Why should Miriam Kirkstone call him up in an hour when the sky was
livid with the flash of lightning and the earth trembled with the roll
of thunder? This was the question that filled Keith's mind as he
listened to the voice at the other end of the wire. It was pitched to a
high treble as if unconsciously the speaker feared that the storm might
break in upon her words. She was telling him that she had telephoned
McDowell but had been too late to catch him before he left for Brady's
bungalow; she was asking him to pardon her for intruding upon his time
so soon after his return, but she was sure that he would understand
her. She wanted him to come up to see her that evening at eight
o'clock. It was important--to her. Would he come?
Before Keith had taken a moment to consult with himself he had replied
that he would. He heard her "thank you," her "good-by," and hung up the
receiver, stunned. So far as he could remember, he had spoken no more
than seven words. The beautiful young woman up at the Kirkstone mansion
had clearly betrayed her fear of the lightning by winding up her
business with him at the earliest possible moment. Why, then, had she
not waited until the storm was over?
A pounding at the door interrupted his thought. He went to it and
admitted an individual who, in spite of his water-soaked condition, was
smiling all over. It was Wallie, the Jap. He was no larger than a boy
of sixteen, and from eyes, ears, nose, and hair he was dripping
streams, while his coat bulged with packages which he had struggled to
protect, from the torrent through which he had forced his way up the
hill. Keith liked him on the instant. He found himself powerless to
resist the infection of Wallie's grin, and as Wallie hustled into the
kitchen like a wet spaniel, he followed and helped him unload. By the
time the little Jap had disgorged his last package, he had assured
Keith that the rain was nice, that his name was Wallie, that he
expected five dollars a week and could cook "like heaven." Keith
laughed outright, and Wallie was so delighted with the general outlook
that he fairly kicked his heels together. Thereafter for an hour or so
he was left alone in possession of the kitchen, and shortly Keith began
to hear certain sounds and catch occasional odoriferous whiffs which
assured him that Wallie was losing no time in demonstrating his divine
efficiency in the matter of cooking.
Wallie's coming gave him an excuse to call up McDowell. He confessed to
a disquieting desire to hear the inspector's voice again. In the back
of his head was the fear of Shan Tung, and the hope that McDowell might
throw some light on Miriam Kirkstone's unusual request to see her that
night. The storm had settled down into a steady drizzle when he got in
touch with him, and he was relieved to find there was no change in the
friendliness of the voice that came over the telephone. If Shan Tung
had a suspicion, he had kept it to himself.
To Keith's surprise it was McDowell who spoke first of Miss Kirkstone.
"She seemed unusually anxious to get in touch with you," he said. "I am
frankly disturbed over a certain matter, Conniston, and I should like
to talk with you before you go up tonight."
Keith sniffed the air. "Wallie is going to ring the dinner bell within
half an hour. Why not slip on a raincoat and join me up here? I think
it's going to be pretty good."
"I'll come," said McDowell. "Expect me any moment."
Fifteen minutes later Keith was helping him off with his wet slicker.
He had expected McDowell to make some observation on the cheerfulness
of the birch fire and the agreeable aromas that were leaking from
Wallie's kitchen, but the inspector disappointed him. He stood for a
few moments with his back to the fire, thumbing down the tobacco in his
pipe, and he made no effort to conceal the fact that there was
something in his mind more important than dinner and the cheer of a
grate.
His eyes fell on the telephone, and he nodded toward it. "Seemed very
anxious to see you, didn't she, Conniston? I mean Miss Kirkstone."
"Rather."
McDowell seated himself and lighted a match. "Seemed--a
little--nervous--perhaps," he suggested between puffs. "As though
something had happened--or was going to happen. Don't mind my
questioning you, do you, Derry?"
"Not a bit," said Keith. "You see, I thought perhaps you might
explain--"
There was a disquieting gleam in McDowell's eyes. "It was odd that she
should call you up so soon--and in the storm--wasn't it? She expected
to find you at my office. I could fairly hear the lightning hissing
along the wires. She must have been under some unusual impulse."
"Perhaps."
McDowell was silent for a space, looking steadily at Keith, as if
measuring him up to something.
"I don't mind telling you that I am very deeply interested in Miss
Kirkstone," he said. "You didn't see her when the Judge was killed. She
was away at school, and you were on John Keith's trail when she
returned. I have never been much of a woman's man, Conniston, but I
tell you frankly that up until six or eight months ago Miriam was one
of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. I would give a good deal
to know the exact hour and date when the change in her began. I might
be able to trace some event to that date. It was six months ago that
she began to take an interest in the fate of John Keith. Since then the
change in her has alarmed me, Conniston. I don't understand. She has
betrayed nothing. But I have seen her dying by inches under my eyes.
