ordinary basement storeroom, and, at one side, a flight of stairs.
Captain Francis Newcombe moved quickly, but without sound now. He
crossed the basement and crept up the stairs. Here, at the top,
another door confronted him. With the flashlight out, he opened this
door cautiously--and again a smile touched his lips. He had rather
expected it! The door opened on the lower hall, and almost directly
opposite Mr. Marlin's room.
He stepped across the hall and listened again at the old man's door.
There still came from within the sounds of occupancy; but instead now
of the regular breathing as of one asleep, it was the sound as of one
moving softly around within.
Captain Francis Newcombe retreated to the stairs, closed the door
behind him, descended the stairs, left the basement, and selected a
spot amongst the trees at the edge of the lawn where he could command a
view of the shrubbery bordering the verandah. It was still a little
earlier than the hour last night when, according to Polly, Mr. Marlin
had gone out, and if, in the bizarre workings of a warped brain, a
later hour each night added to secretness and security, Mr. Marlin was
not yet to be expected for a little while. Quite so! He, Captain
Francis Newcombe, had formulated his own timetable on that basis.
There was nothing to do now but wait.
He frowned suddenly. Suppose, though, Mr. Marlin did not come out at
all? This might well be one of the nights when-- No! He shook his
head decisively. To begin with, he had just heard the man moving
around in his room after having previously been, or pretended that he
had been, asleep; and if Polly's report was based on fact, as it
undoubtedly was, the old maniac, once started on his period of
peregrinations, kept it up until, on the basis of a later hour each
night, his final sortie was made just before daybreak--and taking into
account the hour at which the old man had been out last night, Mr.
Marlin ought at present to be in the thick of one of those periods of
nocturnal activity that would endure for a number of consecutive nights
to come.
In a sort of grim mirth, he laughed softly now to himself. _One_
night, not a number of nights, would be all that was required! It did
not entail any distressingly laboured mental effort to understand _why_
the old man went out--it was simply a question of _where_ he went.
The minutes dragged along. A quarter of an hour went by; it became
half an hour--and then Captain Francis Newcombe drew back silently a
little deeper in amongst the trees. Yes, there was the old maniac now,
dressing gown and all, and cocking his head to and fro in all
directions as he parted the bushes in emerging from under the verandah.
A moment later, the old man scurried across the lawn to a spot not far
from where he, Captain Francis Newcombe, was standing. The woods here
surrounding the house were full of little paths and walks, and the
grotesque figure with the flapping gown now disappeared along one of
these paths a few yards away.
Captain Francis Newcombe's lips twisted a little ironically as he took
up the chase. The head that kept cocking itself around so idiotically
would avail its owner little in the shape of protection! Apart from it
being too dark to see more than a few feet in any direction now in the
wooded path, he, Captain Francis Newcombe, had not the slightest
intention of trying to keep the other in sight, much less run any risk
of being seen himself. The sense of sound was quite
sufficient--entirely adequate! Twigs and dried pine needles snapped
eloquently under Mr. Marlin's feet. Captain Francis Newcombe's
ironical smile deepened. His own rubber-soled yachting shoes, combined
with a little precaution, might be relied upon to cause the old maniac
no alarm!
The chase led on, following the turnings and twistings of the path for
perhaps three hundred yards, and then turned into a narrow intersecting
by-path at the right. Here again Captain Francis Newcombe followed the
sound of the other's footsteps for perhaps another hundred yards--and
then suddenly he halted. The footsteps had ceased abruptly.
For a moment Captain Francis Newcombe remained motionless, listening;
then with extreme caution he went forward again. He came presently to
where the path ended at the edge of a small clearing; and here, though
shadowy and indistinct, he could make out just in front of him the
outline of what looked like a little _cabane_, or hut. He nodded his
head complacently. From inside the hut he caught the sound of movement
again. So this was where Mr. Marlin went at nights, was it!
He crept forward on hands and knees now, careful to make not the
slightest noise, made the circuit of the little hut, and halted
again--this time on the side opposite from the door and beneath the
single window that the place possessed. From what he had been able to
make out in the darkness, the hut appeared to be in a more or less
tumble-down and neglected condition. It was probably an old tool house
or something of the sort. Well, that mattered very little!
With his head well at one side of the window frame to guard against any
possibility of being seen from within, he brought his eyes to a level
with the sill, and peered in. At first he could distinguish nothing;
then gradually a shadowy figure took form in one corner and kept moving
up and down with a motion, which, more than anything else that
suggested itself to him, resembled the motion of a woman assiduously at
work over a washboard. This was accompanied by a scraping sound.
_Mr. Marlin was digging!_
Captain Francis Newcombe quietly sat down on the ground beneath the
window. It was quite hopeless to expect to see anything more than he
had seen--for the present! One would have asked a good deal to have
asked more! The spot where the old maniac was at work was close up
against the wall at the right of the door and almost directly opposite
the window!
The digging ceased. Another sound took its place--a sort of crooning,
a sing-song droning sound. Words, snatches of sentences, became
audible:
"... All! All here! ... In the darkness where no one can see.... And
I do not need to see--I feel.... Night after night I feel, and my
fingers count.... Money! Money! ... Ha, ha--and they do not
understand.... Fools! All fools! ... You will multiply yourself a
hundred, a thousandfold.... Fools! Blind fools! ... They would not
listen.... They called me mad...."
The crooning went on.
Captain Francis Newcombe with cool nonchalance made himself more
comfortable now by propping his back against the side of the hut. When
the old fool was through with his puling, and the fondling of that half
million in banknotes that he imagined was so safely hidden, the next
move would be in order. Until then there was nothing to do except to
exercise what degree of patience he could.
Patience! He stirred suddenly. Why exercise patience? Was it, after
all, absolutely necessary that he should? A moment's work would do
away with that senile old idiot now. Mr. Marlin would be found, but
the money would not be found. That was the plan in its actual essence,
wasn't it?
He snarled, then, angrily at himself under his breath. That was the
method of the "cusher," which, on a certain occasion, he had branded
with so much contempt! The record of Shadow Varne was marred by no
such crudeness as that. A cusher without art! It brought him a sense
of intense irritation that the thought should even have entered his
mind.
Why had it?
He shook his head. Was it impatience, or perhaps, rather, a prescience
prompting him to be through and done with this with the least possible
delay? Were the events that had happened since he had left England
insidiously taking effect upon him to the detriment of his customary
cold and measured judgment? Well, he would see to it that nothing of
that sort should happen! Crime was a science; its procedure was
calculated, methodical, orderly, denying scruples. He had always
approached it as a science; he proposed never to approach it in any
other way. The case in point, for instance: Once he knew exactly where
this hidden half-million was, where he could lay his hands on it
whenever he desired at an instant's notice--and he would locate its
precise position inside the hut there as soon as the old maniac
returned home to his bed--Mr. Marlin would be removed. But that must
be accomplished apparently through an accident--and the accident must
be such as to serve as _proof_, so to speak, that Captain Francis
Newcombe could not possibly have had any part in it. This became the
more essential now in view of that infernal voice last night. The
nature of the accident itself was a mere detail. The choice was
legion. There had been others who, becoming encumbrances in the path
of Shadow Varne, had met with accidents. What folly to go in there
now--and have the whole island aroused by the crime of murder and
invaded by the police; with the crime itself proclaiming the fact that
the murder had been done for the money the old madman was known to have
had somewhere, but which was now obviously in the possession of _some
one_, to wit, the murderer!
Bah! What was the matter with him? Did he need to rehearse the
obvious? Mr. Marlin's secret would die with him; and, being unable to
find the money, they would give the old maniac more credit for cunning
and originality than was due to the moss-eaten method of selecting a
hiding place under the floor of an old hut! The pitiful fool! Under
the floor! That was where the treasure was always hidden--in every
book he had ever read!
The crooning continued. It began to get a little on his nerves. It
was interminable. Would the man stay here until daylight? No; that
was hardly likely--not if he ran true to form. Old Marlin hadn't
stayed out until daybreak last night when Polly and he, Captain Francis
Newcombe, had watched the other go in under the verandah.
It might have been an hour, though it seemed two, when at last Captain
Francis Newcombe rose silently to his feet. The crooning had finally
ceased, and in its place there came now a series of low, thudding
sounds, as though soft earth were being tamped into place; and then he
heard the door creak a little as it was opened and closed. An instant
later the footsteps of the old man died away along the path by which he
had come.
Captain Francis Newcombe stepped quickly around to the other side of
the hut, and tried the door. It was unlocked. He smiled in a sort of
grim humour as he pushed it open, and, entering, closed it again behind
him. That was the first sign of intelligence--no, applied to a maniac,
it could hardly be termed intelligence!--well then, craftiness that
measured up in at least a little way to the intensive order of cunning
with which the insane in general were popularly credited. An unlocked
door was no mean safe-guard. The last place one would expect to find,
or look for, a half-million dollars would be behind an unlocked door!
His flashlight threw an inquisitive circle of light around the
interior. Whatever the place had been used for at one time, it was
decidedly neglected and in disuse now. The flooring was in an advanced
state of decay. His eyes followed the ray of the flashlight as it held
on a spot on the flooring near the door. Yes, knowing beforehand that
some pieces of the flooring there had been lifted, he could see that
such was the case in spite of the fact that the pieces had been very
neatly replaced.
The flashlight continued its tour of inspection. There was a pile of
rubbish and some old barrels over in the far corner. He stepped
quickly across to these and nodded his head sharply in satisfaction,
as, tucked in behind the barrels, he found what he had been looking
for. Mr. Marlin had been digging. Exactly! Here was the spade. He
lifted it up and examined it. Particles of fresh earth still clung to
it.
