QUESTIONS
Connery pulled aside the curtain of the washroom at the end of the
Santoine car--the end furthest from the drawing-room where Santoine lay.
"Step in here, sir," he directed. "Sit down, if you want. We're far
enough from the drawing-room not to disturb Mr. Santoine."
Eaton, seating himself in the corner of the leather seat built against
two walls of the room, and looking up, saw that Avery had come into the
room with them. The girl followed. With her entrance into the room
came to him--not any sound from her or anything which he could describe
to himself as either audible or visual--but a strange sensation which
exhausted his breath and stopped his pulse for a beat. To be
accused--even to be suspected--of the crime against Santoine was to
have attention brought to him which--with his unsatisfactory account of
himself--threatened ugly complications. Yet, at this moment of
realization, that did not fill his mind. Whether his long dwelling
close to death had numbed him to his own danger, however much more
immediate it had become, he could not know; probably he had prepared
himself so thoroughly, had inured himself so to expect arrest and
imminent destruction, that now his finding himself confronted with
accusers in itself failed to stir new sensation; but till this day, he
had never imagined or been able to prepare himself for accusation
before one like Harriet Santoine; so, for a moment, thought solely of
himself was a subcurrent. Of his conscious feelings, the terror that
she would be brought to believe with the others that he had struck the
blow against her father was the most poignant.
Harriet Santoine was not looking at him; but as she stood by the door,
she was gazing intently at Avery; and she spoke first:
"I don't believe it, Don!"
Eaton felt the warm blood flooding his face and his heart throb with
gratitude toward her.
"You don't believe it because you don't understand yet, dear," Avery
declared. "We are going to make you believe it by proving to you it is
true."
Avery pulled forward one of the leather chairs for her to seat herself
and set another for himself facing Eaton. Eaton, gazing across
steadily at Avery, was chilled and terrified as he now fully realized
for the first time the element which Avery's presence added. What the
relations were between Harriet Santoine and Avery he did not know, but
clearly they were very close; and it was equally clear that Avery had
noticed and disliked the growing friendship between her and Eaton.
Eaton sensed now with a certainty that left no doubt in his own mind
that as he himself had realized only a moment before that his strongest
feeling was the desire to clear himself before Harriet Santoine, so
Avery now was realizing that--since some one on the train had certainly
made the attack on Santoine--he hoped he could prove before her that
that person was Eaton.
"Why did you ring the bell in Mr. Santoine's berth?" Avery directed the
attack upon him suddenly.
"To call help," Eaton answered.
Question and answer, Eaton realized, had made some effect upon Harriet
Santoine, as he did not doubt Avery intended they should; yet he could
not look toward her to learn exactly what this effect was but kept his
eyes on Avery.
"You had known, then, that he needed help?"
"I knew it--saw it then, of course."
"When?"
"When I found him."
"'Found' him?"
"Yes."
"When was that?"
"When I went forward to look for the conductor to ask him about taking
a walk on the roof of the cars."
"You found him then--that way, the way he was?"
"That way? Yes."
"How?"
"How?" Eaton iterated.
"Yes; how, Mr. Eaton, or Hillward, or whatever your name is? How did
you find him? The curtains were open, perhaps; you saw him as you went
by, eh?"
Eaton shook his head. "No; the curtains weren't open; they were
closed."
"Then why did you look in?"
"I saw his hand in the aisle."
"Go on."
"When I came back it didn't look right to me; its position had not been
changed at all, and it hadn't looked right to me before. So I stopped
and touched it, and I found that it was cold."
"Then you looked into the berth?"
"Yes."
"And having looked in and seen Mr. Santoine injured and lying as he
was, you did not call any one, you did not bring help--you merely
leaned across him and pushed the bell and went on quickly out of the
car before any one could see you?"
"Yes; but I waited on the platform of the next car to see that help did
come; and the conductor passed me, and I knew that he and the porter
must find Mr. Santoine as they did."
"Do you expect us to believe that very peculiar action of yours was the
act of an innocent man?"
"If I had been guilty of the attack on Mr. Santoine, I'd not have
stopped or looked into the berth at all."
"If you are innocent, you had, of course, some reason for acting as you
did. Will you explain what it was?"
"No--I cannot explain."
With a look almost of triumph Avery turned to Harriet Santoine, and
Eaton felt his flesh grow warm with gratitude again as he saw her meet
Avery's look with no appearance of being convinced.
"Mr. Eaton spoke to me about that," she said quietly.
"You mean he told you he was the one who rang the bell?"
"No; he told me we must not attach too much importance to the ringing
of the bell in inquiring into the attack on Father."
Avery smiled grimly. "He did, did he? Don't you see that that only
shows more surely that he did not want the ringing of the bell
investigated because it would lead us to himself? He did not happen to
tell you, did he, that the kind and size of socks he wears and carries
in his traveling-bag are very nearly the same as the black sock in
which the bar was wrapped with which your father was struck?"
"It was you, then, who took the sock from my bag?" Eaton demanded.
"It was the conductor, and I can assure you, Mr. Eaton-Hillward, that
we are preserving it very carefully along with the one which was found
in the snow."
"But the socks were not exactly the same, were they?" Harriet Santoine
asked.
Avery made a vexed gesture, and turned to Connery. "Tell her the rest
of it," he directed.
Connery, who had remained standing back of the two chairs, moved
slightly forward. His responsibility in connection with the crime that
had been carried out on his train had weighed heavily on the conductor;
he was worn and nervous.
"Where shall I begin?" he asked of Avery; he was looking not at the
girl but at Eaton.
"At the beginning," Avery directed.
"Mr. Eaton, when you came to this train, the gateman at Seattle called
my attention to you," Connery began. "I didn't attach enough
importance, I see now, to what he said; I ought to have watched you
closer and from the first. Old Sammy has recognized men with criminal
records time and time again. He's got seven rewards out of it."
Eaton felt his pulses close with a shock. "He recognized me?" he asked
quietly.
"No, he didn't; he couldn't place you," Connery granted. "He couldn't
tell whether you were somebody that was 'wanted' or some one well
known--some one famous, maybe; but I ought to have kept my eye on you
because of that, from the very start. Now this morning you claim a
telegram meant for another man--a man named Hillward, on this train,
who seems to be all right--that is, by his answers and his account of
himself he seems to be exactly what he claims to be."
"Did he read the telegram to you?" Eaton asked. "It was in code. If
it was meant for him, he ought to be able to read it."
"No, he didn't. Will you?"
Eaton halted while he recalled the exact wording of the message. "No."
Connery also paused.
"Is this all you have against me?" Eaton asked.
"No; it's not. Mr. Avery's already told you the next thing, and you've
admitted it. But we'd already been able by questioning the porter of
this car and the ones in front and back of it to narrow down the time
of the ringing of Mr. Santoine's bell not to quarter-hours but to
minutes; and to find out that during those few minutes you were the
only one who passed through the car. So there's no use of my going
into that." Connery paused and looked to Avery and the girl. "You'll
wait a minute, Mr. Avery; and you, Miss Santoine. I won't be long."
He left the washroom, and the sound of the closing of a door which came
to Eaton a half-minute later told that he had gone out the front end of
the car.
As the three sat waiting in the washroom, no one spoke. Eaton, looking
past Avery, gazed out the window at the bank of snow. Eaton understood
fully that the manner in which the evidence against him was being
presented to him was not with any expectation that he could defend
himself; Avery and Connery were obviously too certain of their
conclusion for that; rather, as it was being given thus under Avery's
direction, it was for the effect upon Harriet Santoine and to convince
her fully. But Eaton had understood this from the first. It was for
this reason he had not attempted to deny having rung Santoine's bell,
realizing that if he denied it and it afterwards was proved, he would
appear in a worse light than by his inability to account for or assign
a reason for his act. And he had proved right in this; for the girl
had not been convinced. So now he comprehended that something far more
convincing and more important was to come; but what that could be, he
could not guess.
