UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS
Basil Santoine was oversensitive to sound, as are most of the blind; in
the world of darkness in which he lived, sounds were by far the most
significant--and almost the only--means he had of telling what went on
around him; he passed his life in listening for or determining the
nature of sounds. So the struggle which ended in Eaton's crash to the
floor would have waked him without the pistol-shot immediately
following. That roused him wide-awake immediately and brought him
sitting up in bed, forgetful of his own condition.
Santoine at once recognized the sound as a shot; but in the instant of
waking, he had not been able to place it more definitely than to know
that it was close. His hand went at once to the bellboard, and he rang
at the same time for the nurse outside his door and for the steward.
But for a few moments after that first shot, nothing followed; there
was silence. Santoine was not one of those who doubt their hearing;
that was the sense in which the circumstances of his life made him
implicitly trust; he had heard a shot near by; the fact that nothing
more followed did not make him doubt it; it made him think to explain
it.
It was plain that no one else in the house had been stirred by it; for
his windows were open and other windows in bedrooms in the main part of
the house were open; no one had raised any cry of alarm. So the shot
was where he alone had heard it; that meant indoors, in the room below.
Santoine pressed the bells quickly again and sat up straighter and more
strained; no one breaking into the house for plate or jewelry would
enter through that room; he would have to break through double doors to
reach any other part of the house; Santoine did not consider the
possibility of robbery of that sort long enough to have been said to
consider it at all; what he felt was that the threat which had been
hanging vaguely over himself ever since Warden's murder was being
fulfilled. But it was not Santoine himself that was being attacked; it
was something Santoine possessed. There was only one sort of valuable
article for which one might enter that room below. And those articles--
The blind man clenched his jaw and pressed the bells to call all the
men-servants in the house and Avery also. But still he got no response.
A shot in the room below meant, of course, that in addition to the
intruder there must be a defender; the defender might have been the one
who fired or the one who was killed. For it seemed likely, in the
complete silence now, that whoever had fired had disposed of his
adversary and was undisturbed. At that moment the second shot--the
first fired at Eaton--rang out below; Eaton's return fire followed
nearly simultaneously, and then the shot of the third man. These
explosions and the next three the blind man in bed above was able to
distinguish; there were three men, at least, in the room below firing
at each other; then, as the automatic revolvers roared on, he no longer
could separate attack and reply; there might be three men, there might
be half a dozen; the fusillade of the automatics overlapped; it was
incessant. Then all at once the firing stopped; there was no sound or
movement of any sort; everything seemed absolutely still below.
The blind man pressed and pressed the buttons on his bellboard. Any
further alarm, after the firing below, seemed superfluous. But his
wing of the house had been built for him proof against sound in the
main portion of the building; the house, therefore, was deadened to
noise within the wing. Santoine, accustomed to considering the manner
in which sounds came to himself, knew how these sounds would come to
others. Coming from the open windows of the wing and entering the open
windows of the other parts of the house, they would not appear to the
household to come from within the house at all; they would appear to
come from some part of the grounds or from the beach.
Yet some one or more than one from his house must be below or have been
there. Santoine pressed all the bells again and then got up. He had
heard absolutely no sound outside, as must be made by any one escaping
from the room below; but the battle seemed over. One side must have
destroyed the other. From the character of the fighting, it was most
probable that some one had secretly entered the room--Santoine thought
of that one definitely now as the man he was entertaining as Eaton; a
servant, or some one else from the house, had surprised him in the room
and was shot; other servants, roused by the alarm, rushed in and were
shot. Santoine counted that, if his servants had survived, one of them
must be coming to tell him what had happened. But there was no noise
now nor any movement at all below. His side had been beaten, or both
sides had ceased to exist. Those alternatives alone occurred to the
blind man; the number of shots fired within the confines of the room
below precluded any other explanation. He did not imagine the fact
that the battle had been fought in the dark; himself perpetually in the
dark, he thought of others always in the light.