Captain Francis Newcombe stood still now for an instant to listen. And
as he listened his brows gathered in a savage frown of annoyance. Why
this exaggerated precaution? What did he expect to hear? What sound
could there be? The old fool was finished for the night. There wasn't
the slightest chance that he would return. Why should he, Captain
Francis Newcombe, waste time now, when with a moment's work he could
satisfy himself that the half-million dollars that had brought him to
Manwa Island was definitely within his reach? Was that it? Was it
psychological? Was it that _voice_ he was listening for again?
He swore fiercely under his breath in a sudden flood of blind rage at
himself; and, crossing the hut, stood the spade up against the wall
within reach, and knelt down on the floor with the flashlight playing
on the two or three sections of board that the old man had removed.
Yes, they were quite loose. His fingers worked their way into a crack
between two of them. The old maniac's half-million! Hidden under the
flooring! It was child's--
_What was that?_
He was on his feet, the flashlight out, every muscle tense, his
revolver outflung before him.
In God's name, what was that?
It seemed to crash and thunder through the stillness.
Only a knock upon the door?
Again!
Once more--sharp, imperative!
He stood motionless--his jaws clamped like iron. What was he to do?
If he answered the summons--what then? How explain the presence here
of Captain Francis Newcombe, the guest, who at this hour should be
peacefully asleep in his bed? Who was it out there who had knocked
upon the door? Not the old fool himself who might have come back. Old
Marlin wouldn't have knocked. Who, then?
Strange! A full minute must have passed. Why were the knocks not
repeated? There was no sound from without. He had heard no one
approach--he had heard no one go away. Only the knocks upon the door.
He was listening now, every faculty alert. Was some one standing
outside there, as tense, as silent, waiting--as he stood tense and
silent, waiting, here within? If so, then, that was another angle to
the situation. It must be so! There was not a sound out there--there
had not been a sound. He had heard no one go away. Well, two could
play at a game like that! And it would be the other who would show his
hand!
He moved softly toward the door. In the darkness he felt out with his
hand. It touched the panel of the door, crept down until it clasped
the knob--and then suddenly, even as he moved swiftly to one side out
of the direct line, he flung the door wide back upon its hinges.
And where the door had stood, there showed now but an oblong of filmy,
hazy murk, scarcely more penetrable to the eye than the black interior
of the hut. Nothing more! No, that was not true. There was something
else--something white, a small white fluttering thing that seemed to
drift and flutter downward to the ground. No sound from without--save
the night sounds of the woods: The leaves talking to one another; the
stir in the grasses; the low, faint, never-ending chatter of insects.
The watch ticking on Captain Francis Newcombe's wrist became a loud,
discordant thing. It ticked away the minutes before he moved again.
His eyes became accustomed to the murk outside the open door. There
was no one there.
That white thing lying by the threshold was an envelope. It had been
stuck in the door. He reached out now, and picked it up. And now he
closed the door again, and, with the flashlight on, he tore the
envelope open.
He stared at the sheet of paper it contained. The single line of
crude, printed letters seemed to leap out at him from the white sheet,
scorching, burning, searing its message into his consciousness. He
raised his hand and drew it across his forehead. It came away wet with
sweat. He looked around him, snarling like a beast at bay. A thousand
minions of hell here in the hut were screeching in his ears the words
he had just read:
"_Who murdered Sir Harris Greaves?_"
--V--
THE GUTTER-SNIPE
A clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour.
Midnight!
Polly Wickes rose hastily from the corner of the big
leather-upholstered Chesterfield in which her small figure had been
tucked away.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea it was so late. Every one else
has been in bed ages ago."
"I think," said Locke gravely, "that it is our duty to stand by that
last log. It's been a rather jolly fire, you know. I--"
"That is the second one you have put on after having made the same
remark twice before," she accused him severely.
"I know," said Locke. "I'm guilty--but think of the extenuating
circumstances."
Polly Wickes laughed.
"No," she said.
"This is positively the last," pleaded Locke. "There may not be any
excuse for a grate fire to-morrow night. Have you thought of that?
The wind is still howling, but the rain has stopped and the moon is
coming out, and--" His tongue was running away with him inanely. He
stopped short.
"Yes?" inquired Polly Wickes demurely.
The great dark eyes were laughing at him--teasing a little.
"Well, confound it," he blurted out, "I don't want you to go! This has
been a day and an evening that I shall never forget--very wonderful
ones for me. I don't want them to be only memories--yet."
He met the dark eyes steadily now. The laughter had gone from them.
He found them studying him for an instant in an almost startled
way--and then the eyelids drooped and covered them, and she turned her
head a little, facing the portièred window beside the fireplace of the
living room in which they stood, and the colour crept softly upward
from the full, bare throat, and stole into her cheeks.
He caught his breath. He felt his pulse stir into a quicker beat. She
was very lovely as she stood there with the soft, mellow glow of the
rose-shaded lamp and with the flicker of the flames from the firelight
playing upon her.
"Just this last one," he pleaded again.
She hesitated for an instant, then sat down slowly on the Chesterfield
once more. And as he watched her, there seemed to have come a curious
quiet upon her. She did not look at him now--she was staring at her
hands, which were tightly clasped together in her lap.
"Very well," she said in a low voice. "I think that I, too, would like
to have--that last log. There is something that I want to say--that I
meant to say this afternoon on the yacht. I--Mr. Locke, do you know
who I am?"
She would not look up. He could not see her face. He knew what she
meant--Mr. Marlin's words of the day before flashed upon him. There
was something of dreariness in her voice, something that strove to be
very bravely defiant but was only wistful, and an almost uncontrollable
impulse fell upon him to touch her face and lift it gently, and make
her eyes meet his again. There would be an answer there--an answer
that he had not yet dared put in words. What right had he to do so? A
day of dreams on the yacht to-day--that, and yesterday. Two days! He
had known her longer than that....
He found himself answering her question automatically.
"What a strange question!" He was laughing--speaking lightly. "Of
course, I know who you are."
"Yes," she said gravely, "you know that my name is Polly Wickes--but do
you know anything about me?"
He came and stood a little closer to her.
"I think I know _you_." His voice had lost its lighter tone.
A little flood of colour came as she shook her head.
"Did guardy tell you anything about me on your trip down here?"
"No," he said.
"I didn't think he had," she said. "He has always been opposed to
either of us saying anything about it to any one. Dear guardy! I know
it is for my sake and that he believes it makes it easier for me, and
generally it does; but--but sometimes it doesn't." She stopped and
looked up suddenly. "But I do think it is more than likely that Mr.
Marlin, in his queer way, has said something. Has he?"
"Look here," said Locke impulsively, "does it really matter--does it
even matter at all? Mr. Marlin did say something, as a matter of
fact--yesterday, down there at the boathouse, you know."
"What did he say?" she demanded.
"Why," Locke smiled, "something about London, and selling flowers."
"Well, it is quite true," she said slowly. "That is exactly what I
was--a flower girl in London--on the street corners."
"I sell bonds--when I can--and wherever I can." Locke was laughing
again--he was not quite sure whether he was striving the more to put
her or himself at ease. "I can't see any difference on the basis of
pure commerce between the two--except perhaps that the flowers are the
more honest offering of the two. Bonds sometimes are not always what
they seem."
She shook her head.
"That's very nice of you, Mr. Locke," she said. She was studying her
clasped hands again. "But--but of course, as you quite well know, that
has nothing whatever to do with what I am saying. You know London,
don't you?"
"Why, yes; a bit," he answered.
"Yes," she said. "I think you do. Indeed, from what you have said
to-day, I am sure you know it better than any American I have ever met
before; and, indeed, far better than most people who live there all
their lives. And so--and so"--her voice broke a little, then steadied
instantly--"it is not necessary to go into any details, for you will
understand quite well when I say that I lived in Whitechapel, and even
there where only the cheapest room was to be found, and that when I
sold flowers I did not have any shoes--and to the police I was known as
a gutter-snipe."
He was beside her, bending over her.
"My God, Miss Wickes--Polly," he burst out, "why do you hurt yourself
like this!"
He had called her "Polly." The name had come unbidden to his tongue.
It had brought no rebuke--or was it that she had not noticed it?
"I would hurt myself more," she said steadily, "if I felt that those
around me could have any justification in believing that I was
purposely masquerading in order to deceive. That would be
hypocrisy--and I hate that!" She flung out her hands suddenly with a
queer, little helpless gesture. "Oh, I wonder if you understand what I
mean; I wonder if I am explaining myself--and if you won't at once
think that I am utterly inconsistent when I say that at school no one
knew anything about my former life? But, you see, I have never felt
that I was called upon to make the intimate things in my life a matter
of public knowledge. And in that respect I can quite understand
guardy's attitude in wishing me to say nothing about it, for, in so
many cases, and especially at school, it would have just supplied a
fund for gossip, and--and that would have been abominable."
"Of course, it would!" There was savage assent in Locke's voice.
"It's nobody's business but your own."
"Oh, yes, it is," she answered instantly. "It's Miss Marlin's
business--if I come here as a guest."
"Yes," said Locke quickly; "but you _have_ told her, and--"
"Wait!" she interrupted. "Yes, I have told her; and now I have told
you. But your two cases are entirely different, and I am not
altogether sure that my reason for telling you is entirely to my
credit, because it--it is perhaps like the child who confesses when he
knows he is sure to be found out. You couldn't be here with poor Mr.
Marlin very long before you knew. Do you understand? I couldn't bear
the thought of you, or any one, thinking I was deliberately trying to
hide the truth, or that, when there was reason to do so, I was afraid
or ashamed to speak out myself."
