deed; nor for that matter, Mercer. But why leave the
man thus? Why not dispose of the body--unless, indeed, the assassins
had been interrupted. Anyhow, what a horrid mess this murder would make
of the affair! and how was he to keep the women out of it! All at once,
in the examination which he had been making (while a dozen gruesome
possibilities tumbled over one another in his mind) he stopped; he put
his ear to the man’s heart.
“Isn’t he dead?” asked Tracy under his breath.
“No, he is not dead, but I’m afraid he’ll never find it out,” returned
the colonel, shrugging his shoulders. “However, any brandy handy? And
get me some water.”
“I know where there is some brandy--I’ll get it; there is some water in
the fountain right--_Cary!_”
“What’s the matter?” demanded Cary Mercer in one of the arcade doorways
of the _patio_. “What’s happened? The devil! Who did this?” He strode
up to the kneeling soldier.
“You are in a position to know much better than I,” said the colonel
dryly. “We came this moment; we found this.”
“Cary, did _you_ do it?”--the young man laid his hand on Cary’s
shoulder; his face was ashy but his voice rang full and clear. “If you
did, I am sure you had a reason; but I want to know; we’re partners in
this thing to the finish.”
“Thank you, boy,” said Cary gently, “that’s good to hear. But I didn’t
hurt him, Endy. Why should I? We’d got what we wanted.”
“_Who did?_” asked the colonel.
“I didn’t and Kito didn’t. He went away to see his only brother who is
sick. He hasn’t got back. I don’t know who did it; but whoever stabbed
him must have done it without warning him; for I didn’t hear a sound.
I was in the library.”
“He’s breathing a little, I think,” murmured the young man, who was
sopping the gray mask of a face while Winter trickled brandy drop by
drop into the sagging mouth, “and--look! somebody has tried to rob him;
that’s a money belt!”
The waistcoat was open and Winter could see, beneath, a money belt with
buttoned pockets, which had been torn apart with such haste that one of
the buttons had been wrenched off.
“They seem to have been after money,” said he; “see! the belt is full
of bills; there’s only one pocket empty.”
“Perhaps he was interrupted,” explained Mercer. “Push the brandy,
Colonel, he’s moving his eyelids, suh!”
“We’ve got to do something to that hole in him, first,” said the
colonel. “Is there any doctor--”
“I daren’t send for one.”
“Tony Arnold might know one we could trust,” suggested Tracy. “I can
get him over the long distance.”
“We want somebody _now_, this minute,” declared the colonel.
“There’s Janet Smith,” said Mercer, “my sister-in-law; she’s Mrs.
Winter’s companion; she used to be a trained nurse and a mighty good
one; _she_ could be trusted.”
Could she? And how the terms of his distrust had changed! He had
fought against an answer in the affirmative this morning; now his
heart was begging for it; he was cold with fear lest she wasn’t this
conspirator’s confederate.
“Send for them both,” said he with no sign of emotion.
“I’ll call up Aunt Rebecca,” said Mercer. “Isn’t he reviving? No? Best
not move him till we get the wound dressed, don’t you reckon, Colonel?”
But the colonel was already making a rough tourniquet out of his
handkerchief and a pencil to stanch the bleeding. The others obeyed
his curt directions; and it was not until the still unconscious man
was disposed in a more comfortable posture on the cushions which Tracy
brought, that Winter sent the latter to the telephone; and then he
addressed Mercer. He took a sealed package from an inner pocket and
tendered it, saying: “You know who sent it. Whatever happens, you’re a
Southern gentleman, and I look to you to see that she--they are kept
out of this nasty mess--absolutely.”
“Of course,” returned Mercer, with a trace of irritation; “what do you
take me for? Now, hadn’t I better call Janet?”
“But if this were to be discovered--”
“_She_ wouldn’t have done anything; she is only nursing a wounded man
whom she doesn’t know, at my request.”
“Very well,” acquiesced the colonel, with a long sigh as he turned away.
He sat down, cross-legged, like a Turk, on the flags beside the wounded
man. Mercer was standing a little way off. It was to be observed that
he had not touched Keatcham, nor even approached him close enough
to reach him by an outstretched hand. Winter studied his face, his
attitude--and suppressed the slightest of starts; Mercer had turned his
arm to light another electric bulb and the action revealed some crimson
spots on his cuff and a smear on his light trousers above the knee. The
lamp was rather high and he was obliged to raise his arm, thus lifting
the skirts of his coat which had previously hidden the stain. He did
not seem aware that his action had made any disclosure. He was busy
with the light. “That’ll be better,” said he; “I’ll go call up Sister
Janet.”