As he glanced at her, he saw her sitting with hands clasped in her lap,
pale, and merely waiting. Avery, as though impatient, had got up and
gone to the door, where he could look out into the passage. From time
to time people had passed through the car, but no one had stopped at
the washroom door or looked in; the voices in the washroom had not been
raised, and even if what was going on there could have attracted
momentary attention, the instructions to pass quickly through the car
would have prevented any one from stopping to gratify his curiosity.
Eaton's heart-beat quickened as, listening, he heard the car door open
and close again and footsteps, coming to them along the aisle, which he
recognized as those of Conductor Connery and some one else with him.
Avery returned to his seat, as the conductor appeared in the door of
the washroom followed by the Englishman from Eaton's car, Henry
Standish. Connery carried the sheet on which he had written the
questions he had asked Eaton, and Eaton's answers.
"What name were you using, Mr. Eaton, when you came from Asia to the
United States?" the conductor demanded.
Eaton reflected. "My own," he said. "Philip D. Eaton."
Connery brought the paper nearer to the light of the window, running
his finger down it till he found the note he wanted. "When I asked
this afternoon where you came from in Asia, Mr. Eaton, you answered me
something like this: You said you could give me no address abroad; you
had been traveling most of the time; you could not be placed by
inquiring at any city or hotel; you came to Seattle by the Asiatic
steamer and took this train. That was your reply, was it not?"
"Yes," Eaton answered.
"The 'Asiatic steamer'--the _Tamba Maru_ that was, Mr. Eaton."
Eaton looked up quickly and was about to speak; but from Connery his
gaze shifted swiftly to the Englishman, and checking himself, he said
nothing.
"Mr. Standish,"--Connery faced the Englishman,--"you came from Yokohama
to Seattle on the _Tamba Maru_, didn't you?"
"I did, yes."
"Do you remember this Mr. Eaton among the passengers?"
"No."
"Do you know he was not among the passengers?"
"Yes, I do."
"How do you know?"
The Englishman took a folded paper from his pocket, opened it and
handed it to the conductor. Connery, taking it, held it out to Eaton.
"Here, Mr. Eaton," he said, "is the printed passenger-list of the
people aboard the _Tamba Maru_ prepared after leaving Yokohama for
distribution among the passengers. It's unquestionably correct. Will
you point out your name on it?"
Eaton made no move to take the paper; and after holding it long enough
to give him full opportunity, Connery handed it back to the Englishman.
"That's all, Mr. Standish," he said.
Eaton sat silent as the Englishman, after staring curiously around at
them with his bulging, interested eyes, left the washroom.
"Now, Mr. Eaton," Connery said, as the sound of Standish's steps became
inaudible, "either you were not on the _Tamba Maru_ or you were on it
under some other name than Eaton. Which was it?"
"I never said I was on the _Tamba Maru_," Eaton returned steadily. "I
said I came from Asia by steamer. You yourself supplied the name
_Tamba Maru_."
"In case of questioning like that, Mr. Eaton, it makes no difference
whether you said it or I supplied it in your hearing. If you didn't
correct me, it was because you wanted me to get a wrong impression
about you. You can take notice that the only definite fact about you
put down on this paper has proved to be incorrect. You weren't on the
_Tamba Maru_, were you?"
"No, I was not."
"Why didn't you say so while Mr. Standish was here?"
"I didn't know how far you had taken him into your confidence in this
matter."
"You did come from Asia, though, as your railroad ticket seemed to
show?"
"Yes."
"From where?"
Eaton did not answer.
"From Yokohama?"
"The last port we stopped at before sailing for Seattle was
Yokohama--yes."
Connery reflected. "You had been in Seattle, then, at least five days;
for the last steamer you could have come on docked five days before the
_Tamba Maru_."
"You assume that; I do not tell you so."
"I assume it because it must be so. You'd been in Seattle--or at least
you had been in America--for not less than five days. In fact, Mr.
Eaton, you had been on this side of the water for as many as eleven
days, had you not?"
"Eleven days?" Eaton repeated.
"Yes; for it was just eleven days before this train left Seattle that
you came to the house of Mr. Gabriel Warden and waited there for him
till he was brought home dead!"
