The Key
“By Jove, old man, I forgot that I have had the gas and electricity
turned off!” Storm’s voice echoed back eerily, mockingly, from the
silent rooms to where George had halted on the threshold. “The water
is on still, though, thank the Lord! and the telephone, too. We’ll
need that in the morning to ’phone for a car to take us to the
station, for we both forgot to tell that jitney driver to come back
for us.—I know where there are a lot of candles upstairs. You wait
here and I’ll get them.”
George stood obediently by the open door and heard Storm’s fumbling
footsteps pass up the stair. Then they died away into silence. The
jitney had chugged off down the road, and only the sound of the night
breeze rustling the vines on the veranda came to him. Unimaginative as
he was, the house was so filled for him with memories of his friend’s
wife that it seemed to him a gentle presence slept there, waiting only
for light and the sound of their voices to call it into being. He
could not have spoken aloud at that moment to save his life, so
profoundly stirred was he; and he wondered at Storm’s fortitude. It
was only a bluff, of course, a brave attempt to hide his breaking
heart, and George felt a swift, strong wave of compassionate
admiration for his friend. Poor old Norman!
Presently he heard him moving about overhead, and at last a light
appeared, dim and wavering, at the head of the stairs. Other lights
sprang up and then Storm descended.
“I’ve left four burning up there; got to go back and get the rods and
bags and stuff,” he announced. George noticed that he had left the
heavy valise upstairs. “Here! You hold this and we’ll light more and
stick them around.”
“Not all over the place!” George objected. “Get all your things
together in one room and we’ll pack there.”
“All right. The library, then.” Storm made for the door, his candle
held aloft over his head, and paused. “Hello! MacWhirter had that
trunk I sent down dumped in here!—Never mind, it won’t be in our way.”
George had moved about the room, lighting candles and placing them in
every available receptacle with a fine disregard of the dropping wax;
and now he turned to his companion.
“Where is your old camp outfit?” he asked.
“Oh, Pierre will have all the blankets and pots and pans and things of
that sort,” replied Storm carelessly. “We will take our supplies from
town. All we need from here are clothes and fishing gear and the bags
to pack them in. The clothes are in the closets upstairs and the rest
of the stuff in the attic.”
“Well, let us assemble it all here first and then sort it out,”
suggested George. “If I once get it all together you can go to bed
whenever you like and I’ll finish the job. You look about all in.”
Storm shook his head, but he realized the truth of his friend’s words.
The continued strain of the past days had been terrific, and the
effort to nerve himself for this final test of his own strength and
endurance had proved greater than he knew. The pain in his head, which
had throbbed ceaselessly for two days, was gone, but he felt a sense
of mental and physical fatigue which was akin to exhaustion.
The test had proved to be no test, after all. This dark, silent,
dismantled house had seemed utterly strange to him from the moment
when the first echoes of his voice had died away. Even the familiar
furniture was distorted and unreal in the flickering flames of the
candles. Daylight perhaps would bring poignant memories, but to-night
he was too tired. It did not seem that he and Leila had ever lived
there, and the events of that hideous night were like a dream. The
only real, vital thing in all that house to him was that valise
beneath his bed upstairs. If ghosts stalked in the morning he would
have but to fix his mind on that and they would vanish!
“If you are too tired I can get the stuff together myself.” George’s
patient voice broke in upon his musing, and he roused himself with a
start.
“No. Come along. It won’t take long.”
Together they made several trips, and soon a heterogeneous collection
of clothes, boots, bags, baskets and fishing paraphernalia overflowed
from the couch and chairs into great heaps upon the floor.
“Oh, Lord!” groaned Storm. “What an infernal mess! We’ll never get it
straightened out, George!”
The other made no response. He was running a practised eye over the
conglomeration, and at length he glanced up.
“Where is that four-and-a-half-ounce rod?” he demanded.
“Isn’t it there? We must have overlooked it.” Storm rose wearily from
the top of the trunk where he had perched himself. “It wasn’t with the
others, so I may have quite a search for it, worse luck!”
“Let me——” George offered, but Storm shook his head.
“No. I want to be sure I didn’t leave any candles burning up there,
anyway.”
While Storm was gone George made a swift inventory. In his own mind he
believed privately that his impulsive companion would tire in a few
days of the discomforts of camping without a guide and would himself
suggest going to the nearest club. That would be the Reel and Rifle,
George reflected, and there was a passable nine-hole course there.
Storm would want his golf sticks along, but where were they? Surely
they had not been taken to town . . . .