The blind man stood barefooted on the floor, his hands clasping in one
of the bitterest moments of his rebellion against, and defiance of, his
helplessness of blindness. Below him--as he believed--his servants had
been sacrificing life for him; there in that room he held in trust that
which affected the security, the faith, the honor of others; his
guarding that trust involved his honor no less. And particularly, now,
he knew he was bound, at whatever cost, to act; for he did not doubt
now but that his half-prisoned guest, whom Santoine had not
sufficiently guarded, was at the bottom of the attack. The blind man
believed, therefore, that it was because of his own retention here of
Eaton that the attack had been made, his servants had been killed, the
private secrets of his associates were in danger. Santoine crossed to
the door of the hall and opened it and called. No one answered
immediately; he started to call again; then he checked himself and shut
the door, and opened that to the top of the stairs descending to his
study below.
The smoke and fumes of the firing rushed into his face; it half choked
him; but it decided him. He was going to go down. Undoubtedly there
was danger below; but that was why he did not call again at the other
door for some one else to run a risk for him. Basil Santoine, always
held back and always watched and obliged to submit to guard even of
women in petty matters because of his blindness, held one thing dearer
far than life--and that thing was the trust which other men reposed in
him. Since it was that trust which was threatened, the impulse now, in
that danger, to act for himself and not be protected and pushed back by
any one who merely could see, controlled him.
He put his hand on the rail and started to descend the stairs. He was
almost steady in step and he had firm grasp on the rail; he noticed
that now to wonder at it. When he had aroused at the sound of firing,
his blindness, as always when something was happening about him, was
obtruded upon him. He felt helpless because he was blind, not because
he had been injured. He had forgotten entirely that for almost two
weeks he had not stirred from bed; he had risen and stood and walked,
without staggering, to the door and to the top of the stairs before,
now, he remembered. So what he already had done showed him that he had
merely again to put his injury from his mind and he could go on. He
went down the stairs almost steadily.
There was still no sound or any evidence of any one below. The gases
of the firing were clearing away; the blind man could feel the slight
breeze which came in through the windows of his bedroom and went with
him down the stairs; and now, as he reached the lower steps, there was
no other sound in the room but the tread of the blind man's bare feet
on the stairs. This sound was slight, but enough to attract attention
in the silence there. Santoine halted on the next to the last
step--the blind count stairs, and he had gone down twenty-one--and
realized fully his futility; but now he would not retreat or merely
call for help.
"Who is here?" he asked distinctly. "Is any one here? Who is here?"
No one answered. And now Santoine knew by the sense which let him feel
whether it was night or day, that the room was really dark--dark for
others as well as for himself; the lights were not burning. So an
exaltation, a sense of physical capability, came to Santoine; in the
dark he was as fit, as capable as any other man--not more capable, for,
though he was familiar with the room, the furniture had been moved in
the struggle; he had heard the overturning of the chairs.
Santoine stepped down on the floor, and in his uncertainty as to the
position of the furniture, felt along the wall. There were bookcases
there, but he felt and passed along them swiftly, until he came to the
case which concealed the safe at the left side of the doors. The books
were gone from that case; his bare toes struck against them where they
had been thrown down on the floor. The blind man, his pulse beating
tumultuously, put his hand through the case and felt the panel behind.
That was slid back exposing the safe; and the door of the safe stood
open. Santoine's hands felt within the safe swiftly. The safe was
empty.
He recoiled from it, choking back an ejaculation. The entry to this
room had been made for the purpose which he supposed; and the thieves
must have succeeded in their errand. The blind man, in his uselessness
for pursuit, could delay calling others to act for him no longer. He
started toward the bell, when some scrape on the floor--not of the sort
to be accounted for by an object moved by the wind--sounded behind him.
Santoine swung toward the sound and stood listening again; and then,
groping with his hands stretched out before him, he left the wall and
stepped toward the center of the room. He took two steps--three,
four--with no result; then his foot trod into some fluid, thick and
sticky and not cold.
Santoine stooped and put a finger-tip into the fluid and brought it
near his nose. It was what he supposed it must be--blood. He raised
his foot and with his great toe traced the course of the blood; it led
to one side, and then the blind man's toe touched some hard, metal
object which was warm. He stooped and picked it up and felt over it
with his fingers. It was an electric torch with the light turned on.