How had those stains come? Mercer professed just to have entered.
Vainly Winter’s brain tried to labor through the crazy bewilderment of
it all; Mercer spoke like an honest man--but look at his cuffs! How
could any outside assassin enter that locked and guarded house?--yet,
if Mercer had not lied, some one must have stolen in and struck
Keatcham. Kito? But the Jap was out of the house--perhaps! And Janet
Smith, what was she doing talking to Atkins? Had she given that reptile
any clue? Could he--but it was his opportunity to rescue Keatcham, not
to murder him--what a confounded maze!
And what business had he, Rupert Winter, who had supposed himself to
be an honorable man, who had sworn to support the Constitution and the
laws of the United States, what business had _he_ to help law-breakers
and murderers escape the just punishment of their deeds? He almost
ground his teeth. Oh, well, there was one way out, and that was to
resign his commission. He would do it this very night, he resolved;
and he swore miserably at himself, at his venerable aunt who must be
protected at such a sacrifice, at Atkins, at the feebly moaning wretch
whom he had not ceased all this while to ply carefully with drops of
brandy. “You everlasting man-eater, if you dare to die, I’ll _kill_
you!” he snorted.
Thereupon he went at the puzzle again. Before any answer could come to
the telephone calls, a low, mournful, inhuman cry penetrated the thick
walls. It was repeated thrice; on the third call, Tracy ran quickly
through the _patio_ to a side door, barred and locked like all the
entrances, released and swung it open and let in Kito. A few murmured
words passed between them. The Jap uttered a startled exclamation. “But
how can it to be? How? no one can get in! And who shall stab him? For
_why_?”
He examined the wounded man, after a gravely courteous salute to
Winter; and frowned and sighed. “What did it?” said he; “did who
stabbed, take it ’way, he must give _stlong_ pull!”
“Whoever did it,” said the colonel, “must have put a knee on the man’s
back and pulled a strong pull, as you say.” In speaking the words he
felt a shiver, for he seemed to see that red smear above Mercer’s knee.
He felt the shiver again when Mercer returned and he glanced at him;
there was not a stain on his shining white cuffs; he had changed them;
he had also changed his suit of clothes and his shoes. His eyes met the
colonel’s; and Winter fancied there was a glint of defiance in them; he
made no comment, for no doubt a plausible excuse for the fresh clothes
was ready. Well, he (Winter) wouldn’t ask it. Poor devil! he had had
provocation.
For the next half-hour they were all busy with Keatcham.
“He is better,” pronounced the Jap; “he will not live, maybe, but he
will talk, he can say who hult him.”
“If he can only do that!” cried Mercer. “It is _infernal_ to think any
one can get in here and do such a thing!”
“Rotten,” Tracy moaned.
The colonel said nothing.
They were all still working over Keatcham when a bell pealed. Tracy
started; but Mercer looked a shade relieved. “They’ve come,” said he.
“_They?_” repeated the colonel. He scrambled to his feet and gasped.
Miss Smith was coming down the colonnade, but not Miss Smith alone.
Aunt Rebecca walked beside her, serene, erect and bearing a small
hand-bag. Miss Smith carried a larger bag; and Tracy had possessed
himself of a dress-suit case.
“Certainly, Bertie,” remarked his aunt in her softest tone, “I came
with Janet. My generation believed in _les convenances_.”
All the colonel could articulate was a feeble, “And Archie? and
Millicent?”
“Haley is staying in your room with Archie. Millicent had retired;
if she asks for us in the morning we shall not be up. She has an
appointment with Janet, but it isn’t until half-past eleven. Randall
has her instructions.”
“But--but--how did you get here?”
Aunt Rebecca drew herself up. “I trust now, Bertie, you will admit
that I am as fit as any of you to rough it. If there is one mode of
transit I abominate, it is those loathsome, unsanitary, uncivil, joggly
street-cars; we came as far as the corner in the _street-cars_, then we
walked. Did we want to give the number to a cab-man, do you suppose?
Bertie, have you such a thing as a match about you? I think Janet wants
to heat a teaspoonful of water for a strychnine hypodermic.”