The Flight of Bellingham
On the narrow balcony outside his room Atherton sat alone in the
darkness, looking forth upon the splendor of the night. Above him
stretched the velvet blackness of the heavens, jewelled with bright
and luminous stars; from the distant woodland sounded, in ceaseless
iteration, the music of the whippoorwills; while from the meadows the
south wind, bearing the fragrance of the fields, stirred the ivy on
the stable walls and murmured nocturnal melody among the branches of
the slumbering pines. Beauty everywhere, on earth and in sky; beauty,
it seemed to Atherton, in perfect unison with the thoughts which
filled his brain.
"Ye shall be born again." The old Biblical phrase, long forgotten,
echoed and re-echoed in his mind. And in his case he knew that it was
true; that the events of the last three days had altered the whole
current of his being. Already the old life--the feverish hours around
the ticker, the crowd of gamblers, the close, stale air of the
customers' room, the glare and dazzle of the lights--all of these
things seemed part and parcel of another world. Now they were gone,
and gone, too, was that horrible concentration on points and
fractions; quarters and eighths; to Atherton, gazing upon the calm and
silent glory of the night, it seemed incredible that he could ever
have lived through times like these.
Midway in his mind, between that past hell and this present heaven,
lay the memory of his meeting with Blagden and with Mills. And once
again, as he recalled that evening, it seemed to him impossible that
he could have been a party to the compact they had made. Like a
drunkard only half sobered after a debauch, he knew now that although
he had not realized it he had still been under the spell of the
market, a beaten gambler, yet in the grip of the lure and lust of the
game. Yet his agreement caused him no real uneasiness, for though at
the time Blagden's magnetism and his ready eloquence had made all that
he had said seem plausible and sane, now, viewed from this distance,
the idea of three young men, without money and without influence,
solemnly banding together to defy the world, appeared quite childish
and absurd. And yet, so far as he was concerned, he was compelled to
admit that in one particular Blagden's judgment had certainly been
correct; a true adventure had awaited him. How, he wondered, had Mills
and Blagden fared. It was difficult to imagine Tubby in any very
melodramatic role, but Blagden, after his meeting with his fair
acquaintance, seemed destined inevitably to encounter some sort of
romance or intrigue. And as Atherton thought of the woman at the cafe,
with her splendid beauty so flauntingly for sale, a sudden sequence of
comparisons and contrasts flashed through his mind. There was the life
of the ticker, feverish, fascinating, fruitless, ringing empty and
hollow when set over against the sane and wholesome life of the man
who works for his livelihood. And in like manner there was this
traffic and barter of illicit love, morbid, exotic, supersensual,
paling to quivering shame when compared with true love, something so
earthly and yet so celestial, so passionate and yet so ethereal, so
bewildering and so enthralling that it would not let him sleep, but
kept him here in the darkness, while the clocks struck twelve, and
half-past, and one--
Among the shadows surrounding the house occurred a subtle
transformation--a change half sound, half motion, and so faint
and evanescent that Atherton, still partly in dreamland and only
semi-conscious of the real world about him, regarded it incuriously,
oblivious of its real significance. But an instant later he became
thoroughly awakened as he saw one of the shadows detach itself from
the rest and begin to move, cautiously and without noise, in the
direction of the stable. Atherton looked on with interest. "Now who
the dickens," he wondered, "can that be? And what in the world is he
after? This is a cheerful hour for a man to be taking a walk for his
health."
The general attitude of the figure, indeed, suggested secrecy, if not
something still more sinister. Slowly and warily it advanced, but the
stable was evidently not its destination, for as it passed the huge
pine in front of the house it approached it, little by little, until
at last the shadow of this nocturnal prowler became lost and merged in
the lower branches of the tree. At once Atherton's curiosity
increased. "I'd better have a look at this," he decided, and stepping
into his room, he slipped his revolver into his pocket, passed quietly
down the stairs and began making his way toward the tree. At the edge
of its lower branches, which swept the ground, he paused to listen,
and heard above him faint sounds which seemed to indicate that this
midnight marauder was ascending the tree. Completely mystified, he
dropped on hands and knees, and as he crawled inward, an occasional
descending branch or bit of bark made it evident that his supposition
was correct.
Atherton's wonderment increased. "Must be a lunatic," was his first
thought, but this seemed scarcely possible. Then why, he reflected,
should a person wish to climb a tree at this time of night? To signal?
For what purpose, and to whom? To keep some kind of a watch, or
lookout? This seemed more likely. Could the man be a burglar, with a
confederate working in the house? "If I go up after him," he thought,
"he'll surely hear or see me. And if I hail him when he comes down,
I'll probably get into trouble right away. If he _is_ a burglar, he's
doubtless a good shot and a quick one, too. I think I'll play this
safe." And climbing up some eight or ten feet from the ground, he
found a place where two huge limbs grew close together, and working
out as far as possible from the trunk of the tree, he stretched
himself out at full length and waited. Occasional faint sounds reached
him from above and presently the figure again descended, passing so
near him that even in the darkness Atherton gained the impression that
the man was of slender stature, somehow suggesting vaguely the
identity of Martin's new assistant. Waiting until it seemed safe,
Atherton slipped down to the ground in his turn and reached the
circumference of the branches just in time to see the shadow once more
disappear upon the veranda. Presumptively, then, the man was not a
burglar, but an inmate of the house.