Santoine stood holding it with the warm end--the lighted end--turned
away from him; he swiftly switched it off; what put Santoine at a
disadvantage with other men was light. But since there had been this
light, there might be others; there had been at least three men,
perhaps, therefore, three lights. Santoine's senses could not perceive
light so dim and soft; he stood trying fruitlessly to determine whether
there were other lights.
He could hear now some one breathing--more than one person. From the
house, still shut off by its double, sound-proof doors, he could hear
nothing; but some one outside the house was hurrying up to the open
window at the south end of the room.
That one came to, or just inside the window, parting the curtains. He
was breathing hard from exertion or from excitement.
"Who is it?" Santoine challenged clearly.
"Basil!" Blatchford's voice exclaimed his recognition in amazement.
"Basil; that is you! What are you doing down here?" Blatchford
started forward.
"Wait!" Santoine ordered sharply. "Don't come any further; stand
there!"
Blatchford protested but obeyed. "What is it? What are you doing down
here, Basil? What is the matter here? What has happened?"
"What brought you here?" Santoine demanded instead of reply. "You were
running outside; why? What was out there? What did you see?"
"See? I didn't see anything--except the window here open when I came
up. But I heard shots, Basil. I thought they were toward the road. I
went out there; but I found nothing. I was coming back when I saw the
window open. I'm sure I heard shots."
"They were here," Santoine said. "But you can see; and you just heard
the shots. You didn't see anything!" the blind man accused. "You
didn't see any one going away from here!"
"Basil, what has happened here?"
Santoine felt again the stickiness at his feet. "Three or four persons
fought in this room, Wallace. Some--or one was hurt. There's blood on
the floor. There are two here I can hear breathing; I suppose they're
hurt. Probably the rest are gone. The room's all dark, isn't it?
That is you moving about now, Wallace?"
"Yes."
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for the light."
"Don't."
"Why, Basil?"
"Get help first. I think those who aren't hurt are gone. They must be
gone. But--get help first, Wallace."
"And leave you here?" Blatchford rejoined. He had not halted again;
the blind man heard his cousin still moving along the wall. The
electric switch clicked, and Santoine knew that the room was flooded
with light. Santoine straightened, strained, turning his head a little
to better listen. With the flashing on of the light, he had heard the
sharp, involuntary start of Blatchford as he saw the room; and, besides
that, Santoine heard movement now elsewhere in the room. Then the
blind man heard his friend's cry. "Good God!"
It was not, Santoine instantly sensed, from mere surprise or fright at
finding some intruder in the room; that must have been expected. This
was from something more astounding, from something incredible.
"What is it?" Santoine cried.
"Good God! Basil!"
"Who is it, Wallace?" the blind man knew now that his friend's
incoherence came from recognition of some one, not alone from some
sight of horror. "Who is it, Wallace?" he repeated, curbing himself.
"Basil! It is---it must be--I know him! It is--"
A shot roared in front of Santoine. The blind man, starting back at
the shock of it, drew in the powder-gas with his breath; but the bullet
was not for him. Instead, he heard his friend scream and choke and
half call, half cough.
"Wallace!" Santoine cried out; but his voice was lost in the roar of
another shot. This was not fired by the same one who had just fired;
at least, it was not from the same part of the room; and instantly,
from another side, a third shot came. Then, in the midst of rush and
confusion, another shot roared; the light was out again; then all was
gone; the noise was outside; the room was still except for a cough and
choke as Blatchford--somewhere on the floor in front of the blind
man--tried again to speak.
Basil Santoine, groping with his hands, found him. The blind man knelt
and with his fingers went over his cousin's face; he found the wound on
the neck where Blatchford's life was running away. He was still
conscious. Santoine knew that he was trying his best to speak, to say
just one word--a name--to tell whom he had seen and who had shot him;
but he could not.
Santoine put his hand over a hand of his cousin. "That's all right,
Wally; that's all right," he assured him. And now he knew that
Blatchford's consciousness was going forever. Santoine knew what must
be most on his friend's mind at that last moment as it had been most on
his mind during more than thirty years. "And about my blindness,
Wallace, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I'd never
have done what I have if I hadn't been blind."
