THE MAN FROM THE TRAIN
In the supposition that he was to have less liberty, Eaton proved
correct. Harriet Santoine, to whose impulses had been due his first
privileges, showed toward him a more constrained attitude the following
morning. She did not suggest hostility, as Avery constantly did; nor,
indeed, was there any evidence of retrogression in her attitude toward
him; she seemed merely to be maintaining the same position; and since
this seemed difficult if they were often together, she avoided him.
Eaton found his life in the house after that first day more strictly
ordered into a routine which he was obliged to keep. He understood
that Santoine, steadily improving but not yet able to leave his bed,
had taken up his work again, propped up by pillows; one of the nurses
had been dismissed; the other was only upon day duty. But Eaton did
not see Santoine at all; and though he learned that Miss Davis or
another stenographer, whose name was West, came daily to the house, he
never was in a position again to encounter any outsider either coming
or going. Besides the servants of the house, he met Blatchford, with
whom Eaton usually breakfasted; he also lunched with Blatchford, and
Harriet sometimes--sometimes with Avery; he dined with Blatchford and
Avery or with all three.
At other times, except that he was confined to the house or to a small
space of the grounds about it and was kept under constant surveillance,
he was left largely to his own devices; and these at least sufficed to
let him examine morning and night, the vase in which he was to find the
signal that was to be left for him; these permitted examination of
window-locks in other rooms, if not in Santoine's study; these
permitted the examination of many other items also and let him follow
at least the outline of the method of Santoine's work.
There was no longer room for Eaton to doubt that Harriet had the
confidence of her father to almost a complete extent. Now that
Santoine was ill, she worked with him daily for hours; and Eaton
learned that she did the same when he was well. But Avery worked with
the blind man too; he too was certainly in a confidential capacity.
Was it not probable then that Avery, and not Harriet, was entrusted
with the secrets of dangerous and ugly matters; or was it possible that
this girl, worshiping her father as she did, could know and be sure
that, because her father approved these matters, they were right?
A hundred times a day, as Eaton saw or spoke with the girl or thought
of her presence near by, this obsessed him. A score of times during
their casual talk upon meeting at meals or elsewhere, he found himself
turned toward some question which would aid him in determining what
must be the fact; but each time he checked himself, until one
morning--it was the fifth after his arrival at Santoine's
house--Harriet was taking him for his walk in the garden before the
house.
It was a bright, sunshiny morning and warm--a true spring day. As they
paced back and forth in the sunshine--she bare-haired and he holding
his cap in his hand--he looked back at the room in the wing where
Santoine still lay; then Eaton looked to the daughter, clear-eyed,
clear-skinned, smiling and joyous with the day. She had just told him,
at his inquiry, that her father was very much stronger that morning,
and her manner more than ever evidenced her pride in him.
"I have been intending to ask you, Miss Santoine," Eaton said to her
suddenly then, "if your belief in the superiority of business over
war--as we were discussing it ten days ago---hasn't suffered a shock
since then?"
"You mean because of--Father?"
"Yes; you can hardly go back far enough in the history of war to find a
time when the soldier's creed was not against killing--or trying to
kill--a sleeping enemy."
She looked at him quickly and keenly. "I can't think of Father as
being any one's enemy, though I know of course no man can do big things
without making some people hate him. Even if what he does is wholly
good, bad people hate him for it." She was silent for a few steps. "I
like your saying what you did, Mr. Eaton."
"Why?"
"It implies your own creed would be against such a thing. But aren't
we rather mixing things up? There is nothing to show yet that the
attack on Father sprang out of business relations; and even if it did,
it would have to be regarded as an--an atrocity outside the rules of
business, just as in war, atrocities occur which are outside the rules
of war. Wait! I know what you are going to say; you are going to say
the atrocities are a part of war even if they are outside its
recognized rules."
"Yes; I was going to say that."
"And that atrocities due to business are a part of business, even if
they are outside the rules."
"Yes; as business is at present conducted."
"But the rules are a part of the game, Mr. Eaton."
"Do you belong among the apologists for war, Miss Santoine?"
"I?"
"Yes; what you say is exactly what the apologists for war say, isn't
it? They say that war, in spite of its open savagery and inevitable
atrocities, is not a different sort of combat from the combat between
men in time of peace. That is, the acts of war differ only in
appearance or in degree from the acts of peace. Is that what you
believe, Miss Santoine?"
