THE MAN IN WHITE
It was at the sixth hole that they passed the man ahead who was playing
all alone—a courteous young fellow in white flannels, who smiled and
bowed them “through” in silence.
They thanked him, drove from the tee, and left the polite and reticent
young man still apparently hunting for a lost ball.
Like other things which depended upon dexterity and precision, Tressa
had taken most naturally to golf. Her supple muscles helped.
At the ninth hole they looked back but did not see the young man in
white flannels.
Hammock, set with pine and palmetto, and intervals of evil-looking
swamp, flanked the course. Rank wire-grass, bayberry and scrub palmetto
bounded the fairgreen.
On every blossoming bush hung butterflies—Palomedes
swallowtails—drugged with sparkle-berry honey, their gold and black
velvet wings conspicuous in the sunny mist.
“Like the ceremonial vestments of a Yezidee executioner,” murmured the
girl. “The Tchortchas wear red when they robe to do a man to death.”
“I wish you could forget those things,” said Cleves.
“I am trying.... I wonder where that young man in white went.”
Cleves searched the links. “I don’t see him. Perhaps he had to go back
for another ball.”
“I wonder who he was,” she mused.
“I don’t remember seeing him before,” said Cleves.... “Shall we start
back?”
They walked slowly across the course toward the tenth hole.
Tressa teed up, drove low and straight. Cleves sliced, and they walked
together into the scrub and towards the woods, where his ball had
bounded into a bunch of palm trees.
Far in among the trees something white moved and vanished.
“Probably a white egret,” he remarked, knocking about in the scrub with
his midiron.
“It was that young man in white flannels,” said Tressa in a low voice.
“What would he be doing in there?” he asked incredulously. “That’s
merely a jungle, Tressa—swamp and cypress, thorn and creeper,—and no
man would go into that mess if he could. There is no bottom to those
swamps.”
“But I saw him in there,” she said in a troubled voice.
“But when I tell you that only a wild animal or a snake or a bird could
move in that jungle! The bog is one vast black quicksand. There’s death
in those depths.”
“Victor.”
“Yes?” He looked around at her. She was pale. He came up and took her
hand inquiringly.
“I don’t feel—well,” she murmured. “I’m not ill, you understand——”
“What’s the matter, Tressa?”
She shook her head drearily: “I don’t know.... I wonder whether I
should have tried to amuse you this morning——”
“You don’t think you’ve stirred up any of those Yezidee beasts, do
you?” he asked sharply.
And as she did not answer, he asked again whether she was afraid that
what she had done that morning might have had any occult consequences.
And he reminded her that she had hesitated to venture anything on that
account.
His voice, in spite of him, betrayed great nervousness now, and he saw
apprehension in her eyes, also.
“Why should that man in white have followed us, keeping out of sight in
the woods?” he went on. “Did you notice about him anything to disturb
you, Tressa?”
“Not at the time. But—it’s odd—I can’t put him out of my mind. Since we
passed him and left him apparently hunting a lost ball, I have not been
able to put him out of my mind.”
“He seemed civil and well bred. He was perfectly good-humoured—all
courtesy and smiles.”
“I think—perhaps—it was the way he smiled at us,” murmured the girl.
“Everybody in the East smiles when they draw a knife....”
He placed his arm through hers. “Aren’t you a trifle morbid?” he said
pleasantly.
She stooped for her golf ball, retaining a hold on his arm. He picked
up his ball, too, put away her clubs and his, and they started back
together in silence, evidently with no desire to make it eighteen
holes.
“It’s a confounded shame,” he muttered, “just as you were becoming so
rested and so delightfully well, to have anything—any unpleasant flash
of memory cut in to upset you——”
“I brought it on myself. I should not have risked stirring up the
sinister minds that were asleep.”
“Hang it all!—and I asked you to amuse me.”
“It was not wise in me,” she said under her breath. “It is easy to
disturb the unknown currents which enmesh the globe. I ought not to
have shown you Yian. I ought not to have shown you Yulun. It was my
fault for doing that. I was a little lonely, and I wanted to see
Yulun.”
They came down the river back to the canoe, threw in their golf bags,
and embarked on the glassy stream.
