_The Shadow on the Portraits_
He was roused by the sound of her voice and the single stroke of the
clock back of her. It was one, and he could have sworn that they had
been sitting here less than fifteen minutes.
"I must go to Ben now," she said. "It is time to give him more
medicine."
"I will go with you."
"No," she decided, "I think I had better go alone. A stranger might
frighten him."
He hesitated with an uneasy sense of foreboding, but she moved past him
determinedly and went up the stairs, leaving him alone with the
haunting picture upon the wall. He moved nearer to study it more in
detail. He caught a trace of resemblance to the boy but none to the
girl. The features were more rugged than those of young Arsdale, and
the forehead was broader and higher, but the mouth was the same--thin,
tense, and yet with no strength of jaw behind it. The cheek bones were
rather high and the eyes set deep but over-close together. It was a
face, thought Donaldson, of which great things might be expected, but
upon which nothing could be depended. The man would move eratically
but brilliantly, like those aquatic fireworks which dart in burning
angles along the face of the water--scarlet serpents shooting to the
right, the left, in their gorgeous irresponsible course towards the
dark.
As he stood there Donaldson thought he heard the soft tread of feet in
the hall and the click of the outside door as it was opened. He
listened intently, but he heard nothing further. He crossed the
library and looked out. The door was ajar. He flung it open and
peered down the driveway; there was nothing to be seen but the dark
mass of hedge bounding the yard. He went to the foot of the stairs and
listened; there was no sound above.
The wind may have blown open the door if it had been unlatched, and the
imagined footsteps in the hall may have been nothing but the rustling
of the hangings, but still he was not satisfied. He ventured up the
first flight and paused to listen. He thought he heard a movement
above, but was not quite sure. He neither wished to intrude nor to
frighten her unnecessarily, but he called her name. At first he
received no response, and then, with a sense of relief that made him
realize how deep his fear had been, he saw her come to the head of the
stairs. The light came only from the sick room, so that he could not
see her very clearly. She took a step towards them, and then he
noticed that she swayed and clutched the banister. He was at her side
in three bounds.
"What is the trouble?" he demanded.
"If you will steady me a bit," she answered.
"Are you hurt?"
"Just dazed a little. Did you stop him?"
"Stop him? Then some one did go out?"
"As I opened the door Ben rushed by me and--I fell down. I hoped you
might see him and hold him!"
"I was at the other end of the library. He must have stolen out on
tiptoe. But you are faint."
"I am stronger now."
She started down the stairs with the help of the banister, holding
herself together with remarkable self control. As they came into the
light he saw that she was very pale, but she insisted that she needed
nothing but a breath of cool air. He helped her to the door and here
she sat down for a moment upon the step.
"I might take a look around the grounds," Donaldson suggested.
"It is quite useless. He is not here."
"Then you have an idea where he has gone!"
She hesitated a moment.
"Yes," she answered.
He waited, but she ventured nothing further.
"I want you to feel," he said quietly, "that you may call upon me for
anything you wish done. My time is my own--quite my own. I place it
at your service."
She turned to study his face a moment. It was clean and earnest. It
bade her trust. Yet to ask him to do what lay before her was to bring
him, a stranger, into the heart of her family affairs. It was to
involve her in an intimacy from which instinctively she shrank. But
pressing her close was the realization of the imminent danger
threatening the boy. This was no time for quibbling--no time for nice
shadings of propriety. Even if this meant a sacrifice of something of
herself, she must cling to the one spar that promised a chance for her
brother's safety. As Donaldson's eyes met hers, she felt ashamed that
she had hesitated even long enough for these thoughts to flash through
her brain.
"The boy uses opium," she said without equivocation.
The bare naming of the drug rolled up the curtain before the whole
tragedy which had been suggested by the portrait in the library; it
explained every detail of this wild night except her presence here
practically alone with the crazed young man. It accounted for her
objection to waiting in the drugstore; it solved the mystery of her
fear of the city shadows. Had he suspected this, he would no more have
allowed her to go up those stairs alone than he would have permitted
her to go unescorted into the cell of a madman.
"I 'm sorry for him," he murmured. "Then he has gone straight to Mott
Street?"
"I 'm afraid so. He has been there once before."
"The habit has been long upon him?"
"It is inherited. This is the third generation," she admitted, turning
her head aside in shame.
"But he himself--"
"Only after his father's death. The father feared this and watched him
every minute. He died thinking the danger was passed, but he left me a
prescription which had been of help to him. It was given him by our
old family physician who has since died. Mr. Barstow knew Dr. Emory
and so has always prepared it for me."
"How long this last time did he go without the drug?"
