juggler’s shrinking from some aerial terror should so correspond with a
murder in mid-air.”
“You’re becoming pretty imaginative,” retorted the other disagreeably.
“This crazy Whalley stabbed Petersen aboard the ship. What his motive
was, or how he got away with it, or why the others don’t give him away,
is beyond me. But he did the job, and this bogy-man scare of his is the
weak cunning of a disordered mind to divert suspicion. Circumstantial
evidence to the contrary, that’s what’s what!” Then, with his quick
change of tone: “Princess! Oh, Princess!”
“What is it, Petit Père?” said the girl.
“Will you come along home with us?”
“Right away. We don’t always welcome our guests with so much
excitement, Dr. Colton,” she added, as she slipped her arm through
Haynes’. After a moment’s pause she asked him:
“Do you think Paul Serdholm knows anything of the—the murder?”
“Why?”
“Because he thinks you believe he does. And he’s ugly about it. Do
watch him, Petit Père. He doesn’t like you, you know.”
“Ah,” said Haynes as the three set out across the billowy grass-land.
“Perhaps he’ll bear a little watching.”
They walked in silence, home. Once Helga stopped short on a hill-top
and turned her face toward the sea, listening intently, but almost
immediately shook her head.
Dick Colton got to bed just before dawn, with a mind divided in
speculation between the mystery of the dead man and the more personal
mystery of a small, wadded treasure in his pocket.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE CRY IN THE DUSK
MONTAUK POINT rises and falls like a procession of mighty swells fixed
in eternal quietude and grown over with the most luxurious of grasses
and field-blooms. One walks from hill to hill, passing between the
down-curving slopes to hollows wherein flourish all-but-impenetrable
thickets of the stunted scrub-oak, and abruptly walks forth upon a
noble cliff-line overlooking the limitless ocean to the far-off
southern horizon. Steep and narrow gullies at intervals give
rock-studded access to the beach. Outside of the miniature forests in
the hollows there is no tree-growth on the whole forty square miles of
land, excepting the deep-shaded tangle of the Hither Wood on the far
northwest, into which none makes his way except an occasional sportsman
on a coon hunt.
Except for the lighthouse family at the eastern tip, the three
life-saving stations with their attendant houses, and a little huddle
of fisher-huts on a reach of the Sound, there were no habitants in the
mid-September of 1902, the few summer cottagers having fled the
sharpened air. All day long the pasturing sheep of the interior might
rove without the alarm of a single human. Short of the prairies, a
lonelier stretch of land would be difficult of discovery.
To Dick Colton, rising late with a thankful heart after a sleep unvexed
of labelled bottles, this loneliness was a balm, provided only it
proved to be loneliness for two. For, with an eagerness strange and
disquieting to his straightforward and rather unsentimental soul, he
longed to look again upon the girl whose eyes had met his when he
staggered back from the clutching hands of death. And with that longing
was mingled an amused curiosity to clear up the puzzle of the impetuous
souvenir she had left him. Within himself he resolved to solve this
problem at the first opportunity; but just at this moment the
opportunity was receding.
Far and clear against the sky-line, he could see from his window two
mounted figures. Miss Ravenden and her father were riding to
Amagansett, to be gone, as he learned later with disgust, all day.
Helga Johnston had gone up to the lighthouse to stay until the
following morning, and Haynes was working on his investigation of
Petersen’s death.
Nothing was left for the lone guest except to amuse himself as best he
might.
The morning he spent in wandering meditation. Leisure for thought is a
quick developer of certain processes. The Ravendens were to be at Third
House for the month, he understood. One might get very well acquainted
in a month, under favourable circumstances. At present the immediate
circumstances were far from favourable. But Dick slapped the pocketbook
to which he had transferred his keepsake from Miss Ravenden.
“That’ll break _some_ ice, I guess,” he observed.
At dinner he contemplated a vacant place with an expression of such
unhappiness that old Johnston took pity on him.
“The white perch’ll likely be risin’ in the lake yonder this evening,”
he said.
Here was antidote for any bane. Dick took his rod and went. The fish
nobly fulfilled Johnston’s word of them, and Dick had just landed a
handsome one, when glancing up he saw a net moving along the line of a
small ridge.
“The bug-hunter,” he surmised.
“Oh, Professor Ravenden!” he called; and was instantly stricken with
the dilemma: “What the dickens shall I say to him?”
The net paused, half-revolved and ascended, and Dick gasped as not
Professor Ravenden, but his daughter, mounted the ridge.
“Did you want my father?” she asked.
