Miss Wolcott received Lyon with the same curiously cold and impersonal
manner that had struck him before, but unless he deceived himself,
it was a manner deliberately assumed this time to conceal some
unwonted nervousness of which she was herself afraid. Her face was
as Sphinx-like as ever, but there was an unevenness of tension in her
voice which betrayed emotion.
"I sent for you because something curious has happened," she said
abruptly, "and I don't know anyone else to talk it over with. I
received yesterday, by mail, this letter." And she handed him a single
sheet of note paper, on which was written, in a bold hand,
"Remember, I said living or dead.
"Warren Fullerton."
Lyon looked up at her in amaze. "You received this yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Are you familiar with Mr. Fullerton's handwriting?"
"Yes. It is his."
"Can you be positive about that?"
He thought she suppressed a shudder, but her voice was coldly calm as
she answered, "I do not think I can be deceived in it. I know it very
well."
"May I see the envelope?"
She handed it to him silently. It corresponded with the paper, was
addressed to her in the same bold, assured hand, and the postmark was
particularly plain. It had been mailed the day it had been delivered.
The note and envelope were both made of a thin peculiar grayish-green
paper, oriental in appearance, with a faint perfume about them that
would have been dizzying if more pronounced. Lyon held the paper up to
the light. It vas watermarked, but so faintly that he had to study it
carefully before he made out that the design was that of a coiled
serpent with hooded head. As he moved the paper to bring out the
outline, the coils seemed to change and move and melt into one
another. Certainly it would have been a difficult paper to duplicate.
"Was Mr. Fullerton in the habit of using this paper?"
"Yes. It was made for him. He was given to fads like that. And another
thing, though a trifle. You will notice he uses two green one-cent
stamps, instead of the red two. He always stamped the letters written
on that paper with green stamps."
"Does the message convey any special meaning to you?"
Miss Wolcott waited a moment before replying, as though to gather her
self-control into available form. "I was at one time engaged to be
married to Mr. Fullerton. I was very young and romantic and--silly. I
had not known him very long. And almost immediately I had to go east
to spend three months with some friends. While I was away I wrote to
Mr. Fullerton,--very silly letters. After I came back something
happened that made me change my mind and my feelings towards him. I
broke the engagement and sent him back his letters and presents. He
refused to be released or to release me. It was a very terrible time.
He said that if ever I should marry anyone else, he would send my
love-letters to him to my husband,--and this whether he was alive or
dead."
"Ah! That explains, you think, this phrase?"
"I am sure of it."
"Did the threat make any special impression on you at the time? I mean
did it influence your actions at all?"
"It made me determine never to think of marrying." Then, in answer to
Lyon's look of surprise, she added, impetuously, "I would rather die
than have anyone read those letters. I simply could not think of it.
No man's love could stand such a test. To know that his wife had said
such silly, silly things to another man,--it would be intolerable."
"But no gentleman _would_ read them."
She shrugged her shoulders lightly. "In a play, no. But in real life,
he would be very curious. Or, if he did not read them, he still could
not forget them. He would have them in his mind, and would perhaps
guess them worse than they were. Besides, you do not know Mr.
Fullerton. He would have managed in some way to bring about what he
wanted. I cannot guess how, but those letters would have been put
where they must be read. He was not one to trip in his plans."
"Did you make any attempt to recover your letters?"
She did not answer at once, and glancing at her Lyon saw that the
agitation which she had been holding back seemed to have swept her for
a moment beyond her own control. She was trembling so violently that
she could not speak, and only the forcible pressure of her slender
hands upon the arms of her chair gave her steadiness enough to hold
her emotions in check. He turned to the light and busied himself for a
minute in a critical examination of the letter. Then he came back to
his question--for he was of no mind to let it pass unanswered.
"Did you ever try to recover the letters?"
"Once," she said, in a very low voice.
"And you failed?"
"Worse than failed." She threw out her hand toward the note he still
held. "Did he not say, living or dead? Mere death could not interfere
when he had set his will upon revenge."
"Then whoever wrote this note," said Lyon, thoughtfully, "must have
had knowledge of his purposes as well as access to his private desk
and knowledge of his personal peculiarities in regard to stamps. Now,
Miss Wolcott, you must help me. Who would be likely to know of your
letters?"
"How can I tell? I have hardly seen him for four years until--" She
broke off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
"Have you spoken of them yourself to anyone? Any girl friend?"
"No, never."
"To your family?"
"No. I have lived alone with my grandfather since I was fifteen. You
know him,--I love him, but he is no confidant for a young girl. I have
always been much alone."
"Then, so far as you know, no one could have learned from you of those
letters?"
"No one."
"Not Arthur Lawrence, for instance?"
She started, and looked as though he had presented a new idea.
"I never spoke of them," she said, slowly.
"Did he know of your engagement to Fullerton?"
"He never referred to it, but it is probable that he had heard of it.
Some one would have mentioned it, probably. I did not know Mr.
Lawrence at that time."
"He had no reason then to know--or to guess--the importance which you
placed upon the recovery of the letters?"
She looked distressed, but her glance was as searching as his own.
"Why do you ask that? What bearing has it on this letter?"
"Perhaps none. But I was trying to narrow down the possible actors. If
you on your part have kept the knowledge of these letters to yourself
inviolately, then the information about them must have been given out
by Fullerton if at all. Do you know anyone to whom he would be likely
to confide such a matter,--any confidant or chum?"
She shook her head helplessly. "I know nothing of his friends. My
impression is that he had very few. He was a strange, solitary, secret
man."
"And yet it must be clear that either he wrote this himself, or it was
written on his private paper in his handwriting, by someone who had
intimate knowledge of his affairs,--not only of the fact that he had
those letters of yours, but of the threat which he held over you in
regard to them. Now if he wrote it himself, why wasn't it mailed until
yesterday? And who did mail it yesterday, anyhow? If someone was in
his confidence and is trying to play upon your fears, we must find out
who it is. May I take this letter with me?"
"I don't want to ever see it again."
"And if you receive any other letters or anything comes up in any way
bearing on this, will you let me know at once? I am going to try to
find out about his office help. And I will leave this letter open to
the sunlight for a day. If it was written yesterday, the ink will show
a change by to-morrow. If written a week ago, it probably will not. As
soon as I learn anything that will interest you, I will let you know."
But as he was departing she detained him, some unspoken anxiety
visibly struggling with her habit of reserve.
"You spoke, when you were here before, of the possibility of my being
called as a witness. If that should happen, would I have to tell
about--this?"
"I do not see how it could come up, unless they could connect Lawrence
with it in some way. Of course if they were trying to establish
motive,--some reason for Lawrence's quarrel with Fullerton,--it might
seem to have a bearing. But you never discussed Fullerton with
Lawrence."
"No," she said, but her look was still troubled. "If you are
questioned," he said quietly, "you will not have to testify except so
far as you have positive knowledge. You will not have to give your
thoughts or theories or guesses."
"I see," she murmured, dropping her strange, guarded eyes.
With that he left her. It was too late to take any active steps in the
way of investigation that night, so he turned back toward his room,
but his habit of keeping on his feet while thinking sent him on a long
tramp before he finally turned in at his door. He fancied that he was
going over the new elements which Miss Wolcott's confidence had thrown
into the problem in his mind, but before he knew it he was making a
comparison of the characters of Miss Wolcott and Kittie Tayntor. Of
course it was natural to think of Kittie,--she was the only girl he
knew in this place, and the only one he had had a chance to talk to
for a long time, and she was so funny, with her transparent,
theatrical make-believes, and so engaging, with her girlish petulances
and revolts! She was like an April day,--a dash of cold rain in your
face, a ray of sunshine dancing freakishly around the edges of things,
and a white bud curled up close under the wet green leaves to call out
the sudden rush of forgiving tenderness which you give only to what is
near and dear and simple and your own. Miss Wolcott was, rather, a
brooding, tropical day, still with the stillness of motionless heat,
silent with the silence of fierce noontide. Low-lying thunder-clouds
belonged to her, and the passionate stroke of the lightning, and the
deluging tumult of the tempest, and the swift-falling darkness, hiding
the hushed passion of Life. How had Lawrence ever dared to love her?
But Lawrence was a master of men, in his own way. There was an
exuberant power about him which would joy in conquest. His nature was
sunny where hers was veiled, but his careless lightheartedness masked
a will as unyielding, a nature as passionately strong, as her own.
Lawrence, now, would never see the dear, funny charms of Kittie! And
with a cheerful sense that, after all, things adjusted themselves very
well in this rudderless world, Lyon swung back in his walk.
At the door Olden met him.
"Well, well, well, you're late," he said testily. "What have you been
doing to-day?"