"I wish you hadn't added that 'any one,'" he said in a low voice.
She did not answer. She was staring now into the fire. And he too
stared into it now. It was full of pictures--strange, drab pictures.
He knew Whitechapel--its stark, hopeless realism; he knew its
children--without shoes. Was that what she saw there now? The fire
was dying--beneath the one remaining log, almost burned through now,
there were only embers. They glowed here and there and went
out--black. Like some memories!
He looked at her again. Her face, that he could see now, seemed
strangely pinched and drawn. Her hand toyed nervously with a frill of
her dress. And something seemed suddenly to choke in his throat, and a
great yearning came--and it would not be denied.
"Polly!" he whispered, and, leaning over, caught her hand in his.
With a quick, sharp indrawing of her breath as of one in sudden pain,
she rose to her feet and drew her hand away.
"Oh, why did you do that?" she cried out.
"Because," he said, "I love--"
"No, no!" she cried out again. "Don't answer me! I didn't mean that
you should answer. It is only that _now_ there is something else that
I must say. I--I--" Her voice broke suddenly.
"Don't!" he said huskily. "Polly, there is nothing to take to heart.
What could it ever matter, those days? They are gone now forever. You
exaggerate any possible bearing they could have on to-day. Suppose you
were a flower girl, that you have known poverty in its bitterest
sense--would that matter, could it possibly matter to any one who was
not a contemptible snob, or to--"
"There is something else now that I must say." She was repeating her
own words, almost as though she were unconscious of any interruption.
"You--you make me say it. I--I never knew who my father was."
She was gone.
He had had a glimpse of a face pitifully white, of dark eyes that
fought bravely against a mist that sought to blind them; and then
before he could move or speak she had run from the room--and he stood
alone before the fireplace.
And in the fireplace the last log fell spluttering, throwing out its
dying rain of little sparks, and lay a broken thing between the dogs.
--VI--
THE MAN IN THE MASK
Again a clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour. And again.
One o'clock.
Two o'clock.
The embers in the fireplace had long since turned to black charred
things. Locke raised his head. Two o'clock! He had not been
conscious of it when the last little glow had died away. He had turned
out the light when Polly had gone--and had sat there staring at the
dying fire. He had not put on another log. The fire was dead
now--quite dead. He had been staring into a black fireplace--that was
as black as the room itself.
Two o'clock!
He stood up, and, going to the windows, flung back the portières. It
was still blowing hard; but the moon was beginning to show through the
scudding clouds. He brushed his hand heavily across his eyes. It was
very still in the house; but the stillness itself seemed a disquiet,
untranquil, chaotic thing. Polly! Yes, Polly had filled his thoughts
during those two hours--Polly, and Captain Francis Newcombe. But he
had not forgotten withal the bizarre appointment he was to keep with
Mr. Marlin in the aquarium--at a quarter past two. One would not be
likely to forget so extraordinary a thing in any case, no matter what
might meanwhile have intervened--even if Mr. Marlin had not been so
grotesquely persistent in his reminders. A dozen times that day the
old man had plucked significantly at his, Locke's, coat sleeve, or had
signalled mysteriously with his finger to his lips; and twice, with a
childish titter, the old man had come upon him unexpectedly and had
said exactly the same thing on each occasion.
"Tee-hee, tee-hee!" the old man had tittered. "It is all right for
to-night, my boy--you will see--you will see. And they thought I was a
fool. Do not say a word. Keep quiet--keep quiet--you will see."
What would he see? What would he learn? Much--or little? Would it be
only the babble of a sick brain? Queer, strange, almost impossible
conditions in this house! Where would they climax--and how? Whose
hand held the trumps?
His eyes fixed suddenly on a spot across the lawn. Something seemed to
have moved there. Fancy, perhaps; or a shadow cast by the swaying
branches. The moon was just coming out from under the edge of a
cloud--another moment and he would be able to tell if anything were
there. Yes! A woman emerging from the path that led to the shore.
The figure began to cross the lawn, approaching the house.
And then Locke's eyes narrowed suddenly in astonishment. It wasn't a
woman at all; it was a man wearing a long gown, a dressing gown. It
was Mr. Marlin. And the man kept cocking his head from side to side;
and he appeared to be carrying something under the dressing gown--at
least his arm was crooked up as though he held a bundle there.
Locke smiled now a little grimly, as the old man finally disappeared
around the corner of the house. It was almost a quarter past two. He
would find Mr. Marlin in the aquarium.
He drew the portières together again, and, leaving the room, went out
into the reception hall beyond. There was no light showing anywhere
and he was obliged to feel his way along. The aquarium was in, or,
rather, composed in itself, a little wing built at the rear of the
house, but connected therewith by a short, covered passageway. He knew
the way quite well--he had been there with Polly on that first day.
That _first_ day! That was only yesterday ... it was incredible,
impossible.... His mind was running riot as he groped his way to the
rear of the main staircase and into the wide passage that ran parallel
with the length of the house. But then the whole place was incredible!
The house itself was like a great hotel with its corridors and its
endless number of rooms! This was Mr. Marlin's room here at his right,
and--
He stood still. A door on his left had opened. It shut again
instantly--and then he could hear it being cautiously reopened a little
way.
"Don't you move!" said a voice in a fierce whisper. "Don't you move!
I can see you! If you move I will shoot you!"
Locke found his muscles, that had suddenly grown tense and strained, as
suddenly relaxed. He could see nothing--the door wasn't wide enough
open--but it was the old madman's voice. Strange, though! How had the
man got there? That wasn't Mr. Marlin's room--Mr. Marlin's room was on
the opposite side of the hall. Yes, of course, there must be an
entrance into the house there of some sort.
"It's Locke," he announced quietly. "That's you, Mr. Marlin, isn't it?"
"Hah!" ejaculated the other. "You, my boy, eh? Well, that's quite
different. Of course, it's you. You know the value of being prompt.
Excellent! Excellent! Be very quiet--but hurry! Follow me. We have
only a little time."
Locke could just make out the old man's form now as the other came
through the door--and then in the darkness it was lost again. But the
patter of footsteps ahead of him, hurrying along, served as a guide.
He followed the other to the end of the hall, turned into the covered
passageway, and was halted again by the old man, this time at the door
of the aquarium.
"Tee-hee!" tittered the maniac. "They think they are dealing with a
fool. Wait! Wait, young man, I will see that the window shades are
all down before we turn on the light--though there will be no one here
to-night except ourselves--tee-hee!--they will be somewhere else!"
The old man opened the door and disappeared. And now Locke, as he
waited, and though he listened, could not hear the other moving around
inside--what sound the old man made was drowned by the noise of running
water through the pipes that fed the tanks, and, added to this, the
low, constant drip and trickle that pervaded the place.
Presently the lights went on.
"Here!" cried the old man. "Come over here!"
Locke blinked a little in the light as he stepped forward. It
reflected bewilderingly from the glass faces of the tanks that were
everywhere about. He joined the old man in the centre of the aquarium.
Here there was an open space from which the tanks radiated off much
after the manner of the spokes of a wheel, and this space was utilised
as a sort of luxurious observation point, so to speak, for a heavy
oriental rug was on the tiled floor, and ranged around a table were a
number of big easy chairs.
From under his dressing gown now the old man took a package that was
wrapped in oiled silk, and laid it on the table.
"Money!" he cried out abruptly. "Hah! We know its power, young man,
you and I!" He began to fumble with the cord that was tied around the
package; and then suddenly commenced to titter again. "Did I not tell
you I was being followed, always being followed? Well, last night they
followed a wrong scent. Tee-hee! Tee-hee! I told you you would see
who was the fool! They are there to-night--digging--digging--digging.
Tee-hee! Tee-hee! They will dig the place all up before they are sure
it is not there."
Money! That package! Locke's lips tightened a little. Was this, as
he had more than half expected, what he was to "see"--the half-million
dollars at last that Polly had seen? And what did the man mean by
"wrong scent"? And "digging"?
"Yes, of course, Mr. Marlin," said Locke quietly. "Of course, they
will! But who is it that is following you?"
The old man dropped the package from his hands and leaned across the
table, his eyes suddenly ablaze.
"If I knew, I would kill them!" he whispered. "It is
everybody--everybody!"
"Perhaps you are mistaken." Locke spoke in a soothing tone. "Did you
see anybody following you last night?"
"It is not necessary to see"--the old madman's whisper had become
suddenly confidential--"I know. They were there--they are always
there--watching--eyes are always watching." He broke into his insane
titter once more. "Tee-hee, yes, yes; and we are being watched by
thousands of eyes to-night--look at them--look at them--the pretty
things--see them swimming all around you--but they look and they say
nothing--and they do not follow me." His voice was rising shrilly; he
began to gesticulate with his hands, pointing with darting little
motions at one tank after another. "Do you hear? You need not be
afraid because they watch. They will not follow us."
Locke sat down leisurely in a chair facing the other across the table.
He was rather curious about this mysterious digging of last night, a
little more than curious--but, also, it was necessary to calm the old
maniac's growing excitement.
"I am quite sure of that, Mr. Marlin," he agreed heartily. "We should
be perfectly safe here, especially as you say that you have succeeded
in making whoever was following you watch somewhere else. That was
very clever of you, Mr. Marlin."
The old man put his finger to his lips.
"I'll tell you where it was, young man," he said. "The old hut in the
woods behind the house. They think it's there. They think that's
where I hide the money. And they'll keep on looking there. It will
take them a long while. They will be looking there to-night--and
perhaps to-morrow night, too. And then they will begin to follow me
again. But it will be too late--too late for many, many days, because
the time-lock will be set--ha, ha--God supplies the time-lock, young
man--you do not understand that--but can you imagine any one opening a
time-lock that God has made?"
