THE FALL OF SANTENEL.
With difficulty Frank Merriwell held himself in check. He was in a
towering rage, and the impulse was strong in him to hurl himself on the
prostrate form of Dion Santenel. He felt an awful thirst for the life of
the wretch who lay on the floor before him, sent there by a mighty blow
of his fist. Twice before had such a feeling come to him—once when he
struggled with Sport Harris on the rotten bridge in England, and again
when he overthrew Santenel in Louisville and held his life, as it were,
in the hollow of his hand.
“You miserable whelp!” he panted, looking with loathing and contempt
into the face of the man who had sought his father’s ruin and death.
He cast a quick glance at his father, who had dropped down, crouching,
into the chair by the marble-topped center-table.
Though Santenel had now entirely recovered consciousness, he lay
cowering on the floor, in deadly fear of the young athlete whose wrath
he had felt. The fierce fire had gone out of his shining black eyes, to
be replaced by a gleam that was full of subdued and cowardly hate.
Then he recollected that he had come to the room, not in the person of
Dion Santenel, or Brandon Drood, or even of Hector King, but as “Fisher
Stokes,” the mining speculator and stock-broker of Denver.
“You are making a mistake!” he cried quickly. “I don’t know why you
knocked me down as you did. I’d have you know, sir, that I am Fisher
Stokes, of Denver, stock-broker and mining speculator. And I shall have
you arrested for this insult and for your unwarranted blow!”
“Bah!” Frank sneered. “Put these on, will you?”
He snatched up the false mustache and imperial which he had torn from
the man’s face but a few moments before, and flung them at him.
Santenel sank back, pale and trembling. He saw that further lies and
threats would not serve him. The fire died out of his eyes, to be
replaced by a look of pleading. He glanced toward the door.
Frank turned to the colored boy, who stood dumb with amazement, and sent
him with a hasty message to Inza, who was waiting below. The boy
vanished, diving for the elevator with comical speed.
Santenel rose to his feet and looked longingly at one of the closed
windows.
“You can’t go out by the door,” said Frank, “and if you pitch yourself
out of that window it will be pretty sure to save the hangman an
unpleasant job.”
Santenel groped weakly to a chair.
“You are making a great mistake,” he quiveringly urged. “On my honor,
Mr. Merriwell, you are making a dreadful mistake!”
“Release him from that spell!” Frank ordered, in so commanding a tone
that Santenel fairly leaped in his chair.
“Yes, yes!” the hypnotist replied, though he wanted to deny that the
elder Merriwell was under any spell. But he did not dare to do this;
and, with a word and a few passes of his long, thin hands, he removed
the strange influence under which Charles Conrad Merriwell had been
laboring.
The change produced was remarkable. The face resumed its accustomed
appearance and the eyes held their natural light, except that Mr.
Merriwell seemed to be stupefied by what he beheld. He recognized Frank,
but it was clear that he did not recognize the man who was retreating
from him and who soon again crouched uncomfortably in the chair.
“It’s all right, father. This is our mutual friend, Santenel.”
Frank said this with an unnatural and bitter laugh.
“Our mutual friend has struck again, and again he has failed!”
The elder Merriwell could hardly credit the words. He recalled the
entrance into the room of “Fisher Stokes,” the pretended stock-broker.
The man who crouched and whined in the chair wore the same clothing, yet
the mustache and imperial and the jaunty business air were gone. What
had occurred after the man’s entrance and their talk of a few moments
Charles Merriwell could not remember. The interval was now a blank to
him.
Yet, with eyes enlightened by Frank’s words, he perceived that this was
really “Fisher Stokes,” minus the mustache and imperial, which he now
saw on the floor; and Frank had assured him that the man was his bitter
and deadly enemy, Dion Santenel.
Charles Merriwell’s brain whirled when he tried to comprehend this
transition and the peril he had been in. A sense of terror filled him,
giving to his face, under its crown of white hair, a pitiful look.
“It must be as you say!” he managed to articulate.
Santenel was racking his clever brain for something that would stand him
in stead now, and trying at the same time to still the trembling of his
limbs and subdue the fear that filled him.
“I am Santenel,” he gaspingly confessed. “But there is a great mistake.”
He saw the “confession” which he had forced Charles Merriwell to write,
lying, as he had meant to leave it, on the marble-topped table. He put
out his hand, hoping he might be able to secure it unobserved.
Frank Merriwell saw the movement, and, advancing to the table, secured
the writing, his face darkening as he read it over, for it revealed in
all its details Santenel’s cruel plan against his father. Nevertheless,
Frank put it quietly in his pocket. He had regained control of himself.
Santenel sat with fear-filled face and blue lips, staring at him.
“What do you intend to do with me?” he asked, seeing that further
efforts at evasion and concealment were useless.
There was a rap on the door, followed instantly by entering footsteps.
“This!” said Frank.
Two officers had come in, sent by Inza in response to the request
conveyed to her by the colored boy. Santenel rose, after another
hesitating glance at the closed windows. Then his coolness returned to
him. He advanced toward the officers.
“I am informed that you have been sent for to place me under arrest. I
demand to know with what I am charged, for I have committed no crime.
You have no right to seize me without a proper warrant, merely on
complaint of this person!”
The smaller officer smiled and produced a paper.
“We have a warrant,” he said. “It was sworn out by a young lady, Miss
Inza Burrage, who charges that you cut the balloon-rope on the day of
the Yale-Carlisle football-game, with the intention of causing her death
and the death of Charles Conrad Merriwell, who was in the balloon with
her. You will see, therefore, that we can do nothing but go ahead, and
we place you under arrest.”
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