"That men in times of peace perform acts upon each other which differ
only in degree from the acts of war?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe that, Mr. Eaton?"
He hesitated. "Do you want me to answer that question from my own
experience or from what I would like to believe life to be?"
"From your own experience, of course."
"Then I must answer that I believe the apologists to be right as to
that fact."
He saw her clear eyes darken. "But you don't believe that argument
itself, do you, Mr. Eaton?" she appealed. "It is only the old, old
argument, 'Whatever is, is right.' You don't excuse those acts--those
atrocities in time of peace? Or was I mistaken in thinking such things
were against your creed? Life is part right, part wrong, isn't it?"
"I am not in a good position to judge, I'm afraid; for what I have seen
of it has been all wrong--both business and life."
He had tried to speak lightly; but a sudden bitterness, a sharp
hardness in his tone, seemed to assail her; it struck through her and
brought her shoulders together in a shudder; but, instead of alienating
her, she turned with a deeper impulse of feeling toward him.
"You--you do not want to tell more--to tell how it has been wrong; you
don't want to tell that--" She hesitated, and then in an intimate way
which surprised and frightened him, she added, "to me?"
After she had said it, she herself was surprised, and frightened; she
looked away from him with face flushed, and he did not dare answer, and
she did not speak again.
They had come to the end of the gardens where he was accustomed to turn
and retrace his steps toward the house; but now she went on, and he
went on with her. They were upon the wide pike which ran northward
following, but back from, the shore of the lake. He saw that now, as a
motor passed them on the road, she recalled that she was taking him
past the previously appointed bounds; but in the intimacy of the
moment, she could not bring herself to speak of that. It was Eaton who
halted and asked, "Shall we go on?"
"Wouldn't you like to?"
They walked on slowly. "I wish you could tell me more about yourself,
Mr. Eaton."
"I wish so too," he said.
"Then why can you not?" She turned to him frankly; he gazed at her a
moment and then looked away and shook his head. How had she answered,
in what she already had said, the question which lay below what he had
asked her? In her defense of business, did she know all the cruelties
of business and defend the wrong she knew, together with the right, as
inevitable? Or did she not know all of what was known even under her
father's roof; and if she knew all, would she then loathe or defend it?
Another motor sped near, halted and then speeded on again; Eaton,
looking up, saw it was a runabout with Avery alone in it; evidently,
seeing them in the road, Avery had halted to protest, then thought
better of it and gone on. But other motors passed now with people who
spoke to Harriet and who stopped to inquire for her father and wish him
well.
"Your father does not seem to be one of the great men without honor in
his own neighborhood," Eaton said to her after one of these had halted
and gone on.
"Every one who knows Father likes and admires him!" she rejoiced.
"I don't mean exactly that," Eaton went on. "They must trust him too,
in an extraordinary way. His associates must place most complete
confidence in him when they leave to him the adjustment of matters such
as I understand they do. There is no way, as I comprehend it, that any
of the powerful men who ask his advice could hold him accountable if he
were unfair to them; yet men of the most opposite types, the most
inimical and hostile, place their affairs in his hands. He tells them
what is just, and they abide by his decision."
Harriet shook her head. "No; it isn't quite that," she said.
"What, then?"
"You are correct in saying that men of the most opposite sorts--and
most irreconcilable to each other--constantly place their fate in
Father's hand; and when he tells them what they must do, they abide by
his decision. But he doesn't decide for them what is just."
"I don't understand."
"Father cannot tell them which side is just because, if he did that,
they wouldn't consider his decision; and they wouldn't ask him to make
any more; he would lose all influence for better relations. So he
doesn't tell them what is just."
"What does he tell them, then?"
"He tells them what would be the outcome if they fought, who would win
and who would lose and by how much. And they believe him and abide by
his decision without fighting; for he knows; and they know that he
knows and is absolutely honest."
Eaton was silent for a moment as they walked along. "How can he come
to his decision?" he asked at last.
"How?"
"I mean, much of the material presented to him must be documentary."
"Much of it is."
"You will pardon me," Eaton prefaced, "but of course I am immensely
interested. How are these written out for him--in Braille characters
or other letters for the blind?"
"No; that would not be practicable for all documents, and so it is done
with none of them."
"Then some one must read them to him."
"Of course."
Eaton started to speak--then refrained.
"What were you going to say?" she questioned.