Over the calm flood, stained deep with crimson, the canoe glided in the
sanguine evening light. But Tressa sang no more and her head was bent
sideways as though listening—always listening—to something inaudible to
Cleves—something very, very far away which she seemed to hear through
the still drip of the paddles.
They were not yet in sight of their landing when she spoke to him,
partly turning:
“I think some of your men have arrived.”
“Where?” he asked, astonished.
“At the house.”
“Why do you think so?”
“I think so.”
They paddled a little faster. In a few minutes their dock came into
view.
“It’s funny,” he said, “that you should think some of our men have
arrived from the North. I don’t see anybody on the dock.”
“It’s Mr. Recklow,” she said in a low voice. “He is seated on our
veranda.”
As it was impossible to see the house, let alone the veranda, Cleves
made no reply. He beached the canoe; Tressa stepped out; he followed,
carrying the golf bags.
A mousy light lingered in the shrubbery; bats were flying against a
salmon-tinted sky as they took the path homeward.
With an impulse quite involuntary, Cleves encircled his young wife’s
shoulders with his left arm.
“Girl-comrade,” he said lightly, “I’d kill any man who even looked as
though he’d harm you.”
He smiled, but she had not missed the ugly undertone in his words.
They walked slowly, his arm around her shoulders. Suddenly he felt her
start. They halted.
“What was it?” he whispered.
“I thought there was something white in the woods.”
“Where, dear?” he asked coolly.
“Over there beyond the lawn.”
What she called the “lawn” was only a vast sheet of pink and white
phlox, now all misty with the whirring wings of sphinx-moths and
Noctuidæ.
The oak grove beyond was dusky. Cleves could see nothing among the
trees.
After a moment they went forward. His arm had fallen away from her
shoulders.
There were no lights except in the kitchen when they came in sight of
the house. At first nobody was visible on the screened veranda under
the orange trees. But when he opened the swing door for her a shadowy
figure arose from a chair.
It was John Recklow. He came forward, bent his strong white head, and
kissed Tressa’s hand.
“Is all well with you, Mrs. Cleves?”
“Yes. I am glad you came.”
Cleves clasped the elder man’s firm hand.
“I’m glad too, Recklow. You’ll stop with us, of course.”
“Do you really want me?”
“Of course,” said Cleves.
“All right. I’ve a coon and a surrey behind your house.”
So Cleves went around in the dusk and sent the outfit back to the
hotel, and he himself carried in Recklow’s suitcase.
Then Tressa went away to give instructions, and the two men were left
together on the dusky veranda.
“Well?” said Recklow quietly.
Cleves went to him and rested both hands on his shoulders:
“I’m playing absolutely square. She’s a perfectly fine girl and she’ll
have her chance some day, God willing.”
“Her chance?” repeated Recklow.
“To marry whatever man she will some day care for.”
“I see,” said Recklow drily.
There was a silence, then:
“She’s simply a splendid specimen of womanhood,” said Cleves earnestly.
“And intensely interesting to me. Why, Recklow, I haven’t known a dull
moment—though I fear she has known many——”
“Why?”
“Why? Well, being married to a—a sort of temporary figurehead—shut up
here all day alone with a man of no particular interest to her——”
“Don’t you interest her?”
“Well, how could I? She didn’t choose me because she liked me
particularly.”
“Didn’t she?” asked Recklow, still more drily. “Well, that does make it
a trifle dull for you both.”
“Not for me,” said the younger man naïvely. “She is one of the most
interesting women I ever met. And good heavens!—what psychic knowledge
that child possesses! She did a thing to-day—merely to amuse me——” He
checked himself and looked at Recklow out of sombre eyes.
“What did she do?” inquired the older man.
“I think I’ll let her tell you—if she wishes.... And that reminds me.
Why did you come down here, Recklow?”
“I want to show you something, Cleves. May we step into the house?”
They went into a little lamplit living-room. Recklow handed a newspaper
clipping to Cleves: the latter read it, standing:
“Had Deadliest Gas Ready for Germans
“_‘Lewisite’ Might Have Killed Millions_
“Washington, April 24.—Guarded night and day and far out of human reach
on a pedestal at the Interior Department Exposition here is a tiny
vial. It contains a specimen of the deadliest poison ever known,
‘Lewisite,’ the product of an American scientist.