"It is three months since the first attack. This medicine tided him
over five days. He was nervous to-night and begged me to go out to
dinner with him. I 'm afraid it was unwise--the lights and the music
excited him."
"But you have n't been here alone with him?"
"There is Marie."
"Two women alone with a man in that condition--it is n't safe."
"You don't understand how good he has been. He has struggled hard. He
has allowed me to lock him up--to do everything to help him. He has
never been like this before."
"It is n't safe for you," he repeated. "Are there no relatives I may
summon?"
"None," she answered. "I am his cousin--his sister by adoption. There
are no other relatives."
"No friends?"
"I would rather fight it out alone," she answered firmly. "I don't
wish my friends to know about this," she added hastily, as though to
avoid further discussion along this line.
"It was careless of me to leave the door open as I went in."
"It was lucky for you. He might have--"
"Don't!" she shuddered.
He waited a moment.
"You are brave," he declared, "but this is too big a problem for you to
manage. He should have been placed in the hands of a physician."
"No," she interrupted. "No one must know of this. I trust you to tell
no one of this."
He thought a moment.
"Very well. But in order to locate him now, it will be necessary to
call in the help of the police."
"The police!" she exclaimed in horror. "No! You must promise me you
will not do that."
She rose to her feet all excitement.
"They would not arrest him," he assured her. "They would simply hold
him until we came for him."
"I would rather not. I would rather wait until he comes back himself
than do that."
He could not understand her fear, but he was bound to respect it.
"Very well," he answered quietly. "But I have a friend whom I can
trust. You do not mind if I enlist his help?"
"He is of the police?" she asked suspiciously.
"He is a friend," he replied. "It is as a friend he will do this for
me."
"Oh," she answered confused, "I don't know what to do! But I feel that
I can trust you--I _will_ trust you."
"Thank you. Then I must begin work at once. There is a telephone in
the house?"
Her face brightened instantly. He seemed so decisive and sure. The
fact that he was so immediately active, that he did not wait until
daylight, when conditions would be best, but began the search in the
face of apparent impossibility, brought her immediate confidence. She
liked a man who would, without quoting the old saw, hunt for a needle
in a haystack.
She directed him to the telephone, and he summoned a cab. He returned
with the question,
"Do you know how much money he had?"
"Money? He had none."
"Then," said Donaldson, "won't he come back of himself? Opium is one
thing for which there is no credit."
"I 'm afraid not. He has been away before without money, and--"
She stopped as abruptly as though a hand had been placed over her
mouth. Her face clouded as though from some new and half forgotten
fear. She glanced swiftly at Donaldson, as though to see if he had
read the ellipsis.
When she spoke again it was slowly, each word with an effort.
"My pocket-book was upstairs. It is possible that he borrowed."
Donaldson knew the meaning of that. Kleptomania was a characteristic
symptom. Victims of this habit had gone even further in their hot
necessity for money.
"Perhaps," she suggested hesitatingly, "perhaps this search to-night
may inconvenience you financially. I wish you to feel free to spend
without limit whatever you may find helpful. We have more than ample
funds. Unfortunately I have on hand only a little money, but as soon
as I can get to my bank--"
"I have enough." He smiled as a new meaning to the phrase came to him.
"More than enough."
He glanced at the clock. Over half of his first day already gone. He
heard the crunching wheels of the taxicab on the graveled road outside.
Hurrying into the hall he took one of Arsdale's hats--he had lost his
own in the machine--and slipped into his overcoat. Still he paused,
curiously reluctant to leave her. He did not feel that there was very
much waiting for him outside, and here--he would have been content to
live his week in this old library. He had glimpsed a dozen volumes
that he would have enjoyed handling. He would like to spread them out
upon his knee before the fire and read to her at random from them.
Yes, she must be there to complete the library. He was getting loose
again in his thoughts.
She was looking at him anxiously.
"I think we shall find him," he said confidently. "At any rate I shall
come back in the morning and report."
"This seems such an imposition--" she faltered.
"Please don't look at it in that light," he pleaded earnestly. "I feel
as though I were doing this for an old friend."
"You are kind to consider it so."
"You see we have been in the inner woods together."
She smiled courageously.
"Good night. I wish you were better guarded here," he added.
He held out his hand quite frankly. She put her own within it for a
moment. He grew dizzy at the mere touch of it. It was as though his
Lady of the Mountains had suddenly become a living, tangible reality.
The light touch of her fingers was as wine to him. They made the task
before him seem an easy one. They made it a privilege. She thought
that he was making a sacrifice in doing this for her when she was
granting him the boon of returning upon the morrow.
"Good night," he said again.
He turned abruptly and opening the door stepped out into the cab
without daring to look back.