But if Lyon had fancied that Fate was doing nothing merely because he
had run into a blind alley himself, he soon had reason to suspect that
he was mistaken. The manner in which during the next few days he
stumbled against some of her threads, and so became more than ever
entangled in her weaving, was curiously casual,--but as a matter of
fact, most of the happenings of life seem casual at the time. It is
only looking back that their connection comes into view, like a path
on a far mountain, only to be seen from a distance.
Lyon had allowed himself to jubilate a little over the curtain-code
which he had established with Kittie. He felt that it had the
justification of being important in itself for the purpose which he
and Howell had at heart, but apart from that it was so charmingly
personal. The messages might concern Mrs. Broughton, but Kittie would
have to give them,--and that little fact was so interesting that if he
had not been a young man of much steadiness of purpose, he might have
let it eclipse the significance of the message. As it was, he felt it
highly important that he should be able to see those windows very
frequently. Suppose Kitty should pull down a curtain and he not know
about it for hours! The idea was not to be entertained calmly. Would
it be possible for him to get a room in the neighborhood? He had
learned in his profession that the world belongs to him who asks for
it, so, selecting a house whose back windows must, from their
position, command an unobstructed view of Miss Elliott's School, he
boldly rang the bell. He had no idea who might live there. The house
was on a lot adjoining Miss Wolcott's and, like her house, it
overlooked the back windows and the grounds of the School. It was in a
position that suited his needs. For the rest, he trusted to the star
which had more than once favored his quiet audacity.
His ring was answered by a servant of a peculiarly uncheerful cast of
countenance.
"Is your mistress at home?" Lyon asked.
"There ain't no mistress," the woman protested, in an aggrieved tone.
"Well, your master, then. Will you take up my card? I want to see him
on business."
She took it and departed, with that same querulous air of
dissatisfaction with the world in general.
That there was no mistress in the house was very evident, even to
Lyon's uninstructed masculine sense. The reception room where he
waited was dusty and musty, bearing unmistakable signs of having been
closed for the summer and since left untouched. There was an echoing
hollowness about the halls that seemed to proclaim the house
uninhabited, in spite of the servant. While Lyon was speculating upon
the situation, a thin dark middle-aged man entered the room silently
and yet with an alertness that was noticeable. He looked at Lyon with
sharp inquiry--almost, it struck the intruder, with distrust.
"Well?" he said curtly.
"I hope it won't strike you as cheeky," said Lyon, "but I called on
the bare chance of your having a spare bedroom that you could rent me
for a month,--or even less. I think my references would be
satisfactory. They are going to paper my rooms at the Grosvenor, and
I've got to clear out while they are messing around, and I like this
part of town, so I just thought I'd see what luck I had if I went
around and asked. I'm not exacting--"
"We're not renting rooms."
"I know, but as a special matter--"
"Couldn't think of it."
"Do you happen to know anyone else in the neighborhood who does?"
"Don't know anyone."
"I wish you would reconsider. It would be an accommodation to me."
"Sorry, but it's impossible." The impatience of the man's tone
suggested that the interview Had lasted long enough, and Lyon rose
reluctantly. He hated to feel that his inspiration had failed him. At
that moment, however, the portière which separated the reception room
from what appeared to be an equally musty and dusty library in the
rear was pushed aside, and another man entered,--a man of impressive
bearing and appearance, in spite of the fact that he wore a skullcap
and a long dressing gown and that a pair of large blue goggles hid his
eyes. The lower part of his face was covered with a beard and yet Lyon
felt at once that here was a man of powerful personality.
"I overheard your request from the next room," he said, in a courteous
but positive tone, and bowing slightly to Lyon,--who could not repress
a wonder whether that position in the back room had not been taken for
the express purpose of overhearing him. "I'm not sure that we cannot
accommodate the young gentleman, Phillips."
Phillips looked disapproval and injury in every line of his face, but
he said nothing. He had at once fallen into the attitude of a
subordinate.
"You are more than kind," said Lyon, eagerly. "I know it's a great
deal to ask,--but it would be a great accommodation, and I'd try to
make no bother."
"You will have to judge for yourself whether there is a room that you
could use. I don't know much about the house. We have only just moved
in ourselves. It was a furnished house, closed for the summer, and the
agent let us take it for the time being. I am in town temporarily,
having my eyes treated, and I wanted a place where I could be more
quiet than in a hotel. My name is Olden. This is my good friend
Phillips, who looks after me generally, and thinks I ought not to
increase my household. I sometimes venture to differ from him,
however. The servant, whom you saw at the door, has undertaken to keep
us from starving, and she would undoubtedly be able to care for your
room. Now you know the family. Would you care to look at the rooms?"