"That the person--or persons--who reads the documents to him must
occupy an extremely delicate position."
"He does. In fact, I think that position is Father's one nightmare."
"Nightmare?"
"The person he trusts must not only be absolutely discreet but
absolutely honest."
"I should think so. If any one in that position wanted to use the
information brought to your father, he could make himself millions
overnight, undoubtedly, and ruin other men."
"And kill Father too," the girl added quietly. "Yes," she said as
Eaton looked at her. "Father puts nothing above his trust. If that
trust were betrayed--whether or not Father were in any way to blame for
it--I think it would kill him."
"So you are the one who is in that position."
"Yes; that is, I have been."
"You mean there is another now; that is, of course, Mr. Avery?"
"Yes; here at this house Mr. Avery and I, and Mr. Avery at the office.
There are some others at the office whom Father trusts, but not
completely; and it is not necessary to trust them wholly, for all
Father's really important decisions are made at the house, and the most
important records are kept here. Before Mr. Avery came, I was the only
one who helped here at the house."
"When was that?"
"When Mr. Avery came? About five years ago. Father had an immense
amount of work at that time. Business conditions were very much
unsettled. There was trouble at that time between some of the big
Eastern and the big Western men, and at the same time the Government
was prosecuting the Trusts. Nobody knew what the outcome of it all
would be; many of the biggest men who consulted Father were like men
groping in the dark. I don't suppose you would remember the time by
what I say; but you would remember it, as nearly everybody else does by
this: it was the time of the murder of Mr. Latron."
"Yes; I remember that," said Eaton; "and Mr. Avery came to you at that
time?"
"Yes; just at that time I was thrown from my horse, and could not do as
much as I had been doing, so Mr. Avery was sent to Father."
"Then Mr. Avery was reading to him at the time you speak of--the time
of the Latron murder?"
"No; Mr. Avery came just afterward. I was reading to him at that time."
"No one but you?"
"No one. Before that he had had Mr. Blatchford read to him sometimes,
but--poor Cousin Wallace!--he made a terrible mistake in reading to
Father once. Father discovered it before it was too late; and he never
let Cousin Wallace know. He pretends to trust Cousin Wallace now with
reading some things; but he always has Mr. Avery or me go over them
with him afterward."
"The papers must have been a good deal for a girl of eighteen."
"At that time, you mean? They were; but Father dared trust no one
else."
"Mr. Avery handles those matters now for your father?"
"The continuation of what was going on then? Yes; he took them up at
the time I was hurt and so has kept on looking after them; for there
has been plenty for me to do without that; and those things have all
been more or less settled now. They have worked themselves out as
things do, though they seemed almost unsolvable at the time. One thing
that helped in their solution was that Father was able, that time, to
urge what was just, as well as what was advisable."
"You mean that in the final settlement of them no one suffered?"
"No one, I think--except, of course, poor Mr. Latron; and that was a
private matter not connected in any direct way with the questions at
issue. Why do you ask all this, Mr. Eaton?"
"I was merely interested in you--in what your work has been with your
father, and what it is," he answered quietly.
His step had slowed, and she, unconsciously, had delayed with him. Now
she realized that his manner toward her had changed from what it had
been a few minutes before; he had been strongly moved and drawn toward
her then, ready to confide in her; now he showed only his usual quiet
reserve--polite, casual, unreadable. She halted and faced him,
abruptly, chilled with disappointment.
"Mr. Eaton," she demanded, "a few minutes ago you were going to tell me
something about yourself; you seemed almost ready to speak; now--"
"Now I am not, you mean?"
"Yes; what has changed you? Is it something I have said?"
He seemed to reflect. "Are you sure that anything has changed me? I
think you were mistaken. You asked if I could not tell you more about
myself; I said I wished I could, and that perhaps I might. I meant
some time in the future; and I still hope I may--some time."
His look and tone convinced her; for she could recall nothing he had
asked about herself or that she had replied to, which could have made
any change in him. She studied him an instant more, fighting her
disappointment and the feeling of having been rebuffed.
They had been following the edge of the road, she along a path worn in
the turf, he on the edge of the road itself and nearer to the tracks of
the motors. As she faced him, she was slightly above him, her face
level with his. Suddenly she cried out and clutched at him. As they
had stopped, she had heard the sound of a motor approaching them
rapidly from behind. Except that this car seemed speeding faster than
the others, she had paid no attention and had not turned.