Locke took refuge in a cigarette. Apart from some mare's nest in an
old hut, it was quite hopeless! The old maniac's condition was growing
steadily worse. There was a marked change in even the last twenty-four
hours. It did not require any professional eye to discern that.
"I think," suggested Locke conversationally, "that you were going to
show me something in that package, Mr. Marlin."
"Yes," said the old madman instantly, and as though quite oblivious of
any digression. "That is why you are here. Listen! You will tell
your father about it. I do not ask others to do what I do not do
myself. Your father must do the same. He must get all the great
capitalists of America to do likewise--it is the only thing that will
save the country from ruin and disaster. Look!" The old man ripped
off the cord and wrapper, and there tumbled out upon the table, each
held together with two or three elastic bands, a half dozen or more
small bundles of bank notes. "See! See! Do you see, young man?"
Locke with difficulty maintained an impassive countenance. He had
expected something of the sort, but it seemed somehow incredible that a
sum so great as Polly had named should be represented by those few
little bundles scattered there on the table in front of him. He picked
one of them up and riffled the notes through his fingers. It contained
perhaps a hundred bills, each one of the denomination of a thousand
dollars--one hundred thousand dollars. He laid the bundle back on the
table. Others were of like denomination; others again of five hundred.
The full amount was undoubtedly there.
"Do you know how much is there?" demanded the old madman sharply.
Locke regarded the money thoughtfully. To name the exact amount
offhand might aggravate the old maniac's already suspicious frame of
mind.
"I can see that there is a very large sum," he answered cautiously.
"A large sum!" echoed the madman aggressively. "And what do you call a
large sum, young man?"
"Well, at a guess," said Locke quietly, "and basing it on that package
I have just examined, I should say in the neighbourhood of half a
million dollars."
The old maniac thrust his head forward across the table, stared for an
instant, and then suddenly burst into a peal of wild, ironical laughter.
"Half a million!" He rocked upon his feet, his peals of laughter
punctuating his words. "Bah! There are five millions, ten millions,
fifty millions there!" He shook his finger under Locke's nose. "Do
you hear what I say, young man?"
The blue eyes had become alight with a mad blaze; hectic spots began to
burn in the old madman's cheeks. Locke nodded his head in a slow,
deliberate manner--as the most effective thing he could think of to do
by way of calming the other. The whole place, the surroundings, the
grotesque shapes swimming around in the tanks everywhere he looked, the
eyes of the queer sea creatures that all seemed to be fascinated by
that fortune which lay upon the table, the constant drip and trickle of
water, the crazed old man who rocked upon his feet and laughed, were
eerily unreal. That sea-horse in the tank that faced him from just
beyond the other side of the table, for instance, seemed to be a most
bizarre and unnatural creature both in shape and actions even for one
of his own species! Half-past two in the morning, in an aquarium with
a madman and a half-million dollars! Again, by way of appeasing the
other, he nodded his head.
"Listen!" cried the old maniac fiercely. "You must help me. Men are
blind, blind, blind! Europe is crumbling, nations are
bankrupt--chaos--chaos--chaos is everywhere. Everything else is
decreasing in value; only the American dollar climbs up and up and up.
Sell, sell, sell while there is time! Commercial houses are tottering,
dividends are not being paid, the employment of labour becomes less and
less--the end is near. And fools cling to their business enterprises;
and their capital shrinks and is swallowed up and lost. Lost!" The
man was working himself into a frenzy. His voice rose in a shriek.
"_Lost_! Do you not see? Do you not understand? Money alone has any
value. And the less money there is left in the world, and the more
that is lost, the greater will be the value of what remains. It will
multiply itself by the thousandfold. Look! Look what is on the table
here! It will become a wealth beyond counting in any case, and if no
one will believe me then the more it will be worth because there will
be the less money to compete against it. Millions! Millions!
Hundreds of millions! But I am not selfish. I do not wish to see the
ruin of the world. And you--_you_! You will now be responsible. They
will not listen to me because they say I am mad--I, who alone have the
vision to see, and the courage to act. But your father will listen to
you and he will believe you, and the great financiers of America will
follow your father, and--"
Subconsciously Locke was aware that the old maniac was still talking,
the crazed words rising in shrieks of passionate intensity--but he was
no longer paying any attention to the other. He was staring again at
the glass tank, behind and a little to one side of the old madman, that
contained the sea-horse. The creature was most strange! It was only a
small and diminutive thing, but, unless he were the victim of an
hallucination, it had taken on an extraordinary appearance. It seemed
to possess _human_ eyes; to assume almost the shape of a face--only
there was a shadow across it. The water rippled a little. The
sea-horse moved to the opposite corner of the tank--but the eyes
remained in exactly the same original spot.
Locke leaned nonchalantly back in his chair, though his lips were
compressed now into a thin, grim line. They were human eyes, and the
shadow across the face was a mask. Where did it come from? He began
trying to figure out the angle of reflection. The face of each glass
tank, of course, with the deeper-hued water behind it, was nothing more
or less than a reflecting mirror. What was that dark straight line
above the eyes? To begin with, the reflection must come from somewhere
behind him, and well to one side of him. Taking into consideration the
position in which Mr. Marlin stood, it must be the left-hand side. The
tanks, then, that would seem to answer that requirement became
instantly limited in number--it must be either the first or second tank
of those that formed the left-hand side of the alleyway nearest to
where he sat, and that, like the spoke of the wheel, led obliquely to
the wall. He could not see the wall, but-- Yes, he had it now. There
was a window there. That dark line above the eyes was the window
shade--raised six inches or so from the sill. It could easily have
been accomplished--even if the old madman had carefully drawn every
shade and shut every window in the place, as presumably he had. The
drip and trickle, the running water, would have deadened any little
sound made in forcing the window, and after that to reach in and
manipulate the shade would have been but child's play.
Locke's eyes shifted now to the old madman. What was to be done? The
other, still rocking and swaying upon his feet, still flinging his arms
about in mad gestures, his facial muscles twitching violently as he
shrieked out his words, was already verging on a state of acute
hysteria. Even to hint at the possibility that they were being watched
would not only have a probably very dangerous effect upon the maniac,
but would in itself defeat any chance of turning the tables on that
watcher outside the window! Whose eyes were those, whose face was that
behind the mask? Intuitively he felt he knew--the trail went back,
broad and well defined, to London. Newcombe! Captain Francis
Newcombe! Who else could it be? His jaws clamped hard together now.
How turn intuition into a practical, visible certainty--by stripping
that mask from the other's face?
The eyes were still there in the tank.
His mind was working keenly, swiftly now. Suppose he made some excuse
to leave the aquarium and stole around outside to that window? No;
that would not do. In the first place, he probably could not get away
from the old madman; and, if he could, he dared not, for the length of
time it would take him to accomplish any such purpose, leave the other
alone with that money on the table and subject to attack from an open
window only a few feet away. There was only one thing to do. The man
outside the window there, unaware that his presence was known, would
naturally not consider that he, Locke, was a factor to be reckoned with
when, say, the old madman left the aquarium here to return the money to
its hiding place, wherever that might be; and therefore, if he, Locke,
could manage to keep ward over Mr. Marlin without being seen himself,
the man out there would almost certainly rise to the bait and bring
about his own downfall. The money was in evidence for the first time;
its whereabouts known--and the man in the mask would be illogical
indeed if he allowed it to be restored to the security of a secret
hiding place without making an attempt to get it when an opportunity
such as this apparently presented itself. But against this was a
certain risk to which the old man would be subjected; if not a physical
risk, then a mental one--which latter, to one in Mr. Marlin's
condition, would probably be the more dangerous of the two. And then
there was the chance, too, that if luck turned an ugly trick the money
itself might be in jeopardy. The old maniac's unconscious co-operation
must be secured. The hiding place was somewhere outside the house.
That was obvious, both from Mr. Marlin's nocturnal habits, and from the
even more significant fact that the old madman, in coming to this
appointment here to-night, had brought the money with him from
somewhere outdoors. Also it seemed to be no secret that Mr. Marlin
roamed abroad at night. Polly had spoken of it without reserve. It
was therefore but fair to presume that one as interested as was the man
outside the window, and particularly if it were Newcombe, was in
possession of this knowledge, and being in possession of it was equally
capable of putting two and two together, and would expect the old
maniac to go out again to-night--with the money. If then, without
unduly alarming him, Mr. Marlin could be persuaded to remain in the
house with his money to-night, it would not only be the safest thing
the old madman could do, but would afford him, Locke, if he were right
in his supposition, an excellent chance to trap the man in the mask
while the latter waited for his prey to come out.
Locke, leaning forward now, crossed his arms on the table, and nodded
his head earnestly at the old maniac. One corner of the table at least
was distinctly visible from where the window would be along that little
alleyway between the rows of tanks, but he was careful not to glance in
that direction. The reflection of the masked face still showed in the
same place. What was the old madman saying? Well, it didn't matter,
did it? He interrupted the other now.
"You are right, Mr. Marlin," he said gravely. "I agree with everything
you have said. It is a most serious situation. I had no idea that
there existed any such vital and immediate necessity of realising cash
for every description of asset that we can lay our hands upon. And I
had no idea of the immense potential value that this money here on the
table, for instance, possesses. As you say, when the crash comes it
will be worth untold millions--a fabulous amount."
"Yes, yes!" agreed the old man excitedly. He began to pat and fondle
the bundles of bank notes. "Millions! Millions! Hundreds of
millions!"
"The amount is so vast," said Locke, still earnestly, "that I cannot
help thinking about what you said in reference to being followed out
there in the woods last night. I don't think you should risk any
chance of being followed to-night when you have all this great wealth
with you, even though you are quite sure you have put whoever it may be
off the scent, and that he, or they, will be busy somewhere else. I
don't think, if I were you, I would go out of the house again to-night."
The old madman straightened up, and for a moment stared at Locke; and
as he stared the red spots began to overspread his cheeks, and the
pupils of the blue eyes seemed to enlarge and darken. And then with a
sudden sweep of his arms he gathered the bundles of bank notes
together, wrapped them up frantically in the oiled-silk covering, and
thrust the package under his dressing gown.
"Hah!" His voice rose in a wild and savage scream. "You think I
should stay in the house, do you? Hah! I see! I see! That is what
you want me to do, is it? You want to trick me! You are one of
them--one of them--one of them! You could never find the money where I
hide it! You could never open God's time-lock! So you want me to keep
it in the house to-night where you can get it! And you think that I am
a madman and cannot see what you are after! You are one of them--one
of them that follows--follows everywhere--and watches--and watches!"
He burst into a wild peal of laughter--another and another. He
clutched fiercely at the package under his dressing gown. His face was
distorted. His free hand pounded the table; saliva showed at the
corners of his lips.
"For God's sake, Mr. Marlin," cried Locke, "listen--"
"One of them! One of them!" screamed the old man--and, turning
suddenly, dashed for the door.
Locke's chair overturned with a crash as he sprang to his feet, and,
darting around the table, started to follow--but the old maniac by now
was already at the door. He saw the other's hand snatch at the
electric-light switch. The aquarium was in sudden darkness. He heard
the door slam. He groped his way to it, and wrenched at it.
The old madman had locked it on the outside.
--VII--
THE FIGHT
For a moment, grim-lipped, Locke stood there at the door. He had
accomplished exactly the opposite to what he had intended--the old man,
the money, were both in infinitely greater peril now than under almost
any other circumstances of which he could conceive. He did not blame
himself--the vagaries, the impulses, the irrational promptings of an
insane mind were beyond his control or guidance. It was the last thing
he had expected the old maniac to do. But it was done now; it was too
late to consider that phase of it. There was work for his own brain to
do--he hoped more logically.
He turned sharply now, and began to make his way as best he could in
the darkness toward the window at the end of that aisle of tanks
outside of which he knew the masked man had stood. He dared not show
any light here, though by so doing he would have been able to move more
swiftly. The man who had been at the window was almost certainly gone
now--to watch for the old maniac's appearance outside the house. And
Mr. Marlin would assuredly, and as quickly as he could, scurry outside
to hide his money away again. And even if the man in the mask had had
no previous knowledge of the old madman's strange nightly movements,
which would be a very unsafe assumption on which to depend, he would
have _heard_ enough at the window, if not to know, then, at least, to
expect that the old maniac's one thought now would be to secrete his
money, and that the hiding place, this time-lock that God had made, as
the old man had called it, was somewhere outside the house. But the
watcher's new lurking place might still embrace a view of the window,
and if he, Locke, climbed out with the light behind him--
He was at the window now. He smiled grimly. He was pitted against no
fool--but then he never had been fool enough himself ever to place
Captain Francis Newcombe in that category! The man in the mask had
left no tell-tale evidence of his presence behind him. The shade was
drawn down; the window closed.
Locke lifted the shade now, raised the window quietly, and stood for an
instant listening, staring out. He could see little or nothing, other
than the swaying branches of trees against the sky line; and there was
no sound save the sweep of the wind which was still blowing half a
gale. And now he swung himself over the window sill, dropped the few
feet to the ground--and crouched against the wall, listening, staring
again into the blackness.
Nothing! The moon, burrowing deeper under the clouds, made it even
blacker than it had been a moment ago. He straightened up and began to
run toward the front of the house. It was perhaps a case of
blindman's-buff, but there was not an instant to lose, and, deprived of
any aid from the sense of either sight or hearing, he was left with
only one thing to do. From the living room window a little while ago,
he had seen Mr. Marlin _coming_ toward the house from across the lawn,
after having presumably just unearthed his money from its hiding place;
the chances were that it was by the same route the old maniac would
_return_ now.
Locke ran on, stumbling, half groping his way through what seemed a
veritable maze of out-buildings here at the rear of the house. The
minutes seemed to be flying--wasted. The old maniac, if he had left
the house the moment he had run from the aquarium, must by now have had
a good three minutes' start; and if the man in the mask had at once
picked up the trail, then--
No; he was not too late! He had reached the front corner of the house
now, and across the lawn, where in the open space it was a little
lighter, something, a blacker thing than the darkness, moving swiftly,
caught his eye. It was the figure of a man running toward the trees in
the direction of the path that led to the shore, and from which old Mr.
Marlin had emerged earlier in the evening. And now the figure was
gone--lost in the trees.
But he, Locke, too, was running now, sprinting for all he knew across
the lawn. It was perhaps sixty yards. There was no time to use
caution and circuit warily around the edge of the woods. He might be
seen--but he had to take that chance. He would not be heard--the soft
grass and the whine of the wind guaranteed him against that. It was a
little better than an even break. The figure he had seen was not, he
was sure, that of the old maniac. The long, flapping dressing gown
would, even in a shadowy way, have been distinguishable. If he were
right, then, in his supposition, the figure he had seen was the man in
the mask, and old Mr. Marlin was already in there on the path leading
through the woods to the shore. A cry, sudden, like a scream that was
strangled, came with the gusting wind. It came again. From the edge
of the lawn now, Locke leaped forward along the path. Black, twisting
shapes loomed up just ahead of him. He flung himself upon them.
A low, startled, vicious snarl answered his attack. After that there
was no sound while perhaps a minute passed, save the rustle of leaves
and foliage, the _snip_ of broken twigs under swiftly moving, straining
feet. Locke was fighting now with merciless, exultant ferocity. It
was the man in the mask he was at grips with--it was not the dressing
gown alone, the _feel_ of it, that distinguished one from the other; he
had even in that first plunging rush in the darkness felt his hand
brush against the mask on the man's cheek.
It was all shadow, all blackness. To this side and that, close locked
together, he and his antagonist now swayed madly. The man's one
evident desire was to break away from his, Locke's, encircling arms;
his, Locke's, purpose not only to prevent escape, but to unmask the
other--the moon might come out again at any instant--filter through the
branches--just enough light to see the other's face if the mask were
off.
A peal of laughter rang out. It was the old madman. Locke, as he
fought, more sensed than saw the old man's form close to the ground, as
though the other were groping around on his hands and knees. The peal
of laughter came again; and then the old maniac's voice in a triumphant
scream:
"I've got it! I've got it! Money! Money! Money! Millions!
Millions! Millions! It's all here! I've got it! It's all--"
The voice was dying away in the distance. Locke laughed a little with
grim, panting breath. Whether it had been dropped or had been snatched
from him in the first attack, old Marlin had now obviously recovered
his package of bank notes. He was gone now--running to hide it again,
of course. In any event, the old maniac and his money were safe, and--
His antagonist had wrenched free an arm. Locke's head jolted back
suddenly from a wicked short-arm blow that caught the point of his
chin. A sensation of numbness seemed to be trying insidiously to creep
upward to his brain--but it did not reach that far--not quite that
far--only it loosened his grip for an instant and the shadowy form that
he had held appeared to be floating away from him. And then, as his
brain cleared, he shot his body forward in a low, lunging tackle. The
other almost eluded him, but his hands caught and clung to the man's
arm--both around one of the other's arms. The man wrenched and
squirmed in a savage frenzy to tear himself free. There was a sound of
the ripping and rending of cloth--something showed white in the
darkness--the other's sleeve had torn away at the armpit.
A white shirt sleeve! It was a beacon in the blackness. The man would
not get away now. There was something more tangible than a
shadow--something to see. In a flash Locke shifted his hold, and his
arms swept around the other, pinioning the man's hands to his
sides--tighter--tighter. Neither spoke. The only sounds were hoarse,
rasping gasps for breath. Tighter! He was bending the man backward
now--slowly--surely--a little more. No--the man was too strong--the
pinioned arms were free again, and Locke felt them grip together like a
vise around the small of his own back.
They lurched now, swaying from side to side like drunken men. The
mask! To get at the mask! They were locked together, the chin of one
on the other's shoulder--straining until the muscles cracked. Locke
began to raise his head a little. The hot breath of the other was on
his cheek now--and now his cheek rubbed against the other's mask.
An oath broke suddenly from the man--quick, muttered, the voice
unrecognisable in its laboured breathing; and the other, seeming to
sense his, Locke's, intention, suddenly relinquished his grip, snatched
for a throat-hold instead, and, missing, began then to tear at Locke's
arms in an effort to break away.
And then Locke laughed again grimly. It would avail nothing to snatch
at the mask and get it off in the darkness here, if by so doing, with
his own hold on the other gone, the man should get away. There was
another way to get the mask off--and still maintain his grip upon the
other!
They were holding now, seemingly as motionless as statues, the strength
of one matched against the other in a supreme effort. The sweat broke
out in great beads on Locke's forehead; his arms seemed to be tearing
away from their sockets. He could feel the muscles in the other's
neck, as it hugged against his own, swell and stand out like great
steel ridges. And then slowly, inch by inch, he forced his own head
around until his face was against the other's cheek. He could just
feel the mask now with his lips--another inch--yes, now he had it--his
teeth closed on the lower edge of the mask, chewed at it until he had a
still firmer grip--and then he suddenly wrenched his head backward.