“Oh—er—ah, good-evening, Miss Ravenden,” stammered Colton. “I—I—I’ve
been wanting to see you.”
“There is some mistake,” said she coldly. “I don’t know who you are.”
“My name is Colton,” he said. “I’m staying at Third House, and——”
“Does the mere fact of your staying at the same hotel give you the
privilege of forcing your acquaintance upon people?” she asked sharply.
Then—for Dick Colton was good for the eye of woman to look upon, and
not at all the sort of man in appearance to force a vulgar
flirtation—she added:
“I don’t want to be unpleasant about it, but really, don’t you think
you take things a little too much for granted?”
“But you spoke to me first,” blurted out Dick. “I’m awfully sorry to
have you think me rude, but I want to know what this is.”
Curiosity drew Dorothy Ravenden as powerfully as it commonly draws less
imperious natures.
Somewhat peculiar this man might be, but it seemed a harmless
aberration, and it certainly took an interesting guise. She bent
forward to look at the object extended to her.
“Why, it’s a twenty-dollar bill!”
“Then my eye-sight is still good,” he observed contentedly. “Question
number two: Why did you give it to me?”
“To you?” To Dick Colton, as she stood there poised, the gracious
colour flushing up into her cheeks, her lips half-opened, she was the
loveliest thing he ever had seen. The hand that held the bill shook.
“To you?” she repeated. “I didn’t.”
“It was just like an operatic setting,” he expounded slowly.
“Background of cliffs, firelight in the middle, ocean surf in front.
Out of the magic circle of fire steps the Fairy Queen and hands to the
poor but deserving toiler what in common parlance is known as a double
saw-buck. Please, your Majesty, why? And do you want a receipt?”
“Oh!” she said in charming dismay. And again “Oh!” Then it came out: “I
took you for one of the life-savers.”
“The life-savers?” repeated Dick.
“Yes. Is that strange? You were so big and shaggy and——” she stopped
short of the word “splendid” which was on her lips. “How could I tell?
You looked as much like a seal as a man.” The ripple of her laughter,
full of joyousness, yet with a little catch of some underlying feeling
in it, was a patent of fellowship, which would have astonished most of
Miss Ravenden’s hundreds of admirers, among whom she was regarded as a
rather haughty beauty. “I don’t know many men who would have done it—or
could have done it,” she added simply, and gave him her eyes, full.
Dick turned red. “Anyone would have,” he said. “It was the only thing
to do.”
She nodded slowly as if an impression had been confirmed to her
satisfaction.
“As for this,” he continued, looking from her to the greenback, and
striving to speak calmly, when his heart was a-thrill with the desire
to tell her how altogether lovely and lovable she was, “if it’s
intended as a reward of merit, I’ll turn it over to Miss Johnston.”
“Wasn’t she magnificent?” cried the girl. “I’ll slay Helga!” she added
with a sudden change of tone. “She’s a beast of the field. She knew
about the—the bill and she never told me.”
“That’ll cost her just twenty dollars,” declared Colton judicially,
“because now I won’t turn it over to her.”
“Give it back to me, please,” said the girl, holding out a tanned and
slender hand.
“Give it back?” cried Colton in assumed chagrin. “Why, I already had
spent that twenty in imagination.”
“On what?” asked the girl rather impatiently.
“It’s a long list,” replied Colton cunningly. “You’d better sit down
while I tell it over.” He threw his coat over a rock, and she perched
herself on it daintily.
“First, a hundred packages of plug tobacco. All coast-guards use plug,
I believe. Then five dollars’ worth of prints of prominent actors and
actresses in gaudy colours. The rest in Mexican lottery tickets,” he
concluded lamely, his invention giving out.
“It wasn’t worth sitting down for,” she said disparagingly. “If you had
intended to get something really useful, I might have let you keep it.
Please!” The little hand went forth again.
Hastily he produced a ten-dollar bill and two fives. “You don’t mind
having it in change?” he said anxiously. “You see, this is the first
money I ever earned outside of my profession, and I mean to frame it.”
“If twenty dollars means so little to you that you can have it hanging
around framed——”
“This particular twenty means a great deal to me,” he interrupted.
She rose. “I was going down to try a cast or two,” she said.
“With a net?” asked Dick. “I should like to see that.”
“There’s a fishing rod in the handle of the net,” she explained,
ignoring the hint. “I keep the net rigged because I help my father
collect. Entomology is his specialty, and there are a few rare moths
here that he hopes to get.”
“Am I sufficiently introduced now to ask if I may walk along with you?”
“I’m sorry I was so—so snippy,” she said sweetly. “To make up for it,
you may.”