Instantaneously, as she had cried and pulled upon him, she had realized
that this car was not passing; it was directly behind and almost upon
him. She felt him spring to the side as quickly as he could; but her
cry and pull upon him were almost too late; as he leaped, the car
struck. The blow was glancing, not direct, and he was off his feet and
in motion when the wheel struck; but the car hurled him aside and
rolled him over and over.
As she rushed to Eaton, the two men in the rear seat of the car turned
their heads and looked back.
"Are you all right?" one called to Eaton; but without checking its
speed or swerving, the car dashed on and disappeared down the roadway.
She bent over Eaton and took hold of him. He struggled to his feet
and, dazed, tottered so that she supported him. As she realized that
he was not greatly hurt, she stared with horror at the turn in the road
where the car had disappeared.
"Why, he tried to run you down! He meant to! He tried to hurt you!"
she cried.
"No," Eaton denied. "Oh, no; I don't think so."
"But they went on without stopping; they didn't wait an instant. He
didn't care; he meant to do it!"
"No!" Eaton unsteadily denied again. "It must have been--an accident.
He was--frightened when he saw what he had done."
"It wasn't at all like an accident!" she persisted. "It couldn't have
been an accident there and coming up from behind the way he did! No;
he meant to do it! Did you see who was in the car--who was driving?"
He turned to her quickly. "Who?" he demanded.
"One of the people who was on the train! That man--the morning we--the
morning Father was hurt--do you remember, when you came into the dining
car for breakfast and the conductor wanted to seat you opposite a young
man who had just spilled coffee? You sat down at our table instead.
Don't you remember--a little man, nervous, but very strong; a man
almost like an ape?"
He shuddered and then controlled himself. "Nothing!" he answered her
clasp of concern on his arm. "Quite steady again; thanks. Just dizzy;
I guess I was jarred more than I knew. Yes, I remember a fellow the
conductor tried to seat me opposite."
"This was the same man!"
Eaton shook his head. "That could hardly be; I think you must be
mistaken."
"I am not mistaken; it was that man!"
"Still, I think you must be," he again denied.
She stared, studying him. "Perhaps I was," she agreed; but she knew
she had not been. "I am glad, whoever it was, he didn't injure you.
You are all right, aren't you?"
"Quite," he assured. "Please don't trouble about it, Miss Santoine."
He dusted himself off with her help and tried to limp as little as
possible; and when she insisted upon returning to the house, he made no
objection, but he refused to wait while she went back for a car to take
him. They walked back rather silently, she appreciating how
passionately she had expressed herself for him, and he quiet because of
this and other thoughts too.
They found Donald Avery in front of the house looking for them as they
came up. Eaton succeeded in walking without limping; but he could not
conceal the marks on his clothes.
"Harriet, I've just come from your father; he wants you to go to him at
once," Avery directed. "Good morning, Eaton. What's happened?"
"Carelessness," Eaton deprecated. "Got rather in the way of a motor
and was knocked over for it."
Harriet did not correct this to Avery. She went up to her father; she
was still trembling, still sick with horror at what she had seen--an
attempt to kill one walking at her side. She stopped outside her
father's door to compose herself; then she went in.
The blind man was propped up on his bed with pillows into almost a
sitting position; the nurse was with him.
"What did you want, Father?" Harriet asked.
He had recognized her step and had been about to speak to her; but at
the sound of her voice he stopped the words on his lips and changed
them into a direction for the nurse to leave the room.
He waited until the nurse had left and closed the door behind her.
Harriet saw that, in his familiarity with her tones and every
inflection of her voice, he had sensed already that something unusual
had occurred; she repeated, however, her question as to what he wanted.
"That does not matter now, Harriet. Where have you been?"
"I have been walking with Mr. Eaton."
"What happened?"
She hesitated. "Mr. Eaton was almost run down by a motor-car."
"Ah! An accident?"
She hesitated again. She had seen on her father's face the slight
heightening of his color which, with him, was the only outward sign
that marked some triumph of his own mind; his blind eyes, abstracted
and almost always motionless, never showed anything at all.
"Mr. Eaton said it was an accident," she answered.
"But you?"
"It did not look to me like an accident, Father. It--it showed
intention."
"You mean it was an attack?"
"Yes; it was an attack. The man in the car meant to run Mr. Eaton
down; he meant to kill him or to hurt him terribly. Mr. Eaton wasn't
hurt. I called to him and pulled him--he jumped away in time."