The mask came away in Locke's teeth. He spat it out. The other was a
man gone mad with fury now; and with a new strength that fury brought
he strove only to strike and strike again--but Locke only closed his
hold the tighter. To strike back was to take the chance of the other
breaking loose. It was too dark to see the man's face, though the mask
was off now--but it could only be a few yards along the path to the
open space of the lawn out there--and the moon would not always be
fickle--it would break through the clouds, and--
They were rocking, lurching, twisting, swaying in their mad
struggle--and now they circled more widely--and branches snatched and
tore at them, and broke and fell from the trees at the sides of the
path. And here Locke gave a step, and there another, working nearer
and nearer to the edge of the lawn.
And then suddenly there came a half-choked cry from the other. The man
had tripped in the undergrowth. Locke swung his weight to complete the
fall--tripped himself--and both, with their balance gone, but grappling
the fiercer at each other, pitched headlong with terrific force into
the trees at the side of the path.
And Locke was for an instant conscious of a great blow, of streaks of
fiery light that smote at his eyeballs with excruciating pain--and then
utter blackness came.
When he opened his eyes again a moonbeam lay along the path, and a
figure in a long dressing gown was passing by. He was dreaming, wasn't
he? There was a sick sensation in his head, a giddiness--and besides
that it gave him great pain. He raised himself up cautiously on his
elbow, fighting to clear his mind--and suddenly his lips tightened
grimly. There was something ironical in that moonbeam--something that
mocked him in disclosing a figure in a dressing gown instead of a face
that had been unmasked yet still could not be seen. He looked around
him now. He was lying a few feet in from the edge of the path, and
against the trunk of a large tree. Yes, he remembered now. His head
had struck against the tree and he had been knocked unconscious. And
the man who had been masked was gone.
He rose to his feet. He was very groggy--and for a moment he leaned
against the tree trunk for support. The giddiness began to pass away.
That was old Mr. Marlin who had just gone by. Well, neither the old
madman nor his money had come to any harm, anyway! He stepped out on
the path, and from there to the edge of the lawn. The old madman was
just disappearing around the corner of the verandah.
Locke put his hands to his eyes. How his head throbbed! How long had
he lain there unconscious? He took out his watch. His eyes seemed
blurred--or was it the meagreness of the moonlight? He was not quite
sure, but it seemed to be ten minutes after three. It wasn't very easy
to figure backward. He did not know how long he and the old maniac had
been together in the aquarium, but, say, half an hour. Starting then
at the hour of the rendezvous, which had been at a quarter past two,
that would bring it to a quarter of three; then, say, ten minutes for
what had happened afterward, including the fight, and that would make
it five minutes of three. He must therefore have been lying in there
unconscious for at least fifteen minutes.
The man who had worn the mask was gone now--naturally. But perhaps it
would not be so difficult to pick up the trail. Captain Francis
Newcombe's room offered very promising possibilities--and there was a
torn coat sleeve that would not readily be replaced in fifteen minutes!
He made his way now across the lawn, and up the steps to the verandah.
He tried the front door. It was locked. Of course! He had forgotten
that he had left the house by crawling out of the aquarium window.
There was no use going back that way because the old madman had locked
the aquarium door. Mr. Marlin, though, had some means of entrance--and
if that door through which the man had so suddenly appeared in the back
hall meant anything, the entrance the old man used was likely to be
somewhere in the rear. But Mr. Marlin would probably have locked that,
too, behind him.
He looked up and down the now moon-flecked verandah--and began to try
the French windows that opened upon it from the front rooms of the
house. The first two were locked as he had expected. It was only a
chance, but he might as well begin here as anywhere else. He tried the
third one almost perfunctorily. It opened at a touch.
"I'm in luck!" Locke muttered, and stepped inside.
He turned the knob to lock the French window behind him, and found the
bolt already thrown. Queer! He stood frowning for an instant, then
stooped and felt along the inside edge of the threshold. The socket
that ordinarily housed the bolt-bar was gone. The same condition
therefore obviously existed at the top, as the long bar had a double
throw.
He straightened up, a curious smile twitching at his lips now, and,
making his way silently to the stairs, he reached the upper hall, stole
along it to the door of his own room, and entered. Here, from one of
his bags, he procured a revolver; and a moment later, his ear to the
panel, listening, he stood outside Captain Francis Newcombe's door.
There was no sound from within. Softly he began to turn the door
handle--the door would hardly be locked; that would be a misplay; one
didn't lock one's bedroom door when a guest in a private house. No; it
was not locked. He had the door ajar now. Again he listened. There
was still no sound from within. Was the man back yet, or not? The
absence of any sound meant nothing, save that Newcombe was probably not
in the sitting room of his suite--he might easily, however, be in
either the bathroom or the bedroom beyond.
Locke swung the door a little wider open, stepped through, and closed
it noiselessly behind him. Again he stood still, his revolver now
outthrust a little before him. The moonlight played across the floor.
It disclosed an open door beyond. Still no sound.
Locked moved forward. He could see into the bedroom now. The bed was
not only empty, but had not been slept in. He turned quickly and
opened the bathroom door. The bathroom, too, was empty.
Captain Francis Newcombe had not, then, as yet returned. With a grim
smile Locke thrust his revolver into his pocket. It was perhaps just
as well--the time while he waited might possibly be used to very good
advantage! Captain Francis Newcombe's baggage was invitingly at one's
disposal--the _Talofa_, with its confined quarters, and where, on the
little vessel, it was always _crowded_, as it were, had offered no such
opportunity!
Locke opened one of the bags. His smile now had changed to one of
irony. Barring any other justification, turn about was no more than
fair play, was it? He possessed a moral certainty, if he lacked the
actual proof, that Captain Francis Newcombe had not hesitated to invade
his, Locke's, cabin on the liner and go through his, Locke's, effects.
He laughed a little now in low, grim mirth. He wondered which of the
two, Newcombe or himself, would be the better rewarded for his efforts?
There was little light, but Locke worked swiftly by the sense of touch,
with fingers that ignored the general contents, and that sought
dexterously for _hidden_ things. His fingers traversed every inch of
the lining of the bag, top, bottom and sides. He disturbed nothing.
Presently he laid the bag aside, and started on another--and suddenly
he nodded his head sharply in satisfaction. This one was what was
generally known as a Gladstone bag, and under the lining at one side
his fingers felt what seemed like a folded paper that moved under his
touch. The lining was intact, of course, but there must be some way of
getting in underneath it--yes, here it was! Rather clever! And
ordinarily quite safe--unless one were actually looking for something
of the sort! There was a flap, or pocket, at the side of the bag, the
ordinary sort of thing, and at the bottom of the flap Locke's fingers,
working deftly, found that the edges of the lining, while apparently
fastened together, were made, in reality, into a double fold--the
lining being stiff enough, even when the edges were displaced, to fall
back of its own accord into place again.
He separated the edges now, worked his fingers into the opening, and
drew out an envelope. It had been torn open at one end, and there was
a superscription of some sort on it in faded writing which, in the
semi-darkness, he could not make out. He stood up, and went quickly to
the window to obtain the full benefit of the moonlight. He could just
decipher the writing now:
"Polly's papers which is God's truth,
Mrs. Wickes X her mark."
For a moment he stood there motionless--but his eyes had lifted from
the envelope now and were fixed on the lawn below. The window here
gave on the side of the lawn with the trees at the rear of the house in
view. A man had just stepped out from the shadow of the trees and was
coming toward the house.
Locke stared, even the envelope in his hand temporarily forgotten, as a
frown of perplexity that deepened into amazed chagrin gathered on his
forehead. The figure was quite recognisable, even minutely so. It was
Captain Francis Newcombe. It accounted for the missing sockets on that
French window perhaps--but the man was as perfectly and immaculately
dressed as he had been that night at dinner. There was no torn
coat--on missing coat sleeve. The man he had fought with, the man in
the mask, had not been Captain Francis Newcombe.
He laughed now--not pleasantly. He had obviously been waiting here for
the wrong man. There was no need of waiting any longer--unless he
desired to be caught himself! Queer! Strange! But there was the
envelope. Polly's papers! What was it that was "God's truth"? At
least, he would find that out!
He thrust the envelope into his pocket, closed the bag, and returned to
his own room. He switched on the light, hurriedly took the envelope
from his pocket again, and from it drew out two documents. He studied
them while minute after minute passed, then dropping them on the table
before him, he stood with drawn face and clenched fists staring across
the room. Polly's birth certificate! The marriage certificate of her
parents! He saw again the agony in the dark eyes, he heard again the
agony in the voice that had proclaimed a parentage outside the pale.
And a great oath came now from Locke's white lips.
He flung himself into a chair beside the table. He fought for cool,
contained reasoning. These papers--Newcombe! Did it change anything,
place Newcombe in any better light, because it was some other man who
had worn that mask to-night? He shook his head in quick, emphatic
dissent. It did not! He was sure, certain of that. The trail led too
far back, was too well defined, too conclusive. And even to-night!
What was Newcombe doing out of the house at three o'clock in the
morning? Ah, yes--he had it! The old maniac's words came back with
sudden and sure significance: "Digging--digging--digging.... The wrong
scent.... The hut in the woods at the rear of the house."
Locke gnawed savagely at his lips. That was where Newcombe had come
from--the woods at the rear of the house. It meant that Newcombe was
the one who had been tricked by the old madman's cunning, which could
never have happened if Newcombe had not been stealthily trying to find
the hidden money; it simply meant that Newcombe was the one who had
been on the wrong scent--and that some one else had been on the right
one!
His face was set in lines like chiselled marble now. Who was this
"some one else"? Was the question very hard to answer? The field was
very limited--_significantly_ limited now! He wasn't wrong, was he?
He couldn't be wrong! And there was always the torn sleeve!