"Thank you, I should like to very much," cried Lyon gayly.
It was so much better than he had had any possible grounds for
expecting that his faith in his star soared up again. This was what
came of venturing! And in spite of the curious sensation of talking in
the dark which Mr. Olden's goggles gave him, he liked the man. There
was dignity and directness in his speech, and his voice was singularly
magnetic.
Olden led the way upstairs, moving with the swift confidence of a man
of affairs and not at all as an invalid.
"There are four bedrooms on this floor," he said. "Phillips has one of
them, and I have one. This large room at the front is unoccupied."
The room was large and attractive, but Lyon was not interested in the
view toward Hemlock Avenue! He barely glanced at it.
"Might I see the other room?"
Olden opened the door to a back bedroom which, though clean, was small
and in no wise so desirable as the other. But it looked the right way,
and on going to the window Lyon saw that Kittie's curtains were both
high up.
"This will suit me exactly," he said, eagerly. "May I have this room?"
"You really haven't looked at it very carefully," said Olden, with
just the barest hint of amusement in his voice.
"Oh, well,--I--I can see that it will suit me. I shan't be in it very
much, you know. I'm connected with the _News_, as you know from my
card. I'll be here only at night."
"Yes, it's a pleasant little room. And it has an open view. That large
building is Miss Elliott's School, I am told."
"Yes, I know," laughed Lyon. "Fact is, I know one of the young ladies
at the school."
"Indeed?" There was surprise and, if it had been possible to believe
it, disappointment in Mr. Olden's voice. It was as though he had said,
"Oh, is that it?" The blue goggles scrutinized Lyon for a moment
before he said, "Well, shall we consider it settled?"
"If you please. When can I come in?"
"Whenever you like. I'll tell Sarah to make the room ready. And I
hope, Mr. Lyon," he added, as they went back downstairs, "that you
will sometimes join me in a cigar before you turn in. Shut in as I am,
unable to use my eyes or to see people, you will be doing me a charity
if you will come in and gossip a bit. Will you do it?"
"I'll be glad to," said Lyon, heartily.
"That will more than repay me, if there is any favor to you in our
arrangement," the man said with a certain emphasis. He probably was
lonely, Lyon reflected, with quick sympathy.
Lyon left the house much elated. When he reached the sidewalk he
remembered that he had not asked for a latch-key, and that he was apt
to return late. He hurried back to the door. The lock had not caught
when he came out and the door stood just so much ajar that he saw
Olden and Phillips in the hall, and heard Olden exclaim, with a ring
of passion in his voice, "You would have thrown such a chance as that
away?"
They both looked so startled, when he made his presence known, that he
was swiftly aware that he was the subject of what seemed to have been
a heated discussion. Evidently Phillips had protested against his
admission to the household. At his suggestion about a latch-key. Olden
answered,
"Why, I have only one, but I'll let you in myself whenever you ring.
I'll be up, never fear."
Lyon had a busy afternoon,--for in spite of his mental absorption in
matters relating to Lawrence, he was still reporting for the _News_
and had to keep his assignments! He therefore had no opportunity to
see Howell that day, and it was nine o'clock at night when he arrived,
with his suit-case, at his new home. Olden let him in with an alacrity
that suggested he had been waiting for him. This idea was also
suggested by the looks of the dining room, where a tray, with bottles
and glasses and a box of cigars, had been arranged alluringly within
sight.
"All right, I'll be down in a minute," the new lodger said, gaily.
"We'll make a night of it! Just wait till I put my suit-case in my
room."
He ran upstairs to his room and looked across to Miss Elliott's
School. Across the white barrenness of the snowy yard that stretched
between the two houses, the light gleamed brightly from Kittie's
windows. The curtain of the right window was perceptibly lower than
the other. It seemed to cut off the upper third of the window. Lyon
read the message with keen interest,--"Mrs. Broughton is better. She
gives no signs of departure." Across the dark he blew a kiss to the
unseen messenger, and hurried downstairs where his mysterious landlord
was walking restlessly up and down the long dining room.