“Are you here particularly for collecting moths?” he asked, stepping to
her side.
“Yes, one or two kinds that my father and I are studying. I play
butterfly in the winter and hunt them in the summer. Everyone here has
a purpose. Father and I are adding to the sum of human knowledge on
_Lepidoptera_. Mr. Haynes is spending his vacation with Helga. Helga is
resting, before taking up her musical studies. You ought to have a
purpose. What has brought you here?”
Now, Dick Colton, like many big men, was awkward, and like most awkward
men, was shy about women. Therefore, it was with a sort of stunned
amazement and admiration for his own audacity that he found himself
looking straight into Dorothy Ravenden’s unfathomable eyes as he
replied briefly:
“Fate.”
“Well, upon my soul!” gasped that much-habituated young woman of the
world, surprised for a brief instant out of her poise. Quickly
recovering, she added: “A fortunate fate for Helga, surely. Except for
you, she and Mr. Haynes must have been drowned.”
“You knew her before, didn’t you?”
“Yes; we visit at the same house in Philadelphia, and father and I have
been coming down here for several years. I know her well. If I were a
man, I should go the world over for Helga Johnston.”
“She and Haynes are engaged, are they not?”
“No, not engaged,” said the girl. “She is everything in the world to
Mr. Haynes; but she isn’t in love with him. He has never tried to make
her. There is some reason; I don’t know what. Sometimes I think he
doesn’t care for her in that way either. Or perhaps he doesn’t realise
it.”
“Surely she seems fond of him.”
“She is devoted to him. Why shouldn’t she be? He has done everything
for her.”
“How happens that?”
“It’s the kind of story that makes you love your kind,” said the girl
dreamily. “When Mr. Haynes first came here he was a young reporter with
a small income, and Helga was a child of twelve with an eager mind and
the promise of a lovely voice. He gave her books and got the Johnstons
to send her to a good school. Then as she grew up and he came to be
‘star man’ (I think they call it) on his paper, he went to the
Johnstons, who had come to know him well, and asked them to let him
send Helga to preparatory school and then to college. It was agreed
that she was not to know of the money that he put in their hands, and
she never would have known except for something that happened in her
freshman year. She held her tongue to save a classmate. They were going
to expel her, when Mr. Haynes got wind of it, took the first train,
ferreted out the truth, and went to the president.
“‘Here are the facts,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave them for you to act on, or
I’ll take them with me for publication, as you decide.’
“The case was hushed up; but in the adjustment Helga found out about
Mr. Haynes’ part in her education. Now he is arranging for her musical
education. He has no family, nor anyone dependent on him; all his
interests in life are centred in her. And the best of it is that she is
worthy of it.”
“It must be a great deal to such a man to inspire such absolute trust
in a woman as he has in her,” said Colton after a pause. “‘I knew he
would come after me,’ she said when I asked her how she dared take so
desperate a chance.”
Miss Ravenden nodded at him appreciatively. “Yes; you see it too,” she
said. “You did something worth while when you saved those two. But what
about your Portuguese? Do you really think he had anything to do with
killing that poor sailor? Helga told me about it. What an extraordinary
case it is!”
“What puzzles Haynes with his trained mind is surely too much for me,”
said Colton. “It seems that the man—great Heaven! What was that?” From
the direction of the beach came a long-drawn, dreadful scream of agony,
unhuman, yet with something of an appeal in it, too. The pair turned
blanched faces toward each other.
“I must go over there at once,” said Colton. “Someone is in trouble.
Miss Ravenden, can you make your way to the house alone?”
The girl’s small, rounded chin went up and outward. “I shall go with
you,” she said.
“You must not. There’s no telling what may have happened. Please!”
With a swift, deft movement she parted the heavy handle of her
net-stock, disclosing an ingeniously set revolver, which she pressed
into his hand.
“I’m going with you,” she repeated, with the most alluring obstinacy.
“Come, then,” said Colton, and her pulses stirred to the tone. He
caught her by the hand, and they ran, reaching the cliff-top
breathless.
Barely discernible, on the sand, a quarter of a mile east of Graveyard
Point where the wreck had struck, was a dark body. They hurried down
into the ravine and out of it, Colton in advance. Suddenly he burst
into a laugh of nervous relief.
“It’s a dead sheep,” he said. “I thought it was a man.”
He bent over it and his jaw dropped. “Look at that!” he cried.
Across the back of the animal’s neck, half-sever-ing it from the head,
was a great gash, still bleeding slightly. They peered out into the
dusk. As far as the eye could see, nothing moved along the sand.