Then he closed his eyes and his face contorted in a spasm of swift
pain. The last time he had seen those golf sticks they were lying
across the table in the den while Leila’s body, mercifully composed on
the couch after the coroner’s visit, lay awaiting the last sad
offices.
They were there still in all probability, and George decided to get
them himself before Storm returned. It would be needless cruelty to
suggest that his friend enter that room again.
Taking a candle, he made his way down the hall. The den door was
closed but not locked, and he threw it open and stepped reverentially
across the threshold.
The room was in order, but it had not been dismantled as had the
others; and although a thin film of dust lay everywhere, it seemed,
curiously enough, more cosy, giving out the atmosphere of having been
more lately occupied than the rest of the house. Could that be because
the presence of the woman who had died there seemed still to linger?
George’s faded eyes blurred and the candle shook in his hand, but he
advanced to the table. There lay the golf sticks just as he had
supposed; and gathering them up he left the den, closing the door
behind him, and as he entered the other’s eyes traveled to his burden,
and a sound very like an oath escaped his lips.
“Where did you get those?” he demanded roughly.
“I—I thought we might run over to the Reel and Rifle and you would
need them,” George stammered. “You ought to take it up once more,
Norman.”
Storm threw his hands out with an uncontrollable gesture of horror.
“I shall never play again!” he cried hoarsely. “Take those sticks away
out of my sight!”
With a pained, bewildered expression George turned obediently and
deposited his burden with a clatter in the corner of the hall. He did
not quite understand his old friend these days, and seemed to be
forever offending when he meant only to be kind and thoughtful. Of
course Storm and Leila had played golf together always, but they had
gone on fishing trips together, too, and Storm did not appear to mind
the prospect of that. Why should golf hold such particularly poignant
memories for him?
Storm meanwhile was fighting hard to regain the mastery over himself
that the unexpected sight of those wretched golf sticks had for a
moment overthrown. Curse that meddlesome fool! Why had he taken it
upon himself to suggest that damned game, above everything else, and
how had he dared to get those sticks without even asking!
But the fire of rage died out within him as quickly as it had arisen.
Let old George think what he pleased; it didn’t matter. He was too
tired to dissemble, and besides it would not be worth the effort.
George would put it down as just one of his moods, that was all.
Then another thought came to him, and he moved swiftly to the table
and opened the drawer. His pistol lay within, and as he picked it up a
grim smile twisted the corners of his mouth. It was quite improbable,
of course, but there was just a chance that he might find use for it
on that fishing trip!
“What are you doing with that?” George demanded from the doorway, much
as Storm had spoken the moment before.
The latter laughed jerkily.
“It’s not loaded! I was looking to see if it was all right, for we’ll
take it with us, of course.” He threw it carelessly to the couch and
reached in the drawer once more. “Here is a box of cartridges. Put
them in, too, old man.”
“I don’t see what you want it for!” George grumbled anxiously. “If two
men can’t protect themselves against anything they met in those woods
without a gun——”
“Silver Run isn’t the Beaver Kill, you know!” Storm retorted in a
significant tone as he reached into his hip pocket and produced a
silver mounted flask. “I’m confoundedly tired; think I’ll take a
bracer.—Have one?”
George shook his head and Storm drank deeply, then replaced the flask
in his pocket with a sigh.
“About that pistol, though. I really prefer to take it along.”
“All right.” George acquiesced somewhat dubiously. “I never did any
hunting, and I am not crazy about having firearms lying around; but if
you’ll be careful of it and see that it doesn’t go off——”
“We won’t even load it until we get to the lodge.” Storm yawned and
sweeping a pile of old corduroys off the nearest chair, sank into it.
“Give me those lines and reels and I’ll sort them out.”
George complied, and for a time they worked in silence while the
candles burned low and a fat, furry moth or two thumped against the
window pane. Storm took another long drink, but his languor increased,
his hands moved more slowly among the tangled lines and at length
dropped inertly to his knees. George glanced up to find the other’s
head fallen forward upon his breast and his eyes closed.
“Norman! Norman, old fellow!”
Storm’s head came up with a jerk, and he blinked in the flickering
light.
“I—I must have dozed off,” he mumbled. “It’s funny, but I don’t think
I ever felt so tired in my life.”
“Then go to bed, do! You are worn out, and sleep is just what you
need,” urged George.
“And leave you with all this to do alone?”
“It won’t be as bad as it looks. When I finish picking out what we’ll
need I can get it stowed away in the bags in no time.”
Storm hesitated, and once more a slang phrase came whimsically to his
mind. Well, “let George do it,” if he wanted to take it upon himself.
He was intoxicatingly sleepy, in a spirit of utter relaxation such as
he had not known for many weary days. Oh, for one night untroubled by
rankling, corroding thoughts and yet more hideous dreams! He felt that
he could sleep at last, and nothing else mattered. No harm could come.
“All right, I think I will go to bed, then, if you don’t mind.” He
dragged himself to his feet. “Your old room is all ready, George; the
front guest one. Just turn in whenever you are ready, but be sure to
put out the candles.”
“I will, old man.” George nodded from the floor where he sat sprawled,
a fat bag braced between his knees. “If you want anything, just call.
Good night, and try to get a good rest.”
“Good night,” Storm responded, and taking up a candle he left the
library and went slowly up the stairs.
God! how tired he was! His own bed looked soft and inviting, and he
took a pair of old pajamas from a drawer and disrobed as quickly as
his fumbling fingers could perform their task, tumbling the contents
of his pockets out in a heap on the corner of the bureau. Then he
flung himself into the bed and blew out the candle.
Ghosts? Bah! Nothing could trouble him now, and nothing could harm him
in the future, for the means was there, within reach of his hand, to
carry him far beyond the reach of memories.
With a last waking effort he stretched his arms down and pulled the
valise half out from under the bed, where his hand could rest upon it.
It was good to feel that bulge beneath the leather! Money was real,
all else was but the chimera of one’s thought. There was no yesterday,
only to-morrow . . . . His reflections dulled, dissolved in chaos, and
he slept.
Below in the library George had replenished the candles and returned
to his task. He was tired, too, and this return to the old house had
depressed him, but he was glad to have relieved Norman of the packing,
glad the poor old fellow was going to get one night’s tranquil rest.
The fishing gear took the longest to sort and stow away, but when that
was finished he turned to the boots and clothing with a relieved mind.
A half hour more and he would be through.
The pistol and cartridges he laid gingerly upon the table. They must
go in last, and Norman should carry that bag himself. George wished
that he would not take it, for in his nervous state he might peg away
at some other fishermen by mistake, and there would be the devil to
pay! No thought of thwarting his old friend crossed his mind, however;
if Norman wanted twenty pistols with him he should have them, if only
he returned from this expedition more like his old self!
His task was completed at length, and with a sigh of satisfaction
George started to close the last bag when a sudden thought struck him.
He had packed everything but headgear. Norman must have some old caps
lying around somewhere; old golf caps would be just the thing. He
hadn’t seen any when they poked about in the closets upstairs. They
must be in Norman’s rooms in town.
Then his gaze fell upon the trunk. Why, the caps were in there, of
course! He had helped to pack them himself only a week ago. Norman
must have the key to it on his ring, and it would be a pity to disturb
him now; still, George felt that it would be better not to leave it
till the morning. In his methodical, bachelor existence he liked to
finish a thing once he had started it.
But perhaps he could get the key-ring and open the trunk without
disturbing old Norman! If he walked very softly the other need not
awaken, and he could give him back his keys in the morning.
George took up a candle, and shielding its flame carefully with his
hand he started up the stairs, tiptoeing with exaggerated care. Once a
loose board creaked beneath his feet and he paused, as apprehensive as
though he were bent upon committing a burglary.
From the stillness above came a long-drawn, reassuring snore, and
relieved he plodded on again until he reached the top.
Storm’s door was closed, but he turned the handle noiselessly and
opening it inch by inch, peered within. Storm was fast asleep, his jaw
drooping and upon his relaxed face the hint of an expression which
George had never seen before. He looked almost as if he were smiling;
smiling at something that was not pleasant to see.
Then George’s eyes softened as they traveled down the out-flung arm to
the inert hand resting against the valise. Poor old Norman! Even in
sleep he cared for her, he reached out to touch the receptacle in
which were her letters, all that remained to him of her! No one else
could realize how much he had cared, he was so self-contained, but
George knew!
He glanced somewhat doubtfully at the clothes tumbled upon a chair.
Would the key-ring be there in one of the pockets? Somehow, he didn’t
quite like the idea of going through them. His eyes traveled to the
bureau and rested upon the little heap of coins and a watch and other
small objects, and he tiptoed over to examine them. There lay the
key-ring!
He picked it up and, turning, gave one last look at the sleeper. At
that moment Storm’s face twitched and the hand against the valise
flexed, then slowly relaxed again. Still thinking of her!
George tiptoed out the door and closed it noiselessly behind him.