I have never been able to recall the precise moment the next morning
when I began to feel a strange disquietude but the opening hours of the
day were marked by a series of occurrences slight in themselves yet so
cumulatively ominous that they seemed to lower above me like a cloud
of menace.
Looking from my window, shortly after the rising hour, I observed a
paper boy pass through the street, whistling a popular melody as he
ran up to toss folded journals into doorways. Something I cannot
explain went through me even then; some premonition of disaster
slinking furtively under my casual reflection that even in this remote
wild the public press was not unknown.
Half an hour later the telephone rang in a lower room and I heard Mrs.
Effie speak in answer. An unusual note in her voice caused me to
listen more attentively. I stepped outside my door. To some one she
was expressing amazement, doubt, and quick impatience which seemed to
culminate, after she had again, listened, in a piercing cry of
consternation. The term is not too strong. Evidently by the unknown
speaker she had been first puzzled, then startled, then horrified; and
now, as her anguished cry still rang in my ears, that snaky
premonition of evil again writhed across my consciousness.
Presently I heard the front door open and close. Peering into the
hallway below I saw that she had secured the newspaper I had seen
dropped. Her own door now closed upon her. I waited, listening
intently. Something told me that the incident was not closed. A brief
interval elapsed and she was again at the telephone, excitedly
demanding to be put through to a number.
“Come at once!” I heard her cry. “It’s unspeakable! There isn’t a
moment to lose! Come as you are!” Hereupon, banging the receiver into
its place with frenzied roughness, she ran halfway up the stairs to
shout:
“Egbert Floud! Egbert Floud! You march right down here this minute,
sir!”
From his room I heard an alarmed response, and a moment later knew
that he had joined her. The door closed upon them, but high words
reached me. Mostly the words of Mrs. Effie they were, though I could
detect muffled retorts from the other. Wondering what this could
portend, I noted from my window some ten minutes later the hurried
arrival of the C. Belknap-Jacksons. The husband clenched a crumpled
newspaper in one hand and both he and his wife betrayed signs to the
trained eye of having performed hasty toilets for this early call.
As the door of the drawing-room closed upon them there ensued a
terrific outburst carrying a rich general effect of astounded rage.
Some moments the sinister chorus continued, then a door sharply opened
and I heard my own name cried out by Mrs. Effie in a tone that caused
me to shudder. Rapidly descending the stairs, I entered the room to
face the excited group. Cousin Egbert crouched on a sofa in a far
corner like a hunted beast, but the others were standing, and all
glared at me furiously.
The ladies addressed me simultaneously, one of them, I believe, asking
me what I meant by it and the other demanding how dared I, which had
the sole effect of adding to my bewilderment, nor did the words of
Cousin Egbert diminish this.
“Hello, Bill!” he called, adding with a sort of timid bravado: “Don’t
you let ‘em bluff you, not for a minute!”
“Yes, and it was probably all that wretched Cousin Egbert’s fault in
the first place,” snapped Mrs. Belknap-Jackson almost tearfully.
“Say, listen here, now; I don’t see as how I’ve done anything wrong,”
he feebly protested. “Bill’s human, ain’t he? Answer me that!”
“One sees it all!” This from Belknap-Jackson in bitter and judicial
tones. He flung out his hands at Cousin Egbert in a gesture of
pitiless scorn. “I dare say,” he continued, “that poor Ruggles was
merely a tool in his hands--weak, possibly, but not vicious.”
“May I inquire----” I made bold to begin, but Mrs. Effie shut me off,
brandishing the newspaper before me.
“Read it!” she commanded in hoarse, tragic tones. “There!” she added,
pointing at monstrous black headlines on the page as I weakly took it
from her. And then I saw. There before them, divining now the enormity
of what had come to pass, I controlled myself to master the following
screed: