THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR
THE loud imperative ringing of the front door-bell reached Walter
Ogden’s ears, and making a sign to Maru Takasaki commanding silence, he
tip-toed softly across the library and listened behind the portières.
It was some moments before Charles appeared, struggling into his coat.
“Sure, be aisy,” Ogden heard him mutter, as the bell pealed again.
Reaching the front door the butler pulled it open with some force, but
the sight of a tall well-dressed man standing in the vestibule checked
his inclination to be impertinent.
“No, sor, Misther Ogden is not home,” the butler’s loud voice reached
Ogden. “And Mrs. Ogden is sick in bed; no, nothin’ serious, sor, just
enough to have Dr. McLane.”
“Can I see Miss Ethel Ogden?” and at the sound of the visitor’s voice
Ogden started violently.
“No, sor, Miss Ogden has retired for the night,” answered Charles,
and thinking to forestall further questions, he added: “And Professor
Norcross is dinin’ at the Cosmos Club, and Misther Barclay ain’t
returned since luncheon. Shall I tell them who called, sor?”
“Colonel Carter Calhoun,” was the reply. “I will call tomorrow. Good
night.”
“Good night, sor,” Charles watched Calhoun go down the steps and enter
a taxicab, then closed the door. “Sure, he’s an ilegant gintleman,” he
said aloud, garrulousness having grown upon him. “I’ll remember him.”
“And so will I,” Ogden’s involuntary whisper reached no ears but his
own.
Ogden found his solitary guest sitting where he had left him. Neither
of the men spoke until Ogden had resumed his old seat.
“That was Carter Calhoun,” announced Ogden, but the name aroused
no apparent interest in the expressionless face and manner of his
companion. “He’s coming again.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“So,” Takasaki thought a minute, picked up a small writing pad and
using his gold pencil, jotted down a number of figures, tore off the
sheet and handed it to his companion. Ogden’s eyebrows went up as he
read the numerals and the sign before them, then crushing the scrap
of paper in his hand, tossed it into the open fire on the hearth.
Shifting his position slightly, Takasaki contemplated Ogden at his
leisure by aid of the movable standing lamp, the only electric light
turned on in the room. The seconds had become minutes before Takasaki
spoke.
“Tonight is fair,” he said. “Tomorrow may be stormy.”
Ogden stirred as if aroused from a hypnotic trance. “Probabilities
indicate a fair night,” he muttered.
Takasaki looked about the comfortable room, then rose slowly to his
feet. “I no keep you longer,” he said, shaking hands. “You so good to
see me.”
“I’ll go with you to the door,” and Ogden also rose.
“It not necessary,” protested Takasaki politely. “You have much to
do--I know way out.”
But paying no heed to his protest Ogden accompanied the Japanese
attaché to the front door, and, had Charles been loitering in the next
room or the floor above, he would not have guessed their presence. They
moved like shadows across the hall.
Ogden closed the door upon Takasaki with care that it should not slam,
then walking heavily over to the pantry he called to Charles.
“Comin’, sor, comin’,” came the answer, and the butler arrived in
breathless haste.
“Have Mr. Barclay and Professor Norcross returned?”
“No, sor,” Charles came a step nearer. “Mr. Barclay telephoned an hour
back, sor, to say he’d be in about midnight, sor; but not to wait up
for him, because, sor, he still has the housekey Mrs. Ogden gave him
the night of the charity ball.”
“Very well,” Ogden hesitated. “When Professor Norcross returns tell him
that I have gone to my room.”
“Yes, sor.”
“Charles,” the butler stopped on his way downstairs. “Close the house
now, and after Professor Norcross gets here, go to bed.”
“Very good, sor,” and Charles at once started on his rounds of locking
doors and windows, while Ogden went straight to his wife’s bedroom.
Ethel met him at the door, a finger on her lip.
“Cousin Jane has just fallen asleep,” she whispered, stepping into the
hall and drawing to the door. “Dr. McLane says it was only a nervous
breakdown, and that she will be all right tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” echoed Ogden. “Good. Go to bed, child; you look as if you
need a night’s rest,” then he added as Ethel hesitated, “I’ll sit up
with Cousin Jane and be on hand if she requires anything.”
“Be sure and call me if I can be of assistance,” Ethel took a step down
the hall and then returned. “Have you heard anything from Julian?”
“Charles said he telephoned that he would be back about midnight,”
answered Ogden impatiently. “Probably the police put him through the
third degree, and found they hadn’t enough evidence to hold him.”