Blatchford's fingers closed tightly on Santoine's; they did not relax
but now remained closed, though without strength. The blind man bowed
and then lifted his head. His friend was dead, and others were rushing
into the room--the butler, one of the chauffeurs, Avery, more
menservants; the light was on again, and amid the tumult and alarms of
the discoveries shown by the light, some rushed to the windows to the
south in pursuit of those who had escaped from the room. Avery and one
or two others rushed up to Santoine; now the blind man heard, above
their cries and alarms, the voice of his daughter. She was beside him,
where he knelt next the body of Blatchford, and she put back others who
crowded about.
"Father! What has happened? Why are you here? Oh, Father, Cousin
Wallace!"
"He is dead," Santoine said. "They shot him!"
"Father; how was it? You--"
"There are none of them in the room?" he asked her in reply.
"None of them?"
Her failure to understand answered him. If any of the men who fought
there had not got away, she would have understood. "They were not all
together," he said. "They were three, at least. One was not with the
others. They fired at each other, I believe, after one shot him."
Santoine's hand was still in Blatchford's. "I heard them below." He
told shortly how he had gone down, how Blatchford had entered and been
shot.
The blind man, still kneeling, heard the ordering and organizing of
others for the pursuit; now women servants from the other part of the
house were taking charge of affairs in the room. He heard Avery
questioning them; none of the servants had had part in the fight in the
room; there had been no signal heard, Santoine was told, upon any of
the bells which he had tried to ring from his room. Eaton was the only
person from the house who was missing. Harriet had gone for a moment;
the blind man called her back and demanded that she stay beside him; he
had not yet moved from Blatchford's body. His daughter returned; her
hand on his shoulder was trembling and cold--he could feel it cold
through the linen of his pajama jacket.
"Father, you must go back to bed!" she commanded uselessly. He would
not stir yet. A servant, at her call, brought a robe which she put
over him, and she drew slippers on his feet.
"They came, at least some of them came,"--Santoine had risen, fighting
down his grief over his cousin's death; he stood holding the robe about
him--"for what was in your safe, Harriet."
"I know; I saw it open."
"What is gone?" Santoine demanded.
He heard her picking up the contents of the safe from the floor and
carrying them to the table and examining them; he was conscious that,
having done this, she stood staring about the room as though to see
whether anything had escaped her search.
"What is gone?" Santoine repeated.
"Why--nearly all the formal papers seem to be gone; lists and
agreements relating to a dozen different things."
"None of the correspondence?"
"No; that all seems to be here."
Santoine was breathing quickly; the trust for which he had been ready
to die--for which Blatchford had died--seemed safe; but recognition of
this only emphasized and deepened his perplexity as to what the meaning
had been of the struggle which an instant before had been going on
around him.
"We don't know whether he got it, then, or not!" It was Avery's voice
which broke in upon him; Santoine merely listened.
"He? Who?" He heard his daughter's challenge.
"Why, Eaton. It is plain enough what happened here, isn't it?" Avery
answered. "He came here to this room for what he was after--for what
he has been after from the first--whatever that may have been! He came
prepared to force the safe and get it! But he was surprised--"
"By whom?" the blind man asked.
"By whomever it is that has been following him. I don't attempt to
explain who they were, Mr. Santoine; for I don't know. But--whoever
they were--in doing this, he laid himself open to attack by them. They
were watching--saw him enter here. They attacked him here. Wallace
switched on the light and recognized him; so he shot Wallace and ran
with whatever he could grab up of the contents of the safe, hoping that
by luck he'd get what he was after."
"It isn't so--it isn't so!" Harriet denied.
Her father checked her; he stood an instant thoughtful. "Who is
directing the pursuit, Donald?" he asked.
Avery went out at once. The window to the south, which stood open, was
closed. The blind man turned to his daughter.
"Now, Harriet," he commanded. He put a hand out and touched Harriet's
clothing; he found she had on a heavy robe. She understood that her
father would not move till she had seen the room for him. She gazed
about again, therefore, and told him what she saw.