"Oh, all sorts of things."
"I don't care about that. What have you been doing about the Lawrence
case?"
"I don't know that I have been doing anything." Literally, he
didn't know whether he had or not, and he didn't care to share his
half-formed suspicions. "I have to take things as they come, you
know."
"Haven't you seen Lawrence to-day?"
"No."
"Nor his lawyer, Howell?"
"No."
Olden tapped with his fingers impatiently on the table, for, as
before, he had led his guest into the dining room, the only really
habitable room in this strange Bachelor's Hall. "Where have you been
this evening?"
"Calling on a young lady!"
Olden looked up sharply. "Miss Kittie?"
"No." Then, with a half mischievous desire to play up to the other's
hungry interest in the case, he added, "A young lady Lawrence knows
and admires. Miss Wolcott."
The bait drew even better than he expected. Olden leaned forward with
his arms on the table and his chin on his crossed arms, and Lyon felt
the blaze of interest behind the goggles. The air between them tingled
with it as with an electric discharge.
"Lawrence admires her, does he?" he said, with a curious deliberation.
"Particularly?"
"I think quite particularly."
"How do you know?"
"I merely guessed it, from a look I saw on his face once."
"Do people generally guess it?"
"I rather think not. Gossip hasn't mentioned it."
"And does she believe in him?"
"Well, that is a point I didn't bring into the conversation. This is
only the second time I have seen her."
"I didn't mean believe in his innocence. I meant, believe in
_him_,--in his interest in her?"
Lyon laughed. The man's persistent interest in Lawrence's affairs was
curious. "Really, I didn't ask her that either. But I fancy Lawrence
is a man to make himself understood in that direction when he wants
to."
"You mean he makes love to every pretty woman he knows?"
"Oh, no, not so bad as that. Lawrence is a gentleman. Still, he is
partly Irish. There's an old Irish jingle I used to know about the
slow-creeping Saxon and the amorous Celt,--that's the idea. Irish eyes
make love of themselves, whenever their owner is too busy about
something else to keep a tight rein on them." Lyon had talked
jestingly, partly with the idea of erasing the memory of a remark
which he began to think had been somewhat less than discreet. He was
not prepared for the effect of his words. Olden sprang to his feet and
struck the table with his clenched hand.
"Then damn Irish eyes," he cried. "Damn the man who thinks he has the
right to make love to any woman who is tender-hearted enough to
listen. Damn the man who thinks that as long as a woman will take his
easy lies for truth he has a right to lie."
"With all my heart. Though, for that matter, he is pretty apt to damn
himself without any help from us. But Lawrence isn't that kind of a
man."
Olden had dropped back in his chair and his momentary outburst had
given place to a sullen gloom that Lyon guessed had more relation to
his own thoughts and to the story he had told so impersonally the
other evening than it had to their present conversation. There was
something pathetic in the mood he showed,--a strong man bound into
helplessness by the Liliputian cords of emotion. When a young man had
to have it out with his own heart, it was a fair and square fight,
with no odds. But at Olden's age, the thing was not decent to look
upon. It was like seeing some old tennis champion going down before
play that was only healthy exercise for the youngster in the game. He
jumped to his feet.
"Come, I'm going to bed. Good night, Mr. Olden."
"Good night," said Olden, absently. Then he looked up, with an obvious
effort to be civil. "Don't think that I have anything against your
friend Lawrence or his Irish eyes," he said lightly. "I hope with all
my heart that he may be set free,--with all my heart."
"So do I. Good night."
Up in his own room, Lyon's first act was to walk to the window and
look across the white expanse of snow to Kittie's windows. The
cheerful light answered him, with something of the subtle mischief of
Kittie's own solemn air. As he looked, all the lights went out. Miss
Elliott's School was wrapped in innocent slumber. Lyon blew a kiss
across the night, and then pulled down his own curtain.
He opened Fullerton's strange epistle and studied it again, but the
cryptic message remained as cryptic as ever. Pulling out a number of
old letters from his own writing case, he compared them with
Fullerton's until he found one which corresponded closely, in the
blackness of its ink, with Fullerton's. This he laid aside as a
standard of comparison. Then he opened the new letter to the air,
leaving it where the sun should strike it when it came into the room
in the morning. The first point to determine was whether the letter
had actually been written by Fullerton before his death, or whether
someone still living was carrying out the dead man's sinister wishes.