She is only a pale and drooping flower compared with what she was. I am
positive it is not a sickness--unless it is mental. I have a suspicion.
It is almost too terrible to put into words. You will be going up there
tonight--you will be alone with her, will talk with her, may learn a
great deal if you understand what it is that is eating like a canker in
my mind. Will you help me to discover her secret?" He leaned toward
Keith. He was no longer the man of iron. There was something intensely
human in his face.
"There is no other man on earth I would confide this matter to," he
went on slowly. "It will take--a gentleman--to handle it, someone who
is big enough to forget if my suspicion is untrue, and who will
understand fully what sacrilege means should it prove true. It is
extremely delicate. I hesitate. And yet--I am waiting, Conniston. Is it
necessary to ask you to pledge secrecy in the matter?"
Keith held out a hand. McDowell gripped it tight.
"It is--Shan Tung," he said, a peculiar hiss in his voice. "Shan
Tung--and Miriam Kirkstone! Do you understand, Conniston? Does the
horror of it get hold of you? Can you make yourself believe that it is
possible? Am I mad to allow such a suspicion to creep into my brain?
Shan Tung--Miriam Kirkstone! And she sees herself standing now at the
very edge of the pit of hell, and it is killing her."
Keith felt his blood running cold as he saw in the inspector's face the
thing which he did not put more plainly in word. He was shocked. He
drew his hand from McDowell's grip almost fiercely.
"Impossible!" he cried. "Yes, you are mad. Such a thing would be
inconceivable!"
"And yet I have told myself that it is possible," said McDowell. His
face was returning into its iron-like mask. His two hands gripped the
arms of his chair, and he stared at Keith again as if he were looking
through him at something else, and to that something else he seemed to
speak, slowly, weighing and measuring each word before it passed his
lips. "I am not superstitious. It has always been a law with me to have
conviction forced upon me. I do not believe unusual things until
investigation proves them. I am making an exception in the case of Shan
Tung. I have never regarded him as a man, like you and me, but as a
sort of superphysical human machine possessed of a certain
psychological power that is at times almost deadly. Do you begin to
understand me? I believe that he has exerted the whole force of that
influence upon Miriam Kirkstone--and she has surrendered to it. I
believe--and yet I am not positive."
"And you have watched them for six months?"
"No. The suspicion came less than a month ago. No one that I know has
ever had the opportunity of looking into Shan Tung's private life. The
quarters behind his cafe are a mystery. I suppose they can be entered
from the cafe and also from a little stairway at the rear. One
night--very late--I saw Miriam Kirkstone come down that stairway. Twice
in the last month she has visited Shan Tung at a late hour. Twice that
I know of, you understand. And that is not all--quite."
Keith saw the distended veins in McDowell's clenched hands, and he knew
that he was speaking under a tremendous strain.
"I watched the Kirkstone home--personally. Three times in that same
month Shan Tung visited her there. The third time I entered boldly with
a fraud message for the girl. I remained with her for an hour. In that
time I saw nothing and heard nothing of Shan Tung. He was hiding--or
got out as I came in."
Keith was visioning Miriam Kirkstone as he had seen her in the
inspector's office. He recalled vividly the slim, golden beauty of her,
the wonderful gray of her eyes, and the shimmer of her hair as she
stood in the light of the window--and then he saw Shan Tung,
effeminate, with his sly, creeping hands and his narrowed eyes, and the
thing which McDowell had suggested rose up before him a monstrous
impossibility.
"Why don't you demand an explanation of Miss Kirkstone?" he asked.
"I have, and she denies it all absolutely, except that Shan Tung came
to her house once to see her brother. She says that she was never on
the little stairway back of Shan Tung's place."
"And you do not believe her?"
"Assuredly not. I saw her. To speak the cold truth, Conniston, she is
lying magnificently to cover up something which she does not want any
other person on earth to know."
Keith leaned forward suddenly. "And why is it that John Keith, dead and
buried, should have anything to do with this?" he demanded. "Why did
this 'intense interest' you speak of in John Keith begin at about the
same time your suspicions began to include Shan Tung?"
McDowell shook his head. "It may be that her interest was not so much
in John Keith as in you, Conniston. That is for you to
discover--tonight. It is an interesting situation. It has tragic
possibilities. The instant you substantiate my suspicions we'll deal
directly with Shan Tung. Just now--there's Wallie behind you grinning
like a Cheshire cat. His dinner must be a success."
The diminutive Jap had noiselessly opened the door of the little
dining-room in which the table was set for two.
Keith smiled as he sat down opposite the man who would have sent him to
the executioner had he known the truth. After all, it was but a step
from comedy to tragedy. And just now he was conscious of a bit of
grisly humor in the situation.