"Well, what shall we gossip about?" he asked gaily. Olden had shown no
signs of physical feebleness, yet Lyon felt a hurt about him that
prompted him to a show of cheerfulness beyond his habit with a
stranger, and the success of his curtain code had put him into an
elated mood.
"What do people generally gossip about?"
"Their friends, don't they? And their enemies; and the delinquencies
of both."
"That's all right," said Olden, quickly. "Tell me about your friends
and their delinquencies."
"I haven't many here. I'm a stranger myself, comparatively. The man in
Waynscott I care most for, and admire most, and am sorriest for, is
Arthur Lawrence."
Olden was leaning forward in an attitude of eager listening.
"That sounds like a good beginning. Will you have something--? Then
have a cigar, and talk to me about Arthur Lawrence. I'm entirely a
stranger in Waynscott, you know, but of course I have heard of the
murder. I infer that you believe him innocent."
"Yes, I do."
"Yet I see that he was unable or unwilling to give a very clear
account of his movements that evening.--Phillips read me the
newspapers, and I thought it looked like a tight box for him, unless
he could explain his movements somewhat."
"But he may explain them yet. Trial by newspaper is not final. There
has been no chance for the real testimony, you know."
"Has gossip nothing to say on the subject?" persisted Olden. He had
dropped into an arm chair and was surrounding himself with smoke, but
Lyon was aware that through the smoke and the goggles which he still
wore he was bending an observant eye upon his visitor.
"Gossip says many nothings. So far, nothing relevant. The murder seems
to be one of these clueless mysteries which are the most difficult for
the police to unravel."
"But you,--you are behind the scenes, in a fashion. Don't you know
something that the public hasn't got hold of? I--I'm interested, you
see."
Lyon smoked thoughtfully. The man's interest was so marked that it
struck him as going beyond the bounds of ordinary curiosity. He felt
that he must probe it, and so he answered with a view to keeping the
subject going.
"We hear of the mysteries that are solved, but there are many more
that drop from the notice of the public because they remain mysteries
forever."
"Is it not possible that there may be a woman connected with the
mystery?" asked Olden with a sudden hardening of his voice.
Lyon smoked deliberately a moment.
"With nothing known and everything to guess, it is difficult to say of
anything that it is not possible," he answered.
"Has Lawrence's name never been connected with a woman? Is there no
gossip?"
"Of the sort you suggest, nothing, I believe." Lyon's voice was calm,
If his feelings were not.
"Your Mr. Lawrence is a wonder," said Olden, drily. "I hope to meet
him some day. Let us drink to his release and to the confusion of the
Grand Jury. A man who can keep himself free from all feminine
entanglements ought to get out of a little thing like an accusation
for murder without any difficulty."
"You seem to have strong feelings on the subject," said Lyon. It
occurred to him that all the drawing-out need not be on Olden's side.
Olden smoked a minute in silence, and then asked abruptly,
"Do you believe that women as a class have any sense of truth?"
"Oh, they must have some!"
"But do they have the same sense of honor that we have?"
"I don't know that we have enough to hurt. But you are thinking of
some specific case. Suppose you give me an outline of it."
"What makes you think that?"
"Oh, we always are thinking of a woman when we generalize about
women."
Olden smoked hard and in silence for a few minutes.
"I don't know whether you are right about that or not," he said
finally, "but you are right in saying that I was thinking of a
specific instance, and I'll be rather glad to give you an outline of
it, because I should like to ask your opinion in regard to it. I think
I understand men pretty well, but I never have had much to do with
women. Perhaps if I had,--this is the story of a friend of mine. He
told me about it just before I came on."
Lyon nodded. Possibly that might be the truth, but he would keep an
open mind on the subject.
"My friend is a man past middle life,--a successful business man. He
has made money and has knocked about the world a good deal, but he
never fell in love until he was nearly fifty,--never had time, I
suppose. Then he was hard hit. The woman was a good deal younger than
he was, beautiful, and all that. He married her just as soon as he
could win her consent, and was idiotically happy. For a year he
thought she was happy, too. She seemed to be. Then one day she
received a letter from her old home that upset her. She tried to
conceal her disturbance from him, but he was too watchful of her moods
to be deceived. From that moment his happiness was destroyed. His wife
was concealing something from him. Other letters followed. They always
had the same effect. The husband could not be blind to the fact that
his wife was changed. She avoided him, withheld her confidence, and he
found her more than once in tears. Perhaps it does not sound very
serious, but you must remember that he was madly in love with his
wife. It was serious for him."