CHAPTER SIX
HELGA
GALLOPING easily, an early riser may come from Montauk Light over to
Third House in time for breakfast. Helga was an early riser and a
skilled horsewoman. Flushed like the dawn, she came bursting into the
living-room upon Dick Colton who, his mind being absent on another
engagement, had forgotten to wind his watch when he went to bed the
evening previous, and consequently had risen, on suspicion, one hour
too early.
“I haven’t had a chance to speak to you since the wreck,” she said,
giving him her firm young hand. “Are you any the worse for the rough
usage our ocean gave you? And how can I half thank you for your
courage?”
“Don’t try,” said Dick uncomfortably. “And don’t talk to me about
courage,” he added. “I wish I could tell you how I choked all up with
three cheers when you went in after that fellow.”
“Oh,” said the girl quietly, “we Montauk folk are bred to that sort of
thing. Besides, I only paid a debt.”
“A debt? To that Portuguese?”
“No, indeed! I never set eyes on the poor man before. It’s just one of
our local proverbs. Our fisher people here have a saying that those who
are rescued from the sea can never find their heart’s happiness until
they have evened the tally by saving a life.”
“Then you’ve had your own shipwreck adventure?” asked Dick.
“Twenty years ago I was washed to shore in just such a storm. Father
Johnston was nearly killed, getting me. The only name I could tell them
was Helga. They adopted me. Ah, they have been good to me, they and
Petit Père.”
“Haynes? He’s a full-size man!” declared Colton warmly. “‘Save Helga!’
he called to me, when he saw me floundering in.”
“Yes, I knew he would come after me,” said the girl simply; “but I
didn’t know you would come after him. So there’s the chain,” she added
gaily. “I went in to clear off my debt and win my heart’s
happiness—though I do hope it isn’t the Portuguese man. Petit Père went
in to get me. And you,” she paused and looked him between the eyes, “I
think you came after us because you couldn’t help it; because that is
the sort of man you are. Why,” she cried with a ring of laughter,
“you’re actually blushing!”
“I’m not used to the praises of full-blown heroines,” retorted Dick. “I
wondered what you meant when you said that the children of the sea
dream the sea’s dreams?”
“As for the dreams,” began Helga. She did not conclude the sentence,
but said gravely, “Yes, I’m a true sea-waif.”
“I’d like to adopt you for a sister,” said Dick, smiling, but with such
an honesty of admiration that it was the girl’s turn to blush.
“Haven’t you any of your own?” she asked.
“‘I am all the sisters of my father’s house,’” he misquoted cheerily.
“And all the brothers too?” she capped the perversion.
“No; I’ve a brother a year younger than I. There may be in this
universe,” he continued reflectively, “people who don’t like Everard.
If there are, they live in Mars. Everybody on this old earth—and he
seems to know pretty much all of ’em—takes to him like a duck to water.
He’s a wonder, that youth!”
“Everard?” said the girl. There was a quick and subtle change in her
tone. “Is Everard Colton your brother? I should never have guessed it.
You don’t resemble each other in the least.”
“No; he’s the ornament of the family. I’m the plodder. And we’re the
greatest chums ever. Where did you know him?”
“Oh, he used to ride over to Bryn Mawr while I was at college,” she
said carelessly, “in an abominable yellow automobile and kill the
gardener’s chickens on an average of one a trip. The girls called his
machine ‘The Feathered Juggernaut.’”
“Bryn Mawr?” exclaimed Dick. “What an idiot I am! You’re the Helga
Johnston that——” He broke off short and regarded his feet with a colour
so vividly growing as to suggest that they had suddenly occasioned him
an agony of shame.
“Yes, I’m the girl that so alarmed your family lest I should marry your
brother,” she said calmly. “You need not have feared. I have not——”
“Don’t say ‘you’!” interrupted Colton. “Please don’t! I had no part in
that. I hadn’t the faintest idea who the girl was, but when I saw how
Ev steadied down and settled to work I knew it was a good influence,
and I told the family so. Now that I’ve met you——” he broke off
suddenly. “Poor Ev!” he said in a low tone.
Had his boots been less demanding of attention, Colton would have seen
the deep blue of her eyes dimmed to grey by a sudden rush of tears.
“Let us agree to leave your brother out of future conversations, Dr.
Colton,” she said decisively. “Good-morning, Petit Père,” she greeted
Haynes as he came into the room.
“I salute you, Princess,” said Haynes with a low bow. “You beat me in.”
“Have you been out trying to gather more evidence against my poor
juggler?”
“If I have, it’s been with no success.”
“I wish you failure,” she returned as she left the room.
“Here’s something that may interest you,” said Colton to Haynes, and
related the episode of the sheep.
The reporter sat down. Colton thought he looked white and worn. Haynes
meditated, frowning.
“You say the sheep lay on the hard sand?” he said at length.
“Yes; halfway between the cliff-line and the ocean.”
“That ought to help a lot,” said Haynes decisively. “What marks were
around it?”
“Marks?” repeated Colton vacantly.
“Yes; marks, footmarks,” impatiently.
“Why, the fact is, I don’t know what I could have been thinking of, but
I didn’t look.”
“The Lord forgive you!”
“I’ll go back now and find them.”
“An elephant’s spoor wouldn’t have survived half an hour of the rain we
had last night,” Haynes said with evident exasperation.
“Miss Ravenden might have noticed something,” suggested Colton
hopefully.
On the word Haynes was out in the hallway, up the stairs, and knocking
at the girl’s door.
“Oh, Miss Dolly!” he called. “I want your help.”
“What can I do for the great Dupin, Jr.?” asked the girl, coming out
into the hall.
“Show that you’ve profited by his learned instructions. Did you see any
marks on the sand around the dead sheep?”
“I’m an idiot!” said the girl contritely. “I never thought to look.”
“It’s well that your eyes are ornamental; they’re not always useful,”
said Haynes in accents of raillery which did not conceal his
disappointment.
“What have the great Dupin, Jr.’s eyes discovered to-day?” she asked.
“Nothing, You and Colton have provided an unsatisfactory ending to an
unsatisfactory day. I’ve been talking with the survivors of the wreck
and couldn’t get any light at all. They’ve all left except ‘the
Wonderful Whalley.’ He’s pretty badly bruised, and anyway he won’t go
before paying his respects to Helga.”
“I should think not, indeed!” said Miss Ravenden. “And to you.”
“It’s a curious thing, but he doesn’t seem to be inspired by that
devotion to me which my highly attractive character would seem to
warrant. In fact he looks at me as if he would like to stick me with
one of those particularly long, lean and unprepossessing knives which
he cherishes so fondly.”
“You don’t really think,” said Miss Ravenden in concern, “that there is
any——”
“Figure of speech,” interrupted Haynes. “But the man certainly isn’t
normal. I’ll have to trace his movements of yesterday evening. First,
however, I’ll have a look at that sheep.”
“Surely the Portuguese had nothing to do with that? Why should he kill
a harmless animal?”
“There is such a thing as murderous mania,” said Haynes after some
hesitation.
Here Professor Ravenden entered. “I had rather a strange experience
yesterday evening,” he said.
“Did you hear the sheep too?” asked Colton eagerly.
“Not unless sheep fly, sir. What it was I heard I should be glad to
have explained. To liken it to a rasping hinge of great size would
hardly give a proper idea of its animate quality; yet I can find no
better simile. Were any of the local inhabitants given to nocturnal
aeronautics, however, I should unhesitatingly aver that they had passed
close over me not half an hour since, and that their machinery needed
oiling.”
“I have heard such a noise,” said Haynes quietly. “Did it affect you
unpleasantly?”
“No, sir. I cannot say it did. But it roused my interest. I shall make
a point of pursuing it further.”
“Miss Johnston is calling us to breakfast,” said Colton.
“I’m just going to take a quick jump to the beach and a glimpse at the
sheep,” said Haynes, and a moment later they saw him passing on his
horse.
From her place at the head of the breakfast-table Helga Johnston called
Dr. Colton to sit next to her, and while talking to him kept one eye on
the door. Presently in came Miss Ravenden.
“Come up to this end, Dolly,” called Helga. “I want to introduce to you
our new guest. Dr. Colton, Miss Ravenden.”
“Dr. Colton and I already have——” began Dorothy.
“I was fortunate enough to find Miss Ravenden—-” said the confused Dick
in the same breath.
“Dr. Colton,” continued Helga, cutting them both off, “is here making a
collection of government paper currency. I mention this because Miss
Ravenden has a well-known reputation for discerning contributions——”
“Helga,” said Miss Ravenden calmly, “I have a few withering remarks
waiting for you. Dr. Colton, you probably didn’t know that you were
saving a practical joker when you——”
“Earned that twenty-dollar bill,” put in Helga. “But how did you two
adjust your financial relations?”
To Dick’s relief the outer door opened, admitting Haynes. They turned
to him instantly, with questioning faces.
With the change of voice which he kept for Helga alone, he said:
“Princess, another of your courtiers is coming over this evening to
display his talents.”