“Germany escaped this poison by signing the armistice before all the
resources of the United States were turned upon her.
“Ten airplanes carrying ‘Lewisite’ would have wiped out, it is said,
every vestige of life—animal and vegetable—in Berlin. A single day’s
output would snuff out the millions of lives on Manhattan Island. A
drop poured in the palm of the hand would penetrate to the blood, reach
the heart and kill the victim in agony.
“What was coming to Germany may be imagined by the fact that when the
armistice was signed ‘Lewisite’ was being manufactured at the rate of
ten tons a day. Three thousand tons of this most terrible instrument
ever conceived for killing would have been ready for business on the
American front in France on November 1.
“‘Lewisite’ is another of the big secrets of the war just leaking out.
It was developed in the Bureau of Mines by Professor W. Lee Lewis, of
Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., who took a commission as a
captain in the army.
“The poison was manufactured in a specially built plant near Cleveland,
called the ‘Mouse Trap,’ because every workman who entered the stockade
went under an agreement not to leave the eleven-acre space until the
war was won. The object of this, of course, was to protect the secret.
“Work on the plant was started eighteen days after the Bureau of Mines
had completed its experiments.
“Experts are certain that no one will want to steal the sample.
Everybody at the Exposition, which shows what Secretary Lane’s
department is doing, keeps as far away from it as possible.”
When Cleves had finished reading, he raised his eyes in silence.
“That vial was stolen a week ago,” said Recklow gravely, “by a young
man who killed one guard and fatally wounded the other.”
“Was there any ante-mortem statement?”
“Yes. I’ve followed the man. I lost all trace of him at Palm Beach, but
I picked it up again at Ormond. _And now I’m here_, Cleves.”
“You don’t mean you’ve traced him here!” exclaimed Cleves under his
breath.
“He’s here on the St. Johns River, somewhere. He came up in a
motor-boat, but left it east of Orchard Cove. Benton knows this
country. He’s covering the motor-boat. And I—came here to see how you
are getting on.”
“And to warn us,” added Cleves quietly.
“Well—yes. He’s got that stuff. It’s deadlier than the newspaper
suspects. And I guess—I guess, Cleves, he’s one of those damned Yezidee
witch-doctors—or sorcerers, as they call them;—one of that sect of
Assassins sent over here to work havoc on feeble minds and do murder on
the side.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because the dirty beast lugs his shroud around with him—a bed-sheet
stolen from the New Willard in Washington.
“We were so close to him in Jacksonville that we got it, and his
luggage. But we didn’t get him, the rat! God knows how he knew we were
waiting for him in his room. He never came back to get his luggage.
“But he stole a bed-sheet from his hotel in St. Augustine, and that is
how we picked him up again. Then, at Palm Beach, we lost the beggar,
but somehow or other I felt it in my bones that he was after you—you
and your wife. So I sent Benton to Ormond and I went to Palatka. Benton
picked up his trail. It led toward you—toward the St. Johns. And the
reptile has been here forty-eight hours, trying to nose you out, I
suppose——”
Tressa came into the room. Both men looked at her.
Cleves said in a guarded voice:
“To-day, on the golf links at Orchard Cove, there was a young man in
white flannels—very polite and courteous to us—but—Tressa thought she
saw him slinking through the woods as though following and watching
us.”
“My man, probably,” said Recklow. He turned quietly to Tressa and
sketched for her the substance of what he had just told Cleves.
“The man in white flannels on the golf links,” said Cleves, “was well
built and rather handsome, and not more than twenty-five. I thought he
was a Jew.”
“I thought so too,” said Tressa, calmly, “until I saw him in the woods.
And then—and then—suddenly it came to me that his smile was the smile
of a treacherous Shaman sorcerer.
“... And the idea haunts me—the memory of those smooth-faced, smiling
men in white—men who smile only when they slay—when they slay body and
soul under the iris skies of Yian!—O God, merciful, long suffering,”
she whispered, staring into the East, “deliver our souls from Satan who
was stoned, and our bodies from the snare of the Yezidee!”