"To kill him, Harriet? How do you know?"
She caught herself. "I--I don't know, Father. He certainly meant to
injure Mr. Eaton. When I said kill him, I was telling only what I
thought."
"That is better. I think so too."
"That he meant to kill Mr. Eaton?"
"Yes."
She watched her father's face; often when relating things to him, she
was aware from his expression that she was telling him only something
he already had figured out and expected or even knew; she felt that now.
"Father, did you expect Mr. Eaton to be attacked?"
"Expect? Not that exactly; it was possible; I suspected something like
this might occur."
"And you did not warn him?"
The blind man's hands sought each other on the coverlet and clasped
together. "It was not necessary to warn him, Harriet; Mr. Eaton
already knew. Who was in the car?"
"Three men."
"Had you seen any of them before?"
"Yes, one--the man who drove."
"Where?"
"On the train."
The color on Santoine's face grew brighter. "Did you know who he was?"
"No, Father."
"Describe him, dear," Santoine directed.
He waited while she called together her recollections of the man.
"I can't describe him very fully, Father," she said. "He was one of
the people who had berths in the forward sleeping-car. I can recall
seeing him only when I passed through the car--I recall him only twice
in that car and once in the diner."
"That is interesting," said Santoine.
"What, Father?"
"That in five days upon the train you saw the man only three times."
"You mean he must have kept out of sight as much as possible?"
"Have you forgotten that I asked you to describe him, Harriet?"
She checked herself. "Height about five feet, five," she said,
"broad-shouldered, very heavily set; I remember he impressed me as
being unusually muscular. His hair was black; I can't recall the color
of his eyes; his cheeks were blue with a heavy beard closely shaved. I
remember his face was prognathous, and his clothes were spotted with
dropped food. I--it seems hard for me to recall him, and I can't
describe him very well."
"But you are sure it was the same man in the motor?"
"Yes."
"Did he seem a capable person?"
"Exactly what do you mean?"
"Would he be likely to execute a purpose well, Harriet--either a
purpose of his own, or one in which he had been instructed?"
"He seemed an animal sort of person, small, strong, and not
particularly intelligent. It seems hard for me to remember more about
him than that."
"That is interesting."
"What?"
"That it is hard for you to remember him very well."
"Why, Father?"
Her father did not answer. "The other men in the motor?" he asked.
"I can't describe them. I--I was excited about Mr. Eaton."
"The motor itself, Harriet?"
"It was a black touring car."
"Make and number?"
"I don't know either of those. I don't remember that I saw a number;
it--it may have been taken off or covered up."
"Thank you, dear."
"You mean that is all, then?"
"No; bring Eaton to me."
"He has gone to his room to fix himself up."
"I'll send for him, then." Santoine pressed one of the buttons beside
his bed to call a servant; but before the bell could be answered,
Harriet got up.
"I'll go myself," she said.
She went out into the hall and closed the door behind her; she waited
until she heard the approaching steps of the man summoned by Santoine's
bell; then, going to meet him, she sent him to call Eaton in his rooms,
and she still waited until the man came back and told her Eaton had
already left his rooms and gone downstairs. She dismissed the man and
went to the head of the stairs, but her steps slowed there and stopped.
She was strained and nervous; often in acting as her father's "eye" and
reporting to him what she saw, she felt that he found many
insignificant things in her reports which were hidden from herself; and
she never had had that feeling more strongly than just now as she was
telling him about the attack made on Eaton. So she knew that the blind
man's thought in regard to Eaton had taken some immense stride; but she
did not know what that stride had been, or what was coming now when her
father saw Eaton.
She went on slowly down the stairs, and when halfway down, she saw
Eaton in the hall below her. He was standing beside the table which
held the bronze antique vase; he seemed to have taken something from
the vase and to be examining it. She halted again to watch him; then
she went on, and he turned at the sound of her footsteps. She could
see, as she approached him, what he had taken from the vase, but she
attached no importance to it; it was only a black button from a woman's
glove--one of her own, perhaps, which she had dropped without noticing.
He tossed it indifferently toward the open fireplace as he came toward
her.
"Father wants to see you, Mr. Eaton," she said.
He looked at her intently for an instant and seemed to detect some
strangeness in her manner and to draw himself together; then he
followed her up the stairs.