"There was some sort of a struggle near my safe," she said.
"Chairs--everything there is knocked about."
"Yes."
"There is also blood there--a big spot of it on the floor."
"I found that," said Santoine.
"There is blood behind the table near the middle of the room."
"Ah! A man fired from near there, too!"
"There are cartridges on the floor--"
"Cartridges?"
"Cartridge shells, I mean, empty, near both those spots of blood.
There are cartridge shells near the fireplace; but no blood there."
"Yes; the bullets?"
"There are marks everywhere--above the mantel, all about."
"Yes."
"There is a bar of iron with a bent end near the table--between it and
the window; there are two flashlights, both extinguished."
"How was the safe opened?"
"The combination has been cut completely away; there is an--an
instrument connected with the electric-light fixture which seems to
have done the cutting. There is a hand-drill, too--I think it is a
hand-drill. The inner door has been drilled through, and the catches
drawn back."
"Who is this?"
The valet, who had been sent to Eaton's room, had returned with his
report. "Mr. Eaton went from his room fully dressed, sir," he said to
Santoine, "except for his shoes. I found all his shoes in his room."
During the report, the blind man felt his daughter's grasp on his arm
become tense and relax and tighten again. Then, as though she realized
she was adding to his comprehension of what she had already betrayed,
she suddenly took her hand from her father's arm. Santoine turned his
face toward his daughter. Another twinge racked the tumult of his
emotions. He groped and groped again, trying to catch his daughter's
hand; but she avoided him. She directed servants to lift Blatchford's
body and told them where to bear it. After that, Santoine resisted no
longer. He let the servants, at his daughter's direction, help him to
his room. His daughter went with him and saw that he was safe in bed;
she stood beside him while the nurse washed the blood-splotches from
his hands and feet. When the nurse had finished, he still felt his
daughter's presence; she drew nearer to him.
"Father?" she questioned.
"Yes."
"You don't agree with Donald, do you?--that Mr. Eaton went to the study
to--to get something, and that whoever has been following him found him
there and--and interrupted him and he killed Cousin Wallace?"
Santoine was silent an instant. "That seems the correct explanation,
Harriet," he evaded. "It does not fully explain; but it seems correct
as far as it goes. If Donald asks you what my opinion is, tell him it
is that."
He felt his daughter shrink away from him.
The blind man made no move to draw her back to him; he lay perfectly
still; his head rested flat upon the pillows; his hands were clasped
tightly together above the coverlet. He had accused himself, in the
room below, because, by the manner he had chosen to treat Eaton, he had
slain the man he loved best and had forced a friendship with Eaton on
his daughter which, he saw, had gone further than mere friendship; it
had gone, he knew now, even to the irretrievable between man and
woman--had brought her, that is, to the state where, no matter what
Eaton was or did, she must suffer with him! But Santoine was not
accusing himself now; he was feeling only the fulfillment of that
threat against those who had trusted him with their secrets, which he
had felt vaguely after the murder of Gabriel Warden and, more plainly
with the events of each succeeding day, ever since. For that threat,
just now, had culminated in his presence in purposeful, violent action;
but Santoine in his blindness had been unable--and was still
unable---to tell what that action meant.
Of the three men who had fought in his presence in the room below--one
before the safe, one at the fireplace, one behind the table--which had
been Eaton? What had he been doing there? Who were the others? What
had any of them--or all of them--wanted? For Santoine, the answer to
these questions transcended now every personal interest. So, in his
uncertainty, Santoine had drawn into himself--withdrawn confidence in
his thoughts from all around, from Donald Avery, even from his
daughter--until the answer should be found. His blind eyes were turned
toward the ceiling, and his long, well-shaped fingers trembled with the
intensity of his thought. But he realized, even in his absorption,
that his daughter had drawn away from him. So, presently, he stirred.
"Harriet," he said.
It was the nurse who answered him. "Miss Santoine has gone downstairs.
What is it you want of her, Mr. Santoine?"
The blind man hesitated, and checked the impulse he had had.
"Nothing," he replied.