But for what purpose had he climbed the tree? "I believe," concluded
Atherton, "that I'll go up myself. Must be a bully view, if nothing
else."
Accordingly, he began his ascent, memories of similar climbs in
boyhood coming vividly to mind as he mounted higher and higher. The
first part of his journey was made in darkness so profound that there
was no possible chance for observation, but when he reached a height
about two-thirds of the way to the top the branches began to shorten
rapidly so that presently he found that he could command a view of the
stable upon one hand and of the house on the other. The stable was in
total darkness, but when he turned his attention to the house he at
once discovered that one window was brightly lighted and his heart
quickened at the sight, for there was now at least a possible
explanation of the mystery. Who's room was it, he asked himself, and
although totally unfamiliar with the interior arrangement of the
house, he felt that considering the secretary's story everything
pointed to Bellingham as its occupant. Again he started upward, but it
now became a question whether or not he could obtain a glimpse of the
room, for he had reached an altitude where the trunk of the pine had
decreased dangerously in size, so that every puff of wind swayed him
giddily to and fro. Undoubtedly, his predecessor's lighter weight had
been an advantage, but Atherton's curiosity was thoroughly aroused and
setting his teeth he advanced foot by foot until at length, with one
arm clasped tightly around the trunk of the pine, he had gained a
height whence he could view, through the open window, the interior of
the room.
As he had expected, it was Bellingham's apartment. The secretary, a
green shade over his eyes, sat at his desk, working with concentrated
absorption upon the papers before him. To his right and left were
scattered about the room what at first appeared to be streamers of
white ribbon, but which Atherton presently recognized as the paper
"tape" which supplies the tickers and upon which are recorded the
daily transactions of the Exchange.
"A chart fiend," thought Atherton to himself, "working in secret, as
they always do. I wonder, though, why anyone should be spying on him;
he can't be harming anybody but himself. I wonder if it's possible--"
But at this point a gust of wind, unusually severe, interrupted his
reflections, swinging him back and forth so dizzily that when it had
subsided he was glad enough to begin his descent from his airy
altitude. Once safely back upon the ground, he paused to think. His
first impulse was to return to his room and wait until morning before
informing Bellingham of what had occurred. But on second thought
various circumstances seemed to combine to render haste imperative.
For one thing, there was the manner in which the secretary had acted;
for another, there was the unmistakeable earnestness of his appeal;
and to lend color to his fears there was this singular nocturnal
observation of his labors. Surely, no ordinary servant would have had
the wish, the courage or the skill to make this dangerous ascent, and
in addition to this there was the added fact that this arboreal spy
was in the employ of Marshall Hamilton, one of the financial leaders
of New York. All in all, the matter assumed serious proportions. But
how, at this hour of the morning, was he to make his way to
Bellingham's room? Doors and windows were locked; no water pipe or
sturdy vine adorned the walls. "A bow and arrow," he thought to
himself, "might do the trick." And although such a weapon was not
available, the idea suggested another, and making his way back to the
stable, he unearthed, in the loft adjoining his room, an old discarded
tennis set, and abstracting three of the balls, returned to his room,
slit them with a knife, and hastily penned three notes, "Man has been
watching you from top of pine tree. If you leave, meet me at address
given to-morrow night, eight o'clock." Then, inserting one of these,
with a corner projecting, in each of his missiles, he once more
retraced his steps toward the house.
If possible, he would have preferred to make his attempt from the
ground, but the height of Bellingham's room made the angle so
difficult that he wisely decided there would be no use in attempting
this method of communication. "I might shoot away all night," he
reflected, "and never hit the window at all. I'll have to take another
climb." And accordingly, travelling with the added speed acquired by
familiarity with his surroundings, he soon regained the top of the
pine.
To his relief, the window was still open, and the secretary was still
pursuing his labors with undiminished ardor. "This," thought Atherton,
"is the time to 'groove' one," and taking one of the balls from his
pocket, he waited for a lull in the wind, and calculating, as well as
he could, the required elevation, he let fly with so good an aim that
the ball struck fairly on the window ledge, bounced over and
disappeared within the room.
Immediately Atherton saw the secretary start, look around him with an
expression of amazement, and then rise hastily from his seat. A few
moments later he reappeared at the window, gazing forth in the
direction of the pine tree with every evidence of terror and
consternation; then abruptly closed the window and lowered the shade.
For an instant Atherton could see him moving hurriedly about the room;
then the light was suddenly extinguished, Bellingham's apartment was
engulfed in the black bulk of the house; and Atherton, feeling that he
had done everything in his power, again descended and made his way to
his room, wondering greatly what would be the outcome of the night's
events.