Locke's eyes fixed upon the two documents on the table again. Captain
Francis Newcombe! No; it did not make Newcombe any the less a guilty
man because it was not he who had worn the mask to-night. Newcombe
stood out sharply defined against the light of evidence which, if only
circumstantial, was strong enough to damn the man a thousand times over
for what he was. And here, adding to that evidence, was the proof that
Polly's identity had been, and was being, deliberately concealed from
her. It opened a vista to uglier and still more evil things--things
that only a soul dead to decency, black as the pit of hell, could have
conceived and patiently put into execution. A child--a gutter-snipe,
Polly had called herself--_rescued_ from naked poverty and the slums of
Whitechapel by a man such as Newcombe, whose only promptings were the
promptings of a fiend! Why? Was there room to question further why
Captain Francis Newcombe had years ago adopted such a ward--when now
before one's eyes those years were bearing their poison fruit? Polly's
introduction into this family here was even at this moment being traded
upon to effect the theft of half a million dollars. That was too
obvious now to permit denial. Newcombe was making of a girl,
high-minded, pure-souled, a hideous cat's-paw. Yes, yes! All that was
clear enough! But why should Polly have been deprived of her rightful
name, her claim to honest parentage? Was it to weld a stronger bond of
gratitude--or make her the more helpless, and therefore the more
dependent upon her guardian? Where were these parents? Dead or
living? There was Mrs. Wickes--Mrs. Wickes, who had posed as the
mother! Well, there were certain quarters in London where those who
strayed outside the law could be made to talk. Mrs. Wickes should be
able to furnish very interesting information. It was not far to
Whitechapel and London--by cable.
His mind, his brain, worked on--but now suddenly in turmoil and misery
despite all effort of his to hold himself in check.
Polly! Polly _Gray_!
She loved this monster--that she thought a man, and called her
guardian. Not the love of a maid for lover; but with the love, the
honour, the respect and gratitude that she would give a cherished
father.
The truth would break her heart. The love her friends had given her,
turned to their own undoing! The shame would be torture; the
self-degradation, the abasement that she would know, would be beyond
the bearing. Her faith would be a shattered thing!
Locke's clenched hands lay outspread across the table. He drew them
suddenly together and dropped his head upon them.
"And you love her," he whispered to himself. "Do you know what that is
going to mean? You did not count on that, did you? Do you know where
that will lead? Do you know the consequences?"
He answered his own questions.
"No," he said numbly; "I don't know what it is going to mean. I know I
love her."
--VIII--
THE MESSAGE
Polly Wickes, from her pillow, stared into the darkness. There had
been no thought of sleep; it did not seem as though there ever could be
again. She had undressed and gone to bed--but she had done this
mechanically, because at night one went to bed, because she had always
gone to bed.
Not to sleep!
The tears blinding her eyes, she had groped her way up the stairs from
the living room where she had left Howard Locke, and somehow she had
reached her room. That was hours and hours ago. Surely the daylight
would come soon now; surely it would soon be morning. She wanted the
daylight, she wanted the morning, because the darkness and the
stillness seemed to accentuate a terrible and merciless sense of
isolation that had come so swiftly, so suddenly into her life--to
overturn, to dominate, to stupefy, to cast contemptuously aside the
dreams and thoughts and hopes of happiness and contentment. And yet,
though she yearned for the morning, she even dreaded it more. How
could she meet Howard Locke--at breakfast? She couldn't. She wouldn't
go down to breakfast.
The small hands came from under the coverings, and clasped themselves
tightly about the aching head--and she turned and buried her face in
the pillow. She might easily, very easily evade breakfast--and
postpone the inevitable for a few minutes, even a few hours. Why did
she grasp at pitiful subterfuges such as that?
_She was nameless_.
That phrase had come hours ago. It had scorched itself upon her
brain--as a branding iron at white heat sears its imprint upon
quivering flesh, never to be effaced, always to endure. She was
nameless. It wasn't that she had not always known it--she always had.
But it meant now what it had never meant before. Until now it had been
as something that, since it must be borne, she had striven to bear with
what courage was hers, and, denying its right to embitter life, had
sought to imprison it in the dim recesses of her mind--but now in an
instant it had broken its bonds to stand forth exposed in all its
ugliness; no longer captive, but a vengeful captor, claiming its
miserable right from now on to control and dominate her life.
She had thought of love--it would have been unnatural if she had not.
But she had never loved, and therefore she had thought of it only in an
abstract way. Dream love--fancies. But she loved now--she loved this
man who had so suddenly come into her life--she loved Howard Locke.
And happinesss, greater than she had realised happiness could ever be,
had unfolded itself to her gaze, and, love had become a vibrant,
personal thing, so wonderful, so tender and so glad a thing, that
beside it all the world was little and insignificant and empty; but
even as the glory of it, and the joy of it had burst upon her, she had
been obliged to turn away from it--not very bravely, for the tears had
scalded her as she had run from the living room--because there was no
other thing to do, because it was something that was not hers to have.
She could never be the wife of any man.
She was nameless.
Why had she ever found it out! It might so easily have been that she
would have never known. That--that no one need ever have known! She
was sure that even her guardian did not know.
She smothered her face deeper in the pillow as she cried out in
anguish. She could have had happiness then--and--and it would have
been honourable for her to have taken it, wouldn't it?
She lay quiet for a little while. No; that was cowardly, selfish. If
she really loved this man, she should be glad for his sake that she
knew the truth, glad now of the day when she had found it out. She
remembered that day. It seemed to live more vividly before her now
than it ever had before. Mrs. Wickes--her mother--had--had been
drinking. The words had been a slip of the tongue; a slip that her
mother, owing to her condition at the time, had not even been conscious
of. Mrs. Wickes had been garrulously recounting some sordid crime that
had remained famous even amongst its many fellows in Whitechapel, and,
in placing the date, had stated it was two years after Mr. Wickes had
died. Later on, in the same garrulous account, she had again referred
to the date, but had placed it this time by saying that she, Polly, was
a baby not more than a month old when it had happened.
And on that day when she had listened to her mother's tale she had
still been but a child--in years. She could not have been more than
twelve--but she was very old for twelve. The slums of London had seen
to that. And so, the next day, when her mother had been more herself,
she had asked Mrs. Wickes, more out of a precocious curiosity perhaps
than anything else, for an explanation. Mrs. Wickes had flown into a
furious rage.
"Mind yer own business!" Mrs. Wickes had screamed at her. "The likes
of you a-slingin' mud at yer mother! Wot you got to complain of?
Ain't I takin' care of you? If ever you says another word I'll break
yer back!"
She had never said another word. In one sense she had not been
different from any other child of twelve then, and it had not naturally
caused any change in her feelings toward her mother; nor in the after
years, with their fuller light of understanding, had it ever changed or
abated her love for the mother with whom she had shared hardship and
distress and want. She thanked God for that now. Her mother might
have been one to inspire little love and little of respect in others;
but to her, Polly, when she had parted from her mother to come here to
America, she had parted from the only human being in all the world she
had ever loved, or who, in turn, had ever showed affection for her.
She had never ceased to love her mother; instead, she had perhaps been
the better able to understand, and even to add sympathy to love and to
know a great pity, where bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness
might otherwise have been, because she, too, had lived in those drab
places where the urge of self-preservation alone was the standard that
measured ethics, where one fought and snatched at anything, no matter
from where or by what means it came, that kept soul and body
together--because she could look out on that life, not as one apart,
but with the eyes of one who once had been a--a guttersnipe.
And now?
Now that this crisis in her life had come--what now? She did not know.
She had been trying to think calmly, but her brain would not obey
her--it was crushed, stunned. It ached even in a physical way,
frightfully, and--
She raised her head suddenly from the pillow in a sort of incredulous
amazement--and immediately afterward sat bolt upright in bed. The
telephone here in her room was ringing. At this hour! Her heart
suddenly seemed to stop beating. Something--something must be
wrong--something must have happened--Dora--Mr. Marlin!
It was still ringing--ringing insistently.
She sprang from the bed, and, running to the 'phone, snatched the
receiver from its hook.
"Yes, yes?" she answered breathlessly. "What is it?"
A voice came over the wire; a man's voice, rising and falling creepily
in a sing-song, mocking sort of way:
"Is that you, Polly--Polly Wickes--Polly Wickes--Polly
Wickes--Wickes--Wickes--P-o-l-l-y W-i-c-k-e-s?"
It frightened her. She felt the blood ebb from her cheeks. There was
something horribly familiar in the voice--but she could not place it.
Her hand reached out to the wall for support.
"Yes"--she tried to hold her voice in control, to answer
steadily--"yes; I am Polly Wickes. Who are you? What do you want?"
She heard the sound as of a gust of wind from a door that was suddenly
blown open, the beat of the sea, then the slam of a door--and then the
voice again:
"Polly--Polly Wickes." The words seemed to be choked now with
malicious laughter. "Why don't you dress in black, Polly Wickes--Polly
Wickes--for your mother, Polly Wickes?"
"What do you mean?" she cried frantically. "Who are you? Who are you?
What do you mean?"
There was no answer.
She kept calling into the 'phone.
Nothing! No reply! The voice was gone.
She stood there staring wildly through the darkness. Black ... for her
mother ... dead! No, no ... it couldn't be true! That voice ... yes,
it was like the horrible voice that had called out the other night ...
she knew now why it was familiar....
Terror-stricken, the receiver dropped from her hand.
Dead! Her mother dead! It couldn't be true! She began to grope
around her. The chair--her dressing gown. Her hands felt the garment.
She snatched it up, flung it around her, and stumbled to the door and
along the hall to Captain Francis Newcombe's room. And here she
knocked mechanically, but, without listening for response, opened the
door, and, stumbling still in a blind way, crossed the threshold.