Ethel’s fervidly whispered “Thank God!” was too low to reach her
cousin’s ears, and with a lighter heart than she had known in many
hours, she went to her bedroom, but before starting to retire, she read
again and yet again Julian Barclay’s hastily scrawled note brought to
her by Charles before luncheon.
For his size Walter Ogden was remarkably light on his feet, and his
restless pacing to and fro never disturbed the sleeper on the bed. Many
minutes dragged themselves away before Ogden dropped wearily into his
wife’s favorite chair. But a veritable demon of unrest drove him out
of its comfortable depths before he had been there ten minutes, and
he was passing the door when footsteps in the hall reached him and he
recognized Norcross’ voice speaking to Charles. Before he could make up
his mind to go out and speak to the professor he heard him close his
bedroom door.
Crossing over to the hearth, on which burned a small fire lighted by
Ethel to take the chill off the room, Ogden drew first one document
out of his pocket and then another, tossing them in succession into
the blaze. “I’ve got to do it,” he muttered between clenched teeth,
and the firelight showed the dogged determination of his set, stern
face. “Barclay, well, Barclay’s got to”--he closed his outspread hands
slowly, forcefully, and turning about, again sat down, this time nearer
the fire and where his gaze would not fall on his wife, still sleeping
peacefully. Sleep, however, was far from Ogden’s eyes as he sat
brooding over the fire. So great was his absorption that he never heard
Julian Barclay, his footsteps lagging and weary, pass down the hall to
his bedroom.
Once in his bedroom Barclay threw his coat and waistcoat on the nearest
chair, kicked off his shoes, and flinging himself on the bed drew up
the outer sheet and quilt, and was soon asleep, the heavy dreamless
sleep of utter exhaustion.
No sound broke the stillness except Barclay’s even breathing, and the
moonlight flooding his bedroom fell softly across the bed where he
slept. A movement of the bedclothes caused a ripple in the moonlight,
then a shadow appeared, a shadow which moved ever nearer Barclay’s head
until a hand was outlined on the white pillow. The groping fingers,
with touch as delicate as a woman’s, at last found the object they
sought, but the soft sign of triumph which came from the side of the
high four-post bedstead was premature.
Barclay felt the breaking of the cord which held Ethel’s miniature
suspended around his neck, and throwing out his hands, his fingers
closed on a human wrist which tore and writhed in his grip. Struggling
to retain his hold and sit up at the same instant, Barclay was
horrified to hear Ethel’s voice raised in a scream of terror.
“Help, Julian, for God’s sake, help!”
The hand was torn from his grasp as his fingers relaxed their hold,
and Barclay, forgetting all else, rushed to Ethel’s aid. He stopped
bewildered in the hall; there was no sign of Ethel, and half crazed
at the thought of her in peril, he ran madly down the staircase, her
voice, fainter now, guiding his footsteps. As he bounded down stairs he
collided with a man racing upward, and the contact brought them both to
the floor. Through the blinding stars produced by his head coming in
violent contact with the sharp edge of the newel post, Barclay glimpsed
Yoshida Ito just staggering to his feet, and made a futile grab at
him. The agile Japanese avoided his hand and fled upward, two steps at
a time. Barclay was quick to follow, his fury lending wings to his
feet, and one idea obsessing him--the Japanese had frightened, perhaps
injured Ethel before he could get there to save her.
As he ran upward Barclay became dimly conscious that others were
keeping step with him. Who they were he never stopped to see; a
stinging pain in the back of his head and warm blood trickling down
his back dazed his senses. Another pajama-clad figure appeared in one
of the doorways as Barclay sped down the second floor hall, and stared
aghast at him.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” Barclay panted. “Hurry, Norcross, he’s just
ahead of you; there, jump for him.”
The Japanese, apparently confused by the chase, had lost his bearings
and cut back on his tracks, and a second later he and Norcross went to
the floor, locked in each other’s arms. Barclay, struggling to lend his
aid to Norcross, bent over the fighting men, but which was which was
more than his failing sight could distinguish. A strong hand pulled him
back, and Mitchell, with the aid of Dr. McLane, dragged the men apart.
Barclay leaned weakly against the wall and stared at the writhing
Japanese, at the panting professor, and last at Walter Ogden. His eyes
were certainly deceiving him. With difficulty he checked an hysterical
laugh.
“Mitchell, you fool,” he gasped. “You’ve put the handcuffs on the wrong
man.”
Carter Calhoun, standing in the background, advanced and laid his hand
on Barclay’s swaying shoulder.
“The handcuffs are where they belong, Barclay--on the wrists of Richard
Norcross, naturalist, murderer, and ventriloquist.”