Eaton, sitting forward a little, looked up at the conductor; his glance
caught Avery's an instant; he gazed then to Harriet Santoine. At the
charge, she had started; but Avery had not. The identification,
therefore, was Connery's, or had been agreed upon by Connery and Avery
between them; suggestion of it had not come from the Santoines. And
Connery had made the charge without being certain of it; he was
watching the effect, Eaton now realized, to see if what he had accused
was correct.
"What do you mean by that?" Eaton returned.
"What I said. You came to see Gabriel Warden in Seattle eleven days
ago," Connery reasserted. "You are the man who waited in his house
that night and whom every one has been looking for since!"
"Well?" inquired Eaton.
"Isn't that so?" Connery demanded. "Or do you want to deny that too
and have it proved on you later?"
Again for a moment Eaton sat silent. "No," he decided, "I do not deny
that."
"Then you are the man who was at Warden's the night he was murdered?"
"Yes," said Eaton, "I was there that evening. I was the one who came
there by appointment and waited till after Mr. Warden was brought home
dead."
"So you admit that?" Connery gloated; but he could not keep from Eaton
a sense that, by Eaton's admission of the fact, Connery had been
disappointed. Avery too plainly had expected Eaton to deny it; the
identification of Eaton with the man who had waited at Warden's was
less a triumph to Avery, now that it was confessed. Indeed, Eaton's
heart leaped with quick gratitude as he now met Harriet Santoine's eyes
and as he heard her turning it into a fact in his favor.
"All you have brought against Mr. Eaton is that he has been indefinite
in his replies to your questions or has refused answers; isn't that
all, Don?" she said. "So if Mr. Eaton is the one who had the
appointment with Mr. Warden that night, does not that explain his
silence?"
"Explain it?" Avery demanded. "How?"
"We have Mr. Warden's word that Mr. Eaton came that night because he
was in trouble--he had been outrageously wronged, Don. He was in
danger. Because of that danger, undoubtedly, he has not made himself
known since. May not that be the only reason he has avoided answering
your questions now?"
"No!" Avery jerked out shortly.
Eaton's heart, from pulsating fast with Harriet Santoine's attempt at
his defense, now constricted with a sudden increase of his terror and
anxiety.
"All right, Mr. Eaton!" Connery now returned to his charge. "You are
that man. So besides whatever else that means, you'd been in Seattle
eleven days and yet you were the last person to get aboard this train,
which left a full hour after its usual starting time. Who were you
waiting to see get on the train before you yourself took it?"
Eaton wet his lips. To what was Connery working up? The probability,
now rapidly becoming certainty, that in addition to the recognition of
him as the man who had waited at Warden's--which fact any one at any
time might have charged--Connery knew something else which the
conductor could not have been expected to know--this dismayed Eaton the
more by its indefiniteness. And he saw, as his gaze shifted to Avery,
that Avery knew this thing also. All that had gone before had been
only preliminary, then; they had been leading up step by step to the
circumstance which had finally condemned him in their eyes and was to
condemn him in the eyes of Harriet Santoine.
She, he saw, had also sensed the feeling that something else more
definite and conclusive was coming. She had paled after the flush in
which she had spoken in Eaton's defense, and her hands in her lap were
clenched so tightly that the knuckles showed only as spots of white.
Eaton controlled himself to keep his voice steady.
"What do you mean by that question?" he asked.
"I mean that--however innocent or guilty may be the chance of your
being at Mr. Warden's the night he was killed--you'll have a hard time
proving that you did not wait and watch and take this train because
Basil Santoine had taken it; and that you were not following him. Do
you deny it?"
Eaton was silent.
"You asked the Pullman conductor for a Section Three after hearing him
assign Mr. Santoine to Section Three in this car. Do you deny that you
did this so as not to be put in the same car with him?"
Eaton, in his uncertainty, still said nothing. Connery, bringing the
paper in his hand nearer to the window again, glanced down once more at
the statement Eaton had made. "I asked you who you knew in Chicago,"
he said, "and you answered 'No one.' That was your reply, was it not?"
"Yes."
"You still make the same statement?"
"Yes."
"You know no one in Chicago?"
"No one," Eaton repeated.
"And certainly no one there knows you well enough to follow your
movements in relation to Mr. Santoine. That's a necessary assumption
from the fact that you know no one at all there."
The conductor pulled a telegram from his pocket and handed it to Avery,
who, evidently having already seen it, passed it on to Harriet
Santoine. She took it, staring at it mechanically and vacantly; then
suddenly she shivered, and the yellow paper which she had read slipped
from her hand and fluttered to the floor. Connery stooped and picked
it up and handed it toward Eaton.
"This is yours," he said.
Eaton had sensed already what the nature of the message must be, though
as the conductor held it out to him he could read only his name at the
top of the sheet and did not know yet what the actual wording was
below. Acceptance of it must mean arrest, indictment for the crime
against Basil Santoine; and that, whether or not he later was
acquitted, must destroy him; but denial of the message now would be
hopeless.
"It is yours, isn't it?" Connery urged.
"Yes; it's mine," Eaton admitted; and to make his acceptance definite,
he took the paper from Connery. As he looked dully down at it, he read:
He is on your train under the name of Dorne.
The message was not signed.
Connery touched him on the shoulder. "Come with me, Mr. Eaton."
Eaton got up slowly and mechanically and followed the conductor. At
the door he halted and looked back; Harriet Santoine was not looking;
her face was covered with her hands; Eaton hesitated; then he went on.
Connery threw open the door of the compartment next to the washroom and
corresponding to the drawing-room at the other end of the car, but
smaller.
"You'll do well enough in here." He looked over Eaton deliberately.
"Judging from your manner, I suppose there's not much use expecting you
to answer anything more about yourself--either in relation to the
Warden murder or this?"
"No," said Eaton, "there is not."
"You prefer to make us find out anything more?"
Eaton made no answer.
"All right," Connery concluded. "But if you change your mind for the
better, or if you want anything bad enough to send for me, ring for the
porter and he'll get me."
He closed the door upon Eaton and locked it. As Eaton stood staring at
the floor, he could hear through the metal partition of the washroom
the nervous, almost hysterical weeping of an overstrained girl. The
thing was done; in so far as the authorities on the train were
concerned, it was known that he was the man who had had the appointment
with Gabriel Warden and had disappeared; and in so far as the train
officials could act, he was accused and confined for the attack upon
Basil Santoine. But besides being overwhelmed with the horror of this
position, the manner in which he had been accused had roused him to
helpless anger, to rage at his accusers which still increased as he
heard the sounds on the other side of the partition where Avery was now
trying to silence Harriet Santoine and lead her away.
Why had Avery gone at his accusation of him in that way? Connery had
had the telegram in his pocket from the start of the questioning in the
washroom; Avery had seen and read it; they could have condemned him
with whomever they wished, merely by showing it. Why, then, had Avery
chosen to drag this girl--strained and upset already by the attack upon
her father and with long hours of nursing ahead of her before expert
help could be got--step by step through their accusation of him? Eaton
saw that--whatever Harriet Santoine's casual interest in himself might
be--this showed at least that Avery's relation to her was not so
completely accepted by her and so definite as appeared on the surface,
since Avery thought it necessary to convince her rather than merely
tell her. And what sent the blood hot and throbbing into Eaton's
temples was the cruelty of Avery's action.
So Avery was that kind of a man! The kind that, when an end is to be
attained, is ready to ignore as though unimportant the human side of
things. Concurrently with these thoughts--as always with all his
thoughts--was running the memory of his own experience--that experience
of which Eaton had not spoken and of which he had avoided speaking at
any cost; and as he questioned now whether Avery might be one of those
men who to gain an end they deem necessary are ready to disregard
humanity,--to inflict suffering, wrong, injustice,--he realized that he
was beginning to hate Avery for himself, for what he was, aside from
the accusation he brought.
No sounds came to him now from the washroom--the girl must have
controlled herself; footsteps passing the door of his compartment told
him then that the two had gone out into the open car.