"Guardy! Guardy! Oh, guardy!" she sobbed out.
Captain Francis Newcombe was not asleep. Quite apart from the fact
that he had only got to bed but a very short while before, the cards
that night had gone too badly against him, and there was a savage sense
of fury upon him that would not quiet down. And now, as he heard his
door open and heard Polly call, he was out of bed and into a dressing
gown in an instant. Polly out there in his sitting room--at half-past
four in the morning! And she was sobbing. She sobbed now as he heard
her call again:
"Guardy! Guardy! Oh, guardy!"
This was queer--damned queer! His face was suddenly set in the
darkness as he crossed the bedroom floor--but his voice was quiet,
cool, reassuring, as he answered her: "Right-o, Polly! I'm coming!"
He switched on the light as he entered the sitting room. It brought a
quick, startled cry over the sobs.
"Oh, please, guardy!" she faltered out. "I--I--_please_ turn off the
light."
"Of course!" he said quietly--and it was dark in the room again.
He had caught a glimpse of a little figure crouching just inside the
door--a little figure with white, strained face, with great, wondrous
masses of hair tumbling about her shoulders, with hands that clasped
some filmy drapery tightly across her bosom, and small, dainty feet
that were bare of covering. And as he moved toward her now across the
room, another mood took precedence over the savagery he had just been
nursing--a mood no holier. It might be queer, this visit of hers; but
that glimpse of her, alluring, intimate, of a moment gone, had set his
blood afire again--and far more violently than it had on that first
occasion when he had seen her here on the island two nights ago. It
brought again to the fore the question that, through a cursed nightmare
of happenings, had almost since that time lain dormant. Was he going
to let Locke have her--or was he going to keep her for himself? How
far had she gone with Locke? They had been a lot together. Well, that
mattered little--if he wanted her for himself he would _make_ the way
to get her, Locke and hell combined to the contrary! The
woman--against her potential value as somebody else's wife! Damn it,
that was the wonder of her--that she could even hold her own when
weighed on such scales. There were lots of women.
He had reached her now, and touched her, found her hand and taken it in
his own. "What is it, Polly?" he asked gently. "What's the matter?"
"It's--it's mother," she whispered brokenly. "The telephone in my room
rang a few minutes ago, and some one--a man--and, oh, guardy, I'm sure
it was the same voice that we heard when we were in the woods the night
before last--asked me why I didn't wear black for my mother. It--it
couldn't mean anything else but--but that mother is dead. Oh, guardy,
guardy! How could he know, guardy? How could he know?"
Captain Francis Newcombe made no movement, save to place his arm around
the thinly clad shoulders, and draw the little figure closer to him.
It was dark here, she could not have seen his face anyway, but it was
composed, calm, tranquil. Perhaps the lips straightened a little at
the corners--nothing more. But the brain of the man was working at
lightning speed. Here was disaster, ruin, exposure if he made the
slightest slip. Again, eh? This was the fourth time this devil from
the pit had shown his hand! The reckoning would be adequate! But how
was he to answer Polly? Quick! She must not notice any hesitation.
Tell her that Mrs. Wickes was dead? He had a ready explanation on his
tongue, formulated days ago, to account for having withheld that
information. Seize this opportunity to tell her that Mrs. Wickes was
not her mother? No! Impossible! He had meant to use all this to his
advantage, and in his own good time. It was too late now. He was left
holding the bag! If he admitted that Mrs. Wickes was dead, he admitted
that there was some one on this island whose mysterious presence, whose
mysterious knowledge, must cause a furor, a search, with possible
results that at any hazard he dared not risk. Polly would tell
Locke--Dora--everybody. It was impossible! But against this, sooner
or later, Polly must know of Mrs. Wickes' death, and-- Bah! Was he
become a child, the old cunning gone? He would keep her for a while
from England--travel--anything--and, months on, the word would come
that Mrs. Wickes was dead, and found in the old hag's effects would be
Polly's papers. The one safe play, the _only_ play, was not alone to
reassure the girl now, but to keep her mouth shut. Above all to keep
her mouth shut! But--how? How? Yes! He had it now! His soul began
to laugh in unholy glee. His voice was grave, earnest, tender,
sympathetic.
"He couldn't have known, Polly," he said. "That is at once evident on
the face of it. How could any one on this little out-of-the-way island
possibly know a thing like that when I, who am the only one who _could_
know, and who have just come direct from England, know it to be untrue.
Don't you see, Polly?"
He had drawn her head against his shoulder, stroking back the hair from
her forehead. She raised it now quickly.
"Yes, guardy!" she said eagerly. "I--I see; and I'm so glad I came to
you at once. But--but it is so strange, and--and it still frightens me
terribly. I don't understand. I--I can't understand. Why should any
one ring the telephone in my room at this hour, and--and tell me a
thing like that if it were not true?"
"Or even if it were true--at such an hour, or in such a manner," he
injected quietly. "Tell me exactly what happened, Polly."
"I think I've told you everything," she said. "I don't think there was
anything else. When I answered the 'phone, the voice asked if I were
Polly Wickes, and kept on repeating my name over and over again in a
horrible, crazy, sing-songy way, and then I heard a sound as though a
door had been blown open by the wind, and I could hear the waves
pounding, and then the door was evidently slammed shut again, and the
voice said what I--I have told you about wearing black for my mother.
And then I couldn't hear anything more, and I couldn't get any answer,
though I called again and again into the 'phone. Oh, guardy, I can't
understand! I--I'm sure it was the same voice as that other night.
What does it mean? Guardy, what should we do? Who could it be?"
A door blown open by the wind! The pound of the waves! Where was
there a telephone that would measure up to those requirements? Not in
the house! Captain Francis Newcombe smiled grimly in the darkness.
The private installation was restricted to the house and its immediate
surroundings. Therefore the boathouse! The boathouse had a 'phone
connection. And there was still an hour or more to daybreak! But
first to shut Polly's mouth.
"Polly," he said gravely, measuring his words, "I haven't the slightest
doubt but that it was the same voice we heard in the woods; in fact,
I'm quite sure of it. And I'm equally sure now that I know who it is."
She drew back from him in a quick, startled way.
"But, guardy, you said it was only some one catcalling to--"
"Yes; I know," he interrupted seriously. "But I did not tell you what
I was really suspicious of all along. With what I had to go on then,
it did not seem that I had any right to do so. It's quite a different
matter now, however, after what has happened to-night."
"Yes?" she prompted anxiously.
"There can be only two possible explanations," he said. "Either some
one is playing a cruel hoax; or it is the work of an unhinged mind, an
irrational act, a phase of insanity that--"
"Guardy!" she cried out sharply. "You mean--"
"Yes," he said steadily; "I do, Polly. And there can really be no
question about it at all. Can you imagine any one doing such a thing
merely from a perverted sense of humour?--any one of us here?--for it
must have been some one of us who is connected with the household in
order to have had access to a telephone. It is unthinkable, absurd,
isn't it? On the other hand, the hour, the irresponsible words, their
'crazy' mode of expression, as you yourself said, the motiveless
declaration of a palpable untruth, all stamp it as the work of one who
is not accountable for his actions--of one who is literally insane.
And then the fact that you recognised the voice as the one we heard two
nights ago is additional proof, if such were needed, which it very
obviously is not. You remember that we had seen Mr. Marlin in his
dressing gown disappear under the verandah a few minutes before we
heard the calls and cries and wild, insane laughter. My first thought
then was that it was Mr. Marlin, and I was afraid that either harm had,
or might, come to him. I sent you at once back to the house, and I ran
into the woods to look for him. I did not find him; and, therefore, as
there was always the possibility then that I had been mistaken, I felt
that I should not alarm any of you here, and particularly Miss Marlin,
by suggesting that Mr. Marlin's condition was decidedly worse than even
it was supposed to be. Is it quite plain, Polly? I do not think we
have very far to look for the one who telephoned you to-night."
He could just see her in the darkness, a little white, shadowy form, as
she stood slightly away from him now. One of her hands was pressed in
an agitated way to her face and eyes; the other still held tightly to
the throat of her dressing gown.
"Oh, yes, it's plain, guardy," she whispered miserably. "It's--it's
too plain. Poor, poor Mr. Marlin! What are we to do? It would hurt
Dora terribly if she knew her father had done this. I--I can't tell
her."
"Of course, you can't," said Captain Francis Newcombe gravely. "Your
position is even more delicate than mine was the other night. I do not
see that you can do anything--except to say nothing about it to any one
for the present."
"Yes," she agreed numbly.
She began to move toward the door.
"It's not likely to happen again," said Captain Francis Newcombe
reassuringly; "and, anyway, you can make sure it won't by just leaving
the receiver off the hook. Do that, Polly." And then, solicitously:
"But you're not frightened any more now, are you, Polly? A mystery
explained loses its terror, doesn't it? And, besides, the main thing
was to know that your mother was all right."
"My mother--"
He thought he heard her catch her breath in a quick, sudden half sob.
"It's all right, Polly," he said hastily. "Don't think of that part of
it any more. Everything's all right."
"Yes; I--I know." Her voice was very low. "It's--all right.
I--good-night, guardy."
She had opened the door.
"I'll see you to your room," he said.
"No," she answered; "I'm not frightened any more. Good--good-night,
guardy."
"Good-night, Polly," he said.
The door closed.
Captain Francis Newcombe stood in the darkness. And for a moment he
did not move--but the mask was gone now, and the laughter that came low
from his lips was a mirthless sound, and the working face was black
with fury. And then he turned, and with a bound was back in the
bedroom, and snatching at his clothes began to dress.
There was still an hour to daybreak.