Lyon nodded. "Did he know anything of his wife's past history,--her
friends, or her--"
"Her lovers? No, he didn't. There was the sting. He simply didn't know
anything. He could only see that something had come out of that
unknown past to ruin his happiness."
"Why didn't he ask her, straight?"
"He did, once, and she pretended not to know what he was talking
about. After that he set himself to watch. He pretended to be called
away on a sudden business trip. She left, by the next train, for her
old home, and went at once to the man with whom she had been
corresponding."
"How did you--how did her husband know who the man was?"
"He had once found a letter, destroyed before it was finished, which
enabled him to identify the man."
"Was it a love-letter?"
Olden dropped his head on his hand. "Not in terms. But it showed that
this man possessed a confidence which she withheld from her husband.
In it she spoke of her unhappiness in her married life as of something
that he would understand,--something that they had acknowledged
between them. Does that seem a little thing to you?"
"No, I can understand. Well, what did he do?"
"Nothing, yet. But I am afraid he may do something. If he should kill
the man, would you say he was justified?"
"What would be the use?" asked Lyon, lightly.
"That isn't the question, when your brain is on fire. You see only one
thing. The whole world is blotted out, and only that one thing burns
before your eyes. I suppose that is the way one feels when going mad.
Everything else blotted out, you know, except that one thing that you
can't forget night or day,--awake or asleep,--" His voice was
trembling with a passion that went beyond control. If Lyon had had any
question that the strange man was telling his own story, he could no
longer doubt it. Such sympathy is not given to the troubles of a
friend.
"I understand that he has not killed the man yet?"
"No,--not yet."
"Well, then I'd advise him to wait a bit, in any event, and make sure
of his facts. There's no sense in hurrying these things. Tell him to
count ten. Also tell him that circumstantial evidence is the very
devil. The chances are that if a thing looks so and so, that's the
very reason for its turning out to be the other way. Now take this
case of Lawrence's."
"Yes. What of it?" Olden had recovered himself, and he asked his
question with an interest that seemed genuine, if somewhat cynical.
"The circumstantial evidence against him is pretty bad, yet you
wouldn't want to have him hanged on the strength of it, would you?"
"I would not," said Olden, with a sudden laugh that sounded strange
after his passion of a moment before. "I can think of nothing that I
should more regret than to have your friend Lawrence hung. I drink to
his speedy discharge." And he poured himself a stiff drink and drained
it with a fervor that made the act seem sacrificial. Certainly there
was a good deal of the original Adam in this curious stranger.
The sudden ring of the telephone in the hall cut so sharply across the
silence in the house that it startled them both. Olden went to answer
it, and immediately returned.
"It's someone to speak to you, Mr. Lyon,--name is Howell."
"Oh, yes. I suppose he got my new address from the Grosvenor."
He went to the phone, and this is the conversation that ensued.
Howell: "Hello, Lyon. Changed your room?"
Lyon: "Yes. I followed your suggestion."
Howell: "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm getting
nervous about putting off that interview with Mrs. Broughton any
longer. Barry tells me she is worse. I don't want to risk waiting
until it is too late. If she should die, for instance,--"
Lyon: "Barry is bluffing, to protect his patient. She is better."
Howell: "How do you know?"
Lyon: "Miss Kittie tells me she is better."
Howell: "When was that?"
Lyon: "An hour ago."
Howell: "How did you hear from her?"
Lyon: "By heliograph. We have established a code."
Howell: "You seem to have been improving the time! You think I'm safe
to wait, then, a day or two? I simply must see her before she gets
away, you know."
Lyon: "No sign of departure, the code said."
Howell. "And will you know if she should suddenly show signs of
departure?"
Lyon: "Yes. Her curtain will be lowered. Clear down means gone."
Howell: "That will be too late."
Lyon: "She isn't likely to bolt without warning, and no one would be
in better position to take note than Miss Kittie."
Howell: "All right, I'll depend on that, then. But if Bede finds her
first, I'll regret my humanity."
Lyon: "I think we're safe."
Howell: "Perhaps. But not sure." And he rang off.
When Lyon returned to the dining room, he found that the door was
ajar, though he had thought that he closed it after him when going to
the 'phone. If his host had been curious enough to listen to one side
of the conversation, Lyon hoped that he might have found it
interesting. Intelligible it could hardly have been.